...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a
pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy
Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect
the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent
hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your
protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and
repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't
possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
Turkey, since 2011, has been waging a pro-Sunni proxy war in Syria, in the hope of one day
establishing in Damascus a pro-Turkey, Islamist regime. This ambition has failed, costing
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey violent political turmoil on both sides of
Turkey's 911-km border with Syria and billions of dollars spent on more than 4 million Syrian
refugees scattered across the Turkish soil.
In Egypt, in 2011-2012, Erdoğan aggressively supported the failed Muslim Brotherhood
government and deeply antagonized the incumbent -- then-general but now president -- Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi. Since Erdoğan's efforts in Syria and Egypt failed, his Sunni Islamist
ambitions have found a new proxy-war theater: Libya.
On December 10,
Erdoğan said he could deploy troops in Libya if the UN-backed Government of National
Accord (GNA) in Tripoli (which Turkey supports) requested it. Erdoğan's talks with GNA's
head, Fayez al-Sarraj, who is fighting a war against the Libyan National Army (LNA) of General
Khalifa Haftar, produced two ostensibly strategic agreements: a memorandum of understanding on
providing the GNA with arms, military training and personnel; and a maritime agreement
delineating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean waters.
Greece and Egypt protested immediately while the European Council unequivocally condemned
the controversial accords. Meanwhile, the deals apparently escalated a proxy competition
between Turkey's old (Greece) and new (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) rivals.
With the al-Sarraj handshake, Erdoğan is apparently aiming to:
minimize Turkey's isolation in the Mediterranean, one which has gradually worsened since
2010, following one diplomatic crisis after another with Israel;
counter strategic cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and Israel, including joint
diplomatic, energy and military initiatives;
cut into the emerging Cypriot-Greek-Egyptian-Israeli maritime bloc;
push back against Arab (Egyptian and UAE) pressure on al-Sarraj;
fill the European vacuum in Libya; and
emerge as a deal-breaker in the Mediterranean rather than a deal-maker.
All that ambition requires military hardware as well as diplomatic software. Since 2011, a
year after the Mavi Marmara incident ruptured relations with Israel, Turkey has been investing
billions of dollars in naval technologies, in an apparent effort to build up the hardware it
would one day require.
In the eight years since then, Turkey has built
four Ada-class corvettes; two Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels; eight fast Landing Craft Tank
(LCT) vessels; 16 military patrol ships; two deep-sea rescue ships; one submarine rescue ship;
and four assault boats.
The jewel in the naval treasury box is a $1 billion Landing Platform Dock (LPD), now being
built under license from Spain's Navantia shipyards, to be operational in 2021. The TCG
Anadolu , Turkey's first amphibious assault ship, will carry a battalion-sized unit of
1,200 troops and personnel, eight utility helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles; it
also will transport 150 vehicles, including battle tanks. It also may be able to deploy short
takeoff and vertical landing STOVL F-35 fighter jets. Turkey will be the third operator in the
world of this ship type, after Spain and Australia.
Erdoğan's naval ambitions, however, are not limited just to an emerging fleet of
conventional vessels. In 2016, he said
that the LPD program would hopefully be the first step toward producing a "most elite" aircraft
carrier. He also said he "sees it as a major deficiency that we still do not have a nuclear
vessel."
On December 22, Turkey's first Type 214 class submarine, the TCG Piri Reis , hit the seas
with a ceremony attended by Erdoğan. "Today,"
he said , "we gathered here for the docking of Piri Reis . As of 2020, a submarine will go
into service each year. By 2027, all six of our submarines will be at our seas for
service."
Unsurprisingly the docking ceremony reminded Erdoğan of his Libyan gambit: "We will
evaluate every opportunity in land, sea and air. If needed, we will increase military support
in Libya."
Erdoğan seems to think that his best defense in the Mediterranean power game is an
offense. On December 15, Turkish Naval Forces
intercepted an Israeli research ship, the Bat Galim , in Cypriot waters and escorted it
away, as tension over natural resource exploration continued to rise in the region.
On December 16, Turkey dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the
Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus. A week before the drone deployment,
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Ankara could use its
military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.
Libya is another risky proxy war theater for Turkey. Its deals with the al-Sarraj government
over troop deployment and maritime borders will become null and void if the Libyan civil war,
begun in 2014, ends with Gen. Haftar's victory. The chief of staff of the LNA, Farag
Al-Mahdawi,
announced that his forces would sink any Turkish ship approaching the Libyan coast. "I have
an order; as soon as the Turkish research vessels arrive, I will have a solution. I will sink
them myself," Al-Mahdawi warned, noting that the order was coming from Haftar. On December 21,
Haftar's forces seized
a Grenada-flagged ship with Turkish crew aboard, on the suspicion that it was carrying arms.
The ship was later released.
The European Union is another factor why Erdoğan, once again, is probably betting on
the wrong horse. Technically speaking, Turkey is a candidate for full EU membership, but it is
an open secret that accession talks have not moved an inch during the past several years, and
with no prospects of progress in sight. Making membership prospects even gloomier, EU foreign
ministers in November
agreed on economic sanctions for Ankara for violating Cyprus' maritime economic zone by
drilling off the island.
The Mediterranean chess game leaves Turkey in alliance with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot
statelet and one of the warring factions in Libya, versus a strategic grouping of Greece,
Cyprus, Egypt (and the UAE), Israel, and the other warring Libyan group.
One emerging power in Libya, however, is not a Western state actor. After controlling Syria
in favor of President Bashar al-Assad and establishing permanent military bases inside and off
the coast of the country, Russia has the potential to step into the Libyan theater with a
bigger proxy and direct force, to establish its second permanent Mediterranean military
presence. As in Syria, where divergent interests did not stop Turkey from becoming a
remote-controlled Russian player, Moscow can once again make use of the Turkish card to
undermine Western interests in Libya.
Also as in Syria, Turkey's Islamist agenda will probably fail in Libya, but by the time
Erdoğan understands that, it might be too late to get out of Moscow's orbit.
Instead of finding the real culprits - ISIS remnants, disgruntled locals, Kurds who want
to regain control over Kirkuk - the U.S. decided that Kata'ib Hizbullah was the group guilty
of the attack....
Yesterday's attacks guarantee that all U.S. troops will have to leave Iraq and will
thereby also lose their supply lines to Syria.
One wonders if that was the real intend of those strikes.
Just like with 9/11 and Iraq where the US government immediately pushed its pre-existing
agenda, so the US doesn't care who really launches attacks on US and US-client positions in
Iraq and Syria but automatically assigns them to Hezbollah and thus to Iran, in accord with
the pre-existing neocon wet dream of provoking a full-scale war with Iran.
If that's the US intent, to escalate against Iran, and if conversely the Iraq government
is serious about kicking out the US military, we'll have the confrontation discussed in the
open thread.
As for the idea that Trump was briar-patching here, wanting a good legalistic pretext to
withdraw troops from Iraq (which would then trigger the practical supply-based pretext to
withdraw them from Syria and not "take the oil" after all), well even if he had such confused
thoughts, we've already seen how spineless he is about trying to assert his will over that of
the neocon bureaucracies, civilian and military. Do we really expect them to agree to vacate
Iraq merely because the legally constituted supposedly sovereign government told them to? It
seems more likely they'll tell the government they're not going anywhere and demand that the
government help them suppress non-governmental resistance to their ongoing presence, or else.
(I don't know if there's yet been a formal order to leave from the Iraqi government, or just
rhetoric in an attempt to save face.)
It is reasonably cheap to buy a journalist and turn him into the attack dog on particular, inconvenient or dangerious for the
financial oligarchy candidate.
New article about Tulsi Gabbard being viciously attacked over religion during Christmas.
Angry Bernie Sanders supporters whom I guess forgot to take their meds over the holidaze
are viciously attacking Tulsi because of Jesus? LOL. This new article is specifically about
Mike Figueroa from The Humanist Report, a semi-popular vlogger, and also a fanatic atheist
type.
He used to be a Tulsi supporter, but since he is connected to the TYT network which is
funded by Hollywood Billionaire and major DNC Clinton funder Katzenberg, he must have
recently been told to toe the party line on smearing Tulsi if he wanted to reap the funding
benefits of TYT who are hardcore Tulsi haters, following the DNC line.
I guess Tulsi showing the Christmas spirit gave him a reason to look hardcore to his
fellow fanatics and appease TYT money folks. Anyways, here is the new article Like, In The
Year 2024
Now that Trump so much complains and threats by Twitter about "civilians" in Idlib...we
remember the aerial bombing of the Iraq-Kuwzit highway by US...
This crime cannot be overstated as one of the most disgusting acts the US committed in the
region. A column of withdrawing soldiers and civilians which were even found to be in
compliance with UN resolution 660, were completely eviscerated by the US Air Force. A war
crime. https://twitter.com/mideastwitness/status/1211109428759613440
As Lozion said, USAF has attacked five positions of the PMU's (KH units), three in Irak and
two in Syria, it seems there are a scores of people have been killed and injured in those air
strikes, some of them seems to be senior commanders
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive
lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending
America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy
agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway
defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to
spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November
of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign
policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or
neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his
administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive
foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled
by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led
crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive
narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will
lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot
ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the
neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean
world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a
world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American
and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or
democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen
American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe,
including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to
win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis"
which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as
limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous
consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally
-- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals
at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive
regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats
like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist
authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent
progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped
as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in
November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense
industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and
middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the
second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use"
policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be
one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats
(Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt
capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here
in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the
Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the
state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive
writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists
Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies
preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives
must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among
right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and
supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global
authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international
alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared
xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the
world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War
nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready
to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU
professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian
school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute
power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom
of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the
internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow
revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global
movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context,
history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian"
nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the
neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and
neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence
that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies
allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often
assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it
cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align
with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession
with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So
too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith
and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad
policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are
global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in
the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the
right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little
sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the
neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to
anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western
interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific
to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a
mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign
policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S.,
according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and
refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned
by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such
appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked
American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and
restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough
to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American
international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for
decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves
objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive
values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake
the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these
days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which
we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max
Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war
record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist
authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst
impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global
crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises
in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist
approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy
organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of
voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our
wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for
Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close
while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests
provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in
Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran,
Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for
office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among
six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering
voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign
policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11
failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained
militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S.
foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is
urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace
dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of
defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a
footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar
fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a
post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile
from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than
the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids
can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize
their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a
global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world
becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will
find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And
stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root.
This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of
values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have
security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but
essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The
greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to
make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where
its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and
minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It
is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good
may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any
price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity
presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go
something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security
interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and
shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its
roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy,"
said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a
World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No
country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian
David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which
included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in
the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign
policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely
resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the
neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order
to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running
away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a
member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!
House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to
the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from
Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous
support from Democrats who cast votes .
Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending
any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the
notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of
State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two
hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some
mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one
remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has
disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now
much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international
troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him
would be an equally terrible mistake.
Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also
likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like
Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one
sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is
no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a
bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from
Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly
has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy
Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term
seems the best available choice.
It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are
talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years.
Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving
Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no
wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden
administration with a failed foreign policy?
Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the
better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and
his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history.
Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next
Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in.
Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.
Lyttennburgh, I can think of a couple of reasons for Erdogan's Libyan adventure. First, he'd
rather have those battle tested jihadis in Libya than on his border or in his country.
Second, he may have his eyes on Mediterranean oil. Lastly, he may see a friendly Libyan
government as an ally or province of his Ottoman Empire dream. No matter what the reason,
he's setting himself up for another confrontation with Russia.
Combating the scourge of US-supported terrorists in Syria at the behest of its government
aside, Russia's involvement elsewhere is diplomatic, including in Libya.
Obama regime-led aggression in 2011 transformed Africa's most developed nation into a
charnel house, a dystopian failed state, endless war raging with no resolution in prospect.
Wherever wars rage, chances are US dirty hands are involved, clearly the case in multiple
countries, including Libya.
Russia is not involved in the country militarily. Claims otherwise are fabricated. Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov strongly denied them, saying:
"I categorically refute speculations of this kind. We are acting in the interest of the
Libyan settlement," adding:
"We are supporting the existing effort, including through the United Nations. We maintain a
dialogue with those who somehow influence the situation."
"We do not think that there is any grounds for such statements, such fiction, but this is
not the first time that US media spread different speculations, wicked rumors, falsehoods
targeting us."
"We have already gotten used to this, and we take it in stride. However, I have to
acknowledge that recurrent hoaxes of this kind exercise a negative influence on the sentiment
of the US domestic public, and the general atmosphere in the United States."
"Unfortunately it does not promote normalization of our ties, although we strive for
it."
A November NYT propaganda piece falsely accused Russia of involvement militarily in Libya --
instead of focusing on how the Obama regime raped and destroyed the country.
Trump hardliners support warlord Khalifa Haftar, a longtime CIA asset, a former US resident,
commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) -- waging war on the UN-backed
Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).
Since US-led aggression toppled Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011 and sodomized him to death,
the US continued to wage secret drone war on the country, conducting hundreds of strikes,
continuing since Trump took office.
The Times falsely claimed "Russian mercenaries (and) snipers" are involved in Libya -- no
evidence cited proving what's not so, adding:
Hundreds of "Russian fighters (are) part of a broad campaign by the Kremlin to reassert its
influence across the Middle East and Africa (sic)."
"It has introduced advanced Sukhoi jets, coordinated missile strikes, and precision-guided
artillery, as well as the snipers -- the same playbook that made Moscow a kingmaker in the
Syrian civil war (sic)."
There's nothing remotely "civil" about US aggression in Syria. No evidence suggests Russia
is involved militarily in Libya with heavy or other weapons.
The Kremlin didn't intervene in the country on behalf of anyone. Its involvement is
diplomatic to try resolving the mess US aggression created -- what the Times and other
establishment media cheerled.
Days earlier, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed false claims
about Kremlin involvement in Libya militarily, saying:
Moscow officials maintain diplomatic contact "with all current Libyan political forces,"
adding:
Congressional hardliners drafted the so-called Libya Stabilization Act -- imposing sanctions
on Russia for its "imaginary military presence in" the country.
The measure falsely accuses Moscow of "military intervention," blaming what doesn't exist on
destabilizing the country, ignoring how US-led NATO smashed Libya, massacring countless
thousands, displacing many more, destroying their livelihoods and well-being
"I wonder how US lawmakers describe the illegal US armed forces presence in Syria or the
reckless actions of the (Obama regime) in Libya to their voters," Zakharova stressed.
The Times propaganda piece barely acknowledged Trump regime support for Haftar, mentioning
it buried well into its article, ignoring its April 2019 piece, headlined:
Dec 10, 2018 Iran has arrested more than 100 Christians in the last week,
charities report, amid a growing crackdown by the Islamic Republic. play_arrowplay_arrow 3 Reply reply Report flag CTG_Sweden
19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a
considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of
the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to
death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian
farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a
person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about
that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
falconflight:
"christians, and btw Yazidies have been destroyed in those two nations."
My comments:
... by ISIS and Al-Qaeda which indirectly were supported by the West which also wished to
topple Assad. Israel even treated wounded ISIS fighters in Golan (which they had conquered from
Syria in 1967). TeraByte 1 hour ago remove Share link Copy Israel is too arrogant to be able to recognize the current altered
terror balance in ME, even when this is confirmed by their own military analysts. The country
will experience a very hard awakening, if attacking neighbour nations. How is it possible these
Choosenites swearing God chose them to reign over other people and their Holy Talmud telling
"the Universe was created for the fulfillment of the destiny of the Jewish people" now
simultaneously can claim they have a cool rational of their real position on real time. These
lunatics´ religious arguments simply do not add up.
"... Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power. ..."
"... This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids. ..."
"... Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets. ..."
"... Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. ..."
"... Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us. ..."
"... If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press. ..."
"... Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup? ..."
"... The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense. ..."
"... And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal. ..."
"... According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this." ..."
"... New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded. ..."
Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation,
revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the
fact-finding mission.
RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists
ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the
dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk
"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the
fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes
an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an
engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the
organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:
" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all
traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"
According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was
that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than
dropped.
"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were
found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there
than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted
from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.
It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018
over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.
Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff
members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one
bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the
minutes).
Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the
experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQN
The purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice
on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April
2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be
little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the
forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged
victims."
More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure
to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."
According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and
reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the
experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and
chlorine exposure ."
The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the
symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate
chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".
The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in
progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in
Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed
except being a misdirected na
If you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to
print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going
to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar
drinking Blatz.
yes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was
coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is
played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be
replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and
then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?
That`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.
And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else
can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.
It's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are
looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the
satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks
I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on
false flag
I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back
even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as
retribution etc
This organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who
still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.
Your military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more
funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they
didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).
They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this
is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite
some time.
I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the
clown in chief's tie is.
Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved
in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow
overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.
This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.
Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done
by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.
Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war
crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do
whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is
being set, we might as well not have any.
Well, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that
local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going
forward....?
Everybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the
Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious
set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on
behalf of Isn'treal.
The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.
Only official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe
it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are
taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead
are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain
Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have
seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to
influence us.
It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW.
In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on
Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the
OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal
investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".
Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and
the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until
now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official
conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.
And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an
institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of
lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment
is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep
secret from the world.
If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than
a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists
– now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information
reaching the press.
The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant
ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its
foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the
Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to
defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something
in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of
stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more
likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.
And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis,
hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the
Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United
States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the
American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying
Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm
about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian
government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's
editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another
position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence,"
Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job
knowing that I couldn't report something like this."
New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical
weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony
from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government
committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW
information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number
of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials
voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and
excluded.
This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure,
suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes
another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media
has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW
scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter
at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after
Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.
So Turkey goes against Uncle Sam and Egypt. Interesting...
Notable quotes:
"... Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed . ..."
"... In a deepening proxy war, Turkey aims to send its Navy to protect Tripoli, while its troops train and coordinate forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a senior Turkish official. Turkey recently signed a critical maritime deal with oil-rich Libya that serves energy interests of both countries and aims to salvage billions of dollars of business contracts thrown into limbo by the conflict . ..."
"... Remember when the CIA thought it was a good idea to train and fund jihadists in Syria to topple Assad? ..."
"... The conflict in Syria has become a rallying point for jihadists from around the world. More than 20,000 foreign fighters are fighting or have fought in Syria, and most are part of jihadist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra (JAN) and Islamic State (IS). North Africa has provided a large portion of these foreign fighters, from countries as diverse as Morocco and Libya. ..."
Bloomberg has confirmed on Friday the prior rumors that Turkey will be sending mercenaries
to Libya -- where it is propping up the UN-backed government in Tripoli (the GNA) -- are true.
"Turkey is preparing to deploy troops and naval forces to support the
internationally-recognized Libyan government, joining a planned push by Ankara-backed Syrian
rebels to defeat strongman Khalifa Haftar,"
reports Bloomberg .
Though Ankara has yet to confirm or deny the new reports, Erdogan's Turkey has for years
overseen a Libya-to-Turkey-to-Syria arms
"rat line" which saw both heavy weaponry and jihadists fighters transported for the purpose
of toppling Assad. But now with Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa
Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed
.
This also as President Erdogan
in a speech on Thursday presented plans to send Turkish national troops bolster Tripoli as
well .
Possibly thousands from among the so-called Turkish Free Syrian Army (formerly the FSA),
with most of its fighters currently attacking Syrian Kurds in the ongoing 'Operation Peace
Spring', will now be sent into Libya.
There are reports suggesting Turkey is ready to pay $2,000 a month for each Syrian 'rebel'
willing to go to Libya .
TFSA source told me Turkey will be offering fighters from all TFSA factions $2,000/month
to go to Libya.
And akin to the current proxy war which has seen both the US, Kurds, and Sunni Islamists
backed by Turkey wrangle over Syria's oil rich eastern region, Libya is heating up to be the
latest 'oil and gas prize' -- but with immensely more at stake. As Bloomberg notes:
In a deepening proxy war, Turkey aims to send its Navy to protect Tripoli, while its
troops train and coordinate forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a senior
Turkish official. Turkey recently signed a critical maritime deal with oil-rich Libya that
serves energy interests of both countries and aims to salvage billions of dollars of business
contracts thrown into limbo by the conflict .
As we
predicted earlier , Libya and the southern Mediterranean is on its way to becoming the next
big Middle East conflict of 2020 , also with Egypt and even Russia warning of further
involvement to block Turkey's increasing role on the ground.
And as the mainstream media finally stops ignoring the looming catastrophe for north Africa
and the region (still in denial as to the fruits of US-NATO "liberated" Libya after Gaddafi was
overthrown and killed), it
must be remembered that in another ironic plot twist, the CIA trained the very FSA 'rebel'
fighters now on their way to Libya .
Gee who would have ever predicted? It's the foreign fighter 'rat line' in reverse.
Remember when the CIA thought it was a good idea to train and fund jihadists in Syria to
topple Assad? Via a 2015
military study :
The conflict in Syria has become a rallying point for jihadists from around the world.
More than 20,000 foreign fighters are fighting or have fought in Syria, and most are part of
jihadist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra (JAN) and Islamic State (IS). North Africa has provided a large portion of these
foreign fighters, from countries as diverse as Morocco and Libya. Who are these North African fighters, and why are they
going to Syria? What do they hope to accomplish there, and do they want to return to their home countries?
Considering the tens of thousands of foreign fighters which poured into Syria starting in
2011 and 2012 in the first place, many of them from Libya, perhaps many are now simply headed
"home" -- ready to further the proxy war chaos at Erdogan's bidding.
NATO IS NOTHING more than an extension of George Soros' arm as it is also an extension
of the Rothschild arm! Most should have gleaned this by now, particularly recognizing the
radical Wahhabism that was included in this band of merry global thugs (Saudi Arabia) to do
the bidding of the globalist satanic cabal. Kind of sad hearing this kind of neive
responses from the gallery...sorry Mr. teolawki but you missed the forest for the
trees.
What is naive is not understanding that Turkey is the current NATO nations gateway for
all manner of illicit and illegitimat activity to foment and perpetuate the forever wars in
the ME. This has been going on since well before Benghazi and has only gotten worse under
Erdogan.
If you have a way to snap your fingers and solve every problem simultaneously, then
please do so. Otherwise it must be undertaken one step at a time. Closing that Turkish
gateway permanently is an excellent start.
O nce in a blue moon an indispensable book comes out making a clear case for sanity in what
is now a post-MAD world. That's the responsibility carried by " The (Real)
Revolution in Military Affairs ," by Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press), arguably the most
important book of 2019.
Martyanov is the total package -- and he comes with extra special attributes as a top-flight
Russian military analyst, born in Baku in those Back in the U.S.S.R. days, living and working
in the U.S., and writing and blogging in English.
Right from the start, Martyanov wastes no time destroying not only Fukuyama's and
Huntington's ravings but especially Graham Allison's childish and meaningless Thucydides Trap
argument -- as if the power equation between the U.S. and China in the 21stcentury could be
easily interpreted in parallel to Athens and Sparta slouching towards the Peloponnesian War
over 2,400 years ago. What next? Xi Jinping as the new Genghis Khan?
(By the way, the best current essay on Thucydides is in Italian, by Luciano Canfora ("
Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L'Esilio" ). No Trap. Martyanov visibly relishes defining the
Trap as a "figment of the imagination" of people who "have a very vague understanding of real
warfare in the 21st century." No wonder Xi explicitly said the Trap does not exist.)
Martyanov had already detailed in his splendid, previous book, "Losing Military Supremacy:
The Myopia of American Strategic Planning," how "American lack of historic experience with
continental warfare" ended up "planting the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the American
military mythology of the 20thand 21stcenturies which is foundational to the American decline,
due to hubris and detachment of reality." Throughout the book, he unceasingly provides solid
evidence about the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a possible, future war against
real armies (not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's), air forces, air defenses and naval
power.
Do the Math
One of the key takeaways is the failure of U.S. mathematical models: and readers of the book
do need to digest quite a few mathematical equations. The key point is that this failure led
the U.S. "on a continuous downward spiral of diminishing military capabilities against the
nation [Russia] she thought she defeated in the Cold War."
In the U.S., Revolution in Military
Affairs (RMA) was introduced by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the former head of
Net Assessment at the Pentagon and the de facto inventor of the "pivot to Asia" concept. Yet
Martyanov tells us that RMA actually started as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution),
introduced by Soviet military theoreticians back in the 1970s.
One of the staples of RMA concerns nations capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles,
a.k.a. TLAMs. As it stands, only the U.S., Russia, China and France can do it. And there are
only two global systems providing satellite guidance to cruise missiles: the American GPS and
the Russian GLONASS. Neither China's BeiDou nor the European Galileo qualify – yet
– as global GPS systems.
Then there's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW). The term itself was coined by the late Admiral
Arthur Cebrowski in 1998 in an
article he co-wrote with John Garstka's titled, "Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origin and
Future."
Deploying his mathematical equations, Martyanov soon tells us that "the era of subsonic
anti-shipping missiles is over." NATO, that brain-dead organism (copyright Emmanuel Macron)
now has to face the supersonic Russian P-800 Onyx and the Kalibr-class M54 in a "highly hostile
Electronic Warfare environment." Every developed modern military today applies Net-Centric Warfare
(NCW), developed by the Pentagon in the 1990s.
Rendering of a future combat systems network. (soldiersmediacenter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0,
Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov
mentions in his new book something that I learned on my visit to Donbass in March 2015: how
NCW principles, "based on Russia's C4ISR capabilities made available by the Russian military to
numerically inferior armed forces of the Donbass Republics (LDNR), were used to devastating
effect both at the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, when attacking the cumbersome Soviet-era
Ukrainian Armed Forces military."
No Escape From the Kinzhal
Martyanov provides ample information on Russia's latest missile – the hypersonic
Mach-10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal, recently tested in the Arctic.
Crucially, as he explains, "no existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of
shooting [it] down even in the case of the detection of this missile." Kinzhal has a range of
2,000 km, which leaves its carriers, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M, "invulnerable to the only defense a
U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount – carrier fighter
aircraft." These fighters simply don't have the range.
The Kinzhal was one of the weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin's
game-changing March
1, 2018 speech at the Federal Assembly. That's the day, Martyanov stresses, when the real
RMA arrived, and "changed completely the face of peer-peer warfare, competition and global
power balance dramatically."
Top Pentagon officials such as General
John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have admitted on the record there are "no
existing countermeasures" against, for instance, the hypersonic, Mach 27 glide vehicle Avangard
(which renders anti-ballistic missile systems useless), telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services
Committee the only way out would be "a nuclear deterrent." There are also no existing
counter-measures against anti-shipping missiles such as the Zircon and Kinzhal.
Any military analyst knows very well how the Kinzhal destroyed a land target the size of a
Toyota Corolla in Syria after being launched 1,000 km away in adverse weather conditions. The
corollary is the stuff of NATO nightmares: NATO's command and control installations in Europe
are de facto indefensible.
Martyanov gets straight to the point: "The introduction of hypersonic weapons surely pours
some serious cold water on the American obsession with securing the North American continent
from retaliatory strikes."
Kh-47M2 Kinzhal; 2018 Moscow Victory Day Parade. (Kremilin via Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov is thus unforgiving on U.S. policymakers who "lack the necessary tool-kit for
grasping the unfolding geostrategic reality in which the real revolution in military affairs
had dramatically downgraded the always inflated American military capabilities and continues to
redefine U.S. geopolitical status away from its self-declared hegemony."
And it gets worse: "Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation [Martyanov's italics] on
the U.S. proper." Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree
Chinese, as paraded recently -- "are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic
systems and destroying the United States," no matter what crude propaganda the Pentagon is
peddling.
In February 2019, Moscow announced the completion of tests of a nuclear-powered engine for
the Petrel cruise missile. This is a subsonic cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that can
remain in air for quite a long time, covering intercontinental distances, and able to attack
from the most unexpected directions. Martyanov mischievously characterizes the Petrel as "a
vengeance weapon in case some among American decision-makers who may help precipitate a new
world war might try to hide from the effects of what they have unleashed in the relative safety
of the Southern Hemisphere."
Hybrid War Gone Berserk
A section of the book expands on China's military progress, and the fruits of the
Russia-China strategic partnership, such as Beijing buying $3 billion-worth of S-400 Triumph
anti-aircraft missiles -- "ideally suited to deal with the exact type of strike assets the
United States would use in case of a conventional conflict with China."
Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic, October 2019.
(YouTube screenshot)
Because of the timing, the analysis does not even take into consideration the arsenal
presented in early October at the Beijing parade celebrating the 70thanniversary of the
People's Republic.
That includes, among other things, the "carrier-killer" DF-21D, designed to hit warships at
sea at a range of up to 1,500 km; the intermediate range "Guam Killer" DF-26; the DF-17
hypersonic missile; and the long-range submarine-launched and ship-launched YJ-18A anti-ship
cruise missiles. Not to mention the DF-41 ICBM – the backbone of China's nuclear
deterrent, capable of reaching the U.S. mainland carrying multiple warheads.
Martyanov could not escape addressing the RAND Corporation, whose reason to exist is to
relentlessly push for more money for the Pentagon – blaming Russia for "hybrid war" (an
American invention) even as it moans about the U.S.'s incapacity of defeating Russia in each
and every war game. RAND's war games pitting the U.S. and allies against Russia and China
invariably ended in a "catastrophe" for the "finest fighting force in the world."
Martyanov also addresses the S-500s, capable of reaching AWACS planes and possibly even
capable of intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. The S-500 and its latest middle-range
state of the art air-defense system S-350 Vityaz will be operational in 2020.
His key takeway: "There is no parity between Russia and the United States in such fields as
air-defense, hypersonic weapons and, in general, missile development, to name just a few fields
– the United States lags behind in these fields, not just in years but in generations
[italics mine]."
All across the Global South, scores of nations are very much aware that the U.S. economic
"order" – rather disorder – is on the brink of collapse. In contrast, a
cooperative, connected, rule-based, foreign relations between sovereign nations model is being
advanced in Eurasia – symbolized by the merging of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB (the BRICS bank).
The key guarantors of the new model are Russia and China. And Beijing and Moscow harbor no
illusion whatsoever about the toxic dynamics in Washington. My recent conversations with top
analysts in Kazakhstan last month and in Moscow last week once again stressed the futility of
negotiating with people described – with overlapping shades of sarcasm – as
exceptionalist fanatics. Russia, China and many corners of Eurasia have figured out there are
no possible, meaningful deals with a nation bent on breaking every deal.
Indispensable?
No: Vulnerable
Martyanov cannot but evoke Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, after
the unilateral Washington abandonment of the INF treaty, clearing the way for U.S. deployment
of intermediate and close range missiles stationed in Europe and pointed at Russia:
"Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons against those regions
from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions hosting the centers
where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us."
Translation: American Invulnerability is over – for good.
In the short term, things can always get worse. At his traditional, year-end presser in
Moscow, lasting almost four and a half hours, Putin stated that Russia is more than ready to
"simply renew the existing New START agreement", which is bound to expire in early 2021: "They
[the U.S.] can send us the agreement tomorrow, or we can sign and send it to Washington." And
yet, "so far our proposals have been left unanswered. If the New START ceases to exist, nothing
in the world will hold back an arms race. I believe this is bad."
"Bad" is quite the euphemism. Martyanov prefers to stress how "most of the American elites,
at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance" even as the real
RMA "blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water."
Martyanov is one of the very few analysts – always from different parts of Eurasia --
who have warned about the danger of the U.S. "accidentally stumbling" into a war against
Russia, China, or both which is impossible to be won conventionally, "let alone through the
nightmare of a global nuclear catastrophe."
Is that enough to instill at least a modicum of sense into those who lord over that massive
cash cow, the industrial-military-security complex? Don't count on it.
* * *
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong
Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is
"
2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .
"... My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country ..."
"... Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down. ..."
My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities
throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise
be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by
the US Department of Defense, in states across the country .
Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their
factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians
willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and
keep unemployment down.
The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what
engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines
that sustain life and communities.
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as
possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring
seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts.
Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in
our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage
of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.
Many American communities also depend on the Military-Industrial Complex to educate their
children. I personally know several families who had children enlist in the military in order
to get a free college education; one that their families could otherwise not afford. The
parents put their kids in the army and navy, and then just cross their fingers and hope they
won't be deployed to a war zone.
The system is actually perfect. The odds of any one of these young people actually getting
killed in a war, is actually quite low. The vast majority get a good education with lots of
perks, all expenses paid including housing, they do their time, and never see a bullet. All
at the taxpayers expense.
"Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw
participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of
thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his
time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government
agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he's been able to
convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to
the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout
war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical
narrative that US war veterans are heroes."
("glorified hired thug" LOL!!!)
"I'm not saying to be mean to veterans, and I'm not saying veterans are bad people, in
fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of
our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible.
Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it's
the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose
unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the
fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It's time to grow up and stop pretending
otherwise."
Damn!!!! Caitlin is Spot F'n On !!!
BTW Notice how these war 'heroes' seem to bear a striking family resemblance.
Who does that pix of Crenshaw bring to mind??? LOL!!! Weird huh!!!
So we go to THEIR homeland as if they had come here to our homeland-which they
haven't.
Maybe that's what Dan would have said if he were a straightforward truthful kinda guy
which of course he isn't.
Be careful. Playing upon her military service is a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's gravitas and
authenticity. It's quite true that she uses it to argue against regime-change wars, but a
position that military records only mean you served as a dupe for war profiteers and enabled
their plundering will not do her any good at all, and Caitlin has set it up so there is
little wiggle room for intentions.
The USSR was no workers' paradise. For all its formal allegiance to Marx and Engels, it was a
militantly hierarchical class society ruled by a tyrannical state. After World War Two, it
held brutal military power over Eastern Europe and East Germany. Still, Soviet-era Russia
created an urban and industrialized society with real civilizational accomplishments
(including cradle-to-grave health-care, housing, and food security and an impressive
educational system and cultural apparatus) outside capitalism. It pursued an independent path
to modernity without a capitalist class, devoid of a bourgeoisie, in the name of socialism.
It therefore posed a political and ideological challenge to U.S-led Western capitalism
– and to Washington's related plans for the Third World periphery, which was supposed
to subordinate its developmental path to the needs of the rich nations (the U.S., Western
Europe, and honorarily white Japan) of the world-capitalist core.
Honest U.S. Cold Warriors knew that it was the political threat of "communism" – its
appeal to poor nations and people (including the lower and working classes within rich/core
states) – and not any serious military danger that constituted the true "Soviet
menace." Contrary to U.S. "containment" doctrine after World War II, the ruling Soviet
bureaucracy was concerned above all with keeping an iron grip on its internal and regional
empire, not global expansion and "world revolution." It did, however "deter the worst of
Western violence" (Noam Chomsky) by providing military and other assistance to Third World
targets of U.S. and Western attack (including China, Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, Cuba,
Vietnam, and Laos). Along the way, it provided an example of independent development outside
and against the capitalist world system advanced by the superpower headquartered in
Washington.
To make matters worse from Washington's "Open Door" perspective, the Soviet Empire kept a
vast swath of the world's natural and human resources walled off from profitable exploitation
by global capital.
All of this was more than enough to mark the Soviet Union as global public enemy number
one for the post-WWII U.S. power elite, which had truly planet-wide imperial ambitions,
unlike Moscow.
The Soviet deterrent and alternative to U.S.-led capitalism-imperialism collapsed once and
for all in the early 1990s. Washington celebrated with unchallenged invasions of Panama and
Iraq. The blood-drenched U.S. President George H.W. Bush exulted that "what we say goes" in a
newly unipolar, post-Soviet world. Russia reverted to not-so "free market" capitalism under
U.S.-led Western financial supervision and in accord with the savage austerity and inequality
imposed by the neoliberal "Washington consensus." Chomsky got it right in 1991. "With the
collapse of Soviet tyranny," he wrote, "much of the region can be expected to return to its
traditional [subordinate] status, with the former high echelons of the bureaucracy playing
the role of the Third World elites that enrich themselves while serving the interests of
foreign investors." The consequences were disastrous for many millions of ordinary
Russians.
@Kevin #18
"Can anyone recommend a good book on the privatization of state assets of the former USSR?
Particularly one that focuses on how mid-level technocrats, often of a persecuted minority,
were able to get the capital to purchase these assets."
PUTIN from Chris
Hutchins is a good read that also describes the rise of the oligarchs and how Putin dealt
with them. Like one oligarch made a small fortune selling the first western cars in the
country and how they bought up cheap shares from the Yeltsin privatisation scheme. Privatized
companies changed ownership under threats or even at gunpoint. The oligarchs were simple
mobsters at the time. That is about what i vaguely remember reading the book a few years back
but there is a lot more detail.
TG #29
Replacement level fertility" is the total fertility rate -- the average number of children
born per woman -- at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the
next, without migration. This rate is roughly 2.1 children per woman for most countries,
although it may modestly vary with mortality rates'
Russia 1.61 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Canada 1.6 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Japan 1.42 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Italy 1.45 children born/woman (2018 est.)
France 2.06 children born/woman (2018 est.)
@Kevin #18
I would suggest looking at articles in the Exile: www.exile.ru
Unfortunately, these are no longer free.
The short story: the most successful "privatizations" involved getting control of a bank,
then using the bank's deposits to buy up companies.
The most successful scheme was getting control of a bank which was partly used by the Russian
government for payments; I recall one example where one bank was used to clear funds paid for
state enterprises - so the "privatizers" were literally pushing money out for assets and
getting them back.
Further down the scale - there was all manner of chicanery including kidnapping, extortion,
murder and what not.
The problem with books published in English is that you're almost guaranteed to run into
thinly disguised agitprop ranging from the usual American and British academics taking the
national security dime, to Khodorkovsky and the other O.G. Jewish oligarchs attempting to
whitewash history: Gusinski, Berezofsky, etc.
Try this: Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia – May 15,
2017
by Thane Gustafson
A review @ Amazon:
Thane masterfully succeeded in uncovering the fundamental drivers of the Russian oil
industry and its interdependency with the political complex through a comprehensive and
convincing historical analysis, with plenty of meaningful insights and endearing anecdotes.
Rooted in Soviet legacy and having gone through the 90s bust-boom roller coaster and 2000s
state reconsolidation the industry is a unique globally isolated eco system, and, with
Russia as a whole, is at a crossroads. A must read for any decision maker in the O&G
business.
Just a quick take, the separation of the Russian government/ruling elites from Russian
culture suggests foreign influence as in Russia's elites looking to the West and aping
Western ideas – think of Peter the Great or Gorbachev. That was a betrayal of Russian
values and a historical mistake of immense proportions. Russia is learning to how to minimize
the core values of the West – greed, deception and narcissism.
China has done a better job than Russia in that regard but on the other hand it has a
vastly different history and enjoyed more isolation from Western meddling if not outright
invasions.
I would make a distinction here. Mastering Western technology is not necessarily the same
thing as "aping Western ideas". Also would distinguish between Peter the Great who won some
remarkable geopolitical victories for Russia (think Poltava); vs Gorbachov, who completely
betrayed Russia. To the extent he even left Russia vulnerable to American nuclear attack for
a window of 2 whole hours, or more.
As I showed in
this old post .
Gorby in phone conversation to George W. Bush Daddy:
"And now concerning Russia – this is the second most important theme of our
conversations. In front of me, on the table, lies the Decree of the President of the USSR,
concerning my resignation. I am hereby also relieving myself of the duties of the
Commander-in-Chief and handing over my responsibilities for employing nuclear weapons ,
to the President of the Russian Federation. In other words, I continue to manage these
affairs right up until the completion of the constitutional process. I can assure you, that
everything is under strict control. The moment I announce my resignation, these orders will
become effective. There will not be any kind of dispute about this. You can spend your
Christmas evening in complete peace of mind."
In other words, Gorby not only left the Soviet Union completely vulnerable to nuclear
attack for a period of 2 hours or so; but even announced that fact to their greatest enemy.
What kind of national leader does something like that? The only reason any Russians are even
around today, is because George Bush Daddy was either too kind, or too dull-witted to take
advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"... To use Krushchev's granddaugher as a source was also a very low blow: she's herself an op-ed "journalist" coopted by the western MSM (I remember reading her pieces when she worked for the Asia Times, and she's for sure not a specialist/expert). ..."
"... It's also false when the NYT stated Russia is some kind of last refuge for oligarchs, mafiosos and terrorists in the world. No, this refuge's name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ..."
"... The USA is also the last refuge of Latin American dictators. More than 3,000 enemies of the State from Latin American countries live in Florida under officially recognized political asylum. Many of them are ex-generals and bankers. ..."
"... There's also a macabre message in the headline of the NYT article: that it is weird, from the American point of view, that Russia was somehow able to survive the absolute destruction that should have happened with its Shock Therapy during the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The author indeed seems genuinely puzzled as to why didn't Russia degenerate to a Third World banana republic after the capitalist charge on the newly founded nation sponsored by the USA; after all, it worked in Latin America and many other countries. I've already discussed it here many times, and I stand by my hypothesis: Russia is still able to rest on the laurels of the good ol' Soviet Union. That windfall will soon end, so Putin must think a viable succession scheme and viabilize the five-year plans. ..."
The worst thing about the NYT piece is that it is not in the "Opinion" section, but right
in the Front Page, as if it were genuine investigative journalism.
To use Krushchev's granddaugher as a source was also a very low blow: she's herself
an op-ed "journalist" coopted by the western MSM (I remember reading her pieces when she
worked for the Asia Times, and she's for sure not a specialist/expert).
I disagree with b about the "hidden economy" thing. Every capitalist country has a
hidden economy; the USA, for example, has by far the largest shadow banking system in the
world, which could easily rise its GDP by 50%. Italy recently considered including the
mafia business in the GDP calculation so they could officially get out of recession. Having
20-30% of your economy "hidden", therefore, is not an excuse for the Russian Federation for
the dire state of its own people.
The NYT is also wrong when it infers Yeltsin was "fixing" the Soviet economy by making
it take the bitter pill. The Soviet economy begun to unravel precisely because of
Gorbachev's Perestroika - which was the policy designed precisely to reform the system in
the first place. Yeltsin made things even worse - far worse than a linear extrapolation
even from the Gorbachev era. Indeed, that's why he was toppled in the first place.
It's also false when the NYT stated Russia is some kind of last refuge for
oligarchs, mafiosos and terrorists in the world. No, this refuge's name is the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Thanks to its inumerous tax havens (of
which the Cayman Islands are, by far, the largest), many traffickers, terrorists and
oligarchs are able to roam freely around the world, with their money laundered. Many of
them even buy residence in London and a British Green Card, so they can also enjoy the
protections the Crown gives to its subjects. In their free time, they also buy some English
football clubs, but that's another story. Switzerland also enjoy many of the perks of being
a tax haven.
The USA is also the last refuge of Latin American dictators. More than 3,000 enemies
of the State from Latin American countries live in Florida under officially recognized
political asylum. Many of them are ex-generals and bankers.
Indeed, Russia is considered a "not free" nation precisely because this kind of
financial promiscuity doesn't exist on a systemic-cultural level. Freedom, for the
liberals, is nothing more nothing less than being able to freely purchase and use the
commodities you bought on the free market with a certain amount of money. Russia (but
mainly China) doesn't allow the western oligarchs to do that, so it is kind of a
disappointment to the "vital center".
There's also a macabre message in the headline of the NYT article: that it is weird,
from the American point of view, that Russia was somehow able to survive the absolute
destruction that should have happened with its Shock Therapy during the Yeltsin
era.
The author indeed seems genuinely puzzled as to why didn't Russia degenerate to a
Third World banana republic after the capitalist charge on the newly founded nation
sponsored by the USA; after all, it worked in Latin America and many other countries. I've
already discussed it here many times, and I stand by my hypothesis: Russia is still able to
rest on the laurels of the good ol' Soviet Union. That windfall will soon end, so Putin
must think a viable succession scheme and viabilize the five-year plans.
@FSD:
Agreed, but I think we are seeing a strange form of mass psychogenic illness in the West (
https://quillette.com/2018/11/02/trigger-warnings-and-mass-psychogenic-illness/),
and in the EU and US in particular. I strongly suspect that the farther an farther the mass
media push the willingly ignorant bulk of people out into a fictional and counterfactual
mental reservation, the more and more people crave distraction that, like a junkie's fix,
needs to always get bigger to reach the same effect. I turned on the TV the other day and
happened on a show called Masked Singer, which struck me as so insanely manic in its
subject and its presentation -- loud music, flashing lights, cartoonish hosts, junkie-like
pacing -- that I wondered that anyone can function anymore inside this pin-ball machine
world. It's like the entire West is having, especially in its so-called cultural nodes, a
collective manic episode with very real danger of self-harm.
Because Russia's population is relatively stable, every small uptick in economic growth
is pure profit. With a stable population, even 1% annual growth, compounded every year, can
result in substantial prosperity before too long.
But in the United States, with open-borders cheap-labor immigration pushing the
population ever higher, the numbers are different. When a population ir forced upwards, the
economic demands are even higher than the population growth itself. That's because you need
to not just grow the ongoing population, but provide massive investments in new
infrastructure. Russia is like a person who's paid off his mortgage, and can devote all
income to living and making progress. The United States is like a homeowner with a massive
mortgage and who also has to pay massive taxes to pay for more sewers and roads and energy
conservation etc.
So 1% annual sustained economic growth in Russia means Russia is making progress, while
even 3% annual economic growth in the United States means it is falling behind.
Don't believe me? From 1950 to the present, immigration increased California's
population from 10 million to about 40 million. On paper the economy boomed, but the
average person is much worse off, the quality of life has tanked, roads are choked, rents
are sky-high while wages are stagnant, air quality is down even with massive spending on
pollution controls, poverty is the worst in the nation, homelessness is booming, etc.
It's my guess Putin doesn't waste time reading the NYTs. Why should he, and for that
matter why should anyone? The Times and the other Oligarch rags should be ignored by all.
Break the chains. Focusing on God and family a young couple may try homesteading. Ignore
the rest.
The imperial lie machine sure is disgruntled that the 1990s attempt to economically and
biologically crush Russia once and for all was a failure and Russia has since been
reasserting itself. It wasn't "the end of history" after all.
That was the source of the underlying current of Russia Derangement among the US
elite classes (political, economic, media, academia, professional etc.), the many
provocations, and then the total meltdown beginning in late 2016.
Since it really seems to be a collective mental illness (I mean that literally)
afflicting a power group which is already psychotic and violent, and since it coincides
with the accelerating erosion of the US imperial position, it's looking more and more
likely that this must eventually lead to all-out war. I just can't imagine the US stepping
back, any more than I could imagine Hitler doing so.
America's obsessive bashing of Russia (and now China) is suggestive of a deep
psychological disorder.
Though the Americans and their allied apologists will insist that it is sincerely
motivated by a humanitarian concern for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights(TM), that is
quite laughable given America's concentration camps for undocumented immigrants; its
incarceration of immigrant children in cages; or the US Prison Industrial Complex in
general, which has been called America's new Jim Crow in that it imprisons millions of
African Americans and other minorities and relegates them to a new racist caste system.
No, cut through the barrage of American Moral Supremacism and other delusions, the
United States is enraged that, despite its attempt to economically rape Russia in the 1990s
through American-promoted Free Market reforms and Neoliberal "shock therapy," Russia is
still standing and indeed resurgent.
THAT is what enrages the Americans and triggers them in rug-chewing fits of frenzy.
It's rare that I read something on the Washington Post that I don't find highly biased, even
repugnant. But with
their recent article on the Afghanistan Papers, they truly knocked the ball out of the
park.
The facts they shared should have every American protesting in the streets.
Trillions of dollars have been spent on a war that the Pentagon knew was unwinnable all
along. More than 2300 American soldiers died there and more than 20,000 have been injured. More
than 150,000 Afghanis were killed, many of them civilians, including women and children.
And they lied to us constantly.
Congress just proved that the truth doesn't matter, though. A mere 22 hours after the
release of this document, the new National Defense Authorization Act that breezed through the
House and Senate was signed by the President. That bill authorized
$738 billion in military spending for 2020 , actually increasing the budget by $22 billion
over previous years.
So, how is your representation in Washington, DC working out for you?
What are the
Afghanistan Papers?
The Afghanistan Papers are
a brilliant piece of investigative journalism published by the Washington Post and the
article is very much worth your time to read. I know, I know – WaPo. But believe me when
I tell you this is something all Americans need to see.
This was an article that took three years of legal battles to bring to light. WaPo acquired
the documents using the Freedom of Information Act and got more than 2000 pages of insider
interviews with "people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid
workers and Afghan officials." These documents were originally part of a federal investigation
into the "root failures" of the longest conflict in US history – more than 18 years
now.
Three presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have been involved in this
ongoing war. It turns out that officials knew the entire time this war was "unwinnable" yet
they kept throwing American lives and American money at it.
Here's an excerpt from WaPo's report. Anything that is underlined is taken verbatim from the
papers themselves – you can click on them to read the documents.
In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went
wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of
warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints,
frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.
The important thing to note about these interviews is that the interviewees never expected
their words to become public. They weren't "blowing the whistle." They were answering questions
for a federal investigation. So they didn't hold back. These aren't "soundbites." It's what the
real witnesses are saying.
The U.S. government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has
spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering.
Since 2001, the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International
Development have spent or appropriated between $934 billion and $978 billion, according to an
inflation-adjusted estimate calculated by Neta Crawford, a political science professor and
co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
Those figures do not include money spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the
Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for medical care for wounded
veterans.
"What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a
retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, told government interviewers.
He added, "After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in
his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan." (
source )
The US government deliberately misled the American people.
What's more, if you officials, up to and including three presidents, knew they were throwing
money at something that could never be achieved. They did it anyway and they lied to our faces
about it.
The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents,
military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making
progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.
Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S.
government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military
headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear
the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.
It's been an epic 18-year-long exercise in CYA. (Cover Your A$$). I don't see how anyone
could fail to be outraged by this. And what I've cited here is just the crap icing on the
maggot cupcake. It's a festering mess and I urge you, if you really want to know the truth, to
read this article on WaPo and click on these links.
How was all this money spent?
A lot of it went to building infrastructure in Afghanistan. It was flagrantly and
frivolously used there while we live in a place where people are going bankrupt at best and
dying at worst because they
can't afford medical care and there are places in our country without clean running
water or toilets.
The defense industry certainly reaped rewards and it's highly likely a lot of people who had
the power to allow it to go on made some "wise investments" that have paid off for them. But
for the rest of us, this conflict has done nothing except ensure that our tax dollars are not
here improving our infrastructure or helping Americans lead better and more productive
lives.
Dr. Ron Paul refers to this as the crime of the century.
It is not only members of the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations who are guilty of
this massive fraud. Falsely selling the Afghanistan war as a great success was a bipartisan
activity on Capitol Hill. In the dozens of hearings I attended in the House International
Relations Committee, I do not recall a single "expert" witness called who told us the truth.
Instead, both Republican and Democrat-controlled Congresses called a steady stream of neocon
war cheerleaders to lie to us about how wonderfully the war was going. Victory was just
around the corner, they all promised. Just a few more massive appropriations and we'd be
celebrating the end of the war.
Congress and especially Congressional leadership of both parties are all as guilty as the
three lying Administrations. They were part of the big lie, falsely presenting to the
American people as "expert" witnesses only those bought-and-paid-for Beltway neocon think
tankers.
What is even more shocking than the release of this "smoking gun" evidence that the US
government wasted two trillion dollars and killed more than three thousand Americans and more
than 150,000 Afghans while lying through its teeth about the war is that you could hear a pin
drop in the mainstream media about it. Aside from the initial publication in the Washington
Post, which has itself been a major cheerleader for the war in Afghanistan, the mainstream
media has shown literally no interest in what should be the story of the century. (
source )
And it's most likely that nobody will ever face punishment for this deception. If this is
not the very definition of the term "war crimes" I can hardly imagine what is. Dr. Paul
continues:
We've wasted at least half a year on the Donald Trump impeachment charade – a
conviction desperately in search of a crime. Meanwhile one of the greatest crimes in US
history will go unpunished. Not one of the liars in the "Afghanistan Papers" will ever be
brought to justice for their crimes. None of the three presidents involved will be brought to
trial for these actual high crimes. Rumsfeld and Lute and the others will never have to fear
justice. Because both parties are in on it. There is no justice . (
source )
The response? Silence and a budget increase.
The people in government don't care that we know about all this. Sure, it's mildly
inconvenient but "whatever."
How do I know this?
Simple. Less than a full day after the story broke, the new NDAA ended up on President
Trump's desk and was signed, authorizing an additional 22 billion dollars for next year's
defense spending. And all anyone can talk about is, "Oooohhhh Space Force!!!"
Government: "Merry Christmas. We're going to blow through more of your tax money and you
won't get a damned thing for it."
I couldn't make this up if I tried. In a notable, must-read op-ed ,
Darius Shahtahmasebi cited some horrific incidents and concluded:
We can't let this recent publication obscure itself into nothingness. The recent reaction
from Congress is a giant middle finger designed to tell you that (a) there will never be
anything you can do about it and (b) they simply don't care how you feel. Democracy at its
finest from the world's leading propagator of democratic values. ( source )
When is enough going to be enough? Why are we not enraged en masse? Why haven't we recalled
these treasonous bastards and taken our country and our budget back?
For a country that is ready to take up arms and waste countless hours "impeaching" Trump
over something he said on a phone call, it sure says a lot about those same people ignoring 18
years of treasonous behavior by three separate administrations.
Why isn't the media raising hell over this? Why aren't these lives important? Why isn't
sending trillions of our dollars to be frittered away an outrage?
People love to say "America First" and "impeach Trump for treason" and all that jazz. They
love to call anti-war people "un-American" and recommend a quick, one-way trip to Somalia if we
don't "support our troops." However, I think is far more evidence of supporting our troops to
want out of there, not risking their lives based on a castle of lies that further enriches
powerful and wealthy people who have nothing to lose.
Most people love to be outraged about frivolous matters. But when a report like this and its
following insult are met with resounding silence, it's pretty obvious that hardly anybody is
really paying attention.
So, cut funding for prisons; cut necessary levels, to insure safety, prison guard
staffing; watch as prison violence escalates; then print a story where the Union leader,
trying to protect his remaining too small workforce from the rising violence, sounds like an
inhuman bad guy in the story. Neolibs gotta love that angle.
I'm seeing the same thing in my US state over the past several years. The politicians'
answer is not to increase staffing of unionized prison guards or spend more on safety for
state prisons, but to outsource prisoner housing to the private sector. Neolibs love that
angle.
"... no reason to believe she'd be any less a hawk than she was as a senator, when she backed George W. Bush's war in Iraq, or as secretary of state, when she encouraged President Barack Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If her nomination is as sure a thing as people say, then antiwar organizing needs to start right away. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... it's something that might have been called neocon, ..."
"... Charles Davis is a writer in Los Angeles. His work has been published by outlets such as Al Jazeera, The New Republic, and Salon. Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights organization Global Exchange. She is also the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. ..."
Announcing her latest campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton declared she was entering the race to be the champion for "everyday
Americans." As a lawmaker and diplomat, however, Clinton has long championed military campaigns that have killed scores of "everyday"
people abroad, from Iraq to Yemen.
As commander-in-chief, there's no reason to believe she'd be any less a hawk than she was
as a senator, when she backed George W. Bush's war in Iraq, or as secretary of state, when she encouraged President Barack Obama
to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If her nomination is as sure a thing as people say, then antiwar organizing needs to start right
away.
"If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue," he said, "it's something that might have been called neocon,
but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else."
We're going to call it what it is: More of the same sort of murderous policies that destroyed Iraq,
destabilized Libya, killed women
and children
with
cluster bombs and drones in Yemen, and legitimized the undermining of democracy in Honduras. There's little chance the Republicans
will nominate someone better, but given Clinton's record as a senator and secretary of state - the latter giving us a very good idea
of how she would approach foreign affairs once in office - it will be hard for them to find anyone much worse.
We know that Clinton is no reliable friend of peace. Today she supports diplomacy with Iran, but
back in 2009, as secretary
of state, she was adamant that the U.S. keep open the option of attacking the Islamic Republic over never-proven allegations it was
seeking nuclear weapons. (In fact, Israel is the region's only
nuclear power.)
Her attempts to portray herself as an ally of those who are pro-peace, as a sort of reluctant imperialist, is the same sort of
co-opting distortion that has helped quiet opposition to President Obama's hawkish agenda. If anything, Hillary is even more militaristic
than the ostensibly reluctant warrior she's campaigning to replace. Still, that hasn't stopped her from trying to be all things to
all people - even people like us.
Indeed, in March 2003, Clinton did something she'll probably never willingly do again: She
met with CODEPINK to explain her support for the Iraq war.
"I like pink tulips around this time of the year," she began. They "kind of remind ya that there may be a spring. Well, you guys
look like a big bunch of big tulips!" It got progressively more awkward after that. "I admire your willingness to speak out on behalf
of the women and children of Iraq," said Clinton, but "There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm's way
and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm and I have absolutely no belief that he will."
We thought the easiest way to prevent harming the women, children, and other living things in Iraq was to stop a war of aggression,
ostensibly over weapons of mass destruction that UN inspectors on the ground couldn't find and which were, in fact, never found -
because they didn't exist. Clinton, however, was steadfast: "If Saddam were serious about disarming he would have been much more
forthcoming," she claimed. "The very difficult question for all of us is how does one bring about the disarmament of someone with
such a proven track record of a commitment, if not an obsession, with weapons of mass destruction?"
Her answer: Destroying Iraq by dropping millions of U.S.-made WMDs, including bombs with
depleted uranium that have more
than doubled the country's pre-2003
rate of cancer. Speaking
to the women of CODEPINK, Clinton even explicitly defended George W. Bush's unilateralism, citing her husband's go-it-alone intervention
in Kosovo back in the 1990s.
In 2011, when the Arab Spring came to Libya, Clinton was the Obama administration's
most forceful advocate for going above and beyond a no-fly zone to depose Muammar Gaddafi, whose U.S.-trained security forces
were killing Libyans with the help of weapons and equipment provided by his erstwhile allies in the United States, Britain, and France.
She even
out-hawked Robert Gates, the defense secretary first appointed by George W. Bush who was less than enthusiastic about going to
war. When Libyan rebels carried out an extrajudicial execution of their country's former dictator, her response was sociopathic:
"We came, we saw, he died," she
said, smiling and laughing. That sent a message that the United States would look the other way at crimes committed by allies
against its official enemies; indeed, it was the same policy of tolerance for friends' war crimes that arguably led Gaddafi to believe
he could get away with killing anyone he labeled "al-Qaeda."
Libya was part of a pattern for Clinton. On Afghanistan, she advocated a repeat of the surge in Iraq, encouraging President Obama
to more than double
the number of troops there. Her State Department also provided cover for the expansion of the not-so-covert drone wars in Pakistan
and Yemen. Clinton's top legal adviser, Harold Koh, exploited his pre-government reputation as an advocate for human rights to declare
in a 2010 speech that not only did the government
have the right to detain people without charge at Guantanamo Bay, but it can kill them with unmanned aerial vehicles anywhere in
the world.
Clinton practiced "soft power" diplomacy too, of course: After Honduran forces trained at the U.S. School of the Americas carried
out a coup against elected president Manuel Zelaya, Clinton's State Department immediately got to work on legitimizing the regime
that seized power. As commentator
Mark
Weisbrot observes, she even said as much in her book, Hard Choices: "In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke
with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico," wrote Clinton. "We strategized on
a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render
the question of Zelaya moot."
The subsequent "free and fair" election would end up being between two candidates who supported a coup opposed by most "everyday
people" in Honduras, now one of the most violent,
drug-war ravaged countries in
the world. Clinton has also
called for deporting child refugees fleeing that violence. In Honduras, as elsewhere, it seems it's not the lives of "everyday
people" that are of chief concern to politicians like Clinton.
When Barack Obama became president, the anti-war movement became his first casualty - followed by a group of Pakistanis
droned to death three days after his inauguration. We should never lose hope that we can bring about positive change, but actually
changing the world for the better requires being aware that whoever sits in the White House come January 2017 is not going to be
our friend.
Charles Davis is a writer in Los Angeles. His work
has been published by outlets such as Al Jazeera, The New Republic, and Salon. Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group
CODEPINK and the human rights organization Global Exchange. She is also the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.
"... Currently the United States is assisting Ukraine against Russia by providing some non-lethal military equipment as well as limited training for Kiev's army. It has balked at getting more involved in the conflict, rightly so. ..."
"... The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now. They inevitably produced the Hitler analogy, citing the example of 1938 and Munich as well as the subsequent partition of Poland in 1939 to make their case. When I asked what the United States would gain by intervening they responded that in return for military assistance, Washington will have a good and democratic friend in Ukraine which will serve as a bulwark against further Russian expansion. ..."
"... But Obama chose to stay home as punishment for Putin, which I think was a bad choice suggesting that he is being strongly influenced by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the other neocons who seem to have retained considerable power in his administration. ..."
"... Obama told a crowd gathered outside the Nike footwear company in Oregon that the deal is necessary because "if we don't write the rules, China will " ..."
"... Obama takes as a given that he will be able to "write the rules." This is American hubris writ large and I am certain that many who are thereby designated to follow Washington's lead are as offended by it as I am. Bad move Barack. ..."
Currently the United States is assisting Ukraine against Russia by providing some non-lethal military equipment as well as
limited training for Kiev's army. It has balked at getting more involved in the conflict, rightly so. With that in mind,
I had a meeting with a delegation of Ukrainian parliamentarians and government officials a couple of weeks ago. I tried to explain
to them why many Americans are wary of helping them by providing lethal, potentially game changing military assistance in what Kiev
sees as a struggle to regain control of Crimea and other parts of their country from militias that are clearly linked to Moscow.
I argued that while Washington should be sympathetic to Ukraine's aspirations it has no actual horse in the race, that the imperative
for bilateral relations with Russia, which is the only nation on earth that can attack and destroy the United States, is that they
be stable and that all channels for communication remain open.
I also observed that the negative perception of Washington-driven
democracy promotion around the world has been in part shaped by the actual record on interventions since 2001, which has not been
positive. Each exercise of the military option has wound up creating new problems, like the mistaken policies in Libya, Iraq and
Syria, all of which have produced instability and a surge in terrorism. I noted that the U.S. does not need to bring about a new
Cold War by trying to impose democratic norms in Eastern Europe but should instead be doing all in its power to encourage a reasonable
rapprochement between Moscow and Kiev. Providing weapons or other military support to Ukraine would only cause the situation to escalate,
leading to a new war by proxies in Eastern Europe that could rapidly spread to other regions.
The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will
inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now. They inevitably produced
the Hitler analogy, citing the example of 1938 and Munich as well as the subsequent partition of Poland in 1939 to make their case.
When I asked what the United States would gain by intervening they responded that in return for military assistance, Washington will
have a good and democratic friend in Ukraine which will serve as a bulwark against further Russian expansion.
I explained that Russia does not have the economic or military resources to dominate Eastern Europe and its ambitions appear to
be limited to establishing a sphere of influence that includes "protection" for some adjacent areas that are traditionally Russian
and inhabited by ethnic Russians. Crimea is, unfortunately, one such region that was actually directly governed by Moscow between
1783 and 1954 and it is also militarily vitally important to Moscow as it is the home of the Black Sea Fleet. I did not point that
out to excuse Russian behavior but only to suggest that Moscow does have an argument to make, particularly as the United States has
been meddling in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine where it has "invested" $5 billion, since the Clinton Administration.
I argued that if resurgent Russian nationalism actually endangered the United States there would be a case to be made for constricting
Moscow by creating an alliance of neighbors that would be able to help contain any expansion, but even the hawks in the U.S. Congress
are neither prepared nor able to demonstrate a genuine threat. Fear of the expansionistic Soviet Union after 1945 was indeed the
original motivation for creating NATO. But the reality is that Russia is only dangerous if the U.S. succeeds in backing it into a
corner where it will begin to consider the kind of disruption that was the norm during the Cold War or even some kind of nuclear
response or demonstration. If one is focused on U.S. interests globally Russia has actually been a responsible player, helping in
the Middle East and also against international terrorism.
So there was little to agree on apart from the fact that the Ukrainians have a right to have a government they choose for themselves
and also to defend themselves. And we Americans have in the Ukrainians yet another potential client state that wants our help. In
return we would have yet another dependency whose concerns have to be regarded when formulating our foreign policy. One can sympathize
with the plight of the Ukrainians but it is not up to Washington to fix the world or to go around promoting democracy as a potential
solution to pervasive regional political instability.
Obviously a discussion based on what are essentially conflicting interests will ultimately go nowhere and so it did in this case,
but it did raise the issue of why Washington's relationship with Moscow is so troubled, particularly as it need not be so. Regarding
Ukraine and associated issues, Washington's approach has been stick-and-carrot with the emphasis on the stick through the imposition
of painful sanctions and meaningless though demeaning travel bans. I would think that reversing that formulation to emphasize rewards
would actually work better as today's Russia is actually a relatively new nation in terms of its institutions and suffers from insecurity
about its place in the world and the respect that it believes it is entitled to receive.
Russia
recently celebrated the 70 th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. The celebration was boycotted by
the United States and by many Western European nations in protest over Russian interference in Ukraine. I don't know to what extent
Obama has any knowledge of recent history, but the Russians were the ones who were most instrumental in the defeat of Nazi Germany,
losing 27 million citizens in the process. It would have been respectful for President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry to
travel to Moscow for the commemoration and it would likely have produced a positive result both for Ukraine and also to mitigate
the concern that a new Cold War might be developing. But Obama chose to stay home as punishment for Putin, which I think was
a bad choice suggesting that he is being strongly influenced by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the other neocons
who seem to have retained considerable power in his administration.
And I also would note a couple of other bad choices made during the past several weeks. The Trans-Pacific multilateral trade agreement
that is currently working its way through Congress and is being aggressively promoted by the White House might be great for business
though it may or may not be good for the American worker, which, based on previous agreements, is a reasonable concern. But what
really disturbs me is the Obama explanation of why the pact is important. Obama
told a crowd gathered outside the Nike footwear company in Oregon that the deal is necessary because "if we don't write the rules,
China will "
Fear of the Yellow Peril might indeed be legitimate but it would be difficult to make the case that an internally troubled China
is seeking to dominate the Pacific. If it attempts to do so, it would face strong resistance from the Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos
and Koreans among others. But what is bothersome to me and probably also to many in the Asian audience is that Obama takes as
a given that he will be able to "write the rules." This is American hubris writ large and I am certain that many who are thereby
designated to follow Washington's lead are as offended by it as I am. Bad move Barack.
And finally there is Iran as an alleged state sponsor of terrorism. President Obama claims that he is working hard to achieve
a peaceful settlement of the alleged threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. But if that is so why does he throw obstacles irrelevant
to an agreement out to make the Iranian government more uncomfortable and therefore unwilling or unable to compromise? In an
interview with Arabic
newspaper Asharq al-Awsat Obama called Tehran a terrorism supporter, stating that "it [Iran] props up the Assad regime in
Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen so countries in the region
are rights to be deeply concerned " I understand that the interview was designed to reassure America's friends in the Gulf that the
United States shares their concerns and will continue to support them but the timing would appear to be particularly unfortunate.
The handling of Russia, China and Iran all exemplify the essential dysfunction in American foreign policy. The United States should
have a mutually respectful relationship with Russia, ought to accept that China is an adversary but not necessarily an enemy unless
we make it so and it should also finally realize that an agreement with Iran is within its grasp as long as Washington does not overreach.
It is not clear that any of that is well understood and one has to wonder precisely what kind of advice Obama is receiving when fails
to understand the importance of Russia, insists on "writing the rules" for Asia, and persists in throwing around the terrorist label.
If the past fifteen years have taught us anything it is that the "Washington as the international arbiter model" is not working.
Obama should wake up to that reality before Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush arrives on the scene to make everything worse.
Tom Welsh, May 19, 2015 at 7:02 am GMT • 100 Words
All of this misses the point, IMHO. There is really no need to explain that Russia has no plans to conquer Europe, China has
no plans to take over the Pacific, etc. Anyone with a little historical knowledge and some common sense can see that plainly.
What is happening is that the USA has overweening aspirations to control (and then suck dry) the entire world – and Europe, Russia
and China are next on its hit list.
So it naturally accuses those nations of aspiring to what it plans to do. Standard operating procedure.
The Priss Factor, May 19, 2015 at 7:19 am GMT • 100 Words
"The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will
inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now."
I can understand Ukrainian animus against Russia due to history and ethnic tensions.
But that is ridiculous. They can't possibly believe it. I think they're repeating Neocon talking points to persuade American
that the fate of the world is at stake.
It's really just a local affair.
And Crimea would still belong to Ukraine if the crazies in Ukraine hadn't conspired with Neocons like Nuland to subvert and
overthrow the regime.
"... For example, sources at the Pentagon admit that despite Trump's national strategy and his pledge to terminate "endless wars" in the greater Middle East, General Mike Milley, his new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is emphasizing Iran and Syria . Furthermore, instead of drawing down American forces in the region, the administration has sent 14,000 more troops to the Persian Gulf since May, including more than 3,000 to Saudi Arabia . In addition, President Trump has twice ordered American forces to be withdrawn from Syria, only for that order to be first ignored by the military and then largely offset by the hasty infusion of heavier forces to "guard" Syrian oil. Such backsliding in the Middle East is due to the administration's hazy strategic focus. ..."
"... In Syria, U.S. troops are ridiculously being used to guard a limited supply of Syrian oil from Russia forces and Iranian militias (not from ISIS, which would not require heavy American units). ..."
"... But the model for an American withdrawal from the region is not that of the faux pullback from Syria, which did little beyond endangering U.S. military personnel and pulling the rug out from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United States battle ISIS. Friends and allies in the region must be given adequate warning of U.S. withdrawal and sold adequate weapons to defend themselves. A responsible reordering of our security priorities is desperately needed, given the huge national debt and a rising China, the latter of which may eventually pose a very real security problem. ..."
Rather than drawing down, Trump has sent some 14,000 service members overseas to a region we
can't seem to extricate from. ARABIAN GULF (Nov. 22, 2019) An F/A-18F Super Hornet attached to
the "Jolly Rogers" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 103 launches from the flight deck of the
aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 3rd Class Jeremiah Bartelt/Released)
The Trump administration's national security strategy was supposed to refocus the U.S.
military's efforts on great power threats from China and Russia. However, like the prior Obama
administration's "pivot to Asia," the Trump policy has been shipwrecked on the ever-demanding
shoals of the Middle East.
For example, sources at the Pentagon admit that despite Trump's national strategy and
his pledge to terminate "endless wars" in the greater Middle East, General Mike Milley, his new
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
is emphasizing Iran and Syria . Furthermore, instead of drawing down American forces in the
region, the administration has sent
14,000 more troops to the Persian Gulf since May, including more than
3,000 to Saudi Arabia . In addition, President Trump has twice ordered American forces to
be withdrawn from Syria, only for that order to be first ignored by the military and then
largely offset by the hasty infusion of heavier forces to "guard" Syrian oil. Such backsliding
in the Middle East is due to the administration's hazy strategic focus.
The emphasis of Trump's national security strategy on the great powers is commendable.
However, that priority has not been implemented on the ground. With a $23 trillion national
debt, the United States can no longer afford to police the globe. It must choose to let
regional allies take up the slack in certain areas. Trump's lack of experience in foreign
policy, and the fact that our national security bureaucracies are still mired in Cold War
thinking 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, have led to muddled implementation of the
strategy.
The president is naturally prone to wander away from his goals, with the "maximum pressure"
campaign against Iran as a prime example. It is Trump's own fault that America's footprint
hasn't yet been reduced in a region of lessening strategic importance. Iran is "acting up"
largely because the U.S. welshed on a perfectly good international agreement that limited its
ability to get a nuclear weapon. Instead of getting relief from international economic
sanctions in return for limiting its nuclear program, Iran got a Trump-coerced "maximum
pressure" campaign by international banks and businesses.
As a result, Iran has retaliated by capturing oil tankers and launching air attacks on Saudi
oil fields, which has in turn led to a U.S. infusion of more troops into the Persian Gulf
region. Domestic unrest in Iran, caused in part by increased U.S. economic pressure, may cause
the Iranians to lash out even more against American allies there. In Syria, U.S. troops are
ridiculously being used to guard a limited supply of Syrian oil from Russia forces and Iranian
militias (not from ISIS, which would not require heavy American units).
If the Persian Gulf was ever strategic for the United States (a dubious proposition), that
time has now passed. The fracking boom of hydrocarbon production in the United States has made
America once again the world's largest petroleum producer, even further lessening the Middle
East's importance. But what about the threat of terrorism -- that is, ISIS and al-Qaeda?
Islamist fundamentalism has been around for centuries, but these two groups in particular were
generated by the very American Middle Eastern interventionism that President Trump is supposed
be reducing. When the United States legitimately draws down from this theater of lessening
strategic value, those groups will be much less inclined to attack U.S. targets. However,
current American policy inertia continues to mire us in the Greater Middle East -- in
Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, and Mali -- at the same time that we're
jousting with Iran.
But the model for an American withdrawal from the region is not that of the faux pullback
from Syria, which did little beyond endangering U.S. military personnel and pulling the rug out
from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United States battle ISIS. Friends
and allies in the region must be given adequate warning of U.S. withdrawal and sold adequate
weapons to defend themselves. A responsible reordering of our security priorities is
desperately needed, given the huge national debt and a rising China, the latter of which may
eventually pose a very real security problem.
Ivan Eland is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and director of the
Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. His new book, War and the Rogue
Presidency: Restoring the Republic After Congressional Failure, was released in May
2019.
" pulling the rug out from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United
States battle ISIS."
While I greatly appreciate the sacrifices the Kurds made battling ISIS, they did not do
it to help us, but to save themselves. ISIS is only a distant threat, if at all, to the US,
but a direct threat to the Kurds. They are in their neighborhood, not ours.
The President of the USofA has no power to turn this ship around. The seat of power is no
longer residing in the hands of civilian/political actors prime ministers or presidents though
they may be.
Candidate Trump indicated very early on that he intended to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, he soon succumbed to his advisors and generals advice of increasing troop
strength in 2017 as part of a surge strategy. This makes him no better or worse than his two
predecessors who succumbed to the same kind of advice.
However Trump has recently restarted negotiations with the Taliban and has renewed his
pledged to remove several thousand troops. "We're going down to 8,600 [from the 12,000 and
13,000 US troops now there] and then we make a determination from there as to what happens,"
Trump told Fox last August. "We're bringing it down." Of course the drawdown will be seen by
the neocons as a unilateral concession to the Taliban. That shouldn't phase Trump. I think he
plans to reannounce this withdrawal next month. DoD officials have said that the smaller US
military presence will be largely focused on counterterrorism operations against groups like
al Qaeda and IS, and that the military's ability to train and advise local Afghan forces will
be reduced considerably. Sounds like they're still looking for a reason to stay.
Trump can break the cycle. He holds no ideological conviction for staying in Afghanistan.
If he could get over his BDS (Bezos derangement syndrome), he could seize this Washington
Post series, or at least the SIGAR lessons learned reports, and trumpet them through his
twitter feed and helicopter talks. I believe he alone can generate a public cry for getting
the hell out of Afghanistan and carry through with that action no matter how much his
generals scream about it. But without a loud public outcry, especially from his base, Trump
has no incentive to break the cycle. So all you deplorables better start hootin' and
hollerin'. Hopefully enough SJWs will join you to pump up the volume.
Excellent, right up to the last sentence. SJWs are mere tools of people like George Soros
and have zero anti-war agenda nor do they care about America's manufacturing base ect.. In
fact, many are chomping at the bit to join, what was once termed in the SST comments, the
LGBTQ-C4ISR sect. I refer you to mayor Pete's exchange with Tulsi on the matter; he even
invoked our sacred honor as a reason to stay the course in Afghanistan.
TTG,
It's a shrinking cohort. For some of these types, their TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is
actually causing them to side with the CIA and military. Enemy of my enemy.....and since
there's no draft, they have no skin in that game.
For the past 2-3 years many generals and politicians have been using the threat of ISKP as
the new bogeyman for staying in Afghanistan. This threat is not wholly unfounded, a
disproportionately large number of US airstrikes since 2015-2016 have been against ISKP in
Nangarhar(remember the MOAB?) rather than against the Taliban. If my memory serves me
correctly ISKP was responsible for every single US casualty in 2016-2017. In the past two
months however ISKP has been collapsing in its erstwhile stronghold of Nangarhar,
surrendering to the ANA rather than fall into the hands of the Taliba,à la Jowzjan
in summer 2018. I was very surprised by the number of foreign fighters and their families
to come out of there. We have the Taliban to thank for these two collapses.
IMO American "exceptionalism" doomed our effort in Afghanistan Very few of us are set up
mentally to accept the notion that other peoples are legitimately different from us and
that they don't want to be like us and do things our way. I attribute this deformation on
our part to the puritan heritage that you much admire. In your case your recent immigrant
past seems to have immunized you from this deformation. As SF men we rightly fear and dread
the attitudes of The Big Army, but, truth be told, it is we who are the outlier freaks in
the context of American culture with its steamroller approach to just about everything.
Ah yes, all that shining city on the hill stuff biting us in the ass once again. Like the
Puritans, we seem to believe we alone are His chosen people and are utterly shocked that
all others don't see this. In truth, Jesus probably sees our self righteous selves and our
pilgrim forefathers much as he saw the Pharisees... a bunch of douche nozzles.
"... Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal. ..."
When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable?
Even after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, our elites are still determined to escape
without blame. CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 06: Chairman of the KKR Global Institute David
Howell Petraeus attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario
dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco
Tacca/Getty Images)
Almost two weeks after the Washington Post 's Craig Whitlock published his six-part
series on the trials, tribulations, and blunders of Washington's 19-year-long social science
experiment in Afghanistan, those involved in the war effort are desperately pointing fingers as
to who is to blame. An alternative narrative has emerged among this crop of elite policymakers,
military officers, and advisers that while American policy in Afghanistan has been horrible,
the people responsible for it really did believe it would all work out in the end. Call it the
"we were stupid" defense.
There were no lies or myths propagated by senior U.S. officials, we are told, just honest
assessments that later proved to be wrong. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who
has advised U.S. commanders on Afghanistan war policy, wrote that "no, there has not been a
campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal." Former defense secretary Jim Mattis,
who led CENTCOM during part of the war effort, called the Post 's reporting "not really
news" and was mystified that the unpublished interviews from the U.S. special inspector general
were generating such shock. Others have faulted the Post for publishing the material to
begin with, claiming that public disclosure would scare future witnesses from cooperating and
threaten other fact-finding inquiries (the fact that the newspaper was legally permitted to
publish the transcripts after winning a court case against the government is apparently
irrelevant in the minds of those making this argument).
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
All of these claims and counter-claims should be seen for what they truly are: the flailings
of a policymaking class so arrogant and unaccountable that it can't see straight. That they're
blaming the outrage engendered by the Afghanistan Papers on anything other than themselves is
Exhibit A that our narcissistic policy elite is cocooned in their own reality.
Analysts have been pouring over the Afghanistan interview transcripts for over a week in
order to determine how the war went wrong. Some of the main lessons learned have long been
evident. The decision to impose a top-down democratic political order on a country that
operated on a system of patronage and tribal systems from the bottom-up was bound to be
problematic. Throwing tens of billions of dollars of reconstruction assistance into a nation
that had no experience managing that kind of money -- or spending it properly -- helped fuel
the very nationwide corruption Washington would come to regret. Paying off warlords to fight
the Taliban and keep order while pressuring those very same warlords into following the rules
was contradictory. The mistakes go on and on and on: as Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said,
"We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."
One of the most salient findings about this ghastly two-decade-long misadventure surfaced
after the Afghanistan Papers were released: the commentariat will stop at nothing to absolve
themselves of the slightest responsibility for the disaster they supported. The outright
refusal of the pundit class to own up to its errors is as disturbing as it is infuriating. And
even when they do acknowledge that errors were committed, they tend to minimize their own role
in those mistakes, explaining them away as unfortunate consequences of fixed withdrawal
deadlines, inter-agency tussling, Afghanistan's poor foundational state, or the inability of
the Afghans to capitalize on the opportunities Washington provided them. Some,
such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right
track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled
the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal.
It's always somebody else's fault.
Whether out of arrogance, ego, or fear of not being taken seriously in Washington's foreign
policy discussions, the architects of the war refuse to admit even the most obvious mistakes.
Instead they duck and weave like a quarterback escaping a full-on defensive rush, attempting
yet again to fool the American public.
But the public has nothing to apologize for. It is those who are making excuses who have
exercised disastrous judgment on Afghanistan. And they owe the country an apology.
Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor
to The American Conservative.
It turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news"
worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined.
For Soetoro to turn this $hit loose on us exposes his truly sinister intent. Here you all
are, thinking the bull$hit on TV is remotely relevant other than exposing the gangsters who
direct it and rob us to pay for it against our will.
All these High Crimes on Pelosi and Schumer's watch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness
was shut down in 2003 by Congress after dinosaur exposed mass surveillance abuses
establishing "Total Information Awareness" over all US citizens. The program was continued in
overt defiance of Congress through Trillions in black funding.
Or you could just point to the massive expansion of debt and reduction of freedoms signed
by Trump last night while the whole government was telling you "nothing up my sleeve!"
"... It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees. ..."
"... Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." ..."
"... The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there! ..."
"... Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. ..."
For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the
duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as
the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that
"Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the
descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump
impeachment hysteria.
Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the
legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that
Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the
trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.)
Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will
impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents
are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)
None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the
Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim
– and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal
slide.
With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid.
Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!
In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his
passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an
amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into
the Corpse Party's deplorable base.
With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World
:
As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the
hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the
Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can
hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as
dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo
," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders
in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's
instructive to glance at the members of
the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they
assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But
which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the
heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender
balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the
Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to
Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's
progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all
countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan
Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus
a
bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans
on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950
– and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in
1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching
Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language,
religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of
Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to
the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than
just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential
election,
though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose
identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and
their posterity.
Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.
Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an
American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that
ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone
chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence
over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's
predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that
Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked
indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and
foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than
heroic.
Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia
Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus,
Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus,
Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of
Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland
Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway
Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus,
Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic
Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and
Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of
Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American
Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus,
Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic
Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak
Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship
Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon
Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish
American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus
Recalling
Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no
"American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that
looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."
In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good –
is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and
attachments against which the
Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :
"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest."
"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a
country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to
care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party
of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more
than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight.
Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since
World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and
Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."
Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason ,
which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in
Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions
constitute (under Article
III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and
comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the
House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this?
Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )
It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's
framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military,
intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.
Nor is any Republican
Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine,
which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant.
The sole retort
from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the
Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So
there!
Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment
trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain
entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world
our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the
balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's
Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any
time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a
lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to
go.")
"... The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington? ..."
"... A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. ..."
"... If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01. ..."
"... The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." ..."
"... "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." ..."
"... senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds ..."
"... One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry. ..."
The United States already has by far the per capita largest prison population of any developed country but I am probably one of
the few Americans who on this Independence Day would like to see a lot more people in prison, mostly drawn from politicians and senior
bureaucrats who have long believed that their status makes them untouchable, giving them license to steal and even to kill. The sad
fact is that while whistleblowers have been imprisoned for revealing government criminality, no one in the federal bureaucracy has
ever actually been punished for the crimes of torture, kidnapping and assassination committed during the George W. Bush and Barack
H. Obama presidencies.
Why is accountability important? After the Second World War, the victorious allies believed it was important to establish responsibility
for the crimes that had been committed by officials of the Axis powers. The judges at the Nuremberg Trials called the initiation
of a war of aggression the ultimate war crime because it inevitably unleashed so many other evils. Ten leading Nazis were executed
at Nuremberg and ninety-three Japanese officials at similar trials staged in Asia, including several guilty of waterboarding. Those
who were not executed for being complicit in the actual launching of war were tried for torture of both military personnel and civilians
and crimes against humanity, including the mass killing of civilians as well as of soldiers who had surrendered or been captured.
No matter how one tries to avoid making comparisons between 1939 and 2015, the American invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression,
precisely the type of conflict that the framework of accountability provided by Nuremberg was supposed to prevent in the years after
1946. High level US government officials knew that Iraq represented no threat to the United States but they nevertheless described
an imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein in the most graphic terms, replete with weapons of mass destruction, armed drones flying
across the Atlantic, terrorists being unleashed against the homeland, and mushroom clouds on the horizon. The precedent of Iraq,
even though it was an abject failure, has led to further military action against Libya and Syria to bring about "regime change" as
well as a continuing conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the US has been waging a largely secret "long war" against terrorists employing torture and secret prisons. The
American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being
spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and
what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the
Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington?
Many Americans would now consider the leading figures in the Bush Administration aided and abetted by many enablers in congress
from both political parties to be unindicted war criminals. Together they ignited a global conflict that is still running strong
fourteen years later with a tally of more than 7,000 dead Americans and a minimum of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, Afghans,
Libyans, Somalis and Syrians.
War breeds more war, due largely to the fact that guilty parties in Washington who piggyback on the prevailing narrative move
onward and upward, rewarded in this life even if not necessarily so in the hereafter. A friend of mine recently commented that
honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television
contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. Though not 100% accurate as I know at least a couple of honorable
former senior officials who wound up teaching, it would seem to be a generalization that has considerable validity. The implication
is that many senior government officials ascend to their positions based on being accommodating and "political" rather than being
honest and they continue to do the same when they switch over to corporate America or the equally corrupted world of academia.
I thought of my friend's comment when I turned on the television a week ago to be confronted by the serious, somewhat intense
gaze of Michael Morell,
warning about the danger that ISIS will strike the US over the Fourth of July weekend. Morell, a former senior CIA official,
is in the terror business. He had no evidence whatsoever that terrorists were planning an attack and should have realized that maneuvering
the United States into constantly going on alert based on empty threats is precisely what militant groups tend to do.
When not fronting as a handsomely paid national security consultant for the CBS television network Morell is employed by Beacon
Global Strategies as a Senior Counselor, presumably warning well-heeled clients to watch out for terrorists. His lifestyle and substantial
emoluments depend on people being afraid of terrorism so they will turn to an expert like him and ask serious questions that he will
answer in a serious way suggesting that Islamic militants could potentially bring about some kind of global apocalypse.
Morell, a torture apologist, also has a book out that he wants to sell, positing somewhat ridiculously that he and his former
employer had been fighting The Great War of Our Time against Islamic terrorists, something comparable to the World Wars of the past
century, hence the title. Morell needs to take some valium and relax. He would also benefit from a little introspection regarding
the bad guys versus good guys narrative that he is peddling. His credentials as a warrior are somewhat suspect in any event as he
never did any military service and his combat in the world of intelligence consisted largely of sitting behind a desk in Washington
and providing briefings to George W. Bush and Barack Obama in which he presumably told them what they wanted to hear.
Morell is one of a host of pundits who are successful in selling the military-industrial-lobbyist-congressional-intelligence community
line of BS on the war on terror. Throw in the neocons as the in-your-face agents provocateurs who provide instant intellectual and
media credibility for developments and you have large groups of engaged individuals with good access who are on the receiving end
of the seemingly unending cash pipeline that began with 9/11. Frances Townsend, who was the Bush Homeland Security adviser and who
is now a consultant with CNN, is another such creature as is Michael Chertoff, formerly Director of the Department of Homeland Security,
who has successfully marketed his
defective airport
scanners to his former employer.
But the guys and gals who are out feathering their own nests are at least comprehensible given our predatory capitalist system
of government. More to the point, the gang that ordered or carried out torture and assassination are the ones who should be doing
some hard time in the slammer but instead they too are riding the gravy train and cashing in. To name only a few of those who knew
about the torture and ordered it carried out I would cite George Tenet, James Pavitt, Cofer Black and Jose Rodriguez from the intelligence
community. The assassination program meanwhile is accredited to John Brennan, currently CIA Director, during his tenure as Obama's
Deputy National Security Advisor. And then there are Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon together with John Yoo at Justice
and Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice at the White House, all of whom outright lied, dissimulated and conspired their way
to bring about a war of aggression against Iraq.
There are plenty of nameless others who were "only carrying out orders" and who should be included in any reckoning of America's
crimes over the past fifteen years, particularly if one also considers the illegal NSA spying program headed by Michael Hayden, who
defended the practice and has also
referred to those who oppose enhanced interrogation torture as "interrogation deniers." And then there are Presidents Bush and
Obama who certainly knew what was going on in the name of the American people as well as John Brennan, who was involved in both the
torture and renditions programs as well as the more recent assassinations by drone.
So where are they now? Living in obscurity ashamed of what they did? Hardly. Not only have they not been vilified or marginalized,
they have, in most cases, been rewarded. George W. Bush lives in Dallas near his Presidential Library and eponymous Think (sic) Tank.
Cheney lives in semi-retirement in McLean Virginia with a multi-million dollar waterfront weekend retreat in St. Michaels Maryland,
not too far from Donald Rumsfeld's similar digs.
George Tenet, the CIA Director notorious for his "slam-dunk" comment, a man who cooked the intelligence to make the Iraq war possible
to curry favor with the White House, has generously remunerated positions on the boards of Allen & Company merchant bank, QinetiQ,
and L-1 Identity Solutions. He sold his memoir At the Center of the Storm, which has been
described
as a "self-justifying apologia," in 2007 for a reported advance of $4 million. His book, ironically, admits that the US invaded
Iraq for no good reason.
James Pavitt, who was the point man responsible for the "enhanced interrogation" program as Tenet's Deputy Director for Operations,
is currently a principal with The Scowcroft Group and also serves on several boards. Cofer Black, who headed the Counter-Terrorism
Center, which actually carried out renditions and "enhanced interrogations," was vice chairman of Blackwater Worldwide (now called
Xe) and chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, a Blackwater spin-off. He is now vice president of Blackbird Technologies, a defense
and intelligence contractor. Rodriguez, who succeeded Black and in 2005 illegally destroyed video tapes made of Agency interrogations
to avoid possible repercussions, is a senior vice president with Edge Consulting, a defense contractor currently owned by IBM that
is located in Virginia.
John Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley while Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of mushroom clouds and
is widely regarded as the worst National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in history, has returned to Stanford University.
She is a professor at the Graduate School
of Business and a director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy as well as a fellow at the Hoover Institution. She
is occasionally spoken of as either a possible GOP presidential candidate or as a future Commissioner of the National Football League.
Her interaction with students is limited, but when challenged on her record she has responded that it was a difficult situation post
9/11, something that everyone understands, though few would have come to her conclusion that attacking Iraq might be a good way to
destroy al-Qaeda.
Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense, is seen by many as the "intellectual" driving force behind the invasion
of Iraq. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and advises Jeb Bush on foreign policy. A bid to
reward Wolfie for his zeal by giving him a huge golden parachute as President of the World Bank at a salary of $391,000 tax free
failed when, after 23 months in the position, he was ousted over promoting a subordinate with whom he was having an affair. His chief
deputy at the Pentagon Doug Feith left the Defense Department to take up a visiting professorship at the school of Foreign Service
at Georgetown University, which was subsequently not renewed. He is reported to be again practicing law and thinking deep thoughts
about his hero Edmund Burke, who no doubt would have been appalled to make Feith's acquaintance. Feith is a senior fellow at the
neoconservative Hudson Institute and the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies. His memoir War and Decision did
not make the best seller list and is now available used on Amazon for $.01 plus shipping. If the marketplace is anything to go
by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01.
The over-rewarding of former officials who have in reality done great harm to the United States and its interests might well seem
inexplicable, but it is all part of a style of bureaucracy that cannot admit failure and truly believes that all its actions are
ipso facto legitimate because the executive and its minions can do no wrong. It is also a symptom of the classic American character
flaw that all things are of necessity measured by money. Does anyone remember the ancient Roman symbol of republican virtue Lucius
Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm after being named Dictator in order to defeat Rome's enemies? He then handed power back
to the Senate before returning to his plowing after the job was done. The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act,
writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great
honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." George Washington was America's Cincinnatus and it is
not a coincidence that officers of the continental army founded the Cincinnati Society, the nation's oldest patriotic organization,
in 1783. It is also reported that Edward Snowden used the alias "Cincinnatus."
Lord Acton once observed that "Power tends
to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." More recently essayist Edward Abbey
put it in an American context, noting
"Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." That senior government officials and politicians
routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds is a
fault that is perhaps not unique to the United States but it is nevertheless unacceptable. Handing out a couple of exemplary prison
sentences for the caste that believes itself untouchable would be a good place to start. An opportunity was missed with David Petraeus,
who was fined and avoided jail time, and it will be interesting to see how the Dennis Hastert case develops. Hastert will no doubt
be slapped on the wrist for the crime of moving around his own money while the corruption that was the source of that money, both
as a legislator and lobbyist, will be ignored. As will his molestation of at least one and possibly several young boys. One thing
for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry.
"... oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all. ..."
Long ago (1968) after returning from Vietnam with a bullet hole in my leg (my 90 wonder, post-ROTC officer shot me when he
panicked) I wondered off to a down-at-the-heel cow college. There I took a class and C Wright Mills 'The Power Elite' was required
reading.
I had just finished 'War is a fraud' and read an article by Paul Ehrlich an then 'The Population Bomb' shortly thereafter.
The three books created an interesting fusion in my mind:
More or less after the year 2000 the world would be plagued by resource wars;
The primary role of the military is to enforce what capitalists want; and
Behind the alleged scenes of our form of government hovered oligarchs who would demand more and more.
I recently found a paper I had written long ago. It wasn't very well written, but even then the handwriting was on the wall:
oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton
began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the
hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all.
I guess the point of all of this is (except for the details) Ehrlich, Mills and Butler warned us. As did Huxley and Orwell
... we were just too damned dumb (or distracted) to see it.
Maybe with the Queen of Chaos, the above will result in either annihilation or in a severe reduction in the numbers of people
... (hopefully including all of the oligarchic class) and the chance to start over?
Nah ... we'll just fuck it up again ... as a species we refuse to learn. Sigh ...
"... Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal' mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore. ..."
"... Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning, the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a series of impossible demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar not long ago ..."
"... Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. ..."
"... Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia. ..."
"... Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way. ..."
"... False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army. On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media ..."
As a history student years ago I remember our teacher explaining how past events are linked to what happens in the future. He
told us human behaviour always dictates that events will repeat in a similar way as before. I remember we studied 20th century history
and discussed World War I and the links to World War II. At this time, we were in the middle of the Cold War and in unchartered waters
and I couldn't really link past events to what was likely to happen next. Back then I guess like many I considered US presidents
more as statesman. They talked tough on the Soviet Union but they talked peace too. So, the threat to humanity was very different
then to now. Dangerous but perhaps a stable kind of dangerous. After the break up of the Soviet Union we then went through a phase
of disorderly change in the world. In the early 1990s the war in the Former Yugoslavia erupted and spread from republic to republic.
Up until the mid-to-late nineties I didn't necessarily sense that NATO and the West were the new threat to humanity. While there
was a clear bias to events in Yugoslavia there was still some even-handedness or fairness. Or so I thought. This all changed in 1999
with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges
and so on. But my wake-up call was the daily NATO briefings on the war. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being
destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage
of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative.
When the peace agreement was reached, out of 300 Serbian tanks which had entered Kosovo at the start of the conflict, over 285
were counted going back into Serbia proper which was
confirmation he had been
lying .
From this conflict onwards I started to see clear parallels with events of the past and some striking similarities with the lead
up to previous world wars. This all hit home when observing events in Syria and more recently Venezuala. But looking around seeing
people absorbed in their phones you wouldn't think the world is on the brink of war. For most of us with little time to watch world
events there are distractions which have obscured the picture historians and geopolitical experts see more clearly.
Recent and current
western leaders haven't been short people in military uniform shouting. That would be far too obvious. It's still military conflict
and mass murder but in smart suits with liberal sound-bites and high-fives. Then the uncool, uncouth conservative Trump came along
and muddied the waters.
Briefly it seemed there might be hope that these wars would stop. But there can be little doubt he's been
put under pressure to comply with the regime change culture embedded in the Deep State. Today, through their incendiary language
we see US leaders morphing into the open style dictators of the past. The only thing missing are the military uniforms and hats.
Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal'
mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up
to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore.
Let's look at some of these:
1) Military build up, alliances and proxy wars – for all the chaos and mass murder pursued by the Obama Administration he did
achieve limited successes in signing agreements with Iran and Cuba. But rather than reverse the endless wars as promised Trump cancels
the agreements leaving the grand sum of zilch foreign policy achievements. NATO has been around for 70 years, but in the last 20
or so has become obsessed with military build up. Nowadays it has hundreds of bases around the world but keeps destablising non-aligned
states, partly to isolate Russia and China. And Syria sums up the dangers of the regime change model used today. With over a dozen
states involved in the proxy war there is a still high risk of conflict breaking out between US and Russia. The motives for military
build up are many. First there are powerful people in the arms industry and media who benefit financially from perpetual war. The
US while powerful in military terms are a declining power which will continue, new powers emerging. The only return on their money
they can see is through military build up. Also there are many in government, intelligence services and media who can see that if
the current order continues to crumble they are likely to be prosecuted for various crimes. All this explains the threatening language
and the doubling-down on those who challenge them. In 1914, Europe had two backward thinking military alliance blocks and Sarajevo
showed how one event could trigger an unstoppable escalation dragging in many states. And empires such as Austro-Hungary were crumbling
from within as they are now. So a similar mentality prevails today where the powerful in these empires under threat favour conflict
to peace. For these individuals it's a last throw of the dice and a gamble with all our lives.
2) Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning,
the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and
unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US
has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a
series of impossible
demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic
as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day
US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with
Qatar not long ago.
3) Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is
in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. In addition we face a situation
of highly unpredictable, ideological regional leaders in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Most worrying of all, the language, threats
and actions of Trump, Pompeo and Bolton suggests there are psychopathic tendencies in play. Behind this is a Deep State and Democrat
Party pushing even harder for conflict. The level of paranoia is discouraging any notion of peace. 30 years ago Russia and US would
sit down at a summit and reach a consensus. Today a US leader or diplomat seen talking to a Russian official is accused of collusion.
When there are limited channels to talk in a crisis, you know we are in trouble. In Germany in the 1930s, ideology, propaganda and
creating enemies were key in getting the population on side for war. The leaders within the Nazi clique, Hitler, Goring and Himmler
look disturbingly similar to the Trump, Pompeo, Bolton line up.
4) Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public
would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been
a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia.
The terms and words; regime change, mass murder and terrorist have all been substituted by the media with 'humanitarian intervention',
'limited airstrikes' and 'moderate rebels' to fool a distracted public that the victims of the aggression are the bad guys. Western
funded 'fact checking' sites such as Bellingcat have appeared pushing the misdirections to a surreal new level. Obama was portayed
in the media as a cool guy and a little 'soft' on foreign policy. This despite the carnage in Libya, Syria and his drones. Sentiments
of equal rights and diversity fill the home affairs sections in the liberal press, while callous indifference and ethno-centrism
towards the Middle East and Russia dominate foreign affairs pages. In the press generally, BREXIT, non-existent anti-Semitism and
nonsense about the 'ISIS bride' continues unabated. This media circus seeks to distract from important matters, using these topics
to create pointless divisions, causing hostility towards Muslims and Jews in the process. The majority of a distracted public have
still not twigged largely because the propaganda is more subtle nowadays and presented under a false humanitarian cloak. A small
but vocal group of experts and journalists challenging these narratives are regularly smeared as
Putin
or Assad "apologists" . UK journalists are regularly caught out lying and some long standing hoaxes such as Russiagate exposed.
Following this and Iraq WMDs more people are starting to see a pattern here. Yet each time the media in the belief they've bamboozled
enough move on to the next big lie. This a sign of a controlled media which has reached the point of being unaccountable and untouchable,
deeply embedded within the establishment apparatus. In the lead up to World War II the Nazis ran an effective media propaganda campaign
which indoctrinated the population. The media in Germany also reached the point their blindingly obvious lies were rarely questioned.
The classic tactic was to blame others for the problems in Germany and the world and project their crimes on to their victims. There
are some differences as things have evolved. The Nazis created the media and state apparatus to pursue war. Nowadays this is the
opposite way around. Instead the state apparatus is already in place so whoever is leader whether they describe themself as liberal
or conservative, is merely a figurehead required to continue the same pro-war policies. Put a fresh-looking president in a shiny
suit and intoduce him to the Queen and you wouldn't think he's the biggest mass murderer since Hitler. Although there are some differences
in the propaganda techniques, all the signs are that today's media are on a similar war-footing as Germany's was just prior to the
outbreak of World War II.
5) Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli
aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for
time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily
unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way.
6) False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by
Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of
the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army.
On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being
played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media. The next flashpoint in Syria is Idlib, where it's highly
likely a new chemical fabrication will be attempted this Spring. In the 1930s the Nazis were believed to use false flags with increasing
frequency to discredit and close down internal opposition. Summary – We now live in a society where exposing warmongering is a more
serious crime than committing it. Prisons hold many people who have bravely exposed war crimes – yet most criminals continue to walk
free and hold positions of power. And when the media is pushing for Julian Assange to be extradicted you know this is beyond simple
envy of a man who has almost single-handedly done the job they've collectively failed to do. They are equally complicit in warmongering
hence why they see Assange and others as a threat. For those not fooled by the smart suits, liberal platitudes and media distraction
techniques, the parallels with Germany in the 1930s in particular are now fairly obvious. The blundering military alliances of 1914
and the pure evil of 1939 – with the ignorance, indifference and narcissism described above make for a destructive mix. Unless something
changes soon our days on this planet are likely be numbered. Depressing but one encouraging thing is that the indisputable truth
is now in plain sight for anyone with internet access to see and false narratives have collapsed before. It's still conceivable that
something may create a whole chain of events which sweep these dangerous parasites from power. So anything can happen. In the meantime
we should keep positive and continue to spread the message.
Kevin Smith is a British citizen living and working in London. He researches and writes down his thoughts on the foreign wars
promoted by Western governments and media. In the highly controlled and dumbed down UK media environment, he's keen on exploring
ways of discouraging ideology and tribalism in favour of free thinking.
2- 'Israel and its US relationship'. The 'hands off' policy of the Western powers, guarantees that Syria cannot even be a trigger
to any 'global conflict', supposing that a 'global conflict' was on the cards, especially when Russia is just a crumbling shadow
of the USSR and China a giant with feet of clay, heavily dependent on Western oligarchic goodwill, to maintain its economy and
its technological progress.
In 1914, the Serbian crisis was just trigger of WWI and not a true cause. It is not even clear if it was Germany that dragged
Austria-Hungary into the war or Russia. Although there was a possibility (only a possibility), that a swift and 'illegal' attack
by Austria-Hungary (without an ultimatum), would have localised and contained the conflict.
There is no similarity whatsoever between the 1914 'diktats' and modern US policy, as the US is the sole Superpower and its
acts are not opposed by a balancing and corresponding alliance. Save in the Chinese colony of North Korea, where the US is restrained
by a tacit alliance of the North Eastern Asiatic powers: China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, that oppose any military action
and so promote and protect North Korean bullying. Qatar, on the other hand, is one of the most radical supporters of the Syrian
opposition and terrorist groups around the muslim world, even more than Saudi Arabia and there are powerful reasons for the confrontation
of the Gulf rivals.
You should go back in Time and STUDY what really happened .. that means going back to the Creation of the socalled British Empire
..the Bank of England , the British East Indian Company , the Opium Wars and the Opium Trafficing , the Boer Wars for Gold and
Diamonds , the US Civil War and its aftermath , the manipulations of Gold and Silver by socalled british Financial Interests ,
The US Spanish Wars , the Japanese Russian War , the failed Coup against Czar Russia 1905 , the Young Turk Coup against the Ottoman
Empire 1908, the Armenian Genocide , the Creation of the Federal Reserve 1913 , the Multitude of Assinations and other Terror
Attacks in the period from 1900 and upwards , WHO were the perpetraders ? , , WW 1 and its originators , the Bolshevik Coup 1917
, the Treaty of Versailles and the Actors in that Treaty ,the Plunder of Germany , the dissolution of Austria Hungary , the Bolshevik
Coup attempts all over Europe , and then the run up to WW 2 , the Actions of Poland agianst Germans and Czechs .. Hitler , Musolini
and finally WW 2 .the post war period , the Nuernberg Trials , the Holocaust Mythology , the Creation of Israel , Gladio , the
Fall of the Sovjet Empire and the Warshav Pact , the Wars in the Middle East , the endless Terror Actions , the murder of Kennedy
and a mass of False Flag Terrorist Attacks since then , the destruction of the Balkans and the Middle east THERE IS PLENTY of
EXCELLENT LITERATURE and ANALYSIS on all subjects .
It was your Obama that 'persecuted' Mr Assange !!!
Syria demonstrates that there has NOT been a Western strategy for regime change (specially after the 'defeats' in Iraq and
Afghanistan), let alone a proxy war, but, on the contrary, an effort to keep the tyranny of Assad in power, in a weaker state,
to avoid any strong, 'revolutionary' rival near Israel. Russia has been given a free hand in Syria, otherwise, if the West had
properly armed the resistance groups, it would have been a catastrophe for the Russian forces, like it was in Afghanistan during
the Soviet intervention.
Trump's policy of 'equal' (proportional) contributions for all members of NATO and other allies, gives the lie to the US military
return 'argument' and should be understood as part of his war on unfair competition by other powers.
The 'military' and diplomatic alliances of 1914 were FORWARD thinking, so much so that they 'repeated' themselves during WWII,
with slight changes. But it is very doubtful that the Empires, like the Austro-Hungarian o the Russian ones, would have 'crumbled'
without the outbreak of WWI. They were never under threat, as their military power during the war showed. Only a World War of
cataclysmic character could destroy them. A war, triggered, but not created, by the 'conflict seeking mentality' of the powerful
in the small countries of the Balkans.
Generally attributed to Senator Hiram Warren Johnson in 1918 that 'when war comes the first casualty is truth' is as much a truism
now as it was then.
I'm more inclined to support hauptmanngurski's proposition that the members of the armed forces, from both sides, who return
from conflicts with life-changing injuries or even in flag-draped caskets defended only the freedom of multinational enterprises
and conglomerates to make and continue to make vast profits for the privileged few at the population's expense.
As Kevin Smith makes abundantly clear we are all subject to the downright lies and truth-stretching from our government aided
and abetted by a compliant main stream media as exemplified in the Skripal poisoning affair, which goes far beyond the counting
of Serbian tanks supposedly destroyed during the Balkans conflict. The Skripals' are now God knows where either as willing participants
or as detainees and our government shows no signs of clarifying the matter, so who would believe what it put out anyway in view
of its track record of misinformation ? The nation doesn't know what to believe.
Sadly, I believe this has always been the way of things and I cannot even speculate on how long it will be before this nation
will realise it is being deliberately mis-led.
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and
liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the
thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate
his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow
Koreans.
Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and
Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia?
Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life
isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say
farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining
ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar.
Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state
of Israel.
"... Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor and messianic in its language. ..."
"... At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem," yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways. ..."
"... Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory is built. ..."
"... Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet. ..."
"... I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department. ..."
"... I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization, which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely. Neither is guaranteed. ..."
"... "Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened. ..."
"... Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire, ..."
"... We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or .... ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'. ..."
"... "If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country." ..."
Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are
part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from
the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but
can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and
he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and
integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy
of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor
and messianic in its language.
The foundation upon which Barnett builds his binary view of the world is heavily dependant upon the continued advancement of
globalization - almost exclusively so. However, advancing globalization is not pre-ordained. Barnett himself makes the case that
globalization is a fragile undertaking similar to an interconnected chain in which any broken link destroys the whole. Globalization
could indeed be like the biblical statue whose feet are made of clay. Globalization, and therefore the integration of the Gap,
may even stop or recede - just as the globalization of the early 20th century ended abruptly with the onset of WW I and a global
depression. Moreover, Barnett's contention that the United States has an exceptional duty and moral responsibility for "remaking
the world in America's image" might be seen by many as misguided and perhaps even dangerous.
The divide between the `Functioning Core' and the `Non-Integrating Gap' differs from the gulf between rich and poor in a subtle
yet direct way. State governments make a conscious decision to become connected vs. disconnected to advancing globalization. States
and their leaders can provide the infrastructure and the opening of large global markets to their citizens in ways that individuals
cannot. An example can serve to illustrate the point: You can be rich and disconnected in Nigeria or poor and disconnected in
North Korea. In each case the country you live in has decided to be disconnected. Citizens in this case have a limited likelihood
of staying rich and unlimited prospects of staying poor. But by becoming part of the functioning Core, the enlightened state allows
all citizens a running start at becoming part of a worldwide economic system and thus provide prospects for a better future because
global jobs and markets are opened up to them. A connected economy such as India's, for example, enables citizens who once had
no prospects for a better life to find well-paying jobs, such as computer-related employment. Prospects for a better Indian life
are directly the result of the Indian government's conscious decision to become connected to the world economy, a.k.a. embracing
globalization.
After placing his theory of the Core/Gap and preemptive war strategy firmly into the church of globalization, Barnett next
places his theory squarely upon the alter of rule sets. Few would argue that the world is an anarchic place and Barnett tells
us that rule sets are needed to define `good' and `evil' behavior of actors in this chaotic international system. An example of
such a rule set is the desire of the Core to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Other examples are the promulgation
of human rights and the need to stop genocide. Barnett also uses rule sets to define `system' rules that govern and shape the
actions, and even the psychology, of international actors. An example that Barnett gives of a system-wide rule set is the creation
of the `rule' defined by the United States during the Cold War called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Barnett claims that this
rule set effectively ended the possibility of war for all time amongst nuclear-capable great powers. Barnett states that the U.S.
now should export a brand new rule set called `preemptive war,' which aims to fight actors in the lawless Gap in order to end
international terrorism for all time. Barnett makes it clear that the Core's enemy is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (Middle
East), but a condition (disconnectedness).
Next, Barnett points out that system-wide competition has moved into the economic arena and that military conflict, when it
occurs, has moved away from the system-wide (Cold War), to inter-state war, ending up today with primarily state conflict vs.
individuals (Core vs. bin Laden, Core vs. Kim, etc.). In other words, "we are moving progressively away from warfare against states
or even blocs of states and toward a new era of warfare against individuals." Rephrased, we've moved from confrontations with
evil empires, to evil states, to evil leaders. An example of this phenomenon is the fact that China dropped off the radar of many
government hawks after 9/11 only to be replaced by terrorist groups and other dangerous NGOs "with global reach."
Barnett also points out that the idea of `connectivity' is central to the success of globalization. Without it, everything
else fails. Connectivity is the glue that holds states together and helps prevent war between states. For example, the US is not
likely to start a war with `connected' France, but America could more likely instigate a war with `disconnected' North Korea,
Syria or Iran.
Barnett then examines the dangers associated with his definition of `disconnectedness.' He cleverly describes globalization
as a condition defined by mutually assured dependence (MAD) and advises us that `Big Men', royal families, raw materials, theocracies
and just bad luck can conspire to impede connectedness in the world. This is one of few places in his book that Barnett briefly
discusses impediments to globalization - however, this short list looks at existing roadblocks to connectedness but not to future,
system-wide dangers to globalization.
At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore
never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited
some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by
claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard
wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem,"
yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion
that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways.
Barnett then takes us on a pilgrimage to the Ten Commandments of globalization. Tellingly, this list is set up to be more like
links in a chain than commandments. Each item in the list is connected to the next - meaning that each step is dependent upon
its predecessor. If any of the links are broken or incomplete, the whole is destroyed. For example, Barnett warns us that if there
is no security in the Gap, there can be no rules in the Gap. Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand
strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory
is built.
What else could kill globalization? Barnett himself tells us: "Labor, energy, money and security all need to flow as freely
as possible from those places in the world where they are plentiful to those regions where they are scarce." Here he is implying
that an interruption of any or all of these basic necessities can doom globalization. Barnett states clearly: "...(these are)
the four massive flows I believe are essential to protect if Globalization III is going to advance." Simply put, any combination
of American isolationism or closing of borders to immigration, a global energy crisis, a global financial crisis or rampant global
insecurity could adversely affect "connectedness," a.k.a. globalization. These plausible future events, unnerving as they are,
leave the inexorable advancement of globalization in doubt and we haven't yet explored other problems with Barnett's reliance
on globalization to make the world peaceful, free and safe for democracy.
Barnett goes on to tell us that Operation Iraqi Freedom was an "overt attempt to create a "System Perturbation" centered in
the Persian Gulf to trigger a Big Bang." His definition of a Big Bang in the Middle East is the democratization of the many totalitarian
states in the region. He also claims that the Big Bang has targeted Iran's "sullen majority."
Barnett claims that our problem with shrinking the Gap is not our "motive or our means, but our inability to describe the enemies
worth killing, the battles worth winning, and the future worth creating." Managing the global campaign to democratize the world
is no easy task. Barnett admits that in a worst-case scenario we may be stuck in the "mother of all intifadas" in Iraq. Critics
claim this is something that we should have planned for - that the insurgency should not have been a surprise, and that it should
have been part of the "peacemaking" planning. Barnett blithely states that things will get better "...when America internationalizes
the occupation." Barnett should not engage in wishful thinking here, as he also does when he predicted that Iraqis would be put
in charge of their own country 18 months after the fall of Baghdad. It would be more accurate if he claimed this would happen
18 months after the cessation of hostilities. Some critics claim that Iraq is an example that we are an "empire in a hurry" (Michael
Ignatieff), which then results in: 1) allocating insufficient resources to non-military aspects of the project and 2) attempting
economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame.
The final basic premise of Barnett's theory of the Core and the Gap is the concept of what he calls the "global transaction
strategy." Barnett explains it best: "America's essential transaction with the outside world is one of our exporting security
in return for the world's financing a lifestyle we could far more readily afford without all that defense spending." Barnett claims
that America pays the most for global stability because we enjoy it the most. But what about the other 80 countries in the Core?
Why is America, like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world's security and stabilization on its shoulders?
Barnett claims that historical analogies are useless today and point us in the wrong direction. I disagree. James Madison cautioned
us not to go abroad to seek monsters to destroy. We can learn from his simple and profound statement that there are simply too
many state (and individual) monsters in today's world for the U.S. to destroy unilaterally or preemptively. We must also avoid
overstretching our resources and power. Thucydides reminds us that the great democracy of Athens was brought to its knees by the
ill-advised Sicilian expedition - which resulted in the destruction of everything the Athenians held dear. Do not ignore history
as Barnett councils; heed it.
Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet.
Therefore, America needs to stay engaged in the affairs of the world, but Barnett has not offered conclusive evidence that the
U.S. needs to become the world's single Leviathan that must extinguish all global hot wars. Barnett also has not proved that America
needs to be, as he writes, "the one willing to rush in when everyone else is running away." People like Barnett in academia and
leaders in government may proclaim and ordain the U.S. to be a global Leviathan, but it is a conscious choice that should be thoroughly
debated by the American people. After all, it is upon the backs of the American people that such a global Leviathan must ride.
Where is the debate? The American people, upon reflection, may decide upon other courses of action.
I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend
it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the
military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department.
It seems to be well researched - having 35 pages of notes. Many of Barnett's citations come from the Washington Post and the
New York Times, which some may see as a liberal bias, but I see the sources as simply newspapers of record.
I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization,
which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely.
Neither is guaranteed.
I don't think poorly of Thomas Barnett himself. He's very bright and, I think, good hearted, BUT his well thought-out, well
argued pride and joy (and positive intellectual pursuit) is being badly distorted ---- which happens to all 'tools' that Empire
gets its hands on.
For those who like predictions, I would predict that Barnett will wind up going through an epiphany much like Francis Fukuyama
(but a decade later) and for much the same reason, that his life's work gets misused and abused so greatly that he works to reverse
and correct its misuse. Fukuyama, also brilliant, wrote "The End of History" in 1992 (which was misused by the neocons to engender
war), and now he's working just as hard to reverse a misuse that he may feel some guilt of his work supporting, and is writing
"The Future of History" as a force for good --- and I suspect (and hope) that Barnett will, in even less time, be counter-thinking
and developing the strategy and book to reverse the misuse of his 2004 book before the Global Empire pulls down the curtain.
"Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate
name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened.
Best luck and love to the fast expanding 'Occupy the Empire' educational and revolutionary movement against this deceitful,
guileful, disguised EMPIRE, which can't so easily be identified as wearing Red Coats, Red Stars, nor funny looking Nazi helmets
---- quite yet!
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding
wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem,
or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or ....
ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'.
"If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but
a Global Empire only posing as your former country."
"... Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents. ..."
People who seem to think that Trump's generals will somehow go along and support his original vision are sadly mistaken.
Since 2003, Israel has had an increasingly strong hand in the vetting who gets promoted to upper positions in the American
armed forces. All of the generals Trump has at his side went through a vetting procedure which definitely involved a very close
look at their opinions about Israel.
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened
in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003.
Officers who openly oppose the dictates of the Israel Lobby will see their prospects for advancement simply vanish like a whiff
of smoke.. Those who support Israel's machinations are rewarded with promotions, the more fervent the support the more rapid the
promotion especially if this knowledge is made known to their congressman or senator..
Generals who support Israel already know that this support will be heavily rewarded after their retirements by being given
lucrative six figure positions on company boards of directors or positions in equally lucrative think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institution or the Hoover Institute. They will receive hefty speaking fees. as well. They learned early that their
retirements could be truly glorious if they only "went" along with The Lobby. They will be able to then live the good life in
expensive places like Washington, New York or San Francisco, often invited to glitzy parties with unlimited amount of free prawns
"the size of your hand".
On the other hand, upper officers who somehow get then get "bad" reputations for their negative views about Israel ( like Karen
U. Kwiatkowski for instance) will end up, once retired, having to depend on just their often scanty pensions This requires getting
an often demeaning second jobs to get by in some place where "their dollar goes further". No bright lights in big cities for them.
No speaking fees, no college jobs. Once their fate becomes known, their still active duty contemporaries suddenly decide to "go
along".
If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years
ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents.
Face it, we live in a country under occupation by a hostile power that we willingly pay large amounts monetary tribute to.
Our government does whatever benefits Israel regardless of how negatively this effects the USA. We are increasing troop strength
in Afghanistan because, somehow, this benefits Israel. If our presence in Afghanistan (or the Mideast in general) didn't benefit
Israel, our troops would simply not be there.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon,Somalia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive
was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
There have been numerous smears of Tulsi Gabbard that have been repeated over and over the
last few years after she went to Syria. She started to give the foreign policy blob a lot of
grief for their support of the overthrow of Syria to install a theocratic jihadi government
controlled by the usual suspects.
One smear they like to use is to call Tulsi an Islamophobe. That began years ago when she
criticized Our Savior Obama (pbaj) for claiming ISIS was not a religious extremist
organization, that it was a criminal group and the US needed to give Iraqi men more to do and
then they wouldn't join those criminal gangs like...ISIS.
Anyways, this article goes into a deeper state (yup, deeper than usual) conspiracy by
various actors to smear Tulsi for a variety of reasons subservient to foreign interests, with
a surprise intro to another often unspoken of interest with a lot of hidden power in
Washington.
"... Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false) meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress should declare war. And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941. ..."
I just read your article in TD. In my opinion you buried the reason for never ending wars.
You mention exceptionalism. I call that concept preeminence. With it is one of the few ways
we try to fill the void, or as you said in fewer words, try to give meaning to life. There
can be no doubt our lives are becoming increasingly meaningless so we double down and double
down again with what we know despite the self-destruction. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2015/6/25/life-a-reaction-to-the-void
Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false)
meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress
should declare war.
And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941.
Doug Barr–It appears to me you are trying to blur some lines, or perhaps you are
confused about, what one might call general human psychology and the official policies of a
specific government, that of the USA. [As a student of Anthropology, I point out that though
our primate ancestors are prone to outbursts of violence, there is no evidence that making
war, especially in the contemporary phase of human society, fulfills an innate "need."] Yes,
the US seeks to be "pre-eminent"–or to be blunter, DOMINANT–over the rest of the
globe. Where "exceptionalism"–which I have designated the American Disease–enters
the picture is the attempt to justify military aggression by suggesting (some are less subtle
and openly assert) that the US somehow has been granted a "right" to do this by "a higher
power." (Apparently God Himself revealed to George W. Bush that he was born to be "a war
president" and the genius Rick Perry asserted recently that Donald Trump was put in the
presidency by direct Divine action.) A "right" to send assassin drones anywhere, anytime, to
target anyone who's been designated a Bad Guy. This is absurd, if not insane, on the face of
it. (In olden times, Rudyard Kipling called it "the white man's burden" to bring civilization
to less "enlightened" peoples.) If there was an international court that had some teeth, the
US would be vigorously swatted down, ordered to cease and desist. But one of the greatest
tragedies of our time is that there is no power on Earth that could stand up to this Monster
(as John Kay and his band Steppenwolf rightly identified the US 50 years ago) even if it
could find the backbone to make the attempt.
After more than 17 years of the United States pouring blood and treasure into the effort
to build an Afghan army and government, why is it that the Kabul government continues to lose
ground against the Taliban? Further, why were we unsuccessful creating an Iraqi army that
could stand on its own against the Islamic State?
Before that, of course, came Vietnam.
Nor was that the start of the failure of American-backed armies. I was a teenager in 1949
when Chiang Kai-shek's American-backed Nationalist army lost to the Communist forces of Mao
Zedong in China. The American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, having conducted a study on
why our side lost, declared: "The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they
disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself, and
an army without morale, cannot survive the test of battle."
Forty-four years ago, the American-trained and American-supplied army of South Vietnam
simply melted away before the less-well-equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam.
In 1975, I watched South Vietnamese soldiers taking off their uniforms and running away in
their underwear as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.
Five years ago, the world watched another American-trained and American-equipped Iraqi
army bolt and run when the better motivated Islamic State forces overran Mosul in Northern
Iraq.
Why, over and over again, does the side America has backed in these civil wars end up
defeated? Four threads connect these lost wars of the last 70 years: corruption, patriotic
nationalism, a misplaced belief in American exceptionalism, and self-deception.
I saw corruption on a grand scale in Saigon. Generals and government officials were
funneling America's tax dollars into bank accounts abroad, fielding ghost armies in which
there were fewer soldiers on the ground than on the official payrolls. In Baghdad during the
American occupation, I learned that billions of American taxpayer dollars were bleeding out
to the Persian Gulf and Jordan, causing a laundered money real estate boom in the Jordanian
capital. In Afghanistan I learned that Afghan officers and soldiers routinely robbed the
villages they were sent to protect. Corruption sapped the people's belief in their US-backed
government in all four wars. Soldiers saw no reason to die for corrupt officials.
A second thread is that our side always appeared to be fighting on the side of foreigners,
while the Communists in China and Vietnam, as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan,
always had a better grip on patriotic nationalism and resistance to foreigners. The
anti-colonial struggle was more important than the threat of Communism in most of the
post-World War II world, and the Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan knew how to
exploit the traditional resistance to foreign rule. The Taliban could appeal to patriotism
while trying to expel the infidel forces of the United States, just as their fathers,
grandfathers, and great grandfathers had resisted the Russians and the British before that in
the name of jihad.
A third thread is a curiously American trait of willfully ignoring other people's history
and cultures. I remember asking an American officer in Vietnam if he had read anything of the
French experience in Vietnam. His answer: "No, why should I? They lost, didn't they?" Robert
McNamara, defense secretary and an architect of our Vietnam War, said in later life that
Americans had never understood the Vietnamese. There were plenty of people who could have
helped him understand, but he wasn't interested. We were Americans -- exceptional, and
therefore not susceptible to the same forces that thwarted other efforts.
I met Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad who knew nothing about the great schism
between Sunnis and Shia Muslims that was tearing the country apart. American-style democracy
was the answer to all ills, they felt. In Afghanistan I met Americans who thought purple ink
on the fingers of Afghans who had voted was the answer to a thousand years of tribal and
ethnic rivalries.
The fourth thread is self-deception. In Saigon, in Baghdad, and in Kabul I attended
briefings in which progress was always being made, the trend lines were always favorable, and
we were always winning wars we were actually losing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for
reality. Americans can train and assist the armies of those whom we want to support in the
civil wars of others, but we cannot supply the motivation and morale that is necessary to
survive the test of battle.
As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that shattered American
life 18 years ago, its full impact is still unfolding. Those who planned it succeeded beyond
their wildest dreams. The airborne assaults that took nearly 3,000 lives on that day may now
be seen as the most diabolically successful terror attack in history. That attack not only
wreaked carnage at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
It wound up dragging the United States into an endless state of war that has drained our
treasury, poisoned our politics, created waves of new terrorism, and made us the enemy of
millions around the world.
The apparent chief perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden, presumably cackled
with joy when he heard news of his success on that stunning day. He lived for another 10
years, long enough to cackle with even greater glee at Washington's self-defeating response
to the attack. Using the 9/11 attack as a pretext, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Bin Laden died knowing that he had lured us into the greatest foreign policy disaster in
American history.
It is a truism that our lives are shaped not by what happens to us, but by how we react to
what happens to us. The same applies to nations. Devastating as the death toll was on Sept.
11, 2001, it turned out to be only a taste of what was to come. The United States has been at
war ever since. Thousands of Americans have died. So have hundreds of thousands of civilians
in the Middle East and beyond. This nearly two-decade-long spasm of attacking, bombing, and
occupying countries has decisively shaped the United States and its image in the world. Every
day that our "forever war" continues is a triumph for bin Laden. So is every wounded veteran
who returns home, every newly minted terrorist infuriated by an American attack, every
citizen of the world who recoils at what US forces are being sent to do. We did not simply
fall into bin Laden's trap, we raced in at full speed. Even now, we show little will to
extricate ourselves.
America's determination to strike back with devastating force after 9/11 was
understandable given our shared sense of ravaged innocence. We might have launched a
concentrated strike against the gang of several hundred criminals whose leaders attacked the
United States, and then come home. Instead we have used the 9/11 attack to justify wars and
military deployments around the world.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed an "authorization for the use of military force"
against the perpetrators of that week's attack and against their "associated forces." Three
presidents have used that authorization to deploy troops across the Middle East and in
countries from Kenya to Georgia to the Philippines. Every call for US withdrawal from
Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is met by warnings that ending wars could produce "another
9/11." This has become the paralyzing mantra that prevents us from halting the hydra-headed
military campaign we have been waging for 18 years. We also use it to justify atrocities at
prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Bin Laden has succeeded even in colonizing our
minds.
Soon after passing its highly elastic authorization for military action against
"associated forces," Congress approved another, even more sweeping law: the Patriot Act. It
gave the government broad new power to monitor people and businesses, and has become a
foundation stone of our emerging "surveillance state." The 9/11 attack led us to distort not
only our approach to the world, but also the balance between freedom and security at
home.
Another pernicious aftereffect of the terror attack has been the deepening of our national
us-against-them narrative. This began with President George W. Bush's assertion that every
country in the world had to be "either with us or against us." Crusader rhetoric posits the
United States as the indispensable guardian of civilization, entitled to act as it chooses in
order to fend off a threatening tide of barbarism. Now this approach has leaked back into the
United States. Racist attacks that tear at our social fabric are the domestic reflection of
foreign policies that see the rest of the world as a hostile "other" bent on destroying our
way of life.
Last month it was announced that the five surviving alleged plotters of the 9/11 attack
will finally be brought to trial in 2021. If they are aware of what is happening in the
world, they will arrive in court with a deep sense of satisfaction. Their great triumph was
not the attack. It was the damage the United States has since inflicted upon itself.
Acheson is parroting Napoleon: "In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1."
He is wrong in the matter of "faith", unless the Chiang's army lost faith in Chiang's
moral poverty, what he stood for.
A better quote about Chiang losing is written by George C. Marshall, who went over and
came back sure Chiang was done for.
He said: "The US would not be dragged through the mud by those reactionaries". Meaning
Chiang was not the moral power in China.
Same for Vietnam US puppets were not and had no moral power/authority.
In Afghanistan same!
Iraq is split in moral authority, the areas populated by Shi'a are okay as long as the
central government does not pander to the Sunni 1/3 (Baathists were suppressing Shi'a).
I do not agree with quoting Acheson when there is plenty of professional soldier writings
that say it more clearly.
After Korea the professional soldiers were no longer expressive when it cme to propping
thugs, with no moral power in their own borders (granted many of the borders surround
fictional counties).
US has stood with thugs for most of its quagmire experience.......
This week US is looking for a way to start a new quagmire with Iran for royal murderers'
sharing their oil company!
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
New book by David NorthA Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North.
The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both
softcover
and hardcover
.
***
"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than
in the period of boom."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1928
"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must
be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing
mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1934
This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response
of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The
analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does
not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism.
Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding
of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to
the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of
its occurrence.
Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description
of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another
personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama
bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim
Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list
of monsters requiring destruction.
The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign
policy of the United States.
First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in
1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it
emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would
lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee
the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:
It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the
postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims
the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control
over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated.
In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination
of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [
1 ]
This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but
also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."
In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency
of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining
in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:
If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty
given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave
behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [
2 ]
On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations
in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner
in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled
with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."
Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the
order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize,
in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes
necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found
his wars "maddeningly hard to end."
The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective
forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr.
Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal
specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the
historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.
But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American
foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost
continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.
The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context
of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The
first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [
3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was
that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either
the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the
USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military
restraint.
It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power,
amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment
of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow
Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later,
V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow
the bourgeois Provisional Government.
Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the
struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:
For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed
could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war,
and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [
4 ]
Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge,
in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political,
and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P.
Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [
5 ]
Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:
The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about
what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of
that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.
And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [
6 ]
In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support
of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.
It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement
was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating
the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution
in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain
and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance
with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly
deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth
of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.
The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed
working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist
revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view
that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were
of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [
7 ]
In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent
that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material
support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own
interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the
compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted
access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the
Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations
over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the
tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen
Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World
War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.
There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic
claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the
Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations
published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum.
Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:
No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition
of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom.
The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual
of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [
8 ]
The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also
his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected.
The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:
Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will
be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the
energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [
9 ]
In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked
a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged
as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to
Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [
10 ]
The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of
American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces
unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities
of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted
and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet
Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded
the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.
Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended
tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises;
(2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition
to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives'
Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford,
who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes
and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the
federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the
Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized
by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure
of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of
impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a
president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.
The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic
position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the
economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth
and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable
tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton
Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.
The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength,
of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion
that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense
military power.
The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions
of US imperialism:
There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture
of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor. [ 11 ]
The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up
Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999
bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that
decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and
Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.
The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an
all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa.
They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign
policy.
The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed
9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision.
The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would
necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.
The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US
in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the
world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.
In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in
response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States.
Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction
between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless
of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda
purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.
The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation
of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext
was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the
US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are
component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential
significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which
lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between
the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany.
The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International
Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the
surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly
voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations,
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:
As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held
its ground. . . .
Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the
United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power
in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the
political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a
unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]
In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism
-- for any nation." [ 13 ]
The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the
"War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred
miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern
Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult
to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt
into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers
called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.
One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United
States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the
key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely.
A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:
Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether
there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic
about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [
14 ]
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that
the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes
that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict
between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings
would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.
On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct.
Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be
sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.
The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system.
If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program,
and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics,
in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy
of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [
15 ]
In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and
its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular
protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its
former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.
There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter
of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar
movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that
was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving
the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel
Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that
war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime
of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep
russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of
the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine
workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia"
by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that
the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian
military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms
with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism
with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution.
Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
I can imagine that
the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given
enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919,
etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky
was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic
world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the
new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the
traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or
die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s
against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and
what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.
After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became
more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.
for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch
search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal
values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity
of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.
As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated
to the realms of Greatness.
As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos
lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....
Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist
warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies
- which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments
and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the
entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown
of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also
have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual
wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.
March 12, 2019 at 5:25
pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN
Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law
prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."
Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli
"dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly
given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President
t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.
Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type
of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US
military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an
Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland"
law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman
raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on
the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
@ChuckOrloski I
can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery.
As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and
donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these
should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally,
desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and
severely punish those who expose these crimes.
I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of
any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves
are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash.
Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel
influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.
Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated
Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's
France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.
The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit
super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.
If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private
GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved
partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.
I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers
and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military
bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term,
but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called
defense contractors, and the " emergency
men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the
national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some
quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits,
promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course,
that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they
come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service
rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this:
in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they
have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation,
they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning
hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and
departing after a couple years to
make way for someone else to give it a try.
... ... ...
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election
already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to
declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white,
that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity.
No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will
scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues
of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue
to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.
1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total
casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified,
especially relative to population.
2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20
years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.
The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the
last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that
direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January
afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the
JFK treatment, who knows.
No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people
get what they want, good and hard.
I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the
Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy
of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to
until the Empire collapses.
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I
highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of
governments:
Controversy
On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.
In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently
criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in
Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European
distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in
1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining
relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.
In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was
first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until
1970.[18]
At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they
supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public,
always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or
that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public
about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what
is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate
stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for
there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to
govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself
surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with
them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving –
they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia.
Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with
dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly
beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap?
You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to
JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.
Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They
can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge.
CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy
the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your
bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison
CIA SIS or GTFO.
Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of
course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene
may be the best final scene in the history of movies.
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium
seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the
yankee system of permanent war.
While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the
elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively
powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.
Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then
a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must
divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here
the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are
extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could
beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and
Pharaohs because they are global.
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was
the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the
demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit
today.
I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were
as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading
British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human,
and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.
Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate
attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again
with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their
profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals,
within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious
idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive
– ie it's not a "good" strategy)
The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony
over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan,
at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to
fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq:
Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic
location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya:
who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate
them regardless.
Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that
it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional
"war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the
1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right"
people)
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the
instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so
many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for
the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great,
big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is
no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this
curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and
all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that
the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of
grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know
what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so
they are likely to stick with Washington .
Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is
the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar
world."
The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.
On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for
Foreign Policy titled "It's Time to Bomb North Korea."
Luttwak's thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may
very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to
responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue
nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of
humanity.
However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear
weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country
must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.
In August of 1945, this rogue nation dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, not
military targets, completely obliterating between 135,000 and
300,000 Japanese civilians in just these two acts alone. Prior to this event, this country
killed even more civilians in the infamous
firebombing of Tokyo and other areas of Japan, dropping close to 500,000 cylinders of
napalm and petroleum jelly on some of Japan's most densely populated areas.
Recently, historians have become more open to the possibility that dropping the atomic bombs
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not actually necessary to end World War II. This has also been
confirmed by those who actually took part in it. As the Nation
explained:
Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public
address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that 'the atomic bomb played
no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan ' Adm. William
"Bull" Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946 that 'the first
atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . It was a mistake to ever drop it . [the
scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it
A few months' prior, this rogue country's
invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa also claimed at least one quarter of Okinawa's
population. The Okinawan people have been protesting this country's military presence ever
since. The most recent ongoing protest
has lasted well over 5,000 days in a row.
This nation's bloodlust continued well after the end of World War II. Barely half a decade
later, this country bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories,
5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and
eventually killing off as much as 20 percent of the country's population. As the Asia
Pacific Journal has noted, the assaulting country dropped so many bombs that they eventually
ran out of targets to hit, turning to bomb the irrigation systems, instead:
By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every
significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the
spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the
North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to
the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating
whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans."
This was just the beginning. Having successfully destroyed the future North Korean
state, this country moved on to the rest of East Asia and Indo-China, too. As Rolling Stone's
Matt Taibbi
has explained :
We [this loose cannon of a nation] dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam
from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win
'hearts and minds' that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease
– including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen
heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of
view, of course.
This mass murder led to the deaths of between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people,
according to the Washington Post. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were unleashed
during the entire
conflict in World War II . While this was going on, this same country was also
secretly bombing Laos and Cambodia, too, where there are over 80 million
unexploded bombs still killing people to this day.
This country also decided to bomb Yugoslavia ,
Panama
, and
Grenada before invading Iraq in the early 1990s. Having successfully bombed Iraqi
infrastructure, this country then punished Iraq's entire civilian population with brutal
sanctions. At the time, the U.N.
estimated that approximately 1.7 million Iraqis had died as a result, including
500,000 to 600,000 children . Some years later, a prominent medical journal attempted
to absolve the cause of this infamous history by refuting the statistics involved despite
the fact that, when interviewed during the sanctions-era, Bill Clinton's secretary of state,
Madeleine Albright, intimated that to this rogue government, the
deaths of half a million children were "worth it" as the "price" Iraq needed to pay. In other
words, whether half a million children died or not was irrelevant to this bloodthirsty nation,
which barely blinked while carrying out this murderous policy.
This almighty superpower then invaded Iraq again in 2003 and plunged the entire region
into chaos . At the end of May 2017, the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
released a study
concluding that the death toll from this violent nation's 2003 invasion of Iraq had led to over
one million deaths and that at least one-third of them were caused directly by the invading
force.
Not to mention this country also invaded Afghanistan prior to the invasion of Iraq (even
though the militants plaguing Afghanistan were
originally trained and financed by this warmongering nation). It then
went on to bomb Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and the
Philippines .
Libya famously
had one of the highest standards of living in the region. It had state-assisted healthcare,
education, transport, and affordable housing. It is now a lawless war-zone
rife with extremism where slaves are openly traded like commodities
amid the power vacuum created as a direct result of the 2011 invasion.
In 2017, the commander-in-chief of this violent nation took the monumental death and
destruction to a new a level by removing
the restrictions on delivering airstrikes, which resulted in thousands upon
thousands of civilian deaths. Before that, in the first six months of 2017, this country
dropped
over 20,650 bombs , a monumental increase from the year that preceded it.
Despite these statistics, all of the above conquests are mere child's play to this nation.
The real prize lies in some of the more defiant and more powerful states, which this country
has already unleashed a containment strategy upon. This country has deployed its own troops all
across the border
with Russia even though it promised in the early 1990s it
would do no such thing. It also has a specific policy of
containing Russia's close ally, China, all the while threatening China's borders with talks
of direct strikes on North Korea (again, remember it already did so in the 1950s).
This country also elected a president who not only believes it is okay to embrace this rampantly violent
militarism but who openly calls other
countries "shitholes" – the very same term that aptly describes the way this country
has treated the rest of the world for decades on end. This same president also reportedly once
asked three times in a meeting
, "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" and shortly after proposed a policy to
remove the constraints protecting the world from his dangerous supply of advanced nuclear
weaponry.
If we have any empathy for humanity, it is clear that this country must be stopped. It
cannot continue to act like this to the detriment of the rest of the planet and the safety and
security of the rest of us. This country
openly talks about using its nuclear weapons, has used them before, and has continued to
use all manner of weapons unabated in the years since while threatening to expand the use of
these weapons to other countries.
Seriously, if North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while
watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing
but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to
come.
There is only one country that has done and that continues to do the very things North Korea
is being accused of doing.
Take as much time as you need for that to resonate.
1 The Korean War ends (1953
2 President Kennedy invades South Vietnam (1962)
3 The US overthrows Allende in Chile (1973)
4 The West installs Iranian dictator the Shah (1953)
5 The US-led Iraq invasion (2003)
Many honorable mentions including:
– NATO bombing of Serbia
– Libya
– Afghanistan
– Syria (support of ISIS and its predecessors and spinoffs)
The US body count is simply staggering – many millions killed, millions more wounded
or poisoned (Vietnam – agent orange and other chemical agents) and tens of millions of
lives forever damaged.
USA! USA! USA! (its elites that rule us of course!)
"... In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its "exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam. ..."
"... The cynical fabrication of "false flags" that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official documents, notably the Pentagon Papers ..."
"... Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this." ..."
"... Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941. ..."
In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its
"exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its
lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was
burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in
Vietnam.
Burns says he is grateful to "the entire Bank of America family" which "has long supported
our country's veterans". Bank of America was a corporate prop to an invasion that killed
perhaps as many as four million Vietnamese and ravaged and poisoned a once bountiful land. More
than 58,000 American soldiers were killed, and around the same number are estimated to have
taken their own lives.
I watched the first episode in New York. It leaves you in no doubt of its intentions right
from the start. The narrator says the war "was begun in good faith by decent people out of
fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War misunderstandings".
The dishonesty of this statement is not surprising. The cynical fabrication of "false flags"
that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident"
in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official
documents, notably the Pentagon Papers , which the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
released in 1971.
There was no good faith. The faith was rotten and cancerous. For me – as it must be
for many Americans ! it is difficult to watch the film's jumble of "red peril" maps,
unexplained interviewees, ineptly cut archive and maudlin American battlefield sequences.
... ... ...
The sheer energy and moral persistence of these great movements largely succeeded; by 1987
Reagan had negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)
that effectively ended the Cold War.
Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche
Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is
increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst
mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev
and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training
ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this."
But not in America. The thousands who turned out for Senator Bernie Sanders' "revolution" in
last year's presidential campaign are collectively mute on these dangers. That most of
America's violence across the world has been perpetrated not by Republicans, or mutants like
Trump, but by liberal Democrats, remains a taboo.
Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record,
including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected
government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's
western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941.
"... Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies professor from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team created an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014. ..."
"... " Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions. ..."
Tyler Durden
Aug 26, 2017 9:15 PM 0
SHARES
US has had a military presence across the world
, from almost day one of its independence.
For those who have ever wanted a clearer picture of the true reach of the United States
military - both historically and currently - but shied away due to the sheer volume of research
required to find an answer,
The Anti Media points out
that
a crew at the
Independent
just made things a whole lot simpler.
Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies
professor
from Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team
created
an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from
Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014.
To avoid confusion, indy100 laid out its prerequisites for what constitutes an invasion:
" Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US
intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military
support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions.
But indy100 didn't stop there.
To put all that history into context, using
data
from the Department
of Defense (DOD), the team also put together a map to display all the countries in which nearly
200,000 active members of the U.S. military are now stationed.
"... As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits? ..."
As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the
end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits?
You start by assuming that the absence of war is the ultimate good, but none can say what a world without war would be like,
or how long it would last.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/wars-john-gray-conflict-peace
Has the world seen moral progress? The answer should not depend on whether one has a sunny or a morose temperament. Everyone
agrees that life is better than death, health better than sickness, prosperity better than privation, freedom better than tyranny,
peace better than war. All of these can be measured, and the results plotted over time. If they go up, that's progress.
For John Gray, this is a big problem. As a part of his campaign against reason, science and Enlightenment humanism, he insists
that the strivings of humanity over the centuries have left us no better off. This dyspepsia was hard enough to sustain when
Gray first expressed it in the teeth of obvious counterexamples such as the abolition of human sacrifice, chattel slavery and
public torture-executions. But as scholars have increasingly measured human flourishing, they have found that Gray is not just
wrong but howlingly, flat-earth, couldn't-be-more-wrong wrong. The numbers show that after millennia of near-universal poverty
and despotism, a steadily growing proportion of humankind is surviving infancy and childbirth, going to school, voting in democracies,
living free of disease, enjoying the necessities of modern life and surviving to old age.
And more people are living in peace. In the 1980s several military scholars noticed to their astonishment that the most
destructive form of armed conflict – wars among great powers and developed states – had effectively ceased to exist. At the
time this "long peace" could have been dismissed as a random lull, but it has held firm for an additional three decades.
In my opinion Gray, though wrong that violence is not decreasing, is onto something about the future being bleak because of
the rise of meliorist assumptions, because perpetual peace will be humanity's tomb.
While many suggest a danger for our world along the lines of
Brian Cox's explanation for the Fermi Paradox (ie intelligent life forms cross grainedly bring on self-annihilation through
unlimited war) I take a different view.
Given that Pinker appears substantially correct that serious war (ie wars among great powers and developed states) have effectively
ceased to exist, the trend is for peace and cooperation. Martin Nowak in his book The Supercoperators shows cooperation, not fighting,
to be the defining human trait (and indeed the most cooperative groups won their wars in history, whereby nation states
such the US are the result of not just individuals but familial tribal regional , and virtually continental groupings coming together
for mutual advantage and defence .
The future is going to be global integration pursuit of economic objectives, and I think this exponential moral progress bill
begat technological advances beyond imagining.. An escape from the war trap is almost complete and the Singularity becomes. The
most likely culprit in the paradox is a technological black hole event horizon created by unlimited peace and progress.
Cross-grained though it may be to say that the good war hallows every cause, I think it not so bad in comparison with the alternative.
Well put. These people are like the "nobles" of medieval times. They care not a whit about the "peasants" they trample. They
are wealth bigots, compounded by some ethnic bigotry or other, in this case Jewish supremacism. America has an oligarchy problem.
At the center of that oligarchy is a Jewish mafia controlling the banks, and thereby the big corporations, and thereby the media
and the government. This oligarchy sees America as a big, dumb military machine that it can manipulate to generate war profits.
"... There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris. ..."
The Russians were there in Yugoslavia but they were not following NATO's script. There was an incident where Russian forces
took control of a key airport to the total surprise of NATO. The US overall commander ordered the UK to go in and kick the Russians
out. The UK ground commander wisely said he was not prepared to start WW III over Russian control of an airfield.
There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion
of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was
removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess
this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris.
According to some commenters at MoA the US neocons can be viewed as a flavor of political psychopaths: "Linear thinking is precisely
how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation.
It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking
because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates
think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone
straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced
and banished from the Washington tribe."
and " the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath
manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops
in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things
to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create
our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single
time. "
Notable quotes:
"... Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying. ..."
"... Barack CIA 0bama. ..."
"... It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. ..."
"... Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit? ..."
"... Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives. ..."
"... you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals? ..."
"... it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion. ..."
"... the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him. ..."
"... Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP. ..."
"... There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade. ..."
"... My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc. ..."
"... Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe. ..."
"... the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed. ..."
"... Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing. ..."
"... It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that. ..."
"... Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them! ..."
"... Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage. ..."
"... America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction. ..."
"... the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time. ..."
"... The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression. ..."
"... Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda. ..."
"... The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story. ..."
"... Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST. ..."
"... The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it. ..."
"linear"?, I would say amateurish and often stupid! It seems that the USA cannot see far enough as it's submitted to regime changes
every 5 years and decisions are finally left to powerful lobbies that have a better continuity.
Provided the gross flaws
of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive
universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying.
"Linear" and all that is the mushy feel-good stuff on top of your arrogance. Kleptocracy only NOW putting down its roots? Come
on. Let's get back to the 90's where it started. Vengeance for 9/11? Cover?
It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. All's well in the world with
them as long as the USSA is grinding away on some near helpless ME country. Drugs and other natural resources flow from and death
and destruction flow to the unsuspecting Muslim targets.
With America, you're our friend, (or at least we tolerate you) until you're not (or we don't), then God help you and your innocent
hoards.
The organized and well scripted chaos has been just one act in the larger play of destroying western civilization with throngs
of Muslims now flooding western Europe and to a lesser degree, USA. Of course, the Deep State had felt confident in allowing Latinos
to destroy America...Trump has put a large crimp in the pipeline--one of the reasons he is hated so badly by the destructive PTB.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
It is entirely possible that the underlying objective of, for instance, invading Iraq was to win a war and bring democracy.
Subsequent behaviour in Iraq (and Afghanistan) indicates that there might be (likely is) a hidden but central other objective.
I do not want to state that I know what that is because I am not "in the know". However, much that you attribute to failure from
linear thinking just as easily can be explained by the complexity of realizing a "hidden agenda".
Perhaps we can learn from history. Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a
game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power
and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having
sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit?
Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted
by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as
partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make
them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives.
Russia learnt a huge lesson from their experience in Afghanistan. There they retreated in the face of a violent Wahabist insurgency
and paid the price. The Soviet union collapsed and became vulnerable to western free-market gangsterism as well as suffering the
blowback of terrorism in Chechnya, where they decided to play it very differently. A bit more like how Assad senior dealt with
the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980's.
Russia knew that if ISIS and friends were allowed to destroy Syria like the Mujahadeen
had done in Afghanistan, then it would only be a matter of time before blowback would come again to Russia.
Russia's involvement is entirely rational and in their national interest. It should never have come as a surprise to the US,
and the US should shake off their cold war propaganda and be grateful that people are willing to put their lives on the line to
defeat Wahabist terrorism. Russia has played a focused line with integrity. Many Syrians love them for this, and many more in
the Middle East will likewise adopt a similar line.
In other words, the linear mindset blocks out all non-conforming realities in the present and those contingent elements
which might arise in the future
you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals?
i kinda skimmed this piece, but it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy
without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion.
Brenner: Washington never really had a plan in Syria.
Really? Firstly, the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on
a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the
strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him.
Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in
this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP.
The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities
has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic
to Al Qaeda.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
that there is "a new strategic alignment in the Middle East," separating "reformers" and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni
states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the other side of that divide."
Lastly, Brenner's complaint that Obama has been "scape-goated" as having created ISIS conveniently ignores Obama's allowing ISIS
to grow by down-playing the threat that it represented. Obama's called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" and senior intelligence analysts
dutifully distorted intelligence to down-play the threat (see below). This was one of many deceptions that Obama took part in
- if not orchestrated (others: "moderate rebels", Benghazi, the "Fiscal Cliff", bank bailouts).
After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States
Central Command's most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command's intelligence products to downplay the threat from
ISIS in Iraq" . . .
The Joint Task Force can find no justifiable reason why operational reporting was repeatedly used as a rationale to change
the analytic product, particularly when the changes only appeared to be made in a more optimistic direction . . .
There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's
break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade.
Russia has also benefited through the non-linear analysis of US diplomacy failures of the last two decades. Russia has created
a coalition backing up their military entry into the Middle East that allows achievement of tangible objectives at a sustainable
cost.
But b's article is about the US's dismal diplomacy that is exacerbating its rapid empire decline and it does very well to help
explain the rigid lack of thought that hastens the deterioration of US influence.
This article makes a lot of good points, but I didn't really grasp exactly what "linear" thinking is. OK. Venezuela very well
may be turning into a situation. What is the "linear" approach? What, instead, would be the "non-linear" approach? This article
cites many "linear" failures. It would be helpful also to learn of some non-linear successes. If not by the United States then
by somebody else.
Let me clarify my prior posting. This article seems to be asserting that the United States has attempted to pound the square peg
of its policy objectives into the round hole of the Middle East. I pretty much agree with that idea. But how is this "linear,"
as opposed to "bull-headed"? How does being "non-linear" help with the pounding? Would not adapting our policies to pound a round
peg instead be just as "linear" but more clever?
Thanks for posting these great observations by Michael Brenner, b.
The link to his bio on University of Pitsburg site is broken and the page is gone, but it still exists for now in Google's
cache from Aug. 1st
here . His bio can also be found under this ">https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-common-man-forgotten-by-elites/">this
article from The Globalist
Everything I've read of Dr. Brenner that I've stumbled across is brilliant. My only gripe with his work is that he always
describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never
goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy
infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc.
While he is quite accurate in describing the symptoms, one is left with the impression that they are the things to be
fixed. Linear thinking in a U.S. foreign policy of aggression? Absolutely, but it's pointless to 'fix' that without understanding
the cause.
Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population
for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money,
guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear
thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters
will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels
that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe.
Does anyone in Washington REALLY want to 'save' the Persians and 'rebuild' Iran as they imagine America did post WWII to German
and Japan? Or is the more overriding intent to punish and destroy a leadership that will not submit to the political and commercial
interests in the US? Of course the U.S. fails to deliver any benefits to the 'little people' after destroying their country and
government - they are incapable of understanding what the 'little people' want (same goes for domestic issues in the U.S.).
The U.S. government and leadership do not need lessons to modify their techniques or 'thinking' - they are incapable of doing
so. You can't 'talk a psychopath into having empathy' any more than you can talk them out of having smallpox. 'The law' and voting
were intentionally broken in the U.S. to make them all but useless to fix Washington, yet a zombified American public will continue
to use the religiously (or sit back and watch others use them religiously) with little result. Because we're a democracy and a
nation of laws - the government will fix anything broken with those tools.
In a certain sense, I'm glad Brennan does NOT go on about psychopathy in his articles. He would sound as tedious and nutty
as I do here and would never be allowed near Washington. I'll just be grateful for his thorough illustration of the symptoms for
now.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
First, this is more an analysis of military failure to "do the job" that Washington "strategic thinkers" tell them to do, and
the reasons why it's such a futile game. In our system of government, the military does tactics, not strategy. And the above article,
which should be passed out to every politician in this country, isn't really about "the objective".
For example, the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors
and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected
strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told,
break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency
gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever
dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed.
Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from
reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and
breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers
and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling
arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to
keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but
who cares, the cash keeps flowing.
And if you want to know why the Borg State got firmly behind Hillary Clinton, it's because they could see her supporting this
agenda wholeheartedly, especially after Libya. Here's a comment she wrote to Podesta on 2014-08-19, a long 'strategy piece' ending
with this note:
Note: It is important to keep in mind that as a result of this policy there probably will be concern in the Sunni regions of
Iraq and the Central Government regarding the possible expansion of KRG controlled territory. With advisors in the Peshmerga
command we can reassure the concerned parties that, in return for increase autonomy, the KRG will not exclude the Iraqi Government
from participation in the management of the oil fields around Kirkuk, and the Mosel Dam hydroelectric facility. At the same
time we will be able to work with the Peshmerga as they pursue ISIL into disputed areas of Eastern Syria, coordinating with
FSA troops who can move against ISIL from the North. This will make certain Basher al Assad does not gain an advantage from
these operations. Finally, as it now appears the U.S. is considering a plan to offer contractors as advisors to the Iraqi Ministry
of Defense, we will be in a position to coordinate more effectively between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army.
It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end
- but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation
between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead
on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that.
Regardless, it looks like end times for the American empire, very similar to how the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, and
the last days of the French and British empires in the 1950s. And good riddance, it's become a dead weight dragging down the standard
of living for most American citizens who aren't on that gravy train.
Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems
is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power
to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such
a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them!
Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there
are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such
policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic
damage.
America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down
on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on
committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that
raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road
to destruction.
There's a lot in both this piece and the comments. In a sense, I wonder if the core issue behind the Neocon/Imperial mindset isn't
a complete inability to see the other side's point of view. Psychopathy, short-termism (a common fault in businesspeople), divorce
from reality and hubris are likely a good part of it, as somebody, Paveway IV, Makutwa and nonsense factory put it, but the
Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to
fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the
troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way
of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly,
that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to
disaster every single time.
I would paraphrase critics of b that he (she?) has fallen into linearity trap: one point is the resources spent by USA on wars
of 21-st century (a lot), the second points are positive results (hardly any), and an intellectual charge proceeds from A to B.
However between A and B there can be diversity of problems. We can stock enough gasoline, run out of potable water. And indeed,
you can encounter pesky terrain. I recall a family vacation trip where we visited Natural Bridges National Monument and we proceeded
to Arizona on an extremely straight highway through pretty flat plateau. Then the pavement end, and the acrophobic designated
driver has to negotiate several 180* hairpins to get down on a cliff flanking Monument Valley. After second inspection, the map
had tiny letters "switchbacks" and a tiny fragment of the road not marked with the pavement. Still better than discovering "bridge
out" annotation on your map only when you gaze at the water flowing between two bridge heads. (If I recall, during late 20-th
century Balkan intervention, US military needed a lot of time to cross Danube river that unexpectedly had no functioning bridge
where they wanted to operate. Landscape changes during a war.)
That said, military usually has an appreciation for terrain. But there are also humans. On domestic side, the number of experts
on those distant societies is small, and qualified experts, minuscule. Because the qualified ones were disproportionally naysayers,
the mere whiff if expertise was treated as treason, and we had a purge of "Arabists". And it was of course worse in the lands
to charm and conquer. Effective rule requires local hands to follow our wishes, people who can be trusted. And, preferably, not
intensely hated by the locals they are supposed to administer. And like with gasoline, water, food, etc. on a vacation trip (who
forgot mosquito repellent!), the list of needed traits is surprisingly long. Like viewing collaboration with Israel supporting
infidels as a mortal sin that can be perpetrated to spare the family from starvation (you can recruit them, success!), but it
has to be atoned through backstabbing (local cadres are disappointing).
Great analysis! This is an excellent example for why I read MOA at least once a day and most of the comments! There's something
of a sad irony that Trump has made at least some kind of effort to thwart the neocons and their relentless rush toward armageddon,
seeing as how lacking in any real intellectual capcity they all seem and with Trump at the helm?
Mostly tptb, our political class, and the pundits for the masses, seem all to exhibit an astonishingly dull witted lack of
true concern or humanity for anybody anywhere, and in my years on earth so far, at least in America, they have inculcated in the
population very dubious ethical chioces, which you would think were tragic, and decisions, which you would believe were doomed,
from the wars being waged, to the lifestyles of the citizenry especially toward the top of the economic ladder, and I don't know
about others here but I for one have been confronting and dealing with these problems both in family and aquaintances for my entire
adult life! Like the battle at Kurushetra. At least they say they "have a plan," scoffingly.
Where is chipnik to weigh in on this with his poetic observations, or I think long ago it was "slthrop" who may have been bannned
for foul language as he or she raged on at the absurdities that keep heaping up exponentially? I do miss them!
Oh well, life is relatively short and we will all be gone at some point and our presense here will be one and all less than
an iota. An awareness of this one fact and its implications you would think would pierce the consciousness of every human being
well before drawing their final breath, but I guess every McCain fails to realize until too late that the jig is up?
Justin Glyn@20 "but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda."
The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate
their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression.
Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession
with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization
is the embodiment of that propaganda.
The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing
Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored.
The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated.
The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story.
Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in
US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is
often quite noticeable in comments at SST.
That it why the US in its arrogance has failed in Syria, and Russia with its tiny force has been so successful.
The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality.
The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such
a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The
country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial
designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading
to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually
incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like
John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane.
If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime
change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to
decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it.
"... A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it. ..."
"... My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us. ..."
"... Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again. ..."
Consider this article a work of speculation; a jumble of ideas thrown at a blank canvas.
A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating,
if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature,
is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to
teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it;
of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it.
For example, America's overseas wars today are both abstractions and distractions. They're also somewhat surreal to most Americans,
living as we do in comparative safety and material luxury (when compared to most other peoples of the world). Abstraction and surrealism:
two art styles that may say something vital about America's wars.
If some aspects of America's wars are surreal and others abstract, if reports of those wars are often impressionistic and often
blurred beyond recognition, this points to, I think, the highly stylized representations of war that are submitted for our consideration.
What we don't get very often is realism. Recall how the Bush/Cheney administration forbade photos of flag-draped coffins returning
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of all the war reporting you've seen on U.S. TV and Cable networks, and ask how many times you saw
severed American limbs and dead bodies on a battlefield. (On occasion, dead bodies of the enemy are shown, usually briefly and abstractly,
with no human backstory.)
Of course, there's no "real" way to showcase the brutal reality of war, short of bringing a person to the front and having them
face fire in combat -- a level of "participatory" art that sane people would likely seek to avoid. What we get, as spectators (which
is what we're told to remain in America), is an impression of combat. Here and there, a surreal report. An abstract news clip. Blown
up buildings become exercises in neo-Cubism; melted buildings and weapons become Daliesque displays. Severed limbs (of the enemy)
are exercises in the grotesque. For the vast majority of Americans, what's lacking is raw immediacy and gut-wrenching reality.
Again, we are spectators, not participants. And our responses are often as stylized and limited as the representations are. As
Rebecca Gordon put it from a different angle at
TomDispatch.com , when it comes to America's wars, are we participating in reality or merely watching reality TV? And why are
so many so prone to confuse or conflate the two?
Art, of course, isn't the only lens through which we can see and interpret America's wars. Advertising, especially hyperbole,
is also quite revealing. Thus the US military has been sold, whether by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, as "the world's finest military
in history" or WFMH, an acronym I just made up, and which should perhaps come with a copyright or trademark symbol after it. It's
classic advertising hyperbole. It's salesmanship in place of reality.
So, when other peoples beat our WFMH, we should do what Americans do best: sue them for copyright infringement. Our legions of
lawyers will most certainly beat their cadres of counsels. After all, under Bush/Cheney, our lawyers tortured logic and the law to
support torture itself. Talk about surrealism!
My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least
in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the
ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us.
As I said, this is me throwing ideas at the canvas of my computer screen. Do they make any sense to you? Feel free to pick up
your own brush and compose away in the comments section.
P.S. Danger, Will Robinson. I've never taken an art theory class or studied advertising closely.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools
and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at
[email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing
Views with the author's permission.
Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a
Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again.
"... It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. ..."
"JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has two big pronouncements as the Trump administration starts reshaping
the government: "The United States of America is truly an exceptional country," and "it is clear that something is wrong."
Dimon, leader of world's most valuable bank and a counselor to the new president, used his 45-page annual letter to shareholders
on Tuesday to list ways America is stronger than ever -- before jumping into a much longer list of self-inflicted problems that
he said was "upsetting" to write.
Here's the start: Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has dumped trillions of dollars into wars, piled huge debt onto students,
forced legions of foreigners to leave after getting advanced degrees, driven millions of Americans out of the workplace with felonies
for sometimes minor offenses and hobbled the housing market with hastily crafted layers of rules.
Dimon, who sits on Donald Trump's business forum aimed at boosting job growth, is renowned for his optimism and has been voicing
support this year for parts of the president's business agenda. In February, Dimon predicted the U.S. would have a bright economic
future if the new administration carries out plans to overhaul taxes, rein in rules and boost infrastructure investment. In an
interview last month, he credited Trump with boosting consumer and business confidence in growth, and reawakening "animal spirits."
But on Tuesday, reasons for concern kept coming. Labor market participation is low, Dimon wrote. Inner-city schools are failing
poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending
is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital
and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive.
" It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and
governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free
enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. "...
"Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure
planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous
it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive."
Let's unpack his list. The 4th (last) sentence is his hope that his bank can back to the unregulated regime that brought us
the Great Recession. His 3rd sentence is a call for more tax cuts for the rich.
We may like his first 2 sentences here but who is going to pay for this? Not Jamie Dimon. See sentence #3.
Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more
demand for labor produced goods.
"... As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice. ..."
Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize -- for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous.
Seven years later, it seems grotesque.
As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror"
into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY
(Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS
(Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
"... One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield ..."
"... Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration. ..."
"... WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk. ..."
"... the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior. ..."
The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this
powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that
favor Israel.
Kirkuk, Iraq
--
"We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers
because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like oil. We're keeping the
oil."
Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with
his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the
Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the
U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial new policy, what has been
left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its
creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict
may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often
played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major
regional implications.
Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated
incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist
neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil
to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to
unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening
the KRG and weakening Baghdad.
After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June
12. Their claim to the city was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS.
This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest oil
fields.
Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel
was also the
largest customer of oil
sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria
under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of
Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS
did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export
pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.
In retrospect, and following
revelations from Wikileaks
and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been revealed
that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United States'
powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to
manipulate U.S. foreign policy in order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a
pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.
"Keep the oil" for Israel
After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been kept in
Syria to "
keep
the oil
," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of the counter-ISIS
mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper
later claimed
that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction
and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.
One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to
"keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria
and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special
presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.
Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli
intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now
known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never
charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush
administration.
David
Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel
Ngan | AP
In 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as
having illegally passed
classified information
to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the Israeli
government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence
sharing. Subsequent media reports from the
New York Times
and other outlets revealed that this government
official was none other than David Satterfield, who was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near
East Affairs.
Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were dropped in 2009
and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had
"acted within his authority" in leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a
foreign government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with
a long history
of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere,
has since claimed
that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time
when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.
The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so lucky
and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of being censured for his role in leaking
sensitive information to a foreign government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq
and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding
relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its
acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield as
one of its experts
and Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several
after his involvement
with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However, despite his longstanding
and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's current relationship with some elements of that
lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.
While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely
escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been
ignored by the media, despite his outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.
US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds
Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially taken shape, another
individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in
Syria.
An official document
issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the
Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based company,
founded and run
by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the SDC.
Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global Development Corporation (GDC) --
to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC
"the right to explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern."
The
SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source |
Al-Akhbar
The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000 barrels per
day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000 barrels per day and that this oil is considered a
foreign asset under the control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet
Al-Akhbar
, the SDC claimed that it was a forgery,
even though Kahana had
separately
confirmed
its contents and shared the letter itself to the
Los Angeles Times
as recently as a few weeks
ago. Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and
told the Israeli newspaper
Israel Hayom
in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means to prevent
the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of Syrian oil.
The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The overwhelming
majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."
At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export
this oil at fair prices."
Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business shortly after Trump's adoption
of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his
company to export the oil on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports
have speculated
that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.
However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are
considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls
several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not
even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's
weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.
Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has been a key player
in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has even been
caught hiring
so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana,
for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met
with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the
heart of a Syrian Army soldier
went viral online
. McCain had also
admitted meeting
with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to Syria.
In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a Syrian using the pseudonym
"Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly
committed by the Assad-led government Syria, claims which were
later discredited
by independent analysts. He was also
very involved
in Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of
covertly expanding Israel's territory
from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.
Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government -- but also to U.S. Israel
lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance,
Kahana was a key player in
a 2013 symposium
organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels." One of
the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of the "Syrian Emergency Task
Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013. Moustafa
was
listed
as a WINEP expert on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.
Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby organization, as
a team member
of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by
Adam Milstein
, a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright
and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top
donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican Party.
Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the flow of
Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some, this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the
Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the
individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations
as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not an isolated event, but a pattern.
War against ISIS is a war for oil
In
an email
dated June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S. Special
Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush administration advisor then working at the
government-funded United States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil
production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export
of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish region along with
its regional government's bid for autonomy.
Jeffrey,
whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria are well-known
, mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between
Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under
both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would
be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked
closely with David Satterfield.
James
Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in
Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP
Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a non-governmental
channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes
activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a
prominent arm of the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby.
At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving
as a
distinguished fellow
(2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank
that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers
that had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations
against the organization that were related to some of its
members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest
registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would
be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for
espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.
WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara Weinberg, who is its
founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed 'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who
was President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book
Jewish Power,
referred to as
one of a select few individuals
who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership.
Co-founder alongside Weinberg was Martin
Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99),
led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.
WINEP
has
historically
received funding from
donors
who donate
to causes of special interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political
Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as
Charles and Edgar Bronfman
and
the Chernicks
.
Its
membership
remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the U.S.
WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research director
famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in 2012, statements well-aligned with
longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby
to bring about such a war.
A worthy partner in crime
Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert dealings
discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.
During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with
neoconservatives
in their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing
chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government of the false claim that
9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
What this particular claim had in common with the
'Iraq meets Atta in Prague'
disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the
dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.
The distribution
network
of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act a veritable Israeli fifth
column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States.
In this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been
promoted by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to WINEP -- who had been
promoting regime change in Iraq
for Israel's explicit benefit
for decades.
In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to the government for
implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.
Israeli interests pursued through covert channels
Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk's oil production
despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000
barrels per day pass through ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.
Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb the KRG
as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline,
facilitating its export and later sale to Israel.
Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries,
ISIS kept the refinery running
and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.
One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of the
ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power
with strategic ties to ISIS
used its
close ties to the KRG
and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that
ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.
This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil economy,
represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's government -- was quite clearly Israel.
Israel
established considerable financial support
as well as the provision of armaments to other extremist terrorist groups
active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria
in 2011. At least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals
with direct ties to Israeli intelligence
. These same groups, sometimes promoted as 'moderates' by some media, were
actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and
eagerly partnered with ISIS
when it expanded its campaign into Syria.
Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq's Kurds with
weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers
as far back as the 1960s
. More recently,
Israel was the only state
to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting
at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently militarily
defeated the KRG's push for statehood
and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the Shia paramilitaries
which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.
A
2014 map shows the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source |
Telegraph
This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the
Kurds,
selling Iraqi oil
to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.
WINEP's close association with AIPAC,
which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel
several times in the past with no consequence, combined with
Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in
Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted
77
percent of Israel's total oil imports
during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.
The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not
only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also
in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor
Israel.
Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale
agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of
behavior.
caucus99percent
free-range politics, organic community
Trump is stealing Syria's oil for the Saudis
gjohnsit
on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 4:28pm
President Trump recently said the quiet part
out loud
.
"We may have to fight for the oil. It's O.K.," he said. "Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in
which case they have a hell of a fight. But there's massive amounts of oil." The United States,
he added, should be able to take some of Syria's oil. "What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a
deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly," he
said. The goal would be to "spread out the wealth."
At the very least this amounts to pillaging, but then respect for the law isn't on Trump agenda.
Trump is "protecting" Syria's oil in the
exact
same way that the mob "protects" a
small businessman from arson.
Not
kind of
the same way. EXACTLY the same way.
Trump comment US intends to keep the oil in
Syria. Guard with US armored forces. Bring in US oil companies to modernize the field. WHAT ARE
WE BECOMING.... PIRATES? If ISIS is defeated we lack Congressional authority to stay. The oil
belongs to Syria.
https://t.co/Leko5s1hXF
So what "great companies" would be willing "to go in there" and "spread out the wealth?"
That company turned out to be
ARAMCO
.
Sources have disclosed that the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, commonly referred to as Aramco, has
sent a delegation of experts to discuss
investment opportunities in the oil fields and
wells in the Eastern Syrian city of Deir Ez-Zor.
According to the oppositionist news site Deir Ezzor 24, Aramco "started implementing
practical steps in this field, where a group of the company arrived in an official mission to
al-Omar oil field in the eastern Deir Ezzor countryside."
There is no legal means to do this. This is the outright theft of resources.
And it keeps getting worse.
It is believed that the
investments will be made through contracts signed between Aramco
and the US government
, whose armed forces have steadily been increasing their military
presence in terms of manpower and equipment around the oil fields.
That is trafficking in the sale of stolen property, but it gets even worse than that.
The Kurdish Syrian Defence Forces (formerly known as the YPG) currently control most of the
country's oil fields and have shifted towards an alliance with the Syrian government after
losing American protection in the north-east of the country in the wake of Trump's "withdrawal"
and ensuing Turkish offensive dubbed "Operation Peace Spring" to clear the area of Kurdish
militias
So we can't even pretend to be doing this for the benefit of the local population, our regional
allies, or any other justification except naked theft.
Trump should be in jail for this.
"I think in this case we are not talking about an operation associated with a huge share of
risk, but, on the contrary, about a well-thought-out operation."
- Professor RSUH Grigory Kosach
The Pentagon is enthusiastically cooperating in this blatant violation of international law.
US troops have
returned
to six out of 16 bases in Syria that had been previously abandoned during the October
withdrawal.
What's more, our military is
settling in
for the long haul.
Barely two months after US President Donald Trump's demagogic announcement that he was pulling
US troops out of northeastern Syria to fulfill his campaign promise to bring a halt to
Washington's "endless wars," the senior civilian and uniformed Pentagon chiefs told a House
panel Wednesday that
there is no foreseeable end to the American presence there.
...
Esper went even further, insisting that US military forces had to remain in Syria not so much to
counter any existing military force, but rather an "ideology".
"I think the defeat, if you will, will be hard because it's an ideology," Esper told the
House panel after repeated questions regarding US strategy in Syria.
"It's hard to
foresee anytime soon we would stamp it out,"
he added.
Everyone that somehow finds a way to defend Trump based on his so-called aversion to foreign
wars needs to take a good, hard look at this. Because THIS is 100% Trump's doing.
US-led forces have blown up three oil tankers in Syria as the United States increases
its pressure on Syria by thwarting the oil trade between the PKK/YPG and the Assad
regime, according to local sources quoted by several media sources.
The YPG are our Kurdish allies that the warmongers were so concerned about just a few
months ago. We "care" about them, right up until they want to sell oil to the Assad
regime. Then they deserve death.
That's OUR oil.
I think the powerful foreign policy cabal in Washington have him by the balls and give
them a squeeze when he gets off point.
One day he is pulling out. The next day he says
he staying in to "protect" the oil fields. The third day he sends US forces back in so he
can sell the oil so that the Syrians don't "steal" it.
What's going to happen on the fourth day when a half dozen American soldiers get
eviscerated by a roadside bomb while on patrol?
but just like congress won't make him withdraw troops from Yemen and stop supporting the
Saudis, they are in complete agreement with him doing that.
Israel bought Syria's oil from ISIS all during Obama's tenure as he watched them take
it out through Turkey.
But it's Russian aggression that is causing all the problems in the Middle East right?
And Iran's too. Why we can't make deals for resources instead of spending gawd only knows
how much money. But then the defense companies wouldn't get all of our money now would
they? We pay for the defense companies CEOs large bonuses and salaries. Great gig!
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
New book by David NorthA Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North.
The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both
softcover
and hardcover
.
***
"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than
in the period of boom."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1928
"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must
be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing
mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1934
This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response
of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The
analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does
not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism.
Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding
of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to
the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of
its occurrence.
Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description
of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another
personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama
bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim
Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list
of monsters requiring destruction.
The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign
policy of the United States.
First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in
1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it
emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would
lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee
the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:
It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the
postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims
the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control
over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated.
In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination
of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [
1 ]
This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but
also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."
In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency
of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining
in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:
If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty
given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave
behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [
2 ]
On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations
in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner
in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled
with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."
Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the
order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize,
in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes
necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found
his wars "maddeningly hard to end."
The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective
forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr.
Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal
specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the
historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.
But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American
foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost
continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.
The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context
of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The
first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [
3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was
that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either
the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the
USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military
restraint.
It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power,
amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment
of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow
Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later,
V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow
the bourgeois Provisional Government.
Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the
struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:
For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed
could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war,
and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [
4 ]
Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge,
in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political,
and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P.
Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [
5 ]
Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:
The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about
what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of
that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.
And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [
6 ]
In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support
of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.
It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement
was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating
the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution
in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain
and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance
with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly
deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth
of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.
The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed
working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist
revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view
that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were
of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [
7 ]
In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent
that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material
support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own
interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the
compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted
access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the
Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations
over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the
tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen
Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World
War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.
There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic
claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the
Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations
published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum.
Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:
No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition
of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom.
The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual
of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [
8 ]
The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also
his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected.
The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:
Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will
be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the
energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [
9 ]
In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked
a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged
as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to
Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [
10 ]
The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of
American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces
unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities
of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted
and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet
Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded
the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.
Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended
tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises;
(2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition
to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives'
Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford,
who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes
and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the
federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the
Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized
by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure
of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of
impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a
president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.
The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic
position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the
economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth
and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable
tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton
Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.
The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength,
of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion
that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense
military power.
The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions
of US imperialism:
There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture
of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor. [ 11 ]
The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up
Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999
bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that
decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and
Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.
The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an
all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa.
They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign
policy.
The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed
9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision.
The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would
necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.
The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US
in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the
world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.
In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in
response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States.
Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction
between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless
of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda
purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.
The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation
of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext
was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the
US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are
component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential
significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which
lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between
the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany.
The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International
Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the
surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly
voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations,
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:
As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held
its ground. . . .
Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the
United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power
in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the
political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a
unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]
In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism
-- for any nation." [ 13 ]
The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the
"War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred
miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern
Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult
to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt
into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers
called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.
One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United
States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the
key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely.
A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:
Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether
there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic
about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [
14 ]
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that
the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes
that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict
between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings
would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.
On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct.
Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be
sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.
The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system.
If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program,
and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics,
in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy
of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [
15 ]
In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and
its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular
protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its
former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.
There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter
of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar
movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that
was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving
the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel
Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that
war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime
of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep
russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of
the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine
workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia"
by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that
the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian
military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms
with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism
with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution.
Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
I can imagine that
the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given
enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919,
etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky
was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic
world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the
new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the
traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or
die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s
against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and
what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.
After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became
more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.
for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch
search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal
values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity
of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.
As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated
to the realms of Greatness.
As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos
lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....
Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist
warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies
- which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments
and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the
entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown
of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also
have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual
wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
One of the most revealing and absurd responses to
rejections of forever war
is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:
Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE
#Syria under heading of "endless
war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war.
Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw
War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other
than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts
have started rejecting endless war, the war's
defenders have often
chosen to
pretend
that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is
a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and
Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.
Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently
given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as
he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those
terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will
be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because
of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.
The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been
going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they
came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the
Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't
engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for
redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't
engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that
gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment
of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something
else.
It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front
and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.
We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding
NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to
use the Saudis against Iran.
It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan
as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize
direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired
58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could,
with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on
military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the
very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other
countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or
"drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?
Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well,
the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.
> alliances like NATO, and ultimately the loss of our democracy
Changes might be coming, but Republicans and Clinton faction of Dems are now fully
prepared to resist those changes tooth and nail.
Neoliberal Dems just invented the template for deposing or, at least, paralyzing any
future antiwar president. Via vote of non-confidence mechanism, which essentially what
House impeachment "investigation" was about.
You can always find another Fiona Hill, or Alexander Vindman or a half-dozen State
Department neocon hawks (where in some cases it was unclear who is their real employee )
, or find another jingoistic and complexly detached from reality professor like Karlan,
to support this action. Neocons feed from threat inflation. And money from MIC doesn't
smell.
The problems with the current impeachment goes far deeper then Trump. It is a change
of the constitutional system converting it closer to the UK model.
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality
is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization,
the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me
explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence
community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following
explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or
judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material
for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary
evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims
about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer
2.0 interacted with journalists.
Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting
in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.
Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did
not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or
electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and
DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of
then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com
through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had
mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter.
Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date
of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and
later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number
of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts
(in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor
to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released
through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence
related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141
The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected]
to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters
early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not
yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for
a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent
reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."
Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents.
In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear")
were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona
Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into
a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including
"some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer
2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English
words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents
stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts
between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including
a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to
address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized
around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other
interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering
to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a
password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from
a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion
of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida
politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the
Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What
is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE
OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the
work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it
appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the
Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016,
include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including
Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE.
Hackernews explains the purpose and function
of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically
an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into
the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.
Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks
to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then
showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks
explains.
So guess what
gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside
the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured
to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович"
is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the
Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren
Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they
are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are
not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they
had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering
those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich.
Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign,
would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
It was
29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible.
And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around
inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated
with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told
Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office."
On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the
DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the
entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security
experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said
DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political
action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks
but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his
VPN IP address in the process).
Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly
from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other
outlets.
Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post.
They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata
of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian
keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the
New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable
event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch,
but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June.
That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or
Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's
team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source
of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham
should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that
the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA,
not the GRU.
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential
election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish
between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or
the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept
incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts
long enough to be extradited.
You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published.
Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but
can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?
With the Russians
not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet),
would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
Jimmy1969 says: December
19, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT 200 Words Golden Tree Asset Management bought up Post Media in
Canada at a fire sale years ago from the bankrupt Asper family. Post Media is a conglomerate
that controls dozens and dozens of media outlets in all of Canada including 95% of all the
major Newspapers in every large city. Therefore Canadian news is de facto controlled by an
American New York Jewish hedge fund. That fact has been known for years and is joked about on
all of the bar stools in Canada where reporters hang out .but not in the Press. No one writes
about it none of the Nationalistic Professors, Journalists, Members of Parliament no one. One
fact is certain you will never ever see a single bad word in any of their papers critical of
Israel, or any actions of Israelis. Any comment critical of Israel or Zionist power, no matter
how objective or moderate is immediately deleted. And sadly this is no joke. The world should
take note of how Canada is strangled. Read More Replies: @bike-anarkist
Replies: @the
grand wazoo , @eah
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@silviosilver
Paying what you owe is perfectly fine and moral. Paying double of what you owe on account of
inflated fees and interest is blood sucking. Doing this to developing nations is downright
cruel.
Let's say Congo owes $10 billion. A finance firm buys that debt for $8 billion, collects
the full $10 billion (which already includes interest) and make a $2 billion profit. That's
not too terrible.
But to buy the debt for $8 billion and then force Congo to pay $60 billion is Jewish.
Playing the victim while accusing Congo of financial mismanagement and forcing them to close
their schools and hospitals – very Jewish. Evading the ethical implications of one's
actions and seeking cover behind legalism like a coward –> Jew level –
Godlike
Jews see themselves as the ingroup, and the "goyim" as the outgroup. Since Whites are the
"outgroup" it's not just acceptable, but praiseworthy, to exploit them. To "beat" them at
war.
The problem is that Whites wrongly do not see Jews as an outgroup – something that
Jews themselves take great pains to discourage via their various front groups like the
ADL.
There is no "technical" fix, there is no objective "system" that can change this dynamic.
There is no "level playing field."
Whites need to ostracize Jews at all levels. Boycott, Divest and Sanction – not just
their apartheid regime of Jew bigotry in Zionist-occupied Palestine, but at every level of
society, business, civil institutions, etc.
Jews are destroying the world. Everywhere they go, they leave behind nations in ruins.
Look at Europe, Africa and the Americas, Jews have left their ugly footprints. Corruption,
prostitution, drugs and human trafficking are their trade.
Reading the (obvious) Jews commenting here on their various financial swindle-systems is a
lot like reading zionists defending Israel. The basic tactics are always the same:
1.) Focus on some small aspects or most recent events and make a comparison to Gentiles or
other events with similar micro-narratives. "See? Everyone else does it! Why single out us
poor, persecuted Jews?"
2.) Use these minute distractions to drown out the overall issues, underlying concepts,
long history or guiding ideology in noise and minutiae.
3.) Never start at the beginning of the story and follow the trajectory though; always
start in the middle and focus on some trivial detail, use it to defend the (never stated)
sicko ideology that started the problem in the first place. Completely ignore any timelines
or larger perspectives.
David Icke calls it (or used to call it -- - back when his backbone was healthy) the
Reptilian Brain. The ability to manipulate trivial minutiae while never addressing underlying
concepts or timelines.
It is hard to feel sorry for WASPs, they struck a deal with the Jews centuries ago
Catholic political powers have been "striking deals with Jews" for two thousand years.
There is a synagogue in Rome right next to the Vatican which has been legally privileged
since the days of Christ. As E. Michael Jones detailed in his book, Jewish Revolutionary
Spirit , the Catholic Church itself defended Jews from the angry mobs time and time again
throughout their history, to the point bishops and priests would harbor Jews in the
cathedrals and lock the doors before the peasants could arrest them.
Indeed, the infighting among Whites promoted by the likes of Jones is yet again another
assist from Catholic powers to their partners, the Jews.
The popular "neo-reactionary/NRx" movement, started by the Ashkenazi Curtis Yarvin, is yet
another "right-wing" fad that blames Calvinists for all the problems in the world.
Jews are blameless, yet again another White ethnicity/religion is at fault.
No wonder Jews get away with what they do. Whites are too busy infighting over false
history demonizing various rival cults.
So, the "vultures" flew out to the West after devouring the Russian empire and now with the
help of the likes of the homeboy or more like a two bit whore, Ben Sasse, they've descended
on America and have started gutting it out.
Where will they fly next? White Christians don't want them and black/brown Muslims can't
stand them but perhaps China is their next destination being that they have shipped most of
the jobs out there and the whole lot of them are marrying "Chinese-American" women in droves
for good measure.
In the coming battle of the titans, the one who's name can't be pronounced, viz. Yahweh,
hopefully has better guns than Jehovah and Allah, for it sure is gonna need it when the
latter two gang up on it maybe Buddha will give it a helping hand being that they're
practically in-laws now!
My question is how do entities like Puerto Rico get so far in debt in the first
place?
For the same reason individuals get into debt, financial incompetence and sometimes a bit
of bad luck.
I've personally never understood how people can take out loans from companies like Wonga
or QuickQuid (both Jewish owned incidentally) seeing as they quite clearly advertise their
exorbitant interest rates.
Look up income by ethnic group in the UK and US, you will find that Indians and Chinese
(South Asians) are the richest in both countries (except for Jews of course).
What I have found is that these two groups come from a debt-averse culture, their kids
actually live with their parents until they have saved enough money for a house and other
such things required to start a family.
Whites meanwhile are WAY to trusting of these faceless financial institutions, they get
into debt very easily and thus become slaves, if you have kids, the first thing you should
educate them about is finance and debt, don't throw them out to the dogs either, it's tragic
to see some getting into debt and then having other problems like drugs and alcohol
addictions.
I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder.
You don't seem to be serious, if I understood what you want to say. Even Der Spiegel has
published a critical article in English about Browder, Browder is the one who pushed for
sanctions against Russia because of the case Magnitsky:
Questions Cloud Story Behind U.S. Sanctions
The story of Sergei Magnitsky has come to symbolize the brutal persecution of
whistleblowers in Russia. Ten years after his death, inconsistencies in Magnitsky's story
suggest he may not have been the hero many people -- and Western governments -- believed him
to be.
@Anonymous
Sure, but you're talking utopia. The reality is that public entities issue bonds to finance
special projects or even their operations. Somebody then buys the bonds and expects to be
paid back.
@Realist
There is something especially deficient with Whites when it comes to money matter, how can
such a large number of Whites take short-term loans from companies like Wonga and QuickQuid,
when the nature of their business (usury) is very clearly advertised. I was around 10 years
old when I was astounded at the 5000% APR loans advertised on TV, and wondered if I
understood interest right.
Parents, especially White ones, really need to educate their children on personal finance
and debt, it seems a lot of Whites these days do not actually own anything and all their
flashy gadgets and whatnot are being loaned out (buying Iphone on contract for example),
these people are the hardest hit as they can't scrape together even a couple of hundred
pounds/dollars/euros when hard times come. Its farcical albeit tragic.
Wow what a confused mess. Here's a summary: Vulture capitalism is bad for no particular
reason but only an evil anti-Semite (like you) would dare criticize capitalism.
And they want the island of Puerto Rico for themselves, save a few thousand able bodies to
serve as maids and gardeners. But what about the triple-raced residents of the island itself?
Well, that's easy! Dump them in states like Florida and New York and let the suckers pay for
it. After all, it's not like they are going to vote for the other side we get to eat the cake
and keep it too!
An article that appeared in Goebbels newspaper, Der Angriff (The Attack) titled
"The Jew", a short excerpt that is relevant to your comment;
The Jew is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite,
swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and
you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back:
"I've been found out."
I think the term "vulture capitalism" is calumnious to vultures, who, as carrion birds,
perform a useful and purifying function in nature.
The Jews as a collective, i.e., the Jews who identify as such, concur in the death
sentence of Christ handed down by their Sanhedrin and espouse the Talmudic mitzvah of killing
the best of the gentiles (which naturally implies elevating the worst of the gentiles to
power and prominence) are more to be likened to plague bearing rodents. Unlike vultures, rats
feast on corruption and putrescence, spread disease and also kill the living.
We embrace the finance capitalist worldview at our peril. In its essence, it is nothing
but the worship of money making and profiteering as the supreme aspiration of life,
irregardless of its horrible effects on our compatriots and fellow humans. In doing so, we
become Jews at heart.
There is nothing wrong with industry and the profit motive per se. Predatory finance
contributes nothing to the well being of a nation and the needs of the physical economy- it
is supremely toxic and corrosive of both. It must be expunged and its champions expropriated
and exiled. People like the odious Peter Singer have no place in a moral world; they ought to
be first expropriated, then exiled as far away from their host societies as possible.
I was personally wounded by the anti gay rhetoric peppered across this article. I can't help
making the association that Paul singer's son came out as gay and that this must be the
source of the author's animus against him and the others. Shakespeare, who was also
homosexual, described this state of mind as "a green eyed monster," i.e. jealousy. I'm
mortified that other members of the commentariat have not taken issue with this. Maybe we
would be more compassionate to the denizens of middle America if they allowed our most basic
civil rights.
@J
Adelman Oh those kind jews have always been for the working class? But there is a white
working class and jews want them extinct from the face of the earth. Read 'Abolishing
whiteness has never been more urgent.' By Mark Levine
@silviosilver
You make several good points but you don't address the issue of capitalists manipulating the
politicians with campaign contributions. If a fund gets paid off by public money due to
politicians putting the fund owners ahead of the taxpayers, that's corrupt. What happened to
the 'creative destruction' principle by which large IBs like Goldman would have been allowed
to collapse and their principals carried off in leg-irons in 2008? Oh -- they are "too big to
fail and too big to jail." So much for the free market myth.
Moreover, most Jews support endless free money for "victim groups" to be forcibly
extracted from the middle-class. Never mind if Mr. Jones has a lengthy criminal record, let's
pay for him to go to college, let's pay his rent, let's pay his medical bills, etc. Why then
take such a hard line on people who foolishly get into debt?
Moreover, the economic downturn that caused many mortgagors to default was CAUSED BY the
big Wall Street firms' irresponsible behavior.
Also, most people do tend to temper economic contracts with a degree of compassion.
Gentile capitalism does not exist in a vacuum.
I recall reading about a young female environmentalist who was refusing to leave a
venerable redwood tree that was scheduled to be cut down. The WASP businessman who owned the
tree was extremely patient with the girl, tried to win her over, threw her food and drinks,
and so on. The land with the tree was then sold to some Jewish firm. At that point the
article left off. The tree was cut down with no further negotiation.
The greatest jewish vulture fund is the zionist privately owned feral reserve aka the FED ,
is creates money out of thin air and feeds this money to the otherwise bankrupt zionist banks
and not just here in the ZUS but in Europe, and the BIS is the vulture fund of vulture funds
owned by the zionists, the biggest scam in the history of the world.
By the way, Tucker Carlson said that 911 truthers were nuts, that says it all about
him.
Mass immigration for cheap labor, the weaponization of the grievance industry against
white majority/European nations and the use for the production of anti-white race baiting
media.
Much great work!! Very impressed. Would recommend to Moses himself.
@Colin
Wright I remember seeing a clip where Jared Taylor was on some talk show. He was calmly
citing statistics on how blacks are over represented among violent criminals. A sassy black
women broken in with "Jeffrey Dahmer Ted Bundy they were all white!" Not her exact words but
something to that effect. Naxalt, in other words.
I don't think Joyce is suggesting that all unscrupulous capitalists are Jews, or vice
versa. It is true that gentiles can be scumbags (the Enron boys.)
Now most Muslims are not terrorists, and many terrorists are not Muslims.
And yet it seems like there are many people who will notice patterns among other groups,
rightfully roll their eyes when they hear PC arguments in favor of those groups, and then
pull out the naxalt and what-about-isms when you notice patterns in Jewish behavior.
@Dutch
Boy Your statement: "maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist
enterprises" statement is spot on.
I've been saying that for decades.
Labor is never given value, but is a commodity-a "necessary evil" according to the Wall
Street types and is to be minimized and marginalized at all costs.
Adolph Hitler's Germany monetized labor and gave it value. THAT is the reason that the
jews went after Germany. Post WW1 Germany was successful in its economy due to throwing off
the shackles (and shekels) of the internationalist banksters.
Henry Ford CREATED a market which had not existed when he paid his employees $5.00 per day
when the average wage of the day was around $1.25 per day. His premise was not entirely
altruistic as assembly line work was monotonous; a way had to be found to retain employees as
well.
Of course, the wall street types and the banksters howled that Ford's wage rates would
destroy capitalism (as they knew it-those at the top reap all of the benefits while the
proles are forced to live on a bare subsistence wage, due to the machinations of those at the
top).
Guess what??
The OPPOSITE happened. Henry Ford knew one of the basic tenets of a truly free,
capitalistic society, that a well-paid work force would be able to participate and contribute
to a strong economy, unlike what is taught in business schools today-that wages must be kept
to a bare minimum and that the stockholder is king.
Our "free trade" politicians have assisted the greedy wall street types and banksters in
depressing wages on the promise of cheap foreign labor and products.
A good example of this is the negative criticism that Costco receives for paying its
employees well above market wages. These same wall street types praise Wal-Mart for paying
its employees barely subsistence wages while assisting them in filling out their public
assistance (welfare) forms.
Any sane person KNOWS that in order for capitalism to work, employees need to make an
adequate wage. Unfortunately, this premise does not exist in today's business climate.
Henry Ford openly criticized those of the "tribe" for manipulating wall street and
banksters to their own advantage, and was roundly (and unjustly) criticized for pointing out
the TRUTH.
Catholic priest, Father Coughlin did the same thing and was punished by the Catholic
church, despite his popularity and exposing the TRUTH of the American economy and the
outsider internationalists that ran it . . . and STILL run it.
Our race to the bottom will not be without consequences. A great realignment is necessary
(and is coming) . .
@lavoisier
I'm not sure I'd put Buffett in that category. For example, in one of the companies he
bought, he kept a factory with declining profits open as long as he could to avoid throwing a
large chunk of people out of work overnight. He has mostly made his money by avoiding dopey
fads and a disciplined buy-and-hold approach to stocks.
@J
Adelman' Jewish people have always stood against tyranny against the working class,
the poor and other people of color." '
Right. I'd say Jews actually collaborated extensively in the imposition of tyranny
on the working class in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991. That'd be one counter-example.
Should we explore others? The role of Jews in the medieval slave trade? After all,
somebody had to castrate all those Christian boys who were to serve as harem
guards.
No reason to dredge up ancient history -- except here you are, making a blatantly false
claim about it. 'Always stood against ', my ass.
They are gunning for India now who do you think that brought in the Turks who ruled as the
Moguls to exploit the Hindu wealth and later on who did in the Muslims?
Disraeli and his ilk always knew that India was poor but their temples were rich with gold
and it's that they are after one can't build one's own "Third Temple" without it.
Why are the black cohens being promoted (South Brahmins the most pliable ones) at Google,
Microsoft and Pepsi etc.? Because the waterboys, and girls, will help rope in what's left of
the Indian carcass for thirty pieces of silver!
@secondElijah
You are probably the most antisemitic troll I have ever met online.
So, when did Epstein and Weinstein become the standard bearers of the Jewish community?
It is your jealousy of the Jewish people that makes you spew such vile hatred here.
Smug, obnoxious white people like you who have always considered this country their private
preserve are an endangered species. The demographic trends cannot be denied.
In less than 25 years white folks will become a minority in this country. So enjoy it while
you can, Bubba, your days of driving the bus are numbered.
You and other whites here are like the bad guys in every horror movie ever made, who gets
shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass -- even if
it takes four sequels to make it happen -- but who in the meantime keeps coming back around,
grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were
finally dead this time. Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends. Our
ankles survive.
YOU DO NOT.
@Saguaro
The soup has boiled over, the horse has bolted and the barn has burnt down and yet you
Yankees haven't woken up.Your politicians are whores who cannot function without funding from
the jews. And Jeffery got them all for Mossad. Enjoy
@Vaterland
The "standing up for People of Color" schtick is particularly disingenous, as all the Jews
have really done isuse their disproportionate control of the media to peddle false narratives
and distort history. One good example of this is the case of then president of the Atlanda
chapter of B'nai B'rith, Leo Frank. Frank had raped and murdered 13 year-old Mary Phagan and
when he was found out, he used his connection with New York Jews to get lots of money and
hire the best defence lawyers, his lawyer then launched vicious racial attacks on a Black
semi-literate janitor who worked in the factory that Frank was in charge of (and where Phagan
worked) to try and convict him of the horrible crime.
Jews will be friends of POC when it suits them. The funny thing about the Frank case is
that the Jewish media has made it out that Frank was innocent and wrongly lynched (only after
his death sentence had been commuted by a judge who was suspected to have been bribed by
powerful New York Jews), and that the Black janitor was the guilty one. This is absurd seeing
as the racist Southern jury would never favour a "White" man over a Black man (anti-semtism
wasn't that big in the South, and especially so considering this was before the Bolsheviks
took control of Russia), and that if Frank had truly been White, this case would be a
landmark case in which the evil rich White man was tried and the Black man was given
justice.
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States.
I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of
the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the
profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I
take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families.
That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin
fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I
have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I
will rout you out!"
Islam stands in their way of usury-ripping of mankind of their
resources and defrauding mankind via bank thefts.
Bring on the Shariah Law. I would much rather live under Shariah, God's Constitution than
under Euoropean/Western diabolic, satanic, fraudulent monies, homosexual, thievery, false
flag hoaxes, WMD's, bogus wars, Unprovoked oppression, tel-LIE-vision, Santa Claus lies,
Disney hocus pocus , hollywood, illuminati, free mason, monarchy, oligarchy, millitary
industrial complex, life time congressman/senators, upto the eye balls taxation, IRS
thievery, Fraudulent federal reserve, Rothchild/Rockerfeller/Queens and Kings city of London
satanic cabal, opec petro$$$ thievery, ISISraHELL's, al-CIA-da hoaxes, Communist, Atheist,
Idol worshippers, Fear Monger's, Drugged and Drunken's oxy crystal coccaine meth psychopath,
child pedeophilia, gambler's, Pathological and diabolical liars, Hypocrites, sodomites ..I
can't think of any right now, because my mind is exploding with rage because of these
troubling central banker's satanic hegemony!
Quran Chapter 30
39. The usury you practice, seeking thereby to multiply people's wealth, will not multiply
with God. But what you give in charity, desiring God's approval -- these are the
multipliers.
40. God is He who created you, then provides for you, then makes you die, then brings you
back to life. Can any of your idols do any of that? Glorified is He, and Exalted above what
they associate.
41. Corruption has appeared on land and sea, because of what people's hands have earned, in
order to make them taste some of what they have done, so that they might return.
@Really
No Shit Jews are doing to White countries what Whites and Jews did to India, no honour
amongst thieves, the ones with the higher verbal IQ wins.
Also it is important to note that the reason India came under the sway of Anglo-Zionist
banking cartels so easily was because how divided it was, I reckon that is why they are
promoting mass immigration. Import lots of different groups, then run lots of race-baiting
stories to distract the plebs from their financial machinations.
This is why Jews are well represented in non-antisemitic White Nationalist organisations
like Jared Taylor's AmRen, they are great at playing both sides.
And he funded the building of the Peace Palace ("Vredespaleis") in The Hague, presently
the seat of the International Court of Justice, an institution not held in high esteem in
the home country of the generous donor.
@Wally
You can act confused all you want, you know exactly what I am talking about, the fact of the
matter is Whites like you and Joyce would be laughing it up at countries/territories like
Puerto Rico, Congo, Vietnam etc etc being carved up and financially enslaved if Whites were
also allowed a piece of the pie along with Jews (as was the case in the days of the British
Empire when WASP's and Jews worked together), but now that the low-IQ countries have been
looted, the Jews have turned on the Whites and the latter are now crying that their criminal
comrades have now betrayed them.
You quite clearly have a clue, you are just terrified and trying to divert because I am
right, the Jews will do to the White nations what the White nations and Jews did to the
non-White nations. All I can say is that you WASPs should have kept to youselves like Eastern
Europeans and Eastern Asians, they didn't really engage in lofty ambitons to dominate the
world and as such are intact at the moment and seem like they will remain that way for a long
time, they are the true conservatives, WASPs have always had a Jewish streak within their
corrupt souls and are now paying the price for engaging with a criminal race.
Why do you think Epstein has all these Gentiles in his pocket? You think do-gooding
gentiles just randomly decided to get into bed with Epstein and Co.? How many East Asians and
Eastern Euros do you see terrified of being outed as paedophiles.
Don't deceive yourselves, all debts are paid in the end, especially when the creditors are
Jews.
@Adrian
They are a function of Empire in Hague, who protect empire criminals, and assume a non
existent legitimacy and jurisdiction as a private entity to take down empire opponents.
It is the very same kangaroo court as the IMT or Tokio show trials.
In the book "Heaven is for real" a 4 year old boy who supposedly is dead for a short period,
but actually visits heaven; when he returns, is asked : what is the meaning, the purpose of
life on earth?
His response is so simple, that it could only be true. And it could only come from
knowing
Don't deceive yourselves, all debts are paid in the end, especially when the creditors
are Jews.
It is a mathematical impossibility due to interest. The FED probably goes negative
interest like ECB mafia.
Chances are higher they do a reset and start anew with an electronic ponzi scheme.
No one seriously plans to pay these "debts", they can't be paid, and are actually a nothing
burger, pure fiction.
" it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like Singer's escaped major media attention prior
to this ."
Not really. The Jew's grip is starting to slip now, though. More and more people are
becoming aware that they are virulent parasites and always have been.
@Mulegino1
Real capitalism is the competition of ideas, innovation, efficient manufacturing and quality
products made and produced by honest companies. That competition can, in theory at least,
make people (and companies) "try harder". But only when a company's success is determined by
the strength of its products, not by the "deals" it cuts with Jewish financial, advertising,
"marketing" and swindling rackets, designed to line the pockets of the Jew while destroying
honest competition by Gentiles who struggle to play fair and innovate.
Jewish vulture "capitalism" contributes NOTHING of value to any company or any culture. It
never has and never will.
You and other whites here are like the bad guys in every horror movie ever made, who
gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass --
even if it takes four sequels to make it happen -- but who in the meantime keeps coming
back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that
you were finally dead this time. Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie
ends. Our ankles survive.
YOU DO NOT.
Talk about deflection. Any nation, empire, culture or civilization wherein the Jewish
collective gains critical mass and ultimately absolute power turns into a real horror,
not a movie. The Jews may be said to be the true prototype of the "bad guys in every horror
movie", since they can only be gotten rid of by very rigorous means taken in the healthiest
and most vigorous cultures and societies. Indeed, antisemitism itself is the healthy
immunological reaction of a flourishing culture, and its lack thereof the pathology of a
moribund one.
Woke Christians of European provenance have nothing to envy the Jew (the archetypal Jew)
over. We realize that the true measure of success is not primarily monetary or the
fulfillment of cheap ambitions, but a spiritual and cultural one. On the contrary, the Jewish
hatred against Christian Europe and the civilization that it constructed is engendered out of
sheer envy and malice, because Jewry understands that is would never be capable of
constructing anything similar, and never has. In all of the arts, Jewry has produced nothing
of note.
This is not to say that individual Jews have not made contributions to the arts and sciences,
but they have done so only by participation in gentile culture, not qua Jews. Jewry only
tears down and deconstructs; it is not creative in the sense of high art, and can thrive only
in the swamp of gentile decadence and moral putrefaction. Whatever Jewry touches, it turns to
merde.
European Jewish IQ has only gone 1/2 a standard deviation above the white norm in the last
100 years. Interesting to know why, but the belief Jews have always been more intelligent is
just lack of data.
bias for co-operation
Nazis did this too – they worked reaaally well with each other. The issue was how
they thought of and treated others.
That aside, I think we daily meet plenty of individuals who'd sell their mothers, and
maybe kill lives, for pennies. They are like machines not even conscious of what they are
doing.
Your 1 data point aside, are you saying all humans act in identical ways, regardless of
how the ideologies they embrace ask them to act?
Take the ideology of Islam – it does not allow for aggressive war, surprise attacks,
the killing of women or children (unless they take up arms)..
Judaism allows for aggressive war, surprise attack, and demands the killing of all
when a state of war is declared.
Do you believe these declarations lead to identical actions by their practitioners? (in
other words – people act how they would wish to act, and don't really engage in any
belief systems beyond what pulls their own selves?)
So, it's the usual with Joyce (and not only Joyce of course). You take something that is
human, talk of Jews, point to that something in Jews, and pretend, trusting that your
readers will pretend the same, that it's a Jewish-specific something.
Yes, correct – no ideology is perfect at taming human action, and corruption is a
human action, not a Jewish action. But we could still engage in comparative ideology, and
this is what Joyce (and not only Joyce, of course) engage in.
Saying 'well, all peoples engage in force and deceit, so is there any actual difference
between them and their beliefs?' is absurdism. In such a world, I will build a nation of
priests, fashioned along the lines of the Aztek priesthood. Give me your children so I can
rip out their hearts and make it rain – after all 'we are all the same'!!
The argument is that, for the proportion of the population, the fraction of monopoly power
in Western economies that is taken up by Jewish power is much disproportional to other
nations/belief systems.
It is fair to ask whether people who engage in other belief systems have the same level of
desire for monopoly, just less skill to get it due to their belief systems.. I would say yes,
they have the same level of desire (we are all human after all (not that if you read chapter
1 of the Tanya, you will be offered that point of view)) – but that their belief
systems specifically push them away from materialism and desire for money and power, even at
the expense of others. That is the exact point of religion (self-improvement) btw, so
the next question is – is the Jewish religion effective?
At which point, the Jewish ideology becomes the wolf in the hen house – because it
fails to tame the human away from such materialistic desire (as it btw claims it does
best).
Should the hens be allowed to point out what they see as a wolf? Yes.
That the supposed wolf then obfuscates and justifies their actions by pointing to others,
mostly, betrays that it is, in fact, a wolf.
I have become totally disenchanted with the SEC. Stupid, Evil, Crazy! It would not surprise
me if they are the ones that have been terrorizing me, with stupid, evil, crazy chants
through appliances after illegallly implaced RFIDs, microchips, or sensors illegally
implanted in my ears and nose that started after my first phone was hacked in 2017! Can't
expect stupid people not to be stupid, evil people not to be evil, and crazy people not to be
crazy! They were just born that way!
@J
Adleman brookings.edu : "The US will become minority white in 2045 Census projects "
:
"During that year [2045] whites will comprise 49.7 per cent of the population in contrast to
24.6 per cent for Hispanics , 13.1 per cent for Blacks , 7.9 per cent for Asians and 3.8 per
cent for multi-racial populations " Are these projections good or bad for the "Jewish people
" ?
Nov 22, 2013 Thomas DiLorenzo – The Revolution Of 1913
From the Tom Woods show Loyola economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo discusses three events
from 1913 that greatly escalated the transmogrification of America from the founder's vision
(limited government) to its current state (unlimited government).
@silviosilver
Yes, and just because you can doesn't mean you should. And if there's a predilection among
jewish men to engage in predatory lending and collecting tactics that is disproportionate to
their of the population, there's something about their genes or their culture that shapes
them to be this way.
Also, notice how you left out the part where they jack up the interest rates and debtor's
fees to grossly inflate their income. Is there a reason to do this other than as a quick way
to make money off already impoverished people? It's kind of like opening up a rent to own
place in a low income place. The people who do that shit know exactly why they should set up
among poor people; low wealth and bad decision making abound.
And yes, it does seem to be particularly jewish given how many jews are involved in its
practice and given that it used to be frowned upon in Christian Europe. Hell, God himself (as
Jesus) went and beat the shit out of a bunch of jews for their money lending in the temple.
That's the best part of the Bible, frankly. God gets so sick of the his own chosen people
that he sends himself to chastise and whip them for their greed and hubris. No lesson was
learned.
And then they killed him. And they lost their homeland for 2000 years. And then were
kicked out of a hundred plus kingdoms, cities and countries. And then a miserable liberal
shows how vile and stupid their children are:
You know, maybe instead of making excuses, you can just acknowledge the wrongdoing and
acknowledge that some jews are particularly malicious. Cuz eventually, people are
gonna get sick of the shit jews pull and see jewish (or gentile zionist) people defending
their obvious misdeeds and get pissed at them as well. Remember, the well is open to
everyone.
Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when
English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a
company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their
companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."
Telling that you go with hyperbole here: the only two options must be Albion
Whyteman Capital or Foreskin-Chewing Pornographers Incorporated!
There are two interesting things about the onomastics of the prepuce-free business world.
One is that far fewer sons of Abraham name their businesses after themselves (I'm sure this
will insincerely be attributed to some fear of native kulaks' repressed urge-to-pogrom, even
in Finland or Japan.) The other is an observation made by an associate of a famous Austrian
landscapist: even merely remarking on their origins causes these guys mental distress.
Here in the melting pot, the difference couldn't be any starker. You can make small talk
with any flavor of goy based on it: that's a Polish name, isn't it? Yeah, how did you
know! Try this one with Levy or Nussbaum down at The Smith Group or The Jones Foundation
and watch them plotz.
Jews have always weaponized usury. Long before Christianity, Jews operated the East/West
mechanism on donkey caravan trade routes. Silver would drain from the West, and Gold would
drain from the east, while Jewish caravaneers would take usury on exchange rate differences.
This operated for thousands of years.
Haibaru donkey bones have been discovered outside of Sumer. The Aiparu/Haibaru (Hebrew)
tribes were formed as merchants operating between city states. In those days, psychopaths and
criminals would be excommunicated from civilized city states, and would take up with the
wandering merchant tribe.
Why do you think the Jew is always interested in owing the money power? Why do you think
the Jew perpetually stands outside the walls of the city state, plotting its destruction?
History tells us things, and we had better listen. That is – real history, not what
you learned in (((public skool))). There are two ways to deal with the Jew: 1) Remove him
from your country. 2) Limit him.
Limiting was done by Byzantium under Justinian. The Jew was limited FROM money
counting/banking; limited from participation in government; limited from access to pervert
young minds – especially as school teachers and professors.
It takes a King or Tsar who cares about his population, and is willing to eject or filter
out toxins from the body politic. (((Democracy))) is a failed form of government, whereby
monied Oligarchs control the polity by compromat and pulling strings.
You are not going to be able to vote your way out of the Jew problem.
@Colin
Wright Echoing words once supposedly used by Hermann Goering: whenever I here the word
'philanthropist' these days, I instinctively reach for my revolver!
Take the ideology of Islam – it does not allow for aggressive war, surprise
attacks, the killing of women or children (unless they take up arms)..
Ilya,
There is deception in Islam. Sorry. You cannot make claims about Islam not allowing for
aggressive war and surprise attacks.
These concepts even have names and doctrine that support them. Wahabbi/Salafist Islam is
exactly in alignment with Islamic teachings, especially when using abrogation techniques.
Taqiyya is lying with intent to deceive. The analog in Judaism is the Kol-Niedre, which
allows one pre-forgiveness for lying, cheating, even murder of Goyim.
Hudnas is are used to lay in wait, build up strength, to then attack the enemy.
Islam has derogatory terms to demean e.g. Kaffirs, which is similar to Goyim.
There is also deception in Christianity, but this deception is OUT OF ALIGNMENT WITH
DOCTRINE. The doctrine of super-session means the old testament is superseded, completed, a
historical record.
In Islam the doctrine of Abrogation means that the more pacific Meccan verses are
abrogated (made less relevant) that post Medina. Ergo, Wahabbi Islam and the Takfiri's are
doctrinaly correct, while Judaizer Christians (those that worship the old testament) are out
of alignment and heretics.
Judaism is actually a new religion that came into being after 73 AD, when the verbal
tradition (Caballa) became written down into Talmud.
Our Jewish friends have always been practicing usury, going back to since forever.
Our Jewish friends, I count as worse that Islamics. However two wrongs don't make a right.
Islam badly needs reform or to be expunged. Talmudic Judaism is by far the worst religion on
the planet, and its adherents must malfunction by definition.
o ..kill all the Jewish, er, "vulture capitalists" , right? Or should we go "easy" on
them all and merely ship them all off to special "re-education" camps? Or am I missing
something here ?
You are missing something because you are unwilling to adapt and learn with new
information. This makes you an ideologue.
Lolbertarianism IS A JEWISH CONSTRUCT.
There are no such things as free markets. Money's true nature is law, not gold. Money
didn't come into being with barter and other nonsense lolbertarians believe.
Most of the luminaries that came up with "libertarian" economics are Jews, and it is a
doctrine of deception. The idea is to confuse the goyim with thoughts and ideas that make
them easy pickings.
A determined in-group of predators operating in unison, will take down an "individual"
every-time.
Don't expect anything to improve with Jay Clayton as SEC Chair, and his wife and her father
Gretchen Butler Clayton who was CEO of CSC and mysterious WMB Holdings which share the same
address in addition to many Goldman Sachs divisions. Gretchen was employed by Goldman Sachs
as an attorney from 1999-2017. Many companies affiliated with the Panama Papers share the
same address as well.
Jewish people have treated me better than my own White Euro family.
Jews are tribal, gee what a surprise after 1000's of years of people trying to wipe them
out . and so their charity is within the tribe, but there is no charity within the tribe
among Whites.
Jews, along with Asians and at least some Africans, believe in not just climbing the
ladder, but in actually helping others – at least family – up it also. Whites
believe in climbing the ladder and then pulling it up after them.
I was explaining to a friend recently: My (relative) has proven that if I showed up at
their door, starving, they'd not give me a cheese sandwich, while in my experience, strangers
have been overall a fairly kind lot and a stranger, 50/50, might. Therefore, while I find the
idea of robbing or burning down the house of a stranger abhorrent, I don't mind the idea so
much when it involves a person who's proven to be cold and evil.
For more on this, see the book Angela's Ashes. The Irish family could have stayed in New
York where they were being befriended by a Jewish family. There was a ray of hope. The Irish
kids, at least, would have been fed, steered into decent schooling, etc. But foolishly they
went back to Ireland, to be treated like utter dogshit by their fellow White family and
"people".
Most of the predation going on in the US and worldwide is being done by WASPS who are
using Jews as a convenient scapegoat.
@tono
bungay Feel free to offer us some counter-examples, tono. How many such funds to you know
of that aren't disproportionately Jewish? We're all ears!
@Robjil
This is an example of what I was saying. Less Euro whites in the world is not going to be a
good world for Big Js. Non-Euros believe in freedom of speech.
Jewish Bigwigs can't get control of businesses in East Asia. They have been trying. Paul
Singer tried and failed. In Argentina he got lots of "success". Why? Lots of descendants of
Europeans there went along with "decisions" laid out by New York Jews.
Little Paulie tried to get control of Samsung. No such luck for him in Korea. In Korea
there are many family monopolies, chaebols. A Korean chaebol stopped him. Jewish Daniel Loeb
tried to get a board seat on Sony. He was rebuffed.
I was moved to reflect on the universality of this theme recently when surveying media
coverage on Korean and Argentinian responses to the activities of Paul Singer and his
co-ethnic shareholders at Elliott Associates, an arm of Singer's Elliott Management hedge
fund. The Korean story has its origins in the efforts of Samsung's holding company, Cheil
Industries, to buy Samsung C&T, the engineering and construction arm of the wider
Samsung family of businesses. The move can be seen as part of an effort to reinforce
control of the conglomerate by the founding Lee family and its heir apparent, Lee Jae-yong.
Trouble emerged when Singer's company, which holds a 7.12% stake in Samsung C&T and is
itself attempting to expand its influence and control over Far East tech companies,
objected to the move. The story is fairly typical of Jewish difficulties in penetrating
business cultures in the Far East, where impenetrable family monopolies, known in Korea as
chaebols, are common. This new story reminded me very strongly of last year's efforts by
Jewish financier Daniel Loeb to obtain a board seat at Sony. Loeb was repeatedly rebuffed
by COO Kazuo Hirai, eventually selling his stake in Sony Corp. in frustration.
Here is how the Koreans fought off Paul Singer.
The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliott Associates has a wealth of
self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung
conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer's firm were forced into several tactical
measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those
failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests,
starting a Korean-language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid
of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish
crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and,
unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer's
interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund's other
ventures.
Cartoons were drawn of Singer being a vulture.
Other cartoons appearing at the same time represented Elliott, literally, as humanoid
vultures, with captions referring to the well-known history of the fund. In the above
cartoon, the vulture offers assistance to a needy and destitute figure, but conceals an axe
with which to later bludgeon the unsuspecting pauper.
ADL got all worked about this. The Koreans did not care. It is reality. Freedom of speech
works on these vultures. The west should try some real freedom of speech.
After the cartoons appeared, Singer and other influential Jews, including Abraham
Foxman, cried anti-Semitism. This was despite the fact the cartoons contain no reference
whatsoever to Judaism – unless of course one defines savage economic predation as a
Jewish trait. Samsung denied the cartoons were anti-Semitic and took them off the website,
but the uproar over the cartoons only seemed to spur on even more discussion about Jewish
influence in South Korea than was previously the case. In a piece published a fortnight
ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless
and merciless." Last week, the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco, Park Jae-seon,
expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance when he said, "The scary thing
about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies.
Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination." The next day, cable news channel YTN
aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho, who stated on air that "it is a
fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born." It goes
without saying that comments like these are unambiguously similar to complaints about
Jewish economic practices in Europe over the course of centuries. The only common
denominator between the context of fourteenth-century France and the context of
twenty-first-century South Korea is, you guessed it, Jewish economic practices.
The Koreans won. Paulie lost. Good win for humanity. The Argentines were not so lucky.
They don't have freedom speech like the Koreans and East Asians have.
In the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative
nature of Elliott Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder
vote on the Lee's planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am said: "We should
score a victory by a big margin in the first battle, in order to take the upper hand in a
looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term
gains in the domestic market." When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a
conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving
Elliott licking its wounds and complaining about the "patriotic marketing" of those behind
the merger.
@jack
daniels Now that I think about it, it was unfair to make an anecdotal judgment that
Jewish lenders are less forgiving. There are plenty of examples, I'm sure, of compassionate
Jews and flinty gentiles.
Finally! An intelligent criticism of Trump for a change. So tired of the brainless
Democrat/MSM impeachment circus. They make me feel like a reflexive MAGAtard just for
defending the constitution, logic, etc., from their never-ending stream of inanities.
Meanwhile, the real problem with Trump is not that he's Hitler; it's that he's not Hitler
enough!
I am also so tired of Zionist-loving cucks bleeting on about the evils of the CRA without
ever considering the role played by the (((profiteers))) who lobbied such policies into law
in the first place. Realize that what Paul Singer does for a living used to be illegal in
this country up until recently. That's right: US bankruptcy law used to forbid investors from
buying up debt second-hand at a discount and then trying to reclaim the entire face
value from the debtor. But I see all kinds of people even on this thread blaming the victim
instead -- 'Damn goyishe deadbeats!' Whatever
What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even
any recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on
a perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his
co-ethnics who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and
who ultimately believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by
politicians."
To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being
a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?
The last Gentleman on WS was not a Jew. Bring back the WASP. You can maintain your honor,
and manners and still succeed. Jews take the easy low road of deception and cheating. WASP
take the higher road of harder work and ethical business practice.
[MORE]
The courtly Mr. Jenrette, who has been dubbed "the last gentleman on Wall Street" earned this
sobriquet largely for his reputation of being particularly sensitive to the human dimension
in an industry where such matters often get sidestepped. Nonetheless, despite Mr. Jenrette's
modest demeanor, he's risen to the top in an often cutthroat business. He remained with
Donaldson Lufkin through good times and bad, guiding it after its two other founding partners
departed for other ventures and, next month, he will step down as the chairman of the
Securities Industry Association, the brokerage trade group.
"Dick has been the one who carried the firm from its original promise through to closure,"
said Samuel Hayes 3d, an investment banking professor at the Harvard Business School.
"Dick's more in tune with human values and that's not frequently found on Wall Street."
Richard Jenrette, 89, Wall Street power, Raleigh native, dies https://www.wral.com ›
richard-jenrette-89-wall-street-power-and-preserva
Apr 23, 2018 – A courtly, soft-spoken North Carolina native whom The New York Times
once called the "last gentleman on Wall Street," Jenrette (pronounced
Wall Street's 'last gentleman' left behind these 24 lessons about life and success: At the
time of his death late last month due to complications from lymphoma, these couple dozen
rules to live by were left on his desk.
Stay in the game. That's often all you need to do -- don't quit. Stick around! Don't be a
quitter!
•Don't burn bridges (behind you)
•Remember -- Life has no blessing like a good friend!
•You can't get enough of them
•Don't leave old friends behind -- you may need them
•Try to be nice and say "thank you" a lot!
•Stay informed/KEEP LEARNING!
•Study -- Stay Educated. Do Your Home Work!! Keep learning!
•Cultivate friends of all ages -- especially younger
•Run Scared -- over-prepare
•Be proud -- no Uriah Heep for you! But not conceited. Know your own worth.
•Plan ahead but be prepared to allow when opportunity presents itself.
•Turn Problems into Opportunities. Very often it can be done. Problems create
opportunities for change -- people willing to consider change when there are problems.
•Present yourself well. Clean, clean-shaven, dress "classically" to age. Beware style,
trends. Look for charm. Good grammar. Don't swear so much -- it's not cute.
•But be open to change -- don't be stuck in mud. Be willing to consider what's new but
don't blindly follow it. USE YOUR HEAD -- COMMON SENSE.
•Have some fun -- but not all the time!
•Be on the side of the Angels. Wear the White Hat.
•Have a fall-back position. Heir and the spare. Don't leave all your money in one
place.
•Learn a foreign language.
•Travel a lot -- around the world, if possible.
•Don't criticize someone in front of others.
•Don't forget to praise a job well done (but don't praise a poor job)
•I don't like to lose -- but don't be a poor loser if you do.
•It helps to have someone to love who loves you (not just sex).
•Keep your standards high in all you do.
•Look for the big picture but don't forget the small details.
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I" care not who makes its laws"
That is what Mayer Amschel Rothchild said in the 1750s. Now, is it a stretch of my
imagination to believe the Central Banks of the West, all Jewish controlled, would unfairly
favor their 'own' when issueing or disbursing the money they are permitted to create.
We are not allowed to audit the Federal Reserve, so we know not what they do with it beyond
what they tell us. In 2016 it was discovered that between the year 1999 and 2016 well over
$23 trillions had been stolen from just 2 departments of our government, the DoD and HUD.
(Someone should look at NASA). Is it possible the seed money, for not only Venture
capitalists schemes but also buying governments and law makers, has been diverted, shoveled
out of the back door of these corrupt central banks and into the hands of their fellow
jews?
Anyway, the more exposure articles like this get the closer we get to ending their reign.
As I noted in my previous examination of contemporary Jewish usury, Jews have been at
the forefront of innovation in debt for many centuries, and remain its most adroit auteurs.
Although obviously rooted in centuries of Jewish financial practice, Singer and his
co-ethnics (all four equity partners of Elliott are Jewish, and its COO is the
charmingly-named Zion Shohet) pioneered the finer points of the vulture-fund concept. The
firm was born in 1977 when Singer pooled $1.3 million from family and friends,
His firm's first big "win" was the pillage of Panama in 1995.
but it only really took off in October 1995, when Elliott Associates L.P. purchased
$28.7 million of Panamanian sovereign debt for the discounted price of $17.5 million. The
banks holding those bonds, a group that included heavy hitters like Citi and Credit Suisse,
had given up on repayment from Panama. To cut their losses, they sold their holdings to
Elliott which, like a medieval tax farmer, went in with a heavy hand. When Panama's
government asked for a restructuring of its foreign debt in 1995, the vast majority of its
bondholders agreed – apart from Elliott. In July 1996, Elliott Associates,
represented by one of the world's most high-profile securities law firms, filed a lawsuit
against Panama in a New York district court, seeking full repayment of the original $28.7
million – plus interest and fees. The case made its way from a district court in
Manhattan to the New York State Supreme Court, which sided with Elliott. In the end,
Panama's government had to pay the Jewish group over $57 million, with an additional $14
million going to other creditors. Overnight, Singer's group made $40 million, and the
people of Panama found their original sovereign debt had more than doubled.
@Mefobills
If you could point to a verse in the Quran that allows for aggressive war, it would help me
learn – when I read it I saw an explosive self defence at any infringment on the Ummah,
but not much beyond that.
Of course the origination story of the faith is one of fighting, and without any wise men
to guide the laypeople, the faith has an issue in that it is easy for people to not follow
what it teaches.
Islam has been assaulted for a millennium, and so the self defence aspect of its faith has
become more active than the rest.. it needs reform I agree (and not in the direction the
Salafists have taken it), but more so there is a need for the Ummah to have a few generations
of non-aggression from the outside world.. without it the pressure will only be towards
violence – for any nation or faith!
Judaism has monopolized for millennia though, and still acts as a victim. Different kettle
of fish.
Also, you can debate the positives and negatives of Islam with a Muslim (not as a rabid
ignoramus of course – you must be polite, and have learnt something, as well as be open
to learning more). Almost every debate with a Jew about Judaism has started with, continued
with, and ended with name calling for me however.
Judaism fails as a religion because it does not encourage the practitioner to look at
themselves when confronted with error, Islam still does imo.
Does anyone here remember how John Leibowitz aka John Stewart spent months ripping Mitt
Romney to shreds? Remember? Evil white man vulture capitalism at Bain? Remember? Romney was
Adolf Hitler, and look he put his golden retriever on the roof once?
Say. How come that Mr Leibowitz never talked about the Jews who basically destroyed yes
the entire Rust belt by acquisition and outsource?
That Mr Johnny Leibovitz sure did hate the goy a lot and all. He never talked about his
own people. What a fair fellow Mr Johnny Leibovitz was. He even changed his name. Why change
the name?
Remember. Bain Capital and that kind of merger pump and dumps is all done by Mormons
goyim.
@Colin
Wright Your statement: "Jews actually collaborated extensively in the imposition of
tyranny on the working class in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991" not only applies to Europe,
but the united States of America as well.
It's the JEWS it's always the JEWS
[MORE]
Our present situation and the devolving into the morass of "multiculturalism" and "diversity"
is no accident. The jewish talmud and that jewish invention-communism has "rules" for the
debasement of (white) civil society.
The following statements are a result of personal experiences–your mileage may
vary
I came of age during the first so-called "civil-rights" movement and saw for myself the
underhanded dealings, the demonization of decent, law-abiding whites, and in general, the
deterioration of civil society.
Almost all of the "civil-rights" workers and demonstration "handlers" were of one
persuasion–New York based leftist communist jews. They cared not one wit about true
"civil rights", but were there to create hate and discontent among their black charges (who
were too stupid or naive to see that they were being used to suborn and destroy legitimate
government and society–a favorite communist tactic).
These New York-based "carpetbaggers" fomented their hate and discontent, only to become
future "civil-rights" attorneys, race-hustlers, and America-hating leftist communists and the
ADL and $PLC being invented.
Those of us whites who were in the middle of this "civil-rights" revolution had a saying:
" Behind every negro, there is a jew ". No truer words were spoken.
Let's not forget their infestation of the nation's education and entertainment systems,
(which continues to the present day), in which they can spread their jewish supremacist
poison.
The so-called "non-violent civil-rights demonstrations" were anything but "non-violent".
Robberies, rapes, and other criminal acts were common, but never reported, as even the
"mainstream media" was "in on the game" and conveniently turned off their cameras during the
acts of violence. You see, even then,"creating crises" was a part of the agenda.
The "beginning of the end" of America was the use of federal troops against white
Americans, which, in itself was a violation of "posse comitatus"–the prohibition on the
use of federal troops for domestic "law enforcement" purposes. As most whites were (and still
are) law-abiding, they (we) were "steamrollered" by the use of federal troops to crush honest
dissent. We never recovered from those unconstitutional actions. It was all downhill from
there
The next step may be "civil-war" in which us whites will have to take back our birthright
by force.
"Foreign Policy described the court's decision as "a groundbreaking moment in the modern
history of finance." By taking the case to a New York district court, Elliott broke with
long-standing international law and custom, according to which sovereign governments are not
sued in regular courts meant to deal with questions internal to a nation state. Further, the
presiding judge accepted the case – another break with custom. It set the stage for two
decades of similar parasitism on struggling countries by Elliott Associates, a practice that
has reaped billions for Jewish financiers. "
A year later after the ground breaking decision. Paulie tries this scam on another nation,
Peru.
Just one year after the Panama decision, Singer spent about $11 million on
government-backed Peruvian bank debt in 1996. After Singer took Peru to court in the U.S.,
U.K., Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and Canada, the struggling nation finally agreed in
2000 to pay him $58 million. That meant he got better than a 400 percent return.
In 2001, the victim was Argentina.
In 2001, Elliott Associates purchased an Argentinian default for $48 million; the face
value of that debt today is $630 million. The fund wants repayment for the full value of
the debt to all of Argentina's creditors, as it did in 1995 with Panama. This amounts to
$1.5 billion, which could rise to $3 billion including, again, that all-important interest
and fees.
Another victim was the Congo in 2002-03.
..specific activities of Elliott Associates in Congo, where it originally bought $32.6
million in sovereign debt incurred by that country for the knockdown price of under $20
million. In 2002 and 2003, a British court (tactically chosen) forced the Congolese
government to settle for an estimated $90 million, which included that all-important
interest and fees. Elliott Associates rapidly became known as the quintessential "vulture
fund."
1. Re Sidney, Nebraska: Maybe I'm missing something but wasn't it Cabela's owners, for
example co-founder and chairman Jim Cabela, who sold Cabela, not Elliot Management (Singer et
al)? I gather Elliot Management owned only 11% of the company. Was that enough to force them
to sell?
2. The article confuses honest straightforward loans with tax farming and government
corruption. Loans can be very useful, e.g. for a car to get to a job, or for a house so you
build up equity instead of paying rent.
@Hapalong
Cassidy Bain's not much of an exception to Joyce's pattern: although Mitt, like the other
three founders, was a goy, there were plenty of Chosen Ones associated with the company right
from the start:
In addition to the three founding partners, the early team included Fraser Bullock,
Robert F. White, Joshua Bekenstein, Adam Kirsch, and Geoffrey S. Rehnert Early investors
included Boston real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman and Robert Kraft, the owner of the New
England Patriots football team.
@BannedHipster
According to the Talmud, we goyim are not the descendants of Adam and Eve, like the
Jews. No, we are the bastard progeny of Adam's first wife, Lilleth, who eloped with the demon
Samael. So we goyim are really all half-demons and therefore we are an abomination in the
sight of Jew-hova, and we get what we deserve at the hands of his 'chosen people'.
improving the quality of life and access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that
they may benefit from the country's prosperity
Read 'all Jewish Israeli citizens'. I doubt they're going to do any life-enhancing
or make opportunities available to any of the grunting subhuman goyim .
It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while
impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.
Andrew Carnegie built something that made life better for people. Making steel is a
beneficial thing.
These evil vulture Jews build nothing – they make people poorer. They suck the
wealth out of people who have little. They know 100% what they are doing.
Jesus expressed anger against the money changers on the temple steps.
It is OK for you to have natural human feelings and be angry at these Jew bastards.
@Anon
Romney is a Mormon, one of the church officials. The Mormons are closer to the Jews pattern
of worshiping money and using charity donation for business investments.
Mormons arent considered Protestants .
"Although the church has not released church-wide financial statements since 1959, in
1997, Time magazine called it one of the world's wealthiest churches per capita.[147] In a
June 2011 cover story, Newsweek stated that the LDS Church "resembles a sanctified
multinational corporation -- the General Electric of American religion, with global ambitions
and an estimated net worth of $30 billion." A whistle blower within the church reported them
to the IRS for using their status as a non taxable religious groups to invest in business
ventures instead of charities.
@anon
Maybe I can answer your question.
I studied and befriended many jews as a student (Imperial College, London etc) – none
were above average intelligent, and although they were very geeky, they only got average
grades.
When I moved to LA – most of my friends were jews and again, none were very bright
(even though a few were famous). Most of these LA jewish friends were probably psychopaths
– thinking back – very manipulative, exploitative and they lied a lot.
I think it's mostly through their cultural nepotism – they work on their own unity
(they help promote each other) while at the same time they work on destroying unity in their
host and everyone else.
Many have changed their Eastern European names.
And they go out of the way to help other jews (only) – a Serbian friend in Toronto
looks very jewish (but is not religious) told me several times here in Toronto, other Jews
(his boss etc) just offered to help him for no reason ("Is there anything I can do for you?"
etc). He did not understand why they did that – then I realized he actually looks like
a Jewish stereotype (as does his twin brother). So he thought he was helping his own
tribe.
When I went to Cuba with a Jewish 'friend' from LA – he was actively looking for
anything jewish (and nothign else – he did not want to see anything famous like a
beautiful cemetery in Havana etc) – only synagogs etc – where he gave some money
to jews he never even met. I was there with him and saw it. He was even angry if I suggested
we see something nice , historical and not-jewish. We met a NY jew there and we gave his a
ride in the car we rented – they immediately teamed up against me – for no reason
– I regretted going with him on this trip. It was an awful experience –
consistent with all the books I read on psychopaths and also that book Jewish History, Jewish
Religion, the weight of 3000 years
Another very wealthy American mother of a friend asked her South African friends (also jews)
to help her book trips in South Africa (and they of course recommended only their Jewish
friends) – it's their son who told me this.
So a lot of backstabbing, cultural nepotism and actively (but in a hidden way as most
psychopaths like to do) they do at wakening and isolating their host. That's their only
advantage – not intelligence (at least in my experience )
I recently learned that from about 1790 to 1967 the USState department refused to issue US
passports to people who held foreign passports. State also didn't hire any dual citizens for
any job from cafeteria dishwasher to ambassador.
Then in the mid sixties, an Israeli immigrant who became a US citizen applied for a US
passport. State refused to issue the US passport. So the Israeli immigrant practiced lawfare.
In 1967 the Supreme Court issued one of its usual detrimental and dangerous rulings. State
was ordered to start issuing US passports to dual citizens.
Soon there were numerous applications to State depot jobs from Israeli citizens residing
in the US. Knowing lawsuits loomed, State caved.
And that children is how and why State, commerce, DOJ CIA treasury, top security civilian
departments in the Pentagon and other federal agencies became flooded with dual American
Israeli citizens who divert money to Israel. Plus they work for Israel instead of the US.
Mysterious how the only Whites who manage to make it past affirmative action barriers are
jews.
Maybe there's a special affirmative action quota for Israelis residing in America.
@J
Adelman Adelman, be careful what you wish for, as in a debate you will be drowned.
Being labeled an ANTISEMITE is the new badge of honor and courage.
Central banks and their fiat fractional reserve banking system is slowly collapsing, as more
and more nations avoid using the BIS. Joyce's article fully explains why Russia is being
promoted as some type of arch-enemy.
@DaveE
I don't even know what capitalism means anymore. It doesn't seem like it's an actual free
market system. Seems like it is slavery for the little guy, and parasitism for the rich.
Maybe we should ditch the word capitalism for usuryism.
"'It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's recent attack on the activities of Paul
Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates '"
I am going to avoid the Jew is bad mantra here. I read that article. But it was not an
expose' of hedgefunds, at least not at the level i was expecting. They merged two companies
and sold off or closed that which was least profitable.
In that article there was no clear discussion – about what could have prevented the
closure. So it was hard to respond positively in favor of not closing. I am advocate of
keeping work in the US, but I don't think it is unreasonable that companies be sustainable. I
would have liked that exposure, that the hedge had no intention of exploring possible profit
making alternatives.
And that is where Mr. Carlson lost me. He did not link the companies as you have. Nor
provide the examples you bring to the fore.
What distresses me about Islam is that the pacific practitioners, e.g. Suffi's, many Shias
and Sunnis are out of alignment, and hence are subject to violence from their coreligionists.
I happen to believe there are many wonderful people within the religion what I am saying is
that there is an elephant in the room, and it has a name: abrogation.
I'm going to use a smoke there is fire analogy using data.
If a religion launches repeated attacks against civilizations, then there is something
"in" the religion that is used for justification of said aggression. I'm of the opinion that
data matters, and you have to adjust your position to come into accord with real world
data.
Between 632 and 1922, Islam launched 548 offensive battles against classical
civilization
These attacks were often brutal, especially with rapes being used to "convert women"
rapidly.
In Islam (as in other religions as well) the Imam can turn knobs and get an output. This
means that abrogation is used to pick and choose verses depending on situation, to maneuver
the sheeple in the direction Imam's or political authority want them to go – including
offensive war. I used the term political authority on purpose, because Islam is more than
just a religion, it is a political-theocratic construct that is all-encompassing.
There may not be a specific verse allowing aggressive violence, but there is something
going on based on the data. (I admit to being a lay-man and not an expert on minutia of
Islam. I don't want to go there based on what I already know to be true.)
In Christianity, if there are calls for aggressive violence it is OUT OF ALIGNMENT because
of super-session. Christian adherents who do this are Judaizers, and have to use the old
testament for justification.
@Digital
Samizdat Who the heck is Lillith? Where did she come from? Adam's apple? At least Samael
is a step up from a talking snake. Talk about rewrite. Almost on par to the silly ones on the
daytime soaps. Oh wait . probably same writers.
@Rebel0007
"This won't end well."
-- They cannot help themselves. Two components make it impossible for the tribe to behave in
a preservation mode:
1. the victimhood complex, despite all the recently displayed data about Jewish murderous
ways in the host countries
2. the disproportionate number of psychopaths who are approved by tribal epos and mentality
Perhaps the only solution is to make the aggressive Jews become confined to their Jewish
country. Like an infectious disease that needs to be quarantined. Otherwise, the Jewish
psychopaths will continue leaching and destroying.
Not only the vulture bankers but a complete set of ziocons-infested stink-tanks should be
relocated (with their immediate families) to the Jewish State and prohibited from crossing
the Jewish State borders. Plus the limitations on their involvement in international commerce
and banking. Let the Jews be finally in Jerusalem today, not "next year." Let them enjoy the
company of other Jews.
Jew billionaire globalizer money-grubber Paul Singer has bought and paid for politician
puppet whore Marco Rubio.
JEWS ORGANIZED GLOBALLY(JOG) -- of which Paul Singer is a shady participant -- have plans
for after Trump and they involve the US Senators Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton
and others.
Paul Singer pushes mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration. Paul Singer wants
to continue to use mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration as demographic weapons
to attack and destroy the historic American nation.
Paul Singer wants to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight endless wars on
behalf of Israel.
I wrote this in February of 2019:
I just got reminded that Marco Rubio won a lot of the GOP billionaire Jew donor money away
from Jebby Bush in the 2016 GOP presidential primary because the Jew billionaires -- Paul
Singer in particular -- were not too thrilled with Jebby Bush's connection to James Baker.
James Baker was a factor in the Jew billionaire decision to back Marco Rubio.
George W Bush had dragged the American Empire into a war in Iraq on behalf of Israel and
the GOP Jew billionaire donors were still not convinced of Jebby Bush's slavish devotion to
Israel.
Marco Rubio signalled his willing whoredom to the ISRAEL FIRST foreign policy of endless
war on behalf of Israel in a way that left nothing to chance for the GOP Jew billionaire
donors.
Marco Rubio is nothing more than a filthy politician whore for the GOP Jew billionaire
donors who want to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of
Israel.
New York Times article:
Mr. Rubio has aggressively embraced the cause of wealthy pro-Israel donors like Mr.
[Sheldon] Adelson, whom the senator is said to call frequently, and Mr. Singer, who both
serve on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, an umbrella group for Republican
Jewish donors and officials. Mr. Bush has been less attentive, in the view of some of these
donors: Last spring, he refused to freeze out his longtime family friend James A. Baker
III, the former secretary of state, after Mr. Baker spoke at the conference of a liberal
Jewish group.
The lobbying of Mr. Singer intensified in recent weeks as Mr. Bush's debate stumbles and
declining poll numbers drove many donors to consider Mr. Rubio anew. Last week, Mr. Bush's
campaign manager, Danny Diaz, and senior adviser, Sally Bradshaw, flew to New York to make
personal appeals on Mr. Bush's behalf, in the hopes of heading off an endorsement of Mr.
Rubio, according to two people close to the former governor's campaign.
This is a timely article for me as I have been pondering the relationship between Jews and
neoliberalism for some time now.
At university I studied under a brilliant Neo-Marxist professor who showed me some theory
and arguments that went a long way towards explaining how to make sense of the global power
structure. (Just a quick not for those who recoil at the mere mention of Neo-Marxist: the
academics that use a marxist lens as a tool to criticize the powerful are not all the cuckold
communist SJW types – some of these individuals are extremely intelligent and they make
very powerful arguments backed by loads of data.) One of the theories I was introduced to was
the notion of the Transnational Capitalist Class in this article called Towards A Global
Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class:
http://media.library.ku.edu.tr/reserve/respring18/Intl313_ZOnis/3_Historical_Structuralism.pdf
The authors write the following:
Sklair's work goes the furthest in conceiving of the capitalist class as no longer
tied to territoriality
Inherent in the international concept is a system of nation-states that mediates relations
between classes and groups, including the notion of national capitals and national
bourgeoisi. Transnational, by contrast, denotes economic and related social, political, and
cultural processes – including class formation that supersede nation-states
What distinguishes the TCC from national or local capitalists is that it is involved
in globalized production and manages globalized circuits of accumulation that give it an
objective class existence and identity spatially and politically in the global system above
any local territories and polities.
Since reading your (Dr Joyce) work on the JQ I began to see the connection between age old
complaints of Jews, and what Ford referred to as "The International Jew". In fact, replace
the term "transnational capitalist class" from my passages quoted above (and many others) and
what you have is perfect mirror image of the argument.
This question has come up often lately, synchronistically (or maybe not). I'm somewhat new
to the JQ, having consumed many hours of work (including much of your own) after being sent
down the rabbit hole by the ongoing Epstein case. I was pondering that perhaps, Jews take the
blame for what the predatory capitalists are doing. Not even a week later you addressed this
precise question in your piece about Slavoj Ziszek and now with "vulture capitalism" it is
coming up yet again in Carlson's segment followed by the article right here. It also came up
on the "other side" in the blog I follow of a professor of globalization in this article:
https://zeroanthropology.net/2019/11/27/global-giants-american-empire-and-transnational-capital/
The link above is a review of the book Giants: The Global Power Elite . The review
provides a summary of the book which once again could be a text about Jews if one were to
replace the term "transnational capitalist class" with "Jews". Why I mention it, though, is
the following: "Chapter 2, "The Global Financial Giants: The Central Core of Global
Capitalism," identifies the 17 global financial giants -- money management firms that control
more than one trillion dollars in capital. As these firms invest in each other, and many
smaller firms, the interlocked capital that they manage surpasses $41 trillion (which amounts
to about 16% of the world's total wealth). The 17 global financial giants are led by 199
directors. This chapter details how these financial giants have pushed for global
privatization of virtually everything, in order to stimulate growth to absorb excess capital.
The financial giants are supported by a wide array of institutions: "governments,
intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police forces, militaries, and corporate
media all work in support of their vital interests" (p. 60).
Chapter 3, "Managers: The Global Power Elite of the Financial Giants," largely consists of
the detailed profiles of the 199 financial managers just mentioned.
This caught my eye because I immediately wondered how many of those 199 directors are
Jewish. It also pertains directly to this exact article because I am confident that the
vulture capitalists you targeted here are profiled in the book, probably with many
others.
Now, I am not in the business of writing about the JQ, so I wanted to suggest to anyone
out there that is that if they were to obtain a copy of this book and determine how many of
the 199 directors are jews. What this could accomplish is a marriage of the major two
theories of the "anti-semites" (for lack of a better word) and the "Neo-Marxists". I would
argue that perhaps both sides would learn they are coming at the same thing from two
different angles. Most would ignore it, but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much
needed electric shock if they were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms. Perhaps some
alliances could be forged across the cultural divide in this struggle. Personally I believe
that both angles are perfectly valid, and that understanding one without the other will
leaves far too much to be desired when studying the powerful.
@the
grand wazoo Reagan relaxed the laws on takeovers and as a result what Galbraith called the technostructure (modern
corporation in which the business was run by not with an eye on shareholder value but in the
interests of everyone involved) was ripped apart.
However the technostructure had come about in the 30s when the Depression led to mass lay
offs, which had began to cause social unrest. The Chinese are have already cutting a swath
through Western productive capacity, and now they are coming for the rest to the extent that
the European Union is tightening the limits of foreign direct investment and takeovers. Trump
is calling for negative interest rates, which were not adopted even during the 1930s when
one-quarter of the labor force was idle.
Prospects for severe economic pain being imposed on ordinary working people and the
consequent (eventual) establishment of a new technostructure are excellent. I hate to sound
like an accelerationist, but Jews like Singer are bringing that day closer.
@Ghali
'Everywhere they go, they leave behind nations in ruins. "
-- They always find the willing local collaborators ready to make a big profit. Who can
forget Dick Cheney, the Enemy of Humanity? The same kind of unrestricted criminality and
amorality lives on in Tony Blair the Pious. The fact that this Catholic weasel and major
criminal Tony Blair is still not excommunicated tells all we need to know about the
Vatican.
Assange is rotting in a prison, while Tony Blair and Ghislaine Maxwell are roaming free. The
Jewish connections pay off.
I know some Torah Jews who are angry that Mischlings have no right of return to Israel,
and apparently now aren't part of the ruling American Jewish nation, or American, or have
anywhere to go now. They're also angry at what they see as a repeat of the cycle of
international Jewish action and inevitable reaction they will have to bear the brunt of.
They referred me to this website: The Institute for Historical Review where they
apparently contribute.
" Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they
wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half
of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish,"
the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New
Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27. )"
So that was the context of who owned capital in Russia, what was the effect?
" According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US
assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent
plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during
the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a
small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era ."
But how is that possible? Swashbuckling international capitalists like Bill Browder were
bringing their Ivy League MBA's to more efficiently manage all those assets. And he said how
much he wanted to save the Polish Train-yards.
What happened? A Putin arose. He took the capital from the Jews, and the Jews were
dispatched to the United States. Putin also aligned himself with a different Jewish faction
less virulently dismissive of the needs of the people they ruled.
What do they do in the United States? Something similar as the economy careens towards
another financial crisis and living standards, mortality rates, and the middle class
plummet.
"Jewish power in Russia, Galushin continues, has resulted in millions of homeless
children, widespread tuberculosis and cholera, a shortage of medicines, cheating retirees of
their pensions, suicide in the armed forces, and the death of science. What do the Gusinskys,
the Berezovskys, the Chubais, the Nemtsovs, the Kiriyenkos, the Smolenskys, the Livshits, and
the Gaidars say about this? Millions of Russians have perished under their rule. Are the
Russian people ready to judge these scoundrels for their crimes, Galushin ask",
Robert Maxwell was a Chezch Jew – he also robbed hundreds of millions worth of
pensions. How is it possible that all these Jewish capitalists can be linked to readily to
Jeffrey Epstein?
How did Robert Maxwell get his seed money?
Here is a letter sent to Boris Berezovsky nee Abramovich.
"In sharp contrast to the intense feelings expressed by such Russian writers over the
catastrophic situation in their country today is the seeming indifference of American and
German taxpayers who have unwittingly channeled billions of dollars and marks to the
oligarchs -- who in turn have transferred this largesse to secret Swiss accounts. Who
monitors the distribution of these billions through the World Bank, the IMF, the financial
houses, and various banks? Who is responsible for this terrible injustice?"
That's really strange, because isn't that what the Russians accused Browder of doing? They
say that he channelled billions of dollars out of Russia into the United States. Then we had
the great Russian menace that is still ongoing in the media, and failing.
But Browder said that the Russian collusion story that was created by Fusion GPS, and then
the FISA court warrants issued on the basis of the fabricated Steele 'pissgate' dossier and
media stories was 100% true.
And Steele worked for the Russia desk of British Intelligence, and was being paid by the
Democrats.
Even the proto-Shabbos goys at the National Review had to distance themselves from it.
They showed that the date the FBI and Justice said it was verified it couldn't possibly have
been verified.
So why did so many Jewish capitalists like Browder support it?
And why aren't the Russians being permitted to trace Russian monies into Cyprus if Bill
Browder and now Jewish captialist ever has every done a thing that is wrong?
Because literally to the letter what is said about Donald Trump, the Democrats were
actually doing.
"" It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to
Ukraine's prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four
investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that
their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as "strong
advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine," the Democratic senators
declared, "We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some
in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President
Trump," before demanding Lutsenko "reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation
with this important investigation ."
And yet Trump pulls the Jews ever closer. A ruling race of ubermenschen now.
'No reason'.
Can you imagine what American Blacks and savage Hispanics let alone whites are going to do
if the US economy craters like the Russian economy, and everything is transferred to the
banks?
@Old
and grumpy Yeah . fine idea. I've always maintained there are two uses of the word
"capitalism" industrial capitalism or competition of ideas vs. financial capitalism, the
Darwinian struggle for the most ruthless bankster to rig the "markets" most efficiently.
Whether we give it new terminology I don't care much . but I sure wish people would
understand the difference, one way of another !
Trump and the Republican Party puppets are nothing more than nasty politician whores for
billionaire Jews such as Seth Klarman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson and Les Wexner and
Bernie Marcus and many other money-grubber Jew donors.
The Republican Party Jew donors want to continue to flood the USA with mass legal
immigration and mass illegal immigration and the Jew donors want to continue to use the US
military as muscle to fight unnecessary wars and endless wars on behalf of Israel.
The Republican Party Jew donors also want to have all their shady money-grubber scams
protected by the Republican Party politician whores.
I wrote this in October of 2017 about Seth Klarman and Puerto Rican government debt:
Puerto Rico must be allowed to go belly up. The bond owners who own Puerto Rican debt must
go tits up. The US government must not bail out the investors who purchased Puerto Rican
government debt, or any debt whatsoever connected to Puerto Rico. Seth Klarman has been
revealed as a person who has bought Puerto Rican bonds in hopes of cashing out big.
SETH KLARMAN must be given a salt shaker to sprinkle salt on his worthless Puerto Rican
bonds before he eats them. Klarman must lose 100 cents on the dollar for his greedy purchase
of Puerto Rican debt. Klarman has loads of loot, and the Puerto Rican government debt was
purchased for one of his funds. I am sure his investors won't mind getting soaked by Seth for
a bit of money -- it is not even a whole billion dollars, only close to it.
David Dayen says:
Klarman, who has been described as the Oracle of Boston, has a history of buying
unpopular or distressed assets on the cheap in hopes of a payday. Baupost manages over $30
billion in assets. He is known as the top campaign contributor in New England and has been
a major donor in Republican politics in Massachusetts, including largely secret support for
2016's Question 2, an ultimately unsuccessful effort to lift a state cap on charter
schools. Klarman supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling Donald Trump "completely
unqualified for the highest office in the land."
Klarman's involvement in Puerto Rican debt will surely come as a surprise to activists
in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, who have never mentioned him among the "vultures" who are
causing undue pain for the island's U.S. citizens.
Jewish people have treated me better than my own White Euro family.
White Euro people are/were evolved for small tribes. They were hunter gatherers, and
evolved concurrently with dogs. In my opinion the pathological altrusim of whites has to do
with the close relations to dogs, pets and later livestock. The whole "good shepherd" is more
of a Western Construct of Cro-Magnon white people, than the insular goat-herding types of the
middle east.
For example, in Scandinavia and most white countries, a 'baby sitter' can be a neighbor,
while in middle eastern cultures, a baby sitter can only be from a family member.
In other words, white people extend trust to one another, while middle-eastern ethos is
more familal then tribal. Ice age evolution, especially the fourth ice ages, selected for
pathological altruism is whites; which is why whites extend their grace to foreigners, brown
people, and are easily duped by Jews.
All you can do is try to rise above your own families failings. White people have to think
it through intellectually, as it does not come naturally.
Jews are tribal, gee what a surprise after 1000's of years of people trying to wipe them
out . and so their charity is within the tribe, but there is no charity within the tribe
among Whites.
Yes, but what is being debated here is how Jews use their ethnocentrism and in-group
methods to practice usury against out-groups. Euro-whites are a perfect host for the
parasite. The parasitical methods EVOLVED over millenia to operate the usury mechanism, to
take rents and unearned income. This is why they have been kicked out of 109 countries,
because what they do is seen as immoral and against the common good. (Euro whites eventually
smarten up and it always takes a King to eject the Jews.)
For more on this, see the book Angela's Ashes. The Irish family could have stayed in New
York where they were being befriended by a Jewish family.
Let's not get cause and effect reversed. The potato famine in Ireland was devastating
because high-value crops were being exported to England to pay for wait for it . usury on
debts the Irish owed the English. The English in turn were operating the state sponsored
usury system of the Bank of England, which came into being in 1694. The BOE in turn was
JEWISH in construct, being maneuvered into place by Sephardic Jews from Amsterdam.
The Irish, being trusting souls, fell into the usury trap and could not keep up with the
exponential debts.
A general statement: White people can build high trust civilizations that benefit all of
their people, but are easily subverted when the wrong type of predators infiltrate. If your
family was extended, and had aunts and uncles and cousins, who lived in the general area for
centuries, then there would be a network to fall back on.
See slaughter of the cities by Jones:
And yes, the FIRE sector and impetus behind the destruction of your extended family was
JEWISH. The breakdown of neighborhoods and ethnics was on purpose.
The Jew is anti-logos, and whatever he touches he destroys. (There are exceptions of
course – but these people no longer possess a negative Jewish spirit.)
Sorry your family was destroyed. When whites become un-moored they don't know how to
act.
@J
Adleman Quite bizarre post. First,he makes a half ass defense of Jew
character.(Weinstein,Epstein don't represent jews! Well,they kind of do. Any jew who is
called to accounts for his crimes automatically does not represent jews!
You are a used condom. Do you represent the jews? Id day yes.)
Your diatribe sounds like an alt righter's view of jews. Are you real?
if you think it's wrong to buy or try to collect on defaulted debt, what is the
alternative set of laws and behavior you are recommending? If debts can simply be
repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function.
Capitalism includes money. You can't separate the risks in lending from other risks. Bad
investors should be punished and good investors rewarded. Resources should be well allocated.
Otherwise it's not capitalism.
These insane Boomers seem to think that there is a Jewish coup underway to remove Trump
because of all the things that Jews are saying in Jewish publications and every single person
involved being Jewish and stuff.
@Germanicus
About the Carnegie donated "Peace Palace" in The Hague, presently the seat of the In
ternational Court of Justice:
Germanicus claims:
They are a function of Empire in Hague, who protect empire criminals, and assume a non
existent legitimacy and jurisdiction as a private entity to take down empire opponents.
Such as this ruling for instance:
Guardian 3 Oct.2018:
International court of justice orders US to lift new Iran sanctions
Mike Pompeo indicates US will ignore ruling, after judges in The Hague find unanimously in
favour of Iran
@silviosilver
"What Joyce regards as a defect of "vulture" funds, others might regard as an benefit. "
-- Of course. I hope you did not miss the fact that the Jewish vulture funds -- ruthless,
unethical, and leaching on goyim -- contribute to the Jewish Holocaust Museum.
Is not it touching that the same bloody destroyers of nations demand from the same nations a
very special reverence -- out of ethical considerations, of course -- towards the Jewish
victims of WWII? But only Jewish victims. All others were not victims but casualties. See
Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. See the unlimited hatred of ziocons towards Russia.
@Anonymous" but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they were
to see the JQ framed in marxist terms " – I would not count on the effect of the
electric shock on the leftist thinkers. The role of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Cheka, NKVD,
GULAGs, genocides by famine has been known from the very beginning and yet it left no impact
on the leftist thinkers.
"According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US
assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent
plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during
the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a
small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era."
"Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they
wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half
of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish,"
the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New
Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27.)"
It's interesting how the appeal of Eduard Topol to Jews in Russia is now starting to echo
Jewish calls in the United States for Jews to stop the path they are currently on.
Here is the complete text of Topol's extraordinary "Open Letter to Berezovksy,
Gusinsky, Smolensky, Khodorkovsky and other Oligarchs," translated for the Journal by Daniel
Michaels from the text published in the respected Moscow paper Argumenty i Fakty ("Arguments
and Facts"), No. 38, September 1998:
Magnitsky and Bill Browder is also really interesting.
It turns out that a large measure of the Russiagate story arose because Russian lawyer
Natalia Veselnitskaya, who traveled to America to challenge Browder's account, arranged a
meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign advisers in June 2016 to present this
other side of the story.
Then we had Democrats actually literally word for word doing what they accuse Trump of
doing in Ukraine.
"It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez
(D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine's
prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations
they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support
for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as "strong advocates for a
robust and close relationship with Ukraine," the Democratic senators declared, "We have
supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to
have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump," before
demanding Lutsenko "reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this
important investigation."
What's the first rule of Communist and Satanist Saul Alinsky? Always accuse your opponents
of what you are doing.
Imagine having a Grandfather as the literal Chairman of the American Communist Party, and
all the amazing lessons you would learn about political maneuvering and ideology.
And it's amazing.
Browder's story is that Russian officials stole his companies seals and then fraudulently
formulated a tax avoidance scheme with a complete paper trail that they fabricated against
him in totem. Precisely matching the amount of money he was trying to remove from their
country, like those other Jewish Oligarchs who imposed conditions that were multiples worse
then even the American depression.
When under oath it turns out that Magnitsky wasn't even a lawyer at all, and didn't go to
law school. Why did the media owned by Mormons of course keep saying that Magnitsky was
Browder's lawyer?
Why did the Russians fraudulently fabricate a paper-trail for another Jewish Oligarch to
steal money out of Russia? Just like they colluded with Trump when a Russian lawyer sought to
explain what happened. Because that totally happened.
Maybe the problem isn't Capitalism. Maybe, when even the ur-Shabbos goys at National
Review are shaking their head and washing their hands like Pilate, maybe it's a different
problem.
Yet Trump holds these people ever close to his beating heart.
And then there are all these connections to Jeffrey Epstein that are like an explosion
linking all these people.
Poor old Russia. Even Putin isn't worse then what came before.
The link above is a review of the book Giants: The Global Power Elite. The review
provides a summary of the book which once again could be a text about Jews if one were to
replace the term "transnational capitalist class" with "Jews". Why I mention it, though, is
the following: "Chapter 2, "The Global Financial Giants: The Central Core of Global
Capitalism," identifies the 17 global financial giants -- money management firms that
control more than one trillion dollars in capital.
From the review .
"Robinson's claim that nation-states have become, "little more than population containment
zones," while "the real power lies with the decision makers who control global capital" (p.
26). Both propositions are unconvincing: first, populations are clearly not being
contained; second, if states matter so little, and the real decision-makers are global
capitalists, then why do the latter need states
That is such stupid reasoning it blows the mind. He is trying to shift the global problem
to institutions .. instead of the people who head those institutions
Institutions, agencies , financial firms, etc .are ALL run by PEOPLE .who make the
policies,laws, take the actions.
Why does the 'transnational capitalist class' need states? well duh because
people/labor/consumers are indeed "contained' in states subject to the states laws and
system. The transnational capitalist class created the institutions he speaks of 'from
within' those states thru their control of its system and their same goal partners who do the
same from within their respective states.
That the capitalist class is not tied to any territory has been observable since 1960.
I don't have time now to look up how many of 199 directors are Jews . but I know enough of
the economic history of various countries to know that Jews were the first business and
finance globe trotters,,,,.from Spain to Amsterdam, France to Africa , etc.etc. Jew were
first hired as reps and facilitators by the gentile business owners especially because of
their breather tribal contacts in many countries ..that was their stepping stone to becoming
transnational capitalist themselves.
Understanding our global capitalist ruling elite and who they are is not rocket
science
Buy your loans from another lender,
change the terms (add fees, penalties, underhanded stuff),
reposses your collatteral.
Outta be illegal.
White Gentiles, you must infiltrate and take over big business and big finance to help
protect your people from predation .and to give all peoples principled, fair financial
services. To help our society, and even others. Paul Singer doesnt seem to care about most of
his fellow men. We could do better, and help the world be a better place.
Yet more evidence is piling up that Donald J Trump is the Great Betrayer.
A man who had the biggest mandate in post war history to clean up the Swamp that is D.C.,
reform Immigration to save America and reform the economy for American workers.
He has squandered all of it while pandering to Jews.
When the Donald is revealed as the Great Betrayer where will Jews run? Yes, they have
several back up plans. Patagonia, Ukraine and Israel.
Imagine that. They have their own country and 2 back up plans. It is really tough being a
hated, oppressed minority.
@Anonymous
Thanks for your comment. You've come to the right place. Unz is an ideal hangout for
left/right fusionists who don't fit in perfectly with either side, but are interested in
hearing from both. In addition, if you're looking for other good right-wing sites that aren't
libertarian, Zionist or overly Christian, I can also heartily recommend Dr. Kevin MacDonald's
Occidental Observer ,
where Dr. Joyce himself usually posts.
What this could accomplish is a marriage of the major two theories of the "anti-semites"
(for lack of a better word) and the "Neo-Marxists". I would argue that perhaps both sides
would learn they are coming at the same thing from two different angles. Most would ignore
it, but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they
were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms.
Or, more correctly, it would be a re -marriage of anti-Semitism and Marxism. If you
have a background in Marxism yourself, maybe you recall reading or hearing about Karl Marx's
pre-Kapital classic, On the Jewish Question , where he basically identifies
finance-capitalism as a Jewish phenomenon in essence and origin. Money quote
:
"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew but the everyday
Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the
secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical
need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his
worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may
exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities . The
bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange .
The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of
money in general.[ ] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because
he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him,
money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical
spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the
Christians have become Jews. [ ] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the
emancipation of mankind from Judaism."
Marx himself, of course, came from a family of rich conversos, so he knew whereof he
spoke.
Perhaps some alliances could be forged across the cultural divide in this struggle.
Personally I believe that both angles are perfectly valid, and that understanding one
without the other will leaves far too much to be desired when studying the powerful.
As a third-way national socialist, I hope so, too. Libertarianism/capitalism and mainline
socialism are dead-ends, having both been thoroughly co-opted (founded?) by the Jews. Both
fail to address the pink elephant in the corner; both put some hopelessly abstract ideology
before the welfare of my people–while benefiting another. And so, as the original NS
used to say: 'Neither godless Bolshevism nor soulless capitalism!'
Reality: Contrary to popular mythology, not all serial killers are white. Serial killers
span all racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. The racial diversity of serial killers
generally mirrors that of the overall U.S. population. There are well documented cases of
African-American, Latino and Asian-American serial killers. African-Americans comprise the
largest racial minority group among serial killers, representing approximately 20 percent of
the total. Significantly, however, only white, and normally male, serial killers such as
Ted Bundy become popular culture icons.
@Lot
Your defense of bond holders do not hold water. They agreed to take the risk at the given
price. If the debtor can't pay back, they have the eat the losses, period. Usury law needs to
be put in place to outlaw these vulture funds. Then the bond funds will adjust by demanding
better terms that truly reflects the risk from the get go, and the debtors will adjust by
being much more cautious in their borrowing since the borrowing cost is so high.
Instead, this current arrangement basically uses bond funds to put up a false front,
telling a debtor they can borrow at 2% when the real rate should be at 20% given the known
risks, then the debtor goes crazy borrowing because it's so cheap to borrow, and when they
can't pay back, the bond gets sold to the vultures who come collecting at 20% or they seize
assets. This is no different than the subprime mortgage crap, except now that is regulated so
they go after sovereign debt and corporate debt instead. These vultures need to go die
period.
Trump is now essentially funded by three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon
Adelson, together accounting for over $250 million in pro-Trump political money. In return,
they want war with Iran.
Hmm -- The day after Trump in inaugurated for his second term -- will Iran be in his
crosshairs?
@Jimmy1969
This is a great, concise overview of Canadian media influence by the "silent" Jewish
overlords via Golden Tree.
I tried copy/paste of your comment on CBC, but it did NOT last 2minutes before being
suspended!!
I am sorry to have used your comment without your permission, but I am going to "misspell"
some words to defeat the algorithm to get your message across.
@Lot
For points 1 and 2, I think that you would learn a lot from reading his previous article (
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/08/01/paul-singer-and-universality-of-anti-semitism/
) on vulture capitalism. It is not just that they are recovering assets from defaults. These
vulture groups will use the courts to increase the size of the debts and sue for extra "fees"
on top, even when all other lenders are against it. They typically manage to get US courts in
NYC to try these cases, which also is apparently abnormal (apparently it would be more normal
to use international courts). This is what Joyce refers to here:
"This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the Belgian and UK
governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to sue
for distressed debt owed by poor nations. "
These funds do not do something that normal investors do, especially not to the bonds of
governments of struggling third-world countries.
As for 3, you are misunderstanding. Joyce never demanded that they name their charities
anything in particular, but it is obviously the case that your typical normie thinks that
"white males," presumably golf-playing Episcopalians or something, are the ones running
finance, and these golfy-sounding names (Elliot, Monarch, GoldTree, OakTree, Canyon, Tilden
Park) fit the perception. We whites receive the society's hate for the wealth disparities
created by high finance.
4. No, it is not difficult to do finance differently. Every other investor has higher
patience for poor countries in Central America and Africa, and they all look at Elliot with
confused scorn.
And, things would probably run fine without hyper-aggressive multi-billionaires in pushing
the courts to f- over those who default on debts they owe to the maximum degree. Japan and
Norway do quite fine with businesses that are run by gentle and humble goys who feel ashamed
at the thought of getting "too rich."
@J
Adleman You will be thrown out.
You will have to choose between Israel, Ukraine and Patagonia. No one else will take you.
You have destroyed our politics, media and economy.
You are not respected.
You buy compliance with money.
You have bankrupted the U.S. dollar with debt pursuing Israel's enemies.
Do any of you goys remember when the Jewish funded Democrats through the US State
department gave Russia one third of the US strategic uranium reserve and also funnelled
military tech to Russia's Skolkovo Valley? At a time when they were working on the Hypersonic
ballistic missile engine?
It's almost like there was this plan for people to move back into Russia, just like China,
but for some reason the Russians and Chinese didn't cooperate.
Remember when David Spengler wrote about this a few years back hence?
Do you think disloyal Jews had anything to do with 18 American CIA assets getting captured
and murdered by the Chinese Intelligence services through 2010 to 2012?
Could it be that there were loyal Americans who were interfering with Chinese pay for play
with the Jewish nation in the United States? Or might have come upon it?
Imagine being an American military service member knowing that your Jewish commanders and
Jewish senior officers have got your back.
It's amazing isn't it.
Clinton was receiving tens of millions of dollars from Skolkovo Valley Syndicate owners in
Russia, and in exchange all she gave them were military secrets that may have given Russia
for example it's lead in hypersonic military technology.
And then we're told China had a duplicate version of her emails in China, in exchange for
what?
US Taxpayer money funded the Russian weapons program.
How much China tech was also funded by US taxpayers?
And then these people accused Trump of collusion with Russia, because the Russians were
telling the Trump family that the Magnitsky Act was unjust because the Russians were trying
to secure their assets against the kind of predatory practices that lowered Russian mortality
to where it's headed in the Midwest. Right now. For the same reasons.
Yeah – this trend is absolutely going to be permitted to continue.
The American nation forewarned and forearmed is simply going to allow itself to go the way
of the Russian Slav under a century of Jewish and proto-Jewish (the man who was made to call
himself Stalin) leadership.
Maybe, just maybe, an American President might consider a Magnitsky Act the subjects of
which were different. Maybe Trump is the last civic-nationalist President, maybe.
Look at how loyal the ruling nation in the United States is to their fellow Americans.
There aren't enough hours in the day to trace the labyrinthine set of Jewish betrayals and
asset transferrals – remember the Panama Papers? Remember the Samson Option?
Why won't Browder let the Russians investigate Cyprus?
Maybe good old fashioned local corruption with noblesse oblige is preferable to this
international corruption.
The Jews got out-leveraged by the Russians, and now, finally, the Empire might be able to
take back Korriban from the Jewdi.
Of course that's impossible. You have to trade one for the other. Just one set for the
other set.
If you want to find a list of these capitalists – you just look at who attends the
World Jewish Congress Galas.
" Ira Rennert (net worth $3 billion, previously, $6 billion, investor, known as a "junk
bond billionaire," found guilty of corruption in 2015, placed a mill in Baltimore's outer
harbor into bankruptcy, causing more than 2,000 workers to lose their jobs, owes Baltimore $8
million in unpaid city water bills, allegedly used money he looted from his business to build
a 29-room mansion & compound – a garage holds 100 cars)
Dick Parsons (former Time Warner CEO, CBS chair, & Citibank chair; in 2012 shareholders
filed a lawsuit against Parsons and some other executives for "stuffing their pockets while
running the bank into the ground")
Ben Ashkenazy (net worth $4 billion, Israeli American real estate tycoon, a benefactor of the
2015 AIPAC Real Estate Luncheon at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel)
Jack Chehebar (real estate mogul, sued for alleged breach of contract, accused of beating his
son)
Ray Kelly (longest serving commissioner in the history of the New York City Police
Department, for a period was an Interpol vice president, charged by Muslim groups of
discrimination: "The commissioner oversaw a spying program that targeted Muslims based solely
on their religion, showed poor judgment by participating in a virulently anti-Islamic film,
and approved a report on terrorism that equated innocuous behavior such as quitting smoking
with signs of radicalization."
What did God say once?
In Genesis 18:32 He said he would spare Sodom and Gamorrah if Abraham could find just 10
honourable men. He couldn't find them. Only the family of Lot.
There isn't much time left. It might simply be the case that the rot goes too deep and too
dark.
Valhalla is a worthy place. I think there might be some Russians there, along with the
souls of those 18 Americans who were tortured and murdered in China for reasons unknown.
Capitalism includes money. You can't separate the risks in lending from other risks. Bad
investors should be punished and good investors rewarded. Resources should be well
allocated. Otherwise it's not capitalism.
There are different kinds of capitalism. It is part of today's hypnotism that people don't
know the different types.
For example, there is finance capitalism, industrial capitalism, and what Andrew Joyce
calls vulture capitalism.
Vulture capitalism is a subset of finance capitalism.
Industrial capitalism was invented in the American colonies, especially Massachusetts bay.
The American system of economy (industrial capitalism with mixed economy and sovereign money)
has since been lost to America, as it imported Jewish/British finance capitalism as the
operating construct after 1913.
You can separate risks in lending. That is more hypnosis that you have been imbibing on.
The entire corpus of Classical economics goes about trying to separate unearned from earned
income, how to tax properly, what is site value, and it also is able to separate risk
types.
The fact that you do not know these things is not surprising, as most of western man is
living inside of a Jewish inverted reality bubble. The agents of mammon won, and classical
economics is not even taught in university.
Homosexuality is present in our society, but doesn't register much in demographics and as
such, I am happy to call gays as homosexuals. Tackling animus towards homosexuals requires
NOT trying to enforce new nomenclature of gender etc., otherwise an unexpected nasty backlash
can occur. Within your "ingroup", you can say what you like, but do not try and force ingroup
dynamics on the majority that are not interested.
Otherwise, you are behaving by identity politics, just like the Jews force their identity
upon the majority.
@sally
" Time after time I have asked my Jewish friends are you are Zionist, and most say they do
not really know what Zionism is? "
Zionism is a name which is more well known as an identifier by the critical (among the
Goy), carrying by now negative connotations. Broadly it is not an ism which is well known to
the man in the street. It could well be that among Jews, the name Zionism is only handled by
certain groups.
The question should have been rephrased asking what position these Jewish friends take with
regard to Israel. It comes down roughly to the same thing.
To not know of Zionism might be strategically a good thing, it refers to convergent
interests, actually a power block, you don't want to throw around such things, it could make
people aware Keep it diluted, diversity, obfuscation.
Ben Franklin and the American revolution was almost put in a similar pinch by the Amsterdam
banker Jean DeNeufville. In a letter to John Adams, 14 December 1781*, Franklin explained
that DeNeufville wanted as security for a loan "all the lands, cities, territories, and
possessions of the said Thirteen States, which they may have or possess at present, and which
they may have or possess in the future, with all their income, revenue, and produce, until
the entire payment of this loan and the interests due thereon."
Franklin considered that "extravagant" but Newhouse rejoined, "this was usual in all loans
and that the money could not otherwise be obtained". Franklin retold in this lengthy letter,
"Besides this, I was led to understand that it would be very agreeable to these gentlemen if,
in acknowledgment of their zeal for our cause and great services in procuring this loan, they
would be made by some law of Congress the general consignee of America, to receive and sell
upon commission, by themselves and correspondents in the different ports and nations, all the
produce of America that should be sent by our merchants to Europe."
Talk about shooting the moon
While Wikipedia says DeNeufville was Mennonite, Franklin concluded with this colorful --
and bitter -- remark , "By this time, I fancy, your Excellency is satisfied that I was wrong
in supposing John de Neufville as much a Jew as any in Jerusalem, since Jacob was not content
with any per cents, but took the whole of his brother Esau's birthright, and his posterity
did the same by the Canaanites, and cut their throats into the bargain; which, in my
conscience, I do not think Mr. John de Neufville has the least inclination to do by us while
he can get any thing by our being alive. I am, with the greatest esteem, etc., ✪ B.
Franklin."
Perhaps it was just an expression based on an earlier stereotype?
*Bigelow, 1904. The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 9 Letters and Misc. Writings
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing
dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with
their own eyes.
Zion had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Ugandans were willing, but NO Zion had to
have Palestine, and they got it through war, deception, and murder. It was funded by usury,
as stolen purchasing power from the Goyim.
The fake country of Israel, is not the biblical Israel, and it came into being by
maneuverings of satanic men determined to get their way no matter what, and is supported by
continuous deception. Even today's Hebrew is resurrected from a dead language, and is fake.
Many fake Jews (who have no blood lineage to Abraham), a fake country, and fake language.
These fakers, usurers, and thieves do indeed have their eyes set on Patagonia, what they call
the practical country.
Unz is an ideal hangout for left/right fusionists who don't fit in perfectly with either
side, but are interested in hearing from both
You just described me to a tee. I defy categorization, especially ideological ones
(although I half jokingly refer to myself as a free-thinkist), and I feel this makes me
weird.
I've been to TOO. However I can't bring myself to start commenting on a white nationalist
website. I will admit I am unable to articulate this discomfort presently.
As to your point about Marx – I actually forgot about his work on the JQ. The Saker,
who is a columnist on this site, referenced Marx's essay on the JQ some time ago. I must have
not read the whole thing or I'd have remembered it. I didn't know that Marxism originated
with anti-Semitism, but that is fascinating. I have encountered some Marxists in my time and
they focus exclusively (predictably) on the cis-white-male patriarchy, or whatever occupies
their brainwashed minds after an Introduction to Gender Studies class.
@Anon
"If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function."
Is this children's capitalist theory class time? throwing around some simple slogans for a
susceptible congregation of future believers?
Should be quite obvious that people, groups of people, if not whole nations , can be
forced and or seduced into depths by means of certain practices. There are a thousand ways of
such trickery and thievery, these are not in the theory books though. In these books things
all match and work out wonderfully rationally
Then capitalism cannot function? Unfortunately it has become already dysfunctional, if not
a big rotten cancer.
Isaiah 1:4 4 Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers,
Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The
Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.
Ezekiel 21:25 25 'Now to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose
iniquity shall end
Jeremiah 5:9 Shall I not punish them for these things?" says the LORD. "And shall I not
avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
As Jesus said which of the prophets have you not killed or persecuted? The truth hurts. As
for me I do not hate Jews ..I feel terribly sad for a people that are capable of greatness
and squandered the gifts given to them by God. Are you a holy nation? Don't make me laugh.
Repent. Your time is coming. No more running and hiding. Deception will no longer save you
only acceptance of the Messiah.
Hey! Don't mention anything a Jew ever did, especially usury, or else the entire cult will go
up in a holocaustal mushroom cloud of emo nasal whining. In Judaism you've got a fanatical
sect that systematically selects and brainwashes its members to inculcate extreme values of
two Big Five personality axes: high neuroticism and low intellect (where intellect means
open-mindedness.) Note the existential crisis triggered by a straightforward lecture from The
Society for the Study of Unbelievably Obvious Shit.
Of course Israel is holocausting the Palestinians. This is what happens when the founding
myth of a nation is, We wiped em all out and then they wiped us almost all out so now we
gotta wipe em all out etc., etc., etc.
Well, the only difference between a narcissist and a psychopath is that the former need
people to like them whereas psychopaths genuinely could not care less (although they learn
early that acting as if they do can be very helpful , as can always trying to elicit sympathy
etc).
As I noticed while reading a few books on psychopathy (I was inspired to after reading Steve
Job's biography) – their whole 'culture' is structured as a (collective )
PSYCHOPATH.
It seems that (collectively) they cannot care about others even if they wanted to. Due to
their sickness
I am not saying they are all that way – but overall their 'culture' seems to be that
way
@Digital
Samizdat Indeed I cannot agree more. I quote from a 1923 interview of Hitler:
"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party
programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"
"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of
dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The
Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from
the Socialists.
"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain
lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to
disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private
property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is
patriotic.
@Colin
Wright The Sacklers occupy a hoity-toity rung in the philanthropy universe, as they have
given enough $$$ to Harvard for H to paste their name on its museum housing I believe its
whole Asian art collection. Students have now protested Harvard's high-profile gift of
probity and cultural status to the Sacklers via, literally, an "Aushangerschild" on a major
university museum. Harvard protests back: Jeez, if we don't take the Sacklers' dough we might
be obliged to stop taking the dough from Exxon, etc.
@Anon
you are right about repaying the loan
but Banksters have managed over decades I think starting with Clinton to remove protection
laws (which were stating how much interest was the maximum a bankster could charge his pray
etc). They also removed the rules of how much was the maximum they could lend (according to
how much their victim makes a year etc).
So even though you are right that loans should be repaid – it is immoral to allow a
well connected mafia to change all the laws and remove protections while pushing up prices of
everything because it suits the lender (who has a licence to print).
They basically lend money that does not exist and get interest for that. So the more sheeple
are tricked into borrowing the better for them, but the worse for everyone else
They should not be allowed to bribe politicians to remove all the protection that was there
since 1920s I think.
It's a marriage from hell: easy to bribe Anglosheep meets the masters of predatory bribing
who own the printing press
That stupid cuck Trump just got impeached by the House. Thats a good lesson to everybody
how much good Jew-ass kissing does for you .you get stabbed in the back anyway lol
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving and treacherous scumbag!
But he should have been impeached for his treachery to the constitution and to the
American people for his slavish devotion to all things Jewish!
@Digital
Samizdat True, but irrelevant. The Jews that matter don't read the Talmud or believe in
"Adam and Eve."
It's 2020. The Jewish religion is "The Holocaust" and we're all "Nazis."
Frankly, it's these traditional religious notions of "anti-semitism" that get in the way
of understanding what is, at the core, an ethnic issue. It's Sheldon Adelson, the Zionist
entity in Palestine, and the ADL that are the problem, not some looney-tunes rabbi living in
Brooklyn.
The other side of the expalnation is the laking of reaction of the victim,the american
people.
The least that the people that loot the world trough and with the USA power should do, is ,at
least ,let us,the american people, a free ride.
Not illegal in the Talmud either but most certainly illegal in all of the countries that
DynCorp was caught profiting from this type of business. For some reason they never seem to
suffer for their exposure suggesting that they may be wielding the same influence that
Epstein had over our elected officials.
We dont have to get back to the Singer of this world but to our own politicians ,that allowed
them to do this to us,and to the world.In this kind of abusive realtionship the 2 sides are
to blame.
@Just
passing through "Look up income by ethnic group in the UK and US, you will find that
Indians and Chinese (South Asians) are the richest in both countries (except for Jews of
course)."
And why is that? Think about it. These are members of the Indian and Chinese elite who the
multinational corporations are doing business with.
In order to do business in China, the Chinese stipulated that the western corporations had
to give one of the members of the Chinese elite half ownership in the company. They were also
required to turn over the western technology to the China-based company. Western technology,
western money, cheap Chinese slave labor, ability to pollute to your heart's content. For
both sides, it was a win-win. The Chinese elite got filthy rich and then moved over to the
West with their newfound gains, buying up properties, forcing prices up for the natives. The
western corporations not only wanted cheap products to export back to the U.S., but they were
also developing a whole new market – Chinese consumers who would buy their products as
well. Double plus good!
And once in the West, the Chinese and the Indians stick to their groups. They hire their
own, promote their own, do business together. A lot of corruption, money laundering,
cheating, taking advantage of and bending laws. Rule of law? Code of ethics? Morals? Do unto
others? They never learned it. Opportunistic dual citizens.
I would not count on the effect of the electric shock on the leftist thinkers. The role
of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Cheka, NKVD, GULAGs, genocides by famine has been known from
the very beginning and yet it left no impact on the leftist thinkers.
It unfortunately has not had much of an effect on a lot of people in the West, who remain
ignorant or in denial of the role played by Jewish Bolsheviks in historic mass murders and
totalitarian repression.
Waiting for the Hollywood movie to tell the story.
This is an expensive, weighty, and important book, which will take some time to
digest.
Classical economists re-learn the science of money, starting with Prodhoun and even Marx
in Das Kapital volume 3. (Leftists are often correct about money, but wrong on social
issues.)
The jew Marx does do some deception in volume 3 with a sneaky equation that does not
compound interest, but otherwise he is pretty accurate. Marx was probably beholden to his
finance masters.
This is why you need to start with Zarlinga, as there is no BS to lead you astray. Hudson
tends to drill the bulls-eye too. There is so much deception in the field of money and
economy, that it is easy to get caught up in false narratives, like one-born free
libertarianism. Usury flows fund the deception, even to the point of leaving out critical
passages in translations, such as in Aristotle's works. Or, important works are bought up and
burned.
Michael Hudson is the leading economist resurrecting Classical Economics. Reading all of
Hudson and Zarlinga will take some time and effort, but it is good to take a first step.
@Anon
I respectfully disagree that "Kenya was given up [by Great Britain] before there was even an
anti-colonial movement in Kenya ."
According to Wikipedia : " The armed rebellion of the Mau Mau was the culminating response to
Colonial rule . Although there had been previous instances of violent resistance to
colonialism , the Mau Mau revolt was the most prolonged and violent anti-colonial warfare in
the British Colonial colony. From the start the land was the primary British interest in
Kenya ."
Just as the Kenyans suffered the consequences of British colonialism , the "Palestinians will
suffer
the consequences of Zionist colonialism until Israel's original sin is boldly confronted and
justly remedied " foreignpolicyjournal.com
@anon
A particular distinction of Jewish investors versus gentile investors – on average, of
course – is their use of bribery to get the force of government behind them. Rather
than taking a bet about some group being able to pay back some bonds and letting the chips
fall where they may, Jews start bribing or influencing politicians to force that group to pay
back the bonds.
Buy some bonds, charge outrageous fees, bribe officials in some form or other, get govt to
force the payment of bonds and outrageous fees. Rinse and repeat. Jews have been doing this
in some form aor another for 1500 years. It's why the peasants get a tad angry at both the
Jews and their bribed politicians/nobility.
@lavoisier
"But he should have been impeached for his treachery to the constitution and to the American
people for his slavish devotion to all things Jewish!"
A purely political impeachment, right down party lines. I hear Schiff has got his hands
full of Ukrainian-Jewish oligarchic money. Dear me, wait until that comes out.
Trump is in league with the Jews? Yeah, who isn't? Obama's lips are still sore from
kissing Jewish Wall Street bankers' asses (notice that none of them went to jail). Same with
the Clinton's.
You can get politicians to pass all sorts of laws in your favor if you've got enough dirt
on them. After all, your side owns the media, Hollywood, academia, the courts, the banks.
If dirt doesn't work, you can always threaten to impeach them in order to get what you
want.
But Trump is also revealing every last dirty one of them (accidentally or on purpose).
People see them now.
@J
Adelman J Adelman comes out swinging. He's such a tough guy. But does he make sense? Does
he care if he makes sense? The writer is talking about those Jews who are vulture
capitalists. He's not talking about every Jew. Isn't it a little odd that nearly all of these
funds are run by Jews? Can your corrupt mind accept that fact and address the question? Or
are you going to bore us with your religion and by that I mean your obsession with
anti-semitism, which is your religion.
@PCA
Stop splitting hairs. Is this the best you can do? Are you one of Lot's cronies? I don't
normally address petty matters of this kind but Joyce is describing a multitude of sins and
misconduct orchestrated by various Jewish financiers around the globe. It is not merely one
phenomenon; thus, 'phenomena' fits. Go troll someone else.
Lobelog ran some articles in Singer, Argentina, Iran Israel and the attorney from Argentina
who died mysteriously . Singer is a loan shark. Argentinian paid dearly .
Google search –
NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors – LobeLog
https://lobelog.com/tag/paul-singer/
Paul Singer NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors' Financial Conflict of Interest
by Eli Clifton On Tuesday, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz, two executives at the hawkish
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), took
The Right-Wing Americans Who Made a Doc About Argentina
https://lobelog.com/the-right-wing-americans-who-made-a-doc-about-argentina/
Oct 7, 2015 One might wonder why a movie about Argentina, in Spanish and . of Nisman's and
thought highly of the prosecutor's work, told LobeLog, FDD, for its part, has been an
outspoken critic of Kirchner but has From 2008 to 2011, Paul Singer was the group's
second-largest donor, contributing $3.6 million.
NYT Failed to Note Op-Ed Authors' Funder Has $2 Billion
@mark
green Mark green the queen of self rightousness.
There are many non jews runny vulture funds worldwide with at least 100 in china
alone.
The list joyce provided is selective and politically motivated.There are many more non
jews who are guilty of financial crimes.The jails are full of them.
The vulture funds are a product of a system that punishes failure.Do not blame the
funds,blame the system.
This story and like many that appear here is designed to pressure israel to change
politically.Israels future lies in the hands of God not some mutt with a serious case of
mutters.
@Lot
venture capital funds are only made necessary because we have a federal reserve.. which is a
private bank and private banks want to earn interest.
consider the difference between when a private lender makes loans to the USA
(treasury)
on the books of the feds is the following
due from the USA $11,000
new cash printed and given to dumb clucks at the USA $10,000
profit on the loan $ 1,000
what happened here is the fed printed $10,000 in new bills.
Assume the loan made at 10% interest and it is due in 1 year.
Ok so what is the loan on the USA books
cash $10,000
amount payable to the Federal Reserve $11,000
loss on the deal $ 1,000
this loan becomes the loan on the local bank books
the government gives the bank its loan and its obligation to repay the principal plus
interest
If there were no interest (that is the government printed its own money and made
venture loans to entrepreneurs at 0% interest the entries would look like this )
Amount due in one year from venture borrower $10,000
new cash printed and loaned to venture $10,000
so if the venture guy spent the $10,000 and then went broke the treasury would still gets
its money back in taxes from those who earned profit the money the venture paid.. no one has
to beat somebody to pay the interest (the economy does not have the extra $1000 dollars in
interest so somebody has to lose)
When interest must be paid its like musical chairs.. each time the music stops there are
not enough chairs to go around, someone is left standing ( its like that in money lending,
the debtors dance until the music stops, but because the private bank only put the principal
amount $10,000 in circulation the guy needs $11,000 to pay the loan back where does he get
the extra $1,000? <=If ten $10,000 loans are made, and 1 guy goes broke, there will be
enough cash in the system for the 9 others to pay the interest they each owe and enough for
the local private bank and lawyers to get paid for handling the bankruptcy. . <= we
started with 10 loans, one loan went broke the 9 remaining borrowers each pay $11,000 to
retire the debt , there are 9 loans "$99,000 to repay them and $1000 to pay debt service
costs and legal fees.
if there were no interest on the loans, the bankruptcy would not matter.
What makes the venture capitalist have a business at all is the Federal reserve is a
private profit making bank. Lending printed money from the Federal reserve requires interest
to be paid, and that requirement of interest makes the economy horde its capital and the
economic players playing king of the mountain to get the extra money they need to pay the
interest . ..
Zionism brought private banking to the USA and the USA wrote a tax law to collect the
money from the Americans it governs to pay the interest on the debt.
this is a really simplistic description of what is happening to our economy so don't rely
on it but instead use its simplistic idea to model the impact of having interest on the
national debt is having each year. If our government reversed what it privatized to the
Federal Reserve, we could make the economy run more or less as we please. \we could eliminate
the national debt and with it income tax es.
Typical Jew baiting article. Mitt Romney isn't a "Jew" Ashish Masih isn't. Many more examples
of gentiles taking advantage of their brothers. May as well consider the Walton family of
Wal-Mart to be vultures as well since they benefit the most from this system, they're so
called Christians, not Jews. The problem is capitalism. Author seems to suggest that a moral
economic system has been corrupted. The system was designed in an era of widespread slavery
folks. Its an immoral system that requires theft, slavery, war, immigration, all the things
you hate, to survive. The system is working exactly as it is designed to work. Exploit
workers, the environment and resources, shift all the profits from workers to the owners of
capital, period. Welcome to the late stage, it eats and destroys itself
From the days of the colonists slaughtering the Injuns and stealing their land. The days
of importing African slaves, and indentured servants. The days of child labor and factory
owners hiring Pinkertons to gun down workers who protested shitty wages and working
conditions. The good ol days of the gilded age. Now the age of offshoring to China or some
other lower wage nation. Overthrowing leaders not willing to let their resources and people
be plundered and enslaved, driving refugees to our borders fleeing violence and poverty.
Importing H1B workers to drive down wages. It was always a corrupt system of
exploitation/theft/slavery. This is nothing new and doesn't require "Jews" to be immoral.
And all these so called "Christians" like Pastor Pence approve. Usury and capitalism run
amok. I'm sure Jesus is smiling down on all these Bible toting demons who allow their fellow
man to be exploited by the parasites. Sad!
Good for Tucker. He has his moments I'd watch his show if he wasn't a partisan hack. But
that will never happen working for Fox or any other corporate media.
@Colin
Wright I doubt Trump promised to go to war with Iran before he was elected. In his
Inauguration Speech, Trump said he wanted to bring the troops home and stop the wars. He
didn't have to say these things, he had already won the election, but he said them anyway.
One of the few times the media has laid off Trump was when he sent some missiles into
Syria (after he gave them hours of warning ahead of time that the missiles were coming). If
Hillary had been elected, Syria would have been leveled by now and flying an Israeli
flag.
Obama brought us the destruction of Libya and the murder of Gaddafi, the coup in Ukraine,
and through ISIS, which the U.S. armed, trained and paid for, tried to destroy Syria.
I don't really blame Obama or Bush Jr. or Clinton. They were all puppets who did as they
were told. If they hadn't, in the words of Chuckie Schemer, there would have been "six ways
from Sunday of getting back at them".
If you don't do what they want, you're impeached, some of your dirty laundry is aired, or
they purposely crash the stock market on you. If you still don't get the message, maybe
you're just assassinated.
Trump loves his daughter and she is married to a Jew. If they're not getting their way, I
could see them telling Trump: "Sad what happened at the Pittsburgh synagogue, isn't it? Sure
hope nothing like that happens to your daughter."
I don't envy Trump. He not only is up against the Democrats, but he is also fighting the
globalist neocons in his own party. Both parties want open borders and more war, something
Trump does not believe in. As far as I can see, he's throwing them bones in order to shut
them up. If he gets elected again, which I think he will, we might see a different Trump. Who
knows.
@Jimmy1969
I think this deal has already taken place. Israel has given away to China for 99 years the
hall commercial incomming This deal has taken place 2 or 3 years ago
Don't blame it on the Talmud. These Jews act in accordance to their Torah: "If Yahweh your
God blesses you as he has promised, you will be creditors to many nations but debtors to
none; you will rule over many nations, and be ruled by none" (Deuteronomy 15:6). "feeding on
the wealth of the nations" (Isaiah 61:5) is Israel's destiny according to Yahweh.
@mcohen
I took a squint at both your own and Mark Green's comment history. Your comment history
cannot even begin to compare in value, but I should have already guessed that from the
name-calling in the first line of your comment. Just weak, extremely weak.
Rather amusing to read our resident Jewish apologists carrying on about the absolute sanctity
of the necessity of collecting debts to the functioning of the capitalistic system. These
nations and corporate entities that are now in thrall of the Wall Street Jews , were herded
into debt by that other faction of the capitalist system, the dealers in easy money.
Snookering the rubes into lifelong debt, telling them that money is on the tap, promoting
unsustainable spending habits and then let the guillotine come down, for the vultures to feed
on. They are two sides of the same coin.
Its damned funny that the rich Jews nowadays are absolutely addicted to usury, rentier
activities, and debt collection, when the Bible itself condemns such activities. But they are
our elder brothers in faith according to some.
@Colin
Wright Carnegie was a Protestant. The Protestant cancer serves it's Jewish masters. Read
'The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit' by E. Michael Jones. There is definitely a revolutionary
nature to the international Jew just as there is to their Protestant dupes. Jewish nature is
to subvert the natural order and the west was built by the guidance of LOGOS. The Catholic
Faith created by God guided the creation of the west. These Jewish exploits are a result of
the Wests rejection of its nature and its enslavement
1. rich or poor, creditor or debtor, in the final analysis, ultimately, all will become equal
in the grave. the filthy rich might decide to lay their corpses in coffins made of gold, but
it will be in vain. the sorrows and the joys of this fleeting world shall quickly pass like
the shadow.
2. talmudics feel the need to accumulate money in order to have sense of security since they
were stateless for two millennia. paradoxically, amount of wealth is indirectly proportional
to a sense of security, provoking backlash from aggrieved host people.
3. establishment of State of Israel did not reduce the need for the accumulation but has only
heightened it since now talmudics feel the need to support it so that she could maintain
military superiority over neighbouring threats.
4. as long as Palestinians are not free and Israel does not make peace, talmudics will
continue to meddle in American politics. if you don't want to save the Palestinians for the
sake of humanity and truth or justice, at least you should do it for your own sake.
5. loan sharking, vulture whatever, etc., is the ugliness of big capitalism with capital C,
what is beyond sickening is the promotion of sodomy. if one becomes poor or homeless, it's a
pity. to go against nature is an abomination.
6. by using such words as "homosexual" you have accepted the paradigm of the social engineers
and corruptors, and are therefore collaborating with them. words have consequences since that
is how we convey ideas unless you own Hollywood and can produce your own moving pictures
too.
7. talmudics is a better word than as a great American scholar says, since people who promote
sodomy are absolutely opposed to the Torah (O.T.). those who still struggle to follow it
couldn't care less what happens to benighted goyim, only becoming reinforced in pride of
their own purity as opposed to disgraced nations. thus, practically, they too are talmudics,
alien to the spirit of the ancient holy fathers and prophets of Israel. the word "Orthodox"
has been stolen and now has lost all meaning or it means the exact opposite of what it
originally meant.
8. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
@Colin
Wright Well there's nothing wrong in principle about specialists in valuing distressed
debt and managing it nuying such debt and using the previously established mechanisms for
getting value out of their investment. So the problem is how they go about enforcing their
rights and the lack of regulation to mitigate hardship in hard cases.
Still it is notable that it should, overwhelmingly be a Jewish business and such a
powerful medium for enriching Jewish causes and communities at the expense of poor
Americans.
While Whites theoretically still have the numbers to affect/determine the outcome of
elections, a majority of Whites usually stay home because they are tired of the 'evil of two
lessers' choice they are offered -- even voting for Trump got them little/nothing.
@Colin
Wright George Bush needed Tony Blair's support to attack Iraq , Donald Trump now has the
support of Boris Johnson to attack Iran : "Boris Johnson refuses to rule out military
intervention on Iran ." metro.co.uk
It is said that the "deep state " removed Theresa May from office as she was "too soft" on
Iran . As you suggest the attack will not happen until Trump's second term unless, in the
meantime , there is a false flag attack like 9/11 which can be blamed on the Iranians .
East Asians have freedom of speech. That is all that is needed to end Jewish Mafia vulture
capitalism. If it was Italian Mafia vulture capitalism, the west would end it a few seconds.
When one is in a "no see, no say, no hear" tribal group one can get away with everything.
East Asians don't believe in hiding reality.
Here is more on how Samsung fought back against little Paulie.
Samsung published controversial sketches in response to row over merger
Jewish U.S. hedge fund boss Paul Singer was trying to stop a Samsung business deal
In response the firm released cartoons on its website depicting Singer as a vulture
A row has broken out in South Korea with media there describing Jews as 'ruthless' with
money
Merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was approved today
This is how Paulie's row with Samsung started.
These are the extraordinary cartoons Samsung posted on its website which reportedly
depict a Jewish hedge fund boss as a money-grabbing vulture.
The row between Samsung and one of its major shareholders, Paul Singer, has sparked an
anti-Semitism row in South Korea.
Harvard-educated Mr Singer, 70, whose hedge fund Elliott Management owns a seven per
cent stake in Samsung C&T fell out with the company after he objected to a merger
deal.
Cartoons shown what Paul's company did to the Congo, just one of many nations he
pillaged.
In response Samsung posted a number of inflammatory cartoons on its website showing Mr
Singer as a long-beaked vulture, which have since been taken down.
In one of the sketches a poor-looking man goes, cap in hand, to the vulture who has an
axe hidden behind his back.
The caption reads: 'Elliott Management's representative method of earning money is,
first of all, to buy the national debt of a struggling country cheaply, then insist on
taking control as an investor and start a legal suit'
In another people appear to be dying in the desert from dehydration. Underneath is the
caption: 'Because of it, Congo suffered even more hardship'.
This is believed to refer to Elliott Management's business dealings in the Congo.
Samsung wanted to keep their company in the Lee family. They did not want a Jewish Mafia
tribal group take over.
The bitter fall out came because Samsung Group's founding family wanted to complete a
merger with its holding company Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T to shore up its
control of the firm as its chairman, Lee Kun-hee's health is in decline.
In the End, Samsung won. Paul lost.
The Lee family, who control Samsung, owns 43 per cent of Cheil Industries. The
controversial merger was finally approved today.
South Koreans are not shy to express reality as it is. The west has to learn the value of
freedom of speech before it too late for the west.
But the row has sparked an outpouring of anti-Semitism in South Korea.
One columnist described Jewish money as 'ruthless and merciless'.
And on Tuesday the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco Park Jae-seon expressed his
concern about the influence of Jews in finance.
In an extraordianry outburst he said: 'The scary thing about Jews is they are grabbing
the currency markets and financial investment companies.
'Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination,' Park added.
The next day, cable news channel YTN aired similar comments by local journalist Park
Seong-ho.
'It is a fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are
born,' he said.
Neither Park Jae-seon and Park Seong-ho were available for comment.
In a piece published a fortnight ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed 'Jewish
money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless'.
While Whites theoretically still have the numbers to affect/determine the outcome of
elections, a majority of Whites usually stay home because they are tired of the 'evil of
two lessers' choice they are offered -- even voting for Trump got them little/nothing.
I said nothing of an electoral solution to America's problems the problems will not be
solved that way.
@Art
That scary thought has crossed my mind, too, Art. I've even started wondering if this whole
impeachment circus is really part of an elaborate plot to guarantee Trump's re-election. I
mean, would Pelosi's insane actions make the slightest sense otherwise? And everyone has
noted how this is such a 'Jew coup,' haven't they? It all looks so suspicious
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections,
killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to
see with their own eyes.
True, but irrelevant. The Jews that matter don't read the Talmud or believe in "Adam and
Eve."
Whether they believe it or not, they act as though they do. That shows it is an ancient
and essential part of their ethnic subculture. Who knows? Maybe Kevin MacDonald is right and
it's actually genetic .
It's 2020. The Jewish religion is "The Holocaust" and we're all "Nazis."
The holo-hoax is just their modern version of 'chosenness'. Pretending to be the
biggest victims evah! is just another way of making themselves appear collectively as
morally superior to the rest of mankind–even the darkies:
But whether it's being wielded by the Zionists or the lefty Social Jewish Warriors, it's
really just a power play down deep. It's really just another way of reminding us
goyim–white and colored–that we are all just half-demons (so to speak) compared
to The Chosen.
@Wally
It is rather entertaining watching you kvetch, Jewish colonialism over WASP nations will be
glorious.
Vietnam & Congo can choose as they wish, it is they who vote for their leaders.
In fact, Congo was better off with colonialism.
America voted for Zion Don, he is now receving hundreds of millions of dollars from Jews
to do their bidding. It is hilarious that you can't see the irony of your comments.
In fact, it is even more funny what the Jews will do to WASP nations, enjoy your future of
transexualism and fast food, WASPs totally deserve everything that is coming at them.
Then you change the subject to Epstein. Pathetic.
If you had an IQ above room temperature, you would realise my segue into the Epstein
affair was a response to your question of "What deal was supposedly struck".
You killed Lumumba," she roared at the Belgian officials on the platform, before being
escorted away by the police. The music and speeches resumed.
She was right: they did. Belgium was heavily implicated in the 1961 killing of the
radical, first prime minister of an independent Congo, now the war-torn Democratic Republic
of Congo. In 1975 a US inquiry also pointed conclusively to CIA involvement in the
execution carried out by a Katangan police unit under a Belgian officer.
Paul Singer, a Jewish Mafia vulture capitalist did some "work" on the Congo too.
He also bought some of Congo's debt for $10m and sued for $127m. The Congolese
government was found to be corrupt and under US racketeering law, Singer may be able to
claim triple damages, reaping as much as $400m.
On March 9, 2016, Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight personnel learned that the FBI
had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was
completed.
This information was disclosed in a 99-page FISA court ruling on April 26, 2017, that was
declassified by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
That wasn't an isolated incident and the improper access granted to outside contractors
"seems to have been the result of deliberate decisionmaking" (footnote – page 87).
The FISA court noted the "FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules" and questioned
"whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that
have not been reported."
"This is bigger than Watergate + 9/11 + the Bay of Pigs + almost every other conspiracy
theory you can name combined. It is also why you're seeing definite signs of panic and
desperation everywhere from the House of Representatives to the mainstream media to the
boardrooms of the Fortune 500. This reaches from the heart of the Swamp in Washington DC to
Silicon Valley and Seattle, Washington. In East Germany, it came out after the Wall fell that
one-fifth of the population was involved in the surveillance of the other four-fifths of the
population; now keep in mind that due to the mathematical reach of the FISA warrants, the 825
million surveillance orders issued actually exceeds the 320 million population of the
USA.
Now we know how and why Google and Amazon and Facebook got so big, so fast. They were the
corporate arm of the surveillance state."
You disloyal Jews used government resources and private contractors to surveil the entire
country.
I wonder what's going to happen next?
Also why haven't you responded to any of the comments about what the Jews did in
Russia?
@RealistI said nothing of an electoral solution to America's problems
And I said nothing about an "electoral solution", or any other kind of "solution", to
"America's problems" -- I said/implied that blaming Whites, or the way they vote, more or
less exclusively, as you did, for the way things are, was not exactly a genius take -- there
is literally no one for a race conscious white person, eg a WN, to vote (affirmatively)
for at the moment -- and it is hard to imagine anyone emerging in the near future.
For the record: I (also) do not think just voting, especially in the current
one two party system with the usual 'evil of two lessers' choices offered,
will do anything for Whites.
What We abrogate (of) a sign or [We] cause it to be forgotten, We bring better than it
or similar (to) it. Do not you know that Allah over every thing (is) All-Powerful?
2:106
The verses on abrogation read as to only allow Allah to abrogate, so any human action on
this is stepping over the line imo.. maybe other than when 100% of the Ummah agree on
something, I read that could remove a surah of the Quran, like a voice of God. That rhymes
nicely imo.
Of course how to judge which ruling to use? I agree, it brings in a casuistry into the
faith that generally helps to confuse.. I don't know much about it though yet.
I think Islam preaches a decent message, but the average practitioner is open to
misinterpret it quite a bit. This is a failing of the teaching.. but I think Mohammed's
message was corrupted like Christ's message pretty much straight after his death. Gospel of
Thomas and Tolstoy's rewrites all the way for something closer imo.
venture capital funds are only made necessary because we have a federal reserve.. which
is a private bank and private banks want to earn interest.
Sentiments are correct and you are hovering over the target, but some details are
needed.
The federal reserve is the tail on the dog, not the dog. The Fed was created as a part of
the corporate banking money trust. Before Fed the reserve loops of banks were not tied
together, and they had to use treasuries (T bills or Lincoln Green-backs) to balance their
ledgers.
Banksters wanted to extend their money power beyond their region. In the days before
federal reserve bank money power would fall off the further you got away from the bank. Banks
hypothecate new bank credit, and the credit has to swim home to the debt instrument. This
"swimming home" is done easily when the ledgers are all connected through reserve loops (also
called the overnight market).
After Federal Reserve (1913) and before Wright Pattman, the Federal Reserve was recycling
its profits made on public debt back to its stock owners and member banks. The member banks
especially, were guaranteed profits no matter how the economy did. After Wright Pattman (mid
60's) Fed has to rebate to treasury they couldn't face up to the allegations they were
stealing from the commons, which they were.
Today, the FED rebates interest on TBills and public debt back to Treasury. The private
banks within the system continue to hypothecate new money at interest, as that is their
business model. This business model does not include morality, nor does it work in the public
interest. It works to enrich finance at the expense of the working/laboring economy.
So, central banks are not profit centers, but instead they ensure profit lower down
– within the private banking system. Central banks are backstops to prevent instability
within the already unstable debt money system.
Recent Example: The Repo Crises, whereby FED is monetizing repurchase agreements. Non bank
actors such as hedge funds, REIT's and others have been given access to the overnight market
(where reserves are supposed to be traded). The FED now swaps new keyboard dollars for
various finance paper to keep the non bank actors in the repo market liquid.
This action is artificial and props up the finance sector at the expense of the normal
working economy, and hence it is usurious.
Usury is a word that has been normed out of our language. Why? Because our (((friends)))
are agents of mammon, and they cannot help themselves. It may be genetic.
Usury is a power relation, where you steal from others because you can. Laws are changed
to enable the thefts.
In the case of the FED it was taking 6 percent from the people on public debts. Public
debts were funded by taxpayers. This money was then funneling backwards from FED into their
crony banks and paid off sycophants.
We don't know what the FED is doing today because the bad guys won't allow an audit. The
general statement is that private corporate banking is usurious, and was born in iniquity,
and that is where your eye should gaze, not necessarily at the FED or any central bank.
The debt money system and finance capitalism is state sponsored usury, and is a Jewish
construct.
Vulture capitalism is simply vultures buying up or creating distressed assets and then
changing the law, or using force to then collect face value of the debt instrument or other
so called asset. Vultures will use hook or crook to force down what they are buying, and hook
or crook to force up what they are selling. God's special people can do this because when
they look in the mirror, they are god, and are sanctioned to do so.
Maybe the vulture should replace the bald eagle as America's favorite bird since our dear
shabbos goy President Trump and cohorts are undermining the First Amendment and trying to
make it a crime to criticize Jews and/or Israel. Oh and don't think I am promoting the other
Zionist and their shabbos goy on the demshevik side. The Jew CONTROLS both sides and "our"
two party system has become Jew vs. Jew, not republican vs. democrat. Lenin said that the
best way to control the opposition was to lead it and (((they))) are at it AGAIN.
I think Islam preaches a decent message, but the average practitioner is open to
misinterpret it quite a bit. This is a failing of the teaching.. but I think Mohammed's
message was corrupted like Christ's message pretty much straight after his death. Gospel of
Thomas and Tolstoy's rewrites all the way for something closer imo.
The line of good and evil runs down the middle of each person's heart, and they have to
decide.
My line of attack on Judaism, Islam, Christianity, or whatever, has to answer the
question: "Is it good narrative for high civilization." Does the narrative make people
malfunction?
There are branches of Islam that are good narrative – where people choose the better
side of Islam.
The point is that these good branches, say the Suffi's, have to keep the crazy aunt in the
basement.
Abrogation allows what comes later, to gain power over what comes earlier. And what comes
earlier is the best part of Islam.
Christianity has the same problem, it does not do a good job of policing its crazies, who
twist scripture. Judaism, especially Talmudic Judaism is Kabala and utterances of the sages,
and it morphs and changes over time. For example, after Sabatai Sevi, the Kol-Neidre was
weaponized, and this construct is used by today's Zionists to wreak havoc. Before Sabatai,
there was Hillel, who weaponized usury.
Yes, I agree about Christianity changing quite a bit. In the first 300 years it was much
different than today, especially after the Arien controversy was settled by Constantine's
maneuvering of Bishops at council of Nicea. For example, before; reincarnation was part of
Christian doctrine, and after; reincarnation was excluded.
Trump should be impeached and convicted. But not for the reasons in the two Articles passes
by the House.
He should be for
Violating the Symington and Glenn amended 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to ban any aid to
clandestine nuclear powers that were not NPT signatories. Trump increased aid to Israel.
Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem in violation of numerous UN Security Council and
General Assembly resolutions.
The abuse of Office via Nepotism in having totally unqualified Jared and Ivanka Kushner
serve as US Government respresentatives.
Executive Order classifying Jews as a Nationality protected from Free Speech criticism of
them, in violation of the First Amendment.
Of course those in Congress, that facilitated and cheered on the Israeli centric Trump
acts, should all be voted out forever.
I have long maintained that libertarianism/capitalism is really like a kind of Calvinism
for atheists. Calvinists used to assume that, since whatever happened was God's will and
God's will was invariable good, then whatever happened was good. Likewise, many modern cucks
seem to have just substituted The Market for God. Morally speaking, it all lets man off the
hook for anything that results–especially when those men happen to be Jewish
financiers!
No, boys and girls, The Market is not inherently good. It requires that a moral system be
superimposed on top of it in order to make it moral.
@Anon
After reading the book of this MI6 asset (and potential killer) who tried to fleece Russia,
you probably can benefit from watching a movie by Nekrasov about him. See references in:
It looks like it was Browder who killed Magnitsky, so that he can't spill the beans. And
then in an act of ultimate chutzpah played the victim and promoted Magnitsky act.
"The CIA was the central protagonist in Russiagate. The origins of the New Cold War are found
in Bill Clinton's first term, when administration neo-cons looted, plundered and moved NATO
against a prostrate Russia in
contradiction to explicit guarantees not to do so made by the George H.W. Bush
administration. Vladimir Putin's apparent crime was to oust the Clintonites from Russia and
restore Russian sovereignty." CounterPunch.org
"Russiagate was a declaration of war by the 'intelligence community' against a duly elected
President. As argued below, the CIA's motive is to move its own foreign policy agenda forward
without even the illusion of democratic consent." CounterPunch.org
Notable quotes:
"... Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution. ..."
Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US
war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and
abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the
problem, never part of the solution.
Her long disturbing congressional record shows she exclusively serves wealth and power
interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans she disdains, proving it time and
again.
Her deplorable voting record speaks for itself, backing:
the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Blily Act repeal of Glass-Steagall, permitting some of the most
egregious financial abuses in the modern era;
the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), permitting endless
wars of aggression in multiple theaters, raging endlessly;
annual National Defense Authorization Acts and US wars of aggression;
Obama's neoliberal harshness, continuing under Trump, along with tax cuts for the rich,
benefitting her and her husband enormously, without admitting it;
increasingly unaffordable marketplace medicine, ripping off consumers for profit, leaving
millions uninsured, most Americans way underinsured;
the USA Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and other police state law;
the 9/11 whitewash Commission Recommendation Act;
the FISA Amendments Act -- permitting warrantless spying post-9/11, Big Brother watching
everyone;
NAFTA and other anti-consumer/corporate coup d'etat trade bills;
the repressive US gulag prison system, the world's largest by far; incarcerating
millions by federal, state, and local authorities, it includes global torture prisons;
unapologetic support for Israeli apartheid viciousness;
fierce opposition to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other
nonbelligerent sovereign states threatening no one;
the Russiagate witch hunt and Ukrainegate scams.
Calling exploitive/predatory "free market (capitalism) our greatest asset" shows her
contempt for equity and justice.
Her support for the military, industrial, security, media complex is all about backing
endless wars of aggression against invented enemies. No real ones exist.
Pelosi represents what belligerent, plutocratic, oligarchic, increasingly totalitarian rule
is all about, notably contemptuous of nations on the US target list for regime change --
Russia, China and Iran topping the list.
On Friday, she falsely accused Russia of involvement in Ukrainegate, a failed Russiagate
scam spinoff with no legitimacy, supported by undemocratic Dems and their echo-chamber
media.
Repeating the long ago debunked Russian US election meddling Big Lie that won't die, she
falsely accused Moscow of "ha(ving) a hand in this."
Referring to the Ukrainegate scam, she offered no evidence backing her accusation because
none exists.
During a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York,
Sergey Lavrov slammed Pelosi's Big Lie, saying:
"Russia's been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some. It's paranoia, and I think
it's obvious to everyone."
It's unacceptable anti-Russia hate-mongering, what goes on endlessly, Cold War 2.0
raging.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following on her facebook
page:
"Speaker of the lower house of Congress Nancy Pelosi believes that Russia is involved in the
scandal over July telephone conversation between us and Ukraine Presidents Donald Trump and
Vladimir Zelensky."
"This (baseless) assumption was made on Friday Pelosi (not) explaining what it means, and
without providing evidence of her words."
"Considering that it was Nancy Pelosi who caused the 'Scandal around the telephone
conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine,' then, according to the
speaker's logic, Russia attached the hand to her."
What's going on is continuation of the most shameful political chapter in US history,
ongoing since Trump took office, along with railroading Richard Nixon.
Both episodes represent McCarthyism on steroids – supported by establishment media,
furious about Trump's triumph over Hillary, targeting him largely for the wrong reasons,
ignoring plenty of right ones.
Mueller's probe ended with a whimper, not the bang Dems wanted, Ukrainegate their second
bite of the apple to try discrediting Trump for political advantage ahead of November 2020
elections.
That's what Russiagate and Ukrainegate are all about.
These actions by undemocratic Dems and their media press agents are further clear proof that
Washington's deeply corrupted political system to its rotten core is far too debauched to
fix.
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't
stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation
and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the
MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors
in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party
system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much
for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying
jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out
like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept.
of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered
his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded
on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship;
3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially
instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984.
Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced
by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will
be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA
foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are
bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar
think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's
famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last
refuge of scoundrels."
The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era
corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign,
Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine
issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely
against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited
prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia
and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination
for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy
against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy
through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.
All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.
The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.
All pretense of our country being a representative democracy@snoopydawg
is gone. Our two party uniparty government has completely turned its back on serving
the needs of the vast majority of the people of this country, and of the wider world. Profit
sits at the head of our government. The monikers "Fascist" and "Totalitarian" are apt
descriptors of the direction of our current trajectory. A dystopian future surely awaits us on
this beautiful, fragile and life sustaining planet that we are trashing with such abandon.
Other than that, things are going quite nicely. Nancy is wearing her power pants and fools
are applauding.
Something that no one is discussing - the US sabotage of the WTO.
At the core of recent US attacks on globalisation and multilateralism lies the fact that
under such conditions, the US is growing at slower pace than the world. This ultimately will
nean the end of the US as a superpower.
This is a strategic move coming from the US and has nothing to do with "isolationalism" or
"attempt to dismantle the Empire", as naive people here and there thought.
It is an attempt to sabotage the global economy and make sure that other countries do not
grow faster than the US.
The key point of US attacks on the WTO is that they want to remove the perks for poorer
countries. That means most of the world.
The aim is also, if this is not possible, to destroy the WTO, and return to law of the
jungle, with open bullying and trade wars, where the stronger smash the weak in trade
negotiations.
Under such conditions, the US will be able to bully most of the rest of the world into
bilateral trade deals that favout its economy. This way, it will try to save itself from
bankruptcy.
The US is trying everything possible to save itself. As i said in the past, they will try
to destroy the global economy in order to save themselves.
Under law of the jungle, the US will benefit, as it will be the biggest bully.
This also does not look good for the EU, as the US will now prefer for it to desintegrate
as it will be able to bully the different european countries one by one into better trade
conditions. This is why the US is supporting Brexit.
The Washington Post, through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has
published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400
testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that
reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the
ground.
After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly
discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State
Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.
There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the
OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and
the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely
justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and
France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the
OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the
corporate-controlled mainstream media.
In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the
groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the
very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11
attacks.
As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke
international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported
by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in
Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.
False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on
the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its
proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this
justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the
interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and
national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.
The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the
data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of
the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning
and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real
purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to
continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.
The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of
the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed
to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the
destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the
Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and
the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would
have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as
to weaken Iran's main regional ally.
The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as
the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not
interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal
is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from
being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.
The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin
crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further
dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies
in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China
and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on
Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from
Russia.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in
recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing
results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between
Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has
strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the
role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years
ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's
open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the
region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.
The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is
the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban,
the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a
decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its
impact.
The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in
Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of
the Post, is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the
Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say,
admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to
humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of
"diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed
with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army
in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will
cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an
otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.
The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the
disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political,
seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well
as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know,
or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political
opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of
the United States.
In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it
difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to
sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant
publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to
bring the whole facade crashing down.
Philip Giraldi Ph.D., Executive Director of the
Council for the National Interest
The Dems have given Trump's insane military budget more than he asked for, they got no
bargains in renewing the NDAA (both of which betray the lie they think Trump is compromised),
and finalized a huge new trade deal with him.
The impeachment farce and most of the battle
with Trump is kabuki for the rubes. Business as usual continues in DC, except the swamp
realizes more and more that their grip on power is slipping. They are far more frightened of
Bernie Sanders. These are dangerous times.
"The Democrats did the "right" thing - considering their options.
Option A: Counter Trump with real policy issues; policies that the majority of Americans
support: ending unending wars, healthcare, environmental protection, income equality, etc..
But that would cost them money from their BIG DONORS, and as such all privileges of the Dem
bosses. Not a good option
Option B: Follow the Russiagate/Ukrainegate/Impeachment path and thereby avoid having to
oppose Trump on policy. Their BIG DONORS are happy (because there is no policy change). Even
if the Dems lose 2020 election, the party bosses still retain their privileges.
Disclaimer: The Dims and the Repugs are the same party - just two different brands of it.
Anyone doubting this assertion should check out who finance them .... big oligarchy, even if
there may be slight differences in composition.
Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Dec 18 2019 23:07 utc | 31
This IMO is the best synopsis posted to date. Salient, and to the point. Thanks NM!!
"... Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well. ..."
"... Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world. ..."
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep
State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials,
often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and
incipient tyranny.
Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of
European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring
their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and
corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM)
taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be
running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be
just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly
technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which
push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of
globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole
Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is
globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never
win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides
its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the
culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees
with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too
damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think
they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest
of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
hey b... i like your title - "How The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party" ... could change
it to" How the Deep State Sunk the USA" could work just as well...
Seven of the 11 security state representatives who had joined the Democrats in 2018 gave
the impulse for impeachment.
is this intentional?? it sort of looks like it...
good quote from @ 26 lk - "The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be
mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones."
@babyl-on 35
yes that is about right. The top power networks are all a tight mix of names from govt, MIC,
and private equity (incl. top 2-3 investment banks). With the latter group naturally paying
the salaries of the whole policy making ecosystem, and holding the positions that select
future generations who will eventually take their place.
They want the security of knowing noone in the world will mess with them. This
necessitates that noone in the world *can* mess with them. Pretty straightforward from
there.
"... People are constantly saying the deep state wants this or it wants that and that is off the mark. The deep state follows the orders of the oligarchy it does not make policy or make independent decisions. ..."
"... The oligarchy and its empire laugh at all the pledbs caught up in their macabre pantomime covering the non-stop for 75 years slaughter of innocent people. ..."
"... We live in a dictatorship of global private finance ..."
"... The far left, if it exists, know that Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton bears no claim to anything left of fascism. ..."
I would like to put forward my understanding of the "deep state" and see if I have any
company.
In my view the deep state (the interagency consensus) is the hired help of the oligarchy,
which infects the gov and occupies every key position of power(except president for the first
time in over 75 years).
People are constantly saying the deep state wants this or it wants that and that is
off the mark. The deep state follows the orders of the oligarchy it does not make policy or
make independent decisions.
In effect, the CIA is nothing more or less than a secret army of the oligarchy.
The dems funded the wall, they gave the treasonous Trump another 100+ billion to do
Putin's bidding with, the dems fast tracked 115 Trump judges (Bernie could have stopped it
and did not) at least two nuclear treaties were abandoned and a third will be soon. The
oligarchy and its empire laugh at all the pledbs caught up in their macabre pantomime
covering the non-stop for 75 years slaughter of innocent people.
It should be clear who is in charge - the people who own the world run the world.
I am moving my comment from the Open Thread where karlof1 had provided a link to the
Trump/Pelosi letter
@ Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 18 2019 17:53 utc | 131 with the Trump letter to Pelosi
Thanks for that.
I just read it and besides what you and others have said I was struck by the blame for the
impeachment attempt being put on the "deranged and radical representatives of the far
left"."
That sentence was then followed by one saying that the Dems are motivated by and living in
fear of socialist primary challengers.
Think about that context in lieu of what many barflies here understand to be reality.
1. We live in a dictatorship of global private finance
2. The far left, if it exists, know that Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton bears no
claim to anything left of fascism.
3. America use to have a socialist government, because that is what government is by
definition, and still has, to a degree, a mixed economy of socialism and capitalism....(gawd
I hate those terms anymore)
My 2nd set of thoughts follow my first and those of other barflies comments and b's posting
1. Trump is giving the Dems cover to neuter the "socialist" candidates like Bernie and
Tulsi
2. Trump is setting the stage for a new McCarthyism.
3. As Posted by: Babyl-on | Dec 18 2019 23:21 utc | 35 who wrote
"
In effect, the CIA is nothing more or less than a secret army of the oligarchy.
"
This true and goes for all of the Deep State
4. This impeachment shit show will continue to override any social discussion of domestic or
foreign issues including the Depression that the US is clearly in....never having recovered
from the Recession of 2008
5. This is what control of the narrative looks like......get out in front of the train, make
lots of noise and carrying on to obfuscate reality.
And meanwhile the rest of the world is getting on with the evolution of a multi-polar
world.....while America and Americans are being thrown under the bus in a managed Shock
Doctrine event.
While former
Weekly Standard writer Warren thought the news was Cheney going after Pence, the real news
is Cheney's neoconservative crowd -- much of the GOP foreign policy establishment, which can be
counted on to advocate for intervention overseas -- being mad that President Trump won't listen
to their terrible advice.
Cheney was one of the
chief architects of the Iraq War, now in its seventeenth year with no end in sight. Given
the neverending morass that war has become, and its utter failure to concretely benefit
Americans in exchange for lives lost and trillions
spent , it is preposterous that he would be lambasting the current vice president over
foreign policy. He should instead be issuing public mea culpas.
Neocons Believe in
America as Global Policeman
Cheney's accusation that Trump is conducting Obama's foreign policy is inaccurate, because
both Obama and neocons are internationalists, and Trump is not. Neocons generally think global
peace can be achieved through spreading of freedom and democracy, often by using military
force. They tend to think any region in which America is not actively involved risks being
filled with a menacing geopolitical force. They often view themselves as global citizens, and
see America's power as the perfect tool for peace and democracy spreading. America should act
in its own interest, say the neocons, but America's interest is the global interest, and
vice versa.
Among other things, this leads neoconservatives to currently advocate for regime change or
at least continued U.S. presence in Syria, continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan (even as that
war is nearly two decades-old), a very hardline approach to Russia (which is oddly deemed an
equal or even greater threat than China), and a U.S. military presence in
more than 20 African countries that you have never heard of, to fight Islamic
terrorists.
Internationalists might disagree about how much force should be used to spread liberalism.
President Obama took out Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, and presided over a terribly ineffective and
dangerous effort to fund Syrian rebels in that country's civil war. Republican neocons like
Cheney just wish Obama had done even more, and put U.S. troops on the ground in Libya and Syria
as well.
The Problem with Defaulting to Intervention
Despite their certainty about launching the United States into myriad global conflicts,
neocons have lots of problems. First, they are incredibly naïve about fundamentalist Sunni
Islam. Take the Syria example. ISIS and al Qaeda are both forms of fundamentalist Sunni Islam,
which is incredibly popular across the Middle East and Northern Africa. Fighting the ideology
that creates ISIS and al Qaeda could literally take forever.
It could also be self-defeating. Bombing and occupying a foreign land might make young men
there more prone to outright terrorism, and infantilize the domestic forces that must take a
stand in order for true progress against radicalization to occur.
In other areas too, neocons often cheer endeavors that shoot our country in the foot. They
want us to stay in Syria to fight terrorism, but they were more than happy to fund and arm
rebels --
many of whom were radical Sunnis with ties to al Qaeda -- in order to try to take down the
regime of Bashar al-Assad. Ditto with the intervention in Shia-majority Iraq, which ultimately
emboldened and empowered the dominant Shia power, Iran.
Academically speaking, neocons have learned the lesson of World War II, but haven't the
lessons of World War I, Vietnam, or countless other conflicts where intervention and war had
unforeseen outcomes and consequences. Thus they have a stunning record of getting foreign
policy wrong. Leading neocon Bill Kristol was a huge
advocate for the Iraq War , for example, and famously predicted it would be over in two months .
Despite how poorly many U.S.-involved conflicts have gone, neocons have refused to question
their ideology. They will question someone's motives if -- for example -- he disagrees with
entering Syria's civil war. You can point out that neither side is good, that this is largely a
Shia-Sunni religious struggle that we should stay out of, and that taking out Bashar al-Assad
would create a power vacuum for jihadists, but
Kristol and Max Boot will respond by calling you a Russian stooge.
Trump Is Right to
Not Listen to Failed Advice
Even though he still has neocons advising him in the White House, President Trump is thus
smart to frequently ignore these people. In fact, pushing back against neocons is a big reason
Trump got elected.
The American people agree that we shouldn't be
subsidizing wealthy European countries' welfare states by fronting their defense. Germany's
military is literally falling apart, but the country is more than happy to give Russia billions
for natural gas. If Germany isn't concerned about Russia, is it our job to do all the work?
The American people also appreciate that Trump is trying to end the war in Afghanistan, and
get American troops out of Syria, among other conflicts. Pence's statement, that Trump wants us
to be thoughtful about where we place U.S. troops, jives with the thoughts of a vast bipartisan
majority of Americans.
The GOP Is a Conservative Party
Trump had an easy go of his GOP contenders in 2015-16 because the GOP is not a
neoconservative party, it is simply a conservative party. There is a big difference. For
neocons like Cheney to act as if Donald Trump stole the party is laughable. The neocons were an
aberration in conservatives' coalition.
The roots of the Grand Old Party are nationalism, foreign policy realism, and fiscal
(spending) restraint. In but one example, President Eisenhower wrote a friend that cutting
taxes was a reward for finding wasteful spending. President Nixon went to Communist China to
exploit the rift between Beijing and Moscow. Democrats got us in the Vietnam War, and Nixon and
Ford got us out.
There is a fundamental long-run contradiction between U.S. nation-building
overseas and limited government here at home.
Conservative voters care about localism, and tempered, non-utopian nationalism. It isn't
just nice to care about the people around us, and demand our politicians do what's best for
them, it is a high moral ideal
-- even commanded by
scripture .
Some neocons just aren't conservatives. Many are socially
liberal , and view the pro-life cause as a way to get the so-called hayseeds to turn out on
election day, not as a pressing moral issue. Because of this, some neocons may eventually find
a home in the establishment Democrat Party.
True, neocons say they are fiscal conservatives, and many have criticized President Trump
for not talking about entitlement reform (as has this writer), but in practice neocons are
fiscal fakers. Their priorities never lead to downsizing the federal government. Rather, they
bargain with Democrats to increase domestic welfare spending as long as the military budget
also increases. There is a fundamental long-run contradiction between U.S. nation-building
overseas and limited government here at home.
That's why neocons have already lost the GOP, and Trump's presidency is only just the
beginning of a necessary shift. The Republican Party is finding its roots, and eventually going
back to true fiscal conservatism (spending restraint that allows tax cuts, not just tax cuts
for their own sake) and foreign policy realism.
But because of the American political system, this shift will occur in bits and spurts. Just
this January, 47 Republican senators
(that's most of them) joined Democrats to vote for an amendment pushed by Senate Majority
leader Mitch McConnell that sought to keep the United States in Syria and Afghanistan
indefinitely. Try getting anything close to half of the American public to sign on to that.
That's the real story here. Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD
and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry.
The views expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz .
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical
point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since
linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the
epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to
regain their credibility.
The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking
credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much
better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's
genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is
credibility.
"... "The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ). ..."
"... In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late. ..."
"... Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation. ..."
"... Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false. ..."
"... Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview." ..."
"... Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling. ..."
"... Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised. ..."
"... Flynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment. ..."
"... Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore. ..."
"... "Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying ..."
"... NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet. ..."
"... They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile. ..."
"... Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses. ..."
"... Oh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada. ..."
"... Then bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable. ..."
"... Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year ..."
"... Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED. ..."
"... Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned. ..."
"... They threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so. ..."
"... I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals. ..."
A federal judge has denied requests by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to prompt the government to
give him information he deems exculpatory and to dismiss the case against him .
District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the government in arguing that Flynn was
already given all the information to which he was entitled. The judge also dismissed Flynn's
allegations of government misconduct, noting that Flynn already pleaded guilty to his crime and
failed to raise his objections earlier when some of the issues he now complains about were
brought to his attention.
"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of
innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said
in his Dec. 16 opinion (
pdf ).
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to
one count of lying to the FBI. He's been expected to receive a light sentence, including no
prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.
In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the
government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it
late.
Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they
testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told
the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should
have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to
show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation.
Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place
and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something
it could allege was false.
Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers,
Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview."
Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents, Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, two
days after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's national security adviser.
The prosecutors argued that the FBI had a "sufficient and appropriate basis" for the
interview because Flynn days earlier told members of the Trump campaign, including soon-to-be
Vice President Mike Pence, that he didn't discuss with the Russian ambassador the expulsion of
Russian diplomats in late December 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Flynn later admitted in his statement of offense that he asked, via Russian Ambassador to
the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, for Russia to only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner and
not escalate the situation.
The FBI was at the time investigating whether Trump campaign aides coordinated with Russian
2016 election meddling. No such coordination was established by the probe, which concluded more
than two years later under then-special counsel Robert Mueller.
Powell argued that whatever Flynn told Pence and others in the transition team was none of
the FBI's business.
"The Executive Branch has different reasons for saying different things publicly and
privately, and not everyone is told the details of every conversation,"
she said in a previous court filing .
"If the FBI is charged with investigating discrepancies in statements made by government
officials to the public, the entirety of its resources would be consumed in a week."
Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI
investigation of election meddling.
Sullivan, however, thought otherwise, using a broader description of the investigation. The bureau, he said, probed the "nature of any links between individuals associated with the
[Trump] Campaign and Russia" and what Flynn said was material to it. The description Sullivan used appears to omit the context of the probe, which focused
specifically on the Russian election meddling.
Powell was dealt a bad hand by Flynn's previous corrupt and incompetent attorneys. The
judge has an obligation to honor the new views of new counsel. He can't assume that Flynn had
been well advised by former counsel. There's no evidence or history of that. They sold him
out.
Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring
Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting
Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what
his first team of "counselors" advised.
He's so Deep State that Brennen and Clapper went to Soetoro to get him fired after the
election. Flynn was going to rat them out on the treasonous Iran deal. When Obama said no
because it was too close to the end of his presidency they then criminally framed Flynn.
Flynn was lied to. Flynn was a 30 year veteran and General. Flynn couldn't imagine his
country turning against him like this. None of us could. But with the cabal running our
country, it could and did happen. Now we have to stamp out the cockroaches before it's too
late.
Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without
disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore.
NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet.
This ***** judge will give him a mouse sentence to protect his own *** . We don't know the half of it . How close is the judge to Obama ? I think we are going to find out .
President Trump should step in now and Pardon Gen.Flynn and Roger Stone both trial were
fixed unethical and not based on fact and law. In Stones case a radical jury of Demon
Rat-Brains were assembled to hand down a guilty verdict.
They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing.
Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile.
Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses.
Those who violated the constitution and rule of law are media pundants and
undisturbed.
Orange dotard please divert some of your swamp creatures from destroying Iran, Venezuela
and Bolivia.
America needs the secret police smashed and held accountable for sedition and treason.
Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year
The minute they let Flynn off he talks and they sure as hell don't want that. They want to drag this out as long as possible and hope for a miracle (Trump gets beat
) or at least time enough for them to bugger off. FISA has known for years they were lied to by the FBI and now it has been confirmed . So why didn't they do anything then or now ? Were they in on it ? How do you draw any
other conclusion ?
Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead
guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is
sentencing him is PISSED.
Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner
you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in
bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn
inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say
you weren't warned.
I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other
criminals.
Flynn can ask to withdraw plea, but he's turned down that opportunity three times, so
judge might not allow it. Then everything Powell has been doing becomes relevant. Up to this point it's just a bunch
of noise, unfortunately.
So let me just be sure I understand this: he is being denied evidence that could prove
innocence on a trial related to a guilty plea, which was largely the result of persecution by
the FBI and we ALLOW this to happen in America? What has happened to this country?
USSR, Yugoslavia, US, EU, and the Indian Union are predicated on the ideas of the
Enlightenment Tradition. So far, USSR and FRY have disintegrated. If EU fails, could US and
EU be too far behind. In US, we have the political ascendancy of foolish Protestantism, in
India that of Hindu masses.
Can any states, predicated on secularism of the Enlightenment Tradition survive the rise
of religious politics?
"... A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States. ..."
"... Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell. ..."
Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it
suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for
dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.
In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation's reigning definition of peace
shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ
force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines
of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.
A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli
predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become
America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to
patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may
prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for
the United States.
Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of
peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real
peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The
inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy
Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from
Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that
their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms,
our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell.
Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect
longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute
and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage but military
supremacy .
From Israel's perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action , the
earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one
especially instructive example. Israel's destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in
2007 provides a second.
Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for
anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the
blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the
intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a
big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second,
they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.
For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its
preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its
swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a
missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist's car
can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed
conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.
Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this
knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the
world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even
diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the
approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60
years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not
inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it's nasty: but so
far at least, it's worked.
What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path. Yet
over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that's precisely what we've
done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste
for assassination -- all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes
ourpresent-day MO.
Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours
is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the
Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that
Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly
into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic
expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington's will.
Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm, a
triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel's triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over
the "fourth largest army in the world" fostered illusions of the United States exercising
perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised
regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing
less than "Full Spectrum Dominance."
Bill Clinton's contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the
several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only
occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S.
troops being sent into harm's way. Over the course of Clinton's two terms in office, however,
intervention became commonplace.
The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern
Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops
battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the
real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent
of Israel's reliance on airpower to punish "terrorists" from standoff ranges.
In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to
liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in
assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein
as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the
United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with
Uncle Sam.
More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli
conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat
to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view.
Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel
might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally
delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that,
whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an
eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good
measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the
message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed
Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel's equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed
the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S.
occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of
Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The
insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the
Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.
By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans -- like most Israelis -- had
lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama's response? Hew ever more
closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. "Obama wants to be known for winding down
long wars," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. "But he has shown no hesitance
when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone
militarist."
Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted
assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for
commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now
maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and
the frontier regions of Pakistan -- and who knows how many other far-flung places -- Obama
seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu's expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome
will eventually ensue.
The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may
view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction.
The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense -- a self-assigned mandate to target anyone
anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security -- is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a
certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies
overlaps with theirs -- did someone say Iran? -- military action ordered by Washington just
might shorten Jerusalem's "to do" list.
Yet where does this all lead? "We don't have enough drones," writes the columnist David
Ignatius, "to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone."
And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the
words of one SEAL) "the dark matter the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," we
probably don't have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems
willing to test both propositions.
The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now
essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of
courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic
political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier -- and less risky
-- to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough "terrorists" peace on
terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli
illusions.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a visiting professor at the University of Notre
Dame.
The infinity war We say we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? The infinity war We say
we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? Sam Ward (For The Washington Post) By Samuel Moyn
and Stephen Wertheim December 13, 2019
Add to list On my list
Now we know, thanks to
The
Afghanistan Papers published in The Washington Post this past week, that U.S. policymakers doubted almost from the start that
the two-decade-long Afghanistan war could ever succeed. Officials didn't know who the enemy was and had little sense of what an achievable
"victory" might look like. "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking," said Douglas Lute, the Army three-star
general who oversaw the conflict from the White House during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
And yet the war ground on, as if on autopilot. Obama inherited a conflict of which Bush had grown weary, and victory drew no closer
after Obama's troop "surge" than when Bush pursued a small-footprint conflict. But while the Pentagon Papers, published in 1971 during
the Vietnam War, led a generation to appreciate the perils of warmaking, a new generation may
squander this opportunity
to set things right. There is a reason the quagmire in Afghanistan, despite costing thousands of lives and
$2 trillion
, has failed to shock Americans into action: The United States for decades has made peace look unimaginable or unobtainable.
We have normalized war.
President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by
vowing to end America's "endless
wars." But he has
extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative rationales. In September, on the cusp of
a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an agreement negotiated by his administration and
pummeled
Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his promised military withdrawal has morphed into
a grotesque redeployment to
"secure" the country's
oil .
It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond the proclivities of the current president,
or the previous one, or the next. The United States has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world.
The ideal of peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of the Cold War offered
an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes
and Special Operations raids to protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in practice
and even in aspiration.
Given World War II, Korea, Vietnam and many smaller conflicts throughout the Western Hemisphere, no one has ever mistaken the
United States for Switzerland. Still, the pursuit of peace is an authentic American tradition that has shaped U.S. conduct and the
international order. At its founding, the United States resolved to steer clear of the system of war in Europe and build a "new world"
free of violent rivalry, as Alexander Hamilton put it
.
Indeed, Americans shrank from playing a fully global role until 1941 in part because they saw themselves as emissaries of peace
(even as the United States conquered Native American land, policed its hemisphere and took Pacific colonies). U.S. leaders sought
either to remake international politics along peaceful lines -- as Woodrow Wilson proposed after World War I -- or to avoid getting
entangled in the squabbles of a fallen world. And when America embraced global leadership after World War II, it felt compelled to
establish the United Nations to halt the "scourge of war," as
the U.N. Charter says right at the
start. At America's urging, the organization outlawed the use of force, except where authorized by its Security Council or used in
self-defense.
Even when the United States dishonored that ideal in the years that followed, peace remained potent as a guiding principle. Vietnam
provoked a broad-based antiwar movement. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (WPR) to tame the imperial presidency. Such opposition
to war is scarcely to be found today. (The Iraq War inspired massive protests, but they are a distant memory.) Consider that the
United States has undertaken more armed interventions since the end of the Cold War than during it. According to the Congressional
Research Service, more than 80 percent of all of the country's
adventures abroad since 1946 came after 1989. Congress, whether under Democratic or Republican control, has allowed commanders in
chief to claim the right to begin wars and continue them in perpetuity.
Legal constraints on U.S. warmaking -- including international obligations, domestic statutes and constitutional duties -- ought
to have returned to the fore after the Cold War, the rationale for America's vast mobilization in the second half of the 20th century.
Instead, they have eroded to dust. At the outset of the 1990s, as President George H.W. Bush promised a
"peace dividend" for Americans and a "peaceful international
order" for all, the United States did rely more faithfully than before on Security Council approval for military operations.
The Persian Gulf War, blessed by the United Nations to repel Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was legal under international law. But
enthralled by its exorbitant primacy in world affairs, the United States turned away from international prohibitions on war, finding
the rules too restricting.
The next two presidents, attracted to liberal internationalist and neoconservative creeds that embraced armed force, treated international
law cavalierly. Bill Clinton abused U.N. resolutions meant to control Saddam Hussein's weaponry to justify new attacks, including
the bombing of Iraq in December 1998. The next year, the U.S.-led NATO operations in Kosovo suggested that America would unleash
its military for ostensibly noble causes -- in this case to prevent heart-rending atrocity -- even without the pretense of legality.
Despite failing to obtain U.N. approval, the Clinton administration said the intervention should not be treated as a precedent (though
it became one). Others excused it as "illegal but legitimate," with self-professed moral intentions permissibly trumping law. "For
the purpose of stopping genocide," commented
the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier, "the use of force is not a last resort; it is a first resort."
Once such arguments gained currency, their authors lost control of them. Conservative hawks found that a law-optional approach
suited their agenda as well, and their liberal counterparts, if they disagreed at all, did so mostly as a matter of tactics, not
principle. George W. Bush benefited from this permissive context when he launched the Iraq War, whose
illegality was
flagrant and catalytic, since it was unauthorized by the United Nations and
relied on the administration's dangerous claim that "anticipatory
self-defense" justifies invasion. The world took notice. Russia, in particular, seized on the new U.S. position as a
spectacular excuse to make incursions of its own in
Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014.
Obama won election in part because he ran against the Iraq War. In office, however, he cemented more than reversed America's disregard
of international constraints on warmaking. While failing to end the war in Afghanistan, his administration
exceeded the Security Council's authorization
by working to overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, converting a permission slip to avert atrocity into a blank check for regime
change. Then, to punish the Islamic State, Obama bombed Syria on a contrived
rationale
-- one that allowed attacks against nations unwilling or unable to control terrorists on their territory. When he nearly struck
again in response to Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons, Obama
laid the legal
foundation for Trump to strike the Syrian government, again without a U.N. sign-off. Once highly valued, then defied only with
controversy, international law now scarcely figures in U.S. decisions of war and peace.
Like international law, U.S. domestic law enshrines an expectation of peace, setting a high bar for the resort to war. If war
is to be waged, the Constitution requires Congress to declare it -- a purposeful grant of authority to the branch of government that
best reflects the diverse interests of the people and therefore should be harder to rouse to conflict than one commander in chief.
Yet the nation has drifted from that tradition, too. After defaulting on its constitutional obligation during the Cold War (partly
on the grounds that the speed of a potential nuclear strike required a president who could respond quickly), Congress declined to
reassert its authority after the Soviet threat passed.
In the 1990s, Congress might at least have kept faith with the WPR, which it passed in 1973 to rein in future presidents. The
resolution calls for Congress to authorize "hostilities" within 60 days of their start; otherwise U.S. forces must withdraw. Throughout
the 1980s and 1990s, members of the House of Representatives
brought presidents to
court for taking military action in violation
of the statute -- in El Salvador
, the Persian Gulf War and
Kosovo , for example. But advocates of the strategy
all but gave up, and Congress itself increasingly deferred to presidential wars in the age of terrorism. By the time Obama intervened
in Libya, the WPR lay in tatters. In a final indignity during the Libya operation, one administration lawyer
explained that "hostilities" was an "
ambiguous term of art
" that might exclude aerial bombardment, so Congress did not need to approve a war that toppled a regime.
This deference has proved costly, allowing Trump to pose as an antiwar candidate against the mainstream of two political parties,
a somnolent Congress and inactive courts. Once in power, this wildly unpredictable chief executive finally clarified the danger of
entrusting the world's mightiest military to one man's whims. Congress has begun to stir. In voting this year to end U.S. involvement
in Yemen's civil war, it invoked the WPR for the first time while forces were active in battle.
President Trump speaks to U.S. troops at Bagram air base in Afghanistan last month.
though he has pledged to end America's "endless wars,"
Trump, like past presidents, has instead extended them. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
Ultimately, elevating peace as a priority will require not merely changing legal norms but overturning the militarized concept
of America's world role that permeates Washington. Somehow, despite waging near-perpetual war, the leaders of the most powerful country
on Earth have convinced themselves that America is always on the brink of turning "isolationist," a peril against which
every president since Ronald
Reagan has warned as their terms wound down. Trump is likely to deviate from that rhetorical tradition, but the rest of the establishment
carries on and doubles down. Today, it is military withdrawals, not destructive deployments, that freak out pundits and spur Cabinet
members to resign, as Jim Mattis
did last year over Trump's vow to pull troops from Syria. Abandoning the Kurds there this fall was Trump's "
great betrayal ," lamented Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, who did not appear to lose sleep over our past
military incursions.
Under Trump, who applies "maximum pressure" to all foes foreign and domestic,
American militarism is more perilous than ever. It is also more undeniable. That is one reason the current moment is surprisingly
hopeful. The call to
end
"endless war" continues to rise on the flanks of both parties, even as it is flouted by leaders of each. More and more Americans
insist that, whatever interests are served by endless war, their own are not. More than
twice as many Americans prefer
to lower than raise military spending, according to a 2019 Eurasia Group Foundation survey.
Veterans support
Trump's pledge to bring Middle East wars to a close: A
majority of vets deem the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria not to have been worth fighting. The Afghanistan Papers ought to
strengthen the consensus. Americans deserve a president who will act accordingly.
The United States would find partners far and wide, in nations great and small, if it put peace first. It could make clear that
while spreading democracy or human rights remains worthwhile, values cannot come at the point of a gun or serve as a pretext for
war -- and that international peace is, in fact, a condition for human flourishing. Every time Washington searches for a monster
to destroy, it shows the world's despots how to abuse the rules and hands demagogues a phantom to inflate. The alternative is not
"isolationism" but something closer to the opposite: peaceful, lawful international cooperation against the major threats to humanity,
including climate change, pandemic disease and widespread deprivation. Those are the enemies worth fighting, and bombs and bullets
will not defeat them.
Samuel Moyn is Henry R. Luce professor of jurisprudence and professor of history at Yale University and a fellow of the
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Stephen Wertheim is deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute
for Responsible Statecraft. He is also a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University
Follow @samuelmoyn and @stephenwertheim
"... Andrew O'Hehir personifies the sore loser. The EU is fascism. In their attempt to overthrow Ukraine, the EU armed and trained Nazis. The EU helped start both the Libya and Syria wars. Obama was only their errand boy, trying to give them back two colonies. ..."
"... The EU destroyed Greece for the banks. The EU is a far greater threat to Europe than the Third Reich was. Is Andrew stupid enough to think European powers should give up their power to print money to these corporate fascists? ..."
Andrew O'Hehir personifies the sore loser. The EU is fascism. In their attempt to
overthrow Ukraine, the EU armed and trained Nazis. The EU helped start both the Libya and
Syria wars. Obama was only their errand boy, trying to give them back two colonies.
The EU destroyed Greece for the banks. The EU is a far greater threat to Europe than the
Third Reich was. Is Andrew stupid enough to think European powers should give up their power
to print money to these corporate fascists?
Fascist EU enablers, like the author, have called the Brits racists for years, simply
because they want out of the Nazi-arming EU. Andrew doesn't want any lessons from his
crushing defeat -- they relate to the perils of being a fanboy for corporate war-mongering
fascists.
President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by vowing to end
America's "endless wars." But he has
extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative
rationales. In September, on the cusp of a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an
agreement negotiated by his administration and
pummeled Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his
promised military withdrawal has morphed into a grotesque redeployment to "secure"
the country's oil .
It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond
the proclivities of the current president, or the previous one, or the next. The United States
has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world. The ideal of
peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of
the Cold War offered an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from
both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes and Special Operations raids to
protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in
practice and even in aspiration.
Money quote: "Johnson will have to work superhard on this if he is to re-create not the
Thatcher coalition but the Disraeli nation. That's what he means when he talks about "One Nation
Conservatism." That was Disraeli's reformist conservatism of the 19th century, a somewhat
protectionist, supremely patriotic alliance between the conservative elites and the ordinary man
and woman. It will take a huge amount of charm and policy persistence to cement that coalition if
it is to last more than one election. But if Boris pulls that off, he will have found a new
formula designed to kill off far-right populism, while forcing the left to regroup."
Notable quotes:
"... But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy ..."
Brexit is an eruption of English nationalism, and the Tories are now, under that shambling
parody of a drunk racist English aristo, Johnson, an English nationalist party.
IMHO this is highly questionable statement. Brexit is a form of protest against neoliberal
globalization. The fact that is colored with nationalism is the secondary effect/factor:
rejection of neoliberalism is almost always colored in either nationalist rhetoric, or Marxist
rhetoric.
Here are some quotes from paleoconservative analysis of the elections taken from two recent
articles:
While I do not share their enthusiasm about "Red Tories" rule in the UK, and the bright
future for "Trumpism without Trump" movement in the USA, they IMHO provide some interesting
insights into paleoconservatives view on the British elections results and elements of social
protest that led to them:
[AS] It is clearer and clearer to me that the wholesale adoption of critical race, gender,
and queer theory on the left makes normal people wonder what on earth they're talking about
and which dictionary they are using. The white working classes are privileged? A woman can
have a penis? In the end, the dogma is so crazy, and the language so bizarre, these natural
left voters decided to listen to someone who
does actually speak their language , even if in an absurdly plummy accent.
[AS] But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on
public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the
far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy . ... This is
Trumpism without Trump. A conservative future without an ineffective and polarizing nutjob at
the heart of it. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration
system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working
poor, not the decadent rich. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new
immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on
the working poor, not the decadent rich. It's very much the same movement of left-behind
people expressing their views on the same issues, who, tragically, put their trust in Trump.
What we've seen is how tenacious a voting bloc that now is, which is why Trumpism is here to
stay. If we could only get rid of the human cancer at the heart of it.
[AS] Trump has bollixed it up, of course. He ran on Johnson's platform but gave almost all
his tax cuts to the extremely wealthy, while Johnson will cut taxes on the poor. Trump talks
a big game on immigration but has been unable to get any real change in the system out of
Congress. Johnson now has a big majority to pass a new immigration bill, with Parliament in
his control, which makes the task much easier. Trump is flamingly incompetent and unable to
understand his constitutional role. Boris will assemble a competent team, with Michael Gove
as his CEO, and Dom Cummings as strategist.
[AS] If Johnson succeeds, he'll have unveiled a new formula for the Western right: Make no
apologies for your own country and culture; toughen immigration laws; increase public
spending on the poor and on those who are "just about managing"; increase taxes on the very
rich and redistribute to the poor; focus on manufacturing and new housing; ignore the woke;
and fight climate change as the Tories are (or risk losing a generation of support).
[RD] I have no idea why the Republicans are so damned silent on wokeness, including the
transgender madness. No doubt about it, the American people have accepted gay marriage and
gay rights, broadly. But the Left will not accept this victory in the culture war. They
cannot help bouncing the rubble, and driving people farther than they are willing to go, or
that they should have to go. It's the elites -- and not just academic elites. Every week I
get at least two e-mails from readers sending me examples of transgender wokeness taking over
their professions -- especially big business. People hate this pronoun crap, but nobody dares
to speak out against it, because they are afraid of being doxxed, cancelled, or at least
marginalized in the workplace.
[RD] My friend said (I paraphrase):
"Can you blame people for not answering pollsters' questions? Everybody is told all the
time that the things they believe, and the things they worry about, are backwards and
bigoted. They have learned to keep it to themselves. It's the same thing here. I hate
Donald Trump, but I'm probably going to end up voting for him, because at least he doesn't
hate my sons. I want a good future for every child -- black, Latino, white, all of them --
but the Left thinks my sons are what's wrong with the world
[RD] Boris (and Sully) style Toryism is better than nothing, isn't it? As a general rule,
in this emerging post-Christian social and political order, we conservative Christians had
better not let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the common-sense good enough.
The interesting info here is that the article states Haftar's "eastern-based Libyan
National Army (LNA), backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, France, Russia and
Turkey".
The NATO rift between Turkey and its other members has escalated with the Evil Outlaw US
Empire's Senate voting to recognize the Armenian Genocide and Greece to help the LNA (Bengazi
gov't) defend against Turkish shipments of militia/terrorists and weapons to the besieged GNA
in Tripoli. This
site is very helpful and up-to-date regarding what's occurring. And
this PDF Briefing Paper is very good and quite detailed.
All of the above's added to the tense situation around Cyprus, Turkey's threat to close
Incirlik, and Greek offers to house those NATO facilities. It increasingly looks like the
Turkish S-400s are aimed at Greece and NATO.
/div>
Viking guy at 40
"Today we are not members of the EU, but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The
EU is a non-democratic nightmare that must be demolished."
Absolutely. The EU is the 2nd biggest imperialist asshole on the block, benefitting from the
fact that 1st place is taken by the USA, which is far more blatant, in-your-face and
universally obnoxious when at it, and doing it even to the EU. The EU not being the ultimate
superpower, it can't bully the US or China and only does it when dealing with lesser powers.
That's why it's practically impossible for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually
notice and be aware of the typical EU behaviour: to crush any lesser country and to force it to
abide by its very own rules, whether independent countries want it or not.
That the EU is that bad should have been clear and obvious to all during the Greek crisis, but
most Europhiles prefer to think this was just an accident, due to some bad apples, and that "If
only the Czar knew", this wouldn't happen. Well, UK is going to get hit badly with the future
deal, because an imperalist neo-liberal power like the EU - just like the US, but most of the
time without the military part of it - can only crush any opposition and make an example out of
it.
If the EU were a truly democratic endeavour, they would allow at least popular referendum at
EU-wide level, and possibly even initiatives, for starter. The way it works, the people have no
checks on it. Not a bit surprise though, most of its core members function this un-democratic
way.
Viking guy at 40
"Today we are not members of the EU, but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The
EU is a non-democratic nightmare that must be demolished."
Absolutely. The EU is the 2nd biggest imperialist asshole on the block, benefitting from the
fact that 1st place is taken by the USA, which is far more blatant, in-your-face and
universally obnoxious when at it, and doing it even to the EU. The EU not being the ultimate
superpower, it can't bully the US or China and only does it when dealing with lesser powers.
That's why it's practically impossible for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually
notice and be aware of the typical EU behaviour: to crush any lesser country and to force it
to abide by its very own rules, whether independent countries want it or not.
That the EU is that bad should have been clear and obvious to all during the Greek crisis,
but most Europhiles prefer to think this was just an accident, due to some bad apples, and
that "If only the Czar knew", this wouldn't happen. Well, UK is going to get hit badly with
the future deal, because an imperalist neo-liberal power like the EU - just like the US, but
most of the time without the military part of it - can only crush any opposition and make an
example out of it.
If the EU were a truly democratic endeavour, they would allow at least popular referendum at
EU-wide level, and possibly even initiatives, for starter. The way it works, the people have
no checks on it. Not a bit surprise though, most of its core members function this
un-democratic way.
In case of Page it was much worse the Glenn Greenwald claims. The most probably scenario
that he was directed to join Trump compain and then to contact Russian government so that this
false flag operatin can be used for establishing surveillance. Why they need to establish
surveillance on CIA/FBI informant? Because he called people they really wanted to survail.
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed
without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the
2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the
Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives
from the U.S. media were utter
frauds .
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power
– its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to
demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI –
in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter
Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating
evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in
order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major
scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a
building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials
with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because
that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited
police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert
democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or
hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with
proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something
that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an
agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications
surveilled.
Just a few excerpts from the report should suffice to end any debate for rational persons
about how damning it is. The focus of the first part of the IG Report was on the warrants
obtained by the DOJ, at the behest of the FBI, to spy on Carter Page on the grounds that
there was probable cause to believe he was an agent of the Russian government. That Page was
a Kremlin agent was a widely disseminated media claim – typically asserted as fact even
though it had no evidence. As a result of this media narrative, the Mueller investigation
examined these widespread accusations yet concluded that "the investigation did not establish
that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016
presidential election."
The IG Report went much further, documenting a multitude of lies and misrepresentations by
the FBI to deceive the FISA court into believing that probable cause existed to believe Page
was a Kremlin agent. The first FISA warrant to spy on Page was obtained during the 2016
election, after Page had left the Trump campaign but weeks before the election was to be
held.
About the warrant application submitted regarding Page, the IG Report, in its own words,
"found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure
that all factual statements in a FISA application are 'scrupulously accurate.'" Specifically,
"we identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA
application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based
upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed."
It's vital to reiterate this because of its gravity: we identified multiple instances in
which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate,
incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had
in its possession at the time the application was filed.
The specifics cited by the IG Report are even more damning. Specifically, "based upon the
information known to the FBI in October 2016, the first application contained [] seven
significant inaccuracies and omissions." Among those "significant inaccuracies and
omissions": the FBI concealed that Page had been working with the CIA in connection with his
dealings with Russia and had notified CIA case managers of at least some of those contacts
after he was "approved as an 'operational contact'" with Russia; the FBI lied about both the
timing and substance of Page's relationship with the CIA; vastly overstated the value and
corroboration of Steele's prior work for the U.S. Government to make him appear more credible
than he was; and concealed from the court serious reasons to doubt the reliability of
Steele's key source.
... ... ..
Among the most significant new acts of deceit was that the FBI "omitted the fact that
Steele's Primary Subsource, who the FBI found credible, had made statements in January 2017
raising significant questions about the reliability of allegations included in the FISA
applications, including, for example, that he/she did not recall any discussion with Person 1
concerning Wikileaks and there was 'nothing bad' about the communications between the Kremlin
and the Trump team, and that he/she did not report to Steele in July 2016 that Page had met
with Sechin."
In other words, Steele's own key source told the FBI that Steele was lying about what the
source said: an obviously critical fact that the FBI simply concealed from the FISA court
because it knew how devastating that would be to being able to continue to spy on Page. As
the Report put it, "among the most serious of the 10 additional errors we found in the
renewal applications was the FBI's failure to advise [DOJ] or the court of the
inconsistences, described in detail in Chapter Six, between Steele and his Primary Sub-source
on the reporting relied upon in the FISA applications."
The IG Report also found that the FBI hid key information from the court about Steele's
motives: for instance, it "omitted information obtained from [Bruce] Ohr about Steele and his
election reporting, including that (1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's presidential
campaign and others, (2) [Fusion GPS's Glenn] Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his
reporting with the media, and (3) Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and
was passionate about him not being the U.S. President."
If it does not bother you to learn that the FBI repeatedly and deliberately deceived the
FISA court into granting it permission to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a
presidential campaign, then it is virtually certain that you are either someone with no
principles, someone who cares only about partisan advantage and nothing about basic civil
liberties and the rule of law, or both. There is simply no way for anyone of good faith to
read this IG Report and reach any conclusion other than that this is yet another instance of
the FBI abusing its power in severe ways to subvert and undermine U.S. democracy. If you
don't care about that, what do you care about?
* * * * *
But the revelations of the IG Report are not merely a massive FBI scandal. They are also a
massive media scandal, because they reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has
authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely
false.
Ever since Trump's inauguration, a handful of commentators and journalists – I'm
included among them – have been sounding the alarm about the highly dangerous trend of
news outlets not merely repeating the mistake of the Iraq War by blindly relying on the
claims of security state agents but, far worse, now employing them in their newsrooms to
shape the news. As Politico's media writer Jack Shafer wrote in 2018, in
an article entitled "The Spies Who Came Into the TV Studio" :
In the old days, America's top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of
the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Some wrote
their memoirs . One
ran for president . Another died a few months after
surrendering his post. But today's national-security establishment retiree has a different
game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second,
lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites,
refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for
a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light
dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors'
nighttime shows. . . .
[T]he downside of outsourcing national security coverage to the TV spies is obvious.
They aren't in the business of breaking news or uncovering secrets. Their first loyalty --
and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail. Imagine a TV network covering
the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin
to appreciate the current peculiarities.
In a perfect television world, the networks would retire the retired spooks from their
payrolls and reallocate those sums to the hiring of independent reporters to cover the
national security beat. Let the TV spies become unpaid anonymous sources because when you
get down to it, TV spies don't want to make news -- they just want to talk about it.
It's long been the case that CIA, FBI and NSA operatives tried to infiltrate and shape
domestic news, but they at least had the decency to do it clandestinely. In 2008, the New
York Times' David Barstow
won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing a secret Pentagon
program in which retired Generals and other security state agents would get hired as
commentators and analysts and then – unbeknownst to their networks – coordinate
their messaging to ensure that domestic news was being shaped by the propaganda of the
military and intelligence communities.
But now it's all out in the open. It's virtually impossible to turn on MSNBC or CNN
without being bombarded with former Generals, CIA operatives, FBI agents and NSA officials
who now work for those networks as commentators and, increasingly, as reporters.
Congrats to my friend @joshscampbell , CNN's newest
national Correspondent. His passion for going where the news is and covering important
stories will continue to benefit viewers. pic.twitter.com/j49k0KOzNj
The past three years of "Russiagate" reporting – for which U.S. journalists have
lavished themselves with Pulitzers and other prizes despite a
multitude of embarrassing and dangerous errors about the Grave Russian Threat – has
relied almost exclusively on anonymous, uncorroborated claims from Deep State operatives (and
yes, that's a term that fully applies to the U.S.). The few exceptions are when these
networks feature former high-level security state operatives on camera to spread their false
propaganda, as in this enduringly humiliating instance:
John Brennan has a lot to answer for -- going before the American public for months,
cloaked with CIA authority and openly suggesting he's got secret info, and repeatedly
turning in performances like this. pic.twitter.com/EziCxy9FVQ
All of this has meant that U.S. discourse on these national security questions is shaped
almost entirely by the very agencies that are trained to lie: the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon,
the FBI. And their lying has been highly effective.
For years, we were told by the nation's leading national security reporters something that
was blatantly false: that the FBI's warrants to spy on Carter Page were not based on the
Steele Dossier. GOP Congressman Devin Nunes was
widely vilified and
mocked by the super-smart DC national security reporters for issuing a
report claiming that this was the case. The Nunes memo in essence claimed what the IG
Report has corroborated: that embedded within the FBI's efforts to obtain FISA court
authorization to spy on Carter Page was a series of misrepresentations, falsehoods and
concealment of key evidence:
As the Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi – one of the few left/liberal journalists with
the courage and integrity to dissent from the DNC/MSNBC script on these issues – put it
in
a detailed article :
"Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former
House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report
ratifies the major claims of the infamous '
Nunes memo .'"
That the Page warrant was based on the Steele Dossier was something that the media
servants of the FBI and CIA rushed to deny. Did they have any evidence for those denials?
That would be hard to believe, given that the FISA warrant applications are highly
classified. It seems far more likely that – as usual – they were just repeating
what the FBI and CIA (and the pathologically dishonest Rep. Adam Schiff) told them to say,
like the good and loyal puppets that they are. But either way, what they kept telling the
public – in highly definitive tones – was completely false, as we now know from
the IG Report:
Yes. I am telling you the dossier was not used as the basis for a FISA warrant on Carter
Page.
Over and over, the IG Report makes clear that, contrary to these denials, the Steele
Dossier was indeed crucial to the Page eavesdropping warrant. "We determined that the
Crossfire Hurricane team's receipt of Steele's election reporting on September 19, 2016
played a central and essential role in the FBI's and Department's decision to seek the FISA
order," the IG Report explained. A central and essential role .
Just compare the pompous denials from so many U.S. national security reporters at the
nation's leading news outlets – that the Page warrant was not based on the Steele
Dossier – to the actual truth that we now know :
"in support of the fourth element in the FISA application-Carter Page's alleged
coordination with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities, the
application relied entirely on the following information from Steele Reports 80, 94, 95,
and 102″ (emphasis added).
Indeed, it was the Steele Dossier that led FBI leadership, including Director James Comey
and Deputy Diretor Andrew McCabe, to approve the warrant application in the first place
despite concerns raised by other agents that the information was unreliable. Explains the IG
Report:
FBI leadership supported relying on Steele's reporting to seek a FISA order on Page
after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by Stuart Evans,
then NSD's Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over QI, that
Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the
DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would
probably not be worth the 'risk' of being criticized later for collecting communications of
someone (Carter Page) who was "politically sensitive."
The narrative manufactured by the security state agencies and laundered by their reliable
media servants about these critical matters was a sham, a fraud, a lie. Yet again, U.S.
discourse was subsumed by propaganda because the U.S. media and key parts of the security
state have decided that subverting the Trump presidency is of such a high priority –
that their political judgment outweighs the results of the election – that everything,
including outright lying even to courts let alone the public, is justified because the ends
are so noble.
As Taibbi put it:
"No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be,
reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be
embarrassed."
No matter how dangerous you believe the Trump presidency to be, this is a grave threat to
the pillars of U.S. democracy, a free press, an informed citizenry and the rule of law.* * *
* *
Underlying all of this is another major lie spun over the last three years by the
newly-minted media stars and liberal icons from the security state agencies. Ever since the
Snowden reporting – indeed, prior to that, when the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and
Jim Risen (now with the Intercept)
revealed in 2005 that the Bush-era NSA was illegally spying on U.S. citizens without the
warrants required by law – it was widely understood that the FISA process was a
rubber-stamping joke, an illusory safeguard that, in reality, offered no real limits on the
ability of the U.S. Government to spy on its own citizens. Back in 2013 at the Guardian, I
wrote a
long article , based on Snowden documents, revealing what an empty sham this process
was.
But over the last three years, the strategy of Democrats and liberals – particularly
their cable outlets and news sites – has been to venerate and elevate security state
agents as the noble truth-tellers of U.S. democracy. Once-reviled-by-liberal sites such as
Lawfare – composed of little more than pro-NSA and pro-FBI apparatchiks –
gained
mainstream visibility for the first time on the strength of a whole new group of liberals
who decided that the salvation of U.S. democracy lies not with the political process but with
the dark arts of the NSA, the FBI and the CIA.
Sites like Lawfare – led by Comey-friend Benjamin Wittes and ex-NSA lawyer Susan
Hennessey – became Twitter and cable news stars and used their platform to resuscitate
what had been a long-discredited lie: namely, that the FISA process is highly rigorous and
that the potential for abuse is very low. Liberals, eager to believe that the security state
agencies opposed to Trump should be trusted despite their decades of violent lawlessness and
systemic lying, came to believe in the sanctity of the NSA and the FISA process.
The IG Report obliterates that carefully cultivated delusion. It lays bare what a sham the
whole FISA process is, how easy it is for the NSA and the FBI to obtain from the FISA court
whatever authorization it wants to spy on any Americans they want regardless of how flimsy is
the justification. The ACLU and other civil libertarians had spent years finally getting
people to realize this truth, but it was wiped out by the Trump-era veneration of these
security state agencies.
In an excellent article
on the fallout from the IG Report , the New York Times' Charlie Savage, long one of the
leading journalistic experts on these debates, makes clear how devastating these revelations
are to this concocted narrative designed to lead Americans to trust the FBI and NSA's
eavesdropping authorities :
At more than 400 pages, the study amounted to the most searching look ever at the
government's secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American
soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.
The Justice Department's independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his
team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went
about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
"The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how
the secrecy shrouding the government's one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse," said
Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security
Project. "The concerns the inspector general identifies apply to intrusive investigations
of others, including especially Muslims, and far better safeguards against abuse are
necessary."
His exposé left some former officials who generally defend government
surveillance practices aghast.
"These errors are bad," said David Kris, an expert in FISA who oversaw the Justice
Department's National Security Division in the Obama administration. "If the broader audit
of FISA applications reveals a systematic pattern of errors of this sort that plagued this
one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms" .
Civil libertarians for years have called the surveillance court a rubber stamp because
it only rarely rejects wiretap applications. Out of 1,080 requests by the government in
2018, for example, government records
showed that the court fully denied only one.
Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how
well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that
fall short of the legal standard. They have also stressed that officials obey a heightened
duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence that might undercut their request. .
. .
But the inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported
statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents
cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Page
look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed
that misleading portrait onto the court.
This system of unlimited domestic spying was built by both parties, which only rouse
themselves to object when the power lies in the other side's hands. Just last year, the vast
majority of the GOP caucus joined with a minority of Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam
Schiff to
hand President Trump all-new domestic spying powers while blocking crucial reforms and
safeguards to prevent abuse. The spying machinery that Edward Snowden risked his life and
liberty to expose always has been, and still is, a bipartisan creation.
Perhaps these revelations will finally lead to a realization about how rogue, and
dangerous, these police state agencies have become, and how urgently needed is serious
reform. But if nothing else, it must serve as a tonic to the three years of unrelenting media
propaganda that has deceived and misled millions of Americans into believing things that are
simply untrue.
None of these journalists have acknowledged an iota of error in the wake of this report
because they know that lying is not just permitted but encouraged as long as it pleases and
vindicates the political beliefs of their audiences . Until that stops, credibility and faith
in journalism will never be restored, and – despite how toxic it is to have a media
that has no claim on credibility – that despised status will be fully deserved.
The former (((Guardian))) "journalist" *** libtard Joo who lives in Brazil with his
boyfriend, is going to tell us the truth about the (((FBI))) and the (((Deep
State)))????
LOL
The (((Intercept))) has already ratted out at least one whistleblower to the Deep State,
so be careful on who do you believe in..
The most important point of the FISA abuse for surveillance authorization of 4 US
citizens was for the purpose of collateral surveillance of all of their contacts with the
Trump campaign, transition and White House
investigate the 17 intel agencies that unanimously said Russia 'meddled' in the 2016
election. if they lied for political gain, then they are traitors for trying to start a war
with Russia that endangers all Americans
I honestly don't care either way. The entire system is corrupt and overrun with Zionists
from top to bottom, including of course the MSM. All this theater of a witch hunt against
Trump is for show; in reality they're all on the same page, playing the American public for
fools. That's why nothing significant ever changes no matter who gets into office. Always
more wars for faux-Israel and the MIC, staged coups and proxy wars abroad, more regulatory
capture, the national debt skyrocketing into oblivion, no border security, special
privileges for a (((chosen few))) which violate Constitutional law, massive bailouts at
taxpayers' expense, and on it goes.
I did not waste my time reading it all. Just skimmed few paragraphs to confirm that all
of this was known to everybody long time ago.
To me the basic question is why Trump is a such *****. He should fire long time ago 3/4
of CIA, FBI, Justice Department and many other three letter government employers. He has
full right as a president to do this. If he doesn't do that they eventually will destroy
him.
Instead he is pussying around those grave issues and nobody gets punished for high
crimes they committed. He is just tweeting crap that bear no consequences to anybody.
This is the best chance he's got to drain the swamp. But I am pretty sure swamp will
stink for a long time after he is gone. In short, he is sissy unable to do the job he
promised to do to the people who voted for him.
It's a bit like calling 9/11 an intelligence failure. First, identify the actual measure
of success against which this outcome should really be judged...
An excerpt:
"Here's the real "secret history" of the Afganistan war: It wasn't a failure, it was a
success. In every facet, on every front, Afghanistan is exactly what America needed it to be.
They dripfeed in the blood of young Americans, they destroy 100,000s of Afghan lives, and
they reap the rewards they always intended to reap:
The permanent slow-simmer conflict gives them an excuse to keep thousands of US military
personnel in a country which borders Iran, Pakistan AND China. (Not to mention a host of
ex-Soviet states).
It keeps military expenditure nice and high, so Congressman, ex-generals and everyone else
on the boards of Boeing or Lockheed Martin get great big bonuses every year.
They have sole access to the rare-Earth elements and other vital metals in the Afghan
mountains. Lithium, most importantly of all.
They have control of the world's opium industry. A vital cog in the relations of the US
intelligence agencies, and organised crime. It's essentially reverse money-laundering –
turning tax-payer funds into dark money that can be spent hiring mercenaries, organising
assassinations, arranging coups or simply be stolen.
They have access to all the "radicalised" young men they could ever want. A little Jihadi
farm, where "terrorists" can be named, trained and sent off to fight proxy wars in Syria, or
spread fear and chaos in the West."
"... Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election. ..."
Trump's reinvigoration of the 19 th century imperialist Monroe Doctrine, which
Washington uses as a political lever to prevent the Western Hemisphere from adopting its own
foreign and domestic policies, has, once again, cast the United States in the light of an
oppressive overlord over the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Trump regime has returned to a Cold War playbook of color-coding Western Hemisphere
nations with red or pink for "socialist" and "communist." Falling into the "red" category are
Venezuela, which is suffering from crippling US-led economic, diplomatic, and trade sanctions,
and Nicaragua and Cuba, which are also subject to sanctions. Color-coded "pink" are Mexico and
Argentina, led by progressive presidents and which have shifted from their heretofore pro-US
stances. Argentina elected progressive leftist Alberto Fernández as president and, as
vice president, former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The Peronista left ticket
defeated incumbent right-wing president Mauricio Macri, a one-time real estate business crony
of Trump and someone who had abused the nation's security services in a failed attempt to dig
up dirt to target former President Kirchner in a bogus corruption court case. The same
CIA-backed "lawfare" operation was used to impeach and remove from office Brazilian leftist
president Dilma Rousseff and imprison her predecessor, the wildly popular Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction
were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge
neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election.
Trump and his Central Intelligence Agency's aggressive stance toward progressive hemispheric
governments have seen more transitions from the "red/pink" bloc to the fascistic and pro-US
bloc than the other direction. Ecuador has moved from the red/pink bloc to the blue as a result
of the pro-US policies of President Lenin Moreno, who served as vice president under the
leftist president Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2013. Moreno's threats against his predecessor
forced Correa to flee to political exile in Belgium. The recent right-wing coup in Bolivia was
supported by fascist leaders of Brazil and Colombia. Bolivia's democratically-elected president
Evo Morales was forced to flee to Mexico, which granted him political asylum.
The revanchist imperialism of the Trump administration has witnessed Moreno and Morales
being forced to flee the fascist "thugocracy" policies of their respective nations, which rely
on abusing the legal system to stifle dissent and imprison opposition politicians. The
governments of Chile and Peru have also firmly lined up with Washington and have engaged in
anti-opposition policies that, in the case of Chile, has led to bloodshed in the streets as a
result of brutal police actions.
A recent addition to the blue bloc from the pink/red coalition is Uruguay. After fifteen
years of rule by the left-wing Broad Front, the right-wing National Party's presidential
candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, declared a razor-thin victory over Broad Front candidate Daniel
Martinez. One of Lacalle Pou's first decisions was to recognize the opposition Venezuelan
regime of the CIA puppet, Juan Guaido. Lacalle Pou also decided to align Uruguay with the Lima
Group, a bloc of US lackey regimes dedicated to overthrowing the Maduro government of
Venezuela. Lacalle Pou has also signaled his willingness to develop closer ties with the
Bolsonaro regime in Brazil and distance Uruguay from the Fernandez- Kirchner government of
Argentina. It is not secret that Argentina's Alberto Fernández supported the Broad
Front's Daniel Martinez for president.
Of special concern to progressive Uruguayans is the role that Lacalle Pou's coalition
partner, the Cabildo Abierto party of far-right winger Guido Manini Ríos, will play in
his government. If the CIA's lawfare operations in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are
any indication, the Cabildo Abierto elements in Lacalle Pou's government, all supporters of the
former military junta's war against leftists in the 1970s, may seek the arrest of former
leftist presidents Jose Mujica, a leader of the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas in the 1970s, and
Tabaré Vázquez. The Latin American fascist acolytes of Trump, from Bolsonaro and
Bolivian politician Luis Fernando Camacho – known as the "Bolivian Bolsonaro" – to
Manini Ríos and Colombian President Ivan Duque, all share in common a desire to imprison
and even torture and execute the leftist opposition of their respective nations.
If the fascistic foreign policy power levers of the Trump White House, CIA, and State
Department have their way, another leftist leader in South America will face prison or worse.
Suriname's leftist president Desi Bouterse was recently convicted by a military court of the
extrajudicial executions of 15 political opponents in 1982, while he served as the military
leader of the former Dutch colony.
The death of the 15 opposition leaders may have been the work of the CIA, which launched a
coup attempt against Bouterse in 1982. In December 1982, the CIA worked closely with Dutch
intelligence to establish contacts with Bouterse's opposition in Suriname, including
politicians, businessmen, and journalists. The Dutch provided assistance to former President
Henck Chin a Sen and his Amsterdam-based opposition forces. The CIA plan included landing
Surinamese rebels in Paramaribo, the Suriname capital, and seize power. There were also reports
that the CIA planned to assassinate Bouterse during the coup, a direct violation of a White
House executive order banning assassinations of foreign leaders. The CIA's chief in-country
liaison for the coup was US ambassador to Suriname Robert Duemling.
A CIA dispatch from Suriname, dated March 12, 1982, describes the CIA's hands-on involvement
in the coup against Bouterse: "Dissident military officers opposing the leftist trend of the
military leadership launched a coup yesterday, but forces loyal to the government are still
resisting. The group, calling itself the Army of National Liberation, is led by two officers
who have been associated with conservative elements of the Surinamese society . . . Although
the rebels have control of the Army's main barracks and ammunition depot in Paramaribo,
government strongman Army Commander Bouterse and troops loyal to him apparently have taken up a
defensive position in the capital's police camp some 6 kilometers away. Fighting subsided
somewhat last night, with both sides claiming to be in control and appealing for support from
military troops and citizenry. A large number of rank-and-file military, who had objected to
Bouterse's leftist policies several months ago, probably will join the dissidents if Bouterse's
position weakens further." If anyone is responsible for the deaths of the opposition figures in
1982, one does not need to look beyond CIA headquarters in Langley and its interlocutors with
the Ford Foundation in New York.
Suriname's third largest ethnic group is Javanese, people who originally were settled by the
Dutch colonizers from Indonesia. In 1982, Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who spoke
fluent Javanese, was already well-entrenched with CIA programs in Java through her employment
with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ford Foundation. Dunham, who
used her Indonesian last name, re-spelled Sutoro from Soetoro, was a valuable asset for the
CIA's program to destabilize Suriname through its business-oriented and very anti-Bouterse
Javanese minority. Curiously, Ann Sutoro's employment contract with the Ford Foundation ended
in December 1982, the same month that the CIA attempted to oust Bouterse. During her 1981-1982
contract with the Ford Foundation, Dunham Sutoro spent much of her time liaising with the Ford
Foundation's headquarters in New York, a city that was also a base for the CIA-backed
Surinamese opposition.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Bouterse was on a state visit to China when the court delivered
its guilty verdict, along with a 20-year prison sentence. Bouterse seized power in 1980 during
an era that saw leftist leaders like Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas, Panamanian President
Omar Torrijos, Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos, Bolivian President Hernán Siles Zuazo,
Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley, and Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop all buck
Washington's influence in the hemisphere. Bouterse became a destabilization target of the
Ronald Reagan-George H. W. Bush administration. After stepping down from power in 1987,
Bouterse and his National Democratic Party returned to power when Bouterse was elected
president in 2010 and re-elected in 2015. In 2012, the National Assembly passed a bill that
granted Bouterse immunity from prosecution. It was later overturned by a court in another
blatant display of Washington-orchestrated lawfare. In 1999, the Dutch weighed in against
Bouterse by being convicted by a Netherlands court of drug-trafficking. Bouterse denies all the
claims against him and remains popular among the primarily Afro-Surinamese population.
The legal action against Bouterse appears to be part of the Trump administration's program
to curb China's international "Belt and Road Initiative," particularly in Latin America. Trump
has countered with his own contrivance, called the "Growth in the Americas" program. Peru has
signaled that it will join Argentina, Chile, Jamaica, and Panama in supporting the American
anti-Chinese bloc. It is clear that if Washington is able to depose Bouterse from power in
Suriname, it can prevent China from establishing a foothold in the country.
The Trump regime is attempting to move its chess pieces around on the Western hemisphere's
political chessboard. Increasingly, it will be up to exiled progressives like Correa and
Morales, as well as the recently-liberated Lula, to counter the march to fascist rule from
Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande.
The recent shootings of three U.S. soldiers in Florida at the hands of a Saudi citizen raises a standard question in the U.S.
government's perpetual "war on terrorism": "Why do they hate us?"
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the official mantra began being issued: The terrorists just hate us for our "freedom and values."
No other explanation for motive was to be considered. If anyone suggested an alternative motive -- such as "They are retaliating
for U.S. governmental killings over there" -- U.S. officials and interventionists would immediately go on the attack, heaping a mountain
of calumny on that person, accusing him of treason, hating America, loving the terrorists, and justifying their attacks.
It happened to me and other libertarians who dared to challenge the official motive behind the 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the
attacks, I spoke at a freedom conference in Arizona consisting of both libertarians and conservatives. When I pointed out that the
attacks were the predictable consequence of a foreign policy that kills people over there, another of the speakers was filled with
anger and rage over such an "unpatriotic" suggestion. Then, a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, FFF published an article by me entitled,
" Is This the Wrong Time
to Question Foreign Policy? " in which I pointed out the role that U.S. interventionism had played in the attacks. FFF was hit
with the most nasty and angry attacks I have ever seen.
Eighteen years later, the evidence is virtually conclusive that the reason that the United States has been suffering a constant,
never-ending threat of terrorism is because U.S. military and CIA forces have been killing people in the Middle East and Afghanistan
since at least the end of the Cold War, and even before.
After all, if the terrorists hate us for our "freedom and values," why haven't they been attacking the Swiss? They have pretty
much the same freedom and values that Americans have. And they are much closer geographically to Middle East terrorists than the
United States is. Why haven't the terrorists been attacking them?
The answer is simple: the Swiss government, unlike the U.S. government, hasn't been killing, maiming, and injuring people and
hasn't been bombing and destroying countries in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
A long history of U.S. interventionism
U.S. interventions in the Middle East began, of course, long before the 9/11 attacks. There was the 1953 CIA coup that destroyed
Iran's experiment with democracy with a coup that replaced the democratically elected prime minister of the country with a tyrannical
pro-U.S. dictator. Not surprisingly, that produced the violent Iranian revolution almost 25 years later. The Iranian revolutionaries
didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America for the U.S. government's installation, training, and support
of the tyrannical regime against which they revolted.
In the 1980s, there was the sending of U.S. troops into Lebanon as interventionist "peacekeepers." The terrorists ended up blowing
up a Marine barracks, killing 241 U.S. soldiers. The terrorists didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America
for the federal government's interventionism into Lebanon. As soon as all U.S. troops were withdrawn from Lebanon, which was the
right thing to do, there were obviously no more deaths of U.S. soldiers in that country.
It was after the Pentagon and the CIA lost their official Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia), that they proceeded
headlong into the Middle East and began killing multitudes of people. There was the Persian Gulf War, waged without the constitutionally
required congressional declaration of war, where thousands of Iraqis were killed or injured. That was followed by a decade of brutal
sanctions against Iraq, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
Thus, when Ramzi Yousef, one of the terrorists who tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a bomb in 1993, appeared before
a federal judge for sentencing, he angrily told the judge that it was U.S. officials who were the butchers, for killing multitudes
of innocent children in Iraq.
As those Iraqi children were dying, there were retaliatory terrorist strikes on the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Once again, however, U.S. officials continued to steadfastly maintain that was all about hatred for America's "freedom and values"
and had nothing to do with the deadly and destructive U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.
Then came Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States, in which he expressly cited U.S. interventionism in
the Middle East as his motivating factor. That was followed by the 9/11 attacks, along with other terrorist attacks both here and
abroad. Through it all, U.S. officials and interventionists have blindly maintained that the terrorists hate us for our "freedom
and values," not because the U.S. government kills, maims, injures, and destroys people over there.
The recent Florida killings
And now we have the latest killing spree, this one at the hands of a Saudi citizen in Florida. According to
a story in yesterday's Washington Post about the killing of three U.S. soldiers, the killer, Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani
was described as "strange" and "angry." "He looked like he was angry at the world," said one person who knew him. Another said that
he looked at people in an "angry, challenging" way.
The article says that "the FBI has not yet determined a motive for the mass shooting."
Well, of course it hasn't. That's undoubtedly because the FBI hasn't yet found any statements in which the killer states that
he hates America for its "freedom and values."
But the Post article does point out something quite interesting. The article states: "The gunman, who was shot dead by
a sheriff's deputy responding to the shooting, is thought to have written a 'will' that was posted to the account a few hours before
the rampage. In it, he blasts U.S. policies in Muslim countries."
Well, isn't that interesting! Unfortunately, the Post didn't provide a verbatim transcript of the killer's "will" in which
he "blasts U.S. policies in the Muslim countries." The Post does point out though that "the writer says he does not dislike
Americans per se -- 'I don't hate you because of your freedoms,' he begins -- but that he hates U.S. policies that he views as anti-Muslim
and 'evil.'"
I n an article at antiwar.com entitled, " Pensacola: Blowback Terrorism ," Scott Horton provides a verbatim transcript of the
killer's "will," in which the killer states in part:
I'm not against you for just being American, I don't hate you for your freedom, I hate you because every day you supporting,
funding, and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity. I am against evil, and America as a whole has turned
into a nation of evil. What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie, I see invasion
of many countries by it's troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.
Now, if one goes back to Ramzi Yousef's sentencing hearing in 1995 -- some 24 years ago -- one will see that Yousef angrily said
much the same thing to the federal judge who was getting ready to sentence him to jail for his 1993 terrorist attack on the World
Trade Center.
Americans have a choice:
One, continue the U.S. government's decades-long killing spree in the Middle East, in which case America will continue to experience
never-ending terrorist retaliation, the perpetual "war on terrorism, and the ongoing destruction of our liberty and privacy at the
hands of our government, which is purportedly protecting us from the terrorist threats that it produces with its foreign interventionism.
Or, two, stop U.S. forces from killing any more people, bring them all home and discharge them, which would help get America back
on the right track, one toward liberty, peace, prosperity, morality, normality, and harmony with the world.
This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received
his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for
twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987,
Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced
freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren
shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch . View these interviews at
LewRockwell.com and from
Full Context
. Send him email .
Now that Brexit
is almost certainly going to happen, I'm reposting this piece from late 2016 ,
with some minor corrections, indicated by strike-outs. Feel free to have your say on any aspect
of Brexit.
Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the
political right has been increasingly dominated by tribalism Trumpism. But in most cases, including the US, this
has so far amounted to little more than Trilling's irritable mental gestures . To the extent
that there is any policy program, it is little more than crony capitalism. Of all the
tribalist Trumpist groups that have achieved
political power the only ones that have anything amounting to a political program are the
Brexiteers.
The sustainability of tribalism Trumpism as
a political force will depend, in large measure, on the perceived success or failure of Brexit.
So, what will the day after Brexit (presumably, sometime in March 2019) look like, and more
importantly, feel like? I'll rule out the so-called "soft Brexit" where Britain stays in the EU
for all practical purposes, gaining some minor concessions on immigration restrictions. It
seems unlikely and would be even more of an anti-climax than the case I want to think
about.
Hidari 12.14.19 at 9:14 am (no link)
Doubtless one of the attractions of Brexit at least to those who thought it up (Farrage etc.)
is that it is a completely token rebellion: it appears to change very much while in reality
changing very little.
Only one thing:
'On the contrary, it seems pretty clear that all EU citizens will get permanent residence,
even those who arrived after the Brexit vote.'
Are we completely sure about this?
'One thing that this post missed completely is that Brexit is an entirely English project,
imposed on the Scots and Irish. That's become more and more evident, and looks sure to
dominate the days after Brexit happens.'
I kept on putting this point forward in various CT threads, getting, for some reason,
massive pushback*, despite the fact that it is obviously true and always has been. Perhaps a
colour coded map of the 'new' UK (which shows, essentially, the entirety of England as blue,
with the exception of larger conurbations), the Welsh speaking ('outer') parts of Wales as
green, essentially the entirety of Scotland as yellow, and the majority of the North of
Ireland as being green, will make that point for me.
*I'm not sure why, but I think it's something to do with an unwillingness to see that in
all four sections of the 'United' Kingdom we are seeing an eruption of nationalism: the SNP
in Scotland, Sinn Fein in NI, Plaid in Wales and of course the Tories in England, with the
Tories now functioning as, so to speak, the political wing of UKIP, or, if you want, UKIP/the
Brexit Party with the 'rough edges' shaved off.
'Liberal' intellectuals have always had a blind spot for nationalism, and have always
tended to reason that because nationalism is 'irrationalism' or whatever, that no one could
'really' think that way and that, therefore, nationalism doesn't 'really' exist. It obviously
does, as a 1 second glance at the 'new' UK map will demonstrate.
likbez 12.14.19 at 4:57 pm (no link)
Everything Trump does is consistent with regular conservatism
I respectfully disagree. It is not. Paleoconservatives hate Trump. Neocons for some
strange reason also hate Trump, although it is not clear why -- he completely folded and
conduct their foreign policy. Which is as far from classic conservatism as one can get.
I view Trumpism as specific for the USA flavor of "national neoliberalism" -- domestic
neoliberalism without neoliberal globalization, or with globalization of a different type.
The one based on bilateral treaties where stronger state can twist hands of the weaker state
and dictate the conditions -- kind of neo-imperialism on steroids ( neoliberalism always was
neo-imperial in foreign policy toward weaker states) .
The irony of Corbin defeat is that he was/is a critic of the EU imperialism, which
by-and-large is Franco-German imperialism (EU role in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya,
Syria, Greece) . The EU is not the dominant superpower, so it can't bully the US or China, or
Russia. It can do it only when dealing with lesser powers. That's why it's difficult for
anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually notice such a behavior: the desire to
crush resistance of any lesser country and to force it to abide by its very own rules,
whether the other countries want it or not.
The Blairites euphoria that the left was defeated, and neoliberalism still reins supreme
is IMHO unwarranted. Neoliberalism as an ideology is dead and that means that Labour Party in
its current form is dead as well. The same is true about the US Dems. They can achieve some
tactical successes but they can't overturn their strategic defeat.
And Brexit means more close alliance with the USA (in a form of subservience) as alone GB
can't conduct previous imperialist policies. It was punching above her weight within the EU
(with Scripals false flag as the most recent example, see Tony Kevin take on the subject
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/08/a-determined-effort-to-undermine-russia
) , and this opportunity no longer exists.
"I wish that people would realize that to interfere, in any way shape or form in wars that
occur in Islamic States is pissing into the wind.
We simply cannot and do not understand the religious/tribal and feudal component of these
societies.
It is better that we just let them go at each other. Sooner or later one despot will end
up being top dog - so be it."
Hmm. Do you know the history of colonialism in MENA? I did not think so.
My guess is that your 'knowledge' of Afghanistan and its history is based on your obvious
xenophobia aka Islamophobia and lofty Western superiority complex. Don't feel alone, that's
what folks use to make themselves feel better and able to sleep at night. Check this out:
"Despite close relations to the Axis powers, Zahir Shah refused to take sides during World
War II and Afghanistan remained one of the few countries in the world to remain neutral. In
1944 and 1945, Afghanistan experienced a series of revolts by various tribes.[13] After the
end of the Second World War, Zahir Shah recognised the need for the modernisation of
Afghanistan and recruited a number of foreign advisers to assist with the process.[14] During
this period Afghanistan's first modern university was founded.[14] During his reign a number
of potential advances and reforms were derailed as a result of factionalism and political
infighting.[15] He also requested financial aid from both the United States and the Soviet
Union, and Afghanistan was one of few countries in the world to receive aid from both the
Cold War enemies.[16] In a 1969 interview, Zahir Shah said that he is "not a capitalist. But
I also don't want socialism. I don't want socialism that would bring about the kind of
situation [that exists] in Czechoslovakia. I don't want us to become the servants of Russia
or China or the servant of any other place."[17]
Zahir Shah was able to govern on his own during 1963[9] and despite the factionalism and
political infighting a new constitution was introduced during 1964 which made Afghanistan a
modern democratic state by introducing free elections, a parliament, civil rights, women's
rights and universal suffrage.[14]"
"... The Pentagon’s entire budget operates in much the same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at the defense department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small potatoes by comparison. ..."
The easy answer is that there’s a long tradition in Washington, particularly among the foreign policy establishment, that self-reflection,
taking responsibility and admitting failure is a big no-no. Heck, you can get convicted of lying to Congress about illegal arms sales,
and cover up brutal atrocities and
still
get a job at the state department. Did you torture anyone?
No problem.
While DC’s culture of no culpability certainly plays a role in this case, the more compelling answer lies somewhere near the fact
that once the American war machine kicks into gear, no amount of facts undermining its very existence is going to get in the way.
Indeed, the United States has so far doled out nearly one trillion dollars for the war in Afghanistan (the true cost of the war
will be trillions more) and everyone’s on the take: from defense industry executives, lobbyists and US political campaign coffers
to Afghan government officials and poppy farmers to anyone and anything in between.
What’s more is that this
military-industrial-congressional complex is largely insulated from public accountability, so what’s the incentive to change
course? The Pentagon’s entire budget operates in much the same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting
in hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at the defense
department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small
potatoes by comparison.
The bottom line is that the Afghanistan Papers clearly show that a lot of people were killed, injured and subject to years, if
not lifetimes, of psychological trauma and financial hardship because a bunch of men – yes, mostly men – in Washington didn’t want
to admit publicly what they knew privately all along. If we don’t start holding these people to account –
and it’s not just
about Afghanistan – the DC foreign policy establishment will continue to act with impunity, meaning that it’s probably more likely
than not that in 50 years there’ll be another batch of “papers” revealing once again that we’ve failed to learn obvious lessons from
the past.
As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser
Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this
is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the
bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium. ..."
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who
pay attention to Asian affairs.
The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to
do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take
a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the
Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent
by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the
public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or
Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of
the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up
all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and
America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in
Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which
has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
The US lied about the Gulf of Tonkin in order to justify attacking North Vietnam, it then
proceeded to lie about the conduct of the war and the terrible genocide it was committing. No
lesson learned because in a heartbeat the US was lying about Chile, Brazil, Argentina,
Colombia, Nicaragua and El Salvador, committing a wide range of atrocities in each.
Add Somalia, Libya, proxy wars in Angola and Yemen, efforts to destabilize Cuba, Venezuela
and Iran, illegal wars in the Lebanon and Syria, the annihilation of Afghanistan in
retaliation for what was actually a Saudi terrorist act, the destruction of modern Iraq and
her people using trumped up claims, to say nothing of Clinton's cheery disregard for the
welfare of Balkan residents when the US rained (illegal) uranium bombs down on the hapless
inhabitants.
And now the WP and Congress are worked up over spending a trillion dollars when plainly
they could care less about the Afghan casualties and American war crimes. Heck this goes back
to Theodore Roosevelt seizing Cuba claiming he was saving it from the ravages of Spain or
even further back to government backed settler land grabs "saving their white women from the
savages". Savages, indeed. Zero accountability and Britain still playing faithful lap
dog.
My take on this is that the American Department of Defense war machine remained in a state of
perpetual excitement after their successes in WW11.. almost as if they had to continuously
invent an enemy in order to maintain their war time budget.. (and therefore demonstrate their
ongoing prowess etc etc) in a cycle of wars starting with Korea and bringing us up to date
with Afghanistan.. so that's nearly 70 years worth of international hubris on display.
All on the excuse of spreading their version of democracy.. is money talks!!
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the
weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take
nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper
meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
That both the Afghan war and the invasion of Iraq could happen at all tells us that the UN
Security Council is not fit for purpose. These wars also told us that British pretense at
being the voice of reason or the steadying hand that prevents US foreign policy being
subsumed by the visceral and synthesised reactions of a US public is no more than empty cant.
If the US is unable to prevent foreign and defence policy being captured by money
interests and remains inclined to deliver revenge to its public on demand howsoever it might
be misdirected then the US should not be on the UN Security Council at all. They are fast
becoming the number one major rogue state. And the outlook suggests this is more likely to
get worse than improve. Whatever happens to Trump One more (and likely smarter) Trumps are
coming down the track. More Dick Cheneys too. More Bushes, more Rumsfelds, more Nixons,
Boltons, Kissingers, Johnsons and a host of others we'd all much rather were one offs. The US
is the biggest extant threat to world peace. It is too powerful and far too easily played by
warmongers and terrorists of every stripe and every persuasion. And by those seeking to
profit from war.
To call war profiteering and murder a geopolitical "mistake" is to EXCUSE criminal activity.
Anyone responding to this latest revelation of military dishonest as a "mistake" is
actually part of the crime. They are aiding the abettors. Everyone in Congress knows what
everyone in this comments section knows: our military and its global actions are, first and
foremost, a financial fraud.
But not American oil companies which were basically shut out outside of a few minor service
and procurement contracts. Looks like all the "Blood for Oil" poster were BS.
The Iraq War was only partly, however, about big profits for Anglo-American oil
conglomerates - that would be a bonus (one which in the end has failed to materialise - not
for want of trying though).
Yes, and it made no conclusion as to whether the war was legal or not.
" The inquiry did not reach a view on the legality of the war , saying this
could only be assessed by a "properly constituted and internationally recognised court", but
did make a damning assessment of how the decision was made."
Just think - the USA spends more on its military then the combined amount of the next 10
nations in the list (incl. China/Russia/India). That is a major major spend commitment. A
small percentage of that could be used for US citizens to fund their healthcare - but I
suppose they prefer to spend it to threaten and bomb other nations to their will.
Just to think - a similar report was produced post Vietnam and in the 50's even Eisenhower
was worried about the US military backed by private companies becoming a perpetual spending
machine.
But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did
so many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to
state department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about
how the war in Afghanistan was going?
Because "how the war is going" is not the operating question. Because it does not matter
if the war is just or unjust, whether it's winnable or not winnable, nor whether it's
supported in the "homeland" or not. No, the operating principle is that there is a war. By
its existence, the war creates funding and jobs and profits for the people that matter, the
people the author mentions, from the Security/Military complex corporations all the way to
careerists in the Pentagon and State.
So, it is NOT a waste of $1 trillion dollars ... it is just as it was supposed to be. That
is why the war president (W), the peace president (Obama), and the swamp drainer (Trump) have
all supported it. The war is doing what it's supposed to do.
In time, the US national debt will force them to rein in their military spending. By lowering
taxes while continuing to spend like drunken sailors on military adventures the national debt
is ballooning. US government debt is currently rated AA whereas Canada is AAA. US debt to GDP
is significantly higher than Canada's. (and that's just Canada vs the US). Trump is trying to
create a mafia style protection racket to force other countries to subsidize reckless US
military spending. "Pay up or who knows what might happen?" It is high time US taxpayers ask
why the US can't lower its' out of control military spending rather than pressuring others to
match their profligate ways? Some US citizens say they pay low taxes but it seems they get
nothing in return; no health care, no equal access to education, decaying public
infrastructure, etc. The rest feel overtaxed when they realize they get nothing in return but
don't question the elephant in the room. If other countries maintain responsible levels of
military spending the US will dig itself deeper into debt until the debt markets force them
to see sense.
Military spending is a fine way to transfer wealth from the general population to the rich.
War has always been a fabulous business opportunity, but what has never been so very clear is
how, even for the winning side, it represents a major defeat as wealth is transferred from
the common good into the hands of the rich.
In such matters always consider 'Who will prosper'.
Follow the money...
Considering the United States has been involved in one war or another, directly or
indirectly, for all but about 20 years of its existence, this latest revelation shouldn't
shock anyone. We're a violent country with a violent history and never more so than now, with
our built-on-conflict empire losing steam. We point fingers ("It's the Russians!" "It's the
Chinese!" It's the Iranians!") to deceive ourselves and others, but we're the real threat to
peace. Us. The United States.
Every time I see a person on the street nobly collecting 50ps or the odd fiver for a good
cause like Cancer Research or some other charity, I wonder why they have to do this when the
US has spent over a USD$1 trillion on the Afghan war and other militaries continue to soak up
massive amounts of funding. How much more could we have achieved by now for the real good of
humanity if these funds were focused on research and real human need?
Te US military has been practicing genocide around the world since WW2, millions have been
murdered and still are. But hey, they are the leaders of the free world, the corruption in
the US government, corporations, and military has no bounds. Their own poorer members of this
society are dying in their thousands for lack of medical care, innocent black people are
murdered by police, yet the greed must go on nothing else matters. The only question now
being, which country will they invade next, which government will they plot to overthrow. How
many will be murdered in the process, not that it matters, greed cannot be measured in dead
people.
World peace and the safety of the American public has never been a priority. Entirely the
opposite. Standard procedure: foment fear to wage immoral, endless, profitable war.
This isn't conjecture or "conspiracy theory"; it's as obvious as the sun rising. Anyone
casting this in any other way is either behind the curve or dangerously soft pedaling -- or
lying to stave off actual accountability.
Please stop pretending that our "leaders" are mistaken. They aren't They're doing the jobs
for which they were paid.
It's worse even than a crime... it's insanity to keep excusing a failed 18 year strategy
costing a trillion dollars, resulting in the death of more than 100,000, and the country
ending up worse than when they started. The military, politicians and the media are all to
blame. The military for being too frightened and too stupid to admit they were losing and had
no idea how to correct it.. the politicians for being too frightened to call out their
beloved but incompetent military, and for not "getting it" after more than a trillion dollars
had already been spent; the press and media for being embedded (sometimes literally) with the
military and acting as no more than unquestioning cheerleaders for a self-evidently failed
strategy. It is a terrible indictment of the US on so many levels... where were the public
anti-war protests or activists? Couldn't they see or didn't they care? Either way it's
pathetic.
Almost every year US generals stood before the media and politicians, jutting jaws and
feeble minds, to say that this year was going to be decisive against the Taliban. The fact
is, after Al Qaeda was scattered in 2001, the US picked on the Taliban pointlessly. They
stayed pretending they were engaged in countering the return of al Qaeda (that was never
going to happen) but actually made a new enemy of the Taliban by picking the wrong side in
what was a civil war. The US never understood what it was trying to do so it lied and lied
out of fear of being found out. I find it sickening that this country -the US - pretends it
is a force for good in the world when they are quite prepared to keep killing innocent people
in order to mask the generals' cowardice about facing the truth of their own
incompetence.
A terrible but interesting dichotomy. You have Governments and a broad part of the public
fiercely opposed to public spending and any kind of redistribution. It is all about the
individual.
Yet they sport and actually worship an institution where the individual counts for naught.
In the military it always is about the collective. They throw huge swaths of money to the
military. Which is the only place in the US where dreaded universal healthcare, pensions and
free education exists. Not only that, even the army shops sell goods as subsidised prices,
something unthinkable outside the barracks.
Entirely intentional according the PNAC document Rebuilding America's Defences, Orwellian for
we're going to make a lot of pointless weapons with huge mark-ups for profit by bombing the
shit out of foreigners.
I was listening to NPR about how Veterans turned against the Vietnam war. The people of south
Vietnam would collect shells and explosives that did not detonate and gave to US troops for a
small financial reward. In one such case - the shell exploded killing few kids and injuring a
girl. That girl was refused treatment from US medics because she was one of them. That
soldier involved later joined the anti war movement.
All the veterans were surprised with the image that soldiers coming back from war were spat
at and disrespected by the anti war protesters - this could not have been further from truth.
Back in Vietnam you were taught how to destroy a village, poison drinking water sources
etc. And understandably many GIs fought back.
There are similar stories out of Afghanistan - the naked prisoners with soldiers acting as
if they are engaging in a sexual act and many such shameless incidents. These soldiers were
acquitted which is another way of saying - An Afghan and his life and honor are below us. It
has de-stabilized the region for many decades.
There is a bright side to Donny and his conmen - maybe there will be less intervention and
more introspection - which can only be good for the World.
I think it should have been seen as a thirty year campaign and the same with Iraq and Libya.
The northern Ireland campaign took 30 years and many people are as bitter as they ever were
much of it secondhand from younger people who weren't even alive during the conflict. The
idea of a quick war is a very big mistake I think and flawed short-term thinking.
The West and the USA in particular have always taken the stand that their ideology is the
only right one. That they have a right to interfere in the interns, affairs of other
countries but their own internal affairs are sacrosanct.
So - USA, with UK support decided that Saddam Hussein had to be removed. They moved in to
do so - they killed Saddam but had no plan to return the country to a functioning nation.
Instead they facilitated the unleashing of internal wars and have now left the citizens of
that country in utter turmoil.
& then went and repeated the exercise n Libya.
Decades ago, Britain decided that Palestinians could be thrown out of their homes to make
way for the creation of Israel and laid the foundation for the Middle-East turmoil that has
caused untold misery and suffering. They followed that up with throwing out the Chagosians
out of their homes and making them homeless. Invited Caribbean's to the 'Mother Country' to
serve their erstwhile lords, ladies, masters and mistresses only to then drive to despair the
children and grandchildren of the invitees who had contributed to the 'Mother Country' for
decades.
We are 18 years into an illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. We are the invaders,
the terrorists. The Taliban are fighting for their country, they may use brutal methods but
so did the French, Dutch, Russian freedom fighters during the Nazi invasions. America's
puppet regime in Afghanistan is reminiscent of the Quislings of WW2. And to use drones to
kill Afghans and to say it is progress that there is more transparency is the height of
hubris. All it does is show the corrosive effect of unfettered power in America and it's
military. Why do we tolerate this inhuman action on another country's society? America is by
far the greatest contributor to the rise in terrorism in the world and if not somehow stopped
the greatest threat to world peace. It keeps on invading country after country with it's MSM
propaganda machine claiming it is spreading Democracy throughout the globe. Thank you America
!
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I have just finished reading William
Shirer's
Berlin Diary
. (This may not fascinate you, but I am coming to something.) I first
encountered it in high school. It is of course Shirer's account as a correspondent in Germany of the rise of
the Nazis. Most of it is well known to the educated. The Nazis, who had control over the domestic press,
convinced the German population that the Poles were threatening Germany, as plausible as Guatemala
threatening the United States. The Poles were said to be committing atrocities against Germans.
Then the Reich, with no justification
whatever, having absolute air superiority, attacked Poland, bombing undefended cities and killing huge
numbers of people. It was a German pattern several times repeated. Many reporters told of the smell of
rotting bodies, of refugees dying of hunger and thirst. Today the Reich is endlessly remembered as a paragon
of evil. It was.
How did Nazi Germany differ from the
United States today? There is the same lying. Washington insisted that Iraq was about to get nuclear
weapons, biological agents, that it had poisonous gas. None of this was true. The government, unimpeded by
the media, persuaded over half of the American population that Iraq was responsible for Nine-Eleven. Now it
says that Iran works to get nuclear weapons, and of course that the Russians are coming. The American press,
informally but strictly controlled, carefully doesn't challenge any of this.
Having prepped the American public as the
Nazis prepped theirs, Washington unleashed a savage attack against Iraq, deliberately destroying
infrastructure, leaving the country without power or purified water. The slaughter was godawful. But, said
America, the war was to rid the Iraqi people of an evil dictator, to bring them democracy, freedom, and
human rights. (The oil was entirely incidental. The oil is always incidental.)
Fallujah, Iraq, after the American military brought it democracy, human rights, and freedom.
Guernica, after the visit of the Kondor Legion. For the historically challenged, this was the Spanish
city bombed during the Spánish Civil War by the Germans in support of the Falangists.
Washington never sleeps in its campaigns to improve the lives of people
whose most fervent wish is that America stop improving their lives. To give the Afghans democracy, human
rights, and American values, the US has for eighteen years been bombing, bombing, bombing a largely
illiterate population in a nation where America has no business. It is a coward's war with warplanes
butchering peasants who have no defenses. The pilots and drone operators who do this deserve contempt, as
does the country that sends them. How many more years? For what purpose? And how were the German Nazis
different?
The German Gestapo perpetrated sickening
torture in hidden basements. America does the same, mainltaining torture prisons around the world. In these,
men, and no doubt women, are hung by their wrists for days, naked in very cold rooms, kept awake and
periodically beaten (exactly as described by survivors of Soviet torture. Nazis, whether American, Russian,
or German, are Nazis.)
Photos of Iraqis at the American torture
operation at Abu Ghraib showed prisoners, almost naked, lying in pools of blood. Tell me, please, how this
differs from what was done by the Reich? (The bloodier photos are no longer online. Many that remain seem to
have been edited.)
Abu Ghraib.
A happy American girl soldier. Note rubber gloves. The US military used many
female soldiers for this duty. They apparently were kinky, as they seemed to get a kick out of it. A
female general ran the operation.
Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, is a sadist
who tortured Moslem prisoners, reminiscent of Ilse Koch, the notorious Nazi torturess, who also worked in
prisons. It is easy to find victims there, I suppose.
An Abu Ghraib pic apparently no longer online. I found it on an ancient memory stick. Are we having
fun yet?
President Trump has just
pardoned
several American war criminals, saying he wanted to give US soldiers the "confidence to
fight." This amounts to blanket permission to commit atrocities. A purpose of military training being to
extirpate human decency and mercifulness, the obscene barbarism is not surprising. Atrocities are what
soldiers do, and will do as long as the wars go on, being furiously denied by the government. (When I
covered Force Recon, the Marine Corps Special Forces, the motto on the wall was "Crush Their Skulls and Eat
Their Faces.")
Perhaps the best known example of
implied approval was Nixon's pardon of Lt. Calley, who ordered the murder of Vietnamese villagers, for which
he received three years of house arrest.
The Germans wanted empire,
lebensraum,
and resources, in particular oil. Americans want empire and oil, control of which allows
control of the world They go about getting them by invasion and intimidation. Thus America wants to bring
democracy and human rights to Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria, which have
lots
of oil, while it
has occupation troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Mideast. What part of Syria is Trump
occupying? Surprise, surprise! The part with the oil. Oil for the Americans, land for the Germans.
As Shirer points out, the German public
was not enthusiastic about the war, at least not through 1940, as neither is the American public today.
Neither public showed any concern about the hideousness its government inflicted around the world. What is
the difference?
The parallels with the Reich are not
complete. Washington does not essay genocide against Jews or blacks or any other internal population, being
content with killing whoever its bombs fall upon. Trump cannot reasonably be likened to Hitler. He lacks the
vision, the backbone, and apparently the viciousness. Hitler was a very smart, very evil man who knew
exactly what he was doing, at least politically. This cannot be said of Trump. However, Hitler was, and
Trump is, surrounded by freak-show curiosities of great bellicosity. Adolf had Goering, Goebbels, Himler,
Rheinhardt Heydrich, Julius Streicher, Eichman. Trump has John Bolton, as amoral and pathologically
aggressive as any in the Fuehrer's entourage, or under a log. Pompeo, a bloated toad of a man, bears an
uncanny resemblance to Goering. Both he and Pence are Christian heretics, Evangelicals, who believe they are
connected to God on broadband. O'Brien sounds like Bolton. All want war with Iran and perhaps with China and
Russia. Sieg heil, and run like hell.
My Lai, after Lt. Calley of the SS Totenkopf Div excuse me, the Americal Division, I meant to say,
brought human rights, freedom, and the American way.
Wikipedia:
"Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers Victims
included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated as
were children as young as 12.")
For this Calley got three years house
arrest, less than the sentence for a bag of methamphetamine, until pardoned by Nixon. Many Americans said,
and many still say, that he should not have been punished at all, that we needed to take the gloves off, let
the troops fight. Again, this is what Trump said.
The German Nazis worshiped Blood and
Soil, the land of Germany and the Teutonic race, which they believed to be genetically superior to all
others. Americans can't easily worship race. Instead they think themselves Exceptional, Indispensable, a
Shining City on a Hill, the greatest civilization the world has known. Same narcissism and arrogance,
slightly different foundation.
Nazi Germany was, like Nazi America,
intensely militaristic. The US has hundreds of bases around the world (China has one overseas base, in
Djibouti), spends appallingly on the military despite the lack of a credible military enemy. It currently
buys new missile submarines (the Columbia class), aircraft carriers (the Ford class), intercontinental
nuclear bombers (the B21), and fighter planes (the F-35).
Nazi Germany attacked Poland, Norway,
Belgium, France, Russia, America, and England. America? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, supports a
brutal proxy war against Yemen (Yemen is a grave threat to America), threatens Venezuela, China, and Iran
with attack, embargoes Cuba. These are recent. Going back a bit, we have Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Yugoslavia, the intervention in Panama, on and on. Millions and millions killed.
The Third Reich was, and America is, the
chief threat to peace on the planet, a truly rogue state.
Is this something to be proud of?
Other stuff
La FIL,
Feria Internacional
de Libros
, International Book Fair, Guadalajara, an annual event. I post the photo with the joyous sense
of mischief of an eleven-year-old poking a nest of wasps. It will infuriate the Dissident Right, or Alt
Right, or Race Realists. Their leaders excepted, most of these are ill-tempered naifs who insist, and seem
to hope desperately, that Latin Americans are illiterate. I occasionally have conservative friends down and
they are astonished to find that Guadalajara, a large international city, has the sorts of bookstores had by
large international cities. Duh. (If interested,
here
are a couple of dozen.)
Another and cherished conceit of the
Dissident Right is that Latin Americans who can read must be white. Well, I guess. Why, you could easily
mistake the crowd above for Norwegians. Their ancestors probably arrived with Leif Erikson.
Merry Christmas to all! Happy "Winter
Holidays" to none.
Write Fred at
[email protected].
Put the letters "pdq" anywhere in the subject line to avoid autodeletion. All read, reply not guaranteed due
to volume.
This meritorious and beneficial column
will go into hibernation until after New Year, after which it will likely return.
It's almost a century since Smedley Butler wrote his incisive pamphlet War is a Racket.
If you've never read it, it takes about 15-20 minutes to do so. It will astound, anger and
depress you that the only thing that's changed is the number or zeroes on the eye waterering
profits. Oh, and the players. What is it exactly that makes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
untouchable? (Answers on a postcard C/O Beelzebub.)
Smedley Butler knew of what he lectured about, being the most decorated officer in the
history of the Marine Corps.
A brief insight into this insightful all American action man man Hollywood seems to have
overlooked:
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this
country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks
from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time
being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall
Street.
"The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international
banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its
way unmolested.
"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.
Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could
do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
There's been a century of endless war and profits since then with this century shaping up
nicely for the racketeers, whose finest day might well have been September 11th, 2001.
Anyway, here's a link to a pdf file of War is a Racket if you're interested.
And this is where we must listen to the wisdom of Trump..
"As of a couple of months ago, we have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. Seven
trillion dollars. What a mistake. But it is what is," Trump said Monday at a White House
meeting on with officials and lawmakers on infrastructure. "We're trying to build roads and
bridges and fix bridges that are falling down, and we have a hard time getting the money.
It's crazy."
"Think about it: As of a couple of months ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East and the
Middle East is far worse now than it was 17 years ago when they went in and not so
intelligently, I have to say, went in. I'm being nice.'' 2/13/18 Newsweek
''..when they went in and not so intelligently, I have to say, went in. I'm being
nice...''
Is it just part of the human condition that as any writer or any publication gains a
reputation for truth and revelation and dependability, that that reputation is sooner or
later leveraged for gain or influence or access?
I can think of a number of examples where I'm almost certain that that is the case,
although I'll avoid writing their names.
In the end, we are all of us really quite alone in the universe, enjoying only periods
with the illusion of support and fellowship.
On the example of the Kennedys, the assassinations provide perhaps the greatest
illustration of how things work.
I should say that I regard them as two chapters in one book. John's killers had to be
Bobby's killers also because that intense younger man, once holding the powers of the
presidency, would have relentlessly hunted down his brother's killers.
We know that he did not believe the Warren Commission, though he did not go around saying
that. He even apparently had some idea of who the killers might be, never telling others any
details of his suspicions.
Books have for decades been churned out by either the CIA or friends of the CIA or
unwitting assets of the CIA arguing for the truth of the Warren Commission.
On the other hand, as someone with a long interest in the events, I believe that a great
many of the books against the Warren Commission were also written by the same interests. Not
all of them, but many.
Books especially that either are so preposterous or poorly written and edited that they
effectively discredit those who do not accept the (absurd) findings of the Warren
Commission.
After all, it was some CIA disinformation officer who came up with the term "conspiracy
theorist" in the 1960s to discredit genuine critics of the Warren Commission, a term of such
lasting power, it is still widely used, its application having spread to a large number of
topics.
Those with power do tend to keep guiding events no matter how hard we struggle to
understand and correct the course of affairs.
Power is a very real thing, almost physical in its presence, and it is rarely overturned
by truth or justice or fairness.
It's not an inspiring view, but I fear it is reality.
Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does. The main points of
what war does:
1. Transfers wealth from social services to the military industrial complex. Americans
don't have education, infrastructure, or healthcare, but they do have a generation of
soldiers with PTSD, national debt, worldwide hatred, and an ever increasing sense of
exceptionalism.
2. Traps Americans in a cycle of fear and persecution. Americans don't need a bogeyman,
but our corporate overlords do, its how they monetize the populace. Find some disparate
population of brown people who want self autonomy, send in the CIA to fuck them up, and when
they retaliate tell Americans that people who live in a 3rd world land locked country several
thousands of miles away are a threat to their very existence and way of life because they
don't like God and Walmart.
Sadly the US uses the MIC to keep a large chunk of its population under control, as well as
providing a convenient coverup of the actual numbers of people who are unemployable or would
be unemployed if it were'nt for the taxpayer funding humungous spending in the so-called
defence sector, which needs a a constant supply of conflict to keep going. The frankly
moronic 'thank you for your service' soundbite drives me insane but it shows how much the
American public has been brainwashed.
For years my home state of Washington had a New Deal Democrat Senator named Henry Jackson,
AKA the Senator from Boeing.
He did good things for the state & was hugely popular here. One reason being that because
he brought the Federal pork back home.
IMO the things Gen. Butler wrote about in the 1920s are still the modus operandi of US
foreign policy.
If the Afghanistan war ends, the USA will go to war with someone else. You cannot spend so
much on military & not be at war. America must have an enemy. And, don’t forget,
they always have “God on our side!”
The neocons in power during 2001 were hell bent on taking out Saddam Hussein. When 9/11
happened, they were looking for avenues to blame Iraq so that they could launch the war on
that nation. Since things could not be put together, and all evidence pointed to Afghanistan,
they took a detour in their war plan with a half hearted approach.
In fact Afghanistan was never the problem - It was Pakistan that held Afghanistan on the
string and managed all terror related activities. Everything related to 9/11 and beyond
pointed directly at Pakistan. Whatever threat Bush and his cronies projected about Iraq was
true in the case of Pakistan. The war was lost when they made Pakistan an ally on the war on
terror. It is like allying with Al Capone to crack down on the mafia.
Pakistan bilked the gullible American war planners, protected its assets and deflected all
the rage on to the barren lands of Afghanistan. They hid all key Al Qaeda operatives and
handed off the ones that did not align with their strategic interests to the US, while
getting reward for it. War in Iraq happened in a hurry because the Bush family had scores to
settle in Iraq. Pressure was lifted on Afghanistan. This is when the war reached a dead
end.
The Taliban knew time was on their hands and waited it out. Obama did understand the
situation and tried to put Af-Pak together and tightened the grip on Pakistan. He got the
troops out of Iraq. Pakistan is almost bankrupt now for its deep investment on terror
infrastructure. The US has drained billions of dollars and lives in Afghanistan due to
misdirected goals. I am surprised Bush and Cheney have not been sent to jail on lies to
launch the Iraq war and botching the real war on terror.
I read Bob Woodward's book, "FEAR: Trump in the White House" which has a section talking
about a time when Trump wanted to withdraw a substantial number of troops from Afghanistan.
Lindsey Graham, Mattis, and Tillerson all opposed the withdrawl and spoke to him in person
about it. They all just kept saying that we needed troops in Afghanistan "to prevent the next
9/11." Lindsey Graham was especially forceful about this. "If you withdraw those troops, then
you're responsible for the next 9/11" he says [paraphrase].
This is the only section of the book where I actually found myself agreeing with Trump.
How exactly does keeping troops in Afghanistan "prevent the next 9/11"? It seems like a
bizarre non sequitur.
And this is a surprise because? There is a revolving door between Washington D.C. and defence
contractors. When you have a multi trillion dollar industry making stuff that goes bang, the
customers will want to use it. And the more the industry can encourage them to use it, the
more money they make. Better still, when they have finished blowing a foreign country to
hell, their friends in the civil engineering and construction companies can make more
trillions rebuilding it all.
And if you then claim victory and withdraw enough of your troops, the incumbent
Neanderthals can start slaughtering their own people all over again, giving the perfect
excuse to go back in and blow it all to hell again.
With careful planning, you can maintain the cycle of profits for decades, if not
centuries.
Next week - bears implicated in forest defecation scandal.
he American people have known that the war in Afghanistan was a lost cause for quite some
time. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans' views of the war
started to go south right around the end of 2011, until eventually a majority started
seeing the writing on the wall about two years later.
That's why the Washington Post
report this week on the so-called "Afghanistan Papers", detailing how US officials
"deliberately mislead the public" on the war's progress, is almost sort of unremarkable. If the
piece took away any shred of innocence left from this ghastly enterprise, it's that perhaps
some of us thought our leaders, while failing miserably at building a nation thousands of miles
away, were at least acting in good faith.
At the same time, the Post report is rage inducing, not just because of the sheer stupidity
of American leaders continuing to fight a war they knew they could not win, but also how their
unwillingness to take responsibility for a failed policy caused so much death, destruction and
heartbreak, particularly among those American families who have admirably dedicated their lives
to serving their country, and the countless number of Afghan civilians trapped in a cycle of
endless war they have nothing to do with.
Of course, the "Afghanistan Papers" immediately recalled memories of the Pentagon variety
leaked to the New York Times nearly a half century ago because they too were government
documents outlining how numerous American administrations had lied to the public about Vietnam
– another long, costly and unnecessary war with no military solution.
But there's one major difference: the war in Afghanistan doesn't have as direct an impact on
the lives of everyday Americans as the Vietnam war did, when the military draft meant that
everyone had to deal with the cold war proxy conflict in south-east Asia
one way or another . Therefore, it's entirely possible, likely even, that this major and
important report from the Post will drift into the wilderness just like the dozens of Trump-era
stories that would have,
for example , taken down any other US president in "normal times".
But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did so
many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state
department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about how the
war in Afghanistan
was going?
The easy answer is that there's a long tradition in Washington, particularly among the
foreign policy establishment, that self-reflection, taking responsibility and admitting failure
is a big no-no. Heck, you can get convicted of lying to Congress about illegal arms sales, and
cover up brutal atrocities and still get a job at the
state department . Did you torture anyone? No problem .
While DC's culture of no culpability certainly plays a role in this case, the more
compelling answer lies somewhere near the fact that once the American war machine kicks into
gear, no amount of facts undermining its very existence is going to get in the way.
Indeed, the United States has so far doled out nearly one trillion dollars for the war in
Afghanistan (the true cost of the war
will be trillions more ) and everyone's on the take: from defense industry executives,
lobbyists and US political campaign coffers to Afghan government officials and poppy farmers to
anyone and anything in between.
What's more is that this
military-industrial-congressional complex is largely insulated from public accountability,
so what's the incentive to change course? The Pentagon's entire budget operates in much the
same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting in hundreds of billions
of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at
the defense department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the
money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small potatoes by comparison.
The bottom line is that the Afghanistan Papers clearly show that a lot of people were
killed, injured and subject to years, if not lifetimes, of psychological trauma and financial
hardship because a bunch of men – yes, mostly men – in Washington didn't want to
admit publicly what they knew privately all along. If we don't start holding these people to
account – and it's not just about Afghanistan
– the DC foreign policy establishment will continue to act with impunity, meaning that
it's probably more likely than not that in 50 years there'll be another batch of "papers"
revealing once again that we've failed to learn obvious lessons from the past.
This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to
think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will
figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.
Why did so many people -- from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to
state department and National Security Council officials -- feel the need to lie about how
the war in Afghanistan was going?
This is because it's easy cash cow for the old boys club by sending working class kids
to be killed in a far off land.
The pentagon with the full cooperation of MSM will sell it as we are defending our ways of
life by fighting a country 10,000 kms away. This show the poor literacy, poor analytical
thinking of US population constantly brain washed by MSM, holy men, clergy, other neo con
organisations like National rifle club etc.
I never knew USA dropped 2.7 millions tons of bombs and now so many left unexploded and
its same in Vietnam, Cambodia as neutral,
but i met so many injured kids etc from the bombs,.
the total MADNESS OF USA IS NAZI SM AT ITS BEST,.NO SHAME OR COMPASSION FOR THE
VICTIMS.
I cannot comprehend the money it cost USA,. AN ALSO PROFITS FOR SOME,.
With the exceptions of two attacks on American soil-Pearl Harbor and 911- the American people
and for the most part their legislative representatives in Congress- will always remain
cluless what the United States Government does overseas.
This country runs on its own drum beats. The ordinary man on the street needs to take care
of his economic needs. The Big Boys always take care of themselves. That includes the
military establishment, that is always entitled to an absurd amounts of monies, fueled by an
empire building machinery, pushed by the elites that control the fate of economic might, and
political orchestra that feeds its ego and prestige.
Time and again, our American sociopaths in power have a strangle hold on us, regardless of
the destruction and animosity they heap on distant peoples and lands the world over in the
name of national security and the democratic spiel, as they like to tell us ....
Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson- Vietnam and the South East Asian countries of
Laos , Cambodia, are an example .
Years later, the establishment manufactures blatant cover-ups with lies upon lies to accuse
on record, as general Powell eloquently presented at the United Nations: That Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction and needs to be held accountable.And now, this report on
Afghanistan with all this pathological violence.
Is it reasonable to conclude that our democracy and its pathological actors in government
and big business will always purchase it by demagoguery and self vested interest, because the
ordinary man whose vote should count will never have the ultimate say when it comes to war
and destruction!
I seem to be missing something here. Isn't Marxism where the proletariat own the means of
production? So, doesn't this look more like fascism where the corporations own
everything?
"The proletariat" don't make decisions collectively - it's not possible given the nature
of man. Every authoritarian system is fascism in practice - where a cabal of chosen ones call
the shots. Whether it's corporate execs, billionaire playboys, demagogues, bureaucrats, union
bosses, soldiers, intellectuals, or aliens at the top... it really only changes the
flavor.
Ok, so it's not just me. The repeating of the word Marx in that article was getting weird.
Can we actually talk about what that guy wrote instead of the symbol that name has become? It
seems very boomer-ish to be reviving the talk of communism all the time when that system is
essentially dead. Now a bunch of retirees are red-baiting again when Russia isn't communist,
China isn't communist, and about the only communist country on earth is Cuba.
Meanwhile, just about every country on earth is becoming an oligarchic bureaucracy. They
don't generally give a **** about **** Marx was on about.
"... The Washington Examiner first reported Friday that lawyers for the Free Beacon -- a conservative outlet based in the nation's capital -- funded the project from fall 2015 to spring 2016, when it pulled its funding as Trump looked set to clinch the nomination. ..."
"... Washington Free Beacon ..."
"... After the Democrats took over funding of the operation in mid-2016, Fusion GPS would hire former British spy Christopher Steele and would lead to the production of the so-called "Trump dossier," filled with salacious but unconfirmed claims about how Trump was compromised by the Russians. ..."
"... The Free Beacon noted in its statement that it had "no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele." ..."
"... The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire and major GOP donor Paul Singer. The New York Times reports that Singer initially supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for the Republican nomination, but later spearheaded a campaign to deny Trump the nomination even after Rubio dropped out of the race. ..."
"... While supporting Republican establishment favorites such as Rubio and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Singer was a major backer of Common Core and was the founder of a super-PAC that has the express purpose of turning the GOP pro-gay marriage. ..."
"... Kristol is also the founder of the Weekly Standard, which like the Free Beacon has a neoconservative foreign policy outlook. The Free Beacon was co-founded by two former Weekly Standard writers, chairman Michael Goldfarb and editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti. ..."
The Washington Free Beacon, funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, was the original funder of
Fusion GPS' research project that attempted to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump -- a
project that would later be funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's
campaign.
The Washington Examiner first
reported Friday that lawyers for the Free Beacon -- a conservative outlet based in the
nation's capital -- funded the project from fall 2015 to spring 2016, when it pulled its
funding as Trump looked set to clinch the nomination.
Lawyers for the Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee of its role in the
funding on Friday. The outlet issued a statement
standing by its decision to fund the project:
Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained
third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us
and our readers. In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to
provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we
retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton.
After the Democrats took over funding of the operation in mid-2016, Fusion GPS would
hire former British spy Christopher Steele and would lead to the production of the so-called
"Trump dossier," filled with salacious but unconfirmed claims about how Trump was compromised
by the Russians.
Fusion has come under scrutiny for its
alleged ties to Russia, including the fact that many of the claims
originate from Kremlin sources -- meaning that the information came from inside the Russian
government.
The Free Beacon noted in its statement that it had "no knowledge of or connection to the
Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or
provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele."
"The Washington Free Beacon has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with
Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources," Jack Langer, spokesman for
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News. "The Beacon has
agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this
assertion."
Yet, the revelation is likely to fuel questions about the role the so-called "Never Trump"
movement played in an effort that would eventually inflict damage on President Trump, and that
was possibly part of a Russian misinformation scheme.
The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire and major
GOP donor Paul Singer. The New York Times reports
that Singer initially supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for the Republican nomination, but
later spearheaded a campaign to deny Trump the nomination even after Rubio dropped out of the
race.
While supporting Republican establishment favorites such as Rubio and 2012 presidential
candidate Mitt Romney, Singer was a major
backer of Common Core and was the
founder of a super-PAC that has the express purpose of turning the GOP pro-gay
marriage.
The Examiner reports that the Free Beacon was originally part of the 501(c)(4)
tax-exempt organization -- the Center for American Freedom -- but in 2014 became a for-profit
organization. The Center's original board of directors includes William Kristol, a prominent
"Never Trump" activist.
Kristol is also the founder of the Weekly Standard, which like the Free Beacon has a
neoconservative foreign policy outlook. The Free Beacon was co-founded by two former Weekly
Standard writers, chairman Michael Goldfarb and editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti.
***Update***
"The Washington Free Beacon has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with
Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources," Jack Langer, spokesman for
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News. "The Beacon has
agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this
assertion."
TrumpAlways •
2 years ago • edited I smell McCain. Anyone else smell McCain with a little bit of
Bush in there...
John Brewster - 90
Did you by chance confuse Russia with Italy? Because Russia has close to 150M people, not
65M, significantly more than Germany. Granted, less than USSR back in 1939, but militarily
more powerful compared to Germany - and possibly with more exploited resources.
vk - 79
I tend to agree with the view that the key factor in USSR's demise was that it couldn't
sustain the competition with the Kapital and wasn't able to develop, "progress", "grow" at
the rate the West was showing off. US and USSR levels were far closer back in 1950 than in
1980, and the discrepancy was only growing. Reagan fanboys might argue that he sped up the
decaying process, but troubles and upheavals were going to happen, no matter what. Now, why
this rate of progress was so different is another matter, and probably the most important one
- both for 20th century history and for the fate of the West in this century.
It's also painfully obvious that the only path outside downright servitude for Europe is to
distance itself from the USA and seek if not a direct alliance at least a clear partnership
with Russia and a "detente" with clear rules on their borders and a common declaration of
neutrality over Ukraine - as in: no side will try to annex the whole country, which either
would be split up or ideally would have a heavy dose of decentralization and localism. But it
is of vital importance for the actual survival of Europe that atlanticists and Russiaphobes
be hunted down and expelled from any position of power or influence - be it from economy,
media, politics.
"... Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under the guise of NATO as well. ..."
"... "Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ." ..."
"... NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in search of new official enemies. ..."
"... I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces. ..."
"... What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO. ..."
"... Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this. ..."
"... LOL. The NATO ONLY serves US interests. It has the same function as always. Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down. ..."
"... The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon the myth of American exceptionalism. ..."
"... US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed. ..."
"... Technocratic sociopaths, doing a CYA for their incompetence. ..."
"... ZATO cries out in pain as it strikes you. ..."
NATO Seeking To "Dominate The World" & Eliminate Competitors: Russia's Lavrov by
Tyler Durden Mon,
12/09/2019 - 02:45 0 SHARES
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has charged NATO with wanting to "dominate the world"
a day after 70th anniversary events of the alliance concluded in London.
"We absolutely understand that NATO wants to dominate the world and wants to eliminate any
competitors, including resorting to an information war, trying to unbalance us and China,"
Lavrov said from Bratislava,
the capital of Slovakia, while attending the 26th Ministerial Council of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
He seized upon NATO leaders' comments this week, specifically Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg, naming China as a new enemy alongside Russia . Stoltenberg declared
at the summit that NATO has to "tackle the issue" of China's growing
capabilities.
Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We
are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is
multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under
the guise of NATO as well.
The new accusation of 'world domination'
comes at a crisis moment of growing and deep divisions over the future of the Cold War era
military alliance, including back-and-forth comments on Macron's "brain death" remarks, and
looming questions over Turkey's fitness to remain in NATO, and the ongoing debate over cost
sharing burdens and the scope of the mission.
"Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov
stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to
persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position
to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for
some reason ."
A consistent theme of Lavrov's has been
to call for a "post-West world order" but that NATO has "remained a Cold War institution"
hindering balance in global relations where countries can pursue their own national
interests.
NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in
search of new official enemies.
Remember the last Bilderberg meeting. Russia and China were not invited. The globalists
have planned this, and apparently, Russia has better intelligence to know what's going on,
and they will take the necessary precautions, along with China. Let's just hope it's not
going to lead us to WW3.
I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces.
NATO is not trying to dominate, NATO is trying to extend its profit from frightened
European donkeys who still believe that the USSR exists, and Uncle Joe sits in the Kremlin
and eats a Christian baby in garlic sauce for lunch.
What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but
the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO.
So there will
be a big "raspathosovka" with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.. Only the problem of
Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same
Americans and NATO. So there will be a big **** with shooting and explosions, do not even
doubt it.
I'll just repeat the erased: NATO - lovers of freebies and they don't refuse this
freebie voluntarily. Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a
made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this.
NATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests, and quite frankly,
hasn't for some time. I respectfully suggest the USA move all forces out of Germany on day 1, and station them
at Fort Trump in Poland.
Day 2, the US forms a new "mutual defense pact" with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
(Former Eastern Bloc nations)
Russia and Germany can duke it out, just not where our guys are hanging out. Hades,
Germany and France can limp wrist at each other as they have done in the past so many
times. But insofar as US troops leaving continental Europe forever? Sorry Sergei, that ain't happening, no matter how much
propaganda you shove up western
europe's (willing) ***.
Meanwhile Vlad makes new friends around the world... Last year Putin signed accords with President Macri of Argentina which included Russia
recognizing Argentina's Falklands claim. (La Voz, 23 Jan 2018).
An Argentinian claim based upon 'usurpation' – meaningless in the 18th century and
inheritance from Spain just like Mexico inherited California and Texas.
The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety. As it stands, I am not
excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing. People have been predicting that for
a while and for the moment, I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate. The
US is a crooked gangster, but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big
league.
The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety.
The NATO disadvantage right now is of the "sitting with pants full of **** and asking
others who farted" variety.
As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing.
The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it
because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the
US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon
the myth of American exceptionalism.
I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate.
US imperial decline is reminiscent of Casey at the Bat.
but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.
Or they've decided the US game is not worth playing.
Since 2013 I have followed Russian foreign policy and actions in the middle east and
elsewhere,thanks to statesmen like Lavrov they have crossed every t and dotted every i
following international law and convention, true history will be a lot kinder to Russia than
N ot A nother T errorist O rganisation
What is happening to Europe is the same as what's happening to Russia, only Russia
didn't ask for it. Nevertheless, Azeris and Tatars are on the rise demographically, and
Russians are on the decline.
I don't think Russia ... or China for that matter ... need to worry much. The West is imploding and NATO will implode along with it. The West can't even depend on its technical superiority anymore ( see Boeing 737MAX
); it sure can't depend on (most of) its people to do any real fighting.
NATO is fading and becoming a contradictory mess. China and Russia will be the foe, with possibly India, and far more effective,
economically and militarily. Europe doesn't stand a chance against these no matter how they posture, their slope is
downward.
US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed.
"The problem is ZATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to
persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only ZATO is in the
position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West
dislikes for some reason ."
One of things which concerns me most about this site and most others inhabited by
contrarian blokes of a certain age is the way that topics discussed are most often the same
topics as those fed to the mugs via corporate media.
Sure the opinions are vastly different, but the subjects are not. So much energy and
time wasted on pointless topics like the amerikan prez when we all know that it really
doesn't matter who jags that gig nothing meaningful will alter for amerikans or the people
outside amerika oppressed by empire.
Now the prez thing is a bit of a troll since so many amerikans have been intensely
indoctrinated right through their lives to believe that all the prezdency guff is
meaningful when it so obviously isn't. That in reality the odds of any amerikan suddenly
having an epiphany about the pointlessness of DC kibuki from reading this, or something
similar written by someone else, are negligible.
So we have to accept, to a degree, that Washington Housewives and Days of Our Lives DC
will continue to feature at MoA.
But what happens when the corporate media chooses not to consider much larger, more
pernicious forms of imperialism than is currently occurring in the ME because that
imperialism is nascent, awful things are being done to humans western populations who have
not been sufficiently propagandised against, so may not greet the tales of murder and
mayhem generated by the actions of french foreign legionaires, english SAS or amerikan
special forces with sufficient approval?
Easy, we just don't talk about it except when told to or where there is no choice
because some action by the imperial thugs for hire has attracted too much attention. In
that case the barest of details make it into the news and we will be told that whoever it
was who had their families butchered belonged to an organisation which 'western
intelligence' said was 'associated with ISIS'. No specificity, not details at all apart
from the one unsubstantiated claim, which lets face it says any village of humans anywhere
that contains a single resident which western intelligence believes is somehow associated
with ISIS, is worthy of being genocided out of existence.
I reckon one of the best indicators of imperial violence is displaced persons. We saw in
the ME that various forms of ethnic cleansing were practised to persuade people to move off
their traditional lands in order to either exploit the natural resources in the area (see
Saudi Amerika driving tribes from the newly discovered hydrocarbon prospects in North
Yemen), or to create lebensraum for another group of humans currently held in favour by the
empire (see the shifting of arabs and Turkamen from North Syria to give ready made villages
to Kurds which only lasted for as long as the Kurds were needed by empire).
So many people were displaced in the ME during the first half of the teens that shock,
horror some european countries felt obliged to allow a few of those whose lives had been
destroyed into their communities.
That was then, yet we still all talk about the ME as though it is where the empire is
committing its most egregious harm, but that is no longer the case.
If you check
this Pew Center article you will see
The total number of people living in
sub-Saharan Africa who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict reached a new high
of 18.4 million in 2017, up sharply from 14.1 million in 2016 -- the largest regional
increase of forcibly displaced people in the world" .
If one checks the chart Pew has provided we can see that the numbers of decent humans in
the ME who have been displaced from their land is alleged to currently be 21.5 million
while the number of persons displaced in sub-Sahara Africa is about 3 million less at 18.4
million.
See so more action in the ME still. No, firstly the ME curve has flattened right out
over the years since 2016 meaning that new displacements are relatively low unless of
course it is your whanau that has been displaced in which case it wouldn't feel
nearly as benign. Secondly if you look at the fine-print on that chart you will see the 21.5 million line is
labelled "Middle East-North Africa".
Libya is an African state which happens to have a proportion of arabic speaking people
in its population, it also contains Berbers (e.g. Muammar Ghadaffi) and what the chart
calls "sub-Saharan Africans when they want say negro but the unfortunate connotations
associated with that term (99% the result of horrific whitefella behaviour) means that
negro is no longer a la mode in whitefella land.
Not enough to rape, steal & steal from black Africans, now we also remove the means
to identify them as a distinct group.
The Libya africa/ME issue matters a great deal because prior to the fukusi rape of
Libya, that nation acted as a bulwark for all the supra-saharan nations, some Saharan eg
Niger and that was just as likely a reason for amerika to destroy Libya setting loose the
ethno-centrists of Misratah to kill black africans, standover Berbers & Turks to ensure
that only Arab speaking semites can get control. This is the deal the empire struck. Not to
enable italy to get some of that sweet sweet crude at the sort of bargain basement prices
Italy hadn't enjoyed since Mussolini invaded Libya - that was purely a minor side benefit,
now the good colonel was no more, fukus became the only game in town. There was no longer any white knight determined to protect his/her neigbours from the
outright theft, extortion, bribery, rape & murder which are the empire's stock in
trade.
It is foolish and counterproductive to ignore the horrors that a US-led fukus mission
which runs across the entire African continent has created in the name of more billions to
the already rich. Do it if you want, but all you are really achieving is enabling the arseholes.
There is a scarcity of relevant links for the usual reasons. Not only are you more
likely to put faith in info from sources you already know & trust, getting there will
help you comprehend this crime far better than something easily digestible from a user, and
most importantly the final paras were done long after the sun rose over the yardarm
here.
@ A User 72
All very true. I would place the de jure war onslaughts within the overall context of
globalization and in particular the imperialistic assault of corporate industrial agriculture
upon Africa, the last great semi-frontier which wasn't fully assimilated by the first "Green
Revolution" onslaught. A main goal as the global empire faces decline or collapse is to seize
control of all land and drive the people OUT.
Globalization acts to destroy all local production and distribution. It destroys this
outright or seizes control of it in order to force it into the global commodity framework. It
seizes control of indigenous land and resources. It dumps subsidized Western goods. It
destroys any functional politics and democracy. It imposes the control of multinational
corporations over every part of life it can. It does this purely in the power interests of
Western elites. Any benefits it lets trickle down to locals are purely calculated payouts to
accomplices. Much of the global South has been crushed under the corporate boot this way, and
Africa has already been subject to the IMF and World Bank’s debt indenture shock
treatment (“structural adjustment”).
All this has been accompanied by the systematic ravaging of African ecosystems,
culminating in the rising climate chaos driven by the patterns of energy consumption, waste,
and ecological destruction practiced and imposed by Western industrialized productionism and
consumerism. Climate change is caused by these actions. Since corporate state elites and
their supporters have long known this and in spite of lots of lip service have refused to do
anything to avert the worst of it, it’s long been true that climate change is an
intentional campaign of aggression against the Earth and all vulnerable peoples. Thus climate
change takes its place as the most extreme and far-reaching of the corporate campaigns
designed to cause disaster, destruction, and chaos. According to this pattern of disaster
capitalism the corporations then proceed to use the crises they intentionally generate as
further opportunities for aggression and profit. All corporate sectors practice this, and
corporate agriculture is the most aggressive and destructive practitioner of all. Today
Africa is its primary new target.
Corporate control of agriculture and food has always been at the core of the globalization
onslaught. In accordance with its food weapon the US government systematically has waged
economic, political, chemical, biological (both of the former in the form of poison-based
agriculture and other pretexts for systemic and systematic environmental poisoning), and
often literal shooting warfare. Throughout this history of war and sublimated war, corporate
agriculture has been a constant weapon and battleground as well as its aggrandizement being a
constant goal.
The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who
assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.
Look at this:
Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public.
They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear
the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.
As commanders in chief, Bush, Obama and Trump all promised the public the same thing. They would avoid falling into the trap
of "nation-building" in Afghanistan.
On that score, the presidents failed miserably. The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan
-- more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.
The Lessons Learned interviews show the grandiose nation-building project was marred from the start.
If you can get through it all, good for you. I got so mad that I had to quit reading not long after the paragraph above. We have
lost about 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and sustained about 21,000 casualties of war. (Not to mention all the dead innocent Afghan
civilians, and the dead and wounded troops of our NATO allies.) We have spent altogether almost $1 trillion on that country. The
Afghan officials stole a fortune from us. We never knew what to do there. And every one of our leaders lied about it. Lied! All those
brave American soldiers, dead or maimed for life, for a war that our leaders knew that we could not win, but in defense of which
they lied.
It's the Pentagon Papers all over again. You know this, right.
Trump is negotiating now with the Taliban over the possibility of US withdrawal. The story says US officials fought the Post
in court over these documents, and have said most recently that publishing them would undermine the administration's negotiating
position. I don't care. Tell the truth, for once. Let's cut our losses and go before more Americans die in this lost cause. Poor
Afghanistan is going to fall under the tyrannical rule of the mullahs. But if, after 18 years, a trillion dollars, and all those
dead and wounded Americans, we couldn't establish a stable and decent Afghan regime, it's not going to happen.
If any of my children want to join the US military, I'm going to go to the mat to talk them out of it. I do not want them, or
anybody's sons or daughters, sent overseas to die in hopeless countries in wars that we cannot win, and shouldn't have fought, but
kept doing because of bipartisan Establishment foreign policy delusions. To be clear, we should have bombed the hell out of Afghanistan
after 9/11. The Taliban government gave shelter to Al Qaeda, and brought retribution upon itself. But the Bush Administration's nation-building
insanity was never going to work. Eight years of Obama did not fix this. Nor, so far, has three years of Trump, though maybe he will
be the one to stop the bleeding. If he does withdraw, I hope he blasts the hell out of his two predecessors and the military leadership
for what they've done here.
I've been writing lately in this space, and in the book I'm working on, about the parallels between late-imperial Russia and our
own time and place. And I've been writing about what Hannah Arendt had to say about the origins of totalitarianism. Arendt says that
one precursor of totalitarianism is a widespread loss of faith in a society's and a government's institutions.
According to a 2019 Gallup poll, the
US military is one of the few institutions that enjoys broad confidence. How can anybody possibly believe them after this? How can
we believe our Commanders-in-Chief? According to the secret documents, the men in the field have been were their commanders for a
long time that this Afghan thing was not working, and wasn't ever going to work. But they kept sending them back in.
Why? Pride? Too full of themselves to admit that it was a failure? As soldier John Kerry turned antiwar activist said back in
the 1970s, about Vietnam, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" No more American dying in and for Afghanistan.
Bring the troops home. They did not fail. Their superiors did.
How do you convince young people to join an institution whose leadership -- civilian as well as military -- is prepared to sacrifice
them for a lost cause, and then lie, and lie, and lie about it? How do you convince mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters
with confidence to that military? How do you convince taxpayers to support throwing more money into the sh*thole that is the Pentagon's
budget?
The questions that are going to come up sooner than most of us think, and, in some version, from both the Left and the Right:
just what kind of order do we have in America anyway? Why do I owe it my loyalty? What does it mean to be a patriot when you cannot
trust the nation's leaders and institutions?
These are the kinds of questions that, depending on how they are answered, can lead to the unraveling, and even the overthrow,
of a regime. It has been said that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was a prime mover in the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev and the
collapse of the Soviet system. We are not the Soviet Union -- but I wouldn't be so quick to take comfort in that, if I were a political
or military leader.
We learned nothing from Vietnam, did we? Not a damn thing. It is beyond infuriating. It is beyond demoralizing. And you know,
the only thing more infuriating and more demoralizing than this will be if there are no consequences for it, or if people fall back
into partisan positions. The report makes clear that this is a disaster that was launched by a Republican administration, continued
under a Democratic administration, and has been overseen by another Republican administration.
One of the reasons Donald Trump is president today, and not some other Republican, is he was the one Republican primary candidate
who denounced the wars. If he can't get us out of Afghanistan, what good is he?
UPDATE: I was just thinking about something a military friend told me almost 15 years ago, based on his direct personal knowledge
of the situation: that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was lying to the nation about how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were
going. And if Rumsfeld was lying, so was the administration. My friend was deeply discouraged. Rumsfeld left office in 2006 -- but
the habit remained with our leadership.
The only thing that surprised me in the WaPo article was that it was published in the CIA's house organ.
EDIT: I should have added that the squandering of blood and treasure, fighting a pointless war that benefits nobody but the
financiers, contractors, arms manufacturers and generals, all while the politicians and generals proclaim that victory is just
at hand, we can't turn back now, - all this reminds me of nothing so much as a smaller scale WWI.
Trump wants us out of Afghanistan, but Iran is a different story. He's sending more troupes to Saudi Arabia to defend the Saudi's
from Iran, how is that disentangling from the ME. I think the Saudi's Wahhabism, basically the same as ISIS practices, is the
most dangerous religion in the word today and they are busy exporting it to the rest of the world. I really think Trump is a false
prophet, a lying prophet, who serves first himself.
Didn't vote for Trump - but: He has attempted to stand up to the elite establishment intelligence-military-arms manufacturing
complex and start cutting back the forever wars. Everyone attacks him for this--establishment Republicans, Democrats, State Department,
Military, Intelligence, Media--everybody. The attacks are immediate and intense. He is almost always forced to pull back. He seems
determined to keep trying, but, as is evident, they will do anything it takes to stop him.
First Worlders commenting here seem to have the illusion Christianism is the good brother
of the three Abrahamic religions. Although I understand the pro-Christian bias coming from
the Europeans (since Christianism is an inextricable aspect of European identity), this
opinion is a myth: we have already tasted this in the Bolivian coup, but it's also a Latin
American phenomenon.
Christians are wolves under sheep skins.
--//--
@ Posted by: pogohere | Dec 9 2019 1:25 utc | 57
The USSR had a relatively backwards transportation system (specially railways), that still
used disproportional quantities of petroil to function, but that wasn't an existential threat
to the nation per se , it could be modernized.
Of all the theses I've read about the collapse of the USSR, the one that most convinced me
was Angelo Segrillo's "Decline of the USSR" - which I think only exists in Portuguese right
now. Segrillo covers all the arguments of the time used to explain the fall of the USSR and
refutes them all empirically before he lays out that the main cause of the fall of the USSR
was its structural inability to implement the Third Industrial Revolution ("toyotism").
When it became clear the USSR wouldn't be able to keep up technologically with the USA,
Gorbachev then decided (without knowing it) it would be preferrable for the USSR to disappear
than to continue to exist as a non-superpower.
In that sense, yes, the Soviet then relatively inneficient energy use was a symptom of the
underlying cause - but it wasn't the cause.
--//--
@ Posted by: bevin | Dec 9 2019 3:03 utc | 62
The problem with Europe is its geography: it is a tiny, depleted peninsula. In the 17th
Century, it was an advantage, since the lack of natural resources impelled it to aggressively
exploit other continents, giving birth to capitalism.
But capitalism is a global system, not a regional system. When it reached maturity, Europe
slowly, but inexorably, begun to lose its competitive advantages over purely capitalist
formations - the greatest of them all being the USA. Then what was an advantage became a
disadvantage.
This gordian knot was cut with WWI and WWII (both were only one war, in two parts) - a
last desperate attempt by British capitalism to preserve its imperialist status.
But History is unasailable: it is the saga of class struggle, of the contradictions
between the modes of production and the relations of production. The result couldn't be any
different: Western Europe was on its knees after WWII. The British Empire had just sold all
its assets to the Americans and German men were literally prostituting themselves to American
soldiers for on cigarette (and German children, for one chocolate bar). The USA was the
undisputed sovereign of the European Peninsula from 1945 on.
The last leverage the European Peninsula had, in that scenario, was the USSR itself: it
could ask the USA for good treatment and some dignity in exchange of not doing socialist
revolutions backed up by the Soviets. The result was the Marshall Plan and a permission to
revive their previous industrial parks.
That situation resulted in the rise of Atlanticism, the ideology that the USA is the
legitimate heir of Western Civilization. Andy Warhol was the successor to Michelangelo.
--//--
@ Posted by: john brewster | Dec 9 2019 4:35 utc | 65
The USSR stagnated during the period that spanned from the oil crisis of 1975 until its
fall in 1991.
But it only had a recession in two years of its history: the year after the Perestroika
and its last year of existence. Both were very mild recessions (by capitalist standards).
Even during the infamous "Brezhnev stagnation", growth was 1-3% per year - comparable to
the developed capitalist nations since the 1990s.
But the problem is that its successor states are doing objectively worse: Russia will
grown a little more than 1% this year; other ex-Soviet states are more or less in the same
situation (with Ukraine doing outright worse). The mircle promised to the Russians didn't
come: Putin's boom of the early 2000s was not comparable to the Soviet boom. Russia's status
today are completely dependent on China (which, ironically, has the Soviet system of
government) and the modernization from the old Soviet weapons and know-how it already
had.
"... The way I see it now he basically had the backing of big Jewish gangstas like Adelson plus his own charisma resonated with a lot of people plus the fact that what self-respecting human on earth could vote for the she-devil Hillary ? ..."
"... I think too a lot of people were sick of Obama who was clearly one of the greatest con artists of all time President Hopium, as Mike Whitney tagged him ..."
"... So other than his rich Jewish friends The Donald really is pretty much alone except for a very lot of regular folks and I mean right across the socio-economic spectrum it's not just the blue collar folks, but a lot of people I know in my own profession [and others] ..."
"... So all things considered, I think Trump has actually made some pretty spectacular plays considering he is a one-man football team LOL ..."
"... As for Trump I think he's going to be re-elected the 'resistance' is just making themselves look incredibly bad they are getting up everyone's fucking nose and even Pelosi, as she was standing there the other day announcing the 'impeachment' darn well knew it they are toast ..."
"... I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental. ..."
"... The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its embarrassment. ..."
"... Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar. ..."
"... Trump is a thief and an occupier in Syria, Afghanistan and many other countries. Only dummies think that he is a man of 'peace'. Only impostors spread lies that he wants to bring 'peace' but the 'deep state' does not allow. In fact the phony 'deep state' does not want war with Iran because knows that they will never win, only chaos. Israel wants war, and his servant Trump is pushing for one. ..."
"... I agree with you about all those examples Ukraine, Venezuela, even Iran seem to be a case of giving 'his' neocon 'team' enough rope to hang themselves while POTUS holds the hammer and ultimately gives a big NAY to going kinetic and then the whole thing crumbles into cracker crumbs ..."
"... On 1 May, Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, canceling its oil concession (expired in 1993) and expropriating its assets. ..."
"... In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mossadegh. On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh. ..."
"... The zionized "progressives" have a new battle cry -- "Putin is new Hitler." Worked great for Hillary Clinton, this model of "humanitarian" interventionist. ..."
"... It does not do any good for your brains to read the Atlantic Council's idiotic propaganda. It is the same as the "Integrity Initiative" production, the dirty and poisonous brew made on orders by NATO/MIC/the Lobby. ..."
"... When Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher could get hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 for crimes against humanity, I wonder, why not the likes of Amanpour? Guess history is written by the winning side. ..."
"... Say hello to more than a century of perpetual war for profit. The Deep State, consisting of Jewish bankers and their hanger-ons, has been calling the shots since passage of the Federal Reserve Act in the closing hours of 1913, while most members of Congress were home on holiday recess. ..."
"... The current demonisation of China and Russia sets the stage for the real split that will happen in the 2020s. Gotta get the sheeple used to the notion so that they will accept, even demand, bringing the Bamboo Curtain down when the time comes. ..."
"... The PTB needs the people, not the other way around. People are happy to believe anything that makes them comfortable. Instilling Sino/Russo-phobia in their otherwise empty heads is but the prelude to splitting them off from demonic Eurasia/Eastasia, and also so they'll be happy with whatever they get in Oceania. ..."
I had assumed that a real outsider couldn't have gotten to his position and that they
had a plan and would make a stand against the Empire's nomenclatura to try to turn the
ship of state to face the coming crisis head on.
Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face.–'Iron' Mike Tyson
Yes indeed E I think PCR has commented at length about how Trump just doesn't have anyone in
his corner and yes, it is kind of surprising
Now the funny thing is that I too thought for the longest time there must be some kind of
establishment faction behind the scenes that was backing the Trump agenda of getting real and
changing course from an obvious dead end path
But I'm not so sure about that anymore Trump may indeed be the guy that 'wasn't supposed to
win' as far as all the invisible heavyweights behind the curtain are concerned
The way I see it now he basically had the backing of big Jewish gangstas like Adelson plus
his own charisma resonated with a lot of people plus the fact that what self-respecting human
on earth could vote for the she-devil Hillary ?
I think too a lot of people were sick of Obama who was clearly one of the greatest con
artists of all time President Hopium, as Mike Whitney tagged him
So other than his rich Jewish friends The Donald really is pretty much alone except for a
very lot of regular folks and I mean right across the socio-economic spectrum it's not just
the blue collar folks, but a lot of people I know in my own profession [and others]
But at this point it becomes abundantly clear that what Prof Cohen says here is what
everybody knows the ' permanent foreign policy establishment' which is quite out in the
open and neither 'deep' nor secret
For me that 'Anonymous' oped in the NYT was the milestone event that they could be that
brazen and open about basically ripping the wheel out of the president's hands I mean that's
brass they even called themselves the 'steady state' not even worried one bit about what that
says about this sham 'democracy'
It's like everyone knows right and is cool with it ?
Amazing
So all things considered, I think Trump has actually made some pretty spectacular plays
considering he is a one-man football team LOL
I point to the Syria almost-withdrawal which is in reality almost as good as a full
withdrawal since the SAA has regained almost its entire northern border and the remaining fleck
of a US footprint is a logistical and political impossibility
Let's face it for all the complainers [and yes, we've all got a lot of legit beefs] who the
fuck would have been able to do even this anyone else would have escalated a long time ago this
is the die-hard imperialist mentality of the neocons
I remember reading how some of these very people named here [including I think the harpy
Fiona Hill] were mouth-foaming freaking out at the SDF leadership and literally breaking
pencils in their face to try to stop them from accepting the lifesaver offered by the Russians
and SAA, with the Turks bearing down on them
I mean these people are just NUTS they are simply not rooted in reality at some point you
run into a brick wall going 500 miles an hour that is what awaits this crowd
As for Trump I think he's going to be re-elected the 'resistance' is just making themselves
look incredibly bad they are getting up everyone's fucking nose and even Pelosi, as she was
standing there the other day announcing the 'impeachment' darn well knew it they are toast
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
In the days of Kissinger, Baker, et al the Imperial Staff were well coached in the
Calculus of Power, knew the limits to Empire and thrived within them. Since the end of
history, and the apparent end of limits, policy makers had no more need of realists and their
confusing calculations and analyses.
The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about
creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll
act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of
their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington,
elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in
zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in
a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the
abomination.
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in
furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental.
The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery
to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness
indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their
reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just
aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way
that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its
embarrassment.
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see.
Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised
to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see
if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar.
The latest zionist plan designed by Donald Trump and associate to zionist stooges Pompeo and
Brian Hook, intend to expand the war against Iran, has been failed. Trump ordered fomenting
riots using the poor citizen of these countries who are under the Jewish mafia economic
sanction in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon to create choas for the expansion of Jewish mafia and
Israel in the region that he is a member of. Trump expanded the WAR against these counties,
axis of resistance, using the US treasury runs by dual citizens pro Israel, and then
supporting a US/Israel/Saudi proxies in these counties funded by the Saudi Arabia – to
kill the citizens who are fed up with economic pressure force upon them by the criminal Tribe
and its stooge Trump, and to burn buildings to create chaos so Trump can use it against Iran.
This project was funded by the MBS Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Brian Hook, a U.S. Special Representative for Iran, has done everything to satisfy his
masters, the Jewish mafia and made a big HOOK to bring down Iran, but he couldn't and now
they are trying to go after Iran with FABRICATED news, spreading lies that Iran has killed up
to 1000 people.
Trump must answer his own crimes against humanity FIRST and then shut up and focus on US
interest NOT a Israel interests, because he will be viewed as a fifth column.
Trump is a thief and an occupier in Syria, Afghanistan and many other countries. Only
dummies think that he is a man of 'peace'. Only impostors spread lies that he wants to bring
'peace' but the 'deep state' does not allow. In fact the phony 'deep state' does not want war
with Iran because knows that they will never win, only chaos. Israel wants war, and his
servant Trump is pushing for one.
they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it
moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang ,
with no understanding how they got there.
Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to
attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination.
LOL that is quote-worthy E
What can I add here you've pretty much nailed 'er down to the floor
I agree with you about all those examples Ukraine, Venezuela, even Iran seem to be a case
of giving 'his' neocon 'team' enough rope to hang themselves while POTUS holds the hammer and
ultimately gives a big NAY to going kinetic and then the whole thing crumbles into cracker
crumbs
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever
see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he
promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing.
Yup the one-man football team and he's actually WINNING LOL
@Priss
Factor Over the years that we've been reading Dr. Cohen who has written about Russia, the
US, etc., we've become more and more convinced that Dr. Cohen, as a Jew, refuses to come out
in bold-faced print to tell the real truths; in this case The Ukraine.
If he were to do so, his Jewish brethren, as seen in The Deep State and in Ukraine would
simply destroy this man. In effect, he's a milquetoast figure of little importance.
"Chinese will soon become a majority in swaths of Russia; why not let them vote
to secede & join the Han motherland?"
-- You think by the zionists' rules, whether the rules are applied in Palestine or
Ukraine. Just give some efforts to learning the history of Russia and the history of Ukraine.
You might also need to refresh your knowledge of the history of the Middle East, for good
measure.
@NegroPantera
Leave the ancient civilization of Persia alone. Тhe US that had been messing with
democratic development in Iran in the 1950-s. The "chosen" behave like homicidal maniacs
towards Iran and cannot wait to see Americans dying for Eretz Israel project.
On 1 May, Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, canceling its oil
concession (expired in 1993) and expropriating its assets.
"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries have yielded no results thus far.
With the oil revenues, we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and
backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination
of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by
means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage
has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence."
In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to
overthrow Mossadegh. On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any
way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to
launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh.
The zionized "progressives" have a new battle cry -- "Putin is new Hitler."
Worked great for Hillary Clinton, this model of "humanitarian" interventionist.
It does not do any good for your brains to read the Atlantic Council's idiotic propaganda.
It is the same as the "Integrity Initiative" production, the dirty and poisonous brew made on
orders by NATO/MIC/the Lobby.
Here are some of the Atlantic Council stars: Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat) and Anne Applebaum
("historian").
Eliot Higgins is no journalist -- his forte has been to manage sales of ladies underwear
and to produce laughable and ignorant stuff about Ukraine and Syria. He has zero (0) training
in engineering, military, sciences. He is a perfect useful idiot and successful
war-profiteer.
The exposing of the Integrity Initiative has just scratched the surface of what appears
to be a much more sophisticated, insidious, and extremely online version of Operation
Mockingbird.
Don't be so sure. Note that Trump congratulated Tulsi on Kamala's demise. If she isn't the
nominee, her mere presence in the campaign is a boon to Trump because she exposes the rot in
the DNC . and the Empire.
Dem Establishment can't control me and that scares the hell out of them
@anonymous
Because Israel is cautious not to cross a line beyond which Russia will have no choice but to
retaliate. Contrary to Americans, Russians don't have a short fuse and don't feel the need to
"pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the
world she means business". Since Russia got involved, Israel's actions have had exactly zero
effect on the course of events in Syria. Russia's goal is not to further ignite the Middle
East. Overreacting to Israel's gesticulations would be counterproductive.
Scum like Amanpour operating from within anti-imperialist countries are the reason why
those places ever needed laws curtailing the hallowed "freedom of the press." Words ARE
weapons, and the West knows this
Comments:
When Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher could get hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 for crimes
against humanity, I wonder, why not the likes of Amanpour? Guess history is written by the
winning side.
Say hello to more than a century of perpetual war for profit. The Deep State, consisting of
Jewish bankers and their hanger-ons, has been calling the shots since passage of the Federal
Reserve Act in the closing hours of 1913, while most members of Congress were home on holiday
recess.
The world is simply re-bifurcating into 2 camps. More specifically, the Anglo-World is
splitting away from whatever parts it can't bring into their sphere of dominance. They
couldn't dominate the whole playground, so they're taking their toys and carving out a corner
of it for themselves.
The current demonisation of China and Russia sets the stage for the real split that
will happen in the 2020s. Gotta get the sheeple used to the notion so that they will accept,
even demand, bringing the Bamboo Curtain down when the time comes.
What we're seeing now in Europe, the M.E., S. America etc is nothing more than the
Anglo-World's attempt to bring more along with them, and the RoW's attempts to minimize their
success.
With people like these, who needs the ptb ???
The PTB needs the people, not the other way around. People are happy to believe anything
that makes them comfortable. Instilling Sino/Russo-phobia in their otherwise empty heads is
but the prelude to splitting them off from demonic Eurasia/Eastasia, and also so they'll be
happy with whatever they get in Oceania.
They'll be living in the Free World again! Smaller this time around, but Freeeee!!!
It worked the last time. It'll work this time too. One stands in awe of how easy it
is.
@Realist
True. If he appointed all these banksters and neocons by mistake, then there should have
been a few who weren't neocons or banksters. Making a lot of mistakes could be seen as
proof of stupidity. Making nothing but mistakes has to be by design
That pos said that those who commit "hate crimes" should get the death penalty without
trail.
@Dave from Oz Dietrich Doerner's Logic of Failure makes clear that decision makers
consistently make grotesque errors based on faulty modeling of the world, incomplete feedback
assumed to be complete, and so on. Even the data are often mistaken for deductive truths, but
if one looks at, for example, the number of actual weather data points used to create those
complex surface maps, it becomes obvious why the results are disappointing -- in that case
possibly spoiling a picnic, but with the military, destroying a civilization.
You might recall the lessons of Longterm Capital Management's use of predictions based on
PDE's, with results that should have been foreseen as being predictably as unreliable as
weather forecasting, and for the same reasons -- that beneath all the fancy math lie guesses
of all too fallible men.
Regarding a faulty worldview, could there possibly be a more distorted model of reality
than America serving as Israel's footstool, the country that with its fifth column is
responsible for Lavon, USS Liberty, JFK/RFK, and, not least, 9/11. In the world of
probabilities, there is no standard of textual evidence evaluation or mathematical
demonstration so low it won't give cover to the Pentagon's costumed bureaucrats and members
of Congress to look the other way regarding Israel and its fifth columns' acts of war against
the country they're all sworn to protect.
MLK became a problem when he joined RFK against Vietnam in early 1968. When he started
counseling his young Black men against Vietnam, he had to go too. I'll never forget that.
Hideous.
Why do they always shoot their rivals in the head? Never a miss back then, ever..
@Anonymous I have doubts that zionists were central to, or instigators of, the JFK coup,
but the Jewish mob sure was in on it, and since they knew and were involved, as was Lyndon,
that gave the zionists Mossad the blackmail they needed to put Lyndon in their pocket. They
proved this when he covered up the Liberty affair. Since then the zionists have been free to
do as they wished. I propose these changes were gradual, and that zionism has been curated as
a MI6 intelop since the Balfour Declaration, in part to create the 5th column we have now.
Looks like it got out of control, Golem-like. This is a pity, as it may result in the ruin of
their own people, just as we see Semitic zionists shooting Semitic natives in a sort of
turkeyshoot every Friday is it kosher to kill on Shabbos? I wonder.. . a kind of civil war,
so we see a vast schism forming between Jews and nominally Jewish zionists.
@Walter The Zionism Psy-Op began much earlier than the Balfour declaration. It was a
result of losing sovereignty when Poland disappeared in 1772 and was partitioned between
Prussia, Russia, and Austria. (Poland was a condominium with two governments, a Jewish one
and a Polish one. The Jews had their own parliament, and the Poles theirs, plus a king. This
evolved out of the original agreements the Khazars of the south made with the Lithuanians to
be a mercenary army, police force, and tax collectors.) Having lost control of one country,
Poland (through their own misuse of taxes), the High Command in Lithuania decided they needed
another country. The propaganda was that the riots -- pogroms -- that began in Russia at the
end of the 19th century were anti-Jewish riots; that the Czar was anti-Jewish, etc. And the
big Psy-Op was the Dreyfus Affair, which was completely fake. Which is why the original
written offer to sell "secrets" -- which were not secrets at all -- mysteriously disappeared
before the Germans occupied France in 1940. But the phony Dreyfus Affair immediately led to
the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Herzl was only a hired propagandist, and disposed off
when he finished the job for which he was recruited as a journalist (as was Wilhelm Marr --
who popularized the term "Antisemitism"). World War I and the Balfour agreement to get
America into the war on the British side delivered the goods.
Trump is right about the NATO members inadequate military spending; the US expects NATO
members to spend 2% of their GDP on their own defence, the US however, does not require them
to purchase American made weapons, they can produce their own weapons, like French do, or buy
from each other like Germans -- they just have to make their military up and ready in case of
emergency, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
Among the NATO members however, Canada's case is unique; due to its closeness and joint
high command (NORAD) with the US -- and direct threat from Russian claim on the Canadian
Arctic, Canada needs and must increase its military spending significantly, Canada should
purchase modern Air force fleet, Advanced Surveillance equipment, Warships and Submarines for
the defence of the Arctic; F-35, F-22, AH-64 Apache, Nuclear powered Icebreaker and
Submarines etc. because all these equipment will we be partially built in Canada which bring
many high tech jobs and economic growth to the Canadian communities.
Trump is right, NATO and Canada should spend much more on their own defence, and buying
American advanced weapons is the best strategic choice for the Canadians forces, there
shouldn't be any doubt about that.
LOL to the first comment, Russia is *zero* threat to Canada ** . Russia is zero threat to the
US or Europe either. NATO has long outlived its purpose and needs to die.
** I suppose Russia could claim the north pole, and threaten to hold Santa hostage.
@Jmaie
Russian annexation of Crimea was a blatant assault on the International Law, yet it went off
without serious consequences to Russia -- it's not a secret that Russia has claims on
Canadian Arctic seabed, Russia has already planted its flag on the Arctic seabed; here is a
Link that you should want to see: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/02/russia.arctic
I'd really be interested to understand how on earth the reintegration, by overwhelming
majority in a plebiscite acknowledged by all sides as free and unconstrained, of Crimea, a
Russian province for 300+ years, and a majority-Russian area for quite a long time, is "a
blatant assault on the International Law".
The "International Law" you quote must be a newcomer.
"I'd really be interested to understand how on earth "
It is very easy to understand. As Upton Sinclair observed "It is difficult to get a man to
understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Alistair repeats typical neocon viewpoint. Nothing original here. Neocons make their
living off threat inflation and this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact.
Fiona Hill is a shining recent example here -- this intellectual prostitute of MIC is a
member of Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and other MIC lobbing organization that
promote Cold War 2 and neoliberal globalization.
The real question is "Why we should believe any of these chickenhawks?" They has been
proven liars so many times that they deserve the rotten tomatoes to be thrown at them on any
of their public appearances or, which is sadly impossible, at their Internet posts
But again money do not smell: unless neocons start facing very real and very personal
consequences, nothing will change. And like with any sect there is small number of
intellectually deficient people who still believe them.
3. Restrainers Want Realistic Foreign Policy Goal s. Instead of engaging in
costly and futile efforts to remake the world in our image, restrainers want U.S. foreign
policy to pursue more feasible objectives. The U.S. military must be strong enough to deter
attacks on the U.S. homeland, a task that is relatively easy to accomplish. When necessary,
the United States can also help other states uphold the balance of power and deter war in a
few key strategic areas outside the Western Hemisphere. America's economic clout will also
give Washington considerable influence over the institutions that manage trade, investment
and other beneficial forms of international cooperation, and it should use that influence
to ensure these institutions are working properly. But the United States has neither the
need, the capacity, nor the wisdom to conduct massive social engineering projects
("nation-building") in deeply divided and conflict prone societies, and it should cease
trying.
4. Restrainers Want Credible Foreign Commitments . The United States keeps taking
on new security obligations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but it rarely
debates their wisdom or value. Americans are now formally committed to defending more
countries around the world than at any time in U.S. history, even though some of these
states are hard to defend, have little strategic importance for the United States, and
sometimes act in ways that damage U.S. interests. Washington is also engaged in less
visible military activities in dozens of other countries, some of them shrouded in secrecy.
Yet anytime U.S. leaders contemplate trimming these obligations, alarmists warn that the
slightest reduction in America's global presence will undermine U.S. credibility, embolden
rivals, and lead to catastrophe. Having allowed itself to become overextended, the United
States ends up fighting endless wars in places with no strategic value in order to convince
allies and adversaries that it will still fight in places of greater importance.
The sooner the EU & Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence
force in parallel with NATO, the better.
Europe MUST take control of its own destiny. It can not have an external nation, the US,
with different, if not opposing interests, dictating European policy & action.
The “Russia” situation is a perfect example of this divergence of interests.
Europe’s future clearly lies with greater Eurasian integration. Energy, primary
products, & mercantile trade all lie to the East, through Russia to China, Vietnam etc.
Notably, some countries such as Italy are already pulling away from official EU policy &
turning East.
Unfortunately, The US has bribed & threatened (many) EU leaders, leaders who
couldn’t even imagine a change to the status quo. Thankfully, though, it seems that
many average Europeans are sick to their back-teeth with the status quo & Europe’s
“evermore” subservience to US imperialism.
German tax-payers, like most other Europeans, see no need to spend billions of
hard-earned euros against a non-existent threat from the East.
They don’t even want to spend their money turning back the actual threats spilling
across their borders, but climate change is way up there on the agenda. De-industrialised
Europe chock-full of third-world denizens is going to be heaven on earth.
"... Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force. ..."
"... These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved. ..."
"... September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it. ..."
"... For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific." ..."
"... The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. ..."
"... This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com . ..."
The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or
what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years
and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas,
poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our
foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few,
poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat
throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent
article in
the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled,
"America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these
ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious
thought or contemplation.
Hyping the threat of withdrawal
The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military
deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly
notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region
or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and
geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."
Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East
conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the
unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends
military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response.
The U.S. then beefs up its military presence
to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that
are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't
stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.
These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently
ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example,
veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at
unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even
draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't
induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the
Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and
don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all
parties involved.
Terrorism safe havens
And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to
prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan,
Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece
says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist
movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."
The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States
has
persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research
that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative
that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the
ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and
denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.
Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in
capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such
weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with
the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States
successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth
Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the
other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were
arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.
Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing
your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused,
example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region
in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what
ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a
proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe
havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's
construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they
wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be
gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise
in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are
unfounded .
Credibility doesn't work how you think it works
For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always
be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America
withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea
and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the
Pacific."
Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that
abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other
times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the
United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the
United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest
and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds
this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to
share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only
the United States had the capability to get it done.
Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of
events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is
quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and
it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even
if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly
assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets
withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or
Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War?
Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made
based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to
pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence
that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance
has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.
Not all interests are created equal
Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy,
it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the
Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."
The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need
to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists
couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve
all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and
importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United
States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful
state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the
capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the
United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the
Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and
competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a
terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the
Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for
and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.
Consequences
Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of
any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely
wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing
engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the
Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to
instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and
terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One
article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy
is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current
foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even
drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these
costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate
such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a
foreign policy that's stuck in the past.
"... When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that. ..."
"... Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business. ..."
Here is a congealing conventional wisdom around sending military assistance to Ukraine that
is as absurd as can be, and it cropped up again this morning:
"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" was extremely stupid when
applied to terrorism. It is much more stupid when applied to Russia, and shows how
impoverished the FP thinking of even bright, engaged Americans is. My goodness.
It is discouraging to see that one of the dumbest talking points from the Bush era has
returned. "Fight them there" was always a silly justification for waging unnecessary wars in
other countries, and now it is being repurposed to justify the questionable policy of throwing
weapons at a conflict in Europe. When it was used in the context of Bush-era wars, it was an
attempt to make what were clearly wars of choice seem as though they were unavoidable. When a
government needs to defend a bad policy, it will usually claim that they have no choice but to
do what they are doing.
When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a
war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to
make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally
important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at
that.
I have written many times why I think it is a mistake to arm Ukraine. It just encourages
escalation at worst and the prolongation of the conflict at best. Until recently, the arguments
in favor of doing this have not been very compelling, but at least they weren't quite so
mindless. Needless to say, Russia's conflict with Ukraine is a local one, and the U.S. doesn't
have much at stake in that conflict. Ukrainians aren't fighting Russia and its proxies on our
behalf or to prevent them from attacking someone else, but for the sake of their own country.
If Russia hawks insist on providing Ukraine with weapons and other assistance, they should at
least be able to acknowledge that this is a peripheral interest of the United States.
Exaggerating the importance of this policy to U.S. security just calls attention to how little
it matters to U.S. security.
Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this
conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible
threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our
business.
Donald Trump is driven by desire to sweeten the balance sheet of the US as well as a deluded
belief in whatever it is that he thinks Israel stands for. Israel seeks to manipulate the
medieval barbarism of Saudi Arabia to further its fantasy of regional hegemony. They should
"wise up."
The Saudi who killed three people at Pensacola is representative of the breed.
It is time for a basic re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME. pl
It seems the Gulf Arab sheikhs and the Al Saud family have been writing big checks to all
the movers & shakers in the West, including the political and governmental elites, think
tank sinecures, and of course many media personalities.
Tony Balir became a wealthy man with the money of the sheikhs. In an earlier thread you
had posted, we read about the Lebanese man who was a conduit for Gulf arab money going to
Hillary's campaign. Then there was the post-9/11 Republican administration of George Bush who
along with the so-called liberal media and most members of Congress from both parties put a
complete kibosh on investigating any Saudi role with respect to the 11 out of 15 terrorists
of Saudi nationality.
We can see how Trump is already covering for the Saudis by saying the King was apologetic
and will compensate all those killed and injured by the Saudi airman in Pensacola.
When American and western leaders are so easily purchased by the sheikhs, how can we have
a re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME? The few who are calling for such a
re-appraisal like Tulsi Gabbard are being smeared as Russian bots.
Col Lang, you taught at West Point.
So I am wondering if you have a view of Tim Bakken's new book:
The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military
I am not trying to argue here, I have only been at West Point as an athlete competing against
it.
Bakken book reviewed here:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/12/west-point-professor-builds-a-case-against-the-u-s-army/
If the USA withdraws support from the Saudis then the Saudis might stop pricing their oil
only in dollars. What effect would this have on the value of the dollar? Then again how much
oil is left in Saudi Arabia? The ARAMCO shares sell off doesn't seem to be doing great
buisness, maybe the market understands the situation better.
Would you have been in a position at the time to know if there there were any Carter
Doctrine contrarians within the FP/IC/DoD establishment in the late 70's? Curious how
extensive the debate over deeper ME engagement was at the time, or if it was all just a
knee-jerk reaction to Revolutionary Iran.
From page 12 of Martyanov's RRMA, " people such as Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, none of whom had spent a
day serving in cadre officer uniform "
Rumsfeld was in fact a Naval Aviator who flew ASW aircraft for a number of years and retired from the Navy Reserve as a full
Captain.
Rumsfeld was in fact a Naval Aviator who flew ASW aircraft for a number of years
A Tracker, in 1950s for a couple of years, while having a degree in Political Science. That sure qualifies him for making strategic
decisions, right? Especially in the 21st century. Well, we all saw results, didn't we?
@Jim Christian Jim, a lot of truth in what you say. But especially this:
As for the military? A reflection of our society. When I went into the Navy in 1975, it was Stars and Stripes and we served
in large part for Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Here is a quote from one of Russian undercover intelligence assets which was outed when Anna Chapman was outed. Unlike her,
however, this guy was a real deal. Here is what he had to say recently about US:
What is THEIR weakness? As enemies these guys are mediocrities, second rate. They overate. Their previous generation was
stronger. They respected us, we respected them. We don't respect these ones,they didn't deserve it. They can bully, as for
the real fight–we'll see about that They are enraged that soon they will have to live within their means.They forgot how to
do so long time ago. That is why they want to solve a problem with us now, while others are still afraid of them.
I remember 70s and 80s clearly, being myself a Cold Warrior, these were different times. many different people. Today, as you
say, I see decay everywhere in everything, the country (the US) was literally robbed, people blinded and all for a reasons of
bottom line in "business" and for Israel's, Saudi and corporate interests. The America I encountered in 1990s is gone.
The threat to US official impunity panics the regime more than any number of Russian
Sarmats or nuclear ramjets. The ICC is one very new judicial forum, and its halting efforts
to get its institutional footing panicked the US into imposing illegal sanctions on
accredited diplomats. The real threat of the Rome Statute is the universal obligation to
prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.
An increasing number of the most influential US functionaries will be unable to travel
freely. This is, in effect, pariah-state status more abject than North Korea's. This has been
a mounting challenge for years – GW Bush fled Switzerland, scared off by a war crimes
accusation from a single legislator.
And international criminal law is one jaw of a pincer. It complements the doctrine of
state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. State responsibility provides the
civil equivalent of international criminal law, with the potential to impose restitution,
reparation, satisfaction, and compensation with interest. Satisfaction articulates directly
with international criminal law by providing for prosecution of designated criminals. The
US faces insupportable liabilities for its internationally wrongful acts, and US
functionaries know that any one of them could be sacrificed to get the regime off the
hook.
Russian policy is to enforce this law at gunpoint. Iranian policy is to make its case in
independent international courts. China is vocal about upholding rule of law, and as its
deterrent improves, it will be increasingly active in applying it. The G-192 – 96% of
the world's population – pitches in by withholding the "waterfall" of G-5 privileges.
The UK recently got pushed off the ICJ bench for the first time ever for its lawless conduct.
The US is next.
The US is an underdeveloped country ineffectually waving second-rate weapons. The world is
leaving it behind.
For the past two centuries and, particularly the last three decades, direct foreign military
intervention in the affairs of ostensibly sovereign and independent states has been perhaps the
most consistent and destructive common denominator that shapes our region's worsening
condition. Direct warfare by foreign powers almost always paves the way for decades, if not
centuries, of continuing instability -- whether in the cases of Napoleon in 1798, the Soviet
Union and the United States in Afghanistan in the decades after 1979, the U.S. in Iraq in 2003,
or Russia, Iran, and seemingly half the world in Syria since 2015.
Direct foreign military attacks or other "security" activities inside Middle East lands
inevitably create traumatic local power imbalances that portend chronic local ideological
conflicts, and spark resentments and resistance to the foreign invader or to the invader's
local ruling ally. Foreign invaders also create local authority vacuums that open the door for
other states to intervene (see Iraq, Syria, and Libya), and also create the ideal spawning
ground for radical, militant, resistance, or terrorist movements of all stripes. Israel
repeatedly encountered this instinctive local resistance to its predatory militarism in Lebanon
and Gaza, as did the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the U.S. and its allies in
Iraq.
Almost nothing good emerges from direct foreign militarism in the Middle East, and even when
the fighting stops surreptitious foreign support to local warring parties also perpetuates
tensions and clashes, which only spur economic waste, corruption, collapse, and widespread
poverty and suffering among the citizenry.
It is clear now that foreign militarism plays a destructive and sustained role in the two
biggest problems that now tear apart much of the Arab region (and also touch on non-Arab
Mideast states like Iran, Turkey and Israel). The first is mass pauperization that now sees
over two-thirds of all Arab citizens living in poverty or vulnerability, in states that have
reached or approach bankruptcy and allow citizens no meaningful political rights. This will get
much worse because all prevailing economic trends that could counter it are flat or negative
(trade, tourism, direct investment, remittances, job creation).
The second problematic big regional trend -- very much states' reactions to their citizens'
helpless pauperization -- is the growing militarization and securitization of governance. This
is evident in bloated military and security budgets that are controlled by a handful of
unelected, unaccountable leaders, and expanded use of anti-terrorism laws since September 2011
to deter or imprison domestic political foes, or prevent any independent political expression
by the public (see Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain). Foreign militarism since the 1940s
has inevitably promoted local military rule within Arab states. The incompetence, autocracy,
and corruption of Arab military rulers since the 1970s have driven economies into the ground,
and sparked the nonstop street uprisings we witness today across the region.
The centuries of cumulative interventions by foreign powers inside Arab states reached a new
peak in the past eight years in Syria, where dozens of foreign and regional actors that joined
the fray inside the country charted new ground in the historical legacy that had mostly seen
big power, usually Western and colonial, interventions in the region's affairs.
Of course Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Persian, and other imperial dominance in
the region across time all played a role in defining the Middle East as a frontline battlefield
in the recurring waves of global imperial dominance and cultural influence. Starting in the
19th Century, however, as imperial powers started to come to terms with their imminent
historical demise, the British and the French mostly wrote the book on the ugly heritage of
battling for strategic supremacy in our region. The 20th Century saw foreign powers fight at
will in the Middle East, and also provide indirect political and "security" support to their
favorite local partners, allies, surrogates, and stooges, who kept fighting it out inside Arab
countries that proved to be only nominally sovereign and independent states.
The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was the logical outcome of this legacy. It
mirrors other states where authority and legitimacy collapsed in the eyes of their own people,
and the sovereign control of their lands and resources succumbed to the many foreign actors
that came in to save the dying beast or bite off pieces of its carcass. Syria offers one of the
most important examples of this, given the wide variety of warring parties that joined its
several overlapping local, regional, and global wars.
The fighters in Syria included dozens of Arab states and non-state armed groups, local
militias and tribal forces, regional non-Arab powers like Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Hezbollah
and their clients, wannabe regional powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, leading global powers
like the U.S. and Russia, second-tier powers like the U.K. and France, and a few smaller
countries around the world that joined directly or provided mercenaries mostly to win credits
with bigger Arab or foreign powers.
The eight-year war in Syria is at once a consequence and a high-water mark of sustained
foreign military interventions in the Arab region, and a harbinger of how such foreign and
local militarism will operate there for years to come. We can already see in Libya, Lebanon,
Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and scattered other corners of our troubled region several noteworthy
legacies of today's foreign militarism in Syria and its antecedents since Napoleon.
Regional and foreign powers' rolling interventions in Syria have redefined how such powers
engage across the region, where two opposing loose alliances, loosely allied with Saudi Arabia
or Iran, now face off -- each comprises Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global
powers, and local non-state actors. The sheer number and variety of foreign forces that
directly or indirectly fought in Syria portend badly for fragile states whose illusory
sovereignty can collapse at any moment in the face of dozens of armed actors that pounce like
wolves circling a dazed gazelle. The "international community" that actively joined and fueled
the fighting also responded weakly to the alleged and real war crimes on both sides This
suggests that the "international community" is something of a fiction, but also that, whatever
it represents, it can live with the Middle East's continuing authoritarian, lawlessness, and
violent political systems -- as long as the violence, refugees, terrorists, and turmoil remain
in the Middle East.
Indeed, global and regional powers actively engage in cross-border militarism and
neo-colonialism that we can see in several arenas: Washington's support for Israeli settlements
expansion and annexations of occupied Arab lands, and its lingering presence in Syria and Iraq;
Russian and American support for Turkish incursions into northern Syria; Saudi Arabian and
Emirati moves to control parts of the south of Yemen for their own strategic aims; British and
American direct involvement in the war on Yemen; and, French, Emirati, Russian, and Egyptian
support for the rebel forces of Khalifa Haftar in Libya, to mention only the most obvious.
These are only the most current but ongoing consequences of over two centuries of non-stop
foreign military and political interference that our region has experienced, with devastating
long-term impacts. Internal and regional wars, in a climate of very high Arab military
spending, continue to propel countries back into dilapidated or vulnerable conditions every few
decades. The Arab examples of this only increase, including Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Egypt,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Jordan. Non-Arab Iran, Turkey, and Israel face their own
challenges, as they simultaneously suffer the damages of external militarism and also engage in
it themselves around the region.
It is time for all foreign and regional powers to start learning the hard lessons of these
historical trends and instead seek non-violent diplomatic solutions to challenges they now
mostly address with their guns blazing. A regional population of half a billion poor and
powerless people held in check by hundreds of billions of dollars of military spending linked
to foreign troops who enter our countries at will is probably a far greater real threat to
their wellbeing than anything they can imagine today.
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there
been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a
handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they
will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will
not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John
Turner, 1922
Still it is true that Morales clings to power for too long... Generally the problem of the successor is almost an
irresolvable problem for left wing LA governments.
Economists' and statisticians' sign-on letter regarding the Bolivian elections
We the undersigned call for Bolivia's democratic institutions and processes to be
respected.
The Trump administration has openly and strongly supported the military coup of November
10 that overthrew the government of President Evo Morales. Everyone agrees that Morales was
democratically elected in 2014, and that his term does not end until January 22; yet many
outside of the Trump administration seem to accept the Trump-supported military coup.
Many people who supported the coup have claimed that Morales stole the election. This
story of fraud was given a very big boost by a statement issued by the Organization of
American States the day after the October 20 election, which it subsequently repeated in
similar forms. The statement, from the OAS Electoral Observation Mission for Bolivia,
announced "deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend
of the preliminary results after the closing of the polls." No evidence in support of this
statement was included. However, it was widely interpreted as an allegation of fraud, and
such allegations became common in the largest media since the election.
In fact, it is easy to show with election data, which is publicly available, that the
change in Morales' lead was neither "drastic" nor "hard to explain." There was a pause in the
"quick count" of the vote results -- when 84 percent of the votes were counted -- and
Morales' lead was at 7.9 percentage points. At 95 percent, his margin had increased to just
over 10 percent, which allowed Morales to win in the first round, without a runoff. By the
end, the official count showed a lead of 10.6 percent.[1]
It is not uncommon for election results to be skewed by location, which means that results
can change depending on when different areas' votes get counted. No one argued that there was
fraud in Louisiana's November 16 gubernatorial election, when the Democratic candidate John
Bel Edwards, pulled out a 2.6 percentage point victory, after being behind all night, because
he won 90 percent of the vote in Orleans County, which came in at the end of the count.
And the change in Morales' lead was not "drastic" at all; it was part of a steady,
continuous increase in Morales' lead for hours before the interruption.
This graph shows that the lead held by President Evo Morales (light blue dots) and by his
party in parliamentary elections (dark blue dots) rose at a steady rate for most of the vote
counting. There was no sudden surge at the end to put him over the 10 percent threshold.
The explanation for the increase in Morales' margin was therefore quite simple: the
later-reporting areas were more pro-Morales than earlier-reporting areas.
In fact, the final result was quite predictable on the basis of the first 84 percent of
votes reported. This has been shown through statistical analysis and also by even simpler
analysis of the differences in political preferences between later and earlier-reporting
areas.
We call upon the OAS to retract its misleading statements about the election, which have
contributed to the political conflict and served as one of the most-used "justifications" for
the military coup. We ask the Congress of the United States to investigate this behavior of
the OAS, and to oppose the military coup, the Trump administration's continuing support for
it, and the continuing violence and human rights violations of the de facto government.
Media outlets and journalists also have a responsibility to seek independent experts who
are at least familiar with the election data and can offer an independent analysis of what
happened, rather than simply take the word of OAS officials who have now repeatedly shown to
be wrong about this election.
Many lives may depend on getting this story straight.
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but
more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder
for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the
modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting
profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state
sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of
stone age natives to steal their land.
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted
aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My
Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men
claiming that they despise war.
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I
went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot
was also nuclear related.
It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire,
even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American
people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further
evidence.
Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of
progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag
about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been
almost none.
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political
system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who
knew?
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this
post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just
engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the
influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed
out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress,
disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.
See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't
face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.
Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama
never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.
As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's
perfectly acceptable when his party does it.
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways.
Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil.
The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks
that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the
officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers
and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can
mass murder if the want.
"... As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy" and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were "standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin America again. That's bad news for Latin America. ..."
As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the
US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy"
and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were
"standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support
for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin
America again. That's bad news for Latin America.
The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago are sometimes described as
wars in which everyone lost. In an odd way, though, Latin America won those wars. For more
than a decade, the US government focused so obsessively on the Middle East that it forgot
about Latin America. Free of intervention from Washington, voters in several countries
elected progressive or leftist leaders whom the United States would never have tolerated in
an earlier era. That cycle is now ending. The United States is returning to its traditional
role in Latin America, embracing retrograde regimes just as we did during the dark days of
military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, the military deposed President Evo
Morales on Nov. 10 after opponents charged that he had used fraud to secure his re-election
three weeks earlier. Morales was Bolivia's first indigenous president and an outspoken
socialist. He had nationalized the oil and gas industries. Some feared that he was preparing
to limit foreign exploitation of his country's rich lithium deposits. His indigenous identity
was a permanent affront to the white ruling class. The little-known politician who has
installed herself as provisional president, Jeanine Añez, once tweeted: "I dream of a
Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals."
Morales may have -- manipulated election laws to give himself an extra presidential term.
But in its first days, the new regime has shown little democratic impulse. Morales has been
forced to flee the country. Senior members of his party have been attacked or arrested. If
his masses of indigenous followers are pushed back into political isolation despite
constituting the country's majority, many will feel disenfranchised and angry.
Their cousins in Honduras would know the feeling. Late one night in 2009, the elected
Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, who like Morales had alienated both the United States and
his own ruling elite, was pulled out of bed and put on a plane out of the country while still
in his pajamas. In the decade since then, the new regime in Honduras has eagerly handed out
mining and hydroelectric contracts to foreign corporations. It has abolished term limits for
presidents -- the very sin for which we denounced President Morales in Bolivia. Mass protests
have been harshly suppressed. Environmental activists are killed with impunity.
Last month in a New York court, the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez
was convicted on charges of large-scale drug trafficking. A witness testified that the drug
lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman had contributed $1 million to Hernandez's presidential
campaign. Yet just a couple of days after the trial ended, the senior American diplomat in
Honduras was photographed partying with President Hernandez. Hondurans who saw those pictures
could hardly miss the message: the United States happily supports a Latin American government
that holds power unconstitutionally, allows political killers to rampage freely, and is
widely reported to be infiltrated by drug traffickers -- as long as it is friendly to the
United States. How has Honduras showed that friendship? By keeping leftists out of power and
agreeing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The other Latin American country in which the United States is most assiduously wrecking
prospects for democracy is Guatemala. Like neighboring Honduras, it has long been dominated
by a clique of lavishly corrupt oligarchs. But over the last decade, a force has emerged that
for the first time mounted a serious challenge to drug traffickers, larcenous politicians,
organized-crime kingpins, and death squad leaders. In 2006, the government invited a squad of
investigators and prosecutors assembled by the United Nations to come to Guatemala and build
cases against powerful criminals. Since then the squad, known by the Spanish acronym CICIG,
has secured more than 400 convictions and deeply shaken the political elite. Presidents
George W. Bush and Barack Obama recognized that this process might help stabilize Guatemala,
and provided moral support and funding for CICIG.
This year, at the request of senior Guatemalan officials who seemed likely to be indicted
for corruption, the State Department agreed to stop backing CICIG. That crippled the first
serious effort in generations to confront the violent corruption that throttles civic life in
Guatemala. What did President Trump ask in return? That Guatemala open an embassy in
Jerusalem and agree to serve as a "safe haven" for Honduran and Salvadoran immigrants the
United States doesn't want to accept -- a sick joke considering that Guatemala is plagued by
violence and has one of the world's highest murder rates.
Bashing leftists in Latin America and embracing their quasi-fascist enemies is one of
Washington's oldest habits. It feels good and pays electoral dividends in Florida. Bolivians,
Hondurans, and Guatemalans might be forgiven for wishing that United States would once again
plunge into all-consuming war somewhere far away. That might allow them to try shaping their
societies as they see fit.
In addition to L.A., others in California submitting briefs include Sacramento, San Diego,
Fresno, Riverside and Orange counties, as well as a slew of cities, including Sacramento,
Fullerton, Torrance and Newport Beach. Several states including Idaho, Texas and Alaska have
as well. Their reasons for doing so vary.
"We're saying that we agree with the central tenet of Boise that no one should be
susceptible to punishment for sleeping on a sidewalk at night if there's no alternative
shelter at that point," said Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer. "But the rationale sweeps too
broadly ... It makes the opinion unclear and, therefore, the opinion raises more issues than
are resolved. And so it leaves jurisdictions like us without the certainty that we need."
---
The ninth curt ruling specified that without enough shelters, public camping cannot be
banned.
LA is spewing horse manure, claiming they want a humane solution, but they are filing to
have the ruling overturned. LA wants to ban homeless camping and they make up a bunch of
irrational horse manure because they had already invited the homeless to California with
promises of shelter that does not exits. They re caught in a contradiction and end up talking
out of the side of their mouth.
And no, more national debt to promise apartments for everyone just make inequality worse
because we end up doing bad deals with the primary dealers. The evidence is in on that. Our
ten year experiment of the '50 little hoovers' crowd has been proven fraudulent.
"... Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way. ..."
The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved,
been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering
liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.
"...the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the
world."
[Who says that they do not? Certainly, it is close enough to that for government work.
Besides, in the end corporations and the interests of the donor class dictate the rules of
engagement for both illiberal and unconservative politicians. How the dogs of politics fight
over scraps thrown out for them should be of less interest to the wage class than who is
throwing out the scraps to them.]
Of course a former Air Force military hardware procurements officer likely knows no more
about present day life among the wage class than a banker. That would be like thinking that a
kid raised in poverty by the welfare state knew how to farm. Still, it is possible for either
one to be haunted by guilt late in life.
You are bound with your adversaries in ways known only to God, not a religious testimonial
but merely a proxy for the abstraction of omniscience. Some things can be seen as clear as
day and remain a complete mystery, to me at least.
At the very least Trump is guilty of being Trump. So, if you believe the charges against
Trump are Trumped up, then what else would you expect?
Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely
fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the
time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against
any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way.
The US Constitution was written and then rewritten repeatedly in blood going all the way
back to Apr 19, 1775. That is what it means to be an American, son, my Cherokee ancestors
notwithstanding.
"... Wellsir, I'm old enough to remember 2002, when the Bush administration and its allies built a case for the Iraq War, using the often-heard line, "We fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here." Seriously, young folks, look it up online. ..."
"... And now comes Prof. Karlan, using the same rhetoric to characterize the conflict between the US and Russia in Ukraine. She was there to talk about the legal aspects of impeachment, but she bizarrely tipped her hand by trashing Trump because he failed to play his part as a warmonger ..."
"... The American elites didn't learn a damn thing from Iraq ..."
"... On the contrary. They learned that, via deceptive rhetoric and on false pretenses, they could easily manoeuver the U.S. into fighting a war on behalf of another nation's interests rather than its own, and face no repercussions for committing such treason, no matter how many lives it costs and how much it impoverishes the U.S. (to say nothing of what bloodshed and chaos it will cause in the targeted nation -- because after all, destabilization is the point). ..."
"... Trump will never beat an actually decent candidate, he occupies the White House because Clinton was the worst candidate in American history. He's (probably) going to win again because his opponents are even more unpopular and incompetent than he is. ..."
"... No, they are only using the mendacious phrase "spreading democracy" as a cover for what they really want to spread: globalist neoliberalism. ..."
"... The left is shameless, duplicitous and disingenous in the extreme when it comes to Russia (and frankly anything else). To be honest it was my collegiate experiences in the 1980s, comparing the handwaving garbage with what my own eyes saw in the East Bloc, that made me a lifetime, permanent rightist. The left is bankrupt, full of liars and dissemblers and needs to be stopped at any cost. ..."
"... I'd highly recommend the films "Ukraine on Fire" and "Revealing Ukraine" (available on Amazon Prime w/o extra rental $) for a good basic primer on the Ukraine over the last 15 years, particularly of US interference and malfeasance in promoting the coup in 2014. And if anyone "interfered" in the 2016 election it wasn't Russia, but the Ukraine, particularly its very pro-Hilary President Poroshenko (illegitimate though he was and remains after the unconstitutional US-backed coup in against Yanukovich in 2014). ..."
"... NATO should have been moth-balled c. 1992. Instead it is hell-bent on aggressive expansion and antagonizing Russia, for no reason (other than to line the pockets of corrupt US and other officials, "business-men" i.e. oligarchs, etc.). ..."
"... The whole conflict was completely avoidable and is 100% due to America's and Western Europe's dumb actions since the fall of the USSR. ..."
In the Year of Our Lord 2019, sixteen years after this nation launched the catastrophic Iraq War, the following words were spoken
on Capitol Hill this week:
We have become the shining city on a hill. We have become the nation that leads the world in understanding what democracy is.
And one of the things we understand most profoundly is it's not a real democracy, it's not a mature democracy, if the party in
power uses the criminal process to go after its enemies. And I think you heard testimony - the Intelligence Committee heard testimony
about how it isn't just our national interest in protecting our own elections. It's not just our national interest in making sure
that the Ukraine remains strong and on the front line so they fight the Russians there and we don't have to fight them here, but
it's also our national interest in promoting democracy worldwide.
This was not the second coming of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Bolton brigade. This was Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor and Democrat
called by her party to testify in this week's House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing.
Wellsir, I'm old enough to remember 2002, when the Bush administration and its allies built a case for the Iraq War, using the
often-heard line, "We fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here." Seriously, young folks, look it up online.
And I'm old enough to remember these lines from President Bush's second inaugural address, in 2005:
There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants,
and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the
success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every
man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and
earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and
no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement
of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation
and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
That didn't work out too well for us, for Iraq, or for the Middle East.
And now comes Prof. Karlan, using the same rhetoric to characterize the conflict between the US and Russia in Ukraine. She was
there to talk about the legal aspects of impeachment, but she bizarrely tipped her hand by trashing Trump because he failed to play
his part as a warmonger.
The American elites didn't learn a damn thing from Iraq
On the contrary. They learned that, via deceptive rhetoric and on false pretenses, they could easily manoeuver the U.S.
into fighting a war on behalf of another nation's interests rather than its own, and face no repercussions for committing such
treason, no matter how many lives it costs and how much it impoverishes the U.S. (to say nothing of what bloodshed and chaos it
will cause in the targeted nation -- because after all, destabilization is the point).
There are, as Victoria Nuland put it, 5 billion reasons for backing the CIA-led coup that overthrew an elected government and
replaced it with leaders that the she and the rest of the Obama/Clinton State Department chose. It was the Democrats, since the
nineties under another Clinton, that decided to move the American military right up to Russia's borders, interfere in the 1996
election to keep the puppet Yeltsin in power, and with Wall Street leaders to pillage the Russian economy with the stated end
to break up Russia into smaller satrapies with governments appointed by the IMF.
Did Joe Biden brag about a quid proof not releasing funds to the Ukraine until it ended the probe into Burisma, which was paying
son Hunter millions, and dismiss the investigators altogether? Does it turn out Ukrainian power brokers favored under Obama then
sought to influence the American elections against Trump, viewed as wanting to make peace with Russia? Yes, and yes.
The US are not a democracy, since the people do not rule. Rather, it's an oligarchy, since a few influential groups do get
their way all the time. Pamela is just shilling for one of these groups, the war party.
It does not matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain.
Agreed, I hope the Republicans agree to impeach him immediately after Election Day if he does win (which I think he will due
to the opposition candidates). I'd much prefer Mike Pence to represent us than freaking Trump. I voted third party last time,
but even as bad as Trump is, he's not nearly as bad as every democratic front runner.
Why the Democratic Party doesn't back Tulsi Gabard is insane, she's the only candidate who everyone could be somewhat happy
with.
Taking a "Unity-Party" angle this election and nominating an anti-war military Veteran who's also a super patriotic minority
women would absolutely destroy Trump. She's also a religious conservative while simultaneously being a sane social liberal, she
satisfies some of the concerns of literally every part of the electorate. A Tulsi Gabard/ Joe Manchin ticket would be an 84 level
blowout. A Joe Biden/ Kamala Harris ticket is literally the best thing that has ever happened to Trump. Trump will never beat
an actually decent candidate, he occupies the White House because Clinton was the worst candidate in American history. He's (probably)
going to win again because his opponents are even more unpopular and incompetent than he is.
An article from someone I trust on that evidence which is not hearsay would be useful, any chance you would write one? I ask
because impeachment is either political or legal. If it's political then it's just the normal noise from D.C., if it's legal then
I want legal standards of evidence. The times I've paid attention the "evidence" has been at the level of someone told me they
overhead a phone conversation or we all believed this, but Trump directly told me the opposite of what we all believed.
I'm looking for something like saying "I did not have sex with that woman" under oath as evidence of committing perjury.
...OTOH, Trump's move against Hunter Biden could possibly be a "high crime and misdemeanor" worthy of impeachment, but given
the existence of Acts of Congress against foreign corrupt practices and the New York Times investigation of Hunter Biden, it becomes
hard to untangle Trump's motives. It would seem to be difficult to prove that an impeachable "high crime and misdemeanor" occurred
if probable cause for a Hunter Biden investigation existed. If we prove (NOT assume, as the Dems currently are doing) that probable
cause did not exist then impeachment would be a slam dunk. If we don't prove that then Trump's impeachment will not be seen as
legitimate by large segments of the public. We really are teetering on the edge of something deep here.
You think that finding out what the son of a sitting vice President, a VP who was also 'point man' for Ukraine, was doing getting
millions from a corrupt Ukrainian entity is strictly 'personal gain'? You think that looking into Ukrainian influence into our
election is 'personal gain'?
Oh the spreading of democracy worldwide nonsense again! Democracies are earned not given, that lesson cost us trillions and
in blood! This sycophant also brought up Pres. Trumps son Baron into the proceedings for no good reason but to score points at
tea time back at Stanford. What a demagogue.
It's always such a lie too, because it's never really about spreading "democracy" -- that is, they don't at all like
the spread of true democracy when the people genuinely prefer and vote for Putin, Assad, Orban, etc., to say nothing of when democracy
demonstrates the true will of the people in cases such as Brexit.
No, they are only using the mendacious phrase "spreading democracy" as a cover for what they really want to spread: globalist
neoliberalism.
Democracies are earned not given, that lesson cost us trillions and in blood!
Yes please give us more democracy, so the uniparty can sell our jobs to global capital and our children's future to foreigners.
Nations have survived tyranny, despots, and brutal civil wars. It is not at all clear whether the nations of the West will survive
your beloved democracy.
...Of course, anyone with a brain knows it's not about Ukraine, a country having no bearing at all on the vital interests of
the United States. Rather, Ukraine is a handy pretext serving the interests of America's military-industrial complex and the enrichment
of our Ruling Class.
If Trump wanted to prove a really great president, he could forge a peace with Russia (which would entail getting a settlement
with Ukraine). It is insane, and only to the benefit of woke liberal capitalists to frame Russia as a permanent enemy. Carving
developed nations into 'us vs them', so the liberal elite can divide and rule us. They use this strategy on multiple fronts, to
ensure success:
US vs Russia
US/UK vs EU
'pseudo-Christian' west vs islam
1st world vs multicutural diversity migration
Pragmatically, we will need an alliance with Russia (and possibly with a post-communist China) to stave off the invading colonisers
looking to grift a free lunch in the 'rich' west (its only the 1% wealthy in the west who are really rich, not the >90% peasant
class), not to mention the ideologically/religiously motivated muslims planning to implement the global sharia subjugation of
the pseudo-Christian west demanded in the Koran.
Sadly, Trump does seem to be proving he lacks the organisational skills to drain the swamp - a virtually impossible task for
any one person. A 'friendship pact' with Russia (perhaps swapping trade access to US for human rights, democratic and media freedoms
in Russia) would be a big step forward to building a united free west. Perhaps bring Poland and Hungary in to to reassure Russia,
and strengthen the protections for Christians and traditional family life. But for this to happen Trump needs to have a Secretary
of State he trusts heavily.
... Signify... whatever, anything, but please not too much thinking. Same with Washington's foreign policy blob. What matters
is that the world's is forced to take America's opinions into account, no matter how bone-headed they are. If they put the world
on fire that's called collateral damage (Ledeen Doctrine).
What I find funniest about this whole "impeachment" shenanigan is how the Democrats honestly think anyone doesn't believe they're
guilty of exactly what they're accusing Trump of. All Trump has to do is reveal seven such cases to the American people after
this whole shenanigan is over and turn their own words against them and they are THROUGH! This might honestly be the biggest political
mistake in the history of our Republic.
The whole thing is nonsense. Democracy is particular to the West, and is frankly innately fragile and dying a proper death
-- slowly, mind you, but dying it is, and thankfully so.
The whole Russia situation is hilarious and a thousand percent ideological. I sat next to these same assholes in college in
the 1980s as they blithely handwaved "no true Scotsman" type arguments about the Soviet Union, and moral equivalency and so on,
and then of course without their precious hearts skipping one single beat, they switched immediately to "Russia is evil and must
be stopped at all costs" when Russia emerged with a nationalist/rightist government.
The left is shameless, duplicitous and disingenous in the extreme when it comes to Russia (and frankly anything else).
To be honest it was my collegiate experiences in the 1980s, comparing the handwaving garbage with what my own eyes saw in the
East Bloc, that made me a lifetime, permanent rightist. The left is bankrupt, full of liars and dissemblers and needs to be stopped
at any cost.
My guess is that Russia has enough nuclear weapons and the capability to launch them at every major city in the US. Vladimir
is no drunkard like Boris Yeltsin was. We should not provoke the Russian bear into lashing out at the US. The old Soviet Union
lost some 20 million of its citizens in WWII and did the heavy lifting in defeating the Nazis. Hands up if you want to send your
19 year old son to fight the Russians in Sevastopol. Does the average American even know where Sevastopol is? More than likely,
a war with Russia would result in the nuclear bombing of New York, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Houston for
starters.
I'd highly recommend the films "Ukraine on Fire" and "Revealing Ukraine" (available on Amazon Prime w/o extra rental $)
for a good basic primer on the Ukraine over the last 15 years, particularly of US interference and malfeasance in promoting the
coup in 2014. And if anyone "interfered" in the 2016 election it wasn't Russia, but the Ukraine, particularly its very pro-Hilary
President Poroshenko (illegitimate though he was and remains after the unconstitutional US-backed coup in against Yanukovich in
2014).
NATO should have been moth-balled c. 1992. Instead it is hell-bent on aggressive expansion and antagonizing Russia, for
no reason (other than to line the pockets of corrupt US and other officials, "business-men" i.e. oligarchs, etc.).
I'm halfway cheering for Russia in their conflict with Ukraine. That's Russia's sphere of influence, Ukraine has no business
in the EU or in NATO. Any sane American government would be courting Russia in the new Cold War that's obviously coming with The
Chinese Communist Party. Instead we pulled all of the former European countries in the USSR into our sphere of influence.
The whole conflict was completely avoidable and is 100% due to America's and Western Europe's dumb actions since the fall of the
USSR.
"... A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive. ..."
"... The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain. ..."
"... Listen to the podcast here ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The John Batchelor Show ..."
"... Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline! ..."
"... You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills. ..."
"... It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy. ..."
"... CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it. ..."
"... We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them. ..."
"... Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise. ..."
"... Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards. ..."
"... Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as . ..."
"... Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board. ..."
"... There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value. ..."
"... In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination ..."
"... Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The ' heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice. ..."
"... To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.) ..."
"... or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric? ..."
"... The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid. ..."
"... "TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ". Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ? ..."
"... Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad. ..."
"... Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things. ..."
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where,
he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.
And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not
share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them
seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014
annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador
to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking
about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents
of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.
How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon
John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate
such appointees.
A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the
Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained
a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have
kept the allegations alive.
The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy
establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today,
Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views
of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave
power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even
an Obama aide termed it , will remain.
Listen to the podcast
here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F.
Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. ANationcontributing editor, his most recent book,War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, is available
in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host ofThe John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth
year, are available at www.thenation.com .
because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation.
While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations,
that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR,
one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join
Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within
Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination,
or you don't.
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life!
Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because
both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of
carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!
Things are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on
this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the
DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument.
The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!
The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi
Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing
defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend
itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and
weapons for its economy and defense.
The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran,
and China as well for Huwaei 5G.
Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed
novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens
that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.
It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this
blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura
Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision.
They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.
CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty
of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors
tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.
Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.
Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.
We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or
intelligence, so we should stop paying them.
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering
Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.
What kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why
are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?
Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is,
as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to
the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep
"in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.
It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell,
it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they
are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse
and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall
stuff, not diabolic.
Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's
are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as
kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes
likes it or not, except as .
So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality
(especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously,
so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?
While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand
and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.
Doesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his
policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy
for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to
conclude that he's fully on board.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them
guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
--
first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the
Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States
that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.
There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it,
not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender
of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual
promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe
propaganda value.
If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..
Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .
Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.
Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary
Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims
the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse
for as long as it takes to conduct due process?
One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct,
prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.
No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to
make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make
a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment
(like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.
AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a
private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private
or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut
it down.
Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points
no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.
have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.
IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.
@Curmudgeon all of that,
plus the Kosovo precedent.
In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force
self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment
there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie
enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But
the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches,
etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.
To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens.
In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security
'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there
are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world.
(Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)
Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing
Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/
That would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.
The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself
with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
Halfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line.
To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are
Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements
and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however,
Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter
No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more
of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the
Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about
Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing
their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation
and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all
the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.
Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in
concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.
Who
poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and
K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property
theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter
if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China
(we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential
antagonist.
Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon
Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese,
who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark
with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies
in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely
to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics
has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.
"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by
Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic
known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?
Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal
authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free
speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics,
and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.
The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they
make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy
neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening
Iran.
Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference,
except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.
By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his
head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.
@Jon Baptist We have
all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has
a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :
"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only
wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial
morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."
@follyofwar Pat inhabits
a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy
mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.
In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.
The Michael Flynn sentencing hearing is cancelled while the judge considers the issue of
exculpatory material
By Robert Willmann
New attorneys for Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) entered appearances in his court case in June
2019. He had signed a plea bargain agreement with the office of "special counsel" Robert
Mueller on 30 November 2017, and under that agreement, a criminal charge consisting of a single
count was filed. He pled guilty to it in court the next day. A sentencing hearing began on 18
December 2018, but went off the rails and was to be continued at a later date.
On 30 August 2019, Flynn's new lawyers filed a request (a motion) that the prosecutors for
the federal government turn over exculpatory material that they likely had access to and had
not disclosed to him earlier. The motion also asked the judge to issue an order that the
prosecutors show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court for not turning over
the material that might be favorable and helpful to Flynn. Several papers were filed by both
sides on the issue after that.
A sentencing hearing had been reset to 18 December 2019. However, as a result of the
documents filed about the request for exculpatory material, Judge Emmet Sullivan decided not to
have a court hearing on the motion, but instead would decide it on the documents that had been
filed with the court clerk. The last paper was filed on the issue on 4 November 2019. Normally,
both the prosecution and defense file memoranda about an upcoming sentencing hearing. Since 18
December was approaching, they filed a joint motion to reschedule the filing of memos and any
sentencing hearing--
"11/27/2019 Minute Order as to Michael T. Flynn granting 140 Joint Motion to Modify Briefing
Schedule. The Court hereby Suspends the briefing schedule for the supplemental sentencing
memoranda. The Court hereby Vacates the sentencing hearing previously scheduled for December
18, 2019 until further Order of this Court. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on 11/27/2019.
(Lcegs1) (Entered: 11/27/2019)"
The request for disclosure of exculpatory material may or may not be granted. But the fact
that a month has gone by, and now more time is needed, means that it is being given serious
consideration.
Daniel
LarisonTAC contributor Gil Barndollar
calls attention to the damage that endless war is doing to the military:
The president has been rightly excoriated for these pardons, which dishonor the U.S.
military and may degrade good order and discipline. But amid this uproar, Americans should
note the bigger lesson: Endless wars, especially endless counterinsurgency or
counterterrorism wars, slowly chip away at both a military's ethics and its critical
war-fighting skills.
These wars are particularly corrosive because they cannot be conclusively won, and for every
enemy that is destroyed it seems as if two or three more appear to replace it. Futile,
open-ended wars contribute to breakdowns in discipline. Barndollar continues:
However, keeping their honor clean becomes harder and harder the longer these wars drag
on. Wars among the people, as all our endless wars now are, are inherently dirty. When even
senior members of the foreign policy establishment concede that we are not seeking victory in
Afghanistan, it becomes harder for soldiers to make hollow mission accomplishment a higher
priority than self-preservation. Treating U.S. soldiers like victims, as Trump implicitly
does, also becomes more common.
When a war cannot be won, the rational thing to do would be to stop fighting it, but instead
of doing that our political and military leaders treat endless war as a new normal that must
not be questioned. It is bad enough when a government sends its soldiers to fight and die for a
cause that it pretends can still be won when that isn't possible, but to keep sending them over
and over again into war zones to fight a war they admit is futile has to be discouraging and
frustrating. This also has to widen the division between the military and the civilian
population. While military personnel are called on to go on multiple tours in pointless
conflicts, most people back home mouth empty platitudes about supporting the troops and do
nothing to bring the wars to an end. The public's failure to hold our political and military
leaders accountable for these failed and unnecessary wars is bound to have corrosive effects as
well.
At the same time, these wars degrade the military's ability to fight other adversaries:
Even more serious for American national security is the fact that endless small wars
degrade a military's ability to fight and win big wars -- wars that have real consequences
for our security and way of life.
Our endless wars have been enormously costly. It is estimated that all of the wars of the
last twenty years will end up costing at least $6.4 trillion, and beyond that they have
consumed our government's attention and resources to the detriment of everything else. Our
political and military leaders perpetuate these wars, and the public has allowed them to do
this, because they are still laboring under the faulty assumption that the U.S. is being made
more secure in the process. The reality is that endless wars are undermining our security,
weakening the military, and creating more enemies. They should be ended responsibly, but they
must end. about the author Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics
Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The
American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in
history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
In my opinion, Tucker Carlson represents a very real and very active right-libertarian
view that has been consistently present within the Republican Party for decades. Anti-war,
anti-imperialist, anti-big business/pro-small business, and of course, anti-big union. Robert
Taft comes to mind. I don't share their "ideologies" but as a self-described socialist, I am
deeply attracted to their criticisms. And criticisms ARE important and necessary, even if the
solutions are left wanting. I dearly hope that his popularity is a sign of the realignment of
politics, where issues of class and war become commonplace and issues of "to impeach or not
to impeach" fall by the wayside. I recognize that my hopes may not turn to realities.
But for an employee it makes no difference if they work for a big or small business (only
big business on average is LESS exploitative if anything – if for no other reason but
they can afford to be – some of the worst exploitation out there is employees working
for small business owners).
Exactly, right libertarian. Within the libertarian spectrum there are real and then royal
libertarians, Tucker is of the latter. http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
What are his immigration views? Are people motivated to come here because this global vulture
octopus thing has ruined their home market?
"... Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 … ..."
"... So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17? ..."
"'Our Democracy Is at Stake.' Pelosi Orders Democrats to Draft Articles of Impeachment
Against Trump" [ Time ]. With autoplay video.
""The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of
our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in
exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival." • So now when
a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense?
Really? Yasha Levine quotes Democrat impeachment witness Karlan (see below) but the point is
the same:
Yasha Levine ✔ @yashalevine
Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon
against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or
suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed.
https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 …
So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our
national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17?
"Read opening statements from witnesses at the House Judiciary hearing" [
Politico ]. "Democrats' impeachment witnesses at Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing
plan to say in their prepared remarks that President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine were
the worst examples of misconduct in presidential history." • So again, it's all about
Ukraine. I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension. Aaron Maté comments:
My very subjective impression: I've skimmed three, and read Turley. Karlan, in particular,
is simply not a serious effort. Turley may be wrong -- a ton of tribal dunking on Twitter --
but at least he's making a serious effort. I'm gonna have to wait to see if somebody, say at
Lawfare, does a serious effort on Turley. Everything I've read hitherto is and posturing and
preaching to the choir. (Sad that Larry Tribe has so completely discredited himself, but that's
where we are.)
Lambert, while Trump was unable to complete his attempt to extort the President of
Ukraine, as someone who practiced the criminal law for 34 years, let me be the first to clue
you in to the concept in the criminal law of the inchoate offense . This is
criminal law, not contract law.
An inchoate offense includes an attempt, a conspiracy, and the solicitation of a crime.
All focus on the state of mind of the perpetrator, and none require that the offense be
completed -- only that a person or persons having the required criminal intent took material
steps toward completing the crime. Such a person becomes a principal in the contemplated
crime, and in the eyes of the law is just as guilty as if he or she had completed the
attempted offense.
(The details of Trump's offense differ from what David in Santa Cruz said they would be.)
"Inchoate" appears only in Turley's piece, indicating, to me, that his was the only serious
effort.
After presiding over a far-right coup in Bolivia, the US dubbed Nicaragua a "national
security threat" and announced new sanctions, while Trump designated drug cartels in Mexico as
"terrorists" and refused to rule out military intervention.
One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it
seems.
Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be
expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.
Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and
even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country's left-leaning
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.
As Washington's rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately
beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning
inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region's few
remaining progressive governments.
These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of
Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing
dictatorships across the region.
Trump admin declares Nicaragua a 'national security
threat'
A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement
applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington's
target list: "These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in
Venezuela and Nicaragua ," Trump declared.
On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing
Nicaragua as an "unusual and
extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring
a state of "national emergency" on the Central American country.
Trump's 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing
coup attempt in Nicaragua . The US government has funded and supported many of
the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and
cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.
The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In
December the US Congress approved
the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose
sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business
with Managua.
Trump's new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its
democratically elected government -- which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by
Washington -- as a supposedly violent and corrupt "regime."
This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which
designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.
Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic
sanctions. And Trump's renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on
Nicaragua.
The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media,
but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.
And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington's
hybrid warfare against Managua.
More aggressive US sanctions against Nicaragua
Voice of America (VOA), the US government's main foreign broadcasting service, noted that
the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.
Washington's ambassador to the Organization
of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, "The pressure against Nicaragua is
going to continue."
The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the
Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.
VOA stated clearly that "Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin
American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic
pressure on to bring about regime change."
This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related
sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.
And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a " more
comprehensive set of regulations ," strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.
Voice of America's report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more
US pressure against their country.
Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman
Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua's military in particular.
"The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that
the military will like act the military in Bolivia," Jagger said, referring to the military
officials who violently overthrew Bolivia's democratically elected president.
Many of these military leaders had been
trained at the US government's School of the Americas , a notorious base of subversion
dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with
reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to
carry out the putsch.
VOA added that "in the case of the Central American government [of Nicaragua], the effect
that sanctions can have can be greater because it is a more economically vulnerable
country."
VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director
of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is
supported by the US
government's
regime-change arm , the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US
economic war on his country, telling VOA, "There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua
and Bolivia] the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an
effect."
Courtney, who was described by VOA as an "expert on the electoral process," added, "If there
is a stick, there must also be a carrot." He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and
political pressure against Nicaragua's government.
These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an
act of war. Iran's foreign minister,
Javad Zarif , has characterized US economic warfare "financial terrorism," explaining that
it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.
Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive
order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.
The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that
brings together numerous opposition groups , several of which are
also
funded by the US government's NED , welcomed the order.
Trump dubs drug cartels in
Mexico "terrorists," refuses to rule out drone strikes
While the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela's governments is nothing new, Donald Trump
is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.
In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López
Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his
initials AMLO, is Mexico's first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a
progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and
even decriminalize drugs.
AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking
86 percent approval rating . And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to
combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.
"The neoliberal economic model has
been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," AMLO has declared. "The child
of neoliberalism is corruption."
When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador
announced the end to "the long night of neoliberalism."
AMLO's left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on
neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a
reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.
On November 27 -- a day after declaring Nicaragua a "national security threat" -- Trump
announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as "
terrorist organizations ."
Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.
Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
"Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them
with drones and things like that?" O'Reilly asked.
The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug
cartels in Mexico.
Trump's announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for
a meeting with the US State Department.
The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico
have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the
Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in
counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.
Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing
death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The
CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central
America.
These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed,
trained, and funded far-right Islamist
extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same
US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander
Omar al-Shishani
, to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from
Washington when he was fighting against Russia.
The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunne r
and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to
cartels in Mexico.
Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration's designation
of cartels as terrorists, "They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their
national security ."
"Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in
Mexico?" Duarte asked.
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She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to
demonize
AMLO , portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator
who is supposedly wrecking Mexico's economy.
Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The
Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate
Rebels:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OJyCHjxCEs
Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.
AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate
any discussion of coups.
"How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are," López Obrador tweeted on November
2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a
leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, "Now is different."
"Another coup d'état will now be allowed," he declared.
In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further
to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy
that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.
AMLO's government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela's leftist government,
throwing a wrench in Washington's efforts to impose right-wing activist
Juan Guaidó as coup leader.
AMLO has welcomed Ecuador's ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina's
left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the
presidency.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4T0zbASfbA
In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico
for a historic visit.
Trump's Operation Condor 2.0
For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.
In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing
Venezuelans in Miami , Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an
hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.
"The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua
and in Cuba as well," he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in
heart of capitalism in the United States.
While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not
occupying its oil fields
), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.
During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered,
and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of
the US intelligence apparatus.
Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation
Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem
has only begun.
Our leaders like to say we value human rights around the world, but what they really manifest
is greed. It all makes sense in a Gekko- or Machiavellian kind of way.
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is? ..."
"... A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right. ..."
"... If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life. ..."
"... I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too. ..."
"... Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it. ..."
"... they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism. ..."
"... Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower. ..."
"... The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources. ..."
"... Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.) ..."
"... The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep! ..."
By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His
personal blog is Bracing Views .
Originally published at TomDispatch
Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing
against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that,
despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle
East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities
ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of
America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the
seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we
could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America's disastrous wars
persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to
understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more
subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness
to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's
another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America
today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has
essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for
president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise
a self-professed hawk on the
subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless
wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive
F-35 fighter jet.
The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually
withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking
of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his
inauguration he's sent more
troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other
air strikes ,
something about which he openly
boasts .
War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and
peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against
the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia
or
China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an
unprecedented 800 or so
military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection,
when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms
like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you
spend more on your military than the next
seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a
nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already
quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a
reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the
predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise)
path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the
world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation
after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional"
belief system, what is?
If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset
will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's
many uses in American
life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for
America's vast
military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety,
especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of
national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today,
it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is
a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in
this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as
trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being
the world's sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war
weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In
an age of
gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive
ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the
many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a
nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive,
anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its
participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist
expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war?
You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here
are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:
The
delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore
winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious
conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with
several more years, or even generations
, to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though
they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite
his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully
resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the
cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American
society's almost completeisolationfrom war's deadly
effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though
they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the
cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the
media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and
sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its
lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now
classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't
because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the
American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like
Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden,
pursued and indicted for sharing honest
details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance
state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be
truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress
ceded to
the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite
recent
attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden
by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent
the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly,
largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go
to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank
you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in
Congress than you and I ever will. \America's persistent empathy gap.
Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to
understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our
globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast
bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast
food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big
trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But
what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives,
these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.
All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang
of a " peace train " that was
"soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed
and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin'
louder to the great peril of us all.
War on Spaceship Earth
Here's the rub, though: even the
Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is
climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his
administration of arsonists
its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might.
Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our
real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.
The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant
driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only
wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the
planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since
we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its
crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to
fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed
out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely
to survive, no less thrive.
In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the
planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific
effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the
existence of
significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as
suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures
to rise even as food and other resources dwindle .
Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while
ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource
domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as
we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President
Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria
to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in
significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule
percentage of the world's petroleum.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything,
it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human
as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium.
Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we
Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few
enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their
purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those
practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes
everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is
nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship
Earth.
I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign
policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the
State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under
Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully
controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama
administration too.
They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to
unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution
can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks,
neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.
For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with
neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire
is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not
change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the
neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.
Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected
officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for
the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be
bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and
every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the
military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came
first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be?
Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a
dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.
I agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests
of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending
each year..
That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC,
but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of
militarism.
wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM
Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about
containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We
heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling
full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.
The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put
their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive
resources.
Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11.
Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT
Act.
The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure,
yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.
greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM
There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to
conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the
World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly
was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away
with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.
Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the
Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes
human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and
Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for
development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down
business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)
Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix
whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of
the ideology/theology of the GOP.
The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become
ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus,
the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they
advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world.
Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere
on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that
concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!
The poll graph without three day averaging is a great visual illustration of the margin of
error concept. It's even clear in the averaged version. I guarantee people are NOT changing
their minds that fast, and I'm sure all the issues Lambert highlighted are contributing to
the inaccuracies.
That said, a few trends are clear. Biden is trending steadily (but very slowly) downward.
Sanders and Buttigieg are trending up, Sanders slowly and Buttigieg somewhat faster, while
Warren is settling back to her long term average after a bump in October. Harris' decision to
withdraw looks like a good one. Undecided numbers are all over the place, and tend to spike
up when other lines spike down, so I'm guessing that's down to differing polling
methodologies and how hard people are pushed to make a call.
Are these pollsters reading all twenty names over the telephone? Or is the polled asked to
name a candidate? I can't get my head around how to manage a list of this many candidates by
voice without 'Name Recognition' being the first choice.
> Are these pollsters reading all twenty names over the telephone?
That's a very good question. Is the list of names so long -- I don't think we've ever had
one so long -- that it enables pollsters to game the polls in new ways? Could be such a
simple and obvious mode of rigging that we did not see it.
Morning Consult (B/C)
Nov 25 – Dec 1
Mon – Sun
15,773 Likely
National
16 candidate names, plus "Someone else" (not present in data source, derived in app)
Details here: https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary/
The differences are Joe Sestak and Steve Bullock in HarrisX but not MC, going to guess
that MC decided not to list them because they dropped, and if they asked the names during the
survey their report them in the conveniently names "Someone else" category.
Regarding ChrisPacific's point about Undecideds, yes, this is affected by methodology and
whose polls came out on a particular day.
And more generally, we should expect to see noise in this data. These are minuscule
samples compared to the actual voting universe of over 65 million. The "Margin of Error" /
"Confidence Interval" claims are based on the assumption that all polls are distributed as a
uniform bell curve. Arguably useful for getting the noise out of stats for physical
observations of mechanical models, but absurd for human polling. Pollsters (who work mostly
in marketing) use MoE/CI to convince clients spend money on small polls and then spin out
reassuring MoE or CI (which scale to each other, bigger MoE = narrower CI). (Tangentially, on
political campaigns, the tactical advantages to be found in population data come from looking
into what's happening in the noise, not from smoothing it out and then assessing the
distorted surface).
And as in most viscous media, quick changes tend to snap back to origin, slow ones push
though. Consider also that a) these candidates are introducing themselves, impressions
develop over time, and engagement is still low. Also, the context of US society may be
gradually changing, but it would take a sudden shock (like 9/11 at the time) to change the
background context and be reflected in a suddenly shift in Dem Primary polls.
I participated in the last Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa poll. The pollster was required to
read all of the names, even when I could name one immediately.
The call came on my cell phone from a restricted number. I asked for what company or
candidate the poll was being conducted; the interviewer said that she was not given that
information, but at the very end I was asked whether I would be willing to talk to a reporter
from CNN or the DMR (I declined). She did tell me the research firm for which she worked,
which I later saw was the name of the firm that had conducted the poll. When I saw the
original release, I wondered whether I was correct that this was the poll, since I remembered
a question about my preference for a health care system that wasn't in the original release.
That result was released at a later date.
The M4A option for that question was simply M4A, without additional information or
qualifiers. I, as is usual for me, couldn't simply answer a multiple choice question, but
explained that I supported improved M4A, and that current Medicare is still expensive. The
interviewer told me that she herself has trouble affording Medicare, and that she
particularly has trouble paying for her medication. (We got a little chatty.)
The research firm was also contacting Republicans. She said that I had been the first
Democrat that she had reached that day, and that Republicans got different questions. She did
not know whom she was calling and, at the end, asked my first name so that her company could
verify that she had reached the right individual.
I'll check back here in case there are any other questions about the poll that I might be
able to answer. If anyone is interested in the questions themselves, those are already
available online.
Why did I agree to participate? To have my support for Bernie counted, of course!
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent
explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:
But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to
materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he
inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S.
allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United
States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in
Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically
from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas
defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the
contrary be damned.
MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier
post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's
record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing
anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East
just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is
maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump
detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over
"withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to
U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining
or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving
this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of
military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.
The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with
this:
A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military
footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic
politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few
in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political
moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are
broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military,
flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from
the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and
influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same
fantasy world as voters.
Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as
presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce
this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are
relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their
article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump
may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.
"... Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious. ..."
"... It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians. ..."
I recently published a couple of long essays, and although they primarily focused on other
matters, the subject of anti-Semitism was a strong secondary theme. In that regard, I mentioned
my shock at discovering a dozen or more years ago that several of the most self-evidently
absurd elements of anti-Semitic lunacy, which I had always dismissed without consideration,
were probably correct. It does seem likely that a significant number of traditionally-religious
Jews did indeed occasionally commit the ritual murder of
Christian children in order to use their blood in certain religious ceremonies, and also
that powerful Jewish international bankers did play a large
role in financing the establishment of Bolshevik Russia .
When one discovers that matters of such enormous moment not only apparently occurred but
that they had been successfully excluded from nearly all of our histories and media coverage
for most of the last one hundred years, the implications take some time to properly digest. If
the most extreme "anti-Semitic canards" were probably true, then surely the whole notion of
anti-Semitism warrants a careful reexamination.
All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we
discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most
information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may
develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of
the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized
agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops,
"Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."
Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close
variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of
thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic
media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single
real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from
my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims
were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily
newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking
people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually
grow suspicious.
Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image
and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The
New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League
school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy,
but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my
lengthy Meritocracy
analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best
available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the
other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the
situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed
warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute
smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.
It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism"
these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown
28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary
victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media
coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government
for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of
"anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits
combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New
York Times ran a
major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented"
denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the
Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to
nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long
mistreatment of the Palestinians.
One plausible explanation of the strange contrast between media coverage and reality might
be that anti-Semitism once did loom very large in real life, but dissipated many decades ago,
while the organizations and activists focused on detecting and combating that pernicious
problem have remained in place, generating public attention based on smaller and smaller
issues, with the zealous Jewish activists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) representing a
perfect example of this situation. As an even more striking illustration, the Second World War
ended over seventy years ago, but what historian Norman Finkelstein has so aptly labeled "the
Holocaust Industry" has grown ever larger and more entrenched in our academic and media worlds
so that scarcely a day passes without one or more articles relating to that topic appearing in
my major morning newspapers. Given this situation, a serious exploration of the true nature of
anti-Semitism should probably avoid the mere media phantoms of today and focus on the past,
when the condition might still have been widespread in daily life.
Many observers have pointed to the aftermath of the Second World War as marking a huge
watershed in the public acceptability of anti-Semitism both in America and Europe, so perhaps a
proper appraisal of that cultural phenomenon should focus on the years before that global
conflict. However, the overwhelming role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution and other bloody
Communist seizures of power quite naturally made them objects of considerable fear and hatred
throughout the inter-war years, so the safest course might be to push that boundary back a
little further and confine our attention to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World
War. The pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the lynching of Leo Frank
in the American South come to mind as some of the most famous examples from that period.
Lindemann's discussion of the often difficult relations between Russia's restive Jewish
minority and its huge Slavic majority is also quite interesting, and he provides numerous
instances in which major incidents, supposedly demonstrating the enormously strong appeal of
vicious anti-Semitism, were quite different than has been suggested by the legend. The famous
Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was obviously the result of severe ethnic tension in that city, but
contrary to the regular accusations of later writers, there seems absolutely no evidence of
high-level government involvement, and the widespread claims of 700 dead that so horrified the
entire world were grossly exaggerated, with only 45 killed in the urban rioting. Chaim
Weizmann, the future president of Israel, later promoted the story that he himself and some
other brave Jewish souls had personally defended their people with revolvers in hand even as
they saw the mutilated bodies of 80 Jewish victims. This account was totally fictional since
Weizmann happened to have been be hundreds of miles away when the riots occurred.
Although a tendency to lie and exaggerate was hardly unique to the political partisans of
Russian Jewry, the existence of a powerful international network of Jewish journalists and
Jewish-influenced media outlets ensured that such concocted propaganda stories might receive
enormous worldwide distribution, while the truth followed far behind, if at all.
For related reasons, international outrage was often focused on the legal confinement of
most of Russia's Jews to the "Pale of Settlement," suggesting some sort of tight imprisonment;
but that area was the traditional home of the Jewish population and encompassed a landmass
almost as large as France and Spain combined. The growing impoverishment of Eastern European
Jews during that era was often assumed to be a consequence of hostile government policy, but
the obvious explanation was extraordinary Jewish fecundity, which far outstripped that of their
Slavic fellow countrymen, and quickly led them to outgrow the available spots in any of their
traditional "middleman" occupations, a situation worsened by their total disinclination to
engage in agriculture or other primary-producer activities. Jewish communities expressed horror
at the risk of losing their sons to the Czarist military draft, but this was simply the
flip-side of the full Russian citizenship they had been granted, and no different from what was
faced by their non-Jewish neighbors.
Certainly the Jews of Russia suffered greatly from widespread riots and mob attacks in the
generation prior to World War I, and these did sometimes have substantial government
encouragement, especially in the aftermath of the very heavy Jewish role in the 1905
Revolution. But we should keep in mind that a Jewish plotter had been implicated in the killing
of Czar Alexander II, and Jewish assassins had also struck down several top Russian ministers
and numerous other government officials. If the last decade or two had seen American Muslims
assassinate a sitting U.S. President, various leading Cabinet members, and a host of our other
elected and appointed officials, surely the position of Muslims in this country would have
become a very uncomfortable one.
As Lindemann candidly describes the tension between Russia's very rapidly growing Jewish
population and its governing authorities, he cannot avoid mentioning the notorious Jewish
reputation for bribery, corruption, and general dishonesty, with numerous figures of all
political backgrounds noting that the remarkable Jewish propensity to commit perjury in the
courtroom led to severe problems in the effective administration of justice. The eminent
American sociologist E.A. Ross, writing in 1913, characterized
the regular behavior of Eastern European Jews in very similar terms .
Lindemann also allocates a short chapter to discussing the 1911 Beilis Affair, in which a
Ukrainian Jew was accused of the ritual murder of a young Gentile boy, an incident that
generated a great deal of international attention and controversy. Based on the evidence
presented, the defendant seems likely to have been innocent, although the obvious lies he
repeatedly told police interrogators hardly helped foster that impression, and "the system
worked" in that he was ultimately found innocent by the jurors at his trial. However, a few
pages are also given to a much less well-known ritual murder case in late 19th century Hungary,
in which the evidence of Jewish guilt seemed far stronger, though the author hardly accepted
the possible reality of such an outlandish crime. Such reticence was quite understandable since
the publication of Ariel Toaff's remarkable volume
on the subject was still a dozen years in the future.
Lindemann subsequently expanded his examination of historical anti-Semitism into a much
broader treatment, Esau's Tears , which appeared in 1997. In this volume, he added
comparative studies of the social landscape in Germany, Britain, Italy, and several other
European countries, and demonstrated that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews varied
greatly across different locations and time periods. But although I found his analysis quite
useful and interesting, the extraordinarily harsh attacks his text provoked from some outraged
Jewish academics seemed even more intriguing.
For example, Judith Laikin Elkin opened her discussion in The American Historical
Review by describing the book as a "545-page polemic" a strange characterization of a book
so remarkably even-handed and factually-based in its scholarship. Writing in
Commentary , Robert Wistrich was even harsher, stating that merely reading the book
had been a painful experience for him, and his review seemed filled with spittle-flecked rage.
Unless these individuals had somehow gotten copies of a different book, I found their attitudes
simply astonishing.
I was not alone in such a reaction. Richard S. Levy of the University of Illinois, a noted
scholar of anti-Semitism, expressed amazement at Wistrich's seemingly irrational outburst,
while Paul Gottfried, writing in Chronicles , mildly suggested that Lindemann had
"touched raw nerves." Indeed, Gottfried's own evaluation quite reasonably criticized Lindemann
for perhaps being a little too even-handed, sometimes presenting numerous conflicting analyzes
without choosing between them. For those interested, a good discussion of the book by Alan
Steinweis, a younger scholar specializing in the same topic,
is conveniently available online .
The remarkable ferocity with which some Jewish writers attacked Lindemann's meticulous
attempt to provide an accurate history of anti-Semitism may carry more significance than merely
an exchange of angry words in low-circulation academic publications. If our mainstream media
shapes our reality, scholarly books and articles based upon them tend to set the contours of
that media coverage. And the ability of a relatively small number of agitated and energetic
Jews to police the acceptable boundaries of historical narratives may have enormous
consequences for our larger society, deterring scholars from objectively reporting historical
facts and preventing students from discovering them.
The undeniable truth is that for many centuries Jews usually constituted a wealthy and
privileged segment of the population in nearly all the European countries in which they
resided, and quite frequently they based their livelihood upon the heavy exploitation of a
downtrodden peasantry. Even without any differences in ethnicity, language, or religion, such
conditions almost invariably provoke hostility. The victory of Mao's Communist forces in China
was quickly followed by the brutal massacre of a million or more Han Chinese landlords by the
Han Chinese poor peasants who regarded them as cruel oppressors, with William Hinton's classic
Fanshen describing the unfortunate history that unfolded in one particular village.
When similar circumstances led to violent clashes in Eastern Europe between Slavs and Jews,
does it really make logical sense to employ a specialized term such as "anti-Semitism" to
describe that situation?
Furthermore, some of the material presented in Lindemann's rather innocuous text might also
lead to potentially threatening ideas. Consider, for example, the notorious Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion , almost certainly fictional, but hugely popular and
influential during the years following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of so
many longstanding Gentile dynasties and their replacement by new regimes such as Soviet Russia
and Weimar Germany, which were heavily dominated by their tiny Jewish minorities, quite
naturally fed suspicions of a worldwide Jewish plot, as did the widely discussed role of Jewish
international bankers in producing those political outcomes.
Over the decades, there has been much speculation about the possible inspiration for the
Protocols , but although Lindemann makes absolutely no reference to that document, he
does provide a very intriguing possible candidate. Jewish-born British Prime Minister Benjamin
Disraeli certainly ranked as one of the most influential figures of the late 19th century, and
in his novel Coningsby , he has the character representing Lord Lionel Rothschild
boast about the existence of a vast and
secret network of powerful international Jews , who stand near the head of almost every
major nation, quietly controlling their governments from behind the scenes. If one of the
world's most politically well-connected Jews eagerly promoted such notions, was Henry Ford
really so unreasonable in doing the same?
Lindemann also notes Disraeli's focus on the extreme importance of race and racial origins,
a central aspect of traditional Jewish religious doctrine. He reasonably suggests that this
must surely have had a huge influence upon the rise of those political ideas, given that
Disraeli's public profile and stature were so much greater than the mere writers or activists
whom our history books usually place at center stage. In fact, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a
leading racial theorist, actually cited Disraeli as a key source for his ideas. Jewish
intellectuals such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso are already widely recognized as leading
figures in the rise of the racial science of that era, but Disraeli's under-appreciated role
may have actually been far greater. The deep Jewish roots of European racialist movements are
hardly something that many present-day Jews would want widely known.
One of the harsh Jewish critics of Esau's Tears denounced Cambridge University
Press for even allowing the book to appear in print, and although that major work is easily
available in English, there are numerous other cases where an important but discordant version
of historical reality has been successfully blocked from publication. For decades most
Americans would have ranked Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn as among the world's greatest
literary figures, and his Gulag Archipelago alone sold over 10 million copies. But his
last work was a massive two-volume account of the tragic 200 years of shared history between
Russians and Jews, and despite its 2002 release in Russian and numerous other world languages,
there has yet to be an authorized English translation, though various partial editions have
circulated on the Internet in samizdat form.
ORDER IT NOW
At one point, a full English version was briefly available for sale at Amazon.com and I
purchased it. Glancing through a few sections, the work seemed quite even-handed and innocuous
to me, but it seemed to provide a far more detailed and uncensored account than anything else
previously available, which obviously was the problem. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the
deaths of many tens of millions of people worldwide, and the overwhelming Jewish role in its
leadership would become more difficult to erase from historical memory if Solzhenitsyn's work
were easily available. Also, his candid discussion of the economic and political behavior of
Russian Jewry in pre-revolutionary times directly conflicted with the hagiography widely
promoted by Hollywood and the popular media. Historian Yuri Slezkine's award-winning 2004 book
The Jewish Century provided many similar facts, but his treatment was far more cursory
and his public stature not remotely the same.
Near the end of his life, Solzhenitsyn gave his political blessing to Russian President
Vladimir Putin, and Russia's leaders honored him upon his death, while his Gulag
volumes are now enshrined as mandatory reading in the standard high school curriculum of
today's overwhelmingly Christian Russia. But even as his star rose again in his own homeland,
it seems to have sharply fallen in our own country, and his trajectory may eventually relegate
him to nearly un-person status.
A couple of years after the release of Solzhenitsyn's controversial final book, an American
writer named Anne Applebaum published a thick history bearing the same title Gulag ,
and her work received enormously favorable media coverage and won her a Pulitzer Prize; I have
even heard claims that her book has been steadily replacing that earlier Gulag on many
college reading lists. But although Jews constituted a huge fraction of the top leadership of
the Soviet Gulag system during its early decades, as well as that of the dreaded NKVD which
supplied the inmates, nearly her entire focus on her own ethnic group during Soviet times is
that of victims rather than victimizers. And by a remarkable irony of fate, she shares a last
name with one of the top Bolshevik leaders, Hirsch Apfelbaum, who concealed his own ethnic
identity by calling himself Grigory Zinoviev.
ORDER IT NOW
The striking decline in Solzhenitsyn's literary status in the West came just a decade or two
after an even more
precipitous collapse in the reputation of David Irving , and for much the same reason.
Irving probably ranked as the most internationally successful British historian of the last one
hundred years and a renowned scholar of World War II, but his extensive reliance on primary
source documentary evidence posed an obvious threat to the official narrative promoted by
Hollywood and wartime propaganda. When he published his magisterial Hitler's War ,
this conflict between myth and reality came into the open, and an enormous wave of attacks and
vilification was unleashed, gradually leading to his purge from respectability and eventually
even his imprisonment.
These important examples may help to explain the puzzling contrast between the behavior of
Jews in the aggregate and Jews as individuals. Observers have noticed that even fairly small
Jewish minorities may often have a major impact upon the far larger societies that host them.
But on the other hand, in my experience at least, a large majority of individual Jews do not
seem all that different in their personalities or behavior than their non-Jewish counterparts.
So how does a community whose individual mean is not so unusual generate what seems to be such
a striking difference in collective behavior? I think the answer may involve the existence of
information choke-points, and the ability of relatively small numbers of particularly zealous
and agitated Jews in influencing and controlling these.
We live our lives constantly immersed in media narratives, and these allow us to decide the
rights and wrongs of a situation. The vast majority of people, Jew and Gentile alike, are far
more likely to take strong action if they are convinced that their cause is a just one. This is
obviously the basis for war-time propaganda.
Now suppose that a relatively small number of zealous Jewish partisans are known to always
attack and denounce journalists or authors who accurately describe Jewish misbehavior. Over
time, this ongoing campaign of intimidation may cause many important facts to be left on the
cutting-room floor, or even gradually expel from mainstream respectability those writers who
refuse to conform to such pressures. Meanwhile, similar small numbers of Jewish partisans
frequently exaggerate the misdeeds committed against Jews, sometimes piling their exaggerations
upon past exaggerations already produced by a previous round of such zealots.
Eventually, these two combined trends may take a complex and possibly very mixed historical
record and transform it into a simple morality-play, with innocent Jews tremendously injured by
vicious Jew-haters. And as this morality-play becomes established it deepens the subsequent
intensity of other Jewish-activists, who redouble their demands that the media "stop vilifying
Jews" and covering up the supposed evils inflicted upon them. An unfortunate circle of
distortion following exaggeration following distortion can eventually produce a widely accepted
historical account that bears little resemblance to the reality of what actually happened.
So as a result, the vast majority of quite ordinary Jews, who would normally behave in quite
ordinary ways, are misled by this largely fictional history, and rather understandably become
greatly outraged at all the horrible things that had been done to their suffering people, some
of which are true and some of which are not, while remaining completely ignorant of the other
side of the ledger.
Furthermore, this situation is exacerbated by the common tendency of Jews to "cluster"
together, perhaps respresenting just one or two percent of the total population, but often
constituting 20% or 40% or 60% of their immediate peer-group, especially in certain
professions. Under such conditions, the ideas or emotional agitation of some Jews probably
permeates others around them, often provoking additional waves of indignation.
As a rough analogy, a small quantity of uranium is relatively inert and harmless, and
entirely so if distributed within low-density ore. But if a significant quantity of
weapons-grade uranium is sufficiently compressed, then the neutrons released by fissioning
atoms will quickly cause additional atoms to undergo fission, with the ultimate result of that
critical chain-reaction being a nuclear explosion. In similar fashion, even a highly agitated
Jew may have no negative impact, but if the collection of such agitated Jews becomes too
numerous and clusters together too closely, they may work each other into a terrible frenzy,
perhaps with disastrous consequences both for themselves and for their larger society. This is
especially true if those agitated Jews begin to dominate certain key nodes of top-level
control, such as the central political or media organs of a society.
Whereas most living organizations exist solely in physical reality, human beings also occupy
an ideational space, with the interaction of human consciousness and perceived reality playing
a major role in shaping behavior. Just as the pheromones released by mammals or insects can
drastically affect the reactions of their family members or nest-mates, the ideas secreted by
individuals or the media-emitters of a society can have an enormous impact upon their
fellows.
A cohesive, organized group generally possesses huge advantages over a teeming mass of
atomized individuals, just as a Macedonian Phalanx could easily defeat a vastly larger body of
disorganized infantry. Many years ago, on some website somewhere I came across a very
insightful comment regarding the obvious connection between "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which
our mainstream media organs identify as two of the world's greatest evils. Under this analysis,
"anti-Semitism" represents the tendency to criticize or resist Jewish social cohesion, while
"racism" represents the attempt of white Gentiles to maintain a similar social cohesion of
their own. To the extent that the ideological emanations from our centralized media organs
serve to strengthen and protect Jewish cohesion while attacking and dissolving any similar
cohesion on the part of their Gentile counterparts, the former will obviously gain enormous
advantages in resource-competition against the latter.
Religion obviously constitutes an important unifying factor in human social groups and we
cannot ignore the role of Judaism in this regard. Traditional Jewish
religious doctrine seems to consider Jews as being in a state of permanent hostility with all
non-Jews , and the use of dishonest propaganda is an almost inevitable aspect of such
conflict. Furthermore, since Jews have invariably been a small political minority, maintaining
such controversial tenets required the employment of a massive framework of subterfuge and
dissimulation in order to conceal their nature from the larger society surrounding them. It has
often been said that truth is the first casualty in war, and surely the cultural influences of
over a thousand years of such intense religious hostility may continue to quietly influence the
thinking of many modern Jews, even those who have largely abandoned their religious
beliefs.
The notorious Jewish tendency to shamelessly lie or wildly exaggerate has sometimes had
horrifying human consequences. I very recently discovered a fascinating passage in Peter
Moreira's 2014 book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler: Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR, and How We Won the War ,
focused on the important political role of that powerful Secretary of the Treasury.
A turning point in Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s relationship with the Jewish community came in
November 1942, when Rabbi Stephen Wise came to the corner office to tell the secretary what
was happening in Europe. Morgenthau knew of the millions of deaths and the lampshades made
from victims' skin, and he asked Wise not to go into excessive details. But Wise went on to
tell of the barbarity of the Nazis, how they were making soap out of Jewish flesh.
Morgenthau, turning paler, implored him, "Please, Stephen, don't give me the gory details."
Wise went on with his list of horrors and Morgenthau repeated his plea over and over again.
Henrietta Klotz was afraid her boss would keel over. Morgenthau later said the meeting
changed his life.
Pelosi interference in elections might cost democrats a victory. She enraged Trump base and
strengthened Trump, who before was floundering. Now election changed into "us vs them" question,
which is very unfavorable to neoliberal Dems. as neolibelism as ideology is dead. She also
brought back Trump some independents who othersie would stay home or vote for Dem candidate. No
action of House of Representatives can changes this. Bringing Vindman and Fiona Hill to testify
were huge blunders as they enhance the narrative that the Deep State, unaccountable Security
Establishment, controls the government, to which Trump represents very weak, but still a
challenge. As such they strengthened Trump
Essentially Dems had driven themselves into a trap. Moreover actions of the Senate can drag
democrats in dirt till the elections, diminishing their chances further and firther. Can you
image the effect if Schiff would be called testify under oath about his contacts with Ciaramella?
Or Biden questioning about his dirty dealing with both Yanukovich administration and Provisional
Government after the 2014 coup d'état (aka EuroMaydan, aka "the Revolution of dignity"
?
Notable quotes:
"... It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over "withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one. Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed "isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to criticize a president. ..."
"... Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe, Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S. involvement overseas are reducing it. ..."
"... We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually been adding to them. ..."
Gideon Rachman tries to find
similarities between the foreign policies of Trump and Obama:
Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of
Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.
The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying
continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style,
and the similarities are impressive.
There is usually considerable continuity in U.S. foreign policy from one president to
another, but Rachman is making a stronger and somewhat different claim than that. He is arguing
that their foreign policy agendas are very much alike in ways that put both presidents at odds
with the foreign policy establishment, and he cites "disengagement from the Middle East" and a
"pivot to Asia" as two examples of these similarities. This seems superficially plausible, but
it is misleading. Despite talking a lot about disengagement, Obama and Trump chose to keep the
U.S. involved in several conflicts, and Trump actually escalated the wars he inherited from
Obama. To the extent that there is continuity between Obama and Trump, it has been that both of
them have acceded to the conventional wisdom of "the Blob" and refused to disentangle the U.S.
from Middle Eastern conflicts. Ongoing support for the war on Yemen is the ugliest and most
destructive example of this continuity.
In reality, neither Obama nor Trump "focused" on Asia, and Trump's foray into
pseudo-engagement with North Korea has little in common with Obama's would-be "pivot" or
"rebalance." U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a major part of Obama's
policy in Asia. Trump pulled out of that agreement and waged destructive trade wars instead.
Once we get past generalizations and look at details, the two presidents are often
diametrically opposed to one another in practice. That is what one would expect when we
remember that Trump has made dismantling Obama's foreign policy achievements one of his main
priorities.
The significant differences between the two become much more apparent when we look at other
issues. On arms control and nonproliferation, the two could not be more different. Obama
negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with New START at the start of his presidency, and he
wrapped up a major nonproliferation agreement with Iran and the other members of the P5+1 in
2015. Trump reneged on the latter and seems determined to kill the former. Obama touted the
benefits of genuine diplomatic engagement, while Trump has made a point of reversing and
undoing most of the results of Obama's engagement with Cuba and Iran. Trump's overall hostility
to genuine diplomacy makes another one of Rachman claims quite baffling:
The result is that, after his warlike "fire and fury" phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a
diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.
Calling Trump's clumsy pattern of making threats and ultimatums a "diplomacy-first strategy"
is a mistake. This is akin to saying that he is adhering to foreign policy restraint because
the U.S. hasn't invaded any new countries on Trump's watch. It takes something true (Trump
hasn't started a new war yet) and misrepresents it as proof that the president is serious about
diplomacy and that he wants to reduce U.S. military engagement overseas. Trump enjoys the
spectacle of meeting with foreign leaders, but he isn't interested in doing the work or taking
the risks that successful diplomacy requires. He has shown repeatedly through his own behavior,
his policy preferences, and his proposed budgets that he has no use for diplomacy or diplomats,
and instead he expects to be able to bully or flatter adversaries into submission.
So Rachman is simply wrong he reaches this conclusion:
Mr Trump's reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his
tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force.
Let's recall that the near-miss of starting a war with Iran came as a result of the downing
of an unmanned drone. The fact that the U.S. was seriously considering an attack on another
country over the loss of a drone is a worrisome sign that this administration is prepared to go
to war at the drop of a hat. Calling off such an insane attack was the right thing to do, but
there should never have been an attack to call off. That episode does not show a "strong
preference for diplomacy over force." If Trump had a strong preference for diplomacy over
force, his policy would not be one of relentless hostility towards Iran. Trump does not believe
in diplomatic compromise, but expects the other side to capitulate under pressure. That
actually makes conflict more likely and reduces the chances of meaningful negotiations.
It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over
"withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that
they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one.
Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed
"isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been
criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies
because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to
criticize a president.
Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most
of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is
guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe,
Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think
there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world.
Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn
non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S.
involvement overseas are reducing it.
Rachman ends his column with this assertion:
In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America's global
commitments -- and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.
The problem here is that there has been no meaningful reduction in America's "global
commitments." Which commitments have been reduced or eliminated? It would be helpful if someone
could be specific about this. The U.S. has more security dependents today than it did when
Trump took office. NATO has been expanded to include two new countries in just the last three
years. U.S. troops are engaged in hostilities in just as many countries as they were when Trump
was elected. There are more troops deployed to the Middle East at the end of this year than
there were at the beginning, and that is a direct consequence of Trump's bankrupt Iran
policy.
We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really
have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually
been adding to them.
"... "The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq." ..."
"... " 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' " ..."
In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was
reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:
"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence
was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant,
when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in
Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."
"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower,
according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."
Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil,
is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."
" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating
the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O"
Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.
Now that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.
My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that
means, stop reading here.
I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience
themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.
Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast
majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there
is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try
to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.
It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The
civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring
it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.
"... No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia. ..."
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
"So
democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on
U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported
Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll
note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi
Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way
of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic
forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian
antipathy to Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been
great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian
citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile
Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance
sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot
down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment
of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows.
No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
"... Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned. ..."
"... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
"... Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch". ..."
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.
Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans
post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately
though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."
Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially
people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect
it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
Ukrainegate has definite signs of Soros funded operation
Notable quotes:
"... America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers. ..."
"... Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team. ..."
"... There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic, and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions. ..."
"... Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit them to infest his administration. ..."
"... PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle. ..."
"... HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED... ..."
"... Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through 501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil. ..."
"... Tyler, please rerun this! How George Sorros destroys countries, profits from currency trading, convinces the countries to privatize its assets, buys them and then sells them for yet another profit: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly... ..."
"... We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... ..."
"... JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world. ..."
"... If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him) ..."
"... Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen. ..."
"... AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge in her own country! ..."
"... Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money ..."
Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning
after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned
in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent
the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete
ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon
George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros,
were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump
administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution
will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of
Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation
faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the
Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide
Huma Abedin
. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because
there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being
mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit
them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have
read as follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms
as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect
Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle
East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted
off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War.
Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his
administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies
but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with
the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities
to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed
at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and
the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org
and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle,
Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great
Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump
presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans
to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street
protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former
Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign
policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the
Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against
Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump
newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair
Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible
for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets
of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as
"anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's
son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics
not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George
Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
"It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care."
None of those "pressing issues" involve the DOJ or the FBI.
Investigate, prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton and her crew.
Trump is going to need a hostage or two to deal with these fucks.
News for the Clintons, The R's and D's already united to vote against Hillary.
I do not understand why they think street protests will bring down a POTUS? And that would be acceptable in a major nation.
Why isn't the government cracking down the separatists in Oregon, California, and elsewhere? They are not accepting the legal
outcome of an election. They are calling for illegal secession. (Funny in 1861 this was a cause for the federal government to
attack the joint and seveal states of the union.) If a group of whites had protested Obama's election in 2008?
The people living in Kalispell are reviled and ridiculed for their separatist views. Randy Weaver and family for not accepting
politically correct views. And so on.
This is getting out of hand. There will be no walking this back.
"Yes. And who are the neocons really? Progressives. Neocon is a label successfully used by criminal progressives to shield their
brand."
Well let's go a little bit deeper in examing the 'who' thing:
"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right, is, in
reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary , a media arm of the American
Jewish Committee , which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward , the oldest American Jewish weekly, wrote
in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: " If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can
lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.... "
The idea of arresting the Clinton Crime, Fraud and Crime Family would be welcomed. BUT, who is going to arrest them? Loretta Lynch,
James Comey, WHO? The problem here is that our so called "authorities" are all in the same bed. The tentacles of the Eastern Elite
Establishment are everywhere in high office, academia, the media, Big Business, etc. The swamp is thoroughly infested with this
elite scum of those in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, Club of Rome,
Committee of 300, Jason Society and numerous other private clubs of the rich, powerful and influential. The Illuminati has been
exposed, however they aren't going down lightly. They still have massive amounts of money, they own the media and the banking
houses. Some have described it as MIMAC, the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex. A few months ago here at Zero Hedge,
there was an article which showed a massive flow chart of the elites and their organization
They could IF and WHEN Trump gets to Washington after 20 Jan 2017, simply implode the economy and blame t it on Trump. Sort
of what happened to Herbert Hoover in the late 1920's. Unfortunately the situation in the US will continue to deteriorate. George
Soros, a major financial backer of Hillary will see to that. Soros is a Globalist and advocate of one world government. People
comment that Soros should be arrested. I agree, BUT who is going to do that?
Agree. I think Trump will yank all the "aid" to Israel as well as "aid" to the Islamic murderers of the Palitrashian human garbage
infesting the area. This "aid" money is simply a bribe to keep both from killing each other. F**k all of them. None of our business
what they do.
We got progressives ( lots and lots of Jews in that group) who are the enemy of mankind and then we got Islam who are also
the enemy of mankind. Why help either of them? Makes no sense.
Soros is hated in Israel and has never set foot there but his foundations have done such harm that a bill was recently passed
to ban foreign funding of non profit political organizations
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the man puts America first, really says
it all.
The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to act? There should be no question
about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
There are entirely way too many Intelligence Agencies. Plus the Contractors, some of who shouldn't have high level clearance to
begin with which the US sub contracts the Intel / work out to.
For Fucks sake, Government is so incompetent it can't even handle it own Intel.
Something along the lines of Eurpoe's Five Eyes would be highly effective.
Fuck those Pure Evil Psychopaths at the CIA They're nothing more than a bunch of Scum Fuck murdering, drug running, money laundering
Global Crime Syndicate.
The FBI is still investigating the Clinton Foundation, Trump needs to encourage that through backdoor channels. Soro's needs to
be investigated, he has been tied to a conspiracy to incite violence, this needs to be documented and dealt with. Trump can not
ignore this guy. If any of these investigations come back with a recommendation to indict then that process needs to be started.
Take the fight to them, they are vulnerable!
Make a National APB Warrent for the apprehension & arrest of George Sooros for inciting violence, endsrgerimg the public & calling
for the murder of our Nations Police through funding of the BLM Group.
Have every Law Informent Agency in the Nation on alert. Also, issue a Bounty in the Sum of $5,000,000 for his immediate apprehension.
Trump needs to replace FBI chickenshits & sellouts with loyal people then get the FBI counter-terrorism to investigate and shut
down Soros & the various agencies instigating the riots. It's really simple when you quit over-thinking a problem. It's domestic
terrorism. It's the FBI's job to stop it.
I read what Paul said this morning and thought, despite Paul's hostility to Trump during the primaries most likely due to his
son, Rand's loss, that Paul gave good advice to Trump.
Let's face it Donald Trump is a STOP GAP measure. And demographic change over the next 4 years makes his re-election very, very
UNLIKELY. If he keeps his campaign promises he will be a GREAT president. However as ZH reported earlier he appears to be balking
from repealing Obamacare, I stress the word APPEARS.
Let us give him a chance. This is all speculation. His enemies are DEADLY as they were once they got total control in Russia,
they killed according to Solzhenitsyn SIXTY-SIX MILLION Russian Christians. The descendants of those Bolsheviks are VERY powerful
in the USSA. They control the Fed, Hollyweird, Wall Street, the universities...
Much of the media and advertising exist by pushing buttons that trigger appropriate financially lucrative reflexes in their
audiences, from pornography to romantic movies to team sports. Media profits are driven by competition over how best to push
those buttons. But the effort to produce politically and racially cuckolded Whites adds a layer of complexity: What buttons
do you push to make Whites complicit in their own racial and cultural demise?
Actually, there are a whole lot of them, which shouldn't be surprising. This is a very sophisticated onslaught, enabled
by control over all the moral, intellectual, and political high ground by the left. With all that high ground, there are a
lot of buttons you can push.
Our enemies see this as a pathetic last gasp of a moribund civilization and it is quite true for our civilization is dying.
Identity Christians describe this phase as Jacob's Troubles and what the secular Guillaume Faye would, I think, describe as the
catastrophe required to get people motivated. The future has yet to be written, however I cannot help but think that God's people,
the White people, are stirring from their slumber.
"PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William
Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.
JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. "explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's
security" Served on JINSA's Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Perle."
If Trump has probable cause on the Soros crimes, have his DoJ request a warrant for all of Soros's communications via the NSA,
empanel a grand jury, indict the bastard, and throw his raggedy ass in prison. It would be hard for him to run his retarded purple
revolution when he's getting ass-raped by his cell mate.
I agree. Thing is, I think as president he can simply order the NSA to cough up whatever they have, just like Obama could have
done at any point. The NSA is part of the Defense Department, right? What am I missing here?
But in respect to Soro's money and the Dalas shooting or other incited events, there should be a grand jury empanelled and
then charges brought against him. I think nothing short of him hiding in an embassy with all his money blocked by Swift is justice
for the violence that he funded.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on
Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be
distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
And so it begins; I really hope that this is just some misinformation/disinformation, because HE PROMISED he would appoint
a special prosecutor, PROMISED...
The likes of Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg get to catch up on their Torah for the forseeable future but the likes
of Lloyd Blankfein will probably get to entertain the court since they have probably crossed paths doing business in NYC. The
"real conservative" deeply introspective, examine-my-conscience crowd screwed themselves to the wall, god love them.
Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because
that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through
501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a
massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil.
We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an
advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... (just in case you confused him with Mother Theresa)..
But then again JFK took office with a set of initiatives that were far more bellicose and provocative (like putting huge Jupiter
missile launchers on the USSR border in Turkey)... once he saw he light and fired the pro Nazi Dulles Gang , JFK was gunned
down in front of the whole world.
If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will
unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him)
I'm guessing though that deep down Trump is quite comfortable with a neoCon cabinet... hell he already offered Jamie Diamon
the office of Treasry Secretary... no doubt a calculated gesture to signal compliance with the Deep State.
The Clintons do not do things by accident. Coordination of colors at the concession speech was meant for something. Perhaps the
purple revolution or maybe they want to be seen as royals. It doesn't really matter why they did it; the fact is they are up to
something. They will not agree to go away and even if they offered to just disappear with their wealth we know they are dishonest.
They will come back... that is what they do.
They must be stripped of power and wealth. This act must be performed publicly.
In order to succeed Mr. Trump I suggest you task a group to accomplish this result. Your efforts to make America great again
may disintegrate just like Obamacare if you allow the Clintons and Co. to languish in the background.
The protestors are groups of individuals who may seek association for any number of reasons. One major reason might be the loss
of hope for a meaningful and prosperous life. We should seek out and listen to the individuals within these groups. If they are
truly desirous of being heard they will communicate what they want without use of violence. Perhaps individuals join these protest
groups because they do not have a voice.
Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction
and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen.
The articles reporting that Mr. Trump has changed his response to the protestors is a good effort to discover the protestors'
complaints and channel their energy into beneficial political activity. Something must be done quickly though, before the protests
get out of hand, for if that happens the protestors will be criminals and no one will want to work with them.
In order to make America great again we need input from all of America. Mr. Trump you can harness the energy of these protestors
and let them know they are a part of your movement.
Classical economists are experts on today's capitalism, it is 18th and 19th Century capitalism, it's how it all started.
Adam Smith would think we are on the road to ruin.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society.
On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalizing itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services.
Got that wrong as well.
Adam Smith wouldn't like today's lobbyists.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great
precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous,
but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of
the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions,
both deceived and oppressed it."
First five minutes of Alex Jones' video today is clips of people saying "Donald Trump will never be president". Full Show - Soros-Funded Goons Deployed to Overthrow America - 11/11/2016
AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge
in her own country!
lakecity55 -> CoCosAB •Nov 12, 2016 7:53 AM
Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money. Trump will have to do some rough stuff,
but he needs to, it's what we hired him for.
"... Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog, ..."
"... I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure. ..."
"... In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks ..."
"... But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. ..."
"... If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood. ..."
I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot
identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.
I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.
I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap.
Leaks from inside arms
verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.
I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind
the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could
think of.
As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person
who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something
rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world
could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.
Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist
whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification
– travelling
to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened.
But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.
The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown
until it was an intolerable stench.
Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could
no longer be allowed to do its job properly.
Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain
results, whether the facts justified them or not.
My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were,
and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings.
They then revealed a document to me.
This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian
poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.
In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks
:
leaks
over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes,
leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.
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But I've never seen one like this. It scared me.
If it was true, then
something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.
If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be
started by a falsehood.
Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the
email I leaked was authentic.
Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about
me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that
I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.
But there is much more to come.
And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this
enormous, dangerous story,
I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.
"... Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities ..."
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a
compelling choice for president in 2020. She's principled, she's against America's disastrous
regimen of regime-change wars, and she's got the guts to criticize her own party for being too
closely aligned with rich and powerful interests. She's also a military veteran who enlisted in
the Army National Guard in Hawaii after the 9/11 attacks (she currently serves as a major and
deployed overseas to Iraq during that war).
What's not to like about a female veteran who oozes intelligence and independence, a woman
who represents diversity (she's a practicing Hindu and a Samoan-American), an early supporter
of Bernie Sanders who called out the DNC for its favoritism toward Hillary Clinton
Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned
her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by
establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her.
Recently, Hillary Clinton
smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset,
and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested
(with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Think about that. Hillary Clinton and much of the mainstream media are accusing a serving
major in the U.S. military of being an asset to a foreign power. It's an accusation bordering
on a charge of treason -- a charge that is libelous and recklessly irresponsible.
A reminder: Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the military to serve her country in the aftermath of
9/11. What did Hillary Clinton do? Can you imagine Hillary going through basic training as a
private, or serving in the military in a war zone? (Hillary did falsely claim that she came
under
sniper fire in Bosnia , but that's a story for another day.)
Tulsi Gabbard is her own person. She's willing to buck the system and has shown compassion
and commitment on the campaign trail. She may be a long shot, but she deserves a long look for
the presidency, especially when you consider the (low) quality of the enemies she's made.
Reply
Whenever I post anything remotely positive about Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook, the same few
people come out to denounce her. My response is below, though I know you can't reason with
haters:
That Tulsi has been on Fox News is an argument in her favor, i.e. her crossover appeal and
her willingness to engage with the "other side." That Tulsi met with Assad is, in my view,
reasonable; true leaders are always willing to meet with "bad" people, even ruthless
dictators, in the cause of averting war. My main point is how she's being smeared as some
kind of traitor, or at least a useful idiot. She's neither. Also, I've read the piece on
Tulsi in Jacobin, and I've heard about alleged cults. Is this really the best the media can
do? Guilt by association?
Some of our readers may have concerns about Tulsi, e.g. alleged Islamophobia, alleged
cults, etc. The main point is this: Does she deserve to be smeared as a Putin puppet? What
does this say about our media? And why are they doing this? I can tell you why. Trillions of
dollars are spent on wars and weapons, and Tulsi is calling for an end to regime-change wars
and a return to diplomacy. She also, like Bernie, is willing to call out the DNC as being
against the interests of ordinary Americans -- and she's right about this. She has a lot in
her favor. I'm a Bernie fan myself, but I'll take Tulsi over all those phony "centrists" like
Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, and Biden.
I can't speak to the RSS/BJP connection; I've read about it, but I admit to ignorance on the
matter. Of course, every candidate has multiple connections, positions, donors, etc. All
politicians carry baggage. So far, from what I've read, Tulsi is more principled and more
courageous than most of her peers.
I'm still a Bernie fan -- his long record of helping the poor and vulnerable speaks for
itself. Of course, he once went to Moscow oh no! Run away! 🙂
Tulsi has now done four courageous, unusual, and very positive things while merely a
candidate:
1) Tulsi effectively took down a leading contender and DNC favorite, by demonstrating that
Senator Harris had been a corrupt prosecutor.
2) Tulsi defended democracy as she sued Google for at least $50 million, for playing
favorites in search-routing of candidates.
3) Tulsi called out Hillary Clinton for the monster she is.
4) Tulsi supported a process toward 911 truth by supporting 911-victims' families' right to
see FBI documents that have been denied to them.
Tulsi is the anti-war candidate. Tulsi Gabbard should be Commander-in-Chief. Yang should
be VP and in charge of the economy. Read his book. UBI is the way to go. Tulsi needs someone
she can trust as VP.
I consider the vicious persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning -- both
languishing in prison for having committed no crime whatsoever -- along with the exile of
Edward Snowden, among the greatest travesties of justice ever committed by the U.S. and U.K.
(dishonorable mention goes to Sweden and the latest Ecuadorian government, as well). I had
hoped for this subject to come up in the "debates," giving Tulsi yet another opportunity to
shine relative to her competitors, most of whom would soil their undergarments in panic at
the thought of "crossing" the absurdly named "intelligence community" and its entirely
co-opted corporate media outlets.
If Tulsi Gabbard had done no other principled thing than this, I would have considered her
heads and shoulders above anyone else campaigning for a position in the U.S. government
today.
I ought to dedicate this one to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her principled defense of
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (and no-doubt Chelsea Manning, as well):
Star Chamber, Incorporated
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
Jailed as twin examples for the proles:
"Look what happens if you publish secrets:
More totalitarian controls."
In Chinese: "Kill the Chicken scare the Monkey."
Rat-out your colleagues. Do not Power tempt.
Or otherwise the judges and grand juries
Will hold you in what lawyers call "contempt."
A strange word-choice, indeed, by Power's minions
Who spend careers perfecting rank abuse.
For them I'd have to feel respect much greater
Before that is the word that I would use.
I've nothing good to say for prosecutors.
Some say I wish to "damn them with faint praise."
But I reply: "You praise with faint damnation.
So which of us has coined the the better phrase?"
Despicable, the treatment of these heroes.
The US and UK have sunk so low.
Still, Julian and Chelsea have together
More balls than these two governments can grow.
No matter, they have passed into the ages.
Already they have earned a fair renown.
Each day they live defiant, undefeated,
They rise as jailers try to put them down.
As JFK once said of his elite class:
"The ship of state leaks mainly from the top."
But if some lowly, powerless, poor person
Tries that, they'll feel the lash. No truth. Now stop!
To scare a monkey, kill another monkey.
If not, the monkeys learn impunity.
While eating KFC they ask, obtusely:
"What has a chicken got to do with me?"
And so the Corporation-State must silence
Reports of its incompetence and crime.
If citizens knew what it did they'd order
Its dissolution. Now. And just in time.
Historically, they called it the Star Chamber
A secret court designed to thwart the king.
But power then perverted it to serve him.
Grand juries in the US, same damn thing.
They now indict ham sandwiches routinely
With no protection for the innocents.
Presumed as guilty, evidence not needed.
Conviction guaranteed. No court repents.
A judge may do whatever he determines
He can. So levy fines. Coerce. Demand
On penalty of prison, testimony
Against oneself, alone upon the stand.
"Democracy" is just a euphemism
If citizens allow this to proceed.
Orwellian: first Hate then Fear of Goldstein.
Two Minutes, daily. Really, all you need.
This is a good commentary. military experience is a good thing especially when we are dealing
with the fact that over half of the national budget is devoted to the military.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a thoughtful article on playing it safe, running out the clock,
prevent defense, etc., on your opponent as it would apply to politics.
Jabbar writes: Almost every poll showed her with a respectable lead over Trump just days
before the election. So, the Clinton campaign tried to run out the clock by not campaigning
much in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota,
all of which turned much redder than in the previous presidential election.
The tactic of trying to pick a "safe" candidate who can beat Trump by appealing to their
ideas about Middle America sends the wrong message to all of America. No team devise a game
strategy based on fear: they emphasize their strengths and exploit their opponents'
weaknesses. The Democratic candidate shouldn't be the least objectionable, but the one who
boldly forges ahead with clear and detailed plans for Making America America Again.
Democrats can't pander to voters by denigrating Trump but then promising them Trump-lite
with a wink. Promote progressive policies and plans worthy of a party that wants to lead this
country without fear of being called "socialists" or "the radical left" or whatever else your
opposing team chants.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/15/how-sports-tactics-can-help-the-democrats-beat-donald-trump-in-2020
===================================
Jabbar is correct. The Corporate Democrats among them Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg are
fighting desperately to preserve a perceived lead aided and abetted by the McMega-Media.
Chicago Alderman, Paddy Bauler (1890-1977) said in 1955 on the election of Daley the
Elder, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet", or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor".
Today, the pundits employed by Corporate America, along with various Democratic Party
stooges for Wall Street tell us America ain't ready for Reform.
Yes, ML, so goes American 'Exceptionalism', after WW2 Victory. Today, so goes a Great
American City in violence, all so shortsighted. I'm still confused with our never-ending wars
overseas, as our cities rot in crime & violence, my main concern. I didn't grow up
– or party! -later on in today's disaster areas of Baltimore or Philadelphia, etc.It
was GREAT!
But somethings going on I don't know about, when the WORST cities have black Congresspeople
(Maxime Waters?) living in 6.5$Mil mansions as their "districts" die.
I have NO PROBLEM with black people! Such a smear an insult. But it's worth investigating why
these characters who have ruined their cities are supporters of Dems, & Billary! Oh! They
spend & vote lavishly on more money for our wars, but nothing for their own cities!
Finally starting to figure it out: They're traitors to their own race, for their personal
benefit. They make Dems "look proud", vs "REP's!" Yes, they too re dreadful maybe that's why
I feel: TULCI GO! She's neither dreadful party!
ML: Good citation of KA-J -- - although I've seen the same-sort of criticism of the Dems
elsewhere, Kareem's sports analogy is very helpful in understanding the concept.
(I have to say that I got sick of the Dems milquetoast approach to politics. Maybe it was
an understandable response to a frustrating right-wing zeitgeist, but DAMN, did they have to
be SO passive against the Reps?? Even when they briefly held majorities in Congress under
Obama, the wouldn't introduce/push bills that weren't 'filibuster-proof'!?!? I for one might
still be voting Dem POTUS IF they had pushed those progressive bills., then let the Reps
filibuster for weeks or months, meantime the Dems & Obama could've gone in front of the
public daily and said something like "We're trying to help you by passing Bill X, but the
Reps are filibustering and stopping Congress from getting any work done!" Let the government
shut-down for a few weeks because of it and keep hammering away at the Reps for being the
BLOCKERS, etc. Call their bluff, and use it against them during elections. Instead they tried
to be overly accommodating & conciliatory BEFORE debate had even begun!)
Yes. Eddie. The Democratic Party not only gets its ass kicked for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, but it seems to have developed something of a masochistic taste for the Republican
abuse. Hence two of my verse compositions essentially agreeing with your observations:
(1) From eight years ago. From "Hope" and "Change" to despair and the status quo. And with
a Nobel Peace Prize for Endless War, too.
Congenital Stockholm Syndrome
He started by giving up quickly,
Surrendering early his case.
He offered to kiss their asses.
Replying, they pissed in his face.
Their urine, he thought, tasted strangely;
Yet not at all bad to his taste.
He'd gotten so used to it, plainly.
Why let such a drink go to waste?
The people who voted in favor
Of him and his promise of "change"
Now see in his many betrayals
A poodle afflicted with mange.
Each time that the surly and crazy
Republicans out for his skin
Condemn him for living and breathing,
He graciously helps them to win.
He'll turn on his base in an instant
With threats and disdain and neglect
While bombing some Muslims so Cheney
Might thrill to the lives that he's wrecked.
A black man in love with apartheid
He offers his stalwart support
To Zionists and their extortion
With "More, please!" his only retort.
A masochist begging for beatings
Obama takes joy in abuse
Receiving just what he has asked for
Which makes him of no earthly use
The little brown men that he's murdered
In homes far away from our land
Bring profits obscene to his backers
Who give him the back of their hand.
Obama seeks praise from the vicious
Republicans, no matter what.
He suffers, apparently, nothing
So much as his need to kiss butt.
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011
(2) From twelve years ago and on the Congressional side of the Surrender Monkey
Syndrome:
Nancy the Negotiator
Nancy the Negotiator
Gives up first; surrenders later;
Takes her cards from off the table,
Then recites her loser fable:
"We don't have the votes we need,"
Nancy says, in tones that bleed:
"Mean Republicans will whine
If we do not toe their line."
Nancy bows to George and Dick
While her skinny ass they kick;
Writes them checks both blank and rubber,
Then proceeds to lamely blubber:
"We don't like what Dubya's doing.
Still, we quite enjoy the screwing.
Masochism's what we offer,
Helping crooks to loot the coffer"
"Sure, the squandered blood and treasure
Goes to those we will not measure.
Still, we promise you'll adore us
If you mark your ballot for us."
"Choices you don't have assail you,
Leaving only us who fail you.
Nonetheless, we've gotten fatter.
Why, then, should we think you matter?"
After six years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (the last eighteen months of that in the
now-defunct Republic of South Vietnam) it didn't take me long to realize that the Republicans
get paid a lavish salary to do what the fabulously wealthy demand, while the Democrats get a
comparatively meager allowance to do what the Republicans tell them to do, also on behalf of
the fabulously wealthy: namely, betray their own working-class anti-war base so that the
Republicans will not have anything even remotely "leftist" to worry about. In truth, the
Democratic party crawled up its own ass and died so many years ago that I think I've lost
count.
Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the
wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their
priorities
Chile - it's not just the level of inequality and austerity in the country that triggered
the social uprising against the elite. On the OECD's 'better life' index, Chile scores very
badly even compared to other Latin American countries.
The OECD index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the
OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of
life.
The Indian economy is heading into trouble - to all intent, in recession. The
second-largest country in the world by population grew only 4.5 percent year-on-year in the
third quarter of 2019, below 5 percent in the previous period and market expectations of
4.7 percent. That's the weakest pace since the first three months of 2013, mainly due to a
fall in factory output and exports and a slowdown in investment.
Investment, sluggish for nearly a decade, grew a mere 1 per cent year-on-year, down from
4 per cent in the previous quarter. Manufacturing output contracted 1 per cent.
Infrastructure investment has collapsed.
The government has announced several measures to boost growth including a reduction in
corporate taxes, concessions on vehicle purchases, bank recapitalisation. Meanwhile, the
central bank has already cut borrowing cost 5 times this year and is seen lowering rates
again next week.
This is a very interesting example of how Western (i.e. libera, capitalist) propaganda
works, and also a very illustrative example of how capitalism declined from the point of view
of a person who benefitted the most from it when it was at its apex:
The shock in the US was that the Russians were not only competitive, but had embarrassed US
science and engineering by being first. In 1958, President Eisenhower signed into law the
National Defense Education Act, and this enabled talented students to flow into science and
engineering. The shock waves were felt throughout the entire educational system, from top
to bottom. Mathematics was more important than football.
He's right in the abovementioned paragraph. If you interviewed people who were 12-14 years
old between 1958 and 1963, and asked about what would be the future of the USA in the year
2000, most of them would have more or less the same answer: that the future of America was
scientific, bright, of high technology; a nation where scientists and engineers would be more
more venerated than tv celebrities and football/baseball players. It would be the world of
the infamous "flying cars" and space exploration and colonization.
Nobody in 1963 would imagine that the USA of the 2000s would be the USA of finance,
of Wall Street ; of football players, of the anti-vaxxers, of the flat earthers and of
the Kardashians.
But they should've. The reason this degeneration happened is the fact that the USA is a
capitalist society. In capitalism, scientific progress is accidental. What matters in the
capitalist system is the valorization process, not the process of use value creation. Like
any other societal formations, capitalism has a revolutionary period, an apex period, a
decline period and a collapse period. In my opinion, world capitalism has just exited its
apex phase and is now entering its decline phase.
Here's the propaganda part of the article:
As demonstrated by the USSR, socialism does not prohibit scientific prowess. There is a
difference, of course. Socialism's success in the USSR came at the expense of millions of
lives, the slave labor of millions more, and a lower standard of living. Nevertheless, the
fact is that Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth. In comparison to the US
today, Soviet universities were not plagued by whining children – nor are today's
Chinese universities. The Soviets thought it wiser that their young study calculus and
physics.
This paragraph encapsulates all the elements of Cold War propaganda about the USSR. When I
read it, it felt like a blast from the past.
First, the image of the USSR as essentially a slavery society is a Western chimera. They
come from Weber -- who once theorized the USSR as a "modern Ancient Egypt" -- and the
propaganda from Solzhenitsyn, who hugely exagerated the number of prisoners in the USSR.
In fact, even at the height of the GULAG era, the USSR's jailed population never went
beyond 1.5% of its overall population (as we know now from Soviet official archives). That's
well within the world's average. If only 1.5% of the population is able to sustain the other
98.5%, then even I want to know how the Soviets operated such an economic miracle.
Besides, the USSR obviously didn't kill "millions of people" in order to send someone to
space. That's obviously absurd by any metric, logic included. First of all because this would
never gather political consensus among the population, second because it is impossible to do
rocket science with slave labor.
The quick rise of the Third Reich gave birth to the myth in the West that slave labor can
operate miracles. Nothing is further from the truth. In Ancient times, both the Greeks and
the Romans already knew slave labor was only economically viable in very basic and simple
tasks, such as agriculture, mining and other domestic services. Athens achieved naval
supremacy over Greece by using wage labor for its rowing and sailor crews, so that they could
be professionals with high morale in the battlefield. The reason for this is that maneuvering
triremes was an extremely complex art, too complex and valuable for the Athenians to trust to
slaves. They also had, by the nature and complexity of the task, a naturally high degree of
freedom from their "bosses". Either way, the task was simply too complex for a slave to
phisically learn, since a slave was kept into his/her place through physical deprivation and
domination, and a sailor had to be always fit physically and mentally to wage wars at sea.
The Spartans didn't slave their coastal colonies, giving them a much larger degree of freedom
(perioikoi), probably in exchange for a supply of sailors, ships. The Romans also did the
same: when a slave became specialized enough in the family business (such as acting as a
middle man in the paterfamilias' businesses in some coastal city), he usually "gifted" him
with his freedom.
In sum: even the ancients knew that, for more complex tasks, free people were a must.
Slavery was only economically viable for very simple and denigrating tasks (specially,
agriculture and mining).
As for the "lower quality of living", that's highly debatable. Surely, on average, the
USSR certainly didn't enjoy the same life quality than the top of the capitalist chain of the
time. But inequality was much, much lower (almost negligible) except for the rural-urban
divide, and there was no deprivation.
On average, life quality in the USSR was much better than the vast majority of the
capitalist nations with the benefit inequality was negligible (so the average approached the
median). Sure, it was no post-1980s Norway or Finland -- but those are microscopic capitalist
nations, with negligible population.
Thanks vk. The Soviet achievements in space were the achievements of a free people who had
to make superhuman sacrifices in order to preserve their freedom. Here's Boris Chertok, a
remarkable Soviet space designer whose experiences stretched from the crowds of 1917 and
Lenin's funeral to the construction of the international Space Station:
"I am part of the generation that suffered irredeemable losses, to whose lot in 20th
century fell the most arduous of tests. From childhood, a sense of duty was inculcated in
this generation - a duty to the people, to the Motherland, to our parents, to future
generations, and even to all humanity.
...
Currently ... it is ideological collapse that threatens the objective recounting of
[Soviet] science and technology ... motivated by the fact that its origins date back to the
Stalin epoch or to the period of the 'Brezhnev Stagnation'"
"... More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai. ..."
The theory behind this is one of strength reinforcing strength – the strengths of
ubiquitous data gathering and analysis reinforcing the strengths of authoritarian repression to
create an unstoppable juggernaut of nearly perfectly efficient oppression. Yet there is another
story to be told – of weakness reinforcing weakness. Authoritarian states were always
particularly prone to the deficiencies identified in James Scott's Seeing Like a State
– the desire to make citizens and their doings legible to the state, by
standardizing and categorizing them, and reorganizing collective life in simplified ways, for
example by remaking cities so that they were not organic structures that emerged from the
doings of their citizens, but instead grand chessboards
with ordered squares and boulevards, reducing all complexities to a
square of planed wood . The grand state bureaucracies that were built to carry out these
operations were responsible for multitudes of horrors, but also for the crumbling of the
Stalinist state into a Brezhnevian desuetude, where everyone pretended to be carrying on as
normal because everyone else was carrying on too. The deficiencies of state action, and its
need to reduce the world into something simpler that it could comprehend and act upon created a
kind of feedback loop, in which imperfections of vision and action repeatedly reinforced each
other.
So what might a similar analysis say about the marriage of authoritarianism and machine
learning? Something like the following, I think. There are two notable problems with machine
learning. One – that while it can do many extraordinary things, it is not nearly as
universally effective as the mythology suggests. The other is that it can serve as a magnifier
for already existing biases in the data. The patterns that it identifies may be the product of
the problematic data that goes in, which is (to the extent that it is accurate) often the
product of biased social processes. When this data is then used to make decisions that may
plausibly reinforce those processes (by singling e.g. particular groups that are regarded as
problematic out for particular police attention, leading them to be more liable to be arrested
and so on), the bias may feed upon itself.
This is a substantial problem in democratic societies, but it is a problem where there are
at least some counteracting tendencies. The great advantage of democracy is its openness to
contrary opinions and divergent perspectives . This opens up democracy to a specific set of
destabilizing attacks but it also means that there are countervailing tendencies to
self-reinforcing biases. When there are groups that are victimized by such biases, they may
mobilize against it (although they will find it harder to mobilize against algorithms than
overt discrimination). When there are obvious inefficiencies or social, political or economic
problems that result from biases, then there will be ways for people to point out these
inefficiencies or problems.
These correction tendencies will be weaker in authoritarian societies; in extreme versions
of authoritarianism, they may barely even exist. Groups that are discriminated against will
have no obvious recourse. Major mistakes may go uncorrected: they may be nearly invisible to a
state whose data is polluted both by the means employed to observe and classify it, and the
policies implemented on the basis of this data. A plausible feedback loop would see bias
leading to error leading to further bias, and no ready ways to correct it. This of course, will
be likely to be reinforced by the ordinary politics of authoritarianism, and the typical
reluctance to correct leaders, even when their policies are leading to disaster. The flawed
ideology of the leader (We must all study Comrade Xi thought to discover the truth!) and of the
algorithm (machine learning is magic!) may reinforce each other in highly unfortunate ways.
In short, there is a very plausible set of mechanisms under which machine learning and
related techniques may turn out to be a disaster for authoritarianism, reinforcing its
weaknesses rather than its strengths, by increasing its tendency to bad decision making, and
reducing further the possibility of negative feedback that could help correct against errors.
This disaster would unfold in two ways. The first will involve enormous human costs:
self-reinforcing bias will likely increase discrimination against out-groups, of the sort that
we are seeing against the Uighur today. The second will involve more ordinary self-ramifying
errors, that may lead to widespread planning disasters, which will differ from those described
in Scott's account of High Modernism in that they are not as immediately visible, but that may
also be more pernicious, and more damaging to the political health and viability of the regime
for just that reason.
So in short, this conjecture would suggest that the conjunction of AI and authoritarianism
(has someone coined the term 'aithoritarianism' yet? I'd really prefer not to take the blame),
will have more or less the opposite effects of what people expect. It will not be Singapore
writ large, and perhaps more brutal. Instead, it will be both more radically monstrous and more
radically unstable.
Like all monotheoretic accounts, you should treat this post with some skepticism –
political reality is always more complex and muddier than any abstraction. There are surely
other effects (another, particularly interesting one for big countries such as China, is to
relax the assumption that the state is a monolith, and to think about the intersection between
machine learning and warring bureaucratic factions within the center, and between the center
and periphery).Yet I think that it is plausible that it at least maps one significant set of
causal relationships, that may push (in combination with, or against, other structural forces)
towards very different outcomes than the conventional wisdom imagines. Comments, elaborations,
qualifications and disagreements welcome.
Ben 11.25.19 at 6:32 pm (no link)
This seems to equivocate between two meanings of bias. Bias might mean a flaw that leads to
empirically incorrect judgements and so to bad decisions, and it's true that that type of
bias could destabilize an authoritarian state. But what we usually worry about with machine
learning is that the system will find very real, but deeply unjust, patterns in the data, and
reinforce those pattern. If there's a particular ethnic group that really does produce a
disproportionate number of dissidents, and an algorithm leads to even-more-excessive
repression of that group -- I'm not sure why an authoritarian state would see a stability
threat in that tendency.
More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian
apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the
real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build
a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai.
I'd just like to point out (re: the tweet in the original post) that the "Uighur
face-matching AI" idea is bullshit invented by scaremongers, with no basis in fact and
traceable to a shoddy reddit thread. The Chinese government is not using facial recognition
to identify Uighur, and the facial recognition fears about the Chinese government are vastly
overstated.
Australia's border control facial recognition software is far more advanced than
China's, as is the UK's, and facial recognition is actually pretty common in democracies. See
e.g. the iPhone.
The main areas in which China uses facial recognition are in verifying ID for some high
cost functions (like buying high speed rail tickets), and it's quite easy to avoid these
functions by joining a queue and paying a human. The real intrusiveness of the Chinese
security state is in its constant bag searches and very human-centric abuses of power in
everyday life in connection with "security". Whether you get stopped and searched depends a
lot on very arbitrary and error prone judgments by bored security staff at railway stations,
in public squares, and on buses, not some evil intrusive state technology.
Conversely, the UK is a world leader in installing and using CCTV cameras, and has been
for a long time. Furthermore, these CCTV cameras are a huge boon to law-abiding citizens,
since they act as both excellent forms of crime prevention (I have had this experience
myself) and for finding serious criminals. The people responsible for the death of those 39
Vietnamese labourers in the ice truck were caught because of CCTV; so was the guy who
murdered that woman on the street in Melbourne a few years ago.
Finally to address another point that's already been raised (sadly): China no longer
harvests organs, and the 2019 report that says it does is a sham. The social credit system is
also largely a myth, and nobody from China even seems to know wtf it is.
If you're going to talk about how state's work, and the relative merits of autocratic vs.
democratic states and their interaction with technology, it's a really good idea to get the
basic facts right first.
Nathanael 11.26.19 at 6:10 am (no link)
I'll add that John Quiggin's point that Xi has already lost control of the provinces is
correct -- but it DOES threaten his position as dictator. Once the provincial governors know
they can act with impunity, it is absolutely standard for the next step to be getting rid of
that annoying guy who is pretending to be dictator. It may take a few years but Xi now has
dozens of powerful insiders who know that he's a weakling. They'll bide their time but when
he crosses too many of them they'll take him out. And if China doesn't shut down coal, he's
going to look like a weakling internationally too, in a couple of years. This will create a
new group of ambitious insiders with a different reason to take him out.
Xi broke the "technocratic consensus" which was present after Deng, of central committee
members who strove for competence and fact-based decision-making. That was a surprisingly
effective type of junta government which led to lots of thinkpieces about whether
authoritarian China would beat the democratic west. But it succumbed to the succession
problem, like all authoritarian systems; Xi made himself Premier-for-life and the country is
now exhibiting all the usual failures of authoritarian countries.
Hidari 11.26.19 at 9:08 am (no link)
@11 Yes it's strange that allegations of Chinese use of facial recognition software is
gaining so much traction at a time when the Trump regime is deliberately ratcheting up
tensions with China to pursue nakedly imperial goals, when the objective facts of Israeli use
of similar software, which the Israelis boast about (
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/why-did-microsoft-fund-israeli-firm-surveils-west-bank-palestinians-n1072116
) doesn't cause so much interest, at a time when the Trump regime has simple decreed that the
Israeli invasion/colonisation of Palestine is 'legal under international law'.
One of life's little mysteries I guess.
If we must talk about China could we at least bring it back to areas where we are
responsible and where, therefore, we can do something about it?
"... No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia. ..."
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
"So
democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on
U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported
Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll
note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi
Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way
of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic
forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian
antipathy to Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been
great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian
citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile
Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance
sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot
down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment
of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows.
No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
" That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia,
and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime -- a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington.
But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed,
there won't be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world. Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US
international dictatorship -- not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003,
Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, -- will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world . He makes
clear the complicity of US 'news'-media in the lies that 'justify' this coup (and 'justified' those invasions)." [My Emphasis]
IMO, that's a very broad interpretation of b's summation, but I cannot argue against the section I bolded--as some may have
noticed, my appellation for the USA has evolved to better reflect its nature: the Evil Outlaw US Empire. There are numerous reasons
that prompted me to do so, one I mentioned in my reply @14 to S--tact is no longer employed in diplomacy by the Evil Outlaw US
Empire, and that's a very bad sign, IMO. Zuesse continues on calling out the crimes of BigLie Media, echoing my accusation that
the writers and editors are all committing the crimes of Goebbels and ought to mimic his actions when his end was nigh.
Zueese ends his very authentic rant with the following prescription which was clearly needed prior to 911:
"Unfortunately, the only global solution would be a second American Revolution, but, this time, the news-media are far less
honest, and so almost no support exists amongst the US population for doing that. Consequently, the outlook for the future, worldwide,
is grim. If the warning (hidden by the media as it is), this time from Bolivia, is not heeded, how can this cancer ever be stopped
from engulfing the entire world?"
It's curious that an impending Civil War within the Evil Outlaw US Empire is posited but seldom a 2nd Revolution, although
the latter's been discussed at the bar by myself and others off and on over the past several years. I wrote the following in a
reply to psychohistorian on the previous open thread:
"I appears that the prerequisite to obtaining freedom and democracy is public ownership of the vast majority of financial levers.
Without public capture of that essential domain, only some form of penury is possible for the vast majority of commonfolk, leaving
only a select hierarchy free, democracy reserved only for their use. Pretty well sums up the current situation within the Evil
Outlaw US Empire I'd say."
The Civil Arm of the coup: one of the best-funded NGOs in Bolivia during 2017 and 2018 was the International Republican Institute
(IRI). http://bit.ly/37HYnit
The destabilization of Ukraine and Tunisia are the main achievements of this American organization.
US Empire's Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell gets irked that more nations are joining the INSTEX mechanism for commerce with Iran as
shown by his Tweet:
"cc: @TreasurySpox @USTreasury sounds to me like all these people and groups should be added
to the US Sanctions list. We should ensure that they don't get to work in the US market.
Iran or the US -- they decide. But not both ." [My Emphasis]
The nations saying we're not with you are Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway,
and Sweden--what might be termed the more enlightened Europeans.
And here we have Germany's CDU acting in a manner reflecting the Bush Doctrine as it debated
Germany's 5G
rollout :
"The moderates, represented by Merkel, believe that Germany should not rule out any company
over political issues, but focus more on objective factors such as whether its technological
security and standards meet German requirements. However, some hard-liners make it an
ideological issue and believe Huawei should be excluded. The reason they provided is ' no
Chinese company is an independent company,' adding that Huawei's involvement is principally "an
imminent question of national security .
"After decades of following the US, Germany has somewhat lost the ability to independently
decide its development and destiny. But in recent years, the US has been pursuing
unilateralism. The export-oriented German economy is affected by not only China-US trade
conflicts, but also US threat of imposing tariffs on German products. Thus, it is time for
Berlin to stop its fear of threats from Washington and make choices that are in line with its
own interests." [My Emphasis]
Every Evil Outlaw US Empire chartered corporation in the tech realm is not an "independent
company" since they work hand in glove with CIA, NSA, FBI, other government organizations, and
are also funded by the government. The same is likely true of every Western tech company. A
double standard excuse in service of continuing the Bush Doctrine.
To paraphrase Grenell, Now is most certainly the time to declare your independence and
reclaim your sovereignty and cease acting in the service of another nation.
The Short Road: Democracy to Fascism By Larry Romanoff Global Research,
November 30, 2019 Region: USA Theme: History
Fascism is a political ideology fundamentally authoritarian in character, with a strong
nationalism and an essentially belligerent militaristic outlook. Fascism carries primarily a
corporate perspective as opposed to a socialist view, directed to satisfying the needs, values
and objectives of finance and corporations, organising both the economy and the political
system according to this agenda.
A fascist government actively suppresses any objection to its ideology and typically will
crush any movement which opposes it. In keeping with their belligerent nature, fascist
governments generally view violence and war as stimulants to national spirit and
vitality.
Being politically Right-Wing, they maintain their position through firm control
or compliance of the media, and most often engage in a vast array of lies and deception. These
governments tend to be bigoted, if not racist, invariably require "enemies" to achieve public
solidarity, and are often supremacist or at least 'exceptional' in their self-assessment. They
either believe, or pretend to believe, that they have a license on truth. Large military
budgets, the creation and demonisation of fictitious enemies to propagate fear and maintain
population control, are all typical characteristics of a fascist regime, as is massive public
surveillance.
In 1995 the Italian Scholar Umberto Eco produced a paper titled 'Eternal Fascism' (1) in
which he examined the characteristics of fascist regimes. In 2003, Laurence W. Britt did an
excellent and scholarly work in dissecting and categorising past fascist regimes (2), in which
he revealed common threads that linked all of them in "patterns of national behavior and abuse
of power". He wrote that "Even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes
reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi, (which is) not a
revelation but useful to shed needed light on current circumstances." I am including here a
composite of edited extracts from these two papers with additional commentary of my own.
Significant statements by these two authors are in quotation marks. This is a list of the
characteristics of fascist states, taken from Britt's original article:
Early Warning Signs of Fascism
Powerful and continuing nationalism
Supremacy of the military
Obsession with national security
Obsession with crime and punishment
Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
Disdain for human rights
Corporate power is protected while labor power is suppressed
Controlled mass media
Rampant cronyism and corruption
Intertwined religion and government
Fraudulent elections
Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
Rampant Sexism
If we examine the US on these categories, we find an almost perfect match. Certainly the US
has the most strident nationalism of all nations today, with the hysteria of patriotism and
flag-worship unabated and even increasing, with the delusional theory of American
Exceptionalism as virulent as ever.
There is no question about military supremacy , with the US spending almost twice as much on
its military as the rest of the world combined and being by an order of magnitude the world's
largest arms manufacturer and dealer. Obama once stated flatly that for the US to remain
'peaceful and prosperous' it needed the world's largest and most powerful military to maintain
an overwhelming military supremacy. Obsession with issues of national security is so common in
the US today they have become objects of ridicule. Every manner of information is withheld,
every manner of lie is told, every manner of crime is committed, all with the excuse of
'national security'. Britt noted that a national security apparatus was usually an instrument
of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints, with its actions always
justified under the rubric of protecting "national security", and that questioning these
oppressive activities is now often portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
All the fascist regimes have an obsession with crime and punishment, Britt stating that most
"maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations" – a
perfect description of America today, including the 'unchecked power and rampant abuse' by the
police. He also noted that in all these fascist states, 'normal' crime and political crime were
almost interchangeable, "often merged into trumped-up criminal charges used against political
opponents of the regime". These characteristics of crime, punishment and incarceration are all
fields in which America leads the world by a wide margin today as we have already seen.
In terms of enemies being needed for solidarity and to maintain "a unifying cause", the US
is also the outstanding world leader, creating real and fictitious enemies not only for itself,
but doing a rather good job in creating animosities throughout the world. In fact, a signature
feature of the US is its worldwide propagation of regional unrest, as we see in Asia today, and
with interference in the Ukraine, Russia, China, and dozens of other countries. Creating
political chaos and large military risks is a common fascist trait, which is partly why
military supremacy is necessary, black and white America attempting to partition the world into
ideological factions, often in preparation for war.
For some decades, the US milked the Cold War for all it was worth, casting the Soviet Union
as a bitter enemy and creating animosity where none would have existed. With the fall of the
USSR, the US turned immediately to other nations, never really forgetting Russia, and then
created its 9-11 'Pearl Harbor Moment' that would permit it to have a permanent enemy in the
person of 'terrorism', a war that will never be won since the US creates all the terrorist
events to prolong it. It has the added advantage of demonising all the world's Muslims while
equating all Arabs with terrorists. Enough enemies here for a lifetime of fascism.
A fundamental practice of a fascist or pre-fascist government is demonisation of 'the
others', outsiders who are the enemy.
For the people, these (usually imaginary) enemies provide not only an essential
cornerstone of the fascist state but an essential adhesive for their fabricated national
identity. Being thus united against a common other, fascism becomes deeply racist by definition
and in practice. This demonisation of selected enemies is so intense that pacifism or a lack of
belligerence equate to treason, due to sympathising with the enemy or, in today's US lexicon,
"giving aid and comfort to the enemy". In the world of fascism, disagreement is treason. George
Bush and Dick Cheney: "If you aren't with us, you're against us". US Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles: "There are only two kinds of people in the world: Christians who believe in
capitalism, and the other kind."
In his study of these regimes, Britt wrote that "the most significant common thread" among
them was this demonisation of other peoples as enemies of the state, "to divert attention, to
shift blame, and to channel frustration into controlled directions". He claimed that their
methods of choice – propaganda and misinformation – were usually effective. Britt
noted that "Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt
with accordingly", which is precisely what happens today in the US, where increasingly it
occurs that challengers of the system are labeled as terrorists, even to the extent of those
operating food banks being classified as 'food terrorists'.
No reasonable person can claim today that the US has any concern for human rights, certainly
not any outside the continental US, and increasingly less within its borders. Except for
Israel, the US has by far the worst record of human rights violations during the past several
hundred years, far outstripping anything attributed to people like Stalin or Hitler, or even
the Japanese. It is, after all, the US that built and still maintains the largest network of
torture prisons and ships in the history of the world, even though the US media have removed
this topic from the publishing list.
In terms of media control, the US government covers this not by ownership or direct
censorship but by a cabal of closely-interwoven interests working on the same precise agenda,
almost totally eliminating any necessity for overt acts.
Corruption and cronyism are as alive and virulent in American government today as they have
ever been in any society at any time in recent history. The lobbies alone, working with the
secret government, are more than sufficient evidence of this, with corruption increasing
noticeably each year. Americans may quarrel with the point of an integration of religion and
government but, while religion is theoretically separated from the state, it is joined at the
hip in practice.
We have George Bush telling us God told him to invade and destroy Iraq, Obama telling us
Christ's redemption of him provides him with solace on a daily basis, and a long list of other
nonsense indicating that evangelical hysteria is never far removed from the government, even if
only to mislead an ignorant population. Britt noted that religion and the ruling elite were
tied together in some way .
"The fact that the ruling elite's behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the
religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling
elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the 'godless'."
Fraudulent elections are more overtly creeping into the American electoral system every
year. We had George Bush's brother removing more than 50,000 persons from the voter lists in
Florida, all of whom were legitimate voters, and sufficient to provide an election victory.
Even then, when votes were finally counted accurately, Bush was proven to have lost the
election, but the consequences could not be reversed. As well, the new digital voting machines
have been condemned even by those who designed them, as wide open to electoral fraud and
manipulation to the extent of changing the outcome of every vote. Moreover, it is openly
admitted that even without manipulation, an accurate count is not physically possible. But the
government continues to roll out these systems, one would have to assume for their manipulation
potential.
It is widely recognised the US has been dumbing-down education for decades, starving the
educational systems of funds, using increasingly unqualified part-time and adjunct teachers and
professors, increasing tuition costs to the point where education will soon be unaffordable. We
don't need an education to see that the only possible result is an increasingly uneducated and
ignorant population. In his study, Britt noted that "intellectual and academic freedom were
considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly
controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or
expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed." This forms a perfect
description of the situation today in the US, certainly on the crushing of dissent. I have no
observation to make on the arts, but the US appears to qualify solidly on every point in the
above list, and I see no reason for Americans or indeed anyone else to take comfort in this. Is
the US a fascist state? How do we avoid answering in the affirmative?
To people of a country like the US, who are deprived of a clear national identity, fascism
creates one by stoking the fires of a false nationalism though propagandising the
pathologically false conviction that "the world's greatest privilege is to be born or to live
in this country", that every citizen "belongs to the best people in the world", all of whom
are, by definition, "good". US President Calvin Coolidge:
"To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever
accorded to the human race".
Michael Hirsh used the same jingoistic nonsense to justify American cannibalisation of the
world by stating that American global domination was "the greatest gift the world has received
in possibly all of recorded history." Britt noted the powerful propagation and displays of
nationalistic expression,
"From the prominent displays of flags and ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show
patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its
frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were
common themes in expressing this nationalism."
To underscore the above, Global Research published an article in March of 2015 titled "The
End of Canada in Ten Steps: A Conversation with Naomi Wolf" (3), in which it was noted that she
studied "the way open societies were crushed from within by authoritarian elements", such as
those existing in all Right-Wing countries today, and claimed there was "a 'blueprint' followed
by all dictatorial rulers composed of ten steps" as follows:
Invoke an external and internal threat
Establish secret prisons
Develop a paramilitary force
Surveil ordinary citizens
Infiltrate citizen groups
Arbitrarily detain and release citizens
Target key individuals
Restrict the press
Cast criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason"
Subvert the rule of law
Global Research finally noted that "In her 2007 book The End of America: Letter of Warning
to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf not only described this formula for fascism, she outlined how
these repressive measures are in evidence in modern day America."
There is one other item pertaining to fascism in America that contains elements
of all characteristics we've discussed, one which Hollywood and the media have taken great
pains to develop though the ground was already very fertile indeed, and this category is heroes
and super-heroes. The US has always glorified war and war heroes, describing American
cannon-fodder as "sons of freedom giving their lives for democracy", when they were simply
massacring impoverished civilians to enrich the bankers. Eco noted that "In every mythology the
hero is an exceptional being, but in Fascist ideology heroism is the norm", with the fascist
hero impatient to die, but who, in his impatience, "more frequently sends other people to
death".
This black and white religious proto-fascism which has perhaps always existed in America was
the seedbed for the worship of heroes and winners. Americans, in their desperate jingoistic
desire to be "good" and to "win", and in a bid to prove their overwhelming moral superiority,
turned from reality to fiction and gave us Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Captain America. All
are Christian proto-fascists engaged in fictional battles of good against evil, with the
Americans living vicariously through these imaginary beings, sharing in their awesome power and
moral righteousness, and whose costumes inevitably bear labels saying "Made in America". And
indeed we cannot watch an American movie without encountering this irritating white supremacist
ideology. Think of movies like Avatar or Independence Day; their entire purpose is to fuel this
ideological jingoism and make all viewers "proud to be American". But it's all a fiction. The
real American heroes are not Superman or Spiderman but Curtis LeMay, Henry Kissinger, Ronald
Reagan and Madeline Albright, all criminally-insane psychopathic killers.
It is interesting that a fascist government, with its instinctive hatred of socialism,
propagates "fascist socialism" which nurtures and feeds corporations while normal socialism
nurtures the general population. What we might call "corporate socialism", which is what exists
today in the US, is a fairly precise definition of fascism.
Tax benefits that favor the rich either primarily or exclusively, a high income inequality,
the dismantling of any social safety net, different laws for the rich and powerful than for the
poor, corporate immunity for crimes, a lack of corporate regulation and oversight, are all
typical characteristics. Britt noted that "Since organized labor was seen as the one power
center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate
allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The US government and elites, except for
one brief historical period, have always strived to destroy labor to protect the profits of big
business. In Britt's study, "the poor formed an underclass, (and) being poor was considered
akin to a vice." And in which nation today have color and poverty been criminalised? The
world's largest fascist state – America.
He also noted rampant cronyism and corruption between the political and corporate elites and
stated that "With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this
corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population."
Corruption and cronyism are as alive and virulent in American government today as they have
ever been in any society at any time in recent history. The lobbies alone, working with the
secret government, are more than sufficient evidence of this, with corruption increasing
noticeably each year. Similarly, no reasonable person can question any longer the suppression
of labor and the protection and enhancement of corporate power in America. We have already
covered in detail the trashing of the social contract, the destruction of labor protections and
the evisceration of the middle class. No further evidence is necessary.
There is another alarming category that evidences even more strongly the threats to civil
society from the authoritarian and fascist police-state mentality that is increasingly
permeating all of the US, this involving trivial civil disputes that should in no case involve
the police. In July of 2014, a Minneapolis man was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight
with his two children for questioning why he was qualified for priority boarding but his two
children were not. He posted a Tweet that said, "Wow, rudest agent in Denver. Kimberly S, gate
C39, not happy". Southwest Airlines' gate attendants saw the tweet, ejected Watson and his
children from the flight, informing him he now qualified as a "safety threat", threatening to
have him arrested unless he immediately deleted his post.
In the US today, kindergarten teachers regularly call the police to arrest children who
misbehave. A Chinese woman tourist in New Hampshire was tasered and assaulted by police when a
clerk at an Apple store complained she wanted to buy two phones. In another case, a father in
New Hampshire attended a parent-school meeting to protest the classroom use of
sexually-explicit reading material provided to his teen-age daughter. When the man exceeded the
arbitrary maximum of two minutes speaking time, the principal called the police and had the man
arrested. In each case, no 'law' was violated so the police used generic charges of "causing a
public disturbance" or some other such nuisance charge.
These false charges may well be dismissed by a court but still present a serious violation
of civil rights and a gross exaggeration of the ability of individuals to create their own laws
and of the police to enforce them. In the Southwest Airlines case above, had the man refused to
delete his negative post, the agent would certainly have called the police who, cast from the
same authoritarian mold, would have automatically arrested and charged him, probably with
'Twitter Terrorism'. The man would likely have escaped in the end, but it would have been a
long and expensive climb out from the bottom of that hole. In the case of the Apple store, the
female customer was physically knocked to the ground and tasered by police immediately on their
arrival. In neither case did the police make even minimal attempts to ascertain the facts. In
fact, the only salient "fact" was that of a civilian challenging any kind of authority, even
the kind that is so weak as to be invisible. No civilian has any practical defense against an
airline agent or shop clerk who testifies that he "caused a public disturbance", nor against
police charges for having done so. The only immunity comes from wealth or political power.
There are countless similar cases which all have in common an implicit assumption that
anyone, even in a position of minimal authority such as a KFC clerk, has the power to dictate
imaginary rules that obtain the force of law with the police and which, if challenged, will
result in arrest. Individual private citizens, as least those lacking obvious wealth or power,
are increasingly relegated to the social trash bin. Incidents such as these may appear
individually trivial and unconnected, but they are not trivial in bulk and are indications of a
frightening authoritarianism infecting all of America, part of the widespread rush to fascism
occurring in all politically Right-Wing nations, especially in the US. That this should be such
a common experience is a frightening and almost terrifying development, where one now fears to
enter any dispute with even the most minor employee or clerk, in almost any context, and
regardless of the justification.
When common citizens are afraid to challenge the most trivial injustices in civil society,
when the people as individuals have been moved to the bottom of the priority list, when even
store clerks have effective arrest authority, this is authoritarian fascism – a classic
definition of a de facto fascist police state. In the US today there are so many similar
examples where this, the most fundamental of civil rights – the right to voice complaint
– has been converted to a criminal act. Those instances involved mostly the police badly
exceeding their authority, but this category involves mere civilians with no actual invested
civil authority of any kind, and yet in each case legal authority being presumed and exercised
entirely at the whim of these same persons. While Americans please themselves by accusing China
of being authoritarian, it is in fact the US that is both authoritarian and fascist. China is
today a very human civil society compared to Transformed America.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior
executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export
business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case
studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is
currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be
contacted at: [email protected]
Looks like exceptions in US political jargon means "no rivals"... Trump is still dreaming about "Full Spectrum Dominance"
Otherwise he would not populate his administration with rabid neocons, leftover from Bush II administration. As well as
people who were responsible for Obama color revolutions and wars. Instead of gratitude from neocons viper nest in the State
Department he got Ukrainegate as a Thanksgiving present.
Notable quotes:
"... If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished. ..."
"... A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a rival." ..."
"... In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of "full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos. ..."
"... While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world, respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction." ..."
"... Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia. ..."
"... This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect. ..."
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made prudent
remarks recently when he said the United States is no longer a uni-power and that it must
recognize the reality of China as an equal rival. The furor over a new law passed by the US this week regarding Hong Kong and undermining
Beijing's authority underlines Kissinger's warning.
If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a
catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished.
Speaking publicly in New York on November 14, the veteran diplomat urged the US and China
to resolve their ongoing economic tensions cooperatively and mutually, adding: "It is no longer
possible to think that one side can dominate the other."
A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be
exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a
rival."
In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts
that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This
consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US
viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of
"full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and
regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos.
Kissinger's frank assessment is a breath of fresh air amid the stale and impossibly arrogant
self-regard held by too many American politicians who view their nation as an unparalleled
power which brooks no other.
The seasoned statesman, who is 96-years-old and retains an admirable acumen for
international politics, ended his remarks on an optimistic note by saying: "I am confident the
leaders on both sides [US and China] will realize the future of the world depends on the two
sides working out solutions and managing the inevitable difficulties."
Aptly, Kissinger's caution about danger of conflict was reiterated separately by veteran
journalist John Pilger, who
warned in an exclusive interview for Strategic Culture Foundation this week that, presumed
"American exceptionalism is driving the world to war."
Henry Kissinger is indeed a controversial figure. Many US scholars regard him as one of the
most outstanding Secretaries of State during the post-Second World War period. He served in the
Nixon and Ford administrations during the 1970s and went on to write tomes about geopolitics
and international relations. Against that, his reputation was badly tarnished by the US war in
Vietnam and the horrendous civilian death toll from relentless aerial bombing across Indochina,
believed to have been countenanced by Kissinger.
Kissinger has also been accused of supporting the military coup in Chile in 1973 against
elected President Allende, and for backing the dirty war by Argentina's fascist generals during
the 1970s against workers and leftists.
... ... ...
At times, President Donald Trump appears to subscribe to realpolitik pragmatism. At other
times, he swings to the hyper-ideological mentality as expressed by his Vice President Mike
Pence, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mike Esper. The
latter has labeled
China as the US's "greatest long-term threat".
This week President Trump signed into law "The Human Rights and Democracy Bill", which will
impose sanctions on China over alleged repression in its Hong Kong territory. Beijing has
reacted furiously to the legislation, condemning
it as a violation of its sovereignty.
This is exactly the kind of baleful move that Kissinger warned against in order to avoid a
further poisoning in bilateral relations already tense from the past 16 months of US-China
trade war.
One discerns the difference between Kissinger and more recent US politicians: the former has
copious historical knowledge and appreciation of other cultures. His shrewd, wily, maybe even
Machiavellian streak, informs Kissinger to acknowledge and respect other powers in a complex
world. That is contrasted with the puritanical banality and ignorance manifest in Trump's
administration and in the Congress.
Greeting Kissinger last Friday, November 22, during a visit to Beijing, President Xi Jinping
thanked him for his historic contribution in normalizing US-China relations during 1970s.
"At present, Sino-US relations are at a critical juncture facing some difficulties and
challenges," said
Xi, calling on the two countries to deepen communication on strategic issues. It was an echo of
the realpolitik views Kissinger had enunciated the week before.
While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides
should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world,
respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in
cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction."
Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for
cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to
contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US
trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia.
This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and
ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop
of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect.
"... Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies. ..."
"... No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. > ..."
"... Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover. ..."
"... The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket. ..."
"... In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent. ..."
"... That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters. ..."
"... Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby. ..."
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war
in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy,
but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement
has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the
discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United
States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote
the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives,
including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the
American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as
ready after 9/11 for retaliation
Every American should read this superb book about the intimate connection between the
state of Israel and the Americans who planned and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003
(and who still influence U.S. policy in the Middle East). This very well-researched and
well-argued book will enlighten Americans who want to understand how the Jewish State of
Israel powerfully shapes U.S. Middle East policy.
Stephen Sniegowski provides a detailed look at the network of die-hard pro-Israel
Neoconservatives who have worked in the U.S. government, in think tanks, and in the news
media to shape American foreign policy to serve the needs of Israel at the expense of the
U.S. From media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers around the world ALL editorialized
in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to
Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and later Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, to
Vice President Dick Cheney, to the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, the
neoconservatives successfully persuaded President George W. Bush to invade Iraq to promote
Israel's foreign policy interests.
Sniegowski describes how the Neocons promoted lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons
of Mass Destruction and his supposed ties to al-Qaeda terrorists from a network of think
tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Middle East Media Research Institute,
Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy, and the
Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
He also traces the influence of Israeli Zionist Oded Yinon on the American
Neoconservatives. Yinon wrote an article in 1982 entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the
1980s" that called for Israel to bring about the dissolution of many of the Arab states and
their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. This is basically what
is happening to Iraq and Syria today. He also called for Israelis to accelerate the
emigration of Palestinians from Israel, whose border he believed should extend to the Jordan
River and beyond it.
Yinon's article influenced a paper written for the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin
Netanyahu in 1996 by American neoconservatives Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David
Wurmser entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This paper stated
that Netanyahu should "make a clean break" with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel's
claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Like Yinon's article, it also called for the removal of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of Syria to promote Israel's interests. It was
written five years BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These same three
men - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser - who advised Netanyahu's Israeli
government on issues of national security would later advise President George W. Bush to
pursue virtually the same policies regarding the Middle East.
If you want to understand how and why powerful pro-Israel neoconservatives in the U.S.
misled Americans and convinced President George W. Bush to order the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003, and how they persuaded the U.S. Congress to give Bush the authority to order the
invasion, read this outstanding book.
Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper
entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think
tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to
foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies.
The policy was adopted by the Israeli pro-settler right wing and Jewish activists in and
around the Clinton and Bush administrations such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David
Wurmser (who all helped produce the original document). They identified as targets Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and were handed a golden opportunity after the 9/11 attack on
the World Trade Centre. Iraq was falsely presented as an Al Qaeda base and the media planted
with stories about an imminent attack on the United States using WMD. Despite the CIA knowing
all along that the WMD didn't exist, the US still invaded Iraq and the story was quietly and
unbelievably changed to "building democracy".
As Sniegoski points out, the war has exceeded the cost of Vietnam and the same activists,
now working through Hillary Clinton are looking for "incidents" in Iraq to trigger the next
phase of the plan which is a US attack on Iran.
UPDATE October 2014:
And it gets worse: The 911 story itself keeps morphing. Google "Building 7", YouTube "911
Missing Links" or check the article at http://911speakout.org/7TOCPJ.pdf. >
Important book for those trying understand the chaos that
is currently reigning in the Middle East. From the lies based NEOCON attack on Iraq trumpeted
by the mainstream USA media as a fight to save Western Civilization, to the rise of ISIL.
This books will make those connections clear. No informed American can afford to not know the
names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. >
On January 27, 2005, [...] posted the remarks of Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker
contributor) at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York that a neoconservative cult had
taken over the American government.
Hersh hoped that future historians would document the
fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to
overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The
Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved
the takeover.
Other books have stressed how the neoconservative ideology is contrary to traditional
American values: Reclaiming the American Right (Justin Raimondo), America the Virtuous (Claes
Ryn), Where the Right Went Wrong (Patrick Buchanan).
"Memoirs of a Trotskyist" in Neo-conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (Irving Kristol)
provided a neoconservative account of the origins of neo-conservatism. Sniegoski noted
correctly that the term neoconservative originated with leftists critical of their former
comrades for attempting to infiltrate the Democratic and Republican parties. Thanks to
leftists who call neoconservatives the ultra-right and to conservative dupes who think that
anyone using a conservative label is a conservative, the neoconservative cancer has spread
through the fragile American political body.
The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group
attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a
detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to
overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket.
Unlike earlier secret plots to take over the American government, Sniegoski explained how it
was possible for the neoconservatives to operate as a relatively transparent cabal. However,
he observed that the neoconservatives used a Trojan horse technique to take over the American
conservative movement. The goal of the neoconservatives is to promote endless wars regardless
of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power.
The neoconservatives do not represent a popular mass movement in America. Instead, the
neoconservatives rely upon the co-operation of other groups. Sniegoski provided extensive
documentation of which groups enabled the neoconservatives. For example, the Christian
Zionists duped their followers into sacrificing money and soldiers. Zionism originated with
the writings of Moses Hess (who helped Karl Marx write The Communist Manifesto, was nicknamed
the Communist Rabbi, and who is buried in Israel). In 1862, Moses Hess published Rome and
Jerusalem. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (Shlomo Avineri) provided a detailed
explanation of the relationship between Communism and Zionism.
The reason for the fragility of American democracy is the failure of many Americans to
understand the most basic aspects of the American political system and of their
religions.
The Transparent Cabal is an important starting point for understanding how a neoconservative
cult opposed to traditional American political and religious values is able to destroy
America with endless wars.
_The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, And the
National Interest of Israel_, published in 2008 by Enigma Editions of IHS Press, by scholar
Stephen J. Sniegoski is a thorough examination of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing
for war in the Middle East (beginning with the war in Iraq and pushing onwards towards Iran)
in order to protect the national interests of Israel. Sniegoski makes the claim that the
neoconservatives have been the fundamental force behind the war efforts of the United States
and have played a particularly prominent role in the Bush administration. While these claims
have now become common knowledge, Sniegoski makes an important contribution by tracing the
history of the neoconservative movement and its links to prominent pro-Jewish and pro-Israel
groups. In particular, Sniegoski claims that neoconservativism is a tool of Zionism and the
Likudniks of Israel. Sniegoski traces out how following the attacks of September 11, the
neoconservative war hawks had a profound influence on the thinking of President Bush and
offered him a ready made solution to his foreign policy agenda. In this book, Sniegoski also
considers and refutes other theories as to the root causes behind America's intervention in
Iraq (such as the role of oil and war profiteering) but explains how these theories lack the
validity of that which lays the blame on the neoconservatives and their goals for Israeli
dominance in the Middle East.
In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at
the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked
charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the
United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book
echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the
small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains
that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a
tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent.
This book begins with a Foreword by Congressman Paul Findley (famous author of _They Dare
to Speak Out_ and longtime opponent of the Israeli Lobby) in which he explains the importance
of Sniegoski's book and deflects the spurious charge of anti-Semitism. Following this,
appears an Introduction by noted paleoconservative Paul Gottfried who explains his admiration
for Sniegoski's book, offers some comparisons between Sniegoski's claims and those of other
individuals, and contrasts the old non-interventionist limited government form of
conservativism with that of the neoconservatives.
The first chapter of Sniegoski's book is entitled "The Transparent Cabal" and notes the
disastrous consequences that have followed upon the Iraq war spurred on by the
neoconservatives. The author explains what he means in calling the neoconservatives a
"transparent cabal" and notes the importance of their Middle East, pro-Israeli agenda. The
author explains how following the events of September 11, they came to take on a prominent
role in influencing the thinking of the president (who had previously shown little interest
in the Middle East).
The second chapter is entitled "The "Neocon-Israel" Claim: Bits and
Pieces" and exposes the role of Israel's Likudnik party behind the neoconservatives. The
author deflects claims of "anti-Semitism" which are frequently hurled at those who make these
charges by showing that even many prominent Jews agree with this. Following this appears a
chapter entitled "Who are the Neocons?" which shows how the neocons emigrated from their
original home in the Democratic party of the McGovernite left into the Republican party as
the New Left began to voice criticisms of Israel. The author shows that many of the neocons
are actually socialists and Trotskyites parading under the label of "conservative". Further,
the author shows the role of various intellectuals centering around New York City in creating
the neoconservative movement.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "The Israeli Origins of the
Middle East War Agenda" which shows how the goal of Middle East war to further the interests
of Israel has been supported extensively by hawkish groups in Israel. The author explains how
these groups came to have such a prominent role in influencing the policy of the United
States and in suppressing the native population of Palestinians in Israel. Following, appears
a chapter entitled "Stability and the Gulf War of 1991: Prefigurement and Prelude to the 2003
Iraq War" in which the author explains the importance of the first Gulf War of Bush I in
prefiguring the Iraq War of Bush II. After this, appears a chapter entitled "During the
Clinton Years" in which the author shows the continuing role of the neocons during the
Clinton years.
Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Serbian Interlude and the 2000
Elections" in which the author explains how the war in Yugoslavia paved the way for the
coming Iraq War of President Bush. This also explains the split that occurred among
conservatives between those traditional conservatives who opposed the war and the neocons who
firmly supported it. Following this appears a chapter entitled "George W. Bush
Administration: The Beginning" in which the author explains the role that the neocons came to
take in the Bush administration mentioning in particular the role of such figures as
Wolfowitz and Cheney and the role of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Following
this appears a chapter entitled "September 11", showing how the events of Sept. 11 allowed
the neocon agenda to gain prominence in the mind of President Bush.
Next, appears a chapter
entitled "Move to War" explaining how the neocons pushed for war against Sadaam Hussein
presenting their case to the American people by claiming that Hussein was in possession of
WMDs which could be used against America. Following this appears a chapter entitled "World
War IV" explaining how the conflict in the Middle East came to be dubbed World War IV by
certain intellectuals among the neocons.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "Democracy for the
Middle East" showing the role of the neocons in foisting "democracy" onto various nations and
their goal of global democratic revolution. The author also explains the role of the thinking
of political philosopher Leo Strauss behind many of the neocons and his profoundly
anti-democratic philosophy. Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Neocons'
Post-Invasion Difficulties" showing how the invasion of Iraq turned out to be more serious
and difficult than originally anticipated by the neocons. Next, appears a chapter entitled
"Beginning of the Second Administration" showing the continuing role of the neocons under the
second Bush administration.
Then, appears a chapter entitled "Israel, Lebanon, and the 2006
Election" showing the role of Lebanon and Syria in relationship to Israel and that of the
2006 election.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "2007: On to Iran" showing how the neocons
continued to press for further wars in particular against Iran by alleging among other things
that Ahmedinejad was a mad man with possible access to nuclear weapons. Following, appears a
chapter entitled "The Supporting Cast for War" noting the role of Christian Zionists (which
includes the beliefs of President Bush, although not his father), former Cold Warriors, and
even prominent establishment liberals in supporting the Iraq war. The author notes however
that the traditional foreign policy establishment elites and many in the intelligence
agencies did not support the war, but were disregarded to further the neocon agenda. The
author also contrasts the difference between the liberal elites who frequently were pro-war
and the popular anti-war movement which had very little power.
Following this, the author
turns to a chapter entitled "Oil and Other Arguments" in which the author considers the
claims that the war was fought to obtain access to oil or for the interests of war profiteers
and shows that while both groups certainly benefited they are not the real reason for the
war. The book ends with a "Conclusion" in which the author expounds upon the continuing role
of the neocons in influencing American foreign policy and a "Postscript" in which the author
notes that no matter who wins the 2008 election that the neocon agenda will likely continue
and is not likely to go away anytime soon.
This book offers a fascinating history and account of the role of the neoconservatives in
pushing the United States into war. The author makes clear the influence of the Israeli
Likudnik party behind the neocons and their goal of strengthening the position of Israel in
the Middle East. It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the foreign policy
elites who have been pushing us into war against Iraq and now with eyes towards Iran.
That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book.
Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed
by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters.
Let's put aside these negative and nasty characterizations and look at the facts.
Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state.
However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and
often place American interests second to that of the lobby.
To suggest that there is such a
lobby and that it is powerful is hardly anti-semitic. Nor is the author. He is simply stating
verifible facts which any student of politics is free to do. He may be mistaken in his
conclusions but that hardly makes him anti-semitic. And he may not be mistaken at all. He is
not the first to suggest that our leaders are fearful of the Israeli lobby and do its bidding
and often to the detriment of American interests .
Stephen Sniegoski, a diplomatic historian, is uniquely qualified to write about the
neoconservatives' involvement in the prolonged Iraq War originating in 2003. He accurately
predicted their activities and allegiance in this entanglement in 1998, three years before
the acts of 9-11 and two additional years before a traumatized nation yielded to a nescient,
misdirected President, his Vice President/administration, and an ostensibly compliant
bi-partisan House and Senate.
The author presents a tight outline which he cogently expands in intelligible detail,
maintaining that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the adoption of a war
agenda whose basic structure was conceived in Israel to advance Israel's interests. The
pro-Israel neoconservatives and a powerful Israel lobby in the United States fervently pushed
its agenda. Ironically, he extracts his most persuasive evidence from an extensive
neoconservative paper trail that's been clearly recognized by a discreet cadre of vigilant
Americans for years. Thus the title, "The Transparent Cabal."
Dr. Sniegoski asks the appropriate question: "Who are the neoconservatives?" He provides
insightful answers on their pertinent activities since 1972, those who shaped and mentored
them, their immediate family/interconnected family networks, their prominent periodical
publications, their past and present leadership, non-Jewish minority members, their
persistent rise to positions of political influence and authority, their embrace of Christian
Zionists, and their close ties to the extremely conservative Likud Party in Israel. He
reveals their tactical affiliations with key, heavily endowed influential think tanks, and a
vast number of powerful Israel-centric lobbying organizations that reactively finance and
nurture their continued success.
Many readers will recognize his references to writers of previous books, articles and
columns -- many of Jewish heritage -- who bravely fight against well financed, mainstream
media-dominant opponents and their psychological surrogates active on the Internet. These
opponents perniciously engage in personal attacks and retribution, indiscriminately applying
irrelevant anti-semitic labels. They persist at attempting to sway public discourse by
spreading misinformation, disinformation, and mostly NO RELEVANT INFORMATION to the
public.
In various places throughout the book, the author notes curious relationships with current
and former elected and appointed officials. He writes about the ongoing 2008 presidential
campaign in a postscript, citing past and existing direct influences on specific candidates
by the neoconservatives, the Israel Lobby and its supporters.
The book concludes with a summary of the paucity of benefits compared to the predictable
losses of the American people over recent years. These are the real consequences of the
Israel-inspired plan to "drain the swamp" (a euphemism for destabilizing perceived enemies
then establishing precarious nominal democracies) that began with our misadventure in Iraq
and was to proceed with subsequent U.S. military interventions in Iran and Syria. The few
meager benefits and the enormous losses to the United States are compared to the strategic
advantages that the State of Israel derives directly from our five-year induced military
involvement in Iraq and our concomitant departure from past, longstanding policies of
diplomacy and stability in the Middle East.
Sniegoski counsels, "it is hardly controversial to propose that elites, rather than the
people as a whole, determine government policies, even in democracies."
Yet this war has a supporting cast of middle Americans. Many of them were traumatized by
the events of 9-11 and reactively saw an act of patriotism in supporting retaliation against
a falsely perceived enemy in Iraq. It's time to reconsider false arguments preceding the Iraq
War that have only been cosmetically modified until the present day. It's time to dismiss
incongruous ideas formed in the cauldron of confusion after 9-11.
Given today's realities, it DOES take patriotism and courage to insist on formally
normalizing an entangled, unreciprocated military alliance with an Israeli government that
burdens the taxpayers of the United States, promotes angst among its people, and imperils its
military forces worldwide.
Know and embrace Thomas Jefferson's ideal of 'eternal vigilance' as citizens of the United
States.
.
.
Facts in this book are reinforced in adjacent paragraphs and referenced in nearly 50 pages of
notes. Readers are encouraged to read:
World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global
Instability by Amy Chua -- "Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects
in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a
Public Inquiry" **a 166 PAGE LEAKED REPORT** documenting foreign espionage activities
surrounding 9-11, available on the Internet (although rarely in COMPLETE UNEDITED FORM **WITH
5 EXHIBITS AND 4 MAPS**). .
Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American
diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as "S," for short.
This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through
its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War's
aftermath. S's argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is
designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by
the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding
Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives
supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity
for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the
Presidency of George W. Bush.
Here are some thoughts:
A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events
surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the
sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that
the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the
country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the
country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.
B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while
neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not
necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq
that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic.
Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was
unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to
bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining
even America's allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi
Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control
over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously
against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering
U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil
infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.
C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even
though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W.
Bush's changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while
retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II
Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime
change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that
emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a
lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a
way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel
stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made;
for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as
different ethnic factions became separated from each other.
D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America's military, taking
away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something
that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not
really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril,
since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian
interests.
E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold
War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the
Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that.
Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia
during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic
issues, such as welfare.
F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book.
He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into
Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly
present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives
were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the
traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War,
preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had
reservations about the Iraq War.
G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting
Israel's security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that
Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon,
for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.
H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S.
to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of
course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake.
At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed
Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be
wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support
to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to
scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.
I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for
Israel is perfectly consistent with America's well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government
since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation --
-Britain or France -- -is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the
United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the
U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs' good side,
with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has
some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the
historical stance of neoconservatism.
I was interested to see the reviews of this book. Usually if any book suggests that Israel
is less than perfect a group of Zionist fanatics surface with several reviews telling us that
there nothing wrong Israel or American support of it.
Remarkably there is only one negative review of this book which has to be seen to be
believed. This reviewer "yoda" from Israel charges in all seriousness that Sniegoski does not
provide evidence that the neoconservatives are "predominantly Jewish " and are " strongly
aligned with Israel". Asking the author to provide evidence for such
assertions is like asking him to give evidence that the sun will
rise in the east tomorrow .
This is I believe the real reason that that there are relatively few attacks on this book.The
author does not engage in shrill denunciations of Israel or of the neoconservatives . What he
does do is quote at length what neocoservstives say and provide careful documentation for any
factual claims. For the most part the reader is allowed to
draw his own conclusions. Should the US continue to finance
Israeli repression of Palestinians and perhaps go to war against Iran or anyone else who
might object to Israeli policie?
Instead of denouncing Sniegoski "Yoda" should consider
the sane Israelis in his own country . For example former
Mossad chief Meir Dagan who said that a war with Iran was
the "stupidest idea he had ever heard of." Also moviemaker
Emmanuel Dror who interviewed virtually all the former directors of the Shin Bett ( Israel's
internal security service )
who all called for disengaging from the occupied territories .
perhaps we all would be better off listening to these Isaelis rather than follow the
neoconservatives into another disastrous war on the other side of the world.
This is going to be a very strange review coming from me. You see, I wrote a novel called
"Other Nations" and well, people that liked it a lot, liked it, but then those that really
disliked it disliked it because my "aliens among humans" were nice people, likeable people,
even charismatic people, everyday suburban types even, living that kind of life. Among us.
Next door, in the next city over. They wanted instead to see the aliens among us portrayed as
well, pick your favorite genocidal maniac or mind-controlling dictator or creature so
dementedly alien that no sense can be made of it. Well!
There are many types of true horror. The kind that passes itself off as my aliens among us
are portrayed, well, I guess some people GET IT - and they liked it.
But I'm not here to push my book. I'm here to push THIS BOOK - because my god, this is
REAL, not fantasy, it's REAL, not science fiction. And yes, they are among us with well -
BUY THIS BOOK. If you are too broke to buy it, get it from the library - and by all means
- READ IT.
Just hope to whatever god you choose that neocons are removed from governmental influence
and that their Amen corner is ignored. Hope to god, because if they suceed in doing the
INSANITY they want to do - America will be FINISHED - if it's not finished already due to
what these Fifth Columnists have done during the 8 years of Twilight Zone (GWB Rule).
And for those Jewish critics on here that might want to compare these neocon FACTS and the
other FACTS openly available to all (which is WHY the book is called the TRANSPARENT cabal) -
compare it to the Protocols - they better think twice about that. Becauase, you see, what's
in here is real, real facts, provably real facts - and if Jews themselves compare this to the
Procols? Some folks might get the idea that maybe that is real too. Perhaps George Soros (who
is Jewish) needs to speak LOUDER against the neocons. They are, indeed, crazies, as Colin
Powell called them. Crazies.
If you want to have an eye opener then read and see who were those Jewish players working
and influencing everything in the Bush Admin.promoting war with Iraq, then this is your book
of truth. The cabal of Jewish players come out of the woodwork in Stephen Sniegoski's great
work. When step by step the plan was a clear war map laid out for the U.S. in detail and
after you realize just who was working for whom in this criminal cabal of the American
government.
When you have Jewish control of the main stream media and Jewish control in Washington, D.C.,
don't wonder why the facts were omitted to make all the right connections for the public to
see in this lead up to a war from lies.
Video: How the U.S. Caused the Breakup of the Soviet UnionSean Gervasi 1992
Lecture By Sean
Gervasi and Dennis Riches Global Research,
November 30, 2019 Region: Russia and FSU , USA Theme: History
We bring to the attention of Global Research readers the text of an unpublished Lecture
delivered in 1992 by the late Sean Gervasi on the history of the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the US Strategy formulated during World War II to bring down the USSR.
The full transcript and video of Sean Gervasi's presentation is preceded by Dennis Riches
Introduction
Scroll down for the Video
Introduction
We defeated totalitarianism and won a war in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously
We worked together in a completely bipartisan way to bring down communism So now we have to use
our political processes in our democracy, and then decide to act together to solve those
problems. But we have to have a different perspective on this one. It [global warming] is
different from any problem we have ever faced before [i] – Al Gore
These words above were spoken by former US vice-president Al Gore in 2007 in his film An
Inconvenient Truth . Because audiences at the time were in rapt awe of him, treating him as
a savior in the campaign to solve the global warming crisis, they never seemed to reflect on
the outrageous assumptions underlying his comments about "defeating totalitarianism" and
"bringing down communism." These are worth examining for what they say about perceptions of
world history among the American political class, and they even hint at how the errors in these
perceptions led Mr. Gore to being self-deceived about what would be necessary to solve the
problem he has devoted himself to since he has been out of power.
Although the United States played a crucial role in WWII, it was slow to get involved and it
let the Soviet Union do much of the heavy lifting and suffer the heaviest losses. The United
States had a lot of help in achieving the victory Mr. Gore claims for America, and we could
assume he knows this, so the way he chose to describe historical events is telling.
Perhaps acknowledging the reality would have detracted from his second point about "bringing
down communism." Everyone knows that what he is referring to so proudly is the destabilization
and destruction of the USSR, the Warsaw bloc nations, and Yugoslavia, not the abstract notion
of communism. He is referring to a "victory" which precipitated civil wars and a disastrous
collapse of the economy and social welfare systems in these countries, one that killed and
impoverished millions. In China, Cuba and the DPRK, contrary to what he stated, these nations'
versions of socialism haven't been brought down at all. [1992]
Explicitly describing the "bringing down of communism" as America's deliberate actions to
dismantle the USSR might run the risk of reminding the audience about the illegality of
interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, and it might have reminded people of
what a betrayal this was of America's WWII ally and partner in the détente of the 1970s.
The inconvenient truth is that the USSR was the WWII ally that played a crucial role in the
victory that Mr. Gore claimed solely for America.
Nonetheless, the comment about "bringing down communism" is refreshingly, and maybe
accidentally, very honest. Most descriptions of the Soviet collapse, even those done by
historians specializing in this field, pay little attention to American efforts to undermine
the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. The political class always denied that America had a
plan to dismantle the USSR, and denied having any significant influence on events which they
claim arose from domestic causes. If America's influence is addressed at all, it is considered
as a matter of speculation, a mystery hardly worth thinking about when one can more easily look
at the dramatic events that occurred on the surface within the Soviet Union in the last decade
of its existence. The following transcript of the lecture by Sean Gervasi, delivered in 1992,
shortly after the collapse, is unique and valuable for what it reveals about the significant,
and perhaps decisive, American role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In his conclusion, Mr. Gervasi came to this judgment:
The Soviet Union today, in the absence of this extraordinarily crafty, well-thought-out,
extremely costly strategy deployed by the Reagan administration, would be a society
struggling through great difficulties. It would still be a socialist society, at least of the
kind that it was. It would be far from perfect, but it would still be there, and I think,
therefore, that Western intervention made a crucial difference in this situation."
The journey to how he came to this conclusion is well worth the reader's time.
A final comment about Mr. Gore's remarks: He is oblivious to the inconvenient solution that
has been staring him in the face all these years: that the necessary reduction of carbon
emissions will require severe constraints on capitalism, a thesis developed by Jason W. Moore
in Capitalism in the Web of Life .[ii] Mr. Gore should know that a radical solution is
needed. In his recent sequel to An Inconvenient Truth he complains about the undue
influence of "money in politics" that has gotten so much worse over the last ten years, but
that's as deep as the class analysis and ideological exploration can go in America. He evinces
no awareness of the historical figures who developed answers to the problem of unaccountable
private control of a nation's government, resources and productive capacities. Gore is still
proud of having actively worked against a revolution in human affairs that aimed to curtail the
savage capitalism that led to the present ecological catastrophe.
In spite of the flaws one might see in what the Soviet Union actually became, flaws that
arose to a great extent because it had to fight against external threats throughout its
existence, the goals of the revolution of 1917 are still relevant to the crises of the 21st
century, and this is what makes Sean Gervasi's research so valuable now, after a quarter
century in which America doubled down on its "winning ways" and worsened the crises that were
evident long ago in 1992.
About Sean Gervasi
Sean Gervasi (1933-1996) spent the latter part of his career exposing the role of the
United States and Western powers in the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia. He was working on a
book,Balkan Roulette, at the time of his death.
Gervasi was an economist trained at the University of Geneva, Oxford and Cornell. His
political career began when he took a post as an economic adviser in the Kennedy
administration. He resigned in protest after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
After his resignation, Gervasi was never able to get work again in the United States as an
economist, despite his impressive academic credentials. He became a lecturer at the London
School of Economics after leaving Washington. Notwithstanding his great popularity, the school
refused to renew his contract in 1965.
During the 1970s and 1980s he was an adviser to a number of governments in Africa and the
Middle East, helping them navigate the hostile and predatory world of transnational
corporations and megabanks. He also worked for the UN Committee on Apartheid and the UN
Commission on Namibia.
In addition, Gervasi was a journalist, contributing to a wide range of publications, from
the New York Amsterdam News to Le Monde Diplomatique . He was a frequent
commentator on the listener-supported Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York. In 1976, Gervasi
broke the story of how the U.S. government was secretly arming the apartheid regime in South
Africa.
In the late 1980s, Gervasi began to focus on the Cold War and what he called the "full court
press," a basketball term for a highly aggressive "all in" strategy. In an article published in
the Covert Action Information Bulletin in early 1991[iii], when the breakup of the USSR
was imminent, Gervasi showed how the Reagan administration's strategy of economic isolation, a
gargantuan arms buildup with the threat of a nuclear attack, overt funding of internal dissent,
and CIA-directed sabotage had been decisive in bringing down the USSR. Gervasi backed up his
analysis with careful scholarship and documentation.
Gervasi was widely respected as a leading independent figure in the left, but his views were
contrary to the fashionable dogma that attributed the USSR's collapse almost exclusively to
such things as failures of leadership, centralization of the economy, the black market,
Chernobyl, or independence movements, and not to external hostility. These are the subjects
which he addressed in the following lecture given to a small audience in January 1992. The
lecture can still be found on internet video sites, but the thesis of this lecture still
remains marginal and obscure two decades later, even though it is highly pertinent to the Cold
War replay that is underway in the second decade of the 21st century -- one in which Russia
stands accused of turning the tables and doing a comparatively very tame version of the
propaganda war waged on the USSR in the 1980s.
After 1992, Gervasi focused his attention on the breakup of Yugoslavia, which he discovered
was a replay of the strategy used to break up the Soviet Union. He became active in exposing
the role of external powers, particularly the U.S. and German governments, in fomenting the
civil war in the Balkans. His view that the war in Bosnia was sparked by the aggressive
machinations these nations, and not age-old ethnic rivalries, alienated Gervasi from much of
the liberal and progressive movement. Journals to which he had once regularly contributed would
no longer print his articles. He had great difficulty finding a publisher for his book on the
Balkans, but some of his research on this topic can be found in the article "Why Is NATO In
Yugoslavia?"[iv] published by Global Research in 2001.[v]
Dennis Riches, November 2017
***
VIDEO
Scroll down for the full Transcript
https://www.youtube.com/embed/b9_aYcpxClA
Byline of the video:
Propaganda expert reveals details in 1992 of RAND Think Tank plan under Reagan to bring down
USSR, the major socialist challenge to capitalism in crisis, called Operation Full Court Press
when announced at a Reagan limited invitee press conference upon its launch. It involved
targeting mid-level Soviet bureaucrats with publications and Air America broadcasts pointing to
problems they were facing having better outcomes in the US, military provocations when they
were considering their budget in order to spend them into bankruptcy, luring them into
Afghanistan followed by arming the Mujahadeen with surface to air missiles and such; and
fanning flames of ethnic rivalries within the Soviet Union, like by sending publication
equipment to Baltic ethnic groups.
In first 20 minutes Sean prophetically lays out the impending crisis of capitalism that
drives their urgency to stamp out socialist competition. Sean died under mysterious
circumstances in Belgrad where he had set up shop pointing out a PR effort in the US Congress
by Ruder Finn hired by Croats and Kosovo Albanians to start a US war against Yugoslavia for
their secession.
Event January 26, 1992 arranged by Connie Hogarth of WESPAC, Camera: Beth
Lamont
Transcript
(edited by Dennis Riches)
Introduction
I've been speaking in the last year or so about developments in the Soviet Union from the
perspective of a person who follows the workings of the Western intelligence agencies,
something in which I was tutored while I was working at the United Nations, and was on the
receiving end of quite a lot of that activity.
That is an important theme that one needs to look at: the role of the West in developments
which have taken place in the Soviet Union, and it's one that I've been focusing on, but of
course the wider and more important issue is: how shall we understand the meaning of events in
the Soviet Union in the last five, six, ten years? That's really the critical question.
As you know, the developments, particularly the end or collapse of communist rule in the
Soviet Union, and finally the breakup of the Soviet Union itself, have been presented in our
media insistently and incessantly as evidence that socialism or social democracy, or
what-have-you, which we'll discuss, is unworkable. And this, of course, in tandem with the
theme which has been disseminated so energetically by these same people in the last decade,
that capitalism:
a) is more or less the same thing as democracy, and
b) must be seen as the core and triumphant achievement of Western civilization
Hence the thesis that this is the end of history, that we have achieved everything that
there is to achieve, that the present system of institutions in which we live in the West
represents the pinnacle of human capacities, intellectually and organizationally, and is the
best of all possible worlds.
That's the thesis, or those are the twin theses which surround us and which have been, I
think, creating an enormous amount of confusion and consternation because I think people sense
there is something wrong with this idea, and the effort to close off all discussion about
alternatives to, what I would term, our "regime" in the United States today, and possibly in
Western Europe, which is a moving backward from the more enlightened and liberal capitalism,
liberal democracy and capitalism, which evolved after the Second World War in Western Europe
and the United States.
We are today, I think, living in an irrational and savage capitalism of the 19th-century
variety, which for particular reasons, people who have power in this society either have
acceded to or have energetically worked to institute.
Part 1 The Crisis in the United States
The question is whether this great wave of propaganda makes any sense, and so I think we
should examine whether the idea that socialism and alternatives to raw capitalism are
impossible, undesirable, and unworkable. I think we have to look at that in two ways. First of
all, we have to examine our own situation in the United States, historically, and we have to
also, I think, look at what has happened in the Soviet Union because what has happened in the
Soviet Union is really very different from what we are told by the mass media. We have not
merely witnessed a collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. We have seen something really
very different, but it has been systematically misrepresented in the Western media.
There's a great deal of misunderstanding about the kind of society that American democracy
really represents, and that misunderstanding is both historical and contemporary. There is a
tremendous tension which we are all aware of in our society. It is a tension between
egalitarianism and inequality. It is a tension born of the evolution in the in the 16th, 17th
and 18th century in England, and the transfer of a particular kind of society onto American
soil through British political traditions, notwithstanding our rebellion as colonists at the
end of the 18th century. And that is the particular set of institutions known as liberal
democracy. Liberal democracy is a combination of parliamentary government and capitalism, and
liberal democracy inevitably, therefore, contains some very serious tensions because the
progressive development of parliamentary democracy has tended to give greater and greater scope
to the principle of equality in human life and politics. That's why in the course of British
19th century political development there was a progressive expansion of the franchise. And
that's why in the United States there was also an expansion of the franchise. The United States
did not have the same encumbering property qualifications in the beginning, although we did
have property qualifications in the 18th century in the United States, but eventually we had
the full franchise extended to all adults, and we've been redefining adults most recently.
We've dropped the level of political maturity or political enfranchisement to 18 years.
Capitalism, on the contrary, is a system of economic and social institutions based on the
principle of inequality, and there's a rationale for that inequality which also comes from the
18th century, but the idea, essentially, is that it makes sense from the point of view of
efficiency, and indeed equity, given all the considerations that one must take into account, to
have a society based on the unequal distribution of property organized around that institution,
to have an economy based on private property because, in the final analysis, it is most
efficient, and in the long run holds the greatest promise of continuous progress. By the way,
that's an argument that Marx made at a certain point -- that at a certain stage of history a
capitalist society is extremely progressive, that it gathers the technical capacities of
mankind, personkind, and develops them and accumulates and accumulates until it creates
something new, which we won't talk about just now.
But historically and currently in the United States we very strongly sense this tension so
that we go back and forth between periods when we have enormous pressures to give predominance
to the principle of inequality, to pay attention to the rights of property, and periods when
egalitarian tendencies have been very strong. For instance, as in the turn of the century
during the expansive phase of American populism and during the antitrust of the great popular
movements that sought -- not just popular -- but that sought to contain the power of the
cartels and the trusts in the United States. And today we sense that too. We passed the law in
1946 that's called the Employment Act. By the way, it's not called the Full Employment Act. You
have to remember that legislation. And yet we realize that our adherence to the principle of
full employment was tenuous even in the 25 years which followed the Second World War, and
completely spurious today. Why is that? It's because of this tremendous tension between the
realities of power under capitalism and the rather fragile hold which democratic principles and
institutions have on that power.
Let's go back to the Constitution and the Philadelphia Convention. I've been rereading Beard
and I'm very impressed by his grasp of who predominates really in this delicate balance in
liberal democracy between the principles of egalitarianism, the principles of parliamentary
democracy and the enormous concentration of power, which even then was inherent in the
dominance of the institutions of private property. Beard's argument essentially is that in the
final analysis a small group of men, whom he refers to as one-sixth of the adult male
population -- the only people who ratified the Constitution, the participants in the ratifying
conventions who voted positively for the Constitution -- represented one-sixth of the adult
male population. That is to say 8% of the adult population in today's terms. Against our values
that represents 8% of today's population -- the equivalent.
Now, what was obtained in that framing of the Constitution? What was obtained was a system
of political science, a system of government which was so structured as to ensure the dominance
of private property, the power of private property in any contention between the forces of
democracy and the forces of private property, and the forces of inequality, if you like, so
that the structure which constitutes, at the founding of this republic, which constitutes the
framework within which we operate today, is one which ensures that predominance.
I know that Beard has been attacked by many people, and it's perfectly understandable when
you read Beard carefully, but it seems to me that today Beard becomes more illuminating. Why? I
say I pay attention to the Constitution, to the Philadelphia Convention, to its ratification,
to the numbers who ratified it and to the purposes which they saw themselves as furthering by
their framing and ratification of this constitution because that is the framework within which
the United States experienced the most successful and untrammeled Industrial Revolution in the
history of mankind. Untrammeled. We had a straight run of industrialization which was the first
to transform the condition of man in human society, by which I mean something very, very
specific. And here I speak to things which were said by people like [ John Maynard] Keynes , by people like [
Joseph Alois] Schumpeter ,
but really ignored because they're extremely uncomfortable.
The rationalization for inequality in the institution of private property, in the thinking
of eighteenth century philosophers, was that property had to be shared unequally and income had
to be unequal because this inequality provided incentives which would constitute a constant
assurance of the drive to the expansion of production. That was the rationalization, but in the
20th century, according to the economic historians and according to people like Keynes,
countries like the United States and Great Britain began to end, began to transform the
historical situation within which these institutions were conceived. How? By developing such a
capacity to produce that gradually more and more numbers were lifted out of anything which
could be historically or comparatively called poverty so that scarcity, which dominates the
reasoning of economists, was really beginning to end in many respects. And Joseph Schumpeter
was able to say, for instance, in 1928, that if economic growth continued in the United States
for another 50 years we would see in 1978 the end of anything that could reasonably be called
poverty.
Now that didn't quite happen. That didn't quite happen because of the enormous influence of
inequality in the distribution of this productive abundance. But what it did transform was the
lives of many, many people, and it transformed everyday life and the historical condition. Look
between 1870 and 1970 at how the number of hours that the average American works falls. In the
period between 1945 and 1970, per capita production trebled, just in that period, and we
already had a huge industrial base at that time, so I would argue [agree], with Galbraith, who
-- because he was right was vilified and ignored by the economist profession and studiously
made little of by the mass media -- that indeed America began to be transformed with the
success of its enormous industrial revolution by the end of the period after 1865, when really
heavy industrialization began to take place. And indeed I would argue that the reason for the
Great Depression was that the United States had lost the ability to continue to absorb
everything that it could produce in an adequate way, given the institutions of the time.
So what happened then was that within this framework, which is the same framework conceived
by the James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. To further the purposes of property and to insure
against what Madison called "the leveling attacks of democracy," we have industrialization
enhance the expansion of an enormous power, which is the power that controls the machinery and
the resources of that productive system. That is to say large corporations. The largest 500
corporations in the United States today, plus the largest 500 banks and the largest 50
financial corporations control more resources than the Soviet planners ever dreamed of
controlling. The control of those resources, which is made invisible by the clever workings of
economists, inheres in the ability to make investment decisions. Investment decisions are the
key decisions in any economic system. The power to make those decisions is the power to
continuously transform and to determine the terms of everyday life among human beings in any
society. That power is not only invisible in our system of thought, carefully hidden by the
descendants of the 18th century philosophers, but it is also totally unaccountable.
Now maybe you could say, and we did say this between 1945 and 1975:
"OK this is a contradiction of democracy. This is the inheritance from the Philadelphia
Convention, the Constitution in its ratification and the dominance of this one-sixth of the
male adult population in 1789, but this system is so productive that we can alleviate the
resulting social and political tensions by raising the standard of living of ordinary
folks."
And that was the whole philosophy of the sophisticated American leadership in the first
generation after the Second World War. That was the philosophy of the Rockefellers when they
talked about the new enlightened capitalism of 20th century. Capitalism could deliver the goods
and hence people would be content, despite the fact that the realities of power born at the end
of the 18th century, and essentially enhanced by the enormous accumulation of power represented
by industrialization and the growth of large corporations and their concentrated power in the
economy. We could live with that because the United States economy was so productive.
Now, that's our history, and the tremendous tension of our situation today as contrasted
with the post-war period because one thing is very clear today: that for 20 years in the United
States this system has not been working. There has been a systematic retreat from full
employment, high wages, advancing standards of living, security in one's job, and the advance
of the welfare state. We have systematically been retreating from those things so that we have
higher and higher official and real unemployment, which of course is about double the official
unemployment -- and the statisticians work very hard to hide the realities of
life.
Sean Gervasi
Between 1977 and 1992, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 70% of American
families have seen their after-tax income fall. 70%! In the lower ranges of the income
distribution those falls are quite sharp. Purchasing power falls by twenty 20.8% for the
poorest fifth, by something like 12% for the next fifth, by something like 11% for the third
fifth, and by smaller amounts for those in the middle of the income distribution system. So I
would say that that represents, and people are increasingly becoming aware of it, a collapse of
the American standard of living. And this collapse of the American standard of living is
related to a gradual economic decline which is causing the post-war system, as we have known it
in the United States between 1945 and 1970, to begin to disintegrate. And I think this is the
reality of what is happening so that today even according to Wall Street forecasters like the
Levies, attached to Bard
College up here in the county, we are facing what they call a contained depression, which
may be worse than the kind of depression we saw in the 1930s because the stabilizing role of
the government makes it possible not to avoid some of the awful horrors that occurred in
the depression, but to diminish them to a degree which makes them almost invisible.
So we have a very tense situation. I ask you to reflect on that when we confront the
enormous economic difficulties from which there follow all kinds of social problems in our
society today which we face. These are connected to, and, if you like, made possible by the
arrangements conceived by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton . If this crisis which we have
been living in for 20 years, and have become more acutely aware of in the last 10, is
intractable, it is, above all, intractable because of this invisible concentrated power which
exists today after industrial growth -- the rise of the large corporations in the framework
conceived by Madison, Hamilton and the other Federalists.
So if you want to argue today that we need to reconsider this framework, you run into very
fundamental problems. You run into the problem that the Constitution is treated like an icon,
that people are unaware that the preamble to the Declaration of Independence is not the law of
the United States, that people are unaware of the fact that the Bill of Rights, which is
supposed to compensate for some of the failings of our constitutional system, has been
systematically shredded by the two most recent administrations. Witness William Kunstler and
his remarkable talks on what has happened to the Bill of Rights in the last ten years.
Part 2 The Crisis in the Soviet Union
Now, let's get to the Soviet Union, keeping in mind always that it is against this
background of crisis and the intractability of crisis, and it's rooting in the historical
origins of the Constitution that we are asked, that we are invited -- without anybody saying
that that's the background -- that we are invited to ponder the proposition that there is no
alternative to the kind of capitalism that we have, and that this capitalism is the
quintessence of democracy.
Now let us look at that proposition against a second set of data, if you like, which is
supposed to prove the case that there was socialism in the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union
then, along with its Eastern European partners, collapsed in chaos owing to the essential
unworkability of this kind of a system. Let's look at that.
When the Reagan administration came into office we all became aware rather quickly that
something new was happening. We should have known that something new was happening because, in
fact, the arrival of the Reagan administration in power had been preceded by a very careful
build-up which was, in part, visible in the American polity, and that was the emergence of the
development and the elaboration of the power of a group which we now call the new right --
people who 20 years ago, 28 years ago in 1964, after Goldwater lost the Republican National
Convention. Rockefeller took command of the party that had been relegated to what every major
political commentator at the time called the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. These were
the people who, particularly in California, were coming out of the walls in the late 1970s,
creating foundations, buying chairs of economics at universities. Look at it: the Coors ,
the
Mises , with all of their contacts. These were the people who were building a new group,
and the purpose of this group was to put a stop to the kind of systematic democratic
entrenchment which they thought had been going on in the 1960s and the 1970s.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, there were three movements: (1) the movement for workers'
rights, for unionization, the expansion of unionization, particularly among city employees and
for raising wages, and the tremendous industrial disruption that attended the 1960s and the
early 1970s in the industrial sector, (2) the civil rights movement, which preceded that,
beginning in the late 1950s, and (3) the movement against the war in Vietnam, the war in
Vietnam being one of the ways in which this society managed to utilize, in a profitable
fashion, its enormous productive capacity without giving it to ordinary folks, without giving
its fruits to ordinary folks.
The new right was determined to do something quite new. One of the new things that it did,
and Reagan really was not its spokesman because that implies a degree of activity which I think
he's incapable of. You can always program a spokesman. I don't think he had the wheels to do
that.
Reagan launched, as you know, a massive, serious, intense, ugly confrontation with the
Soviet Union, ideologically. At the same time we became aware that there was a significant
drive on to re-arm the United States, to throw enormous resources -- ultimately it was in
excess of 1.7 trillion dollars during the 1980s -- to throw enormous resources into the
military sector, to throw enormous resources into shifting the technology of the military
sector to war in space, SDI [Space Defense Initiative], etc. All of those things were on the
agenda, but many of us at the time puzzled about this. I remember asking myself, "What is it
with these folks? Do these fellows really want a world war? Can they not see that this can be
the outcome?"
And I remember those discussions, and I remember when many of you and I on June 12, 1982
were at the demonstration of 750,000 to 1 million people in the center of New York City, which
was an expression of the alarm that people felt at this enormous aggressive policy which was
coming out of the Reagan administration, which threatened to shred US-Soviet relations.
But in fact, retrospectively, we can see that there was something else behind it, that it
was not just irrational madness. There was a bit of that, but there was a rationality to what
was being done, and in fact, to understand that, it's important to see that it is connected to
every single major line of innovative policy that the Reagan administration developed. It was
extremely well thought-out, extremely shrewd. And [it involved] the military buildup and the
aggressive rhetoric towards the Soviet Union, the deliberate effort to create difficulties in
the relationships between the Soviet Union and the European powers. You remember that in 1982
the United States tried to force the European powers not to accept natural gas from the Soviet
Union, to deny shipments of technology to the Soviet Union which would make it possible for the
Soviet Union to exploit that natural gas, to earn foreign exchange, etc. It was all part of a
very complex strategy, but it was a very clear strategy.
Let me say, though, that many of us, at least I at the time, missed that. We didn't quite
comprehend what was going on, but we had in the back our mind flickers that something was
wrong. There were people who were saying or hinting clearly at what was happening, and shrewd
people, intelligent people who did begin to grasp what was happening.
Let me quote from one or two. Writing in 1982, Joe Fromm , who was then the editor of the
United States' US News and World Report , said,
"There was something behind," I'm quoting him, "the shift to a harder line in foreign
policy." The US, in fact, seemed to be "waging limited economic warfare against Russia to
force the Soviets to reform their political system." That suggests that's a nice journalist,
a reasonably liberal journalist at US News and World Report , but Joe then quoted a
State Department official saying (actually, a National Security Council official), "The
Soviet Union is in deep, deep economic and financial trouble. By squeezing wherever we can,
our purpose is to induce the Soviets to reform their system. I think we will see results over
the next several years." That's in 1982.
Robert Scheer wrote a book in 1982 called With Enough Shovels: Reagan and Bush and
Nuclear War . I think I've got the title almost right. This is a very interesting book in
which Scheer saw that there was something behind this enormously aggressive foreign policy,
foreign and military policy, that the Reagan administration was deploying. And he saw that the
United States was not simply playing nuclear chicken with the Soviet Union, as he put it, but
that it was embarked on a policy designed to create such pressure for the Soviet Union as to
force changes within the Soviet Union.
Now of course it had always been the case that the Cold War consisted of moves designed to
affect the behavior of others. The Cold War, from the point of view of the West, had always
aimed at modifying, as the State Department cookie pushers liked to put it in their delicate
prose, the behavior of our antagonist. But this, I think you will see, went beyond that
because, in fact, the Reagan administration embarked on a policy of many dimensions which
included pressure around the world on countries with close ties to the Soviet Union.
Insurgencies were initiated in Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia against Vietnam, Nicaragua, and,
quite a lot, Afghanistan.
I don't want to get into too many complicated discussions of Afghanistan, but I think
anybody who reflects upon the United States' response to the Soviet entry into Afghanistan in
1979 must realize that the United States did not want the Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan,
and in fact the purpose of these insurgencies around the world, which as you know, had expended
billions of dollars, was to pin the Soviet Union down, and to inflict economic costs upon the
Soviet Union. The purpose of the remilitarization in the West was to force the Soviet Union, at
the risk of exposing itself to the pressure of escalation, to meet our resource commitments, to
defend itself, or to place itself in a position to resist our pressure.
The purpose of escalating the technology of nuclear warfare, again, was to impose costs upon
the Soviet Union. [This was ] the purpose of every principled measure, such as withholding
advanced technology from the Soviet Union, foreign assistance programs aimed not at assisting
countries on the basis of their needs, but on assisting countries on the basis of the
contribution they would make to putting pressure on the Soviet Union. All of these things were
part of a systematic strategy designed to create havoc in the Soviet Union.
Now I'll say a little bit more about what the purpose of that was, but first let me point
out that this is a systematic strategy consisting of a number of pieces, and that it did pose
enormous economic and other costs upon the Soviet Union.
But who is Gervasi [the speaker] to say that this is so, beyond quoting Joseph Fromm? Well,
let me tell you a little bit about an interesting experience I had. I had lunch one day with a
friend who was passing through the United States, who had been in jail in South Africa for
eight years, and had just got out. He had been engaged in planning one of the principal
sabotage operations against the South African nuclear installations, and he was very happy to
be out of jail. We sat at lunch and he said to me -- we talked about many things, mostly about
Africa which he and I had worked on together -- and he said to me,
"What's going on in the Soviet Union?" I said to him, "Well, you know, I really can't
figure this out. I can't figure out what's going on." He said, "It seems to me that the
Soviet Union is being destabilized." "My goodness," I say to myself quietly.
The thought had never passed my mind, but when my friend, Christie, said this I thought I
should look into this, and I did.
The first thing I found was I spent a little bit of time on a computer and some things came
up, and I said that looks very interesting. Within a very short time I had discovered reams of
material being generated at the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s by organizations like
the RAND Corporation. You know what the RAND Corporation is. It's an Air Force/CIA contracting
agency in Southern California, very large, very powerful, very influential in the so-called
intellectual defense community, the military industrial complex, and in Washington. People go
back and forth from the CIA, from the DIA to the State Department to the RAND Corporation. And
what were the chaps at the RAND Corporation doing? Well, they were producing very interesting
studies with titles like Economic Factors Affecting Soviet Foreign and Defense Policy :
A Summary Outline , The Costs of the Soviet Empire , Sitting on Bayonets: the
Soviet Defense Burden and Moscow's Economic Dilemma: The Burden of Soviet Defense ,
Exploiting Fault Lines in the Soviet Empire: Economic Relations with the USSR .
Anyway, I started reading the stuff. First of all, I started collecting it and I started
reading this stuff, and I found out something very interesting: that these fellows at the end
of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s were clearly fashioning a plan in which we began to
see the pieces of in the emerging parts of foreign and military policy, foreign and military
and economic policy under the Reagan administration. And the basic reasoning of this plan --
I'll give it to you -- is as follows: the Soviet Union was in a dual crisis. They knew what was
going on in Soviet Union. Economic growth in the Soviet Union had begun to slow down. It had
been very rapid, by the way, in the period from 1950 to the early 1970s. Between 1960 and 1984
per capita income and per capita production in the Soviet Union trebled, so it wasn't slow.
That was a 4 or 5% rate of growth, very rapid considering that we're growing at about 1.5
which, is about, by the way, equivalent to the rate of growth on average during the decade of
the 1930s in the United States.
Now, what I found out was that they also understood there was a leadership crisis in the
Soviet Union. The old line of principal Soviet leaders born in the early stages of Soviet
redevelopment after the Revolution, formed in the Second World War -- that leadership was dying
out, as we all knew. And in fact Mikhail Gorbachev , selected by Andrei Gromyko , was the first
representative of a new generation of Soviet leaders, but in the late 70s and early 80s, people
were dying. The major figures Andropov, Chernenko and Brezhnev, were dying, and there was a
very great confusion about succession. So the country was in a kind of crisis. The CIA calls it
a dual crisis, a leadership crisis, not knowing to which new people of a new generation the
leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Union should pass, and at the same time
a beginning of faltering of economic growth, which was serious because since the Soviet Union
had to always, like any country, choose between investing, competing in the arms race, and
raising the standard of living of its population. The fact that economic growth fell off made
that more difficult.
Now the next step in the reasoning of the RAND Corporation, gentlemen and ladies from the
RAND Corporation, was that the United States and its allies could take various actions which
would force the Soviet Union to increase its defense spending and its military assistance to
allies and friends. They could take measures to deny the Soviet Union credits, which they did,
and to deny it technology. They could also take measures which would reduce the overall volume
of resources available to the Soviet Union and hold back the growth of productivity, which
would exacerbate the problem, or force them to shift resources from consumers to investment.
And [they knew] that all of these effects would (to quote them) "aggravate the difficulties
confronting the Soviet leadership in a stagnant economy. So, a combination of these measures to
impose costs on the Soviet Union could be expected to lead to falling investment and/or living
standards, and such measures consequently might generate pressures within the Soviet Union for
withdrawing from the world stage, and for political reform."
So the purpose of this operation, which I will try to define more clearly in a moment, was
to impose, in a variety of ways, enormous costs on the Soviet Union, or to reduce the resources
available to them in such a way as to exacerbate their economic difficulties. Let me quote from
Abraham Becker , one of the shrewder Rand analysts:
Thus the Reagan administration seized Soviet economic troubles as an opportunity to
complicate further their resource allocation difficulties dilemma, in the hope that
additional pressures would result in a reallocation of resources away from defense, or would
push the economy in the directions of economic and political reform.
The purpose of this new aggressive multi-dimensional strategy was to force reform upon the
Soviet Union. What that reform was to be is a later chapter. Now, it's one thing to say that
these plans exist, and I'll talk about other plans. For instance, I managed to pull together a
collection of documents from the National Endowment for Democracy, which as you know, is
supposed to be a quasi-government institution. It's not a quasi-government institution. It's
funded by Congress. It's a government institution funded by Congress, which sees it to be its
business to "promote democracy outside the United States" in the rest of the world, where by
"democracy" one means essentially, and when you come down to it it's clear now in the Soviet
Union, "capitalism" and "liberal democracy," if you like [the latter term].
Now, it's one thing of course to talk about all this planning, to try on your own to reason
that all of these things fit together, but in fact we began to get official indications and
documentation, as early as the spring of 1982, that the government had signed on to this
strategy, that this was not the wild thinking of a few eager folks in a few think tanks, that
it was policy and that it was policy which the American public knew very little of, did not
understand the purposes and consequences of, but would nonetheless be required to pay for to
the tune of several trillion dollars, which did indeed help to create the situation in which we
presently find ourselves at home, locked in the Philadelphia Convention.
In the spring of 1982 I had spoken to two of the participants in this little meeting. A
senior National Security Council official charged with responsibility for Soviet affairs called
a number of influential Washington correspondents and asked them to come to the National
Security Council for a briefing. Two of them told me that they left this briefing extremely
shaken. They didn't want to say too much about it, but they gave me to understand that they
thought that this was an extremely aggressive, dangerous, and highly risky strategy which the
administration was describing and stating that it was about to embark upon.
Helen Thomas of UPI was one of the people who was in that meeting, and she described the
results of the briefing -- this briefing on the Soviet Union -- in the following manner:
A senior White House official said Reagan has approved an eight-page National Security
document that undertakes a campaign aimed at internal reform in the Soviet Union and the
shrinkage of the Soviet empire. He affirmed that it could be called a full-court press
against the Soviet Union.[vi]
A little later, just a few days later, in fact, further evidence, this time quoting official
documentation, not hearsay from a briefer at the National Security Council, but quoting
official documentation: Richard Halloran, the defense correspondent of The New York
Times published an article in that paper on May the 30th of 1982, just a few days really
after Helen Thomas sent out her UPI dispatch. Halloran quoted from the fiscal years 1984-1988
Defense Guidance, of which The Times stated that it had a copy.[vii] The Secretary's
Guidance Document recommended what Halloran called "a major escalation in the nuclear arms
race." Apart from that it indicated that a number of other measures were being taken "to impose
costs on the Soviet Union." Note the language is the language of the RAND planners. Some of the
same people probably wrote the document. I quote from Halloran's direct quote from the National
Guidance document of the Secretary of Defense:
"As a peacetime complement to military strategy, the Guidance Document asserts that the
United States and its allies should, in effect, declare economic and technical war on the
Soviet Union."
This is interesting. "And so I think," it went on. They wrote,
"to put as much pressure as possible on the Soviet economy already burdened with military
expenditure, they should develop weapons that are difficult for the Soviets to counter,
impose disproportionate costs, open up new areas of major military competition, and
obsolesce," (Nice English. I've put sic in my article) "precious Soviet
investments."
So I think it's safe to say, and a number of people prove it to us a little later on, that
this policy was instituted. Let me just race ahead to one of the more recent proofs. David
Ignatius , who is a correspondent at The Washington Post, published a very remarkable
article about "spyless coups" not long ago, in October, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps it was
September. Ignatius is a correspondent with very close ties to the intelligence community, to
be very polite about it. I quote from his article: "Preparing the ground " This is immediately
after the Yeltsin double event of August 1991 in which Mr. Gorbachev was seemingly threatened
by a coup and in which Mr. Yeltsin did not seem to take power but did. He described the event
in this way:
Preparing the ground for last month's triumph was a network of overt operatives who,
during the last ten years, have quietly been changing the rules of international politics.
They have been doing in public what the CIA used to do in private, providing money and moral
support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist
rule.[viii]
Could he have written that in The Washington Post in 1982? It's difficult, I would
have thought. It might not have passed muster. Some people might have noticed, but in 1991,
evidently, it was all right to say that this is what we were doing.[ix]
If you look very carefully you can find many traces by officials stating that the United
States had embarked upon a strategy which, retrospectively, it is very clear, was nothing more
and nothing less than a strategy to destabilize the Soviet Union. Mr. Casey's magnificent and
expansive imagination had carried covert operations beyond the narrow confines of Third World
countries and aimed them at the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. If you go back and look at the
history of these events in this perspective, reading some of the documents, you'll see things
very differently
Judd Clark [name indistinct, spelling uncertain], for instance, speaking at a private
seminar at Georgetown University, again around 1982, said,
"We must force our principle adversary, the Soviet Union, to bear the brunt of its
economic shortcomings."
Well, that's slightly veiled language that means the same sort of thing that everybody else
was saying. It wasn't, though, until 1985, that the redoubtable and incomparable Jeane
Kirkpatrick appeared on the stage with the full text of the play in hand, and she gave a
speech, not surprisingly in front of the Heritage Foundation, at a conference room on Capitol
Hill in which she said, "The Reagan doctrine, as I understand it, is about our relations with
the Soviet Union," and she then described every principal element of the strategy which Helen
Thomas in 1982 called, repeating the NSC briefer's statement, "a full-court press against the
Soviet Union."
If you read her speech to the Heritage Foundation, which everybody should read because it
was 1985, she was saying that the United States is bent upon a strategy aimed at overthrowing
the Soviet Union through internal and external pressures. She principally described the
external pressure.
I want to say a little bit about the debate over the internal pressure. Again, in 1982,
there was a nasty little debate between some members of Congress and the then-Secretary of
State General Alexander Haig . Mr. Haig was very anxious that the United States should embark
upon the program which Ronald Reagan was going to describe before the British Parliament in
June 1982, at just about the time most of us were going to be in the streets of New York to
protest some of the things that he was doing. And Hague said in the debate over the creation of
the National Endowment for Democracy, which the Congress had insisted should not spill over
into efforts to meddle in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, Mr. Haig said,
"Just as the Soviet Union gives active support to Marxist-Leninist forces in the West and
the [Global] South " [ironic commentary:] (because it owns Newsweek , for instance and
it manipulates the Columbia Broadcasting Company such enormous power the Soviet Union has in
the West) " we must give vigorous support to democratic forces wherever they are located,
including countries which are now communist. We should not hesitate to promote our own
values, knowing that the freedom and dignity of man are the ideals that motivate the quest
for social justice. A free press, free trade unions, free political parties, freedom to
travel, and freedom to create are the ingredients of the democratic revolution of the future,
not the status quo of a failed past."
The founder of the Central Intelligence Agency said that propaganda is the first arrow of
battle. A statement by Alexander Haig in 1982 to the Congress signals what the United States
would attempt to do with the National Endowment for Democracy, that it would try to create and
participate in the creation of [a false narrative of ] a failed past in the Soviet Union. And,
in fact, as you know, all that went ahead.
Now, let's look at that for a second. I know that it's very difficult to believe this. I ask
you to look at the second of the articles which I read, or to search for what I've written. You
can read it and search for some of the documentation easily available. You will find that the
mission statement of the National Endowment for Democracy, which functions as a kind of
consortium bringing many of the pressures of the US government to bear inside the Soviet
Union.
Destabilization requires external pressure and a manipulation of the internal situation to
move political developments in the direction you desire. That's what targeting a country for
destabilization involves. We deprive Cuba of sugar, of medicines etc. and that creates internal
pressure, and utilizing the internal pressure, you insert yourself, create groups, diffuse
ideas which are inconsistent with those prevailing and suitable to power, and you begin to work
on that discontent. If the discontent deepens and spreads, you get better and better odds, and
because the Soviet Union was already in a kind of crisis, which, as Abraham Becker said,
"the United States then systematically sought to intensify and exacerbate."
The National Endowment for Democracy and literally dozens and dozens of pseudo-private
foundations, which I'll talk about in a second, went into the Soviet Union under the new
umbrella of glasnost, created academic presses, created newspapers, created radio stations, and
began to mobilize and to work upon the natural dissent and discontent that existed in the
Soviet Union, not only because of the historical past but also because of the difficulties of
the present as exacerbated by the United States and its Western partners.
If you look at how much money I'll just give you an idea of some of the projects that were
involved, and this is just one agency. You have to recognize that if this was going on in the
National Endowment for Democracy that there were many, many other channels of finance and
influence into the Soviet Union that were working on this.
For instance, in 1984 the NED gave $50,000 to a book exhibit in the Soviet Union: America
through American Eyes. At the book fair in 1985 (I mean I'm just selecting [a few]):
$70,000 via the Free Trade Union Institute, which is part of the National Endowment, to
Soviet Labor Review for research in publications on Soviet trade union and worker
rights.
In 1986, $84,000 to Freedom House to expand the operations of two Russian language journals
published in the US and distributed in the higher levels of the Soviet bureaucracy and
intelligentsia, already an arresting description. Imagine the Soviet Union publishing two
English-language journals in the Soviet Union during the 1980s and having them distributed and
eagerly read in the highest levels of the United States bureaucracy and intelligentsia. I don't
think that would have stuck very well in the United States.
In 1987, Freedom House, for the Athenaeum Press, rushed $55,000 for a Russian-language
publication house in Paris to publish unofficial research conducted in the USSR by established
scholars writing under pseudonyms. Now what does that mean? If you get down to 1989, we're
talking already in the $200,000 category.
For instance, the Center for Democracy, which is related to the National Endowment for
Democracy, began to create a center for assistance to independent and nationalist groups,
including the Crimean Tatar movement for human and national rights. In other words, they began
to finance ethnic and nationalist separatism, began to finance separate trade unions, began to
finance their own academics etc., except this is open, but it's very large-scale, very
large-scale.
I've done a little calculation and I can tell you that very large amounts of money were
being spent, probably on the order of, by all the Western allies, minimum, inside the Soviet
Union in the period from the mid to the late 1980s, one hundred million dollars a year -- a
hundred million dollars a year to finance organizations which might begin like WESPAC but would
then grow, develop, have outreach, which would become extraordinary with that kind of funding,
and did finally change things.
If you look at perestroika in the Soviet Union, [we know it started when] Mr. Gorbachev
became the Soviet leader. This is the background to the two stages in which we must understand
perestroika. In the first stage it was clear that the Soviet leadership was desperate to find a
way to renew socialism, that Mr. Gorbachev was bent upon the reformation of the notion of
socialism, and that he had widespread support inside the Soviet Union.
There were genuine economic improvements which took place between 1986 and, sort of, let's
say, the end of 1988, in the Soviet Union, as a result of those efforts, but the principal
question we have to ask ourselves, since today we confront a fragmented, or, if you like,
disassembled Soviet Union, the supremacy of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and Mr. Yeltsin --
who represents an extremely right-wing constituency at the present moment -- and the supremacy
of capitalism. And a capitalist society is now being created in the Soviet Union, ending Mr.
Gorbachev's experiment the crucial question to ask ourselves is a very simple one: how is it
that between 1985 and 1990 a movement which began as an attempt to transform and renew
socialism in the Soviet Union was supplanted by a right-wing movement aiming at the creation of
a capitalist society in the Soviet Union? That is the key question. That is the key question
because that's what's happened, and it's strange.
That's why many of us were puzzled about the contradictory evidence coming out of the
Khrushchev [ sic ? Brezhnev?] era. It was very difficult to understand. At first, it
seemed very positive, and then from the end of 1988, the fall of 1988, it became increasingly
clear that things were going to pieces, that Mr. Gorbachev was either not able to control the
forces which he had unleashed or that indeed he was bent upon creating, as I heard on the
French radio in 1988 for the first time stated very clearly -- it arrested my attention: the
purpose, said Mr. [name indistinct], on the radio in his not-bad French, was to create a
regulated market economy. That was the purpose of perestroika, not when it began, but somehow
something had happened.
In fact there's a lot of very interesting information out there now on the whole process.
There was clearly a large dissatisfied set of strata in the Soviet intelligentsia. What has
happened in the Soviet Union is more complex than the collapse through its own internal
contradictions of the system of socialism in the Soviet Union. I really don't want to talk very
much about whether the Soviet Union was a socialist society. There are people who say it was
and people who say it wasn't. It's a long discussion between Trotsky and Stalin etc., but for
my part I would say this: that the Soviet Union began as a genuine attempt to establish
socialism. There were always in the Soviet Union people genuinely seeking to further socialism,
and people who didn't give a damn. On balance, the thing we have to ask ourselves is whether
the existence of the Soviet Union, as an apparently perceived socialist society, was a positive
thing in the world equation at this particular time of history. I, on balance, having spent
years in the United Nations, seeing that under the attacks of the Western countries, which in
many cases were very ugly, most of the Third World countries which emerged in the late 1950s
and 60s and early 70s were really only barely saved by the few sources of support which they
got in the socialist world. And when the Soviet Union went down, they went down too; [for
example] Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua.
So in many respects I would have thought that the Soviet Union, for all its defects, stood
as a positive development in history, with all of the horrors that took place. The United
States has had its horrors. The question is this: did the Soviet Union collapse because
socialism is unworkable and central planning doesn't work? No, it didn't. There was a crisis in
the Soviet Union. I would argue that in the absence of the kind of pressure [that was applied],
it's very difficult to weigh the balance. How important were the internal forces? How important
were the difficulties experienced internally, and how important was the external pressure and
the externally intervening force? How important that balance was is very difficult to get. We
have to read through all a lot of intelligence to understand that, to begin to get a grasp of
things, but that's our duty as people who are living history, or who seek to understand
history. We have to try to do that, and my basic conclusion still at this moment is this: the
Soviet Union today, in the absence of this extraordinarily crafty, well-thought-out, extremely
costly strategy deployed by the Reagan administration, would be a society struggling through
great difficulties. It would still be a socialist society, at least of the kind that it was. It
would be far from perfect, but it would still be there, and I think, therefore, that Western
intervention made a crucial difference in this situation. That's a judgment.
Conclusion
All right. Now, there is a question irrespective of that: what does it mean that the Soviet
Union now has disappeared as a result of the kind of process that I'm talking about, a
combination of internal difficulties and external pressure and intervention? Does it mean that
socialism doesn't work? Does it mean that [there is no alternative to] the kind of capitalism
that we live in today, which I think increasingly of as a return to irrational and savage 19th
century capitalism? If you walk through the Bronx and Brooklyn and Harlem, how can you not
conclude that we are living in an irrational and savage capitalism in which the leveling
attacks of democracy have been dealt with, in which the possibility of remedying that situation
by the constitutional means which exist in the normal political channels of our government are
very small, that electoral changes, in other words, are not going to be very significant, until
there's a mass mobilization of American people to make something happen.
If this is so, then the fact that what has happened in the Soviet Union has happened as it
happened has no bearing whatsoever on our problems, and we should not be confused or pushed
into consternation by it. Why? Primarily, for a very simple reason: The Soviet Union was
conceived at a time when, in Marxist terms, it was not ready. The Soviet Union did not have the
material base of abundance which would make it possible to create a society at once egalitarian
and democratic because the struggle to create that base would require a degree of repression
and authoritarianism, particularly heightened by external intervention and attack, which
inevitably would distort the nature of socialism.
I sympathize with Isaac [name indistinct], but I think it's too simple when he says
socialism in a backward country is backwards socialism. But the critical fact for us is this:
the Soviet Union was a society conceived as a socialist society prior to the creation of the
economic base which would permit the creation of a socialist society with ease. We live in a
society whose capacity to produce, whose potential abundance is so great that the inability to
make use of it is literally tearing this society apart.
We live in a society which is ready, and when I say that, I want to go back to the terms of
the discussion on the constitutional conventions. Well, why can't we have economic democracy?
What does economic democracy mean? Economic democracy inevitably would mean a number of these
things: the accountability of the enormous concentrated power which exists in our society today
to public democratic institutions. The planned rational use of resources at the public level,
with democratic participation in the same manner that that planned rational use is conceived
within the framework of the corporations, where the exercise of those decisions is not
accountable. So it seems to me that in our day, when our society is riven by its
contradictions, unable to use its abundance, unable to use its productive capacity in a
rational, humane and democratic manner, that what is on the agenda today is the democratization
of economic power, the rendering accountable of the enormous economic potential and power that
exists in our society to make this a better and decent and democratic world.
Voilà.
End of lecture
Question Period
Well, dear friends, first of all, we have to have this serious debate because the real terms
of the debate are rendered invisible by the absurd rhetoric and the absurd way in which we
speak about ourselves, and by the mass media whose power and determination is to keep the real
terms of the debate invisible. The real terms of the debate are: why is this society
collapsing? Why does this economic machine not work? Who is responsible? If the people who are
responsible are not going to do something about it, let them get the hell out.
Moderator : I know there have got to be lots of questions. We'll allot a certain amount of
time. We'll try to recognize everyone.
Question : You've analyzed this quite well, but what does one do to change [the
situation]?
Well, I think part of the problem I don't mean to be repetitious but I think that people are
clearly immobilized and confused at the moment. I think one of the reasons that people are
immobilized and confused is that the proper debate is not out there. It's not possible for
people to express what they know from their experience to be true, to assert its truth. The
public debate rejects our experience and understanding because the public debate is designed to
contain us, to make us accept and even to believe in the superiority of this situation. I think
people know what needs to be done out there. In a sense the quintessential problem confronting
our country is the enormous concentrated power to shape people's lives, to define discourse, as
[name indistinct] pointed out, which is accountable to no one. The democratization of that
power means, I think, certainly radical changes in the structure of our society, but ones for
which in many respects people are ready and which indeed are supported by most of the values
that this society has lived by historically and attests to.
It seems to me it's really quite simple. We don't have democracy in the sense in which we
normally understand ourselves to have democracy in which people often speak of us as having. We
don't have that. Why do we not have it? Because of this eternal and now much more intensive,
much more intense tension that has existed from the beginning between property and democracy,
between popular majorities as the Federalists called them, disdainingly, and the rights of
property. This now has become an enormous incubus on American society. We have enormous
concentrated power for which nobody is accountable, and this is not acceptable. Roger and Me [the documentary
film] is a reflection of a sensitivity that says, "We've got to talk about this, Roger. You're
responsible for this." So I really think by not knowing these things, not changing the
discourse of our lives, and the discourse in the public arena, coming to agreements amongst one
another by hard work, by hard discussion, how can we know it's true?
And by the way, I don't think this can be done in the absence of action. That is to say, in
a haltingly naive phase of my recent existence, I tried to convince some people in the Congress
that we were headed into a really horrible situation, and they didn't want to know. They
didn't. They don't want to believe what is uncomfortable for them to believe, so my decision
was that you have to go into the trenches, that you have to work on projects that are going to
materialize these ideas, that you have to work against plant closings, that you have to work
for measures that alleviate the social burdens that exist in a city like New York, that you
have to work for things while articulating these ideas because it seems to me it's only in the
combination of action and debate of ideas that people will begin to understand the relevance
and the necessity of a new discussion. You can't have in that sense -- I cede your point -- you
can't have a drawing-room discussion which will prevail.
Certainly the people in the National Endowment for Democracy believe that. They don't just
sit back and spend millions of dollars on printing books and making radio tapes and television
shows. No. They created new political institutions. They then created new political parties,
financing people like Arkady Murashev, the Inter-Regional Group in the Soviet Parliament, until
recently. It doesn't exist anymore. The Inter-Regional Group was the group of pseudo-democrats,
pro-capitalists, speaking, in many respects for the interests represented in the agglomeration
of black market operations in the Soviet Union. Arkady Murashev was systematically cosseted,
financed and trained by an organization in Washington very closely tied to certain agencies
whose names we don't want to pronounce in the present circumstances. Murashev was a liaison man
between Washington and Yeltsin. The National Endowment for Democracy gave $40,000 just for the
faxes, and the printing machines and the telephones in the Initiatives Foundation, which was
the organization that the Inter-Regional Group used to put out its messages, get itself
organized, make contacts, etc. The United States was financing that operation. Arkady Murashev
is now the chief of police of the city of Moscow.
This is heavy stuff. I mean, really, it's incredibly dramatic, but we mustn't go on in this
vein because there are questions to be answered.
Question : Does every country have to go through this period of savage capitalism to become
socialist?
No. I don't believe that. No.
Question: Bush seemed to like Gorbachev. Was Gorbachev foolish? Was he taken for a ride?
These are the great mysteries. There are, as you know, there are a different views. There
are different theories about that. One of them is that Gorbachev was a mole, that Gorbachev was
a deep-cover or Western intelligence agent. I believe that's exaggerated. I believe that's off
the wall, but I do believe that there's an element here that's important to understand.
There was in the Soviet Union, as a result of the very success of the industrialization of
the Soviet Union, an enormous alienated set of strata amongst the educated population because
the Soviet elite absorbed people at a very small rate. It didn't reach out to large numbers of
people. They were educating enormous numbers of people, professional scientific workers,
managers, and these people were mostly urban people. They were the fruit, in many respects, of
industrialization. At the same time, being urban people, they found themselves trapped in the
most difficult conditions in the Soviet Union because in its industrialization the Soviet Union
really ignored a lot of problems. Theyfound themselves, in many respects, in a similar
situation as the United States, where the decay of urban areas, the lack of equipment, the lack
of infrastructure, the lack of adequate facilities for health or education etc. became a real
problem. They didn't have the resources to industrialize, to raise the standard of living in
the really poor republics of the Soviet Union, and to deal with the urban problem, as we call
it in the United States.
So these people were imagine all educated people earning this education and looking upon
themselves as deserving of the advantages and prerogatives of their Western counterparts,
living in the equivalent of New York City, but earning the wages of a skilled worker. They
didn't like it. They felt shut out. They were angry, and it's those people that the neoliberals
were recruiting, not just the American neoliberals but their own neoliberals. There were
neoliberals in the Soviet Union. There were reactionary people in the Soviet Union this [name
indistinct] operation out in Siberia, the so-called sociological think tank. There are people
who, I don't know why Perhaps when you become very isolated from the world and separated from
reality you conjure up the most amazing dreams in your mind. I think Marx called it idealism.
In any case, these people were very much Western idealists and they came, frankly, into Moscow
and Leningrad fervent believers in the need to embrace Western institutions because of their
frustration, because of their understanding of their own past. Whether it was distorted or not,
it's not for me to say. It's because of the way they viewed and felt about their past, because
of their own personal frustration, because of the problems which were very real that they
experienced by the Soviet leadership, by the Soviet economy and society. They were alienated,
and that's where there was recruitment. When economic growth slowed down it made it much worse,
and it spread the basis of recruitment very effectively.
There is a collection of essays which I think is quite remarkable and valuable, which gives
you some background about the incredible contradictions in the Soviet Union, and how the Soviet
Union, in fact, more than a decade and even two decades ago, was in fact being prepared for
what is happening. It was ripening for some big bull shaking the tree, which is eventually what
happened. That's the collection that The Monthly Review has published recently, After
the Fall, something like that. After the Fall of the Soviet Union is really a very
valuable collection of essays on the Soviet Union, or whatever it is after communism. Very
useful stuff.
Question : Could you talk about Third World countries?
That's a really hard question. I've worked in Third World countries which were socialist
countries and which were under attack. I worked in Mozambique in the beginning of the 1980s
when the South African-Western-CIA operations were really beginning to [take a toll], and
people were dying by the tens of thousands because the roads had been cut, and the supplies had
been cut, and the health stations blown up, and I think that it was very hard for them to
survive that. Socialism proved very frail in Mozambique, even though the leaders of the
revolution had been born in armed struggle, formed by armed struggle, were dedicated to armed
struggle, but the society just couldn't withstand that kind of pressure.
In some ways I think that's true of the Soviet Union. There was a war in the shadows waged
against the Soviet Union on a massive scale, and what these events prove is the Soviet Union
was insufficiently strong to stand up to those pressures, and I think this is all the more true
in the Third World. I don't know, but I don't want to say that I know the answer, whether they
should try to make that jump or not. I think that will depend on what happens in the Western
world. I don't see any reason why the jump couldn't be made if the West, Western Europe and the
United States, in particular North America saw [supported] significant transformation of the
present system of power. Then it's not a problem, but with this massive opposition coming from
the West, it's very difficult to survive.
Question (apparently edited from video recording): __________________
These same people today, and we're talking about within a few months, within the end of the
year there being not 50,000 but between six and eight million unemployed people in Russia, 130
million people, labor force of 65 or 70 million, and I saw this same thing happening in East
Germany.
I was very briefly in Humboldt University in 1989 or 1990, I can't remember which now. The
whole situation was in upheaval, and I saw many intellectuals genuinely enraged by the
arrogance of the Honecker regime, and at the same time, unfortunately, completely unaware of
what would happen if that regime went down, taking everything, "really existing socialism,"
with it. And my question would be, OK, it's a question. You know the old version of this
question used to be what about Stalin, but it's a little different now.
My problem is this: let's look at it in human terms, OK? Just forget ideology. What has
happened as a result of the materialization of the dreams of the so-called reformers and
democrats in the Soviet Union? What has happened is what has happened in Poland, and worse:
that the standard of living of ordinary people is going to collapse, that old people will be
destitute, that children will be without health care, that the transportation system is
collapsing, that there will be no food distribution by spring, that people will starve, that
there is continuous ethnic conflict. Now, the Soviet system of prices and of raw material
supplies were such that enormous quantities that the supply system worked in a way which led to
the waste of vast quantities of raw materials and semi-finished products. I mean vast
quantities.
So the idea was to go in to work at the enterprise level to create incentives to create
better accounting, a system of prices which would reflect the real value of these raw materials
and not the fact that they could be replaced anytime you wanted because all you have to do is
put an order in. It didn't matter what you did with them. It [the reform] was focused on the
enterprise, on profit incentives, and this loosening of the tight bonds on the enterprise,
really did lead to a recrudescence of output. For instance, between 1986 and 88 there was a 17%
increase in housing production in the Soviet Union. There was a 30% increase in overall
production. The production, the economy, accelerated in the period 1986-88. In those three
years the economy accelerated, but as I said, there were two stages of perestroika. There was a
stage of perestroika where the effects were quite beneficial, where it was clear that
perestroika and glasnost were aiming to energize and develop andfree and move forward the
Soviet Union.
As a friend of mine said, the only way to ensure the social development of the Soviet Union
is to undertake these reforms, but there was another stage, a second stage beginning in late
1988 to, obviously, the end of 1991, where the forces that were unleashed utilized the reform
program to destroy socialism, clearly to destroy socialism, and Mr. Gorbachev was either
helpless before that or a willing apprentice of that process. I could not pretend to pronounce
which of those was the case. It's very difficult to say.
On the other hand, I really don't know how anybody in his right mind could have conceived of
the notion that the way forward for the Soviet Union -- and this was the quintessential
statement of perestroika by the principle Soviet leaders in the mid-1980s -- the way for the
Soviet Union was to integrate the Soviet Union into the world economy. I mean to an economist
with any degree of sophistication and critical approach, that is sheer unadulterated madness.
It's like saying that the North American free trade agreement will lead to real economic
development in Mexico. It's absurd. I mean we know what those processes are. How can a much
weaker, less industrialized Soviet Union hope to stand up against the economic forces arrayed
against it and capable of penetrating it, once it declares its intention to integrate itself
into the world economy? When I heard that, I said, "It's all over, boys. These people don't
know that they're doing," and indeed, listening to Soviet economists as I did when I was still
teaching in Paris, and meeting with some of these people, until 1989, I got the impression of
two things: they had not the least actual understanding of what was going on in the West, and
that their theoretical conceptions were taken out of a handbook by Voltaire making fun of the
French aristocracy.
Transcript produced by Youtube "auto-caption" speech recognition software, corrected and
edited by blog author, Dennis Riches.
Notes
[i] Davis Guggenheim (Director), Al Gore (Writer), "An Inconvenient Truth," Paramount
Classics , 2006.
[ii] Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life (Verso, 2015), 267-268. "What is
really needed is proper planning of available resources globally, plus a drive, through public
investment, to develop new technologies that could work and, of course, a shift out of fossil
fuels into renewables. Also, it is not just a problem of carbon and other gas emissions, but of
cleaning up the environment, which is already damaged. All these tasks require public control
and ownership of the energy and transport industries and public investment in the environment
for the public good."
The reference appears to be to this article. The dates 1984-1988 may appear to be an error
because the report referred to was written in 1982. However, the Defense Guidelines were
focused on plans for the future, fiscal years of 1984-1988.
[ix] As we know from the perspective of 2017, the normalization of such interventions
continued shamelessly, going from a bad habit to a deranged addiction. The political
establishment in America now resorts to economic warfare, violence and military intervention as
the solutions for every problem in international relations.
All images, except the featured, in this article are from the author.
Max is one of the greatest journalists of our time ! Thank You , but take care because
their are many that are threatened by truth and integrity ! RESPECT !
The msm is full of CIA swamp lobbyist liars. Max is just objectively reporting
substantiated data points that counter lies that are meant to sell taxpayers war.
Perestroika put the final nails in the USSR's economy One of the first main policies
Gorbachev adopted was Perestroika – reform of the economy. Hoarding and reciprocal
favours (blat) had been a means of survival in the Soviet Union, thieving to 'moonlight' was
also common and this cost the regime a lot. The 'command-administrative' system had become
obsolete in the Post-Industrial era and was curtailing economic development 1. To solve this,
Gorbachev wanted to give enterprise managers control over contracts and introduce aspects of
the market economy, to make it managers' responsibility to gain contracts and to make sure the
enterprise makes a profit. However, in practice the way the enterprises operated remained
unchanged except in terms – ministries rephrased their commands as contracts 2. Private
enterprise was also permitted, which seemed to contradict Gorbachev's claim to be committed to
Marxist-Leninist thought which was vehemently opposed to capitalism which Marxist's argue
exploit the proleteriat – so to actually create a class of capitalists who (according to
Marxist doctrine) would exploit the workers who were supposed to be living in socialist –
i.e. 'classless society' seemed contradictory to the very ideological concept the regime's
power was based upon. A small amount of private enterprise emerged, but the profiteering was
very much resented by the general population – goods and services were sold for four or
five times their subsidized price due to shortages. Another aspect of Perestroika was entry
into the market economy – many of the social benefits given by the enterprises had to be
done away with, as they could not make a profit and afford to maintain the benefits, resulting
in a stagnant economy occuring simultaneously with a collapsing social welfare system.
Gorbachev's reforms did not work and only succeeded in hastening the economic collapse that was
inevitable.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Glasnost facilitated Opposition to Concentrate against the Regime Allowing freedom of
thought from the 'mono-ideological controls' that existed for decades and allowing pluralist
thought and leadership meant a weakening of power for the Communist Party – it had to
convert into a proper parliamentary party to survive. Furthermore, in a regime based on
oppression and propaganda, when these are removed and freedom of speech and freedom of the
media are introduced, nasty elements about the system in the past are going to be revealed, and
when there is 70 years of repression being reported all at once, it is inevitable there will be
extreme hostility toward those responsible – the Party 1, this especially fuelled the
anger of the nationalities who had been oppressed and triggered a nationalist movement.
The population were dissatisfied with the dire state of affairs and could voice their
discontent openly with glasnost, which led to Gorbachev becoming very unpopular by 1991, in
which year the economy had contracted by 18% 2, people were also very concerned over the
incompetence of the command-administrative system and irresponsibility of the leadership with
regards to the 1986 Chernobyl power station disaster 3.
In a state committed to one ideology, the removal of mono-ideological controls, and the
ability of other ideological persuasions to come to power meant the Party had lost its RIGHT to
govern the people unless the people themselves WANTED the Party to rule. Thus, the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had to win the support of the people in order to govern
effectively. However, in a society that was becoming increasingly liberal and 'bourgeois' (the
USSR was largely middle class, private property was protected and capitalism was legalised),
the people had to believe in socialist ideology – which would have been almost impossible
to achieve.
Gorbachev's reforms themselves undermined some of the principle features of socialist rule
in the USSR, e.g. atheism, mono-ideological control, one-party state, economic monopoly and the
suspendability of law. Gorbachev's ideology itself – his focus on 'all-human values'
instead of the class struggle, the rule of law, international peace and proper parliamentary
representation have more resonance with John Stuart Mill than Karl Marx 4 – Gorbachev was
subconsciously moving the USSR in this ideological direction.
With democratization and pluralist thought permitted, Gorbachev found himself operating
within an increasingly wide political spectrum – with the reformist 'democrats' on one
side and the conservative Communist Party members on the other. There was a constant power
struggle between the two and Gorbachev dealt with this by constantly playing one side against
the other and compromising. One of Gorbachev's critics at the time said this was like trying to
marry a hare to a hedgehog. The two sides were very much irreconcilable and instead of trying
to defeat one side, Gorbachev sat on the fence and as a result his policies were constantly
inconsistent – you cannot mix radical reforms with conservatism 5. The dangers of this
were apparent when Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister at the time, resigned because he warned a
dictatorship was approaching, Gorbachev ignored this threat and dismissed this claim with
overconfidence 6.
1 Kagarlitsky, B. Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: neo-liberal autocracy, London: Pluto
2002
2 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
3 Haynes, M., Russia: Class and Power, 1917-2000, London: Bookmarks 2002
4 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
5 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991
6 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991 No because...
Regional Nationalism and Independence Movements These original flaws in the system were
largely responsible for its own downfall – in particular the nationalities issue –
the decision to maintain the Empire without granting real power to the nationalities whilst
simultaneously repressing them left most of the nationalities feeling bitter when glasnost
revealed the truth about how they had been treated in the past and democratisation gave them
the power to chose representatives who would really represent people's interests (the
nationalist movement) whilst at the same time being given by Gorbachev an appetite for power
– a fatal combination.
The wealthier regions wanted a separation from the USSR because of the feeling they were
being milked from the centre and many other regions wanted to become independent because they
did not want to be part of an economic disaster area which became apparent when the Donbass
miners who had no commitment to nationalism thought their future would be safer if the Ukraine
wasn't part of the USSR 1.
The nationalist movement emerged when freedom of speech, media and association along with
democratisation and the loss of fear of repression allowed people to voice pride in their
nation and resentment at past repressions as well as the ongoing special treatment of Russians
in the Regions, who had access to better housing and other special privileges the locals did
not.
Certain Republics felt nationalism more strongly than others, most notably the Baltic States
who felt a strong cultural attachment to the West and felt they were being unfairly occupied.
Gorbachev's mistake here was to downplay the importance of nationalism and not treat the Baltic
States as a special case 2. After all, most of the population of the USSR wished to preserve
the Union – 76% voted to preserve the Union in March 1991 (except the Baltic States,
Moldova, Georgia and Armenia who did not conduct the referendum) 3. After the failed coup, most
states declared their independence, even if they did so with reluctance, as there was a general
feeling there was no alternative. Gorbachev tried to persuade the Republics not to become fully
independent. However, in early December, the Ukraine held a referendum where the population
voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, even after Gorbachev stated "there can be no
Union without Ukraine", on 8th December, Yeltsin met with the Ukrainian and Bielorussian leader
and declared a formal end to the USSR and the establishment of the Confederation of Independent
States which they invited the other states to join.
There was nothing left Gorbachev could do, democratisation had brought about the means for
independence and Gorbachev didn't feel he could argue with people's wishes carried out through
democratic means and, on 25th December he resigned with regret.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996
3 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996 Yeltsin Factor
Boris Yeltsin emerged as the true hero and strong leader for the fearlessness to condemn the
coup – in a press conference afterwards Yeltsin ordered Gorbachev around undermining his
position, then used his institutional powers derived from democratization to appoint Egor
Gaidar, an economist dedicated to laissez-faire economics, as his Finance Minister and
suspension of the CPSU pending an investigation into the coup. Gorbachev half heartedly argued
against this but it was no use – he was seen as a weaker leader along with discontent
over his policies, whilst Yeltsin's radicalism was keeping pace with developments and his
popularity at an all-time high, Gorbachev's position was also much less weaker without the
Communist Party. Also, the Soviet Union really could not exist without the Communist Party
arguably as they had political and economic monopoly on society and the Communist Party went
from controlling these aspects of society to ceasing to exist, the Soviet Union could not
function and the economy spiralled out of control. Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... August 1991 Coup
Counter Productive, Bringing About What It Sought To Prevent - The End of the Soviet Union
By August 1991 Gorbachev's popularity was at an all-time low both in the Party and outside it.
Despite being advised by some of his staff to sign the Treaty agreement granting the republics
real autonomy before going on holiday and some suspicious circumstances he should have been
more questioning about, he planned on signing the agreement when he returned. This was a big
mistake and allowed the conservatives to stage a coup. The Emergency Committee made no
reference whatsoever to Marxism-Leninism or the class struggle in their speech, meaning it was
a coup in the hope of returning the Soviet Union to 'normal' i.e. an Empire controlled from
Moscow and putting the final nails in the coffin of socialism in the USSR 1.
The failed coup triggered the very thing it sought to prevent – the break-up of the
Soviet Union 2.
1 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... The System Needed to
Change in Order to Survive in the Longer Term; That Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms Failed Showed
that the USSR Could Not be Saved By the Gorbachev era, all hopes of fulfilling the original
Marxist-Leninist dream were gone and most did not feel passionately about communism, even
within the Party. There was a general acknowledgement that the USSR could not continue in the
same way as before – Andropov, Gorbachev's predecessor also realised this and set about
changing society through repressive measures such as harsh labour discipline enforced by
cutting payments from workers for work deemed poor quality and restrictions on the sale of
alcohol and prohibition of alcohol on official occasions was felt overly repressive and for
many – Gorbachev was seen as a positive, energetic leader who would overcome the USSR's
problems in a less repressive manner. With economic stagnation and an economy dependent on the
exportation of natural resources to survive 1, an unsuccessful war (Afghanistan) and an ageing
Party Membership to combat, Gorbachev was the candidate for those who wanted change or at least
realised change could no longer be postponed 2.
Autocracies survive due to repressing their people to the extent that they are not given the
freedoms required to change their government, rather than because the people want them to stay
in power. Mikhail Gorbachev's conscience and sense of responsibility for his population
dictated that the system could no longer be propped up like this, and that the people needed
and deserved the freedoms and basic human rights they had been denied for decades. That the
system could not encorporate such freedoms meant that the system morally should not be allowed
to perpetuate itself, and thus the Soviet Union fell apart because it was unrepresentative and
did not support the population's human rights means the fall of the USSR should be applauded,
not mourned for its' population.
1 Volkogonov, D.A. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: political leaders from Lenin to
Gorbachev, edited and translated by M. Shukman, London: HarperCollins 1998
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... War with Afghanistan
Drained USSR of Patriotic Morale The war in Afghanistan was a key contributing factor to
the breakup of the USSR. Reuveny and Prakash argue that the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to
undermining the Soviet Union in many ways. First, it discredited the Red Army, and impacted
negatively upon the image of the Red Army as a strong, almost invincible force, which gave
nationalist movements in the Republics hope that they might succeed in attaining independence
after all. Second, it impacted upon leadership perception on the usefulness of utilising the
military to keep the union intact and as a force for foreign intervention. Third, it created
new forms of political participation, which had begun to impact upon media reporting even
before glasnost, and began the first calls for glasnost, as it created a number of war
veterans, who went on to form organisations which weakened the total authority of the CPSU
1.
1 Reuveny, Rafael, and Prakash, Aseem, 'The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet
Union', Review of International Studies (1999), 25:693-708 Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... It was dead from the
time Stalin took control Gorbachev finished it off, but Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc.
really killed it. Lenin had nothing to do with that, he was a socialist-marxist, not a
communist. You obviously don't know the difference. Learn it before you blindly yell your
opinion into the dark of the internet.
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
MOSCOW --
Yegor K. Ligachev, once the second-most-powerful man in the Kremlin, on Wednesday called his former
boss and comrade, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a coward and a traitor.
"I met many Communists who spent
decades in labor camps in the permafrost zone but retained their faith in the party," the erstwhile
Politburo hard-liner said. "I fail to understand its general secretary who spent three days in the
best health resort the country has by the warm sea, then called for its dissolution."
Ligachev, as straight-talking and opinionated as ever, met with journalists to present his book
"The Gorbachev Riddle," a personal chronicle of the
perestroika
years he helped to
shape before the Soviet president and party leader gave him the boot in August, 1990.
The book presentation, attended by a standing-room-only audience in the Moscow House of
Journalists, served as a forum for Ligachev, 71, to reiterate his views and credo.
Advertisement
"When life proved me wrong, I did change my perceptions," he said with quiet dignity, "but I never
changed my principles. Unlike Gorbachev, I still adhere to socialism, and I still think this is the
future for my country." The white-haired native of Siberia said his only desire is to reunite the
nation, introduce peace and stability and build a "new, refurbished Soviet Union."
A foe of both Gorbachev and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Ligachev contended that his country
is in danger of becoming a "raw materials supplier and semi-colony" for the capitalist world as the
Russian leadership presses on with its economic reforms.
"The ban on the Communist Party, an organization uniting about 20 million members, cannot but
diminish the chances for a peaceful resolution of the country's current political, economic and social
crisis," Ligachev said, referring to a ban that Yeltsin ordered last Nov. 6.
Few questions during the presentation ceremony concerned Ligachev's 303-page book itself; instead,
many people sought out his view of recent political developments.
The most persistent question put to Ligachev was why none of the former leaders of the Communist Party
had volunteered to defend it at hearings on its record ordered for July by the Constitutional Court of
Russia.
Asserting that it is Gorbachev who is legally obligated to take on this task, Ligachev said
that the party "had been betrayed by its general secretary" and that it is now up to "ordinary
Communists" to defend the party's 73-year record in leading the Soviet Union.
Ligachev, who became a voting, or full, member of the ruling party Politburo in 1985, the same year
Gorbachev came to power, remains the only publicly active figure from the defunct body who voices
support for his old principles.
Others, such as former Vice President Gennady I. Yanayev, are now in prison for their roles in last
August's unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing Gorbachev when he was on vacation at a Crimean beach
resort.
Any left wing leader clinging to power long enough (for EVo Morales it was 12 years) creates
a real opportunities for a color revolution, which would decimate the whole movement. Looks like
at this point Evo Moralis was doomed and the coup was just a matter of time.
Any protests in governments that oppose Washing neoliberal empire are hijacked by Washington and turned into the anti-government
coupe d'état.
Notable quotes:
"... by 2019, Morales had been in office for 12 years, and his popularity had ebbed. As Christine Mathias writes in Dissent, even some on the left, including former indigenous supporters, had begun to question his leadership ..."
"... They raised concerns about Morales's desire to remain in office indefinitely, alleged corruption in his inner circle, his administration's response to recent fires in the Amazon, and especially its extractivist development model. Aymara leader Felipe Quispe presented some of the most damning critiques, describing [Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo] as "neoliberalism with an Indian face." ..."
"... Now, I've seen a lot of mockery directed at the Bolivian court for this decision, which said that barring Morales from running violated his "human rights." It is seen as a transparent power-grab by Morales, and a sign that his rule was undemocratic and illegitimate, because he simply had "cronies" rewrite the law. ..."
"... Article 23. Right to Participate in Government ..."
"... 1. Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and opportunities: ..."
"... a. to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; ..."
"... b. to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters; and ..."
"... c. to have access, under general conditions of equality, to the public service of his country. ..."
"... 2. The law may regulate the exercise of the rights and opportunities referred to in the preceding paragraph only on the basis of age, nationality, residence, language, education, civil and mental capacity, or sentencing by a competent court in criminal proceedings. ..."
"... This is important, because now that Morales has been forced out of power by an illegitimate leader, every effort is being made to paint him as having been illegitimate himself. ..."
"... We know that, as protests escalated after the election, Morales lost the support of members of the Bolivian police and that the military "encouraged him" to resign. Morales fled to Mexico; ..."
"... "We want to be a democratic tool of inclusion and unity," said the 52-year-old religious conservative, sitting at a table bearing a huge open Bible and crucifix. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Several MAS officials have been detained, fled the country or have sought refuge in foreign embassies. Meanwhile, debate has brewed over whether the party, which still enjoys wide support, should even be allowed to exist due to the alleged electoral manipulation. ..."
"... The Journal quotes a Morales critic saying: "MAS is dead We have a saying here: When the dog dies, so do the fleas." ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... she was doing the power grab. ..."
"... But Morales was elected! ..."
"... Order Restored Amid Unrest, Government Says ..."
"... A Dozen Unarmed Protesters Murdered In Cold Blood. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... debate has brewed over whether the party, which still enjoys wide support, should even be allowed to exist due to the alleged electoral manipulation. ..."
In Bolivia, within the course of a month,
one of the most successful contemporary governments to call itself "socialist" has been
replaced by an
unelected right-wing leadership that has killed protesters, promised to restore the rule of
Christianity, and demanded the jailing of former president Evo Morales as a "
terrorist. " What went wrong?
Let us review the most uncontroversial facts of what happened in Bolivia. Evo Morales, the
country's first indigenous leader, had been praised for his sound management of the country's
economy,
which "experienced a spectacular run of economic growth and poverty reduction." Even
harshly critical media assessments mentioned "the
country's growing economy and shrinking inequality," and the New York Times
noted that "tiny, impoverished Bolivia, once a perennial economic basket case, has suddenly
become a different kind of exception -- this time in a good way," as the country became South
America's fastest-growing
economy . As with China, the heavily state-led economic program of Bolivia -- which
included successful
nationalization of certain parts of industry -- threatens free market orthodoxies about the
inevitable catastrophe of socialism and state "intervention in the economy." (According to the
Center for Economic and Policy Research, "the importance of the government's nationalization of
hydrocarbons to Bolivia's economic progress over the past 13 years cannot be
overemphasized.")
But by 2019, Morales had been in office for 12 years, and his popularity had ebbed. As
Christine Mathias writes in Dissent, even some on the left, including former indigenous
supporters, had begun to question
his leadership :
They raised concerns about Morales's desire to remain in office indefinitely, alleged
corruption in his inner circle, his administration's response to recent fires in the Amazon,
and especially its extractivist development model. Aymara leader Felipe Quispe presented some
of the most damning critiques, describing [Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo] as
"neoliberalism with an Indian face."
Morales ran for a fourth term this year. Previously, the new Bolivian constitution that
Morales had introduced imposed term limits. There was a referendum on whether to scrap term
limits in 2016, and Morales lost narrowly. Bolivia's Supreme Court then overturned the results
of the referendum, allowing Morales to run again.
Now, I've seen a lot of mockery directed at the Bolivian court for this decision, which
said that barring Morales from running violated his "human rights." It is seen as a transparent
power-grab by Morales, and a sign that his rule was undemocratic and illegitimate, because he
simply had "cronies" rewrite the law.
A few bits of context are important, though. First, the president actually has less direct
control over the makeup of the Bolivian court than the United States president has over the
composition of our Supreme Court. And second, the ruling was not actually as crazy as it is
being made to sound. The ruling was based on the American
Convention of Human Rights , which Bolivia is a signatory to. The relevant section reads as
follows:
Article 23. Right to Participate in Government
1. Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and opportunities:
a. to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen
representatives;
b. to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which shall be by
universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the
will of the voters; and
c. to have access, under general conditions of equality, to the public service of his
country.
2. The law may regulate the exercise of the rights and opportunities referred to in
the preceding paragraph only on the basis of age, nationality, residence, language,
education, civil and mental capacity, or sentencing by a competent court in criminal
proceedings.
As you can see, every citizen is guaranteed the right to be elected in periodic
elections, and that right can be regulated only on the basis of a number of very
particular grounds. "Having served in office previously" is not one of those grounds. Now, your
instinct here may be to say "Oh, but that's silly , of course term limits are
permitted, it would be ridiculous to say that term limits are a violation of human rights." The
entire argument made by legal textualists like Antonin Scalia, however, is that it doesn't
matter what you might have meant , it matters what the law says. If the
drafters of a law believe that you should be able to restrict people from running for office
based on their previous service in office, they need to put that in the rights convention,
otherwise that exception won't be valid.
I am not saying that I am anti-term limits, or that I share Scalia's theory of
jurisprudence, although it's worth remembering that term limits do prevent people from
choosing the candidate that they might want the most and are a restriction on democracy (after
all, Obama would probably still be president if we adopted the democratic principle that "the
candidate the most people would want to vote for should win the election"). I am saying that
it's not obvious that the Supreme Court was simply mindlessly throwing out the rule of law, and
that the reactions after the Court's decision (some called the decision itself a "coup") was
not justified.
This is important, because now that Morales has been forced out of power by an
illegitimate leader, every effort is being made to paint him as having been illegitimate
himself. (The New York Times , using the language preferred
by the right-wing government , calls him a "strongman.") And if these arguments are
correct, it undermines critics of the anti-Morales coup. After all, if he was an autocrat who
himself had no democratic mandate and disrespected institutions, it was less bad for his
successors to seize power, even if they did so without being elected. The present Bolivian
"leadership" has made a very strong effort to portray themselves as "restoring" a democracy
that Morales had "undermined" (with the new self-declared president saying that "the coup
d'état was by Evo Morales") even as they behave undemocratically themselves, so it's
important to actually scrutinize the facts and remember what happened.
I find Morales' decision to keep running indefinitely to be frustrating, and a sign that he
was relying more on his personality than a political movement, but I do not think that he
disrespected the law any more than Michael Bloomberg did when he had the New York City
Council get rid of term limits. I would not have called Bloomberg an "illegitimate" mayor or a
"dictator," nor would I say that he was not the "real" mayor of New York and could justly be
overthrown by the NYPD. So I think Morales was within his rights to run again, and since his
term has not expired, and he was forced out by threats of violence, he should still be
considered the president of Bolivia.
What of the election itself? American media has reported on the election as if it was
self-evident that Morales stole it or committed election fraud. The central allegations here,
however, do not appear to hold up. Read the analyses from
Kevin Cashman in Jacobin and
Mark Weisbrot in MarketWatch , who both provide careful explanations of how the
Bolivian election actually worked, as opposed to vague innuendos.
She vowed to be a
mere caretaker until new elections could be held, "[telling] reporters that her only aim was to
unite the country and restore it to the path to democracy," and
saying that her mission in office was "to call for clean and transparent elections with all
the qualified political actors as soon as possible." Of course, that word "qualified" should
have been the tip-off from the beginning that Añez would soon unilaterally declare
Morales ineligible to run .
But it was very evident that she was lying about her intentions, which were not to preside
over a "caretaker" government but to re-establish right-wing rule after a decade of successful
socialism. She acted like "
anything but a caretaker ," and has "been putting her own ideological stamp on South
America's poorest nation as she pursues the opposition's long-held dream of undoing nearly
14 years of socialist rule under former president Evo Morales." She "replaced Bolivia's top
military brass, cabinet ministers and the heads of major state-owned companies with appointees
of her own." She immediately moved to reshape the county's foreign policy, reinstall Catholic
rituals, and gave soldiers immunity from prosecutor for murdering protesters. Sure enough,
"within hours, a confrontation between soldiers and Morales supporters near Cochabamba left
nine dead." (It is ironic that Áñez had previously "denied that Morales had been
the victim of a coup," saying "a coup d'etat is when there are soldiers in the streets.")
Añez's government barely pretended to care about equality. She brought a giant Bible
to her swearing-in, and said "the Bible has returned to the government palace." As the press
noted, this was "a pointed attack on Morales, since the constitution he passed in 2009 placed
Christianity on equal footing with indigenous spiritual traditions." Añez's open
Christian supremacist ideology was evident even when she was making half-hearted gestures
toward inclusiveness:
"We want to be a democratic tool of inclusion and unity," said the 52-year-old
religious conservative, sitting at a table bearing a huge open Bible and crucifix.
Añez was not just repudiating Morales, socialism, and secular pluralism, but the
indigeneous population more broadly. She had
previously "published provocative posts on Twitter
mocking Indigenous people's culture, branding their
religious rites 'satanic' and calling Mr. Morales a
'poor Indian. '"
She "quickly set up a transition cabinet with almost no indigenous people, but full of
business elites who oppose Morales." At a public rally by a close Añez ally, a speaker
cried: "We have tied all the demons of the witchery and thrust them into the abyss. Satans, get
out of Bolivia now." As one analyst noted, her government seems to be " thinking
that what Bolivia needs right now is a purge. "
And the purge is underway. The interim interior minister threatened
"to arrest lawmakers loyal to ousted President Evo Morales for alleged acts of subversion and
sedition," even though Morales' MAS party still technically held a legislative majority. He "
announced the creation of a 'special apparatus of the Prosecutor's Office' that will crack
down on elected officials from Morales' Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, which controls
about two-thirds of the legislature," and "said he would be publishing a 'list' of legislators
he claims are guilty of 'subversion' and that those individuals will be blocked from continuing
their duties as representatives and will be subject to arrest starting Monday." He "began by
promising to hunt down Mr. Morales's top former minister, Juan Ramón Quintana, who has
gone into hiding," saying "We're going to go hunting for Juan Ramón Quintana because he
is an animal that feeds on the blood of the people."
Several MAS officials have been detained, fled the country or have sought refuge in
foreign embassies. Meanwhile, debate has brewed over whether the party, which still enjoys
wide support, should even be allowed to exist due to the alleged electoral
manipulation.
The Journal quotes a Morales critic saying: "MAS is dead We have a saying here: When the
dog dies, so do the fleas."
* * * *
Surely, some things are clear here. The new right-wing government is not actually interested
in democracy, but in destroying socialism and indigenous power. They're literally threatening
to "hunt down" socialist legislators. They don't want fair elections. They want elections that
have socialists either excluded from running or intimidated by force. Why is Evo Morales in
Mexico? He's not there because he wants to be in Mexico. He's there because if he had stayed in
Bolivia he might have been jailed as a "terrorist" or killed. I do not know why there is "
debate "
over whether what happened in Bolivia was a "coup." The elected president fled the country at
the direction of the military and has been branded a criminal by an unelected leadership that
has murdered protesters and explicitly vowed to destroy socialism and restore Christian
rule.
Yet now we enter the topsy-turvy world of the U.S. media, whose response to the Bolivian
coup has been a case study in Chomsky and Herman's theory of "manufacturing consent."
The Wall Street Journal , unsurprisingly, has heralded the ousting of Morales as
a victory for
democracy . "No one should shed a tear" for Morales, its editorial board said. Bolivia's
"people have suffered enormously" under Morales, it said, citing no evidence. (Hard to know
what to cite when what the people have suffered from its record
growth and diminishing poverty .) The Journal said that "Bolivian law forbids a
candidate caught in fraud from running again," though it did not cite which Bolivian law allows
unconfirmed allegations to override court precedents. Another editorial, " Morales Made
Bolivia A Narco State ," essentially repeated the word "narco" over and over, emphasizing
that Morales started as the head of the coca grower's union, to convince readers to think of
him as nothing but a drug trafficking dictator. (The editorial had the audacity to center
criticism of Morales around his violations of indigenous people's rights, said the military
"suggested" he step down, and suggested that he simply ran illegally, failing to mention the
court decision that allowed him to participate and the justifications given by the court.)
One expects this stuff from a fascist-sympathizing
Murdoch paper, of course. But the New York Times has been just as bad, full of
sentences like: "Morales's grip on power unraveled after he tried bending electoral rules to
stay in power for a fourth term in October, flouting constitutional term limits he himself had
set." (Again, a Supreme Court decision allowed him to run under the terms of a treaty.) "
How an Unknown Female Senator Came to Replace the Bolivian Strongman Evo Morales " is an
incredible article. It does not quote any socialist legislators, but quotes plenty of figures
from the conservative opposition, including heavy quotation from a "cement magnate." It
discusses the "transition talks," and says that Añez was brought to the capital to
"pre-empt any power grab," without noting that she was doing the power grab. The
article treats the conservatives as pragmatic and patriotic restorers of order who were
concerned with preventing a slide into chaos and wanted to maintain the constitutional order.
"We knew that she was the only constitutional thread we had." Calling Morales a "strongman" is
bad enough. He is a democratically elected president, and the Times did the
opposition's work for it by printing a word that suggested Morales was an illegitimate tyrant.
(Even if you believe this year's elections were fraudulent, Morales' term does not expire until
January!) Perhaps because of public outcry about this use of a loaded, and arguably racist,
term, the Times later stealth-edited "strongman" out of
the headline and replaced it with "president," without offering a correction or
apology.
The Times editorial board published an incredible editorial blaming Morales for
what happened, saying that "the
country's growing economy and shrinking inequality propped him up for years. But its democracy
and its institutions suffered, and that's what brought him down." (The idea of being "propped
up" by a growing economy is funny.) "Predictably," the Times editors said, stodgy old
leftists were denouncing the "coup," but "what brought Mr. Morales down was not his ideology or
foreign meddling, as he claimed, but the arrogance of the
populist , evident in so many other parts of the world -- the claim to be the ultimate
arbiter of the will of the people, entitled to crush any institution that stands in his way."
The Times editorial is an interesting example of how institutions in other countries
are spoken of differently than they would be in our own. It says Morales had the country's
Supreme Court "by now stuffed with his loyalists, rule that limiting his time in office somehow
violated his human rights." Our Supreme Court, of course, is not "stuffed with
loyalists," even though it too is a nakedly
political institution . Of Añez, all it said was that she was "offering to lead the
country to new elections," and that Morales "would do well to call on his backers to clear the
way."
Witness, too, this Times op-ed
, written in sorrow and lament , about how Bolivia offers "lessons on how to
fix semi-democracies," saying that the coup was "a reminder that the process of stopping
semi-democratic leaders is likely to be semi-democratic as well." But Morales was
elected! The op-ed pretends there is no difference between Morales's democratic election
and Añez's seizure of power without an election. "Blaming the coup is to blame the
symptoms and ignore the overall shock on the system caused by the preceding democratic
backsliding . Fixing a semi-democracy will not always follow strict democratic playbooks The
best that can be hoped for is that the military sides with moderate civilians, democratic
norms, and constitutional rule."
Here, we would do well to remind ourselves that anything can be cloaked under euphemisms:
mass murder can be "restoring order," overthrowing an elected government can be "preserving
democratic rule." And the most dangerous political actors are going to have a very strong
incentive to use these kinds of euphemisms, which is why it's important for ordinary people to
be extremely skeptical, and why newspapers shouldn't quote powerful people's words as if they
are facts. ( Order Restored Amid Unrest, Government Says is a headline that could
easily mean A Dozen Unarmed Protesters Murdered In Cold Blood. )
When you are reading about Bolivia in the U.S. press, make sure to ask critical questions:
Whose voices are being quoted here, and whose voices don't I hear? What is taken as being
self-evident that should actually require some proof? How are words being shaded in ways that
could disguise what is actually going on? Is one action being described two different ways when
done by two different people? (When X does it, they're a "strongman" or "caudillo" and when Y
does it they are a "caretaker" or "interim leader.") Propaganda
often looks very reasonable, on the surface, especially to those of us who don't have access to
the facts on the ground. Every word needs to be read carefully to see how our perceptions of
reality are being manipulated.
One interesting thing about propaganda, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, is that you can
often find the truth buried within it. U.S. newspapers often do report all the facts you need
to know in order to understand what is going on, but the analysis and framing buries those
facts. (I've previously
written about how the Holocaust, far from being unknown, was reported in the pages of the
New York Times as something trivial not worth caring about.) You need to notice the
small stuff. For example, when someone is quoted talking about how "when a dog dies, the fleas
do too," that sounds an awful lot like they're probably going to try to destroy the socialist
movement. Amid all the Wall Street Journal 's discussions about whether or not to call
the "transition" a "coup," you will find little sentences like: " debate has brewed over
whether the party, which still enjoys wide support, should even be allowed to exist due to the
alleged electoral manipulation. " Um, there is debate over whether a movement with wide
support should be allowed to exist? Who is "brewing" this debate?
When Añez announced that Morales couldn't run in a new election, Current
Affairspredicted that the next thing
that would happen was a new election which wouldn't be legitimate, but which would quickly be
declared legitimate. Sure enough, MAS legislators are being persecuted and threatened, and Evo
Morales is being told that if he comes back to the country he will be tried as a terrorist.
No election held under these conditions can be legitimate, and it will inevitably be
worse than the "fraud-marred" original election. But when the right wins, they will
declare democracy restored. In fact, fake elections are historically a powerful tool of the
right.
The 1933 German election was
not a real election, because the Nazis' opponents were systematically persecuted and
threatened. But they used it to claim they had a democratic mandate. This is also what happened
in Brazil: The most popular Workers Party candidate, Lula, was barred from running, and cleared
the way for the far-right Jair Bolsonaro to take power.
This is what the Bolivian right needs now: an "election" in which the most popular
opposition candidate is barred from standing, and the majority party is threatened and
intimidated. Then, when the right narrowly wins the election (as Bolsonaro and Hitler did) they
will demand recognition for the "people's will." If you do not notice what is happening, you
need to read some more history! This is a very old story and has been told many times.
"... The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria. ..."
Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S.
missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The
OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of
mass murder.
It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in
cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets
snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder
and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.
The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August
2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their
pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate
evidence to assign blame to Syria.
We have been documenting
these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used
from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:
Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b
linked be read, which can be
found here .
We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the
paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in
all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the
whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends.
Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to
promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the
public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for
too long. It must stop now.
"... In 1979 at one of my public speeches ("How to kill an elephant with a needle"), I was asked what in my opinion was the most vulnerable point in the Soviet system. I replied: the one that is considered the most reliable, namely, the apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, within it - the Central Committee, and within the latter - the General Secretary. ..."
"... The reader should not think that I gave that idea to Cold War strategists. They realized that without me. One of the employees of the Intelligence Service told me that soon they (i.e. forces of the West) would put their man on "the soviet throne". ..."
"... What distinguishes this Cold War operation is that the method of "killing an elephant with a needle" was applied against a less powerful, yet mighty opponent, to obviate the possibility of a "hot war" becoming dangerous to the point where the advantages of the West could disappear, as happened in the war of Germany versus the Soviet Union in 1941-1945. ..."
"... The method in question made it possible to avoid risk and losses, save time and win by proxy. The method invented by the weak to fight stronger opponents was adopted by the most powerful forces on the planet in their war for domination over the entire human race. ..."
More than anyone else, he was responsible for handing the US and UK their greatest strategic victory ever
Alexander Zinoviev
Tue,
|
1300 words
8,718
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MORE:
History
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
RI
continues
with
a series of articles about the life and works of the brilliant postwar Russian philosopher, author, and
dissident, Alexander Zinoviev.
This time, his famous essay on how the West destroyed the USSR is introduced by his widow Olga, chairwoman
of the Zinoviev Club at Rossiya Sevodnya, a major Russian news agency.
How
different US-Russia relations were back then...
Zinoviev often said that judging from
Gorbachev's behavior, one cannot exclude the possibility that he was working for the West, but that at the end of
the day, it didn't really matter, because what he did served the West's interests exactly.
lllustrations are by Zinoviev himself, provided to
RI
by his family.
Translated from
Russian
especially
for
RI
by Sergei Malygin
Introduction
Before you, dear readers, you have one of the
seven chapters
of Zinoviev's famous essay 'How to Kill an Elephant With a Needle', written in 2005, a year
before the author's death.
The material for it derived from recollections of the numerous meetings Alexander Zinoviev had with
representatives of the West's political elite who were responsible for the formation of policy with respect to the
USSR.
1016196444.jpg
Olga Zinovieva - an active voice in
contemporary Russia
The idea underlying little episodes, including historical examples, is as elementary and limpid as spring
water: how to work out the weak spot of the enemy, adversary, scoundrel or opponent, irrespective of their
number and armaments, both literally and metaphorically.
With graphic clarity, as if it were a lesson, he provides a whole series of examples, beginning with his
own example involving a compass but then using classical examples from history, such as the episode with Francisco
Pizarro, the conquistador conqueror of Mexico, who demonstrated extraordinary quick-wittedness in his detection of
the adversary's weak spot (the Indians).
Astonished by the attack of a handful of Pizarro's warriors on their leader, whom they regarded as a god
and who in their conception was invulnerable and untouchable, the Indians capitulated without a fight. "Pizarro",
wrote Alexander Zinoviev, "had divined the enemy army's weak spot, its Achilles heel".
In this essay he writes about how the Soviet Union's weak spot turned out to be the top echelons of the
leadership.
Zinoviev was often called a dissident, but he never thought of himself as such. He was a critic of the
Soviet system, but he was not its enemy.
In his later years he often repeated that, if he had known what a dreadful fate awaited the USSR, he would
not have written a single critical book or article about it.
Olga Zinovieva
How to kill an elephant with a needle
I was exiled to the West in 1978, when the thirty-year course of the Cold War hit a radical turning point.
Cold War leaders have studied Soviet society since the beginning. The new science of Sovietology has been
developed employing thousands of experts and involving hundreds of research centers.
Within it, a separate branch of Kremlinology has appeared. It pedantically studied the structure of the
Soviet State, the party apparatus, the central party apparatus, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, the Politburo and employees of the government apparatus individually.
But for a long time (perhaps until the end of the 1970s) the main focus was on the ideological and
psychological manipulation of the general population, the creation of pro-Western masses of Soviet citizens who
in actuality would play the role of the West's "fifth column" and (intentionally or unintentionally) working on
the ideological and moral disintegration of the Soviet population (not to mention other functions). Thus the
dissident movement was created.
In short, the main work was carried out through the destruction of Soviet society "from below". Important
achievements had been made that became factors in the future counterrevolution. But they were not significant
enough to bring the Soviet society to its collapse.
By the end of the 1970s, the Western Cold War leaders understood that. They realized that the government
system formed the basis of Soviet communism and the party apparatus was at its core. Having thoroughly studied
the party apparatus, the nature of relations between its members, their psychology and qualifications,
selection methods and its other characteristics, Cold War leaders concluded that Soviet society could be
destroyed only from the top, by destroying its system of government.
To destroy the latter it was necessary and sufficient to destroy the party apparatus, starting from its top
level - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. So they shifted their main efforts in
that direction.
They found the most vulnerable place in the Soviet social structure. It was not difficult for me to guess
this shift, because I had an opportunity to observe and study that hidden part of the Cold War.
In 1979 at one of my public speeches ("How to kill an elephant with a needle"), I was asked what in my
opinion was the most vulnerable point in the Soviet system. I replied: the one that is considered the most
reliable, namely, the apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, within it - the Central Committee,
and within the latter - the General Secretary.
To Homeric laughter in the audience, I said that "if you put your man in that position he will ruin the
party apparatus, thus starting a chain reaction resulting in the breakdown of the entire government system and
administration. The consequence will be the breakdown of the entire society". I referred to the precedent of
Pizarro.
The reader should not think that I gave that idea to Cold War strategists. They realized that without me.
One of the employees of the Intelligence Service told me that soon they (i.e. forces of the West) would put
their man on "the soviet throne".
At that time I did not believe that was possible. I spoke hypothetically of the General Secretary as the
West's "needle". But Western strategists already considered that to be a realistic proposition. They developed
a plan for winning the war: take the supreme power in the Soviet Union under their control by promoting "their"
man to the position of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, force him to destroy the CPSU apparatus, implement an overhaul ("perestroika") that would start a chain
reaction and consequent breakdown of the entire Soviet society.
Such a plan was realistic then because the crisis at the top level of Soviet power was already evident, due
to the senescence of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Soon "their" man in the role of the Western "needle" appeared (if he was not "prepared" in advance).
Admittedly, the plan worked well.
What distinguishes this Cold War operation is that the method of "killing an elephant with a needle" was
applied against a less powerful, yet mighty opponent, to obviate the possibility of a "hot war" becoming
dangerous to the point where the advantages of the West could disappear, as happened in the war of Germany
versus the Soviet Union in 1941-1945.
The method in question made it possible to avoid risk and losses, save time and win by proxy. The method
invented by the weak to fight stronger opponents was adopted by the most powerful forces on the planet in their
war for domination over the entire human race.
You put it pretty well. I also think that Gorby wasn't a conscious traitor, but he
was not capable to handle the necessary tasks for the reform of the USSR. He botched
it badly.
Yeltsin, on the other hand, was exactly that: a traitor. And he proved
it time and again.
Did not notice that about Pizarro, Kortez conquered Mexico.
Gorby was not fit and did not have what it takes to be Central Secretary and
he had no idea about how power is used. In times of restructuring and reforms
power cannot be diffused and undermined which is what he did, but must be
concentrated. Making quite a few heads roll would cause the rest to fall in
line including Yeltsin, who was a typical opportunist who smelt weakness and
rot at the top and used it.
Note that after Lenin death and until, Stalin by brutal measures concentrated
power in his hands, there was a lot of talk but little deeds. Just like in US
Congress. Same happened under Gorby, everybody started talking, then everybody
started smearing face with feces and glorifying the West until they undermined
any chance for positive change. What should have been done is to make heads
indeed roll at the top especially in Central Asia and Caucasus republics where
corruption was running amok and local intelligencia born by USSR own efforts
started thinking too much of themselves. Then when everybody would see there
is the Boss in Kremlin, things could have been started to move .
In China Deng had to deal with Hua Guo Feng and others before he started
reforms after concentrating power in own hands.
Gorby, well, was not cut for the role. Every few months new ideas, busy body
and not very straight talker. He was too soft and lacked abilities to be
leader of such a country and had none in his surrounding to shore his
deficiencies up.
He did , but me think not enough. also, it is not exactly the way
it used to be. I think Putin knew what he was doing. Unlike Gorby
who had all of the power in his hands and could do things we are
talking about, Putin had to maneuver. His position was not
unassailable when he came to power and much later. He had to be
more of a fox. He is also not a cruel man, like Stalin was.
It wouldn't be impossible, even today there are some questionable characters in very
high Kremlin positions, and if any of them manage come to power they will undermine
Russia's interests as has happened in the not so distant past.
I agree that in the
case of Gorby he was more of a fool than a Western agent. The Westerners knew how to
charm, flatter and entertain him and he was only too willing to please them and lap
up their manipulation and false promises.
It would be impossible. They do not and did not understand how things work in
Russia and they almost always are wrong. Gorby stupidity was all the required,
Yeltsin was a dark horse and Coup leaders should have studied more of Lenin
how to make coups.
With Gorby no cunning was necessary. The guy was plain sucker and not fit for
the office. Looks like he got picked for 2 qualities. Youth and good health
and having no enemies.
In those years we had new General secretary every
year.
I am so sad that the great Soviet Union for which so many many millions
of brave and honest people gave everything they had and their life in
the end got ripped apart due to this corrupted idiot. Furthermore I am
surprised beyond any belief that no one from KGB or Soviet Army arranged
for this fool to get smoked when they saw what was about to commence.
Today it is still the biggest mystery to me. I am aware that USSR had
some problems but those were truly nothing compared to what Russia and
all the other post Soviet countries faced after USSR got destroyed by
that cock sucker. 300 000 000 people more or less got their future
crippled and robbed because of 1 ( one ) western puppy. I just still
today cannot believe that happened. Looks like of course he had some KGB
staff on his payroll but in the end I just cannot believe that no one
took him to Siberia and burried him over there on time.
What is even
more sad is that today this idiot is prancing freely across Russia even
after almost everyone today sees that because of him they got Yeltsin
and his mobsters that stole their future.
I do admire Russian people and respect them for everything they wnt
through their past but some things are just not logical for a 12 year
old child and definitely not for a nation that gave the most chess
masters and champions to the world.
I would definitely like your comment on this if you are a citizen of
ex USSR.
lets look at it a different way ... Who was Gorbachev not Working FOR !
-
Gorbachev Was not Working For the USSR, Gorbachev Was not working for the People of the
USSR ...
-
now it is easier to see who Gorbachev the Traitor was Working For / and Where Gorbachev
Loyalties Were !
Mihail Sergeyevitch is a Russian
patriot, just as good as many more millions of Russians are! But Mihail Sergeyevitch
fallen for the pretence of honesty, so skilfully played by the west, as he presupposed the
existence of GENTLEMEN being in power in the west! ...and he wasn't the only one of the
Russian politicians, ...Dimitry Anatolyevitch fallen for the same, ...when the agreed for
a no-fly zone to be established over Libya!
There are NO gentlemen in western politics! ZIPPO, ZILCH, NADA! There are O N L Y
BASTARDS, one worse then the next!
i think gorbachev can in a sense be called traitorious to the RUSSIAN nation --
whether it was under the USSR or not...
but precisely because he allowed himself
to be ''open'' in ways that the west needed for the leadership to be open -- at the
exact time when russia at the core of the USSR NEEDED someone to REFUSE to be
''open'' in exactly the way the USA wanted -- in order to get rid of the
'perception' of a 'failing, geriatric ussr" - and thus , be ''welcomed" by the
''world" which to gorbachev WAS the west...
to the nearly complete ignoring of THE MAJORITY of other nations (such as we see
PUTIN achieve differently) -
he became the instrument of what was to follow -- yeltsin and the collapse of not
just the USSR -- but RUSSIA'S governance itself
which further opened russia to the pillaging through the oligarchic collaborators
with their western masters...
i think GORBACHEV LOVES RUSSIA -- i really do -- i think he is as russia in his
soul and heart as can be...
but he was simply
WRONG in his putting FAITH and confidence, just as BORIS correctly argues,
in having GENTLEMEN AS COUNTERPARTS from the west. -- reagan the ACTOR?
excuse me -- THAT IS ALL that gorbacheV should HAVE KEPT IN MIND. to know that
the USA was and IS NOT A ''partner"
as the russians, including putin -- like to say out of POLITENESS.
he should have realized that the WEST ARE NOT -- nd never have been 'THE LEAGUE
OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN"
but EXTRAORDINARILY DECEITFUL plunderers and pillagers.
AND it has been like that since the beginning of the USA - TODAY -- and WILL
continue to be so.
it is in its DNA
just as TRUE compassion -- faith, ethics, morality, a sense of TRUE justice and
brotherhood of all humanity
IS IN THE DNA Of the RUSSIAN SOUL.
in other words -- the MISTAKE of gorbachev -- and yeltsin -- who were RIVALS --
was to believe or WISH to believe THAT THE AMERICANS and west --
were and are EQUALS AS PEOPLE GUIDED BY ETHICS ABOVE politics, economics,
personal glory, even nationality --
tht the west -- reagan etc -- were actually MEN OF HONOR.
THAT WAS HIS -- and ANY russian leaderships; GREATEST mistake.
perhaps gorbachev did not HAVE to 'work for the CIA" -- AND THE author is
probably correct -- he didn'/t HAVE to - DIRECTLY \\\
it was enough that gorbachev suffered from ''infatuation" with the west....
and so -- whatever HIS intentions or beliefs were -- his ACTS -- in themselves
BECAME acts of treason to his great country and people.
for what he did was -- to try to present THEM -- IN HIS ''glasnost and perestroika"
some of the 'freedom of the west" -- that the russian people REALLY did NOT need
-- but could have a freedom of THEIR very own
INDEPENDENT of ''copying or emulating" the west...
because IN RUSSIA AND AMONG the russian people
was ALL THE STRENGTH of their own freedom and choice and prosperity they WOULD
EVER NEED!
Hearing on U.S. Security Strategy Post-9/11
Testimony before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
November 6, 2007
(
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/...
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage:
Well, indeed. I think we probably didn't get off to the
right foot in the Cold War. But, you know, we did apply smart power.
And let me give you an example -- I was being facetious about the
Chou En-lai French Revolution comment. But one of the advisers to
Gorbachev was a fellow by the name of Yakovlev -- he's the fellow who
came up with the term perestroika.
He actually, back in the bad days of the Cold War, when we were
tightly constraining the number of Soviet citizens who might come here,
he actually studied at Columbia. And he studied under a professor who
taught him about pluralism.
And Yakovlev went back to the then-Soviet Union with an idea that pluralism could work.
And 20 years later, he was the adviser. So it took a while to realize that investment,
but we realized that investment.
I called this out as a real possibility 2 years ago! I actually think that Gorbachev was
just a naive fool and the real CIA agent was his top adviser, Yakovlev. Here is what I
wrote back then:
". . . after extensive research by the Prole Center research team, it
has come to light that Alexander Yakovlev, Gorbachev's chief advisor on glasnost
and perestroika, was very likely a CIA penetration agent – an agent of influence. He could
have been either a witting or unwitting asset of U.S. intelligence."
This information was included as part of a brief book review I did. Here is the link to
the full article:
I still cannot believe how many naive people live today in Russia. There are STILL plenty
of people who believe that gorbachev was just a "clumsy" person in charge of the "task too
big to handle".
I would like to remind you that even after 2 "sudden" deaths of Soviet
leaders ( Andropov and Chernenko ) before this traitor USSR was just in a period of
economic stagnation and certainly not a deep recession. Several independent prominent
western economists have also collaborated that.
What happened is just so obvious to me that it really cannot get any simpler.
Gorbachev was a very weak minded person who even wasnt a true believer in Soviet
principles and even less so even less capable manager and organizer. He was a bureaucrat
whos wife was terminally ill and who was just a simpleton who allowed himself to be
seduced by the western propaganda and few full stores even though he obviously knew
nothing of the background principles of how world economy functioned even then.
Apparently he was way out of his league when meeting with Reagan who was a smart brave
and a cunning man I do have to admit that.
Gorbachev did what he only knew he could do. He betrayed the 70 years or hard work of
Soviet people and building of different world because he thought that world will admire
this moron and traitor if he arranges the collapse of USSR and the "end of the Cold War".
Of course there is another side of this coin.
What the actually did was "below the table" arrangement with the US that he would be
able to send his wife to a treatment abroad if he made the USSR disappear and that he
would be obviously well compensated for this evil deed. Even today he is being funded by
the western government through his "charity funds" Green Cross and Gorbachev foundation.
This guy made the dissolution of USSR on purpose make no mistake about it. It was
organized to make it seem as it happened "accidentally" and as a part of "democratic
process" so less question would be asked. Apparently even that idiotic strategy worked
which seems rather incredible for a country that provided so many smart people and was a
leading chess nation for decades. Even Albania would be skeptical about it.
Of course there is a silver lining to this. He could not do this all by himself. He had
powerful friends in KGB and army who helped him in his deeds. Why? Because they were
greedy people who lost faith in CP. With the help of these people Gorbachev introduced
extremely vile version of capitalism to the 300 000 000 people while he and his "comrades"
extracted currency reserves from the sabotaged USSR and hid them in western banks and off
shore companies.
To corroborate my point I will point out few facts:
1. only when gorbachev came to power Chernobyl catastrophe happened
2. he is the person who sent top Soviet military commanders AND THEIR WHOLE FAMILIES to
move from East Germany to the PLAINS of Ukraine and live like dogs for months until their
poor quality appartements were finished while being given nothing in exchange from Helmut
Kohl but a "Danke schon". No sane 6 year old would do that and certainly not a reasonable
and intelligent but honest Soviet leader.
3. He was the person who forced the Energia rocket with Polyus payload to be rushed beyond
all reason and that is what caused its demised and failure to put first ever weapon system
into orbit.
4. He allowed for the Berlin wall to fall like a brick overnight and did nothing to stop
that
5. He DIRECTLY NEGLECTED results of referendum of Soviet people in 1991. who with 72% of
votes wanted to preserve USSR
6. He arranged for NATO not to move eastward ORALLY WITHOUT ANY KIND OF
AGREEMENT!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??! WHO DOES THIS!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?
BUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
7. He himself made the USSR formally and willingly the thing of past in the end of 1991.
No one sane can believe that USSR dissolved itself in the time when there was no war
had a stable economy and strong army. This guy did it with the help of corrupt highly
positioned KGB and military personnel and of course CIA who helped them to transfer 50 000
000 000 US dollars ( 1991. value ) out of USSR for their own benefit.
To conclude: Gorbachev is a person of poor intellect, no love for Soviet or Russian
principles or state, but also a very sane traitor of USSR and Russia as well and also a
member of masonic clan who sold it for his personal interest. Just because he was playing
dumb doesnt mean he is not the biggest criminal in Soviet history. Make no mistake about
it. Even the dumbest person in Russia cannot believe that all this factors fell in place
"like chips". The probability for that is exactly 0 ( zero ).
Oh come on, this is not news. This was pretty evident. Initially he was not cooperating
with CIA. But CIA offered him something he couldn't resists. Nobel peace price, enormous
wealth, safe passage to US etc. Health care etc.
Wasn't Gorbachev from Russia's frontier lands (sometimes called Ukraine)? Not only that,
but from a place which joined the Nazis in their atrocities? I've also heard he took big
US money to step down. Bad source on that one though.
I disagree with this. Gorbachev had the right intentions. He just didn't bank on the
treachery of the wests big biz and various vested interests. Both Gorby and Reagan were
both honorable in their intentions and they did achieve much. To me it was Yeltsin who did
the utmost damage to Russia making it look like a 3rd world anarchic country as he allowed
Oligarchs to strip the countries assets.
It's difficult for me to believe that Gorbachev was simply a naive fool. Anyone
educated in Marxist theory know about the predatory nature of
capitalism/imperialism. Anyone, particularly a Soviet politician, who'd been
observing the behavior of the US after WW2 should have known that the Yanks are
masters of treachery.
This same words could be written by Gorbachov ' if he had known what a dreadful fate
awaited the USSR, he would not have written a single critical book or article about it." ,
I think Alexander Zinoviev also worked and even work for the CIA after his dead publishing
his books.
To me, Gorbachev is no traitor. He is a Russian patriot who honestly wanted to improve
Soviet Communism and adapt it to his time. Was he naïve? Yes, very much so. After all, he
started the stones rolling and should have known what could happen if other people got
their hands on them. He probably knew that if one takes one single stone from the
monolithic structure of communism the whole structure would collapse. So he just tried to
embellish some of the corner stones of communism without pulling them entirely out from
its structure, and called this 'perestroika' and 'glasnost'. Other people in his
government, oblivious of the danger of completely pulling corner stones from its
structure, didn't think embellishing stones in-situ was enough, and pulled them completely
from the structure, with the intend to put them back once the dust that had settled on
them over time had been thoroughly scratched off, with a wire brush. But by doing so the
corner stones changed their form and didn't fit anymore into the places they had been
taken from, communism. Thus, the Primal Sin was committed, and Soviet Communism collapsed.
And so did Roman Catholicism in Europe for similar reasons.
"... Ivan Nikitchuk, a Communist party deputy, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask the prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, to examine Gorbachev, 83. ..."
"... "The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen," said Nikitchuk. ..."
A group of Russian MPs have formally requested prosecutors to investigate former Soviet
leader Mikhail
Gorbachev for treason over the breakup of the Soviet Union, a lawmaker said on
Thursday.
Ivan Nikitchuk, a Communist party deputy, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five
MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask the prosecutor general, Yury
Chaika, to examine Gorbachev, 83.
"We asked to prosecute him and those who helped him destroy the Soviet Union for treason of
national interests," said Nikitchuk, adding that Soviet citizens in 1991 were against the
country's breakup.
Seeking to create a more open and prosperous Soviet Union through glasnost and perestroika,
Gorbachev ended up unleashing forces that swept away the country he had sought to preserve and
himself from power.
"The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen,"
said Nikitchuk.
He added that this included not only Ukraine but other former Soviet countries over the past
two decades.
In February, a popular pro-Western uprising in Ukraine ousted pro-Moscow president Viktor
Yanukovych, who has since taken refuge in Russia .
The Kremlin responded by sending troops to Ukraine's Russian-speaking peninsula of Crimea
and annexing it as part of Russia last month.
"What is happening in Ukraine can happen in Russia, too," said Nikitchuk. "This pushed us to
write to the prosecutor general, so that professional lawyers rather than historians can
investigate the events of 1991."
He added that lawmakers were also concerned about internal enemies stirring unrest.
"The fifth column in our country has been formed and works in the open, funded by foreign
money," he said.
In a landmark speech marking Russia's takeover of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin called Russians
disagreeing with his policies, such as his decision to occupy Crimea, a fifth column.
There have been previous attempts by the Communist party to have Gorbachev prosecuted but
these have led nowhere.
Nikitchuk said he hoped that the current political climate makes for a more favourable
moment and that prosecutors would launch the investigation this time.
Unlike the previous cases, the current request is backed by lawmakers from the ruling party,
United Russia.
Gorbachev said the lawmakers' initiative was "poorly thought out and groundless from a
historical point of view".
"Such calls only show that some lawmakers want publicity," he told the Interfax news agency.
A spokeswoman at the prosecutor's office declined to comment.
The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist in December 1991 after Russia, Belarus and
Ukraine signed the Belavezha accords dissolving the USSR. Gorbachev resigned two weeks
later.
The Soviet Union did not disappear because of a great flood or a major earthquake. Somebody
was at the helm making decisions and setting a political course. Politicians should be
responsible for their actions. But do politicians alone bear responsibility?
In fact, Gorbachev's problem is inseparably linked with the unstated problem of the low
self-esteem and rationalization of the millions of people who lived through the drama of 1991.
Some justify Gorbachev's actions in an attempt to justify their own complicity in events. For
the same reasons, others try to shift blame from themselves by holding Gorbachev solely
responsible. "He ruined everything," they say. "We are not to blame."
Unfortunately, the Soviet people bear responsibility for what happened to their country.
That does not lift responsibility from any one individual, even if that person was part of the
leadership -- those whom we naturally call on the carpet first for anything that happens. We
the people are to blame for not mounting any resistance to that course of action, or at least
for not fighting it hard enough.
In truth, the only people with the moral right to criticize Gorbachev today are the ones who
had the courage in the 1980s and 1990s to point out how destructive his policies were, to go
against the flow, and to condemn the path followed not only by Gorbachev, but also by his main
political rival, former President Boris Yeltsin.
Gorbachev's rule contrasts favorably with the leaders who came both before and after him,
and he is not remembered for having committed any particularly egregious wrongdoings. According
to that thinking, Gorbachev did not "destroy" the Soviet Union, he "only" betrayed the country
he led.
Gorbachev took office with a pledge to serve and defend the state. He cannot be blamed for
the fact that a catastrophe that had been brewing for two decades erupted during his reign. But
as the captain, he was obligated to "go down with the ship" and share the same political fate
as the country he governed. The problem is not that Gorbachev could have prevented the collapse
and didn't -- he couldn't have under any circumstances -- but that when the troubles came, he
snuck away from the battlefield and went home to have dinner.
The people might sometimes excuse or even justify the deeds of malefactors, but it never
forgives a traitor.
Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization
Studies.
But by his death in 1997, Deng's decision appeared vindicated, as world opinion had turned
decisively in his favor. Deng had seen enough of Russia's tumultuous politics to know where he
stood: sacrifice political liberalization for stability's sake, because the alternative was
chaos and collapse. Chinese analysts of Soviet politics continue to fault Gorbachev for
abandoning central planning too rapidly and in a disorganized fashion. Rather than liberalizing
politics, they argue, Gorbachev should have focused on the economy.
Today, top Chinese leaders cite the Soviet Union as an example of why China's Communist
Party must keep its fist clenched on power, even as it casts off the last remaining vestiges of
the Maoist economy. Jiang Zemin, who succeeded Deng as China's leader, argued in 1990 that
the Soviet Union's main problem was that Gorbachev was a traitor like Leon Trotsky, the Soviet
revolutionary who was found guilty of betraying Marxism-Leninism by then-leader Joseph
Stalin.
That was an ironic charge coming from the official who first formally welcomed China's
business classes into the supposedly communist ruling party. Yet in December 2012, Chinese
President Xi Jinping echoed this analysis. "Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate?" he
asked
a group of Communist Party members. "Their ideals and convictions wavered," he explained.
"Finally, all it took was one quiet word from Gorbachev to declare the dissolution of the
Soviet Communist Party, and a great party was gone." Yet it is Deng's logic that has come to
dominate most interpretations of the Soviet Union's collapse. "My father,"
reported Deng's youngest son, "thinks Gorbachev is an idiot."
In Russia, many agree. Russians regularly rate Gorbachev as one of their worst leaders of
the 20th century. A 2013 poll
found that only 22 percent of Russians perceive Gorbachev positively or slightly
positively, while 66 percent have a negative impression. By contrast, Leonid Brezhnev, who
presided over two decades of stagnation, is viewed positively by 56 percent of Russians. Even
Stalin, who managed a murderous reign of terror, gets positive marks from half of Russians. It
is not surprising, then, that Deng's reputation in Russia has risen. Many Russians see China as
a model of what their country should have done during the 1980s and 1990s. Liberal politics
cause chaos and economic distress, many Russians have concluded, and only a strong hand can
deliver economic growth.
... ... ...
... Deng managed to compromise with other elites, letting them retain their authority in
exchange for their support in pursuing economic reforms that allowed China to grow. But in the
Soviet Union, economic reform meant destroying the power base of the special interest groups,
leaving a potential military coup lurking in the background and hanging over Gorbachev's head.
That was a threat Deng never faced.
The reason why Gorbachev lost out is not because the Soviet economy was unreformable.
China's example proved that the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy was
possible. Rather, the Soviet Union collapsed because vast political power was entrusted to
groups that had every reason to sabotage the efforts to resolve the country's decades-long
financial dilemmas.
In the end, the political clout of these interest groups proved far greater than Gorbachev
anticipated. In his quest to reform his country and steer it away from calamity, Gorbachev
brought about the very process that would eventually lead to the Soviet Union's collapse.
Perestroika put the final nails in the USSR's economy One of the first main policies
Gorbachev adopted was Perestroika – reform of the economy. Hoarding and reciprocal
favours (blat) had been a means of survival in the Soviet Union, thieving to 'moonlight' was
also common and this cost the regime a lot. The 'command-administrative' system had become
obsolete in the Post-Industrial era and was curtailing economic development 1. To solve this,
Gorbachev wanted to give enterprise managers control over contracts and introduce aspects of
the market economy, to make it managers' responsibility to gain contracts and to make sure the
enterprise makes a profit. However, in practice the way the enterprises operated remained
unchanged except in terms – ministries rephrased their commands as contracts 2. Private
enterprise was also permitted, which seemed to contradict Gorbachev's claim to be committed to
Marxist-Leninist thought which was vehemently opposed to capitalism which Marxist's argue
exploit the proleteriat – so to actually create a class of capitalists who (according to
Marxist doctrine) would exploit the workers who were supposed to be living in socialist –
i.e. 'classless society' seemed contradictory to the very ideological concept the regime's
power was based upon. A small amount of private enterprise emerged, but the profiteering was
very much resented by the general population – goods and services were sold for four or
five times their subsidized price due to shortages. Another aspect of Perestroika was entry
into the market economy – many of the social benefits given by the enterprises had to be
done away with, as they could not make a profit and afford to maintain the benefits, resulting
in a stagnant economy occuring simultaneously with a collapsing social welfare system.
Gorbachev's reforms did not work and only succeeded in hastening the economic collapse that was
inevitable.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Glasnost facilitated Opposition to Concentrate against the Regime Allowing freedom of
thought from the 'mono-ideological controls' that existed for decades and allowing pluralist
thought and leadership meant a weakening of power for the Communist Party – it had to
convert into a proper parliamentary party to survive. Furthermore, in a regime based on
oppression and propaganda, when these are removed and freedom of speech and freedom of the
media are introduced, nasty elements about the system in the past are going to be revealed, and
when there is 70 years of repression being reported all at once, it is inevitable there will be
extreme hostility toward those responsible – the Party 1, this especially fuelled the
anger of the nationalities who had been oppressed and triggered a nationalist movement.
The population were dissatisfied with the dire state of affairs and could voice their
discontent openly with glasnost, which led to Gorbachev becoming very unpopular by 1991, in
which year the economy had contracted by 18% 2, people were also very concerned over the
incompetence of the command-administrative system and irresponsibility of the leadership with
regards to the 1986 Chernobyl power station disaster 3.
In a state committed to one ideology, the removal of mono-ideological controls, and the
ability of other ideological persuasions to come to power meant the Party had lost its RIGHT to
govern the people unless the people themselves WANTED the Party to rule. Thus, the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had to win the support of the people in order to govern
effectively. However, in a society that was becoming increasingly liberal and 'bourgeois' (the
USSR was largely middle class, private property was protected and capitalism was legalised),
the people had to believe in socialist ideology – which would have been almost impossible
to achieve.
Gorbachev's reforms themselves undermined some of the principle features of socialist rule
in the USSR, e.g. atheism, mono-ideological control, one-party state, economic monopoly and the
suspendability of law. Gorbachev's ideology itself – his focus on 'all-human values'
instead of the class struggle, the rule of law, international peace and proper parliamentary
representation have more resonance with John Stuart Mill than Karl Marx 4 – Gorbachev was
subconsciously moving the USSR in this ideological direction.
With democratization and pluralist thought permitted, Gorbachev found himself operating
within an increasingly wide political spectrum – with the reformist 'democrats' on one
side and the conservative Communist Party members on the other. There was a constant power
struggle between the two and Gorbachev dealt with this by constantly playing one side against
the other and compromising. One of Gorbachev's critics at the time said this was like trying to
marry a hare to a hedgehog. The two sides were very much irreconcilable and instead of trying
to defeat one side, Gorbachev sat on the fence and as a result his policies were constantly
inconsistent – you cannot mix radical reforms with conservatism 5. The dangers of this
were apparent when Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister at the time, resigned because he warned a
dictatorship was approaching, Gorbachev ignored this threat and dismissed this claim with
overconfidence 6.
1 Kagarlitsky, B. Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: neo-liberal autocracy, London: Pluto
2002
2 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
3 Haynes, M., Russia: Class and Power, 1917-2000, London: Bookmarks 2002
4 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
5 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991
6 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991 No because...
Regional Nationalism and Independence Movements These original flaws in the system were
largely responsible for its own downfall – in particular the nationalities issue –
the decision to maintain the Empire without granting real power to the nationalities whilst
simultaneously repressing them left most of the nationalities feeling bitter when glasnost
revealed the truth about how they had been treated in the past and democratisation gave them
the power to chose representatives who would really represent people's interests (the
nationalist movement) whilst at the same time being given by Gorbachev an appetite for power
– a fatal combination.
The wealthier regions wanted a separation from the USSR because of the feeling they were
being milked from the centre and many other regions wanted to become independent because they
did not want to be part of an economic disaster area which became apparent when the Donbass
miners who had no commitment to nationalism thought their future would be safer if the Ukraine
wasn't part of the USSR 1.
The nationalist movement emerged when freedom of speech, media and association along with
democratisation and the loss of fear of repression allowed people to voice pride in their
nation and resentment at past repressions as well as the ongoing special treatment of Russians
in the Regions, who had access to better housing and other special privileges the locals did
not.
Certain Republics felt nationalism more strongly than others, most notably the Baltic States
who felt a strong cultural attachment to the West and felt they were being unfairly occupied.
Gorbachev's mistake here was to downplay the importance of nationalism and not treat the Baltic
States as a special case 2. After all, most of the population of the USSR wished to preserve
the Union – 76% voted to preserve the Union in March 1991 (except the Baltic States,
Moldova, Georgia and Armenia who did not conduct the referendum) 3. After the failed coup, most
states declared their independence, even if they did so with reluctance, as there was a general
feeling there was no alternative. Gorbachev tried to persuade the Republics not to become fully
independent. However, in early December, the Ukraine held a referendum where the population
voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, even after Gorbachev stated "there can be no
Union without Ukraine", on 8th December, Yeltsin met with the Ukrainian and Bielorussian leader
and declared a formal end to the USSR and the establishment of the Confederation of Independent
States which they invited the other states to join.
There was nothing left Gorbachev could do, democratisation had brought about the means for
independence and Gorbachev didn't feel he could argue with people's wishes carried out through
democratic means and, on 25th December he resigned with regret.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996
3 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996 Yeltsin Factor
Boris Yeltsin emerged as the true hero and strong leader for the fearlessness to condemn the
coup – in a press conference afterwards Yeltsin ordered Gorbachev around undermining his
position, then used his institutional powers derived from democratization to appoint Egor
Gaidar, an economist dedicated to laissez-faire economics, as his Finance Minister and
suspension of the CPSU pending an investigation into the coup. Gorbachev half heartedly argued
against this but it was no use – he was seen as a weaker leader along with discontent
over his policies, whilst Yeltsin's radicalism was keeping pace with developments and his
popularity at an all-time high, Gorbachev's position was also much less weaker without the
Communist Party. Also, the Soviet Union really could not exist without the Communist Party
arguably as they had political and economic monopoly on society and the Communist Party went
from controlling these aspects of society to ceasing to exist, the Soviet Union could not
function and the economy spiralled out of control. Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... August 1991 Coup
Counter Productive, Bringing About What It Sought To Prevent - The End of the Soviet Union
By August 1991 Gorbachev's popularity was at an all-time low both in the Party and outside it.
Despite being advised by some of his staff to sign the Treaty agreement granting the republics
real autonomy before going on holiday and some suspicious circumstances he should have been
more questioning about, he planned on signing the agreement when he returned. This was a big
mistake and allowed the conservatives to stage a coup. The Emergency Committee made no
reference whatsoever to Marxism-Leninism or the class struggle in their speech, meaning it was
a coup in the hope of returning the Soviet Union to 'normal' i.e. an Empire controlled from
Moscow and putting the final nails in the coffin of socialism in the USSR 1.
The failed coup triggered the very thing it sought to prevent – the break-up of the
Soviet Union 2.
1 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... The System Needed to
Change in Order to Survive in the Longer Term; That Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms Failed Showed
that the USSR Could Not be Saved By the Gorbachev era, all hopes of fulfilling the original
Marxist-Leninist dream were gone and most did not feel passionately about communism, even
within the Party. There was a general acknowledgement that the USSR could not continue in the
same way as before – Andropov, Gorbachev's predecessor also realised this and set about
changing society through repressive measures such as harsh labour discipline enforced by
cutting payments from workers for work deemed poor quality and restrictions on the sale of
alcohol and prohibition of alcohol on official occasions was felt overly repressive and for
many – Gorbachev was seen as a positive, energetic leader who would overcome the USSR's
problems in a less repressive manner. With economic stagnation and an economy dependent on the
exportation of natural resources to survive 1, an unsuccessful war (Afghanistan) and an ageing
Party Membership to combat, Gorbachev was the candidate for those who wanted change or at least
realised change could no longer be postponed 2.
Autocracies survive due to repressing their people to the extent that they are not given the
freedoms required to change their government, rather than because the people want them to stay
in power. Mikhail Gorbachev's conscience and sense of responsibility for his population
dictated that the system could no longer be propped up like this, and that the people needed
and deserved the freedoms and basic human rights they had been denied for decades. That the
system could not encorporate such freedoms meant that the system morally should not be allowed
to perpetuate itself, and thus the Soviet Union fell apart because it was unrepresentative and
did not support the population's human rights means the fall of the USSR should be applauded,
not mourned for its' population.
1 Volkogonov, D.A. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: political leaders from Lenin to
Gorbachev, edited and translated by M. Shukman, London: HarperCollins 1998
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... War with Afghanistan
Drained USSR of Patriotic Morale The war in Afghanistan was a key contributing factor to
the breakup of the USSR. Reuveny and Prakash argue that the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to
undermining the Soviet Union in many ways. First, it discredited the Red Army, and impacted
negatively upon the image of the Red Army as a strong, almost invincible force, which gave
nationalist movements in the Republics hope that they might succeed in attaining independence
after all. Second, it impacted upon leadership perception on the usefulness of utilising the
military to keep the union intact and as a force for foreign intervention. Third, it created
new forms of political participation, which had begun to impact upon media reporting even
before glasnost, and began the first calls for glasnost, as it created a number of war
veterans, who went on to form organisations which weakened the total authority of the CPSU
1.
1 Reuveny, Rafael, and Prakash, Aseem, 'The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet
Union', Review of International Studies (1999), 25:693-708 Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... It was dead from the
time Stalin took control Gorbachev finished it off, but Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc.
really killed it. Lenin had nothing to do with that, he was a socialist-marxist, not a
communist. You obviously don't know the difference. Learn it before you blindly yell your
opinion into the dark of the internet.
Joe Venetos ,
history, European Union and politics, int'l relations
Answered Aug 22 2017 · Author has 485 answers and 325k answer views
Neither.
The USSR as it was was not sustainable, and the writing was all over the wall.
The reason it wasn't sustainable, however, is widely misunderstood.
The Soviet Union could have switched to a market or hybrid economy and still remained a
unified state. However, it was made up of 15 very different essentially nation-states from
Estonia to Uzbekistan, and separatist movements were tearing the Union apart.
Unlike other multi-national European empires that met their day earlier in the 20th century,
such as the British, French, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires, the Russian
Empi...
The USSR as it was was not sustainable, and the writing was all over the wall.
The reason it wasn't sustainable, however, is widely misunderstood.
The Soviet Union could have switched to a market or hybrid economy and still remained a
unified state. However, it was made up of 15 very different essentially nation-states from
Estonia to Uzbekistan, and separatist movements were tearing the Union apart.
Unlike other multi-national European empires that met their day earlier in the 20th century,
such as the British, French, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires, the Russian
Empire never had the chance to disband; the can was simply kicked down the road by the
Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet era. Restrictions on free speech and press, followed by a
gradual economic downturn that began in the 1970s, brewed anti-Union and separatist sentiments
among sizeable sections of society. It's important to note, however, that not everyone wanted
the disband the USSR, and not everyone in the Russian republic wanted to keep it together (the
Central Asian states were the most reluctant to secede). There was, actually, a referendum on
whether or not to keep the Union together, and a slight majority voted in favor (something
Gorbachev points out to this day), but the vote was also boycotted by quite a few people,
especially in the Baltic republics. So, we know that the citizens had mixed feelings and the
reasons for the USSR's end were far more complex than just "communism failed".
By the summer of 1991, there was nothing Gorbachev could do. The hardliners saw him as
incompetent to save the Union, but too many citizens and military personnel had defected to the
politicians of the constituent republics (rather than the Union's leadership), including Russia
itself, that were increasingly pursuing their independence since the first multiparty elections
across the Union in 1989. By December 1991, Union-level political bodies agreed to
disband. So, Gorbachev had no choice but to admit that the USSR no longer existed.
Gorbachev could have ruled with an iron fist, and he could have done so from the 1985
without ever implementing glasnost and perestroika, but that could have been a disaster.
We don't really know, actually, but in my opinion, an oligarchy -which is what the USSR
was in its later years, not an authoritarian state like it was under Stalin- still needs
some level of public consent to continue governing, like China (which is also a diverse
society, but far more homogenous than the USSR was). If you have all this economic and
separatist malaise brewing, it's not going to work out.
In the long run, Russia is much better off. They now have a state where ethnic
Russians make up 80% of the population (a good balance), from what was, I think 50% in the
USSR.
While some Russians regret that the USSR ended, others don't care or were ready to call
themselves "Russian" rather than "Soviet". It's no different to French public opinion turning
against the Algerian war in the 1960s and supporting Algerian independence, or British public
opinion starting to support the independence of India yet some people from those countries, may
look back fondly. Also, Russia went through a tough economic period in the 1990s, which
strengthened Soviet nostalgia, understandably, thinking back to a time when the state
guaranteed everyone with housing and a job. While some sentiments still exist today in
the Russian Federation that may appear pro-Soviet, it's important to point out that that
doesn't necessarily mean these folks would like to recreate the Soviet Union as it
was . Many just simply miss the heaftier influence the USSR had, versus what they perceive
to be weakness or disrespect for Russia today. The communist party today gets few votes in
Russian elections; and many Russians now were not adults prior to 1991, and thus don't quite
remember the era too well; many others may be old enough to remember the economic downturn of
the 80s, and not the economic good times of the 60s.
One final point, regarding Gorbachev being a "stooge of the West": that gives far too
much credit to America under Reagan for taking down the USSR. The "West" had nothing to do with
it. In the longer run, as we may be seeing slowly unravel since the Bush Jr administration,
America pretty much screwed itself with the massive military spending that started in the 80s
and continues upward, with supporting the mujahedeen to lure the USSR into Afghanistan in 1979
(a war that lasted until 1989), with opposing any secular regime in the Middle East
friendly to Moscow in the 70s and 80s, and so on we all know how these events started playing
out for the US much later, from 9/11 to the current Trump mess.
"... In other words, the ruling class dictatorship can no longer rule by popular democratic ways. The principal contradiction in U.S. society remains in the alienation between labor and capital. Fascism is simply the only way to maintain capitalist rule, according to scientific socialism. ..."
"... Fascist movements are historically composed of their leaders, small capitalists, low-level bureaucrats or petty-bourgeois, farmers, and the declassed lumpenproletariat. Big capital sponsors and funds the movement. Big time capitalists, along with the top-tier leaders they create, then make up Fascism's ruling nobility. ..."
"... Among the characteristics of fascists: They are fiercely nationalistic and patriotic. Criticisms are unpatriotic or treasonous. Fascists are opposed to Marxism and any left politics, from moderate to progressive. Fascism infuses suspicion about foreigners, thuggery, and exudes an adversarial mentality, ..."
"... "Big capital sponsors and funds the movement." ..."
"... Fascism is always on war footing. All levels of government need to be in the line of march. Imprisonment and execution await any person that opposes the new norm. ..."
"... Fascism raises its ugly head without a revolution taking place. Their rule comes from the top of the anointed aristocracy. Corporate power reigns supreme. No workers' rights exist. Wars are made mainly to create markets. Fascism is supposed to liberate survivors of these wars in foreign lands – a justification for imperialism. Art, where it does not conform to Fascist culture, is destroyed. When Fascism does appear, Antifa will not save us. ..."
"... Dr. Ken Morgan is an activist scholar and internationalist. He can be reached at ..."
Often a demagogic politician such as Trump is called fascist because he won the election
through bourgeois-democratic methods and his rightist policies. Trump won the election. He now
leads through bourgeois-democratic practices. President Trump continues to exploit the
prejudice and ignorance of the white working-class. The Donald overturned political norms; he
used double meaning slogans such as "Make America great again," and "lock her up" that sounded
like political rhetoric but appealed to racists as well.
Trump's win in 2016 remained predicated on Hillary Clinton's deficits and her asides about
the "deplorable," white working-class, and her relationship to Barack Obama, who did nothing
for white and black workers. Obama chose to rescue capitalist corporations at the expense of
the working class and other lower-middle-income forces – many blacks that lost their
houses.
Huey Long was a demagogue. Senator Joseph McCarthy provides an example of a demagogue, as do
many of the Dixiecrats that Malcolm X so rightly railed against through his speeches and
activism. George Wallace fits the criteria. When all said and done, they all are capitalists.
They work on behalf of capitalists to perpetuate capitalism and spread worldwide
imperialism.
"They all are capitalists."
Yes, both Mussolini and Hitler were demagogues, but their countries' underlying dire
economic conditions made them and their administrations Fascists.
Trump is just another one of the forty-four U.S. presidents that held reign over capitalism
and, after the beginning of the twentieth century, the advent of U.S. imperialism – the
highest order of capitalism. They presided over state terrorism and genocide against world
peoples.
Capitalism in the U.S. produces gross economic deprivations and inequalities, racism,
sexism, and homophobia. Look at what Harry Truman did when he nuclear bombed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki Japan. Like puppeteers, the capitalist ruling classes will, for as long as capitalism
still exists, control politicians' strings. Yes, capitalism is in crisis and rotten to the
core, but not yet failed.
You will not get rid of any of these things by impeaching Trump.
What Is Fascism?
Yes, Adolph Hitler and Mussolini were both demagogic and fascist. Fascism, according to
Marxist precepts, observation and study, stems from a mass movement rooted in the capitalist
ruling classes, that not able to survive without it. Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler are two
historical examples of such fascists.
In other words, the ruling class dictatorship can no longer rule by popular democratic
ways. The principal contradiction in U.S. society remains in the alienation between labor and
capital. Fascism is simply the only way to maintain capitalist rule, according to scientific
socialism.
Fascist movements are historically composed of their leaders, small capitalists,
low-level bureaucrats or petty-bourgeois, farmers, and the declassed lumpenproletariat. Big
capital sponsors and funds the movement. Big time capitalists, along with the top-tier leaders
they create, then make up Fascism's ruling nobility.
Among the characteristics of fascists: They are fiercely nationalistic and patriotic.
Criticisms are unpatriotic or treasonous. Fascists are opposed to Marxism and any left
politics, from moderate to progressive. Fascism infuses suspicion about foreigners, thuggery,
and exudes an adversarial mentality,
"Big capital sponsors and funds the movement."
Organizationally, there exists an iconic leader and secretive and selective capitalists.
They scrutinize your every move at the job, and at schools. Fascism is always on war
footing. All levels of government need to be in the line of march. Imprisonment and execution
await any person that opposes the new norm.
Economic equality is a no-no. Immigrants obtain lower status than actual citizens. Equality
in gender, religion, sex, and minority rights are forbidden. Backward religious beliefs often
prevail. If you are not a Christian or an affiliated Catholic, you are out of the circle.
Violence creates racial inferiority and the destiny of history.
Fascism raises its ugly head without a revolution taking place. Their rule comes from
the top of the anointed aristocracy. Corporate power reigns supreme. No workers' rights exist.
Wars are made mainly to create markets. Fascism is supposed to liberate survivors of these wars
in foreign lands – a justification for imperialism. Art, where it does not conform to
Fascist culture, is destroyed. When Fascism does appear, Antifa will not save us.
Summary
So yes, Trump is a demagogic leader with disdainful characteristics, but capitalism has not
reached the point where actual fascism is the only way capitalists can rule. For now,
understand that imperialism, racism, sexism, and homophobia are characteristics of capitalism.
The rule of capitalist law and the capitalist form of democracy continues to exist. We, as
black people, do not want to be disoriented into thinking that the U.S. and Trump are
Fascist.
Dr. Ken Morgan is an activist scholar and internationalist. He can be reached at[email protected].
After initiation of Operation Condor 2.0, which debuted with massacres in Bolivia following fascist coup d´etat against majority
of pueblos originarios , as preparations in other countries of CARICOM are in the making, starting with Grenadine....
"... The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to 'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that, it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it. ..."
"... Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it. ..."
Inside Bolivia's murderous post-coup regime – with Wyatt Reed
25 Nov 2019
Moderate Rebels
Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with journalist Wyatt Reed, who is reporting on the
ground in Bolivia after a US-backed far-right military coup against democratically elected
leftist President Evo Morales. He describes the bloody repression of Indigenous protesters
and the state of resistance.
The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to
'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet
while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that,
it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it.
Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of
western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal
to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it.
This army could be used to fight the
disloyal police and military and restore order. But that'd be the wrong way to go, because it
would quickly escalate and you can be sure the hired peacekeepers would be referred to as
invaders rather than 'moderate rebels', so Washington would consider itself invited in
militarily to 'protect democracy'.
Once again, the United States is complicit in an illegal coup d'état in Latin America,
this time in Bolivia. On November 10, a right-wing, anti-Indigenous group seized power after
the Bolivian military's removal of President Evo Morales, who had declared victory in the
October 20 presidential election.
The United States' fingerprints are all over the coup. Advisers from the U.S. Southern
Command have been stationed on Bolivia's border with Argentina, Ivanka Trump made a
surprising visit to an Argentine province near the Bolivian border in September, the pro-U.S.
Organization of American States (OAS) cast unfounded doubt on Morales's election victory, and
the U.S.'s National Endowment for Democracy provided suspicious grants to Bolivia.
At least 32
people have been killed and hundreds injured since the coup began. Sacha Llorenti,
Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations,
toldDemocracy Now!, "We are going through not just a coup d'état, but a
violent one." Indeed, it has resulted in "the rise of a far-right regime of terror,"
professor Gabriel Hetland
wrote in TheWashington Post.
Morales -- Bolivia's first Indigenous leader in a country where 65 percent of the people
are Indigenous -- received 10 percent more votes than Carlos Mesa, the second-place candidate
who has close ties to the U.S. government. Mesa was in regular communication with U.S.
officials who were trying to destabilize Morales, U.S. government cables published by WikiLeaks
reveal.
The day after the election, the U.S.-funded OAS sought to delegitimize the election
results. "The OAS Mission expresses its deep concern and surprise at the drastic and
hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results revealed after the closing of
the polls,"
it stated .
But the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) published a
comprehensive statistical analysis on November 8 that found no evidence of fraud or
irregularities in the election and determined that the results reflected highly similar
patterns from past elections. Other research
conducted by CELAG (Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica)
confirmed CEPR's findings and identified insufficient evidence to support the assertions in
the OAS statement.
CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot
noted in an op-ed for Market Watch , "The OAS isn't all that independent at the
moment, with the Trump administration actively promoting this military coup, and Washington
having more right-wing allies in the OAS than they did just a few years ago."
U.S.
complicity in the coup in Bolivia is illegal under both U.S. and international law.
The OAS was
established during the Cold War to prevent the proliferation of leftist governments.
USAID considers OAS a critical tool in "promot[ing] US interests in the Western
hemisphere by countering the influence of anti-US countries" such as Bolivia.
The November 10 military coup led to the forced resignation of Morales, who received
asylum in Mexico. Right-wing politician Jeanine Añez declared herself interim
president, and Donald Trump immediately recognized her illegitimate claim to the presidency.
Añez then issued a decree
immunizing the military from criminal liability "for carrying out necessary actions in their
legitimate defense while performing their constitutional duties." Morales supporters accused
Añez of giving soldiers "carte blanche" to shoot demonstrators. Bolivia's human rights
ombudsman and reporters
have documented widespread injuries and fatalities from gunshots.
U.S. Involvement
in the Coup
During Morales's nearly 14 years in office, his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party
reduced
poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. It cut unemployment by 50
percent and nearly
tripled the per-capita G.D.P. "It's indisputable that Bolivians are healthier, wealthier,
better educated, living longer and more equal than at any time in this South American
nation's history," Anthony Faiola
wrote in TheWashington Post .
There was
discontent about Morales seeking a fourth term among some sectors in Bolivia, who thought
there should be space for new leadership. But Morales had a
strong record of establishing policies to help the people of Bolivia, which angered the
U.S. government, Western corporations and the corporate media, "who function as ideological
shock troops against leftist governments in Latin America," Alan MacLeod wrote
at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
The U.S. and Argentine governments helped to engineer the Bolivian coup, Stella Calloni
reported in Resumen: Latinoamerico . She cited the presence of advisers from the
U.S. Southern Command on the Argentine border with Bolivia.
Calloni also documented "the surprising trip of Ivanka Trump" to the Argentine province of
Jujuy near the Bolivian border on September 4-5. Accompanied by 2,500 U.S. agents and
Undersecretary of State John Sullivan, Ivanka Trump was ostensibly there to "visit" a small
NGO dedicated to furthering women's rights, and she delivered an "aid" package of $400
million for "road works." Alicia Canqui Condori, national representative of MAS, said that,
"in Jujuy Donald Trump's daughter had met with Gov. Gerardo Morales to plan what happened in
Bolivia."
Moreover, according to Calloni, Bolivian Gen. Williams Kaliman, who "suggested" that
Morales resign after the election, traveled to the United States 72 hours after the coup
began and he
received $1 million from the U.S. embassy in Bolivia. Like many Latin American strongmen
over the years,
at least six of the top military leaders involved in the coup, including Kaliman, were
trained at the notorious U.S. Army School of the Americas (now
called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning,
Georgia.
Months before the coup, Bolivia concluded a
$2.3 billion deal with a Chinese consortium to mine lithium. Bolivia has 70
percent of the world's supply of lithium, which is used in car batteries, electronic
devices and weapons systems. "The idea that there might be a new social compact for the
lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies," Vijay Prashad
wrote . U.S. and Canadian companies sought to make a lithium agreement with Bolivia but
they could not meet Morales's conditions. "Morales himself was a direct impediment to the
takeover of the lithium fields by the non-Chinese transnational firms," according to Prashad.
"He had to go."
Sordid History of U.S. Meddling in Latin America
U.S. complicity in the Bolivian coup follows in a sordid tradition of meddling in the
political and economic affairs of Latin American countries. "For many years, the US
government has provided overt financial support to opposition political parties and civic
groups, including to many of the groups that have been engaged in violent insurrections and
coup plotting since at least 2008," Thomas Field wrote in
Jacobin.
This is the time to urge senators and Congress members to end all U.S.
support for the illegitimate regime.
One key vehicle that the U.S. government uses as a cover for its imperialist policies is
the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). After disturbing revelations of covert CIA
operations in the second half of the 1970s, NED was established under Ronald Reagan. "The
idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for
decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities,"
William Blum
wrote in 2005. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein concurred,
stating in 1991, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
Although ostensibly a private, nonprofit organization, NED is largely funded by the United
States. "In effect," Blum noted, "the CIA has been laundering money through NED."
Peter Haberfeld, a retired lawyer and labor organizer who has studied the "Pink Tide"
governments in Latin America, documented NED grants in Bolivia. He told Truthout that
"between 2016 and 2019, NED gave grants to over 30 organizations for 'democracy promotion' in
Bolivia. The grants total $3,209,887."
Haberfeld said the grants were officially earmarked for "lofty objectives such as
expanding participation by women, youth, media and entrepreneurs in a vibrant political
process, particularly in connection with elections," but cautioned "it is wise to be
suspicious." Haberfeld cited author Neil A. Burron, who wrote in The New Democracy Wars:
The Politics of North American Democracy Promotion in the Americas, that "democracy
promotion is typically formulated to advance commercial, geopolitical and security objectives
that conflict with a genuine commitment to democracy development." Burron noted, "For the US,
the political manipulation of democracy promotion in support of a North American-led regional
order is a continuation of long-standing forms of intervention [that have been] used as a
license to meddle in the domestic affairs of others."
NED
was complicit in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, manipulated the 1990 Nicaraguan
elections, heavily funded the 2002 failed coup attempt against socialist President Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela, and supported the opposition to progressive President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in Haiti in the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1992, NED donated a quarter-million dollars
to the Cuban-American National Foundation, the violent anti-Castro group based in Miami.
In 2018, under the guise of "democracy," "human rights" and "entrepreneurship," NED
funneled
more than $23 million to opposition groups in Latin American countries, including
Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton called Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua the
"Troika of Tyranny" in November 2018. A few months later, in April 2019, the U.S. government
orchestrated
another unsuccessful
coup in Venezuela. Juan Guaidó, Washington's chosen puppet to seize power from
President Nicolás Maduro, was funded by NED.
Trump not only took aim at the progress Barack Obama had made toward normalization
of relations with Cuba, he has escalated the U.S. economic war on Cuba and unleashed
untold numbers of lawsuits that
threaten to destroy the fragile Cuban economy.
The Obama administration, led by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
supported the 2009 coup in Honduras. The fraudulent election following the coup was
financed by NED and the State Department, ushering in a repressive and militarized regime.
Conditions deteriorated, leading to the exodus of thousands of Honduran children fleeing
north.
U.S. Complicity in the Coup in Bolivia Is Illegal
U.S. complicity in the coup in Bolivia is illegal under both U.S. and international law.
The United Nations Charter prohibits the use of or threat to use force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of another nation. The International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to self-determination.
The Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the U.S. is a party, forbids
any country from intervening in the internal or external affairs of another country. The OAS
charter declares
that, "Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political,
economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the
duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State."
The Foreign
Assistance Act forbids the United States from assisting a country "whose duly elected
head of government is deposed by military coup or decree."
There has been global condemnation of the coup. Sixty-four organizations of jurists,
lawyers, NGOs, social movements and trade unions from around the world, including the
International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the National
Lawyers Guild , sent a
letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, urging her to
strongly condemn the human rights violations resulting from the coup.
Fourteen members of the House of Representatives sent a
letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying they were "deeply concerned" about the
contribution of the Trump administration to the "escalating political and human rights
crisis" in Bolivia.
Over 800 scholars, activists and public figures published an open
letter demanding that the United States and the international community halt all support
to the right-wing, anti-Indigenous regime that took power after the military coup.
Veterans For Peace
condemned the racist coup in Bolivia and demanded an end to U.S. intervention in Latin
America:
Veterans For Peace stands in solidarity with the Indigenous majority in Bolivia who are
resisting the racist, right-wing takeover of their democracy. We demand that the coup be
stopped and democracy restored in Bolivia. As military veterans who have been used and
abused in too many unjust wars, we demand an end to 200 years of U.S. intervention in Latin
America.
The situation in Bolivia is volatile and there is danger it could devolve into civil war . This is
the time to urge senators and Congress members to end all U.S. support for the illegitimate
regime, demand free and fair elections with all political parties represented, and insist
that fundamental human rights of all Bolivians are protected.
"... it's not that fascism is a personality trait, but rather fascism, or more generally right wing populism, is a social phenomenon where some personality traits are weaponised ..."
"... That's a good analogy. But this only means that the financial oligarchy can be a privileged social group crossing racial lines. The term "Jews" as used by fascists was, at least initially, directly at financial oligarchy, where this ethnic group was overrepresented. In general, anti-Semitism can be viewed as a scapegoating, a primitive and misguided protest against the excesses of capitalism. In this sense, "economic crises happen because banks are run by Jews, who are evil or not part of the community" has the real meaning "economic crises happen because banks are run by the financial oligarchy, which is evil or not part of the community." ..."
"... I see Brexit more of a spontaneous protest against neoliberal globalization, which is not that much connected with "conservative cultural values" but with more prosaic things like displacement of workers by foreigners, disappearance of good job due to relentless outsourcing/offshoring, automation and cost-cutting, reduction of national sovereignty (including inability to regulate labor flows) due to EU neoliberal policies, brazen betrayal by the New Labour of working and lower middle class economic and social interests, growth in inequality and gradual slide of the standard of living of working and lower middle class due to the redistribution of wealth up immanent under neoliberalism etc. ..."
"... The same set of reasons which in the USA led to the election of Trump and decimation of the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party (Hillary fiasco). After almost 30 years, US workers managed to understand that Clinton's democrats are essentially "wolfs in sheep's clothing" and decided to show them the middle finger, which as a side effect of the two-party system led to the election of Trump. ..."
"... And this process is irreversible, unless Democratic Party changes, and Clinton democrats brass is excluded from the party and sent to the dustbin of history, where they belong. That's why I am skeptical about Dem Party chances in 2020, unless one of the trio Warren/Sanders/Tulsi (who promote some level of changes) is the nominee. The train of history has left the station for the Corporate Democrats, and they are still standing on the old platform, hoping that it returns. ..."
"... And I view the resurgence of the far-right nationalism as a primitive form of social protest, which of course is hijacked, exploited and misdirected by sleek demagogy from the second branch of oligarchy that does not like the results of globalization, and resent FIRE and Silicon Valley branch, in full accordance with the dialectical view on Oligarchy, where with time neoliberal oligarchy inevitably splits and factions start fighting with each other tooth and nail. ..."
So in the end the problem is, are "loyalty, authority, sanctity" actually fascist
values? In my opinion largely yes,
That's a bridge too far. FYI fascism is an ideology of national socialism, or socialism
for one privileged and racially defined group (eclectic, but still an ideology), not a system
of badly defined personal traits, or values.
Moreover, loyalty (and a certain level of groupthink and conformism) can be legitimately
viewed as a precondition of survival of any organized group. Look at religious group that
adopt all those three values. Are all of them (or even most of them) fascist?
But one of the observable differences between Republican and Democratic Parties in the USA
is the difference in the level of authoritarism of the average member of the party. That's an
interesting difference that has certain social implications as for policies that each of the
parties favor most when in power (I abstract here from the sad fact that the USA Corporate
Dems recently became the second pro-war militarist party, and learned to love intelligence
agencies; two things unimaginable in 60th and 70th. )
I disagree. Fascism is not an ideology in the way we understand the term, it's just too
muddled, and certainly is not socialism for a single ethnic group : Hitler and Mussolini even
more used a lot of socialist buzzwords because at the time socialism polled well, but in
reality many if not most of their policies were in direct opposition to that of the socialist
parties of the time, and they came to power by beating and literally killing socialists.
At best we could say that fascism is closer to ordoliberalism, as they never put in question
the role of property, but they saw some behaviors as a form of excessive capitalism. But even
there they put it in moral terms, economic crises happen because banks are run by Jews, who are
evil or not part of the community, or because of a Bolshevik Jewish American Masonic conspiracy
(Mussolini).
What happens IMO is that currently right leaning parties would lose big time if they fought
elections on economics, so they have to fight elections on cultural values. If they fight on
cultural values they can get the support of many people of the working class who would
otherwise give them the middle finger.
At some point the conservative cultural values may become prevalent even on the economic
interests, as we see in the case of brexit, but this happens because conservative parties bet
on conservative cultural values early on.
When we get to conservative cultural values, these are not really a specific set of values,
or actually every society has its own traditional values. The point is that the right wing
populists bet on the values that are perceived as traditional in that point of time, because
such values have an appeal that goes beyond social class.
The values of "loyalty, authorithy and sacred" are certainly part of the human psyche,
because everyone is loyal to something, respects some authority and holds this or that thing as
sacred, but if you take them in the abstract they just mean "I'm part of a group and I will
follow it", so in the way Haidt seems to discuss them they refer just to the perception of
being part of a community and fighting off the outsiders, that dovetails with the weaponisation
of traditional cultural values by the right.
So it's not that fascism is a personality trait, but rather fascism, or more generally
right wing populism, is a social phenomenon where some personality traits are weaponised
.
This is a good comment that clarifies your views considerably. And with this
clarification, I believe we are generally on the same page. Thank you.
At best, we could say that fascism is closer to ordoliberalism, as they never put in
question the role of property, but they saw some behaviors as a form of excessive
capitalism. But even there they put it in moral terms; economic crises happen because banks
are run by Jews, who are evil or not part of the community, or because of a Bolshevik
Jewish American Masonic conspiracy (Mussolini).
That's a good analogy. But this only means that the financial oligarchy can be a
privileged social group crossing racial lines. The term "Jews" as used by fascists was, at
least initially, directly at financial oligarchy, where this ethnic group was
overrepresented. In general, anti-Semitism can be viewed as a scapegoating, a primitive and
misguided protest against the excesses of capitalism. In this sense, "economic crises happen
because banks are run by Jews, who are evil or not part of the community" has the real
meaning "economic crises happen because banks are run by the financial oligarchy, which is
evil or not part of the community."
What happens IMO is that, currently, right-leaning parties would lose big time if they
fought elections on economics, so they have to fight elections on cultural values. If they
fight on cultural values, they can get the support of many people of the working class who
would otherwise give them the middle finger.
Not only right-leaning parties. All neoliberal parties. That's why identity politics is as
important under neoliberalism as it was under classic national socialism. That's a classic
application of "Divide and Conquer" principle in politics, which, in turn, is the Corollary
of the Iron Law of Oligarchy, the way the oligarchic elite weakens threats to its rule by
distracting population from actual issues, and imposing strict limits on what constitutes an
'acceptable' and 'respectable' political position. Neo-McCarthyism serves the same
purpose.
At some point, the conservative cultural values may become prevalent even on the
economic interests, as we see in the case of Brexit, but this happens because conservative
parties bet on conservative cultural values early on.
I respectfully disagree. I see Brexit more of a spontaneous protest against neoliberal
globalization, which is not that much connected with "conservative cultural values" but with
more prosaic things like displacement of workers by foreigners, disappearance of good job due
to relentless outsourcing/offshoring, automation and cost-cutting, reduction of national
sovereignty (including inability to regulate labor flows) due to EU neoliberal policies,
brazen betrayal by the New Labour of working and lower middle class economic and social
interests, growth in inequality and gradual slide of the standard of living of working and
lower middle class due to the redistribution of wealth up immanent under neoliberalism
etc.
The same set of reasons which in the USA led to the election of Trump and decimation
of the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party (Hillary fiasco). After almost 30 years, US
workers managed to understand that Clinton's democrats are essentially "wolfs in sheep's
clothing" and decided to show them the middle finger, which as a side effect of the two-party
system led to the election of Trump.
And this process is irreversible, unless Democratic Party changes, and Clinton
democrats brass is excluded from the party and sent to the dustbin of history, where they
belong. That's why I am skeptical about Dem Party chances in 2020, unless one of the trio
Warren/Sanders/Tulsi (who promote some level of changes) is the nominee. The train of history
has left the station for the Corporate Democrats, and they are still standing on the old
platform, hoping that it returns.
And I view the resurgence of the far-right nationalism as a primitive form of social
protest, which of course is hijacked, exploited and misdirected by sleek demagogy from the
second branch of oligarchy that does not like the results of globalization, and resent FIRE
and Silicon Valley branch, in full accordance with the dialectical view on Oligarchy, where
with time neoliberal oligarchy inevitably splits and factions start fighting with each other
tooth and nail.
Russiagate and Ukrainegate (which is essentially Russiagate 2.0) are just two reflections
of this internal political struggle within the USA oligarchy. Struggle that in some forms
gradually became closer and closer to the civil war (or, at least, The War between Antony and
Octavian) for political dominance as views on the ways to overcome the current crisis of
neoliberalism in the USA of those two factions became more and more incompatible.
Historically national socialism emerged as a way to overcome the crisis of capitalism at the
beginning of the XX century.
it's not that fascism is a personality trait, but rather fascism, or more generally
right wing populism, is a social phenomenon where some personality traits are
weaponised.
I agree. That's an interesting angle to view the current resurgence of the far right. But
it does not explain the fact why in the USA many members of trade unions voted for Trump.
Also, please take a look at the phenomenon of Tucker Carson.
Thank you again for your insights into this complex social phenomenon.
According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give
Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.
If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter
peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.
While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a
large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.
Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re
direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain
their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.
Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to
boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.
Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR
and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a
free ride.
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't
remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it
had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the
list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.
"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration.
It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose
to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe"
to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth
called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant
but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy
agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."
Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the
respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the
crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside
observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.
Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been
hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.
Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious.
And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.
It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many
Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes
with neighbors.
That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is
a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American
foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions
inherited from Old Europe.
In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might,
steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there
was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a
most destructive freight.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding
of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's
loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He
dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do
many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding
Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I
argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.
When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television
colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my
editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.
As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow
members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which
of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.
Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial
Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'
Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those
years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become
a quiescent satellite of the West.
An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which
actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined
'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'
Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website,
clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.
There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument
can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.
It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because
his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant
section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.
So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be
put as follows:
'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people"
means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"
'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes"
running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski
clearly always wanted us to be.
'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian":
a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.
'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very
real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one
path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'
At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:
'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to
Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.
'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie
in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".
'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC
and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times"
back in June.
An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition
of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on
the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.
Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.
But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office,
back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding
of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's
loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He
dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do
many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding
Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I
argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally
present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact
screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost"
(quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia
Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East
European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and
Russia had it with the West.
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.
Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as
I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)
Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They
were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out
of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess
one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?
Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress
Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.
What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?
And, if they do, what are these?
I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.
But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?
It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire
he was creating.
Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg
-- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.
I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies "
-- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security
positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.
Since its creation in 1948, the modern state of Israel has steadily stolen Palestinian land
and driven Palestinians from their homes, cities and villages.
Nothing has been done to halt Israel's steady march to tighten its absolute control of the
Palestinian people with the obvious goal of ethnic cleansing, an historic fact well documented
by Israeli scholar
Ilan Pappe .
Under the protection of a security-obsessed military occupation, fully supported and
underwritten by U.S. tax payers, Israel denies it has broken any laws. Israel makes its own
self-preservation laws. It listens to no higher authority.
Israel has destroyed olive tree orchards and smothered stolen farmlands and pastures with
modern malls where U.S. firms like Ace Hardware and Burger King enrich stock holders who don't
know, or don't care, that they are taking part in the ugly crime of ethnic cleansing.
(The first time I saw an Ace Hardware store in a Ma'ale Adumim mall, I started my own
personal boycott of Ace, an action unfair to employees of my local Ace outlet, but one that has
increased the receipts of my small neighborhood hardware store.)
The narrative of Israeli governments heeding no call but their own, has been with us all
along, but U.S. media readers/viewers have avoided having to think about it, or do anything
about it.
They live comfortably within their bubble of ignorance which is created and sustained for
them by their newspapers, news magazines, television outlets, radio broadcasts, government
leaders and, alas, their religious leaders.
It does not have to be this way. During the last decade, the narrative of settlements like
Ma'ale Adumim has been available on the internet in reports like this one from Electronic Intafada , which begins
:
It is only a fifteen minute bus ride from Jerusalem to the Ma'ale Adumim settlement. After
entering through guarded gates, one's first impression is of a Miami-style suburb. The town
at noon seems almost abandoned because the major part of Ma'ale Adumim residents head off to
work in Jerusalem during the day. . . .
As soon as Barack Obama demanded from Israel the simple act of "freezing" its settlement expansion , Israel trotted out Public
Relations Plan A for distribution to the media: Have a heart, settlement residents need room
for their families to grow.
Israel operates on the logic of the man found guilty of killing his parents. The guilty man
begged for mercy on the grounds that he was now an orphan.
To tell you about the Israeli settlers' plea for mercy, the Los Angeles Times (July 6) delivered its version of the
orphan story: "Israel's settlements in West Bank present a major hurdle."
The opening paragraphs of the Times story set the tone for the plea with weasel words
(Lobby talking points) used by writer Edmund Sanders:
Reporting from Ma'ale Adumim, West Bank -- This sprawling, well-manicured Israeli
settlement -- with its rows of red-tile roofs, palm trees and air-conditioned shopping mall
-- could almost pass for Orange County. Except the guards in this gated community sometimes
pack automatic weapons.
Settlements such as the city-sized Ma'ale Adumim, about four miles east of Jerusalem in
the West Bank, are viewed by much of the world as illegal because they are built on land
seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of
their country.
Now let us review the weasel words.
The reference to the illegality of Ma'ale Adumim is softened by the qualifying rhetorical
device, "viewed by much of the world as illegal". The phase "viewed by" suggests that the issue
at hand is open to debate among reasonable people.
Reasonable, as, for example, as a story that might have appeared in a Birmingham, Alabama,
newspaper, circa 1939, reporting that "segregation is viewed by many in the South as as a way
to maintain harmony between the races and preserve our Southern Way of Life."
Should such an analysis have been open to debate? No, certainly not in the minds of a small
number of courageous Southern liberals, and an increasingly impatient black population.
It required two more decades of U.S. racial oppression for that "debate"–for and
against segregation–to reach a definitive conclusion with "all deliberate speed".
Now we have a 21st century debate. The Times' Monday story includes the phrase: "many
Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of their country." Do they, indeed? How many Israelis?
Most polls suggest that sentiment is largely confined to the pro-settler community, while
"security-minded" government leaders continue to demand the inclusion of Ma'ale Adumimin a
future Israeli state
To other more fair-minded Israelis the phrase "many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of
their country", unpleasantly evokes the case of the parent-killer who begs for mercy because he
is an orphan.
The Time s story continues:
Now the long-simmering dispute over this and other fast-growing settlements has become a
major obstacle to restarting peace talks.
Settlement building is not a long-simmering dispute. It is part of decades of immoral and
illegal actions by Israel and is much more than a "major obstacle" to peace talks. It is an
indisputable violation of international law, which, if allowed to stand, will block any
successful peace talks.
The parent-killer should mourn his Mom and Dad from his jail cell, not while sitting in the
sun in his well-watered grass covered private backyard, shaded from the hot summer sun by a
picnic umbrella purchased from a nearby Ace Hardware.
The LA Times reserves most of its early sympathy for the illegal settlers of an
illegal city with these touching "facts":
"Why is President Obama interfering with our lives, telling us how many children we can
have and whether we can get married?" asked Benny Kashriel, longtime mayor of Ma'ale Adumim.
. . .
Talk about a possible freeze has many here worried.
"You can't freeze a city," Kashriel said. "If you freeze, you go backwards. Every month we
are not building and people are not coming, it affects the economic situation of the city. .
. . It's punishing."
A freeze, officials say, would threaten the opening of four new synagogues and seven
sorely needed schools. Class sizes are already near the legal limit of 40 students per
room.
An additional 400 units of housing in various stages of construction might also be shut
down, leaving homeowners -- many of whom have already taken out mortgages up to $300,000 --
with monthly payments and no place to live.
The Times knew American readers would identify with those folks holding mortgages of
up to $300,000 with monthly payments and no place to live. And those same readers can also
identify with parents whose children are in schools "near the legal limit of 40 students per
room".
Further down in the story, the Times reports on the Arab village of Aziriyeh, (in
biblical times, the village of Bethany), where Lazarus was called from his grave by Jesus. (Or
as the Times writes, carefully avoiding any validation of a religious belief, "where the
biblical Lazarus is said to have risen from the dead").
The comparison of Aziriyeh (Bethany) with Ma'ale Adumim is fact-filled. The comparison also
strains for a "balance" that is impossible to achieve between occupiers and the occupied.
Since 1967, the story reports, the village of Aziriyeh has had three-fourths of its land
stolen to enlarge Ma'ale Adumim. Its mayor, Issam Faroun, makes a comparison between his
citizens and those of the illegal citizens of Ma'ale Adumim. The facts are presented fairly.
The comparative use of water is an example.
Mayor Faroun said:
. . . that as Ma'ale Adumim frets about the fate of its landscaped grounds or swimming
pools, Azariyah residents receive water only once a week. The town gateway has turned into a
junkyard of trash, scrap metal and old appliances. Schools have 45 students per class and
unemployment is 50%, in part because the barrier prevents workers from reaching
Jerusalem.
With no room to expand horizontally, families are adding second and third stories to their
homes as children grow up and marry. Bassem abu Roomy, 31, still lives in his parents' house,
sharing two rooms with his pregnant wife and two children. His younger brothers are not so
lucky.
"We can't add any more stories because the foundation of the house can't support it," he
said. "So they can't get married."
When did the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis in Aziriyeh (Bethany) and Ma'ale
Adumim go wrong? When that first brick was laid in Maale Adumim soon after 1967? When Ma'ale
Adumim gobbled up three fourths of Aziriyeh's farmland for its own use? Name your own moment in
recent memory.
The LA Times wants us to look back no further than two decades when the biblical
village of Lazarus and the modern Israeli city of Ma'ale Adumim had, as the Times
describes it, their harmonious relations "strained".
A decade ago, the two communities lived somewhat harmoniously. Israelis shopped in
Azariyah [Bethany] and Palestinians worked on housing projects in the settlement. But during
the last Palestinian uprising, in 2000, two settlers were shot in the village and relations
have been strained since.
The competing needs of these two communities have become part of the international
debate.
So there you have it. Everything was fine until two Israeli settlers were shot. This is a
case study on why the Israeli Lobby and the U.S. Congress are so grateful for news stories like
this one that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
For Sanders and the Times , the Arab village of Azariyah and the modern illegal city
of Maale Adumim are merely playing a role in an "international debate".
No wonder that parent-killer failed to get any respect with his request for mercy because he
was now an orphan. He did not have the support of his own personal lobby making a case for
orphans who have killed their parents.
The picture above is of a barrier in the Arab village of Azariyah (Bethany). The break
in the barrier has been covered by barbed wire. The wire is removed and replaced on a regular
basis by Israeli authorities, who built the barrier in the first place. This photo is from
the website of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and
Israel.
Progressive journalist Michael Tracey claimed Tuesday that MSNBC is has dropped all
pretenses for their "contempt" towards Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).
The political news contributor said the left-leaning network has treated her fellow 2020
Democratic candidates, including businessman Andrew Yang , and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unfairly, but he argued
that with Gabbard it, "crosses a certain threshold."
"Fundamentally they're beholden to whatever the market incentives are and right now it's
within their market interests to depict Tulsi as an infiltrator, as a Trojan horse in the
Democratic Party and not deal on the substance with what she's saying which is why over and
over again they tar her as a Russian plant essentially," Tracey told Hill.TV.
"There's nobody who can really offer any kind countervailing view because it's just not
economically advantageous for them at this point," he added.
MSNBC didn't immediately return Hill.TV's request for comment.
Tracey pointed to a fiery exchange between Gabbard and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) during last week's 2020
primary debate as a prime example.
During the debate, Harris accused Gabbard of being a conservative media darling and
consistently going on Fox News to bash President Obama during his tenure.
"I think that it's unfortunate that we have someone on this stage who is attempting to be
the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, who, during the Obama
administration, spent four years full-time on Fox News criticizing President Obama," Harris
said.
Gabbard dismissed the criticism, calling it "ridiculous."
The California senator also hit Gabbard over her meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
who U.S. officials have accused of being a war criminal. Harris concluded her attack by saying
that Democrats need a candidate who can take on President Trump as well as "bring the party and
the nation together."
The back-and-forth came after Gabbard criticized the Democratic Party of fashioning outdated
foreign policies "represented "by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign
policy."
"Our Democratic Party unfortunately is not the party that is of, by and for the people. It
is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in
Washington, represented by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign policy, by the military
industrial complex and other greedy, corporate interests," she said.
Leading up to the fifth Democratic debate, Gabbard engaged in a weeks-long feud with Clinton
after the former Democratic presidential nominee said the Hawaii lawmaker was "the favorite of
the Russians."
"The difficulty here is that Trump thinks he's defending the military, when he's not"
No, this is not about Trump defending the military. What this is about is how Trump thinks war should be fought, "tough" in
his words. What he means by this is troops should be utterly ruthless. They should murder and kill civilians, as this strikes
fear into the enemy and shows them how "tough" we are. Plus of course Trump likes vengeance. No one should be surprised by this
as Trump has voiced strong support for war crimes, he wants "strong" torture, he wants the families of terrorists, women, children,
elderly murdered to punish the terrorists. Sad thing is, I've heard lots of support for this kind of warfighting among conservatives.
Trump has the mentality of an authoritarian dictator, thankfully he's not that smart.
Army Col. Keven Benson suggests Trump may have overplayed his hand, considering all the wreckage he wrought playing to his base
at the possible cost of his legitimacy among those in uniform. Benson charges, too, that the president's decision to reverse the
directives of senior Navy officers in disciplining one of their own might lose him support not only among senior officers, but
among the rank and file -- a constituency that voted overwhelmingly to put him in the White House.
"You know, these guys, these three knuckleheads -- Lorance, Golsteyn and Gallagher -- might be welcome on Fox News," Benson
says, "but they wouldn't be welcome in my platoon."
Damn.
If it is all the same to everyone, I think we shouldn't indulge in the kind of permissiveness that makes incidents like the
My Lai Massacre or the Abu Graib prisoner abuse scandal possible.
I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968). That is to be blunt, I served as an enlisted man which
is equivalent to a working class peon in civilian life or an Indentured servant who didn't have the money to pay his passage to
the American colony but promised to serve an extended period of apprenticeship to pay it off. In American society at that time
an indentured servant was one rung above being a slave. So I am no fan of the brass. And I have never been a big fan of our Commander-in-Chief
"Bone Spurs" given what I saw during my tour of duty in Vietnam.
But on his decision to deny the brass javing their way and giving them the fickle finger of fate, i.e. the middle finger if
you don't get my drift, I support President Trump wholeheartedly. Anyone who can piss off the brass and make them whine like melting
snowflakes must be doing something right. Also does Mr. Perry remember when President Richard Nixon pardoned Lt. William Calley
after being convicted for the infamous My Lai Massacre?
The American people overwhelmingly supported Nixon's pardon.They will again support President Trump's decision. They do not
read the TAC. Nor do they read any other high-falutin' journal of political opinion. But they are still patriots in their minds.
But being populists they are not necessarily patriots when it comes to the brass who in their thinking are the equivalent of the
1% in civilian life.
It's historical class warfare that fuels populism even though these populists have probably never read Karl Marx. So the brass
can disagree vehemently with Trump, They can also resign like Richard Spencer did and join the private sector. But they may be
in for a rude awakening when they try to give an order to average civilians and are instead given fickle fingers of fate. And
besides, let's be real about this latest crisis du jour, there are plenty more brass where these whiners came from. I bet you
at the Pentagon the brass are literally bumping into each other just walking down the halls.
But they swore allegiance to our Constitution. The president gives orders to them as commander-in-chief. Not the other way
around. Mr. Perry doesn't get how our country has changed since Trump won the election. I assume reading this essay, and if I
am wrong I apologize here, he probably has never broken bread with the great unwashed given how he identifies with military authority.
Trump was elected president surfing on a wave of populism. He played his populist cards in this tempest in a teapot. He gets it.
He is playing to his base. He wants to get re-elected.
But I have one question for Mr. Perry. Why didn't the brass resign en masse against the Iraq War or all these useless Forever
Wars we have been fighting?
These same people stood by and watched our military be socially engineered and gender normed to the point of incompetence. These
are Obama sycophants pure and simple.
A "crisis" in Special Ops is good. Anything that weakens Deepstate is good. Trump didn't make his decision on this basis; he only
needed to assuage his ego; but nevertheless he accidentally did the right thing.
I don't much care about this since I consider most all US military to be war criminals. I suppose I just note the cosmic justice
which punishes many of them with PTSD, drug addiction, and suicide. Now... let's get on with privatizing the VA.
The desk jockey keyboard warrior officers in the Pentagon want to make examples even if they have to use prosecutorial misconduct
to do it and that will help morale and discipline?
Trump should get rid of all the swamp Generals and Admirals. I'm sure they
will enjoy retirement making millions at Lockheed and Raytheon. Trump supports the Troops, not the Bureaucrats.
One gets the impression that the "Rules of Engagement" seem to have been the issue in the case discussed here but they were forgotten
in the bureaucratic squabble between the military and the White House.
People like Pete Hegseth call Chief Gallagher's service exemplary and repeat that he was acquitted of 'alleged war crimes'.
He was acquitted because a medic testified that after he and Gallagher stabilized a wounded, sedated prisoner after 20 minutes,
Gallagher inexplicably stabbed him (non-fatally) below the collar bone, stormed off, and then the medic suffocated him before
Iraqi security forces could torture him. Later Gallagher posed with his corpse.
This is not the sign of a well man or one who was making a snap, life or death decision. I'm not interested in punishing Gallagher
but this hero worship of our military and failure to acknowledge that these long deployments are breaking down our military is
self-deception. But I won't be surprised if I see a trifecta of Trump, Hegseth, and Gallagher at a campaign stop.
If we are being honest, I bet the IRGC has a better reputation than us in the M.E.
Julius Caesar was able to march on Rome because the soldiers gave their fealty to him over Rome. I find Trump's pardoning of soldiers
accused of war crimes deeply disturbing.
The first and foremost principle that must be maintained is that the President has complete authority over the military. Its one
of the central constructs of our republic. The most egregious offence was for Spencer to defy Trump's order. Regardless of what
one's opinion on the state of the special forces is, we can't go down that road. To say that Trump is destroying the commanders
authorities is bass ackwards. The US military, like it or not, MUST have civilians over and above them.
Having said that, I completely agree that there is something very bad wrong with the special forces and especially the Navy
Seals. My experience with Green Berets in the Vietnam era is that they were very effective in working with indigenous populations,
to include recruiting fighters to our side, spoke their language, were highly competent, tough as nails, and very humble. Out
of uniform, one would not even know they were Green Berets. Likewise almost all Army Rangers are equally humble. Green Berets
are recruited from the Rangers.
I never had any personal experiences with Navy Seals, but over the last decade or so at least, its obvious that a large percent
of them are a bunch of braggadocios chest thumpers. There is something seriously wrong with the Navy Seal recruitment program
or training or both. They have a very bad reputation of making their missions public, making jokes out of their security clearances
and never seem to be held accountable for such violations.
The regular military has always distrusted the SOF for the very reasons cited in this article. The Pentagon forbade the beret
until JFK overruled the brass in 1963.
The Founding CO of that vaunted Tier 1 unit Seal team 6 was convicted of federal crimes and spent time in prison in the 1980s.
The Green Beret affair in 1965 resulted in the murder of a allied civilian in Vietnam. The military grew these units beyond
reasonable levels and has misused and overused them since 9/11,
One is left to wonder whether the president has really overplayed his hand or these naval officers are simply Trump-haters as
is all too often the case these days. I'd have to go with let the Navy be the Navy and handle it's own business. But one has to
question whether these officers would've objected as strongly had it been Obama giving the orders?
What a disgrace... I'm a dovish, pacifist peacenik, but even I understand maintaining organizational order, respect for authority,
chain-of-command... (and have respect for many in the military for their desire and attempts to play by international rules and
by-the-book procedures.)
Trump & Gallagher (who strikes me as a sadist) are a disgrace and Fox News is especially beyond the pale, giving Gallagher
a platform to impugn his commanding officer! in public! Where has anyone ever gotten away with that before?... unbelievable.
I guess you could hope for some silver lining that this might undermine the DoD's global empire tendencies... but I'm not sure
this is a good way to get that done (ie leaving or promoting arrogant, cruel men like Gallagher, with the stench of by-gone barbarism
clinging to him, in the services:)
If I were one of this president's advisers, I would make one thing clear.
Don't tweet instructs to any department or department member because it is neither a proper channel for official communique's
nor is it conducive to to effectively, management and more times than not creates more trouble that it solves.
After listing the reasons why "twitter" is an inappropriate forum. i would of course be fired. But I am deeply concerned that
the president is conducting official business in open forums such as twitter.
The official in question was certainly being reasonable to request the order either direct communique or in riding. Given the
nature of twitter, it was a reasonable expectation.
Laugh: I think there are plenty of issues with the military justice system. But that is another matter best left out of twitter
feeds.
Why didn't anyone mention what the effect of these democracy wars are having on our soldiers considering they aren't actually
protecting the country but helping the Muslims move over to it, not just here but to Europe as well.
Most of the terrorist fighters are coming and going from other countries and travel freely oh and besides in Syria we're really
not fighting terrorists but over-throwing a government.
To top it all off these actions are helping to bankrupt our nation. I wonder how this plays for morale of our soldiers? I'm
sure many don't care, the majority of people indluding those just coming in ro the country seem to hate the country anyway so
why would anyone want to fight for them and then maybe there is another side who sees it all and cares, cares that they are losing
their nation. What about the "fight them over there but love them and bow down to their diverstity"? What happens when you realize
that you're not the savior you thought you would be and no one is greatful to have you around, they are fighting you endlessly
and ruthlessly while you're ttying to be a gentle invader, not fighting to win but to install democracy and can't figure out why
no one wants your gift of gentrification.
I'm not so sure I could take his rank from him either, maybe just give him a break from the war on the ground and the two sides
of the war in his head.
On the other hand we increasingly see an unwillingness by the military and Deep State to be ruled over by civilian government,
and instead of a commander in chief, to make of elected Presidents mere puppets for their consensus.
I disagree with Lt.Col Milburns (Ret.) The UCMJ is military law and military law is part of federal law. The president has the
right to pardon anyone convicted under the UCMJ but his authority stops where the law is concerned. The president isn't above
the law, he can countermand the conviction but he can't force the military to withdraw the A@D given by the individual services.
That remains the prerogative of the commanders. Discipline must be maintained and the commanders are responsible and accountable
for that discipline.
CIC is a title conferred on a civilian president, he states that they are responsible for the strategic decisions used to justify
the use of our military forces, the Presidents actions with regard to anything other than the pardon does not meet the criteria
of a strategic decision.
And if water isn't involved in the mission then there really isn't need for SEALS to be there. Mission creep on the part of
the Navy to increase Spec Ops budgets.
Rank has their privilege and as far as I know, PDJT is the CiC. So either you - the un-elected bureaucrat, shut up and follow
the order or put up and resign your commission.
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public
opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:
Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a
number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.
The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy,
and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for
continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with
Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is
still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons,
and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:
In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has
increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent
favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.
38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another
31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of
Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that
there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night.
Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to
scale back U.S. involvement overall.
The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American
exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be
unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries."
This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks
really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to
American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there
is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there
is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.
The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with
its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran
has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been
nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to
elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this
year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more
support for negotiations and non-intervention:
A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic
resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year,
there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want
negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan
increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to
defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran
threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent
stand against it.
With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against
Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it
isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also
weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points
overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly
split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other.
This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear
weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy
and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more
support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear
weapons.
There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and
avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant
constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right
now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they
want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.
When I launched JFK Facts, a blog about
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in 2012, I was often asked by strangers, "So
who killed JFK?" "I don't know," I shrugged. "It's too early to tell." Given that the handsome
liberal president had been shot dead a half-century before, my answer was a lame joke based on
an
apocryphal story . Henry Kissinger once said that when he asked Zhou Enlai, "What was the
effect of the French Revolution on world history?" the Chinese statesmen replied, "It's too
early to tell."
True to Kissingerian form, the story turns out to be not exactly true. Zhou was actually
responding to a question about France's political convulsions in 1968, not 1789. But
Kissinger's spin on the anecdote struck me as perceptive. The meaning of a great historical
event might take a long time–a very long time–to become apparent. I didn't want to
jump to conclusions about the causes of JFK's murder in downtown Dallas on November 22,
1963.
It's still too early to tell. Fifty six years after the fact, historians and JFK researchers
do not have access to all of the CIA's files on the subject The 1964 Warren Commission report
exonerated the agency with its conclusion that Kennedy was killed by one man alone. But the
agency was subsequently the subject of five official JFK investigations, which cast doubt on
its findings.
The Senate's Church Committee investigation showed that the Warren Commission knew nothing
of CIA assassination operations in 1963. JFK records released in the last 20 years show the
Commission's attorneys had no real understanding the extensive counterintelligence monitoring
of Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed. We now know that senior operations officers,
including counterintelligence chief James Angleton, paid far closer attention to the obscure
Oswald as he made his way to Dallas than the investigators were ever told.
To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK's death. And conspiracy theories
spouted by the likes of the Alex Jones and
James Fetzer deserve no attention. The fact remains some of the most astute power players of
1963–including Lyndon
Johnson , Charles DeGaulle,
Fidel Castro , and Jackie and Robert Kennedy–concluded that JFK was killed by his
enemies, and not by one man alone. Did these statesmen get it wrong, and the under-informed
Warren Commission get it right?
The new documentary,
Truth is the Only Client, says yes. The film, shown last month in the auditorium of the
U.S. Capitol, features interviews with numerous former Warren Commission staffers. Supreme
Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who served as a fact checker for the Commission in 1964, defends
the lone gunman conclusion, saying, "You have to look at the new evidence and when you do, I
come to the same conclusion."
Justice Breyer, oddly, passes judgment on evidence he has not seen. The record of the CIA's
role in the events leading JFK's assassination is far from complete. In 2013 I reported on JFK
Facts that Delores Nelson CIA's information coordinator had stated in a sworn affidavit filed
in federal court, that the agency retained 1,100
assassination-related records that had never been made public.
A small portion of this material was released in 2017, including new details about the
opening of the CIA's first Oswald file in October 1959.
Yet thousands of JFK files remain secret. According to the latest figures from the National
Archives, a total of 15,834 JFK files remain fully or
partially classified, most of them held by the CIA and FBI. Thanks to an
October 2017 order from President Trump, these documents will not be made public until
October 2021 , at the earliest.
The assumption of Justice Breyer and many others is that any and all unseen CIA material
must exonerate the agency. It's an odd conclusion. If the CIA has nothing to hide, why is it
hiding so much? While 95 percent of the still-secret files probably are trivial, the remaining
5 percent -- thousands of pages of material–are historically pregnant. If made public,
they could clarify key questions in the long-running controversy about JFK's death.
These questions have been raised most concisely by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a career CIA officer
who served in senior positions. Now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, Mowatt-Larssen
has implicated his former employer in the Dallas ambush. In a
presentation at Harvard last December, Mowatt-Larssen hypothesized that a plot to kill JFK
emanated from the CIA's station in Miami where disgruntled Cuban exiles and undercover officers
loathed JFK for his failure to overthrow Castro's government in Cuba.
Mowatt-Larssen has yet to publish his presentation and documentation, so I can't say if he's
right or wrong. But he asks the right question: "How can intelligence operational and
analytical modus operandi help unlock a conspiracy that has remained unsolved for 55 years?"
And he focuses on the right place to dig deeper: the CIA's Miami office, known as WAVE
station.
My own JFK questions involve George Joannides, a decorated undercover officer who served as
branch chief in the Miami station in 1963. He ran psychological warfare operations against
Cuba. In 2003, I sued the CIA for Joannides' files. The lawsuit ended 15 years later in July
2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in his last
opinion before ascending to the Supreme Court, tossed my case. Kavanaugh declared the
agency deserved "deference upon deference" in its handling of Freedom of Information Act
requests about JFK files.
Nonetheless, my lawsuit illuminated the extraordinary sensitivity of the psy-ops Joannides
ran out of WAVE station. As reported in the New York Times, Fox News, Associated
Press, and Politico
, Morley v. CIA forced disclosure of the fact Joannides had received the CIA's Career
Intelligence Medal in 1981. The honor came two years after he stonewalled the House Select
Committee on Assassination about what he knew of Oswald's contacts with pro-and anti-Castro
Cubans in the summer and fall of 1963.
I believe Joannides was honored because he concealed the existence of an authorized covert
operation involving Oswald that has never been publicly acknowledged. In CIA lingo, Joannides
protected the agency's "sources and methods" concerning Oswald. And he might have done more.
His actions may have also shielded other officers who knew of a scheme to kill the liberal
president and lay the blame on Cuba.
Never been seen by JFK investigators, they contain details about his Joannides' undercover
work in Miami in 1963, when he funded Oswald's antagonists among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles.
They also detail his work in 1978, when he duped chief
investigator Robert Blakey and the House Select Committee on Assassination. These records, the
agency says, cannot be released in 2019 without risk of "irreversible harm" to national
security.
It's a bizarre claim, at odds with the law. These ancient documents, all of them more than
40 years old, meet the statutory definition of "assassination-related," according to federal
judge John Tunheim. He chaired the Assassination Records Review Board which oversaw the
declassification of 4 million pages of JFK files between 1994 and 2017. In an interview,
Tunheim told me that, under the terms of the 1992 JFK Records Act, the Joannides files are
subject to mandatory review and release. "It's a no-brainer," he said.
Yet the files remain off-limits to the public. Thanks to the legal consensus, articulated by
Justices Kavanaugh and Breyer, the CIA enjoys "deference upon deference" when it comes to the
JFK assassination story. As a result, the JFK Records Act has been flouted. The public's
interest in full disclosure has been thwarted.
Yet legitimate questions persist: Did a plot to kill JFK originate in the agency's Miami
station as Mowatt-Larssen suggests? The fact that the CIA won't share the evidence that could
answer the CIA man's question is telling.
So these days, when people ask me who killed JFK, I say the Kennedy was probably victimized
by enemies in his own government, possibly including CIA officers involved in anti-Castro and
counterintelligence operations. I have no smoking gun, no theory. Just look at the suspicious
fact pattern, still shrouded in official secrecy, and it's easy to believe that JFK was, as
Mowatt-Larssen puts it, "marked for assassination." Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jefferson Morley
In 2001 and in 2002 Congress passed authorizations for war. While not declarations of war,
these mandates, each titled an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) provided the
legal framework for attacks against al-Qaeda in 2001 and in 2002 for the Iraq War. Both AUMFs
are still in effect today. As Congress considers its annual authorization to fund the Pentagon
our current members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, are in positions of
responsibility and ability to repeal these AUMFs.
The effect of the AUMFs :
Based on FBI and
journalist
investigations, al Qaeda had between 200-400 members worldwide in September of 2001. Al Qaeda
now has affiliates in every corner of the world, their
strength measures in the tens of thousands of members, and they control territory in Yemen,
Syria and parts of Africa. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now control as much as 60 percent of the
territory and, with regards to international terrorism, where there was one international
terror group in Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon now
reports twenty such groups .
ISIS was formerly al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization that came into existence solely due to
the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States. US military
,
intelligence agencies, journalists
and other
international organizations continually report that the reason people join such groups is
not out of ideology or religious devotion, but out of resistance to invasion and occupation,
and in response to the killing of family, friends and neighbors by foreign and government
forces. It is clear the AUMFs have worsened terrorism, not defeated it.
The cost of the AUMFs :
More
than 7,000 US service members have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded in the wars
since 9/11. Of the 2.5 million troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as many as 20% percent are
afflicted with PTSD, while 20 percent
more may have traumatic brain injury. The Veterans Administration reports Afghan and Iraq
veterans have rates of suicide
4-10 times higher than their civilian peers. This means almost two Afghan and Iraq veterans
are die by suicide every day. Do the math and it is clear more Afghan and Iraq veterans are
dying by suicide than by combat. The cost to the people overseas to whom we have brought these
wars is hard to grasp.
Between one and four million people have been killed, directly and indirectly, by these
wars, while tens of millions more have been wounded or psychologically traumatized, and tens of
millions more made homeless – the cause of the worst refugee crisis since WWII.
Financially, the cost of these wars is immense, at least $6 trillion. Of a vast many statistics that
compose this incomprehensible figure of $6 trillion, is that nearly $1 trillion of it is simply
just interest and debt payments. For any American, Democrat, Republican or independent, these
interest and debt payments alone should cause them to reconsider these wars.
The AUMFs have allowed for wars to be waged without end by the executive branch, wars the
American people, including veterans, say
have not been worth fighting . Congress has the ability and responsibility to help bring
about an end to these wars by ensuring the repeal of the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. Join the debate
on Facebook More articles by: Matthew Hoh
Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace and
World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in
protest of the escalation of the Afghan War by the Obama Administration. He previously had been
in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the
Center for International Policy.
"... She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands. ..."
"... "In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests." ..."
"... government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. ..."
"... Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. ..."
"... In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies .. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin. ..."
"... Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev. ..."
"... Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race .. ..."
"... But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections. ..."
"... While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government. ..."
"... Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed, ..."
"... "In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire." ..."
"... On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR . ..."
"... NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security. ..."
"... True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia. ..."
"... Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries. ..."
"... That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward. ..."
"... The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind. ..."
"... But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood. ..."
"... George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well. ..."
"... David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, ..."
"... . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader . ..."
It's beginning to seem like an assault by the Zulu army of American politics – they
just never stop coming.
We are referring to the Russophobic neocon Deep Staters who have trooped before Adam's
Schiff Show to pillory POTUS for daring to look into the Ukrainian stench that engulfs the
Imperial City – a rank odor that is owing to their own arrogant meddling in the the
internal affairs of that woebegone country.
This time it was Dr. Fiona Hill who sanctimoniously advised the House committee that there
is nothing to see on the Ukraine front that involved any legitimate matter of state; it was
just the Donald and his tinfoil hat chums jeopardizing the serious business of protecting the
national security by injecting electioneering into relations with Ukraine.
She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook
a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed
repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands.
"In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence
Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically
driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests."
Folks, we are getting just plain sick and tired of this drumbeat of lies, misdirection and
smug condescension by Washington payrollers like Fiona Hill. No Ukrainian interference in the
2016 US election?
Exactly what hay wagon does she think we fell off from?
Or better still, ask Paul Manafort who will spend his golden years in the Big House owing
to an August 2016 leak to the New York Times about an alleged "black book"
which recorded payments he had received from his work as an advisor to the Ukrainian
political party of former president Yanakovych. As we have seen, the latter had been removed
from office by a Washington instigated coup in February 2014.
By its own admission, this story came from the Ukrainian government and the purpose was
clear as a bell: Namely, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and force Manafort out
of his months-old role as campaign chairman – a role that had finally brought some
professional management to the Donald's helter-skelter campaign for the nation's highest
office.
In the event, this well-timed bombshell worked, and in short order Manafort resigned,
leaving the disheveled Trump campaign in the lurch:
government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well
as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was
used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr.
Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr.
Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012,
according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators
assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients
also included election officials.
In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies
.. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million
deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort
and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously
come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential
campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation
of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of
Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of
public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in
Kiev.
The bolded lines in the NYT story above tell you exactly where this was coming
from. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau had been set up by an outfit called "AntAC", which
was jointly funded by George Soros and the Obama State Department. And there can be little
doubt that the Donald's accurate view at the time – that Crimea's reunification with
Mother Russia after a 60 year hiatus which had been ordered by the former Soviet Union's
Presidium – was unwelcome in Kiev and among the Washington puppeteers who had put it in
power.
For want of doubt that the Poroshenko government was in the tank for Hillary Clinton, the
liberal rag called Politico spilled the beans a few months later. In a January
11, 2017 story it revealed that the Ukrainian government had pulled out all the stops
attempting to help Clinton, whose protégés at the State Department had been the
masterminds of the coup which put them in office. Thus, Politico concluded,
Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by
officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by
publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a
top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to
back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information
on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in
Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race ..
But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the
race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from
engaging in one another's elections.
While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between
governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump
campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the
Ukrainian government.
Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency – and publicized
by a parliamentarian – appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were
earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president,
Yanukovych.
The New York Times , in the August story revealing the ledgers'
existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were "a focus" of an
investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the
FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.
Yet Fiona Hill sat before a House committee and under oath insisted that all of the above
was a Trumpian conspiracy theory, thereby reminding us that the neocon Russophobes are so
unhinged that they are prepared to lie at the drop of a hat to keep their false narrative
about the Russian Threat and Putin's "invasion" of Ukraine alive.
Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a
specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what
happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed,
Russia today poses a greater foreign policy and security challenge to the United States
and its Western allies than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Its annexation of
Crimea, war in Ukraine's Donbas region, and military intervention in Syria have upended
Western calculations from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Russia's intervention in Syria,
in particular, is a stark reminder that Russia is a multi-regional power ..
There is not a single true assertion in that quotation, of course, but we cite it for a
very particular reason. Shifty Schiff & his impeachment tribunal have brought in Hill
– and Lt. Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Tim Morrison previously
– in order to created an echo chamber.
That's right. The Dems are parroting the neocon lies – whether they believe them or
not – in order to propagate the impression that the Donald is undermining national
security in his effort to take a different posture on Russia and Ukraine, and is actually
bordering on treason.
Thus, Adam Schiff repeated the false neocon narrative virtually word for word at the opening
of the public hearings:
"In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's
embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian
empire."
That's pure rubbish. It's based on the Big Lie that the overwhelming vote of the Russian
population of Crimea in March 2014 was done at the gun point of the Russian Army. And that
event, in turn, is the lynch-pin of the hoary canard that Putin is seeking to rebuild the
Soviet Empire.
So it is necessary to review the truth once again about how Russian Crimea had been
temporarily appended to the Ukrainian SSR during Soviet times.
The allegedly "occupied" territory of Crimea, in fact, was actually purchased from the
Ottomans by Catherine the Great in 1783, thereby satisfying the longstanding quest of the
Russian Czars for a warm-water port. Over the ages Sevastopol then emerged as a great naval
base at the strategic tip of the Crimean peninsula, where it became home to the mighty Black
Sea Fleet of the Czars and then the Soviet Union, too.
For the next 171 years Crimea was an integral part of Russia (until 1954). That span
exceeds the 170 years that have elapsed since California was annexed by a similar thrust of
"Manifest Destiny" on this continent, thereby providing, incidentally, the United States Navy
with its own warm-water port in San Diego.
While no foreign forces subsequently invaded the California coasts, it was most definitely
not Ukrainian and Polish rifles, artillery and blood which famously annihilated The Charge Of
The Light Brigade at the Crimean city of Balaclava in 1854; they were Russians defending the
homeland from Turks, French and Brits.
And the portrait of the Russian "hero" hanging in Putin's office is that of Czar Nicholas
I – whose brutal 30-year reign brought the Russian Empire to its historical zenith. Yet
despite his cruelty, Nicholas I is revered in Russian hagiography as the defender of Crimea,
even as he lost the 1850s war to the Ottomans and Europeans.
At the end of the day, security of its historic port in Crimea is Russia's Red Line, not
Washington's. Unlike today's feather-headed Washington pols, even the enfeebled Franklin
Roosevelt at least knew that he was in Soviet Russia when he made port in the Crimean
city of Yalta in February 1945.
Maneuvering to cement his control of the Kremlin in the intrigue-ridden struggle for
succession after Stalin's death a few years later, Nikita Khrushchev allegedly spent 15
minutes reviewing his "gift" of Crimea to his subalterns in Kiev.
As it happened, therefore, Crimea became part of the Ukraine only by writ of one of the
most vicious and reprehensible states in human history – the former Soviet Union:
On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet
transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian
SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial
proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the
Ukrainian SSR .
That's right. Washington's hypocritical and tendentious accusations against Russia's
re-absorption of Crimea imply that the dead-hand of the Soviet presidium must be defended at
all costs – as if the security of North Dakota depended upon it!
In fact, the brouhaha about "returning" Crimea is a naked case of the hegemonic arrogance
that has overtaken Imperial Washington since the 1991 Soviet demise.
After all, during the long decades of the Cold War, the West did nothing to liberate the
"captive nation" of Ukraine – with or without the Crimean appendage bestowed upon it in
1954. Nor did it draw any red lines in the mid-1990's when a financially desperate Ukraine
rented back Sevastopol and the strategic redoubts of the Crimea to an equally pauperized
Russia.
In short, in the era before we got our Pacific port in 1848, and even during the 170-year
interval since then, America's national security has depended not one whit on the status of
Russian-speaking Crimea. That the local population has now chosen fealty to the Grand Thief
in Moscow over the ruffians and rabble who have seized Kiev amounts to a giant: So what!
The truth is, when it comes to Ukraine there really isn't that much there, there. Its
boundaries have been morphing for centuries among the quarreling tribes, peoples, potentates,
Patriarchs and pretenders of a small region that is none of Washington's damn business..
Still, it was this final aggressive drive of Washington and NATO into the internal affairs
of Russia's historic neighbor and vassal, Ukraine, that largely accounts for the demonization
of Putin. Likewise, it is virtually the entire source of the false claim that Russia has
aggressive, expansionist designs on the former Warsaw Pact states in the Baltics, Poland and
beyond.
The latter is a nonsensical fabrication. In fact, it was the neocon meddlers from
Washington who crushed Ukraine's last semblance of civil governance when they enabled
ultra-nationalists and crypto-Nazis to gain government positions after the February 2014
putsch.
As we indicated above, in one fell swoop that inexcusable stupidity reopened Ukraine's
blood-soaked modern history. The latter incepted with Stalin's re-population of the eastern
Donbas region with "reliable" Russian workers after his genocidal liquidation of the kulaks
in the early 1930s.
It was subsequently exacerbated by the large-scale collaboration by Ukrainian nationalists
in the west with the Nazi Wehrmacht as it laid waste to Poles, Jews, gypsies and other
"undesirables" on its way to Stalingrad in 1942-43. Thereafter followed an equal and opposite
spree of barbaric revenge as the victorious Red Army marched back through Ukraine on its way
to Berlin.
So it may be fairly asked. What beltway lame brains did not chance to understand that
Washington's triggering of "regime change" in Kiev would reopen this entire bloody history of
sectarian and political strife?
Moreover, once they had opened Pandora's box, why was it so hard to see that an outright
partition of Ukraine with autonomy for the Donbas and Crimea, or even accession to the
Russian state from which these communities had originated, would have been a perfectly
reasonable resolution?
Certainly that would have been far preferable to dragging all of Europe into the lunacy of
the current anti-Putin sanctions and embroiling the Ukrainian factions in a suicidal civil
war. The alleged Russian threat to Europe, therefore, was manufactured in Imperial
Washington, not the Kremlin.
In fact, in 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit
the situation through any eastward expansion – not even by "one inch," as
then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that
commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the
Russian border.
So Robert Merry said it well in his excellent piece on the entire neocon Ukraine Scam that
is being paraded before the Schiff Show.
That is, what is being desperately defended on Capitol Hill is not the rule of law,
national security or fidelity to the Constitution of the United States., but a giant Neocon
Lie that is needed to keep the Empire in business, and the world moving ever closer to an
utterly unnecessary Cold War 2.0 between nation's each pointing enough nuclear warheads at
the other to destroy the planet.
NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the
expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued
stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO
either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.
True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their
elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial
blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine,
renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official
status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but
they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed
at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater
economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged
street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland
gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.
Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely
Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey
Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she
shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position,
demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries.
That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to
protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's
east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a
plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly
the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass
Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.
The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in
the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British
geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its
vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands.
Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any
sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.
But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia,
the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's
eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US
government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the
encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for
Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with
economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected
Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge
Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.
George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this
aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon
its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and
leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.
"... America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted. ..."
"... Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it. ..."
"... America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened. ..."
"... Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington. ..."
"... Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so. ..."
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union – and in the 1940s and
1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth – were rather idealistic. This was
largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going
to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the
1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined
towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of
major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent,
sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with
access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable
position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over"
as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like
Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the
Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there
were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic
weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea's connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning
Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward
declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even
insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like
letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy),
look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to
share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a
rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to
poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced
apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
Later they believed that equality of superpower status for the Soviet Union would
contribute to world peace.
How dumb were these "scientists". Everyone knows that once Soviet Union fell, peace and
freedom and democracy are flowering all over the world and United States are not waging any
wars anymore.
Agreed. However, an addendum, you seem to have forgotten to mention Russia's aggressive
training whales to spy on Norway, crickets to drive the US embassy in Cuba nuts, weaponizing
Masha and the bear, using Pokemon to sow the seeds of discord, contemplating on freezing up a
few states, any many others the mere thought of gets one wound up.
"... "Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties." ..."
"... She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here." ..."
"... Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. ..."
In a rare moment with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi
Gabbard explained why the leading figures in her party are war hawks. Far from days of the
Democrats feigning to have any semblance of an 'anti-war' platform (only convenient for Liberal
activism during the Bush years, but fizzling out under Obama), today's party attempts to
out-hawk Republicans at every turn.
"I'm looking at the Democratic establishment figures," Matthews introduced, "people I
normally like. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton. You go down the list. They all supported
the war in Iraq. Why were they hawks? " (Though we might ask, what do you mean, "
were ?"). "Why so many Democrats with a party that's not hawkish, why are so many of
their leaders hawks?" Matthews reiterated.
In the segment, Matthews heaps rare praise on Tulsi for being "out there all alone tonight
fighting against the neocons."
"Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy
establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount
of influence over both parties."
She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors
have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have
people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical
decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so
serious about what's at stake here."
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The interview happened immediately after this week's fifth Democratic debate Wednesday night
in Atlanta, and after pundits have continued to complain that Gabbard is a 'single issue
candidate'.
However, is there any candidate in her party or in the GOP saying these things?
We find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with MSNBC's Matthews: she is "out there all
alone tonight fighting against the neocons." Tags Politics
And again, if we do win despite all the structural injustices in the system the Rs
inherited and seek to expand, well, those injustices don't really absolutely need to be
corrected, because we will still have gotten the right result from the system as is.
This is a pretty apt description of the mindset of Corporate Democrats. Thank you !
May I recommend you to listen to Chris Hedge 2011 talk On Death of the Liberal Class At least to
the first part of it.
Corporate Dems definitely lack courage, and as such are probably doomed in 2020.
Of course, the impeachment process will weight on Trump, but the Senate hold all trump cards,
and might reverse those effects very quickly and destroy, or at lease greatly diminish, any
chances for Corporate Demorats even complete on equal footing in 2020 elections. IMHO Pelosi
gambit is a really dangerous gambit, a desperate move, a kind of "Heil Mary" pass.
Despair is a very powerful factor in the resurgence of far right forces. And that's what
happening right now and that's why I suspect that far right populism probably will be the
decisive factor in 2020 elections.
IMHO Chris explains what the most probable result on 2020 elections with be with amazing
clarity.
This lecture is part of the McMaster Department of Philosophy's Summer School in Capitalism, democratic solidarity, and Institutional
design
https://www.solidaritydesign2019.com
At first I thought the guy makes up lack of knowledge by trying to be funny. I stand corrected though: he's smart, informative
and funny as heck. Way to go!
Cant believe he missed tulsi, i actually put biden on the lower end with beto but idk thats my perspective and yes trump will
most likely win but i wanna see who's the democratic nominee because i think hes underestimating the amount of people willing
to come out for bernie
Bernie is still THE most popular candidate, despite mainstream media pretending that he is not. The skullduggery of media and
the establishment is ENDLESS - including not allowing a couple of hundred Bernie supporters to come in with their signs and shirts,
but allowing Warren supporters to do so and showing ONLY THOSE SUPPORTERS. Nice, huh?
Nixon decided to un-peg the dollar (from gold) in 1971, which was the last remaining constraint on price inflation. Currency
supply increases, which eventually become price inflation, have been the norm since. The rest of this could be plainly foreseen
with a decent understanding of Hayek's business cycle contributions.
Professor Blythe, you are outstanding. I wish that you had been my tutor in graduate school. Everything you say makes sense
perfect sense, but the plug for the #SNP . Some
British people identify as Scottish, believe themselves to be different. The same could be said of people from Yorkshire; my grandparents
hail from Bradford & Glasgow respectively. We're all British; we all rely on the South-East; to wit, London ... like it or not.
Could Scotland - sure Scots. are cannier than Greeks ... or are they - survive as a vassal state of The Berlin-Brussels Axis?
I may be old school but give me the Anglophone world every time ;).
I would love to know how you would advise Nicky Sturgeon should Brigadoon ever become a reality or will the next
#GFC be death knell of the
#EUropean experiment, putting an end -
just for now - to the British constitutional issue - ?
Blyth is wrong about Warren, HER record is thinner than Bernie's by far. She talks a good game, stands for almost nothing and
will do almost everything our corrupt establishment wants, including the MIC and other sociopathic profiteers. smdh
Taken together, those twin hasbara refrains evoke a notion of divine punishment. JFK and
RFK were punished for the sins of their Jew-hating, Nazi-loving father. Mind you, it was
Yahweh who took vengeance, not Israel!
Brilliant article by Guyenot. Thoroughly well written & informative.
A Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, is being viciously slandered in article after article in
the Mainstream (Zionist) Media. Read the diatribe carefully, and learn some of how the People
are misdirected-brainwashed.
Ms. Gabbard is, apparently, leading in the Polls, and the Zionist controller Power Elite
are Panicky. They will do to Ms. Gabbard what they did to Ron Paul, and his campaign.
It is a sense of frustration that We-I are not able to Revenge the murder of our last
Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, the Destruction of our Republic, the millions of
murders from November 22, 1963, to the present, or to effectively defend & protect this
noble lady (Ms. Gabbard).
If we protect her, we protect ourselves and our Country. Freedom is not free. We must
Pay for i t!
"... JFK's assassination made possible the acquisition of nuclear arsenal by Israel and the unhindered growth of the most important foreign lobby such as AIPAC. On the cui bono question Israel is a perfect match. Israel gained everything form the JFK's death ..."
"... Was Johnson having an affair with Israeli agent Mathilde Krim? Did LBJ have reason to fear he was liable to be dumped from the Democratic ticket in 1964 because of the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals? Why did Richard Nixon lie about his own presence in Dallas when Kennedy was killed? Why was George HW Bush for a long time unable to remember his whereabouts on Nov. 22? ..."
"... All available evidence points to the CIA and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the cooperation of the Secret Service, as the murderers of President Kennedy. ..."
"... It is well documented that JFK wanted to break down the power of the Central Intelligence Agency. Could this have had dire consequences and let to his untimely death? Let's have a look! ..."
"... This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government. This I base on an assertion in Douglass's book JFK and the Unspeakable that men with Secret Service and FBI credentials immediately began the cover up operation. ..."
"... Fullbright who publicly denounced Israel and their control of the US Congress on National TV and the fact that Kennedy wanted him as Secretary of State must have also riled the Jews. Fullbright was also against the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Of course, I know the speculation it was Israelis who were behind it (Dimona), but I don't find it persuasive. There are other means to avoid US inspection, and Kennedy was not adamant about it at all. These are things politicians toy with all the time, and while not a "friend" of Israel, Kennedy was not an enemy -- one could consider Eisenhower, if we judge him by his actions during Suez canal crisis- to be an "enemy" of Israel (of course this too is simplistic, politics is a rough business). ..."
"... The Warren Commission hogwash was almost as ridiculous as the official 911 nonsense, and Mark Lane's 1966 book "Rush to Judgment" helped fuel broad public disbelief in the official story. ..."
"... Talk about quid pro quo to the nth degree, as that hideous snake LBJ gave the MIC and its financiers their wars, etc., in exchange for the Presidency and for keeping his sorry ass out of jail for the Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker scandals. Sure, the Israelis benefitted, and were likely a cog in the conspiratorial wheel, but the CIA, Secret Service, and various military agents were the movers and shakers, with LBJ their guarantor. ..."
"... Like any good gumshoe worth his salt, the first question he asks himself after arriving at the crime scene is Cui bono, who benefits? In the case of the JFK assassination, there was clearly one very large beneficiary that stood out above the rest, Israel. By Nov 1963, JFK had two big strikes against him ..."
"... "Mr. Trump has been prevented from releasing the rest of the "top secret" files, in spite of his promise to do so." IIRC, it was Trump doing all of the preventing. ..."
"... This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government. ..."
"... The Mossad and the CIA were part of the same "team"–the CIA handled and continues to handle the ongoing domestic coverup operations as needed (including Mockingbird mass media activities). ..."
"... Connelly is a _very_ interesting figure, and his background prior to the day of the assassination is not very well understood. I was stunned to read that he was a key actor in the Korean War "setup" ..."
"... Remember, Kennedy had just buggered up the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and was threatening to pull out of the CIA's war in Vietnam. With a nod from LBJ the CIA could kill Kennedy and be sure of top-down cover from the moment Kennedy's heart stopped beating, cover which, according to the doctors who attended on Kennedy at Parklands Hospital, was promptly given. ..."
"... Then there's the deathbed confession of CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, which provides a tenuous connection with Richard Nixon, who hired Hunt and Frank Sturgis (both believed to have been among the tramps arrested in Dealey Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the assassination) to. among other things, burglarize the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Building in Washington, DC. ..."
"... I think Oswald the CIA agent who agreed to go to Russia on a fake defector mission for the agency with no way of knowing what would happen to him, would have been an insanely extreme patriot. Such an Oswald might be willing to do anything he was ordered to I suppose. The trouble is Oswald seems to have been anti establishment right back into his teens. He was an immature 17 year old when he joined the Marines, and though he toughened up considerably they evidence of him ever being an anti communist fanatic is just lacking. ..."
"... Be sure and dive into all of the data supporting link's located at the bottom of this web page. November 23, 2019 JFK, MLK, RFK, 50 Years of Suppressed History: New Evidence on Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Failures to Confront the Unspeakable, and The Way Ahead. Part I
"... It is a documented fact that during all past official visits, President Kennedy's motorcade comprised a open-top lorry, driving ahead of the Presidents' limousine, and carrying journalists sat backward on graded tiers, who would film the President and the crowd cheering on him. ..."
"... At Dallas, the journalists' truck got cancelled, and the way paved for the sole Abraham Zapruder to document the circumstances of the JFK assassination. Just another complete coincidence, obviously. ..."
In my view, summarized
here
, John Kennedy was assassinated by Israel for three major reasons:
Dimona:
President
Kennedy, who had made nuclear disarmament his grand mission on the international level, and was on the way
to achieve it with Khrushchev (as shown by James Douglass in
JFK and the Unspeakable
), was determined to stop Israel developing its own nuclear bomb.
According to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's
interpretation
, it was to plunge into the Israeli deep state and supervise Kennedy's assassination that
Ben-Gurion resigned in July 1963 before receiving Kennedy's ultimatum letter demanding inspections of
Dimona.
American Zionist Council:
John Kennedy and his Attorney General Bobby Kennedy had infuriated Zionist leaders by supporting an
investigation led by Senator William Fulbright (whom Kennedy had been prevented to name as Secretary of
State) aimed at registering the American Zionist Council as a "foreign agent" subject to the obligations
defined by the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would have rendered its lobbying division, the
AIPAC, near powerless. On October 11, 1963, the AZC received a formal demand from RFK's office to register
within 72 hours (details
here
).
To these reasons for assassinating
Kennedy, we must add the opposite reasons for putting Johnson instead in the Oval Office, for Johnson buried
both the Dimona and the AZC proceedings, and cut U.S. support for Nasser's in order to boost support to
Israel. In 1967, he would commit high treason against his own country by allowing and covering-up Israel's
failed false-flag attack on the USS Liberty. No wonder Israel loved Johnson as much as they hated Kennedy.
Zionists had reasons to fear that
Joseph Kennedy did "inject some poisonous drops of anti-Semitism in the minds of his children, including his
son John's" (as printed in September 1960 by the
Herut,
Menachem Begin's political party).
[6]
Alan
Hart,
Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews
, vol. 2:
David Becomes Goliath,
Clarity Press, 2013,
p. 252.
In 1940, John had published a book titled
Why England Slept,
adapted from his
Harvard thesis which was, as the title alluded, a response to Churchill's 1938 book
While England Slept,
and a veiled support for his father's pro-appeasement views. In his Pulitzer prize-winning book
Profiles in Courage
(1956), Kennedy had declared his admiration for Senator Robert Taft, who by calling
the Nuremberg trials a shameful parody of justice had sacrificed his political career, including his chances
for the presidency, rather than build it on hypocrisy. Although Zionists probably didn't know it until
recently, in 1945, JFK had written the following in his diary, as quoted
here
by Abigail Abrams:
The Kennedys were a family of strong
traditions and strong convictions. They had to be destroyed, politically as had Charles Lindbergh
(1902-1974), and if necessary physically, before they extirpate America from Zionists' clutches.
Dallas was an Israeli coup, ordered from
Tel Aviv with Johnson's support, and supervised by the local B'nai B'rith under the cover of the Dallas
Citizens Council, who was sponsoring Kennedy's visit, and of whom Abraham Zapruder himself was a member
(watch his satisfaction when interviewed two hours after JFK's assassination in the History Channel
documentary
JFK – 3 Shots That Changed America
, at 43:34).
When trying to make sense of Dallas'
Umbrella Man, we are faced with a dilemma: should we believe Witt's explanation of his strange behavior (as
does Josiah Thompson), or should we consider him an accomplice to the assassination (as does Russ Baker)?
Only in the framework of the Israeli theory pioneered by Michael Collins Piper is it possible to surmount
the dilemma.
Let's recap what we know for certain.
Fact number 1: on the sunny day of November 22, 1963, one man was standing on the President's motorcade
route with an open umbrella, at the precise moment and place when JFK was shot. To assume that the Umbrella
Man's strange behavior and JFK's assassination are unrelated is unreasonable. The coincidence is just too
improbable.
Fact number 2: In 1978, Louie Steven
Witt claimed in front of the HSCA that he was the Umbrella Man and explained that he wanted to heckle JFK
about his father's policy of appeasement of Hitler in 1938.
Although Thompson and Baker disagree
about everything else, they agree that there can be no connection between John Kennedy's assassination and
Joseph Kennedy's appeasement policy. That is where they are both wrong.
Was Louie Steven Witt a Zionist agent, a
sayan
? Not necessarily. Operations like the JFK assassination are planned on a strict need-to-know
basis: no one knows more than he needs to know. Witt
declared to the HSCA
that he belonged to no organization whatsoever. He summarized his motivation for
his "bad joke" in these words:
"In a coffee break conversation
someone had mentioned that the umbrella was a sore spot with the Kennedy family. Being a
conservative-type fellow, I sort of placed him in the liberal camp and I was just going to kind of do a
little heckling."
What would be interesting to know is:
who inspired Witt during his coffee break? Did the coffee break take place in the office of Witt's Jewish
boss, director of the Rio Grande National Life insurance Co. in Dallas? Did Witt have insurmountable debts,
like Jacob Rubenstein, aka Jack Ruby? Russ Baker mentions that the company wrote a lot of insurance for the
military and was located in the same building that housed the local office of the highly negligent Secret
Service.
Mr Witt, would you kindly come forward
again and answer a few questions?
I looked at 43:34 of the documentary posted with Zupruder being interviewed shortly after the assassination;
and what I see is a man aghast and at a loss for words, not "satisfied" as you supposed.
There is no better theory of JFK assassination than outlined by the author. JFK's assassination made
possible the acquisition of nuclear arsenal by Israel and the unhindered growth of the most important
foreign lobby such as AIPAC. On the
cui bono
question Israel is a perfect match. Israel gained
everything form the JFK's death
I am absolutely certain that the murder of JFK was the work of a group of conspirators rather than an
individual. The umbrella man is not new to me. I never gave him much thought though I have read work by
others who factor him as a key role in the assassination. The interview of Josiah Thompson was most thought
provoking in that it showed how someone on the periphery of a big event can be implicated theoretically yet
really it appeared to be nothing more than happenstance.
The takeaway from this is that we should never
take for granted the basic tenet of our justice system that presumes innocence. The burden of proof of guilt
lies with those making the accusation. Was the umbrella man a participant in that homicide? I don't know and
there is really no evidence proving otherwise.
Let's keep our eye on the ball. Sadly no one will ever be held to account for that murder. That is not to
say that the truth will never be known. One day we will know exactly what happened and who was responsible.
The lesson here is to not get immersed in that which can not be proven but can also detract from those who
were really responsible.
I'm quite happy to believe that Jews killed JFK, but things like this are a very thin reed to hang anything
on;
Dallas was an Israeli coup, ordered from Tel Aviv with Johnson's support, and supervised by the local
B'nai B'rith under the cover of the Dallas Citizens Council, who was sponsoring Kennedy's visit, and of
whom Abraham Zapruder himself was a member (watch his satisfaction when interviewed two hours after JFK's
assassination in the History Channel documentary JFK – 3 Shots That Changed America , at 43:34).
Zapruder's expression is totally equivocal. His strange momentary smile could be the natural reaction of
someone who is suddenly embarrassed to be on the point of tears. You can't make history out of 'testimony'
this weak.
Dimona: President Kennedy, who had made nuclear disarmament his grand mission on the international
level, and was on the way to achieve it with Khrushchev (as shown by James Douglass in JFK and the
Unspeakable), was determined to stop Israel developing its own nuclear bomb.
This is the same James Douglass who was incapable of spotting the obvious difference between Oswald's
wide head and Billy Nolan Lovelady's narrow head, thereby establishing himself as someone who is unreliable
with
any
evidence.
@Germanicus
Exactly what I thought when I realized the webpage of
Jewish Life
that I screenshot was taken away,
like the one from the
5 Towns Jewish Times
saying "Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson?" (of
which I didn't get a screenshot). So I've just save the screenshot of the page of the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency that you mention, titled: "Lyndon Johnson: no better friend"
the article says:
"Johnson was the most emotionally committed to Israel of any American president -- a fact that is not
popularly known but is clear from his background," Dennis Ross, a veteran Middle East negotiator in
Republican and Democratic administrations, said last year at a symposium of the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, where he is counselor.
Johnson was the first president to invite an Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, on a state visit. They
got along so well -- both men were farmers -- that Johnson paid Eshkol the rare compliment of inviting him
to his ranch.
LBJ soon abandoned pressure on Israel to come clean about the Dimona reactor. He increased arms sales to
Israel and in 1968, after Israel's primary supplier, France, imposed an embargo as a means of cultivating
ties in the Arab world, the United States became Israel's main supplier of weapons, notably launching the
talks that would lead to the sale of Phantom fighter jets to Israel.
Johnson wanted to commit more forcefully to Israel's cause in the lead-up to the 1967 Six-Day War, but he
felt constrained from a dramatic show of military might because of the failures of the war in Vietnam
then dogging his presidency. Nonetheless, during the war, he ordered warships to within 50 miles of
Syria's coast as a warning to the Soviets not to interfere.
In a speech in the war's immediate aftermath, Johnson effectively nipped in the bud any speculation that
the United States would pressure Israel to unilaterally give up the lands it had captured. He laid down
not only the "land for peace" formula that would inform subsequent U.N. Security Council resolutions, but
made it clear that any formula had to ensure Jewish access to Jerusalem's Old City.
@Daniel Rich
They donated half that money to a police charity on behalf of officers killed/wounded that day to be fair.
And by Kennedy wanting Israel nuke free is more than enough to prompt his assassination even though he was
hated by the entire military industrial complex.
If this was straight
assasination why go to so much trouble. The CIA had at the time developed weapons that could assasinate by
giving heart attacks or cancer and were discussed in the church committee investigation into the CIA. It
would have been very easy for someone to assasinte kennedy for instance when he was viting Marilyn Monroe or
his many mistresses. An affair is a good excuse for a heart attack.
No the murder of kennedy was not just about getting rid of him. It was a highly symbolic , even ritualistic
act.
It showed ultimately the power of the conspirators. It showed the impotence of the public. Its about
immobilizing effective resistance to the elite. Conspiracy theories become part of the psychological control
that they hold over the mass mind. The umbrella man is part of that symbolic control
"No wonder Israel loved Johnson as much as they hated Kennedy."
Y
ou should have written:
No wonder Johnson hated Kennedy as much as he loved Israel.
Was Johnson having an affair with Israeli agent Mathilde Krim? Did LBJ have reason to fear he was liable
to be dumped from the Democratic ticket in 1964 because of the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals? Why
did Richard Nixon lie about his own presence in Dallas when Kennedy was killed? Why was George HW Bush for a
long time unable to remember his whereabouts on Nov. 22?
With previous assassination plots in Chicago and Tampa, and the JBS handing out these posters in Dallas,
it was dereliction of duty for the Secret Service to have failed to clear high rise buildings in Dallas on
the motorcade route. Indeed, it was against their own regulations for Kennedy's limousine to have made those
sharp, slow-speed turns that took it through Dealey Plaza, and it was nothing short of being an accomplice
to murder for Secret Service driver William Greer to have allowed JFK's limousine to slow to a stop in the
killing zone when shots rang out.
With all that, I see umbrella man as nothing but a big red herring.
OK, but that was just on the side: I'm not building anything on that. This whole article is just an
anecdotic appendix to my main Kennedy article.
This is the same James Douglass who was incapable of
Yes, I am aware of the many shortcomings of Douglass, including his many blind spots (never heard of
Dimona, believes Johnson was such a good guy that, having failed to prevent the assassination of his beloved
president, he at least prevented the invasion of Cuba that it was meant to trigger, etc.). Nevertheless, his
book opened my eyes to Kennedy's determination to disarm the world and end the Cold War.
@PeterMX
It is also amazing that, 56 years after the terrible event that ruined America, Mr. Trump has been prevented
from releasing the rest of the "top secret" files, in spite of his promise to do so.
"Just days before he was
assassinated, JFK confided to his secretary that he wanted to replace his vp when he ran for reelection – he
didn't think LBJ was fit for president."
Later in the piece: Looking straight ahead and without hesitating he replied, "At this time I am thinking
about Gov. Terry Sanford of NC. But it will not be Lyndon."
Jack didn't want LBJ as his vp in the first place, but thought that the only way he could win was to put
that evil SOB on the ticket. He probably was right, as LBJ delivered Texas. Given the decades long national
trauma, from which the country has never recovered, it would have been far better if Nixon had won.
Oliver Stone's JFK blames the CIA, the military, and LBJ, makes no mention of Israel, and treats Ruby and
Zapruder sympathetically. No doubt explained by the fact that the movie was funded and produced by Israeli
superagent Arnon Milchan.
The movie is a limited hangout made to ensure that those who cannot swallow the
obvious lies of the Warren Commission will direct their anger otherwise than at Israel.
It showed ultimately the power of the conspirators. It showed the impotence of the public. Its about
immobilizing effective resistance to the elite. Conspiracy theories become part of the psychological
control that they hold over the mass mind. The umbrella man is part of that symbolic control
You nailed it. Also note this was an "Event", where hit men from all over the world (many of whom worked
as contractors for various intelligence agencies) converged in one place to honor their craft. A select few
participated in the actual execution, the rest were there to confuse any future investigators with false
leads.
This was a modern ritual sacrifice–think of it as alchemy in action.
September 24, 2019 The Coverup of President John F. Kennedy's Assassination Is Wearing Thin. All available
evidence points to the CIA and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the cooperation of the Secret Service, as
the murderers of President Kennedy.
It is well documented that JFK wanted to break down the power of the Central Intelligence Agency. Could
this have had dire consequences and let to his untimely death? Let's have a look!
Jan 21, 2019 Celebs and relatives of Martin Luther King Jr. call for new probe into his death ahead of
his public holiday as they claim his assassination and JFK, RFK and Malcolm X's killing were conspiracies
covered up by the government
A group of at least 60 US citizens including journalists, lawyers and historians are calling for new
investigations into four history-making assassinations
Nov 23, 2016 53 YEARS AFTER JFK ASSASSINATION CIA ADMITS THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY IS ACTUALLY FACT
Shortly
after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade
through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. It's been 53 years since the assassination. Since that
fateful November day, conspiracy theories have abounded. However, when we sift through the disinformation
and look at only verifiable facts, we find no need for theories -- as the conspiracy was a fact.
Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion ordered the murder of JFK, because Kennedy had stood up to that maniac regarding
Israel getting nukes.
Mossad And The JFK Assassination
Their motive? Israel's much touted Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who ruled that country from its
inception in 1948 until he resigned on June 16, 1963, was so enraged at John F. Kennedy for not allowing
Israel to become a nuclear power that, Collins asserts, in his final days in office he commanded the
Mossad to become involved in a plot to kill America's president.
Ben-Gurion was so convinced that Israel's very survival was in dire jeopardy that in one of his final
letters to JFK he said,
"Mr. President, my people have the right to exist, and this existence is in
danger."
In the days leading up to Ben-Gurion's resignation from office, he and JFK had been involved in an
unpublicized, contentious debate over the possibility of Israel getting nuclear capabilities. Their
disagreement eventually escalated into a full-fledged war of words that was virtually ignored in the
press. Ethan Bronner wrote about this secret battle between JFK and Ben-Gurion years later in a New York
Times article on October 31, 1998, calling it a "fiercely hidden subject." In fact, the
Kennedy/Ben-Gurion conversations are still classified by the United States Government. Maybe this is the
case because Ben-Gurion's rage and frustration became so intense – and his power so great within Israel –
that Piper contends it was at the center of the conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. This stance is supported
by New York banker Abe Feinberg, who describes the situation as such:
"Ben-Gurion could be vicious,
and he had such a hatred of the old man [Joe Kennedy, Sr., JFK's father]."
Ben-Gurion despised Joe
Kennedy because he felt that not only was he an anti-Semite, but that he had also sided with Hitler
during the 1930's and 40's. [We will touch upon this aspect of the story in an upcoming article entitled
The CIA and Organized Crime: Two Sides of the Same Coin].
Anyway, Ben-Gurion was convinced that Israel needed nuclear weapons to insure its survival, while
Kennedy was dead-set against it.
This inability to reach an agreement caused obvious problems.
One
of them revolved around Kennedy's decision that he would make America his top priority in regard to
foreign policy, and not Israel!
Kennedy planned to honor the 1950 Tripartite Declaration which said
that the United States would retaliate against any nation in the Middle East that attacked any other
country. Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, wanted the Kennedy Administration to sell them offensive weapons,
particularly Hawk missiles.
.Gerald Posner, in his 1993 book Case Closed, posited that the errant first shot was fired at Z 160,
which put the entire shooting sequence at 8.4 seconds. (8) In the 13 years since Posner's book, several
highly respected students of the assassination have weighed in with reputable analyses of the first
shot's timing. Their estimates lead to total elapsed times of around 8.8, 8.4, and 8.6 seconds .
@ThreeCranes
Dr.Charles Crenshaw was one of the surgeons who treated JFK when he was brought into Parkland Hospital
stated that he " considered the throat wound to be an entrance wound and the large head wound (at the right
rear of JFK's head ) to be an exit wound Along with many of my Parkland colleagues I believed at the time
that the President had been hit twice from the front ."
"Every doctor who was in the trauma room had his own reasons for not refuting the official line .whatever
was happening was larger than any of us anyone who went as far to eliminate the President of the United
States would surely not hesitate to kill a doctor ."
Charles Crenshaw , " JFK Conspiracy of Silence " 1992
Fyi, in David Lifton's important & scientific book, "Best Evidence," he turned to a
fundamental example as to why JFK's head projected backward & a brain matter fell upon the limo's trunk.
Based upon physics,
Mr.
Lifton offered the kiddie example at a town carnival, & the act of shooting at plastic ducks. He emphasized
that wounded plastic duckies fall backward, not forward.
P.S.: David Lifton concluded unequivocally that a Secret Service role was critical to allow JFK's murder
& subsequent cover-up.
@LondonBob
Maybe so. Perhaps Baker is right: the Umbrella Man was a signal man, and Witt is not the Umbrella Man. But
then, fact number 2 become even more significant: why would someone come forward to make a declaration to
the HSCA that had the effect of connecting in the public psyche JFK's public assassination to the Kennedys'
anti-Semitism, and therefore, implicitly, to Jewish vengeance?
(I should have included that paragraph).
This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and
eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government. This I base on an assertion in Douglass's book JFK
and the Unspeakable that men with Secret Service and FBI credentials immediately began the cover up
operation.
Douglass pointed to this as proof that a group of CIA insiders, no doubt loyal to Dulles, were
the orchestrators. How else to get real credentials for fake agents? That still makes sense to me though M.
Guyenot's writings make it clear that the Israelis would have been happy to lend an assist.
JFK's public assassination to the Kennedys' anti-Semitism,
Laurent Guyenot, I have already posted – my agreement with your well written analysis.
However, (please pay attention),
John F. Kennedy was not an 'anti-Semite,' he liked Arabs.
Semites are Peoples from the Middle East. The overwhelming majority of Jews are NOT Semites. They hail
from Europe, or from America-by route of Europe.
I would recommend
Arthur Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe
, as the first read – of many to understand &
correctly use the term "Semite."
The term Semite is cynically used as a misdirection tool.
The Jewish Oligarch claim to be Semites,
is a deceitful way of laying claim to land in the Middle East. The worst anti-Semites are Jews, who are busy
Ethnically Cleansing Palestinian Arabs, stealing their lands & wealth, and, additionally, attempting to
conquer all of the Middle East, and Remove, or Exterminate the indigenous Semites.
Orwell
exposed the manipulation of Language, in his
1984
, as the key tool of oppressors to
reduce their subjects to slavery.
A couple of years ago I finally fulfilled a promise I made to my self back in November 22nd 1963 as I sat in
Edinburgh Scotland on that fateful Friday night,that I would one day visit Dealey plaza Dallas and see for
my self.
As I drove into the plaza up W Commerce street what struck me immediately was how small it all felt and as I
walked around the compact size of Dealey plaza was reinforced. I had been viewing the unfolding events all
these years through the lens of a narrow angle press camera and Zapruders home movie wide angle lens, which
to me made the place look far more expansive than it is when you are there in person. I have been unable for
some time to come up or read anyone else's theory which explained satisfactorily the shallow back wound in
Kennedy the throat wound with just a tiny knick in the tie , the wounding of Connelly, the Teague face hit,
the damage to the windscreen and the chrome strip of the car and the shot which hit the grass.
who claimed that umbrella man had fired a poison paralysing dart at Kennedy at about z189. I took this
with a pinch of salt when I first read it. The plaza looked to big for this to have been likely and the
distance from the kerb side to the car would be to large to have a realistic chance of success from an
umbrella, but having visited the plaza and seeing how close he actually was, far fetched though it seems,
it's a good theory that fits what you see happening in the Z film.
So I think Richard E. Sprague is pretty much right , first Umbrella man opens his umbrella the coloured
man stands in front of him with his hand in the air and umbrella man fires his flechette hitting Kennedy in
the throat. Then Kennedy's hands go to his throat and he is quickly parallalized. The radio man passes the
message to start shooting. The first shot comes in , it misses but hits the street lamp standard or the tree
and fragments, one of the fragment hits Kennedy in the back and one fragment hits Teague in the face along
with bits hitting the car chrome strip and windscreen. A second shot comes in and hits Connelly in the chest
and Connelly starts screaming "they are going to kill us all". The third shot hits Kennedy in the head as
Z313 as he sits stiff and ridged slightly angled but upright in the car. There may have been a 4th shot from
the grassy knoll which was a head shot also and a possible 5th shot , the one hit the grass in Dealey Plaza.
With a sixth and possible second shot hit on Connelly. Since we now have multiple shooters and Umbrella man
the timing of shots is no longer a factor not if they are coming in close together can we determine exactly
how many.
Ok but here is my justification's for his theory. First you need to read Richard E. Sprague and his
appendages .
We have confirmation that such a weapon existed from Col Prouty.
We have the appearance at the congressional hearing of the Umbrella man Mr Witt in 1978 himself showing the
alleged umbrella he carried that day , which would be rather odd if he had turned up with the real umbrella
and said this is the weapon, so he is an unreliable witness with no evidence chain to this or any umbrella,
so to me he is CIA disinformation.
e said he was putting the umbrella up and down as a protest against Joe Kennedy and Jack Kennedy as
appeasers with some comment about Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement policies in WW2. Sorry Mr Umbrella
man , Mr Chamberlain had died of cancer before America entered WW2 replaced by Churchill in May 1940.
Secondly Mr Chamberlin was an alleged appeaser of Germany not the Soviet Union who were our supposed allies,
while Jack was being accused of Soviet-Cuban appeasement over the Bay of Pigs I assume. It's also safe to
say that in the 30's most middle class people in London wore a bowler hat carried an umbrella and a brief
case.
The lack of reaction from Mr Kennedy as his hands fall to his side when Connelly is crying out and being
pulled into his wife's arms as Jack is frozen in inaction and falling slightly to the side.
The inability of any theory other than the preposterous "magic bullet theory" to explain the lack of
penetration observed with the back wound bullet and the small size of the throat wound would , making it
difficult to be an entrance wound and impossible to be an exit wound favours the explanation of the dart
theory and a bullet fragment causing the back wound. The inexperienced, doctors under great external
pressure would have been looking for a wound with the associated damage that would have been caused by a
whole bullet and none would have heard of the Flechette weapon .
The back wound bullet travelling downwards if it did suddenly deflect and exit the throat so cleanly ,
without significantly damaging the tie is unlikely to hit Connelly also, from its upwards trajectory.
As Mr Holmes would say when you have eliminated the impossible , the magic bullet is one impossible, there
was only 3 bullets is the second impossible, another solution to the small non exiting back wound , and the
small throat wound is another impossible, that Kennedy would have not thrown himself to the floor of the car
after the being hit in the back is another impossible, that Kennedy made not a sound on that day is another
impossible, when Connelly is yelling blue murder.
Did the Jews and the CIA do it , we will never know but it surely was not Oswald.
More on Oliver Stone, taken from the excellent "Final Judgment" by Michael Collins Piper.
THE MOSSAD CONNECTION
David Ben-Gurion – Prime Minister of Israel; resigned his post in disgust with JFK's stance toward
Israel. in April of 1963; Said JFK's position threatened Israel's very survival.
Yitzhak Shamir – A long-time Mossad officer (based largely at the Mossad's chief European office in
Paris), Shamir headed the Mossad's assassination squad at the time of the JFK assassination. A former
French intelligence officer has charged that Shamir himself arranged the hiring of JFK's actual assassins
through a close ally in French intelligence.
Menachem Begin – In 1963, Begin (later prime minister of Israel) was a roving Israeli diplomat; prior to
JFK's assassination he was overheard conspiring with Meyer Lansky's California henchman, Mickey Cohen, in
a conversation that suggested hostile intentions by Israel against the American president.
Luis Kutner – Although known largely as a "mob lawyer," (who was long and closely associated with Jack
Ruby, a sometime-client) Kutner also doubled as an international intelligence operative and functioned as
an advisor to an ad hoc pro-Israel lobby group in the United States.
A. L. Botnick – Head of the New Orleans office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, an
intelligence and propaganda arm for Israel's Mossad; a close associate of New Orleans-based CIA contract
operative Guy Banister who helped create Lee Harvey Oswald's preassassination profile as a "pro-Castro"
agitator. Evidence suggests that Banister's manipulation of Oswald may have been carried out under the
guise of an ADL "fact-finding" operation.
Arnon Milchan – Israel's biggest arms dealer, Milchan was "executive producer" (i.e. chief financial
angel) of Oliver Stone's Hollywood fantasy
about the JFK assassination-a fact which may explain
Stone's aversion to exploring the Israeli connection to the affair.
Maurice Tempeisman – The international diamond merchant and Mossad operative who became the lover of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and used his connections to double-perhaps triple-her substantial fortune,
thereby co-opting the Kennedy family forever.
It makes sense to me that an order was given to the various independent snipers that Kennedy was to be
shot at the precise moment when the presidential limousine drew level with the man holding an open
umbrella.
W
hy not just use the Stemmons freeway sign, or some other physical landmarks in Dealey Plaza to
delineate the kill zone, rather than some doofus with an umbrella who might draw the attention of the
authorities, and be hauled in for questioning?
Why would the snipers need a signal to begin shooting anyway, when they themselves could see their target
entering the predetermined kill zone? Does the hunter need a signal that this the buck, or a matador a
signal that this is the bull? Killing JFK within that kill zone ensured that the patsy could be framed, so
there was no need for any signal for the assassins to know when to begin firing. If a signal was really
needed, the first shot would have done it.
@Laurent Guyenot
I also heard of the supposed invitation of Lindbergh but didn't believe it because I thought it was
nonsense. Wow! Former ex military that I have known were also partial to the idea that Israel and the Jewish
lobby played a role in his assassination.
Supposedly, Kennedy basically insulted someone from one of the
Jewish Groups and they didn't take kindly to it because he was adamant that these groups would register as
foreign agents. Fullbright who publicly denounced Israel and their control of the US Congress on National TV
and the fact that Kennedy wanted him as Secretary of State must have also riled the Jews. Fullbright was
also against the Vietnam War.
If you look at what's happening to Trump right now with this Ukraine
nonsense all the witnesses are Jews. From Epstein to Trump and so forth this shows that Israel and the Jews
will do anything for control of the world and makes their possible input into the Kennedy's death more
plausible.
@follyofwar
"Given the decades long national trauma, from which the country has never recovered, it would have been far
better if Nixon had won."
There is more than anecdotal evidence to suggest that Nixon SHOULD have won.
C.f., "Chicago", "Mayor Daley" etc. If Nixon had won then maybe there wouldn't have been a Watergate. Who
knows? And, no, this country never recovered. Indeed, 11/22/1963 was the beginning of the slow, steady
unraveling of American society which continues apace.
The Abraham Zapruder heirs did not need an umbrella, when in 1999, the US government rained down $16 million
for the film.
Fyi, according to Dishonest Abe's granddaughter's book, instead of forking over the film to either Dallas
cops or FBI, he made a copy and gave the Secret Service custody of the original.
Well, I'll admit I've never looked into this "Umbrella Man" issue, nor have more than glanced over this long
comment-thread. But frankly, I'm pretty skeptical of this particular "conspiracy analysis."
It's important
to remember the public issues of the early 1960s, especially with regard to JFK. A very large one was that
rightwingers widely regarded JFK as "soft on Communism," especially after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
Put another way, they accused him of "appeasing the Communists" much like Neville Chamberlain and Joseph
Kennedy had been vilified by the MSM for "appeasing Hitler."
So it seems perfectly plausible to me that some Texas rightwinger who felt that way might have gone to
the scene displaying an umbrella as a symbol of Munich-style appeasement, though this time towards
Communism. Maybe a little eccentric, but that seems vastly more plausible than e.g. the Umbrella guy being a
shot-signaler for the JFK snipers. Why would professional snipers need a signaler? And for him to have been
working with the assassins in providing some mystical/symbolic attack on JFK seems totally ridiculous.
And for those interested in my own analysis of the JFK Assassination itself, here are the links to a
couple of articles I published last year:
There might not be a better introduction to the Kennedy Assassination than this documentary, "The Men Who
Killed Kennedy'. I would estimate it's accuracy at around 90%.
Joseph Kennedy was right. The "Jews" did win the war, but they did so along with the US and UK Masonic
establishments. It likely all came down to their power through money and influence. Kennedy was a Catholic
and after the success of the communist revolution in Russia and the spread throughout the 1920's, the RC
Church and nations like Germany were besieged by the movement everywhere. It was mostly spawned by the Anglo
Masonic and Zionist cabal which went on to "win" WWII.
Fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany was a direct reaction to the threat of communism. Mussolini in the
1920's nipped it in the bud, but it continued to spread and the source was the same. By the time of the 1932
election in Germany, a number of Germany cities had voted in communist governments. The threat to freedom of
religion was very real based on what had happened in Russia. Whether the communist ideology was based on
Marx, Lenin or Stalin in that nation, Christians in particular were severely persecuted. When the Christian
Democrats in Germany in that election failed to win a majority, coming in third behind the communists and
the Nazis, then in many places in the following 1933 election, the churches threw their weight behind Hitler
in order to keep the communists from taking over. Like in the US today, it was a matter of the lesser of
evils.
When the war ended with Germany, the USSR which had been supplied and supported by the US throughout the
war, continued to occupy the eastern European nations with the consent of the US and the UK. These were
nations with relatively large Catholic and Protestant populations and the people of those religions were
severely persecuted by the communists regimes. (You can read about what they did to Jewish convert and
Lutheran pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, in order to get an idea of the severity.) When the US army took
possession of Rome in June 1944, in effect it was huge victory over the RC Church for the Masons. At least
since 1958 the ame cabal has been extremely influential in determining Church polices, and controlling
Church finances, and it is from then on that the Vatican has been used to push the so-called "new world
order". From my observations over the years, based on of the various deconstruction polices at work in the
Church, it is clear that the Vatican is essentially a Masonic/Zionist instrument. The same forces are
presently working to deconstruct out nations for their new order.
The deep state in the US is made up of a number of factions, which are always at each other's throats.
Oligarchic families have largely made their initial fortunes outside of the law, or if not then in any case
they all believe they are above the law. The "made" Italian, Irish, and Jewish crime families and dons, all
throughout North America are controlled by establishment oligarchs and government agencies. Vices are
legalised mainly for profit and to give more legitimacy to the money flows. Huge power struggles go on
behind the scenes where despite the information on the independent internet we know little about. The entire
system is rotten to the core.
a declaration [..] that had the effect of connecting in the public psyche JFK's public assassination
[..] to Jewish vengeance?
Thanks for yet another first-class article, and thanks even more for bringing up President Kennedy's
memory on the day anniversary of his cruel and untimely passing.
It is very credible that the Chamberlain symbol story was retrospectively deliberately devised to taunt
and threaten the Kennedy family and their supporters, and remind them of Jewish vengeance.
But "Umbrella Man" cannot be dissociated from another suspicious character, "Signal Man", also called
"Dark Complected Man", who was standing close to him at all times and was filmed raising his arm while the
presidential limousine was approaching.
In Frame 226 of the Zapruder Film, the arm of Dark Complected Man can be seen up with its fist closed, which
in military hand signs means "hold" or "stop".
There were many testimonies that JFK's limousine came to a total halt for many seconds for the final,
murderous headshots; his driver was part of the conspiracy.
What is even more unbelievable and strikingly odd is "Umbrella Man" and "Dark Complected Man" sat next to
each other, on the curb, seconds after the shooting, while everybody else is taking shelter from the shooter
at the Grassy Knoll.
Of course, these were not gay lovers comforting each other, but two perpetrators probably sharing the same
walkie-talkie. A walkie-talkie whose shape could be guessed in the right hand of "Dark Complected Man":
@Jefferson Temple
To the question why US government agents would facilitate the cover up, you find the straight answer in
Michael Collins Pipers book. They had themselves organized their own action, likely a fake assassination
attempt to be blamed on Cuba (that would have been Oswalds part), and they had seriously let down the
defenses of the president when the assassination went real.
Many people had to be afraid of being held to account, so the necessary officials to order the cover up
were easily persuaded. Also note, that Johnson was certainly in on the plot. He would order any serious
investigation to be derailed.
Why not just use the Stemmons freeway sign, or some other physical landmarks in Dealey Plaza to
delineate the kill zone, rather than some doofus with an umbrella who might draw the attention of the
authorities, and be hauled in for questioning?
A marksman doesn't operate alone. He's assisted by a spotter and [when needed, in combat situations. fe]
a 3rd man for general protection. So, we have at least two, 2-men teams [at a minimum]. 1 team [of 2 men]
was spotted on the Grassy Knoll, behind a picket fence, and at the spot the bullet had to be fired from, to
make JFK's head slam back and to the left.
Then triangulate the target and fire.
Am not saying umbrella man did give a signal, but logically, the opening of fire had to be synchronized
to have maximum effect.
The driver not hitting the pedal to the metal when the first shot/s rang out remains a mystery to me,
because the man actually slows down the limo and then JFK's brain is blown to smithereens.
@Sparkon
Good questions. I would suggest that there were multiple shooters in multiple locations and all were
completely unaware of each other.
Why not just use the Stemmons freeway sign, or some other physical landmarks in Dealey Plaza to
delineate the kill zone, rather than some doofus with an umbrella who might draw the attention of the
authorities, and be hauled in for questioning?
Using the freeway sign or any other fixed and inanimate object would mean that each shooter would have to
be contacted separately should the hit need to be called off for any reason. That person would thus know far
too much and pose a high risk of exposing the plotters if caught. The stakes were high indeed!
The umbrella man would know nothing more than where to stand and when to open his umbrella so that him
being called in for questioning would reveal nothing.
Killing JFK within that kill zone ensured that the patsy could be framed, so there was no need for any
signal for the assassins to know when to begin firing.
As I stated, the justification for attempting to synchronise the shots is so that they can all be blamed
on just one "crazed" patsy later.
If a signal was really needed, the first shot would have done it.
Snipers need plenty of time and the exact range to take the kill shot.
It makes sense to me that an order was given to the various independent snipers that Kennedy was to be
shot at the precise moment when the presidential limousine drew level with the man holding an open
umbrella,
Completely agree, dear Nosey, with just a quibble.
The men who shot President Kennedy were hired guns, hit men from the Chicago mob. Their job was, always
is, to
shoot the "target" in the head.
There was at least 3 of them in action, positioned to create a triangulated crossfire.
However, the intention was from the onset to blame it on the patsy Oswald, so it was very important that
the headshot to JFK was taken from behind. The best shooter was positioned behind the limousine, in the
Dal-Tex building, and was in charge with taking the head shot.
When he failed to hit President Kennedy at the head, Plan B was put in action and a headshot taken from
the Grassy Knoll.
So the presence of Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man next to the limit where a successful headshot
from behind becomes unlikely is very easy to understand:
– Umbrella Man is close from the limousine. He sees that the President's head is intact and opens his
umbrella to tell the Grassy Knoll sniper to shoot.
– His accomplice , Dark Complected Man, raises his arm with a closed fist, a military sign telling JFK/s
driver to stop the limousine to facilitate the execution. This stop of many seconds was recounted by the
witnesses present.
It is so simple and logical. People just don't want to accept the idea because it implies that there was
a vast conspiracy with a large number of people involved.
The movie is a limited hangout made to ensure that those who cannot swallow the obvious lies of the
Warren Commission will direct their anger otherwise than at Israel.
That observation is just as valid for the largest part of the yearly anniversary articles on the Kennedy
assasination: Take the time and scan the articles on your favorite sites, how many of them only just mention
Voldemort country in that context. If only just to refute the idea or to proclaim that only sickos believe
it. It cannot have past by the numerous authors over the years that that theory at least exists.
Instead, you are treated to a steady stream of philosophizing on the deep state, Vietnam, the CIA and the
like. Take note and evaluate your reading matter.
@Ron Unz
I remember my father made a comment long after JFK's asssassination in which he felt JFK was soft on
communism. He also felt Khruschev was a tougher and smarter negotiator. It was only a few sentences, but not
everyone loved JFK. But being German, I think he might have had a soft spot for JFK, if we knew then what we
know now, with his diaries published. Of course, today's Germans no longer think like that. I do not recall
any discussion of JFK's father's views on WW II. That was kept quiet and the media did not make it a public
issue. Those were pre "Holocaust Industry" days in which according to Norman Finkelstein, Jews became bolder
and [even] more outspoken with Israel being perceived as a valuable ally after winning the 1967 war. This,
according to Finkelstein.
I recall JFK being very popular, well liked and people thought "Jackie" was beautiful and thought they
had a beautiful family. I think they were also perceived as having "class", probably because that is what
the media said. I think it was after his assassination that the knowledge of his extramarital affairs (and
Bobby's too) became public and then Jackie married the Greek multi-millionaire Onassis. For my mother, that
took all the class out of Jackie that the media always had said she had. I think they were very popular with
the media. By contrast, JFK's opponent in the 1960 election was Richard Nixon, not as good looking as JFK,
remembered for his tough stance on communism and that probably made him more popular with the right and less
popular with the media and the left.
It would be interesting how this would play out if JFK was still alive and his diaries became public
while he was alive. I have a feeling he may have been tougher than people like my father perceived him to be
and maybe he just held the views he had, but maybe not out of any weakness.
The Kennedys were knocked off with major input from Zionists. I think that almost certainly includes John Jr
(if that were an accident and had been avoided, and John John had failed to get 100% behind both Liberal and
Neocon Jews, then they would have killed him). But true Blue WASPs on both sides if the Atlantic also wanted
the Kennedys destroyed. And the WASP hatred of Irish Catholics has been what has been most used, and used
most effectively, in leading non-Catholic white Middle Americans away from recognizing the Kennedys as the
most important murder victims in the march of the Deep State to make serfs of us all.
It all goes back to
the Judaizing heresy Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, most specifically to archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell's direct
deal with Jews, opening England to be directed, and eventually owned, by Jewish bankers. There has been a
Brit WASP Deep State since at least the Restoration of the monarchy, and it revealed its total power no
later than the 'Glorious Revolution.' And the Brit WASP Deep State then was tied inextricably to Jewish
bankers.
It is almost as if you either
must
play nice and fair, respectfully and equally, with Celts and
white Catholics or else get made a serf by a Jewish-owned WASP Deep State.
Of course, I know the speculation it was Israelis who were behind it (Dimona), but I don't
find it persuasive. There are other means to avoid US inspection, and Kennedy was not adamant about it at
all. These are things politicians toy with all the time, and while not a "friend" of Israel, Kennedy was not
an enemy -- one could consider Eisenhower, if we judge him by his actions during Suez canal crisis- to be an
"enemy" of Israel (of course this too is simplistic, politics is a rough business).
To illustrate the "rough" side of politics, let's see the following. Let's see Henry Kissinger, with his
publicly suppressed answer to Nixon re Soviet Jews:
Just- they deleted Kissinger's original statement, which can be seen in this leftist guy's clip
(comedienne Sarah Silverman reads Kissinger's words, at 2:06):
"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they
put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian
concern."
Maybe..maaaybe maaaybe.
..
This remark can be read only in the papers, because "it was taken out of context.
Taken "out of context"? I say:
So, it can be read only in 2-3 places, and not seen in a video
Nothing, I just wanted to point that media manipulations have no limits; that American Jews are not
nearly as monolithic; that one should be aware that talk or statements are not something too reliable; that
one can construct from scratches a huge conspiracy.
Who says that Witt was actually the "umbrella man"? Why was he identified only 15 years after the event?
And even if he was that man- what kind of silly gesture would it be, because who in his right mind would
think that JFK would have noticed anyone in this situation & mentally process this like: umbrella >
Chamberlain > my dad > huh, I'm guilty .
JFK had, I think, a Jewish mistress whom he intended to marry (prior to his marriage) & was dissuaded by
his family; he was not anti-Jewish; Israel, as virtually all American Jews, was horrified by his
assassination, which can be seen from Golda Meir's behavior (she seems to have thought that JFK
assassination was a right-wing coup):
@Iris
"People just don't want to accept the idea because it implies that there was a vast conspiracy with a large
number of people involved."
The primary reason for that is for such a large conspiracy to be tried, much
of the WASP establishment had to have been on board, and most of the rest had to have been known to being
the type easily coerced afterwards to remain silent.
It took WASPs and Zionists to plan it and execute and cover it up, and then spread endless propaganda,
including playing hard on WASP hatreds of Irish Catholics to keep culturally conservative and/or
anti-imperialist Protestant Middle Americans from looking at the evidence of cover up.
@Fred Baggins
I suspect that it was Jewish influence which made the capitalists and communists alllies. They played a
leading role in the USSR, Great Britain and the USA, and they are the only ones that could see the benefit
of these otherwise ideological enemies being allies. Except for the USA (separated from the fighting by two
oceans), no one else benefitted from WW II. If Winston Churchill had been more concerned about his beloved
empire than his own reputation and had not accepted bribes from wealthy Jews when he was in financial need,
Europe and Great Britain would still be great. They would still lead the world. And Jews would have a
fraction of the power they have today. Yes, Jews won that war and were its major beneficiaries, despite
being told the direct opposite. They made it into a world war and they brought the suffering to all Europe,
but particularly to their German enemy, and themselves.
@Emblematic
Robert David Steele's Blog review of " Tavistock Institute : Social Engineering the masses " by Daniel
Estulin – "The deep state playbook " :
"Although I have read and heard over the years of CIA and KGB Freemasons collaborating in betrayal of their
countries and organizations by order of the Freemasons we have to deal with the fact that the President
and everyone of consequence in Congress , Justice and the FBI is a high ranking Freemason . "
"Sir Knight
Earl Warren " By Sir Knight Dr. Ivan M. Tribe (Knightstemplar.org ):
"In 1938 he( Earl Warren ) served as Master of Rose Croix and in 1945 presiding office of the Lodge of
Perfection . By that time he had already been coroneted with the 33rd degree "
Gerald McKnight " Breach of Trust : How the Warren Commission failed the Nation and Why " :
"The records of the Commission disclose that the commission's pre-structured task was to support the FBI's
conclusions : Oswald was the assassin and that he acted alone ."
@PeterMX
" and then Jackie married the Greek multi-millionaire Onassis " – The then was after RFK's assassination:
"If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets I want to get out of this country"
So the deal was to offer some safety but you are correct that her marriage to Onassiss "took all the
class out of Jackie that the media always had said she had." But this was the price which the forces that
pushed her in this direction wanted her to pay to diminish and tarnish the legend of JFK. The safety was not
coming form the wealth of Onassis but from the tarnished image and marginalization by marrying the rich
Greek creep.
The primary reason for that is for such a large conspiracy to be tried, much of the WASP establishment
had to have been on board
It was much simpler than that: JFK's assassination was a criminal Zionist conspiracy within a more benign
WASP conspiracy.
A secret mission was organised by the loyal Security apparatus to abort an assassination attempt against
President Kennedy at Dallas.
The abort mission would have resulted in unmasking and arresting criminal elements within the
establishment. Oswald the patsy was part of the abort mission, as was Agent Bouck, the head of the WH Secret
Service. And Robert Kennedy was involved too.
But more powerful parties within the Zionist Deep State were at play: they took control of the situation
and turned it into a real assassination, killing two birds with one stone:
– They executed the independent and principled President who stood up to them.
– They compromised the WASP establishment, including RFK, with the murky and failed abort mission that was
turned into a real assassination, making their responsibility undistinguishable.
Finally, Kennedy had enough, and in a personal letter dated May 18, 1963, the president warned that
unless American inspectors were allowed into Dimona (meaning the end of any military activities), Israel
would find itself totally isolated. Rather than answering, Ben-Gurion abruptly resigned.
Ben-Gurion's successor, Levi Eshkol received Kennedy's next letter, which upped the pressure, warning
that the American commitment and support of Israel "could be seriously jeopardized."
And then there was RFK as Attorney General demanding Israel lobbyist to be registered as foreign lobbyist
and how it was undone after RFK was forced to resign by LBJ year or so later after JFK assassination.
http://www.israellobby.org/azcdoj/
"Judge Rifkind then made a plea for no registration, stating it was the opinion of most of the persons
affiliated with the Council that such registration would be so publicized by the American Council on
Judaism that it would eventually destroy the Zionist movement he did not believe his clients would file
any papers or sign any papers indicating that the organization was an agent of a foreign principal. I
told him that any such information or material that is supplied on that basis would be made part of the
Department's public files available for inspection by the public "
In DOJ internal memo on 4/30/1964 before replacing RFK as AG with Nicholas Katzenbach the following was
stated: "This is the most blatant stall we have encountered. Do you mind suggesting what we do next because
all of us here would call their records before a grand jury." RFK resigns as AG in September 1964. When
Katzenbach became acting AG and then AG exchanges between Jewish lobby and DOJ continued but no action was
taken by DOJ. Eventually on n 11/27/1967, four years and five days after JFK's death AIPAC applies for a
federal tax exemption. The lobby has won.
The Warren Commission hogwash was almost as ridiculous as the official 911 nonsense, and Mark Lane's 1966
book "Rush to Judgment" helped fuel broad public disbelief in the official story.
Talk about quid pro quo
to the nth degree, as that hideous snake LBJ gave the MIC and its financiers their wars, etc., in exchange
for the Presidency and for keeping his sorry ass out of jail for the Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker
scandals. Sure, the Israelis benefitted, and were likely a cog in the conspiratorial wheel, but the CIA,
Secret Service, and various military agents were the movers and shakers, with LBJ their guarantor.
Much of the conspiratorial framework is exposed in David Lifton's absolutely must-read book "Best
Evidence" which clearly shows that the body was altered before autopsy in an attempt to make the physical
evidence conform to the Oswald-as-shooter narrative. The conspirators left a wide trail of evidence that
only the highest-level actors could suppress, as in the 911 crimes.
There were many testimonies that JFK's limousine came to a total halt for many seconds for the final,
murderous headshots
There is another film of the assasination, taken from the distance across the Plaza (maybe, someone can
link it? It must have been in the comment section of some earlier article). That film clearly shows, how the
police motorcycles continue while the limosine falls back and nearly comes to a hold. If the driver had done
his job he would have speeded of at the first second of realizing something was going on. These people are
trained for nothing else but exactly such situations. The driver and several other people around the
president must have been in on the plot to varying degrees.
Comparing that film with the Zapruder film also shows that the Zapruder film was severly tempered with
before release – anyone believes that Oliver Stone and his team as Hollywood professionals who based their
plot on that film didn't realize that?
In Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, he mentions that when LBJ was running against Kennedy for the
Democrat nomination in 1960 he attacked Kennedy for his father's appeasement, saying "I was never a
Chamberlain umbrella man."
Weakness, Johnson had seen in three decades in Washington, was never rewarded. When he said of
Vietnam, "We're not going to have any men with any umbrellas," a pointed reference to the hapless
Chamberlain, the message was clear: America would stand up to Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong in a way that
Chamberlain had not stood up to Hitler and the Nazi regime.
So it seems perfectly plausible to me that some Texas rightwinger who felt that way might have gone to
the scene displaying an umbrella as a symbol of Munich-style appeasement, though this time towards
Communism.
The whole appeasement thing is bunk.
Chamberlain surely didn't give a damn about appeasing Hitler, except as a manipulative stratagem.
But for Britain, in the late thirties, going to war with Germany would have been insane. Britain had at
most four, and possibly only two, deployable army divisions versus Germany's 40 plus. The threat posed by a
rapidly rearming and aggressive Germany was thus best dealt with by bringing Germany into confrontation with
Russia.
By sacrificing Czechoslovakia to Germany, Chamberlain greatly added to Hitler's military resources, which
were then far smaller than Russia's.
Encouraging Polish obduracy in the matter of Danzig, brought German forces directly to the Russian
frontier. Then it was a matter of waiting for these old adversaries to clash in accordance with the plan von
Ribbentrop had shown Winston Churchill during a visit to England in 1937. (Asked by Ribbentrop what he
thought of the plan for German Eastward expansion, Churchill is said to have replied "We don't like the
Russians, but we don't hate them that much.")
Meantime, the British economy had been placed on a war footing, and was turning out more military
aircraft than Germany.
Once the struggle between Germany and Russia had begun, Britain's only major concerns were to protect her
overseas possession, particularly the ME oil fields, which she did successfully, and to prepare a backstop
with massive American participation (Operation Overlord), on the Western front for the time when a greatly
weakened victor of the Russso-German conflict was in a position to turn West with a view to crushing Britain
and achieving a trans-European empire.
This is the original version. It' s actually 9 plus hours. This is cut to 4hours 33 minutes. Sometime during
the past two years this doc has been cut and revised – and loaded back onto YT with unoriginal content.
I find it hard to explain that this is the same Josiah Thompson who published in 1967 a book titled
Six Seconds in Dallas: a micro-study of the Kennedy assassination proving that three gunmen murdered the
President, for which he studied the Zapruder film and interviewed eyewitnesses in order to come up with a
plausible line of fire, and the conclusion of a conspiracy and government cover-up. What happened to
Josiah in between?
This is a great remark within an already so rich article; it introduces the concept of "Controlled
Conspiracy Theory".
At the time (1967) Josiah Thompson published his book, much courageous research on the JFK cover-up had
been produced, of which the most perilous for the perpetrators was the legal crusade undertaken by
New-Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.
Thompson's book concluded that the hit men were at the Texas School Book Depository, Dallas County Record
and Grassy Knoll.
Of all possible places, he managed to exonerate the DalTex Building, a building entirely owned and run by
the Dallas Zionist community, in which Zapruder had his offices.
The DalTex Building had the best, shortest and most direct line of fire to JFK's limousine; it was the
principal "sniper nest" of the conspiracy.
The concept of "Controlled Conspiracy Theory" nicely applies to Mr Josiah Thompson.
@refl
The driver of JFK's limousine was William Greer, a Protestant from Ulster who in his youth in Northern
Ireland had been a member of the Orange Order. One of the other two drivers in the presidential detail had
died of an untimely heart attack shortly before Dallas.
Israel, as virtually all American Jews, was horrified by his assassination, which can be seen from Golda
Meir's behavior
Why shouldn't they? I am sure that a significant section of American and Israeli Jews are horrified by the
every day action of the IDF. They were horrified by the assassination of Yitzak Rabin.
It must be horrifying to be tied to maniacal leadership, who will sacrifice you any time in the name of the
fulfillment of their sick plan. So if you are a good Christian or Muslim, Buddhist, Pastafari or whatever,
pray for these poor fellows.
Like any good gumshoe worth his salt, the first question he asks himself after arriving at the crime scene is
Cui bono, who benefits?
In the case of the JFK assassination, there was clearly one very large beneficiary
that stood out above the rest, Israel.
By Nov 1963, JFK had two big strikes against him:
1. In 1963 President Kennedy demanded that Ben-Gurion end Israel's nuclear deterrent program. Kennedy warned
in a letter dated May 18, 1963, that unless American inspectors were allowed into Israel's Dimona facility,
Israel would find itself totally isolated. "We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability
which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel It is because of our
preoccupation with this problem that my Government has sought to arrange with you for periodic visits to Dimona."
As it turned out, his following reassurance fell on deaf ears "As I made clear in my press conference of May 8,
we have a deep commitment to the security of Israel."
2. In 1963 President Kennedy demanded that the American Zionist Council register under FARA as a foreign
agent. In a letter dated October 17, 1963 (one month before JFK's assassination), Judge Rifkind (a
representative of the AZC), responded to the Kennedy Administration's demand: " it was the opinion of most of
the persons affiliated with the Council that
such registration
would be so publicized by the American
Council on Judaism that it
would eventually destroy the Zionist movement.
"
Along with the quote by AZC Representative Judge Rifkind, here is the infamous quote by Jack Ruby's (born
Jacob Rubinstein) rabbi, Hillel Silverman:
"I was shocked," said Silverman. "I visited him the next day in jail, and I said, 'Why, Jack, why?' He
said, 'I did it for the American people.'"
I interrupted Silverman, pointing out that other reports had Ruby saying he did it "to show that Jews had
guts." The rabbi sighed.
"Yes, he mentioned that," Silverman said. "But I don't like to mention it. I think he said, 'I did it
for the Jewish people.' But I've tried to wipe that statement from my mind."
@CanSpeccy
"If Israel assassinated JFK, who assassinated RFK and John, Jr.?"
– That Israel did them would be a very
conservative conclusion, don't you think?
Picking Sirhan Sirhan as a Palestinian patsy who was upset with RFK's alleged love for Israel was a master
stroke. JFK Jr. who can't stop himself from beating around the bush of the topics of assassinations like
picking Woody Harrelson (*) for the December 1996 cover of his magazine or then digging into Yitzach Rabin
conspiracy and then rumors that he will run for Senate
Joseph Chagra later testified during Harrelson's trial that Harrelson claimed to have shot Kennedy and drew
maps to show where he was hiding during the assassination. Chagra said that he did not believe Harrelson's
claim, and the AP reported that the FBI "apparently discounted any involvement by Harrelson in the Kennedy
assassination."[25] According to Jim Marrs in 1989's Crossfire, Harrelson is believed to be the youngest and
tallest of the "three tramps" by many conspiracy theorists.[22] Marrs stated that Harrelson was involved "with
criminals connected to intelligence agencies and the military" and suggested that he was connected to Jack Ruby
through Russell Douglas Matthews, a third party with links to organized crime who was known to both Harrelson
and Ruby.[23] Lois Gibson, a well-known forensic artist, matched photographs of Harrelson to the photographs of
the youngest-looking of the three "tramps".
"Mr. Trump has been prevented from releasing the rest of the "top secret" files, in spite of his promise to do
so."
IIRC, it was Trump doing all of the preventing.
This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and
eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government.
This has been discussed in depth here in this case and the 911 case.
The Mossad and the CIA were part of the same "team"–the CIA handled and continues to handle the ongoing
domestic coverup operations as needed (including Mockingbird mass media activities).
Connelly is a _very_ interesting figure, and his background prior to the day of the assassination is not very
well understood.
I was stunned to read that he was a key actor in the Korean War "setup":
Isn't it significant that the patsy set up to take the blame for the RFK assassination was a Palestinian?
If the CIA did it, they would naturally have arranged to put the blame elsewhere. Is that not why Sirhan
Sirhan remains incarcerated to this day. Given freedom, the fall guy might give the CIA a headache.
Remember, Kennedy had just buggered up the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and was threatening to pull
out of the CIA's war in Vietnam. With
a nod from LBJ
the CIA could kill Kennedy and be sure of top-down cover from the moment Kennedy's heart
stopped beating, cover which, according to the doctors who attended on Kennedy at Parklands Hospital, was
promptly given.
Then there's the deathbed confession of CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, which provides a tenuous connection with
Richard Nixon, who hired Hunt and Frank Sturgis (both believed to have been among the tramps arrested in Dealey
Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the assassination) to. among other things, burglarize the Democratic Party
headquarters at the Watergate Building in Washington, DC.
That's Mary Pinchot Meyer.
Wife of Cord Meyer, of the CIA.
Sister-in-law of Ben Bradlee.
Lover of JFK, to whom he confided his vision for major peaceful change in the US of A and the world.
Kissinger made himself quit clear more than once about Jewish influence in US policy.
Kissinger was more German than Jew he had the typical 'Germanic manner ' .
German Jews in general were more assimilated than the less educated and more tribal Jews of Poland, Hungary,
etc.. If you look up the origins of the Fifth Column Jews in the Us most of them came thru Poland , where
militant Zionism had a stronghold way before WWII.
Kissinger .
""If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be anti-Semitic," he once quipped, and "any people
who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong."
Another time, he told a friend, "I was born Jewish, but the truth is that has no significance for me. America
has given me everything."
On Israel .
"On the other hand, we can not make our policy hostage to the Israelis, because our interests, while
parallel in respect to that I have outlined, are not identical in overall terms. From an Israeli point of view,
it is no disaster to have the whole Arab world radicalized and anti-American, because this guarantees our
continued support. From an American point of view this is a disaster."
Jewish disloyalty
Kissinger also went as far as
accusing American Jews of behaving traitorously
for supporting the
Jackson-Vanik Amendment that ruined his and Nixon's effort on a détente agreement with Russia.
@Skeptikal
Yes, Skeptical, and 'thanks" for the reiteration as to who and what was the murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer.
I trust Laurent Guyenot knows about Mary's intense love affair with President JFK,
and after his barbaric & election overturning murder, how she knew about CIA's Counterintelligence & Israel
friendly, James Jesus Angleton's, passion
for
Jack's last nightmatish ride on Elm Street.
P.S.: Mary's remains rest in her great-grandfather, Gifford Pinchot's, Milford, Pa-based estate, which I
have visited. Fyi, it's a tourist spot now where her historical relationship with President JFK is unspoken.
What if it were raining and there were numerous people with umbrellas?
P
recisely.
Despite all the special pleading going on here by people who've read too many men's adventure novels, or
watched too many episodes of "Charlie's Angels," this Rube Goldbergian umbrella signalling scheme would never
get off the ground. It is a unnecessary complication with built-in failure modes.
The go-ahead for the operation was likely given the night before. The die was cast. There was no turning
back, and why would they?
If it had kept raining in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, would it have changed history? Several books and
articles have pondered this question. President John F Kennedy greeted a crowd on a misty morning rain in
Fort Worth at 8:45 a.m. central standard time. The weather in Dallas had been rainy, but the sun came out
before the president's plane had landed.
@Pheasant
The donation could have been sincere, or it could have been a gesture to make them seem concerned patriots, or
it could have been money laundering a payoff to certain members of the Dallas PD for their silence in the
operation. Who knows? I never take any Jewish action at face value.
@Stonehands
Right. I only bought the official story at the time and for a few years after, as a very young kid, but the
idea of Oswald as nothing but a patsy never appealed to me.
@Duke84
I try to avoid the self-certainty that seems to be a bias in the reasoning behind the LHO didn't do it because
he couldn't crowd. On paper the odds against him succeeding increased with every miss and chance for the agents
and cops to fire at him and/or the limo driver to swerve and accelerate. An important point is the chance for
him to get away would decline precipitously too. By my way of thinking the most important factor would have
been single mindedness. He would have had to have been committed to succeed irrespective of the consequences.
We don't know Oswald had no help of encouragement, he may have been talking to Cubans and Soviets about his
intentions and they maybe just listened which he may have interpreted them as having approved. The fact he was
talking to the Cubans and KGB was considered worth keeping secret for several decades, and there is supposed to
be more along the same lines that has still not been declassified.
Even with a miss or two, hitting a moving head from 265 feet would have been workmanlike marksmanship. In
the circumstances that he might have been spotted and shot at any second it was nicely done, but it might have
been a fluke. On the other hand the limo was following a straight track, the driver seems to have brought it to
a near halt before the head shot, and Kennedy was quite exposed. It would depend on the determination of the
shooter not just his skill, but the circumstances and enormity of killing a president are so unique, plus
getting out the area would be so uncertain that it would require someone of formidable resolution.
My feeling is a professional would not even try, and he would understand he'd know too much afterwards
anyway. A loner would not have that problem. Oswald fits the profile better than any CIA agent I think. For the
shooting, you cannot exclude that he may have just got lucky. Whoever did it, they were risking a lot so it
would have to be tremendously meaningful to them.
Oswald seemed such a insignificant person to kill the great man that contingency was ruled out. I think
Oswald the CIA agent who agreed to go to Russia on a fake defector mission for the agency with no way of
knowing what would happen to him, would have been an insanely extreme patriot. Such an Oswald might be willing
to do anything he was ordered to I suppose. The trouble is Oswald seems to have been anti establishment right
back into his teens. He was an immature 17 year old when he joined the Marines, and though he toughened up
considerably they evidence of him ever being an anti communist fanatic is just lacking.
Here is a 60 year old man at 230 yards with a .45 pistol.
@Ted Heath
Once again, let's try to put the "Kennedy wanted to end the FED" myth to bed.
President Kennedy was not assassinated for being anti-Fed. I don't know how much more clearly that can be
said. His death on November 22nd, 1963 was a sad tragedy, but it had nothing to do with any stupid and
baseless Executive Order silver certificate conspiracy.
The claim is not borne out by the facts. First, E.O. 11110 had nothing to do with United States Notes,
and did not affect any section of law referring to them. Second, E.O. 11110 did not anywhere mention any
quantity of money; wherever the $4 billion-plus figure came from, it was not E.O. 11110. Third, The
President had no authority to issue such an edict. Even utilizing the provisions of the Agricultural
Adjustment Act of 1933, the most the President could issue without statutory authorization was $3 billion.
What E.O. 11110 did was to modify previous Executive Order 10289, delegating to the Secretary of the
Treasury various powers of the President. To these delegated powers, E.O. 11110 added the power to alter the
supply of Silver Certificates in circulation. Executive Order 11110, therefore, did not create any new
authority for the Treasury to issue notes; it only affected who could give the order, the Secretary or the
President.
Be sure and dive into all of the data supporting link's located at the bottom of this web page.
November 23,
2019 JFK, MLK, RFK, 50 Years of Suppressed History: New Evidence on Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Martin
Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Failures to Confront the Unspeakable, and The Way Ahead. Part I
Today November 22, 2019, we commemorate the passing of JFK. November 22, 1963, the assassination of JFK in
Dallas, Texas. Fifty-six years ago. January 21, 2019. Martin Luther King Day
What is even more unbelievable and strikingly odd is "Umbrella Man" and "Dark Complected Man" sat next to
each other, on the curb, seconds after the shooting, while everybody else is taking shelter from the shooter
at the Grassy Knoll.
Questions concerning 3rd photo from the top: Why are the two camera men in this photo filming the couple on
the ground, who themselves are looking directly at the camera men? Why is no one ducking and running for cover,
for as many as 8 shots were supposedly just fired? Why is Abraham Zapruder missing from his lofty post, which
he was said to be filming from at that precise moment?
JFK "signed" his death warrant as soon as he selected LBJ as his running mate . LBJ was ruthless and likely
murdered his way to his leadership role in Congress . Johnson was determined to become President and it is
reported that his fixer , Bobby Baker , at Kennedy's inauguration turned to an associate and stated that
Kennedy would never complete his term of office .
LBJ was determined to have Earl Warren (33rd degree Freemason )lead the commission to investigate Kennedy's
assassination .
Warren refused LBJ 's requests several times and finally agreed to do so . LBJ recounted to his mentor Senator
Richard Russell how he summoned Warren to the Oval Office and informed him of " what Hoover had told him about
a little incident in Mexico City " whereupon Warren began to cry and told LBJ " I won't turn you down , I'll
just do whatever you say ." Excerpted from History Matters Archive -LBJ-Russell .
@Germanicus
You are making my point. Taking away the presumption of innocence has resulted in the holocaust narrative and
many other crimes against individuals and civilized societies.
If you read Laurent's book "Yahweh to Zion" you'll see he's under no illusions about whether he's real or
not. It's likely the most thorough dissection of the sect you'll ever come across.
Indeed. Laurent Guyenot is an outstanding intellectual. It is a immense privilege to read his works, and the UR is doing an equally great favour to its readers by
publishing him. Thanks to all, including the commentators, for the fascinating discussion.
JFK died mysteriously after being hit by four bullets, one in rear cranium, rear shoulder, front throat and
fragmentary bullet to right front temple. Connelly was hit by a zigzag magic bullet, three bystanders were hit
by Elm Street curb bullet splatter and the limousine front windshield were all hit by a lone gunman. LHO, MLK &
RFK were also killed by lone gunmen, and if you do not believe that you will be persecuted.
I thought it had been rather well established that a sharpshooter had been brought in from the
French/Corsican mob.
Lucien Sarti's involvement is possible, but is a red herring. He might have been approached and brought to Dallas to add to the confusion, as the Kennedy assassination
was a sophisticated "smoke and mirrors" operation, with many deliberate false leads.
The people who shot President Kenned were hired guns, members of the Chicago mob: Charles "Chuck" Nicoletti,
Marshall Caifano, Johnny Roselli and James Sutton Files.
President Kennedy was shot at the head twice, almost instantaneously, first by Charles Nicoletti firing from
the Dal-Tex Building, then by James Files taking a shot from the Grassy Knoll.
James Files used a very powerful round, a frangible bullet.
This is why, on the Z film, the President's head is shown first slightly projected forward, then very
powerfully projected backwards and to the left, when the more powerful bullet hit his right temple.
Thanks for the link to the remarkable History Channel JFK documentary.
For the so called 'progressive'
Anglosphere establishment, in both it's 'right' and 'left' manifestations, the 'Chamberlain umbrella' is most
certainly a hated symbol of weakness, appeasement, and ultimate failure. Whether it's prominent presence at
Dealey Plaza that day was a deliberately placed symbolic 'pièce de résistance' to top off a carefully
choreographed assassination or just a quirk of history is something we may never know.
As for Abraham Zapruder, his family, and their profiting from the famous film he took, there are aspects of
it that are remindful of Larry Silverstein and his profiting from 911 and the destruction of the Twin
Towers/Building 7.
In addition to Zapruder's making about a million dollars in today's money by selling rights to it in the
days following the assassination to Life magazine (the head of which, Charles Douglas Jackson, had extensive
experience in psy-ops work for the US government), the Zapruder family in 1999 would win 16 million dollars in
arbitration with the United States over it's ownership, the government having seized ownership of the film from
them. Time Life had sold the film back to the Zapruders years before for $1.
Arbitration had been decided upon to determine the value of the Zapruder film with the film being compared
to Leonardo da Vinci's Codex.
One of the three arbitrators was Kenneth Feinberg, who besides being US senator Ted Kennedy's chief of staff
for five years, was also the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
In addition Feinberg headed up the 7 billion dollar 911 victims compensation fund.
Ironically, July 16, 1999, the day the arbitration panel made it's decision that the US government pay 16
million to the Zapruder family for the JFK assassination film, would also be the very day John F Kennedy Jr
would die in a plane crash:
Zapruder Film Nets $16 Million
The other expert compared the six-foot strip of film, climaxed by the horrific head shot that killed the
president, to the Codex of Leonardo da Vinci, for which billionaire Bill Gates recently paid $30 million.
Adams and Feinberg said that "25 years ago, few if any, could predict the value of the Zapruder film as a
unique historical item of unprecedented worth." They also noted that "items associated with President Kennedy
and his family have been increasing in value."..
..The arbitration panel actually made its decision on July 16, the same day John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a
plane crash, but delayed the announcement in the wake of the tragedy.
@Ron Unz
That's a possibility, of course. In my mind, it is a matter of probabilities. And I find it very improbable
that this guy just happened to do his little protest at this precise spot and seconds. But alos, reading his
testimony to the HSCA, he doesn't mention Kennedy being soft on communism at all. Excerp:
Mr. GENZMAN. Could you elaborate further as to the type of symbol you thought you were applying?
Mr. WITT. I just knew it was a sore spot with the Kennedys; I just knew the vague generalities of it. It had
something to do with something that happened years ago with the senior Joe Kennedy when he was Ambassador to
England.
In fact, when asked if his gesture had anything to do with the Kennedys being soft on communism, he denied:
Mr. Fauntroy. I wonder if you would care to tell us a little more about your understanding of the
significance of the umbrella, and why you felt that it would heckle the president to raise the umbrella?
Mr. WITT. I know the generalities of the thing. It had something to do with the–when the senior Mr. Kennedy
was Ambassador or England, and the Prime Minister, some activity they had had in appeasing Hitler. The
umbrella that the Prime Minister of England came back with got to be a symbol in some manner with the
British people. by association, it got transferred to the Kennedy family, and, as I understood, it was a
sore spot with the Kennedy family, like I said, in coffee break conversations someone had mentioned, I think
it is one of the towns in Arizona, it is Tucson or Phoenix, that someone had been out at the airport or some
place where some members of the Kennedy family came through and they were rather irritated by the fact that
they were brandishing the umbrellas. This is how the idea sort of got stuck in my mind.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Is it true that what you felt was that Mr. Kennedy would be sensitive because of the
appeasement image of the umbrella as related to his father?
Mr. WITT. Not the appeasement thing. It was just–excuse me–I just understood that it was sort of a sore
spot, with them and this was just one thing. I personally never thought too much of liberal politics in
general. In this case the Kennedy family just happened to be in office.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I see. And it had no relationship in your own thinking between Mr. Kennedy's posture with;
say, the Russians?
@Laurent Guyenot
Yes, Laurent, and I can confess to busting your balls," * and indeed, Mary Pinchot Meyer's is "a really moving
story. I once called her JFK's Mary Madgalene."
Nonetheless, for the rather affectionate part of Mary
Magdalene's legacy, she got stoned by crazy & self righteous Jews.
In contrast, the bright & adulterous peacenik, Mary Pinchot Meyer, got murdered on a Georgetown canal trail,
and to date, her's is an Unsolved Case Mystery,
which never appeared on the popular American TV series.
* A lyric from Pink Floyd's song, "Mother."
Thanks for another terrific learning experience, Laurent, and fyi, am saddened how Ron Unz rained acid upon
the fascinating "Umbrella Man."
This author blames the CIA for
obstruction suppression and distortion of the facts findings and accuses it of misrepresentation with powerful
people on board like supreme court justice . Also mentions the suspicions of conspiracy raised by LBG ( out of
all people !) de Gaulle , Robert Kennedy and Fidel Castro.
All of them are dead So is Soviet and most of Cuban dissidents are possibly dead as well
So what is preventing the investigation at the manner the previous investigation was carried out with open
visible fatal flaws and biases .
@Truth3
I believe that the presidential motorcade's route was changed at the last minute, ostensibly to bypass the huge
crowds lined up to see JFK, and hurry him off to the Dallas Trade Mart for his speech. This meant bypassing the
TV cameras, so none would be able to film the assassination in live time (just a cohenincidence, I am sure),
but if this is so, it begs the question of why Zapruder and the Babushka Lady were there with their home movie
cameras to capture what the TV networks would miss.
Lover of JFK, to whom he confided his vision for major peaceful change in the US of A and the world.
I really think the vast JFK hagiography that occupies the minds of many JFK conspiracy people, including
some of the most respectable ones, hardly enhances their credibility. Lots of them seem to believe that JFK was
about to establish world peace and was killed by the CIA for that reason. Frankly, I find the whole framework
totally ludicrous.
For example, Seymour Hersh's book on JFK certainly provides lots of very negative details of his activities.
But JFK conspiracy people always discount Hersh, claiming that he's a JFK hater.
Okay, but what about Michael Collins Piper, whose JFK assassination book has certainly been one of the most
important. He provides some reasonable evidence that JFK had been planning to launch an unprovoked "sneak
attack" against China just before he died:
Offhand, it seems to be that an early 1960s American attack against China would have probably had far worse
and more significant long-term geopolitical consequences than e.g. Bush's attack against Iraq or a possible
Trump attack against Iran.
`Ironically, July 16, 1999, the day the arbitration panel made it's decision that the US government pay
16 million to the Zapruder family for the JFK assassination film, would also be the very day John F Kennedy
Jr would die in a plane crash.
Thanks, very interesting comment.
Just a quibble: JFK Jr did not die in a plane crash; he most probably got killed when his plane was shot
down (by a missile?).
At the time of his death, JFK Jr had acquired a piece of hard evidence that would have allowed him to
re-open the investigation into his father's assassination.
This piece of evidence was a Cartier wristwatch that the President was wearing when he was shot. It got
covered in brain matter and mercury from the frangible bullet that hit JFK.
It was kept for a while by RFK, and finally ended up in John John's possession, accompanied with sworn
affidavits proving its chain of possession.
Indeed, the fact that he voluntarily came forward 15 years later and revealed his identity would
certainly seem to suggest the contrary. Why would he do that if he had been part of the conspiracy?
I think that you misunderstand the nature and purpose of the successive official reviews of JFK
assassination records (ARRB, etc..).
These official reviews were not meant at finding the truth, but at finding the evidence that could lead to
the truth and then destroy it to perpetuate the cover-up.
Many honest researchers involved in these reviews have quit in disgust; the fact is well documented and
should be a conscience call. Best.
In politics, one must not play around. John F. Kennedy understood that 1960 was his time. He had to win
then, or lose forever. As a loser, he would have had much less of a chance to become President in 1964, or
1968.
I highly recommend a reading of his "Profiles in Courage" – a great series of essays, with a message for all
Americans.
Kennedy, a brilliant scholar, and Man of action, had on his agenda important things that had to be done, (or
at least begun), in 1960.
JFK as President:
1. 1st President to insist on Legal Equality of all Americans. (Who was his Atty Gen?)?
2. Unravel French & British Empires (arrange independence for 40 African Nations- including South Africa).
3. De Nuclearize the Zionist Land Thieves.
4. Maintain the Sovereignty of the USA.
5. Ensure Prosperity – Employment, stop Inflation, for American workers.
6. Prevent outbreak of Nuclear Conflict with USSR.
7. You continue this list.
Kennedy could not wait, and, therefore, had to choose L B Johnson as his Vice Presidential running mate
(even though he was well warned of the risks involved – including the danger to his life, as it would place a
Zionist Mafioso only a heartbeat from the Presidency).
Kennedy was on a Mission to save the Republic (our American Republic), which had been weakened and was in
great danger. His brother Robert, was with JFK, all the way. They were idealists, and wanted to save the world.
*Yes, Ron Unz, not one of your other writers have made these points. I am available to flesh these points
out – no charge.
We Americans lost everything on November 22, 1963. We have not yet begun to fight back!
@bluedog
Humility means one does not have to choose this truth or that. Anything is possible. There were once very many
people who thought a conspiracy likely. In the last 50 years, there has been a shift away from thinking a
conspiracy was behind the assassination. While this is only the balance of opinion, it should still carry some
weight against 'who benefits' arguments .
This meant bypassing the TV cameras, so none would be able to film the assassination in live time (just a
coincidence, I am sure).
It is very interesting that you bring this topic.
It is a documented fact that during all past official visits, President Kennedy's motorcade comprised a
open-top lorry, driving ahead of the Presidents' limousine, and carrying journalists sat backward on graded
tiers, who would film the President and the crowd cheering on him.
At Dallas, the journalists' truck got cancelled, and the way paved for the sole Abraham Zapruder to document
the circumstances of the JFK assassination. Just another complete coincidence, obviously.
This article was first published on November 21, 2013.
Today November 22, 2019 is the 56th anniversary of the assassination of JFK
Why was he assassinated?
He favored peace over war.
The normalization of relations with the Soviet Union.
... ... ...
To briefly review, the facts are conclusive that JFK was on terrible terms with the CIA and
the Joint Chiefs. He had refused to support the CIA organized Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He
had rejected the Joint Chiefs' "Operation Northwoods," a plan to commit real and faked acts of
violence against Americans, blame Castro and use the false flag events to bring regime change
to Cuba. He had rejected the Joint Chiefs case that the Soviet Union should be attacked while
the US held the advantage and before the Soviets could develop delivery systems for nuclear
weapons. He had indicated that after his reelection he was going to pull US troops out of
Vietnam and that he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces. He had aroused suspicion
by working behind the scenes with Khrushchev to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis, leading to
claims that he was "soft on communism." The CIA and Joint Chiefs' belief that JFK was an
unreliable ally in the war against communism spread into the Secret Service.
It has been established that the original autopsy of JFK's fatal head wound was discarded
and a faked one substituted in order to support the official story that Oswald shot JFK from
behind. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and President Johnson knew that Oswald was the CIA's
patsy, but they also understood, as did members of the Warren Commission, that to let the true
story out would cause Americans to lose confidence in their own government at the height of the
Cold War.
Robert Kennedy knew what had happened. He was on his way to being elected president and to
holding the plotters accountable for the murder of his brother when the CIA assassinated him. A
distinguished journalist, who was standing behind Robert Kennedy at the time of his
assassination, told me that the killing shots came from behind past his ear. He submitted his
report to the FBI and was never contacted.
Acoustic experts have conclusively demonstrated that more shots were fired than can be
accounted for by Sirhan Sirhan's pistol and that the sounds indicate two different calibers of
firearms.
I never cease to be amazed by the gullibility of Americans, who know nothing about either
event, but who confidently dismiss the factual evidence provided by experts and historians on
the basis of their naive belief that "the government wouldn't lie about such important events"
or "someone would have talked." What good would it do if someone talked when the gullible won't
believe hard evidence?
True to Kissingerian form, the story turns out to be not exactly true. Zhou was actually
responding to a question about France's political convulsions in 1968, not 1789.
But Kissinger's spin on the anecdote struck me as perceptive.
The meaning of a great historical event might take a long time–a very long
time–to become apparent. I didn't want to jump to conclusions about the causes of JFK's
murder in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.
It's still too early to tell. Fifty six years after the fact, historians and JFK researchers
do not have access to all of the CIA's files on the subject The 1964 Warren Commission report
exonerated the agency with its conclusion that Kennedy was killed by one man alone. But the
agency was subsequently the subject of five official JFK investigations, which cast doubt on
its findings.
The Senate's Church Committee investigation showed that the Warren Commission knew nothing
of CIA assassination operations in 1963. JFK records released in the last 20 years show the
Commission's attorneys had no real understanding the extensive counterintelligence monitoring
of Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed. We now know that senior operations officers,
including counterintelligence chief James Angleton, paid far closer attention to the obscure
Oswald as he made his way to Dallas than the investigators were ever told.
To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK's death. And conspiracy theories
spouted by the likes of the Alex Jones and James Fetzer deserve no attention. The fact remains
some of the most astute power players of 1963–including Lyndon
Johnson , Charles DeGaulle,
Fidel Castro , and Jackie and Robert Kennedy–concluded that JFK was killed by his
enemies, and not by one man alone. Did these statesmen get it wrong, and the under-informed
Warren Commission get it right?
The new documentary,
Truth is the Only Client, says yes. The film, shown last month in the auditorium of the
U.S. Capitol, features interviews with numerous former Warren Commission staffers. Supreme
Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who served as a fact checker for the Commission in 1964, defends
the lone gunman conclusion, saying, "You have to look at the new evidence and when you do, I
come to the same conclusion."
Justice Breyer, oddly, passes judgment on evidence he has not seen. The record of the CIA's
role in the events leading JFK's assassination is far from complete. In 2013 I reported on JFK
Facts that Delores Nelson CIA's information coordinator had stated in a sworn affidavit filed
in federal court, that the agency retained 1,100
assassination-related records that had never been made public.
A small portion of this material was released in 2017, including new details about the
opening of the CIA's first Oswald file in October 1959.
Yet thousands of JFK files remain secret. According to the latest figures from the National
Archives, a total of 15,834 JFK files remain fully or
partially classified, most of them held by the CIA and FBI. Thanks to an
October 2017 order from President Trump, these documents will not be made public until
October 2021 , at the earliest.
The assumption of Justice Breyer and many others is that any and all unseen CIA material
must exonerate the agency. It's an odd conclusion. If the CIA has nothing to hide, why is it
hiding so much? While 95 percent of the still-secret files probably are trivial, the remaining
5 percent -- thousands of pages of material–are historically pregnant. If made public,
they could clarify key questions in the long-running controversy about JFK's death.
These questions have been raised most concisely by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a career CIA officer
who served in senior positions. Now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, Mowatt-Larssen
has implicated his former employer in the Dallas ambush. In a
presentation at Harvard last December, Mowatt-Larssen hypothesized that a plot to kill JFK
emanated from the CIA's station in Miami where disgruntled Cuban exiles and undercover officers
loathed JFK for his failure to overthrow Castro's government in Cuba.
Mowatt-Larssen has yet to publish his presentation and documentation, so I can't say if he's
right or wrong. But he asks the right question: "How can intelligence operational and
analytical modus operandi help unlock a conspiracy that has remained unsolved for 55 years?"
And he focuses on the right place to dig deeper: the CIA's Miami office, known as WAVE
station.
My own JFK questions involve George Joannides, a decorated undercover officer who served as
branch chief in the Miami station in 1963. He ran psychological warfare operations against
Cuba. In 2003, I sued the CIA for Joannides' files. The lawsuit ended 15 years later in July
2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in his last
opinion before ascending to the Supreme Court, tossed my case. Kavanaugh declared the
agency deserved "deference upon deference" in its handling of Freedom of Information Act
requests about JFK files.
Nonetheless, my lawsuit illuminated the extraordinary sensitivity of the psy-ops Joannides
ran out of WAVE station. As reported in the New York Times, Fox News, Associated
Press, and Politico
, Morley v. CIA forced disclosure of the fact Joannides had received the CIA's Career
Intelligence Medal in 1981. The honor came two years after he stonewalled the House Select
Committee on Assassination about what he knew of Oswald's contacts with pro-and anti-Castro
Cubans in the summer and fall of 1963.
I believe Joannides was honored because he concealed the existence of an authorized covert
operation involving Oswald that has never been publicly acknowledged. In CIA lingo, Joannides
protected the agency's "sources and methods" concerning Oswald. And he might have done more.
His actions may have also shielded other officers who knew of a scheme to kill the liberal
president and lay the blame on Cuba. Never been seen by JFK investigators, they contain details
about his Joannides' undercover work in Miami in 1963, when he funded Oswald's antagonists
among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles. They also detail his work in 1978, when he duped
chief investigator Robert Blakey and the House Select Committee on Assassination. These
records, the agency says, cannot be released in 2019 without risk of "irreversible harm" to
national security.
It's a bizarre claim, at odds with the law. These ancient documents, all of them more than
40 years old, meet the statutory definition of "assassination-related," according to federal
judge John Tunheim. He chaired the Assassination Records Review Board which oversaw the
declassification of 4 million pages of JFK files between 1994 and 2017. In an interview,
Tunheim told me that, under the terms of the 1992 JFK Records Act, the Joannides files are
subject to mandatory review and release. "It's a no-brainer," he said.
Yet the files remain off-limits to the public. Thanks to the legal consensus, articulated by
Justices Kavanaugh and Breyer, the CIA enjoys "deference upon deference" when it comes to the
JFK assassination story. As a result, the JFK Records Act has been flouted. The public's
interest in full disclosure has been thwarted.
Yet legitimate questions persist: Did a plot to kill JFK originate in the agency's Miami
station as Mowatt-Larssen suggests? The fact that the CIA won't share the evidence that could
answer the CIA man's question is telling.
So these days, when people ask me who killed JFK, I say the Kennedy was probably victimized
by enemies in his own government, possibly including CIA officers involved in anti-Castro and
counterintelligence operations. I have no smoking gun, no theory. Just look at the suspicious
fact pattern, still shrouded in official secrecy, and it's easy to believe that JFK was, as
Mowatt-Larssen puts it, "marked for assassination."
56 years later, thousands of CIA documents still withheld. None of the principals/agents/
players in the assassination are alive. So the excuse that documents are withheld to protect
individuals no longer holds water. The documents are being withheld to protect the agency
itself (and other organizations) from revealing the roles they played in overthrowing an
elected President of the US.
To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK's death . . . er, not quite see
Russ Baker, Parrott Memo:
[DATE: November 22, 1963]
At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H.W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-shore Drilling Company,
Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following
information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.
BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he
recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES
PARROTT has been talking of killing the president when he comes to Houston.
BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active
in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt MRS FAWLEY, telephone number SU
2-5239, or ARLENE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican
Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of
PARROTT.
BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas
Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone Number is CA 2-0395.
According to Nixon, "Jack Rubenstein is LBJ's boy" and although Nixon damn sure wanted to
be President, he "wasn't willing to kill for it."
But LBJ was.
And when a reasonable person wonders why LBJ would twice call back the jets as the Liberty
was being destroyed, it's not difficult to see why. Israel knows the blackmail game well.
With all the explainations out there, I'll put my money on Nixon.
Ordinary people don't want to believe the worst about their leaders, even a slime-bucket
like LBJ, but Larry didn't really have a dentist appointment on 9-11, and 3000 people were
murdered with the consent of some of our dearest leaders.
The facade that the elite hide behind can't fall fast enough, but it's definately falling.
You can only be so naive.
LBJ was actually kind of a "patsy", too, being used by the REAL power brokers... Recall
that he DUCKED down in his limo just before the shots rang out because, while he was let in
on the plot, he really wasn't sure that "they" might not want to take him out too!.... Tragic
as it all was (& still is), it's quite a fascinating story...
Definitely fascinating, and whatever the details, he was certainly in on it. Everything he
did in Dallas indicated that. Cruel guy. Hillary-like, for lack of a better term.
Well Mr Kennedy made his Fortune bootlegging thru Prohibition and that relates Mob ties
!
Shipping Seagrams across the Great Lakes from Canada by Swift Boats that then was
hotshotted across the nation combined with moonshiners that later becoming NASCAR Racers
!
You may be correct, I just think to a lesser extent, Joseph P Kennedy Sr. did tell JFK how
many Votes do you want to Win Election by !
Release of the documents wouldn't pose any threat to the average American. When they claim
National security, they actually mean Deep/Dark state shadow government security. Revealing
the actions of an invisible and very powerful global force operating inside the US government
is their fear.
The Kill shot came from man inside storm drain that Assassin stood inside with Kennedy's
driver car slowdown ( edited out of Car slowdown ) Forcing President John Kennedy 's head
back and to the Left blowing much of his Skull off !
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people
inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret
proceedings...
Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing
around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting
a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been
more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies
primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration
instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free
choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.
It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building
of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic,
intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are
concealed, not published.
Its mistakes are buried, not headlined.
Its dissenters are silenced, not praised.
No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed."
Change playback time to 0.25X. Watch the guy with wide girth standing on the curb to the
left of the car, watch his right arm rise up, pull back, fall down to his right side and toss
a black shiny object to the ground. This is Jack Ruby, The owner and operator of a titty bar.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ruby4.htm
"liberal president"--NOT! In Chris Matthews book, Kennedy and Nixon, it paints a picture
of DNC Dem candidates at each others' throats in the DNC smoke filled room. LBJ, Humphrey,
JFK, the Usual Suspects were in front of the committee. JFK horrified all of the prospective
nominees. He stated,"If I don't get the nomination, my old man is going to back NIXON!" There
you have it: was it Oswald or was it LBJ? You choose which it was: Lone Wolf or the VP who
wanted to be POTUS. The "liberal president" was actually quite close to Nixon until 1960.
As the deep state relentlessly tries to take Trump down, maybe he should go scorched earth
and declassify the files implicating the CIA. Can a former President go into witness
protection? Ha.
"... Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but many of us will never know... ..."
"... They certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for "the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism. ..."
In my July 25th article " Zelenskii's dilemma " I pointed
out the fundamental asymmetry of the Ukrainian power configuration following Zelenskii's crushing victory over Poroshenko: while
a vast majority of the Ukrainian people clearly voted to stop the war and restore some kind of peace to the Ukraine, the real levers
of power in the post-Maidan Banderastan are all held by all sorts of very powerful, if also small, minority groups including:
The various "oligarchs" (Kolomoiskii, Akhmetov, etc.) and/or mobsters Arsen Avakov's internal security forces including some "legalized"
Nazi death squads The various non-official Nazi deathsquads (Parubii) The various western intelligence agencies who run various groups
inside the Ukraine The various western financial/political sponsors who run various groups inside the Ukraine The so-called "Sorosites"
(соросята) i.e. Soros and Soros-like sponsored political figures The many folks who want to milk the Ukraine down to the last drop
of Ukrainian blood and then run
These various groups all acted in unison, at least originally, during and after the Euromaidan. This has now dramatically changed
and these groups are now all fighting each other. This is what always happens when things begin to turn south and the remaining loot
shrinks with every passing day,
Whether Zelenskii ever had a chance to use the strong mandate he received from the people to take the real power back from these
groups or not is now a moot point: It did not happen and the first weeks of Zelenskii's presidency clearly showed that Zelenskii
was, indeed, in " free fall ": instead of becoming
a "Ukrainian Putin" Zelenskii became a "Ukrainian Trump" – a weak and, frankly, clueless leader, completely outside his normal element,
whose only "policy" towards all the various extremist minorities was to try to appease them, then appease them some more, and then
even more than that. As a result, a lot of Ukrainians are already speaking about "Ze" being little more than a "Poroshenko 2.0".
More importantly, pretty much everybody is frustrated and even angry at Zelenskii whose popularity is steadily declining.
... ... ...
Another major problem for Zelenskii are two competing narratives: the Ukronazi one and, shall we say, the "Russian" one. I have
outlined the Ukronazi one just above and now I will mention the competing Russian one which goes something like this:
The Euromaidan was a completely illegal violent coup against the democratically elected President of the Ukraine, whose legitimacy
nobody contested, least of all the countries which served as mediators between Poroshenko and the rioters and who betrayed their
word in less than 24 hours (a kind of a record for western politicians and promises of support!).
... ... ...
Some of the threats made by these Ukronazis are dead serious and the only person who, as of now, kinda can keep the Ukrainian
version of the Rwandan " Interahamwe " under control would probably be Arsen Avakov, but since he himself is a hardcore
Nazi nutcase, his attitude is ambiguous and unpredictable. He probably has more firepower than anybody else, but he was a pure "
Porokhobot " (Poroshenko-robot) who, in many ways, controlled Poroshenko more than Poroshenko controlled him. The best move
for Zelenskii would be to arrest the whole lot of them overnight (Poroshenko himself, but also Avakov, Parubii, Iarosh, Farion, Liashko,
Tiagnibok, etc.) and place a man he totally trusts as Minister of the Interior. Next, Zelenskii should either travel to Donetsk or,
at least, meet with the leaders of the LDNR and work with them to implement the Minsk Agreements. That would alienate the Ukronazis
for sure, but it would give Zelenskii a lot of popular support.
Needless to say, that is not going to happen. While Zelenskii's puppet master Kolomoiskii would love to stick this entire gang
in jail and replace them with his own men, it is an open secret that powerful interest groups in the US have told Zelenskii "don't
you dare touch them". Which is fine, except that this also means "don't you dare change their political course either".
...are going through the famous Kübler-Ross stages of griefs: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance: currently,
most of them are zig-zagging between bargaining and depression; acceptance is still far beyond their – very near – horizon. Except
that Zelenskii has nothing left to bargain with.
Thank you for a rational article about Ukraine. The sad thing is that it might take years to reach the "acceptance" phase.
It would take someone like Hitler to clean out the stables. Arrest is not a viable option as they will bribe their way out.
These people need to be put down like rabid dogs. That is the only way to put an end to their mischief and it would be a deterrent
to their replacements.
Personally, I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel. Another
country that is still in the "denial" phase. Its military and political leaders know full-well that their strategic aims have
all failed. The boot is now firmly on the other foot.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
To give you an idea of how ridiculous it has all become, the UK no longer accepts medical degrees awarded by universities in Crimea.
Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but
many of us will never know...
I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel.
You got that right – what it's all about is building a New Khazaria. But they're neither giving up on their Greater Israel
project between the two rivers, and hence more wars, conflict and chaos to drive out the native Arabs from the Middle East.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
@AWMThey certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for
"the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part
of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism.
@bob sykes Kolomoiskii is the real hidden owner/controller of the company that bribed the Bidens. He has a finger in lots
of pies. His pretense to leaning towards Russia is his way to try to get the Americans to stop attempts to get at the many millions
that he stole from his own Ukrainians bank – fake loans to his companies.
Of course, the Russians understand all of that. This theater is aimed at the Americans – not at the Russians.
For the Ukrainian state to break up, there need to be some forces interested in a break-up. You won't find such forces inside
the Ukraine.
What is Ukrainian South-East? In pure political terms, "South-East" is a bunch of oligarchs, who are all integrated into Ukrainian
system, and have no reason to seek independence from Kiev, especially if it means getting slapped with Western sanctions.
Even the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?
It's worth pointing out that the so-called "Novorossia movement" started out as Akhmetov's project to win concessions from
new Kiev regime. It was then quickly hijacked by Strelkov, a man who actually wanted to break up the Ukraine, and it is because
of Strelkov, that Donetsk and Lugansk are now de-facto independent. Without similar figures to lead secessionist movements elsewhere
in the Ukraine, this break-up that Saker keeps talking about will never happen.
His ratings must be sky-high, because otherwise I cannot imagine why Fox would allow him to continue to use their network as
a medium to broadcast common sense.
Of course the Dems are making it so easy.
Schiff, Kent, Taylor, Yanovitch -- what a pathetic, nauseating crew.
Nice and focused and succinct...love the Mao quote...
The higher the monkey climbs, the harder he will fall...
That describes Scumbag Pompeo in a nutshell...worth hearing this brief history of the
lardass pathological climber...
I have said this before...Trump is still the best of what's on offer in the fake democracy
of empire...
His opponents are hoisting themselves on their own petard...the more pathologically
determined they get, the bigger the bomb exploding in their face...Wile E Coyote 101...
The simple fact as I see it is that Trump is basically alone, which is not surprising
because who among the Washington creatures is going to agree with any of his sensible
agenda...which most notably is to get out of Syria and Afghanistan...and 'get along' with
Russia...
Regardless of anything else bad that he thinks is good...which includes enabling Israeli
colonialism and other things...if he were able to actually pull off those agenda items it
would be a very good step forward...
Now he has been tied up quite effectively by the opposition ['resistance'] but he's still
managed to at least break open northeastern Syria for the government to return...a big
plus...
As far as hopes to somehow take him down...that is delusional...he's a tough cookie who's
dealt with much tougher customers than these half wits in Washington...
People forget that the POTUS has tremendous power, even all alone and stranded on an oval
office island...he is not going to be brought down like Nixon...that era is over...plus he's
not as dumb as poor Dickie...
At the same time, there will be no scumbags going to jail for the massive hoax of
Russiagate and what amounts to a domestic color revolution attempt that they perpetrated on
their own people...
The Trump plan is to simply remain in office, which almost certainly he will do, and then
we may see Prometheus Unbound...
snake @95 argues "the deep state does not exist" with circular logic that is massively off
target.
The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters,
the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests. None of those
interests have the ability to make policy and implement regime changes without the deep
state. Yes, outside interests drive the actions of the deep state, but no, those outside
interests have no ability to accomplish anything without their deep state operatives.
If the US federal government bureaucracy was a) much less powerful, b) much more
transparent, and c) more responsive to elected leaders, then none of the bad things would
happen. A pipe dream? Yes - but it is erroneous to make a simple declaration "the deep state
doesn't exist" without any rational arguments to refute my points in @72.
Thank you for your post. You say that there is a deep state, but you then go on to tell us
it is not as deep as we imagine. So, I posit we should call it "the shallow state". It is the
foam on the edge of the sea as it begins to recede from a high tide of corrupt practices,
delicate and lacy at the edges and so mesmerizing and attractive to some. But it is receding.
And out there as it departs the Deep People are waiting. They are the depths of an ocean that
never disappears. At low tide they are still there, and they will feed the incoming tide. At
the turn.
And I also say, you may not care what the future brings, but I do. I have a little
granson, born on my birthday, gazing at me with twinkling eyes from his photograph across the
room. Family is also something we can call Deep and be truthful about that. It runs in both
directions, past and future. The Deep People have Deep Families.
And yes, I know, other grandsons have met untimely deaths this century and are counted as
'collateral damage' by the shallow state. Still they are with us as the past is always with
us; they deepen our persons in unaccountable but irreversible ways. They strengthen our
family commitments. They are always here, in our memories and in our strengths. They are not
collateral; they are the fabric of our determinations, our life blood.
The Deep People do care what happens. The twinkle in their grandsons' eyes burns in
their hearts. It is a fire, a consuming force. It never dies.
"deep state", "deep people", "the swamp" .. a rose by any other name would smell just as
rancid.
"deep people" implies a small, isolated group. IMO, it's more like an iceberg than
seashore foam. 90% of it is hidden from view.
My point was that snake's blame of the oligarchs misses the target. I look at them the way
I look at any other predator - if the opportunity exists, they will take it. The deep state
is THE necessary ingredient for the evil that the US government does.
I too have grandchildren. I am convinced that their lives will be less free, less
prosperous, with less opportunity than what the seven generations of Wills family before me
have experienced in the US for the last 275 years. So what can I do about it? Typing on my
keyboard certainly won't make one whit of difference...
Andrew Bacevich rightly
rejects
the
idea that there was ever a
Pax Americana
in the Middle East:
"It took many decades to build a
Pax Americana
in the Middle East," X writes. Not
true: it took only a handful of hours - the time he invested in writing his essay. The
Pax
Americana
is a figment of X's imagination.
Defenders of U.S. hegemony like to make what they think is a flattering comparison between the
U.S. and the Roman Empire, but
where the Romans made a desert and called it peace the U.S.
has gone to war in the desert again and again with no end in sight.
Not only has the U.S. not brought peace, but there is little reason to think that our
government is capable of doing so.
More to the point, the U.S. has no right to keep
meddling in the affairs of these nations. It would also be accurate to say that the more American
involvement there has been in the region, the less
pax
there has been there. There is
nowhere else in the world where our foreign policy is as intensely militarized, and it is no
accident that it is also where our foreign policy is most destructive.
If the U.S.
genuinely desired stability and the security of energy supplies, it would not be waging an economic
war on Iran, and it wouldn't be fueling a disgraceful war on Yemen.
The author of that
piece, William Wechsler, notably has nothing to say about either one of those policies.
Opponents of U.S. withdrawal
from the Middle East make two major claims: that withdrawal would
harm U.S. interests and that it would make the region worse off than it already is.
The second point is wrong but debatable, and the first one depends on an absurdly expansive
definition of what U.S. interests are. The
piece
that
Bacevich is answering asserts that "it would be a terrible mistake and deeply harmful to the United
States" to withdraw from the region, but the author does not show that current troop levels of more
than 50,000 people are necessary or even useful for securing U.S. interests.
The U.S.
didn't have and didn't need a large military presence in the Middle East for the entire Cold War,
and it doesn't need to have one now.
Having a military presence in the region has directly
contributed to increased threats to U.S. security through terrorism, and it made the Iraq war
debacle possible. The greatest harm to U.S. security has come from our ongoing extensive military
involvement in this part of the world.
Neither does the author demonstrate that U.S. foreign policy up until now has actually
been doing the job he thinks it has.
For instance, he mentions "supporting a delicate
balance of power that promotes regional stability and protects our allies," but looking back over
just the last twenty years of U.S. foreign policy in the region there is no evidence that the U.S.
has been supporting a balance of power or promoted regional stability.
On the contrary, to
the extent that there was a balance of power at the start of this century, the U.S. set about
destroying it by overthrowing the Iraqi government, and it has further contributed to the
destabilization of at least three other countries through direct or indirect involvement in
military interventions.
The clients that the U.S. has in the Middle East aren't allies and
we aren't obliged to protect them, but the U.S. hasn't done a terribly good job of protecting them,
either. The U.S. has managed to indulge its clients in reckless and atrocious behavior that has
also made them less secure and undermined our own security interests. Support for the war on Yemen
is a good example of that.
Enabling the Saudi coalition's war has bolstered Al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), devastated and fractured Yemen, and exposed Saudi Arabia to reprisal
attacks that it had never suffered before.
The other major flaw with the Wechsler piece is that he is warning against something that isn't
happening:
As campaign promises tend to become governing realities for American foreign policy, the
prospect of a full U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East now stands before us.
If only that were true.
The U.S. has more troops in the region than it
did at the start of this year. There is no sign that those numbers will be reduced anytime soon.
Support for the war on Yemen continues, and the president has gone out of his way to keep arming
the Saudi coalition. Even in Syria, there will still be an illegal U.S. military presence for the
foreseeable future. Full withdrawal is nowhere in sight right now. The U.S. is heading in the
opposite direction. The author pretends that withdrawal is in the offing and then urges the next
president to "reverse this course," but there is nothing for the next president to reverse. So why
rail against something that hasn't happened and isn't likely to occur?
This is an old
tactic of making the option of withdrawing from the region seem so extreme and dangerous that it
has to be rejected out of hand, but these scare tactics are less and less effective as we see the
mounting costs of open-ended conflict and deep entanglement in the affairs of other countries.
The author wants the next administration "to reestablish American leadership in the Middle East,
restore deterrence with our adversaries, and begin renewing trust with our partners and allies,"
but he has not made a persuasive case that "American leadership" in the region is worth
"reestablishing" even if it were possible to get back to the way things were before the Iraq war.
Many of the "partners and allies" in question are themselves unreliable and have become
liabilities, and many of the adversaries do not really threaten the U.S.
Bacevich
concludes that there needs to be a radical overhaul of U.S. foreign policy in the region on account
of its colossal failures:
Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is
essentially zero.
There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East.
The imperative is to go forward, which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in
region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman
rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.
Once we acknowledge those errors, the next step is not to fall into the same patterns
out of a misguided desire for "leadership" and domination.
Instead of chasing after a
fantasy of imposing peace in some other part of the world, we need to stop our destabilizing and
destructive policies that perpetuate conflict and make new wars more likely.
Lets just be honest the USA is in the business of war,overthrowing
governments and creating vassal states with murder and mayhem all
the way,sponsoring fascists,dictators,drug lords and Christ knows
what else along the way and there is no high moral ground as its
average citizen is either watching football or Kim Kardashians ***
and couldn't give a ****,no amount of whinging is ever going to
change that the author is pissing in the wind.
Instead of replacing and upgrading infrastructure in the US, we
have burned that money up in the desert fighting wars so the
Chinese and Russian oil companies could waltz in and take all of
marbles.
US Middle East policy has been failing since Eisenhower
injected us into Iran an in the 1950s.
It seems to me those people are intent on killing each other at
all costs. No need to get in their way and suffer casualties.
Seems like a population reduction in that region might improve
the world
Your ignorance is amazing. Before the US interventions a
number of these countries were going down the path of having
secular governments. Many had mixed communities from a
religious and ethnic perspective. US bastardry has cost the
lives of tens of thousands of people.
Aside from the countless us blunders in the middle east.. The core
issues are rooted in the barbaric religious beliefs that have
plagued the region since Mohammed rose to power.
Let them figure it out. Why stick yoar hook nose into someone
else's problems? Ah there is something in it for the special
group, and the tab goes to the tax payers.
The politicians
should set the example by sending their kids to woar first.
Trillions wasted and what benefit has that been to the tax
payers? No money for healthcare or education, pensions,
infrastructure etc. Lotsa money available for killing people.
Agreed. The Jews were a relatively recent reintroduction to
the region. It was a **** hole long before this time. Try to
blame it all on them but it's a weak point of view. Unless
you are looking at the last 70 years. But that **** hole
status goes back far beyond this time frame
Perpetual war was always the plan since Reagan days to break up
OPEC or cause in-fighting and destablize region. Iran/Iraq war,
first Gulf war, Iraq war, ISIS, Syrian conflict, Yemen,
Sunni/Shitte division, feed the fire on unofficial decades old
plan still ongoing by CIA and State Dept lifers. Perpetual war in
Mid-East was always the plan.
That way you keep down the competition.
What do you think all the demonizing efforts are against China
and Russia now? They are countries murica can't conquer.
The author of the referenced article is a prototypical Atlantic
Council Zionist *** chickenhawk ******** artist who pisses
swampwater - William F. Wechsler.
His concern is Greater Israel, not what is best for Americans.
All humanity, including us, have the right to survive and defend
ourselves from obliteration. To do this we must hit when hit, and
harder to eliminate the attack. beyond that, we need not fight.
God will is in charge, not ours.
We are at risk of non-survival
when we fail to recognize the difference between what we feel
responsibly for, and what we can actually control. That is why we
need a border. Defnding it gives us a line behidn which we can
produce, and be productive. Once we cross that line, we begin to
fall into a morass.
How long did it take America to exit Vietnam? You would think
America had money and men to burn with these fruitless wars. Who
benefits other than the vampires of the military-industrial
complex, owners of cemetaries, and those who produce and market
the Intel community's distracting and criminally-produced films
and television offerings?
Vietnam War started back when dollar debt was redeemable in
gold. Back then debts had impact and the war spending was felt
almost immediately though its effect on the economy. War was
partially responsible for closing of the gold window by Nixon.
They couldn't fake sustainability otherwise.
Jimmy Carter: US 'Most Warlike Nation in History of the World'
-
April 19, 2019
Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll identified
the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a
2017 Pew Research poll found that a record number of people in
30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence as a "major
threat."
Benjamin
Disraeli: Father Of The World Wars
The British-Jewish Lion Plots
Austria-Hungary and Turkey were the winners at Disraeli's
Congress of Berlin. Serbia and Russia were the losers.
Disraeli: "Our great object was to break up and permanently
prevent the alliance of the three Empires and I maintain there
never was a general diplomatic result more completely
effected."
The Franco-Russian alliance encircles Germany and
Austria-Hungary. Britain joined the alliance in 1907.
The Great War was only triggered by the assassination. The real
engineer of the disaster was Rothschild agent, Benjamin
Disraeli, who died in 1881.
All Wars Are Bankers' Wars!
The IRS and The Federal Reserve
Bank work together to swindle USA citizens
The 16th Amendment and the Income Tax
1913 proved to be a transformative year for the nation's
economy, first with the passage of the 16th "income tax"
Amendment and the false claim that it had been ratified.
"I think if you were to go back and and try to find and
review the ratification of the 16th amendment, which was the
internal revenue, the income tax, I think if you went back
and examined that carefully, you would find that a
sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment."
- U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox, Sullivan Vs.
United States, 2003.
Later that same year, and apparently unwilling to risk
another questionable amendment,
Congress passed the
Federal Reserve Act over Christmas holiday 1913, while
members of Congress opposed to the measure were at home.
This was a very underhanded deal, as the Constitution
explicitly vests Congress with the authority to issue the
public currency, does not authorize its delegation, and thus
should have required a new Amendment to transfer that
authority to a private bank. But pass it Congress did, and
President Woodrow Wilson signed it as he promised the
bankers he would in exchange for generous campaign
contributions.
Woodrow Wilson later regretted that decision.
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my
country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its
system of credit. We are no longer a government by free
opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote
of the majority, but a government by the opinion and du
I don't blame
them. Look at all the invasions and coups since WWII. Theft of
gold, resources, death and destruction and poverty follows. No
moar competition.
Washington? We know what our founding father said about the Jews.
He was right. Today, and even before the Federal Reserve "Black
Magic Act" of 1913:
Washington = Israel.
There is no
America any longer. It was 911'd inside and out by the Joker ***
cult. And after they 911'd you they did a Joker dance, didn't
they?
it was never paxamericana. it was always paxjudaica, in other
words war and chaos called peace the way jewlanders roll with
their zionazi cocksuckers in tow.
"They [the Jews] work more
effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a
hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great
cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each
state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society
and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."
-- George
Washington
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Semyon Vindman (né Aleksandr Semyonovich Vindman) and his
identical twin brother, Yevgeny, were born to a Jewish family in the Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. After the death of their mother, the three-year-old twins
and their older brother, Leonid, were brought to New York in December 1979 by their father,
Semyon (Simon). They grew up in Brooklyn's 'Little-Odessa' neighborhood. The twins appear
briefly with their maternal grandmother in the Ken Burns documentary The Statue of Liberty.
Vindman speaks fluent Russian, Ukrainian (& probably Hebrew).
I will posit that Vindman holds citizenship in: Ukraine, USA, & Israel. Dual-Citizens
violate US Law, to wit the 1940s Nationality Act. I will NOT delve into the tangled
loyalties, ambitions and/or 'greatness' expectations of Colonel Vindman in this post.
Beginning in 2008, Vindman became a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Eurasia. In this
capacity he served in the U.S. embassies in Kiev, Ukraine, and Moscow, Russia. Returning to
Washington, D.C. he was then a politico-military affairs officer focused on Russia for the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Vindman served on the Joint Staff at the Pentagon from
September 2015 to July 2018.
The Honorable Gordon David Sondland, United States Ambassador to the European Union, is
probably ending his stint, today.
Ambassador Sondland was born to a Jewish family in Seattle, Washington, the son of Frieda
(Piepsch) and Gunther Sondland. His mother fled Europe before the Second World War to
Uruguay, where after the war she reunited with his father, who had served in the French
Foreign Legion. In 1953, the Sondlands relocated to Seattle where they opened a dry-cleaning
business. Sondland has a sister 18 years his senior. He attended the University of Washington
but dropped out and became a commercial real estate salesman.
Does Ambassador Sondland hold dual-citizenship? Dual citizenship violates the 1940
Nationalities Act.
@Arioch Germans will likely be fleeing Germany in fairly large numbers as the Islamic /
African takeover picks up steam. Same for Swedes from Sweden (soonest), French from France,
English from England.
Ukraine is emptying out and has cheap land and space for new housing to be built, or old
houses to be replaced or thoroughly renovated. The Western Europeans need somewhere safer and
more civilized to run now that they have invited hostile invaders into their countries. It
could be a match made in heaven.
Ukraine could offer only permanent residency, not citizenship, and it could require that
white euro refugees pay in advance for a year or two years of good private medical and dental
insurance so that they don't burden the already-broke Ukrainian treasury.
Let the Germans and other euro reinvigorate the Ukrainian economy -- possibly for a steady
two decades or more -- by buying supplies and hiring workers and machinery to build or
renovate several million houses. They have savings and pensions and can afford a lot in
Ukraine. The Ukrainian treasury would take in massive receipts in VAT and other taxes paid by
the euro permanent residents and by newly employed Ukrainians working on the refugees' new
homes.
Ukrainian hospitals and dental offices could upgrade their equipment, staff, training, and
capabilities enormously with the ongoing infusion of western euro refugee funds.
The euro refugees needn't change the demographic and cultural composition of Ukraine much
longer-term, because they will, at least at first, mostly be people age 55-60 and up who can
afford to retire and give up their careers in their home countries to flee East. They'll be
beyond their childbearing/raising years. And, if the Ukrainians are wise, the western euros
will never be eligible for citizenship (I.e. they will never be able to vote the same suicide
for Ukraine as many of them allowed in their home countries).
Far, far better for Ukrainians to (1) have their own children and (2) stop antagonizing
russia and work out favorable energy and other trade deals. But since neither of those is
happening or seems likely in the near future, Ukraine should seek a steady infusion of
peaceful, reasonably intelligent, culturally compatible white Europeans to help occupy the
territory (instead of hostile aliens, the alternative) and spend billions of Euros from
Ukrainian businesses and shops.
Odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is when a country's government
misappropriates money it has borrowed from another country. A nation's debt is considered
odious debt when government leaders use borrowed funds in ways that do not benefit its
citizens, and to the contrary, often oppress them. Many believe individuals or countries
doing the lending must have known, or should have known, of the oppressive conditions upon
offering the credit.
@RadicalCenter Putin would be too old in ten years. What Russia needs is a decent
successor, as intelligent and far-sighted as Putin, who would be interested in the country
more than in his pocket, like Putin. While traitorous scum like Gorby or Yeltsin has no
chance, the greatest danger is that someone nationalistic but not particularly smart rises to
the top.
Putin understands the key thing: Russia does not need to do anything about the Empire or
its EU vassals, they are their own worst enemy. As the saying goes, when you see your enemy
committing suicide, do not interfere.
As far as Baltic vaudeville states are concerned, to the best of my knowledge (which might
be faulty: I only visited Russia three times in the last 28 years, spending less than two
months total there), most Russian residents are not interested in the Baltics.
Now that the port at Ust-Luga works at almost full capacity, Baltics aren't even useful
economically: Russian exports mostly bypass them. Besides, placing NATO troops into these
"countries" creates a significant financial and military burden on NATO, which is in the best
Russian interests.
So, from Russian perspective, the same rule applies to Baltics and Ukraine (whatever
remains of it in 5-10 years): "you broke it – you own it". So, the West would have to
do something about those territories. Considering current policies of the EU, they will be
populated by Muslims and Africans. Russian attitudes changed a lot in the last decades
regarding Baltics and in the last five years regarding Ukraine: a lot of Russians believe
that even Muslims and Africans are smarter than aborigines of those wannabe countries, so
would make more sensible neighbors.
@Malacaay "Ukrainian Republic" in 1914 ??? With presidents, parliaments, elections, sure,
sure.
And having western borders in 1914 exactly by the line draw by Georgian dictator
Jugashvili-Stalin 25 years later?
With Lwow being in 1914 city not of Poland (independent Poland in 1914 is yet another gem)
but of the said Ukrainian Republic? And Transcarpatian Ruthenia too?
Wow, so in 1939 Jugashvili-Stalin just restored well known internationally borderlines of
the glorious 1914 Ukrainian Republic, right?
@Arioch You consider Ukraine to be irrelevant, so why spend so much time on it??? Odd
isn't it. Methinks you protesteth too much. You haven't proven Ukrainians can't do science,
that they don't have a technical culture, and you haven't shown that grain production is
irrelevant. You're just insulting farmers, and basic industry. Insult your own stomach. Don't
eat bread. Food is power. All industrial economies are based on agriculture. You dismissing
it is just sour grapes.
Pretend the Ukraine is dead. That's your business. Ukraine hasn't lost the ability to do
science, engineering, etc. What do you think they do in universities there? Is there no
higher education there? I'm not going to believe that. You're just spinning. Spin away. It's
obvious you're just dismissing real activity there.
The finality with which you dismiss the logistics possibilities of the Ukraine is odd. It
is a valuable resource. The country can take up the logistics possibilities in the future.
They haven't disappeared. And that is what your argument is based on. Pretending that
something can never ever be operational again ever, for any reason, even when the
possibilities are obviously still there. Germany bounced back after the war. Russia bounced
back after the 90s. But Ukraine? According to you, Ukrainians can't ever have any future
possibilities. You dismiss the real activity that is there, and you dismiss future
possibilities. So you can read the future? Do you also pretend to have super human ability to
know the future? You don't like facts, just theatrics. Lots of arm waving and shouting and
gesticulating. No proofs. If it is dead in your books, why are you wasting so much effort to
prove it, without actually giving any proof? You really do protest too much.
@Mr. Hack Why would I be disappointed in seeing your puppet master Kolomoisky, the
'Zhidobandera', and his puppet playing the presidents, Zelenski admitting (grudgingly) that
"They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations"?
K: "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you [the U.S.] are
forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it."
And begging for money from Russia?
@Anon First, participation or results of International Mathematical Olympiad that both of
your links deal with do not necessarily reflect the state of science in the country. First,
math is only one of the real sciences (others include physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).
Second, the results of kids reflect the potential of young people, not the state of
scientific research in the country. Remaining scientists in Ukraine (there aren't many of
them left, unless you count bullshitters like Vyatrovich as scientists) bitterly complain
that the government does not fund science at the level that can help it survive.
BTW, many branches of Russian science (e.g., biochemistry and cell biology that I know
best) do not perform at the level that would put them on the map. There are very few
world-class biochemical or cell biological labs in Russia today, even fewer than in Soviet
times. In Ukraine today there are none, zero, zilch, nada. There used to be some decent labs
in Ukraine before 1991, but they either died out or the quality of their research went way
down. Those who awarded PhD to the girl I mentioned above are not scientists, at least not
the honest ones. They are qualified to sweep floors in college, at best.
@AnonFromTN More protesteth too much. More slurs, insults, hearsay, flailing away with no
data of any kind.
Those kids have real capabilities. Not simply 'potential of young people'. dismissing them
won't make them go away. 'Out damn'd spot'. Too bad the facts won't go away. To have kids
with strong math ability means you have to have institutions and teachers with strong
education capability. They don't learn to cut it in math by playing in the streets. Obviously
they will have no difficulty doing engineering calculations, and doing computer science and
physical sciences.
Making comparisons to the former SU is not valid for me. Comparison to other similar sized
economies makes more sense. Ukraine population is similar to Colombia, Spain, Argentina,
Uganda, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq. Looking at those countries, the capabilities of Ukraine don't
look too bad. Certainly not looking like Ukraine is dead.
Why would any one think that Ukraine must be compared to much larger economies??? The
other guy was doing that too. saker is way off to make such comparisons.
Comparing Ukraine to US, China, Russia, or prior SU or UkrainianSSR for me is not a valid
comparison. The economics are too different.
It's obvious what is going on is simply a political, prejudicial smear and dismissal of the
Ukraine and Ukrainians rather than any kind of balanced assessment of capabilities and
reality
@Anon Yes, those kids certainly had good teachers. It is quite likely that their math
teachers were educated in the Ukrainian SSR. I hear from a lot of people in Russia that the
quality of the teachers who graduated in Soviet times tends to be better than of those who
graduated later. I got my school education in Ukrainian SSR and can't complain about it.
Today Lugansk, where I went to school, is in Lugansk People's Republic, and judging by recent
polling of the population, its chances or returning to Ukraine are about as great as my
chances of living 500 years. Ukrainian bomb hit the school I went to, and Ukrainian shell hit
the library where I used to borrow books when I went to school. Luckily, a few years ago
Ukrainian troops were pushed by freedom fighters far enough from Lugansk, so they can't shell
it any more.
Comparing Ukraine to US, China, Russia, or prior SU or UkrainianSSR for me is not a
valid comparison.
Sorry, but Ukraine started by Ukrainian SSR becoming independent. It had what it had, and
lost what it lost, including a big chunk of the population and economy.
You are welcome to believe anything you want. People have a long history of believing the
most preposterous things. However, even fervent beliefs don't change the reality. That's why
all societies have lunatic asylums.
WGruff, dirtyMarxist , Nov 15 2019 16:29 utc |
165
Of course, fascists are always just trying to do what's best for their tribe. Does anyone
imagine that the Japanese and Germans and Italians of almost a century ago just woke up one
morning and decided "Hey, let's be evil! Let's commit the most inhuman acts imaginable
against our fellow humans because why not? That would be a great way to spend a few
years!" ? Of course not. They were just as convinced as our NemesisOfHumanity that they
stood for good and were just standing up for their tribe. They were convinced of their own
exceptionality, and were horrified by the flapper decadence of prior years, seeking something
more divine and purified for their respective exceptional cultures.
It would always be best if people (and whole cultures!) could accept themselves for what
they really are rather than building elaborate fantasies in which they play the starring
roles. Fascists could achieve peace of mind if they could see themselves for what they truly
are, but then with their delusions discarded they couldn't really be fascists anymore, could
they? Without their delusions the sinister threats from the scheming Soviets and the
inscrutable Chicoms would dissipate from the fascists' minds like the morning fog before the
sun. The vast gulf of differences between themselves and those "primitive others" whom
the fascists feel obligated to bring enlightenment to, by force if necessary, would dwindle
to insignificance without the delusions that the fascists rely upon to view themselves as
superheroes.
Finally, without the delusions the fascists would be able to see fascism for the pack
psychology that it is, with the fascists just being the beta dogs serving the elite alpha
dogs in the hopes for a pat on the head. The "It is also in the best interests of elites
to take care of their people" assertion would become apparent to them as a plaintive plea
to the alpha dogs of their pack/tribe for security against the imaginary threats their
delusions generate.
As an aside, real socialists never say "The elites should take care of the
little guy!" On the contrary, real socialists say "The working class should organize
itself and seize control of the productive forces of society." The first is begging from
one's master, while the second is working towards a society without masters. The first
cultivates in the believer's mind the notion that if they better serve their master that they
may be rewarded with scraps off that master's dinner table, while the second cultivates the
idea that everyone should sit at that dinner table. It is that drive to better serve the
elites that powers the viciousness of fascism, while it is the delusion that beta dog status
in the exceptional pack is an exalted position that conceals from the fascist their
own rabid viciousness.
The problem is - the Soviet Union showed that even "working class" socialist governments
still can be corrupted by power.
That the power is held by bureaucrats as opposed to oligarchs is a distinction without
meaning.
From my view, the main problem isn't that the oligarchs are taking more and more control - it
is that the balance has shifted too far. So I actually agree with what you're advocating, but
only in the short term.
Ultimately, my personal view is that a government that randomly shifts, en mass, every
generation is the only type that would work because this is the only way to ensure that
smart, motivated people within any system won't be able to long term game/modify the system
to benefit themselves.
Sputnik is reporting that the US has spent $6.4 Trillion fighting wars that have killed
800,000 since Sept 11/01, that number is unbelievable, at least 1,500,000 dead in Iraq,
250,000 in Afghanistan, 750,000 in Syria.
The US military budget alone has averaged about 650 billion since then, plus the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan were funded separately (around 200 million a year), plus CIA/ blackbook
projects - 7 or 8 trillion is a more likely number.
When things get blown up, no one really knows what was actually bought and existed and
what was just a phantom piece of equipment War has always been the ideal cover for
corruption
[... Opus Dei ...] Neo-cons at it again.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Nov 14 2019 13:24 utc | 98
Opus Dei was created in 1928 is Spain, where Catholics were opposing emerging hordes of
godless Communists, Anarchists and Socialists. Since ca. 1960 Opus Dei is active in Bolivia
where they continue Work of God, with fruits that he have just witnessed. Sadly, in Bolivia
the error of Marxism is compounded by native superstition and paganism under flags of
Pachamama. Perhaps Opus Dei is neo-Saint Inquisition, but as conservatists, they have
decently long pedigree.
At the 19th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi (31 October 2019)
reiterated the imperative of "Upholding the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC."
Why does Xi insist on this point as #1 item on the party's agenda of items?
Let's make a comparison. In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a "dictator" and of
using the party as a sort of church for the worship of his own "personality cult." This was
nonsense of course and Mao said so formally in 1963, but it was music to the ears of the
capitalist powers, in the lead the US .
Kruscev then decided to liberalize the "Stalinist party"--which was more music to the
ears of the capitalist "Free West." He said, since the class struggle in in the USSR was
over, there were no class enemies, and everyone could join the party. Opportunist did;
corrupt greedy people did, until at last in 1989 it was top heavy with members of the
shadow economy--managers of factories, mines, industries of all sorts who had over 3
decades accumulated undeclared private wealth from leeching from the the public wealth. The
party had become a club of "entrepreneurs" (thieves) whose best bet for investments of
their ill-gotten accumulation of wealth was the restoration of capitalism.
There was much more damage to the party than I can synthesize in a post, but this small
bit will do. The party was infiltrated by opportunists of the worst greed. And its
integrity, authority, ability to plan the economy according to scientific Marxist Lenininst
wisdom and principles died.
Now the US and the Cia had long ago figured that if the integrity of party could be
disintegrated the USSR would collapse. And so it did.
The CPC has no intention of China collapsing and falling once again into the avid hands
of Western imperialism, which wages capitalist.imperialist class war on China. So, China
would never dream of declaring the class struggle over for China.
Its constitution states that China will remain a class society for a long time. Not only
because it depends for the creation of wealth on a loyal national, anti-imperialist
bourgeoisie but also because China is threatened by imperialism, which is also a class war
Khrushchev ignored, calling for "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism, since both USSR
and the imperialists supposedly shared the goal of peace under the nuclear cloud.
The man was a scoundrel and destroyed the power of the Communist Party, paving the way
to the restoration of capitalism.
This is the difference between the Soviet Union post-1956 and China. Mao was not
cleansed out of the party and consigned to the lower depths of Hell like Stalin. Whatever
his mistakes, he was treated as a comrade not an enemy, his contribution acknowledged, his
deficits also--unlike Stalin. Furthermore, his revolutionary contribution to the founding
and survival of the People's Republic of China was enshrined in the party's memory. His
picture is on the currency. He is loved and respected. The party was not stressed, purged,
or divided by making Mao an issue of allegiance.
Finally, by recognizing the contribution of the loyal bourgeoisie to a self-sufficient,
independent China, the CPC acknowledges that China is still a class society. No second
economy, operating in the shadow for China. The private sector exists and is regulated (and
lately bought up gradually by the state). No chance for a clutch of opportunists to
accumulate more combined wealth than the state's and so able to take over the state and
exact regime change.
This is why Xi specifically demands and requires a strong, centralized, integral, and
uncorrupt Communist party. The party is the insurance for the persistence of the path to
socialism and eventually communism for China. No party, no sovereign, imperialism-free
China
And in this determination of making the CPC the pillar of China's social and economic
progress for all the people, Xi is acting as a Leninist. The party is for the people and
the people for the party. They are one. Without a revolutionary party and a revolutionary
theory (in China "scientific and Marxist) the revolution would die. A it did in the Soviet
Union, starting with the Kruscev gambit.
This for the West is "authoritarianism," though the West is ruled by a clutch of
authoritarian economic elites who make all the decisions in their own interests. But they
call tit "democracy." At least in China, if anything, it's an "authoritarianism" for and by
the people--a bit closer to democracy, I should argue.
Inadvertently today I found myself trapped into listening for a couple of minutes to the
nonsense that Schiff was spouting in the House of Horrors.
It is almost incredible that what he was doing, in essence, was to draw attention to the two
great facts in this case, the first being the gangster Maidan coup, which the US no longer
even pretends not to have brought about for its own purposes, and the second, the way in
which the Vice President and his family set about profiting, personally, from the looting of
every Ukrainian's fortune-every family's healthcare, pension plan, utility bill, home. In
this case by saddling the people, dependent on gas heat to see them through the winter, with
millions to be paid to Hunter Biden, friends of John Kerry and other assorted profiteers.
Like 'b' I find it almost impossible to believe that the Democrats are opening this can of
worms and feeding it to the world.
But then I wonder if, perhaps, these people do not know something that foreigners cannot
know, something about the societal stupidity and institutional ignorance for which the only
country ever known to have supported "No Nothing" candidates is famous.
Perhaps Schiff and Pelosi know what they are doing and what they are doing is based upon HL
Mencken's dictum:
"Nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
Like 'b' I find it almost impossible to believe that the Democrats are opening this can
of worms and feeding it to the world.
Just don't claim (like I do) that Russiagate and Ukrainegate are kayfabe courtesy of Deep
State 'managed democracy' or you're a nutcase that everyone will ignore.
Nah, just sit back and enjoy while the Democratic Party cuts its own throat for over the
Ukrainegate nothingburger which will see no one held accountable for anything.
A partisan witch-hunt less than a year before the 2020 Election? Double-plus good for
Trump's re-election.
But the possibility of a set-up is INCONCEIVABLE to naval-gazing Kool-Aid
drinkers.
It's gotta be real because Bloomberg wants to join the Democratic race!
Just as he wanted to join the race in 2016? His intention to do so also underscored the
reality of THAT race. Rinse, repeat. LOL. The dumbf*cks won't notice.
@ 11 jackrabbit.. you can claim that too and i am not ignoring you! i agree with bevin and b
how this is insane what the dems are doing, but the whole usa political scenario is insane...
at the same time i get cranky with regard to everything being laid at the deep states feet
when no one can articulate just what the deep state is.. in fact, i think there are a number
of powerful players running at cross purposes to each other, so i don't think it is as easy
as you make out laying it all at the feet of this 'deep state'... sure, the political process
is mostly a charade and i doubt it matters much who wins at this point...
but, i do think the usa continues to slide into a more precarious place that coincides
with a multi polar world that the usa is also very resistant to... as for the people of the
usa - maybe many of them are easily manipulated, but not all of them.. it is the same around
the world... how does one explain how the protesters in bolivia or honk kong are so easily
duped? no.. i think generally people are easily duped, but not all people..
Deep State: the unusual behavior and strange coincides driven by a small number of very
well connected people that make little sense but advance the interests of the
establishment.
Full-Spectrum Dominance (FSD) means controlled opposition everywhere. FSD in practice:
> Political kayfabe
Hillary makes mistakes that help elect Trump. Trump helps to get Pelosi elected as House
Speaker.
> Compromising whistle-blowers
The Intercept turns in whistle-blowers.
IMO, lumping the D-Party into the same boat doesn't reflect reality. A great many D-Party
members were disenfranchised by the DNC during 2016; many know it and know why, and never
swallowed Russiagate. Many of those D-Party folk are again backing Sanders and Gabbard
because they're the genuine social-democratic faction the DNC abandoned as soon as Reagan won
in 1980 since it supposedly was the Reagan Democrats that swung the election--an assumption
never proven correct. And the DNC stated during the lawsuit over 2016 that it would repeat
its actions again in 2016, 2020, and beyond. Thus there're two main factions: DNC-Corporate
D-Party and small d social-democratic D-Party--both of which are clearly incompatible. It's
the former of those two that Gabbard wants to purge; Sanders also seems willing but hasn't
been as explicit as Gabbard. Thus we have the old House divided against itself cannot stand
situation. Either you're with Obama, Clinton, the Banksters, and the further enslavement of
citizens via debt-peonage and expansion of the Outlaw US Empire or you're with the Sanders
and Gabbard social-democrats and liberation of citizens via the nationalization of education,
health care and dignified retirement, and the neutering of the Outlaw US Empire.
Unfortunately, both Gabbard and Sanders are adamant they won't run as 3rd Party POTUS
candidates, which means the Corporate faction will get its candidate on the ballot unless
something remarkable occurs--a coup within the DNC that totally purges the
Obama/Clinton/Corporate faction.
Sorry, but that last phrase I find to be 100% fantastical--about as probable as Kentucky's
#1 ranked basketball team losing at home to Evansville at much greater odds than the 40:1
cited for Evansville. Morrison said it was 5:1 50+ years ago, but I don't think people were
as brainwashed then as now.
I am aware not *every single* Democrat bought into Russiagate.
You seem to suggest that the corruption on full display by the DNC during 2016
inoculated
**some** Democrats to Russiagate if they were Bernie supports. Maybe. But we are faced with
the puzzling contradiction that Bernie himself did not support the lawsuit brought by the
Bernie supporters against the corrupt DNC ... AND ... AND ... Bernie has been a
foaming-at-the-mouth supporter of the Russiagate hysteria!
"How can he not talk about the reality that Russia, through cyberwarfare, interfered in
our election in 2016, is interfering in democratic elections all over the world, and
according to his own CIA director will likely interfere in the 2018 midterm elections that we
will be holding?" "How do you not talk about that unless you have a very special relationship
with Mr. Putin?"
Who said the above? Rachael Maddow? Hillary Clinton? John Brennan? Why none other than
Bernie Sanders!
And did you note that Bernie is being a megaphone for the CIA in this quote?
More and more and more Bernie Russiagate promoting quotes here (and 2018 had only
begun!):
Nemesis@15 -"Trust me when I say" ... never trust anyone who says anything after that phrase!
How exactly did the Dems play the right card with Russiagate? Do you mean they hoodwinked
their supporters into believing Russia to be the enemy, so that is somehow 'the right card'?
I'll stop there. You've completely confused me.
I mean "right" in that allowing Russiagate to seep into the waking consciousness of
America took the pressure off the dems and what was going to be their reckoning. In effect,
they have now doubled-down in the hope that the Trump phenomenon of nationalism will fade
away and their rule will be restored. Whether or not Sanders plays into this I think we are
yet to see, but, so far, Sanders has played ball with a lot of dem garbage.
Again, by the "right" play I mean as if a dark sorcerer had banked his continued favor
with the king he serves on a magic brew that would muddle the King's brain and keep him from
knowing of the Sorcerer's repulsive ambition. Such is the dems plan as well as many if not
all of the republicans who secretly detest DJT but who don't speak up because their base
believes in Trump.
Often I expect these stories in the media to get important technical details wrong...but
here we see that this writer did his homework...
I have said this many times before, but the MCAS system is NOT an anti-stall system...it
is there solely for the purpose of providing the right kind of stick feel to the pilot...
"On most airplanes, as you approach stall you can feel it," a veteran pilot for a U.S.
commercial carrier told me.
Instead of the steadily increasing force on the control column that pilots were used
to feeling -- and that F.A.A. guidelines required -- the new engines caused a loosening
sensation.
This is exactly it...and this is why I have to wonder how exactly is MCAS going to be
cleared to fly again...since the original, much less authoritative version was found
inadequate in providing the stick force required...and the rejigged production version proved
to be a surefire killer if it kicked in at low altitudes such as takeoff...
We recall that Captain Sullenberger called the MAX a 'death trap'...
So clearly the system's authority has to be dialed back...in which case the airplane
handling qualities do not meet established requirements...
The story here tells of the struggle that the family of Ralph Nader's grand-niece, who
perished in the Ethiopian flight, is waging to 'axe the max'...
Hopefully they will succeed, but I doubt it..the MAX can never be a good airplane...full
stop...
Inadvertently today I found myself trapped into listening for a couple of minutes to the
nonsense that Schiff was spouting in the House of Horrors.
It is almost incredible that what he was doing, in essence, was to draw attention to the two
great facts in this case, the first being the gangster Maidan coup, which the US no longer
even pretends not to have brought about for its own purposes, and the second, the way in
which the Vice President and his family set about profiting, personally, from the looting of
every Ukrainian's fortune-every family's healthcare, pension plan, utility bill, home. In
this case by saddling the people, dependent on gas heat to see them through the winter, with
millions to be paid to Hunter Biden, friends of John Kerry and other assorted profiteers.
Like 'b' I find it almost impossible to believe that the Democrats are opening this can of
worms and feeding it to the world.
But then I wonder if, perhaps, these people do not know something that foreigners cannot
know, something about the societal stupidity and institutional ignorance for which the only
country ever known to have supported "No Nothing" candidates is famous.
Perhaps Schiff and Pelosi know what they are doing and what they are doing is based upon HL
Mencken's dictum:
"Nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
@Please illustrate a situation where the executive branch/office of the USA would be suddenly
discontinued...
Posted by: Chevrus | Nov 13 2019 17:33 utc | 3
Just found your query. Quick and dead-on response is a major EMP event, but that is not
what I had in mind.
Let me see if I can work up another, but necessarily lengthier response.
As I noted on the Bolivia thread, BRICS is having its Summit today & tomorrow in
Brasilia, and will likely be the most important of its brief life. So far, just this report :
"The heads of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will discuss issues related to
economic, financial and cultural cooperation as well as arms control and joint efforts to
counter terrorism.
"The leaders of the five member-states are to attend the BRICS Business Forum, and meet
with the BRICS Business Council and the heads of the New Development Bank.
"In addition, Vladimir Putin will hold a number of bilateral meetings with the heads of
state and government taking part in the summit."
No! But there will be a new "civil war" in the US around the mid of the next decade. Split
occuring not south to north, but west to east; chaos further increased by immigrants from the
middle & south Americas with their own agenda.
Forces (land & air), militia & DHS people of the eastern party may seek secure
backing near frontier to Canada (area of Great Lakes therefore save). Some of the 'big
capitalists' who feel more international than patriot will flee to outer South America
(Argentinia, Chile).
Eventually a dead president (for that and for the civil war please look into cycles of
US-history). Peace will come with the first female president. Keep watch on Tulsi Gabbard
(but may be also another lady - as I am in Europe I am not familiar with all probable coming
female candidates).
Why no permanent split of the States? There are internal benefits (common traffic, markets
etc.) but more it is the outside pressure: to be able to compete with China it is a necessity
for the States to remain united. Also the coming chaos in Europe and Russia demands
unification of the US.
Now a very strange remark: some elites in the US have already accepted, even promote the
tendency toward "civil war" to enable a 'reset' of the political, economical and social
structure of the country. Furthermore, a seemingly weak US with a split in the military may
lead Russia in temptation to make some mistake (towards Ukraine and Europe). And now a very,
very strange remark: while some forces in the homeland are caught in civil disorder some
other forces in the overseas may be involved in a foreign war. Extremely pointed out: the
coming civil war in a very specific manner is a fake (to deceive and trap Russia - of course
not Putin but his followers).
Today I had a look into George Friedman's book about the next hundred years. For the first
view there is a lot of nonsense (disintegration of China etc.). But I agree that the power of
the US will be restored during the century. And if not the same power as it was in the 1990s,
then in every case the internal stability of the USA is completely guaranteed.
With greetings from Germany and with thanks to Bernhard for his valuable work, Gerhard
Like 'b' I find it almost impossible to believe that the Democrats are opening this can
of worms and feeding it to the world.
Just don't claim (like I do) that Russiagate and Ukrainegate are kayfabe courtesy of Deep
State 'managed democracy' or you're a nutcase that everyone will ignore.
Nah, just sit back and enjoy while the Democratic Party cuts its own throat for over the
Ukrainegate nothingburger which will see no one held accountable for anything.
A partisan witch-hunt less than a year before the 2020 Election? Double-plus good for
Trump's re-election.
But the possibility of a set-up is INCONCEIVABLE to naval-gazing Kool-Aid
drinkers.
It's gotta be real because Bloomberg wants to join the Democratic race!
Just as he wanted to join the race in 2016? His intention to do so also underscored the
reality of THAT race. Rinse, repeat. LOL. The dumbf*cks won't notice.
@ 11 jackrabbit.. you can claim that too and i am not ignoring you! i agree with bevin and b
how this is insane what the dems are doing, but the whole usa political scenario is insane...
at the same time i get cranky with regard to everything being laid at the deep states feet
when no one can articulate just what the deep state is.. in fact, i think there are a number
of powerful players running at cross purposes to each other, so i don't think it is as easy
as you make out laying it all at the feet of this 'deep state'... sure, the political process
is mostly a charade and i doubt it matters much who wins at this point...
but, i do think the usa continues to slide into a more precarious place that coincides
with a multi polar world that the usa is also very resistant to... as for the people of the
usa - maybe many of them are easily manipulated, but not all of them.. it is the same around
the world... how does one explain how the protesters in bolivia or honk kong are so easily
duped? no.. i think generally people are easily duped, but not all people..
Karlof1 @ 9 --
"I expect the atmosphere to be tense..."
I do, as well. Though I imagine certain leaders might feel a temptation to suspend
Brazil's membership, doing so would illustrate a structural weakness to be overcome by any
legitimate multipolar body. That is, if the Empire is able to turn just one member (in this
case Brazil), it may be used to weaken the organization as a whole.
Having just a limited exposure to Putin's approach to multipolarity, my understanding is
that it is to be accepted that sovereign countries evolve along their own trajectories (as
opposed to being subjected to "universal" "liberal" principles). If Brazil or Turkey decide
that this means playing both sides off each other, it will be interesting to see whether
there are any principled (as opposed to realpolitical or pragmatic) objections that Russia
might offer.
Deep State: the unusual behavior and strange coincides driven by a small number of very
well connected people that make little sense but advance the interests of the
establishment.
Full-Spectrum Dominance (FSD) means controlled opposition everywhere. FSD in practice:
> Political kayfabe
Hillary makes mistakes that help elect Trump. Trump helps to get Pelosi elected as House
Speaker.
> Compromising whistle-blowers
The Intercept turns in whistle-blowers.
The reason I ask is because I have heard a load of bull about Russia's plans to Russianize
the world and that Trump is his pawn since day -167 of his inauguration. I have heard this
from coworkers, from friends, from family, seen it on Reddit, read it on neolib outlets like
slate and the like. I'm wondering if you live in Trump country and just don't hear or see the
Russophobia being played out in the beltway and on the elitest coastlines.
Trust me when I say that the dems played the right card, albeit a desperate one, when they
started with the whole Russiagate nonsense. To you and I, b and others, Russiagate is
nonsense. But tell that to the average dem or moron yuppie in their towers along our shining
seas.
Please illustrate a situation where the executive branch/office of the USA would be suddenly
discontinued...
Posted by: Chevrus | Nov 13 2019 17:33 utc | 3
An imminent one-two punch from IG Horowitz and John Durham has powerful players
quaking
in their boots.
9/11 saw Americans willingly surrendering rights;
accepting a pack of lies, a myth, to explain the event;
militarism becoming the refuge for American's safety.
What are the limits of the rights that Americans are next willing to surrender?
**What are those limits?**
The Resistance, Democrats, no longer respects democratic rights -
no thought to the millions of voters that they would disenfranchise if
the nullification of Trump's election were successful via a coup (impeachment).
Five years ago would you have imagined that Democratic voters would be so cavalier
about democratic rights? So willing to accept the vacuous accusation that our
President is a Russian agent. Would resurrect the CIA - the torturing, kidnapping,
assassinating, war promoting, false flag creating, disinformation spewing CIA, - and
ravenously swallow endless streams of McCarthyist propaganda.
How fast,how far, can we spiral downwards? Is the seizure of power too far down the
spiral
to imagine? Five years ago would you have imagined the current decent of Democrats we have
witnessed?
If the pretext, the myth, of the necessity of seizing power, were echoed by the mouthpiece
MSM
would Democrats go along? Americans have surrendered rights in our near lifetime.
Americans
worship militarism and their military heroes more than ever before. Americans have
swallowed
hook-line-and-sinker the new-McCathyism and "Putin is an evil man".
An imminent one-two punch from IG Horowitz and John Durham has powerful players
quaking
in their boots. To answer your question, I cannot imagine what players like John Brennan
are scheming. But as you know 9/11 was not beyond their criminal limit or capability.
Paul Damascene @13: I generally share your view, about Putin's view, but I don't think Putin
minds Erdogan playing both sides, Bolsonaro, yeah, but not Erdogan, he can play games with us
all he wants. Keeps us distracted, and Erdogan doesn't like us "taking the oil", and we can't
get in a shooting war with him, he's NATO. He's the military counter-balance to the Pentagon
in Syria that Russia cannot be. So I think he will be thrashing around in N. Syria with
Putin's consent until we leave (as long as he doesn't pick a fight with Assad.)
Bolsonaro he may see as something to wait for the end of.
It will be interesting and possibly informative to see what comes out of this meeting.
Thanks for your reply! Note that the main event is the Business Forum, which is an arena
where genuine national interests usually reign. As you're likely aware, BRICS was formulated
as an instrument to facilitate development via commerce and mutual investment and that its
first major joint accomplishment was the formulation of the BRICS Development Bank to bypass
the IMF, World Bank and the dollar dominated international trade regime. I found it curious
that Global Times had zero articles on its main page related to the Summit, while
Xinhuanet ran this
short commentary overview which amounts to a short recap and cheerleading. We'll need to
await the presser this evening to get a better feel.
You make an interesting point librul... It reminds me of the whole continuity of government
scheme. 'In case of _____, break glass an impose martial law or whatever the manufactured
disaster calls for. The fact that the north woods 911 bit worked is a testament to just how
far the ptb are willing to go. You know, in regard to the USA perspective I can tell you from
first hand experience that a steady diet of agitation propaganda as well loads of distraction
have rendered a majority of the population easily lead no matter what stripes they might be
wearing. Selling Russia as the bad bad guy was easy. Look if a large group of people buy the
Bin Laden hit then the sky is the limit.
The 5 mile asteroid would pose a serious problem to most mammals, but given the amount of
species self loathing being pedaled about.... My point about the executive branch and the
question of 'is he the last' hinges on the fact that the president does nothing which is not
somewhat scripted. We know what happens when they go "off the Rez"...
Below is a ZH quote about the meeting with Trump and Erdogan today
"
"It's a great honor to be with President Erdogan... the ceasefire is holding very well, we've
been speaking to the Kurds and they seem to be very satisfied, as you know we pulled back our
troops quite a while ago..."
"I want to thank the President for the job they've [Turkey] done in Syria," Trump said of
Erdogan.
And on that note, he already addressed the rationale for continued US troop presence in
Syria, saying with Erdogan sitting next to him: "We are keeping the oil. We have the oil. The
oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil."
"
To those Trump supporters, I would appreciate understanding how the keep the oil fits in
with you saying Trump wants to get out of Syria?
'Deep State' is just a convenient way of labeling something we can also call 'the
illuminati', or 'the globalists', or 'the one percent', or 'Big Brother', etc.. We know that
there are hidden powers. Some call them reptilians. Who knows? We can tell that they are
there, though we cannot say exactly who they are and how they constitute their coherence, how
they organize themselves. We can see pieces of the deeper pattern, but we cannot see the
whole thing. So we use these vague and sometimes fanciful labels.
Right now a struggle is going on in Bolivia that is the world's struggle. Humanity is
maybe in its final throes, there and in so many other places. Or maybe its the birth pains of
who we were really meant to be. God help us.
IMO, lumping the D-Party into the same boat doesn't reflect reality. A great many D-Party
members were disenfranchised by the DNC during 2016; many know it and know why, and never
swallowed Russiagate. Many of those D-Party folk are again backing Sanders and Gabbard
because they're the genuine social-democratic faction the DNC abandoned as soon as Reagan won
in 1980 since it supposedly was the Reagan Democrats that swung the election--an assumption
never proven correct. And the DNC stated during the lawsuit over 2016 that it would repeat
its actions again in 2016, 2020, and beyond. Thus there're two main factions: DNC-Corporate
D-Party and small d social-democratic D-Party--both of which are clearly incompatible. It's
the former of those two that Gabbard wants to purge; Sanders also seems willing but hasn't
been as explicit as Gabbard. Thus we have the old House divided against itself cannot stand
situation. Either you're with Obama, Clinton, the Banksters, and the further enslavement of
citizens via debt-peonage and expansion of the Outlaw US Empire or you're with the Sanders
and Gabbard social-democrats and liberation of citizens via the nationalization of education,
health care and dignified retirement, and the neutering of the Outlaw US Empire.
Unfortunately, both Gabbard and Sanders are adamant they won't run as 3rd Party POTUS
candidates, which means the Corporate faction will get its candidate on the ballot unless
something remarkable occurs--a coup within the DNC that totally purges the
Obama/Clinton/Corporate faction.
Sorry, but that last phrase I find to be 100% fantastical--about as probable as Kentucky's
#1 ranked basketball team losing at home to Evansville at much greater odds than the 40:1
cited for Evansville. Morrison said it was 5:1 50+ years ago, but I don't think people were
as brainwashed then as now.
The 'Orwellian Globalists' may have overstepped, hubristically, when they chose an
out-and-out racist, an outspoken racist, to be their puppet to head the new government in
Bolivia. This may be just what was needed to provoke the MAJORITY indigenous people of
Bolivia ...
Librul@16 responds to the statement by start, Chevrus @ 3. "Please
illustrate a situation where the executive branch/office of the USA
would be suddenly discontinued..." Chevrus @ 3, end
An imminent one-two punch from IG Horowitz and John Durham
has powerful players quaking in their boots.
9/11 saw Americans willingly surrendering rights;
accepting a pack of lies, a myth, to explain the event;
militarism becoming the refuge for American's safety.
What are the limits of the rights that Americans are next
willing to surrender? **What are those limits?**
How fast, how far, can we spiral downwards? Is the seizure of power
too far down the spiral to imagine? Five years ago would you have
imagined the current decent of Democrats we have witnessed?
Is media capable to determine who shall have the power? Can
media make Americans surrender their rights?
An imminent one-two punch from IG Horowitz and John Durham
has powerful players quaking in their boots. To answer your
question, I cannot imagine what players like John Brennan
are scheming. But as you know 9/11 was not beyond their
criminal limit or capability. by: librul @ 16
Snake says look at and carefully read the statements by Assad in Syria.. they
are very telling about circumstances here in the states. Assad distinguishes
top down ideology from bottom up cause a very interesting distinguishment.. ..
So to answer your question how far are Americans willing to allow the Oligarchs to
retract human rights in America: are their any limits to the willing surrender?
I think it is as Assad said in the above citation.. outside investors
instigated the unrest in Syria and used it as pretense to get their governments
to invade Syria so that the investors could privatize all of
Syria.. That is exactly what is happening in USA governed America.
karlof1 @4
Your scenario doesn't reach its logical conclusion:
1) Asteroid strike is automatically blamed on "those damn rooskies".
2) Nuclear war ensues.
3) Far West, South, TransMissisippi and New England all secede with each claiming to be the
rightful 'United State of America'.
4) Voila.
IIRC the Clintons rode into the Whitehouse on the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC).
The DLC has quietly morphed into the DNC (or stolen their ID). Proof might be found on
identifying the faction controlling the Democratic Party's finance committee under the
assumption whoever controls the finance also controls the party. Memory is a perfidious and
ephemeral thing and goes down Alice's rabbit hole in nothing flat.
@14 jackrabbit.. i am sorry, but it is too simplistic for me... your examples are fine, but
as i see it, they random and not some orchestrated plot from up above... that is where we
differ here... in fact, your overview is much too simplistic..you can make it simple for me,
but the whole concept of deep state orchestrating everything here is much too simplistic..
@ 16 librul... good overview that is kind of how i see the democratic party here, although
@ 24 karlof1 disagrees, it looks like that to this outsider / canuck.. here is the line from
karlof1 that gives it away for me - "Unfortunately, both Gabbard and Sanders are adamant they
won't run as 3rd Party POTUS candidates" which begs the question, why? my answer - they are
useful shills for this same agenda..
I am aware not *every single* Democrat bought into Russiagate.
You seem to suggest that the corruption on full display by the DNC during 2016
inoculated
**some** Democrats to Russiagate if they were Bernie supports. Maybe. But we are faced with
the puzzling contradiction that Bernie himself did not support the lawsuit brought by the
Bernie supporters against the corrupt DNC ... AND ... AND ... Bernie has been a
foaming-at-the-mouth supporter of the Russiagate hysteria!
"How can he not talk about the reality that Russia, through cyberwarfare, interfered in
our election in 2016, is interfering in democratic elections all over the world, and
according to his own CIA director will likely interfere in the 2018 midterm elections that we
will be holding?" "How do you not talk about that unless you have a very special relationship
with Mr. Putin?"
Who said the above? Rachael Maddow? Hillary Clinton? John Brennan? Why none other than
Bernie Sanders!
And did you note that Bernie is being a megaphone for the CIA in this quote?
More and more and more Bernie Russiagate promoting quotes here (and 2018 had only
begun!):
I see a civil war in the USA as highly unlikely. The upper class has too much common
interest and purpose. The lower classes are divided and powerless and in the near future only
seem to be becoming more so. When the third-worldization reaches a critical point, a staged
and managed revolution may be in the cards. Before a real revolution has any chance, the
elites will have flooded the USA with immigrants from the south, ensuring further division of
the lower classes and postponing any real challenge.
Overall, the societal foundation of the USA looks to have been crumbling for maybe five
decades already and for the next few decades an acceleration of that process is more likely
than a reversal. Don't be on the lookout for leaders or movements to change any of that. Only
when the american people clean up their act, ie. their addiction to numbing drugs, empty
consumerism and false jingoisms, will anything there ever change for good. Until that
happens, the place will be withering more and more.
Not until the American elites start to fail to safeguard their own priviliges at the cost
of the rest of the population will change happen.
I don't see the Russian aggression that you propose to be realistic or likely to happen.
Russia does not need to reach abroad for energy, resources or food. Their main challenge is
to manage the riches of the huge country with the people they have. Already the resurgence
after the post-1990 crash (and the preceding stagnation) is an accomplishment worthy of
admiration.
The Russian interest clearly is consolidation and defence, which is exactly what their
policies have been showing on the international stage. Suggestions of aggression are pure
projection by Atlanticists theselves. Instead of Washington trying to provoke Russian
mistakes, the real game is about Moscow trying to contain NATO's erratic trashing and
carefully preventing any catastrophic escalation.
To wit, what country did recently "update" its nuclear doctrine, suggesting the
possibility of 'limited' use of nuclear weapons? Was it Russia, or ehhm... perhaps the
USA?
The only uncertain factor between Russia and the USA is Europe. I expect a lot more
American craziness towards Europe, as its effective leverage crumbles. Europe has not yet
devolved as badly as the USA and the American implosion is a major risk factor for the
Europeans.
psychohistoiran @22 asks "To those Trump supporters, I would appreciate understanding how the
keep the oil fits in with you saying Trump wants to get out of Syria?"
As someone who voted for Trump I can tell you I do not agree with this decision nor will I
defend it. I hold the same sentiment pre 2016 that I do now - bring these endless wars to an
end. Period. Am I disappointed in his walking back the decision to leave Syria entirely? You
betcha.
Weeks ago when barflies were discussing Trump's withdrawal, someone corrected my
understanding regarding the Kurds who took control of the oil fields, so to speak, and were
selling the oil to SAA. My understanding of this newest policy is the Kurds will continue to
manage and benefit from the sale of the oil. I could be wrong. Feel free to correct me if I
am. But if my understanding of the arrangement is correct, the Kurds maintaining their role,
then they are likely still selling the oil to the SAA. Then again, maybe not, but I wouldn't
be surprised if they were.
So, management or control of the oil fields has changed, but it looks like everything else
remains as it was before when the oil fields were managed/controlled by the Kurds.
What I do respect in the President's decision to leave NE Syria is removing troops from
theater. The CIA's proxy war appears to have been shutdown. This w/o question I applaud,
LOUDLY.
BTW, all this talk about asteroids and false flags makes me remind the brilliant nineties
movie "Starship Troopers", in which Paul Verhoeven not only sort of presages 911 and the
ensuing war on the bugs, but also smuggled into it the ephemeral phrase "Are you psychic?". I
sometimes wonder how many people got that...
This may be just what was needed to provoke the MAJORITY indigenous people of Bolivia ...
I doubt it, without massive quantities of weapons similar to those received by the Syrian
takfiris, the indigenous people don't stand a chance once the Western Hemisphere Institute
for Security Cooperation (formerly SOA) trained Washington-supported death squads get to
work. It's going to be a massacre that'll be barely reported in MSM, because after the
"election" they'll be anti-democratic. Bolivia is not Syria.
The issue with the Americans is a hyper-partisan mindset has been instilled, akin to duelling
sports teams, so one cheers for their team facts or context be damned. This used to be a Fox
News-Republican phenomenon, but now has infected Dem supporters as well.
Break up of US would mean break up of Canada too. Look to the moves made by province of
Alberta in response to fed election - a sort of firewall is being proposed where Alberta will
take on fed gov responsibilities pension, health care, etc. Alberta is a Koch Bros oil
republic, and any N American melt-down will result in formation of private fiefdoms - i.e.
Alberta-Montana-Wyoming-South Dakota become Kochland.
Then you must be a shut-in or unemployed to not see the dual-benefit of the deep state in
that it stymies trump and resurrects Russia as a boogeyman. Nay! Thrice-benefit in that it
also allows for an excuse to be horrifically status quo and gamble on everything returning to
normal after the trump phenomenon runs its course and the duopoly reassert its grip.
I wonder how in the Earth can anyone have cultural cooperation and join efforts against
terrorism with a goon like Bolsonaro who has posted Twitters celebrating Bolivia´s coup
and is known misses Pinochet ´s "expeditive measures" against communists...How this, so
called group BRICS, can continue following its path, as if nothing had happened, especially
since the coup in Bolivia...
Just today read the statements by Kremlin spokeman, Peshkov, and what to say, seemed to me
quite soft his stance, throwing balons out...Sometimes I feel like to trust John Helmer on
his assesment on the existence of two blocks in the Russian Federation, the stavka ,
and these people of the Kremlin office...
To this you add the Russian ambassador to the US, today visiting Kissinger ( the builder
of the Condor Plan...) a man always like begging for better relations to this bully of a
country, and this is one of the times when I wonder if i would not be supporting all this
time just the people who wants to crush me...( meaning my now almost 6 years long support for
the RF and concretely this adminsitration...)
I found quite different the unambiguous and strong statements by the Russian FM and
Kremlin itself when Venezuela was about to suffer a coup, and now when the legitimate
government of Bolivia has been sent into exile and his indigenous population on the verge of
extermination by nazi thugs...
You can not be against nazis in the Ukraine and then support ( or be way too soft in your
lack of condemnation...) nazis in Brasil or Bolivia (... or the EU...) or you are for
international law and human rights, always, or not, but not only when business opportunities
are in prospect....
Yes, today is one of those days when my consideration of the RF and Putin´s
administration as a referent in keeping international order in the face of a lawless US just
wobbles...
No se puede estar en misa y repicando al mismo tiempo
Waiting for the final statement of the meeting for to possibly take a determination on
this issue...
@ 36 jayc... kenney is a divisive politician.. i always think of alberta like the 'texas
wannabe' of canada... they think highly of themselves and their oil, even when they can't get
it out to the coast due the fact the people on the coast view all this very differently.. and
now they are resorting to a type of quebec referendum option to use as leverage over the rest
of canada.. it didn't work with quebec, and it definitely won't work with alberta.. at least
quebec could legitimately claim itself a different type of culture... as for dividing up
canada and the usa - it makes more sense to go along north south lines - cascadia being a
good example of this.. koch republic would be a good name for that zone!!
You'd probably do well to study the history of China after the downfall of the Manchu Qing
dynasty up to the 1930s at least (when Japan began invading the country and bringing its own
forms of chaos, violence and enslavement) to get an idea of where the US might be heading if
and when the Federal government falls. From the 1910s onwards, China was governed by warlords
looking out for No 1, with their own armies.
Not so very different from the situation prevailing in Afghanistan and Libya. Talk about
the chickens coming home to roost.
The other alternative is if the 50 states decide to be self-governing statelets or form
their own federations among themselves or with neighbouring provinces and states in Canada
and Mexico, or even abroad. Alaska may petition Moscow to be accepted back into the Russian
Federation and Hawaii may seek another large patron to attach itself for security reasons.
Washington and Oregon
states may finally form a federation with British Columbia and call it Cascadia.
Yeah, like Formerly T-Bear intoned about memory. I concede, but still note Gabbard hasn't
faltered in her zeal. I finally finished my series of thoughts on the Bolivian thread
regarding the Big Picture. IMO, Evil's sly enough to get elected even if it campaigned
showing its attributes as in
this image . If I were 20 years younger, I'd emigrate to Russia or China, but I'm not and
doubt I've 20 years remaining on this orb. But I do think I've got the struggle properly
diagnosed, although no cure's readily available.
Right now a struggle is going on in Bolivia that is the world's struggle.
@Posted by: Paul | Nov 13 2019 20:06 utc | 23
Indeed ,the same way I see it, and it seems that, in this one, Russian will not be with
us...After all there is neither oil, nor weapons to sale in Bolivia, nor to the working poor
people.....
Just today I was hearing Trump stating that he would like very much assisting to the next
Vicotry Day parade in Moscow...Well, how to say ( wait for me while I go throwing up a
bit...) Just here again, a bit back in myself...
Thus, this thug, who just has unleashed those rabid nazi death squads over the poor
indigenous people of Bolivia is going to sit along the veterans who really fought the nazis
in WWII, the few who still are alive to remember the 25 millions of their own who died in the
battle fields, moreover taking into account that Trump´s father really was a nazi
himself and supported Nazi Germany as if there was no tomorrow...If you though that of
Netanyahu last year was way too much...to see how yo take this...
Seeing these things, no wonder that fascism advance without obstacles...Voting in the UN
or passing all day energically protestingthe demolition of monuments to Soviet heros of WWII
is not enough...It is neede to eergically protest when today´s nazis are salughterin
currently lving people...
As happened during WWII, I fear, it will be us the people who will have to organize
ourselves to fight this scourge...Putin, simply, will not be there....May be the Red Army
will...
Gerhard @10;
I agree the US will split up. As a poli sci initiate, i was forced to consider the role of
institutions acting in support of the polis. I wasn't impressed at the time. my disdain for
the rot of leadership in most if not all institutions in the west, it was mostly for the
greed....but i realize the cumulative effect is the fraying of those 'supports' of the nation
itself. Consider:
The 16 intelligence agencies each have their own agendas, the regulatory agencies are
revolving doors for industry placements, the FBI was crooked since the days of Hoover, the
governments agencies are rife with oligarchy quislings .....and in the end the greed of those
in power will be not be held back by any moral force. The police are militarized, murdering
and robbing their own citizens.
Meanwhile, the MSM are owned by the oligarch, so there is no national forum where the
corruption can be addressed on a national level. This leaves the blog sites such as MOA to
lead the fight against the PTB. The problem is in the nature of the internet, which has no
'locus' as in a national voice. The internet has no center. As example, i am not a US
citizen. When the polis finally hit the point where the Rentier economy has driven them to
extreme reaction, they will not be thinking of reclaiming the vast American experiment,
rather they will seek to at least control their little part of the world. I believe you will
see blocs of similar states rising up to control whet they think is in their own best
interests: The mid-west, the west coast and mountain states, the deep south, the eastern
states will find common issues to crytalize around.
That's my read.
As a Canadian, my thoughts are how Canada will negotiate with these remainder blocs of former
US states.
James @ 39
I general concur with your brief reading of Jayson Kenney and Alberta talk of separatism. But
on that score the comparison would not so much be to Texas as perhaps to Boris Johnson /
Nigel Farage, in their moves to break away from the EU. I don't know that either of them (or
Kenney) is all that passionate about separation itself, but the divisiveness -- and surfing
various waves of polarization -- are what this new nihilist political wave seems to be about.
I support the Cascadia concept. There's a wonderful work of speculative fiction called
Ecotopia that is set in a Cascadia - although it was written before the digital hi-tech era
and so could not predict that such an entity, short of a true revolution, would be run by
Microsoft - Google - Apple etc.
A high speed rail link from Vancouver to Portland has been proposed, which is a
forward-thinking policy initiative, but they are going to take a few years to think about it,
and then another fifteen to twenty years to build it, and that itself will only happen if the
"no new taxes" retrograde types don't stop it in its "tracks" (which they intend to do).
off topic: I've just realized how vexing the idea of a non-citizen army.
Imagine: The tax payer funds the majority of tax dollars to a bureau that funds its own
production of weapons, recruitment, training personnel, maintenance of 800 or so bases across
the world and, finally, deploying these recruits wherever it deems worthy, based on the
directions of it's head, potus. its just so sweet: hire mercenaries, and do whatever you want
across the planet....there are no draftees ....no one to criticize when the body bags return
stateside. Some otherwise brain-dead fuck in the pentagon is enjoying lieutenant generalship,
just for figuring out the army didn't need a draft...there were plenty of poor people, who
could be had with a few bucks......
I'm in Montana and working on a piece of fiction that anticipates the breakup of the
States in the not-so-distant future. I did a little research on Cascadia and found that
there's elements of white supremacism wanting to co-opt the idea of Cascadia for their own
ethno-state fever
dreams :
The far right is known to appropriate pop culture imagery, particularly for recruitment and
to mitigate their viewpoints. But Alexander Reid Ross, a professor at Portland State
University, explained that Cascadia, "a really important movement in the Pacific
Northwest," is targeted specifically for its link to bioregionalism. "It implies a
territorial imperative but doesn't necessarily involve anti-racism, according to the far
right, so fascists appropriate it," he told me of Cascadia.
The appropriation began at least as far back as 2004, when a flag suspiciously similar
to the Cascadian flag appeared on the cover of Harold Armstead Covington's book, A Distant
Thunder. In 2008, Covington founded the white nationalist group Northwest Front, which
calls for an "independent and sovereign White nation in the Pacific Northwest." The group
later penned a disturbing rhyme on its website about this flag, the Tricolor flag, using
language similar to Baretich's:
The sky is blue, and the land is green. The white is for the people, in
between.
Cascadia appropriation has snowballed since then. In 2016, a man adopting the moniker
Herrenvolk, a German word for "master race" used by the Nazis, helped form Cascadia, the
"foremost" alt-right group in the Pacific Northwest. According to its website, its mission
is to "regain our sovereignty and prevent foreign influence on our people." That goal
correlates with the narrative of Cascadia as quintessential, and it echoes the groaning
around Portland about newcomers spoiling the city.
in the narrative I'm working on, New Cascadia does become a white supremacist
stronghold.
I was somewhat puzzled by your Good and Evil post in the last thread, karlof1. Were you just
being facetious or did I misread you to say that all would depend on the outcome of the 2020
election?.
I followed you on the course of 'the rest of the world' under leadership from Russia and
China into multipolarity rather than one hegemon; I'd tend to agree with you on that concept,
though maybe we'd have disagreements on the course of history up to that point. I have a
literary turn of mind myself, and to me "good" literature (with a small g) always comes out
on top - as with goodness in most other aspects of life learning as well.
All the same, it's hard for me to think the coming US election will really decide
anything. That is, I don't see any of the candidates preparing his or herself to join 'the
rest of the world'. That would be the good outcome for me and I just can't see it
happening.
I'll be literary and say that maybe for nations 'the way up is the way down.' And while
the disparity and struggle between wealthy and not in the US is starkly apparent, we are
nowhere near bottoming out here yet. And I think we have to be; I think we will be - but
when? I'll be literary again and say that for Tigger it was when he got all his bounce taken
out of him. All of it. Not 'make America great' but rather 'help America survive
yadayadayada...'
I'm kinda doubting I'll be around to see it. It's sort of that 'not with a bang but a
wimper' sort of scenario - and we're a long way from wimpering yet.
Still, I feel very positive. I think 'the rest of the world' is going to be kinder than we
deserve when it all boils down to the dregs. What a day that will be!
Nemesiscalling 15
Right you are. The Anti-Russia hype has been going on for a while but had a bit of a hiatus
during King (W) Shrub II. Both parties worked to destroy the Russian economy during the
80s/90s with the Chicago/Harvard boys gutting it completely while enriching themselves. It
accelerated under Obama while they presented us with the "Reset" switch. Apparently the
Russians didn't play along so they became the bogeyman that gets inflated as time goes on.
Trump tried but got dragged down in the process.
As to a US split, I live in the south. So I've wondered if California (for example) tried
to leave if a US President would pull a Lincoln and destroy the state ... in order to save
it.
Nemesis@15 -"Trust me when I say" ... never trust anyone who says anything after that phrase!
How exactly did the Dems play the right card with Russiagate? Do you mean they hoodwinked
their supporters into believing Russia to be the enemy, so that is somehow 'the right card'?
I'll stop there. You've completely confused me.
Occupied Palestine continues killing people as documented in the report below from Reuters
"
GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli missile strike in the Gaza Strip killed six members of a
Palestinian family on Thursday, all of them civilians, medical officials and residents said,
bringing the death toll in the territory from a 48-hour surge in fighting to 32.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the pre-dawn incident in Deir al-Balah,
which came as cross-border shelling exchanges continued despite a ceasefire offer by the
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Israel killed an Islamic Jihad field commander on Tuesday, sparking cross-border rocket
salvoes by the militant group and further Israeli strikes. Medics said 32 Palestinians have
been killed, at least a third of them civilians.
Those killed in Thursday's attack on a home in Deir al-Balah included a woman and a child,
medical officials said. Another 12 people were wounded, they said.
"
Sad to see this continue to go on and no resolution in sight, only escalation
I mean "right" in that allowing Russiagate to seep into the waking consciousness of
America took the pressure off the dems and what was going to be their reckoning. In effect,
they have now doubled-down in the hope that the Trump phenomenon of nationalism will fade
away and their rule will be restored. Whether or not Sanders plays into this I think we are
yet to see, but, so far, Sanders has played ball with a lot of dem garbage.
Again, by the "right" play I mean as if a dark sorcerer had banked his continued favor
with the king he serves on a magic brew that would muddle the King's brain and keep him from
knowing of the Sorcerer's repulsive ambition. Such is the dems plan as well as many if not
all of the republicans who secretly detest DJT but who don't speak up because their base
believes in Trump.
TASS and Sputnik have both published short reports on events from the BRICS Summit in
Brasilia. As I noted earlier, it revolved around the Business Forum, so most everything
focused on economics, global trade, and the hindrances in the normal conduct of commerce:
"'Undoubtedly, the global economy was affected by the fact that methods of unfair
competition, unilateral sanctions - including politically motivated ones are being used on a
wider scale in the global trade, [and] protectionism is flourishing. Under those
circumstances, BRICS nations have to take serious effort to ensure the development of their
economies, to prevent the deterioration of the social situation and the fall of living
standards, of our citizens' welfare,' Putin said at the closing ceremony of the BRICS
business forum."
Hopefully, there'll be a full transcript of Putin's remarks and further reporting to
digest tomorrow.
Re: trustworthy people, I meant that my eyes have seen first hand the effects of this
whole Russiagate brainwashing. As a result, I don't talk politics with my family, and it is
tenuous with my coworkers. Can you imagine a guy working in a west-coast city and actually
has something positive to say about DJT?
I still say that DJT deserves an ENORMOURS!...ENORMOUS! amount of credit for awakening
such terminology into the public lexicon as "Globalism," "nationalism," "fake news," and the
like. How he was able to do this was very simple but absolutely revolutionary for any
bonafide presidential candidate that I can remember or know. For myself, I view the issue as
globalism as paramount and far more world-shattering than US imperialism.
Here
is an interesting Frontline interview with Ann Coulter a week or so ago. It shines a light on
how a guy like Trump was able to capture the public imagination. Hint: it wasn't because the
Deep State was grooming him.
For any of you who use protonmail. They seem to be touting their links to clearly compromised
media sources such as Bellingcat quite strongly these days, and are pushing the empire's
message on MH17, Ukraine, Scripals, Russiagate etc etc. I was an early adopter but they now
seem compromised or simply deluded. Too bad, another one bites the dust.
Got it, Nemesiscalling, sorry to be obtuse. But I'm afraid I do disagree. This whole phobia
against Russia and anti-Trump scenario turned off huge numbers of their voters - some didn't
vote but some actually held their noses and voted for Trump. To me (and I sure could be
wrong) Dems just dug themselves a deeper hole with all of this. Save some sort of coup, I
can't see them winning a year from now. If anything more US voters have wised up than were
wised up before - you don't go back once eyes are opened.
I agree with your premise about this being kayfabe. From where I sit, there is no other
explanation for any political party to make these endless attacks based on absolutely nothing
over and over again. Attacks which can only maintain the charade from 2016 of Trump the
Victim. Does anyone think that somehow the Dems suddenly stopped being to calculating
psycho/sociopaths that they and the other side of the aisle are? Why would such shrewd
players not verify what people like Vindeman had to say before putting them on the stand?
They keep undermining their own case over and over again.
I find it impossible that they would continue to stick their hands in the fire after being
burned every single time before this, and with easily verifiable information. Especially when
the attacks are ALWAYS over stupid shit and never go after anything he actually could be
attacked for doing. What I keep seeing is like watching kindergarten kids try to kill a grown
man with foam rocks.
We keep seeing this complex, convoluted, evil shit come out of DC and yet we
simultaneously think these same players are morons? No freaking way. These attacks are the
only thing that keeps Trump's base on his side as he keeps betraying them and the opposition
keeps trying to outdo its last performance of stupid. I have seen a LOT of Trump supporters
throw in the towel on him for things he has done in the last 3 years, yet they come back to
his side after the newest stupid thing the left wing of the uni-party comes up with.
Shit, it isn't like Trump is even really shaking things up to cause such a ruckus!
"... "The border has become a rights-free zone for Americans who have to travel," Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement given to Boland at the time. "The founders never could have imagined that the government would be able to sift through your entire digital life, from pictures to emails and even where you've been, just because you decide to take a vacation or travel for work." ..."
At last a victory for citizens. For nearly 20 years, the federal government has used and
abused the memory of the 9/11 attacks to expand its law enforcement authorities at the nation's
airports, even if that has meant broaching one of our most sacrosanct constitutional freedoms:
the right against illegal search and seizure, otherwise known as the 4th Amendment.
On Tuesday, a federal court in Boston ruled that the
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can no longer
detain Americans coming back over the border to search their laptops, cell phones and other
electronic devices, without cause. One would think this is a no-brainer, but the number of
these incidents has actually escalated to over 33,000 last year -- nearly four times as many as
the previous three years,
according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan , filed by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and ACLU of
Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without
individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.
International travelers returning to the United States have reported numerous cases of
abusive searches in recent months. While searching through the phone of Zainab Merchant, a
plaintiff in the Alasaad case, a border agent knowingly rifled through privileged
attorney-client communications. An immigration officer at Boston Logan Airport
reportedly searched an incoming Harvard freshman's cell phone and laptop, reprimanded the
student for friends' social media postings expressing views critical of the U.S. government,
and denied the student entry into the country following the search.
According to EFF, border officers "must now demonstrate individualized suspicion of illegal
contraband before they can search a traveler's device."
TAC's Barbara Boland reported on this over the summer . The number of electronic devices
accessed in 2018 was six times the number in 2012, suggesting that this is not only a
post-9/11 issue, but that somewhere along the line the Trump Administration signaled to these
agencies, which are all under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, that it was
gloves-off at the border -- even for American citizens. Lest you think this is just an
extension of the president's tough illegal immigration policies, be warned, many of the folks
targeted were typical international visitors and U.S. citizens -- think students, journalists,
academics, doctors -- and not travelers to this country for the first time. And they were
treated like they were coming into the Third World. From Boland:
One person detailed to Amnesty
International how she was selected for secondary screening at the border, locked in a
cramped, narrow concrete cell, and subjected to an invasive body search. Her requests for a
lawyer and medical treatment were denied. The supervisor told her she would be held
indefinitely.
When she told him that she is an American citizen, he replied: "The Fourth Amendment
doesn't apply here. We can hold you for as long as we want to."
She was released after four hours.
Journalist Seth Harp wrote a similarly
disturbing story about what happened when he was singled out for a "secondary screening" at
the Austin Airport in Texas. CBP agents pried him for information about what he was writing,
his sources, his reporting as a war correspondent, and his discussions with his editors.
"The border has become a rights-free zone for Americans who have to travel," Senator Ron
Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement given to Boland at the time. "The founders never could
have imagined that the government would be able to sift through your entire digital life, from
pictures to emails and even where you've been, just because you decide to take a vacation or
travel for work."
Let's hope that Tuesday's order fixes that -- though it might take a Supreme Court ruling to
put an end to it for good.
"... Peter Strzok was interviewed on 19 July 2017 by the FBI and, according to his affidavit, pretended that he was asked on the 24th of January 2017 to interview General Flynn. He implied this was a last minute request. But as noted in the preceding paragraph, which is based on an interview of Strzok's mistress, Lisa Page, a meeting took place the day before to orchestrate the ambush of General Flynn. ..."
"... What is truly remarkable is that Peter Strzok stated the following, which exonerates Flynn of the charges in the indictment cited above: Strzok and Pientka both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying. Flynn struck Strzok as "bright, but not profoundly sophisticated." ..."
"... In fact, as noted by Sidney Powell, "the FBI and DOJ wrote an internal memo dated January 30, 2017, exonerating Mr. Flynn of acting as an "agent of Russia;" and, they all knew there was no Logan Act violation." ..."
"... The real problem for the Government's fraudulent case against Flynn are the 302s. There should only be one 302. Not at least four versions. The FBI protocol is to enter the 302 into the FBI Sentinel system within five days of the interview. In other words, the original 302 should have been put on the record on the 29th of January. But that original 302 is MISSING. The prosecutors claim they cannot find it. ..."
"... But the prosecutors finally did provide the defense, after repeated requests, multiple copies of 302s. They dated as follows--10 February 2017, 11 February 2017. 14 February 2017 and 15 February 2017. WTF??? This alone is prima facie evidence that something crooked was afoot. ..."
"... The final 302--dated 15 February 2017--painted General Flynn in the worst possible light. The "facts" of this 302 are not supported by the notes taken by Agents Strzok and Pientka. The conclusion is simple--the FBI fabricated a case against General Flynn. We now wait to see if Judge Sullivan will acknowledge this crooked conduct and exonerate the good General. Justice demands it. ..."
"... Poor George Popadopoulos, also "bright, but not profoundly sophisticated.", also had lawyers who rolled over to the FBI. If you read George's book, "Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump", the methods used on Flynn sound familiar. ..."
"... If the evidence provided by the defence in the Flynn case is even only a partial example of the capabilities and proclivities of the FBI, then how many other poor schmucks have been convicted and jailed unjustly at the hands of this organisation? ..."
"... The answer, given the size of the organisation must be : "thousands". The remedy is obvious and compelling if you want to remain something like a first world democracy. ..."
"... So instead of Flynn burning the agency down, they did just the opposite and got to him first. Just like Sen Schumer warned Trump: don't take on the IC, because they have six ways against Sunday to take you down. ..."
"... Maybe Flynn' s alleged post-inauguration audit plans is what triggered Brennan to get Obama to secretly keep his eyes on Flynn - maybe that was the second tier secret access they wanted, not necessarily Trump himself? ..."
"... Survival in DC is existential - my own in-house observation during the Watergate years. ..."
"... However, IMO the far more telling issue of the depths of IC's Coup effort. Are the exploits of Halper, Mifsud, MI6-CIA link. Which began back in 2015. This gives the impression, Flynn was being targeted for career destruction. Solely as retaliation for his departure from the Obama Administration, coupled with Flynn's open opposition to policies of Obama-Brennan (Iran-Syria-Libya). This took place way before he agreed to the NSA post with President Trump. ..."
"... Why did FLynn not have the Secret Service Detail arrest Sztrok and company on the spot for violating US security CFRs by knowing such conversations took place and knowing the contents thereof with out appropriate security clearances?? ..."
"... Many things about Spygate have puzzled me. The response by Trump after becoming POTUS to all the machinations by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rosenstein, et al has been baffling. It is like he does not understand the powers of his office. And after he learned about the covert action action against his campaign and him, to then staff his administration with folks who were in cahoots with the putschists is frankly bizarre. ..."
"... ........ "CrowdStrike, the cyber-security company that is involved in all this over and over again, is a an American company founded by a Ukrainian, Dmitri Alperovitch, who is extremely anti-Russia and who delights in implicating Russia in the DNC hacking event that probably did not happen......" ..."
Sidney Powell, General Michael Flynn's magnificent lawyer, is in the process of destroying
the bogus case that Robert Mueller and his gang of legal thugs tried to sneak past appropriate
judicial review. To help you understand what she is doing we must first go back and review the
indictment of Flynn and then look at what Ms. Powell, aka Honey Badger, has forced the
prosecutors to admit.
Here are the nuts and bolts of the indictment
On or about January 24, 2017, defendant MICHAEL T. FLYNN did willfully and knowingly make
materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations . . . to agents of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation that:
(i) On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Government of Russia's Ambassador
to the United States ("Russian Ambassador") to refrain from escalating the situation in
response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day; and
FLYNN did not recall the Russian Ambassador subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to
moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request.
(ii) On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the
vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution; and that the Russian
Ambassador subsequently never described_to FLYNN Russia's response to his request.
Let me make a couple of observations before we dig into the notes and the 302 that FBI
Agents Strzok and Pientka wrote up during and following their interview of Michael Flynn on
January 24, 2017. First, Michael Flynn did nothing wrong or inappropriate in speaking to
Russia's Ambassador Kislyak. He was doing his job as an incoming National Security Advisor to
President Trump. Second, not "recalling" what Ambassador Kislyak said (or did not say) on 22
December is not lying. Third, even if Flynn did ask the Russian Ambassador on the 29th of
December to "refrain from escalating the situation" in response to the U.S. sanctions imposed
by Barack Hussein Obama, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is wise counsel
intended to defuse a situation.
Now, here is where the FBI, especially Agents Strzok and Pientka, are in so much trouble.
The day prior to the "interview" of General Flynn the FBI plotters met to discuss strategy.
According to Sidney Powell:
January 23, the day before the interview, the upper echelon of the FBI met to orchestrate it
all. Deputy Director McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, , Lisa Page, Strzok, David Bowdich,
Trish Anderson, and Jen Boone strategized to talk with Mr. Flynn in such a way as to keep from
alerting him from understanding that he was being interviewed in a criminal investigation of
which he was the target. (Ex.12). Knowing they had no basis for an investigation,6 they
deliberately decided not to notify DOJ for fear DOJ officials would follow protocol and notify
White House Counsel.
Peter Strzok was interviewed on 19 July 2017 by the FBI and, according to his affidavit,
pretended that he was asked on the 24th of January 2017 to interview General Flynn. He implied
this was a last minute request. But as noted in the preceding paragraph, which is based on an
interview of Strzok's mistress, Lisa Page, a meeting took place the day before to orchestrate
the ambush of General Flynn.
What is truly remarkable is that Peter Strzok stated the following, which exonerates Flynn
of the charges in the indictment cited above: Strzok and Pientka both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not
think he was lying. Flynn struck Strzok as "bright, but not profoundly sophisticated."
The fact that the FBI Agents Strzok and Pientka did not to show General Flynn the transcript
of his calls to refresh his recollection, nor did they confront him directly if he did not
remember, exposes this plot as a contrived scenario to entrap Michael Flynn rather than a
legitimate, legally founded investigation.
In fact, as noted by Sidney Powell, "the FBI and DOJ wrote an internal memo dated January
30, 2017, exonerating Mr. Flynn of acting as an "agent of Russia;" and, they all knew there was
no Logan Act violation."
The notes taken by Agents Strzok and Pientka during their interview of Michael Flynn are
damning for the FBI. These notes are Exhibits 9 and 10 in the sur sureply filed by Sidney
Powell on 1 November 2019. (I wrote recently on the fact that the FBI/DOJ mislabeled the notes
from this interview--see here). Neither Strzok nor Pientka recorded any observation that Flynn
lied about his contacts with Kislyak. Neither wrote down anything supporting the indictment by
the Mueller crowd that "Flynn lied." To the contrary, Strzok swore under oath that he did not
believe Flynn was lying.
The real problem for the Government's fraudulent case against Flynn are the 302s. There
should only be one 302. Not at least four versions. The FBI protocol is to enter the 302 into
the FBI Sentinel system within five days of the interview. In other words, the original 302
should have been put on the record on the 29th of January. But that original 302 is MISSING.
The prosecutors claim they cannot find it.
But the prosecutors finally did provide the defense, after repeated requests, multiple
copies of 302s. They dated as follows--10 February 2017, 11 February 2017. 14 February 2017 and
15 February 2017. WTF??? This alone is prima facie evidence that something crooked was
afoot.
The final 302--dated 15 February 2017--painted General Flynn in the worst possible light.
The "facts" of this 302 are not supported by the notes taken by Agents Strzok and Pientka. The
conclusion is simple--the FBI fabricated a case against General Flynn. We now wait to see if
Judge Sullivan will acknowledge this crooked conduct and exonerate the good General. Justice
demands it.
These are not my facts. They are the facts based on documents submitted on the record to
Judge Sullivan. I find it shocking that no journalist has had the energy or interest to cover
this. Just one more reminder of the putrid state of journalism and investigative reporting. The
charges levied against General Flynn by the Mueller prosecutors are without foundation. That is
the stark conclusion facing any honest reader of the documents/exhibits uncovered by the Honey
Badger. This kind of conduct by the FBI is just one more proof to support Colonel Lang's wise
observation that this institution, along with the CIA, should be burned to the ground and new
institutions erected in their stead that are committed to upholding the Constitution and
preserving the rights of the individual.
General Flynn was the National Security Advisor to the President. Among his duties he would
be expected to talk with foreign officials, including Russians, perhaps especially Russians.
My question is what was the predicating evidence that gave rise to opening a criminal case
with Flynn as the subject at all. What was the substantive violation; and why was there a
need to convene a meeting of high level Bureau official to discuss an ambush interview. What
was there to talk about in this meeting? My suspicion is that they expected, or hoped, at the
outset to leverage Flynn against Trump which makes the scheme worse, much worse
Re: predicate - IIRC, this is where the work of the FBI/CIA "ratfucker" Stefan Halper was
instrumental, having propagated the bogus claim that scholar Svetlana Lokhova was a Russian
agent with whom Gen. Flynn was having a sexual relationship.
There was a simpler time when even the least accomplished FBI Agent would have known enough
to ask Mr Halper for the circumstantial details as to how he acquired the news that Flynn had
any relationship at all with Lokhova, let alone a sexual relationship, who told him, how did
he know, why was he telling him, when, etc. The same questions should have been resolved with
respect to Lokhova before entertaining a conclusion that she was a Russian Agent of some
sort. Finally, even if the allegation against Flynn had been true, which had not been
established, and the allegation against Lokhova had been true, which as far as I know had not
been established, the Agents should have laid those cards before Flynn from the outset as the
reason he was being interviewed. If during the course of the interview he became suspect of
having done something illegal, he should have been told what it was and given all his rights,
including the right to an attorney. If the Agents suspected he was lying in matters of such
significant import that he would be charged for lying, they should have been given a specific
warning that lying was a prosecutable offense. That would have been playing it down the
middle. Since none of this appears to have been done, the question is why not. The leading
suspicion is that the carefully considered intent was to take down Flynn by any means
necessary to advance another purpose.
There are two separate issues: The Russian-Flynn Spying connection was established in London
back in 2015. IMO using Halper as an echo-chamber for Brennan's collusion fabrications. LTG
Flynn at that time was being set-up, for a retaliatory career strike(TS Clearance issues, I
submit).
The Flynn Perjury case was made in Jan 17 in DC, by the Secret Society, Comey, McCabe,
Yates, Strozk and the unwitting, SA Joe Pientka (hopefully). This trap was drafted by Comey,
specifically to take advantage of the newly elected President's inexperienced Cabinet, the WH
in-chaos. Chaos reportedly generated by a well timed Leak to the media. Which suggested that
LTG Flynn had Lied to VP Pence.
This FBI leak, now had the WH in a tail spin. Given the collusion beliefs at that time, had
VP Pence admitted that acting NSA Flynn, did in fact speak with the Russian Kislyak re:
Sanctions. The media would've screamed, the call demonstrated Russian Collusion.
Since VP Pence stated, he did not know that NSA Flynn had discussed the Sanctions with
Kislyak. The media created the image that Flynn had lied to the VP...
This was the "Pretext" which Defense Council Powell referred to. This is the opportune
moment, at which Comey sprang and later bragged about. Stating publicly that he took
advantage of a inexperienced Trump oval office in turmoil. Claiming he decided "Screw IT"
I'll send two agents in to question Flynn.
Without going through FBI-WH protocols. Because Comey knew that protocols would alert the
entire WH Staff. Making the FBI's hopes for a Perjury Trap against NSA Flynn, impossible.
Accordingly, AAG Yates and McCabe then both set the stage, with calls to WH Counsel
McGahn. Where they threatened charges against Flynn under the nonexistent "1799" Logan Act.
As well as suggesting that Flynn was now vulnerable to Extortion by Russian agents. Since the
Russians knew he had lied to the VP.
As Powell points out, by 24JAN17, the date of the Flynn interview. The entire world, knew
Flynn had Lied. Making the extortion threat rather bogus. In fact reports stated, at that
time even WHC McGahn had asked either Yates or McCabe (don't recall which). Why would the FBI
give a damn, what the NSA had told the VP? However the Bureau persisted and they won out.
McGahn is reported to have told Flynn, that he should sit down with these two FBI
agents...
Once Flynn sat down and gave a statement. FWIW, I think Andy McCabe was going to find a
Flynn misstatement or create one. Sufficient to justify the 1001 charge. It appears as though
McCabe took the later option and simply Created one.
My question is does some combination of incompetence and bubblethink naivete explain how at
the outset they could have gone all in on the Brennan/Halper information or did they just
cynically exploit the opportunity that had been manufactured in order to take it to the next
level -Trump. Taking it to the next level appears to be what drove the Papadopolis case where
similar procedural abuses occurred.
Poor George Popadopoulos, also "bright, but not profoundly sophisticated.", also had lawyers
who rolled over to the FBI. If you read George's book, "Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the
Plot to Bring Down President Trump", the methods used on Flynn sound familiar.
Since George only served two weeks, I wonder if it would be worth while for him to tackle
the FBI again?
PS When the FBI says you are not "sophisticated", does that mean that they view you as
easy to trick?
Papadopolis signed "confession" equally odd: string of disconnected facts topped off with
what appears almost to be an added "conclusion" allegedly based on these irrelevant string of
factual statements that damn him into eternity as well.
Was the conclusionary" confession" added later, or was it shoved in front of him to sign
as a unwitting last minute alteration to a previously agreed set of facts is pror statements
he had already agreed were true? Just me, but when I read this "confession some time ago, it
simply did not pass the smell test.
The signed "confession: basically appeared to be accusing Papadopolus and by extension the
Trump campaign of violating the Logan Act - violating Obama's exclusive right to conduct
foreign policy.
(A SCHIFF PARAPHRAse)
Yes I was in Russia
Yes, I ate pork chops for dinner
Yes. I endeavored to meet with Russian individuals
Etc - benign
Etc - benign
Confession - al of the above are true
Kicker: Final Statement I INTENTIONALLY MET WITH TOP LEVEL RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT AGENTS TO
DISCUSS US FOREIGN POLICY
Papadopoulos' "lies" rest on subjective interpretation. For instance, one of the "lies"
consist of a referral to Mifsud as "a nobody". A second "lie" is based on when he officially
joined the Trump campaign: George P says it was when he first went to Washington and attended
a campaign meeting, while the indictment says no it was when he participated in the phone
call which invited him on board (a difference of a couple of weeks). It is very very thin
gruel.
I wonder if SST is missing the bigger picture. If the evidence provided by the defence in the Flynn case is even only a partial example
of the capabilities and proclivities of the FBI, then how many other poor schmucks have been
convicted and jailed unjustly at the hands of this organisation?
The answer, given the size of the organisation must be : "thousands". The remedy is
obvious and compelling if you want to remain something like a first world democracy.
How many others have there been? The genesis of the USA v Flynn, was a CIA-FBI hybrid. An
international Co-Intel operation, aimed at targeting Donald Trump. As such "the Case" was
initiated from the top down, under the secrecy of a T/S Counter-Intelligence operation.
These are not the normal beginnings of a Criminal matter. Which originates with a filed
criminal Complaint, from the ground-up.
In short all of the checks and balances our federal statutes mandate. Steps where AUSA's,
Bureau ASAC's and District Judges must review and approve. Even before convening a GJ. Were
intentionally overridden or perjured by a select society of the highest officials inside DoJ.
As such there were no higher authorities nor any of the Higher Loyalty for Jim Comey to seek
his resolution from.
That is not the normal investigative process. This was a deliberate criminal act to target
an innocent man (actually several innocent men). As such IMO, the associated political
pressure, all of which was self-inflicted. Was the force which brought about the criminality
on the part of Comey, McCabe, et al.
So, FWIW, you don't see those levels of personal involvement in criminal investigations.
The classic, where the murder victim's brother is the town Sheriff. Hence you don't see cases
of innocent people being dragged off to the Dungeons. Certainly not intentionally and not in
the thousands, anyway.
On another blog, a commenter claimed Flynn was going to program audit the entire IC - money
spent and results obtained.
So instead of Flynn burning the agency down, they did just the opposite and got to him
first. Just like Sen Schumer warned Trump: don't take on the IC, because they have six ways
against Sunday to take you down.
Maybe Flynn' s alleged post-inauguration audit plans is what triggered Brennan to get
Obama to secretly keep his eyes on Flynn - maybe that was the second tier secret access they
wanted, not necessarily Trump himself?
Survival in DC is existential - my own in-house observation during the Watergate
years.
The reports I've read tell of a long and sorted history between LTG Flynn, John Brennan, DNI
Clapper and Obama. Some of the stories did remind me of the SST suggestion to, "Burn it all
down". The General also supported this idea that DoD, should be the lead agency in the IC and
CA. Since must of their modern day activity, does tend to be kinetic...
So LTG Flynn has made enemies in the Obama administration, CIA and DNI.
However, IMO the far more telling issue of the depths of IC's Coup effort. Are the
exploits of Halper, Mifsud, MI6-CIA link. Which began back in 2015. This gives the
impression, Flynn was being targeted for career destruction. Solely as retaliation for his
departure from the Obama Administration, coupled with Flynn's open opposition to policies of
Obama-Brennan (Iran-Syria-Libya). This took place way before he agreed to the NSA post with
President Trump.
Then there's also LTG Flynn's direct rebuttal of DDFBI Andy McCabe. Seems McCabe was
involved in a Bureau OPR dust-up over sexual harassment allegations. The female SA worked CT
and was an acquaintance of Gen Flynn's. Flynn then made a public statement of support for the
Agent. Which was reported to have angered Andy. Sydney Powell, suggests that McCabe was
overhead to have said words to the effect or, First we F--- Flynn, then we F--- Trump. During
one of his 7th floor, Secret Society meetings.
Again all of this happened, before General Flynn was Candidate Trump's NSA Designee. So
the Six ways to Sunday, warning does resonate re: LTG Flynn as well.
In my experience in the US armed forces.... having a top secret crypto clearance...
And later.... as a federal investigator...
I distinctly remember that conversations between the White house, particularly the
president and his national security chief are "top secret -- eyes only for the president"
So.....
Why did FLynn not have the Secret Service Detail arrest Sztrok and company on the spot for
violating US security CFRs by knowing such conversations took place and knowing the contents
thereof with out appropriate security clearances??
"Why did FLynn not have the Secret Service Detail arrest Sztrok and company on the spot for
violating US security CFRs.."
Many things about Spygate have puzzled me. The response by Trump after becoming POTUS to
all the machinations by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rosenstein, et al has been baffling. It is
like he does not understand the powers of his office. And after he learned about the covert
action action against his campaign and him, to then staff his administration with folks who
were in cahoots with the putschists is frankly bizarre.
Does anyone have any explanation for the actions or inactions of Trump & Flynn?
"Does anyone have any explanation for the actions or inactions of Trump & Flynn?"
I have no comment relative to Flynn, but, in regards to Trump, IMO, Trump is stupid.
First, a little background. I did vote for Trump. I did have an hatred for national
politics ever since the Cheney "presidency". In that period, I was a dissident with a very
minor voice. But, I did study, as best as I could, the Bush (Cheney) and the Obama
presidency. It was reasonably clear that president's. didn't count. IMO the real power lay
with: a handful of Senate leaders, the CIA, the bureaucracy, and the powerful families that
controlled the major multi-national corporations, such as, Exxon Mobile. The preceding
constituted a powerful oligarchy that controlled the U.S. A dictatorship of sorts.
Trump had two major objectives for his presidency: MAGA and "drain the swamp". I concurred
with both objectives. After six months of the Trump presidency, and after observing his
choice of appointments and his actions, I concluded that he was a high school baseball player
trying to compete with the major leagues. He didn't know what he was doing (and, still
doesn't).
At that time, I concluded that if Trump really wanted to install MAGA and "drain the
swamp" he should have concluded way before putting his hat in the ring, that the only way to
accomplish his objective was to foster a coup after becoming president. Prior to his
presidency, he would had to select a team which would be his appointees and develop a plan.
After becoming president, he would have to ignore Congress and put his people in place
including in the DOD. The team would stay in control regardless of Congress' views.
Of course, this is a dictatorship, but is this any less obnoxious to our current oligarchs
dictatorship.
You're not wrong in criticizing Trump's personnel choices and inaction. When he entered
office he was warned about the SES/SIS holdovers and the need to get his own people in place.
He ignored that advice and is suffering the consequences. Trump played a character on TV of
being a shrewd, tough judge of talent and ability. In reality, he is a bit of a goofball.
That said, his basic policy positions are solid with respect to putting America first,
enforcing immigration laws, and disengaging from the foreign adventurism that has defined US
foreign policy for the last 75 years.
My hope is that he now finally recognizes the threat.
I prefer thinking of Donald Trump as a World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer as it fits
the context of what we are seeing more precise. Staged drama, personality pitted against
personality, all a great spectacle.
If it makes the denizens of DC fall on their fainting couches with the image all the
better.
Isn't Donald Trump suffering the same problem Jimmy Carter had that as a DC outsider he
isn't able hire talent and the establishment has made it clear that a position in the Trump
administration is a career killer?
Democrat's politics of personal destruction made it virtually impossible for Trump to hire or
appoint the requisite people for the task you described. RINO's wouldn't touch him and
Democrats were hell bent for revenge at any costs.
Amazing he did as well as he has done so far - considering his election was so toxic to
any possible insiders who could have offered the necessary experience to warn him where the
third rails were located.
Give him another four years and full control of GOP House and Senate back - this country
needs his energy and resoluteness to finally get the real work done. Patriots at every level
need to apply for appointed positions.
BTW: I was a rabid no-Trumper up to election night. Then Trump became my President. I have
not looked back.
Draining the Swamp can't be accomplished by hiring within the beltway or hiring any long-term
Democrat or Republican operative including members of Congress.
Trump should have recognized when he learned that his transition team was being spied on
that he had to hire people who believed in his agenda and had no ties to the Swamp.
By hiring folks like Haley, Pompeo, Bolton, Coats, Rosenstein, Wray, etc and not cleaning
house by firing entire swathes of the bureaucracy and then not using the powers of his office
to declassify but instead passing the buck on to Rosenstein, Sessions and Barr and only
tweeting witch hunt he has enabled the Swamp to run circles around him.
IMO, he is where he is because of his inability to put together a coherent team that
believes in his agenda and is willing to fight the Swamp with everything thy've got.
@joekovalski98: Pres. Trump came into office being very familiar with the intelligence
operation against him.
Enter Admiral (ret) Mike Rogers who travelled secretly without approval by Clapper to brief
the president of the spy operation.
Trump immediately move his administration to NJ.
Rogers and Flynn go back many years as Rogers was a protégé of Flynn. They
both extensively informed president Trump.
"Drain the swamp" is en-route carried out partially by our military and Flynn's former
DIA.
The stage was set and president Trump kept the left distracted via twitter while the
operation is underway between our military, white hats and their allies abroad.
Mifsud was arrested by the Italian intelligence agents 3 days ago and brought back to
Rome.
Trump is a long way from stupid - he has so far managed via twitter and his orthodox ways
for the deep state to unmask themselves. Hiring enemies at times is a way to confuse those
that try to destroy you.
Mifsud's arrest could be key to unraveling or should I say, the Unmasking of. Rather large
amounts of fraudulent intelligence that was laundered through the FISA Warrant Application
process.
The AG reportedly now has Mifsud's Cellphones (2), which coupled with Mifsud's interview
statements, if not his direct cooperation. Should reveal the CIA and/or SA Strozk, were
responsible for providing Mifsud with the false Intelligence. Which he then fed into their
Warrant Apps, through the person of George Papadopoulos.
Which in turn, could establish that Mifsud was never the alleged Russian Agent linked to
Putin. But rather a western intelligence asset, linked to Brennan. Thus destroying the
obvious Defensive strategy of Brennan, Comey and McCabe. Specifically the vaunted, "Hey who
knew the intelligence was bad? I was just doing my JOB!
I believe it was because the FBI was intentionally lying about their authority to monitor the
Flynn-Kysliak conversation. Claiming they were not monitoring the WH, rather they were
monitoring the Russian Ambassador and LTG Flynn was merely, Caught-up in that conversation.
Which at the time, was a good-enough-story. But recent disclosures seem to prove the 2 Agents
along with Comey, McCabe as well as AAG Sally Yates. All knew at the time of their "Pretext"
was establishing a Perjury Trap for the new NSA.
What set Brennan's hair on fire that instigated Brennan's secret memo to Obama who in turn
created and authorized this multi-nation, IC secret surveillance and entrapment operation?
When will we learn why Samantha Powers demanded hundreds of FISA unmasking requests during
the final hours of the Obama administration, after the election but before before the
inauguration of Donald J Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America.
Why have Joseph Mifsud and Crowdstrike, yet again, disappeared from media interest.
Why oh why, certain persons disappear from media interest? Why for example, did Ghislaine
Maxwell disappear from media? Is she not involved in lawsuits? Do courts not know where she
is now? The all-knowing Wikipedia English - does not know (as of today, I checked). The
answer to all these troubling questions is in the comments to the Colonels piece on John
Hannah. Am I becoming paranoid perhaps.?
If the media continues endlessly about the Ukraine phone call, the quid pro quo yet fails to
mention Crowdstrike "favor" in the same article, something is fishy. The phone call story did
not drop out of sight; just a very salient detail. In fact the substance of the phone call is
the story- and what Democrats are calling grounds for impeachment. Yet NO mention of the
Crowdstrike favor. I find this odd. Don't you?
Under the caption, "Nobody does it better" this explanation from Defense Counsel Powell's
04NOV19 Filing, pg 3 para 2
"The government has known since prior to January 24, 2017, that it intended to target Mr.
Flynn for federal prosecution. That is why the entire investigation" of him was created at
least as early as summer 2016 and pursued despite the absence of a legitimate basis. That is
why Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page on January 10, 2017: "Sitting with Bill watching CNN. A TON
more out. .
We're discussing whether, now that this is out, we can use it as a pretext to go interview
some people." 3 The word "pretext" is key. Thinking he was communicating secretly only with
his paramour before their illicit relationship and extreme bias were revealed to the world,
Strzok let the cat out of the bag as to what the FBI was up to. Try as he might, Mr. Van Grack cannot stuff that cat back into that bag.4
Former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as much as admitted the FBI's intent to set up Mr.
Flynn on a criminal false statement charge from the get-go. On Dec. 19, 2017, McCabe told the
House Intelligence Committee in sworn testimony: "[T]he conundrum that we faced on their
return from the interview is that although [the agents] didn't detect deception in the
statements that he made in the interview . . . the statements were inconsistent with our
understanding of the conversation that he had actually had with the ambassador."
McCabe proceeded to admit to the Committee that "the two people who interviewed [Flynn]
didn't think he was lying, [which] was not [a] great beginning of a false statement case."
Ex. 1.
_____________
What's the saying? "Not much ambiguity there?"
Finally, on Nov 9, 2029 American Thinker in an article about Nancy Pelosi attempts at damage
control, someone in the media actually mentions Crowdstrike and the alleged " DNChacking"
........ "CrowdStrike, the cyber-security company that is involved in all this over and
over again, is a an American company founded by a Ukrainian, Dmitri Alperovitch, who is
extremely anti-Russia and who delights in implicating Russia in the DNC hacking event that
probably did not happen......"
Any lingering doubts about Obama's status as an abject puppet of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission
ended this morning when the withered mummy of imperialism himself appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe* to campaign for Obama, urged on
by his own moronic daughter, Mika Brzezinski, an Obama groupie and sycophant.
Zbigniew, a low-level Polish aristocrat whose life has been devoted to hatred for Russia, lauded Obama for his 2002 speech opposing
the Iraq war, saying that he himself was the source of Obama's arguments back then - thus confirming Obama's long-term status as
his puppet, which probably began in 1981-1983, when Obama was a student at Columbia University, and Zbig was directing the anti-Russian
institute.
The aging revanchist showed all the misogynism of his szachta origins with a scurrilous attack on Sen. Clinton as a mere housewife,
a Mamie Eisenhower running against charismatic a JFK played by Zbig's own Manchurian candidate, and as a woman whose foreign policy
experience was worth as much as that of Zbig's own travel agent.
Zbig, who was kept in the closet for many months during the Carter administration because of his hideous Dr. Strangelove persona,
portrayed Obama as a peace candidate who wanted to end the Iraq war and usher in peace in the Middle East. Zbig is an infamous Cold
War hawk who has managed to re-invent himself in the eyes of some dupes by opposing the Iraq adventure, mainly because it is bad
for imperialism.
Zbig did not mention that the reason he wants to downplay certain aspects of US aggression in the Middle East is to free up resources
for use in the much bigger and more dangerous adventures which the Trilateral Commission is now directing.
Zbig is the mastermind of the Kosovo secession under KLA terrorist auspices, a gambit against Serbia and Russia to prepare a coming
Operation Barbarossa II against Moscow. With the help of his son Mark Brzezinski, another top foreign policy controller of Obama,
Zbig is also behind the new Euromissiles crisis involving US ABM installations in Poland. Zbig is the enforcer for the new CIA policy
of killing Pakistanis (as "terrorists") without consulting the government of that country, a nuclear power twice as big as Iran.
Most dangerous of all, Zbig is the obvious mastermind of the massive destabilization of China now ongoing, starting with the CIA/MI-6
Tibet insurrection, which has placed the US on a collision course with China, a superpower with 1.4 billion people and thermonuclear
weapons which can strike US cities, a far cry from the helpless and defenseless targets preferred by the neocons. It is an open secret
that Zbig intends to attempt a color revolution or CIA people power coup in China under the cover of the Beijing Olympics later this
year. He may also make the Taiwan crisis explode. The dangers of these lunatic policies are infinitely worse than anything that could
ever come out of the Middle East.
Senator Jay Rockefeller and Trilateral/BIlderberger boss Joseph Nye are also actively campaigning for Obama. Nye is the theoretician
of "soft power," a new form of imperialist aggression based on economic warfare, subversion, deception, and people power coups. They
want Obama to mobilize soft power to give a face lift to US imnperialism.
Brzezinski's goal is confrontation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main world center for resistance to US-UK global
domination.
Anti-war activists are still fixated on Iran, but not Brzezinski is not - his target is China, TWENTY times bigger than Iran,
with ICBMs ready to launch, followed by Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power. Such confused activists need to focus on stopping
the next war - the final global showdown with Pakistan, China, and Russia. That means rejecting Brzezinski's puppet candidate Obama.
"... The Polish born Brzezinski put the historic blood-feud of his mother country ahead of the interests of the United States. He openly opposed Nixon and Ford's policy of detente and orchestrated the use American power to arm and fund all those who sought to undermine the Soviet Union. ..."
"... This became most apparent when he decided to use US might to fund, arm and train the Arab Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Among the fighters Brzezinski's policy helped to arm was Osama bin-Laden, the founder of the Salafist terrorist group al-Qaeda. The group was later blamed for orchestrating and executing the September 11 terrorist atrocities in the United States. ..."
"... Brzezinski was happy to ally with blood soaked jihadists in order to topple the secular, modern government of Afghanistan, for the simple reason that the government was a Soviet ally. ..."
"... Brzezinski's jihadists took over the country in the 1990s and famously executed and then mutilated the corpse of Afghanistan's pro-Soviet President Dr. Mohammad Najibullah in 1996. Many blame the Brzezinski authored policies in Afghanistan for unleashing the plague of jihadist terrorism throughout the wider world. ..."
"... Brzezinski's time in the White House was limited to the single term of Jimmy Carter, but many of his policies lived long after his formal period in power. ..."
Richard Nixon had more foreign policy achievements that just about any modern American President. These achievements however,
have generally been overshadowed by Nixon's scandal plagued White House.
Among his most important achievements was engaging in
detente with the Soviet Union. Nixon's de-escalation of tensions with Moscow penultimately led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords
in 1975, wherein America and its allies and also non-aligned states of Europe agreed to respect the borders and sovereignty of existing
states, including that of the Soviet Union and her allies. The Helsinki Accords affirmed a renunciation of violence as a means of
settling disputes and forced signatories to respect the right of self-determination among peoples.
This was a rare moment when the US admitted that the Cold War could not be won and that engagement and peaceful dialogue was preferable
to threats against the Soviet superpower.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected the President of the United States after Nixon's former Vice-President Gerald Ford, failed to
win an America hungry for change on the domestic front.
While Jimmy Carter is often remembered as a man of peace, his Presidency was anything but peaceful. The reason for this was the
power behind the throne, Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
The Polish born Brzezinski put the historic blood-feud of his mother country ahead of the interests of the United States. He openly
opposed Nixon and Ford's policy of detente and orchestrated the use American power to arm and fund all those who sought to undermine
the Soviet Union.
This became most apparent when he decided to use US might to fund, arm and train the Arab Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Among the
fighters Brzezinski's policy helped to arm was Osama bin-Laden, the founder of the Salafist terrorist group al-Qaeda. The group
was later blamed for orchestrating and executing the September 11 terrorist atrocities in the United States.
Brzezinski was happy to ally with blood soaked jihadists in order to topple the secular, modern government of Afghanistan, for
the simple reason that the government was a Soviet ally.
Brzezinski's jihadists took over the country in the 1990s and famously executed and then mutilated the corpse of Afghanistan's
pro-Soviet President Dr. Mohammad Najibullah in 1996. Many blame the Brzezinski authored policies in Afghanistan for unleashing the
plague of jihadist terrorism throughout the wider world.
Brzezinski's time in the White House was limited to the single term of Jimmy Carter, but many of his policies lived long after
his formal period in power.
Throughout the rest of his life, Brzezinski continued to vocally advocate for policies designed to cripple Russia, including the
expansion of NATO into eastern Europe.
He was a strong supporter of the 2014 coup against the legitimate Ukrainian government and more recently said that the Russian
Federation would break up. Furthermore, he said that the US must help those wanting to break it up, irrespective of who they are.
He continued to advocate sanctions against Russia until his dying day, in spite of the fact that the sanctions ended up hurting his
native Poland more than the Russian Federation he sought to destroy.
Brzezinski was a deeply violent and hateful man. He was also dishonest, he told the last Shah of Iran that the US would give him
America's full backing, knowing well that the White House was divided on the issue.
He was a man who brought ancient hatreds, hatreds which long pre-dated the existence of the United States, into the heart of American
policy making.
At the age of 89, Brzezinski is dead. Even if he lived another hundred years, he would never see his dream, the death of Russia.
Russia remains alive and well and in this sense, perhaps he died knowing that his entire reason for being was a failure.
If AMLO were to invite the Americans into Mexico, he would be lynched. Few Americans are
aware of how much the United States is hated in Latin America, and for that matter in most of
the world. They don't know of the long series of military interventions, brutal dictators
imposed and supported, and economic rapine. Somoza, Pinochet, the Mexican-American War,
detachment of Panama from Colombia, bombardment of Veracruz, Patton's incursion–the list
could go on for pages. The Mexican public would look upon American troops not as saviors but as
invaders. Which they would be.
The incursion would not defeat the cartels, for several reasons that trump would do well to
ponder. To begin with, America starts its wars by overestimating its own powers,
underestimating the enemy, and misunderstanding the kind of war on which it is embarking. The
is exactly what Trump seems to be doing.
He probably thinks of Mexicans as just gardeners and rapists and we have all these beautiful
advanced weapons and beautiful drones and things with blinking lights. A pack of rapists armed
with garden trowels couldn't possibly be difficult to defeat by the US. I mean, get serious:
Dope dealers against the Marines? A cakewalk.
You know, like Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. That sort of cakewalk.
Let's think what an expedition against the narcos would entail, what it would face.
To begin with, Mexico is a huge country of 127 million souls with the narcos spread unevenly
across it. You can't police a nation that size with a small force, or even with a large force.
A (preposterous) million soldiers would be well under one percent of the population. Success
would be impossible even if that population helped you. Which it wouldn't.
"... this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods. ..."
"... Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth. ..."
"... To me Trump is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split when it comes to impeachment. ..."
"... Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist Web Site: The CIA Democrats . ..."
"... "The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth." ..."
"... Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all boats! ..."
"... Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a "war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all. ..."
"... To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero. ..."
"... The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee. ..."
I am amazed how the Impeachment Circus and the mainstream media continue to
ignore the facts of this story:
Joe Biden has been a favorite target for Trump-allied lawmakers. Many have adopted Trump's unsubstantiated assertion that Biden
pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, because he was investigating Burisma.
The CIA is emerging as a domestic political party.
...
Brennan put a friendly finger on my chest. "The CIA is not involved in domestic politics," he said. "Period. That's on the
record."
This he asserted confidently, at an event where he had just spoken about about influence campaigns on swing voters and implied
that Hillary Clinton might be right in calling U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset. Even seasoned analysts, it
seems, have their blind spots.
What shifted [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] now? I'd say the answer is: this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's
about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party
agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and
equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods.
I agree with Mr. Salutin, the impeachment is not about impeachment, although if impeachment results, I'm sure they will take
it. And I agree it's about protecting the current Democratic Part "elites", both from scandal (Joe Biden, Clinton) and from the
challenge on the left. A risky and desperate move .
I tend to think it was Trump going after the Ukraine cesspit that precipitated the impeachment, but other motives seem relevant.
I have thought since Obama went all in with Russiagate that the current Dem leadership does not feel it can afford to relinquish
control.
Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And
they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth.
To me Trump
is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to
start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split
when it comes to impeachment.
Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair'
(original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)
Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist
Web Site: The CIA Democrats .
Craig Murray has an exclusive interview with
Randy Credico he prefaces with these remarks:
"The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself
was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone
trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about
Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving
to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact
it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on
a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth."
That would include MoA barflies since we crave Truth. Murray has a bit more to say prior to the excerpt I provide, which I
suggest be read, too.
What a feast of links! I've only just started, with b's Daniel Lazare piece at Stretegic Culture.org - well done!
" ...This is what impeachment is about, not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine – plus Syria, Libya,
Yemen, and other countries that the Obama administration succeeded in destroying – and why Trump should pay the supreme penalty
for suggesting that Democrats are in any way to blame..."
Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all
boats!
Impeachment is about controlling where the attention is focused. When things get to close to home Pelosi says look over here at
the orange head, look over there at the border but whatever you do, do not look over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1KfU5ifhqE ">here.
"Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair'
(original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)"
Andrew J. Bacevich weighs in on US foreign policy:
Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of
World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian
Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly
in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a
"war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all.
To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the
ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that
failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero.
There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East. The imperative is to go forward,
which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with
King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.t
The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement
on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with
the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee.
@Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 11 2019 21:30 utc | 152
But, with that explanation, it is like you are whithewashing fascism as a merely opposing political view, which is precisley
the position and pretension of the Trumpers, when it is not. Fascism is incompatible with democracy and human rights...as the
recent ( just overnight the coup...) declarations by The Donald on the events in Bolivia come to confirm...
You forget a main characteristic of fascists, that is that they aspire ( and when the circumstances allow it, always try...)
to wipe out their political adversaries from the face of Earth, as the case in Bolivia is so flagrantry illustrating. Along with
their political adversaries, who are always those who position themselves in the side or as representives of the people, they
always try to wipe out also all those subgroups of human beings they consider utermenschen ...In this cathegory they will
include many, slavs, latinos, jews, gypsies, black people...
Then, once in power, they will use terror to keep the citizenry ( who otherwise will rebel once the real "program" of the nazis
unveiled ) in control...
That the US system is as a whole fascist falls plainly in the faces of all its deluded and anestesized citizens when you see today
that neither Pelosi, nor Schumaker, nor Clinton, nor Biden have said a word agsint what happened yesterday in Bolivia or against
the words of the POTUS who "allegedly" they try to overthrow...a representation described by Trump himself, in the heights of
stone face, as coup d´etat...
I stated that fascism has no ideology. It cannot be a "political view" .
The fascists in Rwanda are Black. The fascists in Israel are Jewish. The fascists in Ukraine are Slavs. The fascists in Colombia
are Latinos.
Fascism isn't about one ethnicity or another. Ethnic prejudice is just one (of many) handle that the capitalists elites use
to get some parts of society to attack other parts. The people who fall under that control by the capitalist elites are fascists.
We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story
into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of
a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in
extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a
half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than
any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and
desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians;
the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war
began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam
featured a
military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units
avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where
not near-mutinous."
The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers,
General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked
mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned
sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in
Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had --
but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this
war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight,
traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."
But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a
loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I
wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never
lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."
Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before
Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in
the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of
the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on
Philadelphia.
When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their
ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their
fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York
draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and
left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally
quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight
Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and
looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."
Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the
American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied),
performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of
its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal
1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as
"uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his
speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale,
particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light
infantry in the history of the world.
But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and
Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of
Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin,
while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States.
For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions
will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and
choose reality.
This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon
Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington
policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included
in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark
Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman
General Omar Bradley.
These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake
of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the
Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson
"stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe
we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.
Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure
in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy
surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories.
Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in
later accounts.
These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories,
burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is
particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate
Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later
collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal
was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling,
rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying
the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the
Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at
Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies
were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled
pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the
war.
The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying
to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab,
leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was
Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams
and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been
the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.
In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that
nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping
search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population,
substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and
equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and
supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.
The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more
respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired
Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should
have never been in Vietnam in the first place.
"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in
Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the
American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote .
"Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable
amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did.
Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars
themselves."
Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the
will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will
to prevail, the war should have never been fought.
The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats
itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq.
The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in
the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose
senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American
Conservative , online,
back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made
assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the
fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train
and equip the Iraqi armed forces.
But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like)
judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress,
the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly
getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.
Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team
of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what
the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and
why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't
come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired
Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the
military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.
Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable
question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of
the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its
release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page
predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course
you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can,
and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's
understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on
the war.
At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that
the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad
mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that
the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that
the war, once ended, simply continued.
The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC
study:
"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior
rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough
blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning."
Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could
have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the
authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."
In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County
in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He
spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the
Emmitsburg Road.
As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and
became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an
ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning
his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody
assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the
Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which
Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence
referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground
and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything.
It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on
it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only
Lee had known that Wentz was there.
He didn't.
For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women,
for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists
or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping
wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when
lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later,
generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What
do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle
of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning,
observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be
difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did
not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that
followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was
your job to anticipate."
It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to
ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor
performance overall.
The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the
waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do
not and could not work to specs and plans.
But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the
"political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership
may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.
no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically
made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the
leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military
dissenters.
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people
trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to
solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.
The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if
war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the
keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that
wants it to end.
Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but
really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the
old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on
a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that
man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4
years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and
supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they
suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who
claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the
American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no
military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most
wars, there are no good guys.
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?
US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to
keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the
previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.
As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because
they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous
generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets
rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.
They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for
muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched
towards dug in Confederates.
This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at
the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a
long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to
have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.
The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold
harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed
with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open,
well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.
Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and
The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers
romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a
fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so
many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties
and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side
which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of
effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long
as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard,
the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man
indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes
tactical proficiency, not just bravery.
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take
over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years
ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your
manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other
countries.
In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no
purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of
Congress.
It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then
turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's
maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government
should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that
can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.
Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing
over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.
I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent
my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things
half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about
themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing
the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.
Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.
further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional
masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action
without considering all knowable facts.
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the
war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"
The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged
in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz
anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed.
There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a
particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in
history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for
it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one
of the 10 best ever.
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world,
including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was
slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast
slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of
patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later
but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have
been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved
peacefully.
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation.
750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so
they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy
Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned
Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our
"Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices
more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages
considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty
much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of
a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working
quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances,
but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind
we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not
wasted.
Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively
surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US
military death to have been in vain.
Understanding What Sidney Powell is Doing to Kill the Case Against Michael Flynn by Larry
C Johnson
Sidney Powell, General Michael Flynn's magnificent lawyer, is in the process of destroying
the bogus case that Robert Mueller and his gang of legal thugs tried to sneak past appropriate
judicial review. To help you understand what she is doing we must first go back and review the
indictment of Flynn and then look at what Ms. Powell, aka Honey Badger, has forced the
prosecutors to admit.
Here are the nuts and bolts of the indictment
On or about January 24, 2017, defendant MICHAEL T. FLYNN did willfully and knowingly make
materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations . . . to agents of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation that:
(i) On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Government of Russia's Ambassador
to the United States ("Russian Ambassador") to refrain from escalating the situation in
response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day; and
FLYNN did not recall the Russian Ambassador subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to
moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request.
(ii) On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the
vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution; and that the Russian
Ambassador subsequently never described_to FLYNN Russia's response to his request.
Let me make a couple of observations before we dig into the notes and the 302 that FBI
Agents Strzok and Pientka wrote up during and following their interview of Michael Flynn on
January 24, 2017. First, Michael Flynn did nothing wrong or inappropriate in speaking to
Russia's Ambassador Kislyak. He was doing his job as an incoming National Security Advisor to
President Trump. Second, not "recalling" what Ambassador Kislyak said (or did not say) on 22
December is not lying. Third, even if Flynn did ask the Russian Ambassador on the 29th of
December to "refrain from escalating the situation" in response to the U.S. sanctions imposed
by Barack Hussein Obama, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is wise counsel
intended to defuse a situation.
Now, here is where the FBI, especially Agents Strzok and Pientka, are in so much trouble.
The day prior to the "interview" of General Flynn the FBI plotters met to discuss strategy.
According to Sidney Powell:
January 23, the day before the interview, the upper echelon of the FBI met to orchestrate it
all. Deputy Director McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, , Lisa Page, Strzok, David Bowdich,
Trish Anderson, and Jen Boone strategized to talk with Mr. Flynn in such a way as to keep from
alerting him from understanding that he was being interviewed in a criminal investigation of
which he was the target. (Ex.12). Knowing they had no basis for an investigation,6 they
deliberately decided not to notify DOJ for fear DOJ officials would follow protocol and notify
White House Counsel.
Peter Strzok was interviewed on 19 July 2017 by the FBI and, according to his affidavit,
pretended that he was asked on the 24th of January 2017 to interview General Flynn. He implied
this was a last minute request. But as noted in the preceding paragraph, which is based on an
interview of Strzok's mistress, Lisa Page, a meeting took place the day before to orchestrate
the ambush of General Flynn.
What is truly remarkable is that Peter Strzok stated the following, which exonerates Flynn
of the charges in the indictment cited above:
Strzok and Pientka both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not
think he was lying. Flynn struck Strzok as "bright, but not profoundly sophisticated."
The fact that the FBI Agents Strzok and Pientka did not to show General Flynn the transcript
of his calls to refresh his recollection, nor did they confront him directly if he did not
remember, exposes this plot as a contrived scenario to entrap Michael Flynn rather than a
legitimate, legally founded investigation.
In fact, as noted by Sidney Powell, "the FBI and DOJ wrote an internal memo dated January
30, 2017, exonerating Mr. Flynn of acting as an "agent of Russia;" and, they all knew there was
no Logan Act violation."
The notes taken by Agents Strzok and Pientka during their interview of Michael Flynn are
damning for the FBI. These notes are Exhibits 9 and 10 in the sur sureply filed by Sidney
Powell on 1 November 2019. (I wrote recently on the fact that the FBI/DOJ mislabeled the notes
from this interview--see here). Neither Strzok nor Pientka recorded any observation that Flynn
lied about his contacts with Kislyak. Neither wrote down anything supporting the indictment by
the Mueller crowd that "Flynn lied." To the contrary, Strzok swore under oath that he did not
believe Flynn was lying.
The real problem for the Government's fraudulent case against Flynn are the 302s. There
should only be one 302. Not at least four versions. The FBI protocol is to enter the 302 into
the FBI Sentinel system within five days of the interview. In other words, the original 302
should have been put on the record on the 29th of January. But that original 302 is MISSING.
The prosecutors claim they cannot find it.
But the prosecutors finally did provide the defense, after repeated requests, multiple
copies of 302s. They dated as follows--10 February 2017, 11 February 2017. 14 February 2017 and
15 February 2017. WTF??? This alone is prima facie evidence that something crooked was
afoot.
The final 302--dated 15 February 2017--painted General Flynn in the worst possible light.
The "facts" of this 302 are not supported by the notes taken by Agents Strzok and Pientka. The
conclusion is simple--the FBI fabricated a case against General Flynn. We now wait to see if
Judge Sullivan will acknowledge this crooked conduct and exonerate the good General. Justice
demands it.
These are not my facts. They are the facts based on documents submitted on the record to
Judge Sullivan. I find it shocking that no journalist has had the energy or interest to cover
this. Just one more reminder of the putrid state of journalism and investigative reporting. The
charges levied against General Flynn by the Mueller prosecutors are without foundation. That is
the stark conclusion facing any honest reader of the documents/exhibits uncovered by the Honey
Badger. This kind of conduct by the FBI is just one more proof to support Colonel Lang's wise
observation that this institution, along with the CIA, should be burned to the ground and new
institutions erected in their stead that are committed to upholding the Constitution and
preserving the rights of the individual.
General Flynn was the National Security Advisor to the President. Among his duties he would
be expected to talk with foreign officials, including Russians, perhaps especially Russians.
My question is what was the predicating evidence that gave rise to opening a criminal case
with Flynn as the subject at all. What was the substantive violation; and why was there a
need to convene a meeting of high level Bureau official to discuss an ambush interview. What
was there to talk about in this meeting? My suspicion is that they expected, or hoped, at the
outset to leverage Flynn against Trump which makes the scheme worse, much worse
Re: predicate - IIRC, this is where the work of the FBI/CIA "ratfucker" Stefan Halper was
instrumental, having propagated the bogus claim that scholar Svetlana Lokhova was a Russian
agent with whom Gen. Flynn was having a sexual relationship.
There was a simpler time when even the least accomplished FBI Agent would have known enough
to ask Mr Halper for the circumstantial details as to how he acquired the news that Flynn had
any relationship at all with Lokhova, let alone a sexual relationship, who told him, how did
he know, why was he telling him, when, etc. The same questions should have been resolved with
respect to Lokhova before entertaining a conclusion that she was a Russian Agent of some
sort. Finally, even if the allegation against Flynn had been true, which had not been
established, and the allegation against Lokhova had been true, which as far as I know had not
been established, the Agents should have laid those cards before Flynn from the outset as the
reason he was being interviewed. If during the course of the interview he became suspect of
having done something illegal, he should have been told what it was and given all his rights,
including the right to an attorney. If the Agents suspected he was lying in matters of such
significant import that he would be charged for lying, they should have been given a specific
warning that lying was a prosecutable offense. That would have been playing it down the
middle. Since none of this appears to have been done, the question is why not. The leading
suspicion is that the carefully considered intent was to take down Flynn by any means
necessary to advance another purpose.
There are two separate issues: The Russian-Flynn Spying connection was established in London
back in 2015. IMO using Halper as an echo-chamber for Brennan's collusion fabrications. LTG
Flynn at that time was being set-up, for a retaliatory career strike(TS Clearance issues, I
submit).
The Flynn Perjury case was made in Jan 17 in DC, by the Secret Society, Comey, McCabe,
Yates, Strozk and the unwitting, SA Joe Pientka (hopefully). This trap was drafted by Comey,
specifically to take advantage of the newly elected President's inexperienced Cabinet, the WH
in-chaos. Chaos reportedly generated by a well timed Leak to the media. Which suggested that
LTG Flynn had Lied to VP Pence.
This FBI leak, now had the WH in a tail spin. Given the collusion beliefs at that time, had
VP Pence admitted that acting NSA Flynn, did in fact speak with the Russian Kislyak re:
Sanctions. The media would've screamed, the call demonstrated Russian Collusion.
Since VP Pence stated, he did not know that NSA Flynn had discussed the Sanctions with
Kislyak. The media created the image that Flynn had lied to the VP...
This was the "Pretext" which Defense Council Powell referred to. This is the opportune
moment, at which Comey sprang and later bragged about. Stating publicly that he took
advantage of a inexperienced Trump oval office in turmoil. Claiming he decided "Screw IT"
I'll send two agents in to question Flynn.
Without going through FBI-WH protocols. Because Comey knew that protocols would alert the
entire WH Staff. Making the FBI's hopes for a Perjury Trap against NSA Flynn, impossible.
Accordingly, AAG Yates and McCabe then both set the stage, with calls to WH Counsel
McGahn. Where they threatened charges against Flynn under the nonexistent "1799" Logan Act.
As well as suggesting that Flynn was now vulnerable to Extortion by Russian agents. Since the
Russians knew he had lied to the VP.
As Powell points out, by 24JAN17, the date of the Flynn interview. The entire world, knew
Flynn had Lied. Making the extortion threat rather bogus. In fact reports stated, at that
time even WHC McGahn had asked either Yates or McCabe (don't recall which). Why would the FBI
give a damn, what the NSA had told the VP? However the Bureau persisted and they won out.
McGahn is reported to have told Flynn, that he should sit down with these two FBI
agents...
Once Flynn sat down and gave a statement. FWIW, I think Andy McCabe was going to find a
Flynn misstatement or create one. Sufficient to justify the 1001 charge. It appears as though
McCabe took the later option and simply Created one.
Excellent summation.
My question is does some combination of incompetence and bubblethink naivete explain how at
the outset they could have gone all in on the Brennan/Halper information or did they just
cynically exploit the opportunity that had been manufactured in order to take it to the next
level -Trump. Taking it to the next level appears to be what drove the Papadopolis case where
similar procedural abuses occurred.
Poor George Popadopoulos, also "bright, but not profoundly sophisticated.", also had lawyers
who rolled over to the FBI.
If you read George's book, "Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the
Plot to Bring Down President Trump", the methods used on Flynn sound familiar.
Since George only served two weeks, I wonder if it would be worth while for him to tackle
the FBI again?
PS When the FBI says you are not "sophisticated", does that mean that they view you as
easy to trick?
Papadopolis signed "confession" equally odd: string of disconnected facts topped off with
what appears almost to be an added "conclusion" allegedly based on these irrelevant string of
factual statements that damn him into eternity as well.
Was the conclusionary" confession" added later, or was it shoved in front of him to sign
as a unwitting last minute alteration to a previously agreed set of facts is pror statements
he had already agreed were true? Just me, but when I read this "confession some time ago, it
simply did not pass the smell test.
The signed "confession: basically appeared to be accusing Papadopolus and by extension the
Trump campaign of violating the Logan Act - violating Obama's exclusive right to conduct
foreign policy.
(A SCHIFF PARAPHRAse)
Yes I was in Russia
Yes, I ate pork chops for dinner
Yes. I endeavored to meet with Russian individuals
Etc - benign
Etc - benign
Confession - al of the above are true
Kicker: Final Statement I INTENTIONALLY MET WITH TOP LEVEL RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT AGENTS TO
DISCUSS US FOREIGN POLICY
Papadopoulos' "lies" rest on subjective interpretation. For instance, one of the "lies"
consist of a referral to Mifsud as "a nobody". A second "lie" is based on when he officially
joined the Trump campaign: George P says it was when he first went to Washington and attended
a campaign meeting, while the indictment says no it was when he participated in the phone
call which invited him on board (a difference of a couple of weeks). It is very very thin
gruel.
If the evidence provided by the defence in the Flynn case is even only a partial example
of the capabilities and proclivities of the FBI, then how many other poor schmucks have been
convicted and jailed unjustly at the hands of this organisation?
The answer, given the size of the organisation must be : "thousands". The remedy is
obvious and compelling if you want to remain something like a first world democracy.
How many others have there been? The genesis of the USA v Flynn, was a CIA-FBI hybrid. An
international Co-Intel operation, aimed at targeting Donald Trump. As such "the Case" was
initiated from the top down, under the secrecy of a T/S Counter-Intelligence operation.
These are not the normal beginnings of a Criminal matter. Which originates with a filed
criminal Complaint, from the ground-up.
In short all of the checks and balances our federal statutes mandate. Steps where AUSA's,
Bureau ASAC's and District Judges must review and approve. Even before convening a GJ. Were
intentionally overridden or perjured by a select society of the highest officials inside DoJ.
As such there were no higher authorities nor any of the Higher Loyalty for Jim Comey to seek
his resolution from.
That is not the normal investigative process. This was a deliberate criminal act to target
an innocent man (actually several innocent men). As such IMO, the associated political
pressure, all of which was self-inflicted. Was the force which brought about the criminality
on the part of Comey, McCabe, et al.
So, FWIW, you don't see those levels of personal involvement in criminal investigations.
The classic, where the murder victim's brother is the town Sheriff. Hence you don't see cases
of innocent people being dragged off to the Dungeons. Certainly not intentionally and not in
the thousands, anyway.
On another blog, a commenter claimed Flynn was going to program audit the entire IC - money
spent and results obtained.
So instead of Flynn burning the agency down, they did just the opposite and got to him
first. Just like Sen Schumer warned Trump: don't take on the IC, because they have six ways
against Sunday to take you down.
Maybe Flynn' s alleged post-inauguration audit plans is what triggered Brennan to get
Obama to secretly keep his eyes on Flynn - maybe that was the second tier secret access they
wanted, not necessarily Trump himself?
Survival in DC is existential - my own in-house observation during the Watergate
years.
The reports I've read tell of a long and sorted history between LTG Flynn, John Brennan, DNI
Clapper and Obama. Some of the stories did remind me of the SST suggestion to, "Burn it all
down". The General also supported this idea that DoD, should be the lead agency in the IC and
CA. Since must of their modern day activity, does tend to be kinetic...
So LTG Flynn has made enemies in the Obama administration, CIA and DNI.
However, IMO the far more telling issue of the depths of IC's Coup effort. Are the
exploits of Halper, Mifsud, MI6-CIA link. Which began back in 2015. This gives the
impression, Flynn was being targeted for career destruction. Solely as retaliation for his
departure from the Obama Administration, coupled with Flynn's open opposition to policies of
Obama-Brennan (Iran-Syria-Libya). This took place way before he agreed to the NSA post with
President Trump.
Then there's also LTG Flynn's direct rebuttal of DDFBI Andy McCabe. Seems McCabe was
involved in a Bureau OPR dust-up over sexual harassment allegations. The female SA worked CT
and was an acquaintance of Gen Flynn's. Flynn then made a public statement of support for the
Agent. Which was reported to have angered Andy. Sydney Powell, suggests that McCabe was
overhead to have said words to the effect or, First we F--- Flynn, then we F--- Trump. During
one of his 7th floor, Secret Society meetings.
Again all of this happened, before General Flynn was Candidate Trump's NSA Designee. So
the Six ways to Sunday, warning does resonate re: LTG Flynn as well.
In my experience in the US armed forces.... having a top secret crypto clearance...
And later.... as a federal investigator...
I distinctly remember that conversations between the White house, particularly the
president and his national security chief are "top secret -- eyes only for the president"
So.....
Why did FLynn not have the Secret Service Detail arrest Sztrok and company on the spot for
violating US security CFRs by knowing such conversations took place and knowing the contents
thereof with out appropriate security clearances??
"Why did FLynn not have the Secret Service Detail arrest Sztrok and company on the spot for
violating US security CFRs.."
Many things about Spygate have puzzled me. The response by Trump after becoming POTUS to
all the machinations by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rosenstein, et al has been baffling. It is
like he does not understand the powers of his office. And after he learned about the covert
action action against his campaign and him, to then staff his administration with folks who
were in cahoots with the putschists is frankly bizarre.
Does anyone have any explanation for the actions or inactions of Trump & Flynn?
"Does anyone have any explanation for the actions or inactions of Trump & Flynn?"
I have no comment relative to Flynn, but, in regards to Trump, IMO, Trump is stupid.
First, a little background. I did vote for Trump. I did have an hatred for national
politics ever since the Cheney "presidency". In that period, I was a dissident with a very
minor voice. But, I did study, as best as I could, the Bush (Cheney) and the Obama
presidency. It was reasonably clear that president's. didn't count. IMO the real power lay
with: a handful of Senate leaders, the CIA, the bureaucracy, and the powerful families that
controlled the major multi-national corporations, such as, Exxon Mobile. The preceding
constituted a powerful oligarchy that controlled the U.S. A dictatorship of sorts.
Trump had two major objectives for his presidency: MAGA and "drain the swamp". I concurred
with both objectives. After six months of the Trump presidency, and after observing his
choice of appointments and his actions, I concluded that he was a high school baseball player
trying to compete with the major leagues. He didn't know what he was doing (and, still
doesn't).
At that time, I concluded that if Trump really wanted to install MAGA and "drain the
swamp" he should have concluded way before putting his hat in the ring, that the only way to
accomplish his objective was to foster a coup after becoming president. Prior to his
presidency, he would had to select a team which would be his appointees and develop a plan.
After becoming president, he would have to ignore Congress and put his people in place
including in the DOD. The team would stay in control regardless of Congress' views.
Of course, this is a dictatorship, but is this any less obnoxious to our current oligarchs
dictatorship.
You're not wrong in criticizing Trump's personnel choices and inaction. When he entered
office he was warned about the SES/SIS holdovers and the need to get his own people in place.
He ignored that advice and is suffering the consequences. Trump played a character on TV of
being a shrewd, tough judge of talent and ability. In reality, he is a bit of a goofball.
That said, his basic policy positions are solid with respect to putting America first,
enforcing immigration laws, and disengaging from the foreign adventurism that has defined US
foreign policy for the last 75 years.
My hope is that he now finally recognizes the threat.
I prefer thinking of Donald Trump as a World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer as it fits
the context of what we are seeing more precise. Staged drama, personality pitted against
personality, all a great spectacle.
If it makes the denizens of DC fall on their fainting couches with the image all the
better.
Isn't Donald Trump suffering the same problem Jimmy Carter had that as a DC outsider he
isn't able hire talent and the establishment has made it clear that a position in the Trump
administration is a career killer?
Democrat's politics of personal destruction made it virtually impossible for Trump to hire or
appoint the requisite people for the task you described. RINO's wouldn't touch him and
Democrats were hell bent for revenge at any costs.
Amazing he did as well as he has done so far - considering his election was so toxic to
any possible insiders who could have offered the necessary experience to warn him where the
third rails were located.
Give him another four years and full control of GOP House and Senate back - this country
needs his energy and resoluteness to finally get the real work done. Patriots at every level
need to apply for appointed positions.
BTW: I was a rabid no-Trumper up to election night. Then Trump became my President. I have
not looked back.
Draining the Swamp can't be accomplished by hiring within the beltway or hiring any long-term
Democrat or Republican operative including members of Congress.
Trump should have recognized when he learned that his transition team was being spied on
that he had to hire people who believed in his agenda and had no ties to the Swamp.
By hiring folks like Haley, Pompeo, Bolton, Coats, Rosenstein, Wray, etc and not cleaning
house by firing entire swathes of the bureaucracy and then not using the powers of his office
to declassify but instead passing the buck on to Rosenstein, Sessions and Barr and only
tweeting witch hunt he has enabled the Swamp to run circles around him.
IMO, he is where he is because of his inability to put together a coherent team that
believes in his agenda and is willing to fight the Swamp with everything thy've got.
@joekovalski98: Pres. Trump came into office being very familiar with the intelligence
operation against him.
Enter Admiral (ret) Mike Rogers who travelled secretly without approval by Clapper to brief
the president of the spy operation.
Trump immediately move his administration to NJ.
Rogers and Flynn go back many years as Rogers was a protégé of Flynn. They
both extensively informed president Trump.
"Drain the swamp" is en-route carried out partially by our military and Flynn's former
DIA.
The stage was set and president Trump kept the left distracted via twitter while the
operation is underway between our military, white hats and their allies abroad.
Mifsud was arrested by the Italian intelligence agents 3 days ago and brought back to
Rome.
Trump is a long way from stupid - he has so far managed via twitter and his orthodox ways
for the deep state to unmask themselves. Hiring enemies at times is a way to confuse those
that try to destroy you.
Mifsud's arrest could be key to unraveling or should I say, the Unmasking of. Rather large
amounts of fraudulent intelligence that was laundered through the FISA Warrant Application
process.
The AG reportedly now has Mifsud's Cellphones (2), which coupled with Mifsud's interview
statements, if not his direct cooperation. Should reveal the CIA and/or SA Strozk, were
responsible for providing Mifsud with the false Intelligence. Which he then fed into their
Warrant Apps, through the person of George Papadopoulos.
Which in turn, could establish that Mifsud was never the alleged Russian Agent linked to
Putin. But rather a western intelligence asset, linked to Brennan. Thus destroying the
obvious Defensive strategy of Brennan, Comey and McCabe. Specifically the vaunted, "Hey who
knew the intelligence was bad? I was just doing my JOB!
I believe it was because the FBI was intentionally lying about their authority to monitor the
Flynn-Kysliak conversation. Claiming they were not monitoring the WH, rather they were
monitoring the Russian Ambassador and LTG Flynn was merely, Caught-up in that conversation.
Which at the time, was a good-enough-story. But recent disclosures seem to prove the 2 Agents
along with Comey, McCabe as well as AAG Sally Yates. All knew at the time of their "Pretext"
was establishing a Perjury Trap for the new NSA.
What set Brennan's hair on fire that instigated Brennan's secret memo to Obama who in turn
created and authorized this multi-nation, IC secret surveillance and entrapment operation?
When will we learn why Samantha Powers demanded hundreds of FISA unmasking requests during
the final hours of the Obama administration, after the election but before before the
inauguration of Donald J Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America.
Why have Joseph Mifsud and Crowdstrike, yet again, disappeared from media interest.
Why oh why, certain persons disappear from media interest? Why for example, did Ghislaine
Maxwell disappear from media? Is she not involved in lawsuits? Do courts not know where she
is now? The all-knowing Wikipedia English - does not know (as of today, I checked). The
answer to all these troubling questions is in the comments to the Colonels piece on John
Hannah. Am I becoming paranoid perhaps.?
If the media continues endlessly about the Ukraine phone call, the quid pro quo yet fails to
mention Crowdstrike "favor" in the same article, something is fishy. The phone call story did
not drop out of sight; just a very salient detail. In fact the substance of the phone call is
the story- and what Democrats are calling grounds for impeachment. Yet NO mention of the
Crowdstrike favor. I find this odd. Don't you?
Under the caption, "Nobody does it better" this explanation from Defense Counsel Powell's
04NOV19 Filing, pg 3 para 2
"The government has known since prior to January 24, 2017, that it intended to target Mr.
Flynn for federal prosecution. That is why the entire investigation" of him was created at
least as early as summer 2016 and pursued despite the absence of a legitimate basis. That is
why Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page on January 10, 2017: "Sitting with Bill watching CNN. A TON
more out. .
. We're discussing whether, now that this is out, we can use it as a pretext to go interview
some people." 3 The word "pretext" is key. Thinking he was communicating secretly only with
his paramour before their illicit relationship and extreme bias were revealed to the world,
Strzok let the cat out of the bag as to what the FBI was up to. Try as he might, Mr. Van
Grack cannot stuff that cat back into that bag.4
Former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as much as admitted the FBI's intent to set up Mr.
Flynn on a criminal false statement charge from the get-go. On Dec. 19, 2017, McCabe told the
House Intelligence Committee in sworn testimony: "[T]he conundrum that we faced on their
return from the interview is that although [the agents] didn't detect deception in the
statements that he made in the interview . . . the statements were inconsistent with our
understanding of the conversation that he had actually had with the ambassador."
McCabe proceeded to admit to the Committee that "the two people who interviewed [Flynn]
didn't think he was lying, [which] was not [a] great beginning of a false statement case."
Ex. 1.
_____________
What's the saying? "Not much ambiguity there?"
Finally, on Nov 9, 2029 American Thinker in an article about Nancy Pelosi attempts at damage
control, someone in the media actually mentions Crowdstrike and the alleged " DNChacking"
........ "CrowdStrike, the cyber-security company that is involved in all this over and
over again, is a an American company founded by a Ukrainian, Dmitri Alperovitch, who is
extremely anti-Russia and who delights in implicating Russia in the DNC hacking event that
probably did not happen......"
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
NemesisCalling @127: "I see that you never question the implication of what calling one a
fascist really means"
What is fascism? It usually has a religious component, be it Protestant, Catholic, Hindu,
Shinto, and yes, Muslim, Buddhist and even Jewish.
OK, so defining fascism by religion isn't going to get you anywhere as it runs the
gamut.
There are certainly white fascists, but there are also Black fascists, Japanese fascists,
Indian fascists, Chinese fascists, Latino fascists... I guess ethnicity won't get you
anywhere with explaining what fascism is either.
Nationalism? No, there are fascists of pretty much every nationality, so that hardly gets
us anywhere closer to understanding what it is.
A fetish for crisp uniforms? No, fascists are just as likely to wear filthy rancid goat
scented rags.
Fascist ideology is malleable. It morphs to be whatever it needs to be at the moment. So
the what is the one common aspect that fascism always possesses? Answer: In the class
war between labor and capital, fascists always back capital and oppose labor.
When it comes down to a street fight big business doesn't have the numbers to counter
labor from within their own class, and the capitalist elites don't want to get their hands
dirty anyway. As a consequence they must recruit goons and societal support for those goons
from the small business class, the sub-working-class, and from the working class itself to
defeat the working class. To accomplish this recruiting the capitalist elites use their
control over mass media to make appeals to every prejudice that exists in society to turn
those influenced by those prejudices against the working class. Every form of tribalism is
exploited, and since the precise characteristics of the major tribalist divisions in society
differ from region to region, and even neighborhood to neighborhood, the composition of the
fascist forces recruited to attack the working class tends to vary from place to place.
If fascism is so variable in all of its characteristics, how then can anyone say who is
and who isn't a fascist?
The answer to that is actually fairly easy. When the class war breaks out into the open,
as is the case in Bolivia right now, the people who are not lords of capital but still throw
their lot in with capital are fascists.
In other words, in North America and Europe, fascism is far more prevalent than most
people are willing to face.
Doesn't it make you feel better to know that fascism is just the proper name for
anti-socialist?
If AMLO were to invite the Americans into Mexico, he would be lynched. Few Americans are
aware of how much the United States is hated in Latin America, and for that matter in most of
the world. They don't know of the long series of military interventions, brutal dictators
imposed and supported, and economic rapine. Somoza, Pinochet, the Mexican-American War,
detachment of Panama from Colombia, bombardment of Veracruz, Patton's incursion–the list
could go on for pages. The Mexican public would look upon American troops not as saviors but as
invaders. Which they would be.
The incursion would not defeat the cartels, for several reasons that trump would do well to
ponder. To begin with, America starts its wars by overestimating its own powers,
underestimating the enemy, and misunderstanding the kind of war on which it is embarking. The
is exactly what Trump seems to be doing.
He probably thinks of Mexicans as just gardeners and rapists and we have all these beautiful
advanced weapons and beautiful drones and things with blinking lights. A pack of rapists armed
with garden trowels couldn't possibly be difficult to defeat by the US. I mean, get serious:
Dope dealers against the Marines? A cakewalk.
You know, like Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. That sort of cakewalk.
Let's think what an expedition against the narcos would entail, what it would face.
To begin with, Mexico is a huge country of 127 million souls with the narcos spread unevenly
across it. You can't police a nation that size with a small force, or even with a large force.
A (preposterous) million soldiers would be well under one percent of the population. Success
would be impossible even if that population helped you. Which it wouldn't.
Other problems exist. Many, many of them.
Let's consider terrain. Terrain is what militaries fight in. Start with the Sierra Madre,
which I suspect Trump doesn't know from Madre Teresa. This is the brutally inhospitable
mountain range in the northwest of Mexico, from which a great many of the narcos come.(Sinaloa
is next door.) Forestation is dense, slopes steep, communication only by narrow trails that the
natives know as well as you know how to find your bathroom. Nobody else knows them. American
infantry would be helpless here. The Narcos would be found only when they chose to be found,
which would not be at opportune moments.
The Sierra Madre Occidental, home of many of the drug traffickers. I have walked in these
mountains, or tried to. It is impossible for infantry, worse for armor, and airplanes can't see
through the trees.
The Tarahumara Indians live in the Sierra Madre. They frequent the trails, sometimes in
groups, and carry things not identifiable from the air. In frustration American forces would do
what they always do: start bombing, or launching Hellfires from drones, at what they think are,
or think may be, or hope might be, narcos. Frequently they would kill innocents having nothing
to do with drugs. This wouldn't bother the military, certainly not remote drone operators in
Colorado or somewhere. They get paid anyway. The Indians who just had their families turned
into science projects couldn't do anything about it.
Well, nothing but join the narcos, who might call this a "force multiplier."
Some other northern Mexican terrain. The Duarte Bridge between Sinaloa and Durango. A
company commander, looking at it, would would have PTSD in advance, just to get a start on
things.
Of the rest of Mexico, much consists of jungle, presenting the same problems as the Sierra
Madre, and of cities and villages. Here we encounter the problem that has proved disastrous for
US forces in war after war: there is no way to tell who is a narco and who isn't.
In cities and towns, narcos are indistinguishable from the general population.
How–precisely how, I want to know–would American troops, kitted out in body armor
and goggles and looking like idiots, fight the narcos in villages with which they were
unfamiliar? The narcos, well armed, would pick off GIs from windows, whereupon the Americans
would respond by firing at random, calling in air strikes, and otherwise killing locals. These
would now hate Americans. The narcos know this. They would use it.
Culiacan, Sinaloa, Chapo's home city. It has a high concentration of narcos. Suppose that
you are an infantry officer, sent to "fight the cartels." You have, say, twenty troops with
you, all with hi-tech equipment and things dangling. How do you propose to fight the cartels
here? Which of the people in the photo, if any, are narcos? You could ask them. That would
work.
Don't expect help from the locals. Most would much rather see you killed than the narcos.
And if they collaborated they and their families would be killed. This would discourage them.
Bright ideas?
Now a point that Schwarzehairdye in the White House has likely not grasped. The narcos are
Mexicans. So is the population. You know, brown, speak Spanish, that kind of thing. The
invaders would not be Mexicans. This matters. Villagers usually do not hate the narcos. These
provide jobs, buy their marijuana crops, often do Robin Hood things to help the locals. Pablo
Escobar did this, Al Capone, Chapo Guzman. There is a whole genre of popular music,
narcocorridos, celebrating the doings of the drug trade. (Corridos Prohibidos ,
by LosTigres del Norte, for example). Amazon has the CD.
Which means that they would side with the narcos instead of the already-hated soldiers,
putos gringos cabrones, que se chinguen sus putas madres.
Further, much of Mexico doesn't much like its government.
And of course the narcos will have the option of fading into the population and waiting for
the gringos to go home. This means that the invasion would become an occupation. The
invading forces would thus need bases, which would become permanent. Bases where? All over the
country, which is where the narcos are?
Getting the American military into one's country is much easier than getting it out. The
world knows this. Mexicans assuredly do. They know that America has wrecked country after
country in the Mideast, always to do something good about democracy and human rights. They know
that America is squeezing Venezuela to get control of its oil, squeezing Iran for the same
reason, attacked Iraq for the same reason, has troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for the same
reason, and has just confiscated Syria's oil . Mexico has oil. So when Trump wants to send the
military to "help" fight drugs, what do you suppose the Mexicans suspect?
Another point: Roughly a million American expats live happily in Mexico. These would be
hostages, and they–we–are soft targets. The drones kill five narcos, and the narcos
kill five expats. Or ten, or fifty. What does Washington do now?
Finally, consider what happens when you bomb a country, make life dangerous, kill its
children, destroy the economy and impoverish its people? Answer: They go somewhere else. With
Mexico being made unlivable, Mexicans would have two choices of somewhere else, Guatemala and
.See whether you can fill in the blank. Maybe four or five million of them.
Nuff said. May God protect Mexico from Yanquis who would do it good, from advisers, and then
adviser creep, and then occupation, and then from badly led militaries who have no idea where
they are.
stephen t johnson #77: "Whatever military assistance Russia gives the rebels is
about making sure they don't go too the left in fighting the fascists and making sure there are
no embarrassing wave of Russian-speaking refugees from Ukrainian fascism."
Putin is really afraid of leftism among Russian Ukrainians, and the "embarrassment" of an
exodus into Russia? Your whole paragraph stirs propagandistic bits of excuse-mongering into an
illogical mash. Look, Ukraine is a long complicated discussion but a simple overview is that
most of the country wants to ally with the EU and the eastern portion wants to ally with
Russia. Yes, there is a lot of corruption. Yes, Euromaidan (pro-EU) was probably 1/3 far right.
Yes, there are fascist parties. But the majority of the people want democracy and not fascism.
Instead these poor people got Zelensky being extorted by yet another thug.
(Vindman is correct, this is another disaster by Trump with longterm consequences for US
foreign policy. While the US Republicans have also gone thug, saying it's no big deal.)
If the Steinmeier formula holds and there are free elections in Donbass and the majority
votes for kicking out Putin, do you think Putin going to withdraw his Russian Army regulars?
Accompanying the annexation of Crimea was Putin's long letter to the international community
justifying his action because there were "nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and
anti-Semites" who are committing "pogroms and terror". This now appears to be mostly fiction
(perhaps enhanced by Putin's agent provocateurs).
stephen
t johnson #77: "Whatever military assistance Russia gives the rebels is about making sure they
don't go too the left in fighting the fascists and making sure there are no embarrassing wave
of Russian-speaking refugees from Ukrainian fascism."
Putin is really afraid of leftism among Russian Ukrainians, and the "embarrassment" of an
exodus into Russia? Your whole paragraph stirs propagandistic bits of excuse-mongering into an
illogical mash. Look, Ukraine is a long complicated discussion but a simple overview is that
most of the country wants to ally with the EU and the eastern portion wants to ally with
Russia.
Yes, there is a lot of corruption. Yes, Euromaidan (pro-EU) was probably 1/3 far right.
Yes, there are fascist parties. But the majority of the people want democracy and not fascism.
Instead these poor people got Zelensky being extorted by yet another thug. (Vindman is correct,
this is another disaster by Trump with long term consequences for US foreign policy.
While the
US Republicans have also gone thug, saying it's no big deal.) If the Steinmeier formula holds
and there are free elections in Donbass and the majority votes for kicking out Putin, do you
think Putin going to withdraw his Russian Army regulars? Accompanying the annexation of Crimea
was Putin's long letter to the international community justifying his action because there were
"nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites" who are committing "pogroms and
terror".
Lee Arnold@80 "Putin is really afraid of leftism among Russian Ukrainians, and the
"embarrassment" of an exodus into Russia? "
Yes, Putin does not want wholesale expropriation of oligarchs, as he does not stand for
that in Russia (selective prosecution sufficient to appear to be a defender of the people and
serve as a stick -- accompanied by carrots -- to negotiate oligarch support. Also, Putin
doesn't even want to pay pensions, he certainly doesn't want the embarrassment of refugees
neglected, or worse, costing.
This point rests on the premise Putin isn't a right-winger, which is absurd.
"If the Steinmeier formula holds and there are free elections in Donbass and the majority
votes for kicking out Putin, do you think Putin going to withdraw his Russian Army regulars?"
https://www.rferl.org/a/what-is-the-steinmeier-formula-and-did-zelenskiy-just-capitulate-to-moscow-/30195593.html
This source may not be right-wing enough for your tastes, of course. But for the rest of us,
it suggests that an if centered on the Steinmeier formula is disingenuous in itself.
It's not even clear that Zelensky hasn't rejected the Steinmeier formula! The problem with
re-unifying the country is the fascist regime is quite hostile to what it sees as unUkrainian
elements, namely Russian speakers. National purity are favorite fascist principles but none
of the rest of us are required to accept them. Your belief that an election supervised by the
fascist regime is free and fair is wrong, no matter what you imply. And frankly, the notion
the OSCE is surely neutral is dubious too.
There was never any reliable evidence of any significant numbers of regulars moving into
Donetsk and Lugansk, because no, media reports are not reliable when addressing official
enemies. It is almost certain there are advisors and mercenaries, copying the US model, but
they are not what is generally meant by an invasion. They have not stakes out a separate
territory as the US territory did in Syria. There are military reasons for setting up a
perimeter, for mission security if nothing else. In short, there is in fact quite simple
reasons for thinking, yes, Putin would stop spending money on Donetsk and Lugansk, and save
on weapons and withdraw his advisers.
Further, the casualties in the Russian Army's officer corps by the way would end up being
known to the Russian Army, and eventually everyone else concerned. But they're not. Equally,
the large numbers of regulars alleged would have been in the recent prisoner exchange, but
they weren't. Some of those as I recall had been arrested merely for subversion, not taken
prisoner of war. Casualties of course are not the only costs to Putin, there also being the
money and weapons. The thing is of course, these are all excellent reasons for Putin to
withdraw. You are tacitly presuming the conclusion, that Putin is a crazed warmonger unable
even to calculate self-interest. Substituting scorn for analysis is not becoming.
"Yes, there are fascist parties." This is entirely misleading. There are fascist armed
formations incorporated into the Ukrainian army, financed privately.
I can't actually read the article as it's paywalled but it's conservative enough to carry
weight here.
There's the bit about Haaretz, which is like the anti-socialists ginning up anti-semitism
smears against Corbyn. I say the stylized swastika on the stage with the PM of Ukraine shows
us more than an old letter. I have no idea how you can say the people murdered when a
building was set on fire and democratic mob drove people back in, don't somehow count as
"pogroms and terror."
But you missed a trick in pointing out "Jewish" opposition to "Putin." (The people in
Donestsk and Lugansk are no one? Except maybe pre-corpses?) Ihor Kolomoyskiy, the primary
funder/founder of the Azov battalion, definitely wants no part of "Putin."
Most of this discussion is rarely about the left, but here arises a major marker
distinguishing the left, which is anti-fascism. You're pro-fascist.
nastywoman@79 was so stung the comment was actually intelligible. Unfortunately, asserting
something which isn't nonsense -- unlike nastywoman's usual incoherence -- without a shred of
argument is naked hostility, not an argument. The gored ox bellows loud!
FILE PHOTO: Judges at the UN's highest court are seen during a hearing in a case launched
by Ukraine which alleges Moscow is funding pro-Russian separatist groups in Ukraine, in
The Hague, Netherlands June 3, 2019. REUTERS/Eva Plevier
Reading a summary of the ruling, Presiding Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf said conditions had been met
for the case to be heard in full, with the 16-judge panel rejecting Russian objections by a large
majority.
The International Court of Justice found that on the basis of anti-terrorism and
anti-discrimination treaties signed by both countries it has jurisdiction to hear the case over
Russia's alleged support for separatists in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
At a hearing in June, Moscow had asked judges to dismiss the suit, saying Kiev was using it as
pretext for a ruling on the legality of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Addressing that point, Yusuf said Ukraine had not asked the court to rule "on the status of
Crimea or on violations of the rules of international law" other than those contained in the United
Nations anti-discrimination and anti-terrorism treaties.
Kiev says Russia's support for separatist forces violated a U.N. convention banning the
funding of terrorist groups.
From the Medium article "John Bolton's Old Rivals Say Trump Should Be Very, Very
Worried"
"I don't think dirt-digging would offend Bolton. What would offend Bolton is interrupting
military supplies to a country in a deadly battle with Russia. Doing something that for
whatever reason appeases Putin," Thielmann said."
The country referred to is Ukraine. I guess I've missed all the msm articles detailing all
those deadly clashes between Russian & Ukrainian military units along with casualty
figures and all that. I suppose I need to pay closer attention (or something).
UN says 12,800–13,000 killed since April 2014. So Congress bought a pile of Javelin
AT munitions, the ones with a top attack flight profile that will place a high explosive
shape-charge of molten copper through tops of young Russian tank commanders' heads, who are
sons of Putin's base, if there was a mechanized push further into Ukraine. [The political
tolerance window for which is narrowing.]
Our benevolent leader said, "Hold-on. You gotta first get your FBI to clear my campaign
and come up with some trumped-up charges against my political opponent. My FBI won't do it."
Congressional impoundment, solicitation of a bribe for personal gain, and abuse of power. In
any case, Ukraine's getting a smaller pile of missiles until next year, so, gross incompetent
moves, both domestic and abroad.
You recall that the Obama administration opposed giving Ukraine any lethal assistance?
Congress has just come up with an excellent method of giving the Russians a lot of free
Javelins if there were a serious fight. Which there continues to be no sign of.
The great bulk of (pro-government) Ukrainian casualties occurred in the course of
ill-advised and poorly conducted offensives against the breakaway republics. When it only
defends, the Ukrainian side doesn't suffer casualties. Because nobody attacks it.
Andrew Bacevich
describes how the U.S. learned all the wrong lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the end of the Cold War:
You won't hear it from any of the candidates vying to succeed Trump, but we are still
haunted by our false conception of the Cold War. On the stump, politicians get away with
reciting comforting clichés about the imperative of American global leadership. Yet
the time for believing such malarkey is long gone.
An essential first step toward recoupling national security policy and reason is to see
the Cold War for what it was: not a "long, twilight struggle" ending in victory, but a vast
and costly tragedy that inflicted needless suffering, brought humankind absurdly close to
extinction, and from which U.S. policymakers have drawn all the wrong lessons.
The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall offers an occasion not for celebration but
for somber and long overdue reflection.
One of the wrong lessons that U.S. policymakers drew from the events of 1989-1991 was that
the U.S. was chiefly responsible for ending and "winning" the Cold War, which inevitably
overestimated our government's capabilities and effectiveness in affecting the political
fortunes of other parts of the world. The far more critical and important role of the peoples
of central and eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself in overthrowing the system that had
oppressed them was pushed into the background as much as possible. The U.S. took credit for
their success and policymakers frequently attributed the outcome to the policies of the late
Cold War rather than to the deficiencies and failings of the other system. After waging
stalemated and failed wars in the name of anticommunism, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to
claim that they had "won" something, and so they declared victory for something that they
hadn't caused.
The period that followed the dissolution of the USSR was one of triumphalism, expansion, and
overreach. The U.S. not only congratulated itself for achieving something that was accomplished
by others, but it also assumed that it could achieve similar results in other parts of the
world. If NATO had been a great success as a defensive alliance, the "thinking" went, why
shouldn't it continue and expand to include many more countries? If the U.S. was supposedly
able to bring down the Soviet Union, why shouldn't it do the same to authoritarian regimes
elsewhere? Absent the check on ambition and hubris that a superpower rival provided, the U.S.
was free to run amok and do whatever it liked without regard for the consequences. That
triumphalism sowed the seeds for many of the more significant post-Cold War failures that we
have witnessed since then. Even today, that same overconfidence encourages U.S. policymakers to
flirt with the idea of engaging in another Cold War-style rivalry with a more formidable state
in China.
George Kennan presciently warned
against the triumphalism that he saw around him as early as 1992. At that time, he was
responding directly to the claims from Republicans that Reagan and his policies had "won" the
Cold War:
The suggestion that any American administration had the power to influence decisively the
course of a tremendous domestic-political upheaval in another great country on another side
of the globe is intrinsically silly and childish. No great country has that sort of influence
on the internal developments of any other one.
Kennan went on to say that the militarization of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was
a boon to Soviet hard-liners and in that way helped prolong it:
The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line
circles over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the
Soviet Union.
The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate
military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the
tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the
braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold
war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union
at the end of the 1980's.
Whenever hawks talk about "winning" the Cold War, they invariably mean that it was the
militarized policies they favored that carried the day, but Kennan reminded us that this was
not so. In fact, a militarized foreign policy perpetuated the struggle by providing Soviet
hard-liners with a plausible foreign threat that they could use to justify their own policies
and to clamp down on internal dissent. We have seen the same thing repeated several times in
the last thirty years on a smaller scale with other governments. The most aggressive and
confrontational policies unwittingly aid authoritarian regimes by giving them an external enemy
that they can use to deflect attention from their own failings and as a pretext for the
consolidation of power at home.
Kennan was already telling us shortly after the Cold War ended that no one had "won" it:
Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war. It was a long and costly
political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and exaggerated estimates of the intentions
and strength of the other party [bold mine-DL]. It greatly overstrained the economic
resources of both countries, leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy
financial, social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither had
anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
We can all be grateful that the Cold War ended, but we shouldn't delude ourselves with talk
of victory. Not only is it inaccurate, but it encourages the worst kinds of overreach and
arrogance that has led to several serious foreign policy failures in the decades that have
followed. Kennan warned us almost thirty years ago not to go down this path of triumphalism,
and as so often happened Americans ignored Kennan's wisdom.
Kennan concluded with the same idea that Bacevich stated at the end of his op-ed:
That the conflict should now be formally ended is a fit occasion for satisfaction but also
for sober re-examination of the part we took in its origin and long continuation. It is not a
fit occasion for pretending that the end of it was a great triumph for anyone, and
particularly not one for which any American political party could properly claim principal
credit.
American policymakers are not known for sober re-examination and acknowledgment of error,
but these are exactly the things that are needed if we are to stop making the same blunders and
learning the wrong lessons from the past. Kennan and Bacevich's advice is just as timely and
important today as it was twenty-seven years ago. Perhaps this time we should pay attention and
listen to it.
We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story
into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of
a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in
extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a
half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than
any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and
desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians;
the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war
began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam
featured a
military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units
avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where
not near-mutinous."
The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers,
General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked
mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned
sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in
Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had --
but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this
war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight,
traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."
But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a
loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I
wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never
lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."
Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before
Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in
the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of
the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on
Philadelphia.
When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their
ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their
fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York
draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and
left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally
quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight
Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and
looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."
Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the
American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied),
performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of
its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal
1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as
"uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his
speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale,
particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light
infantry in the history of the world.
But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and
Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of
Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin,
while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States.
For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions
will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and
choose reality.
This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon
Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington
policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included
in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark
Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman
General Omar Bradley.
These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake
of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the
Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson
"stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe
we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.
Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure
in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy
surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories.
Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in
later accounts.
These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories,
burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is
particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate
Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later
collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal
was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling,
rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying
the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the
Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at
Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies
were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled
pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the
war.
The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying
to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab,
leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was
Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams
and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been
the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.
In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that
nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping
search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population,
substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and
equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and
supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.
The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more
respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired
Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should
have never been in Vietnam in the first place.
"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in
Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the
American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote .
"Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable
amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did.
Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars
themselves."
Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the
will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will
to prevail, the war should have never been fought.
The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats
itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq.
The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in
the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose
senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American
Conservative , online,
back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made
assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the
fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train
and equip the Iraqi armed forces.
But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like)
judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress,
the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly
getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.
Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team
of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what
the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and
why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't
come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired
Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the
military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.
Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable
question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of
the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its
release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page
predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course
you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can,
and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's
understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on
the war.
At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that
the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad
mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that
the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that
the war, once ended, simply continued.
The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC
study:
"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior
rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough
blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning."
Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could
have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the
authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."
In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County
in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He
spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the
Emmitsburg Road.
As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and
became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an
ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning
his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody
assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the
Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which
Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence
referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground
and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything.
It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on
it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only
Lee had known that Wentz was there.
He didn't.
For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women,
for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists
or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping
wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when
lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later,
generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What
do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle
of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning,
observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be
difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did
not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that
followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was
your job to anticipate."
It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to
ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor
performance overall.
The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the
waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do
not and could not work to specs and plans.
But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the
"political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership
may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.
no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically
made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the
leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military
dissenters.
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people
trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to
solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.
The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if
war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the
keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that
wants it to end.
Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but
really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the
old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on
a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that
man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4
years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and
supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they
suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who
claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the
American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no
military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most
wars, there are no good guys.
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?
US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to
keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the
previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.
As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because
they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous
generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets
rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.
They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for
muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched
towards dug in Confederates.
This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at
the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a
long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to
have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.
The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold
harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed
with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open,
well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.
Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and
The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers
romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a
fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so
many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties
and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side
which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of
effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long
as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard,
the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man
indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes
tactical proficiency, not just bravery.
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take
over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years
ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your
manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other
countries.
In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no
purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of
Congress.
It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then
turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's
maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government
should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that
can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.
Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing
over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.
I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent
my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things
half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about
themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing
the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.
Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.
further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional
masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action
without considering all knowable facts.
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the
war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"
The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged
in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz
anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed.
There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a
particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in
history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for
it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one
of the 10 best ever.
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world,
including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was
slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast
slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of
patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later
but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have
been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved
peacefully.
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation.
750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so
they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy
Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned
Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our
"Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices
more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages
considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty
much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of
a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working
quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances,
but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind
we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not
wasted.
Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively
surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US
military death to have been in vain.
"... Until now, Iran has restrained itself despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah, Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale exchanges, the real war would begin " ..."
In my 2011 book,
The Wandering Who
, I elaborated on the possible disastrous scenario in which Israel is the nucleus of a
global escalation over Iran's emerging nuclear capabilities. I concluded that Israel's PRE Traumatic Stress
Syndrome (PRE-TSS) would be central to such a development. "The Jewish state and the Jewish discourse in
general are completely foreign to the notion of temporality. Israel is blinded to the consequences of its
actions, it only thinks of its actions in terms of short-term pragmatism. Instead of temporality, Israel
thinks in terms of an extended present."
In 2011 Israel was still confident in
its military might, certain that with the help of America or at least its support, it could deliver a mortal
military blow to Iran. But this confidence has diminished, replaced by an existential anxiety that might
well be warranted. For the last few months, Israeli military analysts have had to come to terms with Iran's
spectacular strategic and technological abilities. The recent attack on a Saudi oil facility delivered a
clear message to the world, and in particular to Israel, that Iran is far ahead of Israel and the West. The
sanctions were counter effective: Iran independently developed its own technology.
Former Israeli ambassador to the US, and
prolific historian, Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the
Atlantic
and described a horrific scenario for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.
Oren understands that a minor Israeli
miscalculation could lead to total war, one in which missiles and drones of all types would rain down on
Israel, overwhelm its defences and leave Israeli cities, its economy and its security in ruins.
Oren gives a detailed account of how a
conflict between Israel and Iran could rapidly descend into a massive "conflagration" that would devastate
Israel as well as its neighbours.
In Israel, the term
"The War Between the Wars
," refers to the targeted covert inter-war campaign waged by the Jewish State
with the purpose of postponing, while still preparing for, the next confrontation, presumably with Iran. In
the last few years Israel has carried out hundreds of 'war between the wars' strikes against Iran-linked
targets in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Oren speculates that a single miscalculation could easily lead to
retaliation by Iran. "Israel is girding for the worst and acting on the assumption that fighting could break
out at any time. And it's not hard to imagine how it might arrive. The conflagration, like so many in the
Middle East, could be ignited by a single spark."
Until now, Iran has restrained itself
despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike
by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah,
Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in
Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale
exchanges, the real war would begin "
Oren predicts that rockets would "rain on
Israel" at a rate as high as 4,000 a day. The Iron Dome system would be overwhelmed by the vast simultaneous
attacks against civilian and military targets throughout the country. And, as if this weren't devastating
enough, Israel is totally unprepared to deal with precision-guided missiles that can accurately hit targets
all across Israel from 1000 miles away.
Ben Gurion International Airport would be
shut down and air traffic over Israel closed. The same could happen to Israel's ports. Israelis that would
seek refuge in far away lands would have to swim to safety
.
In this scenario, Palestinians and
Lebanese militias might join the conflagration and attack Jewish border communities on the ground while
long-range missiles from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran land. Before long, Israel's economy would cease to
function, electrical grids severed and damaged factories and refineries would spew toxic chemicals into the
air.
In the Shoah scenario Oren describes,
"Millions of Israelis would huddle in bomb shelters. Hundreds of thousands would be evacuated from the
border areas as terrorists attempt to infiltrate them. Restaurants and hotels would empty, along with the
offices of the high-tech companies of the start-up nation. The hospitals, many of them resorting to
underground facilities, would quickly be overwhelmed, even before the skies darken with the toxic fumes of
blazing chemical factories and oil refineries."
Oren predicts that Israel's harsh
response to attack, including a violent put down of likely West Bank and Gaza protests, would result in
large scale civilian casualties and draw charges of war crimes.
As Oren states, he did not invent this
prediction, it is one of the similar scenarios anticipated by Israeli military and government officials.
If such events occur, the US will be
vital to the survival of the Jewish State by providing munitions, diplomatic, political, and legal support,
and after the war, in negotiating truces, withdrawals, prisoner exchanges and presumably 'peace agreements.'
However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the current
impeachment proceedings against Trump.
In 1973 the US helped save Israel by
providing its military with the necessary munitions. Will the US do so again? Do the Americans have the
weapons capability to counter Iran's ballistics, precision missiles and drones? More crucially, what kind of
support could America provide that would lift the spirits of humiliated and exhausted Israelis after they
emerge from underground shelters having enduring four weeks without electricity or food and see their cities
completely shattered?
This leads us to the essential issue.
Zionism vowed to emancipate the Jews from their destiny by liberating the Jews from themselves. It vowed to
bring an end to Jewish self-destruction by creating a Jewish safe haven. How is it that just seven decades
after the founding of the Jewish state, the people who have suffered throughout their history have once
again managed to create the potential for their own disaster?
ORDER IT NOW
In The Wandering Who I provide a
possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability to accept that the past is shaped and
revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink
the past and the future." Accordingly,
revisionism
is the true essence of historical thinking. It
turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the
Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and
universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish
past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear bombs
would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.
The sociopath, Ayatollah
Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks. However, there is no reason to
believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace certain suicide. It is quite likely
that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and end the theocracy, rather than die
following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
____
The whole theory about a prolonged conflict falls apart once accurate facts are applied to the situation.
Iranian al'Hezbollah has large numbers of Katyusha pattern rockets, but very few precision weapons. And to
provide human shields for these weapons, almost all of them are in a limited number of urban centers.
The facts are clear, even if Gilad chooses to ignore them in favor of his personal fantasies. Iranian
al'Hezbollah would lose badly in a total forces engagement. The nuclear incineration of their rear echelons
would leave forward forces totally defenseless against overwhelming Israeli air superiority.
-- Would there be Israeli civilian casulities? Certainly.
-- Would Lebanon become uninhabitable? Yes.
-- Would Ayatollah Khameni perish when Israeli nukes Tehran? Absolutely.
______
There is no possible scenario where Iran "wins" if they launch a substantial first strike. And, the
Iranian military understands this as fact.
@A123
It is really fun when Gilad gets off Epstein and rape stuff and ventures into wars and Israeli security. The
generals have kept Gilad up to date on the latest and the greatest.
He is so out to lunch in his desire to see Israel panic and loose the next war facing horrible casualties
because it makes his point about how the Jews are doomed unless they cease being Jews.
He really believes
that he can solve the problem and change our destiny if we all read "Wondering
Who"
In The Wandering Who I provide a possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability
to accept that the past is shaped and revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and
historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink the past and the future." Accordingly, revisionism is
the true essence of historical thinking. It turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into
an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist
promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the
Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of
the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
I wonder what it is like to wish death and destruction on a people and a country to prove your point and
call yourself an unemotional Athenian.
@A123
As you may have noticed, in the Israeli apocalyptic scenarios the Jewish state doesn't put into play the
Samson option.. it is slightly less genocidal than yourself .. you may want to ask yourself why
Israel is making a terrible mistake. The oft touted "Sampson Option" is a bogus option as Bibi, Benny Gatz
and/or any other Israeli leader knows it will be suicide if they use this option. Because even if they
emerge from the bunkers days later after using nuclear bombs against Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other European
capitals (
Samson option targets Europe
) they will be greeted with hostility and will have no
sanctuary.
Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.
However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the
current impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Not at all unpredictable with regards to Israel. Trump and Congress would use the last cent of US
taxpayer's money and the last drop of Anglo blood to save the place. Trump is Israel's US Viceroy and
Congress is its Colonial Parliament.
Israel's real nightmare starts when US nationalists toss out the colonialists, and Israel has to find a
way live on its own resources.
I have to think that considering the failure of military intelligence agencies in the past that no one has
any real idea how close Iran is to getting the bomb. But even if they get numbers of them and have a means
to deliver them on target it simply would mean that Iran and Israel are in a standoff. I can understand how
Israel would not want Iran to have the bomb but in reality how much difference would it make? It would only
be relevant if the two countries had already blundered into war and things were entering a final disastrous
stage. Then it would simply mean both countries would be destroyed instead of just one.
Also, not being a military man am I naive in thinking Iran might be able to buy nuclear weapons on the black
market? From North Korea, perhaps? I have got to suspect Israel will be faced with two options. Either fight
Iran sooner, before they get nukes. Or they will simply have to accept that Iran is going to be a nuclear
power. It's pretty obvious that Israel has been trying to get America to fight their war for them. But Trump
has been reluctant to do so. No wonder the Jews are chomping at the bit to find some way to get rid of him.
2020 should prove to be an interesting year.
This analysis leaves out two very significant historic military facts:
1) The 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon aka the "33 Day War" where in:
"Hezbollah inflicted more Israeli casualties per Arab fighter in 2006 than did any of Israel's state
opponents in the 1956, 1967, 1973, or 1982 Arab-Israeli interstate wars, and is generally acknowledge that
Israel flat out lost that war and de facto sued for a cease fire.
(see: "U.S. Department of Defense. The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for
Army and Defense Policy." Kindle Edition.)
2) The Syrian army is currently the only army in the world that has multi-front, contiguous multi-year
'combined arms' (i.e. army, armor, artillery and air force) combat experience .
Further, the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah in a recent interview pointed out that Hezbollah
fighting along side of the Syrian Army these past five years, now has experience in offensive warfare. In
2006 they fought strictly defensively.
In short, if an Israeli war comes again, given the experience of the Syrian and Hezbollah armies and
Syria acquiring state of the art air defense system (S 300, etc), Iranian missiles may very well be the
least of Israel's worries.
Indeed, before Iran launches missiles, Hezbollah and Syria may move to take back Shebaa Farms and Golan
Heights.
To my mind: Israel and American militaries are "paper Tigers". Israel has never fought a combined arms
war for a sustained period of time against an equally matched military. And the US not since Korea. Their
victories have always been overwhelming an inferior force.
@AaronB
For me the fact that the Jewish state indulges itself in apocalyptic and genocidal fantasies is really a
glimpse into to tribal mind.. as far as I can tell this pre traumatic stress points at severe form of
projection .. Israeli politicians and commentators attribute their own symptoms to their neighbours ..
@Rev. Spooner
' Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.'
The Persians more or less created 'the Jews.' At any rate, a religion recognizable
as Judaism first appeared in the wake of the Persian conquests.
However, when did the Persians 'rescue' the Jews?
They allowed the creation of an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine when they overran that place around
the beginning of the seventh century AD -- but that only lasted for about twenty years anyway.
@A123
If I may: I don't know for sure what G Atzmon meant by the Samson Option; but, I have come across this
express before and I took it to mean that Israel will go to nuclear war even if means the destruction of the
Jewish State. That is, like Samson who destroyed his enemies by killing himself; Israel nuec's Iran and Iran
nuce's Israel (kills enemies and itself).
This should not be taken lightly. While it would be totally irrational for most states to take the Samson
Option, it is to my mind a plausible option for Israel. For even if the Jewish State is destroyed, the
Jewish Nation i.e. the Jewish people around the world will survive and continue on as they have these
thousands of years. But, they will be free of what they perceive as their arch enemy i.e. Iran and other
Moslems. They survived the metaphoric Holocaust and they will survive a literal one. The Jewish State may be
destroyed but not the Jewish People.
This is something not enough people comment on. Israel's military is not a mini US military, it has serious
problems and takes losses and casualties in contexts that would be shocking for another Western country that
spends as much per capita for it's military.
This is why Israel having nuclear weapons irks me so much, the more it can't rely on it's conventional
military, the more they'll lean into their nuclear deterrent, increasing the probability of it's use. (Not
dissimilar to the situation with Pakistan vis-a-vis India, though in that case, India has nukes too)
@Tom Verso
The Samson Option
The Samson Option.jpg
Author Seymour Hersh
Country United States
Language English
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Random House
Publication date
1991
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 362 pp
ISBN 0-394-57006-5
OCLC 24609770
Dewey Decimal
355.8/25119/095694 20
LC Class UA853.I8 H47 1991
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It
details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The
"Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive
nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said
to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and
thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.
According to The New York Times, Hersh
relied on Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee who says he worked for Israeli intelligence,
for much of his information on the state of the Israeli nuclear program. However, Hersh confirmed all of
this information with at least one other source.[1] Hersh did not travel to Israel to conduct interviews for
the book, believing that he might have been subject to the Israeli Military Censor. Nevertheless, he did
interview Israelis in the United States and Europe during his three years of research.[1]
@Fran Taubman
' If you study it, can be pretty scary. It is not just Israel. Also who wants another North Korea
blackmail game?'
You mean something like the Samson option?
Anyway, the whole discussion is silly.
No nation
-- and that included Imperial Japan in 1945, when
the chips were down -- chooses self-immolation. They always give way. Iran isn't a threat to Israel because
Iran's not going to commit national suicide, and 'the Samson Option' is bullshit as well, because six
million Jews aren't going to commit national suicide either.
Zionists such as yourself only choose to think otherwise about Iran -- in spite of the absence of any
historical evidence at all -- because it justifies your own pathological aggression towards a nation that is
(a) a thousand miles away, and (b) poses no serious threat to Israel whatsoever.
Try not attacking literally everyone you can think of. That might help. I mean, fuck -- Israel is the only
state in modern history that has attacked literally
every single one
of her neighbors, and several
more besides. Since 1948, she's attacked Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, and even the
United States. What's up?
Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the
emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it
doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
The Jews are always long-term losers because they teach their children that they have always been and
will forever be victims of humanity. Jew children are traumatized at an immature young age – they are
mentally damaged by the thought that humanity wants to kill them and do them harm. This notion is inculcated
deep in the Jew child's psyche. These poor children can never escape what has been implanted. (For three
thousand years, generation after generation, Jew culture has been abusing their children with dreadful
thoughts.)
Nine out of ten adult Jews are triggered into thoughts of doom by any criticism of Israel – their
reactions are visceral, and a pure reflex coming out of their brainstem.
Jews cannot be introspective because of what elder Jews have implanted in them in their youth. Their
rational emotional systems have been short-circuited.
I have seen intelligent Jews on this forum flirt with empathy for Palestinians – only to fall back into
mindless reflexive support of whatever Israel does.
Jews Are Feeling Guilty: They Should Be. Their Influence Has Been Cancerous to America
Gilad Atzmon Wed, Nov 6, 2019
It has become an institutional Jewish habit to examine how much Jews are hated by their host nations
and how fearful Jews are of their neighbours. Jewish press outlets reported yesterday that "9 out of 10
US Jews worry about anti-Semitism."
. . .
As Haartez writer Ari Shavit wrote back in 2003: "The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative
intellectuals, most of them Jewish " Maybe some Jews now understand that the Zionist shift from a
'promised land' to the Neocon 'promised planet' doesn't reflect well on the Jews as a group.
Any separation of one group from another is a tribe. Any identity whatsoever is a tribe – because
identity sets you apart. The moment you define yourself you are tribal, because definitions distinguish
one thing from another.
The issue is that some people are not particularly tribal (i.e. Westerners) and they are open to
multiculturalism – i.e. proposition nations. However, proposition nations are very much non-tribalist places
and need non-tribalism to survive.
If tribalists talk multiculturalism and proposition nations (i.e. use deception) while practicing
tribalism, they quickly overwhelm these societies – which is where the US is today with regards to Jewish
tribalists.
What does a Jewish tribalist elite do next? And what does a (subjected) majority do next?
Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the Atlantic and described a horrific scenario
for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.
The purpose of Oren's Atlantic article was to create alarm in the DC political corridors .."warning' that
if the US doesnt 'soon help Israel' with its Iran enemy there will be chaos and dead bodies galore .
Its propaganda but 'true' propaganda 'if' Israel were to attack Iran on their own but they wont .they aren't
capable of it alone.
They are running this same propaganda articles/warnings in Europe, saying Europe needs to 'do something'
about Iran Now!
Its basically a blackmail and scare ploy because they don't think Trump will do it for them .and of course
if Israel starts a war it will be because Trump/US deserted them like he/we did the Kurds and they were
'forced' to try and defend the world against Iran 'all alone' and Israel isn't to blame for the mess lol.
What Israel will do is try to start a war on Hezbollah 'first, as Hezbollah would be their most immediate
and dangerous threat , severely crippling Israel right at the onset of any war with Iran.
They will claim that Iran directed attacks on Israel and so the US should step in because its an attack by
Iran.
If we had anyone in DC that wasn't bought off by Jewish 'benjamin's ' they would be laughing their asses
off at this typical Jewish tactic.
Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear
bombs would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.
The sociopath, Ayatollah Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks.
However, there is no reason to believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace
certain suicide. It is quite likely that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and
end the theocracy, rather than die following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
Kristol, you're drunk. Turn off the computer and go to bed, you shmuck.
That was the goal.
Remember the Zios in Rumsfeld's pentagon stressing how the US must dump 'old Europe"?
Even a non genius like me could figure that out .old Europe might be too much of a 'restraining ' influence
on the US.
The Jews hate Europe anyway ..just like they hate Russia.
Some interesting things popped up this week .Vindman , main testifier against Trump on Ukraine is a
Ukraine Jew, Solderman,Trump's main man on Ukraine is a Jew, also has now testified against Trump, their
attorney is also a Jew ..they all have issued statements about how the plucky "little Ukraine is fighting
against Russia for the US and world" and needs our aid and so on. Exactly the same wording and bullshit spin
the Jews use about Israel "fighting Iran to protect the US and world interest".
Plain to me the Uber Jews are trying to set up the Ukraine as a Israel satellite and weight on Russia's
flank.
I read Vindman's testimony to congress ..something is very off about the guy. he sounded numerous times
like he lost his script. He's, in his own words, a fanatical supporter of Ukraine . I don't like Trump but I
think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly from the CIA ,its coming from
the Nat Sec Council that Vindman works for.
It is terrifying to think that in the event Israel be run by psychopaths, they might sacrifice another "6
million", while securing themselves a new Zion.
On the other hand, a peaceful transfer of the occupation of Palestine to Patagonia (and elsewhere),
without the trigger of war, would be a possible path to peace in the Middle East (not so ideal for Patagonia
though).
What would it take for either outcome to pass? I fear the former is far more likely than the latter.
I don't like Trump but I think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly
from the CIA ,its coming from the Nat Sec Council .
who said
this today in an official gov't press release?
"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades
its neighbors and slays political opponents. It suppresses the independence of the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine. Russian authorities, even as we speak, use police raids and torture
against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who are working in opposition to Russian aggression. In
Chechnya, anyone considered "undesirable" by the authorities simply disappears.
In China – in China, the Chinese Communist Party is shaping a new vision of
authoritarianism, one that the world has not seen for an awfully long time. The Chinese
Communist Party uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be
horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans. The People's Liberation Army encroaches on the
sovereignty of its Chinese neighbors, and the Chinese Communist Party denies travel
privileges to critics – even German lawmakers – who condemn its abysmal human
rights record. The CCP harasses the families of Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, who simply
sought refuge abroad. We – all of us, everyone in this room – has a duty. We must
recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations."
The US openly occupies parts of Syria, boasts of taking it resources and supported the
attempts of the Kurds to set up their own little state, until the Turks blew a hissy fit.
And
yet it has the gall to call out what Russia does in the Ukraine as a breach of international
law.
"... If Flynn actually had lied to Strzok and Pientka that fact would have been reflected in the notes and the original 302. But that did not happen. A normal routine would be to write up the 302 and put it into final within five days. That did not happen. The original 302 still has not been produced. However, Ms. Powell has presented exhibits showing that there were other versions of the 302 generated and that substantive, unsupportable changes were made. The "final" 302 essentially made the case that Flynn lied. ..."
"... But Sidney Powell has produced documentary evidence showing that Strzok stated he did not believe that Flynn lied. And there was more FBI misconduct. General Flynn, for example, was not advised of the need to have a lawyer present nor was he shown the transcript of the call that was illegally recorded by the NSA. At no point was he given a chance to correct the record. It was a total setup and designed to paint Flynn as a liar and a collaborator with the Russians. This is malevolently diabolical conduct by law enforcement officers. ..."
There is no good news in this for the government's case. At a minimum it exposes the FBI as
incompetent clowns. At worse, it may be evidence of a deliberate effort to deceive the defense
and the judge. It has been exposed because of the insistent demands of the principled Sidney
Powell, a relentless Honey Badger. That woman will not quit in demanding that General Flynn be
treated fairly. She knows right from wrong. Cannot say the same for the FBI. The Bureau is a
disgrace.
Now that we know that the FBI mislabeled the notes taken by the FBI agents during their
interview of General Flynn, it would appear the entire case is in jeopardy. The foundation of
the charge that Flynn lied about his conversation with the Russian Ambassador is predicated on
the notes the FBI agents took and then turned into a 302 report. I asked one of my retired FBI
buddies (he served as a Special Agent in Charge of a large US city) if the agents were required
to date and sign their notes. He replied: No, we did not sign and date notes. They were placed
in a 1-A (evidence) Envelope which had our name and the date collected along with the file
number and, I believe, the case title. The 1-As were kept as part of the original case file.
They were not entered into evidence like other things we collected.
Those notes should have been placed in an "evidence" envelope with the appropriate name and
date on the envelope. How could so-called professionals screw up something this basic?
There was something more nefarious afoot. Let's put this into the broader context. If
Flynn actually had lied to Strzok and Pientka that fact would have been reflected in the notes
and the original 302. But that did not happen. A normal routine would be to write up the 302
and put it into final within five days. That did not happen. The original 302 still has not
been produced. However, Ms. Powell has presented exhibits showing that there were other
versions of the 302 generated and that substantive, unsupportable changes were made. The
"final" 302 essentially made the case that Flynn lied.
But Sidney Powell has produced documentary evidence showing that Strzok stated he did
not believe that Flynn lied. And there was more FBI misconduct. General Flynn, for example, was
not advised of the need to have a lawyer present nor was he shown the transcript of the call
that was illegally recorded by the NSA. At no point was he given a chance to correct the
record. It was a total setup and designed to paint Flynn as a liar and a collaborator with the
Russians. This is malevolently diabolical conduct by law enforcement officers.
Honey Badger Powell's terrific lawyering and insistence on getting her hands on the evidence
the US Government is withholding has now backed the Mueller team into a corner. Sidney Powell
has exposed staggering misconduct and malfeasance. Michael Flynn will be exonerated. The only
real question is whether or not the prosecutors will be held in contempt and tried.
Why doesn't the FBI, just record an interview? It's not that video cameras and tape
recorders are a new invention. Is the objective to manipulate using written interpretations
of conversations?
I'm worried there won't be any popcorn left by the time we get to the end of this sorry saga.
It would be nice to think that success by Sidney Powell might be the start of the finale in
this duplicitous story but I doubt it. The world is upside down and to many this is now a
matter of belief not evidence, something that has been largely caused be an entirely partisan
mainstream media (interested only in improving its revenue stream) and what can only be
described as a totally gullible section of the voting public.
One thing, Flynn has one hell of a lawsuit against his prior lawyers - a well known swamp law
firm. Egregious malpractice if not outright conspiring with the prosecutors.
FBI interviews are not recorded because if they were, then the interview subject could not be
falsely charged with the felony of lying to a federal investigator.
I need to write about the long history of the FBI honoring J. Edgar Hoover's policy, even
countering former Director Louis Freeh, after a meeting in mid 1990's with a federal judge
who had same suggestion, ORDERED the FBI to begin tape recording confessions and even after
many states like Minnesota, began to find their own constitutions required tape-recording (at
least of custodial confessions). After Freeh ordered the FBI to begin tape-recording, a
number of SACs argued the advantages for prosecutorial purposes of sticking with the old
policy of allowing Agents to write up, from memory and notes, what subjects and witnesses
said. The SACs made the point that juries would always tend to believe agents over the word
of defendants. So Freeh backed down. Flynn's attorney ought to request these memos
documenting how FBI policy was deliberately kept antiquated because it was advantageous.
Perhaps Larry Johnson knows -- Does Michael Flynn have some form of redress agains the
government, some established protocol for compensation for the misery and expense he's been
put through? Or are lawsuits against former lawyers his only option to try to recoup legal
expenses?
Strozk's caree/life is over. An interesting meditation: is he an evil man, or did he get
caught up in something larger than he could handle? (He thought he had what it took to swim
with the sharks, but he was just a barnacle. Or steelhead trout.)
The "unidentified" supposed whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, is young - early 30s. Age of
consent, for sure, but very young, the "age of youthful ambition," a different category from
Strozk, the age of damn well should have known better. I would judge Eric -- whom I suspect
was at very least put up to carrying out dirty deeds for Biden and careerism -- less harshly
than Strozk.
How did Sidney Powell become involved in this long, on-going case? She can't ethically
"solicit" the business, but someone must have put Flynn in touch with her -- at what point.
What made Flynn seek legal advice elsewhere.
Flynn seemed so passive about facing these drummed up charges earlier in the case - what
exactly was he trying to protect his son about that allegedly caused this legal passivity
about his own case.
Love watching this unfold and the lessons in " big government" that come with it. But
Flynn having to live out a modern day Greek tragedy is a very high price to pay for our
civics lesson.
Asked and answered: Powell tussled dramatically in the past with Andrew Weissman over his
role in the government's prosecution of Enron steam roller cases. She finally got court
vindication for her clients 9 years later.
Why does Andrew Weissman's name keep popping up just about everywhere now, when one is
looking in pari delitci (including our now famous Pierre Delecto)?
From what I have read, I gather that the FBI in the Mueller / Comey era has made extensive
use of "perjury traps". They then threaten charges to get someone to "flip" on someone
bigger, in this case Trump. Flynn wouldn't flip even when they threatened to go after Flynn's
son. So they decided to "F" him, as stated by Andrew McCabe.
The FBI has been thoroughly disgraced, and Wray is incapable of cleaning it up. He just
wants to keep the dirt under the rug. It is too late for that, it is all coming out. US
citizens deserve to know how dirty our FBI and CIA are - they are criminal organizations.
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and
Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being
unreasonable--those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost
Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort. Jokes aside, however,
I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many
"free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.
"... "Page didn't recall whether she took part in editing the FD-302," the filing stated. Included was a discussion between Lisa Page and her paramour Peter Strzok talking about editing Flynn's 302 report. Strzok to Page: "I made your edits" Also discussion of misleading leadership re: picking up 302. Upon seeing her texts, Page "believes she must have seen it at some point " ..."
Another shoe is about to drop. Gen. Flynn was entrapped by the Obama Bin Biden clan.
General Flynn Attorney Sidney Powell: "We Will Seek to Move to Dismiss for Egregious
Government Conduct"
Attorney Sidney Powell joined Lou Dobbs on Tuesday night to discuss the latest updates on
US Government's court case against General Michael Flynn.
The Justice Department on Friday responded to Flynn's lawyer Sidney Powell's motion to
compel production of Brady Material and to hold prosecutors in contempt.
Sidney Powell filed a motion a couple
weeks ago revealing that General Flynn was indeed set up by the FBI with an ambush, damaging
leaks and altered 302 reports.
Powell revealed that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page EDITED General Mike Flynn's 302 report,
then lied to the DOJ about the edits.
A 302 summary report consists of contemporaneous notes taken by an FBI agent when
interviewing a subject.
"Lisa Page, Special Counsel to Deputy Director McCabe, resigned; she edited Mr. Flynn's
302 and was part of a small, high-level group that strategically planned his ambush." the
filing said.
"Page didn't recall whether she took part in editing the FD-302," the filing stated.
Included was a discussion between Lisa Page and her paramour Peter Strzok talking about
editing Flynn's 302 report. Strzok to Page: "I made your edits" Also discussion of misleading
leadership re: picking up 302. Upon seeing her texts, Page "believes she must have seen it at
some point "
"... "Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it" (p. 11). ..."
"... Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic. ..."
"... The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15). ..."
"... our corporate media have devised -- at least for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21). ..."
"... And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid. ..."
"... For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same" (pp. 259-260). ..."
Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc . is the most insightful and revelatory book about American
politics to appear since the publication of Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal almost four
full years ago, near the beginning of the last presidential election cycle.
While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and
Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the
prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social
circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our
intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class.
In fact, I would strongly recommend that the reader spend some time with Frank's What's the
Matter with Kansas? (2004) and Listen, Liberal! (2016) as he or she takes up
Taibbi's book.
And to really do the book the justice it deserves, I would even more vehemently recommend
that the reader immerse him- or herself in Taibbi's favorite book and vade-mecum ,
Manufacturing Consent (which I found to be a grueling experience: a relentless
cataloging of the official lies that hide the brutality of American foreign policy) and, in
order to properly appreciate the brilliance of Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the Media Stole from
Pro Wrestling," visit some locale in Flyover Country and see some pro wrestling in person
(which I found to be unexpectedly uplifting -- more on this soon enough).
Taibbi tells us that he had originally intended for Hate, Inc . to be an updating of
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (1988), which he first read
thirty years ago, when he was nineteen. "It blew my mind," Taibbi writes. "[It] taught me that
some level of deception was baked into almost everything I'd ever been taught about modern
American life .
Once the authors in the first chapter laid out their famed propaganda model [italics
mine], they cut through the deceptions of the American state like a buzz saw" (p. 10). For what
seemed to be vigorous democratic debate, Taibbi realized, was instead a soul-crushing
simulation of debate. The choices voters were given were distinctions without valid
differences, and just as hyped, just as trivial, as the choices between a Whopper and a Big
Mac, between Froot Loops and Frosted Mini-Wheats, between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, between
Marlboro Lites and Camel Filters. It was all profit-making poisonous junk.
"Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is
choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear
it" (p. 11). And there's an indisputable logic at work here, because the reality of
hideous American war crimes is and always has been, from the point of view of the big media
corporations, a "narrative-ruining" buzz-kill. "The uglier truth [brought to light in
Manufacturing Consent ], that we committed genocide of a fairly massive scale across
Indochina -- ultimately killing at least a million innocent civilians by air in three countries
-- is pre-excluded from the history of the period" (p. 13).
So what has changed in the last thirty years? A lot! As a starting point let's consider the
very useful metaphor found in the title of another great media book of 1988: Mark Crispin
Miller's Boxed In: The Culture of TV . To say that Americans were held captive by
the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility
of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their
having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on
the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings
of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of
our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic.
Taibbi summarizes the history of these three decades in terms of three "massive revolutions"
in the media plus one actual massive political revolution, all of which, we should note, he
discussed with his hero Chomsky (who is now ninety! -- Edward Herman passed away in 2017) even
as he wrote his book. And so: the media revolutions which Taibbi describes were, first, the
coming of FoxNews along with Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio; second, the coming of CNN, i.e.,
the Cable News Network, along with twenty-four hour infinite-loop news cycles; third, the
coming of the Internet along with the mighty social media giants Facebook and Twitter.
The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of
the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of
anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15).
For all that, however, the most salient difference between the news media of 1989 and the
news media of 2019 is the disappearance of the single type of calm and decorous and slightly
boring cis-het white anchorman (who somehow successfully appealed to a nationwide audience) and
his replacement by a seemingly wide variety of demographically-engineered news personæ
who all rage and scream combatively in each other's direction. "In the old days," Taibbi
writes, "the news was a mix of this toothless trivia and cheery dispatches from the frontlines
of Pax Americana . The news [was] once designed to be consumed by the whole house . But once we
started to be organized into demographic silos [italics mine], the networks found
another way to seduce these audiences: they sold intramural conflict" (p. 18).
And in this new media environment of constant conflict, how, Taibbi wondered, could public
consent , which would seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from conflict,
still be manufactured ?? "That wasn't easy for me to see in my first decades in the
business," Taibbi writes. "For a long time, I thought it was a flaw in the Chomsky/Herman
model" (p. 19).
But what Taibbi was at length able to understand, and what he is now able to describe for us
with both wit and controlled outrage, is that our corporate media have devised -- at least
for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in
order to smother real dissent (p. 21).
And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam
job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.
Or pretty much so. Taibbi is more historically precise. Because of the tweaking of the
Herman/Chomsky propaganda model necessitated by the disappearance of the USSR in 1991 ("The
Russians escaped while we weren't watching them, / As Russians do ," Jackson Browne presciently
prophesied on MTV way back in 1983), one might now want to speak of a Propaganda Model 2.0.
For, as Taibbi notes, " the biggest change to Chomsky's model is the discovery of a far
superior 'common enemy' in modern media: each other. So long as we remain a bitterly-divided
two-party state, we'll never want for TV villains" (pp. 207-208).
To rub his great insight right into our uncomprehending faces, Taibbi has almost
sadistically chosen to have dark, shadowy images of a yelling Sean Hannity (in lurid FoxNews
Red!) and a screaming Rachel Maddow (in glaring MSNBC Blue!) juxtaposed on the cover of his
book. For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters
do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And
though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the
same" (pp. 259-260).
And that effect is hate. Impotent hate. For while Rachel's fan demographic is all wrapped up
in hating Far-Right Fascists Like Sean, and while Sean's is all wrapped up in despising Libtard
Lunatics Like Rachel, the bipartisan consensus in Washington for ever-increasing military
budgets, for everlasting wars, for ever-expanding surveillance, for ever-growing bailouts of
and tax breaks for and and handouts to the most powerful corporations goes forever
unchallenged.
Oh my. And it only gets worse and worse, because the media, in order to make sure that their
various siloed demographics stay superglued to their Internet devices, must keep
ratcheting up levels of hate: the Fascists Like Sean and the Libtards Like Rachel must be
continually presented as more and more deranged, and ultimately as demonic. "There is us and
them," Taibbi writes, "and they are Hitler" (p. 64). A vile reductio ad absurdum has
come into play: "If all Trump supporters are Hitler, and all liberals are also Hitler," Taibbi
writes, " [t]he America vs. America show is now Hitler vs. Hitler! Think of the
ratings! " The reader begins to grasp Taibbi's argument that our mainstream corporate media are
as bad as -- are worse than -- pro wrestling. It's an ineluctable downward spiral.
Taibbi continues: "The problem is, there's no natural floor to this behavior. Just as cable
TV will eventually become seven hundred separate twenty-four-hour porn channels, news and
commentary will eventually escalate to boxing-style, expletive-laden, pre-fight tirades, and
the open incitement to violence [italics mine]. If the other side is literally Hitler,
[w]hat began as America vs. America will eventually move to Traitor vs. Traitor ,
and the show does not work if those contestants are not eventually offended to the point of
wanting to kill one another" (pp. 65-69).
As I read this book, I often wondered about how difficult it was emotionally for
Taibbi to write it. I'm just really glad to see that the guy didn't commit suicide along the
way. He does describe the "self-loathing" he experienced as he realized his own complicity in
the marketing processes which he exposes (p. 2). He also apologizes to the reader for his not
being able to follow through on his original aim of writing a continuation of Herman and
Chomsky's classic: "[W]hen I sat down to write what I'd hoped would be something with the
intellectual gravitas of Manufacturing Consent ," Taibbi confesses, "I found decades of
more mundane frustrations pouring out onto the page, obliterating a clinical examination" (p.
2).
I, however, am profoundly grateful to Taibbi for all of his brilliantly observed anecdotes.
The subject matter is nauseating enough even in Taibbi's sparkling and darkly tragicomic prose.
A more academic treatment of the subject would likely be too depressing to read. So let me
conclude with an anecdote of my own -- and an oddly uplifting one at that -- about reading
Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the News Media Stole from Pro Wrestling."
On the same day I read this chapter I saw that, on the bulletin board in my gym, a poster
had appeared, as if by magic, promoting an upcoming Primal Conflict (!) professional
wrestling event. I studied the photos of the wrestlers on the poster carefully, and, as an
astute reader of Taibbi, I prided myself on being able to identify which of them seemed be
playing the roles of heels , and which of them the roles of babyfaces .
For Taibbi explains that one of the fundamental dynamics of wrestling involves the invention
of crowd-pleasing narratives out of the many permutations and combinations of pitting
heels against faces . Donald Trump, a natural heel , brings the goofy
dynamics of pro wrestling to American politics with real-life professional expertise. (Taibbi
points out that in 2007 Trump actually performed before a huge cheering crowd in a
Wrestlemania event billed as the "battle of the billionaires." Watch it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/5NsrwH9I9vE --
unbelievable!!)
The mainstream corporate media, on the other hand, their eyes fixed on ever bigger and
bigger profits, have drifted into the metaphorical pro wrestling ring in ignorance, and so,
when they face off against Trump, they often end up in the role of inept prudish
pearl-clutching faces .
Taibbi condemns the mainstream media's failure to understand such a massively popular form
of American entertainment as "malpractice" (p. 125), so I felt more than obligated to buy a
ticket and see the advertised event in person. To properly educate myself, that is.
I have stopped watching broadcast "news" other than occasional sessions of NPR in the car.
I get most of my news from sources such as this and from overseas sources (The Guardian,
Reuters, etc.). I used to subscribe to newspapers but have given them up in disgust, even
though I was looking forward to leisurely enjoying a morning paper after I retired.
I was brought up in the positive 1950's and, boy, did this turn out poorly.
Matt Taibbi is an American treasure, and I love his writing very much, but we also need to
ask, Why hasn't another Chomsky (or another Hudson), an analyst with a truly deep and
wide-ranging, synthetic mind, appeared on the left to take apart our contemporary media and
show us its inner workings? Have all the truly great minds gone to work for Wall Street? I
don't have an answer, but to me the pro wrestling metaphor, while intriguing, misses
something about the Fourth Estate in America, if it indeed still exists. And that is, except
for radio, there is a distinct imbalance between the two sides of the MSM lineup. On the
corporate liberal side of the national MSM team you have five wrestlers, but on the
conservative/reactionary side you have only the Fox entry. Because of this imbalance, the
corruption, laziness, self-indulgence, and generally declining interest in journalistic
standards seems greater among the corporate liberal media team, including the NYT and WaPo,
than the Fox team.
I'm not a fan of either Maddow (in her current incarnation) or Hannity, but Hannity,
perhaps because he thinks he's like David, often hustles to refute the discourse of the
corporate liberal Goliath team. Hannity obviously does more research on some topics than
Maddow, and, perhaps because he began in radio, he puts more emphasis on semi-rationally
structured rants than Maddow, who depends more on primal emotion, body language, and
Hollywood-esque fear-inducing atmospherics.
I'd wager that in a single five-minute segment there will often be twice as many rational
distinctions made in a Hannity rant than in a Maddow performance. In addition, for the last
three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right about the fake Russiagate propaganda
blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong from the very beginning as propaganda
industry trend-setter Adam Schiff. So for at least these last three years, the Maddow-Hannity
primal match has been a somewhat misleading metaphor. The Blob and the security state have
been decisively supporting (and directing?) the corporate liberal global interventionist
media, at least regarding Russia and the permanent war establishment, and because the
imbalance between the interventionist and the non-interventionist MSM, Russia and Ukraine are
being used as a wedge to steadily break down the firewalls between the Dem party, the intel
community, and the interventionist MSM. If we had real public debates with both sides at
approximately equal strength as we did during the Vietnam War, then even pro wrestling-type
matches would be superior to what we have now, which is truthy truth and thoughtsy thought
coming to us from the military industrial complex and monopolistic holding companies. If
fascism is defined as the fusion of the state and corporations, then the greatest threat of
fascism in America may well be coming from the apparent gradual fusion of the corporate
liberal MSM, the Dem party elite, and the intel community. Instead of an MSM wrestling match,
we may soon be faced with a Japanese-style 'hitori-zumo' match in which a sumo wrestler
wrestles with only himself. Once these sumo wrestlers were believed to be wrestling with
invisible spirits, but those days are gone . http://kikuko-nagoya.com/html/hitori-zumo.htm
Today's Noam Chomksy? Chomsky was part of the machine who broke ranks with it. His MIT
research was generously funded by the Military Industrial Complex. Thankfully, enough of his
latent humanity and Trotskyite upbringing shone through so he exposed what he was part of. So
I guess today that's Chris Hedges, though he's a preacher at heart and not a semiotician.
> In addition, for the last three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right
about the fake Russiagate propaganda blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong
Eh. Read whats-his-name's (Frankfurter?) book On Bullshit . You are giving
Hannity credit for something he doesn't really care about.
I don't believe the media environment as a whole leans corporate Dem/neoliberal.
T.V. maybe, but radio is much more right wing than left (yes there is NPR and Pacifica,
the latter with probably only a scattering of listerners but ) and it's still out there and a
big influence, radio hasn't gone away. So doesn't the right wing tilt of radio kind of
balance out television? (not necessarily in a good way but). And then there is the internet
and I have no idea what the overall lean of that is (I mean I prefer left wing sites, but
that's purely my own bubble and actually there are much fewer left analysis out there than
I'd like)
The whole review is good, but this extract should be quoted extensively:
While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and
Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the
prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite
social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our
intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class.
In short, stagnation and self-dealing at the top. What could possibly go wrong?
Are you serious? Maddow called Trump a traitor and accused him of betrayal in Russiagate,
and was caught out when that fell apart. This was pointed out all over the MSM .
Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and
portable tablets
and then goes on to spend most of the article talking about television. I'd say television
is still the main propaganda instrument even if many webheads like yours truly ignore it
(I've never seen Hannity's show or Maddow's–just hear the rumors). Arguably even
newspapers like the NYT have been dumbed down because the reporters long to be on TV and join
the shouting. And it's surely no coincidence that our president himself is a TV (and WWE)
star. Mass media have always been feeders of hysteria but television gave them faces and
voices. Watching TV is also a far more passive experience than surfing the web. They are
selling us "narratives," bedtime stories, and we like sleepy children merely listen.
This rave review has inspired me to add this to my to-read non-fiction queue. Currently
reading William Dalrymple's The Anarchy, on the rise of the East India Company. Next up: Matt
Stoller's Goliath. And then I'll get to Taibbi. Probably worth digging up my original copy of
Manufacturing Consent as well, which I read many moons ago; time for a re-read.
May I suggest Stephen Cohen's "War with Russia?" if it's not already on your list? In
focusing on the danger emerging from the new cold war, seeded by the Democrats, propagated by
corporate media (which he thinks is more dangerous than the first), Cohen clarifies the
importance of diplomacy especially with one's nuclear rivals.
Us rubes knew decades ago about pro wrestling. There was a regional circuit and the hero
in one town would become the villain in another town. The ones to be surprised were like John
Stossel, who got a perforated eardrum from a slap upside the head for his efforts at
in-your-face journalism with a wrestler who just wouldn't play along with his grandstanding.
Somewhere, kids cheered and life went on.
Ah, Ancient Athens, here we come – running back to repeat your mistakes! Our MSM
media has decided that when we are not at our neighbor's throats, we should be at each
other's throats!
I was watching old clips of the 'Fred Friendly Seminars' on YouTube. IMHO any channel that
produced a format such as this would be a ratings bonanza. Imagine a round table with various
media figures (corporate) left, (corporate) right, and independent being refereed by a
host-moderator discussing topics in 'Hate, Inc.'. In wrestling it's called a Battle Royale.
The Fourth Estate in a cage match!
And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam
job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.
This is important, if people don't want to be naive about what democracy buys. Democracy
in the end is a ritual system to determine which members of an elite would win a war without
actually having to hold the war. Like how court functions to replace personal revenge by
determining (often) who would win in a fight if there were one, and the feudal system
replaced the genocidal wars of the axial age with the gentler warfare of the middle ages
which were often ritual wars of the elite that avoided the full risk of the earlier wars.
That, I think, is important -- under a democracy, the winner should be normally the winner
of the avoided violent conflict to be sustainable. Thus, it's enough to get most people to
consent to the solution, using the traditional meaning of consent being "won't put up a fight
to avoid it". If the choices on the table are reduced enough, you can get by with most people
simply dropping out of the questions.
Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit
It shouldn't be a surprise that we've moved to "faking dissent" -- it's the natural
evolution of a system where a lot of the effective power is in the hands of tech, and not
just as in the early 20th century, how many workers you have and how many soldiers you can
raise.
If you don't like it, change the technology we use to fight one another. We went from
tribes to lords when we switch from sticks to advanced forged weapons, and we went from
feudalism to democracy when we had factories dropping guns that any 15 year old could use
(oversimplifying a bit). Now that the stuff requires expertise, you'd expect a corresponding
shift in how we ritualize our conflict avoidance, and thus the organization of how we control
communication and how we organize our rituals of power.
Aka, it's the scientists and the engineers who end up determining how everything is
organized, and people never seem to bother with that argument, which is especially surprising
that even hard-core Marxists waste their time on short-term politics rather than the tech
we're building.
I'd be curious whether Taibbi thought about the issue of the nature of the technology and
whether there are technological options on the horizon which drive the conflict in other
directions. If we had only kept the laws on copyright and patent weaker, so that the
implementation of communicative infrastructure would have stayed decentralized
Tabby's "manufacturing fake consent" was really the whole punchline – the joke's on
us. Hunter S. Thompson, another of Taibbi's heroes, is, along with Chomsky, speaking to us
through MT. Our media is distracting us from social coherence. Another thing it is doing
(just my opinion) is it is overwhelming us to the point of disgust. Nobody likes it. And we
protect ourselves by tuning it out. Turning it off. Once the screaming lunatics marginalize
themselves by making the whole narrative hysterical, we just act like it's another family
fight and we're gonna go do something else. When everyone is screaming, no one is
screaming.
I have tried to read Hate Inc. and Taibbi's Griftopia but one of my main issues with
Taibbi's writing is his lack of notes, references, or bibliography, etc. in his books. In
skimming Hate Inc. it seems like a book I would enjoy reading, however my personal value
system is that any book without footnotes, endnotes, citations, or at minimum a bibliography
is just an opinion or a story. At least Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal has a section for End
Notes/References at the end of the book. Again just my personal values.
I am from Greater Boston, far, far from flyover country (which I imagine begins in Yonkers
NY), but I sure grew up with pro wrestling as part of the schoolyard discourse. I certainly
knew it was as much of a family affair as Disney on Ice and have trouble believing he thought
otherwise though I will not impugn his honesty. I am very grateful to the author for taking
the time to write this, but is it possible for a male who grew up in the US to be as deeply
embedded in the MSNBC demo as he claims to be?
Seriously, how is it possible for a male raised in the US to not at least have some
working familiarity with pro wrestling? My family along with my community was very close to
the national median income–do higher income boys really not learn about WWF and
WWE?
Seriously, rich kids, what was childhood like? I know you had music lessons and sports
camps, what else? Was it really that different?
Sorry, my blue collar, lifetime union member brother says your view is horseshit. All the
knows about WWE and WWF is that they are big-budget fakery and that's why they are of no
interest.
aye. in my blue to white collar( and back to blue to no collar) upbringing, wrestling was
never a thing. it was for the morons who couldn't read. seen as patently absurd by just about
everyone i knew. and this in klanridden east texas exurbia
wife's mexican extended familia oth luche libre is a big thing that all and sundry talked
about at thanksgiving. less so these days possibly due to the hyperindiviualisation of media
intake mentioned
(and,btw, in my little world , horseshit is a good thing)
Even allowing for my lefty-liberal bias, I do not see how it is possible to equate Fox
Noise and MSNBC, or Hannity and Maddow, as "both-sides" extremists. Fox violates basic
professional canons of fairness and equity on a daily basis. MSNBC occasionally does, but is
quick to correct errors of fact. Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without
much education or knowledge of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar. It is
one of the evil successes of the right-wing news cauldron to have successfully equated these
two figures and organizations.
Huh? MSNBC regularly makes errors of omission and commission with respect to Sanders. They
are still pushing the Russiagate narrative. That's a massive, two-year, virtually all the
time error they have refused to recant.
The blind spots of people on the soi-disant left are truly astonishing.
'Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without much education or knowledge
of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar '
oh, well, then – end of conversation! i mean, god knows, it'd be a cold day in hell
before a rhodes scholar, or even someone married to one, would ever lead us astray down the
rosy neoliberal path to hell, while, at the same time, under the spell of trump derangement
syndrome, actually attempt to revive the mccarthy era, eh?
Actual drugs are being used to hinder debate as well as emotional drugs like hate.
They can't trust agency to be removed by words and images alone – the stakes are too
high.
Now all of you go take a feel good pill and stop complaining!
I've been impressed with Taibbi's work, what I've read of it, but ironically this very
article contains a quote from him which exemplifies the problem: his casual assertion that
the US committed "genocide" in Indochina. Even the most fervent critics of US policy didn't
say this at the time, for the very good reason that there was no evidence that the US tried
to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic or nationalist group (the full definition is a lot
more complex and demanding than that). He clearly means that the US was responsible for lots
of deaths, which is incontestable. But the process of endless escalation of rhetoric, which
this book seems to be partly about, means that everything now has to be described in the most
extreme, absurd or apocalyptic tones, and at the top of your voice, otherwise nobody takes
any notice. So any self-respecting war now has to be qualified as "genocide" or nobody will
take any notice.
Obama Bin Biden and the crooked clan need to get back in the game somehow so they can rip
off another 3 billion in US tax payer loans. What were they up to 44 Billion in fraudulent
loans to Ukraine?
Interesting how they want to Impeach Trump over Ukraine, don't you think?
Oleg, you followed Biden story from its very inception. Biden is not the only Dem
politician involved in the Ukrainian corruption schemes, is he?
Indeed, John Kerry, the Secretary of State in Obama's administration, was his
partner-in-crime. But Joe Biden was number one. During the Obama presidency, Biden was the
US proconsul for Ukraine, and he was involved in many corruption schemes. He authorised
transfer of three billion dollars of the US taxpayers' money to the post-coup government of
the Ukraine; the money was stolen, and Biden took a big share of the spoils.
It is a story of ripping the US taxpayer and the Ukrainian customer off for the benefit
of a few corruptioners, American and Ukrainian. And it is a story of Kiev regime and its
dependence on the US and IMF. The Ukraine has a few midsize deposits of natural gas,
sufficient for domestic household consumption. The cost of its production was quite low;
and the Ukrainians got used to pay pennies for their gas. Actually, it was so cheap to
produce that the Ukraine could provide all its households with free gas for heating and
cooking, just like Libya did. Despite low consumer price, the gas companies (like Burisma)
had very high profits and very little expenditure.
After the 2014 coup, IMF demanded to raise the price of gas for the domestic consumer to
European levels, and the new president Petro Poroshenko obliged them. The prices went
sky-high. The Ukrainians were forced to pay many times more for their cooking and heating;
and huge profits went to coffers of the gas companies. Instead of raising taxes or lowering
prices, President Poroshenko demanded the gas companies to pay him or subsidise his
projects. He said that he arranged the price hike; it means he should be considered a
partner.
Burisma Gas company had to pay extortion money to the president Poroshenko. Eventually
its founder and owner Mr Nicolai Zlochevsky decided to invite some important Westerners
into the company's board of directors hoping it would moderate Poroshenko's appetites. He
had brought in Biden's son Hunter, John Kerry, Polish ex-President Kwasniewski; but it
didn't help him.
Poroshenko became furious that the fattened calf may escape him, and asked the Attorney
General Shokin to investigate Burisma trusting some irregularities would emerge. AG Shokin
immediately discovered that Burisma had paid these 'stars' between 50 and 150 thousand
dollar per month each just for being on the list of directors. This is illegal by the
Ukrainian tax code; it can't be recognised as legitimate expenditure.
At that time Biden the father entered the fray. He called Poroshenko and gave him six
hours to close the case against his son. Otherwise, one billion dollars of the US
taxpayers' funds won't pass to the Ukrainian corruptioners. Zlochevsky, the Burisma owner,
paid Biden well for this conversation: he received between three and ten million dollars,
according to different sources.
AG Shokin said he can't close the case within six hours; Poroshenko sacked him and
installed Mr Lutsenko in his stead. Lutsenko was willing to dismiss the case of Burisma,
but he also could not do it in a day, or even in a week. Biden, as we know, could not keep
his trap shut: by talking about the pressure he put on Poroshenko, he incriminated himself.
Meanwhile Mr Shokin gave evidence that Biden put pressure on Poroshenko to fire him, and
now it was confirmed. The evidence was given to the US lawyers in connection with another
case, Firtash case.
"... As for the rest of Ukraine, even though they lost something, they get something valuable in return: it's called neutral status between east and west. A subdued, federalized Ukraine led by Zelensky, in many ways, makes Ukraine "Finlandized." That is good for the Ukrainian people. It means they retain their independence, but peacefully accept that Russia controls their foreign policy. That position benefited Finland between 1945 and 1991. Finland is now a peaceful and prosperous country, and it is no longer living under influence of Russia or the Soviets. If "Finlandization" led to happiness for the Finns, it can do the same for Ukraine. ..."
"... Finland did not fight against Swedish language and peacefully uses it, while it is "legacy of Swedish occupation" and less than 10% of Finnish people can speak it. Ukrainian Nazis are deprived of wisdom, they are fighting with Russian language and own people. So, if you haven't brain, nothing will help you. ..."
"... after Maidan, Nuland directly stated that the United States spent 5 billion on "building democracy in Ukraine." The United States invested 5 billion in a coup, but is Poland to blame? why? if Poland had really done that, then western Ukraine would have become part of Poland immediately after the Maidan, but this did not happen. After the Maidan, Biden was photographed in a pride chair, but not the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland;) ..."
When Russia is led by truly capable leaders, it can beat any foreign power in war or geostrategic conflict. Today Russia is
led by a great man who is starting to look more and more like another Suvorov.
And everyone knows who Suvorov was.
Just read today's headlines concerning Syria. Russia ordered Turkey to stand down its offensive. Russian troops are now functioning
as peacekeepers in-between the Turkish and Syrian armies. The Kurds have signed allied themselves with Russia and Assad.
..while Americans of all stripes scratch their heads wondering what went wrong, and then check CNN and their FB feeds in a
hopeless bid to understand what's going down. Just.... hilarious....
What disturbs me the most is that Americans are being misled into believing that they "lost" something in Syria. In reality,
America "lost" nothing in Syria. That's because the US was never established in Syria to begin with. America has long been established
in Syria's neighbors, Israel, SA, Turkey, and to a lesser degree Iraq. But not Syria.
Basically, America got involved in Syria for aggressive, illegitimate, and unnecessary reasons. We were there to further the
over-ambitious geopolitical ambitions of our ME allies. That's why America launched a minor invasion of eastern Syria, and armed
and funded rebels, jihadis to try to violently overthrow Assad. And when that didn't work, the US POTUS justifiably pulled out
US troops and stopped supporting the rebels.
So, America didn't ever have anything to gain or to lose in Syria. Nothing at all.
Meanwhile, all the hawkish American newspapers -- which includes much of MSM -- are now complaining that Trump allowed Russia
to "take" Syria, and to "humiliate" and "drive out" America from that country. What hogwash! What propaganda and lies!
Russia has been in Syria for nearly 50 years. That means Russia's the chief ally of Syria, and as such, is a guarantor peace
and stability in the country. Also, Russia definitely has something to lose in Syria if Assad gets overthrown. So, in the end,
Russia wasn't trying to "take over Syria," as lying US media suggests. Russia was just protecting itself, protecting Assad, and
trying to impose peace on the region.
Check out Newsweek's totally dishonest story on this is subject. The article was published today. It's a shame so many
naive Americans believe these lies about America's alleged "role" in Syria.
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people. If you're talking about Butinterests in
terms of money, no -- we don't have any. But in terms of principles, yes, we were justified in entering that area of the country.
And we made a difference. Or else the Russians wouldn't be rushing in to take the place we left. We were getting a lot out
of very little engagement.
Russia has never been a guarantee for peace and stability anywhere; it has always been a guarantee of more support for Russia.
Whenever necessary, instabillity was sown, and inconvenient parties, whether or not former allies, were abandoned.
Plus, there is the nagging issue of the Kurds having helped us in the fight against ISIS. Letting this out of the picture is
as dishonest as you try to make parts of the MSM be.
But hey -- have your own opinions. Write a book about them while you're at it.
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people. If you're talking about Butinterests in
terms of money, no -- we don't have any. But in terms of principles, yes, we were justified in entering that area of the country.
sorry what???
In fact, Assad is the legitimate, democratically elected president of Syria. have you decided in the USA that you have the
right to decide who is bad and who is good?
The United States has worked hard to overthrow legitimate power in Syria. for 7 years of NATO's joint operation in Syria, ISIS
captured 70% of the territory of this country. Of course, with the active support of the United States, it supplied weapons to
everyone who was ready to fight against the Syrian army. but the "evil" Russia came and ruined everything. for 5 years of military
operations in Syria, ISIS were defeated and switched to guerrilla warfare. solved the problem between the Kurds, Turks and Syrians.
US plans have completely collapsed. or not?
Congress is currently making a decision to bring tanks into Syria to protect oil fields from terrorists. Really??? it looks
like American democracy is black and actually called oil! all these hundreds of thousands of murdered women and children in Syria
just so that the United States could continue to steal oil from Syria!
"the greatest power in the world" turns out to be an ordinary thief! do not you disgust?
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people.
Define what you mean by "monster to his own people." And explain to me why 30% of Syrians -- a huge chunk of whole -- have
always been solidly behind Assad.
If you're talking about the Assad regime's barrel bombing, yes, that's monstrous. But Assad didn't start doing that until the
civil war was fulling raging. That war, mind you, didn't broaden and deepen until America stepped in to fund and arm Assad's enemies.
Had America had stayed out of Syria and allowed Assad to stamp out the initial protests and acts of rebellion, then there would
have been no civil war. Therefore, America's involved escalated Syria's civil disorder all the way up to the level of a full fledged
war, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.
I really don't understand how American Triumphalists and messianic spreaders of American democracy can justify what they did
in Syria. Essentially, America consciously took a chance in Syria, choosing to support the rebels on the off chance that they
might topple Assad. America knew that the price of failure in this reckless gambit would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Syrians.
Why did America do this? America's action in Syria were driven by the desire to turn the country into a strategic asset. America
chose to pursue this goal on behalf of its regional allies (all Syrian enemies), Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. That's
all. Never mind "principles." We're talking geopolitical ambitions here. Blind ambitions.
It's a mysterious to me as to why you blame the war on Russia. After all, Russia's been in Syria for nearly 50 years. During
that time, Syria was stable, and experienced no civil war. But as soon as America began meddling in Syria, war broke out. Russia
worked with Assad to try to stomp out that war. America worked with the rebels to expand it.
Ukraine power captured it's country in own trap. They can't stop civil war in Donbass because then they will need to explain
somehow why they killed Donbass people (Ukraine Nazis power hate Donbassians, but at the same time pretends to call them their
own citizens) for so many years. Admit truth means acknowledge own crimes. So, the only way they have is continuing lying about
"liberation" (means genociding) of Donbass.
But rest assured: Ukraine is beaten and the Ukrainians know it. They can feel it. That's why they elected Zelensky, who
may be a sensible guy.
Implementation of the peace plan in Donbass will turn the region into a virtually independent part of Ukraine. Russia will
be able to influence Ukrainian politics through its connections in Donbass. That means Russia will have gained exactly what it
fought for: veto power over Ukraine's attempts to join the EU and NATO.
As for the rest of Ukraine, even though they lost something, they get something valuable in return: it's called neutral
status between east and west. A subdued, federalized Ukraine led by Zelensky, in many ways, makes Ukraine "Finlandized." That
is good for the Ukrainian people. It means they retain their independence, but peacefully accept that Russia controls their foreign
policy. That position benefited Finland between 1945 and 1991. Finland is now a peaceful and prosperous country, and it is no
longer living under influence of Russia or the Soviets. If "Finlandization" led to happiness for the Finns, it can do the same
for Ukraine.
Finland did not fight against Swedish language and peacefully uses it, while it is "legacy of Swedish occupation" and less
than 10% of Finnish people can speak it. Ukrainian Nazis are deprived of wisdom, they are fighting with Russian language and own
people. So, if you haven't brain, nothing will help you.
But rest assured: Ukraine is beaten and the Ukrainians know it. They can feel it. That's why they elected Zelensky, who may
be a sensible guy.
your optimism is due to ignorance of the peculiarities of Ukrainian political life;) Let's start with a short introduction
to Ukrainian political life. Who is Zelensky? this is a representative of the oligarch Kolomoisky. exactly the same oligarch as
Parashenko has ruled Ukraine for the past 5 years. For 5 years, Parashenko has robbed banks and enterprises of other oligarchs
in Ukraine, now Kolomoisky will do the same through his representative Zelensky.
Now about the peace process in the Donbas ... The armed coup in 2014 was carried out by the forces of Ukrainian Nazis and over
the past 5 years, the Ukrainian Nazis have firmly established themselves in the Verkhovna Rada and, most importantly, in the army
and law enforcement agencies. these structures are controlled by Avakov, not Zelensky. Zelensky cannot withdraw troops, and even
more so "Ukrainian volunteers" from punitive battalions Aidar, Azov, etc. Zelensky does not control these formations and has no
leverage over them. all he can do is put forward an additional requirement of 7 days without shelling. Naturally, the shelling
is not embellished and no one withdraws the troops. Even if Zelensky really wanted to end the war, there simply isn't any opportunity
for this. all that he can do is populism and tell that he will return Crimea :))))
Mr Gvosdev sounds like one of those Eastern European svidomites . They combine this unwavering faith in the power of
Washington on top of a deep, irrational hostility to Russia.
How is "collapse of Russian economy" going to happen exactly? Judging by the casual manner in which Gvosdev talks about it,
I think he imagines president Biden flipping some switch in his cabinet, and the economy of vast country shutting down in an instant.
How does a Western economic war on Russia can help its proxies seize power? It didn't work like this in Iran or Venezuela,
it's even less likely to happen in Russia. If anything the opposite is likely to happen: pro-Western 5th column in Russia will
be eradicated.
You know that the Ukraine is doomed when your "optimistic scenario" requires Russia to drop dead essentially.
Russia's economy is functioning very close to autarky. That means Russia could survive expulsion from SWIFT.
As for for your reference to China, your point is anything but clear. China is forming a strategic alliance with Russia pointed
directly at the US. If you don't realize this, you haven't been reading the news. It would behoove you to know that China and
the US have long been drifting in the direction of a conflict for supremacy in Pan-Pacific affairs. The US has lots of weapons
systems set up in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Beijing is determined to make the US withdraw those military assets from China's
borders. China is also wary of the US's messianic impulse to spread democracy anywhere it can. China blames America for the Hong
Kong disturbances, which Beijing thinks of as America's latest attempt at a "color revolution."
Meanwhile, Russia poses no such threat to China. If anything, Russia makes an ideal junior ally for China in the latter's growing
tendency to constantly subvert the US as the world's superpower. So, I am confused as to what kind of threat you think China poses
to Russia?
Perhaps you believe that China wants to take Siberia from Russia. Do you really believe China has the ability to do so? If
that's what you're thinking, you are willfully blind to the fact that Russia remains a nuclear weapons superpower. If war broke
out between China and Russia (which is very unlikely), which country would do more damage to the other? Think about it: Russia
is a massive open land mass that is not densely populated, and it is full of nuclear missile launch sites. China is a population
dense nation consisting of far less territory than Russia. Who would suffer more in an exchange of nuclear missiles? I think the
answer is clear. For this reason, Beijing is not thinking about war with Russia, or making Russia "collapse," as you say.
Wow, I can write comments here. I am russian, so I can tell the Mordor's version. The article is generally objective, but the
author was cunning in a few points
1) The principal reason why Yanukovich refused to sign the agreement with Europe was the duty free zone with Russia. Russians
sad: ok, You will sign the agreement with Europe, but we have high customs duties with europeneans, so we will break our free
trade zone agreement. Russia was the biggest export market for Ukraine and ukranians understood that they will lose a lot of money.
But Maidan decided differently.
2) Today the Russian primary strategy for Ukraine is do nothing and wait, we have no any influence in this country. We understand
that Europe and USA will not feed this country a lot of time. Internal contradictions will ruin this country before our intervention
3) But we support new government of Zelensky because he has an opportunity to implement Minsk agreements (may be). It will
be enough to close this deal and move on
But we support new goverment of Zelensky because he has an oportunity to implement Minsk aggreements (may be). It will be enough
to close this deal and move on
I do not agree with this. how Zelensky can end the war when the security forces and the army are controlled by Avakov and the
punitive battalions do not even know who controls?
the support of any government in Ukraine is due to the fact that our countries still have a fairly large turnover. while we trade
with ukraine will cooperate ..
But now Poland and other Central European states were similarly interested in changing their position -- from being Euro-Atlantic
frontline states to shifting that line further east
I believe that this is a big reason why Maidan occured. It is also a big reason for the war in Ukraine today. The Poles have
had a hand in this issue from the very beginning. Poland is literally an aggressor state at this point, stoking trouble in Ukraine.
America's greatest sin in all of this has been to allow itself to be influenced by Poland and the Baltic states. Just like
America allowed itself to be led by the nose by its "allies" in the Syrian War. We're talking about two conflicts that have very
little to do with America's best interests, and which could result in disaster (nuclear exchange with Russia) if something goes
wrong.
It's absolutely nuts for anyone to think that nuclear equipped Russia would allow Poland and America to have their way in Ukraine,
which is virtually Russia's front porch. By supporting our Polish "ally," the US has come close to creating a Cuban Missile Crisis
in reverse. In 1963 the Russians provoked America. Since 2014, America has been provoking Russia. It could get much worse.
I believe that this is a big reason why Maidan occured. It is also a big reason for the war in Ukraine today. The Poles have
had a hand in this issue from the very beginning. Poland is literally an aggressor state at this point, stoking trouble in
Ukraine.
but after Maidan, Nuland directly stated that the United States spent 5 billion on "building democracy in Ukraine." The
United States invested 5 billion in a coup, but is Poland to blame? why? if Poland had really done that, then western Ukraine
would have become part of Poland immediately after the Maidan, but this did not happen. After the Maidan, Biden was photographed
in a pride chair, but not the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland;)
Okay, I can see where you're coming from. But still, the Russians were readying to station missiles in Cuba, just miles from
America's borders. That means the Russians must have known -- or should have known -- that they were risking war with the US.
That's my point.
Now America's doing the same thing as the USSR did in 1963. America is setting the stage to establish bases, radars, and missiles
in Ukraine. That's what preparing Ukraine for NATO membership is all about. Therefore, America must know -- or should know --
that it is risking war with Russia. In a major way.
Agree with the thrust of your agrument. The US knows it is stoking conflict with their actions (ie Donbass), but since they
are not directly in the firing line (barring major escalations) they simply don't care. They want to discomfort and undermine
Russia, drive a wedge between Russia and Germany/France, and force the Eurotrash into compliance with US diktat as a demonstration
of US power over its minions.
Re the Cuban Missile Crisis, on the balance it wasn't really a climb-down by the Soviets, but it is usually interpreted that
way, especially as anti-Krushchev factions in the USSR were succesful in portraying it that way as part of their palace coup.
The US remoived its misiles from Turkey, promised not to update them with new ones, and undertook not to repeat any more "Bay
of Pigs" attempts at overthrowing Castro by force of arms. All the Soviets needed to do was halt their mobilisation and similarly
agree not to base missiles. On the balance, the Soviets played brinkmanship well and won real concessions in exchange for very
little. Krushchevs problem was really that he marketted the ploy very poorly and was able to be portrayed as a loser by his political
enemies, and Westeners have happily repeated the narratives ever since.
And what? US placed their missiles in every corner of the Globe, including Soviet/Russian borders. Why USSR can't place it's
missiles in Cuba?
BTW, what Gary Powers did in his U-2 in the sky above Ekaterinburg 01.05.1960?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
My point is that each power is expected to respect the other's buffer zones. That's how the powers have gotten along historically.
If and when one side disrespects the other's buffer zone, major trouble is right around the corner.
Generally, in these confrontations between the nuclear superpowers, the side with the less to lose is the first to back down.
That side is always the one that has overreached. In 1963 it was the Soviets who overreached. It's looking increasingly clear
that since 2014, it's the US that's overreached.
The US will find a graceful way to end the Ukraine-NATO expansion issue, something amounting to a face-saving American retreat
from the region. Putin will likely make it easy for America to pull out without loss of prestige.
In general, you are right, but in 60's it was not Soviets, who overreached. It was US planes intervened in Soviet airspace,
not vice versa. It was US, who firstly placed missiles in Turkey in 1961, not USSR in Cuba in 1963.
Ukraine is not going anywhere, because of 115 Mrd. outstanding Debt. Ukraine lost 85% of their Industrial Base in the last
5 Years. Most of them working for Russian Companies. Those Companies get Advanced Payments from Russia till 2014 worth about 10
Mrd. for Material and Salaries. That Money is not coming again. Russian Companies replace 90% of all Ukraine deliveries during
the last 5 Years - more modern and especially with far better time frames. Ukraine has a minor Cash Reserve of 7 Billion USD.
Whatever happens to Ukraine we can be sure of one thing, through our contributions via the World Bank, the IMF and Obama's
loan guarantees, the one million dollars a day paid by U.S taxpayers directly into the pockets of Ukrainian Oligarchs will continue
in perpetuity.
I doubt Putin is in any hurry to relieve us of that 'honor' the man is a master of playing the U.S for a sucker.
You are correct on most counts. However, I think that Putin wants the US to scale down its Ukraine involvement ASAP. That's
because Russia's nightmare is NATO expansion into Ukraine. Therefore, the sooner the US backs away, the less likely Russia will
have to fight a future war in order to keep NATO off of its front yard. Nobody, including Putin, wants war.
Ukraine needs internal stability, this means peace treaty with rebels and some kind of minimal agreement with Russia. Country
needs to buy time, it is too much to expect to fight war, to do reforms and fight corruption and to develop all at the same time.
NATO expansion to East proved to be big destabilizing factor for Ukraine, its geopolitical situation is difficult. It will
always need to balance and make concessions between Eastern and Western interests.
New president looks very promising, hopefully he will be able to bring country back to stability and push it more toward faster
economical development and national reconciliation.
You make some good points regarding stability within the country. The amount now spent on fighting the war in Donbas will not
go down as Ukraine will need to continue to rebuild their military to include new fighters and new ships for the navy however
the killing will stop. Any agreement made with Putin should be made with eyes wide open as Russia has no honor so agreements are
worthless only a potent enough military will guarantee Ukraine's peace.
Peace at any cost is not acceptable and any plan that allows complete autonomy should be a no go, it would be better to just
build a wall along the existing line and rid the country of a fifth columnist element. If the plan allows for local elections,
local use of Russian, local police forces not military but police that is acceptable. These elections must allow for all residents
who resided in the area prior to the war to vote and for all Ukrainian political parties to participate.
Zelenskiy has made corruption a key to his election and it is imperative that he takes some bold action(s) soon to set the
tone. I am a little concerned that he has selected some less than pure individuals to be part of his presidential team, apparently
he hasn't picked up on how bad the optics are by having a lawyer that worked for Kolomosky as your chief of staff?
Cracking down on the oligarchs would allow Ukraine to have a standard of living like Poland within a very few years and many of
the Ukrainians that now work in Poland could come home an make as much money.
The presidential vote proved that at least 73% of Ukrainians agreed that a new beginning was needed hence Zelnskiy being elected.
The reason IMHO that "national reconciliation" hasn't been achieved is the continued Russian interference/influence in Ukraine.
It hasn't been long enough for Ukraine as an independent nation to come to terms with the past history. This part of the world
has seen millions killed over the past 100+ years, the country hasn't come to grips with that there is still finger pointing and
until that is dealt with the reconciliation will be difficult.
The desire to join NATO is all on Russia and it's continuous interference in Ukraine. In all reality NATO is a long way off
as Ukraine needs to do a lot to bring the country up to NATO standards including in the corruption realm.
This part of the world has seen millions killed over the past 100+ years
Ukraine has been used an invasion route by Western aggressors who want to conquer Russia. That's resulted in Russia suffering
millions killed in the 20th century, and hundreds of thousands more killed in earlier wars.
You keep failing to see matters from Russia's perspective. You only think about Ukraine's most selfish national interests.
You've got to understand that any security arrangement in that part of the world will have to be a shared security plan. It will
have to consider and respect Russia's concerns. NATO is not the answer here. Militarization of a Ukraine led by far-right wing
nationalists is not the answer either.
Ukraine's only path to peace and security is to accept the status of Finlandization.
If the plan allows for local elections, local use of Russian, local police forces not military but police that
is acceptable.
It's too late for that. Remember, the Ukrainian ATO invaded Donbass and killed many thousands of innocent local people. For
this reason, Donbass will never allow the Ukrainian military onto its soil.
Yes, I read what you said. That's why I highlighted "military" in my quote. You are saying that Donbass Russians are expected
to allow themselves to be occupied by the Ukrainian military, as if they are conquered, humiliated people. I am saying that Russia
and Donbass will never let that happen.
Let's not overlook that it appears very much like the war is ending now, with Ukraine submitting to the terms set by Donbass
and Russia. That means Zelensky will have to drink his poison soup and allow the Donbass militia to have exclusive and unrestricted
military rights within Donbass, and along the region's borders. That's unavoidable.
Even if you go by Minsk II which plainly does not allow for a Separatist Military there is zero chance that Ukraine will agree
to anything resembling a "military". This territory will be under Ukrainian sovereignty and the border will be under Ukrainian
sovereignty. The autonomy will be for language, education, elections of local councils, cultural endeavors etc...
It is the thugs in charge who are supported by the Kremlin are the ones that envision some quasi country within Ukraine. If
you were to go out into the villages the average person wants the war to end and life to go back to as close to what it was before
this all started. The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to
be held without Russian and mercenary gun toting thugs walking the streets. They are the ones that are worried as their world
will come to an end if real peace comes to past.
If you were to go out into the villages the average person wants the war to end and life to go back to as close to what
it was before this all started. The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections
are to be held...
You are in denial of the facts. Respected international polling agencies have taken polls inside the rebel held portion of
Donbass. The results confirm that the people there want nothing to do with the Ukrainian government, and that they identify themselves
as an extension of Russia.
The only open question among the Donbass people is whether they want to be annexed by Russia (many do), or whether they want
to remain in Ukraine as a completely autonomous region, running all of their own affairs (many like this idea too).
But under no circumstances do the Donbass people want the Ukrainian army to enter their territory, establish bases or outposts,
and then garrison the border with Russia. Why would the Donbass people have fought for five hard, victorious years only to accept
this ignominious outcome? It makes no sense. Donbass and Russia won. Ukraine lost. The winners will not let the losers take military
control of their homeland. No possible way.
From the way your posts read, it's obvious you are way, way oversold on anti-Russian propaganda.
Who says that the Ukrainian Army is going to go into this area of Donbas? Th border will be secured by Ukrainian Border personnel
as it is on every other part of the border. Ukraine is currently decentralizing services and responsibility in the rest of the
country withheld control coming from Kyiv. A modified version of that for occupied Donbas to include local elections, language,
education and local law enforcement is what they should expect. In exchange Kyiv promises to rebuild destroyed infrastructure
and provide economic assistance to the area.
If that isn't good enough then as I said build a wall and cut them lose and let Putin take on the burden which he doesn't want.
Money coming form Russia to rebuild will be a long time in coming and what they have now is pretty much what they can expect for
the future. Of course the educate and most of the young have left the area an only the poor pensioners who had no where to go
are left.
Even if you go by Minsk II which plainly does not allow for a Separatist Military there is zero chance that Ukraine will
agree to anything resembling a "military"
You're living in a dream world if you think this. The reality is that Ukraine has lost the war. Zelensky wouldn't dare to implement
Minsk II unless he were leading a defeated nation, a nation that was throwing in the towel. We're talking about a complete capitulation.
That's what Minsk II means.
I am certain that Zelensky fully expects that once Minsk II is implemented, Ukraine will be somehow be maneuvered into accepting
that the Donbass military is in charge of Donbass and the abutting section of the Russian-Ukraine frontier.
Most likely, after Donbass holds internationally ratified elections per Minsk II, the newly elected officials will claim that
they are officially part of Ukraine's government. From there, they will claim that the Donbass rebel militia, therefore, is officially
an extension of Ukraine's national army. Then, finally, the Donbass leaders and Russia will say that "returning control of the
border to Ukraine" means, in reality, putting the border under the control of the Donbass militia.
Possibly the Donbass militia will wear Ukrainian army uniforms, just for show. But believe me: there's no way the victors in
this war are going to settle for surrendering military control of their territory to a despised, alien military force (i.e., the
Ukrainian army).
There's no possible way that Putin, Russia, or the Donbass rebels would have pushed the Minsk II Accords on Ukraine unless
it one of the treaty's unstated implications is that the Ukrainian military is ejected from the region permanently. That's what
Russia and Donbass fought to achieve. It's unthinkable that they would settle for anything less.
I'm certain that Zelensky and everyone else understands this.
It will not happen Minsk II will not be implemented. Th eUkrainian foreign minister already stated what will be the approach
in the Normandy talks an edit isn't Minsk II.
"The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to be held without
Russian and mercenary gun toting thugs walking the streets."
What nonsense. You really think that voters in Donetsk & Lugansk would to reward Kiev authorities with their support in light
of the atrocities the "volunteer" battalions have dished out to civilians over the last 5 years???
You can cry about "thugs" or "mercenaries" all you like (in a futile attempt to de-legitimise the views of the seperatists)
but your bias is clear when you whitewash the crimes of Banderites and Neo-Nazis. Or maybe you would prefer to adopt the US MSM
ploy and simply pretend that these factions don't exist, or that no warcrimes have been committed?
You really think that voters in Donetsk & Lugansk would to reward Kiev authorities...
You make a valid point. I'd add also that the rebel controlled areas are the parts of Donetsk and Lugansk where the ethnic
Russian demographic majorities are heaviest. That means there's virtually zero chance that any elections held in that zone will
favor Kiev.
...as Ukraine will need to continue to rebuild their military to include new fighters and new ships for the navy...
Impossible. That's because there aren't enough Ukrainians who feel nationalistic enough to be willing to lay down their lives
in war for Ukraine. The reason for this problem is that a huge minority of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians
who won't fight Russia. Many other Ukrainian people are ambivalent about national identity, and will not honor their military
obligations.
In some ways, Ukraine's military problem today is akin to that suffered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WW1. The Austro-Hungarian
state was multi-national, and much of its population did not share the political and national values of the rulers in Vienna and
Budapest.
Multi-national countries always have trouble fielding political reliable militaries. Even the Soviet Union, a superpower, had
a bottom one-third of military recruits (most from Cental Asia) that simply weren't politically reliable.
Ukraine's military future looks very grim. Only if Kiev grants independence to the non-Ukrainian regions will the country finally
have a population of people who share the same national and political values. That will have to precede Ukraine building any kind
of competent army.
The presidential vote proved that at least 73% of Ukrainians agreed that a new beginning was needed hence Zelnskiy being
elected.
That Ukrainian majority is exhausted and demoralized by the Donbass War. They want peace at any cost, even if that means granting
virtual independence to Donbass. Even if that means allowing Russia to use Donbass as an agent through which it can influence
Ukraine's domestic political situation. That's the "new beginning" that Ukrainians have in mind.
There's no way Zelensky can be in power while simultaneously continuing the Donbass War. Ukrainians elected him to get the
country out of that agony.
My wife is Ukrainian and they will not accept Russia running things through a Fifth column in Donbas. They might as well just
wall it off and be done with it makes zero sense to allow your rendition.
"... On the other hand, as Targ explains, are the Trumpian, "America First" nationalist capitalists. This faction of the ruling class, while also supporting global dominance and a permanent war economy (military-related spending will consume 48 percent of the 2020 federal budget) favors trade restrictions, economic nationalism, building walls and anti-immigrant policies. Although Trump is inconsistent, bumbling and sometimes contradictory, he's departed from the neocon's agenda by making overtures to North Korea and Russia, voicing doubts about NATO as an expensive relic from the past that is being dangerously misused outside of Europe, not being afraid to speak bluntly to EU allies, frequently mentioning ending our "endless, ridiculous and costly wars," asserting that the U.S. is badly overextended and saying "The job of our military is not to police the world." ..."
"... This is a high stakes intra-ruling class struggle and neither side cares a fig about what's best for the American people or those beyond our borders. At this point it's impossible to know how it will play out but grasping the underlying dynamics explains much about current U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This understanding may, in turn, point toward how opponents of America's oligarchic elites can most expeditiously use their time and energy. ..."
"... Foremost is the fact that Trump's intra-elite enemies despise him not for being a neo-fascistic demagogue, a despicable human being devoid of a conscience, or for the brouhaha over Ukraine. Their animus is rooted in the conviction that Trump has been a foot dragging imperialist, an equivocal caretaker of empire, unreliable pull-the-trigger Commander-in-chief (e.g.Iran) and transparent truth-teller about the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy. These are his unforgivable sins and if he's impeached or denied the Oval Office by some other means, they will be real reasons. ..."
"... One of Trump's most traitorous acts is that he's been consistent, at least rhetorically, in being opposed to U.S. troops being killed in "endless wars." One need not agree with his reasons to find merit in this worthy objective. His motives probably include Nativism, racism, foreign investment stability, the wars causing more refugees to come here, his massive ego, appeals to his voting base, or simply because he believes both he and the "real America" would be better off. For him, the latter two are synonymous. ..."
"... For this treachery, those arrayed against Trump include at least, the Pentagon-CIA-armaments lobby, MSM editors like those at CNN, The New York Times ..."
Over the past few months President Trump has unilaterally by Tweet and telephone begun to
dismantle the U.S. military's involvement in the Middle East. The irony is amazing, because in
a general overarching narrative sense, this is what the marginalized antiwar movement has been
trying to do for decades.
1
Prof. Harry Targ, in his important piece "United States foreign policy: yesterday, today,
and tomorrow," (MR online, October 23, 2919), reminds us of the factional dispute among U.S.
foreign policy elites over how to maintain the U.S. empire. On the one hand are the neoliberal
global capitalists who favor military intervention, covert operations, regime change,
strengthening NATO, thrusting China into the enemy vacuum and re-igniting the Cold War with
Russia. All of this is concealed behind lofty rhetoric about humanitarianism, protecting human
rights, promoting democracy, fighting terrorism and American exceptionalism. Their mantra is
Madeleine Albright's description of the United States as the world's "one indispensable
nation."
On the other hand, as Targ explains, are the Trumpian, "America First" nationalist
capitalists. This faction of the ruling class, while also supporting global dominance and a
permanent war economy (military-related spending will consume 48 percent of the 2020 federal
budget) favors trade restrictions, economic nationalism, building walls and anti-immigrant
policies. Although Trump is inconsistent, bumbling and sometimes contradictory, he's departed
from the neocon's agenda by making overtures to North Korea and Russia, voicing doubts about
NATO as an expensive relic from the past that is being dangerously misused outside of Europe,
not being afraid to speak bluntly to EU allies, frequently mentioning ending our "endless,
ridiculous and costly wars," asserting that the U.S. is badly overextended and saying "The job
of our military is not to police the world."
I would add that Trump is also an "American exceptionalist" but ascribes a very different
provincial meaning to the term, something closer to a crabbed provincialism, an insular
"Shining City on a Hill," surrounded by a moat.
This is a high stakes intra-ruling class struggle and neither side cares a fig about
what's best for the American people or those beyond our borders. At this point it's impossible
to know how it will play out but grasping the underlying dynamics explains much about current
U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This understanding may, in turn, point toward how opponents
of America's oligarchic elites can most expeditiously use their time and energy.
Foremost is the fact that Trump's intra-elite enemies despise him not for being a
neo-fascistic demagogue, a despicable human being devoid of a conscience, or for the brouhaha
over Ukraine. Their animus is rooted in the conviction that Trump has been a foot dragging
imperialist, an equivocal caretaker of empire, unreliable pull-the-trigger Commander-in-chief
(e.g.Iran) and transparent truth-teller about the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy.
These are his unforgivable sins and if he's impeached or denied the Oval Office by some other
means, they will be real reasons.
One of Trump's most traitorous acts is that he's been consistent, at least rhetorically,
in being opposed to U.S. troops being killed in "endless wars." One need not agree with his
reasons to find merit in this worthy objective. His motives probably include Nativism, racism,
foreign investment stability, the wars causing more refugees to come here, his massive ego,
appeals to his voting base, or simply because he believes both he and the "real America" would
be better off. For him, the latter two are synonymous.
For this treachery, those arrayed against Trump include at least, the
Pentagon-CIA-armaments lobby, MSM editors like those at CNN, The New York Times and
The Washington Post , NSA, Zionist neocons, the DNC, establishment Democrats, some
hawkish Republican senators, many lifestyle liberals still harboring a sentimental faith in
American goodness and even EU and NATO elites who've benefited from being faithful lackeys to
Washington's global imperialism.
In a recent interview, Major Danny Sjursen, retired army officer and West Point instructor
with tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, notes that "The last bipartisan issue in American
politics today is warfare, forever warfare." In terms of the military, that means " even the
hint of getting out of the establishment interventionist status quo is terrifying to these
generals, terrifying to these former intelligence officers from the Obama administration who
seem to live on MSNBC now." Sjursen adds that many of these generals (like Mattis) have already
found lucrative work with the military industrial complex.
2
In response to Trump's announcement about removing some U.S. troops from the region, we find
an op-ed in The New York Times by Admiral William McRaven where he states that Trump
"should be out of office sooner than later. It's time for a new person in the Oval Office,
Republican, Democrat or Independent. The fate of the nation depends on it." The unmistakeable
whiff of support for a soft coup is chilling. If Trump can't be contained, he must be deposed
one way or another.
And this is all entirely consistent with the fact that the national security state was
totally caught off guard by Trump's victory in 2016. For them, Trump was a loose cannon,
erratic and ultra-confrontational, someone they couldn't control. Their favored candidate was
the ever reliable, Wall Street-friendly, war-mongering Hillary Clinton or even Jeb Bush. Today,
barring a totally chastised Trump, the favorites include a fading Biden, Pence, a reprise of
Clinton or someone in her mold but without the baggage.
For Trump's establishment enemies, another closely related failing is his habit of blurting
out inconvenient truths. I'm not the first person to say that Trump is the most honest
president in my lifetime. Yes, he lies most of the time but as left analyst Paul Street puts
it, "Trump is too clumsily and childishly brazen in laying bare the moral nothingness and
selfishness of the real material-historical bourgeois society that lives beneath the veils of
'Western civilization' and 'American democracy.'"
3
All his predecessors took pains or were coached to conceal their imperialist actions behind
declarations of humanitarian interventionism but Trump has pulled the curtains back to reveal
the ugly truths about U.S. foreign policy. As such, the carefully calibrated propaganda fed to
the public in endless reiterations over a lifetime is jeopardized whenever Trump utters a
transparent truth. This is intolerable.
Here are a few examples culled from speeches, interviews and press reports:
+ At a May 10, 2017 Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislayak, Trump said he was unconcerned about Moscow's interference
in the U.S. election because "We do the same thing in elections in other countries." [White
House officials were so alarmed they tried to limit access to the transcript].
+ When asked about whether Putin is a killer, Trump sarcastically asked whether "our
country was so innocent?" and added, "Our country does plenty of killing."
+ His reaction to Saudi Arabia's murder of Khashoggi was that "they really messed up."
[Translation: He/our government didn't care about what happened except that the Saudis
bungled the job. Uttering this inconvenient truth removed the usual fig leaf claim of moral
outrage and checked off another box on the Trump-Must-Go list maintained by the
globalists].
+ "The Kurds are no angels." [This dried up all the crocodile tears being shed by both
Dems and Republicans].
+ On Libya: Asked about a role for the U.S. in Libya, Trump responded "I do not see a
role in Libya. I think the United States has, right now, enough roles. We're in a role
everywhere." He did say "I would just go in and take the oil," and repeated this intention
regarding Syria. [Once again Trump sabotaged any pretense of righteous motives behind
Washington's foreign policy in the Middle East. To wit: It's always been about blood for
oil].
+ When firing John Bolton, his former national security advisor, Trump remarked "He made
some very big mistakes. When he talked about the Libya model for Kim Jong Un, that was not a
good statement to make. You just look at what happened with Gaddafi." [Here, Trump's truth
telling undermined the standard U.S. position by saying it makes perfect sense for other
countries to obtain nukes if they wish to avoid being destroyed by us.]
+ "We're in many, many countries. I do know the exact number of countries we have troops
in but I'm embarrassed to say it because it's so foolish. We're in countries that don't even
like us some people, whether it's – – you call it the military-industrial complex
or beyond that, they'd like me to stay the want me to fight forever That's what they want to
do, fight. A lot of companies want to to fight because they make their weapons based on
fighting, not based on peace. And they take up a lot of people. I want to bring our soldiers
back home."
+ During a private military briefing, Trump stunned officials by scowling, "Seriously,
who gives a shit about Afghanistan?" And he continued, "So far we've in for $7 trillion,
fellas. $7 trillion including Iraq. Worst decision ever "
+ On Ukraine: "The people of Crimea would rather be with Russia than where they
were."
+ On Syria, "Let someone else fight over this long blood stained sand." And more broadly,
he said "The same people that I watched and read -- give me and the United States advice --
were the people I've been watching and reading for many years. They are the ones who got us
into the Middle East mess but never have the vision or courage to get us out. They just
talk."
+ Responding to South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham's criticism: "The people of
South Carolina don't want us to get into another war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with
Syria. Let them fight their own wars."
+ On Middle East wars: "All of those lives lost, the young men and women gravely wounded
-- so many -- the Middle East is less safe, less stable, and less secure than before these
conflicts began."
As noted earlier, the endgame is not in sight. Trump seems without a clear strategy for
moving forward and from all reports he can't depend on his current coterie of White House
advisors to produce one. Further, he may lack the necessary political in-fight skills or
tenacity to see it through. When some of his Republican "allies" savaged his announcement to
withdraw troops from Syria, he backtracked and made some, at least cosmetic concessions.
However, the fact that Trump's position remains popular with his voter base and especially with
veterans of these wars will give pause to Republicans. If some finally join the Democrats in
voting for impeachment over Ukraine-gate they may minimize re-election risks by hiding their
real motives behind pious claims -- as will most Democrats -- about "protecting the
constitution and the rule of law".
Now, lest I be misunderstood, nothing I've written here should be construed as support for
Donald Trump or that I believe he's antiwar. Trump is aberration only in that his brand of
Western imperialism means that the victims remain foreigners while U.S. soldiers remain out of
harm's way. He knows that boots on the ground can quickly descend into bodies in the ground and
unlike his opponents, coffins returning to Dover Air Base are not worth risking his personal
ambitions. This is clearly something to build upon. We don't know if Trump views drones, cyber
warfare and proxies as substitutes but his intra-elite opponents remain extremely dubious. In
any event, that's another dimension to expose and challenge.
Finally, we know the ruling class in a capitalist democracy -- an oxymoron -- expends
enormous time and resources to obtain a faux "consent of the governed" through misinformation
conveyed via massive, lifelong ideological indoctrination. For them, citizen's policing
themselves is more efficient than coercion and precludes raising questions that might
delegitimize the system. Obviously force and fear are hardly unknown -- witness the mass
incarceration and police murder of black citizens -- but one only has to look around to see how
successful this method of control has been.
Nevertheless, as social historian Margaret Jacoby wisely reminds us, "No institution is safe
if people simply stop believing the assumptions that justify its existence."
4 Put another way, the system simply can't accommodate certain "dangerous ideas."
Today, we see promising political fissures developing, especially within the rising
generation, and it's our responsibility to help deepen and widen these openings through
whatever means at our disposal.
US military commanders overseeing Syria operations are still waiting for precise
battlefield orders from the White House and Pentagon on their exact mission to protect
oilfields in eastern Syria, according to a defense official directly familiar with the
matter.
Nearly three weeks after President Donald Trump ordered troops out of northern Syria,
publicly declaring he was taking "control" of the oil and sending troops and armored carriers
to protect it from ISIS, US commanders lack clarity on the most basic aspects of their
mission, including how and when troops can fire their weapons and what, exactly, that mission
is.
The lack of precise orders means troops are on the ground while critical details are still
being worked out -- exactly where they will go, when and how they will stay on small bases in
the area, and when they go on patrol.
Perhaps most crucially, there is no clarity about exactly who they are operating against
in the oilfields.
Everything the Trump administration has done in Syria has been horribly confused, so it
makes sense that the latest version of the policy would be baffling to our own troops. U.S.
commanders lack clarity about the mission because it was cooked up to appeal to the president's
desire for plundering other countries' resources. It was thrown together on the spur of the
moment as an excuse to keep U.S. troops in Syria no matter what, and now those troops are stuck
there with no instructions and no idea what they are expected to do. This is the worst kind of
unnecessary military mission, because it is being carried out simply to keep a U.S. foothold in
Syria for its own sake. The "critical details" aren't being worked out so much as a plausible
justification after the fact is being conjured out of thin air. There is no reason for these
troops to be there, and there is nothing that they can do there legally, but the administration
will come up with some bad argument to keep them there anyway.
Meanwhile, Trump is very proud of his clownish, illegal Syria policy:
Trump labors under the delusion that the oil is ours to "distribute." which everyone else
knows to be false. The oil belongs to the Syrian government, and that oil can't be sold and
revenues from those sales cannot be used without the permission of the government that owns it.
Syria's oil resources are not that great, and the infrastructure of many of the fields has been
damaged or destroyed, so if it were legal to loot the spoils there wouldn't be very much to
loot. The president thinks that seizing Syrian oil is worth boasting about, but in reality it
is one of the most absurd and indefensible reasons for deploying troops abroad. In addition to
damaging the country's international standing with allied and friendly governments with this
open thievery, Trump's "take the oil" fixation is a propaganda coup for hostile governments and
groups. As Paul Pillar pointed out last week, it plays into the
hands of jihadist groups and aids them in their recruitment:
Trump's Sunday appearance before the press played right into this theme. Referring back to
the Iraq War, Trump described as his own view at the time that if the United States was going
into Iraq, it should "keep the oil." As for Syria's oil, he said it can help the Kurds but
"it can help us because we should be able to take some also. And what I intend to do,
perhaps, is make a deal with an Exxon Mobil or one of our great companies to go in there and
do it properly." A propagandist for ISIS or al-Qaeda would hardly have written the script
differently.
Keeping troops in Syria to "take the oil" is divorced from genuine American security
interests just like any other unnecessary military intervention. The president is exposing U.S.
military personnel to unnecessary risk, and he is also putting them in legal jeopardy by
ordering them to commit what is essentially the war crime of pillaging. The president has
managed to take a Syria policy that was already incoherent and chaotic and he has made it even
worse.
Gosh, the Taliban wiped out poppy production in 2000. The Twin Towers were destroyed in 2001.
Bush (son of CIA Bush) invaded Afghanistan to... well, to do what? To defeat the Taliban?
Why? To restore poppy production? To find bin Laden? Didn't really do that. After all he was
in Pakistan. And what has happened to poppy farming since we invaded? Booming. For 17 years.
Those farming families are doing really well under the protection of U.S. troops. Just like
the oil families in Syria that are protected by U.S. troops. Now, Trump seems to be throwing
a spanner in all this. Of course, "We came, we saw, he died [giggle, giggle]" Clinton would
have never committed Trump's crimes. Trump's just a loose cannon.
Angleton, quoting Jesus, said "In my Father's house are many mansions."
I guess we know which mansion Brennan inhabits.
May 20, 2001
The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded
that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's
largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.
The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program
that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the
heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season.
But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, [A
TERRIBLE COST TO FARMING FAMILIES, OH, THOSE POOR FARMING FAMILIES]and experts say it will
not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to
enforce it.
''It appears that the ban has taken effect,'' said Steven Casteel, assistant administrator
for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.
The findings came in part from a Pakistan-based agent of the administration who was one of
the two Americans on the team just returned from eight days in the poppy-growing areas of
Afghanistan.
Tue 11 Sep 2001: 9/11
Tue 25 Sep 2001:
In a dramatic and little-noticed reversal of policy, the Taliban have told farmers in
Afghanistan that they are free to start planting poppy seeds again if the Americans decide to
launch a military attack.
Drug enforcement agencies last night confirmed that they expect to see a massive resumption
of opium cultivation inside Afghanistan, previously the world's biggest supplier of heroin,
in the next few weeks.
The Taliban virtually eradicated Afghanistan's opium crop last season after an edict by
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader.
In July last year he said that growing opium was "un-Islamic" and warned that anyone
caught planting seeds would be severely punished.
Taliban soldiers enforced the ruling two summers ago and made thousands of villagers
across Afghanistan plough up their fields. Earlier this year UN observers agreed that
Afghanistan's opium crop had been completely wiped out.
"... Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other main rival in the region, Damascus. ..."
Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern
Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria.
After the drawdown of US
troops at Erdogan's insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria,
the US has still deployed 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and
at al-Tanf military base.
Al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria,
Iraq and Jordan, and it straddles on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which
serves as a lifeline for Damascus.
Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around
al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained several Syrian militant groups there.
It's worth noting that rather than fighting the Islamic State, the purpose of continued presence
of the US forces at al-Tanf military base is to address Israel's concerns regarding the expansion of
Iran's influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Regarding the oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate, it's worth pointing out
that Syria used to produce modest quantities of oil for domestic needs before the war – roughly 400,000
barrels per day, which isn't much compared to tens of millions barrels daily oil production in the
Gulf states.
Although Donald Trump crowed in a characteristic blunt manner in a tweet after the withdrawal of
1,000 American troops from northern Syria that Washington had deployed forces in eastern Syria where
there was oil,
the purpose of exercising control over Syria's oil is neither to smuggle oil
out of Syria nor to deny the valuable source of revenue to the Islamic State.
There is no denying the fact that the remnants of the Islamic State militants are still found in
Syria and Iraq but its emirate has been completely dismantled in the region and its leadership is on
the run. So much so that the fugitive caliph of the terrorist organization was killed in the bastion
of a rival jihadist outfit, al-Nusra Front in Idlib, hundreds of kilometers away from the Islamic State
strongholds in eastern Syria.
Much like the "scorched earth" battle strategy of medieval warlords – as in the case of the Islamic
State which early in the year burned crops of local farmers while retreating from its former strongholds
in eastern Syria –
Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and
natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other
main rival in the region, Damascus.
After the devastation caused by eight years of proxy war, the Syrian government is in dire need
of tens of billions dollars international assistance to rebuild the country. Not only is Washington
hampering efforts to provide international aid to the hapless country, it is in fact squatting over
Syria's own resources with the help of its only ally in the region, the Kurds.
Although Donald Trump claimed credit for expropriating Syria's oil wealth, it bears mentioning
that "scorched earth" policy is not a business strategy, it is the institutional logic of the deep
state.
President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist
ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been
misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment.
Regarding Washington's interest in propping up the Gulf's autocrats and fighting their wars in regional
conflicts, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign minister
threatened
that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other
assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow Americans to sue the Saudi government in the
United States courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack – though the bill was eventually
passed, Saudi authorities have not been held accountable; even though 15 out of 19 9/11 hijackers were
Saudi nationals.
Moreover, $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the United States, if we add its investment
in Western Europe and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total
would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf's investments in North America and Western Europe.
Furthermore, in order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf's oil in the energy-starved
industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data:
Saudi Arabia has the world's
largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production exceeds 10 million
barrels; Iran and Iraq, each, has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million
barrels per day, each; while UAE and Kuwait, each, has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3
million barrels per day, each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788
billion barrels, more than half of world's 1477 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
No wonder then, 36,000 United States troops have currently been deployed in their numerous military
bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of
1980, which states: "Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United
States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military
force."
Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry's sales of arms to the Gulf Arab
States,
a report
authored
by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama administration
had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during
its eight-year tenure.
Similarly, the top items in Trump's agenda for his maiden visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017 were:
firstly, he threw his weight behind the idea of the Saudi-led "Arab NATO" to counter Iran's influence
in the region; and secondly, he announced an unprecedented arms package for Saudi Arabia. The package
included between $98 billion and $128 billion in arms sales.
Therefore, keeping the economic dependence of the Western countries on the Gulf Arab States in mind,
during the times of global recession when most of manufacturing has been outsourced to China, it is
not surprising that when the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided to provide training and arms
to the Islamic jihadists in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan against the government of Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, the Obama administration was left with no other choice but to toe the destructive
policy of its regional Middle Eastern allies, despite the sectarian nature of the proxy war and its
attendant consequences of breeding a new generation of Islamic jihadists who would become a long-term
security risk not only to the Middle East but to the Western countries, as well.
Similarly, when King Abdullah's successor King Salman decided, on the whim of the Crown Prince Mohammad
bin Salman, to invade Yemen in March 2015, once again the Obama administration had to yield to the
dictates of Saudi Arabia and UAE by fully coordinating the Gulf-led military campaign in Yemen not
only by providing intelligence, planning and logistical support but also by selling billions of dollars'
worth of arms and ammunition to the Gulf Arab States during the conflict.
In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to the ruling families of the Gulf Arab
states by providing weapons and troops; and in return, the Gulf's petro-sheikhs contribute substantial
investments to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to the Western economies.
Regarding the Pax Americana which is the reality of the contemporary neocolonial order,
according to a January 2017
infographic
by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were stationed all over the world,
including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.
Although Donald Trump keeps complaining that NATO must share the cost of deployment of US troops,
particularly in Europe where 47,000 American troops are stationed in Germany since the end of the Second
World War, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom, fact of the matter is that the cost is
already shared between Washington and host countries.
Roughly, European countries pay one-third of the cost for maintaining US military bases in Europe
whereas Washington chips in the remaining two-third. In the Far Eastern countries, 75% of the cost
for the deployment of American troops is shared by Japan and the remaining 25% by Washington, and in
South Korea, 40% cost is shared by the host country and the US contributes the remaining 60%.
Whereas the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – pay
two-third of the cost for maintaining 36,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf where more than half of
world's proven oil reserves are located and Washington contributes the remaining one-third.
* * *
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the
politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.
I am always amazed (and amused) at
how much smarter "journalists" are
than POTUS. If ONLY Mr. Trump would
read more and listen to those who
OBVIOUSLY are sooo much smarter!!!!
Maybe then he wouldn't be cowed and
bullied by Erdogan, Xi, Jung-on,
Trudeau (OK so maybe that one was
too far fetched) to name a few.
Please note the sarcasm. Do I really
need to go in to the success after
success Mr. Trump's foreign policy
has enjoyed? Come on Man.
What a load of BOLOCKS...The ONLY, I
mean The Real and True Reason for
American Armored presence is one
thing,,,,,,,Ready for IT ? ? ? To
Steal as much OIL as Possible, AND
convert the Booty into Currency,
Diamonds or some other intrinsically
valuable commodity, Millions of
Dollars at a Time......17 Years of
Shadows and Ghost Trucks and Tankers
Loading and Off-Loading the Black
Gold...this is what its all
about......M-O-N-E-Y....... Say It
With Me.... Mon-nee, Money Money
Mo_on_ne_e_ey, ......
From the sale of US oil in Syria
receive 30 million. dollars per
month. Image losses are immeasurably
greater. The United States put the
United States as a robbery bandit.
This is American democracy. The
longer the troops are in Syria, the
more countries will switch to
settlements in national currencies.
"Our interests", "strategic
interests" is always about money,
just a euphemism so it doesn't
look as greedy as it is. Another
euphemism is "security' ,meaning
war preparations.
...The military power of the USA
put directly in the service of "the
original TM" PIRATE STATE.
U are
the man Norm! But wait... now things
get a little hazy... in the
classic... 'alt0media fake
storyline' fashion!
"President Trump is known to be a
businessman and at least ostensibly
follows a non-interventionist
ideology; being a novice in the
craft of international diplomacy,
however, he has time and again been
misled by the Pentagon and
Washington's national security
establishment."
Awww! Poor "DUmb as Rocks
Donnie" done been fooled agin!
...In the USA... the military men
are stirring at last... having been
made all too aware that their
putative 'boss' has been operating
on behalf of foreign powers ever
since being [s]elected, that the
State Dept of the once Great
Republic has been in active cahoots
with the jihadis ...
and that those who were sent over
there to fight against the
headchoppers discovered that the
only straight shooters in the whole
mess turned out to be the Kurds who
AGENT FRIMpf THREW UNDER THE BUS
ON INSTRUCTIONS FROM JIHADI HQ!
"... The main difference is that the right of the president to have his own attorneys attend and participate at sessions of the Judiciary Committee is conditional on Trump dropping his order that executive branch officials refuse to testify before the various House probes or supply documents to them. ..."
"... Already, on Thursday, the Intelligence Committee took hours of testimony from Bolton's top deputy for Russia and Eastern Europe, Timothy Morrison. Morrison was brought on the National Security Council by Bolton with main responsibility for White House policy on weapons of mass destruction. He spearheaded the drive by the Trump administration to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which both he and Bolton vehemently opposed, in order to give the US military the green light to develop nuclear missiles that could target China from US bases like Guam, other US-controlled islands, and ships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. ..."
"... There are other indications that Bolton is playing a key role behind the scenes in the gathering storm over impeachment. Two Democratic senators have sent a letter to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer seeking details on the Trump administration's decision not to restore Ukrainian access to the "generalized system of preferences" (GSP), a program that benefits developing countries. The letter follows a Washington Post report October 24 that Bolton had warned Lighthizer not to seek restoration of benefits to Ukraine because Trump would not approve it, as part of his effort to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens. Given the content of the article, the most likely source for the leak is Bolton or one of his top aides. ..."
"... General Joseph F. Dunford, who retired only a month ago as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a statement to CNN Wednesday defending Colonel Vindman against attacks from Fox News and other ultra-right media, calling him "a professional, competent, patriotic, and loyal officer" who "has made an extraordinary contribution to the security of our nation in both peacetime and combat." ..."
"... Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan defended the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and agreed that she was the victim of a smear campaign by Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who helped engineer her recall from her post in Kiev because she was an obstacle to the effort to dig up dirt on the Bidens. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Boot focuses on two decisions that have most provoked the CIA-Pentagon-State Department axis of evil: holding up aid to Ukraine, thus undermining military operations against pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, and Trump's partial pullout of US forces in Syria. ..."
"... Boot is, of course, a fervent supporter of impeachment, because he sees that as a step towards reversing course on foreign policy and adopting a more aggressive and militaristic US role in the Middle East. His ranting only underscores the reality of the political conflict in Washington. ..."
By a near party-line vote of 232-196, the US House of Representatives voted Thursday for a
resolution laying out the procedures for the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump
that was begun September 24. The resolution sets the stage for the holding of public, televised
hearings and the likely drawing up of articles of impeachment in the course of the next
month.
Only two Democrats out of 233 in the House voted against the resolution, Jeff Van Drew of
New Jersey and Colin Peterson of Minnesota. Only one member elected as a Republican, Justin
Amash of Michigan, voted for the resolution. He left the Republican Party in July because of
his support for impeachment, and he now sits as an independent.
The sharp divisions over the resolution were reflected in the hour-long debate, in which
Republican defenders of Trump denounced the impeachment inquiry with hysterical anticommunist
rhetoric, calling it "Soviet-style" and a "show trial." Democrats wrapped themselves in the
American flag -- or displayed it on a large placard as they spoke, in the case of Speaker Nancy
Pelosi -- and denounced Trump for endangering US "national security."
The procedure laid down in the eight-page resolution, drafted Wednesday by the House Rules
Committee, gives an outsized role to the House Intelligence Committee, which is to begin public
hearings sometime in November at which many of the witnesses who have testified behind closed
doors will be asked to do so again in front of television cameras.
The Intelligence Committee, along with four other committees conducting investigations into
various aspects of President Trump's personal, business and official conduct, will report its
findings to the Judiciary Committee, which would actually draw up any articles of impeachment,
vote on them, and send them to the full House for final action.
The overall procedures, including provisions for extended questioning of witnesses by
representatives of both the majority and minority parties, conform generally to similar
measures adopted during the impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon in 1974 and
President Bill Clinton in 1998.
The main difference is that the right of the president to have his own attorneys attend
and participate at sessions of the Judiciary Committee is conditional on Trump dropping his
order that executive branch officials refuse to testify before the various House probes or
supply documents to them.
In the event of continued presidential stonewalling of the House committees, the resolution
provides that the chair of the Judiciary Committee "shall have the discretion to impose
appropriate remedies, including by denying specific requests by the president or his counsel
under these procedures to call or question witnesses."
In other words, if Trump continues to block testimony and evidence, his attorneys will not
be allowed to cross-examine those witnesses who do appear despite the full-throated opposition
of the White House. Given that many officials and former officials of the Trump administration
have agreed to testify under subpoena, this could become a significant issue.
The special role of the House Intelligence Committee underscores the reactionary nature of
the Democrats' impeachment drive. Trump is being targeted, not for his real crimes as
president, attacking immigrants, undermining democratic rights, and asserting quasi-dictatorial
powers, but for his foreign policy actions that are opposed by a substantial section of the US
military-intelligence apparatus.
The witnesses testifying before the closed-door sessions of the Intelligence Committee are
not immigrant mothers, cruelly and in some cases permanently separated from their children, or
the victims of Trump-inspired fascist gunmen like the El Paso mass shooter. Instead, they are
an array of State Department and military officials at odds with Trump's efforts to browbeat
the government of Ukraine into supplying him with political dirt against former vice president
Joe Biden, viewed by Trump as a likely opponent in the 2020 election.
Particularly significant in that context is the announcement that the Intelligence Committee
has set a November 7 date for the testimony of John Bolton, Trump's former national security
advisor. It is not clear whether Bolton will testify, but the potential alignment of the
Democrats and one of the most notorious war criminals in the American government is a clear
demonstration of the reactionary motives of the Democrats, who are acting as front men for
rabid warmongers in the national-security state.
Already, on Thursday, the Intelligence Committee took hours of testimony from Bolton's
top deputy for Russia and Eastern Europe, Timothy Morrison. Morrison was brought on the
National Security Council by Bolton with main responsibility for White House policy on weapons
of mass destruction. He spearheaded the drive by the Trump administration to withdraw from the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which both he and Bolton vehemently opposed, in order
to give the US military the green light to develop nuclear missiles that could target China
from US bases like Guam, other US-controlled islands, and ships in the Pacific and Indian
Oceans.
Morrison is the highest-ranking Trump aide to provide evidence to the Intelligence
Committee, and he announced his impending departure from the White House on Wednesday night,
hours before he was sworn in as a witness. According to leaks to the press from the closed-door
hearing, Morrison largely confirmed the testimony of other witnesses, particularly Lt. Col.
Alexander Vindman, that there was a direct quid pro quo involved in US policy towards Ukraine:
Trump demanded a public investigation into the Democratic Party and the Bidens, in return for
military aid and a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House.
There are other indications that Bolton is playing a key role behind the scenes in the
gathering storm over impeachment. Two Democratic senators have sent a letter to US Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer seeking details on the Trump administration's decision not to
restore Ukrainian access to the "generalized system of preferences" (GSP), a program that
benefits developing countries. The letter follows a Washington Post report October 24 that
Bolton had warned Lighthizer not to seek restoration of benefits to Ukraine because Trump would
not approve it, as part of his effort to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the
Bidens. Given the content of the article, the most likely source for the leak is Bolton or one
of his top aides.
There were further indications of support for the impeachment drive -- or at least for the
national-security officials who have come forward to testify against Trump -- from the top
levels of the military and diplomatic establishment. General Joseph F. Dunford, who retired
only a month ago as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a statement to CNN Wednesday
defending Colonel Vindman against attacks from Fox News and other ultra-right media, calling
him "a professional, competent, patriotic, and loyal officer" who "has made an extraordinary
contribution to the security of our nation in both peacetime and combat."
And in testimony Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is expected
to confirm his nomination to be US Ambassador to Russia, Deputy Secretary of State John
Sullivan defended the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and agreed that she was
the victim of a smear campaign by Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who helped engineer
her recall from her post in Kiev because she was an obstacle to the effort to dig up dirt on
the Bidens.
Asked whether it was "ever appropriate for the president to use his office to solicit
investigations into his domestic political opponents," Sullivan replied, "I don't think that
would be in accord with our values." Given Trump's frequent declarations that his telephone
conversation with Zelensky, in which he made just such a request, was "perfect," Sullivan's
statement is extraordinary. It suggests an unprecedented degree of open revolt against Trump
within the national-security establishment.
The real motives of the impeachment drive were spelled out with particular frenzy in a
column by neoconservative Max Boot, who, like Bolton, has been an all-out supporter of US
military aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and throughout the world. Writing in the
Washington Post , under the headline, "More Trump gifts to Russia," he declares,
"Trump is bringing the United States to its knees and making Russia great again."
Boot focuses on two decisions that have most provoked the CIA-Pentagon-State Department
axis of evil: holding up aid to Ukraine, thus undermining military operations against
pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, and Trump's partial pullout of US forces in
Syria.
He writes: "Russian soldiers are entering U.S. bases and taking up the joint patrolling
duties with the Turkish army that U.S. troops had been performing until recently. The fate of
Syria was settled not in Washington but in Sochi -- Putin's favorite Black Sea resort. Trump
has given Russia what it has sought for decades: a leading role in the Middle East. This is the
biggest geopolitical shift in the region since 1972 when Egypt's Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet
advisers and aligned with Washington."
Boot is, of course, a fervent supporter of impeachment, because he sees that as a step
towards reversing course on foreign policy and adopting a more aggressive and militaristic US
role in the Middle East. His ranting only underscores the reality of the political conflict in
Washington.
by John Quiggin on October 13, 2019 On Facebook, my frined
Timothy Scriven pointed to an opinion piece by classics professor Ian Morris headlined
In the long run, wars make us safer and richer It's pushing a book with the clickbaity
title War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to
Robots .". Timothy correctly guessed that I wouldn't like it.
Based on the headline, I was expecting a claim along the lines "wars stimulate technological
progress" which I refuted (to my own satisfaction at any rate) in Economics in Two
Lessons" . But the argument is much stranger than this. The claim is that war, despite its
brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and
prosperity.
For the classical world at 100 CE or so, the era on which Morris is an expert, that argument
seemed pretty convincing. As the famous Life of Brian sketch suggests, Roman rule delivered a
lot of benefits to its conquered provinces.
The next 1900 years or so present a bit of a problem, though. There have been countless wars
in that time, and no trend towards bigger states. On the contrary two or three dozen states
(depending on how you count them) now occupy the territory of the former Roman Empire.
You could cut the number down a bit by treating the European Union as a new empire, but then
you have an even bigger problem. The EU was not formed through war, but through a determination
to avoid it. Whatever you think about the EU in other respects, this goal has been
achieved.
Morris avoids the problem by a "no true Scotsman" argument. He admits in passing that the
1000 years of war following the high point of Rome had the effect of breaking down larger,
safer societies into smaller, more dangerous ones, but returns with relief to the era of true
wars, in which big states always win. That story works, roughly, until 1914, when the empires
he admires destroyed themselves, killing millions in the process.
After that, the argument descends into Pinker-style nonsense. While repeating the usual
stats about the decline in violent deaths, Morris mentions in passing that a nuclear war could
cause billions of deaths. He doesn't consider the obvious anthropic fallacy problem – if
such a war had happened, there would not be any op-eds in the Washington Post discussing the
implications for life expectancy.
I haven't read the book, and don't intend to. If someone can't present a 700 word summary of
their argument without looking silly, they shouldn't write opinion pieces. But, for what its
worth, FB friends who have read it agree that it's not very good.
William Meyer 10.13.19 at 12:31 pm (no link)
I have not read the book in question, so I don't know if the author made this point: "Since
violence or implicit violence is how we overcome essentially all collective action problems
as humans, war probably does belong in the human toolkit." Obviously it would be better if we
could find more and better alternatives to war, and remove the obvious glitches in the
alternatives (e.g., representative democracy, single-party states, etc.) we have tried in the
past. So I find it odd as I get old that so little energy/research/academic effort is devoted
by the human race to finding better means of collective decision making. Clearly our current
abilities in this field are completely inadequate. I ponder if this is because we are
incapable of doing better by some inherent flaw in our makeup or if it is because, as in some
many areas of life, the wicked work tirelessly to maintain the systems that enrich and
empower them. I suspect I'll never find out.
Omega Centauri 10.13.19 at 4:33 pm (no link)
There might be a case to be made for empire building conquest advancing human society. I
think it was primarily by forcing the mixing of cultures which otherwise would have been
relatively isolated from each other. Also empires tended to create safe internal trade
routes, the Silk Road was made possible by the Mongol empire.
At least the authors of books about such empires like to state that over a timespan of
centuries that empire creation was a net positive.
Orange Watch 10.13.19 at 7:07 pm (no link)
Tim Worstall and Dipper's suggestion that the EU is borne of war is mostly just a failure to
take Morris's claim on its unsophisticated face and instead assume it contains subtle
complexity that is obviously missing if you read the article itself:
This happened because about 10,000 years ago, the winners of wars began incorporating
the losers into larger societies. The victors found that the only way to make these larger
societies work was by developing stronger governments; and one of the first things these
governments had to do, if they wanted to stay in power, was suppress violence among their
subjects.
For the EU to have been a result of war in the sense that Morris means, it would have to
have been forcibly formed in 1945 by the US/UK/Russia forcibly incorporating Europe into it.
When Morris states "wars make us stronger and richer" he very simply means wars of conquest
are long-term net positives. He doesn't mean something subtle about nations banding together
to forestall further war; he bluntly means conquerors gluing together their conquests into
empires and then liberally applying boot leather to necks.
Mark Brady 10.13.19 at 7:56 pm (no link)
John Quiggin is, of course, well aware of this quotation, but some of you may not.
"Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of
destruction, they see almost endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us
how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see "miracles of
production" which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a postwar world made certainly
prosperous by an enormous "accumulated" or "backed up" demand. In Europe they joyously count
the houses, the whole cities that have been leveled to the ground and that "will have to be
replaced." In America they count the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon
stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent
radios and refrigerators. They bring together formidable totals.
"It is merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat
beyond recognition. This time it is supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It
confuses need with demand."
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, Chapter 3, "The Blessings of Destruction."
Alex SL 10.13.19 at 8:37 pm (no link)
On one side, AFAIK the last few centuries of war in Europe have indeed seen a reduction of
the number of states. Yes, the trend was partly reversed since 1914, but never to the degree
of splintering that existed in the middle ages.
On the other side, even the widely accepted cases of supposedly 'beneficial' empires such
as the Romans bringing the Pax Romana and the Mongols allowing far-reaching trade and travel
need to be seen against the devastation they caused to make their victories possible. The
Romans, for example, committed genocide in Gaul and Carthage, and they enslaved millions.
Best case argument in my eyes is that a very successful war is beneficial because it stops
continuous smaller wars, which is still not exactly the same as a general "war is
beneficial". Why not just create institutional arrangements that avoid wars between small
nations in the first place?
fran6 10.13.19 at 9:26 pm (no link)
Here's another personality who's also unfazed by the evils of war (although, she does wish
more folks were "kind" to each other):
Stephen @11 Say what? Are you suggesting that the Soviet bloc was part of the EU? As both
your comment and Tim Worstall's unwittingly illustrate, the fact that the EU has been
entirely peaceful since its creation (by contrast with non-EU Europe) is not because
Europeans suddenly became pacifists.
Sorry if I have a hard time getting Morris' argument, but: towards the end, be seems to be
saying the world requires a "Globocop" like the US to ensure its prosperity. But how does
that relate to his wider point about the benefits of war? Does Morris believe the hegemon
owes it to itself, and to the rest of the world, to wage permanent war?
Morris sold out. This was evident in his book comparing the progress of China and Europe,
though that book made excellent points in between the fluff and is well worth reading. But he
is well versed enough in Chinese history to be aware of the ultimate example of armies
conquering and bringing peace to a large area, which happens repeatedly in Chinese history.
Actually, Chinese history itself shows that the opposite argument has more support, that
instead of war being valuable because one powerful country will conquer a large area and
bring peace to it, its valuable because competition between states who are worried about
other states getting a jump on them turns out to be valuable to progress. Large continental
empires, including the Roman one as well, tended to stagnate in terms of culture and
technology and become correct.
MFB 10.15.19 at 7:18 am (no link)
Well, the opinion-piece was published on Jeff Bezos' blog. Oligarchs are naturally in favour
of centralised power and therefore of empires (so long as they are at the apex thereof, which
they usually are). The best way to build an empire is through war.
Of course, the author has to say "despite Hitler, Stalin and Mao", for ideological
reasons. Actually, Hitler built his empire largely through the threat of war rather than
through war itself; once he had actually started the war, he antagonised three more powerful
empires than his own and his empire was then crushed. As for Stalin, he actually did various
double-back-somersaults to avoid getting into wars, and the "empire" which he built in
Eastern Europe as a result of winning a war he didn't want did not sustain itself. And of
course Mao didn't start any wars at all -- his name just had to be thrown in for reactionary
reasons.
It is true that the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British empires were built upon war.
But where are they now? The United States fought a lot of wars against its indigenous people,
but frankly it would still have been a global superpower if it had simply sidestepped most of
them, at least from about 1865 onward.
An interesting question: can it be that a professor of Classics doesn't actually have to
understand the concept of evidence-based argument in any case, because everything has already
been said on the subject and all you have to do is cherry-pick other people's statements?
Because that seems to be how that silly article reads.
And yes, the whole thing reeks of the better angels propaganda. Let's not forget, by the
way, that various members of the EU -- Britain, France, Italy et al -- have launched brutally
murderous wars elsewhere, and the fact that they don't fight among themselves doesn't make
them peaceful or moral entities.
@TheSophist #25: that was mentioned as a joke rather than self-publicity, but if you're
really interested: The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, 2020). Obviously
books about the Roman Empire are ten a penny; my main claim for this one, besides its being
less apologetic and/or gung-ho than most, is that I try to integrate the historical reality
with its reception, i.e. how people have subsequently deployed Rome as an example or model.
Maybe the Roman Empire delivered on peace, but prosperity is a bit more complicated. Some
years ago David Hays wrote a book on the history of technology. One of the things he did was
make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of material welfare at different levels of development.
He concluded that, while civilization has always been a good deal for the elite, it's been
rather iffy for peasants and workers. It's only during the Industrial Evolution that the
standard of living at the lower end of society rose above that of hunter-gatherers. So, the
prosperity delivered by the Roman Empire went mostly to the elite, not the peasantry.
Peter Erwin@43 wanted the Nazis to roll right up to the eastern border of Poland, etc. etc.
So did Hitler. And although I'm quite reluctant to read minds, especially dead one, I will
nevertheless guarantee the move into the Baltics was seen as a blow to his plans, even if
accepted for temporary advantage. You must always see who hates Stalin for beating Hitler,
and those rare few who object to his real crimes.
And, Erwin thinks Chinese troops being in Korea with permission is an aggression, while US
troops closing on Chinese borders is not. The US still isn't out of Korea, but China is, but
he can't figure out who the aggressor is.
Really, Peter Erwin really says it all. The maddest ant-Communist propaganda is now
official.
MFB 10.17.19 at 9:02 am (no link)
I don't want to unnecessarily dump on Peter Erwin, because I don't believe in kicking
disadvantaged children, but if he reads the original post he will notice that it was talking
about international wars, not civil wars. I'll admit the invasion of Finland (and of the
Baltic states and Poland) but those were fairly obviously ways of strengthening the USSR's
position in order to discourage a German invasion, and all took place within the boundaries
of the former Russian Empire which Stalin undoubtedly saw as the default position.
As to Mao, he didn't start the Korean war (as Erwin unwillingly admits) and all the other
wars except for the invasion of Vietnam were civil wars since they entailed moving into
Chinese-controlled territory which had broken away during the main civil war. I'll admit that
Vietnam was a problem, but then, since Mao had been dead for some time by then, it's would be
hard for Erwin to blame him except for the fact that Erwin clearly lives on Planet
Bizarro.
@John Quiggin The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the
Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity
I don't think this is an intellectually generous summary of the arguments, as presented in
the article.
The author himself summarizes it as "war made states, and states made peace", and if it is
indeed true that the author often speaks of "larger, more organized societies" there is a
strong implication that for a society to be "large" in the sense discussed in the article, it
is not really necessary that it be territorially very wide (the most clear cut indication of
that is that the author refers to the European states of the 1600s as "big, settled states"
while they all were geographically tiny at the time). So the point of the author, if
interpreted with intellectual honesty, seems to me to be twofold: 1) that war has been a
crucial factor in the formation of complex, organized states and societies and 2) that these
complex, organized states and societies brought with them so many positive things that the
wars required to form them were worth it.
The second point is pure Pinker. I consider it logically meaningless, myself (it
ultimately relies on the concept that History proceeds like an individual who is choosing a
pair of shoes) and morally repugnant (it is not hard to see who will be pleased to have a
rhetorical tool that can justify any atrocity by the long term gains it will provide humanity
– indeed, it is instructive in that respect to read SS internal papers on when and why
children should be executed with their parents, and how to select people for that task:
contrary to what could be guessed, the manual recommends the soldiers who appear to have a
strong sense of empathy and morality, with the idea that they will those who will most
strongly endorse the "by doing this abominable act, we are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of
future generations" thesis).
The first point, however, appears to me to be broadly correct descriptively. Extracting an
interesting thesis out of it requires much more work than is indicated by the article,
however (I consider Ertman's Birth of the Levianthan an example of that kind of extra
work done successfully).
@John Quiggin Lots of people predicted, along the lines of your post, that with the
external threat of the USSR gone, and the US pulling back, the old warlike Europe would
reassert itself.
I think what we may call the "wide military context thesis" runs rather like this: because
of the experience of WWII and the Cold War, modern industrial states have amassed enormous
military power while at the same time knowing that they can experience total destruction if
they enter into a military conflict with a state of comparable military might. As a
consequence, peace dominates between them. So France is not at war with the United Kingdom or
Germany, certainly in part because they are all (for now) members of the EU but also in part
for the same reason Japan is not at war with South Korea and Russia not at war with
China.
Personally, I think it would be absurd to claim that the EU has played no role in the
pacification of Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, but I think it
would be equally absurd to deny the role of other factors that plainly play a major role in
the equally remarkable pacification of other regional areas in the absence of an economical
and political unification process (rise in prosperity, rise in education, aging populations,
increased military power ).
@7, Omega
Not really wanting to get into the "do empires benefit civilization by promoting trade"
argument, but having just read Lost Enlightenment, nothing in that lengthy tome suggests the
Silk Road city states gain any special advantage from the Mongol invasion. In fact, quite the
opposite. After the Mongols (in part for reasons preceeding the conquest), Central Asia never
regained its pre-eminence (it had actually not just been a facilitator of trade but also a
center of manufacture, culture, scientific progress). Maybe the trade routes hobbled along as
trade routes but the civilization that was both built by and facilitated trade did not
rebound. Most empires seem to get that there is wealth to be had from involvement in trade,
they don't always know how to keep the gold goose alive.
LFC 10.20.19 at 9:10 pm (no link)
"War made states and states made peace" is a riff on Charles Tilly's line "war made the state
and the state made war."
Last, these OT comments are not truly OT. The WTO is being dismantled by Trumpian
nonfeasance in pursuit of the deliberate rejection of the very idea of international
institutions (of imperialism, as I see it, but others don't,) standing above the national
state, immunizing the market against the mistakes of democracy, providing the essential support
to make a world market.
The OP says in the title this is arrogance, presumably as violating economic science. But
all these seeming side issues are about political economy in the end. Trump wants to pretend
the US has been exploited by the old system, and pose as a nationalist. I think he just wants
to rationalize US empire, cutting costs, increasing ROI, etc.
I think Trump is getting support, primarily from the rich; also from middle strata, the kind
of people who put FOX TV on in the waiting rooms of their businesses; AKA from lower strata
led by Christianity to favor any oppressive government that will provide them support for their
efforts to police society; also lower strata ethnic groups who have slowly been turning inwards
to each other as they see a future dog-eat-dog country where the breeds of dogs have to stick
together, or perish.
In short, what the OP sees as arrogant dismissal of science I see as desperation masked with
bravado.
Arguably some of the most significant events since the eight-year long war's start have played out in Syria with rapid pace over
just the last month alone, including Turkey's military incursion in the north, the US pullback from the border and into Syria's oil
fields, the Kurdish-led SDF&# deal making with Damascus, and the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All of this is why a
televised interview with Presiden39;st Bashar Assad was highly anticipated at the end of this week.
Assad's commentary on the latest White House policy to "secure the oil" in Syria, for which US troops have already been redeployed
to some of the largest oil fields in the Deir Ezzor region, was the biggest pressing question. The Syrian president's response was
unexpected and is now driving headlines, given what he said directly about Trump, calling him the "best American president" ever
– because he's the "most transparent."
"When it comes to Trump you may ask me a question and I'll give you an answer which might seem strange. I tell you he's the best
American president," Assad said, according to a
translation provided by NBC.
"Why? Not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president," Assad continued.
"All American presidents commit crimes and end up taking the Nobel Prize and appear as a defender of human rights and the 'unique'
and 'brilliant' American or Western principles. But all they are is a group of criminals who only represent the interests of the
American lobbies of large corporations in weapons, oil and others," he added.
"Trump speaks with the transparency to say 'We want the oil'." Assad's unique approach to an 'enemy' head of state which has just
ordered the seizure of Syrian national resources also comes after in prior years the US president called Assad "our enemy" and an
"animal."
Trump tweeted in April 2018 after
a new chemical attack allegation had surfaced: "If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster
would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!"
A number of mainstream outlets commenting on Assad's interview falsely presented it as "praise" of Trump or that Assad thinks
"highly" of him; however,
it appears the Syrian leader was merely presenting Trump's policy statements from a 'realist' perspective , contrasting them from
the misleading 'humanitarian' motives typical of Washington's rhetoric about itself.
That is, Damascus sees US actions in the Middle East as motivated fundamentally by naked imperial ambition, a constant prior theme
of Assad's speeches , across administrations, whether US leadership dresses it up as 'democracy promotion' or in humanitarian terms
characteristic of liberal interventionism. As Assad described, Trump seems to skip dressing up his rhetoric in moralistic idealism
altogether, content to just unapologetically admit the ugly reality of US foreign policy.
I see Americans keep calling Assad and Putin a ''dictator'' Hey, jackasses, they were ELECTED in elections far less corrupt than what you have in the USSA
Assad is a very eloquent speaker. Witty, sharp and always calm when speaking with decadent press. Of course the MSM understood
what he DID mean, but they cannot help themselves, but parse anything to try hurting Trump.
If true. It means the Vatican (the oldest most important money there is) like Saudi Arabia and the UAE sure do seem to care
about stuff like purchasing power in their "portfolios" and a "store of value"?...
I see lots of EU participants taking their money to Moscow as well with that Arctic bonanza that says "come hither" if you
want your money to be worth something!!!
It's always been about oil. Spreading Freedumb, Dumbocracy and Western values, is PR spiel. The reality is, the West are scammers,
plunderers and outright thieves. Forget the billions Shell Oil, is holding for the Biafran people/region in Nigeria, which it
won't give to either the Bianfran states in the east, nor the Nigerian government, dating back to the secessionist state of Biafra/Nigerian civil war 1967-70. The west are nothing more than gang-bangers, but on the world stage.
Yet the department for trade and industry is scratching its head, wondering why their are so few takers for a post-Brexit trade
deal with the UK, where the honest UK courts have the final say? lol
Too bad it is political suicide for an American president to try to establish communication with Assad. He seems like a pretty
practical guy and who knows, it might be possible to work out a peaceful settlement with him.
economic warfare on the syrian civlian population through illegal confiscation of vital civilian economic assets, and as conducted
in venezeula, is called ________________
Assad is saying where before the UKK was a masked thief, with Trompas and his egotism alias exceptionalism, has not bothered
withthe mask. He is still a murderer and thief.
Now Assad has some idea why Trump is so popular with his base, they love him for not being politically correct, for "telling
it like it is". He's like the wolf looking at the sheep and telling them he's going to eat them and the sheep cheering because
he's not being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Unfortunately in the case of Trump's sheeple, they don't even have a clue they're going to be eaten, the Trumptards all think
he's going to eat someone else like the "deep state" or the "dumbocrats". Meanwhile he's chewing away at their health care, their
export markets, piling up record deficits, handing the tax gold to the rich and corporations while they get the shaft, taking
away program after program that aided students, the poor, and the elderly, appointing lobbyists to dismantle or corrupt departments
they used to lobby against, and in general destroying the international good will that it's taken decades to build.
"... In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted. ..."
"... Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor. ..."
"... I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't. ..."
"... I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. ..."
"... And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. ..."
"... How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement. ..."
Recently Ukraine has been thrown into the spotlight as Democrats gear up to impeach President Donald Trump. More important, though,
is its role in damaging America's relations with Russia, which has resulted in a mini-Cold War that the U.S. needs to end.
Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. During the 17th century, the country was divided between Poland and Russia, and eventually ended
up as part of the Russian Empire. Kiev then enjoyed only the briefest of liberations after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before being
reabsorbed by the Soviet Union. It later suffered from a devastating famine as Moscow confiscated food and collectivized agriculture.
Ukraine was ravaged during Germany's World War II invasion, and guerrilla resistance to renewed Soviet control continued for years
afterwards.
In 1991, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. gave Ukraine another, more enduring chance for independence. However, the new nation's development
was fraught: GDP dropped by 60 percent and corruption burgeoned. Ukraine suffered under a succession of corrupt, self-serving, and
ineffective leaders, as the U.S., Europe, and Russia battled for influence.
In 2014, Washington and European governments backed a street putsch against the elected, though highly corrupt, pro-Russian president,
Viktor Yanukovych. The Putin government responded by annexing Crimea and backing separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass region.
Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided military aid to Kiev.
The West versus Russia quickly became a "frozen" conflict. Moscow reincorporated Crimea into Russia, from which it had been detached
in 1954 as part of internal Soviet politics. In the Donbass, more than a score of ceasefires came and went. Both Ukraine and Russia
failed to fulfill the 2016 Minsk agreements, which sought to end the conflict.
In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from
their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political
division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged
Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists
have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted.
The most important geopolitical impact has been to poison Russia's relations with the West. Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine
cannot be justified, but the U.S. and Europe did much to create the underlying suspicion and hostility. Recently declassified documents
reveal the degree to which Western officials misled Moscow about their intention to expand NATO. Allied support for adding Georgia
and Ukraine, which would have greatly expanded Russian vulnerability, generated a particularly strong reaction in Moscow. The dismemberment
of Serbia with no consideration of Russia's interests was another irritant, along with Western support for "color revolutions" elsewhere,
including in Tbilisi. The ouster of Yanukovych finally triggered Putin's brutal response.
Washington and Brussels apparently did not view their policies as threatening to Russia. However, had Moscow ousted an elected
Mexican president friendly to America, while inviting the new government to join the Warsaw Pact, and worked with a coalition of
Central American states to divert Mexican trade from the U.S., officials in Washington would not have been pleased. They certainly
wouldn't have been overly concerned about juridical niceties in responding.
This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response. Subsequent allied policies then turned the breach in relations
into a gulf. The U.S. and European Union imposed a series of economic sanctions. Moreover, Washington edged closer to military confrontation
with its provision of security assistance to Kiev. Moscow responded by challenging America from Syria to Venezuela.
It also began moving towards China. The two nations' differences are many and their relationship is unstable. However, as long
as their antagonism towards Washington exceeds their discomfort with each other, they will cooperate to block what they see as America's
pursuit of global hegemony.
Why is the U.S. entangled in the Ukrainian imbroglio? During the Cold War, Ukraine was one of the fabled "captive nations," backed
by vigorous advocacy from Ukrainian Americans. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they joined other groups lobbying on behalf of ethnic
brethren to speed NATO's expansion eastward. Security policy turned into a matter of ethnic solidarity, to be pursued irrespective
of cost and risk.
To more traditional hawks who are always seeking an enemy, the issue is less pro-Ukraine than anti-Russia. Mitt Romney, the Republican
Party's 2012 presidential nominee, improbably attacked Russia as America's most dangerous adversary. Hence the GOP's counterproductive
determination to bring Kiev into NATO. Originally Washington saw the transatlantic alliance as a means to confront the Soviet menace;
now it views the pact as a form of charity.
After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. pushed NATO eastward into nations that neither mattered strategically nor could be easily
protected, most notably in the Balkans and Baltics. Even worse were Georgia and Ukraine, security black holes that would bring with
them ongoing conflicts with Russia, possibly triggering a larger war between NATO and Moscow.
Ukraine never had been a matter of U.S. security. For most of America's history, the territory was controlled by either the Russian
Empire or the Soviet Union. Washington's Cold War sympathies represented fraternal concerns, not security essentials. Today, without
Kiev's aid, the U.S. and Europe would still have overwhelming conventional forces to be brought into any conflict with Moscow. However,
adding Ukraine to NATO would increase the risk of a confrontation with a nuclear armed power. Russia's limitations when it comes
to its conventional military would make a resort to nuclear weapons more likely in any conflict.
Nevertheless, George W. Bush's aggressively neoconservative administration won backing for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in
NATO and considered intervening militarily in the Russo-Georgian war. However, European nations that feared conflict with Moscow
blocked plans for NATO expansion, which went into cold storage. Although alliance officials still officially backed membership for
Ukraine, it remains unattainable so long as conflict burns hot with Russia.
In the meantime, Washington has treated Ukraine as a de facto military ally, offering economic and security assistance. The U.S.
has provided $1.5 billion for Ukrainian training and weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles. Explained Obama administration
defense secretary Ashton Carter: "Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States."
Equally important, the perception of U.S. backing made the Kiev government, headed by President Petro Poroshenko, less willing
to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Russia. Thus did Ukraine, no less than Russia, almost immediately violate the internationally
backed Minsk accord.
Kiev's role as a political football highlights the need for Washington to pursue an enduring political settlement with Russia.
European governments are growing restless; France has taken the lead in seeking better relations with Moscow. Germany is unhappy
with U.S. attempts to block the planned Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has campaigned
to end the conflict.
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the
agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage
of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists,
passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.
Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should
formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances,
Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while
Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation,
since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea
while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.
Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would
double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would
certainly be better than endless conflict.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author
of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
I credit Mr. Bandow for his largely fair and accurate description of the events in Ukraine of five years ago, and for his ultimate
policy proposal for the US to extricate itself from its close involvement in the area. However, I'm a little confused by what
exactly the author means by "Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine" and "Putin's brutal response" (aside from the treatment of
dissidents and journalists as he specifically mentioned) to the Maidan Revolution.
Was it aggressive and brutal for Russia to support separatists in the Donbass who were facing the prospect of legal discrimination
and violence by a criminal, neo-fascist government in Kiev, not to mention de-industrialization, the gutting of the agriculture
sector and the forced economic migration of an enormous number of its young workers (assuming that Ukraine's economic deal with
the EU followed the script of every other Easter European's country's deal with the EU)? If Yanukovych had fled to the Donbass
and proclaimed himself still the freely elected (though certainly corrupt) President of the nation, Russia's support for the region
would have even had a shiny brass legal fig leaf, wouldn't it?
As for the supposed "conquest" of Crimea, that's a rather strong word to use considering that all of two members of the Ukrainian
military were killed, and 60-80 of them detained, while 15,000 defected to Russia. Compared to the violence in Kiev and Odessa,
what happened in Crimea almost qualifies as a bloodless coup. But then Mr. Bandow shies away from using the word "hegemony" to
describe the foreign policy of the United States, figuratively putting the word in the mouths of those bad men (which they are)
in Moscow and Beijing. It's a pity that Mr. Bandow felt the need to make linguistic concessions to the foreign policy establishment
in what was otherwise a useful and balanced piece.
Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings
in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to
escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor.
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition
of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously
had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil
- they didn't.
I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history
of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique.
And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are
conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot.
How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.
It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief is
false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent and
jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.
The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued.
And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every
ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------
Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity
Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a communist
monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary would be more
adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations in which the US
was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or China are a to be
kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without tensions. But seriously,
as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------
Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.
This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border.
And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.
When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate, no
international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans should
look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops wherever
it fancies.
This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats
protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy for
its own elites benefit is being denied.
This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you, or
that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives for
a while?
If the US were smart then they would lead some sort of negotiation where eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia were allowed only
mutually agreed defensive weapons systems. A demilitarization of say 200 miles on each side of the Russia border. The strategy
should be to encourage trade between Eastern Europe and Russia where Russia has influence but is not threatening. It may be slow
to build that trust but the real question is whether the US and Europe and NATO want peace with Russia or whether they are using
fear of Russia to keep eastern Europe united with the US and Europe. This may be the case but the future will have China as a
greater threat than Russia (China will even be a threat to Russia). Any shift in Russian relations will take decades of building
trust on both sides.
Good article and excellent history of facts. If I recall during the last Bush administration W hosted a Putin and his then spouse,
at a visit at his ranch. Putin informed W," the Ukraine belongs to Russia. end of sentence.
The author forgot the critical role of Sevastopol in the Crimea. It is Russia's only warm water port and there was no way that
it was going to allow this area to become a NATO naval base. Secretary of State Clinton and her sidekick for Ukraine, Victoria
Nuland should have known this before they started supporting the overthrow of the pro-Russia government in Kiev.
If you look at a historical atlas, you won't find an independent country called Ukraine before 1991. When my parents were born,
near what is now called Lviv, the area was called Galicia and Lemberg was its provincial capital. A gold medal issued in 1916
in honor of Franz Josef's 85th birthday noted that he was the Kaiser of Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria.
When the old Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to reunify, it was with the understanding that NATO would not
extend membership to former Soviet block countries and that there would be no NATO bases in these areas either. NATO and the US
broke their oral commitment to Russia a few years later.
The US should get out of the business of trying to spread democracy in third world countries and interfering in the affairs
of foreign governments. We can't afford to be the policeman of the world. We don't even have the ability to make many of our own
central cities safe for Americans. Think Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, all four of which appear on Wikipedia's
list of the 50 murder capitals of the world (per thousand population).
"... If you enjoyed this original article, please consider ..."
"... making a donation ..."
"... to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Consider Israel's 1967 war for the Golan Heights, WWI partitions of Germany, Spanish American war, What am I missing? ..."
"... "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations." ..."
"... Clearly, the UN is the arbiter of war crimes but they only ever find small, weak offenders guilty. ..."
"... The powerful countries like the US, Britain and Europe are not even investigated for war crimes let alone prosecuted. War crimes are only war crimes if there is someone there to police, prosecute and punish the offenders. There is no such authority, so reference to war crimes is just self gratification and meaningless. The US doesn't even pretend to adhere to international law. ..."
"... You can't be President of the US without engaging in war crimes. They all serve the military industrial complex. At least Trump does some things right instead of 100% for the elite and their NWO. ..."
"... I agree he's stupid, generally. But it seems pretty rational for any US President to expect he (or she) will never face any consequences for the horrific crimes they commit. ..."
"... The trouble is, angry spittle, that the US will get away with this pillage, as it has done in the past. The only difference between this "prez" and the ones before him is his *boasting* openly, publicly about America's war crimes. ..."
"... The issue of "securing oil" makes a lot if sense in this perspective. Syria is not as utterly miserable as planned, but quite miserable indeed, and delaying her access to her own oil will keep it that way. ..."
What the president advocated was one of the most telling statements of his presidency. It
amounted to an admission that he is perfectly willing to commit a war crime.
P resident Donald Trump on Sunday held a highly unusual press
conference to announce the successful special forces operation the night before that
resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. When Trump read his prepared
statement and did not walk away from the podium, my first thought was, "Oh, boy. How much
classified information is he going to release now?" My own informed opinion is that he released
a lot, talking about who did the raid, how they did it, where they launched from, what other
countries were involved, and the fact that special forces elements remained on-scene for two
hours to collect documentary intelligence. Often, those kinds of details leak out in the days
and weeks after a raid like this. But they never, ever come from the president himself.
Trump also gloated
inappropriately that Baghdadi "ran whimpering, crying, and screaming all the way" before
detonating a suicide vest, killing himself and three of his children. The whimpering, crying,
and screaming part probably wasn't true. After all, the raid was in the middle of the night and
Baghdadi had fled into a tunnel to try to escape the onslaught. It would have been impossible
to know if he was crying down there. Trump added about Baghdadi, "He died like a dog. He died
like a coward. The world is now a much safer place."
>>Please
Donate to Consortium News' Fall Fund Drive<<
Very few people in the Middle East keep dogs as pets. This was an insult just for the sake
of insult. Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad Baghdadi is dead. He was a coldblooded murderer,
child killer, and terrorist, and the world is a better place without him in it. But the insults
were unnecessary.
President Donald Trump announcing the U.S. killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Twitter)
All of that is irrelevant to the story, though. The most interesting part of the president's
press conference was his segue into a non sequitur
about Iraq. Mid way through the press conference a reporter asked Trump about what "brilliant"
people helped in his decision-making process for the operation. Trump's response was one of the
most telling statements of his presidency. Indeed, it was an admission that he is perfectly
willing to commit a war crime, an impeachable offense, as part of his personal ideology. Here's
the exchange :
Reporter: "You -- you mentioned that you had met some -- gotten to know some brilliant
people along this process who -- who had helped provide information and -- and -- and advice
along the way. Is there anyone in particular or would you like to give anyone credit for
getting to this point today?"
Trump: "Well, I -- I would but if I mention one, I have to mention so many. I spoke to
Senator Richard Burr this morning and as you know, he's very involved with intelligence and
the committee. [Note: Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) is the chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence.] And he's a great gentleman. I spoke with Lindsey Graham just a
little while -- in fact, Lindsey Graham is right over here, and he's been very much involved
in this subject and he's -- he's a very strong hawk, but I think Lindsey agrees with what
we're doing now. And again, there are plenty of other countries that can help them patrol. I
don't want to leave 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers on the border. But where Lindsey and I
totally agree is the oil.
"The oil is, you know, so valuable. For many reasons. It fueled ISIS, number one. Number
two, it helps the Kurds, because it's basically been taken away from the Kurds. They were
able to live with that oil. And number three, it can help us, because we should be able to
take some also. And what I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of
our great companies to go in there and do it properly. Right now it's not big. It's big oil
underground but it's not big oil up top. Much of the machinery has been shot and dead. It's
been through wars. But -- and -- and spread out the wealth. But no, we're protecting the oil,
we're securing the oil. Now that doesn't mean we don't make a deal at some point.
"But I don't want to be -- they're -- they're fighting for 1,000 years, they're fighting
for centuries. I want to bring our soldiers back home, but I do want to secure the oil. If
you read about the history of Donald Trump, I was a civilian. I had absolutely nothing to do
with going into Iraq and I was totally against it. But I always used to say that if they're
going to go in -- nobody cared that much but it got written about -- if they're going to go
in -- I'm sure you've heard the statement because I made it more than any human being alive.
If they're going into Iraq, keep the oil. They never did. They never did. I know Lindsey
Graham had a bill where basically we would have been paid back for all of the billions of
dollars we've spent."
Pillaging
What Donald Trump is advocating here, in his very Donald Trump kind of way, is "pillaging."
He is advocating taking Iraq's oil by force, ostensibly as payment for our "liberation" of that
country. This is clearly and definitively a war
crime .
International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The
Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even after
taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe punishment
as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." In The Hague Regulations of 1907, two
provisions stipulate clearly that "the pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault,
is prohibited," and that "pillage is formally forbidden." The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have both formally reaffirmed that
pillaging a country of its natural resources is illegal and is considered to be a war crime.
It's as simple as that.
It matters not one whit if Lindsey Graham has a bill to take Iraq's oil. It doesn't matter
if Trump thinks we should take the oil as reimbursement for U.S. aggression against that
country. What matters here is the rule of law, and the law is clear. It's bad enough that the
U.S. military is in Syria illegally. (There are only three ways to send troops to a foreign
country legally: If the troops are invited by the country; if the country attacks the United
States; or with the permission of the United Nations Security Council.) Let's not add more
international crimes to the ones we've already committed.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the
Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23
months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture
program.
If you enjoyed this original article, please considermaking a donationto Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like
this one.
Vincent Castigliola , October 30, 2019 at 14:03
We have no right undertaking any military action in Syria or taking or deciding how
Syria's oil should be used. I also respect John K; however, I question his characterization
of taking control of Syrian territory or resources as "pillage".
I would distinguish the literal definition and also ask him to cite a single instance in
which the victor in a war didn't take property fro the loser.
Consider Israel's 1967 war for the Golan Heights, WWI partitions of Germany, Spanish American
war,
What am I missing?
You're missing that the law changed over time and that Israel's pillage of Palestine is an
ongoing legal issue.
1949 4th Geneva Convention, Article 33: "Pillage is prohibited."
Article 53:
"Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging
individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public
authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such
destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."
GMCasey , October 31, 2019 at 11:37
Vincent, I think you missed the pillage of America when the Supreme Court ruled that
corporations are people too.
This has been a "pillage" act from day one The US Congress, never declared a war on
Syria.
GMCasey , October 31, 2019 at 11:57
Vincent, you forgot how America took down the free nation of Hawaii and its queen. Then
there's the Whiskey Rebellion when America was forming that was pretty depressing too as it
let the citizens know that freedom was missing from certain classes. The sadness of America's
continual influence in South America was begun so long ago, and remember, the land on which
Guantanamo is situated does belong to Cuba -- -and then of course, Taft and the Philippines
-- -- – actually, it seems since the beginning of America's time this nation has not
seriously committed to making ,"a more perfect union," for its citizens and the world -- --
–maybe the Climate Crisis will rein us in.
robert e williamson jr , October 30, 2019 at 13:00
RE: my earlier comment!
The US Government has been a thief ever since those who created it started stealing the
North American Continent from the indigenous people who lived here. Never mind the genocide
the white man prosecuted against those people.
We been stealing oil from the middle east ever since the 1950's. Now that the problems
created world wide by the super wealthy elitists, SWETS, greed are coming back to haunt us
has the deep state decided we need to be governed by a dictator or is the dictator the excuse
for the security state to take over the government because a dictator got elected potus?
Vera Gottlieb , October 30, 2019 at 12:56
All one needs to do is study up close a world map, locate all the countries rich in
natural resources and bingo know where the US will meddle next, bring "democracy and human
rights", instigate civil unrest and then intervene. All in a nutshell: stealing.
robert e williamson jr , October 30, 2019 at 12:43
Anyone, the only republicans talking for the last two years, who supports the proposition
that the "Orange Apocalypse " could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it needs
to be in the dock also. . The one thing the security state, deep state, intelligence
community and congress have all trumpeted, pardon the pun, is the U.S. does not support
dictators. Right.
Er, that is dictators anywhere the U.S. security state, deep state, intelligence community
and congress doesn't want them.
The CIA history does support that last statement BTW.
CIA has stellar record of interfering in elections and overthrowing legitimately elected
rulers the globe over. Successful endeavors CIA calls them I believe.
The CIA went against the conventions of democracy by supporting dictators as soon as the
agency was created. See the Dulles Bros. and the United Fruit Company saga. The U.S. foreign
policy has been schizophrenic ever since.
Rob , October 30, 2019 at 12:36
Hey, maybe the pillaging of natural resources acquired by military conquest can be added
to the list of impeachment charges against Trump. That list could stretch across an ocean, if
the Dems include all of Trump's impeachable offenses. Ukrainegate is possibly the least
serious of all.
Michael McNulty , October 30, 2019 at 11:53
If Al Capone was alive today he wouldn't go into organised crime and bribe officials, he'd
go into Wall Street and own them.
Dale , October 30, 2019 at 10:18
Excellent article, John. I will never forget the oil guys gathering in my Bahrain office
with their maps of Iraq's oil fields. I don't think they have yet made their millions, but I
have no doubt they expect they will.
"International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The
Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even
after taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe
punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." "
As if that was anything new. The USA| pilfered tens of thousands of patents after WW2 fom
Germany – from private companies. The confiscation of German foreign accounts, like in
WW1 the removing of machinery and the dismantling of Factories etc. etc. The USA is no
diffrnet in this aspect than what the Nazis did in the areas they occupied. See:
spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-29194050.html
Michael McNulty , October 30, 2019 at 12:04
Regarding patent theft, I read the two places the Nazis headed for when invading a country
were the Central Bank and the Patent Office. It turns out the pulse engine they used on the
V1 Doodlebug was a design stolen from the Patent Office in Paris. The design was granted a
patent around the end of WWI but it had not been in production because nobody had a practical
use for it. Until the Germans did.
Keith , October 30, 2019 at 09:40
When it is said that "we take the oil," what is meant is that our oligarchs are taking the
oil. "We" are not taking the oil, they are. I wonder if, when the time comes that the means
of production are seized in an uprising in this country if those leading such uprising will
be considered war criminals.
Nathan Mulcahy , October 30, 2019 at 08:02
There is nothing surprising or unusual about Trump saying that he is willing to commit war
crimes. His immediate predecessors (Obama, Bush and Clinton) have all committed war crimes
and all are celebrated widely as great statesmen (one of them recently even as a "peace
expert"). It is just that, unlike his predecessors, Trump does not care about the false
facade.
What is stunning is not Trump's bluntness, but the utter disregard for (international) law
by both political "parties" (I'd rather call them two brands of the same Mafia organization),
our so called "media" (I'd rather call them propaganda arms of the said Mafia organization),
but also of the "intellectuals" of the land, and of course the vast, vast majority of its
citizens. (Of course I exclude the readers of this website, and of similar news media from my
condemnation).
john wilson , October 30, 2019 at 07:02
If plundering the oil was America's only war crime we would think that wasn't so bad. The
war crimes committed by the West are so huge that much of them are never reported. Clearly,
the UN is the arbiter of war crimes but they only ever find small, weak offenders guilty.
The
powerful countries like the US, Britain and Europe are not even investigated for war crimes
let alone prosecuted. War crimes are only war crimes if there is someone there to police,
prosecute and punish the offenders. There is no such authority, so reference to war crimes is
just self gratification and meaningless. The US doesn't even pretend to adhere to
international law.
@ "The war crimes committed by the West are so huge that much of them are never
reported."
I disagree. I think generally they are reported but are not identified as the war crimes
that they are. E.g., the wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan,
etc.
Dao Gen , October 30, 2019 at 02:53
It's unlikely that Trump is sending US troops back into Syria for economic or for
long-term reasons. Oil is just a smokescreen. Probably there are several real reasons:
1. Lindsey Graham is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so Graham would oversee a
possible Senate trial if the foolish Dems choose to impeach. Right after Trump's recent
pullout, the neocon Graham was furious and said he would support impeachment. Trump needs to
mollify Graham and other neocon Repubs for a while for the sake of his own survival.
2. The DINO lib-neocon Dem leadership, attacked Trump ferociously from the right. And the
Repub leadership in the House all voted with the Dems to censure Trump for his very helpful
pullout. With impeachment likely, Trump can't ignore this situation.
3. The MSM are overwhelmingly neocon about foreign affairs, and they have put out many
stories romanticizing the Kurds, who have actually done a fair amount of ethnic cleansing
against Christians, Sunnis, and various tribal groups, so millions of Americans have been
brainwashed into thinking Trump actually "betrayed" the poor Kurds, whereas it was the
pro-PKK leadership of the Kurds who betrayed ordinary Kurds by not reconciling with Syria
long ago. After all, Trump announced last December that he was soon going to withdraw from
Syria. If the PKK-affiliated leaders had been realistic, there would have been no Turkish
invasion. But the MSM hide this situation, thus putting great pressure on Trump.
4. France and Israel and much of the US security state want to continue to use the Kurds as
tools to balkanize Syria, attack the Syrian government, and block Iran. They are fighting
back hard against Trump.
Ultimately Trump's reasons for staying in Syria are basically kabuki to pacify the neocons
and strengthen his domestic political position. Of course this does not justify his war
crimes. However, US forces are unlikely to stay for a long time in Syria for several reasons,
and when Trump sees a good opening, surely he will try to make another realistic withdrawal
after the impeachment farce has passed. Probably Putin will come up with some kind of
diplomatic solution that will allow the US to save face while withdrawing. The conditions
which will limit US oil banditry in Syria are:
1. After impeachment has passed and after the Syrian government liberates Idlib province, it
will send its military to eastern Syria, and the small US force will be obliged to leave.
Neither Trump nor the Syrians want a war to break out over second-rate oil fields, so
diplomacy will win out.
2. The Kurds normally look down on Arabs and discriminate against them, so there is no way
the Arab tribes now running the Deir Ezzour oil field will allow the Kurds to come in and
take it away from them. Likewise, further to the northeast the Kurds have been pushed out of
several oil fields which they grabbed after Isis forced the Syrian government to leave the
area.
3. Trump's base doesn't at all like this plan to send US troops back into Syria. If Trump
wants to be reelected, he'll be forced to withdraw by late spring of 2020. By then Trump's
base will be more important to him than the DC neocons.
This Great Oil Rustling Expedition is actually the last hurrah for the US in Syria. The US
has definitely lost in Syria, but the neocons are just too stupid, stubborn, narcissistic,
and immature to be able to come out and directly say, "We lost. Let's move on." Instead they
have to grandstand and pretend they are winning until the very last moment. How many more
people will have to die because of the vanity of the neocons and the weakness of Trump? Let
us pray there will not be many.
Dale , October 30, 2019 at 10:15
Can you supply corroboration for your allegations against the Kurds? I went looking and
found an old Telegraph article, which identified a small part of Syria where Kurdish
operations had driven Syrians toward ISIL.
But I also found this:
See: medium.com/@makreyi/have-the-syrian-kurds-committed-ethnic-cleansing-8af3c33abf6c :
"YPG has had its share of faults. Crimes have been committed in regions under their
control. Some members of Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) -- a multi-national force made up of
Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and other minorities -- have committed violations against civilians.
And those few perpetrators were reprimanded by SDF and YPG. However, by no means have the
Kurds committed ethnic cleansing and forced displacement against any ethnic or religious
group. Despite their faults, the Kurds have considerably done a phenomenon job in protecting
the civilians of all backgrounds."
Trump's no more guilty of war crimes than every President since I've been alive, for 69
years. And even Presidents before then. You can't be President of the US without engaging in
war crimes. They all serve the military industrial complex. At least Trump does some things
right instead of 100% for the elite and their NWO.
dfnslblty , October 30, 2019 at 09:45
¿What?
potus does few things correctly, and economically those things benefit the elite.
Peter , October 29, 2019 at 21:09
Historically, who benefits by emboldening the the fly overs? In show business,
entertainers always starts out by telling their audience how great they are. Essentially,
lodging their tongues up the audience's bum. Trump's got his tongue so far up the fly over's
bums, well, it's just embarrassing really. This is the recipe for popularity. Trump tells
American's just what they want to hear. Exceptionalism on steroids.
angry spittle , October 29, 2019 at 20:46
The stupid idiot announces to the world he is about to commit a war crime. That on top of
his bone headed admissions of several other crimes. The guy is so stupid he probably thinks
Cheerios are donut seeds.
Cambo mambo , October 30, 2019 at 01:14
I agree he's stupid, generally. But it seems pretty rational for any US President to
expect he (or she) will never face any consequences for the horrific crimes they commit.
Are you actually suggesting Trump would ever face justice if he sent ExxonMobil to take
over Syria or Iraqi oil wells, by force? Bush did much, much worse. Obama committed horrible
war crimes. Why would Trump face consequence when they didn't? Believing he would is what's
"stupid", imo.
AnneR , October 30, 2019 at 08:34
The trouble is, angry spittle, that the US will get away with this pillage, as it has done
in the past. The only difference between this "prez" and the ones before him is his
*boasting* openly, publicly about America's war crimes.
Of course, the Strumpet is clueless about such things as the Geneva Convention. Mind you,
even being aware of it doesn't mean that the US president and admin and Pentagon etc will in
fact abide by any of the international laws regarding war. The past 70 years have made that
absolutely clear. And so far as I recall the US has refused to agree to any possibility of
its politicos, military, secret agency folks being tried for war crimes by any international
body. So the whole political, MIC, corporate-capitalist-imperialist set up here feels
completely free to destroy, steal, lay claim to, give away, kill, torture – as it
pleases anywhere it wants, when and how it wants.
The stupidity of Trump may be exaggerated. Keep in mind that he is a businessman who had
his key property bankrupted and survived pretty well. Superficially, bankruptcy is a symptom
of stupidity, but the trick is to make OTHER people to loose money and yet continue in spite
of common wisdom of lost trust etc.
Exhibit one is "insane" endeavor to bring Iran to its knees by unilaterally breaking a
multilateral agreement and imposing sanctions that would be utterly unenforceable because no
serious country would cooperate. Initially that was my thinking, all leaders of major allied
countries were against and promised measures to resist. And "heroically" petitioned to
Washington to be allowed to do so. Washington gave a limited time reprieve and otherwise
refused. So that make them sad, although quickly they focused on other troubles. Trump proved
that Amercan ability to get away with any s t imaginable was greatly underestimated.
Thus Trump's citizenry can rejoice that America proved better than before that it has
unique power to make selected other countries very misreable. Wimps like Obama were dabbling
in that too, but now the lives of Venezuela and Iran are worse than before. Not that allies
and lap dog countries do well, but not as miserable. And leaders from Equador to Lithuania
can be glad that following America is a wise choice, the alternative is worse, even if they
are periodically humiliated.
The issue of "securing oil" makes a lot if sense in this perspective. Syria is not as
utterly miserable as planned, but quite miserable indeed, and delaying her access to her own
oil will keep it that way.
To summarise, "admitting to crimes" is not stupid if you can get away with it. But it is
evil.
JustAMaverick , October 29, 2019 at 20:14
From here on out the rule of law will have very little meaning if any at all
internationally or otherwise. We can't vote our way out and the corporate fascists and the
military industrial machine have assumed virtually total control of everything. They will not
give that power back, nor will they give up one cent of their ill gotten gains without a
fight .a fight they have been preparing for, for almost forty years.
America is truly a Kleptocracy with all the goals and lack of ethics or morals that word
implies. We have let them sow an enormous amount of greed, hate and ignorance while they
lobotomized the citizenry with endless programming and propaganda, and that crop is soon to
be reaped. It will be bad. Really bad Worse, nobody even addresses the real issues let alone
unites to defend themselves.
To my eyes the daylight is almost gone and all I can see in the future is as Orwell put
it: "A boot kicking you in the face forever."
The problem traces back to the conquest of Iraq. The article implicitly assumes the
existence of a sovereign entity named
"Iraq." That is wrong. There is no such entity. There was one up until 2003. Then U.S. imperialism
invaded and destroyed it. Iraq's oil was taken by force right there.
What resulted is an occupation political project in place of the former Iraqi state. Then
the plan went wrong. Iran seized control of the project entity through elections. The first
and second "Iraqi prime ministers" under the conquest represented an Iranian clerical
organization called the Islamic Dawa.
Now, the occupation political entity was granted exclusive control of Iraq's oil revenues
under the terms of the conquest. The U.S. imperialists figured they would remain in control
of the entity, but Iran gained control.
Trump doesn't want to take Iraq's oil away not from Iraq. He wants to take it away from
Iran.
Jimmy Gates , October 29, 2019 at 18:58
Valid call. Include, in the prosecution, all previous executives who are\ were complicit
in these crimes. We all know the Presidents etc, but Congress members should be indicted and
IC members as well.
Nick , October 30, 2019 at 10:25
Don't forget 'journalists'! Bill Kristol and Judith Miller should be in the dock as
well!
lizzie dw , October 29, 2019 at 18:44
I agree totally with this author. Taking Syria's oil is Not A Good Thing. It is blatant
thievery to take something from a sovereign country "because you can", then try to justify it
by some lame statement. What additionally bothers me is that this attitude has been present
in the USA through many administrations. Look at the Ukraine since 2014. Many long time
politicians were involved with getting money from Ukraine – for no reason other than
they were American and in charge. Look at Afghanistan and the poppy fields our soldiers are
guarding for the CIA. Thieves, all of them. Look at Clinton and the Central American drugs
through Mina. We can look at the Turks looting areas of Syria of whole factories(!) while
they were occupying the northeast. What about WWII? Politicians took whatever was not nailed
down from Germany. Stealing the art. Look at Britain only now returning some artifacts they
took out of countries they were administrating decades ago. I am sickened by all of them and
I sure am disgusted with President Trump.
rodney lowery , October 29, 2019 at 18:39
My circle of friends thought Trump's speech and actions were refreshing and perfect to
reduce these terrorist leaders publicly to nothing. You libs just can't get it. Trump is not
going to give respect and dignity to murderers. We take their life and dress them down
publicly, and take away any prestige they may have had towards other terrorists. And since
when do democrats and libs care about war crimes? why don't you go apologize for us.
ML , October 30, 2019 at 09:01
Your lack of respect for decency, decorum, the rule of international law, statesmanship,
diplomacy, etc etc, is simply breathtaking. Many of us here were appalled by Obama's war
crimes too, rodney. And most of us here are not "libs" but free and critically thinking human
beings, well apart from your Team Red/Team Blue baloney dichotomous way of seeing the
U.S.A.'s role in the world. Now, who doesn't "get it?" Why, I'd say that would be you!
With all due respect, sir Since there are a good number of Americans who've swallowed the
obvious psychological warfare "Operation Baghdadi" operation hook, line and sinker, featuring
a President of the United States effectively sharing with the American boys and girls a scary
bedtime story, – and drenched with a very poor actor's "tells" or giveaways – the
more accurate term might be "My circle jerk of friends ". We would strongly suggest sobering
up – before Phase 2 of this extremely dangerous fairy tale commences.
Peace.
Joe , October 29, 2019 at 18:35
Lot of folks were bit premature giving Trump some credit for pulling troops out of Syria.
The MIC waved a dollar sign in front of Trump and showed his true colors once again.
Noah Way , October 29, 2019 at 18:18
Just a continuation of oBOMBa's war crimes .The deep state / shadow government is in control.
Nick , October 30, 2019 at 10:35
Which were a continuation of Bush's war crimes, which were a continuation of Clinton's
which were a continuation of Bush's which were a continuation of Reagan's which were a
continuation of Carter's
Just prior to the R-Party Nominating Convention at Cleveland in July 2016, Pepe
wrote :
"Some powerful, well-connected business interests supporting Trump from New York to the
Midwest have outlined their reasons to me, off the record. The fact that their reasons run
completely opposite to the Beltway consensus speaks volumes."
Yes, I remember this article quite well as should other barflies. As I wrote at the time,
those Pepe cited had their own perverted twist on history and thus incorrect reasons as to
the why of America's decline as this paragraph details:
"Why Russia? ' Because Russia does not rig their currency against us to destroy our
industries, and is therefore a natural ally rather then Germany and Japan, who still rig
their currencies against the United States and have destroyed much of our industrial
power .'" [Italics Original]
The bolded text above is what the businessmen were wrong about, and in a big way. But
Trump's isn't the first time policy was based on misconceptions and incorrect history. Pepe
provides further citations that I'll omit here, although they are important, and just provide
his summation followed by one a bit too important to omit here:
"For these business interests, illegal immigration, rigged currencies, and the
'unnecessary war' against Russia are the biggest issues of the presidential campaign....
"This business crowd is distinctly anti-war: ' When Mr. Trump talks about war having to
have rational profit and loss expectation, he is sounding as a logical businessman .'
They also stress that, ' the war against Russia is also destroying our oil industry
as the US ordered the Gulf States to dump their shut-in oil production capacity on the oil
market to bankrupt Russia .'" [Bolded text my emphasis]
But 3 years later, oil price has yet to really recover to the point where Frackers can
make a profit and their Ponzi Scheme seems about to go bust, which is why we're seeing
something that looks like a shift in Trump's initial plan regarding Syria. And there's still
more that can be gleaned from the article that goes against what was then current policy and
its direction. I think it's now fairly easy to see the reasoning behind Trump's UNGA tirade
aimed at the Globalists while contradicting himself about patriots as he's fighting against
one of the most noted--and demonized--of the planet's patriots--Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
Good historical rundown of
Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe;
the wars in Southeast Asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and
the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the
aftermath. Sickening
@joost #33 I like to think that Trump's saying that the US army are going to steal Syria's
oil is very much the same strategy. What better way to turn world opinion against US
occupation of Syria?
Good historical rundown of
Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe;
the wars in southeast asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and
the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the
aftermath. Sickening
@49 Tim Glover. Exactly, imagine Obama saying that. Trump seems to have a habit of using
reverse psychology on people. This strategy works very well when nobody likes you and you
have the power of Twitter at your disposal.
People tend to overestimate the power of the US president. Every one of them, being democrat
or republican, gets assimilated by the borg. Resistance is futile, unless you are perceived
to be an idiot and do just enough to please your overlords. The Borg likes what he says, "we
are there for the oil" and they are getting reckless, exposing themselves for what they are.
Group think distorts perception and that is their weak spot. The borg will get more open
about their crimes and their true intentions. This breaks global support for the petrodollar
and that will be the end of the "outlaw" US empire.
I am surprised that I've not seen any commentary regarding the US's announcement that they
will continue to steal Syria's oil, and more importantly what anyone - Syria, Russia or
anyone else - might do about this blatant crime.
Clearly this challenges Syria's sovereignty as well as Russia's declared aim to restore
Syrian territory in full.
Any thoughts how this situation might evolve? IMO Russia has to remain a facilitator
rather than an actor. A "no-fly zone" enforced by Syrians and SAA ground troops?
Stripes: Carolina Army Guard troops move into eastern Syria with Bradley Fighting Vehicles
WASHINGTON – National Guard members from North and South Carolina began moving into
eastern Syria with heavy armored vehicles on Thursday as part of the Pentagon's new mission
to secure oil fields wrestled from the Islamic State, a military spokesman said.
Soldiers with the North Carolina-based 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment and the
South Carolina-based 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade were deployed to Deir al-Zour to
protect American-held oil fields around that city, Army Col. Myles Caggins, the spokesmen
for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve, tweeted Thursday.
Caggins' tweet included photos of soldiers loading M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles onto Air
Force C-17 Globemaster cargo jets to be used on the mission. . . .
For now, the new deployment will not include M1 Abrams tanks, the Pentagon official said
Thursday.
here
Why use regulars when we can call up the National Guard?
US hold on the oilfields depends mostly on Iraq. The oilfields of Deir Ezzor are in open
country with few towns and apart from the Euphrates flood plain is sparsely populated.
The only cover for guerrilla style attacks against US or its proxies on the oilfields will
be the occasional dust storm.
Apart from Iraq, syria setting up S-300 at deir Ezzor and taking control of the airspace
would also be a game changer but this may not happen.
Lebanon and Iraq are both undergoing US color revolutions at the moment so its a matter of
waiting for the dust to settle on both these moves to see where US is positioned in the
region.
Yet the US military is overwhelmingly the #1 most trusted US institution among Americans,
despite it forcibly wasting their hard earned money to kill tens of millions of innocents
abroad. At the same time the US is also filled to the brim with draft dodgers.
If anybody thinks Bolton and his chickenhawking buddies isn't representative of the whole
US, think again.
Don Bacon 73 "Really? I thought the protests were like many other protests around the world,
over economic issues."
As was the Syrian 'revolution'. Plenty of small US companies willing to go in. US already
has buyers as they have been shipping oil out of east Syria for some time. Turkey, Israel ect
plus many more willing to buy at a discount. And considering the oilfields are simply stolen,
oil can be sold at a discount.
"... But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. ..."
"... But who can object to celebrating " hometown heroes " in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools ? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway , timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs? ..."
"... Roughly two-thirds of the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever closer to a trillion dollars ..."
"... The U.S. military remains the most trusted institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. ..."
"... A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. ..."
"... America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in the room." ..."
"... The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as talking heads to explain and promote military action to the American people. ..."
"... America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. ..."
"... In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50 caliber sniper rifles to various military-style assault rifles. ..."
"... Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000 gun deaths in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the continued bombing of numerous countries. ..."
"... 9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself has taken on a new " warrior ethos " that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this country's citizen-soldier tradition , especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II. ..."
"... Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war , as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism. ..."
Killing Me Softly with Militarism - The Decay of Democracy in America
When Americans think of
militarism
,
they may imagine jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through the streets as flag-waving crowds exult
;
or, like
our
president
, they may think of enormous parades featuring troops and missiles and tanks, with
warplanes soaring overhead. Or nationalist dictators wearing military uniforms
encrusted
with
medals, ribbons, and badges like so many barnacles on a sinking ship of state. (Was Donald
Trump
only
joking
recently when he said he'd like to award himself a Medal of Honor?)
And what
they may also think is: that's not us. That's not America. After all, Lady Liberty used to welcome
newcomers with a torch, not an
AR-15
.
We don't
wall
ourselves
in while
bombing others
in
distant parts of the world, right?
But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed
troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones.
In
fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective
because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. Even in the heartland of Trump's
famed base, most Americans
continue
to reject
nakedly bellicose displays like phalanxes of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue.
But who can object to celebrating "
hometown
heroes
" in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century
America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters
in
schools
? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of
Midway
, timed for Veterans
Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the
good guys but the underdogs?
What do I mean by softer forms of militarism?
I'm a football fan, so one recent
Sunday afternoon found me watching an NFL game on CBS. People deplore violence in such games, and
rightly so, given the number of injuries among the players, notably concussions that debilitate
lives. But what about
violent
commercials
during the game? In that one afternoon, I noted repetitive commercials for
SEAL
Team
,
SWAT
, and
FBI
,
all CBS shows from this quietly militarized American moment of ours. In other words, I was exposed
to lots of guns, explosions, fisticuffs, and the like, but more than anything I was given glimpses
of hard men (and a woman or two) in uniform who have the very answers we need and, like the
Pentagon-supplied
police
in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, are armed to the teeth. ("Models with guns," my wife
calls them.)
Got a situation in Nowhere-stan? Send in the Navy SEALs. Got a murderer on the loose? Send in
the SWAT team. With their superior weaponry and can-do spirit, Special Forces of every sort are
sure to win the day (except, of course, when they don't, as in America's current series of
never-ending
wars
in distant lands).
And it hardly ends with those three shows.
Consider, for example, this
century's update of
Magnum P.I.
, a CBS
show featuring a kickass private investigator. In the original
Magnum
P.I.
that I watched as a teenager, Tom Selleck played the character with an easy charm.
Magnum's military background in Vietnam was acknowledged but not hyped. Unsurprisingly, today's
Magnum is proudly billed as an ex-Navy SEAL.
Cop and military
shows are nothing new on American TV, but never have I seen so many of them,
new and old, and so well-armed.
On CBS alone you can add to the mix
Hawaii
Five-O
(yet more models with guns updated and up-armed from my youthful years), the three
NCIS
(Naval
Criminal Investigative Service) shows, and
Blue
Bloods
(ironically starring a more grizzled and less charming Tom Selleck) -- and who
knows what I haven't noticed? While today's cop/military shows feature far more diversity with
respect to gender, ethnicity, and race compared to hoary classics like
Dragnet
,
they also feature far more gunplay and other forms of bloody violence.
Look, as a veteran, I have nothing against realistic shows on the military. Coming from a family
of first responders -- I count four firefighters and two police officers in my immediate family --
I loved shows like
Adam-12
and
Emergency!
in
my youth. What I'm against is the strange militarization of everything, including, for instance,
the idea, distinctly of our moment, that first responders need their very own version of the
American flag to mark their service. Perhaps you've seen those
thin
blue line
flags, sometimes augmented with a red line for firefighters. As a military veteran,
my gut tells me that there should only be one American flag and it should be good enough for all
Americans. Think of the proliferation of flags as another soft type of up-armoring (this time of
patriotism).
Speaking of which, whatever happened to
Dragnet
's Sergeant Joe Friday, on the
beat, serving his fellow citizens, and pursuing law enforcement as a calling?
He didn't
need a thin blue line battle flag. And in the rare times when he wielded a gun, it was .38 Special.
Today's version of Joe looks a lot more like G.I. Joe, decked out in body armor and carrying an
assault rifle as he exits a tank-like vehicle, maybe even a
surplus
MRAP
from America's
failed
imperial
wars.
Militarism in the USA
Besides TV shows, movies, and commercials, there are many signs of the increasing embrace of
militarized values and attitudes in this country. The result: the acceptance of a military in
places where it
shouldn't be
, one that's
over-celebrated,
over-hyped
,
and given
far too much
money and cultural
authority, while becoming
virtually immune
to
serious criticism.
Let me offer just nine signs of this that would have been so much less conceivable when
I was a young boy watching reruns of
Dragnet
:
1. Roughly
two-thirds
of
the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to
the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever
closer to a
trillion
dollars
. Such colossal sums are rarely debated in Congress; indeed, they enjoy wide
bipartisan support.
2. The U.S. military remains the
most
trusted
institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. No
other institution even comes close, certainly not the presidency (37%) or Congress (which
recently rose to a monumental
25%
on
an impeachment high). Yet that same military has produced disasters or quagmires in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. Various "surges" have repeatedly failed. The
Pentagon itself can't even pass
an
audit
. Why so much trust?
3. A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. Wars are now automatically
treated as multi-generational with little concern for how
permawar
might
degrade our democracy. Anti-war protesters are rare enough to be
lone
voices
crying in the wilderness.
4. America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in
the room." Sages like former Secretary of Defense
James
Mattis
(
cited
glowingly
in the recent debate among 12 Democratic presidential hopefuls) will
save
America
from unskilled and tempestuous politicians like one Donald J. Trump. In the 2016
presidential race, it seemed that neither candidate could run without being endorsed by a
screaming general (
Michael
Flynn
for Trump;
John
Allen
for Clinton).
5. The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as
talking
heads
to explain and promote military action to the American people. Simultaneously, when
the military goes to war, civilian journalists are "embedded" within those forces and so are
dependent on them in every way. The result tends to be a cheerleading media that supports the
military in the name of patriotism -- as well as higher ratings and corporate profits.
6. America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. Consider, for instance, the current
controversy over the aid to Ukraine that President Trump blocked before his infamous phone call,
which was, of course,
partially
about weaponry
. This should serve to remind us that the United States has become the
world's
foremost
merchant of death, selling far more weapons globally than any other country. Again,
there is no real debate here about the morality of profiting from such massive sales, whether
abroad
($55.4
billion in arms sales for this fiscal year alone, says the Defense Security Cooperation Agency)
or
at home
(a
staggering 150 million new guns produced in the USA since 1986, the vast majority remaining in
American hands).
7. In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50
caliber
sniper rifles
to
various military-style assault rifles. Roughly
15
million
AR-15s are currently owned by ordinary Americans. We're talking about a gun designed
for battlefield-style rapid shooting and maximum damage against humans. In the 1970s, when I was
a teenager, the hunters in my family had bolt-action rifles for deer hunting, shotguns for
birds, and pistols for home defense and plinking. No one had a military-style assault rifle
because no one needed one or even wanted one. Now, worried suburbanites buy them, thinking
they're getting their "
man
card
" back by toting such a weapon of mass destruction.
8. Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via
mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000
gun
deaths
in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the
continued
bombing
of numerous countries. But ignorance is not bliss. By tacitly giving the military a
blank check, issued in the name of securing the homeland, Americans embrace that military,
however loosely, and its misuse of violence across significant parts of the planet. Should it be
any surprise that a country that kills so wantonly overseas over such a prolonged period would
also experience mass shootings and other forms of violence at home?
9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself
has taken on a new "
warrior
ethos
" that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this
country's
citizen-soldier tradition
,
especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II.
What these nine items add up to is a paradigm shift as well as a change in the
zeitgeist. The U.S. military is no longer a tool that a democracy funds and uses reluctantly. It's
become an alleged force for good, a virtuous entity, a band of brothers (and sisters), America's
foremost missionaries overseas and most lovable and admired heroes at home.
This embrace
of the military is precisely what I would call soft militarism. Jackbooted troops may not be
marching in our streets, but they increasingly seem to be marching unopposed through -- and
occupying
--
our minds.
The Decay of Democracy
As Americans embrace the military, less violent policy options are downplayed or
disregarded.
Consider the State Department, America's diplomatic corps, now a
tiny
,
increasingly
defunded
branch
of the Pentagon led by Mike Pompeo (celebrated by Donald Trump as a tremendous leader because he
did
well
at West Point). Consider President Trump as well, who's been labeled an isolationist, and
his
stunning
inability
to truly withdraw troops or end wars. In Syria, U.S. troops were recently redeployed,
not withdrawn, not from the region anyway, even as
more
troops
are being sent to Saudi Arabia. In Afghanistan, Trump sent a few thousand more troops in
2017, his own modest version of a mini-surge and they're still there, even as peace negotiations
with the Taliban have been abandoned. That decision, in turn, led to a new surge (a "
near
record high
") in U.S. bombing in that country in September, naturally in the name of advancing
peace.
The result: yet higher levels of
civilian
deaths
.
How did the U.S. increasingly come to reject diplomacy and democracy for militarism and
proto-autocracy?
Partly, I think, because of the absence of a military draft. Precisely
because military service is voluntary, it can be valorized. It can be elevated as a calling that's
uniquely heroic and sacrificial. Even though most troops are drawn from the working class and
volunteer for diverse reasons, their motivations and their imperfections can be ignored as
politicians praise them to the rooftops. Related to this is the Rambo-like cult of the warrior and
warrior
ethos
, now celebrated as something desirable in America. Such an ethos fits seamlessly with
America's generational wars. Unlike conflicted draftees, warriors exist solely to wage war. They
are less likely to have the questioning attitude of the citizen-soldier.
Don't get me wrong: reviving the draft isn't the solution; reviving democracy is.
We need the active involvement of informed citizens, especially resistance to
endless
wars
and
budget-busting
spending
on American weapons of mass destruction. The true cost of our previously soft (now
possibly hardening) militarism isn't seen only in this country's quickening march toward a
militarized authoritarianism. It can also be measured in the dead and wounded from our wars,
including the
dead, wounded
, and
displaced
in
distant lands. It can be seen as well in the rise of increasingly well-armed, self-avowed
nationalists domestically who promise solutions via walls and weapons and "good guys" with guns.
("Shoot them in the legs," Trump is
alleged
to
have said about immigrants crossing America's southern border illegally.)
Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform.
A now-widely
accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a
new
civil
war
, as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory
rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when
Americans
themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism.
With apologies to the great
Roberta Flack
,
America is killing itself softly with war songs.
"Police who deployed explosives and armored vehicles to flush
out a man –who'd stolen two belts and a shirt from a Greenwood
Village Walmart– from the house of Leo and Alfonsia Lech, are
not required to compensate the couple for destroying their
home, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled
on
Tuesday."
Those police destroyed a house worth well over 200K since
it's in metro Denver...and all to apprehend a punk that
shoplifted less than $100 of merchandise...something
terribly wrong, all the govt units, local on up are high on
the arrogance of power with impunity.
In addition to the fired Shokin's claim that President Poroshenko warned him not to
investigate Burisma because it was not in the Bidens' interest, the notes say, the prosecutor
also said he "was warned to stop" by the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt .
The State Department declined to explain this assertion about Pyatt, who was ambassador to
Ukraine from 2013 to 2016 and now is Ambassador to Greece. The Biden presidential campaign did
not respond to a request for comment.
Recounting Shokin's version of events, the notes say he "was called into Mr. Poroshenko's
office and told that the investigation into Burisma and the Managing Director where Hunter
Biden is on the board, has caused Joe Biden to hold up one billion dollars in U.S. aid to
Ukraine." Poroshenko later told Shokin that "he had to be fired as the aid to the Ukraine was
being withheld by Joe Biden," the Giuliani interview notes say.
Trump has claimed that Vice
President Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin because he was investigating
his son's employer.
"I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really
unfair," the president said, referring to Shokin in his July 25 phone call with Ukraine's
president, Volodymyr Zelensky. That call triggered the current impeachment crisis after a CIA
whistleblower alleged that Trump had pressured the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden in
return for military aid.
A Politico
investigation in 2017 found that officials in Poroshenko's government helped Hillary
Clinton allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, notably Paul Manafort,
who before joining the Trump campaign was a political consultant for ousted Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych.
Poroshenko's administration insisted at the time that Ukraine stayed neutral in the
race.
Following a short artillery and air engagement with Syria over raids by exiled Palestinian
guerillas, Egypt mobilized against her nemesis in 1967. President Nasser sent six divisions to
the Sinai, removed the UN peacekeeping force, and closed the Straits of Tiran south of Israel.
Israel struck first, fearing annihilation.
As Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld states in
The Transformation of War , "for six glorious days war was Israel and Israel was war."
The result was a smashing victory for the Israelis
, who lost around 800 soldiers, as opposed to 20,000 for Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The Sinai
peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights were added to
Israel's territory.
Compare this short war with another conflict that played out in 2006. For 34 days, Israel
battled Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in response to the Shia terrorist group's killing and
capturing of several Israeli soldiers in cross-border raids. Israel launched a massive air and
artillery campaign, followed by a ground invasion in late July. When the ceasefire was signed
on August 14, both sides claimed victory, but as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in
The Israel Lobbyand U.S. Foreign
Policy , "it was clear to most independent experts" that "Hezbollah had come out ahead
in the fight." The IDF chief of staff resigned, and an Israeli government investigation rebuked
the planning and handling of the campaign, stating that the military had "pursued goals that
were not clear and could not be achieved."
Worse still, the air, artillery, and naval campaign killed an estimated 1,183 Lebanese (a
third of them children) and devastated the country's infrastructure. These actions drew strong
condemnation from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for causing "destruction on a
catastrophic scale." During the last three days of the war, the IDF fired over one million
cluster bombs into southern Lebanon, "saturating the area." The leader of an IDF rocket unit called these actions
"insane and monstrous."
War can still be won by being nasty and short, as shown in the first Gulf War, but time is
not on the side of the powerful. Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped
adversary almost always works to the advantage of the weaker side. Van Creveld compares this
situation to an adult who "administers a prolonged, violent beating to a child in a public
place." Observers will sympathize with the child and intervene, regardless of its prior
behavior.
With the Palestinians, the position of weakness is even more extreme. Israel dominates the
lives of 3.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, controlling air, land, and sea
access, in a situation that's been compared to "living in a cage" by Swedish foreign minister
Jan Eliasson. Despite numerous American attempts to secure Palestinian statehood and resolve
the conflict, the present situation seems worse than ever.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, has made it clear that Israel will be supported
through thick and thin. And the world has slowly but surely begun to take notice. The
BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction), initially confined to college campuses and
Palestine, spilled into the national news when Democratic lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida
Talib spearheaded a movement opposing bills aimed at criminalizing support of BDS. Some
Republicans, namely Senator Rand Paul, have opposed those bills, too, on
free speech grounds.
Recently, after the congresswomen were denied entry to Israel because of their support of
BDS, liberal Jewish journalist Peter Beinart defended their stance. Speaking on a CNN panel , he openly
sympathized with the plight of the Palestinians, claiming their treatment by Israel constitutes
an "indefensible denial of basic human rights." Fellow panelists attempted to tie support for
Palestine to terrorism, a common tactic. But terrorism in that part of the world is nothing
new. Israel's defenders tend to forget or are ignorant of the fact that beginning in 1937, the
militant Zionist group Irgun
was responsible for placing bombs in buses and large crowds. One of its leaders during Israel's
war for independence, future prime minister Menachem Begin, was referred to by Prime Minister
Levi Eshkol simply as "the terrorist."
Modern Israel is no longer a weak state in danger of annihilation. The IDF is highly
motivated, trained, and funded. Emboldened by the financial and moral backing of the United
States and powerful lobbying groups, its treatment of Palestinians and other enemies has become
steadily more severe.
With recent
elections still contested , it remains to be seen whether these policies will continue. But
militarily, Israel's position is not tenable. You can win at the tactical level and rack up a
higher body count, but still lose the war. As frequent TAC contributor and military historian
William S. Lind notes, "in the 3,000 years that the story of David and Goliath has been told,
how many listeners have identified with Goliath?"
Israel will last as long as Wash. extorts money from our wages and supports it. Without the
US taxpayer, Israel wouldn't exist, both from its beginning to right now.
I think the lack of sympathy for Israel is not that it s the "Goliath" of this story but
that it is allowing settlers to live in the Occupied Territories.
So TAC is standing with the Palestinians now I see. Will it stand with those other Davids,
the intersectional allies of the BDS crowd too? namely Black Lives Matter, illegal Latino
migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and other assorted SJW types?
We are now in the end times; when it comes to Israel, all is in the hands of the Lord. As
the nations of the earth seek to attack and destroy Israel, they fall into ruin: look at
the entire Muslim world; look at what's happening to Europe. Most of all, look at the
astonishing rise and continued power of Donald Trump, the man who recognized Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel. Pick your side and accept your fate accordingly.
"Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped adversary almost always
works to the advantage of the weaker side."
I don't always buy this. For me this only works if the powerful state is in the wrong.
And sadly, in this situation, Israel is deeply in the wrong.
But what does happen is over time, the weak becomes slowly stronger. Because they are
always studying their enemies. They are learning their tactics and how to defeat them. This
may take decades, but eventually the weak become the strong.
This is why it is always best to quickly offer a hand of friendship to a vanquished
enemy. If you don't, you'll eventually trade places.
The author seems to be writing an interesting fiction, reminds one of a Hollywood movie
about a Russian oligarch at the behest of a senior Russian government official, attempting
to engineer wall street crash.
Taking out a newspaper advertisement with proper representation to state one's case can't
be compared with the US funded National Endowment for Democracy's funding of Hong Kong's
increasingly violent rioting.
This is like apple and orange, not comparable. China did not interfere in
NBA's affairs, just reacting to her citizens uproar against the infamous now
deleted tweet. Thus many Chinese Chinese sponsors pulled out. This is no
different to sponsors pulling out of US athletes endorsements from time to
time when there are scandals.
Whereas NED is US intelligence cover for interference in targeted countries
like Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran and many Islamic countries around the world, to
advance US political agenda.
And in breaking news. 39 Britons have been found dead in a container
trying to be smuggled fromt eh failed UK state to the successful state
run by the CCP.
Did I get that the right-way round ?
This is a paper or news site about asia. It is written in English? What does this tell
you? The audience ostensibly consists of westerners (or educated people from asia or
elsewhere) who want to read an alternative to the drivel and rubbish that's propagated in
copious quantities by the scat factories of the west and their zionist-oligarch dominated
news conglomerates...
Who is interfering in elections? Does china name some loser guaido as president of
venezuela or support terrorists in syria? Is china sanctioning (with financial warfare)the
whole world including their own allies? You must have no modicum of shame to come up with
this absolute smorgasbord of rancid festering bollocks that you think is befitting of
"reporting." You are bettet off taking a sabbatical and never coming back... i would tell
you all of this to your face with the utmost respect that i could muster before i
vomited...
Presidents come and go... the empire, deep state bureaucrats, and their slavish
dual-state minions such as yourself will march on no matter what until your rotten seed
perpetuate the corruption and degeneracy passed down through your genes. That xyz is
president makes zero difference in deterring the momentum of evil that lurks within the
diseased sociopaths such as yourself.
You are an unmitigated disgrace to true journalism and do a grave disservice to this
site's reputation.
CIA uses fake identities for the propaganda articles. If a nation is building close
ties with China, automatically an author with a name from that nation appears. They
also have groups posting propaganda under a single fake name. There are only a few
genuine Asian CIA hacks making a living off the CIA.
USA is heading for multiple
recessions possibly a depression unless they change their current anti China
policies.
In fact, in military, fake identities for information warfare are assigned to
one person, so that it multiplies the effect. To keep track of these
"personas" per each real person, and their postings -- a "persona" data bases
are needed to keep track of their activities. And unfortunately , there are
always some technicians who are more then happy to talk about it.
It would not surprise me if he worked for the CIA... this organization is, by
its mission, embedded into all public spheres...
What is worrisome is that
the cia has no accountability to anyone. It is one great example of deep state
operator. Also, cia is heavily infiltrated by mossad. In other words, cia is a
parallel drug traffickers organization that dabbles in news, democracy
promotion, torture, coups, blackmail, assasibation, rendition...
It is accountable to no one ... their actions are conducted in secrecy and
cannot be scrutinized... the president can't control them... these
organizations are a manifest example of why this article is a huge fallacy
dressed up in cured excrement.
These people are outrageously shameless in their assertion that they can openly interfere
in the internal affairs of other countries, like the recent bills passed by the US House
of Representatives in support of the Blackshirts of HK, but they would not brook any
interference from China in their election, not that it's true at all.
This is a good example of how the US apply its Orwellian ideology of "American
Exceptionalism" - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" -
George Orwell's "Animal Farm."
Another guy cashing in on the evil China fad, pathetic. It is the US who conducts
financial warfare by imposing illegal sanctions and restrictions on other countries using
the dominance of the dollar in international trade.
If it is so easy to have a country's financial system snd stock markets manipulated -- how
do know that our own financial sharks are not already manipulating market to enrich them
selves , while making it appear that everything is fine? Or that they are not crashing
markets in order to profit?
There is something not right about a country with financial and market systems living off
the fumes of news cycle?
Look at how many times West attacked Russian financial systems
and markets, blocking whole companies and financial institutions -- yet nothing crashed.
Currency lost some value helping exports, while those earning in dollars simply had more
money to spend domestically. And by placing sanctions kn European food products -- they
shot up to the first place globally in wheat production.
I am wondering if the difference is Russia's large currency and gold reserves. As
opposed US economy that sits atop a large debt bubble? Than anything can spook it.
Bill Gertz is running out of stuff to bad mouth China. He is eager to make some money now
that he's been fired by Washington Free Beacon for having some shady deals with the
Chinese billionaire fugitive Guo who is the subject covered in his reporting.
Maybe Gertz can tell us who China wants to be elected by staging these financial influence
campaign? Gertz is sounding utterly ridiculous now.
american are losers, foreign influence here and there, well thanks to your own foreign
policies bombing here and there and regime change everywhere, you sow what you get. if you
don't want foreign influence. just build a great wall and extend it to these. not only no
5G, ditch all comunications including mail
This is a nonsense article. Lots of hypotheticals with no proof presented of China's
intention or cases of actually trying to influence any American election.
This is more
how Western countries behave with their Machivellian modus operandi overthrowing
governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. This author and American officials are
merely voicing what the USA is already capable of doing rather than what China has in
place.
In fact there is a debate among Chinese officials and think tanks that they might want
Trump to have a second term because as the USA p@sses off many countries including those
allied with the USA that might help China down the line.
Wait a minute -- Russia wants Trump to be reelected, and China wants him to lose?
With US creating legislation for the whole world -- our sanctions whose enforcement is
imposed in others -- means that other people must have the right to elect the president?
How can the world accept such financial burden on others with no right to vote.
Remember
America next time you vote for sanctions, tariffs etc. -- no taxation without
representation.
Global presidents must be elected globally!
There's no need for the Chinese to rely on 'covert' operation to influence the election's
outcome. For instance, if China just cancels the buying of the agricultural goods from the
US that it has dealt with Trump in what is being called the partial deal from the trade
war, it would be already enough to influence in the election. Lol!
"... The brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile, became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became rich. ..."
"... José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around the world) is about 80% of that of the United States. ..."
"... the combined wealth of Chilean billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park" their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's GDP, exceeds even that of Russians. [Graph] ..."
"... Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising its GDP per capita. ..."
"... if there Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people. ..."
Chile: The poster boy of neoliberalism who fell from grace
It is not common for an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development county to
shoot and kill 16 people in two days of socially motivated riots. (Perhaps only Turkey, in
its unending wars against the Kurdish guerrilla, comes close to that level of violence.) This
is however what Chilean government, the poster child of neoliberalism and transition to
democracy, did last week in the beginning of protests that do not show the signs of subsiding
despite cosmetic reforms proposed by President Sebastian Piñera.
The fall from grace of Chile is symptomatic of worldwide trends that reveal the damages
causes by neoliberal policies over the past thirty years, from privatizations in Eastern
Europe and Russia to the global financial crisis to the Euro-related austerity. Chile was
held, not the least thanks to favorable press that it enjoyed, as a exemplar of success.
Harsh policies introduced after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973, and the murderous
spree that ensued afterwards, have been softened by the transition to democracy but their
essential features were preserved. Chile indeed had a remarkably good record of growth, and
while in the 1960-70s it was in the middle of the Latin American league by GDP per capita, it
is now the richest Latin American country. It was of course helped too by high prices for its
main export commodity, copper, but the success in growth is incontestable. Chile was
"rewarded" by the membership in the OECD, a club of the rich nations, the first South
American country to accede to it.
Where the country failed is in its social policies which somewhat bizarrely were
considered by many to have been successful too. In the 1980s-90s, the World Bank hailed
Chilean "flexible" labor policies which consisted of breaking up the unions and imposing a
model of branch-level negotiations between employers and workers rather than allowing an
overall umbrella union organization to negotiate for all workers. It was even more bizarrely
used by the World Bank as a model of transparency and good governance, something that the
transition countries in Eastern Europe should have presumably copied from Chile. The
brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile,
became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a
funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into
one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment
performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In
the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became
rich.
José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to
George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of
the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners
receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International
Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around
the world) is about 80% of that of the United States.
While Chile leads Latin America in GDP per capita, it also leads it terms of inequality.
In 2015, its level of income inequality was higher than in any other Latin American country
except for Colombia and Honduras. It exceeded even Brazil's proverbially high inequality. The
bottom 5% of the Chilean population have an income level that is about the same as that of
the bottom 5% in Mongolia. The top 2% enjoy the income level equivalent to that of the top 2%
in Germany. Dortmund and poor suburbs of Ulan Bataar were thus brought together.
Chilean income distribution is extremely unequal. But even more so is its wealth
distribution. There, Chile is an outlier even compared to the rest of Latin America.
According to the Forbes' 2014 data on world billionaires, the combined wealth of Chilean
billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin
American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth
share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is
the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we
exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park"
their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's
GDP, exceeds even that of Russians.
[Graph]
Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of
many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of
the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising
its GDP per capita.
But the recent protests show that the latter is not enough. Growth is
indispensable for economic success and reduction in poverty. But it is not enough: if there
Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in
grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people.
MOSCOW, October 26, 2019 – RIA Novosti – The Russian Ministry of Defense has
published satellite intelligence images , showing American oil smuggling from Syria.
Image 1: Situation in the Syrian Arab Republic as of October 26, 2019.
According to the ministry, the photos confirm that "Syrian oil, both before and after the
routing defeat of the Islamic State terrorists in land beyond the Euphrates river , under the
reliable protection by US military servicemen, oil was actively being extracted and then the
fuel trucks were massively being sent for processing outside of Syria."
Image 2: Daman oil gathering station, Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 42 km east of Deir
ez-Zor, August 23, 2019.
Here, in a picture of the Daman oil gathering station (42 kilometers east of the Deir-ez-Zor
province), taken on August 23, a large amount of trucks were spotted. "There were 90 automotive
vehicles, including 23 fuel trucks," the caption to the image said.
In addition, on September 5, there were 25 vehicles in the Al-Hasakah province, including 22
fuel trucks. Three days later, on September 8, in the vicinity of Der Ez-Zor, 36 more vehicles
were recorded (32 of them were fuel trucks). On the same day, 41 vehicles, including 34 fuel
trucks, were in the Mayadin onshore area.
Image 3: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Al-Hasakah province, 8 km west of Al-Shaddadi,
September 5, 2019.
As the official representative of the Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov noted, the Americans
are extracting oil in Syria with the help of equipment, bypassing their own sanctions.
Igor Konashenkov:
"Under the protection of American military servicemen and employees of American PMCs, fuel
trucks from the oil fields of Eastern Syria are smuggling to other states. In the event of
any attack on such a caravan, special operations forces and US military aircraft are
immediately called in to protect it," he said.
According to Konashenkov, the US-controlled company Sadcab , established under the so-called
Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria , is engaged in the export of oil, and the income of
smuggling goes to the personal accounts of US PMCs and special forces.
The Major General added that as of right now, a barrel of smuggled Syrian oil is valued at
$38, therefore the monthly revenue of US governmental agencies exceeds $30 million.
Image 4: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 10 km east of Mayadin,
September 8, 2019.
"For such a continuous financial flow, free from control and taxes of the American
government, the leadership of the Pentagon and Langley will be ready to guard and defend oil
fields in Syria from the mythical 'hidden IS cells' endlessly," he said.
According to Konashenkov, Washington, by holding oil fields in eastern Syria, is engaged in
international state banditry.
Image 5: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 14 km east of Mayadin,
September 8, 2019.
The reason for this activity, he believes, "lies far from the ideals of freedom proclaimed
by Washington and their slogans on the fight against terrorism."
Igor Konashenkov:
"Neither in international law, nor in American legislation itself – there is not and
cannot be a single legal task for the American troops to protect and defend the hydrocarbon
deposits of Syria from Syria itself and its own people, " the representative of the Defense
Ministry concluded.
A day earlier, the Pentagon's head, Mark Esper declared that the United States is studying
the situation in the Deir ez-Zor region and intends to strengthen its positions there in the
near future "to ensure the safety of oil fields."
The Ruskies are mad - Trump is stopping them from taking the oil, it belongs to the Kurds
for their revenue and if US wants to help them have it so what....US is staying to secure
those oilfields against ISIS taking it again!
If everyone listened to the President when he talks there wouldn't be any spin that anyone
could get away with.
The oil is on Kurdish land. This part of Syria is just a small sector of Kurdish territory
that has been stolen from them by dividing it between four "countries", each of which has
oil. This is why the territory was stolen and why the Kurds have become the world's best
fighters.
Putin brokered a deal to stop Turkey wiping the Kurds by having their fighting force
assimilate with the Syrian military and required Russian observers access to ensure the Turks
keep their word and not invade to wipe all the Kurd civilians in order to also take their
Syrian oil.
So the corrupt US generals get caught in the act. Their senators and reps on the payroll
are going to need some more of that fairy tale PR for POTUS to read to us at bedtime.
If we are to believe that this is to protect the oil fields then the oil revenue should be
going to Syria, even though the Kurds are on the land. Follow the money to find the truth
because there is no one you can trust on this stage.
MSM are simply not covering this story. Or the other story about the supposed gas attack
at Douma where evidence was adulterated and/or ignored completely under US pressure.
Expect the same from MH17.
WTF is going on with our leaders and corporate MSM....can no one in a leadership position
distinguish between lies and the truth? Or fantasy and reality? Where are the 'journalists'
who will stand up and tell the truth in MSM? They no longer exist.
18 wheel fuel trucks around here hold 10K gal. 50 truck loads 500K of un processed oil if
it's true? I though they just got there. but no telling who might steal under those
conditions.
That was August. this is now. The Russians must have really wanted that oil to finance
their occupation. Trump is preventing ISIS from using the oil as their piggy bank.
Wasn't Erdogan doing the same not too long ago? Shortly after Erdogan became close friends
with Putin. Does this mean Trump and Putin will become close friends as well? Or is this
simply a common practice between two people who undeservingly place relatives in government
positions? First Turkey hands over Al Baghdadi (he received medical treatment in Southern
Turkey in a private clinic owned by Erdogan's daughter guarded by MIT agents) so that they
can continue to commit genocide against Kurds in Turkey and Syria... and now the US is
stealing Syrian oil like how the Turks initially were doing. What a mess and a
disappointment. Hopefully Erdogan visits DC and unleashes his security guards beating any
person freely walking the streets while Trump smiles and describes him as a great leader.
Watch in coming weeks as the tanker convoys are proven to be rogue operations from an out
of control CIA / Cabal network. Trump removed the troops, and now Russia is shining a light
on it.
No coincidence another article on ZH brung attention to the Ukrainian wareehouse arsos..12
in 2 yrs..2017-2018 where stored munition were carted away...not to fight rebels n Donbass
but sold to Islamic groups in Syria..it was one of Bidens pals..one keeps the wars going
while the others steal siphon of resources..whatever isn't nailed down..I've never seen
anything like this..Democrats are truly CRIME INC
w/o that oil..Syria can never reconstruct itself..Usually in a War or ,after that is, the
victors help rebuild..what we see is pillaging and salting the earth and walk away.. as the
Romans did to enemies like Carthage..it will resemble Libya ...a shambles
So the smuggling is protected by air cover and special forces? Light up the fields using
some scud missiles. I'm sure Iran or Iraq have a few they could lend Syria. Can't sell it if
its burning.
Brits and Americans have pillaged, as any other empire, wherever they conquered.
After WW1 the 'Allies' robbed Germany of all foreign currency and its entire gold. This
triggering hyperinflation and mega crisis.
During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated' across
Europe.
In more recent history, the gold of Iraq, Ukraine and Libya was flown to Fort Knox.
All well documented.
This is common practice by empires. Just please stop pretending you were the good
guys , spreading freedom and democracy, because that's really a mockery and the
disgusting part of your invasions.
During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated'.
Exactly, that's where the US got its 8,000 tons of gold. Before WWII, the US had 2000 tons
of gold, after WWII it had 8,000 tons. Even today the US always steals the gold of the
countries it "liberates"
Help me understand why the USA would want to smuggle oil from Syria. When the USA has more
oil than all of the middleast.
Now I can see why Russia would blame the USA if smuggling Oil from Syria. Russia needs
that oil really bad. So to get the USA away from the Syrian oil fields they would of course
create a reason for the rest of the world that the USA is Dishonerable and must not be
trusted with Syrian oil. It is just too obvious to me, what Russia is trying to
accomplish.
Huh? The US is stealing the oil to deprive the Syrian people energy they need to rebuild
the country we destroyed. This is collective punishment of Syrians because they won't
overthrow Assad.
Collective punishment is a crime against humanity according to international law. There's
your impeachable offense. But don't worry, that kind of crime is ok with Shifty Schiff and
the rest of the Israel ***-kissers in Congress.
The US is NOT stealing the oil - the American Military have become PIRATES - no different
than Somali Red Sea Pirates or looters in Newark stealing diapers and TV's
This is nothing new. We've been stealing oil from dozens of countries for the past 75
years since WWII. The only difference is that Trump is being blatant about it which in a way
is weirdly refreshing.
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration
maintains its refusal to nominate new judges
to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and
bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which
preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading
"on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if
it does).
likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is
displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are
essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the
old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because
the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in
the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to
be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt
classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the
second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she
proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily
coerced by the establishment, if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the
fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular
stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about
how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form
the new social order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be
better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New
Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than
the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is
completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and
recent history.
Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original
(the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s
inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by
continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't
pure enough.
But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic
design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff
rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong
and has done great damage.)
"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that
might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."
Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know
detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of
separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds.
Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.
Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would
be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.
It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths
were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite
the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare
earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted?
Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory
and moving it.
China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for
restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the
justification.
I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the
possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient
justification?
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and
institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.
In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the
rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of
these developments have been positive.
In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like
what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the
aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its
features will be valued if they manage to persist.
I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations,
and confederations like the European Union.
steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am
If I may venture to translate @1?
Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is
more of the same.
Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing
Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional
quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face
of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular
stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't
collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic
growth without end/crisis.
I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading
system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent,
rigid class system .
If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to
hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or
nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good"
mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but
self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social
cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.
The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is
probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be
shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years
of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will
probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things
(despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly
likely to be manipulated like Trump.
Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and
weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as
nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.
I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more
for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think
have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.
I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way
likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem
being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral
values against socialism, no matter what voters say.
It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into
national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant
deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign
policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations
of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign
financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the
national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.
And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua
non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of
the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here
;-)
> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least
debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John
Hewson's commentaries
> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the
term of any meaning
You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).
Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism
that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy
proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three
months of her Presidency).
Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal
reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals
are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.
> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every
political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of
the free market.
This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of
neoliberalism.
Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40
years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of
human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological
progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow
integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.
And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of
"classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the
foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial)
pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and
replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a
different type of) neoliberal globalization.
Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal
globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming
propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of
citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now
acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.
The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of
free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades
(say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free
market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some
sort) is really defining feature here.
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration maintains its
refusal to nominate new judges to the WTO
appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and bring about an effective return to the General Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading "on WTO terms", but those terms will
probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if it does).
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are essentially connected with the desire
of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it
is impossible because the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorable) and now is hanging in the air. "Greed
is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal
Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump"
although she proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily coerced by the establishment,
if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the fact that neoliberalism entered the
period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably
can argue only about how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form the new social
order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be better, or more just. Neoliberalism
was actually two steps back in comparison with the New Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
Last week, Thierry Meyssan posted an excellent paper ( https://www.voltairenet.org/article208007.html),
in which he states that the recent events in Syria, in which 'a quarter of the country was
freed in a week' is not only a victory for Assad, but the defeat of the 'military strategy to
establish the supremacy of financial capitalism'. These events mark the overturning of the
world order that has been in place since the end of WWII.
What I find remarkable is how quickly the old order has been overturned. The old order was
initially a bi-polar world, which evolved, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, into a
Uni-Polar World Order under the control of 'financial capitalism' (i.e. the 'Globalists',
also referred to as 'international financial elites', 'Anglo-Zionists', the 'Davos Crowd',
etc.). Arguably the Uni-Pole's power peaked in the early 2000s after the creation of the EU
and the eastern expansion of NATO. The first cracks in the Uni-Pole's hegemonic power
appeared in 2003 with the fiasco in Iraq, and in 2008 with the Global Financial Crisis. But
even as late as 2015, when Obama dismissed Russia's entry into Syria as nothing but Russia
stepping into a quagmire, the 'Globalists' could foresee no opposing force that would prevent
them from consolidating their Uni-Polar World Order into an enduring world-wide system of
'Global Governance' through a 'Rules-based International Order' under the 'Globalists'
control and enforced by the U.S. and NATO. But now, as Meyssan suggests, only four years
later, the Uni-Polar World Order has been toppled.
In its place a 'Multi-Polar World' order is emerging. I would like to suggest that the
outlines of this emerging order are as follows:
1. The dominant pole of this Multi-polar World is that led by the alliance of Russia and
China. Spanning Eurasia from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, this pole includes the
countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Union, and
includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, and possibly, in the future, Turkey.
2. The second pole will be the remnants of the 'Globalist' empire, stripped, however, of
Europe (ex. U.K.) and any Asian representation, i.e. the U.S., U.K., Israel and likely
Canada.
3. A third group consists of countries that are currently either occupied militarily by
the U.S. or are part of NATO, but are either economically dependent on China or are in
economic competition with the U.S. This includes most of Europe, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, New Zealand, and the GCC countries (KSA, UAE, etc.). These countries cannot be
considered as poles by themselves, for while some of them may have the economic weight to be
considered a pole, such as Germany and Japan, they lack the geo-political weight. These
countries are likely to try to escape from their status as American ('Globalist') vassals and
become independent nations dealing equitably with all the poles of the new Multi-Polar World.
In my view, it is unlikely that the EU will survive the birth of this new-world order in its
current form. At best it is likely to revert back to a European free trade area, in which
each country will recapture its sovereignty and its own currency.
4. A fourth group consists of countries that, while not being a part of the Russia/China
pole will be under its wing, with Russia providing military, political and geo-political
support, and China providing economic support. This group includes countries which are
currently either under threat from the 'Globalists' (ie. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia,
etc.), are in turmoil due to exploitation by the 'Globalists' (ie. Chile, Argentina, Brazil,
etc.) or are outright failed states (most of Africa). Under the protection of Russia and
China, they will once again have a chance to overcome the anarchy of the past 20 or so years
and to return to peaceful development.
5. A fifth group consists of what will likely end up as secondary poles of the Multi-Polar
World. These are countries that today are both independent and have the geo-political and
economic weight to continue to function independently. This group includes the likes of India
and the ASEAN countries.
Uncertain is the time that it will take for this emerging order to stabilize. In my view,
this depends to a great extent on whether Trump survives impeachment and wins in 2020. If he
does then the emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order could be quite quick and painless, as
it is aligned with the policies that Trump has been espousing from the beginning of his
presidential campaign in 2015. To 'Make America Great Again' requires that the U.S. recover
its sovereignty and redevelop its industrial power. After all, a countries wealth, and thus
its power, is what it produces, and a country that doesn't produce as much as it consumes
will, in the end, consume itself. To redevelop its industrial power the U.S. needs to isolate
itself, as Trump is attempting to do behind a wall of tariff barriers and a devalued
currency. The Multi-Polar World Order will allow the U.S. the opportunity it needs isolate,
and then rebuild, itself. One must remember that it was the isolation of the U.S. in the 19th
and early 20th centuries that enabled the U.S. to become so powerful in the first place.
If, on the other hand, Trump is either overthrown by the 'Globalists' or defeated in 2020
then the emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order will be fraught with conflict. The
'Globalists' will fight it every step of the way, using all tools at their disposal, and
particularly the military muscle of the U.S. and NATO. For the 'Globalists' the Multi-Polar
World Order means the dispossession of their power and wealth. However, I believe that will
simply be a case of the losers continuing to fight long after the war has been lost. It is
only a question of how much time that it will take, and death and destruction that will
occur, before the U.S. and NATO are exhausted.
The emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order, once it stabilizes, is likely to usher in a
new era of peace and human development, similar to that which the world experienced in the
decades following WWII.
I agree with dh-mtl that we are entering a multi-polar world but that is happening because of
the deep corruption and divisions within the Washington Deep State. Still, the imperial
forces are formidable and should any faction get full control of them an expansion of current
wars is very possible. Trump is trying to fashion and has been trying to fashion a coalition
but he's failed and is failing. Media narratives, in the USA, always represent the interests
of the factions in power and they are all against Trump. This election is critical to world
history. Will we get a restoration with Biden (or Buttigieg) or Pence or will we start moving
in a new direction with Warren or Sanders? If the latter then the Deep State may move in a
new direction and begin to negotiated with Russia/China. If Trump then more chaos.
Sorry John, the quote that you posted was not taken from Thierry Meyssan, but is my
original work. I only quoted from Meyssan in the first paragraph.
The decades after WW2 may have spawned the CIA and their dirty tricks, but in spite of
this, the stand off between the U.S. and Russia, the bi-polar world, ensured a level of peace
and stability that lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. These decades were undoubtedly
on of the greatest eras of human development that mankind has experienced.
I think those 5 categories are pretty much spot on. They also appear to be in sync with
Russia's envisioned relation with the main elements of those categories, as they develop in
practice. China's positioning looks more obscure though, but that must be due to lack of
information on my part more than anything else. What Russia initiates, China consolidates in
its broad strokes, but i am missing how coherent the details where the space of action
actually overlaps between the two.
The switch between the first and second category members from the previous status quo
appears to be settled along with tolerable levels of conflict. Circe won't like to hear it,
but in my opinion, we have Trump to thank for that, not because he intended for the switch,
but because he stresses on the US economical system the main effective capitalist
contradiction: productive vs financial capital. The tumultuous social and psychological state
of the US, attest to that contradiction despite emerging as very heated but apparently
distant themes (immigration, gender issues, the personality and conduct of the president,
etc..), Circe would have us believe it is all kabuki. I believe it is real, commonly
misanalysed but very very real.
What I have yet to see though is the multi-polar trend to take root. Obvious signs would
be Germany and Europe in general of course, but at best as a block of sovereigns, and for
that, Frankfurt will have to surrender before the remaining capitals. That may actually come
about as production takes the main stage, and this could be very sudden.
This is obvious positive thinking. An anecdote:
Once I super glued the tip of my finger. I had a box cutter nearby and I just thought - I
simply must use it as a razor blade to scrap the glue out, movements perpendicular to the
blade, and I'll be fine - whatever I do just don't move along the .... zaaaat - here's the
scar. The point being: as soon as the wrong thought crossed my mind, my hand simply ignored
the "don't do" part of the thinking and obeyed the rest.
Read the transcript of Trump's announcement this morning. He explicitly says he is keeping
the oil, and might invite in Exxon to use it. Logistics are sketchy, because who will buy it?
The pipelines will go through Syrian controlled territory. But he also says that a deal might
be possible. It's ridiculous.
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it
costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks. Trump is a businessman. Not a very
good one, perhaps, but certainly not so stupid that he cannot see that as an incredibly bad
deal. This "keeping the oil" nonsense is empty posturing intended to appeal to shallow
thinkers who don't know the difference between Syria and Venezuela and who don't really care
what American foreign policy is so long as it is done with an arrogant swagger. Now that may
be the majority of the US population, but these kinds are not even going to remember the
tweet this time next week, much less even care.
"Keeping the oil" is not only tactically, strategically, and logistically
untenable, it is such a baldfaced violation of so many US and international laws, treaties,
and agreements that even America's fig leaf of last resort, Canada, would have to condemn it.
This is just childish posturing to throw the appearance of bravado on America's exit from the
theatre. People functioning at the level of many posters here need to stop taking it so
seriously.
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it
costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 27 2019 18:18 utc | 45
The point of "keeping the oil" is not to profit from it, but to deny it to the Syrians.
That's what Bibi wants.
@ 53
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in
charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
On the Syrian oil, US apparently was raking in 30 million a month in an operation that was
small enough to be kept from the public. If they take over the oilfields publicly and boost
oil infrastructure, the monthly take will rise considerably.
The oil fields on the east bank of the Euphrates produced the bulk of Syrian oil. If
production there was only 50% of Syrian production, the figures in dollar terms would still
be high.
200,0000 BPD would be just over half Syria pre war oil production, so 200,000 X say $40
per barrel brings the take up to $8 million per day. Not bad when its money for nothing.
William Gruff
Trump has made no effort or even noises to pull out of Tanf. I think he wants to continue
holding the Syrian border where he can. Denying the oil to Syria is a plus for him and that
also has the bonus of partly paying the cost of stationing the US along that border.
Zionism, oil, getting returns on military expenditure seems to be Trump's foreign policy or
as foreign policy is termed in the US 'War Policy"
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in
charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 27 2019 18:51 utc | 60
Sure, that's also true. The NeoCon warmongers only got convincing very late in the game,
when US Special Forces were already withdrawing from most of Rojava, and could not be
stopped, except for this massively mounted late defence of the oil-fields. As the NeoCons
were resisting from the beginning, what was it that changed Trump's mind? Bibi sounds like
the answer, but I'm open to others.
"So why did Trump state so emphatically that Russia and China love U.S. presence
there???"
Reverse psychology. If Trump can get that narrative to fly then the mindless Russophobic
and Sinophobic brainwash victims in the US will start screaming for the US to get out. After
all, jello-brained Americans believe they must do the opposite of whatever China and Russia
think is good. The USA certainly cannot do anything that China or Russia might approve of,
right? So if they want us to stay then we have to leave.
Russia loves the US stealing Syria's oil. Listen, Russia delivered a beat down to murican
regime change policy the likes of which the world has never seen before. It is epic
humiliation beyond all endurance! The Syrian state is saved and the prospects of a Libya just
a few hours from Russia's border are now gone! The US is scared shittless to attack Iran head
on, so the status quo is returning to this region faster than murica's tiny brain can
process. So what to do? Grab the oil! Be a thug and criminal! No more pretense, just sin
proudly like the evil turd you are! Lol! And Russia can point at that turd and condemn it on
the world stage for the whole world to see. No excuses...no sympathy. Of course that bravado
wont last long. When push comes to shove, murica will fold like the dodgy piece of toilet
paper it is and go home. Be patient and enjoy the Evil Empire's death agony a while
longer...make popcorn...
The Redirection, Mar 5, 2007
Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
By Seymour M. Hersh
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in
effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has
cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are
intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has
also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of
these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant
vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. . . here
InsurgeIntel, May 22, 2015
Pentagon report predicted West's support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS
Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to 'isolate' Assad, rollback 'Shia
expansion'
by Nafeez Ahmed
The newly declassified DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency -- headed by General Flynn!] document
from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time
comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS.
Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and
their regional allies. . .
here
Some more history on how Russia's changed the US attitude toward Syria oil shipments to
foreign customers. Specifically, whereas until 2015 US air force pilots were not given
permission to fire on ISIS oil shipments, that policy changed when Russia entered the war.
In September 2015, the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament authorised
the Russian president to use armed forces in Syria.[9][10] Russia acknowledged that Russian
air and missile strikes targeted not only ISIL, but also rebel groups in the Army of Conquest
coalition like al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, and even FSA.
On 30 September 2015, Russia launched its first airstrikes against targets in Rastan,
Talbiseh, and Zafaraniya in Homs province of Syria. Moscow gave the United States a one-hour
advance notice of its operations. The Homs area is crucial to President Bashar al-Assad's
control of western Syria. -- wiki here
CBSNEWS, Nov 23, 2015
U.S. airstrikes against ISIS target oil tanker trucks
Two airstrikes, the most recent over the weekend, have destroyed almost 500 tanker trucks
ISIS uses to smuggle oil and sell it on the black market.
By one estimate, these attacks have destroyed roughly half the trucks ISIS uses to bring in
$1 million a day in revenues.
Until now, the U.S. has not gone after the tankers for fear of killing the civilian drivers.
. . here
That's the first time (and probably the last time) ever that the US military had any
consideration for civilian casualties. But they were ISIS employees so. . .cut 'em some
slack. Still, only half the trucks were destroyed at that time (more were destroyed much
later).
"... The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment . ..."
"... An M1 Abrams tank at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait, via Army National Guard/Military Times. ..."
Here's
Why Trump's "Secure Syria's Oil" Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible
by
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/26/2019 - 23:30
0
SHARES
The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
" -- a Middle
East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes
for the influential geopolitical analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.
Much has been debated since President Trump tweeted that
"The U.S has secured the oil"
in Syria. Is this feasible? Does it make any sense? The below will
explain how and why
the answer is a resounding
NO
.
Al-Omar and Conoco fields are already secured by Kurdish-led SDF and U.S forces. Some of the oil
from these fields was being sold through third parties to Syria's government by giving it in crude
form and taking back half the quantity as refined product
(the government owns the
refineries).
Syria's government now has access to oil fields inside the 32km zone
(established
by the Turkish military incursion and subsequent withdrawal of Kurdish forces). Such fields can produce
up to 100K barrels a day and will already go a long way in terms of meeting the country's immediate
demand.
So the importance of accessing oil in SDF/U.S hands is not as pressing any longer.
SDF/U.S forces can of course decide to sell the oil to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
but Syria's government now has control over the border area connecting Syria to KRG territory through
both Yaaroubia and Al-Mallkiya.
The Syrian government also now has control over supply of electricity. This was made possible by
taking control of the Tishreen and Furat dams.
Operating those fields needs electric power
supply and the state is now the provider.
Securing and operating these fields also entails paying salaries to those operating the fields.
International companies would be very reluctant to get involved without legal backing to operate
the fields.
"Securing the oil" therefore
can only mean preventing the Syrian state from accessing al-Omar/Conoco
only (not oil in the north)
. It's unlikely anything can be sold or transported.
And let's not forget "securing" this oil would need
ready air cover, and all for what?
SDF composition included Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had
American support and key cities in north. Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the
Syrian Army.
"Securing" oil for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters
and tribes in the region.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more
than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
The psychopaths destroyed the last secular country in the ME. Same
with Lybia. Now all we get are extremists on all sides. Mossad doing
what it knows best, bringing chaos for the psychopaths.
By withdrawing from Northern Kurdistan and by making an exception
for the oil fields, Genius President Trump just told the world a number
of things:
To trust the U.S.A. as an ally is sheer stupidity
The "alternative media" theory that it is all about oil (and
possible gas) has been proven true
The U.S.A. is being ruled by a hobbyist who has no strategic
plans, replacing them with a "random walk" concept
Of course, the European allies (except Turkey) are still refusing
to learn from this experience. "Duck and cover until November 2020"
is their current tactics. Not sure if this is a good idea.
Turkey has learned to go their own ways, but I don't think it is
a good idea to create ever more enemies at one's borders. Greece,
Armenia, the Kurdish regions, Syria, Cyprus, not sure how their stance
is towards Iran. Reminds me of Germany before both World Wars. Won't
end well.
"America/The US", a label, is
actually just a location on a map and is not a reference to the actual
identities of those who start wars for profit.
Also it is hilarious to use that label as if an area of the planet
is or has attacked another area. Land can not attack itself, ever,
just as guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Trump is not claiming posession of oil in syria by leaving some
troops behind. Just as he did not declare war, nor start any EVER.
Every conflct on earth has it's roots with very specific individuals,
none of whom are even related to Trump.
Syria was a conflicting mess before he took office and he is dutifully
attempting to pull US soldiers out of a powder keg of nonsense he
wants no part of. Nor does any sane American want more conflict in
battles we can't afford, in countries we'll never even visit.
Like I said before, Trump can't just abruptly yank all our troops.
It's simply not that simple. And for those pretending he is doing
syria a disservice, I dare any one of you to go there yourselves and
see if you bunch of complete dipshits can do better. Who knows, maybe
you'll find the love of your life, ******* idiots.
First, the US invades Syria in violation of the Geneva Convention
on War making it an international criminal. Then it funds and equips
the most vile terrorists on the planet which leads to the killing
of thousands of innocent Syrians. And now it has decided to stay and
steal oil from Syria. The US is now the Evil American Empire owned
and run by crooks, gangsters and mass murderers. The Republic is dead
along with morality, justice and freedom.
Let's limit the culprits to: The Obama regime... and
not all the US. This is why these devils need to be brought
to trial and their wealth clawed out of their hiding places to
pay reparations to some of the victims.
The US has been an Evil American Empire for a long time, since
at least the Wilson administration, and Republican or Democrat...it
make little difference. World wars, the Fed, IRS, New Deal,
Korea, Vietnam, War OF Terror, assassinations, coups, sanctions,
Big Pharma, Seeds of Death and Big Agri...and the list goes
on and on. Please understand that America is not great and one
day all Americans will have to account for what their country
did in their name. If you believe in the Divine, then know that
their will be a reckoning.
The Obama regime was merely a continuation of the Chimpy Bush
regime, which was merely a continuation of the Clinton regime,
which was merely a continuation of the Pappy Bush regime, which
was merely a continuation... etc.
More chinks in the petrodollar armor will be the outcome of this. The credibility of murica is withering
away as every day passes. Iraqi pressure upon foreign troops there
to leave and/or drawdown further will also make this venture even
more difficult to manage.
The Kurds
may not be the smartest with regards to picking allies, but even they
may by now have learned that sticking to murica any longer will destroy
any semblance of hope for any autonomy status whatsoever once the
occupants have left. Likewise, the Sunni tribes around this area don't
want to become another Pariah group once things revert to normal.
Assad will eventually retake all his territory and
this is speeding up the process of eventual reconciliation in Syria.
They've spent far more on these wars than they've made back by stealing
other countries' resources. Trillions wasted in exchange for mere
billions in profit, to say nothing of the massive loss of life and
destruction incurred.
'The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
"
-- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst
who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical
analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.'
this quote was my first red flag.
so POTUS outsmarts Erdongan, takes out ISIS leader BAGHDADI along
with Erdongan MIT agents meeting with him. sorry, Ehsani, i think
your full of sh*t.
CIA & MOSSAD LLC
friends ISIS is just the excuse the american
an israeli terrorists used and use in order to keep trying to remove
Assad from the Government.
They just can't accept defeat and absolute failure. What's worse
than an american/israeli terrorist destroyed ego?!
All info needs verification. US sources are not trustworthy including
anyone where money originates from the usual fake info instigators/
players.
POTUS is so misled by the deep state MIC /CIA/ FBI et al and their
willing fake media cohorts that he agreed to give the White Helmets
more public money for more fake movies, as has been properly proven
and widely reported.
Either they have taken control of his mind with a chip insert or
they have got his balls to the knife.
The false flags have been discredited systematically and only a
very brainwashed or a very frightened person would believe anything
from the same source until after a thorough scourge is proven successfully
undertaken.
It is evident that even the last hope department has been got at
by the money-power.
If they can do 9/11 and get away with it, as they have, then they
will stop at nothing to remain entrenched.
90% of oil is traded in U.S. dollars if that stops living standards
will drop in the U.S.. We dropped from 97% look how bad its now
with 7% imagine going down to 50% life would be unlivable
here.
...meanwhile, both according to
russia today
as well as the
(otherwise lying rag of a newspaper)
guardian
, the russian
government seems to take a different position to the views expressed
here by "a middle east expert".
russian state media is reporting that US troops are in the process
of taking control of syrian oil fields in the deir el-zour region
and have described such actions as "banditry". the crux of the matter
is this: if the US were not actually illegally taking control of Syrian
oil, then Russia would not be reporting this. Contrary to western
mainstream media, Russian sources have repeatedly shown themselves
to be factual.
Shame the "withdrawl" from Syria is tainted with "securing the oil".
US doesnt need that oil at all. So Orwellian! Unless the Kurds somehow
get rights to it.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
Trump
is
securing
the
oil
not
for
the
Kurds
or
anything
in
the
middle
east-
his
doing
it
as
a response
to
the
media
backlash
he
received
when
he
announced
he's
abandoning
the
Kurds.
this is nonsense. thinking of the kurds and their interests is the absolutely last thing on trump`s mind: what counts for trump is how he is viewed by his voter base, no more, no less.
"... This is really going to piss off the Deep State. All their plans initiated by Obama and Hillary are being destroyed by the red haired road runner known as Trump. ..."
"... If these reports are true of the oil tanker smuggling operation, then the Syrian Kurds do not have clean hands. ..."
"... Kind of sounds to me like Erdogan and Trump made a deal. ..."
"... Baghdadi wasn't the jihadis' only loss today. Abu-Hassan al-Muhajir, the likely successor to Baghdadi, was blown away near Jarabulus in a US strike. Here's a couple of tweets about these events: ..."
"... "Led by the 4th Armored Division, the Syrian Arab Army began their attack around 10 A.M. on Saturday, when their troops began to storm the Zuwayqat Mountain and its corresponding hills. Following a heavy battle that lasted for several hours, the Syrian Arab Army was able to take hold of the Zuwayqat Mountain, giving their forces fire control over the remaining hills south of Kabani. The Syrian Arab Army is now trying to push their way into Kabani; however, they are facing heavy resistance from the jihadist rebels of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)." ..."
What does a radical Islamic mother say to another radical Islamic mother? Children, they blow up so fast.
What a contrast with the raid that killed Bin Laden in May 2011. The Obama Administration came out with conflicting accounts and
required the SEALS who carried out the attack to sign non-disclosure agreements. Why? Because the raid was conducted with the cooperation
and knowledge of the Pakistani government; the SEALS faced no guard force; Bin Laden was a cripple unable to get out of bed and was
shot so many times by the SEALs his body has to be dumped in the ocean.
Al Baghdadi? It is now clear he was protected by someone in Turkey. The Turks knew where he was and, until yesterday, kept him
safe. Trump's actions over the last three weeks with respect to U.S. forces in Syria set the table for this operation. A combination
of pressure and incentives confronted Turkey's President Erdogan and he rolled over.
It is telling that there was not a huge fire fight going in. Where was the Baghdadi security team? This is a further indicator
that Baghdadi was betrayed by folks he thought were protecting him. Baghdadi fled his house and jumped into a tunnel. Baghdadi is
reported to have blown himself up. Looks like the mission was carried out by Delta Force. They are accompanied by Malanois dogs (looks
a little like a German shepherd). Based on what Trump briefed today the dog followed Baghdadi down into the tunnel. The dog can run
faster than any soldier in such an environment. Once Baghdadi was trapped he detonated his suicide vest. Fortunately, the dog was
not killed (but probably suffered some frag wounds.)
(Someone needs to re-write the Peter and Gordon lyrics on "I Go to Pieces" in honor of Baghdadi's passing.)
Don't believe the media reports that the U.S. forces launched from Iraq. Just look at a map. Al Baghdadi was hiding out in Idlib
province, which is in northwest Syria. Flight time in helicopters from Iraq is three hours plus. Flight time from the U.S. Air Force
base in Incirlik, Turkey is about one hour. This came out of Turkey. That is why the U.S. coordinated/deconflicted the flight path
with Russia. Flying from Turkey into northwest Syria takes one directly over territory controlled by the Russians and Syrians.
Trump's press conference was amazing. He did not divulge key operational details and did a good job of obfuscating the intel sources
that provided the break on Al Baghdadi's location.
One thing is certain--most of the anti-Trump crowd will look for some reason to criticize Trump's victory. The anti-Trumper crowd
looks pretty stupid now. They were predicting the resurgence of ISIS. Whoops!! There goes that narrative. The new status quo in Syria
means the end of the U.S. policy of regime change and the beginning of the rehabilitation of Syria as a legitimate nation state.
This is really going to piss off the Deep State. All their plans initiated by Obama and Hillary are being destroyed by the red
haired road runner known as Trump.
But what about Trump's comments about keeping the oil, and protecting it with heavy fire power, and inviting in Exxon, etc. He
did say a deal might be possible.
Watch what he does, not what he says. He thinks while talking. This is a bad habit since he does not speak English well. I
am told that this is a characteristic of people from the Outer Boroughs of NY City.
Russia's defense ministry has no reliable
information about an operation by US forces in the Turkey-controlled part of the Idlib de-escalation zone aimed at another extermination
of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said"
Artemesia
...I weep for my country that the way that its leader re-establishes his bona fides is by celebrating brutal murder, and many
Americans will celebrate that murder right along with him.
HillaryObama did the same thing; so did G H W Bush with the "precision bombing" of Iraq that became a thing of pride; the capture
of Saddam in his "spider hole;" Hillary's glee over the sodomized assassination of Qaddafi.
We have been inured to outrages to human beings, especially if they are "over there," and many who have become wealthy producers
of popular culture have played a major role in conditioning the American people to celebrate blood and gore in the name of American
Values.
Col. Lang -- Your post on Comments is at the back of my mind. I like to think I'm complying; that if I hated USA it would not
bother me that we are conditioned to celebrate killing. It does bother me. I don't think the killing of el Baghdadi is something
that enhances the moral stature of USA -- particularly when it is coupled, as it was in Trump's speech -- with the bold declaration
that US intends to steal Syria's oil.
"Real Men Go To Tehran."
Real Man James Jeffrey has been hot to bankrupt Syria for at least a year, his scheme to make reconstruction of Syria impossible
unless / until Syria ejects Iran & complies with the Borg's demands.
Erdogan's Islam views appears to be genuine. Rather than terrible Turk, Erdogan is strongly Islamic and taking Turkey from a secular
state back to and Islamic state. Turkey put off as long as possible declaring AQ a terrorist organization. AQ have no problems
having the Turk bases through Idlib.
Turkey was buying oil from ISIS earlier in the piece. There was some fighting when Erdogan
first moved his jihadis into Syria but large number of ISIS left Manbij once they had nutted out a deal.
Turk border in Idlib may well have been the safest place for Baghdadi to stay.
Baghdadi wasn't the jihadis' only loss today. Abu-Hassan al-Muhajir, the likely successor to Baghdadi, was blown away near
Jarabulus in a US strike. Here's a couple of tweets about these events:
"So SDF and Iraq shared intel with US on position of ISIS leader Baghdadi - 3.5 miles from border with Turkey. And SDF shared
intel with US on the position of ISIS spox Muhajir - just outside Turkish Euphrates Shield city of Jarablus. Doesn't look *great*
for Turkey, have to say"
We believe ISIS spox. Al-Muhajir was in Jarablus to facilitate Baghdadi's entry to Euphrates Shield area. The two US-led operations
have effectively disabled top ISIS leadership who were hiding [in] NW Syria. More still remain hiding in the same area."
The SAA did well at Kabani... if they can keep it this time. From Al Masdar:
"Led by the 4th Armored Division, the Syrian Arab Army began their attack around 10 A.M. on Saturday, when their troops
began to storm the Zuwayqat Mountain and its corresponding hills. Following a heavy battle that lasted for several hours, the
Syrian Arab Army was able to take hold of the Zuwayqat Mountain, giving their forces fire control over the remaining hills south
of Kabani. The Syrian Arab Army is now trying to push their way into Kabani; however, they are facing heavy resistance from the
jihadist rebels of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)."
Maybe with Baghdadi's ass now far from his head, perhaps the HTS and TIP will loose some of their enthusiasm for defending
Kabani. They have been tenacious.
My intent here is not to summarize Snowden's entire interview. I want to focus on some
points he made that I found especially revealing, pertinent, and insightful.
Without further ado, here are 12 points I took from this interview:
1. People who reach the highest levels of government do so by being risk-averse. Their
goal is never to screw-up in a major way. This mentality breeds cautiousness, mediocrity, and
buck-passing. (I saw the same in my 20 years in the U.S. military.)
2. The American people are no longer partners of government. We are subjects. Our rights
are routinely violated even as we become accustomed (or largely oblivious) to a form of
turnkey tyranny.
3. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. They argued that
9/11 happened because there were "too many restrictions" on them. This led to the PATRIOT Act
and unconstitutional global mass surveillance, disguised as the price of being kept "safe"
from terrorism. Simultaneously, America's 17 intelligence agencies wanted most of all not to
be blamed for 9/11. They wanted to ensure the buck stopped nowhere. This was a goal they
achieved.
4. Every persuasive lie has a kernel of truth. Terrorism does exist - that's the kernel of
truth. Illegal mass surveillance, facilitated by nearly unlimited government power, in the
cause of "keeping us safe" is the persuasive lie.
5. The government uses classification
("Top Secret" and so on) primarily to hide things from the American people, who have no "need
to know" in the view of government officials. Secrecy becomes a cloak for illegality.
Government becomes unaccountable; the people don't know, therefore we are powerless to rein
in government excesses or to prosecute for abuses of power.
6. Fear is the
mind-killer (my expression here, quoting Frank Herbert's Dune ). Snowden spoke much about
the use of fear by the government, using expressions like "they'll be blood on your hands"
and "think of the children." Fear is the way to cloud people's minds. As Snowden put it, you
lose the ability to act because you are afraid.
7. What is true patriotism? For Snowden, it's about a constant effort to do good for the
people. It's not loyalty to government. Loyalty, Snowden notes, is only good in the service
of something good.
8. National security and public safety are not synonymous. In fact, in the name of
national security, our rights are being violated. We are "sweeping up the broken glass of our
lost rights" in today's world of global mass surveillance, Snowden noted.
9. We live naked before power. Companies like Facebook and Google, together with the U.S.
government, know everything about us; we know little about them. It's supposed to be the
reverse (at least in a democracy).
10. "The system is built on lies." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence,
lies under oath before Congress. And there are no consequences. He goes unpunished.
11. We own less and less of our own data. Data increasingly belongs to corporations and
the government. It's become a commodity. Which means we are the commodity. We are being
exploited and manipulated, we are being sold, and it's all legal, because the powerful make
the policies and the laws, and they are unaccountable to the people.
12. Don't wait for a hero to save you. What matters is heroic decisions. You are never
more than one decision away from making the world a better place.
In 2013, Edward Snowden made a heroic decision to reveal illegal mass surveillance by the
U.S. government, among other governmental crimes. He has made the world a better place, but as
he himself knows, the fight has only just begun against turnkey tyranny.
Governments using fear for control is nothing new.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary.
Sorry folks. In time you will see that Snowden was, is, and always will be CIA (black
hat). The whistle blowing was a CIA attempt to shut down the NSA (white hat) leaving no one
to watch over the black hats whilst they conduct thier drug running and regime changing, and
MK ultra operations. Ask Kennedy. Oh wait CIA and daddy Bush blew his head off.
Snowden, in my opinion, is a limited hangout. Not necessarily aware of it, he could just
be a convenient dupe.
If there's this much surveillance, how in the Hell did he exfiltrate that much data AND be
able to leave the country? Why did it take so long to track him down and revoke his passport?
It makes no sense. Why didn't he go to Wikileaks, who has a proven and reliable track record
but instead went to MSM?
I think he is probably genuine in his beliefs, but still see him as a limited hangout.
He has made the world a better place
How? Uncle Scam still has all it's capabilities. That big *** data center in Utah.
Nothing's changed except we were told about it- again. Remember Drake, Wiebe and Binney
spilled the beans in 2004.
And how does a guy go from CIA janitor to effectively an NSA systems admin? Seriously, not
to **** on janitors, but how in the actual **** does that happen?
All your questions are answered in his book. Wkileaks wasn't an option because they
release en masse without any vetting. He didn't want people to die from release of some of
the docs he had.
They are just now getting to the point where they have the tech to effectively sort and
search through all that data. Plus. He tapped it from the source.
The real shame is how little resulted from the exposure. Nothing changed, no one was held
to account, and we the people did nothing. We are a nation of contented slaves, for now.
"Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. "
And their power was supposed to be limited to foreign actors. The skinny, jug-eared, gay
guy and his acolytes thought up sinister illegal ways to extend that power to private US
citizens and the gay guy's political enemies.
Most of these problems were predicted centuries ago when the founders feared a standing
army that could be turned against the people. Now we have standing armies, and civilian
paramilitaries in every county and big city, local cops, city cops, state police. We have
ATF, FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, and dozens of other armed alphabet soup agencies.
With We THE People are gonna regain our country again and many people will die again, and
with luck all the traitors will hang by the neck until dead.
The elites who think it is their birthright to lord over us need to be reminded that they
serve us. All the communist democrats are in need of reminders and quick drop at the end of a
rope.
It's heartening to know Snowden is a martial alumni..
And speaking of tyranny, we came across a gem, a most enlightening gem thus..
"If you take me down, I'll come after you with everything I've got It will become my
life's mission."
"These are the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to newspaper publisher Arnon
Mozes in a recording that has become central evidence in a corruption case against Netanyahu,
as revealed Saturday by Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker.."
So why have we brought this to your attention?
So you may understand that Liberty is not for the lily livered. If Jefferson and Co had
been squeamish, Americans would still be serfs..
If MLK had been squeamish, negros would not be free today, to be in position to advocate
for rights..
And if Cesar Chavez had adopted cowardice, then Latinos would have no mojo to
advocate..
And if Hugo Chavez had not given his life to Venezuela, it's doubtful that Maduro would
have had a leg to stand on..
And yet, Lula is imprisoned..just like Nelson Mandela, for the best years of his
life..
My friends, mortality eventually ends, that's a certainty..what you do with yours, is
consequential, for good or ill..
When the depraved hurl threats, it means they're afraid, and in that event, increase the
artillery barrage of truth..cheers...
The digital world has become disturbingly invasive and the source of the data the
governments uses against us.
Abstain.
Get off of social media, limit net time, encrypt communications, leave our mobile devices
at home and use cash.
Anything that leaves a digital footprint is being tracked.
The loss of our privacy is the loss of our freedom.
To return democracy to the people we need to do the following:
-Term limits of 8 years at any one level of government for the politicians, diplomats,
bureaucrats and senior civil servants. If our legislators know they will spend the majority
of their working lives in the private sector they will not pass laws that solely benefit the
public sector.
-Recall legislation to hold our legislators accountable.
-Balance budget laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
-Zero tax increase laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
We need to return democracy to the people and we do that by demanding change at the
grassroots levels.
These days , The Shang Dynasty's moral decay quickly comes to mind, as outlined in
The Art of War : lies, deceit and diffusion were the norm; unaccountable leaders
immersed themselves in debauchery, orgies and lavish self-profiting (today's
Epsteinism in full-swing); brutally-enforced high taxes & wage thefts levied on
citizens; government's increased violence against state residents, particularly those brave
enough to resist widespread tyranny; escalated harmful interference in the country's
agricultural operations; and knee-jerked, violent responses with heavy-handed, inhuman
punishments (like SWAT teams blowing away innocents -- women & children -- over minor,
inconsequential infractions), especially violation of peoples' guaranteed civil liberties, as
well as their sovereign dignities and property rights, under the guise of ridiculously
concocted "boogeymen" nonsense.
It's also interesting that this area has more millionaires per capita than anywhere else
in America. It's not a high tech area, no manufacturing, and no big agriculture. Sucking the
tit of our taxes.
Oct 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Curiously, this reticence doesn’t extend to voting on resolutions that seek to
preserve America’s military presence in the Middle East. Legislators are more interested in stopping troop withdrawals from
unauthorized conflicts than authorizing those conflicts in the first place.
Ask Congress to engage in an honest, open, and
transparent national conversation before launching the first cruise missile and they run for the hills like villagers from a
flash flood.
But ask them to spend an hour on the floor blasting the president for losing his “resolve” or upending American “leadership”
(those favorite Beltway buzzwords), and they arrive with speeches in hand. It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t so depressing.
It's way too late to be saying "the longer this continues". Undeclared wars have been
standard practice from the start. WW1 and WW2 were extremely unusual exceptions to the
normal rule.
It also begs the question who exactly is war supposed to be declared on here? Syria,
Turkey, Iran or Russia, and for what reason are they going to declare this war for?
Sorry, but the only one who's moaning here is you. While the article tells hard facts by
saying that there would be nothing to hold Trump to account for regarding foreign policy,
since he wouldn't have inherited any war, had the parliament done its job and denied Bush
II and Obama the authorization of the said wars. Now, it doesn't mean that those wars
wouldn't have happened, since the MIC, oil companies, pharmaceutical industry et al. could
have easily staged a coup to get rid of such an inconvenient parliament, but in such a case
the said (former) parliament could, at least, speak from a morally high ground. While now
their complaints sound like laments about a streak of assassinations from those who
prepared sniper nests for hitmen every single time.
The mistake the president made was to extend an olive branch to his opponents by hiring
them in the first place.
Whatever one thinks of Mr Bannon. He came out with a clear understanding . . . whatever
agenda or intent was had to reduce our use of force to regime change --
"fo ged aboud it . . . "
And while, I think he may have overstated the matter. It's clear that agenda was not
aided by those appointments to is cabinate.
Goodwill to policy goodbye.
It is farcical and painful to watch.
Note:
one aspect of my opposition to the conflict was the strategy chosen. And it that
strategy unfortunately did not include "pulling out all the stops."
BTW. the author states: "Most lawmakers accepted the administration's arguments with barely
a blink, which enabled one of the gravest U.S. foreign policy blunders (the second Iraq
War) in modern history."
Most of the Democrats were opposed, but remembering how they were raked over the coals
for opposing the first Iraq War, voted in favor of a war to cover their butts.
It doesn't matter why Team D voted the way they did - it's not like a whole hearted vote
in favor of aggressive war counts double, or the kids on the other end of the drone don't
really die if you feel sad when you push the "yes" button.
For that matter, it's not as if Team D are engaged in a wholesale mea culpa after
they claimed to have been rooked.
If our military members refuse to uphold their oath to constitution it's time to disband
the standing army as it has become nothing more than the tool of foreign occupiers who have
purchased our government. Revoke all their benifit packages, no more free college, no more
subsidized loans for housing. If these people are nothing but mercenaries then stop paying
them for violating the contract.
As is usually the case in theaters of combat, reality on the ground differs widely from the
sharp and clear lines that are presented to uninformed outside observers. Good case in point is
the state of Syrian oil. I am told by a well-informed source that the Syrian Democratic Forces
led by the Kurds have been selling much of the oil in northeast Syrian territory they
controlled until recently to the Syrian National Oil Company--the Assad government.
Some of that oil has also been sold to the Turks,,,
As we know, in the past, when ISIS controlled some of the Syrian oil, they were trucking it
across the border to Turkey and selling it to Erdogan's minions at a steep discount. The SDF
has continued doing that.
... Those tanker lines that Daesh was running into Turkey were done with the blessing of the
US. It was the resistance and in particular Russia that blew all that up.
What Harper meant to say is that some of the oil goes by tanker TRUCK from Turkey to Iran.
The oil thus trans-shipped to Iran is sold on as refined product to North Korea. The Turks
have been getting it at a very cheap prices from the SDF The Iranians add these products to
domestic production shipped east.
So, an oil-swap deal? Just like the currently defunct gas-swap deal that used to obtain
between Iran and Turkmenistan a few years back. Kurds and Turks acting like middlemen; how
very Middle-eastern!
The SDF/SNOC oil deal was negotiated by Russia 18 months ago. The SDF does NOT sell the oil
to the SNOC. Under the Russian deal, they get a share of the oil. The rest is turned over to
a broker from Raqqa who transports it in tanker trucks to Baniyas and Homs refineries.
If any oil is being diverted to Turkey, the it is the Raqqa brokers doing so. They are the
reportedly the brokers that used to deliver ISIS oil to Turkey via Erdogan's son-in-law.
... it was a deal negotiated by Russia with full agreement of Assad and his government and
the SNOC. My understanding is also that they did not choose the middleman from Raqqa.
Apparently he was the only one with tankers and with drivers who had no problem driving
through areas controlled by SDF, other areas controlled by SAA, and a few risky areas where
Daesh hijackings were a possibility.
Flynn's story became a classic story of FBI entrapment...
Notable quotes:
"... The Federalist ..."
"... According to the 37-page motion , a team of " high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president's National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity -- they already had tapes of all the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn -- but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they could allege as false ." ..."
"... Notably, Lisa Page lied to the DOJ, saying that she didn't recall whether she took part in editing Flynn's 302 form . ..."
"... Then, quoting from a sealed statement by Strzok, Powell reveals that over next two weeks, there were "many meetings" between Strzok and [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe to discuss "whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and if so, what interview strategies to use." ..."
"... Another startling claim in Powell's filing references a purported conversation between former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, which claims Clapper told the reporter "words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn,' after Ignatius reportedly obtained the transcript of Flynn's phone calls. ..."
"... Lastly, Powell's filing also notes that US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself after accepting Flynn's guilty plea, had a personal relationship with Peter Strzok , according to text messages. ..."
FBI Entrapped Flynn With Manipulated Evidence As Clapper Allegedly Issued 'Kill Shot' Order: Court Docs by
Tyler Durden Sat, 10/26/2019 - 11:30 0 SHARES
A bombshell court filing from Michael Flynn's new legal team alleges that FBI agents altered a '302' form - the official record
of the former national security adviser's interview - that resulted in the DOJ charging him with lying to investigators.
Early last week Flynn attorney Sidney Powell filed a sealed reply to federal prosecutors' claims that they have satisfied their
requirements for turning over evidence in the case. A
minimally redacted copy of the
reply brief was made public late last week, revealing the plot to destroy Flynn , as reported by
The Federalist 's Margot Cleveland.
According to the 37-page motion , a team of " high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president's
National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity -- they already had tapes of all
the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn -- but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they
could allege as false ."
At the heart of the matter is the 302 form 'documenting' an FBI interview in which Flynn was asked about his conversations with
former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Powell alleges that FBI lawyer Lisa Page edited her lover Peter Strzok's account of the
interview - texting him, "I made your edits."
"On February 10, 2017, the news broke -- attributed to 'senior intelligence officials' -- that Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions
with Ambassador Kislyak, contrary to what Vice President Pence had said on television previously." Following this leak, "overnight,"
Flynn's 302 was changed -- and substantively so. " Those changes added an unequivocal statement that 'FLYNN stated he did not'
-- in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote."
" This is a deceptive manipulation " Powell highlighted, " because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even
sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on this issue . He had talked to dozens of countries." The overnight changes to the 302 also
included the addition of a line, indicating Flynn had been question on whether "KISLYAK described any Russian response to a request
by FLYNN."
But the agent's notes do not include that question or answer, Powell stressed, yet it was later made into the criminal offense
charges against Flynn . And "the draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question
it was not ," Powell added.
Here's Powell describing how they know the 302 form was altered:
Notably, Lisa Page lied to the DOJ, saying that she didn't recall whether she took part in editing Flynn's 302 form .
Laying the groundwork
Leading up to the interview with Flynn, the text messages reveal that the FBI wanted to capitalize on news of the 'salacious and
unverified' Steele dossier - and whether they "can use it as a pretext to go interview some people," Strzok texted Page.
Then, quoting from a sealed statement by Strzok, Powell reveals that over next two weeks, there were "many meetings" between
Strzok and [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe to discuss "whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and
if so, what interview strategies to use." And "on January 23, the day before the interview, the upper echelon of the FBI met to
orchestrate it all . Deputy Director McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, Lisa Page, Strzok, David Bowdich, Trish Anderson, and
Jen Boone strategized to talk with Mr. Flynn in such a way as to keep from alerting him from understanding that he was being interviewed
in a criminal investigation of which he was the target."
Next came "Comey's direction to 'screw it' in contravention of longstanding DOJ protocols," leading McCabe to personally call
Flynn to schedule the interview . Yet none of Comey's notes on the decision to interview Flynn were turned over to defense. Even
Obama-holdover "Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates candidly opined that the interview 'was problematic' and ' it was not always
clear what the FBI was doing to investigate Flynn ," Powell stressed. Yet again, the prosecution did not turn over Yates' notes,
but only "disclosed a seven-line summary of Ms. Yates statement six months after Mr. Flynn's plea."
-The Federalist
'Kill Shot'
Another startling claim in Powell's filing references a purported conversation between former Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper and Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, which claims Clapper told the reporter "words to the effect of 'take the
kill shot on Flynn,' after Ignatius reportedly obtained the transcript of Flynn's phone calls.
Clapper's spokesman told Fox News that he "absolutely did not say those words to David Ignatius," adding "It's absolutely
false" and "absurd."
Powell claims that Ignatius was given the Flynn-Kislyak call transcripts by a Pentagon official who was also Stefan Halper's "handler."
Halper - who was
paid over $1 million by the Obama administration - was one of many spies the FBI sent to infiltrate the Trump campaign.
Halper, in 2016, contacted several members of the Trump campaign including former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos
and former aides Carter Page and Sam Clovis.
"The evidence the defense requests will eviscerate any factual basis for the plea and reveal the conduct so outrageous --
if there is not enough already -- to mandate dismissal of this prosecution for egregious government misconduct ," Powell wrote.
-
Fox News
Lastly, Powell's filing also notes that US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself after accepting Flynn's
guilty plea, had a personal relationship with Peter Strzok , according to text messages.
"The government knew that well in advance of Mr. Flynn's plea that Judge Contreras was a friend of Peter Strzok and his recusal
was even discussed in an exchange of multiple texts," writes Powell, referencing Strzok-Page texts discussing Strzok and Contreras
speaking "in detail" about anything "meaningful enough to warrant recusal."
"The government knew that well in advance of Mr. Flynn's plea that Judge Contreras was a friend of Peter Strzok and his recusal
was even discussed in an exchange of multiple texts."
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified
documents from the U.S. Department of Defence which reveals the agencies earlier views on
ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they
should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND
TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A
DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS
IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN
REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was
circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS,
NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the
group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified
documents from the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on
ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they
should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and
some of its coalition allies had actually facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria –
as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also that ISIS
members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency
at facilities in Jordan in 2012.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters
trained in Jordan became members of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan,
according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of
covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in
Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in
Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria
were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a
training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern
desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in
Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it
was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but
the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan reportedly focused on
use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three
months amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps
in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding
Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on
the German magazine's report. The French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense
ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
"... It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East. ..."
"... Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ..."
"... They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they? ..."
"... It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold. ..."
"... "Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them." ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
@Digital Samizdat Absolutely. Gabbard is the "Democrat" Trump. A Jew puppet presented as an outsider. They're exactly the
same. Even Obama was presented that way to an extent.
Yet the dumb goyim will fall for it for the third time in a row.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
@Ilyana_Rozumova The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
@MarathonMan Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
And now, according to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil for Israel. It's hard
to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump. He has done everything they wanted, moved the embassy, gave
Syria's Golan Heights to Israel, never criticizes the illegal settlements in Palestine. What else do they want from him?
What do you mean Pelosi has no credibility? Have you checked her bank balance lately? Nancy, had she not waded into politics,
would have been a pole dancer she had the goods for it.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
When it comes to senior American politihoes, no one is ever right. Pelosi may be cultivating the ISIS, but Gabbard is busy blowing
assorted dictators and more closer to the heart, the hindoo nationalist queers, as impotent (I mean that in a literal sexual context,
as their elites don't marry) as they might be.
Tulsi needs to conduct herself with gravitas, because of her age. However, she is helped by the fact that the leader of the progressive
wing is a former bartender, and the leader of the environmental resistance is a high-school sophomore.
@MarathonMan It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
Lol! Deceitful lies from some godless/pagan whitrash.
If you are referring to some self-perceived notions of barbarity/deception/etc., within Islam, then you are a deceitful !@#
who is trying to cover up the sheer savagery/psychopathy/deception/hypocrisy/etc., of the Christoo whitrash race.
Again, as far as the roots of Islam being in Judaism, that is laughable. It is Christooism which is clearly having roots in
Judaism (there have been so many here who have quoted from your pagan scriptures about the haloed position of the Jooscum)
and Hindooism .
In-his-image mangods/womangods, Trinity/Trimurthi, the human body is the temple of god the list is long where you all share
your pagan theologies.
Islam utterly rejects all such pagan abominations. The following verses of the Holy Quran amply proves the simplest and purest
form of monotheism, that is Islam;
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born , Nor is there to Him
any equivalent ."
@A123 "Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability."
Wrong.
The Oded Yinon Plan employs exactly this strategy, and along with the Neocon dominated State Dept with its Regime Change program
(Oded Yinon plan in stealth mode) is the predicate. Meanwhile, once it emerged, Obama & Kerry sought to preserve ISIS as a means
to pressure Assad. Neocon Zionist fifth column in the US, & Israel-behind-the-scenes are the dual agency-behind-the-curtain of
US regime-change wars ***EVERYWHERE*** (because they hate Russia, too.).
@DESERT FOX And rule, finally, over a smoldering wreck of a planet? They already rule most of it, they're at the Endgame of
their long match with the world. Not that they eschew violence and mass murder. Indeed, they got their start thousands years ago
by worshiping a god who told them to genocide all their neighbors and steal all their goods.
@really no shit I'm in the same age cohort as most of these shameless grifters, so I know the end of this run on earth is
drawing near. I know that no one can take whatever they accumulate in this life with them into oblivion or whatever their imagined
version of paradise might be. The loot stays here in this vale of tears.
ALL of these players busy ruining and ending lives, like Pelosi, the Clintons and the Bush family, are multi-millionaires at
the least–and all on the taxpayers' dime. Why do they desperately seek to add ever more cash to their bank accounts by bringing
yet more misery into the world? It won't be very long and either the collection of psychopaths known as the government of the
United States and its ruthless war machine will end up with the proceeds or they will pass down to further generations of these
congenital parasites and deadbeats.
Does Joe ask himself whether it was worthy to spend his wretched life accumulating ill-gotten wealth to pass on to Hunter and
his ilk? Or for Hillary to set up Chelsea and the next generation of Rodham Clinton lampreys? Jimmy Carter seems to have been
the only American president who didn't constantly grasp for money once out of office and the world never heard a peep about Amy
ever again.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members
of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S.
instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting
the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future
campaign in Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to
extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in
the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans
worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan
reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total
of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British
and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine's report. The
French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defence
which reveals the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that
they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION
THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR),
AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government
agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic
asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department
of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable
presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and some of its coalition allies had actually
facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria – as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also
that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan
in 2012.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
The path of U.S.-Israeli arrogance and domination, with its various dimensions, and with its direct and indirect extensions
and alliances, which is witnessing military defeats and political failures, reflected successive defeats for the American strategies
and plans, one after the other. All this has led [the U.S.] to a state of indecision, retreat, and inability to control the progress
of events in our Arab and Islamic world. There is a broader international context for this – a context that, in its turn, helps
to expose the American crisis, and the decline of the [U.S.] unipolar hegemony, in the face of pluralism, the characteristics
of which are yet to be stabilized.
"The crisis of the arrogant world order is deepened by the collapse of U.S. and international stock markets, and by the confusion
and powerlessness of the American economy. This reflects the height of the structural crisis of the model of capitalist arrogance.
Therefore, it can be said that we are in the midst of historic transformations that foretell the retreat of the USA as a hegemonic
power, the disintegration of the unipolar hegemonic order, and the beginning of the accelerated historic decline of the Zionist
entity.
After World War II, the U.S. has adopted the leading, central hegemonic project. At its hands, this project has witnessed great
development of the means of control and unprecedented subjugation. It has benefited from an accumulation of multi-faceted accomplishments
in science, culture, technology, knowledge, economy, and the military, which was supported by an economic political plan that
views the world as nothing but open markets subject to the laws of [the U.S.].
"The most dangerous aspect of Western logic of hegemony in general, and the American logic of hegemony in particular, is their
basic belief that they own the world, and have the right to hegemony due to their supremacy in several fields. Thus, the Western,
and especially American, expansionist strategy, when coupled with the enterprise of capitalist economy, has become a strategy
of a global nature, whose covetous desires and appetite know no bounds.
The barbaric capitalism has turned globalism into a means to spread disintegration, to sow discord, to destroy identities,
and to impose the most dangerous form of cultural, economic, and social plunder. Globalization reached its most dangerous phase,
when it was transformed into military globalization by the owners of the Western hegemony enterprise, the greatest manifestation
of which was evident in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to Palestine, and to Lebanon.
There is no doubt that American terrorism is the source of all terrorism in the world. The Bush administration has turned the
U.S. into a danger threatening the whole world, on all levels. If a global opinion poll were held today, the United States would
emerge as the most hated country in the world.
The most important goal of American arrogance is to take control of the peoples politically, economically, and culturally,
and to plunder their resources.
– Hassan Nasrallah December 8, 2009
and Trump IS NOT "pulling out" Will Tulsi? One way to find out. Doesn't look good though, unless shes willing to splinter the
C.I.A. into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds, as they say..
Where's the proof that she is CFR member, I see sock puppets parrot this line all the time but offer no proof. Her serving
on the armed & financial services committees and doing a speech for them doesn't make her a member. I'd take her over Trump any
day.
"... Larry nailed it. Now let's watch the real criminal scramble as Barr and Durham proceed ahead with a criminal investigation into the roots of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Looks to me like John Brennan went out of channels to solicit Five Eyes help in running sting operations. ..."
UPDATE--Honey Badger Emasculating DOJ Case Against General Flynn by Larry C Johnson
The shoe dropped and the brief is now on line. WOW!! The honorable Sidney Powell, a fierce
Honey Badger not afraid to fight cowardly Lions, has delivered. You can read her reply here (just
posted).
Here is Honey Badger's conclusion:
In its relentless pursuit of Mr. Flynn, the government became the architect of an injustice
so egregious it is "repugnant to the American criminal system." Russell, 411 U.S. at 428
(citations omitted). For these reasons and those in our original Motion and Brief in Support,
this Court should compel the government to produce the evidence the defense requests in its
full, unredacted form. Given the clear and convincing evidence herein, this Court should issue
an order to show cause why the prosecutors should not be held in contempt; and should dismiss
the entire prosecution for outrageous government misconduct.
Another shoe dropped this week and it ain't looking good for the Mueller legacy. General
Michael Flynn's lawyer, the Honey Badger Sidney Powell, filed on Wednesday (23 October) a
formal request that Judge Sullivan order the publication of Flynn's Reply to the Government's
Opposition to the Motion to Compel. To briefly recap--Sidney Powell filed a motion (see my
piece about
Michael Flynn's motion to compel production of Brady material ). The DOJ lawyers went nuts
and behaved like a crazed Pee Wee Herman (
see here ) and insisted they did not need to produce anything.
The Government lawyers argument was simple and moronic--i.e., they said that because Flynn
pled guilty to a charge where the Government knew he had not lied that he was still guilty.
Stupid logic like this is, I believe, one of the reasons the average person hates lawyers.
Sidney Powell has prepared a response to the Government's rebuttal and agreed to edit out
some portions that mentioned names or referred to specific classified info. But the Government
lawyers are trying to stonewall her and prevent her response from going public. Here's what the
Honey Badger wrote explaining the Government misconduct:
Mr. Flynn filed his Reply to the Government's Opposition to the Motion to Compel by noon on
October 22, 2019, completely under seal because of its minimal references to materials produced
under the Protective Order. The defense expected it could quickly resolve the issue with
government counsel given the government's previous redactions of the Motion to Compel.
We advised the prosecution on Saturday, October 19, 2019, of every document the defense
intended to cite that was produced under the Protective Order and requested the government
approve them to be unsealed. Shortly after filing the Reply yesterday, counsel for Mr. Flynn
sent the government a copy of the brief with light redactions that mirrored those redactions
the government made in the original Motion to Compel. Counsel requested that the government
propose any further redactions so the brief could be quickly filed for the public -- preferably
by the close of business on October 22. Ex. 1.
The government replied that it "would request more redactions beyond" what the defense
proposed, but it provided no reason whatsoever. Given that the government has not provided
defense counsel any classified information, this seems inexplicable. The defense also requested
that the government promptly provide a copy with all its requested redactions, and it has not.
The proposed redacted Reply the defense attaches here under seal includes redactions of the
names the government previously redacted and all quotations of any material covered by the
Protective Order.1
In a nutshell, the corrupt Government lawyers appear to be engaged in an Olympic level of
ass covering. The items that Honey Badger Powell has in hand and wants to release are likely to
destroy the Government's case against General Flynn.
The Mueller prosecutors who railroaded General Flynn never counted on being confronted by
the likes of the steely woman from Texas, Sidney Powell. She is a genuine Honey Badger. The
following video will educate those who know nothing of the Honey Badger.
If I learned one thing from teaching all those years and from raising three nasty girls who
were my stepdaughters and also my two boys: I would rather deal with males than with a woman
on a mission to get her way.
I am happy Flynn has good and determined counsel It's just too bad that he's been put
through all this. I hope Ms. Powell also fights to get him good compensation and restitution
for the suffering they've put him and his family through. (It's always been obvious that they
had to know their prosecution of Flynn was just to get an early punishment for anyone who
might feel the new administration would be better than the old.)
It appears that an agreement has been reached between Michael Flynn's lawyers and those of
the Justice Department about redactions in the reply brief filed by Flynn under seal, which
brief addresses the government's response to Flynn's request to compel production of
exculpatory material. Thus, the reply brief should soon be unsealed and will then be
available in the court clerk's file--
"Sundance" at The Conservative Treehouse has a lot more detail on just how big the new
ones are that Ms Powell is ripping into the perpetrators of this travesty of justice.
Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for this bit of good news (as well as the entertaining badger video).
I wonder why Mr. Flynn's previous lawyers seem to have been more chipmunk than badger?
Off topic, but Battle at Krueger video, in which Cape Buffalo fight off simultaneous
attack on their calf by a lion crew and crocodiles, still gives me goosebumps. But then I'm a
real animal person.
That web page gives links to the FULL docket (currently 129 items) for this case.
The last entry on that page is currently
129 Oct 24, 2019
Consent MOTION for Leave to File Redacted Reply Brief by MICHAEL T. FLYNN. (Attachments: #
(1) Text of Proposed Order, # (2) Reply in Support of Motion to Compel Production of Brady
Material and for an Order to Show Cause (Redacted), # (3) Exhibit 1, # (4) Exhibit 2
(Redacted), # (5) Exhibit 3, # (6) Exhibit 4, # (7) Exhibit 5 (Redacted), # (8) Exhibit 6
(Redacted), # (9) Exhibit 7, # (10) Exhibit 8, # (11) Exhibit 9, # (12) Exhibit 10, # (13)
Exhibit 11 (Redacted), # (14) Exhibit 12 (Redacted), # (15) Exhibit 13, # (16) Exhibit 14, #
(17) Exhibit 15, # (18) Exhibit 16)(Binnall, Jesse)
together with links to the individual items mentioned.
Clicking on the first link, the "MAIN DOCUMENT",
yields a 161-page (!) PDF of the whole shebang.
Because it's so long, it takes minutes to download, but if you want the whole thing, there it
is.
And this approach does not use scribd.
Some interesting items on the docket:
item 9 is the reassignment of the case from Judge Contreras to Judge Sullivan.
87 and 89 are Flynn's change of attorneys.
Larry nailed it. Now let's watch the real criminal scramble as Barr and Durham proceed ahead
with a criminal investigation into the roots of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Looks to me
like John Brennan went out of channels to solicit Five Eyes help in running sting operations.
Perfectly appropriate that Barr is seeking cooperation from Australia, Italy and Ukraine in
pursuing possible criminal misconduct by FBI, CIA and other Federal employees. I hope the
probe develops court-admissible evidence that John Brennan committed fraud by claiming to
have a top Kremlin source who gave eyewitness reports that Putin ordered Russian intelligence
to boost Trump's election chances.
I CANNOT believe the Strzok-Page texts revealing they'd altered the 302s for Gen. Flynn's
January 2017 FBI interview are JUST NOW coming to light. This occurred nearly THREE YEARS
AGO! And it's probably cost the general several hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal
fees. God only knows what it's cost Americans in morale and treasure.
I hope this is going to go a long way in diminishing the FBI's chances of blaming its
seditious conduct on the CIA, when it's becoming more and more apparent that they were
co-conspirators. Has anyone heard of any sanctimonious tweets from the self-righteous James
Comey today???
Hundreds of Islamic State fighters, both Syrian and foreign, were covertly evacuated by US,
UK and Kurdish forces from the besieged city of Raqqa last month and freed to "spread out far
and wide across Syria and beyond".
Although reports on the convoy surfaced at the time, BBC journalists Quentin Sommerville
and Riam Dalati have revealed the details in their documentary Raqqa's Dirty Secret.
Their investigation describes how the convoy carrying 250 fighters, 3,500 family members,
and lorry loads of arms and possessions, was arranged for October 12th by local officials in
meetings attended by a western officer.
During a visit to Syria in mid-October, The Irish Times was told not only about the
evacuation but also that senior Islamic State commanders and their families, 45 people in
all, had been airlifted out of Raqqa by a US helicopter and flown to the Kurdish region in
northern Iraq.
Fighters escaping Raqqa were said to have been given passage across the desert to join
comrades battling the Syrian army and its allies in Deir al-Zor.
Among the people the BBC team interviewed for the exposé were drivers paid by the
Islamic State to drive the buses and trucks carrying the evacuees. According to driver Abu
Fawzi, men, women and children wore suicide vests and the trucks had been booby-trapped in
case "something went wrong".
The convoy contained 50 trucks, 13 buses, and more than 100 of the fighters' own vehicles.
Although it had been agreed they would take only personal weapons, they filled 10 trucks with
arms and ammunition.
Three-day convoy
It had also been stipulated that no foreigners would leave, but drivers told the BBC that
French, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Saudi, Chinese, Tunisian and Egyptians had
joined the exodus. The only restriction observed was a ban against flags and banners.
Whenever it passed through a village or hamlet, fighters warned frightened bystanders they
would return, a villager called Muhanad told the BBC, "running a finger across their
throats".
Two Humvees led the convoy into the desert where the going was rough. Coalition aircraft
and drones hovered above, dropping flares after dark to light the way. When the motorcade
reached Islamic State-held territory, fighters and civilians departed with their arms and
possessions and drivers returned home.
The BBC investigation compelled Col Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve,
to admit to the deal. He told the team: "We didn't want anyone to leave. But this goes to the
heart of our strategy 'by, with and through' local leaders on the ground.
His statement on foreign fighters contradicted information given to the BBC by drivers and
people along the route as well as a statement about strategy made by US defence secretary
James Mattis in May.
On one hand, you're totally right about the necessity of reducing the number of NATO members. On the other hand, the problem is
that without Turkey NATO will militarily become only a little more than a bilateral Franco-American agreement plus those 215 British
warheads.
The problem with Trump is he has no morals, values, and/or convictions. He does what he thinks will be the most popular and what
will make him LOOK NOT weak.
Motto for the USA: Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine
Lemme know when Syria sends troops to support some group or to fight some group in the US won't you?
Let me know when Syria or any nation in the Middle East bombs American military bases in the US because they believe that the
US government mis-treated some group or area in the US.
Then let me know who the hell the US government and military think they are...
talking about Syria and Turkey as if it's any of you alls damn business-oh yeah, you're the good guys right? You preach to other
nations and cultures?
Have you any decency left, when you demand this or that from other nations?
After it was and is proven that, since 1945, the US has murdered more civilians around the world than any other nation? That the
US and it's fine 'civilized' military and agencies like the CIA tortured people in and from Iraq and other places in the MIddle
East?
And, what business is it of yours what religion Turkey has?
Is Turkey telling America what it must do on America's borders?
You arrogant hypocrites. Was it Moslem nations that did the terror in Russia starting in 1917? World War 1 and mustard gas and
so on?
World War 11 and that suffering? How about the US bombing northern Korea and Vietnam in the 50' and 60's? Over a million humans
slaughtered there!!
How would you feel if it was a close relative of yours that got blown apart by the fine US military in Iraq and Afghanistan or
in Syria?
I'll tell you 'know it's all' something which including the above article writer:
if true justice were to happen the US and NATO nations would be brought to trial for high crimes against humanity and trillions
of dollars in reparations paid to nations the US and NATO destroyed and those leaders such as Bush, HIllary Clinton, Condi Rice,
Obama and their neo-con owners would be jailed, at the very least. So, how about throw the US and NATO out of NATO? As in, disband
that criminal enterprise. NATO: a question why do you even exist?
You know, the politicians in D.C. don't care and the American people will never get it-what I mean from my words above. Dig?
Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. ... (right click) ...
https://www.strategic-cultu... .... Trump strikes back at the CIA (deep state) and the CIA will be after his scalp till Kingdom
Come.
The real corruption in Ukraine started in February of 2014 (right click)
https://www.strategic-cultu... when Obama/Biden and ZioCON Communist Victoria Nuland "ILLEGALLY OVERTHREW" the Ukraine
Government and INSTALLED a corrupt illegal dictator handpicked by Obama and Nuland.
The real question is: Would we be here today if Obama/Biden had not taken part in an illegal overthrow of Ukraine? If you follow
actual events, the people of Crimea were so upset they voted, LAWFULLY, to return to Russia. The two Eastern regions of Ukraine
voted to join Russia too; but President Putin refused to accept them.
The vultures also descended on Ukraine to make a profit and Hunter Biden was one of them and an honest prosecutor started to
investigate, and Joe Biden blackmailed the "installed" President to fire him.
When the people of Ukraine got fed up with the "installed" President, they voted a COMEDIAN, who ran as a joke, into office.
Now the conspirators have a new ball game and, before this is over, the CORRUPTION will come out and impeachment will only speed
it up.
So, bring on the impeachment and let the truth come out as it should. Before this is over, this could be the Dimms last Rodeo
for a long, long time.
The failed coup against Erdogan marked a turn from Erdogan away from US and towards Russia. Might well be that Turkey didn't view
US a a "good ally" since that coup.
I agree. Turkey should be expelled but I think its not as easy as simple expulsion. I think its a matter of timing and justification
otherwise it will appear anti-muslim and we may need Turkey at some point in the future (and I think we are keeping that ace in
the hand just a little longer before playing it).
I suspect that it is time for the US to leave NATO.
Create a new alliance with Canada and Britain and let the continent create it's own alliance. They will be forced to use their
own money and
The devastation created in Syria by the USA and its allies who recruited and armed the ISIS fighters and "moderate islamists"
with weapons captured in Libya after fall of Libyan government and start of the civil war will be remembered for generations.
Obama and Hillary were key war criminals in this game.
But the gamble to remove Assad using Islamists as the driving force and then somehow deal with islamists failed.
Now the USA, Israel and KSA suffered a geopolitical defeat.
Notable quotes:
"... The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since 2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved. ..."
"... This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win – and, inevitably, the end of a separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly, Erdogan's spokesman Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara was unheard of until quite recently. ..."
Russia-Turkey deal establishes 'safe zone' along Turkish border and there will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols
The negotiations in Sochi were long – over six hours – tense and tough. Two leaders in a room with their interpreters and several
senior Turkish ministers close by if advice was needed. The stakes were immense: a road map to pacify northeast Syria, finally.
The press conference afterwards was somewhat awkward – riffing on generalities. But there's no question that in the end Russian
President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed the near impossible.
The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since
2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned
Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and
they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole
northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved.
This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win – and, inevitably, the end of a separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly,
Erdogan's spokesman Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara
was unheard of until quite recently.
Putin immediately called Syrian President Bashar al Assad to detail the key points of the memorandum of understanding. Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov once again stressed Putin's main goal – Syrian territorial integrity – and the very hard work ahead to form
a Syrian Constitutional Committee for the legal path towards a still-elusive political settlement.
Russian military police and Syrian border guards are already arriving to monitor the imperative YPG withdrawal – all the way to
a depth of 30 kilometers from the Turkish border. The joint military patrols are tentatively scheduled to start next Tuesday.
On the same day this was happening in Sochi, Assad was visiting the frontline in Idlib – a de facto war zone that the Syrian army,
allied with Russian air power, will eventually clear of jihadi militias, many supported by Turkey until literally yesterday. That
graphically illustrates how Damascus, slowly but surely, is recovering sovereign territory after eight and a half years of war.
Who gets the oil?
For all the cliffhangers in Sochi, there was not a peep about an absolutely key element: who's in control of Syria's oilfields
, especially after President Trump's now-notorious tweet stating, "the US has secured the oil." No one knows which oil. If he meant
Syrian oil, that would be against international law. Not to mention Washington has no mandate – from the UN or anyone else – to occupy
Syrian territory.
The Arab street is inundated with videos of the not exactly glorious exit by US troops, leaving Syria pelted by rocks and rotten
tomatoes all the way to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they were greeted by a stark reminder. "All US forces that withdrew from Syria received
approval to enter the Kurdistan region [only] so that they may be transported outside Iraq. There is no permission granted for these
forces to stay inside Iraq," the Iraqi military headquarters in Baghdad said.
The Pentagon said a
"residual force" may remain in the Middle Euphrates river valley, side by side with Syrian Democratic Forces militias, near a
few oilfields, to make sure the oil does not fall "into the hands of ISIS/Daesh or others." "Others" actually means the legitimate
owner, Damascus. There's no way the Syrian army will accept that, as it's now fully engaged in a national drive to recover the country's
sources of food, agriculture and energy. Syria's northern provinces have a wealth of water, hydropower dams, oil, gas and food.
As it stands, the US retreat is partial at best, also considering that a small garrison remains behind at al-Tanf, on the border
with Jordan. Strategically, that does not make sense, because the al-Qaem border between Iran and Iraq is now open and thriving.
Map: Energy Consulting Group
The map above shows the position of US bases in early October, but that's changing fast. The Syrian Army is already working to
recover oilfields around Raqqa, but the strategic US base of Ash Shaddadi still seems to be in place. Until quite recently US troops
were in control of Syria's largest oilfield, al-Omar, in the northeast.
There have been accusations by Russian sources that
mercenaries recruited by private US military companies trained jihadi militias such as the Maghawir al-Thawra ("Army of Free
Tribes") to sabotage Syrian oil and gas infrastructure and/or sell Syrian oil and gas to bribe tribal leaders and finance jihadi
operations. The Pentagon denies it.
Gas pipeline
As I have argued for years, Syria to a large extent has been a key '
Pipelineistan' war – not
only in terms of pipelines inside Syria, and the US preventing Damascus from commercializing its own natural resources, but most
of all around the fate of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline which was agreed in a memorandum of understanding signed in 2012.
This pipeline has, over the years, always been a red line, not only for Washington but also for Doha, Riyadh and Ankara.
The situation should dramatically change when the $200 billion-worth of reconstruction in Syria finally takes off after a comprehensive
peace deal is in place. It will be fascinating to watch the European Union – after NATO plotted for an "Assad must go" regime change
operation for years – wooing Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus with financial offers for their gas.
NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring." And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic irony
yet: NATO member, Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria 'Pipelineistan'
road map .
NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring." And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic
irony yet: NATO member, Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria
'Pipelineistan' road map .
except, I thought the EU and the US cut Erdogan off from military supplies?
Oct 14, 2019 - European leaders warn of ISIS revival with Turkish invasion of Syria ... condemned the Turkish
incursion and agreed on an informal, E.U. -wide ban on arms sales to Ankara. ... That is a
direct security threat to the European Union." AD ... who escape from Syrian prison camps could make their
way to France.
And, six hours isn't ****. The deal was cut long before that meeting. Funny Assad wasn't there -- it's his country. Or is it?
given that he couldn't resupply his army, what choice did he have?
...oh to be rid of this vipers nest of **** bought to you by George Sr and Jnr, Obamawambachamawamba and of course Killary
and Co along with quite a few Repub. necons...
I worked in Syria before all this **** went down and I can tell you it was thriving and probably the best exemplar in the mid
east; I hope they get back to where they should never have been torn down from...
Trump is the one that deserves the credit here, no one else...
Read the entire crap all through again as well as anything that is published in the Saker blog. While they feign sympathy for
Syria (with oodles of Zionist plots to get the reader emotionally-activated), their true intent is to promote Turkey's interests.
There is hardly any mention of Turkey's role in the genocide in Syria, and the sex-slave and organ trafficking markets it had
facilitated. Turkey appears white as snow and anything bad can be blamed on an exiled Gulen.
Who is threatening to flood White Europe with millions Muslim refugees...? ...
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.
Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one
that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be
able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that
ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.
This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.
Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of
it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will
go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers,
or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.
Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will
continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of
the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends
up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.
It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United
States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or
that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or
that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.
America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters.
That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships.
Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United
States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.
All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire,
pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.
That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners,"
and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."
That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign
wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign
military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying
people in countries all over the world.
The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans.
That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and
dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck
to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.
The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's
what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly
protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom
and peace, both here and abroad.
There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial
complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism.
A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist
foreign policy to our land.
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the
Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate
Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have
developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was
refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.
In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the
other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the
Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the
Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the
oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government
owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.
Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and
its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!
Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the
national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own
palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party
air forces (Russia) who support them
This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and
stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.
IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession
and they are a danger to us all. pl
If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico
border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug
cartel?
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe
his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past
couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.
Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart.
After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I
can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their
exit.
As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their
oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow
any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what
Congress wants?
At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a
steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is
unknown.
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no
legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply
are playing dog-in-the-manger.
My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny
relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the
SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore
social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to
the policy of FUKUSing Syria.
Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty
people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the
United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream
media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation.
Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the
region and their customs is a national treasure.
This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning
of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut
instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact --
saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where
they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They
thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their
country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what
the war was about.
Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's
about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when
asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that
200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or
keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is
threaten to blow up the world.
Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the
United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's
impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence.
The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.
Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer,
but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police
and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a
second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds
me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried
to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen
serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is
chaos.
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural
plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador,
Peru, etc
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump
is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security
advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against
this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt
Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked.
Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk
with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia
should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not
see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.
My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the
President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate
trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No
one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling"
Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded
to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs
Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said
in Persian, has grown a tail.
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has
released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?
Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE
pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success.
During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of
curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and
banks.
It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were
beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even
leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that
Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.
Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something
big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation
between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.
Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump
will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a
cataract.
They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good
reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to
the price.
Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is
supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was
endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to
be the nominee?
Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the
indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a
95% probability of winning the day before the election.
As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to
convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that
will vote to convict?
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not
nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed,
there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a
stampede.
You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him
on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In
addition to circus acts.
I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am
not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the
compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore..
representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican
candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the
polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense
opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election
defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast
majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office
for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an
election for the presidency is no small feat.
There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial
which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the
general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic
supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on
his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't
worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying
when he was asked questions.
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies
so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and
failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.
He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he
simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near
flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.
With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the
putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War
Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and
became midwife to additional disasters.
It probably should come as no surprise to us that
Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many
deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive
to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a
platform of change.
Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen.
At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy--
turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the
dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard
against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual
interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying
degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.
With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in
an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably
completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not
tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even
some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed
as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would
cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as
such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus
Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity
towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see
beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia
Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This
administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside
SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to
the Battle of Khasham.
The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media
is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the
MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them
distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of
affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking
points without understanding any of it.
While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support
America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for
eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these
wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to
it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to
contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from
under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively
prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with
Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the
permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless
covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever
holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and
Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact
certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a
little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need
of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I
was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be
trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me
that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let
the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of
our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And
then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof
that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into
the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not
people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump
get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by.
Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon
and Zionist.
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from
this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?
> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at
any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that
you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are
going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens
back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is
a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that
seriously.
> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again,
is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy
or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And
here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our
abandonment of the Kurds.
> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was
immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that
there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the
humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of
people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as
big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are
concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of
U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of
bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism.
Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen
to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a
fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment
nervous.
> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan
criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an
opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster
and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the
groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's
retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners
and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As
neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more
talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars
are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you
think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to
happen now with U.S. withdrawal.
> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to
set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I
mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the
problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.
> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even
members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to
reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if
you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if
you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a
different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say,
people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in
Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that
region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have
to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce
any more positive results?
> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have
inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties
that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has
done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to
oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully
appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a
profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.
This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of
2018:
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and
conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is
intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen
exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as
Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to
witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes
around comes around?
But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the
Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One
additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example.
Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war
be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?
As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG
leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his
flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but
didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry
[at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.
It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the
Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a
long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is
actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch
another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the
north.
To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in
one field and 400 contractors in the other.
There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has
reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon
number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something
they wish to see.
"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.
...buried in Donald Trump's address is a clarion call to reject transnationalism and to
re-embrace a world of sovereign nation-states that cherish their independence and unique
identities.
Western man has engaged in this great quarrel since Woodrow Wilson declared America would
fight in the Great War, not for any selfish interests, but "to make the world safe for
democracy."
Our imperialist allies, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, regarded this as self-righteous
claptrap and proceeded to rip apart Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire and to
feast on their colonies.
After World War II, Jean Monnet, father of the EU, wanted Europe's nations to yield up their
sovereignty and form a federal union like the USA.
Europe's nations would slowly sink and dissolve in a single polity that would mark a giant
leap forward toward world government -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Parliament of man, the
Federation of the world."
Charles De Gaulle lead the resistance, calling for "a Europe of nation-states from the
Atlantic to the Urals."
For 50 years, the Gaullists were in constant retreat. The Germans especially, given their
past, seemed desirous of losing their national identity and disappearing inside the new
Europe.
Today, the Gaullist vision is ascendant.
"We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even
systems of government," said Trump at the U.N. "Strong sovereign nations let diverse countries
with different values, different cultures, and different dreams not just coexist, but work side
by side on the basis of mutual respect.
"In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine
as an example for everyone to watch."
Translation: We Americans have created something unique in history. But we do not assert
that we should serve as a model for mankind. Among the 190 nations, others have evolved in
different ways from diverse cultures, histories, traditions. We may reject their values but we
have no God-given right to impose ours upon them.
It is difficult to reconcile Trump's belief in self-determination with a National
Endowment for Democracy whose reason for being is to interfere in the politics of other nations
to make them more like us.
Trump's idea of patriotism has deep roots in America's past. After the uprisings of 1848
against the royal houses of Europe failed, Lajos Kossuth came to seek support for the cause of
Hungarian democracy. He was wildly welcomed and hailed by Secretary of State Daniel Webster.
But Henry Clay, more true to the principles of Washington's Farewell Address, admonished
Kossuth:
"Far better is it for ourselves, for Hungary, and for the cause of liberty that, adhering to
our wise, pacific system, and avoiding the distant wars of Europe, we should keep our lamp
burning brightly on the western shore as a light to all nations, than to hazard its utter
extinction amid the ruins of fallen or falling republics in Europe."
Trump's U.N. address echoed Clay: "In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding
principle of sovereignty. Our government's first duty is to its people to serve their needs, to
ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values."
Trump is saying with John Quincy Adams that our mission is not to go "abroad in search of
monsters to destroy," but to "put America first." He is repudiating the New World Order of Bush
I, the democracy crusades of the neocons of the Bush II era, and the globaloney of Obama.
Trump's rhetoric implies intent; and action is evident from Rex Tillerson's directive to
his department to rewrite its mission statement -- and drop the bit about making the world
democratic. The current statement reads: "The Department's mission is to shape and sustain a
peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world." Tillerson should stand his ground. For
America has no divinely mandated mission to democratize mankind. And the hubristic idea that we
do has been a cause of all the wars and disasters that have lately befallen the republic. If we
do not cure ourselves of this interventionist addiction, it will end our republic. When did we
dethrone our God and divinize democracy?
And are 21st-century American values really universal values?
At least Mr. Buchanan's latest column has no Establishment horsefeathers about Russian
"hacking" of our precious democracy. However, doesn't he yet realize that there's usually
something for everyone in any formal address by President Trump?
The author can pluckily show how passages (apparently written by Stephen Miller?) are
consistent with America's founding principles, and perhaps an essay like this will reach and
enlighten others. But the President doesn't understand or hold those principles, as will once
again become evident in his own words thumbed into a so called smart phone and the actions of
an imperial Establishment for which he is, at best, nothing more than an embarrassing
annoyance.
"In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it
shine as an example for everyone to watch."
Perhaps not, but we have been trying to impose (((American))) style democracy and
where/when that's not possible, puppet dictators. We claim to respect national sovereignty
but overthrew Saddam Hussein, helped overthrow Qadaffi, staged a color revolution in Ukraine,
seem to be undermining Maduro of Venezuela, are looking for ways to break the nuclear
agreement and reimpose sanctions on Iran and until recently, attempting to overthrow and
depose the duly elected leader of Syria which may still be in the works.
I guess the Jew(s) who wrote Trump's speech is hoping the world has amnesia. If Trump
truly means what he says then he will start closing our military bases and bringing our
troops home. His lofty words need to be matched by deeds.
If we ever want to overthrow any leader we just claim they are killing and torturing their
own people or possess unauthorized WMD. But if you are killing and torturing your people and
Israel likes you or doesn't feel threatened by you then we'll stand down.
And are 21st-century American values really universal values?
Should all nations embrace same-sex marriage, abortion on demand, and the separation of
church and state if that means, as it has come to mean here, the paganization of public
education and the public square?
the moral rot and spiritual sewage pumped out of ((Hollywood)) and ((Madison Ave.)) are
hardly pagan.
Paganism is a spiritual celebration of a people's blood and ancient Gods of lust,
fertility and heroism. The SJW of ((American)) culture today are the exact opposite of
paganism, as they wallow in blood-profaning 'diversity' and spiritual septic tanks of
homomania.
If freedom of speech and the press here have produced a popular culture that is an open
sewer and a politics of vilification and venom, why would we seek to impose this upon other
peoples?
it isn't freedom of speech or a free press that has produced the evils you speak of Pat,
but rather the consolidation of our press and media by the enemies of free speech. Duh.
For the State Department to declare America's mission to be to make all nations look
more like us might well be regarded as a uniquely American form of moral imperialism.
hardly moral imperialism, rather amoral imperialism.
promoting, indeed demanding moral rot and spiritual gangrene are ((America's)) exports
today, along with debt and bombs.
If Trump can somehow turn this situation around, and rein in the ((purveyors)) of hatred
and mass-murder, he'll be a modern day Charles [The Hammer] Martell. The Lion of the West,
and savior of Christendom and Europa.
An (unlikely) Second Coming of sorts, where Satan's nefarious rule is pushed back, and
humanity and Western civilization are once again free from the evils of Moloch's minion$.
Just imagine Putin in the East, and Trump in the West, and a healthy and ascendant Europe
in between, free from mass migrations and serial wars of ((imposed)) hatred and theft and
misery. Oy veh!
If a U.S. president calls an adversary "Rocket Man on a mission to suicide," and warns
his nation may be "totally destroyed,"
then it is quite irrelevant what else he says, because what's obvious is that he's
continuing his game of nuclear chicken with the North Korean regime, which is because he has
a problem with the fact that a country on the other side of a huge ocean is developing
nuclear weapons. Not very Gaullist, I think.
He was also threatening Iran, all the while lengthily admonishing Iran's leaders for their
form of government, for leading a "dictatorship", for having allegedly mismanaged their
country. This is not a Gaullist position at all, for example, quite the opposite.
At this stage trying to spin Trump utterances like that he might be a Gaullist is a complete
nonsense. His only redeeming value is that his enemies are who they are. Still as last
several months indicate Trump always ends up doing exactly what these "enemies" want.
http://patriotrising.com/2017/09/22/trump-hardly-knew-ye-bad-camelot-brief-shining-moment/
"Trump has unfortunately proven to be exactly what his detractors claimed he was; immature,
egotistical, unprincipled, vain, elitist. This certainly doesn't make most of his critics
any less offensive than they are. Indeed, that is the lone redeeming value of Trump's
administration; he continues to have all the right enemies. The threats of violence, even
assassination, from every pillar of the establishment almost make one want to continue to
defend him. Almost."
The US Multi-National Chamber of Commerce makes most of its money by arbitrage between
high price retailing to consumers in the USA and low cost manufacturing in China, et.al.. And
the C of C is nakedly buying the best Congressional GOP/RNC and DNC available and they're ALL
available.
This is called channel-stuffing. Stuff more people into the USA, get more arbitrage.
Then there's nakedly laundering payments to US corporations via "foreign aid." In every
case, the "aid" is either money to buy American weapons or such, or Uncle buys it himself and
sends it. Either way, the US Treasury borrows and spends .and US corporations collect.
In this regard, Uncle Sam is just like the typical college student or medical patient,
a means by which the supplier creates a conduit to the fruits of borrowed money.
Every bit of this grew up the last 36 years (well, it got way worse, anyway, from
poisonous seeds earlier) and it won't end until interest rates rise and choke off
borrowing.
This will happen when the Mass Mind finally awakens from a three and a half decade stupor
and realizes just what happened. Instead of empty platitudes about unpayable debts and
uncollectable pensions and future cash flows, the Mass Mind will SEE it clearly for the first
time.
Oh, the RAGE will be epic. I need to buy myself a cavern or old missile silo in which to
sit out the actions that will be animated by it.
I hope the economists and popular pundits who kept telling us debt was "no problem" are at
the head of the line when scapegoating gets REAL .
Western man has engaged in this great quarrel since Woodrow Wilson declared America would
fight in the Great War, not for any selfish interests, but "to make the world safe for
democracy."
To Wilson's credit, the logic of his argument was nationalist against imperialism. In
principle(if not in practice), he was calling for self-determination and national sovereignty
for all peoples of the world.
Wilson was NOT calling for wars to spread democracy. He was saying nations should
self-determine their own destinies and HOPEFULLY, democracy is the path they take.
In this sense. Bush and Neocons were not Wilsonian but closer to Teddy Rooseveltism that
was for empire and a World Club of Imperial Nations.
That said, Trump is a two-headed snake. Gaulle was a truly legendary leader. Trump is a
showman who has now cucked out to globalist. His rhetoric means nothing.
For 50 years, the Gaullists were in constant retreat. The Germans especially, given their
past, seemed desirous of losing their national identity and disappearing inside the new
Europe.
This makes no sense. The German Guilt in WWII was imperialism, not nationalism. They waged
war on nationalism all over Europe. They forced Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs, and etc to forgo
their identity and dissolve into German empire as helots.
Anti-Nazi struggle in WWII meant recovery of one's nation's sovereignty and
independence(though this was thwarted once again by Soviet domination of Eastern Europe).
Germans sure learned the wrong lesson. They no longer send armies to other nations, but
their message is the same to Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, and others.. SURRENDER YOUR
INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY AND BE RUN OVER BY FOREIGN INVADERS, this time Muslims and
Africans who are even worse than Germans.
They no longer send armies to other nations, but their message is the same to Poles,
Hungarians, Greeks, and others.. SURRENDER YOUR INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY AND BE RUN
OVER BY FOREIGN INVADERS,
agreed. now its more political and economic.
but to be fair, we dont know how much power Germany elites really have. how much of their
talk is really their views, vs how much is influenced from US/France/etc. do they want eu
seperate, do they want atlanticist eu-us connection?
i wonder how the demographic problems will play in the future. assuming projections are
right, slavic lands (especially between Germany and Russia) will have less people due to
fertility rates. will that be lebensraum for the new mixed society of germany?
Hey, if you don't like it "you're fired!" And you can't play football either! To think I once
was a Trump supporter Hillary or not, this guy is dangerous.
If freedom of speech and the press here have produced a popular culture that is an open
sewer and a politics of vilification and venom, why would we seek to impose this upon other
peoples?
Don't blame freedom of speech and the press for the popular culture that's an open [moral]
sewer; blame the self anointed money bag "elite" who control the press and much of everything
else whose "culture" has always been a sewer, albeit somewhat discreetly closed.
They say a fish rots from the head down, and evidently the rule has, and still does, apply
to human social systems as well.
The "why would we seek to impose this upon other peoples?" question is spot on,
however.
"... The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with and blew the whistle on (apparently). ..."
"... Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music -- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine. Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that. ..."
Indeed Orwell's "1984" referred to the UK as "Airstrip One" and this Brexit fiasco surely
proves that Outside Influences not only run the Judiciary when necessary, but also plant
poison on doorknobs when it suits them.
The ever servile Australian government to the empire du jour does nothing to honor their
passport pledge. We would have to assume it qualifies as Orwell's "Airstrip Two"
In contrast to Assange's predicament (and Manning I assume), the main point of this post
is to mention the recent Joe Rogan interview of Edward Snowden (touting his book) --
http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/edward-snowden
Nearly three hours of mostly Snowden rambling on. I stayed with it to the end. A few items
of interest but mostly just noise. I found him initially somewhat suspicious -- by the end I
was more neutral. However, what a display of American arrogance and ingratitude. The Russian
government has saved his bacon and has given him refuge with great freedoms he would not have
in the USA -- or Airstrip One ... or, HK, or any South American backyard colony. And yet he
makes no attempt to thank them and even virtually panders to the American anti-Russian meme.
He has even dabbled in Russian opposition politics via local newspaper comments. What an
ungrateful guest! (Or still an agent @ work?) I would entirely understand the Russians
putting him on a plane back to the USA tomorrow. Ungrateful little character, imo. And says a
lot about the way Americans treat the external world from inside their little fishbowl.
Simply a doormat for convenience.
The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal
conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in
these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court
system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with
and blew the whistle on (apparently).
Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music
-- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits
apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine.
Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that.
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
I'm a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking
me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
"... we are talking about a man who launched 60+ Tomahawks over chocolate cake, with no investigation on a false flag gas attack, has reopened a war on Iran and is currently sanctioning Syria, Russia, Venezuela and many more to a level never seen before, sold anti tank missiles to Ukraine and made the KSA his first official overseas visit. ..."
"... Trump set up Gen. Flynn (who would have implemented his campaign promises) and unceremoniously fired him for the crime of doing his job. Then Trump put a bunch of neocons in charge and cleansed the NSC of any staff critical of the neocon agenda. Trump has filled his administration with disgusting swamp creatures and essentially put a simpleton son-in-law in charge of middle east policy. This is a complete disaster and b is way off base. His policy on Israel has been a nightmare, as has the policy on KSA. ..."
"... I think a civilizational winter is settling in on the Global North, while a thaw is on the verge of breaking out in the Global South. ..."
... many of his subordinates have tried to subvert his policies.
Wait ... what?
Those 'subordinates' work for Trump. Trump could easily prevent the subverting of
his policies - if he chose to.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Wasn't it Trump that tweeted that he was "locked and loaded" for war with Iran?
Wasn't it Trump that ordered TWO missile strikes on Syria based on false pretenses?
Wasn't it Trump that fully supported the Venezuela coup? And approved of illegally seizing
Venezuelan assets?
Wasn't it Trump that violated UN Resolutions by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and
recognizing Golan Heights as Israeli territory? All while drastically curtailing aid to the
Palestinians?
Wasn't it Trump that militarized Space? (He seems rather proud of doing so.)
Furthermore, I don't hear Trump complaining about things like USA not following thru on
commitments made for peace in Korea or USA's terminating the INF Treaty.
Trump was better at governing his TV show than running his government. Certainly, his
irresponsible choices for his chief aides carry much blame, but so does his
inability/unwillingness/false promise to drain the swamp of all the saboteurs--just look at
the Justice Department for a graphic example. But Trump's mismanagement was exacerbated by
his totally different conception of the Outlaw US Empire and how it would go about its
business--views that were diametrically opposite of those indoctrinated into the career
bureaucrats that would be charged with carrying out policy--when you've been told it's fine
and dandy to ignore and break as many laws and treaties as needed to implement policy, it
becomes second nature to ignore and work against policy directives that go against your
indoctrination. One major point Trump was correct about was the a priori need to Drain the
Swamp of the creatures that brought about all the ill-fated policies he now wanted to unwind
and abandon--the most important singular point he hasn't really tried to accomplish. Instead,
one of the first places he visited after his inauguration was CIA headquarters--Downtown
Swampland HQ.
I included and linked to
this article earlier today, "Trump's Foreign Policy Strategy Is All About the 2020
Elections." Lets assume that assumption is 100% correct; what does that leave post-election
when there's no further election to attempt to win? If all troops are removed from Syria,
Iraq and Afghanistan, what else will occur? Continued withdrawal from the Persian Gulf as
Iran's HOPE project swings into action? Withdrawal from Korea? Closing Gitmo? I haven't heard
Trump say anything about potential domestic or foreign second term policy. The D-Party's
candidates have proposed lots of domestic policy changes, some greatly needed and desired by
the public; but aside from Gabbard, little's been said about foreign policy.
Let's back away from the chalk board and its maps to look at the entire globe and do a
quick review of Trump's global policy.
His Trade War multiple tariff impositions were aimed at numerous nations, not just China,
all aimed at enhancing the MAGA domestic policy. The so-called Freedom of Navigation
provocation remains in place despite the USN botching it so badly. Somewhat reinvigorated
imperialism South of the border, particularly with the targeting of Venezuela and revamping
the Cuban Embargo. Renegotiation of NAFTA and dropping of all other pending Neoliberal trade
pacts. Illegal withdrawal from JCPOA, but withdrawal of troops from Syria and perhaps beyond.
Continued support for Saudi and UAE aggression against Yemen, which Ansarallah calls US-Saudi
aggression and terrorism. Included in all the above are numerous war crimes and other crimes
against humanity either originated or exacerbated by Trump. Those saying Trump hasn't begun a
war are 100% liars. But what was perhaps the most curious was his rant at the UNGA where he
declared war against Globalists and promoted Patriots. And although the ice was broken in the
frozen relations with DPRK, nothing positive has ensued.
In some ways we see continuity with the ongoing Outlaw US Empire policy to gain Full
Spectrum Dominance, but in other ways there're distinctive breaks with that policy. It
appears Trump wants to rollback US Imperialism to the Western Hemisphere in an effort to MAGA
as the Globalist's drive is a massive drain on US wealth and prestige. Do recall his loud but
very brief threat to attack all US-based companies that didn't repatriate their overseas
factories. As Trump's continuing Imperialism South of the Border proves, he's no
isolationist; and as his requests for additional military funding show, he's no pacifist
either. And to-date, his war fighting is limited to all forms of hybrid warfare, his only
kinetic actions being war crimes against Syria.
So, where will Trump go from here? Will he make any additional foreign policy related
campaign promises; and if so, what might they be? And as we've seen, there's a big push on to
replace the Dollar as the primary commercial currency with Trump so far being silent about
that. Does Trump even care about the international status of the Dollar or its importance to
the domestic economic situation, or is he totally ignorant?
Hmmm, i am not sure what to think of this analysis. On the one hand, Trump has said many
things, so who knows what he really wants. On the other, we are talking about a man who
launched 60+ Tomahawks over chocolate cake, with no investigation on a false flag gas attack,
has reopened a war on Iran and is currently sanctioning Syria, Russia, Venezuela and many
more to a level never seen before, sold anti tank missiles to Ukraine and made the KSA his
first official overseas visit.
In other words, not much of a peace maker. So while he may talk about bringing troops
home, one wonders how much of it is really just for show. His incompetence is well
established, but as others also mentioned, if one really wanted peace, then Pompeo, Bolton
and Haley are not really the people to be surrounded with. There are plenty of Republicans
from former senior Pentagon's Col. Wilkerson to Senators like Rand Paul who would have been
both fit for the job and willing to enable such policies, so forgive my skepticism, Trump the
peacemaker he is not, as for honouring any promises, never trust a salesman especially a
proven liar like Trump.
Trump set up Gen. Flynn (who would have implemented his campaign promises) and
unceremoniously fired him for the crime of doing his job. Then Trump put a bunch of neocons
in charge and cleansed the NSC of any staff critical of the neocon agenda. Trump has filled
his administration with disgusting swamp creatures and essentially put a simpleton son-in-law
in charge of middle east policy. This is a complete disaster and b is way off base. His
policy on Israel has been a nightmare, as has the policy on KSA.
WSWS reports that "Kramp-Karrenbauer called for a massive European Union (EU) force to occupy
northern Syria, sup..." and "Imperialist circles in both America and Europe are outraged at
the military and financial advantages that could accrue to Russia, Iran and China from their
defeat in Syria."
Well, contrary to Trump, who has specialized on making money playing the boss, the
establishment have some knowledge of what Trump is talking about.
Like leaving some isolated US troops in the desert "protecting oil fields". Trump
presumably has a very hazy idea that Syria and Turkey are countries. If you cannot take the
boss seriously you look out for yourself.
US establishment is capable of withdrawing when needed, see Vietnam, and I guess the
decision was not Trump's. Nor did I notice that Trump's zionist backers mentioned anything
about it. Nor do I believe that anyone in US establishment has the slightest interest in
protecting Rojava.
juliania @89 said: "We northerners have a winter ahead of us, but way down south it is
already spring."
Am I the only one who read that thinking of the Global North/Global South metaphor?
Probably not, and I have to say it is a surprisingly concise but deep observation juliania
makes. I think a civilizational winter is settling in on the Global North, while a thaw is
on the verge of breaking out in the Global South.
"... NATO has become an end run around the UN in legitimizing our dirty little wars. No wonder they are going after Tulsi. ..."
"... War and spooks. It makes it me absolutely disgusted to see intelligent, left-leaning people following obvious traps into xenophobia and fascism. People I love talking about Russian conspiracies, foreign "assets", etc. ..."
What was Hillary Clinton thinking? The 2016 Democratic nominee, for some reason, felt the
need to insert herself into the 2020 race with an attack on Tulsi Gabbard, an oddball
Democratic presidential contender who barely registered in polls. The congresswoman from
Hawaii is a completely discreditable candidate -- more on that in a moment -- but Clinton's
accusation that Gabbard is a tool of the Russians was so blunt and clumsy that it has added
new life to a primary bid that should never have existed in the first place. Within a day,
Gabbard was already fundraising off of it, a development as predictable as a sunrise.
Oh no! The great neo-liberal hope proves herself inept again, and the rest of the spooks get
antsy. Damn it Hillary, you're not supposed to directly say that. You're supposed to
imply it from unverifiable sources. Geez, you're making us all look like amateurs over
here.
Here we are again, watching the people that foiseted Her onto us in the first place,
gnashing their teeth because she can't play even the most elementary of politics.
Moreover, Clinton is also right that both Stein and Gabbard are favorites of the Russian
government, which has rushed social-media bots and state-controlled media to their defense at
various times. Stein even got a seat at a dinner with Vladimir Putin, an honor one might
think is a bit out of the weight class of a super-minor American candidate. The fact that
Stein was sitting at the same table as Putin, along with the retired general, future Donald
Trump appointee, and current felon Michael Flynn, should have raised alarm bells because
Putin never wastes a minute of his day on people who cannot be of use to him. But once Trump
was in the race, Russia focused its efforts on getting him elected, and Stein was left to do
what damage she could as a third-party spoiler.
And this is great! We're just going to repeat everything she said, embellish it, and pretend
like it's common knowledge! Brilliant!
Makes Kamala's answer the other day look especially telling. Well, of course ,
everyone knows that... But god, don't say that out loud!
The Atlantic Council of the United States was established in 1961 by former Secretaries
of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter to bolster support for NATO. The name is
derivative of North Atlantic Council, the highest governing body of NATO.
+ On April 23, 1999, NATO rocketed the central studio of Radio Televisija Srbije (RTS),
the state-owned broadcasting corporation in Belgrade, destroying the building. Sixteen
civilian employees of RTS were killed and 16 wounded. Amnesty International concluded the
attack was a war crime.
+ In a Feb. 12, 2010 atrocity that was kept secret until March 13, US Special Forces
killed a teenage girl, a pregnant mother of 10, a pregnant mother of 6, a police officer
and his brother, and were accused of then trying to cover-up the killings by digging
bullets out of the victims' bodies, washing the wounds with alcohol and lying to superior
officers.
+ While bombing Libya in March 2011, NATO refused to aid a group of 72 migrants adrift
in the Mediterranean Sea. Only nine people on board survived. The refusal was condemned as
criminal by the Council of Europe.
+ On Nov. 26, 2011, NATO jets bombed and rocketed an allied Pakistani military base for
two hours, killing 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounding dozens more. NATO refuses to
apologize
War and spooks. It makes it me absolutely disgusted to see intelligent, left-leaning
people following obvious traps into xenophobia and fascism. People I love talking about
Russian conspiracies, foreign "assets", etc.
My wife is from Hawaii, and she used to respect Tulsi a great deal. It's heartbreaking for
me to watch her fall for this shit.
@Lookout
I think it's because she actually went to school for Political Science. She was in fact, an
intern in the Clinton administration.
Now, she left politics because she was disgusted by it.... I can only imagine how gross it
is up close and personal. But, I think like many women of her time, and a true feminist,
she's fallen for Hillary's victimization game.
When I told her I made my first political donation yesterday, she was excited. When I told
her it was to Tusi, for what Clinton had said, she became immediately combative. But when, I
in exasperation, yelled "I'M DOING IT TO DEFEND A WOMAN!" I think it finally clicked. I'm
hoping that maybe she can finally see that she is just a nasty, vindictive woman.
#2.1 I think
it's because she actually went to school for Political Science. She was in fact, an
intern in the Clinton administration.
Now, she left politics because she was disgusted by it.... I can only imagine how
gross it is up close and personal. But, I think like many women of her time, and a true
feminist, she's fallen for Hillary's victimization game.
When I told her I made my first political donation yesterday, she was excited. When I
told her it was to Tusi, for what Clinton had said, she became immediately combative. But
when, I in exasperation, yelled "I'M DOING IT TO DEFEND A WOMAN!" I think it finally
clicked. I'm hoping that maybe she can finally see that she is just a nasty, vindictive
woman.
Feminism isn't about saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as
men.
Exactly right. My wife and I own a company. She's better at sales and customer service
than I am, so she does that. I'm better at marketing and technology issues, so I do that. We
each have strengths and weaknesses. The best policy for us, and I posit for society in
general, is to base decisions on quantifiable facts, not on gender.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
@edg
generally, women just think a little different. It was a woman, accountant, that confronted
Ken Lay and brought down Enron. She had nothing to gain. It was a woman FBI agent that
noticed foreign nationals were taking flying lessons that didn't include landing an aircraft.
Her observations were dismissed. Men say, do this, you will prosper, women say do this, it's
the right thing to do. Because that's what they teach their kids. Yes, women can emulate men,
the glass ceiling omits that those standing on the top rung are standing on the fingers of
those below them. But damn it, we need a different way of thinking.
Feminism isn't about saying women are better than men but saying women are as
capable as men.
Exactly right. My wife and I own a company. She's better at sales and customer service
than I am, so she does that. I'm better at marketing and technology issues, so I do that.
We each have strengths and weaknesses. The best policy for us, and I posit for society in
general, is to base decisions on quantifiable facts, not on gender.
women are not shamed, objectified, exploited, deprived of choice, deprived of freedom,
deprived of opportunity, abused, or killed for being women.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
Gabbard herself has already ruled out such a challenge, but that is beside the point.
Gabbard has now vowed to take her fight to the convention, where she might argue that the
nominee, whom Clinton will applaud and support, is just another tool of the Democratic,
neoconservative, neoliberal, warmongering, globalist establishment.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think of
her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my feet
applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that may
very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every one of the
major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates - with the
exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the Wikileaks email
from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly, the vicious and
vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past was
testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut the same
hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be asked
about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and I
especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the other,
the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should all be
swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of me wonders
why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should be relegated
to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a rat's ass about her
or her "opinions."
@Le
Frog
Based on Fmr. Sec. Clinton's libelous statement. The language was more direct and
absolute.
Rep. Gabbard should get a bump but she, and certainly Sen. Sanders, have bigger fish to
fry than jumping up and down every time Her rattles the car keys.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
@OzoneTom
I would love to see a lawsuit from Jill Stein.
#4
Based on Fmr. Sec. Clinton's libelous statement. The language was more direct and
absolute.
Rep. Gabbard should get a bump but she, and certainly Sen. Sanders, have bigger fish
to fry than jumping up and down every time Her rattles the car keys.
...but it fits this conversation too
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/20/max-blumenthal-on-why-hillary-clinton... (22 min)
Max Blumenthal says that Clinton's comments reflect a continued effort by Democratic
neo-liberals to deflect responsibility for their loss to Trump in 2016; marginalize voices
like Gabbard and Stein's who challenge their pro-war, corporatist agenda; and preview their
potential future attacks on Bernie Sanders.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
Representative Gabbard, We were very disappointed to hear that you would resign your
position with the DNC so you could endorse Bernie Sanders, a man who has never been a
Democrat before. When we met over dinner a couple of years ago I was so impressed by your
intellect, your passion, and commitment to getting things done on behalf of the American
people. For you to endorse a man who has spent almost 40 years in public office with very
few accomplishments, doesn't fall in line with what we previously thought of you. Hillary
Clinton will be our party's nominee and you standing on ceremony to support the sinking
Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton. A woman who has spent the vast
majority of her life in public service and working on behalf of women, families, and the
underserved. You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your
campaign raise money, we no longer trust your judgement so will not be raising money for
your campaign.
Darnell Strom & Michael Kives
Ooh..bet that hurt.
These are the guys who represent lots of powerful people in government, the media and
Hollywood. If you want to go anywhere then you need them on your side.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I hope
that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough Democratic
Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information
than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in
narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates
on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through
WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual
footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be
taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic
elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has
occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer service model in higher
education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment
machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of
information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of
ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary
citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions
themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst
case, a combination of both.
@konondrum@konondrum
But I can't remember who. The big quote was something like, "In America every shopkeeper is
an expert."
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I
hope that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough
Democratic Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more
information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a
surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled
informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a
quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an
equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most
ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this
rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a
customer service model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry
into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the
increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated
public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce
intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than
anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to
populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both.
@konondrum
This is just what I need: My worst of all fears confirmed.
It wasn't so long ago that "standing up to experts" was just something crank Texas
dentists got skewered by Stephen Colbert for...but now?
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I
hope that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough
Democratic Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more
information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a
surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled
informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a
quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an
equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most
ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this
rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a
customer service model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry
into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the
increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated
public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce
intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than
anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to
populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both.
Will any of HER buddies address anything in Tulsi's tweet aside from Russia? I think not.
HER is going to have to take the "rot" comment on the chin because I'm sure they really
really don't want to have that conversation.
So, I am glad Tulsi opened that door and I hope she doesn't let up on it. Russiagate is,
after all, a symptom of the corruption in the party, just like Trump is.
@Lookout
I watched it yesterday and was amazed by his take on it, especially after he had harsh words
for Tulsi regarding her version of Medicare for All. To be sure, Time Black is a big Bernie
supporter, but his latest on Tulsi is excellent.
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now think
Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her messages of
anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like Bernie's
constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate to
the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy and
war.
@MrWebster
Nothing today should be about Her. It is straight from the Trump playbook. Allowing this
absurd slander to distract us from keeping our eyes on the prize is a win for Her.
Senator Sanders and Representative Gabbard are moving ahead on the front. They are
depending on the rest of us to resist on the flanks.
"Not me, Us!" is not just a slogan...
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now
think Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her
messages of anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like
Bernie's constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll
numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate
to the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy
and war.
@MrWebster
Excellent comment that reflects my own view of what is going on here.
Just as Bernie's 2016 Presidential campaign has greatly changed the dommestic policy
landscape, the oligarchy and the MIC are seeing that Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 Presidential
campaign is beginning to take hold in changing the political landscape foreign policy wise.
The empire is coming apart and they are lashing back.
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now
think Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her
messages of anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like
Bernie's constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll
numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate
to the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy
and war.
...something to do with HER server, wasn't it? But what I REALLY think is going on, and I
could be totally wrong, is that Bernie is considering Tulsi as his VP pick, when and if, and
this is to sow enough doubt and deceit about Tulsi that it wounds Bernie. But one thing I
know for sure: that Clinton hag is one evil bitch!
...something to do with HER server, wasn't it? But what I REALLY think is going on,
and I could be totally wrong, is that Bernie is considering Tulsi as his VP pick, when
and if, and this is to sow enough doubt and deceit about Tulsi that it wounds Bernie. But
one thing I know for sure: that Clinton hag is one evil bitch!
I do not think that Ukraine demand are all that bad if other conditions such as grating the region special status and the level
of autonomy similar to Crimea in the past are fulfilled. With Russian language restored in status as a regional language. Plus total
unconditional amnesty. All three are prerequisite for successful reintegration and in those condition t make sense: (1) the
LNR/DNR dissolve themselves, (2) that they have to leave the Ruble zone and switch back to the Grivna, (3) that the local military
forces have to be disbanded and, finally, (4) that Kiev wants the total control of the LDNR/Russian border. But also should be
a strict prohibition of any member of paramilitary battalions to enter the autonomous region under the penalty to prison
sentence for several years to prevent revenge killings.
The problems with Ukrainian economy are structural and the absence of economic detente with Russia alone can be undoing of
Zelensky government. Further accumulation of IMF credits is the only way forward. Add to this almost total breakdown of economic
ties with Russia because of EuroMaydan and subsequent Western Ukraine nationalist coup d'état, and you have Catch 22 situation for
him. Add to the pressure from the USA and the impression is the there is no way of this situation . BTW Poroshenko despite all
his rhetoric somehow managed to preserve his chocolate factory in Russia ;-)
...First, Trump, Macron and Merkel apparently told Zelenskii that he had to sign the so-called Steinmeier formula, which
basically spells out the sequence of confidence-building and de-escalation measures foreseen by the Minsk Agreements.
Now, you would be excused for thinking that this is a no-brainer. After all, the Minsk Agreements were ratified by the
UNSC (which makes them mandatory, no "if" or "buts" about this!) and it was Poroshenko who agreed to the Steinmeier
formula.
Heck, in 2016 he sure did not have a problem with it, but in 2019 he now calls the self-same formula a Russian
invention and that there is no such thing as a Steinmeier formula, see for yourself (in Ukrainian only):
Zelenskii's problem can be summed up in a simple sentence: the non-existing Nazis. Well, at least in the past all the
Neo-Nazis
cum
Jew-haters were constantly trying to convince us that there are no Nazis in the Ukraine;
apparently, my use of the term Ukronazi really set them off. Then came the election in which an absolute majority of
Ukrainians rejected Poroshenko's drive for war and voted for Zelenskii. If the Ukrainian people voted en masse to elect
an anti-war/pro-peace Jew, surely the Ukronazis were just a small minority of fringe individuals, right?
Wrong! Very very wrong!
And if those who were whitewashing the Ukrainian Nazis (obviously to obfuscate their real ideology and power) had
paid closer attention they would have seen signs of real Nazi power all over this election.
First, there was the remarkable change in tone in Zelenskii's rhetoric. Just like so many politicians (including
Trump!), he radically changed his tune and clearly tried to say one thing when speaking to the general Ukrainian public
and quite another when meeting with the Nazis or nationalist exiles in the USA.
You could say that there is a "Nazi deep state" in the Ukraine which, just like the other deep states out there,
can weather any elected president and quickly reassert its control over whomever the people elected.
You don't believe me when I say that he actually hosted the Ukronazis "fringe minority"? Fine, see for yourself:
In the photo above, Zelenskii is sitting with your typical gang of Ukronazi skinheads, including members of the infamous
Azov death-squad, and he is trying really hard to charm them while they, very publicly, have threatened him with a new
Maidan.
And this is not an isolated case or a fluke.
Zelenskii's prime minister went to a concert for an openly Nazi "Scream" music group called Sekira Peruna and thanked
the crowd of veterans of the "anti terrorist operation" (i.e. thugs from the Ukronazi deathsquads) for being there and
for saving the Ukraine. I did not find any English language translation of the typical lyrics of Sekira Peruna, but I
assure you that they contain all the obligatory nonsense which the Nazi ideology is built upon (see
here
for a
very good article with more details on this event and the Nazis involved).
Check out what their concert posters look like (shown here on the right) or, even better, check out the website of
this group:
http://sokyraperuna.com/
'Nuff said, I think.
So what is going on here?
Basically, exactly what I predicted as soon as Zelenskii was elected in my article "
Zelenskii's
dilemma
" in which I wrote: (emphasis added)
The Nazi-occupied Ukraine is not a democracy, but a plutocracy combined with an ochlocracy
.
The oligarchs are still there, as are the neo-Nazis mobs and death squads. And that creates an immense problem for
Zelenskii: this new Rada might well represent the views of a majority of the Ukrainian people, but
the real
power in the country is not concentrated in the Rada at all: it is in the streets
( ) The people of the
Ukraine desperately want peace. For the time being, the Rada reflects this overwhelmingly important fact. I say "for
the time being" because what will happen next is that the various forces and individuals who currently support
Zelenskii have done so just to gain power. They do not, however, have a common ideological platform or even a common
program. As soon as things go south (which they will inevitably do) many (most?) of these folks will turn against
Zelenskii and side with whoever can muster the biggest crowds and mete out the most violence. Now that he got
elected, Zelenskii quasi-instantly switched to the exact same rhetoric as what got Poroshenko so severely defeated.
Why? Because Zelenskiii is afraid that the neo-Nazi mobs and death squads will be unleashed against him at the very
first opportunity. In fact, the neo-Nazis have already begun promising a new Maidan. The truth is that
Zelenskii has to choose between acting on the will of the people and face the wrath of the neo-Nazis or do the will
of the neo-Nazis and face the wrath of the people
: tertium non datur! So far, Zelenskii has apparently
decided that talking is all he is going to do simply because his triumphant electoral victories have landed him in
the middle of an immense minefield, and
any steps he takes from now on could cost him very dearly
.
Right now, in the short term, the neo-Nazi mobs represent a much bigger danger to Zelenskii than the (disorganized,
demoralized and generally apathetic) people. But this will inevitably change as the economic and political situation
gets worse
.
We see exactly that scenario unfolding before our eyes. Zelenskii took not one, but three very real, if small, steps.
First, he ordered a pullback of some regular Ukrainian armed forces from a few important segments of the line of
contact, then he agreed to a relatively minor prisoner exchange and, finally, he ordered the Ukrainian delegation to
sign the Steinmeier formula. The prisoner exchange went okay for both sides. The Ukronazis soon categorically rejected
any withdrawal and they publicly promised to immediately re-occupy any village vacated by the regular army and they
rejected what they call the "Russian" or "Putin" formula. So far there were a few attempts to block the thugs of the
Azov battalion, but after a few minor clashes, the Azov people passed the police line. And now, the Nazi organized mass
protests in 300 Ukrainian cities. I could post lots of videos here, but that would take a lot of space. If you want to
get a feel for what took place today, go to YouTube and copy-paste the following search query "протесты в украине" into
the search bar, and then use the filter option and chose "this week": you will easily get many hours of video and you
don't even need to understand a word of Ukrainian to immediately get it.
There is another very important factor which you will almost never see on these videos or on any public statements
and that is that there are a number of civil and even criminal cases currently being brought to trial in the Ukraine
against a host of officials of the
ancient régime
including even against Poroshenko (11-14 separate
investigations just for him already!) These men (Poroshenko, Parubii, Turchinov, etc.) now have absolutely no choice but
to try to overthrow Zelenskii.
Just like the US Dems need a coup against Trump (in the form of an impeachment or something else) because the
Clinton-Biden gang now risks real, hard, jail time, so do the former Ukronazi leaders now need a coup against Zelenskii
or they go to jail.
Initially, it appeared that Trump had given Poroshenko some personal security guarantees, but everybody knows how
much the US President's security "guarantees" are worth (just ask the Kurds!). So Poroshenko did not flee the country.
It now appears that some of the people behind Zelenskii (aka Kolomoiskii) are out to get the "Poroshenko clan &
Associates" – Poroshenko has to either topple Zelenskii or run away abroad. There are also rumors that the US "deep
state" (as opposed to the Trump Administration) is now putting pressure on Zelenskii to stop these investigations. Thus,
the current battle between Trump and the Neocons and their "deep state" has now spilled over into the Ukraine and it
appears that various US interest groups are now creating local Ukrainian surrogates whom they will use in their struggle
against each other.
Furthermore, a real possibility opened up now that all sorts of previously buried issues will be investigated by
the Ukrainian prosecutors including:
An official and true investigation to find out who opened fired on the police and demonstrators during the
Euromaidan
MH-17
Ukronazi atrocities in the Donbass
Human rights violations in the Ukraine (where over 1000 political prisoners are still being held) starting with
innumerable cases of horrible torture of detainees (in secret torture camps,
à la
CIA, including an
especially infamous one in Mariupol).
Poroshenko's role in the "Crimea Bridge provocation"
All the many murders of journalists and opponents to the Nazis beginning with the murder of Oles Buzina
A quasi infinite list of war profiteering, corruption, fraud, etc. etc. etc.
Simply put: there is no way that the Ukronazis will just stand by and let those investigations proceed. And while
it is true that numerically the Ukronazis are a small minority in the Ukraine, there is plenty enough of them to terrify
Zelenskii and his handlers, especially considering that they are 1) well armed 2) many have frontline combat experience
and 3) that they are willing not only to engage in "regular" violence, but also to commit atrocities and engage in
terrorism (they did plenty of both in the Donbass).
Zelenskii does have a number of things going for him: first, the mandate of the people (though his popularity is
already down from 73% to 66% – which is still very big), his legal prerogatives as the President and Commander in Chief
and the support of Kolomoiskii's strong network of international connections, especially in Israel.
But that is all rather theoretical so far.
All Zelenskii has done, besides hosting the skinheads in his office, was to make a 14 hour long interview with a
group of reporters. Yes, fourteen hours. Alas, all he achieved was to show that he is a much better actor than
politician. In fact, most experts seem to agree that in his role as President Zelenskii is a total failure who speaks a
lot, says a lot of silly things when he does, and seems to be absolutely unable to take any real action.
At the time of writing (Wed 16th) the leader of the Ukronazis has given Zelenskii 10 days to yield to all the
demands of the opposition. If not, he has promised to trigger a new Maidan and bring millions of people to the streets.
Yup. The "tiny" "fringe" and otherwise "non-existing" Nazis have now given Zelenskii an ultimatum.
Zelenskii is in free fall: Trump, Macron and Merkel are demanding that he abide by the decisions of the UNSC, the
Minsk Agreements and the Steinmeier formula. The Russians have clearly indicated that unless tangible and real progress
is made in the implementation of this formula, there will be nothing else to discuss. The Ukraine is basically bankrupt
and desperately needs both Novorussian coal and Russian gas
. Furthermore, only a removal of the self-defeating
barriers and boycotts imposed by the former regime against any trade or even communications with Russia could begin to
kick-start the economy of what is now clearly a failed state.
Yet the Nazis will oppose any and all such measures, with violence if needed. As for Zelenskii, he appears to be in a
no win situation: no matter what he does next, things will only get worse. Thus the most likely outcome of all these
processes will be, in the short term, further futile attempts by Zelenskii to appease the Nazis (thereby alienating the
general population), in the middle term a violent confrontation, followed in the long term by (the probably inevitable)
break-up of the Ukraine into separately much more viable parts.
UPDATE
: I just heard that the Ukraine is now demanding that 1) the LNR/DNR dissolve themselves,
2) that they have to leave the Ruble zone and switch back to the Hrivna, 3) that the local military forces have to be
disbanded and, finally, 4) that Kiev wants the total control of the LDNR/Russian border.
Well, good luck with that, folks! I hope they are not holding their breath (they aren't – they are just trying to
find a pretext to renege on their legal and political obligations )
"... Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum of Russia-Turkey relationship. ..."
"... If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially catastrophic for regional stability. ..."
"... the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory. ..."
"... Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. " ..."
Now, [..] the sense of betrayal among the Kurds [..] is matched only by their outrage at who
will move in: Turkish soldiers supported by Syrian fighters the United States had long
rejected as extremists, criminals and thugs .
...
The deadly battles [..] have also given new leeway to Syrian fighters once considered too
extreme or unruly to receive American military support.
...
Grandly misnamed the Syrian National Army, this coalition of Turkish-backed militias is in
fact largely composed of the dregs of the eight-year-old conflict's failed rebel movement.
Early in the war [..] the military and the C.I.A. sought to train and equip moderate,
trustworthy rebels to fight the government and the Islamic State.
A few of those now fighting in the northeast took part in those failed programs, but most
were rejected as too extreme or too criminal . Some have expressed extremist sensibilities or
allied with jihadist groups.
The reality is the opposite of what the NYT claims. The majority of the groups now
fighting with the Turkish army had earlier received support from the U.S. Even their nominal
leader is the same one who the U.S. earlier paid, armed and promoted.
On August 31, the Syrian National Coalition came together and elected the president and the
cabinet of the Syrian Interim Government in which Abdurrahman Mustafa was elected president
and Salim Idriss was elected defense minister . With the new cabinet, the Syrian Interim
Government became more active on the ground, started visiting each faction of the National
Army, and accelerated the stalled negotiations to unite the National Army and the NLF under
one command.
Among the 41 factions that joined the merger, 15 are from the NLF and 26 from the National
Army. Thirteen of these factions were formed after the United States cut its support to the
armed Syrian opposition. Out of the 28 factions, 21 were previously supported by the United
States , three of them via the Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions
were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence
operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions
of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.
The SETA study provides a detailed list of the groups involved in the current Turkish
invasion of Syria. Not only is their commander Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge but the
majority of these groups did receive U.S. support and weapons.
The New York Times claim that only "a few of those" who now fight the YPG Kurds
took part in the U.S. programs is a blatant lie.
The NYT piece quotes three 'experts' who testify that the 'rebels' the U.S. had
armed are really, really bad:
"These are the misfits of the conflict, the worst of the worst," said Hassan Hassan, a
Syrian-born scholar tracking the fighting. "They have been notorious for extortion, theft and
banditry, more like thugs than rebels -- essentially mercenaries."
It was Hassan Hassan who since the start of the conflict lobbied for
arming the rebels from his perch at the UAE's media flagship The National .
Another 'expert' quoted is the Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov:
"They are basically gangsters, but they are also racist toward Kurds and other minorities,"
said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "No human should
be subjected to their rule."
Tsurkov earlier
lauded the Israeli hiring and arming of the very same 'Syrian rebels'.
Another 'expert' quoted by the Times is a co-chair of the 'congressionally
sponsored bipartisan Syrian Study Group':
"We are turning areas that had been controlled by our allies over to the control of criminals
or thugs, or that in some cases groups were associated or fighting alongside Al Qaeda," said
Ms. Stroul, of the Syrian Study Group. "It is a profound and epic strategic blunder."
The 'Syrian Study Group' wants to prolong the war on Syria. Ms.
Stroul and her co-chair Michael Singh reside at the Washington
Institute which is a part of the Zionist lobby and has long
argued for 'arming the Syrian rebels'.
The Times report does not mention that the 'experts' it quotes all once lobbied for
arming the very same groups they are now lamenting about. When these groups ran rampant in the
areas they took from the Syrian government the Times and its 'experts' were lauding
them all the way. No effort to support them was big enough. All crimes they committed were
covered up or excused.
Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what
they always have been.
Posted by b on October 20, 2019 at 11:19 UTC |
Permalink
Hah! More lies from the NYT....mainstream media in the west has deteriorated into a
propaganda channel for the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy, pumping out a never
ending tide of lying filth aimed at more and more war (more and more weapon sales) and
promoting and preserving predatory capitalism (more money for the Billionaire class, less for
you).
In my own reading of MSM press and my own watching of the MSM Talking Heads I believe I've
indentified 8 techniques that amoral, dangerous, barely competent idiots that have the cheek
to call themselves journalists use to lie to you, the reader/viewer/listener. Here's my
list...
Okay how practical.
Now only is the NYT trying to whitewash themselves by faking, they are also kind enough to do
the same for their Jihadi lovin partners in crime.
How empathic! How sensible! Like a true moral authority.
BTW: It seems my previous claims were right. The Turks made a 180 and allied with the US
again, reviving the NATO allaince. Now that the Kurds are out of the way in Turk-US
relations, US and NATO has much more to offer than Russia, and noe Erdogan has support from
NATO and will not be deterred by Putin.
B, i respect you immensly, but your belief the Turkish invasion was Erdogan doing some secret
Putin plan was unproven at the time, and now, AT LEAST since the US-Turk deal, is
obsolte.
Read M. K. BHADRAKUMARs blog, he thought like you, but after the US-Turk deal, EVERYTHING
HAS CHANGED:
"The extraordinary US overture to Turkey regarding northern Syria resulted in a joint
statement on Thursday, whose ramifications can be rated only in the fulness of time , as
several intersecting tracks are running.
The US objectives range from Trump's compulsions in domestic politics to the future
trajectory of the US policies toward Syria and the impact of any US-Turkish rapprochement on
the geopolitics of the Syrian conflict.
Meanwhile, the US-Turkish joint statement creates new uncertainties. The two countries
have agreed on a set of principles -- Turkey's crucial status as a NATO power ; security of
Christian minorities in Syria; prevention of an ISIS surge; creation of a "safe zone" on
Turkish-Syrian border; a 120-hour ceasefire ("pause") in Turkish military operations leading
to a permanent halt, hopefully.
The devil lies in the details. Principally, there is no transparency regarding the future
US role in Syria . The Kurds and the US military will withdraw from the 30-kilometre broad
buffer zone. What thereafter? In the words of the US Vice-President Mike Pence at the press
conference in Ankara on Thursday,
"Kurdish population in Syria, with which we have a strong relationship, will continue to
endure. The United States will always be grateful for our partnership with SDF in defeating
ISIS, but we recognise the importance and the value of a safe zone to create a buffer between
Syria proper and the Kurdish population and -- and the Turkish border. And we're going to be
working very closely ."
To be sure, everything devolves upon the creation of the safe zone. Turkey envisages a
zone stretching across the entire 440 kilometre border with Syria upto Iraqi border, while
the US special envoy James Jeffrey remains non-committal, saying it is up to the "Russians
and the Syrians in other areas of the northeast and in Manbij to the west of the Euphrates"
to agree to Turkey's maximalist stance.
Herein lies the rub. Jeffrey would know Ankara will never get its way with Moscow and
Damascus. In fact, President Bashar al-Assad told in unequivocal terms to a high-level
Russian delegation visiting Damascus on Friday, "At the current phase it is necessary to
focus on putting an end to aggression and on the pullout of all Turkish, US and other forces
illegally present in Syrian territories."
Is there daylight between Moscow and Damascus on this highly sensitive issue? Turkish
President Recep Erdogan's forthcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi
on October 22 may provide an answer.
Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied
indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan
will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high
lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum
of Russia-Turkey relationship.
If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now
swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially
catastrophic for regional stability. The heart of the matter is that while Turkey's
concerns over terrorism and the refugee problem are legitimate, Operation Peace Spring has
deeper moorings: Turkey's ambitions as regional power and its will to correct the perceived
injustice of territorial losses incurred during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The
ultra-nationalistic Turkish commentator (and staunch supporter of Erdogan) wrote this week in
the pro-government daily Yeni Safak:
"Turkey once again revived the millennium-old political history on Anatolian
territory. It took action with a mission that will carry the legacy of the Seljuks, the
Ottomans, the Republic of Turkey to the next stage It is not possible to set an equation in
this region by excluding Turkey – it will not happen. A map cannot be drawn that
excludes Turkey – it will not happen. A power cannot be established without Turkey
– it will not happen. Throughout history, both the rise and fall of this country has
altered the region the mind in Turkey is now a regional mind, a regional conscience, a
regional identity. President Erdoğan is the pioneer, the bearer of that political
legacy from the Seljuks, the Ottomans, and the Turkish Republic to the future."
Trump is unlikely to pay attention to the irredentist instincts in Turkish regional
policies. Trump's immediate concerns are to please the evangelical Christian constituency in
the US and silence his critics who allege that he threw the Kurds under the bus or that a
ISIS resurgence is imminent. But there is no way the US can deliver on the tall promises made
in the joint statement. The Kurds have influential friends in the Pentagon. (See the article
by Gen. Joseph Votel, former chief of the US Central Command, titled The Danger of Abandoning
our Partners.) Nonetheless, the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western
support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory.
All in all, it's a "win-win" for Erdogan insofar as he got what he wanted -- US' political
and diplomatic support for "the kind of long-term buffer zone that will ensure peace and
stability in the region", to borrow the words of Vice President Pence. A Turkish withdrawal
from Syrian territory can now be virtually ruled out. State secretary Mike Pompeo added at
the press conference in Ankara on Thursday that there is "a great deal of work to do in the
region. There's lots of challenges that remain."
Pompeo said Erdogan's "decision to work alongside President Trump will be one that I think
will benefit Turkey a great deal." Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to
strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From
Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. "
Add to that, that the Turks now threaten SAA with "full out war".
John Helmers latest post sheds light on the fact, that the Russian military leadership and
the Stavka in general has warned Putin since the Idlib deal again and again to no avail that
the Turks would do this.
Which seems now to have been proven true since the US-Turk deal, which in essence changed
everything overnight.
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American
consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The
barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news
from any source. That is not the American way.
The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT.
Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem
that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is
wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those
who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable.
For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the
Times will never untie the knot.
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American
consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The
barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news
from any source. That is not the American way.
The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT.
Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem
that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is
wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those
who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable.
For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the
Times will never untie the knot.
"Why" always seem like a good question, eh? The NYT lies...why?
This quote caught my attention> " The powerful and historical walls to study today are
those of the Kremlin." (Fisk, information clearing house)
As it was for Winston's "Ministry of Truth" (Orwell) the NYT article is necessary. That's
the significance - not the lies but the necessity of lies...
And under what situations are lies required? Think about that when (if) you read Fisk's
analysis. (I am not a fan of Fisk, but his views in this instance align with my own rather
well)
Fisk article title> "Trump's disgrace in the Middle East is the death of an empire.
Vladimir Putin is Caesar now"
Some may recall that the monks on Mt Athos quietly elected VVP as the Byzantine Emperor
(about 2 years ago) - the Eastern branch of Christianity continues whilst nominally
christian(western) branch is fake and perverse ritual and worse...while his Popeness in Rome
has as Luther saw... I think Luther said it was a vast brothel...
Does this need Daniel to read the writing...
which is?
mene mene tekel upharsin (well somebody said..)
By the way my vote for the clown-man was cast because I reasoned the best esthetic feature
in the freak parade at the end of empire would be a clown act. I am indebted to the late
George Carlin for the symbolism.
I am proved right? I think so. Dogs bark and caravan continue...and many expect dollars to
go weimarish. then?
Ahh.. "experts"... Hassan Hassan is not a Syrian-born scholar, but a Syrian "born-scholar"...
Nuance. Or is it "a natural-born-scholar"? ...
As for Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov, those very same "bad extremists" she now
repudiates on Twitter she once excused for mutilating children "because they were deeply
traumatised"... A very coherent "expert"!!
From The Grayzone, Ben Norton and Aaron Maté (and Dan Cohen) about Tsurkov: Western
pundits who lobbied for Syrian rebels now admit they are jihadist extremists, Oct. 16 (about
Tsurkov, go about 1:45 and the rest): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkg4wJFpc_E
Now Tsurkov seems rather busy rooting for some "color revolution" to take place in Lebanon.
Where is Israel?...
As for the picture of Guy Verhofstadt next to Salim Idriss, it seems very aptly to epitomize
the EU "politics" about the Syrian conflict: "How tasty those American boots are!! Wanna lick
more American boots, please!!"
Ahh.. "experts"... Hassan Hassan is not a Syrian-born scholar, but a Syrian
"born-scholar"... Nuance. Or is it "a natural-born-scholar"? ...
If he is writing nothing but lies he is not any kind of scholar at all except a
fake scholar. Nor is he a journalist. He is a propagandist, nothing else. Call a spade
a spade.
-----
Ahhh, I've just posted to the Media and Pundits thread, but it should have come here much
more sensibly. Anyway the post is top a new page over there, on Trump and Syria's oil
fields.
The new narrative seems to me to have everything to do with Turkey and nothing to do with
Russia.
A comment in the last Syria-related thread.
Then again there are so many loose ends concerning Turkey that almost anything could
happen (coup attempt and "cleansing", dead ambassadors, Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, Syria, ISIS
and others, Kurds, weapon deals, shooting down a Russian plane, annoying Europe and the EU as
well as the US and just about everybody, some only politically but many militarily as well
(at least the US, Germany, and France), the list surely goes on).
As I commented I'm not convinced Turkey will survive this, are they able to stop and
reverse if they find they've set themselves up?
Turkey might be playing a double-game, or plan to betray one side - whether it'll be US or
Russia remains to be seen. But that this is all a clever NATO plot conflicts a bit with the
fact that the US is systematically destroying its bases in NE Syria. Sure, that might be
because they don't want the SAA to use them and to plunder them for techs and scraps, but
that would also make things more complicated for a Turkish take-over - it will surely
considerably slow the process if the Turkish army and its lackeys have to do everything back
from scratches.
Besides, odds are that Putin has taken that into consideration and has some contingency
measures ready, just in case - not that they could fully stop Turkish aggression in its
tracks in a couple of hours, but still.
Meanwhile Nicholas Kristof at the NYTimes also is whitewashing Obama's Syrian policy. He
conveniently forgets Timber Sycamore (the CIA's second largest operation, over $1 billion) to
overthrow Assad - 2013-2017, that allowed ISIS to get a firm foothold.
Trump Takes Incoherence and Inhumanity and Calls It Foreign Policy
"It was just five years ago that an American president, faced with a crisis on Syria's
border, acted decisively and honorably."
"Barack Obama responded with airstrikes and a rescue operation in 2014 when the Islamic
State started a genocide against members of the Yazidi sect, slaughtering men and forcing
women and girls into sexual slavery. Obama's action, along with a heroic intervention by
Kurdish fighters, saved tens of thousands of Yazidi lives."
"Contrast Obama's move, successfully working with allies to avert a genocide, with
President Trump's betrayal this month of those same Kurdish partners in a way that handed a
victory to the Islamic State, Turkey, Syria, Iran -- and, of course, Russia, ."
@ Walter 5: "I reasoned the best esthetic feature in the freak parade at the end of empire
would be a clown act"
Just love it!!
On a side note. Last night met with a new friend couple for dinner. Both are highly
educated and work in technical professions. Accordingly they pride themselves in logical
thinking ability. I wanted to check out their political leanings and asked about Trump's
troop pullback in Syria. Not surprisingly, both were outraged. When asked about their
rationale the expected answer was Trump's betrayal of the Kurds. I politely pointed out that
our troops' presence in Syria violates both domestic and international laws. That was news to
them!!! One of them did lamely point out that Assad is a brutal dictator. Being new
"friends", we refrained from further in depth political discussions. That incidence further
convinced me of the impending total collapse of the empire.
There has been some discussion regarding Syrian oilfields, here's some more on that.
The Syrian Democratic Council is the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces in the
Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, including sites of Syrian oilfields. The
SDC's stated mission is working towards the implementation of a "secular, democratic and
decentralized system for all of Syria. The Syrian Democratic Council was established on 10
December 2015 in Al-Malikiyah.
Here is a
letter dated Jan 21, 2019 from the SDC to the CEO of Global Development Corporation (GDC)
Inc. in New Jersey, "a formal acceptance of your company, GDC, to represent the Syrian
Democratic Council (SDC) in all matters related to the sale of oil owned by SDC . .the
estimate off production of crude oil to be 400,000 barrels per day. . .current daily
production is 125,000 barrels. ."
The CEO of New Jersey's GDC (no mention on the web) is Mordechai (Moti) Kahana (Hebrew:
מוטי כהנא; born February 28, 1968,
Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist. He is most notable
for his work for the civil war refugees in Syria. . .Since 2011 he heads a group of Israeli
businessmen and American Jews who travel to the Syrian refugee camps to provide humanitarian
aid to Syrian Civil War refugees.. . He paid for Senator John McCain's trip to war-torn
Syria. . . here
.
The GDC mailing address is the Roxbury Mall, 275 Route 10 E, Succasunna, NJ.
re: Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge
WSJ, Jun 12, 2013 Rebels Plead for Weapons in Face of Syrian Onslaught
A top Syrian rebel commander has issued a desperate plea for weapons from Western
governments to prevent the fall of his forces in Aleppo, pushing the Obama administration
to decide quickly whether to agree to arm rebels for the first time or risk the loss of
another rebel stronghold just days after the regime's biggest victory.
Gen. Salim Idris, the top Syrian rebel commander backed by the West, issued a detailed
request in recent days to the U.S., France and Britain for antitank missiles, antiaircraft
weapons and hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds, according to U.S. and European
officials and Mr. Idris's request to the Americans, a copy of which was reviewed by The
Wall Street Journal.
Gen. Idris's call comes at a pivotal moment in Syria's war, following rapid-fire gains
by Bashar al-Assad forces, including last week's recapture of Qusayr, a strategic town near
the Lebanon border. Fighters from Hezbollah, which were crucial in helping the Assad regime
to take Qusayr, are now massing around Aleppo, say rebels and Western officials. . .
here
This was after H. Clinton (SecState) and D. Petraeus (CIA) wanted to fully arm the
US-supported rebels but President Obama declined. Clinton had resigned Feb 1, 2013.
thanks b... stellar writing and comments throughout... i especially liked your last line
:
"Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what
they always have been."
@13 don bacon - the address says it all.. The GDC mailing address is the Roxbury Mall, 275
Route 10 E, Succasunna, NJ.
regarding the nyt, larry johnson has a post up on sst
here.. i quote from it :
"Let us start with a reminder of how damn corrupt the NY Times and its reporters are.
Consider this paragraph penned by Adam Goldman and William Rashbaum:
Closely overseen by Mr. Barr, Mr. Durham and his investigators have sought help from
governments in countries that figure into right-wing attacks and unfounded conspiracy
theories about the Russia investigation, stirring criticism that they are trying to deliver
Mr. Trump a political victory rather than conducting an independent review.
"Unfounded conspiracy theories?" What a damn joke."
Wow! Quite a knee jerk reaction by the NY Times to Max
Blumenthal's 16 Oct article in The Grayzone , "The US has backed 21 of the 28
'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal invasion of northern Syria," which I linked to
Friday. It's great to see such a reaction to what for most people's an obscure online
publication.
Notice of MoA website change: I must now type in my name and email every time I want to
comment after years of never needing to do so. My issue might be related to the one ben
encountered in thinking he couldn't comment, which you can't if those two fields aren't
filled.
"Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government.
When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be
employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press
and a mere token opposition party..."
Trump should not have sent Pence and Pompeo to Turkey. They will do everything possible to
derail the rollback of the US in Syria. They are both more subtle than Bolton, but they are
both neocons. If you want anything done, you have to do it yourself.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Some of the "virtual facts:" ..."
"... The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of the Russian government. ..."
"... Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." ..."
"... The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be destroyed and replaced by God knows what . ..."
"... Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. ..."
"... It is beyond scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both political parties ..."
"... I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect. ..."
"... The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are always simplified and usually grossly distorted. ..."
"... Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'. ..."
"... It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled. A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi, is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country, ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen. (Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug", just as they call Assad a "butcher".) ..."
"... Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. ..."
"... Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown his way by the Arab sheikhs ..."
Mika B remarked a couple of years ago on the show that she and her sex slave stage in the
early morning that the social media were out of control because it is the job of the MSM to
tell people what to think. The Hillary stated recently that life was better when there were
only three TeeVee news outlets because it was easier to keep things under control. Now? My God!
Any damned fool can propagate unauthorized "facts." What? Who?
Well, pilgrims, the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters)
are the preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base
our policy. These "facts" are "ginned up" in the well moneyed hidden staff groups of "hidden"
candidates that are devoted to the seizure of power made possible by a deluded electorate.
These "facts" are then propagated and reinforced through relentless IO campaigns run by
executive "bots" in the MSM and in such remarkable and imaginative efforts as the "White
Helmets" film company manned by jihadis and managed by clubby Brits left over from the Days of
The Raj (sob). These "facts" are now so entrenched in the general mind that they can be used to
denounce people like Rep. (major ) Gabbard as traitors because they challenge them.
Some of the "virtual facts:"
The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed
indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of
the Russian government.
Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." Iran is so designated by the
State Department on the annual list of terrorism supporting states which asserts this to be
true on the basis of Iranian support of Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinian Hamas, calling
them "terrorist" groups rather than anti -Israeli nationalist resistance organizations. This
Zionist inspired propaganda is spread far and wide by neocon "useful idiots" like Maria
Bartiromo and Jesse Watters.
The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be
destroyed and replaced by God knows what ... "They gassed their own people!" Bullshit! There
is no objective evidence for that. There are nothing but propaganda statements by the FUKUS
governments unsupported by any real evidence. The MI-6 funded (with USAID money) Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights (located in a basement in England) as well as the White Helmets
murder/propaganda operation states that the SAG is guilty as charged but independent
investigation says that assertions of SAG guilt are untrue.
Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. How mad an idea is this! This
theocratic, absolute monarchy is a friend of the US? How insane an idea! Trump has a balance
sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief that MBS and/or his
"country" are our friends. pl
Yes I fully concur. We have gone from fact-based news to faith-based fake news led by the
MSM. I recall at the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, the line was out that British PM
Tony Blair was George W. Bush's "poodle," forgetting entirely that it was the first of the
British "dodgy dossiers" that made the totally discredited claim that Saddam had gotten tons
of yellow cake from Niger. So the British have no military resources but they continue to
maintain the idea that they can manipulate the U.S. and make up for the demise of the old
British empire.
The Steele dossier was the second British "dodgy dossier" that got the ball rolling on
Trump the Russian mole and Putin's "poodle."
So much fraud. But now social media must be patrolled and anyone daring to challenge the
voice of the MSM must be purged by Google, Facebook, Twitter et al.
My question is: When will the machinations of the Big Lie MSM Wurlitzer cross the line and
trigger the backlash that they secretly fear so much? MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or
else his "fake news" polemic will stick... because there is no much truth to it. The
messenger may be crude, but he has the bully pulpit to have a real impact.
I await the release, as Larry Johnson pointed out, of the Horowitz IG report on the
origins of the fake Trump-Russia collusion line. Also the pending Barr-Durham larger report
which is zeroing in on John Brennan.
"MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else..."
The MSM are joined by all those folks who were wined, dined, and degraded by Jeffrey Epstein
and Hollywood hero Harvey Weinstein. Nobody seems to care about who Jeffrey abused, or who
enjoyed his island paradise. Harvey, he's about to buy a free ride out of jail. Meanwhile we
jail idiots who "bribe" there kids way into that "elite" institution - UCLA.
an ideal study would no doubt want to look into the Italy-GB-US angle already concerning
the "first dossier", or whatevers. Didn*t that have mediawise an intermediate French
angle?
This is what happens when the deciders believe their own propaganda. The media now says
that a residual force of American troops and contractors will stay behind at the Deir ez-Zor
oil fields and Al-Tanf base near the Jordon border. The media moguls dare not mention that
the real intention is to prevent the Syrian Arab Army from retaking its own territory or that
Turkey is seizing thousands of square miles of Syria. Syrians with Russia, Chinese and
Iranian aid won't quit until Syria is whole again and rebuilt. This means that America
continues its uninvited unwinnable war in the middle of nowhere with no allies for no reason
at all except to do Israel's bidding and to make money for military contractors. The swamp's
regime change campaign failed. The Houthis' Aramco attack shows that the gulf oil supply is
at risk and can be shut down at will. Continuing these endless wars that are clearly against
the best interests of the American people is insane.
It strikes me, as a matter of observable fact, that the Houthi attack had almost no long run
affect on oil production. Everything was back to normal within 10 days. I think that the
attack was allowed to occur for exactly one reason and that was to start a shooting war
between the USA as KSA's great defender and Iran as the horrible nation that has a mild
dislike for Israel.
It failed. So far.
To believe that the 24/7/52 AWACS, Ground radar, Israeli radar, and the overlapping close in
radar coverage of the Saudi oil fields all failed to detect the drones and cruise missiles is
to believe in more miracles than I can handle on a good day. It also means that assets in
other parts of this world covered by these same type of radars are just as vulnerable to
local disaffected groups.
The FUKUS thinks we are all a bunch of brainless sheep to be led by a ring in our noses. The
'Muktar' is clueless regarding our Saudi brethren, he's supposed to administer how the
overlords say he's to administer, nothing more. The CIA administration still has a hard-on
because they blew it regarding Iran and they're still embarrassed about it.
In two days, counting closer to a day and a half will be the sad anniversary (October 23)
where the Israeli government willfully with forethought let our Marines and other service
personnel bunked with them at the barracks in Beirut die needlessly, because Nahum Admoni
wanted U.S. to get our noses bloodied.
Never mind that the Russians lost close to 30 million to the brotherhood of the Operation
Paper Clip, and the Bormann Group that today controls from behind the scenes most of the
World's money thanks to Martin creating over 750 corporations initially to start with, that
has expanded like a Hydra. Any time that truth (Russia is no longer Communist) rears its ugly
head, the Bormann group goes into overdrive to ensure that the big lie perpetuates.
The FUKUS think we're all a bunch of sheep to be led off a cliff, and the propaganda mills
have created the trail right up to the edge of the precipice that the sheep are trotting.
Amen. The landslide of disinformation and bullshit disseminated on a daily basis by a pliant
media is happily lapped up by ignorant, uninformed Americans. I've had quite an exchange with
a liberal friend of mine who was shrieking MSNBC talking points on Syria and the Kurds. Mind
you, this fellow never served a day in the military. Never held a clearance in his life.
Didn't know a thing about JOPES and how Special Ops forces use a series of written orders
signed off on by the CJCS. Yet, he was qualified to criticize Trump. At the same time not one
of his kids or grandkids are signed up to fight on that frontline. I told him politely to
STFU and get educated before trying to comment on something he knows nothing about.
Thanks Colonel.
I am British and did consider the military in my youth but if I were that age now I would
not. Having seen what my political master, and yours, have asked the military to do the
danger of being sent on some counter product regime change mission or to prop-up someone I
would rather fight is just too great. I would only end up refusing to follow orders which I
understand the military takes a rather dim view of.
... regime change mission or to prop-up someone I would rather fight is just too
great.
once upon a time, and strictly I had opted not to believe either side before that, but
yes, at one point I wondered fully aware they may be legitimate complaints, how would the
UCK, or the Kosovo Liberation Army become the "Western" partner in war.
In hindsight I was made aware of this one grandiose British officer ... once upon a
time.
"if I were that age now..." That is the same line used by the American left since the
'60s.
"I would only end up refusing to follow orders..."
Samantha Power at the UN and James Comey at the FBI both had a "higher loyalty" than to the
elected government or the Constitution on which it is based. That's why they are busy trying
to subvert it.
There's a lot of truth there, Colonel. Life would be better with just three TV new outlets,
huh. Which three? Can you imagine being limited to three cable new outlets? Actually most
people probably limit themselves to three news outlets or less. They find an echo chamber and
stick with it. I thank God I don't have cable or satellite TV and I have too many interests
to engage with talk radio.
I couldn't agree more with your characterization of "virtual facts" about Iran, Syria and
Saudi Arabia. I also agree that those who continue to view Russia as an implacable enemy bent
on our destruction and world domination are liars and/or fools. The Soviet Union was just a
phase, a phase now past. Russia never ended. Conversely, those who insist that Russia is a
newly minted nation of glitter farting unicorns incapable of nefarious behavior are also
fools and/or liars. Russia is a formidable competitor, fully capable and willing to take
prudent actions in pursuit of her interests. We should respect her and seek cooperation where
we can and tolerance where we must.
How the never-Trumpers treat Tulsi Gabbard is shameful. What Clinton recently said is mild
compared to what others have been saying for quite some time. Calling Tulsi a Russian asset
is foolishly wrong. That Russia may prefer Tulsi over other potential Presidential candidates
should be seen as a positive thing. A policy of mutual respect, cooperation and tolerance
between our two countries would benefit the entire world.
America needed to restore the Kuwait monarchy for freedom and democracy. Remember defense
Secretary Dick Cheney sending captured Iraq arms to the Taliban.
Same play book was used to run Libyan arms through Bengazi to Wahhabism freedom fighter
"ISIS" and the al Lindsey McCain head choppers.
The nonsense will end since not even the United States can endure these costs. Did you hear
Trump? 8 trillion yankee dollars and nothing to show for it.
What is highly alarming, almost terrifying, is that really well educated people who have
achieved great things in their careers and are pillars of society believe this crap.
I had dinner guests last week; a former Chairman of a bank and his wife who is a highly
acclaimed Professor of public Health and Epidemiology who told me how awful Trump and Putin
are neither of these friends are what you could remotely classify as Social Justice
leftists.
My problem is that I don't know where to start to try and put them right without them
thinking I'm a tinfoil hatted conspiracy nut. I wish there was a website dedicated solely to
purveying basic truthful information that is not perhaps as esoteric as SST. Should I try and
start one or are there already good examples to point to?
I'm thinking this is so far and so deep there is nothing that can or will be done. Trump's
election and presidency has lifted the curtain on the puppet show. This recent Syria troop
removal is Trump's second attempt at openly declaring troops will be pulled out of Syria only
to have the military has said, "Um, no, we will stay and simply relocate."
Trump openly
called for FISA warrants to be declassified only to have the DOJ and FBI either ignore and
defy him. Groups like Judicial Watch and others go into court to get the requested
information through FOIA and DOJ and FBI lawyers and the courts block them.
It is beyond
scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both
political parties. Trump has faced hurricane winds of opposition from day one and has been
constantly subverted by his own party and his own people. I don't know how he can get up
every day and continue to fight the obvious and concerted Deep State coup against him. I pray
for him. I pray the rosary for him.
There are members within Trump's own party who have agreed that there should be an
investigation into the impeachment of Trump for running a yellow light (at most). Again,
members of his own party. Renowned Constitutional lawyers John Yoo and Alan Dershowitz, from
Cal-Berkeley and Harvard laws schools respectively, have said that not only has Trump done
nothing, even remotely, which could trigger an impeachment inquiry but if Congress were to do
so it would be unconstitutional and illegal. But alas, who would enforce this? Deep State
snakes like John Roberts at the Supreme Court? Robert has already signed off on the coup (
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/john-roberts-mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-trial.amp).
The only thing that separates America from falling into the abyss is Trump, a handful of
people in Washington, a few conservative talk show hosts, and about 40% of America. Many
people have talked a good game at points but I think in the end are just double agents of the
dark side/Deep State (Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, ... IG Horowitz, etc.). And some, such
as Chris Wray, are unabashed dark side/Deep State agents in good standing.
As St. Thomas More said, "The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them."
I have faith in Barr. I have faith in Durham. Two men whose Catholic faith is integral to
every aspect of their lives and work. But with as pervasive, entrenched, and powerful as the
Deep State is I'm skeptical they have the power to do anything. Btw, here's U.S. Attorney
John Durham's lecture before the Thomistic Institute at Yale (hosted by the Dominican Order):
https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/perspective-of-a-catholic-prosecutor-honorable-john-durham
One thing that really amuses me is that the marionettes of Deep State in the media and
politics actually believe that once Trump is gone their puppet show theatre can resume like
nothing happened. Sorry, but there is no coming back from this. They will be lucky if the
worst thing that happens is a sizable part of of the American populace protests by throwing
sand in the gears. I'm afraid it will end much worse.
I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn
people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various
Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect.
Most only get to see the odd sentence or paragragh in western MSM with an entirely
fictional story built around it, so perhaps and MSM piece like that and the transcript of the
relevant presser or speech alongside it.
I suspect the fine detail in Putin and Lavrov's replies to press questions
rather than cliches would surprise many people.
Walrus--100% my experience as well. Many dinners with "liberal" even "progressive" friends,
mostly of the retired kind require great psychic energy. Their Overton Window is 1"-square,
making exchanges very difficult to squeeze even minimal bits of political reality.
My daily
blog tour, like MW's above, takes me through: Moon of Alabama, Naked Capitalism, SST, Caitlin
Johnstone, Grayzone and a few others. I'm intel gathering -- but I need to figure out how to
convey broader perspectives even to my 40-45 year-old children and their friends. Inside the
Beltway assumptions are hard to de-program.
While I agree with the essence of the post I disagree with the characterization of SOHR. It
tends to get its stuff right. I have listed several significant events where SOHR disagreed
with the official narrative: On Sources And Information - The Syrian
Observatory For Human Rights . Those are exactly the moments where SOHR is disregarded by
the pressitude.
It is the selective quoting of such sources that paint them as partisan even as they try
to stay somewhat neutral.
---
@Pat - Any comment to the Gen. McRaven op-ed in the NYT? Our Republic
Is Under Attack From the President If President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time
for a new person in the Oval Office.
Isn't it a call to mutiny? It seems to me to be far beyond the allowed political comment
from a retired General.
Those that look up the pole, all they see is assholes. Those that look down all they see is
assholes, but those that look straight ahead, they see which path to take.
The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult
experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are
always simplified and usually grossly distorted.
Is the Iranian regime terrible? Well, yes,
but it is also a regime that holds real elections and often loses them. Not in the same
league of awful with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
Similarly with the other examples. The
"facts" have in each case a basis in truth but do not by themselves give a true picture. Is
our discourse more unfair to Russia than it was to Nasser's Egypt? Is our promotion of Saudi
Arabia any worse than our adulation of Chiang Kai-shek?
Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who
ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'.
It would do our vaunted free press wonders if they traveled to Damascus instead of
repeating the same tired talking points about Syria. I'll never forget the look on Gabbard's
face when she talked about the Syrians came up to her and said, 'why are you attacking us,
what did we do to you'. Meeting real people can undo a lifetime of blather and must be
stopped at all cost.
b Perhaps memory fails me but I think SOHR propagated the SAG gas attacks mythology. I have
stated that McRaven should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed. I could find
several punitice articles in UCMJ under which he could be charged.
When McCain returned from the Hanoi Hilton he could have been prosecuted for treason he was
not because "peace with honour" overrode UCMJ and honour. McRaven is being offered up as a
distraction. Call him back to active duty yes, and assign him somewhere dreary, unimportant
and far from CONUS. Ignore the stuff he is blathering while he is retired, if he repeats
blather while on active duty then the navy might be able to recover some honour.
No...your memory does not fail you, Colonel, the SOHR was the main source cited at MSM level
on the alleged protests which gave place to the destruction of Syria and the legitimation and
labelling of alleged "moderate rebels" which then resulted being but terrorist jihadi groups
brought mainly from abroad under financing and mtrainning of non Syrian actors...
The source on the alleged atrocities commited by Assad was SOHR at the first years of the
war on Syria, along with Doctors Without Borders and "special envoys" by British and French
main papers reporting from the former, and first, "Baba Amr" caliphate in Homs....I am
meaning the times of Sunday Times´ Marie Colvin and the other woman from Le
Figaro , who then resulted or KIA or caught amongst the jihadists ranks along with other
foreign "special envoys" who then were released in a truce with Assad through a safe
corridor, especially made for that end, to Lebanon.
I fear SOHR was the source of the super-trolling consisting on inundating the MSM comments
sections, like that of El País , with dozens of vertical doctored photographs
every time any of us aware entered commenting to debunk their fake news.
I remember this since that was the starting point of Elora as net activist...( till then,
just a baby, peacefully growing up...unaware....but had no election, felt it was a duty,
since, as you comment here, so few people aware...Having known Syria few years before she
could not believe what they were telling about Assad, who, eventhough not being perfect, as
it has been long ago proved any other leader in the world is, had managed to show the
visitant a flourishing Syria where misery present at other ME countries was almost
absent...
It is only lately, when the Syrian war was obviously lost for the US coalition, that the
SOHR started contradicting some fake claims by the White Helmets, especially last two alleged
chemical attacks, if Elora´s not wrong.
Why this, why now, why in this form? Probably those powers behind SOHR trying to secure a
part in the cake of reconstruction and future of Syria...since, it got obvious, love for
Syria is not amongst one of their mottos...
Trump approves $4.5 million in aid for Syria's White Helmets
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump has authorized $4.5 million in aid for Syria's
White Helmets group, famed for rescuing wounded civilians from the frontlines in the civil
war, the White House says today...
Thank you for this refuge from the noise. How long before the strangling of information makes
its way here, and to Craig Murray, Naked Capitalism, and others who look on with clear eyes?
Humans are copy/paste artists and generally not very good at creative thinking. When shown a
series of steps to achieve a reward people will repeat all the steps including clearly
unnecessary ones. Monkeys will drop unnecessary steps and frequently show more creativity by
using a different method to achieve the reward instead of copying.
The old story goes how a woman always cut the ends off a roast before putting it in a pan.
When her daughter asks why she doesn't know, asks her mother who doesn't know and asks the
great grandmother who laughs and says her pan was too small.
I suspect it is a functional tradeoff that lets us transfer great amounts of cultural
information and maintain a civilization of sorts. It creates a tough environment for
innovators and allows for easy manipulation of the majority.
Nature of course always has a sprinkling of minority traits in the gene pool to allow for
sudden changes in the environment. Most likely those of us that are more critical thinkers
and like in depth, multi-dimensional viewpoints and historical knowledge are always going to
be standing by watching the crowd do their copy/paste thing.
The rise of the internet giving easy access to more "sources" means more fragmentation in
worldviews than ever before depending on where people copy/paste from.
Re: only three TV channels and they all said the same thing!
Once Upon a Time, not so long ago, publishing news was hard. For one thing, you needed a
printing press, which was big, expensive and required housing and specialized technicians to
operate it. Not only that, but a printing press cost money for every sheet of paper printed,
and you had to spend more money to distribute what he printed.
They say that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one" but there's more! Unless
you were already rich and planned to publish as an expensive and time-consuming hobby, you
needed an income stream. You would get some money from subscriptions, but subscriptions are
really a means to sell advertising. Dependence on advertising meant that there were some
people the publisher had to keep happy, and others he could not afford to annoy.
Anyone who knows anything about local news knows this. At best, it's a tightrope walk
between giving subscribers the news they want to know, and not infuriating your advertisers.
The result was a sort of natural censorship. Publishers had to think long and hard before
they published anything that would tork the bigwigs off. The fact that a publisher was tied
to a physical location and physical assets also made libel suits much easier.
The same thing applied to broadcast TV, only more so. It took orders of magnitude more
money, and you were restricted to a limited amount of bandwidth.
The internet changed all that. Now, any anonymous toolio with a laptop ($299 cheap at
WallyWorld) and WiFi (free at many businesses) can go into the news publishing business by
nightfall, and with worldwide distribution and an advertising revenue stream, to boot.
Marginal cost of readership is zero.
Needless to say, this development has The People That Matter very concerned, and they are
working hard to stuff that genie back into the bottle.
For what it's worth, I found the late Udo Ulfkotte's personal-experience book "Bought
Jounalism" to be quite interesting on this topic, as it details the kind of nuts-and-bolts of
print-media prostitution. But I would really like to see an org-chart sometime of the
overlapping, possibly competing, mission control centers (if that's the right phrase) that
control the various "Wurlitzer" messaging and who, ultimately, is on charge of these. It has
been intriguing to watch, since Kerry uttered his "the Internet makes it very hard to govern"
line years ago, the blurry outline of a vast operation to shut down any non-approved media
messages, now including all social media. To give credit where credit is due, "they" sure
have done a bang-up job in feeding bullshit across all platforms down the throats of a
Western people, like a goose being fattened up for foie gras.
"...the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters) are the
preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base our
policy."
Sir
I've been perplexed for some time what the objectives are of these virtual fact creators?
When one digs into who the movers & shakers are in the virtual fact creation apparatus
then it seems very much analogous to the Jeffrey Epstein orbit. Folks bound together through
the carrot of extraordinary personal gain and the stick of personal destruction. Your
Drinking the Koolaid, is a seminal work in exploring how these virtual facts are created and
how those who challenge the creation are marginalized and even destroyed personally.
IMO, policy making on the basis of virtual facts extends beyond foreign policy to economic
and financial policy as well as healthcare policy in the US. The symptoms are seen in growing
wealth inequality and increased market concentration globally and financial policy completely
unmoored from common sense and sophistry an important element in virtual fact creation.
We're seeing signs of the early breakdown in social cohesion with social unrest in France,
Spain, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador. Brexit and the election of Trump despite the
intensity and vitriolic nature of how the media was used against them. The impeachment of
Trump another tool in the desperate attempt to retain and consolidate power. Maybe we're in
the Fourth Turning as Howe & Strauss label it.
"The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist ..."
In the interest of specificity and accountability, where/who in the MSM are asserting
that?
You (PL) are making a serious charge.
Just who is guilty of perpetrating such a blatant falsehood?
well it seems to me that the groundwork is being laid for an authoritarian state - and it
already has sophisticated tools that are unprecedented in their scope and depth and ability
to store data. And the whole enterprise is based on three rules:
1) secrecy - data is restricted to "insiders";
2) deception - the "outsiders" (you know, the citizens) are regarded as a herd of cattle to
be managed - with lies and disinformation so we don't get any ideas;
3) ruthless enforcement to dehumanize and destroy dissent. Just consider the torture and
destruction of Journalist Julian Assange: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
Not sure what the appropriate response is but I spend a lot of time at my camp working in
the woods. Thanks, Colonel Lang, for maintaining this site.
Keith Harbaugh
This is my opinion. I am uninterested in proving anything to you. If you listen to what is
said on the MSM (including Fox) it is evident that in the "minds" of the media squirrels
Russia is just the USSR in disguise. Try listening to what they are saying as sub-text.
The request was not just for my benefit, but with the thought that it would be useful to
document the occurrences of such clearly false statements in the media.
It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled.
A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi,
is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country,
ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen.
(Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug",
just as they call Assad a "butcher".)
I am certainly not endorsing that view, just reporting what I hear and read.
When I hear that, I harken back to my graduate school days,
when the same sort of charges were leveled against America, which was usually spelled
"Amerika", or sometimes "AmeriKKKa", and described as a racist, imperialist, fascist country
whose establishment must be "Smashed".
I believe the core group of people who so wanted a revolution in America in 1970
(which they essentially got, as we have seen over the last 50 years)
are much the same as those now demonizing Russia.
Here is some specificity on their complaints against Russia back then:
They were not opposed to the USSR, or communism.
Many of them were in effect communists.
The cry among many was : "Marx, Mao, and Marcuse" (Herbert Marcuse was a former Brandeis professor who extolled cultural Marxism).
What they did have, in spades, was a feeling that their ancestors had been victimized by the
Czarist regime in Russia,
which, among other supposed sins, had not done enough to prevent pogroms against them.
They seemed to have a deep fear of the Russian people,
based on their long experience with them.
My suspicion (actually, belief) is that the opposition to Putin is based on the fact that
he is sometimes viewed as a throwback to the the Czars,
and that is definitely not something looked upon favorably by many Jews.
"Trump has a balance sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief
that MBS and/or his "country" are our friends."
Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality
is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have
treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that
attacked us on 9/11.
Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown
his way by the Arab sheikhs.
It's the same rabid militarism and American exceptionalism. Preserving and expanding the US
neoliberal empire as the top priority. Subservant to Israeli interests as the driving force of
many of his moves, as he depends on Zionist donor money for re-election.
... many of his subordinates have tried to subvert his policies.
Wait ... what? Those 'subordinates' work for Trump. Trump could easily prevent the
subverting of his policies - if he chose to.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Wasn't it Trump that tweeted that he was "locked and loaded" for war with
Iran?
Wasn't it Trump that ordered TWO missile strikes on Syria based on false
pretenses?
Wasn't it Trump that fully supported the Venezuela coup? And approved of illegally
seizing Venezuelan assets?
Wasn't it Trump that violated UN Resolutions by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and
recognizing Golan Heights as Israeli territory? All while drastically curtailing aid to the
Palestinians?
Wasn't it Trump that militarized Space? (He seems rather proud of doing so.)
Furthermore, I don't hear Trump complaining about things like USA not following thru on
commitments made for peace in Korea or USA's terminating the INF Treaty.
While the mainstream liberal media remains firmly in the pocket of the Clintons' propaganda machine, spewing russophobic accusations
at any and every one who dares question the establishment and military-industrial complex line, there are some - on the left - that
are willing to step up and defend Tulsi Gabbard against the latest delusional suggestion from Hillary that she is a 'Russian asset'.
So now Crooked Hillary is at it again! She is calling Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard "a Russian favorite," and Jill Stein "a Russian
asset." As you may have heard, I was called a big Russia lover also (actually, I do like Russian people. I like all people!).
Hillary's gone Crazy!
What the circular firing squad left undone, will be accomplished by infighting between Clintonites and "moderates" ( a too
positive concept). May the Deluge drown you all in 2020.
...Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard.
Tulsi's 2005 deployment was a 12-month tour at Logistical Support Area Anaconda in Iraq, where she served in a field medical unit
as a specialist with a 29th Support Battalion medical company. She was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal at the end of this
tour.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren are reportedly developing a close
political friendship that might prove pivotal to deciding the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both have kept in touch since Warren announced her decision to seek the Democratic nomination last February, NBC News reported
Saturday.
"Hillary Clinton would absolutely have influence over a number of delegates to this convention," Deb Kozikowski, the vice-chairwoman
of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told NBC, referring to the possibility that Clinton could help Warren secure delegates
if there is no clear nominee heading into the Democratic National Convention next summer .
One Democratic strategist told NBC that Clinton has been watching and approving of Warren's campaign as the senator has unveiled
a series of increasingly progressive policy proposals.
"... And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party ..."
"... Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . ..."
"... Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ..."
"... quid pro quos ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by
last week's media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who
commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding
that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of
leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The
op-ed entitled "Our Republic is Under Attack by the President" with the subtitle "If
President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a
new person in the Oval Office" was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray
Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as
a call for a military coup.
McRaven's exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds
in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because "The America
that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within."
McRaven then elaborated that "These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen
the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State
Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen,
preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have
heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort
Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, 'I don't like the
Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"
It is a call to arms if there ever was one. Too bad Trump can't strip McRaven of his pension
and generous health care benefits for starters and McRaven might also consider that he could be
recalled to active duty by Trump and court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. And the good admiral, who up until 2018 headed the state university system in Texas,
might also receive well merited pushback for his assessment of America's role in the world over
the past two decades, in which he was a major player, at least in terms of dealing out
punishment. He wrote ""We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the
good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom
and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the
protectors of the less fortunate."
Utter bullshit, of course. The United States has been acting as the embodiment of a rogue
nation, lashing out pointlessly and delivering death and destruction. If McRaven truly believes
what he says he is not only violating his oath to defend the constitution while also toying
with treason, he is an idiot and should never have been allowed to run anything more demanding
than a hot dog stand. Washington has been systematically blowing people up worldwide for no
good reasons, killing possibly as many as 4 million mostly Muslims, while systematically
stripping Americans of their Bill of Rights at home. "Good guys" and "champions of justice"
indeed!
And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an
interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's
dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including
nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party . She said, clearly suggesting
that it would be Tulsi Gabbard, that "They're also going to do third-party again. I'm not
making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the
Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of
the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."
Clinton explained how the third-party designation would work, saying of Jill Stein, who ran
for president in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, "And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it
up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I
mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate. So I don't know who
it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in
the key states that they most needed."
Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party
for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my
candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies
in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this
primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race
directly."
Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that
she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic
candidate debate the New York Timesran an
article suggesting that Gabbard was an isolationist, was being promoted by Russia and was
an apologist for Syria's Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Gabbard is the only candidate willing to
confront America's warfare-national security state.
The Hillary Clinton attack on Gabbard and on the completely respectable Jill Stein is to a
certain extent incomprehensible unless one lives in the gutter that she and Bill have wallowed
in ever since they rose to prominence in Arkansas. Hillary, the creator of the private home
server for classified information as well as author of the catastrophic war against Libya and
the Benghazi debacle has a lot to answer for but will never be held accountable, any more than
her husband Bill for his rapes and molestations. And when it comes to foreign interference,
Gabbard is being pilloried because the Russian media regards her favorably while the Clinton
Foundation has taken
tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and billionaires seeking quid pro
quos , much of which has gone to line the pockets of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea.
Finally, one comment about the Democratic Party obsession with the Russians. The media was
enthusing last Friday over a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing up across a table from
President Trump and pointing at him before walking out of the room. The gushing regarding how a
powerful, strong woman was defying the horrible chief executive was both predictable and
ridiculous. By her own admission Pelosi's
last words before departing were "All roads lead to Putin." I will leave it up to the
reader to interpret what that was supposed to mean.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected]
While Mayor Pete was a little evasive on actually talking down the "Russian asset"
accusation, he did question it, saying that "statements like that ought to be backed by
evidence."
"I don't know what the basis is for that," he said.
"But I consider her to be a competitor. I respect her service. I also have very different
views than she does, especially on foreign policy, and I would prefer to have that argument
in terms of policy which is what we do at debates and what we're doing as we go forward."
Another 2020 presidential hopeful, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, also dismissed
the Gabbard claim , insisting the focus of the presidential campaign should be on the economy,
climate change and other issues affecting Americans.
"That's not correct. Tulsi is not being groomed by anyone. She is her own person," he told
reporters after delivering a keynote address Saturday at the Alabama Democratic Conference
Semi-Annual Convention in Birmingham.
"Obviously (she) has served this country, continues to serve this country in uniform, in
Congress, as a candidate for presidency so I think those facts speak for themselves."
" Tulsi Gabbard deserves much more respect and thanks than this. She literally just got
back from serving our country abroad."
And now, having been cheated of his chance against Hillary in 2016 - running to her side
like a loyal party comrade after the DNC practically ran him out of the party - a
post-heartattack Bernie Sanders - perhaps with little left to lose - has finally come out
swinging at Clinton.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth
Warren are reportedly developing a close political friendship that might prove pivotal to
deciding the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both have kept in touch since Warren announced her decision to seek the Democratic
nomination last February, NBC News reported Saturday.
"Hillary Clinton would absolutely have influence over a number of delegates to this
convention," Deb Kozikowski, the vice-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told
NBC, referring to the possibility that Clinton could help Warren secure delegates if there is
no clear nominee heading into the Democratic National Convention next summer .
One Democratic strategist told NBC that Clinton has been watching and approving of
Warren's campaign as the senator has unveiled a series of increasingly progressive policy
proposals.
"... "I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate." ..."
"... The Times piece goes on to list an assortment of unsavory, extremist, white supremacist, horrible, neo-Nazi-type persons that Tulsi Gabbard has nothing to do with, but which Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, The Times , and the rest of the corporate media would like you to mentally associate her with. ..."
So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked,"
or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy. Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up
a last-minute
military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration
camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public
schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.
We probably should have seen this coming.
That's right, as I'm sure you are aware by now, president-in-exile Hillary Clinton has discovered Putin's diabolical plot to steal
the presidency from Elizabeth Warren, or Biden, or whichever establishment puppet makes it out of the Democratic primaries. Speaking
to former Obama adviser and erstwhile partner at AKPD Message and Media David
Plouffe, Clinton revealed
how the godless Rooskies intend to subvert democracy this time:
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary
and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate."
She was referring, of course, to Tulsi Gabbard, sitting Democratic Member of Congress, decorated Major in the Army National Guard,
and long shot 2020 presidential candidate. Apparently, Gabbard (who reliable anonymous sources in the Intelligence Community have
confirmed is a member of some kind of treasonous, Samoan-Hindu, Assad-worshipping cult that wants to force everyone to practice yoga)
has been undergoing Russian "grooming" at a compound in an undisclosed location that is probably in the basement of Mar-a-Lago, or
on Sublevel 168 of Trump Tower.
In any event, wherever Gabbard is being surreptitiously "groomed" (presumably by someone resembling
Lotte Lenya in From Russia With Love ),
the plan (i.e., Putin's plan) is to have her lose in the Democratic primaries, then run as a third-party "spoiler" candidate, stealing
votes from Warren or Biden, exactly as Jill Stein (who, according to Clinton, is also "totally a Russian asset") stole them from
Clinton back in 2016, allowing Putin to install Donald Trump (who, according to Clinton, is still being blackmailed by the FSB with
that "kompromat" pee-tape) in the White House, where she so clearly belongs.
Clinton's comments came on the heels of a preparatory smear-piece in The New York Times ,
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?
, which reported at length on how Gabbard has been "injecting chaos" into the Democratic primaries . Professional "disinformation
experts" supplied The Times with convincing evidence (i.e., unfounded hearsay and innuendo) of "suspicious activity" surrounding
Gabbard's campaign. Former Clinton-aide Laura Rosenberger (who also just happens to be the Director of the
Alliance for Securing Democracy , "a bipartisan transatlantic
national security advocacy group" comprised of former Intelligence Community and U.S. State Department officials, and publisher of
the
Hamilton 68 dashboard) "sees Gabbard as a potentially useful vector for Russian efforts to sow division."
The Times piece goes on to list an assortment of unsavory, extremist, white supremacist, horrible, neo-Nazi-type persons that
Tulsi Gabbard has nothing to do with, but which Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, The Times , and the rest of the corporate
media would like you to mentally associate her with.
Richard Spencer, David Duke, Steve Bannon, Mike Cernovich, Tucker Carlson, and so on. Neo-Nazi sites like the Daily Stormer .
4chan, where, according to The New York Times , neo-Nazis like to "call her Mommy."
In keeping with professional journalistic ethics, The Times also reached out to experts on fascism, fascist terrorism, terrorist
fascism, fascist-adjacent Assad-apologism, Hitlerism, horrorism, Russia, and so on, to confirm Gabbard's guilt-by-association with
the people The Times had just associated her with. Brian Levin, Director of the CSU Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, confirmed
that Gabbard has "the seal of approval" within goose-stepping, Hitler-loving, neo-Nazi circles. The Alliance for Securing Democracy
(yes, the one from the previous paragraph) conducted an "independent analysis" which confirmed that RT ("the Kremlin-backed news
agency") had mentioned Gabbard far more often than the Western corporate media (which isn't backed by anyone, and is totally unbiased
and independent, despite the fact that most of it is owned by a handful of powerful global corporations, and at least one CIA-affiliated
oligarch). Oh, and Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele, who is challenging Gabbard for her seat in Congress, agreed with The Times that
Gabbard's support from Jew-hating, racist Putin-Nazis might be a potential liability.
"Clearly there's something about her and her policies that attracts and appeals to these type of people who are white nationalists,
anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers."
But it's not just The New York Times , of course. No sooner had Clinton finished cackling than the corporate media launched into
their familiar Goebbelsian piano routine, banging out story after television segment repeating the words "Gabbard" and "Russian asset."
I've singled out The Times because the smear piece in question was clearly a warm-up for Hillary Clinton's calculated smear job on
Friday night. No, the old gal hasn't lost her mind. She knew exactly what she was doing, as did the editors of The New York Times
, as did every other establishment news source that breathlessly "reported" her neo-McCarthyite smears.
As I noted in my previous essay
, 2020 is for all the marbles, and it's not just about who wins the election. No, it's mostly about crushing the "populist" backlash
against the hegemony of global capitalism and its happy, smiley-faced, conformist ideology. To do that, the neoliberal establishment
has to delegitimize, and lethally stigmatize, not just Trump, but also people like Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and any
other popular political figure (left, right, it makes no difference) deviating from that ideology.
In Trump's case, it's his neo-nationalism.
In Sanders and Corbyn's, it's socialism (or at least some semblance of social democracy).
In Gabbard's, it's her opposition to the Corporatocracy's ongoing efforts to restructure and privatize the Middle East (and
the rest of the entire planet), and their using the U.S. military to do it.
Ask yourself, what do Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, and Gabbard have in common? No, it's not their Putin-Nazism it's the challenge they
represent to global capitalism. Each, in his or her own way, is a symbol of the growing populist resistance to the privatization
and globalization of everything. And thus, they must be delegitimized, stigmatized, and relentlessly smeared as "Russian assets,"
"anti-Semites," "traitors," "white supremacists," "fascists," "communists," or some other type of "extremists."
Gabbard, to her credit, understands this, and is
focusing attention on the motives and tactics
of the neoliberal establishment and their smear machine. As I noted in
an
essay last year , "the only way to effectively counter a smear campaign (whether large-scale or small-scale) is to resist the
temptation to profess your innocence, and, instead, focus as much attention on the tactics and the motives of the smearers as possible
." This will not save her, but it is the best she can do, and I applaud her for having the guts to do it. I hope she continues to
give them hell as they finish off her candidacy and drive her out of office.
Oh, and if you're contemplating sending me an email explaining how these smear campaigns don't work (or you spent the weekend
laughing about how Hillary Clinton lost her mind and made an utter jackass of herself), maybe check in with Julian Assange, who is
about to be extradited to America, tried for exposing U.S. war crimes, and then imprisoned for the remainder of his natural life.
And, if Katharine is on holiday in Antigua or somewhere, or having tea with Hillary in the rooftop bar of the
Hay-Adams
Hotel , you could try Luke Harding (who not only writes and publishes propaganda for The Guardian , but who wrote a whole
New York Times
best-seller based on nothing but lies and smears). Or try Marty Baron, Dean Baquet, Paul Krugman, or even Rachel Maddow, or any
of the other editors and journalists who have been covering the Putin-Nazi "
Attack on America ," and keeping us apprised of who is and isn't a Hitler-loving "Russian asset."
Ask them whether their smear machine is working... if you can get them off the phone with their brokers, or whoever is decorating
their summer places in the Hamptons or out on
Martha's Vineyard
.
Or ask the millions of well-off liberals who are still, even after
Russiagate was exposed as an enormous hoax
based on absolutely nothing , parroting this paranoid official narrative and calling people "Russian assets" on Twitter. Or never
mind, just pay attention to what happens over the next twelve months. In terms of
ridiculous official
propaganda , spittle-flecked McCarthyite smears, and full-blown psychotic mass Putin-Nazi hysteria, it's going to make the last
three years look like the Propaganda Special Olympics.
* * *
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published
by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel,
ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy,
Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or
consentfactory.org .
Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops who had been protecting the SDF (Syrian
democratic forces) in the northeast of Syria, prompting Kurdish leadership and the Damascus
governed to strike a deal allowing Syrian Arab Army to retake control of the border with Turkey
after nearly six years.
... ... ..
Given that the deep state retains ultimate control of US foreign policy, Trump
is allowed to do and say what he wants – provided it is only within the confines of his
media playpen, safe in the knowledge that his motivations are purely electoral and not really
aimed and upending the foreign-policy consensus of the US establishment.
If we look beyond Trump's histrionics, we can see that the US deep state continues its
illegal stay in Syria, with Trump in reality having no intention of opposing the
military-industrial complex (indeed often appointing its members to serve in his
administration), with these two parties finding a common point of agreement in the alleged
threat posed by Iran.
US troops will only shift near Iraq, looking at disrupting any form of cooperation between
Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.
Trump's Saudi and Israeli allies in the region have long been conspiring with the Pentagon
to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That said, the possibility of war with Iran does not align well with Trump's focus on
securing a second term. In any such war, Israel and Saudi Arabia would bear the brunt of
hostilities, making pointless their support for Trump. The price of oil would rise sharply,
throwing the financial markets into chaos; and all this would conspire to ensure that Trump
lost the 2020 election. Trump, therefore, has nothing to gain from war and will prefer dialogue
and negotiation with the likes of North Korea, even if it does not bear much fruit.
Trump's main problem lies in the long-term damage his actions and statements may do to the
credibility of the US empire. The photo-op with Kim was criticized by many in mainstream media
for giving credibility to a "dictator". But the anger of the military and intelligence
community really lay in leaving Washington with nowhere to go after Trump's threats of
annihilation only led to negotiations that did not go anywhere.
I have previously written about the effectiveness of Pyongyang's nuclear and conventional
deterrence, something well known to US policy makers, making them careful to avoid exposing
themselves too much such that Pyongyang calls their bluff, thereby revealing to the world that
Washington's bark is worse than its bite. To avoid such an embarrassing situation, Obama and
his predecessors were always careful to refuse to meet with the North Korean leader.
The United States bases much of its military strength on the display of power, advertising
its theoretical ability to annihilate anyone anywhere. By North Korea calling its bluff and
revealing that the most powerful country in the world cannot in actual fact attack it, the
projected image of American invincibility is thus punctured.
Similarly, when Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the northeast of Syria
(quickly downsized by the Pentagon), and above all gave the green light to Turkey to occupy the
area vacated, the political establishment and mainstream media swung into action to dissuade
Trump from communicating to the world that America does not stick with its allies. Even Fox
News, now siding with the Democrats, started giving wide coverage to Trump's impeachment story,
inviting in the process an angry Twitter response from Trump.
Trump is of course more than aware that a complete US withdrawal from Syria would go against
the interests of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, those who actually have an influence on him.
Turkey's aspirations to occupy the northeast Syria are part of Erdogan's strategy to improve
negotiating positions with Damascus and Moscow with regard to the jihadists in Idlib. Erdogan
hopes to be able to annex Syrian territory and fill them with the jihadists and their families
who lost the war in Syria and who otherwise pose the security risk of invading Turkey from
Idlib. Erdogan seems to have come to some kind of understanding with the US, which has hitherto
been the protector of the SDF.
Erdogan and Trump didn't seem to consider the possibility of the SDF and Damascus finding
common ground, but this is exactly what happened.
The Syrian Arab Army is now in the North East of the country, protecting its borders against
an invading army. Russia and Iran will try and convince Erdogan to downplay the operation in
exchange for some sort of arrangement regarding Idlib. The Syrian government in the near future
should be able to take back the rich oil fields, boosting its economy.
Turkey and the US have have for years armed and financed terrorism in the region, as have
Qatar and Saudi Arabia (in spite of their ideological differences). Even the Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF) were involved in the destabilization of Syria.
All this chaos is ultimately supervised and directed by the United States, which has for
years been coordinating in the region color revolutions, the Arab Spring, and proxy wars. Any
other interpretation of events would be disingenuous and untruthful.
The withdrawal of US troops from Syria simply reinforces Damascus's position as the only
legitimate authority in Syria, undermines confidence of European allies in the US, and
emphasizes the consistency of Moscow's actions, which has always been opposed to Washington's
chaotic actions in the region.
Amidst this generalized chaos and confusion, Russia, Iran and Syria are trying to put the
house back in order again, which includes the international system where sovereign states are
respected.
The unipolarists have been suffering pronounced setbacks of late. The expensive air-defense
systems of the United States were shown by the Houthis in the last month to be rather
ineffectual; Saudi troops soon after this suffered a humiliating defeat in the south of their
own country; Washington saw its high-tech drone shot down by Iran; and numerous European and
Middle Eastern allies have lost faith in the US, as they watch factions fighting with each
other over control for US foreign policy
The US is the victim of a unipolar world order onto which it desperately hangs without any
thought of letting go, even as the rest of the world inexorably moves towards a multipolar
world order, one that becomes ever more difficult to subdue with every waking day.
So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his
conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked," or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy.
Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up
a last-minute military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers
patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of
Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools,
National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.
This post generated over 2K comment on zero hedge...
Looks like Tulsi masterfully capitalized on Hillary mistake. after Russiagate the change of being Russian agent does not have the
same byte as before and now can even be played to one's advantage as a sign of anti neoliberal establishment orientation. Which is what
Tulsi did.
Tulsi would be a powerful Secretary of State I think, if she did not win the nomination...
Notable quotes:
"... "If you stand up to the rich and powerful elite and the war machine, they will destroy you and discredit your message... ," says Gabbard, who said she's suffered smears " from day one of this campaign. " ..."
"... Great! Thank you Hillary Clinton," Gabbard tweeted late on Friday afternoon. " You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain ." ..."
"... "From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose." Gabbard added. ..."
"... And now, Gabbard has capitalized on Hillary's hubris and unchallenged conspiracy theory to fundraise and increase her visibility. ..."
"... For comparison, a real protest looks like Gilet Jaunes. Some people started protesting because they are being disenfranchised by their own government. They were already in real pain long before Macron went backward on all his campaign promises. ..."
"Toe The Line Or Be Destroyed": Tulsi Gabbard Dismantles Establishment 'Hit-Job' In Viral Video by
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 16:57 0 SHARES
Tulsi Gabbard unleashed her latest counterattack to the establishment hit-job against her, after Hillary Clinton suggested she's
an Russian asset.
"If you stand up to the rich and powerful elite and the war machine, they will destroy you and discredit your message...
," says Gabbard, who said she's suffered smears " from day one of this campaign. "
In a Sunday tweet accompanied by a video which has nearly 450,000 views on Twitter (and 18,000 on YouTube) as of this writing,
Gabbard writes "Hillary & her gang of rich, powerful elite are going after me to send a msg to YOU: "Shut up, toe the line, or be
destroyed." But we, the people, will NOT be silenced."
Hillary & her gang of rich, powerful elite are going after me to send a msg to YOU: "Shut up, toe the line, or be destroyed."
But we, the people, will NOT be silenced. Join me in taking our Democratic Party back & leading a govt of, by & for the people!
http:// tulsi.to/take-it-back
Last week, Clinton told Democratic operative and podcast host David Plouffe that "Russians" were "grooming" a female Democratic candidate
- clearly referring to Gabbard.
"I'm not making any predictions but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said, in apparent reference to Gabbard, a Hawaii Army National Guard major
who served in Iraq. " She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so
far. "
Great! Thank you Hillary Clinton," Gabbard tweeted late on Friday afternoon. " You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of
corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind
the curtain ."
"From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine,
afraid of the threat I pose." Gabbard added.
And now, Gabbard has capitalized on Hillary's hubris and unchallenged conspiracy theory to fundraise and increase her visibility.
People are seeing entirely too much into this. Seriously this is nothing but some crazy old crone, extremely jealous of someone
else and wanting revenge, honestly all I see is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrUEjpHbUMM
. No political scam, not grand strategy, just a really jealous vengeful old crone, HRC can see Tulsi Gabbard winning and in infuriates
her, fills her with jealousy fueled rage, Tulsi in every way better than Hillary, smarter, more popular, prettier (never forget
this can really freak out women) and younger (ohh the rage) and HRC blames Tulsi and Jill for HRC's arrogant public failure.
History will think extremely poorly of Hillary Rodham Clinton, extremely poorly.
Consider what is occurring here. Citizen Hillary has started a media circus with 1 of the 12 - or is it 16? - "candidates"
the spy infested DNC is fielding. The C_A MSM mouthpieces are shilling this white noise, blocking out any more important, more
difficult reporting if not analysis of world events they don't want in the news.
World Events like the Clinton, Obama, Biden, Kerry, Pelosi, Feinstein and Schiff scandals in Ukraine and China, how
well things are going in Syria and who the real villains there have been, how well negotiations are going with China, how the
Syrian refugee crisis is being settled in the best way for all concerned and how the C_A plan to start WW3 has been exposed.
The C_A can repeat this op another 11 Times. This is good because they are lazy and stupid, but even so you can expect them
to **** it up in some way every time. Evil has recruiting problems. Remember Hillary laughing about obliterating civilization
in Libya. Remember the corpse of Gadafi being dragged through the street by her mercs. Remember who stole Libya's gold, and Ukraine's
gold.
Consider all these "best" pictures of Gabbard. The method is obvious: Don't listen to the pettiness and low news value of this
PR stunt, just look at the cutie. This fits the media op signature of the Tavistock faggots on loan to Soros. Here are a few more:
BLM: Look at us. We all black! Don't listen to our demands, we still working on them, but whoever you are we coming for your
stuff.
Antifa: Look at us. We all revolutionaries! We like to rumble! Don't listen to our message. We don't have one. We're really
a lot of fun. Come to us, children, or we'll mess you up.
Naked woman protests: We are women! Every day we pretend to be smart but we're really emotionally unbalanced fools! REEEEEE...
Our message is, we need to be taken care of like babies. When you take off your clothes to protest, you've already lost.
For comparison, a real protest looks like Gilet Jaunes. Some people started protesting because they are being disenfranchised
by their own government. They were already in real pain long before Macron went backward on all his campaign promises. The
government of France has been bought and paid for from top to bottom by a few rich Jews and they are destroying civilization just
like Hillary did Libya, only they are in the subversion stage. The bombing is still to come. If you doubt me, dig for stories
about who Macron is meeting with, who he takes orders from. This is a peek into the real criminals behind the current form of
the EU. Thousands of people in the street. A few big protests got the imagination of the world, giving Macron ulcers. Good. They
got solidarity. Then Macron started sending in the thugs and gestapo. Then he sent in EU troops suited up for urban warfare. Both
the optics and the message of this are devastating to the cabal, worldwide.
IMO the best thing to do is to follow this circus and all that follow loosely. If you can't turn it around on them, for instance
pointing out that Gabbard is CFR and her positions are folly, do not give it the clicks (((they))) expect. At least screw up their
stats, make their psychological warfare "experts" lose their jobs or at least work day and night to keep up, until they melt down
in pools of their own saliva.
What this stunt is, is "opening a second media front". They created this meaningless drivel to hide the news that is favorable
to Trump and good for everybody in the world, and bad for the cabal. This is all they got. This is the best they can do. They
have nothing to offer but lies, threats and tyranny. As Hillary said, her policy is to keep them dumb, keep them poor and keep
them hungry. They are all gangsters.
Consider how cheap it is to do an op like this. That is the signature of the DS. They like cheap ops because they can do so
many.
The best we can do is open second fronts right back at them. Expose errors, omissions and lies in their fake news, as well
as what their lies are meant to conceal. It is fun to watch when the first slavos of their campaigns immediately fall apart and
get thrown back at them. Sometime real news gets out.
Tomorrow is the Canadian election. It will be a good message to them if Trudeau gets destroyed.
Brexit deadline is coming up. Pelosi swore that if they Brexit she will do all the crimes she can to obstruct US-UK trade.
Pretty sure she used up whatever stolen credibility she had with that admission of lawless tyranny.
Point is, Brexit will have a significant meaning to Americans and gangsters like her will be in the spotlight. We want good
will and trade with the UK. If this is obstructed, Pelosi has already said she's responsible and obstructing trade will have criminal
consequences on the US side. Learn all you can, keep track and if you get the chance, share any damning facts you find.
"... How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area. ..."
"... Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. ..."
"... Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind. ..."
"... A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion? ..."
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
But its not just the US that is a war machine. Bourne's statement equally applies to _all_
states everywhere, past present and future.
If any state appears to not be making war on other countries at any particular time,
its only because it is too busy making war on its own citizens [ eg taxes, drug laws,
weapons/gun laws, religion laws, speech laws, environmental laws etc.etc. etc.], and has not
yet created enough fake money via its central bank to enable it to debt-fund consistent
overseas aggressions against others.
Wars by the US will never end because arms manufactures own Trump. Almost one half of the
US budget goes for the security of the state, domestic and abroad. New weapon development
would come to a halt if the US was not threatened. Fake news about China and Russia planning
to attack the US keeps the arms industry humming. Over a million national security workers
and their families would be devastated if Trump stopped fighting fake wars. God bless
imagined threat of wars.
This has strengthened the possibility of the revival of the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There are around 10,000 such ISIS fighters currently lodged in
prisons run by the SDF.
And with this, "the war on terror" is guaranteed to go on, and on, and on..
Just in case you hadn't heard the good news, the last man from the president's foreign
policy "team" still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left
National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust.
June 27, 2018 Harvard Research Scholar Explains How America Created Al-Qaeda & The
ISIS Terror Group
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5
years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
What Trump wants to do and what he can do are two very different things. The MIC/Zionist rot
in DC is way too deep and entrenched for any one man to tackle.
Trump could make all his Schiffty problems go away by bombing Iran. Overnight, the man
would be lauded as the president we need and that aging hack Pelosi would suddenly drop that
phony impeachment hearing.
Trump is finding out that when making foreign policy, the safest route to take is to first
ask, "Is this good for Israel?"
I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's
inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't
vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will
opt for the former
@DESERT
FOX Exactly, with thousands of ISIS,ISIL(American/Israeli proxy forces)types now being
freed due to Turkey's incursions into Syria, these "rebels" will be free to re-group and
fight another day. Hence the need for American forces to STAY deployed in the Area. This is
nothing more than a distraction move by Trump, which will result in the opposite "intended"
actions of American forces being withdrawn from Syria. This will also guarantee the "need"
for a strong Soviet presence in Syria.
America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria, the only point of
contention between America/Israel and Russia was whether Assad was to be forced from power or
would be allowed to remain President as a puppet of Putin and the Russians. Syria was to
never remain a sovereign nation.
The US still hasn't acknowledged the Armenian Massacre by the Turks. Why should it care
about Kurds. US is the nation that said killing 500,000 kids in Iraq was worth it.
Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind
of peace.
Not really. All are still standing and not under US control. Iraq now leans even more
toward Iran and Syria toward Russia ..and that outcome in these countries has made Israel's
goal of destroying Iran much harder and less likely .
The curtailment of the Kurds, Israel's long time friends and proxy , is another blow to
Israel's plot.
It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
@WJ
Right. But as Giraldi always points out, Trump almost attacked Venezuela. He said mean
words and rattled sabres! As opposed to Obama, who said no mean words ('cause he upheld the
"dignity of the office") but sent the fighter jets into Libya and turned that country from a
stable, secular regime into a human trafficking warzone. And also got an ambassador killed.
Here are some of Giraldi's gems from April 2011:
Libya is a humanitarian mission
it [the invasion] has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan
civilians
it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and
Gaddafi has the whip hand
Nice analysis there, Mr. CIA lifer and Obama lickspittle. I can only assume Giraldi was
part of the crack CIA team of Sovietologists who were utterly blindsided when the Soviet
Union broke up. It's amazing how much slack he's given around here for his anti-Israel stuff.
It's like Teflon for him.
@Priss
Factor Agree, and the ZUS has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and
Syria, for their zionist masters, the only lives the ZUS cares about is zionists.
@NoseytheDuke
The only question you failed to address is what was the true motives of Putin's intervention
into the whole mess. A few good points:
As in Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no
long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free
world wherever possible. This allows him to play the big man on the international stage, an
essential element of his domestic appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned
Putin's invasion into a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast, Russians have no interest in
Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the leaders of Europe, the U.S., and
other democratic countries, Putin doesn't have to worry about how popular his foreign
adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian government, no free
media to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of well-armed
riot police.
Licks for Giraldi: Giraldi has been careless but not where he lists Trumps lies about ending
'silly' wars. from what Trump has actually done compared to what he says about ending
America's wars he is a liar of clear and complete proportions
"the military the only real source of pride the only thing Americans feel they excel at"
An insightful point. Politicians support the military and its deployments for economic
reasons, but the support of the public might derive from "what else is there?" Examples of
institutional and private-sector failure abound in the news over recent years, and every day.
The Boeing Max. The hotel collapse. 250,000 deaths per year from medical negligence. Power
shutoffs. Useless college. The dive boat. A relaxed performance standard. The demise of
meritocracy and rationality. During Katrina, every agency except the Coast Guard went into
gridlock. There are remaining islands of expertise, but the unraveling is contagious.
The dirty, filthy hand of the Jew is all over America's Mideast policy. Israel backs ISIS in
Syria with weapons. The Israeli-Occupied Government in Washington D.C. has even protected
ISIS in Syria at times. The Jew-owned media gives no credit to Iran and Russia for defeating
Jew and American-supported terrorists inside Syria. Now the Jew-owned government is aching
for war with Iran, which is not a threat to Gentile America.
The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime
are still there. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Replacing Assad was an Globalist goal, heavily pushed by Erdogan. We also remember the
failed presidency of Barak Hussein that never represented the citizens of the U.S. So it
would be more precise to say that:
-- George Soros, Erdogan, Obama, Wahhabism, and the Globalists are losing.
-- Putin, Trump, Assad, and Populism are winning.
The real test will be Putin getting all other foreign troops & proxies to leave. The
Globalist agenda is to keep the fight between Iran (Shia) and Turkey (Sunni) going, when they
both leave combatants in Syria. Hopefully, Putin will be able to fully rout the Globalists
and move out both Turkish and Iranian agitators.
@Johnny
Walker Read Maybe you don't know who the author of that article is .Garry Kasparov
Kasparov might be great at chess but in Russia he was big fail as a politician .couldn't
get any votes on his campaign to make Russia like America. He went into a self-imposed exile
in the West. claiming Putin ruined his political campaigning.
Now everything Putin does infuses all Kasparov's punditry
Kasparow's love for Bolton should clue you to what he is about.
Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) · Twitter
As I said about Bolton entering the Trump admin nearly 3 years ago, you may not agree with
his views as much as I generally do, but he puts US interests first, not Trump's. Can't say
same about Pompeo & the rest.
31 mins ago
The short story on Syria, Turkey, USAISRAEL, Russia –
Turkey-Syria offensive: Russia vows to prevent clashes with Assad forces
BBC
Takeaways
THEN .
"When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS,
they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as
terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could
be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up."
NOW .
"On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus
since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The
troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out
regime flags.
It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the
security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a
stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad
regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army,
are victories for them too.
European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East
come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members
can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially
facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact
with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes
and escalation are always present.
Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two
major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President
Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in
Syria's catastrophic war."
WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT
SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.
The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald
Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably
developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines.
Not too sure where this partisan line is, Dr. G.
It looks like they're screeching from both sides of the isle.
Both powerful Republican Liz Cheney and Hillary called the pull out "sickening".
While Republican Senator Rand Paul applauds the decision, Tulsi Gabbard condemns it.
As for 'ideological', we all know that ideologically, the vast majority of all
congress-critters (99+%) from both sides of the isle, are motivated by the ideology of
doing "what's good for the Jew$"
NATO agreement stipulates that if an alliance member is threatened, other members must
support it in its defense. Turkey has not made that claim, but it is completely
plausible that it should do so .
Are you joking, Dr. G?
Hasn't Turkey been engaged in waging an aggressive war on Syria these last few years?
Wouldn't Turkey demanding military aid from NATO, (for a "threat" from the Kurds or
Syria), amount to the US demanding NATO aid for a "threat" from Iran?
IOW, it's Turkey that has been the murderous aggressor, and the Kurds and Syrians their
victims. Not to mention that Turkey's military could make mince-meat out of the Kurdish
"threat" in a New York minute.
So it seems to me that the only thing holding Turkey back, is orders from the ZUSA and
Russia. Russia is certainly a large part of this equation, IMHO.
did not understand the Turkish mindset regarding the Kurdish threat, which they regard
as existential.
'Existential'?
Would a limited autonomy Kurdish state on Turkey's southern border, perhaps incorporating
a small swath of Turkey, be the end of Turkey's existence?
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the world demanded that Germany sacrifice some of its
territory as recompense for its aggressive military imperialism.
If I were in a position to do so, I'd hand Syria a slice of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's
and Turkey's territory – as a punishment for their depraved attacks on an innocent and
unthreatening Syria.
Definitely the Hatay province, which arguably belongs to Syria anyways.
I'm sure Turkey would call that an existential! calamity, but I'd tell them 'karma's a
bitch'.
Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's
actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more
soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special
ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in
Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors
and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed
conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in
Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity
and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump
is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than
all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to
end wars
I remain you most loyal fan, Dr. G. But I confess this sounds to me like you think the
situation above started on the day of Trump's inauguration.
He inherited those things by the former ZUS regimes.
He has tried over and over again to disengage, only to be dragged back by the screeching
from the members of his own party. Not to mention the ((media)).
There are a lot of reasons to condemn the actions of Trump. The Golan Heights, for
instance. But it seem glaringly obvious to me at least, that Trump is not ideologically
committed to Eternal Wars.
As you put it, he threatened regime change in Venezuela.
He wanted to have talks with the Taliban, (and the whole deepstate and their ((media))
screeched)
He "continues to support Saudi Arabia" but as Pat Buchannan points out.. "The Saudis
got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone strike from Iran or
Iranian-backed militias, which shut down half of Riyadh's oil production, did
nothing.
Said Washington, this is between Saudi Arabia and Iran."
And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that
the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now
experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds
You really do make it sound like all that is his fault.
I love your work Dr. G. And consider you one of the very best, most honorable and most
courageous writers out there.
But I confess, (like so many others!), it seems like to me that you have an irrational,
personal hatred for Donald Trump that colors your perspective.
IMHO.
I didn't have time to write this response well, have to go. Hope it's not too off
base..
@animalogicMore information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.
There is a gigantic problem in America. It makes us dysfunctional. Certain news cannot get
to the American people.
Everyone in the know gets it – do not go to the NY Times with anti-Israel news. Do
NOT buck the AIPAC agenda – period. The darkest element of the ADL will be at your door
within minutes. The US government will soon follow.
It is obvious – when it comes to Jew matters, US government employees fear for their
jobs, if not their lives. Same for the MSM.
US President Donald Trump has lambasted American broadcaster ABC News for airing a video from
Knob Creek Gun Range in the town of West Point, Kentucky, claiming that the network used
footage from the facility to depict a Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians in northern Syria.
Trump called the mistake "a big scandal" and "a real disgrace".
"A big scandal at @ABC News. They got caught using really gruesome FAKE footage of the
Turks bombing in Syria. A real disgrace", the president wrote on Twitter early Tuesday
morning.
@renfro
The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014.
Despite all the protests about Crimea, the Donbass invasion using asymmetric tactics with
Putin out outright denying responsability, Ukraine is a vital interest for Putin, and he
would have been willing to confront America and Nato there because it is his home ground and
advantage. But Russia is powerful enough to; Putin only went into Syria after Obama decided
not to overthrow Assad. No one particularly cares about Syria and neither do they care about
the Kurds (despite them having as good a case as the Palestinians to be given a state) and
that is why jumped up Turkey can get away with invading Syria and attacking Kurds, just like
they INVADED Cyprus.
This whole thing is probably a a storm in a teacup, but if Turkey gets into trouble they
know, because they were already told very clearly over Cyprus, that if they play Lone Ranger,
Nato does not have their back. Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey
threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good
diplomacy from Turkey's point of view. It is begining to experience delusions of its own
importance.
@renfroIt appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
Here is a very good video – Putin being interviewed. They asked him hard questions.
He came across as being very rational.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
People! The internet is there for you to verify/debunk any statement you question. Running a
website is a lot of work, why don't you guys collect the information you demand from Mr. Unz,
and share with us?
Or are you looking at others to supply you with ready-made opinions?
@onebornfree
Thanks for the link about Mr.Bourne and you correct about his statement applying to ALL
states.
They are more like progressive, merciful and humanitarian slave owners.
Be free
I wonder why the "high IQ" westerners have never deemed it fit to study their undeniable mass
psychopathy.
If they were indeed as smart as claimed, they would begin to admit it, and given the claim
to their innate highly civilised humanitarian inclinations *cough* , they would come to the
conclusion that this world needs less of their cursed kind.
Since that is not going to happen, I guess nature has its way
@Rev.
Spooner The point he makes is extremely vague. No specificity. None. Yet 10's of
thousands are dead. Ok, how about some evidence.
Why don't you go back to kindergarten, Rev?
@SafeNow
The support of the public for the military derives from constant and pervasive propaganda
particularly through movies and TV shows , David Sirota calls it the "Military
Entertainment
Complex".
Zero Hedge : " Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon , CIA
& NSA ".
@Johnny
Walker Read I was making a rhetorical point. I don't think the U.S. can decouple from the
Middle East.
I do, however, think that Trump wants value for blood and treasure.
Long-term, America simply lacks the financial strength to continue to project power. The
MIC costs the U.S. a tremendous amount of money. Budget to the MIC will continue to be
slashed over time. The Deep State in the U.S. will contract simply due to financial
realities.
Israel will be less and less of a priority.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to
the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
@Whitewolf
Yes, lack of talent and totall inane radical left wing proposals whiped up by the AOC wing
and swallowed by all the candidates 'hook, line and stinker '.
@OscarWildeLoveChild
After JFK's assassination, every successive president is/was shown a film clip of JFK's head
exploding from an angle nobody's ever seen.
It doesn't matter what party they're from; they'll tow TPTB's line. All of them.
US Foreign Policy = Occupied Palestine Foreign Policy.
That's all that's wrong with US foreign policies in a nutshell.
@Bragadocious
Whether he or his father served is irrelevant. Carter was in the Naval Academy, Reagan and
Bush 43 were in the reserves. Clinton had none and neither did Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge,
Harding, or Wilson.
What is telling, is the "alleged bone spurs", and "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf".
An allegation is an unproven accusation. What Giraldi is stating, is that Trump's physician
falsified records. You think old man Trump sent Donnie for a megadollar military academy
education so he could avoid the military?
As for Drumpf, I was acquainted with a couple of Schmidts who became Smith, a Bryjolfson who
became Byron, a Pachkowski who became Berry and, no one says Roosevelt's name was changed
from Rosenfeld. The snide commentary doesn't help.
I have said all along, that there is a lot not to like about Trump, but let's keep it in the
realm of reality. Whether he wants to end the stupid wars or not, he will never be allowed
to, as long as Giraldi's old employer is in business and making up non-existent bullshit
"threats to American interests", whatever they are.
@Sean
"Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear
weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view"
Israel is known to puff and bluff . It is grandiose polemic or rabid canine barking. It
was not exposed by the west . But the west now knows it ,thanks to Hizbullah
@anon
Getting women to work had nothing to do with their 'liberation.'
Even though my mom had her own [private] school, my dad's salary was enough to provide for
all 5 of us, go on annual holidays abroad and put three kids through college, loan-free.
To TPTB, it's better to tax 2 people instead of 1.
To them it's just a number game, like the 'Torches of Freedom' gambit, all spiel, smoke
and mirrors, to fool us gullible idiots into believing we do have a say
We should really start to use our guns and rifles to free the country and rid it of the
rot that's smothering it.
Oh, look, another Cartra$$hian selfie butt shot on Instagram!!!!!!
It's very old habit.Very much ingrained . It is also generational . Increasingly and suddenly
religious also as the feckless toothless Evangelicals are rooting for 1 second fame .
But here is a short chronology–
1 Plans for mayhem in Syria have been on the imperial table since the 1950s (Operation
Straggle).
2 US general Wesley Clark gave the game away years ago when he revealed US intentions in
the Middle East after 9/11: seven countries were to be invaded
3 Seymour Hersh gave the game away too in his 2007 New Yorker article: "The Redirection".
In this piece he revealed how the US were hooking up once again with the Saudi/Sunni
fundamentalists in and around Syria.
4 France's ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas also gave the game away when he revealed that the
British State (a definite CIA asset) was preparing for a war on Syria two years before the
start of the Syrian Holocaust in 2011.
"This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June,
"goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."
As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that
time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help
of "rebels"' (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)
Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate
demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. 6,3 million dollars was funneled
to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London.
The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel
@Johnny
Walker Read Quote: "America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Reply: Kindly allow me to correct your statement.
"America/Israel have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Russia has a wet entrance into the Med via Syria.
Perhaps you've dozed off a bit over the past few years, but Russia has been destroying and
killing the FUKZUIS 'war' machine goons in Syria [aka the takfiri terrorist].
They're assisting in getting the country back [on its feet] as a whole again.
@anon
I'll keep it short. You can find the beginnings back in the 2012 coverage.
In 2012 Saudi sent Saudi Prince Bandar to Syria to be in charge of helping Syrian rebels
bring down Assad, an ally of Riyadh's biggest regional rival Iran.
They were originally created, set up and armed and financed by Saudi.
The Saudis were then joined by Israel and Qatari and finally by the US under Obama.
A new twist appeared in the Saudi rebels war with Assad when ISI appeared and joined the
fight.
This scared Saudi shitless as they thought this ISI version of ALQ might be a threat to them
and lead to an invasion of Saudi as ALQ always saw it as a' westernerized' Saudi.
Everyone doubled down on both fighting Assad and fighting ISI ..which was a FUBAR if there
ever was one.
Then enter the proxies, the Kurds, the PPK terrorist group all fighting for their own
agendas within and under cover of the original war on Assad.
What could possibility go wrong in all this? LOL
Then enter Russia. Which gave some pause to the US in how far they wanted to go to throw
Assad out for Saudi and Israel and open a gateway to get Iran.
So now we are headed to the ending of the Saud and others Syrian adventure which is probably
best expressed by the fable of the fox and his shadow.
"A fox arose in the morning and saw his large shadow cast in the morning sun and said " I
will have a camel for lunch today'. The fox hunted all day for the camel without success. As
he paused in the afternoon setting sun he saw his shadow was much smaller and said "A mouse
will do after all."
In 1992, Alexandra Zapruder began to collect diaries written by children during
the Holocaust. These diaries speak eloquently of both hope and despair.
[Alexandra said:] "Anne Frank's diary was the first diary that was published. And her
voice was so powerful that it captured the voices of all the children and all the people
who had been killed. That's the way it's framed. And that by reading her diary and sort of
taking her into our hearts, we could redeem her life. . . ." [US Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/alexandra-zapruder
]
Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the
Zapruder Film.
Her grandfather was Abraham Zapruder, who took a twenty-six second home movie of President
John F. Kennedy's assassination[1] -- now known as the Zapruder film.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Zapruder
]
From a strategic point of view it is very noteworthy to observe that Kurdish troops are
fully positioned east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds are allies of Israel and a vital
proxy implemented to fracture Syria along the lines envisioned for Greater Israel (Oded Yinon
Plan).
It is perceived that Russia is an ally of Syria. However, Putin has not prevented Kurdish
troops from establishing themselves firmly within Syrian territory.
Israel along with their diaspora will never relent until their abomination of "Eretz
Yisrael" is achieved. It's not an accident that the ISIS flag is marked "All Jew."
@NoseytheDuke
Washingtonsblog : " Balkanizing the Middle East – The real goal of America and Israel :
shatter Iraq and Syria into many small pieces "
Thomas Harrington : " One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine
conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet "
Sanchez : " Plan B is to Balkanize Israel is endorsing its plan B for Syria just when its
enemies are making it clear that its plan A (Assad must go) is not happening anytime soon ."
Pro-Israel America launched Tuesday endorsing 27 candidates -- 14 Democrats and 13
Republicans. All have long histories of working with the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee to advance the brand of pro-Israel legislation it favors. Its endorsements on its
website praise the named lawmakers for their actions favoring the legislative agenda closely
identified with the lobby: funding for Israel's defense, sanctions on Iran and its regional
proxies, and bills that seek to counter the boycott Israel movement.
They include Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Rep. Steny Hoyer,
D-Md., the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy,
R-Calif., the minority leader; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that committee's ranking Republican.
here are all of them listed .make sure you don't vote for one:
@barr
Blaming Saudi or Turkey or UAE has possibly some validity but as far as far the effect of the
independent move by any of them is concerned , it has less than zero effect on Syria on its
own.
It is like a hypothetical scenario where Florida and Alabama are independent countries .
Rest of America is splintered into 50 different states and Canada is trying to get rid of
Cuban regime for 50 years and only in last 5 years Florida and Alabama have joined the scheme
under dubious circumstances of pressure bribery and blackmail.
@NoseytheDuke
Israel was more powerful and also more favorite of the west across ideological drive until
2003
It is not a normal country . Somewhere that guilt and remorse of stealing and killing have
left a mark on its psyche . It doesn't know how to settle and be normal
It doesn't know the meaning of the power, advantage or gain . The paranoia drives to more
dangerous world of fear and insecurity . It can't rest . Even if it is left alone, he talks
to itself and bangs it head against wall . Recent election is the manifestation of more
madness . It's begging jaunt to Russia and screaming through US media show how badly weakened
the country is.
The countries that bow to Israel – UK, USA, Egypt, Saudi are finding themselves also
badly weakened ,
A seed was planted in 2006 in Lebanon . That tree is growing taller and establishing roots
, Israel will be a shrub hiding in the shadow of that tree in a few years time.
Soviet and Russia were both almost destroyed by Jews . Now they look for the Russian shadow
to hide .
@renfro
A pack of lions can bring down an adult elephant at night when they have the advantage, but
they are careful not to choose a really big strong one. Russia is fighting in the Ukraine its
traditional heartland and what H. Mackinder called the Heartland of the World Island. A
victory in Syria that only came because Obama chose to not crush Assad with a couple of days
of air raids is hardly evidence of the Empire falling.
The real meaning of Trump is the facing of the threat from China, and if the neocons want
to play games in the Middle East so what? There is a fight coming with China and it is a
match for the West led by giant Bull Elephant America, Backward ME shitholes all together
could not take down America in a thousand years.
And what were the Kurds in Iraq called?
Didn't Saddam use some type of gas on them and that's why we were siding with them? Who told
about the incubator babies, maybe some other terrorist group?
@renfro
Mmmm, okay, you must have meant something like 'organized shooting' when you said, "SAUDI
STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR." Sorry I bit on false advertising.
As you see from 'barr' at #119 above, your starting point is months, years, even decades
too late. For a fact (I've met some of the Syrians who met with Robert Ford in Damascus, now
here and still lobbying for regime-change), the US was meddling, encouraging, prompting the
anti-Assadists well before the 2011 demonstrations.
@Daniel
Rich Putin is not the nice guy we have been told he is. He is in Syria for a reason, and
that is not simply because he wants Syria returned to al-Assad. Syria is only one cog in the
wheel. World wide Communism marches on, if you hadn't noticed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=4sKxkY0Tz5s
LOL. My favourite rapid US evacuation was the CIA flying off the roof of the Saigon
Embassy while the Viet Kong were busting in through the door and running up the stairs.
who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of
America – AIPAC. Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term –
"AIPAC Wars?"
Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist
movement.
Soros intentionally orchestrated the ultra-weak, time limited JCPOA treaty to create a
nuclear arms race among Iran, SA, Turkey, and possibly other MENA nations. That way he and
his buddies with MIC investments could profit by selling weapons to all sides.
So let's put in everyone's face with a factual term
Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright
citizenship' and then done nothing about it?
A: Every time.
If Trump drives too hard, too early and the case arrives at the Supreme Court while it is
split 5-4 in favor of 'birthright citizenship' Is that a win? Or, a loss?
There is a huge difference between 'failed action' and 'successful action'.
Given the proven hostility of the deep state establishment, it makes a great deal of sense
to lay groundwork now (via tweets), but only launch the correct constitutional action once
the courts are prepared to support it.
With class, Philip Giraldi amused me by his article's mere title, "Trump wants to end the
"Stupid Wars?"
Oh yea! Thanks, Phil , & please continue with offering dashes of intelligent,
dissident, & unflappable humor. Haha. For example, "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs at Normandy, they were undoubtedly on
the German side."
(Zigh) The insatiable global tag team, M.I.C. and The Land of Bilk & Money , want "Big
Time" and more stupidly unnecessary & immoral wars. (Zigh) One sure path to a 2nd term
for President Bonespur is for him to get off the "low energy" Turkey/Syria skirmish, &
get on with real war against Iran , for Israel.
Thanks, Phil! Fyi, I think Senator Lindsey Graham wants to get Bolton back in The Blue
& White House, and sanction Camp Mar a Lago.
P.S.: For all commenters assembled here, linked below is Stephen Colbert's satiric
covering of President Drumpf's having followed Israel's yonder (fallen) , and establishing a
US Space Force Command! To that, Colbert quipped, "Trump can not join it because of his
galactic bonespur."
@9/11
Inside job Seven Nations to Destroy for the nine eleven false flag. Wesley Clark
mentioned the seven – Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.
Seven Nations to Destroy for Yahweh's Israel – Deut. 7:1-2 –
Tanakh/OT.
Iraq 2003 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
Libya 2011 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
How four other nations on the list that were destroyed.
Somalia –
Since 2006 it has been a mess with Israel/US Al-Qaeda running the show.
Bizarre article about US/Israel terrorists "worried" about the environment.
Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabab has reportedly announced a ban on the use of
single-use plastic bags in territories under its control.
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has been blamed for thousands of deaths
since its inception in 2006, dubbed plastic a "serious threat to the well-being of both
humans and animals," the BBC reported, citing Al-Shabab's radio station Radio Andalus.
It even mentions that Osama Bin Laden, the puppet of Israel/US, was "worried" about the
environment too. It makes one wonder if this Climate Change thing and Imperialism terror are
connected.
Bin Laden wrote that Americans needed to save Obama from corporate and other nefarious
influences to empower him to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its
destiny."
He added that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he
claimed was a war against Islam.
Sudan
Divided in two in 2011. Israel/US is pushing for more divisions.
Asked about his demand for protection during his meeting with Putin, al-Bashir said we
wanted to highlight "the big U.S. pressure and conspiracy" on Sudan in Darfur crisis and
the huge pressure exerted on his government to separate the South Sudan.
"Now we have information that the American quest is to divide the Sudan into five
countries If we do not find protection and security. America took the world leadership and
devastated the Arab world. (See) what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iraq, what
happened in Syria, what happened in Yemen and what happened in Sudan," said al-Bashir.
Lebanon
Invaded by Israel in the summer of 2006. It made a mess out of Lebanon. Israel had a lot
of trouble fighting off Hezbollah. This is the reason that Israel fears going into Lebanon
again. After this adventure, Golems like US and its friends are the go to for Israel's war
adventures.
Initially, both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the war, with Nasrallah
declaring that Hezbollah had achieved a "divine, historic and strategic victory". Some
international observers saw the fact that Hezbollah had survived the Israeli assault,
despite the asymmetrical power balance, as a PR victory for the group. According to
Reuters, the Lebanese government estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost
output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The economy also shrank five per cent, with
tourism effectively halted.
Six of the seven were messed up, destroyed. It leaves only Iran left. Iran is in the
"news" everyday for this reason.
Trump is flawed, ok then, but we had Clinton as the alternative. She would have been ten
times worse so what choice did the American people have? He's rolling up the Obama-Clinton
project in Syria which was a huge atrocity. Can you imagine the bloodbath that would have
ensued had the US backed jihadi cannon fodder actually succeeded in overthrowing Assad? It's
not a one man show and Trump has to go along with much of what has been taking place. Much of
this has been imposed upon the American people as well as on Trump.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why
so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting
for so long. But yet the mighty Turks are going to defeat the Kurds of Syria even as they
can't defeat the ones living in their own country? Perhaps they'll take on the inferior
Syrian army at the same time. After all, they're a big NATO ally with lots of weapons to dump
on lightly armed foes. Reality is they haven't fought anyone in a hundred years so who knows
how well they'd do.
Quit calling Afghanistan a "war". It's an occupation with anti-guerilla operations going on.
Apparently they don't like being occupied so they fight on.
Trump's name is Trump, not Drumpf. Or do we now refer to people by the family name used a
hundred years ago, or why not five hundred years ago?
Excerpt from
"Trump Mistake: Allowing Turkish Invasion of Northern Syria"
by Joel Skousen (there is no direct link to it but it is/was on his website World Affairs Brief ):
This week in a telephone conversation with Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan he [President
Trump] assented to Erdogan's demand from over a year ago to let them enter Turkey and
establish a buffer zone where Turkey can resettle the hundreds of thousands of Syrian
refugees that have burdened Turkey since the beginning of the US-created terror attacks on
Syria. But as part of that strategy, and without emphasizing that to Trump, Erdogan intends
to drive out or destroy the Syrian Kurds which occupy northern Syria. Erdogan calls them
terrorists because the US-backed YPG Kurds are affiliated with the homegrown Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) which represents about 20% of the Turkish population, and which has
been fighting for independence from Turkey. So while the Turkish Foreign Minister plays lip
service to Syrian sovereignty, Turkey has already begun the invasion and occupation of
northern Syria. While Trump claims he is fulfilling a campaign promise to remove troops
from Syria, this isn't really a pullout at all since only two observation posts in the path
of the Turkish invasion are pulling out. There are thousands of other US troops elsewhere
in Syria protecting US-backed terrorist rebels.
@Johnny
Walker Read H.E. Mr. Putin has clearly stated it's up to the Syrian population to choose
who leads them, not him.
Tartus has a port Russia needs and uses.
Khmeimim Air Base is also needed and used by the Russian AF.
These are military strategic assets and used to counter balance the FUKZUS 'war' machine's
bases dotted around the ME region. Of course, those you don't mention.
No president actually controls the government, least of all Trump. The Deep State controls
the government. Trump is a an interloper. Why does one have to remind the author of this
elementary fact? The threat to destroy the economy of Turkey was made by Stephen Israel
Mnuchin. Trump had to make noises as if it was his "decision" when in fact he had nothing to
do with it. What Trump wants to do, and what he can do, are entirely different things. And
anyone who has anything to do with Americans knows what happened to all the previous allies.
Mnuchin has clued in those Turks who may have had illusions.
@renfro
very bad US is indeed . It continues to sabotage ,cast evil eye,try to strangle ,and continue
to punish Cuba . That long history is really long punctuated by half hearted Obama attempt
.
Once empire decided a project,it becomes , NASA , Present Danger , PNAC or NED . The project
goes on losing the aim . The project goes on because the vested interest
,employees,pensioner,glory seeking men, arm merchant, politicians and expatriate find means
to rake up profit and launder dishonest living into honest lifestyle . Name is changed when
it suits the project . Aim is not lost. It becomes the final destination . It never stops
energegizing the dishonest, looter,profit seekers, and opportunists . Often the brains that
gather under the flag are not that intelligent or ideologically certain.
Money and corruption drive them.
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past
5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
Going broke happens slowly at first, then quickly. The Western cities are going broke, as
are those in the Third World. Nothing else changes peoples minds like having their basic
income reduced or eliminated.
All the promises (including self-governmement and freedom and equality) have turned out to
be lies, smoke. Computers, which were supposed to be a seamless adjunct to human existence, a
source of education and information, and a liberation from the bad parts of part of reality,
have turned into (poor but cheap) entertainment, gossip, a drug substitute, and a propaganda
source. The result is shock and horror, sometimes followed by violent psychosis [1] (e.g.
antifa).
Once again, I recommend "Marat/Sade"
(1967). It gives you a feel for what a revolution is like once the revolution gets going.
Note the movie's final scene, which almost breaks the "fourth wall" convention. It was made
during our last revolution, and the director wanted to record the spirit of what he had
seen.
@Art I
like it, very catchy, original, Art said: "AIPAC Wars."
Oh yea, Art, thanks, and a "spade is a spade" when one manages to get the hell out of the
AIPAC shade.
Unfortunately tonight, millions of process estranged Amerikan Democrat & GOP voters
are now "beamed up" to an AIPAC-approved strange & hostile telescreen's DebateLand.
(Zigh) Across aisle, including a possible Beaming Bloomberg entry, , "winnable" 2020
presidential nomination contestants shall pick & choose, finagle & sell, an either/or
USrael foreign policy posture, as regrettably follows:
1.) The Zio-Democrat War to end the deplorable Trump's stupid call to end all Amerika's
endless Wars just for the paltry good of gradually achieving Greater Israel's unending
endgame. or,
2.) The Zio-GOP's War to end all Democrat Party hopefuls' stupid call to end all US endless
wars just because a lefty AIPAC-Branch put an Israel Labor Party "bug in their ear" about
having lowly dead-ender 'Merikan workers fucking pay for it.
Thanks again, Art, and "Good night America."*
* Phil Giraldi inhabits Sinatra's City That Never Sleeps.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio
relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
Agree.
And the financial debt must be augmented by degradation of physical infrastructure
(especially in cities and city support infrastructure) and the degradation of human capital
by importation of low IQ populations and effective destruction of education. And the capital
misallocation that continues today.
The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global
trade will end with it.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish
PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have
been resisting for so long.
Turkish birth rate low (lower in cities than in hinterlands), Kurdish birth rate high.
Kurds replace Turks in a few decades. Kurds don't follow Turkish cultural norms, nor Turks
follow Kurdish. Kurds don't want to wait a few decades, want power _now_ (c.f. Black Power
and Whiteness in USA). Kurds use destructive commando raides ("terrorism") to get power now.
Turks don't like that, respond with same.
Long term: demography wins barring very large change.
Please correct parts of this that are wrong. I'm not following this conflict closely.
Latest TruNews godcast, E. Michael Jones: The Deception Facing the Church by Christian
Zionism
YT Description:
Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern
Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic
radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.
Prof. Jones takes the deluded xian Zionists to task, calling them "useful idiots." My
favourite passage starts @ 18:58:
.. which means you got a lot of Christians who don't understand the gospel. Because
there are plenty of Christians out there who are Christian Zionists. It's a simple fact of
life. I think it can be traced to Jewish influence in our culture Jewish influence over the
publishing industry, for example. How did the Scofield Bible end up being published by
Oxford University Press? Because it's a great scholarly work? No! Because of people like
Mr. Untermeyer pulled strings. This is the way this happened. It's the biggest issue facing
American politics, right now. The role that Zionism is playing right now, in corrupting the
government of the United States, in diverting American resources into a quagmire in the
Middle East, which doesn't serve the interests of the American people at all and is all
done in the name of Israel.
@Counterinsurgency
I'm kind of having a mental barrier with this now.
There is a guy in Vancouver who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Jensen I believe (he
wrote to the Bank of Canada and a list of people in 2006). He argues that the fundamentals
are even worse now due to the failure to finance these foreign adventures and other factors
(expenditures on domestic expenses not matching tax income, etc.).
I haven't even taken the time to consider the knock on effects. Mentally, I've been more
focused on having to sit through the screaming match that is going to occur over who is to
blame and the lying that will go on with respect to needing to move to a sound money system
but having bankers et al try to argue for a rollover into a new currency. It is going to be
ugly, I can feel it. It will provide an opportunity for some serious structural change and
constitutional amendments. A whole host of reforms are open when you have a debt induced
currency collapse. I just know it could be really ugly and I've been dreading thinking
through how this will play out. I keep thinking that I never expected to live in a time like
this; I think back to being a teenager during the Reagan years and, despite the Cold
War-nuclear war scenario hanging over our heads, it seemed a much more optimistic time.
I am not optimistic. I'm very worried.
@Robjil
Somalia under a failing Siad Barre regime was going to the dogs with various warlords
cannibalising each other. Then the Americans were told in the flush of victory in the Gulf in
1991, that they should just kick the door in to save the dumb Muslims. It is not the fault of
the late senior Bush that Somalia is compounded of that specimen of humanity that emerges
like clockwork when African tribalism is married to Islamic fanaticism (but is there any
other kind?) . The Americans were minding their own business, but were told that it was the
humanitarian thing (and furthermore quite cheap to boot) to do at little cost to themselves
to save Muslim chillun'.
Afghanistan was no better : The idiot, the younger George Bush instead of bombing the the
hell out of Al-Queda and leaving was instead misled by mystagogues of various hues, including
his own self into sinking lives and treasure in a vain attempt to civilise the Afghans.
The truth is the further you keep away from Muslims, the better it is for your health and
sanity, notwithstanding the parallel machinations of various neocohens, for Islam is a
pernicious religion that breeds insanity, intolerance and bloodshed all by itself.
E. Michael Jones: a very wise man. He believes in free speech and is hated by Jews who, of
course, label him an 'anti-semite'. I would argue they are 'truth averse' fanatical
maniacs.
He makes a good case that 'Christian Zionism' is a heresy. I don't believe he uses that term
BUT I do.
It's just another bubbling that is bursting.
What will they do besides scream and throw tantrums? Is it time for another false flag 911
type event?
What the media never really exposed was how Syria, and every Middle East country that has
been attacked by the DeepStateZio monster, has seen the oldest Christian communities on the
planet under attack. Strange pattern. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, initiated by the
British alliance with the Wahabi's and the Saud Family and furthered by the CIA/Mossad in
Afghanistan, has corresponded with the destruction and diasporas of the world's oldest
Christian communites.
Somehow, Europe has ended up with a bunch of Muslims when these Christians would have fit
into their societies much better.
I think that none of this just 'happened'. I strongly suspect that if we were to kick over
some rocks we would find the usual suspects: the Khazar/Black Nobility Alliance.
@renfro
How?????????????????????????????????????????
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do think it was Mc Cain.
Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care
of payroll.
( I am not entirely confident but there is a possibility that CIA did channel some profits
from Afghanistan poppy fields for this noble cause.
@Counterinsurgency
Quote: "The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as
global trade will end with it."
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project,
[IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will
not nosedive along with it.
Too much a stake for the multinationals [not necessary a good thing, but alas].
Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington
that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which
later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were,
at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.
It's very challenging to come up with any foreign policy initiatives that do not serve
Zionist Israel's interests, first and foremost. Israeli interests have defined American
foreign policy objectives in the ME for much of the post-WWII era. Not at Israel's behest,
but on Israel's instructions and demands via pro-Zionist lobbies and the infestation of the
Administration with Israel First officials, Israeli citizens and spies. Add to that the
Israel First MSM.
@ivan
Is it methamphetamine instead of regular fentanyl ? Anyway, this logic and perverted emotion
make sense to you. Unfortunately it will reinforce your decision to switch . Business will
sure be coming back from China to rural America.
@A123 I
respectfully disagree on this particular matter. There is no US law bestowing birthright
citizenship. All that would change is recognition of what the law really says.
Trump waiting to win another 4 (still a gamble) AND for RBG's animatronics to fizzle out
AND for her replacement to not be another skunk like Roberts is foolish.
There is no underwater 38th-dimensional quantum chess being played here, and we still have
no wall.
Oops, I posted this under another writer. (Small wonder I got no answer.) Since then, someone
else remarked that at the end of WWI this land (northern Syria) was taken from Turkey. So
this is a long grievance, with deep sense of entitlement.
Rurik wrote, " .the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they
use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that
Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.
Maybe Phil can enlighten us:
We know that Robert Ford, US Embassador to Syria, was meeting privately with Syrian "civil
society" activists before the 2011 demonstrations.
-- Was Erdogan/Turkey also involved in infiltrating, inflaming those anti-Assad
elements?
-- How did Turkey involvement begin?
-- Was the CIA actively involved in Syria before the fall of Libya?
C'mon guys.
Using prior military service as some sort of litmus test to the right to critique involvement
and opinion sharing today plays to an audience mentality that encourages blind
patriotism.
There really are no necessary wars these days as they are all being fought for the banker
elite which holds no loyalty to country though it plays on ppl's ignorance to use such
loyalties for propaganda purposes.
There is no justification for US troops to be all over the world as a banker mercenary force
and this site acknowledges 911 was an Israeli- internationalist false flag which removes all
justifications for the meddling in Israeli neighbor's internal affairs.
Tolerating this to get air time with magazines that lie for power is encouraging this
negative behavior for personal advantage in a country and world striving to control the most
minute areas of our lives.
Going along to get along only brings the eternal boot down of the forehead forever@!
The fact that none of these bickering forces are targeting Israel who always was the
catalyst for the divisions there, is a huge clue that we and Israel are the problem causers
primarily. Of course we need false flags to excite the population to support the fake war on
terror within the US and Europe (as well as justify the reverse colonialism going on). Jews
for hundreds of years have counted on stupid goyim to do the fighting but now that Israel is
a supposed stand alone nation, that should be harder to accomplish but apparently total
corporate media control keeps the truth hidden from 85% of the public.
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road
project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global
trade will not nosedive along with it.
I actually hadn't thought of that. Now that you point it out, of course the dollar trade
will decrease. Negative interest rates are, in a way, saying that nobody wants US Dollars
anymore, and trades that are not in US Dollars are being actively sought. The decrease will
happen a bit before the USN becomes ineffective. And that will be hard on the
multi-nationals, but I can't say I have much sympathy. They were firmly behind the move of
Western manufacturing to East Asia – what did they think would happen?
But I do disagree over the assertion that global trade will remain about as it is.
The New Silk Road. Interesting topic.
Well, first of all it's a reasonable thing for the PRC to do. Historically, the Silk
Road has paid off for China, at least in terms of precious metals, and being dependent on a
single transportation mode for one's raw materials is strategically undesirable. It's a
good move. It's also an attempt to realize McKinder's proposed making the World Island into
a unified state[1].
But a couple of points:
a) New Silk Road is much more expensive than sea transport [2]. If sea lanes are cut
off, China's raw materials costs increase by several times.
b) New Silk Road recapitulates the interaction of European empires of the 1800s through
1900s with ethnicities along the Silk Road. The Europeans were resented and eventually
ejected. The Chinese are having similar problems.
China has loaned money to various nations which have then spent that money on immediate
consumption and are attempting to repudiate the debt. The Chinese (who have no compunctions
about debt repudiation through currency devaluation) are apparently taking over completion
of the Silk Road facilities for which the natives can no longer pay (having spent the money
on other things). Local rulers are saying that this makes the Chinese foreign invaders (on
a very low level so far). Just like the Europeans.
Chinese society also does not mix well with either Islamic or African tribal society, yet
the Silk Road crosses both cultural territories.
So far as I know, the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal since the US evacuation has gone
well. Last I heard, a few years back, Panama had started teaching Chinese in its public
schools. Chinese operations in South and Meso America are increasing, however, and I know
little about how they are going.
The nice thing about policed sea lanes is that shippers don't have to worry much about
the natives. Piracy is and has been a problem, but so far not a serious one. New Silk Road
goes overland, and that has (historically) always led to security problems with the locals,
whoever the locals may be.
So: Let's suppose that the USN were to become ineffective. Only the part of the Silk
Road guarded by the Russian Federation would remain secure. The rest would be subject to
local raids and extortion from the local government. Note that raw materials costs would
increase drastically for everybody (because of less shipping), so local governments and
bandits would have motives for confiscating goods.
This would be especially the case in Africa, which is largely dependent on food imports.
That conflict could become severe, as China is increasingly dependent on Africa for raw
materials (as is the rest of the world).
In other words, sole reliance on the New Silk Road (should that ever be necessary) would
be expensive in terms of shipping and in terms of security / warfare costs. China's
bellicose policy is, IMHO, counterproductive. China should be positioning itself to police
the sea lanes cooperatively but reluctantly with a declining USN, gradually assuming the
mantle of worldwide protection of the sea lanes that China needs so badly. Current efforts
to be able to interdict the sea lanes are not in the PRC's interest, as the PRC needs these
sea lanes open. It's sort of like developing a hyperbomb to make the Sun go nova. Under
what circumstances would you use such a device? Under what circumstances would China want
to cease shipping by sea?
So, what's likely to happen? The USN will decline because it needs recapitalization due
to age and a changing threat, and the US is instead devoting its income to debt repayment
and immediate social stability expenditures. The PRC, which has never been a naval power,
will still attempt to keep global trade alive. When that fails, the PRC will trade more
with the Russian Federation It will also take what sea and land it has, make an
expeditionary force out of it, and deploy it in some trading zones (possibly in countries
that have resources China needs) rather than see its population starve and itself
overthrown. That's the standard response from any H. Sap. political organization. Things
will get very messy.
And please remember that I'm like the weatherman: I report, I don't cause.
@Stan
Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the
West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A
confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,
@Daniel
Rich What part of BOTH the US and Russia are only there to serve their own
interest don't people understand. My only point is Russia is not there out of the goodness of
their hearts. People who claim Russia is fighting the globalist juggernaut and is only in
Syria to "fight ISIS/ISL" and to make Syria "safe for Democracy" aren't seeing the big
picture. Russia is working hand in hand with China to make sure America is reduced to a
second rate global power. Assad has become nothing more than Putin's puppet on a string.
Syria will need money for re-construction, thanks to Russia destroying much of their
infrastructure, that money more than likely will come from China(China's version of "Economic
Hit Men"). All the while, lurking in the back ground, that little shit stain known as Israel.
This report will present the reality of Russia's Syrian campaign. Russia launched air
strikes on hospitals, water treatment plants, and mosques. Russia used cluster bombs.
Russia almost exclusively targeted non-ISIS targets. These are the truths that Russia will
not admit, and the truths that must be understood when negotiating with Russia as a
potential partner.
It's all about the "Belt and Road Initiative". There are no good guy's in this mess, and
the real losers in this conflict are the citizens of Syria. Russia is a main partner in
"Globalization".
One of the main problems of the People's Republic is to connect the "Belt" with the
"Road". For China it is crucial to be able to bypass the choke points represented by the
straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok)
that, being controlled by the US, prevent the Chinese maritime power to fully develop. A
first important asset in this sense is represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,
which connects by land Eastern China to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in turn connected
to the String of Pearls.
Why Syria?
In this perspective, Syria becomes a crucial junction within the BRI: a possible
development of its transport and port infrastructures, properly connected with each other
and with the Belt and Road Initiative, would allow China a further maritime outlet for its
land trade and a formidable trade post in the Mediterranean. A further advantage is
represented by the increased quantity of goods that China could deliver into the
Mediterranean, overcoming the further bottleneck of the Suez Canal.
Syria also has at least two important factors that represent opportunities to be
exploited by Beijing: the country's urgent need to obtain funds to be allocated to
reconstruction and development and the simultaneous disengagement of the United States from
the Middle East, an empty space not filled by the EU. Syria is therefore an extremely
interested and receptive partner to the proposals of the Chinese government, which finds
itself at the same time freed from any diplomatic controversy that could slow down its
action.
@Counterinsurgency
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other
third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for
them eventually.
@Abdul
Alhazred Thank you for that video. I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my
life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me,
but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said.
More on Trump by Shamir's recent article:
What is much worse for Israel, is Trump's intent to leave the region. There is a good
chance you haven't seen relevant tweets of the President, for the MSM doomed to surround it
by the wall of silence. That is what the President said while ordering withdrawal:
"Fighting between various groups that has been going on for hundreds of years. USA
should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending! The
United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East.
Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have
died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE
HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers
& military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"
Just for this recognition "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN
THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY" and for this promise "The stupid endless wars, for us, are
ending!" Trump deserves to be re-elected and remembered as the most courageous and
independent US President since Richard Nixon.
His efforts on withdrawing from the Middle East remind of Nixon's hard struggle to leave
Vietnam and to make peace with Russia and China. If he succeeds in this endeavour, he will
be rewarded by the American people in 2020..
If he succeeds, then he sure will have my support!
One of the main instigators of the Syrian imbroglio – Saudi Arabia – had
been beaten in Yemen and is no longer eager for battle; ditto Qatar and UAE. Europe is less
keen on removing "bloody dictators" than it was. CIA, Jewish Lobby and Clintonite Democrats
would keep Syria boiling, but mercifully they are not in full command in Washington. .
@A123
What is allegedly being built is the same worthless fence. The wall prototypes couldn't
legally be used per a clause in one of the terrible spending bills hastily signed by "Master
Negotiator" Trump.
Better than cacklin' cankles? Yes, but so is my last bowel movement.
Even if we got a real wall, Orangemeister wants legal gimmegrants in record numbers. We
just can't effing win.
Don't you think Trump was a tad premature in announcing "Only I can fix," to all these
problems?
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and
other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn
sour for them eventually.
Every high value PRC project in Africa seems to come with as suspiciously large number of
military age, ethnic Han Chinese staff.
The PRC colonization effort is informed by the lessons of former Euro colonies. They have
built-in measures to make them very hard to displace. And, should they eventually be forced
out, the locals will get nothing but destroyed and poisoned lands.
@geokat62
Know more News with Adam News covers the Christian Zionist story. He is still on you
tube.
Jones was banned from that platform recently. He can still be heard on bitchute as well as
his own website, Culturewars.com
the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's
stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring
that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the
team.
I have a metric that I use.
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.
Insofar as Erdogan has been aligned with Israel and its interests and agendas (the
destruction and carving up of Syria)- is the degree to which he has been a malefactor on the
world's stage.
/
Vs. the degree to which he's opposed to Israel's nefarious agendas;
– he's demonstrated actual statesmanship.
So that's my metric. That's why generally I don't have to pour over the minutia of every
action or issue with a fine tooth comb, rather I just ask, 'is this person or action aligned
with Israel's agenda.. (genocide, theft, murder, hegemony, strife ), and the question always
seems to answer itself!
Just consider the Obama regime. When I approved of what Obama was doing- peace with Iran-
it was when he was in Israel's crosshairs.
When I disapproved of Obama's treasons, it was when his actions were perfectly aligned
with Israel – destruction of Libya, destruction of Syria and so forth.
It really is a near perfect, if not perfect metric.
When Trump is betraying America and Americans, is when he's serving Israel – open
borders, drones, sanctions on Iran and Russia and others..
When he's acting like an actual American president, in the service of this nation, is when
he's in direct opposition to Israel's agenda – ending the Eternal Wars, making videos
about dead American soldiers, firing Bolton, talking about nationalism at the UN..
I'm really sort of waiting for this test to ever fail, it's been so reliably perfect for
so long.
So if you want to know if Erdogan is acting in good faith, just check to see if what he's
doing pleases Israel, and you'll know all you need to know!
Is a Kurdish state a good thing?
Well, what does the 'metric' say?
Is Turkey's incursion into Syria a good thing?
Here, a mouthpiece of Zion posits 'no'.
The Turkish government is no longer interested in helping Syrians liberate themselves
from Assad's murderous regime.
The video is very powerful, and this video linked in this link features Trump's speaking
with attendant images of the families of the soldiers and what they have to go through
.because of the lies of the warmongers.
@Rurik
As Commander in Chief tRump wanted to kill Syria President Basher Assad for having gassed his
own people & having to be restrained by his Generals, Amerikans now see another side to
their president which Rurik observed on video & gushed: "I've never been so proud of a
U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering
to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said Thank
God. Peace."
Am sincerely glad you're "happy," Rurik, that Trumpstein moved to shed some of his
Adelson/Netantahu skin implants. Nonetheless, & I don't want to be a GOP Likud-Party
pooper, but am sticking with Philip Giraldi's advisory to, "Let's see what he actually
does."
At any rate, linked below (& fyr in ), is Brother Nathanael's latest video. In order
to stave off our nation's descent into Greater Sodom & Gomorrah, it's understandable to
me how Bro Nat prefers "The Chosen One" to continue as ZUS president over his uber-liberal
& decadent Zio-Democrat opponents.
Thanks Rurik, and enjoy the good times of tRump's proclamation of an end to endless wars
for Greater Israel while it lasts!
"Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue
for the West . . . A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons"
Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US
FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's
rise.
The wonderful context is, it's not up to Trump. It's not up to the US government. The world
will squeeze the CIA regime out of Syria. Russian doctrine of coercion to peace works equally
well on degenerate great powers, with the minor filip of face-saving subterfuge for routed US
functionaries.
Lindsay Graham gets to shake his tiny fist ineffectually at a sneering NATO ally instead
of shaking his tiny fist ineffectually at a nuclear power with overwhelming hypersonic
nonballistic missile capability. Much safer.
@Wally
The only way to change this cast of filthy charACTORs we have running this country is to have
a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" box located prominently at the bottom of every ballot. One I
would take the time and effort needed to check.
@Cloak And
Dagger Trump's problem is that he has very little support for his MAGA agenda in his own
party. People like Lindsey Graham who support him here and there will not hesitate to turn on
him if he takes positions that offend Sheldon Adelson. Trump's none-too-sophisticated,
none-too-affluent base is opposed by the media, academe, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the FBI
and CIA, and the Rainbow Coalition assemblage of minority voices. Even Fox News (apart from
Tucker) opposes Trump's agenda even as it defends Trump against spurious charges of colluding
with the Russians. For example, Hannity regularly charges the Democrats with being in league
with Putin, in effect conceding that the Russians are evil enemies. Yet Trump's MAGA proposal
was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.
At the end of the day, the 4D Chess view seems more right than wrong. While Trump's
commitment to the right is both shallow and wavery, in the present setting he cannot do more
than hold the enemy at bay and wait for reinforcements to show up. That means it's up to US,
his supporters, to find ways to weigh in on his side. As the fascists used to say, a bundle
of sticks can be strong even if the individual sticks are weak.
@Sean
My question to you is: a confrontation between who or what and China? To the extent that
America collapses into a post-Christian, post-European congeries of plutocrats and their
commercial interests, such a confrontation has no clear shape. The evolving character of
American society has been put on the table by the Trump/populist revolution, and the role of
Jews in our cultural evolution is part of that even if it is taboo to discuss it. The issue
over the Palestinians is the only way to challenge the successful assumption of moral carte
blanche by the secular Jewish community, which Jewish thought leaders have parlayed into an
effective assault on freedom of speech and assembly (particularly in Europe but also here),
and a campaign to stigmatize whiteness, Christianity, and the nuclear family.
Conclusion: The issue of Palestine is a proxy for the larger issue of whether secular
Judaism deserves its current status as moral hegemon. It is the only way to raise this issue
that is not instantly dismissed as neo-Nazism.
@SolontoCroesus
SolontoCroesus wrote: "Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is
at the heart of US FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise."
To All commenters,
Above, when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.
When President Bonespur speaks, it pains to listen, & I can potentially become
deceived.
Will likely get friendly fire from Rurik, but I truly wish he reads your comment &
astutely watches the very informative linked Talpiot video. Hurts when I see good men (like
him) gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
Thanks for your patriotic servus, S2C!
P.S.: Behind D.C.'s Blue & White House curtain, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin licks his
choppers in anticipation of effectual ZUS sanctions, & the Chinese communist government's
finally granting Goldman Sachs Group permission to do "untethered" investment business" in
the mainland; the largest consumer market on the planet.
@Sean'Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for
the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility.
A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,'
As usual you've being dishonest. You agree Israel is a 'shitty little country' -- but
manage to insinuate we should continue to support it.
After all, we don't have to spend a penny to 'play Santa' to the Palestinians (as if we
had nothing to do with their expulsion.). It's the Israelis we subsidize and protect, not the
Palestinians.
In fact, we can help the Palestinians and save money too! Yank Israel off our tit and we
get to have our cake and eat it too. The Palestinians get their home back, and we save
billions every year. All we have to do is to stop funding their tormentors,
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.'
It is always wrong to support Israel.
In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally
supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.
I voted for McCain because he wasn't black. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is
that I allowed some other consideration to seduce me into supporting Israel -- however
trivially and as it turned out ineffectually.
If you establish 911 was a fraud then subsequent war on terror is a fraud. The West will
exhaust themselves waging war against Islam and the Muslims despite killing millions of
people. They will dig their own graves and cast themselves in hell fire for eternal damnation
for subscribing to Santa Claus lies and Jesus died for their evils by supporting the money
changer's ideology for greater Israel project to usher in their Anti-Christ as their Messiah.
Anti-Christ Dajjal will take them for a ride to hell. He will play them "By way of Deception"
just as they are playing the rest of the world "By way of Deception wage wars." So how many
of us are willing to sell our souls in exchange for the worldly gains and pay a penalty for
eternal damnation?
gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
"I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video.
"
Gushing?
Perhaps, I suppose, depending on your definition.
But when's the last time you heard a Z.U.S. president speak of the war dead with
compassion and pathos? Hell, when's the last time you heard them speak of these tragic
victims of American f0lly (treason and war crimes), and their families- at all?
He was saying 'enough of this madness!'
And from what I understand, American troops are indeed vacating Syrian bases.
BTW, leaving for a few days, so keep up the good fight, Brother Chuck!
@Wally
Wally likes to cheap shot P.G., haha, and once again futilely asked him: "Has Giraldi ever
stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?"
Get on the ball, wailing Wall! (zzZigh) Likely, even some knowledgeable CODAH associates
will inform that YOU'LL get what Supremacist Jews give you.
Haha. The Zionized D.N.C. is presently fretting over which Jewish Lobby-approved
presidential 2020 candidate they should give to their "base" voters. Haha. Liberal tribe
chieftains are confident that even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will make incumbent, Trumpstein,
Tweet-out "endless" sweat on election night.
Nonetheless, had Amerika a real choice, , Ron Paul would be my #1 "anti-Chosen One"
alternative. Refer to his article below, wailing Wall?
Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian)
Russia.
That's why the NeoCohens hate Putin so much, for re-establishing Russian Christian
Orthodoxy as the 'national' religion. Trump, on the other hand, admires Putin for his
nationalism and wants white Christian Russia to be friends with nominally Christian
America. Unfortunately he must bow down to the Satanic anti Christ power brokers, the Cabal,
that keeps him in power and checks his nationalist leanings. Hopefully he will overcome this
in a second term but I've been saying that about presidents for years!
@ChuckOrloski
Thanks ChuckOrloski.
Undeserved, tho -- I was just being a shepherd guiding the flock to other people's good work,
a practice I learned from your comment style.
I don't want to be in the business of educating you on un-American actions undertaken by
"Z.U.S. presidents." You really know better, but since Jacques Sheete, peace be upon him, is
M.I.A., I will now do my best.
No doubt, Trumpstein is different. Please pause momentarily and consider how he very
recently wanted to sell/provide nuclear weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. Fyi, and lucky for
the entire Middle East's general population, Trump's lack of "compassion" was overuled by
those higher in the ZUS's Blue & White House Lowerarchy. (Note: He ain't "The Decider,"
he is the ever useful & divisive Zion Tweet-Chord)
So given the U.R. Moderator sword is not activated, linked down below, is a joint radio
show, hosted by Dr. David Duke & Ryan Dawson. Ideally, this action will take the job of
trying to educate YOU from off my shoulders, Rurik. No reading needed, & just carefully
listen!
Fyi, Dr. Duke and Mr. Dawson will provide the means by which an anti-Zionist &
patriotic American can resist the evil sway dished-out daily by our "Homeland's" Zionist
Corporate Media. These largely demonized gentlemen/scholars explain how Zionized Republicans
& Democrats are curiously "on the same page" when it comes to humanely protecting the
Kurds.
But when it comes to supporting & defending The Land of Bilk & Money, they unite.
Yippie! On other hand, and when it comes to actually helping the restless & sorry lot of
dumb goyim working Amerikans, they fight like , er, "Tom and Jerry." (Zigh) Why Trumpstein
even moved to kill the underachieving & oft unaffordable "Affordable Care Act," a.k.a.,
Obamacare.
Enjoy your time off, my Brother Rurik, and I suggest, at minimum, partial evacuation from
the dug-in Jewish Corporate Media "bases."
@Rurik'That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.
I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).
I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by
then I understood the nature of McCain all too well '
Now you're reminding me of 2012. Of course, I was going to vote for Obama over Israel's
man-in-the-White House-to-be. An unpleasant choice, but there it was
So my wife and I were down in Alameda at a winery. Somewhat incongruously, the server was
right-wing, and started praising Romney. I stayed tactful, as I didn't want to kill my buzz,
but my wife -- who is easily influenced -- came out of there going 'Romney number one.
Yeah -- I'm going to vote for him!'
In an unusual display of wisdom, I bit my tongue. We'll see how this plays out
You need to understand my wife comes from a poor background. If you want to meet 'the
working poor,' go see her relatives.
So the very next day, Romney comes out with his '49%' remark. It was classic.
@Johnny
Walker Read Right. This happens every so often. I am not recommending de Sade or any of
his works.
I'm recommending the movie:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the
Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade ", play 1963, movie 1967 [1].
The movie has very little to do with the writings of the original Marquis de Sade [2], but it
does do a good job of showing the spirit of revolutions.
de Sade had a good reputation with the revolutionaries. He was elected a delegate to the
French National Convention, but fell during the Reign of Terror [3]. He really did direct
publicly presented plays at Charenton starting in 1803, but was eventually arrested and
denied paper and pen in 1809. Died 1815, and several large manuscripts were subsequently
burned by his son, who apparently thought that de Sade had done quite enough harm
already.
Insofar as tje video has anything to do with the real de Sade, it is that the director
(fictional de Sade) manages to stage a small revolution himself in the final scene, _after_
demonstrating that the audience is little more sane than de Sade is ("15 glorious years"
scene). As in the link given by Read [4], de Sade acts as the philosophical godfather of
revolution and revolt as an end in itself.
The really pathetic attempt by ABC to pass off Kentucky gun range footage as a Syrian
conflict zone is a good example of the consequences of Congress' horrible 2013 decision
(that you may not have heard of) to totally legalize domestic propaganda. @_whitneywebb
In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed against the American people, false
narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream media that they have essentially
become normalized, leading to the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts."
The bad and ugly shepherds persistently hit vulnerable & trusting Unzers with their
"best shot." For one example, the currently M.I.A. commenter, Maven Sam Shama.
Subsequently, I see no valid reason why intelligent & good men -- like you! -- should
not give their "best shot" and attempt to support & rescue lost sheeple who regularly
appear here.*
* Some lost sheep simply like it that way, and therefore, bad shepherds, for one example,
the featherweight commenter "Sean," get lots of practice at misguiding the flock.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
Right, what to do is the question now that everybody has been taken by surprise.
I'd say that the advice "get out of debt, get out of the major cities" is fairly good, and
fairly obvious, and has been so for some time. As to income, I just don't know. You might try
linking up to some group (non-Left) that seems to be cohesive and has _some_ plan of action
that isn't too weird. Under stress, cohesive groups can survive better than individuals.
You might also remember the rule of thumb that prophets can predict either what or when,
but not both. It's obvious that the US in general and cities in particular are in severe
decline, but _when_ the current system will cast off much of the population it now supports
is simply not known. Abandon it too soon and you end up extremely poor, so a sharp break is
extremely risky. I'd say that retiring debt, hardening your house against home invasion, and
finding some group as above, would be about all that would be justified right now. If your
neighborhood is deteriorating, it might be a good idea to go to another one that isn't, since
the deterioration is unlikely to reverse itself. If you're in with an ethnic group that
doesn't like your ethnic group, it might be a good idea to displace, if only to avoid the
unpleasantness.
@jack
daniels The current US system / world order will end within the next decade no matter
what Trump does. Trump is trying to shut it down with minimal casualties and replace it with
something viable, which is a good thing to do, but if Trump were to vanish tomorrow the
current US system / world order would still end within the next decade, maybe two decades if
things went very badly wrong.
Trump has the wind at his back, he's trying to do things that would do themselves (although
not as well) and that's why the appearance of 4D Chess. But, as you point out, Trump leads a
very small force of government officials, and would lose without the strength given by his
supporters. Continued support, in word and in deed, should reduce casualties (to include
Trump and his family) during the current transition.
MEANWHILE, Millions Hungry and Food Insecure in the US
"According to the US Department of Agriculture in 2018, food insecurity affects 37 million
Americans, including over 11 million children -- the numbers likely way understated."
"Around 40 million Americans experience hunger annually."
"At least 15 million US households endure food insecurity."
"Hunger is caused by poverty and inadequate financial resources, a nationwide
problem."
"Around 45 million Americans rely on food stamps, an eroding program providing inadequate
help."
"1 in 6 American children may not know where their next meal is coming from."
"22 million children in America rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at
school, but as many as 3 million children still aren't getting the breakfast they need."
@Rurik
I applaud the sentiment too.
I'm hearing rumours that Trump has put a thousand troops into Saudi Arabia and claimed they
are paying for it.
Is it now America's lot to be not just Israel's but SA's mercenaries?
2020 can't come fast enough. I'd love to see a Trump super majority and some serious
reform.
It's pretty clear the Evangelical Zionist's are Israelis' b@tches.
America, it seems, must not only reclaim itself but also it's religion. EV is a heresy and
the leaders are on their knees f@llating Israel. It is disgusting to watch.
Yes, I agree, having trucks and trains go overland and via various countries comes with
the risk of conflicts erupting between 2 or more states participating in Chinese projects.
China burnt itself badly in Libya, where Hillary " We Came, We Saw, He Died! Haw, haw,
haw " Rotham Clingon ran amok.
China is actively setting up routes via the attic as well, so I think China carefully
weighs all its options, but doing business comes with certain risks, those are
unavoidable.
When I was in Africa [The Gambia and there about], I noticed a lot of Chinese merchandise
being sold all over the place. I heard stories of some Chinese being attacked and/or murdered
elsewhere in Africa, but haven't dealt with any Chinese businessman myself or heard their
stories in person.
Having been on that vast continent doesn't make me an expert whatsoever, but I see Africa
become a huge anchor around the world's neck. Can't use a single brush to paint entire
nations, I know, but what I saw didn't look good.
side note : I didn't live in a hotel with armed guards, I lived in a compound with
Africans, so it's not that I have no up close experience. Furthermore, I was always treated
with kindness, respect and warmth.
"... "Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary)." ..."
"... cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with 900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual budget. ..."
"... "The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress. ..."
Yves here. For those of you who have friends and colleagues who would go on tilt if you tried educating them about MMT, a simpler
approach to persuade them that Medicare for All is affordable is to sell them on another worthy goal, cutting the military-surveillance
state down to size.
Even then, I still encourage you to set them up for a later conversation about MMT: "Even if you accept the idea that taxes pay
for spending, which actually isn't true for the Federal government, we can still get the money for Medicare for All by ."
Note also that the Pentagon has various black budgets, an "official" one and covert ones.
By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at
Common Dreams
The Institute for Policy Studies on Thursday shared the results of extensive research into how the $750 billion U.S. military
budget could be significantly slashed, freeing up annual funding to cover the cost of Medicare for All -- calling into question the
notion that the program needs to create any tax burden whatsoever for working families.
Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), took aim in a
New York Times op-ed at a "chorus of scolds" from both sides of the aisle who say that raising middle class taxes is the
only way to pay for Medicare for All. The pervasive claim was a primary focus of Tuesday night's debate, while Medicare for All proponents
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) attempted to focus on the dire need for a universal healthcare program.
At the Democratic presidential primary debate on CNN Tuesday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was
criticized
by some opponents for saying that "costs will go down for hardworking, middle-class families" under Medicare for All, without using
the word "taxes." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on the other hand, clearly stated that taxes may go up for some middle class families
but pointed out that the increase would be more than offset by the fact that they'll no longer have to pay monthly premiums, deductibles,
and other medical costs.
"All these ambitious policies of course will come with a hefty price tag," wrote Koshgarian. "Proposals to fund Medicare for All
have focused on raising taxes. But what if we could imagine another way entirely?"
"Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and
beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare
for All (though estimates vary)."
"While we can't un-spend that $4.9 trillion," Koshgarian continued, "imagine if we could make different choices for the next 20
years."
Koshgarian outlined a multitude of areas in which the U.S. government could shift more than $300 billion per year, currently used
for military spending, to pay for a government-run healthcare program. Closing just half of U.S. military bases, for example, would
immediately free up $90 billion.
"What are we doing with that base in Aruba, anyway?" Koshgarian asked.
Other areas where IPS identified savings include:
cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion
ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with
900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion
per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual
budget.
"This item takes us well past our goal of saving $300 billion," Koshgarian wrote of the last item.
As Koshgarian published her op-ed in the Times , progressive think tank Data for Progress released
its own report showing that a majority
of Americans support a "progressive foreign policy" far less focused on decades-long on-the-ground wars, establishing military bases
around the world, drone strikes, and arms sales.
"The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American
foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress.
"Voters want to see U.S. funding go to domestic needs such as healthcare, or to other national security tools like diplomacy,
instead of to the Pentagon and more endless war," according to the report.
Polling more than 1,000 ppl with YouGov, Data for Progress found that 73 percent of Democratic primary voters ranked numerous
issues -- including economic challenges and the climate -- as more important to them than national security and military funding.
Progressive national security proposals proved popular with respondents, including closing Guantanamo Bay, ending arms sales to
Saudi Arabia, and leveraging military aid to Israel to force it to adopt better human rights policies toward Palestinians.
"There is a clear appetite for progressive reforms to U.S. foreign policy," wrote Data for Progress.
In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly "defense-based institution, rather than a war
machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes."
But, she wrote, "that's no excuse for continuing to spend hundreds of billions in ways that make our world more dangerous and
deny us the ability to seriously invest in things like jobs, healthcare, education, and all that makes our lives better."
I would love to see it, but I strongly doubt this would happen in my lifetime. The Pentagon budget seems to be one of those
political "third rail" issues like Social Security.
Many people are so paranoid that I think it constitutes a mass hysteria; others are propagandized into 24×7 jingoism. I'm not
talking concepts here, I deal with pro-military people almost daily. Its the glorifying and fetishizing of the military that bothers
me.
Most if not all pro-military types are also deeply conservative; bring up *any* social program and they will wonder how to
pay for it.
I don't know, how many "third rail" type taboos has Trump danced on and become more popular because he did? I think the average
voter would be *extremely* receptive to a well-crafted message promoting the redirection of resources away from forever foreign
wars and bases to concrete material benefits for Americans. I don't even think it'd be a hard sell, once the pearls had been gathered
up.
What's so maddening about this question is the fact that we know that the military budget is probably much more than 750 billion
per year, but we can never know how much more, because the government is expressly allowed to hide and even fake spending totals.
What matters is whether the goods and services are there for them to buy with that money, and this is where real wealth lies.
Governments can create all the money they want, but if they create too much you will get inflation, or hyper-inflation if they
type in too many zero's when creating money.
Money has no intrinsic value; its value comes from what it can buy.
Banks create money from loans and that's easy too, just type the numbers in.
They can dash wildly into the latest fad, like the dot.com boom, and finance it with money they create out of nothing.
What could possibly go wrong?
Bankers do need to ensure the vast majority of that money gets paid back, and this is where they keep falling flat on their
faces.
Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it.
If someone can't repay a loan, they need to repossess that asset and sell it to recoup that money. If they use bank loans to
inflate asset prices they get into a world of trouble when those asset prices collapse.
"It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime
loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins.
When this little lot lost almost all its value overnight, the Western banking system became insolvent. Wall Street can turn
a normal asset price bubble into something that will take out the global economy using leverage.
Bankers create money out of nothing and the monetary system requires that nearly all that money they loaned out gets paid back.
Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity, and when you realise all that debt can't be paid back, a financial black hole
opens up, as it did in 2008.
When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation.
When banks create too much money you tend to see it in asset price inflation.
We see inflation in asset prices as good and consumer price inflation as bad.
The asset price boom will crash the economy, but no one realises while it's happening.
They believed in the markets and neoclassical economics in the 1920s and after 1929 they had to reassess everything. They had
placed their faith in the markets and this had proved to be a catastrophic mistake.
This is why they stopped using the markets to judge the performance of the economy and came up with the GDP measure instead.
In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised inflating asset prices doesn't create
real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track real wealth creation in the economy.
The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP.
The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP.
Inflated asset prices aren't real wealth, and this can disappear almost over-night, as it did in 1929 and 2008.
Real wealth creation involves real work, producing new goods and services in the economy.
Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it. Sound of the Suburbs
100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors means we (the general public) wouldn't have to give a flip if banks lent
prudently or not since we would have an additional but risk-free payment system consisting of debit/checking accounts for all
who want one at the Central Bank (or Treasury) itself.
Moreover without government privileges and without captive depositors and unable to hold the economy hostage via a SINGLE payment
system that must work through them, you can rest assured that banks WOULD lend prudently or go under, like they should, if they
don't.
So what is required is 100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors and that situation has NEVER before existed in history
so it cannot be said to have failed.
When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation. Sound of the Suburbs
Because the DEMAND for fiat is suppressed in that only depository institutions may use it in the private sector.
Fix that injustice and eliminate all other privileges for banks and then government should be able to create much MORE fiat
for the general welfare since banks would be much LESS able to create deposits for the private welfare of themselves and for the
so-called "worthy" of what is, currently, the public's credit but for private gain.
if they [governments] create too much you will get inflation
Is this true, or is it an economist's assumption? Here's the other thought:
Capitalism embraces borrowing for investment. Real estate development is an example. Borrowing involves an assumption of paying
back more than was borrowed, but at a future date. When that future date arrives, it is in the borrower's best interest if the
face value dollars are wroth less in spending power that the face value of the loan. You stated that, but the link to inflation
is fuzzy. Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity
Rather than the government's causality, and a nebulous prosperity, it may be the borrower's CFO who then decides to raise consumer
prices to keep up with expenses. The borrowed dollars came from a banker-created asset, but the inflation is tied to a direct
result similar to the so-called "wage-price spiral." In this case, the "interest-price spiral" that is not visibly tied to the
supply of money.
I've got a new disconnect. I understand and appreciate how MMT works. It is the only way, imo, for a sovereign country to pay
for the social costs of a good society. And, of course, the government does not charge itself interest, does not expect to be
"paid back" at all. The tradeoff for the government is the betterment of society. So if your neighbor loans you $500 and you tell
him you'll pay him back as soon as your check comes in and with some interest that seems fair bec. you're dealing with two private
budgets. But when a licensed bank loans you money for a new house under the terms that you pay it back over 30 years with interests
that amounts to triple the original cost of the house – then you are not dealing as one private person to another. You are then
dealing with usury. Made legal by the private financial industry. This private industry does not use its own money – it uses the
government's money by a computer click. And the government then lets it profiteer on this tiny transaction of apples and oranges
to the degree that over time the money "earned" by the private bank accumulates and topples the steady state of the economy. At
that point there's no place left to invest that "private" profit and the whole financial system goes haywire in a panic not to
"lose" money. Money that should never have been given to them in the first place. It's an oxymoron – demanding that money be paid
back with interest when it's not your money in the first place and you do nothing to stabilize your profligate profiteering. Nothing.
Just a thought.
Zimbabwe found it all too easy to create so much money they caused hyper-inflation.
Yes, after destroying their Ag Industry, and having no Ag products to export, because Mugabe and his party assumed all the
white farmers just sat around drinking beer while the dark farm workers did all the work.
After Mugabe took the land, there was no collateral for the farmers to get loans for the next planting season.
Who knew that managing the farm was so much work? /s
Inflation in Zimbabwe first came from shortages, especially food, as things looted rhe country of 4x and mismanaged the economy,
like farm price controls under cost of production.
Historically shortages cause high inflation.
"In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly 'defense-based institution, rather than a
war machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes.'"
Interesting. Beyond cost cutting, what exactly would it take to remake the military into a true defense-based institution ?
How would assets be deployed? What weapons systems would be prioritized and ultimately receive funding? What doctrines would need
to change to flip from an offensive mindset to a defensive mindset? What alliances would we maintain and what alliances would
we discard?
I see that the article offers some examples, but I think crafting a progressive foreign policy would entail answering these
kinds of more fundamental military questions. Cost cutting is a laudable goal but it strikes me that there's much more to it if
real transformation is desired.
As a civil servant working for the Department of Defense, I can tell you that this would be a difficult shift in priorities
for Congress to accept. It all comes down to the defense industry political donations they receive year after year, and the jobs
the defense industry provides their constituents (no matter how meager or sub-optimal). Since defense spending is basically this
nation's sole industrial policy, I think that finding employment for displaced workers (whether defense civil servants or contractors)
is the biggest hurdle to address; a green new deal would solve the problem. We'd also need political campaign reform to force
Congress off of the teet of defense industry political contributions.
Finding employment for displaced defense civil servants or contractors? We've done that before . . . we tell them to train
for the jobs of the future as we did for manufacturing workers and leave it at that. The same goes for the parasites working in
health insurance companies, pharmacy benefit management and healtcare administration when M4A becomes a reality.
I have no sympathy for those people nor care for their well being as they deliberately, and with malice aforethought, make
life meaner for us all.
I remember when the defense/aerospace industry collapsed in Southern California in the early 1970's as the Vietnam war was
winding down.
Tech jobs were scarce.
The political sphere is well aware of potential job loss due to defense cutbacks.
I have mentioned before, the relatively liberal CA Senator Barbara Boxer fought to preserve Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in
Vallejo, CA, when it was slated to be shut down in the 1990's.
One could suggest that Vallejo has not fully recovered.
It is a tragedy of immense proportions, as I believe a future historian will remark that the USA, a nation that in its 200
+ year history had only one large deadly war on its soil (the internal Civil War), re-titled its WWII "War Department" as "Defense
Department" and then consumed tremendous resources in its purported defense for the next 70+ years.
A recent discussion with someone, that I regard as a "Northern California Liberal", about Trump's pullout of Syria further
re-enforced that the resistance to ANY change in the MIC in the USA is formidable.
He was sure that Trump would be deservedly impeached because he was pulling out of Syria and abandoning our allies, the Kurds.
And he is old enough to remember Vietnam.
The USA news media and entertainment industries (big sports/Hollywood) are fully on board with the righteous USA "war is good"
meme.
Given how the USA economy has restructured much employment and lifelihoods in costly sectors (finance, education, medicine,
military) it is difficult for me to see how there would be political will to downsize the military to any extent as "good paying"
jobs of politically powerful people would be lost.
Many of the manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas.
There is some hope for policy redirection in the Administration's recent Turkey-Syria-Kurd action. If there really is a shift
away from foreign nation building and away from endless wars over endless enmities, then that could lead to redirection and reduction
of military budgets. Watching the defenders of those engagements fall all over themselves recently has reconfirmed my notion that
they are not acting in the best interests of their constituents. Meanwhile, the sun rose today.
The current defense spending and growth of national debt
more or less "prove" the validity of MMT. This has supported the channeling of resources and energy into military activity (and
profits for enterprizes). Something similar is happening with healthcare; maybe it's inelastic
demand. (The similar something is ever-increasing costs.)
Healthcare at the moment seems to be outside of
the scope of current uses of MMT. But there are major
cost-control issues with it nonethess.
In what direction will things head if healthcare is
swept under the government MMT umbrella in the form of medicare for all? Will the government negotiate prices
with providers (hospitals, staff, pharma)? Certainly military procurement is no leading light.
While cutting the bloated Pentagon's budget is a very good idea, why is no one talking about the fringe benefit that is employer
provided healthcare? I do believe a sizable fraction of folks on private insurance (maybe 40%?) get their health coverage through
a fringe benefit from their employer. If that coverage is no longer necessary under universal coverage, it seems contractually
that the money spent on the fringe benefit should go to the employees. That money is enough to pay for their insurance under universal
coverage, so the employer pays it to the employee, the government taxes part of that to pay for the universal healthcare and everyone
is better off. The employee, due to savings in the system, ends up with more money in pocket. The employer is out from under the
ever increasing costs of the fringe benefit (plus can now claim to be paying higher salaries), and, well, the insurance companies
are left behind to pick up "expanded coverage" for those wanting to pay for it.
This and "defense" spending cuts could pay for the whole system easily, no?
The relative value of small business based jobs would increase with a functional health care system. There would be an outflow
of employees from jobs with healthcare benefits.
With single payer, looking for a less stressful job becomes an alternative. Big employers know this.
It also means people may retire earlier if they don't need their employer-provided health insurance.
Health insurance becomes a minor consideration in selecting which employer to work for.
Companies and state/local governments that provide health care coverage in retirement should see their liabilities for that
plummet as healthcare costs drop and public insurance improves.
COULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Technically, yes.
WOULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Not in this age of activist stockholders seeking new sources of "revenue." Everywhere. Benefits are simply a "cost." Human Resources
is a "cost center." Defined benefits that averaged out the risk among many have segued to defined contribution that is no more
than a tax-abated savings account. Risk has monetary value, but risk invisibly is shifting more and more to the individual.
After the last Democratic debate, it is safe say anti-war Progressivism is dead. Everyone was frothing at the mouth to prove
how much they care for the Kurds, and our nation's honor, and that we should stay in the ME. Except Tulsi, but her response fell
flat with the audience, and judging by my Left friends/family on Facebook, fell flat with them too. Having the same position as
Trump is a death sentence. My faith in my fellow citizens is at quite a low ebb.
Cheer up. No matter what you used to think of Lindsay Graham, he is setting the pace for a representative to think for him/herself.
Commentators reported surprise that he was "formerly in Trump's corner." Think about how easily we accept that the future is secured
by a majority in either house. The outrageous president is inspiring elected Republicans to analyze issues (imagine!). Even if
it is cold and calculated to influence their own voters, let's begin to applaud and encourage those who seem to think for them/ourselves.
We don't suffer from a lack of ideas in this area; no, we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Thus, another
exercise in mental masturbation.
we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Carl
A Citizen's Dividend would be the camel's nose under the tent since the less wasted by government, the more that could be distributed
to citizens to counter price deflation.
And it's only justice that all fiat creation, beyond that created for government to spend for the general welfare, be in the
form of an equal Citizen's Dividend.
Funny you should mention Europe since an equal Citizen's Dividend for all Euro zone citizens would be a way to eliminate austerity
that even Germany might not object to since Germans would receive it too.
For example, Italy gives the unemployed 500 euros per month and tries to find them any sort of job. I think you're a little
behind. But by all means, keep tilting at windmills.
i was just thinking about that this am while finishing my fence like in alaska.
i figger that after 40+ years of declining or stagnant wages, a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay.
but "dividend" works just as well.
a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay. Amfortas the hippie
The Citizen's Dividend would vary as required to counter price deflation but during the period when the banks are progressively
de-privileged, it would have to be quite high to provide for the conversion of bank deposits to fiat deposits at the Central Bank
– with the banks, by necessity, having to borrow the needed fiat from citizens.
Its still the wrong set of arguments. The problem in the US is not that Medicare-for-All would require new taxes that need
funding. The problem is that the US spends twice per capita on healthcare what the average OECD country spends. The US spends
more public tax money on healthcare per capita than Canada does, and Canada insures the entire population.
We can pay for our entire military budget as it exists if we simply drop our per capita healthcare spending to less than what
Switzerland pays. Name one other thing that costs more in the US than in Switzerland.
Americans simply cannot comprehend how exorbitantly expensive and unequal the US healthcare system is compared to the rest
of the developed world.
While I gladly accept the results of these surveys, I question the reasons they seem to have garnered from the public. To most
citizens, lower taxes mean much more than non-aggresive foreign policy and peaceful diplomacy. If the question was phrased in
such a way that respondents were replying to the lower cost AND the concomitant peace-oriented habits that should (would?) come
from it, then it is an issue whether they agreed with both statements. Further, this reorientation of spending would have to be
bully-pulpited quite strongly to educate the US as to its long-term benefits since most of us have been prepped to be anxious
about foreign nations and the paranoia of saving us from the evil dictator "X". Oh, yes, peace should come, but compare the Syria
brou-ha-ha to what would descend upon us when peace broke out. The elites won't disappear.
Bizarre. The question is: How can we afford something that's half as expensive as what we're already paying? I wouldn't expect
that level of insanity from someone in a straitjacket yet it's a commonplace in these discussions.
Even worse: the argument that government is financially constrained. It's not "tax & spend," it can't be. Where would taxpayers
get dollars to pay those taxes if government didn't spend them first?
So it must be "spend first & then ask for some back in taxes." This is how reality works. And what do we call the dollar financial
assets left in the economy, not retrieved by taxes? a) The dollar financial assets of the citizens, i.e. their savings or (same
thing) b) National 'Debt'
National 'Debt' is completely unlike household debt. It's like bank debt. If you have a bank account, that's your asset, but
to the bank, it's a liability. It's the money they owe you. It's their debt.
Now imagine a mob of depositors marching down to the bank to demand it reduce the size of its debt (i.e. make their accounts
smaller) Crazy? Yes, but that's the austerian line of talk.
Finally, the inflationistas: "If you just print money, you'll have [gasp][hyper-]inflation!" This is the finest quality bullshit,
and people spout it practically without prompting. The truth: The Fed extended $16 – $29 trillion in credit to cure the frauds
of the financial sector in 2007-8. I defy anyone to find a measurement of inflation that says there was any then.
Was there central-bank-run-amok inflation in the classical cases (Weimar, Zimbabwe). Nope. Not even there. Yes they did print
lots of Deutchmarks and Zimbabwe currency, but only after a shortage of good occurred that actually caused the inflation.
Just printing money, especially if there's spare capacity, does not cause inflation. You need a bidding war for some commodity
that's become scarce (like oil in the '70s). So Weimar had the burden of war reparations, a balance of payments problem, and when
they delayed sending some telephone poles to France, the French military shut down the German equivalent of Ohio (the Ruhr). Shortages
led to the hyperinflation. Similarly, the Rhodesian colonists left Zimbabwe, which had previously fed itself, and food shortages
led to the hyperinflation.
The Cato study of 56 hyperinflationary episodes in human history also validates the above. In *no* case did a central bank
"run amok" and print too much to kick off the hyperinflation. Always the cost push of a shortage of goods drove it.
Gosh, it's all so simple. We just need to take on the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, and our
corrupt political system all at the same time.
Researchers Detail How Slashing the Social Security and Medicare Budgets Could Pay for More Pointless Wars While Creating the
Progressive Wall Street Bailouts Americans Want.
Looks like our stable genius" pushed Putin against Erdogan and sided with Erdogan in the
process.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf. ..."
"... There is first President Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles, from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq. ..."
"... Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish troops. ..."
"... The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted, and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe. ..."
"... Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values. ..."
"... Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet without harming others. ..."
"... The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid situation. ..."
"... The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald Trump, has called the Democrats out on this. ..."
"... Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels (AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history is written in a few years all this will come out. ..."
"... ISIS formed in the chaos that was the Iraq War, neat how you guys never accept blame for anything. ..."
"... The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a 'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal. ..."
"... Our imperialists must have misread Tacitus, because it seems they aspire to making peaceful deserts. ..."
"... Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US politicians (Republican and Democrat). ..."
"... No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite. ..."
"Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East," proclaimed Britain's
Telegraph .
The article began:
"Russia's status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir
Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the U.S."
"Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate" was the title of yet another
Telegraph column. "Putin Seizes on Trump's Syria Retreat to Cement Middle East Role,"
declared the Financial Times .
The U.S. press parroted the British: Putin is now the new master of the Mideast. And woe is
us.
Before concluding that Trump's pullout of the last 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is America's
Dunkirk, some reflection is needed.
Yes, Putin has played his hand skillfully. Diplomatically, as the Brits say, the Russian
president is "punching above his weight."
He gets on with everyone. He is welcomed in Iran by the Ayatollah, meets regularly with Bibi
Netanyahu, is a cherished ally of Syria's Bashar Assad, and this week was being hosted by the
King of Saudi Arabia and the royal rulers of the UAE. October 2019 has been a triumphal
month.
Yet, consider what Putin has inherited and what his capabilities are for playing power
broker of the Middle East.
He has a single naval base on the Med, Tartus, in Syria, which dates to the 1970s, and a new
air base, Khmeimim, also in Syria.
The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania,
Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and
bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such
panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf.
We have the world's largest economy. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's, and not a
tenth the size of ours.
And now that we are out of Syria's civil war and the Kurds have cut their deal with
Damascus, consider what we have just dumped into Vladimir Putin's lap. He is now the man in the
middle between Turkey and Syria.
He must bring together dictators who detest each other. There is first President
Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds
from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles,
from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq.
Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is
unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish
troops.
Reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable Syrian and Turkish demands is now Putin's
problem. If he can work this out, he ought to get the Nobel Prize.
"Putin is the New King of Syria," ran the op-ed headline in Thursday's Wall Street
Journal.
The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS,
Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred
thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted,
and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.
If Putin wants to be king of this, and it is OK with Assad, how does that imperil the United
States of America, 6,000 miles away?
Wednesday, two-thirds of the House Republicans joined Nancy Pelosi's Democrats to denounce
Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and dissolve our alliance with the Kurds. And
Republican rage over the sudden abandonment of the Kurds is understandable.
But how long does the GOP believe we should keep troops in Syria and control the
northeastern quadrant of that country? If the Syrian army sought to push us out, under what
authority would we wage war against a Syrian army inside Syria?
And if the Turks are determined to secure their border, should we wage war on that NATO ally
to stop them? Would U.S. planes fly out of Turkey's Incirlik air base to attack Turkish
soldiers fighting in Syria?
If Congress believes we have interests in Syria so vital we should be willing to go to war
for them -- against Syria, Turkey, Russia or Iran -- why does Congress not declare those
interests and authorize war to secure them?
Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their
Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the
nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining
American values.
If Putin is king of Syria, it is because he was willing to pay the price in blood and
treasure to keep his Russia's toehold on the Med and save his ally Bashar Assad, who would have
gone under without him.
Who dares wins. Now let's see how Putin likes his prize.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.
Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no
different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet
without harming others. At a recent interview with Arabic media a UAE journalist tried to
drive a wedge between Russia and Iran in favor of Saudi Kingdom by challenging Putin to
condemn Iran for alleged attacks on Saudi oil installations by Iran.
To which Putin
skillfully replied: "Russia will never be friends 'with one country against another' in the
Middle East". Nor would Putin condemn Iran unless he was presented with clear evidence - not
just accusations - of Iran's guilt. Point in case: Putin does it better than others; sure,
but why is that bad?
Oh of course envy and fear of one being exposed for inept leadership.
Time long overdue to shake hands with Putin and Russia.
https://www.rt.com/russia/o...
I haven't a concern for Russia in the middle east.
Russia is doing the US the biggest unasked favor proving where our friends and allies
loyalties in the middle east lay by forcing them to make choices in the face of shifting
alliances that they wouldn't reveal if the US continued its presence.
Russia is depopulating and it has choke points with China, with Central Asia, with the
middle east and Europe. Russia will eventually not have the population to defend all these
choke points and will eventually withdraw and focus on its own national security. At that
time, I think its possible to see Russia shift its relationship in eastern Europe while
distancing itself from Chinese expansionism that might one day want its old north pacific
territories back (like what is today Vladivostok and Sakhalin).
Depopulating? Where did you get that from? Population decrease in Russia stopped. By the
latest stats it is just about breaking even (death rates = birth rates). Moreover, population
is growing albeit very slowly. Sorry but Russkies won't die out like extinct species. As far
as its own national security; well, the old notion of "Russia is, more or less, a giant gas
station pretending to be a real country." is as dead as Senator McCain, who pretended to know
something about Russia; alas he was sadly and dangerously uninformed.
https://www.forbes.com/site...
The US has troops and a base or more in Syria?
I don't see any Syrian army bases in the US...
And, the US is telling/demanding where the Syrian army come and goes in...Syria?
What the hell is wrong with this picture?
You know!?
Oh, now hypocrite neo-con enabler Pelosi and some of the freaky other politicians are
concerned with human lives in Syria? Ha ha
But...not about the lives of children dying in Yemen and Afghanistan and Gaza?
How come?
And, the US is telling Turkey what it had better do with it's border? Also, friends and enemies o' mine,just which entity, nation and group is not a US ally?
Ally? What does that mean?
As if the American people know the hell that words means anymore and as if there's even a
meaning to that. And the American people do not watch the news, read magazines (news) as they
did before.
They don't know what is going on in the world, they gave up.
People under 50 automatically tune world news out, thanks mostly to the phonies at CNN and
the major, basically neo-con supporting networks confusing the public, purposely so that they
don't see the misery that is in the nations of the MId-East thanks to US invasions and
bombings. Just look at cnn-they spend all day talking about what Trump or some politician
said, no coverage of battles overseas, unless it benefits the continuing spinning of the news
for intervention and so on.
The US won't get a grip and stop threatening nation after nation
(while Russia does not) and so, people all over the world are thinking,
you now what, look at how dumb Americans are that they allow people from Obama, Hillary,
Schumer, Pelosi, Graham and more to conduct foreign policy that makes enemies for America
daily. And don't forget Cheney and that group, too from before. These people are actually an
insult to America.
Compare how the leaders of Russia and America talk and conduct themselves.
Russia has Lavrov, the gentleman diplomat, the US has Pompeo and the likes of Bolton and
Kushner, the Israeli lobbyist and the Presidents son in law.
How does a so-called Republic allow the President to have his daughter and Kushner, her
husband, to be security/foreign policy advisers. You're really losing it, America.
"But those same elites appear to lack the
confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they
contend are vital American interests and defining American values."
No, they don't lack "confidence". They've got all the confidence in the world. What they
lack is competence, integrity, and credibility with the American people and the rest of the
world. They have dragged America through the mud in the Middle East for nearly two decades.
They transformed the once proud American military and diplomatic corps into a customer
service operation for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
We don't need more lectures and directives about "our interests" and "Western values" that
always turn out to be Israeli and Saudi Arabian interests and values. We need new foreign
policy elites, free of the current elite's miserable record of failure, corruption, and
subordination to foreign interests. Above all, we need to get out of the Mideast swamps that
the younger Bush and Obama pushed us into, bring our troops back to America, start defending
America and American interests again.
How simple and true what U've said. Sounds like a sound position and logical too. So why is
this not happening? The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's
USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that
revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the
MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid
situation.
The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama
administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald
Trump, has called the Democrats out on this.
Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels
(AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when
Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not
backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history
is written in a few years all this will come out.
The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a
'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria
partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal.
Trump is indeed our Dorian Gray, he is just outwardly reflecting our narcissism, 'if we
don't get to do it then no one else can'.
Obvious Pat we have no consistent foreign policy in the region since we inherited the mantle
from the Brit Empire post WW 2. Oil and Israel were a marketable justification for our wars
and changing partners ( regime change ), for a long time. Now neither is relevant. We have
all the fossil fuels we need, and Israel is all powerful.. Long term I doubt the Russians
will make a difference, in the Muslim quest to resurrect the Ottoman Empire. We have lost too
many of our sons and daughters. get out.
Trump is a genius.
At the moment, Syria is a poisoned chalice to anyone accepting responsibility for it.
Russia is only there because they cannot get a naval base in any other Mediterranean
country.
When, or if peace is achieved in Syria, it will be the US that swoops in to market the
brands the Arabs love. The Syrians won't be buying Russian products.
Name an American brand the "Arabs love": Toyota, Lexis, Rollex, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic,
Samsung, iPhone (made in China)? Which one(s). While their infrastructure and basic
technology are and will continue to be Russian.
Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an
intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US
politicians (Republican and Democrat).
No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the
reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite.
The Middle East is home to oil, terrorism, access points for maritime transportation (The Red
Sea, The Bosphorus, Suez Canal, Persian Gulf). It is strategically important. It was a
mistake for Obama to leave Iraq before there was a stable situation and it is a mistake for
Trump to leave before there is a stable situation.
To say, "Just let them all fight it out" is foolhardy and likely just a rationalization
for your mistake to support the narcissistic fool in the White House.
I don't think Putin is going to be unhappy about it. The various powers of the ME will now go
to him for favors, and he will get favors in return. I doubt US interests will be among them.
Putin said, I've got your no fly zone right here. After Russian deployment of the SA400's,
america had no choice but to begin withdrawal.
And kind of missing from Buchanan's list of
putin friends, is erdogan himself.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens now. Putin
holds all the cards and is in the best position of anybody on the planet to broker a deal
between assad and erdogan. Part of that deal will likely be very bad for those who threw
their lot in with the US.
Turkey is not a small country and has an enormous military.
Buchanan himself said that we should stay out of Syria and let the Turks deal with ISIS.
But
they were too smart for that, and had their own coup to worry about. I have always thought
that the US should have brokered a homeland for the kurds. It would have been hard, but now
it is impossible.
Turkey is now a client state of Russia much more than a member of NATO. At
least in appearance. They now buy SA400's and SU-57's from mother russia.
Who supplies and
maintains your best weapon systems indicates who your real allies are. What has the US lost?
I would say we lost anybody across the globe that we ever hoped would ally with us against
the new sino-russian superpower. Russia has unlimited space and resources. China has
unlimited people and no limits on its technical growth and markets. The US? We are the
biggest debtor third world nation that has ever existed. But hey, we have the most stable
genius as our president, and the sky is the limit for what he will accomplish other than
permanent tax cuts for corporations. Right? The right again.
Except for 2 wrongs, they
wouldn't even exist. Can faith overcome inconvenient truth? Real faith probably could by
accepting inconvenient truth. But real faith is mostly dead. It was replaced with tax free
religiosity and assault weaponry sponsored by corporate fascist government. I watched it
happen. And his story is being rewritten in days or weeks instead of years and decades.
It's not often that I would agree with Pat B. Essentially never.
But on this point, yes. If Putin wants the Middle East, by all means proceed.
That region has been messing up our politics for literally my whole life - It is most
decidedly not a Promised Land for the United States. Let the Saudis and the
Iranians and the Russians and the Turks fight it out. It should be lovely. The Israelis call
sell weapons to all of them.
Thank you for this small bit of obvious wisdom, Mr. Buchanan. Your insights are very common
sensical here, and thus, most valuable. Too bad they will mostly fall on the deaf ears of our
moronic "Elites".
I believe Obama said that Putin would be overwhelmed in Syria. However, Putin has overseen an
excellent strategy of picking an area of insurgents, militarily pounding them, then offering
them free passage to a safe area (Idlib). After doing this across Syria, he and Assad now
have all of the jihadist groups in one place where they can pound them senseless or just sit
back and wait for them to start shooting each other.
Trump did not screw up the Kurds' clearing of ISIS above the Euphrates. Now he has given
Putin and Assad the results of that. I expect the PA team will stabilize that area in short
order.
So, Idlib and NW Syria will be a cauldron for a while. Now Al Tanf is the only insurgent
holdout. Be interesting to see how that unfolds.
Lest Trumpland forget, there is a reason we got involved in the region. Jihadists can and
will use neglect to later come after us.
Putin shows us how its done. 3 billion or so, find good Muslims (anyone other than Sunni
islamists) and help them blow up, conquer, and occasionally repress the bad Muslims.
We spent several TRILLION ourselves and thousands of American lives for nothing. We never
had a single achievable objective in any of these conflicts.
Donald is a moron for selling out the Kurds, who it cost nothing to back, to Turkey but
the DC elites made this inevitable by refusing to cut a deal with Assad for the Kurds. He's
been the only realistic option for a long time now.
"... It's a major unanticipated consequence of the digital "revolution." It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we'd only be watching jumbotron replays while failing to pay attention to the action on the field. ..."
"... The stupendous failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are brought to this project of reinventing "truth" -- of who did what and why -- while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its gross falsifications. ..."
"... Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore. The "company" found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running, and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency's directors showed open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan. ..."
Here's one big reason that America is driving itself batshit crazy : the explosion of computerized records, emails, inter-office
memos, Twitter trails, Facebook memorabilia, iPhone videos, YouTubes, recorded conversations, and the vast alternative universe of
storage capacity for all this stuff makes it seem possible to constantly go back and reconstruct reality. All it has really done
is amplified the potential for political mischief to suicide level.
It's a major unanticipated consequence of the digital "revolution." It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively
replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real
time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we'd only be watching jumbotron replays while failing
to pay attention to the action on the field.
Before all this, history was left largely to historians, who curated it from a range of views for carefully considered introduction
to the stream of human culture, and managed this process at a pace that allowed a polity to get on with its business at hand in the
here-and-now -- instead of incessantly and recursively reviewing events that have already happened 24/7. The more electronic media
has evolved, the more it lends itself to manipulation, propaganda, and falsification of whatever happened five minutes, or five hours,
or five weeks ago.
This is exactly why and how the losing team in the 2016 election has worked so hard to change that bit of history. The stupendous
failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are
brought to this project of reinventing "truth" -- of who did what and why -- while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its
gross falsifications.
This dynamic has long been systematically studied and applied by institutions like the so-called "intelligence community," and
has gotten so out-of-hand that its main mission these days appears to be the maximum gaslighting of the nation -- for the purpose
of its own desperate self-defense. The "Whistleblower" episode is the latest turn in dishonestly manipulated records, but the most
interesting feature of it is that the release of the actual transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call did not affect the "narrative"
precooked between the CIA and Adam Schiff's House Intel Committee. They just blundered on with the story and when major parts of
the replay didn't add up, they retreated to secret sessions in the basement of the US capitol.
Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become
such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore.
The "company" found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply
because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running,
and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by
the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency's directors showed
open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan.
The recently-spawned NSA has mainly added the capacity to turn everything that happens into replay material, since it is suspected
of recording every phone call, every email, every financial transaction, every closed-circuit screen capture, and anything else its
computers can snare for storage in its Utah Data Storage Center. Now you know why the actions of Edward Snowden were so significant.
He did what he did because he was moral enough to know the face of malevolence when he saw it. That he survives in exile is a miracle.
As for the FBI, only an exceptional species of ineptitude explains the trouble they got themselves into with the RussiaGate fiasco.
The unbelievable election loss of Mrs. Clinton screwed the pooch for them, and the desperate acts that followed only made things
worse. The incompetence and mendacity on display was only matched by Mr. Mueller and his lawyers, who were supposed to be the FBI's
cleanup crew and only left a bigger mess -- all of it cataloged in digital records.
Now, persons throughout all these agencies are waiting for the hammer to fall. If they are prosecuted, the process will entail
yet another monumental excursion into the replaying of those digital records. It could go on for years. So, the final act in the
collapse of the USA will be the government choking itself to death on replayed narratives from its own server farms.
In the meantime, events are actually tending in a direction that will eventually deprive the nation of the means to continue most
of its accustomed activities including credible elections, food distribution, a reliable electric grid, and perhaps even self-defense.
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
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Comments
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a
...
Tulsi Gabbard 1:20 PM - 18 Oct 2019
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why.
Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and ...
Tulsi Gabbard 1:20 PM - 18 Oct 2019
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your
proxies. Join the race directly.
"... I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against 'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans. ..."
"... This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description ..."
"... The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two branches of the Business Party. ..."
"... Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points across at the same time. ..."
"... Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment. ..."
"... Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local. ..."
Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is the "favorite of the Russians" to win the 2020 presidential
election and is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third-party candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee.
...
The Russians already have their "eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party
candidate," she said, in an apparent reference to Gabbard.
"She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far," Clinton
told David Plouffe, the podcast's host and the campaign manager for former President Obama's 2008 campaign.
"And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton added, referring
to the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate.
The responses were appropriate:
Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard - 22:20 UTC
· Oct 18, 2019
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that
has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy,
there has been a ...
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through
your proxies and ...
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
The Streisand effect of Clinton's shoddy remark will help Tulsi Gabbard with regards to name recognition. It will increase her
poll results. With Joe Biden faltering and Elizabeth Warren increasingly exposed as a phony Clinton copy, Bernie Sanders could become
the Democrats leading candidate. Then the “favorite of the Russians” smear will be applied to him.
Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party for damaging it's chances to regain the White House. But the Democratic
establishment would rather sabotage the election than to let one of the more progressive candidates take the lead.
Voters do not like such internal squabble and shenanigans. The phony Ukrainegate 'impeachment inquiry' is already
a gift for Trump. Messing with the candidate field on top
of that will inevitably end with another Trump presidency.
and Suspend her from what? a lamp post? That's a little bit harsh.
Hillary is actually doing something constructive for the first time in her career - by giving a boost to Tulsi Gabbard who
is the only candidate who challenges the military industrial complex, which has probably caused more death and destruction than
anyone else in history.
I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against
'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans.
But none of the other Democratic candidates stand a chance of beating Trump either. The two front-runners are medically unfit
for any important challenging job - Biden (senility) and Sanders (recent heart attack/stroke?).
Tulsi is urging Hillary to "enter the race" !! Hillary is foaming at the mouth with desire to enter the 2020 race. Is Tulsi
working for Hillary?
Behind the scenes it was decided to make HunterBidenGate the pretext for a Trump impeachment. This, it
was thought, would damage Trump AND Biden and make way for the resurrection of Hillary Clinton. There were so many other pretexts
available but they chose this one.
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"
This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual
structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a
good description. Even a quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.
As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter registration form. The few times I have registered,
I did not check a box for any party. It is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.
It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party candidates. But that is what happens in the
US. The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely
two branches of the Business Party.
"It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV debate this week. It was billed
as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii Representative told some prime-time home-truths to the nation:
"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have
supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing
and cheer-leading this regime-change war."
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing
the government in Damascus."
Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points
across at the same time. The way she tries to finesse her stances on Iran, India and Israel is disturbing though.
Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary
of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement.
When she's forthright, punches hard and says the things that many people are thinking but few dare say - as she did in her
statement on Syria, but didn't in her statement on Iran - she comes off as the first real candidate for President that I've seen
in my lifetime (I don't count the likes of Dennis Kucinich, who never seemed to actually want to win).
If Tulsi is serious about doing the world good, this is the path she needs to take. Speak the truths no one else is willing
to say; punch hard; stick with it. Yeah and be willing to die for it. If they can't stop you, which I don't think they can, they'll
come gunning for you...
Finally, at last, foreign affairs (i.e wars) has made it into a presidential campaign, and by a veteran, with veterans currently
being sanctified in the U.S. The women (Tulsi, Jill and Hillary) are getting down and dirty, too, which is always a good thing
and a feature of politics in time past, as in the Truman era. President Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of
the kitchen. If you cannot handle the pressure, you should not remain in a position where you have to deal with it."
Let's hope that they get into the details of Hillary's failures, including Libya, Somalia, and especially Syria. Let's get
it on! In the last election she never was forced to answer for her specific failures. Now's the time.
Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way
from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate
media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment.
What Trump has successfully done from the right that Sanders/Gabbard (like Corbyn in the UK) are struggling to do from the
left is to attack the establishment that's in a permanent state of warfare abroad and at home against its "enemies" and unfettered
capitalism at home For a brief moment it was hoped by progressives that Obama - who defeated the faces of the establishment, Clinton
and McCain in 2008 - would really fight the establishment but he ended up becoming more of a celebrity politician like Trudeau
who talked a good game but was unable to effect real change on the ground which of course led to a large number or African Americans
not voting in 2016 and a lot of white blue collar Obama 2008 voters going for Trump.
The corporate media which has been totally corrupted and infiltrated by intelligence agencies - quote openly versus covertly
as in the past - is going to make every effort to shut down not just Gabbard but Sanders and ensure that Warren - a wannabe feel-gooder
like Obama - be completely neutered to effect real change.
Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed
through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local.
"... Clinton's claims, made without the slightest effort at factual substantiation, are an attempt to criminalize the anti-war statements of the two candidates as treasonous. ..."
"... Clinton's attacks on Gabbard and Stein make clear once again that the Democrats' assertions of "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election were primarily aimed not at Trump, but at the anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments that led millions of people to refuse to vote for her in 2016. They underscore how the Democrats have appropriated the McCarthyite tactics historically associated primarily with the Republican right. ..."
"... As a central part of their anti-Russia campaign, Clinton and the Democrats promoted the media effort to poison public opinion against journalist Julian Assange by slandering him as a "Russian agent," preparing the way for the Trump administration to indict him on bogus sedition charges and secure his imprisonment in London under conditions that threaten his life. ..."
"... "That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton said. "Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate." ..."
"... Gabbard replied to Clinton's slander on Twitter by declaring, "Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain." Gabbard's performance in this week's Democratic presidential debate no doubt put her in Clinton's crosshairs. Gabbard vowed, "As president, I will end these regime-change wars," and "would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria, who have been the ground force in this ongoing regime-change war." ..."
"... Gabbard's true statement that the United States -- with Clinton as secretary of state under Obama -- had allied with forces linked to Al Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Syrian government was passed over in total silence by the rest of the candidates and the CNN and New York Times moderators. It was then blacked out in the post-debate media coverage of the event. ..."
"... In an earlier debate, Gabbard said the greatest geopolitical danger facing the United States was the threat of nuclear war -- another taboo in the broadcast media, which routinely demands that the United States "stand up" to Russia without mentioning what a military confrontation with the nuclear-armed country would look like. ..."
Hillary Clinton, the widely despised former Democratic Party presidential candidate, has
slandered two of her political opponents -- Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and 2016 Green Party
presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein -- as traitors and Russian spies.
The World Socialist Web Site has fundamental political differences with both Ms.
Gabbard and Dr. Stein. But Clinton's claims, made without the slightest effort at factual
substantiation, are an attempt to criminalize the anti-war statements of the two candidates as
treasonous.
Clinton's attacks on Gabbard and Stein make clear once again that the Democrats' assertions
of "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election were primarily aimed not at Trump, but at the
anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments that led millions of people to refuse to vote for her
in 2016. They underscore how the Democrats have appropriated the McCarthyite tactics
historically associated primarily with the Republican right.
As a central part of their anti-Russia campaign, Clinton and the Democrats promoted the
media effort to poison public opinion against journalist Julian Assange by slandering him as a
"Russian agent," preparing the way for the Trump administration to indict him on bogus sedition
charges and secure his imprisonment in London under conditions that threaten his life.
At the same time, in the name of countering the supposed menace of Russian "fake news," the
Democrats pressured Google to slash search traffic to left-wing political websites and insisted
that Facebook and Twitter delete left-wing accounts with millions of followers.
In a podcast interview published Thursday, Clinton told former Obama adviser David Plouffe,
"I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate." Implicitly but clearly referring to Gabbard,
Clinton continued, "She's the favorite of the Russians."
"They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her," Clinton added.
Asked later if the former secretary of state was referring to Gabbard in her comment,
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told CNN, "If the nesting doll fits "
Clinton then went on to make her strongest assertion yet that Jill Stein was a "Russian
asset."
"That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a
Russian asset," Clinton said. "Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they
can't win without a third-party candidate."
Gabbard replied to Clinton's slander on Twitter by declaring, "Thank you @HillaryClinton.
You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has
sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain."
Gabbard's performance in this week's Democratic presidential debate no doubt put her in
Clinton's crosshairs. Gabbard vowed, "As president, I will end these regime-change wars," and
"would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria, who have been the
ground force in this ongoing regime-change war."
Gabbard's true statement that the United States -- with Clinton as secretary of state under
Obama -- had allied with forces linked to Al Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Syrian
government was passed over in total silence by the rest of the candidates and the CNN and
New York Times moderators. It was then blacked out in the post-debate media coverage of
the event.
In an earlier debate, Gabbard said the greatest geopolitical danger facing the United States
was the threat of nuclear war -- another taboo in the broadcast media, which routinely demands
that the United States "stand up" to Russia without mentioning what a military confrontation
with the nuclear-armed country would look like.
Toward the end of Thursday's interview, Clinton implicitly called for censorship. She
condemned the growth of internet news outlets, which have broadened the number and range of
sources of information available to the population.
"I think it's a lot harder for Americans to know what they're supposed to believe," she
said. In the 1970s, with only three major national newspapers, "It was a much more controllable
environment."
Jill Stein advocates the reform of capitalism and is an opponent of Marxism. She has stated
that she is opposed to "state socialism." Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq war and major in
the Hawaii National Guard, describes herself as a "hawk" in many aspects of US foreign
policy.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the statements they have made in opposition to the wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria correspond to the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of
the American people, who see these wars of aggression launched on the basis of lies, which have
killed and maimed millions, as a criminal squandering of lives and resources.
Clinton, speaking for a rabidly pro-war faction of the American financial oligarchy and the
military-intelligence establishment, sees these sentiments as treasonous and argues for their
criminalization.
Her statements make clear once again that the working class has no stake in the struggle
between the Trump faction and his opponents in the Democratic Party and intelligence apparatus.
Trump, relying on fascistic appeals to his right-wing base, is seeking to turn the United
States into a personalist dictatorship. But Clinton's faction does not oppose his concentration
camps for immigrants or his pro-corporate agenda. Rather, it opposes Trump on the grounds that
he is "soft" on Russia and insufficiently aggressive in waging America's wars.
Isn't it funny that the Clinton trolls were weaponizing her gender in the last election,
screaming "sexist!" at anyone who criticized her for her actual policies and corrupt
practices, slandering Sanders supporters as "Bernie Bros", and to the point of Albright
claiming there was a special place in hell for women who didn't support her, while the Queen
of Warmongering, who was besties with Trump, married to Bill, took cash from Weinstein, and
flew with Epstein (all serial rapists) gets to baselessly smear women as treasonous spies
without a peep from the liberal feminists, metoo-ers, and media mouthpieces? And, for a
cherry on top, she's on tour for a book called "Gutsy Women"!
Gabbard, after deftly doing a front-stabbing number on Bad Cop Harris, torpedoing Saint
Obomber's "legacy" with his bungled attempt to surf AQ to regime-change in Syria and rightly
ripping the agitprop rags NYT and CNN some fresh axeholes, has indeed now flushed out the
deranged Alien Queen, wildly spitting globs of steaming molecular acid at the one who dared
wound her drones.
She raises some ugly home truths rarely heard from bourgeois politicians at this level
and, having busted the media blackout to get back in the debates, for her troubles is now
receiving what amount to transparent public death threats from a top Mafiosa desperate to
evade any proper scrutiny of her own and the Party's many warcrimes.
Regardless of the rest of her politics, one has to recognise Gabbard's personal bravery in
tackling dangerous predators like this and hope she has an extremely dedicated 24/7 armed
personal protection detail, to ward off the elevated risk of Arkancide.
""I think it's a lot harder for Americans to know what they're supposed to believe," she
said. In the 1970s, with only three major national newspapers, "It was a much more
controllable environment.""
This is a true voice of bourgeois democracy, of course.
" 'That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a
Russian asset,' Clinton said. 'Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they
can't win without a third-party candidate.' "
"We came, we saw, he died." -- Clinton on Khaddafy
But can you guess who uttered the following quote(hint: it is not the "white nationalist"
Donald Trump, who unlike some public figures is politically apt enough not to say "white
people" aloud):
"Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening
again, and whites in both states who had not completed college are supporting me." *
The capitalist Democratic Party is a loudmouthed, racist buffoon.
* working hard when not hardly working--but maybe it's not just whites
The vile, vindictive nature of Mrs Clinton has reached new lows as her seeming unaccepting
the loss of the '16 election to shift the blame to anyone but her. She is why we have Trump.
She really needs to fade away and quit meddling in our elections.
"Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain." - An Interview with Tulsi Gabbard regarding the role of
HIllary Clinton, the military-industrial complex, and her anti-war stance here. To my
surprise, she makes the clear connection that Clintons claim that she is a 'russian asset' is
aimed also at demonizing all Americans who oppose the war-regime.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the
agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage
of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists,
passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.
Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should
formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances,
Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while
Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation,
since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea
while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.
Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would
double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would
certainly be better than endless conflict.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the
author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition
of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously
had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil
- they didn't.
I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of
unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. And as is the case in developing countries, what
we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was
not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. How the civil unrest spun out of control the second in ten years,
can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.
It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief is
false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent and
jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.
The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued.
And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every
ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------
Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity
Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a communist
monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary would be more
adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations in which the US
was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or China are a to be
kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without tensions. But seriously,
as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------
Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.
All so very true. The crux of the matter is the word competition. US doesn't like that, as a monopolist entity (the world would
be hegemonic power). So you get Cold War 2.0 in overdrive now. Just think Great Britain, Russia, and Germany, at the end of 19th
century beginning of 20th. All three monarchies, with cousins in power, with more or less parliamentarian structures in place,
competing for a place under sun. And UK fretting that will loose its place...
"... Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with Donald Trump as president but she's learned very quickly from him that the best way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without mercy. ..."
"... Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible. ..."
"... She emerged from that debate as the only candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction. Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the 'rightt way' indistinguishable from any other presidential puppet of the last twenty years. ..."
"... The people Gabbard is up against are even more ruthless since Hillary intends to win, whereas the Republicans in 2008 were fighting for the right to lose to her at the time. ..."
"... Gabbard's rise in popularity among Trump voters and centrists is born of the same exhaustion the American people have with endless wars for globalism. She is Trump's Kryptonite. ..."
"... The party she represents is irrelevant. By wrapping herself in the mantle of the front-runner for the nomination is not delusional, it's the most strategic thing she's done to date. ..."
"... Join my Patreon to assist me in helping you expose the frauds and liars whose perversions of truth threaten the fabric of civil society. Install the Brave Browser to make it harder for them to track you and marginalize similar voices. ..."
Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with Donald Trump as president but she's learned very quickly from him that the
best way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without mercy.
Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the
current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible.
This paves the way for Hillary to swoop in on her broom, pointed hat in hand, and declare herself the savior of the
Democratic Party's chances to defeat Donald Trump next November.
Remember that leading up to the debate Gabbard was going to boycott the event because it was such a corrupted event
and stage-managed to showcase the chosen 'front-runners' -- Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.
It makes sense to me that she decided at the last minute to join the debate after the Times piece just to ensure she
got the national platform to openly call out the corruption in the same breath as attacking Trump for his, to this
point, disastrous foreign policy mistakes.
She emerged from that debate as the only candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction.
Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the 'rightt way' indistinguishable from any
other presidential puppet of the last twenty years.
This is two debates in a row where Gabbard came out blazing at the front-runner, claiming a moral and ethical high
ground on foreign policy that, at just over half the age of her rivals, that shows a maturity well beyond her years.
Her calling Hillary the "Queen of Warmongers" is so self-evidently true that it will reverberate far beyond Twitter
into votes.
And it tells Hillary that Gabbard has zero fear of her and her political machine.
You can't cow a person without fear who has nothing to lose.
Bullies like Hillary never learn that lesson until they are humiliated beyond recognition.
Moreover, when you look at this sequence of events it's clear that the DNC, Hillary and everyone else close to the
corridors of power fear Gabbard's rise. If they weren't they wouldn't be putting out smears in the New York Times.
They wouldn't be spending millions on social media trolls to discredit her in the public fora.
The first rule of politics is "You never attack down."
Well, Hillary attacked down. The Times attacked down. The DNC, by gaming the debate rules, attacked down. And that
spells disaster for anyone who does it.
This was the exchange that ended Rudy's political career. 150 seconds of truth-telling that ignited a movement which
culminated in the election of Donald Trump.
Gabbard is following that same course. The difference between her and Dr. Paul is that she's less polite. But as to
their moral clarity there is little difference. And she shouldn't be polite. The stakes are higher today than they were
in 2008.
The people Gabbard is up against are even more ruthless since Hillary intends to win, whereas the Republicans in 2008
were fighting for the right to lose to her at the time.
Gabbard's rise in popularity among Trump voters and centrists is born of the same exhaustion the American people have
with endless wars for globalism. She is Trump's Kryptonite.
The party she represents is irrelevant. By wrapping herself in the mantle of the front-runner for the nomination is
not delusional, it's the most strategic thing she's done to date.
It's also becoming more and more realistic as the days go on.
Because by responding to Hillary's ham-fisted
attempts to position herself as the voice of reason, Gabbard clarifies for everyone just how sick and
bile-filled Hillary is by outing her as the delusional one.
And reminding everyone that Hillary is the architect of the very policies in the Middle East that Trump is
now taking heat for trying to unwind.
Gabbard knows what the plan is. She was there in 2016 when Hillary stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders
and quit her position in the DNC because of it.
Even Trump knows that foreign policy and foreign entanglements will be the big ticket issue for this
election cycle.
Why?
Because Gabbard has single-handedly made it so.
Trump is already running against her by pulling back from Syria, looking for peace options in Afghanistan,
firing John Bolton while using proxies and, yes, Vladimir Putin to assist him in fixing his myriad mistakes of
the first thirty months of his presidency.
Hillary trying to position herself as the one who can save the Middle East from Trump's bumbling is
laughable and Gabbard just laughed in Hillary's face.
Calling everyone who voices any dissent from foreign or domestic policy orthodoxy a Russian agent is a
losing proposition. It belies reality and what people see with their own eyes.
Americans want better relations with Russia now World War III. Trump's popularity has risen since he backed
off on starting a war with Iran.
The media spent four years marginalizing Dr. Paul. The RNC stole the nomination from him just as surely as
the DNC stole the nomination from Bernie. As the people in the U.K. are finding out, their votes don't matter.
Democracy doesn't matter, only the fever dreams of the soulless and the power mad who think they run the
world. Look at what Hillary has become, not what you remember her to be.
She's a tired, sick, fragile woman whose bitterness and evil is literally eating her up from the inside out.
Have you noticed that she hasn't been photographed standing up for months?
She's the epitome of everything wrong with America and, in fact, the world and Tulsi Gabbard just stood up
and laughed at her for still thinking she was the Emperor when in reality she's The Joker.
Join my Patreon
to assist me in helping you expose the frauds and liars whose
perversions of truth threaten the fabric of civil society.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
"... For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world." ..."
"... a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is endangering peace with his "isolationism" ..."
"... Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things. ..."
Humanity was treated to an important lecture on peace at a recent event for the NIR School of the Heart by none other than Ellen
Degeneres BFF and world-renowned peace expert George W Bush.
"I don't think the Iranians believe a peaceful Middle East is in their national interest," said the former president according
to The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin, whose
brief Twitter thread on the subject appears
to be the only record of Bush's speech anywhere online.
"An isolationist United States is destabilizing around the world," Bush said during the speech in what according to Rogin was
a shot at the sitting president.
"We are becoming isolationist and that's dangerous for the sake of peace."
For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other
than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have
hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and
we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world."
It is unclear why Bush is choosing to present himself as a more peaceful president than Trump given that by this point in his
first term Bush had launched not one but two full-scale ground invasion wars whose effects continue to ravage the Middle East to
this very day, especially given the way both presidents appear to be in furious agreement on foreign policy matters like Iran. But
here we are.
From a certain point of view it's hard to say which is stranger:
(A) a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is
endangering peace with his "isolationism", or
(B) the claim that Trump is "isolationist" at all.
But these bogus warnings about a dangerous, nonexistent threat of isolationism are nothing new for Dubya. In
his farewell address to the nation , Bush said the following:
"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism
and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity
at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
As we discussed
recently , use of the pro-war buzzword "isolationism" has been re-emerging from its post-Bush hibernation as a popular one-word
debunk of any opposition to continued US military expansionism in all directions, and it is deceitful in at least three distinct
ways. Firstly, the way it is used consistently conflates isolationism with non-interventionism, which
are two wildly
different things . Secondly, none of the mainstream political figures who are consistently tarred with the "isolationist" pejorative
are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination, or even proper non-interventionists; they all support many interventionist positions
which actual non-interventionists object to. Thirdly, calling someone who opposes endless warmongering an "isolationist" makes as
much sense as calling someone who opposes rape a man-hating prude; opposing an intrinsically evil act is not the same as withdrawing
from the world.
Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real
purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness
that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the
political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt
to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is
of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things.
It would actually be great if George W Bush could shut the fuck up forever, ideally in a locked cell following a public war tribunal.
Failing that, at the very least people should stop looking at him as a cuddly wuddly teddy bear with whom it's fun to
share a sporting arena suite or a
piece of hard candy or to
hang award medals on for his treatment of veterans. This mass murdering monster has been
growing more and more popular with
Democrats lately just because he offers mild criticisms of Trump sometimes, as have war pigs like
Bill Kristol and Max Boot and even John
Bolton for the same reason, and it needs to stop. And in the name of a million dead Iraqis, please don't start consulting this
man on matters of peace.
"... Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire. ..."
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
recently met in Minsk to revive the agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They
set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage of Ukrainian
legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong
opposition from nationalists, passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid
legislative majority.
Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security
concerns. The U.S. and its allies should formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the
transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances, Moscow
would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine
protects local autonomy while Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted.
Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation, since the country would likely
be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of
Crimea while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent
referendum with independent monitors.
Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object.
Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern
Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would certainly be
better than endless conflict.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire.
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
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Comments
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
Our neocon policies have proven to be an existential threat to the solvency , well being,
and future of the United States.
We have squandered tens of trillions of dollars on stupid wasteful wars when we could have
been using those exact same resources to build out our infrastructure, education and
technological advantages.
Our pentagon should be producing best and first technologies ACROSS THE BOARD, not
spending all its time trying to hide from the taxpayer how many billions the neocons pilfered
last quarter.
We need to replace our policy of "perpetual war fraud" with a policy of empowering and
igniting creativity and human excellence.
That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 9, 2019
His Excellency
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President of the Republic of Turkey
Ankara
Dear Mr. President:
Let's work out a good deal! You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of
people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy -- and I will.
I've already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson.
1 have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don't let the world down. You can make
a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make
concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy
of his letter to me, just received.
History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It
will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy.
Don't be a fool!
Leave aside that Trump should not have been compelled to make the transcript public . .
. .
It's tempting to view Trump's presidency as sui generis. With norms and seemingly
well-settled historical precedents broken, with the liability casually laid at his feet by
most observers, even if not wholly out to destroy him.
Knowing its intent was remove him from office, Trump nevertheless ordered unprecedented
cooperation with the Mueller investigation. A brilliant move in hindsight. I don't recall
very much handwringing about the bad precedent this set for presidential power.
Trump's insight, and in no small part it explains his continued survival, is his refusal
to accept the appearance of his fully possessing his Article II powers. Most especially in
the context of the National Security State.
Utz has written how even Eisenhower was foiled from negotiating to reduce tensions with
the Soviet Union/Krushchev. If they could derail the POTUS then doing so with those that
followed him should have been easy by comparison and, I think, was. The trend since, as the
USG's global power grew, was for president's to ever quickly give way upon after office to
the role of what I call Figurehead/Pitchman. It's a Safe Space, as was palpably obvious
through Obama's two terms.
While Figurehead/Pitchman versus Real POTUS is, of course, a spectrum not a dichotomy,
Trump for reasons I don't need to belabor has effectively constituted a sharp break.
So, decisions of his like the following, facially a diminution of his authority, which
passed without a great deal of notice, struck me as him protecting himself from his
authorizing military actions designed to end his presidency:
The longer Trump survives the further these highest order threats of nuclear war and to
our Constitutional Republic recede. Even if it doesn't seem that way at moments like
this.
It's childish nonsense the idea that any foreign state, including Russia, thought Trump
would win, much less wanted him to do so. It's equally juvenile, especially close to three
years hence, to not understand that foreign adversaries and allies alike awaited a resolution
of this factional war internally within the US, avoiding catastrophe in the meantime.
Thankfully, at least so far, since Trump took the oath, the foreign powers for which a
Hillary presidency would have been a geopolitical gift of historic proportions (e.g. China;
Iran), have largely made their peace with that lost opportunity.
"... Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor. ..."
"... I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't. ..."
"... I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. ..."
"... And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. ..."
"... How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement. ..."
Time to Extricate From Ukraine Kiev has become a drag on Trump, but if we don't watch out, it could turn into a geopolitical
threat to everyone. By Doug Bandow •
October 17, 2019
Recently Ukraine has been thrown into the spotlight as Democrats gear up to impeach President Donald Trump. More important, though,
is its role in damaging America's relations with Russia, which has resulted in a mini-Cold War that the U.S. needs to end.
Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. During the 17th century, the country was divided between Poland and Russia, and eventually ended
up as part of the Russian Empire. Kiev then enjoyed only the briefest of liberations after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before being
reabsorbed by the Soviet Union. It later suffered from a devastating famine as Moscow confiscated food and collectivized agriculture.
Ukraine was ravaged during Germany's World War II invasion, and guerrilla resistance to renewed Soviet control continued for years
afterwards.
In 1991, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. gave Ukraine another, more enduring chance for independence. However, the new nation's development
was fraught: GDP dropped by 60 percent and corruption burgeoned. Ukraine suffered under a succession of corrupt, self-serving, and
ineffective leaders, as the U.S., Europe, and Russia battled for influence.
In 2014, Washington and European governments backed a street putsch against the elected, though highly corrupt, pro-Russian president,
Viktor Yanukovych. The Putin government responded by annexing Crimea and backing separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass region.
Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided military aid to Kiev.
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The West versus Russia quickly became a "frozen" conflict. Moscow reincorporated Crimea into Russia, from which it had been detached
in 1954 as part of internal Soviet politics. In the Donbass, more than a score of ceasefires came and went. Both Ukraine and Russia
failed to fulfill the 2016 Minsk agreements, which sought to end the conflict.
In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from
their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political
division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged
Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists
have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted.
The most important geopolitical impact has been to poison Russia's relations with the West. Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine
cannot be justified, but the U.S. and Europe did much to create the underlying suspicion and hostility. Recently declassified documents
reveal the degree to which Western officials misled Moscow about their intention to expand NATO. Allied support for adding Georgia
and Ukraine, which would have greatly expanded Russian vulnerability, generated a particularly strong reaction in Moscow. The dismemberment
of Serbia with no consideration of Russia's interests was another irritant, along with Western support for "color revolutions" elsewhere,
including in Tbilisi. The ouster of Yanukovych finally triggered Putin's brutal response.
Washington and Brussels apparently did not view their policies as threatening to Russia. However, had Moscow ousted an elected
Mexican president friendly to America, while inviting the new government to join the Warsaw Pact, and worked with a coalition of
Central American states to divert Mexican trade from the U.S., officials in Washington would not have been pleased. They certainly
wouldn't have been overly concerned about juridical niceties in responding.
This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response. Subsequent allied policies then turned the breach in relations
into a gulf. The U.S. and European Union imposed a series of economic sanctions. Moreover, Washington edged closer to military confrontation
with its provision of security assistance to Kiev. Moscow responded by challenging America from Syria to Venezuela.
It also began moving towards China. The two nations' differences are many and their relationship is unstable. However, as long
as their antagonism towards Washington exceeds their discomfort with each other, they will cooperate to block what they see as America's
pursuit of global hegemony.
Why is the U.S. entangled in the Ukrainian imbroglio? During the Cold War, Ukraine was one of the fabled "captive nations," backed
by vigorous advocacy from Ukrainian Americans. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they joined other groups lobbying on behalf of ethnic
brethren to speed NATO's expansion eastward. Security policy turned into a matter of ethnic solidarity, to be pursued irrespective
of cost and risk.
To more traditional hawks who are always seeking an enemy, the issue is less pro-Ukraine than anti-Russia. Mitt Romney, the Republican
Party's 2012 presidential nominee, improbably attacked Russia as America's most dangerous adversary. Hence the GOP's counterproductive
determination to bring Kiev into NATO. Originally Washington saw the transatlantic alliance as a means to confront the Soviet menace;
now it views the pact as a form of charity.
After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. pushed NATO eastward into nations that neither mattered strategically nor could be easily
protected, most notably in the Balkans and Baltics. Even worse were Georgia and Ukraine, security black holes that would bring with
them ongoing conflicts with Russia, possibly triggering a larger war between NATO and Moscow.
Ukraine never had been a matter of U.S. security. For most of America's history, the territory was controlled by either the Russian
Empire or the Soviet Union. Washington's Cold War sympathies represented fraternal concerns, not security essentials. Today, without
Kiev's aid, the U.S. and Europe would still have overwhelming conventional forces to be brought into any conflict with Moscow. However,
adding Ukraine to NATO would increase the risk of a confrontation with a nuclear armed power. Russia's limitations when it comes
to its conventional military would make a resort to nuclear weapons more likely in any conflict.
Nevertheless, George W. Bush's aggressively neoconservative administration won backing for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in
NATO and considered intervening militarily in the Russo-Georgian war. However, European nations that feared conflict with Moscow
blocked plans for NATO expansion, which went into cold storage. Although alliance officials still officially backed membership for
Ukraine, it remains unattainable so long as conflict burns hot with Russia.
In the meantime, Washington has treated Ukraine as a de facto military ally, offering economic and security assistance. The U.S.
has provided $1.5 billion for Ukrainian training and weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles. Explained Obama administration
defense secretary Ashton Carter: "Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States."
Equally important, the perception of U.S. backing made the Kiev government, headed by President Petro Poroshenko, less willing
to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Russia. Thus did Ukraine, no less than Russia, almost immediately violate the internationally
backed Minsk accord.
Kiev's role as a political football highlights the need for Washington to pursue an enduring political settlement with Russia.
European governments are growing restless; France has taken the lead in seeking better relations with Moscow. Germany is unhappy
with U.S. attempts to block the planned Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has campaigned
to end the conflict.
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the
agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage
of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists,
passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.
Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should
formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances,
Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while
Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation,
since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea
while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.
Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would
double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would
certainly be better than endless conflict.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author
of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
I credit Mr. Bandow for his largely fair and accurate description of the events in Ukraine of five years ago, and for his ultimate
policy proposal for the US to extricate itself from its close involvement in the area. However, I'm a little confused by what
exactly the author means by "Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine" and "Putin's brutal response" (aside from the treatment
of dissidents and journalists as he specifically mentioned) to the Maidan Revolution.
Was it aggressive and brutal for Russia to support separatists in the Donbass who were facing the prospect of legal discrimination
and violence by a criminal, neo-fascist government in Kiev, not to mention de-industrialization, the gutting of the agriculture
sector and the forced economic migration of an enormous number of its young workers (assuming that Ukraine's economic deal
with the EU followed the script of every other Easter European's country's deal with the EU)? If Yanukovych had fled to the
Donbass and proclaimed himself still the freely elected (though certainly corrupt) President of the nation, Russia's support
for the region would have even had a shiny brass legal fig leaf, wouldn't it?
As for the supposed "conquest" of Crimea, that's a rather strong word to use considering that all of two members of the
Ukrainian military were killed, and 60-80 of them detained, while 15,000 defected to Russia. Compared to the violence in Kiev
and Odessa, what happened in Crimea almost qualifies as a bloodless coup. But then Mr. Bandow shies away from using the word
"hegemony" to describe the foreign policy of the United States, figuratively putting the word in the mouths of those bad men
(which they are) in Moscow and Beijing. It's a pity that Mr. Bandow felt the need to make linguistic concessions to the foreign
policy establishment in what was otherwise a useful and balanced piece.
Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings
in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad
to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor.
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition
of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously
had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil
- they didn't.
I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history
of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique.
And as is the case in developing countries,
what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian
public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot.
How the civil unrest spun out of control the second
time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.
It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief
is false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent
and jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.
The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued.
And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every
ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------
Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity
Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a
communist monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary
would be more adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations
in which the US was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or
China are a to be kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without
tensions. But seriously, as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------
Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.
This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border.
And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.
When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate,
no international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans
should look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops
wherever it fancies.
This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats
protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy
for its own elites benefit is being denied.
This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you,
or that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives
for a while?
If the US were smart then they would lead some sort of negotiation where eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia were allowed
only mutually agreed defensive weapons systems. A demilitarization of say 200 miles on each side of the Russia border. The
strategy should be to encourage trade between Eastern Europe and Russia where Russia has influence but is not threatening.
It may be slow to build that trust but the real question is whether the US and Europe and NATO want peace with Russia or whether
they are using fear of Russia to keep eastern Europe united with the US and Europe. This may be the case but the future will
have China as a greater threat than Russia (China will even be a threat to Russia). Any shift in Russian relations will take
decades of building trust on both sides.
Good article and excellent history of facts. If I recall during the last Bush administration W hosted a Putin and his then
spouse, at a visit at his ranch. Putin informed W," the Ukraine belongs to Russia. end of sentence.
The author forgot the critical role of Sevastopol in the Crimea. It is Russia's only warm water port and there was no way that
it was going to allow this area to become a NATO naval base. Secretary of State Clinton and her sidekick for Ukraine, Victoria
Nuland should have known this before they started supporting the overthrow of the pro-Russia government in Kiev.
If you look at a historical atlas, you won't find an independent country called Ukraine before 1991. When my parents were
born, near what is now called Lviv, the area was called Galicia and Lemberg was its provincial capital. A gold medal issued
in 1916 in honor of Franz Josef's 85th birthday noted that he was the Kaiser of Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria.
When the old Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to reunify, it was with the understanding that NATO would
not extend membership to former Soviet block countries and that there would be no NATO bases in these areas either. NATO and
the US broke their oral commitment to Russia a few years later.
The US should get out of the business of trying to spread democracy in third world countries and interfering in the affairs
of foreign governments. We can't afford to be the policeman of the world. We don't even have the ability to make many of our
own central cities safe for Americans. Think Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, all four of which appear on Wikipedia's
list of the 50 murder capitals of the world (per thousand population).
Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani "A Hand Grenade" by
Tyler Durden Tue, 10/15/2019 - 12:25 0 SHARES
Former national security adviser John Bolton was 'so alarmed' by efforts to encourage Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and 2016
election meddling that he told an aide, Fiona Hill, to alert White House lawyers, according to the
New York Times
.
When Hill confronted Sondland, he told her that he was 'in charge' of Ukraine, "a moment she compared to Secretary of State Alexander
M. Haig Jr.'s declaration that he was in charge after the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, according to those who heard the testimony,"
according to the Times.
Hill says she asked Sondland on whose authority he was in charge of Ukraine, to which he replied 'the president.' She would later
leave her post shortly before a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president which is currently at the heart of an impeachment inquiry.
Meanwhile, the Times also notes that "House Democrats widened their net in the fast-paced inquiry by summoning Michael McKinley,
a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who abruptly resigned last week, to testify Wednesday."
Career diplomats have expressed outrage at the unceremonious
removal of Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch from Ukraine after she came under attack by Mr. Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and
two associates who have since been arrested on charges of campaign violations.
Three other Trump admin officials are scheduled to speak with House investigators this week, including Sondland - who is now set
to appear on Thursday. On Tuesday, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent will testify, while on Friday, Laura K. Cooper
- a a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia policy, will speak with lawmakers as well.
Looks like we have our whistleblower. My only question is, how does one whistle with such a bristly moustache draping their
hairlip?
So now we have Mr. Neocon and Mr. Liddle Kidz conjugating as the strangest of bedfellows? How will this play to their respective
bases? Are we to assume these people think this nations top law enforcement agent (POTUS) is to abdicate his duties therewith
just because the criminal is (at least according to our two tiered justice system) supposed to be beyond reproach?
Mr. Bolton, bright and determined as he is, has hitched his wagon to mad mare galloping full tilt over a precipice.
Looking for a return of uranium one to the headlines soon. In due time we will stich this Russia/Ukraine narrative back together
from a patchwork of facts. You traitors are fucked...royally fucked...and you know it.
So, Mr bolton, explain to us in simple terms how you appraise America's security and her related interests. Your camp is in
eclipse.
John Bolton:
"I was appauled...just flabbergasted...that the president was concerned that our intelligence apparatus was politicized to
the extent that its highest echelons were arrayed in an attempt to subvert a lawful and legitimate election. Never mind that six
other nations were tasked with abetting this treasonous plot...this is an outrage!!! The whole point of intelligence agencies
is to skirt the law with impunity, and once we (the unelected permanent breacracy) tell one of our minions like Biden or Hillary
that they're permanently immune from prosecution, we can't have some earnest pact of Patriots running around demanding law and
order."
What a sorry bunch of cretians.
We were so close...so close...to losing it all. But since the enemy is making clear we're playing zero sum, we're going to
end up with everything.
Brace yourself, California. If I were you, I'd study the legal framework of Reconstruction. Your plight will be of a kind.
Your state has been engaged in a systematic attempt to overthrow the government. Your leaders will be appointed for a generation
after this all comes out. Don't look to Beijing to save you...they kinda have their hands full.
So, I guess Bolton is no longer collecting free money like Hunter Biden was. I get it now how all these politicians have kids
overseas and open foreign corporations which our tax money goes in to by way of cutting deals overseas public officials to line
their pockets with our money. This how they get into government poor and become very rich! Giuliani is pointing this fact out
to the public with Trump and the swamp HATES IT!
The public now knows how these corrupt PUBLIC OFFICIALS in America have been fleecing the tax payers. This is a major hit on
the swamp.
Trump & Giuliani we're behind you thank you for showing us how the swamp has been ******* us for all these years.
Understand that the reason Schitt head won't allow public hearings is because the former Ambassador to Ukraine--Volker, shot
this whole **** fest down when he testified. There is no "there" there.
Bolton and the others are crying because of Trump's pull out. The left jumped on the war bandwagon under Billary a long time
ago. Necons work both parties.
If Bolton dislikes Guiliani that's the best endorsement of Rudy I can imagine. Bolton is a complete warmongering traitor who,
like McShitstain, desires a nice case of brain cancer.
Go Rudy, expose the corrupt Demonrats! We deplorables love human hand grenades. That's why we elected the Donald, and you apparently
are the perfect lawyer for our great God emperor.
"Schiff simply does not have the gravitas that a weighty procedure such as impeachment requires," Biggs wrote in an opinion
piece for Fox News. "He has repeatedly shown incredibly poor judgment. He has persistently and consistently demonstrated that
he has such a tremendous bias and animus against Trump that he will say anything and accept any proffer of even bogus evidence
to try to remove the president from office."
This New York Times article about @TulsiGabbard is perfect. It belongs in a museum to show
how the NYT & DNC smear anyone who expresses any dissenting views: accuse them of serving
RUSSIA & white nationalists, quote Neera Tanden & Laura McCarthy Rosenberg, etc.
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? - The New York Times
6:56 AM - 12 Oct 2019
[ Radical, unethical Democratic National Committee folks are determined to defame and
destroy an heroic Democratic member of congress, a combat veteran and still serving member of
the armed forces, reelected with a 70% majority in 2018. ]
Astonishing the Democratic leadership calumny of a Democratic member of Congress, a woman, of
Indian and Samoan heritage, a combat veteran and serving member of the armed forces. Such is
self-styled supposed Democratic leadership, steeped in the terrible terrifying tradition of
Joseph McCarthy.
(The price of admission, so as to be
able to read the posts of others, is
for now, posting something, anything.)
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? https://nyti.ms/33s1Aj8
NYT - Lisa Lerer - October 12
WASHINGTON -- Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed
with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could
vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her "libertarian instincts," while
Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her "refreshing."
And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.
"She's got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person," Mr.
Cernovich said. "She seems very Trumpian." ...
(The price of admission, so as to be
able to read the posts of others, is
for now, posting something, anything.)
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? https://nyti.ms/33s1Aj8
NYT - Lisa Lerer - October 12
WASHINGTON -- Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed
with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could
vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her "libertarian instincts," while
Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her "refreshing."
And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.
"She's got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person," Mr.
Cernovich said. "She seems very Trumpian." ...
Among her fellow Democrats, Representative Tulsi Gabbard has struggled to make headway as a
presidential candidate, barely cracking the 2 percent mark in the polls needed to qualify for
Tuesday night's debate. She is now injecting a bit of chaos into her own party's primary
race, threatening to boycott that debate to protest what she sees as a "rigging" of the 2020
election. That's left some Democrats wondering what, exactly, she is up to in the race, while
others worry about supportive signs from online bot activity and the Russian news media. ...
On podcasts and online videos, in interviews and Twitter feeds, alt-right internet stars,
white nationalists, libertarian activists and some of the biggest boosters of Mr. Trump heap
praise on Ms. Gabbard. They like the Hawaiian congresswoman's isolationist foreign policy
views. They like her support for drug decriminalization. They like what she sees as
censorship by big technology platforms. ...
Ms. Gabbard has disavowed some of her most hateful supporters, castigating the news media
for giving "any oxygen at all" to the endorsement she won from the white nationalist leader
David Duke. But her frequent appearances on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show have buoyed her
support in right-wing circles.
Both Ms. Gabbard and her campaign refused requests for comment about her support in
right-wing circles or threat to boycott the debate. Even some political strategists who have
worked with her are at a loss to explain her approach to politics.
"She's a very talented person but I'm not sure, I just don't know what to say about the
campaign exactly," said Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist who worked with Ms. Gabbard
when she was campaigning for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016. ...
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed with her political
talent....
-- Lisa Lerer
[ This is a vile article, contemptible for the New York Times to have printed. An heroic
member of congress, a woman, a person of color, a combat veteran, a serving member of the
armed forces, a person who serves others to seek peace, is being contemptibly slandered.
Shame, shame, shame for writing and printing such an article. ]
You and a number of the posters here are horribly naive about the Nixon Rat(bad word
omitted)s. Tulsi has been working with them. This should be automatically disqualifying.
Gabbard is a veteran, very much younger than I, she also is the most opposed to the neocon
permanent war (strong in securing the US' post WW II world order)agenda which seems to be
standard democrat stance.
"
By Dillon Ancheta | October 10, 2019 at 10:13 AM HST - Updated October 10 at 5:54 PM
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - Claiming a "rigged" primary process, presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard says she's seriously considering boycotting the next Democratic
presidential debate.
Twelve contenders, including Gabbard, have qualified for the Oct. 15 debate in Ohio.
But in a video posted on social media Thursday, Gabbard said she's not sure she'll take
the debate stage because she believes the Democratic National Committee and corporate media
rigged the 2016 primary election against Bernie Sanders and are trying to do it again with
the 2020 primary.
She said the election is being rigged against early voting states.
"There are so many of you who I've met in Iowa and New Hampshire who have expressed to me
how frustrated you are that the DNC and corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your
role as voters in choosing who our Democratic nominee will be," Gabbard said, in the
video.
"In short, the DNC and corporate media are trying to hijack the entire election process,"
she added."
This of course is sheer nonsense, and so hurtful to Dems that she has drawn the admiration
of right wing crazies for her efforts to help trump.
Nonsense in 2016 just like this hurt Dems; ruined the Supreme Court; and damaged the
country. And she is trying to do it again in the midst of a primary in which she never, ever
had a ghost of a chance. And that was because of her total inexperience and a number of
highly questionable actions in the last decade.
At this point, she has managed to remove herself from higher office for the rest of her
life. And deservedly so.
In Hawaii you cannot run for two public offices at once, so this is her plan to run for
the House. Trash the DNC and media for defeating her, despite the fact she never had any
chance to even be a serious player in the primary.
Combine that with her gay conversion stance of a decade ago and her meddling withe asaad
and Modi, and I am starting to question her sanity.
If she loses the House primary, I would fully expect her to be the Rep candidate.
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
"... "Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted. ..."
"... While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today. ..."
"... From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner. ..."
"... *Nobel Peace Drones™ ..."
"... "Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," ..."
Actor Mark Ruffalo was shredded for double standards after he posted a "callout" tweet
assailing George Bush for the sins of the Iraq War, with many netizens noting his aversion to
slamming Barack Obama's military adventures. Weighing into a controversy kicked off by TV
personality Ellen Degeneres, who came under fire for schmoozing it up with former President
George W. Bush at a football game last weekend, Ruffalo insisted no quarter or kindness should
be offered to perpetrators of heinous war crimes until they face consequences, including
Bush.
"Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War,
(including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars --
emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even
begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted.
Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War,
(including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars --
emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even
begin to talk about kindness. https://t.co/dpMwfck6su
While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why
similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a
pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for
which Bush is condemned today.
Claiming Bush is some monster while worshipping Obama even though they did the same things
abroad🤔
From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan,
establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading
a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria –
Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd
already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh
words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
"Woke Twitter, [including] Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs," one user
observed, noting the several occasions former first lady Michelle Obama posed affectionately
with Bush without facing a similar wave of outrage from figures like Ruffalo.
People ripping Jameela Jamil and the celebs in these screenshots but it was tumbleweed 101
when Michelle Obama was getting regular sweeties fixes from George W. Bush & going above
and beyond duty in friendly optics. Woke Twitter, incl Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call
outs. pic.twitter.com/snNYZEbAWM
It's funny how Mark Ruffalo can criticize Ellen, who was an actual person affected by
Bush's ignorance, but not a peep about Michelle Obama who admits to having a special
FRIENDSHIP with GW. https://t.co/9UM1BP8GpY
Another commenter seconded Ruffalo's views on Bush, but encouraged the actor to take his
criticism further, applying the same humanitarian standard evenly, regardless of the party in
power.
"Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible
for the displacement and death of millions," the user said.
The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush.
However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over.
Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for
the displacement and death of millions
The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush
However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over
100% on Bush. You forgot to add Obama & Clinton though. No reason to root for justice
against one war criminal, while giving a free pass to others. It makes it partisan, rather
than ethical.
I did not vote for Trump, or for Hillary, but I firmly agree with analysis of Bacevich here:
> Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental hubris. When it comes to tallying
up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include thousands
of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands
of non-Americans killed or injured; millions displaced; trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and
in its case even formed inside a US prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it has yet to
recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
> The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the administration of President Bill Clinton
and continued by his successor. Deregulating the banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet,
as a direct result of the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment shot up to
10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock market cratered and millions saw their life
savings evaporate. Again, the question must be asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Some interesting estimates of the numbers of foreign fighters that participated in the Donbass War
from 2014-2019 from a report [PDF]
by the Soufan Center. (h/t
Kholmogorov)
Kiev-controlled Ukraine served as a destination for would-be murderers seeking impunity for
years. However, inviting foreign scum will help it about as much as it helped ISIS. Maybe
even less: some foreign and domestic ISIS bandits had ideology beyond raping and looting,
Ukrainian bandits in Donbass do not. "True believer" Ukies are in Canada, the US, or far away
from the front in Ukraine itself and studiously avoid getting into real fighting, where they
can be maimed or killed.
In contrast, many volunteers on the side of Donbass freedom fighters do have honest
beliefs and are not cowards avoiding combat. Not all, though: some just look for an
adventure, on the battlefield and in bed.
@Korenchkin If
you go by quintessence of Nazi ideology "my tribe is better than your tribe", every nation
has its Nazis, including Russia.
To its credit, tribal nationalists never got more than ~7% electoral support in
Russia.
After Ukrainian experience showed that any country can be quickly ruined by primeval
tribal nationalism, their support in Russia dropped to below 2%. But it still isn't zero.
Then again, ~1% of any population are schizophrenics, 2-3% are gays/lesbians, etc., so single
digit representation of any kind of deviation is not threatening country's survival.
@Mr. Hack I
asked the questions first, but I'll be generous and explain this to you on the fingers.
1. I used the term "Banderists" in the context of Ukraine's volunteer battalions –
that is, where foreigners have the most realistic chance of getting accepted.
2. Polls show Ukrainians to generally be 50/50 on Bandera, but obviously, that number will be
much higher amongst the rather self-selected sample that are volunteer battalion members. At
least 80%, if not 90%.
3. Poles obviously couldn't care less for Bandera. Polish *nationalists* – even less
so.
4. Nationalists are the likeliest foreigners to participate in the Donbass.
5. Do you now see why this would be a pertinent point to mention in the specific context of
why 10x fewer Poles fight for the Ukraine relative to Georgians, despite having 10x the
population?
I'm not sure if 14 fighters is a big enough sample size to justify lumping Canada into the
dreaded "Russophobe" category. But the 10 pro-Ukrainians to 4 pro-Russians ratio closely
mirrors that of self-declared ethnic Ukrainians (1,359,655) to Russians (622,445) in Canada.
Though many, possibly even a majority of those "Russians" are actually Jews. The Ukrainian
lobby has been disturbingly powerful in Canada for a long time (multiculturalism was their
bright idea), while the Russian lobby is seemingly invisible.
There are signs and symbols of Ukrainian nationalism everywhere (banks, festivals, flags,
bumper stickers etc), while similar Russian symbols are basically non-existent. The Uke to
Russkie ratio may be only 10-4, but it feels more like 10-1, or even 100-1.
I expected more Russians from the Baltics. Apparently, they and Serbs were early arrivals in
Girkin's group. Perhaps the ethnic Russians were counted as Russian?
Quite a few White Russians emigrated to France. The Whites were well supported by ethnic
Russians in the Donbass during the Civil War.
Many Irish Nationalist commentators supported Russia (enemy's enemy) but the table shows
Ireland Pro Ukraine (anti-imperialist a stronger driver?). The Russian settlers in the
Donbass are such an obvious parallel to the Orangemen.
1. Chechens would be the obvious answer. I recall reading there were 2x as many Chechens
fighting for Ukrainians than for Russians.
2. Svidomy Ukrainians in Russia.
3. And, as mentioned, Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists (~60%-70% on Ukraine's side, at
least initially). The other brands of Russian nationalists were overwhelmingly
pro-Russian.
@AnonFromTN
More foreign "scum" on Donbas side than Ukrainian side. As one would expect. It's not all bad
however, Donbas should be kept apart from Ukraine.
"True believer" Ukies are in Canada, the US, or far away from the front in Ukraine
itself and studiously avoid getting into real fighting, where they can be maimed or
killed.
Ukrainian-American Paslawsky fought and died in the war.
A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and the only American known to have fought
alongside Ukrainian forces against pro-Russian separatists has been killed in eastern
Ukraine.
Mark Gregory Paslawsky, 55, died while fighting with the volunteer Donbas Battalion.
Paslawsky, who fought under the nom de guerre "Franko," was killed on August 19 during
fighting in the town of Ilovaysk, near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, according to a Facebook
post by Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko.
Paslawsky was born in 1959 in New York and grew up in a tight-knit Ukrainian-American
family in New Jersey. He moved to Ukraine around two decades ago and informed his family
earlier this year that he planned to volunteer for the Ukrainian Army, according to his
brother, Nestor Paslawsky.
::::::::::::::
The American fighting for Donbas, "Cowb0y", meanwhile was some sort of petty criminal in
the USA. Like Motorola in Russia, of course.
@Philip Owen
Well the Serbs played a major role in the defence of the territory that is today the Donbas
(not particularly well known among modern Russians). So Serbian nationalists have an extra
cause in regards to the Donbas
Slavo-Serbia or Slaveno-Serbia, was a territory of Imperial Russia between 1753-64. It was
located by the right bank of the Donets River between the Bakhmutka River
(Бахмут) and Luhan
(Лугань) rivers. This area today constitutes the
territories of present-day Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine. The
administrative centre of Slavo-Serbia was Bakhmut (Bahmut).
In contrast, many volunteers on the side of Donbass freedom fighters do have honest
beliefs and are not cowards avoiding combat. Not all, though: some just look for an
adventure
Not mutually exclusive. If you feel that you're leading a meaningless life and you are
looking for adventure, something radically different from a cubicle job or whatever, might as
well do something like join a war where you get to defend innocent people.
Considering ex ISIS fighters are often left to go free and claim benefits it was interesting
to see the fate of the fella who went to the Donbass and didn't even fight.
@anonymous
coward So was South Africa but didn't stop there being close ties between loyalists and
the apartheid government, a few Ulstermen were in the the government and there was the shared
settler Calvinist outlook. The IRA had quite close links to Croats, don't know if loyalists
had the same with Serbs. MP Ian Paisley junior is somewhat of a Russophile.
@SveVid This is
all true, but all those people are completely and utterly assimilated into Ukrainians /
Russians and have been for much longer than living memory. Most people in Serbia (except
history nerds etc) have no idea about this history. A much more plausible explanation for
Serbs going to fight in the Donbass would make some reference to Russian (and also Greek btw)
volunteer units fighting with the Serbs in the 1990s and contacts established during that
time.
@Anatoly Karlin
Mazepa is way up there and he joined the early 17th century Swedish invasion of Russia that
ended with the defeat at Poltava. That effectively ended Sweden as a great power. Seems like
Ukrainians have a thing for worshipping losers allied with anyone west of them, so there is
some hope for Porky's eventual rehabilitation.
Carl Bildt's ancestors were there in high stockings among the vanquished at Poltava
– the Bildts never forgave the humiliation, those Swedes can be sneaky. That explains
the persistent anti-Russian attitudes among the Nordics. Swedes also tend to be
simple-minded, nobody swallows the current globo-homo propaganda as eagerly or looks for
Russian submarines hiding behind every whale.
By and large Austria and Croatia are the only surprises – here, the history of the last
century is a bit complicated. "Altösterreicher" is a popular euphemism for "Galician
Jew" i.e. the current Kiew regime. The Croats are more probably channeling their recent
hatred for the Serbs. [Not really] funny what the separation of East and West Rome is still
doing to a people.
"... "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . . ." ..."
"... I have not always been a pacifist, but my view is "liberal internationalism" can never excuse war. ..."
"... Particularly, as US pushed "liberal internationalism" is maintaining a post WW II world order to add to its Degeneracy. ..."
"... They conflate PNAC strategy with US security and anyone not in to military intervention for the PNAC is a traitor. ..."
This is what institutional, "humanitarian" power looks like: Fluff pieces in liberal media
with zero input from people on the receiving end of your bombs; unchecked power to decide who
lives and who dies; and (most of all) never having to answer for it.
To [Samantha Power] applies Scott Fitzgerald's often cited comment. Once Biden is back in
power, all these people will come back from the cold & rain the bombs on the globally
deplorables.
Lily Lynch @lilyslynch
This is what institutional, "humanitarian" power looks like: Fluff pieces in liberal media
with zero input from people on the receiving end of your bombs; unchecked power to decide who
lives and who dies; and (most of all) never having to answer for it.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then
retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them
together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . . ."
"liberal internationalism in Obama's cabinet. That made her [Powers] a target for his
critics. Her openness to military intervention – she was against [W Bush?] it in Iraq
but for it in Libya – drew flak from the left."
How can a supposed liberal [Obama was not a liberal in a traditional sense, maybe post
modern?] favor military intervention?
Does it involve ignoring "state run industrial age mass murder"?
Does it see a rationalized outcome to justify state mass murder?
I think post modern morality goes more towards the means don't matter much less the end---
see Libya!
I have not always been a pacifist, but my view is "liberal internationalism" can never
excuse war.
Particularly, as US pushed "liberal internationalism" is maintaining a post WW II world
order to add to its Degeneracy.
Looks like Us politicians adopted the stance: if you can't win against Israel lobby,
join... And yea we should talk about Zionists as a flavor of far right nationalism, nit about Jews, per se. The latter smells with
anti-Semitism as it accuses the ethnic group as a whole. Which is not only false, but also self-defeating stance:
Russophobia is "politically correct" anti-Semitism in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
"... I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun; Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge. ..."
"... I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. ..."
"... Mandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade. ..."
Given Israel's clearly demonstrated ability to manipulate and manage American government at
all levels, there is inevitably considerable speculation about the presence of actual Israeli
citizens in the federal and state bureaucracies. Very often, lists that appear on the internet
focus on Jewish legislators, but in reality, few of them are likely to have Israeli citizenship
even if they regularly exhibit what amounts to "dual loyalty" sympathy for the Jewish state.
Nevertheless, Jews who are Zionists are
vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the
Middle East.
There are, of course, some Jews who flaunt their identification with Israel, to include
current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who describes himself as "protector" of Israel and
former Senator Frank Lautenberg, frequently referred to as "Israel's Senator." One might also
include Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and mayor of Chicago, who reportedly
served as a
volunteer in the Israeli Army, and Doug Feith, who caused so much mischief from his perch
at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Feith had a law office in Jerusalem, suggesting
that he might have obtained Israeli citizenship.
To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their star to
the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing. One only has to observe in
action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and perhaps the most
revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for office proclaiming that he would
be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States. After being elected he traveled to
Jerusalem with a large entourage of Zionist supporters to hold the first meeting of the Florida
state government cabinet. According to some authorities in Florida, the meeting was supposed to
be held in the state capitol Tallahassee and was therefore illegal, but DeSantis was undaunted
and made clear to observers where his loyalty lies.
Part of the problem is that Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon
application by any Jew and once obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the
Israeli government. Nor is there anything equating to a list of citizens, so it is possible to
be an Israeli citizen while also holding American citizenship and no one would be the wiser. As
the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore
nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and
American.
Having dual nationality only a real issue when the policies of one citizenship conflict with
the other, and that is precisely where the problem comes in with Israeli dual nationals in the
United States, particularly if they wind up in the government. Frank Lautenberg, for example,
was responsible for the "Lautenberg amendment" of 1990 which brought many thousands of Russian
Jews into the United States as refugees, even though they were not in any danger and were
therefore ineligible for that status. As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided
housing, subsistence and educational benefits.
Some other current officials in the government who may or may not have dual nationality and
are in policy making positions might include U.S. (sic) Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and
the recently resigned international negotiator Jason Greenblatt. Both have long histories of
pro-Israel advocacy to include supporting illegal settlements on the West Bank. And there is
also someone named Jared Kushner, whose ties to Israel are so close that Benjamin Netanyahu
once slept in his father and mother's apartment. If the metric to judge the actions – and
loyalty – of these individuals is their willingness to place American interests ahead of
those of Israel, they all would fail the test.
That said, there was one individual dual national who truly stood out when it came to
serving Israeli interests from inside the United States government. She might be worthy of the
nickname "Queen of Sanctions" because she was the Department of the Treasury's Under Secretary
for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI), who handed the punishment out and had her hand
on the throttle to crank the pain up. She is our own, unfortunately, and also Israel's own
Sigal Pearl Mandelker, and is its wonderful to be able to say that she
finally resigned last week!
OFTI's
website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system against
illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats," but
it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel's perceived interests.
Grant Smith notes how "the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism
generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli
settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel's
clandestine nuclear weapons complex."
To be sure, sanctions have been the key weapon in the ongoing unending war against perceived
"enemies" like Russia and Venezuela, but they have been laid on most promiscuously in the case
of Iran, Israel's number one enemy du jour, which has also been demonized by Washington even
though it is no threat to the United States. And it should be recognized that sanctions are not
a bloodless exercise used to pressure a recalcitrant government. They disproportionately affect
the poor and powerless, who starve and are denied access to medicines, but they rarely have any
impact on those who run the government. Five-hundred thousand Iraqi children died from
sanctions imposed by President Bill Clinton and his vulturine Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright. Currently, Iranians and Venezuelans are dying, by some estimates in their tens of
thousands.
Once on a sanctions list administered by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC) , there is no actual appeal process and no getting off the hook unless Mandelker
said so. And anyone who has any contact with the sanctioned entity can be in for trouble,
including American citizens who will find themselves no longer having rights to free speech and
association. The terms for violation of sanctions used by OFAC are "transaction" and "dealing
in transactions," broadly construed to include not only monetary dealings or exchanges, but
also "providing any sort of service" and "non-monetary service," including giving a
presentation at a conference or speaking or writing in support of a sanctioned group or
individual.
OFAC has a broad mandate to punish anyone who has anything to do with any Iranian group or
even any individual as Iran is considered a country that is "comprehensively sanctioned." To
cite just one example of how indiscriminately the sanctions regime works, Max Blumenthal
has
described how the FBI recently, acting under Mandelker's orders, warned a number of
Americans who had planned on speaking at an Iranian organized conference in Beirut that they
might be arrested upon their return.
Mandelker was born in Israel and largely educated in the United States. She is predictably a
lawyer. She has never stated how many citizenships she holds while repeated inquiries as to
whether she retains her Israeli citizenship have been ignored by the Treasury Department. It is
not clear how she managed to obtain a security clearance given her evident affinity to a
foreign country. The position that she held until last Wednesday was created in 2004 by George
W. Bush and is something of a "no Gentiles need apply" fiefdom. Its officials travel regularly
on the taxpayer's dime to Israel for consultations and also collaborate with pro-Israel
organizations like AIPAC, WINEP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Mandelker's predecessor was Adam Szubin and he was preceded by David Cohen and, before that, by
the office's founder Stuart Levey, who is currently Group Legal Manager and Group Managing
Director for global bank HSBC. Since its creation, OFTI has not surprisingly focused on what
might be described as Israel's enemies, most notably among them being Iran.
Mandelker was clear about her role, citing her personal and business relationship with "our
great partner, Israel." Referring to sanctions on Iran, she has said that "Bad actors need
money to do bad things. That is why we have this massive sanctions regime Every time we apply
that pressure, that crunch on them, we deny them the ability to get that kind of revenue, we
make the world a safer place." In support of the pain she is inflicting to no real purpose
other than to force complete Iranian capitulation, she cites alleged Iranian misdeeds, foremost
of which is its alleged threatening of Israel. She also condemns Iran's support for Syria's
Bashar al-Assad, who she claims has killed his own people with chemical weapons, an assertion
that has proven to be untrue.
Mandelker touted her personal history as a claimed child of the seemingly ubiquitous
"holocaust survivors." In a speech at the Holocaust Museum in April she claimed that her
parents went underground in Eastern Europe: "They were hiding underground, in forests, in
ditches and under haystacks. I grew up hearing their stories, including about moments of great
courage, some of which resulted in survival and others that ended in death."
To be sure, Mandelker and her predecessors have been going after Iran's money since the 1979
Islamic Revolution, constantly devising new restrictions and rules to make it hard for Tehran
to do business with any other country. In 2006 Levey's office began to focus on cutting off
Iran from the global financial system. Currently the Trump administration is applying what it
describes as "maximum pressure" in seeking to sink Iran's economy by blocking all oil exports.
Since May, any country buying Iranian oil has been vulnerable to secondary sanctions by
Washington, all set up and choreographed by Mandelker.
That Mandelker and company have been engaging in economic warfare with a country with which
the United States is not at war seems to have escaped the notice of the media and Washington's
chattering class, not surprisingly as Israel is a beneficiary of the policy. And the fact that
the way sanctions are being enforced against American citizens is clearly unconstitutional has
also slipped by the usual watchdogs. Sigal Mandelker was a prime example of why anyone who is
either an actual dual national or plausibly possesses dual loyalty should not hold high office
in the United States government and is a blessing that she is gone, though one imagines she
will be replaced by another Zionist fanatic. If anyone wonders why Israel gets away with what
it does the simple answer would be that there are just too many people at the federal level who
think that serving Israel is the same as serving the United States. That is just not so and it
is past time that the American public should wake up to that fact.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and
educational benefits.
Including free Social Security, even though they never paid any money into that fund.
And it's not merely thousands, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands, all living off the
generosity of the American taxpayer. But Shhh, don't say anything, why that would be
anti-Semitic!
Talk about welfare Queens.
Those covered by the Lautenberg Amendment are eligible for Special Cash Assistance and
for Federal Public Assistance Programs including, but not limited to, Social Security,
Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
CRS statistics indicate that over 370,000 refugees were admitted from the Former
Soviet Union in the first ten years of the Lautenberg Amendment. In October 2002 the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that "The Lautenberg Amendment allowed some 350,000 to
400,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union to gain entry into the United States without
having to prove they were individually persecuted." In 2010 the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society cited Eric Rubin, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow stating
that the amendment had resulted in almost 440,000 refugees from the former Soviet Union
and other regions of the world.
*Eric Alterman made extended remarks in 2009 at the 92d Y, celebrating his dual loyalty:
"You know, one of the touchiest words you can say when you're discussing Jews and Israel
is the word dual loyalty. It's sort of one of those words that American Jewish officialdom
has ruled out of the discourse. If you say dual loyalty, you're playing into the hands of
anti-semites, because it's been a consistent trope among anti-Semites that you can't trust
Jews. etc. etc. And I find this very confusing because I was raised dually loyal my whole
life. When I went to Hebrew school, the content of my Hebrew school was all about supporting
Israel. When my parents who I think are here tonight sent me to Israel when I was 14, on a
ZOA [Zionist Organization of America]-sponsored trip it was drummed into me that I should do
what's best for Israel.
I was at the Center for Jewish History not long ago where I heard Ruth Wisse, the Yiddishist
professor at Harvard instruct a group of young Jewish journalists that they should think of
themselves as members of the Israeli army.
I am a dual loyal Jew and sometimes I'm going to actually go with Israel, because the United
States can take an awful lot of hits and come up standing. Whereas if Israel takes one
serious bad hit it could disappear. So there's going to be some cases where when Israel and
the United States conflict I'm going to support what's best for Israel rather than what I
think is best for the United States.
Then-editor of the Forward Jane Eisner: Can you imagine a time where you would feel that dual
loyalty and go with Israel?
Alterman: I just said, there are many occasions.
Eisner: Can you give us an example?
Alterman: I think that bin Laden and 9/11 were to some degree inspired by U.S. support of
Israel. I think a great deal of the terrorist attacks and the sort of pool of potential
terrorists who want to attack the United States are inspired by the United States support for
Israel. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Israel for that reason. I'm saying, Dammit if
that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it. I'm just saying Let's be honest
about it.".>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just think that what Alterman said is not condemned ..he suffers nothing for admitting
that he is basically a traitor who would sacrifice Americans for the Jewish state.
Unbelievable ..staggers the mind how this kind of Jew treason is so accepted in America
..just staggering.
How did this kind of treason come to be O.K. for the Jews?
It came from this kind of treason .. Nancy Pelosi Addressing AIPAC in December of last
year:
"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the
one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid,
our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are.""
If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of
Wal-Mart's.
"'You can assume that these terrorists are fighting for Israel. If they aren't part of the
regular Israeli army, they're fighting for Israel. Israel has common goals with Turkey, the
United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries,' Assad was quoted by
Ynet" – https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4946010,00.html
Dammit if that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it
Altermann is being slippery here, saying HE would be willing to pay the price of some
neoCONs or Zionists dragging the USA into another war for Israel.
What he should of said is that as a member of the Jewish dominated MSM, they are more than
willing to trick, deceive, bamboozle and pull us by our Star of David shaped nose ring into
endless wars for the glory of Apartheid Israel and if you disagree, why you're just a mouth
breathing, knuckle-dragging anti-Semite.
They need to live for 3 months in Israel (after attaining the correct visa) to attain the
citizenship, or a year of living in Israel for the passport (unless they changed this
recently or accelerated it).
What you are confused with is obtaining the repatriation visa and the temporary card. The
visa they can issue before people arrive in Israel, and the temporary identity card at the
airport. But those are only useful if you will live for the following months in Israel.
I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's
bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun;
Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere
to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel
to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of
each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name
of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a
precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out
numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A
group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge.
"As the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore
nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and
American".
Although I have not checked recently, I am fairly sure that is not the whole story by any
means.
It is quite true that ordinary citizens can go a lifetime with dual nationality and feel
no pain. I am one such, as my parents were British by birth but I was born in Argentina. Like
the USA, Argentina grants nationality to everyone born there (or, perhaps more accurately,
claims such people as its citizens).
However I think you will find that US law forbids anyone with dual US-anything nationality
to serve as an officer (or perhaps in any rank) in the other nation's armed forces, or to
accept political office in the other nation's government. There may well be other
restrictions.
The exceptions I have pointed out are very relevant indeed to the dual US-Israeli citizens
mentioned in the article, as many of them have served in the Israeli armed forces. Indeed is
that not compulsory for any Israeli citizen resident in Israel)? Some of them have also held
political office, had civil service jobs, etc.
For such people to remain anonymous is a scandal and, frankly, a serious national security
risk for the USA.
"Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon application by any Jew and once
obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the Israeli government".
Neat and effective. "It's a kopeck to get in, but a ruble to get out".
'OFTI's website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system
against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security
threats" '
Doesn't the US government mind this office setting itself up against the power of
Washington?
Illicit use of funds – check.
Rogue nation – check.
Terrorist facilitators – check in CAPITAL LETTERS. (Also actual terrorists).
WMD – check. (No other nation's government still maintains nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons).
Money launderers – Hell, Washington is the world's biggest counterfeiter.
Drug kingpins – check, although that is mostly delegated to the CIA.
Other national security threats – check, Washington is a national security threat to
every other nation in the world except Israel.
To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their
star to the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing.
It can only be career enhancing if whites allow it.
One only has to observe in action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki
Haley and perhaps the most revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for
office proclaiming that he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States.
With the exception of Nikki Haley, who was appointed by an elected official, the other two
were elected by the majority white electorate. Jews have inordinate power in our country
because whites allow it.
To be clear any problems caused by Jews are the result of white insouciance.
I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys
representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008.
If it is true, then she,like Alexander Acosta, is guilty of breaking the law by entering
into judgement a plea deal without first notifying the plaintiffs of what that deal was, and
whether or not it met to their satisfaction.
The fact that it was MORE important to Mandelker to reward a child rapist/ pedophile with
a super sweet, totally cush deal , than to seek justice for his numerous victims , indicates
, with extreme clarity , she has no business working in our treasury department, let alone
our OFAC.
Individuals, who breach our laws and rules of ethics to ensure pedophiles and child
rapists are free to roam our streets, have no business working in the United States
Government, in any capacity.
The fact that both Mendaker AND Acosta were given prominent positions of power , with the
full awareness of their actions by those who appointed them, is very, very troubling.
It is simply NOT acceptable to the American People that there may be pedophiles and/or
child rapists serving within, and/ or influencing , our representative bodies.
The fact there has been no investigation into any of this, as well as Mandelkers
connection, is an absolute disgrace.
It seems to me, that until all the facts are clear, President Trump should order a "clean
sweep protocol" As soon as possible.
Child rapists , and their enablers , belong in only one place .and that is Federal Prison.
.
It is not just a matter of ethics it is a matter of National Security.
Zionists have thoroughly infiltrated and compromised the US Treasury. This is news. Watch
it be ignored.
Crypto-Israelis have captured (and partly converted) a US Federal agency for the purpose
of crippling the economies of any state that interferes with the far-flung agenda of global
Zionism. Their duplicitous mission borders on treason.
Using American resources to target Israel's far-away foes has nothing to do with advancing
the interests of the American people. To the contrary. It damages us economically and
strategically. It also undermines us domestically since these actions allow a foreign-based
faction to seize and exploit US power for its own nefarious ends.
Crypto-Zionist penetration of Washington is a backdoor assault on US sovereignty. We are
being parasitized.
Incredibly, Israeli influence over Washington has become so embedded that's it's now taken
for granted by Jews and acquiescing gentiles alike. Success in Washington now requires one to
A) fully understand (and respect) Jewish privilege, while B) never transgressing upon the
taboos that protect this indomitable group.
Indeed, just examining the range and depth of Jewish power in America is a forbidden topic
(except by Jewish scholars for a Jewish audience).
But for the rest of us, just noticing Jewish power is a risky enterprise. (So say
nothing.)
Officially, there's no such thing. Only Jewish victims.
Hapless Americans are confused. For Diaspora Jews however these artful deceptions
constitute a familiar gameplan. Organized Jewish subversion dates back to ancient Persia.
Jews celebrate it. (See: Purim)
Today, Israeli operatives are all over Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood and beyond. And
they're not the least bit ashamed about it. No siree. It's what they do.
Activist Jews are deeply committed to weaving Israel's economic and political needs into
the very fabric of American life. They are succeeding.
When Zio-America's corrupt, bloodthirsty, and over-extended empire finally collapses,
Diaspora Jews can simply cash in their chips and migrate to Israel. America's demise will
mark a new chapter in their glorious, wandering, drama-filled history.
Unfortunately, we goyim are expected to go down with the American ship.
To see just how 'entitled' the Jewish State thinks it is read these two articles. They
are aflame over Trump decision not to interfere in the Turkey Kurd dispute on the Turkey
Syrian border.
Speaking of aflame, I would recommend a third. It's an article by Yossi Alpher, who is a
former Mossad official and former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies.
Concluding paragraphs from, What Trump's Withdrawal From Syria Means For The Kurds
– And For Israel :
At the end of the day, there are two basic lessons here for Israel and its supporters.
For anyone who has entertained doubts about the need for a state for the Jewish people, the
Kurds represent a tragic reminder. They are consistently being abandoned to an ugly fate
because they don't have a country.
The second lesson is that Israel cannot and must not depend on Trump. The cries of alarm
in Israel in recent days about a looming security threat do not only reflect lessons drawn
from Iran's (or one of its proxy's) spectacular attack on Saudi Arabia's energy
infrastructure. The alarms also reflect concern over the precedent set by Trump's refusal
to get involved militarily after Washington's Saudi ally was the victim of naked aggression
from Iran.
From that standpoint, America abandoning the Syrian Kurds is just icing on the cake of
Trump's Middle East non-strategy.
@alexanderMandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart
nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him
that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade.
Trump has opened the door to a
Turkish incursion into Syria:
Donald Trump has given the green light to a contentious Turkish military operation in
north-east Syria against the main US allies in the battle with Isis, triggering alarm in
Washington and Europe and plunging the campaign against jihadis into uncertainty.
The US has started withdrawing troops from the vicinity of a looming Turkish incursion,
following Mr Trump's phone call with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, on Sunday
night.
The White House said the US military, which has about 1,000 troops in Syria, would not
"support or be involved in the operation" that Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch
against US-backed Kurdish militias. In a statement, it said US forces would "no longer be in
the immediate area".
Removing U.S. forces from the area avoids having them caught up in the Turkish military
operation. Unless the U.S. was prepared to oppose Turkey and defend the YPG, it's not clear
what purpose would be served by keeping those forces where they were. Our absurd Syria policy
has put us in the untenable position of trying to keep the peace between mutually hostile
"allies" for years, and eventually the U.S. was going to have to choose which "ally" it was
going to side with. It is worth remembering that Turkey is a treaty ally and the YPG is at most
a proxy that has proven to be useful over the last few years. If the U.S. is going to favor one
or the other, it was never likely that our government would take the side of the YPG over
Turkey.
This dilemma wouldn't exist if the U.S. hadn't been waging an illegal war in Syria for the
past five years, and this should teach us to think very carefully about whether we should
support armed groups in a conflict where we have few clear interests. The U.S. has a long
history of supporting and then discarding armed proxies, and this will keep repeating itself as
long as the U.S. gets involved in unnecessary wars that it will sooner or later quit. The
solution isn't to use U.S. forces as a buffer with no end in sight, as quite a few critics of
this decision seem to want, but to refrain from sending U.S. forces into conflicts that don't
matter for U.S. security in the first place. Eventually our forces are going to leave places on
the other side of the planet, and it is unrealistic and unfair to make promises of a more
enduring commitment that everyone has to know won't be kept.
Having said all that, the administration has handled all this very poorly. Like almost every
Trump decision, the decision was made hastily and without coordinating with any of the people
that would be affected by it. It isn't clear that all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Syria
anytime soon, so it is possible that the illegal deployment there will continue somewhere else.
And it wouldn't be a Trump foreign policy decision if it didn't involve making insane threats
about destroying a country if its government does something he doesn't like:
Trump clearly wants to have things both ways, but it won't work. He is obviously wrong to
threaten to "destroy and obliterate" the Turkish economy, and the language in his statement is
deranged. Anyone who refers to his own "great and unmatched wisdom" obviously doesn't have any
wisdom to speak of, and it shows in this unhinged threat. For one thing, the threat isn't
likely to deter Erdogan from ordering an attack on Kurdish forces. The Turkish government sees
the YPG as part of an intolerable threat, and they aren't going to be coerced into changing
their position on that. Following through on the threat would mean inflicting punishment on the
people of Turkey for something their government has done, which would both inflame hostility to
the U.S. and harm tens of millions of people without achieving anything.
These are all the
ugly results of an absurd Syria policy and an illegal war that Trump escalated when he came
into office. It should serve as a warning to future administrations about the pitfalls of
involving the U.S. in wars we don't need to fight and throwing our support behind "allies" that
we will eventually leave in the lurch.
Update: The movement of U.S. forces is just a redeployment inside Syria:
US troops are *not* leaving Syria and will simply be moved out of area Turkey may attack,
senior administration official says. Number moving is 50 special operators.
Rep. Justin Amash says it best:
He's not bringing home the troops. He's not ending any war. Stop falling for it.
"...if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off
limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!)."
WHO SAYS THIS?
Forget the self-aggrandizing wording, which is beyond satire... Turkey are a treaty
ally! He's casually musing and threatening, in public, about "obliterating" the economy of
a treat ally!
It's going to be fascinating to see what the American history books have to say about
this time we are living through.
BTW, just as background: apparently Trump's threat to "destroy and obliterate" the Turkish
economy relates to a massive fine the US is "entitled" to assess on some Turkish interests
regarding a huge money-laundering scheme to evade financial sanctions on dealing with Iran.
Which fine we have not yet officially levied out of the goodness of our hearts...
"When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the unchallenged world record holders for 'second
chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives.", Stephen Walt
Actually, many of them should have been considered candidates for war criminals. "Waging the
war of agression" was part of the Nuremberg trials. This was the media called euphemistically
"the war of choice"!
"When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the unchallenged world record
holders for 'second chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives. Beginning in
the mid-1990s, this influential network of hard-line pundits, journalists, think tank analysts,
and government officials developed, purveyed, and promoted an expansive vision of American
power as a positive force in world affairs.
They conceived and sold the idea of invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein and insisted
that this bold move would enable the United States to transform much of the Middle East into a
sea of pro-American democracies.
What has become of the brilliant strategists who led the nation into such a disastrous
debacle? None of their rosy visions have come to pass, and if holding people to account were a
guiding principle inside the foreign policy community, these individuals would now be marginal
figures commanding roughly the same influence that Charles Lindbergh enjoyed after making naive
and somewhat sympathetic statements about Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.",
Walt, S. (2018). The Hell of good intentions: America's foreign policy elite and the decline
of US primacy. Straus and Giroux, p. 190.
You would have thought that these cheerleaders of invasion of Iraq and violation of the UN
charter would have run far, far away so that we never hear from them again--but no, they are
back explaining the world for us and making money doing that.
[ Milanovic was referring to a new column in Project Syndicate that I was confused by
before I noticed this reference to the column. Among the points of Milanovic, we find the
same self-defeating foreign policy being pushed by the same elite opinion-makers who hurt us
so much by taking us to war in Iraq and beyond.
"In our modern age, the continuation of racially based violent extremism, particularly
violent white supremacy, is an abhorrent affront to the nation," said Kevin McAleenan, the
acting director of homeland security.
Homeland Security Dept. Affirms Threat of White Supremacy
After Years of Prodding https://nyti.ms/2oTNJmQ
NYT - Zolan Kanno-Youngs - October 1
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security is beginning to address white
supremacist terrorism as a primary security threat, breaking with a decade of flagging
attention after bigoted mass shooters from New Zealand to Texas took the lives of nearly 100
people in the last six months.
In a little-noticed strategy document (*) published last month to guide law enforcement on
emerging threats and in recent public appearances by Kevin K. McAleenan, the acting secretary
of homeland security, the department is trying to project a new vigilance about violent white
nationalism, beating back criticism that the agency has spent a decade playing down the
issue.
"I would like to take this opportunity to be direct and unambiguous in addressing a major
issue of our time. In our modern age, the continuation of racially based violent extremism,
particularly violent white supremacy, is an abhorrent affront to the nation," Mr. McAleenan
said during an address last month, describing white nationalism as one of the most dangerous
threats to the United States.
The department's new stance contrasts that of President Trump, who has repeatedly
dismissed white supremacy as an insignificant fringe movement. But beyond words and
documents, many officials trying to combat the threat throughout the country remain skeptical
that the full weight of federal law enforcement is finally being used to give bigoted
domestic terrorism the attention it deserves. ...
* (Could be this.)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
FOR COUNTERING TERRORISM AND TARGETED VIOLENCE
Candidates for POTUS who are fundraising off "impeachment" are undermining credibility of
inquiry in eyes of American people, further dividing our already fractured country. Please
stop. We need responsible, patriotic leaders who put the interests of our country before
their own.
On day one of my presidency, I will call a summit between the United States, China, and
Russia to work to end the new Cold War, stop the arms race, and reduce tensions and increase
cooperation going forward.
"... With so much deceit and shenanigans, it is best politicians let the voters decide in the next election rather than continue this circus. The article below argues the average American doesn't care if Trump isn't perfect and if the Democrats want him out they should offer up a better alternative. ..."
"... Globalist SES Infiltration, Subversion, De Facto Police State Coup D'Etat https://aim4truth.org/2018/01/03/deep-state-shadow-government-revealed-senior-executive-service/ ..."
"... I would call it a coup except I think it happened several decades ago. What is left is a shell. ..."
"... If that feels rotten, then you may start to understand why the world does like the USA not so much. ..."
"... This is clearly an attempted coup, i.e., removal of a duly elected President by force instead of by any legitimate political process. The leftists and RINOs have been trying by the most subversive of means to get rid of Trump even before he took office. ..."
"... Isn't it a matter of record who created and ordered the implementation of the revised whistleblower form? I know it was secretly uploaded two days before the blower blew (9/24), but why now and who said to? ..."
You don't need to be a supporter of President Trump to be concerned about the efforts to remove him from office. Last week House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced impeachment proceedings against the President over a phone call made to the President of Ukraine.
According to the White House record of the call, the President asked his Ukrainian counterpart to look into whether there is any
evidence of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election and then mentioned that a lot of people were talking about how former US Vice
President Joe Biden stopped the prosecution of his son who was under investigation for corruption in Ukraine.
Democrats, who spent more than two years convinced that "Russiagate" would enable them to remove Trump from office only to have
their hopes dashed by the Mueller Report, now believe they have their smoking gun in this phone call.
It this about politics? Yes. But there may be more to it than that.
It may appear that the Democratic Party, furious over Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss, is the driving force behind this ongoing attempt
to remove Donald Trump from office, but at every turn we see the fingerprints of the CIA and its allies in the US deep state.
In August 2016, a former acting director of the CIA, Mike Morell, wrote an extraordinary article in the New York Times accusing
Donald Trump of being an "agent of the Russian Federation." Morell was clearly using his intelligence career as a way of bolstering
his claim that Trump was a Russian spy – after all, the CIA should know such a thing! But the claim was a lie.
Former CIA director John Brennan accused President Trump of "treason" and of "being in the pocket of Putin" for meeting with the
Russian president in Helsinki and accepting his word that Russia did not meddle in the US election. To this day there has yet to
be any evidence presented that the Russian government did interfere. Brennan openly called on "patriotic" Republicans to act against
this "traitor."
Brennan and his deep state counterparts James Comey at the FBI and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper launched
an operation, using what we now know is the fake Steele dossier, to spy on the Trump presidential campaign and even attempt to entrap
Trump campaign employees.
Notice a pattern here?
Now we hear that the latest trigger for impeachment is a CIA officer assigned to the White House who filed a "whistleblower" complaint
against the president over something he heard from someone else that the president said in the Ukraine phone call.
Shockingly, according to multiple press reports the rules for CIA whistleblowing were recently changed, dropping the requirement
that the whistleblower have direct, first-hand knowledge of the wrongdoing. Just before this complaint was filed, the rule-change
allowed hearsay or second-hand information to be accepted. That seems strange.
As it turns out, the CIA "whistleblower" lurking around the White House got the important things wrong, as there was no quid pro
quo discussed and there was no actual request to investigate Biden or his son.
The Democrats have suddenly come out in praise of whistleblowers – well not exactly. Pelosi still wants to prosecute actual whistleblower
Ed Snowden. But she's singing the praises of this fake CIA "whistleblower."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer once warned Trump that if "you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from
Sunday at getting back at you." It's hard not to ask whether this is a genuine impeachment effort or a CIA coup!
The WhatDoesItMean has earned a bad reputation over the years and I've avoided it as dis-info. But in recent months it seems
to had done a turn around and is providing good info.
both of whom are becoming increasingly alarmed over the grave military implications of what is now occurring -- the evidence
of which is being kept hidden from the American people by their socialist Democrat Party leaders and their leftist mainstream
media lapdogs
If the CIA is this brazen on so many attempts...and with no accountability yet, you could argue the coup already happened.
This is what a country run by a bunch of intelligence ppl looks like.
Epstein is not the top. Above Epstein are Soros, the Queen of England, and the Rockefeller/Rothschild's crime families. They
are the head of the Satanic (NOT JEWISH) "New World Order". Hey artisant when in hell are you going to actually get way down in
the rabbit hole and find out who is really behind globalism? You spout off the most stupid crap that takes you into mindless racism.
We as a corporate fascist socialist nation are much higher than Israel on the globalist hierarchy. They own our monetary system,
our corporate government with 22 trillion national debt, the military, and the intelligence alphabet agencies who are their right
enforcement arm.
Currently, a full-scale propaganda war rages with many Americans hell-bent on convincing the rest of us what is really going
on. I think it is clear we have reached the point where people are either outraged, simply concerned or take the attitude this
is all a big nothing burger or much ado about nothing.
With so much deceit and shenanigans, it is best politicians let the voters decide in the next election rather than continue
this circus. The article below argues the average American doesn't care if Trump isn't perfect and if the Democrats want him out
they should offer up a better alternative.
CIA finally coming home to roost. Never known to respect law or human rights outside the US now CIA applying "regime change"
inside the US. If that feels rotten, then you may start to understand why the world does like the USA not so much.
This is why the CIA is going to die under Haspel. I just read 3 dozen tweets on Sebastian Gorka's trip to Italy with Barr...None
of these liberals have a clue on what is going on in Italy...Which means they haven't a clue about the real Russia hoax and the
setup with Papadopolous. This says everything about our division in America.
The media has kept these people in the dark and this is why I keep saying the media companies need to be investigated and charged
with crimes.
The CIA and NSA are rogue foreign invaded and occupied) enemies of the State and should be surrounded by the military and seized
as a national security threat and a dangerous enemy. Everyone should be thrown out of the buildings controlled and occupied by
them and filled with military police until those who are true traitors can be identified and and arrested, including former employees
who still have highest level security access.
This is clearly an attempted coup, i.e., removal of a duly elected President by force instead of by any legitimate political
process. The leftists and RINOs have been trying by the most subversive of means to get rid of Trump even before he took office.
They have abandoned the peaceful political process and that leaves only force as a means to settle differences of opinion.
My hope is that the impeachment effort will backfire on the leftists in the House. Not only will they energize Trump's base,
but they will look bad to the rest of the non-communist public. And a bonus will be that Trump will be able to blame any pre-election
decline in the stock market and/or economy on the uncertainty created by their reckless and unjustified impeachment actions. (My
take is that the stock market is teetering on the edge of a cliff.)
This should be an interesting year between now and the elections with this impeachment **** show and what might come out of
the Justice Department relating to spygate and who was involved in it.
I almost fell like I am watching a new Game of Thrones episode.
Worst case is that Trump is actually removed from office and Civil War II breaks out. Best case is Trump wins by a landslide
in 2020 and Trump supporters take the House and improve their position in the Senate followed by a huge swamp drain during Trump's
second term.
They are not Judeo. They hide behind that term but have absolutely no bloodline connection to the Tribe of Judah from the Middle
East, they do not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Moses. They worship Satan.
That you use that term shows your vast ignorance of the real enemies behind the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. It was funded
and orchestrated by the Rothschild/Rockefeller Satanic bankers. The Rothschild's are Khazarian Satanist who funded Marx and Engels
communist socialist creators!
This is how CIA toppled a duly elected Iranian government in 1953 and now we refuse to understand, why Iranians don´t like
us and don´t want our "democracy".
Sometimes you have to wonder if the CIA learned its lessons from the Kennedy Assassination, and decided this would be a more
humane way. As much as John Brennan hates Trump, I am sure he would disagree with me on that. Brennan is out for blood.
Time for Trump to declare martial law and have the military arrest all these treasonous cowards and pussies in the CIA, FBI,
and Demoncratic party. We'll just see how 'deep' their state is. Btw, Soros and Obama will be part of those arrests along with
Shillary and Billy Bob Clinton.
Its easy to find the guilty individuals as they protest the loudest.
99% of all Americans already recognize this as a coup. You just have to know which half is rooting for the coup to be successful,
and the ones who are rooting for failure.
'Impeachment Inquiry' is just a fancy schmancy label for it all, that third world countries can't be bothered with, when they
overthrow their President or dictator. At least those banana republics are honest about what they are actually doing when performing
their version of the overthrow.
The entire US Beast of Gog&Babylon Roman Catholic Church/Synagogue of Satan Vatican FedScam Rothschild/Rockefeller Pyramid's
Satanic Fifth Column must, with precision, be 'tagged and bagged,' fully expropriated, its principals hanged for Treason, the
remainder banished from Our Holy Land.
CIA/FBI/NSA is just an 'action branch' of mechanics and operatives, who too must hang.
Need to cut the head off the snake,ie the deep deep state, the ones who's names are not even uttered in fear of reprisal, the
rest are just actors in this theater of the absurd.
Damn good point. Trump praised Wikileaks all through his campaign. A great investigation into Epstein and his connections to
Clinton, Mossad, Orwellian crime detection software and 9/11.
More than half of the country realizes this is a Deep State coup, led by Brennan's CIA traitors. If they get away with this,
our country is all but finished, we have to bring all hands on deck to defeat these treasonous scum. We will support President
Trump 110% and pray that the white hats in Washington will have the goods on all the traitors.
Isn't it a matter of record who created and ordered the implementation of the revised whistleblower form? I know it was
secretly uploaded two days before the blower blew (9/24), but why now and who said to? That name should be at least on Fox
from 8:00-11:00 for the next 3 weeks, while Lindsey is sending out subpoenas like barf at a sat night frat party. Let em flow
Senator.
Millions of people are
uniting
in demonstrations worldwide
against our civilization's ecocidal march toward extinction, which
makes me so happy to see. It's really encouraging to see so many young people burning with love for
their planet and a hunger to reverse the damage that has been done to our ecosystem by the refusal
of previous generations to turn away from our path of devastation. This must continue if we are to
survive as a species.
The challenge now is the same perennial challenge which comes up every single time there is a
massive and enthusiastic push from the public in a direction that is healthy: such movements
always, without exception, become targeted for manipulation by establishment interests.
I
write all the time
about how this has happened with the intrinsically healthy impulse of
feminism; I just finished
watching
an MSNBC pundit
proclaim that anyone who still supports Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren is
a sexist.
This corralling of healthy energy into the advancement of corrupt establishment
interests happens with feminism, it happens with the healthy fight against racism and antisemitism,
and
of course
it happens with environmentalism.
Of
course
it does. People get very emotional when you say this, even if you fully
support environmentalism and don't have any objections to the overall scientific consensus about
what's happening to our environment, but environmentalism is not destined to be the one and only
popular movement which establishment interests don't move mountains to co-opt.
We know that our oligarchic empire will do literally anything, up to and including
murdering a million Iraqis, to secure control over energy resources. We know this with absolute
certainty.
Therefore we can also know with certainty that they are working to ensure that
when new energy systems are put in place, they are put in place in a way which allows the oligarchs
to retain their power, and ideally to expand it, without losing their thrones to rival plutocrats,
to governments, or (worst case scenario) to the rank-and-file public gaining control over their own
energy. This agenda is on the table. It is happening.
The ruling elites have many advantages over us, but one of the greatest is the fact that
they know exactly what they want and exactly where they're trying to push things, whereas we the
general public, on average, do not.
If we only had one positive anti-establishment
direction to push in there'd be no stopping us, and as soon as we find one the oligarchs will be
done. But in general and on average what we have is a few clear ideas about what we
don't
want
and a great many vague, frequently contradictory ideas about what we
do
want. This lack of
clarity in direction always leaves us highly susceptible to the influence of any well-funded
narrative manager who steps forward to say "Oh yeah I know exactly where we're going! It's this
way, follow me!"
Luckily for us, there's a very clear demand we can add into the mix in this new push for
environmentalist reforms which runs directly counter to the interests of the empire that is trying
to manipulate our healthy impulses: de-fund the Pentagon.
There is no single, unified entity that is a larger polluter than America's dishonestly
labeled "Department of Defense".
Its yearly carbon output alone
dwarfs
that of entire first-world nations like Sweden and Portugal
; if the US military were its own
country it
would
rank 47th
among emitters of greenhouse gasses, meaning it's a worse polluter than over 140
entire nations. That's completely separate from the pollution already produced by the US itself.
None of the sociopathic corporations whose environmental impact is being rightly criticized
today come anywhere remotely close to that of the Pentagon.
They are going under the
radar.
And that's just greenhouse gas emissions, which the Pentagon's poisonous effects on our
environment are in no way limited to. As journalist Whitney Webb highlighted in
an
excellent article for
Mintpress News
about the wildly neglected subject of the US
military's ecological toxicity:
"Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies
combined, the US Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the
form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead,
among others."
Webb documents how the US "has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations
combined", how US military interventionism in Iraq "has resulted in the
desertification
of 90 percent of Iraqi territory
, crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it
to import more than 80 percent of its food," and how
"US military bases, both domestic
and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world."
"While the US military's past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not
sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the US military from openly planning future
contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts," Webb writes.
This is all a massive environmental burden to take on for a branch of the government which
provides no other service to anyone beyond
bullying
the rest of the world into obedience
, wouldn't you agree? So get rid of it.
Surely with all this talk about the huge, sweeping changes that are required to avert climate
catastrophe we're not going to overlook the world's single worst polluter just because a few think
tankers and their plutocratic sponsors believe it's important for the US-centralized power alliance
to retain total global hegemony? If we're making huge, sweeping changes, the completely needless
globe-spanning US war machine would be the obvious place to start.
That's something we can inject into the mainstream dialogue as this environmental movement
grows, and the cool thing about it is that the establishment manipulators can't reject it or
they'll expose themselves. It's something we can demand that they can't legitimately say no to. We
can surf this clear, concrete, exciting and utterly indisputable idea on the surging momentum of
these climate demonstrations, and the same healthy impulse to save our planet that these budding
activists are now embodying will lift it right up and carry it to the top of mainstream awareness.
No sane person will reject this, so if anyone pushes back against it to say "No, not that," they'll
immediately spotlight the insane agendas they serve.
The US does not need any more military power than what other normal nations have:
enough to defend its own easily defended shores from unprovoked attack.
Anything beyond
that, and certainly the hundreds of environmentally toxic military bases circling our planet,
exists solely for the benefit of murderous dominating imperialists and sociopathic war profiteers.
Demanding a reversal of US military expansionism as a part of the environmental movement is sane on
its face and will benefit everyone, and it will also help highlight all unwholesome elements of
empire loyalism.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
Excellent points. As soon as all this started hitting the fan, I was reminded of the last
impeachment of a POTUS; that time the US illegally (and amorally) destroyed Yugoslavia and
ensured that religious fundamentalist terrorist proxies would have safe havens in Eastern
Europe.
I think you're on the right track vis a vis looming war against Iran.
Sanders is spend force in any case. His endorsement does not matter much. But for Warren this
is a blunder. Tulsi is the only one out of this troika who proved to be capable politician.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
"... Tulsi is the only Democrat who has her head screwed tight on her shoulders. As for the rest of that clown show---God help us!! ..."
"... Russia Gate 2.0 ..."
"... The Ukrainian gas HoldCo gave Hunter Biden a no-show job that paid $600K a year. They could have hired dozen of Yale Law grads for less. ..."
"... Kind of sad we Americans after two years of Russia gate will be dragged through a new political ploy. Our intelligence community and the DOJ need come clean and quick. ..."
"... The transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president is out. There is absolutely no mention of anything close to a quid pro quo. ..."
"... "Repeat after me: the President should not demand foreign powers investigate his political rivals." How about Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton, the DNC? Do you have a problem with them soliciting, even paying cash, to foreigners to investigate Trump? How about spying? Do you have a problem with one party using U.S. intelligence to spy on another party's nominee? ..."
"... This time - played into showing an utter electoral weakness by demanding an impeachment with no grounds for such a year before an election they, according to their screams on every corner, are "poised to win". Uncool, bros and sises, uncooool... ..."
"... The only mildly critical observation as to how exactly Trump played the said fiddle is that it would have been a tad better had he taken his time and waited for some days. ..."
"... The Democrats have hitched their train to the impeachment star not with impeachment per se as the goal. ..."
"... Just dragging us through this execrable process will achieve what they want nicely, i.e., disrupting possible Trump progress on his policy initiatives ( such as they are ), and weakening his electoral chances amongst the incorrigibly indecisive segment of American voters at the margin. Fighting corruption with corruption has now become the norm in Washington, D.C. ..."
I agree with Tulsi Gabbard - an impeachment at this time serves no point. It also discounts
the value of voting Democrat. This act may hand the White House to Trump for another 4
years. One can only hope that a Tusi G can arise and become our next president. The rest of
the team are basically knee jerk politicians waiting for the lobbies to instruct.
If Democrats weren't fanatically determined to prevent her from arising at all costs, she
could become the president already in a year. She can realiably beat any Republican aside
from Rand Paul, who isn't much more loved within his party than she within hers. One can
only wonder why the Democratic establishment hates her so much. Not a member of the Cult?
Better losing on and on and on than allowing an anti-war candidate to get the nomination?
Collective political manifestation of Freudian death wish?
"I hope with all of my soul, and with respect for those like Ellsberg, Manning, and
Snowden, that this whistleblower proves worthy to stand next to them. And God help him and
our country if not."
So, Democrats have done just what he wanted them to do - started a miserable (and a doomed,
given that the Senate is in Republican hands) circus instead of actually campaigning with
their voters, while also riling his ones. But thanks, team D, for showing what your
candidates' chances to get elected really are. Has been no secret to me that those chances
are illusory, but thanks for making the thing official anyways. Starting a stillborn
attempt to depose a president, against whom you, in your fantasy world, are "poised to win"
in a year, is the best testimony of how toast you are in the said fantasy world's real
counterpart. Attacongressboys and attacongressgirls. Take some metaphorical cookies from
the metaphorical jar.
The only sad thing is that you're sullying the notion of whistleblower with a clown,
who, most probably, doesn't even exist. The whole thing is actually your petty revenge
against Snowden, who has just released his new book, ain't it? Low.
"Remember, he knows what was said and the Dems demanding impeachment do not."
Exactly and the Dems are setting themselves up for another public disaster thus handing
Trump his reelection. Anyway Biden is history and he should withdraw immediately. Fighting
this losing battle will only invoke the well deserved wrath of justice.
Looks to me that Trump is turning the tables on the democrats and they are in for a
world of hurt when the investigations and indictments start rolling now.
Kind of sad we Americans after two years of Russia gate will be dragged through a new
political ploy. Our intelligence community and the DOJ need come clean and quick.
The transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president is out. There is absolutely no
mention of anything close to a quid pro quo. Trump asks the president to take calls from
Bill Barr and Giuliani to talk about corruption broadly. Biden's son is also included in
what they'll talk about. It is all very high-level, general, surface talk. If Dems want to
try and impeach on this, it is a long shot at best.
https://fm.cnbc.com/applica...
"Repeat after me: the President should not demand foreign powers investigate his political
rivals."
How about Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton, the DNC? Do you have a problem with them soliciting, even paying cash, to foreigners to
investigate Trump? How about spying? Do you have a problem with one party using U.S. intelligence to spy on
another party's nominee?
I'll repeat after you once you clarify your position on those things. But if you're not
consistent, why should I?
The transcript released has Trump asking for an investigation of Biden and Biden's son
explicitly. Then it emphasizes how "very good" to the Ukraine the U.S. has been and how the
relationship "has not always been reciprocal".
At the time of the call the president was holding back hundreds of millions of dollars
in Ukranian aid. How dumb do you have to be to not interpret this as a gangsta time of quid-pro-quo
attempt?
The whole whistle blower report should be released.
The Demos have no real choice but to start an impeachment query as their voters will
interpret not doing this as clear cowardice and moral spinelessness. They know the
impeachment won't succeed.
So, looks like "some" folks have been played like a fiddle all over again. This time -
played into showing an utter electoral weakness by demanding an impeachment with no grounds
for such a year before an election they, according to their screams on every corner, are
"poised to win". Uncool, bros and sises, uncooool...
The only mildly critical observation as to how exactly Trump played the said fiddle is
that it would have been a tad better had he taken his time and waited for some days.
Nothing practical - the situation served its purpose fairly and squarely - but it would be
such a cute circus, and wailings would be so much louder if everything fell apart just a
little bit later. But maybe he just doesn't like the circus. De gustibus non est
disputandum , though.
Whoa, there cowboys and indigenous peoples! The Democrats have hitched their train to the
impeachment star not with impeachment per se as the goal.
Just dragging us through this
execrable process will achieve what they want nicely, i.e., disrupting possible Trump
progress on his policy initiatives ( such as they are ), and weakening his electoral
chances amongst the incorrigibly indecisive segment of American voters at the margin.
Fighting corruption with corruption has now become the norm in Washington, D.C.
It's sort of the long game, with a hint of the "Hail Mary" pass thrown in for good
measure. They know what they're up to. But, as the author says, it just might backfire.
They may overplay their hand. Or make one of the two classic blunders.
Vizzini: "Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most
famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well
known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!'"
A presentation and reading by Hamilton Gregory, author of "McNamara's Folly: The Use of
Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam." Because so many college students were avoiding military service
during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct
354,000 low-IQ men. they were known as McNamara's "Moron Corps." Their death toll in combat was
appalling. Gregory indicates at the end of his talk that the situation didn't really change.
The same practice is taking place nowadays.
England patriot says:
September
24, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT 100 Words A lot of people mistake low IQ brutishness for genuine
bravery and strength, which is why blacks are considered by many whites to be the toughest race
and probably why they are favoured by the military.
A big weakness of the US and UK militaries is the assumption that street thugs make the most
effective and capable troops, in reality such people are often the most useless and cowardly in
an actual war zone. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All
Comments
The story is definitely true. Not only were there low moron troops but even the so called
West Point graduates with no experience in war were complete idiots. It was a two fold fiasco
because these graduates couldn't read coordinates on maps and the morons couldn't find them
and thus they often bombed our own troops.
There were a lot "friendly fire" deaths that were never reported. The carnage of Vietnam
was a disgrace from poor military strategies to morons and incompetents running them. We were
not prepared for the "Jungle Type Gorilla War" our leaders got us into and the results are
told forever on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. What did they die for? Another
"Communist" are taking over Domino Policy when the true Communist Jews were running the stuff
in the USA and destroying us.
Two destroyers were recently collided into by slow-moving merchant ships. Someone said that
this is like a Chevy Corvette being struck by a bulldozer on the Bonneville Salt Flats while
a team of trained experts had the job of keeping the Corvette from being hit.
@A123
Any civilization that sends their Best and Brightest to the front lines is taking huge risks.
Cannon fodder troops generally come (and should come) from the lower tiers of society. This
promotes a nation's long-term health and vitality.
There is no starvation–only fasting–during Ramadan. Fasting occurs each day
from sunrise to sundown. On the other hand, Israel's high fertility rates among Orthodox and
Sephardic Jews has dysgenics written all over it. This explains why Israel's average IQ
average remains below 100. Highly religious and less-intelligent Jews are producing a
disproportionate number of the births inside Israel.
It's a lesson the US could've learned back in World War II. The US deployed black troops in
France, and instead of proving that the blacks were just as capable fighters as the whites,
the blacks engaged in typical black behavior of rape and thievery. It got so bad in areas
like Cherbourg that the local population preferred the Germans over their supposed
'liberators'.
The same thing happened earlier in the war when the Allies deployed Moroccan mercenaries
in Italy.
After the battle of Monte Cassino, these savages could rape Italian women with impunity, they
wouldn't be stopped by the French, the British or indeed the Americans, and as a result more
than 30.000 Italian women became victims of these vicious assaults.
But I bet it was all in good faith of course, after all the US was making Europe safe for
stali I mean, 'democracy'
Politicians did not want the war to become an issue among the affluent. It was the old adage
about wars: "Rich men start them; poor men fight them." There were plenty of chicken hawks
around.
The article and comments, so far, are interesting.
A military is a tool of the ruling class/caste/layer/whatever. What is moronic, or not, is
for them to decide. The only principle: is the tool good for the job?
There are several very good reasons to have "low-level IQ" troops in the military, a
modern war/combat in particular.
In an infantry company of, say, 160 men, a smart O.C. would love to have 10-20 of those
types. Plenty of jobs/assignments for them and definitely attributing to combat efficiency of
the unit.
Even better in logistics, especially in higher units/rear areas. Comparison:
warehouse/storage facilities employees in civvy street.
BTW, those guys, if/when properly treated (LEADERSHIP) can be utterly loyal and
dependable. For "experts" around, there are plenty of miserable, mind-numbing jobs/tasks in
the military, plus quite dangerous, which those guys shall do when others won't. If .treated
properly
And, one more element, especially in contemporary wars: certain moral attitude, "relaxed"
approach to human life and limb etc. Ability to commit acs of war other, more, say, smart,
"sensitive" troops, are reluctant to do.
Israel. IDF as the state tool to keep Palestinians under control.
Occupation forces of The Empire in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And one more thing: for suppressing possible internal unrest in a Western country ..For
that job you really don't want very intelligent/sensitive people.
Etc.
Big topic but, of course, not for this thread, for obvious reasons. Program.
Sorry for the interruption, guys. Feel free to resume the "bashing".
Infantry in Vietnam was known to be awful. Everyone in the military knew to avoid it. It was
openly used as a threat for non-compliance to troops elsewhere.
There were certainly exceptions. Some Marines, people wanting or needing to get their
ticket punched, etc. But before anything, Vietnam Infantry was getting the dregs. Not that I
doubt McNamera leaned into it as an opportunity.
Why in the world did they want or need all these troops? Westmorland kept asking for more
and more. After 500,000, per the pentagon papers, the JCS mood Westmorland that given US
presence in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc., there were no more extra troops.
Too bad that the US military has made a cottage industry out of revisionist accounts
regarding how it could have been "won". Showing a remarkable lack of insight into what it
means to win.
@A123
Interesting to see how a conniving Jew takes a piece about Vietnam and uses it to further his
objective of trying (quite unsuccessfully, one infers) to generate sympathy for the
Judenreich. He then doubles down with a further tangent leading somehow to Ramadan (!) It's
almost comical how transparent Jew scheming has become. It makes one wonder if the Hasbara
brigades have had to go low-IQ at this point?
Both in terms of IQ and class background, infantry in Vietnam were generally
representative of the general population. As one author assessed, "If they [soldiers in
combat units] were not the social and intellectual cream of American youth, neither were they
its dregs or castoffs."
nI saw the author of the book give at talk. I believe it was at a Tennessee Unversity. What
he described he saw as an enlisted man if I remember correctly. He was sent to OCS later and
sounded a very decent man. The conditions were awful for these guys. They were treated as
expendable by peers and officers alike.
I wonder how the IDF works this issue out. The Israelis are masters of the universe at
everything don't you know. They are utter geniuses.
"... Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions." ..."
"... The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's president. ' ..."
'US President Donald Trump has moved to suspend Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's
senior officials, relatives, and others who receive financial benefits from entering into
the US in Wednesday press release from the White House.
Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House
Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants
of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions."
The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's
president. '
"Michael Flynn pleads Fifth, refuses to be 'paraded, harassed or disparaged' by Adam
Schiff"
By Rowan Scarborough...The Washington Times...Monday, September 23, 2019...7:12 p.m.
likbez said in
reply to im1dc...
"Michael Flynn pleads Fifth, refuses to be 'paraded, harassed or disparaged'
by Adam Schiff"
Looks like Adam Schiff who is part of Israel lobby like to take risks.
Flynn saga is about Israel not about Russia. He contacted Russia ambassador at the request
of Kushner who ask him to try to block Russian vote in UN against Israel.
What if the testimony blow out in his face like was the case with Lewandowski
Netanyahu's coalition was given the nod because they have 55 seats to the other side's
54.
There's still some question about whether Netanyahu can form a governing coalition.
But
Netanyahu now has 42 days to convince his former Defense Minister(!) Lieberman
(who heads the Yisrael Beiteinu Party) to join the coalition led by Likud.
"... One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very top. ..."
"... To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD? ..."
One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in
Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical
subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on
the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very
top.
To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And
what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD?
This brings us to Hunter Biden's appointment to Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. After the
coup in 2014, why wouldn't Biden want a trusted asset on the board of the biggest natural gas
producer in Ukraine? IOW it was unpublicized standard operating procedure.
The ratcheting up of retaliatory actions between the US and Iran will lead to a war that
will be devastating to the people of both countries. As president I will re-enter the Iran
Nuclear Agreement and end the sanctions against Iran to move us back from the precipice of
war.
Reckless Retaliation Has Us One Spark Away From War
"... Aaron Maté warned, "They're doubling down on failure: a failure to transform after losing 2016; & a failure to bring Trump down w/ the failed Russiagate conspiracy theory." ..."
We've long commented that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is certainly the most interesting and
'outside-the-establishment-box' candidate on the Democrat side running for president
--
a
"Ron
Paul of the Left"
of sorts given her outspoken criticism of US regime change wars and standing
against foreign policy adventurism as her central message.
She even once met in 2016 with then President-elect Trump to discuss Syria policy and
non-interventionism at a private meeting at Trump Tower just ahead of his being sworn into office,
after which she said both agreed to resist "the drumbeats of war [on Syria] that neocons have been
beating to drag us into an escalation...".
And now
she's resisting calls for Trump to be impeached,
saying it
would be
"terribly divisive"
. She
told "Fox &
Friends"
on Tuesday that she'll remain consistent to her message that the road to 2020 can only
be found in a clear victory and mandate, saying it's for
"the American people... making
that decision" of who is in the White House,
not impeachment
.
"I believe that impeachment at this juncture would be terribly divisive for the
country at a time when we are already extremely divided. The hyperpartisanship is one of the
main things driving our country apart,"
Gabbard
told
host Brian Kilmeade.
Once again showing herself outside of the establishment and its blindly loyal partisan
narrative, and perhaps more in-tune with the American public, she's further setting herself apart
from her main Democratic rivals and the presidential nominee front-runners on this one.
"I think it's important to beat Donald Trump, that's why I'm running for president," she said.
"But I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard making that
decision."
Top contender Elizabeth Warren, for example, tweeted
early Tuesday
, "The House must
impeach. It must start today."
A number of commentators pointed out this would likely end in failure as the Democrats double
down on impeachment even after Trump agreed to release the full, unredacted transcript of the
Ukraine call in question.
One progressive journalist and political commentator, Aaron Maté warned, "They're doubling down
on failure: a failure to transform after losing 2016; & a failure to bring Trump down w/ the failed
Russiagate conspiracy theory."
As we noted earlier, Democrats are now scrambling as it seems President Trump's
decision
to release the transcript has spoiled their narrative.
Like the failed Mueller investigation, should this blow up in Democrats' faces
it will
practically guarantee the reelection of Donald Trump
.
And likely for this very reason, Pelosi herself had for months resisted calls to start the
impeachment process, and
yet here we are
, with Pelosi leading the charge.
When the other candidates prove reliably progressive, I'll consider them. So far, Sanders
is the only one to reach that threshold. You may call that "purism"; I call it not supporting
candidates who don't support me.
I contributed to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign (and supported her as a potential VP candidate)
despite having reservations about her, specifically because I wanted her to be on the debate
stage to promote her anti-imperialist foreign policy views. She lost a lot of ground with me
on her vote on the anti-BDS referendum.
Not a Gabbard 'fan', despite donating to her. She was never a serious candidate; her
usefulness was in bringing a genuine anti-war platform into the debate. Now that the
'democratic' Party has cut her out, she doesn't have much point. She's still a drone loving
Zionist, and her continued supporting of literal fascist (or the next closest thing) Modi is
just gross.
Purity suggests politics is about morality. It isn't. It's about who's going to get you
stuff. Only Bernie talks in those terms. And he isn't pure but barely acceptable.
Purity is posturing for those who think politics is about public performance and self
expression. Upper middle class liberals can afford to approach things this way, but most
people are too busy trying to keep their horse out of the ditch. They need stuff.
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon,
administering the occasional rap on the knuckles
to those acting in bad faith"
". Meanwhile, the system's multilateral institutions,
especially the International Monetary Fund,
helped countries in dire need of funds,
provided they followed the rules."
Behind the escalating global conflict over trade and technology is a larger breakdown of the
postwar rules-based order, which was based on a belief that any country's growth benefits
all. Now that China is threatening to compete directly with the United States, support for
the system that made that possible has disappeared.
By RAGHURAM G. RAJAN
CHICAGO – Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute –
whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war
reparations – now produces new threats to trade?
For much of the last century, the United States managed and protected the rules-based
trading system it created at the end of World War II. That system required a fundamental
break from the pre-war environment of mutual suspicion between competing powers. The US urged
everyone to see that growth and development for one country could benefit all countries
through increased trade and investment.
Under the new dispensation, rules were enacted to constrain selfish behavior and coercive
threats by the economically powerful. The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering
the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith. Meanwhile, the system's
multilateral institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, helped countries in
dire need of funds, provided they followed the rules....
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to
those acting in bad faith"
USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites
(neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination
and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy. Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic
for the neocons as a whole.
Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to
bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on
Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie
were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at
this stage of history.
The truth is that the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely
unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external
threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.
The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly,
London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient
to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it
not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)
Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet
and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New
Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001. In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops
posted abroad.
Still as an imperial state that is the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on
financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.
With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire
experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of
further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed
to the elite as whole)
If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the
2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never
ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation" phase)
Although currently with unhinged Trump at the helm the USA empire still going strong in
forcing vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA. Trump
currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic neoliberal
globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be successful in the
short run.
In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during
triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.
EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel
tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the
USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.
If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in
check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the
dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the
level of external debt and required devaluation of the dollar.
Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force
trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China,
India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly
in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by
Brazil and Argentina.
Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA
empire. That's not much.
"If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position "........
Think Italy moving into the Axis in 1937? Or the Soviet German Non Aggression Pact.
Nuclear weapons removes the incentive for large "rearmaments" or not?
Would the Britain to France 1938 relationship describe the US to EU? Thinking in 1939
(1914?) terms Europe is less stitched together than in 1936.
"... CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country, mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though, read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO 1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long while.) ..."
"... So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another and there fore vulnerable. ..."
It has been my contention that Biden's powerful backers from the
military-industrial-intelligence-media complex are fully aware of his mental state, and that
is precisely why they want him to be president. Why? He would only be a figure-head
president. He would be given a suggested running mate as well as a list of candidates for
cabinet and other appointed positions (as Obama was given) and Biden would follow that in
making appointments. Policies of his administration would be consistent with the interests of
the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex.
robert e williamson jr , September 20, 2019 at 15:19
Kids this is exactly what the intelligence community wants, someone who they can claim
needs to be told what to do or be kept discreetly out of the loop, so currently Joe maybe the
chosen one just as Bill Barr is reported to have told Slick Willy.
We end up where we are at the moment because our security state apparatus is ran by the
intelligence community who do not really want a strong intelligent, clear minded president
who can actually think for himself. Ask Barrack Obama!
For years I've used this analogy, crude as it maybe, that when the newly elected president
is called on for his national security briefing it is always a tense encounter because this
"Newby" is about to have a come to Jesus meeting with this most abusive of all government
entities. The intelligence community. He is "shown the way"he will act because if he doesn't
this community who has relieved him of one his go -- -s will come and relieve him of the
other.
This started as a joke on my part, I'm now convinced it reflects reality.
At some point many here will understand that since around the time of the murder of JFK ,
CIA has framed things in this manner.
CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country,
mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though,
read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO
1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long
while.)
Doing so will help make your mind more flexible , jeesh what a slog to get through it.
So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC
long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another
and there fore vulnerable.
I figured if Caitlin could say "dog balls " which I think was a great analogy I could say
gonads.
Time to sit down Joe.
Thanks again to Consortium News for their great efforts at informing the masses.
Columnist Max Boot in The Washington Post put into writing what we have all known for
some time: real journalism, Jefferson's informed citizenry and all that, is dead. The job has
shifted to aspirational writing, using manipulated droplets of facts and just plain made-up
stuff to drive events.
Boot writes to drive Trump from office and overturn the 2016 election. Max : "Much of my
journalism for the past four years has been devoted to critiquing President Trump and opposing
the spread of Trumpism. But no matter how many columns or sound bites I produce, he remains in
office . I am left to ask if all my work has made any difference."
Boot has spent the last several years creating and circle-supporting others who create false
narratives. They manufacture reasons for Trump to resign, press Democrats to impeach, and try
to persuade voters they otherwise hold in contempt that they don't know what's good enough for
them. We kind of figured this out after senior staff at the New York Times had to
remind
reporters that they were "not part of the f*cking resistance," but it is helpful to see it in
daylight. After all, democracy dies in darkness.
The uber-false narrative Max and others Frankensteined into existence was Russiagate. Trump
wasn't the
Manchurian Candidate and there was no quid pro quo for Russian election help. Yet the media
literally accused the president of treason by
melding together otherwise unrelated truthlets -- Trump wanted a hotel in Moscow, some ads were
run on Facebook -- that could be spun into a narrative to bring him down. Correlation was made
into causation in a purposeful freshman Logic 101 fail. What was true was of little
consequence; what mattered was whether the media could collectively create a story that the
rubes would believe and then pile on.
Advertisement
The critical flaw in Russiagate (other than that it didn't happen) was that the media
created an end-point they could not control. Robert Mueller was magic-wanded into the Last
Honest Man, the Savior of Democracy, as the narrative first unfolded and then fell apart like a
cardboard box in the rain. After his dismal
testimony, there was nowhere for the story to go.
Was it only a week ago Law and Order: Scotland SVU was the locus of the Next Big Thing
following Greenland? Because even as we race to catch up (debunking takes longer than making up
accusations,) a whole new Big Thing popped up over the Ukraine. Details are vague, based all on
leaks and persons familiar with some of it, but are as dire as they are lacking.
But as with every other outrage, leaks in the new phone call-gate instantly became
certainties, certainties became foreign influence in our elections, and demands to impeach were
recycled until Twitter voted for the death penalty. And all before a single piece of hard data
is public. See the pattern yet?
If the latest "gate" doesn't pan out, Democrats have already jumpstarted an old favorite,
upgraded for the 2020 election: Trump is now manipulating domestic and foreign policy for
personal gain via hotel fees.
At first glance, it seems like a non-starter. Trump's hotels are as much a part of him as
the extra pounds he carries. He campaigned as a CEO and announced early on that he was not
going to divest
. But with the first cold slap of his election victory, a narrative was being shaped: he could
not become president because of his business conflicts of interest; it was danged unconstitutional
.
Early proponents of this dreck dug around in the Constitution's closet and found the
Emoluments Clause , a handful of lines intended to bar officeholders from accepting gifts
from foreign sovereigns, kings, and princes to prevent influence buying. Pre-Trump, the last
time the issue was in actual contention was with President Martin Van Buren (no relation) over
gifts from the Imam of Muscat.
The media ran with it. They imagined out of whole cloth that any foreign government official
getting a room at any Trump hotel had been given a "gift." Then they imagined that any tiny
percentage of that room profit that actually went to Trump himself represented a bribe. Then
they imagined that despite the vast complexity of U.S. relations, Trump would alter course
because some guy rented a room. It was Joker -like in its diabolicalness, the presidency
itself merely a prank to hide an international crime spree. Pow!
It was ridiculous on its face, but they made it happen. The now-defunct leftist site
Think Progress ran what might be Story Zero before Trump even took office. An anonymous
source claimed that, under pressure, the Kuwaiti ambassador had canceled a major event at one
hotel to switch to Trump's own D.C. hotel. It turned out to be untrue. "Do you think a
reception of two hours in the Trump hotel is going to curry favors with the administration when
we host thousands of U.S. troops in Kuwait? When we have in the past and still do support
American operations in Afghanistan and Iraq?" the Kuwait ambassador asked when someone
got around to his side of the story. But no matter: the narrative was set.
Then it grew. Though the Emoluments Clause is quite specific, the media decided that every
timeanyone stayed at a Trump property, it was corruption. Even when Trump visited
one of his own homes, it was corruption, because the Secret Service paid Trump for the
privilege. Of course, the Secret Service has always paid for the facilities used in
their work because the government cannot commandeer private property or accept free rooms
(which, ironically, could be seen as a bribe), not from Marriott and not from the Trump
Organization. Even Joe Biden still has to charge the Secret Service
rent on a cottage he owns so they can protect him when he's home in Delaware.
More?
T-Mobile booked nine rooms at a Trump hotel, in media hive minds ostensibly to influence
federal approval of a $26 billion merger. Those rooms were worth about $2,700. Of course, the
president, who can influence the Dow with a tweet, prefers to make his illegal money off jacked
up hotel bills. Think small has always been a Trump trademark.
Reuters headlined how foreigners were buying condos from
third-party owners (i.e., not Trump or his company), but they were in a Trump-managed
building and maybe the monthly maintenance fees would qualify as mini-emoluments? Trump was
accused of "
hiding " foreign government income at his hotels when servers at the bar failed to ask cash
customers if they were potentates or princes (the
headline : "Trump Organization Says It's 'Not Practical' to Comply With the Emoluments
Clause").
And of course, there was the
Air Force crew staying at a Trump place in Scotland. No matter that the hotel had forged
its relationship with a nearby airport long before Trump became president, or that the Air
Force had
used the airport and hotel
hundreds of times before Trump became president (going back to World War II), or that a
decision by the Pentagon to have flights stop more frequently there was made under the
Obama administration. None of that stopped the media from proclaiming corruption. One piece
speculated that the $166 per night the Air Force pays for rooms was always part of Trump's
cornerstone financial
plan for the floundering multi-million golf course.
But to see how much the corruption narrative really is a media creation, you have only to
compare it to how the mainstream media covered what might have been a similar question in the
past. Imagine if journalists had treated every appearance by Obama as a book promotion. What if
his every speech had been slandered across the channels as corruption, Obama just out there
pimping his books? Should he have been impeached for commercializing the office of
president?
Follow the money, as Rachel Maddow likes to say. The Trump Organization pays to the Treasury
all profits from foreign governments. In 2018, that was
$191,000 . The year before, the amount was $151,470. So Trump's in-pocket profit is
zero.
Meanwhile, Obama's profit as an author during his time in office was
$15.6 million (he's made multiples more since, including a
$65 million book advance). In the two weeks before he was inaugurated, Obama reworked his
book deals to take advantage of his new status. He agreed not to publish another non-fiction
book during his time in office to keep anticipation high, while signing a $500,000 advance for
a young adult version of Dreams From My
Father .
Obama's books were huge sellers
in China, where publishing is largely government controlled, meaning he likely received Chicom
money in the Oval Office. His own State Department bought $79,000
worth of his books to distribute as gifts.
As with Trump, nothing Obama did was illegal. There are no laws per se against a president
making money. Yet no one bothered to raise ethical questions. No one claimed he sought the
presidency as a bully ATM machine. No one claimed his frequent messaging about his father was
designed to move books. No one held TV hearings on his profits or how taxpayer funds were used
to buy his books. It's not "everybody does it" or "whataboutism"; it's why does the media treat
two very similar situations so very differently?
Max Boot confessed why. The media has created a pitch-and-toss game with Democrats, running
false, exaggerated, and shallowly reported stories to generate
calls for
hearings , which in turn breathe life into the corruption stories they live off. We will
soon see how far last week's breathless drama -- unnamed "whistleblower" leaks supposedly
charging Trump with pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate his rival Joe Biden --
will go.
Boot and his ilk are doing a new job. Journalism to them is for resistance, condemnation,
arousal, and regime change. And that's one way democracy does die.
She did make him look stupid – all he had was a handful of talking points. Occasionally
he did try to talk over her to hammer home his points, but often he sat quietly and let her
finish. When your interviewer lets you speak, he's interested in what you have to say, or if
opposed to you, in letting you hang yourself.
When he talks over you, he's simply trying to do all the talking while offering the
pretense of an interview.
Interesting and new to me as well. I do recall reading several articles that the Mig 15 was a
huge leap in military technology and the Mig 17 was the best subsonic fighter ever fielded.
The MiG Alley battles produced many fighter aces. The top aces were Russian. Nikolay
Sutyagin claimed 21 kills, including nine F-86s, one F-84 and one Gloster Meteor in less than
seven months. His first kill was the F-86A of Robert H. Laier on 19 June 1951 (listed by the
Americans as missing in action), and his last was on 11 January 1952, when he shot down and
killed Thiel M. Reeves, who was flying an F-86E (Reeves is also listed as MIA). Other famous
Soviet aces include Yevgeni G. Pepelyayev, who was credited with 19 kills, and Lev Kirilovich
Shchukin, who was credited with 17 kills, despite being shot down twice himself.
During the Korean War, NATO Allies wanted so badly to examine a MiG at close quarters
that they offered a US$100,000 reward for any pilot who would defect and bring his MiG-15
with him. When a North Korean pilot, Lt. Ro Kun Suk, did defect in September of 1953, he was
not aware of the reward, but was given it anyway.
I had heard that the Mig 17 was deliberately kept out of the war as it would have decimated
the US Air Force forcing them to do something really stupid like drop a nuke. Could be an
urban legend.
"The Israeli military is armed with the latest fast jets and precision weaponry, yet it has
turned to its fleet of drones to hit targets in Iraq. Deniability has played a big factor
– the ability of drones to elude radar and therefore keep targets guessing about who
actually bombed them is playing well for Israeli leaders who are trying to prevent an
increasingly lethal shadow war with Iran from developing into an open conflict."
Right! If you get into the cui bono game, the list is pretty long including US shale oil
companies.
Russia, too. I'm surprised that the 'Russia dun it crowd' (Team Pelosi) hasn't blamed it
all on Putin. I mean, isn't everything bad that happened since Nov. 2016 Putin's fault.
But now it would appear that Iran is the villain du jour. Maybe they'll even get blamed
for Trump's reelection next year!
In terms of cui bono, you can group Wall Street investors and banksters in with shale oil
companies they desperately need the shale oil companies to finally start generating some
profits. What better way than to knock out shal oil's biggest competitor?
But, as I said, Iran has become the villain du jour, even though they have the deterrent
capability of closing the Strait of Hormuz and taking most ME oil off line. To hear the
neocons, even that deterrence is not enough to dissuade them from a war on Israel's behalf.
To them war is certainly preferable to trying to make room for Iranian sovereignty and assure
the flow of ME oil to world markets.
Could this be the sort of false-flag
op where explosives are planted by
non-foreign operators to make a lot of
smoke and minimal real damage, and make
it look like the work of 'enemy missiles',
sort of like the 'Wag The Dog' plot. It
might be well worth it to Certain Parties
to even do a modest amount of real damage.
Iran's Foreign Minister Vows 'All-Out War'
if US or Saudis Strike https://nyti.ms/2AxMgFi
NYT - Richard Pérez-Peña - September 19
A military strike against Iran by the United States or Saudi Arabia would result in "an
all-out war," Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Thursday, repeating his
government's denial of responsibility for an attack last week that damaged Saudi oil
facilities.
The Houthi rebel faction in Yemen -- supported by Iran in its fight against a Saudi-led
coalition -- claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack. But Saudi and American officials
blamed Iran, raising the threat of military retaliation. But so far it is not clear how they
will react.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out an "act of war" with the
aerial attacks, but President Trump has appeared reluctant to order a military strike.
...
----
Trump's National Security Aides to Meet on
Possible Iran Options https://nyti.ms/2QgO2pa
NYT - Eric Schmitt - September 19
WASHINGTON -- Senior national security officials from across the government are scheduled
to meet Thursday to refine a list of potential targets to strike in Iran, should President
Trump order a military retaliation for missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil fields
last weekend, officials said.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, are to present the updated options to Mr. Trump at a National Security
Council meeting scheduled for Friday, a senior American official said.
In advance of being presented with the newest set of options, Mr. Trump has sent different
signals on his intentions. He has threatened to order "the ultimate option" of a strike on
Iran to punish the nation for its behavior, but also has made clear his continued opposition
to ordering the United States into another war in the Middle East.
The Pentagon is advocating military strikes that one senior official described as at the
lower end of options. The official said that any retaliation could focus on more clandestine
operations -- actions that military planners predict would not prompt an escalation by Iran.
...
"The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an immediate response to the new US measures
denouncing them as "illegitimate."
"This will not affect our approaches to Iran," said Zamir Kabulov, the director of the
Russian Foreign Ministry Second Asian Department. "As we planned, we will continue to
cooperate with Iran in the banking sector. This will have no effect [on Moscow's position]
"
While Beijing, which counts Saudi Arabia as its second-largest source of oil imports, was
somewhat more circumspect, it is highly unlikely that any new measures will affect its own
ties to Iran. China accounts for half of Iran's sharply reduced oil exports, and Beijing and
Tehran this month signed $400 billion worth of deals connected to Beijing's Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) of which Iran is a key component.
The sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after ripping up the nuclear agreement
in May 2018 amount to an economic blockade, tantamount to a state of war. They have led to
shortages of food and medicines, leaving cancer patients to die."
"Tehran has vehemently denied these accusations. The Houthi rebels, who control the
bulk of Yemen, claimed responsibility, declaring the attacks an act of self-defense against
the murderous US-backed war that the Saudi monarchy has waged against Yemen for nearly
four-and-a-half years, killing nearly 100,000 Yemenis and driving 8 million more to the brink
of starvation."
"The cost of the Patriot missile defense systems run into the billions while the price of
each missile that they fire is estimated at $5 million. This massively expensive weaponry
proved useless in countering drones costing a few thousand dollars that devastated the
world's largest oil refining facility."
The comments
"Authoritarian Western governments like the US, the UK, and Sweden preach an enlightened,
exalted rhetorical reverence for "the rule of law" and absolute dedication to "justice",
civil rights and due process. Meanwhile, whenever it serves their interests, their actions
are heinously and ruthlessly tyrannical, brutal, hypocritical, and capricious.
As we have seen over and over with Julian Assange, governments and their ministers of
(ostensible) justice will simply run roughshod over any technicalities and niceties that
ordinarily compel the release of incarcerated persons."
Pepe Escoabar (via Saker) has an interesting take on the Houthis capabilities and potential.
He suggests that they could destabilize Saudi Arabia via a lightning grab of Mecca and an
uprising of Shia in the eastern provinces. The recent successful drone attacks certainly must
have brought a smile to the Shia in that region and shown the ineptness of the Saudi military
and their US backers.
It is amusing to watch the US squirm over the failure of its radars and missile systems to
detect the attack. Also, if there any doubt, it was clearly the Houthis's handiwork likely
with help from Hezbollah. There was a good story on the drone's technical capabilities which
IIRC, carries a 100 pound warhead, flies at about 120 miles per hour and has a 1,000 mile
range approximately. Presumably, it uses GPS for guidance. Here is the link to the Escobar
story:
Mecca and the Red Sea port city of Jeddah are well within the range of drone and missile
strikes by the Houthis. They are not much farther away from the Yemeni border than Abqaiq is.
The Abqaiq attack serves as a warning to Riyadh of how vulnerable Mecca and Jeddah are, and
that warning could even have been the original intention of the attack.
I notice that Andrei Martyanov says that the Patriot systems have blind zones since they are
restricted to operate 7 degrees above the horizontal. According to Martyanov, this is in
contrast to the Russian S-series AD systems where missiles are launched vertically and then
take "a ride on the beam" towards the target. (This seems to explain the launch pattern of
these missiles where they are "popped" out vertically, whence their engines ignite sending
the missile off, (often) very low and flat towards their targets. http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/09/why-would-you-ask.html
From what Martyanov writes, it would seem that the US stuff has very serious design flaws.
Thanks for posting, I LOVED this episode of Crosstalk, because it was so contentious.
That delicious catfight between the "Arab" and the "Persian".
Arab guy clearly a vicious moron.
Persian guy seemed rational and logical compared to Arab guy, and then he goes on that
delicious rant about "What we will do to you, fucking Saudis, if you attack us!"
And not only Saudi Arabia will descend into Dante's hell, but AmeriKKKa too!
In complete fairness, though, Peter does simply talk over panelists he doesn't like until
they have to stop talking, because listeners can't make sense of two people talking loudly at
the same time. CrossTalk has its own politics, and the Arab was never going to get equal time
or have his viewpoints uncritically aired. He should have been allowed the same courtesy
everyone else was. I disagree strongly with what he was saying, but the immediate rejection
of his views and shouting him down did absolutely nothing to make the Kingdom look like the
party in the wrong.
Washington now claims cruise missiles were involved as well as drones. What bullshit. (a) An
enemy who was able to strike the Saudi oil fields with cruise missiles sent over drones as
well? (b) The Saudis had 50% of their damaged capacity back online in only a day, driving the
oil price spike back down? After a cruise-missile strike? Did they carry a warhead the size
of an orange? The Saudi oil fields are defenseless against a cruise-missile attack?
It's hard to say because some stuff is clearly being held back from public scrutiny. We don't
even know which weapons were fired at what targets.
My only thoughts about the domes is that they only need to be punctured by a high speed
delayed incendiary. If it is a weight trade off for range fuel v. warhead, then range wins if
popping a hole and igniting the gas is the aim. I don't know enough about the other
targets.
As others have pointed out, what is the intent behind these attacks? Is it an 'act
of war', a 'warning shot' or other? There are games within games and bluffs within bluffs
being played here.
You know who I feel sorry for in Saudi Arabia right now? The Air Defense Forces officer
in charge of the short range air defenses at the Abqaiq oil facility. He'll be lucky to get
out of this with his life.
On the one hand, elements within the USA want war with Iran really, really badly. Of slightly
greater value, though, is the opportunity to portray Trump as weak and dithering because he
hesitates to commit to it. But usually if Washington claims to have 'evidence it cannot
reveal publicly' , that's because it is making it up. When it makes up evidence which it
claims clearly demonstrates this or that, it always has a reason. I'm not sure yet what it
is, but the USA is very serious about putting Iran in the frame for it. They may have had
something to do with it, but like the so-convenient 'chemical attacks' in Syria. Iran would
have been beyond foolish to do something like that right now, while their attitude suggests
if they had done it, they'd be quite happy to own it.
It was a mystery to me how cruise missiles, drones or whatever could have evaded detection,
much less engagement, by US-supplied air defense systems. Per MOA, it was easy – US
systems such as the Patriot stare in one direction.
The PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems are sector defenses as their radars do not rotate. They can
only see an arc of 120°. In the case of the Saudis those radars only look towards the
east to Iran whcih is the most likely axis of attack. That left the crude oil processing
plant in Abqaiq completely unprotected against attacks from any other direction. Neither
Saudi Arabia nor the U.S. know from where the attack really came.
The foregoing explains why the US is unsure where the missiles originated despite the
knee-jerk braying by Pompeo. Moreover, it be be assumed that US Navy ships in the Gulf
certainly were scanning the skies yet apparently detected nothing from Iran. So it really
does look like the missiles originated from Yemen way.
I'd be careful about blaming Iran, in view of the allegation that the US-supplied air
defenses are focused in that direction and apparently did not even see the attack coming. It
also casts doubt on American bellowing that they have loads of new evidence that Iran was
responsible. If they had, why didn't they try to stop it?
What I find really amazing in that paragraph quoted from MoA is that these radars have such a
limited capability in surveying the skies. A 120° arc is about the same as the vision
span / field of view of one human eye. Two eyes working together increase the span to
210° or just over. How is it that current US radar defence technology development can't
produce a system of radars so that each can rotate at least 180° and can be paired with
another radar to provide a full 360° range of surveillance?
MOA suggests that the US has become stuck in the mindset that it will be always on the
offense thus has no need for a real defensive capability. That sort of worked with Iraq and
Grenada but against a country that can hit back, not so much. That profoundly inept piece of
junk Patriot missile system is proof positive.
I am not sure that stupidity is ever amazing- after all, it is very easy to do stupid things.
(Think Singapore, 1941) In all this, what took me a long time to accept is how
technologically advanced the Russian missile technology is- for example, it seems that
frequent swarm attacks by drones on the Russian air base at all been destroyed. Many decades
of research have clearly gone into the development of this technology. I suspect that the key
to this development was the strategic decision made by the Soviets back in the 70's to
develop missiles to destroy US carrier groups. Over a long period of time their missiles
became supersonic, and eventually the manoeuvrable hypersonic missiles that they have today.
Putin seems very confident that it will take many years for the US to catch up. He might be
right: "even 9 women cannot produce a baby within a month".
Kalen • 16 hours ago
There is no doubt that growing global tensions provocative rhetoric, erratic reckless
behavior of leadership , irrationality in global diplomatic , political or economic relations
permeating official propaganda narratives serve overall purpose of stoking nationalism as
counteroffensive to exploding class struggle worldwide.
In case of Saudis though it is all about destabilization of outdated medieval regime by US
and Israel via enticing trained in cruelty MbS to unnecessary useless and most of all
un-winnable Yemen war that in fact presents existential threat to the very existence of Saudi
puppet regime itself.
It is likely that Saudis regime will be at some point swept from power in the name of
progressive .. nationalism in fact fascism one way or another via sort of Arab color
revolution, as this medieval circus of flaccid clowns is too easy target for socialist
revolution.
In fact Saudi Arabia is ironically the prime place with required conditions for socialist
revolution to erupt not only because class division is so sharp and visible even embedded
into state law but also because working class there is truly international from Philippines,
Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and entire MENA and level of their exploitation is horrific
practically amounts to slavery.
The fragility of Saudi regime was clearly shown by this attack on practically unprotected
critical oil infrastructure from low intensity warfare threat Saudi are engaged in fact by
proxy in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, while spending $billions on useless junk that
in fact does not work at all as Houti ballistic missile attacks proved as while Soviet era
shor range ballistic missile missed the targets most of damage was done by falling patriot II
missiles falling down after missing their targets.
And hence Saudis and Turkey long wanted to buy Russian air defense systems already bought
by China, India and others triggering US sanctions against companies and individuals
involved.
US Empire is already a technical and scientific failure founded on fraud in military area
as well.
The question if quite primitive Houti forces were possibly able to pull of such attack of
about twenty armed drones (claimed by Houties 1500 km range) must be answered yes, with
recent technical support of Iranians (after reimposition of embargo) and local
spotters/controllers on the ground.
The similar swarm drone attacks was pulled by AQ terrorist affiliated forces (with US
training) several times against Russian Air and Navy base in Syria all unsuccessfully mostly
due to Russia electronic warfare capability and Panzir 2 system purposefully designed to
defend from drone swarm attacks.
The rather meek and balanced response of markets and politicians so far to this on its
face conditions imminent regional war involving nuclear powers tells me that there is no real
intention so far to start a war not because of better angel of ruling elites nature but
because they do not yet feel directly threatened by socialist revolution.
For them much valuable counterrevolutionary tool is inspiring nationalism simple threat of
war rather than war itself as it always unleashing law of unforeseen consequences and fuels
real political instability potentially threatening their own empires of domination.
Best way to prevent war is not defending national elites but engaging in international
socialist revolution.
jplotinus Kalen • 12 hours ago
In my view, the fact that Saudi Arabia's air defense system was unable to thwart an attack on
major oil infrastructure is quite damning and worthy of being the leading element of this
incident. However, as the Saudis have bought and paid for the very expensive but apparently
ineffective Patriot air defense system means that as little coverage as possible of this
aspect of the story will likely ensue in mainstream media.
I've noticed Putin has publicly offered to sell Saudi Arabia Russia's S-300 and S-400 air
defense systems. Hmmm
There will be no major war against Iran. The US will continue to try to strangle Iran but
success is becoming increasingly unlikely.
If there were to be a serious attack on Iran and Iran responded with its full capacity,
KSA could kiss its ass goodby. Desalination facilities would be targeted, oil infrastructure
would be destroyed including pipelines and loading facilities and power plants knocked out
all by missiles, US warships in the Gulf would be in dire straits as well. Yes, a social
revolution could then take place. I do wonder about the UAE. I hear that they are distancing
themselves from the Saudis lately.
The article and the comments..Absolute must read!!! (IMO)
e.g.
"Whatever the exact circumstances of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, they are being
exploited for the purpose of dragging the American people and all of humanity into a war that
can rapidly escalate into a regionwide and even global conflagration.
US strikes against Iran carried out under the pretext of retaliation for the attacks on
Saudi Arabia can trigger Iranian counterstrikes, sending US warships to the bottom of the
Persian Gulf and wreaking havoc on American military bases throughout the region.
The prospect of thousands of US soldiers and sailors dying as a result of Washington's
conspiracies and aggression carries with it the threat of the US government assuming
emergency powers and implementing police-state measures in the US itself in the name of
"national security."
This would, by no means, be an unintended consequence. The buildup to war is driven in
large measure by the escalation of social tensions and class struggle within the United
States itself, which has found fresh expression in the strike by 46,000 autoworkers against
General Motors. "
OR
"Charlotte Ruse • 12 hours ago
"If there is, as Washington claims, "no evidence' that the attacks were launched from Yemen,
one could, with equal if not greater justification, observe that there is likewise "no
evidence' that they were not launched by the US itself, or by its principal regional ally,
Israel.
If one proceeds from the age-old detective maxim of Cui bono? or Who benefits? Tehran is
the least likely suspect. There is clearly more to Washington's rush to judgment than meets
the eye."
Yes, Cui bono–who benefited most by this attack–all the usual neoconservative
warmongers who've been biting at the chomp for decades to go to War with Iran–the
"non-interventionist buffoon" may grant them their wish.
And undoubtedly, the usual Wall Street scum secured a financial "killing" as "Oil prices
rose 10 percent on Monday.
I think Tulsi Gabbard's tweet perfectly sums up who's in-charge of US foreign policy:
"Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters. Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's
bitch is not "America First." https://twitter.com/realDon
Iran having carried out the attack on the Abqaiq facilities from a southwest direction (when
it is to the northeast of the area of the attack) was a stunning achievement. How could Saudi
defences, aided by US satellites – and Israeli defences for that matter – have
possibly missed the Iranian drones or missiles as they circled around the entire Middle
Eastern region without being shot down before hitting those oil storage tanks?
"The barbaric war waged by Saudi Arabia on Yemen, with US military assistance, has been all
but omitted from the media coverage of the drone strikes. Since 2015, Saudi-led air strikes
on towns and cities in Houthi-held areas have killed tens of thousands of civilians, while
leaving 80 percent of the population in need of food aid and several million on the brink of
starvation.
Saudi war planes, armed with US and British bombs and provided with targeting information by
US officers based in Saudi Arabia, have carried out repeated attacks on civilian targets,
including schools, hospitals, residential areas, mosques and markets. Up to the end of last
year, the US also provided mid-air refueling for the Saudi-led onslaught.
Saudi Arabia has a huge military budget. Last year it ranked as the world's third highest
spender on military equipment, splurging for an estimated $67.6 billion. The ability of the
Houthi rebels to penetrate Saudi defences and strike crucial oil infrastructure has
heightened fears of further attacks."
(comment)
"Ric Size
The Trump administration & entire US political establishment must line-up behind the
narrative that Iran is responsible for this devastating drone strike. As noted in this
excellent article, Saudi Arabia now spends ~$68 billion annually on its military, and most of
this comes in the form of sophisticated weaponry from the US. But these expensive
instruments-of-death were unable to stop a coordinated drone attack from Yemeni rebels. This
calls into question the usefulness of Saudi Arabia-US alliance, and the sustainability of the
global petrodollar market.
A scapegoat is needed, and quickly. Look for an all-out war drive in the media, against Iran,
as a cover-up to this disaster. Gasoline prices will rise by at least a dollar a gallon
within a month, which is another embarrassment for political leaders during an election
cycle, and an added expense for workers who commute by vehicle."
"... The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine. ..."
The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the
Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no
one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that
the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump considers US actions in the Ukraine senseless, which actions
at the same time aggravate relations with Russia, The Washington Post reports, citing a
former senior White House official.
According to the newspaper interlocutor, the president takes the position that
"Russians should be our friends".
"What we do in the Ukraine is pointless and annoying Russia", he said, describing the
president's opinion.
Earlier, former US Vice President Joe Biden called on Trump to publish a transcript of
a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
"... Ukraine have never kept to the ceasefire and have been destroying settlements -- once they get control of the border – Donbass is finished. ..."
"... You mention the killing in Mariupol. The assassinations will continue and the people of Donbass will be made to pay. ..."
"... Five years has shown that real hatred has been unleashed – this is not going to go away. ..."
"... the Steinmeir formula is a con to hasten the end of Donbass. This was the guy who signed the agreement with Yanukovich on early elections etc and then stood back when he was overthrown. ..."
"... I also agree. This is a trap. No treaty should be signed unless DPR/LPR are guaranteed to control the border with Russia. ..."
"... The best defense against that would be the vote, which must take place first and under OSCE supervision, without Ukrainian meddling or coercion. If the vote indicated that a majority wants to return to Kiev's control, then that's what should happen. But I don't see it going that way. ..."
Major issue with this formula is "The transfer of the border"
Ukraine have never kept to the ceasefire and have been destroying settlements -- once they
get control of the border – Donbass is finished.
You mention the killing in Mariupol. The assassinations will continue and the people of Donbass will be made to pay.
Five years has shown that real hatred has been unleashed – this is not going to go
away.
Germany in my view plays a double game – they want this to happen – the Steinmeir formula is a con to hasten the end of Donbass. This was the guy who signed the
agreement with Yanukovich on early elections etc and then stood back when he was
overthrown.
We'll see. According to the Minsk Agreement, the elections and the autonomous status were
supposed to be settled before the border was returned to Ukrainian control. That has always
been an issue for Kuh-yiv. It wants to be trusted to have control over the Donbas before the
other elements are fulfilled. But as His Nibs Shaun Of The Dead Walker has pointed out before
now, 'the border' in that region is largely an illusion, and checkpoints are for those who
have to travel by road. Military units, especially heavy armor, do not.
I think what is most likely to happen is little troublesome uprisings across a broad
front, initiated by Azov Battalion and other Ukie militias and making use of 'loyal'
Ukrainians in Donbas and Lugansk.
This would create a governance problem for the regions, and
be portrayed in the western press as an earnest desire among the inhabitants to return to
Ukraine, 'now that the Russians have gone'.
The best defense against that would be the vote,
which must take place first and under OSCE supervision, without Ukrainian meddling or
coercion. If the vote indicated that a majority wants to return to Kiev's control, then
that's what should happen. But I don't see it going that way.
But what of the Russian army that has supposedly been entrenched in the Donbass these past
few years?
Surely, the Russian Army will not allow this ethnic cleansing to happen, for that surely
is what will happen, albeit "ethnic" is not the right word, even though the brain-dead Nazi
"true Slavs" from the West believe it is.
"Our actions have to become offensive and have the disintegration of the Russian
Federation as a conscious ultimate goal. This is the only effective long-term solution that
the vast majority of countries will benefit from.
attempts to pacify Russia lead only to the growth of its arrogance, as was was the case
with the return of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe.
Attempts to reach an agreement in a civilised way with the Russian Federation are also
doomed to fail, "since such a decision contradicts the main expansionist thinking of the
Kremlin regime".
"The Russian Federation, in its present borders and with its present resources, is never
capable of becoming a normal civilised state", said the diplomat.
Aleksandrovich emphasises that "ways of disintegrating the Russian Federation don't demand
conducting military operations".
The ambassador lists a number of tools via which it is possible to "pacify Russia":
1. personal sanctions against bosses with the freezing of assets and a ban on
entrance;
2. tight restrictions for energy, bank, and financial-military and technical sectors;
3. a ban on the sale of modern technologies;
4 .a collapse in oil prices.
"There comes a time when the last evil empire has to fall," summarized the Ukrainian
diplomat.
In his recent interview, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych claimed Russia 'uses Serbia to
destabilize situation in Western Balkans and thereby destroy Europe'
09:15, 3 November 2017
Ukrainian ambassador's views on Russia-Serbia relations and Russia's role in
continental security, all the more expressed publicly, are unacceptable. Ivica Tonchev, the
State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia said this as quoted by
Frontnews International, commenting on the statement recently made by the Ukrainian
diplomat.
'The main role of ambassadors is to do everything to improve bilateral relations,
primarily political and economic, as well as all other forms of cooperation. The Ambassador
of Ukraine to Serbia, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych, seems to be constantly forgetting this, since
all his activities are reduced to fruitless attempts to break relations between the Republic
of Serbia and the Russian Federation. In the latest series of scandalous interviews he gave,
he said that the Republic of Serbia does not pursue an independent foreign policy, that is,
it is in the hands of Russia, thus destabilizing the entire region of the Western Balkans,
thereby 'destroying Europe,' Tonchev said.
He also called on the Ukrainian government to take action on the Ambassador and his
unacceptable behavior so that Serbia 'was not forced to make the usual steps in such
situations.'
In recent interviews with Serbian media, Ukraine's Ambassador to Serbia Alexander
Alexandrovich said that Russia is using Serbia to destabilize the situation in the region, in
particular, encouraging separatism in Bosnia and trying to influence Macedonia. The
ambassador also mentioned the Serbian mercenaries fighting on the side of the Russian armed
formations in Donbas.
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych: he might be better suited to playing Count Dracula in horror
movies.
In fact, the ambassador stepped so much out of line in November 2017 that even
Rumpleklimkin, then Banderastan Foreign Minister, was forced to call him to hold
consultations in Kiev because of his statements to the Serbian media.
At the same time, Ivica Toncev, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Serbia, stated that the Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Oleksandrovych's statements concerning
Russian influence on Serbia were unacceptable and threatened him with possible consequences
in accordance with the Vienna Convention.
Novosad is a graduate of the humanitarian lyceum in Kiev, and in 2011 she ended a
bachelor degree at the National University "Kiyevo-Mogilyansky Academy" as a "political
scientist". Two years later she received a master's degree in the Dutch Maastricht. She
studied in Spain and the Czech Republic, and was a scholar of the Soros fund. In addition, as Novosad wrote on Facebook, she took part in the Ukrainian-Canadian administrative program,
within the framework of which she attended a special course ran by the Canadian
authorities.
I.e., as we see, Anna Novosad is the classical representative of the new "Ukrainian
elite", which was raised and brought up abroad and which already is almost not connected to
Ukraine even at the mental level. And the reset of the Ukrainian authorities in the form of
"Zelensky's victory" was started to a large extent for the mass invasion of such artificially
grown mankurts that are supposed to completely remove people with a Soviet past and any ties
(family, friendly, business) with Russia from the country's governance structures.
And they absolutely do not need either knowledge of Ukrainian, knowledge of national
history, or understanding of what's admissible. Even intellectual qualities aren't especially
required from them, because their task is relaying the will of their masters and to control
their implementation.
And Farion doesn't like her because she can't talk the shitkicker Slav dialect as good as
she can. In fact, it's debatable whether Novosad can talk Yukie with any competence at
all.
Yes, what's the matter with her? Real Ukrainians ride sturdy ponies and wear their hair in
the khokol style. Government superiors are referred to as 'Hetman'. And there's a lot of
kneeling. The age of machines is an utter betrayal of Kievan ideals.
I don't see how he could have handled it better. He was polite and well-spoken, never
flustered or defensive, and the talking heads tumbled over one another in their eagerness to
be properly judgmental, to talk over him and recite their own talking points, and ended up
looking like buffoons. He will be a tough nut to crack, and so far the American regime has
done nothing to convince ordinary people that he is a cowardly traitor. Putting him on
television only makes him look more heroic.
And a US "talking" head, in reply to Snowdon's belief that he would not get a fair trial in
the USA (a US human rights issue, is that not, Mr.Snowdon?) says that criminals and alleged
criminals do not customarily get to determine the terms of their trial: they broke the law
and they face the consequences "
Guilty before proven innocent?
Presumption of innocence: an international human right under the UN Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Article 11.
Nor, to the best of my recollection, did it have an Abu Ghraib. The United States actually
has a pretty shitty human-rights record if you consider it from the viewpoint of how it treas
others than Americans, and – going further back – only white Americans. The west
always tries to factor in the Holodomor, too, how Russia deliberately starved the Ukrainians
to death, as an example of their horrible human rights record.
I cringed at that one too. But I forgive Edward, because I think he was trying to make a
tactical debating point, namely:
I am not a Russia stooge, I have my criticisms of the Russian regime yada yada, and I
agree with you talking heads that their human rights record is not well received in the West.
And yet they scored a human-rights trifecta when they let me in, when not one single
"democracy" would defend me or give me asylum.
In other words, he would concede, for argumentation purposes, that Russia is bad, only to
stick it to them that Russia did well by him and scored propaganda points against the West.
It's a particular debating tactic, whose Latin name I cannot recall.
Unfortunately, Edward never got to finish his point, because those bitches cut him off
before he could even get to the punchline.
"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single
crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the
Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in
Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they
switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some
villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the
deputy defense minister noted.
"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance,
received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in
finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed,"
Fomin reported.
"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons
of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with
equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first
massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base
in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six
drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed
that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced
country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the
world.
The forum
The eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was
organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and
China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense
ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials,
politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.
This article raises serious questions about
Snowden's authenticity. Although the level of damage he has done make suggestion that he is apart of CIA operation
against NSA much less plausible. He did some damage by publicizing operations like Prism. No question about it.
And it is diffuclt to treat Snowden like another variation of Lee Harvey Oswald defection
to the USSR.
But it is true that several steps that he took after supposed exfiltration of the documents were highly suspicious: As author pointed out WaPo
and Guardian are essentially intelligence agencies controlled outlets, so there is no chance that publication can't be completely blocked.
Another good point is that in any large corporation there is system of logs and they suppoedly are analysed, althout the level
of qualification in doing so varies greatly.
And if reports are created automatically that not not mean that they are ver read. Another valid point is that even if you are system administrator, you have
great powers over all your users. But at the same time your power is compartmentalized: you have access only to few selected computer that constitute the set of servers you manage.
And you usually access then via special jumpserver, which logs everything you do. In no way you have access to any server and any
database in the organization; you
might not even know that some servers exist. Actually access to critical databases is very tightly controlled.
The author also pointed to an interesting question about difficulties of exfiltration of data on encrypted Windows computers. I
think that copy to the UCB drive from encrypted drive to SD or USB drive might still be permitted for sysadmins, as it might be required for some operations.
But SD accepted might be special, issued by NSA, not retai and they should be accounted for. Still the point that Yvonne Lorenzo raised is very interesting: how you bypass existing protections on you computer to copy information
of SD card ?
On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks?
Notable quotes:
"... How many reading my words work at a large entity, not necessarily government, let us say a Fortune 1000 or higher? Do you have the ability to copy data unimpeded onto any external device? Can you surf the Internet at will? Or is everything you do on the computer network under constant, real-time scrutiny? ..."
"... Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated to his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time. Are his supporters alleging he is so clever he could disappear from the "Eye of Sauron's" view and be unnoticed? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Crimea. ZeroHedge reported " IRS Agent Charged In Leak Of Michael Cohen Transactions To Michael Avenatti ." ..."
"... However, don't believe it takes nine months to identify such an unauthorized intrusion. Don't think every keystroke isn't monitored in real-time. So my question is: would the NSA, which has much more sensitive data (especially compromising information on the governing class) than tax returns and financial transactions have inferior capabilities than the IRS as to maintaining data security? Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents? ..."
"... On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database? ..."
"... While other outlets -- such as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the New York Times -- also possess much (though not all) of the archive, the Intercept was the only outlet with the (full) archive that had continued to publish documents, albeit at a remarkably slow pace, in recent years. In total, fewer than 10 percent of the Snowden documents have been published since 2013. Thus, the closing of the publication's Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Greenwald's promise of finding "the right partner that has the funds to robustly publish" is fulfilled ..."
"... Do you believe Putin's intelligence agencies don't communicate to him how Washington "organized crime" really operates, as Whitney Webb has disclosed, now on the pages of Unz.com ? What difference does any compromised President make to the policies and goals of the occupational government of the United States (obvious to any reader of this and similar websites)? ..."
"... Why is an alleged humanitarian such a Russophobe? ..."
"... Has Snowden ever challenged the September 11 narrative, ludicrous as it is, and him being an "engineer?" ..."
"... STO equals Special Technical Operations It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. ..."
"... ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks). VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks. ..."
"... So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation. ..."
"... Journalist Margie Burns asked some good questions back in June that have not yet been answered. She wondered about the 29-year old Snowden who had been a U.S. Army Special Forces recruit, a covert CIA operative, and an NSA employee in various capacities, all in just a few, short years. Burns asked "How, exactly, did Snowden get his series of NSA jobs? Did he apply through regular channels? Was it through someone he knew? Who recommended him? Who were his references for a string of six-figure, high-level security jobs? Are there any safeguards in place so that red flags go up when a subcontractor jumps from job to job, especially in high-level clearance positions?" ..."
"... In December, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the news that Omidyar's Paypal Corporation was implicated in the as-yet-unreleased NSA documents from Snowden. Moreover, Edmonds had allegedly been contacted by an NSA official who alleged that "a deal was made in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved." ..."
"... No, no one is accusing Wikileaks of conspiring with Russia, just Robert Mueller. I really appreciate Snowden calling Julian Assange a liar, for he has consistently denied there was a "state actor." ..."
"... "Terrorism is a real problem" Snowden said. Is it credible that Snowden, who presented himself as donating funds to Ron Paul, has never read any alternative news sites? Is it credible that Snowden believes that terrorists and this would include the good "moderate terrorists" in Syria are armed and act on their own initiative, and is ignorant of the role of the governments of America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in using them to achieve their ends as proxy armies? ..."
"... Does Snowden then think this report, " America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group" is false? Does that mindset make Snowden a champion for liberty or a tool for more control of the American population? For example, is it credible that this alleged genius supports the narrative of the September 11 attacks World Trade Center attacks? ..."
"... Tor lists on its own website sponsors that include Google, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (past sponsor) and DARPA. ..."
"... Perhaps Snowden is only a Soros and Hillary Clinton supporting liberal -- but then why would he have done what he did? His character is of any government employee of the "surface state" who swallows false narratives whole. ..."
"... The logging of user and information accessed is sure added to the file. But real time supervision? No. A eye of sauron? Please. The system isnt there to prevent crime, its to track down the criminal and deeds later. And yes everything takes a very long time on the public side. ..."
"... 'Edward Snowden' who first 'leaked' to the CIA's Washington Post, in fact to Bush VP Dick Cheney's biographer Bart Gellman then the Deep State realised that was too stupid, so they switched to Rothschild employee & ex-gay-pornography-seller Glenn Greenwald, former proprietor of 'hairystuds', at the Guardian, an intel-agency rag which lies about nearly everything ..."
"... NeonRevolt once floated the theory that Snowden was an FBI or CIA plant who whistleblew solely because he had the mission to undermine NSA operations by exposing their equipment/techniques and turning public opinion against them. ..."
"... inter-service rivalry and sabotage between spy agencies is absolutely a thing, and reviewing the inconsistencies of Snowden's stunt, its aftermath, and his personal views with that potential background in mind suddenly makes things make much more sense, in my mind at least. ..."
"... If we accept the later, that he's a plant, then it raises a further question: was the short term loss, associated with his revelations, ie highlighting the utterly disturbing degree of Gov surveillance over US citizens (etc) worth the long term profit of having an established, authoritive psy-op's agent able to influence/distort etc any debate or narrative concerning the US State /elites. On this side the author notes Snowmen's views on Tor, 9/11, Russia etc which clearly advantage the US State's own views on these subjects. ..."
"... Consider that nothing Snowden revealed was news. It was all old hat for anyone who'd been paying attention, and for up to ten years. Sure Snowden made it mainstream for what good it did but nothing he said was a secret anymore. In fact, I thought even at the time his actions were nothing less than a 'threat and warning' from the intel services that they had this much on everyone. Just imagine all those national leaders, politicians from all states being pout on notice. All your secrets are ours! What a powerful global message to deliver and in such a loud and clear fashion. ..."
"... The lack of deviation from official bullshit on 9/11 is on its own however reason enough to toss this guy out. ..."
"... To my mind "9/11, attitude to", is a sort of touch-stone for telling genuine dissidents from fake and both Snowden and Assange fail on that test ..."
"... Snowden is not a classic defector so it makes sense for him to keep his distance from Russian society so as not to be inadvertently compromised or used by their intelligence services. He's obviously under surveillance there, I know we all are but he's much more aware of it, so that doesn't make it easy for him but he's definitely safer there than he'd be in France or Germany. I just don't think he planned well ahead when he became a whistle-blower or was clear about what he was trying to achieve. He's not the top level type of spy we're accustomed to reading about who betray their country for money or to serve another they believe in more than their own. If he has been on active duty as a CIA asset all along I can't see that he has achieved much of use to them other than in some inter-agency rivalry game. But it's natural for Russians to be suspicious of him – they're suspicious by nature – and rightly so, but it doesn't make his life easy there. ..."
"... 9/11 is the "litmus test" and it appears that both Assange and Snowden have failed it. ..."
"... Snowden keeping "distance" to Russia, and not openly defending them seems reasonable to me. You can imagine the smear campaign back home if he would side with Russia against the U.S. on almost anything. "The Russians got to him" or "He was always their man". ..."
"... He is trying to keep his neutrality and credibility and his target audience isn't the average Unz reader, but rather some mainstream educated middle/upper class blokes. Easily scared away from his views if they become too controversial and too far from the established narrative. ..."
"... If I had been in the position like 'Snowden', after first having been granted asylum, my priority would have been to study the language. I would gtuess that he can order food or drink, do basic greetings, and not much else. ..."
"... I agree. Shilling for the Israelis regarding 911 is a deal breaker for me. They had me going about these 2 guys for a while, but when I heard that they had ridiculed 911 truthers I smelled a rat. And after this article I agree they are shills for the status quo. Reasonable people can not doubt that 911 was a false flag operation. There's just too much bullshit there. ..."
"... I think the idea Snowden is a "plant" is a bit far out there. If he is; the real purpose of the exercise is what exactly? ..."
"... I also don't get why some commenters think Julian Assange isn't who he claims to be. His Wikileaks has published great volume of highly embarrassing material for the U.S. The embassy cables come to mind – bringing to light evidence contrary to Washington narrative on many events. ..."
"... There is another thing; Just after he established Wikileaks he came to Iceland and met with journalists and few politicians. The result from that visit was he met one Kristinn Hrafnsson, long time journalist in Iceland with excellent track record and credibility. Since Assange got in trouble, accused of sexual harassment from Swedish woman and finally escaped into the Ecuador embassy in London, Hrafnsson has been spokesman for Wikileaks. ..."
"... "It all comes down to 9/11.Everything that has happened has happened based on a lie . Everyone in Government ; everyone in the media , in entertainment , in organized religion , in the public ,in the public eye who accepts and promotes the official story is either a traitor or a tool . Everyone who does not stand forth and speak truth to power is a coward , a liar and complicit in mass-murder . Everyone everywhere can be measured by this Litmus Test ." ..."
Have you ever had the pleasure of dealing with an agent of the Federal government? For example, have you been audited by the IRS?
Did you notice what the "Agent" does to gain access to his (or her) computer -- by inserting a "Smart ID" into a slot? Did you ask
how your personal information is protected from disclosure or theft? What is to prevent the Agent from copying files to a thumb drive
and taking them home?
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), issued by President George W. Bush on August 27, 2004, mandated the
establishment of a standard for identification of Federal government employees and contractors. HSPD-12 requires the use of
a common identification credential for both logical and physical access to federally controlled facilities and information systems.
The Department of Commerce and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were tasked with producing a standard for
secure and reliable forms of identification. In response, NIST published Federal Information Processing Standard Publication
201 (FIPS 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors, issued on February 25, 2005, and a
number of special publications that provide more detail on the implementation of the standard.
Both Federal agencies and enterprises have implemented FIPS 201-compliant ID programs and have issued PIV cards. The FIPS
201 PIV card is a smart card with both contact and contactless interfaces that is now being issued to all Federal employees and
contractors
Additional information about FIPS 201 can be found on the Government Identity/Credentialing Resources page, from NIST, and
from the Secure Technology Alliance Access Control Council.
If you engage the IRS employee in conversation, remembering the adage you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you'll
learn the computer cannot be compromised -- all data on the device are encrypted; the only access to it is via the Smart ID. Data
can be copied to an external "thumb drive" but everything copied will be encrypted; any file on that thumb drive is only readable
by that specific device. Wouldn't this be true of NSA devices as well? Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption:
how would it be possible?
In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden , as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers, did
you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement? Why wasn't
its use, which is public knowledge, shown or discussed? Per the above, the Smart ID is deployed in all government agencies: there
are no exceptions. And while the financial portion (think of all those Goldman Sachs alumni at the U.S. Department of the Treasury)
is likely the most powerful part of the financial-military-industrial-media-congressional complex that is the central power of the
federal government, do you think that IRS systems are different and superior in security to what was employed by a contractor working
for Booze-Allen Hamilton at the NSA?
How many reading my words work at a large entity, not necessarily government, let us say a Fortune 1000 or higher? Do you
have the ability to copy data unimpeded onto any external device? Can you surf the Internet at will? Or is everything you do on the
computer network under constant, real-time scrutiny?
Did Edward Snowden, who has publicly criticized Google, mention Google is deployed as a search engine throughout the federal "intranet"?
And can he catch a link to the Washington Post on the NSA homepage too? Or would he testify and can it be verified that NSA does
not use Google (for example to obtain the PowerPoint he revealed) for searching for internal documents and procedures? Can anyone
reading my words answer the questions I've posed so far and answer accurately and honestly with confirmatory evidence?
Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated to
his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time. Are his supporters alleging
he is so clever he could disappear from the "Eye of Sauron's" view and be unnoticed? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell
you in Crimea. ZeroHedge reported "
IRS Agent Charged In Leak Of Michael Cohen Transactions To Michael Avenatti ." From the article:
John C. Fry, an analyst in the San Francisco IRS office who had worked for the agency since 2008, was charged with disclosing
Cohen's Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) – nine months after we reported that it wouldn't be difficult to track down the leaker
due to a digital trail left behind from accessing the system.
However, don't believe it takes nine months to identify such an unauthorized intrusion. Don't think every keystroke isn't
monitored in real-time. So my question is: would the NSA, which has much more sensitive data (especially compromising information
on the governing class) than tax returns and financial transactions have inferior capabilities than the IRS as to maintaining data
security? Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents?
On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database? As Roger Stone has
noted, the odious Nixon was taken down principally by the CIA media front The Washington Post because he sought detente with Russia
and another presidential assassination would have been too obvious. Notice the situation regarding the Snowden treasure trove as
investigative journalist Whitney Webb writes about it here: "
Silencing the Whistle: The Intercept Shutters
Snowden Archive, Citing Cost ."
According to a timeline of events written by Poitras that was shared and published by journalist and former Intercept columnist
Barrett Brown, both Scahill and Greenwald were intimately involved in the decision to close the Snowden archive.
While other outlets -- such as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the New York Times -- also possess much (though
not all) of the archive, the Intercept was the only outlet with the (full) archive that had continued to publish documents, albeit
at a remarkably slow pace, in recent years. In total, fewer than 10 percent of the Snowden documents have been published since
2013. Thus, the closing of the publication's Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Greenwald's
promise of finding "the right partner that has the funds to robustly publish" is fulfilled
Yet, as Poitras pointed out, the research department accounted for a minuscule 1.5 percent of First Look Media's budget. Greenwald's
claim that the archive was shuttered owing to its high cost to the company is also greatly undermined by the fact that he, along
with several other Intercept employees -- Reed and Scahill among them -- receive massive salaries that dwarf those of journalists
working for similar nonprofit publications.
Greenwald, for instance, received $1.6 million from First Look Media, of which Omidyar is the sole shareholder, from 2014 to
2017. His yearly salary peaked in 2015, when he made over $518,000. Reed and Scahill both earn well over $300,000 annually from
First Look. According to journalist Mark Ames, Scahill made over $43,000 per article at the Intercept in 2014. Other writers at
the site, by comparison, have a base salary of $50,000, which itself is higher than the national average for journalists.
And what about Snowden himself, the pontificator, the man who can speak on television or to the media with evidence of training?
Practice yourself -- see how well you can answer questions and speak publicly to a TV camera. How did he get his training? Who trained
him? Why? How is it that the legacy media, which
applauds
the slow, painful execution of Julian Assange , be in rapture over Snowden's new book tour and provide ample coverage? Is Assange
being murdered in part to prevent his providing exculpatory evidence that Russia never hacked the DNC and it was a leak?
I have provided two videos below for the reader to consider and compare.
Look at how Bill Binney, a true techno-nerd speaks and compare the difference between him with the polished interviews given by
Snowden who borders on pomposity. Also, to his favor Binney is doing his best to debunk the Russia hacking narrative of the DNC;
Snowden makes his thoughts about Russia and Russians clear
in his latest interview with Der Spiegel promoting his new book about himself:
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life
with basically the English-speaking community. I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
DER SPIEGEL: Western authorities accuse the Russian government on a regular basis of being one of the biggest disrupters
in the digital world. Are they right?
Snowden: Russia is responsible for a lot of negative activity in the world, you can say that right and fairly. Did Russia
interfere with elections? Almost certainly. But do the United States interfere in elections? Of course. They've been doing
it for the last 50 years. Any country bigger than Iceland is going to interfere in every crucial election, and they're going to
deny it every time, because this is what intelligence services do. This is explicitly why covert operations and influence divisions
are created, and their purpose as an instrument of national power is to ask: How can we influence the world in a direction that
improves our standing relative to all the other countries?
I am pleased to have played a small role in getting Stephen F. Cohen's work published on Unz.com. He and others have effectively
debunked Russian involvement in the manipulation of America elections and the conclusions of the Mueller report. To paraphrase a
point Professor Cohen made in his most recent article posted here, which is simply common sense: We are to believe Trump is Putin's
puppet yet Putin simultaneously encouraged the preparation of a dossier to destroy him. Does that make sense to any one with half
a brain? Do you believe Putin's intelligence agencies don't communicate to him how Washington "organized crime" really operates,
as Whitney Webb has disclosed, now on the pages of Unz.com
? What difference does any compromised President make to the policies and goals of the occupational government of the United States
(obvious to any reader of this and similar websites)?
Do you notice how Snowden never challenges any government narrative, whether it's on Russia as a villain, and not as a victim
of war initiated by Washington? Why is an alleged humanitarian such a Russophobe? Is this how he repays the nation that
granted him asylum? Has he only compassion in the abstract, and is a genius but too stupid to consider the consequences of America
going to war with Russia and in fact exacerbating the tension by his false and inflammatory statements about Russian conduct in the
2016 elections, for which there are no facts and evidence?
And then there's the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings. Of course Snowden at NSA had no access to information on
how and why it was done, but as Dmitri Orlov has written:
I suppose I am a "conspiracy theorist" too. Whenever I write something that questions the veracity of some official narrative,
someone (probably a troll) pops up and asks me what I think of 9/11. Here is what I typically reply:
I totally believe that it was possible to knock down three steel-framed buildings using two flying aluminum cans loaded
with kerosene, luggage and meat. I have proven that this is possible by throwing two beer cans at three chain-link fences.
All three fences were instantly swallowed up by holes in the ground that mysteriously opened up right under them and in which
they were instantaneously incinerated into fine oxide powder that coated the entire neighborhood. Anybody who does not believe
my experimental results is obviously a tin-foil-hat crackpot conspiracy theorist.
Lots of people read this and ran away bleating; a few people bust a gut laughing because this is (trust me on this!) actually
quite funny. Some people took offense at someone ridiculing an event in which thousands of people died. (To protect their tender
sensibilities they should consider emigrating to a country that isn't run by a bunch of war criminals.)
But if you do see the humor in this, then you may be up to the challenge, which is to pull out a useful signal (a typical
experimentalist's task) out of a mess of unreliable and contradictory data. Only then would you be in a position to persuasively
argue -- not prove, mind you! -- that the official story is complete and utter bullshit.
Note that everything beyond that point, such as arguing what "the real story" is, is strictly off-limits. If you move beyond
that point you open yourself up to well-organized, well-funded debunking. But if all you produce is a very large and imposing
question mark, then the only way to attack it is by producing certainty -- a very tall order! In conspiracy theory, as in
guerrilla warfare, you don't have to win. You just have to not lose long enough for the enemy to give up.
Has Snowden ever challenged the September 11 narrative, ludicrous as it is, and him being an "engineer?" And this last
point is the reason I'm writing these words: I don't have to come up with the "real story" on who Edward Snowden is and what his
true motives are. I am asking questions that point out the discrepancies in Snowden's statements and conduct and his alleged sanctity.
In this article, "
EXCLUSIVE REPORT: NSA Whistleblower: Snowden Never Had Access to the JUICIEST Documents Far More Damning "
WASHINGTON'S BLOG: Glenn Greenwald – supposedly, in the next couple of days or weeks – is going to disclose, based on NSA documents
leaked by Snowden, that the NSA is spying on all sorts of normal Americans and that the spying is really to crush dissent. [Background
here, here and here.]
Does Snowden even have documents which contain the information which you've seen?
RUSSELL TICE: The answer is no.
WASHINGTON'S BLOG: So you saw handwritten notes. And what Snowden was seeing were electronic files ?
RUSSELL TICE: Think of it this way. Remember I told you about the NSA doing everything they could to make sure that the
information from 40 years ago – from spying on Frank Church and Lord knows how many other Congressman that they were spying on
– was hidden?
Now do you think they're going to put that information into PowerPoint slides that are easy to explain to everybody what
they're doing?
They would not even put their own NSA designators on the reports [so that no one would know that] it came from the NSA.
They made the reports look like they were Humint (human intelligence) reports. They did it to hide the fact that they were NSA
and they were doing the collection. That's 40 years ago. [The NSA and other agencies are still doing "parallel construction",
"laundering" information to hide the fact that the information is actually from mass NSA surveillance.]
Now, what NSA is doing right now is that they're taking the information and they're putting it in a much higher security level.
It's called "ECI" – Exceptionally Controlled Information – and it's called the black program which I was a specialist in, by the
way.
I specialized in black world – DOD and IC (Intelligence Community) – programs, operations and missions in "VRKs", "ECIs", and
"SAPs", "STOs". SAP equals Special Access Program. It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. STO equals Special
Technical Operations It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these.
Now in that world – the ECI/VRK world – everything in that system is classified at a higher level and it has its own computer
systems that house it. It's totally separate than the system which Mr. Snowden was privy to, which was called the "JWICS": Joint
Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. The JWICS system is what everybody at NSA has access to. Mr Snowden had Sys Admin
[systems administrator] authority for the JWICS.
And you still have to have TS/SCI clearance [i.e. Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmented Information – also known as "code word"
– clearance] to get on the JWICS. But the ECI/VRK systems are much higher [levels of special compartmentalized clearance] than
the JWICS. And you have to be in the black world to get that [clearance].
ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks).
VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks.
These programs typically have, at the least, a requirement of 100 year or until death, 'till the person first being "read in"
[i.e. sworn to secrecy as part of access to the higher classification program] can talk about them. [As an interesting sidenote,
the Washington Times reported in 2006 that – when Tice offered to testify to Congress about this illegal spying – he was informed
by the NSA that the Senate and House intelligence committees were not cleared to hear such information.]
It's very compartmentalized and – even with stuff that they had – you might have something at NSA, that there's literally 40
people at NSA that know that it's going on in the entire agency.
When the stuff came out in the New York Times [the first big spying story, which broke in 2005] – and I was a source of information
for the New York Times – that's when President Bush made up that nonsense about the "terrorist surveillance program." By the way,
that never existed. That was made up.
There was no such thing beforehand. It was made up to try to placate the American people.
The NSA IG (Inspector General) – who was not cleared for this – all of a sudden is told he has to do an investigation on this;
something he has no information or knowledge of.
So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a
few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation.
Snowden's Failure To Understand the Most Important Documents
RUSSELL TICE: Now, if Mr. Snowden were to find the crossover, it would be those documents that were downgraded to the NSA's
IG.
The stuff that I saw looked like a bunch of alphanumeric gobbledygook. Unless you have an analyst to know what to look for
– and believe me, I think that what Snowden's done is great – he's not an intelligence analyst. So he would see something like
that, and he wouldn't know what he's looking at.
But that would be "the jewels". And the key is, you wouldn't know it's the jewels unless you were a diamond miner and you knew
what to look for. Because otherwise, there's a big lump of rock and you don't know there's a diamond in there.
I worked special programs. And the way I found out is that I was working on a special operation, and I needed information from
NSA from another unit. And when I went to that unit and I said "I need this information", and I dealt with [satellite spy operations],
and I did that in the black world. I was a special operations officer. I would literally go do special missions that were in the
black world where I would travel overseas and do spooky stuff.
Did we really need Snowden to have told us that the Internet, federally controlled, does not allow anyone a modicum of privacy
and the government after implementing the Patriot Act considers ordinary Americans the enemy?
Journalist Margie Burns asked some good questions back in June that have not yet been answered. She wondered about the
29-year old Snowden who had been a U.S. Army Special Forces recruit, a covert CIA operative, and an NSA employee in various capacities,
all in just a few, short years. Burns asked "How, exactly, did Snowden get his series of NSA jobs? Did he apply through regular
channels? Was it through someone he knew? Who recommended him? Who were his references for a string of six-figure, high-level
security jobs? Are there any safeguards in place so that red flags go up when a subcontractor jumps from job to job, especially
in high-level clearance positions?"
Five months later, journalists Mark Ames and Yasha Levine investigated some of the businesses in which Greenwald's benefactor
Omidyar had invested. They found that the actual practices of those businesses were considerably less humanitarian than the outward
appearance of Omidyar's ventures often portray. The result was that Omidyar took down references to at least one of those businesses
from his website.
In December, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the news that Omidyar's Paypal Corporation was implicated in the as-yet-unreleased
NSA documents from Snowden. Moreover, Edmonds had allegedly been contacted by an NSA official who alleged that "a deal was made
in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then
sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved."
It would appear that Snowden's whistleblowing has been co-opted by private corporate interests. Are those involved with privatization
of the stolen documents also colluding with government agencies to frame and direct national discussions on domestic spying and
other serious matters?
The possibilities are endless, it seems. Presenting documents at a measured rate could be a way to acclimate citizens to
painful realities without stirring the public into a panic or a unified response that might actually threaten the status quo.
And considering that the number of documents has somehow grown from only thousands to nearly two million, it seems possible
that those in control could release practically anything, thereby controlling national dialogue on many topics.
Please read the final paragraph above twice and think about the points raised about acclimating citizens and controlling national
dialog. Is Snowden as much of a "Pied Piper" as QAnon? How did Snowden describe the nature of the CIA and NSA
in this earlier interview with Der Spiegel ?
DER SPIEGEL: But those people see you as their biggest enemy today.
Snowden: My personal battle was not to burn down the NSA or the CIA. I even think they actually do have a useful role in
society when they limit themselves to the truly important threats that we face and when they use their least intrusive means.
**
Snowden: It wasn't that difficult. Everybody is currently pointing at the Russians.
DER SPIEGEL: Rightfully?
Snowden: I don't know. They probably did hack the systems of Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party, but we should have proof
of that. In the case of the hacking attack on Sony, the FBI presented evidence that North Korea was behind it. In this case
they didn't, although I am convinced that they do have evidence. The question is why?
DER SPIEGEL: Mike Pompeo, the new head of the CIA, has accused WikiLeaks, whose lawyers helped you, of being a mouthpiece for
the Russians. Is that not harmful to your image as well?
Snowden: First, we should be fair about what the accusations are. I don't believe the U.S. government or anybody in the
intelligence community is directly accusing Julian Assange or WikiLeaks of working directly for the Russian government. The
allegations I understand are that they were used as a tool basically to wash documents that had been stolen by the Russian government.
And, of course, that's a concern. I don't see that as directly affecting me because I'm not WikiLeaks and there is no question
about the provenance of the documents that I dealt with.
DER SPIEGEL: Currently, there's another American guy out there who is accused of being too close to Putin.
Snowden: Oh (laughs).
DER SPIEGEL: Your president. Is he your president?
Snowden: The idea that half of American voters thought that Donald Trump was the best among us, is something that I struggle
with. And I think we will all be struggling with it for decades to come.
DER SPIEGEL: But isn't there reason to fear terrorism?
Snowden: Sure there is. Terrorism is a real problem. But when we look at how many lives it has claimed in basically
any country that is outside of war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan, it is so much less than, say, car accidents or heart attacks.
Even if Sept. 11 were to happen every single year in the U.S., terrorism would be a much lower threat than so many other things.
No, no one is accusing Wikileaks of conspiring with Russia, just Robert Mueller. I really appreciate Snowden calling Julian Assange
a liar, for he has consistently denied there was a "state actor."
"Terrorism is a real problem" Snowden said. Is it credible that Snowden, who presented himself as donating funds to Ron Paul,
has never read any alternative news sites? Is it credible that Snowden believes that terrorists and this would include the good "moderate
terrorists" in Syria are armed and act on their own initiative, and is ignorant of the role of the governments of America, Israel,
and Saudi Arabia in using them to achieve their ends as proxy armies?
Does Snowden then think this report, "
America Created
Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group" is false? Does that mindset make Snowden a champion for liberty or a tool for more control
of the American population? For example, is it credible that this alleged genius supports the narrative of the September 11 attacks
World Trade Center attacks? Whom do you trust, the contributors to these very pages or Edward Snowden?
The Tor Project – a private nonprofit known as the "NSA-proof" gateway to the "dark web," turns out to be almost "100% funded
by the US government" according to documents obtained by investigative journalist and author Yasha Levine.
In a recent blog post, Levine details how he was able to obtain roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence via FOIA requests while
performing research for a book. The documents include strategy, contract, budgets and status updates between the Tor project and
its primary source of funding; a CIA spinoff known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which "oversees America's foreign
broadcasting operations like Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe."
By following the money, I discovered that Tor was not a grassroots. I was able to show that despite its indie radical
cred and claims to help its users protect themselves from government surveillance online, Tor was almost 100% funded by three
U.S. National Security agencies: the Navy, the State Department and the BBG. Following the money revealed that Tor was not
a grassroots outfit, but a military contractor with its own government contractor number. In other words: it was a privatized
extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting.
The documents conclusively showed that Tor is not independent at all. The organization did not have free reign to do
whatever it wanted, but was kept on a very short leash and bound by contracts with strict contractual obligations. It was also
required to file detailed monthly status reports that gave the U.S. government a clear picture of what Tor employees were developing,
where they went and who they saw. -Yasha Levine
The FOIA documents also suggest that Tor's ability to shield users from government spying may be nothing more than hot air.
While no evidence of a "backdoor" exists, the documents obtained by Levine reveal that Tor has "no qualms with privately tipping
off the federal government to security vulnerabilities before alerting the public, a move that would give the feds an opportunity
to exploit the security weakness long before informing Tor users."
Interestingly, Edward Snowden is a big fan of Tor – even throwing a "cryptoparty" while he was still an NSA contractor where
he set up a Tor exit node to show off how cool they are.
In a 2015 interview with The Intercept's (Wikileaks hating) Micah Lee, Snowden said:
LEE: What do you think about Tor? Do you think that everyone should be familiar with it, or do you think that it's only a use-it-if-you-need-it
thing?
SNOWDEN: I think Tor is the most important privacy-enhancing technology project being used today.
"Tor Browser is a great way to selectively use Tor to look something up and not leave a trace that you did it. It can also
help bypass censorship when you're on a network where certain sites are blocked. If you want to get more involved, you can volunteer
to run your own Tor node, as I do, and support the diversity of the Tor network."
Tor lists on its own website sponsors that include Google,
the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (past sponsor) and DARPA.
When Julian Assange was taken from the Ecuadoran embassy, he was carrying a copy of Gore Vidal: History of the National Security
State & Vidal on America. As an older article on Vidal in The Guardian noted, "
Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit
in 9/11 ."
Isn't it odd by doing what he did with Vidal's book Assange makes the point the legitimacy of Washington must be challenged, but
Snowden never does, other than offering suggestions for tinkering at the margins, perhaps advising we use DuckDuckGo instead of Google
to give us the illusion of privacy? Did Snowden, for someone who is in front of a computer screen for most of the day, make public
the facts obtained by Whitney Webb in her piece "
How the CIA, Mossad and 'the Epstein Network' Are Exploiting Mass Shootings to Create an Orwellian Nightmare " posted on Unz.com
which goes in depth into the Orwellian hell we are facing, for as Webb concludes:
With companies like Carbyne -- with its ties to both the Trump administration and to Israeli intelligence -- and the Mossad-linked
Gabriel also marketing themselves as "technological" solutions to mass shootings while also doubling as covert tools for mass
data collection and extraction, the end result is a massive surveillance system so complete and so dystopian that even George
Orwell himself could not have predicted it.
Following another catastrophic mass shooting or crisis event, aggressive efforts will likely follow to foist these "solutions"
on a frightened American public by the very network connected, not only to Jeffrey Epstein, but to a litany of crimes and a
frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent and would-be dissenters in the United States.
There is the concept of willful blindness that I think applies to much of what Snowden has done, if not something altogether more
nefarious -- distorations, misrepresenations, and outright lies, in addition to hubris. What is the point I'm making? Perhaps Snowden
is only a Soros and Hillary Clinton supporting liberal -- but then why would he have done what he did? His character is of any government
employee of the "surface state" who swallows false narratives whole.
I only wish the reader fairly and intelligently consider the questions I have raised. For I am encouraging you to think very carefully
before you trust the statements, purpose, motives, and truthfulness of the secular saint, Edward Snowden.
Yvonne Lorenzo makes her home in New England in a house full to bursting with books, including works on classical Greece.
Her interests include gardening, mythology, ancient history, The Electric Universe, and classical music, especially the compositions
of Handel, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is the author of the novels the
Son of Thunder and
The Cloak of Freya and has contributed to LewRockwell.com and TheSaker.IS.
Edward Snowden is a typical American fachidiot who, despite their protestations is a striver and bootlick for the Empire.
I genuinely believe that he is puzzled as to why it has turned against him. He deserves his destiny of forever languishing in
political purgatory.
Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US, and possible elsewhere (save for when it is convenient
for the media). Julian Assange was a far more daring, more insightful figure.
(As an aside, I am curious about the author's liking of bel canto . Lot of birdbrain music to my ears; I prefer Wagner,
Strauss, Schreker, and Berg. Also, the older I get, the more I realize that Schoenberg was by far the greater genius than Mahler.)
The logging of user and information accessed is sure added to the file. But real time supervision? No. A eye of sauron? Please.
The system isnt there to prevent crime, its to track down the criminal and deeds later. And yes everything takes a very long time
on the public side.
You know, 16:00 hours the mouse just drops dead from the hand. Public servants don't give a damn if a job is made fast or efficient,
only that procedure if followed and that it is eventually done. Unless priorities are reassigned, stuff left halfway undone in
disarray is no problem when reassigned.
Just as keeping secret private archives of more or less job related data is all standard procedure. That is keep a load of
data in your personal folders and move those into whatever form desired. Security is not very tight. Only in the sense that eventually
every person with hours and access point etc data can be recovered if so ordered to.
So stealing data out of that system shouldn't be terribly hard. Just email it to a private email. Or store on something else
and transport out. For one Hillary was doing the same thing for ages. In that case though "what difference does it make"
There was an interview with Edward in the German magazine Der Spiegel this month, Nr. 18. In it, we get the tale, he copied material
on SD cards, and smugeled them in his mouth, or inside a "magic cube" out of the base on Hawaii, passing "guards". A cube, the
occult symbol, how blatant, just mocking the profane.
On the technical side, I got a story from a German BMW factory. A bunch
of guys on nightshift plugged a USB Harddisk into a PC to watch a movie. Minutes later they received a call from the IT, it had
been recognized remotely. What a charade. It has the taste of Jewish tales, smuggling stuff, tricking guards of an evil system.
Nice to have a piece helping point to the truth, that Glenn Greenwald & Edward Snowden are CIA frauds, as every major government
knows
'Edward Snowden' who first 'leaked' to the CIA's Washington Post, in fact to Bush VP Dick Cheney's biographer Bart Gellman
then the Deep State realised that was too stupid, so they switched to Rothschild employee & ex-gay-pornography-seller Glenn Greenwald,
former proprietor of 'hairystuds', at the Guardian, an intel-agency rag which lies about nearly everything
Despite the Snowden-Assange mutual sniping in their media-star rivalry, Julian Assange is also a CIA-Mossad asset, as Bibi
Netanyahu himself has boasted to Israeli media, regarding aggressively pro-Zionist, anti-Palestinian Julian, equally anti-9-11-truth
along with Eddie Snowden
As loyal CIA assets, neither Assange and Snowden dare to mention USA Virginia fed judge bribery files that have blocked other
extraditions, tho these files would make their own extraditions impossible, if these CIA fakers really cared about their own 'defence'
Zbigniew Brzezinski on 29 Nov 2010, on the US public television PBS News Hour, also admitted Assange was intel, his Wikileaks
'selected'
People trusting Assange are dead, Peter W Smith, Seth Rich; others jailed
You will notice that Assange & Snowden both got famous via CIA – MI6 media, NY Times, UK Guardian, who are never interested
in real dissidents
Assange shared lawyer with Rothschilds, Rothschild sister-in-law posted Assange bail, Assange has ties to George Soros too
Early on, Assange helped Rothschilds destroy rival bank Julius Baer that is 'progressive Wiki-leaking' for you
Assange had a weird childhood with Aussie mind-control cult 'the Family'
Things like 'Assange living at Ecuador Embassy' – 'now in Belmarsh prison' – easily faked, Assange moved in & out for photos
by MI5 MI6, police under national security orders 'Snowden' is not necessarily in Russia either
Assange & Snowden de-legitimise real dissidents, because people say, 'Wikileaks – NY Times – UK Guardian would cover it if
it was true'
NeonRevolt once floated the theory that Snowden was an FBI or CIA plant who whistleblew solely because he had the mission to undermine
NSA operations by exposing their equipment/techniques and turning public opinion against them.
I completely understand if people are leery of the theorycrafting of a Q tracker, but I do believe that this suggestion is plausible.
Setting aside attempts at placing it in context of a Deep State war, inter-service rivalry and sabotage between spy agencies is
absolutely a thing, and reviewing the inconsistencies of Snowden's stunt, its aftermath, and his personal views with that potential
background in mind suddenly makes things make much more sense, in my mind at least.
Interesting, thought-provoking article.
It asks us to balance up competing interests & advantages.
On the one hand we can assume Snowden is "real" or not. That is, he's a genuine whistle blower, or he's a government psy-op's
plant.
If we accept the later, that he's a plant, then it raises a further question: was the short term loss, associated with his revelations,
ie highlighting the utterly disturbing degree of Gov surveillance over US citizens (etc) worth the long term profit of having
an established, authoritive psy-op's agent able to influence/distort etc any debate or narrative concerning the US State /elites.
On this side the author notes Snowmen's views on Tor, 9/11, Russia etc which clearly advantage the US State's own views on these
subjects.
I don't know the answer -- except that this article raises serious questions, suspicions , about
Snowden's authenticity.
Never for a moment considered Snowden any sort of secular saint.
Snowden for the most part only confirmed the downward trajectory of the formerly at least interesting filmmaker, Oliver Stone.
If JFK was worth a laugh (and evidently did get a few people thinking about the phoniness of Dallas '63 for the first time),
Snowden was total chloroform on screen. Sad to see Ollie hit such lows.
This bit is interesting:
When Julian Assange was taken from the Ecuadoran embassy, he was carrying a copy of Gore Vidal: History of the National
Security State & Vidal on America. As an older article on Vidal in The Guardian noted, "Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit
in 9/11."
As batty as Vidal may have been, it is a fact he was the first American with any sort of national recognition to speak out
against the National Security State, starting in the Eisenhower years. His fury was partly stoked by their meddling in Central
America, but he stayed at it. Even gave it a mention in a movie he had a gag role in, Bob Roberts , 1992.
His favorite line (variously rendered) was "Harry Truman signed the United States of America into oblivion in February, 1949"
which was when the NSA papers were drawn up, giving us the security state, the CIA and the whole shebang. Anytime before, any
US citizen could demand accounting of any government project, no matter what. Afterward, the rule by secrecy applied.
Vidal had been a WWII veteran and deplored all that came about after. Credit is due for that.
Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded. The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows
it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested
without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone calls, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get
your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. – Edward Snowden
Snowden, exiled and isolated in Russia, is some sort of USG crypto-agent or something?
I suppose that if you're going to look for outside-the-box commentary and analysis, you're going to get some of this sort of
nonsense. I guess you can't expect to hit a home run every time.
"Edward Snowden is a typical American fachidiot who, despite their protestations is a striver and bootlick for the Empire.
I genuinely believe that he is puzzled as to why it has turned against him. He deserves his destiny of forever languishing
in political purgatory."
And yet this "striver and bootlick for the Empire" is exiled in Russia. So some guy sacrifices an enjoyable and secure life
to go live in Russia and all you can say is that "he deserves his destiny?"
"Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US"
And this is a reflection on him or on the rest of us?
Comfortable living in Moscow, vs. Belmarsh, makes all the difference in the world.
You might be right about Snowden, you might not be, but were Assange living in a Russian city, far out of reach of NeoconiaDC,
Bill Blaney would show him greater respect believe me.
@Horst G Boy howdy, a Rubik's
Cube is now magical, profane, occult, and eerily symbolic, because it's cubical! And geometry class is a satanic false
flag op of oppressive propaganda taught by crypto-Jews! Who else could be interested in IRRATIONAL numbers like π? PYTHAGORAS
WAS A MOSSAD AGENT!
And yet this "striver and bootlick for the Empire" is exiled in Russia. So some guy sacrifices an enjoyable and secure life
to go live in Russia and all you can say is that "he deserves his destiny?"
His "sacrifice" was inadvertent and involuntary. The fact that he seems not to appreciate the sanctuary offered to him by Russia
-- has he not repeatedly expressed the desire to go elsewhere? -- says a lot. From everything I have read about him, it would
appear that he regards his exile not as something to be borne with dignity, but as something to pout over as does a child who
unexpectedly did not get his way.
Julian Assange, on the other hand, sacrificed much more and did so willingly and courageously. He had no illusions about the
consequences that he would face for his beliefs and actions.
And this is a reflection on him or on the rest of us?
Both. Nobody remembers anything here in the US anyway, least of all people and events which do not flatter the national mythos.
In the case of this would-be patriot -- the scion of a family that grew fat at the government teat, and who himself has made a
tidy profit from his exile -- his unofficial damnatio memoriæ is deserved.
Maybe you ought to give Snowden some credit for his military service too. Fair is fair.
Snowden enlisted in the United States Army Reserve on May 7, 2004, and became a Special Forces candidate through its 18X
enlistment option.[39] He did not complete the training.[12] After breaking both legs in a training accident,[40] he was discharged
on September 28, 2004.[41]
@Brabantian Is Seth Rich dead
? OpDeepState.com : "The 'murder' of Seth Rich – Everything we thought we knew is wrong !" by Lisa Phillips . "The MOSSAD infiltrated
Clinton's campaign with a Sayanim contractor – Seth Rich – this OP took Hillary right out of the race ."
Tor is a great tool, if you know how to use it correctly. The US gov't know people don't know how to use it correctly, and sets
up exit nodes to spy on idiots, like this:
In 2007 Egerstad set up just five Tor exit nodes and used them to intercept thousands of private emails, instant messages
and email account credentials.
Amongst his unwitting victims were the Australia, Japanese, Iranian, India and Russia embassies, .
Dan Egerstad proved then that exit nodes were a fine place to spy on people and his research convinced him in 2007, long
before Snowden, that governments were funding expensive, high bandwidth exit nodes for exactly that purpose.
Tor is a fine security project and an excellent component in a strategy of defence in depth but it isn't (sadly) a cloak
of invisibility.
Exit nodes, just like fake Wi-Fi hotspots, are an easy and tempting way for attackers to silently insert themselves into
a network.
By running an exit node they can sit there as an invisible man-in-the-middle on a system that people choose when
they want extra privacy and security.
Well, this is refreshing. I agree wholeheartedly about Snowden and have the same reservations. My feelings about Assange, however,
aren't much different. Julian has not challenged the 9/11 narrative either to be fair. I am inclined to see them both as limited
hangouts. Snowden's 'revelations' were all old news to anyone who'd been paying attention for 10 years before his appearance.
Even other whistleblowers, none of whom got any media coverage, had spoken of much of it previously. I see them both as pied pipers
and nothing more. I think Russian intelligence services are perfectly well aware of what Snowden is and have kept him at arms
length themselves. Not much they could do but play along but nothing suggests they ever saw him as any sort of 'coup'
Anyone who still plays along with the 9/11 bullshit narrative isn't worth a damn anyway.
@animalogicConsider that nothing
Snowden revealed was news. It was all old hat for anyone who'd been paying attention, and for up to ten years. Sure Snowden made
it mainstream for what good it did but nothing he said was a secret anymore. In fact, I thought even at the time his actions were
nothing less than a 'threat and warning' from the intel services that they had this much on everyone. Just imagine all those national
leaders, politicians from all states being pout on notice. All your secrets are ours! What a powerful global message to deliver
and in such a loud and clear fashion.
The lack of deviation from official bullshit on 9/11 is on its own however reason enough to toss this guy out. Snowden NEVER
impressed me for a moment and honestly, nor has Assange. I believe they're both working for the other side still. By the way,
Julian Assange has actually denigrated 9/11 truthers a number of times.
@anon It's in the magazine, page
82, quote "Zauberwürfel". Presented by me, for you to get the picture. Maybe you haven't seen enough cubes around, to get that
humor. In real life, copying material on devices will be followed by arrest, no interview, no journey to some exile. This whole
tale is not funny, it's evil on many levels. Your sarcasm is disturbing.
Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US, and possible elsewhere (save for when it is convenient
for the media). Julian Assange was a far more daring, more insightful figure.
I disagree, there are plenty of people who remember him. The problem is they don't care, most Americans would rather watch
America's Got Talent or Dancing With The Stars than do something about our corrupt political system.
2013 Edward Snowden 'leaked stolen documents' (1) 'Leaked' to Dick Cheney friend at CIA WashPost, Rothschild employee Greenwald
(2) Anti-9-11-truth (3) Nothing really new beyond more than 5+ previous NSA whistleblowers (4) Has CIA lawyers, worked with Brzezinski
son, promoted by Brzezinski daughter, fake CV history (5) Known as fake to all major gov intel agencies
@Johnny Walker ReadThis is
absolutely dynamite material, it blows to smithereens any notion that Edward Snowden is anything other than a fraud, a CIA disinfo
op.
So now we can place him alongside Julian Assange and Wikileaks in the rogue's gallery of professional liars. This report
also exposes several other media outlets as being under CIA control, something we have known for some time
I don't know the answer -- except that this article raises serious questions, suspicions , about
Snowden's authenticity.
To my mind "9/11, attitude to", is a sort of touch-stone for telling genuine dissidents from fake and both Snowden and Assange
fail on that test. I don't have a reference for it, but I saw it in correspondence on this site. There was a video of a lecture
given by Assange, where someone asked him about 9/11. He looked extremely embarrassed and then replied that he thought that it
was "not very important" (Sic!) and changed the subject.
I am less sure of this but I think I saw something similar in an interview with Snowden. Perhaps someone else can remind me
of exact references?
This is the same government whose leaders secure their laptops with the secret code "pas$word" and require the producers of computers
to give them full access via day one exploits along with tailor fitted programs that are easier to hack.
That Snowden got away with what he did is not that shocking.
These days Snowden has become a generic term for whistleblowing on the Deep State tech spying, like xerox for copying. I suppose someone here wants to remind us that this was _really_ the first copier, patented in 1879:
The truth or falsity of the original "myth" becames moot at some point.
The Deep State is spying. They do have hardware and software and monkey in the middle hacks. They do trade intelligence with
other spy agencies, domestic and foreign. They lie about it through the Mockingbird media.
_That_ is what is important.
Snowden's bona fides are "inside baseball", and minor league baseball at that.
.gov IT security is a joke–millions of pages of regulations, proclamations, millions of hours of management meetings, goals,
powerpoint slides–ultimately easily outmatched by any determined hackers (whether in mom's basement or an intelligence agency's
basement).
If he was a sys admin, that probably meant he had the rights to install, remove, enable, and disable the various safety guards
and security checks discussed in this article.
@Jonathan Revusky Yvonne Lorenzo
paper suggest suspect issues exist to support Snowden's story but finds Assange's saga to be
based in epic, consistent, continued resistance to the organized forces at work in governments and high profile international
corporations and agencies to keep secret things which expose officials as criminals.
<=the difference is consistency, scope and finger points. Assange has been consistent.. always seeking to make available as
much as he could, always with as much clarity as possible; making the point where he could, that much of what he exposed seems
to be in the domain of organized crime. Assange often exposes high profile persons and tags them with evidence to connect them
to prior and current organized crime or obviously corrupt activities. Assange shows these persons or governments or agencies are
involved in secret diplomatic activities, the secrecy of which seem always to be protected by judicial and legal processes
The Assange story paints a picture that suggest globally organized crime has come into possession and now manages and controls
many well armed domestic governments and that selected agencies of government have been enabling selected private enterprises.
Assange exposes intelligence services of many different nations to be a bank, corporation, and agency inter connects that coordinate
infrastructure destruction, invasion, regime change, and war, and that these events are often followed by opportunistic privatization.
Snowden merely says a few things are wrong and should be corrected. in time the government will fix its own mistakes. I do
not know if Snowden is a Trojan, but nothing Assange has done suggest he is and governments have treated Assange as anything but
one of them. My opinion.
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro I agree
that Assange has suffered much more than Snowden, but why hold that against the latter?
Snowden took a risk to publicize what he thought was important information indicating a dangerous trend in US policy. He wasn't
willing to offer himself up as a lamb to the slaughter, so it's true that his sacrifice is not perhaps the ultimate one. He seems
to have thought he could remain in Hong Kong but didn't realize that China was never going to compromise relations with the US
to protect him. Putin wouldn't have either except that the US was so imperious in demanding his return that Putin really couldn't
save face and give him up, and no doubt he was rankled by US hypocrisy, knowing that had Snowden been a Russian, the US would
never have considered sending him back.
But Snowden DID take action which is more than most of us do. I find your complete lack of empathy kind of weird, to be honest.
Even if Assange is the more virtuous or if one disagrees with Snowden's actions, he has paid a price for principle.
What does his family background have to do with anything?
I'm not inclined to sneer at him, and I don't see how you get to "he deserves what he gets."
So Pamela Anderson lied about visiting Assange in the embassy? If they're faking it, wherever he is he isn't in the public
eye walking down the street or sitting in a Starbucks, so he's leading a prison life anyway behind closed doors somewhere. I suppose
a dedicated agent would do something like that for Queen and country or whatever, but I doubt he's the type. I gather veterans
today are trying to cast Assange as a Mossad agent but then they're the Journal of the Clandestine Community, whatever that is.
Snowden is not a classic defector so it makes sense for him to keep his distance from Russian society so as not to be inadvertently
compromised or used by their intelligence services. He's obviously under surveillance there, I know we all are but he's much more
aware of it, so that doesn't make it easy for him but he's definitely safer there than he'd be in France or Germany. I just don't
think he planned well ahead when he became a whistle-blower or was clear about what he was trying to achieve. He's not the top
level type of spy we're accustomed to reading about who betray their country for money or to serve another they believe in more
than their own. If he has been on active duty as a CIA asset all along I can't see that he has achieved much of use to them other
than in some inter-agency rivalry game. But it's natural for Russians to be suspicious of him – they're suspicious by nature –
and rightly so, but it doesn't make his life easy there.
Good stuff. Snowden was outed by Gordon Duff years ago. Although I'll have to come back to finish this article, it generally appears
to agree with Duff's analysis that none of it adds up. If I may paraphrase Edward Bernays, To read the Washington Post and Guardian or watch TV news is to see America and Western Civilization through the eyes of its
enemy.
The owners of the media own the public forum in America and through it the formation of men's attitudes and the outcome of
elections. The left vs right, CNN vs Fox News, MAGA vs socialism and other contrived theater serves the interests of the media
owners and no other.
Assange tried to destroy the "system", which would have furthered the conditions for completing the ongoing, global
Cultural Marxist Revolution Mao Zedong on steroids.
Snowden, on the other hand, wanted something much less extreme. He wanted to fix and save the "system" by exposing
its excesses in order to bring it back within a quasi-legal, democratic framework.
In response, the "system" was satisfied to teach Snowden a lesson. They were willing to slap Snowden's hand by exiling him
to Western Russia, which is better than rotting in a Siberian labor camp or "max" prison in the United States.
Assange, on the other hand, is a reincarnated, digital version of Che Guevara. They want his scalp, recognizing that Assange
(like Che Guevara) will brook no compromise in his revolutionary agitation.
Good article. Snowden and Assange are agents of disinformation
"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence
of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."
@9/11 Inside job Well, the
Real Litmus Test ™ is eternal security vs. conditional salvation. Don't fail, or everything else you've ever said must be
summarily dismissed. Answer well, friendo .
Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person's thinking to bring
together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. It
is a common defense mechanism.
The problem is they don't care, most Americans would rather watch America's Got Talent or Dancing With The Stars than do
something about our corrupt political system.
It appears the author of this piece has not read Snowden's book, Permanent Record . If she had, she would not have asked
questions which are answered, in detail, in Snowden's book. Here are some of the most obvious points.
1. "Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption: how would it be possible?"
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes the layers of encryption that he used when copying the files from NSA. He also describes
the extraordinary level of access he had as a systems engineer. Further, he mentions his surprise at finding that the NSA did
not practice widespread encryption, in contrast to his experience at CIA, where the hard drives were not only encrypted, but removed
from the computers and placed in a safe each night.
2. "In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden, as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers, did
you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement?"
Answer: Movies omit details. In his book, Snowden describes working in the one-person Information Sharing department. As part
of that work, he brought an older, "obsolete" system to his office under the cover story of "compatibility testing" and used this
older system to copy the data.
3. "Did Edward Snowden, who has publicly criticized Google, mention Google is deployed as a search engine throughout the federal
"intranet"?"
Answer: Yes, as a matter of fact, in his book, Snowden does mention that Google provides a custom internal version of their
search engine to the intelligence community.
4. "Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated
to his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time."
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes how he created a "readboard" that collected the documents as part of his work in the
Information Sharing department. He also describes how another systems administrator did notice, and how he addressed this attention
by providing access to his "readboard" to the other administrator, and explained its purpose and value to users. In other words,
the "gigabytes of data" he was looking at were directly related to his job function.
5. "On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database?"
Answer: Snowden also discusses this topic in his book. According to Snowden, he did not want to simply release the information,
he wanted the media to remove anything that might cause harm.
6. "And what about Snowden himself, the pontificator, the man who can speak on television or to the media with evidence of
training? Practice yourself -- see how well you can answer questions and speak publicly to a TV camera. How did he get his training?
Who trained him? Why?"
Answer: After 6 years of media attention, it seems reasonable he would gain some expertise in dealing with the media.
My purpose in providing the answers above is not to defend or attack Snowden. Rather, these examples just show that the author
of this piece is a sloppy amateur who did not do her homework. I suspect the author is also woefully ignorant of computer technology.
Anyone curious about these topics should read Permanent Record and decide for themselves.
Your opinion stands. Snowden has de facto been compromised. Being in Russia, and not in control of his environment. Whether
he was from the start, could be. The Tor browser bull- *** t speaks against him all the way. His conventional career start, and
youth also. He is more Macron then a Galloway.
Assange was in for the long term, had thorough knowledge of affairs digital, his youth, his physical courage(there must be
a point where selling out was a possibility) were exemplary all along the (long) and still ongoing slug.
Even his ego, fronting Wikileaks seems to be proportionate as compared to the conventional Jerks &, as Pompeo, Hillary, Trump,
Obama. If one sees how many personnel is dedicated to steer elections and governance public opinion, he certainly looks like a
lonely giant on the civil disobedience, organizational, knowledgeable, energy spent and resilience side. A true example of what
White, and Western European descend stands for. Enlightenment, in system, style, and function. Relevancy, long term goals, dare,
does not come better then that.
@Oscar Peterson I don't have "Agree/Disagree/Etc"
privileges so I say here that I agree with you.
Some of the pompous ingrates trashing Snowden for the flimsiest of reasons still seem to have a high opinion of Thomas Drake,
William Binney, or Kirk Wiebe. They might read this:
Three NSA Veterans Speak Out on Whistleblower
The author, interestingly enough, isn't I.T. professional, but, has very definite opinions about IT security. Dumb.
Just email it to a private email.
Well, firewall logs could reveal your connection to some email server outside ..
Or store on something else and transport out.
Yep. Hehe the girl doesn't actually get how that "encryption" thing works. OSI layers etc.
And, what people really don't get: all security is as good as an average person using it.
As hehe you pointed out:
Hillary was doing the same thing for ages.
Insider doesn't need to tackle technology. All he/she needs is to tackle is a dumb employee.
Anyway .
I could make my home systems quite secure, even against Five Eyes. That would create another set of even worse problems, but
let's leave it out for now.
The problem is my wife and her browsing/computer use habits. Hehe makes sense?
Snowden keeping "distance" to Russia, and not openly defending them seems reasonable to me. You can imagine the smear campaign
back home if he would side with Russia against the U.S. on almost anything. "The Russians got to him" or "He was always their
man".
He is trying to keep his neutrality and credibility and his target audience isn't the average Unz reader, but rather some mainstream
educated middle/upper class blokes. Easily scared away from his views if they become too controversial and too far from the established
narrative.
Last but not least, he is playing very dangerous game, probably without much security from his host country. This probably
limits what he can do, TPTB could probably get to him if they wanted it badly enough.
@PetrOldSack > The Tor browser
bull- *** t speaks against him all the way
No, your stupid bull- *** t lack of understanding about Tor speaks against you all the way. It's not encryption, like you probably
think it is. It's simply a way to use another IP address without having to drive to the nearest Starbucks to use their wifi. You
treat Tor just like any "free" wifi, assuming that your data is being sniffed and collected. If you're going to message, use Signal
(or Telegram.) Always force HTTPS. Use encryption. All Tor does is obfuscate your IP location, which is exactly what Snowden states,
"All Tor does is obfuscate your IP location .
"[Tor] allows you to disassociate your physical location ."
And now Brave Browser has it built in! So easy. Try it. Just don't do anything on Tor that you wouldn't do with a Starbuck's
free wifi in Foggy Bottom.
@Republic How he got taken down
is here
, and it started with the name-fag using his Real Name while e-begging for help to run illegal websites, and ended up with a half-dozen
FBI agents tailing him at his arrest. Even then, Tor made it harder for the FBI to track him, just not impossible.
Tor only does one thing, obfuscate your physical location. That's it. It's not magic. It's a virtual way to sit at the Starbucks
cafe and use their free wifi. Just assume the exit node is owned by the Feds, looking for criminal morons who don't understand
it and think it's "secure" or "encrypted." It's not. Use encryption too.
Stuff like this just confirms Qanon. He said years ago Snowden was a CIA plant in the NSA to reveal this information about their
mass surveillance on purpose. Why ? Maybe it relates to what Michael Hoffman describes as revelation of the method – a process
of revealing the crimes being committed against us by "they" so it breeds apathy and despair in the population when nothing comes
from
The revelation of the crimes
An allegedly very high iq high school from a family with drop out Snowden's tried to join special forces and failed jump school,
he failed a polygraph, got accepted to the CIA though not as a field agent despite his lack of a degree, and was bounced from
the CIA and then got a job with Dell as an outside contractor on the basis of his still intact security clearance, the contractors
were not compartmentalised in the way government employees were.
Then he went to work for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton,
at an NSA facility in Hawaii. In subsequent interview with journalists, Snowden lied about his doing undercover work for the CIA,
salary and seniority at Booz Allen, being able to spy on the the emails and phone calls of President Obama. Oh, and suffering broken
bones in special forces jump school, he just had shin splints It is very clear how he got access, and why most of the people who
gave him it did not own up.
https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/snowden-duped-coworkers-to-get-passwords/
Snowden duped co-workers to get passwords A handful of agency employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified,
questioned and removed from their assignments, said a source close to several U.S. government investigations into the damage
caused by the leaks.
Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii
to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator,
a second source said.
Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents?
It's only difficult to believe if you think NASA (like the CIA and FBI once were) are only guarded in relation to external
rather than internal security breaches
[A] frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent and would-be dissenters in the United States.
Why would they bother? Those dissenters cannot change anything, while they are whiling away their free time on the internet.
Such activity cannot change anything at all, and so it is to be encouraged from the point of view of any establishment as open
dissent on the net wards off the allegation of totalitarian state. Talk is cheap.
I'm not going to comment on the person or their agenda, rather the process-broadly.
Can you copy encrypted files without knowledge and smuggle them out?
Short answer:
Yes, with a second device and some standard hardware stuff.
They can see the second device if it is plugged in, but they have to look for it.
There is no need to try and copy from the source, copy the output to a second machine that can interpret.
ought to give Snowden some credit for his military service too.
Hell, I'd give the guy credit for his quick sprinting at the NSA. But we haven't established if he was a wiz kid or a plant.
Vidal went into the US Army after Pearl Harbor, at age 17. Even though he'd been his high school representative for the America
First Committee, trying to keep the US out of the war. Due to hypothermia working on army transport ships in the Aleutians, he
was initially misdiagnosed as arthritic and, not being caught in time, ended up first with a titanium leg replacement years later,
then in a wheelchair.
I remain sort of impressed when a young man opposes a fight, then for patriotic reasons, serves anyway (and pays a steep price).
I'm sure we'll get the full story on Snowden sooner or later.
@Saggy A stupid girl who is completely
unfamiliar with the Snowden history. For example, she asks this, "why did Snowden provide his files to The Guardian?"
Because he needed immediate press coverage. He didn't have weeks or even days, he had at most a few hours. His story
had to be in the press the next morning. Both Greenwald and the Guardian reporter were with him at the hotel, worried that
Snowden might even be assassinated if caught by US forces, and worked to get immediate press coverage of his plight to save his
life. Plus, he was in constant contact with Wikileaks'Julian Assange, which she conveniently ignores to promote her lie-based
conspiritard theory.
Without his story getting into the press within a few hours, and without Wikileaks' Julian Assange helping Snowden, he'd be
in prison now, at best, possibly dead.
I say, give the guy a fair trial. He has asked for a fair trial. But the US Gov't has refused to allow his motive to
be considered in the trial. Amazing, isn't it? Since when is motive to not be considered in a criminal trial?
For Snowden, a fair trial means allowing the jury to consider his motivations rather than simply deciding the case
on whether a law was broken.
"They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong,"
Snowden said. "And I'm sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial."
Tor may still be a good tool, it certainly was, I had great fun using it to troll and set off edit wars on English Wikipedia for
a year or two mid-last decade. One of those edit wars lasted for about three days. I just watched after starting it (but I meant
what I said in the comment that set it off, but not always in the trolling(^-^)v).
In any case, the English-language WP has been madly tracking Tor exit nodes and banning them since about early '07.
Fun while it lasted.
As for the wrong way to use it, that basically means making a connection to any other site, without Tor, while using Tor. I
slipped up on that once or twice when slightly drunk.
I don't even know if using Tor is even legal in Japan now. I do love, however, how Wikipedia is aggressively supressing it.
Some politicians in ruling party were moving to make it illegal a couple of years ago, our polity is so nonsensical that I
have to checck Japanese wiki to see the result.
Any fule knows that Tor original is a U.S.N. programme,
Rappaport started my thinking and I bookmarked his pages long ago and to my horror found the site was taken down. I wonder
why? Glad for this archive. Thank you.
It appears the author of this piece has not read Snowden's book, Permanent Record. If she had, she would not have asked
questions which are answered, in detail, in Snowden's book. Here are some of the most obvious points.
1. "Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption: how would it be possible?"
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes the layers of encryption that he used when copying the files from NSA. He also describes
the extraordinary level of access he had as a systems engineer. Further, he mentions his surprise at finding that the NSA did
not practice widespread encryption, in contrast to his experience at CIA, where the hard drives were not only encrypted, but
removed from the computers and placed in a safe each night.
2. "In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden, as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers,
did you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement?"
Answer: Movies omit details. In his book, Snowden describes working in the one-person Information Sharing department. As
part of that work, he brought an older, "obsolete" system to his office under the cover story of "compatibility testing" and
used this older system to copy the data.
No, I haven't read the book–yet.
As part of a forensic analysis, which none of you were observant enough to understand, the subject is interviewed without knowledge
of the questions in advance. His answers would be evaluated based on facts, for which a forensic IT team with no connections to
government contractors would be part of and gain access to NSA systems. Thus, testimony is considered but it must be verified.
Rand Paul might be one to open an investigation into the inadequacy of NSA security but government investigating itself is suspect.
No such investigation will ever take place.
Note there has been no calls, that I am aware of, for any GAO study of NSA vulnerabilities.
Second, the critics miss the point: providing files to CIA-Five Eye fronts like Guardian and CIA Washington Post is suspect.
As per what I wrote, no one now has access to this data.
I suspect Snowden leaked legitimate information to con the Russians to be on their soil and conduct malfeasance. Prior to Putin
providing S-300s to Syria, Israel had better relations with Russia. I suspect Q is also coordinated by Intel agency friendly to
Likud. Note his mention of John Perry Barlow before his death. He warned of Snowden being sent deliberately to Russia and hence
my concern for CIA doing something stupid.
As to his comments on not supporting Russia, no support is necessary. If he were a decent human being he could simply have
stated, "Election interference notwithstanding the U.S. should pursue non-aggressive posture against Russia. There was no 'Second
Pearl Harbor.' The risk of nuclear war is great and I agree with President Trump to reduce tensions, although I disagree with
his politics."
Instead, see his Tweets supporting the Pussy Hats and "We came, we saw, he died" Hillary Clinton.
In the event, Snowden is irrelevant. The end of Empire is imminent.
Read Martyanov's post on the recent threats America made to Russia here.
I have compassion for Snowden. His end will likely be as Skripals was: disappearance by Western IC which he supports and blame
placed on Russia.
We are free to disagree with one another. I trust nothing a supporter of Empire says.
As to September 11 I wasn't aware of Assange's remarks. This is the touchstone as others have said. Snowden enlisted because
of September 11 false flag. Yeah, right, he is an idiot savant.
Even Ed Asner who no longer wins Emmy awards and is blackballed had the courage to do this video. Trust Snowden? I think not.
Y. Lorenzo (this site will not allow me to post under my name)
p.s. Ron uses Gmail. The nearest military base is a long, long way from my location. A helicopter outfitted with surveillance
bubbles overflew after I submitted this piece.. Coincidence, right?
I will fight for the truth. I receive no compensation for my work and expect none. I support the cause of peace and not Empire.
Thanks for the intelligent supportive comments. Ad hominem attacks mean nothing. Thanks to Ron for posting though he disagrees.
...re. 'Smowden"when he was constantly whining about Russia, getting hhs pole-dancing gf to join him there must have
been a major effort, but he has no gratitude for it.
Really strange. At the time, I thought that Putin's comment 'he is a strange young man' had to do only with questions of loyalty and betrayal,
of course, it was lilekely deeper and more suspicious than that. If I had been in the position like 'Snowden', after first having been granted asylum, my priority would have been to study
the language. I would gtuess that he can order food or drink, do basic greetings, and not much else.
@Republic Snowden's wife is a
former pole dancer, those are for good for something, but its not marrying. Everything about him suggests immaturity, from his
toying with the idea of being a model to his trying to go from frail civilian with a youth spent 24/7 gaming to passing jumps
school. He stole vastly more than he could ever have read, much of it having no bearing on privacy so he has no idea what he might
have compromised. Quoth he:
There is a secrecy agreement, but there is also an oath of service. An oath of service is to support and defend, not an
agency, not even the president, it is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies
– direct quote – foreign and domestic. And this begs the question, what happens when our obligations come into conflict.
If you have meaningful values (ie those that do not charge to suit your personal aggrandisement) you resign, I but instead
of doing that he deliberately got another job contracting with the NSA all the better to steal data.
.In the event, Snowden is irrelevant. The end of Empire is imminent. Read Martyanov's post on the recent threats America made to Russia here .
That was fast, even for this pub.
Ad hominem attacks mean nothing.
You mean being positive about you UNABLE to visualize a byte from a "keypress" moving all the way to the LAN cable with each
timer "click"? You know, buffers, busses, microcode/firmware, interrupts, stack/heap, closed source, encryption/decryption layer
of the OSI stack etc. That's for technology.
As for people, unaware of an average idiot user in any environment using IT, Governments in particular, and the role and power
of sysadmins in such environments?
But confident to write articles what can and can not be done re IT security?
Yeah .
@anon Not sure about Pythagoras,
but there are (very unfortunately) people who might have
fun from combining "Rubik's Cube and highly classified information".
And not necessarily in reality.
You mean being positive about you UNABLE to visualize a byte from a "keypress" moving all the way to the LAN cable with
each timer "click"? You know, buffers, busses, microcode/firmware, interrupts, stack/heap, closed source, encryption/decryption
layer of the OSI stack etc. That's for technology.
Rand Paul might be one to open an investigation into the inadequacy of NSA security but government investigating itself
is suspect. No such investigation will ever take place.
Yes, Rand Paul who while cutting his lawn provoked his own retired doctor neighbor in a gated community into a maddened vicious
rib dislocating attack that cost Paul part of his lung What a brilliant choice to annoy the government.
His end will likely be as Skripals was: disappearance by Western IC which he supports and blame placed on Russia
Skirpal is in America. The British got Skirpal out of Russia, but Russia could have killed him any time because he was homesick
and meeting people from the Russian Embassy. In my opinion the Russians were trying to kill Skirpal's daughter along with him.
They knew she was coming and timed the nerve agent attack so as to 'accidentally' kill her along with the traitor. The knowledge
that you will go after their families is the ultimate deterrent. Unless you are a narcissistic dick like Snowden, who hardly mentions
anything his family did for him except getting a second phone line so he could play some stupid internet game. Snowden actually
says in his book that the internet raised him. It did not get him a job in the CIA despite him having no degree, that was his
mom's NSA and her father's Pentagon connections. Aldrich Ames's father worked for the CIA .
Edward Snowden is a great man – a great American. (Will a Dem president pardon him?) I recently viewed a video on how a poor immigrant family hid Snowden before he secured a flight out of Hong Kong. (He is working
to get them out of Hong Kong, to Canada.) I am curious as to how he got the flight out to Russia?????
This will be my final comment.
My issue is one regarding Snowden's character and integrity, especially as the collapsing Empire under FUBAR Trump is waging
war on the world. Come on, none of the CIA trolls here have read The Saker with Orlov on the fate of the mass murdering Empire?
At this point it is important to explain what exactly a "final collapse" looks like. Some people are under the very mistaken
assumption that a collapsed society or country looks like a Mad Max world. This is not so. The Ukraine has been a failed state
for several years already, but it still exists on the map. People live there, work, most people still have electricity (albeit
not 24/7), a government exists, and, at least officially, law and order is maintained. This kind of collapsed society can go
on for years, maybe decades, but it is in a state of collapse nonetheless, as it has reached all the 5 Stages of Collapse as
defined by Dmitry Orlov in his seminal book "The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors' Toolkit" where he mentions the following
5 stages of collapse:
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.
Sound familiar? Read it and weep. Your pensions are toast.
Or read Chris Hedges America The Farewell Tour.
Snowden's character is proven by his interview with Brian Roberts.
Now, although only 14% of U.S. TLAMs got past Syrian air defenses, hear him was rhapsodic on the "beautiful missiles."
And Snowden is happy to talk to this creep? And asks Rothschild-Kravis puppet Macron to ex-filtrate him to France?
It was in this milieu that he met Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, in their residence on Park Avenue in New York [1]. The Kravis
couple, unfailing supporters of the US Republican Party, are among the great world fortunes who play politics out of sight
of the Press. Their company, KKR, like Blackstone and the Carlyle Group, is one of the world's major investment funds.
" Emmanuel's curiosity for the 'can-do attitude' was fascinating – the capacity to tell yourself that you can do anything
you set your mind to. He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand how things work, but without imitating or copying
anyone. In this, he remained entirely French ", declares Marie-Josée Drouin (Mrs. Kravis) today [2].
Snowden's revelations about his aspirations for asylum outside of Russia come just days ahead of the upcoming release of
his new memoir which is expected to hit the shelves on US Constitution Day.
Famous American whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the man responsible for exposing a number of global
surveillance programs run by the US agency, has recently revealed that he would like to obtain asylum in France.
Call it female intuition, Snowden creeps me out.
Those who want to bow before his altar, be my guest. You have free will.
Just realized, isn't this creature the only female author here?
A female creature is writing, as an author, on alt-whatever site, about things she has never been professionally involved in.
With certain hahaha style.
Hahaha ..oh my.
So, what have we got:
1. Unz finally collapsed under "diversity" pressure?
2. There is, sort of a hidden, message here.
@Sean True true .mea culpa. Female
stuff, that is, in general.
Style, though, is unique for the creature here.
Butthurt
whoo-hoo..
Go wave your flag
.CIA trolls here
Read it and weep. Your pensions are toast .
.creep .creeps me out
I mean hahaha .when reading those things it's, almost, as written by a certain type of commentators here. Almost as one of
them, actually. Same "footprint". Especially the first two.
I mean, having that from an author here is, really, a new low for sure.
This is the first time I've seen something like that, and my attitude was mild in this thread compared to some in other threads.
I mean, I was quite hard on some authors here, and never, so far that. "Butthurt" ."whoo-hoo"
I've quite offended a couple of authors here and they never replied with any rude word. And ..my God "whoo-hoo". Haha crazy.
New "quality" seeping here, apparently. Hehe getting with times, I guess. And program.
Understandable.
I've been on this site for quite some time. Read, on average, 20 % of articles and similar number of comments in those articles.
I can't, really, recollect ONE case when an AUTHOR, here, in a comments exchange with a commentator, used the words
"butthurt" and "whoo-hoo". Not once from the, say, authors from the West. Born and raised there, that is. Cultural
thing, I guess.
@foolisholdmanI agree. Shilling
for the Israelis regarding 911 is a deal breaker for me. They had me going about these 2 guys for a while, but when I heard that
they had ridiculed 911 truthers I smelled a rat. And after this article I agree they are shills for the status quo. Reasonable
people can not doubt that 911 was a false flag operation. There's just too much bullshit there.
I think the idea Snowden is a "plant" is a bit far out there. If he is; the real purpose of the exercise is what exactly?
I also don't get why some commenters think Julian Assange isn't who he claims to be. His Wikileaks has published great volume
of highly embarrassing material for the U.S. The embassy cables come to mind – bringing to light evidence contrary to Washington
narrative on many events.
There is another thing; Just after he established Wikileaks he came to Iceland and met with journalists and few politicians.
The result from that visit was he met one Kristinn Hrafnsson, long time journalist in Iceland with excellent track record and
credibility. Since Assange got in trouble, accused of sexual harassment from Swedish woman and finally escaped into the Ecuador
embassy in London, Hrafnsson has been spokesman for Wikileaks.
Since I am familiar with Hrafnsson work for decades, I would be very surprised if he worked with Assagne all this time, and
even took over his job, so to speak, as head of Wikileaks if Assagne wasn't genuine. Hrafnsson has struck me as smart guy and
honest and it's extremely unlikely he would continue if something didn't smell right at Wikileaks. I also want to point out Wikileaks
has been working with, what I consider the few remaining NEWS outlets in Europe. (Including The Guardian before it was bought
few years ago and became worthless).
To Assagne credit he booted Icelandic polititian, one Birgitta Jónsdóttir; who tried to visit him in U.K. prison – and wanted
nothing to do with her. She has been trying to make international name for herself as fighter for human rights and peacemaker
and against corruption and so forth. Unfortunately she is a bag full of hot air and thinks SHE is the center of the universe.
It's all about her and therefore she is of no use for any cause. Julian was right to send her packing.
I can't imagine what the CIA or NSA or other tentacles of the Empire would gain by running Wikileaks. It makes absolutely no
sense to me.
@2stateshmustate "9/11 is the
Litmus Test " By Smoking – Mirrors.Com :
"It all comes down to 9/11.Everything that has happened has happened based on a lie . Everyone in Government ; everyone in
the media , in entertainment , in organized religion , in the public ,in the public eye who accepts and promotes the official
story is either a traitor or a tool . Everyone who does not stand forth and speak truth to power is a coward , a liar and complicit
in mass-murder . Everyone
everywhere can be measured by this Litmus Test ."
"... As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword. ..."
"... And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.) ..."
"... So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role. ..."
"... It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed. ..."
"... So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite). ..."
"... The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials. ..."
"... As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR. ..."
"... The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings. ..."
"... BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say. ..."
"... BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf ..."
"... Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe. ..."
"... Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides. ..."
"... But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state. ..."
This is a very complex issue. And I do not pretend that I am right, but I think Brad is way too superficial to be taken seriously.
IMHO it was neoliberalism that won the cold war. That means that the key neoliberal "scholars" like Friedman and Hayek and
other intellectual prostitutes of financial oligarchy who helped to restore their power. Certain democratic politicians like Carter
also were the major figures. Carter actually started neoliberalization of the USA, continued by Reagan,
Former Trotskyites starting from Burnham which later became known as neoconservatives also deserve to be mentioned.
It is also questionable that the USA explicitly won the cold war. Paradoxically the other victim of the global neoliberal revolution
was the USA, the lower 90% of the USA population to be exact.
So there was no winners other the financial oligarchy (the transnational class.)
As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with.
And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of
the population eventually fall on their own sword.
And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level
of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with
Iran and Islamic state jihadists.)
The degeneration started with the death of the last charismatic leader (Stalin) and the passing of the generation which remembers
that actual warts of capitalism and could relate them to the "Soviet socialism" solutions.
So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to
produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the
theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role.
With bolshevism as the official religion, which can't be questioned, the society was way too rigid and suppressed "entrepreneurial
initiative" (which leads to enrichment of particular individuals, but also to the benefits to the society as whole), to the extent
that was counterproductive. The level of dogmatism in this area was probably as close to the medieval position of Roman Catholic
Church as we can get; in this sense it was only national that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became a pope John Paul II -- he was very
well prepared indeed ;-).
It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level
of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created
the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed.
So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects
the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite).
The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how
much money to bribe top officials.
As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And
the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of
Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and
by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive
efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR.
Explosion of far right nationalist sentiments without "Countervailing ideology" as Bolshevism was not taken seriously anymore
was the key factor that led to the dissolution of the USSR.
Essentially national movements allied with Germany that were defeated during WWII became the winners.
The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal
West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't
care less about regular citizens and their sufferings.
And the backlash created conditions for Putin coming to power.
BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably
by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of
Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say.
The majority of the xUSSR space countries have now dismal standard of living and slided into Latin American level of inequality
and corruption (not without help of the USA).
Several have civil wars in the period since getting independence, which further depressed the standard living. Most deindustrialize.
Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse
of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe.
Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion
to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is
corruptible and can eventually change sides.
But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism
is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie"
state.
So in the worst case it is the USA which might follow the path of the USSR and eventually disintegrate under the pressure of
internal nationalist sentiments. Such a victor...
Even now there are some visible difference between former Confederacy states and other states on the issues such as immigration
and federal redistributive programs.
"... Margolis also says the KSA's US made air defences "failed" to protect their oil installations. This maybe so. But apart from the fact that their air defences are orientated away from Yemen there's a good chance the defences were turned OFF -- apparently this is common practice in the KSA, esp on weekends. I don't believe that Margolis's "mystery" is anywhere as deep as he suggests. The Houthis have received weapons & training from Iran/Hezbollah & have demonstrated an ability to hit KSA targets with unmanned aerial weapons. ..."
"... Until better evidence appears, I'm willing to give it to the Houthis -- if for no other reason than that they deserve to get in some good licks against that vile "Kingdom" (I'd suggest they next hit the water purification plants that serve Riyadh with all its water – apparently, the city has about 3 days of water stored. Evacuating 6 million from the Capital, the Sauds would be exposed as the corrupt, negligent, incompetent, stupid, vicious frauds we all know they are. ..."
"... These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be a "Cakewalk" ..."
"... What they do know for sure is that the military industrial complex will increase its budget during and after such a war. Follow the money! ..."
Who Launched That Mystery Attack? Eric Margolis September 21, 2019 700 Words
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The Mideast has its own variety of crazy humor. The Saudis have been blasting and bombing
wretched Yemen, one of this world's poorest nations, since 2015.
These US-supported attacks and a naval blockade of Yemen imposed by Saudi Arabia and its
sidekick ally, the United Arab Emirates, have caused mass starvation. No one knows how many
Yemenis have died or are currently starving. Estimates run from 250,000 to one million.
The black humor? The Saudis just claimed they were victims of Iranian `aggression' this past
week after the kingdom's leading oil treatment facility at Abqaiq was hit by a flight of armed
drones or cruise missiles. The usual American militarists, now led by State Secretary Mike
Pompeo after the demented warmonger, John Bolton, was finally fired, are calling for military
retaliation against Iran even though the attack was claimed by Yemen's Shia Houthi
movement.
This drama came at roughly the same time that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a
close ally of US president Donald Trump, vowed to annex Palestine's entire Jordan Valley if
elected. Not a peep of protest came from the US, which recently blessed Netanyahu's annexation
of Syria's Golan Heights while scourging Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, for annexing Crimea
– a Russian possession for over 300 years.
I studied US photos of the damaged Saudi oil installations. Its oil tanks appear to be
precisely hit at the same place. After the attack, the Saudis claimed half of their oil
production was knocked out; but a day later, they vowed production would be resumed within a
week. Parts of so-called drones were shown that appeared way beyond the technological
capabilities of Yemen or even Iran. The missiles may have been supplied by Ukraine.
The Saudis, like their patron in Washington, have a poor record for truthfulness. Remember
the Saudi denials about the murder of journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi? More
important, we have been waiting for more false flag attacks in the Gulf designed to justify a
US attack on Iran.
The pattern of so-called drone attacks against the Saudi oil installations is just too neat
and symmetrical. The Israelis have a strong interest in promoting a US-Saudi War. The attacks
in Saudi came ironically right after the anniversary of 9/11 that plunged the US into war
against large parts of the Muslim world.
As a long-time military observer, I find it very hard to believe that drones could be guided
over such long distances and so accurately without aircraft or satellites to guide them. In
Yemen, which is just creeping into the 12th century, changing a flat tire is a major
technological achievement. To date, Iran's missile arsenal has poor reliability and major
guidance problems.
Adding to the questions, the Saudis have spent billions on US-made air defense systems. They
failed to protect the oil installations. The Saudis would have been better off buying air
defenses from the Russians, at a quarter of the US selling price.
ORDER IT NOW
Trump at least showed some wisdom by so far rejecting demands from the neocons that surround
him to launch major attacks on Iran. Blasting Iran would not serve much purpose and would
expose US forces in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, and Syria to Iranian guerrilla
attacks. Saudi oil installations – after what we saw last week – are
vulnerable.
Attacking Iran, even if just from the air, risks a much wider Mideast war just as the Trump
administration – which originally campaigned against 'stupid' Mideast wars – faces
next year's elections. But the administration is under intense pressure from its pro-Israel
base to go after Iran.
Bombing Iran's oil infrastructure would be relatively easy and has been intensively planned
since early 2002. But what next? So-called 'regime change' (Washington's favorite euphemism for
overthrowing disobedient foreign governments) rarely works as planned and can get the US into
horribly messy situations. The CIA overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953 and look
where we are today.
Perhaps the attacks on Abqaiq may cause the reckless Saudi leaders to stop devastating Yemen
and throttle back on their proxy war against Iran which has gone on since 1979. But don't count
on it.
The so called "Zionist Hawks" in Israel and Washington, who want to start a war between
the USA and Iran.
These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be
a "Cakewalk", and that Iranians have no means to defend themselves, will capitulate –
these are of course delusional assumptions – only found in disturbed minds of a bunch
of Go-Getter Zionist Think-Tanks in Washington, DC who are eager to serve their own tribal
interests at the US expense.
The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003, both are still ongoing –
have long proven how delusional are these ridiculous assumptions – Iran will be at
least 10 times harder nut to crack than Iraq was under Saddam Hussein – at least not
without serious consequences to the security of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and the
US itself, along with serious ramification to the post WWII international order under the
USA; established since 1945.
By now, president Trump knows too well that he is being poorly served by these so called
"Zionist Hawks" – who have instigated the US unilateral withdrawal from the Iranian
Nuclear Agreement – but thanks to Trump's own instinct, and his close relationship with
Emmanuel Macron; Shinzo Abe; and of course Vladimir Putin – so far, Trump has resisted
the temptation of going to all out war against Iranians.
President Trump should ban these" Go-Getter Zionist Hawks" from the White House; they are
"Disloyal Jews" – who are eager to serve their own tribal interests at the US
expense.
Trump at least showed some wisdom by so far rejecting demands from the neocons that
surround him to launch major attacks on Iran.
He doesn't want to get involved in another Iraq (or worse) which makes excellent sense for
the US and himself on many levels.
However, if the US Deep State (with the Israelis) could set up 9/11 without President Bush
in the loop, then they could also arrange a False Flag attack on these oil installations,
without Trump's knowledge.
The CIA looks very much like an independent international criminal enterprise, and they're
used to working with their Israeli and Saudi friends.
This is a seriously flawed analysis of Yemen's and Iran's actual capabilities. We've already
seen Iran's precision strike capability in Iran and Syria and we've seen Yemen's homemade
drones and missiles do similar to this at slightly lesser differences. The parts shown by SA
are matches to Yemeni made missiles and drones such as Iran has been sharing around with
their allies. The reason they avoided the US defences was that they came from a direction
these do not cover, being pointed as they are at Iran. I'd say this was a Houthis attack and
as they say, more will be coming if the aggression from SA against Yemen does not stop. One
thing this attack has done is cool the heels of US, Saudi and Zionist warmongers. The damage
done here by relatively small attack and cheap means gives some inkling of what things might
look like after an attack on Iran. This was doubtless supported by Iran and as such a
masterstroke. We enter a new paradigm.
Saudi Arabian oil pipelines have always been vulnerable to attack. They are not well guarded
at all. This is well known by Security Experts worldwide but not well known, it would seem,
by hack 'journalists'.
Saudi Arabia is attacking Yemen as part of a long term plan to reroute it's oil pipelines
to the other side of it's country, the Red Sea side, so that it is no longer vulnerable at
the Strait of Hormuz 'choke point'. In order to get rid of the Iranian threat to it's oil as
it leaves port in the Persian Gulf, the Saudi's must sustain huge costs and PR losses to
"stabilize" Yemen by a brutal war and then transit it's oil via the Red Sea. This is also
well known by Security Experts but not 'hack journalist'.
Trump rejected neocon demands for a war with Iran as he saw his chances for re-election
vanish in the smoke of an US-Iran war. If Trump is reelected Americans will have to worry
every day about a US-Iran war.
I love this comment by Margolis, that the KSA & US have a "poor record for truthfulness"
Priceless. Apparently Genghis Khan had a poor record for brushing his feet on the mat
before entering a town for a bit of light shopping.
Margolis also says the KSA's US made air defences "failed" to protect their oil
installations. This maybe so. But apart from the fact that their air defences are orientated
away from Yemen there's a good chance the defences were turned OFF -- apparently this is
common practice in the KSA, esp on weekends.
I don't believe that Margolis's "mystery" is anywhere as deep as he suggests. The Houthis
have received weapons & training from Iran/Hezbollah & have demonstrated an ability
to hit KSA targets with unmanned aerial weapons.
Until better evidence appears, I'm willing to give it to the Houthis -- if for no other
reason than that they deserve to get in some good licks against that vile "Kingdom" (I'd
suggest they next hit the water purification plants that serve Riyadh with all its water
– apparently, the city has about 3 days of water stored. Evacuating 6 million from the
Capital, the Sauds would be exposed as the corrupt, negligent, incompetent, stupid, vicious
frauds we all know they are.
The defense minister also stressed that the number of threats to Russia is not declining
MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The United States' belief in its own superiority could lead to
various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his
interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.
"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the
balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including
unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia,"
Shoigu said.
Meanwhile, the recognition of your vulnerability and a wish to maintain balance and
universal equal security "makes you turn your head on," the defense minister said, also
stressing that the number of threats to Russia is not declining.
At the same time, Shoigu voiced hope that a full-scale war is not on the horizon.
The priority task now is to ensure information security, he stressed, noting that "at the
current level of informatization and automation, there is a high probability of errors in the
weapons control system.".
US authorities usually do not allow such staff for people why really want to hurt. They couple easily put his girlfriend
on "nofly" list, if they wanted.
In the interview, timed to coincide with the release of his book titled Permanent Record,
Snowden said he and Mills, who later moved to him in Russia, married two years ago at a private
ceremony ... ... ... One of world's most beautiful countries
According to Snowden, people in the West often have no information about the beauty of
Russian nature and hospitality of Russians.
"I've been to St. Petersburg, I've been to Sochi. I love travelling and I still do, even
though I can't cross borders now," he said.
"One of the things that is lost in all the problematic politics of the Russian government is
the fact this is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The people are friendly. The
people are warm," he continued. "And when I came here I did not understand any of this. I was
terrified of this place because, of course, they were the great fortress of the enemy, which is
the way a CIA agent looks at Russia."
According to Snowden, "What people don't realize about Russia is that basically you can get
all the same things you can get in the United States." "The only thing they don't have in
Russia is Taco Bell," he added.
He said it was never his plan to reside in Russia, but, "with time, with open eyes you can
see that our presumptions of a place are almost always different from the reality."
Noble
cause
According to Snowden, his book was intended not only to inform reader of his life in the US
and Russia, but also to draw attention to serious challenges the modern society is now
facing.
"We have moved into a time where people care much more deeply about feelings than they do
about facts. And this is a dangerous moment for democracy, because people believe that once
we have achieved and established a free and open society it will remain that way, it will
always be there. But the reality is: things can backslide very quickly," Snowden said when
asked how dangerous, in his opinion, Trump's rise to power was.
The whistleblower believes that people should be informed of infringements on their freedom
and of acute problems, such as climate change or advanced mass surveillance technologies used
by various governments.
"We need people to recognize these problems, to understand these problems and then to be
willing to give something up to change that problem," he said. "But it's not enough to believe
in something. You have to be ready to stand for something if you want it to change. And so that
is what I hope this book will help people come to decide for themselves: are you ready to this
change."
Snowden's case
In June 2013, Snowden leaked classified information to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura
Poitras, which revealed global surveillance programs run by US and British intelligence
agencies. He explained the move by saying that he wanted to tell the world the truth because he
believed such large-scale surveillance on innocent citizens was unacceptable and the public
needed to know about it.
The Guardian and The Washington Post published the first documents concerning the US
intelligence agencies' spying on Internet users on June 6, 2013. According to the documents,
major phone companies, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel, handed records of their
customers' phone conversations over to the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
who also had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype,
YouTube, Paltalk, AOL and Apple. In addition, Snowden's revelations showed that a secret
program named PRISM was aimed at collecting audio and video recordings, photos, emails and
information about users' connections to various websites.
After leaking classified information, Snowden flew to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, arriving
in Russia on June 23, 2013. He applied for political asylum to more than 20 countries while
staying in the transit zone at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. On July 16, he applied for a
temporary asylum in Russia, accepting Moscow's condition to refrain from activities aimed
against the US.
The NSA and the Pentagon claim that Snowden stole about 1.7 mln classified documents
concerning the activities of US intelligence services and US military operations. He is charged
with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information
and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an
unauthorized person. He is facing up to ten years in prison on each charge.
"... Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example, in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'." ..."
It's become standard procedure for the US and its MSM to consider that Iran is totally
responsible for all anti-US events in the Middle East because of actions by Iran's "proxy
forces" in other countries. While these events usually have more diverse objectives, it's
often Iran did this and Iran did that. But there's no legal basis for that.
Here's some words on proxy relationships from DefenseOne: (excerpts)
Iran's proxy relationships have given it an extraordinary ability to impose costs on its
adversaries while obscuring its role. Doing so allows it to manage its risks while
politically constraining its adversaries' response. It might seem intuitive to simply
declare Iran responsible, and satisfying to retaliate against it directly. But
international law sets a high bar for holding a proxy's benefactor responsible for the
actions of its proxy, making it difficult to build the kind of international consensus
necessary to the legitimacy for any retaliation.
Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy
only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient
simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example,
in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for
Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United
States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even
to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to
leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry
out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'."
Setting the bar so high establishes perverse incentives. A state that employs proxies is
discouraged from moderating their behavior, since any attempt at moderation could imply
effective control, and even from acknowledging the proxy relationships. So without proof
that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which typically manages Iran's proxy
relationships, ordered or participated in the attacks, there is little for which Saudi
Arabia or the United States can hold Iran legally accountable.. .
here
In 2001, drones were just a distant dream. It also involves a chain of once in a lifetime
of human errors by at least three governmental institutions (CIA, FBI and Pentagon).
What the Houthi did in 2019 is not that far fetched. Drones are a much more developed and
cheap technology, and Saudi Arabia is a basket case of a country. Surprise is how much soft
power they did enjoy in the West, since many commenters here still insist Saudi Arabia is
some kind of fascist utopia that couldn't be tricked by a bunch of stone age cave dwellers
(which the Houthi aren't any way). Looks like the USA's aura of invincibility is
contagious.
Jackrabbit #16. Perhaps increased tensions are enough to get Nuttyahoo elected (which I think
fits with the supposition that this attack is false flag). However My guess is that the
Houthis will prosecute this war to the very doorsteps of the holy mosques in KSA and exact
immense retribution if they can. They are responding to 5 years of geocidal assault and
cannot but fight to the death.
Trump and his immaculate surrounds of holy zionists and pentecostal towel boys are in
thrall. Mesmerised by their inspired service to the holy writ. No doubt they consult daily
with their personal rabbi who talks through his fedora as O would have it. But they are
beholden to something evil and beneath the dignity of humankind.
Perhaps war will be avoided by dithering and too elaborate plotting but I still consider
that justice might manifest in a meteor strike on their heads.
"... Yet in spite of all this American sacrifice, the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. ..."
"... After all, President Trump hasn't even signed off on Khalilzad's draft deal, and even if he does, he could always change his mind. The ability of the Blob to swallow presidents is not to be underestimated -- and Trump is a case in point. For decades, reaching back to his career as a businessman, Trump had been a skeptic of foreign military engagements, and he explicitly campaigned against "endless wars" in 2016. ..."
"... Yet since then, the Blob has been extending pseudopods of keep-the-status-quo cajolery deep within his administration. Trump has thus been persuaded to keep the U.S. engaged, or, if one prefers, quagmired ..."
"... The Taliban are not an invading military force. The struggle as it is has been one of internal forces and players sharing the land and never having been but various communities that fought, lived and negotiated agreements all nearly all of the countries history, unlike Vietnam which has almost entire history had a North/South division. ..."
"... Quit calling the Kabul regime a "client". It's a puppet. The minute US forces leave Afghanistan, the puppet government in Kabul will fall. Don't be surprised if it collapses before the last US transport has its landing gear all the way up. Notwithstanding 2., yes, it's over. Time to pack up and move on. However, Trump can't do that. ..."
"... If Trump had really wanted to leave Afghanistan, the time to do it was when he first entered office. Blame his predecessors and wash his hands of the situation while the political price was at its lowest. But Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He listened to the generals, and the price of leaving has only risen and will only keep rising. ..."
"... They aren't much good for anything but staging, but Trump wants those Afghan outposts for the war on Iran that his Saudi owners and Israeli masters so crave. ..."
"... All the Democrats should be on the bandwagon for withdrawal yesterday because Trump's October Surprise could be announcing peace in our time and getting the hell out. It is a promise he can actually keep. It is not like he is getting his wall. ..."
"... Trump has become, himself, part of "the Blob." By hiring Pompeo and Bolton to head his foreign policy team he has abandoned any pretense of being an anti-war pro-restraint president. He's gone full neo-con and it's long past time conservatives stop pretending he hasn't. ..."
Needless to say, the news from Afghanistan is always murky, and the U.S. is far from gone.
Still, the BBC headline from September 3 tells us a lot:
"Afghanistan war: US-Taliban deal would see 5,400 troops withdraw." U.S. negotiator Zalmay
Khalilzad has hammered out an agreement, "in principle," with the Taliban.
He has now shared some of the details with the Afghan government -- which, revealingly,
hasn't been involved in the negotiations -- and with the world as well. In other words, the
U.S. has been bypassing its Kabul client regime in pursuit of a deal with the Taliban.
Obviously, the fact that our Afghan ally has been left out of the negotiations is not a good
sign for its relevance -- or its viability.
To be sure, even if those 5,400 American troops leave, another 8,600 would remain, plus an
unknown number of contractors and operatives. Yet it's obvious that if the U.S. couldn't pacify
Afghanistan with
100,000 troops at the beginning of this decade, it's not going to do much with a tiny
fraction thereof. In fact, our current dealings with the Taliban recall our dealings with North
Vietnam in the early '70s.
Back then, President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger were
looking to negotiate with North Vietnam to find a way out. Their hope was for "peace with
honor." Yet the appearance of "peace with honor" is not necessarily the same thing as
the reality . Behind the scenes, it was grubbier. Nixon and Kissinger understood that
the South Vietnamese government was deathly afraid of a U.S. deal with North Vietnam because
Saigon understood that any such agreement would leave it in the lurch, unable to defend itself.
North Vietnam, after all, was supported by both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China. And so Nixon and Kissinger simply pushed South Vietnam out of the loop. Indeed, South
Vietnamese fears would have been fully confirmed had they heard Kissinger speaking to Nixon
inside the White House in October 1972, as recorded by the notorious secret taping system.
As Kissinger put it, the U.S. should be hoping for a
"decent interval" between the American departure and the inevitable fall of the Saigon
government. And that's what happened: the Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973,
and barely more than two years later, on April 30, 1975, Saigon fell. Understandably, millions
of South Vietnamese sought to flee the communists, and that, again, is how D.C. -- and the U.S.
as a whole -- gained so many new restaurants. All that history is familiar to the policymakers
and pundits of today. And so inside the Beltway, the debate over the future of Afghanistan --
more precisely, U.S. involvement in the conflict -- is far from over.
As TAC contributor
Doug Bandow noted on August 29, the foreign policy establishment, a.k.a. "the
Blob," is perpetually in favor of staying in Afghanistan, because, well, establishments are
always perpetually in favor of doing everything that they're doing, perpetually. After all, who
wants to admit a mistake? Especially when establishmentarians can snugly oversee the war from
their armchairs in a Massachusetts Avenue think-tank? In the meantime, American losses continue
to mount. On August 29, another G.I. was killed in Afghanistan; that would be Army Sergeant
First Class
Dustin B. Ard of Idaho Falls, Idaho. He leaves behind his pregnant wife Mary and daughter
Reagan. Ard's death was the 15th this year, bringing the total of American military deaths in
Afghanistan to nearly 2,400
.
Yet in spite of all this American sacrifice, the Taliban controls more territory than at
any time since 2001. Indeed, the Taliban has proven its ability to strike anywhere,
including inside Kabul; just on September 3, suicide bombers struck an international compound,
killing at least 19. Tellingly, local Afghans now want the international residents out of their
neighborhood, because they know the presence of foreigners is a magnet for Taliban killers --
whom nobody seems able to stop.
We can pause to observe that such popular fatalism dooms a regime. It makes people --
especially those with links to the West -- likely to flee. To be sure, there's no telling
exactly when the Kabul government will crumble, as well as how, exactly, it will crumble.
After all, President Trump hasn't even signed off on Khalilzad's draft deal, and even if
he does, he could always change his mind. The ability of the Blob to swallow presidents is not
to be underestimated -- and Trump is a case in point. For decades, reaching back to his career
as a businessman, Trump had been a skeptic of foreign military engagements, and he explicitly
campaigned against "endless wars" in 2016.
Yet since then, the Blob has been extending pseudopods of keep-the-status-quo cajolery
deep within his administration. Trump has thus been persuaded to keep the U.S. engaged, or, if
one prefers, quagmired .
Remarkably, in August 2017, Trump even delivered a primetime speech on Afghanistan in which
he pledged
"victory." Even if Trump doesn't talk up victory anymore, nobody can say what exactly he
will do. Does he want to get credit for extricating the U.S., finally, from an unpopular
war?
Or does he not want to see a foreign capital fall on his watch? Whatever the case, it seems
evident that the remaining sand is running out of the Afghan hourglass.
In the two years since that go-get-'em speech, Trump has expended zero rhetorical effort in
support of the Afghan mission; instead he and his administration have shifted their focus to
China. (And yes, there's also that fascination with Iran, although there again, because Trump
is Trump, it's hard to know what will come of it. It could be anything from an armed conflict
to a Kim Jong-un-ish summit.) In the meantime, the Democrats, too, have moved on. It wasn't
that long ago that Barack Obama was referring to Afghanistan as the "good war," while surging
American troops; Obama, too, was pseudopod-ed by the Blob. And while the 44th president soon
enough realized that the new doctrine of counter-insurgency wasn't working any better than the
old doctrine of counter-terrorism, he chose not to get cross-wise with the Blob -- and so
American troops stayed. Yet today, nobody in the 2020 Democratic presidential field -- not even
Obama alum Joe Biden -- has any enthusiasm for the Afghan mission. So whether it's a re-elected
Trump or a newly elected Democrat in the White House in 2021, the U.S. is going to be looking
for that fig-leafy "decent interval." It could come in the form of a bilateral agreement, or
perhaps an international conference, complete with the promise of U.N. peacekeepers (although
unless they're Pakistani or Chinese "peacekeepers," any foreign force will likely wilt in the
face of the Taliban, which is nothing if not good at killing). Yes, it's intriguing to note
that Afghanistan has trillions of dollars' worth of natural
resources waiting to be mined. And so if a stable regime could ever be established in that
war-crossed land, great wealth could spring forth. But that's a manifest
destiny for someone else, not Uncle Sam. What we're going to get stateside when this
misadventure finally comes to an end is a lot of new refugees -- and a lot of new
restaurants.
James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at . He served as a White
House policy aide to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
IMHO, we should have left Afghanistan years ago. I'll settle for yesterday. To hell with the
Rare Earth and our warmongers running/ruining foreign affairs!
Too late. The "decent interval" ended well over fifteen years ago.
I'm actually surprised that Trump isn't getting us out of there. He's told a lot of lies
and broken a lot of promises, but that's one that would have been easy to keep, and he didn't
do it. No spine.
This all depends on one simple factor. The integrity of the Taliban verses the integrity of
the communists in North Vietnam.
And trying to hedge a "we lost in Vietnam" slip and slide assail has no more veracity
here than it had in 1975.
The Taliban are not an invading military force. The struggle as it is has been one of
internal forces and players sharing the land and never having been but various communities
that fought, lived and negotiated agreements all nearly all of the countries history, unlike
Vietnam which has almost entire history had a North/South division.
We are going to have foreign restaurants regardless, but interventions just invite more of
them.
Quit calling the Kabul regime a "client". It's a puppet. The minute US forces leave
Afghanistan, the puppet government in Kabul will fall. Don't be surprised if it collapses
before the last US transport has its landing gear all the way up. Notwithstanding 2., yes,
it's over. Time to pack up and move on. However, Trump can't do that.
a. If Trump were to order a withdrawal from Afghanistan, his political opponents would
pounce. Expect lots of cries of "Putin puppet", angry denunciations of "Who lost
Afghanistan?" and heart-rending images depicting the fates of suffering girls. Not to mention
the grisly fates those persons so foolish as to cooperate with the United States.
Let us not kid ourselves - some of these images will in fact be genuine.
Also, Sunni Islamicists will be emboldened. It took some 18 years, but in the end, they
sent the Americans home packing.
No matter how you spin it, they won and we lost. Yes, the much hyped and much bloated
United States military was unable to defeat some medieval farmers in flip flops, who cannot
boast so much as a Piper Cub to their name, much less a drone or a cluster bomb.
If Trump had really wanted to leave Afghanistan, the time to do it was when he first
entered office. Blame his predecessors and wash his hands of the situation while the
political price was at its lowest. But Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He
listened to the generals, and the price of leaving has only risen and will only keep
rising.
b. They aren't much good for anything but staging, but Trump wants those Afghan outposts
for the war on Iran that his Saudi owners and Israeli masters so crave.
Of course, eighteen odd years and countless dollars, only to be defeated by peasants
without a single fighter jet or drone is not exactly great PR for the folks trying to
convince us that they really can win this time, why, Iran will be a walk in the park!
Trump is an imbecile, of course, but he is doing about the only thing he can do in
Afghanistan, which is, to try and maintain a semblance of control over major population
centers and pretend we're not losing.
All the Democrats should be on the bandwagon for withdrawal yesterday because Trump's October
Surprise could be announcing peace in our time and getting the hell out. It is a promise he
can actually keep. It is not like he is getting his wall.
'Does he want to get credit for extricating the U.S., finally, from an unpopular war? Or does
he not want to see a foreign capital fall on his watch?'
Any politician with sense knows that the American public could not care less about the
fall of Kabul (what's a kabul?). That's the American people. Campaign contributions from the
MIC is a different matter.
Trump has become, himself, part of "the Blob." By hiring Pompeo and Bolton to head his
foreign policy team he has abandoned any pretense of being an anti-war pro-restraint
president. He's gone full neo-con and it's long past time conservatives stop pretending he
hasn't.
Who gets to decide how many "refugees" the US will get from Afghanistan? Some of us would
gladly forgo all these wonderful new restaurants to protect our communities from yet another
"refugee" surge.
"... Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran. ..."
"... They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. ..."
"... Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't get them into trouble. ..."
"... Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong? ..."
"... Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran. ..."
"... This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance. ..."
"... The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught. ..."
in response of how NK treats journalists, Eva Bartlett of Syria fame did a number of reports from NK and she said she had more
freedom than in many western countries. As long as you dont show fake propaganda and show the NK'ians in favorable ie real light,
they have no problems. They were not asked to take particular shots or taken to particular places but left to do everything themselves.
I remember cops pulling me over for taking pics of barns in south dakota.. Many such events.. I remember cops pulling me over
so many times I can write a book on it. Once for having a white bag on the front seat.. For looking too young.. For looking like
a car bugler because I was under the dash fixing speaker wires.. For having driving lights on before they had those on cars as standard..
For changing lanes to avoid police.. Free country my testicles..
I dunno how many have been following the issue of the 'brit-australian' trio who are in custody in Iran, but there are some oddities
about these cases which suggest MI6/
ASIS are moronic and barefaced
enough to try and propagandise the inevitable result of their own hamfisted stupidity.
No one had heard of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Jolie King and Mark Firkin a week ago, then John Bolton copped the flick and suddenly
australians & englanders are told that Iran has more than British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe slotted up, that two pom/oz
types and a genuine Australian were also being held.
Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended
while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran.
They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in
every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. Apparently both are University graduates
who claim they didn't see the harm in doing what they were doing . . . yeah right, I guess it is possible to be that stupid but
it is pretty unlikely. I'm old enough to remember that it wasn't that long ago when going into many of the nations between Oz
and Iran with a ghetto blaster that would allow you to record and which had an AM or FM radio receiver would get you into the
slammer quick smart.
Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of
months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't
get them into trouble.
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort
Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't
that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
But that is nothing cos up until today we have been told that nothing is known about another woman who has been in prison for
a year on 'unknown charges'.
According to
today's graun we still don't know the charges, but we do know she is another pom/oz type, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated
academic who we are told:
"The University of Melbourne's website lists Dr Moore-Gilbert on its "Find an expert" page as a lecturer at the university's
Asia Institute.
It says she "specializes in Middle Eastern politics, with a particular focus on the Arab Gulf states," and that she had
published work on the 2011 Arab uprisings, authoritarian governance, and on the role of new media technologies in political
activism."
Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir
trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B
Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran.
This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff
closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance.
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick
or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't
that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
They were well aware that using drones could get them into trouble, they said so themselves talking about Cambodia, so in no doubt
the same applied to Iran. https://www.instagram.com/p/BngpgAIHqpD/
The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are
flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you
will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught.
In 2013, Edward Snowden was an IT systems expert working under contract for the National
Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to provide three journalists with thousands of
top-secret documents about U.S. intelligence agencies' surveillance of American citizens.
To Snowden, the classified information he shared with the journalists exposed privacy abuses
by government intelligence agencies. He saw himself as a whistleblower. But the U.S. government
considered him a traitor in violation of the
Espionage Act .
After meeting with the journalists, Snowden intended to leave Hong Kong and travel -- via
Russia -- to Ecuador, where he would seek asylum. But when his plane landed at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo International Airport, things didn't go according to plan.
"What I wasn't expecting was that the United States government itself ... would cancel my
passport," he says.
Snowden was directed to a room where Russian intelligence agents offered to assist him -- in
return for access to any secrets he harbored. Snowden says he refused.
"I didn't cooperate with the Russian intelligence services -- I haven't and I won't," he
says. "I destroyed my access to the archive. ... I had no material with me before I left Hong
Kong, because I knew I was going to have to go through this complex multi-jurisdictional
route."
Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various
countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains
today.
"People look at me now and they think I'm this crazy guy, I'm this extremist or whatever.
Some people have a misconception that [I] set out to burn down the NSA," he says. "But that's
not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasn't about surveillance at all. What it was about
was a violation of the Constitution."
Snowden's 2013 revelations led to changes in the laws and standards governing American
intelligence agencies and the practices of U.S. technology companies, which now encrypt much of
their Web traffic for security. He reflects on his life and his experience in the intelligence
community in the memoir Permanent Record.
On Sept. 17, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to recover all proceeds from the book,
alleging that Snowden violated nondisclosure agreements by not letting the government review
the manuscript before publication; Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, said in a statement that the
book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news
organizations, and that the government's prepublication review system is under court
challenge.
Gabbard's uncompromising honesty and principles on these important foreign policy positions
give her the moral high ground.
Trump can't respond to that without betraying his entire Presidential aura.
She is correct that US citizens who sign up for the military take an oath to protect and
defend the constitution and the people of the United States. They did not take an oath to
protect foreign dictators incapable of basic defense of their most precious and valuable real
estate.
This is especially true when said dictators are the aggressors in a war of conquest against
their neighbors. After more than four years of fighting, using weapons produced by the United
States, with assistance by US military advisers, the Saudi Arabians have completely botched
their war in Yemen, committing dozens, if not hundreds, of despicable attacks on civilian
targets without anything to show for it but animosity and, now, wholly insecure
infrastructure.
That this infrastructure is vital to the global economy should be irrelevant to Trump's
calculus as to where to send US troops and war materiel. That was something Saudi Arabia's
Clown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman should have considered before starting this war back in
2015.
The Houthi rebels in Northern Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on the Abqaiq gas
processing facility as a direct consequence of Saudi aggression. Of course, they are backed by
Iran and Iranian technology.
It's nearly a week after the event and we still don't know for sure what happened. We have
vague assurances from anonymous sources with the US and Saudi governments but no concrete
details other than what was hit and how.
More questions abound, still, than answers.
That Trump ultimately decided against going to war with Iran over this incident doesn't
negate Gabbard's attack on him. It was cogent given the moment and is principled in how US
troops should be used.
In all of this discussion about a potential war with Iran no one in the Trump administration
or anywhere else have made a credible argument as to what actual threat Iran poses to the
people of the United States.
Vague proclamations by Iranian politicians of "death to America" are, ultimately far less
threatening or interesting than the parade of US Senators and Congresscritters saying that Iran
is a "rogue regime" and it should be wiped off the face of the earth.
Are our sensibilities so fragile that we can't handle a little criticism from people we have
waged war by proxy with for over 70 years?
How is this any different than the average tweet
by Lindsay Graham (R-AIPAC)?
We have senior officials, like the Secretary of State and the erstwhile National Security
Adviser calling Iran 'evil' and we have officially lumped their army in with the same lot of
terrorists as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. We have sanctioned their government and individuals within
it.
Never forget that you reap what you sow in this life. And any animosity Iran and Iranians
bear towards the US and Americans is richly deserved. The reverse, however, is difficult to
make a case for.
Because, little factoid, Iran hasn't attacked anyone in a span of time that is longer than
the US has been a country.
Iran threatens Israel in the same way that Israel threatens it. Saudi Arabia threatens Iran
as an oil competitor and religious one.
And the idea that the President of the United States should entertain even a mere thought of
going to war with Iran over an attack on Saudi oil production should be anathema to anyone with
two brain cells to rub together and make a spark.
Because at the end of the day this is not our fight. This is a fight between enemies made
rich by oil in some cases (Saudi, Iran), political clout in high places in the US and U.K. in
others (Israel) and friends in other high places and cultural integrity (Iran).
This is a cultural and religious conflict we barely understand and cannot change the
dynamics of by blundering in with weapons of mass destruction. It is precisely because we take
sides in this conflict that this conflict never ends.
And it is a conflict that dovetails with prevailing 'wisdom' in the West about how to
maintain control over the planet that dates back more than 150 years. And that is why we do
what we do. But it is time for that worldview to end.
It's time bury Mackinder's ideas alongside his corpse.
To Trump's credit he seems to have realized that this incident was another like the events
which led up to the US Global Hawk drone getting shot down in June. It was designed to get him
to over-commit to a policy which would engulf the world in a war that only a very few powerful
and highly placed want.
Even the tweet that Gabbard called him out on was carefully worded to cool things down and
hint that he wasn't prepared to respond militarily to this incident. As Gabbard climbs in the
polls and is treated worse than Bernie Sanders in 2016 and Ron Paul by the Republicans in 2008
and 2012, she will hold Trump to account on foreign policy with an ever-growing clout and moral
clarity which bodes well for the future of US involvement overseas.
And, like Nigel Farage in the U.K. offering the Tories a non-aggression pact to get a real
Brexit over the finish line, Gabbard should put country before career and applaud Trump when he
doesn't act like Saudi Arabia's "Bitch." That will win her even more votes and more respect
among the silent majority who are not in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome on both the
Left and the Right.
Along with this, the likely end of Netanyahu's political career should mark a sea change in
US policy. While AIPAC's pull is still very strong in the US, Israel's commitment to an
aggressive foreign policy with an uncommitted President should falter under a new government
without its Agitator-in-Chief.
And without that animus propelling events along eventually cooler heads will prevail, and
the present dynamic will change.
Trump made an enormous mistake pulling out of the JCPOA. That genie cannot be put back in
the bottle. The question now is does he have the sense and the humility to realize his board
position has materially weakened to the point where the probability of a rout is rising?
2020 for him has to be about making good on his promises to end the Empire building and
improving relations with Russia. With Putin openly trolling him and the Saudis recently over
weapon sales the odds of the latter happening are low.
But he can still make good on the former. Trump has lost so much of his goodwill with the
people he's 'negotiating with' that there is little to no wiggle room left. He has no leverage
and he's got no goodwill.
I saw this coming the day he bombed the Al-Shairat airbase in April 2017. I said then that
it was one of the biggest geopolitical mistakes ever. It set the stage for all the others
because it showed us just how out of his depth Trump was on foreign affairs. It set him back
with both Putin and Chinese Premier Xi and it also showed how easily he could be manipulated by
his staff and their rotten information.
It's a deep hole he's dug for himself. But there are still people who want to help him climb
out of it. Gabbard's 'bitch slap' is an example of the kind of tough love he needs to right his
Presidency's ship.
His base needs to do that a little more often and then maybe, just maybe, we'd get
somewhere
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Stephen Wertheim explains
what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:
American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe.
Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do
what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.
Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political
leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership."
A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire
itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.
U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at
the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to
use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:
Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military
force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.
Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and
intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts.
Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure,
but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:
Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate
deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.
The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the
idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous
goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse
for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we
have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become
an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived
as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."
Wertheim adds:
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned"
-- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in
itself.
Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also
become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the
U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck
won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.
Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership,
resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.
Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is
considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.
It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted
dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we
were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan.
We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and
starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.
Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've
never happened if we took that policy.
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only
from reward and punishment.
So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early
days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would
have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several
decades longer.
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?
How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for
Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances
and interests be damned!"
I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that
the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without
destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.
This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic
realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have
a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our
debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.
We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending
and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only
take counterfactuals so far.
I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/
hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.
The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled
congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.
It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The
money and power is too corrupting.
Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion)
that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be
curtailed or even better, changed.
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that
since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing
left to dominate or own.
Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists"
on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for
70 years.
China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive
purchase of their output.
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own
hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes.
Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India
nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant
US presence.
None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with
our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.
It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have
no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological
lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing,
our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic
voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs
and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking.
Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits.
War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big
wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled
profitably to be encouraged.
"... The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government -- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area. President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in April with Haftar and appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's stance. ..."
"... One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In her new book, The Education of an Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison correctly excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?" ..."
"... Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling! ..."
"... I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians. ..."
The United States cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials can't seem to
decide which faction they want to back.
The Western-created disaster in Libya continues to grow worse. Fighting between Field
Marshal Khalifa Haftar's so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the even more misnamed
Government of National Accord (GNA) has intensified in and around Tripoli. The LNA boasted on
September 11 that its forces had routed troops of the Sarraj militia, a GNA ally, killing
about two hundred of them. That total may be exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the
situation has become increasingly violent and
chaotic in Tripoli and other portions of Libya, with innocent civilians bearing the brunt
of the suffering.
An article in Bloomberg News provides a
succinct account of the poisonous fruits of the U.S.-led "humanitarian" military
intervention in 2011. "Libya is enduring its worst violence since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster
of Muammar el-Qaddafi, which ushered in years of instability that allowed Islamist radicals to
thrive and turned the country into a hub for migrants destined to Europe. Haftar had launched
the war as the United Nations was laying the ground for a political conference to unite the
country. It is now more divided than ever." The country has become the plaything not only of
rival domestic factions but major
Middle East powers , including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab
Emirates. Those regimes are waging a ruthless geopolitical competition, providing arms and in
some cases even launching airstrikes on behalf of their preferred clients.
The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly
can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to
support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government
-- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area.
President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in
April with Haftar and
appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and
bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's
stance.
Given the appalling aftermath of the original U.S.-led intervention, one might hope that
advocates of an activist policy would be chastened and back away from further meddling in that
unfortunate country. Yet, that is not the case. Neither the Trump administration nor the
humanitarian crusaders in Barack Obama's administration who caused the calamity in the first
place seem inclined to advocate a more cautious, restrained U.S. policy.
One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential
national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In
her new book, The Education of an
Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed,
flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect
to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the
culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison
correctly
excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the
effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan
culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never
have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they
couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the
policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?"
The answer to Larison's rhetorical question is "extraordinarily arrogant." It is not as
though prudent foreign-policy experts didn't warn Power and her colleagues about the probable
consequences of intervening in a volatile, fragile country like Libya. Indeed, as Robert Gates,
Obama's secretary of defense, confirms in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War , the Obama
administration itself was deeply divided about the advisability of intervention. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Vice President Joe Biden, and Gates were opposed. Among the most outspoken
proponents of action were Power and her mentor, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates notes
further that Obama was deeply torn, later telling his secretary of defense that the decision
was a "51 to 49" call.
The existence of a sharp internal division is sufficient evidence by itself that Power's
attempt to absolve herself and other humanitarian crusaders of responsibility for the
subsequent tragedy is without merit. Indeed, it has even less credibility than Pontius Pilate's
infamous effort to evade guilt. They were warned of the probable outcome, yet they chose to
disregard those warnings.
Power, Clinton, Obama and other proponents of ousting Qaddafi turned Libya into a chaotic
Somalia on the Mediterranean, and the blood of innocents shed since 2011 is on their hands.
Given the stark split within the president's national security team, the Libya intervention was
especially reckless and unjustified. The default option in such a case should have been against
intervention, not plunging ahead.
The Trump administration should learn from the blunders of its predecessor and resist any
temptation to meddle further. America does not have a dog in the ongoing fight between Haftar
and the GNA, and we should simply accept whatever outcome emerges. Washington's arrogant
interference has caused enough suffering in Libya already.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a
contributing editor at the National Interest , is the author of thirteen books and more than
eight hundred articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur .
The outcome in Libya is what the intent was - chaos, per the Yinon plan. The side effect
of mass immigration to Europe was warned by Gaddafi! All was known, yet the destabilization
war continued.
Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis
who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their
stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling!
Libya was and still is the case of a civil war into which foreign powers have intervened.
The major parties of that war have always been the Tripolitanian West and the Cyrenaican
East. Whoever is on top considers the others to be the rebels. That is how the demise of
Qaddafi began. For him Benghazi was the rebel's nest which needed some cleaning. Nothing has
changed. Haftar is the new Qaddafi.
I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan
intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of
governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians.
You can always make things worse. It is one thing that Trump and friends are good at.
They don't consider that a criticism either, since they want what the rest of us consider
worse -- more war, more enemies, more inequality in outcomes at home, more desperation at
home giving more power to the haves over the have-nots.
Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" is a timeless classic that still applies to articles
produced for electronic consumption. One of Adler's primary admonitions was to consider the
author's expertise, credibility, and potential biases. With regard to this article, scrolling
down to the end reveals the author's association with the Koch Brother financed Cato
Institute. The Koch Brothers and their money have done more to destroy American democracy
than any foreign tyrant or Presidential folly.
And oh, by the way, what did the Neocons and the Vulcans of the W Administration do to the
entire Middle East other than create a contiguous geographic belt of Iranian Shiite influence
from Tehran to Beirut?
There was a moment in Viet Nam when I questioned whether everything I had been taught
about "America" was one big fabricated lie – a huge pretend. It was April 1969, and I had
just experienced witnessing the aftermath of a series of bombings of supposed military targets.
They were in fact inhabited, undefended villages where virtually everyone in those villages
perished from low flying bombings, that included napalming. The majority of dead –
murdered – were young burned children. On several occasions I observed those bodies up
close, sickened by the sight, now burdened by the criminal nature of the US war. The policy of
accumulating massive numbers of body counts was an inkling of the Grand Lie. Reading the
entrance sign to my squadron in-country headquarters, "Welcome to Indian Country," was a first
clue.
My duty station was the "home" of the fighter-bombers and pilots who followed orders to
destroy those "enemy targets", i.e., villages. I was the USAF night security commander
following orders to protect those soldiers and planes from mortar and sapper attacks.
A few days later I was reading an article in Stars and Stripes , an official,
independent newspaper for soldiers, reporting on a recent Supreme Court decision (
Street v . New York , 1969) that upheld the right of desecrating our "sacred"
symbol – the US flag. During a period of increased burnings of the US American flag in
protests of the US wars against African-Americans at home, and Asians abroad, an
African-American veteran recipient of a Bronze Star, Sidney Street , publicly burned his
personal flag on a New York City street corner for which he was arrested and convicted.
Depressed, I pondered how it is that one could be arrested for burning a piece of cloth
– even a national symbol – that represented an official policy of criminally
burning innocent human beings, including large numbers of young children, while the
pilot-perpetrators were commended, and whom, in my duties I was protecting? Initially suicidal,
I had difficulty wrapping my head around this dystopian nightmare. I was in psychic shock from
extreme cognitive dissonance.
Our behavior against the Vietnamese, a nation of peasants with one-sixth the population of
the USA, one-thirtieth its size, certainly must rank as one of the worst of a number of
barbarisms in the 20 th Century. The US left 26 million bomb craters, sprayed
21 million gallons of DNA-altering chemical warfare on the landscape and people,
murdered some 6 million Southeast Asians, destroyed by bombing over 13,000 of Viet Nam's
21,000 villages, 950 churches and pagodas, 350 clearly marked hospitals, 3,000 high schools and
universities, 15,000 bridges, etc.
Why all this overwhelming firepower and destruction? Incredulously, to prevent the
Vietnamese from enjoying their self-determination, absurdly touted as necessary to stop
"communism." Does there in fact exist a kind of psychopathy in our cultural DNA? Though I
hadn't fired a bullet myself, or dropped a bomb, I had been a compliant participant in a
mindless murder machine. Viet Nam was not an aberration, but consistent with a long history of
arrogant interventions revealing something very dark about who we are. Was I part of a savage
culture of unthinking sadists, I wondered?
Learning Real People's Versus Fake, Kool Aid US History
I have spent countless hours studying a more comprehensive people's version of world and US
history. Study of US history of course is part of the Eurocentric globalization/colonization
over the past 500 years. The 20 percent Eurocentric "developed-world" is a product of
self-proclaimed "superiors" violently and deceitfully stealing resources and labor from the
other 80 percent, all cloaked in the conceited rhetoric of spreading "civilization." This
patriarchal policy is totally unsustainable from a social, political, ecological,
psychological, and moral perspective.
It is instructive to learn that the "Founding Fathers" chose, not democracy, but
oligarchy/plutocracy "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." Jefferson's
"empire of liberty" was a vision to expand private property for large landowners. Our
Constitution is more a document to preserve freedom of "property" and commercial transactions,
than it is to preserve human liberty, of which free speech is the most fundamental. Historian
Staughton Lynd summarized it thus: inherited land replaced inherited government. Recently the
highest court of the land ruled the legal fiction that property (money) is a person with free
speech rights, as preposterous as the earlier legal fiction that a person (slave) is
property.
A fear-laden gun culture originating in violent settler-colonialism and white
nationalism-supremacy serve as a basis for the founding ideology and military strategy of the
United States. Slave patrols and Indian fighters were our first "special operations,"
establishing the essential White character of our militarized culture. As the systematic
dispossession project continued, the US government signed over 400 treaties with Indigenous
nations, violating every one of them, establishing deceit and outright lying as part of
our cultural DNA.
The politics of violence based on classism and racism has been incessant throughout our
history. Examining the US criminal injustice system housing a quarter of all the world's
prisoners reveals brutal truth when comparing extreme disparities in punishments by race, and
class. Justice?
I studied the history of the city of my birth – Geneva, New York, which in the 1700s
was Kanadesaga, capitol of the Seneca nation. On September 8, 1779, Major General John Sullivan
and his forty-five hundred soldiers eradicated these "merciless Indian Savages" in the largest
Revolutionary War battle of 1779 – a terrorist, scorched-earth campaign massacring
civilians while destroying all forty of the well-established Seneca towns, including
Kanadesaga. By 1788, the European settlers renamed it Geneva, as if nothing had happened, a
deserved reward for superiors.
All those arrowheads I enjoyed collecting as a child possessed a profound dark secret about
the nature and character of my ancestors. However, I would only discover their secret after
deep reflections from my Viet Nam awakening.
Official US military interventionism began with the US Marine invasion of the Dominican
Republic in 1798 during the undeclared naval war with France. However, hundreds of settler
paramilitary units had been killing Indians since the 1620s. But imperialism has been
explicit policy since the late 1890s to assure domestic prosperity. In 1907,
Woodrow Wilson while president of Princeton University (six years before being elected US
president) lectured:
"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world
as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are
closed against him must be battered down. .Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order
that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused."
President McKinley, and various Senators continued to advocate "a foreign market for our
surplus products." US meddling, both "soft," and hard, has never stopped.
Traveling to a number of nations in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East have exposed me
to details of hundreds of US overt interventions, and thousands of covert
destabilization actions. These policies have caused the murders of millions, 20 to 30
million alone since WWII during the so-called "Cold War". Only five of these nearly 600
military interventions have been declared wars as required by the Constitution, clearly
indicating our sacred document is not taken seriously. This also tells us the system has no
interest in being accountable to its own Constitution, or international law. Speaking with
peasants in these victim-countries invariably reveals the horrendous cruelty of US interveners
and their surrogates. Does the US possess any intentions to be law-abiding? Does the US possess
any feelings for others, or only selfish imperial ambitions? And does anyone care?
Violence against even White citizens has matched violence we have carried out in foreign
policy. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1917-18 were enacted to suppress anti-war dissent
against US entrance into World War I. Thousands of US Americans were deported and
imprisoned following World War I for "radical" anti-war expressions, including labor leaders
and socialists. Some were tortured in US prisons. Ironically, free speech dissent is most
critical when a government decides to go to war. The original Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
stifled free speech of US citizens, including elected officials, who objected to the undeclared
war against France. Free speech? Huh?
While the US was locking up and deporting citizens for opposing World War I, the FBI was
ignoring extremely violent KKK supremacist groups whose six million members –
nearly 25 percent of the white male population at the time – were lynching with impunity
an average of six African-Americans a month. Equal protection?
The first known use of air power against civilians was committed by US Marines in Haiti in
1919. But, the second known use of US air power against civilians occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
May 31-June 1, 1921, when hundreds of economically successful Black residents living in a
36-square block community were murdered, including from low flying white-piloted planes
dropping incendiaries, destroying nearly 1,300 buildings. How many US Americans know about this
abomination?
Walter White, a longtime leader in the National Association for Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), concluded that southerners fear of Negro progress offends the
intangible feeling of racial superiority, explaining the intensity of White savagery. The sense
of established White superiority (or anyone possessing those feelings) often leads to an
insecure character from lack of practicing accountability with others in a world of varied,
challenging relationships. Those feelings easily morph into paranoia of others, and delusions
of self grandeur – one of the most difficult psychological orders to treat, as the
persistent pathology of racism (and classism) so attests.
The third known use of US bombing civilians occurred at Blair Mountain, West Virginia,
August-September 1921. As many as 15,000 striking coal miners attempting to unionize were
attacked by 2,000 armed sheriff's deputies, coal company paramilitaries, US troops, and US Army
Martin MB-1 bombers, killing as many as 100 miners, with many more wounded. Before the battles
had ended, more than a million ammunition rounds had been fired. Nearly 1,000 miners were
ironically indicted for murder of the nearly 30 deaths among the miner's attackers. Over 700
union organizers have been murdered in our history. Is this known by many?
We continue to be obsessed with personal and government guns (police and military) as a
guarantor of our security. Those who question easy access to guns, even assault weapons, or the
ridiculously wasteful military spending, are thought of as nearly traitorous. US citizens
personally own nearly 400 million firearms, or 40 percent of all private guns in the world. On
average, three US citizens are killed every day by police, disproportionately
African-Americans. So far in 2019, the US has experienced more than one mass shooting (4 or
more shot) every day. Our gun death rate is ten times above that of other high income
countries. Using violence as a default position historically ends in disaster, as it has been
proven over and over that violence spirals out of control into more violence, while distracting
from serious discourse. Why the incredible record of violence? Insecurity?
Under its doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, the US government routinely dispatches
military ships to every sea space, military planes to every airspace, hundreds of satellites
into outer space, while ordering Special Forces units to operate clandestinely in nearly
three-fourths of the world's countries. Additionally, of the 1.4 million US soldiers in the
world, nearly 200,000 are positioned in as many as 150 countries, most stationed at 800 major
military bases in 80 nations. The US also possesses a large percentage of the world's weapons
of mass destruction, and recently has dispensed with any genuine effort at containing the
spread of nuclear weapons. The annual military budget, including hidden costs, amounts to an
exorbitant $1.25 trillion a year, more money than the next seven countries combined spend on
their militaries. If you want to be guaranteed health care and a modest house, join the Army.
Otherwise these human rights are "unaffordable." If you want gun control, start at the top.
How to explain the extent and breadth of our violent militarism and global imperialism?
Paranoia? It seems that our sense of superiority justifies hurtful dispossession from others to
acquire and preserve undeserved privilege.
After exiting the military in 1970, my opinions about the US war against the Vietnamese were
affirmed with the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers revealing the more than 20 years of
criminal intentions, and deceit, to thwart Vietnamese aspirations for self-determination.
Earlier in 1971, January 31-February 2, Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted the "Winter
Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes" when nearly 120 veterans testified
about the war crimes and atrocities they committed or witnessed in Viet Nam. I was aghast when
learning about Nixon's intended Huston plan to criminally interrupt antiwar activities, the
FBI's sixteen-year COINTELPRO of more than 2,000 illegal actions against innocent US citizens,
the CIA's Operation CHAOS keeping tabs on 300,000 citizens opposed to the Viet Nam war, and the
National Security Agency's Operation SHAMROCK watch lists of those communicating with people
overseas. Respect for the law? Huh? Further research revealed that as early as 1934 President
Roosevelt instituted a long-standing joint FBI-military program to conduct domestic
intelligence with broad investigative scope. The "American" Kool Aid indeed has sedated us.
Today our freedoms are further curtailed, for example, as the National Security Agency (NSA)
spies on every US American, the Authorization of Military Force Act (AUFA) allows
warrantless electronic surveillance of anyone suspected of aiding terrorism, and the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enables indefinite detention of US citizens, even arrest by
the military. Where is the Constitution when we need it? Or was it ever really there for
us?
One of the most revealing chapters in our history is the incredible sympathy the US
possessed for authoritarian Nazi Germany. Even though the Soviet military was most critical in
defeating the Nazis in World War II, deep fear of the Bolsheviks (the emergence of an
alternative social-economic system to capitalism) motivated US America's wealthy class, with
complicity of the US government, to support the rise of Nazi Germany from the mid-1930s
into the war years themselves. The US capitalists supported the Nazi capitalists to defeat the
"threat" of socialism. Elite power brokers included leaders of Wall Street and wealthy "barons"
such as the Rockefellers and Andrew Mellon, and businesses such as Ford Motor, IBM (tabulating
daily location of Jews in the Holocaust), General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil,
Texaco, ITT, International Harvester, Chase Manhattan Bank, the House of Morgan banking
dynasty, DuPont, United Aircraft, etc., who enjoyed huge profits from the war. And following
the war, the US's "Operation Gladio" systematically defeated popular anti -Nazi groups
throughout Europe, while "Operation Paperclip" secretly brought Nazi scientists and other
professionals to the US. Our affinity for fascism has been established.
Psychologically, it is important to note that our national identity has consistently
been markedly defined by demonizing others – "merciless savages", "uppity ni**ers",
"anarchists", "radicals", "communists", "Russians", "alien filth", "narco-traffickers",
"terrorists", "shithole countries", "vermin", etc., echoing psychologist Carl Jung's principle
of "shadow projection." Jung described a cowardly trick we play on ourselves: avoid looking in
the mirror so as not to take responsibility for seeing our own demons. We "see" the evil in
others, perpetuating a nation addicted to war against them, obscenely profiting as we
self-righteously deny our own severe pathologies. If we had looked in the mirror we would have
learned what Pogo told us, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Eco-psychologist Chellis Glendinning suggests that modern humans suffer from deep insecurity
that emerged from collective traumas hundreds of generations ago. A serious disconnect from
intimacy with the earth occurred when our ancient ancestors began controlling nature through
agriculture and animal domestication. Evolutionary philosopher Gregory Bateson concludes that
addictive behavior is consistent with the Western approach to life that pits mind against body,
while behaving as if the natural world is a commodity. We seek various distractions to numb our
pain from this feeling of aloofness. Technology, not Nature, has become our God.
Recognizing the Lie
Could it be that virtually everything I was taught by my parents, community, school, church,
and political leaders in terms of factual history, morality, ethics, and rational thinking
about "America" was the opposite of what had been represented? How could that be?
Yes, I have been conditioned by an incredibly comfortable fairy tale, a massive cultural
system denying or distorting historic realities, founded on shameful genocides. I had been
betrayed. We are told we are the greatest, even as we (s)elect imperial Presidents and
Congresspeople in an orgy of fantastic fiction about "democracy." The US Senate is a
millionaire's club, with many members of the US House also in that class. Indian author
Arundhati Roy describes "democracy" and "pro-democracy" as the "Free World's whores", hollow
words satisfying a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will where facts
don't matter.
US America loves its myth of being committed to justice for all, but in fact it is a society
ruled and funded by a wealthy elite. This is not a government of, by and for the people!
It is a ruthless oligarchy sanctioned by a majority of the people believing their vote
counts. Money has always mattered, severely rigging the game in many ways toward an
upper class (obscenely bribing candidates, corporate personhood power, gerrymandering,
proprietary election software, hacking capacity to effect results, Jim Crow laws, voter
suppression, etc.). The oligarchy approves "acceptable" candidates, while contrived rhetoric,
propaganda, and our education system keep us faithful to our political system comprised of one
party with two right wings, the winner ruling by tyranny of its majority. But the bottom line
is that (s)elected representatives obey their large donors who thrive on war-making against
vulnerable others.
Nonetheless, these facts do not preclude existence of individual conscientious politicians.
However, the political economic system itself is fixed, it is not broken, a dilemma every
honest politician must face. This delicious Kool Aid has in fact concealed a delusional
madness, a Kafkaesque, Orwellian nightmare. Our political leaders have consistently and
collectively acted outside the Constitution, while selectively applying laws that
preserve the cabal in power. It has always been this way, though the social revolution of the
1960s threatened to overturn the oligopoly. This revolution was unfortunately unsuccessful but
the fearful system's repressive reaction is now in its fifth decade. In the end, we are in fact
a nation of men, not laws.
So, in effect, our mythological story made me functionally stupid, a "good kid" who became
complicit in mindless, mass murder. And I am suggesting that it has created a society comprised
of millions of functionally stupid people. This is different from intelligence. This is not
idiocy. This is serious non -thinking of intellectually capable people who, in effect,
have suspended their autonomous critical thinking, basking in an intoxicated spell of our sense
of national invincibility. It has enhanced the Friedman era of neoliberal privatization,
worshipping greed, while millions are without health care and homeless. This is mass
psychopathy, a dangerous cultural mental illness.
German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer , while a prisoner in one of Hitler's jails,
wrote about the role of stupidity in the German people that substantially contributed to the
rise of Nazism and worship of savior Hitler. He argued that it is very separate from
intellectual capacity but occurs when a cult-like belief system dangerously suspends critical
thinking, bringing collective relief to an emotionally anxious population. It is a form of
voluntary servitude more dangerous than malice, an entrenched belief system that makes genuine
dialogue and education almost impossible. (Bonhoeffer was hung in April 1945).
As US Americans we possess no visceral memory of the two unspeakable genocides
our ancestors shamefully committed, forcefully dispossessing Indigenous Africans of their
labor, and genuine Americans of their land, murdering millions with impunity. Even though we
are superficially taught about slavery and conquering the Indigenous, their egregious suffering
has been outsourced outside our feeling fields for 25 generations . Thus, was
established our cultural "DNA" of achieving expansion benefitting a few (mostly White males and
those who think like them) through any means while escaping any accountability
whatsoever. Now nearly 600 overt, and thousands of covert interventions later, US Americans
still know little or nothing about our unspeakable imperialism. Why not? Isn't it critically
important that we seriously grapple with our diabolical history?
In 2019, the President, US military, CIA, and other "regime change" entities like the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and their funders in Congress, continue to intervene
almost everywhere, destabilizing with crippling sanctions, sadistically causing suffering,
causing chaos, creating kill lists, murdering, bombing, etc. Does any of this criminal insanity
even happen? Has it ever? Does it matter to most people? I believe there is a deep shame
that burdens us. It is understandable to avoid looking at shame, but the cost is perpetual war
for perpetual peace until we are all dead. The era of privilege is over, as we enter the
terrifying era of consequences, bringing fear, insecurity and anxiety to many heretofore
privileged folks. Denial becomes a lethal seduction.
Our amnesia has precluded emotional intelligence, a depth of character, so necessary
for mature development, with little understanding of historical context. We are effectively
emotionally retarded, blocking the universal embedded human feeling of empathy, and the
collective solidarity that emerges therefrom. Thus, "America" is very insecure having been
conveniently wrapped in a fake, pretend narrative, convincing us of our "exceptional" nature,
ignoring both our systemic pattern of domestic violence, and global imperialism. The corporate
media, and corporate-owned social media platforms, serve as stenographers for our oligarchic
policies and values. They create an agenda-driven narrative that inoculates our minds with
constant group think untruths of neo-liberal capitalism.
We now live in a post-truth world, where narcissistic life is experienced as virtual, not
real. Do we feel the pain of the Afghani, Yemeni, the Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Libyan, Somali,
the Russian, the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Palestinian in Gaza, or
our neighbor down the street whose cancer left her homeless due to foreclosure? How much do we
care? Answering these questions can tell us a lot about our own survival, including yours and
mine.
Serious discussion and debate of a broad range and depth of ideas is virtually
nonexistent. Mention of "socialism" is considered traitorous to the religion of neoliberal
corporatism. In reality, we promote individualism over community, competition over cooperation,
and acquisitiveness over inquisitiveness. These capitalist characteristics condition human
development in a way that is diametrically opposed to our inherent, genetic nature as a social
species requiring for survival cooperation in all our relations.
The economy and political system is now virtually dependent upon what Eisenhower proclaimed
as the military/security industrial complex, and that complex thrives on creation of endless
"enemies" which produce obscene war profits for a very few. Community and family units have
disintegrated, and citizenship is less engaged as life is increasingly defined in terms of
commodities. Everything and everybody is for sale to the highest bidder. This leads to anomie,
violence and madness. And yet, we continue to enjoy shopping as the government conducts its
daily bombing. How can this be? How can we pay taxes and go about our business as usual when so
many people in the world are being impoverished or eliminated by US policies facilitating the
wealthy getting richer?
The Deep Divide – 1959 – 2019
Having graduated from a rural upstate New York high school in 1959 at the height of
post-WWII Cold War euphoria, in the midst of the short historic blip of aspiring consumerism,
the "American" Kool Aid I and my 28 fellow graduates drank at that time was delicious. I was
raised in a lower middle class home by conservative, religious parents, not dissimilar to the
upbringings of many of my classmates. Life seemed great, and simple. However, my Viet Nam
experience rudely exposed the poisonous nature of this delicious drink and its true
ingredients.
Discovering information about my former classmates finds several still living in the same
area we grew up, possessing similar views to that which we believed in 1959 – religiously
and politically conservative, but now supporters of MAGA, Trump and Israel. One classmate who
had been a basketball cheerleader, still married to her high school sweetheart after 60 years,
read my Facebook postings from Nicaragua, then declared me "a fool" admonishing me to "stay
there." This same cheerleader chanted for each starter before games, such as "Brian, Brian,
he's our man, if he can't do it, nobody can."
Being raised in and conditioned by US America instills a desire to preserve a fantasy of
post-WWII euphoria for many, at least until President Reagan. But experiential reality
painfully destroys make-believe. I argue that the USA has never been great, but suspect many of
my 1959 classmates would vehemently disagree.
Trump Exposes the Pretend Society
The phenomenon of the Presidency of Donald John Trump disturbingly "offers" our culture, and
the world, an overdue undisguised photo of our real culture and its politics. Some say
Trump brings out the worst in people – hatred, self-centeredness, cruelty, insensitivity,
crassness, racism, insulting language, poisonous divisiveness, adolescent delinquency, etc. But
is it possible that his language and demeanor are validating expressions of historically
suppressed feelings and values which have never been sufficiently addressed or openly
acknowledged in our Eurocentric, capitalist, money-oriented, nature-defying, often
mean-spirited culture? These censored feelings once unleashed, no matter how adolescent they
seem, are capable of manifesting in a vicious authoritarian and neo-fascist state, as they did
in Germany nearly 100 years ago. It seems we are at that point again.
The "developed" world, now led by the United States of America, has historically been built
on egregious exploitation and violence hidden under fanciful rhetoric. Inevitably, the chickens
will come home to roost. As Eurocentrics we have been lying to ourselves and the world with our
highly touted economic system and "democracy," fooling ourselves by myths and lies we have long
believed about our "superiority" built on the suffering of others. As stated above, we have
(s)elected leaders who are to varying degrees corrupted by money who use politically "correct"
language and a finessed demeanor to gain approval. In fact, they have consistently been
imperial and oligarchic, selfishly stealing to assure an insatiably consumptive lifestyle for
under 5 percent of the world's population (but only benefitting a minority of its own people),
while gobbling up anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the globe's resources (depending on the
resource and era examined). We ad nauseum excuse our interventions using "national
security" or "humanitarian justice." We have followed in the footsteps of our imperial teachers
in the United Kingdom. Fair? Sustainable? Ever thought about the structural unfairness and
gross arrogance that has enabled 500 years of colonization? Trump's Presidency reveals a lot
about us that we have not wanted to recognize. Scary? Our historical chronic complicity in this
horror story cannot be ignored.
Trump serves as an avatar, or caricature, of a collective, creepy, violent, disgusting,
mean-spirited, immature culture, at least as experienced by large numbers of people both in the
US and the world. Trump's appeal can largely be attributed to the fact that he has taken the
clothes off of Pretend . His childish nature of lying, tweeting and exaggerating,
ironically reveals an ugly "truth" about our modern selves that has been drowned under
incredible "public relations" – education, the media, Hollywood, sports, the State
Department, etc. His extreme personal narcissism matches well our extreme collective
exceptionalism. Is it clearer now just how big the LIE has been, protected by our comfortable
500-year myths? Welcome to dystopia, Kafka, and Orwell.
Conclusion
The 400-year history of Western dualistic Cartesian thinking (named after French philosopher
Rene Descartes' view of reductionist mind-body dualism) divorcing human beings from study of
observable nature, has produced a terribly flawed epistemology. The opposite basis for
knowledge is holism, a framework that enables comprehension of multiple interconnections and
historical context. Dispensing with any serious concern for consequences, the insatiably
consumer-driven materialistic Western Way of Life has ironically and blissfully been destroying
life itself by its addiction to burning finite fossil fuels. The harsh truth is that a
capitalist system is on a direct collision course with sustainable societies that require
conserving healthy interconnected relationships with each other and the earth's eco-system. We
have become accustomed to wishful thinking that resources are infinite, and that they belong to
us. This theft can only happen, of course, by force or its threat, and deceit, while living in
the toxic illusion we are better than others. Does this suggest a kind of arrogant
collective stupidity?
Nature bats last, something our cortex apparently chose to fatally ignore. We now face the
greatest existential crisis as Nature bats last humbling modern humans into extinction, or near
so. We somehow forgot the most critical truth of all – that we all part of the One. If we
can now recognize our various levels of "stupidity", we have an adrenaline opportunity to leap
out of our heretofore seductive comfortable fantasy, choosing instead to access our buried
human characteristic of interconnection with everything and everybody, i.e., mutual respect and
accountability. This leap now must be of a revolutionary nature, rocketing us out of our
historic arrogant pleasureableness. Our survival foundation: embracing the evolutionary feeling
of empathy. Saving ourselves is pretty damn important, and that means saving life for all.
Let's do it! We are not worth more; they are not worth less.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US
domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website:
brianwillson.com. His recent book, "Don't Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the
Long History of US Lies" is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir,
"Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson" was published by PM Press (2011).
A documentary, "Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson" was produced in 2016
by Bo Boudart Productions.
"... Someone should tell Mike that our credibility as a nation is further damaged with claims that are in need of supporting evidence. ..."
"... Did Fat Mike rub the head camel jockey's glowing orb? ..."
"... America is a bomb-happy empire - we kill illiterate peasants and destroy mud-walled villages. We are really good at it. ..."
"... Mike, it may be an "act of war" for Saudi Arabia but it's not an act of war for the United States. We weren't attacked, they were. Let them unfuck the situation. ..."
"... No more wars Mr. Trump, no more wars. Plus, we need to prepare to defend our Constitution on our own shores. ..."
Mike, it may be an "act of war" for Saudi Arabia but it's not an act of war for the United
States. We weren't attacked, they were. Let them unfuck the situation.
I am pro military and I have many friends who have served or currently serve. And I have
kids. I'm not sending my kids to kill Iranians for the Saudi's, for Israel or for any other
fucked-up nation in the Middle East. And I don't want 18-year-old American kids getting
killed or wounded for those ungrateful ***** either.
No more wars Mr. Trump, no more wars. Plus, we need to prepare to defend our Constitution
on our own shores.
Sep 16, 2019 Welcome
to the world where things don't add up. For instance, some people did some things to
the Saudi Arabian oil refinery at Abqaiq over the weekend. Like, sent over a salvo of cruise
missiles and armed drone aircraft to blow it up. They did a pretty good job of disabling the
works. It is Saudi Arabia's largest oil processing facility, and for now, perhaps months, a
fair amount of the world's oil supply will be cut off. President Trump said "[we] are waiting
to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what
terms we would proceed!" Exclamation mark his.
How many times the past few years has our government declared that "we have the finest
intelligence services in the world." Very well, then, why are we waiting for the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia to tell us who fired all that stuff into Abqaiq? Whoever did it, it was
unquestionably an act of war. And, of course, what are we going to do about it? (And what will
some people do about it?)
Let's face it: the USA has had a hard-on for Iran for forty years, ever since they overthrew
their shah, invaded the US embassy in Tehran, and took fifty-two American diplomats and staff
hostage for 444 days. On the other hand, the Arabians and Iranians have had a mutual hard-on
for centuries, long before the Saud family was in charge of things, and back when Iran was
known as Persia, a land of genies, fragrant spices, and a glorious antiquity (while Arabia was
a wasteland of sand populated by nomads and their camels). The beef was formerly just about
which brand of Islam would prevail, Sunni or Shia. Lately (the past fifty years) it has been
more about the politics of oil and hegemony over the Middle East. Since the US invaded Iraq and
busted up the joint, the threat has existed that Iran would take over Iraq, with its majority
Shia population, especially the oil-rich Basra region at the head of the Persian Gulf. The
presence of Israel greatly complicates things, since Iran has a hard-on for that nation, too,
and for Jews especially, often expressed in the most belligerent and opprobrious terms, such as
"wiping Israel off the map." No ambiguity there. The catch being that Israel has the capability
of turning Iran into an ashtray.
The world has been waiting for a major war in the Middle east for decades, and it might have
one by close of business today. Or perhaps some people will do nothing . The
Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen supposedly claimed responsibility for the attack. That's
rich. As if that rag-tag outfit has a whole bunch of million-dollar missiles and the knowledge
and capacity to launch them successfully, not to mention the satellite guidance mojo. A
correspondent suggests that the missiles were fired from a pro-Iranian military base in Iraq,
with the Houthis brought in on flying carpets to push the launch buttons.
President Trump is trumpeting America's "energy independence," meaning whatever happens over
there won't affect us. Well, none of that is true. We still import millions of barrels of oil a
day, though much less from Saudi Arabia than before 2008. The shale oil "miracle" is hitting
the skids these days. Shale oil production has gone flat, the rig-count is down, companies are
going bankrupt, and financing for the debt-dependent operations is dwindling since the
producers have demonstrated that they can't make a profit at it. They're trapped in the
quandary of diminishing returns, frontloading production, while failing to overcome steep
decline curves in wells that only produce for a couple of years.
It's also the case that shale oil is ultra-light crude, containing little heavier
distillates such as diesel and aviation fuel (basically kerosene). Alas, American refineries
were all built before shale oil came along. They were designed to crack heavier oil and can't
handle the lighter shale. The "majors" don't want to invest their remaining capital in new
refineries, and the many smaller companies don't have the ability. So, this makes necessary a
high volume of oil swapping around the world. Without diesel and aviation fuel, US trucking and
commercial aviation has a big problem, meaning the US economy has a big problem.
With the new crisis in the Middle East, benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil is up from
around $55-a-barrel to just over $60 at the market open (European Brent crude is just above
$70). That's a pop, but not a spectacular one, considering that a whole lot more damage might
ensue in the days ahead. China, Korea, and Japan stand to lose bigly if the players in the
Middle East really go at it and bust up each other's assets. If that happens, the world will
never be the same. You can kiss the global economy goodbye for good. Let's hope some people
don't do something.
Not just the Saudi's. The Houthis support Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
They also control the Straits of Mandeb where most of Israel's oil transits to Asia.
Hence the war in Yemen an the problems in the Sudan. So its no wonder its not just
the Saudi's who are fighting the Houthis. The Houthis are fighting against the U.K.,
Germany, the U.S., Israel and the UAE, who are all supporting the Saudi's. Yemen, one
of the worlds oldest civilizations
Iran never said "wiping Israel off the map."It was Ahmadinejad that said "..wipe
the Zionist entity off the map".
This author should know better than to repeat Zionist lies.
Kunstler has some huge holes in his game. He seems to take many of the US MSM
talking points as good coin. Like, exhibit A, the "wipe Israel off the map" quote
which has long since been shown to be a mis-translation. Often his bigotry also slips
like when he dismisses Houthi capabilities and gets wrong what actually hit the
refineries. These were DRONES not missiles. That is why they were able to evade the
Saudi air defenses. But Houthis are to uncouth to pull of such an operation and
moreover how dare they defend themselves or accept assistance from Iran even if it
were true they are supplying the Houthis with weapons and intelligence. Of course, he
also fails to explain, following like a dog on a leash the US media, why Iran would
launch such an attack considering it may provoke the Israelis or the US. Sure they
may hate the Saudis but they certainly do not want a war where, though they would not
technically lose, would see their society destroyed. Again Cui Bono.
Kunstlers's roots are definitely showing here. His usual barbed wit has simply
disappeared and he seems to have bitten off and swallowed whole the officialbullshit , very unwise at this stage.
"A correspondent suggests" just doesn't cut it. Correspondents have suggested all
sorts of things and he should learn to ignore these voices and rely on facts
instead.
He forgets the fact that Saudi Arabia has been waging war on Yemen since 2015 and
that the damage inflicted upon the Saudi oil installations is only a tiny fraction of
the retribution that the Saudis deserve.
Kunstler predictably forgets the fact that Israel has been illegally attacking
Iranian interests in Syria for several years and that as a result many Iranians have
been killed by Israel in recent times. The fact is that these illegal forays are also
acts of war, which of course Kunstler forgets to tell us.
One other fact pertains to his boasting that Israel could wipe Iran off the map,
which is not just bad taste, but ignores the fact that Iran has enough conventional
power to do the same to its postage stamp sized and bellicose neighbour.
We now know that when the chips are down, Kunstler will simply revert to type and
tow the crooked official zio line. We don't need Kunstler for that, we all ready have
a zionist media, a craven Congress and Trump's government of crazies, very important
facts.
If the Yemenis are being assisted by Iran I say that's a good thing. The Saudi
beasts are being assisted by our jew rulers. If I was a Yemeni blowing up that oil
infrastructure would have been on top of my list. And Israel is the country that
would be turned into an ashtray. The US is gone, over run invaded, already lost.
"Let's face it:" says Kunstler. Iran started it forty years ago, "ever since they
overthrew their shah ..." Bad Iranians attacking the USA.
But if we go back a few decades further, we find USUKisrael smashing the elected
government of Iran and installing The Shah! So Kunstler is lying when he says "their
shah"; he should say OUR shah. I think he probably knows this. He's not accidentally
mixing things up.
Catastrophic or not the neocons are itching for a big confrontation and Iran fits
the bill.
Keep in mind that most collateral damage will be suffered by the Saudis.
The US is now the biggest producer of oil, just imagine the boost that the US shale
investors will get in an industry that was about to have its bubble burst.
No longer will it struggle to break even, no it will make a good profit, more
importantly the bubble will not hit the financial sector hard.
Now KSA will suffer a blow, but that will only serve the US - new loans and new
contracts will reverse the money stream and tie the Saudi regime even more to
Washington.
As a bonus it will please the Israelis when finally Iran will be taken out and
Hezbollah isolated.
Wild cards - how hard can Iran retaliate beyond KSA, is it able and willing to
strike against Israel? How hard can it strike US targets in the region? And finally
will they go full on against the Arabian energy infrastructure. If a couple of Houthi
cruise missiles in a single strike can drop total oil production by 5% and raise
prices by 20%, imagine what kind of havoc a real Iranian campaign can cause (again
ignoring the oil bonanza the US oil industry will score).
I really believe there is now a 50/50% that Washington will gamble a full blown
war against Iran, its perceived benefits outweighing the dangers.
If anything Israel will be the deciding factor, if Tel Aviv does not fear Iranian
retribution and gives the go ahead, we'll have a war on our hands,
The US is certainly stretched thin defending the national and security interest
across the globe - aka defending and expanding the empire.
However there is enough fire power to defeat the Iranian military as an organized
force and Teheran as a government, it all depends on the US rules of engagement and
how far they are willing to push this war.
But afterwards it will be no better than Iraq or Afghanistan.
That may actually be the excuse to do what some strategists have been itching to
do since the Korean war, that is to use a couple of tactical nukes - the ultimate
terror weapon of state.
The current NPR is a strong sign in favor of nuclear weapons in conflict as it
greatly reduces the threshold. Iran's perceived threat to global oil production could
be used to set an example.
In what condition will Saudi Arabia be in, after Iran has been subdued? Also the
plethora of US bases in the area will also be fat juicy targets for Iranian
missiles.
Did the condition of South East Asia other than the ubiquitous Domino Theory,
worry many when they went to war in Viet Nam, what about Iraq?
Oil and Israel are key.
Oil prices and Israel's safety.
They want to take out Iran, but this small attack shows how vulnerable the
regional energy infrastructure really is. That can be a temporary advantage, in
boosting US oil income, but that can be easily off set by the impact of rising oil
prices on all other sectors and the public.
That's why I think it is 50/50 at best, and slowly leaning to less likely we'll
see a major escalation.
Otoh, if I were the Houthis, I'd launch a couple of additional strikes to press
the message.
Saudi Arabia supplies oil to China, so to believe Iran was behind the drone attack
on Saudi oil is a bit of a stretch. The question is was it the U.S. and Israel
coordinating that attack? Israel's influence on the U.S. in the middle east is what
is getting America running in circles
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said recent drone attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure were
a proportionate Yemeni response to years of daily bombings carried out by a Saudi-led
coalition.
Speaking to reporters in Ankara following three-way talks between the presidents
of Turkey, Russia and Iran, Rouhani suggested the drone attacks were a legitimate act of
self-defense.
"On a daily basis Yemen is being bombarded and innocent civilians are dying so they have
to retaliate," Rouhani explained.
Yemeni people are exercising their legitimate right of defense the attacks were a
reciprocal response to aggression against Yemen for years.
Rouhani added his hope that the conflict in Yemen would be resolved through diplomacy, and
said that such a process might even mirror Syria's Astana talks.
Addressing the same question, Turkish President Recep Erdogan also pointed out that it was
Saudi Arabia who'd started the cycle of attacks. He said the international community should
inquire into the causes of Yemen's crisis, noting the country had been "basically
destroyed" during its four-year conflict, and called on other world powers to consider how
to rebuild Yemen "from scratch" and "put it back on its feet."
While Russia's President Vladimir Putin said the drone attacks had not been discussed at
Monday's meeting, he noted the "humanitarian catastrophe" in the country and urged a
diplomatic solution to the conflict.
The war in Yemen began in earnest in March 2015, when a coalition of states, led by Saudi
Arabia and backed by the US and Britain, launched a bombing campaign in an attempt to defeat
the rebel Houthi movement and restore the rule of President Mansour Hadi, who'd been ousted in
2014. In addition to tens of thousands killed in the fighting, the conflict has sparked one of
the world's worst humanitarian crises, leaving millions without food, water or healthcare, and
dependent on international aid.
Pat Lang won't let me post on his site, so I'll have to point this out here instead.
He has just posted an open letter to Trump regarding a war with Iran, and he points out
(correctly) that:
1) Iran can set its proxy forces in Syria and Iraq loose on US troops in those countries
2) Iran will fire every missile in its arsenal at any US troops within range
3) Iran will fire its AA missiles at any and all USAF planes
4) Iran will keep attacking the 5th fleet until they run out of boats
All true, and all well and good as far as it goes.
But Pat seems to have the same blind spot as all other US pundits, in that they apparently
have forgotten all about the Iranian Army.
They do have an Army, and can muster half a million fighting men.
Which, indeed, is probably ten times as many ground troops that CENTCOM possesses.
Seems to me that the Iranians can think of several good uses for such an army.
For one thing, they can launch an invasion of Afghanistan with the intention of killing each
and every GI who has the misfortune of being in-theatre.
They'll have at least a 10-to-1 advantage of men.
Not so much a fight as a slaughter.
Bernhard, excellent article, as usual, thank you. The recent situation in KSA is just a small
example of the collapse on classic warfare, we have seen it closely in Vietnam, Lebanon 2006,
then Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and for 2,500 years in Afghanistan, time and time again. The
supposed richer countries trying to impose their will and military power when facing
organized societies with, purpose and means to defend, do exactly that, they fend off the
aggressors.
In the case of Yemen, which has not been conquered due to the terrain and its people
(similar to Afghanistan), they, as few other cases, had friends that supplied means of
defense and attack, this is why Yemen/Houthis, after 5 years of war of aggression against
them, they can hit back, in a way that KSA is not able to defend, small drones, flying low
and hard to be spotted with a long range, this is the perfect weapon to demoralize arrogant
regimes, it creates terror and damages in highly explosive places. Yemen will not back down
until KSA leaves its aggressive policy and pay reparations, or Yemen will continue to inflict
damages, slowly bleeding KSA and demoralizing its corrupt leadership.
I my view a decision to remove the current royalty from KSA was already taken, I mean, The
Resistance will pursue it, slowly, will create situations for an internal coup, internal
revolts and so on, KSA's security is mostly done by foreigners, many from Pakistan, Sudan
etc...these people are treated as slaves, very badly, a time bomb when an opportunity arises,
and KSA is approaching that dangerous zone, few more well placed strikes that put KSA on its
knees and expose wide open its vulnerability will be the sign for the large & oppressed
Shia population to revolt, with it goes Bahrain as well.
Lets remember that Qatar is a mortal enemy for KSA, and has its own ambitions to expand
territory beyond its tiny area, KSA is playing with fire by bending to the US,Uk and Israel,
it is risking being retaliated in pieces.
Grieved @80 noted that "...these countries... are in fact in a coalition..."
The response to that from imperial loyalists is not unexpected: "Nooo! Primitive sand
people cannot put aside the identity politics differences that our empire cultivates in them
and unite against us!"
The imperial loyalists, despite considering themselves to be "woke" and
"inclusive" and unbigoted and moral, find it inconceivable that any peoples other than
those of northern European and anglo descent could unite in the face of an existential
threat. To be certain, these empire loyalists cannot even see themselves as being the
existential threat that is uniting peoples, despite having literally slaughtered millions of
innocents over the last half century or so. Their sense of moral and cultural superiority is
an axiom that must remain beyond question lest their all-important identities be
exposed as cheap narcissism, so they pour into the forum to promote conspiracy theories about
how the stunning successes of the coalition that Grieved notes above are actually convoluted
and inscrutably super-sophisticated moves on a Grand Chessboard . To maintain this
fiction they must overlook the fact that their empire's best strategists reached the limits
of their geostrategic talent playing the board game Risk . Consider that the imperial
mass media has begun to refer to pompous Pompeo as "the next Kissinger" , and recall
that even the former Kissinger was never really that bright but was just ruthless and totally
lacking a conscience.
Face reality, imperial loyalists: The Houthis, whom you cannot even credit with being
human, have just successfully wounded your lackeys in the Middle East. The Houthis
accomplished this with skill, intelligence, and determination.
"... And President Trump himself said Wednesday from the White House that it looks like Iran did it but that he still hopes to avoid war . He announced via a statement on Twitter that, "I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!" -- ..."
"... Pompeo is in Jedda where he's expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to evaluate a possible response, where the are expected to "coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region," according to a State Department statement . ..."
"... Wednesday's Saudi Def. Ministry press briefing showcasing missile and drone debris alleged "evidence" the Iranians were behind attack. ..."
"... The fact that Johnson's statement included the word "diplomatic" - along with Trump's emphasis on extending stronger sanctions - is a good sign however, that the White House is not prepping for war. ..."
What's the end game here? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just arrived in Jeddah for talks with Saudi leaders over a response
to the weekend attacks on two of the kingdom's major oil facilities.
After a prior press conference by the Saudi Defense Ministry
where it for the first time assigned public blame on Iran for the attacks which initially knocked out half of the kingdom's daily
oil output, saying the air attacks "unquestionably" had Iranian state sponsorship, Pompeo
has announced the Aramco attacks constitute
an "act of war" by Iran .
And President Trump himself said Wednesday from the White House that it looks like Iran did it but that he still hopes to avoid
war . He announced via a statement on Twitter that, "I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase
Sanctions on the country of Iran!" -- in what appears an alternative to launching a military response.
"I'm not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to," Trump told reporters Wednesday.
Pompeo's new "act of war" declaration indeed takes the potential for escalation right back to boiling point.
Pompeo is in Jedda where he's expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to evaluate a possible response, where
the are expected to "coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region," according to
a State Department
statement .
Meanwhile, if the 'military option' is being considered, it appears we could be in the beginning phases of an international coalition
response. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he and Trump held a phone call to discuss the need for a "united diplomatic response
from international partners" after the Aramco attacks.
The fact that Johnson's statement included the word "diplomatic" - along with Trump's emphasis on extending stronger sanctions
- is a good sign however, that the White House is not prepping for war.
"... the attack dented the image of invincibility of Aramco's infrastructure ..."
"... Saudi Military stated the Aramco facilites were attacked with 18 missiles and 7 drones. They state cruise missiles were used. However, now they state the attack was simply "backed" by Iran. The weapons were all Iranian design. ..."
"... That Iran is backing the Houthis we already knew and nobody doubts. But those drones and missiles didn't come from Iranian territory nor were they operated by Iranian personel. It's a free market world, and everybody can buy weapons from anybody. ..."
"... The GOAL of exaggerating the attack could be to simply increase oil prices or to justify war with Iran. Tensions with Iran will be elevated for weeks, if not months. That will mean higher oil prices than otherwise. ..."
"... The timing is also suspicious because it comes just before the Israeli election and just after John Bolton was dismissed. ..."
"... Russian oil experts say 3 to 6 months to repair damage from strike as components must come from Europe according to TASS. As the remains of the uavs have been recovered their effective range can be determined. I suspect they were launched from within Saudi territory. ..."
"... It is embarrassing to the Saudis because they scarcely bother to unpack the weapons the US sends them-at premium prices - and dare not allow any of their countrymen to learn how to use them. And it is embarrassing to the Americans because they understand all this and ship over arms that don't work simply to ensure that those petrodollars circulate. ..."
"... Hence the current campaign to convince us that Iran was responsible. Mind you, that propaganda is only effective so long as the American people don't really believe it because, if they did, they might demand war (you can imagine Pelosi, Schumer and Biden insisting on it) and Washington doesn't want that. Jingoism isn't about fighting it's about threatening. ..."
1) USA: that would only help if Trump was decided to go to a hot war against Iran. By his
declarations since yesterday, we already know that isn't going to happen. He didn't even jump
to the "Iran did it!" bandwagon right away. He said he increased sanctions against Iran --
but Iran is already sanctioned to the maximum by the USA, so that's empty rhetoric.
2) Israel: wars in Israel only work as an election boost to the incumbent Prime Minister when Israel emerges with a clear
victory. ...
3) Saudi Arabia: it has a 188 billion barrel reserve to cover up for the losses for a
couple of days, so they benefited a little bit from the 20% price rise. But so did everybody
else -- including enemies of the USA, such as Russia and Venezuela. Besides, the attack
dented the image of invincibility of Aramco's infrastructure, and Saudi Arabia's image as a
neofascist ideal State.
4) Iran: Iran can block the Hormuz Strait -- a much more benign and cheap way to stop
Saudi oil from being exported. If Iran attacks its neighbors' oil infrastructure, then it
kind of states it's fair game for its neighbors to attack theirs. This is bad move for Iran
from a purely game theory standpoint, let alone from the geopolitical one.
5) Masters of the Universe: yes, the oil price went up 20% in one day. But let's remember
that even a USD 100.00 a barrel isn't that impressive from a historical standpoint: when the
Iraq invasion happened, the barrel reached USD 300.00. Yes, a selected elite benefited a lot
from this, but the USA didn't become a capitalist utopia because of that. We must not
overestimate the effects of oil prices on capitalism and, specially, on the USA: the West is
in terminal decline for a myriad of factors, not because of one silver bullet. Higher oil
prices won't save the West.
My hypothesis is this: the USA/Saudi Arabia are too embarassed to admit their
anti-aircraft weapons and systems are useless against puny drones and created a big,
subterranean enemy in the form of Iran in order to avoid public embarassment.
The Houthis are telling the truth, and they will do more attacks if the Saudis don't stop
with theirs and settle for peace.
The headline calls that the Saudi Military stated the Aramco facilites were attacked with
18 missiles and 7 drones. They state cruise missiles were used. However, now they state the
attack was simply "backed" by Iran. The weapons were all Iranian design.
That Iran is backing the Houthis we already knew and nobody doubts. But those drones and
missiles didn't come from Iranian territory nor were they operated by Iranian personel. It's
a free market world, and everybody can buy weapons from anybody.
US and Saudis say that over 20 missiles and drones were used in the attack. They say that
this showed that Iran did the attack or participated in the attack because the Houthi only
claim to have used 10 drones.
Peter AU 1 and I have said that it's possible to account for the excess damage as an
attempt to exaggerate damage caused by the Houthi attack.
The GOAL of exaggerating the attack could be to simply increase oil prices or to justify
war with Iran. Tensions with Iran will be elevated for weeks, if not months. That will mean
higher oil prices than otherwise.
The timing is also suspicious because it comes just before the Israeli election and
just after John Bolton was dismissed.
And despite Trump's backing away from his asinine "locked and loaded" comment, war with
Iran is still very possible. The Iraq War started 18 months after 9-11.
Russian oil experts say 3 to 6 months to repair damage from strike as components must come
from Europe according to TASS. As the remains of the uavs have been recovered their effective
range can be determined. I suspect they were launched from within Saudi territory.
Their main argument is that the attacks came "from the north".
If that's true, then the question remains: why didn't the Saudi radars detect it? Either b
is lying, or the Saudi military is lying.
It's really hilarious at this point: the attack caught the West so low-guarded and stunned
them so much that they can't even come up with a unified official narrative.
Houthi Armed Forces Spokesman
is at this moment tweeting a series of statements explaining how the last attack was done
that includes drone capabilities and types of munitions used!!!!!!!!!!! An example:
"Drones have fission heads carrying four precision bombs."
Given that the entire relationship between the USA and the KSA is an elaborate protection
racket the failure of all those high priced systems to protect the oil fields against
Ansrullah drones is particularly embarrassing.
It is embarrassing to the Saudis because they scarcely bother to unpack the weapons the
US sends them-at premium prices - and dare not allow any of their countrymen to learn how to
use them. And it is embarrassing to the Americans because they understand all this and ship
over arms that don't work simply to ensure that those petrodollars circulate.
Hence the current campaign to convince us that Iran was responsible. Mind you, that
propaganda is only effective so long as the American people don't really believe it because,
if they did, they might demand war (you can imagine Pelosi, Schumer and Biden insisting on
it) and Washington doesn't want that.
Jingoism isn't about fighting it's about threatening.
And, now that 57 varieties of Israeli Fascism are squabbling about whether the Prime
Minister goes to jail for theft, even that distraction is no longer useful.
Statement from the Iranians "Saudi press conference shows they are clueless about how attack
was executed and know nothing about the military capabilities of their adversary".
Seems about right. Statement by bevin is on target.
The recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities by Yemeni Houthi forces demonstrate once again
that an aggressive foreign policy often brings unintended consequences and can result in
blowback. In 2015 Saudi Arabia attacked its neighbor, Yemen, because a coup in that country
ousted the Saudi-backed dictator. Four years later Yemen is in ruins, with nearly 100,000
Yemenis killed and millions more facing death by starvation. It has been rightly called the
worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.
But rich and powerful Saudi Arabia did not defeat Yemen. In fact, the Saudis last month
asked the Trump Administration to help facilitate talks with the Houthis in hopes that the war,
which has cost Saudi Arabia tens of billions of dollars, could finally end without Saudi crown
prince Mohammad bin Salman losing too much face. Washington admitted earlier this month that
those talks had begun.
The surprise Houthi attack on Saturday disrupted half of Saudi Arabia's oil and gas
production and shocked Washington. Predictably, however, the neocons are using the attack to
call for war with Iran!
Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of the few people in Washington who makes John Bolton look like a
dove, Tweeted yesterday that, "It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on
Iranian oil refineries " Graham is the perfect embodiment of the saying, "when all you have is
a hammer, everything looks like a nail." No matter what the problem, for Graham the solution is
war.
Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who is supposed to represent US diplomacy
– jumped to blame Iran for the attack on Saudi Arabia, Tweeting that, "Iran has now
launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply." Of course, he provided no
evidence even as the Houthis themselves took responsibility for the bombing.
What is remarkable is that all of Washington's warmongers are ready for war over what is
actually a retaliatory strike by a country that is the victim of Saudi aggression, not the
aggressor itself. Yemen did not attack Saudi Arabia in 2015. It was the other way around. If
you start a war and the other country fights back, you should not be entitled to complain about
how unfair the whole thing is.
The establishment reaction to the Yemeni oilfield strike reminds me of a hearing in the
House Foreign Affairs Committee just before the US launched the 2003 Iraq war. As I was arguing
against the authorization for that war, I pointed out that Iraq had never attacked the United
States. One of my colleagues stopped me in mid-sentence, saying, "let me remind the gentleman
that the Iraqis have been shooting at our planes for years." True, but those planes were
bombing Iraq!
The neocons want a US war on Iran at any cost. They may feel temporarily at a disadvantage
with the departure of their ally in the Trump Administration, John Bolton. However, the sad
truth is that there are plenty more John Boltons in the Administration. And they have allies in
the Lindsay Grahams in Congress.
Yemen has demonstrated that it can fight back against Saudi aggression. The only sensible
way forward is for a rapid end to this four-year travesty, and the Saudis would be wise to wake
up to the mess they've created for themselves. Whatever the case, US participation in Saudi
Arabia's war on Yemen must end immediately and neocon lies about Iran's role in the war must be
refuted and resisted.
"... Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen. Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution, they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. ..."
"... "Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the region." ..."
"... "The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued. ..."
"... Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing a successful bill to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen. ..."
"... "It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest between the Saudis and Iranians." ..."
"... "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran. ..."
"... "This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not a walk in the park." ..."
"... "In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's desulphurization capacity out of commission. ..."
"... "This little accident was designed to be maximally disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil in the long run. ..."
"... On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump understands." ..."
Retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis pointed out that the puncture marks do not actually show
the origin of the attack. "Missiles can fly from almost anywhere. They have the ability to
maneuver! And certainly drones can, too," the Defense Priorities senior fellow told the
National Interest . "There hasn't been the time to do an actual analysis on the
ground, so let's wait and see."
Mark Latham, managing partner at the London-based analysis firm Commodities Intelligence,
told the National Interest that the puncture marks pointed to a cruise missile with no
explosive warhead. Removing the payload would allow the missile to carry more fuel and launch
from farther away from its target.
... ... ...
"Mr. X is a sophisticated fellow. He's sourced some Iranian cruise missiles.
He's removed the explosive payload. He's replaced the explosive payload with fuel," he said.
"So this isn't your twenty dollar Amazon drone. This is a sophisticated military operation."
"The culprit behind the Abqaiq attack is most definitely the Islamic Republic, either
directly or through one of its proxies," argued Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at
the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"The attack fits the pattern of Iran signaling to the Gulf states that if it can't get its
oil out, it will cause their oil exports to become collateral damage," Koduvayur told the National Interest . "It's because of how strong our coercive financial tools are that
Iran is resorting to attacks like this: it's lashing out."
Violating an Obama-era agreement to regulate Iran's nuclear research program, the Trump
administration imposed massive sanctions on Iran's oil industry beginning in May 2018. The goal
of this "maximum pressure" campaign was to force Iran to accept a "better" deal. Since then,
Iranian forces have captured a British oil tanker and allegedly sabotaged tankers from other
countries.
There were some signals that Trump was planning to use the ongoing United Nations General
Assembly in New York to open a new
diplomatic channel with Iran, especially after the
firing of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton. But the weekend attack sent Trump
into reverse.
"Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their 'airspace'
when, in fact, it was nowhere close. They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a
very big lie," he said in a Monday morning Twitter post, referring to a June incident
when Iranian and American forces almost went to war. "Now they say that they had nothing to do
with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We'll see?"
He also hinted at a violent U.S. response.
"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on
verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of
this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Trump wrote on Sunday.
"Saudi Arabia is not a formal treaty ally of ours, so there are no international agreements
that obligate us to come to their defense," John Glaser, director of foreign-policy studies at
the CATO Institute, stated. "This does not amount to a clear and present danger to the United
States, so no self-defense justification is relevant. He would therefore need authorization
from Congress."
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had mixed reactions to the attack.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed putting "on the table an attack on Iranian oil
refineries" in order to "break the regime's back." His press office did not respond to a
follow-up question from the National Interest asking whether the president would have
the authority to do so.
Amy Grappone, spokeswoman for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), told the National Interest
that the Senator "will support an appropriate and proportionate response" after "studying the
latest intelligence pertaining to Iran's malign activities, including these recent attacks in
Saudi Arabia."
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, condemned the attack with
a backhanded insult towards Saudi Arabia. "Despite some ongoing policy differences with the
kingdom, no nation should be subjected to these kinds of attacks on it soil and against its
people," he wrote on Twitter, declining to name Iran as the culprit.
Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced
their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen.
Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution,
they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder
reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The
president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin
(D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi
Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain
its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the
region."
"The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with
Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi
Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued.
Asked how he would vote on a declaration of war, the senator told the National
Interest : "Let's hope it does not come to that. Congress has not authorized war against
Iran. The majority voted to engage them diplomatically to slow their nuclear ambitions. The
international community is ready to work with the U.S. again to ease economic pressure on Iran
in exchange for their restraint. We are at a dangerous precipice."
In a statement emailed to the National Interest and posted to Twitter, Sen. Tim
Kaine (D-Va.) was even more direct: "The US should never go to war to protect Saudi oil."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing
a successful bill
to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override
the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread
explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen.
"It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual
defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And
frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long
term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest
between the Saudis and Iranians."
But the reaction did not fall neatly along party lines.
"Iran is one of the most dangerous state sponsors of terrorism. This may well be the thing
that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports," said
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) in a Monday interview with Fox News. Others pointed out that
attacking Iran would contradict Trump's own principles.
"Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic
presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.),
who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud
with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran.
"This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States
needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he
told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the
Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not
a walk in the park."
Davis agreed with Paul's assessment. "There's too many people who have lost touch with
understanding what war is all about. They think it's easy," he told the National
Interest . "Just imagine this. What we go ahead and do this, and Iran makes good on their
threats, and American warships get sunk in the Gulf?" "This is not America's fight," he
concluded. "The American armed forces are not on loan as a Saudi defense force."
"There's another claim that the impact on oil markets is sufficient to impact the vital U.S.
interest in the free flow of energy coming out of that region, but that argument quickly
descends into absurdity when we remember that the Trump administration has been trying to
zero-out Iranian oil exports, for a host of spurious reasons," Glaser told the National
Interest . "Washington is also aggressively sanctioning Venezuela, making it harder for
Caracas to bring oil to market, too. If we really cared about the supply of oil, we wouldn't be
doing this."
In any case, the attack may not have affected oil markets in such a straightforward way.
Latham says that the attack struck an oil desulphurization facility. At the moment,
desulphurized fuel is in high demand from the shipping industry, which is rushing to comply
with new international environmental regulations.
"In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping
fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur
fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham
explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's
desulphurization capacity out of commission.
"This little accident was designed to be maximally
disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is
really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous
stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might
delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil
in the long run.
On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's
not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy
infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense
capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale
war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what
that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump
understands."
Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest.
The dangerous disease that inflict the USA neoliberal elite can be called "supremacism
delirium"
As for quality of arms produced, when profit is the main motivation, the quality of design
suffer. Still despite recent setbacks the USA remain the leader in new arm technologies.
B's posting is further proof that the US of A (and it's flunky allies) are indeed led by the
stupid, corrupt, and ignorant.
While Russia and Iran are taking rational routes to protect themselves, the US and it's
allies are pouring billions, if not trillions, of dollars (and thousands of lives) into a
foreign policy that can only be described as the foreign policy of God, for it passes all
human understanding.
Thanks b! One way looking radar is so Pre-Second World War! The Patriot's MPQ-53 radar has a
search sector of 90° and track capability of 120°--an amazingly inferior capability I
wasn't aware of, nor is the vast majority of the public, which is why that twitter gif I
linked to on the previous thread is humorous. In that comment, it was said that the radar's
were reoriented to aim at Houthiland which is the given excuse as to why the Iranian attack
wasn't detected. I don't buy that for an instant.
Houthi media's gone silent for now as it awaits a response from Saudis before launching
there next attack in under 48 hours--yes, they did place an actual time, but were very
general about the types of targets, although the top threat remains hydrocarbon
infrastructure. RT reports :
"Saudi Arabia's energy minister said that its oil supplies had resumed and that its oil
market would be 'fully back online' by the end of September following attacks which
Washington blames on Iran while Riyadh is still probing.
"Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the media that oil production in October would
reach 9.89 million barrels per day and 12 million bpd by the end of November."
We shall see if the output equals the boast, particularly if Houthis continue their
attacks. No questions about providing better defenses reminds me of the Death Star
Commandeer's famous last words about his weapon's invincibility.
Meanwhile, Nuttyahoo's coalition's narrowly losing the election.
I love how the warmongers on FOX / CNN make Iran / Russia sound nefarious that they call
their strategy A2D2 or asymmetric warfare (aka actual defense of their country instead of
power projection). How is using short / medium range missiles or a green water navy
'asymmetric'?
If we do go to war w/Iran the only way we win is by committing war crimes by bombing
population centers until they surrender, we can't beat them in a straight up fight. I'm not a
military wonk but I can see the relative competence levels. We can't even get a decent photo
of a boat with a bomb on it after it's been sitting in broad daylight for 10hrs.
Who says Mr Trump is unpredictable? Is there anybody expected anything else from Mr Trump
when it comes to picking his advisers or making thoughtful decisions? Let's be serious, Mr
Trump did not pick Mr Robert O'Brien. The Bolton, Pompeo, Pence triumvirate picked Trump's
NSA; naturally.
The Egyptians had pyramids. The Romans had roads, aqueducts, and coliseums. The medieval
Europeans had castles and cathedrals. These days, America's pyramids, aqueducts, and cathedrals
are those warplanes, among other deadly weapons programs , including a
$1.7 trillion one to "modernize" the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
... ... ...
As ephemeral as the F-35 stealth fighter may prove in historical terms, it's already a
classic symbol of America's ever more fruitless forever wars .
Like them , the F-35 program has proven staggeringly expensive, incredibly wasteful, and
impossible to stop, no matter the
woeful results . It has come to symbolize the too-big-to-fail, too-sacrosanct-to-reject
part of America's militarized
culture of technological violence.
... ... ...
Harper's Andrew Cockburn recently used it to illustrate what he termed "the
Pentagon
Syndrome ," the practice of expending enormous sums on weapons of marginal utility.
Last month, the Council of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released
an extraordinary report titled "The Opportunity Costs of Socialism." The report begins with the
statement: "Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, socialism is making a
comeback in American political discourse. Detailed policy proposals from self-declared
socialists are gaining support in Congress and among much of the younger electorate."
The very fact that the US government officially acknowledges a growth of popular support for
socialism, particularly among the nation's youth, testifies to vast changes taking place in the
political consciousness of the working class and the terror this is striking within the ruling
elite. America is, after all, a country where anti-communism was for the greater part of a
century a state-sponsored secular religion. No ruling class has so ruthlessly sought to exclude
socialist politics from political discourse as the American ruling class.
The 70-page document is itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism
by identifying it with capitalist countries such as Venezuela that have expanded state
ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of the banks, and, with
the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices, increasingly attacked the living
standards of the working class.
It identifies socialism with proposals for mild social reform such as "Medicare for all,"
raised and increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton
Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of "economic freedom," i.e., the
unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all social reforms, business
regulations, tax increases or anything else that impinges on the oligarchy's
self-enrichment.
The report's arguments and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of
Donald Trump, who routinely and absurdly attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them
of seeking to turn America into another "socialist" Venezuela.
What has prompted this effort to blackguard socialism?
A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular
disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by
the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would
participate in a "large-scale uprising." Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, "Banks and
money rule the world."
Last November, a poll conducted by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the
ages of 21 and 29 would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist
country.
In August of this year, a Gallup poll found that for the first time since the organization
began tracking the figure, fewer than half of Americans aged 18–29 had a positive view of
capitalism, while more than half had a positive view of socialism. The percentage of young
people viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45 percent this year, a
23-percentage point drop in just eight years.
This surge in interest in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in
the US and internationally. In the United States, the number of major strikes so far this
year, 21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly terrified by the
teachers' walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were organized by
rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the
pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle for decades.
The growth of the class struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global
crisis of capitalism , which finds its most acute social and political expression in the
center of world capitalism -- the United States. It is the class struggle that provides the key
to the fight for genuine socialism.
Masses of workers and youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by
decades of uninterrupted war and the staggering growth of social inequality. This process has
accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The Obama years saw the
greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in history, the escalation of the wars
begun under Bush and their spread to Libya, Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass
surveillance, attacks on immigrants and other police state measures.
This paved the way for the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and
backwardness of the ruling oligarchy.
Under conditions where the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much
as the average worker makes in an entire year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest
Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a radical
alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in its program eight
years ago, " The Breakdown of Capitalism and the
Fight for Socialism in the United States ":
The change in objective conditions, however, will lead American workers to change their
minds. The reality of capitalism will provide workers with many reasons to fight for a
fundamental and revolutionary change in the economic organization of society.
The response of the ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic
forms of rule and the turn toward dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections has
revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump's fascistic attacks on
immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down unarmed men, women and
children seeking asylum, and his pledge to overturn the 14th Amendment establishing birthright
citizenship.
That this has evoked no serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that
the entire ruling class is united around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats are
spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing and socialist
opposition.
The second response is to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the working
class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.
In 2018, with Sanders totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has
been largely delegated to the DSA, which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two DSA members,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit, are likely to win seats in
the House of Representatives as candidates of the Democratic Party.
The closer they come to taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their
supposed socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing the
recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if she opposed the US
wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for the abolition of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The working class and youth are increasingly looking for a socialist alternative, but their
understanding of socialism and its history is limited. Here the role of the revolutionary
party, the Socialist Equality Party, is critical. It alone seeks to arm the emerging mass
movement of the working class with a genuine revolutionary, socialist and internationalist
program.
The SEP fights to mobilize and unite the working class in the US and internationally in
opposition to the entire ruling elite and all of its bribed politicians and parties. As our
program explains:
But socialism will be achieved only through the establishment of workers' power. This will
be a difficult struggle Socialism is not a gift to be given to the working class. It must be
fought for and won by the working class itself.
The task facing workers and youth looking for the way to fight against war, inequality,
poverty and repression is to join and build the Socialist Equality Party to lead the coming
mass struggles of the working class.
"... The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names the "corporate entities" behind the book's publication as nominal defendants. ..."
"... Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Snowden, said the lawsuit was without merit. "This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations," he said in a statement, adding that Snowden would have submitted it for review if he thought the government would review it in good faith. ..."
The United States filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked
secret documents about U.S. telephone and internet surveillance in 2013, saying his new book violates non-disclosure agreements.
The Justice Department said Snowden published his memoir, "Permanent Record," without submitting it to intelligence agencies for
review, adding that speeches given by Snowden also violated nondisclosure agreements. In 2013, Snowden wrote "Everything You Know
about the Constitution is Wrong."
The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names
the "corporate entities" behind the book's publication as nominal defendants.
Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Snowden, said the lawsuit was without merit.
"This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations," he said in a
statement, adding that Snowden would have submitted it for review if he thought the government would review it in good faith.
Representatives for the book's publisher, Macmillan Publishers, and its unit Henry Holt & Co, did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
Snowden has lived in Russia since he revealed details of U.S. intelligence agencies' secret surveillance programs.
Though he is viewed by some as a hero, U.S. authorities want him to stand in a criminal trial over his disclosures of classified
information.
Speaking by video link at an event in Berlin to promote the book, Snowden said that while he had signed a non-disclosure agreement
to maintain secrecy, he had also sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
"You've told the government you're not going to talk to journalists. You've told them you're not going to write a book," Snowden
said. "At the same time you have an oath to defend the Constitution. And the secret that you are asked to protect is that the government
is violating that Constitution and the rights of people around the world."
Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Paul Carrell in Berlin; Editing by Marguerita
Choy and Lisa Shumaker Our Standards: The Thomson
Reuters Trust Principles.
"... The last three decades have seen the United States engaged in continuous and ever-expanding warfare under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The drive to conquer and subjugate the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia is a consensus policy of the American ruling class. The results have included over a million dead in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more across Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Meanwhile the Pentagon released a seemingly lunatic "joint doctrine" that goes well beyond Dr. Strangelove. It states: "nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win." ..."
"... There is a worried sense within ruling circles that three decades of war have only created a series of debacles, and that US imperialism is confronting what is termed, in military and foreign policy circles, as "strategic competition" from Russia and China. At the same time, ever-sharper conflicts are emerging between Washington and its erstwhile NATO partners, in particular Germany, against which the US fought in two world wars. ..."
"... Zakaria pays special tribute to the individual who popularized the concept of the "unipolar moment," the extreme right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote an article with that title, also in Foreign Affairs , in 1991. He promoted an unvarnished perspective of the unilateral use of US military aggression to assert the dominance of American capitalism around the globe. ..."
"... He further insisted that if US imperialism proved unable to maintain its unipolar moment it would be "not for foreign but for domestic reasons. ... stagnant productivity, declining work habits, rising demand for welfare state entitlements and new taste for ecological luxuries." He charged that while "defense spending declined, domestic entitlements nearly doubled." And, above all, he blamed "America's insatiable desire for yet higher standards of living without paying any of the cost." [3] ..."
"... For America's ruling elite, long at each other's throats, the path should be clearer now to reforming a working consensus about the US's world role. Some of the policy-making world's most divisive issues now look settled. Force is a legitimate tool of policy; it works. For the elites themselves, the message is America can lead, stop whining, think more boldly. Starting now. [5] ..."
"... We understood this editorial, by the mouthpiece of US finance capital, as an accurate reflection of the pathological triumphalism prevailing within the American bourgeoisie. ..."
"... A third of the population is functionally illiterate. Not even the mass media can avoid reporting on a daily basis some of the more spectacular 'horror stories' of lives destroyed by the impact of the social crisis: homeless people freezing in cardboard boxes, cancer victims being denied treatment because they have no medical insurance and unemployed workers and their families committing suicide ..."
"... This position dovetailed neatly with that of German imperialism, which was backing Croatian and Slovenian independence as part of a post-reunification reassertion of its power in Europe. German imperialism was returning to the scenes of its crimes in 1914 and 1941, unilaterally defying the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission. ..."
"... This was patently the case in Yugoslavia, where the first impulse to break up the existing federation came from Slovenia and Croatia, the wealthiest regions of the country, where local ruling elites calculated that they could fare better by breaking with the poorer republics and establishing their own independent ties to European governments, banks and corporations. ..."
"... In conclusion: the so-called "Unipolar Moment" of 1990 and 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the launching of the Gulf War, marked the collapse of the post-World War II equilibrium, established on the basis of the hegemony of American capitalism and the collaboration of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy. It signaled the beginning of a new period of uninterrupted war, the growth of inter-imperialist rivalries ..."
This lecture was delivered by Bill Van Auken, senior writer for the World Socialist Web Site , at the Socialist Equality
Party (US) Summer School on July 25, 2019.
It is now nearly three decades since the deliberate liquidation of the Soviet Union by the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy and the
launching of the First Persian Gulf War, which began in January 1991. This war, which involved the deployment of over half a million
US troops -- more than twice the number sent into the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- clearly marked a turning point in the development
of US and world imperialism.
It likewise marked a turning point for the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Objective developments,
in particular the disintegration of Stalinism, intersected with the protracted struggle of the ICFI against Pabloite revisionism,
culminating in the 1985 split and the consolidation of control by the orthodox Trotskyists, for the first time since the founding
of the International Committee in 1953. This signaled a fundamental change in the relationship between the Fourth International and
the working class.
Grasping that change, the ICFI sought to shoulder the immense political responsibility of leading the international working class,
which found concrete expression in the convening of the extraordinarily important "World Conference of Workers against War and Colonialism"
held in Berlin in November 1991, to which we will return.
The sharp turn by US imperialism toward unilateralism and militarism, consummated in the Gulf War of 1991, was bound up with the
protracted crisis of American capitalism and the relative decline of its domination of the global economy. With the demise of the
USSR, US imperialism concluded that it could now offset the challenge that American corporations faced from rivals in Europe and
Japan, which had been growing since the 1970s, through the relatively untrammeled use of the US armed forces.
Demolished vehicles line Highway 80, also known as the "Highway of Death", the route fleeing Iraqi forces took as they retreated
fom Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. [Credit: U.S. Air Force]
In the case of the Persian Gulf, the US military could be used to secure unchallenged American supremacy in the world's most important
oil-producing region, which would put Washington in a position to blackmail its oil-import-dependent European and Asian imperialist
rivals with the threat of cutting off their energy supplies. As President George H.W. Bush would declare, in the run-up to the Gulf
war, an attack on Iraq would give the US "persuasiveness that will lead to more harmonious trading relationships."
This was not a development that took us by surprise. In its 1988 Perspectives Resolution, the ICFI warned:
Despite the loss of its economic hegemony, the United States remains, militarily, the most powerful imperialist country, and
reserves to itself the role of global policeman. But the conditions which prevailed in 1945 at the beginning of the so-called
American Century have been drastically transformed. The loss of the economic preponderance which once made its word "law" among
the major capitalist nations compels the United States to place ever-greater reliance on the brute force of its military strength.
[1]
The resolution went on to declare that a prophecy made by Trotsky was about to be vindicated, quoting his War and the Fourth
International from 1934. "The world is divided? It must be re-divided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.'
The United States must organize the world. History is bringing humanity face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
This was confirmed in barely two years.
There is an obvious continuity between these events of nearly 30 years ago and the present global political situation. The struggle
to assert US hegemony over the Persian Gulf threatens to ignite a new and even more terrible war against Iran, a country with three
times the population and four times the landmass of Iraq. The outbreak of a military confrontation is only a matter of time.
The last three decades have seen the United States engaged in continuous and ever-expanding warfare under both Democratic
and Republican administrations. The drive to conquer and subjugate the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia is a consensus policy
of the American ruling class. The results have included over a million dead in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more across Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria and Yemen.
More and more these various conflicts threaten to metastasize into a Third World War. Preparations for a nuclear confrontation
with Russia and China were chillingly described recently by the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the military's
No. 1 priority. Meanwhile the Pentagon released a seemingly lunatic "joint doctrine" that goes well beyond Dr. Strangelove. It
states: "nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the
use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win."
There is a worried sense within ruling circles that three decades of war have only created a series of debacles, and that
US imperialism is confronting what is termed, in military and foreign policy circles, as "strategic competition" from Russia and
China. At the same time, ever-sharper conflicts are emerging between Washington and its erstwhile NATO partners, in particular Germany,
against which the US fought in two world wars.
The contradiction between the interdependent character of the global economy and the capitalist nation-state system is leading
inexorably to a new world war.
Under these conditions, there have been several recent commentaries by US foreign policy analysts bemoaning the end of the "unipolar
moment" proclaimed nearly 30 years ago, and looking back upon it with a certain nostalgia.
Among them is a piece published in Foreign Affairs by CNN's multi-millionaire pseudo-intellectual charlatan Fareed Zakaria,
titled "The Self-Destruction of American Power." He writes:
Ever since the end of World War I, the United States has wanted to transform the world. In the 1990s, that seemed more possible
than ever before. Countries across the planet were moving toward the American way. The Gulf War seemed to mark a new milestone
for world order, in that it was prosecuted to uphold a norm legitimized by international law. [2]
The American way, world order, norms and international law: this is how these layers fondly recall a mass slaughter.
Zakaria pays special tribute to the individual who popularized the concept of the "unipolar moment," the extreme right-wing
columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote an article with that title, also in Foreign Affairs , in 1991. He promoted an unvarnished
perspective of the unilateral use of US military aggression to assert the dominance of American capitalism around the globe.
Our best hope for safety in such times is in American strength and will to lead a unipolar world, unashamedly laying down the
rules of world order and being prepared to enforce them," he wrote.
He went on to present the pretext for the next major US war: "There is no alternative to confronting, deterring and, if necessary,
disarming states that brandish and use weapons of mass destruction. And there is no one to do that but the United States."
He further insisted that if US imperialism proved unable to maintain its unipolar moment it would be "not for foreign but for
domestic reasons. ... stagnant productivity, declining work habits, rising demand for welfare state entitlements and new taste for
ecological luxuries." He charged that while "defense spending declined, domestic entitlements nearly doubled." And, above all, he
blamed "America's insatiable desire for yet higher standards of living without paying any of the cost." [3]
This, after a decade of unrelenting attacks on working class living standards in the wake of the breaking of the 1981 PATCO strike.
The message was clear: imperialist war abroad had to be accompanied by an intensification of social counterrevolution and class war
in the US itself.
Bush himself, in the run-up to the Gulf War, proclaimed that the unleashing of US military power, against a relatively defenseless
oppressed country, would inaugurate a "New World Order."
The content of this "new world order" was never explained. The only thing that was clear was that the old world order had broken
down and what was to replace it, in the first instance, was an eruption of US military violence.
The catastrophic breakdown of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union -- celebrated by facile bourgeois
intellectuals as the "end of history" and the "triumph of capitalism" -- had removed a key prop of the old post-World War II order.
Moreover, the very same forces of globalization of capitalist production and technological development that had fatally undermined
the autarchic Stalinist economies were driving the entire world capitalist order into profound crisis.
... ... ...
It justified this threat on the basis of the "overwhelming dependence of Western nations on vital oil supplies from the Middle
East." Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, introduced the "Reagan corollary," vowing that the US would defend these vital oil interests
against internal threats to stability as well.
The US government deliberately manufactured the pretext for its military intervention in the Persian Gulf. Tensions between Iraq
and Kuwait had been growing since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, in which Washington had provided significant aid to the Iraqi regime
of Saddam Hussein. Kuwait's lowering of oil prices and its demand for debt payments had further undermined an Iraqi economy that
had been battered by the war, while Baghdad claimed that Kuwait was carrying out slant drilling into Iraq's Rumaila oil field, on
the border between the two countries.
The US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, used a meeting on July 25, 1990 -- just weeks before Bush was to announce his "line
in the sand" and launch the drive to war -- to assure Saddam Hussein of US friendship and sympathy, while telling him that Washington
had "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
The trap having been laid, Saddam Hussein, driven by desperation over the mounting economic and social crisis in Iraq, quickly
walked into it.
Like every US imperialist war waged in the name of liberation and democracy, the Gulf War was based on deception and lies.
The attempt was made to equate Saddam Hussein, whom Washington had only recently courted as an ally, with Adolf Hitler. This demonization
would become a standard feature of every succeeding US war. It had, in fact, been used in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for
the Gulf War, less than two years earlier. In preparing the invasion of Panama, the US State Department compared the involvement
in the drug trade of Manuel Noriega -- a longtime CIA asset -- with Hitler's invasion of Poland.
A massive propaganda campaign was waged to sway US public opinion toward support for the Gulf war. This infamously included the
testimony given by a 15-year-old girl to Congress, in which she tearfully recounted seeing armed Iraqi troops invading a hospital
to steal incubators, throwing babies onto the floor to die. Only later was it revealed that the story was a complete fabrication.
The girl had not been in Kuwait before, during or after the Iraqi invasion. She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington
and a member of the royal family, sent to read a script written by a major US PR firm.
Finally, Bush justified military intervention by claiming an imminent threat posed by Iraq's massing of 120,000 troops on Saudi
Arabia's border. Satellite images subsequently revealed that there was nothing on the Kuwait-Saudi border but desert sand.
A critically important part of the report to the Special Congress of the Workers League in 1990 was the clarification of our attitude
toward Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Initial responses within the International Committee had included its condemnation as
an "act of aggression" by the British section, in an initial article published in its newspaper. On the other hand, there was a suggestion
from within the Australian section, that we support the annexation of Kuwait as a "small step" in advancing "the unfulfilled national
and democratic tasks of the Arab revolution."
The report made clear that we had no reason to condemn Iraqi aggression. Given the economic warfare waged by Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia against Iraq in the run-up to the invasion, our concern was not who fired the first shot. Moreover, to take such a position
would be to support the territorial integrity of Kuwait, a Sheikdom created by British imperialism, carved out of the southern Iraqi
province of Basra, as a means of better dominating the Arabian Peninsula. The same is the case with virtually all the borders drawn
by imperialist powers in the Middle East.
At the same time, in response to the suggestion from a member of the Australian section that we support Kuwait's annexation, it
affirmed:
To attribute any progressive role to Hussein's invasion would lead the ICFI in a false direction and undermine the theoretical
and political gains that have been made since 1985, in our collective struggle against the WRP's betrayal of the program of world
socialist revolution.
Of course, this refers to the struggle waged against the Workers Revolutionary Party's abandonment of the Theory of Permanent
Revolution, particularly in relation to its opportunist relations with various Arab regimes, systematically subordinating the independent
struggle of the working class to the supposedly anti-imperialist stance of one or another bourgeois nationalist leader.
... ... ...
The US launched the Gulf War on January 16, 1991. Operation Desert Storm, as it was dubbed, consisted mainly of one of the most
intensive air bombardments in military history. Eighty-eight thousand tons of munitions were dropped on Iraq in the course of just
42 days. This is roughly equivalent to one-fourth of the total bomb tonnage dropped on Germany during the entire Second World War.
The Iraqi casualty totals were estimated at 135,000. Much of Iraq's conscript army was wiped out, with soldiers incinerated from
the air or buried alive in their trenches. Hundreds of thousands more Iraqis, of course, died as a result of the systematic destruction
of the country's infrastructure.
On the so-called Highway of Death, the US launched wave after wave of bombings against a defenseless, miles-long column of vehicles,
carrying Iraqi troops as well as civilians withdrawing from Kuwait on the orders of the Hussein government, which announced that
it was complying with a UN Resolution demanding the withdrawal.
As we stated in response to this war crime:
The US war against Iraq is among the most terrible crimes of the twentieth century, a slaughter that future generations will
look back on with shame. It has demonstrated that the ruling class of so-called democratic America is just as capable of mass
murder as the Nazis. [4]
The Wall Street Journal responded to the Gulf War with an editorial that stated:
For America's ruling elite, long at each other's throats, the path should be clearer now to reforming a working consensus about
the US's world role. Some of the policy-making world's most divisive issues now look settled. Force is a legitimate tool of policy;
it works. For the elites themselves, the message is America can lead, stop whining, think more boldly. Starting now. [5]
We understood this editorial, by the mouthpiece of US finance capital, as an accurate reflection of the pathological triumphalism
prevailing within the American bourgeoisie.
The 11th Plenum of the International Committee was held on March 5, 1991, less than a week after the end of the Gulf War. Its
opening report stated:
The American bourgeoisie is serving notice that American imperialism will seek through force to overcome problems arising from
the protracted economic decline of the US. For all the problems of American capitalism -- the decay of its industrial base, the
loss of its overseas markets, the massive trade deficits and budget deficits, the collapse of its banking system, the gangrenous
growth of social ills -- the bourgeoisie believes it has found an answer: Force!
The report quotes the extremely relevant passage from Anti-Dühring , written 113 years earlier, in which Engels delivered
a Marxist response to Dühring's claim that force was the decisive element in history:
...its own productive forces have grown beyond its control and, as if necessitated by a law of nature, are driving the whole
of bourgeois society towards ruin, or revolution. And if the bourgeoisie now make their appeal to force in order to save the collapsing
"economic situation" from the final crash, this only shows that they are laboring under the same delusion as Herr Dühring: the
delusion that "political conditions are the decisive cause of the economic situation"; this only shows that they imagine, just
as Herr Dühring does, that by making use of "the primary," "the direct political force," they can remodel those "facts of the
second order," the economic situation and its inevitable development; and that therefore the economic consequences of the steam-engine
and the modern machinery driven by it, of world trade and the banking and credit developments of the present day, can be blown
out of existence by them with Krupp guns and Mauser rifles. [6]
Substitute computerization for the steam engine and smart bombs and cruise missiles for Krupp guns and Mausers and this statement
stands as a fitting refutation of the triumphalist rantings of the US ruling class in the wake of the Gulf War.
... ... ...
Moreover, in the context of the Gulf War, the call for revolutionary defeatism from the standpoint of fighting the US military
to the last Iraqi was senseless and reactionary. The military balance of forces was such that -- outside of the revolutionary mobilization
of the masses of the Middle East and the working class in the US and beyond -- the military victory of the US was virtually assured.
More fundamentally, it betrayed a complete disdain for and hostility to the fight against war based upon the struggle of the working
class. It was entirely bound up with the Pabloite perspective that one or another form of "armed struggle," waged by non-proletarian
forces, was the substitute for the revolutionary mobilization of the working class internationally, and particularly in the advanced
capitalist countries.
The most decisive response of the ICFI to the Gulf War, US imperialism's "unipolar moment" and the march toward the restoration
of capitalism and dissolution of the USSR, was the calling of the Berlin Conference against imperialist war and colonialism.
... ... ...
The war ushered in a period of capitalist disequilibrium that would last for three decades, dominated by capitalist crisis and
overshadowed by the successful October 1917 Revolution in Russia, calling into question the very survival of the capitalist order.
The absence, however, of revolutionary parties -- particularly in Europe -- on a par with the Bolsheviks in Russia, allowed the
bourgeoisie to defeat a series of revolutionary struggles. But they were unable to create a new equilibrium to replace what was shattered
by 1914.
The rise of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, and the terrible degeneration of the Communist International as
it was subordinated to the Stalinist theory of "socialism in one country" and Moscow's maneuvers with imperialism, led to a series
of catastrophic defeats, above all in Germany. The coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, without a shot being fired, exposed the
counterrevolutionary character of Stalinism, leading Trotsky to found the Fourth International.
The document establishes that the ability of the bourgeoisie to achieve a new equilibrium in the aftermath of World War II, which
they could not do following World War I, was based not merely on the rise of US imperialism as a hegemonic power, but also the indispensable
role of Stalinism. It opposed and sabotaged the revolutionary struggles of the working class in the aftermath of the war, particularly
in Italy, France and Greece. In Eastern Europe, its establishment of so-called buffer states served not only to suppress the working
class and any genuine struggle for socialism, but also to pacify a fractious region that had been a source of European instability
since the dawn of the 20th century.
The equilibrium established at the end of World War II, however, as the document makes clear, was mined with its own contradictions.
Its revival of world trade and rebuilding of capitalism in Europe and Japan led to the gradual decline of US hegemony, leading to
mounting US deficits which, by 1985, had transformed America into a debtor nation.
Turning to the crisis in the United States, the manifesto sketches out a portrait that seems altogether contemporary:
Not a single significant piece of social legislation has passed through Congress in more than two decades [now we can say
five decades ]. Massive budget cuts have destroyed what remains of the old social programs. The crime statistics are merely
the most obvious symptoms of the malignant state of social relations. Amidst rapidly growing unemployment and, for those who still
have jobs, declining wages, the state of education, housing and medical care is nothing less than catastrophic.
A third of the population is functionally illiterate. Not even the mass media can avoid reporting on a daily basis some of
the more spectacular 'horror stories' of lives destroyed by the impact of the social crisis: homeless people freezing in cardboard
boxes, cancer victims being denied treatment because they have no medical insurance and unemployed workers and their families
committing suicide. [10]
... ... ...
The manifesto warned that these conflicts were being manipulated and exploited by the imperialist powers, while capitalism sought
to divert popular indignation over social inequality into the blind alley of national and ethnic conflict.
The ability of reactionary petty-bourgeois demagogues to agitate for communal violence it said, "is to be attributed not to the
intellectual and moral power of nationalism, but to the political vacuum left by the prostration of the traditional organizations
of the working class, which offer no way out of the crisis of the capitalist system."
Between the calling of the conference on May 1, 1991 and its convening on November 16, events moved very rapidly, with Croatia
and Slovenia both declaring their independence on June 25 of that year. Macedonia followed suit soon after, and the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
began its fragmentation into warring ethnic cantons. Armed clashes had broken out, particularly around the coastal city of Dubrovnik.
US Army combat engineer vehicle demolishes a Bosnian Serb bunker near Dubrave, January 1996
The promotion of virulent ethno-chauvinism and national separatism was led by former bureaucrats of Yugoslavia's ruling League
of Communists. They sought, on the one hand, to divide and suppress the Yugoslav working class, which had carried out a wave of mass
strikes against the austerity measures imposed by the IMF as part of capitalist restoration. On the other, they were driven to carve
out ethnic states in order to forge their own independent relations with imperialism as a new ruling class of comprador capitalists.
In his report to the conference, comrade North pointed to the attitude adopted by the Pabloite leader Ernest Mandel, who advocated
unconditional support for the self-determination of Croatia, regardless of the character of the regime. Mandel moreover issued a
call for direct imperialist intervention, denouncing Serbian chauvinism, while turning a blind eye to Croatian chauvinism.
This position dovetailed neatly with that of German imperialism, which was backing Croatian and Slovenian independence as part
of a post-reunification reassertion of its power in Europe. German imperialism was returning to the scenes of its crimes in 1914
and 1941, unilaterally defying the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission.
The Berlin conference adopted a resolution titled "On the Defense of the Working Class in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union"
which stated the following:
Everywhere rival capitalist cliques are stirring up nationalism and chauvinism, in order to incite the workers against each
other and to preempt an uprising against the old and new oppressors. The bloodbath in Yugoslavia is a result of these policies.
This war has nothing to do with the right of nations to self-determination. Serbian and Croatian nationalists are merely fighting
to secure for themselves a larger portion of the exploitation of the working class. [19]
The history of Yugoslavia, its rise and fall, could be the subject for an entire school, as could the national question and the
slogan of "self-determination." Clearly that cannot be accomplished in this lecture.
... ... ...
Not only the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia, but more fundamentally, the development of capitalist
globalization, gave rise to a new type of nationalist movement, seeking the dismemberment of existing states -- including those that
emerged out of the previous national struggles against colonialism -- to further the interests of rival bourgeois factions in establishing
the most advantageous relations to imperialism and transnational capital.
This was patently the case in Yugoslavia, where the first impulse to break up the existing federation came from Slovenia and Croatia,
the wealthiest regions of the country, where local ruling elites calculated that they could fare better by breaking with the poorer
republics and establishing their own independent ties to European governments, banks and corporations.
Similar considerations have motivated a whole series of national separatist movements, including in Europe, in the cases of the
right-wing Northern League in Italy and Catalan nationalism in Spain.
... ... ...
In conclusion: the so-called "Unipolar Moment" of 1990 and 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the launching of
the Gulf War, marked the collapse of the post-World War II equilibrium, established on the basis of the hegemony of American capitalism
and the collaboration of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy. It signaled the beginning of a new period of uninterrupted war, the growth
of inter-imperialist rivalries, and inevitably, a global rise in the class struggle and socialist revolution.
... .. ...
Footnotes:
[1] The World Capitalist Crisis and the Tasks of the Fourth International, Perspectives Resolution of the International Committee
of the Fourth International , (Detroit: Labor Publications, 1988), p. 66.
[2] Fareed Zakaria, "The Self-Destruction of American Power," Foreign Affairs , Vol. 98, No. 4, (July/August 2019)
[3] Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Moment," Foreign Affairs , Vol. 70, No. 1, (1990/1991), pp. 23–33
[4] The Bulletin , March 1, 1991, "Bush is Guilty of Mass Murder"
[5] Cited in Desert Slaughter, The Imperialist War Against Iraq , (Detroit: Labor Publications, 1991), p. 232.
[6] Karl Marx Frederick Engels, Collected Works , Vol. 25, p. 153.
[7] The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, The Transitional Program , (New York: Labor
Publications, 1981), p. 20.
[8] Workers League Internal Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 15, p. 31.
[9] Workers League Internal Bulletin , Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 2.
[10] Oppose Imperialist War & Colonialism, Manifesto of the International Committee of the Fourth International , (Detroit:
Labor Publications, 1991), p. 12.
[11] Ibid., p. 24.
[12] The Fourth International , Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall-Winter 1992, p. 11.
[13] Ibid., p. 7.
[14] Ibid., p. 9.
[15] Ibid., p. 10
[16] Ibid., p. 14
[17] Ibid., p. 13.
[18] Oppose Imperialist War & Colonialism , p. 16.
[19] The Fourth International , Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 38.
[20] On the Manifesto of the Armenian Social Democrats , Iskra, No. 33, Feb. 1, 1903, Lenin, Collected Works , Vol.
6, pp. 326–329.
Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending
on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what
terms we would proceed!
in American imperialism and the power imbalance isn't about just oil? How about we elaborate on that. It's not enough to criticize
American military meddling without also calling out the geopolitical and economic meddling. These are intertwined and while I
think Tulsi is very strong and very correct on military "interventions," she can and should go further. (All Americand should,
no arguments here.) I mean, as far as this tweet goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target. Is she
tweeting this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
as far as this tweet [by Tulsi] goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target. Is she tweeting
this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
The "total loser" is a master politician, surviving a coup attempt , battling hostile MSM 24/7 and with an enlarging voter
base. Include rising favorability ratings, though still less than 50%. His popularity currently equals that of Obomber at a similar
point in first term.
in American imperialism and the power imbalance isn't about just oil? How about we elaborate on that. It's not enough to
criticize American military meddling without also calling out the geopolitical and economic meddling. These are intertwined
and while I think Tulsi is very strong and very correct on military "interventions," she can and should go further. (All Americand
should, no arguments here.) I mean, as far as this tweet goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target.
Is she tweeting this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch" because
he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally I think that's
a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking unilateral
action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems like an odd way
to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
@CS in AZ@CS in AZ
I ran across her statements on youtube. And I don't see how you can interpret what she said as "goading" him.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch"
because he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally
I think that's a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking
unilateral action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems
like an odd way to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
was a country at peace and was suddenly attacked, I could sort of understand your objection to Gabbard criticizing Trump for
waiting to hear from the Saudi princes about what to do next.
But that's not the situation. Saudi Arabia has been targeting school buses, hospitals, weddings, and has starved 85,000 children
to death in Yemen, and we have HELPED! Starving a child to death is torture.
The fact that the civilized world hasn't rained retribution down on the Saudi government for supporting Al Qaeda, for supporting
ISIS and its atrocities, and for using the people of Yemen for target practice just to benefit our defense contractors, is an
abomination. We are not just being USED by the Saudi government. We are being ABUSED, as a nation, as a people, as a culture that's
supposed to have values. We are being transformed into the sucking scum of the earth. For money. For a few contractors.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch"
because he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally
I think that's a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking
unilateral action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems
like an odd way to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
Trump is his own worst enemy. His thoughtless tweets reveal him to be some seriously damaged goods.
Not since the late days of dementia ridden Reagan has a more dangerous finger been on "The Button".
@earthling1@earthling1
Trump's policies are by and larger terrible, neoliberal, disguised as populism. But before considering that Trump is an idiot,
rather than one prone to bad choices in policy, please consider his current POLIICAL status. See my comment above to Monsieur
le Frog.
Trump is his own worst enemy. His thoughtless tweets reveal him to be some seriously damaged goods.
Not since the late days of dementia ridden Reagan has a more dangerous finger been on "The Button".
have not unreasonably read his tweet as saying what it clearly seems to be saying, that the US will wait to see who the Saudis
decide carried out the bombing, and the US will wait for their instructions on how the US should proceed -- deferring to the Saudis
on two counts.
Does seem rather clear, and odd, for a US president to state a foreign power should dictate our actions on their behalf.
I didn't read it at all as a complaint that the US has to wait and cool its heels for the Saudis in order to rush into military
action.
Of course she went on twitter to respond to DT's tweet. Twitter, the short-form of communication, where brief tweets are always
vulnerable to misunderstanding.
This used to be called diplomacy. That's what we (the peace-not-war minded) people) wanted from our government. I still
do, and I'm forced to say I think I actually agree with trump on this one. His tweet was unusually diplomatic and relatively calm.
I was glad he said something reasonable, for perhaps the first time ever.
WE (the US) are not the world dictatorship that should feel free to bomb anyone anywhere anytime, and screw the rest of the
world. Cooperation among governments is not being anyone's bitch. That's the pro war, pro US empire kind of thinking.
America first... see, that's not really what I believe in. So I see now, that must be why I felt so disturbed by her comment.
I just disagree with her basic premise.
have not unreasonably read his tweet as saying what it clearly seems to be saying, that the US will wait to see who the
Saudis decide carried out the bombing, and the US will wait for their instructions on how the US should proceed -- deferring
to the Saudis on two counts.
Does seem rather clear, and odd, for a US president to state a foreign power should dictate our actions on their behalf.
I didn't read it at all as a complaint that the US has to wait and cool its heels for the Saudis in order to rush into military
action.
Of course she went on twitter to respond to DT's tweet. Twitter, the short-form of communication, where brief tweets are
always vulnerable to misunderstanding.
@CS in AZ@CS in AZ
is when two countries engage in discussions to possibly reach a mutual agreement. That seems like an incredibly expansive and
pro-Trump reading of his bizarre tweet.
Twump's tweet, in the clear language of the brief text, was about the US president waiting to hear marching orders from Crown
Prince Mohammed "Ben" Salman as to what the US should do.
Tulsi's tweet and use of the word "bitch" was actually referencing a previous tweet she had made months ago criticizing the
way the US seems to be subservient to the Saudis.
This used to be called diplomacy. That's what we (the peace-not-war minded) people) wanted from our government. I
still do, and I'm forced to say I think I actually agree with trump on this one. His tweet was unusually diplomatic and relatively
calm. I was glad he said something reasonable, for perhaps the first time ever.
WE (the US) are not the world dictatorship that should feel free to bomb anyone anywhere anytime, and screw the rest of
the world. Cooperation among governments is not being anyone's bitch. That's the pro war, pro US empire kind of thinking.
America first... see, that's not really what I believe in. So I see now, that must be why I felt so disturbed by her comment.
I just disagree with her basic premise.
Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump For Making US "The Prostitute Of Saudi Arabia"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/17/2019
Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at Trump on Wednesday after the president vetoed
the Yemen War Powers Resolution this week, which sought to end US support for the Sauid-led war in Yemen.
The Hawaiian congresswomen and outspoken US foreign policy critic asserted the president is turning the nation "into the
prostitute of Saudi Arabia" and further stated he vetoed the bill "to please his Saudi masters" in a minute-and-a-half campaign
video.
"Unlike Donald Trump I will not turn our great country into the prostitute of Saudi Arabia."
#5.1#5.1 is when two countries
engage in discussions to possibly reach a mutual agreement. That seems like an incredibly expansive and pro-Trump reading of
his bizarre tweet.
Twump's tweet, in the clear language of the brief text, was about the US president waiting to hear marching orders from
Crown Prince Mohammed "Ben" Salman as to what the US should do.
Tulsi's tweet and use of the word "bitch" was actually referencing a previous tweet she had made months ago criticizing
the way the US seems to be subservient to the Saudis.
@Linda Wood
which provides the context for Tulsi's latest tweet. In this manner, Tulsi continues to emphasize a theme: no matter the circumstance
(i.e., excuses), Saudi is a barbarous country, executing its detractors with swords rather than nice "surgical" drone strikes
like Obomba and DJT have used.
Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump For Making US "The Prostitute Of Saudi Arabia"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/17/2019
Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at Trump on Wednesday after the president vetoed
the Yemen War Powers Resolution this week, which sought to end US support for the Sauid-led war in Yemen.
The Hawaiian congresswomen and outspoken US foreign policy critic asserted the president is turning the nation "into
the prostitute of Saudi Arabia" and further stated he vetoed the bill "to please his Saudi masters" in a minute-and-a-half
campaign video.
"Unlike Donald Trump I will not turn our great country into the prostitute of Saudi Arabia."
very
convoluted version , Iranian drones were launched from an Iranian affiliated militia base in Iraq in retaliation for Saudi
funded Israeli drone strikes originating from a US/Kurdish base in Syria that struck Iranian/Iraqi bases, weapons depots, and
a convoy in August.
Middle East Eye, a Qatari financed outlet, reported yesterday that the attack was launched from Iraq by Iran aligned forces
in revenge for Israeli attacks in Syria. The author, David Hearst, is known for slandered reporting. The report is based on
a single anonymous Iraqi intelligence source. Qatar, which is struggling with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over its support for
the Muslim Brotherhood, would like to see a larger conflict involving its rivals east and west of the Persian Gulf. The report
should therefore be disregarded.
but with all the various reports it does seem clear that who launched them (drone or planes) look hard to ascertain for certain.
but trump was far more careful than pompeo and lindsey graham who want to bomb bomb bomb iran on speculation, because iran
is evil.
ah, i've been trying to figure out ho to compile a post on possibilities v. blame, and it's getting further and further away
from me. but both KSA and trump (or his generals) may really understand what's at stake. what's bibi saying?
very
convoluted version , Iranian drones were launched from an Iranian affiliated militia base in Iraq in retaliation for Saudi
funded Israeli drone strikes originating from a US/Kurdish base in Syria that struck Iranian/Iraqi bases, weapons depots, and
a convoy in August.
it's clear that Gulf oil installations are vulnerable from a new generation of drones that these players are assembling or
otherwise acquiring themselves. Several years ago, the Iranians were able to hack a Predator drone and bring it down intact, suitable
for reverse engineering. In past war games, the entire US fleet in the Persian Gulf was destroyed in a matter of minutes by swarms
of Iranian missiles. The Yemen war is likely to be over and the possibility of an attack on Iran seems more unlikely now as well.
Middle East Eye, a Qatari financed outlet, reported yesterday that the attack was launched from Iraq by Iran aligned
forces in revenge for Israeli attacks in Syria. The author, David Hearst, is known for slandered reporting. The report is
based on a single anonymous Iraqi intelligence source. Qatar, which is struggling with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over its
support for the Muslim Brotherhood, would like to see a larger conflict involving its rivals east and west of the Persian
Gulf. The report should therefore be disregarded.
but with all the various reports it does seem clear that who launched them (drone or planes) look hard to ascertain for
certain. but trump was far more careful than pompeo and lindsey graham who want to bomb bomb bomb iran on speculation,
because iran is evil.
ah, i've been trying to figure out ho to compile a post on possibilities v. blame, and it's getting further and further
away from me. but both KSA and trump (or his generals) may really understand what's at stake. what's bibi saying?
against such a swarm attack like this (and so accurately targeted), nor does the US, according to b and a few others. iran
probably does have russian missile defense, but clearly: riyadh needs to make peace with the houthis at any cost. there must be
next to nothing left standing there after what, four years?
it's clear that Gulf oil installations are vulnerable from a new generation of drones that these players are assembling
or otherwise acquiring themselves. Several years ago, the Iranians were able to hack a Predator drone and bring it down intact,
suitable for reverse engineering. In past war games, the entire US fleet in the Persian Gulf was destroyed in a matter of minutes
by swarms of Iranian missiles. The Yemen war is likely to be over and the possibility of an attack on Iran seems more unlikely
now as well.
against such a swarm attack like this (and so accurately targeted), nor does the US, according to b and a few others. iran
probably does have russian missile defense, but clearly: riyadh needs to make peace with the houthis at any cost. there must
be next to nothing left standing there after what, four years?
@dystopian
She, as many predicted, is pushing Trump further and further into a non-confrontational foreign policy. There is not one of the
Klown Kontenders with enough guts to call out Trump as forcefully as this--including Bernie.
This is a new tweet from Tulsi this afternoon with a short vid...
The attack marks a turning point in asymmetrical warfare: no longer can a country bomb its neighbor without fearing a significant
attack in return. An that attack won't be tossing a few rockets in the general direction of a targey; instead they'll be precision
strikes taking out key infrastructure.
The concept of an air force has changed and the big powers won't have a monopoly going forward. Mutually assured destruction
lite.
Pompeo is just MIC lobbyst who got position of the Secretary of State due to Trump
incompetence of pressure from donors like Adelson. Nothing good can come from this strange choice
of warmonger and neocon hawk, not that different from Hillary Clinton.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability. ..."
"... The first priority was to deny the Iranian leadership resources. Previous administration taken a different approach. It said olly olly oxen free, here's all the money you can possibly stand to build out your terror campaign, to build your nuclear weapons system, to take nuclear physicists, all of the things that money can deliver – terror against Israel out of Hizballah and from Syria. Our – the first proposition for our campaign was to deny wealth and resources for the Iranian leadership, and it has been enormously successful in doing so. You can see it. Hizballah is passing the tin cup. ..."
It may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an
intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability.
For hawks like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, American power, as the Bolshevik adage goes,
cannot fail, it can only be failed. For many of his ilk, the superiority of American power
means the willingness to project it is the only thing needed to earn the capitulation of foes
and the only way America loses is if it chooses to relent. Donald Trump, however, watched
George W. Bush's presidency burn in the Iraq war and is unlikely to embrace the chaos of war
heading into an election year. President Trump would be wise to heed the lessons of the most
recent volatile security episode in the Persian Gulf region, especially as it pertains to his
administration's campaign against Tehran.
... ... ...
Without the basic ability to guard against even crude air assets, any notion of the United
States empowering its regional network to dictate terms to Iranian allies with military action
seems impractical. The credibility of U.S. anti-missile capabilities were
already in question . For Saudi Arabia and hawks inside the U.S. government, the notion
that a tribal force like the Houthis could reach into their territory and engage in this kind
of tactical action is militarily embarrassing and practically discrediting from a policy
standpoint.
...If it is conceivable that Iranian cruise missiles -- the newest and least tested section
of Iran's missile fleet -- flew across the militarized Persian Gulf and evaded both Saudi and
American sensors and air-defenses to hit an oil facility, then how much safer are U.S. forces
in the region?
...Add to this the survivability and precision that Pompeo is now attributing to Iranian
missiles and the conclusion very well may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf
region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic
vulnerability.
... ... ...
Pompeo has been on a months-long media campaign promoting, among other
things, what he describes as the success of the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. But
Pompeo's primary argument for the success of the anti-Iran efforts centers on the narrative
that U.S. sanctions have severely damaged Iran's alliance network in the region. Consider the
way he framed
the issue to a right-wing talk show host in July:
The first priority was to deny the Iranian leadership resources. Previous administration
taken a different approach. It said olly olly oxen free, here's all the money you can possibly
stand to build out your terror campaign, to build your nuclear weapons system, to take nuclear
physicists, all of the things that money can deliver – terror against Israel out of
Hizballah and from Syria. Our – the first proposition for our campaign was to deny wealth
and resources for the Iranian leadership, and it has been enormously successful in doing so.
You can see it. Hizballah is passing the tin cup.
...The attack on the Saudi refiner disrupted Pompeo's public victory lap in a particularly
bright and striking way.
... ... ...
Simply put, Washington's hopes to stop Iran from supporting its allies by pressing the
Iranian economy is unlikely to work. Iran's support for its alliance network is largely
dismissed in Washington as a frivolous imperial project that Iran can simply choose to abandon.
But for Iran, its non-state allies are a core national-security issue and will, therefore, be
prioritized in budgetary considerations especially when tensions are high. Iran's support for
non-state actors, like Hezbollah, are also not financially intensive and therefore can continue
under sanctions.
Alireza Ahmadi is a researcher and analyst focused on U.S. foreign policy towards the
Middle East. His work has been published by the National
Interest ,
The
Hill and Al-Monitor
. Follow him on Twitter @AliAhmadi_Iran.
Casting itself once again as the world's judge, jury and executioner, US imperialism is
recklessly hurtling toward yet another war in the Middle East, with catastrophic
implications. This time, Washington has seized upon Saturday's attacks on Saudi installations
as its pretext for war against Iran.
The reaction of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to these attacks, which have cut the
kingdom's oil production by almost half and slashed global daily output by 6 percent, was as
noteworthy for its haste as for its peculiar wording.
"Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," Pompeo
tweeted late Saturday, adding, "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."
This
image provided on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019, by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe and
annotated by the source, shows damage to the infrastructure at Saudi Aramco's Abaqaiq oil
processing facility in Buqyaq, Saudi Arabia. (U.S. government/Digital Globe via AP)
The indictment of Iran for attacks that set off a series of fires which devastated two oil
facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia came without a shred of supporting evidence, outside of
the bald assertion that there was "no evidence" that they were launched from Yemen.
Yemen had to be discounted, according to the secretary of state's predatory logic, because
the Houthi rebels, who control most of the country, had claimed responsibility for the
attacks and had a clear motive -- given the kingdom's near-genocidal war against Yemen's
civilian population -- for carrying them out. The US mass media has by and large echoed
Pompeo's allegations as absolute truth. On Monday night, television news broadcasts quoted
unnamed intelligence sources, citing unspecified evidence, claiming Iranian responsibility
for the attacks. No doubt this "evidence" will prove just as compelling as that of the Gulf
of Tonkin in Vietnam and "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. These same media outlets have
made virtually no mention of Saudi crimes in Yemen.
For the last four and a half years, Saudi Arabia has waged a near-genocidal war against
Yemen, the Middle East's poorest country. The violence has claimed the lives of nearly
100,000 Yemenis outright -- the greatest share through a relentless bombing campaign against
civilian targets -- while pushing some 8 million more to the brink of starvation.
Washington is a direct accomplice in this bloodbath, providing the warplanes, bombs and
missiles used to carry it out, along with logistical support and, until the end of last year,
mid-air refueling that allowed Saudi bombers to carry out uninterrupted carnage. Meanwhile,
the US Navy has helped enforce a blockade that has starved Yemen of food and medicine.
If what the Yemeni Houthis say is true, that they sent a swarm of 10 weaponized drones to
attack the Saudi facilities, then the action was clearly an act of self-defense, far less
than proportionate to the slaughter inflicted by the Saudi regime against Yemen.
Meanwhile, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, repeated the
charges against Iran on Monday before a United Nations Security Council meeting on Yemen.
Providing no more proof than Pompeo did two days earlier, merely repeating the formulation
that "there is no evidence that the attacks came from Yemen," she described the damage to the
Saudi oil installations as "deeply troubling."
Like the government she represents, the UN ambassador -- the wife of billionaire Kentucky
coal baron Joe Craft and a top Republican donor -- clearly finds the spilt oil of the Saudi
monarchy far more upsetting than the spilt blood of tens of thousands of Yemeni men, women
and children.
On Saturday night, President Donald Trump made a call to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman,
the kingdom's de facto ruler, offering his condolences and unqualified support to a man
exposed as a cold-blooded murderer. Bin Salman is responsible not only for the grisly
assassination and dismemberment of the Washington-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the
Saudi consulate in Istanbul nearly a year ago, but also the beheadings of at least 134 people
in just the first half of this year, 34 of them political activists slaughtered en masse on
April 23.
Trump subsequently announced that the US was "locked and loaded" to avenge Saudi oil with
military force. (This was a variation on his assertion in June that the Pentagon had been
"cocked and loaded" when he came, by his own account, within 10 minutes of launching
devastating attacks on Iran after it shot down an unmanned US spy drone over its
territory.)
If there is, as Washington claims, "no evidence" that the attacks were launched from
Yemen, one could, with equal if not greater justification, observe that there is likewise "no
evidence" that they were not launched by the US itself, or by its principal regional ally,
Israel.
If one proceeds from the age-old detective maxim of Cui bono? or "Who benefits?",
Tehran is the least likely suspect. There is clearly more to Washington's rush to judgment
than meets the eye.
The attack on the Saudi oil facilities provides a casus belli desired by a major
section of the US ruling oligarchy and its military and intelligence apparatus, which is
determined to prosecute a war for regime change in Iran. Such a war would be the latest
installment in Washington's protracted drive to reverse by military means the decline of US
imperialism's global hegemony, in particular by claiming unfettered US control over the
world's energy reserves and the power to deny them to its rivals.
The thinking within these layers was expressed in an editorial published Monday by the
Wall Street Journal, the mouthpiece of US finance capital. The Journal
warned that Iran was "probing Mr. Trump as much as the Saudis." It continued, "They are
testing his resolve to carry out his 'maximum pressure' campaign, and they sense weakness."
It pointed disapprovingly to Trump's failure to launch airstrikes in June following the
downing of the US drone.
The Journal approvingly cited calls by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham for
bombing Iranian oil refineries in order to "break the regime's back" and suggested that Trump
"apologize to John Bolton, who warned repeatedly that Iran would take advantage of perceived
weakness in the White House." Bolton, a long-time advocate of bombing Iran, resigned as
Trump's national security adviser last week, reportedly over differences on policy toward
Tehran.
The attack on the Saudi oil facilities also provides leverage for Washington in corralling
the Western European powers -- the UK, France and Germany -- behind US war aims. Signatories
to the Iranian nuclear accord that the Trump administration renounced, they have made feeble
gestures toward countering Washington's "maximum pressure" sanctions regime in an attempt to
salvage their own imperialist interests. While thus far failing to endorse US charges of
Iranian responsibility, they could, by means of the attack on Saudi Arabia, be swung behind
the US drive to war.
Israel and its beleaguered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also have ample motive to
stage a military action aimed at provoking war with Iran. On the eve of Tuesday's Israeli
election, the threat of a major war with Iran serves the political interests of Netanyahu,
whose political fortunes are inextricably tied to the escalation of military conflict in the
Middle East. The Israeli state, moreover, had become increasingly concerned over an apparent
cooling of the appetite of the ruling monarchies in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates for a confrontation with Iran.
Recent drone strikes against Shia militias in Iraq that had allegedly received Iranian
weapons were, according to a report by the web site Middle East Eye, staged by Israeli drones
operating out of bases controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main
US proxy force in Syria. A similar covert US-Israeli collaboration could easily have produced
the attacks on the Saudi oil installations.
Whatever the exact circumstances of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, they are
being exploited for the purpose of dragging the American people and all of humanity into a
war that can rapidly escalate into a regionwide and even global conflagration.
US strikes against Iran carried out under the pretext of retaliation for the attacks on
Saudi Arabia can trigger Iranian counterstrikes, sending US warships to the bottom of the
Persian Gulf and wreaking havoc on American military bases throughout the region.
The prospect of thousands of US soldiers and sailors dying as a result of Washington's
conspiracies and aggression carries with it the threat of the US government assuming
emergency powers and implementing police-state measures in the US itself in the name of
"national security."
This would, by no means, be an unintended consequence. The buildup to war is driven in
large measure by the escalation of social tensions and class struggle within the United
States itself, which has found fresh expression in the strike by 46,000 autoworkers against
General Motors. There is a powerful incentive for the US ruling class to direct these
tensions outward in the eruption of military conflict, while creating the pretext for mass
repression.
The threat of a US assault on Iran paving the way to a third world war must be answered
through a politically conscious and independent intervention of the working class to put an
end to imperialism and reorganize society on socialist foundations.
gjohnsit on Tue, 09/17/2019 - 3:10pm Remember in 2002 when the neocons in Washington
told us that we had to attack Iraq because of 9/11, eventhough Iraq had nothing to do with
it?
So now Iran is being blamed for the attack on Saudi oil fields, and
anonymous warmongers claim that they have proof.
The United States has identified the exact locations in Iran from which a combination of more
than 20 drones and cruise missiles were launched against Saudi oil facilities over the
weekend, a senior U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin on
Tuesday. The official said the locations are in southern Iran, at the northern end of the
Persian Gulf.
What a coincidence! That also happens to be around Iran's major oil fields.
What's more, the Saudi air defenses would have stopped it if it came from Yemen.
Saudi Arabia's air defenses have been aimed south for months, to protect against missile
attacks launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, so they were useless against the
missiles and drones coming in from the north, the official told Martin.
Let's put a pin in that for now.
Washington immediately dismissed the Houthi's claim of responsibility for the attack. Why?
Because the Houthis don't have the
knowledge or the means to carry it out.
But U.S. officials have cast doubt on the Houthis’ claim, arguing that the
sophisticated nature of the attack suggested that it was beyond the capabilities of the rebel
group.
Analysts say this is what the Houthis appear to have used to hit the Abha International
Airport in southern Saudi Arabia a few months ago. But the Quds 1 lacks the range to get from
northern Yemen to the oil installations in Saudi Arabia.
The range, scale and precision of the latest attack — including the successful
penetration of Saudi air defenses and the avoidance of obstacles like power lines and
communication towers — far exceeds anything the Houthis have ever done.
So it's all wrapped up. The Houthis aren't capable of doing it, and we have proof that Iran
did it. We just can't show it to you.
It makes a good story if you have no long-term memory.
Because
this happened less than a month ago.
A drone attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi group on an oilfield in eastern Saudi Arabia
on Saturday caused a fire at a gas plant but had no impact on oil production, state-run oil
company Saudi Aramco said.
A Houthi military spokesman said earlier that the group had targeted the Shaybah oilfield
with 10 drones, in what he said was the “biggest attack in the depths” of the
kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, by the Iran-aligned group.
Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih described Shaybah as a “vital
facility”.
That oilfield is 900 kilometres away from Yemen.
Literally everything about this Houthi attack is the same as Saturday's attack, except for
fewer explosions. So what the fuck is the NY Times talking about?
To make this even more interesting, I happened upon
this report by the UAE following the Houthi attack from last month.
The report also reveals critical Saudi defence weaknesses to the weaponised drones used by
the Houthis.
It reports that from January to May there were 155 such attacks against Saudi targets in
Yemen and throughout the Gulf, a much higher figure than previously admitted.
“The attack on the Lahj Military Base demonstrates a weakness in Saudi air defences
and the lack of capacity in electronic war if we take into account that these drones are
basic and are not launched on tarmac,” the report says.
“Air defences such as the Patriot are not capable of spotting these drones because
the systems are designed to intercept long and medium range Scud missiles.”
Najran airport has been hit repeatedly by Houthi drones despite being protected by a
Patriot battery, the report reveals.
155 drone attacks? U.S. Patriot missiles unable to detect and stop them?
Why that sounds a lot different than what we are being told.
Recall that the Houthis had brought
down a U.S. drone just a few weeks ago. That was the second U.S. drone they shot down just
this summer.
Recall that the Houthis have been
hitting Riyadh with missiles for over a year.
All the evidence points to the Houthis being more than capable of not just being responsible
for this attack, but for repeating this attack in a matter of weeks Mark F. McCarty
and probably most of the UN, they are going to have a harder time getting anyone on board
the Pompeo Holy War train. We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable
evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do that.
Probably because they didn't do it! And once that starts looking clear to the world, the
last remnants of US credibility will fly away for good.
We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those
drones, and it looks like we can't do that.
If we had proof it was Iran we would have shown it to someone by now.
Aren't we monitoring the airspace around Iran?
And what is Iran's motivation?
It's not worth the risk for Iran if they were caught.
OTOH, if Iran gives the weapons to the Houthis...that makes a Hell of a lot more
sense.
and probably most of the UN, they are going to have a harder time getting anyone on
board the Pompeo Holy War train. We are going to have to show our allies totally
verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do
that.
Probably because they didn't do it! And once that starts looking clear to the world,
the last remnants of US credibility will fly away for good.
"Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) slammed President Donald Trump for turning the nation into
"Saudi Arabia's bitch" after he assured the kingdom that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" as
it waits to hear who may be behind an attack on its oil supply.
"Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters," the Democratic presidential candidate
tweeted Sunday. "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First.'"
Gabbard previously accused Trump of making the U.S. "Saudi Arabia's bitch" last November
for his failure to take action against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who, according
to the U.S. intelligence community, directed the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal
Khashoggi."
"Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has doubled down attacking President Donald Trump over his
response to the weekend's drone attacks on major oil sites in Saudi Arabia.
Trump assured Saudi Arabia via Twitter that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" and awaiting
its direction following the strikes, which were claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels but which
Trump claimed were backed by Iran.
The Democratic presidential candidate -- a combat veteran and a major in the Army National
Guard ― called Trump's response "disgraceful" in a new video shared online Monday.
"Mr. President, as you know, I have never engaged in hateful rhetoric against you or your
family and I never will," said Gabbard. "But your offering our military assets to the
dictator of Saudi Arabia to use as he sees fit is a betrayal of my brothers and sisters in
uniform who are ready to give our lives for our country."
Gabbard said Trump's belief he can "pimp out our proud servicemen and women to the prince
of Saudi Arabia is disgraceful and it once again shows that you are unfit to serve as our
commander in chief."
"My fellow service members and I, we are not your prostitutes," she concluded. "You are
not our pimp."
Most of our disagreements here are not on either economic or political principles, but rather
the awarding of style points with considerable confusion regarding the (sometimes remotely)
possible, the plausible, and the actual.
"... Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it." ..."
"... So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution? ..."
Just bewildering to read the Left's continuing insistence that Israel is best understood as
'just another outpost of the American empire'. This is probably the most damaging idea in
circulation right now, as its diversionary effect is only matched by its absurdity.
The Left simply cannot 'go there' though, no matter how much factual evidence is stacked up.
(On top of the spying and theft we have 'The Lobby' documentary, the defence pact, party
funding, etc. etc.). They have to avoid the reality, one which can only be explained through
cross border tribal allegiances and religious history going back many centuries. These, of
course, lay outside the Left's purview, and any consideration of them is dogmatically
opposed. It is getting to be a kind of insanity.
Tulsi can allege that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks and that they pull the
strings in Washington, (and many on the Left will applaud) but she cannot point out the
rather more glaring 9/11 connections to Israel and the whole machinery of control that lies
at the centre of American empire.
As she votes against BDS, has there ever been a more ridiculous double standard ?
Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual
personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think
the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is
possible but I don't believe it."
So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution?
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been
found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non
stop.
@Cloak And
Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the
few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just
boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all
the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would RISE UP IN ARMS.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983
Admiral Moorer, "the dirty anti-semite," was one of the few people with influence to call
out Israel for their deliberate attack on the USS Liberty – https://www.erasingtheliberty.com/
The American Legion continues to wet its pants apparently believing that kissing (((ass)))
is more patriotic than standing up for America and members of the Navy.
Whats new about Israeli spying against the zio/US, hell the government is full of zionists in
every facet of the government, they run every department, including and especially the CIA ,
which would be better named the Mossad West, in fact the Mossad is so embedded in the CIA
that the only way to end this would be to as JFK said to scatter it to the winds aka abolish
the Mossad infested CIA.
Iran Rejects US Accusation It Is Behind
Saudi Attacks https://nyti.ms/30iNte7
NYT - Michael Wolgelenter - September 15
Iran on Sunday forcefully rejected charges by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it was
responsible for drone attacks that caused serious damage to two crucial Saudi Arabian oil
installations, with the foreign minister dismissing the remarks as "max deceit."
The attacks on Saturday, which hold the potential to disrupt global oil supplies, were
claimed by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Mr. Pompeo said that Iran had launched "an unprecedented
attack on the world's oil supply," although he did not offer any evidence and stopped short
of saying that Iran had carried out the missile strikes.
The Houthis are part of a complex regional dynamic in the Middle East, receiving support
from Iran while the Saudis, Tehran's chief rival for supremacy in the region and the leader
of a coalition that is fighting the Houthis in Yemen, are aligned with the United States.
Seyed Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, castigated the Saudis
for their role in the war in Yemen, where the Saudis have directed airstrikes that have
caused heavy civilian casualties and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis. He also ridiculed Mr.
Pompeo's comments.
The semiofficial Fars news agency reported on its English-language website that Mr.
Mousavi described Mr. Pompeo's allegations as "blind and fruitless remarks" that were
"meaningless" in a diplomatic context.
Saudi Arabia has yet to publicly accuse Iran of involvement in the attack. On Sunday, its
Foreign Ministry urged international action to preserve the world oil supply in response to
the attack, but it said nothing about assigning blame or striking back.
The developments come at a moment of rising tensions between Iran and the United States,
which have mounted since President Trump pulled out of the 2015 accord in which Iran agreed
with the West to restrict its nuclear program. Since the American withdrawal, Iran has
gradually pulled away from its some obligations under the agreement. ...
... "US & its clients are stuck in Yemen because of illusion that weapon superiority will
lead to military victory," Mr. Zarif wrote on Twitter. "Blaming Iran won't end disaster.
Accepting our April '15 proposal to end war & begin talks may.
The attack on Saturday, which the Houthis said involved 10 drones, represented the rebels'
most serious strike since Saudi Arabia inserted itself into the conflict in Yemen four years
ago. That the rebels could cause such extensive damage to such a crucial part of the global
economy astonished some observers. ...
It's Monday September 16th, 2019 and the weeks starts off like this:
GM's UAW Strike
Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production
Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME
One of Trump's White House flunky's declared "it is better if Trump does not study an
issue" before making decisions (oh yea,"Stupid is what Stupid does")
Biden and S. Warren tied in the DEM race for 2020
Piketty's new Economics tome is out
PM Netanyahu is losing his re-election bid in Israel, to be determined by tomorrow's
Election
We live in interesting times...
...the question I pose for the times is 'Are the People are better lead by businessmen,
politicians, academics, or intellectuals?
"... Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in fact have been a missile strike ..."
"... But regardless, the game has escalated up one more rung up the ladder. How many more will it take for the world to put its interests ahead of Israel's? ..."
"... Next escalation rung: a loading dock for supertankers: either the port of Yanbu or Ra's Tanura. Followed by desalination facilities, if Western politicians still pretend to turn a blind eye and prefer to follow the dictates of their Israeli masters. Nuff Sed. ..."
"... In asking the question, qui bono, you do have to include Netanyahu, who is up for reelection tomorrow. There's nothing like striking fear into the heart of the electorate on the eve of an election for firming up support for a proven incumbent. And if the US attacks Iran before tomorrow, so much the better for Netanyahu. ..."
"... That said, I don't think that Netanyahu's buddies in Riyadh would be amused if this were proven. However, poking a friend in the eye never seemed to stop Israel before think USS Liberty. ..."
"... Israel has the means, plus the motive (Bib's reelection), and might have taken the opportunity to attribute the attack to Iran and force Trump's hand. ..."
"... I am assuming, myself, personally, this action was taken to prevent a meeting in NYC between Trump and the President of Iran. That is my guess. ..."
"... There was never going to be a meeting between Rouhani and Trump. I expect to be dead of old age before there would be any substantive meetings between Iran and the United States. ..."
"... Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei has said there will be no meeting until the U.S.ends sanctions. ..."
"... I do not for a moment believe Bolton would have stood for it, and even though he's gone, neither will Pompeo or Pence. Both appear to be fanatically devoted to Israel. There may be meetings between low level functionaries, and Trump seems to want one very much, but Rouhani has said there is no way to trust America, so no point to talking. The situation may change if Netanyahu loses the election, although I have no reason to believe Avigdor will be any better. ..."
"... However, if Trump DOES cut a deal, he will not try and fluff it off as an "Executive Agreement"....if Trump cuts a deal he knows he will have to bring it to Congress. Thee Lobby may kill it there...or not. We'll see. ..."
"... It's not just Yemen. People forget there is an oppressed Shiite minority near the Aramco HQ (dispossessed of the oil fields, located in their ancestral area & treated like sub-sub-citizens); they get periodically beheaded" ..."
"... The Al Saud gang, under the Clown Prince Muhammad Bone Saw, can not count on those Shiite inhabitants of the oil rich region, not necessarily because of the latter's sympathy for Iran but because they were brutalized for almost a century. ..."
"... One to benefit from it that I see so far is Saudi's Aramco IPO which is critical to Saudi . According to WSJ they were considering delaying it because of low oil prices, they needed oil to reach $80 barrel to make it viable. The attack sent prices up but now market is talking about risk if there are 'on going attacks'. What could we deduce if there are no on going attacks and the IPO proceeds? ..."
"... We know Yemen has the Quds-1 and has surprised us before with their technical capability. Combine that with the video of Yahya Sari claiming full responsibility for the attack and I'm not sure there is any reason to speculate about conspiracies involving other actors. ..."
"... In addition, the specificity of the targets hit suggests good intel. I would suspect that Houthi's have linked with disaffected groups in SA (lots!) and improved their Humint. It seems highly unlikely that Iran would do something like this AND leave their fingerprints behind - at least based on recent events. ..."
"... Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar soon to prove they are responsible. ..."
"... israel gets a lot of press and speculation on this board as well as everywhere else for all their conspiracies and supposed omnipotent power and control but in this writers opinion THEY have been punching way above their actual weight for years and current reality has exposed how feckless and puny they really are in the scheme of things. ..."
"... ''i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is viewed as responsible for.'' A Cult is a Cult regardless of it members makeup. And Israel is looking more like a Jim Jones farm every day. ..."
"... And Iran has demonstrated that they can cause months worth of damage on the KSA, the UAE, and Kuwait. I can't believe the number of Congressman who simultaneously believe that Iran was able to glide over U.S. made air defenses without detection and also believe that we can simply carpet bomb their refineries without any repercussion. How can one believe both things at the same time? That Iran is responsible for a sophisticated ghost attack and that they are incapable of retaliating in a target rich environment. ..."
"... Not only did Graham say this but the loon from Maryland repeated it. These people are insane but MSM hosts encourage it, just saw Cavuto snear at Ron Paul because he actually made sense. We are so messed up. ..."
"... Everyone keeps misunderestimating the Yemenis. The Houthis are fighting as part of a coalition that includes a large part of the Yemeni military and intelligence services. This coalition is carrying out a war under guerrilla conditions, but that war is led by professional military men. ..."
"... It is the benefit of being a perfumed prince or fop or neo-con that history has no meaning because history ended sometime in the 90's. Somehow I hear the voice of a Rove lecturing: ..."
"... "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
"... Yes indeed. Dave deserves hearty congratulations though we might add a caveat. The said "valves" could have been blown out in advance via software or person throwing a switch (humint or cyber component to one attack vector). ..."
"... It cries out "sure, it's bad, but it is reversible." ..."
"... Houthis have every reason to utilize their advanced weapons systems against Saudi targets to bring the war to an end. As for Iran, seems they have been on a semi-successful diplomatic campaign to counter US maximum pressure with their own maximum pressure on Europeans, Russia and China to deliver on the economic benefits that are as important in JCPOA as the curtailing of Iran's nuclear program. ..."
"... Trump talking about meeting Rouhani in New York, Zarif in China getting at least $50-100 billion in pledged economic support, Russia suggesting $10 billion investment in the Iranian energy sector: Why would Iran at this moment make a direct move to turn the world fully against them? Perhaps a rogue faction of IRGC out to stop any diplomatic action, but even that would have to come with OK from Khamenei--or there would be strong action against the rogues. ..."
"... Pressure on Trump to maintain the hardline against Iran following Bolton ouster? Pompeo has been leading the diplomatic back channels and repeating Trump's goal of forcing Iran to the table. Even the Saudis are for the moment hesitant to blame Iran, actually calling for a UN investigation into the source of the attacks. ..."
"... "The Iran did it" narrative as an attempt to keep on undermining the pro-Syrian government coalition. ..."
What made this attack different from other recorded Houthi drone attacks was not only the
unprecedented amount of material damage caused but also lingering doubt about the nature and
the attribution of the attack. First,
a video allegedly showing flying objects entering Kuwaiti airspace led to speculation that
like a
previous "Houthi" drone attack this strike might actually have originated in Iraq or even
Iran. While the video remains unverified, the fact that the Kuwaiti government
launched a probe into the issue lends some credence to the idea that something might have
happened over Kuwait that day. Speculation about the origins of the attack was further fueled
by a tweet
by Mike Pompeo in which he claimed that there was no evidence the attacks came from
Yemen.
Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in
fact have been a missile strike. Previous Houthi drone strikes against oil facilities tended to
result in quite limited damage which could be an indication that a different weapons system was
used this time. Indeed, Aramco
came to the conclusion that its facilities were attacked by missiles. Even more curious,
several pictures began to emerge on social media purportedly showing the wreckage of a missile
in the Saudi desert. While the images appear real, neither the date the photos were taken nor
their location can be verified.
Social media users quickly claimed the images showed a crashed
Iranian-made Soumar cruise missile. The Soumar and its updated version, the Hoveyzeh, are
Iran's attempts at reverse-engineering the Soviet-designed KH-55 cruise missile, several of
which the country
illegally imported from Ukraine in the early 2000s . Others claimed it was the Quds 1, a
recently unveiled Houthi cruise missile often claimed to be a rebranded Soumar."
armscontrolwonl
---------------
TTG raised the issue of whether or not this wave of strikes was done by UAVs or cruise
missiles. IMO this cruise missile could be built in Yemen with Iranian assistance. I am very
interested in the question of what the actual vector of the attacks was in this case. pl
The accuracy of the strikes in the spherical pressurized gas storage containers all being in
the same place relative to each target is the place to start for those who, unlike me, are
capable of analyzing these things.
But regardless, the game has escalated up one more rung up the ladder. How many more will
it take for the world to put its interests ahead of Israel's?
Next escalation rung: a loading dock for supertankers: either the port of Yanbu or Ra's
Tanura. Followed by desalination facilities, if Western politicians still pretend to turn a
blind eye and prefer to follow the dictates of their Israeli masters. Nuff Sed.
In asking the question, qui bono, you do have to include Netanyahu, who is up for reelection
tomorrow. There's nothing like striking fear into the heart of the electorate on the eve of
an election for firming up support for a proven incumbent. And if the US attacks Iran before
tomorrow, so much the better for Netanyahu.
That said, I don't think that Netanyahu's buddies in Riyadh would be amused if this were
proven. However, poking a friend in the eye never seemed to stop Israel before think USS
Liberty.
"The Israeli military is armed with the latest fast jets and precision weaponry, yet it has
turned to its fleet of drones to hit targets in Iraq. Deniability has played a big factor
– the ability of drones to elude radar and therefore keep targets guessing about who
actually bombed them is playing well for Israeli leaders who are trying to prevent an
increasingly lethal shadow war with Iran from developing into an open conflict."
The Samad 3 is laden with explosives that allow it to detonate a shaped charge which
explodes downwards towards its target. Footage provided to MintPress by Yemen's Operations
Command Center shows the Samad landing on an asphalt runway, confirming that the drone is
now capable of conducting operations and then returning to base.
There is a huge sea water desalination plant not far away that provides all the treated water
via pipeline for injection into the oil reservoirs to improve recovery of oil. Target that
and not only have you already impacted the processing of the oil produced but would then
impact the total volume of oil available for processing.
I can see no happy ending short of
negotiation between interested parties. MBZ looks to have already reached that conclusion in
respect of the UAE. what will be the self preservation response for the House of Saud
Could the Committee speculate on possible 'steps of retaliation' operating, for theoretical
purposes, at the moment, on the assumption that regardless of where the 'bullets' were fired
from, or from what 'gun' they were fired, Iran paid for deed. What steps are open for action?
I am assuming, myself, personally, this action was taken to prevent a meeting in NYC between
Trump and the President of Iran. That is my guess.
There was never going to be a meeting between Rouhani and Trump. I expect to be dead of old age before there would be any substantive meetings between Iran
and the United States.
Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei has said there will be no meeting until the U.S.ends sanctions.
I
do not for a moment believe Bolton would have stood for it, and even though he's gone,
neither will Pompeo or Pence. Both appear to be fanatically devoted to Israel. There may be
meetings between low level functionaries, and Trump seems to want one very much, but Rouhani
has said there is no way to trust America, so no point to talking. The situation may change
if Netanyahu loses the election, although I have no reason to believe Avigdor will be any
better.
With all due respect, I think one of us fails to grasp the true nature of Trump. If he puts
his mind to it, and thinks it will benefit him, nobody, not Bolton, not Pompeo, not the whole
Neocon cabal, Israeli govt, the present one or the next one, will stop him if he is President
and alive. He will do what is best for Trump.
And trust has nothing to do with this. Why in the hell should I trust Iran? Hell, why
should I trust the UK? I trust that people and nations have interests. That's all I trust.
But that does mean I could not reach a deal with them. Now, as to whether that deals
holds...that is another question. However, if Trump DOES cut a deal, he will not try and
fluff it off as an "Executive Agreement"....if Trump cuts a deal he knows he will have to
bring it to Congress. Thee Lobby may kill it there...or not. We'll see.
Babak, I value your input here. However, I hope you are wrong and that a meeting or meetings
(substantive or not) will start as soon as the dealbreaker is out of office, and the
sanctions are called off. But I would never wish you an early death. May you live a hundred years.
Thank you very kindly.
I would like to ask the following questions:
Will the United States restore sovereign immunity to Iran?
Will the United States Congress rescind all the laws against Iran that form the basis of
economic war against Iran?
Will the United States rescind the sanctions against Ayatollah Khamenei, Dr. Zarif,
General Soleimani, etc., etc. etc.?
Will the Protestant Christians in the United States ever tire of their unrequited love for
all things Old Testament?
In my opinion, the answer to all of these are "no". Unfortunately, even if a man with the caliber of an FDR or a Nixon is elected to the US
Presidency, he will not be able to accomplish much because of the difficulty, nay the
impossibility, of untangling the rules and regulations that US has woven against Iran.
In my opinion, all of that was predicated on the strategic defeat of Iran and her
surrender.
If I WERE ANSWERING. I got some demands of my own..but we can put them aside for the moment.
In general, I would be inclined to respond: Yes, to the "sovereign immunity" question.
Certainly. Regarding "economic warfare", you would have to give me your legal definition of
such a broad phrase, but in principle, yes. Whole heartedly yes. Sanctions against Iran, and
it individuals officers? Yes, absolutely. Sick of sanctions, in general. It is not in my
power to answer the "unrequited love" issue, but I do solemnly state that I would agree to
stop laughing--in public, anyway, at the question. Wanna meet?
Nassim Nicolaas Taleb, author of "Black Swan":
"SAUDI FIELDS It's not just Yemen. People forget there is an oppressed Shiite minority near the Aramco HQ
(dispossessed of the oil fields, located in their ancestral area & treated like
sub-sub-citizens); they get periodically beheaded"
The Al Saud gang, under the Clown Prince Muhammad Bone Saw, can not count on those Shiite
inhabitants of the oil rich region, not necessarily because of the latter's sympathy for Iran
but because they were brutalized for almost a century.
Why would Iran have done it? Just to show they can or to provoke a attack on Iran?
One to benefit from it that I see so far is Saudi's Aramco IPO which is critical to Saudi
. According to WSJ they were considering delaying it because of low oil prices, they needed
oil to reach $80 barrel to make it viable. The attack sent prices up but now market is
talking about risk if there are 'on going attacks'. What could we deduce if there are no on
going attacks and the IPO proceeds?
Only other beneficiary would be Israel if the attack actually does and likely has killed
any Trump-Iran meeting.
Yemenis claimed credit for it, Iran and Iraq said they didn't do it. First word out of US
mouth is Iran did it. The mouth I am least likely to believe is the US. I remember Iraq has
WMDs propaganda....and those it came from.
Oh well, if Iran says they did not do it.......the US govt lies. The Iranian govt lies, the
Saudis surely lie. This is not about innocents. That search is for children and mighty young
ones at that.
The Quds-1 cruise missile is a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). The remotely piloted aerial
vehicles, which are more commonly referred to as drones are also UAVs. The difference is in
the degree of autonomy in flight control. On board autonomous flight control negates the need
for LOS radio or satellite communications with the cruise missile. Cruise missiles, with
their autonomous control, were always characterized by their high degree of accuracy.
I've
started looking a little closer at the Arduino/RasberryPi and model aircraft hobbyist groups.
With the availability of affordable microcontrollers and sensors, along with the massive
library of open source software, I am convinced a hobbyist could put together a guidance
system in his garage workshop capable of doing what the Quds-1 just did in SA. I also agree
with Colonel Lang that an airframe like the Quds-1 could easily be built in war-torn Yemen. A
cave would make an outstanding workshop.
Even if Iran exported dual use components or even blue prints; it should be counted as part
of the unfortunate world weapons market & wouldn't be illegal.
Your point TTG was nicely illustrated in b's video of the Russian guy building in his
workshopa turbofan engine that flew . Providing there is a set of plans it can be constructed
and it only has to have a one time reliability.
Evidence for what delivered the strike will be found within the complex and there will be a
lot of skills on the ground looking for those answers. The projectiles that struck the
spheres looked to have had penetrating qualities rather than high explosive, putting a hole
in a pressure vessel is sufficient to destroy its usefulness. I would be interested to know
if the projectiles that struck the train were explosive to maximise damage there. Do we need
to be considering what could deliver multiple targeted projectiles or were there simply
multiple independent units or some combination as there were more strikes logged over two
target complexes than the ten delivery platforms mentioned in the Al Ansar press release. Was
there a flight controller and if so where were they located also comes to mind.
There is also the TJ200 built bij Polaris from Brazil with the following description::
"Turbine TJ200:
TJ200 was specially designed to be used in either small cruise missiles or small high
performance UAVs. The most important advantage of TJ200 engine is small diameter and a
relatively low SFC (Specific Fuel Consumption) when compared to other engines of the same
thrust, what makes TJ200 perfect to be used in long range small missiles."
http://www.polaristec.com.br/products.html
That's a pretty specific description. So there are a number of COTS engines out there.
I'd have more confidence in the reporting if I could match it up better with what I can see
in Google Maps/Earth.
The only two satellite pictures I've seen of "burning oil plants" disticntly show a large
plume of black smoke centered a little ways away from the actual refinery area, in some kind
of rectangular area outside the actual "plant". Are those wellheads burning? or adjacent
underground storage? or what?
And the pictured of a burning plant labeled "Haradh Gas Plant" is actually (according to
Google Maps & my eyeballs) the Hawiyah Gas Plant, about 60 miles NNE of Haradh.
In Google Maps/Earth, the Abqaiq facility is on the East side of the city/town of Buquaiq,
and the details match the recent pix. The plume lines up with an empty square patch of desert
at the end of a pipeline running SSE out of the plant.
I've looked all around Khurais, and haven't found anything which could possibly be the
"Oil/Gas Infrastructure at Khurais", as the pictures of the damaged facility there are
labeled.
Elkern, I was referring to the pictures of the cruise missile parts in the sand. Seems to me
they are old from previous attacks.
As far as I can tell the pics of damage at Buqaiq and Khurais are valid. With the
exception of the eleven spherical tanks, which I believe were NOT hit. But I've been wrong
before and am no expert on imagery analysis.
We know Yemen has the Quds-1 and has surprised us before with their technical capability.
Combine that with the video of Yahya Sari claiming full responsibility for the attack and I'm
not sure there is any reason to speculate about conspiracies involving other actors.
The Houthis are not an Iranian "proxy" and I highly doubt they would accept responsibility
for something they didn't do.
Moon of Alabama links some photos and has discussion that suggests very high precision
5-10 m. That is not easily achievable with commercial GPS absent a lot of additional
correction hardware. On the other hand, drones can easily do so. Further, it would be
negligent for SA not to have GPS jamming around such facilities.
In addition, the specificity of the targets hit suggests good intel. I would suspect that
Houthi's have linked with disaffected groups in SA (lots!) and improved their Humint. It
seems highly unlikely that Iran would do something like this AND leave their fingerprints
behind - at least based on recent events.
Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off
all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them
inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar
soon to prove they are responsible.
imo, the saudi's and washington are going to have to take one for the team. the team being
the global oil based world economy and all the notional value FOR THE present ONLY oil
derivatives and interest rate derivatives burdening the western banking system.... think the
insolvent deutsche bank et al.
a war on iran will do every bit as much damage or MORE to the west as it does to iran
which both russia and china can not.. will not allow to die.
israel gets a lot of press and speculation on this board as well as everywhere else for
all their conspiracies and supposed omnipotent power and control but in this writers opinion
THEY have been punching way above their actual weight for years and current reality has
exposed how feckless and puny they really are in the scheme of things.
i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if
israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations
israel is viewed as responsible for.
''i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel
were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is
viewed as responsible for.'' A Cult is a Cult regardless of it members makeup.
And Israel is looking more like a Jim Jones farm every day.
Only one tank appears to have minor sooting or scorching. As though they were emptied after
an initial strike then targeted in a second strike, but no reports of a second strike.
In the sat pic showing targets in red boxes, top square, the target appears to be smaller
spheres which do look darkened.
Several correspondents here, including Adrestia and b, seem to lack faith in an autonomous
navigation and terminal guidance system for these cruise missiles. They do not need a radio
or cell phone communication link. This could have been even without a GPS signal. Given that
the strikes appear to come from the west, the smartest route would be to fly north to the
pipelines and then east to the targets. Once the missiles are close to the target either a
visual terminal guidance system could take over or the targets are marked and the missiles'
terminal guidance systems just home in on the marked targets. The marks could be laser
illumination, small IR strobes or offset targeting devices. These offset targeting devices
are emplaced with the exact azimuth and distance to the desired target programmed into the
missiles' terminal guidance system. As I said before, we did this in the early 80s. In the
90s, I used the IR strobes. These were tiny lights snapped to the top of a 9V battery. You
could carry a dozen in your pocket. I personally like the idea of emplacing small IR strobes
on target or a set distance and azimuth from the target. The missiles could home on a spot
say due east and 100 meters from the strobe. I'm sure there are other methods I haven't
thought of yet. My educated guess is that this strike was well thought out with both
intelligence and operational support on and near the target site. Anyone who thinks the
Houthi and their Yemeni allies are incapable of planning and executing this is magnificently
ignorant.
GPS is not accurate enough for the last 10-30 feet. Another possiblity that doesn't need
any human terminal guidance could be a creative use of sensors.
Using CARVER select suitable targets. Pick something that is hot, big or fumes gas.
Then use a combination of gas-sensing, parking-sensors, heat-sensing sensors for the last
few feet.
I'm reading the manual for an FY41AP autopilot right now. About $250, made in china.
As for optical guidance, the attacks happened about 0400 - night or dawn?
This autopilot has a video link as well as autonomous and ground based control modes I think.
If the Yemenis had a guy with a transceiver near abqaiq, then maybe they could send these
things over from yemen using gps and a guy with transceiver provided terminal guidance. If
that were to happen the drones would need to be launched at set intervals.
Your last sentence is true enough as far as it goes, but also, if Israel were all
Zoroastrians (or any other group) the world would have dealt with their paranoid and
psychopathic behavior decades ago. The only reason they get away with everything is because
they are Jewish.
Bacevich in NYT op ed. Behind a paywall, here is a copy. Please do not post if it is too long or off topic
Iran Might Be America's Enemy, but Saudi Arabia Is No Friend
After last week's refinery attack, Trump should be careful about throwing America's weight
behind an unreliable "ally."
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Mr. Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Sept. 16, 2019
Image The American frigate Stark, which was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter
plane during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987. The American frigate Stark, which was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter
plane during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987.
In 1987, an Iraqi warplane attacked an American Navy frigate, the Stark, on patrol in the
Persian Gulf. Accepting Saddam Hussein's explanation that the attack, which killed 37
sailors, had been an accident, American officials promptly used the incident, which came at
the height of the Iran-Iraq war, to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. The incident provided the
impetus for what became a brief, and all but forgotten, maritime war between the United
States and Iran.
Last week, someone -- precisely who remains to be determined -- attacked two oil
refineries in Saudi Arabia. American authorities have been quick to blame Iran, and the
possibility of a violent confrontation between the two countries is once again growing.
Before making a decision on whether to pull the trigger, President Trump would do well to
reflect on that 1987 episode and its legacy.
Back then, the United States had become involved in the very bloody and seemingly
interminable Iran-Iraq war, which Hussein had instigated in 1980 by invading Iran. As that
war turned into a brutal stalemate, President Ronald Reagan and his advisers persuaded
themselves that it was in America's interests to come to Iraq's aid. Iran was the "enemy" so
Iraq became America's "friend."
After the Stark episode, American and Iranian naval forces in the Gulf began jousting, an
uneven contest that culminated in April 1988 with the virtual destruction of the Iranian
Navy.
Yet the United States gained little from this tidy victory. The principal beneficiary was
Hussein, who wasted no time in repaying Washington by invading and annexing Kuwait soon after
his war with Iran ground to a halt. Thus did America's "friend" become America's "enemy."
The encounter with Iran became a precedent-setting event and a font of illusions. Since
then, a series of administrations have indulged the fantasy that the direct or indirect
application of military power can somehow restore stability to the Gulf.
In fact, just the reverse has occurred. Instability has become chronic, with the
relationship between military policy and actual American interests in the region becoming
ever more difficult to discern.
In 2019, this now well-established penchant for armed intervention finds the United States
once more involved in a proxy conflict, this time a civil war that has ravaged Yemen since
2015. Saudi Arabia supports one side in this bloody and interminable conflict, and Iran the
other.
Under President Barack Obama and now President Trump, the United States has thrown in its
lot with Saudi Arabia, providing support comparable to what the Reagan administration gave
Saddam Hussein back in the 1980s. But American-assisted Saudi forces have exhibited no more
competence today than did American-assisted Iraqi forces back then. So the war in Yemen drags
on.
ImageSmoke billowing from one of the oil facilities hit by drone attacks on two Saudi Aramco
oil facilities in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, on Saturday.
Smoke billowing from one of the oil facilities hit by drone attacks on two Saudi Aramco oil
facilities in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, on Saturday.CreditAgence
France-Presse -- Getty Images
Concrete American interests in this conflict, which has already claimed an estimated
70,000 lives while confronting as many as 18 million with the prospect of starvation, are
negligible. Once more, as in the 1980s, the demonization of Iran has contributed to a policy
that is ill advised and arguably immoral.
I am not suggesting that Washington is supporting the wrong side in Yemen. I am
suggesting, however, that neither side deserves support. Iran may well qualify as America's
"enemy." But Saudi Arabia is not a "friend," regardless of how many billions Riyadh spends
purchasing American-manufactured weaponry and how much effort Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman invests in courting President Trump and members of his family.
The conviction, apparently widespread in American policy circles, that in the Persian Gulf
(and elsewhere) the United States is compelled to take sides, has been a source of recurring
mischief. No doubt the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a danger of
further destabilizing the Gulf. But the United States is under no obligation to underwrite
the folly of one side or the other.
Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically
shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train
a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today
in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted.
Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by
recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem.
Andrew J. Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the
author of the forthcoming "The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War
Victory."
"a war on iran will do every bit as much damage or MORE to the west as it does to iran"
And Iran has demonstrated that they can cause months worth of damage on the KSA, the UAE,
and Kuwait. I can't believe the number of Congressman who simultaneously believe that Iran
was able to glide over U.S. made air defenses without detection and also believe that we can
simply carpet bomb their refineries without any repercussion. How can one believe both things
at the same time? That Iran is responsible for a sophisticated ghost attack and that they are
incapable of retaliating in a target rich environment.
Not only did Graham say this but the loon from Maryland repeated it. These people are
insane but MSM hosts encourage it, just saw Cavuto snear at Ron Paul because he actually made
sense. We are so messed up.
use the pic released by USG of the damage to get an idea of the orientation of the incoming
projectiles, I used that rectangularish pond behind as an aid,
Everyone keeps misunderestimating the Yemenis. The Houthis are fighting as part of a coalition that includes a large part of the Yemeni
military and intelligence services. This coalition is carrying out a war under guerrilla
conditions, but that war is led by professional military men. Yemen had a serious air force
consisting mostly of missile systems before the war. Much of it was destroyed by the bombing
campaign carried out for Saudi Arabia, but the military organization survived. They have now
reconstituted the Yemeni air forces under fire and in the midst of famine, blockade and
invasion.
Stock up on popcorn, the show has only just begun.
Using my CAD and graphic tools and Google Earth along with the photo showing the four
perforated pressure tanks, I have estimated the four vectors as:
E1 280W. E2 279W, E3 281W and E4 273W. I have numbered the tanks from the most eastwards (the
furthermost away in the photo). Angles from true north (0/360 deg). This averages as 278N
with a STDEV of 3 degrees. Its almost due west. Must be very difficult for autopilots (or
real pilots) could perform more than one group-turning maneuver and still maintain final-run
accuracy to what was achieved.
p.s. I'm not specialist in this field apart from terrestrial navigation and drafting
experience.
RobW
The Czech company which produces the TJ100 does have strong links with Iran.
"2005 TPP Iranshahr Iran, the largest project in the company's history, a turnkey project
- four power plant units." But then again. Creating a crash site in the desert with some COTS components in it is
also easy to do. I would be surprised if Iran is launching missiles now. That would be pretty
stupid to do.
I know. I was attempting a comparison between the way most Americans perceive the desert
peoples and the way most Americans fail to extrapolate from their beliefs of one groups
capabilities and motivations and another group closer to home. The perfumed fops in Ryadh and
the Perfumed Princes in DC are very similar under the perfume.
I remember in the mid sixties how the "benighted" Vietnamese and VC were on their last legs,
unable to do anything militarily significant, that the war would be over in 67. This was that
generations perfumed princes attitude towards a people who had been fighting against invaders
since the 1850s. I remember 68 and the most unexpectedly successful operational and strategic
level victory by the NVA and the VC that was TET.
From an infotainment/Cronkite perspective
the important thing was that the Saigon embassy was broached. From and operational
perspective a "defeated" enemy launched several hundred simultaneous attacks all over South
Vietnam while holding down as a diversion the Dien Bien Phu look alike that was Khe San. 51
years 2 and 1/2 generations and today we make the exact same mistakes in evaluating the
current situation.
It is the benefit of being a perfumed prince or fop or neo-con that history has no meaning
because history ended sometime in the 90's. Somehow I hear the voice of a Rove lecturing:
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do."
I have seen articles over the last month or so (sorry, no links) saying that because they are
not able to send large amounts of material aid through the Saudi and U.S. Navy blockade of
Yemen, the Iranians sent blueprints and a few engineers and the Ansar Allah have been
building them in Yemen.
What looks like missile hits at identical positions on those spherical tanks are not.
They are the locations of pressure relief valvaes that blew when the towers hit, venting gas
up out and away.
I am in full agreement with your assessment Dave. I don't see any penetrations on those 11
spherical tanks. Look at the complete devastation on the three smaller spherical pressure
tanks.
Unless we get higher resolution pics that definitely show those tanks were pierced there
is no way I am going to believe those tiny scorch marks are UAV or missile hits. Much too
symmetrical! No amount of geometrical explaining of drone tracks will account for that
symmetry.
Yes indeed. Dave deserves hearty congratulations though we might add a caveat. The said
"valves" could have been blown out in advance via software or person throwing a switch
(humint or cyber component to one attack vector). Yes, tremors or shakes triggering sensor
which blows valve is possible, I suppose. But the thing that had me up at night was the
nagging sense that this was a prearranged message of sorts.
It cries out "sure, it's bad, but
it is reversible." So I had been wondering about invitation for pow-wows given UN upcoming
meeting in NY. I'm tending to lean toward an advance blowout rather than blowout in reaction
to stress. Why damage such delicate, custom equipment as those beautiful tanks? As you say,
it has to be something intrinsic/internal to the construction of the tanks. So - before or
after remains to be discussed. Assuming the pics are legitimate. But that's why I thought
especially there was a subtle message sent. If they are legit - see above. If not legit -
then it is howling reversibility or caution at the very least.
The processor trains are a linear series of stabilizer columns that help separate the sour
hydrogen sulfide gas from the crude oil. They are at the heart of the process and probably
the highest value target. They are to the left of the 11 pressure tanks in the pictures
shown, or perhaps just NNW of those tanks.
I buy the idea of HUMINT assets having collected target informatoin but the idea of
mini-strobes, etc. seems to me to be too difficult to do given the separation of the missile
force and the HUMINT assets. Very hard to coordinate.
Houthis have every reason to utilize their advanced weapons systems against Saudi targets to
bring the war to an end. As for Iran, seems they have been on a semi-successful diplomatic
campaign to counter US maximum pressure with their own maximum pressure on Europeans, Russia
and China to deliver on the economic benefits that are as important in JCPOA as the
curtailing of Iran's nuclear program.
Trump talking about meeting Rouhani in New York, Zarif
in China getting at least $50-100 billion in pledged economic support, Russia suggesting $10
billion investment in the Iranian energy sector: Why would Iran at this moment make a direct
move to turn the world fully against them? Perhaps a rogue faction of IRGC out to stop any
diplomatic action, but even that would have to come with OK from Khamenei--or there would be
strong action against the rogues.
Pressure on Trump to maintain the hardline against Iran following Bolton ouster? Pompeo
has been leading the diplomatic back channels and repeating Trump's goal of forcing Iran to
the table. Even the Saudis are for the moment hesitant to blame Iran, actually calling for a
UN investigation into the source of the attacks.
2) a general redirection of attention is achieved from 2 points:
- from Syria
In the issue of National Geographic Bulgaria of 04.2019, April 2019 number 4 (162),on p.29
there is a map of the migratory route of a bird - Ethiopia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Turkey, Bulgaria. BUT the name of Syria is missing, just an empty space within its current
borders.
Maybe, I sincerely hope not, it was just a part of a campaign of mass indoctrination - the
"former Syria" to be divided between neighbors with a US military base here and there or to
turn onto a No Man's land of lawlessness right there, flanking the EU, Russia's Muslim areas,
China's silk road etc
"The Iran did it" narrative as an attempt to keep on undermining the pro-Syrian government
coalition.
- from the temptation to mix with West's "rivals" internal issues
A strange coincidence that there was such a recent burst of "opposition" activity first in
Russia, then in China. The velvet revolution recipe of the Arabian spring, Ukraine, etc (if
it was such) didn't quite work however.
And the "empires strike back" - subtly and not so subtly. China offers for the London
stock exchange (let's not forget that the Chinese take-over of the London metal exchange went
without a fuss). Saudi Arabia next.
Maybe the message is "Just stay out of your ex-colonies"
Richard Gill, managing director of the UK company Drone Defence:
"But [drone defence is] military-grade technology and it's massively expensive. To install a
defensive system is extremely complex and the threat is evolving at such a rate that it's
very hard to keep up to date, because the adversaries change the type of technology they use
in a way that almost renders the defence moot."
The strikes, which unidentified U.S. officials have said involved at least 20 drones and
several cruise missiles, forced Saudi Arabia to shut down half its oil production capacity, or
5.7 million barrels per day of crude -- 5% of the world's global daily oil production.
The images, first obtained by The Associated Press, show that at least 19 strikes were
launched and 17 actually hit targets." CNBC
------------ --
I get a big kick out of those of you who think someone faked this attack for, what; An excuse to go to war with Iran?
An opening gambit to get the Iranians to talk to Trump at the UN? If so, that did not work.
Khamenei has said unequivocally that they are not going to talk to the US.
Mikey Pompeo is now going to travel to Saudi Arabia to see if he can jawbone the Saudis into
saying that it was undoubtedly the Iranians who done it. Would that be going on if the Saudis
had been in the plot?
So, some of you think that the Saudis blew up their own processing plant for some nefarious
reason.
Or, maybe the Izzies blew it up to start a war?Will wonders never cease? I mean you, not the attack. pl
"Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply,"
declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Putting America's credibility on the line, Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out the devastating
attack on Saudi oil facilities that halted half of the kingdom's oil production, 5.7 million
barrels a day.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump did not identify Iran as the attacking nation, but did appear,
in a tweet, to back up the secretary of state:
"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on
verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) as to who they believe
was the cause of this attack and under what terms we would proceed!"
Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have been fighting Saudi Arabia for four years and have used drones
to strike Saudi airport and oil facilities, claim they fired 10 drones from 500 kilometers away to
carry out the strikes in retaliation for Saudi air and missile attacks.
Pompeo dismissed their claim,
"There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."
But while the Houthis claim credit,
Iran denies all responsibility.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif says of Pompeo's charge, that
the U.S. has simply
replaced a policy of "maximum pressure" with a policy of "maximum deceit." Tehran is calling us
liars.
And, indeed, a direct assault on Saudi Arabia by Iran, a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack on
the Saudis' crucial oil production facility, would be an act of war requiring Saudi retaliation,
leading to a Persian Gulf war in which the United States could be forced to participate.
Tehran being behind Saturday's strike would contradict Iranian policy since the U.S. pulled out
of the nuclear deal. That policy has been to avoid a military clash with the United States and
pursue a measured response to tightening American sanctions.
U.S. and Saudi officials are investigating the sites of the attacks, the oil production facility
at Abqaiq and the Khurais oil field.
According to U.S. sources, 17 missiles or drones were fired, not the 10 the Houthis
claim, and cruise missiles may have been used. Some targets were hit on the west-northwest facing
sides, which suggests they were fired from the north, from Iran or Iraq.
But according to The New York Times, some targets were hit on the west side, pointing away from
Iraq or Iraq as the source. But as some projectiles did not explode and fragments of those that did
explode are identifiable, establishing the likely source of the attacks should be only a matter of
time. It is here that the rubber meets the road.
Given Pompeo's public accusation that Iran was behind the attack, a Trump meeting with Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani at the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering next week may be a dead
letter.
The real question now is what do the Americans do when the source of the attack is known and the
call for a commensurate response is put directly to our "locked-and-loaded" president.
If the perpetrators were the Houthis, how would Trump respond?
For the Houthis, who are native to Yemen and whose country has been attacked by the Saudis for
four years, would, under the rules of war, seem to be entitled to launch attacks on the country
attacking them.
Indeed, Congress has repeatedly sought to have Trump terminate U.S. support of the Saudi
war in Yemen.
If the attack on the Saudi oil field and oil facility at Abqaiq proves to be the work of Shiite
militia from inside Iraq, would the United States attack that militia whose numbers in Iraq have
been estimated as high as 150,000 fighters, as compared with our 5,000 troops in-country?
What about Iran itself?
If a dozen drones or missiles can do the kind of damage to the world economy as did those fired
on Saturday -- shutting down about 6% of world oil production -- imagine what a U.S.-Iran-Saudi war
would do to the world economy.
In recent decades, the U.S. has sold the Saudis hundreds of billions of dollars of military
equipment. Did our weapons sales carry a guarantee that we will also come and fight alongside the
kingdom if it gets into a war with its neighbors?
Before Trump orders any strike on Iran, would he go to Congress for authorization for his act of
war?
Sen. Lindsey Graham is already urging an attack on Iran's oil refineries to "break the
regime's back,"
while Sen. Rand Paul contends that "there's no reason the superpower of
the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran."
Divided again:
The War Party is giddy with excitement over the prospect of war
with Iran, while the nation does not want another war.
How we avoid it, however, is becoming difficult to see.
John Bolton may be gone from the West Wing, but his soul is marching on.
"... USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions... ..."
"... Strategically what this means is that after wantonly bombing and attacking woefully poor Yemen for years, rich Saudi Arabia is not capable of protecting almost the entire source of its wealth. ..."
It's Monday September 16th, 2019 and the weeks starts off like this:
GM's UAW Strike
Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production
Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME
One of Trump's White House flunky's declared "it is better if Trump does not study an
issue" before making decisions (oh yea,"Stupid is what Stupid does")
Biden and S. Warren tied in the DEM race for 2020
Piketty's new Economics tome is out
PM Netanyahu is losing his re-election bid in Israel, to be determined by tomorrow's
Election
We live in interesting times...
...the question I pose for the times is 'Are the People are better lead by businessmen,
politicians, academics, or intellectuals?
Personally, I choose to be lead by people that do the right thing long term for the People,
not the most politically expedient or the one that makes the most money in the short run or
the smartest, etc.
USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can
sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions about USA
capability. Have not yet seen any press questions in that direction.
USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can
sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions...
Strategically what this means is that after wantonly bombing and attacking woefully poor
Yemen for years, rich Saudi Arabia is not capable of protecting almost the entire source of
its wealth.
Carter suggested that instead of war, China has been investing in its own infrastructure,
mentioning that China has 18,000 miles of high-speed railroad.
"How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?"
Zero, the congregation answered.
"We have wasted I think $3 trillion," Carter said of American military spending. " It's
more than you can imagine. China has not wasted a single penny on war and that's why they're
ahead of us. In almost every way."
The Americans have gotten themselves in a real bind with their maximum pressure campaign on Iran. This latest attack on Saudi
Arabia's oil production looks like an escalation of the previous attacks on shipping and the spy drone. It is not evident how
the Americans can respond to this latest attack.
As I see it their options are:
1. To let KSA respond to the Houthi attack and continue with their campaign to shut down Iranian oil production, without any
direct U.S. response to the attack. However this will achieve nothing, as next month Iran will up pressure again with another
attack on Middle-East oil assets, and we'll be back to the same place.
2. To bomb Iran's oil industry, as Pompeo and Graham suggest. However this risks blowing up the whole Middle East, as well
as the World's oil market and their own (Western) economies.
3. Forget about Iran and move the fight to maintain U.S. global hegemony to another front: back to Venezuela? Serbia? Hong
Kong? Taiwan? However the end result of such a move would more than likely be another humuliating defeat for the U.S.
4. Do as Stephen Wertheim / New York Times suggest and sue for peace. This will end the dream of U.S. World dominance, Globalization
and the current western based financial system. The U.S. will become no more than a heavily indebted regional power in a 'Multi-polar
World Order' led by China and Russia.
As I see it, the U.S. is out of options to continue their war for global dominance. #4 is the only viable option. But, as one
author argued in a recent paper (I don't have the reference), wars continue long after the victor is clear, because the loser
can't admit defeat (at heavy additional costs to the loser). I think that this is the position that the U.S. finds itself in now.
What the attack on Saudi oil infrastructure shows us, is that now Iran has united her proxys into one united front.
While they were cautious to not leave evidence of their involvment with the Houtis before, they now are putting their support
more and more into the open.
The attack seemed to have involved not only Houti drones (already build with help from Iran), but also Iranian backed forces
in Iraq, AND pro Iranian forces in Saudi Arabia itself. And maybe even other actors.
This is a major new development. Not only for the war on Yemen, but also in the context of Iran providing a credile detterence
against US+Saudi aggression.
They excalated with increasing levels, and one wonders, what could top this last attack off.
And i am pretty sure, we will find out sooner rather than later.
@ 27
WaPo: Abqaiq . .damaged on the west-northwest sides
That's it! It was Hezbollah for sure. (not)
Actually there were two targets, the Buqaiq (Abqaiq) oil processing plant and the Khurais oil field, both in the Eastern Province.
These attacks are not the first -- from longwarjournal:
Last month, the Houthis claimed another drone operation against Saudi's Shaybah oil field near the United Arab Emirates. At
more than 1,000 miles away from it's Yemen territory, that strike marked one of the Houthis farthest claimed attacks.
The Houthis also claimed a drone strike on the Abu Dhabi airport last year, but that has been denied by Emirati officials.
Additionally, a drone strike on Saudi's East-West oil pipeline near Riyadh earlier this year, which the Houthis claimed responsibility,
was allegedly conducted by Iranian-backed Iraqi militants. If accurate, that means the Houthi claim of responsibility acted
as a type of diplomatic cover for the Iraqi militants.
Since beginning its drone program last year, the Houthis have launched at least 103 drone strikes in Yemen and Saudi Arabia
according to data compiled by FDD's Long War Journal. . .
here . . .and more
here .
Really appreciated the write up on the Houthis attack.
Sounds like the attack left substantial damage. Another bigger issue underlying all of this, aside from Saudi inability to get
what it wants now from it's IPO, is the fact that the US Patriots did not detect this attack.
The Saudis spent billions last year on this defense system. Sounds like the clown Prince better give Russians a call about their
S-400.
But the US wouldn't appreciate that much, would they?
DNC is a criminal organization and the fact that Debbie Wasserman
Schultz escaped justice is deeply regreatable.
Notable quotes:
"... The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0. ..."
"... Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed a different policy. ..."
"... The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class. But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party. ..."
"... I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place. Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party. ..."
"... As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. ..."
"... They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently damaged by immigration. ..."
"... If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their ethnicity and it's territory every time. I ..."
"... My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement. Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public. ..."
I hope that the candidate who is clearly the voters' choice, Bernie Sanders, may end up as the party's nominee. If he is, I'm
sure he'll beat Donald Trump handily, as he would have done four years ago. But I fear that the DNC's Donor Class will push Joe Biden,
Kamala Harris or even Pete Buttigieg down the throats of voters. Just as when they backed Hillary the last time around, they hope
that their anointed neoliberal will be viewed as the lesser evil for a program little different from that of the Republicans.
So Thursday's reality TV run-off is about "who's the least evil?" An honest reality show's questions would focus on "What are
you against ?" That would attract a real audience, because people are much clearer about what they're against: the vested
interests, Wall Street, the drug companies and other monopolies, the banks, landlords, corporate raiders and private-equity asset
strippers. But none of this is to be permitted on the magic island of authorized candidates (not including Tulsi Gabbard, who was
purged from further debates for having dared to mention the unmentionable).
Donald Trump as the DNC's nominee
The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing
social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial
markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0.
DNC donors favor Joe Biden, long-time senator from the credit-card and corporate-shell state of Delaware, and opportunistic California
prosecutor Kamala Harris, with a hopey-changey grab bag alternative in smooth-talking small-town Rorschach blot candidate Pete Buttigieg.
These easy victims are presented as "electable" in full knowledge that they will fail against Trump.
Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending
for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of
all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed
a different policy.
The Democratic Party's role is to protect Republicans from attack from the left, steadily following the Republican march rightward.
Claiming that this is at least in the direction of being "centrist," the Democrats present themselves as the lesser evil (which is
still evil, of course), simply as pragmatic in not letting hopes for "the perfect" (meaning moderate social democracy) block the
spirit of compromise with what is attainable, "getting things done" by cooperating across the aisle and winning Republican support.
That is what Joe Biden promises.
The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class.
But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic
column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party.
The Democratic National Committee worries that voters may disturb this alliance by nominating a left-wing reform candidate. The
DNC easily solved this problem in 2016: When Bernie Sanders intruded into its space, it the threw the election. It scheduled the
party's early defining primaries in Republican states whose voters leaned right, and packed the nominating convention with Donor
Class super-delegates.
After the dust settled, having given many party members political asthma, the DNC pretended that it was all an unfortunate political
error. But of course it was not a mistake at all. The DNC preferred to lose with Hillary than win with Bernie, whom springtime polls
showed would be the easy winner over Trump. Potential voters who didn't buy into the program either stayed home or voted green.
No votes will be cast for months, so I don't know how Mr. Hudson can say that Sanders is "clearly the voters choice." He would
be 79 on election day, well above the age when most men die, which is something that voters should seriously consider. Whoever
his VP is will probably be president before the end of Old Bernie's first term, so I hope he chooses his VP wisely.
In any case I laugh at how the media always reports that Biden, who has obviously lost more than a few brain cells, has such
a commanding lead over this field of second-raters. The voters, having much better things to do, haven't even started to pay attention
yet.
And, how could anyone seriously believe in these polls anyway? Only older people have land lines today. If calling people is
the methodology pollsters are using, then the results would be heavily skewed towards former VP Biden, whose name everyone knows.
I lost all faith in polls when the media was saying, with certainty, that Hillary was a lock to win against the insurgent Trump.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate beside Trump with charisma today. With her cool demeanor, she is certainly the least unlikeable.
She would be Trump's most formidable opponent. But the democrats, like their counterparts, are owned by Wall Street and the Military
Industrial Complex. Sadly, most democrats still believe that the party is working in their best interests, while the republicans
are the party of the rich.
If you watch the debates tonight, which I will not be, you will notice that Tulsi Gabbard won't be on stage. That is by design.
She is a leper. At least the republicans allowed Trump to be onstage in 2016, which makes them more democratic than the democrats.
Plus they didn't have Super Delegates to prevent Trump from achieving the nomination he had rightfully won. Something to think
about since the DNC, not the voters, annointed Hillary last time.
If the YouTube Oligarchs still allow it, I plan on watching the post-debate analysis with characters like Richard Spencer and
Eric Striker. Those guys are most entertaining, and have insights that are not permitted to be uttered in the controlled, mind-numbing
farce of the mainstream media.
Elizabeth Warren seems a more likely nominee than Sanders.
Elizabeth Warren is phony as phuck(PAP). Just like forked tongued Obama she's really just a tool for the neo-liberal establishment,
which does make her more likely.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place.
Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would
be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party.
As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. Many of
them may be progressives but they refuse to understand the very non-progressive consequences of mass immigration (Or, one should
say over-immigration) or globalisation more generally. The increasing defection of such individuals to the Liberal Democrats in
Britain is a fascinating example. They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently
damaged by immigration.
It is interesting to see the see-saw effect of UKip and now the Brexit party in the UK (Well, in England). With them first
drawing working class voters from Labour without increasing Conservative performance, bringing about a massive conservative majority
and now threatening to siphon voters from the Tories with the opposite effect.
But UKip and later the Brexit party almost exist through the indispensable leadership of Nigel Farage and a very specific motivating
goal of leaving the EU. I can't see a third party rising to put pressure on the mainstream parties.
If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their
ethnicity and it's territory every time. I f the centre left refuses to understand this (Something that wouldn't have been
hard for them to understand when they still drew candidates from the working classes) they will continue their slide into oblivion
as they have done across the Western world. (Excluding 2 party systems and Denmark where they do understand this)
My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment
will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal
with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population
has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement.
Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation
is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to
dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public.
The novel internet mass media outlets that allowed such unpoliced political discussion to reach mass audiences will be pacified
by whatever means and America will slide into an Italian style trans-generational malaise at a national level for some time.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
Trump is trying to change the RNC away from Globalist elites and towards Christian Populist beliefs and Main Street America.
I am some what hopeful, as the U.S. is not alone in this trajectory. There is a global tail wind that should help the GOP change
quickly enough.
The true test will be the 2024 GOP nomination. A bold choice will have to break through to keep the RNC from backsliding into
the clutches of Globalist failure.
I think Sanders could have beat Trump in 2016. This time around it is not that clear because so many of his supporters in 2016
feel burnt.
Badly burnt. Or Bernt. He threw his support for Hillary, even if it was tepid, and then got a bad case of Russiagateitis which
his base on the left really hated. His left base never bought Russiagate for a minute. We knew it was an internal leak, probably
by Seth Rich, who provided all the information to Assange. He still seems to be a strong Israel supporter even if has stood up
to Netanyahu.
And while it may seem odd, many of his base on the left have grown weary of the global climate change agenda.
He has not advocated nuclear power and there is a growing movement for that on the left, especially by those who think renewables
will not generate the power we need.
But since Sanders does seem to attract the rural and suburban vote more than any other Democrat, Sanders has a chance to chip
away at Trumps' base and win the Electoral College. Another horrible loss to rural and suburban America by the Democrats will
cost them the EC again by a substantial margin, even if they manage to pull off another popular vote win.
the republican party is as globalist as you can find,and I'm sure you will be the first one to inform us when the global
elite including those in America throw in the towel,
Some elite Globalist NeverTrumpers, such as George Will and Bill Kristol, have thrown in the towel on the GOP. This allows
their "neocon" followers to return to their roots in the war mongering Democrat Party. So it *IS* happening.
The real questions are:
-- Can it happen fast enough?
-- Can it be sustained after Donald Trump term limits out?
I'm not bold enough to say it is inevitable. All I will say is, "There are reasons to be at least mildly hopeful."
Has everyone forgot the last time the DNC openly cheated Sanders he said nothing publicly, but then endorsed Clinton? Sanders
knows he is not allowed to become president, his role to prevent the formation of a third party, and to keep the Green Party small.
Otherwise he would jump to the Green Party right now and may beat the DNC and Trump.
Sanders treats progressives like Charlie Brown. Once again, inviting them to run a kick the football, only to pull it away
and watch them fall. He recently backed off his opposition to the open borders crazies, rarely mentions cuts to military spending
to fund things, and has even joined the stupid fake russiagate bandwagon.
Note that he dismisses the third party idea as unworkable, when he already knows the DNC is unworkable. Why not give the Green
party a chance? Cause he don't want to win knowing he'd be killed or impeached for some reason.
@Carlton Meyer The
Stalinist DNC openly cheated Tulsi Gabbard when they left her off the debate stage last night. When asked about it on 'The View'
recently, Sanders said nothing in her defense, or that she deserved to be on the stage. Nice way to stab her in the back for leaving
her DNC position to support you last time, Bernie. Socialist Sanders wants to be president, yet is afraid of the DNC. Nice!
Those polls were rigged against Tulsi, and everyone who is paying attention knows it. But, far from hurting her candidacy by
not making the DNC's arbitrary cut, her exclusion may wind up helping her. Kim Iverson, Michael Tracey, and comedian Jimmy Dore,
anti-war progressive YouTubers with large, loyal followings, have lambasted the out-of touch DNC for its actions. Tucker Carlson
on the anti-war right has also done so.
One hopes that the DNC's stupidity in censoring her message may wind up being the best thing ever for Tulsi's insurgent candidacy.
We shall see. OTOH, who can trust the polls to tell us the truth of where her popularity stands.
@RadicalCenter Do you
forget about Trump's declaration that he wants the largest amount of immigration ever, as long as they come in legally? There
are no good guys in our two sclerotic monopoly parties when it comes to immigration. Since both are terrible on that topic, at
least Tulsi seems to have the anti-war principles that Trump does not.
When the ideology collapses like neoliberalism collapsed in 2008 defections and leaks from the intelligence agencies became more
prominent and higher level. Just before the USSR collapsed there were several high level officers of KGB that changed sides including
at least one general of KGB.
We can probably view Snowden and Manning as signs of similar process which started in the USA after the collapse of neoliberalism.
They suggest that loyalty to the USA in CIA or NSA is on low level not became of some external factors, but due to lack of conviction
in the sanity of the current social system in the USA (aka neoliberal society). So "protest defections" will probably continues unabated.
Of course, dealing with intelligence agencies is tricky as Snowden revelation might just be a limited revenge of CIA to NSA.
But in any case it is undisputable that while few Snowden files were published the mere fact of exfiltration of so much highly sensitive
information did some damage to military industrial complex. That makes is less pausible that he operates as CIA mole, which several
commenters below suggest.
At the same time in this interview Snowden sounds like a naive and disoriented person: " I try to keep a distance between myself
and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community." English
speaking community in Russia probably has highest in the world percentage of intelligence officers of Western countries including CIA
officers.
Another somewhat suspicious fact is that very few files that Snowden files were released. So the whole story now looks like "Too
much ado about nothing." Unlike Wikileaks that published Manning materials.
Notable quotes:
"... He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction, with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars". ..."
"... Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition. ..."
"... " An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer to an automated police officer ." - The Guardian ..."
"... You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!" ..."
"... The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device. I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . ..."
"... When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into. ..."
"... 16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of the internet's traffic. ..."
"... 3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours. ..."
"... December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. ..."
"... When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them. ..."
"... Read in Reuters that he's requested asylum in France. ..."
"... It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY doing on Trump, Cruz, and others. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community. ..."
"... What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing of the Russian people. What a loser! ..."
"... Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave. ..."
"... There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia. ..."
"... He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree. ..."
"... If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on! ..."
"... Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't deserve to be "free.". ..."
"... Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape. ..."
"... It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment... ..."
"... What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden. ..."
"... Book tour, Docudrama and T-Shirt? ..."
"... That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that. ..."
"... Can anybody name something that Snowfen revealed that wasn't common knowledge? ..."
Meeting with both
The Guardian and
Spiegel Online in Moscow as part of its promotion, the infamous whistleblower spent nearly five hours with the two media
outlets - offering a taste of what's in the book, details on his background, and his thoughts on artificial intelligence, facial
recognition, and other intelligence gathering tools coming to a dystopia near you.
While The Guardian interview is 'okay,' scroll down for the far more interesting Spiegel interview, where Snowden
goes way deeper into his cloak-and-dagger life, including thoughts on getting suicided.
First, The Guardian :
Snowden describes in detail for the first time his background, and what led him to leak details of the secret programms being
run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's secret communication headquarters,
GCHQ .
He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction,
with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars".
Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities,
such as facial and pattern recognition.
" An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer
to an automated police officer ." -
The Guardian
Snowden secretly married his partner, Lindsay Mills, two years ago in a Russian courthouse. They met when he was 22 (14 years
ago) on the internet site "Hot or Not," where he rated her a 10 out of 10 and she rated him a (generous) eight.
He freely moves around Moscow, riding the metro, visiting art galleries or the ballet, and meeting with friends in cafes and
restaurants.
The 36-year-old lives in a two-bedroom flat on the outskirts of Moscow, and derives most of his income (until now) from speaking
fees - mainly to students, civil rights activists and others abroad via video chat.
Snowden is an "indoor cat by choice," who is "happiest sitting at his computer late into the night, communicating with campaigners
and supporters."
At a training school for spies, Snowden was nicknamed "the Count" after the Sesame Street character.
The Der Spiegel interview, meanwhile, is way more interesting ... For example:
" If I Happen to Fall out of a Window, You Can Be Sure I Was Pushed. "
Meeting Edward Snwoden is pretty much exactly how children imagine the grand game of espionage is played.
But then, on Monday, there he was, standing in our room on the first floor of the Hotel Metropol, as pale and boyish-looking
as the was when the world first saw him in June 2013 . For the last six years, he has been living in Russian exile. The U.S. has
considered him to be an enemy of the state, right up there with Julian Assange, ever since he revealed, with the help of journalists,
the full scope of the surveillance system operated by the National Security Agency (NSA).
For quite some time, though, he remained silent about how he smuggled the secrets out of the country and what his personal
motivations were. -
Spiegel Online
Select excerpts via Der Spiegel (emphasis ours):
***
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Snowden, you always said: "I am not the story." But now you've written 432 pages about yourself. Why?
Edward Snowden: Because I think it's more important than ever to explain systems of mass surveillance and mass manipulation
to the public. And I can't explain how these systems came to be without explaining my role in helping to build them.
DER SPIEGEL: Wasn't it just as important four or even six years ago?
Snowden: Four years ago, Barack Obama was president. Four years ago, Boris Johnson wasn't around and the AfD ( Germany's
right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany ) was still kind of a joke. But now in 2019, no one is laughing. When you look
around the world, when you look at the rising factionalization of society, when you see this new wave of authoritarianism sweeping
over many countries: Everywhere political classes and commercial classes are realizing they can use technology to influence the world
on a new scale that was not previously available. We are seeing our systems coming under attack.
DER SPIEGEL: What systems?
Snowden: The political system, the legal system, the social system. And we have the proclivity to think that if we get rid of
the people we don't like, the problem is solved. We go: "Oh, it's Donald Trump. Oh, it's Boris Johnson. Oh, it's the Russians" But
Donald Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump is the product of the problem.
***
DER SPIEGEL: While writing, did you discover any truths about yourself that you didn't like?
Snowden: The most unflattering thing is to realize just how naïve and credulous I was and how that could make me into a
tool of systems that would use my skills for an act of global harm . The class of which I am a part of, the global technological
community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better."
***
DER SPIEGEL: Was that your motivation when you entered the world of espionage?
Snowden: Entering the world of espionage sounds so grand. I just saw an enormous landscape of opportunities because the
government in its post-9/11 spending blitz was desperate to hire anybody who had high-level technical skills and a clearance. And
I happened to have both. It was weird to be just a kid and be brought into CIA headquarters, put in charge of the entire Washington
metropolitan area's network .
DER SPIEGEL: Was it not also fascinating to be able to invade pretty much everybody's life via state-sponsored hacking?
Snowden: You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for
the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly
work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in
his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!"
***
DER SPIEGEL: You became seriously ill and fell into depression. Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?
Snowden: No! This is important for the record. I am not now, nor have I ever been suicidal. I have a philosophical objection
to the idea of suicide, and if I happen to fall out of a window, you can be sure I was pushed.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You write that you sometimes smuggled SD memory cards inside a Rubik's cube .
Snowden: The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device.
I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw
me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . And when I came out of the tunnel with
my contraband and saw one of the bored guards, I sometimes tossed the cube to him. He's like, "Oh, man, I had one of these things
when I was a kid, but you know, I could never solve it. So I just pulled the stickers off." That was exactly what I had done -- but
for different reasons.
DER SPIEGEL: You even put the SD cards into your mouth.
Snowden:When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And
then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has
less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You describe your arrival in Moscow as a walk in the park. You say you refused to cooperate with the Russian
intelligence agency FSB and they let you go. That sounds implausible to us.
Snowden: I think what explains the fact that the Russian government didn't hang me upside down my ankles and beat me with
a shock prod until secrets came out was because everyone in the world was paying attention to it. And they didn't know what to do.
They just didn't know how to handle it. I think their answer was: "Let's wait and see."
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my
life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
***
Read the rest of Der Spiegel' s interview with Edward Snowden
here .
Meanwhile, The Guardian provides an interesting 'Snowden Timeline':
Snowden's timeline
21 June 1983 Edward Joseph Snowden is born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, US.
2006-2013 Initially at the CIA, and then as a contractor for first Dell and then Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden spends years
working in cybersecurity on projects for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
20 May 2013 Edward Snowden arrives in Hong Kong, where a few days later he meets with Guardian journalists, and shares with
them a cache of top secret documents he has been downloading and storing for some time.
5 June 2013 The Guardian begins reporting the Snowden leaks, with revelations about the NSA storing the phone records of millions
of Americans, and the agency's claim its Prism programme had "direct access" to data held by Google, Facebook, Apple and other
US internet giants.
7 June 2013 The US president, Barack Obama, is forced to defend the programmes, insisting that they are adequately overseen
by the courts and Congress.
9 June 2013 Snowden goes public as the source of the leaks in a video interview.
16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications
during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of
the internet's traffic.
21 June 2013 The US files espionage charges against Snowden and requests Hong Kong detain him for extradition.
23 June 2013 Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow. Hong Kong claims that the US got Snowden's middle name wrong in documents
submitted requesting his arrest meaning they were powerless to prevent his departure.
1 July 2013 Russia reveals that Snowden has applied for asylum. He also expresses an interest in claiming asylum in several
South American nations. Eventually Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela offer permanent asylum.
3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries
refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours.
1 August 2013 After living in an airport for a month, Snowden is granted asylum in Russia.
21 August 2013 The Guardian reveals that the UK government ordered it to destroy the computer equipment used for the Snowden
documents.
December 2013 Snowden is a runner-up to Pope Francis as Time's Person of the Year, and gives Channel 4's "Alternative Christmas
Message".
May 2015 The NSA stops the bulk collection of US phone calling records that had been revealed by Snowden.
December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary
Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
January 2017 Snowden's leave to remain in Russia is extended for three more years.
June 2018 Snowden says he has no regrets about his revelations, saying: "The government and corporate sector preyed on our
ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying."
March 2019 Vanessa Rodel, who sheltered Snowden in Hong Kong, is granted asylum in Canada.
September 2019 Snowden remains living in an undisclosed location in Moscow as he prepares to publish his memoirs.
There's really no way to know that for sure if this guy is legit. If he is part of an operation, let's hope it's for something
good. When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing
did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them.
Just what this man is up to we will likely never know. These kinds of operations can take years to set up.
My guess is Snowden is the Decoy, the distraction. There is likely someone else or something else that all of this camouflages.
Things go both ways in a surveillance environment. Snowden will be exposed in time as a CIA operative. The NSA has everything
including Hillary's private emails. Obama and many in his regime were also using private email servers, and the NSA has them all.
Snowden was trying to destroy the NSA, when they are what was needed to take down the CIA, FBI, and the Deep State. I don't
like the NSA being in existence, but this will help in prosecuting the criminals.
So what is the NSA waiting for? The statute of limitations to expire? LOL. Snowden wasn't trying to do anything except educate
people on what their government is doing. You obviously hate truth and knowledge. You work for the NSA?
I don't believe a damned thing about anything published about any of the alphabet agencies - good, bad, neutral, doesn't matter
it's all clown show bs.
Any other critical thinkers notice the CIA activated their asset again finally ? A predictable programmed book really ? Just
imagine what kind of juicy already known statecraft he will reveal. Lol. America loves their confabulated mythical pseudo-hero's
& cucked political demigods full of bovine scat don't they.
The UberMensch hero who somehow miraculously survived the 'enkryptonite' where other HVT can't. Amazing. Need to hurl makes
me gag reflex & gut retch.
Snowden is still CIA and his mission was to throw the NSA under the bus.
It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the
illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY
doing on Trump, Cruz, and others.
I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with
basically the English-speaking community.
What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe
begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing
of the Russian people. What a loser!
Just how is he to know who is undercover security services and who is just plain good and interesting?
Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He
just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave.
There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually
all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is
doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia.
He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't
want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree.
If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him
a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on!
No, really, I met people there who were deep and friendly and sensitive. Lots critical of what's not right with their own society,
and yet not traitors to their country.
I agree with you vasilievich....I am looking forward to visiting Russia next spring in time for the V-Day and the Immortal
Regiment, then spend a month visiting Russian and hopefully getting to interact with Russians "on the street".
One of the differences with Russia and the "West" is that Putins hours long live "conversations" with Russians and the way
he gets his government to follow up up problems, which he himself follows up on to insure actions are taken, ensure that people
have that freedom to be critical of their own society. Such an opposite to what happens to critics in the "west"
My take on Snowden is he's basically a decent guy who did some serious damage. Was he wrong legally? Hell yes! Was he wrong
morally? Possibly. Would I put the guy in prison if I could? Yeah for about 30 days because the bottom line of what he did was
to expose **** that needed to be exposed.
It's complicated but occasionally a guy like this is needed to stir the pot.
Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought
the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't
deserve to be "free.".
There is still more and something very fishy about Snowden.....if he really did so much so called "damage" to the US why do
US authorities never mention him? Why do they never pressure Russia to send him back?
Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why
haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the
Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape.
It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the
US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment...
What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went
to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden.
That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet
is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that.
How does what I wrote translate into an integrity issue?
Been married twice, fully faithful. But at his age particularly, would not recommend it to a guy who is in an unstable situation
anyway. (not to mention the girl originally rejected him when the going got rough).
Live a little, enjoy your youth, and enjoy the infamy!
Does he mean the treat of de-dollarization? The USA military is just an the enforcement arm
of Wall Street banks.
Notable quotes:
"... "It is increasingly clear that Russia and China want to disrupt the international order by gaining a veto over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions," ..."
"It is increasingly clear that Russia and China want to disrupt the international order
by gaining a veto over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions," Esper
said, seemingly unaware of the absurd hypocrisy of his words.
@follyofwar
Agreed . she was better off absent from that snore session. They all looked weak and
pathetic. BTW, Tulsi's now gotten her 3rd qualifying poll. She'll surge back much stronger.
And maybe even smarter, if she endorses this:
That means protection against the Republican-Democratic threats to cut back Social
Security to balance the budget in the face of tax cuts for the richest One Percent and
rising Cold War military spending. This means a government strong enough to take on the
vested financial and corporate interests and prosecute Wall Street's financial crime and
corporate monopoly power.
Analogies with late Imperial Rome are by now so cliché that even your average
dullard is familiar with them. But I find that the most fascinating -- and frightening --
parallels are with another empire of more recent vintage: the Empire of Japan.
The above quote brought to my mind the political unrest in Tokyo during the 1930s. Far
from being the work of a cabal of "militarists", as postwar legend would have it, Japan's
various internecine (and often bloody) political feuds and expensive military ventures were
driven by a public heavily invested in these affairs; hoping against hope for an outlet to
vent their increasing rage over dwindling social programs and opportunities at the cost of
propping up a concurrently fattening elite class.
Analyzing events like the Ni-ni-roku jiken (2/26 Incident) can be highly
instructional for Americans seeking some manner of explanation for their present failing
political system. While it is true that this nearly successful insurrection was carried out
by ultra-nationalists, their intention was not to deny the people a voice in the running of
government with their aspiration for direct rule by the Shōwa Emperor (then as now, the
Emperor served in a quasi-religious capacity with little ability to actually govern). Rather,
they felt that parliamentary democracy was a sham that benefitted only the monied and
privileged; and that only the Emperor, as the living incarnation of the Japanese state, could
act and respond according to the sovereign will of its people. What appeared to be a desire
for authoritarianism was, in fact, the radical, ideological inversion of the Marxist concept
of a "dictatorship of the proletariat". The Shōwa Emperor, in other words, was the
instrument of effecting the will of the nation; the "Emperor of the people"
(天皇の國民 Tennō no kokumin ).
I view in a similar vein the fascination and dreams that Trump and other such figures
excite in many: The radical hope that only a leader willing to smash the system, which to all
intents and purposes appears to only serve the few, can paradoxically restore the ability of
the many to express and act. Bogged down as we are by ballooning military debt (and blood),
economic stagnation, and an ever-widening chasm between the "haves" and "have-nots", and it
becomes difficult to ignore the parallels between the US today and Japan in 1936.
This was an interesting article, but I hold no illusions about the future. There will be
no breakup of the two major parties, no viable alternatives. Things will only get worse.
I envy those in their 50s and up today -- they will likely miss out on the momentous
history that people my generation and younger will be bearing reluctant witness to.
The key question is why Trump hired Bolton in the first place, not why he was sucked...
This guy is a reckless imperialist, staunch neocon and a war criminal. No person who promoted
or voted in the Congress for Iraq war can held government or elected position. They are
compromised for the rest of their miserable lifes.
"... Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down. ..."
"... Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as whatever was most useful politically. ..."
"Carlson concluded by warning about the many other Boltons in the federal bureaucracy,
saying that "war may be a disaster for America, but for John Bolton and his fellow neocons,
it's always good business."
He went on to slam Trump's special representative for Iran and contender to replace Bolton,
Brian Hook, as an "unapologetic neocon" who "has undisguised contempt for President Trump, and
he particularly dislikes the president's nationalist foreign policy." Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Carlson hours later in a tweet, arguing that "Thirst for war
– maximum pressure – should go with the warmonger-in-chief." Reuters and
Haaretz
-------------
Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar
of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite
German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them
allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not
accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down.
Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they
developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like
Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic
campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as
whatever was most useful politically.
They are not conservative at all, not one bit. Carlson was absolutely right about that.
They despise nationalism. They despise the idea of countries. In that regard they are like
all groups who aspire to globalist dominion for their particular ideas.
As for the gory details of CIA involvement in the Chilean coup d'état of 1973,
Costa-Gavras' film "Missing" (Universal Pictures, 1982) staring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek
exposes the surreptitious U.S. involvement via CIA operatives, supportive of Pinochet's
cold-bloodied massacre of students and other innocent bystanders. Not surprisingly, the film
was removed from the U.S. market following a lawsuit against the director and Universal
Pictures by former ambassador Nathaniel Davis for defamation of character. When Davis lost his
lawsuit, the film was re-released by Universal in 2006.
The face of neoliberalism in Chile today is disheartened, reflecting deep losses for the
wealthy class as the people of the country reject Milton Friedman's neoliberal policies,
including clever tax evasion techniques by the business class. Could this be the start of a
worldwide movement against neoliberalism?
After all, Chile is the country that neoliberal advocates crowned their "newborn" in the
battle against big government, "get government off our backs," according to Milton Friedman
(and, Reagan picked up on the adage.) But, au contraire, according to the film "Missing,"
fascism took control over Chile. Is it possible that Friedman and Kissinger secretly cherished
a fascist empire, where control would be complete, disguised as "the land of individual
economic freedom?" Whatever their motives, that's what they got, and they never hesitated to
revere Chile's remarkable economic achievements, fascism and all, which is powerfully expressed
in the film "Missing," from end to end the heavy hand of fascism is ever-present.
Today is a new day as the people of Chile abandon decades of rotting neoliberal policies.
They've had enough of Milton Freidman. The people have decided that the "state" is a beneficial
partner for achievement of life's dreams. The "state" is not the menacing force of evil
preached by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
The people of Chile are embracing an anti-neoliberalistic nation/state for the first time in
over four decades. Will the world follow in their footsteps similar to the world adopting the
principles of the "Miracle of Chile" these past four decades?
As for the new way forward, it's all about student debt. Yes, student debt was the catalyst
behind Chile's repudiation of neoliberalism. In 2011 students in Chile made headlines by
launching nationwide strikes over high tuition costs that drove their families into debt (sound
familiar?) The strike lasted for eight months.
Over time, the student marches gained recognition by other like-minded organizations like
trade unions and protests of environmental degradation. According to Tasha Fairfield, an
assistant professor for the London School of Economics' Department of International
Development, the strikes were pivotal: "The student movement played a critical role in creating
political space," according to Fairfield, it "dramatically changed the political context in
Chile and helped to place the issues of Chile's extreme inequalities centrally on the national
agenda," Sebastian Rosemont, Chilean Activists Change the Rules of the Game, Foreign Policy In
Focus, Dec. 2, 2014.
Subsequently, the national election of 2013 swept the left wing into power with a huge wave
of public support, gaining strong majorities in both houses of the National Congress as well as
electing Michelle Bachelet president. The big leftward sweep came as over two thirds of the
population grew to support student demands for free university tuition.
Ever since the 2013 election, neoliberal policies have crumbled like a decrepit equestrian
statue of Pinochet, who carried the stigma of brutal criminality to, and beyond, the grave.
In stark contrast to 40 years ago, today, when students, armed with only stones clashed with
police equipped with full regalia of riot gear, tear gas, and armored vehicles, the harsh
police activity drew heavy international criticism. That, combined with more than two-thirds of
the population in support of the student movement, led to a new politics, Nueva Mayoria (New
Majority), a center-left coalition made up of Bachelet's Socialist Party, the Christian
Democratic Party, and the Party for Democracy.
Whereupon, Nueva Mayoria, turning up its nose to neoliberalism, raised corporate taxes from
20 percent to 25 percent and closed tax loopholes for companies and wealthy business owners.
Those changes added $8.3 billion annually to government coffers, thus, serving as a source of
funds to provide free education to all Chileans by 2020, as well as improved health care, and
including a roll back of the for-profit schools that emerged under Pinochet's dictatorship,
which is another neoliberal fascination, witness the U.S. for-profit schools listed on the New
York Stock Exchange honestly, what's with that? In order to achieve success, the new Chilean
politics astutely employed a key tactical move by applying the corporate tax hikes to only the
largest corporations. As a result, nearly 95% of businesses are not be affected by higher
taxation. This, in fact, served to secure a broad base of support for the new politics by
having those who can afford to pay Pay.
Along those same lines, the new government removed a tax dodge employed by large business
owners that allowed them to mostly escape taxes on $270 billion of profits (similar to the U.S.
15% "carried interest" for private equity entities, e.g., Mitt Romney's 15% tax rate).
Thus, it's little wonder that public backlash is challenging neoliberalism, especially
considering the conditions throughout the Pinochet regime, as described in the meticulously
structured documentary film, "The Pinochet Case," (Icarus Films, 2002), which opens with scenes
of ordinary Chileans scouring the desert for the remains of family members who were tortured
and killed decades previous.
Chile, "The Babe of Neoliberalism," came to life as an experiment for the "Chicago School"
of economic thought. It worked. Today neoliberal theory rules the world, laissez-faire
capitalism as practiced from China to the United States, privatization, open markets, slash
government, and deregulation, in short, "whatever works best for profits works best for
society." But, does it?
Forty years of neoliberal thought and practice has changed the world's socio-economic
landscape, but it only really, truly works for the same class of people today as it did 800
years ago for the nobility of the Middle Ages.
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at [email protected] .
Ukraine is mainly the result of attempt of the USA to encircle Russia well as EU design for economic
Drang nach Osten -- attempt to displace Russia in xUSSR
republics.
So they pushed Ukraine into the pat that Baltic republic were already known for.
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine's newly elected comedian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the prisoner exchange a "first step" in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine, which has killed an estimated 13,000 civilians. ..."
"... In a subsequent referendum, 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine voted for independence, which the new government of Petro Poroshenko government did not accept. ..."
"... She told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in a telephone conversation that was tapped and later leaked that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, neoliberal head of the "Fatherland" Party, should be Prime Minister as he was thought to have the "economic" and "governing experience." ..."
"... Nuland further revealed that the U.S. had invested over $5 billion in "democracy promotion" in Ukraine since 1991 through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was carrying on the kind of work previously undertaken by the CIA during the Cold War. ..."
"... NED president Carl Gershman called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step towards toppling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself." ..."
"... To help achieve this end, the Obama administration pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to the post-coup government in Ukraine, which Putin considered as the "ideological heirs of [Stephen] Bandera, Hitler's accomplice in World War II." ..."
"... Swayed by a slick lobbying campaign backed by supporters of the Afghan mujahidin in the 1980s looking for a new cause and by the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, the Obama administration further provided nearly $600 million in security assistance to the Ukrainian military. ..."
"... American military advisers embedded in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided rocket propelled grenades, carried out training exercises and planned military operations including with members of the fascist Azov battalion, which had Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patches emblazoned on their sleeves. ..."
On Saturday September 7, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a prisoner swap which has brought
hope of improved relations between the two countries and an end to the 5-year long conflict in
Eastern Ukraine.
A peace accord is being planned for later this month in Normandy involving Ukraine, Russia,
France and Germany.
Ukraine's newly elected comedian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the prisoner exchange a
"first step" in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine, which has killed an estimated 13,000
civilians.
The Ukraine War remains largely unknown to the American public even though the United States
has had a great stake in it.
The war started after a coup d'états in Ukraine in February 2014, which overthrew the
democratically elected pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovuch.
In a subsequent referendum, 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine voted for
independence, which the new government of Petro Poroshenko government did not accept.
The United States was a heavy backer of the coup and dirty war that unfolded in the
East.
Victoria Nuland, the head of the State Department's European desk, traveled to Ukraine three
times during the protests that triggered the coup, handing out cookies to demonstrators.
She told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in a telephone conversation that was tapped and
later leaked that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, neoliberal head of the "Fatherland" Party, should be Prime
Minister as he was thought to have the "economic" and "governing experience."
Nuland further revealed that the U.S. had invested over $5 billion in "democracy promotion"
in Ukraine since 1991 through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was carrying on
the kind of work previously undertaken by the CIA during the Cold War.
Ukraine has long been considered an important bridge between Eastern and Western Europe and
holds lucrative oil and gas deposits.
NED president Carl Gershman called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step
towards toppling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who "may find himself on the losing end not
just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."
To help achieve this end, the Obama administration pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to
the post-coup government in Ukraine, which Putin considered as the "ideological heirs of
[Stephen] Bandera, Hitler's accomplice in World War II."
Swayed by a slick lobbying campaign backed by supporters of the Afghan mujahidin in the
1980s looking for a new cause and by the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, the Obama administration
further provided nearly $600 million in security assistance to the Ukrainian military.
It was supplied with counter-artillery radars, anti-tank systems, armored vehicles and
drones in a policy expanded upon by Trump.
Before and after the Ukrainian military's campaign began, Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA
Director John Brennan, and Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev, followed by a flow of senior
Pentagon officials.
A back-door arms pipeline was set up through the United Arab Emirates and Blackwater
mercenaries were allegedly deployed.
American military advisers embedded in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided rocket
propelled grenades, carried out training exercises and planned military operations including
with members of the fascist Azov battalion, which had Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patches
emblazoned on their sleeves.
Obama's National Security adviser, Samantha Power, claimed that the [Ukrainian] governments
"response [to alleged provocations by eastern rebels] [was] reasonable, it is proportional, and
frankly it is what any of our countries would have done."
The Ukrainian military and allied warlord and neo-Nazi militias were not acting reasonably
or proportionally, however, when they carried out artillery and air attacks on cities and
struck residential buildings, shopping malls, parks, schools, hospitals and orphanages in
Eastern Ukraine, and tortured and executed POWs in what amounted to clear war crimes.
NYU Professor Stephen Cohen notes that even TheNew York Times , which mainly
deleted atrocities from its coverage, described survivors in Slovyansk living "as if in the
Middle Ages."
That the American public knows nothing of these events is a sad reflection of the
superficiality of our media and decline in the quality of international news coverage.
It is also a testament to the failing of the political left, which has embraced the cause of
immigrant and Palestinian rights and fighting climate change, legitimately, but neglected the
plight of the Eastern Ukrainian people. Join the debate on
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"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference,
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual
cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though
there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for
inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.
(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --
The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace,
who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the
Progressive Party.
After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's
role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with
partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom
from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.
That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being
fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and
France give up their colonies at the end of the war.
In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation.
In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in
war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and
by such means as we see fit."
Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there
must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been
corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign
relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed
from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.
-- - Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without
political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high
"the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key
policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance
of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."
--
Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that
is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who
can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions
and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.
Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the
South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many
other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for
a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions
and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the
dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new
synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan
for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and
science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American
and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment
China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global
investment banks to ravish.
-- The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing
its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying
on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with
nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.
Thanks to Mattis and company, Trump's purported desire to withdraw from fruitless Middle
Eastern wars has been stifled, the result being business as usual for the
military-industrial-complex and national security state. And why not? Since resigning his post,
Mattis has burst through the "revolving door" of the arms industry,
reclaiming his seat on the board of the fifth largest defense contractor, General Dynamics.
Albert Einstein famously (and perhaps apocryphally) said , "The definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." He might just as
easily have been describing the career of James Mattis, who has been proven wrong again and
again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria.
You have to be mad to let them rope you into that system for so long and so deep. Go and
join up, shoot a few people so you have something to brag about in the pub, but leave early
so the killing frenzies do not define you.
Tribalism is what he calls it? It's the minions pushing back America's policies and
monopolies. Costly for Americans, deadly slavery for others!
The irony of the Bush administration demanding unquestioning obedience following 9/11, in
the name of defending American freedom and democracy, is not lost on my students. Many openly
recognize the danger of the proto-fascistic value system that demands unqualified, blind
support for political leaders and their war agenda, without any consideration of the dangers
involved in an infinite war conducted in country after country, with little concern for the
humanitarian consequences.
One benefit of the intellectual curiosity of young Americans today is it translates into a
willingness to seriously consider the motives of the 9/11 attackers. This curiosity barely
existed in the days and years after September 11. Sure, Americans purchased books about the
Middle East and Islam in rising numbers post-9/11. But I can't remember a single person that I
spoke to in my years of studying U.S. foreign policy who bothered to actually read an interview
with Osama Bin Laden. Had they done so, they would have discovered that his and his comrades'
ideology, while fanatical and extreme, was also driven by serious grievances against the United
States that are shared by majorities in Muslim countries. These include: anger at U.S. military
support for Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestine; bitterness over U.S. military bases
throughout the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia; opposition to U.S. support for
authoritarian regimes in the region; and disgust with the U.S. in the wake of the 1991 Iraq war
and subsequent sanctions, which caused the deaths of an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children.
War fatigue became a staple of American politics in the late 2000s and 2010s, as most
Americans came to see the Iraq war as immoral and not worthy of the cost in finances, lives,
and blood, and considering the lies for war regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction and fictitious ties to Al Qaeda terrorism. Many young Americans seem to share this
war fatigue today, even if they weren't closely following American politics during the
2000s.
Having been exposed to the words of Osama Bin Laden, my students also understand just how
dangerous the onset of the "War on Terror" was, in a conflict which Bin Laden coldly and
diabolically sought to draw the U.S. into destructive wars in the Middle East, in order to
achieve a "balance of terror" on both sides, defined by vicious acts of destruction against
civilian populations by both the U.S. military and Islamic fundamentalists.
"... The Inteligence elite mistake their power over people -- and the unspeakable sums of money that are flooded into their agencies -- for success. As you might imagine, that has spelled disaster where ever in the world that they operate. God help the society where they gain the upper hand. Like in the United States, for example. Their minds are broken beyond repair because reality actively lies to them. ..."
Court: FBI Must Destroy Memos Calling Antiwar.com a Threat
Ruling comes after a eight-year battle over secret surveillance of the popular website after
9/11.
By KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS • September 12, 2019
In a major victory for Antiwar.com, free speech and journalism, a federal appeals court has
ruled that the FBI must expunge surveillance memos that agents had drafted about the website's
co-founders Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo in the early years following the 9/11 attacks.
"It's been a long fight and I'm glad we had an outcome that could might affect future FBI
behavior," said Garris, who runs Antiwar.com, based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I just wish
Justin was still here to know that this has happened."
Raimondo, 67, passed away in June from a long bout with cancer. He and Garris had sued the
FBI in 2013 demanding it turn over all the memos and records it was keeping on the two men and
the website, which has been promoting anti-interventionist news and views from a
libertarian-conservative perspective since 1995
They won their case, and in 2017 the FBI agreed to turn over all the memos and settle their
legal fees, $299,000, but the final expungement of two key memos involving intelligence
gathered on the men and Antiwar.com, had yet to be expunged from the agency's record...
It all began when an observant reader brought a heavily redacted 2004 memo to Antiwar.com's
attention in 2011. It was part of a batch of documents the reader had obtained through FOIA
requests. It was clear from the documents' contents that the FBI had been collecting
information and records on Raimondo and Garris for some time. At one point the FBI agent
writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in
the form of opening a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in,
or have engaged in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."
Why? Because the website was questioning U.S. war policy ...
Agents noted that Antiwar.com had, or linked to, published counter-terrorism watch lists
(already in the public domain). The FBI noted at least two of Raimondo's columns and wondered
openly, "who are (Antiwar.com's) contributors and what are the funds utilized for?" This, after
acknowledging there was no evidence of any crime being plotted or committed.
Other things noted in the documents::
-- Garris had passed along a threat he received on Sept. 12, 2001 from a Antiwar.com reader
obviously disgruntled with the website's coverage of 9/11. The subject line read, "YOUR SITE IS
GOING DOWN," and proceeded with this missive: "Be warned assholes, ill be posting your site
address to all the hack boards tonight your site is history."
Concerned, Garris forwarded the email to the FBI field office in San Francisco. Garris heard
nothing, but by January 2002, it turned up again, completely twisted around, in a secret FBI
memo entitled, "A THREAT BY GARRIS TO HACK FBI WEBSITE."
It turns out this "threat" went on to justify, at least in part, the FBI's ongoing interest
in monitoring the website.
-- The FBI took interest in Raimondo's writing about a 2001 FBI investigation of five
Israeli nationals who were witnessed smiling and celebrating and taking pictures of the burning
Twin Towers from a rooftop perch across the river from Manhattan in Union City, New Jersey, on
9/11. After witnesses called the police, the individuals, who all worked for a local moving
company, were taken into custody and grilled by FBI and CIA for two months after it was deemed
their work visas had expired. They were eventually deported without charge.
Raimondo, in writing about the case in 2002, linked to an American-generated terror
watchlist (which had been published elsewhere on the Internet) that went out to Italian
financial institutions and included the name of the man who owned the New Jersey moving company
in question.
-- The FBI noted Antiwar.com was cited in an article, the name of the author redacted, about
U.S aid to Israel.
-- They also noted that Raimondo had appeared on MSNBC to talk about his opposition to the
Iraq War.
-- It also cited an article that listed Antiwar.com as a reference was handed out in 2002 at
a "peaceful protest" at a British air base in the U.K.
-- The FBI was watching a member of a domestic neo-Nazi group who had "discussed a website,
Antiwar.com" while encouraging fellow members at a conference to "educate themselves" about the
Middle East conflict.
-- The agency said a special agent's review of hard drives seized during an investigation of
an unnamed subject, revealed that the subject had visited Antiwar.com between July 25, 2002 and
June 15, 2003, "among many other websites."
The FBI acknowledged it searched the Web, as well as Lexis-Nexis, the Universal Index (FBI
central records), the agency's Electronic Case File, Department of Motor Vehicles and Dunn
& Bradsheet (credit reports) for information on Antiwar.com and for "one or more
individuals" working for the website.
Looking back, it's hard to fathom how such tiny (Constitutionally protected) crumbs led the
FBI to the conclusion that Garris and Raimondo, two dedicated activists (Raimondo was also a
prolific author) with decades of time in California's political trenches, might be a "threat to
national security," but there you are...
The case decided on Wednesday revolved around two remaining memos that the FBI had so far
refused to expunge. One involved the call Garris made to the FBI in 2002. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Northern California found that the government did not have a
compelling law enforcement reason to keep them.
"Maintenance of a record that describes only First Amendment activity and does not implicate
national security is not pertinent to the FBI's authorized activities," the court
concluded...
Garris said he was relieved and elated that the court was able to end this ugly chapter for
the website...
Not to mention that casual erasures of any part of the Bill of Rights by government are
frickin' scary, as are casual acceptance and rationalization of same by ordinary Americans
(and/or those seeming like ordinary Americans).
In his memoir, True Compass , Ted Kennedy said that LBJ told him that LBJ considered
the FBI culpable in the assassination of JFK, in that the FBI had had its eye on Oswald and
considered him dangerous, but never warned the Secret Service.
Many years later, we have failures by the FBI and CIA to coordinate and act upon intel
involved in 911. They did nothing about reports from citizens of the suspicious activities of
the Saudi assassins while the assassins were in the US, such as taking flying lessons, but
saying they didn't need to learn how to land. Moreover, the FBI and CIA had months of Arab
conversations awaiting translation because of a shortage of translators cause by the FBI's and
CIA's unwillingess to use Arab translators.
Then we have two warnings, not from ordinary citizens, but from the Russian government, that
the Tsarnaevs were a threat. Now, that alone sure sounds to me like probable cause for
surveillance. However, the FBI interviewed them and supposedly was unable to justify doing
anything else.
So, we have culpability in a Presidential assassination AND two terrorist attacks. And that
certainly can't be all before and after 1960. For instance, speaking of JFK, there was the Bay
of Pigs fiasco. On the bright side, that taught JFK to squint at the CIA and the military,
which, in turn, may have avoided nuclear disaster over the Cuban missile "crisis." (When we
place missiles somewhere, it's defense on our part and a deterrent; when another nation,
especially Russia, does the same, it's casus belli , unless some brilliant politicians
can scale it "all the way down" to a "crisis" or a "national emergency." Our hypocrisy
sickens.
BTW, according to the memoir, JFK was questioning our Vietnam involvement and Bobby Kennedy
had flat out become convinced that bombing should stop immediately and peace negotiations
should begin. He volunteered to negotiate the peace himself, but LBJ refused. So, that's
another thing Bobby and Jack had in common. (Interestingly to me, by Ted's own account, he was
the last of the three Kennedy brothers to lose support for the Vietnam War!)
The socially destructive solutions designed by the Intelligence Communities since the
mid-20th century are paying off in one way:
There is now a copious amount of research and data, that once harnessed and put to work,
will clearly demonstrate without doubt how tragic and destructive their outcomes have been.
They have accomplished precisely the opposite of the goal they were reaching for. For example,
apply their social engineering to reduce the number of terrorists in a region, and in less than
a decade the region will be overrun with terrorists.
Use their strategic genius to stop the flow of drugs from hot-spots of the world, and in
another decade, much of the world will be saturated with illegal drugs.
Humanity throughout the world are the losers, and they pay dearly for the blindness of
Nazi-mentored techniques and strategies that are embraced by intelligence agencies and military
intelligence. In the long term, they are bringers of chaos.
The nazis always lose. Ever since we brought them to America after World War II to teach us
their techniques -- the US has lost every war it attempted. The effects of this influence has
turned America into a prison complex.
The Inteligence elite mistake their power over people -- and the unspeakable sums of
money that are flooded into their agencies -- for success. As you might imagine, that has
spelled disaster where ever in the world that they operate. God help the society where they
gain the upper hand. Like in the United States, for example. Their minds are broken beyond
repair because reality actively lies to them.
If you ask them to send a rocket to the moon, they'll wait until the full moon is directly
overhead, then fire the rocket. They are void of subtlety. The failure will be classified and
forgotten.
We need Taoist leaders if we want to solve real world problems.
"Support and attend the People's Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the
Planet, September 20 through 23, in New York City. Christian liberationist intellectual
Cornel West and Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice,
Peace and Reparations will speak, and much of the Black Agenda Report team are
participating.
Iran sanction and the threat of war has nothing to do with its nuclear program. It is about
the USA and by extension Israel dominance in the region. and defencing interesting of MIC, against the interest of general public.
Which is the main task of neocons, as lobbyists for MIC (please understand that MIC includes intelligence agencies and large
part of Wall Street) .
That's why Israel lobby ( and Bloomberg is a part of it ) supports strangulation Iran economy, Iran war and pushes Trump administration into it.
the demand " Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear
activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist
groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy" is as close to Netanyahu position as we can
get.
Notable quotes:
"... The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran ..."
"... As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield. ..."
"... They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons. ..."
"... Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end ..."
The
Bloomberg editors
urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran:
Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination
of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its
ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in
exchange for readmission into the world economy.
This chance may never come again.
Bloomberg's latest advice to Trump on Iran is terrible as usual, but it is a useful window
into how anti-Iran hard-liners see things. They see the next year as their best chance to push
for their maximalist demands, and they fear the possibility that Trump might settle for
something short of their absurd wish list. If Trump does what they want and "holds out" until
Iran capitulates, he will be waiting a long time. He has nothing to show for his policy except
increased tensions and impoverished and dying Iranians, and this would guarantee more of the
same. The funny thing is that the "extended sunset" they deride is already an unrealistic goal,
and they insist that the president pursue a much more ambitious set of goals that have
absolutely no chance of being reached. As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests
of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them
to yield.
The Bloomberg editorial is ridiculous in many ways, but just one more example will suffice.
At one point it says, "Nor is there any doubt that Iran wants nuclear weapons." Perhaps
ideologues and fanatics have no doubt about this, but it isn't true. If Iran wanted nuclear
weapons, they could have pursued and acquired them by now. They gave up that pursuit and agreed
to the most stringent nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated to prove that they wouldn't
seek these weapons, but the Trump administration chose to punish them for their cooperation.
Iran has not done any of the things that actual rogue nuclear weapons states have done. They
have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the
Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels
needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons.
Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will
continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but
fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners
aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder
to justify punitive measures against Iran without end.
They don't want to resolve the crisis
with Iran, but rather hope to make it permanent by setting goals that can't possibly be reached
and insisting that sanctions remain in place forever.
The problem is not Bolton. It is Trump. Bolton is a well known neocon, who pushed for Iraq
war (which makes his a war criminal) and founded PNAC. So his credentials as a warmonger were
clear. He was/is a typical MIC prostitute, or agent of influence in more politically correct
terms.
But any President who hired Bolton deliberately ositioned himself as a wrecking ball. Such an
art of the deal. Hiring Bolton to a large extent justified Russiagate, because such a President
is clear and present danger for the USA as a country. For the physical existence of this country
and civilization on this territory. All bets for a realistic foreign policy are off. They are
just wishful thinking.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton would rather blow up Iran than talk to its leaders, engagement Trump has said numerous times he is more than happy to consider (maybe as soon as next week's U.N. General Assembly meeting). ..."
"... On Venezuela, Trump seems to have soured on pushing Nicolás Maduro from power, even as Bolton refers to Caracas as part of the "troika of tyranny." Bolton's obsession with getting North Korea denuclearized in one fell swoop -- an approach that came crashing down on Trump's head during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February -- is far more likely to lead to an end of diplomacy than an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (an uphill climb if there ever was one). ..."
"... Bolton, prickly as a porcupine in dealing with colleagues, had long been under Trump's skin. NBC News reports that the two men had a shouting match behind closed doors the night before Bolton's resignation. ..."
"... Whatever finally pushed Bolton out the door, however, is far less relevant than where Trump goes from here. He will announce a new national security adviser next week, and the Washington parlor game is already swirling with names. ..."
"... We don't know who Bolton's replacement will be, but we do know what he or she needs to do: dump most of the previous regime's ideas in the garbage and start over with strategies that actually have a chance at success. ..."
"... Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in a pragmatic negotiation and be prepared for uncomfortable but necessary bargaining. He needs someone who will help him end wars -- like the 18-year-long quagmire in Afghanistan -- that have gone on aimlessly and without purpose. ..."
Bolton's is an extreme black-and-white view of the world: if you aren't an ally of the
United States, you are an adversary who needs a boot on your neck in the form of U.S. military
force or economic sanctions. The second- and third-order strategic consequences are no obstacle
in Bolton's mind. Why go through the humiliating spectacle of negotiations when you can simply
bomb Iran's
nuclear facilities or take out the Kim regime by
force ?
Diplomacy, after all, is for wimps, spineless State Department bureaucrats, and appeasers.
If the boss is insisting on diplomacy, then demand the moon, stars, and
everything in between before offering a nickel of sanctions relief.
This is how John Bolton made his career: as the proverbial wrecking ball of arms control
agreements -- and indeed agreements of any kind. And he makes no excuses for it. Indeed, he
takes prideful ownership of his views, seeing anyone who disagrees with him or who isn't on his
level as a weasel. Before Bolton joined the Trump administration as national security adviser,
he was the short-lived ambassador to the United Nations and the undersecretary of state for
arms control, where he attempted to get an intelligence analyst removed
for disagreeing with his position on Cuba's alleged biological weapons program.
All of this is why so many of us were worried and confused when President Trump asked Bolton
to serve as his national security adviser last year. The two men could not have more
fundamental disagreements on foreign policy. While both laugh at the U.N. and international
organizations more broadly, they diverge paths on some of the weightiest issues on the docket.
Bolton would rather blow up Iran than talk to its leaders, engagement Trump has said
numerous times he is more than happy to consider (maybe as soon as next week's U.N. General
Assembly meeting).
On Venezuela, Trump seems to have soured on pushing Nicolás Maduro from power,
even as Bolton refers to Caracas as part of the "troika of tyranny." Bolton's obsession with
getting North Korea denuclearized in one fell swoop -- an approach that came crashing down on
Trump's head during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February -- is far more likely to
lead to an end of diplomacy than an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (an uphill climb
if there ever was one).
Trump grew tired of Bolton the same way he grew tired of other staffers. Rex Tillerson,
James Mattis, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly were all liked by the
president at one time, only to be fired or convinced to resign. Bolton, prickly as a
porcupine in dealing with colleagues, had long been under Trump's skin. NBC News reports that
the two men had a shouting match behind closed doors the night before Bolton's
resignation.
Whatever finally pushed Bolton out the door, however, is far less relevant than where
Trump goes from here. He will announce a new national security adviser next week, and the
Washington parlor game is already swirling with names.
We don't know who Bolton's replacement will be, but we do know what he or she needs to
do: dump most of the previous regime's ideas in the garbage and start over with strategies that
actually have a chance at success.
Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in a pragmatic negotiation and be
prepared for uncomfortable but necessary bargaining. He needs someone who will help him end
wars -- like the 18-year-long quagmire in Afghanistan -- that have gone on aimlessly and
without purpose.
He needs someone who will hold those within the administration accountable when they refuse
to execute policy once it is cleared by the inter-agency. And above all, he or she should prize
restraint and think through all the options when the Beltway loudly urges immediate action.
All of this will be easier with Bolton off the team.
Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters, and a frequent
contributor to The American Conservative.
This is all false. The goal was establish military bases in former soviet republics to encircle Russia and this goal was
achieved. Putin was probably not so wise giving 100% support to Bush invasion, which was a typical false flag invasion.
Taliban was the creation of the USA to fight Soviets, like political Islam in general so any complains are just pure
hypocity.
Notable quotes:
"... Afghanistan borders China. For that reason alone, we are never leaving whatever the cost in blood or treasure. The country is a very forward, strategic military base that can be used to launch air attacks on Chinese assets and impede China's Belt and Road initiative. ..."
"... Despite his bluster, Trump is very weak and knows the Taliban is winning and fears they will try to drive us out before the election, ushering in his defeat. Most of his time is spent cowering in his golf resorts, ranting and raving on a tiny little cellphone. ..."
"... The Blob will not allow any of his fears to shake the resolve of the Deep State to make Afghanistan a colony for a thousand years. ..."
"... American's negotiating position in every instances with rival nations is to dictate the terms for surrender regardless of the circumstances on the ground. It's an untenable position and guarantees perpetual war and occupation which is precisely the point. ..."
"... It seems to me that if one parsed reports from the Special Inspector General Afghanistan Reconstruction along with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's "Afghanistan Opium Survey", any illusions as to what the reasons for the West's intervention in that country were, should dissipate rather speedily. ..."
"... we invaded Afghanistan so that we could steal the foreign aid money that we would give them and could sponsor the opium trade. ..."
"... Gramsci and his like stand vindicated. Capture the academies and the rest of us follow, often willingly. ..."
"... And just a few, of those in the public eye, standing up true and declaring "This emperor has no clothes!" ..."
Where we are now in Afghanistan- Editorial Opinion by PL
(Lt. Hamilton VC at Kabul where he commanded Sir Louis Cavangnari's escort)
A year or so after the US intervention in Afghanistan began in 2001 I perceived that there
was a danger that US public and government opinion might begin to favor the idea of "nation
building" in Afghanistan. From long experience in and study of the area of Islamicate
civilization and its history it seemed clear to me that such an effort would be doomed to
failure at any price that one should be willing to pay in; expended effort over time, money and
blood shed on all sides.
The basic problem with Afghanistan is that there "is no there there." Afghanistan is really
a geographical expression rather than a country in the sense understood of the word in the
post-Westphalian system of independent states.
Across the Islamicate world from Mauritania to BanglaDesh and beyond to Oceania there is a
pronounced tendency to atomization in group perception of identity. Arabs do not identify with
Berbers, etc., Tribes and clans within these groups regard all others as rivals and often
enemies unless they are needed as temporary allies.
The Islamic religion which holds unity to be an ideal is often thought to be a unifier
against the atomizing tendency in these cultures, but in fact there are many, many varieties of
Islam, each one believing that it is uniquely favored by God. This often cancels out whatever
unifying effect Islam, as religion, can have.
Afghanistan, created as a buffer between imperial Russia and British India, is an extreme
case of atomization among the inhabitants of a state which has recognition in the world
political system including membership in the UN. In spite of that status , a status that might
deceive one into believing that there is such a thing as "the Afghan People,"the population of
Afghanistan is actually made up of a number of different ethnic nations; Pushtuns, Hazzara,
Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turcomans, Arabs, etc. These different peoples all speak mutually
unintelligible languages which often have such extreme separation in dialect that this amounts
to uninteligibility as well. Some of these groups are Sunni and others Shia. This is yet
another factor in the separation of the segments of the population.
The country has little substantial physical infrastructure. What there is was largely
constructed in the 50s and 60s as part of Cold War competition between the USSR and the US.
There is very little legal or governmental infrastructure. A commercial company investing its
own or borrowed money in Afghanistan is taking a great risk of never being able to recover its
investment from the local "pirates." Government is generally predatory in its attitude toward
foreign investment funds. I tried to find a safe haven in Afghanistan for some of my company's
funds and could find none. Senior Afghan government people would typically respond to questions
about legal infrastructure with exhortations to "bring your project, all will be well."
Needless to say ...
US intervention in this place was inevitable after 9/11, but what was not necessary or wise
were repeated US decisions for a COIN nation building campaign. As this tendency began to be
evident I argued for a much more limited goal in which the US would keep about 20K troops in
country to maintain a government controlled enclave around Kabul and Bagram. This would enable
pursuit of located international terrorist groups through raiding operations from that base
area. The basis for this strategy was my conclusion that the US could never "pacify" all of the
territory of Afghanistan and that we would "break our teeth" trying.
I pressed this belief in various fora and with various individuals within the Obama
Administration even as Obama endlessly contemplated the entreaties of the COINista generals,
Petraeus, Mattis, McChrystal etc. for a country wide nation building COIN campaign. The most
interesting of these encounters was at an IQ2 debate at NYU in 2009 where I (and teammates)
argued that "The US can never win in Afghanistan." My side lost on points but the leader of the
other team recently told me that he knows now that we were completely correct. Obama gave in to
the generals, and gave them the COIN war that they wanted. I suppose that for "Barry" it was
immensely flattering to have them "butter him up."
It is clear now that the COIN strategy has failed miserable and totally. Afghanistan is not
one bit more united or modernized than it has ever been. The US has spent a sea of money there
and many brave people have perished or been wrecked in chasing the idea of Afghanistan as a
Central Asian Switzerland.
Trump has allowed Zalmai Khalilzad to attempt to achieve a negotiated peace with the
Taliban, the former salafi takfiri, Pushtun rulers of Afghanistan, in the apparent belief that
they could be "talked down out of the tree" just as his business competitors could always be
talked down to meet at a "closing" table where his supposed "closing genius' would bring a
DEAL.
Unfortunately this belief in his closing talent goes unrewarded in Palestine, Syria,
Turkey,Yemen, Iran, China (not yet), North Korea and Afghanistan. IMO his difficulty in finding
solutions lies in his entrapment within his own New York City business model, a model in which
everything is for sale if the deal is structured skillfully to advantage the stronger party
while all the while claiming that the party you are screwing is your friend.
Sadly for The Donald all those "stupid" foreigners do not understand that "everything is for
sale." Among them, the Taliban, an army and religio-political movement are notable for a lack
of belief in the commercial possibilities of selling out to Donald Trump for a "mess of
pottage" or thirty pieces of silver whichever reference you prefer. They want to win, and they
want to be seen to have driven the "crusaders" from Afghanistan and in the process to have
humiliated the US as the leading infidel state. To that end they lie, prevaricate and await the
day when they can crush the puny forces of "modernism" after the American departure. Zalmai
Khalilzad is an Afghan pushtun Sunni by birth and rearing. Did he not know that they could not
be trusted in dealings with the US? I do not blame the Taliban for being what they are. I blame
all the American and NATO fools for believing that they could make the Taliban either go away
or become "happy campers." They were never going to do either of those things. We should have
known that. Some of us did, but Americans are addicted to all the melting pot, right side of
history foolishness so common in "levelled" America,
What should the US do now that the scales have fallen from Trump's eyes and the time of
"good faith" negotiation with the Taliban is "dead?" The first thing to do is to fire
Khalilzad.
Last night, Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor told Tucker Carlson that the US should simply
leave, and should have never intervened. IOW we should get the hell out totally and forever.
This is a tempting thought. I have wrestled with the attractiveness of the idea but there are
certain problems with it.
1. We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability. IMO
if we leave suddenly the Afghan government and armed forces will soon collapse. The country
will then further disintegrate into a welter of jihadi factions and regional tribal strongmen,
the strongest of which will be the Taliban.
2. We have encouraged modernist Afghan men, women and girls to emerge from the shadows.
Shall we leave them to their fates under the rule of the jihadis.
3. What about all the translators, base workers and other people who have cast their lots
with us. The Taliban and other jihadis will simply kill them as apostates. We abandoned a lot
of such people in Iraq. Will we do it again?
On balance I would say Macgregor is right that we must leave. The time for a small remaining
presence is past. The forces in the field are too strong for a small force to maintain itself
even with massive long range air support. Think of Sir Louis Cavangnari. No, we should leave,
but we should leave on a schedule that will enable us to control the timing of our going and to
protect the departure of those who wish to leave with us. pl
BTW, SWMBO says that no mutually understood languages = no country.
"We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability."
Gee, like admit to reality?
My view: Acknowledge the U.S. is not omnipotent, and has very limited ability to
influence, let alone, control, other parts of the world other than those to which it has
extremely close ties, most especially the Five Eyes and other parts of what was once called
Western Civilization.
I just want to mention that about once a year I dig the IQ2 debate out and watch it again
in full. Call it a sanity check I suppose. It is clear that you were trying to be substantive
throughout, which was somewhat hampered by the amorphous premise of "success" undergirding
the debate question. The other side (Nagle in particular) was trying to "win" the debate by
defining success so broadly as to exclude questions over the "how," and they used that as an
excuse to dodge your indictment of COIN. But it is very clear who had the right of it, and it
is at least somewhat gratifying to hear that same admission was made to you.
I suspect that we will retain our forces in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. To
understand why you've got to consider the politics rather than the pragmatics.
No president wants to be the one who "lost Afghanistan" (as though it were ours to lose)
or, worse yet, be the president who removed forces from a country from which an attack on the
U. S. would emanate afterwards or be staged from or planned from.
The greatest likelihood of our removing our forces from Afghanistan would be towards the
end of a president's second term, especially if that president were a Democrat and could
expect to take less heat from the media. In other words Obama should have removed our forces
from Afghanistan and if he wouldn't Trump won't, especially not before being re-elected.
These kind of wars seem to take 3 presidents to end. Trump is this war's Nixon and was
elected on a platform which included 'losing' Afghanistan. The media will howl once the
Taliban take over, but it will swiftly pass as they realize Americans have no interest in a
place where their countrymen are no longer dying.
No matter what the US government does or does not do, wouldn't Afghanistan revert to its
natural state as you have described it?
It seems Trump's "negotiated" deal with the Taliban would have been a good approach to
getting out but that's now no longer a possibility. Would supporting the Tajiks through
Russia and India as a counter-balance to the Taliban work to keep them from completely
dominating? Russia and India likely have an interest in preventing jihadis from using Taliban
dominated territory to infiltrate. Is it even worth any effort on the part of the US
government? It would seem Pakistan and China would continue working to influence events
there.
My longstanding belief is that Afghanistan to be 'tamed' requires the type of Steel that only
existed long ago.
The Modern World has modernized beyond the brutal realities that taming it likely
requires, and as such may lose a fraction of the Lives and Treasure as past - but cannot
sustain it politically or socially.
The next Question - If Afghanistan is simply a construct, why not forsake most of it and
develop the regions of Afghanistan that ARE more amiable and Homogenous?
A lot of the Tadzhiks and Uzbeks (varied Turkmen) I suspect could be far more easily
propped up and supported in their own Lands, which back to back with the Central Asian FSU
States is a more viable 'Nation Building' Exercise.
What ultimately tamed the 'Wilds'? The Development of strong local States, Force of Arms
and ultimately - Demographics. If you will not do it yourself, pick a unified Team and back them in doing it. Ironically the means to inflict harm on occupying Militaries seems to go down as those
Armies means to stomach it does also.
The next obvious Question. Is it worth considering (not necessarily for the US and Western
States - who will appear as desperate Losers the idea that Afghanistan if allowed to run as
strong Armed Islamic State, albeit modernized - might actually one day develop into one more
approachable to further modernization?
I agree we should unilaterally withdraw all our forces from Afghanistan. The military can
surely plan and carry out a unilateral withdrawal. Just do it. The Taliban are not al Qaeda
or the Islamic State. Their desires don't extend beyond the mountains of Afghanistan. Hell,
they're fighting IS. Let them do so and don't give them reason to go over to them.
The rub will be all those Afghanis who tied their futures to us. We should resettle them
here or somewhere more familiar to them as part of that withdrawal. The chance of that
happening under the Trump administration is nil.
That is the exact same argument I heard in 72 and again in 75. By early 76 no one cared.
There are in every country and in every involvement Quislings and main chancers who find the
short term gelt available to be worth the future risk of making the wrong and visible
choice.
In the case of most of these Afghanis the tie was a slip knot at best.
A "long, long, time ago" in "a land far away", Najibullah was deposed. Pat, you'll recall
that I was then serving as the chair of the Inter-agency Task Force on Afghanistan. Well, we
had our regular meeting at which a couple of the folks opined that this was a wonderful
development for the country and the folks would now all join hands, dance around the
campfire, and sign Kumbaya. To bring the group back to reality, I asked for someone to
identify the national sport of Afghanistan. One of the group said that, obviously, it was
buzkhasi. So I then asked for someone else to clarify how such a game unfolds and another
stalwart did so. This dialogue quickly brought everyone back to reality. For those unfamiliar
with the sport, buzkhasi consists of two nominal "teams" on horseback trying to get a
headless goat carcass across the opponent's goal line. All goes well at first, but ultimately
the teams disintegrate until it's every man for himself in mass mayhem. Thus, IMHO will go
Afghanistan.
Sadly enough this old quote seems especially true in the case of the "Afghan War" or whatever
it is. Our experts' obdurate insistence on pursuing "peace with honor" or some outcome we can
get our heads around and feel good about has become a receding horizon...
The only way we could "win" would be by waging a war of extermination with the goal of
totally depopulating the entire territory and building an impenetrable barrier around it. But
of course that would be a hard sell for a country with a good guy reputation to protect. And
then what would we do with the land? After all, we still haven't been able to settle most of
Nevada and Wyoming!
"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about
by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools."
I said at the beginning of this mess that the one sure thing was that we would end up with
chains of Iraqi and afghan restaurants begun by the refugees who had to leave their countries
with us when we left. I just hope we have progressed from leaving behind card indexes of our
in-country supporters for the Taliban to discover, as allegedly happened in Vietnam.
I enjoyed the IQ2 debate you reference, particularly your coining of the word "Vermontize".
Incredible to think this conversation about an 8 year old war was 10 years ago - and we are
still having it. Here is the link for anyone interested:
I really enjoy these type of situational overview and analysis posts, thanks!
Although I see your point about Trump's crass business approach, let's face it... the
military and various US gov't orgs have had any many years to try various approaches to
"solving" (cough, cough) Afghanistan. After all the US has been in Afghanistan since 2001. We
had been in Afghanistan for 15 years before Trump was elected. After all those years of failure
by the Borg I have no problem whatsoever with Trump taking a shot at the situation in his own
way. Trump tried a certain tactic and it didn't work. Oh well, but lessons learned. He'll
regroup, get more advice and try something else. He's making more of an effort to resolve
things than previous presidents, and willing to think outside of the Borg box.
No, all Trump was doing was looking for a re-election publicity stunt and a shot at that
elusive Nobel like Obama got....he's done this kind of thing for the last 40 years - he isn't
going to change his personality now...
If the US leaves and I believe it should it doesn't have to mean the end of days. China,
Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan have all expressed interest in clearing the area of
terrorists. They have all been blocked by the US presence. Preferably the US would work a
deal with those players who are far better connected and prepared to clean up the
neighbourhood than the US is from the other side of the world. Russia was willing to act as
guarantor for the collapsed deal. Work a deal for one or more of them to move in as the US
moves out.
My concern is that with all the big players wanting a piece of the pie that it evolves into
an even worse proxy war. But China, Pakistan, Russia and Iran are all rowing in more or less
the same direction these days and India has bitten off all it can chew in Kashmir so this may
be the perfect time. Americans just have to get over that indispensable nation nonsense.
Thank you for thinking of the women and girls....and perhaps their little boys.
I've lived through the abandonment of Vietnam and the influx of refugees from that part of
the world, the mess after the Iraq War that included bringing to our country many who had
tied their fortunes to us. We can not this time decide to abandon any who have tied their
hopes to us after we came in and caused so much turmoil in their country.
I always thought it was hubris on our part to think we could do what the Soviets failed to
do.
If we bring these people here, my hope is that we examine how our bringing in Somalis has,
in many places, not been a successful effort in regard to integrating them into our society.
(Do not many of us, including Nancy Pelosi, regret the bringing in of at least one Somali
woman?) We need to prepare for their entry into our country in some way that will not mean
just dropping them somewhere and letting them fend for themselves.
I know the government has some sort of protocol for finding them places to live. Often,
however, the people seem to be dropped in and left in some ways to depend on themselves "as
strangers in a strange land." This should be our last time. Stop the "nation-building"
efforts.
I feel that most Americans are welcoming and friendly people, but they often just do not
understand how difficult it is for some to adapt to a very different way of life.
Afghanistan borders China. For that reason alone, we are never leaving whatever the cost in
blood or treasure. The country is a very forward, strategic military base that can be used to
launch air attacks on Chinese assets and impede China's Belt and Road initiative.
Despite his bluster, Trump is very weak and knows the Taliban is winning and fears they
will try to drive us out before the election, ushering in his defeat. Most of his time is
spent cowering in his golf resorts, ranting and raving on a tiny little cellphone.
The Blob will not allow any of his fears to shake the resolve of the Deep State to make
Afghanistan a colony for a thousand years.
They have been successful in implanting in the psyche of every American the incorrect
notion that the Taliban launched 9/11. That notion alone means there is no support for any
truce or treaty with our bete noir.
These lines from Rudyard Kipling immediately came to my mind:
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!"
We are never going to change Afghanistan so getting out and taking those who supported us
is appealing to me.
Maybe that's why Mr. Prince wanted Trump to make him the viceroy of Afghanistan.
What a career that would be - a former SEAL lieutenant, then mercenary, promoted to
something like a field marshal, bringing fabulous quarter numbers, strategy or something like
that, peace and freedom to the place by privatizing the war and fighting it more cost
effective for himself .
It is not a base. It is a sinkhole--A distinction without a difference.
Confusedponderer
Your reference to Mr. Prince was spot on. He understood what the long-term plans for
Afghanistan were and still are. A viceroy is the designated ruling representative of a
colonial power.
American's negotiating position in every instances with rival nations is to dictate the
terms for surrender regardless of the circumstances on the ground. It's an untenable position
and guarantees perpetual war and occupation which is precisely the point.
It seems to me that if one parsed reports from the Special Inspector General Afghanistan
Reconstruction along with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's "Afghanistan Opium
Survey", any illusions as to what the reasons for the West's intervention in that country
were, should dissipate rather speedily.
so, your belief is that we invaded Afghanistan so that we could steal the foreign aid money that we would give them and
could sponsor the opium trade. Funny! A joke right?
IMO Trump has no clarity of anyhthing in foreign policy. He is just trying to make a deal
in accordance with his experience of deal making and is not doing well. It will be
interesting to see if he and Trudeau can sell the USMCA to Pelosi. this is clearly a
gooddeal. Let's see how hard he pushes for it. With regard to the ME, have reached the
conclusion that his basic attitudes are formed in the culture of New York City Jewry. A
Christian Brother who had two PH.D.s in STEM and was a New York City guy once told me that I
had to understand that everyone in NY City is to some extent Jewish, even the cardinal
archbishop.
I spent several years in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014. I was there, with a front row
seat, when the shift to nation-building began. The best days of my life were in Afghanistan,
spent amongst the finest men and women from many nations...including Afghanistan.
We lost the war a long time ago. By 2006, I could see we were losing. By 2008, I knew it
was lost. How many Afghans have hitched their horses to our wagon? More than enough. How many others
chose to live as free men and women because we were there? A significant part of the
population. They face a reckoning for living that hope out loud, in public.
The Afghan people are amazing, and a lot of them believed in us, and in a future where
women could be more than a piece of property. I can see why some would say we should walk
away, and, it's hard to argue against that.
I'll carry what we did in Afghanistan to my grave. DOL,
Colonel ...I agree with your Opinion on this matter of Withdrawal. I have read a Year by Year
timeline of The Millions spent. for the Training Of Afghanistan Military and Security
Forces and Like in Viet Nam..they will fail. Fail to defend themselves..
Their hearts wont be in it..and like Vietnam..It Just made The Communist North Vietnamese the Third Most Powerful
Conventional Weapons stockpile in the World..with all the Equipment we Left
behind...The..billions spent to keep our military presence there..
The millions Spent for VA
Resources to care for our wounded. Many with traumatic head injuries...The loss of Our People
there..Overt and Covert...The loss of Seal Team 6 in the Aftermath of Finally Getting Osama
Bin Laden...It will Never End...
There will always be those willing to die for JiHad..Forever..Over a Trillion Dollars..Plus all The Money we sent to
Pakistan. Which has
been Most of Our Foreign Aid..Its been a Tragic Blunder and there has never been such a
thing as "Mission Accomplished"..
This has been the second most Costly War since WWII.
..Bring Them Home.. ...
9/11/2001,,,,9/11/2019.A War of the Politicians..By The Politicians
For The Politicians.and the Military..Industrial Complex....and Their Egos..and Bank
accounts..Period...Thomas Jefferson Knew This was coming.
I know nothing about Doug Macgregor but he sounds really sane in this interview with
Tucker. If Trump does what he suggests it would be a welcome approach and drive the Borg
insane.
I agreed with sending SOF in to kill AQ being harbored by the Taliban. I said at the time,
"Go in, kill the people who need killing & get the hell out."
There is only one thing that can unify Afgan tribes, that's the presence of foreigners. A
very long history has resulted in the reference to "the graveyard of empires." I don't
believe that the Taliban is a threat to the US outside of Afghanistan. They are a threat to
any American in Afghanistan. Nation building in Afghanistan is domed to failure. The only
issue is what is to be the fate of the Afghani's who assisted us or bought into the idea of
westernization. Our recent history is to abandon these people.
Eventually we will join the list of Afghan invaders from Cyrus, to Alexander, to the
Brits. The only question is how we depart & how much more blood & treasure we
spend.
In my experience, nothing can unify Afghan tribes, or even the sub-tribes. There is a saying
amongst the Pashtun: "Me against my brothers, my brothers and I against my cousins, my
cousins and I against the world." The real Taliban (meaning the political entity, exiled to
the east, also known as "The Quetta Shura," have never been able to get "Taliban" factions in
Afghanistan to unite against anything. COL Lang is spot-on, there is no collective "Afghan"
identity.
Afghanistan is still run by warlords. The vast majority of folks referred to as "Taliban"
are really just warlords (and the warlords' minions) wrapping themselves in the Taliban flag,
as it suits them now. If the Taliban were to come back to controlling power in Afghanistan,
many of the warlords would switch to fighting the Taliban. True territorial gains in
Afghanistan are generally made when warlords switch sides. Afghan warlords are the most loyal
people money can buy...well, rent, anyway.
The IQ2 debate was significant for me personally when I first saw it. The arguments for
staying in Afghanistan were set out coherently and for perhaps the first time I caught a
glimpse of the immense intellectual effort, in the think tanks and the academies, that goes
into justifying the neocon position. That neocon position working through almost by osmosis
to the heavyweight newspapers and media outlets, and providing the narrative framework within
which the Intelligence Initiatives of this world right down to the little propaganda sites
work. Such varied figures as Charles Lister or Peter Tatchell have backup, and how.
It's an intellectual fortress, the whole, and for many of us in the general public
it confirms us comfortably in the neocon rationale. It gives us the arguments, and the
excuses, and as long as one declines to notice that those arguments and excuses do shift
around, we pay our taxes for this or that crazy neocon venture without complaint and often
gladly. Gramsci and his like stand vindicated. Capture the academies and the rest of us
follow, often willingly.
And just a few, of those in the public eye, standing up true and declaring "This emperor
has no clothes!"
Which happened, as I saw several years later when I got to view it, in that IQ2 debate.
Around that time I came across Major Stueber's documentary which had rather more than seven
minutes to lay out how hopeless it was for Western armies to fight alongside local forces,
when those local forces were so hopelessly factional, corrupt, and therefore ineffectual.
And a footnote just recently. I head a Swedish aid worker relating just how impossible it
was for him too to function in Afghanistan. Money put through to local groups swallowed up in
false invoicing, ghost workers whose salaries went to swell the pay packet of their
superiors, slush funds because that was the only way to get things done.
It was never a doable venture, Afghanistan. That was clear to a few in that debate ten
years ago and it's clear to more now. I hope it's possible to get out without leaving the
urban Westernised Afghans too much at the mercy of the rest.
And perhaps, also reflecting that the Rovean narratives that the academies and think tanks
conjure up for us, at such expense and at such effort, all crumble eventually when reality,
as it must finally, breaks through.
Though it's easy to imagine the outpouring of fury and wall to wall media coverage --
complete with urgent Congressional hearings -- should such allegations center on any other
foreign country caught spying on the White House (let's say Russia for example), the bombshell
Politico report has barely made a dent in the mainstream media or big cable networks'
coverage.
This is partly because the administration's own reaction has been muted, as the report notes
that "the Trump administration took no action to punish or even privately scold the Israeli
government" after being informed by US intelligence that Israel likely planted the devices.
Politico's sources in most instances held top intelligence and national security posts, who
describe the following of the
recovered spy devices :
The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as "StingRays," mimic regular cell
towers to fool cell phones into giving them their locations and identity information .
Formally called international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also
can capture the contents of calls and data use .
The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former
officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates -- though it's not clear
whether the Israeli efforts were successful.
From the moment the report was unveiled early Thursday, Israel's stance has been to
vehemently deny, and to even suggest the accusations are tinged with "anti-Semitism".
The statement from the prime minister's office added, "There is a longstanding
commitment, and a directive from the Israeli government not to engage in any intelligence
operations in the U.S. This directive is strictly enforced without exception."
Uh huh... Sure. So how do you explain Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell then?
Come on readers. Next they'll be saying Israel controls all levels of government through
political donations. Possible from the $2 Billion a year they get? Anybody know how much
total Israeli contributions go to the Pres, Congress etc?
I was hoping to see a comment from Einstein, but cant find him. Wonder where he is. I
guess we will just have to lower our standards and look to ZD1 for the real scoop.
Good catch; you were first with that blockbuster. You know who would be a good replacement?
Tulsi Gabbard. It would please those who moan the government is too partisan, it would remove
the only real non-ideologue from the Democratic slate, and leave them with doddering Uncle
Joe and a bunch of no-ideas bobbleheads. Few would dare question her lack of foreign-policy
experience, given her actual experience of being at the sharp end of it with the military.
The American people claim to be sick of war – although not sick enough of it to do any
real protesting against it – and Gabbard is anti-war. She's easy on the eyes, but if
Trump tried his grab-'er-by-the-pussy move, he would find himself only needing one glove this
winter; her obvious toughness would appeal to feminists. I think she'd take it if asked,
because although she despises Trump and his government, she would not be able to resist the
opportunity to shape America's foreign policy. She would eat news outlets who tried to
portray her as an apologist for terror or Putin or whatever for lunch.
Well, she was not on the short list of names I saw for potential Bolton replacements. I don't
see her making president, though, her support base is just not big enough. But if the
Democrats put all their eggs in the Burnout Joe basket, he will in all probability lose to
Trump. Trump's support has eroded, but not so far that very many people want to see Joe Biden
running the country.
"Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US
military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia, have continued to carry out
repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential
neighborhoods, mosques, funerals and markets. The US had provided coalition jets with mid-air
refueling until the end of last year, ensuring maximum carnage."
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Freefall speed
is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because freefall is impossible for a naturally
collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the
Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Below is a video showing several film sequences
taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen
years ago on September 11, 2001.
The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative"
promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.
Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska
published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane
on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building
-- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).
This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue
to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.
Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building
7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed,
as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an
interview
here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.
Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all
the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to
prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning
by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence
which points to the same conclusion.
Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly
during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting
the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).
However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission
that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously
admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.
For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united
states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on
September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since
that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the
failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to
negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.
Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan
but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters
to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a
jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless
the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.
I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the
Guns and Butterpodcast archive here . These interviews,
from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.
I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not
of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully
read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a
blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he
explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of
9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.
That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told
about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy --
even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge
what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even
to ourselves, that we've been taken.
This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which
is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing
as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).
This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept
what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that
our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self,
sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character
of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see
here for example,
and also here .
The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement
of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which
already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster
upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman
Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo.
Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.
Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the
divine realm.
If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately
refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm.
Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must
be corrected.
In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that
the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.
Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government
is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators
actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution,
forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries
that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government
under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes
a very clear penalty for treason.
When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11,
the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was
enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were
initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations
that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.
The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent
pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media
for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September
11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies
which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and
which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within
their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.
When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed
justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in
the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and
women.
Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and
the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people
and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women
as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001
-- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a
long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very
powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 --
but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that
they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.
Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.
But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle
still has us .
*
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David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
This is a bit like rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic.
The problem is we do not know who pressed Trump to appoint Bolton., Rumors were that it was Abelson. In this case nothing
changed.
The other problem with making Bolton firing a significant move is the presence in White House other neocon warmongers. So one
less doe not change the picture. For example Pompeo remains and he is no less warmongering neocon, MIC stooge, and no less
subservant to Israel then Bolton.
Notable quotes:
"... Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT ..."
"... Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday ..."
"... "Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product." ..."
"... "A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date. ..."
"... As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week. ..."
Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to
move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with
another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT.
Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some
of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday, after news of Bolton's
dismissal from the White House.
Also on rt.com Bolton out: Trump ditches hawkish adviser he kept for 18 months despite
'disagreements'
"Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added.
Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled
by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product."
Foreign leaders weren't the only ones who had a problem with Trump's notoriously belligerent
advisor, either.
"A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a
position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep
State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date.
While the uber-hawk's firing came "later than it should be," Paul hoped it would clear the
way for Trump to follow through on the America First, end-the-wars promises that won him so
much support in 2016. "Those of us who would like less intervention, we're very happy with
it."
Also on rt.com War and whiskers: Freshly-resigned John Bolton gets meme-roasting
As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line
significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he
said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an
announcement next week.
"... However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity. ..."
"... It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions. ..."
"... The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so. ..."
"... As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence. ..."
The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his
boss
Many will rightly celebrate the departure of the US national security adviser. But
however welcome the news, it reflects the deeper problems with this administration
...
However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be
much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this
administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows
him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity.
It is neither normal nor desirable for the national security adviser to be excluded
from meetings about Afghanistan – even if it is a relief, when the individual concerned
is (or was) Mr Bolton. It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego
than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it
on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions.
The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging
Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's
presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who
hired him is much more so.
I read that the main drivers of getting him kicked or retire himself were Mnuchin and
Pompeo, both afflicted by that nasty goofy smile disease. I am always happy when I see
Mnuchin's hands on the table, eliminating one explanation for the smile.
There is that reported sentence about Bolton - that there is no problem for which war was
not his solution. I read about similar sentence about Pompeo - that he has an IR seeker for
Donald's ass.
That written, good riddance indeed. Likely, if Bolton had his way, the US would likely be
at war with North Korea and Iran.
When I studied I was at the UNFCCC for a time during Bush Jr. presidency and talked about
what Bolton did at the UN with my superior, a 20 year UN veteran.
A 'malicious saboteur arsonist' is a polite summary of what he did there directly and
indirectly, and with given his flirt with MEK and regime change in Iran he has likely not
changed at all.
As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general
mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly
with Pence.
I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even
fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he
was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of
hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he
should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some
names and the reasoning for offering those names.
If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed
another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on
things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is
not consulted on Bolton's successor.
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."
Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and
beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.
Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.
As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only
sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.
And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale
pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in
Germany.
That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our
military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about
Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of
course.
He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy
frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...
iv> I see the GLOBALIST shills are in full force on this video, trying to artificially
bring down the ratio from probably 99% Positive that such a bad man is gone. Doesn't matter,
the Silent Majority & good people everywhere know that Bolton was a poor candidate for
that job with a catastrophic failure record & everybody is better of with a more
competent person in that position.
John Bolton is owned by foreign powers like many in Washington. They get paid by their
lobby to push the neocon agenda which translates into robbing the US of it's $ to fight wars
that don't benefit the US.
War monger Bolton. How did that Libya thing work out for Europe ? Now after looking back,
I am sure the African invasion into Europe was planned by Obama and his boss Soros.
Tucker while I agree with you on the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. But one thing
you left out Tucker. Foxnews hired John Bolton as a Contributer for over a decade. How do you
miss that part.
All the policies in the Middle East are complete and other failures. I'm so sick of neo
cons. You can't get rid of them. You can not get rid of them. It doesn't matter who you vote
for. Constant war. Like every regime couldn't be replaced around the world. Absolutely
ridiculous.
"In Washington, nobody cares what kind of job you did, only that you did the job. Nobody
there learns from mistakes, because mistakes are never even acknowledged. Ever." Yes, Tucker
DOES understand Washington!!!
xt" role="article"> If Bolton becomes a Fox News contributor: I will change the channel
immediately... I already do this when Jeff Epstein's, the child trafficker and rapist, good
buddy Alan Dershowitz comes on as a guest... Do not know why Fox News selects guest
contributors that have their morals/values in the wrong directions...
icle"> Bolton was signatory to PNAC- the project for a new american century, like other
progressives and neo-cons of his generation. They do not view the chaos left by taking out
Ghaddafi and Saddam as problems, rather the creation of failed states was their objective all
along. Members of the GOP went along with these plans where they coincided with their own
political and business objectives- the military industrial complex and the oilmen.
September
11, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. Note that for all
of Trump's considerable faults, including hiring John Bolton in the first place and taking too
long to get rid of him, Bolton's opposition to finding a way for the US to extricate itself
from the war in Afghanistan was reportedly the last straw.
When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I
was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student
body at any of our Army's myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the
Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
Since ARVN's founding two decades earlier, the United States had assigned itself the task of
professionalizing that fledgling military establishment. Based on a conviction that the
standards, methods, and ethos of our armed forces were universally applicable and readily
exportable, the attendance of ARVN personnel at such Army schools was believed to contribute to
the professionalizing of the South Vietnamese military.
Evidence that the U.S. military's own professional standards had recently taken a hit --
memories of the
My Lai massacre were then still fresh -- elicited no second thoughts on our part.
Association with American officers like me was sure to rub off on our South Vietnamese
counterparts in ways that would make them better soldiers. So we professed to believe, even
while subjecting that claim to no more scrutiny than we did the question of why most of us had
spent a year or more of our lives participating in an obviously misbegotten and misguided war
in Indochina.
For serving officers at that time one question in particular remained off-limits (though it
had been posed incessantly for years by antiwar protestors in the streets of America): Why
Vietnam? Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely
encourages critical thinking.
On the day that Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, fell and that country ceased
to exist, I approached one of my ARVN classmates, also a captain, wanting at least to
acknowledge the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred. "I'm sorry about what happened to
your country," I told him.
I did not know that officer well and no longer recall his name. Let's call him Captain
Nguyen. In my dim recollection, he didn't even bother to reply. He simply looked at me with an
expression both distressed and mournful. Our encounter lasted no more than a handful of
seconds. I then went on with my life and Captain Nguyen presumably with his. Although I have no
inkling of his fate, I like to think that he is now retired in Southern California after a
successful career in real estate. But who knows?
All I do know is that today I recall our exchange with a profound sense of embarrassment and
even shame. My pathetic effort to console Captain Nguyen had been both presumptuous and
inadequate. Far worse was my failure -- inability? refusal? -- to acknowledge the context
within which that catastrophe was occurring: the United States and its armed forces had, over
years, inflicted horrendous harm on the people of South Vietnam.
In reality, their defeat was our defeat. Yet while we had decided that we were done paying,
they were going to pay and pay for a long time to come.
Rather than offering a fatuous expression of regret for the collapse of his country, I ought
to have apologized for having played even a miniscule role in what was, by any measure, a
catastrophe of epic proportions. It's a wonder Captain Nguyen didn't spit in my eye.
I genuinely empathized with Captain Nguyen. Yet the truth is that, along with most other
Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, I was only too happy to be done with South Vietnam and
all its troubles. Dating back to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States and
its armed forces had made a gargantuan effort to impart legitimacy to the Republic of Vietnam
and to coerce the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to its north into giving up its determination
to exercise sovereignty over the entirety of the country. In that, we had failed spectacularly
and at a staggering cost.
"Our" war in Indochina -- the conflict we chose to call the Vietnam War -- officially ended
in January 1973 with the signing in Paris of an "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace
in Vietnam." Under the terms of that fraudulent pact, American prisoners of war were freed from
captivity in North Vietnam and the last U.S. combat troops in the south left for home,
completing a withdrawal begun several years earlier. Primary responsibility for securing the
Republic of Vietnam thereby fell to ARVN, long deemed by U.S. commanders incapable of
accomplishing that mission.
Meanwhile, despite a nominal cessation of hostilities, approximately 150,000 North
Vietnamese regulars still occupied a large swathe of South Vietnamese territory -- more or less
the equivalent to agreeing to end World War II when there were still several German panzer tank
divisions lurking in Belgium's Ardennes Forest. In effect, our message to our enemy and
our ally was this: We're outta here; you guys sort this out . In a bit more than two
years, that sorting-out process would extinguish the Republic of Vietnam.
Been There, Done That
The course Captain Nguyen and I were attending in the spring of 1975 paid little attention
to fighting wars like the one that, for years, had occupied the attention of my army and his.
Our Army, in fact, was already moving on. Having had their fill of triple-canopy jungles in
Indochina, America's officer corps now turned to defending the Fulda Gap, the region in West
Germany deemed most hospitable to a future Soviet invasion. As if by fiat, gearing up to fight
those Soviet forces and their Warsaw Pact allies, should they (however improbably) decide to
take on NATO and lunge toward the English Channel, suddenly emerged as priority number one. At
Fort Knox and throughout the Army's ranks, we were suddenly focused on "high-intensity combined
arms operations" -- essentially, a replay of World War II-style combat with fancier weaponry.
In short, the armed forces of the United States had reverted to "real soldiering."
And so it is again today. At the end of the 17th year of what Americans commonly call the
Afghanistan War -- one wonders what name Afghans will eventually assign it -- U.S. military
forces are moving on. Pentagon planners are
shifting their attention back to Russia and China. Great power competition has become the
name of the game. However we might define Washington's evolving purposes in its Afghanistan War
-- "nation building," "democratization," "pacification" -- the likelihood of mission
accomplishment is nil. As in the early 1970s, so in 2019, rather than admitting failure, the
Pentagon has chosen to change the subject and is once again turning its attention to "real
soldiering."
Remember the infatuation with counterinsurgency (commonly known by its acronym COIN) that
gripped the national security establishment around 2007 when the Iraq "surge" overseen by
General David Petraeus briefly ranked alongside Gettysburg as a historic victory? Well, these
days promoting COIN as the new American way of war has become, to put it mildly, a tough sell.
Given that few in Washington will openly acknowledge the magnitude of the military failure in
Afghanistan, the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial
becomes all but irresistible.
Only one thing is required to validate this reshuffling of military priorities. Washington
needs to create the appearance, as in 1973, that it's exiting Afghanistan on its own terms.
What's needed, in short, is an updated equivalent of that "Agreement Ending the War and
Restoring Peace in Vietnam."
Until last weekend, the signing of such an agreement seemed imminent. Donald Trump and his
envoy,
former ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, appeared poised to repeat the trick that
President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pulled off in 1973 in
Paris: pause the war and call it peace. Should fighting subsequently resume after a "decent
interval," it would no longer be America's problem. Now, however, to judge by the president's
twitter
account -- currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy -- the proposed deal has
been postponed, or perhaps shelved, or even abandoned altogether. If National Security Advisor
John Bolton
has his way , U.S. forces might just withdraw in any case, without an agreement of any sort
being signed.
Based on what we can divine from press reports, the
terms of that prospective Afghan deal would mirror those of the 1973 Paris Accords in one
important respect. It would, in effect, serve as a ticket home for the remaining U.S. and NATO
troops still in that country (though for the present
only the first 5,000 of them would immediately depart). Beyond that, the Taliban was to
promise not to provide sanctuary to anti-American terrorist groups, even though the Afghan
branch of ISIS is already
firmly lodged there. Still, this proviso would allow the Trump administration to claim that
it had averted any possible recurrence of the 9/11 terror attacks that were, of course, planned
by Osama bin Laden while residing in Afghanistan in 2001 as a guest of the Taliban-controlled
government.
Mission accomplished , as it were.
Back in 1973, North Vietnamese forces occupying parts of South Vietnam neither disarmed nor
withdrew. Should this new agreement be finalized, Taliban forces currently controlling or
influencing significant
swaths of Afghan territory will neither disarm nor withdraw. Indeed, their
declared intention is to continue fighting.
In 1973, policymakers in Washington were counting on ARVN to hold off Communist forces. In
2019, almost no one expects Afghan security forces to hold off a threat consisting of both the
Taliban and ISIS. In a final insult, just as the Saigon government was excluded from U.S.
negotiations with the North Vietnamese, so, too, has the Western-installed government in Kabul
been excluded from U.S. negotiations with its sworn enemy, the Taliban.
A host of uncertainties remain. As with the olive branches that President Trump has
ostentatiously offered to Russia, China, and North Koea, this particular peace initiative may
come to naught -- or, given the approach of the 2020 elections, he may decide that Afghanistan
offers his last best hope of claiming at least one foreign policy success. One way or another,
in all likelihood, the deathwatch for the U.S.-backed Afghan government has now begun. One
thing only is for sure. Having had their fill of Afghanistan, when the Americans finally leave,
they won't look back. In that sense, it will be Vietnam all over again.
What Price Peace?
However great my distaste for President Trump, I support his administration's efforts to
extricate the United States from Afghanistan. I do so for the same reason I supported the Paris
Peace Accords of 1973. Prolonging this folly any longer does not serve U.S. interests. Rule
number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something really stupid, stop. To my
mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at
stake.
In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing. In Afghanistan, we have
lost more than 2,300
troops , with another 20,000 wounded, again for next to nothing. Last month, two American
Special Forces soldiers were killed in a
firefight in Faryab Province. For what?
That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain
Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to
befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of
800,000
Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates
by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people
died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps
scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers
and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18
years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country's new
leaders.
Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only
continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000
casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent
Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of
territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered
health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the
promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.
For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions
in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million
Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally
concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of
Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy.
As to what will follow if Washington does succeed in cutting a deal with the Taliban, well,
don't count on President Trump (or his successor for that matter) welcoming anything like 1.3
million Afghan refugees to the United States once a "decent interval" has passed. Yet again,
our position will be: we're outta here; you guys sort this out.
Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two
of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as "careless people" who "smashed up things and
creatures" and then "retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness" to "let other
people clean up the mess they had made." That description applies to the United States as a
whole, especially when Americans tire of a misguided war. We are a careless people. In Vietnam,
we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our money, leaving
others to clean up the mess in a distinctly bloody fashion.
Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in
Afghanistan.
Bacevich is right. Vietnam was a tragedy. Here we are at Ground Hog Day in
Afghanistan.
I was touched by the author's recollection of Capt Nguyen. I well know that awful moment
when , reflecting on some past event, I have recognised my own actions as insensitive, crass
and unfeeling. How do we get so wrapped-up in ourselves that the feelings of others hardly
impinge on our sensitivities? What happened to society? Is that where the West has gone
wrong?
Btw, quote "to judge by the president's twitter account -- currently the authoritative
record of U.S. diplomacy" unquote. I hope those owning the Twitter Nest note the future use
of their archive.
Andrew Bacevich is right. However, there is an amazing human disinclination to face facts
but live with delusions which risk extinction for immediate gratification. The lessons from
Vietnam were never learned. The Bush/Cheney fateful decision to occupy Afghanistan at the
same time as invading Iraq ultimately led to the current predatory corporate military rule
that will never voluntarily withdraw from overseas. The intent of the media/intelligence coup
against the President is to prevent peace from breaking out. Executives and wealthy
shareholders would lose their taxpayer gravy train. The troops and contractors now in Eastern
Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are expendable. They will not have two years to get out. No
planning, deep-sixing science, and profits over safety all assure that sooner or later there
will be another black swan event. Be it Brexit, closure of Strait of Hormuz, subprime auto
loans, WWIII, or climate change, assuredly something will give the final push and the
American Empire will collapse.
"Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every
capitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer,
unless under compulsion from society."
Prof. Bacevich is very perceptive and he writes well; his essays are always worth reading.
Nevertheless, he is a retired US Army officer after all and there is that thing about
leopards and spots. There is a tell in this article, when he speaks of the day that Saigon
'fell'. I too remember well that day in April of '75. I was studying in Madison, on the GI
Bill. My friends and I all rejoiced on that day, as Saigon had finally been 'liberated'.
Why rejoice? The point should be that the US had no business in Vietnam, not that one
group finally succeeded in uniting the country under the rule of one dictatorial party. Not
all Vietnamese welcomed the "liberation" and many died fleeing the country.
I am sure this will be misunderstood, so I'll add that I think that the US role was one
massive war crime and we never should have been there at all, that Ho Chi Minh probably would
have won a fair election in the 1950's etc
Being antiwar has nothing necessarily to do with favoring the side our government opposes.
It simply means that there is no moral justification for the US invading Vietnam or Iraq,
supporting jihadists in Syria, helping the Saudis and the Israelis bomb civilians, and so
on.
Prof. Bacevich has an personal stake in what he writes about. His son, Lt. Andrew John
Bacevich, was killed in action by an IED during the occupation back in 2007. He was already a
severe critic of the war at the time but I am guessing that this underlined the futility of
it tall.
Although it is true that the willing of Trump to put an end to the Afghan occupation must
be seen as a positive, his policy of ever increasing military budgets make this affirmation
from Bacevich "the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial
becomes all but irresistible" truer that ever. These expenditures must be justified in
practical terms and It worries me what the new enemies in Trump's brain are.
Ha, ha hah!
Yes, Hollywood has made a big effort to explain us, the common people, that US's military
expenses will protect us from Centaurians, Klingons, meteorites and some other rogue
invaders. I cannot imagine any other reason.
> Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely
encourages critical thinking.
John Boyd: "And you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to
go." He raised his hand and pointed. "If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have
to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a
member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments." Then Boyd
raised his other hand and pointed another direction. "Or you can go that way and you can do
something -- something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you
decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good
assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to
compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might
make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call.
That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?" [Robert
Coram]
Which is worse? Living in a cave in Afghanistan or living in a prison in Europe/US?
If the invasion of Afghanistan was about capturing some people and then imprisoning them then
that question might possibly be relevant.
If the invasion was about prestige then sometimes the best revenge and biggest insult is to
treat that someone as irrelevant and insignificant. If the opportunity presents itself to do
something then by all means do something, do what prestige demands but if that does not
happen then what?
Sometimes the measure of someone is had by the measure of his/her enemies. Giving someone the
significance of being the enemy might provide that someone with a better life. There are
people with money who'd be willing to fund the enemy of their enemy. But how do those
financiers know if they are funding some chancers/charlatans or the real thing? Spread some
uncertainty about who are charlatans/chancers and see what happens to the funding . Maybe the
guilty ones might feel it necessary to publicly provide the necessary proof of their guilt,
doubtful but & if the location of them is found then threaten closure of the diplomatic
missions of the nation where they are unless they are handed over. The diplomatic missions
are cushy positions and closing them will only hurt the 'elite', the general population is
left unharmed.
Afghanistan is unlikely to change anytime soon. As with all predictions of the future that
one might be very wrong. However, the ones predicting that Afghanistan can and will change
due to military occupation are in my opinion the ones who need to somehow provide support for
their prediction.
A few predictions here. After the US and the rest of the Coalition leaves Afghanistan, not
much happens for awhile. But then the government starts to lose ground. Slowly at first, and
then quickly. Eventually Kabul falls. Long before then the US and other countries would have
had evacuated their embassies so that there is no repeat of the frantic helicopter
evacuations like happened in Saigon. There is a swell of refugees, particularly those who
worked with the Coalition but Trump refuses all entry of them into the US saying that there
are "very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers" in
Afghanistan.
Five years after the last troops are out of Afghanistan the war is all but forgotten in the
same way that the vets of the Korean War were forgotten. Not for nothing did they call Korea
the "Forgotten War.' By then the US is immersed in another campaign – probably in
Africa – and news about what is happening in Afghanistan is relegated to the back
pages. The vets will remember, but the nation will ignore them in the same way that Vietnam
vets were forgotten after that war ended until the striking Vietnam Veterans Memorial was
built in Washington by the vets themselves. In West Point text books, the war is relegated to
the back pages as the cadets will instead study peer warfare with Russia and China.
One very important question remains.
By 2001 the Taliban had reduced opium production to virtually zero. Every year since the
US/NATO invasion, opium production has increased.
What will the Afghans do when the US and British are no longer around to facilitate the
heroin trade? Perhaps that's why negotiations are proving so difficult.
The Taliban banned the cultivation of opium in 2001, shortly before being ousted by the
US-led NATO coalition. However, after 2005, the Taliban began to regroup, and encouraged
opium production to finance its insurgency by forcing locals to grow opium and punishing
those who refused. Besides, major opium traffickers annually pay vast amounts to the
Taliban in exchange for safe transport routes secured by the group.
The Taliban uses the money it collects from the opium trade to pay fighters' salaries,
buy fuel, food, weapons and explosives. Based on some reports, around 40% of the Taliban's
funding comes from opium production, while the rest of its expenditure is borne by foreign
patrons and tax collections. The group's annual income from the opium trade was estimated
to be $400 million in 2011, but it is believed to have significantly increased in recent
years.
The Taliban collect two types of taxes from opium businesses: a transportation tax from
drug trafficking and a 10% tax from opium cultivation. In exchange, the group provides
security for the drug convoys and carries out attacks on government institutions like
checkpoints in order to allow drug convoys to pass. The group has also launched attacks on
government forces to safeguard drug labs and factories.
The Taliban don't need US/UK to facilitate things. In fact, getting the US out of the
country might eliminate one of their major Heroin-related business rivals, the CIA.
Bacevich states, "Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something
really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of
American soldiers are at stake. In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for
nothing."
Why does he find his rule especially applicable to the paltry number of US dead, given that
at least fifty times as many Indochinese died?
This attitude is surely one reason for the loathing felt by much of the world toward the USA.
People are justifiably sick of hearing how US lives are inherently more valuable than their
own.
" That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered
Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials
about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order
of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to
estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000
boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid
refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000
former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation
camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the
unified country's new leaders.
Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only
continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000
casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent
Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches
of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million
Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a
direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.
For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its
actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The
1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War
formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the
people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy ."
Note in particular the phrase "the people of Vietnam" in the last sentence. I find your
criticism to be unwarranted.
I neither missed nor ignored Bacevich's caveat.
I was focusing on his 'rule number one', which seems to make the lives of a few US soldiers
more sacred than those of the many people – civilians as well as soldiers – they
kill.
I am not trying to say that Bacevich is as evil and abhorrent as say Bolton. I don't think he
is, though I suspect he's on the same side when it comes down to it.
I am suggesting that the USA will fail to win the hearts and minds of the world's people
while killing them and belittling their deaths.
(and you might note the phrase "can hardly be said to make up for" in the last
sentence!)
As I remember the movie Dr. Strangelove, as the USA nuclear weapon was launched toward
Russia, Russia was given an option to destroy some USA cities as a way of the USA doing fair
and suitable penance.
I don't imagine the USA's military is viewed in the world as other than operating in the
USA elites' interests, despite any media (Cable, internet, print,Hollywood films) verbiage
about "bringing democracy" or "bringing freedom" to other nations.
I believe the Peace Corps was established as a way to make the world a better place with
USA's expertise and as a way to win "hearts and minds of the world's people".
If you fund, arm, and train an army for a decade and it still can't defend itself against
insurgents, then you have to wonder whose side is right? If it actually had the backing of
the people on the ground and dedicated troops and government, then it should be able to hold
its ground well.
The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the
respective armies.
In Iraq, it is largely coherent tribal entities of Kurds and Shiites that have been
providing the backbone of relatively successful military organizations (not the same one
despite being in the same country). Both groups have their own independent goals. The US
forefeited its abiltiy to create a true national army in Iraq when they disbanded the former
Iraqi Army shortly after invading. That resulted in a well-trained insurgency.
"The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the
respective armies."
Hardly. From 1979 the US funded, armed and trained the Mujaheddin, who won. I'm not aware of
them funding, arming or training the Viet Cong or Viet Minh.
They didn't win when they backed the losing sides, that's true. But it isn't saying much
beyond the obvious.
I like Bacevich but he really demurred from making his underlying point. He asked "Why
Vietnam" and then he proceeded to fluff through that question. But the analogy to Afghanistan
remains at a much deeper level. That level (imo) is this: Why Vietnam? Because, at that
hysterical cold war turning point, Vietnam was the gateway to Southern China (Gore Vidal).
Our main objective was to position ourselves to invade Southern China and protect the old
imperialist interests of the UK and France (aka Nato). But we dithered and hesitated. Thank
god. It could have been a much worse debacle. So here it is: We invaded Afghanistan and sent
a zillion dollars worth of materiel to Iraq in order to take over the Middle East. And that
meant invading Iran. But just like China, Iran was a dangerous plan. Too many things could go
wrong, so everyone knew they would go wrong. Duh. And so we dithered and hesitated. And made
up for it by blatant propaganda for 15 years. We're "outta there" because we should never
have been in there. And one of the tragedies is our abandonment of the Kurds. Just like the
South Vietnamese. Bacevich didn't mention the Kurds. He implied our abandonment would upset
the poor Afghans. But, they won't care at all. They'll be flipping all of our departing
helicopters the bird. Still there was a point to be made about our fecklessness. Interesting
aside here that Bacevich, a well thought-out moral person, is the new President of the Quincy
Institute. It will probably become famous for deep, murky contradictions. And pompous
rationalizations without ever really making the point. Just to the taste of Soros and the
Kochs.
I suspect, re Afghanistan, there is an upside that will never be made into a finer point.
That is, we have worn out the appetite for a wider war for all concerned and managed to come
to agreement with all parties of interest in Middle East oil. Including Russia. And Israel.
And nobody will make much fuss about it, but we will still leave a very high-tech military
contingent in Afghanistan because Eurasia is a vast opportunity.
Vietnam War strictly motivated by the "Domino Theory" and "monolithic Asian communism",
per Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, et al. Kennedy was said to be having "second thoughts" about
expanded US presence at the time of his assassination; however, LBJ went all-in, urged on by
McNamara and the generals 11 years later it all went tits-up, Nixon ended the draft, all
relatively quiet on the war front, then Carter and Brzezinski funded Islamic militants in
Afghanistan to harry the Russkies and ca. 20yrs later, Cheney-Bush repeat the Russian
quagmire plus ça change etc" .
The author is too limited in his appraisals of USA wars, and the commentariat here too
polite to expand on the list of the criminal wars waged by the USA since Vietnam.
Iraq and Afghanistan were mentioned, yes, but there were also open wars of aggression
against Yugoslavia, then Serbia, Grenada and Libya as well as clandestine wars against a good
chunk of the globe, Israel/Palestine, Russian backyard countries, China, Venezuela, a swathe
of Central American countries, and so on ad infinitum.
USA's holy grail of subjugating all oil producing countries in the world, except for those
that can fight back, and purported payment to those unable to fight back, with readily
printable papers of questionable value, is not a long term strategy. Not long term as in 10
or 20 more years. Then what? John Bolton or his clone on a cocktail of steroids and
amphetamine, lobbing nuclear weapons indiscriminately all over the place?
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant
points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth.
But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this
ideological prop.
Harry Magdoff's The Age of
Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not
negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it
follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at
the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently
discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only
highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for
metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material
value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point
that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic
decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control
over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But
he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have
decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end.
Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and
Economic Crisis
There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end.
The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the
only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price
bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the
economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel
Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as
had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the
post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages
across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector
of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world
output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of
Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift
from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of
consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the
surplus. 3
Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would
tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization.
In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the
demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous
phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an
explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy?
The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the
first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the
metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in
the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third
world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the
former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which
only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of
labor. 4
This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor
productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had
been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of
deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the
siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no
longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to
the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to
the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and
take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of
the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the
third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the
real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was
marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of
the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary
globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty
producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected,
to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the
postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection
is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright
dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called
development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth
rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone
absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The
labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented
further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as
metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole
therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward
overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a
counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no
longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention
through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself
through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal
deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes
on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their
incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra
demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either
through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income
unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that
finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a
larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic
theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of
the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic
system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact
undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal
spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically
exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can
do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an
instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital,
especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as
finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state,
the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second
World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is
globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a
nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large
fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse ,
causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews
direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since
that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their
social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument,
as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the
pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of
finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United
States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold"
should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the
case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would
substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt
(since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial
transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort
even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante
tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes
the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the
U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact
that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's
resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition
of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist
economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to
alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists
adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no
restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules
are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead End
There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first
is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it
was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when
the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced
impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but
this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than
it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower
participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump
would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4
percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment
post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current
problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity
utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great
Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first
decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in
manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting
stagnation of investment. 8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a
beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the
United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen
the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the
United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already
appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be
because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping
unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we
look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's
protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will
look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual
nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a
global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of
globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps
there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German
trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
9
While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large
over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with
protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even
spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world
market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the
ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their
home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture,
defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater
equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller
economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a
minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the
need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway
until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in
serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish
in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their
economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on
their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal
paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation
on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further
handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent
precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over
third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits
in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or
that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even
domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even
before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and
employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world
per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81
divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016
-- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a
period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding,
especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect
absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact
that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in
per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial
segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant
resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism
(since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher
GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time.
Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better
in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with
neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological
prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop
and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's
lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the
failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the
other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer
muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so
that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader
can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression
and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close
relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and
fascist upstarts." 10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage
and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And
these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so
the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly
incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an
alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to
fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist
crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically
is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when
the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed
revolution" points in this direction.
Fascism Then and Now
Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which
is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical
parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects
contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences
between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power
in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist
elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they
will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power
today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of
globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s,
however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state
in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to
overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by
government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the
opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to
generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either
through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both
of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The
decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of
fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot
possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any
cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a
transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The
1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military
expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the
Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned
world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to
say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far
more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an
"ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry,
but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and
the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And
while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw
such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but
international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from
particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world
to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the
entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major
powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the
world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed
so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and
Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge
(of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this
fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a
lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not
necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically
annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally.
But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal
strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to
return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will
remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even
while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence
permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as
the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced
it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an
alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal
capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism,
can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with
liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois
elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically
manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material
conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is
possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in
itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of
this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical
intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist
Interventions
Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at
a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves
integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third
world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the
fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not
anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives
meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most
political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared
promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in
that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by
most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal
capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and
political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with
these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation
that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even
before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby
denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only
increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may
well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from
a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers
and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their
support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits,
financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is
where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions
by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the
sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital.
Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its
attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the
sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the
local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of
civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection
generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions,
imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political
elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of
neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic
warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military
warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third
world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when
revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the
metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era
of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such
intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal
segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing
for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First
World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state
intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only
occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize
itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist
intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against
it.
Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1966).
One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in
The Political Economy of
Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the
long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers
from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian
and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and
Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization:
Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression,
1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013).
Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as
essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John
Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1952).
Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987),
The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik
is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997),
The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).
"... As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns
and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become
lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime. ..."
"... By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous
and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order. ..."
"... Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but
he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and
relaxation of international tensions. ..."
"... The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution
of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater
the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than
hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.... ..."
"... In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic
or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects
of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity. ..."
Note to Self: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War *
Harry Dexter White... George Kennan... George Marshall... Arthur Vandenberg... Paul Hoffman... Dean Acheson... Harry S Truman...
Dwight D. Eisenhower... Gerald Ford... George Shultz
The G.O.P. Won the Cold War? Ridiculous.
By George F. Kennan
The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically
silly.
The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political
upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish. No great country has that sort of influence
on the internal developments of any other one.
As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns
and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and
become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime.
These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is
widely seen to have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a letter from Moscow written in 1952, when
I was Ambassador there, to H. Freeman Matthews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which also have been widely
published. There were some of us to whom it was clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would not last
for all time. We could not know when or how it would be changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.
By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous
and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order.
Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist,
but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization
and relaxation of international tensions.
The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev
and discredited his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the defense of his own political position, on
a more strongly belligerent anti-American tone of public utterance.
The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military over political policy that soon was to become an outstanding
feature of American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles
over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet Union.
The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution
of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the
greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to
delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's....
In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic
or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral
aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity.
Early in my time in the service, when I had time to think being at a remote station I decided the west had the marked economic
advantage, particularly as the green revolution permitted some higher level of nutrition security.
Later on I recall discussions where the collapse of the Soviet Union was assured but would take in to the 21st century to occur.
The big question then was "would a nuclear exchange occur in the way of a peaceful collapse".....
The presence of the A Bomb in some ways prevented war in other encouraged intrigue and small scrapes in to each other's spheres.
There was a bit of the Divine in the world getting through the Cold War.
The Berlin wall came down as hoped but 25 years earlier than I expected.
KENNAN Was a lucky guy. He hit the right notes at the right time and then as he got second thoughts and better vision. Like yugoslaving
peoples China in 1949
He was side tracked and then sent out to ivy pastures
Nonsense. The moment to engage was 1953 -54 and yes a goo regime blocked it
But it was Truman that crossed the parallel in 1950 and tried to liberate north Korea
It was Kennedy that preferred brinksmanship to real engagement. Brush wars and regime change to accommodation. Missile racing
to sensible unilateralism
Yes LBJ was an ignorant oaf on foreign policy. But it was Nixon that finally used PRC as Yugo twenty years too late of course
The cold war was invented by democrats and exploited by republicans for domestic shindiggery. Tragicomedy cinescope scaled
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the
end of the 1980s. There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was
about. If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet
ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking
policy steps to carry on the Cold War.
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did
Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the
deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican
nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.
And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many
from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed
presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign
policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John
Bolton?"
At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no
small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell
wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq
War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton
had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex
Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of
Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump
chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.
Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as
U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News
contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days
of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple
times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously
favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain
of regime change.
But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the
Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive,
influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for
Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National
Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of
Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with
Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful"
regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.
More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels
for his joining the Trump administration.
The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to
understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece
by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017,
days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton
wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart
honcho was an influential figure.
"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said
Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's
direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable
conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is
not in the national-security interests of the United States."
Then Bolton, as I
documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president
proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul
couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's
ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive
Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson
failed to strenuously object.
So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney
has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the
easiest, most senior role to change horses.
A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on
the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to
see sensitive plans unsupervised.
Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three
senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate
hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war.
Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he
served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be
beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton
and even Tillerson.
The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps
just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending
the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the
Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was
reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and
next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman
diplomacy.
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and
ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.
You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics
nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been
prodigious but transparent.
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news
when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't
change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon
interventionist.
It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could
replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing
people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat
its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.
Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II
administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US
Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton
would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced
that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed
John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after "
disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "
... ... ...
Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering
neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even
Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.
While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial
complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American
Conservative:
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general
and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he
didn't.
"... Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does? ..."
"... Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.) ..."
"... Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime. ..."
"... You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve? ..."
"... It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing. ..."
"... Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy ..."
"... Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance. ..."
"... Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger. ..."
"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."
There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky,
Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.
Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton
believes and does?
Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on
behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to
resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in
general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration
(as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.)
Sorry, but Bolton's "service" sure ain't appreciated by me!
Hyperbole much I see.
If you want to honestly assess someone, you might want to avoid that tact. To my knowledge NSA Bolton is not building concentration camps to send undesirables to
an early grave.
I would be curious what you know about what his agenda is or why.
You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The
Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to
advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what
purpose does such a relationship serve?
Nah, they (Bolton and all the neocons) are celebrating the death of another American
soldier killed in a suicide attack just prior to a planned peace summit with the Taliban.
The Taliban and the neocons are two sides that deserve each other, but at the cost of many
innocents.
Its easy to depose any third world government with our military, but one cannot
eradicate an ideology with today's humanitarian standards. So we should just leave and tell
the Taliban they can even take power in Afghanistan again, but if they harbor any groups
that want to attack our country, we'll be back. It only takes a month or so to depose a
third world government. Then we leave again. We can do this over and over again and it'll
be way cheaper than leaving troops there and many fewer casualties.
I don't think Bolton will be in there for the rest of Trump's presidency. Presidential
appointments rarely ever last through the whole administration. Now I'm not when he goes
cause anyone's guess is as good as mine. And will policy actually change for the better or
remain the same?
" If only the Tsar knew how wicked his advisers are! "
We've been hearing of Bolton's imminent demise since the time Trump appointed the
unindicted criminal, and to a position that isn't subject to Congressional advice and
consent.
Bolton is still in office, still making policy, still stovepiping "intelligence" to
Trump, still plotting away like Grima Wormtongue.
If Trump wasn't so close to Bolton, why was he in regular contact with the man before
appointing him, and why does he allow Bolton to control what information Trump gets?
And if you read the latest news, it seems that the occupation of Afghanistan isn't going
anywhere either. Bolton wins again, but some writers at TAC keep holding out hope for
Trump.
"If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to
strenuously object."
Well, isn't that nice? Trump's decision on whether to keep or fire his national security
advisor depends on the whim of the hideous, Israel-uber-alles ideologue Adelson. That sure
makes me feel good. (And by the way, Curt Mills, this is called burying the lede.)
Of course it's only logical. It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in
the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon
allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more
significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national
CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for
what was effectively his firing.
This piece misses what's important about the Trump administration's foreign/security
policy saga and reduces it to a mere matter of personalities and petty politics. File this
under the heading of discretion being the better part of valor.
"Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has
helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely
be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."
So -- Ilhan Omar was right??? I thought she was a vile anti-Semite echoing an ancient
slur!!
If Bolton does leave, I won't be sorry to see him go. Bolton's Hawkish opinions are
dangerous to the US' economic health.
Want to go into a deep Recession? Start another long-term foreign war that goes on for
decades - and do it on credit, AGAIN.
Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't
want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of
geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance.
The photo accompanying the article sums it up. Pompeo flanked by an American flag, and both
of them dwarfed by a huge projection of the flag of Israel.
Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is
their messenger.
"... A UN report published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. ..."
"... The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed by Washington's mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue. ..."
"... After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels. ..."
"... The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies. ..."
"... When the US starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the sordid game is finally up. ..."
The war was launched by the US-backed Saudi coalition, including the United Arab Emirates,
in March 2015, without any provocation from Yemen. The precipitating factor was that the
Houthis, a mainly Shia rebel group aligned with Iran, had kicked out a corrupt Saudi-backed
dictator at the end of 2014. When he tucked tail and fled to exile in Saudi capital Riyadh,
that's when the Saudis launched their aerial bombing campaign on Yemen.
The slaughter in Yemen over the past four years has been nothing short of a calamity for the
population of nearly 28 million people. The UN estimates that nearly 80 per cent of the nation
is teetering on hunger and disease.
A UN report
published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive
war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and
Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. The UN
report also blamed the Houthis for committing atrocities. That may be so, but the preponderance
of deaths and destruction in Yemen is due to American, British and French military support to
the Saudi-led coalition. Up to 100,ooo civilians may have been killed from the Western-backed
blitzkrieg, while the Western media keep quoting a figure of "10,000", which magically never
seems to increase over the past four years.
Several factors are pressing the Trump administration to wind down the Yemen war.
The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed
by Washington's mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern
Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of
being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue.
When the American Congress is united in calling for a ban on US arms to Saudi Arabia because
of the atrocities in Yemen, then we should know that the PR war has been lost. President Trump
over-ruled Congress earlier this year to continue arming the Saudis in Yemen. But even Trump
must at last be realizing his government's culpability for aiding and abetting genocide is no
longer excusable, even for the most credulous consumers of American propaganda.
After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the
Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the
Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric
bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels.
Not only that but the Houthis have begun to take the war into the heart of Saudi Arabia.
Over the past year, the rebels have mounted increasingly sophisticated long-range drone and
ballistic missile attacks on Saudi military bases and the capital Riyadh. From where the
Houthis are receiving their more lethal weaponry is not clear. Maybe from Lebanon's Hezbollah
or from Iran. In any case, such supply if confirmed could be argued as legitimate support for a
country facing aggression.
No doubt the Houthis striking deep into Saudi territory has given the pampered monarchs in
Riyadh serious pause for thought.
When the UAE – the other main coalition partner – announced a month ago that it
was scaling back its involvement in Yemen that must have rattled Washington and Riyadh that the
war was indeed futile.
The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict
which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and
Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of
UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has
erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could
blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies.
Washington has doubtless taken note of the unstoppable disaster in Yemen and how its
position is indefensible and infeasible.
Like so many other obscene American wars down through the decades, Washington is facing yet another ignominious defeat in
Yemen. When the US starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the
sordid game is finally up.
"... What was set as a routine status conference in federal court in Washington D.C. for Tuesday, 10 September, has now changed to one with a very significant shift: the judge will establish a briefing schedule and a hearing date for the request (usually called a "motion") to compel the government to produce Brady material and for an order to show cause why the prosecutors involved should not be held in contempt of court. A "brief" is a written argument filed for consideration by a court on a particular issue or issues. It is part of a post-trial appeal to a court of appeals or to the Supreme Court, but can be unilaterally filed or ordered to be filed in a trial court. ..."
"... The case and prosecution of Gen. Flynn have seemed peculiar from the start, as was his sudden resignation as National Security Advisor on 13 February 2017 after a protest against him by vice president Mike Pence. ..."
"... The "special counsel" Robert Mueller was appointed on 17 May 2017. By 30 November 2017 a criminal charge was filed against Flynn in federal court pursuant to a plea bargain agreement, and the next day he appeared in court for the formal hearing to enter a guilty plea before Judge Rudolph Contreras. ..."
"... Six days later on 7 December, Judge Contreras recused himself, and Judge Sullivan was randomly assigned to preside over the case. Why Judge Contreras suddenly bailed out is not known, although one issue might be that he was named to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on 19 May 2016 for a term until 18 May 2023, and warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) may have intercepted communications by Flynn before and after Donald Trump was elected president. ..."
"... The references in the documents and court orders to "Brady material" come from the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court opinion called Brady vs. Maryland. It required the government to produce evidence in its possession that is favorable to the defendant, although the type of evidence and who decided what evidence was "favorable" was the subject of subsequent court opinions and ethical rules of State Bar Associations governing the conduct of attorneys. The opinion in the Brady case interpreted the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution as requiring the disclosure of exculpatory information to the defense in a criminal case. ..."
"... "John Dowd: And the stuff on Flynn is absolutely false. ..."
The term "ex parte" appears in different contexts in the court system, and is heaviest when
one side in a legal dispute meets with the judge behind closed doors without the other side
being present. On 5 September 2019, this uncommon event happened when Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.)
and his new lawyers met privately with Judge Emmet Sullivan about the refusal of the federal
government, through its prosecutors, to grant them security clearances to look at some existing
information and exculpatory material in his criminal case, and any new material that might be
disclosed.
Three documents filed in Flynn's case on 30 August led to the ex parte meeting and a
change in scheduling: a joint status report which was not very joint; a Motion to Compel
Production of Brady Material and for an Order to Show Cause, filed under seal; and a brief in
support of the motion to compel and for a show cause order that is not sealed.
What was set as a routine status conference in federal court in Washington D.C. for Tuesday,
10 September, has now changed to one with a very significant shift: the judge will establish a
briefing schedule and a hearing date for the request (usually called a "motion") to compel the
government to produce Brady material and for an order to show cause why the prosecutors
involved should not be held in contempt of court. A "brief" is a written argument filed for
consideration by a court on a particular issue or issues. It is part of a post-trial appeal to
a court of appeals or to the Supreme Court, but can be unilaterally filed or ordered to be
filed in a trial court.
The court's description appearing in the clerk's docket sheet says, in part--
"09/05/2019 Hearing (Ex Parte) for proceedings before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan held on
9/5/2019 as to Michael T. Flynn. The Court held an ex parte and sealed hearing with Mr. Flynn
and defense counsel to consider Mr. Flynn's request for the Court's intervention on counsels
request for security clearances. See Joint Status Report, ECF No. 107 at 2-3 (stating 'the
government continues to deny [Mr. Flynn's] request for security clearances. [Mr. Flynn's]
attempts to resolve that issue with the government have come to a dead end, thus requiring the
intervention of this Court.').... The Court advised counsel that it intends to resolve 109
Motion to Compel Production of Brady Material before addressing any Court intervention
regarding security clearances for Mr. Flynns counsel."
The case and prosecution of Gen. Flynn have seemed peculiar from the start, as was his
sudden resignation as National Security Advisor on 13 February 2017 after a protest against him
by vice president Mike Pence.
The "special counsel" Robert Mueller was appointed on 17 May 2017. By 30 November 2017 a
criminal charge was filed against Flynn in federal court pursuant to a plea bargain agreement,
and the next day he appeared in court for the formal hearing to enter a guilty plea before
Judge Rudolph Contreras.
Six days later on 7 December, Judge Contreras recused himself, and
Judge Sullivan was randomly assigned to preside over the case. Why Judge Contreras suddenly
bailed out is not known, although one issue might be that he was named to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court on 19 May 2016 for a term until 18 May 2023, and warrants under
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) may have intercepted communications by Flynn
before and after Donald Trump was elected president.
On 12 December 2017, Judge Sullivan issued his standard order requiring the government to
produce any evidence in its possession that is favorable to the defendant and material to
either the defendant's guilt or punishment [1]. On 21 February 2018, a protective order was
signed governing the use and disclosure of information regarding the case by the parties,
whether unclassified or classified [2].
The case proceeded along to 18 December 2018, when a weird and aborted sentencing hearing
took place, as Judge Sullivan may not have been fully aware of the details of the case or had
not been fully briefed by his law clerks, and said surprising things not expected by the
parties. Any sentencing was then postponed, and that hearing is a story in itself.
Drama resumed in March 2019 when the report of the Mueller group was given to the U.S.
Attorney General consisting of two volumes totalling 448 pages. On 17 May 2019, an assistant
U.S. Attorney filed excerpts of the Mueller report in the court clerk's file.
Meanwhile, Gen. Flynn decided to change lawyers, and discharged the attorneys from the
Covington & Burling law firm of Washington D.C., who withdrew on 6 June 2019. That firm has
been an establishment and silk-stocking group since 1919, with Dean Acheson, later the
Secretary of State, as one of the early members. It now has expanded to offices in 12
additional cities and has over 1,000 lawyers. However, as is known in life, such silk stockings
do not always prevail.
If a lawyer is discharged from representing a client when a matter is pending, the client's
file is to be given to him. Even in the internally protective legal community, dragging your
feet in returning a client's file is a big no-no. The docket sheet revealed a sideshow after
Covington & Burling withdrew from representing Flynn. His new attorneys complained that not
all of the file material had been returned. Covington & Burlington's size and position in
the D.C. Bar meant nothing, as Judge Sullivan responded in a order on 16 July 2019--
"07/16/2019 Minute Order as to Michael T. Flynn. In view of the parties' responses to the
Court's Minute Order of July 9, 2019, the Court, sua sponte, schedules a status conference for
August 27, 2019 at 11:00 AM in Courtroom 24A. Defense counsel has represented to the Court that
Mr. Flynn has not received the entire file from his former counsel. ... In light of the
representations made by defense counsel regarding the delay in receiving the client files, the
Court hereby gives notice to the parties of the Court's intent to invite Senior Legal Ethics
Counsel for the District of Columbia Bar to attend the status conference and explain on the
record the applicable District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct. Mr. Flynn's former
counsel shall attend the status conference...."
This threatened kick to the groin area motivated Covington & Burlington to the extent
that nine days later, on 25 July, they signed a paper, subsequently filed, which said that by
then all of Gen. Flynn's file had been returned, and: "The firm never, in any way whatsoever,
conditioned the transfer of files to General Flynn's new counsel on payment of outstanding
fees" [3].
The status conference set for 27 August was then cancelled, and the parties were to file a
joint status report by 30 August and tell the court: "(1) the status of Mr. Flynn's
cooperation; (2) whether the case is ready for sentencing; (3) suggested dates for the
sentencing hearing, if appropriate; and (4) whether there are any issues that would require the
Court's resolution prior to Mr. Flynn's sentencing".
But the joint status report ended up saying, " The parties are unable to reach a joint
response on the above topics. Accordingly, our respective responses are set forth separately
below" [4].
Also on 30 August the two documents were filed that kicked off the new developments: a
sealed request to compel production of material and for a show cause order about whether the
prosecutors should be held in contempt of court, and the brief in support of the request, which
is publicly available.
Larry Johnson noticed the importance of the 30 August brief and discussed it a week ago
[5].
The references in the documents and court orders to "Brady material" come from the 1963 U.S.
Supreme Court opinion called Brady vs. Maryland. It required the government to produce evidence
in its possession that is favorable to the defendant, although the type of evidence and who
decided what evidence was "favorable" was the subject of subsequent court opinions and ethical
rules of State Bar Associations governing the conduct of attorneys. The opinion in the Brady
case interpreted the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution as requiring the disclosure of
exculpatory information to the defense in a criminal case.
The brief is 19 pages long and is useful to read because it describes in more general terms
what certainly would appear in detail in the motion filed under seal. In addition, pages 11-16
present a basic description of the Brady doctrine--
As a possibly helpful coincidence, Judge Sullivan presided over the disgraceful trial of
Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska in 2008, in which the Department of Justice prosecutors did not
disclose exculpatory evidence they had about Stevens, and the misconduct was so blatant that
Judge Sullivan held three prosecutors in contempt of court on 13 February 2009, which forced
them off of the case after the trial was over. New prosecutors saw that the case had real
problems when the evidence favorable to Stevens was considered, and in 2009 requested that the
jury verdict be set aside and cancelled, and the criminal charges dismissed "with prejudice",
which means that they cannot be filed again.
Judge Sullivan on 7 April 2009 appointed an
attorney to investigate the Justice Department lawyers, and it resulted in what is called the Schuelke report, which is referenced in footnote 3 on page 2 of the brief filed in Flynn's case
[6]. Thus, Judge Sullivan knows that attorneys and agents of the Department of Justice can
commit misconduct, and he is capable of addressing it.
However, the procedural posture of Gen. Flynn's case is a difficult one. He signed a plea
bargain agreement and pled guilty to the one charge in open court, going through the whole
drill that accompanies the entry of a plea of guilty, including affirmative statements about
knowledge and voluntariness. However, the one good thing is that he has not yet been sentenced
and a final order has not been signed by the judge.
From the papers in the court clerk's file, it appears as if the new lawyers for Gen. Flynn
are approaching the problem by developing events that are like those which resulted in the
dismissal of the case against Senator Ted Stevens. The request filed on 30 August and its
accompanying brief ask for information favorable to Flynn to be disclosed, plus the initiation
of a contempt of court proceeding against the prosecutors. If the prosecutors from the Mueller
group and the Justice Department are held in contempt of court for their conduct during the
investigation and for failing to make proper disclosures of evidence, they should be forced off
of the case, and other possible remedies may also be available in Gen. Flynn's favor.
The clerk's docket sheet is in reverse chronological order, starting with the recent
documents and going backwards in time to the beginning of the court case--
A few months back, I was dialing between radio stations while driving and heard part of an
interview that caught my attention. The interview was of attorney John Dowd, who represented
president Trump for a period of time during the investigation by special counsel Robert
Mueller. The newly filed documents in the Flynn case brought back to mind the interview of John
Dowd. I found it the other day as a video of the radio program, which was on 19 April 2019,
after the Mueller report had been released. The following excerpt is of interest, and starts at
about 9 minutes and 34 seconds into the interview. The whole interview follows the short
transcript below, and both website citations are to the same interview--
"John Dowd: And the stuff on Flynn is absolutely false.
Brian Kilmeade: What do you mean?
John Dowd: We were ...
Brian Kilmeade: What do you mean the stuff's on ... [crosstalk]
John Dowd: Flynn didn't commit a crime. You know, we were, we helped Flynn's lawyers because
they couldn't find their way around. They couldn't get documents. We got everything for them.
And we, we were told, I was told they were going in to convince the special counsel that there
was no case there.
Brian Kilmeade: Well they said [crosstalk] Hey John, they told, they, they..., in the report
it says Flynn was told by the president to go get the 30,000 missing Hillary e-mails.
The status conference is to begin at 11:00 a.m. today, 10 September. If the position of the
judge remains the same, a schedule for the filing of briefs by the parties and a hearing date
about Flynn's motion will be established, which will create a new dynamic at a sensitive point
in this criminal case.
[1] The standard order of Judge Emmet Sullivan that the government is to produce information
and evidence to the defense.
[6] The report by Henry Schuelke III was completed in November 2011. It is 514 pages after
the table of contents, plus an addendum of comments and objections by the six subjects of his
investigation. The report in the pdf computer format as filed is around 30 megabytes in size,
and so uploading it for viewing is not practical at this time.
We have been in Afghanistan for how long? 16 years? It is our longest war. How much progress
have we actually made?
1. The government that we have tried so long to nurture controls a shrinking percentage of
both territory and population.
2. How much money have we poured into the pockets of crooks of all nationalities? In spite
of that the country is severely lacking in physical, social, legal, and business
infrastructure.
3. The country's armed forces have been expanded under NATO tutelage to such a size that the
small GDP will never be able to pay for them on its own. In spite of that they are unable even
to defend their own installations.
4. The country is still racked by tribal, ethnic and jihadi wars. It has always been thus
with the exception of a golden age when the last Afghan king ruled in the 50s and 60s. How did
he do that? He did it by careful inter-ethnic diplomacy and a minimum effort to "unify" his
realm.
5. Attacks on NATO personnel by Afghan soldiers and police continue.
6. The capital, Kabul, is not secured and is regularly attacked.
7. The much vaunted COIN doctrine has failed there as it has failed in so many places in the
world.
In spite of this the generals and the COIN nuts persist in trying to reverse Obama's policy
of withdrawal from the "country" (a geographical expression really). President Trump, who knows
nothing of things military or geo-political is about to begin the process of re-introducing US
combat and training forces into this blank space on the map, a space filled with hostile
tribesmen and religious fanatics. This blank space was given the dubious status of a state in
the international system of states because the Russians and the British wanted to establish a
buffer entity between the Tsar's empire and the Raj.
President Trump should be told that there is nothing there of real importance to the US,
nothing worth more vast quantities of our money and more rivers of our blood. Let the Afghans,
Chinese, Pakistanis, Iranians and Russians deal with the chaos. pl
The American military is advanced over both Russia and China in one sense - they have access
to endless taxpayers' dollars to fund their programs, many of which are complete failures.
Putin can offer Trump hyper-sonic missiles knowing he cannot accept. To accept
these would display the USA's technical military inferiority for all to see. The msm ,
Hollywood, etc. all sing from the same song-sheet. "USA is great", ignore all the wars they
have lost, ignore the astronomical military financial expenditure (declared and hidden).
Just
like Reagan's star-wars program public perception is everything
These idiots don't hire themselves. The problem is Trump. It doesn't matter whether Bolton
(or Pompeo, or Hook, or Abrams) is in or out as long as Trump himself is in the White
House.
That realization has turned my 2016 protest vote for Trump into a 2020 protest vote for
Elizabeth Warren. The underlying principle is be the same, voting yet again for the lesser
of two evils.
Many voice conflicting judgments, but an impartial look back on history produces the unequivocal conclusion: yes,
mistakes and shortcomings were many, but without perestroika the world would have never been what it is today
MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Thirty years after the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on a policy of
reforms that would go down in history under a name sounding very oddly to a foreign ear - perestroika - Russians are
discussing those events of their country's recent history again. Many voice conflicting judgements, but an impartial
look back on history produces the unequivocal conclusion: yes, mistakes and shortcomings were many, but without
perestroika the world would have never been what it is today.
On April 23, 1985 the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party gathered for its historic full-scale meeting to
set course towards what was described as fundamental reorganization and acceleration of the Soviet Union's economic
development after a long period of what was condemned as stagnation. The new course, originally expected to overhaul
and invigorate the Soviet system, ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"The gist of what happened
then was simple: at the very top a decision was a made the people are free to express their thought in public and for
that they will neither risk losing their life or go to jail or even go jobless," says the founder of the Yabloko
party, Grigory Yavlinsky. "There emerged the freedom of speech. The feeling of fear vanished. Full stop. All other
processes that followed were nothing but consequences. The previous political system was built on falsehoods. The
advent of truth caused a lethal effect on that system, and it fell apart."
"Perestroika's worst problem was there was no strategic planning. The reform plan and its end goal were very
unclear all along," Sergey Filatov, the former chief of staff of Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin told TASS.
"Without a plan the policy was doomed to fail."
And still, Filatov said, perestroika caused a tremendous impact: it triggered reforms and showed the people that
changes were possible even under the old system.
"Perestroika was an intricate process," says Aleksei Makarkin, the first deputy president of the Political
Technologies Centre. "It was first a belated attempt to reform the economy, then the ensuing chaos, and ultimately an
attempt to defuse popular anger with political reform. The process eventually broke bounds. It all ended with the
collapse of the country. Gorbachev merely tried to make that process controllable more or less," Makarkin told TASS.
Gorbachev was forced to launch economic reforms, because the main engine that kept the Soviet economy going was
the export of oil. When oil prices slumped, something had to be done right away," Makarkin recalled. "His
predecessors had drawn up no strategic plans. Nobody dared touch the system. Later, when some steps began to be taken
at last, it turned out that no one had the slightest idea of how to go about that business. Conflicting decisions
followed in quick succession. First, an attempt was made to speed up economic development and diversify the economy
at a time when oil prices plummeted. In 1987 the attempt failed. Other remedies began to be tried. Some traces of a
free market economy began to develop, such as cooperatives in the services and public catering. Some components of a
controlled market economy cropped up."
The rapprochement with the West under Gorbachev was started with a far-reaching aim, Makarkin believes. In that
situation the Soviet economy was no longer capable of carrying the burden of the Cold War and the arms race. "Without
that no rapprochement might have ever happened. Also, there was the war in Afghanistan that had to be curtailed."
"In general, the Gorbachev era in home and foreign policies was that of haste, inconsistency, belated decisions
and forced moves. In the meantime, the people's living standards slumped and protest sentiment soared. Attempts to
woo the general public reached nowhere. In 1987-1988 social discontent soared and Boris Yeltsin emerged as its
embodiment."
"Hoping to ease tensions in society political reforms were declared only to cause centrifugal processes," Makarkin
recalls. "As a result, the Soviet republics began to drift ever farther apart - some before the August 1991 coup, and
others after. A counter-attempt to create something like a federation or confederation drew strong objections from
the hard-line conservatives, which led to the country's utter collapse.
But perestroika should not be painted only in dark colours, Makarkin said.
"One should remember that Gorbachev gave the people freedom - first, economic, and then political. For instance,
the freedom to travel out of the country and back: something everybody takes for granted. It was under Gorbachev that
the Church regained full legitimacy. Lastly, the freedom of speech, which has long become a fact of life."
"Also, Gorbachev largely takes the credit for avoiding a large-scale civil war and chaos and total chaos in a vast
country, however tragic the unrest in Tbilisi, Vilnius and Nagorno-Karabakh of those days may still look these days.
He decided against the extreme scenario implying the use of force, which many interpreted as a sign of weakness. It
should be remembered: those who dared use force merely accelerated the country's collapse."
The policy of perestroika proclaimed in the Soviet Union in 1985 has caused more harm than good, say 55% of
Russians, as follows from a Levada poll held in March. In contrast to this, ten years ago 70% said perestroika was a
bad choice.
"... There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about. ..."
"... If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold War. ..."
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now,
American historians were mistaken at the end of the 1980s.
There had been no winning of the
Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about.
If the
Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the
Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or
with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold
War.
"... No, America lost the Cold War. We may be richer than when it started, but a larger portion of our incomes go to the government . Even worse, the United States now leads the world in imprisonment –not just by rate but in absolute terms as well, with 1 out of every 150 Americans behind bars. This is largely a consequence of the War on Drugs, which is a war the American government wages upon its own citizens. In the years of the Cold War and since, we have become substantially less free. ..."
As everyone should know by now but probably does not, this is the twentieth anniversary of
the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first breach in that wall set off a chain reaction that would
eventually topple Communist governments and liberate people across half of Europe. It would
also end the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Block, substantially diminishing the
possibility for nuclear annihilation. However, when people say that the West–or more
particularly, America–won the Cold War, I'm not exactly sure what they mean.
Of course, America still exists as a country while the Soviet Union does not, but in a war
that is supposedly about ideas and ideals, victory must me something more than outlasting your
opponent.
I think the more appropriate way to look at the matter is to ask: who has benefited the most
from the end of the Cold War? Clearly, it is the peoples of East Germany, Poland, Estonia, etc.
that have gained the most. They are far richer than they were twenty years ago, and more
importantly they are able to speak and think as they please without fear of imprisonment,
torture, and possibly death at the hands of their governments. Even Russia, which is still far
from free, is a much freer place than it was under the Soviets. Dissident journalists do still
turn up missing, but to be known as a dissident journalist in the Soviet Union was almost an
impossibility. The post-Communist states all have a long way to go to complete freedom, but
with few exceptions , they are all now much
closer to that ideal than they were twenty years ago.
But can we say that the people of the United States also won the Cold War? Sadly, I
do not believe so. After World War II, the United States' standing army likely would have
shrunk back to the small peacetime numbers that existed for most of our history if it weren't
for the Cold War. Instead, the U.S. military spread across the world, allegedly to keep the
country free from the horrors of Communism. Ironically, keeping the people of America free
required enslaving a large percentage of her young men through the country's first peacetime
draft. And of course, soldiers must be housed, equipped, fed, and paid, which required a higher
level of taxation than Americans were used to in peacetime. Twenty years ago, the United States
could have reversed this course and reaped the peace dividend, but instead the government
pressed ahead and extended American influence into the former Soviet Block–taking on new
powers and responsibilities along the way.
No, America lost the Cold War. We may be richer than when it started, but a larger portion
of our incomes go to the government .
Even worse, the United States now leads the world in imprisonment
–not just by rate but in absolute terms as well, with 1 out of every 150 Americans behind
bars. This is largely a consequence of the War on Drugs, which is a war the American government
wages upon its own citizens. In the years of the Cold War and since, we have become
substantially less free.
One right that is still largely intact is the Freedom of Religion, but most versions of
American Christianity today bear little resemblance to the teachings found in the Gospels. In
this country today, people tend to worship the American Jesus , more known for killing
"hajis" than offering salvation. Christianity has become a state religion in this country as it
was for the Roman Emperor Constantine, and it is put to the same use of justifying military
power. Perhaps even worse than using the Prince of Peace for war, the president (provided he is
of the right party, of course) is now viewed by most as an avatar of God on Earth if not God
himself. Many American Christians have rendered everything unto Caesar and have nothing left
for God.
The world is a far freer place than it was twenty years ago, but America is not. Kierkegaard
once wrote "What slave in chains is as unfree as a tyrant!" As the tyrant of the world,
America is enslaved to all. Truly, America has gained the world, but lost her soul.
And yet we had plenty of (perhaps more) morality laws before the War on
Drugs
Perhaps the problem is that the government does not defend its borders (well, that and the
intelligence agencies have long funded some operations with drug money look at
Afghanistan!)?
Not everything illegal has a special allure, it really depends on enforcement of the
law.
And, John, a lot of Eastern Europe is NOT better off than it was 20 years ago, particularly
now that their speculative bubbles have burst. The signs are shinier, there are more decent
restaurants, but many other economic, social, and moral declines. And East Europeans have
gained freedom in many ways, but lost it in others.
People forget that many of the anti-Communist movements like the New Forum activists in the
DDR or Solidarnosc in Poland claimed they were pro-socialist (just for a more democratic,
participatory regime). The original point was not joining NATO and mass privatisation, but
rather civil liberties, and, sometimes, true conservative principles (pro-church, rediscovering
a spiritual mission of their people). But church attendance has increased slightly while
(corporal, at least) immorality has increased significantly! What gain is that? Much of the
national infrastructure was stolen by oligarchs who took the money to Switzerland, much others
were sold to foreigners.
Basically, (most of) East Europe has been absorbed into the control of the international
financial elite (or NWO or whatever you prefer to term it).
There are some very secular, more generous welfare states with considerably more civil
liberties. Of course they have their own problems, but that is not the source of our War of
Terror, War on Drugs, USA Patriot Act, etc. Paleoconservatives are too often naifs in
suggesting, essentially, that some lead us on the road to Hell with good intentions. It is
actually direct corruption in our govt that is the source of all our greatest national
catastrophes.
I found a figure for Cuba. The 2005 official statistics put it at about 490 per 100K, so
about 70% the US rate – still high, but no cigar. Oh I see a more recent (2008?) rate of
531, but still keeping pace with the US at about 70% its rate. That is a British univeristy
study – they estimate the Sudanese rate about 1/20 the US rate (so they had a civil war,
but they aren't totalitarian, what did you think?). Zimbabwe is given as about 1/5 the US rate.
The link, if it works to post it here-
Thomas, were you referring to England and the continental welfare
states with their anti free speech laws, confiscatory taxation and intrusive regulation of
every stage of life? Welfare states must be coercive in order to function. That's why
conservatives off all types abhor them.
The percentage of population in incarceration can be a deceptive statistic. States lie about
these things for a start. Totalitarian states like Cuba and China have the option of simply
killing offenders and of course many people just flee state control.
The US has a large degree of incarceration due to the popularity of "Get tough on drug
offender" legislation. We have a large criminal underclass in this country and after decades of
revolving door justice, the public just got fed up. It may not be humane, but it works. That's
democracy for you.
By the way, there is no system more involved in the criminal justice system than our welfare
bureaucracy. Most criminals are born into to welfare, graduate to truancy and addiction and
then crime, all under the watchful eye of social workers, guidance counselors, school
psychologists, court appointed counselors and probation officers, etc. etc. But this shouldn't
take any of the luster off welfare states, right?
Actually, China records their executions, they do not just shoot
criminals on sight. Neither does Cuba. And neither of those countries would qualify as the top
10 or 20 draconian, authoritarian states (i.e., where citizens shake in fear of the police) at
the moment.
England is widely known to be the most surveillance over its population, but it also has the
weakest welfare state in Western Europe!!!! Scandinavia has much more freedom in general and
much stronger welfare. Your attempt to make some sort of correlation is ridiculous. None of
these countries has a PATRIOT ACT, where you can be deemed an enemy and held indefinitely.
Britain has tried several times to enact something similar, but the Lords always block it. It
would be absurd in Germany even.
The United States is simply no longer a beacon of civil liberties even compared with true
welfare states. Sorry.
And if you are worried about the existence of a criminal underclass, you can probably blame
the extreme inequalities of wealth, the co-existence of hyper-First World and quasi-Third World
elements. All of Latin America has the same, though their welfare states are rarely very
advanced. I think you would find the same trend in Africa.
Mind you, I don't want to be like Sweden. I would prefer America to return to the 50s (not
entirely, but overall it would be an improvement). In the 50s there was a more even
redistribution of wealth and less nanny statism because there was more direct dirigisme. The
State was more involved in industrial planning and regulated trade and financial institutions.
Individuals paid less tax because corporations paid more. If the economy is planned such that
productive employment is a priority, then you can maintain a stable working class. If you take
that away, like the US and UK have done, then you get a permanent underclass with no prospects
of a stable life.
The problem with the 1950's is that they inevitably evolve into the
1960's. And soon we're where we are now. That's the way of welfare states, they introduce such
dependency, indolence and corruption that they just grow. But hey they always have their
defenders. As for the lack of a Patriot Act in Europe, you must be kidding. The least you could
do is read the British press. British subjects can be criminally charged for suggesting that
heterosexual couples make better adoptive parents than homosexuals. The French police do as
they please, and always have. The British do have preventative detention.
Nobody said that the Chinese and or Cubans shot people out of hand. But they do shoot people
rather than feed them for long periods, as we do. You can believe their statistics if you want
to.
Our underclass remains a dangerous nuisance despite public education, taxpayer supported
charity care, a multitude of Federal and State programs and affirmative action. Of course we
are importing more every day, adding to the income disparity you speak of. Perhaps we should
deport people to level out the disparity a bit. What do you think?
I like your idea of our no longer being a beacon. It's attracting the wrong sort.
Yes, of course we should deport people. Illegal immigration is not the
source of the US socioeconomic problems, but it compounds them by a serious factor.
Being a former resident of Houston, where parts of the city (probably the most red-voting
major city in the US) were literally crawling with illegals who undercut everyone else's wages
(that's why they are here), I can attest a bit to the corrupting effect this has on everyone
involved.
"... Westad faults Truman for being unwilling or unable to extend Franklin Roosevelt's friendly policy toward the USSR. ..."
"... "The Soviet assistance program for China was not only the biggest Moscow ever undertook outside its own borders," Westad writes. "It was also, in relative terms, the biggest such program undertaken by any country anywhere, including the US Marshall Plan for Europe." Within a decade following this generosity, they almost fought a nuclear war. ..."
"... WESTAD ALSO wrote a book on the fall of détente, for which he distinctly blames Americans. "Nixon and Kissinger had gone further in attempting to manage the Cold War together with the Soviet Union than most Americans were willing to accept," he writes. "Most Americans were simply not willing to tolerate that the United States could have an equal in international affairs, in the 1970s or ever." This is where Gaddis's immersion in American documents might have been helpful. Most Americans, at least on the anti-détente side, were worried not that the Soviet Union was at parity with the United States, but that it had actually exceeded America's capabilities. However wrongheaded and overly alarmist that perspective was, its importance in explaining American behavior should not be overlooked. ..."
"... Westad will have none of it. "Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine," he writes. "On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. . . . The turn toward a policy of massive nuclear retaliation meant preparing for strategic warfare on a scale that so far had seemed unimaginable." Pages later, he adds, ..."
"... Eisenhower lacked the imagination and political will to think about ending the Cold War after Stalin's death. This is a provocative portrayal of Eisenhower, a welcome antidote to the revisionism that can approach hagiography. But it is undercut by Westad's slight documentation. ..."
"... Cold War triumphalism has had pernicious effects on American foreign policy. A straight line can be drawn from the idea that Ronald Reagan's military buildup and assertive rhetoric ended the Cold War to the fantasy that the United States could rebuild the Middle East. The prominence of neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration was due largely to the widespread belief that they had been right in seeing the transformative potential of American power during the Cold War. Though Donald Trump was able, in the Republican primaries in 2016, to counter delusions of American omnipotence with delusions of American seclusion, the messianic streak still runs strong in the Republican Party and in segments of the Democratic Party. Its absence in current political debates should be seen as temporary. When it inevitably arises again, trouble will ensue. "We all lost the cold war," Gorbachev once said. The difficulty arises when one party thinks it won. ..."
Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History
(New York: Basic Books, 2017), 720 pp., $35.00.
IN 2005
, the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis released his book,
The Cold War: A New History
. Glowing
reviews of the book followed in the
New York Times
and
Foreign Affairs
. Among the few dissenters was Tony Judt, a
New York University historian who died in 2010. Judt had opposed the Iraq War, when so many other intellectuals -- including
Gaddis -- joined in the delusions that George W. Bush could, should and would democratize the Middle East. By 2005, those fantasies
were discredited by events in Mesopotamia (though Gaddis was unchastened, arguing in the American Interest
as late as 2008
that the senior goal of American foreign policy should be "ending tyranny").
In the
New York Review of Books
, Judt argued that "John Lewis Gaddis has written a history of America's cold war: as
seen from America, as experienced in America, and told in a way most agreeable to many American readers." However brilliant his
works had been during the Cold War, Gaddis became an American triumphalist once the Berlin Wall collapsed. He had comparatively
little understanding of the Soviet experience and, most egregiously, didn't seem to care much about the enormous damage both
superpowers inflicted on what was then called the Third World. The result, Judt argued, was that the Cold War was "a story still to
be told."
With Odd Arne Westad's new book, the story is now told. Westad is the coauthor of several books on the Cold War, as well as
coeditor of the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War
. He also wrote
The Global Cold War: Third World
Interventions and the Making of Our Times
, which won the Bancroft Prize. As its title indicates,
The Global Cold War
suggested that the Cold War was very much a globe-spanning conflict, migrating into areas far beyond the borders of the two
superpowers.
His new book integrates that focus on the developing world with a more traditional emphasis on the great powers. It is aimed at a
general rather than a scholarly audience, with far fewer footnotes or archival research than his previous works (more on that
later).
The Cold War: A World History
is told chronologically, but unlike most books on the subject, it begins with the
right period.
THE FIRST
well-regarded book on the war written from a post–Berlin Wall perspective was Martin Walker's
Cold
War,
published in 1994. Like so many others to come, it began with the dissension in the Allied ranks in the closing years of
World War II. By beginning with an earlier period, Westad advances beyond that approach. He is able to devote some attention to the
ideological sources of the struggle, which began with Lenin's interpretation of communism, prioritizing global revolution and
antagonism toward the noncommunist world. "The Cold War was born from the global transformations of the late nineteenth century and
was buried as a result of tremendously rapid changes a hundred years later," he writes. Those changes include decolonization, the
ascension of the United States to world power and the gradual decline of scientific socialism, as well as the two world wars. "The
Great War jumpstarted the destinies of the two future Cold War Superpowers. It made the United States the global embodiment of
capitalism and it made Russia a Soviet Union, a permanent challenge to the capitalist world." Westad also makes the
thought-provoking claim, rather unusual in a book on the Cold War, that
it is therefore quite possible that the Cold War will be reduced in significance by future historians, who from their vantage
point will attach more significance to the origins of Asian economic power, or the beginning of space exploration, or the
eradication of smallpox.
Westad proceeds from there through all the stops along the way to the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Separate chapters
examine India, China, the Middle East and Latin America, as well as summaries of Richard Nixon's diplomacy and the reigns of
Kennedy, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. That he manages to do all this in largely sequential fashion is doubly impressive.
The Cold War
evinces a lifetime of research and thought on the subject. Compelling ideas and valuable insights appear
frequently, such as: "In spite of their attractiveness on a global scale, neither the Soviet nor the US system was ever fully
replicated elsewhere." Or the explanation for communism's appeal in Vietnam: "One reason, ironically, was the integration of
Vietnamese elites into French culture and education, from whence the post-1914 generation took over the radicalization that was
prevalent among French youth, too." Or: "In Asia as in Europe, US policy in the early Cold War was more oriented toward the
expansion of capitalism as such than toward a unique preservation of US national economic advantage or the interests of specific US
companies."
Westad's assessment is that some sort of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was inevitable once the common
foe of Nazi Germany was extinguished. "Leaders of the two countries had seen each other as adversaries ever since the Russian
Revolution of 1917, and in some cases even before that," he writes. Illustrative of his measured approach throughout the book,
Westad assigns blame for the conflict to both parties, though not so much that he is unable to make moral distinctions. Stalin's
determination to establish control in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, contributed greatly to the breakdown of good relations
with Britain and the United States. But, he writes, "it was containment that made postwar conflict into a Cold War." The United
States was unwilling to grant the Soviets a traditional sphere of influence, let alone see them as a comparable power deserving of
commensurate respect. Seen from 2017, it might seem absurd that so many Europeans, even in England, looked upon the Soviet Union
with admiration and gratitude. But, however much Americans like to forget it, it was the Red Army that "tore the guts out of the
German military machine," in Winston Churchill's colorful phrase.
Westad faults Truman for being unwilling or unable to extend Franklin Roosevelt's friendly policy toward the USSR. Stalin might
have hunkered down and developed foreign-policy paranoia regardless of Truman's behavior, he concedes. "But the intensity of the
conflict, including the paranoia that it later produced on both sides, might have been significantly reduced if more attempts had
been made by the stronger power to entice Moscow toward forms of cooperation." This is somewhat unfair to Truman. The day he was
sworn in as president after Roosevelt's death, Truman said in a statement he intended "to carry on as he believed the President
would have done." There is little reason to doubt his sincerity. In From Roosevelt to Truman
, University of Notre Dame
professor Wilson Miscamble credibly argued that Truman began his presidency with open-mindedness toward the Soviets but was
convinced by events that cooperation was impossible. He wasn't alone.
ASIA, MEANWHILE
, experienced rapid decolonization. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were resolutely
opposed to traditional European imperialism, however much they acted as imperialist powers in their own regions. Combined with the
destitution of the former colonial powers, this meant that Asian nations were freer to pursue their own destinies. Of course, in
Japan and Korea, those destinies were determined by their occupiers, who molded these societies in their own images. It is a sign of
Westad's attentiveness to facts that, without ever succumbing to anything resembling American chauvinism, he can write something as
direct as: "The Korean War came from Stalin's change of mind. If he had not given the go-ahead to Kim, there would have been no
war."
Westad betrays no romanticism toward the Soviet Union or its communist admirers -- that might seem like a low bar, but there are
still scholars like Bruce Cumings who look fondly on the Marxist regimes -- but the book makes the clear-eyed observation,
Only by industrializing fast could a country become socialist and modern. The policy had an obvious appeal: in countries on
the European periphery, where there was a profound sense of having fallen behind, and in countries outside of Europe, such as China,
Korea, and Vietnam, rapid industrialization seemed indeed to be the way forward.
Westad might have added that the Soviet Communist Party's untouchable command of power was similarly appealing to political
leaders and intellectuals worldwide.
Immediately prior to
The Cold War
, Westad's latest book was a study of China's foreign policy since 1750. His mastery of
the subject is evident in a chapter called "China's Scourge." It is valuable not only for a discussion of how the Chinese Communist
Party managed to win the civil war against the Nationalists, but also for a succinct reminder of why and how swiftly relations
dissolved between the CCP and the Soviets. "The Soviet assistance program for China was not only the biggest Moscow ever undertook
outside its own borders," Westad writes. "It was also, in relative terms, the biggest such program undertaken by any country
anywhere, including the US Marshall Plan for Europe." Within a decade following this generosity, they almost fought a nuclear war.
Similarly incisive here is a chapter on India. Often neglected in general histories of the Cold War, India was for a while the
leader of the Non-Aligned nations. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was progressive, but intent on keeping his newly independent
country truly independent. This, of course, infuriated the Americans, for whom any friendliness with the USSR was interpreted as
hostility to them. And yet, when India's moral purity conflicted with its conflict with China, nationalism prevailed, leading to a
brief war. "In spite of its many efforts, even a country as a significant as India was never able to fully break away from the
global conflict molding its policies," Westad concludes.
WESTAD ALSO
wrote a book on the fall of détente, for which he distinctly blames Americans. "Nixon and Kissinger
had gone further in attempting to manage the Cold War together with the Soviet Union than most Americans were willing to accept," he
writes. "Most Americans were simply not willing to tolerate that the United States could have an equal in international affairs, in
the 1970s or ever." This is where Gaddis's immersion in American documents might have been helpful. Most Americans, at least on the
anti-détente side, were worried not that the Soviet Union was at parity with the United States, but that it had actually exceeded
America's capabilities. However wrongheaded and overly alarmist that perspective was, its importance in explaining American behavior
should not be overlooked.
Indeed, Westad's decision to reduce the research shown to the readers in this book makes some of his unorthodox judgments
difficult to credit. Most conspicuously, Westad assesses Dwight Eisenhower harshly, but without offering enough support for his
claims. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the evaluation of Ike was decidedly mixed. He was too complacent, it was said, too moderate and
timid. He favored a strategic posture built around nuclear weapons that led to an arms race. He failed to confront Joe McCarthy and
McCarthyism. He initiated the first of many ill-considered CIA interventions in foreign countries, in Guatemala and Iran. And he
added a religious dimension to the Cold War, which elevated the conflict beyond the already-dangerous levels that existed when he
took power in 1953.
That perception gave way in the 1980s to a consideration that Eisenhower was not complacent, but subtle. The opening of archives
in the 1970s convinced many that his was, as the political scientist Fred Greenstein put it in his 1982 book of the same name, "the
hidden-hand presidency." The popular historian Stephen Ambrose did much to further this view, first in 1981's
Ike's Spies:
Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment
, and then in a biography, released in two volumes in 1983 and 1984. (Writing in the
New Republic
in 2006, the journalist John Judis observed that Ambrose's books "changed many a liberal's view of the general,"
counting himself among them.)
The revisionist view of Eisenhower has now become orthodoxy. He routinely numbers among historians' rankings of the top ten
presidents. Far from sharing the contemporary perception of him as popular but ineffectual -- "It's just like Eisenhower. The worse I
do, the more popular I get," JFK said after the Bay of Pigs disaster -- we like Ike as much as the people who wore his campaign
buttons. Celebrity architect Frank Gehry designed an Eisenhower memorial that Congress has funded to the tune of $100 million, to
sit across from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, on Washington's Independence Avenue.
Most scholars lean toward the view that Ike was a first-rate Cold War strategist. He balanced the budget thrice, halting the
unsustainable economic and military buildup that resulted from the Korean War. He set diplomatic precedents by meeting with Soviet
leaders and organizing purposeful summits. And he outflanked domestic hysteria, establishing a bipartisan commitment to a strategy
of containment. Predominant is the view expressed by Robert Bowie and Richard Immerman in their book, Waging Peace: How
Eisenhower Shaped a Cold War Strategy
:
Later events . . . have enhanced appreciation of his prudent and sober judgment. In a turbulent and dangerous stage of
East-West relations, with an untested and erratic Soviet leadership and a changing strategic environment, Eisenhower managed a
succession of crises and set a course that preserved both security and peace.
Westad will have none of it. "Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up
institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine," he writes. "On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. . . . The turn
toward a policy of massive nuclear retaliation meant preparing for strategic warfare on a scale that so far had seemed
unimaginable." Pages later, he adds,
If the president was not a Cold War hysteric, neither was he someone who could conceive of a world without the confrontation
with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower lacked the imagination and political will to think about ending the Cold War after Stalin's death. This is a provocative portrayal of Eisenhower, a welcome antidote to the revisionism that can approach hagiography. But it is
undercut by Westad's slight documentation.
Cold War triumphalism has had pernicious effects on American foreign policy. A straight line can be drawn from the idea that
Ronald Reagan's military buildup and assertive rhetoric ended the Cold War to the fantasy that the United States could rebuild the
Middle East. The prominence of neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration was due largely to the widespread belief that
they had been right in seeing the transformative potential of American power during the Cold War. Though Donald Trump was able, in
the Republican primaries in 2016, to counter delusions of American omnipotence with delusions of American seclusion, the messianic
streak still runs strong in the Republican Party and in segments of the Democratic Party. Its absence in current political debates
should be seen as temporary. When it inevitably arises again, trouble will ensue. "We all lost the cold war," Gorbachev once said.
The difficulty arises when one party thinks it won.
Jordan Michael Smith is the author of the Kindle single
Humanity: How Jimmy Carter Lost an Election and Transformed the
Post-Presidency
.
Meet American Empire's 'Doctor Death'
Stephen Kinzer's new book shows how Greatest Generation spooks justified their horrific experiments on
unwitting Americans.
By
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
•
September 10, 2019
In the 1962 film
adaptation of Richard Condon's
The Manchurian Candidate,
a diabolical North Korean doctor named Yen Lo tells Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw to "pass the time with a little
solitaire." These trigger words, accompanied by a Queen of Diamonds playing card, prompts the lanky soldier to get up,
and when instructed, brutally kill two of his own comrades sitting on the stage, both of whom appear under the same
trance as Raymond.
Later, we find out this was not a dream but a real test of Shaw's programming through
elaborate mind control, undertaken before he is sent home to the United States as a sleeper agent for a Communist Party
cell, led by his own mother. "His brain has not only been washed, as they say, but cleaned," declares a gleeful Dr. Lo.
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962, Universal Artists)
The film
was released when the country was in a state of high Cold War anxiety. The idea that the Communists were deep into
finding a way to brainwash and program individuals to deploy as weapons of war was not new, of course. It was just
finding its way into the increasingly paranoid popular culture. But what Americans did not know was that our own
government was in part responsible for those stories as a cover for their own brainwashing experiments, which were
racing along at the speed of a freight train.
Advertisement
In 1953,
Allen Dulles
told a group of fellow Princeton alumni that the U.S. was far behind the Russians and North Koreans in "brain warfare."
He warned of a mind control gap that would likely grow because "we in the West..have no human guinea pigs to try these
extraordinary techniques."
This was a lie of breathtaking proportions. For several years, his CIA had already
been conducting extreme experiments on unwitting "human guinea pigs" at black sites in France, Germany, and South Korea.
Shortly after he broadcast this cynical lament to the Princeton lads, he approved MK-ULTRA, the most illicit and morally
corrupt intelligence program in American history (that we know of). In it, the CIA tested a stomach roiling variety of
unregulated drugs, electro-shock, sensory deprivation, and other extreme techniques on unwitting souls across the United
States -- in "safe houses," prisons, psychiatric hospitals, doctors' offices -- even in the CIA itself. People died, went
crazy, or withered away in a vegetative state, often with little or no clue of what had happened to them.
In
Poisoner in Chief,
released today, journalist and author Stephen Kinzer makes Dr. Sidney Gottlieb the manifestation of the U.S.
government's Cold War obsession with winning, its warped moral compass, and its utter disregard for the law. From 1951
to the late 1960s, under Dulles' protection, Gottlieb was the principal player in what can only be called a maniacal
mission to find the perfect drug to destroy/control/reprogram the human mind (he believed, though he was never able to
prove, that the drug was LSD).
Gottlieb was also the chief scientist in a CIA program that developed poisons with
which to assassinate world leaders (failed attempts included Cuba's Fidel Castro and Congolese Prime Minister Patrice
Lumumba), tested aerosol-delivered germs and deadly gases, and honed extreme torture techniques. He's been called Dr.
Death, Washington's "official poisoner," and a mad scientist. But "Sidney Gottlieb" never became a household name,
mostly because he never paid for his crimes. Thanks to Deep State politics, statutes of limitations, a great lawyer, and
depressingly weak congressional investigators, Gottlieb was able to take the worst of his secrets to the grave in 1999.
Now, pulling together a trove of existing research, newly unearthed documents, and
fresh interviews, Kinzer puts the fetid corpus of American Empire back under a microscope. It isn't pretty -- but it is
instructive.
"Commitment to a cause provides the ultimate justification for immoral acts.
Patriotism is the most seductive of those causes," Kinzer surmises in an attempt to give context to Gottlieb and Dulles,
and Gottlieb's closest patron and conspirator,
Richard Helms,
who served as CIA chief after
Dulles and during the later years of MK-ULTRA.
"Some do things they know are wrong for what they consider good reasons," Kinzer
continued. "No one else of Gottlieb's generation, however, had the government-given power to do so many things that were
so profoundly and horrifically wrong. No other American -- at least, none that we know of -- ever wielded such terrifying
life-or-death power while remaining so completely invisible."
With so much material to work with,
Poisoner
in Chief
is a parade of outrages. But by the time the twisted calliope falls
silent, two major themes are left to contemplate.
First, Gottlieb did not emerge in a vacuum but in the primordial ooze of moral
justification following World War II. While America was putting its public virtue on display during the
Nuremberg trials
, the army under the Joint Intelligence
Objectives Agency was courting Nazi scientists who had been involved in the most grotesque human experimentation
imaginable during the war. Their expertise in biological warfare and psychoactive drugs was highly prized. The Americans
had to make sure, after all, that the commies didn't get to them first.
So under
Operation
Paperclip
, the army "bleached" their records and brought these men in among several hundred other scientists,
engineers, and technicians who served the Third Reich. Instead of prison, they were settled into comfortable obscurity
in suburban Washington, working for the U.S. government.
For those whose crimes were not so easily scrubbed, the army found ways to collaborate
with them overseas in even less controlled environs. Like
Kurt Blome
, a Nazi scientist who deliberately
infected prisoners with deadly viruses, including the plague, at the Auschwitz concentration camp and other sites. After
saving him from the gallows at Nuremburg, officials quietly installed him in the European Command Intelligence Center at
Oberursel, West Germany -- otherwise known as "Camp King" -- to conduct more experiments, but on our side.
The same went for Japanese scientist
Shiro Ishi,
who was
reportedly responsible for some 10,000 deaths in and around his
Manchurian complex called
Unit 731 during the war. His ghastly activities included everything from slow-roasting test subjects with electricity,
to amputating limbs and dissecting people alive to monitor their slow deaths. At one point, he lined up naked Chinese
women and children to see how long they would live after being struck by shrapnel in the buttocks. He also created tons
of anthrax that was later used to kill thousands of Chinese civilians.
But instead of bringing this monster to justice, U.S. agents granted Ishi and his
Japanese collaborators immunity and obtained all of his research on how toxins affect the body -- including all of the
tissue slides from people whose organs were taken out while they were still alive. "Scientists at Camp Detrick
(Maryland) were delighted," Kinzer writes.
"Thus did the man responsible for directing the dissection of thousands of living prisoners escape punishment," he
adds, noting that Ishi and his minions were deployed to U.S. detention centers in East Asia, where they "helped
Americans conceive and carry out experiments on human subjects that could not legally be conducted in the United States.
Secondly, Kinzer highlights how easily American government officials adopted their
former wartime foes' detached, ruthless approach to human experimentation, embarking without guidance or oversight on
what appears to be a fanatical quest without consequences. At a time when many Americans were zooming to suburbia in
search of "Leave it to Beaver," Gottlieb was hiring people like George White, straight out of
"The Sweet Smell of Success."
White was "a hard charging narcotics detective who lived large in the twilight world
of crime and drugs" writes Kinzer. In 1953 he started setting up "safe houses" in New York and San Francisco where he
would use pay hoodlums and prostitutes in drugs and dough to dose unsuspecting subjects with increasing amounts of LSD
at "parties" while the CIA peeped the action from two-way mirrors outfitted with cameras.
Meanwhile, Gottlieb gave tons of cash and LSD to doctors like Harris Isbell at the
Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky. "Officially this center was a hospital, but it functioned more like a
prison," writes Kizner. "Most inmates were African American from the margins of society. They were unlikely to complain
if abused."
And abused they were, like most of the test subjects at the prison programs financed
by the CIA. If they were told they were part of a test (agreement was typically in exchange for something, like good
behavior credits or high grade heroin), they weren't told what kind of drugs they were given or how much. Many of the
experiments involved dosing subjects with greater and greater amounts of LSD over long periods of time. Gottlieb wanted
to see at what point the mind would dissolve. "He was pleased to have secured a supply of 'expendables' across the
United States," Kinzer notes.
Certainly his test subjects at the CIA interrogation cites overseas were "expendable."
Kinzer offers a number of cases in which foreign detainees, usually suspected spies, were given massive amounts of
different drugs "to see if their minds could be altered." Others were given electro shock. They were later killed, "and
their bodies burned."
Then there were the seemingly random tragedies. Like art student Stanley Glickman who
was believed to be drugged directly by Gottlieb while at a Paris cafe in 1952, and then taken into a hospital where more
"testing" occurred. It was the end of "his productive life," writes Kinzer. Glickman died alone and mentally ill in New
York city several decades later. Or Frank Olson, a CIA scientist who "fell or jumped" from a Manhattan hotel window
after being unwittingly dosed at a "retreat" hosted by Gottlieb a week earlier. Though his family tried, they were never
able to pin his strange death on Gottlieb or the government.
"A Clockwork Orange" (Warner Bros./1971)
Kinzer shows that sometimes paranoia comes from a very real place -- that Big Brother was
not only watching, but for nearly 20 years he was drugging and testing germs and other toxins on unsuspecting Americans
like they were laboratory animals. And Gottlieb, Dulles, and Helms were no fictional spawn of an over-active
imagination. They were highly respected and powerful men with a combined 105 years of government service. They
were
the
system.
So how do we digest this today? We can start by acknowledging that the ends will
always justify the means because the government always gets away with it. And we are still living with the effects. The
torture techniques set into motion in the 1950's, for example, later surfaced in the dark corners of the
Phoenix Program
in Vietnam, and more recently in the dirty cells of
Abu Ghraib detention center.
Indeed, with a head full of Red Menace and lord knows what else, these so-called
stalwart men of the "Greatest Generation" pounded the earth as though America owned the world. Perhaps it did. American
Empire had many faces during the Cold War, and thanks to Kinzer, Sidney Gottlieb is one you shouldn't forget.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is
e
xecutive
editor at
.
Follow her on Twitter
@Vlahos_at_TAC
"... " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. ..."
"... Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ... ..."
In a provocative new book, three scholars from the
libertarian Cato Institute -- John Glaser, Christopher A. Preble and A. Trevor Thrall --
counsel the United States to abandon the pursuit of global primacy for a policy of prudence and
restraint. " Fuel to the Fire: How
Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding
indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national
security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten
military misadventures. American foreign policy professionals may cast the United States as
a benevolent hegemon, defending the liberal or "rules-based" international order. But this
self-serving argument is hard to take seriously, they write, given the hubris, hypocrisy and
coerciveness of the American imperium.
The most surprising argument in "Fuel to the Fire" is that this misguided orientation has
persisted under Donald Trump. This seems counterintuitive. Washington's mandarins have recoiled
in bipartisan horror as the president dismantles their handiwork and pursues his "America
First" agenda. Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least
experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark
than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism),
immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they
perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted
by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has
doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending
and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for
continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty.
...
Harry Dexter White: Treasury Assistant Secretary* who was the major force behind the
Bretton Woods Conference and the institutional reconstruction of the post-World War II world
economy. He accepted enough of John Maynard Keynes's proposals to lay the groundwork for the
greatest generation of economic growth the world has ever seen. It was the extraordinary
prosperity set in motion by the Bretton Woods' System and institutions--the "Thirty Glorious
Years"--that demonstrated that political democracy and the mixed economy could deliver and
distribute economic prosperity.
George Kennan: Author of the "containment" strategy that won the Cold War.
Argued--correctly--that World War III could be avoided if the Western Alliance made clear its
determination to "contain" the Soviet Union and World Communism, and that the internal
contradictions of the Soviet Union would lead it to evolve into something much less dangerous
than Stalin's tyranny.
George Marshall: Architect of victory in World War II. Post-World War II Secretary of
State who proposed the Marshall Plan, another key step in the economic and institutional
reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II.
Arthur Vandenberg: Leading Republican Senator from Michigan who made foreign policy truly
bipartisan for a few years. Without Vandenberg, it is doubtful that Truman, Marshall,
Acheson, and company would have been able to muster enough Congressional support to do their
work.
Paul Hoffman: Chief Marshall Plan administrator. The man who did the most to turn the
Marshall Plan from a good idea to an effective aid program.
Dean Acheson: Principal architect of the post-World War II Western Alliance. That
Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, and the United States reached broad consensus on how to
wage Cold War is more due to Dean Acheson's diplomatic skill than to any single other
person.
Harry S Truman: The President who decided that the U.S. had to remain engaged
overseas--had to fight the Cold War--and that the proper way to fight the Cold War was to
adopt Kennan's proposed policy of containment. His strategic choices were, by and large, very
good ones.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: As first commander-in-chief of NATO, played an indispensable role
in turning the alliance into a reality. His performance as President was less satisfactory:
too many empty words about "rolling back" the Iron Curtain, too much of a willingness to try
to skimp on the defense budget by adopting "massive retaliation" as a policy, too much trust
in the erratic John Foster Dulles.
Gerald Ford: In the end, the thing that played the biggest role in the rise of the
dissident movement behind the Iron Curtain was Gerald Ford's convincing the Soviet Union to
sign the Helsinki Accords. The Soviet Union thought that it had gained worldwide recognition
of Stalin's land grabs. But what it had actually done was to commit itself and its allies to
at least pretending to observe norms of civil and political liberties. And as the Communist
Parties of the East Bloc forgot that in the last analysis they were tyrants seated on thrones
of skulls, this Helsinki commitment emboldened their opponents and their governments'
failures to observe it undermined their own morale.
George Shultz: Convinced Ronald Reagan--correctly--that Mikhail Gorbachev's "perestroika"
and "glasnost" were serious attempts at reform and liberalization, and needed to be taken
seriously. Without Shultz, it is unlikely that Gorbachev would have met with any sort of
encouragement from the United States--and unlikely that Gorbachev would have been able to
remain in power long enough to make his attempts at reform irreversible.
*Also, almost surely
an "Agent of Influence" and perhaps an out-and-out spy for Stalin's Russia. If so, never did
any intelligence service receive worse service from an agent than Stalin's Russia did from
Harry Dexter White....
I'm reading "The
Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World
Order (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Princeton University Press))" by Benn Steil and
wanted to share this quote with you.
"As regards the economics White advocated, they were hardly Marxist. They were by this time
what would be described as thoroughly Keynesian. He insisted that government should take an
active role in supporting economic activity; certainly more so than was orthodox before the
Great Depression, but he never pushed for broad government control of the means of production.
His writings on international monetary affairs express a concern with the need to fashion a
system that "reduces the necessity of restrictions on private enterprise."As for White's
domestic politics, these were mainstream New Deal progressive, and there is no evidence that he
admired communism as a political ideology."
ReplyFebruary 15, 2019 at 12:49
jorgensen said...
Vannevar Bush pushed for government support of science after the Second
World War and should get some credit for America's scientific dominance through the Cold War.
ReplyFebruary 16, 2019 at 15:38
andres said... The above list is old hat, so to speak. I would add the following two
lists:
Russians Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War (for both sides):
1. Georgi Zhukov (Was an unbelievable s.o.b. during WWII, but did the right thing having the
Red Army side with Khruschev and Malenkov against Beria). 2. Nikita Khruschev (secret speech, ousting of Stalin's old cronies and final unwillingness to
go to war over Cuba outweigh Hungary and U-2 incident, imo). 3. Aleksandr Solshenitsyn (self-explanatory). 4. Boris Pasternak (Dr. Zhivago is a better read than The Gulag Archipelago). 5. Roy Medvedev (Let History Judge). 6. Vasili Arkhipov (Don't Push the Button I). 7. Andrei Sakharov (self-explanatory). 8. Stanislav Petrov (Don't Push the Button II). 9. Mikhail Gorbachev (glasnost plus withdrawal from Afghanistan). 10. Boris Yeltsin (lousy president, but energetic opposition to August 1991 coup was
vital).
Americans Who Tried Their Best to Make the U.S. Lose the Cold War.
1. Douglas MacArthur. 2. John Foster Dulles. 3. Allen Dulles. 4. Barry Goldwater. 5. Robert McNamara/McGeorge Bundy/Maxwell Taylor/W.W. Rostow (joint award for Vietnam) 6. William Westmoreland (made it even worse). 7. Richard Nixon (carpet bomber in chief, plus undermined 1968 Vietnam peace talks). 8. Henry Kissinger (took over from JF Dulles as military coup enabler in chief, and nearly
pushed India to Russia's side after giving a blank check to Pakistan). 9. Ronald Reagan (was clearly pointed toward WWIII before Schultz and GHW Bush brought him
around).
(There are lots more, but I've tried to limit the list to those who were either in the
executive branch or came close (Goldwater). LBJ could also be included, but it is still being
argued whether he led his cabinet or his cabinet led him into Vietnam).
ReplyFebruary 16, 2019 at 22:52
Here are just some of the twists and turns in the case, which has gone on for more than
three years.
Flynn's trip to Russia in 2015, where it was claimed Flynn went without the knowledge or
approval of the DIA or anyone in Washington,
was proven not to be true .
Flynn was suspected of being compromised by a supposed Russian agent, Cambridge academic
Svetlana Lokhova, based on allegations from Western intelligence asset Stefan Halper.
This was also proven to be not true.
The very strange post-dated FD-302 form on the FBI's January 2017 interview of Flynn that
wasn't filled out until August 2017, almost seven months afterward, is
revealed in a court filing by Flynn's defense team .
FBI agent Pientka became the
"DOJ's Invisible Man," despite the fact that Congress has repeatedly called for him to
testify. Pientka has remained out of sight and out of mind more than a year and a half since
his name first surfaced in connection with the Flynn case.
Now, it's not that far-fetched of an idea that the Mueller special counsel prosecutors would
hide exculpatory evidence from the Flynn defense team, since they've just admitted to having
done exactly that in another case their
office has been prosecuting .
The defense team for Internet Research Agency/Concord, more popularly known as "the Russian
troll farm case," hasn't been smooth going for the Mueller prosecutors.
Then, in a
filing submitted to the court on Aug. 30, the IRA/Concord defense team alerted Judge
Friedrich that the prosecutors just got around to handing them key evidence the prosecutors had
for the past 18 months. The prosecution gave no explanation whatsoever as to why they hid this
key evidence for more than a year.
It's hard to see at this point how the entire IRA/Concord case isn't tossed out.
What would it mean for Flynn's prosecutors to have been caught hiding exculpatory evidence
from him and his lawyers, even after the presiding judge explicitly ordered them in February to
hand over everything they had?
It would mean that the Flynn case is tossed out, since the prosecution team was caught
engaging in gross misconduct.
Now you can see why Flynn refused to withdraw his guilty plea when Judge Sullivan gave him
the opportunity to do so in late December 2018.
A withdrawal of the guilty plea or a pardon would let the Mueller prosecution team off the
hook.
And they're not getting off the hook.
Flynn hired the best lawyer he possibly could have when it comes to exposing prosecutorial
misconduct. Nobody knows the crafty, corrupt, and dishonest tricks federal prosecutors use
better than Powell, who actually wrote a compelling book about such matters, entitled "
License to Lie: Exposing
Corruption in the Department of Justice ."
Everything this Mueller prosecution team did in withholding exculpatory evidence from
Flynn's defense team -- and continued to withhold even after Judge Sullivan specifically issued
an order about it -- is going to be fully exposed.
Defying a federal judge's Brady order is a one-way ticket to not only getting fired, it's a
serious enough offense to warrant disbarment and prosecution.
If it turns out Mueller special counsel prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence -- not
only in the IRA/Concord case, but also in the cases against Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael
Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and others -- that will have a huge impact.
If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn't they do the
same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven't they have already demonstrated they
are willing to break the rules? Tags
We have become a third-world country. Even throwing Mueller and his entire prosecutors'
team in jail would not be enough to restore confidence in our legal system. But it would be a
start.
On or about December 28, 2016, the Russian Ambassador contacted FLYNN.
c. On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential
Transition Team ("PTT official"), who was with other senior ·members of the
Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss
what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that
call, FLYNN and 2 Case 1:17-cr-00232-RC Document 4 Filed 12/01/17 Page 2 of 6 the PTT
official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on
the incoming administration's foreign policy goals. The PIT official and FLYNN also discussed
that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to
escalate the situation. d. Immediately after his phone call with the PTT official, FLYNN
called the Russian Ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only
respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner. e. Shortly after his phone call with
the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with the PTT official to report on the substance of his
call with the Russian Ambassador, including their discussion of the U.S. Sanctions. f. On or
about December 30, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating
that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the U.S. Sanctions at that
time. g. On or about December 31, 2016, the Russian Ambassador called FLYNN and informed him
that Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to FL YNN's request. h. After his phone
call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with senior members of the Presidential
Transition Team about FL YNN's conversations with the Russian Ambassador regarding the U.S.
Sanctions and Russia's decision not to escalate the situation.
The coup plot between the international intelligence community (which includes our
FBI-CIA-etc) and their unregistered foreign agents in the multinational corporate media is
slowly being revealed.
Here’s another possibility... elites in the US Gov set on running a soft coup
against a duly elected president and his team made up a whole pile of **** and passed it off
as truth.
The Manafort thing has me totally riled since HRC's "Password" guy and his brother were
PARTNERS with manafort, did the same damn things, and were NOT investigated.
Donald Trump is many things to many people, but is not his social personna to be patient.
He is being VERY patient to let this unfold, to "give a man enough rope" or political party
and its owner, as it may be....
Donna Brazile's book is under-rated: it holds they keys as to who ran the DNC and why
after Obie bailed.
Our local community rag (Vermont) had an opinion piece last week about "The slide towards
Facism", where the author breathlessly stated that she had learned from a MSNBC expose by
Rachel Maddow that the administration was firing researchers at NASA and EPA as well as
cutting back funding for LGBTQ support groups. Oh the horror. The author conveniently forgot
that the same dyke had lied for 2 years about Russia,Russia,Russia but it's still OK to
believe any **** that drops out of her mouth.
This is the level of insanity happening around here. Of course it is Bernie's turf.
People who are so stupid and gullible deserve everything they are gonna get.
Poor Flynn. Rail-roaded by ZOG and Obama and Hillary and Co. I hope beyond hope that the
truth is revealed and that he can sue the **** out of the seditionists/(((seditionists))) who
put him into this mess such that his great-great-grandchildren will never have to work.
I also blame Trump for throwing Flynn under the bus.
If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn’t they
do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven’t they have already
demonstrated they are willing to break the rules?
Duh! Because it's easy and the media never covers it and AG Barr and FBI director Wray
will cover it all up. America no longer operates under rule of law, and now we all know it.
Never cooperate with them!
flynn didn't rape children, to buzy trying to fight liberators of iraq and afganistan from
invasion... that's his major crime.
I guess, kelly, mattis, mcmaster neither are on the child rape trend. but what can they
do? when the entire cia and doj and fbi are full on controlled and run by the pedos? it's
like when all the cardinals and the pope are pedos, what a bishop to do...
Why would CIA Rothschild'd up puppet Trump pick only the best William Barr?
Who told Acosta to cut no prosecution deal with Epstein? George Bush? Robert Mukasey? or
Bob Mueller?
Trump, Barr, Bush, Mueller all on the same no rule of law national no government
pys op , for Epstein & 9/11 clean op team Poppa Bush, Clinton, &
Mossad.
Barr: CIA operative
It is a sobering fact that American presidents (many of whom have been corrupt) have gone
out of their way to hire fixers to be their attorney generals.
Consider recent history: Loretta Lynch (2015-2017), Eric Holder (2009-2015), Michael
Mukasey (2007-2009), Alberto Gonzales (2005-2007), John Ashcroft (2001-2005),Janet Reno
(1993-2001), **** Thornburgh (1988-1991), Ed Meese (1985-1988), etc.
Barr was a full-time CIA operative, recruited by Langley out of high school, starting
in 1971. Barr’s youth career goal was to head the CIA.
CIA operative assigned to the China directorate, where he became close to powerful CIA
operative George H.W. Bush, whose accomplishments already included the CIA/Cuba Bay of
Pigs, Asia CIA operations (Vietnam War, Golden Triangle narcotics), Nixon foreign policy
(Henry Kissinger), and the Watergate operation.
When George H.W. Bush became CIA Director in 1976, Barr joined the CIA’s
“legal office” and Bush’s inner circle, and worked alongside Bush’s
longtime CIA enforcers Theodore “Ted” Shackley, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines,
and others, several of whom were likely involved with the Bay of Pigs/John F. Kennedy
assassination, and numerous southeast Asian operations, from the Phoenix Program to Golden
Triangle narco-trafficking.
Barr stonewalled and destroyed the Church Committee investigations into CIA
abuses.
Barr stonewalled and stopped inquiries in the CIA bombing assassination of Chilean
opposition leader Orlando Letelier.
Barr joined George H.W. Bush’s legal/intelligence team during Bush’s vice
presidency (under President Ronald Reagan) Rose from assistant attorney general to Chief
Legal Counsel to attorney general (1991) during the Bush 41 presidency.
Barr was a key player in the Iran-Contra operation, if not the most important member of
the apparatus, simultaneously managing the operation while also “fixing” the
legal end, ensuring that all of the operatives could do their jobs without fear of exposure
or arrest.
In his attorney general confirmation, Barr vowed to “attack criminal
organizations”, drug smugglers and money launderers. It was all hot air: as AG, Barr
would preserve, protect, cover up, and nurture the apparatus that he helped create, and use
Justice Department power to escape punishment.
Barr stonewalled and stopped investigations into all Bush/Clinton and CIA crimes,
including BCCI and BNL CIA drug banking, the theft of Inslaw/PROMIS software, and all
crimes of state committed by Bush
Barr provided legal cover for Bush’s illegal foreign policy and war crimes
Barr left Washington, and went through the “rotating door” to the corporate
world, where he took on numerous directorships and counsel positions for major companies.
In 2007 and again from 2017, Barr was counsel for politically-connected international law
firm Kirkland
& Ellis . Among its other notable attorneys and alumni are Kenneth Starr, John
Bolton, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and numerous Trump administration attorneys.
K&E’s clients include sex trafficker/pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Mitt
Romney’s Bain Capital.
A strong case can be made that William Barr was as powerful and important a figure in the
Bush apparatus as any other, besides Poppy Bush himself.
there is a war on america, and the DoD and men like flynn are too arrogant, dumb, and
proud to admit they have been fucked and conned deeply by men way smarter than them...
we don't need ******* brains, but killers to wage this revolution against the american
pedostate.
and that, what they master, they don't want to do.
if they want money, they should have learned to trade and not kill...
""Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have 'conspired' with key unknown
figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet
securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet
Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence. These securities,
originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and settled in the aftermath of
September 11th
through the BoNY. The $100 billion account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street
Journalas being experienced in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these
securities were moved from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet.
"... The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded self-promotion. Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical definition of sociopathy. Details, details ..."
It has taken me years to tell these stories. The emotional and moral wounds of the
Afghan War have just felt too recent, too raw.
After all, I could hardly write a thing
down about my Iraq War experience for nearly ten years, when, by accident, I churned out a
book
on
the subject. Now, as the American war in Afghanistan – hopefully – winds to something approaching a
close, it's finally time to impart some tales of the madness. In this new, recurring, semi-regular
series, the reader won't find many worn out sagas of heroism, brotherhood, and love of country. Not
that this author doesn't have such stories, of course. But one can find those sorts of tales in
countless books and numerous trite, platitudinal Hollywood yarns.
With that in mind, I propose to tell a number of very different sorts of stories –
profiles, so to speak, in absurdity.
That's what war is, at root, an exercise in
absurdity, and America's hopeless post-9/11 wars are stranger than most. My own 18-year long quest
to find some meaning in all the combat, to protect my troops from danger, push back against the
madness, and dissent from within the army proved Kafkaesque in the extreme.
Consider what
follows just a survey of that hopeless journey...
The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded
self-promotion.
Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more
than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical
definition of sociopathy. Details, details
Still, you (almost) had to admire his drive, devotion, and dedication to the cause of
promotion, of rising through the military ranks.
Had he managed to channel that
astonishing energy, obsession even, to the pursuit of some good, the world might markedly have
improved. Which is, actually, a dirty little secret about the military, especially ground combat
units; that it tends to attract (and mold) a disturbing number of proud owners of such personality
disorders. The army then positively reinforces such toxic behavior by promoting these sorts of
individuals – who excel at mind-melding (brown-nosing, that is) with superiors – at
disproportionate rates. Such is life.
Only there are
real
consequences,
real
soldiers,
(to say nothing of local civilians) who suffer under their commanders' tyranny.
Back in 2011-12, the man served as my commander, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.
As such, he led – and partly
controlled the destinies of – some 500 odd soldiers
.
Then a lowly captain, I commanded about one-fifth of those men and answered directly to the
colonel.
I didn't much like the guy; hardly any of his officers did.
And he didn't
trust my aspirational intellectualism, proclivity to ask "why," or, well,
me
in general.
Still, he mostly found this author an effective middle manager. As such, I was a means to an end
for him – that being self-advancement and some positive measurable statistics for his annual
officer evaluation report (OER) from his own boss. Nonetheless, it was the army and you sure don't
choose your bosses.
So it was, early in my yearlong tour in the scrublands of rural Kandahar province, that
the colonel treated me to one his dog-and-pony-show visits.
Only this time he had some
unhappy news for me. The next day he, and the baker's dozen tag-alongs in his ubiquitous entourage,
wanted to walk the few treacherous miles to the most dangerous strongpoint in the entire
sub-district. It was occupied, needlessly, by one of my platoons in perpetuity and suffered under
constant siege by the local Taliban, too small to contest the area and too big to fly under the
radar, this – at one point the most attacked outpost in Afghanistan – base just provided an
American flag-toting target. I'd communicated as much to command early on, but to no avail. Can-do
US colonels with aspirations for general officer rank hardly
ever
give up territory to the
enemy – even if that's the strategically sound course.
Walking to the platoon strongpoint was dicey on even the best of days. The route between
our main outpost and the Alamo-like strongpoint was flooded with Taliban insurgents and provided
precious little cover or concealment for out patrols.
On my first jaunt to the outpost, I
(foolishly, it must be said) walked my unit into an ambush and was thrown over a small rock wall by
the blast of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) with my apparent name on it. Since then, it was
standard for our patrols to the strongpoint to suffer multiple ambushes during the roundtrip
rotation. Sometimes our kids got wounded or killed; sometimes they were lucky. Mercifully, at
least, my intelligence section – led by my
friend
and
rebranded artillery lieutenant – did their homework and figured out that the chronically lazy local
Taliban didn't like to fight at night or wake up early, so patrols to the strongpoint that stepped
off before dawn had a fighting chance of avoiding the worst of ambush alley.
I hadn't wanted to take my colonel on a patrol to the outpost. His entourage was
needlessly large and, when added to my rotational platoon, presented an unwieldy and inviting
target for Taliban ambush.
Still I knew better than to argue the point with my
disturbingly confident and single-minded colonel. So I hedged. Yes, sir, we can take you along,
with one caveat:
we have to leave before dawn!
I proceeded to explain why, replete with
historical stats and examples, we could only (somewhat) safely avoid ambush if we did so.
That's when things went south.
The colonel insisted we leave at nine,
maybe even ten, in the morning, the absolute
peak
window for Taliban attack. This prima
donna reminded me that he couldn't possibly leave any earlier.
He had a "battle rhythm,"
after all, which included working out in the gym at his large, safe,
distant-from-the-roar-of-battle base each morning.
How could I expect him to alter that
predictable schedule over something as minor as protecting the lives and limbs of his own troopers?
He had "to set an example," he reminded me, by letting his soldiers on the base "see him in the
gym" each and every morning. Back then, silly me, I was actually surprised by the colonel's absurd
refusal; so much so that I pushed back, balked, tried to rationally press my point. To no avail.
What the man said next has haunted me ever since.
We would leave no
earlier than nine AM, according to his preference. My emotional pleas – begging really – was not
only for naught but insulted the colonel. Why? Because, as he imparted to me, for my own growth and
development he thought,
"Remember: lower caters to higher, Danny!"
That, he reminded me, was the way of the military world, the key to success and advancement. The
man even thought he was being helpful, advising me on how to achieve the success he'd achieved.
My heart sank forever, and never recovered.
The next day he was late. We didn't step off until nearly ten AM. The ambush, a massive
mix of RPG and machine gun fire, kicked off – as predicted – within sight of the main base. The
rest was history, and certainly could've been worse.
On other, less lucky, days it was.
But I remember this one profound moment. When the first rocket exploded above us, both the colonel
and I dove for limited cover behind a mound of rocks. I was terrified and exasperated. Just then we
locked eyes and I gazed into his proverbial soul. The man was incapable of fear. He wasn't scared,
or disturbed; he didn't care a bit about what was happening. That revelation was more terrifying
than the ongoing ambush and would alter my view of the world irreparably.
Which brings us to some of the discomfiting morals – if such things exist – of this
story.
American soldiers fight and die at the whims of career-obsessed officers as much they do
so at the behest of king and country.
Sometimes its their own leaders – as much as the
ostensible "enemy" – that tries to get them killed. The plentiful sociopaths running these wars at
the upper and even middle-management levels are often far less concerned with long-term, meaningful
"victory" in places like Afghanistan, than in crafting – on the backs of their soldiers sacrifices
– the
illusion
of progress, just enough measurable "success" in their one year tour to
warrant a stellar evaluation and, thus, the next promotion. Not all leaders are like this. I, for
one, once worked for a man for whom I – and all my peers – would run through walls for, a (then)
colonel that loved his hundreds of soldiers like they were his own children. But he was the
exception that proved the rule.
The madness, irrationality, and absurdity of my colonel was nothing less than a
microcosm of America's entire hopeless adventure in Afghanistan.
The war was never
rational, winnable, or meaningful. It was from the first, and will end as, an exercise in futility.
It was, and is, one grand patrol to my own unnecessary outpost, undertaken at the wrong time and
place. It was a collection of sociopaths and imbeciles – both Afghan and American – tilting at
windmills and ultimately dying for nothing at all. Yet the young men in the proverbial trenches
never flinched, never refused. They did their absurd duty because they were acculturated to the
military system, and because they were embarrassed not to.
The Major totally failed to mention
the Patriot Act and the removal of
US Constitutional rights from
Americans based on a false flag
attack that cold bloodily murdered
3,000 people and cost the taxpayers
over 10 trillion dollars.
Just to put it in perspective, the US has been in Afghanistan
for 18 years and has lost less than 3000 troops and just over
20000 wounded. The US was in Vietnam 20 years and loss nearly
60000 troops and 150000 wounded. This not to diminish the
misery of those that served in either war, but not really
comparable in scope.
You did what you had to do, Major. You were a good shabbos goy
for world financial oligarchy but now they don't need you any more
so go shoot heroin up your veins or jump off a ******* building,
but you dare not even so much as ask for a "thank you" from the
financial oligarchy!
"... It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment. ..."
"... literal medical necessity ..."
"... @humphrey ..."
"... My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs? ..."
Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes
gjohnsit on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 5:25pm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demonstrated what the term "ugly American" meant the
other day when he
bragged about his defeat of the International Criminal Court.
"Americanism means taking care of our own," said Pompeo.
"We stopped international courts from prosecuting our service members," Pompeo continued, adding that the potential probe "was
an outrage."
...
Pompeo confirmed earlier this year that the administration would revoke or deny visas for ICC personnel who try to investigate
or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. A month later, in April, the administration followed through
and revoked prosecutor Bensouda's visa for entry into the U.S.
Just because you defeated justice doesn't mean the crimes go away.
However, it does mean that there is no incentive to stop committing war crimes.
That brings us to today's news from Yemen .
The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there,
UN experts say.
A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.
The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs
the Houthi rebels.
...
The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million
people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.
Yemen has gotten a significant amount of much needed attention in recent years, but just across the Gulf of Aden another
humanitarian disaster of gigantic size is happening in
near total silence and obscurity.
"In the absence of humanitarian assistance, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia face severe hunger through December," the
UN warned, citing the 2019 Post-Gu report's conclusion that this would bring the total number of Somalis expected to be food insecure,
to 6.3 million by year's end.
1 million children are expected to be malnourished in Somalia by year's end.
The United States may have committed war crimes as it bombed al-Shabab militants in Somalia, a new report Amnesty International
alleges...
They found that the airstrikes killed farmers, women and an eight-year-old girl, whom the group assessed had no ties to al-Shabab.
"Due to the nature of the attacks, the U.S. government is violating international humanitarian law and these violations may
amount to war crimes," Hassan said.
While the United States has been bombing Somalia for more than a decade, the Trump administration has accelerated the attacks.
The insurgency there is fueled by
Somali rage over now decades-long American interference in their country.
Why Americans cannot bring themselves to care about Somalia is something I will never understand.
Meanwhile in Libya things have gone from
bad to worse .
"Unless action is taken in the near term, it is highly likely that the current conflict will escalate into full civil war," Guterres
said on Thursday in his latest report on the UN Support Mission in Libya.
AFRICOM says that a civil war would "give existing terrorist elements in Libya oxygen."
The leading instigator of the fighting is General Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, after the defeat of the Libyan troops he was commanding in 1987, he offered his services to
the CIA
, which backed him for years as he awaited the opportunity to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it really any surprise that
Trump loves him
?
An airstrike by Khalifa Haftar's forces hit a migrant detention center east of Tripoli yesterday and killed at least 44 people
and wounded up to 130. Haftar and his forces are mainly backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and this airstrike is part
of the assault on the Libyan capital that Trump reportedly endorsed when it began. The Trump administration is now shielding Haftar
from condemnation by the Security Council by blocking the statement promoted by the U.K.
The
ICC plans to investigate these war crimes, but since the Trump Administration won't even allow a condemnation, and considering
how much Washington hates the ICC, i wouldn't count on this investigation going very far.
The idea that POMPEO is "outraged" is...well, he's a Nazi. So is anybody who thinks that way (lookin' at you, Dubya & Friends).
THEY ARE DETERMINED TO OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY, THE CENTURY THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT PRECISELY BECAUSE, FOR A BRIEF
MOMENT IN TIME, IT CAST OFF AND STOOD AGAINST THAT VERY MENTALITY.
Men like him belong in their own torture-camps...or a short distance under them.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
NUREMBERG II: JUDGMENT DAY.
It is what they most dread.
It is the least they deserve.
It is what the entire world - the American people most of all - NEEDS NOW. It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception
of the environment.
FIAT JUSTICIA, RUUAT CAELUM: "Let there be Justice, though the Heavens may fall".
I believe that Justice (REAL Justice, not just the way it's been redefined by some as "goodies for my clique"), delivered in
a timely, precise, and reliable manner, is nothing short of a literal medical necessity - and the truth is, Caelum IS
Ruuating PRECISELY BECAUSE there has been no Justicia.
Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.
Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that
gorilla.
thank you. i look forward to reading it more carefully later, especially your link on somalia. i remember bill clinton's hypocritical
R2P only too well.. which precious Somalian mineral was the hegemon really after?
In the book The Ugly American, the ugly guy was actually the good guy who understood and respected local culture; he was just
ugly and unsmooth. The "pretty" Americans were the villains. IIRC, it's been over 50 years. Might be worth re-reading.
Are we surprised? This is the Pax (or Bellus?) Americana. Since the USSR folded, the UN is toothless and GodGun$Gut$ dominates
the world with endless war -- or thinks it does; after all, one in six humans is Chinese.
My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall
for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs?
Let's say it's
January 2021
, and President Bernie Sanders has just assumed office. On his second day as
commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in world history, Bernie and his foreign policy
team are ushered into the White House Situation Room. After being seated at a long wooden table, a
group of diplomats and military officers informs Bernie that armed militants in the Central African
Republic have placed artillery around a town and are threatening to bombard its 10,000 inhabitants.
The townspeople have requested that the United States destroy the weapons and save their lives.
What should Bernie do?
For
Samantha Power
, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Barack Obama's
second term, this really is no question at all: You eliminate the weapons. Power has dedicated her
life to promoting humanitarian intervention -- the idea that the United States, as the world's
"indispensable nation," has the moral duty to use its awesome military capabilities to prevent or
halt atrocities. First as a war reporter covering the Balkans in the 1990s, then as the Pulitzer
Prize–winning author of "
A
Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
, and finally as a government official
herself, Power has insisted that the "responsibility to protect" innocents from slaughter is
sacrosanct, even if it means U.S. military adventurism or violating foreign nations' sovereignty.
When civilians are threatened, Power believes we must save them.
THE
EDUCATION OF AN IDEALIST: A MEMOIR by Samantha Power
Dey Street Books,
592 pp., $29.99
For this position, she has been both praised and
lambasted. Power's supporters see her as a
moral beacon
in a world focused on power politics at the expense of human rights. In the last
two decades, she has shaped the way a generation of liberal analysts and policymakers understand
international relations and their role within it: Barack Obama has
called her
"one of our foremost thinkers on foreign policy," while Ben Rhodes has said she was
"who I wanted to become when I moved down to Washington." Meanwhile, critics like the law professor
Aziz Rana
understand her as an unreconstructed "war hawk," who employs the discourse of human
rights to mask American imperialism. For them, Power embodies the contradictions of liberal
geopolitics, in which lofty rhetoric is used to justify military action in regions where the United
States has at best tangential interests.
Power's memoir arrives at a time when she and her approach have fallen from favor -- both with the
current administration, which has adopted a nakedly transactional approach to foreign affairs, and
with left-wing foreign policy thinkers, who want to dismantle U.S. military dominance. Against
these tides, Power's new book seems intended to rehabilitate both her agenda and her own
reputation, as she narrates in vivid and engaging prose her rapid rise to some of the most
influential positions in U.S. foreign policy-making. It's the story of a sympathetic protagonist
just trying to save innocent lives -- yet one that inadvertently demonstrates the lethality of good
intentions. The most startling thing about a book titled
The Education of an Idealist
is that Power appears not to have learned very much.
Power's early years exemplified the peripatetic privilege of the global bourgeoisie. She was
born in Ireland in 1970, the daughter of a doctor mother and a dentist father. In 1979, after her
father's alcoholism destroyed her parents' marriage, Power's mother moved with Samantha and her
brother to the United States. Power quickly acclimated to American life; she lost her Irish accent,
began a lifelong love affair with baseball, and started on her high school's basketball team. She
also studied hard for the SAT, and in 1988 was accepted to Yale University.
During Power's sophomore year, the
Berlin Wall
came
down, the Cold War ended, and she became a political junkie who quizzed herself on the news of the
day. In the summer of 1990, she took a trip to Europe that would transform her life. Power began
her journey with a visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Walking through the bleak Secret
Annex drove home to Power "the horror of Hitler's crimes," and after her visit she started to keep
a list of books she wanted to read on "what U.S. officials knew about the Holocaust and what they
could have done to save more Jews." Soon after, she traveled to Dachau, where she "wondered aloud
what the modern world would look like if President Roosevelt had not finally entered the war."
(Ignoring, naturally, the Soviet Union's role in ending World War II, and that it was the Red Army
that liberated Auschwitz.)
Power's trip persuaded her that U.S. military force could legitimately be used to save innocent
lives. The Holocaust became for her the moral justification for American empire in an era in which
the United States no longer faced any perceived existential threats. Power concluded that if the
United States didn't rule the world, genocide was inevitable, and for the remainder of her career
she would view atrocities in the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East through the prism of the
Holocaust: After all, if the U.S. military had liberated victims of genocide in the 1940s, why
couldn't it do the same in the
1990s
,
2000s
, and
2010s
?
If the U.S. military had liberated victims of genocide in the
1940s, why couldn't it do the same in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s?
The timing of Power's
trip was also crucial for her intellectual development. Before the disintegration of the Soviet
Union in the early 1990s, it was difficult to argue that the U.S. military could serve as a neutral
arbiter of human rights. Not only was the nation engaged in an avowedly political struggle with an
existential communist enemy, but the Vietnam War and several other failed interventions underlined
the dangers of using military force for ideological ends. Communism's collapse made it possible for
Power to imagine the U.S. military as a nonideological guarantor of broadly accepted human rights.
The empire could act for humanity, not politics. For Power -- and for many in her generation -- the U.S.
military was the base upon which the liberal international order of free markets, democracy, and
human rights would be constructed.
By her senior year at Yale, Power had determined that she "wanted to end up in a position to 'do
something'" about humanitarian crises. After graduating, she interned at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, where Mort Abramowitz, the endowment's president and a former ambassador to
Turkey, was turning his attention to the incipient Bosnian War. The more Power learned about the
conflict and its atrocities, "the more unnerved" she became. The war, she writes, provided her with
"a focus -- a specific group of people in a specific place who were being pulverized." To publicize
their suffering, she decided to become a
war reporter
, and in late 1993 she moved to the Balkans, armed with little more than a laptop.
Power was in Zagreb, Croatia, when on February 5, 1994, Bosnian Serbs mortared the
Markale
market
in Sarajevo, killing 68 civilians. As she watched news footage of "market vendors
carrying away the bloodied remains of their mutilated friends," she found herself "rooting for the
first time in [her] life for the United States to use military force." She spent the next year and
a half writing pieces on
civilian
suffering
that she hoped would engender a domestic outcry and convince President Bill Clinton
to forcibly end the siege of Sarajevo.
As time went on and Clinton refused to intervene (the U.S.-led NATO Operation Deliberate Force
would not commence until August 1995), Power began to consider a new track that was "less about
describing events and more about directly trying to shape them." The decisive moment came in July
1995, when she learned that the Bosnian Serb army
murdered
more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. The sheer brutality of the genocide
compelled Power to take up a place at Harvard Law School (she had applied and been accepted earlier
that year), with the intention of becoming a prosecutor "who could bring murderers to justice."
At Harvard, Power returned to the question that had haunted her at the Anne Frank House and
Dachau: Don't Americans, as citizens of the world's greatest power, have a personal responsibility
to save lives if we have the capacity to do so? She enrolled in a class on the ethics of using
force and, most important for her future career, she wrote a paper that examined "what U.S.
policymakers
themselves
were thinking" when they failed to respond to twentieth-century
genocides. This paper was her first step toward her 2002 book
"A Problem From Hell,"
which
codified a decade of liberal thinking about humanitarian intervention, and which transformed Power
into an
internationally renowned expert
on human rights and genocide prevention.
"A Problem From Hell"
had two main arguments. First, it claimed that throughout the
twentieth century "the United States has consistently refused to take risks in order to suppress
genocide" and, by not acting, had failed the people of Armenia, Cambodia, and Rwanda, among other
places. Second, the book maintained that in the future, U.S. decision-makers should take steps to
prevent or halt atrocities along "a continuum of intervention" that would range "from condemning
the perpetrators or cutting off U.S. aid to bombing or rallying a multinational invasion force."
Power did not, as many critics later avowed, unthinkingly advocate military intervention; rather,
she considered intervention as the final in a series of graduated steps intended to avert or stop
genocide. But as Power herself would soon learn, when Americans were presented with the hammer of
military force, many atrocities began to look like nails.
Power's book was perfectly primed for the post-9/11 moment, during which the question on many
Americans' minds was not whether the United States should remake the world, but how.
"A Problem
From Hell"
quickly became a cudgel in the
debate
over invading Iraq; as Power notes, several pundits clamoring for war invoked her book, arguing
that the 1980s Iraqi campaign of genocide against the Kurds gave the United States a casus belli.
Even though Power herself opposed the invasion, the writers who referenced
"A Problem From
Hell"
were not exactly misreading the book: Power
had placed
U.S. military intervention on the menu of options available to policymakers who said
they wanted to protect human rights.
In a moment defined by paranoia, revenge fantasies, and a sense of moral crusade, it is not
particularly surprising that
"A Problem From Hell"
was employed to rationalize war. The
book's relevance at the time, in fact, helps explain why it won the Pulitzer Prize for general
nonfiction in April 2003, one month after the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq.
Samantha
Power in 2013 at an International Civil Society event with Secretary of State John Kerry and National
Security Adviser Susan Rice
Jin Lee/Bloomberg/Getty
With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, Power got the chance to use her ideas to shape U.S.
policy more directly. Obama and Power first met in the spring of 2005, when Obama was an ambitious
junior senator from Illinois. They worked together for a year (Power volunteered to serve in his
office), and when Obama won the Democratic primary in 2008, he hired her as a foreign policy
adviser, later appointing her to the National Security Council as senior director for multilateral
affairs and senior director for human rights.
In government, Power swiftly learned that few officials cared about human rights; many, in fact,
deemed them a distraction from more important issues of power politics. Nevertheless, while at the
NSC, Power helped expand by $50 million U.S. aid to Iraqi refugees, increased the number of Iraqis
allowed to resettle in the United States, and doubled the government's refugee stipend. She also
advocated for the United States to run for a seat on the
U.N.
Human Rights Council
, which it won in 2009. From this perch, U.S. officials spurred a number of
resolutions focused on revealing human rights abuses in various nations, including Iran, Syria,
Sudan, and North Korea. Moreover, Power proudly emphasizes, the United States "succeeded in getting
the Human Rights Council to reduce by half the share of country-specific resolutions on Israel."
As this last comment indicates, for Power, protecting human rights means disciplining nations of
the Global South that are not U.S. allies. Throughout
The Education of an Idealist
, she
barely mentions Israel or Saudi Arabia -- she says nothing about Israel's occupation of the West Bank
or the Saudi war on women and LGBTQI+ people. These silences are deafening, because the type of
world Power wants to build will never be realized if only certain countries -- namely, those that
stand outside America's imperial sphere -- are held to account. Her approach does not make much sense
from a pragmatic perspective either: U.S. officials have the highest likelihood of ending human
rights abuses in countries that depend on us; there is little point in spending political capital
in a mostly quixotic attempt to transform antagonists like North Korea.
Meanwhile, Power completely ignores the human rights violations that took place in her own
country under Obama's watch; like many liberal interventionists, she is far more vexed by suffering
abroad. Nowhere does she address
police violence
against African Americans,
mass surveillance
,
refugee
detention
, or
mass
incarceration
. Nor does she give much thought to the colonial violence that defines American
history: In
The Education of an Idealist
, she recalls inviting a Serbian official to meet
with her in the so-called Indian Treaty Room, where she lectured him on the importance of
apprehending the war criminal Ratko Mladić. Somehow, Power overlooks the irony of championing
justice in a room named for repeatedly broken treaties that the U.S. government made with the
native population against which it committed genocide.
Power's most consequential decision during Obama's first term displayed a shortsightedness that
has often accompanied her faith in U.S. military power. With the outbreak of civil war in Libya,
Power began to advocate vociferously in favor of intervention to stop a potential massacre at
Benghazi. In particular, during a March 15, 2011, meeting, Power endorsed U.N. Ambassador Susan
Rice's proposal to establish a
no-fly zone
over Libya and attack Muammar Qaddafi's forces. Obama approved Rice's plan, and on
March 19, a U.S.-led NATO coalition began
bombing Libya
,
initiating a process that concluded with Qaddafi's death. Despite the war's expansion and the chaos
that ensued, Power remains proud of her contribution. For her, "once the revolution spread, the
real question became how to use the tools at our disposal to bring about the best possible -- or the
least bad -- outcome."
But was that the real question? Here are some other questions that are equally important and
that she should have taken more seriously before Obama commenced Operation Odyssey Dawn: Is the war
likely to expand? If the war expands and Qaddafi is deposed, who will govern Libya? Is the United
States -- especially the American public -- willing to commit itself to reconstruction efforts? What
precedent does the intervention potentially set? Power never really asked these questions, because
ultimately, as the historian Stephen Wertheim has argued, she considers humanitarian intervention a
categorical imperative (as long as it doesn't involve U.S. allies, of course). For this reason,
throughout her time in office Power regularly encouraged war.
In Obama's second term, Power left the NSC to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In
this position, she won many admirable victories: She aided in establishing a U.N. post
dedicated
to monitoring global LGBT rights;
brought countries together
to end the deadly Ebola outbreak of 2014; and promoted a resolution
that demanded the United Nations
deport
any peacekeeping units from countries in which U.N. soldiers were reported to have
committed sexual assault.
Yet it was also during Obama's second term that Power found herself less able to convince the
president of the moral necessity of intervention. In her memoir, she relates that when she first
learned that Bashar al-Assad's government had employed chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war,
she hoped "Obama would respond forcefully" and was disappointed when he didn't. Nevertheless, in
August 2013, Power was heartened to discover that Obama intended to answer the Syrian government's
murder of 1,400 people in a
chemical weapons attack
with airstrikes of military targets.
Power's expectations, however, were dashed when she was informed that Obama had decided to seek
congressional authorization for the airstrikes. "What happens if Congress doesn't support you?" she
asked the president. "Does that mean Assad could just keep using chemical weapons?" In the end,
Obama determined that Congress would rebuff his plan and
chose not
to go ahead with a vote; against Power's wishes, he also refused to intervene.
Instead, the president accepted Russia's offer to work together to disable Assad's chemical weapons
program. For her part, Power "shuddered at the inadequacy of the effort" to decrease Assad's
stockpile, despite the fact that U.S.-Russian collaboration provided an opportunity to build the
trust necessary to reach a political resolution of the conflict.
Power's recollection of the Syria debate highlights her meritocratic skepticism of democratic
politics. She writes that she "regretted that our administration had not ascertained whether we had
the votes
before
the President announced he was going to Congress. Had he known he would
fail, [she] did not believe he would have chosen the path he did." Power, in other words, wanted
Congress to rubber-stamp Obama's decision to intervene; she wasn't interested in having a real
public discussion about the potential benefits and drawbacks of using military force. In fact,
Power has the temerity to express disappointment with the U.S. public for refusing to support
intervention. Most Americans, she laments, "wanted no part of Syria. The student activists, civic
groups, churches, mosques, and synagogues that had come out
en masse
to demand help for
the people of Darfur [where in the mid-2000s a genocide erupted] were largely silent." Such a
statement evinces the privilege of an individual who has no reason to fear the
effects
another Middle Eastern intervention might have on her own family -- or on the people of
the Middle East.
The assumption running through Power's career is that the American empire is able to act as a
force for good in the world. At her memoir's end -- and in the wake of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and
Syria -- she affirms that "on issue after issue, either the United States brought a game plan to the
table or else the problem worsened." Though this might be true in some cases, it is certainly not
the rule, especially when one considers the
disastrous effects
of the nation's wars in the Greater Middle East; its
pointless
antagonism
of China, Russia, and Iran; its unwillingness to take the business-unfriendly steps
required to arrest climate change; and its unhesitating promotion of a capitalist system that has
exploited the labor of untold millions. The last several decades have taught us that the world
needs far less American "leadership" than it has enjoyed.
If you accept Power's premises, then humanitarian intervention boils down to a purely
philosophical inquiry: Is it right to save lives if one has the capacity to do so? The answer, of
course, is yes. The problem, though, is that intervention is not a thought experiment; it takes
place in a world of brutal realities. In particular, humanitarian forces confront radical
uncertainty. Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers
actually know enough about the situation on the ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the
American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest answers here
may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all.
Simply maintaining an enormous military able to intervene anywhere in the world carries its own
set of malign consequences: endless wars, global arms proliferation, a militaristic political
culture, the diversion of resources from welfare to weapons, and the strengthening of the
military-industrial complex, to name just a few.
The Education of an Idealist
does not
account for these social ills, or consider that the only way we can avoid them is by giving up the
capacities that enable us (theoretically, if not in practice) to alleviate foreign suffering.
The historian Samuel Moyn has
warned
that we must be careful not to elevate "the narrow and rare problem of when to send the military to
help strangers into the decisive one around which the future of American foreign policy revolves."
Power's memoir shows how much the discourse of humanitarian intervention obscures. By focusing on
the question "Do we save innocent lives?" liberal interventionists like Power shift our attention
from an equally important query: "How do we change conditions so lives don't need to be saved?" A
world oriented around this last question would look very different from the one we have now.
Daniel Bessner is the Pyle Assistant Professor in American Foreign Policy at the University of Washington
and author of
Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual
.
@ dbessner
"Do you really think they spend $400 on a hammer?"
That line comes straight out
of a movie . Didn't I tell you American get their reality from their Plato's Cave
screens?
I briefly worked in a machine shop that did DoD contract work. We would buy washers by the
pound from the hardware store down the street, heat seal them individually into little
plastic baggies with the part number printed on them, and then sell them to the Navy for $50
each .
Yeah, the military pays $400 each, if not a good deal more, for their hammers.
I actually had read that news report in Tass about Putin's offer to Trump and I didn't regard
it as trolling until I saw b's article. Putin's logic was that Russia had already invested
the money and could make some back, and meanwhile the US could save some money and move
towards a strategic parity - which I believe Russia would actually prefer over a superiority,
since a stable balance is far less frantic than an arms race.
So it all made sense to me.
This has been a fun thread but it's all a nonsense here tonight of course. Pity. I liked
what I was reading from Putin:
Putin told the plenary session of the fifth Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) on Thursday that
at the last meeting with his American partners in Osaka, Japan "the issue was raised as to
how and in what way it would be possible to count Russian modern weapons, including the
hypersonic missile systems, into the common agreements, considering that so far not a
single country in the world possesses these weapons, not even the US."
"I told Donald the following: "if you want, we can sell you some and this way we will
balance everything out. But truth be told, they are saying that they will soon produce it
themselves.
Perhaps they will, but why waste money when we already have spent some and can get
something back, and at the same time not harm our security but rather create a situation
where there is a balance," Putin elaborated.
In reading this excellent brief analysis, I would suggest that followers read the also
excellent books, Losing Military Supremacy "The Myopia of American Strategic Planning" by
Andrei Martyanov and In the Shadows of the American Century "The Rise and Decline of US
Global Power," by Alfred w. McCoy, to get an understanding of the minds of the Military
Industrial Complex. The book by Mr. Martyanov provides examples of why the American military
can't win battles against 2nd and 3rd peer adversaries (Vietnam (The American War as the
Vietnamese call it), Korean War (The UN Police Action), Afghanistan War, and their future
inability to win any future wars against a 1st peer adversary (Russia, China). The American
military tells itself it is a great fighting force without peer but it also believes it's own
press that the US military brought the German Werhmarcht to their knees, when we know the
Russians won War World II. McCoy's book, which is well researched, also states the same
premise but from an american perspective.
The MIC will be the downfall of the US and it the deepest of the Deep State. The 1
TRILLION dollar yearly military budget (minus the unknown Black budget) will bankrupt this
country. It is also unfortunate that the noble peace prize winner Obama, authorized a
Trillion dollar upgrade to the US nuclear arsenal, when he could have halved the number of
warheads and still had plenty to destroy the planet a hundred times over. So much for the
prince of peace.
We would also do well to stop giving other countries billions in military aid (israhell,
saudi barbaria, UAE, etc) to drop bombs and snipe poor people attempting to live free.
Hopefully the end is near.
PS: If you want to read a near term fictional book on the demise of the MIC and changes to
the culture in America, the book "Twilight's Last Gleaming" by John Michael Greer is
spellbinding and a great read. Interestingly enough, he has written over thirty books and
writes about post industrial collapse and their outcomes.
Carriers are floating air bases for attacking weaker nations with miniscule inexperienced air
forces and skimpy ground air defense. They are for force projection in wars of aggression,
not general wars in defense of the nation. The only sense in which they are weaknesses is
that high losses for the master race that expects easy victory are doubly shocking.
Stealth aircraft are equally first strike weapons aimed at knocking out radar, hitting
enemy planes on the ground and sowing confusion. As they are not tactical aircraft such flaws
as rain shadow, etc. that render them unfit combat aircraft against an enemy in the air may
be irrelevant.
Missile defenses have a lousy record against missiles in flight, but the radar targeting
makes them very adaptable as first strike weapons against enemy launch sites. All
"antimissile" missile defense systems should be regarded as being an effort in that
direction. Air defense systems that concentrate on electronic warfare, confusing the air with
flak, taking down manned aircraft, camouflage, etc. are something else, unromantic but
vital.
Nobody can effectively use mass drone attacks or cruise missile attacks for strategic
victory, because strategic bombing does not actually work without ground attacks interdicting
supplies and/or actively preventing rebuilding/reorganization. Thus it is not a meaningful
failure for US air defenses to fail against Houthi air attacks. The Houthi air attacks are
also not going to win the war. The inability of the Saudis to win ground loses it for them,
meaning endless war is financially debilitating, plus, again, self-sacrifice is not something
the Saudi monarchy can call upon.
Lastly, the Russians do no have hypersonic weapons. Even if they did, the notion that
weapon systems largely useful in first strikes indicates a horrible misreading of Russia's
military situation. There is no reasonable strategy for them that involves a first
strike.
WASHINGTON: Yesterday, the Army awarded two key contracts to catch up to Russia and China
in the race to field battle-ready hypersonic missiles. After years of one-off
experimental prototypes, the US plans to produce and field actual weapons.
The race for hypersonic missiles heated up last week when the US Army awarded two key
contracts to catch up to Russia and China. After a decade of experimental prototypes, the
Army is expected to get its hands on hypersonic missiles that will be fielded in the next
four years, reported Breaking Defense.
"Carriers are today, at least for Russia, India and China, not threats but large and juicy
targets".
Gary Brecher 'the war nerd' said years ago that carriers were obsolete this article both
informative and witty is a must read...
"The Chinese military has developed a ballistic missile, Dong Feng 21, specifically
designed to kill US aircraft carriers: "Because the missile employs a complex guidance
system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable,
the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is
estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in
less than 12 minutes." That's the US Naval Institute talking, remember. They're
understating the case when they say that, with speed, satellite guidance and
maneuverability like that, "the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target
are increased."
You know why that's an understatement? Because of a short little sentence I found farther
on in the article -- and before you read that sentence, I want all you trusting Pentagon
groupies to promise me that you'll think hard about what it implies. Here's the sentence:
"Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack." http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/
This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through
almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In
a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how
they got there.
Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are
adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit.
Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.
"... But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation? ..."
"... You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers. ..."
"... This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside. ..."
"... Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare ..."
"... "[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests." ..."
"... "By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor. ..."
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy
op-ed written by former secretary of defense James Mattis, his first public statement since
his resignation in December. The article is adopted from his forthcoming book, Call Sign
Chaos: Learning to Lead , out this week.
The former Pentagon chief opens a window into his decision making process, explaining that
accepting President Trump's nomination was part of his lifelong devotion to public service:
"When the president asks you to do something, you don't play Hamlet on the wall, wringing your
hands. So long as you are prepared, you say yes." Mattis's two years at DoD capped off 44 years
in the Marine Corps, where he gained a popular following as a tough and scholarly leader.
Mattis received widespread praise from the foreign policy establishment when he resigned in
protest over President Trump's directive for a full U.S. military withdrawal from Syria and a
partial withdrawal from Afghanistan. "When my concrete solutions and strategic advice,
especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite
the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution," he
writes.
But did Mattis really offer "concrete solutions and strategic advice" regarding America's
two decades of endless war? spoke with four military experts, all veterans, who painted a very
different picture of the man called "Mad Dog."
"I think over time, in General Mattis's case a little over 40 years, if you spend that many
years in an institution, it is extremely hard not to get institutionalized," says Gil
Barndollar, military fellow-in-residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for the
Study of Statesmanship. Barndollar served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps and
deployed twice to Afghanistan. "In my experiences, there are not too many iconoclasts or really
outside-the-box people in the higher ranks of the U.S. military."
It's just that sort of institutionalized thinking that makes the political establishment
love Mattis. "[A] person with an institutional mind-set has a deep reverence for the
organization he has joined and how it was built by those who came before. He understands that
institutions pass down certain habits, practices and standards of excellence," wrote David
Brooks in a hagiographic New York Timescolumn .
But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting
unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental
stagnation?
"The problem is, from at least the one-star the whole way through, for the last two decades,
you've seen them do nothing but just repeat the status quo over and over," observes Lieutenant
Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, who served 21 years in the U.S.
Army and deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. "I mean every single general that was in
charge of Afghanistan said almost the same boilerplate thing every time they came in (which was
nearly one a year). You see the same results, nothing changed."
"And if those guys took someone from a major to a two-star general, we'd probably have a lot
of better outcomes," he adds.
Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, agrees:
You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether
they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim
it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking
on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're
"how" thinkers not "if" thinkers.
Barndollar says: "The vast majority of military leaders, up to and including generals at the
three-, four-star level, are not operating at the strategic level, in terms of what that word
means in military doctrine. They're not operating at the level of massive nation-state
resources and alliances and things like that. They're at the operational level or often even at
the tactical level."
This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic
concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one
superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside.
The only component of national security policy Mattis discusses in his op-ed is America's
system of alliances, which he believes is the key to our preeminence on the world stage.
"Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make
common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together," he
writes.
"Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day
against the forces of change in modern warfare," counters Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who served
28 years in the U.S. Army. "He lives in denial of the technological breakthroughs that make the
World War II force structure (that he as SecDef insisted on funding) an expensive tribute to
the past."
Mattis muses that the Department of Defense "budget [is] larger than the GDPs of all but two
dozen countries." Yet having acknowledged that disparity, how can such underpowered foreign
nations possibly contribute to American security?
"He has that line in there about bringing as many guns as possible to a gun fight. What are
those guns?" asked Barndollar. For example, the British Royal Navy is the United States' most
significant allied naval force. But the United Kingdom has
only seven vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf and they're "stretched to the absolute
limit to do that."
"Our problem has been double-edged," says Davis of America's reliance on others. "On the one
hand, we try to bludgeon a lot of our allies to do what we want irrespective of their interests
as an asset. And then simultaneously, especially in previous administrations, we've almost gone
too far [in] the other direction: 'we'll subordinate our interests for yours.'"
"[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment
Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The
means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests."
Sjursen says:
Mattis's view is the old Einstein adage: "doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Well that's all he's proposed.
He has no new or creative solutions. For him, it's stay the course, more of the same, stay in
place, fight the terrorists, maintain the illegitimate and corrupt governments that we back.
That's what he's been talking about for 18 years. It's all the same interventionist dogma
that's failed us over and over again since September 12, 2001.
"In the two years he was in office, what did he do that changed anything? He was a caretaker
of the status quo. That's the bottom line," says Davis, adding, "you need somebody in that job
especially that is willing to take some chances and some risk and is willing to honestly look
at 18 consecutive years of failure and say, 'We're not doing that anymore. We're going to do
something different.' And that just never happened."
Barndollar is more generous in his estimation of Mattis: "He needs to be lauded for standing
for his principles, ultimately walking away when he decided he could no longer execute U.S.
national security policy. I give him all the credit for that, for doing it I think in a
relatively good manner, and for trying to do his best to stay above the fray and refuse to be
dragged in at a partisan level to this point."
Mattis ends his Wall Street Journal op-ed by recounting a vignette from the 2010
Battle of Marjah, where he spoke with two soldiers on the front lines and in good cheer. But
his story didn't sit well with Sjursen, who says it encapsulates Mattis' inability to ask the
bigger questions: "He never talks about how those charming soldiers with the can-do attitude
maybe shouldn't have been there at all. Maybe the mission that they were asked to do was
ill-informed, ill-advised, and potentially unwinnable."
All this suggests that a fair evaluation of Mattis is as a soldier who is intelligent but
unoriginal. A homegrown patriot, but one who'd like to plant the Stars and Stripes in Central
Asia forever. A public servant, but one who would rather resign than serve the cause of
restraint.
"By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned
future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says
Macgregor.
Hunter DeRensis is a reporter for The National Interest .Follow him on
Twitter@HunterDeRensis
.
When
"disinformation" is redefined
to include all potentially
polarizing stories that don't conform to the establishment narrative,
reality is
discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved pablum
...
... ... ...
But
perhaps the worst part about all of this is that the government itself, including the
Pentagon, has an
extensive
history of running fake social media profiles to collect data on persons of interest
,
including through the NSA's JTRIG information-war program revealed in
the
Snowden documents.
Agents regularly deploy reputational attacks against dissidents using false
information. Fake identities are used to cajole unsuspecting individuals into collaborating in fake
FBI "terror" plots, a phenomenon which might once have been called entrapment but is merely business
as usual in the post-9/11 U.S.SA.
All of this begs the question: how will DARPA determine
the "intent" behind any meme or bit of information?
Will they punish journalists who push
fakes for the political establishment? Probably not. This is where the "impact" and "intent" fields
come in handy for them: fakes from "trusted sources" will be let through, while fakes and real stories
designed to "undermine key individuals and organizations" (dissent and those who seek freedom from the
political class) will be terminated before they have an impact on the thoughts of others.
When
"disinformation" is redefined to include all potentially polarizing stories that don't conform to the
establishment narrative, reality is discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved
pablum.
The Soviets tried to police thought but it was an embarrassing
failure. What makes America think they can achieve better results?
Rather than risk the embarrassment of failure, perhaps the pentagon
should simply exterminate the human population and replace us with
robots programmed to consume and obey. Consume and obey. That's all
they want from us. And in refusing to do so, the people have failed
the ruling class.
The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true,
should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate
"policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical
orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.
When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated
with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.
All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control
and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves
in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political
realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.
The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how
might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?
Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that
their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt
to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out
of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency
protection initiatives. They might run up staggering
debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark
domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.
It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate
most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives."
In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.
While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most
debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill,
leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every
contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.
As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power
reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy
might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons
of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire
by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war
making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.
Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble
about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on
national conservatism with some
skepticism . The
retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation
of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to
be conservatism.
One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable
resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of
an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.
Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option
but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential
but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system
often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.
William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University
of America, and author of the new book
Democracy and Imperialism .
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy.
Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler,
Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.
Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of
a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that
he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral
means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position?
This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently
involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers
in the Exodus from Egypt.
The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other
than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous
non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the
country out.
The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just
how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every
foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and
world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts
rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.
The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the
author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched'
foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always
reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms.
Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts
to exert dominion over others"
I love this.
We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families,
we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these
countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.
This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...
"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world
does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."
I could never get this out of my head.
It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the
gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.
Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing
because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5
"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive.
Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.
The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall
inherit the Earth."
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember
is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did
not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent
NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint
of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever).
Get absolute power, get corrupted.
The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats
and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best
of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters.
Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.
The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide
(subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants
defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been
doing.
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.
This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot
ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed
Society is otherwise un-governable.
And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you
have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society"
[J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.
“ If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries
in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic
weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he
acts are well founded and justified by success;
still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks,
where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend
himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.
(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)
Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when
it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS,
2012 Pg. 80]
Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?
Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase
military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation
on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry.
They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then
they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.
Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”
The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage
Evil reprobates in positions of power Anything that’s good they devour Destroying countries and families too This is the satanic work they do
Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?
Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze
Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...
If you want a vision of the future, don't imagine "a boot stamping on a human face -- for
ever," as Orwell suggested in 1984 . Instead, imagine that human face staring mesmerized
into the screen of some kind of nifty futuristic device on which every word, sound, and image
has been algorithmically approved for consumption by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA") and its
"innovation ecosystem" of "academic, corporate, and governmental partners."
The screen of this futuristic device will offer a virtually unlimited range of
"non-divisive" and "hate-free" content, none of which will falsify or distort the "truth," or
in any way deviate from "reality." Western consumers will finally be free to enjoy an
assortment of news, opinion, entertainment, and educational content (like this Guardian
podcast about a man who
gave birth , or MSNBC's latest bombshell about
Donald Trump's secret Russian oligarch backers ) without having their enjoyment totally
ruined by discord-sowing alternative journalists like Aaron Maté or satirists like
myself.
"Fake news" will not appear on this screen. All the news will be "authentic." DARPA and its
partners will see to that. You won't have to worry about being "influenced" by Russians, Nazis,
conspiracy theorists, socialists, populists, extremists, or whomever. Such Persons of Malicious
Intent will still be able to post their content (because of "freedom of speech" and all that
stuff), but they will do so down in the sewers of the Internet where normal consumers won't
have to see it. Anyone who ventures down there looking for it (i.e., such "divisive" and
"polarizing" content) will be immediately placed on an official DARPA watchlist for "potential
extremists," or "potential white supremacists," or "potential Russians."
Once that happens, their lives will be over (i.e., the lives of the potentially extremist
fools who have logged onto whatever dark web platform will still be posting essays like this,
not the lives of the Persons of Malicious Intent, who never had any lives to begin with, and
who by that time will probably be operating out of some heavily armed, off-the-grid compound in
Idaho). Their schools, employers, and landlords will be notified. Their photos and addresses
will be published online. Anyone who ever said two words to them (or, God help them, appears in
a photograph with them) will have 24 hours to publicly denounce them, or be placed on
DARPA’s watchlist themselves.
Libya war was a pure oil grab. Pretexts always can be found.
Notable quotes:
"... Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers actually know enough about the situation on the ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest answers here may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all. ..."
"... The most telling part of Power's career in government was that she served as ambassador to the U.N. at a time when the U.S. was enabling and supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and as part of the administration she had nothing to say about the crimes being committed against Yemeni civilians by coalition forces with U.S. military assistance and weapons. ..."
"... As Bessner notes, she doesn't have much to say about the abuses of U.S. clients in her book. She has been eager to advocate for using force against hostile or pariah regimes when they commit atrocities, but when client states use American weapons to commit the same atrocities while enjoying full U.S. backing Power didn't so much as utter a protest. After she left government and Trump became president, Power criticized U.S. support for the war, but when she was in a position to challenge a monstrous policy from inside the administration she apparently said nothing. ..."
"... And no one with enough intellectual honesty to mention that she was among the greatest enablers of Yemenis' suffering yet before the said "Tyrant" (who might be a tyrant to anyone but her social class) entered the office. Profiles in cowardice, all of them. ..."
Daniel Bessner has written a very interesting
review of Sar's memoir, The Education of an Idealist . Here he focuses on her narrow thinking about "humanitarian" intervention:
If you accept Power's premises, then humanitarian intervention boils down to a purely philosophical inquiry: Is it right to
save lives if one has the capacity to do so? The answer, of course, is yes. The problem, though, is that intervention is not a
thought experiment; it takes place in a world of brutal realities. In particular, humanitarian forces confront radical uncertainty.
Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers actually know enough about the situation on the
ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest
answers here may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all.
Can military intervention ever be humanitarian? It may be possible in theory, but as Bessner notes it doesn't work that way in
practice. "Humanitarian" interventionists want the wars they support to be judged by their intentions to save lives and not by the
results of ensuing chaos, instability, and violence. Taking sides in foreign conflicts inevitably means deciding that our government
should end the lives of some people that have done nothing to us because we have concluded that it is the right thing to do. That
takes for granted that our government has the right to act as judge and executioner in other people's wars simply because we have
the power to affect the outcome. When we think about "humanitarian" intervention this way, we can see that it is driven by the worst
kind of arrogant presumption. The first question we should ask is this: what gives us the authority to interfere in another country's
internal conflict? We should also ask ourselves what gives us the right to cast aside international law whenever we deem it necessary.
Isn't "humanitarian" intervention in practice little more than international armed vigilantism?
The Libyan war is one example of just such a "good" intervention that pretty clearly caused more harm than it prevented. It also
violated most of the requirements of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine that was invoked to justify it. Like more than a few
other die-hard Libyan war supporters, Power remains convinced that it was the right decision, because she doesn't ask the questions
that would force her to confront the harm that the intervention did to Libya and the surrounding region. Bessner comments:
Power never really asked these questions, because ultimately, as the historian Stephen Wertheim has argued, she considers humanitarian
intervention a categorical imperative (as long as it doesn't involve U.S. allies, of course).
That last qualification is an important one, and it gets at the heart of what is wrong with "humanitarian" interventionism in
the U.S. and the West. If a government is considered to be on "our" side, it can commit war crimes with impunity, devastate whole
countries, and starve tens of millions of people, and the most vocal "humanitarian" interventionists will usually have nothing to
say about it. I have remarked on several occasions that "humanitarian" interventionists just ignored the catastrophe in Yemen despite
the fact that it was the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster, and it has only been in the last year or two that any of them
have spoken up about it now that it is Trump's policy.
The most telling part of Power's career in government was that she served as ambassador to the U.N. at a time when the U.S. was
enabling and supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and as part of the administration she had nothing to say about the crimes
being committed against Yemeni civilians by coalition forces with U.S. military assistance and weapons.
As Bessner notes, she doesn't
have much to say about the abuses of U.S. clients in her book. She has been eager to advocate for using force against hostile or
pariah regimes when they commit atrocities, but when client states use American weapons to commit the same atrocities while enjoying
full U.S. backing Power didn't so much as utter a protest. After she left government and Trump became president, Power criticized
U.S. support for the war, but when she was in a position to challenge a monstrous policy from inside the administration she apparently
said nothing.
Bessner observes that railing against hostile and pariah states while letting clients off the hook makes no sense if the goal
is to minimize the harm to civilians:
Her approach does not make much sense from a pragmatic perspective either: U.S. officials have the highest likelihood of ending
human rights abuses in countries that depend on us; there is little point in spending political capital in a mostly quixotic attempt
to transform antagonists like North Korea.
Of course, it is much safer politically to denounce the states with which our government has no ties or influence, and it is much
easier to remain silent about the crimes of client states that have significant clout in Washington. The point here is not just that
Power failed her own test when she served in government, but that the impulse to intervene on "humanitarian" grounds amounts to agitating
for war against certain governments while giving U.S. clients a free pass to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with our
government's blessing.
There's yet one more reason to why she wasn't saying anything about Yemen when in office beside the one that it were her guys
who directed that war then. Perhaps less phony, but, I'd rather say, more tragic. It's much easier to criticize someone for neglecting
his duties than not to neglect those duties when you've got them yourself.
I almost see those lemmings on her Twitter chirping:
'Oh, you're so brave, you're standing up to the Terrible Orange Tyrant.' (Not that the "Tyrant" was even aware that she's standing
up to him).
And no one with enough intellectual honesty to mention that she was among the greatest enablers of Yemenis' suffering
yet before the said "Tyrant" (who might be a tyrant to anyone but her social class) entered the office. Profiles in cowardice,
all of them.
"... Hitler's Final Solution missed the entire point of racism within the capitalist world-economy. The object of racism is not to exclude people, much less exterminate them, but to keep them within the system as Untermenschen, to be exploited economically and used as political scapegoats . What happened with Nazism was what the French would call a dérapage – a blunder, a skid, a loss of control. Or perhaps it was the genie getting out of the bottle. ..."
"... Second, and just as important, there was a need to restore a sanitised racism to its original function: that of keeping people within the system, but as Untermenschen. If Jews could no longer be treated thus ..."
"... So began the era of what the Germans gingerly called the Gastarbeiter. ..."
"... Who were these Gastarbeiter? Mediterranean peoples in non-Mediterranean Europe, Latin Americans and Asians in North America, West Indians in North America and Western Europe, Black Africans and South Asians in Europe. And, since 1989, citizens of the former socialist bloc. They have come in large numbers because they wanted to come and because they could find jobs: indeed, were desperately needed to make the pan-European countries flourish. But they came, almost universally, as persons at the bottom of the heap – economically, socially and politically ..."
Since 1989, social science has thrown very little light on [such matters as the growth of
extreme right in Austria]. Indeed, its failure has been lamentable. All anyone –
whatever their politics – talks about is globalisation, as though that were anything
more than current rhetoric for the continuing struggle within the capitalist world-economy
over the degree to which transborder flows should be unimpeded It is dust in our eyes.
So, too, is the endless litany about ethnic violence, and here human rights activists, as
well as social scientists, are to blame. Ethnic violence, however horrifying, is not the
preserve of some less fortunate, less wise, less civilised other. It follows from the deep
and growing inequalities within our world-system, and cannot be addressed by moral
exhortation, or by any meddling on the part of the pure and advanced in zones controlled by
the impure and backward. World social science has offered us no useful tools to analyse what
has been happening in the world-system since 1989, and therefore no useful tools to
understand contemporary Austrian reality.
The reason everyone was so appalled by Nazism after 1945 is obvious. While almost
everyone in the pan-European world had been openly and happily racist and anti-semitic before
1945, hardly anyone had intended it to lead where it did. Hitler's Final Solution missed the
entire point of racism within the capitalist world-economy. The object of racism is not to
exclude people, much less exterminate them, but to keep them within the system as Untermenschen, to be exploited economically and used as political scapegoats . What
happened with Nazism was what the French would call a dérapage – a
blunder, a skid, a loss of control. Or perhaps it was the genie getting out of the
bottle.
It was acceptable to be racist up to the point of a final solution, but no
further . It had always been a delicate game, and no doubt there had been
dérapages before – but never on such a large scale, never in so central
an arena of the world-system, and never that visible. Collectively, the pan-European world
came to terms with what had happened by banning public racism, primarily public
anti-semitism. It became a taboo language .
One of the reasons the EU reacted so strongly to Haider is that Austria has refused to
assume its share of guilt, insisting that it was primarily a victim. Perhaps a majority of
Austrians had not wanted the Anschluss, although it is hard to believe it when you see
newsreel clips of the cheering Viennese crowds. But, more to the point, no non-Jewish,
non-Roma Austrian was considered anything other than German after the Anschluss, and the
majority gloried in that fact.
The realisation that racism had been undone by going much too far had two major
consequences in the post-1945 pan-European world. First, these countries sought to emphasise
their internal virtues as integrative nations untroubled by racist oppression, 'free
countries' facing an 'evil empire' whose racism, in its turn, became a regular theme of
Western propaganda. All sorts of socio-political actions followed from this: the 1954
decision by the US Supreme Court to outlaw racial segregation; the philo-Israel policies of
the whole pan-European world; even the new emphasis on ecumenicism within Western
Christianity (as well as the invention of the idea of a joint Judaeo-Christian heritage).
Second, and just as important, there was a need to restore a sanitised racism to its
original function: that of keeping people within the system, but as Untermenschen. If Jews
could no longer be treated thus, or Catholics in Protestant countries, it was necessary to
look further afield. In the pan-European world the post-1945 period was, at least at first, a
time of incredible economic expansion accompanied by a radically reduced rate of
reproduction. More workers were needed and fewer were being produced than ever before. So
began the era of what the Germans gingerly called the Gastarbeiter.
Who were these Gastarbeiter? Mediterranean peoples in non-Mediterranean Europe, Latin
Americans and Asians in North America, West Indians in North America and Western Europe,
Black Africans and South Asians in Europe. And, since 1989, citizens of the former socialist
bloc. They have come in large numbers because they wanted to come and because they could find
jobs: indeed, were desperately needed to make the pan-European countries flourish. But they
came, almost universally, as persons at the bottom of the heap – economically, socially
and politically
The rhymes with immigration policy debates in this country are obvious. And I love the irony
of dérapage .
apenultimate on Fri, 08/30/2019 - 12:39am Even though she will not be included in the
3rd DNC debate, upon her return from Indonesia where she was training with her Hawaii National
Guard unit, Tulsi has indicated that we should not be discouraged and she has given every
indication she will continue to campaign at this point:
This can be called "color revolution effect". No matter what people want, the USA gets the
greater leverage after any such approval and always is the net beneficiary. The only exception
was Iran Islamic revolution, so there are some exception, but even with Iran the level of
influence of the USA on Iran economics increased, not decreases.
UK might want to look at Ukraine for the net result of the struggle for independence
althouth Ukraine supposedly was fighting againt Russia depencense not EU dependence and was
already a puppet regime under Yanukovich.
It's supposed to make Britain more independent. But it might put her at the mercy of Mike
Pompeo's Iran policy.
By unyoking London from Europe, a no deal Brexit would unleash a
titanic shift in global alliances that could strengthen Washington's hand and help it achieve
its "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran.
That's an ironic turn of events for populists in the United Kingdom, who support Brexit
because it will allow the British people to determine their own fate.
But for some in Washington, Brexit represents a golden opportunity to negotiate with a
United Kingdom unencumbered by Europe. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted as much when he
was asked whether our relationship with the UK will be strengthened by Brexit.
"I think it's the case," Pompeo said Thursday on the Hugh Hewitt Show. "We'll have a clear
line with [the UK]. We won't have the EU as a middleman that has put constraints on our
capacity to do lots of good things across not only the economic sector but the security sector
and the diplomatic sector as well. I'm confident that that very special relationship will
continue to grow."
Note that Pompeo specifically mentioned "the security sector" when listing how Brexit will
help the U.S. That's of particular importance now because the Trump administration has been
pressuring European nations to back its withdrawal from the Iran deal and reimpose sanctions on
Iran
The USA centered global neoliberal empire falls from grace at alarming speed.
Just the discussion of this possibility would be unthinkable in 90th -- the period of triumphal advance of neoliberalism all over
the globe. So thinks did change although it is unclear what is that direction of the social change -- neo-fascism or some kind of return
to the New Del Capitalism (if so who will replace previous, forged by Great Depression political alignment between trade unions and
management against the financial oligarchy, which financial oligarchy managed to broke using neoliberalism as the Trojan horse and bribing
CEOs)
Om a was original fascist movements were also a protest against the rule of financial oligarchy. Even anti-Semitism in Germany was
a kind of perverted protest against financial oligarchy as well. They were quickly subverted and in Germany anti-Semitism degenerated
into irrational hatred and genocide, , but the fact remains. Just looks at
NSDAP program of 1920 . Now we have somewhat
similar sentiments with Wexner and Meta group in the USA. To say that they do not invoke any sympathy is an understatement.
The problem with empires that they do not only rob the "other people". They rob their own people as well, and rob them hard. The
USSR people were really robbed by Soviet military industrial complex and Soviet globalist -- to the far greater extent then the USA
people now. People were really as poor as church rats. Epidemic of alcoholism in the USA resembles the epidemic of narcoaddtion in the
USA --- both are signs of desire then there is no jobs and now chances.
Like the collapse of the USSR was the result of the collapse of bolshevism, the collapse of the USA can be the result of the collapse
of neoliberalism. Whether it will take 10 or 50 years is unclear, but the general tendency is down.
The competitors has grown much strong now and they want their place under then sub. That means squeezing the USA. Trump did agrat
job in alientaing the US and that was probably the most important step is dismantling the USA empire that was taken. Add to that trade
war with China and we have the situation that is not favorable to the USA politically in two important parts of the globe.
Add to this Brexit and we have clear tendency of states to reassert their sovereignty, which start hurting the USA based multinationals.
The only things that work in favor of the USA is that currently there is no clear alternative to neoliberalism other then some kind
of restoration of the New Deal capitalism or neo-fasist dictatorship.
Notable quotes:
"... Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social cohesion of El Salvador. ..."
"... Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance. It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything. ..."
"... Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. ..."
"... You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at all, so we could finally be free people. ..."
"... And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that would be a huge positive step forward. ..."
Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed."
Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers
uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it's one that I've kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.
I'm from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to
the "New World" to seek promise for the future.
As I've spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I've had the opportunity to observe many British
contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most
returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on
board when Britain "came back."
This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world's foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and
downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn't returned to its former glory.
And it never will.
If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal.
Whether we're looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that's existed at one time, history
is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it's fallen.
But of what importance is this to us today?
Well, today, the US is the world's undisputed leading empire and most Americans would agree that, whilst it's going through a
bad patch, it will bounce back and might even be better than ever.
Not so, I'm afraid. All empires follow the same cycle. They begin with a population that has a strong work ethic and is self-reliant.
Those people organize to form a nation of great strength, based upon high productivity.
This leads to expansion, generally based upon world trade. At some point, this gives rise to leaders who seek, not to work in
partnership with other nations, but to dominate them, and of course, this is when a great nation becomes an empire. The US began
this stage under the flamboyant and aggressive Teddy Roosevelt.
The twentieth century was the American century and the US went from victory to victory, expanding its power.
But the decline began in the 1960s, when the US started to pursue unwinnable wars, began the destruction of its currency and began
to expand its government into an all-powerful body.
Still, this process tends to be protracted and the overall decline often takes decades.
So, how does that square with the quote, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed"?
Well, the preparation for the fall can often be seen for a generation or more, but the actual fall tends to occur quite rapidly.
What happens is very similar to what happens with a schoolyard bully.
The bully has a slow rise, based upon his strength and aggressive tendency. After a number of successful fights, he becomes
first revered, then feared. He then takes on several toadies who lack his abilities but want some of the spoils, so they do his
bidding, acting in a threatening manner to other schoolboys.
The bully then becomes hated. No one tells him so, but the other kids secretly dream of his defeat, hopefully in a shameful
manner.
Then, at some point, some boy who has a measure of strength and the requisite determination has had enough and takes on the
bully.
If he defeats him, a curious thing happens. The toadies suddenly realise that the jig is up and they head for the hills, knowing
that their source of power is gone.
Also, once the defeated bully is down, all the anger, fear and hatred that his schoolmates felt for him come out, and they
take great pleasure in his defeat.
And this, in a nutshell, is what happens with empires.
A nation that comes to the rescue in times of genuine need (such as the two World Wars) is revered. But once that nation morphs
into a bully that uses any excuse to invade countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, its allies may continue to bow
to it but secretly fear it and wish that it could be taken down a peg.
When the empire then starts looking around for other nations to bully, such as Iran and Venezuela, its allies again say nothing
but react with fear when they see the John Boltons and Mike Pompeos beating the war drums and making reckless comments.
At present, the US is focusing primarily on economic warfare, but if this fails to get the world to bend to its dominance, the
US has repeatedly warned, regarding possible military aggression, that "no option is off the table."
The US has reached the classic stage when it has become a reckless bully, and its support structure of allies has begun to de-couple
as a result.
At the same time that allies begin to pull back and make other plans for their future, those citizens within the empire who tend
to be the creators of prosperity also begin to seek greener pastures.
History has seen this happen countless times. The "brain drain" occurs, in which the best and most productive begin to look elsewhere
for their future. Just as the most productive Europeans crossed the Pond to colonise the US when it was a new, promising country,
their present-day counterparts have begun moving offshore.
The US is presently in a state of suspended animation. It still appears to be a major force, but its buttresses are quietly disappearing.
At some point in the near future, it's likely that the US government will overplay its hand and aggress against a foe that either
is stronger or has alliances that, collectively, make it stronger.
The greatest (so called) threats to America- the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, ( fill in the blank for
the latest overseas bogeyman-of-the-week ) pale into a wisp beside the ongoing disintegration of American traditional family life.
Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less
flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social
cohesion of El Salvador.
You also cant warn people about the collapse of empire either. People notoriously go into denial about it and it shocks the
**** out of everybody. Since empires bluff and bluster at the end its all to easy for people want to believe.
Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires
and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance.
It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations
and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything.
Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. if you think that the world would
enter the age of Aquarius and peace will rule the planet you are extremely naive and stupid. If you think that the Chinese would
be more benign rulers you are mistaken. The only reason China doesn't use its military to dominate other countries is because
it is kept in check by the US.
You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything
to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at
all, so we could finally be free people.
And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that
would be a huge positive step forward.
In the real world, Chinese terrorists are just as bad as American terrorists. Despite the most popular hypnosis gripping the
American psyche, you can't have liberty or justice as long as either one is in charge. Whether the Chinese would be worse is debatable.
It's not like America has some great track record to compete against. Their reign has been a complete disaster for human rights.
If China became the new empire we wouldnt live under it. It would be at least 100 years out. This empire will screw everybody
epically first, plus we have decline weather patterns with super solar grand minimum. Also those people's who may see that next
empire will deal with whatever circumstances present themselves and they wont give one **** what we think about it.
Basically power has kept moving west. Nobody will forget the depravity of this one. If written about accurately this one will
be remembered most for the medical tyranny and intentional damage it did to human beings through injections and modified good
supply, as well as moral depravity and proxy sadistic terrorism. Remember empire backed terrorist groups trafficked children and
harvested organs. You can miss it if you want, few will.
I do not _hope_ for an end of the American Empire, and I dread what is going to replace it. Howsoever, no empire lasts forever,
and our empire is near its end. The Chinese are relentlessly cruel, and that's in their genotype. I probably won't live to see
them take over the scraps and bits and pieces of our former empire. Those who are alive and in the prime of their lives when that
happens will suffer unimaginably while they live, and their blood will cry out from the grave after they die. It makes me so heart-sick
I can't bear to think about it for long, but our progeny will be forced to live it without let or hindrance.
Lets find out the whole details of what they have done to our biology and our children's first before we say how cruel China
might be. For starters look at what US and British did in Africa compared to China and Russia's involvement there. They are doing
deals and not killing anybody, same with Venezuela.
Where else you going to go? What nation ISN'T broke? Europe is going to hell. So is South America. Africa has always been hell.
Asia? Look what's going down in Hong Kong. China's broke. Make no mistake, the USA is in decline. But so is the rest of the world...
regardless of what is printed China is not falling, they have a plan and have only advanced it. The debt side will not hurt
them because they have been poor before and they have a route to success. They do not have resources but the industrial side is
needed everywhere in the world. We are talking about a nation that literally prospered off of our garbage and resells it back
to us! Think about it we use something up and pay them to take it away, they recycle it and resell it to us again and moved a
nation 4x our population forward!
You really think debt will hurt them, especially the way the US determines debt! A huge portion of it is in the infrastructucture
in China and along the BRI which will have returns over time, just as if we in the states rebuilt all our infrastructure by living
wage employment rather than MIC investment!
Yes, all are broke. Assisted suicides of countries all over the world. Emphasise on "assisted".
Nations have been demoralized (the US most certainly, check Yuri Bezmenov) we are in destabilization phase already, collapse
has to be next, it is unavoidable now. This will not end well, ignore at your own risk!
I am not talking about countries, just some Life Hedge Regions left in the world. People with brains and resources, you don
need a Life Hedge Property! Away from Northern Hemisphere, away from Ring of Fire, etc... Get in touch. lifehedge(at)
protonmail.com
What got America into trouble was when Americans who thought of themselves as being "exceptional" became exceptionally stupid.
The best and the brightest have already left America. Any wonder why we now depend on Russia to send our astronauts up on their
rockets into space, or depend on China, South Korea, and Japan for our electronic products, or why better health care is found
in other places outside the U.S., why our educational system has become poorer than what it was 60 years ago, etc.,?
When we decided to financialize everything and make nothing but investments we crippled our advancement.
When we decided to take the brightest minds in the world and recruit them into the US and then rather than advance the world
with true science, we offer them lucrative money to enter financial markets to use their knowledge in that field.
We take the ones with morals and principles that choose to actually remain in science and then corrupt them over time with
money/fame to regurgetate whatever their contractor chooses or lose funding for their projects.
We have corrupted every aspect of advancement and now just use our fake printed money to force the desperate to bend to our
will.
Good read on the subject of empires Sir John Glubb - The fate of empires and Search for survival.
We are probably near the end of the American Empire. And a fascinating by product of the HK protests is that we may well be near the end of Chinese Communism.
Nothing moves forward in a straight line. They move up and down. Empires are no exception. The Romans had their ups and downs
throughout the course of their empire. You never know when a down cycle is the end but people who want it to end will always write
articles like this.
American dominance might be drawing to an end....or it might be gearing up to go another 200 years. Nobody knows so it's a
waste of time to speculate.
"... For Stalinist and "wokers," there is no uncertainty or fallibility. If they believe someone is guilty, he must be. Why do we need a cumbersome process for determining guilt? The identities of the accuser and accused are enough. Privileged white men are guilty perpetrators. Intersectional minorities are innocent victims. Who needs to know more? Any process, regardless of its fairness, favors the privileged over the unprivileged. ..."
"... We must always remember that it is not only the road to hell that is paved with good intentions. It is also the road to tyranny. ..."
People on the "woke" hard-left seem so self-righteous about their monopoly over Truth
(with a capital T) that many of them apparently see no reason to allow dissenting,
politically incorrect, views to be expressed. Such incorrect views, they claim, make them
feel "unsafe." They can feel safe only if views they share are allowed to be
expressed. Feeling unsafe is the new trigger word for demanding censorship.
The other dangerous similarity between the Stalinists and the "wokers" is that both
disdain due process for those they deem guilty of political incorrectness or other crimes
and sins. They reject any presumption of innocence or requirement that the accuser bear the
burden of proof.
For Stalinist and "wokers," there is no uncertainty or fallibility. If they believe
someone is guilty, he must be. Why do we need a cumbersome process for determining guilt?
The identities of the accuser and accused are enough. Privileged white men are guilty
perpetrators. Intersectional minorities are innocent victims. Who needs to know more? Any
process, regardless of its fairness, favors the privileged over the unprivileged.
That is why I make the controversial claim that today, the "woke" hard-left is more
dangerous to civil liberties than the right. To be sure there are hard right extremists who
would use -- and have used -- violence to silence those with whom they disagree. They are
indeed dangerous. But they have far less influence on our future leaders than their
counterparts on the hard-left. They are not teaching our college age children and
grandchildren. They are marginalized academically, politically and in the media. The
opposite is true of hard-left Stalinists. Many have no idea who Stalin even was, but they
are emulating his disdain for free speech and due process in the interests of achieving the
unrealizable utopia they both sought. They also have in common the attitude that noble ends
justify ignoble means.
We must always remember that it is not only the road to hell that is paved with good
intentions. It is also the road to tyranny.
Peter Harris continently forget that the USA is imperial power with expansionist, imperial
goals in the Middle East (Iraq war was about oil) and unrelenting support of Israel. Which in
turn is a destabilizing force in the Middle East. The only state with not no accepted borders
which recently annexed Holland heights.
recenthistory of
engineering the downfall of foreign regimes. Second, the U.S. military's top priority should be
to eliminate terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. From these two premises, a third
foundation of Gabbard's foreign policy can be inferred: that the United States must sometimes
tolerate the existence of brutal foreign governments, especially if they share a common
interest in fighting the same terrorist groups as America.
None of these are radical assumptions about American foreign policy. Indeed, Gabbard's
anti-interventionism is tightly aligned with the prevailing zeitgeist in U.S. politics.
According to polling data, voters today are opposed to U.S. involvement in
Yemen , supportive of a withdrawal from
Afghanistan , and roughly
evenly split on the question of whether the United States should cease operations in Syria.
Military veterans are among those
most critical of the so-called "forever wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
Gabbard's insistence that the U.S. military should focus on counterterrorism rather than
regime change is also well within the mainstream of political opinion. In this regard, Gabbard
is
not unlike the last Democratic occupant of the Oval Office. After all, it was Barack Obama
who, as a candidate for the presidency, explicitly coupled his headline promises to end the
Iraq War and shrink America's overall military footprint with a commitment to ramp up the fight
against Al Qaeda and their Taliban enablers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
... ... ..
Peter Harris is an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State
University. You can follow him on Twitter: @ipeterharris .
I vote for taking Tulsi seriously. Pres Trump should consider her as Sec Defense or
head of the DNI. We've ruined the lives of the Syrian people with our intervention and
who the f decided we have a say? The U.S. needs to stop being interventionist for the
most part and in the event another country invades us, then and only then should be blow
them the F up!
Working with Assad and Russia to rid Syria of the remaining terrorists makes sense. It
would stop the "cleansing" of Idlib from Kurds, Christians and moderate Muslims by Al
Qaeda/ex-ISIS forces supported by Turkey. It would force Turkey to withdraw its forces
from Syria, and isolate Turkey from Russian influence. Iranian proxy militias would no
longer be needed in Syria to fight Al Qaeda. Finally, it would facilitate return of
Syrian refugees. The US should also remove existing sanctions on Syria which are
preventing economic reconstruction of the country.
Tulsi Gabbard is our only chance to beat Trump, and yet the media refuses to print
much about her, or her policies. I don't get it?
Anyway, thank you for this article you posted.
You can find all that on YouTube, where she has posted dozens of her campaign chats.
See also Joe Rogan interviews. The connection between foreign and domestic policy is that
trillions wasted on endless wars make health, education, infrastructure, etc.
unaffordable and therefore pie-in-the-sky until we come to our senses. She seems to offer
more detailed positions and more practical proposals on most of those issues -- and more
-- than the rest of the candidates put together. Is she too good to be true? Perhaps. Is
she a candidate we need in coming debates? Definitely. Could she beat Trump? In debates,
easily and decisively; in November 2020, not sure, but I think she has better odds than
the rest. What sort of president would she be? The wildest of wild cards, possibly one of
the greatest, possibly something else. At the rate things are going, it might be a lot
riskier NOT to take a chance on her.
The US administration shifted its policy to "no boots on the ground" during Pres.
Obama. Russia exploited the opportunity to reinstate its "boots" in the region and even
put a wedge between NATO and Turkey. To me it looks that this policy is detrimental to
the US hegemony in the region. Besides, I scream:'the King is naked' and claim that
people's interest or wellbeing in this region comes last, if at all, in the list of
priorities of all the regional and global superpowers, including the US administration.
Finally, collaborating with thugs like current rulers of Syria, Iran and similar was
proved a wrong policy by their infamous predecessor, 'Mr.' Adolf H., how respectfully Mr.
Chamberlain called him.
Most politicians don't learn from history.
Lots of Historians say that Stalin was as bad as Hitler, arguably even worse, in terms
of body counts. But if Churchill and Roosevelt had not engaged with Stalin, defeating the
Third Reich might have taken the rest of the 20th century. The crucial difference is
between Chamberlain and Churchill. It not how evil our negotiating partners are but how
strong and clear-sighted we are that determines the outcome.
https://www.youtube.com/wat... Until you listen to this by Col Lawrence Wilkerson
whose Truth-Telling is never carried on MSM then you can fall for this Drivel Propaganda
about Assad and him being a brutal dictator who in fact DID NOT Gas his people. This is
all Israeli Likud extremists who have been trying to illegally seize land in Syria, steal
oil, and destabilize it for 65 yrs. The Zionist White Helments are using human shields.
Assad is a sovereign and if you think Iran, Russia, and their other allies are going to
let them fail with US-sponsored Terrorists then you are wrong. Wilkerson says he wishes
he could slap Clinton, Pelosi, and all the hysterical pundits screamin about pulling out
of Syria in the face. He goes on to say there are 50 Air, Naval, & Army bases
surrounding Iran and Syria, the largest on Earth, and that the only solution is Diplomacy
or Nuclear War.
israel shoots up civilians in gaza not a problem, saudis behead homosexuals not a big
deal, assad fights against alqaeda and isis omg he is worst than hitler this cannot be
happening >.<
Wow, just came across two pro-Tulsi articles in a row on my Google feed. What is going
on? Varitas got Google shook, or Dems finally realizing Tulsi the only chance they have
against Trump. No, Dems will never forgive her for defecting to Bernie, they bite their
own nose off first. Must be the Varitas stuff. Things will get back to hate Tulsi normal
soon I'm sure
The worst by far are the Saudis. But they our ally so can't talk about them. They buy
billions worth of US weaponry, keep economy going, yippie. I remember when Saddam was a
rock star, on USA magazine covers, hailed as progressive. Kadahfy too. Kadahfy was a
actually a pretty decent guy. He truly was progressive. It is strange world when you
realize up is down and down is up , 2+2=5
"... For Stalinist and "wokers," there is no uncertainty or fallibility. If they believe someone is guilty, he must be. Why do we need a cumbersome process for determining guilt? The identities of the accuser and accused are enough. Privileged white men are guilty perpetrators. Intersectional minorities are innocent victims. Who needs to know more? Any process, regardless of its fairness, favors the privileged over the unprivileged. ..."
"... We must always remember that it is not only the road to hell that is paved with good intentions. It is also the road to tyranny. ..."
People on the "woke" hard-left seem so self-righteous about their monopoly over Truth
(with a capital T) that many of them apparently see no reason to allow dissenting,
politically incorrect, views to be expressed. Such incorrect views, they claim, make them
feel "unsafe." They can feel safe only if views they share are allowed to be
expressed. Feeling unsafe is the new trigger word for demanding censorship.
The other dangerous similarity between the Stalinists and the "wokers" is that both
disdain due process for those they deem guilty of political incorrectness or other crimes
and sins. They reject any presumption of innocence or requirement that the accuser bear the
burden of proof.
For Stalinist and "wokers," there is no uncertainty or fallibility. If they believe
someone is guilty, he must be. Why do we need a cumbersome process for determining guilt?
The identities of the accuser and accused are enough. Privileged white men are guilty
perpetrators. Intersectional minorities are innocent victims. Who needs to know more? Any
process, regardless of its fairness, favors the privileged over the unprivileged.
That is why I make the controversial claim that today, the "woke" hard-left is more
dangerous to civil liberties than the right. To be sure there are hard right extremists who
would use -- and have used -- violence to silence those with whom they disagree. They are
indeed dangerous. But they have far less influence on our future leaders than their
counterparts on the hard-left. They are not teaching our college age children and
grandchildren. They are marginalized academically, politically and in the media. The
opposite is true of hard-left Stalinists. Many have no idea who Stalin even was, but they
are emulating his disdain for free speech and due process in the interests of achieving the
unrealizable utopia they both sought. They also have in common the attitude that noble ends
justify ignoble means.
We must always remember that it is not only the road to hell that is paved with good
intentions. It is also the road to tyranny.
"... If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Before commenting please read Robert Parry's ..."
"... . Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed. ..."
Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg August 29, 2019 •
37 Comments
A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion,
is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.
T wo-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as "Pride
and Prejudice," so her playing the lead in the new film "Official Secrets," scheduled to be
released in the U.S. on Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the
time span being depicted -- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- is one of the most
dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.
It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun,
played by Knightley, is so little known. Having followed this story from the start, I find this
film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to
date–"to date" because the wider story still isn't over.
Katharine Gun
worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent
of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of
Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims
about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act -- a
juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by
the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Gun was charged for exposing -- around the time of
Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret
U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N.
Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion
resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully
forced through a trumped
up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or
blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See
recent interview with Gun .]
Katherine Gun The leaked memo, published by the British Observer , was big news in
parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped
prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they
wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.
'Most Courageous Leak' It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy,
where I work ( accuracy.org ), Norman
Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most
immediately saw the importance of what Gun had done. Ellsberg would later comment: "No one else
-- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal
risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important --
and courageous -- leak I've ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the
Pentagon Papers."
Daniel Ellsberg on the cover of Time after leaking the Pentagon Papers
Gun said: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two
books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese
Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq . And the
other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War
Plan Iraq . And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and
it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that
point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the
media." Thus, we see Gun in "Official Secrets" shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not
entitled to make up facts. The film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might
think that Donald Trump invented lying in 2017. Gun's immediate action after reading critiques
of U.S. policy and media coverage makes a strong case for trying to reach government workers by
handing out fliers and books and putting up
billboards outside government offices to encourage them to be more critically minded.
Solomon and Ellsberg had debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time. But Gun's
revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to invade Iraq,
they were violating international law to blackmail whole nations to get in line.
Mainstream reviews of "Official Secrets" still seem to not fully grasp the importance of
what they just saw. The trendy AV
Club review leads : "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a
colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." "Mistake" is
a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it when the movie details the
diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get other
governments to go along with it.
Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood
depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and
threats.
Portrayal of The Observer
Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as
well as her relationship with her husband, a Kurd from Turkey who the British government
attempted to have deported to get at Gun. The film also portrays the work of her lawyers who
helped get the Official Secrets charge against her dropped, as well as the drama at The
Observer , which published the NSA document after much internal debate.
Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose strong work on the original Gun story was
strangely followed by an ill-fated stint at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted
that very little
additional work has been done on Gun's case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent
author of the NSA document that she leaked -- one "Frank Koza." Other questions persist, such
is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other
purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst
Russ
Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?
Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA
man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in
the film. Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he
originally
reported :
"The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency
which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The
Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the
United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the
assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an
erroneous extension, and hung up."
There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered
regarding Gun's personal experience. A compelling part of the film -- apparently fictitious or
exaggerated -- is a GCHQ apparatchik questioning Gun to see if she was the source.
Little is known about the reaction inside the governments of Security Council members that
the U.S. spied on. After the invasion, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser spoke in blunt
terms about U.S. bullying -- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero , or back yard
-- and was Zinser was compelled to resign by President Vicente Fox. He then,
in 2004 , gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of
the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of
Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant." In 2005, he tragically
died in a car crash
.
Documents
leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA
"during the wind-up to the Iraq War 'played a critical role' in the adoption of U.N. Security
Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success." The relevant
document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte ,
then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "I can't imagine better intelligence support
for a diplomatic mission." (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on "
Katharine Gun ." )
Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way
for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John
Bolton in April of 2002 . Bolton is now national security adviser.
"Official Secrets" director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says
that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits
surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace
activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, " Eye in the Sky ." At a D.C. showing of "Official Secrets,"
Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that's simply untrue.
Keira Knightley appears as Katherine Gun in Official Secrets (Courtesy of Sundance
Institute.)
Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden -- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but
presided over rigged
hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified
his record repeatedly on Iraq
at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held
accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and
Nancy
Pelosi .
Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the
Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and
the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN
authorization.
Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of
that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war
in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and
atop major news organizations, such as Washington Post editorial page editor
Fred Hiatt. The
editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer , Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.
After Gun's identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen,
the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent
individuals to support
Gun . The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the
simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would
effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact.org .
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Before commenting please read Robert Parry'sComment Policy.
Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks,
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David G , August 31, 2019 at 19:49
Saw the film today. Solid work; recommended.
Did her ultimate court appearance really go down in such a dramatic fashion? I suppose I
shouldn't be surprised if it did: English courtroom proceedings may not deliver better
justice than U.S. ones, but they're definitely more entertaining.
William , August 31, 2019 at 19:06
U.S. Government officials should be indicted for war crimes. It is quite clear that U.S.
officials conspired to ensure that an invasion
of Iraq would take place. The U.S. and Britain -- George Bush and Tony Blair -- initiated a
war of aggression against Iraq, and under
international law should be tried for war crimes, just as numerous German officials were
tried and convicted of war crimes.
No U.S. politician has called for investigation, and the main stream media has not touched
this topic. It is unquestionably clear that
the U.S. congress is a collection of spineless, cowardly, corrupt, greedy men and women. They
have allowed the U.S. to become a rogue,
criminal nation.
Katherine Gun is awesome! I heard her speak as part of a panel of whistleblowers –
wish there were many more like her
michael , August 31, 2019 at 08:15
Inequality.org reports that the majority of our top 1% are corporate executives. Finance,
which reportedly accounted for 3% of our economy in 1980, now accounts for 30%. Many of the
US's 585 billionaires have monopolies in their business domain, no different from the Robber
Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. "Stability is more important than democracy",
the market hates uncertainty, and our foreign policies, determined by think tanks staffed and
funded by our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, will continue to push for the greed of our
Richest. "Democracy" is a just a hypocritical bon mot for stealing and destroying.
The Republicans have always supported these people. What is worrisome is that the Democrats
have come to the same place as the GOP, since donations– pay-to-play- lead to
re-elections. The Democrats have deserted the Poor and working class, since they have no
money for pay-to-play. Our 17 technologically advanced Stasis work in concert with Congress,
our entitled government bureaucrats, and their lapdog main stream media to "make things
happen" for our Richest. How long before people like Assange, Katherine Gunn, Chelsea
Manning, Edward Snowden, Binney, Kiriakou etc learn that it pays to keep their mouths shut?
Transparency and whistleblowing is punished. Maybe other approaches are needed?
Tony , August 31, 2019 at 07:26
Very interesting to see what inspired her to act the way that she did.
Of course, the supporters of the war had various motives.
But one motive behind President Bush's plan was revealed by Russ Baker in his book 'Family of
Secrets' page 423.
He recalls a conversation with Bush family friend and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. He
says that he told him:
"He (George W. Bush) was thinking about invading in 1999."
Bush apparently said:
"If I have a chance to invade if I had that much (political) capital, I'm not going to
waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I'm going to have
a successful presidency."
So there we have it, he thought that a war would boost his presidency.
David G , August 31, 2019 at 05:16
"The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News."
That's a repulsive little nugget I would never have known otherwise.
Thanks to Sam Husseini for this account. The film is playing in my town, at least for this
coming week; I plan to get to it.
RomeoCharlie29 , August 30, 2019 at 19:24
This is a really interesting story and one I knew nothing about, although I was one who
opposed the Iraq war because to me it was obvious the whole WMD issue was bullshit. Now I
understand the perception that that war was an American/ Brit thing but you might recall that
America's deputy Sheriff in the Pacific, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was Gung
ho for the war and committed Australian troops to the ill-fated endeavour with the result
that our country has subsequently become a target for ISIS inspired terrorism. Australia's
Opposition Leader at the time, Simon Crean led a vocal opposition to the war but "Little
Johnny" as we called him was not to be denied. Incidentally I don't think he has ever
admitted being wrong on this.
Xander Arena , August 30, 2019 at 18:15
Tip of an iceberg is right. Iraq was the second big lie of the 21st century. I wonder how
the world will react to the University of Alaska Fairbanks report which proves fraud at NIST,
and arguably reveals aiding and abetting of treason by the contractors who wrote NIST's
analysis of the WTC7 destruction. The UAF report drops Tuesday 9/3/19, and chisels away at
the big lie that preceded all the related Iraq deceit. BTW great article :)
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:49
I enjoyed the article and learned some things, but it does seem a bit of Hollywood
promotion at the same time.
If only Gun's sacrifice had stopped the invasion it would have been a sensation. As is,
the UN did not sanction the invasion, making that effort a bit moot, and since the reveal of
NSA bugging the world under Obama that dulls the sensibilities of those who might today have
otherwise been shocked, shocked like the Gary Powers U-2 spy plane downing over the USSR and
Ike being caught in a lie on TV.
But overall, knowing the downhill Gun's livelihood has taken over the 15 years makes the
story more of a warning for whistle blowers than inspiration. Maybe Gun will be well
compensated by the movie makers!
Neil E Mac , August 30, 2019 at 15:54
En fin!
bevin , August 30, 2019 at 14:13
One thing is certain: The Observer of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is
one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no
longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The
Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:16
"In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash."
Unfortunately -- or fortunately? -- this no longer seems to be credible when it comes to
those who have gone ouit on a limb to challenge the Deep State, or the US version of the Deep
State.
Can Bush and Blair be charged with crimes? In connection with the Third Reich there is
AFAIK no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Well, Iraq was also full of
'humanity." These guys belong in The Hague. Or in Iraq, doing community service.
In connection with Ellsberg's reviewing the evidence and concluding there was no
evidentiary justification for invading Iraq -- I wanna say, you didn't need to be Ellsberg or
any kind of expert to see clearly that there was no evidence that justified invading Iraq.
Millions of common folk could see this clearly. That is why over 14 million people worldwide
demonstrated against the planned illegal invasion. That is why people like me when to NYC, to
Washington, and also the front our local US Post Office in small towns all over the country
to protest the country's being lied into war. And were greeted mostly with thumbs-up from the
passers- and drivers-by.
The people knew it was all a pack of lies. It was the gullible PRESS that ginned up this
show. Remember Judith what's her name at the NYT? These people also should be indicted as war
criminals.
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:19
Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter who did maybe the most to make the invasion of Iraq,
is the last name you were seeking.
SteveF , August 30, 2019 at 12:22
The timescales are interesting, we have the alleged US blackmail to get this illegal war
'approved' by the UN and in the same timescale we have the Jeffery Epstein story unfolding
and the corresponding allegations that he was a CIA/Mossad agent operating honey traps to
entangle the rich and famous.
The evil machinations of our governments are indeed breathtaking.
As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on
your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.
And there's an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping it just that way.
America's history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and
control of an empire, is almost entirely an artificial construct.
Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy's assassination, which was intimately
concerned with America's relationship with Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and
the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East.
From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from
prominent American politicians, you have tissue of lies not unlike that that was constantly
being created by Oceania's Inner Party in 1984.
That's not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least
concerned or bothered?
We have no evidence of significant concern. None.
The Democratic Party just weeded out the only candidate it had, brave and informed enough
to speak to truth in some of these matters.
The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with weaving dreams
about this or that creative social program while the resources and close attention dedicated
to destruction in a dozen lands make them all impossible.
At the sae time, there is an almost complete lack of information and courage about
anything that is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively
important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American
establishment's methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it.
While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their
numbers are.
And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange, especially when you
consider the scale and scope of America's many dark works. Mostly, we see only "willing
helpers" carrying on with their sensitive, secretive careers in government.
In the Democratic nomination contest, the "star" liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old
puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of
Obama's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles
making legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear. Biden has a long record
of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, most likely to get the
nomination too.
Act, from America's CIA, no different in principle and in law to those of the old
Argentine military junta's massive efforts at dragging people off the streets, drugging them,
and throwing them out of planes over the ocean, something they did to thousands. Oh, and
during that wonderful project there were no objections from America, only silence.
Aimee , August 30, 2019 at 22:31
Excellent post. Agree completely. Tulsi was our only hope and she never had a chance. We
are doomed.
Coleen Rowley , August 30, 2019 at 23:29
Here are some of the reasons for the ever lessening concern over US-NATO-Israel-Saudi's
(aka our current Empire's) wars: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/04/recipe-concocted-for-perpetual-war-is-a-bitter-one/
By the way my co-author and I tried unsuccessfully to get this published in about 15
different US papers before Robert Parry posted it on Consortiumnews.
Robert Edwards , August 30, 2019 at 11:17
It's time these liers and war criminals are brought to Justice – I know that's
wishful , but sometimes wishes come true America must get back to a country run on integrity
and honesty, otherwise all will be lost in the spiral of evil
Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost. Has been so for a very long time.
Only tremendous outside influences like depression or war and the growth of competing
states and the loss of the dollar's privileged status, are going to change the reality.
America's feeble democratic system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it
was constructed with just that in mind.
john wilson , August 31, 2019 at 05:07
I think think the real worry is that these days they don't even bother to lie anymore and
they just do what they want. Think Venezuela.
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:42
"Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign
governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with
allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on
political people?"
This also stands out , as given what we now know is standard modus opendi of CIA / Mossad
operations ,due to the Epstein arrest and ensuing information , who knows what is used to
leverage other nations to follow along with US and in this case UK demands.Birds of a feather
fly together.
Very good report by Sam Husseini.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:32
Absolutely. It is an obvious avenue now to investigate: How did the Epstein operation
impact on the decision to invade Iraq? How were teh votes wrung out for the war authorization
in October 2002?
Regarding Kerry, as a resident of Mass. I couldn't believe that Vietnam vet Kerry would
vote Yes on the war authorization act. I called his office a number of time to beg him to
vote no. Rumors emanated from within his office in Boston or wherever that phone calls from
constituents were running 180 to 1 urging him to vote NO. But he voted YES anyhow.
I simply believe that Yalie Kerry didn't see what was up with the obvious lying that drove
the runup to an illegal invasion. This is the kind of scenario where one now has to wonder --
and ask openly -- whether Kerry had been compromised in some way that made him vulnerable to
blackmail. Why the hell else would he vote so stupidly?
Recall that Scott Ritter ran afoul of some kind of sex trap and so he, one of the most
knowledgeable and outspoken critics of the fake WMD narrative, was effectively muzzled.
Did Kerry have a little skeleton in the closet somewhere?
The same could be asked of all the esp. Democratic legislators who voted YES. Because we
now understand which state in the EAstern Med wanted the war most and profited the most from
it. We now know how deep and how wide the tentacles of that state's intelligence service
intrude into our own national sphere, our Congress, our own intelligence services, our media,
and, most likely, our military. Epstein seems to been part f this web of pressure and
blackmail.
Epstein is gone, but Ghislaine Maxwell apparently still runs free.
Let's bring her in for questioning specifically about pressure applied on the Oct. 2002 vote.
(Although some speculate that she, too, is already dead.)
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:23
At a time when despair in political affairs is very depressing ,it is very refreshing to
see that the voices of reason are being vindicated.
I really want to see this film as this is the first time that I hear of the voice of
Katherine Gun .Bless her heart for standing up and her efforts to warn of deception . Does
the film make any mention of Dr.David Kelly's so-called suicide / murder ? Will have to wait
ans see.
Thank you CN for once again coming through for your excellent report.
Pablo , August 30, 2019 at 10:15
Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff?) told me that Collin knew Bush was
fabricating, but went to the U.N. as a "loyal foot soldier".
AnneR , August 30, 2019 at 08:25
Thank you, Sam Husseini, for this overview of the background – real story – to
the film Official Secrets.
To be frank, I'd not heard of Katherine Gun's revelations at the time – not
surprising because I don't think that the US MSM gave the leak any oxygen. They were all too
gung-ho for the war.
While the film undoubtedly soft-pedals some of the story and likely doesn't reveal or make
explicit as much as we'd all hope, I really do hope that it receives at least as much
publicity (good) and viewing as that execrable film Zero dark Thirty which basically
supported the CIA and its torturers. But somehow I doubt that.
TomR , August 31, 2019 at 06:19
Zero Dark Thirty is just about the worst bullshit fake narrative put out by the CIA that
I've ever seen. I watched it but cringed with the dramatized fake narrative that the CIA is
famous for – think the bullshit 9/11 US govt. narrative – if you or anyone else
believes that totally bunkum govt. narrative – well, I feel sorry for you.
Druid , August 31, 2019 at 17:28
Im a good- movie buff. I avoided Zero Dark Thirty. Not a farthing for those lies
Sylvia Bennet , August 30, 2019 at 07:51
I applaud Keira Knightley and all who were involved in bringing this story to the public.
It is vital that more people who have the eyes and ears of the public speak out on these
issues. Sadly, most of them keep their heads below the parapet. With the Main Stream Media
colluding with corrupt corporations and governments to lie or distort the truth, we need
decent people with influence to step up before it is too late.
Toxik , August 30, 2019 at 02:42
Looked at my local theaters and Official Secrets will not be shown.
jmg , August 29, 2019 at 18:39
Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense:
"Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer
evidence. . . . The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any
records of advice about the legality of the war that it had received during the run-up to the
war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny as the defence
were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (that of an illegal war of
aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act 1989. . . . In 2019 The
Guardian stated the case was dropped 'when the prosecution realised that evidence would
emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful.'"
So Katharine Gun, like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, etc., by revealing corruption and
crimes, maybe didn't obey the code of silence of organized crime, government sector, but
that's not a law.
For example, the US Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information,
explicitly outlaws any classification that covers up crimes or embarrassing information.
This means that whistleblowers like Katharine Gun or Chelsea Manning, and investigative
journalists like Julian Assange are the ones defending the law here, while the US and UK
governments are the criminals.
lindaj , August 29, 2019 at 22:10
Hear, Hear!
Me Myself , August 30, 2019 at 12:11
The espionage act has and would protect those who were responsible for the war I
believe.
If we could Abrogate the espionage act it would make are representatives more
accountable.
I was unaware of Katherine Gun she is clearly a standout person and will join the ranks of
are most respected truthers.
WTF Burkie , August 31, 2019 at 14:05
Our not are.b.c. burkhart
evelync , August 30, 2019 at 13:34
And the secrecy, apparently, is required in the name of "national security" .that's what I
was told by a Harvard JFK School of Government associate when I emailed 200+ of 'em to
express my outrage over their withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary degree when Pompeo and
Morrell bullied them. I responded with – that's INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE at Harvard
– as a "respected" educational institution you should be front and center critiquing
foreign policy instead of helping to bury the wrongdoing ..no wonder voters didn't trust the
establishment candidates in 2016 but the DNC was too much a part of it all to see or care
what was going on. Except for Tulsi Gabbard who resigned at DNC VP in protest for what was
being done to the Sanders campaign and to endorse Sanders instead of Clinton. The DNC knee
capped the campaign of the one person who had won peoples' trust for his honesty.
We have incompetent people with no moral fiber making terrible decisions and burying the
mistakes under secrecy, a fear based "code of silence", as you say.
Biden touts his being chosen by Obama for VP; therefore "he's qualified".
Since Clinton and Biden were the most dangerously ambitious critics of Obama, I think he may
have chosen to add them to his administration as VP and Sec of State to practice "keep your
friends close and your enemies closer" .but his decision was very costly to the lives of
people around the world including the Caribbean and South American countries whose wealth our
oligarchs coveted.
And as far as Honduras is concerned those political choices by Obama sadly explains refugees
fleeing from that violent country even now ..thanks to our failing to declare the 2009 Coup a
"military coup". One of Clinton's "hard choices". Obama and Biden went along with that of
course.
Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire" tells the sordid tale of how waterboarding was
used long before Bush II – used on the freedom fighters for their independence in the
Philippines after the Spanish American War and we took over as imperialists ..
Most people, I think, don't know all the gruesome details of our aggression but they now know
enough to be troubled by it. Few political candidates have the backbone to criticize
wrongheaded foreign policy.
I'm disappointed that Tulsi Gabbard won't be permitted to join Bernie Sanders at the
September 12 2019 "debate" as the only ones who speak out on how wrong for this country and
the world our foreign policies have been. This courageous woman should be heard.
When Bernie was challenged in the 2016 Miami debate on his enlightened views on Cuba and
other Caribbean and South American countries, Clinton used Cold War rhetoric to attack him.
She was shocked, I tell you, shocked that he would not grind his heel on the Cuban people. I
wondered at the time whether she really believed the crap she was selling or just put on a
good political show for the national security state.
We so need transparency if we want to be a real democracy.
Sam F , August 30, 2019 at 21:06
Very true that transparency is essential to democracy. That also requires lifelong
monitoring of officials and their relatives for paybacks and other influence. But (for
example) Florida has an Sunshine Act that merely moves the bribes into other channels, and
may be the most corrupt state. I am investigating extensive racketeering there involving
state officials stealing conservation funds. They can be quire careless because their party
runs the entire state including state and federal judiciary, and instantly approves whatever
their rich "donors" want to steal. But the FBI and DOJ refuse to take action when given the
evidence on a silver platter – no doubt because they are appointed by the same party.
Theft is their sacred right and duty, to protect their country from its people.
michael , August 31, 2019 at 07:30
Florida's Sunshine laws were on display at Epstein's only trial, much of it still sealed
from public view.
"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."
"Israel is just defending itself."
I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from
personal experience that getting liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually
impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On the part of
politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was
the usual partisan tribal hypocrisy.
Clinton’s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq puts her in the cold-blooded
murderer class. By the standards of the Nuremberg Trials, many of the people in power at that
time were and are war criminals, and Clinton was certainly one of the people who could be
charged with war crimes. (But I suppose she could have pleaded ignorance, incompetence, and
indolence in mitigation.) All of this is completely out in the open.
I don’t know if it should be considered ‘corruption’, however. A crime
against humanity is not exactly corrupt if the perpetrators and almost everyone else believe
the perpetrators ought to be doing the crime, that it is their duty, their job. It might be
better if they were corrupt, if they slacked off. But Clinton, going by some of her other
well-known activities, seems to have been enthusiastically industrious at getting people
killed — or maimed, tortured, terrorized, raped, starved, impoverished, and the other
normal works of war. Not that this makes her much different from a lot of other people.
“We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!”
“Did it have anything to do with your visit?”
“I’m sure it did.”
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn’t
it?
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Yves here. The DNC position on elections does much to explain the 2016 California primary,
which featured numerous reports by poll workers of dirty practices. Oddly, I saw two separate
videos with many detailed first person accounts of a range of abuses which now seem to be not
findable on Google. Oh, and there were no exit polls. Convenient, that.
As Jimmy Breslin wrote in his blurb, this is the best book ever written about legendary
Democratic Party boss Richard J. Daley, king of the smoke-filled back room deal. (Fun fact:
John Belushi played a character closely based on Royko in an early Lawrence Kasden film,
Continental Divide, that's well worth watching.)
This is your periodic reminder that the "Democratic Party" is not an organization that
Democratic voters belong to or have any right to control. The Democratic Party is instead a
private organization, much like a club, that non-members support by giving it their money,
their time and their votes. (The same is true of the "Republican Party.) All other "rights" and
promises offered by the Party to its supporters, including those obligations described in the
DNC charter, are not obligations at all, but voluntary gifts that can be withdrawn at any
time.
At least, that's how the DNC sees it.
Consider this report
of a 2017 court filing , one that almost no one noticed, in which Sanders supporters sued
the DNC for violating the section of its charter that requires DNC-run elections to be
"impartial" and "evenhanded." The DNC's defense was, in essence, "So what?" (emphasis added
below):
DNC Lawyers Argue DNC Has Right to Pick Candidates in Back Rooms
Attorneys claim the words 'impartial' and 'evenhanded' -- as used in the DNC Charter --
can't be interpreted by a court of law
On April 28 the transcript [pdf] was released
from the most recent
hearing at a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on the
lawsuit filed on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters against the Democratic National
Committee and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for rigging the Democratic primaries
for Hillary Clinton. Throughout the hearing, lawyers representing the DNC
and Debbie Wasserman Schultz double[d] down on arguments confirming the disdain the
Democratic establishment has toward Bernie
Sanders supporters and any entity challenging the party's status quo.
Shortly into the hearing, DNC attorneys claim Article V, Section 4 of the DNC Charter
-- stipulating that the DNC chair and their staff must ensure
neutrality in the Democratic presidential primaries -- is "a discretionary rule that it
didn't need to adopt to begin with." Based on this assumption, DNC
attorneys assert that the court cannot interpret, claim, or rule on anything associated with
whether the DNC remains neutral
in their presidential primaries.
The attorneys representing the
DNC have previously argued that Sanders
supporters knew the primaries were rigged, therefore annulling any potential accountability
the DNC may have . In the latest hearing, they doubled down on this argument: "The Court
would have to find that people who fervently supported Bernie
Sanders and who purportedly didn't know that this favoritism was going on would have not
given to Mr. Sanders, to Senator Sanders
, if they had known that there was this purported favoritism."
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the
Democratic nominee -- nominating process in 2016 were fair and impartial," [Jared] Beck [the
attorney representing Sanders supporters in the class action lawsuit] said. "And that's not
just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that we live in a
democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But
that's what the Democratic National Committee's own charter says . It says it in black
and white. And they can't deny that." He added, " Not only is it in the charter, but it
was stated over and over again in the media by the Democratic National Committee's
employees , including Congresswoman Wassermann
Schultz , that they were, in fact, acting in compliance with the charter . And
they said it again and again, and we've cited several instances of that in the case."
According to this report, attorneys for the DNC argued that the DNC was not liable to
Sanders supporters if they threw the primary race to Clinton, or tilted it toward her,
because:
(a) Sanders supporters already knew the primary was rigged (did DNC lawyers really
say that?), and
(b) the DNC charter requirement that elections be "impartial" and "evenhanded" is
discretionary and not a requirement.
Shorter DNC lawyers: "We don't have to run an evenhanded primary, even if we say we're going
to."
About the second point , let's look at the court transcript itself. In this section,
the court asks: If Sanders supporters give money to an election run by the DNC, and if the DNC
violates its charter and runs an election that unfairly disadvantages Sanders, do Sanders
supporters have standing to sue?
DNC's response is below. "Mr. Spiva" is Bruce Spiva, one of the DNC's defense lawyers
(emphasis mine):
THE COURT: All right. Let me ask the defense -- we're going to go into the issue of
standing now at this point.
Let me ask counsel. If a person is fraudulently induced to donate to a charitable
organization, does he have standing to sue the person who induced the donation?
MR. SPIVA: I think, your Honor, if the circumstance were such that the [charitable]
organization promised that it was going to abide by some general principle, and the donee --
or donor, rather, ultimately sued, because they said, Well, we don't think you're living up
to that general principle, we don't think you're, you know, serving kids adequately, we think
your program is -- the way you're running your program is not adequate, you know, you're not
doing it well enough, that that -- that they would not have standing in that
circumstance .
[On the other hand] I think if somebody -- a charitable organization were to solicit funds
and say, Hey, we're gonna spend this money on after-school programs for kids, and the
executive director actually put the money in their pocket and went down the street and bought
a Mercedes-Benz, I think in that circumstance, they would have standing.
I think this circumstance is even one step further towards the no standing side of that,
because here we're talking about a political party and political principles and debate. And
that's an area where there's a wealth of doctrine and case law about how that -- just
simply giving money does not give one standing to direct how the party conducts its
affairs, or to complain about the outcomes, or whether or not the party is abiding by its own
internal rules .
And I should say, your Honor, I just want to be clear, because I know it may sometimes
sound like I am somehow suggesting that I think the party did not -- you know, the party's
position is that it has not violated in the least this provision of its charter.
THE COURT: I understand.
MR. SPIVA: So I just want to get that out there. But to even determine -- to make
that determination would require the Court to wade into this political thicket. And -- you
know, which would invade its First Amendment interests, and also, I think, would raise issues
-- standing issues along all three prongs of the standing test.
After a legal discussion of the "three prongs," the court asks this:
THE COURT: And then one other question on the issue of standing for the defense. Is
there a difference between a campaign promise made by a political candidate and a promise
that pertains to the integrity of the primary process itself? In other words, President
George H.W. Bush's --
MR. SPIVA: "Read my lips."
THE COURT: -- promise -- "read my lips, no new taxes," and then he raised taxes.
Well, he could not be sued for raising taxes. But with respect to the DNC charter ,
Article V, Section 4, is there a difference between the two?
MR. SPIVA:Not one -- there's obviously a difference in degree. I think your
Honor -- I'm not gonna -- I don't want to overreach and say that there's no difference. But I
don't think there's a difference that's material in terms of how the Court should decide the
question before it in terms of standing, in that this, again, goes to how the party runs
itself, how it decides who it's going to associate with, how it decides how it's going to
choose its standard bearer ultimately. In case after case, from O'Brien , to
Wymbs , to Wisconsin v. LaFollette , Cousins v. Wigoda , the Supreme
Court and other courts have affirmed the party's right to make that determination. Those
are internal issues that the party gets to decide basically without interference from the
courts .
[ ]
You know, again, if you had a charity where somebody said, Hey, I'm gonna take this money
and use it for a specific purpose, X, and they pocketed it and stole the money, of course
that's different.
But here, where you have a party that's saying, We're gonna, you know, choose our standard
bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily
deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna
go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.
That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their
right , and it would drag the Court well into party politics, internal party politics to
answer those questions.
To this day the DNC believes that if it wanted to "go into back rooms" and "pick the
[presidential] candidate," this would "have been their right," and no one outside the
organization would have any right to enforce the DNC charter or interfere in any other way.
Good to know as we watch the 2020 machinations (for example,
this one ) unfold before us.
They actually do not care much about the victory. Being stooges of MIC and thesecond war
party means that they will be well fed anyway. Even without goverment positions.
Notable quotes:
"... Why doesn't the DNC want Gabbard in the debates? Two reasons come to mind. ..."
"... Firstly, her marquee issue is foreign policy. She thinks the US should be less militarily adventurous abroad, and as an army veteran of the post-9/11 round of American military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, she's got the credentials to make her points stick. ..."
"... Foreign policy is a weak spot for the increasingly hawkish Democratic establishment in general and the front-runner and current establishment pick, former vice-president Joe Biden, in particular. As a Senator, Biden voted to approve the ill-fated US invasion of Iraq. As vice-president, he supported President Barack Obama's extension of the war in Afghanistan and Obama's ham-handed interventions in Libya, Syria, and other countries where the US had no business meddling. The party's leaders would rather not talk about foreign policy at all and if they have to talk about it they don't want candidates coloring outside simplistic "Russia and China bad" lines. ..."
"... Gabbard damaged -- probably fatally -- the establishment's pre-Biden pick, US Senator Kamala Harris, by pointing out Harris's disgusting authoritarian record as California's attorney general. Gabbard knows how to land a punch, and the DNC doesn't want any more surprises. They're looking for a coronation, not a contest. ..."
President Donald Trump faces an exceedingly narrow path to
re-election in 2020. In order to beat him, the Democratic nominee only needs to pick up 38
electoral votes. With more than 100 electoral votes in play in states that Trump won narrowly
in 2016 -- especially Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida -- all the Democrats have
to do is pick a nominee ever so slightly more popular than Hillary Clinton.
That's a low bar that the Democratic National Committee seems determined, once again, to not
get over. As in 2016, the DNC is putting its finger on the scale in favor of "establishment"
candidates, the sentiments of the rank and file be damned.
Last time, the main victim was Bernie Sanders. This time, it's Tulsi Gabbard.
Michael Tracey delivers the gory details in a column at RealClearPolitics. Here's the short
version:
By selectively disqualifying polls in which Gabbard (a US Representative from Hawaii)
performs above the 2% threshold for inclusion in the next round of primary debates, the DNC is
trying to exclude her while including candidates with much lower polling and fundraising
numbers.
Why doesn't the DNC want Gabbard in the debates? Two reasons come to mind.
Firstly, her marquee issue is foreign policy. She thinks the US should be less
militarily adventurous abroad, and as an army veteran of the post-9/11 round of American
military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, she's got the credentials to make
her points stick.
Foreign policy is a weak spot for the increasingly hawkish Democratic establishment in
general and the front-runner and current establishment pick, former vice-president Joe Biden,
in particular. As a Senator, Biden voted to approve the ill-fated US invasion of Iraq. As
vice-president, he supported President Barack Obama's extension of the war in Afghanistan and
Obama's ham-handed interventions in Libya, Syria, and other countries where the US had no
business meddling. The party's leaders would rather not talk about foreign policy at all and if
they have to talk about it they don't want candidates coloring outside simplistic "Russia and
China bad" lines.
Secondly, Gabbard damaged -- probably fatally -- the establishment's pre-Biden pick, US
Senator Kamala Harris, by pointing out Harris's disgusting authoritarian record as California's
attorney general. Gabbard knows how to land a punch, and the DNC doesn't want any more
surprises. They're looking for a coronation, not a contest.
If the DNC has its way, next year's primaries will simply ratify the establishment pick,
probably a Joe Biden / Elizabeth Warren ticket, without a bunch of fuss and argument.
And if that happens, the Democratic Party will face the same problem it faced in 2016: The
rank and file may not be very motivated to turn off their televisions and go vote.
Whatever their failings, rank and file Democrats seem to like well, democracy. They want to
pick their party's nominees, not have those nominees picked for them in advance. Can't say I
blame them.
Nor will I blame them for not voting -- or voting Libertarian -- if the DNC ignores them and
limits their choices yet again. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Thomas KnappThomas L. Knapp is
director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy
Journalism ( thegarrisoncenter.org
). He lives and works in north central Florida.
It is apparent that the caricature of the Soviet Union in both productions is really a stand-in for the present-day Russian government
under Vladimir Putin. As only American exceptionalism could permit, Hollywood did not hold the same disdain for his predecessor,
Boris Yeltsin, whose legacy of high inflation and national debt have since been eliminated. In fact, most have forgotten that the
same filmdom community outraged about Russia's supposed interference in the 2016 U.S. election made a celebratory movie back in 2003,
Spinning Boris , which practically boasted about the instrumental role the West played in Yeltsin's 1996 reelection in Russia.
The highly unpopular alcoholic politician benefited from a near universal media bias as virtually all the federation's news outlets
came under the control of the 'oligarchs' (in America known simply as billionaires) which his economic policies of mass privatization
of state industry enriched overnight.
Yeltsin initially polled at less than 10% and was far behind Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov until he became the recipient
of billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thanks to his corrupt campaign manager, Anatoly Chubais, now one of the most
hated men in all of Russia. After the purging of votes and rampant ballot-box stuffing, Yeltsin successfully closed the gap between
his opponent thanks to the overt U.S. meddling.
Spinning Boris was directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who previously helmed an installment in the James Bond series, Tomorrow
Never Dies . The 1997 entry in the franchise is one of thousands of Hollywood films and network television shows exposed by journalists
Matthew Alford and Tom Secker as having been influenced or directly assisted by the Pentagon and CIA in their must-read book National
Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood. Based on evidence from documents revealed in Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) requests, their investigation divulges the previously unknown extent to which the national security complex
has gone in exerting control over content in the film industry. While it has always been known that the military held sway over movies
that required usage of its facilities and equipment to be produced, the level of impact on such films in the pre-production and editing
stages, as well as the control over non-military themed flicks one wouldn't suspect to be under supervision by Washington and Langley,
is exhaustively uncovered.
As expected, Hollywood and the military-industrial complex's intimate relationship during the Cold War is featured prominently
in Alford and Secker's investigative work. It is unclear whether HBO or Netflix sought US military assistance or were directly involved
with the national security state in their respective productions, but these are just two recent examples of many where the correlated
increase in geopolitical tensions with Moscow is reflected. The upcoming sequel to DC's Wonder Woman set to be released next
year , Wonder Woman 1984, featuring the female superhero " coming into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War
in the 1980s ", is yet another. Reprising her role is Israeli actress and IDF veteran is Gal Gadot as the title character, ironically
starring in a blockbuster that will demonize the Eurasian state which saved her ethnicity from extinction. Given the Pentagon's involvement
in the debacle surounding 2014's The Interview which provoked very real tensions with North Korea, it is likely they are at
least closely examining any entertainment with content regarding Russia, if not directly pre-approving it for review.
Ultimately, the Western panic about its imperial decline is not limited to assigning blame to Moscow. Sinophobia has manifested
as well in recent films such as the 2016 sci-fi film Arrival where the extra-terrestrials who reach Earth seem more interested
in communicating with Beijing as the global superpower than the U.S. However, while the West forebodes the return of Russia and China
to greater standing, you can be certain its real fear lies elsewhere. The fact that Chernobyl and Stranger Things are
as preoccupied with portraying socialism in a bad light as they are in rendering Moscow nefarious shows the real underlying trepidation
of the ruling elite that concerns the resurgence of class consciousness. The West must learn its lesson that its state of perpetual
war has caused its own downfall or it could attempt a last line of defense that would inevitably conscript all of humanity to its
death as the ruling class nearly did to the world in 1914 and 1939.
Images removed... See the original with full set of pictures
Notable quotes:
"... Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who gave up her DNC career to back Bernie Sanders in 2016 is the candidate the establishment most fears. Tulsi has more than met the debate criteria in the number of unique donations and in poll numbers in 26 of the most respected national polls, but the DNC, fearing she will take down another Establishment candidate, is refusing to let Tulsi into the third debate against candidates who have lower polling numbers in most polls and significantly fewer unique contributions than Tulsi has. The problem (or maybe plan) is that the smaller "DNC approved" polls have mostly been avoiding polling over the last month as a block to allowing Tulsi into the third debate. ..."
"... People fed up with the Democratic Party have encouraged both Tulsi and Bernie to run together as independent candidates. Tulsi especially has cross-party appeal for independents. Bernie is popular across the board as well and many view them as an unbeatable ticket, no matter what their political affiliation. Most Americans are independents or third party members by almost a two to one margin over the registrants of either of the major parties. However, because their Congressional seats are considered critical to fighting the military industrial complex and Wall Street, it is doubtful either Tulsi or Bernie will run as an independent. ..."
Tom Perez, Nancy Pelosi and Rusty Hicks
(
Image by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
This is the question that was asked by a great many DNC/CDP members last weekend as they
tried to understand the scheduling debacle that pitted the Democratic National Committee
Meeting in San Francisco against the California Democratic Party meeting in San Jose (one to
three hours away, depending on traffic). On the two main days for both events, August 23rd and
24 th , attendees had to choose which to attend and which to miss. It turned out
that the CDP did better on overall attendance than the DNC. When Tom Perez spoke, there were
about a hundred delegates in the DNC ballroom. The crowd significantly increased when Bernie
spoke. At the CDP meeting, the crowd in the general sessions ranged between about 300 and
500.
Empty Seats at DNC during Perez's Speech
(
Image by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
As Bernie was about to speak at the DNC Friday afternoon meeting, Kamala Harris's supporters
loudly walked out of the hall and continued to make noise outside in a seeming attempt to drown
out Bernie. One might think this would create disfavor with the DNC. However, most party
leaders said they were supporting a Harris/Warren ticket, leading some progressives to wonder
if this was an officially- -sanctioned affront against Bernie. The DNC was in charge of the
microphone volume and there no lack of security to handle the problem.
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who gave up her DNC career to back Bernie Sanders in 2016 is
the candidate the establishment most fears. Tulsi has more than met the debate criteria in the
number of unique donations and in poll numbers in 26 of the most respected national polls, but
the DNC, fearing she will take down another Establishment candidate, is refusing to let Tulsi
into the third debate against candidates who have lower polling numbers in most polls and
significantly fewer unique contributions than Tulsi has. The problem (or maybe plan) is that
the smaller "DNC approved" polls have mostly been avoiding polling over the last month as a
block to allowing Tulsi into the third debate.
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once Tulsi
was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only candidate with a
history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders and asked point blank
whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders from being nominated
would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the surprise of the activists, leaders spoken
to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to the contract they were forced to sign before the
first debate was more important than fairness and beating Donald Trump. Some leaders talked
about which candidates they planned run in 2024 if Trump was re-elected. An assistant to one of
the party bosses, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job, pointed out that
the DNC actually makes more money as a result of anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than
they would if a popular progressive, such as Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President.
One person pointed out that a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and
the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the
party.
Tulsi Gabbard on Video at DNC Meeting
( Image
by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
Tulsi Gabbard had been re-deployed prior to the DNC meeting and was only able to attend by
pre-recorded video. Interestingly, at the DNC meeting, her table was placed in a corner away
from everyone. The supporters at her table were told to sit there like good little children.
One Tulsi supporter broke the mold and handed out copies of Senator Mike Gravel's endorsement
letter of Tulsi Gabbard inside the DNC meeting. The letter on Gravel's stationary called Tulsi
"the most qualified and prepared candidate." At the CDP event, the Gabbard supporters weren't
sitting in a corner. Everyone who attended the larger CDP meeting received a copy of Gravel's
endorsement letter and other literature in support of Gabbard. It was reported that over one
thousand pieces of Tulsi literature were distributed to Democrats attending the CDP Executive
Board meetings and caucuses. The attendees there were greeted by a giant volunteer-printed
banner at the ballroom door at both general sessions. Top-behind-the-scenes DNC leader Bob
Mulhulland was seen studying Tulsi's military picture on the banner.
Tulsi Banner Outside CDP General Assembly Room
( Image
by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
The treatment of the press at the DNC event was rather interesting. The ballroom there was
divided into two sections with the press at the back. DNC members could just walk in and out of
their section of the room but the press section had metal detectors with guards searching bags
and repeatedly running wands over reporters as if they were terrorists. The CDP meetings were
significantly more relaxed. No metal detectors, wands or searches.
Taking considerable floor time at the final CDP floor session was the issue of whether it
was OK for Israelis to detain and torture Palestinian children. The fact that there was an
argument between two sides to this issue on the floor shows how far the Democratic Party has
fallen. At one time, the Democratic Party was seen as the party of peace. Now it is generally
viewed as the party of war, pitting peaceniks Tulsi and Bernie at odds with the Democratic
Establishment
At the CDP meeting, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction. According to past and current
officials, the standing committee membership is less diverse than ever before. To fake
diversity, a single individual fitting multiple categories was treated as multiple people. Most
disabled people were cut from the standing committees. Supporters of one of Chairman Rusty
Hick's opponents were summarily thrown off any committees that could make a difference in the
party's positions on in the election. Five of the supporters of Berniecrat Daraka
Larimore-Hall, who had been long-standing members of the Voter Services Committee, reported
being suddenly removed without explanation. These were the most active Voting Services
Committee members in terms of trying to improve voter integrity and protect the rights of
voters. When questioned about the removals, Committee Chairman Jess Durfee said it was Rusty
who had thrown these Berniecrats off the committee and that there was nothing he could do about
it.
The priorities of the Voters Services Committee have changed as well. Removed from the goals
were diversity and integrity of the vote (as in making sure all registered voters could vote
regular ballots). Removed as a lead subcommittee chairman was a party delegate who had pushed
through a call for expanding voting rights to felon prisoners and ensuring that registered
voters were not disenfranchised due to election oddities. Instead, that subcommittee chairman
was relegated to being a secondary assistant below the subcommittee assistant chairman on the
subcommittee to which he was assigned this year.
There was some talk of a lawsuit over the committee assignment questionnaire. There were two
sex-related questions, one of which demanded to know the sexual orientation of the applicants.
All those who refused to answer on the grounds that it violated their privacy were denied
committee positions. Also denied standing committee positions were all civil rights attorneys
and all criminal defense attorneys.
People fed up with the Democratic Party have encouraged both Tulsi and Bernie to run
together as independent candidates. Tulsi especially has cross-party appeal for independents.
Bernie is popular across the board as well and many view them as an unbeatable ticket, no
matter what their political affiliation. Most Americans are independents or third party members
by almost a two to one margin over the registrants of either of the major parties. However,
because their Congressional seats are considered critical to fighting the military industrial
complex and Wall Street, it is doubtful either Tulsi or Bernie will run as an independent.
Henry Samson has been a professor of political science and legal ethics and an advisor to many successful candidates
for public office. He is currently working on a book about the inequality crisis in America
"... The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. ..."
"... That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters. ..."
"... When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to their authority on foreign policy. ..."
"... One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that: a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party. ..."
"... So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal Hillary. ..."
I'm sure most people here are no strangers to the realization that the DNC is an abusive,
anti-democratic, tyrannical, Establishment organization that has its head up its own orifice
(that is, when it isn't busy burying its nose way up that of the crooked Clintons ).
Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has met and exceeded the stated qualifying
criteria necessary to participate in the 3rd and 4th Democratic Party debates by any
objective measurement -- by having over 165,000 independent donors, and by polling over 2%
in 26 separate polls -- including those in early Primary States such as New Hampshire and
South Carolina.
But according to the DNC there are " qualifying polls " and non-qualifying polls --
to which they, and they alone, are the sole determinant and arbitrator of.
Thus by the authority of the DNC (and not the actual voters themselves) she only has just
two " qualifying polls " (less than the 4 threshold number) -- all those 24 other
independent polls do not count - and no explanation is given (or needed apparently) as to
why.
So they will declare her unfit, and deem her to be excluded from the Debate Stage, as they
seek to drive the only Anti-War, Pro-American, Anti-Globalist, progressive candidate out of the
race (who also attracts support from both the left and the right, and has the distinction of
being the most Google-Searched Democratic candidate following both of the earlier
Democratic Debates).
This outrage tells you everything about how the process of running for President in this
Country is totally controlled like .. i dunno an Iron Curtain . Anti-War, Anti-Establishment
candidates must be made invisible by any means necessary (no matter how much of the entire
process is exposed as a total farce to accomplish that end).
Jimmy Dore helps to illustrate just how totally arbitrary and absurdly unfair this is -- not
just to Tulsi Gabbard, but unfair for the American public trying to evaluate their potential
voting options and take control of their future .
So the question then is, what
should Tulsi Gabbard do now?
Create a new, live Internet Debate Stream that might possibly draw more viewership than
the dying "Fake News" Cable TV shows.
Run as an Independent candidate (but how does she get on the State ballots?)
Sue the DNC?
I'm not sure what the most effective strategy is. This is an open discussion. But this whole
process needs to be publicly discredited and shown for the tyranny and political repression
that it is. The DNC is the enemy of the people.
I don't have that much faith in Bernie anymore. His full-throated support for Hillary
Clinton in 2016, and rejection of Jill Stein -- along with him giving multiple Clinton
corruptions and scandals a complete pass (nothing to see folks), and covering up the
DNC's efforts to defeat his own campaign -- turned him into a hypocrite, and a false
messenger. You can't talk about the need for "Revolution", and then run straight into the
arms of the Establishment -- kissing their feet and protecting them.
Meanwhile Sanders has bought several lavish Lake Houses in Vermont (as his payoff?) while
he complains about the lifestyles of the rich, and has become preoccupied with useless "
Identity Politics " divisiveness, boring, mindless
Racism/White-Supremacist/Homophobe narratives, and the dishonest Russia-gate
fear mongering (created by the Deep State). It is hard to take Sanders seriously anymore.
Tulsi Gabbard was different . She wasn't playing into any of the false
divisions , and the false narratives. She never wasted a moment on "Impeachment", or
chasing phony Deep-State setups. She knows what is real, and what is not real.
But as Jimmy Dore pointed out in the Video, Bernie Sanders now won't even come to the
defense of Tulsi Gabbard, even though she put her neck on the line for him (back in
2016). Instead Sanders covers up for the likes of the crooked Clintons . That tells
you something about Sanders real character. I'm no longer impressed with him.
Tulsi Gabbard or bust for me.
I've long liked Tulsi's courage, contributed a few bucks to get her on the debate
stage, and have faith she will do what's right when the time comes.
Edit/add: Unless she endorses anybody aside from Bernie.
. . . has written some really great articles opposed to identity politics. You might
consider googling them. I don't think Bernie is at all a proponent of the primacy of identity
politics. He is constantly being criticized by IdPol proponents for placing an overriding
emphasis on class.
While his takes on Russia are a bit off kilter, misguided and unwise in my estimation, I
would not call them "fear mongering."
I wound up voting Green in 2016. Bernie lived to run another day by doing what he did.
Most of his supporters have forgiven him or haven't given it a second thought. But if his
endorsing her bothers you that much, it's certainly your right to object to it. For me, his
campaigning alone has made socialism an issue. That's something in and of itself and pretty,
pretty dang good in my estimation.
And whatever will you do if Tulsi endorses Bernie? Consign her to the depths of hell for
evermore? And what if she endorses WARren or Biden et al or gawdforbid Hillary? Aside from
Bernie, I don't think any of the other candidates would want her campaigning for them. If
Bernie gets nominated, I hope she's ensured of a prominent spot in his administration.
She might be able to turn a negative (DNC) into a positive and exploit the situation. She
could do some Internet events, and Tucker Carlson would put her on TV again, and she might be
able to create some public outrage, build some momentum .. and force, by public sentiment, to
allow her back in some later Debates.
And if she supports Bernie, Bernie might just ignore or dismiss it. I don't think he has
any real loyalty to her.
Tulsi is a uniquely courageous person and a wonderful presidential candidate. If there was
ranked voting, she'd definitely be my #2. Aside from Bernie, she's the only presidential
candidate for whom I'd even consider voting.
I'm not going to suggest she drop out but if she does, I hope she endorses Bernie.
If Bernie is the nominee, I'm sure she will endorse him, just as I'm pretty darn sure she
will endorse any other nominee given that she signed off on exactly that to become a
candidate herself.
I'd say I hope you don't give up on her come those circumstances, but if it gets to that
point, I'm giving up on politics period.
Meanwhile Sanders has bought several lavish Lake Houses in Vermont (as his payoff?)
Please provide evidence for this claim.
Bernie and Jane bought one (repeat one ) vacation property situated on the shore of Lake
Champlain. They bought it before 2016, using money Jane inherited from her parents. The
purchase price was around $600K, if I recall, which is pretty darn cheap for a vacation home.
I've seen pictures of it. It's far from "lavish". Looks more like a middle-class vacation
cabin.
You know, there are arguments you could make about Bernie that would be worth discussion.
His dropping out of the race before Philly, for instance. This crap about "Bernie's rich, he
owns a lot of fancy houses and flaunts his ill-gotten wealth" isn't one of them.
Tulsi's in it for the long haul. I don't think she expects to become POTUS this time
around. At present, she seems to be positioning herself, making herself known to the public,
building a base of support, and no doubt exploring alliances. I'm looking forward to seeing
what she does. Warrior Tulsi.
@Centaurea in my humble opinion. There are a couple of things to note here. The main
thing that spurs Tulsi to run is not for being the first anything or for self glorification.
Her campaign is based upon her own strong beliefs against regime change wars, using those
monies here in the US to help the people, and her belief in environmental stewardship.
Whether or not people like or support Tulsi Gabbard, no one can question her courage to go
against the MIC and other powers that be. She is not ready to quit yet. I have felt from the
beginning that Tulsi is running now for the future. My personal belief is that she will be a
great President due to her courage, intelligence and leadership skills. I am hoping that if
Bernie becomes President, he will appoint Tulsi as Secretary of State where her skills will
be very valuable.
Yeah, I can dream, but if you are going to dream, dream big.
Tulsi's in it for the long haul. I don't think she expects to become POTUS this time
around. At present, she seems to be positioning herself, making herself known to the
public, building a base of support, and no doubt exploring alliances. I'm looking forward
to seeing what she does. Warrior Tulsi.
The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the
empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations
who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC.
That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against
the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and
appeals to their authority on foreign policy.
Foreign policy, by the way, that most people in America, frankly, despise.
Every word of that is so true it makes me want to weep. I don't cry easily.
Thanks for posting that link! It will be shared, several times.
that the DNC would rather lose with a "centrist" than win with Bernie or Tulsi:
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once
Tulsi was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only candidate
with a history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders and asked
point blank whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders from
being nominated would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the surprise of the
activists, leaders spoken to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to the contract they
were forced to sign before the first debate was more important than fairness and beating
Donald Trump. Some leaders talked about which candidates they planned run in 2024 if Trump
was re-elected. An assistant to one of the party bosses, who asked not to be identified for
fear of losing his job, pointed out that the DNC actually makes more money as a result of
anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than they would if a popular progressive, such as
Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President. One person pointed out that a ticket with
Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would be used to
McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
The report is at open democracy.com and is worth reading in its' entirety. It seems that
the Democrats scheduled a meeting of the DNC in SF and meetings of the California Democratic
Party in San Jose (abt. 2-3hrs. away, best is to ride the BART) the same day. Party hack Tom
Perez drew about 100 to his speech at the DNC.
a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would
be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party
Yet a loss by Hillary isn't blamed on centrists but is, instead, somehow, used to McGovern
or kill....
that the DNC would rather lose with a "centrist" than win with Bernie or Tulsi:
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once
Tulsi was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only
candidate with a history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders
and asked point blank whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie
Sanders from being nominated would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the
surprise of the activists, leaders spoken to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to
the contract they were forced to sign before the first debate was more important than
fairness and beating Donald Trump. Some leaders talked about which candidates they
planned run in 2024 if Trump was re-elected. An assistant to one of the party bosses, who
asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job, pointed out that the DNC actually
makes more money as a result of anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than they would if
a popular progressive, such as Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President. One
person pointed out that a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and
the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the
party.
The report is at open democracy.com and is worth reading in its' entirety. It seems
that the Democrats scheduled a meeting of the DNC in SF and meetings of the California
Democratic Party in San Jose (abt. 2-3hrs. away, best is to ride the BART) the same day.
Party hack Tom Perez drew about 100 to his speech at the DNC.
@Nastarana
I went to opendemocracy.net and couldn't find this content.
that the DNC would rather lose with a "centrist" than win with Bernie or Tulsi:
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once
Tulsi was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only
candidate with a history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders
and asked point blank whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie
Sanders from being nominated would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the
surprise of the activists, leaders spoken to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to
the contract they were forced to sign before the first debate was more important than
fairness and beating Donald Trump. Some leaders talked about which candidates they
planned run in 2024 if Trump was re-elected. An assistant to one of the party bosses, who
asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job, pointed out that the DNC actually
makes more money as a result of anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than they would if
a popular progressive, such as Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President. One
person pointed out that a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and
the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the
party.
The report is at open democracy.com and is worth reading in its' entirety. It seems
that the Democrats scheduled a meeting of the DNC in SF and meetings of the California
Democratic Party in San Jose (abt. 2-3hrs. away, best is to ride the BART) the same day.
Party hack Tom Perez drew about 100 to his speech at the DNC.
One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that:
a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would
be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the
Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which
explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can
come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal
Hillary.
@Nastarana Harris has been plunging in the polls. I think Tulsi finished her off.
Why would any nominee want to have an unpopular pol on the ticket? Not much of a chance of
that, so no need to worry about any Harris presence on the ticket or threat in any way.
As for the DNC possibly preferring Trump b/c it leads to better fundraising, the RNC is
currently outraising the DNC by 2-to-1. Apparently Ds just aren't that angry. Or are
channeling their anger in other ways.
One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that:
a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss
would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the
Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which
explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can
come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal
Hillary.
Tulsi did finish her off, but the DNC is trying to prop her back up again by removing
Tulsi from the picture.
I don't think Bernie is principled enough, or bold enough (based on his handling of 2016
and the Clintons/DNC) to ever select Tulsi Gabbard as his V.P.
But I do see him selecting someone (corrupt) like K. Harris just to check-off the "woman
box". So Harris may have life after all due to the DNC rigging of things.
#7
Harris has been plunging in the polls. I think Tulsi finished her off.
Why would any nominee want to have an unpopular pol on the ticket? Not much of a
chance of that, so no need to worry about any Harris presence on the ticket or threat in
any way.
As for the DNC possibly preferring Trump b/c it leads to better fundraising, the RNC
is currently outraising the DNC by 2-to-1. Apparently Ds just aren't that angry. Or are
channeling their anger in other ways.
with a link at the very least. So if you have one, please share it.
Some guy said that he heard this and he told someone who told me . . . .
One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that: a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss
would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the
Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which
explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can
come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal
Hillary.
tossed out the suit against the DNC filed by Jared Beck, Elizabeth Beck, and Niko House,
the DNC doesn't have single worry about how they conduct their political business. The
declined prosecution against the DNC established the DNC's legal rights to make whatever
decisions they want in smoke-filled rooms. There should be no doubt the DNC gets what Killary
wants. This is why H. Rodent Clinton enters the race, erupting with all the subtlety of lava
flowing down the slopes of Mauna Loa (or Karatoa, etc.)
7 polls that were supposed to be qualifying have not and are not going to be taken.
Seems to me, the DNC needs to include 7 of the polls that were taken, which would put Tulsi
in.
but they won't. There's a reason they only took 10 of the 17 polls. It's rigged again.
The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed
under NATO occupation.
Complete BS! It is the continued Pakistani ISI influence in
Afghanistan presently though their Haqqani Taliban network plus ISIS that is terrorizing Afghanistan,
including intentional bombings of wedding parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadahan_wedding_bombing
&
https://www.apnews.com
/b5ceb0cfb33d4d73aaaadf5eee19fe9d
The Pakistani army wants Afghanistan as "strategic depth" in case of a conflict with India.
Tony
Ah! So the US-led invasion, with it's endless stream of weak US-approved 'governments', has had
nothing to do with Afghanistan's continued instability then. Got it!!!
Pakistan is the only overland supply route available for the US military; roads via Iran and
Russia are politically out. All their fuel, ammo and food towards Afghanistan is under Pakistani
ISI control from 1978 till now, with the interruption of 2009 – 2015 .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_logistics_in_the_Afghan_War#History
mark
Afghanistan has been the victim and playground for Neocon intrigue for years.
A liberal, progressive left wing regime that furthered women's rights and social provision was
destroyed by Uncle Sam in its own interests to weaken Russia.
Bin Laden and his splendid chaps were put on the CIA payroll for the purpose.
The result was a long running bloodbath with 28,000 Russian and 1,4 million Afghan dead.
Followed by years of civil war, US invasion and the imposition of a narco warlord puppet government
on the country.
Tony
Hasn't Afghanistan gone from having hardly any opium production prior to the US-led invasion, to
currently being the source of something like 99% of the world's source for heroin?
mark
The Cocaine Import Agency runs the coke trade out of South America.
Might as well run the heroin trade out of Afghanistan as well.
Martin Usher
Have you considered that the Pakistan of 1980 may not be the same country with the same players as
the Pakistan of 2019? Also, when you get a weak/chaotic government then its quite likely that
different factions or forces within a country may pursue widely different goals?
Pulitzer Prize winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen put it best: "All wars are fought twice, the
first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory." Those second fights are often
longer, if less bloody, than the initial battles. The fights for memory and legacy often begin
before the guns have even fallen silent.
America's wars are no strangers to this dynamic. From Vietnam to the present, our wars have
always been refought by participants, journalists, scholars, and politicians. As we begin to
seriously debate ending America's quixotic campaigns in the Greater Middle East, one
particularly nasty narrative will be employed by the defenders of intervention and imperialism.
It recurs like clockwork every time America loses a war: that we were stabbed in the back.
Dolchstosslegende
The modern stab-in-the-back myth got its start in Germany exactly a century ago. Imperial
Germany was conceived of, created, and led by Prussia's military caste. Prussia, in Voltaire's
bon mot, was an army with a state, not a state with an army. And Prussia, after crippling
defeats by Napoleon at Jena and Auerstedt, had entered the First World War on a 50-year winning
streak.
But by the fall of 1918, Germany had lost the war. With its spring offensives failing and
fresh American troops flooding into France, final defeat was only a matter of time. While the
front lines were still on French and Belgian soil, the German Army had been decisively beaten
in the Hundred Days battles. After the Battle of Amiens, Germany's leaders, both military and
civilian, knew that the war's outcome was simply a math problem.
Germany did the only thing it could do and sued for a humiliating peace. The Kaiser was
forced to abdicate and flee, and a new civilian government signed an armistice and then the
Treaty of Versailles. Germany gave up land, people, and most of its army, and took on both
formal responsibility for the war and $5 billion in reparations.
Defeat was more than a bitter pill to swallow -- it was incomprehensible to millions,
especially those who had been at the front and had often experienced more (bloody) successes
than failures.
Germany's de facto military dictator, General Erich Ludendorff, was among the first to
embrace the idea that the country had been betrayed by communists, politicians, and most of
all, Jews. Though a wartime census showed that Jews were overrepresented in both the German
Army as a whole and in frontline units, the "Big Lie" stuck. Its propagation was aided by often
well-intentioned generals and politicians, who told the returning soldiers that "no enemy has
vanquished you."
When Adolf Hitler, a decorated veteran and budding demagogue, embraced this fiction, the
Dolchstosslegende (literally "dagger stab myth") was cemented. The German Army had not
lost. It had been betrayed by the home front and the politicians.
Vietnam
Korea, America's first war of the nuclear age, did not occasion charges of betrayal within.
Perhaps this was because outright defeat had been so close, both at the Pusan Perimeter in the
summer of 1950, and again six months later, when Chinese troops poured across the Yalu River
and drove the United Nations forces back over the 38th Parallel. A draw, especially with the
specter of nuclear war in the background, didn't seem so bad.
Vietnam was different. The U.S. military, armed with futuristic black rifles and
intercontinental bombers, lost to a Third World peasant army. Sure the U.S. won every battle,
dropping more bombs on South Vietnam than it had on either Germany or Japan in World War II,
whatever the cost. But they lost the war. The explanation: it was Jane Fonda and the hippies
that stabbed the army in the back , undermining support at home and turning the U.S.
tactical victory of 1968's Tet Offensive into a strategic defeat. As Vietnam veteran and former
Senator James Webb famously said of Fonda: "I wouldn't walk across the street to watch her slit
her wrist."
This narrative was buttressed by a wave of revisionist scholarship on Vietnam. Lewis
Sorley's A Better War posits counterinsurgency and pacification as a path to victory and
celebrates General Creighton Abrams's successes in the wake of the Tet Offensive. Mark Moyar, a
historian now working at USAID, penned Triumph Forsaken , an apology for South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. Max Boot, never one to miss a chance to extol the white
man's burden, has weighed in with multiple volumes on "the road not taken."
Traditional historians make a few obvious counterpoints that are difficult to refute.
Foremost among them is this one: despite two decades of French and American partnership and
aid, the South Vietnamese state and army were unable to ever stand on their own. The Easter
Offensive of 1972, sometimes celebrated as the finest hour of the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam (ARVN), was defeated only with the aid of tremendous American fire support and at the
cost of heavy ARVN casualties. Three years later, North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon.
North Vietnam, for all its missteps and brutality, endured over 1 million casualties and
maintained the will to fight. The South did not.
Iraq
The Iraq war revisionist narrative is perhaps less plausible than that of Vietnam. True, the
Sunni tribes of Anbar Province turned against al-Qaeda and the Sunni-Shia civil war had
temporarily abated by 2008. These tactical realities led to absurd triumphalism from the
neoconservative crowd, especially those insiders who saw themselves as the brain trust of the
2007 troop surge.
The surge, a reinforcement of only 30,000 soldiers and Marines, was hailed as one of the
signal triumphs of American military history. General David Petraeus was celebrated as a
"savior general." The language of the sycophantic press corps would have made even Douglas
MacArthur blush. "The gold standard for wartime command," said then chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, describing Petraeus. America was told that its forces,
after initial missteps and much painful learning, had triumphed over terrorism in Iraq.
This victory, the story then goes, was squandered by President Barack Obama's pusillanimity
and inattention. U.S. troops marched out of Iraq as victors in 2011 and then had to march back
in three years later when the corrupt, sectarian Iraqi Army collapsed in the face of the ragtag
forces of the Islamic State: a pickup truck-borne reconnaissance-in-force of just 1,500
jihadists.
The reality is that the only thing America won in Iraq was "a decent interval," in Henry
Kissinger's infamous phrase. The surge had always been understood as merely a means to an end:
political reconciliation between Iraq's Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. This manifestly failed to
occur. The security services became corrupt Shia fiefdoms, the Kurds intermittently plotted
their exit, and the Sunnis, feeling themselves excluded from post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, sought
new champions.
In a supremely cynical gambit, the Iraq war's architects flooded America's airwaves to blame
Obama for a squandered victory in Iraq, especially after the Islamic State's lightning
offensives of 2014. Obama and his defeatist cheerleaders in the media, we were told, had walked
away when Iraq was on the path to peace and prosperity.
Such a claim, regardless of the intricacies of intra-Shia politics and status of forces
agreements, rests on a foundation of hubris: the idea that America had the knowledge and skill
to dictate successful political outcomes to Iraqis. Nouri al-Maliki, the sectarian Shiite
leader blamed for setting conditions for the Islamic State's success, was plucked from
obscurity and installed as Iraq's prime minister under American sponsorship. Given the
inability and unwillingness of two U.S. presidents to curb or remove Maliki, and the
inescapable postwar Iranian influence in Shia-led Iraq, claims of a squandered victory are hard
to take seriously.
The late Michael Hastings put it best: the surge narrative was "perhaps the most impressive
con job in recent American history." Maybe a decent interval was worth the casualties and cost
of the surge. But deluding ourselves that "we won" is another matter.
Afghanistan
We are already seeing the new Dolchstosslegendes take shape in the debate over
Afghanistan, Syria, and once again Iraq. As both President Donald Trump and Democratic
presidential candidates make pledges about withdrawing from Afghanistan, the pushback is in
full force. Regional stability, women's rights, and terrorism are all cited as reasons to stay,
but the idea of stolen victory is also getting a workout.
Despite nearly 18 years of war and the deployment of nearly 100,000 U.S. troops at the war's
height, plus security and development assistance that far exceeds the Marshall Plan, the
Taliban today controls more of Afghanistan than at any point since their overthrow in 2002.
Opium cultivation, the primary funding source for the insurgents, sets new records year
after year. The situation has gotten so bad that in May the Pentagon stopped releasing its
district stabilization reports, which had been used to measure the security situation
throughout Afghanistan. Despite then-commander General John Nicholson's November 2017 statement
that the "most telling" metric of success is population control, the Department of Defense now
asserts that the reports are "of limited decision-making value."
Afghan security force casualties, probably the most important gauge of the war's progress,
are also unavailable, supposedly classified at the behest of the Afghan government. U.S.
Central Command's new chief, Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr., recently acknowledged to the
Senate that Afghan army and police losses were unsustainable. A full third of the Afghan
security force has to be replaced every year due to casualties, desertion, and failures to
re-enlist. The trajectory of the war is pretty clear.
One could plausibly argue that America did win the Afghan war -- way back in 2002. The swift
initial campaign, fought mostly by the Afghan Northern Alliance with support from U.S. Special
Forces, CIA paramilitaries, and air power, toppled the Taliban government and shattered
al-Qaeda's network in Central Asia. Everything that came after, the argument goes, was mission
creep and utopian fantasy.
That case has its merits, but the war should be judged by America's professed goals there.
These quickly grew to include the establishment of a stable, secure, and centralizing Afghan
national government. By those lights, the war was, and is, an unwinnable quagmire.
Yet there are prominent national security professionals who will assert that Afghanistan was
never lost, and in fact can still be won. Paul D. Miller, a Georgetown professor and former
National Security Council staffer, made this case most recently in the pages of Foreign
Policy . Clinging to the life raft of the possible, however faint, Miller wrote that
"claiming the United States has failed is odd because the war is not over yet." After risibly
declaring that "Obama nearly won the war in 2012," Miller judged Afghanistan a secret success,
as a "mowing the grass" counterterrorism campaign.
After bemoaning the supposed hubris of those counseling withdrawal, Miller settled on a
maximalism that is jarring to even a casual observer of the war: "more resources, real
counterinsurgency, no deadline." Realist detractors, called out by name, are told to keep their
opinions to themselves, because their lack of faith undermines a necessary Forever War.
Syria
In Syria, unlike in Afghanistan, the insurgent enemy was decisively defeated on the
battlefield. The Islamic State's final sanctuary was destroyed in March. But after declaring a
conclusion to this successful punitive expedition, President Trump reluctantly reversed himself
and left a small residual U.S. force in place, ostensibly for counterterrorism purposes.
Trump had been relentlessly attacked by virtually the entire U.S. foreign policy
establishment for his supposed fecklessness for even suggesting a withdrawal. Senators voted
for an amendment rebuking the president by a margin of nearly 3-1. The secretary of defense,
former General James Mattis, resigned in protest. Pundits and purported experts across the
political spectrum inveighed against Trump's pullout plans.
The major U.S. papers are quick to report that the Islamic State is back, with fighters
slipping across the porous Iraq-Syria border and "seeding a new insurgency." Intermittent
attacks receive ample attention, as does the plight of Syria's Kurds, stuck between Assad's
regime and their Turkish enemies.
The Islamic State is likely to survive and return for the same reason it appeared in the
first place: victor's justice and the refusal of all parties to embrace political compromise
and power-sharing. Bashar al-Assad's forces are engaged in a campaign of repression and
violence in Sunni areas.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, under the supposedly less sectarian Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a
similar process grinds on. As The New Yorker 's Ben Taub detailed in a December piece,
the conviction rate in Iraq's terrorism courts is 98 percent. The average trial lasts less than
10 minutes. The families of many of those on trial are themselves detained indefinitely in
squalid desert camps. Despite American advisors, American aid, and American attention, Iraq's
problems can only be solved by Iraqis. They are in no hurry to do so.
One might hope that the common-sense Middle American voter would see through this shallow
sophistry. After all, the signature moment of Trump's insurgency within the GOP primaries was
in South Carolina, where he denounced the 43rd president and the Iraq war and was rewarded with
an easy victory and the dispatch of Jeb Bush, the squishy embodiment of GOP conventional wisdom
on Iraq.
Today even recent veterans believe these wars were for naught. A new Pew survey found that
64 percent of Iraq veterans and 58 percent of Afghanistan veterans believe their wars were "not
worth fighting." These men and women realize that we cannot fix foreign lands at the point of a
bayonet, however impressive our temporary tactical victories may be.
But despite $6 trillion spent on these failed wars, American foreign policy remains largely
the prerogative of elites. The stories of triumphs forsaken and troops stabbed in the back only
need to reach and convince a small audience.
America's Dolchstosslegendes , fueled mostly by optimism and hubris, are not those of
bitter German anti-Semites, looking for someone to blame. But our myths and rationalizations
are still pernicious and consequential -- and they aren't going away.
General H. R. McMaster, formerly national security advisor to President Trump and now
ensconced at one of the most influential think tanks in Washington, recently blamed "war
weariness" and "a defeatist narrative" for challenging the ongoing American military commitment
to Afghanistan. As we near a presidential election and perhaps a chance at some realism and
retrenchment overseas, the myths of back-stabbing and lost victory must be rejected. Until
Americans, and especially elites, accept the lessons of history and the limits of U.S. power,
we will be doomed to repeat our Sisyphean wars of choice.
Gil Barndollar is the Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of
America's Center for the Study of Statesmanship. He served as a U.S. Marine Corps infantry
officer from 2009-2016.
It's hard to take any analysis seriously that starts out with the politically correct
mantra
" about how the US lost Vietnam. As one of those post WWII conflicts that actually had
some veracity as an effort on behalf of others one can say with some ease, we won that war
and there's little question that the US service members who fought it were in fact
betrayed.
And that betrayal continues with the nonsense about how we lost.
"North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon. North Vietnam, for all its missteps and
brutality, endured over 1 million casualties and maintained the will to fight. The South did
not."
They rolled in with the support of the Soviet Union, China and North Vietnam. You sure
leave a lot out of your understanding of events at the time, Nevermind rethinking the matter
today.
Pay attention people; Prussia not Russia. Yes there was Prussia and it is not related to
Russia. I'm making this comment because one of my colleagues wanted to corrected TAC article
by claiming there must've been some misspelling. I wonder how many of my fellow homo sapiens
think as my colleague does. I also wonder how many homos are in fact sapiēns?
Syria
I thought that you were going to mention the myth that had Obama bombed Assad after his 'red
line' comment that moderate rebels would have taken over Syria and turned it into the Garden
of Eden. This bizzare narrative is passionately defended by the likes of Jack Keane and too
many others to count.
Even though Al Qaeda and ISIS were always, by far, the strongest factions, the
demonstration of U.S. force would put so much fear into their hearts that it would allow our
freedom fighters to walk into Damascus. After all that's what happened in Libya and we know
how easily cowed ISIS and Al Qaeda are by one off bombings. Those are the people who start
off battles using 1 - 3 VBIEDs (suicide vehicles).
"The U.S. military, armed with futuristic black rifles and intercontinental bombers, lost to
a Third World peasant army."
That's a myth within the myth. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was not a third world
peasant army and should not be confused with the Viet Cong. That's an insult to the the NVA.
They were highly trained and were equipped by the Soviet Union. The Viet Cong were virtually
wiped out and were no longer a factor after the 68 Tet offensive. The NVA also kicked China
back out of Vietnam in a border war in 1979, and destroyed the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Germany was not decisively defeated on the battle field. Not one inch of Germany was occupied
by an allied soldier when the armistice was declared. Had the strike by the French military
been detected by the Germans the outcome would have been very different. The sacking of
Germany's wealth and infrastructure led to an economic collapse of the Weimar Republic. This
allied induced economic chaos led to the monster Hitler and his thugees. Might be worth
noting that prior to WW1 Germany and England were each other's best trading partners and the
Kaiser visited England regularly. The war party -- derided in history as the "yellow press
successfully lied about "the Hun" and got the war they wanted. Shades of 2003 Iraq;
mainstream media, a powerful foreign lobby, a spineless congress, and a compliant president.
Our decision makers have learned nothing from history except to follow the money. The neocons
have learned everything. Lies (main stream media) and political contributions will get you
endless wars. Just say NO! to Netanyahu.
I have nothing but questions after reading this article and concern about how gullible,
ignorant and loath we as a nation are when it comes to exposing the fallacy and ineptness of
your so-called anointed ones and foreign policy by the armed conflict. Why do we not learn
from our mistakes? Why do we continue to compound the mistakes we've made?
Part of the strategy in Afghanistan is nothing more than a rebranded "strategic hamlet"
strategy used in Vietnam. How well did that work out? Easy answer, it didn't, it just ceded
territory to the insurgency. Have we learned anything, not really, you still have some older
cadre teaching the new generation lessons learned from over 40 years ago and those lessons
haven't kept pace with developments in what we refer to as third world countries. We aren't
adapting militarily with the exception of the lethality of today's modern weapons. And
unfortunately should we engage in an armed conflict with a modernized advisary we'll still be
teaching the lessons learned and tactics used when fighting lesser equipped insurgencies.
I've gone off topic but watching the army I hold in esteem continue to do the same dumb s**t
is disheartening.
Thanks for the article, I enjoyed. You've done a really good job of making your point
without totally destroying the character of the perpetrators.
"... etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment of over-commitment. ..."
"... "Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in Northern Syria.'" ..."
Magnier on Nuttyahoo's escalating provocations encapsulates the most recent series of
events, although he doesn't attempt to link the actions to the upcoming elections. Hezbollah
threatened direct retaliation against Occupied Palestine; Iraq chose to blame the Outlaw US
Empire; Syria remained silent; the G-7 said nothing. The recent proposal by Iran to refurbish
one pipeline and build another to Syria's coastline would certainly become a Zionist target.
So, for the project to have the proper security, Occupied Palestine needs to be liberated.
Nasrallah isn't known as a bluffer, while Nuttyahoo's prone to be too aggressive. Do the
Zionists see the current situation as possibly the final time they have some sort of an
advantage as Magnier seems to imply and attack since they know the Outlaw US Empire won't?
But, in spite of the whole US paleo-conservative spectre, along with "alt-right", always
telling us it is Israel who forces the US to wage war in the ME...now, Israeli politics and
experts, say the last attacks on Irak, Syria and Lebanon have been made only as electoral
maneuver by Netanyahu and not only, but have stated that it is the US who wants Israel doing
their dirty job in the ME...This, reported by Al Manar ....not a Jewish source....
In his speech on August 25, the secretary general of Hezbollah made a double promise: the
Resistance will now attack the drones of Israel and attack the Israeli troops not in Shebaa
but in Lebanon itself. For those Israeli generals who experienced the 2006 war and the ups
and downs of Syria, these are not just warnings. These soldiers even seem to have been
sensitive to Nasraláh's warning that Netanyahu's attacks are intended to win votes
for the next election and avoid imprisonment. "The current threat to Israel, which is even
more serious than terrorism, missiles and Iran, is the collapse of the interior of Israel,"
warned former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
"By the way, Netanyahu's air operations against Syria, Lebanon and Iraq pursue internal
political goals, which is very unfortunate", said Moshe Yaalon, a leader of the Blue and
White opposition coalition and former Israeli Minister of Military Affairs, according to
the agency Palestinian Maa.
"The threat of the collapse of the interior of Israel is even more serious than the
missiles and Iran. The destruction of democracy and corruption within government apparatus
will lead us to collapse", said Ehud Barak in a video posted on his Twitter page.
"The attack on Syria was not a preventive action and will harm Israel," Barak told
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, having apparently understood the warning issued by
Nasralá.
Other Israeli experts share this opinion. Yaari Ehud, an Israeli journalist and expert
in the Middle East said on Channel 12 of Israeli television that Netanyahu and his security
cabinet "perpetrated these attacks on behalf of the US" and run the risk of "exposing
Israel." "In fact, the missions that Americans refuse to do, they entrust them to Israel.
We have been commissioned to do the dirty work at the risk of jeopardizing our security,
"he added before saying", Tel Aviv will pay for it."
Who is lying? The Israelis or the Americans? Or both?
Mangier writes a follow-up to his post that I criticized @29. I think that his latest post
also falls well short of his vaunted reputation.
Magnier's interpretation of events lauds Netanyahu's chess playing. He compares
inconsequential attacks with past strategic actions (almost gleefully as he describes
those past glories at some length) .
He makes broad, unsupported statements like:
It should be recognized that Israel's assessment of the reaction of Iran's allies in
Syria and Iraq is spot on.
And repeats that Israel is hitting "hundreds" of sites FOUR TIMES. Making it
seem as though the Israeli campaign is much greater than it really is. AFAICT those attacks
have actually been spread out over more than a year.
Yet it's all preliminary to this gem:
Netanyahu forced Hezbollah's leader to threaten Israel ...
Forced?Really? AFAICT the red lines in Lebanon have been clear
for a long time. Each side will defend theirs.
Which leaves me scratching my head as to why Magnier isn't using his platform to point out
Netanyahu's irresponsible, self-serving actions. Netanyahu will NOT pay a price for his
craven machinations - which could mean Israeli dead and injured and/or another war in Lebanon
- when even "critics" like Magnier dress them up as heroic acts of patriotism.
Netanyahu's widening of Israel's war with Iran and its proxies into Lebanon and Iraq -- and
perhaps beyond -- and his acknowledgement of that wider war raise questions for both
nations.
Israel today has on and near her borders hostile populations in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon,
Iran, and Iraq. Tens of millions of Muslims see her as an enemy to be expelled from the
region.
While there is a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan, the Saudis and Gulf Arabs are
temporary allies as long as the foe is Iran.
Is this pervasive enmity sustainable?
As for America, have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to
another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not
of ours?
On a not completely different subject-that of the Empire's demise- there is a Tom Luongo
article at Strategic Culture, which is pretty good. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/27/first-many-cauldrons-form-middle-east/
It ends
"So, the cauldron around Israel is forming. With the Saudis in deep trouble, Egypt refusing
to go along with any of Trump's plans – Arab NATO, the Kushner Deal of the Century
– the game board has fundamentally shifted against them.
"N etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at
every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond
muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment
of over-commitment.
"Now the counter attack will commence, I suspect, with brutal precision"
I don't quite agree with his assessment and conclusions. He is grossly underestimating the
axis of resistance and their will to push back. Also, Israelis are overestimating the
American support, no matter what. Not if it is going to cost them American lives. Hitting a
few ammo depots in isolation is one thing, but getting Americans to die for Israeli
intransigence is another. Not much stomach for that here in US, no matter how much they push
the special relationship.
Israelis are playing backgammon while Iran and axis playing chess, being a grandmaster at
that. Check mate will be ugly.
@177 Israel shouldn't take American support for granted. According to this article some
Evangelicals are starting to have second thought...
"Why do we have pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ values, and we do not have more freedom to protect
our faith? We are persecuted now," Yanko says about evangelical Christians like herself.
"[Jews] say, 'We've got America. We control America.' That's what I know."
"Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the
past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these
operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in
Northern Syria.'"
Is it a feint to get SAA to cease Idlib Dawn and drive the Zionists out, or are Zionist
drones really being flown from there? Regardless, it's time to end the Kurd's games, drive
out the Outlaw US Empire and all other illegal forces and reclaim Syrian sovereignty. Iraq
must do the same.
Over the past several days, Israel has attempted to prevent attacks by Iranian forces
and their allies by striking targets in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq.
Really? AFAIK, Israel hasn't described specific attacks that were thwarted.
Snyder then uses Iraqi and Hezbollah's anger at Israel's acts of war (cause, um ...
that's what they are) as examples of pre-crime hatred that justifies
Netanyahu's Israel's attacks.
Netanyahu's self-serving deviousness has blown up his face. Hasbara media assets are busy
trying to recover the high ground. IMO their attempt to do so will fail miserably as it's
transparent and thus digs the hole deeper. Leading to the question: Will Netanyahu accept
defeat at the polls or will he continue with the dirty tricks (at the risk of war)?
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
The above should be read in conjunction with my criticism of Magnier @29 and @148.
Please remember that many people voted for Trump just because they can't vote for warmonger
Hillary and/or to show middle finger to the Washington neoliberal establishment.
Everybody understand that he is just another billionaire with very shady past and
questionable connection in NYC, but some people hoped that like FDR he can be the traitor of his
own class. They were severely disappointed.
Voting is severely screwed in the USA as you are allowed to select out of two usually
pre-selected by the elite candidates (Pepsi-Cola choice) but that all we have.
With all her warts, Tulsi foreign policy agenda is the most realistic and anti-war among all
Democratic Candidates. And that's something to vote for.
Just rewatched your appearance on "CrossTalk on Tulsi Gabbard: Peace Candidate." I've been
somewhat manic about championing her, generally sharing her anti-war message, but
periodically suffering some sucker-punch. Her supporters point to the smear campaign launched
at her by neocons and neolibs as evidence of her threat to the MIC and establishment. There's
a disconnect in that assertion. I wonder if either side realizes how conventional her
positions are in general. Is there any real evidence that her understanding (lack of same) on
Israel or Iran has change since she made this dreadful speech in 2015 to the CUFI conference?
Frightening.
Tulsi Gabbard Speaks to Right-Wing Christians United for Israel Conference 2015
@anon
True, her views on Iran and Syria (even after she visited and met with Bashar al-Assad) are
dreadful and she is careful to say the right things about Israel. But she is at the same time
the only candidate seriously talking about ending all the wars so she deserves support at
least for that message, if only because it might force some others to confront the issue.
Let's face it, our search for a truly acceptable candidate will not find one in either major
party.
The main problem was the the USA elite after the dissolution of the USSR was hell-bent on world dominance. And Clinton
was in the vanguard of this trend.
Clinton has pretty destructive, toxic legacy, is not he? He and his administration
essentially acted as a short sited and greedy gangster and he sowed the teeth of dragon into US-Russia relations.
Clinton tried to exploit Russian weakness during this period to the fullest extent possible,. This is the policy similar to
policy of GB toward Germany after WWI. In short Clinton was a typical imperialist from the very beginning and like all subsequent
Presidents valued international treaties and obligation only when they benefited the USA. The stance that illegal bombing of
Serbia only confirmed. At this point by Nuremberg standards he and all top official ion his administration and first of all
Madeline not so bright Albright became war criminals. The fact they they were not prosecuted is just a historical aberration
stemming from the dominant USA position at this time.
Essentially Clinton transformed NATO into aggressive alliance which is an expansion of the USA military.
Notable quotes:
"... As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement were when and how ..."
Newly available sources show how the 1993–95 debate over the best means of expanding
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization unfolded inside the Clinton administration. This
evidence comes from documents recently declassified by the Clinton Presidential Library, the
Defense Department, and the State Department because of appeals by the author.
As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement
were when and how . The sources make apparent that, during a critical decision making
period twenty-five years ago, supporters of a relatively swift conferral of full membership to
a narrow range of countries outmaneuvered proponents of a slower, phased conferral of limited
membership to a wide range of states.
Pleas from Central and Eastern European leaders, missteps by Russian President Boris
Yeltsin, and victory by the pro-expansion Republican Party in the 1994 U.S. congressional
election all helped advocates of full-membership enlargement to win.
The documents also reveal the surprising impact of Ukrainian politics on this debate and the
complex roles played by both Strobe Talbott, a U.S. ambassador and later deputy secretary of
state, and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian foreign minister.
Finally, the sources suggest ways in which the debate's outcome remains significant for
transatlantic and U.S.-Russian relations today.
... ... ...
In other words, the Bush administration performed the first “ratcheting down” of options, a process not without its costs. It
raised the question, controversial to this day, of whether the Bush administration promised Moscow that, in exchange for
tolerating the extension of NATO across a united Germany, the alliance would not seek further expansion eastward. Opinions on
this topic range from absolutely not to absolutely yes.15
... ... ...
Without advance warning, Yeltsin decided to vent his frustrations publicly at the Budapest summit with Clinton in attendance.
The Russian president accused the United States, in the interest of NATO expansion, of risking a “‘cold peace’” to follow the
Cold War.108
On the flight back from Budapest to Washington, Talbott recalled that the president “was furious at his foreign-policy team for
dragging him across the Atlantic to serve as a punching bag for Yeltsin.”
... ... ...
The shift in U.S. thinking unsurprisingly contributed to more tensions with Moscow, as evidenced by Talbott's subsequent
negotiations. Kozyrev tried to convince Talbott that a better idea would be to transform NATO into “a collective security
organization rather than a vehicle for containment” by amending the North Atlantic Treaty.122
Talbott rejected the idea, saying “no way are we going to entertain the possibility of redefining NATO in any way that
compromises its basic mission.”123
Put bluntly, “We're not in the business of having to ‘compensate’ Russia or buy it off. Russia is not doing us a favor by
allowing NATO to expand.”124
...Finally, interacting with the other five factors was President Clinton's increasing sympathy to the appeals of
CEE leaders, which inclined him toward those aides pushing for full Article 5 expansion, and his personal optimism that Russia
would eventually tolerate enlargement.
...In Perry's view, arms control—most notably, START II, which would have eliminated two-thirds of the U.S. and Russian
arsenals, but never went into effect—ended up being “‘a casualty of NATO expansion’” and of fighting between the Kremlin and the
Duma.139
START III suffered a similar fate, not even progressing to a signing. Looking back in 2015, Perry concluded: “The downsides of
early NATO membership for Eastern European nations were even worse than I had feared.”140
.... Viewed from twenty-five years on, with U.S.-Russian confrontation on the rise, democracy crumbling in Hungary
and Poland, and U.S. tanks returning to Europe, there is room for doubt. Given that the window of opportunity for changes is now
firmly shut, however, NATO must make the best of the status quo; for the foreseeable future, confrontation with Russia is once
again the order of the day.
On the Gabbard Story-- Real Clear Politics did an excellent job of explaining the
point-at-issue: the unknown criteria for the polls DNC hasn't told anyone which they are
using or why. RT, in a more condensed article cited
"Andrew Yang, who has since qualified, slammed the DNC in July for excluding one of two NBC
polls he said had reached the 2 percent threshold in, [saying] ' It is frustrating to see
the rules be changed mid-game .' The article also cites "Colorado Senator Michael Bennet
[who] criticized the process in front of DNC Chair Tom Perez on Friday, saying it was
'stifling debate at a time when we need it most.'
These two important critiques when added to the information provided by the RCP article
clearly show DNC manipulating the debate criteria in order to manage who
participates.
I tried to find updated relevant polling data over the past week knowing the deadline was
approaching and its importance to all the candidates, not just Gabbard, but is was very
difficult to find just one poll let alone at least 4.
IMO, if she's excluded from the next round of debates because the DNC favored polls
with tiny sample sizes versus far more relevant polls, then we will again know the Fix is
In--Again--but for whom this time.
"... Western Oligarchs initially were unified with their program to keep prices stable, lower labor costs, cut taxes and deregulate. Credit Cards and low cost consumer goods at Walmart kept working families pacified as their jobs were outsourced. ..."
"... Manufacturing cannot be moved without costs. The Trade Wars and Brexit will splinter the USA and the UK. Somebody thinks they will make money out of the chaos. This is a very dangerous bet. ..."
Western Oligarchs initially were unified with their program to keep prices stable, lower
labor costs, cut taxes and deregulate. Credit Cards and low cost consumer goods at Walmart
kept working families pacified as their jobs were outsourced.
Greed got the better of the
Elite. Joe Biden's regime change crew took aim at Ukraine and ultimately Russia, once again,
to seize the resources. This restarting the Cold War and forced Russia and China to ally. The
world is at war. It just has not gone nuclear yet. A Multipolar World is a now a given. The
question is human survival.
American farmers and consumers are in so far in debt that bankruptcy or dying owing an
average of $61,000 is the only way out. Manufacturing cannot be moved without costs. The
Trade Wars and Brexit will splinter the USA and the UK. Somebody thinks they will make money
out of the chaos. This is a very dangerous bet.
With rising prices, food and medicine
shortages, and oligarchs at each other's throat, another Civil War is most likely.
"... The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest. ..."
"... The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world. ..."
"... Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the United States and its allies. ..."
"... This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows: ..."
Think about who gets rich off of the Venezuela regime-change agenda. It's the same people
that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people
who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and
Syria.
Transcript -- This video was produced as part of a MintPress News and Grayzone collaboration -- Of all the reasons to
plot an elaborate and risky coup, there's one reason that always stands out: profit. Money
makes the world go around and in far more ways than we might think. Here are the top five
special interest groups and institutions that seek to benefit from the U.S. backed coup in
Venezuela.
Number 1: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which wants to saddle the
Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF
The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated
that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all
Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor
and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.
The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism
and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world.
Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted
countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states
with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have
always been the United States and its allies.
This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called
Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the
IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows:
In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the
IMF overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies,
making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.
Number
2: The Oil Industry, out to control the oil reserves
There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the U.S. to overthrow the Maduro
government, especially when National Security Advisor John Bolton openly states this on
national television.
Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond
Offshore Drilling, Inc. in 2007. He's no stranger to advocating for the interests of the
fossil-fuel industry.
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves by far and Washington won't let that wealth
go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia,
China, or Iran.
And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players --
companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in
Washington successfully advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign
natural resources.
Number 3: The Military-Industrial Complex, working to military
dominance and arm another U.S. puppet
One of the most bizarre things about America is that we've created one of the world's
largest private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs
or beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out
of the government in the form of subsidies -- or in the case of the military industrial
complex, a foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism
or defending democracy.
You can see that wherever the U.S. goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind
every multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the
profits.
Once our military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know
no U.S. ally or puppet state is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s -- then
they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.
With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting U.S.
military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next
target.
As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these
needs.
After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and
occupation are no longer viable strategies, owing to negative public opinion. So Washington
sought to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.
Number 4: "Humanitarian"
NGOs to create and implement the alibi
Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have
played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power
institutions that attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through
propaganda laced with words like freedom, democracy, and human rights.
These NGOs are given the full blessing of the U.S. government and the two often work in
tandem. Don't believe me? Take it from former CIA case officer Phillip Agee.
The US Agency for International Development's (USAID) regime-change arm, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the
2002 coup), Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever U.S. foreign
policy sets its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet
that goal as well as make a quick buck along the way.
For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan
Guaidó's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the
notorious Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances
talking about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be
overthrown.
Unsurprisingly, HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself
funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise
Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund
and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise
Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of
characters.
The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the U.S.'s
war on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.
Number 5: Think Tanks
selling reports that tell the MIC what it wants to hear
Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of
legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate
and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking
reports meant to justify their desired goal, the delegitimization of socialist governments and
the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.
The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in overthrowing the Venezuelan government. In
2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton Friedman Prize for
Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional referendum in
Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaidó, and his
clique known as Generation 2007.
These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to
amplify the message their donors have given them. Here's an article in the Washington
Post written by a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute saying the U.S.'s failure to
intervene in Venezuela has caused the Maduro government to destabilize the region.
Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate
disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the
poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no exception.
As the U.S. continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind.
Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we
had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the
world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.
Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more
prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.
Top photo | A worker counts Venezuelan bolivar notes at a parking lot in Caracas, Venezuela
May 29, 2018. Marco Bello | Reuters
Kei Pritsker is a journalist and activist located in Washington DC. Kei focuses on
international politics and economics. He previously worked as a producer at RT America.
The net result on Ukrainian independence was the dramatic rise of political influence of western Ukraine which was suppressed in
the USSR. under Yutchenko they came to power and they regained it after Yanukovich demise. And their interests and their
desire to colonize Eastern Ukraine do not correlate will with the desires of the Eastern Ukrainian population. So Ukraine
remains a divided country with the differences being patched by continuing war in Donbass. So in way continuation of the
war is in the best political interests of Western Ukrainian nationalists. Kind of insurance which simplify for them to stay in
power. While politically they lost in recent Presidential elections the presence of paramilitary formations ensure that they
still have considerable political power including the power of veto.
Whether hardship inflicted on population after EuroMaydan will eventually help to restore the balance and raise political
influence of Eastern Ukraine because Western Ukrainian nationalists are now completely politically discredited due to the dramatic
drop in the standard of living after EuroMaydan is difficult to say. In any case Ukraine now is a debt slave and vassal of the
USA with the USA embassy controlling way to much to consider Ukraine to be an independent country. Few countries manage to dig
themselves out of this hole.
For such countries rise of anti-colonial movement is a possibility, but paradoxically Western Ukrainian nationalists side
with colonial power representing in a way fifth column (and they did played the role of fifth column during EuroMaydan giving
power to rabid neoliberals like Yatsenyuk, who was essentially an agent of the USA, who wanted to privatize everything for
cents on the dollar as long as he and his circle get cramps from it, ordinary Ukrainians be damned ). Understanding that the USA is
the most dangerous partner to have, in many ways no less dangerous then Russia is still pending for the Ukrainian neoliberal elite,
part of which ( Kushma, Victor Pinchuk) clearly are plain-vanilla
compradors.
Notable quotes:
"... Three decades of Ukrainian independence have brought little in the way of economic development or other strong reasons to embrace a Ukrainian identity. At the same time, Russia has become a far more prosperous, orderly place that exudes confidence and power since Vladimir Putin came to power. Millions of eastern Ukrainians have gone to Russia as guest workers – and more recently as war refugees . Today, the Ukrainian diaspora in Russia is by far the world's largest. ..."
"... The western regions of Ukraine, on the other hand, were part of European states like Austria-Hungary and Poland until World War II, when they were annexed by the Soviet Union. Now, people overwhelmingly speak Ukrainian as their first language, take a suspicious (and historically grounded) view of Russia, and tend to look west for their inspiration ..."
"... Millions of Ukrainians go to Poland and beyond as guest workers, and their impressions help to fuel the certainty that Ukraine needs to seek a European future. ..."
"... Not coincidentally, the enthusiasm and conviction of western Ukrainians have disproportionately driven two pro-Western revolutions on the Maidan in Kyiv in the past 15 years, with little visible support from populations in the country's east. ..."
"... "People in the western Ukraine are different from us. It's not just language, or anything simple like that. They took power away from a president our votes elected, and they want to rip us out of our ways, abandon our values, and become part of their agenda," says Maxim Tkach, regional head of the Party of Life, the pro-Russian group that was the front-runner in parliamentary elections here in Mariupol. ..."
"... "When they started that Maidan revolution, they said it was about things we could support, like fighting corruption and ending oligarchic rule. But none of that happened. They betrayed every single principle they had shouted about. Instead, they want us to change the names of our streets and schools, honor 'heroes' like Stepan Bandera that our ancestors fought against. These are things we can't accept. ... ..."
"... "If there had been no Maidan, we would still have Crimea. There would have been no war. There would be no pressure on us to change our customs, our language, or our church . It was this aggressive revolution, by just part of the country, that caused these problems," he says. "Russia is Russia. It is acting in its own interests, but why do we need to antagonize it?" ..."
"... But while the two nearby separatist statelets, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic, may be backed by Russia, they emerged from deep local roots. That is a clear observation from one of the most exhaustive studies of the war to date, Rebels Without a Cause , published last month by the International Crisis Group. ..."
"... The war has done great and possibly irreparable damage to Ukraine's economy , and the longer it continues, the harder it may be to ever reintegrate the former industrial heartland of Donbass with the rest of the country. ..."
"... Mr. Tkach, the regional party head, says the idea of victory is a dangerous chimera, and what most people around here want is peace and restoration of normal relations with Russia. ..."
"... "Of course we need to negotiate directly with" the rebel republics, he says. "These are our people. We understand them. Perhaps we need a step-by-step process, in which they are granted some special status. What would be wrong with that? They have also suffered, had their homes shelled by Ukrainian forces, lost their loved ones. Trust needs to be restored, and that might take some time." ..."
"... But he is adamant that those territories need to be recovered for Ukraine. "The task before us is to bring them back to Ukraine, and Ukraine to them. It must be accomplished through compromise and negotiation, because everyone is tired of war. Once we have done this, and have peace, then we can talk about Crimea." ..."
"... Mr. Tkach says so too. "We wish Zelenskiy well, but we really doubt that he can make peace happen. Our party has the connections and the right approach, and we think it will be necessary to bring us into the process." He's talking about dealing with the Russia that exists just across the Sea of Azov and a few miles down the road ..."
Almost every conversation in Ukraine these days will touch upon the grinding, seemingly endless war in the eastern region of Donbass.
People speak of overwhelming feelings of pain and weariness. And they express near-universal hopes that the new president, Volodymyr
Zelenskiy, will finally do something to end it.
Here in Mariupol, where the front line is a 10-minute drive from downtown, those conversations tend to be intense.
But depending on whom you talk to, the path to peace can look very different.
Much of the population around here speaks Russian, is used to having close relations with nearby Russia, and can't imagine any
peace that would impose permanent separation. Many people have family, friends, and former business associates living just a few
miles away on the other side of the border. More than half of voters in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk Region, of which
Mariupol is the largest city, expressed those instincts in July 21 parliamentary elections by voting for two "pro-Russian" political
parties. Both of them would like to forge a peace on Moscow's terms and return at least this part of Ukraine to its historical place
as part of the Russian sphere of influence.
But there are also many who espouse an emerging Ukrainian identity, who see the 2014 Maidan "Revolution of Dignity" as a breaking
point that gave Ukraine the chance to escape the grasp of autocratic Russia and embrace a European future. They want nothing to do
with Russian-authored peace plans, say there is no alternative to fighting on to victory in the Donbass war, and want to
quarantine Ukraine from its giant neighbor – at least until Russia changes its fundamental nature.
Despite the two groups' shared desire for peace, their starkly different visions for what that peace would entail could prove
a major obstacle for ending the war in eastern Ukraine.
Looking east, looking west
These divisions are rooted in Ukrainian history. The country's eastern regions have been part of Russian-run states for over 300
years. Three decades of Ukrainian independence have brought little in the way of economic development or other strong reasons to
embrace a Ukrainian identity. At the same time, Russia has become a far more prosperous, orderly place that exudes confidence and
power since Vladimir Putin came to power. Millions of eastern Ukrainians have gone to Russia as guest workers – and more recently
as
war refugees . Today, the Ukrainian diaspora in Russia is by far the world's largest.
The western regions of Ukraine, on the other hand, were part of European states like Austria-Hungary and Poland until World War
II, when they were annexed by the Soviet Union. Now, people overwhelmingly speak Ukrainian as their first language, take a suspicious
(and historically grounded) view of Russia, and tend to look west for their inspiration. In 1990, living standards in Ukraine and
Poland were about equal. Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, its living standards have doubled and it has become a vibrant
European state. Millions of Ukrainians go to Poland and beyond as guest workers, and their impressions help to fuel the certainty
that Ukraine needs to seek a European future.
The Party of Life, of which local businessman Maxim Tkach is a regional head, argues that peace can be achieved in eastern
Ukraine only by following a Russia-favored plan for the region.
Not coincidentally, the enthusiasm and conviction of western Ukrainians have disproportionately driven two pro-Western revolutions
on the Maidan in Kyiv in the past 15 years, with little visible support from populations in the country's east.
"People in the western Ukraine are different from us. It's not just language, or anything simple like that. They took power away
from a president our votes elected, and they want to rip us out of our ways, abandon our values, and become part of their agenda,"
says Maxim Tkach, regional head of the Party of Life, the pro-Russian group that was the front-runner in parliamentary elections
here in Mariupol.
"When they started that Maidan revolution, they said it was about things we could support, like fighting corruption and ending
oligarchic rule. But none of that happened. They betrayed every single principle they had shouted about. Instead, they want us to
change the names of our streets and schools,
honor 'heroes' like Stepan Bandera that our ancestors fought against. These are things we can't accept. ...
"If there had been no Maidan, we would still have Crimea. There would have been no war. There would be no pressure on us to change
our customs, our language, or
our church . It was this aggressive revolution, by just part of the country, that caused these problems," he says. "Russia is
Russia. It is acting in its own interests, but why do we need to antagonize it?"
"The majority who want to be Ukrainian"
Maria Podibailo, a political scientist at Mariupol State University and head of New Mariupol, a civil society group founded to
support the Ukrainian army, offers a completely different narrative. She originally came from Ternopil in western Ukraine and has
made Mariupol her home since 1991.
She says there were no separatist feelings in Mariupol, or the Donbass, until after the Maidan revolution when Russian agitators
started traveling around eastern Ukraine, spreading lies and stirring up moods that had never existed before. Local pro-Russian oligarchs
wielded their economic power to support separatist groups, while passive police and security forces allowed Russian-led separatists
to seize public buildings and hold anti-Ukrainian protests in Mariupol. It wasn't until the arrival of the Ukrainian army – first
in the form of the volunteer Azov Battalion – that the separatists were driven out and the front line was pushed back from the city
limits in 2014, she says.
"That is why we support the army, and only trust the army," she says.
Ms. Podibailo's university-sponsored opinion surveys in 2014, after the rebellion began, found that a three-quarters majority
of local people supported a future as part of Ukraine, not Russia. That majority was subdivided into several visions of what kind
of Ukraine it should be, but only 12% wanted to join Russia, and 8% wanted Donbass to be an independent republic – a point often
overlooked in the simplistic pro-Russian versus pro-Western scheme in which these events are frequently portrayed.
"That's when we knew we were on the right track," she says. "We were not a beleaguered minority at all. We were part of the majority
who want to be Ukrainian."
But while the two nearby separatist statelets, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic, may be backed
by Russia, they emerged from deep local roots. That is a clear observation from one of the most exhaustive studies of the war to
date,
Rebels Without a Cause , published last month by the International Crisis Group.
"We cannot talk to the leaders of these so-called republics. How could we possibly trust them?" says Ms. Podibailo. Her view is
that, after victory, the population of the republics should be sorted out into those who collaborated with the enemy and those who
were innocent victims, as happened after World War II.
"There is no way for this war to end other than in Ukrainian victory. I have never heard of a war that ends leaving things the
same way, or just through some talks. People say it might take a long time, and the threat will last forever because we have such
a neighbor.
"But we have the United States behind us, we have the West behind us, and they are attacking Russia from the other side with sanctions.
We will win," she says.
"These are our people"
Mr. Tkach, the regional party head, says the idea of victory is a dangerous chimera, and what most people around here want
is peace and restoration of normal relations with Russia.
"Of course we need to negotiate directly with" the rebel republics, he says. "These are our people. We understand them. Perhaps
we need a step-by-step process, in which they are granted some special status. What would be wrong with that? They have also suffered,
had their homes shelled by Ukrainian forces, lost their loved ones. Trust needs to be restored, and that might take some time."
But he is adamant that those territories need to be recovered for Ukraine. "The task before us is to bring them back to Ukraine,
and Ukraine to them. It must be accomplished through compromise and negotiation, because everyone is tired of war. Once we have done
this, and have peace, then we can talk about Crimea."
One of the leaders of the Party of Life – which came in a distant second in the national parliamentary elections – is Ukrainian
oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who has strong connections to the Kremlin and whose daughter has Mr. Putin as her godfather. Attending
the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum along with Mr. Putin this spring, Mr. Medvedchuk was introduced as "a representative
of the Ukraine that can make a deal."
Mr. Tkach says so too. "We wish Zelenskiy well, but we really doubt that he can make peace happen. Our party has the connections
and the right approach, and we think it will be necessary to bring us into the process." He's talking about dealing with the Russia
that exists just across the Sea of Azov and a few miles down the road.
"... Max Boot first came to public notice, or at least to mine, during the run-up to the Iraq war. He had persuaded a television producer somewhere to label him a "Defense Expert," which, in the natural order of things, caused some people to mistake him for a defense expert. He had never been involved in even minor military operations himself, but he seemed uncontained in his enthusiasm for military operations involving other people. ..."
"... As the country debated the merits of an expedition to Iraq, Max Boot seemed to be everywhere. He was in every room. While he was rarely the most influential voice in any of those rooms, he was almost always the loudest. Among his several asseverations, all of them unburdened by either evidence or experience, were these: an American invasion would rid Iraq of nuclear weapons. (Iraq had no nuclear weapons.) An American invasion would cause the Iraqis to rise up and greet us as liberators. (They rose up and fought us as invaders.) An American invasion would bring democratic stability to a troubled region. (It brought chaos.) An American military victory would be quick and decisive. (After 16 years and incalculable losses in blood, treasure, prestige, and morale, the American military is still in Iraq.) ..."
"... After the heavy fighting had faded, a consensus began to form, slowly at first and then picking up speed, that the invasion of Iraq had been one of the most disastrous self-inflicted mistakes in the history of American foreign policy. For almost everybody involved, as well as those many in the region who had hoped to remain uninvolved, the so-called discretionary war in Iraq had been a tragedy. ..."
Max Boot first came to public notice, or at least to mine, during the run-up to the Iraq
war. He had persuaded a television producer somewhere to label him a "Defense Expert," which,
in the natural order of things, caused some people to mistake him for a defense expert. He had
never been involved in even minor military operations himself, but he seemed uncontained in his
enthusiasm for military operations involving other people.
As the country debated the merits of an expedition to Iraq, Max Boot seemed to be
everywhere. He was in every room. While he was rarely the most influential voice in any of
those rooms, he was almost always the loudest. Among his several asseverations, all of them
unburdened by either evidence or experience, were these: an American invasion would rid Iraq of
nuclear weapons. (Iraq had no nuclear weapons.) An American invasion would cause the Iraqis to
rise up and greet us as liberators. (They rose up and fought us as invaders.) An American
invasion would bring democratic stability to a troubled region. (It brought chaos.) An American
military victory would be quick and decisive. (After 16 years and incalculable losses in blood,
treasure, prestige, and morale, the American military is still in Iraq.)
After the heavy fighting had faded, a consensus began to form, slowly at first and then
picking up speed, that the invasion of Iraq had been one of the most disastrous self-inflicted
mistakes in the history of American foreign policy. For almost everybody involved, as well as
those many in the region who had hoped to remain uninvolved, the so-called discretionary war in
Iraq had been a tragedy.
As the question settled, some of us who had grown tired of Max Boot chirping in our ears
began to wonder how he would respond. What might he say? Perhaps an abashed silence would do.
Or should he undertake a penitential retreat to an obscure college, where he might meliorate
his remorse with weed or alcohol? In less generous moments, we toyed with the idea that he
might simply walk into the surf, after leaving an abject note of apology pinned against the sea
breeze by a heavy shard of driftwood.
Our answer was a long time coming.
I am a heavy viewer of CNN, at both the airport and the barber shop, that is. One day last
year, as I was having my thinning locks trimmed, the network ran a banner headline: MAX BOOT
QUITS REPUBLICAN PARTY. I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. Soon the entire shop -- the
sheeted customers, the startled barbers, the guys reading sticky magazines -- they were all
asking, along with the rest of America, who is this Max Boot? I tried to answer but I couldn't.
Each time I tried, I wound up laughing uncontrollably. CNN, which appears to have missed the
earlier and equally newsworthy story, MAX BOOT JOINS REPUBLICAN PARTY, had reached its summary
judgment: nothing had so become Max Boot's secret Republican career as the leaving of it.
(Seriously, one thing you can count on is the acuity of CNN's news judgment. By a remarkable
coincidence, both Arnold Thornbush of Ames, Iowa, and Phoebe Birdbath of Tempe, Arizona, had
quit the GOP that very same day, but the CNN desk, laser-focused, could not be distracted from
the big story.)
Ideas may or may not have consequences -- the debate rages -- but fake news most certainly
does. Shortly after CNN's blockbuster story, The Washington Post , or what used to be
The Washington Post , offered Max Boot a regular column. No, the Post
couldn't find the stones to cast him as a defense expert. The Max Boot beat is still a bit
undefined, but it seems to highlight his ad hominem attacks on former friends and
associates from his secret Republican career.
Forgive Max Boot. He's no idiot. He's just trying to make himself useful.
I never really knew Max Boot's background. So, after reading this column, I looked up his
Wikipedia biography and it blew my mind. What on earth has this guy ever done to be
considered a "Defense Expert?" He did not serve in the military or even in a civilian defense
capacity. Nor does he seem to have any military related education - not a Service Academy, a
military school, or a War College. As near as I can tell, this guy has made a career out of
writing opinion pieces - jumping from a college newspaper to the Wall Street Journal to the
Weekly Standard. Essentially, he's a glorified blogger who convinced a lot people that
invading Iraq was a good idea. Unbelievable.
Have some compassion, people! When the Democratic establishment finally follows its
Republican counterpart to the oblivion, where all these poor unemployed people, these
suffering dullards representatives of the strata of society with insufficient access
to intellectual capacities go? On the other hand, ingenium mala saepe movent .
Perhaps, after that he finally gets over himself and finds that eldritch ability to say two
coherent words.
I like the last line. Max is an old fashioned imperialist who made a home with the GOP when
that seemed the most likely place for people of his views. Once Trump talked about walking
that back, he quit.
Something always missing from articles like this, is the context. Max Boot is a Zionist. That
is WHY he wants to destroy Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, ... anyone perceived as a threat to
Israel. He has not been a failure but a success, or at least a partial success, as indeed we
have destroyed Iraq, and Libya, and nearly destroyed Syria. You think he should be ashamed of
his failures. Of course he is not, because he has not failed.
That war mongering piece of filth should be loaded aboard a C 130 and sent on a one-way
flight to Ukraine, his original lair, where, parachute, bandolier, and all, he can be
jettisoned over Kiev.
As far as I can tell, neither Alfred Rosenberg nor Julius Striecher never fired a shot during
World War II, neither so much as harmed a single hair on the head of an "Untermensch",
combatant or not.
Both, however propagandized incessantly for aggressive war and genocide. Both men hanged
at Nuremberg, for crimes against peace, aggressive war, and crimes against humanity. (I think
Streicher only hanged for crimes against humanity, but the sentence was the same.)
In a group of brain dead walking/talking ziocon mouth pieces, max boot stands out as one of
most brain dead-does not have an original thought in his head.
While this is a Russian site with specific audience, comments show that people reject the USA policy which might creates problems
for the USA in the future. Not the USA neoliberal/neocon elite cares.
This decisions just had shown to the whole would that Trump is a clown capable of twitting, not much more. Other people make key
decisions for the county.
The deep state that controls the US are lying criminal psychopaths. Any agreements and treaties negotiated with them aren't
worth the time or paper they are written on.
all.putin wants world peace but the Americans whats to tell everyone what to do and start wars what.they.sould buid a wall.around
america stop them getting out
le"> We can certainly expect Poland and Romania to be targeted with Nuclear munitions at the very least. There will likely
be an official Russian announcement of this fact as well. In the event of a breakout of hostilities with Nato then Russia will
target the military infrastructure in both countries and vaporise them immediately. Unfortunately a very large number of Polish
and Romanian civilians will be caught in the blasts. That will be tragic of course.
I live in the Netherlands and I am on the side of Russia. Europe is disgusting for not condemning the USA intentions. Eu will
regret it. When bombs fall on Europe because of these incompetent leaders we will not forget.
icle"> The Western public MUST, MUST become very familiar pronto with the few intellectuals, scholars, journalists, writers
and authors who have been at the forefront for global peace and world justice for decades! It's our only hope! Right now the only
sane voice on the national stage is Tulsi Gabbard. People must start reading: John Pilger, James Petras, Diana Johnstone, Stephen
Lendman, Ray McGovern, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek, Michael Parenti, Stephen Cohen, The Saker, Caitlin Johnstone, Paul Craig
Roberts.
USA a decadent nation run by global mafia . Cannot trust what they say , is proven by their actions Sold their soul to the
devil for money and power. Yet they will fail God is in charge!
e"> The double standard in the West is breathtaking. It's as simple as the Golden Rule: merely try to imagine the reaction
in New York, London, Washington, Paris, Chicago, Boston if Russia or China were to do the exact same thing in southern Canada
or the Caribbean. The Washington military empire builders could possibly destroy humanity with their reckless and imperial behavior.
They simply cannot accept any sovereign nation-states that 1.) give the finger to Wall Street or the idea of the uni-polar world
Washington's intent on establishing, or 2.) gives diplomatic support to the Palestinians or is even a mild thorn in the side of
Israel. For further reading, see the following scholars, intellectuals, journalists and writers: James Petras, Diana Johnstone,
John Pilger, Stephen Lendman, Michael Parenti, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek and a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.
e"> Under Trump the USA are rapidly steering towards an open dictatorship, something they've been doing for years but more
covertly. The USA have always been shouting the loudest about democracy and freedom but that's just a façade while they bully
the world and their own people into submission. The curtain is falling faster and faster now. Oh, and ask the American Natives
what the Americans do with treaties...
The US does not want friendship with Russia, it seeks to either control it or destroy it. Since the first option isn't going
to happen, it's obvious what's next and it'll start with more sanctions, expanding NATO into Georgia and Ukraine and placing nuclear
missiles on Russia's Eastern and Western border.
"comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> All it takes, is 1 single warhead fired from ex. Poland to reach Moscow. How many
launchers do USA have placed in these countries near Russia? Is Moscow more than 500 KM away from any NATO border? If the enemy
sets up catapults outside your city walls, isn't that a clear sign the enemy intend to fire those catapults against your walls?
So what do you do? Do you sit and wait? Or do you take out the catapults before they break down your walls? As far as any strategist
see this, it can be only one solution for survival.
omment-renderer-text-content expanded"> During FDR's 'Pearl Harbor' speech he said, "It will be recorded that the distance
of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago." There are echoes
of this speech in Putin's words (
02:18 ) and the
type of treachery referred to by Roosevelt applies to the American exit from the INF. America has become a nation holding "a big
stick" and loudly shouting about it (contrary to an earlier Roosevelt's advice). The White House acknowledged (and the NYT reported)
that we are involved in seven wars right now (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger). We have 38 "named" foreign
military bases as well as upwards of 600 overseas military installations of some sort including "lily pads," i.e., "cooperative
security locations" and an undisclosed number of "black" locations. Our military budget is pushing towards a trillion dollars
per year ($717 billion this year). We are threatening small countries such as Venezuela with military action (and yes, something
needs to be done for the good of the people there but that should not include an American military attack which President Trump,
our Secretary of State ("and his colleague") have said is "on the table." And now, we are dumping nuclear weapons treaties. We
have truly become a country which "lives by the sword." Good luck to us all.
Okay , so this is a broadcast of the President of Russia speaking to his security council right , this is official researched
factual intel ....has to be on that level ...right . Now to the few negative responses I have come across ,what intel do you have
and where did you get it...
Instead of addressing and trying to ameliorate this most dangerous development, let's instead focus on Trump's idiotic and
diversionary comments and tweets about buying Greenland or some such other nonsense.
"... Throughout, the militias reportedly have committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses. " ..."
Been reading an interesting report from
Brown University's Watson Institute about "the CIA army and [it's] threat to human rights
and an obstacle to peace in Afghanistan."
"Afghan paramilitary forces working with the United States Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) have long been a staple in the US war on terrorism in Afghanistan and the
border region with Pakistan. The problems associated with these militias take on new
significance given the recent momentum in talks between the US government and the
Taliban about the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. Whose interests do the
militias represent? How can they be integrated into a peace agreement – if at all?
Will
their use value for the US in future counterterrorist operations outweigh the case for
closing them down in the service of human rights and a sustainable peace?
The
militias
are at least nominally controlled by their CIA paymaster, but to what extent will the
operations of the CIA be monitored and streamlined with overall US policy towards
Afghanistan?
The CIA-supported militias are a particularly troublesome version of the
regionally based militias in Afghanistan that have developed over the years around
local
strongmen with external support. The present units originate in the 2001 invasion,
when US military forces and the CIA organized Afghan militias to fight Islamist
militants.
Almost two decades later, the CIA is still running local militias in operations against
the
Taliban and other Islamist militants.
Throughout, the militias reportedly have
committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of
civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There
is
virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human
rights
abuses. "
[My emphasis]
Appears making peace with Afghanistan will be as elusive as any of the other American
regime's various 'wars' and invasions.
"Afghanistan seems doomed to suffer from factionalism long after all NATO/CIA forces are
removed as the longstanding goal for the Outlaw US Empire is to deter Eurasian unity, which
is why Afghanistan was invaded in the first place."
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 23:32 utc | 58
I would say it is more about the drugs and minerals.
During the 1980s, the CIA's secret war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan helped
transform the Afghani-Pakistani borderlands into a launchpad for the global heroin trade. "In
the tribal area," the US state department reported in 1986, "there is no police force. There
are no courts. There is no taxation. No weapon is illegal Hashish and opium are often on
display."
By then, the process of guerrilla mobilisation to fight the Soviet occupation was
long under way. Instead of forming its own coalition of resistance leaders, the CIA had
relied on Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and its Afghan
clients, who soon became key players in the burgeoning cross-border opium traffic.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan
Ahmed Wali Karzai was a drug trafficker on the CIA payroll who happens to be the half
brother of Hamid Karzai the US puppet to lead Afghanistan
The fact that Afghanistan sits on lucrative natural resources was recognized indirectly back
in 2010 when the Afghan ministry of mines rolled out a $1b (!) estimate of what the country
might have, and The New York Times quoted a source in the US Administration as saying that
Afghanistan's list of reserves included copper, gold, cobalt, and even lithium on which the
present-day industry is heavily dependent. A Pentagon memo actually described Afghanistan's
potential lithium holdings as big enough to make it the "Saudi Arabia of lithium". Somehow,
the news flew below the radars of most watchers worldwide.
Afghanistan war was more about TAPI pipeline and securing a friendly government to sign
the contracts and then protect UNOCAL´s investment throughout. Also,ENRON at the time
had their eyes on this and had bet the farm on it before they folded, among other reasons.
That´s why as soon as the Taliban fell out of favor for one reason or another, Hamid
Kharzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, UNOCAL agents were placed in charge of the country.
It didn't come to be of course, since the Taliban had other ideas. This was also ensured
with a little help from friends in Russia and China. The article below is from 2002 but sheds
a lot of light on the actual events of the day.
Now the focus has shifted to stopping BRI. But US empire will never lose sight of their
original investment, nor the reserves in Caspian.
I agree to a degree that US will continue with their divide and conquer policies long
after they pull out. However, if the Taliban who will eventually rule the country can be
shown a different way of life by China and Russia which would lead to new roads, hospitals,
schools and normal farming as oppose to death an destruction, opium and Tribalism, we might
actually see a major change in Afghanistan.
Too optimistic? Perhaps, but the air is ripe.
TAPI might eventually be built, but not for UNOCAL. Have no doubt the Chinese will offer a
much sweeter deal all around.
The problem with Trump is that everything in him is second rate. Even bulling. and many americans were aware of that and
voted for him just because that thought that Hillary was worse. Much worse.
And Daniel
Larison is correct: when Trump faces strong backlash he just declare the partner in negotiation "terrible" and walks out and try
to justify his defeat ex post facto.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation. ..."
"... The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender. ..."
"... he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up. ..."
"... "Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas." ..."
"... The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price. ..."
"... "Trump has always been a lousy negotiator." ..."
"... But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself. ..."
Michael Hirsh
reminds us
that Trump has always been a lousy negotiator:
Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer who interviewed him many times, agrees with Lapidus that there is no discernible difference
in the way Trump negotiates today, as president, compared to his career in business. "His style involves a hostile attitude and
a bullying method designed to wring every possible concession out of the other side while maximizing his own gain," D'Antonio
said. "As he explained to me, he's not interested in 'win-win' deals, only in 'I win' outcomes. When I asked if he ever left anything
on the table as a sign of goodwill so that he might do business with the same party in the future he said no, and pointed out
that there are many people in the world he can work with, one at a time."
As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work
because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation.
The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them.
He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something.
Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of
them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender.
He seems particularly obsessed with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) because the trade-off inherent in any agreement
made with Iran was that they would regain access to frozen assets, and he ignorantly equates this with "giving" them money. The fact
that the JCPOA heavily favored the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 doesn't interest Trump. Iran was allowed to come away with something
at the end, and even the little bit they were able to get is far too much for him. This is one reason he has been so closely aligned
with Iran hawks over the last four years, and it helps explain why he endorses absurd, unrealistic demands and "maximum pressure"
of collective punishment. He is doing more or less the same thing he has always done, and he is so clueless about international relations
and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing
or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up.
Here is another relevant point from the article:
"Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He
doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so
personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied
and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas."
The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when
he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price.
Pulling off that "greatest trick" was amazing easy, actually: all Trump and his creatures had to do was go on the assumption that
most Americans will readily believe what they see on television. Especially when it jibes with their prejudices.
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of
them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been
any good at it."
While I agree with pretty much all of the article, let us not forget that a majority of Americans was not, in fact, fooled.
Americans are certainly paying a price Benjamin Franklin warned about. But as for other countries, theirs is due strictly to their
own doing, for relying excessively on the goodwill of America and turning a blind-eye to our imperialism. Quite frankly, up to
now, US allies have been enablers.
Add to that, " When someone hits me, I hit them back ten times harder."
This is not what we teach our children. It is a miserable way to live, or to run a country. No wonder the President is longer
referred to as "the leader of the free world." He gave up that title. These are sad days.
Yes, he is utterly incompetent on his main selling point, his supposed skill at negotiating. It is very inconvenient having Trump
as our standard-bearer.
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he
has never been any good at it."
Actually, the people who voted for Trump and who support him now love him for being a bully. That's what they want. They want
a Tony Soprano as their president, a guy who will go out and beat up all the people they hate. They don't want "negotiation".
They want a guy who has a baseball bat and knows how to use it. What's "interesting" is that despite all of Trump's appeals to
violence, and his willingness to support violence (for example, Saudi Arabia), he largely shrinks from it himself. We've seen
far fewer Tomahawks than one might have expected, particularly considering the great press he received the first time around.
Will we continue to be lucky? I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic.
Halper has links to the CIA and MI6. He also served in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan
administrations.
Halper met with Carter Page, a volunteer adviser to the Trump campaign, at a Cambridge
symposium held on July 11 and 12, 2016. Page had just returned from a trip to Russia a few days
prior and said he remained in contact with Halper for a number of months after that.
Page's trip became the core subject of the Steele dossier -- a collection of unsubstantiated
claims about Trump-Russia collusion put together by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele that
was paid for by Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National
Committee. The dossier was used by the FBI as the core evidence to obtain from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court a warrant to spy on Page several weeks before the presidential
election
On Sept. 2, 2016, Halper also contacted George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide,
and offered $3,000 and a paid trip to London to write a paper about a gas field in the
Mediterranean Sea. Papadopoulos accepted the offer and flew to London, where he met Halper and
his assistant.
On Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, 2016, Halper also met with Trump campaign co-Chairman Sam Clovis in
Northern Virginia and offered help to the Trump campaign with foreign policy, The Washington
Post
reported .
Halper's concern about Lokhova is portrayed as feigned in her complaint, since he seemed to
have shown no concern for about two years after the 2014 Flynn meeting, only showing concern
after Flynn started to aid Trump.
In fact, Halper appears himself to be rather close to Russian intelligence, having invited
Vladimir Trubnikov, former director of Russian intelligence, to teach at CIS at least twice --
in 2012 and in 2015 -- according to the complaint. Trubnikov obliged him both times.
Between 2012 and 2017, Halper was
paid more than a $1 million by the Office of Net Assessment, a strategy think tank that
falls directly under the U.S. secretary of defense.
Adam Lovinger, an analyst at the think tank, raised alarm about the contracts to Halper,
but was punished for it , according to his lawyer.
Flynn
Flynn was one of the most consequential post-9/11 intelligence officials in the world.
"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person
as his energy and skill at harnessing the Intelligence Community into a focused effort was
literally historic," wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's 2007 performance
review.
At the time, Flynn headed intelligence at the Joint Special Operations Command.
Mulholland, himself a former special forces officer, called Flynn "easily the best
intelligence professional of any service serving today."
In 2014, however, he was forced into retirement over disagreements with the Obama
administration.
More than a year ago, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to two FBI agents about conversations
with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place when former President Barack Obama
imposed additional sanctions on Russia in December 2016.
He also pleaded guilty to lying about asking Russia to vote against or delay the vote on a
U.N. Security Council resolution.
Finally, he pleaded guilty to lying about his foreign lobbying disclosures regarding the
extent to which his work benefiting the Turkish government was overseen by that government.
Foreign lobbying paperwork violations are seldom prosecuted. Flynn said the work started in
August 2016; he shut down his lobbying firm in November 2016.
Flynn has extensively cooperated with government prosecutors
on multiple investigations and further cooperation will give him yet more grounds to ask
for a lenient sentence. Even before the delay, the prosecutors were asking for a lenient
sentence, including no prison time, while the defense wanted no more than a year of probation
and community service.
Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn appears to have put the team of former special counsel Robert Mueller on the
defensive, unraveling what had been suggested to be a possible unofficial deal with the
prosecutors.
Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty in 2017 to
one count of lying to the FBI. The Mueller team recommended a light sentence for him, including
no prison time, officially because of his contrition for the crime and extensive cooperation
with multiple Justice Department investigations.
But it appears that another, unofficial, deal may have been in place.
Several weeks before Flynn signed his plea,
NBC News reported , based on unnamed sources, that the Mueller team was trying to get
Flynn's cooperation by threatening to indict his son, Michael Flynn Jr.
"If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son it
could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences," the article
stated.
This isn't how an official plea deal would work, according to former FBI agent and Epoch
Times contributor Marc Ruskin.
"It would be done with a wink and a nod," he said in a previous phone interview, later
adding that "it wouldn't be binding, but it would be like an understanding."
It's not clear whether any such deal was reached and if so, what specifically it entailed.
But Flynn's case involves a number of peculiarities that suggest something was going on behind
the scenes.
'Star Witness' Strzok
Flynn's statement of offense attached to his plea acknowledges that he lied to the FBI
during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.
However, the FBI agent that wrote the report from the interview was Peter Strzok, who was
later kicked off the Mueller team after the revelation of his animus toward Trump in texts
then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Strzok was later
fired from the bureau, while Page left on her own.
"Michael Flynn would have faced no legal jeopardy at all if he just wouldn't have pleaded
guilty because they would have never gotten a conviction with Peter Strzok as their star
witness," Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who sits on the House Judiciary Committee,
told Fox News on Dec. 4.
Lobbying Forms
Flynn's statement also included an admission that the forms submitted by lawyers for his
now-defunct lobbying company, Flynn Intel Group (FIG), contained false and misleading
statements.
Flynn was never charged with lying on the forms and neither was his son, who also worked for
the firm.
The Mueller team simply used Flynn's admission to charge Flynn's former partner in FIG,
Bijan Rafiekian, and Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman and FIG's client, with false
statements on the lobbying forms and for conspiring to act as unregistered lobbyists for
Turkey.
The lobbying involved an op-ed published in The Hill under Flynn's name about Fethullah
Gulen, an Islamic cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania who runs a group that Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed for an attempted 2016 coup.
Flynn was supposed to testify on the case and has asked the court to delay his sentencing
until after that matter is concluded.
Flynn's Move
Last month, however, Flynn made an unexpected move. He fired his lawyers -- the same lawyers
he hired to do the lobbying paperwork for his firm. His new team includes Sidney Powell, a
former federal prosecutor who is a
critic of corruption in the Justice Department in general and of Mueller in particular.
Later that month, the Mueller team asked Flynn to testify that he signed the lobbying forms
knowing about the false statements and intending for them.
He refused , saying he only acknowledged the falsities with hindsight, but wasn't aware of
them at the time.
This angered Brandon Van Grack, one of Mueller's main prosecutors, according to Flynn's
lawyers.
'Retaliation'
Shortly after that, the Mueller team did several things that Powell called a
"retaliation."
They called off Flynn's testimony and tried to put a gag order on him to stop him from
disclosing that fact.
Then they tried to recast him as a co-conspirator in the lobbying case, despite earlier
telling the court multiple times that he wasn't one.
They also had an FBI agent directly call and question Flynn Jr. "despite knowing that he was
represented by counsel," Flynn's lawyers said in a court filing. "The Agent persisted in trying
to speak with him even after he said to call his attorney."
Then, on July 11, they designated Flynn Jr. as a
witness in the lobbying case, though he wasn't on the original witness list from the day
before (
pdf ).
No Deal?
If Flynn is indeed being punished for reneging on the "wink and a nod" deal, the Mueller
team seems to have the short end of the stick now because, officially, there is no deal.
The judge in the lobbying case made it clear that the government has yet to prove there was
a conspiracy to begin with, not to mention that Flynn was a co-conspirator. Meanwhile, Powell
told the judge in the Flynn case that the severity of his sentence shouldn't be affected
because he's still cooperating with the government -- he simply clarified that what the Mueller
team wanted him to say went beyond what he'd previously acknowledged and wasn't true.
If there was a deal, the Mueller team has by and large already delivered on its side of it.
Whatever leverage it had over Flynn now appears about spent. Does Van Grack still have a card
or two to play? And if so, does he really want to tip his hand?
New Questions
On July 12, the Mueller team handed a statement to Rafiekian's
lawyers saying that the government has "multiple independent pieces of information relating
to the Turkish government's efforts to influence United States policy on Turkey and Fethullah
Gulen, including information relating to communications, interactions, and a relationship
between Ekim Alptekin and Michael Flynn because of Michael Flynn's relationship with an ongoing
presidential campaign without any reference to [Rafiekian] or FIG."
Rafiekian's lawyers seized on the statement, arguing that Flynn was
"secretly acting on behalf of Turkey."
But they also acknowledged that they haven't seen any such evidence.
Powell seemed unimpressed.
"We have no idea what the government is talking about. It smacks of desperation," she said in a
statement , highlighting that during Trump's presidential campaign "countless people"
reached out to Flynn, who was an adviser to Trump.
"Whatever it is, it cannot be new information to the prosecution, and it was only a few
months ago prosecutors recommended probation for him," Powell said. "As we have said in our
recent filings, this can only be retaliation for his refusal to answer a question the way they
wanted."
The Mueller team's claim raises more questions: How did it get this information? How long
have they been sitting on it and why? If Alptekin reached out to Flynn on behalf of Turkey
explicitly because Flynn advised Trump, why haven't we heard about it by now? Did Turkey reach
out to the Clinton camp too? After all, it was Clinton who was widely expected to replace
President Barack Obama, who already had an amicable relationship with Erdogan.
In fact, just days before Rafiekian and Alptekin engaged in talks about the Gulen job in
July 2016, Obama called Erdogan "to deliver what a senior administration official described as
a 'shout-out' for his resilience in the face of a failed coup attempt, and to express relief
that the Turkish president and his family were safe," The
New York Times reported .
Turkey was trying to make the Obama administration extradite Gulen, but why it would try to
get help specifically from Flynn, who was known to be at odds with the Obama administration,
remains unclear.
If the Obama administration, however, somehow learned that Flynn's firm, unregistered to
boot, was working for Alptekin, who is known to have ties to Erdogan, it would have given it a
perfect pretext to target Flynn for FISA surveillance as an "agent of a foreign power."
While it has been speculated that the FBI took out a FISA warrant on Flynn to spy on the
Trump campaign, that hasn't been confirmed.
Update: The article has been updated to reflect that Michael Flynn continues to cooperate
with prosecutors.
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survey
shows that most Americans don't want war with Iran. Only 18% of all American adults favor
military action against Iran, and even among Republicans that number is just 25%. 78% favor
economic and diplomatic efforts. That's fine as far as it goes, and it shows that there is very
little support for a new war at this time. The framing of the question is the bigger problem
and makes the results from the poll much less useful.
The poll asks, "What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its
nuclear program -- take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic
efforts?" The question assumes that it is within our government's power to "get Iran to shut
down its nuclear program," when the experience of the last twenty years tells us that it is
not. The nuclear negotiations that produced the JCPOA show beyond any doubt that there are
limits to what Iran is willing to concede on this point. It is good that most Americans prefer
non-military options to pursue this fantastical goal, but the assumption that Iran will one day
"shut down" its nuclear program is completely unrealistic. On the contrary, the more pressure
that the U.S. puts on Iran in an attempt to force such a shutdown, the more inclined Iran's
government is to build up its program.
If Iran's nuclear program remains peaceful, there is no need for them to shut it down. The
long-term goal of the JCPOA has been to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all parties that
Iran's nuclear program is and will remain peaceful, and then at that point Iran will be treated
like any other member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The U.S. doesn't need to do
anything to "get" Iran to do this because the goal of shutting down the program is a foolish
and impossible one. Perceiving Iran's possession of a peaceful nuclear program as a problem to
be solved is one of the reasons why our debate over Iran policy is so warped and biased in
favor of coercive measures. The idea that Iran has to "shut down" a program that it is legally
entitled to have under the NPT is bizarre, but it is obviously a common view here in the
U.S.
The question is misleading in another way, since it suggests that military action could be
effective in forcing Iran to "shut down" the program. In reality, attacking Iran's nuclear
facilities would at most set back the program, but it would give the Iranian government a
strong incentive to develop and build a deterrent that would discourage the U.S. from launching
more attacks in the future. Attacking a country when it doesn't have nuclear weapons is a good
way to encourage them to acquire those weapons as quickly as possible.
That makes the results to the follow-up question all the more dispiriting. The poll also
asks, "Suppose U.S. economic and diplomatic efforts do not work. If that happens, do you think
the United States should -- or should not -- take military action against Iran?" Once again,
the question assumes that getting Iran to "shut down" its nuclear program is both a legitimate
and realistic goal. If non-military measures "do not work," there is additional support for
military action from a depressing 42% of those who initially favored "economic and diplomatic
efforts." Put them together with the initial supporters of military action, and you have a
narrow majority of all American adults that thinks the U.S. should take military action:
The 42% of those who favor military action if nonmilitary efforts fail translates to 35%
of all U.S. adults. Combining that group with the 18% who favor military action outright
means a slim majority of Americans, 53%, would support military action against Iran if
diplomatic and economic efforts are unsuccessful.
There is a disturbingly high level of support for launching an illegal attack on another
country for something it is legally permitted to have. The assumption that "economic and
diplomatic efforts" will be "unsuccessful" if they don't force Iran to abandon its nuclear
program helps to push respondents to give that answer, but they wouldn't endorse a military
option if they hadn't been led to think that Iran's nuclear program is an intolerable danger.
That is partly because of the bad framing of the questions, but it is also a product of decades
of relentless propagandizing about a supposed threat from Iran's nuclear program that is
completely divorced from reality. We need better poll questions on this subject, but we also
need better, more informed debate about Iran and we have to stamp out the threat inflation that
poisons and distorts the public's perceptions of threats from other states.
all neocon scum instantly had risen to the surface to defend the neoliberal empire and its wars...
Notable quotes:
"... In the race to determine who will serve as commander in chief of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization, night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates saw less than six minutes dedicated to discussing U.S. military policy during the 180-minute event. ..."
"... That's six, as in the number before seven. Not 60. Not 16. Six. From the moment Jake Tapper said "I want to turn to foreign policy" to the moment Don Lemon interrupted Rep. Tulsi Gabbard just as she was preparing to correctly explain how President Donald Trump is supporting Al-Qaeda in Idlib , approximately five minutes and 50 seconds had elapsed. The questions then turned toward the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and impeachment proceedings. ..."
"... But the near-absence of foreign policy discussion didn't stop the Hawaii lawmaker from getting in some unauthorized truth-telling anyway. Attacking the authoritarian prosecutorial record of Sen. Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana;" "blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to do so;" "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California;" and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way." ..."
"... That was all it took. Harris's press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets about Gabbard being an "Assad apologist," which were followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend despite being the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. ..."
"... "Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere to be found," tweeted journalist Michael Tracey. ..."
"... It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into mainstream consciousness all at the same time. ..."
"... The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin went on a frantic, lie-filled Twitter storm as soon as he saw an opportunity, claiming with no evidence whatsoever that Gabbard lied when she said she met with Assad for purposes of diplomacy and that she "helped Assad whitewash a mass atrocity," and falsely claiming that " she praised Russian bombing of Syrian civilians ." ..."
"... War is the glue that holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects of the status quo when it comes to healthcare or education, but war as a strategy for maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the motions for show; the real rebels forcefully oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects. ..."
"... The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging, because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention, the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal, ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing oppression, the first step is punching a hole in the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable. ..."
"... Her immediate response to the first question directed to her, regardless of topic, should be prefaced with something like "I would appreciate the media and the opposition please refrain from deliberately misrepresenting my policies and remarks, most notably trying to tar me with more of the fallacious war propaganda they both dispense so freely and without any foundation. ..."
"... Gabbard has any chance to be elected only if she starts vigorously throwing over the tables of the money-lenders in the temple, so to speak. ..."
"... Hide the empire in plain sight, that way no one will notice it. Then someone like Tulsi Gabbard goes and talks about it on national TV. Can't have that, can we? People might begin to see it if we do that ..."
"... Pro war democrats are now using the Russian ruse to go after anti war candidates like Gabbard. It's despicable to even insinuate Gabbard is working for Putin or had any other rationale for going to Syria than seeking peace. This alone proved Harris unfit for the presidency. Her awful record speaks for itself. ..."
"... And she has courage. She quit the DNC to support Bernie and went to Syria to seek the truth and peace. ..."
"... She is unique. The media is trying Ron-Paul-Type-Blackout on her, lest the public catches on to the fact that she is exactly what the country needs. ..."
"... Warmonger candidates had better reconsider their positions if they believe that voters will back their stance. Just ask Hillary Clinton how that worked out for her and her warrior mentality in 2016. ..."
"... she has cross over appeal with republicans who want out of the wars. People like Tucker Carson and Paul Craig Roberts support her. Thats why the DNC hate her.. ..."
"... There's an obvious effort to Jane Fodarize Tulsi before she threatens the favorites. She seems to keep a cool head, so much of it is likely to backfire and bring the narrative back where it belongs. ..."
"... In contrast to Gabbard, a service member with extensive middle east combat experience, Cooper is a chickenhawk and a naif to murder and torture; ..."
"... "Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control is doing the real work." ..."
"... I read "narrative control" as brainwashing. ..."
Establishment narrative managers distracted attention from a notable antiwar contender, seizing instead the chance to marshal
an old smear against her, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
In the race to determine who will serve as commander in chief of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization,
night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates saw less than six minutes dedicated to discussing U.S. military policy during
the 180-minute event.
That's six, as in the number before seven. Not 60. Not 16. Six. From
the moment Jake Tapper said "I want to turn to foreign policy"
to the moment Don Lemon interrupted Rep. Tulsi Gabbard just as
she was preparing to correctly explain how President Donald Trump
is supporting Al-Qaeda in
Idlib , approximately five minutes and
50 seconds had elapsed. The questions then turned toward the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and impeachment
proceedings.
Night one of the CNN debates saw almost twice as much time, with
a whole 11 minutes by my count dedicated to questions of war and peace for the leadership of the most warlike nation on the planet.
This discrepancy could very well be due to the fact that night two was the slot allotted to Gabbard, whose campaign largely revolves
around the platform of ending U.S. warmongering.
CNN is a virulent establishment propaganda firm with an extensive history of promoting
lies and
brazen psyops in facilitation of U.S. imperialism, so it would make sense that they would try to avoid a subject which would
inevitably lead to unauthorized truth-telling on the matter.
But the near-absence of foreign policy discussion didn't stop the Hawaii lawmaker from getting in some unauthorized truth-telling
anyway. Attacking the authoritarian prosecutorial record
of Sen. Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in
jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana;" "blocked evidence that
would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to do so;" "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences
to use them as cheap labor for the state of California;" and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people
in the worst kind of way."
Harris Folded Under Pressure
Harris, who it turns out
fights very well
when advancing but folds under pressure, had no answer for Gabbard's attack, preferring to focus on attacking former Vice President
Joe Biden instead.
Later, when she was a nice safe distance out of Gabbard's earshot, she uncorked a
long-debunked but still effective smear that establishment narrative managers have been dying for an excuse to run wild with.
"This, coming from someone who has been an apologist for an individual, Assad, who has murdered the people of his country
like cockroaches," Harris
told Anderson
Cooper after the debate, referring to the president of Syria. "She who has embraced and been an apologist for him in a way
that she refuses to call him a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously and so I'm prepared to
move on."
That was all it took. Harris's press secretary Ian Sams unleashed
a string of tweets about Gabbard being
an "Assad apologist," which were followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter,
at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend despite being
the
top-searched candidate on Google after the debate.
"Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere
to be found," tweeted journalist Michael
Tracey.
It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into mainstream consciousness all at the
same time.
The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin went on a
frantic, lie-filled Twitter storm as
soon as he saw an opportunity, claiming
with no evidence whatsoever that Gabbard lied when she said she met with Assad for purposes of diplomacy and that she "helped Assad
whitewash a mass atrocity," and falsely claiming that "
she praised Russian bombing of Syrian civilians
."
... ... ...
War is
the glue that
holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects of the status quo when it comes to healthcare
or education, but war as a strategy for maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference
between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the motions for show; the real rebels forcefully
oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects.
The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging, because it means she's forcing them
to fight back. In a media environment where the war propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream
attention, the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things for our future. If our society
is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal, ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and
soul-crushing oppression, the first step is punching a hole in
the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control is doing the real work.
I'm going to venture a guess and say that the media fixers for the Deep State's political song and dance show are not going
to allow Tulsi back on that stage for the next installation of "Killer Klowns on Parade." Just as she had the right to skewer
Harris for her sweeping dishonesty and hypocrisy in public office, she has just as much right to proactively respond to the smears
and slanders directed against her by both the party establishment and its media colluders.
Her immediate response to the first question directed to her, regardless of topic, should be prefaced with something like
"I would appreciate the media and the opposition please refrain from deliberately misrepresenting my policies and remarks, most
notably trying to tar me with more of the fallacious war propaganda they both dispense so freely and without any foundation.
It is beneath all dignity to attempt to win elections with lies and deceptions, just as it is to use them as pretexts for wars
of choice that bring no benefit to either America or the countries being attacked. As I've repeatedly made clear, I only want
to stop the wasteful destruction and carnage, but you deceitfully try to imply that I'm aligned with one of the several foreign
governments that our leaders have needlessly and foolishly chosen to make war upon. You've done so on this stage and you've continued
this misrepresentation throughout the American media. Please stop it. Play fair. Confine your remarks only to the truth."
That would raise a kerfuffle, but one that is distinctly called for. Going gently towards exit stage right consequent to their
unanswered lies will accomplish nothing. If the Dems choose to excommunicate her for such effrontery, she should run as a Green,
or an independent. This is a danger the Dem power structure dare not allow to happen. They don't even want the particulars of
the actual history of these wars discussed in public. Thus, they will not even give her the chance to offer a rejoinder such as
I outlined above. They will simply rule that she does not qualify for any further debates based on her polling numbers (which
can be faked) and/or her financial support numbers. That is nominally how they've already decided to winnow down the field to
the few who are acceptable to the Deep State–preferably Harris, Biden or Booker. Someone high profile but owned entirely by the
insider elites. Yes, this rules out Bernie and maybe even Warren unless she secretly signed a blood pact with Wall Street to walk
away from her platform if elected.
Gabbard has any chance to be elected only if she starts vigorously throwing over the tables of the money-lenders in the
temple, so to speak.
Tom Kath , August 2, 2019 at 20:05
There is a big difference between "PRINCIPLES" and "POLICY". Principles should never change, but policy must. This is where
I believe Tulsi can not only make a big difference, but ultimately even win. – Not this time around perhaps, she is young and
this difference will take time to reveal itself.
Hide the empire in plain sight, that way no one will notice it. Then someone like Tulsi Gabbard goes and talks about it
on national TV. Can't have that, can we? People might begin to see it if we do that
What is happening to Tulsi (the extraordinary spate of lies about her relationship with Assad coming from all directions) provides
a good explanation why Bernie and Elizabeth have been smart not to make many comments about foreign policy.
The few Bernie has made indicate to me that he is sympathetic to the Palestinian problem, but smart enough to keep quiet on
the subject until, God willing, he is in a position to actually do something about it. It will be interesting to see if debate
questions force them to be more forthcoming about their opinions.
Pro war democrats are now using the Russian ruse to go after anti war candidates like Gabbard. It's despicable to even
insinuate Gabbard is working for Putin or had any other rationale for going to Syria than seeking peace. This alone proved Harris
unfit for the presidency. Her awful record speaks for itself.
Tulsi is the most original and interesting candidate to come along in many years. She's authentic, something not true of most
of that pack.
And not true of most of the House and Senate with their oh-so-predictable statements on most matters and all those crinkly-faced
servants of plutocracy. She has courage too, a rare quality in Washington where, indeed, cowards often do well. Witness Trump,
Biden, Clinton, Bush, Johnson, et al.
If there's ever going to be any change in a that huge country which has become a force for darkness and fear in much of the
world, it's going to come from the likes of Tulsi. But I'm not holding my breath. It's clear from many signals, the establishment
very much dislikes her. So, the odds are, they'll make sure she doesn't win.
Still, I admire a valiant try. Just as I admire honesty, something almost unheard of in Washington, but she has it, in spades.
Warmonger candidates had better reconsider their positions if they believe that voters will back their stance. Just ask
Hillary Clinton how that worked out for her and her warrior mentality in 2016.
Robert , August 2, 2019 at 14:49
Tulsi is the most promising candidate to successfully run against Trump for 2 reasons. 1. She has a sane, knowledgeable foreign/military
policy promoting peace and non-intervention. 2) She understands the disastrous consequences of the WTO and "free" trade deals
on the US economy. No other Democratic candidate has these 2 policies. Unfortunately, these policies are so dangerous to the real
rulers of the world, her message is already being shut down and distorted.
And she has cross over appeal with republicans who want out of the wars. People like Tucker Carson and Paul Craig Roberts
support her. Thats why the DNC hate her..
Skip Scott , August 2, 2019 at 14:05
I read this article over on Medium this morning. Thanks for re-printing it here. I made the following comment there as well.
I was a somewhat enthusiastic supporter of Tulsi until just recently when she voted for the anti-BDS resolution. I guess "speaking
truth to power" has its limits. What I fear is that the war machine will manipulate her if she ever gets elected. Once you accept
any of the Empire's propaganda narrative, it is a slippery slope to being fully co-opted. Tulsi has said she is a "hawk" when
it comes to fighting terrorists. All the MIC would have to do is another false flag operation, blame it on the "terrorists", and
tell Tulsi it's time to get tough. Just as they manipulated the neo-liberals with the R2P line of bullshit, and Trump with the
"evil Assad gasses his own people" bullshit, Tulsi could be brought to heel as well.
I will probably continue to send small donations to Tulsi just to keep her on the debate stage. But I've taken off the rose
colored glasses.
Well said, Caitlin! There's an obvious effort to Jane Fodarize Tulsi before she threatens the favorites. She seems to keep
a cool head, so much of it is likely to backfire and bring the narrative back where it belongs.
P. Michael Garber , August 2, 2019 at 13:42
Great article! Anderson Cooper in his post-debate interview with Gabbard appeared to be demanding a loyalty oath from her:
"Will you say the words 'Bashar Assad is a murderer and torturer'?" In contrast to Gabbard, a service member with extensive
middle east combat experience, Cooper is a chickenhawk and a naif to murder and torture; in that context his attack was inappropriate
and disrespectful, and as he kept pressing it I thought he appeared unhinged. Gabbard could have done more to call out Cooper's
craven attack (personally I think she could have decked him and been well within her rights), but she handled it with her customary
grace and poise.
hetro , August 2, 2019 at 13:09
Seems to me Caitlin is right on, and her final statement is worth emphasizing: "Whoever controls the narrative controls
the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control is doing the real work."
I read "narrative control" as brainwashing.
Note also that Caitlin is careful to qualify she does not fully agree with Gabbard, in context with year after year of demonizing
Assad amidst the murk of US supported type militants, emphasis on barrel bombs, etc etc, all in the "controlling the narrative/propaganda"
sphere.
Another interesting piece to consider on the smearing of Gabbard:
"... The current neoliberal order failed to suppress China development enough to block her from becoming the competitor (and the second largest economy.) ..."
"... That's why a faction of the USA elite decided to adopt "might makes right" policies (essentially piracy instead of international law) in a hope that it will prolong the life of the US-centered neoliberal empire. ..."
"... As much as Trump proved to be inapt politician and personally and morally despicable individual (just his known behavior toward Melania tells a lot about him; we do not need possible Epstein revelations for that) he does represent a faction of the US elite what wants this change. ..."
"... All his pro working class and pro lower middle class rhetoric was a bluff -- he is representative of faction of the US elite that is hell bent on maintaining the imperial superiority achieved after the collapse of the USSR, whatever it takes. At the expense of common people as Pentagon budget can attest. ..."
"... That also explains the appointment of Bolton and Pompeo. That are birds of the feather, not some maniacs (although they are ;-) accidentally brought into Trump administration via major donors pressure. ..."
"... In this sense Russiagate was not only a color revolution launched to depose Trump by neoliberal wing of Democratic Party and rogue, Obama-installed elements within intelligence agencies (Brennan, Comey, McCabe, etc.) , but also part of the struggle between the faction of the US elite that wants "muscular" policy of preservation of the empire (Trump supporters faction so to speak) and the faction that still wants to kick the can down the road via "classic neoliberalism" path (Clinton supporters faction so to speak.) ..."
It is not about the strategy. It's about the agony. The agony of the US centered global
neoliberal empire.
Trump and forces behind him realized that current set of treaties does not favor the
preservation of the empire and allows new powerful players to emerge despite all
institutionalized looting via World Bank and IMF and the imposition of Washington Consensus.
The main danger here are Germany (and EU in general) and, especially, China.
The current neoliberal order failed to suppress China development enough to block her from
becoming the competitor (and the second largest economy.)
That's why a faction of the USA elite decided to adopt "might makes right" policies
(essentially piracy instead of international law) in a hope that it will prolong the life of
the US-centered neoliberal empire.
As much as Trump proved to be inapt politician and personally and morally despicable
individual (just his known behavior toward Melania tells a lot about him; we do not need
possible Epstein revelations for that) he does represent a faction of the US elite what wants
this change.
All his pro working class and pro lower middle class rhetoric was a bluff -- he is
representative of faction of the US elite that is hell bent on maintaining the imperial
superiority achieved after the collapse of the USSR, whatever it takes. At the expense of
common people as Pentagon budget can attest.
That also explains the appointment of Bolton and Pompeo. That are birds of the feather, not
some maniacs (although they are ;-) accidentally brought into Trump administration via major
donors pressure.
In this sense Russiagate was not only a color revolution launched to depose Trump by
neoliberal wing of Democratic Party and rogue, Obama-installed elements within intelligence
agencies (Brennan, Comey, McCabe, etc.) , but also part of the struggle between the faction of
the US elite that wants "muscular" policy of preservation of the empire (Trump supporters
faction so to speak) and the faction that still wants to kick the can down the road via
"classic neoliberalism" path (Clinton supporters faction so to speak.)
While the USA run the show, EU was complicit in this war.
Notable quotes:
"... The American Conservative, ..."
"... In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts ..."
"... Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites." ..."
"... a Council of Europe investigative report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation. ..."
In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes
killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could
pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo were
slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million
Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."
In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton
empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and
sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts .
Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared
in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful
killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and
Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities,
and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."
The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied
by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo
have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country where clan ties run
deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy
high posts in the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice
President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as
"the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative
report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.
Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because
politicians and pundits portrayed that war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent
presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over evil. Honest
assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.
"... I see these actions as ... attempt to keep US hegemony for longer. ..."
"... Further US sanctions on Russia. Russian gdp growth is very low now, forecasts are about mere 1,2 % per anum, and thus Russia's share of world GDP is declining. ..."
"... Overall situation - the US share in the world economy is declining at slower rates than before, mainly due to the retarding of growth of everyone else, which means defacto slowing down multipolarity and the replacement of the US dollar. ..."
"... Take into account one more point: Trump personally can be a clinic idiot on the run form an asylum, it would not change much. Trump is a talking head for some movement, some semi-visible alliance, that managed to enthrone him against 1% election fraud, using pervasive MSM smear campaign and so forth. ..."
"... I think Trump, but not, let's say, Obama, fits well into an attempt by the most hawkish and revanchist elements in the US to destroy globalization and create a world of the jungle, where they estimate the US will have better chances. ..."
"... ok, I think I get it. So what Arioch and others are saying is that the U.S. empire uses the head choppers like attack dogs to do the dirty work and has some kind of indigenous recruiting stream that feeds the 'down and outs' from areas like western China, Chechnia, Arabia, Africa, Europe, America, etc, into a ragtag 'army'. ..."
> Same thing with China trade war - it was Trump who demanded more tariffs
This part fits well into "isolationist' bill actually.
This part can be interpreted as "controlled demolition of US foreign trade" - racing against
uncontrollable catastrophic demolition by sudden USD collapse.
So you are of the view that Trump is part of attempt to create a controlled demolition of
the US Empire?
I do not agree with that. I see these actions as a Cold War and attempt to keep US
hegemony for longer.
Interestingly enough, China overtaking the US in gdp MER has been postponed after the
start of the trade war. The 2016 forecasts were about 2024, and the latest are about 2032.
Developing countries growth is being downgraded as well.
This fits well into the view that the US is trying to sabotage the global economy and
particularly developing countries in order to slow down emerging multipolarity.
> I see these actions as ... attempt to keep US hegemony for longer.
Good. So then show me a list of Team Trump actions in foreign policy, since he got
enthroned, that enhanced US position as "world leader".
As for me, i do not see a single one.
And i do not buy "coincidence theory" that Trump tried to win all the encounters but lost
them all, with 100% efficiency, because he is a fool surrounded by idiots.
Would it be so, then by shear probability they would win at least something at least
sometimes. So, i seem Trump playing his idiocy card for the sake of plausible deniability.
Basically, if to employ the anthropic principle, what else can Trump do where he is (and
especially where he was in 2016) to do his dismantling and kept his office, freedom and
life?
It is possible that Trump tries to ruin US' standing in the world, to break some alliances,
and to piss off enough people that the US wouldn't be asked to help or intervene here and
there (though he'd be delusional or hypocritical not to realize that, often, the US likes to
be asked to meddle in other countries' business). That might be a way to ensure the US is far
more isolationist, and therefore goes further into self-reliance.
In which either he doesn't
see or doesn't care that it also means that a multi-polar world will come faster, because
other powers will take over the room left by the US. We'd be back to a system of spheres of
influence, more than a superpower acting as the world's hegemon.
Of course, that's trying to make sense of what might either be Trump not having a clue, or
having totally different plans.
Good. So then show me a list of Team Trump actions in foreign policy, since he got enthroned,
that enhanced US position as "world leader".
Posted by: Arioch | Aug 20 2019 12:51 utc | 76
Plenty.
Further US sanctions on Russia. Russian gdp growth is very low now, forecasts are about
mere 1,2 % per anum, and thus Russia's share of world GDP is declining.
China postponed for overtaking the US in gdp MER to 2032 from 2024.
Indian growth downgraded - which taken together with China means slowing down Asia's
rise.
Iran in recession - long term growth is low - it means that Iran's share of the world
economy is now declining. This will lower iranian influence in the long term.
Venezueala in deep recession - sanctions reduced gdp by 7 %, thus a serious weakening of
the influence of this country is to follow.
In Latin America most governments are now US puppet governments.
Weakened the EU, via support for Brexit and other ways - it means that the euro will not
be a viable alternative for replacing the dollar, and it is permanently threatened by italian
economic collapse. Trade wars seem to be hitting EU's export dependent economy pretty
hard.
Turkey has serious economic problems - partly due to the US again - which again means
slowing down multipolarity as turkish growth is now low. Empowering the kurds is further used
to stop the rise of Turkey as a regional power.
Overall situation - the US share in the world economy is declining at slower rates than
before, mainly due to the retarding of growth of everyone else, which means defacto slowing
down multipolarity and the replacement of the US dollar.
Take into account one more point: Trump personally can be a clinic idiot on the run form an
asylum, it would not change much.
Trump is a talking head for some movement, some semi-visible alliance, that managed to
enthrone him against 1% election fraud, using pervasive MSM smear campaign and so forth.
Focusing all the processes upon a single person and then glorifying or dehumanizing it is
east to swallow, causes Hollywoodesque thrills and resonates with our animal instincts to see
a biggest ape of the cave as natural leader (whether we would love or hate such a cave chief
is another question). And that is why it is loved by propaganda. Stalin was godlike figure
in USSR. And devil-like figure in the West, before and after WW2. And he was next door "Uncle
Joe" with x-mas candies - during WW2.
Well, d'oh, did USSR as a nation or as ideology changed
that much betweem 1932-1942-1952? Hardly so. Same thing about Syria - there is no such a
land, there is no such a nation, there is only Assad the Dictator, and no one else there.
Etc, etc.
Now in USA it is all about Trump the fascist wannabe, Trump the orange buffoon, Trump this
and Trump that. Like he was the last leaving person left in USA.
I think Trump, but not, let's say, Obama, fits well into an attempt by the most hawkish
and revanchist elements in the US to destroy globalization and create a world of the jungle,
where they estimate the US will have better chances.
ok, I think I get it. So what Arioch and others are saying is that the U.S. empire uses the
head choppers like attack dogs to do the dirty work and has some kind of indigenous
recruiting stream that feeds the 'down and outs' from areas like western China, Chechnia,
Arabia, Africa, Europe, America, etc, into a ragtag 'army'.
>You cite without irony that U.S. is enhancing it's position by hobbling it's erstwhile
trading partners.
Not sure that's a formula for success.
Yes, point is to make others lose more that what you would lose. Thus you keep your
relative power vis a vis others even if everybody is poorer.
As of now, it did have effect - it slowed down the US relative decline in economic terms,
as the US share of the global economy was declining faster in 2010 or 2015 than today.
> Also not sure why this leads you to believe that this has the affect of slowing
transition from dollar.
Transition away from the dollar would have happened faster if the US just sat on its hands
and did nothing, as current slowing growth rates in the developing world economy suggest.
Plus not controlling the EU and Saudi Arabia means game over.
Posted by: anti_republocrat | Aug 20 2019 15:14 utc | 88
>Yes, US elites are successfully causing a slow-down, perhaps even a crash, in the
world economy. What their hubris does not allow them to see is that they're causing the
unification of much of the world against them.
See above
>and also that their weaponry and military might is of poor quality and obsolete. It
can often be defeated by low-tech counter-measures like the unguided drones the Houthis used
to attack Saudi oil infrastructure.
Yes, this is what happens under conditions of globalisation. A partial solution is to try
to stop globalisation, but still this proccess can not be fully stopped.
Posted by: Arioch | Aug 20 2019 14:53 utc | 86
>But as of today (and as it was 10 years ago, and perhaps ever since USSR collapse)
"globalisation" and "USA Hegemony" is the same! Now, of course in theory there can be Russian
hegemony or Chinese hegemony or Islamic hegemony... Maybe there would. But in the world we
live in today, USA Hegemony = globalisation. That is what we inherited form 1990-s.
It is not the same. Globalisation for example means outsourcing, which weakens the US.
Then it means China working in Africa, or the BRI. Many benefit from globalisation, and i
think that China can carry out globalisation on its own even if the US refuses to play. It
also means things such as economic convergence, and knowledge and technology difussion around
the world. Currently, it leads to the rise of the developing world, and the weakening of
relative US power, which means that it is no longer in the US interest. See the current US
attacks against the WTO, etc. It was definitely US led in 1990s, but it is no longer US
driven now.
>Teamp Trump wants to "create a world of the jungle" ? But WHAT is jungle if not
multipolarity? Tiger is challenging wolves, bulls are trumping the tiger, monkeys are
throwing nuts at everyone while cobra and python are eating them monkeys, right?
You can have various types of multipolarity, for example cooperative multipolarity, or
fragmented, walled, conflict ridden multipolarity.
The US would lose most in the first case (think about the rise of the developing world),
and will preserve the most of its power in the second case.
"Slow down its decline as much as possible," yes, but to what end? The only point in slowing
down the US decline, rather than transitioning away from Empire, would be if the US buys
enough time to beggar other economies sufficiently through covert operations(kill the BRI,
kill NS2 and TurkStream, ad nauseum) while keeping its own economy at slightly above
beggaring.
That kind of process, given the fact that much of the world is now lining up in coalitions
against the US, takes time. I have to agree with Orlov here, that it's taken 30 years for the
Empire to drive itself right to the very edge of the cliff, where the least puff of wind can
push it over.
Full Spectrum Domino , Aug 20 2019 17:01 utc |
100
@ 71 & @75
"So you are of the view that Trump is part of attempt to create a controlled demolition of
the US Empire?"
The 'controlled demolition of the US Empire' is an elaborate euphemism for re-nationalism,
I suppose. To unfold in three concentric waves.
Step 1. Trade restructuring - close the NAFTA loophole, redirect production to the NA
Trade bloc (and friendlier reciprocating markets - Laos, Vietnam, India, etc). Closer to
home, Mexico will be a huge beneficiary. Redirected supply lines are no arid macroeconomic
development. They mean the radical bestowal of prosperity in some countries and the
revocation of prosperity in others. I liken the USMCA impending wage increase in Mexico to
Fordism in turn-of-the century America. The $5 a day program minted the US middle class and
averted the central crisis of capitalism, overproduction. Anybody can build factories, staff
them with rural peasantry and create a tsunami of global deflation. Productive capacity's a
cheap trick. What bestows today's prosperity? DEMAND. Trump is asserting the previously
unasserted crown jewel of the global economy: a highly developed demand market that has
long-since traversed the middle income trap, no small feat.
The Eurasian Century will not arrive soon enough to displace US demand, not for the CCP
anyway. Hillary was to cement the terminus of the Managed Decline Arc. Woops. Xi misread
Trump. It may sound trite, but Trump's not a politician. His resume 'moves backwards'. He's
not a political class grifter who's gathering chits in career one to build a global
foundation in career 2. This is the career trajectory the Chinese have been normalized
towards. Their 11th hour adjustments in the first agreement would have been snatched by any
craven US politician and heralded as a victory. Trump defied all expectations by walking
away. There's no doubt this rattled the Chinese. Let's also not forget Trump picked this
fight as he did NAFTA renegotiation. These were settled modes of business in line with
globalist and corporatist agendas. The Eurasian Century (and belated domestic Chinese demand,
the offsetting sponge the world needed in 1999 and should have insisted upon had Clinton not
been bought off to WTO entry. This treachery, in the end, served no one except the political
classes of both nations.) The ferocity of the present China-US struggle is a direct result of
its criminal belatedness. WW3 is a possible outcome. Neither nation was well-served by this
procrastination. (Google the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy).
Step 2. A significant resurgence of US domestic productivity collapses the Triffin Paradox
which mandates structural trade deficits from the reserve currency nation. Main Street
retakes the streets from Wall Street money-changers who were only too happy to abet the trade
deficit (and make the $ the US' preeminent export) by shipping manufacturing overseas (it
wasn't 'their' jobs after all) , hollowing out the soul of the country and creating a nation
of opium-eaters. The US Chamber of Commerce (multinational mouthpiece) detests Trump. This
will ultimately lead to a relinquishing of USD reserve currency status. It was going to
happen anyway under the globalist regime, just more wrenchingly ala the Argentine
Paradox.
Step 3. What is after all the US military's paycheck? The petrodollar. A full spectrum
military answerable to a nationalized currency would hyper-inflate away overnight. The Empire
military footprint is unsustainable with a trade-rebalanced and re-nationalized USD and
absent the infinite flow of defended oil (hence the Oil Standard usurping the Gold Standard
in 1973 - the peak household income year in the US incidentally). So a receding MIC is
implicit in the Trump agenda, though too controversial to trumpet at this early juncture
--back end of term 2 maybe? Natural attrition will be tagged with this outcome. We see Soros
and Koch already joining forces to herald a new era of peace. Strange bedfellows.
In the broadest terms, the Trump theme is a tectonic and hyper-ambitious re-seating of
Main Street as the driver of the American economy. This pits him against every vested
interest on the planet. It's the ultimate counter-cycle to one-worldism and neoliberal
financialization. The globalists were done with America and ready to toss the population to a
fentanyl fog.
I prefer skirting Trump is a moron trope. Suffice to say SOMEBODY assembled the
Navarro-Lighthizer-Ross-Mnuchin trade team - the only nucleus that matters for Step 1 above.
want to sell into this market? There will be a kiosk fee. You want to call that a war? Well,
that sounds a bit histrionic. But maybe it also conveys your fear. Leveraging US demand for
geopolitical and trade advantage after decades of post-WW2 market building in devastated
nations. This policy had overstayed its efficacy from an 'America First' standpoint.
..attempt by the most hawkish and revanchist elements in the US to destroy globalisation and
create a world of the jungle, where they estimate the US will have better chances.
Posted by: Passer by | Aug 20 2019 13:34 utc
Bingo!!!
But as of today (and as it was 10 years ago, and perhaps ever since USSR collapse)
"globalisation" and "USA Hegemony" is the same! Now, of course in theory there can be Russian
hegemony or Chinese hegemony or Islamic hegemony... Maybe there would. But in the world we
live in today, USA Hegemony = globalisation. That is what we inherited form 1990-s.
Teamp Trump wants to "create a world of the jungle" ? But WHAT is jungle if not
multipolarity? Tiger is challenging wolves, bulls are trumping the tiger, monkeys are
throwing nuts at everyone while cobra and python are eating them monkeys, right?
@ Posted by: Passer by | Aug 20 2019 13:15 utc | 78
You cite without irony that U.S. is enhancing it's position by hobbling it's erstwhile
trading partners.
Not sure that's a formula for success.
Also not sure why this leads you to believe that this has the affect of slowing transition
from dollar.
It's one thing to destroy and something more complex to create.
However I don't think that the world will be better-off for Trumps creative destruction.
I don't know if it's harder to believe that such incompetence was all an accident or that
this was his intention.
Yes, US elites are successfully causing a slow-down, perhaps even a crash, in the world
economy. What their hubris does not allow them to see is that they're causing the unification
of much of the world against them, and also that their weaponry and military might is of poor
quality and obsolete. It can often be defeated by low-tech counter-measures like the unguided
drones the Houthis used to attack Saudi oil infrastructure.
Much of US GDP is either the creation of these ineffective military assets, "services"
that merely transfer wealth to the already rich or resource extraction (including the mining
of top soil and other agricultural assets) that pollutes the homeland and must eventually be
cleaned up.
Trump either understands none of this or as Arioch suggests, has no choice in which case
his bosses have no clue. If he or they did, he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. Nobody
wants to go down in history compared to Nero, Caligula or worse still, Honorius.
This is just my 2nd post to MoA. I'm reprinting my first (made just a few minutes ago to the
thread that chronologically preceded this one) as an self-introduction.
"Hi all supporters of the Syrian people and their government / SAA; and/or opponents of US
Imperialism and Zionists & Sauds. I've been a long-time reader / follower of
MoonOfAlabama; but I only just now found this site and thread. Great thanx to MOA and the
many posters contributing to helping us better understand what is happening on the ground in
Syria.
btw, born and raised in the US, I attended my first (of multiple hundreds of)
demonstrations in 1965. It was Pro-Palesitnian, Anti-Zionist. I naively went there to OPPOSE
them; and got 100% convinced of the justice of their cause. That afternoon, a female member
of the Anti-Vietnam-War Movement educated me about the nature of that conflict - US
Imperialism at its worst - and it was the combination of learning about Palestine and Vietnam
that caused me to dedicate every free moment for the rest of my life to contributing to the
struggle for peace and justice.
I than worked 40+ hours a week, 50+ weeks a year, 1965-1975 (20,000+ volunteer hours) to
help end the US Gov slaughter of 2-3 million innocents in Vietnam. And, for the past 54 years
have done all I can to support the Palestinians and oppose Zionism (and its US-billionaire
sponsors).
Kudos to all the great work by so many of you here,
Pablo"
-------
My overall position: THE PROBLEM: vis-a-vis the whole world: Capitalism (since 1550~);
Monopoly-Capitalism (since 1900~); Deathroes-Capitalism (since 2000~). vis-a-vis the US: The
US Gov was never "great"; instead, just the opposite, with 227 out of 243 years (a HUMONGOUS
SAMPLE SIZE) of wars of aggression; and 243 out of 243 years of the American super-rich
getting richer and more powerful (at the expense of the American working and poor; but
especially, at the expense of the workers and poor of the rest of the world.
CORRELARIES: Capitalism has never been reformable. Israel is one of dozens of
100%-dominated US puppet-states (same for Saudi Arabia ...). Israel does not run the US Gov
(the 585 American billionaires do!); and Israel did not do 9/11; the American billionaires
did 9/11 to: As A pretext to: Try to maintain, if not expand, their world-straddling empire
THRU never-ending, ever-expanding: wars, police states and world-wide poverty: AGAINST all
enemies (Chinese-Russian billionaires, other non-American billionaires; competing economies
and militaries; and especially against the ever-more-united non-rich peoples of the world to
liberate themselves.
N.B. I've been a 9/11 Truther since the late afternoon of 9/11 - the ENDLESS REPETITION
(of the "2nd plane crash" and the Twin Tower's demolitions) finally made me remember that
endless repetition is SOP for (US) Imperialism. It's aim is to sell the exact reverse of the
truth (so we don't believe what really was going on) thru mass brainwashing.
I am the original author of the Leaflet:
"End ALL The Wars & Police States, NOW!" (aka: "The 9/11 Truth UNITY Manifesto") -
which can be found at the above-listed URL;
Facebook site: International 9/11 Fraud Awareness Week
"... the Iranian economy is in a free fall with oil exports down as much as 90 percent from mid-2018 levels. As far as Iran is concerned, this means that it's already at war with the United States and has less and less to lose the longer the U.S. embargo goes on. ..."
"... MBS, as he's known, celebrated by launching an air war in neighboring Yemen two months later – and then disappearing on a week-long vacation in the Maldives – and by funneling hundreds of U.S.-made TOWs (anti-tank guided missiles) to Syrian rebels under the command of Al-Nusra, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, for use in an offensive in that country's northwest province of Idlib. ..."
"... For the Saudis, it was a neo-medieval crusade whose goal was to topple two religio-political allies of Iran, the Alawite-dominated government in Damascus and Yemen's Houthis, who adhere to a non-Iranian form of Shi'ism that is no less anathema to the Sunni Wahhabist theocracy in Riyadh. ..."
"... Just two days after the start of the Saudi air assault in Yemen, Obama meanwhile telephoned Salman to assure him of U.S. support. When asked why America would back a war by one of the Middle East's richest countries against the very poorest, another anonymous U.S. official told The New York Times (April 2, 2015): ..."
"... "If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." ..."
"... The Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi aggression. ..."
"... The American empire was possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients. Even while making peace with Iran, Obama thus green-lit Saudi wars that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another 100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, the 2015 nuclear negotiations, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others. ..."
"... Announcing his presidential bid in June 2015, he launched into a typical Trumpian rant against China, Japan, Mexico – and Obama's nuclear talks. "Take a look at the deal he's making with Iran," he said. "He makes that deal, Israel maybe won't exist very long." A month later, he tweeted that the agreement, just inked in Vienna, "poses a direct national security threat." Two months after that, he told a Tea Party rally in Washington: ..."
"... Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all. Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran , Trump did an about-face. In May 2017, he flew to Riyadh, announced an unprecedented $110-billion arms deal, and proclaimed himself the kingdom's newest BFF – best friend forever. ..."
"... He echoed the Saudis by accusing Iran of funding "terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region" and backed a Saudi blockade of neighboring Qatar. When ISIS launched a bloody assault on central Tehran in early June that killed 12 people and injured 42, the only White House response was to declare that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." ..."
"... It was Democrats who, in a typical attempt to outflank Trump on the right, introduced legislation in June 2017 by forcing him to impose penalties on Russia, North Korea, and Iran as well. But after repudiating the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018, Trump upped sanctions even more in November – not only against the Iranian government but against some 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels. After Iran shot down a $130-million U.S. surveillance drone last month, Trump imposed sanctions on "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his office, and his closest associates. Two weeks ago, he imposed penalties on Mohammad Javad Zarif , Iran's U.S.-educated foreign minister. ..."
"... It was a gesture of contempt for the very idea of diplomacy. So what happens next? The problem is that re-starting negotiations would not be enough. Instead, Iran has demanded that the U.S. remove all sanctions and apologize before agreeing to a new round of talks. Since this would be tantamount to re-authorizing the JCPOA, it's unlikely in the extreme. While Trump is known for changing his mind in a flash, a course correction of this magnitude is hard to imagine. ..."
"... The pro-Israel Lobby owns both Republican and Democrat Russiagate enthusiasts and is the source of near hysterical demands for opposition with Iran. ..."
"... But in June 1914, clearly there were multiple political and military leaders in Europe for whom war was far from inconceivable. War was simply a question of timing and so it would be better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war inevitable", declared senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in 1912. "The sooner the better". ..."
"... such blatant and reprehensible behavior carries risks for everyone but mostly the targets of our barbaric behavior seems never to enter the President, his neocon handlers' and his rabid supporters' minds. ..."
"... "If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." That is unmitigated nonsense. Why not be honest. We don't want to stop it. ..."
"... To "stop it", Uncle Sam would have to first cease being a part of it. The bombing of Yemen came courtesy of U.S. mid-air refueling efforts, targeting "intelligence", and "made in America" weaponry. The blockade (starvation) of Yemen is also a duel accompaniment. It's supposed to look like a Saudi "thing", but in actuality, it's just more Uncle Sam doing his thing. Obama called it "leading from behind". ..."
T raffic accidents normally take just a second or two. But the coming collision in the
Persian Gulf, the equivalent of a hundred-vehicle pile-up on a fog-bound interstate , has been in the
works for years. Much of it is President Donald Trump's fault, but not all. His contribution
has been to take an insane policy and make it even crazier.
The situation is explosive for two reasons. First, the Iranian economy is in a free fall with oil exports down
as much as 90 percent from mid-2018 levels. As far as Iran is concerned, this means that it's
already at war with the United States and has less and less to lose the longer the U.S. embargo
goes on.
Second, after Trump denounced the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord from the moment he began his
presidential run , it's all but impossible at this point for him to back down. The result
is a classic collision between the immovable and the unstoppable with no apparent way out.
How did the world bring itself to the brink of war? The answer, ironically, is by bidding
for peace.
The process began in early 2015 just as the nuclear talks were entering their final stages.
Despite last-minute
hand-wringing , it was clear that success was in sight simply because the participants
– China, France, Russia, Germany, Britain, the European Union, Iran and the U.S. –
all wanted it.
Saudi Proxy War
But other regional players felt differently, Saudi Arabia first and foremost. The kingdom's
survival strategy depends on its special relationship with America, its patron since the 1940s.
Hence, it was panic-stricken by anything smacking of a U.S. rapprochement with its
long-standing arch-enemy Iran. The upshot was a proxy war in which the Saudis set out to roll
back Iranian power by striking out at pro-Iranian forces.
The offensive began after a new Saudi monarch ascended the throne in January 2015. King
Salman, a doddering 79-year-old reportedly suffering from
Alzheimer's , immediately handed over the reins to his favorite son, 29-year-old Muhammad
bin Salman, whom he named deputy crown prince and minister of defense. MBS, as he's known,
celebrated by launching an air war in neighboring Yemen two months later – and then
disappearing on a week-long vacation in the Maldives
– and by funneling hundreds of U.S.-made TOWs (anti-tank guided missiles) to Syrian
rebels under the command of Al-Nusra, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, for use in an offensive in
that country's northwest province of Idlib.
For the Saudis, it was a neo-medieval crusade whose goal was to topple two religio-political
allies of Iran, the Alawite-dominated government in Damascus and Yemen's Houthis, who adhere to
a non-Iranian form of Shi'ism that is no less anathema to the Sunni Wahhabist theocracy in
Riyadh.
President Barack Obama went along. With regard to Syria, an unidentified "senior
administration official"
toldTheWashington Post that while the White House was "concerned that Nusra
has taken the lead," all he would say in response to U.S.-made missiles winding up in Al-Qaeda
hands was that it was "not something we would refrain from raising with our partners." (See "
Climbing into Bed with
Al-Qaeda ," May 2, 2015.)
Just two days after the start of the Saudi air assault in Yemen, Obama meanwhile
telephoned Salman to assure him of U.S. support. When asked why America would back a war by
one of the Middle East's richest countries against the very poorest, another anonymous U.S.
official told The New York Times (April 2, 2015):
"If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been
allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were
being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." But plainly the nuclear negotations were key. The Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers
and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say
yes to Saudi aggression.
The upshot has been Saudi wars claiming hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another
100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest
refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, Obama's efforts to
reach a nuclear deal with Iran, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others.
Over-Extended Empire
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama with King Salman bin Abdulaziz at Erga
Palace in Riyadh, Jan. 27, 2015. (White House/Pete Souza/Flickr)
The American empire was possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible
clients. Even while making peace with Iran, Obama thus green-lit Saudi wars that claimed
hundreds of thousands of lives in
Syria and another
100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest
refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, the 2015 nuclear
negotiations, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others.
The results were so devastating in a region torn by war, sectarianism, and economic collapse
that Trump could not possibly make them any worse – except that he did.
Announcing his presidential bid in June 2015, he launched into a typical Trumpian rant
against China, Japan, Mexico – and Obama's nuclear talks. "Take a look at the deal he's
making with Iran," he said. "He makes that deal, Israel maybe won't exist very long." A month
later, he tweeted that the
agreement, just
inked in Vienna, "poses a direct national security threat." Two months after that, he
told a Tea Party
rally in Washington:
"Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as
our deal with Iran . They rip us off, they take our money, they make us look like fools, and
now they're back to being who they really are. They don't want Israel to survive, they will
not let Israel survive, [and] with incompetent leadership like we have right now, Israel will
not survive."
Iran's Landmark Concession
It was all nonsense. Rather than threatening the Jewish state, the treaty represented a
landmark concession on Iran's part, since Israel, with an estimated 80 to 90 nuclear warheads in its
arsenal and enough fissile material for a hundred more, would maintain its nuclear monopoly in
the Middle East indefinitely. As for "our money," the $150 billion in various foreign accounts
were actually Iranian assets that had been frozen for years – a sum, moreover, that was
closer to $56 billion once
Iran settled its foreign debts. Once sanctions were lifted, it was hardly unreasonable that
such assets be restored.
Still there was hope. While railing against Iran, Trump also taunted the Saudis for their
role in 9/11: "Who blew up the World Trade Center?" he told
Fox & Friends. "It wasn't the Iraqis, it was Saudi [Arabia]." He repeatedly assailed the
2003 invasion of Iraq – even if he exaggerated his own role
in opposing it – and criticized Obama for supporting Saudi-backed jihadis seeking to
topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"Assad is bad," he said in an October 2015
interview . "Maybe these people could be worse."
Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all. Under intense pressure from
neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog
Rep. Adam Schiff demanding
stepped-up opposition with Iran , Trump did an about-face. In May 2017, he flew to Riyadh,
announced an unprecedented $110-billion arms deal, and proclaimed himself the kingdom's newest
BFF – best friend forever.
He echoed the Saudis by
accusing Iran of funding "terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread
destruction and chaos across the region" and backed a Saudi blockade of neighboring Qatar. When
ISIS launched a bloody assault on central Tehran in early June that killed 12 people and
injured 42, the only White House response was to declare
that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."
But back in September 2003, some 60,000 Iranian soccer fans had observed a moment of silence
in honor of the victims of the World Trade Center while then-President Mohammad Khatami
declared on nationwide TV:
"My deep sympathy goes out to the American nation, particularly those who have suffered
from the attacks and also the families of the victims. Terrorism is doomed, and the
international community should stem it and take effective measures in a bid to eradicate
it."
Yet all the Trump administration could say was that Iran had it coming.
It was Democrats who, in a typical attempt to outflank Trump on the right, introduced
legislation in June 2017 by forcing him to impose penalties
on Russia, North Korea, and Iran as well. But after repudiating the JCPOA (the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018, Trump upped
sanctions even more in November – not only against the Iranian government but against
some 700
individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels. After Iran shot down a $130-million U.S.
surveillance drone last month, Trump imposed sanctions on "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, his office, and his closest associates. Two weeks ago, he imposed penalties on
Mohammad
Javad Zarif , Iran's U.S.-educated foreign minister.
Crowd at Tea Party rally listening to Donald Trump denounce the Iran Nuclear Agreement,
Sept. 9, 2015. (YouTube)
It was a gesture of contempt for the very idea of diplomacy. So what happens next? The
problem is that re-starting negotiations would not be enough. Instead, Iran has demanded that
the
U.S. remove all sanctions and apologize before agreeing to a new round of talks. Since this
would be tantamount to re-authorizing the JCPOA, it's unlikely in the extreme. While Trump is
known for changing his mind in a flash, a course correction of this magnitude is hard to
imagine.
Thus, the confrontation is set to continue. Iran may respond by seizing more oil tankers or
downing more drones, but the problem is that the U.S. will undoubtedly engage in tit-for-tat
escalation in response until, eventually, some kind of line is crossed.
If so, the consequences are unpredictable. U.S. firepower is overwhelming ,
but Iran is not without
resources of its own , among them anti-ship ballistic missiles, mobile short-range rockets
that can hit naval targets, plus heavily-armed high-speed boats, mini-subs, and even "
ekranoplans ," floating planes designed to skim the waves at
115 miles per hour. Such weaponry could prove highly effective in the 35-mile-wide Strait of
Hormuz. Iran also has allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has an estimated 130,000
missiles and rockets in its own arsenal, Assad's battle-hardened military in Syria, Yemen's
Houthis, and pro-Iranian forces in Shi'ite-majority Iraq.
The upshot could be a war drawing in half a dozen countries or more. A confrontation on that
scale may seem inconceivable. But, then, war seemed inconceivable in the wake of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand's assassination in June 1914.
Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a
wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique and blogs
about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com.
Jeff Davis , August 20, 2019 at 12:42
America is Israel's b*tch.
The American experiment is over. A variety of corporate/neoliberal interests and foreign
interests have hollowed it out, and soon, when every last bit of loot has been extracted, the
dried up husk of the Empire will collapse. There is no saving it because the looters are
still in control. Their control is unbreakable because buying Congress is such a minor and
manageable expense for them, and the Congressmen/women are simply incapable of setting aside
personal interest and personal ambition for the good of the country. Incapable, because if
they ever chose country over their own careers , the "owners" -- ie donors/looters -- would
find someone to replace them. There is no way out until it comes crashing down.
Don Bacon , August 20, 2019 at 11:33
Iran whipped the US in Syria, cementing the 'Shia crescent' from Tehran to Beirut, which
gives Iran the mantle of ME leadership. Washington had to respond to that fact because it
threatens the US and its Carter-Doctrine position as the predominate ME power. So don't blame
Israel.
Zhu , August 20, 2019 at 05:44
You forgot to mention pressure from Religious Right Republicans, eager for the Rapture,
the Return of Jesus, etv., etc. Christism Zionists in short.
Broompilot , August 20, 2019 at 01:19
I find it interesting that there is no mention of Netanyahu appearing before Congress or
the U.N. drawing silly looking pictures of bombs. Or Netanyahu claiming he had jacked some
new documents from Iran proving they had a nuclear weapons program. Or Netanyahu
disrespecting Obama with his appearance in Congress. Or Bibi's landing in L.A. with a
motorcade that screwed up traffic all over town to demonstrate who is really important in
this country. Reading this piece you would think this is 95% about Saudis and has very little
to do with Israel. There is no doubt that the gulf monarchies do not want successful
representative governments breaking out on their borders and giving their citizens ideas, but
I doubt they have anything resembling the Israeli lobbies and their influence operating in
the U.S. with the power to influence Iran policy.
AnneR , August 20, 2019 at 08:23
True, Broompilot. And I too awaited throughout the article for Mr Lazare to discuss the
really existing and marked part that Israel has played and is playing in all of the more
recent destruction in neighboring countries, and that illegitimate state's huge influence on
this country's politics, military actions (in the MENA countries when those actions might
benefit Israel), administration decisions (not to mention the cooperation among US and
Israeli secret services *and* electronic-internet companies which anyway themselves both
derive from the military and remain closely entwined with it).
Most US presidents – and seemingly all US Congresses – since WWII have aided
and abetted Israel and its appalling human rights record which never ends and continues with
impunity. But Trump is perhaps more so than most if only because his daughter, a convert to
Judaism, is married to an ardent Zionist, and buddy-buddy to Netanyahu. Lazare hints at
Trump's pro-Zionism (whatever its basis) but leaves it there.
Marko , August 19, 2019 at 22:50
"Trump's Persian-Gulf Car Crash"
When you view foreign policy as a Demolition Derby competition , as Trump and the neocons
do , this is called "Winning !"
Gregory Herr , August 19, 2019 at 20:44
The war of terrorism waged upon the people of Syria didn't come about because the U.S. was
"possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients", or because
the "Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down
criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi
aggression."
Washington's Long War on Syria (Stephen Gowans) began well before Obama, Yahoo, Erdogan,
and Petraeus set up rat lines of weaponry and training for terrorists in Jordan and Turkey.
The current iteration of "topple thru terror" was in the offing, with or without Saudi
"impetus".
Syria stands in the way of Greater Israel and Wall Street/central bank dominance.
Obama "went along" alright. But it wasn't the Saudis he was "appeasing".
Obama should have normalised relations with Iran and disavowed all the b.s. rhetoric about
them. His "deal" had "made to be broken" written all over it because of his rhetoric. All
done in bad faith with the Path to Persia kept open.
Jeff Harrison , August 19, 2019 at 18:30
The big problem is that the US is convinced that it knows what it's doing when, in fact,
it is clueless. The US also is perpetually optimistic when it has nothing upon which to base
said optimism. It's not as if we've actually defeated anybody in the Middle East. Revoltin'
Bolton may think he's scaring people with aircraft carriers and B52s but you'll notice that
Iran snatched the British tanker and the Iraqi tanker after the US moved it's carrier and
bombers into the Gulf. They also shot down our drone in the same time frame.
We're playing a losing strategy.
Jeff Davis , August 20, 2019 at 12:11
We're playing a losing strategy because America is Israel's bitch.
The American experiment is over. A variety of corporate/neoliberal interests and foreign
interests have hollowed it out, and soon, when every last bit of loot has been extracted, the
dried up husk of the Empire will collapse. There is no saving it because the looters are
still in control. Their control is unbreakable because buying Congress is such a minor and
manageable expense for them, and the Congressmen/women are simply incapable of setting aside
personal interest and personal ambition for the good of the country. Incapable, because if
they ever chose country over their own careers , the "owners" -- ie donors/looters -- would
find someone to replace them. There is no way out until it comes crashing down.
Don Bacon , August 19, 2019 at 18:29
"It was all nonsense. Rather than threatening the Jewish state, the treaty represented a
landmark concession on Iran's part,. . ."
Calling the Obama agreement a treaty is nonsense, rather it was an agreement involving
only the executive branch and not the Senate as required by the Constitution for treaties.
Obama needed an achievement for his presidential library, so he waited until his term was
almost over to do what he could have done, with Brazil and Turkey, in 2010. Therefore Trump
had every right to overturn an agreement made by his hated predecessor, with the knowledge
that the Senate never would have approved it since they are all corrupted.
This is another example (Bush-43 on Iraq withdrawal was another) of what the US has come
to. This so-called "rules-based democracy" has become a stomping ground for the
"commander-in-chief" to display his executive privilege and do any damned thing he takes a
mind to, including war, with nary a peep from the so-called "checks and balance" folks who
are supposed to be looking after US democracy, but aren't.
"Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all."
It never existed.
A clueless Lazare has been repeatedly informed of the fact in the comments of his CN
articles.
Now he's feebly wondering "if".
"Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats
such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran,
Trump did an about-face."
The pro-Israel Lobby owns both Republican and Democrat Russiagate enthusiasts and is the
source of near hysterical demands for opposition with Iran.
Trump has never been under "intense pressure" and has not done "an about-face" because he
has always been avowedly "1000 percent" pro-Israel.
A worse than clueless Lazare has been repeatedly informed of the fact in the comments of
his CN articles.
Lazare apparently finds lots of things "hard to imagine", even "inconceivable".
But in June 1914, clearly there were multiple political and military leaders in Europe for
whom war was far from inconceivable. War was simply a question of timing and so it would be
better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war
inevitable", declared senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in 1912.
"The sooner the better".
Current Israeli leadership holds such a view. The Trump administration foreign policy purchased by the pro-Israel Lobby reflects this
view.
But for the obviously very well informed but perpetually clueless Lazare, it all somehow
remains "inconceivable"
Trump has walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and has
performed numerous other services, including threatening war on Iran, precisely because the
Israelis wanted them done.
Don't confuse Trump's servility to the pro-Israel Lobby for "isolationism".
The arrogant aggression of the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo troika is bought and paid for by
Israel.
Depressing. Having defended Trump because attacks were directed at the President of the
United States, any president, it is hard to support a man whose every move is a political
calculation. That such blatant and reprehensible behavior carries risks for everyone but
mostly the targets of our barbaric behavior seems never to enter the President, his neocon
handlers' and his rabid supporters' minds.
One comment in this depressing article caught my eye.
"If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have
been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they
were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." That is unmitigated nonsense. Why not be honest. We don't want to stop it. The We, of
course, being our decision makers and a too large segment of our brainwashed electorate.
Gregory Herr , August 19, 2019 at 19:52
To "stop it", Uncle Sam would have to first cease being a part of it. The bombing of Yemen
came courtesy of U.S. mid-air refueling efforts, targeting "intelligence", and "made in
America" weaponry. The blockade (starvation) of Yemen is also a duel accompaniment. It's
supposed to look like a Saudi "thing", but in actuality, it's just more Uncle Sam doing his
thing. Obama called it "leading from behind".
Pat lost its touch with reality " Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes
and confrontations with almost too many nations to count." That's what empires do. Why he can't
understand this simple fact?
Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and
envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S.
withdrawal from America's longest war.
U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400
American lives.
Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, "Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and
us, are looking to make a deal -- if possible!"
Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power.
Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was hit by a suicide bomber who,
igniting his vest, massacred 63 people and wounded 200 in one of the greatest atrocities of the
war. ISIS claimed responsibility.
Monday, 10 bombs exploded in restaurants and public squares in the eastern city of
Jalalabad, wounding 66.
Trump is pressing Khalilzad to negotiate drawdowns of U.S. troop levels from the present
14,000, and to bring about a near-term end to U.S. involvement in a war that began after we
overthrew the old Taliban regime for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.
Is it too soon to ask: What have we gained from our longest war? Was all the blood and
treasure invested worth it? And what does the future hold?
If the Taliban could not be defeated by an Afghan army, built up by the U.S. for a decade
and backed by 100,000 U.S. troops in 2010-2011, then are the Taliban likely to give up the
struggle when the U.S. is drawing down the last 14,000 troops and heading home?
The Taliban control more of the country than they have at any time since being overthrown in
2001. And time now seems to be on their side.
Why have they persevered, and prevailed in parts of the country?
Motivated by a fanatic faith, tribalism and nationalism, they have shown a willingness to
die for a cause that seems more compelling to them than what the U.S.-backed Afghan government
has on offer.
They also have the guerrillas' advantage of being able to attack at times and places of
their own choosing, without the government's burden of having to defend towns and cities.
Will these Taliban, who have lost many battles but not the war, retire from the field and
abide by democratic elections once the Americans go home? Why should they?
The probability: When the Americans depart, the war breaks out anew, and the Taliban
ultimately prevail.
And Afghanistan is but one of the clashes and conflicts in which America is engaged.
Severe U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have failed to bring down the Nicholas Maduro regime in
Caracas but have contributed to the immiseration of that people, 10% of whom have left the
country. Trump now says he is considering a quarantine or blockade to force Maduro out.
Eight years after we helped to overthrow Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is still mired in civil
war, with its capital, Tripoli, under siege.
Yemen, among the world's humanitarian disasters, has seen the UAE break with its Saudi
interventionist allies, and secessionists split off southern Yemen from the Houthi-dominated
north. Yet, still, Congress has been unable to force the Trump administration to end all
support of the Saudi war.
Two thousand U.S. troops remain in Syria. The northern unit is deployed between our Syrian
Kurd allies and the Turkish army. In the south, they are positioned to prevent Iran and
Iranian-backed militias from creating a secure land bridge from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus
to Beirut.
In our confrontation with Iran, we have few allies.
The Brits released the Iranian tanker they seized at Gibraltar, which had been carrying oil
to Syria. But when the Americans sought to prevent its departure, a Gibraltar court ruled
against the United States.
Iran presents no clear or present danger to U.S. vital interests, but the Saudis and
Israelis see Iran as a mortal enemy, and want the U.S. military rid them of the menace.
Hong Kong protesters wave American flags and seek U.S. support of their demands for greater
autonomy and freedom in their clash with their Beijing-backed authorities. The Taiwanese want
us to support them and sell them the weapons to maintain their independence. The Philippines
wants us to take their side in the dispute with China over tiny islets in the South China
Sea.
We are still committed to go to war to defend South Korea. And the North has lately
test-fired a series of ballistic missiles, none of which could hit the USA, but all of which
could hit South Korea.
Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes and confrontations with almost
too many nations to count.
In how many of these are U.S. vital interests imperiled? And in how many are we facing
potential wars on behalf of other nations, while they hold our coat and egg us on?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and
Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
"For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and expand
its influence.."
Not necessarily. The US is gambling that it will beat Venezuela. But if it doesn't, if
Venezuela simply outlasts the imperialist sanctions, it will emerge much stronger.
In recent years there has been a drift towards compromise with the US in Venezuela. Chavez
was always very generous towards his opponents and this has continued. As a result the old
Creole ruling class has been relatively undisturbed. It has retained its power over the
media, for example and left in a position to sabotage the economy through its control of
supermarkets, banks and commerce. It has retained its landholdings and maintained its
agribusiness.
And now, in cahoots with the imperialists, it has come out against the government and
chavismo. Its racist, neo fascist propensities and its contempt for its own countrymen and
women- the poor and the working class- have been revealed. While the people are fighting to
defend themselves against imperialism, Guido and the Venezuelan right, the capitalist class
have made their positions very obvious. Given any sort of opportunity they will smash the
social security and food security networks that keep the poor from starvation. They will
privatise- Honduras style- and death squads will roam the working class districts torturing
and killing.
In short the people of Venezuela have been shown exactly what to expect if the US wins. And
the allies of the US have been revealed to be the country's worst enemies: traitors and
Quislings.
In the end, if the US does not replace the Maduro government, it will find itself much
worse off. All its Fifth Columnist friends will be in exile or hiding. All their wealth will
have been distributed to the poor or nationalised.
And the US will have one more sworn and permanent enemy, the people of Venezuela.
"... Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them. ..."
"... The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best." That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history. ..."
"... As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion. ..."
"... Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before." ..."
"... The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans. ..."
"... As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq. ..."
"... Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security." He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous, to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question. ..."
"... The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes? ..."
"... Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war. ..."
Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them.
Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American
military personnel perished in the war. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, toxicologist at the University of Michigan, has organized several
research expeditions to Iraq to measure the contamination and pollution still poisoning the air and water supply from the tons of
munitions dropped during the war. It does not require any expertise to assume what the studies confirm: disease is still widespread
and birth defects are gruesomely common. Back home, it is difficult to measure just how many struggle with critical injuries and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction,
Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best."
That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually
did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history.
As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match
its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion.
Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state
of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before."
The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement
in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans
dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When
they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the
equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans.
As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical
assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played
a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq.
Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security."
He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving
aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous,
to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question.
Far worse than the worship of Mueller is the refusal to scrutinize the abysmal foreign policy record of Joe Biden, currently the
frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Of the Democrats in the Senate at that time, Biden was the most
enthusiastic of the cheerleaders for war, waving his pompoms and cartwheeling in rhythm to Dick Cheney's music. Biden said repeatedly
that America had "no choice but to eliminate the threat" posed by Saddam Hussein. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
his blustering was uniquely influential.
The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked
into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone
who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador
to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should
ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes?
Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism
of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The
moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic
war.
Polling well below Biden in the race is the congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. She alone on the Democratic stage has made
criticism of American militarism central to her candidacy. A veteran of the Iraq war and a highly decorated major in the Hawaii Army
National Guard, Gabbard offers an intelligent and humane perspective on foreign affairs. She's called the regime change philosophy
"disastrous," advocated for negotiation with hostile foreign powers, and backed a reduction in drone strikes. She pledges if she
becomes president to end American involvement in Afghanistan.
When Chris Matthews asked Gabbard about Biden's support for the Iraq war, she said, "It was the wrong vote. People like myself,
who enlisted after 9/11 because of the terrorist attacks, were lied to. We were betrayed."
Her moral clarity is rare in the political fog of the presidential circus. She cautions against accepting the "guise of humanitarian
justification for war," and notes that rarely does the American government bomb and invade a country to actually advance freedom
or protect human rights.
Gabbard's positions are vastly superior to that of the other young veteran in the race, Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South Bend
recently told New York that one of his favorite novels is The Quiet American , saying that its author, Graham Greene,
"points out the dangers of well-intentioned interventions."
Buttigieg's chances of winning the nomination seem low, and his prospects of becoming a literary critic appear even lower.
The Quiet American does much more than raise questions about interventions: it is a merciless condemnation of American exceptionalism
and its attendant indifference to Vietnamese suffering.
Americans hoping for peace won't find much comfort in the current White House either. President Trump has made the world more
dangerous by trashing the Iran nuclear deal, and his appointment of John Bolton, a man who makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma
Gandhi, as national security advisor is certainly alarming.
America's willful ignorance when it comes to the use of its own military exposes the moral bankruptcy at the heart of its political
culture. Even worse, it makes future wars all but inevitable.
If no one can remember a war that ended merely nine years ago, and there's little room for Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic primary,
how will the country react the next time a president, and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declare that they
have no choice but to remove a threat?
Norman Solomon, journalist and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, knows the answer to that question. He provides it
in the title of his book on how the media treats American foreign policy decisions: War Made Easy .
Where ae the people who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Should they be tried for lying to the American public?
4500 troops killed and over $1.1 TRILLION wasted with no good results .With hundreds of thousands of Iraq's killed. .
Where are they, indeed? They are still running US foreign policy; that's where they are. They are pundits in all the major media;
that's where they are.
I cannot even imagine what historians will say about the uncanny persistence of these charlatans' influence in this era after
a consistent record of disastrous, abysmal misadventures.
You don't have to look too hard to find them. Bolton, Pompeo, and other neocons are hiding in plain sight. The Military Industrial
Complex is embedded in our foreign policy like a tick on a dog.
Because you'd be knocking out a storm trooper instead of the emperor, at least as far as Bush goes. Same for why the focus is
on Bolton rather than simply Trump.
I CAN see an argument that Trump/Bush knew what they were doing when they brought those people in though. f you feel that way
and see it more of an owner of a hostile attack dog then yeah, you'd want to include those two too.
Here stands Tulsi. A woman, who, unlike their conventional troupe, can win this election. They reject her because... what? Moar
war? She's not the member of the Cult? Or it's simply some sort of collective political death wish?
They reject her because she had the temerity to speak truth to power and supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 race. She stepped
down from her position as Vice Chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders. She has real courage, and earned their wrath. She's not perfect
but she's braver and stronger than almost the entire field. Only Bernie is on par.
And Bernie is the one they also hate, maybe a little bit less openly. Thus they reject those who can win the election. It's either
a self-destructiveness or they think that it's better to keep on losing than to rebuild the party into what it needs to be.
Democrats and the Republican establishment, both, love war. It wasn't a coincidence that Hillary Clinton chose Madeleine Albright
to be a keynote speaker at "her" party convention ("we think the deaths of a half million children are worth it"). Liberals know
that there isn't really any "free" free, and that taxing the rich won't match their dreams -- it is the blood and bones of innocent
foreigners that must pay for their lust. Establishment Republicans are more straightforward: they simply profit off the death
and destruction.
This is why Trump is being destroyed, and why Tulsi is attacked. If only "she" (the one who gloated over Khameni's murder)
had been elected, we'd be in a proxy war with Russia now! A real war with Iran! This is what the American people want, and what
they'll likely get when they vote another chicken-hawk in come 2020.
Tulsi, like Sanders is a 'danger' to everything Israel wants.
So, all...all the main 'news' networks and online sites don't like them and give more coverage to the same old Dem bull peddlers
like ignorant Booker and the lousy opportunist low IQ Kamala Harris and Gillibrand.
Manafort and his ilk can be tried and convicted for their lies. I guess if the lie is big enough we grant a pass on any need for
prosecution. Justice for all? I don't think so.
Max Blumenthal posted a powerful piece at Consortium News (7/31/2019) about Biden's central and south American mis-adventures.
Biden still extols his own policies however disastrous. The hubris of the man is worse than nauseating.
Whether one thinks Gabbard has a shot at the nomination or not, it's important to keep her on the stage in the next round of debates.
Go to Tulsi2020.com
and give her just one dollar (or more if you can)
so she has enough unique contributors to make the next round. And if you get polled,early on give her your vote.
The total US costs related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to be considerably larger than $1.1 trillion, according
to this study:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu...
Try $4-$6 trillion, according to the author of the study.
Long after I, Andrew Bacevitch and Hillary Clinton have gone to our reward, there will still be thousands of wounded warriors
from these US Middle East adventures dependent on VA benefits for their survival and competing with civilian seniors for government
handouts. A war with Iran would make the US fiscal situation that much worse.
The religious folks who were so anxious to protect family values only a few years ago seem to have their heads in the sand
when it comes to the financial future of today's young Americans.
A few weeks ago, I made a token contribution to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign to help her qualify for the July Democratic debates.
She will need more new contributors to qualify for the next round of debates.
Tulsi hasn't a chance of the nomination, but she's exposing things and maybe more people will get a clue about what's really going
on with American lives and taxes being squandered for the profit of the few who benefit from these atrocities and wars abroad,
done in the name of all Americans.
Being a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard for the very reasons that the author writes, has me agreeing with everything he has promoted
in his piece.
However, to answer his own question as to why Americans are lured into commenting on such innocuous and foolish things in such
an important election such as Biden's touching of women, is answered by the author's own prose.
He states that Americans are only provided such nonsense from the press that is monitoring the election process. What else
can people talk about? And even if many Americans are clearheaded enough to understand the charade of the current Democratic debates,
what or who will actually provide legitimate coverage with the exception of online sites as the American Conservative, among others?
If most Americans were actually thinking individuals, Tulsi Gabbard would be a shoo-in for the presidency in 2020. However,
given the two factors of a highly corrupted mainstream press and too many Americans not studying enough civics to understand what
is going on around them, it is highly unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard will even get close to the possibility of being nominated...
Cheney, mentioned in the article, was pure evil. I voted for GB2 for two reasons. 1) He was a very good Texas governor. He actually
got anti-tax Texas to raise taxes dedicated to support education, in return for stricter standards for teachers. A good trade
since Texas public schools were awful. 2) Dick Cheney. I thought he was the adult in the room that would provide steady and reliable
guidance for Bush.
Boy was I wrong about Cheney. "Deficits don't matter". Just watch the movie Vice. Christian Bale does an incredible job portraying
the pure evil of Cheney and the Military Industrial Complex. The movie is chilling to watch. And it is basically true. Politifact
does a good job of scoring the accuracy of Cheney's role in the Bush administration as portrayed in the movie.
Axios is calling it
President Trump's Venezuela naval blockade "obsession"
based
on accounts of unnamed administration officials: "President Trump has suggested to national
security officials that the U.S. should station
Navy ships along the Venezuelan coastline
to prevent goods from coming in and out of the country
, according to 5 current and former
officials who have either directly heard the president discuss the idea or have been briefed on
Trump's private comments," according to a new
report
.
He's said to have repeatedly raised the idea in private as
a way to finally deliver regime
change in Caracas
, after prior attempts - including a short-lived push for military coup -
failed earlier this year. Supposedly, the plan would be to station US Navy ships along the coast
such that all vessels would be blocked from entering or exiting the South American country.
While Trump has acknowledged to the press in recent weeks that it's "an option" that's being
discussed, his private comments have been more pointed and extensive. Axios quotes one source as
follows: "He literally just said we should get the ships out there and do a naval embargo," the
source described upon hearing the president's comments.
"Prevent anything going in,"
the
official said.
"I'm assuming he's thinking of the Cuban missile crisis," the source said further. Push back
against the president's floating such a blockade have not been centered around the potential
humanitarian disaster by further cutting off the already cash-deprived country as food and energy
are already at crisis shortages.
Instead, the concern voiced focused on the feasibility from a US perspective of taking on such
as massive enterprise as blockading a
coastline that stretches more than 1700 miles
.
"But Cuba is an island and Venezuela is a massive coastline.
And Cuba we
knew what we were trying to prevent from getting in. But here what are we talking about?
It would need massive, massive amounts of resources
; probably more than the U.S. Navy
can provide."
While there's no official blockade in place yet, the US has recently made efforts to block
individual vessels from getting to Venezuela in the context of new oil sanctions by the US
Treasury.
That's a lot of coastline:
Early this summer, Trump appeared to have cooled on pursuing regime change against Nicholas
Maduro; however, his alleged "obsession" means the standoff could become a front and center
national security priority once again.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, President Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton at the NATO
Foreign Ministerial in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
Matt Lee
reports
on the Trump administration obsessive
use of sanctions:
Call it the diplomacy of coercion.
The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing economic sanctions as a primary foreign policy tool to an extent
unseen in decades, or perhaps ever. Many are questioning the results even as officials insist the penalties are
achieving their aims.
It is true that the Trump administration is using economic coercion as its default approach to almost everything, but
there doesn't appear to be any diplomacy involved. There is such a thing as "coercive diplomacy," but there is no
evidence that Trump and his officials understand the first thing about it. An administration that genuinely wanted to
secure lasting diplomatic agreements with other states would apply pressure only as a means to a specific, achievable
goal, but with this administration they are waging purely destructive economic wars that the targeted states cannot end
without capitulating. The "maximum pressure" description implies an unwillingness to relieve pressure short of the other
side's surrender.
It is not just that it is a "combination of more sticks and fewer carrots." The Trump administration's policies are
all punishment and no reward. In the case of Iran, it could hardly be otherwise when the administration chose to
penalize Iran with sanctions for daring to comply with a multilateral nonproliferation agreement. Iran behaved
constructively and acceded to the demands of the P5+1 four years ago, and in return for their cooperation they have been
subjected to a grueling economic war despite fully complying with their commitments. When our government punishes
another state for doing what previous administrations wanted them to do, no amount of punishment could force that state
to trust our government a second time.
The administration approaches each case in the same way: they impose penalties, they make threats, they offer no
incentives, and they make outrageous, far-fetched demands that no government would ever accept. Trump handles the trade
wars in much the same way that he handles the "maximum pressure" campaigns against intransigent governments, and he
fails every time because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement and therefore refuses to compromise.
Trump's "diplomacy" is no diplomacy at all, but a series of insults, sanctions, tariffs, and threats that achieve
nothing except to cause disruption and pain. Unsurprisingly, a pressure campaign that is aimed at toppling a government
or forcing it to give up everything it has cannot be successful on its own terms as long as the targeted government
chooses to resist, and the stakes for the targeted government will always higher than they are for the administration.
In a contest of wills, the party that is fighting to preserve itself has the advantage.
Someday, when everybody in the world hates America, these economic atrocities will come
back to the USA with violence. You can't do these things to people and not expect
retaliation. When people are hungry from sanctions and can't get medicine for their
children, they will fight back. Wouldn't you? But, it won't affect Wash., just innocent
people, like the innocent people abroad suffering from Wash. policy. Americans will reap
what Wash. sows.
Late Justin
Raimondo was an astute analyst of events in Syria... This is his analysys from 2015. It is
still cogent as of August 2019.
Notable quotes:
"... "War on terrorism" turns into cold war against Russia ..."
"... By the way, according to the Pentagon's own testimony before a congressional committee, only sixty "vetted" fighters were sent into Syria to take on both Assad and ISIS. And while they denied, at first, that their pet "moderates" betrayed Washington and handed over most of their weapons and other equipment to al-Qaeda in return for "safe passage," the Pentagon later admitted it . ..."
"... [I]t is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade ..."
"... It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you'll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them. ..."
"... "I'd like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it's a big question: who's playing who here? The recent incident where the most 'moderate' opposition group handed over their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that. ..."
"War on terrorism" turns into cold war against Russia
Posted on August
19, 2019 August 18, 2019In both Yemen and Syria, the War Party has found an
ally that they can get behind, you know, one that really supports our values: al-Qaeda.
From time to time they have even managed to get President Trump to go along with this
nonsense – presumably due to the baleful influence of John Bolton. (See
Ron Paul's recent discussion of recent developments.) It is worth a look back at an
earlier high-points in this strange alliance between the West and al-Qaeda against Russia and
Syria. Justin's column from four years ago (October 2, 2015) analyzes it in depth.
Originally published October 2, 2015
As Russian fighter jets target al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, the Western media is up in arms
– and
in denial . They deny the Russians are taking on ISIS – and they are indignant that
Putin is
targeting al-Qaeda , which is almost never referred to by its actual name, but is instead
described as " al-Nusra ," or the more inclusive "
Army of Conquest
," which are alternate names for the heirs of Osama bin Laden.
And there are no ideological lines being drawn in this information war: both the left and
the right – e.g. the left-liberal Vox and the Fox News
network – are utilizing a map put out by
the neoconservative
"Institute for the Study of War" to "prove" that Putin isn't really attacking ISIS
– he's actually only concerned with destroying the "non-ISIS" rebels and propping up
the faltering regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The premise behind this kind of propaganda is that there really is some difference between
ISIS and the multitude of Islamist groups proliferating like wasps in the region: and that,
furthermore, al-Qaeda is "relatively" moderate when compared to the Islamic State. Yes,
incredibly, the US and British media are pushing the line that the al-Qaeda fighters in
Syria, known as al-Nusra, are really the Good Guys.
Didn't you know that we have always been at war with Eastasia?
There is
much whining , this [Thursday] morning, that a supposedly US-"vetted" group known as
Tajammu al-Aaza has felt Putin's wrath – but when we get down into the weeds, we
discover that this outfit is fighting alongside al-Qaeda:
"Jamil al-Saleh, a defected Syrian army officer who is now the leader of the rebel
group Tajammu al-Aaza,
told AlSouria.net that the Russian airstrikes targeted his group's base in
al-Lataminah, a town in the western Syrian governorate of Hama. That area represents one of
the farthest southern points of the rebel advance from the north and is therefore a crucial
front line in the war. An alliance of Syrian rebel factions, including both the al
Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and groups considered by Washington to be more
moderate, successfully drove Assad regime forces out of the northern governorate of Idlib
and are now pushing south into Hama."
By the way, according to the Pentagon's own testimony
before a congressional committee, only sixty "vetted" fighters were sent into Syria to take
on both Assad and ISIS. And while they denied, at first, that their pet "moderates"
betrayed Washington and
handed over most of their weapons and other equipment to al-Qaeda in return for "safe
passage," the Pentagon later
admitted it . Furthermore, we were told that these were the only "vetted" fighters
actually in the field, but now we are confronted with "Tajammu al-Aaza," which – it's
being reported – is deploying US-supplied missile guidance systems against Syrian
government forces.
So a handful of "vetted" fighters suddenly turns into an entire armed force – one
which, you'll note, has effectively merged with al-Qaeda.
The lies are coming at us so fast and thick in the first 24 hours of the Russian strikes
that we face a veritable blizzard of obfuscation. They range from the egregious –
alleged photos of "civilian casualties" that
turn out to be fake – to the more subtle: a supposed Free Syrian Army commander is
reported killed by a Russian air strike, and yet it appears that very same commander was
kidnapped by ISIS last year . We are told that the town of Rastan, the site of Russian
strikes, isn't under the control of ISIS – except it was when
ISIS was executing gay men there .
The Russians make no bones about their support of Assad: in his speech to the United
Nations, Putin stated his position clearly: "We think it's a big mistake to refuse to
cooperate with the Syrian authorities and government forces who valiantly fight terrorists on
the ground." On the other hand, the objectives of the Western alliance in Syria aren't so
clear: on the one hand, Washington claims to be directing the main blow against ISIS, but its
claims of success have been
greatly exaggerated . Yet we have spent many millions arming and training "vetted" rebels
who have been defecting to ISIS and al-Qaeda in droves.
It's almost as if we're keeping ISIS around so as to put pressure on Assad to get out of
Dodge. As Putin put it in his UN speech :
" [I]t is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of
terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support
terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms
trade .
" It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve
your political goals, hoping that later you'll find a way to get rid of them or somehow
eliminate them.
"I'd like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with
are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it's a big question: who's
playing who here? The recent incident where the most 'moderate' opposition group handed over
their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that. "
The reality is that there are no "moderates" in Syria, and certainly not among the rebel
Islamist groups: they're all jihadists who want to impose Sharia law, drive out Christians,
Alawites, and other minority groups, and set up an Islamic dictatorship. These are our noble
"allies" – the very same people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
September 11, 2001, and against whom our perpetual "war on terrorism" was launched.
It was the World's largest war at that time and surpassed WW II in many statistics, although
probably not "tonnage of bombs dropped". That latter was WW II, not surpassed until the Gulf
War when USAF used up all it's old arsenal (the better to let more contracts, my dear).
To be fair, military aviation was in its infancy then. The slaughter on the Western front broke
England's Social Structure and paved the way for the destruction of the British Empire. Four
other empire's died as a consequence of WW I (German, Austrian, Russian, and Turkish)
Note: "Kaiser" derives from "Caesar" which was an Imperial title of the late Roman Empire
besides being Gaius Julius Caesar's family name). Promises made to both Arabs and Jews by the
two-faced British Foreign Office paved the way for today's Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
It was a shattering event which tend to occur at 100 year intervals. The one previous was the
Napoleonic Wars. I forget the one before that. War of the Spanish succession? And
coincidentally, we are now living a hundred years later in the Middle east Forever war, which I
fully expect to have similar consequences. The rights and civil liberties of free Americans are
already a casualty.
The Great War set the stage for the Great Depression. I think a similar depression occurred
after the War of 1812 (Napoleonic War in Europe). I'd have to consult a history text to see
about others, but our 1970's economic travails were mirrored after the Civil war and the dot
com bust is eerily similar to the Depression of 1890.
There is a theory that wars and revolutions occur at two cycles of approximately 100 and 170
years based on temperature and rainfall cycles. Every 500 years they coincide in a 5-3
resonance and whole civilizations fall or are transformed. Toynbee's 1000 year cycles can be
seen as two such resonances. Following his analysis, the first crisis turns the civilization
inwards and autocratic. The second breaks it entirely. Religions change too. I forget how. My
Toynbee is packed away. does anyone here know what were the religious changes? Interestingly,
the next 500 year supercycle fell in 2000 AD, so we are now in the first major crisis of
Western Technical Civilization? (my name for the Renaissance and beyond, usually prosaically
called "Modern"). this should turn WTC inward and autocratic, eventually dying in the next
event around 2500 AD which should entire the collapse of civilization and a great
folk-wandering sparked by environmental collapse. (loss of Eurasian pasture in the case of
500AD, turning steppe peoples westward (China was having a civilization peak, no way were the
Huns turning east. In fact, they were expelled from China.
A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his dog Fala are seen at the FDR Memorial September 20, 2012 in Washington,
DC.
KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
Along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt is often hailed as one of the United States'
greatest presidents. FDR gave Americans hope during the Great Depression, created key institutions like Social Security
that remain broadly popular today, led the country to victory in World War II, and created a broad political coalition
that endured for decades. He made mistakes -- as all presidents do -- but it's no wonder he's still regarded with reverence.
On Aug. 14, 1936 -- 83 years ago -- FDR gave a
speech
at
Chautauqua in upstate New York, fulfilling a promise he had made at his inauguration in 1933. It is a remarkable speech,
where FDR lays out his thoughts on the proper American approach to international affairs. He explains his "good
neighbor" policy toward Latin America, along with his belief that although a more liberal international trade may not
prevent war, "without a more liberal international trade, war is a natural sequence."
For me, the most remarkable feature of this speech is Roosevelt's blunt, vivid, and passionate denunciation of war,
expressed with a candor that is almost entirely absent from political discourse today. After making it clear that "we
are not isolationists, except insofar as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war," he acknowledges that "so
long as war exists on Earth, there will be some danger that even the nation which most ardently desires peace may be
drawn into war."
But then he goes on:
"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men
coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping,
exhausted men come out of line -- the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen
children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."
Roosevelt then reminds his listeners that war can result from many causes (including, in a passage that surely speaks
to us today, "political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds"). He hopes to preserve U.S. neutrality should
conflict erupt elsewhere and warns against the few selfish men who would seek to embroil the country in war solely to
reap war profits. To make sure the country does not foolishly choose profits over peace, he calls for the "meditation,
the prayer, and the positive support of the people of America who go along with us in seeking peace."
Yet, for all that, FDR leaves no doubt that the American people will defend themselves and their interests if war is
forced on them. In his closing paragraph, he declares: "If there are remoter nations that wish us not good but ill, they
know that we are strong; they know that we can and will defend ourselves and defend our neighborhood." And it is
precisely what Roosevelt ultimately did.
Seriously, can you think of a recent U.S. president who spoke of war and peace in similar terms, with equal passion
and frankness?
Bill Clinton was no militarist, but he was so worried about being labeled a dove that he kept boosting defense
spending, firing off cruise missiles without thinking, and blindly assuming that exporting democracy, expanding trade,
and issuing open-ended security guarantees would suffice to bring peace around the world. And when he had a golden
opportunity to broker a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, he whiffed.
By contrast, George W. Bush was a swaggering frat boy who brought wars to several places and peace nowhere. He liked
to pose in a
nifty flight suit
and give
high-minded, tough-talking speeches, but the unnecessary wars he launched killed hundreds of thousands of people and
severely damaged America's global position.
Barack Obama may have agonized over every targeted killing and major military decision, but he also ramped up the
drone war, sent additional troops to Afghanistan to no good purpose, helped turn Libya into a failed state, and tacitly
backed the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (!), his acceptance speech focused as
much on defending America's role in the world -- including its widespread use of military force -- as it did on extolling the
virtues of peace and the measures that must be taken to advance it.
Ironically, though Donald Trump loves military parades, flybys, and the other visible trappings of military power, he
seems rather leery of war. Like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought and received
five separate deferments
from the draft during Vietnam, Trump (or his father) apparently saw military service as
something that
only less
fortunate people
ought to participate in. As president, he does seem to recognize that starting some new war could
hurt him politically, even as his
more hawkish
advisors
keep pushing him in that direction. And we've yet to hear him extolling the virtues of peace as candidly as
Roosevelt did in 1936.
Look, you don't have to tell a realist like me that we live in an imperfect world and that perpetual peace is a pipe
dream. But the difficulty of the task is precisely why it merits serious attention. Yet instead of embracing peace as a
virtue, U.S. politicians go to great lengths to show how tough they are and how ready they are to send Americans into
harm's way in order to take out some alleged enemy. But how often do they talk about trying to understand the complex
origins of most contemporary conflicts? How often do they try to empathize with the United States' adversaries, not in
order to agree with them but so as to understand their position and to figure out a way to change their behavior without
resorting to threats, coercion, or violence? How often do prominent politicians say, as Roosevelt did, that they "hate
war"?
As I've
said before
, the U.S. disinterest in peace isn't just morally dubious; it's strategically myopic.
The United States should not shrink from fighting if such fighting is forced on it, but it should be the country's
last resort rather than its first impulse. The United States is remarkably secure from most external dangers, and apart
from political malfeasance at home (see: the Trump administration), the only thing that could really screw things up in
the short term is a big war. War is bad for business (unless you're Boeing or Lockheed Martin), and it tends to elevate
people who are good at manipulating violence but not so good at building up institutions, communities, or companies.
When you're already on top of the world, encouraging the use of force isn't prudent; it's dumb. Peace, in short, is
almost always in America's strategic interest.
Which makes it even more surprising that the word has mostly vanished from Americans' strategic vocabulary, and here
I think two big factors are responsible. First, fewer politicians (and especially presidents) have "seen war" in the way
that Roosevelt had. Harry Truman did, and so did Dwight D. Eisenhower (obviously), John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon,
Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Needless to say, none of the post-Cold War presidents ever saw war in
the same way.
Equally important, both the political class and the public have been imbibing an intoxicating brew of militarist
rhetoric, imagery, and argument for decades. Americans cheer the troops at baseball games, wave giddily at thunderous
aerial flybys, and finance all of their military adventures by borrowing money so that no one has to make obvious
sacrifices now.
In Roosevelt's era, Americans were still reluctant to "go abroad in search of monsters to destroy," but they fought
with unexpected ferocity when attacked. They were slow to anger but united in response. The situation today is the exact
opposite -- they are quick on the trigger provided that none of them have to do very much once the bullets are flying.
Instead of seeing war as a tragic necessity that is to be avoided if at all possible, Americans regard it as a rather
sanitary "policy option" that takes place in countries most of them cannot locate and is conducted primarily by drones,
aircraft, and volunteers. Americans fight all the time but without clear purpose or firm resolve. As one would expect,
they usually lose, although others often
pay a much larger price
than
they do.
There are faint signs that this situation is changing, after nearly 25 years of mostly failed adventures abroad. The
foreign-policy elite
may have acquired a certain
addiction to war
, but longtime addicts
sometimes decide to turn their lives around and kick the habit. As noted above, Trump hasn't started any new wars yet,
and his various Democratic challengers aren't pushing for more war either. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi
Gabbard have pretty fair (
but
not perfect
) records on this broad issue, and each has been vocal in opposing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in
Yemen. Pete Buttigieg wants the United States to rely less on military force in some places (but not others), Kamala
Harris has been mostly silent on the issue, and the other leading candidates have more mixed records. Don't forget that
Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War, and both Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar lean in more hawkish directions.
I'm waiting for one of them to start talking openly and intelligently about peace. What is needed to promote it, and
how can the United States use its still considerable power to keep itself out of war and to help others escape its
destructive clutches? If any of the 2020 candidates decide to tackle this issue head-on, they might start by reading
what a great president once said, 83 years ago.
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It's pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and,
notes Bruce Riedel, "the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners". Saudi proxies in Aden
– the seat of Riyadh's Yemeni proto-'government' – have been turfed out by secular,
former Marxist, southern secessionists. What can Saudi Arabia do? It cannot go forward. Even
tougher would be retreat. Saudi will have to contend with an Houthi war being waged
inside the kingdom's south; and a second – quite different – war in Yemen's
south. MbS is stuck. The Houthi military leadership are on a roll , and
disinterested – for now – in a political settlement. They wish to accumulate more
'cards'. The UAE, which armed and trained the southern secessionists has opted out. MbS is
alone, 'carrying the can'. It will be messy.
So, what is the meaning in this? It is that MbS cannot 'deliver' what
Trump and Kushner needed, and demanded from him: He cannot any more deliver the Gulf 'world'
for their grand projects – let alone garner together the collective Sunni 'world' to
enlist in a confrontation with Iran, or for hustling the Palestinians into abject
subordination, posing as 'solution'.
What happened? It seems that MbZ must have bought into the Mossad 'line' that Iran was a
'doddle'. Under pressure of global sanctions, Iran would quickly crumble, and would beg for
negotiations with Trump. And that the resultant, punishing treaty would see the dismantling of
all of Iran's troublesome allies around the region. The Gulf thus would be free to continue
shaping a Middle East free from democracy, reformers and (those detested) Islamists.
What made the UAE – eulogised in the US as tough 'little Sparta' – back off? It
was not just that the Emirs saw that the Yemen war was unwinnable. That was so; but more
significantly, it dawned on them that Iran was going to be no 'doddle'. But rather, the US
attempt to strangulate the Iranian economy risked escalating beyond sanctions war, into
military confrontation. And in that eventuality, the UAE would be devastated. Iran warned
explicitly that a drone or two landed into the 'glass houses' of their financial districts, or
onto oil and gas facilities, would set them back twenty years. They believed it.
But there was another factor in the mix. "As the world teeters on the edge of another
financial crisis", Esfandyar Batmanghelidj has
noted , "few places are being gripped by anxiety like Dubai. Every week a new headline
portends the coming crisis in the city of skyscrapers. Dubai villa prices are at their lowest
level in a decade, down 24 percent in just one year. A slump in tourism has seen Dubai hotels
hit their lowest occupancy rate since the 2008 financial crisis – even as the country
gears up to host Expo 2020 next year. As Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah reported in November of last
year, Dubai has begun to "lose its shine," its role as a center for global commerce "undermined
by a global tariff war -- and in particular by the US drive to shut down commerce with nearby
Iran"".
An extraneous Houthi drone landing in Dubai's financial zone would be the 'final nail in the
coffin' (the expatriates would be out in a flash) – a prospect far more serious than the
crisis of 2009, when Dubai's real estate market collapsed, threatening insolvency for several
banks and major development companies, some of them state-linked – and necessitating a
$20 billion bailout.
In short, the Gulf realised MbS' confrontation project with Iran was far too risky,
especially with the global financial mood darkening so rapidly.
Emirati leaders faced off with MbZ, the confrontation ideologue – and the UAE came
out of Yemen formally (though leaving in situ its proxies), and initiated outreach to
Iran, to take it out of that war, too.
It is now no longer conceivable that MbS can deliver what Trump and
Netanyahu desired . Does this then mean that the US confrontation with Iran, and Jared
Kushner's Deal of the Century, are over? No. Trump has two key US constituencies: AIPAC
and the Christian Evangelical 'Zionists' to 'stroke' electorally in the lead up to the 2020
elections. More 'gifts' to Netanyahu in the lead into the latter's own election campaign are
very likely also, as a part of that massaging of domestic constituencies (and donors).
In terms of the US confrontation with Iran, it seems that Trump is turning-down the volume
on belligerence toward Iran, hoping that economic sanctions will work their 'magic' of bringing
the Islamic Republic to its knees. There is no sign of that however – and no sign of any
realistic US plan 'B'. (The Lindsay Graham initiative is not one).
Where does that leave MbS in terms of US and Israeli interests? Well, to be brutal, and
despite the family friendships 'expendable', perhaps? The scent of an eventual US
disengagement from the region is again hanging in the air.
The deeper meaning in the 'lost Yemen war', ultimately, is an end to Gulf hopes that
'magician' Trump would undo the earlier Gulf panic that the West would normalise with Iran
(through the JCPOA), thus leaving Iran as the paramount regional power. The advent of Trump,
with all his affinity towards Saudi Arabia, seemed to Gulf States to promise the opportunity
again to 'lock in' the US security umbrella over Gulf monarchies, protecting these states from
significant change, as well as leaving Iran 'shackled', and unable to assume regional
primacy.
A secondary meaning to Yemen is that Trump and Netanyahu's heavy investment in MbS and MbZ
has proved to be chimeric. These two, it turned out were 'naked' all along. And now the world
knows it. They can't deliver. They have been bested by a ragtag army of tough Houthi
tribesmen.
The region now observes that 'war' isn't happening (although only by the merest hair's
breadth): Trump is not – of his own volition – going to bomb Iran back to the
1980s. And Gulf States now see that if he did, it is they – the Gulf States – who
would pay the highest price. Paradoxically, it has fallen to the UAE, the prime agitator in
Washington against Iran, to lead the outreach toward Iran. It represents a salutary lesson in
realpolitik for certain Gulf States (and Israel). And now that it has been learned, it is hard
to see it being reversed quite so easily.
The strategic shift toward a different security architecture is already underway, with
Russia
and China proposing an international conference on security in the Persian Gulf: Russia and
Iran already have agreed joint naval exercises in in the Indian Ocean and Hormuz, and China is
mulling sending its warships there too, to protect its tankers and commercial shipping.
Plainly, there will be some competition here, but Iran has the upper hand still in Hormuz. It
is a powerful deterrent (though one best threatened, but not used).
Of course, nothing is assured in these changing times. The US President is fickle, and prone
to flip-flop. And there are yet powerful interests in the US who do want see Iran
comprehensively bombed. But others in DC – more significantly, on the (nationalist) Right
– are much more outspoken in challenging the Iran 'hawks'. Maybe the latter have missed
their moment? The fact is, Trump drew back (but not for the stated reasons) from military
action. America is now entering election season – and it is fixated on its navel. Foreign
policy is already a forgotten, non-issue in the fraught partisan atmospherics of today's
America.
Trump likely will still 'throw Israel a few bones', but will that change anything? Probably,
not much. That is cold comfort – but it might have been a lot worse for the Palestinians.
And Greater Israel? A distant, Promethean hope.
We all know the Hypocrisy of that War. Clinton had to distract the masses from MonicaGate
and Hillary had to prove to the MIC that she could be beneficial to them.
Result : Those Kosovo Albanians had a state handed to them, and instead of building
it(with uncle Sam's and EU help) as prosperous country, they used their weapons and
"expertise" in becoming the low level gangsters of Europe. Every Europol analysis points to
the direction of Kosovo Albanians as the criminal thugs in prostitution and drug trade and
protection rackets. The largest percentage of a single ethnic group in European jails is that
of Albanians.
The most unjust and illegal of wars in the late 20c.
There was only one reason to bomb white Christian brothers in Serbia thereby aiding the
Muslim of Kosovo and Albania, and that was Russia, which by that stage had got its act
together and dealt with the traitorous oligarchs who had sold their country out to the
west.
Hillary and her cronies no doubt lost a lot of money when the Russians shut their rat
lines down.
I hope I live long enough to see those fuckers swing, and Tony Blair, Alistair Campnell
and Peter Mandelson as well.
Again, your Muslims are to blame for everything. Muslims are all different. And it is
necessary to separate the faithful Muslims from the bandits who are only covered by Muslim
slogans.
NATO and your godless government are to blame!
An Afghan Freedom Fighter in Donbass - ENG SUBTITLE
It happened at the time of the Lewinsky affair and the possible impeachment of Clinton.
They needed a distraction.
Milosevic btw. agreed to all conditions imposed on the FR of Yugoslavia except for one
condition that nobody would accept: the full and unhindered access to the territory of FRY by
NATO troops. That effectively meant an occupation. Nobody would agree to that. NATO and
Albright deliberately came up with that condition for they knew it was unacceptable. Even
Kissinger said that condition was over the top. NATO and Albright wanted that war. Serbia
btw. saved Albright twice when she was still a little Slovakian Jewish girl whose family
found refuge twice in Serbia. Once they escaped the Nazis that way and the second time the
communists.
NATO thought they would need 48 hours but they needed 78 days and Milosevic only gave in
after NATO switched from hitting military targets to civilian targets: Hospitals, commuter
trains, civilian industry, an open market, random houses in random villages. After Milosevic
pulled out his troops out of Kosovo, the KLA started killing Serbs and moderate Albanians,
not to mention engage in organ trafficking (...). As the article said, well over 200k Serbs,
moderate Albanians, Roma and other minorities were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo.
The US also used cluster bombs and DU weapons. Of the 4000 Italian KFOR troops that went
into Kosovo after the bombing, 700 are dead from cancer and leukemia with several hundreds
more seriously ill. The American KFOR troops wore hazmat suits. The Italians did not have
them and were not warned. Today, many people in southern Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo itself
are sick and dying.
yes just like USA tried to help Vietnam against communists... by killing 2 million
Vietnamese. and tried to help Korea by killing 20 % of the population. and by helping Iraq
get rid of "bad" Saddam Hussein by killing 2 million Iraqies.
Not disagreeing with you but lets remember that communists were killing a lot of people in
other areas not long before those wars in SE Asia. May have been a wash in the end.
Bring back the draft. On the whole Americans have no idea what the carnage of combat
produces. Combat vets do. And the ones that aren't natural psychopaths never want to
experience it again. This volunteer army we have is over loaded with a them. A military draft
will actually bring some sort civilian control.
Such ********. Do the millions we kill have any human rights? It's been going on for 4000
years. Ruthless pursuit of empire and fabricating phony justifications.
Hillary seems to enjoy killing people. If it wasn't Gaddaffi, it was all the people on her
body bag count, and now it's known she encouraged killing people in Serbia. Someone needs to
take that old cow out into the center of the town and burn her at the stake.
Partially true, otherwise as usually excellent Dr. Paul, ... The Pandora's box situation
was opened years before Clinton's bombing of Serbia, which was part of a larger scheme
started nearly a decade before.
That was when the US armed the religious extremists in Bosnia, in order to bring war,
"civil war" and chaos, and disintegration, the way they more recently tried to do with Syria,
or "succeeded" in doing in Libya, bringing chaos and open-air slave markets in a country that
was one of the most developed on the African continent under Gaddafi (a truth that was so
easily erased by propaganda).
And the whole neocon scheme started two decades before, with the Zbigniew Brzezinski
doctrine, when the US started arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan, provoking the trap for the
Soviet invasion of 1979, which was the real opening of US neocon's Pandora's box we are
regrettably so familiar with by now. We've all fallen in that old
neocon/military-industrial-congressional-complex trap by now. And there seems to be no end in
sight to those eternal wars "for civilization" (the old colonial trope dressed under new
fatigues). Unless serious societal and political changes take place in the US to put an end
to the US "imperial" death drive.
I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is
Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].
Symptoms include:
Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently
absurd MSM propaganda. For example, the meme that releasing factual information about actual
election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging of its own
nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;
Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on
and lying to the American people, spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and
assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer Brennan;
Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples
of "norms-respecting Republican patriots";
Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating
Russian stooge.
STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war,
the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he
began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow
of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened
within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo,
betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have
been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union
that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two
inches to the east.
Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they
become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily,
we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia
somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous,
warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military
alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership
is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.
AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement
with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about
Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's
net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary
titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder
appears to have first
started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in
his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own
estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.
Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains
to the Clinton campaign. Putin
retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had
been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount
of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.
The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe
Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.
Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems
to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be
dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other
interests, values, and goals.
Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice
of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment.
From the Russia Insider link:
Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from
Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these
funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000,
not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.
There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate
their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.
In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media
(again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies
never happens again.
It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse
now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.
Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct
of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly
desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent
the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.
we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe
Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need
to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather
than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like
Greenwald's definition of the term :
"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek
to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.
aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites
attempting to diss apostates and heretics.
The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level.
That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points
of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we
do.
Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up
arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly
threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such
an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?
You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?
You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's
by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has,
and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?
" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and
his oligarchs?"
The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that
deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance
was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.
Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's
debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting
the death of Russia.
So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.
I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute
power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation,
the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money.
Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two
hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.
I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only
of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or
getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but
who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.
There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The
world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals
which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but
that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.
Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits
and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting
soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the
Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from
the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.
The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's
what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin
is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore
he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.
The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal
and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the
rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.
But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.
Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes
Putin a dictator.
"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe
that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about
a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"
Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support
this basic assumption.
The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by
20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of
the rest of NATO or the US.
Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need
to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging
of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself,
he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?
"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't
as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."
What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?
Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship
of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian
Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient
of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National
Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant
for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian
(UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie
Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.
Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on
television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical
questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia
hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.
It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that
they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against
American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was
for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so
fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing
dragon's teeth – it never ends well.
The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace"
would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat"
except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.
Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact.
The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable
as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to
maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was
significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially
more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made
arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.
The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of
the native population. Your comparison is invalid.
"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato
bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director
of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor
of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion
of Nato was a fault and against international law!
Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?
I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].
Symptoms include:
o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example,
the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging
of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;
o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people,
spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer
Brennan;
o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican
patriots";
o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.
By all measures Clinton is a war criminal... Hilary is a female sociopath or worse.
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of 1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end
of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" ..."
"... The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom
fighters" in 1999. ..."
"... Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA
is fighting for human rights and American values." ..."
"... Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo.
After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war
had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks. ..."
Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance.
Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British
professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign "was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what
it called 'dual-use' targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an
attempt to terrorise the country into surrender."
Clinton's unprovoked attack on Serbia, intended to help ethnic Albanians seize control of Kosovo, set a precedent for "humanitarian"
warring that was invoked by supporters of George W. Bush's unprovoked attack on Iraq, Barack Oba-ma's bombing of Libya, and Donald
Trump's bombing of Syria.
Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo, and there is an 11-foot statue of him standing in the capitol, Pristina, on Bill Clinton Boulevard.
A commentator in the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton "with a left hand raised, a
typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started
the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999." It would have been a more accurate representation if Clinton was shown standing on the
corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign.
Bombing Serbia was a family affair in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of
1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What
do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" A biography of Hillary Clinton, written by Gail Sheehy and published
in late 1999, stated that Mrs. Clinton had refused to talk to the president for eight months after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.
She resumed talking to her husband only when she phoned him and urged him in the strongest terms to begin bombing Serbia; the president
began bombing within 24 hours. Alexander Cockburn observed in the Los Angeles Times,
It's scarcely surprising that Hillary would have urged President Clinton to drop cluster bombs on the Serbs to defend "our
way of life." The first lady is a social engineer. She believes in therapeutic policing and the duty of the state to impose
such policing. War is more social engineering, "fixitry" via high explosive, social therapy via cruise missile . As a tough therapeutic
cop, she does not shy away from the most abrupt expression of the therapy: the death penalty.
I followed the war closely from the start, but selling articles to editors bashing the bombing was as easy as pitching paeans
to Scientology. Instead of breaking into newsprint, my venting occurred instead in my journal:
April 7, 1999: Much of the media and most of the American public are evaluating Clinton's Serbian policy based on
the pictures of the bomb damage -- rather than by asking whether there is any coherent purpose or justification for bombing.
The ultimate triumph of photo opportunities . What a travesty and national disgrace for this country.
April 17: My bottom line on the Kosovo conflict: I hate holy wars. And this is a holy war for American good deeds
-- or for America's saintly self-image? Sen. John McCain said the war is necessary to "uphold American values." Make me barf!
Just another Hitler-of-the-month attack.
May 13: This damn Serbian war is a symbol of all that is wrong with the righteous approach to the world and to problems
within this nation.
The KLA
The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom
fighters" in 1999. The previous year, the State Department condemned "terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army."
The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden. Arming the KLA helped Clinton portray
himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many congressmen
eager to portray U.S. bombing as an engine of righteousness. Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand
for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."
In early June 1999, the Washington Post reported that "some presidential aides and friends are describing [bombing] Kosovo
in Churchillian tones, as Clinton's 'finest hour.'" Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it
alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo. After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and
Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks.
In a speech to American troops in a Thanksgiving 1999 visit, Clinton declared that the Kosovar children "love the United States
because we gave them their freedom back." Perhaps Clinton saw freedom as nothing more than being tyrannized by people of the same
ethnicity. As the Serbs were driven out of Kosovo, Kosovar Albanians became increasingly oppressed by the KLA, which ignored its
commitment to disarm. The Los Angeles Times reported on November 20, 1999,
As a postwar power struggle heats up in Kosovo Albanian politics, extremists are trying to silence moderate leaders with a
terror campaign of kidnappings, beatings, bombings, and at least one killing. The intensified attacks against members of the moderate
Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, have raised concerns that radical ethnic Albanians are turning against their own out of fear
of losing power in a democratic Kosovo.
American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serbian civilians, bombing Serbian
churches, and oppressing non-Muslims. Almost a quarter million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled Kosovo after Clinton
promised to protect them. In March 2000 renewed fighting broke out when the KLA launched attacks into Serbia, trying to seize
territory that it claimed historically belonged to ethnic Albanians. UN Human Rights Envoy Jiri Dienstbier reported that "the [NATO]
bombing hasn't solved any problems. It only multiplied the existing problems and created new ones. The Yugoslav economy was destroyed.
Kosovo is destroyed. There are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed now."
U.S. complicity in atrocities
Prior to the NATO bombing, American citizens had no responsibility for atrocities committed by either Serbs or ethnic Albanians.
However, after American planes bombed much of Serbia into rubble to drive the Serbian military out of Kosovo, Clinton effectively
made the United States responsible for the safety of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo. That was equivalent to forcibly disarming a group
of people, and then standing by, whistling and looking at the ground, while they are slaughtered. Since the United States promised
to bring peace to Kosovo, Clinton bears some responsibility for every burnt church, every murdered Serbian grandmother, every new
refugee column streaming north out of Kosovo. Despite those problems, Clinton bragged at a December 8, 1999, press conference that
he was "very, very proud" of what the United States had done in Kosovo.
I had a chapter on the Serbian bombing campaign titled "Moralizing with Cluster Bombs" in Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion
and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton–Gore Years (St. Martin's Press, 2000), which sufficed to spur at least one or two
reviewers to attack the book. Norman Provizer, the director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership, scoffed in the
Denver Rocky Mountain News, "Bovard chastises Clinton for an illegal, undeclared war in Kosovo without ever bothering to mention
that, during the entire run of American history, there have been but four official declarations of war by Congress."
As the chaotic situation in post-war Kosovo became stark, it was easier to work in jibes against the debacle. In an October 2002
USA Today article ("Moral High Ground Not Won on Battlefield") bashing the Bush administration's push for war against Iraq,
I pointed out, "A desire to spread freedom does not automatically confer a license to kill . Operation Allied Force in 1999 bombed
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, into submission purportedly to liberate Kosovo. Though Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic raised the white flag,
ethnic cleansing continued -- with the minority Serbs being slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground in the same way the
Serbs previously oppressed the ethnic Albanians."
In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb
and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo
were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."
In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities
that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts. Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor
of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful
killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements
of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."
The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past
investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country
where clan ties run deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy high posts in
the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as "the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative
report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.
Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and pundits portrayed that
war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over
evil. Honest assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.
This article was originally published in the July 2019 edition ofFuture of Freedom .
James Bovard is a policy adviser to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a USA Today columnist and has written
for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, Playboy, American Spectator,
Investors Business Daily, and many other publications. He is the author of Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty
(2017, published by FFF); Public Policy Hooligan (2012); Attention Deficit Democracy (2006); The Bush Betrayal
(2004); Terrorism and Tyranny (2003); Feeling Your Pain (2000); Freedom in Chains (1999); Shakedown (1995);
Lost Rights (1994); The Fair Trade Fraud (1991); and The Farm Fiasco (1989). He was the 1995 co-recipient of
the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the recipient of the 1996 Freedom
Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. His book Lost Rights received the
Mencken Award as Book of the Year from the Free Press Association. His Terrorism and Tyranny won Laissez Faire Book's Lysander
Spooner award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. Read his blog . Send
him email .
In July 30, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported
that the Afghan government and international military forces, primarily
the United States , caused most of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan during the first six
months of 2019. That's more killings than those perpetrated in the same time period by the
Taliban and ISIS combined.
Aerial operations were responsible for 519 civilian casualties (356 deaths and 156
injuries), including 150 children (89 deaths and 61 injuries). That constitutes a 39 percent
increase in overall civilian casualties from aerial attacks. Eighty-three percent of civilian
casualties from aerial operations were carried out by the international forces.
The targeting of civilians amounts to war crimes under the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (ICC).
... ... ...
Team Trump's deadly actions are a continuation of the Bush and Obama
administrations' commission of the most heinous crimes in Afghanistan. On April 12, the ICC's
Pre-Trial Chamber found a "reasonable basis" to
believe that the parties to the Afghan conflict, including the U.S. military and the CIA,
committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, most of them occurring between 2005 and 2015.
They include "the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity,
and rape and other forms of sexual violence pursuant to a policy approved by the U.S.
authorities."
The chamber, however, refused to open a formal investigation into those crimes, as
recommended by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. In concluding that "an investigation
into the situation in Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice," the
chamber questioned the feasibility of such a probe. An investigation would be "very wide in
scope and encompasses a high number of alleged incidents having occurred over a long time
period," the chamber wrote. It noted the extreme difficulty in gauging "the prospects of
securing meaningful cooperation from relevant authorities for the future" and found "the
current circumstances of the situation in Afghanistan are such as to make the prospects for a
successful investigation and prosecution extremely limited."
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of
the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of
Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent
book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.
I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is
Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].
Symptoms include:
Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently
absurd MSM propaganda. For example, the meme that releasing factual information about actual
election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging of its own
nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;
Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on
and lying to the American people, spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and
assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer Brennan;
Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples
of "norms-respecting Republican patriots";
Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating
Russian stooge.
"... The field's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis' drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai's busy international airport within their range. ..."
"... The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that is. ..."
Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons
the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines.
This today
was the decisive attack:
Drones launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside
Saudi Arabia's sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a
"limited fire" in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry. ... The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman
for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones
targeting the field in their "biggest-ever" operation. He threatened more attacks would be
coming.
New drones and missiles
displayed in July 2019 by Yemen's Houthi-allied armed forces bigger
Today's attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers
(750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets
within that range:
The field's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the
Houthis' drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent
months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500
kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear
power plant and Dubai's busy international airport within their range.
Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them,
analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and
longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones,
which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as
well as enemy troops.
The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now
under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit
the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have
very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state.
The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will. There is a lesson to learn from that. But it is doubtful that the borg in Washington DC
has the ability to understand it.
The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the
region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that
is.
I'm afraid the only lesson the Borg in Washington will learn is to continue squandering US
resources and manpower on pursuing and inflicting chaos and violence in the Middle East.
Clown prince Mohammed bin Salman will not learn anything either other than to bankrupt his
own nation in pursuing this war.
Israel has driven itself into its own existential hell by persecuting Palestinians over
70+ years and doing a good job of annihilating itself while denying its own destruction. If
Israel can do it, the Christian crusaders dominating the govts of the Five Eyes nations
supporting Israel will follow suit in propping up an unsustainable fantasy. Samson option
indeed.
I am sure that the Suads will be looking to their zionist allies to supply them with the Iron
Dome system that the US military just wasted millions of tax payer dollars and purchased
several days ago. The irony of that system is that is was overwhelmed several times when the
Palestinian freedom fighters launched a wave of home made rockets at Occupied Palestine. I
hope the Sauds learn a lesson..doubt it though.
let me throw something out there. Israel has entrenched itself in the US political and media
systems. There is no logical path to eliminate or reduce that influence, and thus perhaps the
plan that has been hatched is to strengthen Iran to the point that it can confront Israel.
I anticipated just this sort of event 2+ months ago to go along with the tanker sabotaging to
expand on b's thesis about Iran having the upper hand in the current hybrid Gulf War. The
timing of this new ability dovetails nicely with the recent Russian collective security
proposal, with the Saudis being the footdraggers in agreeing about its viability due to its
pragmatic logic. So, as I wrote 2 days ago, we now have an excellent possibility of seeing an
end to this and future Persian Gulf Crises along with an idea that can potentially become the
template for an entire Southwest Asian security treaty, whose only holdout would be Occupied
Palestine. The Outlaw US Empire is effectively shutout of the entire process. And as I also
wrote, it's now time for the Saudis to determine where their future lies--with Eurasia or
with a dying Empire.
So the U.S. bought the Iron Dome stuff from Israel? I guess that means we paid for it
twice, eh? Glad to know my tax dollars are hard at work "keeping us safe."
Wonder what they might be planning for with that one?
The Yemenese military had lots of technological capabilities remaining from the Cold War
along with factories, technicians and raw materials. For example, Yemen's aerospace forces
allied with the Houthi and are the ones producing and shooting the missiles and drones. One
doesn't need to import a complete drone; technical blueprints on a floppy, CD-ROM, DVD,
thumb-drive, are all that's required. The humanitarian crisis due to food and medicine
shortages played on the minds of people such that an image of a poor, backward,
non-industrial capable society was generated that wasn't 100% correct.
And of course, this makes the threat by Iran to hit back against military and industrial
installations on the other side of the Persian Gulf that much stronger.
It would be rich indeed if Iran were to be the entity that ultimately manages to loosen
the stranglehold that the Zionists have on the USA Congress, media, president, donors to
political parties, etc.
I can imagine the shale oil producers smiling right now...100 a barrel oil will be just
what they need! Cost-push inflation leading to a return of bell bottoms and leisure suits. No
wonder all these 70's band retreads are touring again :)
So, poor Yemen wasted via siege warfare waged by NATO since 2015 though its Saudi, UAE and
terrorist proxies that came very close to success, finds the initiative to counterattack with
what little it has at its disposal--All accusations of Iranian help have never been
proven --and thanks to the Outlaw US Empire's threats against Iran force UAE to
withdrawal and seek peace with Iran with Saudi soon to follow. And the situation is all
Iran's fault?! Note the date above--it precedes Trump's election, his illegal withdrawal from
the JCPOA and institution of the illegal sanctions regime against Iran.
Europe is on board with Russia's collective security proposal. Europe had representatives
at the meet between Khamenei and the Houthi negotiator. Europe--even the UK--still working to
salvage the JCPOA via the non-dollar trade conduit. And you conclude that the Outlaw US
Empire "might actually get European support to attack Iran."
First Afghanistan, then Yemen. Maybe the western media's imaging of these people as towel
headed, sandal wearing primatives is just a tad misguided......
"The Campaign Press: Members of the 10 Percent, Reporting for the One Percent" [Matt
Taibbi,
Rolling Stone ]. "Anyone who's worked in the business (or read Manufacturing Consent)
knows nobody calls editors to red-pencil text.
The pressure comes at the point of hire. If you're the type who thinks Jeff Bezos should
be thrown out of an airplane, or that it's a bad look for a DC newspaper to be owned by a
major intelligence contractor, you won't rise.
Meanwhile, the Post has become terrific at promoting Jennifer Rubins and Max Boots.
Reporters watch as good investigative journalism about serious structural problems dies on
the vine, while mountains of column space are devoted to trivialities like Trump tweets
and/or simplistic partisan storylines.
Nobody needs to pressure anyone. We all know what takes will and will not earn attaboys in
newsrooms. Trump may have accelerated distaste for the press, but he didn't create it. He
sniffed out existing frustrations and used them to rally anger toward 'elites' to his side.
The criticism works because national media are elites, ten-percenters working for
one-percenters.
The longer people in the business try to deny it, the more it will be fodder
for politicians. Sanders wasn't the first, and won't be the last."
• Yep. I'm so glad
Rolling Stone has Matt Taibbi on-board. Until advertisers black-list "the One Percent," I
suppose.
"... The other aspect this control and coup was NACA being taken over by Nazi Intel/strategists/scientists/war planners through Paper Clip and other relations of the Dulles family were involved with this. Dulles had not one patriotic bone in his body but only cared about elitism, and power. Yes, he made patriotic statements but they were as thin as his skin. ..."
Because "The links between high government officials, CIA, FBI, and organized crime is
astonishing." we will never have an answer, just like John Kennedy, MLK, etc.
In the grand scheme of things, there is a compelling historical argument for the idea that
when the NSA/CIA was created, Dulles found an opportunity to consolidate control of
information and by logic, populations which was in reality, a velvet coup.
The other aspect this control and coup was NACA being taken over by Nazi
Intel/strategists/scientists/war planners through Paper Clip and other relations of the
Dulles family were involved with this. Dulles had not one patriotic bone in his body but only
cared about elitism, and power. Yes, he made patriotic statements but they were as thin as
his skin.
"... Even more importantly, we should all be troubled by efforts to shut down content and discussions labeled "false and misleading" on major social media platforms . ..."
"... Conspiracies can be found out by many different ways e.g. documents uncovered, discrepancies, evidence that contradicts what has been claimed etc. ..."
"... "A two decade old CT, like 9/11, or worse, one six decades old (the JFK assassination), are false because they would have involved too many people–someone would have blown the whistle, if only on their deathbed." ..."
"... "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. ..."
"... The old adage 'two men can keep a secret, if one of them is dead' applies here. ..."
"... This co-ordinated and global media attack on the 'Conspiracy Theorist' is co-ordinated and Global for good reason. ..."
"... The determination of international deepstate to make illegal any question or recognition of it under guise of 'Conspiracy theorist=domestic terrorist/anti-semite/anti-Zionist/BDS/trump supporting white supremacist(etc)'- conflating those ULTRA memes with growing awareness of the Anglo/Yankee/zionist PSYOPS underway globally, mean we are entering a choke point in progression of reason, truth and beauty. ..."
"... The danger of the conspiracy theorist to the present world order, is that most of the BIG ones, the nasty ones, are true. And CIA operation Mockingbirds' job (Quote) 'is to Guard against the illicit Transformation of Probability into Certainty," that they are . ..."
"... Ultimately, the average conspiracy theorist has a better grasp of how the world works than the average liberal. ..."
"... The reality is that the ruling class and its public servants really do have a parasitic and predatory relationship to the vast majority of humanity ..."
"... I like Michael Moore's response when asked if he believed the conspiracy theories which were floating about at the time: "Just the ones that are true" ..."
"... A conspiracy theory, like any theory is as strong as the evidence put forward to support it. ..."
"... One of the ways they will do this is to plant "evidence" purporting to support the theory, but easily disproved by easily available information. Unfortunately,it is a sad fact that far too many "conspiracy theorists" readily accept and share along with genuine evidence, this planted "evidence" to the wider internet, thereby undermining the solid evidence of a conspiracy, by associating it with the easily disprovable nonsense. ..."
"... For example, after the attack on the WTC Kissinger was appointed to the head the 9/11 commission (before stepping down). ..."
"... 'Conspiracy theorists' would have thought – why are neocons appointing a mass-murdering neocon to investigate an event that might have involved neocons (raising obvious credibility issues) – whereas those who regard conspiracy theorists as dribbling fruitcakes would have welcomed the appointment of the nobel peace prize winner. ..."
Noam
Chomsky has pointed out , the more educated we are, the more we are a target for state-corporate propaganda. Even journalists
outside the mainstream may internalize establishment values and prejudices. Which brings us to Parramore's embrace of the term "conspiracy
theory." Once a neutral and little-used phrase, "conspiracy theory" was infamously weaponized in
1967 by a memo from the CIA to its station chiefs worldwide.
Troubled by growing mass disbelief in the "lone nut" theory of President Kennedy's assassination, and concerned that "[c]onspiracy
theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization," the agency directed its officers to "discuss the publicity problem
with friendly and elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)" and to "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the
attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose."
In the 45 years before the CIA memo came out, the phrase 'conspiracy theory' appeared in the Washington Post and New
York Times only 50 times, or about once per year. In the 45 years after the CIA memo, the phrase appeared 2,630 times, or
about once per week."
While it turns out that Parramore knows something about this hugely successful propaganda drive, she chose in her NBC piece to deploy
the phrase as the government has come to define it, i.e., as "something that requires no consideration because it is obviously not
true." This embeds a fallacy in her argument which only spreads as she goes on. Likewise, the authors of the studies she cites, who
attempt to connect belief in "conspiracy theories" to "narcissistic personality traits," are not immune to efforts to manipulate
the wider culture. Studies are only as good as the assumptions from which they proceed; in this case, the assumption was provided
by an interested Federal agency. And what of their suggested diagnosis?
On the contrary, most of the people I know who hold these varied (and not always shared) views are deeply empathic, courageously
humble, and resigned to a life on the margins of official discourse, even as they doggedly seek to publicize what they have learned.
A number of them have arrived at their views through painful, direct experience, like the
loss of a friend or the illness of a child, but far from having a "negative view of humanity," as Parramore writes, most hold
a deep and abiding faith in the power of regular people to see injustice and peacefully oppose it. In that regard, they share a great
deal in common with writers like Parramore: ultimately, we all want what's best for our children, and none of us want a world ruled
by unaccountable political-economic interests. If we want to achieve that world, then we should work together to promote speech that
is free from personal attacks on all sides. Even more importantly, we should all be troubled by efforts to shut down content and
discussions labeled "false and misleading"
on major social media platforms.
Who will decide what is false and what is true? ... ... ...
President Kennedy said:
a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
Perhaps we should take a closer look at ideas that so frighten the powers-that-be. Far from inviting our ridicule, the people who
insist that we look in these forbidden places may one day deserve our thanks.
John Kirby is a documentary filmmaker. His latest project, Four Died Trying, examines what John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King and Robert Kennedy were doing in the last years of their lives which may have led to their deaths.
George
I am responding to an earlier comment you made because, for some reason, I cannot reply to it in the proper place.
"The old adage 'two men can keep a secret, if one of them is dead' applies here."
Wrong: secrets can be uncovered even if both of them are dead.
"The conspiracies we know about are exposed because someone talks, or a computer gets hacked."
Conspiracies can be found out by many different ways e.g. documents uncovered, discrepancies, evidence that contradicts what
has been claimed etc.
"A two decade old CT, like 9/11, or worse, one six decades old (the JFK assassination), are false because they would have involved
too many people–someone would have blown the whistle, if only on their deathbed."
Always a bad sign when you start to repeat "would have". Lots of presumption here.
"No new facts have emerged because the only people who knew anything are long dead, taking the reasons to their graves .."
New facts can emerge all the time even regarding the most ancient of events.
" .or in the case of 9/11, because there was no great conspiracy, beyond the one reported."
So you now have godlike omniscience?
"A propensity for subscribing to conspiracy theories, is, sad to say, indicative of mental inadequacy "
There's no point in going much further here. You now devolve into psychobabble which, as always, is based on the dogmatic assertion
that you are right. (cf. the formerly mentioned godlike omniscience)
Ragnar
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only
for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.
It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." These words are attributed to Joseph Goebbels.
-So, George, it would hardly make a difference whether the State is Marxist or Capitalist. It's either power or
truth. They are inherently different and can not be reconciled. Ultimately, there is no bridge possible.
However, so-called "common" goals are of a lower order and cooperation here is possible, temporarily. These relationships are
unstable and prone to breaking up precisely because they're ultimately not common at all. The principle are different and the
personalities too. Ships Passing In The Night, like. -See?
George
We all have common goals. Basically the goals of life and health. And these are hardly goals "of a lower order". If that was true
then we must be living in a state of "postmodernist relativity" where anyone can decide arbitrarily what matters. And that would
certainly lead to your ships-passing-in-the-night scenario i.e. the ultimate divide-and-rule vision.
As for power, the late Marxist writer Ellen Meiksins Wood noted that, in modern times, we have an unprecedented degree of political
freedom. But the reason for that is that power no longer lies in politics. It lies in economics. What is the point of having formal
rights when your livelihood is gone?
The old adage 'two men can keep a secret, if one of them is dead' applies here.
The conspiracies we know about are exposed because someone talks, or a computer gets hacked. A two decade old CT, like 9/11,
or worse, one six decades old (the JFK assassination), are false because they would have involved too many people – someone would
have blown the whistle, if only on their deathbed. No new facts have emerged because the only people who knew anything are long
dead, taking the reasons to their graves, or in the case of 9/11, because there was no great conspiracy, beyond the one reported.
A propensity for subscribing to conspiracy theories, is, sad to say, indicative of mental inadequacy. Such people are unable
to deal with the complexities of the world as it is, and therefore seek to make it a world of black and white, good and evil,
heroes and villains. The internet, with its blurring of fantasy and fact enables them. This is why discussions like this get so
polarised.
TFS
1. 9/11 and JFK are false because WILLIAM HBonney has declared it so.
Boom, thanks for watching kids.
2. In other news, some Conspiracy Theorists Imagined 747-E4Bs above Washington at the time of 9/11 and 25+second delay introduced
into the Air Traffic Control System but the Official Conspiracy Account of 9/11 didn't discuss it because there was nothing to
see.
6. But it's ok kidz, because HWB wack jobs, like first responders, police, fire personnel architects, physicists, former military
personnel, pilots, Nobel Peace Prixe winners, medical experts, etc etc all collectively asertained that the Official Conspiracy
Theory of 9/11 is about as usefull as the Warren Commission Report.
7. HOWEVER, HWB THINKS YOU'RE A WACK JOB.
r. rebar
unless & until someone goes to jail -- there are no conspiracies & as silence is -- like any commodity -- only as good as the
price paid to maintain it -- those who know have a real vested interest in not talking (it's not a secret if you tell someone)
roger morris
Ms Parramore is doing nothing more than her profession and tenure demands. Witting or un-witting. This co-ordinated and global
media attack on the 'Conspiracy Theorist' is co-ordinated and Global for good reason.
It is the 'Great Wurlitzer' at full throat
coinciding with extraordinary reductions in internet freedoms of information flow. The determination of international deepstate
to make illegal any question or recognition of it under guise of 'Conspiracy theorist=domestic terrorist/anti-semite/anti-Zionist/BDS/trump
supporting white supremacist(etc)'- conflating those ULTRA memes with growing awareness of the Anglo/Yankee/zionist PSYOPS underway
globally, mean we are entering a choke point in progression of reason, truth and beauty.
A read of the Cass Sunstein/Cornelius Adrian Comstock Vermeule Paper describing 'Conspiracy theory' as a 'crippled Epistemology'
and determining 'COINTELPRO' type strategies to counter the danger of their truth becoming certainty, will enlighten those in
the dark of IIO methodology and expose Ms Parramore as a true MOCKINGBIRD.
The danger of the conspiracy theorist to the present world order, is that most of the BIG ones, the nasty ones, are true. And
CIA operation Mockingbirds' job (Quote) 'is to Guard against the illicit Transformation of Probability into Certainty," that they
are .
"Ultimately, the average conspiracy theorist has a better grasp of how the world works than the average liberal. Even the most
outlandish "conspiracy theory" in existence -- that people like George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth are shape-shifting, extra-dimensional
reptilians -- is closer to the truth than what liberals believe.
The reality is that the ruling class and its public servants really do have a parasitic and predatory relationship to the
vast majority of humanity "
I've often felt there is a lot of (metaphorical!) truth in David Icke's ravings, although the reptile image is unfortunate
in that actual reptiles are amongst the most sedate and peaceful creatures.
Molloy
Eichmann and today's useful idiots; Hannah Arendt
(start Arendt quote)
Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a "monster," but it was difficult indeed
not to suspect that he was a clown. And since this suspicion would have been fatal to the whole enterprise, and was also rather
hard to sustain, in view of the sufferings he and his like had caused so many millions of people, his worst clowneries were hardly
noticed. What could you do with a man who first declared, with great emphasis, that the one thing he had learned in an ill-spent
life was that one should never take an oath ("Today no man, no judge could ever persuade me to make a sworn statement. I refuse
it; I refuse it for moral reasons. Since my experience tells me that if one is loyal to his oath, one day he has to take the consequences,
I have made up my mind once and for all that no judge in the world or other authority will ever be capable of making me swear
an oath, to give sworn testimony.
I won't do it voluntarily and no one will be able to force me"), and then, after being told
explicitly that if he wished to testify in his own defense he might "do so under oath or without an oath," declared without further
ado that he would prefer to testify under oath? Or who, repeatedly and with a great show of feeling, assured the court, as he
had assured the police examiner, that the worst thing he could do would be to try to escape his true responsibilities, to fight
for his neck, to plead for mercy -- and then, upon instruction of his counsel, submitted a handwritten document that contained
a plea for mercy?
As far as Eichmann was concerned, these were questions of changing moods, not of inconsistencies, and as long
as he was capable of finding, either in his memory or on the spur of the moment, an elating stock phrase to go with them, he was
quite content. (end quote)
And why it is essential to understand what Eichmann was facilitating (and the madness that morphed into the same apartheid bigotry
in the 21st century).
I appreciate the article, but the sentence below is offered with no logical or rational support – it is simply an evidence free
assertion:
("But Parramore and many journalists like her are neither assets of an intelligence service nor unthinking tools of big media;
) – really?
It is quite clear that if someone "is" (an asset of an intelligence service) that they will certainly not be broadcasting this
fact to the world or to friends and family. And for someone to assert that "conspiracies" don't exist in the real world requires
a level of credulity that most intelligent and rational people the least bit familiar with the historical record would find rather
difficult to muster up. I dare say it would be much easier in fact to prove the assertion that our Western history is simply the
"history of conspiracies" given the oligarchic control of Western populations for millennia. This is hardly "rocket science" as
they say. We do have a rather well documented historical record to fall back on to show the endless scheming of Western oligarchy
behind the backs of Western populations.
wardropper
I like Michael Moore's response when asked if he believed the conspiracy theories which were floating about at the time:
"Just the ones that are true"
John Thatcher
A conspiracy theory, like any theory is as strong as the evidence put forward to support it. Often people offer as fact conspiracies
that only as yet exist as theories,with greater or lesser amounts of evidence to support.I have no doubt that interested parties
who are the accused in these theories, will mount efforts to discredit any theory mounted against them or those they represent.
One of the ways they will do this is to plant "evidence" purporting to support the theory, but easily disproved by easily
available information. Unfortunately,it is a sad fact that far too many "conspiracy theorists" readily accept and share along
with genuine evidence, this planted "evidence" to the wider internet, thereby undermining the solid evidence of a conspiracy,
by associating it with the easily disprovable nonsense.
Harry Stotle
Isn't it high time we had a term to describe those who always accept the official version of events after controversial political
incidents no matter how implausible this account might be?
For example, after the attack on the WTC Kissinger was appointed to the head the 9/11 commission (before stepping down).
'Conspiracy theorists' would have thought – why are neocons appointing a mass-murdering neocon to investigate an event that
might have involved neocons (raising obvious credibility issues) – whereas those who regard conspiracy theorists as dribbling
fruitcakes would have welcomed the appointment of the nobel peace prize winner.
Anyway, here's a clip of Henry – the believers in everything the government say would never have considered the objections
raised in the film – such questions are tantamount to mental illness according to these 'progressives'.
@Hanrahan Notice the
continued exclusion of Representative Gabbard and her criticism of the destructive Empire --
despite focusing on Beltway politics, he hasn't typed her name since June 28. He wants the
"Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders-AOC Democrats" to go even kookier because this website's "Mr.
Paleoconservative" has become a Beltway fixture, cheerleading for Team Red in the next Most
Important Election Ever
"... The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in their denunciations of whites in general by the hour. ..."
"the Great Arsenal of Democracy was looted by" the military-industrial complex Arsenal &
it's unending wars & nothing short of nuclear annihilation is going to change that. There
is no Democrat who is willing to bet their chance at the presidency on pulling it down.
And the American public, by and large, is put to sleep by lengthy discussions of the
intricacies of trade policy.
The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the
first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in
their denunciations of whites in general by the hour.
There's no telling where it all may lead but it's becoming clearer day by day that the
hostility will outlast the primaries & the general election will be a very ugly affair.
There's no turning back to the soothing center now, it will be an us-vs.-them type election
& hopefully, Pat Buchanan, still America's shrewdest pundit, will keep us fully
apprised.
Need to investigate the role , if any , of Dr. Michael Baden in the Epstein and JFK autopsy
cover-ups .
According to Dr.Crenshaw who treated JFK at the Parkland Hospital Kennedy was shot once or
twice from the front and , therefore, Oswald could not possibly have been the killer. See "
Trauma Room One , the JFK Medical Coverup Exposed . " By Dr. Michael Crenshaw .
Daniel Benaim and Michael Walid Hanna
explain that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East hasn't changed much at all under
Trump, but there has been a reduction in diplomatic engagement:
For all the headlines, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is fairly consistent.
Despite the administration's intention, laid out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, to
refocus the U.S. military on great-power competition, the U.S. footprint in the Middle East
remains relatively constant, and seemingly permanent. Instead, what has changed is the scale
of civilian effort that, in most previous administrations, would have accompanied such a
military presence. The Trump administration has left numerous vacancies for key civilian
positions unfilled for long stretches, slashed aid programs, and focused on high-level
personal relations at the expense of broader ties. Altogether, its approach has not been
typified by either retrenchment or interventionism but by what Barry Posen, writing in
Foreign Affairs, has called "illiberal hegemony" -- military superiority shorn of diplomatic
stewardship.
Benaim and Hanna are right about this, and their article is a welcome corrective to the many
false claims that Trump is "retreating" from the region. The administration's disdain for
diplomacy and aid has been impossible to miss over the last two and a half years, and they have
combined that with more or less continuing the military deployments and missions that they
inherited. What that means in practice is that the U.S. remains entangled in the affairs of the
region, but our government's involvement leans even more heavily towards the military. That
leaves every other kind of engagement underfunded, understaffed, and neglected. Since our
foreign policy is already excessively militarized, this makes a bad problem worse. Benaim and
Hanna note this later in the article:
This approach also exacerbates the long-standing problem of overreliance on the military
as the central tool of U.S. Middle East policy. Even on a diplomat's best days, regional
leaders are well aware of the "consul effect" -- the contrast between well-resourced American
military commanders and their relatively impoverished diplomatic colleagues. Further
marginalizing diplomats costs them influence, access, and bargaining power, while positioning
the military and intelligence communities as the only effective U.S. institutional actors in
the region.
Given the reality that the U.S. military presence hasn't been reduced, and has actually
increased in some places over the last two years, how is it that we keep hearing about U.S.
"retreat" and "withdrawal" as if these were happening? Client states have an incentive to whine
about possible "abandonment" no matter what the U.S. does. Either they complain about an
"abandonment" that has supposedly already happened, or they warn against a possible
"abandonment" that might take place in the future. The whining serves the purpose of putting
pressure on every administration to maintain existing commitments and then to add more. Then
there are pundits and analysts at home that constantly fret about U.S. "withdrawal" as a way of
agitating for increased involvement. Then there are the supporters of the president that want
to pretend that the "withdrawal" is really happening in order to credit the president for doing
something he hasn't done. Add them all up, and you get an unfounded consensus that the U.S. is
"retreating" when virtually nothing has changed. In the case of Trump, there is an additional
factor of taking the president's rhetoric at face value while ignoring what his administration
is doing. Trump boasts about some things that never happened and never will happen, and for
some reason he is blamed/credited for things he never does while his real policies often escape
close scrutiny.
Put simply, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East is largely unchanged and has even
escalated to some degree under Trump, but all other kinds of engagement get short shrift. Far
from disentangling the U.S. from its excessive commitments in the region, Trump has embraced
our worst clients and deepened our government's involvement in the worst way for the sake of
arms sales and whipping up anti-Iranian sentiment. This is the exact opposite of what should be
happening, and it is antithetical to a foreign policy that extricates U.S. forces from the
region.
@JW #40
To be fair, the US has a fantastic record of f***ing up countries with aerial bombs. The part
which the Saudis failed to understand is that the US isn't next to any of these countries...
Yemen has a population slightly lower than Texas. Imagine, Washington bombing Texas, only
filled with Texans that have more and heavier weapons(?).
The question mark is because I am not entirely certain that Yemenis are more heavily armed
than Texans, but certainly they're at least as fierce defending themselves.
Wow, that is an outstanding tour d'horizon from Magnier you linked. This is a
keeper to show others who may be amenable to learning about today's Middle East balance of
forces, and how it has been arrived at.
Succinct yet very comprehensive, the piece not only catches up the histories of recent
years, but provides an analysis of today and the near-to-mid-term future - both military and
geopolitical. It speaks of the various lessons learned along the way, including the lessons
being absorbed in real time today as the confrontation between Iran and the US has barely yet
begun and yet racked up totally instructive scores.
The new war is essentially economic; it is a war of sanctions and limiting free movement of
ship movements around the globe. It is a war of tankers and oil platforms. It is a
starvation war where no one can threaten the enemy with a return to the "stone age"
because the firepower is now universally available . Yemen is the best example: the
threat of bombing Dubai forced the Emirates to seek Iranian mediation to prevent a missile
attack against them. The Houthis, despite years of Saudi bombing of Yemen, have also
managed to bomb Saudi airports, military bases and oil stations in the heart of Saudi
Arabia, using cruise missiles and armed drones. [My emphasis]
And Hezbolllah has cemented its standing with nations in the region, expanded its skill
from guerrilla and small-theater to nation-size theater, and this:
It has run intensive courses in the use of its drones, used its precision missiles with
accuracy, produced thousands of highly trained Special Forces and it has fought an enemy
(al-Qaeda) that is much more motivated to fight to the death than any Israeli Special
Forces units. [My emphasis]
Israel is essentially paralyzed. Even to the extent, as Magnier relates, of being careful
to warn Hezbollah drivers before bombing its supply trucks, because "Israel wanted to
avoid human casualties among Hezbollah officers, fully aware of the price of
retaliation. " My emphasis again.
The bad guys have fallen behind - as we know, but as Magnier illustrates so clearly in
this appraisal, with his review of the initial western strategies just a few years ago and
how they have all been rendered null. Even the US now is an antique target for modern missile
and drone technology - and the battle-hardened skill with these weapons definitely resides
with the Levant axis rather than with the imperialists and their dogs.
The future? This:
Gaza, along with Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad, are all highly equipped by Tehran with
sufficient missiles to inflict real damage on Israel and on US forces deployed in the
Middle East. Israel is playing around by targeting various objectives tactically but with
no real strategic purpose- only for Netanyahu to keep himself busy and train his Air Force,
and to gain publicity in the media. Soon, when Syria recovers and Iraq is stronger, the
Israeli promenade will have to cease. Hezbollah in Lebanon may also find a way in the near
future to keep its irregular but organised army busy by firing anti-air missiles against
Israeli jets and imposing new rules of engagement.
"Tulsi Gabbard to report for active duty in Indonesia for 2 weeks"
by Brian Pascus...CBS News...1 hr ago
"Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat from Hawaii and presidential candidate, will be taking a two-week
absence from her campaign Monday to report for active duty with the Hawaiian Army National
Guard in Indonesia, she said in an interview with CBSN's Caitlin Huey-Burns.
"I'm stepping off of the campaign trail for a couple of weeks and putting on my army
uniform to go on a joint training exercise mission in Indonesia," she said. Gabbard has also
taken two weeks off to report for active service in 2017."...
Is this the end of the neoliberal counterrevolution in Argentina ? Moor did its duty moor has
to go -- Macri converted Argentina into the Debt slave again and now to get out of this situation
is nest to impossible.
Argentine president suffers crushing defeat in key primaries ahead of general election
Argentina's President Mauricio Macri suffered a crushing defeat as people voted in party
primaries on Sunday ahead of October's general election.
Given that all of the recession-hit South American country's major parties have already
chosen their presidential candidates, the primaries effectively served as a nationwide
pre-election opinion poll.
Center-left nominee Alberto Fernandez led by around 15 points after partial results were
revealed. Center-right Pro-business Macri admitted it had been "a bad election."
The first round of the presidential election will be held on October 27, with a run-off
– if needed – set for November 24.
With 87 percent of polling station results counted, Fernandez had polled 47.5 percent with
Macri on a little more than 32 percent and centrist former finance minister Roberto Lavagna a
distant third on just 8.3 percent.
Macri had been hoping to earn a second mandate, but his chances appear all but over.
If Fernandez was to register the same result in October, he would be president as
Argentina's electoral law requires a candidate to gain 45 percent for outright victory, or 40
percent and a lead of at least 10 points over the nearest challenger.
Inflation and poverty
"We've had a bad election and that forces us to redouble our efforts from tomorrow," said
Macri, whose popularity has plunged since last year's currency crisis and the much-criticized
56 billion U.S.-dollar bail-out loan he secured from the International Monetary Fund.
"It hurts that we haven't had the support we'd hoped for," he added.
Argentina is currently in a recession and posted 22 percent inflation for the first
half of the year – one of the highest rates in the world. Poverty now affects 32
percent of the population.
Backed by the IMF, Macri has initiated an austerity plan that is deeply unpopular among
ordinary Argentines, who have seen their spending power plummet.
The peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year. The Buenos Aires stock
exchange actually shot up eight percent on Friday amid expectation that Macri would do well
in Sunday's vote.
An important task now is to understand why the IMF assistance to Argentina proved damaging to
the economy from the beginning; the data showed the damage being done. However, there was
almost no mention of the problems that developed outside Argentina and there was surprise
when the failure of the economy was reflected in the serious vote against the current
president.
Of course, Joseph Stiglitz watched the same sort of problems unfold in Argentina almost 20
years ago and was severely criticized for discussing them. How did the problems recur so
readily now? Why is IMF national assistance seemingly so dangerous economically?
Gabbard (D)(1): "Tulsi Gabbard's daredevil act" [ Politico
]. "Gabbard delivered a piercing, if inaccurate, appraisal of Kamala Harris' law enforcement
record -- then turned it into a misleading, yet effective, online ad push." • That's all
Politico says. I heard what Gabbard said, when she said it, and could have backed up every line
of it with links. Gabbard was even nicer than she could have been, because she left out
Mnuchin. I wish I could say this article was shocking, but it isn't.
"... Joe Biden is both sadly demented and deeply compromised to the Chinese Communist Party through his use of his office as VP to fund his son's investment fund with money from China's government owned and run central bank. His condition and his compromised state will keep him from the WH. ..."
"... Gabbart is the only person that seems rational and slightly honest. Harris traded sex for political advancement I understand why she would be a favorite. No moral or ethical standards willing to do anything for what she wants. Perfect useful idiot. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard is an exception to the subject of my title, but she is not going to be
nominated. I am currently contributing to her campaign as a tribute to a gallant lady.
Joe Biden is both sadly demented and deeply compromised to the Chinese Communist Party
through his use of his office as VP to fund his son's investment fund with money from China's
government owned and run central bank. His condition and his compromised state will keep him
from the WH.
They will both be irrelevant in the 2020 election as will as the Zombie candidates like
Bullock, Delaney, etc. i.e. the "moderates."
The rest of the pastiche of 2020 "Democrat" candidates are essentially Globalist advocates
of reduced US sovereignty as a step toward their "ideal" of a world socialist state in which
they will be part of the new Nomenklatura and will enjoy exemptions from the inevitable
shortages of everything resulting from universal "sharing" with the unfortunate masses who will
be proletarians engaged in slave labor or doing the gardening at the dachas of people like
Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Roarke and the like.
The barely hidden opposition by the leftist Democrats to border control is telling. The
leftist Democrats want to take down the SW border of the US until it is nothing but a line on
the map. They want to do that that in order to flood the country with illegals who can be voted
for Democrat majorities in states where they control the state governments. Remember, the
states run federal elections.
California is an example of dirty dealing intended to further rig election outcomes. Gavin
Newsom, the apparent present leader of the Sacramento cabal, has signed into law a statute
seeking to bar Trump from the ballot if he will not surrender his federal tax returns for
public inspection. Was the possibility of illegally voting millions of non-citizens by driver
licensing of illegals and their simultaneous voter-registration at the DMV not enough to ensure
victory? Thank god that a change in the number of presidential electors allotted to California
is not within the capability of the Sacramento cabal.
Americans and other people who will vote in 2020 will have a stark choice. Do you wish to
remain living in a sovereign state or do you wish to become a building bloc in a world
socialist empire?
Unfortunately the only choice available to the US sovereignty side will be Donald Trump, the
real estate hustler from New York City. Weld is not a serious candidate. pl
Both parties seem inclined to bring about "paradise on earth". To understand these
internationalists, I cite Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor conversation with Christ:
..."'So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the destruction of Thy
kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Yet what was offered Thee? There are three
powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of
these impotent rebels for their happiness those forces are miracle, mystery and authority.
Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing so. When the wise and dread
spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Thee, "If Thou wouldst know whether
Thou art the Son of God then cast Thyself down, for it is written: the angels shall hold him
up lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know then whether Thou art the Son of God
and shalt prove then how great is Thy faith in Thy Father." But Thou didst refuse and wouldst
not cast Thyself down. Oh, of course, Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak,
unruly race of men, are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in
making one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have lost all Thy
faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against that earth which Thou didst come
to save. And the wise spirit that tempted Thee would have rejoiced. But I ask again, are
there many like Thee? And couldst Thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such
a temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great
moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising spiritual difficulties,
cling only to the free verdict of the heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be
recorded in books, would be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and
Thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a miracle. But
Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects God too; for man seeks not so
much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will
create new miracles of his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft,
though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic and infidel. Thou didst not come
down from the Cross when they shouted to Thee, mocking and reviling Thee, "Come down from the
cross and we will believe that Thou art He." Thou didst not come down, for again Thou wouldst
not enslave man by a miracle, and didst crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. Thou
didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before the might that has
overawed him for ever. But Thou didst think too highly of men therein, for they are slaves,
of course, though rebellious by nature. Look round and judge; fifteen centuries have passed,
look upon them. Whom hast Thou raised up to Thyself? I swear, man is weaker and baser by
nature than Thou hast believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou didst? By showing him so much
respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from
him- Thou who hast loved him more than Thyself! Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked
less of him. That would have been more like love, for his burden would have been lighter. He
is weak and vile. What though he is everywhere now rebelling against our power, and proud of
his rebellion? It is the pride of a child and a schoolboy. They are little children rioting
and barring out the teacher at school. But their childish delight will end; it will cost them
dear. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organise a universal state. There have been
many great nations with great histories, but the more highly they were developed the more
unhappy they were, for they felt more acutely than other people the craving for world-wide
union. The great conquerors, Timours and Ghenghis-Khans, whirled like hurricanes over the
face of the earth striving to subdue its people, and they too were but the unconscious
expression of the same craving for universal unity. Hadst Thou taken the world and Caesar's
purple, Thou wouldst have founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who
can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands? We have taken
the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh,
ages are yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. For
having begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course, with
cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with
tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written,
"Mystery." But then, and only then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men. Thou
art proud of Thine elect, but Thou hast only the elect, while we give rest to all. And
besides, how many of those elect, those mighty ones who could become elect, have grown weary
waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will transfer the powers of their spirit and the
warmth of their heart to the other camp, and end by raising their free banner against Thee.
Thou didst Thyself lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will no more rebel
nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only
become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or
shall we be lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember the
horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them. Freedom, free thought,
and science will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such
marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy
themselves, others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest, weak and
unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: "Yes, you were right, you alone
possess His mystery, and we come back to you, save us from ourselves!"
"'Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread made by their
hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle. They will see that we do not change
the stones to bread, but in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands
than for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our
help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while since they have come
back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know
the value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most
to blame for their not knowing it?-speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it astray on
unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will submit once more, and then it
will be once for all. Then we shall give them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures
such as they are by nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou
didst lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that they are
weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of
all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to
the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our
being so powerful and clever that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of
thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow
fearful, they will be quick to shed tears like women and children, but they will be just as
ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song.
Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a
child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin,
they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin.
We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that
we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon
ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviours who
have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We
shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have
children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to
us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will
bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our
answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at
present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of
creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the
mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred
thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and
evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave
they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we
shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in
the other world, it certainly would not be for such as they. It is prophesied that Thou wilt
come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say
that they have only saved themselves, but we have saved all. We are told that the harlot who
sits upon the beast, and holds in her hands the mystery, shall be put to shame, that the weak
will rise up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her loathsome body.
But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the thousand millions of happy children who
have known no sin. And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up
before Thee and say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." Know that I fear Thee not. Know
that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized
the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy
elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting "to make up the number." But I awakened and
would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy
work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I
say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will be built up. I repeat, to-morrow Thou
shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders
about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has ever
deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee. Dixi.'"*...
Dem candidate clown car is every bit as vile as the Gop clown car in 16.
Gabbart is the only person that seems rational and slightly honest. Harris traded sex for
political advancement I understand why she would be a favorite. No moral or ethical standards
willing to do anything for what she wants. Perfect useful idiot.
"... Malcolm Wallace and LBJ had been closely linked. In the early 50’s, LBJ had gone to great extents to save Wallace’s life after he shot down a professional golfer who was having an affair with LBJ’s alcoholic sister. Although guilty of murder, Wallace ended up with a minor sentence. ..."
"... Interestingly, a Wallace fingerprint was apparently found at the TSBD “Sniper nest” from where Oswald allegedly shot JFK. Probably some insurance taken against LBJ by his co-conspirators… ..."
This reminds me a little of a almost forgotten incident from the 1960s
Some government inspector in Texas had agreed to testify about the details of a gigantic
corruption ring that was closely connected with LBJ. I can't remember the exact details, but
not long afterward, he was found dead, shot seven times.
The local Texas court ruled it an apparent suicide and that's exactly how it was reported
in the Washington Post and the other national newspapers
In 1984, Billie Sol Estes told a grand jury investigating the 1961 shooting death of Henry
Marshall, an official with the Department of Agriculture, that LBJ’s associate Malcolm
Wallace was Marshall’s murderer.
Malcolm Wallace and LBJ had been closely linked. In the early 50’s, LBJ had gone
to great extents to save Wallace’s life after he shot down a professional golfer who
was having an affair with LBJ’s alcoholic sister. Although guilty of murder, Wallace
ended up with a minor sentence.
Interestingly, a Wallace fingerprint was apparently found at the TSBD “Sniper
nest” from where Oswald allegedly shot JFK. Probably some insurance taken against LBJ
by his co-conspirators…
@Iris Shortly before
he died, Estes collaborated with a French journalist on a book called “Le dernier
temoin” (“The Last Witness”) in which Estes claimed that he had
participated in a meeting with LBJ in which the JFK assassination was planned. The book was
published in French (I have a copy), but no English translation has ever appeared.
"... Ms. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, has railed against "regime change wars" and warned of a nuclear arms race ..."
"... Ms. Gabbard has focused on ending what she calls "regime change wars ..."
"... She has introduced legislation in Congress that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for weapons that violate a 1987 nuclear arms-control pact. ..."
Ms. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, has railed against "regime change wars" and
warned of a nuclear arms race
Ms. Gabbard has focused on ending what she calls "regime change wars ," the "new
Cold War" and the nuclear arms race.
She has
introduced legislation in Congress that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for
weapons that violate a 1987 nuclear arms-control pact.
And she has spoken out forcefully in opposition to President Trump's Iran strategy and
North
Korean policy , and what she sees as a general culture of warmongering.
"... The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West utterly alone. ..."
"... The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense) and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting. ..."
The Saker is back on his high horse – criticizing Gabbard for not going down in flames
as she tries to navigate the myriad of traps laid out the the US Government and MSM.
The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West
after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by
Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West
utterly alone.
The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as
well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western
domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense)
and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to
protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting.
On September 13, 2018, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took to the floor of the House
to rebuke the administration, accusing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of
protecting "al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria," all the while "threatening Russia,
Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."
####
In under a minute, Gabbard shredded Harris to pieces for jailing more than 1,500
nonviolent marijuana offenders while admitting in a radio interview that she had smoked
marijuana in college, and for her "tough-on-crime" stances. "She blocked evidence that would
have freed an innocent man from death row she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to
use them as cheap labor and she fought to keep the cash bail system in place," Gabbard
continued, leaving Harris unable to counter.
The MSM is having a difficult time ignoring her. She may have a chance. I will make
another donation to her campaign.
She beat Harris like a red-headed stepchild. Her monotonous reiteration "I'm proud of my
record" reminded me of the Breakfast Moment in Happy Gilmour, when Shooter McGavin mocks
Happy for daring to challenge him in golf.
Shooter: "Oh, you're on. But you're in big trouble, pal. I eat pieces of shit like you for
breakfast."
thern Star
August 2, 2019 at 4:31 am Very cogent..
A lot of the crucial but easily overlooked put on the table.
Never underestimate the significance of the obvious!
Like
Reply
August 2, 2019 at 4:44 pm I think a lot of people DID see that coming, to the extent that the
only behavior acceptable today in the American political milieu is a rehash of that sophomore's
question, "Can you say in one sentence or less what makes America the Greatest Country In The
World?" The American media typically pleats that 'the system is broken', but not during election
season. Then, America is the greatest and running on all cylinders, and the successful candidate
is the one who will convince voters that, rather than fix the whatever system, he/she/ze/zir
(it's only a matter of time) will take a system that is the best in the world and make itr
squeeze out even more happiness and satisfaction for Americans. Anyway, if you go off-message
with that, you are under the soulless influence of the Russians.
Anyway, it looks as if the democrats have gone to the well too often with that Russian
bullshit, and people are starting to get impatient with the cop-out – it's just an excuse
for having no good answer. You can always say, "X is because Russia". I think Harris just bit the
dust, and will lose a lot of support over this and gradually drop out. I got a kick out of the
"Gabbard is a non-issue, and won't even make the second debates" or something to that effect.
Whoever smugly said that was apparently asleep when a Ukrainian comedian who plays a president on
TV won the presidency in a landslide. The incumbent once thought it was safe to laugh politely at
him, because he was a non-issue, too.
I saw this story also on the same site, although it was not necessary to click on it, for
obvious reasons.
"A salute to the bravery of Olga Misik, 17, who during recent bloody protests for free
Moscow elections sat before Putin's armed-to-the-teeth goons and calmly read aloud the Russian
constitution, including Article 31 affirming the right to peaceful political assembly. She was
later arrested and allegedly beaten. "Injustice always concerns everyone," said Olga, who takes
the long view of repression. "Today the Moscow City Duma, tomorrow the governor of the region It
is only a matter of time."
'Bloody protests for free Moscow elections'?? They were bloody? Really? and the issue was free
Moscow elections? Not candidates being allowed to run despite having been disqualified for not
reaching the signatory threshold? The game of coming up with enough signatures to demonstrate a
valid support base is an old one, trawling the obituaries and all manner of dodges to come up
with enough for people who don't really have any support, but want a soapbox from which to squawk
their message and then say they were cheated of victory by the Kremlin. Putin's
armed-to-the-teeth goons? Really? American police called to control demonstrations are unarmed?
Since when? Does arming them make them goons? I can't see their teeth – how does the
reporter know they are armed to the teeth? Olga takes the long view of repression, does she? From
the jaded pinnacle of 17? I'm surprised they did not ask her views on gay sex – she's old
enough. Just.
Embarrassing western hyperbole – a Russian review of the PISA tests that descended to
the same level might read, "A salute to the simple-mindedness of the Amerikantsi 'students', who
must have gone to school at a mental institution, or been taught by the homeless lunatics that
abound in and around Amerikantsi cities. Once again they managed to score so poorly that one
might reasonably wonder if they arrived at the testing institution by accident, thinking instead
that they were being taken to see one of the violence-and-profanity-riddled Amerikantsi movies
that pollute the television and cause the Amerikantsi schoolchildren to shoot each other as if
they lived inside a video game where it is not real blood. It's difficult to imagine a sensible
explanation for such a dismal performance, in which they finished below the OECD average in every
category."
But you won't see anything like that in a Russian newspaper, or hear it on a Russian news
program. Because they don't act like the country is run by hysterical 12-year-olds. However, if
the Americans want to pin their new hopes for Putin's political immolation on some 17-year-old
attention-junkie bint, they should knock themselves out. They are merely hardening Russian
opinion against them, and they may not care but some day they will. And then they will wail, "Why
do they hate us? It must be because of our freedom!"
I was particularly intrigued by the mention of the Democrats getting caught fabricating fake
Russian troll accounts to pretend the Russians were trying to influence some state election or
other, I forget what, supposedly reported in the Times. I didn't see that, and I don't recall
anyone mentioning it here.
Like
ReplyMark Chapman
August 2, 2019 at 3:10 pm A very cogent argument for (a) keeping the debates agenda-free and
independently managed, and (2) a less-insane democratic party.
"... Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela? ..."
"In a post-Maduro Venezuela, the U.S. will remove sanctions, foster pro-market and
pro-business reforms and help rebuild confidence, Ross said. An immediate priority will be
providing humanitarian aid, while a medium-term focus will be rolling back socialism, Ross
said."
They are even promising to privatize garbage collection and sewer system! In the
medium-term focus, of course. Immediate focus on reign of terror, while handing out tins of
spam to the swarming masses. After that, setting up slave markets, just like in Tripoli!
Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and
some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to
afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America
will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so
that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of
course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to
help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some
reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela?
I hope somebody else will help them out. I'd dearly love to see Venezuela get on its feet
without American assistance, and then tell the entire Yoo Ess of Aye to kiss its ass. No more
heavy crude for your refineries, maybe you can turn them into basket shops, what say? No
thanks; we'll buy our food elsewhere, if it's all the same to you. Oh, and Bolsonaro? Eat a
bag of shit. Invite your Colombian buddy over for dinner
Yes, I meant to remark on that as well. It's funny that the western regime-change model
relies on countries loaned huge amounts of money to be enslaved by their honesty, and
actually pay it back.
"... India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria. ..."
"... Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America. ..."
"... America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629 ..."
Imperial divide and conquer strategy. Global strife aids imperialists. Russia, China, Iran unity threatens global Anglo Zionists.
Consequently, the logical progression is to welcome India into Anglo Zionist alliance with more aid to their extremists (Modi)
Emboldening extremists is always the way to war.
It is not that simple as Saudi sells oil to China, and India, Saudi plus Israel are on speaking terms with Russia plus Saudi
bankrolls Pakistan and US policies might change completely if Trump loses 2020.
Of course all bets are off should Modi manage to provoke a Hindu-Moslim civil war involving Pakistan.
Since I was at the age of having a political opinion, Jammu and Kashmir were part of a collection of areas under constant
conflict.
...
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 5 2019 18:13 utc | 44
Thanks for the reminder. Your use of the term 'constant conflict' reminded me of a military doctrine I stumbled upon in the
early Noughties which was called Constant Conflict. The only thing I could remember about it, today, was that it was written by
a psychopath and I did NOT like what the author was proposing.
It's dated 16.04.2016 and names the author as Retired Lieutenant Colonel of United States Army Ralph Peters and summarises
the crux of Peters' thesis and and his background/mission statement. It also provides enough info to find the original 1997 article
here... https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/97summer/peters.htm
The article concludes thus and there's a footnote...
...
"The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of
it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but
we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline."
--- Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for
future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate
of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. Over the past several
years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary,
the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has
published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books.
This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant
Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.
India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at
least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya
or Syria.
Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state
of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America.
So perhaps India should emulate its fellow "democratic" ally of America and adopt the same ethnic cleansing tactics in Kashmir
that the Land of the Free has deployed against Native tribes throughout the Indigenous lands that America currently occupies--from
the Trail of Tears of the past to the DAPL pipeline protests today.
"... Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. ..."
"... As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".) ..."
"... Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker. ..."
"... With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals. ..."
"... These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict. ..."
"... The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias. ..."
"... In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies. ..."
"... Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces. ..."
"... An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake. ..."
"... With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. ..."
"... Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran. ..."
In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d'etat supported and funded by NATO and involving
extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian
Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse
to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct
and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian
army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe's inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine's destabilization, only to
get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.
With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to
the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.
Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel,
France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian
intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the
Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves. The Russians also ensured
control of the skies through their network of Pantsir-S1, Pantsir-S2, S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems, together with their
impressive jamming (Krasukha-4), command and control
information management system (Strelets C4ISR System) and electronic-warfare technologies (1RL257 Krasukha-4).
As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack
on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no
secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton
called
for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to "
pay a little price ".)
Since Trump became president, the rhetoric of war has soared considerably, even as the awareness remains that any new conflict
would sink Trump's chances of re-election. Despite this, Trump's bombings in Syria were real and potentially very harmful to the
Syrian state. Nevertheless, they were
foiled by Russia's electronic-warfare capability, which was able to send veering away from their intended target more than 70%
of the latest-generation missiles launched by the British, French, Americans and Israelis.
One of the most terrifying moments for the future of humanity came a few months later when Trump started hurling threats and abuses
at Kim Jong-un , threatening to reduce Pyongyang to ashes. Trump, moreover, delivered his fiery threats in a speech at the United
Nations General Assembly.
Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint
a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens
to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He
then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker.
With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different
results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have
had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies
were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer
has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies
have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.
The difference between the case of Iran and the aforementioned cases of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea is precisely the direct
involvement of these two lobbies in the decision-making process underway in the US.
These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans
sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the
cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated
by decades of conflict.
What readers can be assured of is that in the cases of Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and Iran, the US is unable to militarily impose
its geopolitical or economic will.
The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained
extensively
why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was
unthinkable
, bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO
somewhat refused
to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias.
In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed
in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously
contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover
and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies.
In North Korea, the country's tactical and strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence discourages any missile attack. Any overland
attack is out of the question, given the high number of active as well as reserve personnel in the DPRK army. If the US struggled
to control a completely defeated Iraq in 2003, how much more difficult would be to deal with a country with a resilient population
that is indisposed to bowing to the US? The 2003 Iraq campaign would really be a "cakewalk" in comparison. Another reason why a missile
attack on North Korea is impossible is because of the conventional power that Pyongyang possesses in the form of tens of thousands
of missiles and artillery pieces that could easily reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. This would then lead to a war between
the US and the DPRK being fought on the Korean Peninsula. Moon Jae-in, like Merkel and Sarkozy in the case of Ukraine, did everything
in his power to prevent such a devastating conflict.
Concerning tensions between the US and Iran and the resulting threats of war, these should be taken as bluster and bluff. America's
European allies are heavily involved in Iran and depend on the Middle East for their oil and gas imports. A US war against Iran would
have devastating consequences for the world economy, with the Europeans seeing their imports halved or reduced. As Professor Chossudovsky
of the strategic think tank Global Research has so ably
argued , an attack on Iran is unsustainable, as the oil sectors of the UAE and Saudi Arabia would be hit and shut down. Exports
would instantly end after the pipelines going West are bombed by the Houthis and the Strait of Hormuz closed. The economies of these
two countries would implode and their ruling class wiped out by internal revolts. The state of Israel as well as US bases in the
region would see themselves overwhelmed with missiles coming from Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Iran. The Tel Aviv government
would last a few hours before capitulating under the pressure of its own citizens, who, like the Europeans, are unused to suffering
war at home.
Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against
the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic
resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication
of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to
withdraw from the
coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable
damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces.
An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't
want to cross, having so much at stake.
With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises.
The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its
own profits and controls global finance. And finally, US military planners do not intend to suffer a humiliating defeat in Iran
that would reveal the extent to which US military power is based on propaganda built over the years through Hollywood movies and
wars successfully executed against relatively defenceless countries. Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin
Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them
on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran.
It is telling that Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh have to resort to numerous but ultimately useless
provocations against Iran, as they
can only rely on hybrid attacks in order to economically isolate it from the rest of the world.
Paradoxically, this strategy has had devastating consequences for the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency together with
the SWIFT system. In today's multipolar environment, acting in such an imperious manner leads to the acceleration of de-dollarization
as a way of circumventing sanctions and bans imposed by the US.
A reserve currency is used to facilitate transactions. If the disadvantages come to exceed the benefits, it will progressively
be used less and less, until it is replaced by a basket of currencies that more closely reflect the multipolar geopolitical reality.
The warmongers in Washington are exasperated by their continuing inability to curb the resilience and resistance of the people
in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Donbass, countries and regions understood by the healthy part of the globe as representing
the axis of resistance to US Imperialism.
America must always threaten someone with war. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia, so many to choose from.
Conflicts must never be resolved; they must always kept simmering, so a hot war can be triggered quickly. All Presidents are
turned in the first three months after sworn in.
It's what happens as empires mature. Governance becomes bloated, corrupt and inept (often leading to wars). Maturity time has
become significantly reduced due to the rate of information technology advance. America is five years away from going insolvent
according to most models and forecasts. All new debt after 2024 will be used to pay the interest on existing debts and liabilities.
There is simply no stopping it. The US already pays close to 500 billion in annual interest on debts and liabilities. Factor in
a 600 billion or 700 billion dollar annual military budget, and unrestrained deficit spending clocking in at over a trillion,
and, well, it isn't going to work for long. Considering most new well paying jobs are government jobs... The end is either full
socialism / fascism (folks still don't get how similar these are), a currency crisis and panic, depression and institutional deterioration.
The only good news to libertarians I guess - if you can call it good - is that the blotted government along with the crony corporations
will mostly and eventually collapse. Libertarian governance might not be a choice by an electorate, it might simply become fact
in the aftermath.
I guess Trump eventually will understand this lesson in politics that friendship, mutual respect and helping each other accomplishes
way way more then threatening countries to be bombed back into the stoneage.
Noone likes to do a cutthroat deal enforced upon them by thuggery. Trump's got to learn that you can't run politics like you do
your bussinesses, it's not working unles that was his plan all this time, to destroy America.
"The Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy
goals.
These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans
sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at
the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been
devastated by decades of conflict."
America is increasingly looking like Ancient Rome towards the end. It is overstretched, nearly insolvent, fewer allies want
to be allies, it's population is sick, physically and mentally. Obesity, diabetes, drug use/addiction make it impossible for the
Pentagon to meet recruitment goal. Mental illness causes daily mass killing. The education system is so broken/broke that there
is little real education being done. Americans are among the most ignorant, least educated and least educate-able people in the
developed world.
Militarily, the USA can bomb but that's about it... defeats upon defeats over the past two decades demonstrate the US military
is a paper tiger of astonishing incompetence.
Boeing can't make planes anymore. Lockheed is not much better. Parts of the F-35 are made by Chinese subsidiaries. The most
recently built aircraft carrier cannot launch fighter jets.
Recent estimates indicate that more than 550,000 people experience homelessness in the US on any given night, with about two-thirds
ending up in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, and one-third finding their way to unsheltered locations like
parks, vehicles, and metro stations. According to the Urban Institute, about 25% of homeless people have jobs.
I find that it is difficult for me to wrap my head around pain and suffering on such an immense scale. Americans often think
of the homeless as drug-addicted men that don't want to work, but the truth is that about a quarter of the homeless population
is made up of children.
Seriously, why would Iran want to hijack a German ship? Iran took the UK one in retaliation for the Brits seizing the one at
Gibraltar. Had that not happened, no Brit ships in the Persian Gulf would have been touched. This is all a carefully engineered
USA provocation designed to, inter alia, increase tension in the Persian Gulf, put more nails in coffin of JCPOA...and most importantly
give UK an excuse, as remaining signatory, to call for the original UN sanctions on Iran to be snapped-back.
Federico, let me explain it simply: the U.S. is allied with Israel, and Iran hates Israel. Why, I don't know (nor do I care),
but that's why the U.S. needs to keep Iran in check.
Yet CONGRESS just passed the largest defense bill in history. The WAR industry is bankrupting us financially spiritually and
morally.
A war is coming. But upon whom this time (or STILL?), because with President Bolton and Vice President Adelson in power, China
Iran or Russia or maybe all three, are open options.
Interview with a Russian I saw 2 years ago "USA wants to create local conflicts on foreign shores, ...on our borders, we will
not allow that to happen and make the war international" I will translate: Russia will not be pulled in to some stupid small war
draining their resources while the US sits comfortable, they will throw their missiles around - no escape from nuclear winter.
If spending has reached the limit now, during peacetime....what will happen during a protracted war? Even if it stays conventional,
it would appear that a huge war effort, comparable to WWII, just won't be possible. The US seems to be in a pre-war Britain position,
but there isn't a friendly giant across the water to bail them out with both cash and resources.
Either things become insane in fairly short order, or wiser heads will prevail and the US will step back from the brink. Do
we have any wiser heads at the moment?
I keep seeing John Bolton's moustache, Andi am not filled with confidence.
I would not call this article decent. At best it is half-decent ;-) This is a typical NYT anti-Tulsi propaganda but it does make
several relent observation buried in the sea of anti-Tulsi crapola.
Notable quotes:
"... “We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather than with, you know, a police baton,” she says. ..."
"... While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American intervention abroad. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We're Doomed by Nellie Bowles
Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world, and she wants its
citizens to remember that.
She is from Hawaii, and she spends each morning surfing. But that is not what she talks about in this unlikely campaign.
She talks about the horror.
She lists countries: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq. Failure after failure, she says. To drive the point
home, she wants to meet on a Sioux tribe reservation in North Dakota, where, she explains, the United States government committed
its original atrocity.
“These Indigenous people have been disrespected, mistreated with broken promises and desecrated lands,” Ms. Gabbard says.
... ... ...
But her run, and the unusual cross-section of voters she appeals to — Howard Zinn fans, anti-drug-war libertarians, Russia-gate
skeptics, and conservatives suspicious of Big Tech — signifies just how much both parties have shifted, not just on foreign
policy. It could end up being a sign that President Trump’s isolationism is not the aberration many believed, but rather a
harbinger of a growing national sentiment that America should stand alone.
To Ms. Gabbard, it is the United States that has been the cruel and destabilizing force.
... ... ...
“We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather
than with, you know, a police baton,” she says.
... ... ...
While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There
is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles
Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American
intervention abroad.
... ... ...
Ms. Gabbard says she is driven by the feeling that death could come at any moment, which she realized at age 10 but which
became more intense in Iraq.
“My first deployment was at the height of the war in 2005. We were 40 miles north of Baghdad. And there was a huge sign
by one of the main gates that just read: ‘Is today the day?’” she says. “It was such a stark reminder that my time could come
at any moment. That any day could be my last.”
She is not sure who put the sign up or why. But it was this message of potentially imminent doom that she wanted to leave
the audience with at the second Democratic debate.
“As we stand here tonight,” she told the crowd. “There are thousands of nuclear missiles pointing right at us, and if we
were to get an attack, we would have 30 minutes, 30 minutes, before we were hit.”
Ms. Gabbard continued.
“There is no shelter. This is the warmonger’s hoax. There is no shelter. It’s all a lie.”
Nellie Bowles covers tech and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter:
@nelliebowles
"A seat or family seat was the principal manor of a medieval lord, which was normally an
elegant country mansion and usually denoted that the family held political and economic
influences in the area. In some cases, the family seat was a manor house."
She is descended from "to the manor born", thus qualified to be POTUS.
Other trivia is that Tulsi was a martial arts instructor in 2002. Similar to Justin
Trudeau's part time drama teacher and ski instructor qualifications to be PM of Canada.
Politics is a drity business. The last think any aspiring politician wants is to
fight on two fronts. For example against forign wars and Isreal lobby. that's creates Doublespeak
situation for candidates like Tulsi...
Notable quotes:
"... But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and, of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard. ..."
It is unfortunate that Tulsi Gabbard succumbed to the Israel Lobby. The forces of the Empire
saw it as a sign of weakness and have set about destroying her.
The ruling elite see Gabbard as a threat just as they saw Trump as a threat. A threat is an
attractive political candidate who questions the Empire's agenda. Trump questioned the
hostility toward Russia orchestrated by the military/security complex. Gabbard questions the
Empire's wars in the Middle East. This is questioning that encroaches on the agendas of the
military/security complex and Israel Lobby. If fear of Israel is what caused Gabbard to vote
the AIPAC line on the bill forbidding criticism of Israel, she won't be able to stick to her
line against Washington's aggression in the Middle East. Israel is behind that aggression as it
serves Israeli interests.
But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on
her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and,
of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire
targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard.
Wars in the Middle East against Israel's enemies and preparation for major wars against
Iran, Russia, and China are the bread and butter for the powerful US military/security complex
lobby. All that is important to the military/security complex is their profits, not whether
they get all of us killed. In other words, their propaganda about protecting America is a
lie. They endanger us all in order to have enemies in order to justify their massive budget
and power.
Those of us who actually know, such as myself and Stephen Cohen, have been warning for years
that the orchestrated hostility against Russia is producing a far more dangerous Cold War than
the original one. Indeed, beginning with the criminal George W. Bush regime, the arms control
treaties achieved at great political expense by US and Soviet leaders have been abandoned by
Washington. The lastest treaty to be discarded by Washington in service to the
military/security lobby is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) negotiated by
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbechev. This treaty banned missiles that
Washington could place in Europe on Russia's border with which to attack Russia with little or
no reaction time, and Russian missiles that could be used to attack Washington's NATO puppet
states in Europe and UK. The treaty resulted in the elimination of 2,692 missiles and a decade
of verification inspections that satisfied both parties to the agreement. But suddenly
Washington has pulled out of the treaty. The main purpose of pulling out of the treaty is to
enable the military/security complex to develop and produce new missiles at the taxpayers'
expense, but Washington also sees a military advantage in withdrawing from the INF treaty.
Washington, of course, blames the US withdrawal on Russia, just as Washington blames every
country that Washington intends to attack. But it is completely obvious even to a moron that
Russia has no interest whatsoever in abandoning the treaty. Russian intermediate-range
missiles cannot reach the United States. Russia has no reason to attack Europe, which has
no military forces of any consequence. It is the American nuclear missiles on European soil
that are the problem
Washington, however, does gain by tearing up the INF treaty. At Europe's risk, not
America's, Washington's intermediate-range nuclear misslies stationed in Europe on Russia's
borders permit a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia. Because of proximity, the warning time is
only a couple of minutes. Washington's crazed war planners believe that so much of the Russian
retaliatory capacity would be destroyed, that Russia would surrender rather than retaliate with
diminished forces and risk a second attack.
Putin stresses this danger as does the Russian military. US missiles on Russia's border puts
the world on a hair trigger. Aside from the fact that a nuclear attack on Russia is the likely
intent of the criminal neoconservatives, nuclear warning systems are notorious for false
alarms. During Cold War I, both sides worked to build trust, but since the criminal Clinton
regime Washington has worked to destroy all trust between the two dominant nuclear powers. All
that is required to obliterate life on earth, thanks entirely to the crazed fools in
Washington, is one false alarm received by the Russians. Unlike past false alarms, next time
the Russians will have no choice but to believe it.
Intermediate-range nuclear missiles leave no time for a phone call between Putin and Trump.
The Russian leader who has suffered hundreds of diplomatic insults, demonization of his person
and his country, illegal sanctions, endless false accusations, and endless threats cannot
assume that the warning is false.
The idiots in Washington and the presstitutes have programmed the end of the world. When the
alarm goes off, the Russian leader has no choice but to push the button.
Any remaining doubt in the Russian government of Washington's hostile intentions toward
Russia has been dispelled by Trump's National Security Advisor, the neocon warmonger John
Bolton. Bolton recently announced that the last remaining arms control agreement, START, will
not be renewed by Washington in 2021.
Thus, the trust built between the nuclear powers that began with President John F. Kennedy
and reached its greatest success with Reagan and Gorbachev has been erased. It will be lucky if
the world survives the destruction of trust between the two major nuclear powers.
ORDER IT NOW
The American government in Washington has been made so utterly stupid by its arrogant hubris
that it has no comprehension of the dangerous situation that it, and it alone, has created. We
are all at risk every minute of our lives because of the power, of which President Eisenhower
warned us more than a half century ago to no avail, of the US military/security complex, an
organized powerful force determined and able to destroy any American president who would
threaten their budget and power by making peace.
Donald Trump is a strong personality, but he has been cowed by the Israel Lobby and the
military/security complex. As reigning president, Trump sat there Twittering while an attack
orchestrated by the military/security complex and the Democratic Party, with 100% cooperation
from the American media, tried to portray him as a Russian agent as grounds for his
impeachment.
A strong personality in what is allegedly the most powerful office in the world who allows
his entire first term to be wasted by his opponents in an attempt to frame him and drive him
from office is all we need to know about the likely fate of Tulsi Gabbard.
"... it turned out that the very people who were up in arms about "fake news" were the ones propagating their own version of it. WikiLeaks did much to expose their game by publicizing the key role played by the Legacy Media in acting as an extension of the Clinton campaign. However, the real unmasking came after the November election, when the rage of the liberal elites became so manifest that "reporters" who would normally be loath to reveal their politics came out of the closet, so to speak, and started telling us that the old journalistic standard of objectivity no longer applied. The election of Trump, they averred, meant that the old standards must be abandoned and a new, and openly partisan bias must take its place. In honor of this new credo, the Washington Post has adopted a new slogan: " Democracy dies in darkness "! ..."
"... Rep. Gabbard's "crime" was to challenge the US-funded effort to overthrow the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad as contrary to our interests and the prospects for peace in the region. For that she has been demonized in the media – and, not coincidentally, the very same media that is now an instrument in the hands of our "intelligence community." For ..."
"... And of course it's not just the Washington Post : the entire "mainstream" media is now colluding with the "intelligence community" in an effort to discredit and derail any efforts at a rapprochement with Russia. We haven't seen this kind of hysteria since the frigid winter of the cold war. ..."
"... My longtime readers will not be shocked by any of this: during the run up to the Iraq war, the media was chock full of fake news about Saddam Hussein's fabled weapons of mass destruction, which all the "experts" told us were certainly there and ready to rain death and destruction at any minute. Who can forget the series of articles by Judith Miller that adorned the front page of the New York Times – which were merely Bush administration talking points reiterated by Donald Rumsfeld & Co. on the Sunday talk shows? Miller has now become synonymous with the very concept of fake news – and yet how quickly we forget the lesson we should have learned from that shameful episode in the history of American journalism . ..."
"... Blinded by partisan bias, all too willing to be used as an instrument of the Deep State -- and determined to "control exactly what people think," which is, as Mika Brzezinski put it the other day, " our job " – the English-speaking media has become increasingly unreliable. This has become a big problem for us here at Antiwar.com: we now have to check and re-check everything that they report as fact. Not that we didn't do that anyway, but the difference is that, these days, we have to be more careful than ever before linking to it, or citing it as factual. ..."
"... The day of the "alternative media" has passed. We are simply part of the media, period: the increasingly tiny portion of it that doesn't fall for war propaganda, that doesn't have a partisan agenda, and that harkens back to the "old" journalistic standards of yesteryear – objective reporting of facts. That doesn't mean we don't have opinions, or an agenda – far from it! However, we base those opinions on what, to the best of our ability, we can discern as the facts. ..."
"... And we have a pretty good record in this regard. Back when everyone who was anyone was telling us that those "weapons of mass destruction" were lurking in the Iraqi shadows, we said it was nonsense – and we were right. As the "experts" said that war with Iraq would "solve" the problem of terrorism and bring enlightenment to the Middle East, we said the war would usher in the reign of chaos – and we were right. We warned that NATO expansion would trigger an unnecessary conflict with Russia, and we were proved right about that, too. The Kosovo war was hailed as a "humanitarian" act – and we rightly predicted it would come back to haunt us in the form of a gangster state riven by conflict. ..."
"... There's one way in which we are significantly different from the rest of the media – we depend on our readers for the financial support we need to keep going. The Washington Post has Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in the world – not to mention a multi-million dollar contract with the "intelligence community." The New York Times has Carlos Slim, another billionaire with seemingly bottomless pockets. We, on the other hand, just have you. ..."
We're not the alternative media – we're the best media you've got!
Posted on
August 06, 2019 August 4, 2019The more things change, the more they stay the same: the
sun comes up in the morning; another Hitler arises in the fantasies of the foreign-policy
establishment; and Josh Rogin writes
another column attacking Tusli Gabbard, the most pro-peace candidate in the Democratic
lineup. Justin blasted Rogin the first time he tried this, back in February of 2017, proving
that the whole story was "fake news". We think it's important to revisit Justin's analysis of
the media-enhanced demand for war. As Justin notes, the only real alternative to this, the only
real "alternative media," are sites like Antiwar. com and WikiLeaks.
If we look at the phrase itself, it seems to mean the media that presents itself as the
alternative to what we call the "corporate media," i.e. the New York Times , the
Washington Post , your local rag – in short, the Legacy Media that predominated in
those bygone days before the Internet. And yet this whole arrangement seems outdated, to say
the least. The Internet has long since been colonized by the corporate giants: BuzzFeed, for
example, is regularly fed huge dollops of cash from its corporate owners. And the Legacy Media
has adapted to the primacy of online media, however reluctantly and ineptly. So the alternative
media isn't defined by how they deliver the news, but rather by 1) what they judge to be news,
and 2) how they report it.
And that's the problem.
There's been much talk of "fake news," a concept first defined by the "mainstream" media
types as an insidious scheme by the Russians and/or supporters of Donald Trump to deny Hillary
Clinton her rightful place in the Oval Office. Or it was
Macedonian teenagers out to fool us into giving them clicks. Or something. Facebook and
Google announced a campaign to eliminate this Dire Threat, and the mandarins of the
"mainstream" reared up in righteous anger, lecturing us that journalistic standards were being
traduced.
Yet it turned out that the very people who were up in arms about "fake news" were the ones propagating
their own version of it.
WikiLeaks did much to expose their game by publicizing the
key role played by the Legacy Media in acting as an
extension of the Clinton campaign. However, the real unmasking came after the November
election, when the rage of the liberal elites became so manifest that "reporters" who would
normally be loath to reveal their politics came out of the closet, so to speak, and started
telling us that the old journalistic standard of objectivity no longer applied. The election of
Trump, they averred, meant that the old standards must be abandoned and a new, and openly
partisan bias
must take its place. In honor of this new credo, the Washington Post has adopted a new slogan:
"
Democracy dies in darkness "!
This from the newspaper that ran a front page story citing the anonymous trolls at
PropOrNot.com as credible sources for an account of alleged
"Russian agents of influence" in the media – a story that slimed Matt Drudge and
Antiwar.com, among others.
This from the newspaper that regularly publishes "news" accounts citing anonymous
"intelligence officials" claiming the Trump administration is rife with Russian "agents."
This from the newspaper that published
a piece by foreign affairs columnist Josh Rogin that falsely claimed Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's
trip to Syria was funded by a group that is "nonexistent" and strongly implied she was in the
pay of the Syrian government or some other foreign entity. Well after the smear circulated far
and wide, the paper posted the following correction:
" An earlier version of this op-ed misspelled the name of AACCESS Ohio and incorrectly
stated that the organization no longer exists. AACCESS Ohio is an independent non-profit
organization that is a member of the ACCESS National Network of Arab American Community
organizations but is currently on probation due to inactivity. The op-ed also incorrectly
stated that Bassam Khawam is Syrian American. He is Lebanese American. This version has been
corrected."
Rep. Gabbard's "crime" was to challenge the US-funded effort to overthrow the regime of
Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad as contrary to our interests and the prospects for peace in
the region. For that she has been demonized in the media – and, not coincidentally, the
very same media that is now an instrument in the hands of our "intelligence community." For it
is these spooks who, for years, have been canoodling with the Saudis in an effort to rid the
region of the last secular obstacle to the Sunni-ization of the Middle East. That they have
Tulsi Gabbard in their sights is no surprise.
And of course it's not just the Washington Post : the entire "mainstream" media is
now colluding with the "intelligence community" in an effort to discredit and derail any
efforts at a rapprochement with Russia. We haven't seen this kind of hysteria since the frigid
winter of the cold war.
My longtime readers will not be shocked by any of this: during the run up to the Iraq war,
the media was chock full of fake news about Saddam Hussein's fabled weapons of mass
destruction, which all the "experts" told us were certainly there and ready to rain death and
destruction at any minute. Who can forget the series of articles by Judith Miller that adorned
the front page of the New York Times – which were merely Bush administration
talking points reiterated by Donald Rumsfeld & Co. on the Sunday talk shows? Miller has now
become synonymous with the very concept of fake news – and yet how quickly we forget the
lesson we should have learned from that shameful episode in the history of American
journalism.
So fake news is nothing new, nor is the concept of the "mainstream" media as a megaphone for
war propaganda. What's different today is that many are waking up to this fact – and
turning to the "alternative." I've been struck by this rising phenomenon over the past year or
so: Matt Drudge gave Antiwar.com a permanent link. Our audience has increased by many
thousands. And I've been getting a steady stream of interview requests. I was quite pleased to
read the following in
a recent piece in The Nation about the media's fit of Russophobia and the key role
played by the journalist I. F. Stone during the 1950s:
"To conclude where I began, think for a moment about I.F. Stone during his haunted 1950s.
While he was well-regarded by a lot of rank-and-file reporters, few would say so openly. He was
PNG [persona non grata] among people such as [ New York Times publisher Arthur]
Sulzberger – an outcast .
"Now think about now.
"A few reporters and commentators advise us that the name of the game these days is to
sink the single most constructive policy the Trump administration has announced. The rest is
subterfuge, rubbish. This isprima faciethe case, though you can read it nowhere
in theTimesor any of the other corporate media. A few have asserted that we may
now be witnessing a coup operation against the Trump White House. This is a possibility, in my
view. We cannot flick it off the table. With the utmost purpose, I post
here one of
these pieces. "A Win for the Deep State" came out just after Flynn was forced from office. It
is by a writer named Justin Raimondo and appeared in a wholly out-of-bounds web publication
called Antiwar.com. I know nothing about either, but it is a thought-provoking piece."
Well, we aren't quite "wholly out of bounds," except in certain circles, but all in all this
is a great compliment – and it's illustrative of author Patrick Lawrence's point, which
is that
"We, readers and viewers, must discriminate among all that is put before us so as to make
the best judgments we can and, not least, protect our minds. The other side of the coin, what
we customarily call 'alternative media,' assumes an important responsibility. They must get
done, as best they can, what better-endowed media now shirk. To put this simply and briefly,
they and we must learn that they are not 'alternative' to anything. In the end there is no such
thing as 'alternative media,' as I often argue. There are only media, and most of ours have
turned irretrievably bad."
We here at Antiwar.com take our responsibility to you, our readers and supporters, very
seriously. We're working day and night, 24/7, to separate fact from fiction, knee-jerk
"analysis" from intelligent critique, partisan bullshit from truth. And we've had to work much
harder lately because the profession of journalism has fallen on hard times.
Blinded by partisan bias, all too willing to be used as an instrument of the Deep State --
and determined to "control exactly what people think," which is, as Mika Brzezinski put it the
other day, " our job " – the
English-speaking media has become increasingly unreliable. This has become a big problem for us
here at Antiwar.com: we now have to check and re-check everything that they report as
fact. Not that we didn't do that anyway, but the difference is that, these days, we have to be
more careful than ever before linking to it, or citing it as factual.
The day of the "alternative media" has passed. We are simply part of the media, period: the
increasingly tiny portion of it that doesn't fall for war propaganda, that doesn't have a
partisan agenda, and that harkens back to the "old" journalistic standards of yesteryear
– objective reporting of facts. That doesn't mean we don't have opinions, or an agenda
– far from it! However, we base those opinions on what, to the best of our ability, we
can discern as the facts.
And we have a pretty good record in this regard. Back when everyone who was anyone was
telling us that those "weapons of mass destruction" were lurking in the Iraqi shadows, we said
it was nonsense – and we were right. As the "experts" said that war with Iraq would
"solve" the problem of terrorism and bring enlightenment to the Middle East, we said the war
would usher in the reign of chaos – and we were right. We warned that NATO expansion
would trigger an unnecessary conflict with Russia, and we were proved right about that, too.
The Kosovo war was hailed as a "humanitarian" act – and we rightly predicted it would
come back to haunt us in the form of a gangster state riven by conflict.
I could spend several paragraphs boasting about how right we were, but you get the idea. Our
record is a good one. And we intend to make it even better. But we can't do it – we
can't do our job – without your help.
There's one way in which we are significantly different from the rest of the media
– we depend on our readers for the financial support we need to keep going. The
Washington Post has Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in the world – not to
mention a multi-million
dollar contract with the "intelligence community." The New York Times has Carlos
Slim, another billionaire with seemingly bottomless pockets. We, on the other hand, just have
you.
Okay, I'll cut to the chase: we've come to a crucial point in our current fundraising
campaign, and now it's make it or break it time for Antiwar.com.
A group of our most generous supporters has pledged $40,000 in matching funds – but
that pledge is strictly conditional . What this means is that we must match that
amount in the short time left in our campaign in order to get the entire $40,000.
Yves here. This is a very important post, documenting how despite defense contractor claims
to the contrary, increased military spending has been accompanied by job losses in the US. This
should come as no surprise. Military contracting is an exercise in pork, and regularly
flagrantly disregards national security. A classic example: US uniforms and boots are made in
China.
Another example of the benefits of military pork going outside the US was the use of
contractors during the war in Iraq. From a 2007 Vanity Fair story:
In one place the job of laundering soldiers' uniforms, for example, might be performed by
a company working directly for KBR. But in another a subcontractor will have
sub-subcontracted the work to someone else, and sometimes even sub-sub-sub-subcontracted it.
"I've come across examples where you get down four or five levels," says a government auditor
who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There's the U.S. prime, the subcontractor from the
Middle East, then a sub-subcontractor from Pakistan, then a shell corporation with a box
number in Michigan, and finally the Iraqis who're actually doing the work -- for next to
nothing."
This system has created great difficulties for anyone attempting to oversee the process on
behalf of American taxpayers. It has also substantially increased the overall costs of the
war by creating the conditions for obscene markups between contract levels. "There is an
enormous need to get a closer handle on the detail in the field," says the auditor. "If you
go ask one of the inspectors general, 'Tell me about the subcontracts,' they can't tell you
anything. It's a black hole. What this means for oversight, and basic issues of fairness, is
that there is none."
On top of that, inflating the number of people tasked to an activity was routine, and the
article has first hand accounts from individuals who tried opposing the practice.
In other words, the contracting fraud results in US taxpayers paying way more than it would
have cost for US personnel to do the work with the added insult that the tasks were performed
by locals for a pittance.
A Marilyn has once again seduced a president. This time, though, it's not a
movie star ; it's Marillyn Hewson, the head of Lockheed Martin, the nation's top defense
contractor and the largest weapons producer in the world. In the last month, Donald Trump and
Hewson have seemed inseparable. They " saved " jobs at a
helicopter plant. They took the stage together
at a Lockheed subsidiary in Milwaukee. The president vetoed
three bills that would have blocked the arms sales of Lockheed (and other companies) to Saudi
Arabia. Recently, the president's daughter Ivanka even toured a Lockheed space
facility with Hewson.
On July 15th, the official White House Twitter account tweeted a video of the Lockheed
CEO extolling the virtues of the company's THAAD missile defense system, claiming that it
"supports 25,000 American workers." Not only was Hewson promoting her company's product, but
she was making her pitch -- with the weapon in the background -- on the White House lawn.
Twitter immediately burst with outrage over the White House posting an ad for a private
company, with some calling it "unethical" and
"likely unlawful."
None of this, however, was really out of the ordinary as the Trump administration has
stopped at nothing to push the argument that job creation is justification enough for
supporting weapons manufacturers to the hilt. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in as
president, he was already
insisting that military spending was a great jobs creator. He's only doubled down on this
assertion during his presidency. Recently, overriding congressional objections, he even
declared
a national "emergency" to force through part of an arms sale to Saudi Arabia that he had once
claimed
would create more than a million jobs. While this claim has been
thoroughlydebunked , the most essential
part of his argument -- that more money flowing to defense contractors will create significant
numbers of new jobs -- is considered truth personified by many in the defense industry,
especially Marillyn Hewson.
The facts tell a different story.
Lockheed Locks Down Taxpayer Dollars, While Cutting American Jobs
To test Trump's and Hewson's argument, we asked a simple question: When contractors receive
more taxpayer money, do they generally create more jobs? To answer it, we analyzed the reports
of major defense contractors filed annually with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (
SEC ).
Among other things, these reveal the total number of people employed by a firm and the salary
of its chief executive officer. We then compared those figures to the federal tax dollars each
company received, according
to the Federal Procurement Data System, which measures the "dollars obligated," or funds, the
government awards company by company.
We focused on the top five Pentagon defense contractors, the very heartland of the
military-industrial complex, for the years 2012 to 2018. As it happened, 2012 was a pivotal
year because the Budget Control Act (BCA) first went into effect then, establishing caps on how
much money could be spent by Congress and mandating cuts to defense spending through 2021.
Those caps were never fully adhered to. Ultimately, in fact, the Pentagon will receive
significantly more money
in the BCA decade than in the prior one, a period when the American wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq were at their heights.
In 2012, concerned that those caps on defense spending would cut into their bottom lines,
the five top contractors went on the political offensive, making future jobs their weapon of
choice. After the Budget Control Act passed, the Aerospace Industries Association -- the
leading trade group of the weapons-makers --
warned that more than one million jobs would be at risk if Pentagon spending were cut
significantly. To emphasize the point, Lockheed sent layoff notices to
123,000 employees just before the BCA was implemented and only days before the 2012 election.
Those layoffs never actually happened, but the fear of lost jobs would prove real indeed and
would last.
Consider it mission accomplished, since Pentagon spending was actually
higher in 2018 than in 2012 and Lockheed received a sizeable chunk of that cash infusion.
From 2012 to 2018, among government contractors, that company would, in fact, be the top
recipient of taxpayer dollars every single year, those funds reaching their zenith in 2017, as
it raked in more than $50.6
billion federal dollars. By contrast, in 2012, when Lockheed was threatening its employees
with mass layoffs ,
the firm received nearly $37
billion .
So what did Lockheed do with those additional $13 billion taxpayer dollars? It would be
reasonable to assume that it used some of that windfall (like those of previous years) to
invest in growing its workforce. If you came to that conclusion, however, you would be sorely
mistaken. From 2012 to 2018, overall employment at Lockheed actually fell from 120,000
to 105,000
, according to the firm's filings with the SEC and the company itself reported a slightly
larger reduction of 16,350 jobs in the U.S. In other words, in the last six years Lockheed
dramatically reduced its U.S. workforce, even as it hired more employees abroad and received
more taxpayer dollars.
So where is all that additional taxpayer money actually going, if not job creation? At least
part of the answer is contractor profits and soaring CEO salaries. In those six years,
Lockheed's stock price
rose from $82 at the beginning of 2012 to $305 at the end of 2018, a nearly four-fold
increase. In
2018 , the company also reported a 9% ($590 million) rise in its profits, the best in the
industry. And in those same years, the salary of its CEO increased by $1.4 million, again
according to its SECfilings
.
In short, since 2012 the number of taxpayer dollars going to Lockheed has expanded by
billions, the value of its stock has nearly quadrupled, and its CEO's salary went up 32%, even
as it cut 14% of its American work force. Yet Lockheed continues to use job creation, as well
as its employees' present jobs, as political pawns to get yet more taxpayer money. The
president himself has bought into the ruse in his race to funnel ever more money to the
Pentagon and promote arms deals to countries like Saudi Arabia, even over
the nearly unified objections of an otherwise incredibly divided Congress.
Lockheed Is the Norm, Not the Exception
Despite being this country's and the world's top weapons maker, Lockheed isn't the
exception but the norm. From 2012 to 2018, the unemployment rate in the U.S. plummeted from roughly 8% to 4%, with more than
13 million new jobs added to the economy. Yet, in those same years, three of the five top
defense contractors slashed jobs. In 2018, the Pentagon committed approximately $118 billion in
federal
money to those firms, including Lockheed -- nearly half of all the money it spent on
contractors. This was almost $12 billion more than they had received in
2012 . Yet, cumulatively, those companies lost jobs and now employ a total of 6,900 fewer
employees than they did in 2012, according to their SEC filings .
In addition to the reductions at Lockheed, Boeing slashed 21,400 jobs and Raytheon cut 800
employees from its payroll. Only General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman added jobs -- 13,400 and
16,900 employees, respectively -- making that total figure look modestly better. However, even
those "gains" can't qualify as job creation in the normal sense, since they resulted almost
entirely from the fact that each of those companies bought another Pentagon contractor and
added its employees to its own payroll. CSRA, which General Dynamics acquired in 2018, had
18,500
employees before the merger, while Orbital ATK, which General Dynamics acquired last year, had
13,900
employees. Subtract these 32,400 jobs from the corporate totals and job losses at the firms
become staggering.
In addition, those employment figures include all company employees, even those now working
outside the U.S. Lockheed is the only top five Pentagon contractor that provides information on
the percentage of its employees in the U.S., so if the other firms are shipping jobs overseas,
as Lockheed has done and as Raytheon is planning to
do, far more than 6,900 full-time jobs in the U.S. have been lost in the last six years.
Where, then, did all that job-creation money really go? Just as at Lockheed, at least part
of the answer is that the money went to the bottom-line and to top executives. According to a
report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consulting firm that provides annual analyses of the
defense industry, "the aerospace and defense (A&D) sector scored record revenues and
profits in 2018" with an "operating profit of $81 billion, surpassing the previous record set
in 2017." According to the report, Pentagon contractors were at the forefront of these profit
gains. For example, Lockheed's profit improvement was $590 million, followed closely by General
Dynamics at $562 million. As employment shrank, CEO salaries at some of these firms only grew.
In addition to compensation for Lockheed's CEO jumping from $4.2 million
in 2012 to $5.6 million
in 2018, compensation for the CEO of General Dynamics increased from $6.9 million
in 2012 to a whopping $20.7 million
in 2018.
Perpetuating the Same Old Story
This is hardly the first time that these companies have extolled their ability to create
jobs while cutting them. As Ben Freeman previously
documented for the Project On Government Oversight, these very same firms cut almost 10% of
their workforce in the six years before the BCA came into effect, even as taxpayer dollars
heading their way annually jumped by nearly 25% from $91 billion to $113 billion.
Just as then, the contractors and their advocates -- and there are many of them, given that
the weapons-making outfits spend more than $100 million on lobbying yearly,
donate tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of members of Congress every
election season, and give millions to think tanks annually --
will rush to defend such job losses. They will, for instance, note that defense spending leads
to job growth among the subcontractors used by the major weapons firms. Yet research has
repeatedly shown
that, even with this supposed "multiplier effect," defense spending produces fewer jobs than
just about anything else the government puts our money into. In fact, it's about 50% less
effective at creating jobs than if taxpayers were simply allowed to keep their money and use it
as they wished.
As Brown University's Costs of War project has reported , "$1
billion in military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs, compared with 26,700 in
education, 16,800 in clean energy, and 17,200 in health care." Military spending actually
proved to be the worst job creator of any federal government spending option those researchers
analyzed. Similarly, according to a report by
Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, for every $1 million of spending on defense, 6.9 jobs are created both
directly in defense industries and in the supply chain. Spending the same amount in the fields
of wind or solar energy, she notes, leads to 8.4 or 9.5 jobs, respectively. As for the
education sector, the same amount of money produced 19.2 jobs in primary and secondary
education and 11.2 jobs in higher education. In other words, not only are the green energy and
education areas vital to the future of the country, they are also genuine job-creating
machines. Yet, the government gives more taxpayer dollars to the defense industry than all
these other government functions combined .
You don't, however, have to turn to critics of defense spending to make the case. Reports
from the industry's own trade association show that it has been shedding jobs. According to an
Aerospace Industries Association analysis
, it supported approximately 300,000 fewer jobs in 2018 than it had
reported supporting just three years earlier.
If the nation's top defense contractor and the industry as a whole have been shedding jobs,
how have they been able to consistently and effectively perpetuate the myth that they are
engines of job creation? To explain this, add to their army of lobbyists, their treasure trove
of campaign contributions, and those think tanks on the take, the famed revolving door that
sends retired government officials into the world of the weapons makers and those working for
them to Washington.
While there has always been a cozy relationship between the Pentagon and the defense
industry, the lines between contractors and the government have blurred far more radically in
the Trump years. Mark Esper, the newly minted secretary of defense, for example, previously
worked as
Raytheon's top lobbyist in Washington. Spinning the other way, the present head of the
Aerospace Industries Association, Eric Fanning , had been both
secretary of the Army and acting secretary of the Air Force. In fact, since 2008, as the
Project On Government Oversight's Mandy Smithberger found , "at least 380 high-ranking
Department of Defense officials and military officers shifted into the private sector to become
lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for defense contractors."
Whatever the spin, whether of that revolving door or of the defense industry's publicists,
the bottom line couldn't be clearer: if job creation is your metric of choice, Pentagon
contractors are a bad taxpayer investment. So whenever Marillyn Hewson or any other CEO in the
military-industrial complex claims that spending yet more taxpayer dollars on defense
contractors will give a jobs break to Americans, just remember their track record so far: ever
more dollars invested means ever fewer Americans employed.
I seem to recall reading repeatedly that half of the American combat troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan were private contractors hired by such upstanding companies like Blackwater as
well as much, or perhaps mostly, were the staffing in such as cooks, janitors, even drivers.
Workers doing gig work in a war zone.
The American government got to use statistical legerdemain to cut the number of Americans
fighting, dying, and being injured, which means that the official numbers of American
military casualties is a lie, but it played well in the "news" stories sound bites.
The funds to pay for the hidden forces were used to pay the inflated contracts with the
money often going more to companies' profits than in paying the workers. Sometimes, as in the
case of the "retired" combat veterans, the pay was very, very good, but too often it was
chump pay especially as the wounded did not qualify for the benefits of the military such as
long term medical care or disability payments. This last bit also reduces the long term costs
of the wars for the government as any help that they might get would be something like Social
Security.
There are probably a fair number of disabled Americans wasting away from their unofficial
military service without any of the support, problematic as it is sometimes, that the
military veterans get. Then there are the lack of survivors benefits.
And yes, many people took those jobs because they were none to be had that paid the bills,
but the companies made bank.
To be clear, it wasn't combat troops. It was logistics support which was contracted out to
Halliburton under LOGCAP. Halliburton in turn used a subsidiary and subbed it out further.
USAID and various "reconstruction" contracts further inflated the number of contractors.
The significance of participating in the "Coalition" of nations was that their citizens
would not be considered mercenaries under UN agreements. Hence everyone jumping on board for
a piece of the pie.
True, the vast majority were logistical support personnel. I was one of them, IT
services.
The layers were 3 to 5 deep, everything from laundry services and kitchen people from
Pakistan and electricians and carpenters from the Philippines. KBR made bank while paying
these people squat. And not only was KBR/Haliburton getting rich over over there, they failed
to deliver on many of the services they were paid to provide.
Oh the stories I could tell. I learned the true meaning of War Profiteering courtesy of
companies like KBR.
I thought about doing a list of just what I saw, including the illegal billed for "force
protection" mentioned in this article:
In April 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil fraud case against KBR over
the issue of using private security forces in Iraq to protect its workers and
subcontractors. Private security wasn't allowed under the LOGCAP contract because the U.S.
military was supposed to provide protection.
Not only did Haliburton/KBR bill for it, they never provided it, at least not at the
largest post there, Balad Air Base.
This article is a decent summary of the big picture, on the ground level it looked a lot
worse, including costing some their lives as a direct result of incompetence and worse.
This used to be called the "self-licking ice cream cone." These people have no morals, and
don't care about anyone but themselves. They are merchants of death.
That sweet tooth got extended once the perps could brag about drinking your
milkshake . Strange how they didn't get any cavities but the rest of the populace
did.
>>A classic example: US uniforms and boots are made in China.
New Balance, the sneaker company with a small but significant US manufacturing capability,
has been protesting this vociferously for years.
After the most recent presidential election, one of their executives told a trade
publication that they were still optimistic for the future (what else were they supposed to
say?) and said specifically that they were hopeful that the new administration would enforce
Made-in-USA rules more forcefully (which they had been saying like a mantra forever).
And you can probably guess what happened. There was a Twitter storm of people burning New
Balance sneakers. The Intercept columnist Sean King put New Balance on a list of companies to
boycott.
And that is how this particular scam-laden military empire perpetuates itself: with a fake
opposition stuffed with scams of its own. How much do you wanna bet that the current holders
of said military contracts were astroturfing this opposition?
From the article:
As Brown University's Costs of War project has reported, "$1 billion in military spending
creates approximately 11,200 jobs, compared with 26,700 in education "
This implies that a job in the MIC sector making WMD pays nearly 2.4x more than a job
educating our children. What's wrong with this picture?
Trump throws billion$ more into the "defense" budget than was requested. MIC related stock
prices seem to be doing rather well. Mr. President, what's in your portfolio?
At least we get to voice our concerns – free speech – guaranteed so far, but
that's all. One day, the Ponzi will collapse, probably sooner than we think. And who will get
blamed? None other then the POTUS, but he'll escape any legal hassle's because he'll be
diagnosed with the dreaded "DEMENTIA". Where have we heard that before.
"... This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. ..."
President Trump signed an executive order late Monday imposing a
full economic embargo against Venezuela , freezing all government assets in the US and
forbidding all transactions of any Venezuelan officials.
This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the
US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic
isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
The order cites human rights abuses, and the fact that President Maduro is still in power
in Venezuela, even though the US recognized opposition leader Guaido as the rightful ruler of
the country.
This is the latest US effort to try to impose regime change in Venezuela, after a failed
military coup earlier this year. It's not clear how broadly the US intends to enforce the
sanctions, for example if they intend to use military force to prohibit naval trade from the
Venezuelan coast
Our policies are to do, mostly, with Republicans.
Our failure to convince voters, in a democracy, that there are alternatives to the gradual
rot of the last two generations -- that is to do, mostly, with Democrats.
Sure, undermining the party after it's made its choice of nominee is stupid and
counterproductive. But strengthening the party and fighting for its message are not mutually
exclusive. That is where we are now; Sarandonism is, for the moment, irrelevant.
I asked you a long time ago if you supported democracy, and you took offense. How then am
I supposed to interpret "blame the American voters"?
If fear of Israel is what caused Gabbard to vote the AIPAC line on the bill forbidding
criticism of Israel, she won't be able to stick to her line against Washington's aggression
in the Middle East. Israel is behind that aggression as it serves Israeli interests.
***
A strong personality .who allows his entire first term to be wasted by his opponents in an
attempt to frame him and drive him from office is all we need to know about the likely fate
of Tulsi Gabbard.
This piece, "Tulsi Gabbard: R.I.P.," is a good example of why I don't normally read PCR.
He blogs for his loyal followers, but says nothing we don't know, with little or no value
added. And then his analysis is weak. Perhaps he thinks this jab will stiffen Tulsi's spine,
(he's been a fan) and improve her platform. But she might just blow off his criticism as
irrelevant, which it may be.
PCR assumes that Tulsi voted against BDS out of fear. I believe that's wrong. She voted
out of idealism. That's what her Aloha movement is about. It may be naïve to think you
can make everybody happy, but if the Israel she supports turns out to be one state of equal
rights, that's fine.
"All we need to know" is one of my least favorite phrases. It's almost never true,
certainly not in this case. Trump's example (and he hasn't been as cowed as his detractors
make him out) doesn't foretell Tulsi's behavior. He's overflowing with bombast. She's calm,
with a core of steel.
PCR assumes that Tulsi voted against BDS out of fear. I believe that’s wrong. She
voted out of idealism. That’s what her Aloha movement is about. It may be naïve
to think you can make everybody happy, but if the Israel she supports turns out to be one
state of equal rights, that’s fine.
RobinG,
There are many good Dems who support the Palestinians. To get into the next debate, Tulsi
is looking for 4 polls who give her 2% support. To gain the support of those good people, she
must show sympathy for the Palestinians.
No empathy for the obvious plight of the Palestinians is a turn off among people of good
heart – something that Gabbard does not need.
Tulsi needs to be explicit concerning Israel/Palestine – it is unbecoming not to
be.
With a national debt approaching $23 trillion and a trillion dollar deficit for this year
alone, Congress last week decided to double down on suicidal spending, passing a two year
budget that has the United States careening toward catastrophe. While we cannot say precisely
when the economic crash will occur, we do know that it is coming. And last week Congress
pounded down on the accelerator.
We are told that the US economy is experiencing unprecedented growth, while at the same time
the Fed is behaving as it does when we are in recession by cutting rates and dodging insults
from the President because it's not cutting fast enough. This is not economic policy –
it's schizophrenia!
But that's only the beginning.
Take what they call "national defense" spending. This is the misnomer they use to try and
convince us that pumping trillions into the military-industrial complex will make us safe and
free. Nothing could be further from the truth: probably ninety percent of the "defense" budget
is aggressive militarism and welfare for the rich.
Under this budget deal the military budget would increase to nearly $1.4 trillion for two
years. Of course that's only a fraction of real military spending, which is, all told, well
over one trillion dollars per year.
What do we get for this money? Are we safer? Not at all. We are more vulnerable than ever.
We spend billions fighting "terrorism" in Africa while terrorism has actually increased since
the creation of the US Africa Command – "AFRICOM" – in 2007. Meanwhile we continue
to spend to maintain our illegal military occupation of a large section of Syria – which
benefits terrorist groups seeking to overthrow Assad.
We're sending thousands more troops to the Middle East including basing US troops in Saudi
Arabia for the first time since 2003. Back then, even neocon Paul Wolfowitz praised our
departure from Saudi Arabia because, as he rightly stated, US troops on Saudi soil was a great
recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.
Now we've pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty so that we can
deploy once-forbidden missiles on China's front door. A new arms race with China will mean a
new boon for our new Defense Secretary's former colleagues at Raytheon!
"... As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95) ..."
"... Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling. ..."
"... The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96) ..."
Andrew Bacevich
calls for
reckoning with the consequences of American colonial empire in the Philippines:
Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within
"our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation
by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged
from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized
on the National Mall in Washington.
Bacevich is right when he says that the Philippine War has been "almost entirely expunged from American memory today." It is significant
that one of the only times in recent years that the Philippine War was remembered was so that it could provide fodder for the counterinsurgency
fad among pro-war pundits. Max Boot was one of the chief advocates for counterinsurgency warfare, and he has cited the brutal occupation
campaign in the Philippines as an example of how to win such wars. Greg Bankoff counted the costs of the "small war" in the Philippines
that Boot praised in his book The Savage Wars of Peace , and he
described them in this response to a positive review of the book back in 2002:
Start with the description of the war itself as "small." Granted, the United States suffered only some 7,000 casualties, dead
and wounded. But estimates of Filipino mortality range from 200,000 persons upward. This is hardly small, especially considering
that the total Filipino population at the time was around seven million. Nor is it accurate to say the war ended in 1902, unless
one accepts the terms of President Theodore Roosevelt's November 1902 Brigandage Act, which redefined any band of more than three
men as bandits and subjected them to 20 years imprisonment or the death penalty. In fact, guerrilla warfare continued until 1907,
waged by popular revolutionary leaders who refused to accept the colonial yoke anew -- men such as Luciano San Miguel (who died
on the battlefield of Corral-na-Bato in March 1903), Macario Sakay (who was hanged on September 13, 1907) and Julian Montalan
(who was sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to Palawan until 1921). No, the war did not actually end in 1902, but the U.S.
colonial authorities conveniently branded everything subsequent to that as ladronism, simple thievery.
Bankoff warned later in the same piece that "a distorted reconstruction of that past is likely to preview an equally distorted
future." Looking back seventeen years later at our multiple protracted wars, all of them enthusiastically supported by Boot and fellow
neo-imperialists, we have to conclude that the future was horribly distorted in part by this willingness to lionize and whitewash
the Philippine War as a model for U.S. foreign policy. Like that war, our ongoing wars have inflicted horrific losses on the local
populations, they are completely divorced from the security of the United States, and the people we are fighting are fighting us
because our forces are in their country.
If Boot's distorted history has contributed to the distortion of our foreign policy, we could do worse than to begin by finding
better reconstructions of the past. Daniel Immerwahr has done some important work in studying the consequences of our colonial empire
on the people in the territories that our government took over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His book
How to Hide an Empire recounts the history of how the U.S. obtained its overseas territories, how it abused them, and how
it has created a very different kind of empire over the last seventy years.
Immerwahr recounts some of the opposition to the Philippine War from members of the Anti-Imperialist League:
As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical
organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic
platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic
and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95)
He also describes the tactics that U.S. forces used in the war:
Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents
could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the
north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling.
The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos
not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96)
If we hope to change U.S. foreign policy and repudiate empire, we have to remember first how we acquired it and the Americans
that organized to oppose it.
P.S. Another similarity between the Philippine War and the wars of the last two decades is the length of the actual fighting.
Immerwahr writes:
Stretching from the outbreak of hostilities in 1899 to the end of military rule in Moroland in 1913, it is, after the war in
Afghanistan, the longest war the United States has ever fought. (p. 107)
Wow!! Honesty in reporting!! I must applaud Caitlin Johnstone's boldfaced honesty in her
"Propagandists Freak Out Over Gabbard's Destruction of Harris: Establishment narrative
managers distracted attention from a notable antiwar contender, seizing instead the chance to
marshal an old smear against her, writes Caitlin Johnstone."
I stopped reading after this passage and had to come her and post a comment about the most
honest description of CNN I've ever read:
"CNN is a virulent establishment propaganda firm with an extensive history of promoting
lies and brazen psyops in facilitation of U.S. imperialism, so it would make sense that they
would try to avoid a subject which would inevitably lead to unauthorized truth-telling on the
matter."
Johnstone then recites the smearing attacks alluded to @46 but also tells us why:
"Gabbard just publicly eviscerated a charming, ambitious and completely amoral centrist
who would excel at putting a friendly humanitarian face on future wars if elected, and that's
why the narrative managers are flipping out so hard right now."
Harris and Michelle Obama I see as one and the same--both equally putrid. I know I dropped
by unequivocal support for Gabbard, but that doesn't mean I'm 100% against her and her
efforts. I wholeheartedly support Caitlin's conclusion:
"The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging,
because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war
propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention,
the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things
for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal,
ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing
oppression, the first step is punching a hole in the narrative matrix which keeps us
hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable.
"Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative
control is doing the real work."
Gabbard must poll 2% or more in at least 4 different polls between 6/28 & 8/28 to
qualify for the 3rd debate; she's received enough donations to qualify. She needs to be on
the podium!
Proven
Propagandist Bellingcat joins D-Party talking-point hit parade attacking Gabbard for
being "Assad Apologist." Interesting how she's getting the similar sort of negative publicity
Trump got quite a lot of at the outset of his campaign, which only serves to increase her
national exposure. Her retorts are forceful and having success; and as Trump proved, smear
campaigns no longer are assured of success. Clearly, the Current Oligarchy and their D-Party
allies are convinced that the massive propaganda smearing of Assad was successful; but, was
it really?
Media: Tulsi is New Darling of 'Russia's Propaganda Machine'
Remember when Red-baiting was considered dogmatic and passé by the left-wing hive?
By
Barbara Boland
•
August 5, 2019
Tulsi Gabbard in Amherst, New Hampshire, July 4, 2019..
( Andrew
Cline/Shutterstock)
What do Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and billionaire real estate heir Donald J. Trump have in common?
According to MSNBC, Gabbard is part of the Russian scheme that "Moscow used when it interfered in the 2016" election.
The
establishment loathes any candidate
who seeks an end to U.S. military adventurism abroad -- so much so that they are
willing to make the logically incoherent claim that Russian bots elected Trump. Now they're apparently also attempting to
elect his 2020 Democratic rival.
The mind-bending MSNBC
article
resurfaced on social media after Gabbard became the most Googled candidate thanks to several viral moments
during the debates.
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NBC News rests its
claim
that "Russia's propaganda machine" has "discovered" Tulsi Gabbard on the fact that "there have been at least 20
Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supportive of the Russian
government: RT, the Russian-owned TV outlet; Sputnik News, a radio outlet; and Russia Insider, a blog that experts say
closely follows the Kremlin line. The coverage devoted to Gabbard, both in news and commentary, exceeds that afforded to
any of the declared or rumored Democratic candidates despite Gabbard's lack of voter recognition."
Because Russian media reports on Gabbard, that means they're seeking to elect her. How sneaky.
A more obvious explanation for the increased coverage is that as a member of Congress, Gabbard has made many statements
regarding the war in Syria and America's and Russia's involvement, and because as a presidential candidate, she's made
foreign policy the centerpiece of her campaign.
Or it could be because -- Russian bots.
MSNBC says that "negative coverage and fabricated stories about Hillary Clinton" in 2016 were
"amplified by a huge network of fake social media accounts and bots" and that "experts who track inauthentic social media
accounts have already found some extolling Gabbard's positions since she declared."
It continues: "Within a few days of Gabbard announcing her presidential bid,
DisInfo 2018
, part of the
cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, found that three of the top 15 URLs shared by the 800 social media accounts affiliated
with known and
suspected
Russian propaganda operations
directed at U.S. citizens were about Gabbard."
New Knowledge is the company the Senate Intelligence Committee used to track Russian activities
in the 2016 election. Apparently they've told NBC News that they spotted "chatter" about Gabbard "in anonymous online
message boards, including those known for fomenting right-wing troll campaigns. The chatter discussed Gabbard's
usefulness."
Further, "Josh Russell, a researcher and 'troll hunter' known for identifying fake accounts,
similarly told NBC News he recently spotted a few clusters of suspicious accounts that retweeted the same exact text about
Gabbard, mostly neutral or slightly positive headlines."
"A few clusters" of "mostly neutral or slightly positive headlines." Scary stuff.
I'm old enough to remember when Democrats mocked the very idea of Russians being a threat.
Remember Obama's famous
comeback
:
"Governor Romney, I'm glad you recognize that al-Qaeda is a threat, because a couple of months ago when you were asked
what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their
foreign policy back."
Romney is a "Cold War holdover" with an "apparent determination to take U.S.-Russian relations back to the 1950s,"
chided
Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, at an April campaign event.
Romney "acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on, Russia is still our major adversary. I don't know where he has
been," Biden said in an
interview
with Bob Schieffer on
Face the Nation
. "We have disagreements with Russia, but they're united with us. This is
not 1956. He just seems to be uninformed or stuck in a Cold War mentality."
This all feels so long ago. Ever since the Democrats lost the 2016 election to Trump, there's been endless fear
mongering about how Russians are hiding behind every candidate. Now, if a Democratic candidate dares to defy the
establishment line on foreign interventionism, she must be aided by the Russians.
Because that's the only reason someone might
say
,
"I will not apologize to you, or to anyone for doing all that I can to prevent our country from continuing to make these
perpetual wrong decisions that have taken a toll on the lives of my brothers and sisters in uniform. I will continue to do
all that I can to make sure that we end these wasteful regime change wars."
Barbara Boland is
's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on
Twitter
@BBatDC.
Tulsi Gabbard is the
only
-- and I do mean
only
-- Democratic candidate for
President worth taking a serious look at.
Not that a serious look means actually voting for
the candidate of that diseased and corrupt Party. To my mind, in fact, a "D" next to the name
on the ballot is disqualifying.
Still, Tulsi appears to be the only one of the sorry lot deserving of some attention and
respect on the part of intelligent people.
This would account for why the Democratic Party Public Relations Machine (aka: Mainstream
Media) has trained its guns on her as a Russian dupe (or worse).
Seriously, it is to laugh: how this pathetic collection of tools, who spent the entire
Cold War as Soviet apologists, have in a generation converted wholesale to McCarthyite
Russia-bashers. All because Vlad doesn't cotton to gays.
Anyway, one might think that all of them, the lib-Dem-media tools, deserve the nuclear
incineration they're so casually inviting, which would mess up their privileged lives
big-time.
Unfortunately, the rest of us would end up taking the hit with them. Therefore, our only
recourse is to call them out for the witless idiots they are and pray their witless idiocy
does not end in a catastrophe.
Caitlyn Johnstone teaches us that all
anti-imperialists will necessarily be accused of Russian sympathies, solely because Russia,
for its own reasons, is the main opposition to western imperialism.
When this happens, demand to know what kind of war opposition would not be labeled
"Russian". They won't be able to provide a coherent answer.
"The establishment loathes any candidate who seeks an end to U.S. military adventurism
abroad -- so much so that they are willing to make the logically incoherent claim that Russian
bots elected Trump."
How "effective" Russian interference in our elections was in 2016 is a
question that political scientists and statisticians will be arguing about for years if not
decades.
What is logically incoherent is the idea that President Trump opposes US "military
adventurism." Tell that to the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Yemenis. And he certainly
does not oppose Russian "military adventurism" in Crimea and Syria.
More divisive talk, it doesn't matter if it's coming from the left or right. They'll say
whatever they can to deflect attention from our outrageous military budget. Finally we have a
candidate that is capable of uniting Americans across the entire political spectrum under a
single cause...end all of these useless foreign conflicts and redirect that money back into
programs and services that improve the quality of life for all Americans. So it comes as no
surprise to me that this journalist claiming to speak on behalf of American Conservatives
would claim Tulsi Gabbard is the Russian Candidate in an attempt to halt her momentum. 21st
Century McCarthyism won't work on us anymore. Conservatives, moderates, and liberals are
united behind Tulsi.
The mind-bending MSNBC article resurfaced on social media after Gabbard became the most
Googled candidate thanks to several viral moments during the debates.
the MSM hacks have enough stupidity to talk about
Gabbard's lack of voter recognition.
Seriously? I know that the MSM propaganda is oxymoronic to its core, but now I'm not sure
about "oxy".
Josh Russell, a researcher and 'troll hunter'
Really? That's his profession? I've always thought that "troll-hunting" is a form of what
medics may call either paranoid schizophrenia, querulous paranoia or paraphrenia, depending
on further symptoms.
Just give the wacko a fantasy video game, where he can literally hunt trolls.
Oh, and this:
Ever since the Democrats lost the 2016 election to Trump, there's been endless fear
mongering about how Russians are hiding behind every candidate.
Hopefully, they ain't gonna start hiding behind every fridge in a year.
Don't Underestimate Iran's Ability to Fight a Bloody War They already proved themselves against Iraq during the 1980s
-- and they're far stronger today. By
Pouya Alimagham •
August 6, 2019
Circa 1980's; an Iranian soldier wearing gas mask during Iran-Iraq War. Iraq used chemical weapons against military and civilian
targets throughout the eight year war. Declassified reports indicate that Saddam Hussein had international assistance in obtaining
the weapons, including from the U.S. and U.K, and the CIA assisted in targeting.
(Creative Commons/Wikipedia) On July 29, President Trump tweeted: "Just remember, Iranians never won a war, but never lost a
negotiation." In just 12 words, Trump leveled a multi-layered, ahistorical insult against both his predecessor, Barack Obama, and
Iran.
More importantly, the remarks betray a dangerously ignorant understanding of Iran that could result in another careless Middle
East war of choice.
The tweet invokes a clichéd, colonial-era stereotype that Iranians, like other Middle Eastern peoples, are wily swindlers -- rapacious,
greedy bazaar merchants who aim to take advantage of honest and unsuspecting Westerners. Trump is hardly the first American leader
to dabble in such denigrating stereotypes. Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official and former lead negotiator who helped
forge the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, infamously
quipped that
Iranians could not be trusted because they have "deception in their DNA."
The president deployed the stereotype of Iranian cunning to imply that they tricked a naïve president, Barack Obama, into signing
a flawed nuclear deal. According to the world's foremost nuclear security
experts , however, the
accord was ensuring Iran's compliance, thereby preventing a nuclear weapons program -- that is, until Trump subverted the agreement
in 2018.
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More importantly, Trump's words underscore the idea that Iranians are cowardly and militarily ineffectual, but make up for such
unflattering character flaws by swindling their foes during negotiations to achieve victory.
Iran's last war, however, should dispel any notion of cowardice and military weakness -- a history President Trump and anti-Iran
hawks like National Security Adviser John Bolton must face with clear eyes if the United States is to avoid another needless, catastrophic
war in the Middle East.
Iraq Invades Iran
In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran faced one of its most vulnerable moments in modern times. During the
revolutionary upheaval, many arms depots were raided and weapons were distributed to volunteers ready to deliver the monarchy its
coup de grace .
After the watershed moment, the Revolutionary Council feared that, given the Anglo-American coup in 1953 through the Iranian military,
Iran's generals could not be trusted. The subsequent purge resulted in the decimation of the country's military leadership. Moreover,
political infighting between revolutionary factions also led to unrest. To make matters worse, militant students were fearful that
the U.S. was planning to undermine the revolution through a coup -- as it did the nationalist government of Mohammad Mossadeq in
1953 -- so they resolved to ward off any such attempts. Consequently, they seized the U.S. embassy and held its personnel hostage.
The international community responded by isolating Iran for its blatant disregard for international norms.
Capitalizing on Iran's internal post-revolutionary chaos, military disarray, and international isolation, Iraqi strongman Saddam
Hussein ordered the invasion of his neighboring rival on September 22, 1980. Shortly after, Iran's internal power struggle between
the various revolutionary factions erupted into open warfare.
So devastating was the power struggle that many of the leading personalities of the Iranian Revolution died in assassinations
and bomb blasts, including Iran's president and prime minister. Thus, the Iranian state was forced to fight on two battlefronts --
internally against its challengers and externally against Iraqi invaders. The government did not, however, collapse under the weight
of its domestic rivals and foreign aggressors. In fact, the war enlivened Charles Tilly's timeless words: "War makes states."
Iranian Resilience
The Iranian state harnessed a powerful ideology that intertwined nationalism with Islamic revolutionary zeal in order to prompt
Iranians to close rank behind it, marshaling hundreds of thousands of soldiers to liberate Iranian territory occupied by the Iraqi
military. By May 24, 1982, and after tens of thousands of deaths, Iran freed the border city of Khorramshahr after a brutal two-year
siege.
Soon after Khorramshahr's liberation, the invading Iraqis were on the defensive, and Saddam's wartime financiers, namely Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, offered Iran a multi-billion dollar reparations package to end the war. Iran's leader refused, declaring that
the only way the war would end was with Saddam Hussein's bloody demise. He then spearheaded the conflict onto Iraqi soil for the
first time. Time captured the moment by phrasing the counter-invasion as "
Iran on the march ."
Iran Versus the World
Iraq enjoyed the support of the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and the Arab League -- with
the exception of Syria and Libya -- and even used
chemical weapons on Iranian troops.
Yet Iran persisted despite such horrible odds, and hundreds of thousands continued to go to the battlefront knowing it was possible
that they, too, could fall victim to Iraq's horrific chemical weapons.
The violence dragged on for eight bitter years, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century -- with an Iranian
death toll estimated between half a million to a million. To put that staggering number into perspective, the conservative estimate
exceeds the total American loss of life in World War II.
The war's conclusion was a failure in Iranian eyes, as it did not end in Saddam Hussein's overthrow and Iraqis and the region
would continue to suffer at his hands. Two years later, he refused to demobilize his million-man army to a jobless future in a war-ravaged
economy, and instead dispatched them across Iraq's border again -- this time to Kuwait.
Yet neither did Iran lose the war. In fact, it was the first conflict since the two 19th-century wars with Czarist Russia in which
Iran did not lose any territory. Above all, the country survived a genocidal conflict -- and survival was its own victory.
Iran Today
Today, Iran's population is more than double what it was in 1980 -- estimated at roughly
83 million . After lacking
military support from abroad during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran now has extensive
domestic
weapons manufacturing capabilities. Also unlike 1980, it has more allies in the region. In other words, if Iran fought so stubbornly
under such dire circumstances during the '80s, it will only fight more effectively today. It has already proven itself militarily
by coordinating the fight alongside the U.S. to defeat ISIS in Iraq while simultaneously working with Russia to help the Syrian government
win an unrelenting civil war.
The Iranian military budget may be a fraction of America's, but the Trump administration -- especially anti-Iran hawks John Bolton
and Mike Pompeo -- should consider this history and current reality objectively. If they don't, if they continue to underestimate
Iran the same way the Bush administration did with a far weaker Iraq in 2003, they risk another war of choice. Indeed, on the eve
of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously
stated : "I think it will
go relatively quickly weeks rather than months." To be sure, history has been unkind to his rosy assessment.
Thinking a war with Iran will be over before it begins -- or that it will, as Senator Tom Cotton
boasted
, not require more than "two strikes, the first strike and the last strike" -- is the first step towards another needless, ruinous
war.
Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the modern Middle East at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and
author of the forthcoming Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings (Cambridge University Press). Follow him
on Twitter @iPouya .
"... As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95) ..."
"... Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling. ..."
"... The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96) ..."
Andrew Bacevich
calls for
reckoning with the consequences of American colonial empire in the Philippines:
Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within
"our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation
by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged
from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized
on the National Mall in Washington.
Bacevich is right when he says that the Philippine War has been "almost entirely expunged from American memory today." It is significant
that one of the only times in recent years that the Philippine War was remembered was so that it could provide fodder for the counterinsurgency
fad among pro-war pundits. Max Boot was one of the chief advocates for counterinsurgency warfare, and he has cited the brutal occupation
campaign in the Philippines as an example of how to win such wars. Greg Bankoff counted the costs of the "small war" in the Philippines
that Boot praised in his book The Savage Wars of Peace , and he
described them in this response to a positive review of the book back in 2002:
Start with the description of the war itself as "small." Granted, the United States suffered only some 7,000 casualties, dead
and wounded. But estimates of Filipino mortality range from 200,000 persons upward. This is hardly small, especially considering
that the total Filipino population at the time was around seven million. Nor is it accurate to say the war ended in 1902, unless
one accepts the terms of President Theodore Roosevelt's November 1902 Brigandage Act, which redefined any band of more than three
men as bandits and subjected them to 20 years imprisonment or the death penalty. In fact, guerrilla warfare continued until 1907,
waged by popular revolutionary leaders who refused to accept the colonial yoke anew -- men such as Luciano San Miguel (who died
on the battlefield of Corral-na-Bato in March 1903), Macario Sakay (who was hanged on September 13, 1907) and Julian Montalan
(who was sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to Palawan until 1921). No, the war did not actually end in 1902, but the U.S.
colonial authorities conveniently branded everything subsequent to that as ladronism, simple thievery.
Bankoff warned later in the same piece that "a distorted reconstruction of that past is likely to preview an equally distorted
future." Looking back seventeen years later at our multiple protracted wars, all of them enthusiastically supported by Boot and fellow
neo-imperialists, we have to conclude that the future was horribly distorted in part by this willingness to lionize and whitewash
the Philippine War as a model for U.S. foreign policy. Like that war, our ongoing wars have inflicted horrific losses on the local
populations, they are completely divorced from the security of the United States, and the people we are fighting are fighting us
because our forces are in their country.
If Boot's distorted history has contributed to the distortion of our foreign policy, we could do worse than to begin by finding
better reconstructions of the past. Daniel Immerwahr has done some important work in studying the consequences of our colonial empire
on the people in the territories that our government took over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His book
How to Hide an Empire recounts the history of how the U.S. obtained its overseas territories, how it abused them, and how
it has created a very different kind of empire over the last seventy years.
Immerwahr recounts some of the opposition to the Philippine War from members of the Anti-Imperialist League:
As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical
organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic
platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic
and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95)
He also describes the tactics that U.S. forces used in the war:
Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents
could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the
north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling.
The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos
not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96)
If we hope to change U.S. foreign policy and repudiate empire, we have to remember first how we acquired it and the Americans
that organized to oppose it.
P.S. Another similarity between the Philippine War and the wars of the last two decades is the length of the actual fighting.
Immerwahr writes:
Stretching from the outbreak of hostilities in 1899 to the end of military rule in Moroland in 1913, it is, after the war in
Afghanistan, the longest war the United States has ever fought. (p. 107)
The war in
Afghanistan has reached new levels of insanity as a UN report shows US forces are killing more
civilians than ISIS and Taliban combined.
For the last several decades, the US government has openly funded, supported, and armed various
terrorist networks throughout the world to forward an agenda of destabilization and proxy war.
It is not a secret, nor a conspiracy theory -- America arms bad guys
. The situation has
gotten so overtly corrupt that the government admitted in May the Pentagon asked Congress for
funding to reimburse terrorists for their transportation and other expenses. Seriously. But that
was just the tip of the iceberg. A new report from the United Nations shows the US and its allies
in Afghanistan have killed more innocent men, women, and children than the group they claim are the
bad guys, the Taliban.
The now 18-year-old quagmire in Afghanistan is raising serious questions and once again,
it appears that the civilians are taking the brunt of the hit -- not the ostensible enemy.
In the first six months of the year, the conflict killed nearly 1,400 civilians and wounded
about 2,400 more. Afghan forces and their allies caused 52 percent of the civilian deaths
compared with 39 percent attributable to militants -- mostly the Taliban, but also the Islamic
State. The figures do not total 100 percent because responsibility for some deaths could not be
definitively established.
The higher civilian death toll caused by Afghan and American forces comes from their greater
reliance on airstrikes, which are particularly deadly for civilians. The United Nations said
airstrikes resulted in 363 civilian deaths and 156 civilian injuries.
"While the number of injured decreased, the number of civilians killed more than
doubled in comparison to the first six months of 2018, highlighting the lethal character of this
tactic,"
the United Nations report said, referring to airstrikes.
Naturally, the US military calls this report by the UN anti-American propaganda.
"We assess and investigate all credible allegations of noncombatant casualties in this
complex environment, whereas others intentionally target public areas, use civilians as human
shields and attempt to hide the truth through lies and propaganda," Colonel Sonny Leggett, a
spokesman for the United States military, said.
The line between the ostensible "good guys" and the "bad guys" has gotten so blurred
that the good guys are now openly supporting the bad while simultaneously killing more innocent
people than the bad ones.
It's a story straight out of The Onion, but in real life.
While the idea of the US government paying to support terrorists or killing more civilians than
terrorists may seem like a crazed notion it has become so overt in recent years that legislation
was specifically introduced for the sole purpose of banning the the flow of money to terrorist
organizations.
However, given the insidious history of the American empire and its creation and fostering of
terrorist regimes across the globe, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of
politicians would refuse to sign on to a law that requires them to
'Stop
Arming Terrorists.'
And, in 2017, that is exactly what happened.
The text of the bill was quite simple and contained no hidden agendas. It merely stated that it
prohibits
the use of federal agency funds to provide covered assistance to: (1) Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh
al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or any individual or group that is
affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups; or (2) the
government of any country that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
determines has, within the most recent 12 months, provided covered assistance to such a group or
individual.
The only thing the bill did was prohibit the US government from giving money and weapons to
people who want to murder Americans and who do murder innocent men, women, and children across the
globe. It is quite possibly the simplest and most rational bill ever proposed by Congress. Given
its rational and humanitarian nature, one would think that representatives would have been lining
up to show their support. However, one would be wrong and in the five months after it was proposed,
just 13 members of Congress signed on as co-sponsors.
Not only is the United States refusing to stop arming terrorists, but now they are
becoming more violent than the terrorists they claim to fight. At what point do the American people
wake up to this insanity?
Sadly, it appears that the American people couldn't care less about innocent men women and
children being slaughtered with their tax dollars on the other side of the planet. They only seem
to pay attention to the area when one of these people -- whose seen their children blown to a fine
red mist by a US drone strike -- acts out in a retaliatory way. But instead of understanding that
this is blowback caused by US foreign policy, Boobus Americanus thinks these people simply "hate
our freedom."
Terrorism is necessary for the state. War, is the health of the state.
Without the constant fear mongering about an enemy who 'hates our freedom', Americans begin
questioning things. They challenge the status quo and inevitably desire more freedom. However, when
they are told that boogeymen want to kill them, they become immediately complacent and blinded by
their fear.
While these boogeymen were once mostly mythical, since 9/11, they have been funded and supported
by the US to the point that they now pose a very real threat to innocent people everywhere. As the
horrific attacks earlier this year in Sri Lanka illustrate, terrorists are organizing and
spreading.
Terrorists groups have been exposed inside the UK as well for having ties to the British
government who allowed
them
to freely travel and train with ISIS-linked groups
because those groups were in opposition to
Muammar Gaddafi, who the West wanted to snub out.
It's a vicious cycle of creating terrorists, killing innocence, and stoking war. And,
unless something radical happens, it shows no signs of ever reversing.
The radical change that is necessary to shift this paradigm back to peace is for people to wake
up to the reality that no matter which puppet is in the White House, the status quo remains
unchanged.
Trump is proving that he can lie to get into power and his supporters ignore it. If you doubt
this fact, look at what
Trump
did by calling out Saudi Arabia for their role in 9/11
and their support for terror worldwide
prior to getting elected. He now supports these terrorists and his constituency couldn't care less.
This madness has to stop.
Humanity has to stop being fooled by rhetoric
read from teleprompters by puppets doing the bidding of their masters. If Americans aren't shaken
out of this stupor by the idea that the US military and its allies are now killing more innocent
people than the Taliban and ISIS -- combined -- perhaps
But we love them anyway. They are our heroes, bravely fighting for
our freedoms in Afghanistan. Unless we kill the Afghanis over
there, they'll come here to kill us. Sure, sometimes our boys kill
innocents, but come on, we all know there are no innocent Muslims.
Even if they're kids, they'll eventually grow up to be terrorists
so better to kill them sooner than later. USA! USA! Woof! Woof!
What kind of person, really, joins the US military today?
It was
shown long ago that the Iraq war was based upon lies. Killing
civilians, bombing hospitals, air attacks on weddings, stabbing
captured and unconscious enemy in the throat (and getting away
with it), clearly there is no threat to the US to justify the
killing ...
But the actual killers are getting a bit of a surprise. Women
are being promoted past them and over them. The PC rules are
ruining the boys club and even their language is monitored. The
officers don't give a damn other than progressing to full colonel
at least, retiring with a nice pension and then working for high
pay for the private defense companies. The killers think they
will be admired, but they are just tools and may even be pushed
out.
Interestingly, through all the US bombing and killing, the
population of Afghanistan has increased from about 19 million in
2001 to about 37 million today, nearly doubling during the
senseless US attacks on their culture and people.
Sometimes much can be learned by asking simple questions. Why?
Simple questions most often have answers. Complex questions emerge
because folks can't bear to hear the answers to the simple ones. A
simple question that would be good to ask now is. Why are we
fighting in Afghanistan?
http://quillian.net/blog/your-punishment-for-believing-lies/
...As for Tulsi Gabbard, her foreign policy views are a clear and present danger to Israel's
and Washington's grand strategy to secure permanent military hegemony in the Middle East. If
the PNAC grand strategy succeeds, there will never be any justice or sovereignty for the
Palestinian people. I think she was being strategic with the BDS vote (as with her defense of
Joe Biden, a head-fake which opened up the opportunity for her to take down Kamala Harris).
Gabbard's mission faces long enough odds without her publicly confirming the worst
paranoid Zionist fears about her. She's already being denounced as an "Assad apologist" and
"Putin puppet" (don't you love the sub literary assonance and alliteration?); she can dispel
the outrageous slanders, but if she were on the record in support of BDS, it would have been
the nail in the coffin of her campaign. Gabbard strikes me as radically pragmatic.
We will need her remarkable leadership skills to avoid civil war as the empire collapses.
Please don't throw in the towel yet or give up on the one hope that remains.
The following is a portion of an op-ed piece that appeared in the New
York Times On April 4, 1944 . It was written by Henry Wallace, FDR's vice president;
If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power
ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United
States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include
only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most
American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even
in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms
after the war ends. They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be
so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition
among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand
for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.
The European brand of fascism will probably present its most serious postwar threat to
us via Latin America. The effect of the war has been to raise the cost of living in most
Latin American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The fascists in most Latin
American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the
way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak
and act like natives. Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready
to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work
out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the
United States. Following this war, technology will have reached such a point that it will
be possible for Germans, using South America as a base, to cause us much more difficulty in
World War III than they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in many
South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist
concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.
Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after
the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.
The full text is quite useful in understanding that there is no question as to how and why
we find ourselves in the present predicament, it is the logical outcome of a process that was
well understood during FDR's tenure.
That understanding has since been deliberately eradicated by the powerful interests that
control our media.
While I am aware of Eric Zuesse being somewhat controversial to some people, I do concur with
his assessment of the party that should be stripped of the 'Democratic' prefix. There is
nothing democratic in this organization and its members are either willful stooges, or the
most gullible people on earth - responsible for heinous crimes against humanity under the
cover of 'humanitarian aid'.
To even consider to allow this organization to continue in its deception of the American
electorate, shows the deepest infiltration of foreign influence, for whom this deception is
not only natural, but also compulsive. You may have guessed it, it's not the Russians.
However, an article by the Strategic Culture Organization, linked to on MOA yesterday
The 'Special Relationship' is collapsing , goes even further. It makes obvious the unholy
filth that has been plaguing humanity for a very long time. And while some may find it
questionable, it turns out that the Queen does appear to be the longest sitting Fascist in
the history of mankind.
Sometimes it is necessary to connect the dots beyond personal beliefs in regards to the
real conspiracy against working people all over the world.
@ # 41 > "With the USAF and the military as a whole, increasing amounts of money are
thrown at ever increasingly complex weapons systems yet performance in all sectors
deteriorates while the ability to recruit also degrades. The problems are widely written..."
Indeed, Ruskie General recently remarked specific to electronic countermeasures/jammers
that the more complex they are, the easier they are to confound or defeat.
The general principle operates in all realms.
I did make a note of the guy's name...but it is obvious, isn't it? I mean one has only to
look...
"... US President Trump does not do that in order to dismantle the dollar or US hegemony because of so called isolationism, as some may think. Trump does that in order to save US hegemony, implementing policies, in my opinion, devised by the US military/intelligence/science community. They now want to hamper globalisation and create fortress US, in order to bring back manufacturing and save as much as possible of the US Empire. Chaos and lack of cooperation in the world benefit the US. They now realise globalisation no longer serves the US as it leads to the rise of developing nations. Thus they no longer support it and even sabotage it." ..."
"... Trump and his trade negotiators continue to insist on China agreeing to an unequal trade treaty. ..."
"... IMO, China can continue to refuse and stand up for its principles, while the world looks on and nods its head in agreement with China as revealed by the increasing desire of nations to become a BRI partner. ..."
"... It should be noted that Trump's approach while differing from the one pushed by Obama/Kerry/Clinton the goal is the same since the Empire needs the infusion of loot from China to keep its financial dollarized Ponzi Scheme functioning. ..."
"... Russia's a target too, but most of its available loot was already grabbed during the 1990s. ..."
"... I keep going back to believing that multilateralism is a code word for no longer allowing empire global private finance hegemony and fiat money. ..."
"... The continuing practice of Neoliberalism by the Outlaw US Empire and its associated corporations and vassal nations checkmates what you think Trump's trying to accomplish. Hudson has explained it all very well in a series of recent papers and interviews: Neoliberalism is all about growing Financial Capitalism and using it to exert control/hegemony on all aspects of political-economy. ..."
"... Trump hasn't proposed any new policy to accomplish his MAGA pledge other than engaging in economic warfare with most other nations. His is a Unilateral Pirate Ship out to plunder all and sundry, including those that elected him. ..."
I will mention this again, to see what people here think, as they are intelligent people. I sent mails to Russian and Chinese
authorities about this.
"I will provide you with possible reasons behind the current trade wars and rejection of globalisation by the US. In short,
they think that they will save their hegemony, to a certain degree, that way.
There are long term GDP Growth and Socioeconomic Scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
OECD, and the world scientific community. They are generally used to measure the impact of Climate change on the World. In order
to measure it, Socioeconomic Scenarios were developed, as the level of economic growth in the world is very important for determining
the impact of Climate Change in the future. High growth levels will obviously affect Climate Change, so these GDP estimates are
important. The scenarios are with time horizon 2100.
For more on this you can check these studies here, some of the many dealing with this topic. They describe the scenarios for
the world.
There are 5 main scenarios, or "Shared Socioeconomic Pathways". All of them describe different worlds.
SSP 1 - Green World, economic cooperation, reduced inequality, good education systems. High level of economic growth, fast
catch up of the developing world with the developed world. High level of multipolarity.
SSP 2 - More of the same/ Muddling through - continuation of the current trends. Relatively high level of economic growth,
relatively fast catch up of the developing world with the developed world. Good level of multipolarity.
SSP 3 - Regional Rivalry - nationalisms, trade wars, lack of global cooperation, fragmentation of the word, environmental
degradation. Low levels of economic growth everywhere, the developing world remains poor and undeveloped. Low level of multipolarity,
West retains many positions.
SSP 4 Inequality - depicts a world where high-income countries use technological advances to stimulate economic growth;
leading to a high capacity to mitigate. In contrast, developments in low income countries are hampered by very low education
levels and international barriers to trade. Growth is medium, the catch up process between the developing world and the developed
world is not fast. Medium level of multipolarity.
SSP 5 Economic growth and fossil fuels take priority over green world - High levels of economic growth, fast catch up of
the developing world with the developed world. High level of multipolarity.
See SSP 3. A world of rivalry, trade wars, trade barriers, lack of global cooperation, and fragmentation, will lead to lower
level of growth in the developing world, and thus a slow catch up process. Multipolarity in such a world is weak as the developing
world is hampered.
In other words, a world of cooperation between countries will lead to higher economic growth in the developing world, faster
catch up process, and thus stronger multipolarity.
Low cooperation, fragmented world, high conflict scenarios consistently lead to low growth in the developing world and thus
to the US and the West retaining some of its positions - a world with overall bad economy and low level of multipolarity.
Basically, globalisation is key. The developing world (ex West) was growing slowly before globalisation (before 1990). Globalisation
means sharing of technology and knowledge, and companies investing in poorer countries. Outsourcing of western manufacturing.
Etc. After globalisation started in 1990, the developing world is growing very well. It is globalisation that is weakening the
relative power of the West and empowering the developing world. The US now needs to kill globalisation if it is to stop its relative
decline.
So what do we see: exactly attempts to create the SSP 3 scenario. Trade wars, sanctions, attacks on multilateral institutions
- the WTO, on international law, on the Paris Climate Change Agreement (which if accepted would put constraints on the US economy),
on the UN, bullying of Europe, lack of care for european energy needs, support for Brexit (which weakens Europe), crack down on
chinese students and scientists in the US, crack down on chinese access to western science data, demands to remove the perks for
poor countries in the WTO, etc. This is hitting economic growth in the whole world and the global economy currently is not well.
By destroying the world economy, the US benefits as it hampers the rise of the developing nations.
US President Trump does not do that in order to dismantle the dollar or US hegemony because of so called isolationism,
as some may think. Trump does that in order to save US hegemony, implementing policies, in my opinion, devised by the US military/intelligence/science
community. They now want to hamper globalisation and create fortress US, in order to bring back manufacturing and save as much
as possible of the US Empire. Chaos and lack of cooperation in the world benefit the US. They now realise globalisation no longer
serves the US as it leads to the rise of developing nations. Thus they no longer support it and even sabotage it."
You ask, "The concept of multilateralism is not completely clear to me in relation to the global public/private finance issue
and I am not of faith but of questions...."
"In international relations, multilateralism refers to an alliance of multiple countries pursuing a common goal."
The key point for the Chinese during negotiations as I understand them via their published White Paper on the subject is
development and the international rules put in place at WTO for nations placed into the Developing category, which
get some preferential treatment to help their economies mature. As China often reminds the global public--and officials of the
Outlaw US Empire--both the BRI and EAEU projects are about developing the economies of developing economies, that the process
is designed to be a Win-Win for all the developing economies involved. This of course differs vastly from what's known as the
Washington Consensus, where all developing economies kowtow to the Outlaw US Empire's diktat via the World Bank and IMF and thus
become enslaved by dollar dependency/debt. Much is written about the true nature of the Washington Consensus, Perkins Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man and Klein's Disaster Capitalism being two of the more recent and devastating, and many nations
are able to attest to the Zero-sum results. The result is very few nations are willing to subject their economies to the pillaging
via Washington Consensus institutions, which Hudson just recently reviewed.
The Empire is desperate and is looking for ways to keep its Super Imperialism intact and thus continue its policy aimed at
Full Spectrum Dominance. But the Empire's abuse of the dollar-centric institutions of international commerce has only served to
alienate its users who are openly and actively seeking to form parallel institutions under genuine multilateral control.
However as Hudson illustrates, Trump doesn't know what he's doing regarding his trade and international monetary policies. Today's
AP above the fold headline in Eugene's The Register Guard screamed "Trump threatens 10% tariffs;" but unusually for such
stories, it explains that the 10% is essentially a tax on US consumers, not on Chinese companies, which provides a message opposite
of the one Trump wants to impart--that he's being tough on the Chinese when the opposite's true. China will continue to resist
the attempts to allow the international financial sharks to swim in Chinese waters as China is well aware of what they'll attempt
to accomplish--and it's far easier to keep them out than to get them out once allowed in, although China's anti-corruption laws
ought to scare the hell out of the CEOs of those corps.
The Empire wants to continue its longstanding Open Door policy in the realm of target nations opening their economies to the
full force of Imperial-based corps so they can use their financial might to wrestle the market from domestic players and institute
their Oligopoly. China already experienced the initial Open Door (which was aimed at getting Uncle Sam's share of China during
the Unequal Treaties period 115 years ago) and will not allow that to recur. China invokes its right under WTO rules for developing
economies to protect their financial services sector from predation; the Empire argues China is beyond a developing economy and
must drop its shields. We've read what Hudson advised the Chinese to do--resist and develop a publicly-based yuan-centered financial
system that highly taxes privatized rent-seekers while keeping and enhancing state-provided insurance--health, home, auto, life,
etc--while keeping restrictions on foreign land ownership since it's jot allowed to purchase similar assets within the domestic
US market.
The Outlaw US Empire insists that China give so it can take. Understandably, China says no; what we allow you to do, you should
allow us to do. Trump and his trade negotiators continue to insist on China agreeing to an unequal trade treaty. Obviously,
the latest proposal was merely a repetition of what came before and was rejected as soon as the meeting got underway, so it ended
as quickly as it started. IMO, China can continue to refuse and stand up for its principles, while the world looks on and
nods its head in agreement with China as revealed by the increasing desire of nations to become a BRI partner.
It should be noted that Trump's approach while differing from the one pushed by Obama/Kerry/Clinton the goal is the same
since the Empire needs the infusion of loot from China to keep its financial dollarized Ponzi Scheme functioning.
Russia's a target too, but most of its available loot was already grabbed during the 1990s. D-Party Establishment
candidates have yet to let it be known they'll try to do what Trump's failing to do, which of course has nothing to do with aiding
the US consumer and everything to do with bolstering Wall Street's Ponzi Scheme.
Good comment, karlof1 , i think that the attack against China is attack against the heart of multipolarity. It will be good
if b could post about the escalation of the trade war. This is important. The US clearly intends to resist multipoarity, and tries
to stop it.
If I would have had my act together last night I would have posted another link fro Xinhuanet (can't find now) about how
China wants to retain developing nation status and provides as data that the (I think) per capita GDP had gone down....gotten
worse in relation to the US per capita GDP.
I keep going back to believing that multilateralism is a code word for no longer allowing empire global private finance
hegemony and fiat money.
Passer by @30--
The continuing practice of Neoliberalism by the Outlaw US Empire and its associated corporations and vassal nations checkmates
what you think Trump's trying to accomplish. Hudson has explained it
all very well in a series of recent papers and interviews: Neoliberalism is all about growing Financial Capitalism and using it
to exert control/hegemony on all aspects of political-economy.
Thus, there's no need to sponsor the reindustrialization that would lead to MAGA. Indeed, Trump hasn't proposed any new
policy to accomplish his MAGA pledge other than engaging in economic warfare with most other nations. His is a Unilateral Pirate
Ship out to plunder all and sundry, including those that elected him.
In your outline, it's very easy to see why BRI is so attractive to other nations as it forwards SSP1. Awhile ago during a discussion
of China's development goals, I posted links to its program that's very ambitious and doing very well with its implementation,
the main introduction portal
being here .
psychohistorian @11 asked: "The concept of multilateralism is not completely clear to me in relation to the global public/private
finance issue and I am not of faith but of questions...."
karlof1 @31 covered it pretty well I think, but I want to try to answer in just a couple sentences (unusual for me).
Global private finance is driven by one thing and one thing only: making maximum profits for the owners quarter by financial
quarter. Global public finance is driven by the agendas of the nations with the public finance, with profits being a secondary
or lesser issue.
This boils down to private finance being forever slave to the mindless whims of "The Market™" (hallowed be Its name),
while public finance is, by its nature, something that is planned and deliberated. Nobody can guess where "The Market™"
(hallowed be Its name) will lead society, though people with the resources like placing bets in stock markets on the direction
It is taking us. On the other hand, if people have an idea which direction society should be heading in, public control
over finance is a precondition to making it so.
"The continuing practice of Neoliberalism by the Outlaw US Empire"
I'm not sure this will be the case anymore -
Former heads of DHS and NSA explain how the U.S. can keep Huawei at bay
"Perhaps more importantly, this proposal demonstrates one way the U.S. can reinforce elements of what the government calls
the “national technology and industrial base” (NTIB), the collection of companies who design, build and supply the U.S. with vital
national-security related technologies."
Kamala Harris (Dem.-AIPAC) goes full-bore Mccarthy after Tulsi Gabbard skewers her in the
debates. After attacking Biden in the first debate with a proven winning argument (Racist!),
Harris and her campaign now employ the other proven winning argument (Assad apologist! Putin
Apologist!) all over the Twittersphere: suddenly #5 trending on Twitter is Assad(!), with MSM
joining the frenzy to attack Gabbard. NPR's approach is to never mention Gabbard's name;
maybe the only lesson they learned from the 2016 election is to not give coverage to a
candidate they despise.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/08/01/propagandists-are-freaking-out-over-gabbards-destruction-of-harris/
Gabbard needs 130,000 donors ($2 will work) to qualify for the September debates; hope
folks will step up, as she's the strongest voice breaking the MIC/Neocon Narrative. Without
her in the race, I'd predict those issues will disappear from the media and Presidential
campaigns. Of course that's the goal for those forces, but 2020 may be the best chance yet of
bursting open that rotten fruit.
Gabbard needs 130,000 donors ($2 will work) to qualify for the September debates; hope folks
will step up, as she's the strongest voice breaking the MIC/Neocon Narrative. Without her in
the race, I'd predict those issues will disappear from the media and Presidential campaigns.
Of course that's the goal for those forces, but 2020 may be the best chance yet of bursting
open that rotten fruit.
Posted by: kabobyak | Aug 3 2019 1:22 utc | 44
Bow, bow, to the great kabobyak! Bow, bow, to the great kabobyak! (for the correct tune,
check "Miya sama, Mikado", for original tune, check "Miya-san, miya san"). Our after the
kabobyak appeal, Gabbard raised the number of donations above 150,000!
Some commenters had justified objections to Gabbard, but the game here is to shake the
"bipartisan consensus" to inflict "maximum misery" to all perceived opponents of USA. It is
not easy to convey this message to the American majority. And Tulsi has other positive
messages too, she apparently eviscerated Kamala Harris for her past as a cruelly heartless
prosecutor, fighting to keep innocent in prison. Mind you, Hillary, Kamala etc. do those
things out of conviction that it is popular, or that the public is divided as follows: those
who donate to campaigns and those who do not care. Once they are properly scared, politicians
can actually improve. Alas, for decades they were "improperly scared", thus concluding that
to survive on the national (or state-wide) arena they need a psychopathic persona.
BTW, there are websites tabulating donations and industries, and Gabbard is apparently
supported by fitness clubs. Survival of the fittest may be actually a positive social
value.
I guess we don't really know what Gabbard would be. All the Dems and Repubs have bad
connections; almost all have pushed (or are still pushing) the lunatic Russiagate hoax, and
that includes Bernie. OK to sit back and watch the circus, but if Gabbard gets no support for
what she is currently speaking out on, it sends a strong message to anyone else thinking of
carrying the water further on issues of war and peace.
There is plenty not to like about Tulsi Gabbard. Maybe someday I will dislike her as much
as I dislike Kamilla Harris and some of the others. Whoever wins, we will end up with the
same bureaucracy anyway so it will pretty much business as usual.
>> As Caitlin Johnstone writes, the fact that Gabbard is under such attack
>> by war cheerleaders like Lindsey Graham and Josh Rogin shows they
>> view her as a threat to their narrative control.
Yes, it "shows".
The appearance of a fight "shows" they're actually fighting. It "shows" you that the DNC
and American democracy isn't a complete sham. So you found someone (within the establishment
and who votes establishment) you can pour your heart, energy, and money into. And who will,
after the primary, endorse the establishment pick. And another election cycle passes with no
effort for a genuinely independent challenge. Just like every prior cycle that I paid
attention to.
"Maybe someday I will dislike her as much as I dislike Kamilla Harris"
Not a chance in hell--Kamala takes the despicable cake: people don't know the tip of the
iceberg with regard to how genuinely corrupt she is. I'm pretty sure it is a travesty she's
not in prison right now.
Well you don't trust any of them, but you vote for the ones pushing policy you want to see
happen, and you vote for the ones that try to make that happen, and you abandon them
immediately if they renege. In the current rigged system, you can't assume anybody can be
relied on, I mean pressure will be applied, and all kinds of dirty politics is totally the
way we do things here. So when one leader falls you look for the next to pick up the flag,
and follow them now. It's not about the leader. Tulsi is talking the talk, that's all you can
do in a campaign. I'd support her against anybody who is mouthing weasel words. Right now
there are three candidates with something to say: Tulsi, Elizabeth, and Bernie, any will do,
lets see who gets traction when people start to pay attention again.
Anacharsis @88: Well, on the one hand we have slid a long way downhill intellectually here,
can't deny it.
On the other hand among 300-plus-something millions here, I'm sure we could find better,
but they won't run, the system is rigged, and we know it. They rub it in our faces. Once it
collapses of its own fecklessness, maybe then you will see some new faces worthy of respect
here.
Other oligarchies get overthrown, oligarchy seems to be the human norm for humans, they
fail with some regularity in history, it can for sure happen here too.
Tulsi, Elizabeth, and Bernie, any will do, lets see who gets traction when people start to
pay attention again.
Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 3 2019 13:50 utc | 87
"The people" are a bottleneck of the democracy. They have to select representatives to
decide on complex issues that they scant idea about, and their access to information reminds
my "The Library of Babel", a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges
(1899–1986). The library contains every possible book, and for any "genuine book",
every possible variation, with truth replaced with something else in every possible pattern
-- the paradoxes of infinity were a major theme in Borges stories.
Creating a message that relates these issues to everyday experience of the people, so
their common sense is switched on, is hard, but not impossible. For example, for all ravages
of "imperial complex", military plus weapon making plus economic impositions and distortions,
the largest loot is collected by business in all aspects of healthcare, be it making drugs
and devices, administering insurance, "providing healthcare" etc. More than a sixth of
American GDP at hugely inflated prices adds to... surely, these are trillions. This rapacity
can be contained by a "single payer" system that can provide more care for more people at
smaller costs (e.g. compare costs and outcomes in USA and Australia). Not so long time ago,
you were a Commie or a Socialist (equally bad) if you were proposing that. Sanders championed
it and failed, but now, it became a mainstream idea with a decent chance of being implemented
in the next decade.
Even now there is unceasing propaganda for "creativity and efficiency of free market" in
healthcare, but the shift in public opinion AND in political programs is clear.
Clarification of Gabbard's vote on H.Res.246 on BDS
Linda Wood on Sat, 08/03/2019 - 1:54pm I have read Tulsi Gabbard's response to
criticism of her Yes vote on H.Res.246 , which opposes BDS but which also affirms the right of
Americans to support BDS. She is quoted here in making that point:
Tulsi Gabbard voted to condemn BDS, but she's become a co-sponsor of Ilhan Omar's boycott
bill
Congresswoman and presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has become the fifteenth House
member to cosponsor H.Res.496 , a resolution affirming that Americans have the right to
boycott foreign countries to advance the cause of human rights...
The article then quotes Gabbard on her vote in support of the anti-BDS resolution, H.Res.246
:
... H.Res.246 does not in any way limit or hinder our First Amendment rights. In fact, it
affirms every American's right to exercise free speech for or against U.S. foreign policy, as
well as the right of Israeli and Palestinian people to live in safe and sovereign states free
from fear and violence and with mutual recognition. The right to protest the actions of our
government is essential if America is to truly be a free society.
I support BDS as far as I understand it. And I disagree strongly with the parts of 246 that
establish support for Israel's right to exist because I question the whole premise. But I
understand Gabbard's position.
H.Res.246 - Opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.
116th Congress (2019-2020)
Resolved, That the House of Representatives --
(1) opposes the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement)
targeting Israel, including efforts to target United States companies that are engaged in
commercial activities that are legal under United States law, and all efforts to delegitimize
the State of Israel;
(2) urges Israelis and Palestinians to return to direct negotiations as the only way to
achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
(3) affirms the Constitutional right of United States citizens to free speech, including
the right to protest or criticize the policies of the United States or foreign governments
;
(4) supports the full implementation of the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act
of 2014 (Public Law 113–296; 128 Stat. 4075) and new efforts to enhance
government-wide, coordinated United States-Israel scientific and technological cooperation in
civilian areas, such as with respect to energy, water, agriculture, alternative fuel
technology, civilian space technology, and security, in order to counter the effects of
actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel; and
(5) reaffirms its strong support for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict resulting in two states -- a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable,
democratic Palestinian state -- living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual
recognition.
That the rogue elements of the CIA participated in the assassination of JFK now is undisputable. And they probably were
connected to the very top.
Presence of Bush Senior on Dealey Plaza (who was top CIA executive at the time) at the moment of assassination tells a lot in
this respect as well as the speed and intensity of the cover up. The only discussion can be about motives and the degree in which
LBJ was involved.
Notable quotes:
"... The killing of the Kennedys and today's new Cold War and war against terror are two ends of a linked intelligence operation. ..."
"... The assassination of the top four leaders of the political left in the five year period – President John Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 – represented nothing less than a slow-motion coup on the political scene. ..."
"... If anyone wishes to understand what has happened to the United States since this coup, and thus to its countless victims at home and throughout the world, one must understand these assassinations and how the alleged assassins were manipulated by the coup organizers and how the public was hoodwinked in a mind-control operation on a vast scale. ..."
"... Sandra Serrano, a Kennedy campaign worker and a courageous witness, was bullied by the CIA-connected police interrogator Sergeant Enrique "Hank" Hernandez. She had been sitting outside on a metal fire escape getting some air when the polka dot dress girl, accompanied by a man, ran out and down the stairs, shouting, "We've shot him, we've shot him." When Serrano asked whom did they shoot, the girl replied, "We've shot Senator Kennedy." Then she and her companion, both of whom Serrano had earlier seen ascending the stairs with Sirhan, disappeared into the night. A little over an hour after the shooting Serrano was interviewed on live television by NBC's Sander Vanocur where she recounted this. And there were others who saw and heard this girl say the same thing as she and her companion fled the crime scene. Nevertheless, the LAPD, led by Lieutenant Manuel Pena, also CIA affiliated, who was brought out of retirement to run the investigation dubbed "Special Unit Senator," worked with Hernandez and others to dismiss the girl as of no consequence. ..."
The CIA Takeover of America in the 1960s Is the Story of Our Times. The Killing of the
Kennedys and Today's New Cold WarA Quasi-Review of A Lie Too Big To Fail: The Real
History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by Lisa Pease By Edward Curtin Global Research, August
03, 2019 Region: USA
Theme: History , Law and Justice , Media
Disinformation
First published by Global Research on April 2, 2019
"'We're all puppets,' the suspect [Sirhan Sirhan] replied, with more truth than he could
have understood at that moment." – Lisa Pease , quoting from the LAPD questioning of
Sirhan
When Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, the American public fell into
an hypnotic trance in which they have remained ever since. The overwhelming majority accepted
what was presented by government authorities as an open and shut case that a young Palestinian
American, Sirhan Sirhan , had murdered RFK because of his support for Israel, a false
accusation whose ramifications echo down the years. That this was patently untrue and was
contradicted by overwhelming evidence made no difference.
Sirhan did not kill Robert Kennedy, yet he remains in jail to this very day. Robert Kennedy,
Jr., who was 14 years old at the time of his father's death, has visited Sirhan in prison,
claims he is innocent, and believes there was another gunman. Paul Schrade , an aide to the
senator and the first person shot that night, also says Sirhan didn't do it. Both have plenty
of evidence. And they are not alone.
There is a vast body of documented evidence to prove this, an indisputably logical case
marshalled by serious writers and researchers. Lisa Pease is the latest. It is a reason why a
group of 60 prominent Americans has recently called for a reopening of, not just this case, but
those of JFK, MLK, and Malcom X. The blood of these men cries out for the revelation of the
truth that the United States national security state and its media accomplices have fought so
mightily to keep hidden for so many years.
That they have worked so hard at this reveals how dangerous the truth about these
assassinations still is to this secret government that wages propaganda war against the
American people and real wars around the world. It is a government of Democrats, Republicans,
and their intelligence allies working together today to confuse the American people and provoke
Russia in a most dangerous game that could lead to nuclear war, a possibility that so
frightened JFK and RFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis that they devoted themselves to ending
the Cold War, reconciling with the Soviet Union, abolishing nuclear weapons, reining in of the
power of the CIA, and withdrawing from Vietnam. That is why they were killed.
The web of deceit surrounding the now officially debunked Democratic led Russia-gate
propaganda operation that has strengthened Trump to double-down on his anti-Russia operations
(a Democratic goal) is an example of the perfidious and sophisticated mutuality of this game of
mass mind-control.
The killing of the Kennedys and today's new Cold War and war against terror are two ends of
a linked intelligence operation.
Moreover, more than any other assassination of the 1960s, it is the killing of Bobby Kennedy
that has remained shrouded in the most ignorance.
It is one of the greatest propaganda success stories of American history.
In her exhaustive new examination of the case, A Lie Too Big To Fail , Lisa Pease
puts it succinctly at the conclusion of her unravelling of the official lies that have
mesmerized the public:
The assassination of the top four leaders of the political left in the five year period
– President John Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 – represented nothing less than a slow-motion coup on
the political scene.
If anyone wishes to understand what has happened to the United States since this coup, and
thus to its countless victims at home and throughout the world, one must understand these
assassinations and how the alleged assassins were manipulated by the coup organizers and how
the public was hoodwinked in a mind-control operation on a vast scale. It is not ancient
history, for the forces that killed these leaders rule the U.S. today, and their ruthlessness
has subsequently informed the actions of almost all political leaders in the years since. A
bullet to the head when you seriously talk about peace and justice is a not so gentle reminder
to toe the line or else.
"But the way the CIA took over America in the 1960s is the story of our time,"
writes Pease, "and too few recognize this. We can't fix a problem we can't even acknowledge
exists."
Nothing could be truer.
Lisa Pease has long recognized the problem, and for the past twenty-five years, she has
devoted herself to shedding light on the CIA's culpability, particularly in the Robert Kennedy
case. Few people possess the grit and grace to spend so much of their lives walking this path
of truth. The extent of her research is dazzling, so dazzling in its voluminous detail that a
reviewer can only touch on it here and there. She has written a book that is daunting in its
comprehensiveness. It demands focused attention and perseverance, for it runs to over 500 pages
with more than 800 footnotes. This book will remain a touchstone for future research on the RFK
assassination, whether one agrees or disagrees with all of her detailed findings and
speculations. For this book is so vast and meticulous in its examination of all aspects of the
case that one can surely find areas that one might question or disagree with.
Nevertheless, Pease fundamentally proves that Sirhan did not shoot RFK and that there was a
conspiracy organized and carried out by shadowy intelligence forces that did so. These same
forces worked with the Los Angeles Police Department, federal, state, and judicial elements to
make sure Sirhan was quickly accused of being the lone assassin and dispatched to prison after
a show trial. And the mass media carried out its assigned role of affirming the government's
case to shield the real killers and to make sure the cover-up was successful.
No doubt others will investigate this case further. Yet I think no more research is really
needed, for as with these other assassinations, additional analyses will only result in
pseudo-debates about minutiae. Such debates will only serve to prolong the hallucinatory grip
the perpetrators of these crimes have on a day of reckoning, suggesting as they would that we
do not really know what happened. This is an old tactic meant to delay forevermore such a day
of reckoning.
The facts are clear for all to see if they have the will to truth. All that is now needed is
a public tribunal, which is planned for later this year, in which the fundamental, clear-cut
facts of these cases are presented to the American public. In the case of Robert Kennedy's
assassination as with the others, a little knowledge goes a long way, and only those who are
closed to basic logic and evidence will refuse to see that government forces conspired to kill
these men and did so because all were seeking peace and justice that was then, and is now, a
threat to the war-making forces of wealth and power that control the American government.
Pease writes:
Anyone who has looked closely and honestly at the evidence has realized that more than one
person was involved in Robert Kennedy's death. So why can't reporters see this? Why can't the
media explain this? Because the media and the government are two sides of the same coin, and
those who challenge the government's version of history, as numerous reporters have found
out, all too often lose status and sometimes whole careers. Kristina Borjesson published an
anthology of such stories in her book Into the Buzzsaw, in which journalists describe
how they lost their careers when eachof them expressed a truth that the government did not
want exposed.
Lisa Pease discloses such truths. I am reporting on her work. Therefore, the mainstream
media, except for an extraordinary reporter or two, such as Tom Jackman of The
WashingtonPost , will likely ignore both of us, but the publication where you are reading
this is on the side of truth, and in the disclosure of truth lies our hope.
Since more than one person was involved in the killing of RFK, there was – ipso facto
– a conspiracy. This is not theory but fact. The fact of a conspiracy. For more than
fifty years, mainstream reporters have been cowed by this word "conspiracy," thanks to the CIA.
Many others have been intelligence assets posing as journalists, regurgitating the lies. This
is a fact.
The official story is that after giving his victory speech for winning the 1968 Democratic
California Primary, Kennedy, as he was walking through a crowded hotel pantry, was shot by
Sirhan Sirhan, who was standing to his left between 3-6 feet away. Sirhan's revolver held eight
bullets, and as he was shooting, he was tackled by a group of large men who subdued him. All
witnesses place Sirhan in front of Kennedy and all claim he was firing a gun.
Fact: As the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range,
three bullets entering his body, with the fatal headshot coming upward at a 45-degree angle
from 1-3 inches behind his right ear. Not one bullet from Sirhan's gun hit the Senator. In
addition, an audio
recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan's gun were fired in the
hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK.
Let me repeat: More than one gunman, contrary to the government's claims, equals a
conspiracy. So why lie about that?
What is amazing is that the obvious conclusion to such simple syllogistic logic (Sirhan in
front, bullets in the back, therefore ) that a child could understand has been dismissed by the
authorities for fifty-one years. The fact that the government authorities – the LAPD, the
Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney, federal and state government officials, the FBI, the
CIA – have from the start so assiduously done all in their power to pin the blame on "a
lone assassin," Sirhan, proves they are part of a coordinated cover-up, which in turn suggests
their involvement in the crime.
The fact that Robert Kennedy was shot from the back and not the front where Sirhan was
standing immediately brings to mind the Zapruder film that shows that JFK was killed from the
front right and not from the 6 th floor rear where Oswald was allegedly shooting
from. That unexpected film evidence was hidden from the public for many years, but when it was
finally seen, the case for a government conspiracy was solidified.
While no such video evidence has surfaced in the RFK case, the LAPD made sure that no
photographic evidence contradicting the official lies would be seen. As Lisa Pease writes:
Less than two months after the assassination, the LAPD took the extraordinary step of
burning some 2,400 photos from the case in Los Angeles County General's medical waste
incinerator. Why destroy thousands of photos in an incinerator if there was nothing to hide?
The LAPD kept hundreds of innocuous crowd scene photos that showed no girl in a polka
dot dress or no suspicious activities or individuals. Why were those photos preserved?
Perhaps because those photos had nothing in them that warranted their destruction.
While "perhaps" is a mild word, the cover-up of "the girl in the polka dot dress" needs no
perhaps. Dozens of people reported seeing a suspicious, curvaceous girl in a white dress with
black polka dots with Sirhan in the pantry and other places. She was seen with various other
men as well. The evidence for her involvement in the assassination is overwhelming, and yet the
LAPD did all in its power to deny this by browbeating witnesses and by allowing her to
escape.
Sandra Serrano, a Kennedy campaign worker and a courageous witness, was bullied by the
CIA-connected police interrogator Sergeant Enrique "Hank" Hernandez. She had been sitting
outside on a metal fire escape getting some air when the polka dot dress girl, accompanied by a
man, ran out and down the stairs, shouting, "We've shot him, we've shot him." When Serrano
asked whom did they shoot, the girl replied, "We've shot Senator Kennedy." Then she and her
companion, both of whom Serrano had earlier seen ascending the stairs with Sirhan, disappeared
into the night. A little over an hour after the shooting Serrano was interviewed on live
television by NBC's Sander Vanocur where she recounted this. And there were others who saw and
heard this girl say the same thing as she and her companion fled the crime scene. Nevertheless,
the LAPD, led by Lieutenant Manuel Pena, also CIA affiliated, who was brought out of retirement
to run the investigation dubbed "Special Unit Senator," worked with Hernandez and others to
dismiss the girl as of no consequence.
Lisa Pease covers all this and much more. She shows how Sirhan was obviously hypnotized, how
the trial was a farce, how the police destroyed evidence from the door frames in the pantry
that proved more than the eight bullets in Sirhan's gun were fired, how Officer DeWayne Wolfer
manipulated the ballistic evidence, etc. Through years of digging into court records, archives,
transcripts, the public library, and doing countless interviews, she proves without a doubt
that Sirhan did not kill Kennedy and that the assassination and the cover-up were part of a
very sophisticated intelligence operation involving many parts and players. She shows how no
matter what route Kennedy took in the hotel that night, the killers had all exits covered and
that he would not be allowed to leave alive.
While some of her more speculative points – e.g. that Robert Maheu (Howard Hughes/CIA)
was "the most credible high-level suspect for the planner of Robert Kennedy's assassination,"
that Kennedy was shot twice in the head from behind, etc. are open to debate, they do not
detract from her fundamentally powerful case that RFK, like his brother John, was assassinated
by a CIA-run operation intended to silence their voices of courageous resistance to an
expanding secret government dedicated to war, murder, and human exploitation. The U.S.
government of today.
When Bobby Kennedy was entering the kitchen pantry, he was escorted by a security guard
named Thane Eugene Cesar, a man long suspected of being the assassin. Cesar was carrying a gun
that he drew but denied firing, despite witnesses' claims to the contrary. Conveniently, the
police never examined the gun. He has long been suspected of being CIA affiliated, and now
Pease says she has found evidence to confirm that. She writes, "It's hard to overstate the
significance of finding a current or future CIA contract agent holding Kennedy's right arm at
the moment of the shooting."
Yes, it is. As she rightly claims, the CIA takeover of America in the 1960s is the story of
our time. And our time is now. None of this is ancient history. That is so crucial to grasp.
For those who think that learning the truth about the 1960s assassinations is an exercise in
futility reserved for those who are living in the past, they need to think again. Our descent
into endless war and massive media propaganda to support it is part of a long-term project that
began with the elimination of JFK, Malcom X, MLK, and Robert Kennedy. They were killed for
reasons, and those reasons still exist, even if they don't physically, but only in spirit.
Their killers roam the land because they have become far more deeply part of the institutional
structure of government and the media.
Pease says:
It was horrible that Robert Kennedy was taken from us far too soon. It is horrible that
one man has borne the guilt for an operation he neither planned nor willingly participated
in. It's horrible the conspiracy was so obvious that bullets had to be lost and switched to
hide it. And it's horrible that the mainstream media has never dared to tell the people of
this country that the government lied to us about what they really found when they looked
into this case. Until the media can deal with the truth of the Robert Kennedy assassination,
and until the people can be made aware of the CIA's role in slanting the truth on topics of
great importance, America's very survival is in jeopardy .We've come perilously close to
losing democracy itself because of fake, CIA-sponsored stories about our history. Should
America ever become a dictatorship, the epitaph of our democracy must include the role the
mainstream media, by bowing to the National Security state, played in killing it.
By writing A Lie Too Big To Fail, Lisa Pease has done her valiant part in refuting
the lie that is now failing. Now it is up to all of us to spread the word of truth by focusing
on the fundamental facts so we can finally take back our country from the CIA.
Then we can say with RFK and his favorite poet Aeschylus:
And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until
in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre
for Research on Globalization.
"... There is a photo of someone who looks like him standing in front of the School Book Depository. Bush is one of the few people in America who can't remember where he was that day. ..."
There is some flimsy photo evidence of someone who looked like him in Dealey Plaza, so my
answer would be, "not sure." But anecdotally, there sure seems to be a large number of
"coincidences" around a guy who could apparently walk across a snow covered field without
leaving foot prints , so maybe.
Since the beginning, the rumored driving motive for JFK's assassination, (from both sides
really) was the cluster-fuck known as "The Bay of Pigs invasion," so we'll start there. At the
end of Mark Lane's book "Plausible Denial," (the account of E. Howard Hunt's ill-fated lawsuit
against The Liberty Lobby) some interesting facts about the Bay of Pigs invasion were tossed
out that leaves one scratching his or her head and wondering if 41 had anything to do with it.
The operation was ostensibly to deliver small arms and ordnance to a (turns out to be
fictional) 25,000 man rebel army that was in the Cuban hills waiting for help to depose Castro.
The US Navy supplied a couple of ships, but they were decommissioned, had their numbers scraped
off, and were renamed the "Houston" and the "Barbara," (or the Spanish spelling of Barbara.)
This is while 41 was living in Houston with his wife Barbara. Also, the CIA code name for the
invasion was "Operation Zapata."
This while the name of 41's business was "Zapata Offshore."
(Or something like that. 41 had business' using Zapata's name since his days as an oilman in
Midland Texas.) The day after Kennedy's killing, a George Bush met with Army Intel. What went
on in that meeting is a mystery, and the CIA unconvincingly claims that they had another guy
working for them named George Bush, only he wasn't hired until 1964 and his expertise was
meteorology so it's difficult to understand why they wanted to talk with him on that day. Then
there's the fact that Oswald's CIA handler, a guy name Georges DeMorinshilt (sp?) had the name
George (Poppy) Bush in his address book along with 41's Houston address and phone number.
Of course this is all coincidental, but consider: 41 was a failed two-term congressman who
couldn't hold his seat, (in Houston Texas of all places) and yet was made by Nixon the
ambassador to the UN, then Ford named him ambassador to China and the Director of the CIA. Wow!
What a lucky guy.
So was he involved with the Kennedy assassination and photographed in Dealey Plaza? Don't
know. I was 13 at the time, but in the intervening years, the politics in this country,
especially relating to the Republican Party, have become shall we say, "Kalfkaesque."
There is a photo of someone who looks like him standing in front of the School Book
Depository. Bush is one of the few people in America who can't remember where he was that day.
There is also a memo by J.Edgar Hoover referencing a "George Bush of the CIA" reporting on
"misguided Cubans" in Dallas that day. The CIA had a safe house stuffed with Cuban agents in
the Oak Cliff neighborhood, and Lee Harvey Oswald rented a room nearby shortly before the
assassination took place.
Astoundingly, Bush, the elder, claims that he does not remember where he was when Kennedy
was assassinated. I do. I'll bet a dollar that you do (if old enough). Everyone above the age
of fifty-five does except George H. W. Bush. He does however, remember that he was not at
Dealey Plaza at the time.
It is interesting to note that photographs and videos exist showing a man who looks very
much like Bush, at the site, at the time. It was not difficult to find them on line in the
past. Now, they seem to have been expunged somehow, though a few blurry photos can still be
found.
We discovered some fascinating evidence that George Bush was directly involved
in the murder of President John F Kennedy, the latest of which evidence comes from the late
Roger Craig. The evidence seems overwhelming that George Herbert Walker Bush was in Dealey
Plaza at the time of the president's murder, supervising the Cubans involved in the
assassination squad. Evidence for Bush's involvement is legion. Bush denies remembering where
he was on November 22d, largely because he can't remember which lie he should tell about it. It
saves him the embarrassing contradictions in which Nixon found himself when explaining his
whereabouts on that day. But not remembering one's location on that historic and traumatic day
doesn't pass the laugh test although Bush did manage to laugh about it at Gerald Ford's funeral
– precisely when he mentioned the murder. The laugh speaks volumes of Bush's contempt for
Kennedy. We have written previously about the memo which Hoover wrote about a meeting he had
with "Mr George Bush of the CIA" – a memo which irrefutably links Bush with the CIA
operating under cover as an "independent oil man from Houston." We reported in a recent blog
posting identifying Hunt as Bush's case officer in the CIA. These two independent witnesses
help cement Bush's involvement with the agency as well as his presence in the City of Hate on
the day he helped murder the president. Bush was on business for the CIA which is why he had
official communication with the FBI and most likely Hoover himself in Washington, DC the
following day. His official post was Dallas. Bush's cover story is that he spoke at an oil
convention – the Dallas based American Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors, but
this is at best plausible deniability.
The important point is that this story demonstrates that
he was in Dallas, a fact which the Dallas Morning News reported occurring on the evening of
November 21, 1963. Indeed, he stayed at the Sheraton Hotel which was also headquarters of
Secret Service communications and other elements coordinating the assassination. Many have
covered the James Parrot story in which Bush called the FBI to warm it about suspicious
activity of Parrot. But Parrot worked for Bush, and Bush used this lame story to provide an
alibi for his non-presence in Dallas.
Unfortunately, the lady doth protest too much. The Tyler,
TX story – the one where Bush supposedly called the FBI from Tyler is a giant hoax. It
didn't happen. Someone impersonating Bush made the call because Bush was too busy supervising
the assassination at that time. As we will show momentarily, Bush was nowhere near Tyler. The
aforementioned memo's citation of the "mis-guided" anti-Castro Cubans clearly associates Bush
with Alpha 66, Operation 40, and groups the CIA was training for assassination duty. The
pretext is that it was against Castro, but the plan was always against Kennedy. But how do we
know that? A CIA pilot told the story of George Bush being the pay master for Castro.
We have
posted elsewhere in this Chronicle that Cuba was an invention – a hoax – to justify
covert and bellicose operations – to justify the permanent war and police state. Castro
was on the CIA payroll and has always been a pawn of the New York banksters. Now here is the
kicker, as John Hankey quotes Dallas Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig speaking with Jim Garrison, the
New Orleans district attorney who prosecuted Clay Shaw for his involvement with the murder:
"Jim also asked me about the arrests made in Dealey Plaza that day. I told him I knew of
twelve arrests, one in particular made by R. E. Vaughn of the Dallas Police Department. The man
Vaughn arrested was coming from the Dal-Tex Building across from the Texas School Book
Depository. The only thing which Vaughn knew about him was that he was an independent oil
operator from Houston, Texas. The prisoner was taken from Vaughn by Dallas Police detectives
and that was the last that he saw or heard of the suspect." (emphasis added)
Here is
extraordinary evidence that George Bush was arrested in Dallas at the time of the
assassination. But why was he arrested? We diverge from Hankey's explanation that he was caught
where he wasn't supposed to be. Citizens knew that bullets were fired from Dal-Tex and were
jeering the people coming out. The police were providing Bush an escort of safety from one of
the crime scenes, as the Dallas Police were heavily involved in the murder. Thus an enormous
amount of evidence places George Bush in the City of Hate and Dealey Plaza on 11/21-22. The
evidence consists of newspaper accounts, FBI memoranda, photographs, and first person witness
accounts. George Herbert Walker Bush murdered John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Reference Jim Fetzer,
John Hankey, Was George H. W. Bush Involved With Assassination of JFK? VeteransToday.com,
November 16, 2011 Copyright 2013 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.
"Harris is the establishment's primary backup candidate after Biden. She was supposed to coast through the primaries while all
the attention was on Handsy Joe. Now she's wounded, and the establishment is royally pissed."
Notable quotes:
"... Not only was she not supposed to attack Kamala Harris, but she most certainly wasn't supposed to have landed such an effective blow and lived to tell about it. ..."
Not only was she not supposed to attack Kamala Harris, but she most certainly wasn't
supposed to have landed such an effective blow and lived to tell about it.
Somebody in the twitterverse asked the twits this question: "Name a job that you can
completely suck at and still keep your job?" Instantly answered by Max Blumenthal "Beltway
think tank senior fellow"
Trump had recently told reporters he was considering a naval blockade or full "quarantine"
of Venezuela as the latest effort to try to impose regime change, something the US announced
it had recognized month ago but which so far hasn't happened.
President
Maduro denounced the comments , and called on his ambassador to complain to the UN
Security Council about the "illegal" US threat to blockade the Venezuelan coastline. Maduro
added it was "clearly illegal."
Clearly illegal as a practical matter is likely to be very much beside the point for US
policy. Previous indications were that Trump had become bored with Venezuela because of the
lack of progress, and it's likely he'll only try to impose a regime change in this manner if
he believes it will work.
2016 was widely recognized as the year of "populism," more adequately described as the year
of revolt against the political Establishment -- in both Parties. The Democratic Primary in
2016 was a battle of progressive forces against the Democratic Establishment, and the battle
lines were clearly drawn. Those lines remain much the same as we approach 2020.
On the Progressive or Populist side were those who opposed the endless wars in the Middle
East, and on the Establishment side those who supported those long and bloody wars. On the
Progressive Side were those who supported badly needed domestic reforms, most notably Medicare
for All, which after all is a reform of almost 20% of the entire economy and a reform that has
to do with life itself. In contrast on the Establishment side were those who supported
ObamaCare, a device for leaving our health care to the tender mercies of the Insurance
behemoths with its ever increasing premiums and ever decreasing coverage.
In 2016 the pundits gave progressives little chance of success. Hillary Clinton was a
shoo-in, we were all assured by a horde of "reliable sources." And given the control that the
Clintonites exercised over the Democratic Party apparatus, there was little prospect of a
successful rebellion and every chance of having one's career badly damaged by opposing Party
elite. Summer soldiers and duplicitous candidates were not interested in challenging the
Establishment.
In 2016 Bernie Sanders was the only politician who was willing to take on the Establishment.
Although not technically a Democrat, he caucused with them and worked with them. And he was a
lifelong, reliable and ardent advocate for Medicare for All and a consistent opponent of the
endless wars. For these things he was prepared to do battle against overwhelming odds on the
chance that he might prevail and because from his grass roots contacts he sensed that a
rebellion was brewing.
In 2016 only one among the current crop of candidates followed Bernie, supported him and
joined him on the campaign trail -- Tulsi Gabbard. At the time she was a two term Congresswoman
and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a career building position, from
which she would have to resign in order to support one of the candidates. Moreover, reports
said she bridled at the internal bias of the DNC in favor of Hillary. To express her
displeasure with the DNC and to support Bernie, she had to defy the Clinton Establishment,
which might even have terminated her political career. But she was a foe of the endless wars,
partly based on her own experience as a National Guard member who had been deployed to Iraq in
a medical unit and saw the ravages of war first hand. So she joined Bernie, introducing him at
many of his rallies and strengthening his antiwar message.
Bernie and Tulsi proved themselves in the defining battle of 2016. They let us know
unequivocally where they stand. And Bernie might well have won the nomination were he not
cheated out of it by the Establishment which continues to control the levers of power in the
Democratic Party to this day.
In 2016 these two stood in stark contrast to the other 2020 Democratic candidates. Let us
take one example of these others, Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the main stream media which
often refers to her as ideologically aligned to Bernie Sanders. Perhaps she is so aligned at
times -- at least in words; she is after all in favor of Medicare for All, although she hastens
to add that she is "open to other approaches." That qualifier is balm to the ears of the
Insurance behemoths. Translation: she has already surrendered before the battle has begun.
In 2016 a critical primary for Bernie was Masschusetts where Senator Warren wields
considerable influence. Clinton defeated Sanders there by a mere 1.5% whereas she had lost to
Obama there by 15% in 2008. Wikipedia has this to say of the
primary:
"Following the primary, Elizabeth Warren, the state's senior US senator, was widely
criticized by Sanders supporters online for her refusal to endorse him prior to the primary.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders have argued that an endorsement from Warren, whose political
positions were similar to that of Sanders's, and who was a frequent critic of Hillary Clinton
in the past, could have handed Massachusetts to him. "
One must conclude that either Warren does not genuinely share the views of Sanders or she is
loath to buck the Establishment and fight for those views. In either event she, and the others
who failed to back Bernie in 2016, are not made of the stuff that can win Medicare for All,
bring an end to the regime change wars and illegal sanctions of the last four or more
administrations, begin serious negotiations to end the existential nuclear peril, and address
the many other problems facing us and all of humanity.
“Bernie walked the walk”
When was that? The time he toured through Baltimore and called it a third world city while
assiduously not discussing how, why, and because of who it became so?
The way he openly sold out to Clinton and ducked into his new third manor house to avoid
being held to task for leaving his base out to dry the very moment they were ready to
seriously break ranks from the neolib political machine?
Is he walking the walk now as he tries to rationalize away his underpaying of his campaign
workers and cuts hours to minimize the costs of the 15 dollar floor price he demanded for
everyone other employer?
The man is a DNC stooge through and through.
And Tulsi being anti-war out of personal squeamishness doesn’t make up for the rest of
her painfully party-line-compliant platform, particularly when the Deep State has multiple
active avenues available to at the very least keep our military presence still existing
military presence trapped and held hostage. All the dove cooing in recorded world history
won’t hold up when, not if, Britain or France or whoever deliberately sinks another
navy vessel and drags her by the hair into another desert scrum.
@Tusk As with the 1960 Presidential Election, Hillary stole that election fair and
square. Had Sanders went full third party, it would’ve destroyed the Democrats
outright. Despite Clinton’s cheating, Bernie went ahead and bent the knee. Strangely
enough, Trump’s victory saved Sanders and his faction. Had Clinton won, she
would’ve purged the Sanders supporters relentlessly.
There is such a thing as a tactical retreat. Now he’s able to play again.
is that our “establishment elite” have failed the United States of
America.
How, you may ask ?
The answer is simple.
By defrauded us into multiple illegal wars of aggression they have bankrupted the entire
nation.
The iron fact is that because our “elites” lied us into illegal war we are now
22.5 trillion dollars in heinous debt.
Why is this okay ?
The answer is simple.
It is not okay, NOT AT ALL .
And it is not enough (anymore) to just demand we “end our wars”, Mr.
Walsh.
The cost in treasure has been too high and the burden on the US taxpayer too obscene.
Without demanding “accountability” from our elites, who lied us into this
catastrophe, our nation is most probably going under.
I say…. make them pay …”every penny”…. for the cost of
the wars they lied us into.
An initiative, like the “War fraud Accountability Act” (retroactive to 2002)
would do just that.
it would replenish the coffers of our nation with all the assets of the larcenous
profiteers who deceived us all….into heinous war debt.
As we witness the rise of China as the new global economic powerhouse, we can see first
hand how a nation can rise to immense wealth and global influence “precisely
because” it was never deceived by its “ruling class” into squandering all
its resources initiating and fighting endless criminal wars.
Just imagine where the USA would be today, had we chosen the same course.
Until Dems are willing to refuse to depend on Haim Saban’s “generous
donation” to the Dem candidate, none of their candidates will deserve to be the the
POTUS candidate. Ditto for the Republicans and their fetish with Shelly Adelson. Candidates
must kowtow to Israel or else there will be no dough for them and they might even be
challenged in their incumbencies next time around by ADL/AIPAC. Until we get rid of Israeli
money and political power, we are toast.
1)Both Sanders and Gabbard are onboard for going to war against Christian Russia over
Crimea..Sanders has gone so far as saying that a Military response against Russia is an
option if all else fails in getting Russia out of Crimea…
2)Both Sanders and Gabbard are waging a war of RACIAL EXTERMINATION against Working Class
Native Born White American Males….And that’s WHITE GENOCIDE!!!!
@Kronos Bernie “bent the knee” once and got to enjoy his lakeside home and
his wife protected from fraud prosecution after she stole money from People’s United
Bank for her college scam.
He is owned.
If Tulsi were a serious threat she would be neutralized one way or another.
“Progressives” are virtue signaling fools–the kleptocracy marches on and
laughs at them.
One has to wonder where Dems like Warren and their identity politics is taking the US.
Will everyone who even slightly disagrees with them be labeled a terrorist?
According to Tim Taylor we should save some of that sand. Maybe sand will be the next oil for
funding ME dictators.
Hey, everyone loves a parade and what's a parade without tanks? If gives us something in
common with the commies. On the one hand, this is a paranoid world and on the other hand,
people love to see stuff get blown up. Battling against empire is an uphill battle with a
long historical track record of failures so obscure that mostly no one has even ever heard of
them. I guess if someone is committed to fighting a losing battle then they might as well go
for losing big.
[Good to know. Thanks. Do you think that finite (made from desert sand) will eventually be
formulated to last long enough for general construction use?]
Finite: a more sustainable alternative to concrete made from desert sand
26 March 2018
Sand is worldwide in high demand and heavily used in many industries, especially
construction. With deserts full of it, one can easily be fooled into thinking that sand is an
almost infinite resource. However, desert sand has little use; the grains are too smooth and
fine to bind together, so it is not suitable for the making of for instance concrete. The
start-up Finite, founded by researchers from Imperial College London, created a material
composite made with desert sand that serves as a more sustainable alternative to
concrete.
The supply of construction-grade sand is dwindling worldwide. This type of sand is
stripped from beaches and riverbeds, but because of the heavy use, the supply is diminishing
rapidly. Desert sand, on the other hand, is plentiful. This sand is not used in construction,
as its grains are too smooth and fine to bind together for building materials.
The newly developed composite makes use of desert sand and "other abundant fine powders
that traditionally have no use". According to the inventors, Finite can be turned into
structures that have the same strength as housing bricks and residential concrete.
The material is more environmentally friendly than concrete, with a concrete footprint
that is less than half that of concrete. Unlike concrete, which must be either downcycled or
sent to the landfill at the end of its life, the new material can easily be reused as it can
be remoulded for multiple lifecycle uses. The material can be coloured using natural
dyes.
Finite can be used in desert areas, made with local sand rather than imported concrete.
For now, the material is only suitable for temporary constructions, after which the material
can be reused or left to decompose. For permanent structures, the material still has to pass
rounds of testing and regulations...
OSLO (Reuters) - Greenland could start to export sand in a rare positive spinoff from
global warming that is melting the island's vast ice sheet and washing large amounts of
sediment into the sea, scientists said on Monday.
Mining of sand and gravel, widely used in the construction industry, could boost the
economy for Greenland's 56,000 population who have wide powers of self-rule within Denmark
but rely heavily on subsidies from Copenhagen.
By mining sand, "Greenland could benefit from the challenges brought by climate change," a
team of scientists in Denmark and the United States wrote in the journal Nature
Sustainability.
The study, headlined "Promises and perils of sand exploitation in Greenland", said the
Arctic island would have to assess risks of coastal mining, especially to fisheries.
Rising global temperatures are melting the Greenland ice sheet, which locks up enough
water to raise global sea levels by about seven meters (23 ft) if it ever all thawed, and
carrying ever more sand and gravel into coastal fjords.
"You can think of it (the melting ice) as a tap that pours out sediment to the coast,"
said lead author Mette Bendixen, a researcher at the University of Colorado's Institute of
Arctic and Alpine Research.
Worldwide demand for sand totaled about 9.55 billion tonnes in 2017 with a market value of
$99.5 billion and is projected to reach almost $481 billion in 2100, driven by rising demand
and likely shortages, the study said.
"As you be muche the worse. and I cast awaie.
An yll wynde, that blowth no man to good, men saie.
Wel (quoth he) euery wind blowth not down the corn
I hope (I saie) good hap [luck] be not all out worn." - John Heywood - 1546
Biden and Sanders, Behaving Badly
A bad-faith debate over health care coverage.
By Paul Krugman
Health care was a key factor in Democrats' victory in the 2018 midterm elections, and it
should be a big plus in 2020 as well. The shared Democratic position -- that every legal
resident should have access to affordable care, regardless of income or health status -- is
immensely popular. The de facto Republican position -- that we should go back to a situation
in which those whose jobs don't come with health benefits, or who suffer from pre-existing
medical conditions, can't get insurance -- is so unpopular that G.O.P. candidates
consistently lie about their own proposals.
But right now, two of the major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe
Biden and Bernie Sanders, are having an ugly argument about health care that could hurt the
party's chances. There are real, important differences between the two men's policy
proposals, and it's fine to point that out. What's not fine is the name-calling and false
assertions. Both men are behaving badly. And for their party's sake, and their country's,
they need to stop it.
Let's back up. There are, broadly speaking, two ways a country can try to achieve
universal health insurance. One is single-payer: The government simply pays the bills. The
other retains a role for private insurance but relies on a combination of regulations and
subsidies to ensure that everyone gets covered.
We don't have to speculate about how these systems would work in practice, because every
advanced country except the U.S. has some form of universal coverage. Some, like Canada and
Britain, use single-payer (in Britain the government also operates the hospitals and pays the
doctors). Others, like Switzerland and the Netherlands, have a large role for private
insurers.
The clean little secret of health care is that both approaches work when countries try to
make them work. In fact, we can see both systems at work right here in America.
More than 100 million Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, which are both
single-payer programs; despite Ronald Reagan's ominous warnings back in 1961, neither
destroyed American freedom. Since 2014, millions more have been covered by the Affordable
Care Act, which was underfunded and has been subject to extensive Republican sabotage;
nonetheless, states like California that have tried to make the act work have experienced
huge declines in the number of residents without insurance.
Which brings us back to the Democratic quarrel.
Sanders, of course, has made Medicare for All his signature proposal. Could such a plan
work? Absolutely. But there are two valid criticisms of his proposal.
First, it would have to be paid for with higher taxes. While many people would find the
increased tax burden offset by lower premiums, the required tax increases would be daunting.
And while Sanders has in fact proposed a number of new taxes, independent estimates say that
the revenue they'd generate would fall far short of what his plan would cost.
Second, the Sanders plan would require that roughly 180 million Americans give up their
current private insurance and replace it with something different. Persuading them that this
would be an improvement, even if true, would be a tall order. Indeed, there's good reason to
believe that eliminating the option of retaining private insurance would be an electoral
loser. (Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, take heed.)
On the other side, Biden is proposing to build on Obamacare. That can sound like tinkering
at the edges. But his actual plan is much bigger and better than is widely realized, with
large increases in funding, a public option, and more. It would, arguably, bring the A.C.A.
close to the standards of successful European systems.
That said, the Biden plan would preserve the crazy-quilt, Rube Goldberg aspects of our
current system, which impose a lot of unnecessary costs and make it too easy for people to
fall through the cracks.
So there's plenty of room for a good-faith Sanders-Biden argument. Unfortunately, that's
not the argument they're having.
Instead, Sanders is arguing that only single-payer can purge "corporate greed" from the
system -- an assertion belied by European experience -- and broadly hinting that Biden is in
the pocket of corporate interests. That's a criticism you can level about some of Biden's
past policy positions, like his advocacy of the 2005 bankruptcy law. But it's not a fair
criticism of a health plan that's actually pretty good, and which most people would have
considered radical just a few years ago.
For his part, Biden is declaring that the Sanders plan would undermine Medicare. In fact,
it would enhance current recipients' benefits. And it's a bad sign that Biden, who poses as
Obamacare's great defender, is using a G.O.P. scare tactic familiar from the utterly
dishonest campaign against the A.C.A. No Democrat should be stooping to that level.
Unfortunately, Biden and Sanders will be appearing on different nights during the next
Democratic debates. So it will be up to other candidates, or the moderators, to put them on
the spot. It's time for both men to stop poisoning their own party's well.
It may get ugly if Sanders points to the elephant in the room......
US remains, and Obamacare did nothing to alter it, the only "developed" country where
establishments that finance the health of human beings are run as profit generating
businesses.
Medicare is a bad model for health care because its based on a piece work production system,
ie, payment only for doing medical work, and no payment for preventing preventable medical
treatment.
For example, prescribing opiates repeatedly was paid for each and every time, but working
to not prescribe opiates is not.
And now getting people off it opiate addiction is paid for, but not working with patients
to prevent addiction to opiates.
Thanks to Nixon, a number of very good HMOs were created and required to be options in
employer benefit programs, in NH, this resulted in half of all NH residents picking the HMO
Mathew Thornton health plan over BCBS which in 1970 covered 80% of NH residents. The HMO only
had clinics covering only 60-70% of the population while BCBS paid almost any doctor in the
four state region.
MTHP was extremely well liked. It provided great health care. Doctors ran it, not bean
counters. Doctors didn't need to invent diseases to get paid for spending time with
patients.
But Bernie has stated that HMOs are bad because they seek to not provide medical
treatments, as if health care is about making patients suffer both illnesses and then the
treatments.
HMOs operate on the Deming model. Design the system for high quality so less work is
required, thus lower cost to deliver the best outcome, whether a qualty car, walkman, TV,
health.
Coming from Krugman, with a view of how he trashed Bernie's plan on behalf of Hillary in
2016, this is pretty rich.
I guess it's up to Krugman to decide when it's OK to behave badly
And then he attacks Bernie's plan: people won't want to pay more in taxes to fund Medicare
for All. Nowhere is it mentioned that the taxes would be in lieu of insurance premiums and as
we all know (!!!) people are just delighted to pay those insurance companies because, you
know it's better to be ripped off by private enterprise than to pay taxes for real insurance
coverage with no deductibles and co-pays!!!
Krugman just can't seem to wean himself of those industry talking points
"And while Sanders has in fact proposed a number of new taxes, independent estimates say that
the revenue they'd generate would fall far short of what his plan would cost."
Mealy-mouthed way of saying that Sanders is lying.
It seems that Krugman is programmed to object strenuously to anything that does not preserve
the inefficient, Rube Goldberg health insurance system were have in place today. And here I
thought that economists were all about efficiency!!!
I guess industry talking points override efficiency!!!
Deficit Man and the 2020 Election
The Trump bump probably peaked too early.
By Paul Krugman
I've seen a number of people suggest that the 2020 election will be a sort of test: Can a
sufficiently terrible president lose an election despite a good economy? And that is, in
fact, the test we'd be running if the election were tomorrow.
On one side, Donald Trump wastes no opportunity to remind us how awful he is. His latest
foray into overt racism delights his base but repels everyone else. On the other side, he
presides over an economy in which unemployment is very low and real G.D.P. grew 3.2 percent
over the past year.
But the election won't be tomorrow, it will be an exhausting 15 months from now. Trump's
character won't change, except possibly for the worse. But the economy might look
significantly different.
So let's talk about the Trump economy.
The first thing you need to know is that the Trump tax cut caused a huge rise in the
budget deficit, which the administration expects to hit $1 trillion this year, up from less
than $600 billion in 2016. This tidal wave of red ink is even more extraordinary than it
looks, because it has taken place despite falling unemployment, which usually leads to a
falling deficit.
Strange to say, none of the Republicans who warned of a debt apocalypse under President
Barack Obama have protested the Trump deficits. (Should we put Paul Ryan's face on milk
cartons?) For that matter, even the centrists who obsessed over federal debt during the Obama
years have been pretty quiet. Clearly, deficits only matter when there's a Democrat in the
White House.
Oh, and the imminent fiscal crisis people like Erskine Bowles used to warn about keeps not
happening: Long-term interest rates remain very low.
Now, the evidence on the effects of deficit spending is clear: It gives the economy a
short-run boost, even when we're already close to full employment. If anything, the growth
bump under Trump has been smaller than you might have expected given the deficit surge,
perhaps because the tax cut was so badly designed, perhaps because Trump's trade wars have
deterred business spending.
For now, however, Deficit Man is beating Tariff Man. As I said, we've seen good growth
over the past year.
But the tax cut was supposed to be more than a short-run Keynesian stimulus. It was sold
as something that would greatly improve the economy's long-run performance; in particular,
lower corporate tax rates were supposed to lead to a huge boom in business investment that
would, among other things, lead to sharply higher wages. And this big rise in long-run growth
would supposedly create a boom in tax revenues, offsetting the upfront cost of tax cuts.
None of this is happening. Corporations are getting to keep a lot more of their profits,
but they've been using the money to buy back their own stock, not raise investment. Wages are
rising, but not at an extraordinary pace, and many Americans don't feel that they're sharing
in the benefits of a growing economy.
And this is probably as good as it gets.
I'm not forecasting a recession. It could happen, and we're very badly positioned to
respond if it does, but the more likely story is just a slowdown as the effects of the
deficit splurge wear off. In fact, if you believe the "nowcasters" (economists who try to get
an early read on the economy from partial data), that slowdown is already happening. For
example, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York believes that the economy's growth was down to
1.5 percent in the second quarter.
And it's hard to see where another economic bump can come from. With Democrats controlling
the House, there won't be another big tax cut. The Fed may cut interest rates, but those cuts
are already priced into long-term interest rates, which are what matter for spending, and the
economy seems to be slowing anyway.
Which brings us back to the 2020 election.
Political scientists have carried out many studies of the electoral impact of the economy,
and as far as I know they all agree that what matters is the trend, not the level. The
unemployment rate was still over 7 percent when Ronald Reagan won his 1984 landslide; it was
7.7 percent when Obama won in 2012. In both cases, however, things were clearly getting
better.
That's probably not going to be the story next year. If we don't have a recession,
unemployment will still be low. But economic growth will probably be meh at best -- which
means, if past experience is any guide, that the economy won't give Trump much of a boost,
that it will be more or less a neutral factor.
And on the other hand, Trump's awfulness will remain.
Republicans will, of course, portray the Democratic nominee -- whoever she or he may be --
as a radical socialist poised to throw the border open to hordes of brown-skinned rapists.
And one has to admit that this strategy might work, although it failed last year in the
midterms. To be honest, I'm more worried about the effects of sexism if the nominee is a
woman -- not just the sexism of voters, but that of the news media, which still holds women
to different standards.
But as far as the economy goes, the odds are that Trump's deficit-fueled bump came too
soon to do him much political good.
Right, zero inflation, just housing prices going up 10% per year.
Hey, you are getting richer as the house you can't buy because your savings and income
isn't rising faster than 10% per year so you can finally go into debt and then do cash out
refis so you have a constant 80% debt in rising "wealth".
Constantly increasing debt on constantly incressing "wealth" is not inflation.
Just keep saying "there is no inflation, just higher living costs".
The "Aging Crisis" Is Actually Just a Labor Crisis for the Wealthy
By Dean Baker
The New York Times told us * last week that China is running out of people. That might
seem an odd concern for a country with a population of more than 1.4 billion, but you can
read it for yourself:
"Driving this regression in women's status is a looming aging crisis, and the relaxing of
the draconian 'one-child' birth restrictions that contributed to the graying population. The
Communist Party now wants to try to stimulate a baby boom."
What exactly is supposed to be China's "aging crisis?" China has had a low birth rate for
the last four decades, as the government consciously tried to slow the country's population
growth. As a result, it does have an aging population and a declining ratio of workers to
retirees, but this raises the obvious question, "So what?"
We see endless news articles and columns implying that the prospect of a declining number
of workers supporting a growing population of retirees is some sort of crisis. The people
making such assertions really need some knowledge of demographics.
The United States and other wealthy countries have been seeing drops in the ratio of
workers to retirees for many decades. In the U.S. case, we went from having 5.1 workers for
every Social Security retiree in 1960 to just 2.8 workers for each retiree today.
We pay higher taxes for Social Security and Medicare today than we did in 1960 (Medicare
did not yet exist), but few would say that current tax rates are a crisis. If China has to
see equivalent increases in taxes in the next decade or two to support its retirees, it is
hard to see it as a major problem.
Reporters and media commentators like to report on taxes as the biggest concern for
working people, but as economists like to point out, the main factor determining living
standards is what goes into workers' paychecks, not what the government takes out in
taxes.
The Social Security payroll tax rose by 6.4 percentage points between 1960 and 1990. The
Medicare tax rose by 2.95 percentage points, for a total increase in federal payroll taxes of
9.35 percentage points.
In spite of this large increase in payroll taxes over this period, workers enjoyed
considerably higher after-tax wages in 1990 than in 1960. This was true because real wages
rose, especially in the first part of this period (1960 to 1973), when real wages for the
typical worker rose at a 2.2 percent annual rate.
The story is even more dramatic in China. Real wages have risen just over 7.0 percent
annually over the last decade. Suppose wage growth slows to 5.0 percent over the next two
decades. Suppose the country has to raise taxes on workers by 20 percentage points over this
period to cover the cost of its aging population. In that case, after taxes, wages would
still be more than twice as high as they are today. What is the problem?
The basic story is that if an economy maintains a healthy rate of productivity growth,
which allows for healthy real wage growth, then the demographic changes are a relatively
small matter. This doesn't mean that society will not face some problems in adjusting for the
needs of an aging population ― the U.S. faced many problems associated with the care
and education of the Baby Boomers when we were children ― but these problems are far
from insoluble.
If simple arithmetic shows that the people shortage story is nonsense, then why does it
continually appear in the media? The most obvious explanation is that the concerns over a
smaller workforce fall into the well-known "it's hard to get good help" problem.
This is the standard refrain of rich people, employers and major media outlets. A smaller
labor market could present employers with a world where workers have more bargaining power
and can therefore demand wage increases that are equal to, possibly even greater than, the
rate of productivity growth.
As workers move from lower-paying to higher-paying ― and therefore higher
productivity ― jobs, it will be harder to get people to work at many of the
lowest-paying jobs, such as domestic workers, valets in restaurants, and other jobs that
primarily involve providing services to the wealthy.
That probably does look like a crisis to a small segment of the population. The wealthy
may really have some cause to be concerned about the prospect of a declining population and
workforce. The rest of us, not so much.
The workers in fast food serve primarily the wealthy???
The workers in dollar stores serve primarily the wealthy?
The workers serving the wealthy are primarily middle class, whether food service, retail,
child care, etc.
The problem for China is providing opportunity for the young entrepreneurs. Without an
abundant eager labor force, the old established businesses will dominate and slow change.
Thhey won't be challenged to do better.
Modern money theory and its challenges - VoxEU
---------
Some misperceptions.
MMT is not modern, it is standard generational practice.
Given the nearly unlimited history of humans doing MMT some rules have emerged:
1) MMTs generally last anywhere from three days to three months.
2) The exception to rule 1 is war time where MMT hangs around with price controls.
3) We have a legal issue. This is the first time we have done a good old MMT using double
accounting money, we usually do it by repricing gold or exiting the gold market.
I am not sure we have the brains in DC to pull this off without a nightmare result, due to
MMT becoming a tribal slogan with no real definition attached.
"The bond market agrees with Elizabeth Warren, up to a point"
By Desmond Lachman, Opinion Contributor...07/23/19...07:30 AM EDT
'The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill'
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is not known for her enthusiasm for the financial markets
in general and for the bond market in particular. But there seems to be one important point
on which Warren and the world's bond markets currently agree: both the U.S. and the rest of
the world could soon be heading for a nasty economic recession.
In a recent article, Warren warned that the odds of another economic downturn were high
and growing. In her view, this is due to the precarious state of our economy, which is built
on an excessive amount of household and corporate debt. That makes the U.S. economy
particularly vulnerable to a number of serious shocks that she now sees on the horizon and
that she thinks "could cause our economy's shaky foundation to crumble."
By its nature, the bond market does not spell out the reasons why it prices bonds in any
particular manner. But we can infer the bond market's economic outlook from market bond
prices.
One indication that the government bond markets now seem to be sharing Warren's gloomy
economic prognosis is the fact that long-term U.S. Treasury bond rates have declined to
significantly below the Federal Reserve's short-term policy rate. This so-called yield curve
inversion implies that the U.S. Treasury bond market is expecting that the U.S. economy will
soon go into a recession that will keep interest rates low for a long time.
A more dramatic indication of sovereign bond market pessimism is the fact that a record
US$13 trillion of global sovereign bonds, and around one half of all European sovereign
bonds, now offer negative interest rates."...
RE: Acknowledging and pricing macroeconomic uncertainties
Lars Peter Hansen, Thomas Sargent 22 July 2019
False pretences of knowledge about complicated economic situations have become all too common
in public policy debates. While we do know some things, we don't know everything. We believe
that prudent decision-making should acknowledge what we don't know. Decision makers should
strive to quantify dimensions of their ignorance and adjust their decisions accordingly. This
essay describes a tractable approach for acknowledging, characterizing, and responding to the
limited understandings discovered by researchers' efforts to interpret existing evidence by
using theories and statistical methods available at any particular moment.
An economic model tells how chance, occurrences, and purposeful decisions influence future
outcomes. Economic researchers use formal statistical models to describe and interpret data
and to formulate policy advice for government and private decision makers. Whether they
acknowledge it explicitly or not, real world decision makers also use models or 'views' about
how their decisions affect future outcomes. Because they ignore some forces and oversimplify
others, all models are just approximations to reality, some better than others depending on
the purposes to which they are put. Furthermore, at any time, we can choose among multiple
models and are unsure how much credibility to assign to each of them.
Data can surely help us assess the credibility of alternative models, but the real world
is so complicated and data are so limited that data can only tell us so much. Therefore,
economic modellers and decision makers require ways to express their opinions about the
plausibility and usefulness of alternative models for the problem at hand. Because data are
only partially informative about a model's plausibility, a decision-maker's purpose as well
as his or her 'subjective beliefs' play important roles too. The more complex the situation,
the bigger the challenge of confronting uncertainty.
Economists and other scholars have created theoretical foundations for uncertainty. For
instance, both John Maynard Keynes (1921) and Frank Knight (1921) wrote on the subject, but
mostly in literary ways that are challenging to interpret and to make operational so that
they can be applied in quantitative work. The eminent statistician Abraham Wald (1950)
introduced a theoretic framework for making decisions under uncertainty. Leonard J. Savage
(1954) constructed a complete axiomatic approach to Bayesian decision theory by including
subjective probabilities that are entirely in the mind of a decision maker. Itzhak Gilboa and
David Schmeidler (1989) extended this approach in ways that acknowledged that a decision
maker might not have a unique subjective probability distribution. Recent research in control
theory and in dynamic decision theory provides useful practical tools for assessing and
coping with various sources of uncertainty. We have worked on these topics for a number of
years. Along with others, we have used mathematics and statistics to construct operational
quantitative tools that shed light on how financial markets and the macroeconomy work and how
alternative fiscal and monetary policies affect them.
In a recent paper (Hansen and Sargent 2019), we propose ways to categorise and respond to
the multiple forms of uncertainty that confront decision makers and model builders. Thus, we
distinguish among (1) uncertainty within a model; (2) uncertainty across a set of available
known models; and (3) uncertainty about each model. We refer to (1) as risk –
uncertainty about future outcomes that is described by a single known probability
distribution. (This is the type of uncertainty assumed up until now in most work in
theoretical and applied finance and macroeconomics.) We call uncertainty of type (2)
ambiguity and represent it as being unsure about what weights or probabilities to attach to
the available models. We call (3) model misspecification and represent it by surrounding each
available model with a vast cloud statistical models with unknown forms that nevertheless fit
the available data nearly as well as does an available model.
The models that we economists build and use are highly stylised
*
[These guys both need a new stylist.
Just how certain can they be about uncertainty? If uncertainty were quantifiable then how
uncertain would it be? Uncertainty is a lot more than just confidence intervals on
statistical data sets. Operators and relationships among interdependent variables are often
uncertain while data is just distributed within variance. The past may not be a reliable
indicator of the future. I will take Keynes on uncertainty and stay out of the deep end of
the pool.]
@Wally as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi
gives great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq
vote) and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a fair
job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to contribute to
the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking about
FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was only about
trade, not FP as usually understood.
I did find this
July 9, 2019 article in truthdig calling on him to apologize, tho.
And no matter how it's sliced, Biden's still a warmonger.
I sense something is afoot. Pure speculation but crazier things have happened:
Michelle as Biden's VP. Vote for Joe, get Michelle.
#1 as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi gives
great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq vote)
and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a
fair job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to
contribute to the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this
debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking
about FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was
only about trade, not FP as usually understood.
@Wally
@Wally sense, what matters to the issue and complaint being discussed is not what you
or I think of Joe and Iraq (we agree) or even what the objective truth is (I did a full 0.5
sec google search, lazy latte-sipping liberal that I am, and couldn't find an explicit use of
the term "apology" from Joe).
What matters is TG's perception or memory of what Joe said about his vote. In the video
linked above, she talks about how Joe has said it was a mistake --
true -- and that "he's apologized for it, many times" (I couldn't find a link proving
that).
Edit: In Tulsi's forgiving world, she might equate or accept the term "mistake" in lieu of
an official, formal expression of regret using the term "apology".
I might be able to give you Tulsi's private # and you could ask her personally, but in the
words of that immortal American Statesman Richard Nixon, That Would Be Wrong.
@wokkamile
. . . when I run for Pope? I can't wait for you to spin my many wrong thoughts;>).
#1.2.1
#1.2.1 sense, what matters to the issue and complaint being discussed is not what you
or I think of Joe and Iraq (we agree) or even what the objective truth is (I did a full
0.5 sec google search, lazy latte-sipping liberal that I am, and couldn't find an
explicit use of the term "apology" from Joe).
What matters is TG's perception or memory of what Joe said about his vote. In the
video linked above, she talks about how Joe has said it was a mistake --
true -- and that "he's apologized for it, many times" (I couldn't find a link proving
that).
Edit: In Tulsi's forgiving world, she might equate or accept the term "mistake" in
lieu of an official, formal expression of regret using the term "apology".
I might be able to give you Tulsi's private # and you could ask her personally, but in
the words of that immortal American Statesman Richard Nixon, That Would Be Wrong.
@wokkamile IMO, this is not a fatal error by Tulsi.
Despite what we are being sold, Biden is a very weak candidate and many others are working
to take him down. No one was willing to take on Harris who was designated as the rising star
in the Hamptons. But Tulsi did, based upon principle. Funny thing is that Tulsi told Harris
that she was coming after her in advance, but Harris was unprepared.
#1 as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi gives
great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq vote)
and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a
fair job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to
contribute to the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this
debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking
about FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was
only about trade, not FP as usually understood.
@wokkamile
that this is exactly what Tulsi was doing. It seems to have been effective. For one thing, it
took everyone, including the CNN hosts, off guard.
She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this debate.
#1 as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi gives
great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq vote)
and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a
fair job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to
contribute to the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this
debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking
about FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was
only about trade, not FP as usually understood.
Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Luke Rudkowski of "We Are Change," a libertarian
media organization, that Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has just signed on
as a co-sponsor of Audit the Fed bill, officially known as H.R.24 The Federal Reserve
Transparency Act of 2019.
Last night Tulsi Gabbard went after Harris on her support of the for profit prison system in
Cali at the expense of human beoings......
soon enough Harris supporters were tweeting that Gabbard is an "Assad apologist".
"Assad apologist is war monger agit prop against anyone who might get in the way of the
profitable forever wars for al Qaeda (in Idlib etc) and the Saudi royals.
im1dc": propagandizing for the war profiteers is not limited to the press it is in the
diverse democrat campaigns pandering for contributions caring nothing for the US or humans in
general. Gabbard being the obvious exception garnering their sound bites.
The Joseph McCarthy-style attack on the Representative by the California Senator and
associates is shocking and dangerous and revealing of "character."
After Democratic 2020 candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) dressed down Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-CA) over her criminal justice record, Harris hit back - suggesting that Gabbard is somehow
'below her' - and an "apologist" for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
In response, Harris thumbed her nose at Gabbard , telling CNN 's Anderson Cooperafter the
debate: "This is going to sound immodest, but obviously I'm a top-tier candidate and so I did
expect that I'd be on the stage and take some hits tonight ... when people are at 0 or 1% or
whatever she might be at , so I did expect to take some hits tonight."
Harris added "Listen, I think that this coming from someone who has been an apologist for an
individual , [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad, who has murdered the people of his country
like cockroaches. She has embraced and been an apologist for him in the way she refuses to call
him a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously, so I'm prepared
to move on."
Wait a second...
Tulsi wasn't having it. In a Thursday interview with CNN 's Chris Cuomo, Gabbard punched
back - saying "[T]he only response that I've heard her and her campaign give is to push out
smear attacks on me, claim that I am somehow some kind of foreign agent or a traitor to my
country, the country that I love, the country that I put my life on the line to serve , the
country that I still serve today as a soldier in the Army National Guard."
Gabbard also made clear that she believes Assad is " a brutal dictator, just like Saddam
Hussein, just like Gaddafi in Libya ," adding "The reason that I'm so outspoken on this issue
of ending these wasteful regime change wars is because I have seen firsthand this high human
cost of war and the impact that it has on my fellow brothers and sisters in uniform. "
"... When Lindsey Graham tweets about Tulsi Gabbard twice after a debate, when the Washington Post neocons like Josh Rogin are attacking her , you know she's got their panties in a bunch. ..."
"... You expect it from the Harris camp, obviously. But when it comes directly from people like Navid Jamali (double agent, navy intelligence, MSNBC contributor) you know the empire is beginning to get worried. ..."
"... Gabbard is now getting the Ron Paul treatment. It will only intensify from here. They will come after her with everything they have. ..."
"... When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to their authority on foreign policy. ..."
"... The colonial masters have been forgetting that more and more people are not benefitting from having like 800 military bases/wars/colonies all over and want them dissolved. Go Gabbard. ..."
"... The longer the US acts like a colonial power, the more painful the dismantling will be. ..."
The second debate among Democratic hopefuls was notable for two things. The lack of common
decency of most of them and Tulsi Gabbard's immense, career-ending attack on Kamala Harris'
(D-Deep State) record as an Attorney General in California.
Harris came out of the first debate the clear winner and Gabbard cut her down to size with
one of the single best minutes of political television since Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton,
"Because you'd be in jail."
Gabbard's takedown of Harris was so spot on and her closing statement about the
irresponsible nature of the Trump Administration's foreign policy was so powerful she had to be
actively suppressed on Twitter. And, within minutes of the debate ending the media and the
political machines moved into overdrive to smear her as a Russian agent, an Assad apologist and
a favorite of the alt-right.
Now, folks, let me tell you something. I write and talk about Gabbard a lot and those to the
right of me are really skeptical of her being some kind of plant for Israel or the
establishment. If she were truly one of those she wouldn't have been polling at 1% going into
that debate.
She would have been promoted as Harris' strongest competition and served up for Harris to
co-opt.
That is not what happened.
No, the fact that Gabbard is being smeared as viciously and baselessly as she is by all the
right people on both the left and the right is all the proof you need that she is 1) the real
deal and 2) they are scared of her.
You expect it from the Harris camp, obviously. But when it comes directly from people like
Navid Jamali (double agent, navy intelligence, MSNBC contributor) you know the empire is
beginning to get worried.
Gabbard is now getting the Ron Paul treatment. It will only intensify from here. They will
come after her with everything they have.
In the past week she's destroyed Kamala Harris on national TV, sued Google for
electioneering and signed onto Thomas Massie's (R-KY) bill to audit the Federal Reserve. What
does she do next week, end the Drug War?
Tulsi Gabbard is admittedly a work in progress. But what I see in her is something that has
the potential to be very special. She's young enough to be both passionately brave and willing
to go where the truth takes her.
And that truth has taken her where Democrats have feared to tread for more than forty years:
the US Empire.
The entire time I was growing up the prevailing wisdom was Social Security was the third
rail of US politics. That, like so many other pearls of wisdom, was nonsense.
The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the
empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who
profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC.
That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the
threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to
their authority on foreign policy.
Foreign policy, by the way, that most people in America, frankly, despise.
And the response to her performance at the second debate was as predictable as the sun
rising in the east. It's also easily countered. Gabbard will face an uphill battle from here
and we'll find out in the coming weeks just how deep into Trump Derangement Syndrome the
average Democrat voter is.
If she doesn't begin climbing in the polls then the Democrats are lost. They will have
signed onto crazy Progressivism and more Empire in their lust to destroy Donald Trump. But they
will lose because only a principled anti-imperialist like Gabbard can push Trump back to his
days when he was the outsider in the GOP debates, railing against our stupid foreign
policy.
No one else in the field would be remotely credible on this point. It's the area where Trump
is the weakest. He's not weak on women's rights, racism, gay rights or any of the rest of the
idiotic identity politics of the rest of the Democratic field.
He's weakest on the one issue that got him elected in the first place, foreign policy.
Hillary was the candidate of Empire. Trump was not. It's why we saw an international conspiracy
formed to destroy him and his presidency. Now that same apparatus is mobilized against Tulsi
Gabbard.
That's good. As a solider she knows that when you're taking flak you are over your target.
Now let's hope she's capable of sustaining herself to push this election cycle away from the
insanity the elite want to distract us with and make it about the only thing keeping the world
from healing, ending the empire of chaos.
Those who benefit from the US being a Colonial Empire are closing ranks and that is
certainly a huge endorsement for Gabbard.
The colonial masters have been forgetting that more and more people are not benefitting
from having like 800 military bases/wars/colonies all over and want them dissolved. Go
Gabbard.
The longer the US acts like a colonial power, the more painful the dismantling will
be.
Do politicians control the military, especially the strategic arm and weapons of mass
destruction, both here in the US and in Russia? Perhaps only partially, and even that is
doubtful given rapidly unfolding emergency situations. A convincing case could be made that
it's too late, that war is inevitable.
You sound intelligent. Read Herman Kahn's treatise "On Thermonuclear War." It is
mathematical. But Basically nuclear war is out of hands of politicians. But it won't start
from large nuclear powers. If Iran sunk a US Carrier, there would be NO NUCLEAR WAR PERIOD.
But a nuclear war could be caused by an accident of smaller powers but it would be very
limited and not spread.
"The more destructive we [America] look, the less they like us and our program. To the
extent that some in our midst talk and threaten potential world annihilation as a U.S.
defense measure, we focus undeserved attention on ourselves as being dangerous and even
irresponsible -- appearing to be willing to risk uncounted hundreds of millions or billions
of bystanders as to our selfish ambitions and desires." Herman Kahn...
That quote typifies Trump's cavalier yapping about nuclear weapons and his threats in the
last year to expunge North Korea, Iran and most recently Afghanistan. This is the kind of
conversation that most people in the world hate and they hate Trump and the United States for
it. The US is blamed for Trump's loose cannon conduct. So that generates concern and
heightens the potential for a nuclear weapons accident.
As for the world, it would survive a nuclear war. Many people would survive just as the
animals of Chernobyl have survived and thrived even though radioactive. Dumb politicians like
Trump that talk out their *** and sound imbalanced appear flaky. Rest assured the Joint
Chief's would never let Trump near a nuclear weapon.
With nuclear war you also have to mathematically project dud rockets and rockets that land
on your own people or detonate at launch.
Forget Biden, a deadbeat deep state ***. he could never be elected being such a MIC pawn.
Just go Tulsi first (with Rand Paul would be good!) . She'll have to dig deep in the shitheap
to find another honest Dem to play sidekick. But Tulsi stands out above them all as
intelligent and independant. No surprise the Dem and Rep MSM ****-spewers are attacking her.
Go tulsi -the only candidate i would vote for (since they'll nobble her candidacy i guess i
wont be voting).
Liked Trump when he was anti-swamp. But they nobbled him and now he's just a ***-pawn. So
sad he sold his balls.
Tulsi's predicament if of her own doing. She's to the right for today's Dems, but still
too far to the left for the GOP. Her positions on the 2nd Amendment and accusing Trump of
being an Al Qaeda sympathizer have pretty much killed her chances with moderates, too. She's
not really that sane, she just looks that way because the rest of the Dem candidates are
socialist whack jobs.
Newsflash: Trump does support Al Qaeda by virtue his blind support of the Saudi regime
which champions, funds, and spreads Sunni Wahhabism, the violent Jihadist core philosophy of
both Al Qaeda and Isis.
Compare Tulsi Gabbard to Kamala Harris. Harris is a frontrunner for the nomination only
because she is a she and is half black. That is all she has going for her. She owes her
political career to her willingness to **** an old geezer politician from California (Willie
Brown?) As a result, she became state AG. Which shows you just how corrupt politics is at the
state level. Now she's a real candidate for the demorat nomination even though she is a a
total POS, especially compared to someone like Gabbard, who has served her country, talks
straight, and doesn't take **** from the pompous a-holes in the dem establishment. I hope she
stays in the race.
In the race to determine who will serve as Commander in Chief of the most powerful military
force in the history of civilization, night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates
saw less than six minutes dedicated to discussing US military policy during the 180-minute
event.
That's six, as in the number before seven. Not sixty. Not sixteen. Six. From the moment
Jake Tapper said "I want to turn to foreign policy" to the moment Don Lemon interrupted
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard just as she was preparing to correctly explain how President
Trump is supporting Al-Qaeda in Idlib, approximately five minutes and fifty seconds had
elapsed.
...
Harris' press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets about Gabbard being an "Assad
apologist", which was followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the
word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend
despite being the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. As of this writing,
"Assad" is showing on the #5 trending list on the side bar of Twitter's new layout, while
Gabbard's name is nowhere to be seen. This discrepancy has drawn criticism from numerous
Gabbard defenders on the platform.
"Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United
States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere to be found," tweeted journalist Michael Tracey.
apenultimate on Thu, 08/01/2019 - 7:31pm Well, Tulsi for the past couple months had
been averaging around 500 new unique donors per day. Early in the day before her 2nd debate
performance, her campaign announced she had reached 110,000 unique donors. In 1.5 days, she
gained more than 10,000 more.
During the first debate, in the week after the debate Tulsi gained 8,500 donors above her
usual donor gains. Tulsi managed to do 9,500 more than average in less than 2 days this time
around. This time around seems much better.
She needed a debate boost from the second debate of 8,000 donors above her typical daily
donor gain to be ensured to reach the 130,000 unique donor minimum. She has already surpassed
that gain.
But, the polling requirements still need to be met . . .
Tulsi is going on an annual 2-week National Guard training pretty much now. She will not be
able to personally campaign during this time. That's one reason this debate was so crucial.
Let's see if it can elevate her in the coming polls.
A national Economist/YouGov poll had her at 2% through July 30. That one is not qualifying,
but it's a good trend.
I have *heard* (but not confirmed) that only one qualifying poll from each of the first 4
states are allowed for qualifying (but all qualifying national polls count). Tulsi has 1
qualifying poll from New Hampshire. If what I heard above is true, this means no other polls
from New Hampshire count towards the debate requirements. They must be qualifying polls from
Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina, or national polls from here on out.
on Snoopydawg's thread about Tulsi confronting Kamala, but I'd like to repost it here. I
think the American people are responding not just to what Tulsi is saying, but how she is
presenting herself.
Tulsi is a warrior. That's one of the main things she's accomplishing here: letting the
voters see that about her.
She's directly confronting and exposing the old guard and their heirs presumptive. She's
taking on the "powers that be", right to their faces, with strength and confidence.
And she's demonstrating to the American people that she is fully willing and capable of
doing so.
"... Gabbard has been perhaps the most interesting Democrat running for president and Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent and she has yet to qualify. ..."
"... represent our military veterans' sharp turn against forever war, arguably the most important public opinion trend of our time. ..."
"... Tulsi is more experienced and articulate on foreign AND domestic policy than any other Democrat up there (Bernie being an independent). She's also more genuine. ..."
"... being 'woke', as the author failed to point out, is code for having the backing of the still extant Clinton/Obama cartel and hence the idiot US media. ..."
Screenshot
It was already one of the most memorable moments of the Democratic presidential debates
in this young election cycle. "Leaders as disparate as President Obama and President Trump have both said they want to
end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but it isn't over for America," observed moderator Rachel Maddow. "Why isn't it
over? Why can't presidents of very different parties and very different temperaments get us out of there? And how could
you?"
Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio responded with talking points that could
have been ripped out of a George W. Bush speech circa 2004. "[T]he lesson that I've learned over the years is that you
have to stay engaged in these situations," he said, later adding, "Whether we're talking about Central America, whether
we're talking about Iran, whether we're talking about Afghanistan, we have got to be completely engaged."
Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was having none of it. "Is that what you will
tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged?" she asked
a sputtering Ryan. "As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from
Afghanistan." Gabbard noted that she had joined the military to fight those who attacked us on 9/11, not to nation-build
indefinitely in Afghanistan, and pointed out the perfidy of Saudi Arabia.
Some likened Gabbard's rebuke of Ryan to the famous 2007 exchange
between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani
. Except Paul, then a relatively unknown
congressman from Texas, was speaking truth to power against "America's Mayor" and the national GOP frontrunner. Gabbard
is polling at 0.8 percent in the national RealClearPolitics average, and was challenging someone at 0.3 percent.
Ryan's asterisk candidacy is unsurprising. But Gabbard has been perhaps the most
interesting Democrat running for president and Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with
frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another
opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent and she has yet to qualify.
The huge Democratic field has been a bust. Of the more than 20 declared presidential
candidates, only seven are polling at 2 percent or more in the national averages. Two more -- Senators Cory Booker and Amy
Klobuchar -- are polling at least that well in Iowa. Only four candidates are consistently polling in the double digits:
Biden, who recovered from his early debate stumbles and remains comfortably in the lead; Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, who has nevertheless mostly failed to recapture his 2016 magic; Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who
seems ascendant; and Senator Kamala Harris of California, potentially the main threat to Biden's rock-solid black
support.
Low-polling candidates have still managed to have an impact. Some, like former
secretary of housing and urban development Julian Castro, have helped coax contenders likelier to win the nomination to
the left on immigration. We've thus seen Democrats raise their hands in support of decriminalizing illegal border
crossings in the midst of a migrant crisis not entirely of the Trump administration's making, expanding Medicare to
cover everyone even at the expense of private health insurance, and ensuring that "everyone" includes illegal
immigrants. Transgender abortions, also at taxpayer expense, have come up too.
Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she's
38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran, a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime
change wars that have brought our country so much pain. While reliably progressive, she has occasionally reached across
the political divide on issues like religious liberty and Big Tech censorship, a potent combination that could prove
more responsive to Trump voters' concerns than what we've heard from her neocon lite interlocutor from Youngstown.
"None of this seems to matter in a Democratic Party that cares more about wokeness
than war. In fact, Gabbard's conservative fans --
The View
brought up Ann Coulter -- are often held against her, as
is her failure to go all in on Trump-Russia. Ninety-five Democrats stand ready to impeach Trump over mean tweets with
nary a peep over the near-bombing of Iran or the active thwarting of Congress's will on Yemen.
That's not to say that no one else running is sound on foreign policy -- Bernie has
realist advisers and it took real courage for Warren to back Trump's abortive withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria -- and
it required a Democratic House to advance the bipartisan Yemen resolution. But none of them are basing their campaigns
on it in the same way Gabbard has. Nor do any of them better represent our military veterans'
sharp turn
against forever war, arguably the
most important public opinion trend of our time.
Liberals remain skeptical of Gabbard's turn away from social conservatism (which
admittedly went far beyond sincerely opposing gay marriage while Barack Obama was merely pretending to do so), which she
attributes to "aloha." In meeting with Bashar al-Assad, she hurt her credibility as a foe of the Syria intervention,
failing to realize that doves are held to a higher standard on these matters
than hawks
.
A saner Democratic Party might realize the chances are far greater that their nominee
will be a covert hawk rather than a secret right-winger. Only time will tell if vestiges of that party still exist.
Tulsi is more experienced and articulate on foreign AND domestic policy than any
other Democrat up there (Bernie being an independent). She's also more genuine.
But
being 'woke', as the author failed to point out, is code for having the backing of
the still extant Clinton/Obama cartel and hence the idiot US media. And that she
does not have
Unfortunately foreign policy and the forever war are not an issue that resonates with
voters on either side. Here is an
excerpt from NPR
.
"That is one finding from the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, which shows that
Americans have limited confidence in its public schools, courts, organized labor and
banks -- and even less confidence in big business, the presidency, the political parties
and the media.
.....
The only institution that Americans have overwhelming faith in is the military -- 87
percent say they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military. That
is a striking change from the 1970s during and after the Vietnam War."
A military that has been a consistent loser for decades. How depressing
Given that this magazine was partially founded as a reaction to the Iraq War, why
does an article about Tulsi Gabbard, one of the only presidential candidates who
takes a mostly non-interventionist foreign policy stance, surprise you? She is a
progressive, yes, and a Democrat, but her stance on war is very conservative.
You
don't have to be a Republican to be conservative or to hold some conservative views.
Warren is a corporate kiss a** and a perfect example of precisely why the
person you're talking to might as well be listening to a Chipmunks song for
all the ridiculous partisan deflection going on. Literally nothing of value in
any of that and the implication that Dumbocraps are any different than
Republicans in talking a lot and saying and doing nothing is frankly one of
the insults to the intelligence that convinced me very early to reject both
"sides" of this Candyland based majik partisan aisle
I was ready to replace Mike Pompeo with Tulsi Gabbard the day after the first debate. It
would be very unfortunate if she got bumped out. I live in California (an open primary
state), which means I would have voted for her in the primary
It doesn't "hurt" Tulsi's "credibility" that she met with Assad. It's been clear from the
beginning of the Syrian civil war that he was the sole viable protector of Christian and
other religious minorities in the region after the fall of Saddam. The U.S. should never
have armed and trained the country's rebels. But it's again apparent that Democrats have
no interest in saving Christians from Islamic killers.
Foreign policy does not elect American presidents.
I like her, and support her, and
think she's made valuable points. I hope it is heard. However, there was never any chance
that her course would lead to the White House.
Maybe she can get a senior post and shape policy on our endless wars. Or maybe she'll
have a louder voice in Congress. However, the best she could do with this is influence.
They all support Israel w/o condition. Unfortunately. None of them are any better
than her on this issue, and they are much worse than her on most FP and military
issues.
I am fully supporting Gabbard's campaign, but few people are concerned about our senseless
wars. The issue does not make the top ten voter concerns in recent polls.
For whatever reason the President Primary debates tend to avoid most foreign policy
issues. Democrats love getting the gory details of healthcare that sort prove Reagan's
joke "They know too much" but there are few question on Foreign Policy. I think it
reasonable to ask "What would your administration do with Venezuela?" (And Yes I like
really basic Open End questions at debates.)
And yes there are good parts of Tulsi but
she does need to campaign things outside of No Wars as that usually does not win
Primaries.
Forever wars are driven by Wash. through campaign funds coming from the war industry,
foreign states and those in the USA who support other countries over their own. How could
an anti-war candidate get those funds necessary for campaigning? And, as I said before,
Obama and Trump both campaigned to end the wars but didn't. What makes anyone think the
next president, when in office, will do anything different? Plus, one has to take into
consideration the DNC's choice, and all the intrigues surrounding that process. Tulsi
hasn't paid all those dues necessary for a shot at the presidency.
Some people were as stupid as to think that Trump would lose by a landslide in 2016.
Some people were as stupid as to think that Candidate
Five-Year-Old-Girl-in-a-Grown-Up-Woman's-Body, who managed to hijack (or, rather,
joyride) Obama's foreign policy and to start two (or, rather, three, given that
Yemen is also her legacy) foreign wars yet, knowing about the "nice" legacy of
Afghanistan and Iraq, would be any appealing. So
I wonder
how anyone with
both hemispheres functional can believe that discarding Gabbard and Sanders, while
picking any of the political reincarnations of the ingnorant, arrogant and, first of
all, almost childishly self-righteous moron who managed to wreck the country's
entire foreign policy without even being the president can win against the man who
cleaned up that child's (despite her physically being his age-mate) mess in Syria
and, judging by what the Italian press says, is letting others to clean an even
greater mess of hers in Libya.
Looks that on foreign policy Tulsi is the only sane option.
That's exactly why the bipartisan establishment, the corrupt corporate media and the MIC
hate her vehemently.
I am a registered Republican so I can't vote for Tulsi in the MD primaries, but I will
consider donating to her campaign to help her get into the third debate.
I can forgive a
Democrat for supporting universal healthcare so long as they
don't buy into the identity politics garbage.
Although I'm fairly conservative, I will take a Democrat with character over who we
have in the White House today.
Eric, you can change your registration for long enough to vote for someone you
obviously think is worth voting for.
I was a registered Democrat for all of my
voting life, although I often voted for Republicans. As a result of Bush Jr.'s war
against Iraq, I swore never to vote for a Republican again.
But when Ron Paul was on the ballot in the Republican primary, I re-registered,
as a Republican, just so I could vote for him. (In California, the party determines
whether its primary is open or closed.) After 6 weeks, following the primary, I
re-registered again, this time as a no-party-preference voter.
It's not that I liked everything Ron Paul believed in (but I did like the fact
that he was genuine and truthful). But I agreed with him on the really important
issues involving foreign policy.
So you have options, Eric. It won't soil you to change party registration
temporarily if it allows you to vote for someone you might vote for in the general
election. In fact, you might feel good about it. I know I did. Voting for Ron Paul
was the first time in a long time that I felt good about my vote. And this time,
I'll vote for Tulsi Gabbard in the primary even if I have to write her name in.
Tulsi is not running for President. She's running for running mate for either Bernie or
Warren. Both need her foreign policy chops and military cred.
She will bring voters to the ticket, unlike most V.P. picks.
Given Bernie age, should he
pick her, she could end up President after all.
Works for me.
The Democratic Party uber alles types over at Daily Kos are supporting Gabbard's primary
challenger for her Congressional seat, attacking her for her previous stands on abortion
and same sex marriage, and really laying into her for playing footsies with a dictator
like Assad. And while Bernie has some support over there, especially among the readers who
take their polls, there are others who still won't forgive him for not actually joining
the Dems officially (and who buy all of the "he cost Clinton the election" stupidity).
The most tragic thing is not that they simply buy that stupidity. It is that they
still
buy it. After almost three years. Bernie didn't cost Clinton the election.
Clinton
cost Democrats the election. Much like any of her political
reincarnations they are about to pick will.
"... Attacking the authoritarian prosecutorial record of Senator Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," "blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to do so," "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California," and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way." ..."
"... That was all it took. Harris' press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets about Gabbard being an "Assad apologist", which was followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend despite being the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. As of this writing, "Assad" is showing on the #5 trending list on the side bar of Twitter's new layout, while Gabbard's name is nowhere to be seen. This discrepancy has drawn criticism from numerous Gabbard defenders on the platform . ..."
"... It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into mainstream consciousness all at the same time. ..."
"... "Beware the Russian bots and their promotion of Tulsi Gabbard and sowing racial dischord [sic], especially around Kamala Harris," tweeted New York Times and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali. ..."
"... All the usual war cheerleaders from Lindsey Graham to Caroline Orr to Jennifer Rubin piled on, because this feeding frenzy had nothing to do with concern that Gabbard adores Bashar al-Assad and everything to do with wanting more war. Add that to the fact that Gabbard just publicly eviscerated a charming, ambitious and completely amoral centrist who would excel at putting a friendly humanitarian face on future wars if elected, and it's easy to understand why the narrative managers are flipping out so hard right now. ..."
"... War is the glue that holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects of the status quo when it comes to healthcare or education, but war as a strategy for maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the motions for show; the real rebels forcefully oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects. ..."
"... The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging, because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention, the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal, ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing oppression, the first step is punching a hole in the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable. ..."
In the race to determine who will serve as Commander in Chief of the most powerful military
force in the history of civilization, night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates saw
less than six minutes dedicated to discussing US military policy during the 180-minute
event.
That's six, as in the number before seven. Not sixty. Not sixteen. Six. From the moment Jake Tapper said "I want to
turn to foreign policy" to the
moment Don Lemon interrupted Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard just as she was preparing to
correctly explain how President Trump is supporting Al-Qaeda in
Idlib
, approximately five minutes and fifty seconds had elapsed. The questions then turned toward
the Mueller report and impeachment proceedings.
Night one of the CNN debates saw almost twice as much time, with
a whole eleven minutes by my count dedicated to questions of war and peace for the
leadership of the most warlike nation on the planet. This discrepancy could very well be due to
the fact that night two was the slot allotted to Gabbard, whose campaign largely revolves
around the platform of ending US warmongering. CNN is a virulent establishment propaganda firm
with an extensive history of promoting
lies and
brazen psyops in facilitation of US imperialism , so it would make sense that they would
try to avoid a subject which would inevitably lead to unauthorized truth-telling on the
matter.
But the near-absence of foreign policy discussion didn't stop the Hawaii congresswoman from
getting in some unauthorized truth-telling anyway.
Attacking the
authoritarian prosecutorial record of Senator Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the
audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana
violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," "blocked
evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to
do so," "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state
of California," and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in
the worst kind of way."
Harris, who it turns out fights
very well when advancing but folds under pressure, had no answer for Gabbard's attack,
preferring to focus on attacking Joe Biden instead . Later, when she was a nice safe distance
out of Gabbard's earshot, she uncorked a
long-debunked but still effective smear which establishment narrative managers have been
dying for an excuse to run wild with.
"This, coming from someone who has been an apologist for an individual, Assad, who has
murdered the people of his country like cockroaches," Harris told
Anderson Cooper after the debate.
"She who has embraced and been an apologist for him in a way that she refuses to call him
a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously and so I'm
prepared to move on."
That was all it took. Harris' press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets
about Gabbard being an "Assad apologist", which was followed by a deluge of establishment
narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name
somehow failed to trend despite being
the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. As of this writing, "Assad" is showing on the #5 trending list
on the side bar of Twitter's new layout, while Gabbard's name is nowhere to be seen. This
discrepancy has drawn
criticism from numerous Gabbard defenders on
the platform .
"Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United
States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere to be found," tweeted journalist Michael
Tracey.
It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into
mainstream consciousness all at the same time.
The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin went on a frantic, lie-filled Twitter
storm as soon as he saw an opportunity, claiming with no evidence
whatsoever that Gabbard lied when she said she met with Assad for purposes of diplomacy and
that she "helped Assad whitewash a mass atrocity", and falsely claiming that " she praised
Russian bombing of Syrian civilians ".
In reality all
Gabbard did was meet with Assad to discuss the possibility of peace, and, more importantly,
she said the US shouldn't be involved in regime change interventionism in Syria. This latter
bit of business is the real reason professional war propagandists like Rogin are targeting her;
not because they honestly believe that a longtime US service member and sitting House
Representative is an "Assad apologist", but because she commits the unforgivable heresy of
resisting the mechanics of America's forever war .
MSNBC's Joy Reid gleefully leapt into the smearing frenzy, falsely claiming that "Gabbard
will not criticize Assad, no matter what." Gabbard has publicly and unequivocally both decried
Assad as a "brutal dictator" and claimed he's guilty of war crimes, much
to the irritation of anti-imperialists like myself who hold a far more skeptical eye to the
war propaganda narratives about what's going on in Syria. At no time has Gabbard ever claimed
that Assad is a nice person or that he isn't a brutal leader; all she's done is say the US
shouldn't get involved in another regime change war there because US regime change
interventionism is consistently and predictably disastrous. That's not being an "Assad
apologist", that's having basic common sense.
"Beware the Russian bots and their promotion of Tulsi Gabbard and sowing racial
dischord [sic], especially around Kamala Harris," tweeted New York Times and
CNN contributor Wajahat Ali.
All the usual war cheerleaders from Lindsey Graham to
Caroline
Orr to Jennifer Rubin piled on,
because this feeding frenzy had nothing to do with concern that Gabbard adores Bashar al-Assad
and everything to do with wanting more war. Add that to the fact that Gabbard just publicly
eviscerated a charming, ambitious and completely amoral centrist who would excel at putting a
friendly humanitarian face on future wars if elected, and it's easy to understand why the
narrative managers are flipping out so hard right now.
War is the
glue that holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects
of the status quo when it comes to healthcare or education, but war as a strategy for
maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference
between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the
motions for show; the real rebels forcefully oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for
an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects.
The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging,
because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war
propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention,
the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things
for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal,
ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing
oppression, the first step is punching a hole in
the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and
acceptable.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control
is doing the real work.
* * *
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"It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into
mainstream consciousness all at the same time." - C.J.
I think we see evidence of this sort of thing all the time. "Russian collusion" was thrust
upon MSM consumers in coordinated fashion for many months. Now that it has largely fizzled
out, "racism" has taken its place. "Racism". "Racism". "Racism". It seems as if MSM drones
plug into the Mothership to get their talking points. This sort of behavior was featured in
the 1939 film, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", when the Establishment decided Mr. Smith
needed to be crushed.
Harris's deflection of Gabbard's attacks are right in line with the Establishment's
treatment of people who don't tow the line. Harris is trying to dismiss Gabbard as if her
opinion has no weight. Harris is probably wishing hard that Gabbard won't make the next round
of debates.
if Tulsi is nominee, i'll vote for her and vote republican for house/senate etc. her
anti-war policy is what i was hoping Trump would do. in reality if the republicans hold a
chamber in congress then any anti-gun and healthcare bills won't get through. but on day one
Tulsi can start removing our troops from Ukraine, Syria, Afghan, Iraq, Saudi, Turkey, and
wherever the hell else they are
Tulsi Gabbard is no cankles. She is a veteran, she's female, and she has some good
policies. Buyer beware her site mentions nothing about gun control. Liberals always make me
nervous.
As president I'll end the failed war on drugs, legalize marijuana, end cash bail, and
ban private prisons and bring about real criminal justice reform. ( link )
Everyone talks a big game..but Trump's actually delivered on a few good policies. Example
he ended Trans-Pacific partnership. He is renegotiating bad deals with NAFTA and China. He's
able to take the heat form the deep state and criminals all around him. He's kept the stock
market up. I suspect the stock market is the tide lifting all boats. So far Trump's been
pretty good.
The only thing I have against Tulsi Gabbard is that she recently voted for the ridiculous
Democrat sponsored Defense budget that was even more than the Pentagon requested.
Tulsi Gabbard should be the Democratic Nominee. I support Trump, voted for him, but he is
too distracted, too much of an overactive schmoe. He made all of these promises and yes the
attacks have been relentless, but nothing is being accomplished. Trump has deep state clowns
all around him including Bolton and Pompeo. The deficit is going through the roof, the
artificial, superficial manipulated stock market is going to eventually hurt a lot of
people.
I don't agree with many of her policies but Tulsi Gabbard is a sane and a thoughtful
thinker. She will think before reacting. Her Ron Paul approach to our overreach in the world
is absolutely appropriate. Think about this, we spend $850 Billion Dollars on defense so we
can feed the war industry. That is more than all the countries of the world combined
literally!!! If we brought all the troops home, closed up most bases outside the US, and
protected our borders, our deficit would plummet, we could rebuild the infrastructure, we
could figure out the health care B.S. We would get along with the rest of the world instead
of being looked at as an enemy.
Everybody is coming out of the woodwork because she knows, like most, that Assad did not
pepper spray his own people. Cripes, when does this insanity end?
Drawing down the US military to the point you describe will put 1 million American men and
women between the ages of 18 and 40 out of work. Do you not realize in addition to feeding
the MIC the military is one giant jobs program? Those young men and women, the vast majority
of whom do not want to learn to code, would find themselves competing against foreigners and
teenagers for $15 minimum wage jobs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world would openly laugh at us and secretly plot how to take
advantage of the power vacuum. Evil does not rest when unopposed, it becomes stronger.
When half the world's population (= all Chinese plus all Muslims) wants to destroy your
country, "insanity" is defined as beating your swords into ploughshares.
The enemies of Tulsi Gabbard are not the Zionazis who helped Trump win the elections or
MAGA hat wearing hillbillies who have no clue whats the difference between Hong Kong and King
Kong. It is the liberals who voted for Hillary and went berserk after their beloved mafia
bitch lost who hate Tulsi Gabbard. Because she makes them look like what they are, i.e. scum.
Sure, conservatives will never vote for a intelligent woman. But they are not the
problem.
"Liberals who voted for Hillary" is a false premise. The Democratic National Committee
forced Hillary Clinton on liberals, they fixed the primaries so she would win. Liberals and
progressives wanted Bernie Sanders who would have kicked Trump's ***.
"... On top of the cake Kamala Not-The-Wrestler responded as expected, with a neoMcCarthyite slander, which will only work with Tulsi's haters and make Harris look like a tool to everyone else. ..."
"... @doh1304 ..."
"... Harris' record was both fair game and easy pickings because no one had gone there yet. It gained Tulsi the maximum impact because those who don't follow politics had not heard about any of these issues. ..."
"... Joe is so far down in the actual REAL polls, (not the land line polls as has been exposed), that the oligarchy has given up on him. Tulsi senses Joe is low hanging fruit. The DNC is going to cheat Bernie with either Kamala or Liz. Tulsi just took out Kamala. ..."
Why go after Biden? He's already imploding; she would only look cruel, beating up on a senile
old man for her own aggrandizement. Harris, OTOH, is a clear enemy, perpetrator of obvious
crimes. Exposing her could only make her look like a paladin.
On top of the cake Kamala Not-The-Wrestler responded as expected, with a neoMcCarthyite
slander, which will only work with Tulsi's haters and make Harris look like a tool to everyone
else.
Harris is sort of right, it is a strategy only used by someone trying to come from behind,
but that's because people with Tulsi's integrity are not allowed to start at the "Top-tier". up
14 users have voted. --
@doh1304 Harris' record was both fair game and easy pickings because no one had gone there yet.
It gained Tulsi the maximum impact because those who don't follow politics had not heard
about any of these issues.
Joe is so far down in the actual REAL polls, (not the land line polls as has been
exposed), that the oligarchy has given up on him. Tulsi senses Joe is low hanging fruit. The
DNC is going to cheat Bernie with either Kamala or Liz. Tulsi just took out Kamala.
Don't be surprised if she goes after Pocahontas in the next debates.
The crisis actors are just there to say what the democrats can't do or to derail anyone
who thinks they are going to change the system. Delaney, Bullock, DeBlasio and everyone else
who doesn't stand a chance have all been negative on Warren and Bernie pushing their MFA. Did
Delaney set himself up for Warren to smack him down? The silly ass smile on his face made me
think that. Then he was all over Twitter the next day saying how good he did in the debate.
And after 24 hours he finally had a comeback to Warren's response.
The other reason for so many candidates of course is to split the votes during the first
part so that the super delegates can come in and play.
attitude certainly was smacked down in righteous fashion. Hollywood level
righteous.
Having those extras on stage feature so prominently in the debates certainly was
interesting.
Harris's spokesman explains Tulsi's takedown of Kamala: It was Russia!
gjohnsit on Thu, 08/01/2019 - 11:47am Snoopydawg has got the
takedown covered , so I won't duplicate it.
Instead I'd like to show you how TOP has gone into a full-throated
whine party over it.
On Wednesday night, that meant that Gabbard got to go after Kamala Harris on her actions as
attorney general, using loaded phrases and selected statements to paint Harris as someone who
was ready to throw pot-smokers behind bars for eternity and personally throw the execution
switch for death row inmates after hiding evidence of their innocence.
There's no doubt that Harris will face more kicks about her AG role during this campaign,
and she certainly expected to receive some blows. But Gabbard knew she could square off with
Harris in the certainty that no one, but no one, came into the Wednesday night debate
thinking, "I need to prepare some talking points against Tulsi Gabbard." And even if she had,
CNN gave Harris little time to muster her thoughts before calling in more witnesses to
bolster Gabbard's attacks.
It wasn't just the tools on GOS that Tulsi knocked off balance, it was Harris
herself . Even CNN noticed.
Worse than that -- for Harris -- is the fact that it became crystal clear in the aftermath of
the debate that Gabbard had gotten under her skin. In a post-debate interview, CNN's Anderson
Cooper asked Harris about the moment with Gabbard.
"This is going to sound immodest, but obviously I'm a top-tier candidate and so I did expect
that I'd be on the stage and take some hits tonight," Harris said. "When people are at 0 or
1% or whatever she might be at, so I did expect to take some hits tonight."
Woof.
First of all, if you are running for president and you hear the words, "This is going to
sound immodest" come out of your mouth, it may be best to recalibrate what you are going to
say.
Second, what Harris is actually saying is, basically, this: The dork took a shot at the most
popular kid in school. Big whoop.
That is not a good look. For any candidate. Ever. (And, yes, politics is a LOT like high
school.)
That's gonna leave a mark.
But never fear, because there is a reason for Harris getting taken down by Gabbard -
Russia .
The #KamalaHarrisDestroyed hashtag had disappeared from the list of trending U.S. terms by
9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Harris's spokesman, Ian Sams, responded to the hashtag, noting that at least some of the
accounts promoting it appeared to be bots.
"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting
the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat," he said.
Reporters writing their stories with eyes on the modern-day assignment desk of Twitter,
read this:
"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting
the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat" https://t.co/2kpKQqW3Ir
Damn! Putin was on the debate stage and no one noticed?
That has got to be the weakest response in recent history.
Here's the thing, the Harris campaign is already guilty of
crying wolf over Russia.
Harris has already been caught misrepresenting alleged Russian propaganda activity. She
claimed in a radio interview on July 12 that she had been subjected to Russian bot attacks on
social media sites like Twitter.
But CNN debunked the claim days later, reporting that Twitter saw no evidence that Russian
bots were targeting Harris.
In Oct it will be 18 full years in Afghanistan. The US is not a learning organization.
If you trust the media, you trust the hugely funded propaganda machine that makes Goebbels
look stone age primitive.
I am a bit sensitive this week, I am finishing Gloria Emerson's "Winner and Losers"
scratching a lot of scars from Vietnam. Not easy reading if you changed your mind once the
blither was exposed.
Somewhere over Delong's it was recommended and amazon had a hardcover for
$1.56........
Bottomline from Winners and Losers: The blither is reminiscent and much of the news topics
the same.
The far left wants too much form Tulsi. You can't fight on two fronts when attacking the the neocon foreign policy.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is the litmus test issue in American politics for a lot of good reasons. It may or may not be the worst regime in the world. There are a lot of bad ones competing for that title, many of whom we support. But Israel is the candidate we not only support but sponsor and champion to the point where it is at times very very hard to tell who is leading and who is following, between Israel and the US. This seems to have a lot to do with the end-times preoccupations that seem to have been at the heart of what passes for American spirituality since the earliest colonial days. ..."
I should always trust my instincts. Attending an event hosted by the Adelsons was disturbing enough, but I trusted people here
instead and brushed off my suspicions.
Israel is the litmus test issue in American politics for a lot of good reasons. It may or may not be the worst regime in the
world. There are a lot of bad ones competing for that title, many of whom we support. But Israel is the candidate we not only
support but sponsor and champion to the point where it is at times very very hard to tell who is leading and who is following,
between Israel and the US. This seems to have a lot to do with the end-times preoccupations that seem to have been at the heart
of what passes for American spirituality since the earliest colonial days.
Gabbard has now broken a lot of hopes. She has jumped the shark spectacularly, shamelessly craving the support of the 'Israel
Lobby'. Her claims to be against the regime change wars when these wars are relentlessly pushed by the Israel Lobby she is now
shamelessly courting?!!!
I suppose we can hope that Tulsi takes a flying leap back over the shark, say by visiting Gaza the way she recently visited
Puerto Rico. If she doesn't now make a huge point of it, in words and actions, that she will NOT be yet another tool of the Israel
Lobby, the neocons, the neolibs, etc., then she must be opposed as the turncoat shill she now seems to be.
No use wasting breath on Gabbard. Trump vs. Biden in 2020 with Trump taking the Midwest and the electoral college like 2016 is
unavoidable. If undermining Gabbard is your deal, I'd wait until 2024.
I took a lot of flak when I pointed out the simple truth that Gabbard is not against war and not against US/NATO imperialism
but simply against "regime change wars" that USA failed to win.
Trump was also against dumb wars and his imperialist detractors called him an isolationist - but that was merely a neat
way to burnish his populist credentials. Trump has acted much like his imperialist predecessors who hedge their peace talk with
exceptionalist morality that requires utmost strength in a "dangerous world". And these faux democratic leaders are all-too-willing
to lead the propaganda effort when called upon to support Deep State objectives.
Gabbard reminds me that the leaders of every nation should be watching re-runs of Mister Roger's Neighborhood and apply its lessons
to the abstract and Alpha-male dominated world of international relations.
I'm only half-joking. In a world of technological parity, real-time communication, and rapid travel the importance of being
a good neighbor has never been more important. At the minimum, that means doing no harm and, at the max, doing nice things with
no expectations.
Alas, we're stuck with countries building walls, using prosperity as a weapon, and thinking that power never waxes and wanes.
Shame that human wisdom hasn't kept up with material progress.
I had an uneasy interest/hope in/for Gabbard. No more after she sold herself to Israeli interests.
Lets face it, nobody worth his/her salt can get close to the Presidency without being backed by one or more factions of the
elite. The unrepresented bottom 90% (non military/vet) simply has no representation, and more than half are too stupid to know
it.
Change for the better will never happen under the present system. The US and the world will continue falling into the abyss.
One day soon the people find out what that means. Thats when the gloves come off. Nowhere to hide then. Serve your masters well
or be disappeared.
Jason @42 is right. Gabbard was never going to make it anyway. She's there because fake democratic choice is the establishment's
way of cementing their control.
As in:
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Tulsi (faux anti-war choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Bernie (faux anti-wealth inequality choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Kamala (faux civil rights choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Biden (faux anti-Trump choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Warren (faux business regulation)
Gabbard: One can either give up participating (definitely an option) or look for the best alternative to doing nothing. As
pointed out by others there is a power structure in America, which cannot be opposed in totality.
On the other hand, politicians are famous for not keeping their promises. There is the possibility of not keeping promises
to Adelson as well. One person can only do so much, even the President. So, we have to keep supporting alternatives, if there
is any chance at all to change direction. Outside forces are definitely going to help here ... Russia and China are busy building
a new 'World Order' which will be very good for America, when we finally give up the Empire.
Environmental fanatics: The two essential factors in preserving Earth's ecosystem are: 1) limit to human population ... I believe
this is happening and human population will reach a peak and begin to decline I think best estimates are ~ 2050 at 10 billion,
2) widespread, near total replacement of fossil energy use by nuclear power, which can easily be made to have virtually zero environmental
impact, while allowing a high standard of living for Earth's entire population.
Jodi Schneider
Senior International Editor
Gabbard says she will "
end these endless regime-change wars
" and use the "trillions of dollars we have
been wasting on these wars and these weapons" on domestic spending.
Photographer: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
"... Only four candidates are consistently polling in the double digits: Biden, who recovered from his early debate stumbles and remains comfortably in the lead; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has nevertheless mostly failed to recapture his 2016 magic; Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who seems ascendant; and Senator Kamala Harris of California, potentially the main threat to Biden's rock-solid black support. ..."
"... Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she's 38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran, a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime change wars that have brought our country so much pain. While reliably progressive, she has occasionally reached across the political divide on issues like religious liberty and Big Tech censorship, a potent combination that could prove more responsive to Trump voters' concerns than what we've heard from her neocon lite interlocutor from Youngstown. ..."
"... That's not to say that no one else running is sound on foreign policy -- Bernie has realist advisers and it took real courage for Warren to back Trump's abortive withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria -- and it required a Democratic House to advance the bipartisan Yemen resolution. But none of them are basing their campaigns on it in the same way Gabbard has. Nor do any of them better represent our military veterans' sharp turn against forever war, arguably the most important public opinion trend of our time. ..."
"... Unfortunately foreign policy and the forever war are not an issue that resonates with voters on either side. Here is an excerpt from NPR . ..."
"... The most important public opinion of our time is not the military realizing that forever war is bad, it's that climate change is occurring now. It is the only issue that will matter to our grandchildren and we haven't begun to deal with it. We need to get serious about this. "A stitch in time saves 9" comes to mind. ..."
"... Foreign policy does not elect American presidents. I like her, and support her, and think she's made valuable points. I hope it is heard. However, there was never any chance that her course would lead to the White House. ..."
It was already one of the most memorable moments of the Democratic presidential debates in this young election cycle. "Leaders
as disparate as President Obama and President Trump have both said they want to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but it isn't
over for America," observed moderator Rachel Maddow. "Why isn't it over? Why can't presidents of very different parties and very
different temperaments get us out of there? And how could you?"
Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio responded with talking points that could have been ripped out of a George W. Bush speech circa
2004. "[T]he lesson that I've learned over the years is that you have to stay engaged in these situations," he said, later adding,
"Whether we're talking about Central America, whether we're talking about Iran, whether we're talking about Afghanistan, we have
got to be completely engaged."
Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was having none of it. "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who
were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged?" she asked a sputtering Ryan. "As a soldier, I will tell you that
answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan." Gabbard noted that she had joined the military to fight
those who attacked us on 9/11, not to nation-build indefinitely in Afghanistan, and pointed out the perfidy of Saudi Arabia.
Some likened Gabbard's rebuke of Ryan to the famous 2007 exchange
between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani
. Except Paul, then a relatively unknown congressman from Texas, was speaking truth to power against "America's Mayor" and the national
GOP frontrunner. Gabbard is polling at 0.8 percent in the national RealClearPolitics average, and was challenging someone at 0.3
percent.
Ryan's asterisk candidacy is unsurprising. But Gabbard has been perhaps the most interesting Democrat running for president and
Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for
the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent
and she has yet to qualify.
The huge Democratic field has been a bust. Of the more than 20 declared presidential candidates, only seven are polling at 2 percent
or more in the national averages. Two more -- Senators Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar -- are polling at least that well in Iowa.
Only
four candidates are consistently polling in the double digits: Biden, who recovered from his early debate stumbles and remains comfortably
in the lead; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has nevertheless mostly failed to recapture his 2016 magic; Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, who seems ascendant; and Senator Kamala Harris of California, potentially the main threat to Biden's rock-solid
black support.
Low-polling candidates have still managed to have an impact. Some, like former secretary of housing and urban development Julian
Castro, have helped coax contenders likelier to win the nomination to the left on immigration. We've thus seen Democrats raise their
hands in support of decriminalizing illegal border crossings in the midst of a migrant crisis not entirely of the Trump administration's
making, expanding Medicare to cover everyone even at the expense of private health insurance, and ensuring that "everyone" includes
illegal immigrants. Transgender abortions, also at taxpayer expense, have come up too.
Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she's 38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran,
a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime change wars that have brought our country so much pain. While
reliably progressive, she has occasionally reached across the political divide on issues like religious liberty and Big Tech censorship,
a potent combination that could prove more responsive to Trump voters' concerns than what we've heard from her neocon lite interlocutor
from Youngstown.
"None of this seems to matter in a Democratic Party that cares more about wokeness than war. In fact, Gabbard's conservative fans
-- The View brought up Ann Coulter -- are often held against her, as is her failure to go all in on Trump-Russia. Ninety-five
Democrats stand ready to impeach Trump over mean tweets with nary a peep over the near-bombing of Iran or the active thwarting of
Congress's will on Yemen.
That's not to say that no one else running is sound on foreign policy -- Bernie has realist advisers and it took real courage
for Warren to back Trump's abortive withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria -- and it required a Democratic House to advance the bipartisan
Yemen resolution. But none of them are basing their campaigns on it in the same way Gabbard has. Nor do any of them better represent
our military veterans'
sharp turn against forever war, arguably the most important public opinion trend of our time.
Liberals remain skeptical of Gabbard's turn away from social conservatism (which admittedly went far beyond sincerely opposing
gay marriage while Barack Obama was merely pretending to do so), which she attributes to "aloha." In meeting with Bashar al-Assad,
she hurt her credibility as a foe of the Syria intervention, failing to realize that doves are held to a higher standard on these
matters than hawks
.
A saner Democratic Party might realize the chances are far greater that their nominee will be a covert hawk rather than a secret
right-winger. Only time will tell if vestiges of that party still exist.
I generally like Tulsi, but she's a mixed bag for Democrats and an easy mark for her Beltway opponents. She needs more time, but
could be a very effective member of a Democrat's cabinet.
Unfortunately foreign policy and the forever war are not an issue that resonates with voters on either side. Here is an
excerpt from NPR .
"That is one finding from the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, which shows that Americans have limited confidence in its
public schools, courts, organized labor and banks -- and even less confidence in big business, the presidency, the political
parties and the media.
.....
The only institution that Americans have overwhelming faith in is the military -- 87 percent say they have a great deal or
quite a lot of confidence in the military. That is a striking change from the 1970s during and after the Vietnam War."
A military that has been a consistent loser for decades. How depressing!
I was ready to replace Mike Pompeo with Tulsi Gabbard the day after the first debate. It would be very unfortunate if she got
bumped out. I live in California (an open primary state), which means I would have voted for her in the primary.
Anyone who wants to keep as much focus on foreign policy issues as possible during the Democratic Party primary campaigns should
contribute to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign. It looks like she needs another 20,000 unique contributors in order to qualify for the
third debate in September. Even contributing a dollar or two is sufficient.
Fortunately, she is yet so young. She has many years before her, and, when the old Democratic Party dies, much like its old Republican
counterpart did in 2016, Tulsi and people like her will be able to take over.
Also, covert hawks are either critically endangered or extinct in the wild. They're all open now in both parties.
Tulsi will be the leading progressive / conservative on the stage this evening, looking forward to seeing how she handles being
asked to criticize Bernie. (I'm a Tulsi fan.)
Btw, a saner American Conservative would realize a big field almost always looks like this. Can you name the 20 or so who ran
as Republicans a few years ago?
The most important public opinion of our time is not the military realizing that forever war is bad, it's that climate change
is occurring now. It is the only issue that will matter to our grandchildren and we haven't begun to deal with it. We need to
get serious about this. "A stitch in time saves 9" comes to mind.
What you seem to be missing about the Democratic Party is that the rift between progressives (extremists asking for higher
wages for those who work, etc.) and establishment types (let's fix the ACA) is ultimately more significant than the upcoming Presidential
election.
This is why I tell anyone who askes that I don't have a favorite for the Democratic Presidential nominee yet, but I know exactly
who I want for VP. That person is whoever comes in second. If HRC had chosen Bernie for VP, she would be President today and no
Republican Congress would have dared to impeach her for fear of seating the first Democratic Socialist President in America's
history.
After multiple *change* elections that have failed to deliver, change will once again be on the ballot in 2020. This time,
for the sake of our Nation and our world, let's hope it's real change this time. Tulsi would certainly be part of that, maybe
not as a nominee, but in the Cabinet.
Foreign policy does not elect American presidents.
I like her, and support her, and think she's made valuable points. I hope it is heard. However, there was never any chance
that her course would lead to the White House.
Maybe she can get a senior post and shape policy on our endless wars. Or maybe she'll have a louder voice in Congress. However,
the best she could do with this is influence.
@Kevin Barrett Jack Ruby did not kill Oswald "for the Jews." He was the Mafia capo of
Dallas and was following orders in Plan B when two previous attempts to kill Oswald failed.
He tried to get out of it, but had no choice but to follow orders that he could not refuse.
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
"... Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior. ..."
"Empires in decline tend to behave badly. Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the
twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the
suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be
they refugees or migrants.
Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed
hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks
have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.
Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations,
warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...
It's all connected. The empire -- all empires -- eventually come home."
Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad
Regional experts had immediately suspected the possibility of an Israeli air raid after a
pro-Iranian militia arms depot in Iraq was obliterated during
a mysterious attack
on July 19
, and another reported follow-up attack this past Sunday.
The attack happened around 80 km from the Iranian border and 40 km north-east of Baghdad at Camp
Ashraf, former home to the Iranian exile group Mojahedin-e Khalq, but now reportedly in the hands
of Iranian intelligence and paramilitaries.
Speculation was rampant in the days that followed as to the source of the 'mysterious' air
strikes - or what was also initially reported as a drone strike - however, some pointed the finger
at an American operation targeting Iranian militants inside Iraq.
But now Israeli and regional media, citing western diplomats, have confirmed it was
a
nearly unprecedented Israeli operation on Iraqi soil
--
representing a major
escalation and expansion of Israel's anti-Iran operations.
Israel reportedly launched a total of two separate air strike operations on the camp using its
US-supplied F-35 stealth fighter jets.
Israel has expanded the scope of its anti-Iranian attacks and struck targets in Iraq
,
the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Tuesday.
According to the report, which cites anonymous Western diplomats,
Israel
struck Iranian warehouses storing arms and missiles at Camp Ashraf
, north-east of
Baghdad, twice in the past month.
On July 19, the base was struck by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet, the sources added. The base
was allegedly attacked again on Sunday.
The report alleges the primary target included
a shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles
which recently entered Iraq via the nearby Iranian border.
And though not confirmed, the report further claimed that "Iranian advisers" had been injured in
the series of airstrikes.
Israel has over the past couple of years conducted "hundreds" of attacks inside Syria, which
defense officials have claimed were primarily against Iranian and Hezbollah bases, but if this
month's air strikes on Camp Ashraf are confirmed Israeli assaults, it would constitute a major
widening in terms of the scope of Tel Aviv's "anti-Iran" targeting operations.
The news is also sure to enrage officials in Baghdad, who will mount protests defending Iraqi
sovereignty. Israel hasn't mounted a known significant attack on Iraqi soil since the days of
former dictator Saddam Hussein.
The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy Andrew Bacevich on his new left-right group, which is
going hammer and tongs against the establishment on foreign policy. By
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos •
July 30, 2019
Andrew J. Bacevich participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Naval War College in 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 1st Class Christian S. Eskelund/Released) For the last month, the foreign policy establishment has been abuzz over the
new kid on the block: the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , named
for John Quincy Adams. Adams, along with our first president George Washington,
warned of foreign entanglements and the urge to go
abroad in "search of monsters to destroy," lest America's fundamental policy "insensibly change from liberty to force
. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit ."
Those in the foreign policy Blob have had different reactions to the "upstart" think tank. These are the preeminent organizations
that stand imperious in size and square footage, but have lacked greatly in wisdom and clarity over the last 20 years. Quincy will
stand apart from them in two significant ways: it is drawing its intellectual and political firepower from both the anti-war Left
and the realist and restraint Right. And it is poised to support a new "responsible statecraft," one that challenges the conditions
of endless war, including persistent American militarism here and abroad, the military industrial complex, and a doctrine that worships
primacy and a liberal world order over peace and the sovereignty of other nations.
Quincy, which is rolling out its statement of principles this
week (its official launch will be in the fall), is the brainchild of Trita Parsi, former head of the National Iranian-American Council,
who saw an opening to bring together Left and Right academics, activists, and media disenchanted by both sides' pro-war proclivities.
Together with Vietnam veteran and former Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (also a longtime TAC contributor), the
Carnegie Endowment's Suzanne DiMaggio, Columbia University's Stephen Wertheim, and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, the group
wants to serve as a counterweight to both liberal interventionists like the Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations,
and the war hawks and neoconservatives of the Heritage Foundation and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
They've already taken hits from both sides of the establishment, dismissed brusquely
as naive , or worse,
isolationist (that swipe from neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose now-defunct Weekly Standard once ran a manifesto headlined
"The Case for American Empire"
). The fact that Quincy will be funded by both George Soros on the Left and the Charles Koch Foundation on the Right has brought
some rebuke from unfriendlies and even some friendlies. The former hate on one or the other powerful billionaire, while the latter
are wary of Soros' intentions (he's has long been a financial supporter of
"soft-power"
democracy movements overseas, some of which have encouraged revolution and regime change).
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But Quincy's timing couldn't be more perfect. With a president in the White House who has promised to draw down U.S. involvement
overseas (with the exception of his Iran policy, he has so far held to much of that pledge), and national conservatives coming around
to TAC's long-held worldview on realism and restraint (and an increasing willingness to reach across the aisle to work with
like-minded groups and individuals), Quincy appears poised to make some noise in Washington.
According to the group's new statement of principles , "responsible
statecraft" 1) serves the public interest, 2) engages the world, 3) builds a peaceful world, 4) abhors war, and 5) is democratic.
Andrew Bacevich and Trita Parsi expanded on this further in a recent Q&A with TAC.
(Full disclosure: the author is on Quincy's steering committee and TAC also receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.)
TAC : Quincy's principles -- and thus it's name -- are rooted in the mission of "responsible statecraft." Can you give
me a sense of what that means in practical terms, and why you settled on this phrasing for the institute?
AB: With the end of the Cold War, policy elites succumbed to an extraordinary bout of hubris, perhaps best expressed in the claim
that history had designated the United States as its "indispensable nation." Hubris bred recklessness and irresponsibility, with
the Iraq war of 2003 as Exhibit A. We see "responsible statecraft" as the necessary antidote. Its abiding qualities are realism,
restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement. While the QI is not anti-military, we are wary of war except when all other alternatives
have been exhausted. We are acutely conscious of war's tendency to produce unintended consequences and to exact unexpectedly high
costs.
TAC : Quincy is a trans-partisan effort that is bringing together Left and Right for common cause. Is it a challenge?
AB: It seems apparent to us that the myriad foreign policy failures and disappointments of the past couple of decades have induced
among both progressives and at least some conservatives a growing disenchantment with the trajectory of U.S. policy. Out of that
disenchantment comes the potential for a Left-Right coalition to challenge the status quo. The QI hopes to build on that potential.
TAC : Two of the principles take direct aim at the current foreign policy status quo: responsible statecraft abhors war,
and responsible statecraft is democratic (calling out a closed system in which Americans have had little input into the wars waged
in their names). How much of what Quincy aims to do involves upending conventional norms, particularly those bred and defended by
the Washington "Blob"?
AB: In a fundamental sense, the purpose of the QI is to educate the American people and their leaders regarding the Blob's shortcomings,
exposing the deficiencies of old ideas and proposing new ones to take their place.
TAC: That said, how much blowback do you anticipate from the Washington establishment, particularly those think tanks and
individuals whose careers and very existence depend on the wheels of militarism forever turning?
AB : Plenty. Proponents of the status quo are entrenched and well-funded. Breaking old habits -- for example, the practice of
scattering U.S. military bases around the world -- will not come easily.
TAC : There has been much ado about your two primary funders -- Charles Koch and George Soros. What do you say to critics
who suggest you will be tied to/limited by their agendas?
AB: Our funding sources are not confined to Koch and Soros and we will continue to broaden our support base. It's not for me to
speak for Koch or Soros. But my guess is they decided to support the QI because they support our principles. They too believe in
policies based on realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement.
TAC : Better yet, how did you convince these two men to fund something together?
TP: It is important to recognize that they have collaborated in the past before, for instance on criminal justice reform. This
is, however, the first time they've come together to be founding funders of a new entity. I cannot speak for them, but I think they
both recognize that there currently is a conceptual deficit in our foreign policy. U.S. elite consensus on foreign policy has collapsed
and the void that has been created begs to be filled. But it has to be filled with new ideas, not just a repackaging of old ideas.
And those new ideas cannot simply follow the old political alignments. Transpartisan collaboration is necessary in order to create
a new consensus. Koch and Soros are showing tremendous leadership in that regard.
TAC : The last refuge of a scorned hawk is to call his critics "isolationist." It would seem as though your statement of
principles takes this on directly. How else does Quincy take this often-used invective into account?
AB : We will demonstrate through our own actions that the charge is false.
TAC : Critics (including James Traub,
in his own piece on Quincy
) say that Washington leaders, once in office, are "mugged by reality," suggesting that the idea of rolling back military interventions
and avoiding others sounds good on paper but presidents like Barack Obama had no choice, that this is all about protecting interests
and hard-nosed realism. The alternative is a bit naive. How do you respond?
AB: Choices are available if our leaders have the creativity to recognize them and the gumption to pursue them. Obama's patient
and resolute pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal affirms this possibility. The QI will expose the "we have no choice" argument as false.
We will identify and promote choice, thereby freeing U.S. policy from outmoded habits and stale routines.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is e xecutive editor at . Follow her on Twitter
@Vlahos_at_TAC
QI is a welcome change from the endless, whining tirade of the old hawks.
I wish them well in gaining influence in DC.
I hope that they can give voice to the growing numbers of us who do not support illegal invasions, funding dissidents to
foment regime change and our flawed system of selecting key allies (regardless of their human rights records) and protecting
them and their interests at all cost. This has been a drain our economic resources and moral standing.
In this time, when nationalism and disaster capitalism seem to be winning on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems there
is little hope for peace, decency and diplomacy.
QI has a huge challenge to take on the parasitic organism that is the war machine, but any initiative is better than none.
If Quincy is to have any chance of success in its mission, it will have to tackle the issues surrounding Federal election campaign
financing. The current rules give a handful of American billionaires effective control over US Middle East policy. What is
good for donors like Sheldon and Miriam Edelson is not necessarily good for the American public. Donald Trump was elected president
of the US not Prime Minister of Israel.
I did read one of Mr. Basevich's books a few years ago and my take away remains valid today: The US cannot afford to be
the policeman of the world.
The purpose of the "Clintonized" Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent to neoliberal rule in an orderly fashion. The
militarization of US economy and society means that by joining the war coalition, the Democratic party doesn't have to win any presidential
elections to remain in power. Because military-industrial complex rules the country.
Yes Clinton neoliberals want to stay in control and derail Sanders, much like they did in 2016. Biden and Harris are Clinton faction
Trojan horses to accomplish that. But times changed and they might have to agree on Warren inread of Biden of Harris.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with. ..."
"... Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their priorities). ..."
"... So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have. ..."
"... I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt and hamstring any legislation that he proposes ..."
"... electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin. ..."
"... The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that doesn't make it impossible. ..."
"... Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you; they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go. ..."
"... In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan. ..."
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street – at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession perhaps or maybe even worse. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
"... By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort to 'money.' In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead. ..."
"... Could that be why "our" three-letter agencies have been stocking up on that substance for awhile, now? ..."
"... " The purpose of the Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion." ..."
"... Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the election to maintain standing with big biz donors. ..."
"... Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America. ..."
"... actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else. ..."
"... the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power at the expense of the party and the country. ..."
"... The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations, social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy and for Main Street businesses. ..."
"... The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street businesses forced to compete with monopolies. ..."
That 2020 existential battle, of course, is always cast as between the Democrats and the Republicans.
But there's another existential battle going on, one that will occur before the main event -- the battle for control of the Democratic
Party. In the long run, that battle may turn out to be more important than the one that immediately follows it.
... ... ...
Before mainstream Democrats can begin the "existential battle" with the forces of Trump and Republicanism, they have to win the
existential battle against the force that wants to force change on their own party.
They're engaged in that battle today, and it seems almost all of the "liberal media," sensing the existential nature of the threat,
is helping them win it. Katie Halper, in a second perceptive piece on the media's obvious anti-Sanders bias, "
MSNBC's Anti-Sanders
Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous ," writes: "When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (
7/21/19 ) said that Bernie Sanders 'made [her] skin crawl,'
though she 'can't even identify for you what exactly it is,' she was just expressing more overtly the
anti-Sanders bias that pervades the network."
... ... ...
MSNBC is clearly acting as a messaging arm of the Democratic Party mainstream in its battle with progressives in general and Sanders
in particular, and Zerlina Maxwell, who's been variously employed by that mainstream, from her work with Clinton to her work on MSNBC,
is an agent in that effort.
Let me repeat what Matt Taibbi wrote: " [Sanders'] election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forcing
everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector. "
Agreed. Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that
money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now
surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with.
Trump campaigned on enforcing the laws against illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration, but he's now pretty much
given up, the southern border is open full "Camp of the Saints" style and he's pushing for more legal 'guest' workers to satisfy
the corporate demands for cheap labor – and the Democrats are for this (though Sanders started to object back in 2015 before he
was beaten down).
Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for
himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow
of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their
priorities).
Soon I expect that Trump will propose massive regressive tax increases on the working class – which of course the Democrats
will be fine with ('to save the planet').
So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have.
And elections are pretty much pointless. Even if Sanders does win, he'll get beaten down faster even than Trump was.
I think people have a hard time with real inflection points. Most of life uses more short-term linear decision making. But
at inflection points we have multiple possibilities that turn into rather surprising turns of events, such as Brexit and Trump.
We still have people saying in the UK – "but they wouldn't do that!" The hell "they" won't. Norms are thrown out of the window
and people start realising how wide the options are. This is not positive or negative. Just change or transformation.
That is my philosophical way of agreeing with you! It is easy to point at the hostility of the mainstream media and DNC as
there being no way for Sanders to win. After all in 2004, look what the media and DNC did to Howard Dean. But people weren't dying
then like they are now. The "Great Recession" wasn't on anyone's radar. People felt rich, like everything would be fine. We are
not in that situation – the facts on the ground are so wildly different that the DNC and mainstream media will find it hard to
stay in control.
I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly
of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt
and hamstring any legislation that he proposes.
If Sanders should win against Trump expect the establishment to go into full revolt. Capital strike, mass layoffs, federal
reserve hiking interest rates to induce a recession, a rotating cast of Democrats siding with Republicans to block legislation,
press comparing him to worse than Carter before he even takes office and vilifying him all day every day.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Israel and the Saudis generate a crisis in, for example, Iran so Sanders either bends the knee
to the neocons or gets to be portrayed as a cowardly failure for abandoning our 'allies' for the rest of his term.
You've just convinced me that the American Experiment is doomed. No one else but Sanders can pull America out of its long slow
death spiral and your litany of the tactics of subversion of his presidency is persuasive that even in the event of his electoral
victory, there will be no changing of the national direction.
I'm reading a series of essays by Morris Berman in his book "Are We There Yet". A lot of critics complain that he is too much
the pessimist, but he presents some good arguments, dark though they may be, that the American Experiment was doomed from the
start due to the inherent flaw of Every Man For Himself and its "get mine and the hell with everybody else" attitude that has
been a part of the experiment from the beginning.
He is absolutely right about one thing, we are a country strongly based on hustling for money as much or more than anything
else, and both Trump and the Clintons are classic examples of this, and why the country often gets the leaders it deserves.
That's why I believe that we need people like Sanders and Gabbard in the Oval Office. It is also why I believe that should
either end up even getting close, Nax is correct. Those with power in this country will not accept the results and will do whatever
is necessary to subvert them, and the Voter will buy that subversion hook, line, and sinker.
No. The point is that electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that
a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin.
The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that
doesn't make it impossible.
Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public
sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on
the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you;
they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go.
In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one
of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan.
The high ground is being able to express a new vision for the common good, 24/7, and do something to bring it about. You win
even if you suffer losses.
Without that, life in the USA will become very disruptive to say the least.
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
Pretty bad optics on MSNBC's part being unable to do simple numbers and I can fully believe that their motto starts with the
words "This is who we are". Jimmy Dore has put out a few videos on how bad MSNBC has been towards Bernie and Progressives lately
so it is becoming pretty blatant. Just spitballing a loose theory here but perhaps the Democrats have decided on a "poisoned chalice"
strategy and do want not to win in 2020.
After 2008 the whole economy should have had a major re-set but Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street
– at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's
policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession
perhaps or maybe even worse.
Point is that perhaps the Democrats have calculated that it would be best for them to leave the Republicans in power to own
this crash which will help them long term. And this explains why most of those democrat candidates look like they have fallen
out of a clown car. The ones capable of going head to head with Trump are sidelined while their weakest candidates are pushed
forward – people like Biden and Harris. Just a theory mind.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort
to 'money.'
In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead.
If the nation wishes true deliverance, not just from Trump and Republicans, but from the painful state that got Trump elected
in the first place, it will first have to believe in a savior.
No, no, no, no, no. No oooshy religion, which is part of what got us into this mess. Cities on a hill. The Exceptional Nation(tm).
Obligatory burbling of Amazing Grace. Assumptions that everyone is a Methodist. And after Deliverance, the U S of A will be magically
re-virginated (for the umpteenth time), pure and worthy of Manifest Destiny once again.
If you want to be saved, stick to your own church. Stop dragging it into the public sphere. This absurd and sloppy religious
language is part of the problem. At the very least it is kitsch. At its worst it leads us to bomb Muslim nations and engage in
"Crusades."
Other than that, the article makes some important points. In a year or so, there will be a lot of comments here on whether
or not to vote for the pre-failed Democratic candidate, once the Party dumps Bernie Sanders. There is no requirement of voting
for the Democrats, unless you truly do believe that they will bring the Deliverance (and untarnish your tarnished virtue). Vote
your conscience. Not who Nate Silver indicates.
Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the
election to maintain standing with big biz donors. The leading issue of the day (Iraq/GWOT/Patriot Act) was erased from mainstream
US politics and has been since. Don't for a minute think they won't do a similar thing now. Big donors don't particularly fear
Trump, nor a 6-3 conservative supreme court, nor a Bolton state dept, nor a racist DHS/ICE – those are not money issues for them.
Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting
that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America.
The candidate who would fight and would govern for the 90% of Americans is a revolutionary.
The fact that it can be said as a given that neither major Party is being run specifically to serve the vast majority of our
country is itself an admission for that the class war begun by Reagan has been won, in more of a silent coup, and the rich have
control of our nation.
Sadly, actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war
continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for
the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else.
Sanders is considered a revolutionary merely for stating the obvious, stating the truth. That is what makes him dangerous to
those that run the Democratic Party, and more broadly those who run this nation.
Sanders would do better to cast himself not as a revolutionary, but as a person of the people, with the belief that good government
does not favor the wants of the richest over the needs of our country. That is what makes him a threat. To the rich unseen who
hold power, to the Republican Party, and to some Democrats.
I agree with the thesis here, and confess to being puzzled by comments on LGM (for example) politics threads of the ilk "I'm
with Warren but am good with Buttigieg too," or "I'm with Sanders but am good with Harris, too," etc.
I love reading Taibbi, but in
his article , that quote, " Sanders is the revolutionary. His election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic
Party, forcing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector ," should be the lede, and its buried
2/3 of the way down.
This primary season is about how the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power
at the expense of the party and the country.
Yves writes: it is unfortunate that this struggle is being personified, as in too often treated by the media and political
operatives as being about Sanders.
I agree. Sanders represents the continuing New Deal-type policies. The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been
working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations,
social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy
and for Main Street businesses.
The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion
of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street
businesses forced to compete with monopolies.
The MSM won't talk about any of the programmatic differences between the two sides. The MSM won't recognize the New Deal style
Democratic voters even exist; the New Deal wing voters are quickly labeled 'deplorable' instead voters with competing economic
policies to the current economic policies.
So, we're left with the MSM focusing on personalities to avoid talking about the real policy differences, imo.
When Bernie talks about a revolution, he explains how it must be from the grassroots, from the bottom up. If he manages to
get elected, his supporters have to make sure they get behind the politicians who also support him and, if they don't, get rid
of them.
Without continuing mass protests, nothing is going to happen. Other countries have figured this out but Americans remain clueless.
Trump definitely contributes a lot to the collapse of classic neoliberalism. He rejected neoliberal globalization in favor of using
the USA dominant position for cutting favorable to the USA bilateral deals. That undermined the role of dollar of the world reserve
currency and several mechanisms emerged which allow completely bypass dollar system for trade.
Notable quotes:
"... US President Donald Trump's ruthless use of the centrality of his country's financial system and the dollar to force economic partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic interdependence. ..."
"... A new world is emerging, in which it will be much harder to separate economics from geopolitics. ..."
US President Donald Trump's ruthless use of the centrality of his country's financial system and the dollar to force economic
partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic
interdependence.
In response, China (and perhaps Europe) will fight to establish their own networks and secure control of their nodes. Again, multilateralism
could be the victim of this battle.
A new world is emerging, in which it will be much harder to separate economics from geopolitics. It's not the world according
to Myrdal, Frank, and Perroux, and it's not Tom Friedman's flat world, either. It's the world according to Game of Thrones
.
It made me do a face palm. Somebody thought they had separated economics from geopolitics or power…or at least they wanted
people to believe that and the jig is up.
“One reason for this is that in an increasingly digitalised economy, where a growing part of services are provided at zero
marginal cost, value creation and value appropriation concentrate in the innovation centers and where intangible investments are
made. This leaves less and less for the production facilities where tangible goods are made.”
It depends on what you mean by value.
If value is dollars in someone’s Cayman Islands tax-free account, then value is concentrated in NYC and SF.
But if we follow Natural Law (Marx or Mohammed) and define value as labor, then this is exactly wrong. A Natural Law economy
tries to maximize paid and useful work, because people are made to be useful.
The digital world steadily eliminates useful work, and steadily crams down the wages for the little work that remains. Real
value is avalanching toward zero, while Cayman value is zooming to infinity.
He’s talking more about the whims of the stock market and of our intellectual property laws. For example the marginal cost
for Microsoft to issue another copy of “Windows” is zero. Even their revised iterations of the OS were largely a rehash of the
previous software. Selling this at high prices worked out well for a long time but now the software can practically be had for
free because competitors like Linux and Android are themselves free. So digital services with their low marginal cost depend on
a shaky government edifice (patent enforcement, lack of antitrust) to prop up their value. Making real stuff still requires real
labor and even many proposed robot jobs–driving cars, drone deliveries, automated factories and warehouses–are looking dubious.
Dean Baker has said that the actual investment in automation during the last decades has slowed–perhaps because expensive and
complicated robots may have trouble competing with clever if poorly paid humans. And poorly paid is the current reality due to
population increases and political trends and perhaps, yes, automation.
And even if the masters of the universe could eliminate labor they would then have nobody to buy their products. The super
yacht market is rather small.
>the distribution of gains from openness and participation in the global economy is increasingly skewed. …. True, protectionism
remains a dangerous lunacy.
Well “openness and participation” is looking like lunacy to the Deplorables for exactly the reason given, so what is actually
on offer here?
With useful physical labor being off-shored, first world citizens should all be made shareholders in the new scheme. We shall
all then become dividend collecting layabouts buying stuff made by people we do not know, see, or care about. If they object we
simply have the military mount a punitive expedition until they get whipped back into shape. Sort of like now but with a somewhat
larger, more inclusive shareholder base. It will be wonderful!
Are you sayin’ the lefty Social Wealth Fund concept is really just another way of replicating the same old bougie program of
domination and suppression?
I’m saying that it can be and historically, and that there are and have been multi-national systems of super exploitation of
peripheral, primarily resource exporting populations, relative to a more broadly distributed prosperity for “higher” skilled populations
of the center. This has been a common perspective within anti-imperialist movements.
The argument is not without merit. Is this a “contradiction among the people” where various sectors of a larger labor movement
can renegotiate terms, or is it some more intransigent, deeply antagonistic relationship is a crucial question. The exportation
of manufacturing to the periphery is disrupting the political status-quo as represented by the center’s centrism, political sentiments
are breaking away to the left and right and where they’ll land nobody knows.
Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?
I was just reading this John Helmer below, like Pepe Escobar I’m not sure who’s buttering his bread but it’s all food for thought
and fresh cooked blinis are tastier than the Twinkies from the western msm, and this thought came to mind: Iran is the perfect
test ground for the US to determine Russian weapons and tactical capabilities in a major war context in 2019. That alone might
make it worth it to the Pentagon, why they seem so enthusiastic to take the empire of chaos to unforseen heights (depts?). Somewhat
like the Spanish Civil War was a testing ground for the weapons of WW2.
1. Because it has a lot of non US controlled Oil.
2. Because it is Central on the eastern end of the silk road.
3. Because it does not kiss the US Ring bearers hand at every opportunity, and the US is determined to make it an example not
to be followed.
But consider Saudi us relations… who is kissing who’s ring?
Or consider Israeli us relations… ditto.
We’re a thuggish whore whose favors are easily bought; bring dollars or votes. Or kiss the ring.
An environmental insight here. The world stands devastated. It has reached its carrying capacity for thoughtless humans. From
here on in we have to take the consequences of our actions into account. So when it is said, as above, that the dollar exchange
rate is more important than the other bilateral exchange rates, I think that is no longer the reality. There is only a small amount
of global economic synergy that operates without subsidy. The vast majority is subsidized. And the dollar is just one currency.
And, unfortunately, the United States does not control the sun and the wind (well we’ve got Trump), or the ice and snow. Let alone
the oceans. The big question going forward is, Can the US maintain its artificial economy? Based on what?
That is a factor that seems ignored by the philosophers who are the subjects of the headline posting. It is a great oversight,
a shoe which has been released and is now impacting the floor. “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men”
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the
biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons
who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold
by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries
with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial
institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become
the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved
what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter
has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using
Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black
political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense
that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.
The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together
– the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into
the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.
The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution
of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported
even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States
is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.
Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign
policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure,
dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank
to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence,
not democracy.
In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic"
country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization.
The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates
and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.
A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public
relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism"
(meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.
This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to
happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least
irony as its dialectical path unfolds.
For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that
opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties
that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.)
to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners
and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.
The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in
Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.
Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century
ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but
it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.
After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any
more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible
to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal
to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.
Dismantling International Law and Its Courts
Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing
predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish
violators).
Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country
have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy
years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which
let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity
share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join
any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism.
It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.
Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international
court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations'
International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture
policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable
basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity."
[1]
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any
means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that
the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."
That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of
any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As
Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the
U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We
will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."
What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or
investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no
longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."
The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution
against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict
the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.
Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT
Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International
monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.
Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed
reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe,
and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign
reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London
foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall
Street banks were normally name as paying agents.
That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed
Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown,
the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction
of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United
States and anywhere else they were able.
This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago,
and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might
be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally
got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult
that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.
But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions
– a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials
said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in
its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check
that the depositor had written.
England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster
his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign
reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."
Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening
sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European
countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank
of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."
This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably
would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine.
[4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the
United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1.
[5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the
U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.
If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's
breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening
Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on
top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way
to defend itself.
Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major
country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing
such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the
connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.
Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT.
But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they
seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.
On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran
and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument
in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored
Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas,
this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions
attack on Europe.
I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership.
For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and
able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial
complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United
States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO
members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants
of death.
The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above.
In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to
bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.
The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception
is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is
why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food
blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to
become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically
to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports
from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees
across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.
Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been
to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted
at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3
billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country
deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption
to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.
It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken
notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear
last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called
to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech
on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism
and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated."
[5]
Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts,
against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks
like this will be a year of global fracture.
It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy
when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall
and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era
Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're
our bastards."
Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing
parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing
NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.
The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like
me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed
Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.
[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross,
"Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross,
President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.
Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they
can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there
are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated
Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend
little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.
If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope
of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller
than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or
dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.
We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians.
Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.
If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver
them, they have my support and more power to them.
That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats
promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.
If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump
can have it, because it won't be any worse.
I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think
more and more people are going to vote the same way.
Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking
of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran,
etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems,
etc.
And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl
up out of it.
My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate
thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic
Emirate of Jihadistan.
Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans
selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted
the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.
The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton
or Obama all over again.
I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made
an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?
arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption
(by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.
For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline,
natural gas or tube socks either.
It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive
Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.
Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs,
but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and
settle for being a dominant minority.
Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast
their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.
What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with
Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption
charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?
Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international
order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment
desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms".
Interesting times.
Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery
going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has
wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties
who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you
don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the
best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.
Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan
to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat
the Clinton's-choice jihadis.
That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.
Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made
that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.
Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question:
is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing
the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?
Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this
case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.
It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott
said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like
we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that
the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected
Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their
equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.
And this
So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed
to slow down the transfer.
Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant
But then came Venezuela.
Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet
again. Nothing to see here, actually.
So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.
"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."
I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our
monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede
with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.
Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD
as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size
of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.
And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And
since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy
gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.
That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:
"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed
observer like me."
Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality:
"The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first
declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.
No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.
Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak
in tongues about ev'bal forces.
thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise
corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and
legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?
Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'.
I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you
haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can
find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular
that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.
If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt
status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long
as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington
neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be"
to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.
Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with
its banking and financial institutions.
In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same
pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.
UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America,
and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?
Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all
this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded
and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean
the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.
Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate
Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.
" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "
What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is
an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard
still exists.
What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the
70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two
years ago but look who was involved in that visit-
And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the
US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so
who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at --
http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html
It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure
build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then)
they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done
it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now
in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.
They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't
melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.
Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but
that's what they do right now.
Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the
last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.
When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some
long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well
I just tune out.
This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us
because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king
dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.
Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation
and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become
a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.
When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing
oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will
allow greater competitive advantages.
No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public.
It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.
So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian
patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .
Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives
have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .
Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back
pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.
Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs
to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin –
"US
gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing
world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia
confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must
not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.
" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global
power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for
so long that they no longer remember how they got there.
Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it
now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's
inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of
a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."
I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together".
Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric
people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together
to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.
This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment
system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and
if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition
is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which
probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.
Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?
Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years
ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report
of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See
https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505
. There are lots and lots of others.
He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and
WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.
The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical
foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed
the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.
Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters
hate with Ideological purity.
Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On
US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics"
on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.
On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate
in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.
One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor
overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish
liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?
When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with
his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.
Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash
will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence.
There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.
On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and
austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top.
I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.
Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the
rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.
The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover
it.
Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.
The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.
It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged –
Rubin did not blink an eye.
"... Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department OV-10D Bronco ..."
"... . Descriptions of sex between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of these suits? ..."
"... So so disgusting. First there was the catholic church pedophile scandal. Then there is the Epstein scandal ..."
Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile
Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department
OV-10D Bronco. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) registration database. Descriptions of sex
between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions
of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the
U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of
these suits?
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:
Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus
towards Russia.
"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe,
testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals
and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous
threat to that way of life."
As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016,
FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I
hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."
Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James
Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian
nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to
co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were
concerned."
In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped
oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was
about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across
our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia.
we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin
rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections
as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of
"Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA
and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies???
And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???
Gabbard is more controlled opposition. Remember, she voted for the anti-BDS resolution,
more sanctions and is anti-2nd Amendment. Don't be fooled by her shtick.
She says she is against forever wars yet she voted to pass the monstrosity that is the new
defense bill. She is also a friend to Israhell as she voted for anti BDS.
I don't listen to what politicians say but what they do that falls in line with the most
important elements of empire.
uh Hillary Clinton stood with Bush and lied the world into war. Hillary and Obama brought
slavery back to Libya and ISIS and the largest refugee crisis since WW2 to Syria .
Dont forget genocide in Yemen ..
Hillary also supported disastrous free trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA and {TPP that
brought back slavery} that harm workers on both sides of the borders
Hillary also toppled a democratically elected president in Honduras with Death Squads and
Obama killed 40,000 innocent t people with Sanctions in Venezuela
They are fleeing Hillary and Obama's Terror spree ..and cheer on worse WW3 with Russia
Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network's Support For Endless War
c.. Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes, Emma Peele, Without a Doubt – and I absolutely adore your
"Avengers" pseudonym !
Hillary's disgusting crimes, however, seem to me to be an attempt to ingratiate herself
(and the Democrats) with the Ultra Hawkish Bush Era Republicans.
Who can ever forgive & forget her ghoulish pronouncement, "We came, we saw, He
died!!"
(in reference to the ghoulishly brutal public murder of Libya's Qaddafi. {Qaddafi's "Green
Book" was a well imagined Socio-Economic plan for for the economic liberation of Africa from
the economic and cultural strictures of US, European Absolutist Brutal Dominion.} -- As it
was, Libya, under Qaddafi, was a liberal, socialist society with free education, free health
care for all citizens, and a nation with it's own currency , free from US/EURO manipulation
and control.
-- This Is Why We Killed Him. --
This is US Command and Control World-Wide POLICY ! ! ! --
-- Anglo-Saxon Command and Control of the Whole Wide World and all it's resources Owned and
Militarily Controlled by European Bankers
-- - EUROPEAN Bankers, Rothschild Criminal Banker WarMongers/ Wall Street and American
Military Power --
These are They which Evilly Rule the World and Disparage or Murder (annihilate) All Others
at their pleasure, and Trump is an evil antagonist with the personage of a King Leopold.
Please find "KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST' By Adam Hochschild
No matter how we might differ about the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs, surely
we can agree that America's war spending and commitment to policing the rest of the world are
bankrupting the nation and spreading our troops dangerously thin.
All of the imperial
powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush -- to kill American citizens without due
process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to
carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during
wartime, to disregard laws with which they might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene
secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive
orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law,
to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond
any real accountability -- were inherited by Donald Trump. These presidential powers --
acquired through the use of
executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and
legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president --
enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of
the Constitution.
Yet no matter how we might differ about how success or failure of past or present
presidential administrations, surely we can agree that the president should not be empowered to
act as an imperial dictator with permanent powers.
Increasingly, at home, we're facing an unbelievable show of force by government agents. For
example, with alarming
regularity , unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by twitchy,
hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, and
all the government does is shrug and promise to do better. Just recently, in fact, the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals cleared a cop who aimed for a family's dog (who showed no signs of
aggression), missed, and instead
shot a 10-year-old lying on the ground . Indeed, there are countless incidents that happen
every day in which Americans are shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police
for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, or challenge an order. Growing numbers
of unarmed people are being shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a
certain way, or holding something -- anything -- that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or
igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer's mind that has nothing to do with an
actual threat to their safety.
No matter how we might differ about where to draw that blue line of allegiance to the police
state, surely we can agree that police shouldn't go around terrorizing and shooting innocent,
unarmed children and adults or be absolved of wrongdoing for doing so .
Nor can we turn a blind eye to the transformation of America's penal system from one aimed
at protecting society from dangerous criminals to a profit-driven system that dehumanizes and
strips prisoners of every vestige of their humanity. For example, in Illinois, as part of a
"training exercise" for incoming cadets, prison guards armed with batons and shields rounded up
200 handcuffed female inmates, marched them to the gymnasium, then forced them to strip naked
(including removing their tampons and pads), "
bend over and spread open their vaginal and anal cavities ," while male prison guards
promenaded past or stood staring. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the entire
dehumanizing, demoralizing mass body cavity strip search --
orchestrated not for security purposes but as an exercise in humiliation -- was legal. Be
warned, however: this treatment will not be limited to those behind bars. In our present
carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen
and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the
special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite. In a carceral state, there are
only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.
No matter how we might differ about where to draw the line when it comes to prisoners'
rights, surely we can agree that no one -- woman, man or child -- should be subjected to such
degrading treatment in the name of law and order .
No matter how we might differ about the deference due to those in uniform, whether military
or law enforcement, surely we can agree that America's Founders had good reason to warn against
the menace of a national police force -- a.k.a. a standing army -- vested with the power to
completely disregard the Constitution.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as "the
better good," marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite
class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
For example, in Pennsylvania, a school district is threatening to
place children in foster care if parents don't pay their overdue school lunch bills . In
Florida, a
resident was fined $100,000 for a dirty swimming pool and overgrown grass at a house she no
longer owned. In Kentucky, government bureaucrats sent a cease-and-desist letter to a church
ministry, warning that the group is
breaking the law by handing out free used eyeglasses to the homeless . These petty
tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace are what
happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle
prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.
No matter how we might differ about the extent to which the government has the final say in
how it flexes it power and exerts its authority, surely we can agree that the tyranny of the
Nanny State -- disguised as "the better good," marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed
police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to
call the shots -- should not be allowed to pave over the Constitution.
At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny
disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces that have
infiltrated our government.
For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of
government wrongdoing -- asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT
team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on -- because they were
the so-called lesser of two evils.
Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government has become almost indistinguishable from
the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism
, torture, drug
trafficking ,
sex trafficking , murder, violence, theft, pornography,
scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering
and servitude on humanity.
No matter how you rationalize it, the lesser of two evils is still evil.
So how do you fight back?
How do you fight injustice? How do you push back against tyranny? How do you vanquish
evil?
You don't fight it by hiding your head in the sand.
We have ignored the warning signs all around us for too long.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , the government has ripped the Constitution to
shreds and left us powerless in the face of its power grabs, greed and brutality.
What we are grappling with today is a government that is cutting great roads through the
very foundations of freedom in order to get after its modern devils. Yet the government can
only go as far as "we the people" allow.
Therein lies the problem.
The consequences of this failure to do our due diligence in asking the right questions,
demanding satisfactory answers, and holding our government officials accountable to respecting
our rights and abiding by the rule of law has pushed us to the brink of a nearly intolerable
state of affairs.
Intolerable, at least, to those who remember what it was like to live in a place where
freedom, due process and representative government actually meant something. Having allowed the
government to expand and exceed our reach, we now find ourselves on the losing end of a
tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives.
The hour grows late in terms of restoring the balance of power and reclaiming our freedoms,
but it may not be too late. The time to act is now, using all methods of nonviolent resistance
available to us.
"Don't sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the
Constitution or the Republic," Naomi Wolf once warned. Waiting and watching will get us nowhere
fast.
If you're watching, you're not doing.
Easily mesmerized by the government's political theater -- the endless congressional
hearings and investigations that go nowhere, the president's reality show antics, the warring
factions, the electoral drama -- we have become a society of watchers rather than activists who
are distracted by even the clumsiest government attempts at sleight-of-hand.
It's time for good men and women to do something. And soon.
Wake up and take a good, hard look around you. Start by recognizing evil and injustice and
tyranny for what they are. Stop being apathetic. Stop being neutral. Stop being accomplices.
Stop being distracted by the political theater staged by the Deep State: they want you watching
the show while they manipulate things behind the scenes. Refuse to play politics with your
principles. Don't settle for the lesser of two evils.
As British statesman Edmund Burke warned, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil
is for good men [and women] to do nothing."
With all respect John, The constitution allows the president to deploy soldiers on US soil
(bypassing Posse Comitatus) during limited times of insurgency, foreign invasion, war.
Everything is in order at the moment. The treasonous companies and actors will be brought to
justice. The pedos, and the corrupt Intelligence apparatus is the target.
Sadly, this (the police state) is one issue that I think Trump has no clue about. Why
would he? Somebody needs to get in his ear on this issue.
At the same time lawlessness, driven by the media (purposefully), increases. And increases
the need for policing. The game is so ******* obvious. Stop the (((media))) and half the
problem is solved.
"The national debt is the result of the federal government borrowing money to cover years
and years of budget deficits." Right now, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on
every front: it's spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American
taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily ( from foreign governments
and Social Security ) to keep the government operating and keep
funding its endless wars abroad ." Trillions.
Since religious zealots are the root cause for the rise of fascism and totalitarian
communism- which are reactions from the oppressions of religious authorities supported by
secret societies, it is necessary that they must fall and be broken before any real
meaningful change can take place. I will defend the right to free speech and the 2nd to my
last breath, but when they come to burn down your houses of worship and throw you in the
ovens again, we will continue to do nothing. Just as good people did before. We will be your
pawns no longer, we're not doing your dirty work anymore. We will not continue to be your
slaves that you exploit for your twisted beliefs. History will repeat itself and you will
burn and we will watch. This needs to happen before the world has a chance to try again. But
the real damage to you zionists will be the spreading of the truth. As enough people finally
understand that you offer nothing but the dark con of man and reject your lies and oppression
whole heartedly
"... Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters. ..."
"... This represents an intervention into her ability to speak to voters and, as such, is a violation of not only her First Amendment rights but also, more critically, campaign finance law. ..."
"... On a day when it became clear to the world that Robert Mueller led an investigation to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections (and beyond) while attempting to overthrow an elected President, Gabbard attacking the one of the main pillars of the information control system is both welcome and needed. ..."
"... Her filing this lawsuit is making it clear that even a fairly conventional Democrat on most all other issues is to be marginalized if she criticizes the empire. ..."
"... You can disagree with Tulsi on many things but she is absolutely right and the only one who gets the real problem.Military Industrial Complex & The Empire. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)
is suing Google
. It's about time someone did. It's one thing to for conservatives and libertarians to be outraged by their treatment
by the tech giant, it's another for them to go after a female Democrat.
Since Trump's election the campaign to curtail free speech has went into overdrive and we are now far beyond Orwell's dystopian
vision in 1984 in terms of technological infrastructure.
Google makes Big Brother look like George Carlin's the Hippy Dippy Weather Man with the "hippy dippy weather, man." The drive
to stamp out all forms of political division has only one thing animating it, protecting the drive of the elites I call The Davos
Crowd to erect a transnational superstate to herd humanity to their vision of sustainability.
Gabbard is the only person running for the Democratic nomination worth any amount of my time. Her fundamental criticisms of the
U.S. warfare state are spot on. She's sincere about this. It's costing her stature within her own party.
She's a committed anti-imperialist. She's also young, inexperienced and a little bit naive. But that, to me, is part of her charm.
It means she is still malleable. She's smart enough to be outraged about where we are headed and young enough to be flexible about
what the solutions are to stop it from happening.
So, as such, she's the perfect champion for the defenders of free speech and critics of the U.S. empire. A young, attractive,
intelligent woman of mixed-race heritage with a service record who stands athwart the mainstream on the most important issue in politics
today: the U.S. empire.
The entire time I was growing up the prevailing wisdom was Social Security was the third rail of U.S. politics. That, like so
many other pearls of wisdom, was nonsense.
The true third rail of U.S. politics is empire.
Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations
who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
For that crime Google acted to blunt interest in her campaign in the critical hours after the first democratic debate. So, Gabbard,
rightly, sued them.
The two main points of her lawsuit are:
1) suspending her Google Ad account for six hours while search traffic for her was spiking and
2) Gmail disproportionately junked her campaign emails.
This represents an intervention into her ability to speak to voters and, as such, is a violation of not only her First Amendment
rights but also, more critically, campaign finance law.
Whether this lawsuit goes anywhere or not is beside the point. Google will ignore it until they can't and then settle with her
before discovery. Gabbard doing this is good PR for her as it sets her on the right side of an incredibly important issue, censorship
and technological bias/de-platforming of political outsiders.
It's also good because if she does pursue this principally, it will lead to potential discovery of Google's internal practices,
lending the DoJ a hand in pursuing all the big tech firms for electioneering.
On a day when it became clear to the world that Robert Mueller led an investigation to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term
elections (and beyond) while attempting to overthrow an elected President, Gabbard attacking the one of the main pillars of the information
control system is both welcome and needed.
Her filing this lawsuit is making it clear that even a fairly conventional Democrat on most all other issues is to be marginalized
if she criticizes the empire.
As libertarians and conservatives it is irrelevant if she is conventional in other areas. It doesn't matter that she's been to
a CFR meeting or two or that she's anti-gun. She's not going to be president.
This is not about our virtue-signaling about the purity of essence of our political figures. They are tools to our ends. And on
now two incredibly important issues leading up to the 2020 election Tulsi Gabbard is on the right side of them.
She is someone we can and should reach out to and support while she makes these issues the centerpiece of her campaign. Her timing
is even more excellent than what I've already stated.
Filing this lawsuit is a pre-emptive strike at Google now that she's qualified for the next two Democratic debates. And it may
assist her in breaking out of the bottom tier of the Democratic field, Ron Paul style if she gets her opportunity.
Shedding light on Google's anti-free speech practices is a fundamental good, one we should celebrate. Dare I say, it's double
plus good.
* * *
Join
my Patreon
and
install Brave
if you both hate big tech censorship and the empire in equal
measure.
You can disagree with Tulsi on many things but she is absolutely
right and the only one who gets the real problem.Military
Industrial Complex & The Empire.
If you won't kill this problem
you can virtue signal about your left and right opinions about
your perfect candidate as much as you want without getting
anything done ( Trump). Purism won't help you. It only gets you
distracted and controlled by the elites.
The point of this article is that Gabbard is taking on GOOGLE,
for screwing with her account. See Google demonitizes, deboosts,
deplatforms people without them even knowing it, and diddles their
search algorythms NOT ONLY against conservatives, but for
independent democrats like Gabbard. THAT'S THE POINT, not who or
what Gabbard stands for. The dem party did the same to Gabbard
during the 2016 election, cut her off from financing, because she
supported Bernie Sanders.
This is the sort of **** things dim's do, and progressive
companies like Fakebook, Twatter and Goolag. Now Gabbard may not
have views that we can support, but if she is taking on GOOLAG,
than we should stand like a wall behind her. This is a big threat
to 1st amendment rights.
Good point, chunga. She is already being given the Ron Paul
treatment by MSM (they either slam her as basically a naive
fool, or just ignore her), so no way does she rise to the top
of the **** pile of Blue Team candidates. Would make a good
run as an independent, and maybe wake some people up.
"... The nationalist faction of the party played a critical role. The Greek media begun a new round of propaganda against Tsipras administration. They managed to persuade many Greeks that the agreement for the name of North Macedonia was an act of treason against Greece's national interest. And that, New Democracy, the traditional right, is still patriotic and would had never sign such an agreement. This was actually the epicenter of propaganda. Of course, the truth is that the neoliberal New Democracy would had sign whatever the Western imperialists wanted. It's ideologically identical with them, after all. ..."
The result of the recent Greek national elections will puzzle future historians for decades. The Greek voters gave a clear victory
to the conservative right party, New Democracy, which will govern with 158 seats, without the need to make any coalitions.
It could be characterized a "paradoxical" result mainly for two reasons:
First, the voters gave a clear governmental order to one of the traditional powers of the old political system, which are highly
responsible for the Greek crisis that erupted in 2010. Several top names of the new government, and even New Democracy leader, Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, have been accused of being involved in various corruption scandals, in the not so distant past.
Second, the fact that the voters elected perhaps the most fanatically neoliberal government ever. This means that Mitsotakis administration
is expected to implement the brutal neoliberal policies imposed by Greece's creditors to the letter. Recall that those policies deepened
the recession and made things worse for the economy.
It is now well-known that Greece's creditors sacrificed the country to save the banks. Yet, after nine years of brutal austerity
measures, the economy is not looking good at all. Debt has reached 180% of GDP from 120% when Greece entered the bailout program.
Banks have been bailed-out with billions and still are not lending money to real economy and especially the small-medium business
sector.
Yet, right before the election day, a New Democracy member (Babis Papadimitriou) who got elected,
suggested that the 'safety pillow' of 37 billion - which the Greek government managed to collect through the brutal
implementation of insane surpluses - should be given to the banks!
Note that Babis Papadimitriou is a former journalist worked for the Skai TV station. The station openly supported New Democracy,
and its owners are part of the oligarchy that was very displeased with the SYRIZA administration. That's because Tsipras was not
willing to succumb to oligarchy's interests.
The current New Democracy party is a product of the Greek oligarchy establishment. The party - especially after the eruption of
the Greek crisis in 2010 - has been transformed into an unprecedented and peculiar mixture of some of the most fanatic neoliberals
and some of the most fanatic nationalists.
The nationalist faction of the party played a critical role. The Greek media begun a
new round
of propaganda against Tsipras administration. They managed to persuade many Greeks that the agreement for the name of
North Macedonia was an act of treason against Greece's national interest. And that, New Democracy, the traditional right, is still
patriotic and would had never sign such an agreement. This was actually the epicenter of propaganda. Of course, the truth is that
the neoliberal New Democracy would had sign whatever the Western imperialists wanted. It's ideologically identical with them, after
all.
The bad news for the neoliberal establishment is that SYRIZA managed to maintain a significant portion of its power (31.53%).
This has brought a kind of embarrassment to the establishment because SYRIZA is still not under full control. It is not accidental
that various circles close to New Democracy were implying that apart from a clear victory, another target would be the strategic
defeat of SYRIZA. Meaning, the return of SYRIZA to its pre-crisis 3% level.
So, the establishment sense that there is a 'danger' that the party could slip again away from the neoliberal order imposed by
the power centers inside and outside Greece. Maintaining such a power, it may become a real threat to the neoliberal order again.
However, many of these things probably won't matter because now New Democracy has four years to implement the most devastating
neoliberal program, without any significant resistance. This is its sole mission. To transform the country into a neoliberal paradise
for the oligarchs and the foreign investment 'predators'. And this 'brilliant' plan will be paid one more time by the Greeks, who
will see the destruction of public health and education. The destruction of social state. The complete looting of public property.
The destruction of whatever has left from labor rights and social security.
The Greeks have just committed suicide by electing the most fanatically neoliberal government ever.
Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY)
told
Luke Rudkowski of "
We
Are Change
," a libertarian media organization, that Democratic presidential candidate
Tulsi Gabbard has just signed on as a co-sponsor of Audit the Fed bill, officially known as
H.R.24
The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2019
.
The bill
authorizes the General Accountability Office to perform a full audit of the
Fed's conduct of monetary policy,
including the Fed's mysterious dealings with Wall
Street, central banks and governments.
During the interview, Massie said the latest development in attempting to audit the Federal
Reserve is that Gabbard signed on as co-sponsor.
He believes the topic will "get some
airtime" in the upcoming presidential debates.
He said there are four Democratic co-sponsors and 80 Republican co-sponsors for the
bill;
it was recently passed in the House of Representatives as it heads to the Senate.
Massie said:
"We have passed it in the House but have never passed it in the Senate. Because of a lot of
these people in the House of Representatives who vote for it and support it in the House go to
the Senate and decide it's not such a good idea."
Rudkowski then tells Massie about interesting parallels between some presidential candidates
(Gabbard and Bernie Sanders), who have an anti-interventionists view along with being critical of
the Federal Reserve.
Massie responds by saying,
"Well if you're just trying to sorta tie the anti-war people to
the Federal Reserve. I think the closest connection is
the Federal Reserve enables the
endless Wars that are being funded by controlling the value of our currency and without the massive
borrowing and printing of money and controlling of interest rates - we wouldn't be able to sustain
a permanent state of war.
"
https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQEbGkzy6Sk
Last week, Ron Paul recently wrote that Massie needs to
"expedite passage of their Audit
the Fed legislation should the Federal Reserve decide to disobey the will of its creator – Congress
– by involving itself in real-time payments.
After all, their bipartisan legislation came
just seven votes shy of passing not long ago. With the Fed extending its wings even further and the
president finally making good on his promise to push the bill through, it should be all but certain
of arriving on his Oval Office desk for signing."
With the US infected by a global industrial slowdown, and in President Trump's view a Federal
Reserve-caused economic downturn, support for auditing the Fed will continue to increase among
Americans across all political ideologies.
It's not just Republicans who demand the audit,
but now Gabbard and even Sanders (Democrats).
Auditing the Fed is the first step in changing monetary policy that has created a
debt-and-bubble-based economy; promoted the welfare-warfare state; created the most massive wealth
inequality crisis in history; led to an affordable housing crisis; transferred all the wealth to
the top 1% of America, and could lead to the collapse of the American empire if not corrected in
the next several years.
"... The upcoming Horowitz and Durham reports on their respective probes into "meddling into the meddling" will target many people in the Democratic Party, US intelligence services, and the media. In that order. Can the Dems survive such a thing? It's hard to see. ..."
"... After the opening credits, [Dominic] Cummings rejects an offer in 2015 by UKIP MP Douglas Carswell and political strategist Matthew Elliott to lead the Vote Leave campaign due to his contempt for "Westminster politics", but accepts when Carswell promises Cummings full control. ..."
"... The next sequences show Cummings outlining the core strategy on a whiteboard of narrow disciplined messaging delivered via algorithmic database-driven micro-targeting tools . Cummings rejects an approach by Nigel Farage and Arron Banks of Leave.EU to merge their campaigns, as his data shows Farage is an obstacle to winning an overall majority. ..."
"... [..] In a eureka moment, Cummings refines the core message to "Take Back Control", thus positioning Vote Leave as the historical status quo, and Remain as the "change" option . Cummings meets and hires Canadian Zack Massingham, co-founder of AggregateIQ, who offers to build a database using social media tools of [3 million] voters who are not on the UK electoral register but are inclined to vote to leave. ..."
"... [..] In the final stages, high-profile senior Tory MPs Michael Gove and Boris Johnson join the Vote Leave campaign emphasising the need to "Take Back Control", while Penny Mordaunt is shown on BBC raising concerns over the accession of Turkey. Gove and Johnson are shown as having some reticence over specific Vote Leave claims (e.g. £350 million for NHS, and 70 million potential Turkish emigrants) but are seen to overcome them. ..."
"... And now Cummings is back to finish the job. ..."
"... They were sending targeted personalized messages to individual voters, by the millions. Algorithms. AI. Tailor made. If you're the opposition, and you don't have those tools, then what do you have exactly? ..."
It's a development that has long been evident in continental Europe, and that has now arrived on the shores of the US and UK.
It is the somewhat slow but very certain dissolution of long-existing political parties, organizations and groups. That's what I
was seeing during the Robert Mueller clown horror show on Wednesday.
Mueller was not just the Democratic Party's last hope, he was their identity. He was the anti-Trump. Well, he no longer is, he
is not fit to play that role anymore. And there is nobody to take it over who is not going to be highly contested by at least some
parts of the party. In other words: it's falling apart.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's a natural process, parties change as conditions do and if they don't do it fast enough
they disappear. Look at the candidates the Dems have. Can anyone imagine the party, post-Mueller, uniting behind Joe Biden or Bernie
Sanders or Kamala Harris? And then for one of them to beat Donald Trump in 2020? I was just watching a little clip from Sean Hannity,
doing what Trump did last week, which is going after the Squad. Who he said are anti-Israel socialists and, most importantly, the
de facto leaders of the party, not Nancy Pelosi. That is a follow-up consequence of Mueller's tragic defeat, the right can now go
on the chase. The Squad is the face of the Dems because Trump and Hannity have made them that.
The upcoming Horowitz and Durham reports on their respective probes into "meddling into the meddling" will target many people
in the Democratic Party, US intelligence services, and the media. In that order. Can the Dems survive such a thing? It's hard to
see. The Dems have no Trump. They do have a DNC that will stifle any candidate they don't like (Bernie!), though. Just think
what they would have done if Trump had run as a Democrat (crazy, but not that crazy).
The UK's issues are remarkably similar to those of the US. Only, in their case, the socialists have already taken over the left-wing
party (if you can call the Dems left-wing). This has led to absolute stagnation. Tony Blair had moved Labour so far to the right
(which he and his Blairites call center, because it sounds so much better), that injecting Jeremy Corbyn as leader was just too fast
and furious.
So they labeled Corbyn an anti-semite, the most successful and equally empty smear campaign since Julian Assange was called a
rapist. Corbyn never adequately responded, so he couldn't profile himself and now the Blairites are again calling on him to leave.
Oh, and he never gave a direct answer to the question of Brexit yes or no either. Pity. Corbyn's support among the people is massive,
but not in the party.
Which is why it's now up to Boris Johnson to 'deliver the will of the people'. And apparently the first thing the people want
is 20,000 more policemen. Which were fired by the very party he at the time represented first as first mayor of London and then foreign
minister, for goodness sake. His very own Tories closed 600 police stations since 2010 and will have to re-open many now.
Some survey must have told him it polled well. Just like polling was an essential part of pushing through Brexit. There's a very
revealing TV movie that came out 6 months ago called Brexit: The Uncivil War, that makes this very clear. The extent to which campaigns
these days rely on data gathering and voter targeting will take a while yet to be understood, but they're a future that is already
here. Wikipedia in its description of the film puts it quite well:
After the opening credits, [Dominic] Cummings rejects an offer in 2015 by UKIP MP Douglas Carswell and political strategist
Matthew Elliott to lead the Vote Leave campaign due to his contempt for "Westminster politics", but accepts when Carswell promises
Cummings full control.
The next sequences show Cummings outlining the core strategy on a whiteboard of narrow disciplined messaging delivered
via algorithmic database-driven micro-targeting tools . Cummings rejects an approach by Nigel Farage and Arron Banks of Leave.EU
to merge their campaigns, as his data shows Farage is an obstacle to winning an overall majority.
[..] In a eureka moment, Cummings refines the core message to "Take Back Control", thus positioning Vote Leave as the historical
status quo, and Remain as the "change" option . Cummings meets and hires Canadian Zack Massingham, co-founder of AggregateIQ,
who offers to build a database using social media tools of [3 million] voters who are not on the UK electoral register but are
inclined to vote to leave.
[..] In the final stages, high-profile senior Tory MPs Michael Gove and Boris Johnson join the Vote Leave campaign emphasising
the need to "Take Back Control", while Penny Mordaunt is shown on BBC raising concerns over the accession of Turkey. Gove and
Johnson are shown as having some reticence over specific Vote Leave claims (e.g. £350 million for NHS, and 70 million potential
Turkish emigrants) but are seen to overcome them.
Dominic Cummings, played in the movie by Benedict Cumberbatch, is an independent political adviser who belongs to no party. But
guess what? He was the first adviser Boris Johnson hired after his nomination Wednesday. Cummings didn't want Nigel Farage as the
face of Brexit, because he polled poorly. He wanted Boris, because his numbers were better. Not because he didn't think Boris was
a bumbling fool, he did.
And now Cummings is back to finish the job. Far as I can see, that can only mean one thing: elections, and soon (it's
what Cummings does). A no-deal Brexit was voted down, in the same Parliament Boris Johnson now faces, 3 times, or was it 4? There
is going to be a lot of opposition. Boris wants Brexit on October 31, and has practically bet his career on it. But there is going
to be a lot of opposition.
He can't have elections before September, because of the summer recess. So perhaps end of September?! But he has Dominic Cummings
and his "algorithmic database-driven micro-targeting tools" . Without which Brexit would never have been voted in. So if
you don't want Brexit, you better come prepared.
Cummings and his techies weren't -just- sending out mass mails or that kind of stuff. That's already arcane. They were sending
targeted personalized messages to individual voters, by the millions. Algorithms. AI. Tailor made. If you're the opposition, and
you don't have those tools, then what do you have exactly?
Already thought before it all happened that it was funny that Boris Johnson's ascension and Robert Mueller's downfall were scheduled
for the same day. There must be a pattern somewhere.
You can find the movie at HBO or Channel 4, I'm sure. Try
this link for Channel
4. Seeing that movie, and thinking about the implications of the technology, the whole notion of Russian meddling becomes arcane
as well. We just have no idea.
The Demoncrats have one candidate who could beat Trump, namely Tulsi Gabbard. I disagree with her economics and her 2nd amendment
stance, but enough Chump voters who based their vote on his promise to stop the continuous war on everyone, would switch to Tulsi
if she were nominated, particularly if the Chump plays his Zio directive and starts a war with Iran which will not go well for
anybody. But Tulsi will never have a fair shot at the nominations as the MIC Google has demon-strated in her law suit. **** the
election. The people and their opinions are not a factor. **** the left right hatred division while the Owners just laugh from
the shadows at us for being so easily manipulated.
The upcoming Horowitz and Durham reports on their respective probes into "meddling into the meddling" will target many people
in the Democratic Party, US intelligence services, and the media. In that order. Can the Dems survive such a thing? It's hard
to see.
Can criminals survive a functioning DOJ working under the Law?
In its self-described "pied piper" strategy, the Clinton campaign proposed intentionally cultivating extreme right-wing
presidential candidates, hoping to turn them into the new "mainstream of the Republican Party" in order to try to increase
Clinton's chances of winning.
Trump is using Hillary's Pied Piper strategy against AoC and the Squid.
Elevate the radical leftists...they'll be seen as the face of the Democrat party...then 2020 is a sure Trump win.
Not that I care...I never consented to being governed by anyone.
For decades, the Democratic party has been a joke: a weakly bound coalition of liberals and labor -- two groups with nothing
in common, and a fair degree of hate for each other.
For decades, the Republican party has also been a joke: a weakly bound coalition of religious fundamentalists and fiscal conservatives
-- two groups with nothing in common, and a fair degree of hate for each other.
In European politics, they call a shovel a shovel and work by coalition government. You have smaller parties which actually
represent interest groups, although none are large enough for power themselves. They form and break coalitions -- some long lasting,
some flittering around from election to election -- in order to form a majority ad hoc. It isn't a bad system, and the voters
don't have to hold their noses so much at the polls.
(edit: all this squabbling between "the squad" and the Pelosi leadership makes much more sense when viewed as friction between
the labor and liberal halves of the dems.)
"... Contrary to the official rationale, the detention of the Iranian tanker was not consistent with the 2012 EU regulation on sanctions against the Assad government in Syria. The EU Council regulation in question specifies in Article 35 that the sanctions were to apply only within the territory of EU member states, to a national or business entity or onboard an aircraft or vessel "under the jurisdiction of a member state." ..."
"... The notice required the Gibraltar government to detain any such ship for at least 72 hours if it entered "British Gibraltar Territorial Waters." Significantly, however, the video statement by Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo on July 4 explaining the seizure of the Grace 1 made no such claim and avoided any mention of the precise location of the ship when it was seized. ..."
"... There is a good reason why the chief minister chose not to draw attention to the issue of the ship's location: it is virtually impossible that the ship was in British Gibraltar territorial waters at any time before being boarded. The UK claims territorial waters of three nautical miles from its coast, whereas the Strait of Gibraltar is 7.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. That would make the limit of UK territory just north of the middle of the Strait. ..."
"... But international straits must have clearly defined and separated shipping lanes going in different directions. The Grace 1 was in the shipping lane heading east toward the Mediterranean, which is south of the lane for ships heading west toward the Atlantic and thus clearly closer to the coast of Morocco than to the coast of Gibraltar, as can be seen from this live view of typical ship traffic through the strait . So it is quite implausible that the Grace 1 strayed out of its shipping lane into British territorial waters at any time before it was boarded. ..."
"... Such a move clearly violates the global treaty governing the issue -- the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . Articles 37 through 44 of that agreement, ratified by 167 states, including the UK and the European Union, establish a "regime of transit passage" for international straits like the Strait of Gibraltar that guarantees freedom of navigation for merchant ships. The rules of that regime explicitly forbid states bordering the strait from interfering with the transit passage of a merchant ship, with very narrowly defined exceptions. ..."
"... The evidence indicates, moreover, that the UK's actions were part of a broader scheme coordinated with the Trump administration to tighten pressure on Iran's economy by reducing Iran's ability to export goods. ..."
"... On July 19, Reuters London correspondent Guy Falconbridge reported , "[S]everal diplomatic sources said the United States asked the UK to seize the vessel." ..."
"... Detailed evidence of Bolton deep involvement in the British plan to seize the Iranian tanker has surfaced in reporting on the withdrawal of Panamanian flag status for the Grace 1. ..."
"... The role of Panama's National Security Council signaled Bolton's hand, since he would have been the point of contact with that body. The result of his maneuvering was to leave the Grace 1 without the protection of flag status necessary to sail or visit a port in the middle of its journey. This in conjunction with the British seizure of the ship was yet another episode in the extraordinary American effort to deprive Iran of the most basic sovereign right to participate in the global economy. ..."
"... Back in 2013 2013 there was a rumour afoot that Edward Snowden, who at the time was stuck in the Moscow airport, trapped there by the sudden cancellation mid-flight of his US passport, was going spirited away by the President of Bolivia Evo Morales aboard his private jet. So what the US apparently was lean on it European allies to stop him. This they duly and dutifully did. Spain, France, and others denied overflight rights to the Bolivian jet, forcing it to turn back and land in Austria. There was even a report that once on the ground, the Spanish ambassador to Austria showed up and asked the Bolivian president if he might come out to the plain for a coffee--and presumably to have a poke around to see he could catch Snowden in the act of vanishing into the cargo hold. ..."
"... The rumor turned out to be completely false, but it was the Europeans who wound up with the egg on their face. Not to mention the ones who broke international law. ..."
"... Bolton persuaded the British to play along with the stupid US "maximum pressure" strategy, regardless of its illegality. (Maybe the British government thought that it would placate Trump after Ambassadorgate.) And then of course Pompeo threw them under the bus. It's getting hard to be a US ally (except for Saudi Arabia and Israel.) ..."
"... Spain lodged a formal complaint about the action, because it considers the sea around Gibraltar to be part of its international waters, "We are studying the circumstances and looking at how this affects our sovereignty," Josep Borell, Spain's acting foreign minister, said. So Gibraltar or Spanish waters? Gibraltar – Territorial Waters (1 pg): ..."
"... Worse than the bad behavior of Bolton, and the poodle behavior of Britain, is the utter failure of our press to provide us a skeptical eye and honest look at events. They've been mere stenographers and megaphones for power doing wrong. ..."
"... And this just in. A UK government official has just stated, related to the Iranian tanker stopped near Gibraltar, the UK will not be part of Trump's 'maximum pressure' gambit on Iran. We shall see if Boris Johnson is for or against that policy. ..."
"... John Bolton, war criminal. ..."
"... John Bolton has been desperate for a war with Iran for decades. This is just another escalation in his desperate attempt to get one. He's the classic neocon chicken hawk who is bravely ready to risk and sacrifice other people's lives at the drop of a hat. ..."
"... Since UK is abusing its control of Gibraltar by behaving like a thug, maybe it is better for the international community to support an independent state of Gibraltar, or at least let Spain has it. It will be better for world peace. ..."
"... While I agree with the gist of the article, remember that Bolton has no authority except that which is given to him. So stop blaming Bolton. Blame Trump. ..."
"... The provocations will go on and on until Iran shoots back and then Wash. will get the war it's been trying to start for some time now to pay back all those campaign donors who will profit from another war. ..."
"... The MIC needs constant wars to use up munitions so new ones can be manufactured. It's really just about business and politicians working together for mutual benefit to keep those contributions coming in. With all the other issues facing America, a war with Iran will just add to the end of the USA which is coming faster than you think. ..."
Did John Bolton Light the Fuse of the UK-Iranian Tanker Crisis? Evidence suggests he pressured the Brits to seize an
Iranian ship. Why? More war. By Gareth
Porter •
July 23, 2019
While Iran's seizure of a British tanker near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday was a clear response to the British capture of an
Iranian tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4, both the UK and U.S. governments are insisting that Iran's operation was illegal
while the British acted legally.
The facts surrounding the British detention of the Iranian ship, however, suggest that, like the Iranian detention of the British
ship, it was an illegal interference with freedom of navigation through an international strait. And even more importantly, evidence
indicates that the British move was part of a bigger scheme coordinated by National Security Advisor John Bolton.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the Iran seizure of the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero "unacceptable" and insisted
that it is "essential that freedom of navigation is maintained and that all ships can move safely and freely in the region."
But the British denied Iran that same freedom of navigation through the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4.
The rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew was that it was delivering oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
This was never questioned by Western news media. But a closer look reveals that the UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions
against that ship, and that it was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of merchant ships
through international straits.
The evidence also reveals that Bolton was actively involved in targeting the Grace 1 from the time it began its journey in May
as part of the broader Trump administration campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran.
Contrary to the official rationale, the detention of the Iranian tanker was not consistent with the 2012 EU regulation on
sanctions against the Assad government in Syria. The
EU Council regulation in question
specifies in Article 35 that the sanctions were to apply only within the territory of EU member states, to a national or business
entity or onboard an aircraft or vessel "under the jurisdiction of a member state."
The UK government planned to claim that the Iranian ship was under British "jurisdiction" when it was passing through the Strait
of Gibraltar to justify its seizure as legally consistent with the EU regulation. A
maritime news outlet has reported that on July 3, the day before the seizure of the ship, the Gibraltar government, which has
no control over its internal security or foreign affairs, issued
a regulation to provide what it would claim
as a legal pretext for the operation. The regulation gave the "chief minister" of the British the power to detain any ship if there
were "reasonable grounds" to "suspect" that it had been or even that it was even "likely" to be in breach of EU regulations.
The notice required the Gibraltar government to detain any such ship for at least 72 hours if it entered "British Gibraltar
Territorial Waters." Significantly, however, the video statement
by Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo on July 4 explaining the seizure of the Grace 1 made no such claim and avoided any
mention of the precise location of the ship when it was seized.
There is a good reason why the chief minister chose not to draw attention to the issue of the ship's location: it is virtually
impossible that the ship was in British Gibraltar territorial waters at any time before being boarded. The UK claims
territorial waters of three nautical miles from its coast, whereas
the Strait of Gibraltar is 7.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. That would make the limit of UK territory just north of
the middle of the Strait.
But international straits must have clearly defined and separated shipping lanes going in different directions. The Grace
1 was in the shipping lane heading east
toward the Mediterranean, which is south of the lane for ships heading west toward the Atlantic and thus clearly closer to the
coast of Morocco than to the coast of Gibraltar, as can be seen from this
live view of typical ship traffic
through the strait . So it is quite implausible that the Grace 1 strayed out of its shipping lane into British territorial waters
at any time before it was boarded.
But even if the ship had done so, that would not have given the UK "jurisdiction" over the Grace 1 and allowed it to legally
seize the ship. Such a move clearly violates the global treaty governing the issue -- the
United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea . Articles 37 through 44 of that agreement, ratified by 167 states, including the UK and the European Union,
establish a "regime of transit passage" for international straits like the Strait of Gibraltar that guarantees freedom of navigation
for merchant ships. The rules of that regime explicitly forbid states bordering the strait from interfering with the transit passage
of a merchant ship, with very narrowly defined exceptions.
These articles allow coastal states to adopt regulations relating to safety of navigation, pollution control, prevention of fishing,
and "loading or unloading any commodity in contravention of customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations" of bordering
states -- but for no other reason. The British seizure and detention of the Grace 1 was clearly not related to any of these concerns
and thus a violation of the treaty.
The evidence indicates, moreover, that the UK's actions were part of a broader scheme coordinated with the Trump administration
to tighten pressure on Iran's economy by reducing Iran's ability to export goods.
The statement by Gibraltar's chief minister said the
decision to seize the ship was taken after the receipt of "information" that provided "reasonable grounds" for suspicion that it
was carrying oil destined for Syria's Banyas refinery. That suggested the intelligence had come from a government that neither he
nor the British wished to reveal.
BBC defense correspondent Jonathan Beale reported: "[I]t appears
the intelligence came from the United States." Acting Spanish Foreign Minister Joseph Borrell commented on July 4 that the British
seizure had followed "a demand from the United States to the UK." On July 19, Reuters London correspondent Guy Falconbridge
reported , "[S]everal diplomatic sources said the United States asked the UK to seize the vessel."
Detailed evidence of Bolton deep involvement in the British plan to seize the Iranian tanker has surfaced in reporting on
the withdrawal of Panamanian flag status for the Grace 1.
Panama was the flag state for many of the Iranian-owned vessels carrying various items exported by Iran. But when the Trump administration
reinstated economic sanctions against Iran in October 2018, it included prohibitions on industry services such as insurance and reinsurance.
This decision was accompanied by
political pressure on Panama to withdraw Panamanian flag status from 59 Iranian vessels, many of which were owned by Iranian
state-affiliated companies. Without such flag status, the Iranian-owned vessels could not get insurance for shipments by freighter.
That move was aimed at discouraging ports, canal operators, and private firms from allowing Iranian tankers to use their facilities.
The State Department's Brian Hook, who is in charge of the sanctions,
warned those
entities last November that the Trump administration believed they would be responsible for the costs of an accident involving a
self-insured Iranian tanker.
But the Grace 1 was special case, because it still had Panamanian flag status when it began its long journey around the Southern
tip of Africa on the way to the Mediterranean. That trip began in late May, according to Automatic Identification System
data cited by Riviera Maritime Media . It was no coincidence that the Panamanian Maritime Authority
delisted the Grace 1 on May 29 -- just as the ship was beginning its journey. That decision came immediately after Panama's National
Security Council issued an alert
claiming that the Iranian-owned tanker "may be participating in terrorism financing in supporting the destabilization activities
of some regimes led by terrorist groups."
The Panamanian body did not cite any evidence that the Grace 1 had ever been linked to terrorism.
The role of Panama's National Security Council signaled Bolton's hand, since he would have been the point of contact with
that body. The result of his maneuvering was to leave the Grace 1 without the protection of flag status necessary to sail or visit
a port in the middle of its journey. This in conjunction with the British seizure of the ship was yet another episode in the extraordinary
American effort to deprive Iran of the most basic sovereign right to participate in the global economy.
Now that Iran has detained a British ship in order to force the UK to release the Grace 1, the British Foreign Ministry will claim
that its seizure of the Iranian ship was entirely legitimate. The actual facts, however, put that charge under serious suspicion.
Gareth Porter is an investigative reporter and regular contributor to The American Conservative . He is also the author
of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
Honestly the Brits are such idiots, we lied them into a war once. They knew we were lying and went for it anyway. Now the are
falling for it again. Maybe it is May's parting gift to Boris?
Same EU legislation only forbids Syria exporting oil and not EU entities selling to Syria (albeit with some additional paperwork).
However, it doesn't forbid other non-EU states to sell oil to Syria. They are not behaving like the US. And this is also not UN
sanctioned. In fact, UK is also acting against the spirit of JPCOA towards Iran. Speak about Perfidious Albion (others would say
US lapdog).
Back in 2013 2013 there was a rumour afoot that Edward Snowden, who at the time was stuck in the Moscow airport, trapped
there by the sudden cancellation mid-flight of his US passport, was going spirited away by the President of Bolivia Evo Morales
aboard his private jet. So what the US apparently was lean on it European allies to stop him. This they duly and dutifully did.
Spain, France, and others denied overflight rights to the Bolivian jet, forcing it to turn back and land in Austria. There was
even a report that once on the ground, the Spanish ambassador to Austria showed up and asked the Bolivian president if he might
come out to the plain for a coffee--and presumably to have a poke around to see he could catch Snowden in the act of vanishing
into the cargo hold.
The rumor turned out to be completely false, but it was the Europeans who wound up with the egg on their face. Not to mention
the ones who broke international law.
Now we find that once again a European country had (apparently) gone out on a limb for the US--and wound up with egg on its
face for trying to show its loyalty to the US in an all-too-slavish fashion by doing America's dirty work.
Bolton persuaded the British to play along with the stupid US "maximum pressure" strategy, regardless of its illegality. (Maybe
the British government thought that it would placate Trump after Ambassadorgate.) And then of course Pompeo threw them under the
bus. It's getting hard to be a US ally (except for Saudi Arabia and Israel.)
The very fact that the UK tried to present its hijack of Iran Oil as an implementation of EU sanctions dovetail well with Bolton's
objective of creating another of those "international coalitions" without a UN mandate engaging in 'Crimes of Aggression".
The total lack of support from the EU for this UK hijack signals another defeat to both the UK and the neocons of America.
Too bad there isn't an international version of the ACLU to argue Iran's legal case before the EU body. What typically happens
is that Iran will refuse to send representation because that would in effect, acknowledge their authority. The EU will have a
Kangaroo court and enter a vacant decision. This has happened numerous times in the U.S.
Would anyone in the U.S. or EU recognize an Iranian court making similar claims? Speaking of which, the entire point of UN
treaties and international law is to prevent individual countries from passing special purpose legislation targeting specific
countries. Why couldn't Iran pass a law sanctioning EU vessels that tried to use their territorial waters, what is so special
about the EU, because it is an acronym?
Spain lodged a formal complaint about the action, because it considers the sea around Gibraltar to be part of its international
waters, "We are studying the circumstances and looking at how this affects our sovereignty," Josep Borell, Spain's acting foreign
minister, said. So Gibraltar or Spanish waters? Gibraltar – Territorial Waters (1 pg):
https://www.academia.edu/30...
Worse than the bad behavior of Bolton, and the poodle behavior of Britain, is the utter failure of our press to provide us
a skeptical eye and honest look at events. They've been mere stenographers and megaphones for power doing wrong.
Thanks for the investigative reporting. Trump has lied almost 11,000 times, so I think nobody expects the truth from The Trump
Administration anytime soon. Especially if it goes against the narrative.
And this just in. A UK government official has just stated, related to the Iranian tanker stopped near Gibraltar, the UK will
not be part of Trump's 'maximum pressure' gambit on Iran. We shall see if Boris Johnson is for or against that policy.
OK, so why did the Brits go along with it? Are they so stupid as to not figure out that Iran might respond in kind, or did the
Brits not also want war?
John Bolton has been desperate for a war with Iran for decades. This is just another escalation in his desperate attempt to
get one. He's the classic neocon chicken hawk who is bravely ready to risk and sacrifice other people's lives at the drop of a
hat.
Since UK is abusing its control of Gibraltar by behaving like a thug, maybe it is better for the international community to
support an independent state of Gibraltar, or at least let Spain has it. It will be better for world peace.
While I agree with the gist of the article, remember that Bolton has no authority except that which is given to him.
So stop blaming Bolton. Blame Trump.
The provocations will go on and on until Iran shoots back and then Wash. will get the war it's been trying to start for some time
now to pay back all those campaign donors who will profit from another war.
The MIC needs constant wars to use up munitions so
new ones can be manufactured. It's really just about business and politicians working together for mutual benefit to keep those
contributions coming in. With all the other issues facing America, a war with Iran will just add to the end of the USA which is
coming faster than you think.
Fascism involved population mobilization in the face of the crisis. It can't emerge out of nothing. There should be a social
crisis like current gradual collapse of neoliberalism.
The second observation is that there is nothing special about fascism. It is just extension of method of controlling the economy
and population during the war into peaceful period. As such, it is not a black and white phenomenon and there can be shades of grey
in fascism too. Methods can vary between different nations considerably.
As or the USA sliding into fascism there is no need to that. Existence of super-powerful intelligence agencies makes
fascism with its methods redundant for the control of the economy and the population during the crisis. Inverted totalitarism
is the motto of the day. In a way intelligence agencies can be viewed as modern day fascist party with permanent well paid party
members (the prototype of such party was the core of Bolshevik party which consisted of "professional revolutionaries" who did not
shy from terrorist methods much like intelligence agencies like CIA) and powerful financial support from the state.
Powerful intelligence agencies are incompatible with democracy and on national level in the USA democracy is a sham. It simply a
Potemkin village hiding the rule of financial oligarchy (and associated military industrial complex and Silicon Valley perverts) via
inverted totalitarism mechanism. Only if we view inverted totalitarism as a flavor of fascism )which is questionable as
at the core of fascism is mass mobilization (think "Trump rallies" as a parody on that: "history repeats itself: first as tragedy
the second as farce") , which inverted totalitarism tries to avoid at all costs) we can talk about the USA fascism.
Inverted totalitarism is much more sophisticated method of ruling population during the crisis them classic fascism and it has
several advantages over fascism. Existence of powerful intelligence agencies makes creation of national far right nationalist
party with charismatic leader redundant: they are such a party and they are already in power. So in a way, the elections or
coup d'état to bring fascist leadership in power are simply redundant.
But if we talk about forceful rejection of the current corrupt democratic system )and neoliberal globalization pushed by corrupt
neoliberal elite) by population in favor of more autocratic rule we can talk about modern fascism as a reaction of the crisis
of neoliberalism. Revival of far right movement (which actually are not national-socialist, but neoliberal-socialist -- big
difference) and far right parties in Europe attest that such elements of fascism are still in play.
Notable quotes:
"... fascist deliverables often have excellent symbolism -- graphic treatments especially -- fascism is about more than symbols, although you might not know it from the ruminations of our symbol-manipulating political class. ..."
"... Until the end of the nineteenth century, most political thinkers believed that widening the vote would inevitably benefit democracy and socialism. ..."
"... The populist leader to complete the road to fascism generally has to come out of a democratic process. They get voted into power by a disgruntled populace and by the time the populace realizes they have made a pact with the devil, power has been consolidated and there is no going back. ..."
"... The Tea Party was a warning shot across the bow where the Republican Party itself was helpless to prevent establishment candidates from being primaried. ..."
"... That leaves the door open for a Trump to come in announcing he will cut the Gordian knot with the sword of his personality "I am the only one who can .." ..."
"... Can a Trump do an end run on a paralyzed Congress to take over? Hitler did it in 1933. Is our Constitution and the defenders of it engaged and strong enough to prevent it? ..."
"... If you agree on the definition of fascism (I like the second), and you agree there are stages of fascism, the question becomes what phase are we in? I say phase two. ..."
"... Fascism is nationalist, but not all nationalism is fascism. Nor does it have to inevitably evolve into fascism. Economic protectionism also has a long history, and very little of that is fascist. I think that what we're seeing is just a bog-standard right-wing nationalist reaction to the demonstrable damage of globalization, enabled by the complete dereliction of duty by the left. Liberal cynics and ignorant useful idiots can cry 'fascism' all they want, but their whining isn't going to just magically make these nationalist movements genuinely fascist. ..."
"... Read Paxton's paper, or better yet download The Anatomy of Fascism (2004). (It's free if you Google around). It is not a challenging read, and as you progress the deja vu gets increasingly unnerving. ..."
"... Mobilized society around the State as a quasi-religious deity works, and as long as it can be sustained as long as a flow of enemies endures. What else is a soccer club after all? Below the surface, such a consolidation of power would be driven by an oligarchy, eventually yielding a Czar-like creature, but whomever will need to justify their excesses. ..."
"... Americans claim to be patriotic and hang flags in front of their houses but you don't see them lining up to join the military. ..."
"... Inverted totalitarianism is what we have now and Trump is just a bit player as are we all. When it finally breaks down we are more likely to have chaos than goose stepping regiments. ..."
"... Fascism is just rich people hiring thugs. The richer they are, the more thugs they can hire. ..."
"... That could be feudalism as well, as I'm sure Gramsci would be the first to admit. Do you actually want to move to Stage Three? ..."
The word "fascism" has been much in the news of
late. Here is a chart of the year 2019 from Google Trends:
Interestingly, usage is more or less flat until the first spike, when
President Trump put tanks on the National Mall for July 4
, and then a second, larger spike, when he gave
his Greenville, NC speech, and the crowd chanted, of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of
Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, "
send
them back
." Omar reacted as follows:
... ... ...
Omar is a serious person and that's a serious charge, so it's worth looking at. Certainly my left/work
corner of the Twittersphere was consumed by the word "fascism," to the extent that RussiaRussiaRussia was
drowned out. Notably, however, the two spikes, and the resulting moral panic, were caused by symbols: Tanks on
the mall, and a speech. (Interestingly, words about the border, like "concentration camps," and "fascism"
do
not
spike simultaneously
, even though one might expect them to. We'll see more about symbols in
the Appendices.) However, although fascist deliverables often have excellent symbolism -- graphic treatments
especially -- fascism is about more than symbols, although you might not know it from the ruminations of our
symbol-manipulating political class.
So I thought it would be worthwhile to take a deeper look at the work of
Columbia
historian
Robert O. Paxton
,
who is a scholar of fascism. Basically, this post will be the notes for the class I wish I had taken with him;
Paxton writes as lucidly as another great scholar of fascism, Richard J. Evans, author of
The Coming of the
Third Reich
and two wonderful successor volumes. I'm going to quote great slabs mostly from Paxton's
article "
The
Five Stages of Fascism
" (The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 1. Mar., 1998, pp. 1-23), but also
from his later book,
The Anatomy of Fascism
(2004). "Five Stages" is only 24 pages, and easy, so do consider reading it in
full, because I'm not really doing it justice; I'm leaving out all the historiography, for example.
And so to Paxton. I'm selecting passages partly when they contain useful ideas I just don't see in today's
discourse, but mostly to give us tools to assess the current "conjuncture," as we say.
Fascism and Democracy
From the
Five Stages of Fascism
, page 3:
The fascist phenomenon was poorly understood at the beginning in part because it was unexpected. Until
the end of the nineteenth century, most political thinkers believed that widening the vote would inevitably
benefit democracy and socialism. Friedrich Engels, noting the rapid rise of the socialist vote in Germany
and France, was sure that time and numbers were on his side. Writing the preface for a new edition in 1895
of Karl Marx's
Class Struggles in France
, he declared that "if it continues in this fashion, we
will conquer the major part of the middle classes and the peasantry and will become the decisive power." It
took two generations before the Left understood that fascism is, after all, an authentic mass popular
enthusiasm and not merely [1] a clever manipulation of populist emotions by the reactionary Right or [2] by
capitalism in crisis.
I think most "hot take" analysis by liberals would fall into the bucket labeled [1]; by the left, label [2].
I think the idea that democracy is, as it were, the host body for fascism deserves some thought. Certainly
there was no fascism as such until democracy was well advanced.
Fascism: Made in America?
From the
Five Stages of Fascism
, page 12:
But it is further back in American history that one comes upon the earliest phenomenon that seems
functionally related to fascism: the Ku Klux Klan. Just after the Civil War, some former Confederate
officers, fearing the vote given to African Americans by the Radical Reconstructionists in 1867, set up a
militia to restore an overturned social order. The Klan constituted an alternate civic authority, parallel
to the legal state, which, in its founders' eyes, no longer defended their community's legitimate interests.
In its adoption of a uniform (white robe and hood), as well as its techniques of intimidation and its
conviction that violence was justified in the cause of the group's destiny, the first version of the Klan in
the defeated American South was a remarkable preview of the way fascist movements were to function in
interwar Europe. It is arguable, at least, that fascism (understood functionally) was born in the late 1860s
in the American South.
(As an aside: It's probably coincidence, but Civil War tactics, especially by the time of the Overland
Campaign, were also a "remarkable preview" of World War I. Intuitively, I feel that fascism does not take hold
of the body politic without a lot of organic damage, whether in the entrenchments of the Civil War, the
trenches of World War I, or -- just possibly -- the opioid crisis, deaths of despair, and falling life
expectancy.)
Hitler's American Model
shows that Nazi jurists and lawyers came to America to research Jim Crow, and
thought very highly of the legislation; they saw Jim Crow as an example of modernity -- how advanced the United
States was. Of course, by their lights, Jim Crow was misdirected.
Mutability of Fascism
From the
Five Stages of Fascism
, page 4:
[Individual cases of fascism] differ in space because each national variant of fascism draws its
legitimacy, as we shall see, not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic
elements of its own community identity. Religion, for example, would certainly play a much greater role in
an authentic fascism in the United States than in the first European fascisms, which were pagan for
contingent historical reasons. They differ in time because of the transformations and accommodations
demanded of those movements that seek power.
And page 5:
Fascists deny any legitimacy to universal principles to such a point that they even neglect proselytism.
Authentic fascism is not for export. Particular national variants of fascism differ far more profoundly one
from another in themes and symbols than do the national variants of the true "isms." The most conspicuous of
these variations, one that leads some to deny the validity of the very concept of generic fascism, concerns
the nature of the indispensable enemy: within Mediterranean fascisms, socialists and colonized peoples are
more salient enemies than is the Jewry. Drawing their slogans and their symbols from the patriotic repertory
of one particular community, fascisms are radically unique in their speech and insignia. They fit badly into
any system of universal intellectual principles.
One result of the "Lost Cause" propaganda and the historiography of
the Dunning School
--
William Dunning, ironically enough, professed at Columbia as well -- is that the notion that there might already
have been an
American
Fascism (see above) is not available to us. Hence, we often see Nazis (and
generally Nazis, not even Mussolini) as the quintessential fascists. The argument can be made that
globalization has, in fact, created fascism of export -- some in my Twitterverse had no problem believing that
Trump was simultaneously a Russian puppet
and
a fascist -- but I just don't see how that helps fascism
to root itself (see below) in any given country, which is a requirement for it to grow.
The Stages of Fascism
From the
Five Stages of Fascism
, page 11:
But one must compare what is comparable. A regime where fascism exercises power is hardly comparable to a
sect of dissident intellectuals. We must distinguish the different stages of fascism in time. It has long
been standard to point to the difference between movements and regimes. I believe we can usefully
distinguish more stages than that, if we look clearly at the very different sociopolitical processes
involved in each stage. I propose to isolate five of them:
(1) the initial creation of fascist
movements; (2) their rooting as parties in a political system; (3) the acquisition of power; (4) the
exercise of power; and, finally, in the longer term, (5) radicalization or entropy
.
And stage 2, the importance of parties, pages 12-13:
The second stage -- rooting, in which a fascist movement becomes a party capable of acting decisively on the
political scene -- happens relatively rarely. At this stage, comparison becomes rewarding: one can contrast
successes with failures.
Success depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a
liberal state, whose inadequacies seems to condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and
political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to
accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner
. Some fascist leaders, in their turn, are
willing to reposition their movements in alliances with these frightened conservatives, a step that pays
handsomely in political power, at the cost of disaffection among some of the early antibourgeois militants.
That underlined portion does seem familar, doesn't it? However, it's worth noting that there's no "seem" to
American decline; how is a nation with dropping life expectancy not in decline? It's also worth noting that
"frightened conservatives" doesn't necessarily equal Republicans; it was not, after all, the Republican Party
that painted the anti-semitism target on Ilhan Omar's back. It's worth asking, then, whether centrist Democrats
would seek a bipartisan alliance against the left.
Where is the "fascism minimum" in all this? Has generic fascism evaporated in this analysis? It is by a
functional definition of fascism that we can escape from these quandaries.
Fascism is a system of
political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in
which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline
. Its complex tensions
(political revolution versus social restoration, order versus aggressive expansionism, mass enthusiasm
versus civic submission) are hard to understand solely by reading its propaganda. One must observe it in
daily operation .
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community
decline, humiliation, or victim- hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a
mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with
traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical
or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Speaking as an amateur, I think the two definitions map to each other, and both to the present day ("liberal
democracy stands accused" v. "abandons democratic liberties," but I like the second one much better, because
the language is crisper, and is testable. For example, "redemptive violence": During Reconstruction, the states
that came under control of the former Slave Power, a process achieved by great violence, were referred to as
"redeemed."
More from the
Five Stages of Fascism
, page 23:
Can fascism still exist today, in spite of the humiliating defeat of Hitler and Mussolini, the declining
availability of the war option in a nuclear age, the seemingly irreversible globalization of the economy,
and the triumph of in- dividualistic consumerism? After ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the rise of
exclusionary nationalisms in postcommunist Eastern Europe, the "skinhead" phenomenon in Britain, Germany,
Scandinavia, and Italy, and the election of `
Mirko Tremaglia, a veteran of the Republic of Salo, as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
Italian Parliament during the Berlusconi government, it would be hard to answer "no" to that question.
The most interesting cases today, however, are not those that imitate the exotic colored-shirt movements
of an earlier generation. New functional equivalents of fascism would probably work best, as George Orwell
reminded us, clad in the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and time. An authentically popular
fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black; in Western Europe, secular and antisemitic, or
more probably, these days, anti-Islamic; in Russia and Eastern Europe, religious, antisemitic, and
slavophile.
We may legitimately conclude, for example, that the skinheads are functional equivalents of
Hitler's SA and Mussolini's
squadristi
: only if important elements of the conservative elite begin
to cultivate them as weapons against some internal enemy, such as immigrants.
Rather prescient for 1998, I must say. (And much as I loathe black bloc, it may be that they have their
place in making these "functional equivalents" less easy to form.) Nevertheless, we do not have a "mass-based
party of committed nationalist
militants
," Yet. Paxton goes on:
The right questions to ask of today's neo- or protofascisms are those appropriate for the second and
third stages of the fascist cycle. Are they becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and
feelings and wield major influence on the political scene? [TBD] Is the economic or constitutional system in
a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities? [Yes] Is a rapid political mobilization
threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look
for tough helpers in order to stay in charge? [TBD]
It is by answering those kinds of questions,
grounded in a proper historical understanding of the processes at work in past fascisms, and not by checking
the color of the shirts or seeking traces of the rhetoric of the national-syndicalist dissidents of the
opening of the twentieth century, that we may be able to recognize our own day's functional equivalents of
fascism.
And from
Anatomy
, page 218:
Fascism exists at the level of Stage One within all democratic countries -- not excluding the United States.
"Giving up free institutions," especially the freedoms of unpopular groups, is recurrently attractive to
citizens of Western democracies, including some Americans. We know from tracing its path that fascism does
not require a spectacular "march" on some capital to take root; seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate
lawless treatment of national "enemies" is enough. Something very close to classical fascism has reached
Stage Two in a few deeply troubled societies. Its further progress is not inevitable, however. Further
fascist advances toward power depend in part upon the severity of a crisis, but also very largely upon human
choices, especially the choices of those holding economic, social, and political power.
Our immune system kills off little cancers all the time
; a metastatizing tumor takes a lot of effort to
create. Stage One fascisms are little cancers, killed off by a healthy body politic. Stage Two fascisms,
without treatment, will metastatize.
Conclusion
I think we're somewhere in Stage Two: Rooting -- or, to be optimistic,
Up
rooting. I invite the views
of readers!
APPENDIX I: "Cosmopolitan"
Stoller tweeted, of a speech by possible Trump 2.0 Josh Hawley:
Then ensued the most moralizing and banal Twitter discussion I've seen in some time, and that's saying
something. Hawley used the word "cosmopolitican" (
Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry here
), which Stoller's detractors felt proved Hawley was sending an
anti-semitic dog whistle, and hence Stoller, in defending him, was an anti-semite too. (Paxton: "not by
checking the color of the shirts or seeking traces of the rhetoric ."). To show how useless the entire episode
was, I'll quote The Nation's Jeet Heer:
Of course, the view that "all politics is based on a division between friend and foe" could be traced right
back to Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt,
whose doctrine that was
, and so
Heer
could be said to be sending an anti-semitic dog whistle. Of
course that's absurd, because context matters. Our symbol manipulating professional friends in the political
class would do far better to look at function instead of checking their
Index Expurgatorius
of words
suitable for censure and calling out. Liberals, and the left, have been calling out "dog whistles" for twenty
years, at least. It hasn't gotten them anywhere. Yet still they do it!
The populist leader to complete the road to fascism generally has to come out of a democratic process.
They get voted into power by a disgruntled populace and by the time the populace realizes they have made a
pact with the devil, power has been consolidated and there is no going back.
The Tea Party was a warning shot across the bow where the Republican Party itself was helpless to prevent
establishment candidates from being primaried. Gerrymandering and polarization means that quite a few people
on the right and left get into Congress and State legislatures simply by winning a primary. So blockades in
Congress started with small groups of people who could control if a majority vote was possible. Since their
positions are on the extreme end, no compromise is possible and the system seizes up.
That leaves the door open for a Trump to come in announcing he will cut the Gordian knot with the sword
of his personality "I am the only one who can .."
Can a Trump do an end run on a paralyzed Congress to take over? Hitler did it in 1933. Is our
Constitution and the defenders of it engaged and strong enough to prevent it? Can Congress with Mitch
McConnell in the Senate do it? Can the Supreme Court with John Roberts as Chief Justice do it?
"Certainly there was no fascism as such until democracy was well advanced."
What????? "Until 1922, Italy was a constitutional monarchy with a parliament; in 1913, the first
universal male suffrage election was held. The so-called Statuto Albertino, which Carlo Alberto conceded in
1848 remained unchanged, even if the kings usually abstained from abusing their extremely large powers (for
example, senators were not elected but chosen by the king)." (wikipedia)
Thus from 1870 to 1922 Italy was a not a democracy.
Under the Monarchical Constitution the King of Italy had exclusive power over foreign policy, which he
repeatedly used to engage in misguided and stupid colonial adventures in Africa. An huge insurrection in the
south was violently put down by the Piedmontese military, who also routinely shot strikers.
From 1922, when Italy became a republic, until 1923, when Mussolini took over, doesn't seem like a
"well-advanced democracy" to me.
As for Germany, you had the Freikorps running around assassinating prominent political figures like
Rathenau -- not to mention their earlier murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919 instigated by
the future Social Democratic President Friedrich Ebert himself. Strikers and demonstrators were also
routinely put down with bullets.
As the first elected president of Germany (1919-1925), Ebert presided over a bloody civil war and "used
the presidency's emergency powers a total of 134 times. " (wikipedia) Seven years later Hitler was elected
to head a coalition government with substantial financial assistance from Germany's wealthiest citizens and
industrialists and also the from Catholic church. And as everyone knows one of H.'s first acts was to
suspend parliament. You could hardly call Germany an example of well-advanced democracy either.
Excuse me, but I found this post really hard to follow. And I tried.
I think there is a definite growth in a certain very conservative strain of nationalism and a rejection of
free trade across the world but I don't see a connection to the points laid out by Paxton. What we've got is
something totally new that seems like a reaction to globalization (and neoliberalism) to people on the left,
but maybe isn't that at all.
Well, they're class notes on a difficult topic. If you agree on the definition of fascism (I like the
second), and you agree there are stages of fascism, the question becomes what phase are we in? I say phase
two. (It also makes denial harder, but recognition easier, if one concedes that the Reconstruction South was
fascist, indeed the first case.)
I'm of two minds on this. I get what you're saying, that fascism is a gradient, and not simply binary.
So Trump could be seen as a step along the road to eventual full on fascism. But that seems to just be
another way of saying he, and the current right wing movements, aren't actually fascist.
Fascism is nationalist, but not all nationalism is fascism. Nor does it have to inevitably evolve into
fascism. Economic protectionism also has a long history, and very little of that is fascist. I think that
what we're seeing is just a bog-standard right-wing nationalist reaction to the demonstrable damage of
globalization, enabled by the complete dereliction of duty by the left. Liberal cynics and ignorant
useful idiots can cry 'fascism' all they want, but their whining isn't going to just magically make these
nationalist movements genuinely fascist.
The right-wing is perfectly capable of being racist and ugly (in fact right-wing politics is incapable
of *not* being ugly) while still not being fascist.
Read Paxton's paper, or better yet download
The Anatomy of Fascism (2004).
(It's free if you
Google around). It is not a challenging read, and as you progress the deja vu gets increasingly unnerving.
The one element that Paxton mentions time and again is the role played by the state's economy. Fascism in
France, for example, did not take hold because their middle class were happy campers. Of course, after
Hitler invaded, the French fascists ascended to power anyway and became the Vichy government. Because
today's .01% have not shared their wealth with the middle class, it might not take much to tip the balance.
After reading this, I'd say the issue is a lacking consensus about what "democracy" is that starts the
problems.
That lack has been manipulated. That would be key to it being a potent foe against fascism.
For instance, I don't see anything approaching "democracy" where the even concept of "royalty" still
exists but, hey, maybe that's just me.
in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective
collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence
and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion
Such as using drones to execute people?
Does that read like a definition of the CIA? Or the Current "Deep State"?
It's nice that there's a historical precedent that lends itself to academic analysis and distillation: that
there are trends and history repeats itself. But, it's all just part of the human condition, and a widespread
and inclusive Democracy is a historical aberration, and hardly something with any history of enduring.
Putting all this stuff to one side, isn't America today just experiencing a moment as the wheel of history
turns? With progress, or just the natural passage of time, people and power always stratify, and there will be
those left behind; those seeking power will mobilize those left behind by blaming their blight on some "other,"
(preferably recognizable at a glance). It is, after all, in the fundamental nature of man to seek (ever more)
power.
Mobilized society around the State as a quasi-religious deity works, and as long as it can be sustained as
long as a flow of enemies endures. What else is a soccer club after all? Below the surface, such a
consolidation of power would be driven by an oligarchy, eventually yielding a Czar-like creature, but whomever
will need to justify their excesses.
This is what it seems the Romanov family was before their demise, as the
wheel turned yet again, when they got just TOO greedy in terms of the local gini coefficient and even WWI
couldn't keep the masses sufficiently distracted.
Just a thought. As implied by Paxton, I don't think these times are exceptional any more than America is.
Arguably fascism was an outgrowth of WW1 and the extreme nationalism and imperialism that preceded it.
It's hard to see anything like that now. Americans claim to be patriotic and hang flags in front of their
houses but you don't see them lining up to join the military.
It seems to me that what happened in the 20th
century was so very much of its time. Inverted totalitarianism is what we have now and Trump is just a bit
player as are we all. When it finally breaks down we are more likely to have chaos than goose stepping
regiments. Start hoarding those canned goods.
That the times are not exceptional is hardly reassuring.
The times seem to validate that those
who are ignorant of their history are often doomed to repeat it.
The signs of rising fascism can be
seen in US militia groups and the political influence of their NRA, the rise of violent White Supremacy
groups bringing together skinheads and sweet little college boys as we saw in Charlottesville. We have seen
the growing political left-right chasm urged on by Gingrich. Polls show public support for police
malfeasance and a report that 70% of Americans oppose holding US troops accountable for war crimes. The
caging of refugees – something being called out as concentration camps (which by definition they are in that
the concentrate all the immigrants in one spot) is already a fact of daily life. Members of the growing
"locker her up" police state are posting racists and sexist things on Facebook which violate their oath of
office. Yep! Nothing exceptional there.
Like pre WWI, the immoral, sex-trafficking US aristocracy is being led by a president who seems incapable
of leading and governing, but he excels at staffing his government with billionaire crooks and scoundrels.
The billionaire class has kept us in wars profitable to them, at the expense of the middle class just like
the Kaisers and Tsars that created 2 World wars. Then we have the monthly Trump rallies which mirror those
of Mussolini and Hitler. Just substitute red MAGA hats for brownshirts.
Yep, nothing exceptional, however until this week, the US press could not bring itself to use the "F"
word.
I would highlight, on the list of symptoms, the classic stereotypical element: fetishization of the
military. (With budgets to match).
And add to the list of causes/development-mechanisms (stages 2-3): circumstances of foreign relations that
make that fetishization logical.
To me this was the story of post-2001 USA, and perhaps with a politically-inverted reprise post-2016. It is
also where the role of mass media kindof stands out – pushing this dangerous process forward with an enthusiasm
I find disturbing.
Also these parts of the foundation for a fascist movement were built not just in the Bush era, but non stop
ever since, and they span party lines. Perhaps I would call it a nationalist revival, rather than outright
fascism. In this sense I am thinking it is in fact at stage 2, except the rooting isn't in a specific party,
but the institutional governing networks that are common to both parties. That there is disagreement between
the 2 parties about whom to "otherize" is perhaps fortunate, but one particular danger is that future
developments may resolve this disagreement, in which case only a major setback on the foreign policy arena
would remain on the checklist before the full pattern is liable to repeat itself.
> the rooting isn't in a specific party, but the institutional governing networks that are common to both
parties.
I've been groping toward a formulation like that -- it's clear, for example, that the institutional
machinery for rooted fascism has been developed on a bipartisan basis since at least 9/11, as the camps
controversy shows -- but now I'm dubious about it. I don't see how militants would work for something as
mushy as the Beltway network. You need a party, something to
belong
to. The KKK wasn't a
professional association, after all.
> You need a party, something to belong to. The KKK wasn't a professional association, after all.
Yes, that certainly shouldn't be overlooked, trying to understand political power of fascism via
populist appeal.
The flip side, maybe, has to do with asking whether broadcast media (and social media) do answer to a
Beltway network? This includes the think tanks (their less academic side) connecting media, govt,
politics, and business the post 9/11 hyper patriotic sentiment was guided by neocon policy advocacy
network plugging into cable TV media. The effect on business did happen to align with the nationalist
interests (unlike the debate over NAFTA, as a counterexample) ..
"And much as I loathe black bloc, it may be that they have their place in making these "functional
equivalents" less easy to form."
They don't. Because these functional equivalents aren't forming to begin with. Maybe they could in the
future; we certainly have plenty of broken veterans on the streets (though they seem to mostly just be killing
themselves, over a hundred thousand suicides in the last twenty years. I'm curious why American versions of the
Stahlhelms haven't formed. Maybe Americans just not doing collective action extends even to former 'Brothers in
Arms'). But as of right now there are no Weimar paramilitaries engaging each other in bloody street warfare. US
Nazis can't manage anything more than comically small gatherings that inevitably attract far larger counter
protests that shout them down.
And should that change, it isn't going to be the combination of overzealous edgelords and undercover cops of
black bloc smashing windows that challenges it.
Did you recently observe in another post the importance of seeing "Jim Crow as an example of modernity" – or
am I having a deju vu as I read this one? In any case, Jim Crow did indeed emerge and develop inside American
modernity. It never challenged modernity, but rather was designed by modernity's boldest proponents to
safeguard and advance it. The education policy of the Wallace administrations in Alabama – which were
unabashedly progressive – offer a notable case in point. But plenty of other cases are reviewed in the
remarkable book, Deluxe Jim Crow, by Karen Kruse Thomas. The 19th-century KKK was also part and parcel of a
modern America (at least, as the New South understood it), and by no means a rejection of it. It was during the
Progressive era, and not some period of reaction, that the link between the 19th- and 20th-century incarnations
of the KKK were forged by the politics of the Lost Cause, largely through interventions in art-culture. There
is a remarkable passage in Milton W. Brown's classic book, American Painting from the Armory Show to the
Depression (1955), pp. 85-87, in which he parallels the early 20th-century art theories of sculptor-critic F. W
Ruckstull (born Ruckstuhl) with the cultural program pursued some decades later by Nazi Germany. Ruckstull's
oeuvre included monuments memorializing both the northern and southern versions of the 'Civil War', though
arguably with more sympathy for the latter than for the former. Brown's assessment of Ruckstull's work as
"directly foreshadow[ing] the Nazi artistic credo" is as persuasive as it is disturbing. I can only fault him
for neglecting to connect that work to the ideology of Lost Cause into which it plunged some of its deepest
roots to find nourishment in the myths of "'native instincts'" and "'racial purity'" (p. 87). The issue of both
Jim Crow and his brother, the 'modern' KKK, from the Lost Cause requires no demonstration. That fascist Germany
produced not only an art almost indistinguishable from that of the Lost Cause, but also carried out social and
financial policies directly inspired by the Jim Crow models of segregation and convict-leasing, cannot be
doubted. But this line of descent is by no means extinct. I will close by mentioning that rehabilitation of the
reputation of Albert Speer, the notorious architect to the Nazi government and hence a powerful influencer of
its cultural as well as military policies, was one of the by-products of Postmodernism; which is to say, of the
decades of neoliberal hegemony and the 'new' identity politics that so far seems to have been quite successful
at underpinning it.
Just reread Nicos Poulantzas' "On the Popular Impact of Fascism" in anticipation of your post on Paxton.
Poulantzas was a Marxist political theorist with some connection to the Althusserians. Like Paxton, he wrote a
book on fascism:
Fascism and Dictatorship
. I took several things away from Poulantzas' essay on
popular impact. First, the impact of fascism wasn't uniform as far as "the people" are concerned. Fascists
infiltrated, took over, or created organizations of which some people, not others, were members, especially
political parties. Fascism, according to Poulanztas, never had much appeal among either the German or Italian
working class. It mainly appealed to members of the petty bourgeoisie (artisans, small-scale tradesmen,
relatively well-compensated employees, and state employees). Based on the above synopsis of Paxton's views, he
seems to have entirely overlooked this point. Poulantzas stresses, though, that the appeal of fascism
fluctuated wildly, gaining support until it revealed itself as an anti-popular movement, subsequently losing
popular support, and then gaining again owing to international affairs (the Anschluss, the war with Libya). I
doubt such fluctuation is reflected by Paxton's stages. Finally, Poulantzas notes a number of reasons why a
variety of different segments of the populace found fascism appealing: it offered a startlingly effective
solution to terrible levels of unemployment, it tapped into justifiable (if not justified) beliefs to the
effect that the nation was being treated as a second-class citizen in the international community, and it
offered solutions to problems attending delayed formation of a nation-state in both Germany and Italy. Perhaps
most importantly, Poulantzas closes his essay by noting that fascism had whatever popular appeal it had during
the time of its initial ascendance owing in part to failure of the left. The problem, as Poulantzas saw it, was
not that traditional right and left parties just couldn't get along, reached a stalemate, and were unable
govern (which seems to be Paxton's view). The problem was that the left in Germany and Italy were unable to
effectively organize working class people so as to bring about the fundamental changes in society that would
have benefited this class. A sort of power vacuum came about, which fascists were able to exploit. In any case,
those failures of the left also appear to go without mention in Paxton's account, which is understandable given
that his politics are likely quite different from those of Poulantzas.
I suppose an upshot of this brief comparison of accounts of fascism is that I remain a fascism skeptic. I
doubt the term currently applies to the situation in the US, even if it is qualified as 'stage two fascism.' I
doubt too that stage two or any higher stage was ever reached at any point in American history or within any
region of the US, including the post Civil War South. To the best of my knowledge, KKK activities were about
restoring the position of what amounted to a landed aristocracy by way of race-based terrorism. Horrible? Yes.
Unprecedented? Doubtful. A harbinger of 20th century fascism? Almost certainly not. For one thing (among many),
I doubt that the Italian fascists were really about restoration. The German fascists certainly were not. They
were radical revolutionaries, in their own way.
Thanks. This is a chain of logic that I can get down with.
There's something about the Paxton framework that just seems like, if one wanted to, you could drop it on
almost any contemporary society with an authoritarian bent. China if you stretched it. From there, Russia or
the Philippines follow easily enough. Then maybe Brazil, and why not all of Central America minus Costa
Rica. Etc.
In fairness, Paxton, in his " Anatomy of Fascism", does in fact discuss Fascism as practiced by Italy
and Germany in the 30s-early 40s in relation to authoritarian and totalitarian governments (Franco's
Spain, the USSR and Stalinism, Mao's China, etc.), and does indeed make sharp distinctions. My reading of
"Anatomy" points to Hitler's Third Reich and Mussolini's Italy as being quite
sui generis
, each
arising from "special" circumstances that share certain Eurocentric features, and that the concatenation
of events that solidified Fascism in each country then are so entirely different from the peculiarities
of today's advanced capitalist "democracies", that compare-and-contrast exercises, or ticking one or more
of five boxes or stages is a fool's errand. All organized societies will produce rabble-rousers and an
eager rabble to be aroused, and within those societies there classically have been a marginalized "other"
to serve as a rallying point for alleged causative agency in "national decline" or loss of status for a
majority. Don't want to minimize Trump's crude race-baiting and all, but let's remember Godwin's Law in
our attempt to fit Trump's foot into a fascist shoe.
Did the author actually swiped Orlov's idea of "The Five Stages of Collapse"? I'm not sure how relevant a
seven month graph would be when talking about fascism. Now if you have a twenty year one that might be more
impressive but Google Trends is just one narrow slice of society after all. If you want to talk about fascism,
I would be more impressed if he talked about Obama getting rid of habeas corpus in the US – something that goes
back a thousand years in legal theory and practice. And why talk so much about the bogey men of American
liberals – the KKK – when you actually had an actual American Nazi party called the German American Bund and
which drew an audience of 20,000 at Madison Square Gardens back in 1939. To get a full picture, you cannot
limit US fascism to American shores either but must consider them in context of America's foreign empire as the
practices of what happens in the empire come back home sooner or later. The torture employed overseas has made
its way back home and if you want to a direct influence, look at the militarization of US police as they
receive military gear used overseas. Without mentioning the empire's yin of a fascist yang, you will never get
a real comprehensive understanding of this subject in my opinion.
The KKK example by Paxton is perhaps a bit of a stretch, because following the failure of Reconstruction
and eradication of the Republicans, the resulting Democratic Party in fact neatly incorporated and served
white supremacy and concomitant black suppression; the Klan was – as it were – an extraparlimentarian
enforcement tool, sharing membership with local and state officials and community white citizens, and in
fact was subsumed within the Party over time.
Democrats served the interests of powerful white elites, and
pitted poor whites against black people for generations in order to maintain its political hegemony, and to
resist any kind of economic reform and betterment.
Because there is always the tendency to point fascism as a failure of "democracy" – instead of failure of
the establishment or the failure of fascists! – it shows there is no working consensus for what a "democracy"
is.
Whether or not you think Hawley was using a dog whistle by pointing to a "cosmopolitan" elite, it strikes me
as absurd that he is actually combatting the real powers that be. Here's a longer quote from the speech:
The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things
like place and national feeling and religious faith.
They regard our inherited traditions as oppressive and our shared institutions -- like family and
neighborhood and church -- as backwards.
What they offer instead is a progressive agenda of social liberation in tune with the priorities of their
wealthy and well-educated counterparts around the world.
And all of this -- the economic globalizing, the social liberationism -- has worked quite well. For some. For
the cosmopolitan class.
In case your curious, Hawley has
raised
over $1.6 million from the finance, insurance, and real estate sector for the 2020 cycle alone. He
may not have been using an anti-Semitic dog whistle, but it's clear that to him lefty adjuncts below the
poverty line are part of this elite while the FIRE sector, which could not be more in line with this
"cosmopolitan consensus" that he's inveighing against, are not. The other top contributors according to
OpenSecrets, in order:
-Other (?) – $1,606,786
-ideological/single issue – $1,516,586
-Misc business – $988,954
-Lawyers and lobbyists – $601,553
-Agribusiness – $464,414
for a grand total of $6,786,139.
That's just for 2020! Hard to see an industry that hasn't made off well in this cosmopolitan consensus.
This is relevant to the overall topic of fascism because gestures towards anti-capitalism were key to
fascist success in winning some popular support but once in power they put all their focus on breaking trade
unions, rounding up communists, and then cementing corporatist control over key industries.
His speech marks a notable shift among non-Trump people on the right, but reading the entire speech it's
clear that his real priority is acknowledging the damage done to gain votes from a primarily white base while
taking money from the people who did it. I don't know for sure but I'd bet he'd be more apt to include adjunct
professors below the poverty line in the cosmopolitan elite than companies like Cargill.
" some even doubt that the term fascism has any meaning other than as a smear word. The epithet has been so
loosely used that practically everyone who holds or shakes authority has been someone's fascist. Perhaps, the
doubters suggest, it would be better to just scrap the term." p.8
Then in footnote he writes the most credible support for this view:
Gilbert Allardyce "What Fascism is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept" American Historical Review
April 1979
Within the vast bureaucratic sprawl of the
Pentagon there is a group in charge of monitoring the general state of the military-industrial
complex and its continued ability to fulfill the requirements of the national defense strategy.
Office for acquisition and sustainment and office for industrial policy spends some
$100,000 a year producing an Annual Report to Congress.
It
is available to the general public.
It is even available to the general public in Russia, and
Russian experts had a really good time poring over it.
In fact, it filled them with optimism.
You see, Russia wants peace but the US seems to
want war and keeps making threatening gestures against a longish list of countries that refuse to
do its bidding or simply don't share its "universal values."
But now it turns out that
threats (and the increasingly toothless economic sanctions) are pretty much all that the US is
still capable of dishing out -- this in spite of absolutely astronomical levels of defense spending.
Let's see what the US military-industrial complex looks like through a Russian
lens.
It is important to note that the report's authors were not aiming to force legislators to
finance some specific project.
This makes it more valuable than numerous other sources,
whose authors' main objective was to belly up to the federal feeding trough,
and which
therefore tend to be light on facts and heavy on hype. No doubt, politics still played a part in
how various details are portrayed, but there seems to be a limit to the number of problems its
authors can airbrush out of the picture and still do a reasonable job in analyzing the situation
and in formulating their recommendations.
What knocked Russian analysis over with a feather is the fact that these INDPOL experts
(who, like the rest of the US DOD, love acronyms) evaluate the US military-industrial complex from
a market-based perspective!
You see, the Russian military-industrial complex is fully
owned by the Russian government and works exclusively in its interests; anything else would be
considered treason.
But the US military-industrial complex is evaluated based on its
profitability!
According to INDPOL, it must not only produce products for the military but
also acquire market share in the global weapons trade and, perhaps most importantly, maximize
profitability for private investors. By this standard, it is doing well: for 2017 the gross margin
(EBITDA) for US defense contractors ranged from 15 to 17%, and some subcontractors - Transdigm, for
example - managed to deliver no less than 42-45%. "Ah!" cry the Russian experts, "We've found the
problem! The Americans have legalized
war
profiteering
!" (This, by the way, is but one of many instances of something called systemic
corruption, which is rife in the US.)
It would be one thing if each defense contractor simply took its cut off the top, but
instead there is an entire food chain of defense contractors, all of which are legally required, no
less, to maximize profits for their shareholders.
More than 28,000 companies are involved,
but the actual first-tier defense contractors with which the Pentagon places 2/3 of all defense
contracts are just the Big Six: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynmics, BAE
Systems and Boeing. All the other companies are organized into a pyramid of subcontractors with
five levels of hierarchy, and at each level they do their best to milk the tier above them.
The insistence on market-based methods and the requirement of maximizing profitability turns out
to be incompatible with defense spending on a very basic level: defense spending is intermittent
and cyclical, with long fallow intervals between major orders.
This has forced even the Big
Six to make cuts to their defense-directed departments in favor of expanding civilian production.
Also, in spite of the huge size of the US defense budget, it is of finite size (there being just
one planet to blow up), as is the global weapons market. Since, in a market economy, every company
faces the choice of grow or get bought out, this has precipitated scores of mergers and
acquisitions, resulting in a highly consolidated marketplace with a few major players in each
space.
As a result, in most spaces, of which the report's authors discuss 17, including the Navy, land
forces, air force, electronics, nuclear weapons, space technology and so on,
at least a
third of the time the Pentagon has a choice of exactly one contractor for any given contract,
causing quality and timeliness to suffer and driving up prices.
In a number of cases, in spite of its industrial and financial might, the Pentagon has
encountered insoluble problems.
Specifically, it turns out that the US has only one
shipyard left that is capable of building nuclear aircraft carriers (at all, that is; the USS
Gerald Ford is not exactly a success).
That is Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding
in Newport, Virginia. In theory, it could work on three ships in parallel, but two of the slips are
permanently occupied by existing aircraft carriers that require maintenance. This is not a unique
case: the number of shipyards capable of building nuclear submarines, destroyers and other types of
vessels is also exactly one. Thus, in case of a protracted conflict with a serious adversary in
which a significant portion of the US Navy has been sunk, ships will be impossible to replace
within any reasonable amount of time.
The situation is somewhat better with regard to aircraft manufacturing.
The
plants that exist can produce 40 planes a month and could produce 130 a month if pressed. On the
other hand, the situation with tanks and artillery is absolutely dismal. According to this report,
the US has completely lost the competency for building the new generation of tanks. It is no longer
even a question of missing plant and equipment; in the US, a second generation of engineers who
have never designed a tank is currently going into retirement. Their replacements have no one to
learn from and only know about modern tanks from movies and video games. As far as artillery, there
is just one remaining production line in the US that can produce barrels larger than 40mm; it is
fully booked up and would be unable to ramp up production in case of war. The contractor is
unwilling to expand production without the Pentagon guaranteeing at least 45% utilization, since
that would be unprofitable.
The situation is similar for the entire list of areas; it is better for dual-use technologies
that can be sourced from civilian companies and significantly worse for highly specialized ones.
Unit cost for every type of military equipment goes up year after year while the volumes being
acquired continuously trend lower -- sometimes all the way to zero. Over the past 15 years the US
hasn't acquired a single new tank. They keep modernizing the old ones, but at a rate that's no
higher than 100 a year.
Because of all these tendencies and trends, the defense industry continues to lose not only
qualified personnel but also the very ability to perform the work.
INDPOL experts estimate
that the deficit in machine tools has reached 27%. Over the past quarter-century the US has stopped
manufacturing a wide variety of manufacturing equipment. Only half of these tools can be imported
from allies or friendly nations; for the rest, there is just one source: China.
They
analyzed the supply chains for 600 of the most important types of weapons and found that a third of
them have breaks in them while another third have completely broken down. In the Pentagon's
five-tier subcontractor pyramid, component manufacturers are almost always relegated to the
bottommost tier, and the notices they issue when they terminate production or shut down completely
tend to drown in the Pentagon's bureaucratic swamp.
The end result of all this is that theoretically the Pentagon is still capable of
doing small production runs of weapons to compensate for ongoing losses in localized, low-intensity
conflicts during a general time of peace, but even today this is at the extreme end of its
capabilities. In case of a serious conflict with any well-armed nation, all it will be able to rely
on is the existing stockpile of ordnance and spare parts, which will be quickly depleted.
A similar situation prevails in the area of rare earth elements and other materials for
producing electronics.
At the moment, the accumulated stockpile of these supplies needed
for producing missiles and space technology -- most importantly, satellites -- is sufficient for five
years at the current rate of use.
The report specifically calls out the dire situation in the area of strategic nuclear weapons.
Almost all the technology for communications, targeting, trajectory calculations and arming of the
ICBM warheads was developed in the 1960s and 70s. To this day, data is loaded from 5-inch floppy
diskettes, which were last mass-produced 15 years ago. There are no replacements for them and the
people who designed them are busy pushing up daisies. The choice is between buying tiny production
runs of all the consumables at an extravagant expense and developing from scratch the entire
land-based strategic triad component at the cost of three annual Pentagon budgets.
There are lots of specific problems in each area described in the report, but the main
one is loss of competence among technical and engineering staff caused by a low level of orders for
replacements or for new product development.
The situation is such that promising new
theoretical developments coming out of research centers such as DARPA cannot be realized given the
present set of technical competencies. For a number of key specializations there are fewer than
three dozen trained, experienced specialists.
This situation is expected to continue to deteriorate, with the number of personnel employed in
the defense sector declining 11-16% over the next decade, mainly due to a shortage of young
candidates qualified to replace those who are retiring. A specific example: development work on the
F-35 is nearing completion and there won't be a need to develop a new jet fighter until 2035-2040;
in the meantime, the personnel who were involved in its development will be idled and their level
of competence will deteriorate.
Although at the moment the US still leads the world in defense spending ($610 billion of $1.7
trillion in 2017, which is roughly 36% of all the military spending on the planet)
the US
economy is no longer able to support the entire technology pyramid even in a time of relative peace
and prosperity.
On paper the US still looks like a leader in military technology, but the
foundations of its military supremacy have eroded. Results of this are plainly visible:
The US threatened North Korea with military action but was then forced to back off because
it has no ability to fight a war against it.
The US threatened Iran with military action but was then forced to back off because it has
no ability to fight a war against it.
The US lost the war in Afghanistan to the Taliban, and once the longest military conflict in
US history is finally over the political situation there will return to status quo ante with the
Taliban in charge and Islamic terrorist training camps back in operation.
US proxies (Saudi Arabia, mostly) fighting in Yemen have produced a humanitarian disaster
but have been unable to prevail militarily.
US actions in Syria have led to a consolidation of power and territory by the Syrian
government and newly dominant regional position for Russia, Iran and Turkey.
The second-largest NATO power Turkey has purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems. The US
alternative is the Patriot system, which is twice as expensive and doesn't really work.
All of this points to the fact that the US is no longer much a military power at all.
This is good news for at least the following four reasons.
First, the US is by far the most belligerent country on Earth,
having
invaded scores of nations and continuing to occupy many of them. The fact that it can't fight
any more means that opportunities for peace are bound to increase.
Second, once the news sinks in that the Pentagon is nothing more than a flush toilet
for public funds its funding will be cut off
and the population of the US might see the
money that is currently fattening up war profiteers being spent on some roads and bridges,
although it's looking far more likely that it will all go into paying interest expense on
federal debt (while supplies last).
Third, US politicians will lose the ability to keep the populace in a state of
permanent anxiety about "national security."
In fact, the US has "natural security" -- two
oceans -- and doesn't need much national defense at all (provided it keeps to itself and doesn't
try to make trouble for others). The Canadians aren't going to invade, and while the southern
border does need some guarding, that can be taken care of at the state/county level by some good
ol' boys using weapons and ammo they already happen to have on hand. Once this $1.7 trillion
"national defense" monkey is off their backs, ordinary American citizens will be able to work
less, play more and feel less aggressive, anxious, depressed and paranoid.
Last but not least, it will be wonderful to see the war profiteers reduced to
scraping under sofa cushions for loose change.
All that the US military has been able
to produce for a long time now is misery, the technical term for which is "humanitarian
disaster." Look at the aftermath of US military involvement in Serbia/Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Syria and Yemen, and what do you see? You see misery -- both for the locals and for US
citizens who lost their family members, had their limbs blown off, or are now suffering from
PTSD or brain injury. It would be only fair if that misery were to circle back to those who had
profited from it.
The IASPS conference study group leader was a Zionist named Richard Perle, who attended as a
delegate from the American Enterprise Institute; while another Jewish neocon named Douglas
Feith attended as a representative of Feith and Zell Associates.
Both these individuals then emerged as key players in the Bush administration: Perle was
Chairman of George Bush's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, and Feith became Under
Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon's Policy Advisor.
They were joined by a long list of similarly Israel-first Zionists in the Bush
administration:
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary and campaign advisor;
Robert Satloff, US National Security Council Advisor;
Rabbi Dov Zekheim, Under Secretary of Defense and Comptroller;
Elliott Abrams, National Security Council Advisor;
Marc Grossman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs;
Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Director of
National Security Programs;
Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, a Pentagon advisor who sat on the Pentagon's
Defense Policy Board;
James Schlesinger, another Pentagon advisor who also sat on the Pentagon's Defense Policy
Board;
Robert Zoellick, the US's Trade Representative;
Mel Sembler, President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States;
Israeli citizen Ari Fleischer, official White House spokesman;
Joshua Bolten, Bush's Chief Policy Director;
Steve Goldsmith, Senior Advisor to the President and domestic policy advisor;
Mark Weinberger, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury;
Samuel Bodman, Deputy Secretary of Commerce;
Bonnie Cohen, Under Secretary of State for Management;
Ruth Davis, the Director of the Foreign Service Institute;
Lincoln Bloomfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs;
Jay Lefkowitz, General Counsel of the Office of Budget and Management;
David Frum, Bush's official White House speechwriter;
Ken Melman, White House Political Director; and
Brad Blakeman, White House Director of Scheduling.
The scene was now set: all they needed was an excuse to maneuver America into destroying
Iraq for the benefit of Israel, according to the plan which Perle and Feith had already helped
to map out.
"... That said, Germany's military readiness directly relates to the invasion threat from Russia Europe actually faces. I.e., ZERO. Washington should take note but of course it won't because there is no money in it for the American Merchants of Death. And the Generals inside the Pentagon just have too much fun fear-mongering about illusory existential enemies. ..."
"... As Politico recently reported, "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight ..."
"... Yet another U.S. mirror image. Because that is exactly how inside baseball works in the Pentagon acquisition system. von der Leyen as a European Hack is no worse than the Washington / Pentagon Hacks on the other side of the Atlantic. Note, MIC lifer and Raytheon parasite Mark Esper currently sitting in the Big Seat in the Pentagon. You can be sure that DoD reform is way down on his bucket list. ..."
Like all those soon to occupy positions of power in the EU, von der Leyen did not run in the
recent European elections for the position she is about to hold. She did not participate in the
debates in front of various national electorates. But she was chosen -- after the elections --
by the political class in Brussels, ostensibly for her faith in and loyalty to the European
superstate, and personally to the German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Another
report by the Rand Corporation , a think tank, revealed that it would take Germany a month
to mobilize in the case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States. Von der Leyen is
very unpopular in the German army , but very popular with the Eurocrats.
She's a fervent supporter of a European army and a "United States of Europe" -- the
ultimate qualification for being president of the European Commission.
But there is more to the von der Leyen story. As Politico
recently reported , "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest
instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative
contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight, and
whether a network of informal personal connections facilitated those deals."
The scent of corruption is a common element among those who are to hold key positions in the
European Union over the next few years. Josep Borrell, minister of foreign affairs for the
socialist government of Spain,
was fined 30,000 euros for insider trading. He is expected to hold the foreign policy post
in the European Commission.
Christine Lagarde, most recently chief of the IMF, was involved in the case of an
arbitration panel that awarded a massive payout to a French tycoon while she was the finance minister of
France. A special court for ministerial misconduct found her guilty of "negligence" but "waived
any punishment or criminal record, citing her 'international reputation' and role in dealing
with 'the international financial crisis.'" A marvelously L'état, C'est
Moi form of legal reasoning. Lagarde is expected to be the next president of the
European Central Bank.
The common threads of corruption, incompetence, and lack of accountability are what unites a
political class that has divorced itself from the concerns of the average European. In the last
days before her confirmation, von der Leyen pursued a charm offensive that included a commitment
to a "Green New Deal," a continuation of
an open borders policy , and a further deepening and enlargement of the European
superstate. This included the story of her having
offered hospitality to a Syrian immigrant who "now speaks German fluently."
Obviously von der Leyen would never have won the May elections running on an agenda like
that. But of course, she never had to run a campaign to win the votes of the peoples of Europe.
The campaign that she did run was premised on her having built "an extensive international
network in politics and business," as another Politico
story put it .
Von der Leyen thrived in the networking atmosphere of World Economic Forum meetings, where
she "serves on the organization's board of trustees," Politico noted, adding, "She's
also forged close ties to powerful figures outside the world of politics, most notably
Bertelsmann, Europe's largest media company, which owns RTL, the Continent's largest commercial
broadcaster, book publisher Random House and a stable of magazines."
A senior Green quoted for the article said her fluency in French has helped her establish a
rapport with the French political class that is unrivaled in Berlin.
It's clear that von der Leyen's domestic record appears to have had little effect on her
election -- what matters is that she is universally liked by the who's who. "What matters most
in these circles is the personal connection," said an adviser to the leader of one of the EU's
smaller member states.
Those who count and those who are to be ruled are not the same group of people. That seems
to be the essence of modern European politics: a political class and ideological cult that
masquerades as a competent technocratic elite, despite its long and disastrous history. Von der
Leyen's terrible record as defense minister meant nothing. Neither did Lagarde's record as head
of the IMF, where, for instance, the Greek debt crisis was transformed into a social
catastrophe. The deciding factor was their dedication to something that "those who count" are
committed to. Elections are merely a necessary, archaic ritual of legitimization.
Napoleon Linarthatos is a writer based in New York.
On Monday 22 July 1940, a major meeting was held at the Reich Economic Ministry in Berlin,
under the chairmanship of Minister Walther Funk, to discuss a directive issued by Hermann
Göring on 22 June, concerning the organization of a Greater European Economic Area under
German leadership. The Germans were well advanced with their plans for a post-war settlement.
One of the difficulties of planning lay in the fact that the Führer's aims and decisions
were not yet known and the military measures against Britain were not yet concluded.
What? A techno-managerial clique ruling the rest of us Great Unwashed (see "Deplorables")? It
couldn't happen here, could it? It's OK if they went to the right schools, isn't it?
Too much use if the word disastrous. Disastrous is what Wilhelm II did to the German empire.
This is not disastrous, but it is concerning like a rudderless ship.
Don't be asinine. Russia is not going to invade anything and has no claim on any part of
western Europe. The only thing the German military is good for is for sucking up additional
budgetary funds.
Another report by the Rand Corporation, a think tank, revealed that it would take Germany
a month to mobilize in the case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States.
For the sake of completeness, the Rand Corporation is actually a marketing arm of the
Pentagon fully funded by the U.S. government.
That said, Germany's military readiness directly relates to the invasion threat from
Russia Europe actually faces. I.e., ZERO. Washington should take note but of course it won't
because there is no money in it for the American Merchants of Death. And the Generals inside
the Pentagon just have too much fun fear-mongering about illusory existential
enemies.
Of course that does not dismiss the charges of cronyism and corruption associated with
Ursula von der Leyen. But re:
But there is more to the von der Leyen story. As Politico recently reported, "an
investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers
can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her
ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight , and whether a
network of informal personal connections facilitated those deals."
Yet another U.S. mirror image. Because that is exactly how inside baseball works in
the Pentagon acquisition system. von der Leyen as a European Hack is no worse than the
Washington / Pentagon Hacks on the other side of the Atlantic. Note, MIC lifer and Raytheon
parasite Mark Esper currently sitting in the Big Seat in the Pentagon. You can be sure that
DoD reform is way down on his bucket list.
The real story is that taxpayers on both NATO poles are played for chumps by the Power
Elites.
The Donald Trump Administration is looking more and more like George W. Bush's
Administration: a dumb clueless idiot surrounded by neocons.
Remember Donald Rumsfeld , Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton , George Tenet, Henry
Paulson, Paul Wolfowitz , and **** Cheney from the George W Bush Administration?
Tell me Trumptards, what's so "different this time" about Donald Trump hiring Bolton,
Pompeo, Mattis/Shanahan/Esper, Haley, Haspel and Mnuchin?
"... "President Trump's Cabinet is already rife with corruption, stocked full of former lobbyists and other private industry power players who don't seem to mind leveraging their government positions to enrich themselves personally. Esper should fit right in," ..."
"... The linkage between officials in US government, the Pentagon and private manufacturers is a notorious example of "revolving door". It is not unusual, or even remarkable, that individuals go from one sector to another and vice versa. That crony relationship is fundamental to the functioning of the "military-industrial complex" which dominates the entire American economy and the fiscal budget ($730 billion annually – half the total discretionary public spend by federal government). ..."
"... Raytheon is a $25 billion company whose business is all about selling missile-defense systems. Its products have been deployed in dozens of countries, including in the Middle East, as well as Japan, Romania and, as of next year, Poland. It is in Raytheon's vital vested interest to capitalize on alleged security threats from Iran, Russia, China and North Korea in order to sell "defense" systems to nations that then perceive a "threat" and need to be "protected". ..."
"... It is a certainty that Esper shares the same worldview, not just for engrained ideological reasons, but also because of his own personal motives for self-aggrandizement as a former employee of Raytheon and quite possibly as a future board member when he retires from the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is also about how US foreign policy and military decisions are formulated and executed, including decisions on matters of conflict and ultimately war. The insidiousness is almost farcical, if the implications weren't so disturbing, worthy of satire from the genre of Dr Strangelove or Catch 22. ..."
"... During senate hearings this week, Esper openly revealed his dubious quality of thinking and the kind of policies he will pursue as Pentagon chief. He told credulous senators that Russia was to blame for the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That equates to more Raytheon profits from selling defense systems in Europe. ..."
"... It is ludicrous how blatant a so-called democratic nation (the self-declared "leader of the free world") is in actuality an oligarchic corporate state whose international relations are conducted on the basis of making obscene profits from conflict and war. ..."
Mark Esper is expected to be confirmed in coming days as the new US Secretary of Defense. His appointment is awaiting final Congressional
approval after customary hearings this week before senators. The 55-year-old nominee put forward by President Trump was previously
a decorated Lieutenant Colonel and has served in government office during the GW Bush administration.
But what stands out as his most conspicuous past occupation is working for seven years as a senior lobbyist for Raytheon, the
US' third biggest military manufacturing company. The firm specializes in missile-defense systems, including the Patriot, Iron Dome
and the Aegis Ashore system (the latter in partnership with Lockheed Martin).
As Defense Secretary, Esper will be the most senior civilian executive member of the US government, next to the president, on
overseeing military policy, including decisions about declaring war and deployment of American armed forces around the globe. His
military counterpart at the Pentagon is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, currently held by Marine General Joseph Dunford who
is expected to be replaced soon by General Mark Milley (also in the process of senate hearings).
Esper's confirmation hearings this week were pretty much a rubber-stamp procedure, receiving lame questioning from senators about
his credentials and viewpoints. The only exception was Senator Elizabeth Warren, who
slammed
the potential "conflict of interest" due to his past lobbying service for Raytheon. She said it "smacks of corruption". Other than
her solitary objection, Esper was treated with kid gloves by other senators and his appointment is expected to be whistled through
by next week. During hearings, the former lobbyist even pointedly refused to recuse himself of any matters involving Raytheon if
he becomes the defense boss.
As Rolling Stone magazine
quipped
on Esper's nomination, "it is as swampy as you'd expect".
"President Trump's Cabinet is already rife with corruption, stocked full of former lobbyists and other private industry
power players who don't seem to mind leveraging their government positions to enrich themselves personally. Esper should fit right
in," wrote Rolling Stone.
The linkage between officials in US government, the Pentagon and private manufacturers is a notorious example of "revolving
door". It is not unusual, or even remarkable, that individuals go from one sector to another and vice versa. That crony relationship
is fundamental to the functioning of the "military-industrial complex" which dominates the entire American economy and the fiscal
budget ($730 billion annually – half the total discretionary public spend by federal government).
Nevertheless, Esper is a particularly brazen embodiment of the revolving-door's seamless connection.
Raytheon is a $25 billion company whose business is all about selling missile-defense systems. Its products have been deployed
in dozens of countries, including in the Middle East, as well as Japan, Romania and, as of next year, Poland. It is in Raytheon's
vital vested interest to capitalize on alleged security threats from Iran, Russia, China and North Korea in order to sell "defense"
systems to nations that then perceive a "threat" and need to be "protected".
It is a certainty that Esper shares the same worldview, not just for engrained ideological reasons, but also because of his own
personal motives for self-aggrandizement as a former employee of Raytheon and quite possibly as a future board member when he retires
from the Pentagon. The issue is not just merely about corruption and ethics, huge that those concerns are.
It is also about how US
foreign policy and military decisions are formulated and executed, including decisions on matters of conflict and ultimately war.
The insidiousness is almost farcical, if the implications weren't so disturbing, worthy of satire from the genre of Dr Strangelove
or Catch 22.
How is Esper's advice to the president about tensions with Russia, Iran, China or North Korea, or any other alleged adversary,
supposed to be independent, credible or objective? Esper is a de facto lobbyist for the military-industrial complex sitting in the
Oval Office and Situation Room. Tensions, conflict and war are meat and potatoes to this person.
During senate hearings this week, Esper openly revealed his dubious quality of thinking and the kind of policies he will pursue
as Pentagon chief. He told credulous senators that Russia was to blame for the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty. That equates to more Raytheon profits from selling defense systems in Europe. Also, in a clumsy inadvertent admission
he advised that the US needs to get out of the INF in order to develop medium-range missiles to "counter China". The latter admission
explains the cynical purpose for why the Trump administration unilaterally ditched the INF earlier this year. It is not about alleged
Russian breaches of the treaty; the real reason is for the US to obtain a freer hand to confront China.
It is ludicrous how blatant a so-called democratic nation (the self-declared "leader of the free world") is in actuality an oligarchic
corporate state whose international relations are conducted on the basis of making obscene profits from conflict and war.
Little wonder then than bilateral relations between the US and Russia are in such dire condition. Trump's soon-to-be top military
advisor Mark Esper is not going to make bilateral relations any better, that's for sure.
Also at a precarious time of possible war with Iran, the last person Trump should consult is someone whose corporate cronies are
craving for more weapons sales. The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture
Foundation.
The clichés poured forth from Milley's lips with all the practiced smarminess of a
car salesman promoting a new line of pickup trucks. But what does this mean in practice,
Senator James Inhofe, Senate Armed Services Committee chair, wanted to know? What is General
Milley's top priority?
"The very number one for me," Milley replied, "is the modernization, recapitalization of the
nation's nuclear triad."
Now pause here for a moment. The triad -- the claim that the safety and security of the
United States requires a nuclear strike force consisting of long-range bombers and
long-range land-based missiles and missile-firing submarines -- represented fresh
thinking some 60 years ago. That was when ICBMs and Polaris submarines were entering service to
complement Strategic Air Command's fleet of B47s and B52s. If indeed "the fundamental character
of war is changing rapidly," how can it be that Milley's conception of originality is to field
glitzier versions of weapons dating back to when he was born? To make such a claim is on a par
with arguing that what the U.S. Army needed in 1940 was more horses and the U.S. Navy more
battleships.
It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military
officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.
Andrew Bacevich is TAC 's writer-at-large and a co-founder of the Quincy Institute
for Responsible Statecraft.
Wow! Finally! No retreat to the comfort of broad generalization like "the eilites" but rather
a well considered, on target consideration of one of the individuals in a position of power
and responsibility sufficient to make the absolutely necessary changes our remarkable
nation's health demands. Thank you!
And, if the general can't make use of well a intended and considered constructive critique he
is not the experienced, compassionate adult the task requires.
It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military
officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.
Professor Bacevich has this one exactly backwards. Notice that when the sanctified Pentagon
Generals make their fear-monger saturated pronouncements there is zero pushback from either
the Politicos or the lapdog MSM. It is not that they are not listening. It's that they fully
concur because they are intimidated by anyone wearing Stars on their shoulders.
They accept the "drivel" of the Pentagon Brass by default. BTW, which also includes the
includes the updated National Defense Strategy which has the U.S. playing belligerent Global
Cop in perpetuity and wasting taxpayer dollars out the wazoo.
If anything, the Congress and MSM should be paying more serious attention to the obsolete
and unaffordable pronouncements of the Generals and start questioning their own instinctive
deference to Pentagon authority which permits the warped, fully militarized and largely
failed U.S. foreign policy to continue as is.
I am not the first person to note that the US is displaying more and more symptoms of a dying
empire. To name a few; a broken political system, crony capitalism, a bloated military, use
of mercenaries, and unpayable debt.
The other day, while watching some general being interviewed, I noticed another symptom.
He, and other contemporary generals, have so many ribbons and metals on their chest that they
could be melted down for ore. I found a
site that lets me compare our beribboned commanders with those of yesteryear.
Civil War generals had few or no ribbons. World War I's General of the Armies Pershing
displays two rows of narrow ribbons. By World War II General Eisenhower showed three ribbon
rows. In 1950 General Bradley showed 6 rows ( you can see a detailed picture
here ).
The pictures of today's generals and officers are bedazzling. Just one example, The page
describing William J. Gainey, USA, Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman, JCS ( not even a
general ), shows a picture with at least 8 rows of ribbons, with a list 24 lines long
describing 56 awards after accounting for multiple awards.
As our military officers watch the country fall apart, at least they can fondle their
decorations.
Andrew J Bacevich does more for the long-term military strength and international standing of
the USA than much of the military and political leadership of this country. A true patriot.
That was amazing. "War is changing rapidly" coupled with "Most important: updating a 60 year
old weapon system"
Not a single world about figuring out why every war since Gulf 1 has been an abject
failure? Or the threat of our defense manufacturing infrastructure being sold by Wall Street
to China? Not a word?
The man can really talk out of both sides of his mouth, can't he? Should do great on
Capitol Hill...
Not sure how we got to this pathetic stage but my guess is that some of the pomposity is
directly related to the armies of press following the generals around in Iraq, e.g. petraeus,
et al
As a snarky comment, what in the world is with all of these "impressive" ribbons to the top
of these generals' shoulders-from what I understand, about 70-80% of them are meaningless,
only a few are for combat, valor, some are for merit, but are more or less automatic. Talk
about grade creep, how about ribbon creep.
Ike had about one or two rows, all meaningful awards. Marshall had maybe one row, meaningful
awards to a very competent general.
Those generals that came out of Iraq and Afghan were mostly mouth pieces for the press and
the politicians, i.e. drivel. None of them could win a meaningful engagement without bombing
the heck out of civilians and associated cities. In a word, pathetic.
Unless politicians feel pressure to act on military matters in a way that honors their or
their constituents' lived experiences, how are they to be incentivized to ask the right
questions? Some flavor of draft to increase stakeholders among the citizenry, or a service
requirement for government office, might realize the serious attention for which Mr. Bacevich
protests here, and drive the selection of better leaders.
To me for, both the nation and the military, we need to have an update of the high tech
weapon systems that the General talks about but we also need to have a reassessment of how we
fight wars. The wars the US won are (in my mind) the Revolution and WWII. I think the Civil
war was "lost" because although the US defeated the Confederacy it did not reunite the
nation. WWI was said to be the war to end all wars - - that didn't happen. No question that
both Korea and Vietnam were not won, despite the heroism of those fighting there - - those
wars were handled by Washington politics. MacAuthor could have won Korea but was fired. The
whole Vietnam was was managed by politics. Now to the middle east. Afghanistan is another
example of political warfare as is Iraq and potentially Iran. I believe that a war can be
partly won by high tech missiles, bombs, etc. but cannot be actually won except by occupying
the ground. We did this in Europe with the troops giving out cigarettes and candy as they
patrolled. That made them human to the previous "enemy". Our professional volunteer army
doesn't have the manpower to do this. I believe we need to have a secondary low-tech army of
drafted men and women who can be trained quickly to be able to follow commands, to use a
rifle with accuracy, and to be able to reduce civilian conflict without violent response. The
high tech folk require extended training, the low tech force is able to move in and actually
win the war. How would this help the nation? It would force people to live and work with a
diverse population and realize that we can be a single nation of people of different
backgrounds and ethnicity. The "fly over land" people really aren't a bunch of idiot racist
red-necks. The coastals are not (all) anxious to destroy America.
The US didn't just win in WWII because we occupied the ground. We won because we showed the
German people that we were happy to fire bomb entire ancient cities and indiscriminately kill
their women and children without a second thought.
And we were the good ones to surrender to. The Russians were happy to kill them all, with
the exception of a few pretty blonds who would henceforth bear strong Russian boys.
You can't win a war without utterly defeating an entire population. Which is why we can't
win our wars. None of these people have done anything to really harm us. And the American
people still have enough dignity to not just slaughter these people for no reason. We're not
entirely evil, yet.
I have always wondered what such people mean when they say that the character of warfare is
changing and the US has to adopt to such changes.
War is about 2 things; killing and destruction. That in a nutshell is the character of
war. Anything else may describe the complexities of tactics and strategies or the causes of
such conflicts but the actual features of any conflict are always the same.
The only thing that does change is the types of weapon systems used. The stupidity that
has led militaries to use them hasn't changed since the dawn of time...
"... If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments' scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into using such insects to disseminate biological agents. ..."
"... A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks. ..."
"... Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and for more funding for research into a cure. ..."
"... Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could provide information that could save lives. ..."
"... "We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said. ..."
The House quietly voted last week to require the Pentagon inspector general to tell Congress whether the department experimented
with weaponizing disease-carrying insects and whether they were released into the public realm -- either accidentally or on purpose.
The unusual proposal took the form of an amendment that was adopted by
voice vote July 11 during House
debate on the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bill, which lawmakers passed the following day.
The amendment, by New Jersey Republican
Christopher H. Smith
, says the inspector general "shall conduct a review of whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects
regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975."
If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments'
scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment
design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland
and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into
using such insects to disseminate biological agents.
President Richard Nixon banned U.S. government research into biological weapons in 1969, but research into protecting U.S. military
personnel from such agents may have continued, Smith said in an interview Monday.
A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible
connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks.
To Smith and other advocates of the Pentagon IG report, studying the past may provide data that can help stem the spread of Lyme
disease in the future.
Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said
Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and
for more funding for research into a cure.
"We need answers and we need them now," Smith said.
Smith's amendment was co-sponsored by Minnesota Democrat
Collin C. Peterson
, who is the House caucus's other leader, and by Maryland Republican
Andy Harris .
Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could
provide information that could save lives.
"We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that
is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said.
It remains to be seen whether Congress will send President Donald Trump a defense authorization bill with the weaponized ticks
amendment. The Senate has passed its version without any similar provision, and now House and Senate negotiators must reconcile the
two bills.
Jeffrey D. Sachs Trump is often called
an isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy is simply to rely more heavily on US economic power
than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization – and embodies its own brand
of illegality.
NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump has based his foreign policy on a series of harsh economic blockades, each designed to frighten,
coerce, and even starve the target country into submitting to American demands. While the practice is less violent than a military
attack, and the blockade is through financial means rather than the navy, the consequences are often dire for civilian populations.
As such, economic blockades by the United States should be scrutinized by the United Nations Security Council under international
law and the UN Charter.
When Trump campaigned for office in 2016, he rejected the frequent US resort to war in the Middle East. During the years 1990-2016,
the US launched two major wars with Iraq (1990 and 2003), as well as wars in Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011), and Syria (2012).
It also participated in many smaller military interventions (Mali, Somalia, and Yemen, among others). While the Syrian War is often
described as a civil war, it was in a fact a war of regime change led by the US and Saudi Arabia under a US presidential directive
called Timber
Sycamore .
None of these US-led wars (and others in recent history) achieved their political objectives, and the major conflicts have been
followed by chronic violence and instability. The attempt to force Syria's Bashar al-Assad from power led to a proxy war – eventually
involving the US, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates – that displaced over ten
million Syrians and caused around a half-million violent deaths.
While Trump has so far eschewed a new war, he has continued US regime-change efforts by other means. Trump is often called an
isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy, at least so far, has been to rely more heavily on US
economic power than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization. And it constantly
risks flaring into outright war, as occurred with Iran this month.
The Trump administration currently is engaged in three attempts at comprehensive economic blockades, against North Korea, Venezuela,
and Iran, as well as several lesser blockades against countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, and an intensifying effort to cut off
China's access to technology. The blockade against North Korea is sanctioned, at least in part, by the UN Security Council. The blockade
against Iran is in direct opposition to the Security Council. And the blockade against Venezuela is so far without Security Council
engagement for or against. The US is attempting to isolate the three countries from almost all international trade, causing shortages
of food, medicines, energy, and spare parts for basic infrastructure, including the water supply and power grid.
The North Korean blockade operates mainly through UN-mandated sanctions, and includes a
comprehensive list of
exports to North Korea, imports from North Korea, and financial relations with North Korean entities. The UN Food and Agriculture
Organization reports that ten million North Koreans are
at risk of hunger, partly owing to sanctions. "[T]he unintended negative impact sanctions can have on agricultural production, through
both direct and indirect impacts, cannot be ignored," the FAO warns. "The most obvious are restrictions on the importation of certain
items that are necessary for agricultural production, in particular fuel, machinery and spare parts for equipment."
The draconian US sanctions on Venezuela have come in two phases. The first, beginning in August 2017, was mainly directed at the
state oil company PDVSA, the country's main earner of foreign exchange; the second round of sanctions, imposed in January 2019, was
more comprehensive, targeting the Venezuelan government. A recent
detailed analysis
of the first round of sanctions shows their devastating impact. The US sanctions gravely exacerbated previous economic mismanagement,
contributing to a catastrophic fall in oil production, hyperinflation, economic collapse (output is down by half since 2016), hunger,
and rising mortality.
US sanctions against Iran have been in place more or less continuously since 1979. The most recent and by far most draconian measures,
introduced in August 2018 and intensified in the first half of this year, aim to cut Iran off from foreign trade. The US sanctions
are in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution
2231 , which endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The effects have been devastating. The International Monetary Fund
forecasts that Iran's economy will shrink by 10% between 2017 and 2019, with inflation reaching 30% this year. Medicines are in
short supply .
One might expect that other countries would easily circumvent US sanctions. But the US has threatened to punish foreign companies
that violate the sanctions and has used the dollar's global clout as a bludgeon, threatening to sanction foreign banks that finance
trade with Iran. European companies have fallen into line, despite the European Union's express desire to engage economically with
Iran. Over the longer term, it is likely that more ways will be found to circumvent the sanctions, using renminbi, ruble, or euro
financing, yet the erosion of US sanctions will only be gradual.
Despite the intense economic pain – indeed calamity – inflicted on North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, none of them has succumbed
to US demands. In this sense, sanctions have proved to be no more successful than military intervention. North Korea has maintained,
and most likely is expanding, its nuclear arsenal. The Iranian regime rejects US demands concerning its missile program and foreign
policies. And Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro remains in power.
The US blockades have been carried out by presidential decree, with almost no public debate and no systematic oversight by Congress.
This has been a one-man show, even more so than in the case of president-led wars, which trigger vastly more public scrutiny. Trump
realizes that he can impose crippling sanctions abroad with almost no direct costs to the US public or budget, and with virtually
no political accountability.
Military blockades are acts of war, and therefore subject to international law, including UN Security Council oversight. America's
economic blockades are similar in function and outcome to military blockades, with devastating consequences for civilian populations,
and risk provoking war. It is time for the Security Council to take up the US sanctions regimes and weigh them against the requirements
of international law and peacekeeping. Jeffrey D. Sachs , Professor of Sustainable
Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia's Center for Sustainable
Development and of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His books include
The
End of Poverty ,
Common
Wealth , The Age of
Sustainable Development ,
Building the New American
Economy , and most recently, A New
Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism .
As long as a country neither conducts a genocide, nor attacks other countries, nobody should interfere in its internal affairs.
If a country like Venezuela or Cuba goes broke due to its incompetent leadership, it should get help from the IMF etc. in exchange
for reforms as happens with any other country. Other than that it is their business whether they want to be socialist, capitalist
or whatever. That whole ideological crusade against leftist countries has to stop, it has cost millions of lives already.
And there is a simple way to stop Iran's activities in the Middle East: let's finally solve the conflict there after decades
during which the West simply looked the other way when land, water and oil were stolen from the Palestinians and others.
In my view the US has long turned into a rogue state. The rest of the world has to prune that country by working together and
isolating it. For instance, let's create a new global currency for commodities, the Com, in order to drive the dollar out.
Let's move the UN out of the US to a neutral, peaceful country, Switzerland for instance.
Sanctions are legal and based on national sovereignty and not a proper subject of scrutiny by an international body. Blockades
are subject to international law. By calling something which is legal by another term which may involve illegality one is guilty
of shedding false light.
Sachs thinks that if sanctions have the same effect as a blockade then sanctions are blockades. This is foolish. It is like
saying 'since a woman can get pregnant either through consensual sex or through rape, it follows that all fathers are rapists'.
Trump is carrying on policies previously applied. He has made no great innovation. It appears likely that no 'regime change'
will occur. That is why there is no real 'geopolitical' risk here. The effect of sanctions is to create a widening chasm between
regime 'insiders' and the great mass of the people. This has a demoralizing effect and reduces the ability of the regime to use
its brain-washed subjects for an aggressive purpose. In other words, sanctions reduce, not increase, the threat potential of a
bitter adversary.
Current sanctions attempt to effectively have jurisdiction over third parties, i.e. not the US, who would trade with Iran. ( that,
in full compliance with international law and a binding prior agreement to which the US is a party.) I am curious how you square
that with "national sovereignty", unless that is something over which the US has a higher priority than third parties.
As in all other times that are precursors to War, the laws of disparate nations mean nothing. We all have our own laws, to rule
our own geopolitical nations, which disserve the interests of other geopolitical nations.
Most recently, the WTO admits it is insufficient to resolve trade disputes among nations, and must change its hypotheses. This
is only another precursor admission that binding international laws are becoming irrelevant, and that we must "Start all over
again", i.e. the rule of the strongest, which means one state must conquer another before we can reestablish "Common Rule."
Economic sanctions are not tantamount to acts of war and should not be treated that way at the UN Security Council or anywhere
else. To do that would just leave acts of war as the only alternative in the case of serious disputes. But neither should nations
necessarily cooperate with sanctions they see as poorly motivated or poorly designed. In those cases, the best response is usually
technical -- new institutional arrangements that raise the costs or limit the effects of poorly justified unilateral sanctions.
it is the beginning of the end for the special role of the US$ in the world economy. Dethroning the US$ has now become a matter
of national security for 95% of the planet. Not that this would not have happened anyway, nothing lasts forever, but present events
accelerate the process.
This can be good for the US in the long run, if painful at first. One sometimes quips about the curse of natural resources.
US suffers from the similar curse of the Dollar, which is a natural resource of sorts, as it can be printed out of thin air, seemingly
without consequences. The dethroning of the US$ will cause a pretty significant, perhaps shocking, drop in living standards given
US social inequalities, but it may be beneficial in the long run by imposing some sobriety and discipline upon the political system.
Then, it could also break up the country for good. May you live in interesting times, as the saying goes.
Fortunately, the ability of the U.S. to do this is fading fast, as it loses its economic domination to China. So far, China has
shown rather less tendency to meddle in the affairs of other countries, with the notable exceptions of certain territories which
it regards as part of its territory. The world is slowly becoming fairer.
Add his violations of personal space of women and children and he's a perfect
candidate for a RICO prosecution, not POTUS.
Oh, well, Warren's on deck; and, if she goes down (no pun intended), there are the unsweet
sixteen or so more. Anybody but Bernie, Tulsi or Gravel is no doubt the hope of the
establishment, including the PTB of the Democratic Party.
Is Bernie perfect? God, no. None of them are, including Tulsi. Are Bernie and Tulsi evil? I
don't think so. I think, at worst, Bernie is doing what he thinks he must in order to represent
the people of Vermont and, if he can win, the people of the other forty-nine states, too.
I will not vote for anyone who I believe to be evil, but I will vote for Bernie or Tulsi in
the Democratic primary. If nothing else, that will mean one more vote against the rest of the
pack...
Ursula von der Leyen arrives clouded in scandal and ready to implement radical economic
policies that will stifle growth.
like Jean-Claude Juncker, she arrives in Brussels with a record of negligence in her country
of origin. Whereas Juncker was accused of failing in his duty to inform the Luxembourg
Parliament of illegal wiretapping by the intelligence service, von der Leyen was denounced for
mismanagement. In October 2018, when she was still Germany's minister of defense,
she admitted that her department had made mistakes in awarding contracts to external
consultants, amounting to several hundred million euros.
In 2012, Josep Borrell, former president of the European Parliament and former minister in
various Spanish socialist governments, was forced to resign from his position as president of
the European University Institute (UIE) following allegations of conflicts of interest. At that
time, he was receiving €300,000 as a member of the board of directors of the Spanish
sustainable energy company Abengoa, while at the same time promoting biofuels through the
institute.
Nevertheless, alongside von der Leyen, Borrell is about to be confirmed as the new head of
EU diplomacy. Another perfect candidate.
The scandal in Berlin is not the only reason the vote for Von der Leyen was narrow. It was
also that socialists and environmentalists weren't given sufficient trade-offs (in their eyes).
The European Union is all about distributing the large number of positions and policy
priorities between the involved parties, and in this case, the left felt shafted.
A source from the PiS party (the ruling party in Poland) told journalist Oskar
Górzyński of the media company Wirtualna Polska that it was a call from Chancellor
Angela Merkel that tipped some Polish MEPs over. What did Mrs. Merkel promise them? More
agricultural subsidies? The abandonment of the Article 7 sanction procedure against judicial
reforms in Poland? Only Merkel knows that and she won't tell.
Bill Wirtz comments on European politics and policy in English, French, and German.
His work has appeared in Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, CityAM, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and
Die Welt.
"... One pressure on Putin comes from the Atlanticist Integrationists who have a material stake in their connections to the West and who want Russia to be integrated into the Western world. ..."
"... We agree with President Putin that the sanctions are in fact a benefit to Russia as they have moved Russia in self-sufficient directions and toward developing relationships with China and Asia. ..."
"... It is a self-serving Western myth that Russia needs foreign loans. This myth is enshrined in neoliberal economics, which is a device for Western exploitation and control of other countries. Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists. ..."
"... Neoliberals argue that Russia needs privatization in order to cover its budget deficit. Russia's government debt is only 17 percent of Russian GDP. According to official measures, US federal debt is 104 percent of GDP, 6.1 times higher than in Russia. If US federal debt is measured in real corrected terms, US federal debt is 185 percent of US GDP. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/08/deteriorating-economic-outlook/ ..."
"... Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists. ..."
"... Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated" near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow, doubt it. ..."
"... This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is ... Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia. ..."
"... Trump is an ultra-zionist for Sheldon Adelson and prolongs & creates wars for the Goldman banking crimesyndicat. ..."
"... Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." ..."
"... You write about Russia but have not done your homework. Russia is very dependent on Western technology and its entire high-tech industry depends on the import of Western machinery. Without such machinery many Russian factories, including military ones, would stall. Very important oil industry is particularly vulnerable. ..."
An article by Robert Berke in oilprice.com, which describes itself as "The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News," illustrates how interest
groups control outcomes by how they shape policy choices.
Berke's article reveals how the US intends to maintain and extend its hegemony by breaking up the alliance between Russia, Iran,
and China, and by oil privatizations that result in countries losing control over their sovereignty to private oil companies that
work closely with the US government. As Trump has neutered his presidency by gratuitously accepting Gen. Flynn's resignation as National
Security Advisor, this scheme is likely to be Trump's approach to "better relations" with Russia.
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China. Should Putin fall for such a scheme, it would be a fatal strategic blunder
from which Russia could not recover. Yet, Putin will be pressured to make this blunder.
One pressure on Putin comes from the Atlanticist Integrationists who have a material stake in their connections to the West
and who want Russia to be integrated into the Western world. Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent
to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
We agree with President Putin that the sanctions are in fact a benefit to Russia as they have moved Russia in self-sufficient
directions and toward developing relationships with China and Asia. Moreover, the West with its hegemonic impulses uses economic
relationships for control purposes. Trade with China and Asia does not pose the same threat to Russian independence.
Berke says that part of the deal being offered to Putin is "increased access to the huge European energy market, restored western
financial credit, access to Western technology, and a seat at the global decision-making table, all of which Russia badly needs and
wants." Sweetening the honey trap is official recognization of "Crimea as part of Russia."
Russia might want all of this, but it is nonsense that Russia needs any of it.
Crimea is part of Russia, as it has been for 300 years, and no one can do anything about it. What would it mean if Mexico did
not recognize that Texas and California were part of the US? Nothing.
Europe has scant alternatives to Russian energy. Russia does not need Western technology. Indeed, its military technology
is superior to that in the West. And Russia most certainly does not need Western loans. Indeed, it would be an act of insanity
to accept them.
It is a self-serving Western myth that Russia needs foreign loans. This myth is enshrined in neoliberal economics, which is
a device for Western exploitation and control of other countries. Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
The Russian central bank has convinced the Russian government that it would be inflationary to finance Russian development
projects with the issuance of central bank credit. Foreign loans are essential, claims the central bank.
Someone needs to teach the Russian central bank basic economics before Russia is turned into another Western vassal. Here is the
lesson: When central bank credit is used to finance development projects, the supply of rubles increases but so does output from
the projects. Thus, goods and services rise with the supply of rubles. When Russia borrows foreign currencies from abroad, the money
supply also increases, but so does the foreign debt. Russia does not spend the foreign currencies on the project but puts them into
its foreign exchange reserves. The central bank issues the same amount of rubles to pay the project's bills as it would in the absence
of the foreign loan. All the foreign loan does is to present Russia with an interest payment to a foreign creditor.
Foreign capital is not important to countries such as Russia and China. Both countries are perfectly capable of financing their
own development. Indeed, China is the world's largest creditor nation. Foreign loans are only important to countries that lack the
internal resources for development and have to purchase the business know-how, techlology, and resources abroad with foreign currencies
that their exports are insufficient to bring in.
This is not the case with Russia, which has large endowments of resources and a trade surplus. China's development was given a
boost by US corporations that moved their production for the US market offshore in order to pocket the difference in labor and regulatory
costs.
Neoliberals argue that Russia needs privatization in order to cover its budget deficit. Russia's government debt is only 17 percent
of Russian GDP. According to official measures, US federal debt is 104 percent of GDP, 6.1 times higher than in Russia. If US federal
debt is measured in real corrected terms, US federal debt is 185 percent of US GDP.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/08/deteriorating-economic-outlook/
Clearly, if the massive debt of the US government is not a problem, the tiny debt of Russia is not a problem.
Berke's article is part of the effort to scam Russia by convincing the Russian government that its prosperity depends on unfavorable
deals with the West. As Russia's neoliberal economists believe this, the scam has a chance of success.
Another delusion affecting the Russian government is the belief that privatization brings in capital. This delusion caused the
Russian government to turn over 20 percent of its oil company to foreign ownership. The only thing Russia achieved by this strategic
blunder was to deliver 20 percent of its oil profits into foreign hands. For a one-time payment, Russia gave away 20 percent of its
oil profits in perpetuity.
To repeat outselves, the greatest threat that Russia faces is not sanctions but the incompetence of its neoliberal economists
who have been throughly brainwashed to serve US interests.
When Russia borrows foreign currencies from abroad, the money supply also increases, but so does the foreign debt. Russia
does not spend the foreign currencies on the project but puts them into its foreign exchange reserves. The central bank issues
the same amount of rubles to pay the project's bills as it would in the absence of the foreign loan. All the foreign loan does
is to present Russia with an interest payment to a foreign creditor.
Yes, correct. But this is an IMF rule, and Russia is an IMF member. To control its monetary policy it would have to get out.
Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important
to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
Oh dear, neolibs at their "finest"!
This "theory" is simply not true. If anything, Russians don't want the sanctions to be lifted, because this will also force
us to scrap our counter-sanctions against the EU. The agro-business in Russia had been expanding by leaps and bounds for the last
two years. This persistent myth that "the Russians" (who exactly, I wonder – 2-3% of the pro-Western urbanites in Moscow and St.
Pete?) are desperate to have the sanctons lifted is a self-deception of the West, who IS desparate of the fact that the sanctions
didn't work.
Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
Yes! Ulyukayev is, probably, feeling lonely in his prison. I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him
up?
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.
Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to
Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
Oh dear, neolibs at their "finest"! This "theory" is simply not true. If anything, Russians don't want the sanctions to
be lifted, because this will also force us to scrap our counter-sanctions against the EU. The agro-business in Russia had been
expanding by leaps and bounds for the last two years. This persistent myth that "the Russians" (who exactly, I wonder - 2-3% of
the pro-Western urbanites in Moscow and St. Pete?) are desperate to have the sanctons lifted is a self-deception of the West,
who IS desparate of the fact that the sanctions didn't work.
Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
Yes! Ulyukayev is, probably, feeling lonely in his prison. I say - why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him
up? ;)
I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?
Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated"
near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too
bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity
and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow,
doubt it.
If the US continues to antagonize Russia, Russia will have to grow even more independent, nationalist, and sovereign. At any
rate, this issue cannot be addressed until we face that the fact that globalism is essentially Jewish Supremacism that fears gentile
nationalism as a barrier to its penetration and domination.
This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is ... Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But
since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia.
Same thing with this crap about 'white privilege'. It is a misleading concept to fool Americans into thinking that the main
conflict is between 'privileged whites' and 'people of color'. It is really to hide the fact that Jewish power and privilege really
rules the US. It is a means to hoodwink people from noticing that the real divide is between Jews and Gentiles, not between 'privileged
whites' and 'non-white victims'. After all, too many whites lack privilege, and too many non-whites do very well in America.
I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?
Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated"
near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed.
Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against
humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine
face I, somehow, doubt it.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for.
It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom
why he hasn't done this already.
Does PCR really think that Putin is stupid enough to fall for Kissinger's hair-brained scheme? I mean, give Putin a little
bit of credit. He has so far completely outmaneuvered Washington on virtually ever subject. I'm sure he's clever enough to see
through such a crude divide-and-rule strategy.
The Russians can't be flummoxed, they aren't children. Russia and China border each other so they have a natural mutual interest
in having their east-west areas be stable and safe, particularly when the US threatens both of them. This geography isn't going
to change. Abandoning clients such as Syria and Iran would irreversibly damage the Russian brand as being unreliable therefore
they'd find it impossible to attract any others in the future. They know this so it's unlikely they would be so rash as to snap
at any bait dangled in front of them. And, as pointed out, the bait really isn't all that irresistible. It's always best to negotiate
from a position of strength and they realize that. American policy deep thinkers are often fantasists who bank upon their chess
opponents making hoped-for predictable moves. That doesn't happen in real life.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for.
It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom
why he hasn't done this already.
I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.
Partially, because Putin himself is an economic liberal and, to a degree, monetarist, albeit less rigid than his economic block.
The good choices he made often were opposite to his views. As he himself admitted that Russia's geopolitical vector changed with
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia–a strengthening of Russia has become an imperative. This comeback was impossible within the
largely "Western" monetarist economic model. Russia's comeback happened not thanks but despite Putin's economic views, Putin adjusted
his views in the process, his economic block didn't. But many of them still remain his friends, despite the fact that many of
them are de facto fifth column and work against Russia, intentionally and other wise. Eventually Putin will be forced to get down
from his fence and take the position of industrialists and siloviki. Putin's present for Medvedev's birthday was a good hint on
where he is standing economically today and I am beginning to like that but still–I personally am not convinced yet. We'll see.
In many respects Putin was lucky and specifically because of the namely Soviet military and industry captains still being around–people
who, unlike Putin, knew exactly what constituted Russia's strength. Enough to mention late Evgeny Primakov. Let's not forget that
despite Putin's meteoric rise through the top levels of Russia's state bureaucracy, including his tenure as a Director of FSB,
Putin's background is not really military-industrial. He is a lawyer, even if uniformed (KGB) part of his career. I know for a
fact that initially (early 2000s) he was overwhelmed with the complexity of Russia's military and industry. Enough to mention
his creature Serdyukov who almost destroyed Command and Control structure of Russia's Armed Forces and main ideologue behind Russia's
military "reform", late Vitaly Shlykov who might have been a great GRU spy (and economist by trade) but who never served a day
in combat units. Thankfully, the "reforms" have been stopped and Russian Armed Forces are still dealing with the consequences.
This whole clusterfvck was of Putin's own creation–hardly a good record on his resume. Hopefully, he learned.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy
for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot
fathom why he hasn't done this already.
He has not done it already because he just cannot let go of his dream to have it as he did in 2003, when Russia Germany and
France together blocked legality of US war in Iraq. Putin still hopes for a good working relationship with major West European
powers. Italy France and even Germany.
He still hopes to draw them away from the US. However the obvious gains from Import substitution campaign make it apparent
that Russia does benefit from sanctions, that Russia can get anything it wants in technology from the East rather than the West.
So the break with Western orientation is in the making. Hopefully.
You forgot to mention the "moderate" jihadis, including the operatives from NATO, Israel, and US. (It seems that the Ukrainian
"patriots" that have been bombing the civilians in East Ukraine, also include special "patriots" from the same unholy trinity:
https://www.roguemoney.net/stories/2016/12/6/there-are-troops-jack-us-army-donbass
). There has been also a certain asymmetry in means: look at the map for the number and location of the US/NATO military bases.
At least we can see that RF has been trying to avoid the hot phase of WWIII.
http://russia-insider.com/sites/insider/files/NATO-vs-Russia640.jpg
If the US continues to antagonize Russia, Russia will have to grow even more independent, nationalist, and sovereign.
At any rate, this issue cannot be addressed until we face that the fact that globalism is essentially Jewish Supremacism that
fears gentile nationalism as a barrier to its penetration and domination.
This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is Jewish Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But
since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia.
Same thing with this crap about 'white privilege'. It is a misleading concept to fool Americans into thinking that the main
conflict is between 'privileged whites' and 'people of color'. It is really to hide the fact that Jewish power and privilege really
rules the US. It is a means to hoodwink people from noticing that the real divide is between Jews and Gentiles, not between 'privileged
whites' and 'non-white victims'. After all, too many whites lack privilege, and too many non-whites do very well in America.
On the power and privilege that really rule the US:
"Sanctions – economic sanctions, as most of them are, can only stand and 'succeed', as long as countries, who oppose Washington's
dictate remain bound into the western, dollar-based, fraudulent monetary scheme. The system is entirely privatized by a small
Zionist-led elite. FED, Wall Street, Bank for International Settlement (BIS), are all private institutions, largely controlled
by the Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan et al clans. They are also supported by the Breton Woods Organizations, IMF and World Bank,
conveniently created under the Charter of the UN.
Few progressive economists understand how this debt-based pyramid scam is manipulating the entire western economic system. When
in a just world, it should be just the contrary, the economy that shapes, designs and decides the functioning of the monetary
system and policy.
Even Russia, with Atlantists still largely commanding the central bank and much of the financial system, isn't fully detached
from the dollar dominion – yet."
"I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this (nationalize the "central bank) already".
I read about a rumor a few years ago that Putin has been warned that nationalizing the now private Russian central bank will
bring absolutely dire consequences to both him and Russia. It is simply a step he cannot take.
How dire are the potential consequences? Consider that the refusal of the American government to reauthorize the private central
bank in the US brought about the War of 1812. The Americans learned their lesson and quickly reauthorized the private bank after
the war had ended.
Numerous attempts were made to assassinate President Andrew Jacksons specifically because of his refusal to reauthorize the
private central bank.
Here it is in audio form so you can just relax and just listen at your leisure.
*ALL WARS ARE BANKERS' WARS* By Michael Rivero https://youtu.be/WN0Y3HRiuxo
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to
force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired
in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.
Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.
Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
If the Left really rules America, how come it is fair game to criticize, condemn, mock, and vilify Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin,
Bakunin, Emma Goldman & anarchists, Castro, Che(even though he is revered by many, one's career isn't damaged by attacking him),
Tito, Ceucescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gramsci, Eurgene Debs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, and etc.
You can say whatever you want about such people. Some will agree, some will disagree, but you will not be fired, blacklisted,
or destroyed.
If the Left really rules, why would this be?
Now, what would happen if you name the Jewish Capitalists as the real holders of power?
What would happen if you name the Jewish oligarchic corporatists who control most of media?
What would happen if you said Jews are prominent in the vice industry of gambling?
What would happen if you named the Jewish capitalists in music industry that made so much money by spreading garbage?
What would happen if you said Jewish warhawks were largely responsible for the disasters in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
And what would happen if you were question the MLK mythology and cult?
What would happen if you were to make fun of homos and trannies?
Now, keep in mind that blacks and homos are favored by Jews as their main allies.
(Some say the US is not a pro-minority nation, but it's still permissible to criticize, impugn, and vilify Chinese, Iranians,
Muslims, Mexicans, Hindus, and etc. Trump was hard on China, Iran, Muslims, and Mexicans, and he got some flak over it but not
enough to destroy him. Now, imagine what would have happened if he'd said such things about blacks, Africa, homos, Jews, and Israel?
American politics isn't necessarily pro-minority. If it is, it should favor Palestinian-Americans just as much as Jewish-Americans.
Actually, since there are fewer Palestinian-Americans than Jewish-Americans, the US, being pro-minority, should favor Palestinians
over Jews in America. In reality, it is AIPAC that draws all the politicians. America is about Pro-Power, and since Jews have
the Power and since Jews are a minority, it creates the false impression that the US is a minority-supremacist nation. But WHICH
minority? Jews would like for us think that all minorities are represented equally in the US, but do Eskimos, Hawaiians, Guatemalans,
Vietnamese, and etc. have the kind of power & protection that the Jewish minority has? Do we see politicians and powerbrokers
flock to such minorities for funds and favors?)
So, what does it about the real power in America? So many 'conservatives' say the Left controls America. But in fact, an American
can badmouth all true bonafide leftist leaders and thinkers(everyone from Lenin to Sartre). However, if an American were to badmouth
Sheldon Adelson as a sick demented Zionist capitalist oligarch who wants to nuke Iran, he would be blacklisted by the most of
the media. (If one must criticize Adelson, it has to be in generic terms of him a top donor to the likes of Romney. One mustn't
discuss his zealous and maniacal views rooted in Zionist-supremacism. You can criticize his money but not the mentality that determines
the use of that money.) Isn't it rather amusing how the so-called Liberals denounce the GOP for being 'extreme' but overlook the
main reason for such extremism? It's because the GOP relies on Zionist lunatics like Adelson who thinks Iran should be nuked to
be taught a lesson. Even Liberal Media overlook this fact. Also, it's interesting that the Liberal Media are more outraged by
Trump's peace offer to Russia than Trump's hawkish rhetoric toward Iran. I thought Liberals were the Doves.
We know why politics and media work like this. It's not about 'left' vs 'right' or 'liberal' vs 'conservative'. It is really
about Jewish Globalist Dominance. Jews, neocon 'right' or globo-'left', hate Russia because its brand of white gentile nationalism
is an obstacle to Jewish supremacist domination. Now, Current Russia is nice to Jews, and Jews can make all the money they want.
But that isn't enough for Jews. Jews want total control of media, government, narrative, everything. If Jews say Russia must have
homo parades and 'gay marriage', Russia better bend over because its saying NO means that it is defiant to the Jewish supremacist
agenda of using homomania as proxy to undermine and destroy all gentile nationalism rooted in identity and moral righteousness.
Russia doesn't allow that, and that is what pisses off Jews. For Jews, the New Antisemitism is defined as denying them the supremacist
'right' to control other nations. Classic antisemitism used to mean denying Jews equal rights under the law. The New Antisemitism
means Jews are denied the right to gain dominance over others and dictate terms.
So, that is why Jews hate any idea of good relations with Russia. But Jews don't mind Trump's irresponsible anti-Iran rhetoric
since it serves Zionist interest. So, if Trump were to say, "We shouldn't go to war with Russia; we should be friends" and "We
should get ready to bomb, destroy, and even nuke Iran", the 'liberal' media would be more alarmed by the Peace-with-Russia statement.
Which groups controls the media? 'Liberals', really? Do Muslim 'liberals' agree with Jewish 'liberals'?
Anyway, we need to do away with the fiction that Left rules anything. They don't. We have Jewish Supremacist rule hiding behind
the label of the 'Left'. But the US is a nation where it's totally permissible to attack real leftist ideas and leaders but suicidal
if anyone dares to discuss the power of super-capitalist Jewish oligarchs. Some 'leftism'!
300 Words @Quartermaster
Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost
down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
Roberts is the next best thing to insane.
This is rich from a Ukrainian nationalist ruled by Groysman/Kagans.
First, figure out who is your saint, a collaborationist Bandera (Babiy Yar and such) or a triple-sitizenship Kolomojski (auto-da-fe
of civilians in Odessa). If you still want to bring Holodomor to a discussion, then you need to be reminded that 80% of Ukrainian
Cheka at that time were Jewish. If you still think that Russians are the root of all evil, then try to ask the US for more money
for pensions, education, and healthcare – instead of weaponry. Here are the glorious results of the US-approved governance from
Kiev: http://gnnliberia.com/2017/02/17/liberia-ahead-ukraine-index-economic-freedom-2017/
"Liberia, Chad, Afghanistan, Sudan and Angola are ahead of Ukraine. All these countries are in the group of repressed economies
(49.9-40 scores). Ukraine's economy has contracted deeply and remains very fragile."
Here are your relationships with your neighbors on the other side – Poland and Romania:
"The right-winged conservative orientation of Warsaw makes it remember old Polish-Ukrainian arguments and scores, and claim its
rights on the historically Polish lands of Western Ukraine"
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/01/17/poland-will-begin-dividing-ukraine/
" the "Assembly of Bukovina Romanians" has recently applied to Petro Poroshenko demanding a territorial autonomy to the Chernivtsi
region densely populated by Romanians. The "Assembly" motivated its demand with the Ukrainian president's abovementioned statement
urging territorial autonomy for the Crimean Tatars."
https://eadaily.com/en/news/2016/06/30/what-is-behind-romanias-activity-in-ukraine
And please read some history books about Crimea. Or at least Wikipedia:
"In 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. In 1954, the Crimean Oblast was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic by Nikita Khrushchev (a Soviet dictator). In 2014, a 96.77 percent of Crimeans voted for integration of the region into
the Russian Federation with an 83.1 percent voter turnout." You see, the Crimeans do not like Nuland-Kagan and Pravyj Sector.
Do you know why?
100 Words @Seamus
Padraig Does PCR really think that Putin is stupid enough to fall for Kissinger's hair-brained scheme? I mean, give Putin
a little bit of credit. He has so far completely outmaneuvered Washington on virtually ever subject. I'm sure he's clever enough
to see through such a crude divide-and-rule strategy.
well it depends. if putin is just out for himself, I can see him getting in bed with kissinger and co. if he is about russia,
he would not. that is how I see it. it isn't about if putin is smart or stupid. just a choice and where his royalty lies.
100 Words @Quartermaster
Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost
down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
Roberts is the next best thing to insane.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine.
How so? #Krymnash
Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves.
If by "decline" you mean "expects this year a modest growth as opposed to previous years" then you might be right.
I've been reading about Russia's imminent collapse and the annihilation of the economy since forever. Some no-names like you
(or some Big Names with agenda) had been predicting it every year. Still didn't happen.
Putin is almost down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid
now.
Can I see a source for that?
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
False equivalence.
P.S. Hey, Quart – how is Bezviz? Also – are you not cold here? Or are you one of the most racally pure Ukrs, currently residing
in Ontario province (Canada), from whence you teach your less lucky raguls in Nizalezhnaya how to be more racially pure? Well,
SUGS to be you!
@Quartermaster
Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost
down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
Roberts is the next best thing to insane.
Do you have any links to verify this that Russia is down to bedrock,from everything I read and have read Russia's do pretty
damn good, or is this just some more of your endless antiRussian propaganda,,
A scandal of a EU member Poland:
http://thesaker.is/zmiana-piskorski-and-the-case-for-polish-liberation/
Two days after he [Piskorski] publicly warned that US-NATO troops now have a mandate to suppress Polish dissent on the grounds
of combatting "Russian hybrid war," he was snatched up by armed agents of Poland's Internal Security Agency while taking his children
to school on May 18th, 2016. He was promptly imprisoned in Warsaw, where he remains with no formal charges to this day."
With the Poland's entry into EU, "Poland did not "regain" sovereignty, much less justice, but forfeited such to the Atlanticist
project Poland has been de-industrialized, and thus deprived of the capacity to pursue independent and effective social and economic
policies Now, with the deployment of thousands of US-NATO troops, tanks, and missile systems on its soil and the Polish government's
relinquishment of jurisdiction over foreign armed forces on its territory, Poland is de facto under occupation. This occupation
is not a mere taxation on Poland's national budget – it is an undeniable liquidation of sovereignty and inevitably turns the country
into a direct target and battlefield in the US' provocative war on Russia."
" it's not the Russians who are going to occupy us now – they left here voluntarily 24 years ago. It's not the Russians that
have ravaged Polish industry since 1989. It's not the Russians that have stifled Poles with usurious debt. Finally, it's not the
Russians that are responsible for the fact that we have become the easternmost aircraft carrier of the United States anchored
in Europe. We ourselves, who failed by allowing such traitors into power, are to blame for this."
More from a comment section: "Donald Tusk, who is now President of the European Council, whose grandfather, Josef Tusk, served
in Hitler's Wehrmacht, has consistently demanded that the Kiev regime imposed by the US and EU deal with the Donbass people brutally,
"as with terrorists". While the Polish special services were training the future participants of the Maidan operations and the
ethnic cleansing of the Donbass, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs made this official statement (02-02-2014): "We support
the hard line taken by the Right Sector The radical actions of the Right Sector and other militant groups of demonstrators and
the use of force by protesters are justified The Right Sector has taken full responsibility for all the acts of violence during
the recent protests. This is an honest position, and we respect it. The politicians have failed at their peacekeeping function.
This means that the only acceptable option is the radical actions of the Right Sector. There is no other alternative".
In short, the US has been the most active enabler of the neo-Nazi movement in Europe. Mrs. Clinton seemingly did not get a
memo about who is "new Hitler."
Do you happen to know anything about western financial giants' influence upon Russia's "Atlanticist Integrationists"?
It's low hanging fruit for me to take a pick, but I am thinking The Goldman Sachs Group is well ensconced among Russian "Atlanticist
Integrationists."
You guys are top seeded pros at uncovering Deep State-banker secrets. In contrast, I drive school bus and I struggle to even
balance the family Wells Fargo debit card!
However, since our US Congress has anointed a seasoned G.S.G. veteran, Steve Mnuchin, as the administration's Treasury Secretary,
he has become my favorite "Person of Interest" who I suspect spouts a Ural Mountain-level say as to how "Atlanticist Integrationists"
operate.
Speaking very respectfully, I hope my question does not get "flummoxed" into resource rich Siberia.
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead
.
Most likely the Spirit of Anti-Christ keeping them alive to do his bidding.
@Priss Factor
Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.
Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
If the Left really rules America, how come it is fair game to criticize, condemn, mock, and vilify Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin,
Bakunin, Emma Goldman & anarchists, Castro, Che(even though he is revered by many, one's career isn't damaged by attacking him),
Tito, Ceucescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gramsci, Eurgene Debs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, and etc.
You can say whatever you want about such people. Some will agree, some will disagree, but you will not be fired, blacklisted,
or destroyed.
If the Left really rules, why would this be?
Now, what would happen if you name the Jewish Capitalists as the real holders of power?
What would happen if you name the Jewish oligarchic corporatists who control most of media?
What would happen if you said Jews are prominent in the vice industry of gambling?
What would happen if you named the Jewish capitalists in music industry that made so much money by spreading garbage?
What would happen if you said Jewish warhawks were largely responsible for the disasters in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
And what would happen if you were question the MLK mythology and cult?
What would happen if you were to make fun of homos and trannies?
Now, keep in mind that blacks and homos are favored by Jews as their main allies.
(Some say the US is not a pro-minority nation, but it's still permissible to criticize, impugn, and vilify Chinese, Iranians,
Muslims, Mexicans, Hindus, and etc. Trump was hard on China, Iran, Muslims, and Mexicans, and he got some flak over it but not
enough to destroy him. Now, imagine what would have happened if he'd said such things about blacks, Africa, homos, Jews, and Israel?
American politics isn't necessarily pro-minority. If it is, it should favor Palestinian-Americans just as much as Jewish-Americans.
Actually, since there are fewer Palestinian-Americans than Jewish-Americans, the US, being pro-minority, should favor Palestinians
over Jews in America. In reality, it is AIPAC that draws all the politicians. America is about Pro-Power, and since Jews have
the Power and since Jews are a minority, it creates the false impression that the US is a minority-supremacist nation. But WHICH
minority? Jews would like for us think that all minorities are represented equally in the US, but do Eskimos, Hawaiians, Guatemalans,
Vietnamese, and etc. have the kind of power & protection that the Jewish minority has? Do we see politicians and powerbrokers
flock to such minorities for funds and favors?)
So, what does it about the real power in America? So many 'conservatives' say the Left controls America. But in fact, an American
can badmouth all true bonafide leftist leaders and thinkers(everyone from Lenin to Sartre). However, if an American were to badmouth
Sheldon Adelson as a sick demented Zionist capitalist oligarch who wants to nuke Iran, he would be blacklisted by the most of
the media. (If one must criticize Adelson, it has to be in generic terms of him a top donor to the likes of Romney. One mustn't
discuss his zealous and maniacal views rooted in Zionist-supremacism. You can criticize his money but not the mentality that determines
the use of that money.) Isn't it rather amusing how the so-called Liberals denounce the GOP for being 'extreme' but overlook the
main reason for such extremism? It's because the GOP relies on Zionist lunatics like Adelson who thinks Iran should be nuked to
be taught a lesson. Even Liberal Media overlook this fact. Also, it's interesting that the Liberal Media are more outraged by
Trump's peace offer to Russia than Trump's hawkish rhetoric toward Iran. I thought Liberals were the Doves.
We know why politics and media work like this. It's not about 'left' vs 'right' or 'liberal' vs 'conservative'. It is really
about Jewish Globalist Dominance. Jews, neocon 'right' or globo-'left', hate Russia because its brand of white gentile nationalism
is an obstacle to Jewish supremacist domination. Now, Current Russia is nice to Jews, and Jews can make all the money they want.
But that isn't enough for Jews. Jews want total control of media, government, narrative, everything. If Jews say Russia must have
homo parades and 'gay marriage', Russia better bend over because its saying NO means that it is defiant to the Jewish supremacist
agenda of using homomania as proxy to undermine and destroy all gentile nationalism rooted in identity and moral righteousness.
Russia doesn't allow that, and that is what pisses off Jews. For Jews, the New Antisemitism is defined as denying them the supremacist
'right' to control other nations. Classic antisemitism used to mean denying Jews equal rights under the law. The New Antisemitism
means Jews are denied the right to gain dominance over others and dictate terms.
So, that is why Jews hate any idea of good relations with Russia. But Jews don't mind Trump's irresponsible anti-Iran rhetoric
since it serves Zionist interest. So, if Trump were to say, "We shouldn't go to war with Russia; we should be friends" and "We
should get ready to bomb, destroy, and even nuke Iran", the 'liberal' media would be more alarmed by the Peace-with-Russia statement.
Which groups controls the media? 'Liberals', really? Do Muslim 'liberals' agree with Jewish 'liberals'?
Anyway, we need to do away with the fiction that Left rules anything. They don't. We have Jewish Supremacist rule hiding behind
the label of the 'Left'. But the US is a nation where it's totally permissible to attack real leftist ideas and leaders but suicidal
if anyone dares to discuss the power of super-capitalist Jewish oligarchs. Some 'leftism'!
What an amazing whoring performance for the war-manufacturers! And here is an interesting morsel of information about the belligerent
Frau der Leyen:
http://www.dw.com/en/stanford-accuses-von-der-leyen-of-misrepresentation/a-18775432
"Stanford university has said Ursula von der Leyen is misrepresenting her affiliation with the school. The German defense minister's
academic career is already under scrutiny after accusations of plagiarism." No kidding. Some "Ursula von der Leyen' values" indeed.
I doubt we'll see little change from the Trump administration toward Russia.
From SOTT:
Predictable news coming out of Yemen: Saudi-backed "Southern Resistance" forces and Hadi loyalists, alongside al-Qaeda of
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), launched a new offensive against the Houthis in western Yemen on Wednesday.
This is not the first time Saudi-backed (and by extension, Washington-backed) forces have teamed up with al-Qaeda in Yemen
.
Yemen is quickly becoming the "spark that lights the powder keg". The conflict has already killed, maimed and displaced
countless thousands (thanks to the stellar lack of reporting from trustworthy western news sources, we can only estimate the
scale of Saudi/U.S. crimes in Yemen), but now it seems that elements of the Trump administration are keen on escalation, likely
in hopes of giving Washington an excuse to carpet bomb Tehran.
Apparently, we feel satisfied fighting with our old allies, al-Qaeda and Saudis.
I think that the authors may be underestimating Putin in his determination to keep Russia and the Russian economy independent.
For example, I find this rumoured offer of "increased access to the huge European energy market" very funny, for at least two
reasons:
1) US wants to sell hydrocarbons (LPG) to the European market at significantly higher prices than the Russian prices, and
2) the current dependence of EU countries on the Russian energy would have never happened if there were better alternatives.
In other words, any detente offer that the West would make to Russia would last, as usual, not even until the signature ink
dries on the new cooperation agreements. Putin does not look to me like someone who suffers much from wishful thinking.
The Russian relationship with China is not a bed of roses, but it is not China which is increasing military activity all
around Russia, it is the West. Also, so far China has shown no interest in regime-changing Russia and dividing it into pieces.
Would you rather believe in the reform capability of an addict in violence or someone who does not need to reform? Would the West
self-reform and sincerely renounce violence just by signing a new agreement with Russia?
The new faux detente will never happen, as long as Putin is alive.
Trump is an ultra-zionist for Sheldon Adelson and prolongs & creates wars for the Goldman banking crimesyndicat.
The only one stopping Trump is Putin or Russia's missile defenses.
Indeed, Putin's main inside enemy is Russia's central bank, or the Jewish oligarchs in Russia (Atlanticists). Also Russia needs
to foster and encourage small&medium enterprises, that need cheap credit, to create competitive markets, where no prices are fixed
and market shares change. These are most efficient resource users.
In the US, Wallstreet controls government = fascism = the IG Farben- Auschwitz concentration camps to maximize profits. This
is the direction for the US economy.
Meanwhile in the EU, the former Auschwitz owners IG Farben (Bayer(Monsanto), Hoechst, BASF) the EU chemical giants, who have
patented all natures molecules, are in controll again over EU. Deutsche bank et allies is eating Greece, Italy, Spain's working
classes, using AUSTERITY as their creed.
So what is new? Nothing, the supercorporate-fascist elites are the same families, who 's morality is unchanged in a 100 years.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy
for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot
fathom why he hasn't done this already.
I would really love to like Putin and I am trying but him protecting all those criminals and not reversing the history greatest
heist of 90′s makes it impossible. While I am behind all his moves to restore Russian military and foreign policy, I am still
waiting for more on home front. Note, not only the Bank must be nationalized. Everything, all industries, factories and other
assets privatized by now must be returned to rightful owner. Public which over 70 years through great sacrifice built all of it.
Partially, because Putin himself is an economic liberal and, to a degree, monetarist, albeit less rigid than his economic block.
The good choices he made often were opposite to his views. As he himself admitted that Russia's geopolitical vector changed with
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia--a strengthening of Russia has become an imperative. This comeback was impossible within
the largely "Western" monetarist economic model. Russia's comeback happened not thanks but despite Putin's economic views, Putin
adjusted his views in the process, his economic block didn't. But many of them still remain his friends, despite the fact that
many of them are de facto fifth column and work against Russia, intentionally and other wise. Eventually Putin will be forced
to get down from his fence and take the position of industrialists and siloviki. Putin's present for Medvedev's birthday was a
good hint on where he is standing economically today and I am beginning to like that but still--I personally am not convinced
yet. We'll see. In many respects Putin was lucky and specifically because of the namely Soviet military and industry captains
still being around--people who, unlike Putin, knew exactly what constituted Russia's strength. Enough to mention late Evgeny Primakov.
Let's not forget that despite Putin's meteoric rise through the top levels of Russia's state bureaucracy, including his tenure
as a Director of FSB, Putin's background is not really military-industrial. He is a lawyer, even if uniformed (KGB) part of his
career. I know for a fact that initially (early 2000s) he was overwhelmed with the complexity of Russia's military and industry.
Enough to mention his creature Serdyukov who almost destroyed Command and Control structure of Russia's Armed Forces and main
ideologue behind Russia's military "reform", late Vitaly Shlykov who might have been a great GRU spy (and economist by trade)
but who never served a day in combat units. Thankfully, the "reforms" have been stopped and Russian Armed Forces are still dealing
with the consequences. This whole clusterfvck was of Putin's own creation--hardly a good record on his resume. Hopefully, he learned.
Smoothie, you seem to have natural aversion towards lawyers
Albeit, the first Vladimir, I mean Lenin also was a lawyers by education still he was a rather quick study. Remember that military
communism and Lenin after one year after Bolsheviks took power telling that state capitalism would be great step forward for Russia
whcih obviously was backward and ruined by wars at the time and he proceeded with New Economic Policy and Lenin despite not being
industry captain realized pretty well what constituted state power hence GOELRO plans and electrification of all Russia plans
and so forth which was later turned by Stalin and his team into reality.
Now, Lenin was ideologically motivated and so is Putin. But he clearly has been trying to achieve different results by keeping
same people around him and doing same things. Hopefully it is changing now, but it is so much wasted time when old Vladimir was
always repeating that time is of essence and delay is like death knell. Putin imho is away too relax and even vain in some way,
hence those shirtless pictures and those on the bike. And the way he walks a la "Я Московский озорной гуляка". As you said it
looks like he is protecting those criminals who must be prosecuted and yes, many executed for what they caused.
I suspect in cases when it comes to economical development he is not picking right people for those jobs and it is his major
responsibility to assign right people and delegate power properly, not to be forgotten to reverse what constitutes the history
greatest heist and crime so called "privatization". Basically returning to more communal society minus Politburo.
There is a huge elephant in the room too. Russia demographic situation which I doubt can be addressed under current liberal
order. all states which are in liberal state of affairs fail to basically procreate hence these waves of immigrants brought into
all Western Nations. Russia cannot do it. It would be suicide which is what all Western countries are doing right now.
Russia does not need Western technology. Indeed, its military technology is superior to that in the West.
You write about Russia but have not done your homework. Russia is very dependent on Western technology and its entire high-tech
industry depends on the import of Western machinery. Without such machinery many Russian factories, including military ones, would
stall. Very important oil industry is particularly vulnerable.
Some home reading (sorry, they are in Russian, but one ought to know the language if one writes about the country).
"... The "issue" in question was no small matter. Last year, Alptekin paid $530,000 to retired Lt. General Michael Flynn to lobby on behalf of Turkish interests ..."
"... But it later emerged that Flynn had failed to register as a foreign lobbyist for this work, as required by law, and that he was under federal investigation for his secret lobbying for Alptekin. ..."
"... He denied to ABC News that he and his company had represented the government of Turkey. (In his retroactive filing, Flynn noted that his work for Alptekin "could be construed to have principally benefitted the Republic of Turkey.") Alptekin blamed the "highly politicized situation" in the United States for the "misunderstanding and misperceptions" around his company and hiring of Flynn. ..."
"... Perhaps the in-fighting within the deep state will reveal more of their earlier machinations in the days to come. ..."
I have obtained new information that may offer some new insights into the Obama
Administration's covert action to entrap General Michael Flynn. This builds on my last piece--
The Obama Administration Manufactured the Case Against General Flynn. When this story is
finally told, I think we will learn that Flynn's FARA problems may have started with a CIA
officer, acting on the direction of then CIA Director Brennan, who enlisted the Israelis to ask
Ratio Oil Exploration (an Israeli company) to commission their partner, INOVO BV, to hire
Flynn's company. INOVO BV, out of the blue, asked the Flynn Investigative Group aka FIG, to do
a study of Turkish dissident Fethullah Gülen.
What Flynn did not know when he accepted the work is that INOVO BV apparently had
operational ties to the Government of Turkey and that all communications by INOVO's chief, Ekim
Alptekin, with the Government of Turkey were being "collected" by the NSA and disseminated in
U.S. intelligence channels. The FBI was monitoring these communications and used their inside
knowledge to pressure Flynn into a FARA filing which they could claim was "false."
The truth of the matter is that General Flynn did not know he was doing work for a Turkish
Government cutout. A basic due diligence search would show that INOVO was partnered with an
Israeli oil exploration company. No need to file under FARA given those facts. Michael Flynn's
consulting firm, Flynn Investigative Group, was hired by
Inovo BV :
To appreciate the diabolical nature of this plot, let us re-read the Mueller indictment of
General Flynn:
Other False Statements Regarding FLYNN's Contacts with Foreign Governments
5. On March 7, 2017, FLYNN filed multiple documents with the Department of Justice pursuant
to the Foreign Agents Registration Act ("FARA") pertaining to a project performed by him and
his company, the Flynn Intel Group, Inc. ("FIG"), for the principal benefit of the Republic of
Turkey ("Turkey project"). In the FARA filings, FLYNN made materially false statements and
omissions, including by falsely staling that (a) FIG did not know whether or the extent to
which the Republic of Turkey was involved in the Turkey project, (b) the Turkey project was
focused on improving U.S. business organizations' confidence regarding doing business in
Turkey, and (c) an op-ed by FLYNN published in The Hill on November 8, 2016, was written at his
own initiative; and by omitting that officials from the Republic of Turkey provided supervision
and direction over the Turkey project.
There was nothing that General Flynn did under the auspices of the FIG that merited the FBI
drilling down on his activities. So why was he targeted? A contributing factor was the
lingering resentment towards Flynn for the role DIA played when he was in charge with respect
to Obama's Syria policy. The DIA was an honest broker in a heavily politicized Washington in
the summer of 2012. The DIA, under General Flynn's leadership, accurately reported that Assad's
government was withstanding the U.S. backed rebel onslaught. The integrity of analysis demanded
by Flynn earned him enemies from policymakers keen on embroiling the United States in the
Syrian civil war.
Once Flynn was out of government, Brennan and his cohorts apparently kept tabs on Flynn and
his activities. It appears they were keen on payback and looked for opportunities to entrap him
and destroy his reputation. With the benefit of hindsight we can now understand that this was
an organized set up. The first opportunity to tarnish Flynn came when he spoke at an event
sponsored by RT and ended up sitting next to Vladimir Putin at dinner. This provided the
circumstantial evidence to accuse him of colluding with Russia.
The next shoe to drop came courtesy of the intelligence community (i.e., the CIA), who
alerted the FBI that Flynn was working for a intel cutout of the Turkish Government. What the
CIA did not tell the FBI is that the Brennan's CIA apparently had helped arrange, albeit
indirectly via the Israelis, Flynn's gig with INOVO.
When Flynn was pressured by the FBI to file documents under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act, he was being manipulated into a lie. The record that has emerged in the last couple of
weeks, thanks to his new lawyer, Sidney Powell, shows that former FBI Chief of the National
Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, David Laufman, played a
critical role in pressuring Flynn to file.
It is not clear whether Laufman understood that the relationship between Flynn and INOVO was
manufactured with the help of the CIA. But the recent release of documents makes it pretty
clear that Laufman was dealing in insider information and made no effort to help Flynn
understand that he had been deceived by INOVO.
The CIA's hand remained active in flooding the media with propaganda to impugn General
Flynn's character. David Corn, writing for Mother Jones (he also was instrumental in spreading
the Steele Dossier around) painted
Flynn in a sinister light :
. . . . The "issue" in question was no small matter. Last year, Alptekin paid $530,000 to
retired Lt. General Michael Flynn to lobby on behalf of Turkish interests. At the time, Flynn
was a top adviser to Trump's presidential campaign, and after Trump's shock victory, the
president-elect rewarded Flynn with the job of national security adviser. But it later emerged
that Flynn had failed to register as a foreign lobbyist for this work, as required by law, and
that he was under federal investigation for his secret lobbying for Alptekin.
He denied to ABC News that he and his company had represented the government of Turkey. (In
his retroactive filing, Flynn noted that his work for Alptekin "could be construed to have
principally benefitted the Republic of Turkey.") Alptekin blamed the "highly politicized
situation" in the United States for the "misunderstanding and misperceptions" around his
company and hiring of Flynn.
Corn and Buzzfeed zeroed in on the money paid to Flynn and raised the specter of Israeli
involvement, albeit indirectly.
Corn wrote :
But an attachment to the filing, citing an American law firm representing Alptekin, says
that "Inovo represented a private sector company in Israel that sought to export natural gas to
Turkey, and it was for support of its consulting work for this client that Inovo engaged Flynn
Intel Group, specifically to understand the tumultuous political climate at the time between
the United States and Turkey so that Inovo could advise its client regarding its business
opportunities and investment in Turkey."
None of the money came from Turkey, according to Alptekin's American attorneys. In an
interview with a Dutch newspaper in April, Alptekin said the funds for the Flynn project came
from a loan from his wife and payments from Ratio Oil Exploration, an Israeli natural gas
company.
Alptekin's troubles started last June when his Dutch company, Inovo BV, signed a deal to
become the sole Turkish representative of Ratio Oil Exploration, an Israeli firm that is one of
three companies with the right to drill in the Leviathan gas field beneath the eastern
Mediterranean Sea. "Ratio hereby confirms that it has in place a service agreement with Inovo
BV and it has granted Inovo with the rights to exclusively represent Ratio in the Republic of
Turkey for exploring and managing the opportunity to export gas from Leviathan into Turkey,"
according to a copy of a letter on Ratio letterhead, signed by Ratio's chairman of the board,
Ligad Rotlevy, and obtained by BuzzFeed News.
I do not think that Israeli link, i.e, Ration Oil Exploration, is a coincidence. I suspect
that Ratio Oil executives now realize that were used unwittingly in this plot to go after
General Flynn. They even ponied up some cash. It is understandable why some Israelis would want
to get information about Fethullah Gulen in front of the U.S. Government. He is perceived in
some circles as a terrorist and an enabler of drug trafficking. Others insist these are
unfounded charges and that Gulen is being smeared simply for opposing Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan.
I also think it is worth investigating whether any of that cash came courtesy of Mossad at
the behest of the CIA.
Without NSA intercepts of INOVO's principal, Ekim Alptekin, there would have been no solid
case against Flynn on FARA violations. I am hopeful that his new attorney will fully expose the
fraud perpetrated on Flynn by his government.
re: It is understandable why some Israelis would want to get information about Fethullah
Gulen in front of the U.S. Government. He is perceived in some circles as a terrorist and an
enabler of drug trafficking. Others insist these are unfounded charges and that Gulen is
being smeared simply for opposing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
I question the motives of these "others". They are either complicit knaves or deluded
fools. Just like Epstein, the source of Gulen's wealth is murky. It might even originate from
a set of common sources.
No need to publish this, but please let Mr Johnson know he may need to add one more person
here - George Papadopolous.
PapaD was working an oil deal around this time (2016 iirc) with Israel and Greece that
would bypass Turkey. This brought the attention of someone, presumably CIA. PapaD was also
arrested by FBI and threatened with FARA violations for working for Israel. PapaD's story is
longer and more convoluted, but you get the idea.
Gen Flynn's brother Joe Flynn had an interview 15 Jun 2019 with John B Wells, and told
nearly the same story as Mr Johnson, sans details. Joe Flynn believes Gen Flynn was the
original target for both CIA interest and FISA warrant.
Thank you for your diligence in keeping up with this. The way our MSM works today, I won't be
surprised to hear on NPR that Gen. Flynn is suspected of involvement in the murder of Seth
Rich.
"... By Lars Cornelissen, who holds a PhD in the Humanities and works as a researcher and editor for the Independent Social Research Foundation. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
The ongoing and increasingly intense conservative backlash currently taking place across
Europe is often understood as a populist reaction to neoliberal policy. The neoliberal assault
on the welfare state, as for instance
Chantal Mouffe has argued , has eroded post-war social security even as it destroyed
people's faith in electoral politics. Coupled with a sharp increase in inequality and rapid
globalisation, the technocratic nature of neoliberal government has angered electorates across
the continent. Wanting to "take back control" of their political life, these electorates have
turned away from traditional centrist parties and have thrown their lot in with populist
parties on the fringes of the political spectrum. Although, as Mouffe is
at pains to point out , this creates a space for both left-wing and right-wing populisms,
today it seems that especially its inward-looking, nationalistic variants are experiencing
electoral success.
To be sure, this diagnosis is by and large correct. Decades of neoliberal hegemony have
certainly served to impoverish the cultural life of many European nations. Meanwhile,
neoliberal policies of privatisation and deregulation, followed after the 2008 crisis by a
decade of blithe austerity measures, have gutted most of the institutions that previously
carried the promise of equity and security -- even if that promise was always already a false
one. The rise in jingoistic nationalism is, in this sense, without doubt a consequence of the
neoliberal era.
It would be incorrect to assume, however, that these nationalisms are somehow juxtaposed to
or fundamentally different from neoliberalism. It would be wrong, that is, to see the rise of
the so-called "new right" as a sign of neoliberalism's demise or to see the 2008 financial
crisis as marking its death rattle. Neoliberalism did not merely provide the occasion for the
rise of nationalist sentiment; rather, the latter also grew out of the former. Differently put,
neoliberal doctrine already carried the seeds of the kind of conservativism that is currently
running rampant in Europe.
The Neoliberal Network
A good place to start is the network of neoliberal think tanks and research institutes that
has served as the frontline of the neoliberal project since the 1950s. Indeed, as numerous
research studies by historians and
sociologists have shown, although neoliberalism first emerged as an intellectual movement
spearheaded by such figures as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Walter Eucken, and Milton
Friedman, crucial to the movement's success was its effort to disseminate its ideology
strategically. Thus, after an initial phase in which these men prepared the philosophical
grounds for the neoliberal agenda, they set out to spread their ideas, forming a Transatlantic
web of intellectuals and researchers with the express objective of steadily influencing public
opinion in general and policy-makers in particular.
Among the most prominent think tanks to be erected in this way are the Institute of Economic
Affairs, founded by Anthony Fisher in 1955 on Hayek's explicit advice, the Cato Institute,
founded in 1974, and the Adam Smith Institute, founded in 1977. They are merely the most
visible core of a vast network of similar organisations, however. Whether named after
neoliberalism's pioneering theorists (a small selection: the Hayek Institut; the Hayek
Gesellschaft; the Ludwig von Mises Institute; the Walter Eucken Institut; the Becker Friedman
Institute) or given more esoteric monikers (such as the Heritage Foundation or the Atlas
Economic Research Foundation), many right-wing think tanks are of neoliberal descent. Those
whose founding predates the birth of neoliberalism, such as the Hoover Institution and the
American Enterprise Institute, were quickly absorbed into the neoliberal project. Together
these think tanks form a sprawling network of ideological entrepreneurs driven, as Anthony Fisher is reported to have
said , by the desire to "litter the world with free-market think tanks."
As the primary channels through which neoliberal ideas flow to the wider public, these
institutions make for a crucial weather vane for shifts unfolding within the neoliberal
mindset. Any attempt to make sense of neoliberalism's many twists and turns must therefore pay
attention to trends in their ideological direction and outputs. And this is where
neoliberalism's recent hard turn towards conservative nationalism becomes apparent.
Neoliberal Conservatism
Neoliberalism has always had a strong conservative streak: Hayek himself was inspired by
Edmund Burke at least as much as by Adam Smith, and such towering figures of German
neoliberalism as Wilhem Röpke and Alexander Rüstow were deeply conservative thinkers.
Conversely, Hayek in particular has exerted a considerable influence on the most recent
generation of conservative philosophers, with men like Roger Scruton, Paul Cliteur, Francis
Fukuyama, and Niall Ferguson routinely drawing upon his ideas about the market, law, and
societal order in support of their own conservatism. (The latter, as it happens, received
the Hayek
Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.)
However, what originally remained an intellectual attraction between neoliberals and
conservatives has in recent decades morphed into something more closely resembling a synthesis.
As neoliberal hegemony reached its climax in the 1990s, its intellectual custodians began
focusing their attention on what they purported to be the failures of multiculturalism.
Decrying 'cultural relativism,' neoliberal think tanks began publishing
pamphlets that sang the praises of western culture, which their writers regarded as
inherently superior to its non-liberal (read: non-western) counterparts. They proceeded to
assert the
need to protect national identity from its dilution by
immigration and to advocate patriotism
and nationalism
as a means of consolidating such identity.
It is, then, wrong to assume that neoliberal parties or intellectuals embraced nationalism
only after the so-called "new right" was in its ascendency, as a means to win back voters or to
assuage a supposedly vitriolic and jingoistic electorate. In truth, many of neoliberalism's
ideologues had swerved firmly towards conservative nationalism well before right-wing populism
became a serious political contender. In doing so, they anticipated many of the latter's
principal ideological markers, including its conspiratorial conception of " cultural Marxism " and its
fondness for
Oswald Spengler .
In short, neoliberals had no small part in setting the stage for the recent eruption of
regressive nationalism. By peddling ethnocentric, nationalistic, and xenophobic ideas they
helped shift public opinion to the conservative right, rendering it ever more salonfähig.
A good example of this process may be found in Dutch politics, where Islamophobia entered
mainstream discourse largely due to the efforts of Frits Bolkestein, then the country's leading
neoliberal politician and author. Anticipating the Islamophobia of Pim Fortuyn and later Geert
Wilders by about a decade, he claimed
as early as 1991 that Islam is objectively speaking inferior to western culture. In so doing,
he shifted the country's national debate and gave xenophobia a gloss of legitimacy, setting the
stage for his country's sharp conservative turn in the new millennium.
A Neoliberal Brexit
Neoliberalism's influence on the rise of conservatism is not exhausted by its ideological
appeal, however. Think tanks are, after all, meant to direct policy, not just to elaborate an
ideological doctrine. By way of example, let us consider Brexit. Indeed, the neoliberals'
impact on the "new right" is nowhere clearer than in the British hard right's attempt to
enforce a no-deal Brexit.
To begin, it's worth noting that the Conservative Party's most prominent cadre of
Brexit-backing nationalists counts many explicit devotees of Hayek amongst its numbers,
including Roger
Scruton , Boris Johnson ,
Priti Patel ,
and
Sajid Javid (who called Hayek a "legend" in a 2014 tweet ). Jacob Rees-Mogg's late
father William was similarly an outspoken Hayekian, calling himself "an Austrian economist more
than anything else" in a 2010
interview and adding for good measure that he "knew Friedrich von Hayek and liked him very
much."
But neoliberalism's impact on Tory hard Brexiteers goes much further. Here again, the
neoliberal network of think tanks takes centre stage. As research done by
openDemocracy UK has demonstrated, the Conservative Party's nationalist wing maintains very
intimate ties with the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has lobbied extensively to broaden
the appeal of a hard or even no-deal Brexit. Thus it maintains very close ties with the
European Research Group (ERG), a group that represents the Party's most extreme Eurosceptics,
and has had the ear of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davis, and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The IEA is but one of many neoliberal think tanks that are today advocating a hard Brexit.
The same is true for, amongst other, the Adam Smith Institute , the
Hayek Institut ,
the Austrian Economics Center , the
Mises Institute
, the Hoover Institute , the
Cato Institute , and the
Heritage Foundation . Whilst it's not true that all of those who work for such institutes
are Brexiteers -- indeed, the Adam Smith Institute is very open about its internal dispute
over Brexit -- it certainly is the case that neoliberalism's ideological vanguard is
contributing significantly to the justification and rationalisation of a no-deal scenario.
All of these threads seem to converge in the figure of Steve Baker. Serving as
Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from June 2017 until he resigned a year
later over his disagreement with the government's stance on Brexit, Baker was one of his
party's leading Eurosceptical voices well before that. In 2015, he co-founded the Conservatives
for Britain campaign, which was instrumental in lobbying for a referendum on Britain's
membership of the EU. What's more, he served as Chairman of the ERG between 2016 and 2018 and
as Deputy Chairman since then. Baker is also a prominent figure in the world of neoliberal
think tanks, having co-founded The Cobden Centre (TCC) in 2010 and served as its director until
2017. A self-declared Austrian-inspired think tank, TCC is
co-directed by hard Brexiteer Daniel
Hannan , routinely posts
defences of a hard Brexit, hosts material by hard-line Brexiteers such as Nigel
Farage , Douglas Carswell ,
Michael Tomlinson , and Baker himself, and has close links to a
glut of other neoliberal,
pro-Brexit think tanks.
There is ample evidence that what is often seen as the "new right" is in fact not all that
different from its predecessor. Several decades of neoliberal hegemony have not just triggered
a backlash by the conservative right. Rather, the conservative right is a mutation of
neoliberalism, one of its many outgrowths. The left is ill served by the continued assumption
that it's fighting a new enemy, for clearly neoliberalism is still very much with us.
With regard to Brexit, I would just add that neo con think tanks, e.g. the Henry Jackson
Society, also joined their more economics focussed brethren. Brexit is a means of weakening
the EU to the benefit of the anglosphere, albeit a US led community with the UK playing
Greece to the US's Rome. They are less prominent, or shouty, but I think that is by design.
The likes of Richard Dearlove, Charles Guthrie and John Scarlett know how to play this game
and are happy to let the loud mouths, especially the colonials like Kate Andrews, Divya
Chakraborty and Chloe "low tax" Westley, or "low fact" to some, front up on air.
Steve Baker is a former Royal Air Force officer and MP for the neighbouring constituency.
He straddles both camps.
There are differences, often tensions, between the Austrians, neo cons and the likes of
the North family. Pete(r J) North's latest blog addresses that.
Indeed all confessed VOX (populist rigth, Spain) voters I know were faithful Popular Party
(conservative) voters. Anecdotic but in line with this article.
The 'New Right' are the storm troopers of the neoliberal 'New World
Order' , conjured deliberately, and painstakingly into existence as a bulwark against
the rising tide of legitimate populist revolt against the strangle hold of neoliberal
rule.
This is exactly what Jay Gould meant* when he said he could hire half the working class to
murder the other half.
It's disturbing to note how obviously Trump is stirring the embers of reactionary
sentiment that are never far from the surface of our national lack-of-character.
*It matters not if Jay Gould actually uttered these words, they describe the foundation of
right-wing power in America.
Where is this "rising tide" you refer to? In the US our supposed revolutionaries are
firmly within the Democratic party which is neoliberal to the core. While the above article
may be correct that the nationalist new right represents fake populism in the manner of Wall
Street loving Trump, there's not a lot of evidence of an anti-capitalist revolt on the left
either (Elizabeth Warren: I am a capitalist). The article linked the other day on inverted
totalitarianism hit the nail squarely. Whether left or right "There Is No Alternative" holds
sway until the house of cards finally collapses. In the meantime our current elites will go
to any extreme to keep that from happening.
The discomfort of those at the bottom results eventually in anger, and that anger looks
for an outlet.
Rather than take the chance that those angry folks might seek, and eventually find solace
in solidarity with left-oriented populism a la Bernie Sanders flavor of socialism, TPTB
nurture a perennial alternative, the empty, but effective promise to make things
'right' by force of will, and of course, violence if necessary.
If the "rising tide" of relatively informed and activist candidates did not exist, and
were not influencing the electorate, there would be fear on the part of TPTB, and so no
reason to encourage the "New Right" .
I might add, that IMHO, you are swimming in that "rising tide" by your participation here
at NC.
Guess I'm old enough to remember an actual popular tide. But as we found the tide comes in
and then it goes out. IMO in order to have another New Deal we are probably going to need
another Great Depression. The internet including this website have become a great resource
for learning what is going on. But if the plutocrats begin to bothered by it they will
institute censorship (it's already happening). What they really fear is losing their money
and therefore their power. Another economic crisis might do the job.
Whenever one attributes anything to Trump, I believe it is important to imagine him not as
the mastermind, but as the catalyst. There are countless pent up forces that are using him as
the figurehead or scapegoat around which a torrent of change coming which was previously held
back. I feel that the damage done by his presidency was coming anyway, with him now as Court
Jester leading the parade. He is the perfect hybrid of Big Brother and Emmanuel
Goldstein.
1. People are sloppy undependable cognitive agents.
2. Not to worry – "The Market" is the greatest information processor in human
history.
3. The problem is to get people to accept and subjugate themselves to the Market. This is
called "Freedom".
4. The politics of 1-3 can get a little tricky. Best not be too literal about it.
Liberty and liberal are both words that are fraught with contradiction and confusion.
Whose Liberty? Liberal for whom? That never gets parsed out because in the parsing both words
lose their meaning. They are just bricks and bats and hand grenades. Hayek reads like a
thoughtful, reasonable person. But what he believes to be effective economics always fails.
We are all current witnesses. Austrians are conservative in defense of their liberty. They
seek liberal policies and governments so they can have more individual economic freedom. And
free trade. Socialism sees it differently; socialists are, by contrast, conservative. They
believe in conserving social justice. Now we have a first hand understanding of the failures
of neoliberalism. People at the local level, and the rural, want to be included in the
liberal prosperity so they vote for more economic freedom (leave the EU); the elite and the
rich want something entirely different; they want an even less restricted government so they
can sail off and be neocolonialists. So just like the confusion over the word "liberal"
nobody asks, Brexit for whom? It makes me weary.
I'd say the neolibs are more afraid of sanders than they are of trump, so conservative
(why can't those better republicans be like us) and also that they understand labor arbitrage
requires borders and so are pro national.
Interesting perspective this about neoliberalism and the new right drawing from the same
ideological source. I would also add that Ukraine is a cautionary tale to all would-be right
wing "leaders" that you can whip citizens into a frenzy (with help from Victoria Nuland, John
McCain and a not insignificant coup warchest of $5bn) and ride the stirred up resentment of
the establishment to the presidency but unless you deliver real, socially beneficial changes
the next election you'll have your as# handed to you by a comedian, just ask Poroshenko.
Outside of the US where right wing politicians like Trump can take the credit for levers
like easy credit bidding up asset prices and the gig economy putting lipstick on the
unemployment pig to keep the deception going (the deception being that stock markets are at
all time highs, employment numbers are up etc even as wealth and income inequality are at
robber baron levels), right wing populism is hardly a viable political strategy. Once all the
immigrants have been demonized and chased out and people notice that their lives are still
stuck in an economic rut, the right wingers run out of targets to aim their vitriol at, their
rhetoric falls flat and public trust in their divisive tactics erodes.
He gets several things confused, apparently as a result of an attempt to argue that
immigration, multiculturalism and so forth are unproblematic, and only "islamophobes" would
suggest otherwise. It's very much a view from inside the Panglossian bubble. There are at
least three strands here.
Celebrations of western culture in comparison with Islam (a minority position but one which
is still found) go back a long time, mainly on the Right Christian heritage, democracy etc)
but also to some extent on the Left, where some writers fear that secularism and class-based
politics are themselves in danger.
Opposition to explicitly multicultural policies by government (not the same as living in a
society with different cultures) is largely a reaction to policies promoted by governments of
the ostensible Left, although supported for entirely cynical reasons by neoliberals as a way
of fragmenting resistance. This opposition comes from all parts of the political system.
Opposition to neoliberal policies, most obviously the encouragement of immigration by
unskilled workers from poor countries, is based primarily on the lived experience of the poor
and disadvantaged who are the main victims of immigration. (A non-negligible element of the
opposition comes from past immigrants who have settled and made lives for themselves.)
There's a very elitist argument here that people are incapable of understanding their actual
situations and require some right-wing pundit to explain things to them.
Also the article elides the fact that neoliberalism has within its DNA a subspecies of
Fabian Socialism that seems to assuage what little conciousness market fundamentalists have
about rolling back a century of bitterly won advances by the working classes (of all
erthnicities & gender identies, fixations and usages) within the insustrialized regions
by diluting them with waves of foreign people made desperate by contrived colonial wars and
climate disasters.
Does anyone believe that an Indonesian Muslim background person in Netherlands who's made a
good living suddenly wants her children to have to compete with waves of Africans for starter
jobs?
Also- we've just come off of 30 plus years of identitarian pride for all non-white people.
Which is just garbage that's come out of english departments in the elite universities. White
people have been told for about a decade now by everyone in academia and entertainment that
they're all racist trash who need to intermarry with darker people as quickly as possible to
expiate the sins of north american chattel slavery and ..muh holocaust. Somehow all the
depradations, human sacrifices, genocides and repressions of and by about every group
throughout all time are just 'whatabouttism' now. When you start scapegoating any group they
will get their back up eventually. There's nothing conservative about it. But Disaster
Capitalists are more than happy to insert themselves into the scene, supporting such causes
the same way they supported #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter when it was a convenience. Never let
a good disaster go to waste, right?
Yes, and nary a mention of long-standing socialist (oft referred to in the U.K. as Bennite
in "honour" of the school of thought popularised by Tony Benn, but he merely expressed much
older international labour movement (note the small "l" there not a big "L") notion of global
worker solidarity) opposition to the EU.
You can say many things about socialism, Bennism and their kissing cousin Communism. But
"neoliberal" or "neoliberal antecedences" isn't one of them.
A nice try at constricting -- and thereby, one has to assume, attempting to constrain and
frame -- Brexit as being only a right wing or conservative reactionary ideal and thereby
inherently neoliberal. But that might, only might, have worked a few years ago. Too much
water has passed under the bridge and too much ideological complexity has emerged around it
now for that to wash.
@David – yes! Resistance to excessive immigration is non-ideological but based on
very human tribalism. Too many strangers in a society results in a loss of fellow-feeling and
more division. This is, IMHO, the root of much of the rot in Western societies – the
destruction of trust, aided and abetted by a ruling class that uses deception habitually to
manage the masses and divide them from themselves. Can't let the cattle figure out how we're
exploiting them!
If one views the indigenous workforce of a nation as a loosely constructed "labor union",
one only has to look at the disdain that labor unions have for strike breaking "scabs" to see
why there is resistance to excessive immigration.
At the top of the workforce pyramid, the well-paid upper crust views their costs for
domestic help and workplace staffing dropping with increased immigration..
I suspect left leaning US politicians do not allow that many voting, low wage, workers
(aka HRC deplorables) view themselves competing with immigrants for jobs, with some numerical
justification, as immigrants and their US born children constitute about 28% of US
population.
"Immigrants and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 89.4 million people, or
28 percent of the overall U.S. population, according to the 2018 Current Population Survey
(CPS). Pew Research Center projects that the immigrant-origin share will rise to about 36
percent by 2065."
Trump has tapped into this, but is doing it in a Potemkin village style, as I tell people
that Trump likes low wage workers for his properties and construction projects. His border
wall is designed for show, not effectiveness, otherwise he would enforce employer sanctions
against employing non US citizens.
Neo-liberalism seems to me to have as a logical consequence the fostering of a
Covenant-Lite approach to culture as well as markets.
The markets show that some of those Covenant-Lite Collateralized Loan Obligations are
blowing up now , distressingly reminiscent of the CDOs that wrought havoc on the world
financial markets last decade during the Crash.
Culture gets its turn, as it always does, this time through an anything-goes approach
without any moral or ethical underpinnings, of whatever nature. It should be no surprise to
anyone that there are bad actors to manipulate situations, institutions and people.
I think this is neglecting an important strand ..Neoliberalism obviously contains within
itself the resistance of the Hoi Polloi even Hayek and Mises were aware of this as far back
as the 40's.
People would chafe at the all against all hyperindividualist yer-on-yer-own orthodoxy and
seek ways to challenge the Neoliberal Order.
The Right Wing Version of such Populist insurgency is simply one that the Neoliberal Thought
Collective can more easily swallow and use towards it's own ends.
Unlike the Sanders/Veroufkas(sp-2). Melanchon(sp-2) Actual Left version of Populism, which is
the antithesis of Neoliberalism.
Look to the history of things like the CIA, and the Elite neofeudalist worldview it has
worked for from it's very beginnings .anything that smells of the Left must be rooted out and
crushed, lest it present an alternative while Right Wing Authoritarians are supported as
"Freedom Fighters" and "Liberationists" .just ignore all the corpses(or blame them on the
Powerless Left)
Neoliberalism is merely the latest(and slipperiest!) version of a Capitalist World Order that
itself is merely the latest iteration of the Ancient Regime.
The Elite, as a class, have been trying to undo the Enlightenment(often by coopting many of
it's features) since time immemorial.
The Populist Right is a useful(if dangerous) tool in furtherance of that end, while Lefty
Populism is anathema, that would undo the very foundations of their preferred Order.
"... Little is spoken of today, particularly as Trump, Bolton and Pompeo are threatening war on three continents simultaneously, but the failure of diplomacy and the primacy of militarism. ..."
"... Eisenhower described this process as he saw it, universities "pimping" for militarists, congress bought, judges owned, as he left office. He never truly understood the extent of the problem as he himself was under the thumb of the Dulles boys, John Foster (Secretary of State) and Allen (CIA Director), formerly Adolf Hitler's legal representatives on Wall Street prior to Pearl Harbor. ..."
"... Worse still, Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, has become the "dime store" von Ribbentrop of our time, settling the world's affairs with an eye to personal enrichment and little concern for justice, human suffering or the wars his incompetence may lead to. ..."
"... War for profit isn't anything new and the American military industrial complex that failed to collapse as intended after the end of World War II is a major component in today's ever maddening world. President Eisenhower warned of this in his 1961 farewell address: ..."
"... Research available to military intelligence as early as 1949, clearly showed that the "ratlines" that sent Nazis to South America after the war had been sending war profits to American and British corporations throughout World War II, not just through Swiss banks but the Vatican as well. ..."
"... Facilitating this treason on a massive scale was America's OSS, precursor to the CIA and Britain's SIS (Secret Intelligence Services) who continued to work closely with Nazi Germany's Abwehr throughout the Cold War. ..."
"... Hitler's domestic policies, however, were, for the "chosen people" at least, in this case ethnic Germans, far more beneficial than Hitler's predecessors have chosen for the people of the US and Britain. Is it fair to call American and British leaders "predecessors" or "inheritors" of Adolf Hitler? ..."
NEO was established and has been continually publishing since 1818
Little is spoken of today, particularly as Trump, Bolton and Pompeo are threatening war on
three continents simultaneously, but the failure of diplomacy and the primacy of militarism.
Problem is, those who drive these insane policies control and even own the "engines of reason
and dissent."
Eisenhower described this process as he saw it, universities "pimping" for militarists,
congress bought, judges owned, as he left office. He never truly understood the extent of the
problem as he himself was under the thumb of the Dulles boys, John Foster (Secretary of State)
and Allen (CIA Director), formerly Adolf Hitler's legal representatives on Wall Street prior to
Pearl Harbor.
Trump simply inherited what he calls "the sewer" and has done exactly what Eisenhower did,
surrounded himself with the worst of the worst, men like Bolton and Pompeo, "shills" for the
military industrial complex and the "banksters" who have orchestrated wars for a thousand
years.
Worse still, Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, has become the "dime store" von Ribbentrop
of our time, settling the world's affairs with an eye to personal enrichment and little concern
for justice, human suffering or the wars his incompetence may lead to.
War for profit isn't anything new and the American military industrial complex that failed
to collapse as intended after the end of World War II is a major component in today's ever
maddening world. President Eisenhower warned of this in his 1961 farewell address:
"Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or
small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could
become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements
of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a
dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may
be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in
the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and
threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.
IV. A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be
mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own
destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my
predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry.
American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we
can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to
create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half
million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on
military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in
the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt
in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the
imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave
implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of
our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can
compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our
peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military
posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized,
complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of,
the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces
of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university,
historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a
revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government
contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard
there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project
allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."
What "Ike" as we called him then was unaware of was the international nature of the military
industrial complex as well. Did he choose to ignore the roles of Standard Oil of New Jersey,
General Motors, Ford, Alcoa, Lockheed, Goodyear, Dupont and dozens of other American
corporations in not only building the Third Reich but keeping its war machines going throughout
the war?
Behind the corporations were the banks, Brown Brothers of New York, the Rothschild's of
London, powerful law firms, Dulles Brothers which included Eisenhower's own CIA director and
Secretary of State, all working for Hitler before the war and perhaps, more than perhaps,
during.
Research available to military intelligence as early as 1949, clearly showed that the
"ratlines" that sent Nazis to South America after the war had been sending war profits to
American and British corporations throughout World War II, not just through Swiss banks but the
Vatican as well.
Facilitating this treason on a massive scale was America's OSS, precursor to the CIA and
Britain's SIS (Secret Intelligence Services) who continued to work closely with Nazi Germany's
Abwehr throughout the Cold War.
This continuation of Nazi influence in Washington and London led NATO to largely reflect the
policies of Nazi Germany, building a world of totalitarian puppets and stripping the world
bare.
Hitler's domestic policies, however, were, for the "chosen people" at least, in this case
ethnic Germans, far more beneficial than Hitler's predecessors have chosen for the people of
the US and Britain. Is it fair to call American and British leaders "predecessors" or
"inheritors" of Adolf Hitler?
One needs only to listen to the racist and jingoistic rhetoric of Washington and London, the
smears, the threats, the raving lunacy.
As London now has its own "populist" waiting in the wings, Boris Johnson, there to save the
British people from the influx of refugees resulting from Britain's own policies in the Middle
East and Africa, one might feel history is actually being "recycled."
Where Hitler had Mussolini, his inheritors now have Jail Bolsonaro of Brazil and a new
military alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The key, of course, is creating factionalism and fakery, even in the total absence of
ideological conflict.
A closer examination of history shows the runup to August 1914, the engineering by the
Warburgs, Shiffs and Rothschilds of the alliances needed to burn down the world.
At Versailles they built the framework for the next war and by the late 1920s had collapsed
the world economy and began pouring cash into Europe's fascists.
Of course, today's universities, just as Eisenhower warned, would never allow the
generations of the latter 20th century and beyond to gain the tools needed to secure a peaceful
world order.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and
POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He's a
senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today , especially for the online magazine "
New Eastern Outlook ."
+ 64% of veterans said the Iraq War
wasn't worth fighting , considering the costs versus the benefit to the U.S., and more than
50% think the same about the war in Afghanistan I wonder what percentage of them got "woke" to
this before Tulsi Gabbard?
"... As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... "The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia against his own country." ..."
"... Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). ..."
"... Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this. They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else. ..."
As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being
drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top
Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic
public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.
"There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI
and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that
time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.
King (image on the right), a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice
chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence
Committee.
He asserted:
"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign
– and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this
is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the
investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders It's just wrong."
The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today:
"The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous
thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy
with Russia against his own country."
According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William Barr
, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation led
by John Durham , U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to complete
his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the experience of
waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about now?
So Where is the IG Report on FISA?
That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan , former FBI Director
James Comey , former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe , former Deputy Attorneys General Sally
Yates and Rod Rosenstein , and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA
applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at
last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).
The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether
the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to
surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process.
(Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure
that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)
The Washington Examiner
reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of
potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican
congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The
report continued:
"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ
watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview,
Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz
'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of
drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made
available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much
as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will
have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,'
Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the
August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"
Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may,
in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key
witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
(image on the left) early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have
come forward at the 11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the
Justice Department and FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was
assigned to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that
led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie
investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or
reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.
Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all
they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former
colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 ,
prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).
It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end,
even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why
are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?
What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?
Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of
counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, Lisa Page , wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president
"wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that
the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark
about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire
to provide him with "plausible denial."
It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about
the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that
Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort
to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.
Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it"
defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang.
Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that --
or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.
Reining in Devin Nunes
That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated
Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House
Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA, image on the right). On April 5,
2019, in the apparent belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes
wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous
individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be
held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."
On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send
eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged
misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified
material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be
no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to
talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.
Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed
smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new
sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the
criminal referrals?
There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State
functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr
leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded
investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious
liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to
follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and
prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however
there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this.
They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and
CIA.
Trump by now realizes these agencies can make anything up and the Jewish owned and
controlled media will do their bidding. I have to assume that Trump has come to the
conclusion that he wasn't suppose to win and that the NWO wasn't happy with that because he
stands in their way especially on World Trade and Immigration.
The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in
which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against
the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than
figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else.
I believe Trump knows he could be assassinated at any time. Obama the "God King" did his
part for NWO and that's why he gets a King's Ransom for his speeches for reading a
teleprompter and banging on his chest and saying, "I did that." What he is really saying is I
did that for you -- now where's my check!
Gabbard is NOT a member of the CFR. She has by her own admission, attended some meetings
as an invited guest. According to her, it was to engage members and find out what their
inside game is. I don't know if Gabbard is for real. I voted for Trump because I perceived
him to be the anti-war and anti-intervention candidate. Period. So, as I said, I don't know
what to think about the lady. I do now understand however, why some individuals in olden
times became hermits.
An Iranian general yesterday
confirmed Magnier's take (also
here ):
A senior Iranian general has revealed that Washington, through diplomatic channels,
recently asked Tehran to allow it to conduct a small-scale operation in the Iranian
airspace in order to save its face following the IRGC's shoot-down of a US spy drone.
Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, the Head of Iran's Civil Defence Organization,
said Iran vehemently rejected the US request, saying that it will respond to any act of
aggression.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran responded that it views any operation as a war and will
give a crushing response to it. You may initiate a war but this is Iran which will finish
it," he said Sunday.
The idea that the U.S. would ask Iran to allow it to bomb some targets without hitting
back sounds crazy.
Dear Mr. Rouhani,
could you please name me three targets in your country that I am allowed to bomb?
It is urgent as I need to look tough on Iran.
Pretty please!
Donald Trump
But this is the Trump White House and the only thing Trump really seems to care for is his
own rating.
. . .that Trump be allowed to bomb one, two or three clear objectives, to
be chosen by Iran,
Trump has experience in such a charade, when empty buildings were struck with US rockets
after the fake Syrian "gas attack" in Douma, April 2018. Probably the details were worked out
between US and Russia in that case. That it wasn't possible this time is a clear indication
of Iran strength. Stronger than Russia! Imagine that.
That Trump would come begging hat in hand seeking for Tehran to let the US bomb the country
unimpeded does not strike me as surprising or implausible. It fits Trump's trademark MO of
"chaotic, incoherent" to a 't', with a heavy dash of megalomania thrown in as well. Just
another day in the office for Trump.
The seizure of the Grace 1 is more intriguing for its brazen illegality as well as the
reported circumstances (if one can believe the Brits in their claim of boarding 2.5 miles
from shore). Was this another avenue of "maximum pressure" cooked up by Iran?
As for Iran seeking US military targets in the region, those sitting ducks will be the last
targets sought. Not that they might not, but that certainly would be nuclear option for
Tehran. There is much lower hanging fruit to target that would cripple the lackey Gulf
states. Hitting the desalination plants of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain would ruin
those economies overnight without risking environmental fallout. Iran would be hammered in
the MSM, but would be no matter their course of action. Those countries would have strategic
reserves of water, so I wouldn't imagine people actually dying of thirst in the desert, but
the next day there would be a biblical exodus of the ex-pats that run those economies. The
UAE would grind to a halt, there would be a possible overthrow of the monarchy of Bahrain,
and massive unrest in Saudi Arabia, without risking immediate gloves-off war with the US.
The cartoon has an element of truth, but mainly Trump is doing the bidding of his
pro-Israel billionaire funders, Sheldon Adelson and Robert Mercer. They are frustrated that
Trump has not been forceful enough with Iran.
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. ..."
"... They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. ..."
To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular
religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the
subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't
like is religion.
Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive --
that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or
miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.
In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They
had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth)
which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for
everything they did in the name of the Revolution.
They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to
join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his
death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged,
brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the
Revolution).
So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they
didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck,
walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....
"... Buying S400 and losing F35 is a win win. ..."
"... Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even assistance with the maximum pressure campaign. ..."
"... Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold. ..."
"... Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose sanctions on Turkey and that will be that. ..."
"... Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the more sense. ..."
"... Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400 being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman too. ..."
What is most interesting to me, is that the Russian air force is actually pounding
Turkey's militant allies on the ground in Idlib, but both men (Erdogan and Putin) are still
strengthening their ties thru Turkstream, Russian tourism and building of a nuclear power
plant. Diplomacy seems to have surpassed conditions on the ground in Syria.
Also, Iran's leaders feel slightly betrayed by Putin's deference to Erdogan. They must
believe (as I do) that Putin has agreed to allow Turkey to occupy parts of Syria following
the war.
Turkey has been very consistent on this issue from the very beginning...and it has plans
to resettle parts of N Syria with the nearly 3 million refugees it is housing in S
Turkey.
Many critics will blame Putin for betraying Assad, but I think he is merely showing that
he is a master negotiator who recognizes the importance of 'good' relations with Turkey, and
knows he will not get everything he wants in Syria. Compromise with Turkey opens up a path to
ending the war and for pressuring US-Turkey relations which continue to worsen as Washington
continues to support a de facto Kurdistan in E Syria.
M K Bhadrakumar is a great source for following the frenetic pace of developments in
Eurasian geopolitics and he covered this very topic yesterday (see link).
His view of where the Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a
lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby
S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even
assistance with the maximum pressure campaign.
Whilst S-400 delivery is contrary to US/NATO wishes/policy, it makes sense to me that it
gets treated as a second order issue in this context. Turkey also wants Iran out of Syria,
but if pushed even further into a corner Turkey could make life difficult for the US on Iran
and therefore even potentially endanger Trump's re-election chances.
Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and
consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into
Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself
and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually
welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold.
The slippery Sultan has pushed it to the limit, but the anti-Iran coalition now needs him
- at least in the short term. My guess is he gets to keep his shiny new AD system.
Where
Turkey chooses to put it is a very interesting question; facing its ancient enemy in the
West, or perhaps sited to cover the Cyprus EEZ and its oil?
Does anyone understand the F35 deal between the participating partner nations.
Wikipedia say Turkey is a level 3 partner which cost it $4.3 billion and that sales are
handled via the Pentagon.
Who decides if a partner in the project can be denied the right to
buy their product? What I did not see is what F35 components were produced in Turkey and if
they stopped exports what redundancy their was in the system.
Can Turkey say fine I will take my $4.3 billion back as the Russians and Chinese have both
made me very attractive offers?
Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran
gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that
is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose
sanctions on Turkey and that will be that.
Regarding #1 and #2: S-400 is already in Algeria. And it will be in India by next year.
Reuters claims that Trump's good buddy King Salman signed a deal with Russia to buy S-400s.
Reuters also reported that Qatar was considering an S-400 purchase. So why is Pom-Pom only
jumping on Turkey's back and not castigating the Saudis, Qataris, Algeriens, and Indians
about the S-400? Keeping F-35 stealth capability from snooping by S-400s is the stated reason
we don't want Turkey to have the S-400.
But when carrier based F35s are flying in the eastern Med, that stealth capability could
be snooped on by the Algerien systems (or by Russian "field service reps" in Algeria with
those systems). Ditto for the F35s in Italy. Could Israeli F35 stealth already be jeopardized
by Russian system at Khmeimim AB in Syria?
#3 Idiots. But they are being used by Trump. He puts them up to it, so that he can pull
back at the last minute and be Mr World Peace.
#4: State owned Rossiya TV lampooned Trump's Fourth of July celebration. Called it
фигня (pronounced as 'fignya' and translates as bullshit). They
mocked the tanks on display, said "the paint on these vehicles is peeling off. They have
no cannons, and the optics were pasted on with adhesive tape" . Host Yevgeny Popov called
the President "our Donald Trump" . Co-host Olga Skabeeva calls the parade "Putin's
America" .
#5: See #3
#6 & 7: I was hoping #6 would stall #7, but I have serious doubts.
Is the S-400 in Algeria already? I have found reports that it was scheduled to be
delivered in 2015 - but I can't find any reports on it actually being delivered. I don't
think the Russians would have sold it to anyone other than Belarus and China until they had
the S-500 ready to go.
Wiki says yes but their references to it are speculative.
Besides those there is a Business Insider article, German Edition, which claims Algeria
has the S-400. It was dated last November.
Plus there is a report on Sputnik re S-400 in Algeria. But that is based on a
MENAdefense.net article, which has photos (irrefutable they claim??) of several S-400
launchers in Algeria. Plus BAZ-64022 truck-tractors which are used with the S-400 and NOT the
S-300. So maybe they do and are trying to hide the fact in order to avoid sanctions? Or maybe
they have upgraded their S-300 PMU-2s to the PMU-3, which is a close match to the S-400. Or
perhaps it is all propaganda?
Regarding the F35 and the S400, the obvious thing to do is to let them have both and swap
information. We get S400 info and Russia gets F35 data.......except erdo will try and screw
both of us.
I believe Putin's goal is to transform Turkey from a NATO state into an integral part of
Russia's near abroad to eventually secure a guaranteed access to the Mediterranean and beyond
and have a reliable buffer between Russia and Middle East. It's ensuring peace of mind, not
rebuilding an empire.
I think Putin's goal is more about forming a partnership with Turkey to build an energy
corridor through Turkey to Europe. Control of this corridor, or at least membership in the
alliance that controls this corridor, is a big deal from a geopolitical standpoint.
Thus Russia and Turkey can form something along the lines of an "OPEC on steroids" -
Turkey can control who gets to pipe hydrocarbons to Europe and Russia can provide protection
to those who wish to join their alliance (as they have already done for Syria).
Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through
Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are
now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the
more sense.
What Turkey has to gain from such an arrangement is not only transit fees for the
hydrocarbons, but also a chance to develop their economy - if Turkey is at the head of the
line for receipt of hydrocarbons to Europe, they are at the head of the line for building
industry and businesses which use those hydrocarbons as inputs (eg refineries, plastics,
aluminum, chemical production).
Access to the Med is already guaranteed by treaty just as is access to the Black Sea.
Access beyond the Med is controlled at the Suez and the pillars of Hercules.
Guaranteed during peacetime. During any hostilities you can throw that treaty out the
window.
Which is why TTG is correct that Putin's goal is to get Turkey out of NATO. And he may
doublecross Assad by blessing Turkey's permanent occupation (or annexation) of those four
districts of northern Aleppo Province (i.e. Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab, & Jarabulus). As payment
for getting out of NATO.
Until you fix the problem with, according to a poll, 56% of American parents not wanting
Arabic numerals taught to their children. I suspect that an equal number would not be able to
find any of the mentioned places on a map.
Where those with crystal balls find certainty, I find something much less. We do know that
containment polices can work very well, but any involvement in the world's longest contested
area is not worth the cost, nor the risk. The US has already spent a fortune, with very
little to show for it.
Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more
mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400
being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman
too.
Yosemite Sam Bolton is probably being told to go out there and do his thing, and suffering
from whip-lash when Trump yanks the carpet out from under them without apology. The poor dear
must be like...
Went on Kunstler's website with the tasteless name and read comment about Hannity
screaming to bomb Iran. And if Mr. Kunstler's facts are correct I imagine the Republicans
will be saving Mueller's answers for the next election. Whatever Mr. Kunstler has to say, he
says it well. What a mess. The way the bad guys have dug in and rigged the election process
and the "News" business, it is difficult to imagine anything can change.
The controls of our society have become so efficient it is tempting to say what the hell
and see if there is a good old film or an meaningful sporting event and let it go at
that.
In saying that, it brings to mind the other CN article about anti-war sentiment and
organizing against war and the war machine that has gone missing makes the point very well. I
do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests were
simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be.
Eddie S , July 4, 2019 at 10:01
"I do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests
were simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be."
Yes, I know that the whole Iraq War-crime episode was an extremely disheartening episode
to myself and millions of others who had marched in protest. It was horrible enough when the
neo-cons were able to blatantly orchestrate an illegal invasion (with the obeisance of the
long-cowed Democrats), but the RE-election of 'W' -- a year after the non-existence of the
WMDs was proven by our OWN invading military -- was in a political sense worse because it
showed that the majority of the US public was indifferent to illegal US invasions of other
countries, so there would be little resistance in the future to these 'wars'.
It was only when the media was portraying the deaths & bad injuries to US soldiers
occupying Iraq that a modest amount of public sentiment turned against the whole sordid
episode.
So the tacit message was pretty clear to powers that be -- - as long as US troops aren't
hurt, go-ahead and bomb-away those foreign men, women, and even children getting killed by
them don't matter, especially if our military leaders offer-up oh-so-sincere apologies and
state that 'these were unavoidable collateral civilian casualties because we only perform
surgical strikes on terrorists' (and said in a most serious, gravitas-laden tone, so you KNOW
they're telling the truth).
Windup , July 4, 2019 at 16:09
George wasn't 'elected' in the first place, let alone 're-elected'. I don't know if that
makes you feel better. Maybe it does- at least about the American public (at that point in
time anyway).
But it was certainly a forerunner to how we 'elect' our officials, which at this point is
more blatantly fraudulent. At least to those of us not reading/watching msm.
"... The US today is a global empire. Our country's military, ballooning to some 2.1 million in uniform at a time that there is really no significant war underway. US military spending, greater in constant dollars than at any time since WWII, represents 34% of all global military spending, and the US military budget, depending on how one counts it, is larger than the next largest eight-to-ten countries' military budgets combined. ..."
"... And remember -- US empire and militarism is and has always been supported by both political parties. ..."
"... only 32% of Americans say they are "proud" (forget "extremely proud"!) of America's vaunted political system. In a close second for popular disgust, only 37% said they are "proud" of the US health care system. ..."
"... In my view, my country has become the world's leading "rogue" nation, dismissive of all international laws and codes of conduct, actively attacking many countries on its own authority, without the support of UN Security Council resolutions, exonerating war crimes committed by its soldiers, and committed to the first use of nuclear weapons, both as a first strike against major power rivals like Russia and China, and against non-nuclear nations like Iran, and equally dismissive of all efforts, large and small, to respond to the crisis of catastrophic global heating. ..."
The US today is a global empire. Our country's military, ballooning to some 2.1 million
in uniform at a time that there is really no significant war underway. US military spending,
greater in constant dollars than at any time since WWII, represents 34% of all global military
spending, and the US military budget, depending on how one counts it, is larger than the next
largest eight-to-ten countries' military budgets combined.
To show how ridiculously huge the US military is, consider that at $220 billion for fiscal
year 2020, the US budget for Veterans Affairs alone (that's the agency that provides assistance
of all kinds, including medical, to those who served in the military, not counting career
soldiers who receive a pension that is counted separately) this one military budget line item
is larger than the entire military budget of China, and is more than three times as large as
the entire military budget of Russia, considered by many to be our primary "adversary"!
And remember -- US empire and militarism is and has always been supported by both
political parties.
... ... ...
I read that a recent Gallup Organization poll shows a significant drop in the percentage of
US Americans who are "extremely proud" of their country. True, 45% still say they are "proud"
of America, but normally that is how many say they are "extremely proud" to be Americans.
That's a significant fall-off. Even among normally super-patriotic Republicans the percentage
of those saying they are "extremely proud" this July 4 of this country was down to 76%, a 10%
drop from 2003, and close to the 68% low point reached at one point during the Obama
administration.
The main cause of the loss of patriotic ardor appears to be dismay or disgust with the US
political system. According to the poll, only 32% of Americans say they are "proud" (forget
"extremely proud"!) of America's vaunted political system. In a close second for popular
disgust, only 37% said they are "proud" of the US health care system.
So I guess I'm in pretty good company. I won't be oohing and aaahing at the local fireworks
display this year. It's basically a glorification of US war-making anyhow, and there's nothing
at all to be proud of in that regard, particularly with the US in the midst of a $1.5-trillion
upgrade of its nuclear arsenal, threatening war with Iran, pulling out of a Reagan-era treaty
banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and embarking in a new arms race both in space and
in virtually unstoppable hypersonic cruise missiles.
In my view, my country has become the world's leading "rogue" nation, dismissive of all
international laws and codes of conduct, actively attacking many countries on its own
authority, without the support of UN Security Council resolutions, exonerating war crimes
committed by its soldiers, and committed to the first use of nuclear weapons, both as a first
strike against major power rivals like Russia and China, and against non-nuclear nations like
Iran, and equally dismissive of all efforts, large and small, to respond to the crisis of
catastrophic global heating. [
At home, the US legal system has become a supine supporter of
virtually unlimited executive power, of unchecked police power, and of repressive actions
against the supposedly constitutionally protected free press.
It's tempting to hope that the decline noted by Gallup in the percent of Americans
expressing "extreme pride" and even of "pride" in the US, but support for the US among the
country's citizens still remains shamefully high in the face of all these negatives.
Anyhow, count me among those who won't be celebrating today's July 4 national
holiday.
"... The current batch of military hardware is so much garbage that when the President wants to use the "superb" pieces of crap (F35 and the new boats are prime examples) a general will have to become the sacrificial lamb and give the president the news that this stuff is for show only. ..."
Peace though procurement malpractice. The current batch of military hardware is so much
garbage that when the President wants to use the "superb" pieces of crap (F35 and the new
boats are prime examples) a general will have to become the sacrificial lamb and give the
president the news that this stuff is for show only.
"... "Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization." ..."
"... Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017 Department of Defense poll that found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z. ..."
"... These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right alliance between two influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months, they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. ..."
"... In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill ultimately passed the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be vetoed by President Trump. That such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy." ..."
"... And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come. ..."
"... In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this." ..."
"... It is little recognized how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC while also taking heavy casualties. ..."
"... We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South. ..."
"... Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. ..."
"... President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions. ..."
Peace activism is rising, but that isn't translating into huge street demonstrations, writes Allegra Harpootlian.
W hen Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017, Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest their
instantly endangered rights. Conspicuously absent from the newfound civic engagement, despite more than a decade and a half of this
country's fruitless, destructive wars across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, was antiwar sentiment, much less an actual
movement.
Those like me working against America's seemingly
endless
wars wondered why the subject merited so little discussion, attention, or protest. Was it because the still-spreading war on
terror remained shrouded in government secrecy? Was the lack of media coverage about what America was doing overseas to blame? Or
was it simply that most Americans didn't care about what was happening past the water's edge? If you had asked me two years ago,
I would have chosen "all of the above." Now, I'm not so sure.
After the enormous demonstrations
against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the antiwar movement disappeared almost as suddenly as it began, with some even openly
declaring it dead. Critics
noted the long-term absence of significant protests against those wars, a lack of political will in Congress to deal with them,
and ultimately,
apathy on matters of war and peace when compared to issues like health care, gun control, or recently even
climate
change .
The pessimists have been right to point out that none of the plethora of marches on Washington since Donald Trump was elected
have had even a secondary focus on America's fruitless wars. They're certainly right to question why Congress, with the constitutional
duty to declare war, has until recently allowed both presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to wage war as they wished without
even consulting them. They're right to feel nervous when a national
poll shows that more Americans think we're fighting a war in Iran (we're not) than a war in Somalia (
we are ).
But here's what I've been wondering recently: What if there's an antiwar movement growing right under our noses and we just haven't
noticed? What if we don't see it, in part, because it doesn't look like any antiwar movement we've even imagined?
If a movement is only a movement when people fill the streets, then maybe the critics are right. It might also be fair to say,
however, that protest marches do not always a movement make. Movements are
defined by their ability to challenge the status
quo and, right now, that's what might be beginning to happen when it comes to America's wars.
What if it's Parkland students
condemning American imperialism or groups fighting the
Muslim Ban that are
also fighting the war on terror? It's veterans not only trying to take on the wars they fought in, but putting themselves on
the front lines of the
gun control
,
climate change , and police brutality debates. It's
Congress
passing the first War Powers Resolution in almost 50 years. It's Democratic presidential candidates
signing a pledge to end America's endless wars.
For the last decade and a half, Americans -- and their elected representatives -- looked at our endless wars and essentially
shrugged. In 2019, however, an antiwar movement seems to be brewing. It just doesn't look like the ones that some remember from
the Vietnam era and others from the pre-invasion-of-Iraq moment. Instead, it's a movement that's being woven into just about every
other issue that Americans are fighting for right now -- which is exactly why it might actually work.
An estimated 100,000 people protested the war in Iraq in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2007 (Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia
Commons)
A Veteran's Antiwar Movement in the Making?
During the Vietnam War of the 1960s
and early 1970s, protests began with religious groups and peace organizations morally opposed to war. As that conflict intensified,
however, students began to join the movement, then civil rights leaders such as
Martin Luther King, Jr. got involved,
then war veterans who had witnessed the horror firsthand stepped in -- until, with a seemingly constant storm of protest in the
streets, Washington eventually withdrew from Indochina.
You might look at the lack of public outrage now, or perhaps the
exhaustion of having been outraged
and nothing changing, and think an antiwar movement doesn't exist. Certainly, there's nothing like the active one that fought against
America's involvement in Vietnam for so long and so persistently. Yet it's important to notice that, among some of the very same
groups (like veterans, students, and even politicians) that fought against that war, a healthy
skepticism about America's 21st century wars, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex, and even the very idea of American
exceptionalism is finally on the rise -- or so the
polls tell us.
"Arlington West of Santa Monica," a project of Veterans for Peace, puts reminders of the costs of war on the beach in Santa Monica,
California. (Lorie Shaull via Flickr)
Right after the midterms last year, an organization named Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness
reported mournfully that younger Americans were "turning on the country and forgetting its ideals," with nearly half believing
that this country isn't "great" and many eyeing the U.S. flag as "a sign of intolerance and hatred." With millennials and Generation
Z rapidly becoming the
largest voting bloc in America for the next 20 years, their priorities are taking center stage. When it comes to foreign policy
and war, as it happens, they're quite different from the generations that preceded them. According to the
Chicago Council of Global Affairs ,
"Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a
goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and
to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across
the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more
likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization."
Although marches are the most public way to protest, another striking but understated way is simply not to engage with the systems
one doesn't agree with. For instance, the vast majority of today's teenagers aren't at all interested in joining the all-volunteer
military. Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army
fell thousands of troops short
of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017
Department of Defense poll that
found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has
the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on
creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z.
In addition, we're finally seeing what happens when soldiers from America's post-9/11 wars come home infused with a sense of
hopelessness in relation to those conflicts. These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning
disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress
against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right
alliance between two
influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically
at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together
to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a
pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months,
they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Ilhan Omar.
And this may just be the tip of a growing antiwar iceberg. A misconception about movement-building is that everyone is there
for the same reason, however broadly defined. That's often not the case and sometimes it's possible that you're in a movement and
don't even know it. If, for instance, I asked a room full of climate-change activists whether they also considered themselves part
of an antiwar movement, I can imagine the denials I'd get. And yet, whether they know it or not, sooner or later fighting climate
change will mean taking on the Pentagon's global footprint, too.
Think about it: not only is the U.S. military the world's
largest
institutional consumer of fossil fuels but, according to a
new report from Brown University's Costs of War Project, between 2001 and 2017, it released more than 1.2 billion metric tons
of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (400 million of which were related to the war on terror). That's equivalent to the emissions
of 257 million passenger cars, more than double the number currently on the road in the U.S.
A Growing Antiwar Movement in Congress
One way to sense the growth of antiwar sentiment in this country is to look not at the empty streets or even at veterans organizations
or recruitment polls, but at Congress. After all, one
indicator of a successful movement, however
incipient, is its power to influence and change those making the decisions in Washington. Since Donald Trump was elected, the most
visible evidence of growing antiwar sentiment is the way America's congressional policymakers have increasingly become engaged with
issues of war and peace. Politicians, after all, tend to follow the voters and, right now, growing numbers of them seem to be following
rising antiwar sentiment back home into an expanding set of debates about war and peace in the age of Trump.
In campaign season 2016, in an op-ed in The Washington Post , political scientist Elizabeth Saunders wondered whether foreign policy would play a significant role
in the presidential election. "Not likely," she concluded. "Voters do not pay much attention to foreign policy." And at the time,
she was on to something. For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders, then competing for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary
Clinton, didn't
even prepare stock answers to basic national security questions, choosing instead, if asked at all, to quickly pivot back to
more familiar topics. In a debate with Clinton, for instance, he was asked whether he would keep troops in Afghanistan to deal with
the growing success of the Taliban. In his answer, he skipped Afghanistan entirely, while warning only vaguely against a "quagmire"
in Iraq and Syria.
Heading for 2020, Sanders is once again competing for the nomination, but instead of shying away from foreign policy, starting
in 2017, he became the face of what could be a
new American
way of thinking when it comes to how we see our role in the world.
In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk
introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the
brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill
ultimately passed
the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be
vetoed by President Trump. That
such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable
in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at
Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy."
Nor, strikingly enough, is Sanders the only Democratic presidential candidate now running on what is essentially an antiwar platform.
One of the main aspects of Elizabeth
Warren's foreign policy plan, for instance, is to "seriously review the country's military commitments overseas, and that includes
bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq." Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel have
joined Sanders and Warren in signing a pledge to end America's forever wars if elected.
Beto O'Rourke has called for the repeal
of Congress's 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that presidents have cited ever since whenever they've sent American forces
into battle. Marianne Williamson , one of the
many (unlikely) Democratic candidates seeking the nomination, has even proposed a plan to transform America's "wartime economy into
a peace-time economy, repurposing the tremendous talents and infrastructure of [America's] military industrial complex to the work
of promoting life instead of death."
And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives,
and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their
skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound
to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come.
Get on Board or Get Out of the Way
When trying to create a movement, there are three likely
outcomes : you will
be accepted by the establishment, or rejected for your efforts, or the establishment will be replaced, in part or in whole, by those
who agree with you. That last point is exactly what we've been seeing, at least among Democrats, in the Trump years. While 2020
Democratic candidates for president, some of whom have been in the political arena for decades, are gradually hopping on the end-the-endless-wars
bandwagon, the real antiwar momentum in Washington has begun to come from new members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(AOC) and Ilhan Omar who are unwilling to accept business as usual when it comes to either the Pentagon or the country's forever
wars. In doing so, moreover, they are responding to what their constituents actually want.
As far back as 2014, when a
University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll asked people where the U.S. government should spend their tax dollars, only 7 percent
of respondents under 35 said it should go toward military and defense spending. Instead, in a "pretty significant political shift"
at the time, they overwhelmingly opted for their tax dollars to go toward job creation and education. Such a trend has only become
more apparent as those
calling
for free public college, Medicare-for-all, or a Green New Deal have come to
realize that they could pay for such ideas if America would stop pouring
trillions of dollars into wars that never should have been launched.
The new members of the House of Representatives, in particular, part of the youngest, most diverse crew
to date , have begun to replace the old guard and are increasingly signalling their readiness to throw out policies that don't
work for the American people, especially those reinforcing the American war machine. They understand that by ending the wars and
beginning to scale back the military-industrial complex, this country could once again have the resources it needs to fix so many
other problems.
In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We
have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we
continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something
equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this."
A few days before that, at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, Ocasio-Cortez
confronted executives from military contractor TransDigm about the way they were price-gouging the American taxpayer by selling
a $32 "non-vehicular clutch disc" to the Department of Defense for $1,443 per disc. "A pair of jeans can cost $32; imagine paying
over $1,000 for that," she said. "Are you aware of how many doses of insulin we could get for that margin? I could've gotten over
1,500 people insulin for the cost of the margin of your price gouging for these vehicular discs alone."
And while such ridiculous waste
isn't news to those of us who follow Pentagon spending closely, this was undoubtedly something many of her millions of supporters
hadn't thought about before. After the hearing,
Teen Vogue
created a list of the "5 most ridiculous things the United States military has spent money on," comedian
Sarah Silverman tweeted out the AOC
hearing clip to her 12.6 million followers, Will and Grace actress
Debra Messing publicly expressed her gratitude
to AOC, and according to Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool, the
NowThis clip of her in that congressional
hearing garnered more than 20 million impressions.
Ocasio-Cortez calling out costs charged by military contractor TransDigm. (YouTube)
Not only are members of Congress beginning to call attention to such undercovered issues, but perhaps they're even starting to
accomplish something. Just two weeks after that contentious hearing, TransDigm
agreed to return $16.1 million
in excess profits to the Department of Defense. "We saved more money today for the American people than our committee's entire budget
for the year," said House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings.
Of course, antiwar demonstrators have yet to pour into the streets, even though the wars we're already involved in continue to
drag on and a possible new one with Iran looms on the horizon. Still, there seems to be a notable trend in antiwar opinion and activism.
Somewhere just under the surface of American life lurks a genuine, diverse antiwar movement that appears to be coalescing around
a common goal: getting Washington politicians to believe that antiwar policies are supportable, even potentially popular. Call me
an eternal optimist, but someday I can imagine such a movement helping end those disastrous wars.
Allegra Harpootlian is a media associate at
ReThink Media , where she works with leading experts
and organizations at the intersection of national security, politics, and the media. She principally focuses on U.S. drone policies
and related use-of-force issues. She is also a political partner with the
Truman National Security Project . Find her on Twitter
@ally_harp .
"How Obama demobilized the antiwar movement"
By Brad Plumer
August 29, 2013
Washington Post
"Reihan Salam points to a 2011 paper by sociologists Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, who find that antiwar protests shrunk
very quickly after Obama took office in 2008 -- mainly because Democrats were less likely to show up:
Drawing upon 5,398 surveys of demonstrators at antiwar protests, interviews with movement leaders, and ethnographic observation,
this article argues that the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican
sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success in ending
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heaney and Rojas begin by puzzling over a paradox. Obama ran as an antiwar candidate, but his first few years in office were
rather different: "As president, Obama maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan. The antiwar movement
should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies
declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.""
Rob , July 4, 2019 at 14:20
The author may be too young to realize that the overwhelming driving force in the anti-Vietnam War movement was hundreds
of thousands of young men who were at risk of being drafted and sent to fight, die and kill in that godforsaken war. As the
movement grew, it gathered in millions of others as well. Absent the military draft today, most of America's youth don't seem
to give half a damn about the current crimes of the U.S. military. As the saying goes: They have no skin in the game.
bardamu , July 3, 2019 at 20:21
There has again been some shift in Sanders' public positions, while Tulsi Gabbard occupies a position that was not represented
in '16, and HR Clinton was more openly bent on war than anyone currently at the table, though perhaps because that much of her
position had become so difficult to deny over the years.
That said, Clinton lost to Obama in '08 because she could not as effectively deny her militarism. There was at the time within
the Democratic Party more and clearer movement against the wars than there is now. One might remember the run for candidacy
of Dennis Kucinich, for example. The 8 years of the Obama regime were a consistent frustration and disappointment to any antiwar
or anticorporate voice within the Democratic Party, but complaints were muted because many would not speak against a Blue or
a Black president. More than at any prior time, corporate media spokespersons could endorse radically pro-corporate positions
and imply or accuse their opposition of racism.
That leaves it unclear, however, what any antiwar voices have to do with the Democratic Party itself, particularly if we
take "the party" to mean the political organization itself as opposed to the people whom it claims to represent. The Party and
the DNC were major engines in the rigging of the 2016 Democratic nomination–and also, lest we forget, contributors to the Donald
Trump nomination campaign.
It should not escape us, as we search for souls and soulfulness among these remnants of Democratic Parties Past, that any
turn of the party against war is surely due to Hillary Clinton's loss to presumed patsy candidate Donald Trump in 2016–the least
and second-least popular major presidential contenders in history, clearly, in whichever order one wishes to put them.
There is some value in realism, then. So as much as one hates to criticize a Bernie Sanders in anything like the present
field that he runs in, his is not a consistently antiwar position: he has gone back and forth. Tulsi Gabbard is the closest
thing to an antiwar candidate within the Party. And under even under the most favorable circumstances, 2020 is at best not her
year.
Most big money says war. scorched earth, steep hierarchy, and small constitution. Any who don't like it had best speak up
and act up.
I am for Tulsi, a Senator from Hawaii not a rep as this article says. Folk Music was in when the peace movement was strong
and building, the same for Folk Rock who songs also had words you could get without Google.
So my way of "hoping" for an Anti-War/Peace Movement is to have a Folk Revival in my mind.
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 14:11
The answer to the question why anti war movement is dead is so simple and obvious but apparently invisible to most Dems/libs/progressives
(excuse my inability to discern the distinctions between labels). The answer points to our onetime "peace" president Obama.
As far as foreign interventions go (and domestic spying, among other things) Obama had continued Baby Bush's policy. Even worse,
Obama had given a bipartisan seal of approval (and legality) to most of Baby Bush's crimes. In other words, for 8 years, meaning
during the "peace" president's reign, the loyal "lefty" sheeple have held their mouth when it came to war and peace.
Obama and the Dems have very effectively killed the ant war movement
The establishment will always be pro-war because there's so much money in it. Street demonstrations will never change that,
as we recently learned with Iraq. The only strategy that has a chance of working is anti-enlistment. If they don't have the
troops they can't invade anywhere, and recruitment is already a problem. It needs to be a bigger problem.
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 11:51
Sorry, ALL of these Democrat wannabes save one is ignorant of foreign affairs, foreign policy and its destruction of what
they blather on about – domestic vote-getting sky pies. Oh yes, free everything: schools, health care, social justices and services.
It's as though the MIC has not stolen the money from the public's pockets to get rich by sending cheap fodder out there to get
killed and wounded, amputated physically and mentally.
Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't stand
the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men, because she drew a bad
one. Huma was better company. Since she didn't know anything beyond the superficial, she did whatever the "experts" whispered
in her ears: War! Obama was in the same boat. The target, via gaining total control of oil from Libya to Syria and Iran was
her Putin hate. So her experts set up the Ukraine. The "experts" are the MIC/CIA and our fearless, brainless, corrupt military.
They have whispered the same psychotic message since the Gulf of Tonkin. We've lost to everyone with whom we've crossed swords
and left them devastated and America diminished save for the few.
So I was a Sanders supporter until he backed the warrior woman and I, like millions of others backed off of her party. It's
still her party. Everyone just loves every victim of every kind. They all spout minor variations on the same themes while Trump
and his neocons quietly install their right wing empire. Except for one who I spotted when she had the independence to go look
for herself in Syria.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate to be the candidate who has a balance of well thought through, realistic foreign policy
as well as the domestic non-extremist one. She has the hurdle of being a too-pretty woman, of being from the remotest state,
and not being a screamer. Even this article, written about peace by a woman fails to talk about her.
Tulsi has the registered voter count and a respectable budget, but the New York Times which is policy-controlled by a few
of Hillary's billionaire friends has consistently shut her out, because Tulsi left the corrupt Hillary-owned DNC to back Sanders
and Hillary never forgave her.
If you want to know who is against Trump and war, take 5 minutes and listen to what she really said during the 1st debate
where the CBS folks gave her little room to talk. It will change your outlook on what really is possible.
Hi Anonymot; I also exited my Sanders support after over 100 cash donations and over a years painful effort. I will never
call him Bernie again; now it is Sanders, since Bernie makes him sound cute and cute was not the word that came into my mind
as Mr. Sanders missed his world moment at the democratic election and backed Hillary Clinton (I can not vote for EVIL). Sanders
then proceeded to give part of my money to the DNC & to EVIL Hillary Clinton.
So then what now? Easy as Pie; NO MORE DEMOCRATS EVER. The DNC & DCCC used Election Fraud & Election Crimes blatantly to
beat Bernie Sanders. Right out in the open. The DNC & DCCC are War Mongering more then the Republicans which is saying allot.
The mass media and major Internet Plateforms like Goggle & Facebook are all owned by Evil Oligarchs that profit from WAR and
blatantly are today suppressing all dissenting opinions (anti Free Speech).
I stopped making cash donation to Tulsi Gabbard upon the realization that the Democrats were not at all a force for Life
or Good and instead were a criminal organization. The voting for the lessor of two EVILs is 100% STUPID.
I told Tim Canova I could not support any Democrat ever again as I told Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi is still running as a criminal
democrat. If she would run independent of the DNC then I would start to donate cash to her again. End of my story about Tulsi.
I do like her antiwar dialog, but there is no; so called changing, the DNC from the inside. The Oligarchs own the DNC and are
not supportive of "We The People" or the Constitution, or the American Republic.
The end of Tim Canova's effort was he was overtly CHEATED AGAIN by the DNC's Election Fraud & Election Crimes in his 2018
run for congress against Hillary Clinton's 100% corrupt campaign manager; who congress seated even over Tim's asking them not
to seat her until his law suites on her election crimes against him were assessed. Election crimes and rigged voting machines
in Florida are a way of life now and have been for decades and decades.
All elections must be publicly funded. All votes must be on paper ballots and accessible for recounts and that is just the
very minimums needed to start changing the 100% corrupted election system we Americans have been railroaded into.
The supreme Court has recently ruled that gerrymandering is OK. The supreme court has proven to be a political organization
with their Bush Gore decision and now are just political hacks and as such need to be ELECTED not appointed. Their rulings that
Money is Free Speech & that Corporations are People has disenfranchised "We the People". That makes the Supreme Court a tool
to be used by the world money elite to overturn the constitution of the United States of America.
No More War. No More War. No More War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 16:40
Absolutely spot-on, superb comment, P .Brooks.
DW
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 18:08
I saw the light (with what the Dems are really about) after Kucinich's candidacy. That made me one of the very few lefties
in my circle not to have voted for Obama even the first time around. I hear a lot of talk about trying to reform the party from
inside. Utter bu** sh**. "You cannot reform Mafia".
Ever since Kucinich, I have been voting Green. No, this is not a waste of my vote. Besides, I cannot be complicit to war
crimes – that's what it makes anyone who votes for either of the two parties.
Steven , July 3, 2019 at 13:56
Wow you said a mouthful. It's worse than that its a cottage industry that includes gun running, drug running and human trafficking
netting Trillions to the MIC, CIA and other alphabet agencies you can't fight the mark of the beast.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:01
I fully back/endorse Gabbard, but
The battering of Bernie is not fair. He is NOT a Democrat, therefore him being able to get "inside" that party to run AS
a Dem put him in a tenuous situation. He really had no option other than to support HRC lest his movement, everyone's movement,
would get extra hammering by the neocons and status quo powers. He wouldn't be running, again, had he not done this. Yeah, it's
a bad taste, I get it, but had he disavowed HRC would the outcome -Trump- been any different? The BLAME goes fully on the DNC
and the Clintons. Full stop.
I do not see AOC as a full progressive. She is only doing enough to make it appear so. The Green New Deal is stolen from
the Green Party and is watered down. Think of this as "Obama Care" for the planet. As you should know, Gabbard's Off Fossil
Fuels Act (OFF) actually has real teeth in it: and is closer to the Green Party's positions.
I support movements and positions. PRIMARY is peace. Gabbard, though not a pacifist, has the right path on all of this: I've
been around long enough to understand exactly how she's approaching all of this. She is, however, taking on EVERYONE. As powerful
a person as she is (she has more fortitude than the entire lot of combined POTUS candidates put together) going to require MASSIVE
support; sadly, -to this point- this article doesn't help by implying that people aren't interested in foreign policy (it perpetuates
the blockout of it- people have to be reeducated on its importance- not something that the MIC wants), people aren't yet able
to see the connections. The education will occur will it happen in a timely way such that people would elect Gabbard? (things
can turn on a dime, history has shown this; she has the makeup that suggests that she's going to have a big role in making history).
I did not support Bernie (and so far have not- he's got ample support; if it comes down to it he WILL get my vote- and I've
held off voting for many years because there's been no real "peace" candidate on the plate). Gabbard, however, has my support
now, and likely till the day I die: I've been around long enough to know what constitutes a great leader, and not since the
late 60s have we had anyone like her. If Bernie gets the nomination it is my prediction that he will have Gabbard high on his
staff, if not as VP: a sure fire way to win is to have Gabbard as VP.
I'm going to leave this for folks to contemplate as to whether Gabbard is real or not:
In a context in which Rio de Janeiro's evangelical churches have been accused of laundering money for the drug trafficking
gangs, all elements of Afro-Brazilian culture including caipoeira, Jango drumming, and participation in Carnaval parades, have
been banned by the traffickers in many favelas.
[end excerpt]
"caipoeria," is something that Gabbard has practiced:
"I trained in different martial arts since I was a kid including Capoeira -- an amazing art created by slaves in Brazil who
were training to fight and resist against their slave masters, disguising their training with music, acrobatics, and dance.
Yesterday I joined my friends Mestre Kinha and others at Capoeira Besouro Hawai'i for their batizado ceremony and some fun!
" – Tulsi Gabbard December 9, 2018
The GOAL is to get her into the upper halls of governing power. If the people cannot see fit to it then I'll support Sanders
(in the end) so that he can do it.
Harpootlian claims to see what's going on, but, unfortunately, she's not able to look close enough.
Anonymot, thank you for leading out here with Gabbard and her message.
michael , July 4, 2019 at 08:10
If Gabbard had the MSM coverage Buttigieg has received she probably be leading in the polls. It is surprising(?) that this
supposedly anti-war author mentions corporatist Mayor Pete but not Gabbard.
David , July 4, 2019 at 19:55
She DOES (briefly)mention Gabbard, but she missed the fact that Gabbard is the most strongly anti-war candidate. She gets
it entirely wrong about Buttigieg, who is strikingly pro-war, and supports getting in to a war with Iran.
And sadly, Ms. Gabbard is mired at the 1% mark in the polls, even after having performed so well in the debate.
This seems to me an indication of the public's lack of caring about our foreign wars.
antonio Costa , July 3, 2019 at 19:06
The reason she's "mired" is because a number of polls don't include her!! However they include, Marianne Williamson.
How's that for inverse totalitarianism par excellence .
Skip Scott , July 4, 2019 at 07:05
I did see one poll that had her at 2%. And given the reputation of many polling outfits, I take any professed results with
a grain of salt. Tulsi's press coverage (what little she gets) has been mostly defamatory to the point of being libelous. If
her strong performance continues in the primary debates despite all efforts to sabotage her, I think she could make a strong
showing. That said, at some point she will have to renounce the DNC controlled democratic party and run as an Independent if
she wants to make the General Election debates for 2020.
"Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't
stand the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men "
If I were to psychologize, I would conjecture more un-gendered stereotype, namely that of a good student. He/she diligently
learns in all classes from the prescribed textbooks and reading materials, and, alas, American education on foreign affairs
is dominated by retirees from CIA and other armchair warriors. Of course, nothing wrong about good students in general, but
I mean the type that is obedient, devoid of originality and independent thinking. When admonished, he/she remembers the pain
for life and strives hard not to repeat it. E.g. as First Lady, Hillary kissed Arafat's wife to emulate Middle East custom,
and NY tabloids had a feast for months.
Concerning Tulsi, no Hillary-related conspiracy is needed to explain the behavior of the mass media. Tulsi is a heretic to
the establishment, and their idea is to be arbiters of what and who belongs to the "mainstream", and what is radical, marginal
etc. Tulsi richly deserves her treatment. Confronted with taunts like "so you would prefer X to stay in power" (Assad, Maduro
etc.) she replies that it should not be up to USA to decide who stays in power, especially if no better scenario is in sight.
The gall, the cheek!
Strangely enough, Tulsi gets this treatment in places like The Nation and Counterpunch. As the hitherto "radical left" got
a whiff of being admitted to the hallowed mainstream from time to time, they try to be "responsible".
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:39
Yes! Thank You I was gritting my teeth reading this article #Tulsi2020
Eddie , July 3, 2019 at 11:42
The end of the anti-war movement expired when the snake-oil pitchman with the toothy smile and dark skin brought his chains
we could beleive in to the White House. The so-called progressives simply went to sleep while they never criticized Barack Obama
for escalating W. Bush's wars and tax cuts for the rich.
The fake left wing in the US remained silent when Obama dumped trillions of dollars into the vaults of his bankster pals
as he stole the very homes from the people who voted him into office. Then along came the next hope and change miracle worker
Bernie Sanders. Only instead of working miracles for the working class, Sanders showed his true colors when he fcuked his constituents
to support the hated Hillary Clinton.
Let's start facing reality. The two-party dictatorship does not care about you unless you can pony up the big bucks like
their masters in the oligarchy and the soulless corporations do. Unless and until workers end to the criminal stranglehold that
the big-business parties and the money class have on the government, things will continue to slide into the abyss.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:33
An informed awareness of imperialism must also include an analysis of how "technology" is used and abused, from the use of
"superior" weaponry against people who do not have such weapons, from blunderbuss and sailing ships, to B-52s and napalm, up
to and including technology that may be "weaponized" against civilian populations WiTHIN a society, be it 24/7 surveillance
or robotics and AI that could permit elites to dispense with any "need", on the part of the elites, to tolerate the very existence
of a laborung class, or ANY who earn their wealth through actual work, from maids to surgeons, from machine operators to professors.
Any assumption, that any who "work", even lawyers or military officers, can consider their occupation or profession as "safe",
is to assume that the scapegoating will stop with those the highly paid regard as "losers", such comfortable assumption may
very well prove as illusory and ephemeral as an early morning mist before the hot and merciless Sun rises.
The very notions of unfettered greed and limitless power, resulting in total control, must be recognized as the prime drivers
of endless war and shock-doctrine capitalism which, combined, ARE imperialism, unhinged and insane.
michael , July 3, 2019 at 11:06
This article is weak. Anyone who could equate Mayor Pete or the eleven Democrat "ex"-military and CIA analysts who gained
seats in Congress in 2018 as anti-war is clueless. Tulsi Gabbard is anti-regime change war, but is in favor of fighting "terrorists"
(created mostly by our CIA and Israel with Saudi funding). Mike Gravel is the only true totally anti-war 'candidate' and he
supports Gabbard as the only anti-War of the Democrats.
In WWI, 90% of Americans who served were drafted, in WWII over 60% of Americans who served were drafted. The Vietnam War "peace
demonstrations" were more about the Draft, and skin-in-the-game, than about War. Nixon and Kissinger abolished the Draft (which
stopped most anti-war protests), but continued carpet bombing Vietnam and neighboring countries (Operations Menu, Freedom Deal,
Patio, etc), and Vietnamized the War which was already lost, although the killing continued through 1973. The abolition of the
Draft largely gutted the anti-war movement. Sporadic protests against Bush/ Cheney over Afghanistan and Iraq essentially disappeared
under Obama/ Hillary in Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Since their National Emergency proclamations
no longer ever end, we are in a position to attack Venezuela (Obama), Ukraine (Obama), South Sudan (Obama), Iran (Carter, Clinton),
Libya (Obama), Somalia (Obama), Yemen (Obama), Nicaragua (Trump) and even Burundi (Obama) and the Central African Republic (Obama).
The continuing support of death squads in Honduras and other Latin American countries ("stability is more important than democracy")
has contributed to the immigration crises over the last five years.
As Pelosi noted about Democratic progressives "there are like five of them". Obama not only failed to reverse any of the police
state and warmongering of Bush/Cheney, he expanded both police state (arresting and prosecuting Chelsea Manning for exposing
war crimes, as well as more whistleblowers than anyone in history), and wars in seven Arab Muslim countries. Black Americans,
who had always been an anti-War bloc prior to Obama, converted to the new America. The Congressional Democrats joined with Republicans
to give more to the military budget than requested by Trump. (Clinton squandered the Peace Dividend when the Soviet Union fell,
and Lee Camp has exposed the $21 TRILLION "lost" by the Pentagon.)
The young author see anti-war improvements that are not there. The US is more pro-war in its foreign policies than at any time
in its history. When there was a Draft, the public would not tolerate decades of war (lest their young men died). Sanctions
are now the first attack (usually by National Emergencies!); the 500,000 Iraqi children killed by Clinton's sanctions (Madeline
Albright: "we think it was worth it!") is just sadism and psychopathy at the top, which is necessary for War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:38
Superb comment, michael, very much agreed with and appreciated.
DW
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 12:06
You are absolutely right. Obama and Hillary were the brilliant ideas of the MIC/CIA when they realized that NO ONE the Republicans
put up after Bush baby's 2nd round. They chose 2 "victims" black & woman) who would do what they were told to do in order to
promote their causes (blacks & get-filthy rich.) The first loser would get the next round. And that's exactly what happened
until Hillary proved to be so unacceptable that she was rejected. We traded no new war for an administration leading us into
a neo-nazi dictatorship.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:04
Thank you for this comment!
Mickey , July 3, 2019 at 10:47
Tulsi Gabbard is the only peace candidate in the Democratic Party
Many current crises have the potential to escalate into a major confrontation between the nuclear powers, similar to the
Cuban missile crisis, though there is no comparable sense of alarm. Then, tensions were at boiling point, when a small military
exchange could have led to nuclear annihilation. Today there are many more such flashpoint – Syria, the South China Sea, Iran,
Ukraine to name a few. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a gradual movement towards third world war. Condemnation
of an attack on Iran must include, foremost, the warning that it could lead the US into a confrontation with a Sino-Russian
alliance. The warning from history is states go to war over interests, but ultimately – and blindly – end up getting the very
war they need to avoid: even nuclear war, where the current trend is going. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:36
Many truly superb, well-informed, and very enlightening comments on this thread.
My very great appreciation to this site, to its authors, and to its exceptionally thoughtful and articulate commenters.
DW
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:20
I appreciate this author's perspective, research, and optimism.
Clearly, the young ARE far more open to embracing a future less warlike and hegemonic, while far too many of my generation
are wedded to childish myth and fantasy around U$ driven mayhem.
However, I would suggest that vision be broadened beyond opposition to war, which opposition, while important, must be expanded
to opposition to the larger issue of imperialism, itself.
Imperialism is not merely war, it includes economic warfare, both sanctions, internationally, and predatory debt loads, domestically,
in very many nations of the world, as well as privatization of the commons (which must be understood to include all resources
necessary to human existence).
Perpetual war, which profits only the few, is driven by precisely the same aims as pitting workers against each other, worldwide,
in a "game" of "race to the bottom", creating "credit" rather than raising wages, thus creating life-long indebtedness of the
many, which only benefits monopolized corporate interests, as does corporate ownership of such necessities as water, food production,
and most channels of communication, which permits corporations to easily shape public perception toward whatever ends suit corporate
purposes while also ensuring that deeper awareness of what is actually occurring is effectively stifled, deplatformed, or smeared
as dangerous foreign fake news or as hidden, or even as blatant, racial or religious hatred.
Above all, it is critically important that all these interrelated aspects of deliberate domination, control, and diminishment,
ARE talked about, openly, that we all may have better grasp of who really aligns with creating serious systemic change, especially
as traditionally assumed "tendencies" are shifting, quickly and even profoundly.
For example, as many here point out, the Democrats are now as much a war party as the Republicans, "traditionally" have been,
even as there is clear evidence that the Republican "base" is becoming less willing to go to war than are the Democratic "base",
as CNN and MSNBC media outlets strive to incite a new Cold War and champion and applaud aggression in Syria, Iran, and North
Korea.
It is the elite Democratic "leadership" and most Democratic Presidential hopefuls who now preach or excuse war and aggression,
with few actual exceptions, and none of them, including Tulsi Gabbard, have come anywhere near openly discussing or embracing,
the end of U$ imperialism.
Both neoliberal and neocon philosophies are absolutely dedicated to imperialism in all its destructive, even terminal, manifestations.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:16
Exactly!
Gabbard has spoken out against sanctions. She understands that they're just another form of war.
The younger generations won't be able to financially support imperialist activities. And, they won't be, as the statements
to their enlistment numbers suggest, able to "man the guns." I'm thinking that TPTB are aware of this (which is why a lot of
drone and other automation of war machinery has been stepped up).
The recent alliance of Soros and Charles Koch, the Quincy Institute, is, I believe, a KEY turning point. Pretty much everything
Gabbard is saying/calling for is this institute's mission statement: and people ought to note that Gabbard has been in Charles
Koch's circle- might very well be that Gabbard has already influenced things in a positive way.
I also believe that all the great independent journalists, publishers (Assange taking the title here) and whistleblowers
(Manning taking the title here) have made a HUGE impact. Bless them all.
The US government consistently uses psychological operations on its own citizens to manufacture consent to kill anyone and
everyone. Meaningless propaganda phrases such as "Support Our Troops" and "National Security" and "War on Terror" are thrown
around to justify genocides and sieges and distract us from murder. There is no left wing or in American politics and there
has not been one since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. All we have is neoconservatives and neoliberals representing the business
party for four decades. Killing is our business and business is good. Men are as monkeys with guns when it comes to politics
and religion.
One might be hard-pressed to find more outright perversions of reality in a mere two pages of text. Congratulations Congress,
you have indeed surpassed yourself.
So it's those dastardly Russians and Iranians who are responsible for the destabilization of the Middle East, "complicating
Israel's ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria." And apparently, it's the "ungoverned space" in
Syria that has "allowed" for the rise of terrorist factions in Syria, that (we must be reminded) are ever poised to attack "Western
targets, our allies and partners, and the U.S. homeland."
Good grief.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:29
Thank you Joe Lauria and Consortiumnews.
There is much wisdom and a good deal of personal experience being expressed on these pages. I especially want to thank IvyMike
and Dao Gen. Ivy Mike you're so right about our troops in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, draftees and volunteers, they fought what
was clearly an internal civil war fought valiantly, beyond that point, Vietnam was a political mess for all involved. And Dao
Gen all of your points are accurate.
As for our legislators, please read the linked Foreign Affairs press release signed by over 400 leglislators On May 20th.,
2019 that address "threats to Syria" including the Russia threat. Clearly it will take action by the People and Peace candidates
to end this travesty of a foreign policy.
Vietnam a war triggered by the prevention of a mandated election by the USA which Ho Chi Minh was likely to win, who had
already recently been Premier of a unified Vietnam.
Sorry, being courageous in a vicious cause is not honorable.
Speaking a true history and responsibility is honorable.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 11:07
No need to be sorry James Clooney. I did not mention honor in my comment, I mentioned valiant (courage and determination).
American troupes ultimately fight honorably for each other not necessarily for country. This was the message and evaluation
of Captain Hal Moore To General Westmorland And Robert McNamera after the initial engagement of US troops and NVA and can be
viewed as a special feature of the largely inaccurate DVD "We Were Soldiers And Young).
The veterans group About Face is doing remarkable work against the imperial militarization that threatens to consume our
country and possibly the world. This threat includes militarization of US police, a growing nuclear arms race, and so-called
humanitarian wars. About Face is also working to train ordinary people as medics to take these skills into their communities
whose members are on the front lines of police brutality.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate with a strong, enlightened understanding of the costs of our many imperial wars Costs to
ourselves in the US and costs to the people we invade in order to "save" them. I voted for McGovern in 1972. I would vote for
Tuldi's Gabbard in 2020 if given the chance.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:35
Vote for her now by supporting her*! One cannot wait until the DNC (or other party) picks the candidate FOR us. Anyone serious
about peace ought to support her, and do it now and far into the future. I have always supported candidates who are champions
for peace, no matter their "party" or whatever: I did not, though I wish that I had, support Walter Jones -of Freedom Fries
fame- after he did a 180 (Gabbard knew Jones, and respected him); it took a lot of guts for him to do this, but his honest (like
Ron Paul proved) was proven and his voters accepted him (and likely shifted their views along with him).
* Yeah, one has to register giving money, but for a lousy $1 She has yet to qualify for the third debate (need 130k unique
donations): and yet Yang has! (nothing against him, but come on, he is not "Commander in Chief" material [and at this time it
is, as Gabbard repeats, the single most important part of being president]).
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:43
Strongly agree Only Tulsi
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:14
Not surprising there was little or no antiwar sentiment in the newfound civic engagement after Trump's election, since the
majority of those participating were supporters of the war criminals Obama, Clinton, and their corporate, war mongering DEM
party. Those same people today, support Obama-chaperone Biden, or one of the other vetted corporate DEMs, including socialist-in-name-only
Sanders, who signed the DEM loyalty oath promising to continue austerity for the poor, socialism for rich, deregulation, militarism,
and global war hegemony. The only party with an antiwar blank was the Green Party, which captured >2% of the ~130 million votes
in the rigged election- even though Stein is as competent as Clinton, certainly more competent than Trump, and the Green platform,
unlike Sanders', explained how to pay for social and environmental programs by ending illegal wars in at least 7 countries,
closing 1000 military command posts located all over earth, removing air craft carrier task forces from every ocean, cutting
defense spending.
I believe the CIA operation "CARWASH" was under Obama, which gave us Ultra fascism in one of the largest economies in the
world, Brazil.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:02
Superb comment, trieke, and I especially appreciate your mention of Jill Stein and the Green Party.
It is unfortunate that the the Green New Deal, championed by AOC is such a pale and intentionally pusillanimous copy of the
Green New Deal articulated by Stein, which pointedly made clear that blind and blythe economic expansion must cease, that realistic
natural constraints and carrying capacity be accepted and profligate energy squandering come to an end.
That a sane, humane, and sustainable economic system, wholly compatible with ecological responsibility can provide neaningful
endeavor, justly compensated, for all, as was coherently addressed and explained to any who cared to examine the substance of
that, actual, and realistic, original, GND.
Such a vision must be part of successfully challenging, and ending, U$ imperialism.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:53
And Trump likely signed a GOP pledge. It's all superficial crap, nothing that is really written in stone.
I LOVE Stein. But for the sake of the planet we have little time to wait on getting the Green Party up to speed (to the clasp
the levers of power). Unless Gabbard comes out on top (well, the ultimate, and my favorite, long-shot would be Gravel, but reality
is something that I have to accept) it can only really be Sanders. I see a Sanders nomination as being the next best thing (and,
really, the last hope as it all falls WAY off the cliff after that). He would most certainly have Gabbard along (if not as VP,
which is the best strategy for winning, then as some other high-ranking, and meaningful cabinet member). Also, there are a lot
of folks that would be coming in on his coattails. It is THESE people that will make the most difference: although he's got
his flaws, Ro Kana would be a good top official. And, there are all the supporters who would help push. Sanders is WAY better
than HRC (Obama and, of course, Trump). He isn't my favorite, but he has enough lean in him to allow others to help him push
the door open: I'll accept him if that's what it take to get Gabbard into all of this.
Sometimes you DO have to infiltrate. Sanders is an infiltrator (not a Dem), though he treads lightly. Gabbard has already
proven her intentions: directly confronted the DNC and the HRC machine (and her direct attack on the MIC is made very clear);
and, she is indirectly endorsed by some of the best people out there who have run for POTUS: Jill Stein; Ron Paul; Mike Gravel.
We cannot wait for the Dems (and the MIC) to disarm. We need to get inside "the building" and disarm. IF Sanders or Gabbard
(and no Gravel) don't get the nomination THEN it is time to open up direct "warfare" and attack from the "outside" (at this
time there should be enough big defectors to start swinging the tide).
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:34
Yes trieke, I voted for Stein in 2016, and I plan on voting Green Party again in 2020. I see too many fellow progressives/liberals/leftists
(whatever the hell we want to call ourselves) agonizing about which compromised Democrat to vote-for, trying to weigh their
different liabilities, etc. I've come to believe that my duty as a voter is to vote for the POTUS candidate/party whose stances/platform
are closest to my views, and that's unequivocally the Green Party. My duty as a voter does NOT entail 'voting for a winner',
that's just part of the two-party-con that the Dems & Reps run.
jmg , July 3, 2019 at 07:06
The big difference is that, during the Vietnam years, people could *see* the war. People talked a lot about "photographs
that ended the Vietnam war", such as the napalm girl, etc.
The government noticed this. There were enormous pressures on the press, even a ban on returning coffin photos. Now, since
the two Iraq wars, people *don't see* the reality of war. The TV and press don't show Afghanistan, don't show Yemen, didn't
show the real Iraq excepting for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, who are in prison because of this.
And the wars go on:
"The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq
war."
For example, we all know that mainstream media is war propaganda now, itself at war on truth and, apart from some convenient
false flags to justify attacks, they very rarely let the very people suffering wars be heard to wake viewers up, and don't often
even show this uncensored reality of war anymore, not like the true images of this old, powerful video:
Happy Xmas (War Is Over! If You Want It)
So this is Xmas
And what have you done
-- John Lennon
mbob -- thank you -- has already put this very well, but it is above all the Dems, especially Obama and the Clintons, who
killed the antiwar movement. Obama was a fake, and his foreign policy became even more hawkish after Hillary resigned as SoS.
His reduction of Libya, the richest state in Africa, to a feudal chaotic zone in which slavery is once more prominent and his
attempt to demonize Syria, which has more semi-democracy and women's rights than any of the Islamic kingdoms the US supports
as its allies, and turn Syria into a jihadi terrorist hell, as well as Obama's bombing of other nations and his sanctions on
still other nations such as Venezuela, injured and killed at least as many people as did GW Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yet where
was the antiwar movement? In the 21st century the US antiwar movement has gained most of its strength from anti-Repub hatred.
The current uptick of antiwar feeling is probably due mostly to hatred of Trump. Yet Trump is the first president since Carter
not to invade or make a major attack on a foreign country. As a businessman, his policy is to use economic warfare instead of
military warfare.
I am not a Trump supporter, and strong sanctions are a war crime, and Trump is also slow to reduce some of Obama's overseas
bombing and other campaigns, yet ironically he is surely closer to being a "peace president" than Obama. Moreover, a major reason
Trump won in 2016 was that Hillary was regarded as the war and foreign intervention candidate, and in fact if Hillary had won,
she probably would have invaded Syria to set up her infamous "no-fly zone" there, and she might have bombed Iran by now. We
might even be in a war with Russia now. At the same time, under Trump the Dem leadership and the Dem-leaning MSM have pursued
an unabashedly neocon policy of attacking from the right Trumps attempts at detente with Russia and scorning his attempts to
negotiate a treaty with N Korea and to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. The main reason why Trump chose dangerous neocons
like Bolton and Pompeo as advisors was probably to shield himself a little from the incessant and sometimes xenophobic attacks
from the Dem leadership and the MSM. The Dem leadership seems motivated not only by hatred of Trump but also, and probably more
importantly, by a desire to get donations from the military-industrial complex and a desire to ingratiate itself with the Intel
Community and the surveillance state in order to get various favors. Look, for example, at Adam Schiff, cheerleader-in-chief
for the IC. The system of massive collusion between the Dem party elite and the US deep state was not as advanced during the
Vietnam War era as it is now. 2003 changed a lot of things.
The only Dem presidential candidates who are philosophically and securely antiwar are Gabbard and Gravel. Even Bernie (and
even more so, Warren) can't be trusted to stand up to the deep state if elected, and anyway, Bernie's support for the Russiagate
hoax by itself disqualifies him as an antiwar politician, while the Yemen bill he sponsored had a fatal loophole in it, as Bernie
well knew. I love Bernie, but he is neither antiwar nor anti-empire. As for Seth Moulton, mentioned in the article, he is my
Rep, and he makes some mild criticisms of the military, but he is a rabid hawk on Syria and Iran, and he recently voted for
a Repub amendment that would have punished Americans who donate to BDS organizations. And as for the younger generation of Dems,
they are not as antiwar as the article suggests. For every AOC among the newly elected Dems in 2018, there were almost two new
Dems who are military vets or who formerly worked for intel agencies. This does not bode well. As long at the deep state, the
Dem elite, and the MSM are tightly intertwined, there will be no major peace movement in the near future, even if a Dem becomes
president. In fact, a Dem president might hinder the formation of a true antiwar movement. Perhaps when China becomes more powerful
in ten or twenty years, the unipolar US empire and permanent war state will no longer look like a very good idea to a large
number of Americans, and the idea of a peace movement will once again become realistic. The media have a major role to play
in spreading truthful news about how the current US empire is hurting domestic living standards. Rather than hopey-hope wish
lists, no-holds-barred reporting will surely play a big role.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:05
Absolutely superb comment, Dao Gen.
DW
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:07
Another fine example of why I think there is hope! (some very sharp commentators!)
A strong leader can make all the difference. The example gets set from the top: not that this is my preference, just that
it's the reality we have today. MLK Jr. was such a leader, though it was MANY great people that were in his movement/orbit that
were the primary architects. I suppose you could say it's a "rally around the flag" kind of deal. Just as Trump stunned the
System, I believe that it can be stunned from the "left" (the ultimate stunning would be from a Gravel win, but I'm thinking
that Gabbard would be the one that has what it takes to slip past).
I really wish that people would start asking candidates who they think have been good cabinet members for various positions.
This could help give an idea of the most important facet of an administration: who the POTUS selects as key cabinet members
tells pretty much everything you need to know. Sadly, Trump had a shot at selecting Gabbard and passed on her: as much as I
detest Trump, I gave him room in which to work away from the noecon/neolib death squads (to his credit he's mostly just stalemated
them- for a rookie politician you could say that this has been an impressive feat; he's tried to instigate new wars but has,
so far, "failed" [by design?]).
geeyp , July 3, 2019 at 01:19
"We saved more money today for the American people ." – Elijah Cummings. Yea? Well then, give it to us!! You owe us a return
of our money that you have wasted for years.
mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17
Same old, same old, same old, same old.
Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be
different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel.
Honest.
Just like Dubya.
Just like Obomber.
Just like the Orange Baboon.
Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
And this is the "new anti war movement."
Yeah.
Tom Kath , July 3, 2019 at 00:04
Every extreme elicits an extreme response. Our current western pacifist obsession is no exception. By prohibiting argument,
disagreement, verbal conflict, and the occasional playground "dust up" on a personal level, you seem to make the seemingly less
personal war inevitable.
Life on earth is simply not possible without "a bit of biff".
An aware person may not react extremely to a extreme. USA slaughtered 5 to 10 million Vietnamese for no apparent reason other
than projection of power yet the Vietnamese trade with the USA today.
Who prohibits argument? Certainly not those with little power; it's the militarily and politically powerful that crush dissent,
(Tinamen Square , Occupy Wall Street). How much dissent does the military allow? Why is Assange being persecuted?
I believe even the most militant pacifist would welcome a lively debate on murder, death and genocide, as a channel for education
and edification.
Antonio Costa , July 2, 2019 at 20:53
Weak essay. AOC hops from cause to cause. She rarely/ever says anything about US regime change wars, and the bombing of children.
She's demonstrated no anti-war bona fides.
Only Tulsi Gabbard has forthright called for an end to regime change wars, the warmongers and reduction in our military.
The power is with the powerful. We'll not see an end to war, nor Medicare for All or much of anything regarding student debt.
These are deep systemic problems calling for systemic solutions beginning with how we live on the planet(GND is a red herring),
the GDP must become null and void if we are to behave as if plundering the planet is part of "progress". It needs to be replaced
to some that focuses on quality of life as the key to prosperity. The geopolitics of the world have to simply STOP IT. It's
not about coalitions between Russia and China and India to off-set the US imperialists. That's an old game for an empty planet.
The planet is full and exceeding it capacity and is on fire. Our geopolitics must end!
Not one of these candidates come close to focusing on the systemic problem(s) except Gabbard's focus on war because it attacks
the heart of the American Imperial Empire.
Maxime , July 3, 2019 at 09:24
I agree with you that you americans will probably not see the end of your system and the end of your problems any time soon.
BUT I disagree on that you seems to think it's inevitable. I'm not american, I'm french, and reading you saying you think
medicare for all, no student debt and end to endless wars are systemic problems linked to GDP and the current economic system
is well, amusing. We have medicare for all, in fact even better than your medicare, we have no student cost for our educating
system, and still in both cases often better results than yours, even if we are behind some of our northern neighbors, but they
don't pay for these either. And we don't wage endless wars, even if we have ourselves our own big war problems, after all we
were in Lybia, we are in Syria, we are in Mali and other parts of Africa.
We also have a big militaro-industrial complex, in fact very alike the american one. But we made clear since much longer
than we would not accept as much wars, in part because the lesson we got from WW2 and Cold War was to learn to live together
with our hated neighbor. You know, the one the other side of the Rhine. Today France is a diplomatic superpower, often the head
of the european spear onthe subject, we got feared elite military, and we are proud of that, but we would not even accept more
money (in proportion) given to our military complex.
And you know the best news (for the americans)? we have an history of warmongering going back millenias. We learn to love
Caesar and the "Guerre des Gaules", his invasion of Gauls. We learn how Franks invaded their neighbors and built the first post-roman
Empire. We learn how crusaders were called Franks, how we built our nation and his pride on ashes of european continental english
hopes and german holy empire aspirations. We learn how Napolean nearly achieved to built a new continental Empire, how we never
let them passed at Verdun, and how we rose in the face of a tyran in 1944.
All of this is still in our history books, and we're still proud of it. But today, if most of us were to be asked what we
were proud about recent wars France got into, it would be how our president vetoed USA when they tried to got UN into Irak and
forced them to invade illegally, and without us.
I think my country's revelation was Algeria's independance war. One bloody and largely filled with war crimes and crimes against
humanity. We're ashamed of it, and I think we, as a nation, learned from it that stopping wars on our soil wasn't enough. I
still don't understand how americans can still wage wars after Vietnam, but I am not american. Still, even the most warmongering
nation can learn. Let's hope you will be quicker than us, because we got millennias of bloody history before even the birth
of USA.
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:15
Thanks Maxime for a foreign perspective! I'm often curious what people in foreign countries think of our current politics
in the US,especially when I read analysis/commentaries by US writers (even ones I respect) who say "Oh most of our allies think
this or that" -- - maybe they're right or maybe they're wrong or somewhere in-between, but it's interesting getting a DIRECT
opinion from a fellow left-of-center citizen from a foreign state.
I agree with your points that European countries like France almost all have their own bloody history including an imperial
period, but the two big World Wars that killed SO many people and destroyed so many cities in Europe were so tragic and wasteful
that I suspect they DO continue to act as a significant deterrent to the saber-rattling that the US war mongers are able to
engage-in. For too many US citizens 'war' is just something that's mentioned & sometimes displayed on a screen, just like a
movie/TV program/video-game, and there's a non-reality to it because it's so far away and seldom directly affects them. Geography
has famously isolated us from the major death & destruction of war and enables too many armchair warriors to talk boldly and
vote for politicians who pander to those conceits. In a not-so-subtle way, the US IS the younger offspring of Europe, where
Europe has grown-up due to some hard lessons, while the US is going through its own destructive stage of 'lesson-learning'.
Hopefully this learning stage will be over soon and won't involve a world war.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:48
Tulsi Gabbard is, indeed,pointing at part of a major organ of imperialism, Antonio Costa, yet habeas corpus, having the whole
body of imperialism produced is necessary for the considered judgement of a people long terrorized by fictitious "monsters"
and "demons", if they are to understand that shooting warfate is but one part of the heart, while the other is economic warfare.
Both brutally destructive, even if the second is hidden from public awareness or dismissed as "a price worth paying". Imperialism
pays no price (except "blow-back", which is merely "religious extremism" as explained by a fully complicit MSM).
And the "brain" behind it all?
That is corporate/military/political/deep state/media greed – and their desperate need/ambition for total, and absolute,
control.
Only seeing the whole body may reveal the true size of the threat and the vicious nature of the real danger.
Some may argue that it is "too soon", "too early", or "too costly", politically, for Gabbard, even if she, herself, might
see imperialism as the real monster and demon, to dare describe the whole beast.
Frankly, this time, Tulsi's candidacy, her "run" for President, is not likely to see her become the Dem nominee, most likely
that will be Kamala Harris (who will happily do the bidding of brute power), rather, it is to lay the firm and solid foundation
of actual difference, of rational perspective, and thoughtful, diplomatic international behavior.
To expose the whole, especially the role of the MSM, in furthering all the rest of the lumbering body of Zombie imperialism,
would be far more effective in creating an substantial "opening" for alternative possibilities, even a new political party,
next time.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:31
I'm figuring that Warren and Harris will take one another out. Climbing to the top requires this. But, Gabbard doesn't stop
fighting, and if there's a fighter out there it is her: mentally and physically she is the total package.
Sanders' 2016 campaign was ignored, he wasn't supposed to go anywhere, but if not for the DNC's meddling he would be POTUS
right now (I have zero doubt over that). So too was Obama's climb from nowhere: of course, Obama was pushed up by the System,
the System that is NOT behind Gabbard. And then there's the clown at the helm (Trump). I refuse to ignore this history.
Gababard is by no means out. Let's not speak of such things, especially when her campaign, and message, is just starting
to burst out: the MSM is the last to admit the state of things unfavorable to the wealthy, but out on the Internet Gabbard is
very much alive. She is the best candidate (with the best platform of visibility) for peace. She has all the pieces. One comment
I read out on the internet (someone, I believe, not in the US) was that Gabbard was a gift to the Americans. Yes, I believe
this to be the case: if you really look closely you'll see exactly how this is correct. I believe that we cannot afford to treat
this gift with other than the utmost appreciation. Her sincerity when she says that she was/is willing to die for her fellow
soldiers (in reference to LBGT folks, though ALL apply) is total. She is totally committed to this battle: as a warrior in politics
she's proven herself with her support, the loyalty, for Sanders (at risk to her political career- and now look, she's running
for POTUS, she continues to come out on top!).
IvyMike , July 2, 2019 at 20:14
I burned my draft card, grew my hair out, and smoked pot and was anti war as heck. But the peace demonstrations (and riots)
in the 60's and 70's did not have much effect on how the U.S. Government prosecuted the Vietnam War. It is little recognized
how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC
while also taking heavy casualties.
We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive
with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South.
Then the politicians and Generals knew, given the super power politics surrounding the war, that we had lost. We had failed
to recognize that we had not intervened in a Civil War, in truth Vietnam as a whole was fighting for freedom from Imperialism
and we had no friends in the South, just a corrupt puppet government. Instead of getting out, Nixon made the unforgivable choice
to slowly wind the war down until he could get out without losing, Peace With Honor the ultimate triumph of ego over humanity.
Americans had a chance to choose a peace candidate in 1972, instead Nixon won with a big majority.
The military has never been able to admit they were defeated on the battlefield by North Vietnam, blaming it instead on the
Liberal Media and the Anti War movement. Believing that lie they continue to fight unwinnable wars in which we have no national
interest at stake. The media and the people no longer fight against war, but it never really made a difference when we did.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 05:17
I too hoped for a miracle and voted for George. But then I always voted for the loser in whatever state I happened to be
living in at the particular time. I think Carter was a rare winning pick by me but only once. I got disgusted with voting and
sat out the Clinton campaigns, only returning to vote against the Bush juggernaut. In retrospect, Perot should have won to make
a real difference. I sided with the winner in Obama, but the loser turned out to be America getting saddled with that two-faced
hypocrite. Nobel Peace Prize winner indeed! (What did he spend the money on?) When you listen to their campaign promises be
aware they are telegraphing how they plan to betray you.
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:45
American people in mass need to hit reset button. A yellow vest-like movement made up of tens of millions of woke people,
who understand the democrats and republicans are the left and right wing of the oligarch party,
US elections have been and continue to be rigged, and the US constitution was written to protect the property (such
as slaves) of oligarchs from the people, the founding oligarchs feared real democracy, evident by all the safeguards they built
into our government to protect against it, that remain in tact today.
We need a new 21st century constitution. Global capitalism needs to be greatly curtailed, or ended out right, replaced by
ecosocialism, conservation, restoration of earth focussed society
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:38
And just think that back then there was also Mike Gravel. The CIA did their work in the 60s to kill the anti-war movement:
killing all the great social leaders.
Why wars are "lost" is because hardly is there a time when there's an actual "mission statement" on what the end of a given
war will look like. Tulsi Gabbard has made it clear that she would NOT engage in any wars unless there was a clear objective,
a clear outcome lined out, and, of course, it was authorized by THE PEOPLE (Congress).
All wars are about resources. We cannot, however, admit this: the ruling capitalists won't allow that to be known/understood
lest they lose their power.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 04:59
Ya got all that right, especially the part about the analysts essentially declaring the war lost after Tet. I remember that
offered a lot of hope on the campuses that the war would soon end (even though we lost), especially to those of us near graduation
and facing loss of that precious 2S deferment. Yet the big fool marched on, getting my generation needlessly slaughtered for
four or five more years.
And, yes, the 2 or 3 million dead Vietnamese did matter, to those with a conscience. Such a price to keep Vietnam out of
Russia's and China's orbit. Meanwhile they set an independent course after kicking us out of their land and even fought a war
with China. We should still be paying reparations for the levels of death and destruction we brought to a country half a world
away with absolutely no means or desire to threaten the United States. All our wars of choice, starting with Korea, have been
similar crimes against humanity. Turkey shoots against third world societies with no way to do us any harm. But every one of
them fought ferociously to the death to defend their land and their people. Inevitably, every occupier is sent packing as their
empire crumbles. Obviously, Americans have been too thick to learn this from mere history books. We will only learn from our
tragic mistakes. I see a lot of lessons on the upcoming schedule.
USA did not "intervene" in a civil war. USA paid France to continue it's imperial war and then took over when France fled
defeated. USA prevented a mandated election Ho Chi Minh would win and then continued western imperial warfare against the Vietnamese
( even though Vietnamese was/is bulwark against China's territorial expansion).
mauisurfer , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
The Watson study says: "Indeed, the DOD is the world's largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly,
the single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world.4"
This is a gross UNDERcount of emissions. It includes ONLY petroleum burned.
It does NOT count explosions from bombs, missiles, rockets, rifles, etc.
Perhaps someone could provide an estimate of this contribution to greenhouse gases???
Don't worry, Elizabeth Warren has a plan to operate the military on renewables! (she can continue to make sure her constituency,
which is Raytheon, is well served)
Raytheon, one of the biggest employers in Warren's state, where it's headquartered, "has a positive relationship with Sen.
Warren, and we interact with her and her staff regularly," Michael Doble, a spokesman for the company, said.
jo6pac , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
This awful news for the merchants of death and I'm sure they're working overtime to stop silliness;-). I do hope this isn't
killed by those that love the endless wars.
Thanks AH
mbob , July 2, 2019 at 20:10
Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. Rather than support President
Trump's efforts to end the Korean War, to reduce our involvement in the Middle East and to pursue a more peaceful path with
Russia, the Democratic party (with very, very few exceptions) is opposed to all these things.
The Democratic party places its hatred for Trump above its professed love of peace.
President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the
US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton
destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions.
From a peace perspective, Trump looks comparatively great (provided he doesn't attack Iraq or invade Venezuela). But, since
it's impossible to recognize Trump for anything positive, or to support him in any way, it's now impossible for Democrats to
promote peace. Doing so might help Trump. It would, of necessity, require acknowledging Trump's uniqueness among recent US Presidents
in not starting new wars.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 03:28
I agree. mbob makes perfect sense in his analysis.
The Democrats must be brought back to reality with a sound repudiation by the voters, otherwise they are of no use to America
and will have no long-term future.
Obama escalated Afghanistan when he had a popular mandate to withdraw. He facilitated the the Syrian rebellion in conjunction
with ISIS funding Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He instigated the Zalaya (primarily Hillary) and the Ukraine rebellion.
Trump supports the Yemeni genocide.
But yes citizens have been directed to hate Trump the man/symptom rather than the enduring Imperial predatory capitalistic
system.
Opps sorry; so many interventions and invasions, under Obama, special forces trained Malian general overthrew the democratically
elected president of Mali, result, more war,death and destruction.
Robert , July 3, 2019 at 10:48
You are correct in your analysis. Allegra Harpootlian is searching for the peace lobby among Democrat supporters, where it
no longer resides.
As a result of corporate-controlled mainstream media and their support for Democrat elites, Democrat supporters have largely
been brainwashed into hatred for Donald Trump and everything he stands for. This hatred blinds them to the far more important
issue of peace.
Strangely, there is huge US support to remove troops from the ME, but this support resides with the overwhelming majority
of Donald Trump voters. Unfortunately, these are not individuals who typically go to peace demonstrations, but they are sincere
in bringing all US troops home from the ME. Donald Trump himself lobbied on this, and with the exceptions of his anti-Iranian
/ pro-Israel / pro-Saudi Arabia stance and withdrawal from JCPOA, he has not only backed down from military adventurism, but
is the first President since Eisenhower to raise the issue of the influence of the military-industrial complex.
In the face of strong opposition, he is the first President ever to enter North Korea and meet with Kim Jong Un to discuss
nuclear weapons. Mainstream media continues its war-mongering rhetoric, attacking Trump for his "weakness" in not retaliating
against Iran, or in meeting "secretly" with Putin.
Opposition to Trump's peace efforts are not limited to MSM, however, but are entrenched in Democrat and Republican elites,
who attack any orders he gives to withdraw from the ME. It was not Trump, but Democrat and Republican elites who invited NATO's
Stoltenberg to speak to Congress in an attempt to spite Trump.
In essence, you have President Trump and most of his supporters trying to withdraw from military engagements, with
active opposition from Democrats like Adam Schiff, and Republican elites, actively promoting war and military spending.
DJT is like a less-likeable Inspector Clouseau. Sometimes ineptitude is a blessing. You also have a few Republicans, like
journalist Tucker Carlson of Fox News, and Democrats, like Tulsi Gabbard, actively pushing the message of peace.
Erelis , July 3, 2019 at 20:45
I think you got it. The author is right in the sense that there is an anti-war movement, but that movement is in many ways
hidden. As bizarre as it may seen counter to CW wisdom, and in some way ironically crazy, one of the biggest segments of anti-war
sentiment are Trump supporters. After Trump's decision not to attack Iran, I went to various right wing commentators who attacked
Trump, and the reaction against these major right wing war mongers was to support Trump. And with right wing commentators who
supported Trump, absolute agreement. These is of course based on my objective reading reading and totally subjective. But I
believe I am right.
This made me realize there is an untapped anti-war sentiment on the right which is being totally missed. And a lack of imagination
and Trump derangment syndrome which blocks many on the anti-war Left to see it and use it for an anti-war movement. There was
an article in The Intercept that looked research on the correlation between military deaths and voting preference. Here is the
article:
And the thing is that Trump was in many ways the anti-war candidate. And those areas that had high military death rates voted
for Trump. I understand the tribal nature of political affiliation, but it seems what I have read and this article, there may
be indeed an untapped anti-war stance with Trump supporters.
And it really just challenges my own beliefs that the major obstacle to the war mongers are Trump supporters.
mbob – I couldn't have said it better myself. Except to add that in addition to destroying Libya, the Nobel Peace Prize winner
Obama, ably assisted by Hillary Clinton, also destroyed Honduras and the Ukraine.
Anarcissie , July 3, 2019 at 11:55
Historically, the Democratic Party has been pro-war and pro-imperialism at least since Wilson. The hatred for Trump on their
part seems to be based entirely on cultural issues -- he is not subservient enough to their gods.
But as for antiwar demonstrations, it's been proved in the streets that they don't accomplish anything. There were huge demonstrations
against the war in Vietnam, but it ground on until conservatives got tired of it. At least half a million people demonstrated
against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and no one important cared. Evidently more fundamental issues than the war of the moment
are involved and I think that is where a lot of people are turning now. The ruling class will find this a lot harder to deal
with because it's decentralized and widely distributed. Hence the panic about Trump and the seething hatred of Sanders.
mbob , July 3, 2019 at 18:15
I attempted to make three points in my post. First, Democrats are now pro-war. Second, solely regarding peace, Trump looks
better than all other recent Presidents because he hasn't started any new wars. Third, the inability of Democrats (or the public
as a whole) to give Trump the benefit of a doubt, or to support him in any way, is contrary to the cause of peace.
Democrats should, without reservation, support Trump's effort to end the Korean War. They should support Trump's desire to
improve relations with Russia. They don't do either of those things. Why? Because it might hurt them politically.
Your comment does not challenge the first two points and reinforces the third.
As for Yemen, yes, Trump is wrong. Democrats rightly oppose him on Yemen -- but remarkably tepidly. Trump is wrong about
a lot of things. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him. But I will vote for him if Democrats nominate someone worse than him,
which they seem inclined to do. (Gabbard is better than Trump. Sanders probably. Maybe Warren. Of the three, only Warren receives
positive press. That makes me skeptical of her.)
Trump stood up to his advisors, Bolton and Pompeo, regarding both Iran and Venezuela. Obama, on the other hand, did not.
He followed the advice of his advisors, with disastrous consequences.
>>In addition to Tuesday's sanctions, the Treasury Department issued an advisory to maritime shipping companies, warning
them off transporting oil to Syria or risking their property and money seized if kept with financial institutions that follow
U.S. sanctions law.
"The United States will aggressively seek to impose sanctions against any party involved in shipping oil to Syria, or seeking
to evade our sanctions on Iranian oil," said Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence,
in a release. "Shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences
of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments."<<
Today British marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar for the crime of transporting oil to Syria. And Trumpian peaceful military
seized Syrian oil fields. Traditional war is increasingly augmented by piracy, which is less bloody, but trades outright carnage
for deprivation of civilians. Giving "measured praise" for that makes me barf.
"... Yes, there is strong reason to believe that, during Tulsi's response to a question on Iran in the first debate, MSNBC technicians digitally implanted a pimple on Tulsi's chin. The "pimple" subsequently vanished. ..."
"... While placing a pimple on her chin is a childish prank, it is a childish prank played by one of the largest information company on the planet. It's not really a childish prank at that scale. ..."
"... Mics being turned off is another trick, not so childish, but still played out by a multibillion dollar institution. This is happening in a public policy event hosted by a news organization. ..."
Yes, there is strong reason to believe that, during Tulsi's response to a question on Iran
in the first debate, MSNBC technicians digitally implanted a pimple on Tulsi's chin. The
"pimple" subsequently vanished.
This bizarre behavior by MSNBC lends additional credence to claims by Andrew Yang and
Marianne Williamson that their mikes were turned off during portions of the debate.
Those responsible for this must be identified, fired, and, if feasible, prosecuted. Until
MSNBC cooperates in these regards, it should be treated like a pariah. Complaints to the
regulatory authorities are in order, and the public should be fully apprised of this. If this
strategy of digital manipulation is not nipped in the bud NOW, who knows what dangerous frauds
might await us in the future?
While placing a pimple on her chin is a childish prank, it is a childish prank played by one
of the largest information company on the planet. It's not really a childish prank at that
scale.
Mics being turned off is another trick, not so childish, but still played out by a
multibillion dollar institution. This is happening in a public policy event hosted by a news
organization.
It's rather ugly, IMO. And while I get the "distraction" angle, it's beyond that: it's a
trial balloon. When it comes to psyops; we ain't seen nothin' yet.
@mimi
I did an eyeroll when I first heard about it too. But then I started to understand. Tulsi is a
beautiful woman, inside and out from what I've seen. I'm quite sure that her outer beauty is
one thing that made lots of people google her.
Some people really are that superficial.
How
would you go about trying to make her less beautiful without being overtly obvious? Did that
pimple stop people from wanting to know who she is?
I really hope not. Personally, I think
she's beautiful with or without a zit on her chin, but her message is what makes her shine so
bright. They can't put a pimple on that.
"... Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different. There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel. Honest. ..."
Like the "withdrawal from Syria", a typically fleeting idea?
Breaking a few treaties? Ratcheting up support of the carnage and starvation in Yemen?
The "comparatively great" side of Trump is attention deficiency disorder, so it is hard
for him to start a war, something that requires some degree of organization and coordinating
different branches of governments, different countries etc.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 17:02
Nailed it!
DJT is like a less-likeable Inspector Clouseau. Sometimes ineptitude is a blessing: this
was my only hope when refusing to vote for HRC.
mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17
Same old, same old, same old, same old.
Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be
different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel.
Honest.
Just like Dubya.
Just like Obomber.
Just like the Orange Baboon.
Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
The problem here is that the US population is too brainwashing with jingoism and Exceptionalism to value Tulsi message. The
US army is mercenary army and unlike situation with the draft people generally do not care much when mercenaries die. That makes
any anti-war candidate vulnerable to "Russiagate" smear.
He/she need to have a strong domestic program to appeal to voters, So far Warren is in better position in this area then
Tulsi.
Notable quotes:
"... The Drudge Report website had its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the debate. ..."
"... On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced an article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of Defense." ..."
"... In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable." ..."
"... Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment, saying that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end." ..."
"... Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to "defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging ..."
"... In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the Vietnam War back in 1968. ..."
"... And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be at war with Russia and possibly also with China. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities, leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past twenty years. ..."
"... Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. ..."
"... She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren, who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups, but she has moderated her views recently. ..."
"... To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
Last Wednesday’s debate among half of the announced Democratic Party candidates to become their party’s nominee for
president in 2020 was notable for its lack of drama. Many of those called on to speak had little to say apart from the usual
liberal bromides about health care, jobs, education and how the United States is a country of immigrants. On the following
day the mainstream media anointed Elizabeth Warren as the winner based on the coherency of her message even though she said
little that differed from what was being presented by most of the others on the stage. She just said it better, more
articulately.
The New York Times’
coverage was typical, praising Warren for her grasp of the issues and her ability to present the same
clearly and concisely, and citing a comment "They could teach
classes in how Warren talks about a problem and weaves in answers into a story. She's not just
wonk and stats." It then went on to lump most of the other candidates together, describing
their performances as "ha[ving] one or two strong answers, but none of them had the electric,
campaign-launching moment they were hoping for."
Inevitably, however, there was some disagreement on who had actually done best based on
viewer reactions as well as the perceptions of some of the media that might not exactly be
described as mainstream. The Drudge Report website
had
its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of
Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing
paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search
engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the
debate.
On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced
an
article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by
Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot
to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of
Defense."
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates,
confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously
avoided. In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has
to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had
been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers
who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will
tell you that answer is unacceptable."
At another point she expanded on her thinking about America's wars, saying "Let's deal with
the situation where we are, where this president and his chickenhawk cabinet have led us to the
brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war
that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms' lives. The American people need to
understand that this war with Iran would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything
that we ever saw in Iraq. It would take many more lives. It would exacerbate the refugee
crisis. And it wouldn't be just contained within Iran. This would turn into a regional war.
This is why it's so important that every one of us, every single American, stand up and say no
war with Iran."
Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment,
saying
that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after
the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned
tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to
"defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is
clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging. So why was there
such a difference between what ordinary Americans and the Establishment punditry were seeing on
their television screens? The difference was not so much in perception as in the desire to see
a certain outcome. Anti-war takes away a lot of people's rice bowls, be they directly employed
on "defense" or part of the vast army of lobbyists and think tank parasites that keep the money
flowing out of the taxpayers' pockets and into the pockets of Raytheon, General Dynamics,
Boeing and Lockheed Martin like a perpetual motion machine.
In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her
must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out
undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the
Vietnam War back in 1968. McCarthy was right and Lyndon Johnson and the rest of the Democratic
Party were wrong. More recently, Congressman Ron Paul tried twice to bring some sanity to the
Republican Party. He too was marginalized deliberately by the GOP party apparatus working
hand-in-hand with the media, to include the final insult of his being denied any opportunity to
speak or have his delegates recognized at the 2012 nominating convention.
And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National
Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be
marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating
from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be
at war with Russia and possibly also with China.
Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be
difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities,
leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past
twenty years. To qualify for the second round of debates she has to gain a couple of points in
her approval rating or bring in more donations, either of which is definitely possible based on
her performance. It is to be hoped that that will occur and that there will be no Debbie
Wasserman Schultz hiding somewhere in the process who will finagle the polling results.
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is
not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal
Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also
breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning,
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren,
who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss
Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu
and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her
view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups,
but she has moderated her views recently.
To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the
mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine
antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. It is essential
that we Americans who are concerned about the future of our country should listen to what she
has to say very carefully and to respond accordingly.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a
501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more
interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected]
Over the last two years, a different, in some ways unrecognizable Larry Summers has been appearing in newspaper editorial pages.
More circumspect in tone, this humbler Summers has been arguing that economic opportunities in the developing world are slowing,
and that the already rich economies are finding it hard to get out of the crisis. Barring some kind of breakthrough, Summers says,
an era of slow growth is here to stay.
In Summers's recent writings, this sombre conclusion has often been paired with a surprising political goal: advocating for a
"responsible nationalism". Now he argues that politicians must recognise that "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise
the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good".
One curious thing about the pro-globalisation consensus of the 1990s and 2000s, and its collapse in recent years, is how closely
the cycle resembles a previous era. Pursuing free trade has always produced displacement and inequality – and political chaos, populism
and retrenchment to go with it. Every time the social consequences of free trade are overlooked, political backlash follows. But
free trade is only one of many forms that economic integration can take. History seems to suggest, however, that it might be the
most destabilising one.
... ... ...
The international systems that chastened figures such as Keynes helped produce in the next few years – especially the Bretton
Woods agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) – set the terms under which the new wave of globalisation
would take place.
The key to the system's viability, in Rodrik's view, was its flexibility – something absent from contemporary globalisation,
with its one-size-fits-all model of capitalism. Bretton Woods stabilised exchange rates by pegging the dollar loosely to gold, and
other currencies to the dollar. Gatt consisted of rules governing free trade – negotiated by participating countries in a series
of multinational "rounds" – that left many areas of the world economy, such as agriculture, untouched or unaddressed. "Gatt's purpose
was never to maximise free trade," Rodrik writes. "It was to achieve the maximum amount of trade compatible with different nations
doing their own thing. In that respect, the institution proved spectacularly successful."
Partly because Gatt was not always dogmatic about free trade, it allowed most countries to figure out their own economic objectives,
within a somewhat international ambit. When nations contravened the agreement's terms on specific areas of national interest, they
found that it "contained loopholes wide enough for an elephant to pass", in Rodrik's words. If a nation wanted to protect its steel
industry, for example, it could claim "injury" under the rules of Gatt and raise tariffs to discourage steel imports: "an abomination
from the standpoint of free trade". These were useful for countries that were recovering from the war and needed to build up their
own industries via tariffs – duties imposed on particular imports. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1990, world trade grew at an annual average
of nearly 7% – faster than the post-communist years, which we think of as the high point of globalisation. "If there was a golden
era of globalisation," Rodrik has written, "this was it."
Gatt, however, failed to cover many of the countries in the developing world. These countries eventually created their own system,
the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD). Under this rubric, many countries – especially in Latin America,
the Middle East, Africa and Asia – adopted a policy of protecting homegrown industries by replacing imports with domestically produced
goods. It worked poorly in some places – India and Argentina, for example, where the trade barriers were too high, resulting in
factories that cost more to set up than the value of the goods they produced – but remarkably well in others, such as east Asia,
much of Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where homegrown industries did spring up. Though many later economists and
commentators would dismiss the achievements of this model, it theoretically fit Larry Summers's recent rubric on globalisation:
"the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global
good."
The critical turning point – away from this system of trade balanced against national protections – came in the 1980s. Flagging
growth and high inflation in the west, along with growing competition from Japan, opened the way for a political transformation.
The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were seminal, putting free-market radicals in charge of two of the world's
five biggest economies and ushering in an era of "hyperglobalisation". In the new political climate, economies with large public
sectors and strong governments within the global capitalist system were no longer seen as aids to the system's functioning, but
impediments to it.
Not only did these ideologies take hold in the US and the UK; they seized international institutions as well. Gatt renamed itself
as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the new rules the body negotiated began to cut more deeply into national policies. Its
international trade rules sometimes undermined national legislation. The WTO's appellate court intervened relentlessly in member
nations' tax, environmental and regulatory policies, including those of the United States: the US's fuel emissions standards were
judged to discriminate against imported gasoline, and its
ban on imported shrimp caught without turtle-excluding
devices was overturned. If national health and safety regulations were stricter than WTO rules necessitated, they could only
remain in place if they were shown to have "scientific justification".
The purest version of hyperglobalisation was tried out in Latin America in the 1980s. Known as the "Washington consensus", this
model usually involved loans from the IMF that were contingent on those countries lowering trade barriers and privatising many of
their nationally held industries. Well into the 1990s, economists were proclaiming the indisputable benefits of openness. In an
influential 1995 paper, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner wrote: "We find no cases to support the frequent worry that a country might
open and yet fail to grow."
But the Washington consensus was bad for business: most countries did worse than before. Growth faltered, and citizens across
Latin America revolted against attempted privatisations of water and gas. In Argentina, which followed the Washington consensus
to the letter, a grave crisis resulted in
2002 , precipitating an economic collapse and massive street protests that forced out the government that had pursued privatising
reforms. Argentina's revolt presaged a left-populist upsurge across the continent: from 1999 to 2007, leftwing leaders and parties
took power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of them campaigning against the Washington consensus on globalisation.
These revolts were a preview of the backlash of today.
Rodrik – perhaps the contemporary economist whose views have been most amply vindicated by recent events – was himself a beneficiary
of protectionism in Turkey. His father's ballpoint pen company was sheltered under tariffs, and achieved enough success to allow
Rodrik to attend Harvard in the 1970s as an undergraduate. This personal understanding of the mixed nature of economic success may
be one of the reasons why his work runs against the broad consensus of mainstream economics writing on globalisation.
"I never felt that my ideas were out of the mainstream," Rodrik told me recently. Instead, it was that the mainstream had lost
touch with the diversity of opinions and methods that already existed within economics. "The economics profession is strange in
that the more you move away from the seminar room to the public domain, the more the nuances get lost, especially on issues of trade."
He lamented the fact that while, in the classroom, the models of trade discuss losers and winners, and, as a result, the necessity
of policies of redistribution, in practice, an "arrogance and hubris" had led many economists to ignore these implications. "Rather
than speaking truth to power, so to speak, many economists became cheerleaders for globalisation."
In his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox
, Rodrik concluded that "we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalisation." The
results of the 2016 elections and referendums provide ample testimony of the justness of the thesis, with millions voting to push
back, for better or for worse, against the campaigns and institutions that promised more globalisation. "I'm not at all surprised
by the backlash," Rodrik told me. "Really, nobody should have been surprised."
But what, in any case, would "more globalisation" look like? For the same economists and writers who have started to rethink
their commitments to greater integration, it doesn't mean quite what it did in the early 2000s. It's not only the discourse that's
changed: globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted. The
benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries. And even in those countries, the good
times may be running out.
Statistics from Global Inequality
, a 2016 book by the development economist Branko Milanović, indicate that in relative terms the greatest benefits of globalisation
have accrued to a rising "emerging middle class", based preponderantly in China. But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms,
the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called "the 1%" – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has
shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries.
Barring some political catastrophe, in which rightwing populism continued to gain, and in which globalisation would be the least
of our problems – Wolf admitted that he was "not at all sure" that this could be ruled out – globalisation was always going to slow;
in fact, it already has. One reason, says Wolf, was that "a very, very large proportion of the gains from globalisation – by no
means all – have been exploited. We have a more open world economy to trade than we've ever had before." Citing The Great Convergence,
Wolf noted that supply chains have already expanded, and that future developments, such as automation and the use of robots, looked
to undermine the promise of a growing industrial workforce. Today, the political priorities were less about trade and more about
the challenge of retraining workers , as technology renders old jobs obsolete and transforms the world of work.
Rodrik, too, believes that globalisation, whether reduced or increased, is unlikely to produce the kind of economic effects it
once did. For him, this slowdown has something to do with what he calls "premature deindustrialisation". In the past, the simplest
model of globalisation suggested that rich countries would gradually become "service economies", while emerging economies picked
up the industrial burden. Yet recent statistics show the world as a whole is deindustrialising. Countries that one would have expected
to have more industrial potential are going through the stages of automation more quickly than previously developed countries did,
and thereby failing to develop the broad industrial workforce seen as a key to shared prosperity.
For both Rodrik and Wolf, the political reaction to globalisation bore possibilities of deep uncertainty. "I really have found
it very difficult to decide whether what we're living through is a blip, or a fundamental and profound transformation of the world
– at least as significant as the one that brought about the first world war and the Russian revolution," Wolf told me. He cited
his agreement with economists such as Summers that shifting away from the earlier emphasis on globalisation had now become a political
priority; that to pursue still greater liberalisation was like showing "a red rag to a bull" in terms of what it might do to the
already compromised political stability of the western world.
Rodrik pointed to a belated emphasis, both among political figures and economists, on the necessity of compensating those displaced
by globalisation with retraining and more robust welfare states. But pro-free-traders had a history of cutting compensation: Bill
Clinton passed Nafta, but failed to expand safety nets. "The issue is that the people are rightly not trusting the centrists who
are now promising compensation," Rodrik said. "One reason that Hillary Clinton didn't get any traction with those people is that
she didn't have any credibility."
Rodrik felt that economics commentary failed to register the gravity of the situation: that there were increasingly few avenues
for global growth, and that much of the damage done by globalisation – economic and political – is irreversible. "There is a sense
that we're at a turning point," he said. "There's a lot more thinking about what can be done. There's a renewed emphasis on compensation
– which, you know, I think has come rather late."
"... The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers ..."
"... It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States ..."
"... American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose." ..."
"... The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president ..."
"... Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America. ..."
"... The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems ..."
"... The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss ..."
"... Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style. ..."
"... When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. ..."
"... Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products. ..."
"... Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. ..."
"... This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism. ..."
"... The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland ..."
"... The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution. ..."
"... America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other. ..."
"... You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries. ..."
"... This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight. ..."
"... Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors. ..."
"... But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". ..."
"The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose
tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute,
or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries
play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing
and loss of life by soldiers."
I'm Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter: Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show: The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness
. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend,
a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
His most recent books include " and Forgive them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance
to the Jubilee Year "; Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy , and J Is for
Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception . He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
, among many other books.
We return today to a discussion of Dr. Hudson's seminal 1972 book, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire
, a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, with a special emphasis on
food imperialism.
... ... ...
Bonnie Faulkner : In your seminal work form 1972, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire ,
you write: "The development lending of the World Bank has been dysfunctional from the outset." When was the World Bank set up and
by whom?
Michael Hudson : It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent
on the United States. To make sure that no other country or group of countries – even all the rest of the world – could not
dictate U.S. policy. American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this
veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got
to lose."
The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant
Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president. He later became Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (1953-60).
McNamara was Secretary of Defense (1961-68), Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy and Under Secretary of Defense (1989-2005), and Robert Zoellick
was Deputy Secretary of State. So I think you can look at the World Bank as the soft shoe of American diplomacy.
Bonnie Faulkner : What is the difference between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the IMF? Is
there a difference?
Michael Hudson : Yes, there is. The World Bank was supposed to make loans for what they call international development.
"Development" was their euphemism for dependency on U.S. exports and finance. This dependency entailed agricultural backwardness
– opposing land reform, family farming to produce domestic food crops, and also monetary backwardness in basing their monetary system
on the dollar.
The World Bank was supposed to provide infrastructure loans that other countries would go into debt to pay American engineering
firms, to build up their export sectors and their plantation sectors by public investment roads and port development for imports
and exports. Essentially, the Bank financed long- investments in the foreign trade sector, in a way that was a natural continuation
of European colonialism.
In 1941, for example, C. L. R. James wrote an article on "Imperialism in Africa" pointing out the fiasco of European railroad
investment in Africa: "Railways must serve flourishing industrial areas, or densely populated agricult5ural regions, or they must
open up new land along which a thriving population develops and provides the railways with traffic. Except in the mining regions
of South Africa, all these conditions are absent. Yet railways were needed, for the benefit of European investors and heavy industry."
That is why, James explained "only governments can afford to operate them," while being burdened with heavy interest obligations.
[1] What was "developed" was Africa's
mining and plantation export sector, not its domestic economies. The World Bank followed this pattern of "development" lending without
apology.
The IMF was in charge of short-term foreign currency loans. Its aim was to prevent countries from imposing capital controls to
protect their balance of payments. Many countries had a dual exchange rate: one for trade in goods and services, the other rate
for capital movements. The function of the IMF and World Bank was essentially to make other countries borrow in dollars, not in
their own currencies, and to make sure that if they could not pay their dollar-denominated debts, they had to impose austerity on
the domestic economy – while subsidizing their import and export sectors and protecting foreign investors, creditors and client
oligarchies from loss.
The IMF developed a junk-economics model pretending that any country can pay any amount of debt to the creditors if it just impoverishes
its labor enough. So when countries were unable to pay their debt service, the IMF tells them to raise their interest rates to bring
on a depression – austerity – and break up the labor unions. That is euphemized as "rationalizing labor markets." The rationalizing
is essentially to disable labor unions and the public sector. The aim – and effect – is to prevent countries from essentially following
the line of development that had made the United States rich – by public subsidy and protection of domestic agriculture, public
subsidy and protection of industry and an active government sector promoting a New Deal democracy. The IMF was essentially promoting
and forcing other countries to balance their trade deficits by letting American and other investors buy control of their commanding
heights, mainly their infrastructure monopolies, and to subsidize their capital flight.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Now, Michael, when you began speaking about the IMF and monetary controls, you mentioned that there
were two exchange rates of currency in countries. What were you referring to?
MICHAEL HUDSON : When I went to work on Wall Street in the '60s, I was balance-of-payments economist for Chase Manhattan,
and we used the IMF's monthly International Financial Statistics every month. At the top of each country's statistics would
be the exchange-rate figures. Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market,
and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital
flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat
in Latin America.
The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital
outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments
problems.
The World Bank and American diplomacy have steered them into a chronic currency crisis. The IMF enables its wealthy constituency
to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss. It makes loans to support capital flight out
of domestic currencies into the dollar or other hard currencies. The IMF calls this a "stabilization" program. It is never effective
in helping the debtor economy pay foreign debts out of growth. Instead, the IMF uses currency depreciation and sell-offs of public
infrastructure and other assets to foreign investors after the flight capital has left and currency collapses. Wall Street speculators
have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style.
When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have
to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. We're talking about enormous penalty rates in domestic
currency for these countries to pay foreign-currency debts – basically taking on to finance a non-development policy and to subsidize
capital flight when that policy "fails" to achieve its pretended objective of growth.
All hyperinflations of Latin America – Chile early on, like Germany after World War I – come from trying to pay foreign debts
beyond the ability to be paid. Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange
rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products.
A really functional and progressive international monetary fund that would try to help countries develop would say: "Okay, banks
and we (the IMF) have made bad loans that the country can't pay. And the World Bank has given it bad advice, distorting its domestic
development to serve foreign customers rather than its own growth. So we're going to write down the loans to the ability to be paid."
That's what happened in 1931, when the world finally stopped German reparations payments and Inter-Ally debts to the United States
stemming from World War I.
Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within
the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries.
So if they do something that U.S. diplomats don't approve of, it can pull the plug financially, encouraging a run on their currency
if they act independently of the United States instead of falling in line. This control by the U.S. financial system and its
diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression
of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism.
BONNIE FAULKNER : How do exchange rates contribute to capital flight?
MICHAEL HUDSON : It's not the exchange rate that contributes. Suppose that you're a millionaire, and you see that your
country is unable to balance its trade under existing production patterns. The money that the government has under control is pesos,
escudos, cruzeiros or some other currency, not dollars or euros. You see that your currency is going to go down relative to the
dollar, so you want to get our money out of the country to preserve your purchasing power.
This has long been institutionalized. By 1990, for instance, Latin American countries had defaulted so much in the wake of the
Mexico defaults in 1982 that I was hired by Scudder Stevens, to help start a Third World Bond Fund (called a "sovereign high-yield
fund"). At the time, Argentina and Brazil were running such serious balance-of-payments deficits that they were having to pay 45
percent per year interest, in dollars, on their dollar debt. Mexico, was paying 22.5 percent on its tesobonos .
Scudders' salesmen went around to the United States and tried to sell shares in the proposed fund, but no Americans would buy
it, despite the enormous yields. They sent their salesmen to Europe and got a similar reaction. They had lost their shirts on Third
World bonds and couldn't see how these countries could pay.
Merrill Lynch was the fund's underwriter. Its office in Brazil and in Argentina proved much more successful in selling investments
in Scudder's these offshore fund established in the Dutch West Indies. It was an offshore fund, so Americans were not able to buy
it. But Brazilian and Argentinian rich families close to the central bank and the president became the major buyers. We realized
that they were buying these funds because they knew that their government was indeed going to pay their stipulated interest charges.
In effect, the bonds were owed ultimately to themselves. So these Yankee dollar bonds were being bought by Brazilians and other
Latin Americans as a vehicle to move their money out of their soft local currency (which was going down), to buy bonds denominated
in hard dollars.
BONNIE FAULKNER : If wealthy families from these countries bought these bonds denominated in dollars, knowing that they
were going to be paid off, who was going to pay them off? The country that was going broke?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, countries don't pay; the taxpayers pay, and in the end, labor pays. The IMF certainly doesn't want
to make its wealthy client oligarchies pay. It wants to squeeze ore economic surplus out of the labor force. So countries are told
that the way they can afford to pay their enormously growing dollar-denominated debt is to lower wages even more.
Currency depreciation is an effective way to do this, because what is devalued is basically labor's wages. Other elements of
exports have a common world price: energy, raw materials, capital goods, and credit under the dollar-centered international monetary
system that the IMF seeks to maintain as a financial strait jacket.
According to the IMF's ideological models, there's no limit to how far you can lower wages by enough to make labor competitive
in producing exports. The IMF and World Bank thus use junk economics to pretend that the way to pay debts owed to the wealthiest
creditors and investors is to lower wages and impose regressive excise taxes, to impose special taxes on necessities that labor
needs, from food to energy and basic services supplied by public infrastructure.
BONNIE FAULKNER: So you're saying that labor ultimately has to pay off these junk bonds?
MICHAEL HUDSON: That is the basic aim of IMF. I discuss its fallacies in my Trade Development and Foreign Debt
, which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism . These two books show that the World Bank and IMF were viciously
anti-labor from the very outset, working with domestic elites whose fortunes are tied to and loyal to the United States.
BONNIE FAULKNER : With regard to these junk bonds, who was it or what entity
MICHAEL HUDSON : They weren't junk bonds. They were called that because they were high-interest bonds, but they weren't
really junk because they actually were paid. Everybody thought they were junk because no American would have paid 45 percent interest.
Any country that really was self-reliant and was promoting its own economic interest would have said, "You banks and the IMF have
made bad loans, and you've made them under false pretenses – a trade theory that imposes austerity instead of leading to prosperity.
We're not going to pay." They would have seized the capital flight of their comprador elites and said that these dollar bonds were
a rip-off by the corrupt ruling class.
The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires
holding their money in Switzerland. The details were published in the "Legarde List." But the IMF said, in effect that its
loyalty was to the Greek millionaires who ha their money in Switzerland. The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the
bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and
wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF
so vicious an institution.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So these loans to foreign countries that were regarded as junk bonds really weren't junk, because
they were going to be paid. What group was it that jacked up these interest rates to 45 percent?
MICHAEL HUDSON : The market did. American banks, stock brokers and other investors looked at the balance of payments of
these countries and could not see any reasonable way that they could pay their debts, so they were not going to buy their bonds.
No country subject to democratic politics would have paid debts under these conditions. But the IMF, U.S. and Eurozone diplomacy
overrode democratic choice.
Investors didn't believe that the IMF and the World Bank had such a strangle hold over Latin American, Asian, and African countries
that they could make the countries act in the interest of the United States and the cosmopolitan finance capital, instead of in
their own national interest. They didn't believe that countries would commit financial suicide just to pay their wealthy One Percent.
They were wrong, of course. Countries were quite willing to commit economic suicide if their governments were dictatorships propped
up by the United States. That's why the CIA has assassination teams and actively supports these countries to prevent any party coming
to power that would act in their national interest instead of in the interest of a world division of labor and production along
the lines that the U.S. planners want for the world. Under the banner of what they call a free market, you have the World Bank and
the IMF engage in central planning of a distinctly anti-labor policy. Instead of calling them Third World bonds or junk bonds, you
should call them anti-labor bonds, because they have become a lever to impose austerity throughout the world.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Well, that makes a lot of sense, Michael, and answers a lot of the questions I've put together to ask
you. What about Puerto Rico writing down debt? I thought such debts couldn't be written down.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's what they all said, but the bonds were trading at about 45 cents on the dollar, the risk of their
not being paid. The Wall Street Journal on June 17, reported that unsecured suppliers and creditors of Puerto Rico, would
only get nine cents on the dollar. The secured bond holders would get maybe 65 cents on the dollar.
The terms are being written down because it's obvious that Puerto Rico can't pay, and that trying to do so is driving the population
to move out of Puerto Rico to the United States. If you don't want Puerto Ricans to act the same way Greeks did and leave Greece
when their industry and economy was shut down, then you're going to have to provide stability or else you're going to have half
of Puerto Rico living in Florida.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Who wrote down the Puerto Rican debt?
MICHAEL HUDSON : A committee was appointed, and it calculated how much Puerto Rico can afford to pay out of its taxes.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. dependency, that is, an economic colony of the United States. It does not have domestic self-reliance. It's
the antithesis of democracy, so it's never been in charge of its own economic policy and essentially has to do whatever the United
States tells it to do. There was a reaction after the hurricane and insufficient U.S. support to protect the island and the enormous
waste and corruption involved in the U.S. aid. The U.S. response was simply: "We won you fair and square in the Spanish-American
war and you're an occupied country, and we're going to keep you that way." Obviously this is causing a political resentment.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You've already touched on this, but why has the World Bank traditionally been headed by a U.S. secretary
of defense?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Its job is to do in the financial sphere what, in the past, was done by military force. The purpose of
a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the
World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry,
agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic
game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers.
In this case the loss of life occurs in the debtor countries. Population growth shrinks, suicides go up. The World Bank engages
in economic warfare that is just as destructive as military warfare. At the end of the Yeltsin period Russia's President Putin said
that American neoliberalism destroyed more of Russia's population than did World War II. Such neoliberalism, which basically is
the doctrine of American supremacy and foreign dependency, is the policy of the World Bank and IMF.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why has World Bank policy since its inception been to provide loans for countries to devote their land
to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves? And if this is the case, why do countries want these loans?
MICHAEL HUDSON : One constant of American foreign policy is to make other countries dependent on American grain exports
and food exports. The aim is to buttress America's agricultural trade surplus. So the first thing that the World Bank has done is
not to make any domestic currency loans to help food producers. Its lending has steered client countries to produce tropical export
crops, mainly plantation crops that cannot be grown in the United States. Focusing on export crops leads client countries to become
dependent on American farmers – and political sanctions.
In the 1950s, right after the Chinese revolution, the United States tried to prevent China from succeeding by imposing grain
export controls to starve China into submission by putting sanctions on exports. Canada was the country that broke these export
controls and helped feed China.
The idea is that if you can make other countries export plantation crops, the oversupply will drive down prices for cocoa and
other tropical products, and they won't feed themselves. So instead of backing family farms like the American agricultural policy
does, the World Bank backed plantation agriculture. In Chile, which has the highest natural supply of fertilizer in the world from
its guano deposits, exports guano instead of using it domestically. It also has the most unequal land distribution, blocking it
from growing its own grain or food crops. It's completely dependent on the United States for this, and it pays by exporting copper,
guano and other natural resources.
The idea is to create interdependency – one-sided dependency on the U.S. economy. The United States has always aimed at being
self-sufficient in its own essentials, so that no other country can pull the plug on our economy and say, "We're going to starve
you by not feeding you." Americans can feed themselves. Other countries can't say, "We're going to let you freeze in the dark by
not sending you oil," because America's independent in energy. But America can use the oil control to make other countries freeze
in the dark, and it can starve other countries by food-export sanctions.
So the idea is to give the United States control of the key interconnections of other economies, without letting any country
control something that is vital to the working of the American economy.
There's a double standard here. The United States tells other countries: "Don't do as we do. Do as we say." The only way it can
enforce this is by interfering in the politics of these countries, as it has interfered in Latin America, always pushing the right
wing. For instance, when Hillary's State Department overthrew the Honduras reformer who wanted to undertake land reform and feed
the Hondurans, she said: "This person has to go." That's why there are so many Hondurans trying to get into the United States now,
because they can't live in their own country.
The effect of American coups is the same in Syria and Iraq. They force an exodus of people who no longer can make a living under
the brutal dictatorships supported by the United States to enforce this international dependency system.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So when I asked you why countries would want these loans, I guess you're saying that they wouldn't,
and that's why the U.S. finds it necessary to control them politically.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a concise way of putting it Bonnie.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why are World Bank loans only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency of the country to which
it is lending?
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a good point. A basic principle should be to avoid borrowing in a foreign currency. A country
can always pay the loans in its own currency, but there's no way that it can print dollars or euros to pay loans denominated in
these foreign currencies.
Making the dollar central forces other countries to interface with the U.S. banking system. So if a country decides to go its
own way, as Iran did in 1953 when it wanted to take over its oil from British Petroleum (or Anglo Iranian Oil, as it was called
back then), the United States can interfere and overthrow it. The idea is to be able to use the banking system's interconnections
to stop payments from being made.
After America installed the Shah's dictatorship, they were overthrown by Khomeini, and Iran had run up a U.S. dollar debt under
the Shah. It had plenty of dollars. I think Chase Manhattan was its paying agent. So when its quarterly or annual debt payment came
due, Iran told Chase to draw on its accounts and pay the bondholders. But Chase took orders from the State Department or the Defense
Department, I don't know which, and refused to pay. When the payment was not made, America and its allies claimed that Iran was
in default. They demanded the entire debt to be paid, as per the agreement that the Shah's puppet government had signed. America
simply grabbed the deposits that Iran had in the United States. This is the money that was finally returned to Iran without interest
under the agreement of 2016.
America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do
the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system
to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other.
This prompted Russia to create its own bank-transfer system, and is leading China, Russia, India and Pakistan to draft plans
to de-dollarize.
BONNIE FAULKNER : I was going to ask you, why would loans in a country's domestic currency be preferable to the country
taking out a loan in a foreign currency? I guess you've explained that if they took out a loan in a domestic currency, they would
be able to repay it.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Whereas a loan in a foreign currency would cripple them.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes. You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if
U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis
in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap
in Korea and other Asian countries.
This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital
controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight.
But for Latin America and other countries, much of their foreign debt is held by their own ruling class. Even though it's denominated
in dollars, Americans don't own most of this debt. It's their own ruling class. The IMF and World Bank dictate tax policy to Latin
America – to un-tax wealth and shift the burden onto labor. Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad
to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting
it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You say that: "While U.S. agricultural protectionism has been built into the postwar global system at
its inception, foreign protectionism is to be nipped in the bud." How has U.S. agricultural protectionism been built into the postwar
global system?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Under Franklin Roosevelt the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 called for price supports for crops
so that farmers could earn enough to invest in equipment and seeds. The Agriculture Department was a wonderful department in spurring
new seed varieties, agricultural extension services, marketing and banking services. It provided public support so that productivity
in American agriculture from the 1930s to '50s was higher over a prolonged period than that of any other sector in history.
But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade
and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's
called "grandfathering". The Americans said: "We already have this program on the books, so we can keep it. But no other country
can succeed in agriculture in the way that we have done. You must keep your agriculture backward, except for the plantation crops
and growing crops that we can't grow in the United States." That's what's so evil about the World Bank's development plan.
BONNIE FAULKNER : According to your book: "Domestic currency is needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive." Why can't infrastructure costs be subsidized to keep down the economy's
overall cost structure if IMF loans are made in foreign currency?
MICHAEL HUDSON : If you're a farmer in Brazil, Argentina or Chile, you're doing business in domestic currency. It doesn't
help if somebody gives you dollars, because your expenses are in domestic currency. So if the World Bank and the IMF can prevent
countries from providing domestic currency support, that means they're not able to give price supports or provide government marketing
services for their agriculture.
America is a mixed economy. Our government has always subsidized capital formation in agriculture and industry, but it insists
that other countries are socialist or communist if they do what the United States is doing and use their government to support the
economy. So it's a double standard. Nobody calls America a socialist country for supporting its farmers, but other countries are
called socialist and are overthrown if they attempt land reform or attempt to feed themselves.
This is what the Catholic Church's Liberation Theology was all about. They backed land reform and agricultural self-sufficiency
in food, realizing that if you're going to support population growth, you have to support the means to feed it. That's why the United
States focused its assassination teams on priests and nuns in Guatemala and Central America for trying to promote domestic self-sufficiency.
BONNIE FAULKNER : If a country takes out an IMF loan, they're obviously going to take it out in dollars. Why can't they
take the dollars and convert them into domestic currency to support local infrastructure costs?
MICHAEL HUDSON : You don't need a dollar loan to do that. Now were getting in to MMT. Any country can create its own currency.
There's no reason to borrow in dollars to create your own currency. You can print it yourself or create it on your computers.
BONNIE FAULKNER: Well, exactly. So why don't these countries simply print up their own domestic currency?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Their leaders don't want to be assassinated. More immediately, if you look at the people in charge of
foreign central banks, almost all have been educated in the United States and essentially brainwashed. It's the mentality of foreign
central bankers. The people who are promoted are those who feel personally loyal to the United States, because they that that's
how to get ahead. Essentially, they're opportunists working against the interests of their own country. You won't have socialist
central bankers as long as central banks are dominated by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So we're back to the main point: The control is by political means, and they control the politics and
the power structure in these countries so that they don't rebel.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. When you have a dysfunctional economic theory that is destructive instead of productive,
this is never an accident. It is always a result of junk economics and dependency economics being sponsored. I've talked to people
at the U.S. Treasury and asked why they all end up following the United States. Treasury officials have told me: "We simply buy
them off. They do it for the money." So you don't need to kill them. All you need to do is find people corrupt enough and opportunist
enough to see where the money is, and you buy them off.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that "by following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail." What
is food blackmail?
MICHAEL HUDSON : If you pursue a foreign policy that we don't like -- for instance, if you trade with Iran, which we're
trying to smash up to grab its oil -- we'll impose financial sanctions against you. We won't sell you food, and you can starve.
And because you've followed World Bank advice and not grown your own food, you will starve, because you're dependent on us, the
United States and our Free World Ó allies. Canada will no longer follow its own policy independently of the United States,
as it did with China in the 1950s when it sold it grain. Europe also is falling in line with U.S. policy.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that: "World Bank administrators demand that loan recipients pursue a policy of economic dependency
above all on the United States as food supplier." Was this done to support U.S. agriculture? Obviously it is, but were there other
reasons as well?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Certainly the agricultural lobby was critical in all of this, and I'm not sure at what point this became
thoroughly conscious. I knew some of the World Bank planners, and they had no anticipation that this dependency would be the result.
They believed the free-trade junk economics that's taught in the schools' economics departments and for which Nobel prizes are awarded.
When we're dealing with economic planners, we're dealing with tunnel-visioned people. They stayed in the discipline despite its
unreality because they sort of think that abstractly it makes sense. There's something autistic about most economists, which is
why the French had their non-autistic economic site for many years. The mentality at work is that every country should produce what
it's best at – not realizing that nations also need to be self-sufficient in essentials, because we're in a real world of economic
and military warfare.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why does the World Bank prefer to perpetrate world poverty instead of adequate overseas capacity to
feed the peoples of developing countries?
MICHAEL HUDSON : World poverty is viewed as solution , not a problem. The World Bank thinks of poverty as low-priced
labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty and austerity for the World
Bank and IMF is an economic solution that's built into their models. I discuss these in my Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
book. Poverty is to them the solution, because it means low-priced labor, and that means higher profits for the companies bought
out by U.S., British, and European investors. So poverty is part of the class war: profits versus poverty.
BONNIE FAULKNER : In general, what is U.S. food imperialism? How would you characterize it?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Its aim is to make America the producer of essential foods and other countries producing inessential
plantation crops, while remaining dependent on the United States for grain, soy beans and basic food crops.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Does World Bank lending encourage land reform in former colonies?
MICHAEL HUDSON : No. If there is land reform, the CIA sends its assassination teams in and you have mass murder, as you
had in Guatemala, Ecuador, Central America and Columbia. The World Bank is absolutely committed against land reform. When the Forgash
Plan for a World Bank for Economic Acceleration was proposed in the 1950s to emphasize land reform and local-currency loans, a Chase
Manhattan economist to whom the plan was submitted warned that every country that had land reform turned out to be anti-American.
That killed any alternative to the World Bank.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Does the World Bank insist on client governments privatizing their public domain? If so, why, and what
is the effect?
MICHAEL HUDSON : It does indeed insist on privatization, pretending that this is efficient. But what it privatizes are
natural monopolies – the electrical system, the water system and other basic needs. Foreigners take over, essentially finance them
with foreign debt, build the foreign debt that they build into the cost structure, and raise the cost of living and doing business
in these countries, thereby crippling them economically. The effect is to prevent them from competing with the United States and
its European allies.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Would you say then that it is mainly America that has been aided, not foreign economies that borrow
from the World Bank?
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's why the United States is the only country with veto power in the IMF and World Bank – to make
sure that what you just described is exactly what happens.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why do World Bank programs accelerate the exploitation of mineral deposits for use by other nations?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Most World Bank loans are for transportation, roads, harbor development and other infrastructure needed
to export minerals and plantation crops. The World Bank doesn't make loans for projects that help the country develop in its own
currency. By making only foreign currency loans, in dollars or maybe euros now, the World Bank says that its clients have to repay
by generating foreign currency. The only way they can repay the dollars spent on American engineering firms that have built their
infrastructure is to export – to earn enough dollars to pay back for the money that the World Bank or IMF have lent.
This is what John Perkins' book about being an economic hit man for the World Bank is all about. He realized that his job was
to get countries to borrow dollars to build huge projects that could only be paid for by the country exporting more – which required
breaking its labor unions and lowering wages so that it could be competitive in the race to the bottom that the World Bank and IMF
encourage.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You also point out in Super Imperialism that mineral resources represent diminishing assets,
so these countries that are exporting mineral resources are being depleted while the importing countries aren't.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. They'll end up like Canada. The end result is going to be a big hole in the ground. You've
dug up all your minerals, and in the end you have a hole in the ground and a lot of the refuse and pollution – the mining slag and
what Marx called the excrements of production.
This is not a sustainable development. The World Bank only promotes the U.S. pursuit of sustainable development. So naturally,
they call their "Development," but their focus is on the United States, not the World Bank's client countries.
BONNIE FAULKNER : When Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire was originally published in
1972, how was it received?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Very positively. It enabled my career to take off. I received a phone call a month later by someone from
the Bank of Montreal saying they had just made $240 million on the last paragraph of my book. They asked what it would cost to have
me come up and give a lecture. I began lecturing once a month at $3,500 a day, moving up to $6,500 a day, and became the highest-paid
per diem economist on Wall Street for a few years.
I was immediately hired by the Hudson Institute to explain Super Imperialism to the Defense Department. Herman Kahn said
I showed how U.S. imperialism ran rings around European imperialism. They gave the Institute an $85,000 grant to have me go to the
White House in Washington to explain how American imperialism worked. The Americans used it as a how-to-do-it book.
The socialists, whom I expected to have a response, decided to talk about other than economic topics. So, much to my surprise,
it became a how-to-do-it book for imperialists. It was translated by, I think, the nephew of the Emperor of Japan into Japanese.
He then wrote me that the United States opposed the book being translated into Japanese. It later was translated. It was
received very positively in China, where I think it has sold more copies than in any other country. It was translated into Spanish,
and most recently it was translated into German, and German officials have asked me to come and discuss it with them. So the book
has been accepted all over the world as an explanation of how the system works.
BONNIE FAULKNER : In closing, do you really think that the U.S. government officials and others didn't understand how
their own system worked?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Many might not have understood in 1944 that this would be the consequence. But by the time 50 years went
by, you had an organization called "Fifty Years Is Enough." And by that time everybody should have understood. By the time Joe Stiglitz
became the World Bank's chief economist, there was no excuse for not understanding how the system worked. He was amazed to find
that indeed it didn't work as advertised, and resigned. But he should have known at the very beginning what it was all about. If
he didn't understand how it was until he actually went to work there, you can understand how hard it is for most academics to get
through the vocabulary of junk economics, the patter-talk of free trade and free markets to understand how exploitative and destructive
the system is.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Michael Hudson, thank you very much.
MICHAEL HUDSON : It's always good to be here, Bonnie. I'm glad you ask questions like these.
I've been speaking with Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show has been: The IMF and World Bank: Partners in Backwardness. Dr.
Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall
Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972
book, Super Imperialism : The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies
through the IMF and World Bank, the subject of today's broadcast, is posted in PDF format on his website at michael-hudson.com.
He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism. Dr. Hudson
acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide on finance and tax law. Visit his website at michael-hudson.com.
Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner, Yarrow Mahko and Tony Rango. Visit us at
gunsandbutter.org to listen to past programs, comment on shows, or join
our email list to receive our newsletter that includes recent shows and updates. Email us at
[email protected]. Follow us
on Twitter at #gandbradio.
Tom Wright
makes some good observations about Trump's foreign policy here, but I think he
underestimates Bolton's determination to cling to power:
It's hard to see how Bolton can stay. Trump has long known that Bolton wanted war more
than he does. He sidelined him on North Korea and overruled him on Iran. For his part, Bolton
has privately attacked Pompeo, long a Trump favorite, as falling captive to the State
Department bureaucracy and has predicted that the North Korea policy will fail.
Bolton has given an unusually large number of interviews to reporters and has been
rewarded with positive profiles lauding his influence and bureaucratic prowess. Those of us
who predicted that he would cling to the post of national security adviser, as it would be
the last job he'd ever get, may have been wrong. In fact, Bolton looks and sounds as if he is
preparing to exit on his own terms. Better that than being sent on a never-ending tour of the
world's most obscure places. For Bolton, leaving because he's too tough for Trump is the
perfect way to save face. Otherwise, he may be remembered as the man who presided over one of
the weakest national security teams in modern American history and someone whose myopic
obsessions -- like international treaties or communism in Venezuela -- meant the United
States lost precious time in preparing for the national security challenges of the
future.
Bolton has been allowed to drive Iran policy to the brink of war, and I can't believe that
he would voluntarily leave the position he has when he still has a chance of getting the war
with Iran that he has been seeking for years. It is true that Bolton was sent to Mongolia to
keep him out of sight during the president's visit with Kim at the DMZ, but where is the proof
that Trump has abandoned the maximalist demands that Bolton has long insisted on? On Iran,
Trump is still reciting hawkish talking points, sanctioning anything that moves, and
occasionally making more deranged threats against the entire country. Unless Trump decides to
get rid of Bolton, I don't see why Bolton would want to leave. He gets to set policy on the
issue he has obsessed over for decades, and he gets to pursue a policy of regime change in all
but name. Bolton will probably be happy to let Pompeo have all the "credit" for North Korea
policy, since there is none to be had, and he'll keep stoking the Iran obsession that has
already done so much harm to the Iranian people and brought the U.S. dangerously close to a war
it has no reason to fight.
Banishing Bolton to Mongolia was briefly entertaining for those of us that can't stand the
National Security Advisor, but it doesn't mean very much if administration policies aren't
changing. Since Bolton is the one running the policy "process," it seems unlikely that there
will be any real change as long as he is there. For whatever reason, Trump doesn't seem willing
to fire him. Maybe that's because he doesn't want to offend Sheldon Adelson, a known Bolton
supporter and big Trump donor, or maybe it's because he enjoys having Bolton as a lightning rod
to take some of the criticism, or maybe it's because their militaristic worldviews aren't as
dissimilar as many people assume. It doesn't really matter why Trump won't rid himself of
Bolton. What matters is that Bolton is supposedly "humiliated" again and again by Trump actions
or statements, and then Bolton gets back to promoting his own agenda no matter what the
president does.
For that matter, Bolton's absence from the DMZ meeting may have been exactly what he wanted.
Graeme Wood suggested
as much just the other day:
Carlson has inserted himself into the frame of this bizarre and impromptu diplomatic trip,
and that is exactly where the Boltonites want him: forever associated with a handshake that
will be recorded as a new low in the annals of presidential gullibility.
Many observers have assumed that Bolton won't be able to stay in the administration at
different points over the last several months. When Trump claimed that he didn't want regime
change in Iran, that was supposed to be a break with Bolton. The only hitch is that Bolton
maintains this same fiction that they aren't trying to bring down the Iranian government when
they obviously are. The second summit with North Korea and the possibility of some initial
agreement caused similar speculation that Bolton's influence was waning, and then he managed to
wreck the Hanoi summit by getting Trump to make demands that he and everyone else must have
known were unacceptable to the North Koreans. Every time it seems that Bolton's maximalism is
giving way to something else, Bolton gets the last laugh.
Demolishing the architecture of arms control has been one of Bolton's main ambitions
throughout his career. He has already done quite a bit of damage, but I assume he will want to
make sure that New START dies. Bolton likely will "be remembered as the man who presided over
one of the weakest national security teams in modern American history and someone whose myopic
obsessions -- like international treaties or communism in Venezuela -- meant the United States
lost precious time in preparing for the national security challenges of the future," but as
long as he has the chance to pursue those obsessions and advance his agenda I don't think he's
going to give it up. He is an abysmal National Security Advisor, a fanatic, and a menace to
this country, and I would love it if he did resign, but I just don't see it. I doubt that
Bolton cares about "saving face" as much as he does inflicting as much damage as he can while
he has the opportunity. The only thing that Bolton believes in quitting is a successful
diplomatic agreement that advances U.S. interests. That is why it is necessary for the
president to replace him, because I don't see any other way that he is going to leave.
Bolton quitting? Heck! He's just getting started. Britain, on orders from Bolton, detained
an Panamanian flagged supertanker heading to Syria with Iranian oil. Spanish officials said
the Grace 1, was seized by British patrol ships off Gibraltar, and boarded by Royal Marines
and detained on Wash.'s orders.
Bolton's power is becoming unlimited because Trump and the rest of the gov. is doing
nothing to stop his agenda, which most of Wash., must share, of starting a war with Iran, N.
Korea, or anywhere else he can stir up trouble.
It's so obvious Wash. wants Iran to fire the first shot in order to go to war and make
political donors like Sheldon Adelson happy, as well as Netanyahu who has more to say about
US foreign policy than the American people who just want to stop the wars and concentrate on
the issues and problems here at home.
After all, it's OUR MONEY going to finance all the atrocities abroad that the war industry
and other countries benefit from. Unbelievable stuff going on in Wash. and seems everyday it
gets worse and more absurd.
There is an article on here by Michael Hudson, an economist who wrote about U.S. control of
the World Bank and IMF since 1948. He claims that the U.S. wages war because it gets other
countries to unwittingly finance them and the trade deficit. After WWII the U.S. forced
European countries to pay their war debt, by selling corporate assets, reducing barriers and
reduce their social programs. They had 3/4 of the world gold reserves because of those loans
during the war. Korea and Vietnam reduced their gold reserves to 10 billion by the late 60's
and were forced to get out off the Gold Standard. The French Banks that had a big presense in
Indochina sending their dollars to the French Central Bank and they were trading dollars for
gold. Nixon stopped it.
The dollar gave U.S. the means to have other countries finance their trade deficit, all
their wars and the military buildup. By ending the Gold backed dollar they forced the countries
that had U.S. debt dollars to purchase U.S. Treasury Bonds. As the U.S. debt grew so did the
dollars being held by those countries and the purchase of Treasury Bonds. The U.S. does not
allow countries holding those dollars to buy US property or buy Corporations and risk being
acused of commiting an act of war. So they are forced to buy U.S. debt while the US uses its
dollars to buy other countries resources with those worthless dollars.
The U.S. forces countries that default on their loans to pay penalties and huge interest
payments while the U.S. debt goes un checked and growing without the threat of being in
default...
Your connection is not secure says: "Wake up people. The military works for the evil
masters. They don't really want war of course, they want peace – particularly between
your ears."
It's all about welfare- welfare specifically for the military industrial complex , that
is.
The armed forces are just a bunch of heavily entrenched welfare recipients who get uniforms,
guns, bombs etc. , and are always angling for more money so that they to get more uniforms,
guns, bombs etc., to be happily provided by the "private" inc. sycophants, otherwise
collectively known as "weapons manufacturers".
Council on Foreign Relations Tulsi Gabbard U.S. President? You have to be very gullible,
to say the least, to believe that she is going to end America's endless wars.
Yes, indeed. The Deep State will only be beaten by force.
I vote for rotting from within. Not as dramatic as force, but more effective and long
lasting. I'll enjoy the show when they start, Cronus-like, knocking one another
off though.
With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking
about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing
with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla
groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up
any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned
bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by
growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug
cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative,
which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the
clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.
Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem
8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I
will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't
want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people
like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are
waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.
Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb
asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube
channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades –
Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering
the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as
"Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.
With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing,
Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close
election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to
fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the
corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US
State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote.
Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.
There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it
out of your Vocabulary"!
Wars are necessary for the maintaining and expanding the US controlled neoliberal empire. Wars is the health of military
industrial complex.
The Deep State will bury any candidate who will try to change the USA forign policy. Looks
what happened to Trump. He got Russiagate just for vey modest proposal of detente with Russia
(of course not only for that, but still...)
Notable quotes:
"... The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into. ..."
Those are interesting proposals but wishful thinking: wars are necessary for Electing Tulsi Gabbard as our next Commander in Chief will not solve our biggest problems
alone.
Her candidacy, I believe , must be augmented by two new laws which should be demanded by the
taxpayer and enforced by her administration on "day one".
The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states
that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of
aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all
assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they
lied us into.
If they lied us into war .they pay for it NOT the US taxpayer.
The second is " The Terror Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ also retroactive to 2001,
it states that any and all individuals found to have engaged in plotting, planning, or staging
"false terror events" will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any
and all of the assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit to pay down the cost of
our War on Terror.
Americans should not have to sacrifice one cent of their tax dollars to pay for their own
defrauding by "staged" or "phony" terror events.
I believe that were Tulsi to be elected, she should set up two new task forces designed
especially for these reasons, Try to think of them as the " Office of Special Plans" IN
REVERSO.!.
Moreover she should hold weekly press briefings to notify the taxpayer of her progress, and
also how much of our 23 trillion in losses , FROM THEIR LIES, she has been able to recoup.
Getting these two initiatives up and running is the most potent force the taxpayers have in
cleaning out the fraud and larceny in DC, .ending our illegal wars overseas .. and
(finally)holding our "establishment elite " accountable for "LYING US INTO THEM"
It is way overdue for the American Taxpayer to take back control of our government from
those who ALMOST BANKRUPTED OUR ENTIRE NATION BY LYING US INTO ILLEGAL WARS.
It is not enough any more just to complain or "kvetch" about our problems .put on your
thinking caps .and start coming up with solutions and initiatives .start fighting for your
freedom, your finances and your future.
Elect the leaders YOU WANT and tell them exactly what you want them to do!
Tulsi has promised us all "SERVICE OVER SELF"
There you go !
I say that means not only ENDING our ILLEGAL, CRIMINAL WARS .but GETTING AS MUCH OF OUR
MONEY BACK from those who lied us into them !
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WAR FRAUD it is $23,000,000,000,000.00. in "heinous debt" .overdue!
"... Her courage and convictions were hardened in the burning cauldron of an unjust war. Call it burning resentment if you prefer. It's real and it's what makes her tick. ..."
"... by Al Qaeda. For that unrecanted heresy she was vilified by Republicans and Democrats alike. ..."
"... In the Democratic Party debates, she cut that posturing hypocrite Tim Ryan off at the knees in a matter of seconds. A few home truths about U.S. soldiers dying for no good reason was all it took to dispatch him and his mealy-mouthed platitudes. ..."
"... Watch her do the same to DJT if she gets the nomination and he continues to pander to the neocons. ..."
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate.
Tulsi is a candidate for political office, not sainthood. Much like Trump in 2016, being
patently less cynical than her rivals makes her the obvious choice.
the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable
Operative word in the above sentence: "genuine."
Her courage and convictions were hardened in the burning cauldron of an unjust war. Call it
burning resentment if you prefer. It's real and it's what makes her tick.
She went to Syria and proclaimed that rule by Assad was better for Syrians than rule by Al
Qaeda. For that unrecanted heresy she was vilified by Republicans and Democrats alike.
In the Democratic Party debates, she cut that posturing hypocrite Tim Ryan off at the knees
in a matter of seconds. A few home truths about U.S. soldiers dying for no good reason was all
it took to dispatch him and his mealy-mouthed platitudes.
What was Ryan going to do? Tell Tulsi she didn't know what she was talking about?
Watch her do the same to DJT if she gets the nomination and he continues to pander to the
neocons.
Gabbard did well but if I had to vote tomorrow it would be for Elizabeth Warren ..she's
got the real intelligence firepower combined with some old fashioned common sense. None of
them are going to directly attack the jew lobby during the campaign .why bring on
smear jobs and fake stories when it doesnt matter what they say, only what they do when
elected.
Would never vote for Joe "I am Zionist" Biden, he's just a paler shade of Trump .or to be
even clearer Biden is the DC establishment whereas Trump is the NJ Mafia,
The moderator-filtered t "debate" showed viewers the level of selective-issue political
control. The fact that Tulsi was able to overcome this control and discuss the issue of
neoliberal wars for the
How many Americans aren't so thoroughly disgusted with our entire D.N.C. by now , they have
to pin their nose (to avoid the stink) while sitting through one more . Establishment Elite,
corporate " con job " debate ?
How many , Phil ?
Like just about EVERYBODY .
How many Americans aren't so thoroughly disgusted with NBC . and all its LIES . that even if
the broadcasters PAID them, tomorrow , they would STILL refuse to watch their network ?.
Like just about EVERYBODY .
Tulsi is not simply the ONLY candidate who MATTERS .she is the only candidate, alive, who
has a shot in rescuing our country from its descent into corporatist "warmongering" hell .
@Brabantian lectorate
has been fooled so many times before, no big harm in getting fooled again, although not very
smart (as Einstein once remarked about repeating same same while expecting a different
result).
Hopefully by a "peace" or pseudo-peace candidate to at least keep that narrative going in
the general population even if once elected the new president turns around and betrays the
pre-election promises. Now if there were some way to make those politicians pay for
dishonouring their word.
But as I may have asked in another comment, could the electorate be as cynical and
hypocritical as these politicians they cast votes for?
Bingo! For a smart dude, PG should know (and I am sure he does) that the problem is
systemic. No candidate, if s/he expects to get anywhere, is going to call out Aipac or bring
up the issue of Jewish influence and power.
On Tucker Carlson, Tulsi named Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia as the main pushers for war with
Iran. No, she isn't perfect. No American politician dare say more. But she's the best we have
and deserves our support. If she does gain a large following, as Bernie Sanders did, and is
cheated out of the nomination, as Bernie was, I hope she has the guts, as Bernie didn't, to
form a third, Peace Party, and run on it. So she splits the Democrats and they lose? So what!
What difference does it make what Democrat or Republican Zio-whore becomes President?
Trump was a roaring lion for America First, right up until his inauguration. President
Tulsi will also "see the light" about how Israel is our most important ally. Ever see the
photo of the 10 rabbis flanking Trump's desk in the Oval office? It could just as easily been
a scene out of The Sopranos, with the family forcing some schmuck to "legally" sign over his
business.
As Giraldi wrote, there is no such thing as a perfect candidate. But who can compare with
her in this moribund democrat field? Politics is the art of the possible. When Trump first
announced in 2015, no pundit outside of Ann Coulter said he had a chance. And look how he
demolished that republican field consisting of 16 brain dead neocons. If given half a chance,
Tulsi could do the same. And the fact that she is a veteran works in her favor. Just because
she was in Iraq, does not mean that she supported the US aggression. Like thousands of other
vets, she obviously did not.
@Commentator Mike ou're
right but consider the obstacles she has to overcome – her desperate need to bypass the
hostile media in order to make her point to the American masses who will care little or
nothing about a few hundreds of thousands of dead foreigners but, when it comes to American
dead, they are rather more receptive.
Same thing is true on Israel – if she is to have any chance she has to grit her
teeth and stay pretty mum on that topic. They already know where she stands after her remarks
about Netanyahu; her meeting with Assad and her wish for better relations with Russia –
they will do everything in their power to destroy her.
My Congressman, Tim Ryan, was up there. He's a likeable guy, and he plays ball, probably
because he has to after succeeding Jim Traficant, who was expelled from Congress. He's
criticized locally for not bringing back more pork, and his local cliche-ridden talks sound
as though they were scripted by the Democrat Central Committee. I'll give him credit for
avoiding misconduct that could lead to indictment, no small achievement in this
preternaturally corrupt area. I think he's reasonably honest, but just not a firebrand.
There's unsubstantiated speculation here he's been positioning himself for hire as a
lobbyist.
If she does gain a large following, as Bernie Sanders did, and is cheated out of the
nomination, as Bernie was, I hope she has the guts, as Bernie didn't, to form a third,
Peace Party, and run on it.
Yes. My question, when to start preparing for an outside run? If she's making steady
progress, she won't move until after the convention. Would threatening an independent run
help or hurt her before then?
to TKK:
I've never had a female boss so I can't comment on your question. No, Tulsi can't win the
Presidency, it'd be a miracle if she did, but I'm saying that if she does get a huge
following, gets cheated out of the nomination, and has the guts to form a Third Party, she'd
shake up the rotten rigged system and give us some hope.
"... why can't Tulsi Gabbard pretend to be "one of them" (e.g., by taking money from Raytheon, being a member of the CFR, claiming that al-Qaeda did 9/11, etc.) but then actually oppose the self-destructive wars and risky provocations? ..."
"... If orange clown can be honest about his feelings of animosity toward Iran during his campaign, why can't Tulsi Gabbard be honest about her feelings about pointless and self-destructive wars? ..."
"... If Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning can betray the "deep state" why can't Tulsi Gabbard? ..."
"... somebody is going to be president anyway, whether we like it or not, and the wars – especially the looming WW3 – is the biggest threat ..."
If orange clown can pretend to be one of "us" and then immediately turn around and
enthusiastically stab "us" in the back, why can't Tulsi Gabbard pretend to be "one of them"
(e.g., by taking money from Raytheon, being a member of the CFR, claiming that al-Qaeda did
9/11, etc.) but then actually oppose the self-destructive wars and risky provocations?
If orange clown can be honest about his feelings of animosity toward Iran during his
campaign, why can't Tulsi Gabbard be honest about her feelings about pointless and
self-destructive wars?
If Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning can betray the "deep state" why can't Tulsi Gabbard?
The cynicism I see in some of the comments here disparaging Gabbard is "over the top" IMO; somebody is going to be
president anyway, whether we like it or not, and the wars – especially the looming WW3 – is the biggest threat. So why not support someone who
appears to be genuinely opposed to the wars?
To mis-paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the candidate you don't
have.
Unless Ms. Gabbard can figure out some way to raise and cycle a billion dollars through
media ads in the MSM, they're going to largely ignore her or even demonise her, because it is
the Praetorian Media who now decide who will be the the American President.
Presidential elections are a joke. It's best to vote for 3rd candidate to express your
opposition to the Status quo: I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will
vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not.
She will never make it as she is too honest about foreign policy and the USA lies.
If Ron Unz is reading I might suggest he could do a little something to cover the passing of
probably one of the best Antiwar writers(Justin Raimondo) of this generation. Nobody has gotten
things more right, even before the wars developed – he predicted a war with Iraq even
before Sept 11, 2001, and it's aftermath into sectarian violence. His archives are second to
none in naming the names of who steered the war machine into the Middle East and across the
globe. I could gone on, but the link does a better job. RIP Justin.
Amazing how for these Americans, even this Tulsi, the lives of US soldiers are more
important than countless civilians they murder during the course of their wars. But even that
is a lie. They don't even care about their own soldiers once they're of no use to them any
more, if you consider the rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, homelessness,
mental health issues, and suicide among the veterans.
And also, when it serves their purpose,
then suddenly the life of some innocent somewhere half way round the world getting abused by a
government they dislike becomes important, and the human rights card is played so they can go
and kill more than they save. I thought that to these leftist American politicians everyone is
equal so why don't they express concern about how many Afghans they have killed over there?
Oh
yes, but if they left them alone there wouldn't be those columns of young Afghans making their
way to the West for these liberals to practice their empathy and hospitality on. And who would
be guarding those poppy fields and ensuring maximum production for pharmaceutical companies and
the black market? And when an Afghan immigrant like Omar Mateen sets off on a murder spree on
US soil who is to blame?
Do they even question their wars, or their immigration policy, or
Islamic culture of intolerance, or anything at all? Some may then question gun laws, but even
that is another lie, because guns are as as available as ever. No they just shrug their
shoulders as its just part and parcel, and it's only good for the media to keep people in fear
and sell their sensational news.
And if you question any of this then you're most likely to be
called a racist or supremacist or whatever vile word they can conjure up with which to browbeat
you.
"... So, the two biggest issues in US politics--Forever Wars and the utter strangulation of politics by Big Money are what she wants to take on. And on those two issues alone, I've decided to work for her campaign! ..."
Doing Due Diligence on Tulsi Gabbard by watching the 1:20 long interview by Jimmy Dore of which
the first 20 minutes are excellent. At the 21 minute mark, Dore asks how can we end these
endless wars. Paraphrasing Gabbard: Failure is not an option: We must end these
interventionist wars as they suck the life blood out of doing the positive things that
must be done to benefit Americans.
Prior to the above, Dore as an aside mentions that Howard Dean, the Podestas, Clintons,
and others are all about keeping the flow of Big Money into politics at the expense of
everything else--that's their absolute #1 concern, to which you'll hear Gabbard agree!
So, the two biggest issues in US politics--Forever Wars and the utter strangulation of
politics by Big Money are what she wants to take on. And on those two issues alone, I've
decided to work for her campaign!
@74 karlof1 - " I've decided to work for [Tulsi Gabbard's] campaign"
This is excellent. As someone who has never had any national experience in politics, I
would be interested to know how one offers this kind of support - if you ever have time to
say, but don't break a leg over it.
One sees in politics how good moral character gets compromised by involvement in the
system. But we also know that one's own contribution to universal sanity can never be known
or measured - or discounted! Therefore, we do what we can. Who knows, perhaps your
involvement is the final butterfly-wing stroke that keeps her honest and upright and making a
difference.
Well done. And thank you.
~~
ps..please don't worry that people are not taking up your links or comments, just because
you don't see feedback here. Keep it all coming as well as you can, but please don't limit
your contributions to feedback. Many of the pieces you post are so friggin' long that it
takes the rest of the night to absorb them all ;)
I'm glad you donate the time of your retirement to offer all the things you do. I still
work, and it's a struggle to keep up with things. Your reading list overlaps mine very
nicely, and I ride on your coat-tails a lot - you along with many commenters here save me a
lot of time in pinpointing articles of value.
In fact, beyond b's superlative work - which he keeps producing even though we all
appreciate it so intently that we usually forget to praise him for it - I'd say the offering
of links from the top analysts and journalists, combined with the gems from the left field,
are a signature mark of this forum.
So please keep the summaries coming, and never lose heart or doubt that people are reading
them and placing value on them.
Someone pinch me and tell me I'm not dreaming! If this is true (my knee-jerk reaction is to
dismiss it), then it is
HUGE! EARTH SHATTERING !
In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros
and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new
foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on
diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. (...) It will be
called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who
in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not
abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. (...) Among (Trita) Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics
of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting
negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran, and North Korea; the historian and
essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew
Bacevich. "The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist
conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when
asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the
pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
i thought it was april fools for a second, until i then thought it is probably a pile of
steaming b.s. but hey - if it can be used as fertilizer to grow a few brains in an otherwise
constant 24/7 war party mindset, i am up for it... call me when something actually happens as
a result of any soros-koch stink tank agenda..
People who run "debates" are the same people (the DNC and the MSM and the USA MIC who controls both) who have charged
that our "democracy" was compromised by Russian interference via Facebook posts and the publishing of DNC documents that no one
has disputed the validity thereof.
As pathetic as Dems "debate" format is, it does give people an actual look at the candidates,
in many cases for the first time. It does change some minds and move the numbers. After all, Tulsi was the person who introduced
Bernie at the DNC convention in 2016. She's the person who left the DNC because she saw what scumbags they were.
For a candidate speaking out about the endless wars but the MSM and associates are performing their marginalization
magic.
More exposure for Gabbard can only help her. She did a fine job in her debate, I'm sure her
numbers will climb a bit.
election is a mighty high bar. she needs about 750 new donors a day, every day, if indeed
the cutoff date is 60ish days from now.
i wonder how many will make it? for that matter, i wonder how many already have? Biden,
O'Rourke, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg for sure. Booker, Castro, Gillibrand probably.
Klobuchar maybe?
most of the rest are just taking up space, as far as I can tell -- they're contributing
nothing to the debate at all, and they have no hope of winning substantial support.
meanwhile, i wouldn't be surprised if both Biden and O'Rourke are done and out before the
next debate, destroyed by their own negatives. on the other hand, ego is a powerful thing,
and even the ones whose stars are declining may insist on sticking it out through New
Hampshire at least, in which case there could be a dozen or more still in the race come
September, hopefully including TG.
This is WSWS with their outdated dreams of "working class dictatorship" but some points and observation are very apt and
to the point.
Notable quotes:
"... The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy ..."
"... Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ..."
"... She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times ..."
"... The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama. ..."
"... If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia. ..."
"... On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders. ..."
Four hours of nationally televised debates Wednesday and Thursday among 20 Democratic
presidential candidates demonstrated the gigantic disconnect between the claims of this
pro-war, pro-corporate party to be driven by concerns for the well-being of working people
and the reality of poverty and oppression in America, for which the Democratic Party is no
less responsible than the Republicans.
The stage-managed spectacle mounted by NBC marked the formal beginning of an electoral
process dominated by big money and thoroughly manipulated by the corporate-controlled
media.
The attempt to contain the growing left-wing opposition in the working class and channel
it behind the second oldest capitalist party in the world necessarily assumed the form of
lies and demagogy. For the most part, the vying politicians, all of them in the top 10
percent on the income ladder, made promises to provide healthcare, jobs, decent schools,
tuition-free college and a clean environment for all, knowing full well they had no intention
of carrying them out.
No one -- neither the millionaire media talking heads asking the questions nor the
candidates -- dared to mention the fact that that Democratic Party has just voted to give
Trump an additional $4.9 billion to round up, detain and torture hundreds of thousands of
immigrants, including children, in the growing network of concentration camps being set up
within the US. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and this one demonstrates the
complicity of the Democratic Party in the fascistic policies of the Trump administration.
The second night of the debate featured the front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden
and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has a long record of reactionary politics,
including in the Obama administration. Sanders is continuing in this election his role in
2016 of channeling growing support for socialism into the framework of a right-wing
party.
The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in
the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the
clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy. The African-American
senator was lauded for attacking Biden for statements boasting of his ability in the past to
collaborate with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing for school
integration.
It was Harris who adopted the most transparently bogus posture of left-radicalism in
Thursday night's debate, repeatedly declaring her agreement with Bernie Sanders and raising
her hand, along with Sanders, to support the abolition of private health insurance in favor
of a single-payer system. By Friday morning, however, she had reversed that stand, claiming
she had "misheard" the question and declaring her support for the continuation of private
insurance.
Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a
law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and
bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven
Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of
Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate,
her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class,
whose views are promoted by the New York Times , who want the Democratic campaign to
be dominated by racial and gender politics so as to mobilize the party's wealthy upper-middle
class base and divert and divide the mass working class anger over social
inequality.
Many of the candidates fondly recalled the Obama administration. But those eight years saw
the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the super-rich in American history.
The pace was set by the initial $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was expanded to
uncounted trillions in the course of 2009, combined with the bailout of the auto companies at
the expense of the autoworkers, who suffered massive cuts in benefits and a 50 percent cut in
pay for new hires, rubber-stamped by the United Auto Workers.
The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was
raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of
sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump
and Obama.
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado attacked Biden for claiming credit for a bipartisan
budget deal in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Far from a genuine
compromise, he said, the deal "was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush
tax cuts permanently," as well as putting in place major cuts in social spending which
continue to this day. Bennet neglected to mention that he had voted for the deal himself when
it passed the Senate by a huge majority.
It was remarkable, under conditions where President Trump himself declared that the United
States was only 10 minutes away from launching a major assault on Iran earlier this month,
that the 20 Democratic candidates spent almost no time discussing foreign policy.
In the course of four hours, there were only a few minutes devoted to the world outside
the United States. The silence on the rest of the world cannot be dismissed as mere
parochialism.
Many of the Democratic presidential candidates are deeply implicated in either the
policy-making or combat operations of US imperialism. The 20 candidates include two who were
deployed as military officers to Iraq and Afghanistan, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard; Biden,
vice president for eight years and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee; and five senators who are members of high-profile national security committees:
Harris and Bennet on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten
Gillibrand on the Armed Services Committee, and Cory Booker on the Foreign Relations
Committee.
If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is
clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military
interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for
major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with
nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia.
In the handful of comments that were made on foreign policy, the Democratic candidates
struck a belligerent note. On Wednesday, four of the ten candidates declared the main global
threat to the United States to be China, while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opted for
Russia. Many candidates referred to the need to combat Russian interference in the US
election -- recycling the phony claims that Russian "meddling" helped Trump into the White
House in 2016.
On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest
global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a
greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration
was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was
not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders.
The hostess at the seaside restaurant had an eastern European accent, so he asked her where
she was from. She said, "Belgrade, Serbia." He told her he was sorry for what the U.S.
government led by Bill Clinton had done to her country and that he considered Clinton a war
criminal. She said the bombing in 1999 was terrifying, and even though she was young at the
time, she vividly remembered it.
It traumatized her, her parents, and her family. Then she smiled and said that in the month
she had been in the U.S. for her summer job, all the Americans she had met had been so
friendly. He welcomed her to the U.S., and as he was walking away, he remembered that Clinton's
savage bombing of Serbia that had killed so many Serbian children and other innocents had been
code-named "Operation Noble Anvil."
He wondered what kind of "noble" people would think of innocent children as anvils: "heavy
usually steel-faced iron blocks on which metal is shaped," and did the friendly Americans
accept Clinton's sick lies when he ended his March 24, 1999 war address to the American people
with these words: "Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of our armed
forces, who are undertaking this mission for the sake of our values and our children's future.
May God bless them, and may God bless America."
"... Daniel Wirls is professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of several books, including " Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama " (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) . https://outline.com/DGG3zD Read & annotate articles ..."
When two giant Pentagon contractors --
Raytheon and United Technologies
-- proposed to merge into Raytheon Technologies, it hit the headlines. President Trump said
he was
"a little bit concerned"
that the merger would dampen competition in the defense industry. Coincidentally, Congress was at
the same time debating the administration's request for substantial increases in military spending -- particularly in weapons
procurement and research and development.
We used to call the nexus of private interests and national defense the "military-industrial complex." But that Cold War term
no longer fits. "Industrial" does not capture the breadth of the activities involved. And "military" fails to describe the range
of government policies and interests implicated. Over the past two decades we've seen transformations that include new government
reliance on private security firms, revolutions in digital technology, a post-9/11 surge in the number of veterans, and the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What we have now could be called a "National Security Corporate Complex."
Here are four things you need to know about this transformation.
1.
President Dwight Eisenhower coined the term, and it stuck
In the heyday of the Cold War, with corporate giants bending metal for the Pentagon in its titanic competition with the Soviet
Union, President Dwight Eisenhower coined the phrase as part of a
famous warning
about the unprecedented
"conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry."
Eisenhower was concerned about the potential influence of industry over government policy and budgets. Since then,
analysts and pundits
have used the term to
suggest that arms manufacturers unduly influence lawmakers in voting on the size and nature of military spending, including
decisions about war and peace.
2.
9/11 changed the business of national security
Before September 11, 2001 and the resulting military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, the Department of Energy
(DOE) was the only executive branch department other than the Pentagon with major military contracts. DOE was involved because it
built and dismantled nuclear warheads.
We can see how, post-9/11, more agencies got involved in national security contracting. I used
federal contracting data
to measure the changes from 1981
to 2018.
As you can see, much of the jump in post-9/11 spending comes from the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security in late 2002
and early 2003
. Before DHS was created, some of that contracting was already being done by the agencies brought together to
form the new department, particularly the Coast Guard. But the scope and amount of DHS contracting increased dramatically --
averaging nearly $14 billion a year from 2005 onward.
But two other departments also expanded their contracting substantially after 9/11. In the 1990s, the State Department had an
average of under $700 million in contracts per year in national security related matters. From 2009 onward, that average jumped
to $8.4 billion a year.
But the most stunning increases in both overall budgets and contracting came from VA. Few Americans would guess that from 2001
to 2011, VA budget grew faster than the Pentagon's -- 271 percent compared to 240 percent -- even if the Pentagon includes its
extra spending for the wars. Part of VA's growth came in contracting. In the 1990s, VA had contracted out under $2.4 billion in
work per year in the 1990s. From 2009 onward, VA contracted out nearly $20 billion of work each year.
3. Defense contracting extends far beyond the purchase of weapons
As national security contracting has ramped up across government agencies, we've also seen a change in the focus of these
contracts. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great deal of media attention focused on contracts with private security
firms like Blackwater and logistics firms like Halliburton. Such "privatization" of military force continues, but it is only part
of the story.
The government also expanded its outsourcing of military and veterans' health care. Three of the top 15 Pentagon contractors
were health care corporations, including two that were in the top five for VA.
National security departments further expanded their contracting in information technology, for tasks ranging from the
prosaic, like bookkeeping, to the exotic, including cyberwarfare and artificial intelligence. That work went both to traditional
arms-making giants such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, and also enterprises such as Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC that
specialize in such work.
As a result of the government's expanded spending on national security, many corporations now have sizable contracts with more
than one federal agency. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics -- and perhaps the new Raytheon Technologies -- have become
diversified "Walmarts of war," as some researchers call them, delivering a wide range of goods and services to various parts of
the federal government. The Pentagon's top contractor, Lockheed Martin, has been a major contractor for VA and DHS. General
Dynamics was fourth among Pentagon contractors, second for DHS, and third for the Department of State.
Large IT specialists also contract across departments. Booz Allen Hamilton, for example, was the government's 14th largest
contractor in 2018, ranking 19th for the Pentagon, 7th for VA, and 32nd for DHS. Engineering giant Fluor Corporation was in the
top 15 for Defense, DOE, and DHS. Other examples include CACI, Jacobs Engineering, and Leidos Holdings. And of course, several
health care companies do business with VA and Pentagon.
What does all this mean?
Some observers
argue
that
the general decline in overall military spending and weapons procurement after the peak of the recent wars -- before the Trump
administration increased that spending -- meant the U.S. no longer had to worry about the influence of a military-industrial
complex.
But focusing narrowly on weapons procurement misses the bigger picture. Since 9/11, an increasingly diverse array of firms
have a significant stake in federal national security spending. Those funds now flow from a large portion of the federal
government and into many sectors of the U.S. economy. If anything, Eisenhower's complex has become more complex and potentially
influential.
"... The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests. ..."
"... Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown. ..."
"... Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something of an argument that began: ..."
"... He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out. Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf. They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share. Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. ..."
"... Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. ..."
"... There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were, they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack ..."
"... Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But he's not done with the disinformation exercise: ..."
"... The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification ..."
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based
on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation,
recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the
area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.
This is only the latest in a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran
and its surrogates against American and allied interests, and they should be understood in
the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US
government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible
investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike
Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media
ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo
and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and
international skepticism attests.
Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute
appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire
amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the
Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned
Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown.
First, what actually happened, as best we can tell five days later? In the early morning of
June 13, two unrelated tankers were heading south out of the Strait of Hormuz, sailing in open
water in the Gulf of Oman, roughly 20 miles off the south coast of Iran. The tankers were most
likely outside Iran's territorial waters, but within Iran's contiguous zone as defined by the
UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea . At different times, some 30 miles apart, the two tankers were attacked
by weapons unknown, launched by parties unknown, for reasons unknown. The first reported
distress call was 6:12 a.m. local time. No one has yet claimed responsibility for either
attack. The crew of each tanker abandoned ship soon after the explosions and were rescued by
ships in the area, including Iranian naval vessels, who took the Front Altair crew to an
Iranian port.
Even this much was not certain in the early afternoon of June 13 when Mike Pompeo came to
the lectern at the State Department to deliver his verdict:
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.
Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who
made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something
of an argument that began:
This assessment is based on intelligence .
He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence
assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out.
Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf.
They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share.
Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had
a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that
Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first
claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US
doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had
operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. After intelligence, Pompeo continued:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used .
Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used
torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to
the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any
actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. He went on:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation
The "level of expertise needed" to carry out these attacks on a pair of sitting duck tankers
does not appear to be that great. Yes, the Iranian military probably has the expertise, as do
the militaries of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, or others with a stake
in provoking a crisis in the region. And those who lack the expertise still have the money with
which to hire expert surrogates. The number of credible suspects, known and unknown, with an
interest in doing harm to Iran is easily in double figures. Leading any serious list should be
the US. That's perfectly logical, so Pompeo tried to divert attention from the obvious:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping .
There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were,
they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six
examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack. The one example was the May 12, 2019,
attack on four ships at anchor in the deep water port of Fujairah. Even the multinational
investigation organized by the UAE could not determine who did it. The UAE reported to the UN
Security Council that the perpetrator was likely some unnamed "state actor." The logical
suspects and their surrogates are the same as those for the most recent attack.
Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old
threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by
the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an
unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But
he's not done with the disinformation exercise:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no
proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high
degree of sophistication.
The whole proxy group thing is redundant, covered by "the level of expertise needed"
mentioned earlier. Pompeo doesn't name any proxy group here, he doesn't explain how he could
know there's no proxy group that could carry out such an attack, and he just throws word
garbage at the wall and hopes something sticks that will make you believe – no evidence
necessary – that Iran is evil beyond redemption:
Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace
and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable campaign of
escalating tension by Iran.
The attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been provoked by the US and its
allies. The US has long been a clear threat to international peace and security, except when
the US was actually trashing peace and security, as it did in Iraq, as it seems to want to do
in Iran. There is, indeed, "an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension," but it's a
campaign by the US. The current phase began when the Trump administration pulled out of the
multinational nuclear deal with Iran. The US wages economic warfare on Iran even though Iran
continues to abide by the Trump-trashed treaty. All the other signatories and inspectors
confirm that Iran has abided by the agreement. But Iran is approaching a point of violation,
which it has been warning about for some time. The other signatories allow the US to bully them
into enforcing US sanctions at their own cost against a country in compliance with its
promises. China, Russia, France, GB, Germany, and the EU are all craven in the face of US
threats. That's what the US wants from Iran.
Lately, Trump and Pompeo and their ilk have been whining about not wanting war and claiming
they want to negotiate, while doing nothing to make negotiation more possible. Iran has
observed US actions and has rejected negotiating with an imperial power with a decades-long
record of bad faith. Lacking any serious act of good faith by the US, does Iran have any other
rational choice? Pompeo makes absolutely clear just how irrational, how dishonest, how
implacable and untrustworthy the US is when he accuses Iran of:
40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
This is Big Lie country. Forty years ago, the Iranians committed their original sin –
they overthrew one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, imposed on them by the US. Then
they took Americans hostage, and the US has been playing the victim ever since, out of all
proportion to reality or justice. But the Pompeos of this world still milk it for all it's
worth. What about "unprovoked aggression," who does that? The US list is long and criminal,
including its support of Saddam Hussein's war of aggression against Iran. Iran's list of
"unprovoked aggressions" is pretty much zero, unless you go back to the Persian Empire. No
wonder Pompeo took no question on his statement. The Big Lie is supposed to be enough.
The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification. Democrats should have
objected forcefully and continuously long since. Democrats in the House should have put peace
with Iran on the table as soon as they came into the majority. They should do it now.
Democratic presidential candidates should join Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren in
forthrightly opposing war with Iran. Leading a huge public outcry may not keep the president
from lying us into war with Iran any more than it kept the president from lying us into war
with Iraq. But an absence of outcry will just make it easier for this rogue nation to commit a
whole new set of war crimes.
Intellectually, the case for normal relations with Iran is easy. There is literally no good
reason to maintain hostility, not even the possibility, remote as it is, of an Iranian nuclear
weapon (especially now that Trump is helping the Saudis go nuclear). But politically, the case
for normal relations with Iran is hard, especially because forty years of propaganda demonizing
Iran has deep roots. To make a sane case on Iran takes real courage: one has to speak truth to
a nation that believes its lies to itself.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism,
and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from
Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an
Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This article was first
published in Reader Supported
News . Read
other articles by William .
"... Connected to Trump as the 'winner', it was Tulsi Gabbard who stood out from the rest of the candidates. Interestingly, reliable polling data just out from the Drudge Report shows that Gabbard emerged as the winner of the debate on ideas and policies overall. She won some 40% of the vote, and when compared to the candidates whom the other 60% was divided, it was a landslide. ..."
"... Before anyone dismisses Gabbard, it's critical to understand that mainstream media lost most of its credibility over the lat election. This is the age of underdogs and dark horses ..."
"... When the subject moved to Afghanistan and occupation, Gabbard was on confident and really on fire. This is significant because while historically Gabbard's anti-imperialist line on occupation would be associated with (normally later broken) Democratic Party talking points, it was here that Trump defeated Clinton at the polls, when Trump won the anti-war vote in 2016. ..."
"... Gabbard destroyed Ryan on Afghanistan, and Booker's attempt to attack Gabbard fell tremendously short and felt very artificial, saying that Gabbard's position on LGBTQ 'isn't enough', but then switching incoherently to the subject of African Americans, Jim Crow, and lynchings – a misfire and very much off-topic. ..."
"... Trump's hardline on Cuba and Venezuela is appealing to the Florida wing of the Latino constituency (to the extent we can speak of a single constituency), and this is where the Democratic Party understands it needs to fight in order to win Florida. ..."
"... There hasn't been a Republican candidate to win the Presidency without winning Florida in many generations, and the Republican victory of Rick Scott in the state's most expensive senatorial race against Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson in 2018 shows that Republicans are aiming to win Florida in 2020. The Democratic Party concern is palpable and well founded. ..."
"... At face value, Trump and Democrats seem to be 6's and 7's over immigration. But when we really look at what the real deal is, we find yet another alignment of the Democrat's position to that of Trump's. How can this be? ..."
"... To understand this is to understand the overall trajectory now that the US empire is all but finished. Its historical aim now is to be able to disentangle from the Mid-East, a prominent Trump position which used to be Obama's until it wasn't, and on the Democratic side today is only being carried forward by Tulsi Gabbard. The so-called neo-isolationism of the US isn't so much that, as it is a return to the Monroe Doctrine. This author has written about this several years before Trump took office, in the article ' From Pax Americana to Pan Americana '. Here this author argued that the US must transform from a Sea Power into a Land Power. This isn't isolationism, but a right-sized regional hegemon, a regional hegemon for the Americas. ..."
"... Trump's rhetoric on the immigration question and Mexico has never failed to mention that the mid-to-long term solution is not only that Mexico enforces its own borders to its south, but that the Mexican economy grows – and this requires investment. ..."
"... While Trump is nominally strict on immigration, it was under Obama that the US deported the most migrants in history. This is a fact that Democrats ignore in their talking points and attacks on Trump's 'inhuman policy' that tears families apart. And so in a strange departure from what might otherwise occur to us, it was Obama's policy that was worse by the numbers for pro-migration advocates, and it's been Trump who has openly called for investment into Latin America with a named reason being to stem the migration 'crisis'. ..."
"... But this Marshall Plan for Latin America was already introduced by none other than Mexican President AMLO himself, in talks with Trump. ..."
"... What Tulsi Gabbard, the clear winner of the debate, will do next is to appropriate Julian Castro's 'Marshall Plan' line on Mexico and Central America. It dog-whistles numerous Trump talking points in relation to Mexico, as well as taking a 'less migration is good migration' approach to what is no doubt a real problem, without engaging in reactionary attacks on the migrants themselves. To get 'to the source' of the problem, as Castro explains, requires investment into Latin America. ..."
"... Gabbard is the dark horse, and along with Yang (in the second night's debate) will no doubt pull ahead of the conventionally pre-selected winners that were supposed to be Booker, Sanders, Warren and especially Biden. We will see much more focus on Gabbard now in virtual spaces, even while the mainstream media will continue to wrongly focus on Biden and Booker. Booker played his left-most game in the debate, but as prospective voters sort him on questions as far and ranging as Palestine, war, and labor (economy) – they will find him sorely lacking. ..."
"... With 60% of American generally supporting Trump's approach to the economy, these are his highest approval ratings, and ones which Americans care about and highly prioritize. Gabbard would be wise to approach the question of distribution, winners and losers of the economic boom, and focus on the 1% vs. the 99%. Doing so will help her move beyond her initial base of support as the anti-war candidate. ..."
The single truth that many mainstream Democrats will have a very difficult time
acknowledging coming out of the June 26 th Democratic Party Presidential Debate, is
that Donald Trump's positions on China and Latin America have become a Democratic Party line.
Is this is a mere matter of pandering to the polling data on questions like Latin America and
China? Even if just that, it would be a Trump success in and of itself.
But it also raises whether Trump has indeed accomplished more – a tectonic shift, a
sea-change in elite policy formation focus from Russia and the Mid-east over to China and Latin
America. The ties between the DNC and China still appear too strong, and so the reality would
seem to tend to rotate around a pandering to the polling data.
From China to solving the migration problem through a 'Marshall Plan' for Latin America and
more, Trump's nominal views on these questions found expression as dominating themes in the
debate.
In the war of positions, this is a victory for Trump.
The June 26th Democratic Party Presidential Debate was astounding in its representation of a
major paradigm shift in the United States.
Before anyone dismisses Gabbard, it's critical to understand that mainstream media lost most
of its credibility over the lat election. This is the age of underdogs and dark horses
When the subject moved to Afghanistan and occupation, Gabbard was on confident and really on
fire. This is significant because while historically Gabbard's anti-imperialist line on
occupation would be associated with (normally later broken) Democratic Party talking points, it
was here that Trump defeated Clinton at the polls, when Trump won the anti-war vote in
2016.
Worth noting as well as that in the aftermath of the debate last night, Gabbard's new social
media campaign on Twitter features her name scrolling across the bottom of the screen in
undeniable Trump 2016 campaign font. Coincidence? Nothing in politics is coincidental –
nothing.
Gabbard destroyed Ryan on Afghanistan, and Booker's attempt to attack Gabbard fell
tremendously short and felt very artificial, saying that Gabbard's position on LGBTQ 'isn't
enough', but then switching incoherently to the subject of African Americans, Jim Crow, and
lynchings – a misfire and very much off-topic.
CHINA
Of the ten candidates debating, four responded that China was the primary threat to the US
– but this was the single-most consistent answer. Delaney, Klobuchar, Castro, and Ryan
all answered this way.
This was a win for Trump's entire line for the last thirty something years.
De Blasio stood out as the lone Russiagater, definitely representing the mindset of his New
York City electorate and the coastal media establishment.
Gabbard, meanwhile, was wise to name ecological threats as this helped her maintain her
position as an anti-war candidate.
The pivot to a focus on China is much less dangerous than the focus on Russia. TheUS does
not really believe it can challenge China in a military sense, and their anti-Chinese rhetoric,
while full of sword rattling and imperial bravado, amounts to noise and little more. There is
some hope in American quarters about curtailing China's economic strength, but the focus on
China appears more as a question of a state requiring the spectre of an anthropomorphized
threat in the abstract, in order to justify the existence of a state and a military budget, and
to make a foreigner responsible for matters of wealth disparity and a lack of employment
opportunities in the US – a prominent tactic and talking point in market-driven societies
based in private property norms.
But the pivot to a focus on China was tremendous and not expected, given the relationship
historically between China and the Democratic Party – a friendly one.
Until now, it's been just the conservative corners of the alt-light in the US-centric
internet who view the 'rising Chinese threat' as a serious concern for the US. This trope was
primarily focused on the twin threat of Chinese rising military prowess and its population
size, along with the US practice of outsourcing American jobs to China – a policy that
saw short term consumer savings, and mid-to-long term slashes to US wages and employment. It
created a trade imbalance which the US can only resolving by defaulting on and then drawing its
guns to force a new deal.
Taken all together, this means that whoever Trump gets into the big race with, it will not
be a question of 'whether' China is a threat, but how to 'best contain' the Chinese threat.
This is a victory from 'go' for Trump.
LATIN AMERICA
Here is another major subject where Trump's influence on the entire discourse has prevailed,
though it's a little less obvious and requires a minor bifurcation to reveal.
We are of course obliged to mention that the location of the debate in Miami Florida was
strategic given its representation of Latinos in the US – traditionally Cuban and more
recently Venezuelan Republicans as hardline anti-communists and cold-warriors, who see their
children increasingly becoming more 'center-left' as they have Americanized and become
'Latinos' in the US. They are still at odds geopolitically with Latinos, primarily
Mexican-Americans from the American southwest, who tend to be friendlier to socialist ideas and
have represented the far-left of the Democratic Party on economic issues as well as
anti-imperialism, even if sharing with Cuban-Americans some more socially conservative values.
This communitarian axis of Latinos in the US, however, has grown and become a real force of its
own.
Trump's hardline on Cuba and Venezuela is appealing to the Florida wing of the Latino
constituency (to the extent we can speak of a single constituency), and this is where the
Democratic Party understands it needs to fight in order to win Florida.
There hasn't been a Republican candidate to win the Presidency without winning Florida in
many generations, and
the Republican victory of Rick Scott in the state's most expensive senatorial race against
Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson in 2018 shows that Republicans are aiming to win Florida in
2020. The Democratic Party concern is palpable and well founded.
So we find the extraordinary focus on Latinos was represented in the ultimately surprising
display of whole Spanish language answers from both Beto O'Rourke and Cory Booker, and a few
questions wholly or partly in Spanish from the moderators. The entire debate was brought to
viewers not just by NBC but also by Spanish language network Telemundo.
At face value, Trump and Democrats seem to be 6's and 7's over immigration. But when we
really look at what the real deal is, we find yet another alignment of the Democrat's position
to that of Trump's. How can this be?
To understand this is to understand the overall trajectory now that the US empire is all but
finished. Its historical aim now is to be able to disentangle from the Mid-East, a prominent
Trump position which used to be Obama's until it wasn't, and on the Democratic side today is
only being carried forward by Tulsi Gabbard. The so-called neo-isolationism of the US isn't so
much that, as it is a return to the Monroe Doctrine. This author has written about this several
years before Trump took office, in the article ' From Pax Americana to
Pan Americana '. Here this author argued that the US must transform from a Sea Power
into a Land Power. This isn't isolationism, but a right-sized regional hegemon, a regional
hegemon for the Americas.
Trump's rhetoric on the immigration question and Mexico has never failed to mention that the
mid-to-long term solution is not only that Mexico enforces its own borders to its south, but
that the Mexican economy grows – and this requires investment.
The trade-offs are several fold. For one, the US goes back to its China position, and wants
Latin American countries to agree to reduce the
Chinese influence in exchange for real industrial capital investments from the United
States into Latin America.
This is not to say that the Democratic Party has ignored Latin America to date, far from it.
It was under Obama's two terms that the US worked the most to reverse the Pink Tide in Latin
America, and this came with a few 'own goals' when the ultimate consequence of the
regime-change operation in Honduras was to stoke a human wave migration crisis. This was, in
short, the American version of the Libya scenario.
While Trump is nominally strict on immigration, it was under Obama that the US deported the
most migrants in history. This is a fact that Democrats ignore in their talking points and
attacks on Trump's 'inhuman policy' that tears families apart. And so in a strange departure
from what might otherwise occur to us, it was Obama's policy that was worse by the numbers for
pro-migration advocates, and it's been Trump who has openly called for investment into Latin
America with a named reason being to stem the migration 'crisis'.
And it's this exact talking point that numerous Democratic Party candidates picked up on,
and a very telling term was introduced by Julian Castro – a Marshall Plan for Latin
America. Cory Booker stood beside and nodded in apparent agreement, and that the words came
from the token Latino (no, not Beto), Castro was both intentional and symbolically telling.
While Bolton and Pompeo have operated under the 'Monroe Doctrine' term, this is so entirely
distasteful for all of Latin America that it offends anyone and everyone, even the US's own
lackeys, puppets, and proxies in the region.
"Why it matters: AMLO has worked energetically since taking office to sell the White
House on a "Marshall Plan" of support to address the region's growing migrant crisis. The US
commitment is a preliminary sign that he's at least being heard
While he campaigned as a compassionate voice on immigration, Mexico's new left-wing
leader spied the need for a grand solution. The US funding will contribute to a $30 billion
aid package envisioned by AMLO
AMLO even dangled the prospect of Chinese investment to bring Trump to the table,
according to the NY Times -- reasoning that the US might be more willing to pay up if it
feared that China might try to expand its influence in the region by opening its
wallet."
Since them, numerous articles have popped up describing Trump's potential 'Marshall Plan'
for Central America.
WHAT NEXT? CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
What Tulsi Gabbard, the clear winner of the debate, will do next is to appropriate Julian
Castro's 'Marshall Plan' line on Mexico and Central America. It dog-whistles numerous Trump
talking points in relation to Mexico, as well as taking a 'less migration is good migration'
approach to what is no doubt a real problem, without engaging in reactionary attacks on the
migrants themselves. To get 'to the source' of the problem, as Castro explains, requires
investment into Latin America.
Gabbard will be well positioned to nominally attack Trump's policy implementation along
human rights grounds, while not being specific on anything except getting 'to the source of the
problem'.
Gabbard is the dark horse, and along with Yang (in the second night's debate) will no doubt
pull ahead of the conventionally pre-selected winners that were supposed to be Booker, Sanders,
Warren and especially Biden. We will see much more focus on Gabbard now in virtual spaces, even
while the mainstream media will continue to wrongly focus on Biden and Booker. Booker played
his left-most game in the debate, but as prospective voters sort him on questions as far and
ranging as Palestine, war, and labor (economy) – they will find him sorely lacking.
With 60% of American generally supporting Trump's approach to the economy, these are his
highest approval ratings, and ones which Americans care about and highly prioritize. Gabbard
would be wise to approach the question of distribution, winners and losers of the economic
boom, and focus on the 1% vs. the 99%. Doing so will help her move beyond her initial base of
support as the anti-war candidate.
This will angle the populist line, and position her well not only against all other
Democrats, but even against Trump himself should she win the nomination. It's a long shot, but
remember indeed: this is the age of underdogs and dark horses.
The New York Times is outraged, just outraged! -- that US anti-tank missiles have been found
in "unknown" Libyan rebel hands .
Of course, when tons of American military hardware was covertly sent to al-Qaeda linked
"rebels" fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and when those same weapons were later
transferred to the anti-Assad insurgency in Syria , many of them no doubt used by ISIS and
al-Nusra Front, the mainstream media didn't find much to complain about. But now the "scandal"
is being uncovered in 2019?
Currently, it's the UN-backed government in Tripoli which finds itself on the receiving end
of deadly accurate high-tech US-made weapons systems, according to
the Times :
Libyan government fighters discovered a cache of powerful American missiles , usually sold
only to close American allies, at a captured rebel base in the mountains south of Tripoli
this week.
The four Javelin anti-tank missiles, which cost more than $170,000 each, had ended up
bolstering the arsenal of Gen. Khalifa Hifter , whose forces are waging a military campaign
to take over Libya and overthrow a government the United States supports.
Markings on the missiles' shipping containers indicate that they were originally sold to
the United Arab Emirates, an important American partner, in 2008.
... ... ...
The Times report noted further, "If the Emirates transferred the weapons to
General Hifter, it would likely violate the sales agreement with the United States as well as a
United Nations arms embargo ."
Gen. Haftar -- who
solidified control of Eastern Libya over the past two years and swept through the south
early this year, has sought to capture Tripoli and seize military control of the entire
country, with the support of countries like the UAE and France, but is strongly opposed by
Turkey and most European countries.
Haftar has long been described by many analysts as "the CIA's man in Libya" -- given he
spent a couple decades living in exile a mere few minutes from CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia during Gaddafi's rule.
He was inserted back onto the Libyan battlefield before Gaddafi's eventual capture and field
execution at the hands of NATO supported Islamist fighters in 2011. The NYT offered further
details of the US weapons recovered this week
as follows :
Markings on the missile crates identify their joint manufacturer, the arms giants Raytheon
and Lockheed Martin , and a contract number that corresponds with a $115 million order for
Javelin missiles that was placed by the United Arab Emirates and Oman in 2008.
Again, isn't it a little late for the mainstream media to somehow only now discover and care
about the "scandal" of major US weapons systems in "unknown rebel hands" ?
For a trip down memory lane, and to review just what Obama and Hillary's original Libya war
has wrought, see Dan Sanchez's 2015 essay,
"Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?"
The CIA knows where these weapons are. All POTUS' know where these weapons are. The
Israelis know where these weapons are. The Saudis and UK know where these weapons are. What
is the problem?
" "We take all allegations of misuse of U.S. origin defense articles very seriously," a
State Department official
said in a statement following the Javelin anti-tank missile recovery.
"We are aware of these reports and are seeking additional information. We expect all
recipients of U.S. origin defense equipment to abide by their end-use obligations," the
statement continued. "
Hilarious. Do they expect the "unknown" rebels to just return them? If they're unknown,
how do tehy know they're rebels?
But i guess they're not worried under Obama thousands of these missiles were supplied to
Islamic Terrorists in Syria. And now Trump gave the green light to supply more missiles to
Turkish Islamic Terrorists in Syria. That are slaughtering Thousands of Syrian soldiers with
these missiles.
"... Mao only understood power. He sensed Khrushchev as 'weak' and acted as if he wanted to be the new Stalin. He also made international statements that made the US-USSR relations much worse. He berated Khrushchev for seeking co-existence with the West and pressed on for more World Revolution. ..."
"... It was all so stupid. China and Russia could have gotten along well if not for Mao's impetuosity. Of course, Khrushchev could be reckless, contradictory, and erratic, and his mixed signals to the West also heightened tensions. Also, he was caught between a rock and a hard place where the Eastern Bloc was concerned. He wanted to de-Stalinize, but this could lead to events like the Hungarian Uprising. ..."
Abrams is giving the West too much credit for the Sino-Soviet rift of the late 5os and 60s.
That was NOT the doing of the CIA or Western Europe. It was 90% the fault of Mao who tried
to shove Khrushchev aside as the head of world communism. Because Stalin had treated Mao
badly, Khrushchev wanted to make amends and treated Mao with respect. But Mao turned out to
be a total a-hole. There are two kinds of people: Those who appreciate friendly gestures and
those who seek kindness as 'weakness'.
It's like Hitler saw Chamberlain's offer as weakness and pushed ahead. Being kind is nice,
but one should never be kind to psychopaths, and Khrushchev was nice to the wrong person.
Mao only understood power. He sensed Khrushchev as 'weak' and acted as if he wanted to be
the new Stalin. He also made international statements that made the US-USSR relations much
worse. He berated Khrushchev for seeking co-existence with the West and pressed on for more
World Revolution.
He also ignored Soviet advice not to attempt radical economic policies (that were soon to
bring China to economic ruin -- at least Stalin's collectivization led to rise of industry;
in contrast, Mao managed to destroy both agriculture and heavy industry).
When Stalin was alive, he didn't treat Mao with any respect, and Mao disliked Stalin but
still respected him because Mao understood Power. With Stalin gone, Khrushchev showed Mao
some respect, but Mao felt no respect for Khrushchev who was regarded as a weakling and
sucker.
It was all so stupid. China and Russia could have gotten along well if not for Mao's
impetuosity. Of course, Khrushchev could be reckless, contradictory, and erratic, and his
mixed signals to the West also heightened tensions. Also, he was caught between a rock and a
hard place where the Eastern Bloc was concerned. He wanted to de-Stalinize, but this could
lead to events like the Hungarian Uprising.
Anyway, Putin and Xi, perhaps having grown up in less turbulent times, are more stable and
mature in character and temperament than Mao and Khrushchev. They don't see the Russo-China
relations as a zero sum game of ego but a way for which both sides can come to the table
halfway, which is all one can hope for.
"... More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good. ..."
"... Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option. ..."
"... A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense. ..."
"... "Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences." ..."
"... Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". ..."
"... Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq. ..."
"... All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger ..."
"... Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents? ..."
"... instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. ..."
"... funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America. ..."
"... if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important ..."
"... As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member ..."
"... Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out. ..."
"... All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden. ..."
After getting curb stomped on the debate
stage by Tulsi Gabbard, the campaign for Tim "Who the fuck is Tim Ryan?" Ryan
posted a statement decrying the Hawaii congresswoman's
desire to end a pointless 18-year military occupation as "isolationism".
"While making a point as to why America can't cede its international leadership and retreat from around the world, Tim was
interrupted by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard," the statement reads.
"When he tried to answer her, she contorted a factual point Tim was making -- about the Taliban being complicit in the 9/11
attacks by providing training, bases and refuge for Al Qaeda and its leaders. The characterization that Tim Ryan doesn't know
who is responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is simply unfair reporting. Further, we continue to reject Gabbard's isolationism and
her misguided beliefs on foreign policy . We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators
like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people."
Ryan's campaign is lying. During an exchange that was explicitly about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ryan plainly said "When we
weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings." At best, Ryan can argue that when he said "they" he had suddenly
shifted from talking about the Taliban to talking about Al Qaeda without bothering to say so, in which case he obviously can't legitimately
claim that Gabbard "contorted" anything he had said. At worst, he was simply unaware at the time of the very clear distinction between
the Afghan military and political body called the Taliban and the multinational extremist organization called Al Qaeda.
More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a
costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything
other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good.
Under our current Orwellian doublespeak
paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable
opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option.
This is entirely by design. This bit of word magic has been employed for a long time to tar any idea which deviates from the neoconservative
agenda of total global unipolarity via violent imperialism as something freakish and dangerous. In
his farewell address to the nation , war criminal George W Bush said the following:
"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism
and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity
at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled "
Non-Interventionism
is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which
simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense.
"Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest
form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be
mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent."
"A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists
share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with
all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing
nations."
"A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within
nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling
itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and
non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic
consequences."
Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia".
Yet you'll see this ridiculous label applied to both Gabbard and Trump, neither of whom are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination,
or even proper non-interventionists. Gabbard supports most US military alliances and continues to voice full support for the bogus
"war on terror" implemented by the Bush administration which serves no purpose other than to facilitate endless military expansionism;
Trump is openly pushing regime change interventionism in both Venezuela and Iran while declining to make good on his promises to
withdraw the US military from Syria and Afghanistan.
Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm
not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this
while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending
disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq.
This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, virtually no one is a pure pacifist who opposes war under any and all possible
circumstances; anyone who claims that they can't imagine any possible scenario in which they'd support using some kind of coordinated
violence either hasn't imagined very hard or is fooling themselves. If your loved ones were going to be raped, tortured and killed
by hostile forces unless an opposing group took up arms to defend them, for example, you would support that. Hell, you would probably
join in. Secondly, equating opposition to US-led regime change interventionism, which is literally always disastrous and literally
never helpful, is not even a tiny bit remotely like opposing all war under any possible circumstance.
Another common distortion you'll see is the specious argument that a given opponent of US interventionism "isn't anti-war" because
they don't oppose all war under any and all circumstances.
This tweet by The Intercept 's Mehdi Hasan
is a perfect example, claiming that Gabbard is not anti-war because she supports Syria's sovereign right to defend itself with the
help of its allies from the violent extremist factions which overran the country with western backing. Again, virtually no one is
opposed to all war under any and all circumstances; if a coalition of foreign governments had helped flood Hasan's own country of
Britain with extremist militias who'd been murdering their way across the UK with the ultimate goal of toppling London, both Tulsi
Gabbard and Hasan would support fighting back against those militias.
The label "anti-war" can for these reasons be a little misleading. The term anti-interventionist or non-interventionist comes
closest to describing the value system of most people who oppose the warmongering of the western empire, because they understand
that calls for military interventionism which go mainstream in today's environment are almost universally based on imperialist agendas
grabbing at power, profit, and global hegemony. The label "isolationist" comes nowhere close.
It all comes down to sovereignty. An anti-interventionist believes that a country has the right to defend itself, but it doesn't
have the right to conquer, capture, infiltrate or overthrow other nations whether covertly or overtly. At the "end" of colonialism
we all agreed we were done with that, except that the nationless manipulators have found far trickier ways to seize a country's will
and resources without actually planting a flag there. We need to get clearer on these distinctions and get louder about defending
them as the only sane, coherent way to run foreign policy.
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"If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
Fascinating belief, has he been to Libya lately, perhaps attended an open air slave Market in a country that was very developed
before the US decided to 'free' it.
When we weren't there, they flew planes into our buildings?
Excuse me mutant, but I believe we paid Israel our jewtax that year like all the others and they still flew planes into our
buildings. And then danced in the streets about it. Sick people.
All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." –
Henry Kissinger
Picture if you will Jesus. Seriously? Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can
you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents?
Do you see Jesus piloting a drone and killing Muslims, other non-believers, or anyone for that matter? Can you picture Jesus
as a sniper?
Soooo,,, If my favorite evening activity, is to sit on the front porch steps, while the dog and the cats run around, with my
shotgun leaning up next to me,,, Is that Isolationist, or Protectionist,,,
instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. we can't do **** if we're
glazed over in a nuclear holocaust. maybe Tulsi is lying through her teeth, but i am so pissed Trump went full neocon
funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY
projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America.
If you read her positions on various issues, a quick survey shows that she supports the New Green Deal, more gun control (ban
on assault rifles, etc.), Medicare for all. Stopped reading at that point.
We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad
who used chemical weapons on his own people.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only
for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ~ Joseph Goebbels
The better educated among us know exactly as to who Goebblels was referring to. Even a dullard should be able to figure out
who benefits from all of our Middle East adventures.
"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer
peace, but isolationism. "
Under military might WAS the old world order... Under the new world order the strength is in cyber warfare .
If under technology the profiteers can control the masses through crowd control ( which they can-" Department of Defense has
developed a non-lethal crowd control device called the
Active Denial System (ADS) . The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of 95 GHz waves at a target that is, millimeter wavelengths.
Anyone caught in the beam will feel like their skin is burning.) your spending power ( they can through e- commetce and digital
banking) and isolation cells called homes ( they can through directed microwaves from GWEN stations).... We already are isolated
and exposed at the same time.
That war is an exceptable means of engagement as a solution to world power is a confirmation of the psychological warfare imposed
on us since the creation of our Nation.
Either we reel it in and back now or we destroy ourselves from within.
"
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly
has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important
Idiot, Tulsi is a sovereign nationalist on the left. You have just never seen one before. If you were truly anti-globalist
you'd would realize left and right are invented to divide us. The politics are global and national, so wake the **** up
""War Is the U.S. Racket!"" They are not good at it, there "great at it". My entire life 63yrs,they been fighting someone or
something. When times where rough in the 1800s,Hell! they fought themselves(Civil War. As I said b4 No one seems to ask, Where
does the gold go of the vanquished foe? Truly Is A Well Practiced Racket.
Good article with several salient points, thought I would ask "what's wrong with a little isolationism?" Peace through internal
strength is desirable, but good fences make good neighbors and charity begins at home!
The gradual twisting of language really is one of most insidious tactics employed by the NWO Luciferians. I think we'd all
like to see the traitorous Neocons gone for good. Better yet, strip them of their American citizenship and ill-gotten wealth and
banish them to Israel. Let them earn their citizenship serving in a front-line IDF rifle company.
As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong:
I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's
also the fact that she's a CFR member and avowed gun-grabber, to boot. Two HUGE red flags!
She almost strikes me as a half-assed 'Manchurian Candidate.' So, if she's elected (a big 'if' at this point) I ask
myself 'what happens after the next (probably nuclear) false flag?' How quickly will she disavow her present stance on non-interventionism?
How quickly and viciously will the 2nd Amendment be raped? Besides, I'm not foolish enough to believe that one person can turn
the SS Deep State away from it's final disastrous course.
These word games were already in use looong ago. Tulsi Gabbard is using Obama's line about fighting the wrong war. She
would have taken out Al Qaeda, captured Bin Laden, and put a dog leash on him. So that she could make a green economy, a
new century of virtue signalling tyranny. No thanks.
Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried
Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out.
All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden.
I went to some of the so-called liberal websites and blogs and the only mention of Gabbard is in the context of her being a
Putin stooge. This combined with the fact that virtually all establishment Republicans are eager to fight any war for Israel clearly
shows that it will take something other than the ballot box to end Uncle Scam's endless wars.
"... For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic" broadside at National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle. ..."
"... His penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled "Will the Real Moron Stand Up?" ..."
"... For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies") was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory. ..."
"... Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi, Jeff Huber and Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior member of the suicide squad. ..."
"... Why? You can read in detail here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who were detained by the FBI in New Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported. ..."
"... Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is ..."
"... Executive Editor at ..."
"... and former columnist at Antiwar.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC ..."
"... He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong, which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this, his life's work was important ..."
"... And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and everywhere else. RIP. ..."
The Antiwar.com co-founder, who died
Thursday, was one of the toughest fighters for the cause. We all benefitted.
Justin
Raimondo gives Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special
Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. (You Tube) WASHINGTON -- Justin
Raimondo -- author, activist and consummate critic of the U.S. war machine–passed away at
the age of 67 on Thursday. While many of you might know him as the co-founder and prolific
columnist at Antiwar.com , he was once
branded a "unpatriotic conservative" at the start of the Iraq War, and a potential "threat to
national security" a year later.
For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice
was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic"
broadside at
National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the
most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the
enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of
Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle.
"He loved it," said Eric Garris, who co-founded Antiwar.com with Raimondo. Garris was his close friend and
co-conspirator in dozens of political and anti-war campaigns from 1976 until his death
yesterday. "Justin loved to be attacked -- he viewed it usually as a badge of honor."
Word of Raimondo's death didn't quite come as a surprise to people who had been following
him online -- they knew he had been battling cancer for two years, and his volatile presence on
Twitter had dropped off to an occasional flash, then nothing, for the last few months. His
penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for
U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled
"Will the Real Moron Stand Up?"
For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially
those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there
were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left
and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say
what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any
given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies")
was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote
against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory.
"We were really very much in the wilderness," Garris recalled to me this morning. But
Raimondo surged -- doing stints on Fox News, MSNBC, even CNN at the time. He wrote quite a
bit forTACtoo, from its inception through
2016. "He had the ability to reach people and/or piss them off so much. He was such a
powerful force."
This is where I come in. Having begun writing for TAC in 2007 I was happy when Garris
reached out in
2009 to see if I wanted to do some regular columns for Antiwar.com . As one of those "misfits among misfits," I can say that
my decision to do so was both therapeutic (what better venue to rage against the machine?) and
a most fulfilling stage in my career as a journalist. Some of us might recall the atmosphere in
Washington during those times: stiflingly conformist and relentlessly punitive towards those
who did not toe the line. Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi,
Jeff Huber and
Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and
though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more
on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior
member of the suicide squad.
There was a moment I was put to the test. I was in the middle of my daughter's Girls Scout
meeting in 2013 when I got a call from Garris. I stepped out in the hall. Would I please write
a piece on Antiwar.com suing the FBI for
secretly investigating Antiwar.com in the
early days of the war, in part because of some of the things Justin had written and said? My
mind reeled. Would bringing attention to this bring further heat on the website? Would it bring
heat on me?
I read the FBI memo at the center of their planned lawsuit and agreed to write it. Frankly,
I knew in my heart I wouldn't be worth my salt as a journalist if I went wobbly on this. The
government had opened secret files on Garris and Raimondo, and at one point the FBI agent
writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in the form
of a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in, or have engaged
in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."
Why? You can read in detail
here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to
government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who
were detained by the FBI in New
Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in
sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported.
The ACLU had taken up their case, rightly, as an example of the government's hostile
attitude against the 1st Amendment. The government had taken advantage of its new 9/11
authorities and the country's war-time footing to spy and harass dissidents just like the old
days. Garris and Raimondo won, but their efforts to have all of the government records expunged
is still tied up in appeals . Garris said Justin was at least able to see the latest
June
12 hearing i n the Ninth Circuit.
"He saw the hearing and he got to see that what he was doing was worth something," Garris
said, audibly choking back tears. When they met, Raimondo was a libertarian gay rights
activist. Later on they would help convince Buchanan to run for president in 1992 and Raimondo
led his campaign office in San Francisco (Garris said Buchanan had sent a touching note about
Justin's death this morning). When gay protesters had surrounded and "assaulted" the San
Francisco headquarters at the time, Garris recalled, Raimondo ran out loaded for bear. "He gave
them the what-for," he said, laughing.
That was the image many of us are conjuring today. Raimondo the fighter. Raimondo the brave.
Of course not everyone agreed with him. His enemies over the years have tarred him as a racist
and anti-semite. On the other hand, he easily came to blows with his friends over a point of
view or a passage in a column–a tweet even. His bridge-burning with colleagues and fellow
travelers was notorious. "He was very vocal and contentious person who people either hated or
loved or both," Garris told me. "I've gotten a lot of emails and comments today about him that
said, you know I hated him but he was a hero."
But in the end, after 68 years of being a rebel and contrarian, he was forced to sheath the
sword. He was just too sick. "He just fought and fought, to keep going to get the words out,"
Garris said. He last saw him on Saturday. They knew it would be the last time
.
"I am going to miss him so much. My life would have been completely different if I hadn't
met him."
I know I feel that way, and millions of readers and fans (and foes) do too. RIP.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos isExecutive Editor at TAC and former columnist
at Antiwar.com.
Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC
I was hoping he could stay around. But let those of us who miss him redouble our efforts to
the mission we shared so that it grows stronger in the wake of our loss.
He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong,
which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this,
his life's work was important.
Reading Reclaiming the American Right well over 10 years ago (but years after first being
published), I was shocked at how intellectually challenging, substantiated with historical
fact, and fascinating it was.
Clearly, I had let the Rush Limbaugh School of Total
Immersion™, 3 hours a day, inform my views of what, exactly, the American Right,
post-WWII really was and is and continues to be to this day a little too much, no offense
to Rush and the golden EIB. I still like listening to him.
The scholarship in that book is
FAR beyond any silly Jonah Goldberg tome, no matter how snazzy the title, from "Liberal
Fascism" to his latest, with the copied James Burnham title, "Suicide of the West".
Raimondo was a incredibly well read, superbly talented writer who was self-taught on
America's history in general and the post-WWII conservative history in particular.
And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as
well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and
everywhere else. RIP.
on are zombies and stupid.
Have a good one, know what I mean...
"... To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach. ..."
"... What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike." ..."
"... D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them. ..."
"... D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here. These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular. ..."
"... It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ..."
"... These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran. ..."
In 2017, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created a special unit -- the Iran Mission Center -- to focus attention on
the U.S. plans against Iran . The initiative for this unit came from CIA director John Brennan, who left his post as the Trump administration
came into office. Brennan believed that the CIA needed to focus attention on what the United States sees as problem areas -- North
Korea and Iran, for instance. This predated the Trump administration.
Brennan's successor -- Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director for just over a year (until he was appointed U.S. Secretary of State)
-- continued this policy. The CIA's Iran-related activity had been conducted in the Iran Operations Division (Persia House). This
was a section with Iran specialists who built up knowledge about political and economic developments inside Iran and in the Iranian
diaspora.
It bothered the hawks in Washington -- as one official told me -- that Persia House was filled with Iran specialists who had no
special focus on regime change in Iran. Some of them, due to their long concentration on Iran, had developed sensitivity to the country.
Trump's people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group that would provide the kind of intelligence that tickled the fancy
of his National Security Adviser John Bolton .
To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program,
and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach.
It was D'Andrea who expanded the CIA's drone strike program, in particular the signature strike. The signature strike is a particularly
controversial instrument. The CIA was given the allowance to kill anyone who fit a certain profile -- a man of a certain age, for
instance, with a phone that had been used to call someone on a list. The dark arts of the CIA are precisely those of D'Andrea.
What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told
me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed
attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike."
D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the
worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking
a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them.
D'Andrea and the hawks edged out several Iran experts from the Iran Mission Center, people like Margaret Stromecki -- who had
been head of analysis. Others who want to offer an alternative to the Pompeo-Bolton view of things either have also moved on or remain
silent. There is no space in the Trump administration, a former official told me, for dissent on the Iran policy.
Saudi Arabia's War
D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime
change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here.
These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular.
Kaplan blamed Iran for the creation of ISIS, for it was Iran -- Kaplan said -- that "used a terrible Sunni movement" to expand
its reach from "Persia to the Mediterranean." Such absurdity followed from a fundamental misreading of Shia concepts such as taqiya,
which means prudence and not -- as Kaplan and others argue -- deceit. Kaplan, bizarrely, shares more with ISIS than Iran does with
that group -- since both Kaplan and ISIS are driven by their hatred of those who follow the Shia traditions of Islam.
It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the
chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability
in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager
for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Roule has offered his support to the efforts of the Arabia Foundation, run by Ali Shihabi -- a man with close links to the Saudi
monarchy. The Arabia Foundation was set up to do more effective public relations work for the Saudis than the Saudi diplomats are
capable of doing. Shihabi is the son of one of Saudi Arabia's most well-regarded diplomats, Samir al-Shihabi, who played an important
role as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Pakistan during the war that created al-Qaeda.
These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the
dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their
water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran.
Evidence, reason. None of this is important to them. They will not stop until the U.S. bombers deposit their deadly payload on
Tehran and Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz. They will do anything to make that our terrible reality.
This article was produced by Globetrotter ,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
"... India pays Iran for oil in gold. Europe would be smart to convert to the Yuan/gold convertible bond as a trading currency to use with Iran, and hold reserves in that. It's redeemable for gold at many settlement banks around the world. It was designed as a trading currency to use outside the SWIFT system. All the groundwork was painstakingly laid just for this purpose. ..."
"... Food for oil. What an insult. Europe wants it both ways. They should grow up and start leading the world instead of hiding behind Uncle Sams petticoat. ..."
"... Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ... ..."
"... Trump is a bull in a china shop. Someone will have to pick up the pieces and it won't be the one percent. YOU and I are expendable. ..."
"... Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ... ..."
"... Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants. ..."
leveymg on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 4:41pm In a surprise move, the EU special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran (INSTEX)
exercised its first trade today. The body was set up to facilitate exports of Iranian oil without U.S. dollars, avoiding a sanctions
regime imposed unilaterally by the U.S.
Instex is now operational despite U.S. threats to European banks and officials of reprisal sanctions if they violated Iran sanctions.
Bloomberg had reported on May 7 the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker,
issued a warning letter that Instex and anyone associated with it could be barred from the U.S. financial system if it goes into
effect.
In defiance of U.S. pressure, Instex was set up by EU diplomats in January as a means to prevent total collapse of the Iranian
nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The first official trades occurred today, in the
shadow of the Group of 20 Summit meeting.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/eu-claims-iran-deal-held-togethe...
A senior EU diplomat has said the first transactions were being made by a special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran at a
meeting of the remaining members of the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna.
Friday's meeting in Vienna featured "constructive discussions," Helga Schmid, the head of the EU diplomatic service said, confirming
the entity, named Instex, was making its first transactions.
"INSTEX now operational, first transactions being processed and more EU Members States to join. Good progress on Arak and Fordow
[fuel enrichment] projects," she posted.
The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (Instex) is designed to facilitate trade of essential goods, such as food and
medicine, mainly from the EU to Iran. A Chinese official said Beijing was open to using the facility.
The platform has been set up in France, with a German managing director in a coordinated European effort to counterbalance
the US economic power displayed by its sanctions policy.
President Donald Trump last year pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), which curbed Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.
According to today's report:
As the talks kicked off on Friday, seven EU nations expressed support for Instex and the JCPOA, asking Iran "to abide by and
fully respect the terms and provisions of the nuclear agreement".
"We are working with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as with the European External Action Service and the European
Commission, to establish channels to facilitate legitimate trade and financial operations with Iran, one of the foremost of these
initiatives being the establishment of Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges," read the statement from Austria, Belgium, Finland,
the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Whether the declaration of support and first tranche of transactions will be enough to keep Iran committed to the 2015 nuclear
deal is still in question.
Crucial for INSTEX's success will be whether participating states also develop mechanisms for European companies and their
employees that protect them from the expected American sanctions and compensate for any damages incurred. The legislative instrument
for this exists: The EU's blocking statute. It just needs to be updated to meet the new requirements.
Read more: US welcomes German firms' compliance on Iran sanctions
International transactions independent of the dollar
The knowledge and experience gained in the process could later be transferred to other areas, such as European initiatives
in international monetary transactions. This expertise could then come in handy for establishing payment channels independent
of the American financial system and the dollar, which the US also uses as a lever in its sanctions policy.
Two pieces of good news in two days, Tulsi Gabbard winning acknowledgement and respect in the debate, and this encouraging
sign from Europe. A person could almost get used to thinking common sense is gaining ground. Thank you, leveymg, for posting
this.
this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this
link at RT.com that includes this baffling
part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:
"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week, Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to Iranian media.
He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments
under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."
i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would mainly
be for medicines and...food (?)
Right now, it's unclear which way this is going to go. If Europe bows to American power, again, it will turn out very badly
for everyone. Iraq times ten.
this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this
link at RT.com that includes this
baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:
"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week,
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to
Iranian media.
He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments
under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."
i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would
mainly be for medicines and...food (?)
...just fine. India pays Iran for oil in gold. Europe would be smart to convert to the Yuan/gold convertible bond as a trading
currency to use with Iran, and hold reserves in that. It's redeemable for gold at many settlement banks around the world. It was
designed as a trading currency to use outside the SWIFT system. All the groundwork was painstakingly laid just for this purpose.
Food for oil. What an insult. Europe wants it both ways. They should grow up and start leading the world instead of hiding
behind Uncle Sams petticoat.
[edited to correct]
this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this
link at RT.com that includes this
baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:
"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week,
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to
Iranian media.
He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments
under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."
i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would
mainly be for medicines and...food (?)
Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did
before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ...
Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement.
But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can
do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants.
"What is our demand? Our demand is to be able to sell our oil and get the money back. And this is in fact the minimum of
our benefit from the deal," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We are not asking Europeans to invest in
Iran... We only want to sell our oil."
Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it
did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ...
Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the
agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear
what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants.
"What is our demand? Our demand is to be able to sell our oil and get the money back. And this is in fact the minimum
of our benefit from the deal," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We are not asking Europeans to invest
in Iran... We only want to sell our oil."
Miss Gabbard just served two tours in the ME, one as enlisted in the HI National Guard.
Brave Mr. Bolton kept the dirty communists from endangering the US supply of Chesapeake
crab while serving in the Maryland Guard. Rumor also has it that he helped Tompall Glaser
write the song Streets of Baltimore. Some say they saw Mr. Bolton single handily defending
Memorial Stadium from a combined VC/NVA attack during an Orioles game. The Cubans would have
conquered the Pimlico Race Course if not for the combat skill of PFC Bolton.
"... This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington. ..."
"... That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same. ..."
"... To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime. ..."
"... the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel). ..."
"... Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism. ..."
"... The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons. ..."
"... For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports. ..."
"... In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense ..."
"... When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels. ..."
"... Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests. ..."
"... Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons. ..."
"... Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes. ..."
"... However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs. ..."
"... Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too. ..."
This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to
the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign
minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they
didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington.
That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland
and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same.
To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is
essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the
Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit
of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the
Iranian regime.
But as we have demonstrated previously, the best cure for high oil prices is the global
market, not the Fifth Fleet. And the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies
and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made
Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel).
Stated differently, the American people have no dog in the political hunts of Washington's
so-called allies in the region; and will be no worse for the wear economically if Washington
were to dispense with its idiotic economic warfare against Iran's 4 million barrel per day oil
industry and allow all exporters in the region to produce and sell every single barrel they can
economically extract.
Viewed in the proper context, Iran's response to the new sanctions and intensified efforts
to destroy their economy was readily warranted:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the new sanctions "outrageous and stupid." Mr.
Khamenei, while the political leader of Iran, also is one of the world's leading authorities
for Shia Muslims.
"Would any administration with a bit of wisdom [sanction] the highest authority of a
country? And not only a political authority, a religious, social, spiritual one, and not the
leader of Iran only, the leader of the Islamic revolution all over the world?" Mr. Rouhani said
in a speech broadcast on state television.
He said it was "obvious" that the US was lying about wanting to negotiate with Iran: "You
want us to negotiate with you again?" Mr. Rouhani said, "and at the same time you seek to
sanction the foreign minister too?"
Iran also said these sanctions closed the door on diplomacy and threatened global
stability, as American officials renewed efforts to build a global alliance against
Tehran.
Unfortunately, it didn't take the Donald long to upchuck what amounted to a dangerous
tantrum:
.Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not
understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and
overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry
& Obama!
Those words are utterly reckless and outrageous. The Donald is carrying water for the
neocons, Bibi and the Saudis without really understanding what he is doing and in the process
is betraying America First and inching closer to an utterly unnecessary conflagration in the
Persian Gulf that will virtually upend the global economy.
Worst of all, as he escalates the confrontation with the Iranian regime, he espouses a pack
of lies and distortions that do no remotely comport with the facts. For instance, the following
tweet is absolutely neocon baloney:
.The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership
spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The US has not forgotten Iran's
use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many
more
The truth of the matter is that the Donald is referring to attacks on US forces by the
Shiite militias in Iraq during Washington's misbegotten invasion and occupation of that
woebegone nation during the last decades. The Shiite live there, constitute the majority of its
electorate, didn't want America there in the first place, and now actually run the government
that Washington placed in power and are totally opposed to Trump's confrontation with their
Shiite compatriots in Iran.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Better still, it is crucial to understand that this entire dangerous escalation is owing to
the fact that the Donald got into his thick head that utter nonsense that the Iran nuke deal
was some kind of disaster, and from there walked-away from the deal and restarted a brutal
economic war against Iran in the guise of sanctions.
But nothing could be further from the truth. The Donald's action to terminate the Iranian
nuclear deal was a complete triumph for the War Party.
It gutted the very idea of America First because Washington's renewed round of
sanctions constitute economic aggression against a country that is no threat to the US homeland
whatsoever.
In fact, Iran did not violate any term of the nuke deal, and as we demonstrate below,
scrupulously adhered to the letter of it. So the real reasons for Trump's abandonment of the
nuke deal have everything to do with the kind of Imperial interventionism that is the
antithesis of America First.
Trump's action, in fact, is predicated on the decades long neocon-inspired Big Lie that Iran
is an aggressive expansionist and terrorism-supporting rogue state which threatens the security
of not just the region, but America too.
But that's flat out poppycock. As we documented last week, the claim that Iran is the
expansionist leader of the Shiite Crescent is based on nothing more than the fact that Tehran
has an independent foreign policy based on its own interests and confessional affiliations
– legitimate relationships that are demonized by virtue of not being approved by
Washington.
Likewise, the official charge that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism is not
remotely warranted by the facts: The listing is essentially a State Department favor to the
Netanyahu branch of the War Party.
The fact is, the Iranian regime with its piddling $14 billion military budget has no means
to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other
country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.
As Ron Paul cogently observed:
Is Iran really the aggressive one? When you unilaterally pull out of an agreement that
was reducing tensions and boosting trade; when you begin applying sanctions designed to
completely destroy another country's economy; when you position military assets right offshore
of that country; when you threaten to destroy that country on a regular basis, calling it a
campaign of "maximum pressure," to me it seems a stretch to play the victim when that country
retaliates by shooting a spy plane that is likely looking for the best way to attack.
Even if the US spy plane was not in Iranian airspace – but it increasingly looks
like it was – it was just another part of an already-existing US war on Iran. Yes,
sanctions are a form of war, not a substitute for war.
The point is Washington's case is almost entirely bogus. To wit:
Mr. Trump also reiterated his demands Monday at the White House: "We will continue to
increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its
aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium,
development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign
conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies."
Let's see about those "dangerous activities and aspirations".
In fact, Iran has no blue water navy that could effectively operate outside of the Persian
Gulf; its longest range warplanes can barely get to Rome without refueling; and its array of
mainly defensive medium and intermediate range missiles cannot strike most of NATO, to say
nothing of the North American continent.
Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington
proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon
(Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of
Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of
unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously
labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism.
The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and
intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense,
but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of
practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and
similar weapons.
For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO
supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan,
India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a
hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports.
In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not
territorial self-defense. It is a testament to the manner in which the historic notion of
national defense has morphed into Washington's arrogant claim that it constitutes the
"Indispensable Nation" which purportedly stands as mankind's bulwark against global disorder
and chaos among nations.
Likewise, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was an unfortunate albatross on the
Persian people, but it was no threat to America's safety and security. The very idea that
Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the rest of the world is a giant
fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party and its Bibi Netanyahu branch
in order to win political support for their confrontationist policies.
Indeed, the three decade long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose.
Namely, it enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby
justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military
mobilization.
When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind
of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the
suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian
doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war
levels.
And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to
come out of the beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then
threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!
To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa
again the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that
enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime
of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much
different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.
That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA
overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and
megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US
security and oil interests.
During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of
the Persian nation. With the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret
police force known as the Savak, which made the East German Stasi look civilized by
comparison.
All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic
organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the
Savak agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:
Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain,
brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons
in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the
country as well.
Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah embarked on a massive civilian
nuclear power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape
with dozens of nuclear power plants.
He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from
Western companies – and also fuel cycle support services such as uranium enrichment
– in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.
At the time of the Revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but
the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset
of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion deposit
languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the Shah to fund a
ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of reactors.
Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was
not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst
of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
against biological and chemical weapons.
Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces
– some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking
satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture
was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for
nukes.
However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not
consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own
forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.
Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some
additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French
enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German
suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion
deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.
To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off again/on again efforts by
the Iranians to purchase dual use equipment and components on the international market, often
from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's relentless efforts to
block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to
complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.
Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics which
inhabited the national security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin every
attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret campaign
to get the bomb.
The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear-mongering which came out of this neocon
campaign are downright despicable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George
H.W. Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury
the hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held
in Lebanon in 1989.
Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States
and the West; and after the devastation of the eight year war with Iraq was wholly focused on
economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.
It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even George
Bush's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.
The Neocon Big Lie About Iranian Nukes And Terrorism
So the prisoner release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the
CIA was assumed in 1991 by Robert Gates. As one of the very worst of the unreconstructed cold
war apparatchiks, it can be well and truly said that Gates looked peace in the eye and then
elected to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim by searching the globe for monsters to
fabricate.
In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right hand
man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan administration. Among the many
untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his
career when it blew-up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.
From his post as deputy national security director in 1989 and then as CIA head Gates pulled
out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed-off the White House goodwill
from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was both sponsoring
terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.
Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple
of War Party propaganda after the 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that
Iran is an aggressive wanna be hegemon that is a fount of terrorism and is dedicated to the
destruction of the state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.
That giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi Netanyahu's
coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that Iran posses
an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli politics
that have kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades.
But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability.
And compared to the latter's 100 odd nukes, Iran has never had a nuclear weaponization program
after a small scale research program was ended in 2003.
That is not merely our opinion. It's been the sober assessment of the nation's top 17
intelligence agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates ever since 2007. And now
in conjunction with a further study undertaken pursuant to the 2015 nuke deal, the IAEA has
also concluded the Iran had no secret program after 2003.
On the political and foreign policy front, Iran is no better or worse than any of the other
major powers in the Middle East. In many ways it is far less of a threat to regional peace and
stability than the military butchers who now run Egypt on $1.5 billion per year of US aid.
And it is surely no worse than the royal family tyrants who squander the massive oil
resources of Saudi Arabia in pursuit of unspeakable opulence and decadence to the detriment of
the 30 million citizens which are not part of the regime, and who one day may well reach the
point of revolt.
When it comes to the support of terrorism, the Saudis have funded more jihadists and
terrorists throughout the region than Iran ever even imagined.
In fact, Iran is a nearly bankrupt country that has no capability whatsoever to
threaten the security and safety of the citizens of Spokane WA, Peoria IL or anywhere else in
the USA.
Its $460 billion GDP is the size of Indiana's and its 68,000 man military is only slightly
larger than the national guard of Texas.
It is a land of severe mountains and daunting swamps that are not all that conducive to
rapid economic progress and advanced industrialization. It has no blue water navy, no missiles
with more than a few hundred miles of range, and, we must repeat again, has had no nuclear
weapons program for more than a decade.
Moreover, Donald's incessant charge that the Obama Administration gave away the store during
the nuke deal negotiations that led to the JCPA is just blatant nonsense. In fact, the Iranians
made huge concessions on nearly every issue that made a difference.
That included deep concessions on the number of permitted centrifuges at Natanz; the
dismantlement of the Fordow and Arak nuclear operations; the virtually complete liquidation of
its enriched uranium stockpiles; the intrusiveness and scope of the inspections regime; and the
provisions with respect to Iran's so-called "breakout" capacity.
For instance, while every signatory of the non-proliferation treaty has the right to
civilian enrichment, Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by 70% from 20,000 to
6,000.
And its effective spinning capacity was reduced by significantly more. That's because the
permitted Natanz centrifuges now consist exclusively of its most rudimentary, outdated
equipment – first-generation IR-1 knockoffs of 1970s European models.
Not only was Iran not be allowed to build or develop newer models, but even those remaining
were permitted to enrich uranium to a limit of only 3.75% purity. That is to say, to the
generation of fissile material that is not remotely capable of reaching bomb grade
concentrations of 90%.
Equally importantly, pursuant to the agreement Iran has eliminated enrichment activity
entirely at its Fordow plant – a facility that had been Iran's one truly advanced,
hardened site that could withstand an onslaught of Israeli or US bunker busters.
Instead, Fordow has become a small time underground science lab devoted to medical isotope
research and crawling with international inspectors. In effectively decommissioning Fordow and
thereby eliminating any capacity to cheat from a secure facility – what Iran got in
return was at best a fig leave of salve for its national pride.
The disposition of the reactor at Arak has been even more dispositive. For years, the War
Party has falsely waved the bloody shirt of "plutonium" because the civilian nuclear reactor
being built there was of Canadian "heavy water" design rather than GE or Westinghouse "light
water" design; and, accordingly, when finished it would have generated plutonium as a waste
product rather than conventional spent nuclear fuel rods.
In truth, the Iranians couldn't have bombed a beehive with the Arak plutonium because you
need a reprocessing plant to convert it into bomb grade material. Needless to say, Iran never
had such a plant – nor any plans to build one, and no prospect for getting the requisite
technology and equipment.
But now even that bogeyman no longer exists. Iran removed and destroyed the reactor core of
its existing Arak plant in 2016 and filled it with cement, as attested to by international
inspectors under the JCPA.
As to its already existing enriched stock piles, including some 20% medical-grade material,
97% has been eliminated as per the agreement. That is, Iran now holds only 300 kilograms of its
10,000 kilogram stockpile in useable or recoverable form. Senator Kirk could store what is left
in his wine cellar.
But where the framework agreement decisively shut down the War Party was with respect to its
provision for a robust, comprehensive and even prophylactic inspections regime. All of the
major provision itemized above are being enforced by continuous IAEA access to existing
facilities including its main centrifuge complex at Natanz – along with Fordow, Arak and
a half dozen other sites.
Indeed, the real breakthrough in the JCPA lies in Iran's agreement to what amounts to a
cradle-to-grave inspection regime. It encompasses the entire nuclear fuel chain.
That means international inspectors can visit Iran's uranium mines and milling and fuel
preparation operations. This encompasses even its enrichment equipment manufacturing and
fabrication plants, including centrifuge rotor and bellows production and storage
facilities.
Beyond that, Iran has also been subject to a robust program of IAEA inspections to prevent
smuggling of materials into the country to illicit sites outside of the named facilities under
the agreement. This encompasses imports of nuclear fuel cycle equipment and materials,
including so-called "dual use" items which are essentially civilian imports that can be
repurposed to nuclear uses, even peaceful domestic power generation.
In short, not even a Houdini could secretly breakout of the control box established by the
JCPA and confront the world with some kind of fait accompli threat to use the bomb.
That's because what it would take to do so is absurdly implausible. That is, Iran would need
to secretly divert thousands of tons of domestically produced or imported uranium and then
illicitly mill and upgrade such material at secret fuel preparation plants.
It would also need to secretly construct new, hidden enrichment operations of such massive
scale that they could house more than 10,000 new centrifuges. Moreover, they would need to
build these massive spinning arrays from millions of component parts smuggled into the country
and transported to remote enrichment operations – all undetected by the massive complex
of spy satellites overhead and covert US ands Israeli intelligence agency operatives on the
ground in Iran.
Finally, it would require the activation from scratch of a weaponization program which has
been dormant according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) for more than a decade.
And then, that the Iranian regime – after cobbling together one or two bombs without
testing them or their launch vehicles – would nevertheless be willing to threaten to use
them sight unseen.
So just stop it!
You need to be a raging, certifiable paranoid boob to believe that the Iranians can break
out of this framework box based on a secret new capacity to enrich the requisite fissile
material and make a bomb.
In the alternative scenario, you have to be a willful know-nothing to think that if it
publicly repudiates the agreement, Iran could get a bomb overnight before the international
community could take action.
To get enough nuclear material to make a bomb from the output of the 5,000 "old and slow"
centrifuges remaining at Natanz would take years, not months. And if subject to an embargo on
imported components, as it would be after a unilateral Iranian repudiation of the JCPA, it
could not rebuild its now dismantled enrichment capacity rapidly, either.
At the end of the day, in fact, what you really have to believe is that Iran is run by
absolutely irrational, suicidal madmen. After all, even if they managed to defy the immensely
prohibitive constraints described above and get one or a even a few nuclear bombs, what in the
world would they do with them?
Drop them on Tel Aviv? That would absolutely insure Israel's navy and air force would
unleash its 100-plus nukes and thereby incinerate the entire industrial base and major
population centers of Iran.
Indeed, the very idea that deterrence would fail even if a future Iranian regime were to
defy all the odds, and also defy the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by their Supreme
Leader, amounts to one of the most preposterous Big Lies ever concocted.
There is no plausible or rational basis for believing it outside of the axis-of-evil
narrative. So what's really behind Trump's withdrawal from the JCPA is nothing more than the
immense tissue of lies and unwarranted demonization of Iran that the War Party has fabricated
over the last three decades.
Iran Never Wanted the Bomb
At bottom, all the hysteria about the mullahs getting the bomb was based on the wholly
theoretically supposition that they wanted civilian enrichment only as a stepping stone to the
bomb. Yet the entirety of the US intelligence complex as well as the attestation of George W.
Bush himself say it isn't so.
As we have previously indicated, the blinding truth of that proposition first came in the
National Intelligence Estimates of 2007. These NIEs represent a consensus of all 17 US
intelligence agencies on salient issues each year, and on the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons
program they could not have been more unequivocal:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear
weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran
had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it
currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to
international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach
rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military
costs."
Moreover, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted recently, the NIE's have not changed
since then.
An equally important fact ignored by the mainstream media is that the key judgments of
that NIE have been revalidated by the intelligence community every year since.
More crucially, there is the matter of "Dubya's" memoirs. Near the end of his term in office
he was under immense pressure to authorize a bombing campaign against Iran's civilian nuclear
facilities.
But once the 2007 NIEs came out, even the "mission accomplished" President in the bomber
jacket was caught up short. As McGovern further notes,
Bush lets it all hang out in his memoir, Decision Points. Most revealingly, he complains
bitterly that the NIE "tied my hands on the military side" and called its findings
"eye-popping."
A disgruntled Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate ."I don't know why the NIE was
written the way it was. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a
good one."
Spelling out how the Estimate had tied his hands "on the military side," Bush included
this (apparently unedited) kicker: "But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using
the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had
no active nuclear weapons program?"
So there you have it. How is it possible to believe that the Iranian's were hell-bent on a
nuclear holocaust when they didn't even have a nuclear weapons program?
And why in the world is the Donald taking America and the world to the edge of a utterly
unnecessary war in order to force a better deal when the one he shit-canned was more than
serviceable?
The answer to that momentous questions lies with the Bombzie Twins (Pompeo and Bolton) and
the malign influence of the Donald's son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu toady, Jared Kushner.
Rarely have a small group of fanatics more dangerously and wantonly jeopardized the
security, blood and treasure of the American people.
At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the
New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it
for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met
with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving
Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be
renewed.
Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed
because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery
systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into
account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.
Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START
are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty
because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this
has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in
the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear
weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin
negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to
include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction
treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for
almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms
control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump
administration just wants the treaty to die.
The article concludes:
Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New
Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending
New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive
director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a
follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."
Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to
making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that
places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that
he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He
will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is
that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms
control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and
so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties
that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework
with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA.
Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next
victim.
If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world
less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these
treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START
is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it
is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control
almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and
put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational
and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.
bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to
obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without
any expectation of compromise by the empire.
Miss Gabbard just served two tours in the ME, one as enlisted in the HI National Guard.
Brave Mr. Bolton kept the dirty communists from endangering the US supply of Chesapeake
crab while serving in the Maryland Guard. Rumor also has it that he helped Tompall Glaser
write the song Streets of Baltimore. Some say they saw Mr. Bolton single handily defending
Memorial Stadium from a combined VC/NVA attack during an Orioles game. The Cubans would have
conquered the Pimlico Race Course if not for the combat skill of PFC Bolton.
It is interesting that Trump destiny now depends on geopolitical events he can't control namely actions of Iran and China.
Trump foreign policy appears to be driven by a combination of resentment and arrogance -- not a good combination for survival of
Trump and/or mankind
Was with Iran might result in high oil prices would kill the already anemic global growth and cause a recession (I guess
the volatility in oil prices will go through the roof at that point), Iran can destabilize the global economy by destroying most
of the oil production infrastructure around the gulf.
While Lyndon Johnson had chosen not running for reelection in 1968 because anti-war sentiment was high, G W Bush who was
reelected and the USA have now contractor army and casualties without draft does not matter much.
Notable quotes:
"... More likely they attack Saudi Arabia directly. Same impact, more justifiable if not outright popular. No one likes Prince Bone Saw. ..."
"... Iran could take those 10 million barrels a day away in 15 minutes. ..."
China will play a large roll in whether trump get re-elected.
If they decide they prefer his dysfunctional governance to his opponent, then they will engage
in a trade deal that will allow to trump to declare victory. It will likely be a very
superficial victory.
If they decide they would prefer to engage with a different administration, they will likely
refrain from a trade deal until after the election.
Have you asked yourself why Putin preferred trump? The answer is not pretty (for trump, or the
USA).
This is probably an absurd point of view. But in my opinion, it might be in Iran's interest
to drag the U.S into war, probably as indirectly as possible. That way they might
significantly reduce the chance of Trump being re-elected. (Obviously lives will be
sacrificed in this scenario)
The question is if it would work and would a Democrat president stop the war and go into the
same JCPOA deal again. Who knows. Very unpredictable.
Well, Mike, as absurd IMO is that Iran would risk self-destruction to get rid of Trump. He's
certainly a PITA for them, but closing the Strait of Hormuz to crash the global economy and
to blame it on Trump wouldn't work: Trump could blame it all on Iran while keeping on cooking
a controlled conflict with them, showing the world that the US doesn't depend on oil from any
other continent.
This would be a very difficult situation for a Democrat to step in and to
promise a better solution. The US would be relatively well off compared to Asia and Europe
and even could emerge out of such a constellation relatively more powerful.
But it could also
end up in a terrible mess. As you wrote: Who knows. Very unpredictable.
At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the
New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it
for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met
with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving
Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be
renewed.
Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed
because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery
systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into
account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.
Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START
are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty
because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this
has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in
the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear
weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin
negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to
include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction
treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for
almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms
control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump
administration just wants the treaty to die.
The article concludes:
Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New
Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending
New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive
director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a
follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."
Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to
making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that
places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that
he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He
will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is
that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms
control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and
so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties
that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework
with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA.
Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next
victim.
If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world
less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these
treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START
is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it
is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control
almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and
put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational
and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.
bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to
obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without
any expectation of compromise by the empire.
I'm about halfway through Putin's financial Times interview and suggest it be read by
all. There is much to be gleaned from it with a view to the 2020 Election Cycle and
candidate's positions. Just consider the following very small excerpt and its implications
for policy formulation by candidates:
"What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure
the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea
feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of
the international community . This is what we should be thinking about." [My
Emphasis]
Putin's insights into Trump's 2016 election strategy, IMO, is very enlightening and
essential reading as the conditions that contributed to Trump's victory have worsened under
his tenure and can be used against him if wisely pursued.
We’ll see how neoliberal MSM will spin this, but I would say Sanders emerged unscathed, Harris attacked and "wounded" Biden, Biden
sounded like a lightweight, Gillibrand seems to be a very unpleasant person although different form Harris...
Notable quotes:
"... as if polling on donald trump and stuff is just so interesting ..."
"... Kamala Harris got more floor time than anyone else. Harris ended Biden's campaign. The debate is rigged against Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Did Harris get the debate questions in advance? ..."
"... Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage. ..."
"... Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The Cop. ..."
Pathetic, the whole scene is pathetic. What a way to run a putative democracy, bring back the league of women voters to run
the debates and that idiot with the graphs during commercial breaks while watching this online, I want to break his freaking head
sorry.
I had the idea that your sensibilities were rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who
is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying
from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge’s prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some real talent.
I’m just observing this out of academic interest and hope we’ll all have a chance to vote for Bernie in the general. But from
tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent – and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep
going more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the first debate was better.
Cal2, June 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm
In that case, Donald Trump gets our votes, as well as keeping all the potential crossovers, who had supported Trump last time,
and would have voted for Sanders-Gabbard.
Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala
The Cop.
Sanders-Harris would be political suicide for the Democrats.
On Thursday, June 27, Justin Raimondo passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. He
was 67. Justin was a lifelong fighter for peace and liberty. In 1995, he co-founded Antiwar.com
with Eric Garris.
He served as Antiwar.com's editorial director and top columnist, writing over 3,000 articles for the website.
He can never be replaced and will be missed by countless numbers of fans and followers
"... She is the only candidate who has made ending the wars a centerpiece of her campaign, which will likely lead to her undoing ..."
"... The only bright spot in the second debate was Senator Bernie Sanders's single mention of the word Yemen -- specifically ending U.S. support for that war and shifting war powers back where they belong -- with Congress. Still, most of the candidates had just about nothing to say on this or other war-related topics. Their silence was instructive. ..."
"... Ironically, then, two more American soldiers were killed in another meaningless firefight in the long meaningless war in Afghanistan on the day of the first Democratic presidential primary debate. Indeed, were it not for this horrendous event -- the deaths of the 3,550th and 3,551st coalition troops in an 18-year-old war -- Afghanistan might not have ever made it onto Rachel Maddow's debate questions list. ..."
"... Maddow's question on the first night was one of precious few posed on the subject of foreign policy at all. Moreover, it spurred the most interesting, engaging, and enlightening exchange of either evening -- between Gabbard and Ohio Representative Tim Ryan. ..."
"... Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan We have spent so much money. Money that's coming out of every one of our pockets We are no better off in Afghanistan today than we were when this war began. This is why it is so important to have a president -- commander in chief who knows the cost of war and is ready to do the job on day one. ..."
"... In a few tight sentences, Gabbard distilled decades' worth of antiwar critique and summarized what I've been writing for years -- only I've killed many trees composing more than 20,000 words on the topic. The brevity of her terse comment, coupled with her unique platform as a veteran, only added to its power. Bravo, Tulsi, bravo! ..."
"... Gabbard, shamefully, is the only one among an absurdly large field of candidates who has put foreign policy, specifically ending the forever wars, at the top of her presidential campaign agenda. Well, unlike just about all of her opponents, she did fight in those very conflicts. The pity is that with an electorate so utterly apathetic about war, her priorities, while noble, might just doom her campaign before it even really starts. That's instructive, if pitiful. ..."
She is the only candidate who has made ending the wars a centerpiece
of her campaign, which will likely lead to her undoing
Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard during the first night of the the Democratic debate. (YouTube/NBC News/screenshot) Democrats, liberals,
progressives -- call them what you will -- don't really do foreign policy. Sure, if cornered, they'll spout a few choice talking
points, and probably find a way to make them all about bashing President Donald Trump -- ignoring the uncomfortable fact that their
very own Barack Obama led and expanded America's countless wars for eight long years.
This was ever so apparent in the first two nights of Democratic primary debates this week. Foreign policy hardly registered for
these candidates with one noteworthy exception: Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard -- herself an (anti-war) combat veteran and army
officer.
Now primary debates are more show than substance; this has long been the case. Still, to watch the first night's Democratic primary
debates, it was possible to forget that the United States remains mired in several air and ground wars from West Africa to Central
Asia. In a two-hour long debate, with 10 would-be nominees plus the moderators, the word Afghanistan was
uttered just nine
times -- you know, once for every two years American troops have been killing and dying there. Iraq was uttered just twice -- both
times by Gabbard. Syria, where Americans have died and still fight, was mentioned not once. Yemen, the world's worst humanitarian
disaster, courtesy of a U.S.-supported Saudi terror campaign didn't get mentioned a single time, either.
Night two was mostly worse! Afghanistan was uttered just three times, and there was no question specifically related to the war.
Biden did say, in passing, that he doesn't think there should be "combat troops" in Afghanistan -- but notice the qualifier "combat."
That's a cop-out that allows him to keep advisers and "support" troops in the country indefinitely. These are the games most Democrats
play. And by the way, all those supposedly non-combat troops, well, they can and do get killed too.
The only bright spot in the second debate was Senator Bernie Sanders's single mention of the word Yemen -- specifically ending
U.S. support for that war and shifting war powers back where they belong -- with Congress. Still, most of the candidates had just
about nothing to say on this or other war-related topics. Their silence was instructive.
Ironically, then, two more American soldiers were
killed in another meaningless firefight in the long meaningless war in Afghanistan on the day of the first Democratic presidential
primary debate. Indeed, were it not for this horrendous event -- the deaths of the 3,550th and 3,551st coalition troops in an 18-year-old
war -- Afghanistan might not have ever made it onto Rachel Maddow's debate questions list.
I mourn each and every service-member's death in that unwinnable war; to say nothing of the far more numerous Afghan civilian
fatalities. Still, in a macabre sort of way, I was glad the topic came up, even under such dismal circumstances. After all, Maddow's
question on the first night was one of precious few posed on the subject of foreign policy at all. Moreover, it spurred the most
interesting, engaging, and enlightening
exchange of either evening -- between Gabbard and Ohio Representative Tim Ryan.
Reminding the audience of the recent troop deaths in the country, Maddow asked Ryan, "Why isn't [the Afghanistan war] over? Why
can't presidents of very different parties and very different temperaments get us out of there? And how could you?" Ryan had a ready,
if wholly conventional and obtuse, answer: "The lesson" of these many years of wars is clear, he opined; the United States must stay
"engaged," "completely engaged," in fact, even if "no one likes" it and it's "tedious." I heard this, vomited a bit into my mouth,
and thought "spare me!"
Ryan's platitudes didn't answer the question, for starters, and hardly engaged with American goals, interests, exit strategies,
or a basic cost-benefit analysis in the war. In the space of a single sentence, Ryan proved himself just another neoliberal militarist,
you know, the "reluctant" Democratic imperialist type. He made it clear he's Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer rolled
into one, except instead of cynically voting for the 2003 Iraq war, he was defending an off-the-rails Afghanistan war in its 18th
year.
Gabbard pounced, and delivered the finest foreign policy screed of the night. And more power to her. Interrupting Ryan, she poignantly
asked:
Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be
engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan We have
spent so much money. Money that's coming out of every one of our pockets We are no better off in Afghanistan today than we were
when this war began. This is why it is so important to have a president -- commander in chief who knows the cost of war and is
ready to do the job on day one.
In a few tight sentences, Gabbard distilled decades' worth of antiwar critique and summarized what I've been
writing for years -- only I've killed many trees composing more than 20,000 words on the topic. The brevity of her terse comment,
coupled with her unique platform as a veteran, only added to its power. Bravo, Tulsi, bravo!
Ryan was visibly shaken and felt compelled to retort with a standard series of worn out tropes. And Gabbard was ready for each
one, almost as though she'd heard them all before (and probably has). The U.S. military has to stay, Ryan pleaded, because: "if the
United States isn't engaged the Taliban will grow and they will have bigger, bolder terrorist acts." Gabbard cut him right off. "The
Taliban was there long before we came in. They'll be there long [after] we leave," she thundered.
But because we didn't "squash them," before 9/11 Ryan complained, "they started flying planes into our buildings." This,
of course, is the recycled and easily refuted
safe haven myth -- the notion
that the Taliban would again host transnational terrorists the moment our paltry 14,500 troops head back to Milwaukee. It's ridiculous.
There's no evidence to support this desperate claim and it fails to explain why the United States doesn't station several thousand
troops in the dozens of global locales with a more serious al-Qaeda or ISIS presence than Afghanistan does. Gabbard would
have none of it. "The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11," she reminded Ryan, "al-Qaeda did." It's an important distinction, lost on
mainstream interventionist Democrats and Republicans alike.
Ryan couldn't possibly open his mind to such complexity, nuance, and, ultimately, realism. He clearly worships at the temple of
war inertia; his worldview hostage to the absurd notion that the U.S. military has little choice but to fight everywhere, anywhere,
because, well, that's what it's always done. Which leads us to what should be an obvious conclusion: Ryan, and all who think
like him, should be immediately disqualified by true progressives and libertarians alike. His time has past. Ryan and his ilk have
left a scorched region and a shaken American republic for the rest of us.
Still, there was one more interesting query for the first night's candidates. What is the greatest geopolitical threat to the
United States today, asked Maddow. All 10 Democratic hopefuls took a crack at it, though almost none followed directions and kept
their answers to a single word or phrase. For the most part, the answers were ridiculous, outdated, or elementary, spanning Russia,
China, even Trump. But none of the debaters listed terrorism as the biggest threat -- a huge sea change from answers that candidates
undoubtedly would have given just four or eight years ago.
Which begs the question: why, if terrorism isn't the priority, do far too many of these presidential aspirants seem willing to
continue America's fruitless, forever fight for the Greater Middle East? It's a mystery, partly explained by the overwhelming power
of the America's military-industrial-congressional-media complex. Good old President Dwight D. Eisenhower is rolling in his grave,
I assure you.
Gabbard, shamefully, is the only one among an absurdly large field of candidates who has put foreign policy, specifically
ending the forever wars, at the top of her presidential campaign agenda. Well, unlike just about all of her opponents, she did
fight in those very conflicts. The pity is that with an electorate so utterly apathetic about war, her priorities, while noble,
might just doom her campaign before it even really starts. That's instructive, if pitiful.
I, too, served in a series of unwinnable, unnecessary, unethical wars. Like her, I've chosen to publicly dissent in not just strategic,
but in moral, language. I join her in her rejection of U.S. militarism, imperialism, and the flimsy justifications for the Afghanistan
war -- America's longest war in its history.
As for the other candidates, when one of them (likely) wins, let's hope they are prepared the question Tulsi so powerfully posed
to Ryan: what will they tell the parents of the next soldier that dies in America's hopeless Afghanistan war?
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to The American Conservative. His work has also appeared
in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation , Tom Dispatch, The Huffington Post, Truthdig and The Hill .
He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point.
He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . He co-hosts the progressive veterans' podcast " Fortress on a Hill ." Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet .
It wasn't surprising that Hawaii's Representative Tulsi Gabbard, an outspoken advocate of
realism in foreign policy, exploited every opportunity to highlight her opposition to what she
considers America's promiscuous warmaking policies of recent decades. She decried the country
"going from one regime-change war to the next. This insanity must end." But other Democrats
also echoed that sentiment, particularly with regard to the growing tensions between the Trump
administration and Iran. Bill de Blasio said he would oppose another Mideast war unless it is
authorized by Congress. He added, "We learned a lesson in Vietnam that we seem to have
forgotten." Sanders also decried the possible drift to war with Iran as well as America's
involvement in the civil war in Yemen. He expressed pride in his opposition to the Iraq war and
chided Biden for supporting that 2003 invasion.
Three candidates -- Klobuchar, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, and Gabbard -- criticized
Trump for getting out of the Iran nuclear deal. "I would sign back on," said Gabbard, saying a
war with Iran would quickly ignite the entire region and would be "far more devastating and
costly" than the Iraq war. When Ryan suggested we must remain engaged in the Middle East,
Gabbard called that "unacceptable" and added the United States has nothing to show for its
18-year mililtary campaign in Afghanistan. At the conclusion of the debate, Gabbard became the
most searched candidate on Google, according to a report on Fox News that cited Google Trends
data. Could this mean a gap persists between the foreign policy sentiments of many Americans
and the foreign policy activities of their government in Washington?
Tulsi Gabbard being interviewed by Tucker Carlson after the debate. During the debate, Tulsi
made clear she was against war with Iran and getting back to the JCPOA deal. In the interview
with Carlson, she makes clear that she opposes the sanctions on Iran.
The reason why is simple: the party is not about politics, nor is it about the will of the
people or anything else. It is about power and money. It is about keeping the donors happy.
It is ethically bankrupt. That is what their true purpose is. Sanders and Gabbard rock the
boat and the party establishment will never forgive them for that.
Gillebrand:
Capitalism is Okey-Dokey, but greed is bad?
Keynes:
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives
will somehow work together for the benefit of all."
Will neoliberal MSM "Ron Paul" Tulsi ? "Merchants of death" control Washington and they will fiercely attack
anybody who attempt to change the current neocon policies even one bit. Looks at color revolution launched against Trump
despite the fact that he folded three month after inauguration.
Notable quotes:
"... Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night's Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage. ..."
"... Gabbard proceeded to rip both the "president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran." ..."
"... "The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11," Gabbard replied, "Al-Qaida attacked us on 9/11. That's why I and so many other people joined the military, to go after al-Qaida, not the Taliban." ..."
"... By debate's end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were being searched on Google. ..."
"... If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in the second round of debates. ..."
"... If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a debate that contributed to Trump's victory at the Cleveland convention and in November. ..."
"... Given more airtime, she will present problems for the GOP as well. For the foreign policy Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign policy Donald Trump promised in 2016 but has since failed to deliver. ..."
"... Rather than engaging Russia as Trump promised, we have been sanctioning Russia, arming Ukraine, sending warships into the Black Sea, beefing up NATO in the Baltic and trashing arms control treaties Ronald Reagan and other presidents negotiated in the Cold War ..."
"... At the end of the Cold War, we were the lone superpower. Who forfeited our preeminence? Who bled us of 7,000 U.S. lives and $6 trillion in endless Middle East wars? Who got us into this Cold War II? ..."
"... They're already trying to 'Ron Paul' her, which means we should support her, CFR, and Zionist associations notwithstanding. She's the only one saying 'Enough!' to the insanity of Eternal War, as America's infrastructure crumbles, and our progeny are enslaved to trillions of un-payable debt. ..."
"... Does Pat Buchanan know? During a radio interview he assured me that his friend Dick Cheney wouldn't do something like that. I asked Pat's friend Paul Craig Roberts what he thought. Craig said Pat just can't go there or he'll never appear in the MSM again. Then Pat got purged anyway. https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2012/02/20/pat-buchanan-avoids-911-truth-gets-fired-anyway/ ..."
"... Hi Kevin. I am a big fan of yours but I think that you should market your beliefs about Israel's role in 911 a bit more modestly. While the evidence is compelling, it is not air-tight. ..."
"... This also applies to the Zio-Judaic role in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. You posit (in your otherwise excellent article on the Raptors' proposed visit Israel) that the Zions basically killed both Kennedys. While this position may be correct, it is an allegation that, at present, cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Your confidence therefore seems excessive. This weakness might therefore turn off average folks to your otherwise astute insights. ..."
"... The media is so terrified of Tulsi that they digitally added a zit to her face during the debate while she was discussing foreign policy to try to subliminally turn people off to her anti-war message. Here's an article on it showing videos of it happening: ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard's foreign policy ideas are anathema to the war-prone Washington establishment and the media class, not to speak of the Israel firster. The anti-Gabbard slur is already underway. ..."
"For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the
next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax
payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Donald Trump, circa 2016?
Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
of Hawaii during Wednesday night's Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on
stage.
Gabbard proceeded to rip both the "president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us
to the brink of war with Iran."
In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage
from Afghanistan: "When we weren't in there they started flying planes into our buildings."
"The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11," Gabbard replied, "Al-Qaida attacked us on 9/11.
That's why I and so many other people joined the military, to go after al-Qaida, not the
Taliban."
When Ryan insisted we must stay engaged, Gabbard shot back:
"Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in
Afghanistan? 'Well, we just have to be engaged.' As a solider, I will tell you, that answer is
unacceptable. We are no better off in Afghanistan that we were when this war began."
By debate's end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington
Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were being
searched on Google.
Though given less than seven minutes of speaking time in a two-hour debate, she could not
have used that time more effectively. And her performance may shake up the Democratic race.
If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in the
second round of debates.
If she is, moderators will now go to her with questions of foreign policy issues that would
not have been raised without her presence, and these questions will expose the hidden divisions
in the Democratic Party.
Leading Democratic candidates could be asked to declare what U.S. policy should be -- not
only toward Afghanistan but Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jared Kushner's "Deal of
the Century," and Trump's seeming rejection of the two-state solution.
If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of
globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a
debate that contributed to Trump's victory at the Cleveland convention and in November.
The problem Gabbard presents for Democrats is that, as was shown in the joust with Ryan, she
takes positions that split her party, while her rivals prefer to talk about what unites the
party, like the terribleness of Trump, free college tuition and soaking the rich.
Given more airtime, she will present problems for the GOP as well. For the foreign policy
Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign policy Donald Trump promised in
2016 but has since failed to deliver.
We still have 2,000 troops in Syria, 5,000 in Iraq, 14,000 in Afghanistan. We just moved an
aircraft carrier task force, B-52s and 1,000 troops to the Persian Gulf to confront Iran. We
are about to impose sanctions on the Iranian foreign minister with whom we would need to
negotiate to avoid a war.
Jared Kushner is talking up a U.S.-led consortium to raise $50 billion for the Palestinians
in return for their forfeiture of sovereignty and an end to their dream of a nation-state on
the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital.
John Bolton is talking of regime change in Caracas and confronting the "troika of tyranny"
in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Rather than engaging Russia as Trump promised, we have been sanctioning Russia, arming
Ukraine, sending warships into the Black Sea, beefing up NATO in the Baltic and trashing arms
control treaties Ronald Reagan and other presidents negotiated in the Cold War
U.S. policy has managed to push our great adversaries, Russia and China, together as they
have not been since the first Stalin-Mao decade of the Cold War.
This June, Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing where he and Xi Jinping met in the Great Hall
of the People to warn that in this time of "growing global instability and uncertainty," Russia
and China will "deepen their consultations on strategic stability issues."
Xi presented Putin with China's new Friendship Medal. Putin responded: "Cooperation with
China is one of Russia's top priorities and it has reached an unprecedented level."
At the end of the Cold War, we were the lone superpower. Who forfeited our preeminence? Who
bled us of 7,000 U.S. lives and $6 trillion in endless Middle East wars? Who got us into this
Cold War II?
Was all this the doing of those damnable isolationists again?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
They're already trying to 'Ron Paul' her, which means we should support her, CFR, and Zionist
associations notwithstanding. She's the only one saying 'Enough!' to the insanity of Eternal War, as America's
infrastructure crumbles, and our progeny are enslaved to trillions of un-payable debt.
Perhaps there's no way we can dislodge the Zionist fiend slurping from America's jugular,
but at least we can use our voice to say 'no' to it. And support the only person who's
willing to strike at the root, the Eternal Wars for Israel.
By debate's end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington
Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were
being searched on Google.
Which got the MIC to paint a giant target on her. The Atlantic Council is not going to be
happy with this kind of anti war shtick entering the debates, and their patrons own the
media.
Does Tulsi know she's lying when she says "al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11"? I suspect she does,
and that her disgust with the big lie behind the 9/11-wars-for-Israel has something to do
with her anti-interventionism.
I would hope Gabbard has more sense than to accept any position in Trumps administration.
Trump is the kiss of death for any decent person who works for or with him.
Hi Kevin. I am a big fan of yours but I think that you should market your beliefs
about Israel's role in 911 a bit more modestly. While the evidence is compelling, it is not
air-tight.
This also applies to the Zio-Judaic role in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy.
You posit (in your otherwise excellent article on the Raptors' proposed visit Israel) that
the Zions basically killed both Kennedys. While this position may be correct, it is an
allegation that, at present, cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Your confidence
therefore seems excessive. This weakness might therefore turn off average folks to your
otherwise astute insights.
As for Tulsi Gabbard, who you suggest is "lying" about her belief in what/who caused 911,
I bet that she (like myself) rejects the Official 911 report but is unsure of what/who did
exactly what on Sept. 11, 2001. Mysteries remain. The puzzle is incomplete.
Allow me to respectfully advise you to stick with what you know for certain, as you do it
quite well.
As for the mysteries concerning 911 and Israel's role, it may be more fruitful to concede
that the evidence has not only been partially destroyed but that a coverup has occurred. And
yes, there's overwhelming evidence pointing to Israeli involvement. And no honest person can
deny that.
The media is so terrified of Tulsi that they digitally added a zit to her face during the
debate while she was discussing foreign policy to try to subliminally turn people off to her
anti-war message.
Here's an article on it showing videos of it happening:
@Robert
Dolan As if Hillary 'War with Russia' Clinton would have been different.
Trumps foreign policies in obedience to 'that shitty little country' are disgusting, no
doubt, but we would still have all of that and much worse under Hillary.
It's a charming idea; Pat Buchanan is ventilating. Tulsi Gabbard as Trump's national security
adviser; what a treat! But poor Tulsi, she wouldn't survive very long in the Zionist
environment, which dominates Trump's White House.
Tulsi Gabbard's foreign policy ideas are
anathema to the war-prone Washington establishment and the media class, not to speak of the
Israel firster. The anti-Gabbard slur is already underway.
Tulsi Gabbard was half right by saying that the Taliban didn't do 9/11, but Al-Qaida did,
which is false. None of them committed the murderous attack. Everybody with a clear mind can
see of the web of lies and inconsistencies that the 9/11 Commission Report has solidified.
The American people have to come to grips with the fact that it was an inside job, and those
responsible are still all alive and kicking. The problem with the whole truth is that nobody
can afford to tell it, because it would be his or her political death.
So, Tulsi Gabbard was wise sticking to the half-truth.
@Kevin
Barrett 'Does Tulsi know she's lying when she says "al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11"?'
She has been showing signs of hedging since her campaign began. I can't make up my mind
how bad that is. If she went on telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
– such as that Mr Assad has done little or nothing to deserve the abuse heaped on him
– she might simply be ruling herself out as a candidate.
On the other hand, once a candidate starts telling herself, "Oh, it's worth one or two
little white lies to get myself elected, because I can do so much good then", it's the start
of a long slippery slope.
That specific statement can be justified, to my mind, with a little Jesuitical
equivocation. Because no one has ever really pinned down who or what "Al Qaeda" is – or
even whether such an organization exists at all.
If she said, "No one can be certain who was responsible for 9/11, but it's time we had a
really thorough, impartial investigation", she would alienate a huge section of the
voters.
There's almost always something like this tucked into Mr. Buchanan's columns. The other
day, he was still celebrating Uncle Sam's rescue of medical students from the "Marxist thugs"
in Grenada. That little "our" is the key. Pronoun propaganda is one of the ways that this
website's "Mr. Paleoconservative" helps to keep Americans identifying with Uncle Sam.
Another fundamental way that Mr. Buchanan actually supports the Establishment is by
channeling and harmlessly blowing off dissent through "Red v Blue" politics. Enjoy columns
like this one in the meantime, but keep in mind that he's also going to tell you to believe
the puppet show and vote (almost certainly GOP) in November 2020. Even if someone who says
things like Ms. Gabbard is elected, there will be ample drama in and about Washington to
excuse the lack of meaningful change and fire people up for the next Most Important Election
Ever in 2022.
And note this:
"For the foreign policy Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign
policy Donald Trump promised in 2016 but has since failed to deliver."
Oh, a mere logistical problem due to people like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot
Abrams somehow crashing the MAGA party? Mr. Buchanan should have written "the foreign policy
Donald Trump lied about in 2016." But that might lead people to doubt the system.
If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in
the second round of debates.
Oi Vey! If Tulsi starts to rise in the polls then then (((they'll))) create a new dossier
and claim she's colluding with Russia or the Taliban to steal the 2020 election. I wouldn't
be surprised if elements of Trump's administration did the very same things to Tulsi as
Obongo's did to Trump.
Was all this the doing of those damnable isolationists again?
Pat knows (((who))) but has lost the will to say it. But we know. The goyim know.
@mark
green We, we all have our opinions. I think you're most charitable to Mr. Barrett's
fictions. Zio-terrorists (I'm not using the word Zionist, since I am Zionist – sort of
-because I support the idea of Jewish nation-state as a democratic country) may have
contributed (just freely associating), say, max 30% to 9/11, while the possibility of their
involvement in the assassination of JFK is way below 5%.
Let's see if they can keep Bernie in the same cage they put Tulsi in. I can't imagine
they'll be helpful or even polite to him. I expect "debate" questions such as:
Senator Sanders, are you current in your communist party dues?
Bernie, when did you last speak to Vladimir Putin?
How often are you wrong about FDR?
Is your wife still laundering money for beach houses through small liberal arts colleges?
Do you know how to pay for anything, or do you regularly leave restaurants without paying
your bill?
Bonus question: explain why anyone should continue to pay attention to you when your views
are shared by everyone on stage?
I don't know either. But it's been the main stream party line for a while now. "Bernie
should drop out because he's old, white, male, and his opinions are not unique. He's not even
a real Democrat. And he doesn't support the party. So why is he running for president as a
Democrat and picking fights with Biden/Warren/Beto?"
The one that gets me is Bernie the Bomber. Somehow when the pundit class talks about
Bernie and Tulsi, it's only to mention how they coddle dictators.
Coddle (the wrong) dictators. Real Dems coddle our CIA approved dictators. Bernie and
Tulsi coddle those filthy democratically elected "dictators" that want to retain natural
resources for the benefit of their own nations and not for the enrichment of multinationals.
They're monsters!
Seriously though, only the Dems would have a superstar like Bernie and put all their
efforts into sabotaging him. Even the RNC and right wing media was willing to suck it up and
get behind Trump when it was clear he was going to win and had a huge base of support. But,
as is said often now, "the Dems would rather lose to a Republican than win with a
progressive".
Is the CIA's purpose to protect national security or financial security? They seem
confused at times on their purpose and if they were disbanded would the country notice?
Doesn't the Defense Intelligence Agency do most of the heavy security lifting?
Looking at the CIA actions from the Dulles Brothers onwards, I would say that it is to
protect and support all members of the Oligarchy of Money from the 1% to Big Oil to Big
Finance from that pesky Democratic Government and the troublesome Rule of Law.
Actually protecting the United States and never mind Americans themselves is like #47 on
its to-do list.
Did you notice the shift in Bernie's message tonight? He said they needed to have the guts
to take on Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and Big Pharma. I didn't hear him
complain about big banks. I think he's been compromised!
Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the
footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion
of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone
Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading
lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a
"Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate
them.
In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's
playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite
against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national
security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false
flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile,
he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic
crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.
... ... ...
Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist
Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and
most racist roots of American imperialism.
The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any
semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an
arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no
qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his
pockets.
But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists -
Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of
the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land
in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation
or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to
redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?
"... Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has turned out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya. ..."
"... Bolton is a neo-con, neo-cons are Trotskyites. They believe in an eternal revolution. Bolton believes in eternal war. ..."
"... Sid, the natural conclusion is that the 'deep state' is real, and for the most part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of the American elite, most importantly the 'War Party' (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want. ..."
"... Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If starting a war will make Trump look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war, Trump may let us stumble into one. ..."
"... "What will it take to get Bolton fired?" One phone call from Israel. Then again, one phone call from Israel would also stop Trump from firing him, and there's no reason to suspect that Bibi is anything other than ecstatic over Bolton's performance. ..."
"... Find out who "told" Donald Trump he HAD to hire Bolton (and Pompeo and others as well) and you'll probably learn the identity of the real puppet master pulling the strings in the "Deep State." It's simply impossible to believe Trump – who ran for president on a platform of "non-interventionism" – appointed this guy on his own volition. ..."
"... The headline asks, "What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?" This is a great question. If he CAN'T be fired, this tells us who is really running our country. Another question along the same lines: What will it take to get America to cease its support of Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... The petodollar makes these wars possible; it also defends or preserves the Status Quo, which makes so many of our elite ultra wealthy and powerful. Our carte blanche support of Saudi Arabia is telling us something important just like Trump's appointment of Bolton told us something important. ..."
For
someone "not playing along," Trump has obediently given Bolton and the Iran hawks practically
everything they have wanted so far. He has gone much further in laying the groundwork for war
with Iran than any of his predecessors, and the only reason that many people seem confident
that he won't order an attack is their mistaken belief that he is a non-interventionist when
all of the evidence tells us that he is no such thing. Trump presumably doesn't want to start a
multi-year, extremely expensive war that could also throw the economy into a recession, but
then every president that launches an illegal war of choice assumes that the war would be much
easier and take less time than it does. No one ever knowingly opts for a bloody debacle. The
absurdly optimistic hawkish expectations of a quick and easy triumph are always dashed on the
rocks of reality, but for some reason political leaders believe these expectations every time
because "this time it's different." There will come a point where Bolton will tell Trump that
attacking Iran (or Venezuela) is the only way to "win," and Trump will probably listen to him
just as he has listened to him on all of these issues up until now.
There is no question that Bolton should lose his job. Even if you aren't an opponent
of Trump, you should be unhappy with the way Bolton has been operating for the last year. He
has made a point of sabotaging administration policies he doesn't like, resisting decisions he
doesn't agree with, and effectively reversing policy changes while pretending to be carrying
out the president's wishes. His mismanagement of the policy process is a bad joke, and the
reason he runs the National Security Council this way is so that he can stop views and
information that don't suit his agenda from reaching the president. But Trump pays little or no
attention to any of this, and as long as Bolton remains loyal in public and a yes-man in person
he is likely safe in his job. If Bolton gets his wish and the U.S. starts a war with Iran, he
may not be in that job for much longer, but the damage will have already been done. Instead of
counting on Trump to toss Bolton overboard, Congress and the public need to make absolutely
clear that war with Iran and Venezuela is unacceptable and Trump will be destroying his
presidency if he goes down that path in either country.
Obama entered office in 2008 promising to close Guantanamo and end
the stupid wars.
Not only did Obama fail to end a single war, he gave us new and stupider wars in Syria,
Yemen and Ukraine, to name but three. Guantanamo is still open.
Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has turned
out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya.
" some reason political leaders believe these expectations every
time because "this time it's different."
Like communists, political leaders think 'this time we'll get it right. Bolton is a neo-con, neo-cons are Trotskyites. They believe in an eternal revolution. Bolton
believes in eternal war.
As much of a disaster for American institutions Trump has been, I
believe he does not want to go to war. The times are a'changin'. Average Americans have figured
out that these wars are self-defeating nonsense. Trump knows that, and doesn't want to alienate
the middle American types who support him and would go to war.
But he does want to sound and look tough, hence Bolton. The problem is that while Trump may
believe he's just blustering, reneging on the nuclear deal, cranking back brutal sanctions and
sending US flotillas to the Strait of Hormuz looks and feels like war to the Iranians.
We could stumble into a very big and ugly war like America stumbled into the ugly era of
Trump. And Trump is the absolute last person I would want to serve as a commander in chief
during war time.
Sid, the natural conclusion is that the 'deep state' is real, and
for the most part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of
the American elite, most importantly the 'War Party' (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but
including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in
America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want.
Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If
starting a war will make Trump look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war,
Trump may let us stumble into one.
Of course the "Deep State", the "permanent government" the "Borg" or
whatever you want to call it is real.
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 ("kinder gentler nation") ran for office as
a non-interventionist. Even Dubya promised a humbler foreign policy in 2000.
Once inaugurated, each candidate morphed into a foaming-at-the-mouth hawk.
I don't pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every
president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without evidence that it is
something like what we saw in "Yes, Minister".
The neo-cons are busy studying the Israeli playbook of declaring
themselves surrounded and launching a preemptive strike. Pompeo's view is that the occupation
of Iraq is/was so difficult because the US isn't as ruthlessly efficient as the IDF in the West
Bank and allowed Iraq some self-governance.He won't allow that in the conquered Iran.
Step 1: send a doctored telegram to Kaiser Trump and leak it to the press. Step 2: Get the GOP Senate to pass the "Gulf of Hormuz" declaration. Step 3: sink a ship, perhaps one called USS Maine or USS Liberty.
The first question is "What did it take to get Bolton hired?"
The answer to the author's question is that making Trump look bad (in a way that Trump
recognizes) is what will get Bolton fired. But like Dick Cheney, Bolton has a very good sense
of what a Richelieu needs to do to seem loyal and obedient to an idiot king. Rummy appended
Bible verses to schemes that he wanted Bush to approve. Bolton does something similar, no
doubt.
"What will it take to get Bolton fired?" One phone call from Israel. Then again, one phone call from Israel would also stop Trump
from firing him, and there's no reason to suspect that Bibi is anything other than ecstatic
over Bolton's performance.
The mammoth "donations" from Adelson et al to Trump and the corrupt Republicans have paid
off royally for Israel. With Trump and Bolton in the White House, Israel barely even needs a
foreign ministry, a treasury, or a military anymore. Uncle Sam does it all for free.
Find out who "told" Donald Trump he HAD to hire Bolton (and Pompeo
and others as well) and you'll probably learn the identity of the real puppet master pulling
the strings in the "Deep State." It's simply impossible to believe Trump – who ran for president on a platform of
"non-interventionism" – appointed this guy on his own volition.
Also, if it was so important to appoint Bolton, why would this be the case?
I think it's because – in the minds of those pulling the strings – it's crucial
to them that America does the things Bolton wants to do.
That is, Bolton wasn't named National Security Advisor to do nothing.
The headline asks, "What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?" This is a great question. If he CAN'T be fired, this tells us who is really running our
country. Another question along the same lines: What will it take to get America to cease its support
of Saudi Arabia?
We know the answer to this one. NOTHING. Consider that
We will support a nation whose leader orders the gruesome murder of a journalist.
We will support a nation that is committing war crimes and attrocities against a poor
nation like Yemen, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent children.
We will support a nation that beheads 37 citizens in one day – some whose alleged
crimes occurred when the victims were teenagers, or whose alleged offenses include practicing
homosexuality or simply criticizing the government.
The answer (Saudi Arabia can do whatever it wants with no risk of incurring the wrath of
America) begs the question: Why is "letting Saudi Arabia do whatever it wants" so important to
America?
This answer, I believe, has everything to do with the vital role the petrodollar plays in
maintaining the Status Quo.
If the Deep State is calling the shots, what is most important to the Deep State?
Answer: Protecting the U.S. dollar (fiat) printing press. Absent this printing press and the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, none of
our current wars and future wars would even be possible.
And the fact we are willing to wage these wars sends a vital message to the nations of the
world: We WILL use our military against anyone who threatens the Status Quo.
The petodollar makes these wars possible; it also defends or preserves the Status Quo, which
makes so many of our elite ultra wealthy and powerful. Our carte blanche support of Saudi Arabia is telling us something important just like
Trump's appointment of Bolton told us something important.
The only way people like Bolton get fired is the same way Bannon
got dumped. It is when Trump sees on Fox News that they are getting more press coverage than
him.
The post of national security advisor needs to be subject to Senate
confirmation.
Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration and Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Carter
administration were both more powerful/influential than the respective secretaries of state,
William Rogers and Cyrus Vance.
The Senate needs to assert itself and ensure that national security advisors are appointed
in the same way as secretaries of state. This would help to a certain extent.
As they
take the stage for the first Democratic debates of the 2020 presidential campaign, the 20
participating candidates should be ready for one frequently asked question: How will you pay
for it? Democrats often pledge to finance their most ambitious plans -- Medicare for All,
debt-free college, a Green New Deal -- with tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.
That is both sensible and fair. But candidates hoping to distinguish themselves in the
limited time they will be allotted should also consider taking a stand against the United
States' bloated defense budget.
This month, the House Armed Services Committee
advanced a $733 billion defense budget on a mostly party-line vote. According to
Defense News , the lack of Republican support for the bill
illustrated "the stark divide in defense policy between the two parties." Yet that divide
is far narrower than you might think. The bill's price tag is just $17 billion less than the
$750 billion that
President Trump requested ; it still was, as Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) boasted,
the "largest" defense budget in history. There remains a near-universal commitment in both
parties to massive defense spending -- a case of Washington bipartisanship that the country
would be better off without.
A timely new
report from the Center for International Policy's Sustainable Defense Task Force offers
an alternative path forward. In the report, "A Sustainable Defense: More Security, Less
Spending," the nonpartisan group of military and budget experts outlines a strategy that it
says would save $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years without harming national-security
interests. In fact, through a sober reassessment of the biggest threats to the United States
in the 21st century, including climate change and cyberattacks, the proposal would keep the
country safer than an outdated approach that relies on perpetual spending increases.
And probably, if we just impeach the Walrus of Death nothing will change . Its a freight
train to war. It moves slowly at first but its hell to try and stop.
This awesome demonstration of American resolve was meant to be punishment for the vicious
slaughter of an expensive U.S. military drone, which was peacefully invading Iranian airspace,
and not at all attempting to provoke the Iranians into blowing it out of the sky with a missile
so the U.S. military could "retaliate."
The military-industrial complex would never dream of doing anything like that, not even to
further the destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East that they've been
systematically carrying out the since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which more on
that in just a moment.
"... A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war. ..."
"... "While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote." ..."
"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American
ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic
global consequences, including for the United States itself."
The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates
conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal
corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and
geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered
after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.
However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral
hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with
economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the
warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.
A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian
Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major
war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.
What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering
stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States
came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously
examined.
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles
at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a
barrel. The article also notes that:
"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford,
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a
strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."
Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and
thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously
wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would
land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no
consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the
deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the
lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start
a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a
malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or
perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping
500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United
States.
"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their
officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would
otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and
millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer
"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill
everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist
From the little I know about Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, Yemen is still subject to a land
/ sea / air blockade. Saudi warships are patrolling Yemeni maritime territory. So that would
probably nix any possibility of Iran sending any kind of support, humanitarian as well as
military.
The war has lasted over four years and the blockade has lasted almost as long. The Saudis
are relying on mercenaries from as far away as
South America ,
Nepal and parts of Africa. Yet not only are the Houthis still holding out but as you say,
there are signs of
Saudi collapse in Yemen.
My hunch is that huge numbers of soldiers are defecting from the Saudi forces and bringing
with them equipment, vehicles, ammunition, advice and logistics support to the Houthis. Among
other things, this would account for large losses of Saudi military equipment and the
enormous wastage. Perhaps some mercenaries have also switched sides. But as I have said here
in past MoA comments forums, I can't prove that defections are occurring. Maybe I'm not using
the "right" keywords on Google Chrome, DuckDuckGo or other search engines to find the
information, or perhaps this particular narrative is a no-go zone.
@ Jen 74
Thanks for your concern for Yemen, and reports from the area.
Please be aware that the outcome of military conflicts are more dependant upon the people
affected than anything. It took the US three years to "pacify" Baghdad, because Iraqis didn't
want Americans there, and they still don't as a matter of fact.
Yemenis don't want Saudi control of their land and that has more meaning than the Saudi
mercenaries can bring to the conflict.
In the US Army, the infantry is "the Queen of battle." That's a fancy way of saying that the
men engaged in the endeavor, on the ground, are the most important variable. That's why the
Houthis in their flip-flops can destroy so many Saudi units. They care. The human element.
"... This story of lost American leadership and production is not unique. In fact, the destruction of America's once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies rely. Huawei is just a particularly prominent example. ..."
"... Higher budgets would seem to make sense. According to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States is shifting away from armed conflicts in the Middle East to "great power" competition with China and Russia, which have technological parity in many areas with the United States. As part of his case for higher budgets, Mattis told Congress that "our military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare -- air, land, sea, space, and cyber." ..."
"... And yet, the U.S. military budget, even at stalled levels, is still larger than the next nine countries' budgets combined. So there's a second natural follow-up question: is the defense budget the primary reason our military advantage is slipping away, or is it something deeper? ..."
"... The loss of manufacturing capacity has been devastating for American research capacity. "Innovation doesn't just hover above the Great Plains," Mottl said. "It is built on steady incremental changes and knowledge learned out of basic manufacturing." Telecommunications equipment is dual use, meaning it can be used for both commercial and military purposes. The loss of an industrial base in telecom equipment meant that the American national security apparatus lost military capacity. ..."
"... "The middle-class Americans who did the manufacturing work, all that capability, machine tools, knowledge, it just became worthless, driven by the stock price," he said. "The national ability to produce is a national treasure. If you can't produce you won't consume, and you can't defend yourself." ..."
"... In the commercial sector, rebuilding the industrial base will require an aggressive national mobilization strategy. This means aggressive investment by government to rebuild manufacturing capacity, selective tariffs to protect against Chinese or foreign predation, regulation to stop financial predation by Wall Street, and anti-monopoly enforcement to block the exploitation of market power. ..."
Wall Street's short-term incentives have decimated our defense industrial base and
undermined our national security.
Early this year, U.S. authorities filed criminal
charges -- including bank fraud, obstruction of justice, and theft of technology -- against the
largest maker of telecommunications equipment in the world, a Chinese giant named Huawei.
Chinese dominance in telecom equipment has created a crisis among Western espionage agencies,
who, fearful of Chinese spying, are attempting to prevent the spread of Huawei equipment
worldwide, especially
in the critical 5G next-generation mobile networking space.
In response to the campaign to block the purchase of Huawei equipment, the company has
engaged in a public relations offensive. The company's CEO, Ren Zhengfei, portrayed Western
fears as an advertisement for its products, which are, he said, "so good that the U.S.
government is scared." There's little question the Chinese government is interested in using
equipment to spy. What is surprising is Zhengfei is right about the products. Huawei, a
relatively new company in the telecom equipment space, has amassed top market share because its
equipment -- espionage vulnerabilities aside -- is the best value on the market.
In historical terms, this is a shocking turnaround. Americans invented the telephone
business and until recently dominated production and research. But in the last 20 years, every
single American producer of key telecommunication equipment sectors is gone. Today, only two
European makers -- Ericsson and Nokia -- are left to compete with Huawei and another Chinese
competitor, ZTE.
This story of lost American leadership and production is not unique. In fact, the
destruction of America's once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many
sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because
of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly
cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies
rely. Huawei is just a particularly prominent example.
When national security specialists consider preparedness, they usually think in terms of the
amount of money spent on the Pentagon. One of President Donald Trump's key campaign promises
was to aggressively raise the military budget, which he, along with Congress, started doing in
2017. The reaction was instant. "I'm heartened that Congress recognizes the sobering effect of
budgetary uncertainty on America's military and on the men and women who provide for our
nation's defense," then-defense secretary Jim Mattis said. Budgets have gone up every year
since.
Higher budgets would seem to make sense. According to the 2018 National Defense
Strategy, the United States is shifting away from armed conflicts in the Middle East to "great
power" competition with China and Russia, which have technological parity in many areas with
the United States. As part of his case for higher budgets, Mattis told Congress that "our
military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare --
air, land, sea, space, and cyber."
In some cases, our competitive edge has not just been eroded, but is at risk of being -- or
already is -- surpassed. The Chinese surge in 5G telecom equipment, which has dual civilian and
military uses, is one example. China is making key investments in artificial
intelligence, another area of competition. They even seem to be able to mount a rail gun on a naval ship ,
an important next generation weapons technology that the U.S. Navy has yet to incorporate.
And yet, the U.S. military budget, even at stalled levels, is still larger than the next
nine countries' budgets combined. So there's a second natural follow-up question: is the
defense budget the primary reason our military advantage is slipping away, or is it something
deeper?
The story of Huawei, and many others, suggests the latter.
♦♦♦
For over a century, America led the world in producing telecommunications equipment. The
American telecom industry, according to Zach Mottl of Atlas Tool Works, a subcontractor in the
industry, used to be a "crown jewel of American manufacturing." Mottl's company had been a
manufacturing supplier to AT&T and its Bell Labs from the early 1900s until the early
2000s. "The radar system was invented here. The transistor came out of Bell Labs. The laser. I
mean all of these high-tech inventions that have both commercial and military applications were
funded out of the research," Mottl told TAC . More than just the sexy inventions, there
was a domestic industrial sector which could make the equipment. Now, in a strategic coup for
our adversaries, that capability is gone.
Yet it wasn't one of those adversaries that killed our telecommunications capacity, but one
of our own institutions, Wall Street, and its pressure on executives to make decisions designed
to impress financial markets, rather than for the long-term health of their companies. In 1996,
AT&T spun off Bell Labs into a telecom equipment company, Lucent Technologies, to take
advantage of investors' appetite for an independent player selling high-tech telecom gear after
Congress deregulated the telecommuncations space. At the time, it was the biggest initial
public offering in history, and became the foundation of a relationship with financial markets
that led to its eventual collapse.
The focus on stock price at Lucent was systematic. The stock price was posted daily to
encourage everyone to focus on the company's relationship with short-term oriented financial
markets. All employees got a small number of "Founder's Grant Share Options," with executives
offered much larger slugs of stock to solidify the connection. When Richard McGinn became CEO
in 1997, he focused on financial markets.
Lucent began to buy up companies. According to two scholars , "The perceived
need to compete for acquisitions became a 'strategic' justification for keeping stock prices
high. This in turn demanded meeting or exceeding quarterly revenue and earnings targets,
objectives with which Lucent top executives, led by the hard-driving McGinn, became
obsessed."
Lucent got even more aggressive. McGinn's subordinate, an executive named Carly Fiorina,
juiced returns with a strategy based on lending money to risky startups who would then turn
around and buy Lucent equipment. Fiorina collected $65
million in compensation as the stock soared. And then, when the dot-com boom turned to
bust, the company, beset by accounting scandals designed to impress shareholders and the
financial markets, embarked on massive layoffs. CEO McGinn was among those laid off, but with a
$12.5 million severance package -- royal compensation for taking one of America's strategic
industrial assets down the road toward total destruction.
In the early 2000s, the telecom equipment market began to recover from the recession.
Lucent's new strategy, as Mottl put it, was to seek "margin" by offshoring production to China,
continuing layoffs of American workers and hiring abroad. At first, it was the simpler parts of
the telecom equipment, the boxes and assembly, but soon contract manufacturers in China were
making virtually all of it. American telecom capacity would never return.
Lucent didn't recover its former position. Chinese entrants, subsidized heavily by the
Chinese state and using Western technology, underpriced
Western companies. American policymakers, unconcerned with industrial capacity, allowed Chinese
companies to capture market share despite the predatory subsidies and stolen technology. In
2006, French telecom equipment maker Alcatel bought Lucent, signifying the end of American
control of Bell Labs. Today, Huawei, with state backing, dominates the market.
The erosion of much of the American industrial and defense industrial base proceeded like
Lucent. First, in the 1980s and 1990s, Wall Street financiers focused on short-term profits,
market power, and executive pay-outs over core competencies like research and production, often
rolling an industry up into a monopoly producer. Then, in the 2000s, they offshored production
to the lowest cost producer. This finance-centric approach opened the door to the Chinese
government's ability to strategically pick off industrial capacity by subsidizing its
producers. Hand over cash to Wall Street, and China could get the American crown jewels.
The loss of manufacturing capacity has been devastating for American research capacity.
"Innovation doesn't just hover above the Great Plains," Mottl said. "It is built on steady
incremental changes and knowledge learned out of basic manufacturing." Telecommunications
equipment is dual use, meaning it can be used for both commercial and military purposes. The
loss of an industrial base in telecom equipment meant that the American national security
apparatus lost military capacity.
This loss goes well beyond telecom equipment. Talking to small manufacturers and
distributors who operate in the guts of our industrial systems offers a perspective on the
danger of this process of financial predation and offshoring. Bill Hickey, who headed his
family's metal distributor, processor, and fabricator, has been watching the collapse for
decades. Hickey sells to "everyone who uses steel," from truck, car, and agricultural equipment
manufacturers to stadiums and the military.
Hickey, like many manufacturers, has watched the rise of China with alarm for decades.
"Everyone's upset about the China 2025 plan," he told TAC , referencing the current
Chinese plan causing alarm among national security thinkers in Washington. "Well there was a
China 2020 plan, 2016 plan, 2012 plan." The United States has, for instance, lost much of its
fasteners and casting industries, which are key inputs to virtually every industrial product.
It has lost much of its capacity in grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel, a specialized
metal required for highly efficient electrical motors. Aluminum that goes into American
aircraft carriers now often comes from China.
Hickey told a story of how the United States is even losing its submarine fleet. He had a
conversation with an admiral in charge of the U.S. sub fleet at the commissioning of the USS
Illinois , a Virginia-class attack submarine, who complained that the United States was
retiring three worn-out boats a year, but could only build one and a half in that time. The
Trump military budget has boosted funding to build two a year, but the United States no longer
has the capacity to do high quality castings to build any more than that. The supply chain that
could support such surge production should be in the commercial world, but it has been
offshored to China. "You can't run a really high-end casting business on making three
submarines a year," Hickey said. "You just can't do it." This shift happened because Wall
Street, or "the LBO (leveraged buy-out) guys" as Hickey put it, bought up manufacturing
facilities in the 1990s and moved them to China.
"The middle-class Americans who did the manufacturing work, all that capability, machine
tools, knowledge, it just became worthless, driven by the stock price," he said. "The national
ability to produce is a national treasure. If you can't produce you won't consume, and you
can't defend yourself."
The Loss of the Defense Industrial Base
But it's not just the dual-use commercial manufacturing base that is collapsing. Our policy
empowering Wall Street and offshoring has also damaged the more specialized defense base, which
directly produces weaponry and equipment for the military.
How pervasive is the loss of such capacity? In September 2018, the Department of Defense
released findings of its analysis into its supply chain. The results highlighted how fragile
our ability to supply our own military has become.
The report listed dozens of militarily significant items and inputs with only one or two
domestic producers, or even none at all. Many production facilities are owned by companies that
are financially vulnerable and at high risk of being shut down. Some of the risk comes from
limited production capability. Mortar tubes, for example, are made on just one production line,
and some Marine aircraft parts are made by just one company -- one which recently filed for
bankruptcy.
At risk is everything from chaff to flares to high voltage cable, fittings for ships,
valves, key inputs for satellites and missiles, and even material for tents. As Americans no
longer work in key industrial fields, the engineering and production skills evaporate as the
legacy workforce retires.
Even more unsettling is the reliance on foreign, and often adversarial, manufacturing and
supplies. The report found that "China is the single or sole supplier for a number of specialty
chemicals used in munitions and missiles . A sudden and catastrophic loss of supply would
disrupt DoD missile, satellite, space launch, and other defense manufacturing programs. In many
cases, there are no substitutes readily available." Other examples of foreign reliance included
circuit boards, night vision systems, batteries, and space sensors.
The story here is similar. When Wall Street targeted the commercial industrial base in the
1990s, the same financial trends shifted the defense industry. Well before any of the more
recent conflicts, financial pressure led to a change in focus for many in the defense industry
-- from technological engineering to balance sheet engineering. The result is that some of the
biggest names in the industry have never created any defense product. Instead of innovating new
technology to support our national security, they innovate new ways of creating monopolies to
take advantage of it.
A good example is a company called TransDigm. While TransDigm presents itself as a designer
and producer of aerospace products, it can more accurately be described as a designer of
monopolies. TransDigm began as a private equity firm, a type of investment business, in 1993.
Its mission, per
its earnings call , is to give "private equity-like returns" to shareholders, returns that
are much higher than the stock market or other standard investment vehicles.
It achieves these returns for its shareholders by buying up companies that are sole or
single-source suppliers of obscure airplane parts that the government needs, and then
increasing prices by as
much as eight times the original amount . If the government balks at paying, TransDigm has
no qualms daring the military to risk its mission and its crew by not buying the parts. The
military, held hostage, often pays the ransom. TransDigm's gross profit margins using this
model to gouge the U.S. government are a robust 54.5 percent. To put that into perspective,
Boeing and Lockheed's profit margins are listed at 13.6 percent and 10.91 percent. In many
ways, TransDigm is like the pharmaceutical company run by Martin Shkreli, which bought rare
treatments and then price gouged those who could not do without the product. Earlier this year,
TransDigm
recently bought the remaining supplier of chaff and one of two suppliers of flares,
products identified in the Defense Department's supply chain fragility report.
Yet, Trandigm's stock price thrives because Wall Street loves monopolies, regardless of who
they are taking advantage of. Take this
analysis from TheStreet from March 2019, published after the latest Inspector General
report and directly citing many of the concerning facts from the report as pure positives for
the investor:
The company is now the sole supplier for 80% of the end markets it serves. And 90% of the
items in the supply chain are proprietary to TransDigm. In other words, the company is
operating a monopoly for parts needed to operate aircraft that will typically be in service for
30 years . Managers are uniquely motivated to increase shareholder value and they have an
enviable record, with shares up 2,503% since 2009.
Fleecing the Defense Department is big business. Its executive chairman W. Nicholas Howley,
skewered by Democrats and Republicans alike in a May 2019 House Oversight hearing for making up
to 4,000 percent excess profit on some parts and stealing from the American taxpayer, received
total compensation of over $64
million in 2013 , the fifth most among all CEOs, and
over $13 million in 2018 , making him one
of the most highly compensated CEOs no one has ever heard of . Shortly after May's hearing,
the company agreed to voluntarily return $16 million in overcharges to the Pentagon, but the
share price is at near record highs.
L3 Technologies, created in 1997, has taken a different, but also damaging, approach to
monopolizing Defense Department contracts. Originally, it sought to become "the Home Depot of
the defense industry" by going on an acquisition binge, according
to its former CEO Frank Lanza. Today, L3 uses its size, its connections within the government,
and its willingness to offer federal employees good-paying jobs at L3, to muscle out
competitors and win contracts, even if the competitor has
more innovative and better priced products . This practice attracted the ire of two
Republican congressmen from North Carolina, Ted Budd and the late Walter Jones, who found
in 2017 that L3 succeeds, in part, due to "blatant corruption and obvious disregard of American
foreign interest in the name of personal economic profit."
Like TransDigm, this isn't L3's first brush with trouble. It was
temporarily suspended from U.S. government contracting for using "extremely sensitive and
classified information" from a government system to help its international business interests.
It was the subject of a scathing Senate Armed Services Committee investigation
for
failing to notify the Defense Department that it supplied faulty Chinese counterfeit parts
for some of its aircraft displays. And it agreed to pay a
$25.6 million settlement to the U.S. government for knowingly providing defective weapon
sights for years to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet, also like TransDigm, L3 has thrived despite its troubles. When the company was granted
an open-ended contract to update the Air Force's electronics jamming airplane in 2017,
Lieutenant General Arnold Bunch
outlined the Air Force's logic at a House Armed Services Subcommittee meeting. L3, he said,
is the only company that can do the job. "They have all the tooling, they have all the existing
knowledge, and they have the modeling and all the information to do that work," he said.
In other words, because L3 has a monopoly, there was no one else to pick. The system -- a
system designed by the financial industry that rewards monopoly and consolidation at the
expense of innovation and national security -- essentially made the pick for him. It is no
wonder our military capacities are ebbing, despite the large budget outlays -- the money isn't
going to defense.
♦♦♦
In fact, in some ways, our own defense budgets are being used against us when potential
adversaries use Wall Street to take control of our own Pentagon-developed technologies.
There's no better example than China's takeover of the rare earth metal industry, which is
key to both defense and electronics. The issue has frequently made the front page during the
recent trade war, but the seldom-discussed background to our dependence on China for rare
earths is that, just like with telecom equipment, the United States used to be the world leader
in the industry until the financial sector shipped the whole thing to China.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Defense Department invested in the development of a
technology to use what are known as rare-earth magnets. The investment was so successful that
General Motors engineers, using Pentagon grants, succeeded in creating a
rare earth magnet that is now essential for nearly every high-tech piece of military equipment
in the U.S. inventory, from smart bombs and fighter jets to lasers and communications devices.
The benefit of DARPA's investment wasn't restricted to the military. The magnets make cell
phones and modern commercial electronics possible.
China recognized the value of these magnets early on. Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping
famously said in 1992 that "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earth," to underscore
the importance of a rare earth strategy he adopted for China. Part of that strategy was to take
control of the industry by manipulating the motivations of Wall Street.
Wall Street's outsized control over defense contracting and industry means that every place
a foreign adversary can insert itself into American financial institutions, it can insert
itself into our defense industry.
At an Armed Services Committee hearing in 2018, Representative Carol Shea-Porter talked
about how constant the conflict between financial concentration and patriotism had been in her
six years on the committee. She recounted a CEO once telling her, in response to her concern
about the outsourcing of defense industry parts, that he "[has] to answer to stockholders."
Who are these stockholders that CEOs are so compelled to answer to? Oftentimes, China.
Jennifer M.
Harris , an expert in global markets with experience at the U.S. State Department and the
U.S. National Intelligence Council, researched a recent
explosion of Chinese strategic investment in American technology companies. She found that
China has systematically targeted U.S. greenfield investments, "technology goods (especially
semiconductors), R&D networks, and advanced manufacturing."
The trend accelerated, until the recent flare-up of tensions between the United States and
China. "China's foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the U.S.
increased some 800% between 2009 and 2015," she wrote. Then, from 2015 to 2017, "Chinese
FDI in the U.S. climbed nearly four-fold, reaching roughly $45.6 billion in 2016 , up from just
$12.8 billion in 2014."
This investment runs right through Wall Street, the key lobbying group trying to ratchet
down Trump's tough negotiating posture with the Chinese. Rather than showing concern about the
increasing influence of a foreign power in our commerce and industry, Wall Street banks have
repeatedly followed Archie Cox down the path of easy returns.
In 2016, J.P. Morgan Chase agreed to pay a
$264 million bribery settlement to the U.S. government for creating a program, called "Sons
and Daughters," to gain access to Chinese money by selectively hiring the unqualified offspring
of high-ranking Communist Party officials and other Chinese elites. Several other banks are
under investigation for similar practices, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, who, not
coincidentally,
hired the son of China's commerce minister. It appears to have worked out for them. In
2017, Goldman Sachs
partnered with the Chinese government's sovereign wealth fund to invest $5 billion Chinese
government dollars in American industry.
In short, China is becoming a significant shareholder in U.S. industries, and is selectively
targeting those with strategic implications. Congresswoman Shea-Porter's discovery that defense
industry CEOs aren't able to worry about national security because they "[have] to answer to
shareholders" was disturbing enough. But the fact that it potentially translates as CEOs not
being able to worry about national security because they have to answer to the Chinese should
elevate the issue to the top of our national security discussion. This nexus of China, Wall
Street, and our defense industrial base may be the answer to why our military advantage is
ebbing. Even when American ingenuity can thrive, too often the fruits go to the Chinese.
In short, the financial industry, with its emphasis on short-term profit and
monopoly , and its willingness to ignore national security for profit, has warped our very
ability to defend ourselves.
How Did We Get Here?
Believe it or not, America has been here before. In the 1920s and 1930s, the American
defense industrial base was being similarly manipulated by domestic financiers for their own
purposes, retarding innovation and damaging the nation's ability to defend itself. And American
military readiness was ebbing in the midst of an increasingly dangerous world full of rising
autocracies.
Today it might be artificial intelligence or drones, but in the 1930s the key military
technology was the airplane. And as with much digital technology today, while Americans
invented the airplane, many of the fruits went elsewhere. The reason was similar to the problem
of Wall Street today. The American aerospace industry in the 1930s was undermined by fights
among bankers over who got to profit from associated patent rights.
In 1935, Brigadier General William Mitchell told Congress that the United States didn't have
a single plane that could go against a "first-class power." "It is a disgraceful situation and
is due," he said, "for one thing, to this pool of patents." The lack of aerospace capacity
reflected a broader industrial problem. Monopolists refused to invest in factories to produce
enough steel, aluminum, and magnesium for adequate military readiness, for fear of losing
control over prices.
New Dealers investigated, and by the time war broke out, the Roosevelt administration was in
the midst of a sustained anti-monopoly campaign. The Nazi war machine, like China today, gave
added impetus to the problem of monopoly in key technology-heavy industries. In 1941, an
assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, Norman Littell, gave a speech to the
Indiana State Bar Association about what he called "The German Invasion of American
Business."
The Nazis, he argued, used legal techniques, like patent laws, stock ownership, dummy
corporations, and cartel arrangements, to extend their power into the United States. "The
distinction between bombing a vital plant out of existence from an airplane and preventing that
plant from coming into existence in the first place [through cartel arrangements]," he said,
"is largely a difference in the amount of noise involved."
Nazis used their American subsidiary corporations to spy on U.S. industrial capacity and
steal technology, such as walkie-talkies, intertank and ground-air radio communication systems,
and shortwave sets developed by the U.S. Army and Navy. They used patents or cartel
arrangements to restrict the production of stainless steel, tungsten-carbide, and fuel
injection equipment. According to the U.S. military after the war, I.G. Farben, the Nazi
chemical monopoly, had influence over American production of "synthetic gas and oils,
dyestuffs, explosives, synthetic rubber ('Buna'), menthol, cellophane, and other products," and
sought to keep the United States "entirely dependent" on Germany for certain types of
electrical equipment.
The Nazis took advantage of an industrial system that was, like the current one, organized
along short-term objectives. But seeing the danger, New Dealers attacked the power of
financiers through direct financing of factories, excess profits taxes, and the breaking of the
power of the Rockefeller, Dupont, and Mellon empires through bank regulation and antitrust
suits. They separated the makers of airplanes from airlines, a sort of Glass Steagall for
aerospace. During the war itself, antitrust chief Thurman Arnold, and those he influenced,
sought to end international cartels and loosen patent rules in part because they allowed
control over American industry by the Nazis.
After the war, the link between global cartels and national security vulnerabilities was a
key driver of American trade and military strategy. America pursued globalization, but with two
differences from the form we have today. First, strategists sought to prevent the recurrence of
global cartels and monopolies. Second, they sought to become industrially intertwined with
allies, not rivals. While multinational corporations stretched across the West, they did not
locate production or technology development in Moscow or among strategic rivals, as we do today
in China.
Domestically, anti-profiteering institutions and rules protected against corruption,
especially important when the defense budget comprised a large chunk of overall American
research and development. The Defense Department's procurement agency -- the Defense Logistics
Agency -- was enormously powerful and oversaw procurement and supply challenges. The Pentagon
had the power to force suppliers of sole source products -- contractors that had monopolies --
to reveal cost information to the government. The financial health of defense contractors
mattered, but so did value to the taxpayer, a skilled defense industrial workforce, and the
ability to deliver quality products to aid in national defense.
A fragmented base of contractors and subcontractors ensured redundancy and competition, and
a powerful federal apparatus with thousands of employees with expertise in pricing and
negotiation kept prices reasonable. The Defense Department could even take ownership of
specialized tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare
part needs -- which is precisely where TransDigm specializes. This authority and expertise had
been carefully cultivated over decades to provide the material necessary to equip American
soldiers for World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the first Gulf war.
In the 1980s, while Ronald Reagan allowed Wall Street free rein elsewhere in the economy, he
mostly kept Wall Street from going after the defense base. But scholars began debating whether
it made sense to have such a large and expensive negotiating apparatus to deal with
contractors, or if a more "cooperative" approach should be taken. Business consultants
argued that the Pentagon could save money if it would simply be "a better customer, by
being less adversarial and more trusting" of defense contractors.
With the end of the Cold War, these arguments found new resonance. Bill Clinton took the
philosophical change that Reagan had pushed on the civilian economy, and moved it into the
defense base. In 1993, Defense Department official William Perry gathered CEOs of top defense
contractors and told them that they would have to merge into larger entities because of reduced
Cold War spending. "Consolidate or evaporate," he said at what became known as "The Last
Supper" in military lore. Former secretary of the Navy John Lehman noted, "industry leaders
took the warning to heart." They reduced the number of prime contractors from 16 to six;
subcontractor mergers quadrupled from 1990 to 1998. They also loosened rules on sole source --
i.e. monopoly -- contracts, and slashed the Defense Logistics Agency, resulting in thousands of
employees with deep knowledge of defense contracting leaving the public sector.
Contractors increasingly dictated procurement rules. The Clinton administration approved
laws changing procurement, which, as the Los Angeles Times put it, got rid of the
government's traditional goals of ensuring "fair competition and low prices." They reversed
what the New Dealers had done to insulate American military power from financiers.
The administration also pushed Congress to allow foreign imports into
American weapons through waivers of the Buy America Act, and demanded procurement officers stop
asking for cost data. Mass offshoring took place, and businesses could increase prices
radically.
This environment attracted private-equity shops, and swaths of the defense industry shifted
their focus from aerospace engineering to balance sheet engineering. From 1993 to 2000, despite
dramatic declines in Cold War military spending and declines in the number of workers in the
defense industrial base and within the military, defense stocks outperformed the S&P.
Today, the American defense establishment quietly finds itself in the same predicament it
did in the 1930s. Despite spending large amounts of money on weapons systems, it often gets
substandard equipment. It is dependent for key sources of supply on business arrangements with
potentially hostile powers. The problem is so big, so toxic, and so difficult that few
lawmakers even want to take it on. But the increasingly obvious danger of Chinese power means
we can no longer ignore it.
The Fix
Fortunately, this is fixable. Huawei's predatory pricing success has shown policymakers all
over the world what happens when we don't protect our vital industrial capacity. Last year,
Congress strengthened the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the committee
that reviews foreign investment and mergers. The Trump tariffs have begun forcing a
long-overdue conversation across the globe about Chinese steel and aluminum overcapacity, and
Democrats like Representative Dan Lipinski are focused on reconstituting domestic manufacturing
ability.
Within the defense base itself, every example -- from TransDigm to L3 to Chinese
infiltration of American business -- has drawn the attention of members of Congress.
Representatives Ted Budd and Paul Cook are Republicans and Representatives Jackie Speier and Ro
Khanna are Democrats. They are not alone. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and
Representative Tim Ryan have joined Khanna's demand for a TransDigm investigation.
Moreover, focus on production is bipartisan. One of the most ardent opponents of
consolidation in the 1990s is current presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who in 1996
passed an amendment to block Pentagon subsidies for defense mergers, or what he called "Payoffs
for Layoffs." On the other end of the spectrum, Trump has refocused national security and trade
officials on the importance of domestic manufacturing.
Defense officials have also become acutely aware of the problem. In a 2015 briefing at the
Pentagon, in response to questions about Lockheed's acquisition of Sikorsky, then secretary of
defense Ash Carter
emphasized the importance of not having "excessive consolidation," including so-called
vertical integration, in the defense industry because it is "[not] good for the defense
marketplace, and therefore, for the taxpayer and warfighter in the long run." Carter's
acquisition chief, Frank Kendall,
also noted the "significant policy concerns" posed by the "continuing march toward greater
consolidation in the defense industry at the prime contractor level" and the effect it has on
innovation.
American policymakers in the 1990s lost the ability to recognize the value of production
capacity. Today, many of the problems highlighted here are still seen in isolation, perhaps as
instances of corruption or reduced capacity. But the problems -- diminished innovation,
marginal quality, higher prices, less redundancy, dependence on overseas supply chains, a lack
of defense industry competition, and reduced investment in research and development -- are not
independent. They are the result of the financialization of industry and of monopoly. It's time
for a new strategic posture, one that puts a premium not just on spending the right amount on
military budgets, but also on ensuring that financial actors don't capture what we do spend. We
must begin once again to recognize that private industrial capacity is a vital national
security asset that we can no longer allow Wall Street to pillage. By seeing the problem in its
totality, we can attack the power of finance within the commercial and defense base and restore
our national security capacity once again.
There are many levers we can use to reorder our national priorities. The Defense Department,
along with its new higher budgets, should have more authority to promote competition, break up
defense conglomerates, restrict excess defense contractor profits, empower contracting officers
to get cost information, and block private equity takeovers of suppliers. Congress could
reinstate the authority of the Defense Department to simply take ownership of specialized
tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare part needs,
a power it once had.
In the commercial sector, rebuilding the industrial base will require an aggressive
national mobilization strategy. This means aggressive investment by government to rebuild
manufacturing capacity, selective tariffs to protect against Chinese or foreign predation,
regulation to stop financial predation by Wall Street, and anti-monopoly enforcement to block
the exploitation of market power.
Policymakers must recognize that industrial capacity is a public good and short-term actors
on Wall Street have become a serious national security vulnerability. While private businesses
are essential to our common defense, the public sector must once again structure how we
organize our national defense and protect our defense industrial base from predatory finance.
For several decades, Wall Street has been organizing not just the financing of defense
contractors, but the capabilities of our very defense posture. That experiment has been a
failure. It is time to wake up, before it's too late.
Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Open Markets Institute. His book, Goliath: The
100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, is due out this fall from Simon &
Schuster. Lucas Kunce spent 12 years in the United States Marine Corps, and is a veteran of the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the views of the Department of Defense or its components. This article was supported
by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The contents of this publication are solely the
responsibility of the authors.
Sobering read. However, it is likely that only a major war will spur legislators and
administrators into action. Until then Wall Street will reign and the US administrations will
keep threatening countries with sanctions if they buy equipment that prevents the US to
conduct an easy bombing campaign on them.
I've heard similar stories about the imminent collapse of the Russian Defense sector, they
can't make their own parts, they lack diversity of suppliers, there is a huge brain drain, no
customers (somewhat true since we practice extortion).
I'm not dismissing the author, actually quite the opposite and I am agreeing with you. The
secret ingredient is an actual sense of danger. The Russians are terrified, we pretend to be
terrified but know it's all threat inflation. If we had honest people in Congress proposing
targeted budgets for real needs rather than 'freedom of navigation' when we know it's power
projection then the fear of God might return to our habits. The author brought up the 20/30's
I bet WW2 gave us that fear again.
Dude, your government stopped being able to do anything this complicated somewhere around
1995. Your infrastructure is in shambles and diabetics are dying because of an insulin
monopoly that forces them to ration medication. The rope remark resembles you.
This is the longest litany about demise of American prowess in technology that I've ever read
in TAC so far. The story of destruction of Bell Labs, described in details by Matt Stoller is
very accurate: I have been eyewitness to it from 1983 and up to its gruesome end. Carly
Fiorina, one of the runners for President in 2016, delivered American icon coup-the-grace.
She even justified her claim on presidency on business experience: destruction of another
icon of American high-tech – Hewlett-Packard. Alas, there is the most fundamental
reason for the current situation in the 21-st century USA, was formulated 100+ years ago by
Vladimir Lenin: "For profit capitalists will be eager to sell us rope, with which we'll
hung them" .
Would anybody protest today that profit IS the Nature of capitalism ? And
more: those who substitute Reality with their wet dreams might be cured by watching
Democratic 2020 debates.
Great piece. There are lots of good articles here but not that many that tell something I
really didn't already know. Great perspective on the whole China issue. Amazing how sick our
financialized economy really is when you look under the hood.
This is excellent information. Hope folks on the Hill are reading this.
The Wall Street and finance industry depend on US military, long-term this is a disaster, but
they care only for short-term profits. Whoever thought that principles of free market apply
internationally, where other goverments are free to influence "free trade" in any way they
wish, while US goverment will do nothing is an idiot.
Elsewhere, British military intelligence ... erm, sorry, its mouthpiece The Fraudian
attacks Tulsi Gabbard over her supposed overlap with the Republican Party and her level of
wokeness which, not surprisingly, The Fraudian finds low and therefore starts worrying like a
dried-up dog mummy with teeth bites already all over it.
"... "[We need] a Commander in Chief [who will stop] these failed interventionist wars of regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives, untold suffering, and trillions of dollars." ..."
"... "Trump Nikki Haley...Mike Pompeo... The people around John Bolton. These people are advocating for strengthening our economy, and if the only way they can do that is by building that economy based on building and selling weapons to countries that are using them to slaughter and murder innocent people, then we need new leaders in this country. The American people deserve better than that." ..."
"Sadly, the system in this country is rigged in favor of wealthy elites who have purchased
tremendous influence in our government."
"We have to put an end to the culture of selfishness and corruption that allows greedy
Wall Street banks and executives to rip off working people without any consequences."
"[We need] a Commander in Chief [who will stop] these failed interventionist wars of
regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives, untold suffering, and
trillions of dollars."
"Will you stand for the humanity of the Yemeni people? Will you stand against Saudi
Arabia's genocidal war? Or will you continue to support this war that has caused 22 million
Yemeni people to be in desperate need of humanitarian aid? To cause these 85,000 children to
have died from starvation, to have caused the dropping of U.S.-made bombs on innocent
civilians, killing tens of thousands of people. This is such an urgent action that must be
taken by the United States Congress to assert its authority and end United States support for
this genocidal war in Yemen."
"Trump Nikki Haley...Mike Pompeo... The people around John Bolton. These people are
advocating for strengthening our economy, and if the only way they can do that is by building
that economy based on building and selling weapons to countries that are using them to
slaughter and murder innocent people, then we need new leaders in this country. The American
people deserve better than that."
"I don't smoke marijuana. I never have... But I believe firmly in every person's freedom
to make their own choices, and that people should not be thrown in jail and incarcerated or
made into criminals for choosing to smoke marijuana whether it be for medicinal and
non-medicinal purposes.
There's no question that this overall war on drugs has not only been a failure, it has
created and exacerbated a number of other problems that continue to afflict people in this
country..."
Quoted in: For Tulsi Gabbard, Marijuana Sits At Nexus Of Good Policy And Smart Politics,
Forbes, nu Tom Angell (7 March 2019)
"We are in a situation today where we, here in the United States and the world, are at a
greater risk of nuclear catastrophe than ever before in history. My commitment in fighting to end these counterproductive regime change wars is based on
these experiences and my understanding [of] the cost of war and who pays the price.
Yes, it is our service members. It is our troops. It is our military families. It is the
people in these countries, where these wars are waged, whose suffering ends up far worse
after we launch these regime change wars... The skepticism, and the questions that I
raised, were very specific around incidents that the Trump administration was trying to use
as an excuse to launch a U.S. military attack in Syria.
I served in a war in Iraq, a war that was launched based on lies and a war that was
launched without evidence. And so the American people were duped... As a soldier, as an
American, as a member of Congress, it is my duty and my responsibility to exercise
skepticism any time anyone tries to send our service members into harm's way or use our
military to go in and start a new war."
Quoted by Kevin Gosztola in CNN Foreign Policy Gatekeepers Vilify Tulsi Gabbard for Her
Anti-Intervention Dissent, Mintpress News (13 March 2019)
"... Thanks for the posting b about how manipulated the public is by the MSM. ..."
"... Bravo Tulsi ! The msm will hit hard on you, as they will be forced to take the numbers into account. Consider it as stripes... ..."
"... It is interesting how the NYTimes has now gone full in for Warren. They had at least three positive opinion columns for her yesterday, plus a front page spread that could have been written by the Warren campaign itself. This while having many negative Biden pieces, the last few days. The neoliberals really wanted Biden, but see he is unelectable so have gotten behind the next Obama. Looks like Wall Street is expecting a crash and want to make sure they are bailed out and not put in jail again. ..."
"... What do you expect from the Warshington Post. ..."
"... Tulsi served in the Anbar province. She understands the difference between Sunni and Shia which is why she is against war with Iran, Syria, and Libya. She also understands the corrupt nature of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia and speaks out against it. ..."
"... This is a big big NO NO in DC. Saudi Arabia is seen as part of the empire. Al Qaeda and ISIS serve their purpose as shock troops for the US empire. ..."
"... Richard Shultz, a professor of international politics at Tufts who's long been a key national security state intellectual, wrote in 2004 that "A very senior [Special Operations Forces] officer who had served on the Joint Staff in the 1990s told me that more than once he heard terrorist strikes characterized as 'a small price to pay for being a superpower.'" ..."
"... It is pretty clear to me that Tulsi doesn't believe this. This is why she is so hated by the MSM. She is former military and largely believes in military spending and fighting Sunni extremists including distancing the US from their sponsor Saudi Arabia and throwing out the US traitors who also support them. I don't believe in US military spending myself but Tulsi is the only honest person running. The rest of them are all completely corrupt. I do believe she would change US foreign policy for the better. Of course this is why she won't be allowed in office. ..."
"... I forget the exact details, but I remember that in the last election, a TV network was asked why it did not give more coverage to Bernie Sanders. The reply was that Sanders was not a real contender because he had almost no chance of winning. Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy if it's made by those in control of the media (let's forget for a moment that his own party also conspired against him). ..."
"... It will be interesting to see if Tulsi Gabbard can attract enough support that she cannot be dismissed that easily. Funnily enough, by blocking the more centrist candidates like Sanders, the Democrat leadership has made room for Gabbard who is much more radical (by American standards). ..."
"... her first point was that we are spending enormous amounts of our tax dollars on unnecessary wars. Of course the media wanted instead to hear about what new boondoggle programs they might propose, not something as mundane (and unprofitable for some) as reducing military budget to reduce taxation and free up money for other programs. ..."
"... This morning I saw the clip of Gabbard taking apart Ryan and felt that she did pretty well overall. I'm hopeful that interest in her will grow as I think she is one of very few in Washington who are trustworthy. ..."
"... I am sickened by the neocon chicken hawks, laptop bombardiers, armchair generals and admirals who thank war veterans for their service while glorifying legalized murder and mayhem at the same time. ..."
"... I will eagerly vote for the first candidate to observe that U.S. lawmaking and U.S. elections are hopelessly corrupt and worthless, and can't be used to fix themsleves or any other issue. ..."
"... Maybe you should have a look at Tulsi Gabbards voting record. She is literally one of the very few who constantly votes against military funding. ..."
"... "Tulsi believes the United States would be far better off spending the trillions of dollars wasted in interventionist wars on more pressing domestic issues in America, like infrastructure, college debt, healthcare, etc." ..."
"... When Gabbard is forthright and hits hard with well-informed, well-thought out positions; delivered calmly and with composure; regardless of how far from the mainstream they fall; she scores. This is a boxer who can win. But Gabbard has to resist the temptation to fall in line with political weaseling. ..."
"... I have been watching Gabbard for a long time now. As you mentioned there is no perfect candidate. But she is the lesser evil at this point. The elephant in the room is as usual Israel. Did she sign that pledge when she got into office? How much money has she received from AIPAC. Being a CFR member is a problem as well. Where does she stand with respect to the Palestinians? ..."
"... While I agree with those who state that it is all a sham and that she doesn't have a chance, I still think that she is a test to show the extent to which the yankee populace has been suborned into the structure's propaganda bullshit. ..."
The mainstream media seem to judge the Democratic primary debate last night quite
differently than the general public.
Quartz cites multiple polls which show that Tulsi Gabbard won
the debate :
[T]wo candidates seemed to pique a lot of interest among US voters, at least when judged by
who Americans searched for on Google: New Jersey senator Cory Booker and Hawaii
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard was lost for much of the debate. That may not have been her fault -- she wasn't asked
many questions -- ....
Duh!
The New York Timesmain piece
about the debate mentions Gabbard only once - in paragraph 32 of the 45 paragraphs long piece.
It does not reveal anything about her actual political position:
There was little discussion of foreign policy until near the end of the debate when two
little-known House lawmakers, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Tim Ryan of Ohio, clashed over how
aggressively to target the Taliban.
The New York Times also has some 'experts' discussing
winners and losers. Gabbard is only mentioned at the very end, and by a Republican pollster, as
a potential candidate for Secretary of Defense.
NBC News
ranks the candidates' performance. It puts Gabbard on place 8 and inserts a snide:
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii: Seized an opportunity to highlight her military experience in
Afghanistan and her signature anti-intervention foreign policy views, without being tainted
by her past sympathetic comments on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Most of the above media have long avoided to mention Gabbard and to discuss her political
positions. It is quite evident that the mainstream media do not like her anti-regime-change
views and are afraid of even writing about them.
Tulsi Gabbard's campaign posted a video of her parts of the
debate. She received some good applause.
Posted by b on June 27, 2019 at 11:19 AM |
Permalink
She humiliated Tim Ryan when he asserted that the Taliban attacked the U.S. on 9/11, pointing
out that it was Al Qaeda. Ryan responded that the Taliban protected Al Qaeda. Gabbard then
said something to the effect, "Try Saudi Arabia."
I thought it was hypocritical that none of the other candidates thanked Gabbard for her
service because you know if it had been some guy who is a Major in the National Guard with a
bunch of commendations people would be elbowing each other out of the way to lick his
boots.
Tulsi - "You know who is protecting al-Qaeda right now? It's Saudi Arabia"
MSNBC time given to each candidate:
#1 Booker: 9.68 minutes
#3 Warren: 8.35 minutes
#7 Gabbard: 5.35 minutes
Tulsi was the only candidate to get a negative question directed at her, though she
handled it very well.
MSDNC also framed a trick question who is for the elimination of ALL private healthcare.
Tulsi didn't raise her hand because she is for private insurance for supplemental surgery
such as plastic surgery, like Bernie. Tulsi and Bernie are the only ones for true Medicare
for All. Warren raised her hand but previously has stated she would be for something like
combining a public option and medicare for all, so she is now for cosmetic elective plastic
surgery being covered under Medicare for All?
It is interesting how the NYTimes has now gone full in for Warren. They had at least three
positive opinion columns for her yesterday, plus a front page spread that could have been
written by the Warren campaign itself. This while having many negative Biden pieces, the last
few days. The neoliberals really wanted Biden, but see he is unelectable so have gotten
behind the next Obama. Looks like Wall Street is expecting a crash and want to make sure they
are bailed out and not put in jail again.
--
Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East (Iraq / Kuwait)
In France main newspaper le Figaro, their Washington correspondent said it was Warren who won
the debate, and he only mentiones Tulsi Gabbard once, she stood out because of her red vest, he
wrote, nothing about content. So there you are.
Tulsi is against "regime change war" which she defines as essentially wars that USA lose.
If Tulsi were a serious anti-war candidate, she would be talking about significant
reductions in the military budget. She's not.
Tulsi has drunk the Kool-Aid about Russian interference in US elections. Her nominally
anti-war stance helps her to "sell" neo-McCarthyism to those that think her anti-regime
change war is "courageous".
Furthermore, she is very passive and "reasonable" about her views, making it easy for MSM
to ignore her because every candidate will say that they are for peace and against dumb
wars.
<> <> <> <> <>
Anyone looking to any duopoly candidate for salvation is deluded.
Tulsi Gabbard is allowed some brief MSM exposure.
To demonstrate that plurality of opinion is alive and well and going strong - toot toot!
rah rah! - in the Dem party. A show, a charade. She may be quite genuine and believe what she states, which seems like common sense, ok.
And she is good at it. Her opinions - tagged with Xtreme hopiness - will be shown to be
inconguent with the majority, etc.
In any case she can't win the nomination, she is an 'actor extra' on the fringes. From her promo site:
In this new century, everyone has clean water to drink, clean air to breathe and access
to nourishing food; everyone receives the medical care they need, has a roof over their head,
receives the education they need and is able to find good paying, fulfilling work. People
have financial security and don't have to worry about making ends meet in their old
age.
Our children, and children for generations to come, never worry again about nuclear war
and no parent has to wonder where they will hide their children when the missiles strike. Our
economy is not dependent on war, but is driven instead by innovation, green technology and
renewable industries.
Tulsi served in the Anbar province. She understands the difference between Sunni and Shia
which is why she is against war with Iran, Syria, and Libya. She also understands the corrupt
nature of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia and speaks out against it.
This is a big big
NO NO in DC. Saudi Arabia is seen as part of the empire. Al Qaeda and ISIS serve their
purpose as shock troops for the US empire.
If a few buildings have to come down and a few
thousand people killed that is a small price to pay for the US being a global hegemonic
empire... from counterpunch... Richard Shultz, a professor of international politics at Tufts
who's long been a key national security state intellectual, wrote in 2004 that "A very senior
[Special Operations Forces] officer who had served on the Joint Staff in the 1990s told me
that more than once he heard terrorist strikes characterized as 'a small price to pay for
being a superpower.'"
It is pretty clear to me that Tulsi doesn't believe this. This is why she is so hated by the
MSM. She is former military and largely believes in military spending and fighting Sunni
extremists including distancing the US from their sponsor Saudi Arabia and throwing out the
US traitors who also support them. I don't believe in US military spending myself but Tulsi
is the only honest person running. The rest of them are all completely corrupt. I do believe
she would change US foreign policy for the better. Of course this is why she won't be allowed
in office.
I forget the exact details, but I remember that in the last election, a TV network was asked
why it did not give more coverage to Bernie Sanders. The reply was that Sanders was not a
real contender because he had almost no chance of winning.
Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy if it's made by those in control of the media
(let's forget for a moment that his own party also conspired against him).
It will be interesting to see if Tulsi Gabbard can attract enough support that she cannot
be dismissed that easily. Funnily enough, by blocking the more centrist candidates like
Sanders, the Democrat leadership has made room for Gabbard who is much more radical (by
American standards).
I cringed when Tulsi launched into patriotic spiel about her service and could not bear to
watch as they went on to over-look her.
But then I realized that she had carefully considered the possibility that she may only be
asked one question and that that if there was one point to make that that was it - she unlike
most of the others has been willing to put herself at risk do do what she thought was the
right thing, serving her country at disadvantage to herself (though there may have been some
politics in it, but never mind) as opposed to say "pocahontes" lady for example. She's pretty
sharp and would represent us well I think.
@Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 27, 2019 1:01:12 PM | 15
Excellent point Zachary. In the first question they asked her about what she might do to
improve the economy for the benefit of the un-rich, her first point was that we are spending
enormous amounts of our tax dollars on unnecessary wars. Of course the media wanted instead
to hear about what new boondoggle programs they might propose, not something as mundane (and
unprofitable for some) as reducing military budget to reduce taxation and free up money for
other programs.
We're not allowed to consider candidates who would endeavor to make things better for the
majority at the expense of the minority, which is why Tulsi Gabbard will never be allowed to
the the nominee, regardless of how much her policy positions would resonate with voters were
they to actually be exposed to them.
The democrats are as as polluted as the republicans.
They refuse to see that Warren is far too hysterical to have any chance in a face to face
with Trump while Tulsi Gabbard will knock him Trump off.
The dems have been stupid enough to support Clinton that everybody disliked, now they will
redo the same mistake and lose again
If Tulsi were a serious anti-war candidate, she would be talking about significant
reductions in the military budget. She's not.
This is absurd. The things she talks about ALL THE TIME is how we're spending trillions on
regime change wars and how that money could be better used paying for health care, education,
the environment, etc. That is the entire focus of her campaign. And, by the way, she is the
*only* candidate to speak out against sanctions on Venezuela (and one of maybe two or three
to speak out against the US coup), saying that Venezuelans should determine their own future
without outside interference.
My first take on Tulsi's performance (the first hour) was not positive. I thought her early
spiel sounded too pro "soldier" and thus pro military, I was wishing she or someone would dig
deeper into the "border crisis" and explain the U.S. role in central America especially in
the 1980s, naming names (Abrams, North, etc)and telling the American people that most of the
refugees are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, not Mexico. This morning I saw the clip of Gabbard taking apart Ryan and felt that she did pretty well
overall. I'm hopeful that interest in her will grow as I think she is one of very few in
Washington who are trustworthy.
Gabbard knows the primary race is rigged yet she stays in it and is remarkably measured as
she is both attacked and shunned by the "popular people". If the primary race bogs and she
stays in she could gain. I hope she is talking to Sanders.
As a Vietnam war veteran I found Tulsi Gabbard's antiwar war stance on target and thoroughly
refreshing. The only thing I am dismayed over was the short time she was given to make her
point.
I am sickened by the neocon chicken hawks, laptop bombardiers, armchair generals and
admirals who thank war veterans for their service while glorifying legalized murder and
mayhem at the same time.
There is a nauseating stench about war that cannot be dismissed nor
forgotten by anyone who has seen it and experienced it up close. Gabbard knows this from her
own tours of duty in Iraq and Kuwait. Nations do not become great by filling up their
cemeteries with the corpses of its potentially best and brightest.
I will eagerly vote for the first candidate to observe that U.S. lawmaking and U.S. elections
are hopelessly corrupt and worthless, and can't be used to fix themsleves or any other issue.
Unfortunately Tulsi Gabbard isn't that person, but she could not be ignored by the
Democrat oligarchs if she kept traveling and talking to foreign leaders, especially 'enemy'
ones. I hope she realizes that her 'Evil Assad lover' meeting is a gift that keeps on giving
to her. I doubt if I would even recognize her name today if that had never happened.
Can you imagine the heads that would explode if she went to China or Russia? Or went to
North and South Korea? And [sigh] Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel? Venezuela? She doesn't have
to do ANYTHING there. Just have a nice cup of tea with the leader and/or evil dictator and
listen for about half-an-hour, and then leave. Then come back and tell the NYT and WaPo that
she had a MOST interesting conversation with the leader but she would prefer not to discuss
details with the press. She would get instant 24x7 hate coverage by the MSM. Even
Trump would have to tweet about her.
Sometimes you just have to go guerilla in order to take on the 800 lb. swamp gorilla.
How would a media owned by munitions manufacturers behave any differently to someone whose
position threatens them making money off death and destruction? The 'national' media is owned
by the war industry, nothing more, nothing less.
Julian Castro, repeal of the federal law that makes "illegal entry"
Amy Klobuchar bashed Trump for saying he would bring down drug prices, something she said
the president has yet to do. "That's what we call at home all foam and no beer," Klobuchar
said.
Tulsi Gabbard, During a heated exchanged with Ryan, Gabbard pointed out that the Taliban
did not attack the World Trade Center on 9/11. "That's why I and other people joined the
military," she continued, "to go after Al Qaeda. Not the Taliban."
...and the losers, as:
Elizabeth Warren, seemed to disappear in the second half of the debate.
Tim Ryan, ran into Tulsi Gabbard
Beto O'Rourke, lacked substance in his answers.
----
Listened to the debate, too many issues that just allowed posturing without needing a real
policy response.
I like the part where Tulsi said that we can't say to the parents of the two US
service-men that had just been killed by the Taliban that we should just stay engaged, we
need to bring the troops home and, instead, spend the money on building up America.
-----
What is the biggest geo-politic threat facing America (framed as a specific foreign policy
question):
Delaney = China & Nuclear Weapons (no cheer)
Inslee = Donald Trump (biggest cheer)
Gabbard = Greatest risk of Nuclear War than ever before (no cheer)
Klobuchar = China & Iran (no cheer)
O'Rourke = Climate Change (modest cheer)
Warren = Climate Change (no cheer)
Booker = Nuclear proliferation & Climate Change (no cheer)
Castro = China & Climate Change (no cheer)
Ryan = China (half-hearted attempted applause)
De Blasio = Russia (2nd biggest cheer)
I think, Klobuchar noticed the response De Basio got and started to bash Russia later in
the debate.
-----
Closing statements:
Delaney (a bit spacey, wasn't paying attention, aspirational, American dream)
De Blasio (heart & soul of the party, track record, health care, working people first,
slogan = it matters)
Inslee (climate crisis, the only candidate to make this the top priority)
Ryan (oh, dear I won't even try)
Gabbard (against the rich & powerful, this must end, every single person gets the
health care they need, environment, well-paying jobs, justice for all)
Castro (immigrant story, health, jobs, slogan = adios to Donald Trump)
Klubacher (listens and acts, always wins, can beat Trump, not the establishment candidate,
not funded by corporate interests, slogan = govern for you)
Booker (rising to our best, he will beat Trump, best of who we are)
O'Rourke (emosh, for the children, new kind of politics)
Warren (emosh, great honour, modest background, American dream, we can make the country
work)
-----
I think Delaney and Ryan are toast. Unfortunately, De Blasio could go far on the anti-Russia dog whistle.
-----
Jackrabbit has a point about what can you expect from a single person being elected.
But he is wrong about Tulsi Gabbard's policy on military spending:
"Tulsi believes the United States would be far better off spending the trillions of
dollars wasted in interventionist wars on more pressing domestic issues in America, like
infrastructure, college debt, healthcare, etc."
The US is engaged in more conflicts than at any time since the end of WWII, at the same
time its military is beginning to fail, and its economy is on a precipice. There is no real
political movement anywhere in the US that is effectively addressing these issues.
I don't see Americans organising to take control of their government, to stop the wars or
anything like that.
The only hope that American's have is to send a message that the wars have got to stop, to
vote for a candidate that is committed and best able to stop those wars, and for those voters
to hold that candidate to account.
The only candidate that fits that bill is Tulsi Gabbard.
If you wish to opt-out, then organise, rise up and take control.....ehh, what's that?....I
thought not!
If all you are going to do is watch the TV, eat chips, drink beer and moan, then the very
least thing that you can do is vote for Tulsi Gabbard!
Tulsi Gabbard volunteered to go kill brown people on the other side of the world. If she
renounces her service to the Empire and regrets her part in mass murder, that would get my
attention.
But it doesn't matter. If she doesn't play ball she will get the Dennis Kucinich
treatment. Anybody remember him, or has he fallen down the memory hole? He loudly opposed
Uncle Sam's foreign policy and even introduced an impeachment bill against W Bush after the
2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Empire struck back by re-drawing congressional districts. That forced him to run
against another Dummycrat congressional incumbent in the primary, and he lost. All
politicians are required to get with the program; they are either co-opted or shoved out.
The only exception I can think of is Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting delegate in
Congress who represents the District of Columbia. The establishment can afford to ignore her
because her vote doesn't count, just like all the other D.C. residents.
The thirty-odd reactions here to Tulsi Gabbard are a perfect example of how & why the
left is so hopelessly fragmented.
People, for the umptieth time, it is impossible to ever find 100 point zero zero zero
percent overlap or coverage with any candidate for any office, ever.
But that fact does not justify throwing them all at the stake.
You are burning to ashes your own chances of ever seeing a society that even remotely
resembles your ideals.
Gotta love living in a Dollar Democracy where one dollar = one vote. Voting only legitimizes
an illegitimate regime. "None of the above" would be an interesting ballot option, and about
as realistic as retiring at age 55, which we were promised decades ago.
Hey, Trailer Trash. She was a medic. She did not volunteer to go kill people. Also, to the claim that she has no policy positions: good grief, are you capable of
navigating a site? She has tons of clearly worded policy positions.
Finally, the VoteSmart site is clearly compromised if that's what it is saying about
Gabbard. Her positions are vastly different from those stated.
>She was a medic. She did not volunteer to go kill people.
> Posted by: Linda Hagge | Jun 27, 2019 3:14:41 PM | 48
The entire purpose of US War Department is to kill people and break things when vassals
refuse to obey. Everybody who signs up understands and accepts that basic fact. My nephew
actually stated to me that he signed up for the Marines so he could kill people legally.
People who want to patch up the sick and wounded sign up for Médecins Sans
Frontières or similar, not Uncle Sam's mass murder machine.
@Virgile (21) If you think that Sen. Warren is "hysterical" and would not have a chance
facing off against Trump, then I can only assume that you have not seen her in action. She is
incredibly well-informed, quick on her feet and unflappable. She would make Trump look like
the clown that he is.
I recommend that all Americans actually visit a party caucus at the county of district
level to see how the party bosses "select" their presidential candidate. It is a sobering but
depressing experience.
As for those who are waiting for the perfect leader - remember that such a leader would
likely be murdered by those who have money in the game.
When Gabbard is forthright and hits hard with well-informed, well-thought out positions;
delivered calmly and with composure; regardless of how far from the mainstream they fall; she
scores. This is a boxer who can win. But Gabbard has to resist the temptation to fall in line
with political weaseling.
Politicians are told that they must go where the voters' are,
triangulating so as not to offend, trying to cover all the bases, trying to confirm voters'
biases (heavily propagandized and managed biases, via media, etc., so that it becomes an easy
game for those in on the game): a real leader speaks to where he or she knows that the people
need to go, relying on the people to catch up, relying on some kind of faith to keep going
when that takes a while to happen.
The forthright and courageous Tulsi Gabbard wins minds and hearts.
I would without doubt prefer Tulsi over any of the other candidates on that stage, but I
still don't know how seriously to take her. Sure, she talks a good game about ending
régime-change wars, but she also seems to think that the 'War on Terra' (as Pepe
Escobar used to call it) is an actual thing, when in fact, it's just a big psy-op . We
all know that 9/11 was a false-flag that was staged to justify the serial destruction of all
the mid-east countries that refuse to bow down before Tel Aviv and Washington; and that 'Al
Qaeda' is really just a Saudi-funded, CIA-trained dupe-group used either to justify our
presence in the ME, or else to directly attack countries like Syria.
Does Tulsi really not know this? If she doesn't, then she's stupid. And if she does and
she's choosing to keep quiet about it for some reason, then who's she fooling? The neocons?
Or us?
So that's what bothers me about Tulsi. Still, I think she'd be preferable to four more
years of Zion Don (though I realize that isn't saying much).
I have been watching Gabbard for a long time now. As you mentioned there is no perfect
candidate. But she is the lesser evil at this point. The elephant in the room is as usual Israel. Did she sign that pledge when she got into
office? How much money has she received from AIPAC. Being a CFR member is a problem as well.
Where does she stand with respect to the Palestinians?
Once she repeats the line of "Israel has a right to defend itself" nonsense, it's all
downhill from there. You cannot make a new foreign policy direction once you signed that
pledge. You have to continue with the master plan. Obama was told that, so was Trump. That
has been proven and it's not up for debate.
Sadly, I still believe this is all a show for the masses. Nothing will change. The country
is doomed and the Empire will take its direction either good or bad, without any inputs from
the rest of us.
Several years ago, we placed on the ballot a referendum to stop Big Timber from
indiscriminately using helicopters or other contrivances to spray insecticides onto us, all
we own and our natural surround. Big Timber outspent us @10,000:1 and employed the usual
campaign of corporate lies to get us to vote against our health and other interests, which
included editorials in favor of Big Timber by the leading Oregon newspapers. At least we had
the opportunity to vote on the issue. When living in Santa Clara County, California during
the 1970s, we had no choice and got sprayed daily with Malathion insecticide to try and
destroy drosophila--the common fruit fly--which we all knew was an impossible task and would
have lost if put to a vote. We won at the ballot box and preserved our health and that of our
communities and the visitors we need to attract to survive in our tourism heavy economy.
The bottom line is voting matters! Arguments to the contrary only serve the interests
of the Current Oligarchy. And I grow oh so weary of reading that crap on this site, which
makes the people writing such tripe to have the appearance of Trolls!
sorry, I see my links are a b repeat -- but hey she deserves the headlines
exiled off mainstree , Jun 27, 2019 6:43:32 PM |
83
While I agree with those who state that it is all a sham and that she doesn't have a chance,
I still think that she is a test to show the extent to which the yankee populace has been suborned into the structure's
propaganda bullshit.
I think that if they do sideline her she
should stand as a third party candidate. I also suspect that the more people actually see her
and that the more intelligent element will support her. The better she does, the more
difficult it will be for the structure to maintain absolute power. After all there is little
significant difference between corporate democrats and corporate republicans.
I wanted Tulsi to be genuine but in doing some research I am sharing just a little of what I found: she is a current member of
the Counsel on Foreign Relations ...
If you want to know about and understand US foreign policy or have any hope of influencing
that policy you need to take an interest in the Council of Foreign Affairs.
I have frequently read and sought out articles on their journal, I would imagine b and
many commentators here have done so.
If you want a President that can deal with foreign affairs then they have to engage with
the foreign affairs establishment and do it before you become President otherwise you don't
stand a chance.
"She stressed that she co-sponsored a House resolution reaffirming US commitment to "a
negotiated settlement leading to a sustainable two-state solution that re-affirms Israel's
right to exist as a democratic, Jewish state and establishes a demilitarized democratic
Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security."
That resolution also reaffirmed the US commitment to Israel and the US policy of vetoing
one-sided or anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions, and condemned boycott and
divestment campaigns that target Israel."
Although she has condemned settlement activity, but sponsoring a bill to condemn BDS is a
nonstarter in my book. Too bad.
"... I thought she would stand out from the field as she is the only candidate who seems to GENUINELY think our "interventionist" foreign policy is madness, and beyond counterproductive. ..."
"... Now Ron Paul once stood out from the field in presidential debates, and also won all of these Drudge Report polls. At some point, the Powers that Be decided enough with that and succeeded in re-labeling him a kook, racist, pacifist, Russia lover, isolationist and traitor. ..."
"Of all the candidates who are running for president, I'm the one who is most qualified to
fulfill that responsibility to walk into the Oval Office and serve as commander-in-chief.
And
I think you heard tonight some of the reasons why those who lack the experience, lack the
understanding, and conviction would, unfortunately, put our country in a place where we'd end
up waging more wars, costing us more lives and tax-payer dollars .
This is why I'm running
for president, to be that person, to be that change in our foreign policy and those
regime-change wars, new cold wars nuclear arms races and invest our precious dollars into
serving the needs of our people. "
I thought she would stand out from the field as she is the only candidate who seems to
GENUINELY think our "interventionist" foreign policy is madness, and beyond
counterproductive.
She also seems to not be backing down from her positions and appears capable of defending
her position in easy-to-understand and grasp sentences.
Now Ron Paul once stood out from the field in presidential debates, and also won all of
these Drudge Report polls. At some point, the Powers that Be decided enough with that and
succeeded in re-labeling him a kook, racist, pacifist, Russia lover, isolationist and
traitor.
The Most Qualified to be Prezzy would be the first of these cockbags to admit that
Obobo weaponized the government against his opponents. But none of them will. And by ignoring
the 800 pound gorilla in the room, they ALL prove that none of them are even close to
"qualified" to lead anything.
One more century of warfare like the 20th century, and the USA might be bankrupt
Notable quotes:
"... So her sell point of getting rid USA from useless wars off shore seems on pint but we all know that ain't gonna realized except takes a hike in her time, if she got a chance of course ..."
"... She can talk to her heart's content, but American forces won't go home as long as dollar is the world's favourite currency. ..."
"... If Gabbard can stay with the brain-dead false narrative that 'Crazed Arabs' took down the towers and building 7 in perfect free fall without taking months to plant and wire the bombs, then maybe the Zio-Cons may let her live. ..."
While it would appear that the mainstream media has crowned Senator Elizabeth Warren the winner of
last night's first Democratic primary debate, on a more quantitative and objective level, it would
seem there was another female candidate that stood out to the American audience.
Before the debate, Warren was indeed the 'most-searched' Democratic candidate on Google...
But as the debate began and the clown-show escalated, one candidate dominated the search...
As Fox News reports,
Tulsi Gabbard, an Army National Guard veteran who served
in Iraq, grabbed the attention of the viewers every time she spoke about foreign policy and the
military.
During the debate, she called for scaling back of U.S. military presence abroad and accused
"this president and his chicken hawk cabinet have led us to the brink of war with Iran."
Gabbard's military experience gave her authority in a harsh exchange with Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan,
who said the U.S. must maintain forces in Afghanistan to ensure the Taliban is kept in check.
"When we weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings," Ryan said.
"The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11, Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11," Gabbard replied.
The data show that
the moment that generated the most search traffic for Gabbard was
when she was making her closing argument
.
"Assuming the Google "trend" isn't a manifestation of their algorithms then it
appears that most adults are interested in a calm, stoic, but non-clown like candidate"
Tulsi got some agenda correct 90% others 10% among 99 problems,
you can't compromise one after another nor give away your gun
right for some hotchpotch noises
They promise big and bigger
in campaign times yes?
So her sell point of getting rid USA from useless wars off
shore seems on pint but we all know that ain't gonna realized
except takes a hike in her time, if she got a chance of course
If Gabbard can stay with the brain-dead false narrative that
'Crazed Arabs' took down the towers and building 7 in perfect free
fall without taking months to plant and wire the bombs, then maybe
the Zio-Cons may let her live.
Her mentioning the Saudis, (Israels
secret partner) however, was a little risky, unless the Zionists
are getting ready to throw the Saudis under the bus?
While I fully agree with the idea, heck, FACT, that it wasn't a
bunch of Bedouins in street clothes that took down the towers
it also has to be taken into account that the CIA uses proxies
all the time. I upvoted you, though. The 9/11 story is a
truly fascinating one.
the CIA uses proxies all the time' ....... agree, but
nothing hit building '7' the 47 story Solomon building , so
who were the proxies for that free fall controlled demo?
"...as Stratfor, put it, "Trump, fearing a much bigger escalation, got cold feet."
One is reminded of the scene from Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), a General in the Joint
Chiefs comments disparagingly about Kennedy for keeping his finger "on the chicken switch"
with regard to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Lyndon Johnson in the White House with Henry Cabot Lodge in 1963 declares: "Gentlemen, I
want you to know I'm not going to let Vietnam go the way China did. I'm personally committed.
I'm not going to take one soldier out of there 'til they know we mean business in Asia (he
pauses) You just get me elected, and I'll give you your damned war ."
Another question exists: should the US resist the allure of military action against Iran,
what can Iran do?
US sanctions against Iran amount to an act of war. Iran can bust sanctions up to some point
-- but for how long? Will Iran suffer half a million dead children & elderly people as
Iraq did in the 90's ? SHOULD Iran have to suffer such a criminally imposed loss of life?
Where is the way out of this insanity?
Iran won't negotiate with the US for the very good reason that the US clearly wants to
sterilize Iranian sovereignty (ie the US won't accept ANY Iranian missiles -- that is, Iran
has no right to self defense).
Sad to say, Trump does not need to launch military action against Iran, merely continue to
economically terrorise Iran until it has NO choice but to initiate military action against
its tormentors.
The war on Iran will continue till kingdom come, until it falls. Its clear as day that both
Russia and China back their Iranian allies against US provocations. China hasn't flinched
under US threats to embargo Iranian crude, and continues to purchase it, and Russia has an
oil swap agreement with Iran, where it buys Iranian oil and sells it as Russian on the
international market. This must be a severe irritation to the imperialists in Washington and
London as it renders their Iran sanctions regime practically toothless.
The imperialists are not backing down in their quest for subduing Iran. Seems like the idea
here is to put as many large ships in harms way as possible....and provoke Iran to attack one
of these......This will ensure the probability of miscalculation and/ or accidents becomes
almost unavoidable. There must be regime change in Tehran, on the road to Beijing and Moscow:
Iran has every right to defend itself from US imperialisms constant violence, as is the case
with China and Russia. It is also pleasing to see the almighty war machine get a bloody nose.
But we should never lose sight of the fact that it is always the working class that
suffers the most in terms of death, injuries and destitution.
End all wars!
End production for profit and the Nation state upon which it is built!
America's history demonstrates that loss of (foreign) life is of little concern to those in
power.
The Manhattan Project was established, and mightily financed because of reasonably well
established fears that Nazi Germany was on track to build its own A-bombs.
With the defeat of Germany that fear was gone. Nevertheless, knowing full well that Imperial
Japan had no such program, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vapourised. A clear demonstration that
they, atomic weapons, WMD, worked and a warning to the Soviet Union that it too could be
annihilated.
Robert Oppenheimer and others refused to take part in building an H-bomb for class and humane
reasons. This fell on Truman's deaf ears.
American Imperialism is indifferent to death and destruction of billions.
As WSWS has stated, Trumps announcement that the loss of 150 Iranian lives is the the reason
he pulled backs so much bilge.
Trump is in a catch 22. When push has come to shove , he simply cannot sell another war to
the US working class, and he knows it , and he's been well and truly spooked by the Iranian
response.
All the US garbage of itself as ''victim'', all the 'good cop bad cop' routines are
wearing thin. Nobody is buying it anymore , especially from a gangster.
Perhaps a predicted massive spike in global temperatures will clear out the collective
cobwebs further.
Good point about the possibility of Iran sinking a carrier. The Chinese have developed
advanced anti-ship weapons that, if the results of a RAND corporation war game can be
believed, will be able to neutralize carriers. This highlights the fact that, whatever the
salesmen of advanced weaponry might say, it will not win wars alone. All of the smart weapons
in the world have not ended the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan in the favour of American
imperialism.
We can see an historical precedent in the British development of the dreadnought, the
modern battleship, in the arms race that preceded WWI. Dreadnoughts were supposed to be the
decisive super weapons of the day, but the British and German battle fleets remained in their
moorings for most of the war for fear that these expensive ships would fall prey to torpedos.
The sinking of the HMS Formidable in 1915 is a case in point. The only major engagement
between dreadnoughts was at Jutland and it was inconclusive.
For all of the contemporary bluster about super weapons and the fetishism of smart bombs
and cyber weapons, they will not decisively win a war alone. As in the world wars of the last
century, the bourgeoisie will be forced to mobilize society for a war. This will mean
bringing the working class - against its will - into the maelstrom.
Yet again the WSWS demonstrates the incredible foresight and clarity of Marxist analysis. I
would like to extend my thanks to Comrade Andre and the editors of the WSWS for their
indefatigable efforts to impart Marxist consciousness to the masses. For all of the naysayers
who have attacked the WSWS as "sectarian" or as not involved in "practical work," need we
point to anything other than the WSWSs explanation of the connection between eruption of
American imperialism and the decline of the productive forces of that nation state? That
analysis has placed the WSWS in the position of being better prepared politically for the
consequences of war than the imperialists, as the latest farce in the Middle East
demonstrates.
A quote from Trotsky will further emphasize my point:
"We will not concede this banner to the masters of falsehood! If our generation happens to
be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to
our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of
individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind."
The official story, as usual, is a bunch of hooey. Trump wouldn't bat an eye over the death
of 150 Iranians. In addition to the worries about losing an aircraft carrier: the military
high command probably let him know that the much vaunted, and outlandishly expensive, force
of F-35s, will quickly lose its effectiveness if exposed to probing by the high tech radars
the Russians have developed, and that are used in conjunction with at least the S-400
antiaircraft and antimissile defense system. So the question is, if the stealth advantage of
the F-35 is only good for a limited time, is this particular geostrategic confrontation worth
using up that particular asset??
Then there is the whole question of whether the Iranians would close the Straits of Hormuz
in response to a major air raid on their nuclear facilities; this leads to some much more
important issues. Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of
navigation" the facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water
in them is either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be
entirely within their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the
straits after some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is
something at least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians
have stated that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no
subterfuge or secret operations will be involved.
Since nearly 30% of the World's oil moves through those straits cutting them off will
cause an immediate spike in oil prices. Prices of $100 - $300 a barrel would be reached
within a few days. If the Straits of Hormuz were closed for a longer period we could easily
see prices rise to $1,000 a barrel according to Goldman Sachs projections (see Escobar
article cited below). Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and
financial crisis of immense proportions around the world. The financial and speculative house
of cards, that the ruling classes of the U.S.-led Finance Capital Bloc depends on for their
dominance of world capital and markets, would likely come tumbling down. The amount of
derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and created constantly is
estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200 - $2,500 Trillion or
$1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who once said "a
billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're talking BIG MONEY!!} (See
"World Derivatives Market Estimated As Big As $1.2 Quadrillion Notional, as Banks Fight
Efforts to Rein It In", March 26, 2013, Yves Smith, "Naked Capitalism", at <
https://www.nakedcapitalism... >, and "Iran Goes for 'Maximum Counter-pressure' ",
June 21, 2019, Pepe Escobar, "Strategic Culture Foundation", at <
https://www.strategic-cultu... >, and "Global Derivatives: $1.5 Quadrillion Time
Bomb", Aug 24, 2015, Stephen Lendman, Global Research, at
<
https://www.globalresearch.... >). Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various
elements of shadow banking, and speculation would collapse. Remember that total world
production of and trade in actual products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps
less than 1/31st the size of the Global Derivatives markets.
All the world's elite capitalists, be they Western or Asian or from elsewhere, maintain
homes in numerous places. One reason for this is so they have somewhere to go, if they need
to flee from environmental and/or socioeconomic disaster and the resultant chaos in their
primary place of residence. As we move ever deeper into this extremely severe and ongoing
Crisis of Capitalism, these issues will continue to become more acute.
So we can rest assured that; in addition to the crazed war-mongers Bolton and Pompeo (and
their supporters and backers) whispering in Trump's ear to "go ahead and attack the
Iranians"; and in addition to the somewhat more sober counsel of General Dunford and other
members of the top military command; that titans of finance capital were undoubtedly on the
phone warning "Bone-Spur Don" that his digs in Manhattan and Florida might not be entirely
safe if the worst were to happen in response to a military strike. The absurd story of Don
worrying about 150 Iranians is so ludicrous that it did not even pass the smell test with the
corporate controlled media for very long.
"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American
ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic
global consequences, including for the United States itself."
The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates
conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal
corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and
geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered
after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.
However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral
hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with
economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the
warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.
A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian
Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major
war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.
What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering
stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States
came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously
examined.
In light of these dangerous events it is obvious that a faction of the American ruling class
circles including Trump were not prepared to face the consequences of a strike against Iran.
That is precisely why Trump aborted the mission last Friday. Just yesterday Trump himself
admitted for the first time that if it was up to John Bolton then we would be fighting the
whole world. Today Pompeo has been sent to Middle East to broaden his alliance with Gulf
Monarchical regimes most notably Saudi Arabia and UAE. It is aimed to prepare the ground for
possible confrontation with Iran.
Trump's comment re Bolton that the US "would fight the whole world" sums up what the US is
really about. Take it from me, The US hates virtually every country save one: Israel. Illegal
US Sanctions regimes now extend to almost 50% of the world's population. The US does not even
like the advanced countries such as Europe and Japan. They tolerate them because of
diplomatic support and large investment and trade ties. Outside that they have no affinity or
connection. Until we all realise the true nature of The US and its exclusive cultural mindset
[NFL, NBA, MLB etc etc], populations will merely continue to enable the US to attack and
sanction everybody and anyone of their demented choosing. The tragedy is that if the other
countries became united and were committed to ending this US terror by eg dumping the US
Dollar as international reserve currency and sanctioning all US corporations, the US would
face severe turmoil and its reign of endless terror brought to a sudden end.
"The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of
the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences -- military, diplomatic and political
-- of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump
presidency."
I believe things simple didn't go as planned as an airplane was threatened to be taken
down. Bolton was in Israel after that to most likely assure Netanyahu that a new attack would
be conducted, Bolton Warned Iran Not to 'Mistake U.S. Prudence and Discretion for
Weakness'...
There needs to be a correction in the article on the older Raad system not having been used
but instead the newer, 'Third of Khordad' system which brought down the MQ-4C Triton.
Pictures/ Info on the Third of Khordad reveals that it is in effect an Iranian version of the
Soviet Buk-M2 of the MH-17 downing fame which the western backed Kiev junta used from its
hand me down Soviet weapons arsenal, to shoot down the ill fated Malaysian Airliner over the
Ukraine. The system also is stark evidence of the close defense relationship between the
Russians and the Iranians, confirming the suspicions in the west that whatever weaponry Putin
transfers to Syria or Iraq is by default also available to Iran.
Not to be outdone by his failure to bring Iran to its knees, Trump ordered a massive cyber
attack on Iran's missile batteries and its command and control centers after rescinding the
military order to physically attack Iran for downing the drone. The Iranians today announced
the failure of this desperate US cyber attack:
This is in addition to the CIA placing an agent within the Iranian oil ministry for
conducting sabotage. She has been arrested and faces the death penalty for espionage:
The deep State in the US will not stop trying to subdue Iran until it capitulates. Iran
must fall to Washington in order for the US to effectively counter and sabotage both Putin's
Eurasian Integration and president Xi's BRI projects.
Trump's alterration at this moment can be due to Iran's internal coherence against American
imperialism. With santions being reinforced, one can anticipate more and more impovershment
and quality of life geting lower unabated to the point that the basis for internal coherence
gets eroded substantially. We saw working class uprisings in Iran recently and leadership
accused imperialist as rabble-rousers to find a way out.That is why we need building
SEP/IYSSE in Iran to hatch revolutionary force in Iran for Iran to join the peer in the rest
of the world. Morsi in Egypt was overthrown by Sisi with the backing of US imperialism headed
by Obama at that time. So is the imperialism and it will continue to work to weaken Iran as a
force successfully confronting imperialism in the middle east currently. Let us therefore
empower international working class to empower it to overthrow imperialism on one hand and
Stalinism on the other hand. Russia too depend largely on its arms sale to maintain its
economy. But human needs, not wepons, but basic needs including clean environment. Long live
the socialist revolution in Iran and internationally. Death to imperialism. Thank you comrade
Andre Damon.
"The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of
the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences -- military, diplomatic and political
-- of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump
presidency."
Economically it would be Armageddon. Although some think America does not rely on Mideast
oil, the world economy does and America is a part of that despite what nationalists dream.
Bolton is making threats from Israel and clearly some believe they stand to gain from war but
militarily too it would be Armageddon. The Pentagon would answer the sinking of a carrier by
nuking Iran to preserve American "credibility" i.e. fear. China and Russia would have to
react, China at least to keep its oil supplied. India pushed against China could add more
mushroom clouds not to mention Pakistan. Israel itself with Tel Aviv bombarded from Lebanon
and maybe invaded unable to stop this might nuke Lebanon and maybe Tehran if any of it
remains and Damascus besides. Just as ww1 started because military train timetables had to be
followed there are nukewar plans in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing that won't take long. So
world workers need to start our plan before others begin. Preemptive general strikes, antiwar
and socialist revolutionary agitation and propaganda within imperialist rank and files and
human blockades of war material networks should happen at an early date like now. Now also
WikiLeaks should put out whatever it hasn't while people exist to read it. The rich are
determined to kill Assange anyway and full wartime censorship is not far off.
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles
at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a
barrel. The article also notes that:
"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford,
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a
strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."
Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and
thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously
wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would
land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no
consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the
deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the
lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start
a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a
malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or
perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping
500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United
States.
"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their
officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would
otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and
millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer
"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill
everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist
After Hezballah had booted Zionist colonizers out of Lebanon, Zionist apartheid had lost its
image of "invincibility".
Now even ghetto Gaza is fighting back.
The CIA payrolled press whores like CNN's Christiane Amanpour for example a prime warmonger
and there are countless others embedded in every western media source.
Ironically, Amanpour is Iranian background, an avowed revolution hater and a devoted Iranian
Pahlavi monarchist. She's on the record for saying that she wants to see the Shah's exiled
son back on the throne in Iran, serving US imperialism for the 'benefit of the Iranian
nation'.
The sinking of an aircraft carrier, especially one as well known as the USS Lincoln, would
have been one of the biggest PR disasters for both Trump and the military. It probably would
have sparked demands from the people to know how, despite pouring trillions of dollars into
the mouths of greedy defense contractors for decades, a supposedly inferior military could so
easily take down one of our ships.
Khrushchev once said of the Sverdlov class cruisers built in the early 1950's that their only
practical purpose was as targets for anti ship missile training because of how outdated they
where considering they where armed with guns.
Maybe the anti-ship missile now stands at the point where it can make carriers obsolete
similar to how the battleship was made obsolete by the carrier.
There are some who argue that surface navies became obsolete in the 1950's with the advent of
long range missiles. For many years now, China has been helping to build up Iranian area
defences...
Cold war weapons are unsuitable for countering Iran's asymmetric warfare doctrine. A dozen or
two highly advanced US warships are no match for a thousand missile boats and thousands of
Iranian anti-ship missiles in the narrow confines of the shallow gulf.
Minutes or hours, or Trump never signed on to them, as the accounts from different US media
outlets and Trump have differed at several points. Fog of war indeed.
Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the
footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion
of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone
Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading
lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a
"Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate
them.
In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's
playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite
against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national
security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false
flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile,
he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic
crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.
... ... ...
Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist
Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and
most racist roots of American imperialism.
The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any
semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an
arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no
qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his
pockets.
But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists -
Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of
the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land
in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation
or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to
redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?
"... Just recently, John Judis, undisguisedly a political commentator of the Left, made an important argument in favor of nationalism. "Nationalist sentiment," he writes in his book The Nationalist Revival , "is an essential ingredient of a democracy, which is based on the assumptions of a common identity, and of a welfare state, which is based on the acceptance by citizens of their financial responsibility for people whom they may not know at all, and who may have widely different backgrounds from theirs." ..."
"... Of course, nationalism can be "the basis of social generosity or of bigoted exclusion." It is therefore important, according to Judis, that enlightened state leaders push nationalism in the proper direction. ..."
"... The presence of Daniel Pipes and other neoconservatives at this gathering also suggests that at least some of the panelists will be offering two approved concepts of nationalism: propositional nationhood for the United States and solidarity with Israeli nationalism. In both cases, however, the nationalism being advocated ends up tied to an aggressive foreign policy. ..."
"... The nationalist label has now fallen into the hands of the neocon establishment, which has managed to identify it with international meddling and a creedal nation. In other words, it's been appropriated by those who already wielded power. ..."
"... But what makes American nationalism even more unpalatable now than when Robert Nisbet famously denounced it in The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America is its rhetorical availability. It serves different agendas, depending on which power bloc appeals to it. ..."
"... Until recently, nationalism had portentous associations for much of the political class. It signified, rightly or wrongly, ethnocentricity and dislike for outsiders. Now that's all changing. Those in power have tamed the concept and are recycling it for their own purposes. Stay tuned. ..."
Just recently, John Judis, undisguisedly a political commentator of the Left, made an
important argument in favor of nationalism. "Nationalist sentiment," he writes in his book
The Nationalist Revival , "is an
essential ingredient of a democracy, which is based on the assumptions of a common identity,
and of a welfare state, which is based on the acceptance by citizens of their financial
responsibility for people whom they may not know at all, and who may have widely different
backgrounds from theirs."
Of course, nationalism can be "the basis of social generosity or of bigoted exclusion."
It is therefore important, according to Judis, that enlightened state leaders push nationalism
in the proper direction.
Judis points out that while "globalism" is a force that nationalists understandably oppose,
"internationalism" need not clash with nationalist sentiment. In a op-ed
in TheNew York Times last October, Judis praised his kind of nationalism as
being beneficial to a successful and growing welfare state and a happier world. It can
also be, he said, a stepping stone that leads beyond itself to international cooperation
.
For those who study European socialism, it is clear that Judis is reprising the position of
French sociologist Pierre
Bordieu , who argued for decades that a socialist regime must create some kind of social
glue to hold its subjects together. Judis is now transferring Bordieu's view to the American
political scene.
Advertisement
Now, a conference on "conservative nationalism," which will take place in Washington in July , may be
pushing a "nationalism" that is at least as adaptable as Judis's.
One featured speaker , Claire Lehmann, the founder of Quillette, will be talking about how
nationalism "is
the antidote to racism." Presumably the more inclusive the operative term, the less likely
will be the Left's attack on those wielding it.
The presence of Daniel Pipes and other neoconservatives at this gathering also suggests
that at least some of the panelists will be offering two approved concepts of nationalism:
propositional nationhood for the United States and solidarity with Israeli nationalism. In both
cases, however, the nationalism being advocated ends up tied to an aggressive foreign
policy.
Nationalism, in any case, means different things for different peoples. It doesn't hold the
same meaning for Estonians or Hungarians, who belong to ethnic, historic communities, as it
does for a pluralistic country with hundreds of millions of people and a constantly expanding
immigrant population.
In the latest issue of the Rassemblement National monthlyL'Incorrect ,
Steve Bannon speaks of the natural fit between European nationalism and the nationalist
movement that he has been promoting in the United States. Both these ideologies, Bannon says,
derive from the same national principle. In an interview with me in the same publication, I
treated Bannon's contention as wishful thinking. The United States has become too diverse and
too culturally disunited to fit a traditional national model. Our use of nationalism will
likely lead to something less quaint and less organic but more explosive than what comes from
the Baltic nationalists or Viktor Orbán.
The nationalist label has now fallen into the hands of the neocon establishment, which
has managed to identify it with international meddling and a creedal nation. In other words,
it's been appropriated by those who already wielded power.
The same protean label is also likely to wander onto the Left, given the nontraditional and
very pliable nature of our "nationalism." John Judis may in fact be the harbinger of a new
American Left that celebrates nationalism, provided that Left is allowed to define that term
for the rest of us. Indeed, it may be possible to frame LGBT rights and reparations for blacks
as "nationalist" issues. Nationalism also need not hinder us from letting in lots of
undocumented immigrants who are only trying to join our team and learn our values.
Men and women of the interwar Right, down to such later figures as Russell Kirk and Robert
Nisbet, were understandably critical of American nationalism. They identified it with social
engineering and centralized government and preferred localism and regionalism to any
justification for an expansionist administrative state.
But what makes American nationalism even more unpalatable now than when Robert Nisbet
famously denounced it in The Present Age:
Progress and Anarchy in Modern America is its rhetorical availability. It serves
different agendas, depending on which power bloc appeals to it. The hope once entertained
by Pat Buchanan that a nationalist cause would help slow down immigration and preserve
America's traditional moral and cultural identity has not worked out as planned. Those who
control our politics and culture determine the meaning of terms, which is as true of
nationalism as it is of other political labels like "freedom" and "equality."
Until recently, nationalism had portentous associations for much of the political class.
It signified, rightly or wrongly, ethnocentricity and dislike for outsiders. Now that's all
changing. Those in power have tamed the concept and are recycling it for their own purposes.
Stay tuned.
Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at
Elizabethtown College, where he taught for 25 years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale
Ph.D. He is the author of 13 books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents .
"... The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war that deserved retaliation. ..."
"... The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views? ..."
"... Iran is preparing to breach the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more generally. ..."
"... Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting Saudi and American domination of the region. ..."
"... Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded." ..."
"... They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right. ..."
Iran predictably claimed that the drone was within its airspace. American officials asserted
that it was in international airspace. Reported by The New York Times :
"a
senior Trump administration official said there was concern inside the United States government
about whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, or even the P-8A manned
aircraft flown by a military aircrew, actually did violate Iranian airspace at some point. The
official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike."
The point is worth repeating. The military was prepared to blast away when it wasn't even
certain whether America was in the right. The episode brings to mind the 1988 shootdown of an
Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes .
Initially the U.S. Navy justified its action, making a series of false claims about Iran Air
Flight 655, which carried 290 passengers and crew members. Eventually Washington did admit that
it had made a horrific mistake, though the Vincennes captain was later decorated.
The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false
pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy
advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from
pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war
that deserved retaliation.
The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into
a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he
further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to
surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views?
Presumably the president believes that he can control his war-happy subordinates, using them
as he sees fit. However, his overweening hubris ignores their power to set the agenda and
influence his choices. Consider the basic question of objectives regarding Iran. Trump now says
all he wants to do is keep nukes out of Tehran's hands: "Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon,"
he intoned after halting the proposed reprisal, adding that "restraint" has its limits. But the
nuclear accord was drafted to forestall an Iranian nuclear weapon. Iran is preparing to breach
the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is
evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more
generally.
Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far
more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to
abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting
Saudi and American domination of the region.
These mandates were an obvious non-starter -- what
sovereign nation voluntarily accepts puppet status? In fact, Pompeo admitted that he didn't
expect Iran to surrender, but instead hoped for a popular revolution. In recently stating that
the administration would negotiate without preconditions, he added that Washington expected
Iran to act like "a normal nation," meaning behaving just as he'd demanded last year. (Notably,
there was no offer for America to act like a normal country.)
Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist
backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.
The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be
rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is
practically excluded."
Once it became evident that no one would willingly back down and conflict was likely,
Germany's Kaiser and Russia's Tsar tried to halt the rush to war. However, they found
themselves hemmed in by the war plans created by their nominal subordinates. With
Austria-Hungary mobilizing against Serbia, Russia had to act to protect the latter. Germany
then faced a two-front war. Thus, to aid its ally in Vienna, the Germans had to mobilize
quickly in an attempt to defeat France before Russia could put its massive army into the field.
No one had sufficient time for diplomacy.
However, cousins Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas did engage in a last minute "Willy-Nicky"
exchange of telegrams. Wilhelm warned Nicholas that general Russian mobilization would require
Germany to act, with war the result. In response, the tsar switched from general to partial
mobilization. But he was soon besieged by his top officials who insisted that the entire army
had to be called up.
Understanding that general mobilization meant war, the tsar observed: "Think of the
responsibility you are asking me to take! Think of the thousands and thousands of men who will
be sent to their deaths." But he gave in, approving mobilization on the evening of July 30.
Nicholas's concern was warranted. More than 1.7 million Russian soldiers, along with hundreds
of thousands of civilians, died in the conflict. The ensuing Russian Civil War was even more
deadly, indeed far more so for noncombatants, among them the tsar and his family.
Kaiser Wilhelm was equally at the mercy of the "France-first" Schlieffen Plan. To wait would
be to invite destruction between the French and Russians, so he approved German mobilization on
August 1. He predicted the war would lead to "endless misery," and so it did. In 1918, he was
forced to abdicate and he lived out his life in exile.
Pompeo, Bolton, and like-minded officials tried and failed to force another war last week.
Next time they may succeed in leaving the president with no practical choice but the one they
favor. In which case he will find himself starting the very conflict that he had declared
against.
Ongoing administration machinations -- exacerbated by the opportunity to manipulate a
president -- offer an important reminder as to the Founders' wisdom. Delegates to the
Constitutional Convention made clear their intention to break with monarchical practice,
minimizing the president's authority. Congress was assigned the powers to raise armies, decide
on the rules of war, issue letters of marque and reprisal, and ratify treaties. Most
importantly, the legislative branch alone could declare war.
As commander-in-chief, the president could defend against attack, but he could not even
order a retaliatory strike without congressional authority. Wrote James Madison to Thomas
Jefferson: "The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that
the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has
accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature." Delegate James
Wilson insisted that the Constitution was intended to "guard against" being hurried into war:
"It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such
distress, for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large."
Most important, placing the war power with Congress ensured that the people would be heard.
Of course, even that is not enough today. Presidents have adeptly concocted "evidence" and
misled the public, such as during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.
They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private
conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being
attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right.
However, the Iraq debacle has resulted in greater skepticism of presidential claims. The
Trump administration's unsupported judgment that Iran was behind attacks on oil tankers was
greeted at home and abroad with a demand for more evidence. People were conscious of having
been repeatedly played by Washington and did not want a repeat. Many found the U.S. government
no more trustworthy than Iranian authorities, a humbling equivalence. And given the doubts
apparently voiced by Pentagon officials out of public view, such skepticism was
well-founded.
Last week, Donald Trump declared, "I want to get out of these endless wars." Unlike his
predecessors, the president apparently recognizes the temptation to sacrifice lives for
political gain. However, alone he will find it nearly impossible to face down the bipartisan
War Party. The best way to get out of endless wars is to not get in them in the first place.
And that requires changing personnel and respecting the constitutional limits established by
the nation's Founders.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire
Unfortunately, the President is attempting to walk a tight-rope between peace and the most
prominent funders of the GOP. Sheldon Adelson and his ilk are bent on the destruction of any
nation that stands in the way of Israeli expansion. And of course military contractors need
constant growth in tax-payer funding to support their margins and shareholder value. Hence
the blustering to appease the aforementioned and keep the bribes flowing, while backing down
to appease the base.
It would of course be in the interests of the base to oppose the bribe-taking to begin
with, but I assume that must be beyond their intellectual capacity. Or perhaps they're simply
in favor of it for ideological reasons.
We might as well be honest about it. All politicians over simplify, shade the truth, and
occasionally lie. But Trump's falsehoods are so continuous and extensive that there is no
reason to believe anything he says - everything needs to be validated against external
authorities - which is why he is so intent on tearing down all authorities that could
contradict him.
This is another in the long line of stories we are reading here (and in other places) that
Trump really doesn't want to get involved in a war but is being manipulated by Bolton, Pompeo
and the national security apparatus. Sorry, but I don't buy it.
Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo. Even somebody as apparently dimwitted as Trump could not
possibly have failed to notice that they were warmongers. Indeed, Bolton is probably the most
extreme warmonger around: he has an extensive public record of advocating war with Iran for
about two decades now. I cannot believe that even Trump was unaware of this. And even if he
was, why hasn't he fired them? He doesn't need anybody's permission to do that. Let's get
real: Trump is every bit the warmonger as the people he hires. His statements to the contrary
are just more additions to his endless string of lies.
What's more, he has another way to avoid being cornered into starting a war. All he has to
do in that circumstance is acknowledge that the constitution doesn't grant him that authority
and toss the decision making to Congerss, where it legally belongs. But he has done nothing
that suggests he acknowledges that constitutional delegation of authority--even though it
could provide him a way out if he felt he needed one.
So, no. I don't believe for a minute that Trump wants to avoid war. Actions speak louder
than words, especially Trump's words.
You're falling for the "official" report that he called off the attack merely because 150
lives were at stake? Since when did he all of a sudden grow a conscious after the inexcusable
defense he gave for our irresponsible military and intelligence ventures? He even bypasses
Congress itself by his illegal presidential will to give weapons to the SAUDIS. The
tyrannical, radical, scourge of humanity tribal savages turned psychopathic oligarchs that is
the House of Saud.
Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, Tucker Carson (a f*cking tv show host of all
people) convinced a US president to not commit to another illegal war. Not because lives were
at stake, heavens no. It's because going into a disastrous war with Iran would gauruntee his
chances of not getting re-elected.
The American government is a living parody with no hope of redemption.
The President's almost daily outpouring of gibberish gives one little confidence that the
notion of 'the truth' holds any importance for him or his crew. Who needs historical
precedents to establish a feeling of mistrust when even the simplest statements from the
White House are so often needlessly loaded with misapprehensions, distortions and out right
BS?
" He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so
at variance with his views?"
I get this, position. You present an incredibly tough front as you press an entirely
different goal. The problem is that the president has presented a very tough front himself.
So when it appears to to actually be tough, he comes across as "not so much". It even
provides opportunity to grand him fearful. In the scenario that I think is being played out
or made to appear to play out --- the good cop, the reasonable cop has to sound reasonable
all the time. He has to claim to be holding back the forces of evil that threaten to consume
the target. But the president has been leading the way as "bad cop" so in the mind the
targets, there are no good cops.
But in my view, all of this hoollla baaaloooey about Iran is a distraction to the real
threat
the border. And the only common ground to be had is to enforce the law. That is why I
think the president is weak. For all of the tough talk --- he folded -- again on immigration.
Pretending to get concessions that is by agreement already expected from Mexico is the such
naked weakness that launching hypersonic missiles obliterating Tehran would just give him
sandals.
Uhhhh, no. I don't regret my vote. And and I still want the wall built and the laws
enforced and the sovereignty of the US respected by guests and citizens alike,.
"... His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention. ..."
Rand Paul: Trump's Antiwar Counterweight The president called off airstrikes against Iran, and we have the Kentucky senator
and Tucker Carlson to thank.•
The United States almost
started a war with Iran only for President Donald Trump to change his mind at the last minute. Reports
indicate that the usual suspect, National Security Adviser John Bolton, was the main advocate for airstrikes, with the backing
of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA head Gina Haspel, as well as encouragement from Senate war hawks Lindsey Graham and
Tom Cotton . Earlier on Thursday,
responding to news that Iran had reportedly downed an unmanned American drone, Trump
said , "Look, I said I want to get
out of these endless wars, I campaigned on that, I want to get out." Trump's cautiousness seemed as much a response to the Washington
chorus crying for military action as the event itself. More importantly, if the swamp wants war -- who has the president's back in
pushing peace?
This might be the most important question in American politics right now. Advertisement TAC 's Barbara Boland
reported in early June that the purpose of wedging the
now-outgoing
Patrick Shanahan into his acting defense secretary position was to put Bolton at the top of the foreign policy food chain (the incoming
Mark Esper could
fill a similar role). "He's likely to default to whatever Pompeo or Bolton wants," retired U.S. Army colonel and defense analyst
Douglas Macgregor said of Shanahan. "Pompeo and Bolton have agendas. They're not Trump's, but in the absence of strong leadership,
Shanahan is unlikely to put up much resistance." In mid-June, Pompeo blamed
alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf
of Oman on Iran.
TAC
noted that Pompeo "did not cite specific evidence as to why the U.S. believes Iran, or its proxies, are responsible for the attacks."
One oil tanker owner said the
U.S. account
was wrong . Some
wondered whether
this could be another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Despite
claiming to not want
a military confrontation since joining the Trump administration, it's no secret that
Pompeo and
Bolton
have
wanted
war with Iran
for
some time .
Luckily -- as the world was reminded Thursday night -- one person who says he doesn't want war happens to be their boss. "I'm not
somebody that wants to go in to war, because war hurts economies, war kills people most importantly -- by far most importantly,"
Trump told
Fox News in mid-May when asked about Iran. The
likely death toll was reportedly
also a major factor in why the president called off airstrikes Thursday night.
Trump appears to understand the hawkish nature of the Washington foreign policy establishment that surrounds him. "Don't kid yourself,
you do have a military industrial complex. They do like war," Trump told Fox News. "I say, 'I want to bring our troops back home,'
the place went crazy . You have people here in Washington they never want to leave, they always want to fight." "No, I don't want
to fight," Trump added.
Trump's impulses, if not always his policy actions, are generally anti-war. Unfortunately, most in his immediate orbit do not
share those inclinations, with unrepentant Iraq war cheerleader Bolton topping the list. But as Bolton's influence reportedly
grows , who is
the only person the president talks to who shares his more restrained "America First" foreign policy vision?
"While Trump tolerates his hawkish advisers, the [Trump] aide added, he shares a real bond with Paul," Politico reported in August. "He
actually at gut level has the same instincts as Rand Paul," the White House aide reportedly said. (I
covered Politico
's revelations at the time for TAC. )
Politico noted, "Trump has stopped short of calling for regime change [in Iran] even though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Bolton support it, aligning with Paul instead, according to a GOP foreign policy expert in
frequent contact with the White House." "'Rand Paul has persuaded the president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this
person said, because adopting that position would instigate another war in the Middle East," Politico reported.
That was 10 months ago. Today, in addition to almost bombing Iran on Thursday, the saber rattling and accusations are ratcheting
up along with the troop
deployments
, no doubt making Pompeo and Bolton happy and likely reflecting their handiwork. But despite these moves, Trump's gut still seems
to be closer to Paul's realism than what Republican hawks seek. Politico reported on May 20, "The
president has fashioned himself far more in the mold of Paul than the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was shocked by Trump's
plans to pull out of Syria and only was able to convince Trump to leave a small force in the country."
Politico further noted: "Trump's hiring of John Bolton as national security adviser may have changed the approach inside
the White House, but Trump's dovish core hasn't changed, senators said. Perhaps that can't prevent conflict with Iran if it strikes
first, but they said they were confident that Trump's aggressive posture is far more about a Trumpian brand of diplomacy than it
is about marching to war." Let's hope. Amid the constant tug-of-war for Trump's favor between his hawkish advisers and his realist
champion s , the president still hasn't launched a war against Iran or anyone else. But Trump will continue to need sound minds and
advice.
The Daily Beast
reports
that in addition to Paul's counsel, the president might also be getting the right encouragement from Tucker Carlson. "A source
familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against
taking military action against Iran," The Daily Beast notes. "And a senior administration official said that during the president's
recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more 'hawkish members' of his administration." The president
obviously needs all the backup he can get. Because unless I'm missing something and sane foreign policy thinkers like Andrew Bacevich
or Jim Webb have had some secret correspondence with the president, there is almost no one else talking to Trump who wants to avoid
war.
Rand Paul's continuing role as unofficial adviser to the president might be his most important. Some might ask what
one man could possibly accomplish. Just ask
John Bolton
.
Do remind me, who appointed Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina, Abrams and the rest of the unindicted war criminals?
Who could fire all of the above with a single stroke of the pen, for any reason or no reason at all?
Who continues to sputter and rant about Iran, a country that scrupulously complied with the JCPOA until the United States unilaterally
abrogated it?
Who continues to gleefully assist the Saudi and Emirati tyrants to commit genocide in Yemen?
Who blocked the sale of landmine removal equipment to Syria?
Trump, that's who. And that is only a partial list of his crimes. And now this [expletive deleted] wants a medal for not starting
another stupid war?
Even taking his words at face value, what he did was the equivalent of waving a loaded gun in front of someone's house and
threatening to shoot the occupants, then expecting to be praised because he was persuaded to not actually open fire.
The problem is that the alternatives (95% of the establishment hawks in either party) would wave the gun, threaten to shoot, then
actually pull the trigger.
Yeah, it's not great that Trump had to be persuaded out of military action, but praise the Lord that America has a president
who *can* be persuaded out of militarism (and routinely has).
There's a lot of perfect being the enemy of good going around on this issue.
The troika of evil (Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina) are set on ever more hemming in Trump's options. Trump simply has to get rid
of these sociopaths or he will be forced into a war which will probably cost him both his reelection and legacy.
I cannot comprehend how people can be saying that Trump's instincts are against going to war. Yes, it's nice that Rand Paul gets
to talk to the President, and Tucker Carlson, too. But the people that trump hired as his policy advisors are Bolton and
Pompeo. Not only are they well known warmongers who have been on record for a long time as advocating regime change in Tehran,
Bolton is probably the most extreme of them all. He practically makes Lindsay Graham look like a pacifist. How can you say that
somebody who hired Bolton and Pompeo has anti-war instincts? It makes no sense. Even Trump's most ardent critics don't think Trump
is that stupid . You have to assume that he basically endorses their approach, even if at a tactical level he might occasionally
disagree.
A part of the answer is that these were the only candidates available who were twisted enough to support Trump withdrawing from
the Iran nuclear accord. Even within Israel, while Netanyahu was lying to Trump, Congress and Americans about Iran cheating on
the deal, Israeli intelligence agencies and the IDF supported the nuclear accord and had enough assets in Iran to confirm that
Iran was not cheating. According to the then head of the IDF, Gadi Eisenkot, the nuclear agreement simplified the defence of Israel
and prevented Iran from getting nukes for another 10-15 years. Trump, unfortunately, had campaigned on withdrawing from the deal,
and, in order to satisfy pressure from Netanyahu (and to the detriment of Israel's security), withdrew from it. My take is that
Trump fundamentally disagrees with Bolton and Pompeo. He demonstrated this by calling off the attack on Iran and he demonstrated
this by discounting the "threat" to the US by N Korea testing short-range missiles. My worry is that Bolton has positioned the
US armada in place to deliberately create a hot zone just waiting for a spark, and he has assets in place to create false-flag
attacks, some of which we have already seen (flying US drones over Iranian territory, placing bombs on oil tankers, or worse).
Maybe he had them there to create a deterrent effect and aid his strong arm negotiation tactics. Could also be it was just on
the basis of recommendations by others in the establishment.
His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama
he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem
like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention.
Pretty harsh evaluationof Pompeo by usually very polite Chinese newspaper. And what is true that in no
way Pompeo is a diplomat. He is a lobbyist for MIC, no more no less. Kind of Madeline Albright of different sex.
As Chinese journalist observed "Diplomacy is governed by international conventions, which require all countries to
observe basic norms. Pompeo behaves like a gangster. He is abandoning the traditional US major-power diplomacy and defying the
gentle style of diplomats. "
Notable quotes:
"... Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk. ..."
"... Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace. ..."
"... Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. ..."
"... Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value. ..."
Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting
such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to be a politically troublesome figure in the
global arena. Washington stands at a critical juncture as it redesigns the national strategy
blueprint within a Cold War framework. The highest-ranking US diplomat has single-handedly
activated an outdated mindset, smashing it to the point of climax.
Known as an extreme
hardliner at the White House, Pompeo has redefined the traditional understanding of the chief
diplomat's role among the world's major powers with his signature reckless behaviour.
Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to
antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique
differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace.
During his visits to other nations, Pompeo has bad-mouthed and tried to suppress China,
Russia, and Iran. His offensive remarks on China have destroyed the past
China-US diplomatic language that was enjoyed for decades, preferring to use negligent
words from his personal arsenal.
Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully
who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's
policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
His outspoken opinions on the recent events in Hong Kong was more of a Rubicon River
crossing than someone was just merely speaking their mind. Rather than adhere to a big power
game like his predecessors, Pompeo has transformed himself into anti-China flag on two
legs.
The US relationship
between China , Russia, and Iran will determine the future course of international
relations. The condition of each relationship serves as a wind vane indicating stability or
turbulence worldwide.
Pompeo is not only disrupting China, Russia, and Iran but also damaging the interests of
other countries. His words and actions have jinxed the very notion of 21st-century peace.
It is understandable how the US could feel threatened, due to the pattern shift among world
powers. However, Pompeo's goal has nothing to do with enhancing trust or easing concerns
expressed by other countries. Instead, he wants to turn US insecurity into a form of visible
hatred and increase hostility worldwide. He has consistently influenced stable international
conditions to the point of deterioration.
"Make America Great Again" is not a one-man show. The notion, which is nothing more than an
illiterate slogan, will never materialize and connect with the harmony enjoyed elsewhere
throughout the world.
In the past decades, the US has engaged in too many wars and conflicts, while also issuing
sanctions against foreign countries which were later drained of their national strength.
Pompeo has continued to push the US toward the flames of confrontation when dealing with
major foreign powers. He has not helped Trump achieve earlier campaign promises, and on the
contrary, he is making it difficult for the US president to keep them.
Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US
House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be
his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when
confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive
behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value.
Judging from the US and its Cold War reboot strategy, Pompeo has roamed too far outside of
the perimeter and has officially lost his way. The US government has labelled China as its
"strategic competitor." Meanwhile, Pompeo
has ignited hostility from China.
Pompeo's words are by no means an accurate consensus of the US public who also want to enjoy
a harmonious existence. By making volatile claims against China look reasonable, Pompeo has
turned himself into a cheerleader of hatred, who uses slander and vitriol for pompoms.
Having a secretary of state of this calibre is a tragedy of US politics and the sorrow of
international politics. The world needs to be exposed to the damage Pompeo has brought to
humankind's peaceful existence. His destructive power should not be tolerated because of his
title. He has repeatedly crushed diplomacy's constructive role while ignoring opportunities to
ease international conflicts. He is a stain upon the professional honour of diplomacy. The
global diplomatic community should detest his actions and join together in a crusade against
him.
This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.
Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns See the Top 4 U.S. contractors' profits explode, all while their
weapons have been used against civilian targets for years. •
June
25, 2019
And make no mistake: U.S. defense contractors and their lobbyists and supporters in government are getting rich in the process.
"Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International,
said
to CNBC in February. But his statement vastly understates the role that defense contractors and lobbyists play in Washington's
halls of power, where their influence on policy directly impacts their bottom lines. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates have waged war against Yemen, killing and injuring thousands of Yemeni civilians. An estimated
90,000 people have been killed, according
to one international tracker.
Nearly 90
coalition airstrikes have hit
homes , schools, markets,
hospitals, and mosques since 2015, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2018, the coalition bombed a wedding, killing 22 people, including
eight children. Another strike hit a
bus , killing at
least 26 children.
American-origin munitions produced by companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were identified at
the site of over two dozen attacks throughout Yemen. Indeed, the United States is the single largest arms supplier to the Middle
East and has been for decades, according to a report by
the Congressional Research Service. From 2014 to 2018, the United States supplied 68 percent of Saudi Arabia's arms imports, 64 percent
of the UAE's imports, and 65 percent of Qatar's imports. Some of this weaponry was subsequently stolen or sold to
al-Qaeda linked groups in the Arabian Peninsula
, where they could be used against the U.S. military, according to
reports . The Saudi use of
U.S.-made jets, bombs, and missiles
against Yemeni civilian centers constitutes a war crime. It was an American laser-guided
MK-82 bomb that killed the children
on the bus; Raytheon's technology killed the 22 people attending the wedding in 2018 as well as a family traveling in their car;
and another American-made MK-82 bomb
ended the lives of at least 80 men, women, and children in a Yemeni marketplace in March 2016. Yet American defense contractors
continue to spend millions of dollars to lobby Washington to maintain the flow of arms to these countries.
"Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors see countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as huge
potential markets," Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War , told
TAC . "They see them as massive opportunities to make a lot of money; that's why they're investing billions and billions of dollars.
This is a huge revenue stream to these companies." Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have all highlighted business with Saudi
Arabia in their shareholder reports.
"Operations and maintenance have become a very profitable niche market for U.S. corporations,"
said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at Teal Group. He added that defense contractors can make as much as 150 percent more profit
off of operations and maintenance than from the original arms sale. U.S. weapons supply
57 percent of the military aircraft used by the Royal
Saudi Air Force, and mechanics and technicians hired by American companies repair and maintain their fighter jets and helicopters.
In 2018 alone, the United States made $4.5 billion worth of arms deals to
Saudi Arabia and $1.2
billion to the United Arab
Emirates , a report by William Hartung and Christina Arabia found.
From the report
: "Lockheed Martin was involved in deals worth $25 billion; Boeing, $7.1 billion in deals; Raytheon, $5.5 billion in deals; Northrop
Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion; and BAE systems had a $1.3 billion deal." "Because of the nature of U.S. arms control law,
most of these sales have to get government approval, and we've absolutely seen lobbyists weighing in heavily on this," Miles said.
"The last time I saw the numbers, the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists.
They're not on the Hill lobbying Congress about how many schools we should open next year. They're lobbying for defense contractors.
The past 18 years of endless wars have been incredibly lucrative for the arms industry, and they have a vested industry in seeing
these wars continue, and not curtailing the cash cow that has been for them." The defense industry
spent $125 million on lobbying
in 2018. Of that, Boeing spent
$15 million on lobbyists, Lockheed Martin spent
$13.2 million , General Dynamics
$11.9 million , and Raytheon
$4.4 million ,
according to the Lobbying
Disclosure Act website.
Writes Ben Freeman:
According to a new report firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act have reported receiving more than $40 million
from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2018. Saudi lobbyists and public relations professionals have contacted Congress, the executive
branch, media outlets and think tanks more than 4,000 times. Much of this work has been focused on ensuring that sales of U.S.
arms to Saudi Arabia continue unabated and blocking congressional actions that would end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition
in Yemen. Lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms working for the Saudis have also reported doling out more than $4.5 million
in campaign contributions in the past two years, including at least $6,000 to Trump. In many cases, these contributions have gone
to members of Congress they've contacted regarding the Yemen war. In fact, some contributions have gone to members of Congress
on the exact same day they were contacted by Saudi lobbyists, and some were made to key members just before, and even on the day
of, important Yemen votes.
Over a dozen lobbying firms employed by defense contractors have also been working on behalf of the Saudi or Emiratis, efficiently
lobbying for both the arms buyers and sellers in one fell swoop .
One of these lobbying firms, the McKeon Group, led by former Republican congressman and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee
Howard McKeon, represents both Saudi Arabia and the American defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK,
MBDA, and L3 Technologies. Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman are the biggest suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, the McKeon
Group took $1,697,000 from 10 defense
contractors " to, among
other objectives, continue the flow of arms to Saudi Arabia," reports National Memo. Freeman
details multiple examples where lobbyists working on behalf of the Saudis met with a senator's staff and then made a substantial
contribution to that senator's campaign within days of a key vote to keep the United States in the Yemen war.
American Defense International (ADI) represents the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's coalition partner in the war against
Yemen, as well as several American
defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Technologies, and General Atomics.
Not to be outdone by the McKeon Group, ADI's lobbyists have also aggressively pursued possible swing votes in the U.S. Senate
for the hefty sum of $45,000 a month, paid for by the
UAE . ADI lobbyists discussed
the "situation in Yemen" and the "Paveway sale to the UAE," the same bomb used in the deadly wedding strike, with the office of Senator
Martin Heinrich, a member of the Armed Services Committee, according to FARA
reports .
ADI's lobbyists also met
with Congressman Steve Scalise's legislative director to advise his office to vote against the congressional resolution on Yemen.
For their lobbying, Raytheon paid ADI
$120,000 in 2018. In addition to the
overt influence exercised by lobbyists for the defense industry, many former arms industry executives are embedded in influential
posts throughout the Trump administration: from former Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, and Raytheon lobbyist Charles Faulkner at the
State Department, who pushed Mike Pompeo
to support arms sales in the Yemen war ; to former Boeing executive and erstwhile head of the Department of Defense Patrick Shanahan;
to his interim replacement Mark Esper, secretary of the Army and another former lobbyist for Raytheon.
The war in Yemen has been good for American defense contractors' bottom lines. Since the conflict began, General Dynamics' stock
price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon's from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing's from about $150 to
$360, according to In
These Times. Their analysis found that those four companies have had at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts approved
by the State Department over the last 10 years. In April, President Donald Trump vetoed a resolution that would have ended American
support for the Saudi-UAE coalition war against Yemen. Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in
the Senate. There are a few senators who didn't vote for the War Powers resolution "that will probably vote for the Raytheon sales,"
Brittany Benowitz, a lawyer and former adviser to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told TAC. "I think you'll
continue to see horrific bombings and as the famine rages on, people will start to ask, 'Why are we a part of this war?' Unfortunately,
I don't think that will start to happen anytime soon." Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter.
Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC
Yes indeed, we are the #1 arms exporter and very proud about it. Meanwhile, Rubio, Pompeo, et. al. are also proud about how they
are finally clamping down on the nefarious arrangement that Venezuela and Cuba have to prop up their regimes.
Venezuela gives Cuba low cost oil and Cuba sends them about 25,000 doctors for free medical care to help prop up Maduro. Hmm
... sounds like one is exporting medical services in return for energy, pure, unabridged evil. Our second best export is misinformation
and lies.
I know, someone will give the State Dept line that the doctors are underpaid and the oil is below market price. The point is
that both countries export what they have more of in order to get what they need. This is the basics of any trade relationship.
Both countries are better off after the transaction and now both countries are suffering because of our benighted intervention.
I keep wondering when God is going to punish us for our appalling arrogance, pride, and our unwavering faith in our own righteousness.
God is certainly punishing me. I wish I was one of the blissfully ignorant.
The biggest business of America is war. The symptom of how all pervasive this has become is there is a new definition of defeat:
the only war that is lost, is one that ends. The new victory is now war without end.
If the Saudis have not yet routed the Houthis, I am doubt they ever will. Without invading the country and holding ground, I am
unclear of the point of constantly bombing.
The Houthis won their civil conflict, best allow them to constitute a government and deal with it.
The Saudis have invaded Yemen, but they and their mercenaries keep getting ambushed and ganked. The Yemeni tribes have a very
long and successful history of guerrilla warfare.
Admittedly, it's mostly the mercenaries, as the Saudis don't like a centralized military in particular and don't like fighting
opponents who can shoot back in general.
"Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International,
said to CNBC in February.
Yeah and Wells Fargo were just practicing "innovation" that the financial companies have told us they need to do.
The Republic is a total failure. It cares nothing for the Constitution the representatives are sworn to uphold and abide by. It's
all about the symbiosis of power in gov. and money in business. Those two factions exchange what they other needs to gain more
power and money at the expense of the taxpayers and countries abroad being destroyed. It's pretty simple if you ask 'cui bono'
and then follow the money. This time following the money may take the USA/world to thermo-nuclear war which psychos like Bolton,
Pompeo, Pence, Netanyahu, the MIC and all the other neo-cons want. Currently the war policy against Iran seems to be tied up in
Christian-Zionist eschatology to bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Does it get any more loony than this? Metaphysics
driving political and foreign policy is really a recipe for a disaster and may actually bring about loosing the Four Horseman
of the Apocalypse on the world, but that's OK I guess because Wash. sees the 'big picture.'
"... Trump plays politics by trying to appease two camps, the AngloZionists, as well as Americans that bought into his 'Middle East' wars were a mistake. ..."
"... There has never been a war won by air power alone, If Trump bombs Iran, they will fight back and it will take a ground invasion to subdue them. While that war will compete with Bush’s invasion of Iraq as being America’s stupidest war ever, it will be much more costly in American blood and treasure and could easily turn into WWIII. ..."
"... Yeah, sorry Trump, I support you but you are not going to sell me on war with Iran....HORRIBLE idea. HORRIBLE. One of the worst things you could do as president. ..."
"... Fix the potholes first. ..."
"... Sorry I voted for Trumpster. He Flip-Flopped on almost everything he campaigned on. Now he is DEEP STATE. SA sponsors most the terrorism but gets a pass. ..."
Trump basically acknowledges Bolton as warmonger on NBC, that has hawks and doves in his
administration 'likes to hear both sides'.
So here Trump plays politics by trying to appease two camps, the AngloZionists, as well as
Americans that bought into his 'Middle East' wars were a mistake.
Trump has become pure politician no longer the outsider, he's dancing on both sides when
he needs to like now in a re-election mode.
There has never been a war won by air power alone, If Trump bombs Iran, they will fight
back and it will take a ground invasion to subdue them. While that war will compete with
Bush’s invasion of Iraq as being America’s stupidest war ever, it will be much
more costly in American blood and treasure and could easily turn into WWIII.
Instead of starting a war no one wants over Iran merely acting like a sovereign nation, we
should remove all the sanctions and just leave them alone. Our meddling everywhere needs to
stop.
Yeah, sorry Trump, I support you but you are not going to sell me on war with
Iran....HORRIBLE idea. HORRIBLE. One of the worst things you could do as president.
Sorry I voted for Trumpster. He Flip-Flopped on almost everything he campaigned on. Now he
is DEEP STATE. SA sponsors most the terrorism but gets a pass.
"... UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation. ..."
"... As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015. ..."
"... CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.) ..."
"... The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye. ..."
"... For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: ..."
UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt
regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the
nation.
DATE: June 21, 2019
MEMORANDUM FOR : The President.
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours?
A fter the close call yesterday when you called off the planned military strike on Iran, we
remain concerned that you are about to be mousetrapped into war with Iran. You have said you do
not want such a war (no sane person would), and our comments below are based on that premise.
There are troubling signs that Secretary Pompeo is not likely to jettison his more warlike
approach, More importantly, we know from personal experience with Pompeo's dismissive attitude
to instructions from you that his agenda can deviate from yours on issues of major
consequence.
Pompeo's behavior betrays a strong desire to resort to military action -- perhaps even
without your approval -- to Iranian provocations (real or imagined), with no discernible
strategic goal other than to advance the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He is a
neophyte compared to his anti-Iran partner John Bolton, whose dilettante approach to
interpreting intelligence, strong advocacy of the misbegotten war on Iraq (and continued pride
in his role in promoting it), and fierce pursuit of his own aggressive agenda are a matter of a
decades-long record. You may not be fully aware of our experience with Pompeo, who has now
taken the lead on Iran.
That experience leaves us with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of
consequence to you and the country, including the contentious issue of alleged Russian hacking
into the DNC. The sketchy "evidence" behind that story has now crumbled, thanks to some unusual
candor from the Department of Justice. We refer to the
extraordinary revelation in a recent Department of Justice court filing that former FBI
Director James Comey never required a final forensic report from the DNC-hired cybersecurity
company, CrowdStrike.
Comey, of course, has admitted to the fact that, amid accusations from the late Sen. John
McCain and others that the Russians had committed "an act of war," the FBI did not follow best
practices and insist on direct access to the DNC computers, preferring to rely on CrowdStrike
reporting. What was not known until the DOJ revelation is that CrowdStrike never gave Comey a
final report on its forensic findings regarding alleged "Russian hacking." Mainstream media
have suppressed this story so far; we
reported it several days ago.
The point here is that Pompeo could have exposed the lies about Russian hacking of the DNC,
had he done what you asked him to do almost two years ago when he was director of the CIA.
In our Memorandum
to you of July 24, 2017 entitled "Was the 'Russian Hack' an Inside Job?," we suggested:
"You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this.["This" being the
evidence-deprived allegation that "a shadowy entity with the moniker 'Guccifer 2.0' hacked
the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks ."] Our
own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither
former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been
completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down."
Three months later, Director Pompeo invited William Binney, one of VIPS' two former NSA
technical directors (and a co-author of our July 24, 2017 Memorandum), to CIA headquarters to
discuss our findings. Pompeo began an hour-long meeting with Binney on October 24, 2017 by
explaining the genesis of the unusual invitation: "You are here because the President told me
that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk to you."
But Did Pompeo 'Really Want to Know'?
Apparently not. Binney, a widely respected, plain-spoken scientist with more than three
decades of experience at NSA , began by telling Pompeo that his (CIA) people were lying to him
about Russian hacking and that he (Binney) could prove it. As we explained in our most recent
Memorandum to you, Pompeo reacted with disbelief and -- now get this -- tried to put the
burden on Binney to pursue the matter with the FBI and NSA.
As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark
observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around
intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of
intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation,
which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015.
CIA malware and hacking tools are built
by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe
guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in
the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The
New York Times claims you were not informed.)
If Pompeo failed to report back to you on the conversation you instructed him to have with
Binney, you might ask him about it now (even though the flimsy evidence of Russia hacking the
DNC has now evaporated, with Binney vindicated). There were two note-takers present at the
October 24, 2017 meeting at CIA headquarters. There is also a good chance the session was also
recorded. You might ask Pompeo about that.
Whose Agenda?
The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the
impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he
"really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the
conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently
caught your eye.
Had he pursued the matter seriously with Binney, we might not have had to wait until the
Justice Department itself put nails in the coffin of Russiagate, CrowdStrike, and Comey. In
sum, Pompeo could have prevented two additional years of "everyone knows that the Russians
hacked into the DNC." Why did he not?
Pompeo is said to be a bright fellow -- Bolton, too–with impeccable academic
credentials. The history of the past six decades , though, shows that an Ivy League pedigree
can spell disaster in affairs of state. Think, for example, of President Lyndon Johnson's
national security adviser, former Harvard Dean McGeorge Bundy, for example, who sold the Tonkin
Gulf Resolution to Congress to authorize the Vietnam war based on what he knew was a lie.
Millions dead.
Bundy was to LBJ as John Bolton is to you, and it is a bit tiresome watching Bolton brandish
his Yale senior ring at every podium. Think, too, of Princeton's own Donald Rumsfeld concocting
and pushing the fraud about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to "justify" war on Iraq,
assuring us all the while that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Millions
dead.
Rumsfeld's dictum is anathema to William Binney, who has shown uncommon patience answering a
thousand evidence-free "What if's" over the past three years. Binney's shtick? The principles
of physics, applied mathematics, and the scientific method. He is widely recognized for his
uncanny ability to use these to excellent advantage in separating the chaff from wheat. No Ivy
pedigree wanted or needed.
Binney describes himself as a "country boy" from western Pennsylvania. He studied at Penn
State and became a world renowned mathematician/cryptologist as well as a technical director at
NSA. Binney's accomplishments are featured in a documentary on YouTube, "A Good American."
You may wish to talk to him person-to-person.
Cooked Intelligence
Some of us served as long ago as the Vietnam War. We are painfully aware of how Gen. William
Westmoreland and other top military officers lied about the "progress" the Army was making, and
succeeded in forcing their superiors in Washington to suppress our conclusions as all-source
analysts that the war was a fool's errand and one we would inevitably lose. Millions dead.
Four decades later, on February 5, 2003, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, we warned
President Bush that there was no reliable intelligence to justify war on Iraq.
Five years later, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, releasing the
bipartisan conclusions of the committee's investigation, said
this :
" In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact
when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the
American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually
existed."
Intelligence on the Middle East has still been spotty -- and sometimes "fixed" for political
purposes. Four years ago, a U.S. congressional report said Central Command painted
too rosy a picture of the fight against Islamic State in 2014 and 2015 compared with the
reality on the ground and grimmer assessments by other analysts.
Intelligence analysts at CENTCOM claimed their commanders imposed a "false narrative" on
analysts, intentionally rewrote and suppressed intelligence products, and engaged in "delay
tactics" to undermine intelligence provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. In July 2015,
fifty CENTCOM analysts signed a complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General that their
intelligence reports were being manipulated by their superiors. The CENTCOM analysts were
joined by intelligence analysts working for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
We offer this as a caution. As difficult as this is for us to say, the intelligence you get
from CENTCOM should not be accepted reflexively as gospel truth, especially in periods of high
tension. The experience of the Tonkin Gulf alone should give us caution. Unclear and
misinterpreted intelligence can be as much a problem as politicization in key conflict
areas.
Frequent problems with intelligence and Cheney-style hyperbole help explain why CENTCOM
commander Admiral William Fallon in early 2007 blurted out that "an attack on Iran " will not
happen on my watch," as Bush kept sending additional carrier groups into the Persian Gulf.
Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and
Persian Gulf Affairs, warned at the time that some Bush advisers secretly wanted an excuse to
attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something
[America] would be forced to retaliate for," she told Newsweek. Deja vu. A National
Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 concluded unanimously that Iran had stopped
working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed such work.
We believe your final decision yesterday was the right one -- given the so-called "fog of
war" and against the background of a long list of intelligence mistakes, not to mention
"cooking" shenanigans. We seldom quote media commentators, but we think Tucker Carlson had it
right yesterday evening: "The very people -- in some cases, literally the same people who lured
us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago -- are demanding a new war -- this one with Iran.
Carlson described you as "skeptical." We believe ample skepticism is warranted.
We are at your disposal, should you wish to discuss any of this with us.
For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney , former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military
Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp , Foreign Service Officer & former Division Director in the
State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA
Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence
Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate
leadership (Associate VIPS)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic
Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of
Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, U.S. Army (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential
briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East &
CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Sarah Wilton , Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency
(ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in
2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
If we consider economics to be an objective science, its rules should also have universal
significance and use, despite differences in societal order. However, socialists of the materialist
camp are committed to the idea that common ownership of the means of production would change the
way economic laws unfold under socialism.
Basically, they reject the notion of the
universality and objectivity of economic rules by suggesting that the laws would change along with
a change to the social formation.
Thus,
communists adhered to the Marxian idea that socialism would rectify a "surplus
value" law, end the "exploitation" of workers, and efficiently regulate the production,
distribution, and consumption aspects of the economy.
They sought to eliminate the market
regulatory mechanism and replace it with directives of the central planning authority. Bolsheviks
enthusiastically got down to business: they eradicated private property, collectivized everything
and everyone, and implemented an official planned economy.
Did it effectively turn off market relations as they thought it would?
No. In contrast to the common perception, socialism has been unable to kill the market economy.
The market went underground and turned into a black market. Black markets existed in capitalist
countries as well, but they worked underground because they dealt in illegal commodities and
services. The black market under socialism served the same purpose, but the list of commodities and
services included mostly items of everyday and innocent consumption that people under capitalism
could easily purchase in stores. Virtually all groups of personal consumption products found their
way to the black market at some time and in some places. Everything from jar lids to toilet paper
was subject to black-market relations.
Despite the proclaimed planned economy, people were engaged in market relations on all levels
and trusted more the price of the goods and services that were established by the market and not
dictated by the government. The official exchange rate of the ruble to the dollar was 0.66 to 1 in
1980. But nobody except party nomenclature was able to enjoy such a favorable exchange rate. At the
same time, the black market offered 4 rubles for 1 American dollar.
There was no production of jeans in the Soviet Union, but like all their peers abroad,
Soviet youth wore jeans.
The price was 180–250 rubles for a pair depending on the brand,
which was almost twice as much as the monthly wage of an entry-level engineer. A visiting nurse
charged 1 ruble for one injection if a patient lived below the fifth floor. The price reached 1.5
rubles for patients who lived on the fifth floor and up. A plumber happily repaired a faucet for
just a bottle of vodka.
Two Prices for Everything
Therefore, in the Soviet Union, any significant goods had two price tags: one real and
another virtual.
The state set the first price through some obscure methods; the usual
mechanism of supply and demand established the second price on the market. If you were lucky, after
several hours of standing in a queue, you could purchase goods at the state price. However, due to
the chronic lack of everything for everyone, the same product could be bought on the black market
at a much higher price. The virtual price became real on the black market and reflected the actual
value of the goods for the buyer. The presence of two price tags is a confirmation of the thesis of
Ludwig von Mises regarding the impossibility of economic calculations under socialism. At the same
time, this is proof of the immortality and immutability of the economic laws of the free market,
even under a totalitarian regime.
Therefore, two economic systems and two sets of prices
co-exist under socialism.
People were forced to use the services of the black market,
even under the penalty of
severe punishment, including up to the death penalty.
Almost the entire society was
engaged in various corruption schemes to support a certain standard of living. There was a
paradoxical situation when the shelves of the supermarkets were empty, but refrigerators at home
were more or less full. The black market was filled with smuggled goods from abroad, as well as
commodities produced in underground workshops. But more often, everyday products were specifically
kept from retail to create a shortage and sell them on the black market at a speculative price.
Socialism had undermined the normal flows of production, distribution, and consumption by ignoring
the objective laws of economics. Nevertheless, an underground market and the intrinsic
entrepreneurial spirit of the people helped them survive the socialist madness.
Regardless of the proclaimed successes of the Soviet economy reported by Communist party
leaders, the socialist economy was unable to compete with its capitalist counterparts.
Communists decided to create a system that somehow mimicked the work that a free market had
successfully and automatically performed for centuries. Thus, they introduced socialist competition
that was supposed to replace free market competition. Surely enough, it was an inadequate and
unfortunate replacement.
The rewards for winners in the capitalist competition were far
higher than for the winners under socialism.
For example, the capitalist winner enjoyed a
significant increase in well-being.
Moreover, the principal winner of the free market competition was society as a whole. This is a
natural feature of a free market economy and the main reason why the evolution of human societies
selected this mode of production. A competition during socialism gave to the winners some
publicity, a certificate of honor, maybe a trip to a "sanatorium" (that is, a health spa), and
other bagatelles that people usually did not appreciate. But most importantly, society as a whole
did not enjoy a significant improvement in well-being.
People were not sufficiently stimulated and were underpaid, which explained the lower labor
productivity compared to capitalist countries. Moreover, this is despite the notion that the means
of production, at last, belong to the workers themselves. People had a famous saying that can be
considered the quintessence of Soviet-style socialism:
"They [the government] pretend
to pay, and we pretend to work."
Socialism is a set of systems that try to
artificially inhibit the free flow of
objective economic laws by creating subjective barriers in the form of specific legislation and
punitive policies
. Socialists mistakenly think that if they assault private property and
market relations, the economic laws will also change. They have taken up the task which, in
principle, has no rational solution. Nothing good comes from the idea of ignoring or violating the
fundamental laws of economics. These laws still exist, regardless of opinions and neglect to
recognize their real character and the impossibility of changing them.
Socialism disrupts the evolutionary process and leads society to a dead end.
The desperate economic situation of ordinary folks in
Venezuela
,
Cuba
,
and North Korea -- the remnants of socialist undertakings -- is a direct result of building a society
in defiance of the natural action of the fundamental law of economics. As a rule, socialist regimes
were buying time by employing slave labor, plunder, coercion, and everything else that an
aggressive totalitarian regime could offer. However, in the end, the means of socialistic life
support was exhausted, and than returning to the natural and healthy market relations, where the
laws of economics work for the benefit of the human race.
The same laws of market economics have worked in different human societies: from pre-historic to
post-industrial, but
still socialists continue to entertain the idea of tampering with
these forces of nature.
"... Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs. ..."
"... even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation. ..."
"... On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure. ..."
"... To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping tight control over the entire country at the same time. ..."
Iran's downing of a US military surveillance drone last week predictably led to another
flare-up in tense relations between Tehran and Washington. What could be the implications of a
potential conflict between the two nations? Right after the Global Hawk UAV was shot down, the
New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran,
but then changed his mind.
Let's start by saying that the decision to launch a military operation against Iran (which
is what this is really about), including the specific time and place, would have to be taken by
a very small group of top US political and military officials. At such meetings, no leaks could
possibly occur by definition.
Now, let's take a look at some of the details. The difference between a 'strike' and an
'operation' is quite significant, at the very least in terms of duration, and forces and
equipment involved. It would be nice to know if the NYT actually meant a single airstrike or an
entire air operation.
Amusingly enough, the publication reported that the strikes were scheduled for early morning
to minimize the potential death toll among the Iranian military and civilians. It's worth
pointing out that the US has never cared about the number of victims either among the military
personnel or the civilian population of its adversaries.
Moreover, the purpose of any military conflict is to do as much damage to your enemy as
possible in terms of personnel, military hardware and other equipment. This is how the goals of
any armed conflict are achieved. Of course, it would be best if civilian losses are kept to a
minimum, but for the US it's more of a secondary rather than a primary objective.
The US Navy and Air Force traditionally strike before dawn with one purpose alone – to
avoid the antiaircraft artillery (both small and medium-caliber), as well as a number of air
defense systems with optical tracking, firing at them. Besides, a strike in the dark hours of
the day affects the morale of the enemy personnel.
Here we need to understand that Iran would instantly retaliate, and Tehran has no small
capabilities for that. In other words, it would be a full-scale war. For the US, it wouldn't
end with one surgical airstrike without consequences, like in Syria. And the US seems to have a
very vague idea on what a military victory over Iran would look like.
There is no doubt that a prolonged air campaign by the US will greatly undermine Iran's
military and economic potential and reduce the country to the likes of Afghanistan, completely
destroying its hydrocarbon production and exports industries.
To say how long such a campaign could last would be too much of a wild guess, but we have
the examples of Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when airstrikes lasted for 38 days, and
Yugoslavia in 1991 when the bombing continued for 78 days. So, theoretically, the US could bomb
Iran for, say, 100 days, wrecking the country's economy and infrastructure step by step.
However, the price the US would have to pay for starting such a military conflict may turn
out to be too high.
For instance, Iran can respond to US aggression by launching intermediate and shorter-range
ballistic missiles to target oil and gas fields and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait,
and the UAE.
Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to
assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive
fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs.
Firstly, it should be pointed out that even though the capabilities of US intelligence
agencies are almost limitless, quite a few Iranian missile launching sites remain undiscovered.
Secondly, US air defense systems in the Persian Gulf, no matter how effective, would not shoot
down every last Iranian missile. And even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical
infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation.
On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the
antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their
hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure.
If such a scenario came true, that would bring inconceivable chaos to the global economy and
would immediately drive up oil prices to $200-250 per barrel – and that's the lowest
estimate. It is these implications that are most likely keeping the US from attacking Iran.
To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale
ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both
regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership
of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping
tight control over the entire country at the same time.
For the record, the US failed to do that even in Afghanistan, which is several times smaller
than Iran in terms of both territory and population. And almost 18 years of fighting later, the
US has achieved next to nothing.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Tucker ,,,, you are kind of restoring what little faith i had left of the mainstream press
with this upload its not mutch and it has a long long way to go , but it is a start thank the
guy in the sky
I just upvoted a Tucker Carlson video. I am baffled. BTW, Jimmy Dore said TC's more
deserving of a Noble peace prize then Obama, who, of course, never should have had one in the
first place. They should be able to take them back, though it means that most of them should
be returned.
I just upvoted a Tucker Carlson video. I am baffled. BTW, Jimmy Dore said TC's more
deserving of a Noble peace prize then Obama, who, of course, never should have had one in the
first place. They should be able to take them back, though it means that most of them should
be returned.
Tucker i disagreed with u in past on many things but i genuinely am impressed with your
stance and your moral compass on wars and learning from the past.. kudos to u on this
one...it shows we can disagree on many policies yet still respect and support one another on
humanity. Glad u worked on Trump on that one.
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to
international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth
is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming
the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.
The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity
in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim
deserve better, given what we see around us.
Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian
invasion of Greece & the West
"... It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war. ..."
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove" advisors? ..."
"... If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker. ..."
"... Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again. ..."
"... "It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster." ..."
"... the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution. ..."
"... And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con. ..."
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this
situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of his
own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is
quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will
change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the first
place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian air space
(or right on its border).
Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets
enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock
and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk"
advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove"
advisors?
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack
was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning
meetings/briefings.
If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his
10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker.
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine
- first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he
hears on Fox News to start it all over again.
But just because on this pass he happened to randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're
supposed to congratulate him for finally "becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is
the contortions his supporters put themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to
everyone else.
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I
am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article is
crop.
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President," is
a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed
neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used when
Trump bombed Syria for the first time.
He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their
restraint (on the contrary, they have created a crisis for no good reason and have brought us
to the brink of war as a result) so much as he's criticizing the media for its
warmongering.
The media is actually trying to bait the President into a unilateral act of war against
another country that hasn't attacked us and couldn't threaten us even if it did.
"It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop
routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."
At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm Bolton, it is a
matter of time before the situation blows up.
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated
in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper
place would be a truly presidential act."
However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that
illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this time.
(And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and kill
and destroy without question.)
So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial
President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and
Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the
illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the
Constitution.
And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in
to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would be a truly presidential act." ..."
...This Administration's handling of Iran, as compared to the last, is anything but stupid.
Unless, of course, you're of the opinion we should be going to war, and you're pissed that
this President made the right decision at the right time. Nice try, because thinking the
way you are is stupid.
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this
situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of
his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump
is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will
change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the
first place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian
air space (or right on its border).
Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets
enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock
and load" the American military in the future.
For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to
hitting pay dirt.
Well, this article vanquished my very recent admiration for Michael Brendan Dougherty,
acquired by way of Mr. Dreher.
"articulates a classical Augustinian just war argument ..."
That's like claiming Mrs O'Leary's cow that kicked over the lantern and burned Chicago
to the ground was articulating the finer points of preventing forest fires originated by
Smokey the Bear.
Do the writers here do a little physical stretching before contorting yourselves into
pretzel shapes trying to justify every lantern Trump kicks over into poles of dry hay as he
goes along?
Of course conservative Christians hate pulling back from imminent, and possibly nuclear
war. When haven't they in American history?
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack
was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning
meetings/briefings.
If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his
10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching
Tucker.
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine -
first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he
hears on Fox News to start it all over again. But just because on this pass he happened to
randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're supposed to congratulate him for finally
"becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is the contortions his supporters put
themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to everyone else.
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I
am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article
is crop.
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President,"
is a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed
neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used
when Trump bombed Syria for the first time. He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't
praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their restraint (on the contrary, they have created a
crisis for no good reason and have brought us to the brink of war as a result) so much as
he's criticizing the media for its warmongering. The media is actually trying to bait the
President into a unilateral act of war against another country that hasn't attacked us and
couldn't threaten us even if it did.
"It does not require Nostradamus-like
skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to
be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."
At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm bolton, it is a
matter of time before the situation blows up.
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this
pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would
deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would
be a truly presidential act."
However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that
illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this
time. (And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and
kill and destroy without question.)
So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial
President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and
Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the
illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the
Constitution.
And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in
to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.
This type of article is the reason I read The American Conservative. Thank you for
addressing this important issue from a cautious and realistic perspective.
Although Donald Trump and I are on opposite sides of the fence on nearly every issue, I
do prefer his restrained foreign policy instincts to the hawkish ones of Hillary
Clinton.
Goodness you people and your Nobel prize obsession. The last guy got one he didn't deserve
so I should get one too. Whether the decision was presidential or not is hinged on motive
in my view.
If it was an assessment that if our drone did in fly over US airspace, then it
represented a legitimate target for Iran - then certainly critical thinking as expressed
has some merit to sound management.
If the matter was decided on the messiness of conflict and calculating one's political
carreer, the level of sound management is simply not a factor.
THIS is what white supremacy looks like: Punish Iran because one day in the far off future
they may develop an atomic bomb but gift Israel $3 billion a year while it harbors hundreds
of nukes. Meanwhile, pat head choppers like Saudi Arabia on the head -- As long as they
buys billions in US weapons and force nations to use US dollars to buy oil.
Do you realize that Iran is an Aryan nation, which would make them white? Israel is a
Jewish nation, which most white supremacists hate. And Saudi Arabia is an Arab country,
which would not make it a white country.
So how in the world is this what white supremacy looks like?
Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic
hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against
Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.
Hugh Hewitt called it the "big blink," inviting Liz Cheney -- who is very much her father's
daughter on foreign policy -- on his show to warn, "Weakness is provocative." Hewitt compared
it to Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria. "Much worse"
argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic . Other reporting
focused on a "total breakdown in process."
It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply
illustrate the Beltway's strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who
fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his
failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much
larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops
home from Syria.
... ... ...
"How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?"
Woodward quotes Trump as asking. One Post write-up folded these lines into a broader
story about the White House's "nervous breakdown" and the national security team's impatience
with the president. But these are morally serious questions, not exaggerated inaugural crowd
size estimates.
We must not let President Trump, John Bolton or any member of the State Department pull us
into war with Iran. Now, I've introduced a bill called the "No More Presidential Wars
Act" to stop Trump -- and all Presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike -- from pulling
us into a war without approval from Congress.
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to
international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth
is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming
the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.
The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity
in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim
deserve better, given what we see around us.
Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian
invasion of Greece & the West
"... I propose that the Logic of Empire demands that the OBOR be interdicted and become subject to Imperial control...Iran's in the geography...and of course the oil and gas in simply part of the control over Heartland that Empire needs. ..."
"... Needs, because it's in very unstable financial condition. Essentially ketosis is underway, and Empire is in the condition of devouring its own power. ..."
"... The US will have to pay dearly to get their troops out of Afghanistan ..."
"... there is no way to "win" for one party at the cost of other parties. We are in this together. ..."
"This is about China"....not quite. It's about OBOR and Heartland, and the survival of a
corrupt and diseased Empire, or not...
What's missing here, and generally, is any attention to why. Why Iran, why now? What is
grand strategy? Is this vital or optional? Basic questions.
Of course the clowns are ignorant and stupid, how are they related to the grand
strategy?
I propose that the Logic of Empire demands that the OBOR be interdicted and become
subject to Imperial control...Iran's in the geography...and of course the oil and gas in
simply part of the control over Heartland that Empire needs.
Needs, because it's in very unstable financial condition. Essentially ketosis is
underway, and Empire is in the condition of devouring its own power.
The Strategy has zero to do with atomics, except to use them on Iran.
Summary> Iran must submit or be smashed and then submit. It does not matter who's in
charge nominally of Imperial Forces...Failing this, Empire dies.
And yet, Trumpie the clown can't spell "strait"...failed English 101?
Posted by: Yeah, Right | Jun 25, 2019 3:50:42 AM | 149
US have "lost" all wars after WW2 and then they were allied with Russia.
The US don't do old school colonialism (they destroyed the British and French empires) and
local independence goes to the highest bidder. So they have no way to ensure they will profit
after destroying everything (which they are very capable of doing).
Lets look where the US are now after WW2
Latin America: Used to be Cuba only completely outside of US sphere, now is also
Venezuela.
Asia: The US lost the Vietnam war. Vietnam now is very open to Western trade. The US could
have had that right from the start, as Ho Chi Minh started to fight for independence as
"their" guy. China has become the most powerful US competitor spending a fraction of the US
on military.
Europe: Will be Russian/Chinese sphere of influence (Gas, huge market) in the very end - at
least continental Europe. Britain tears itself apart not knowing which way to go.
Middle East: The US lost Turkey for good. Greece has become Chinese/Russian sphere of
influence. Neither Saudi nor Israel make it on any scale of "Western values" or ability to
fight proxy wars. The US may as well join OPEC as an energy producer - real interest in these
countries is marginal at best. Saudi will go the way of their Asian clients. The US will have
to pay dearly to get their troops out of Afghanistan
Of course there may be WW3, the next US president may reverse some counterproductive US
strategies, and a huge crisis may wipe off world markets. But there is no way to "win" for one party at the cost of other parties. We are in this
together.
The worlds absolute largest state sponsor and financier and trainer of Terrorists is the
United States and Israel.. The British usually just helped their enemies enemies but the US
trains anyone who will work for buck..
On the surface, it appears the dying empire must finally grab everything, no matter how
historically untouchable, in last ditch claim on total power.
Of course this is bad on every level, it's immoral, unethical, illegal, doomed to fail,
and doomed to hasten failure of the entire enterprise.
I'm dreaming here, but the best plan is to fade slowly into the night and put on the make
up tomorrow.
But anyway, the fully doomed and immoral path has a bright side for the MIC--it's a lock
on anyone who would try to shut it down. We will continue to do stupid things so we must
continue to do stupid things.
@ jayc 57 US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not
trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable,
arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"
The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral
deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current
attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any
significant support from other JCPOA participants.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM |
66
The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________
Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are
special.
It is interesting to listen to this speech again in view of Iran crisis, attempt to launch a
regime change in Venezuela and trade war with Chins lunched by Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... McCain and some other Western officials could barely contain themselves in there. They never forgive Putin for that speech. This was the decisive moment relations between the US. and Russia started to deteriorate. ..."
"... The Wikileaks cables showed how aggressively NATO was working to bring in Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance despite what was being said in public during that time. ..."
"... Look at the dirty bitch Victoria Nuland smirking at 11:43 . She knew what the US was about to do in Ukraine. ..."
"... this was the best anti NWO speech ever. The moment I saw it back then I knew Russia will have many problems coming for the NWO scum. You know what happened right? ..."
On February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin delivered his keynote speech at the Munich Security
Conference, challenging the post-Cold War establishment. RT looks back a decade to see how
accurate his ideas were.
McCain and some other Western officials could barely contain themselves in there. They
never forgive Putin for that speech. This was the decisive moment relations between the US.
and Russia started to deteriorate.
The Wikileaks cables showed how aggressively NATO was working to bring in Georgia and
Ukraine into the alliance despite what was being said in public during that time.
'The Putin Interviews', where Putin is interviewed by Oliver Stone from 2015 - 2017,
brought me here. This iconic speech was referred to by Oliver Stone in the interviews. The
speech was certainly worth watching and I highly recommend watching 'The Putin Interviews'.
You won't regret it.
I'm not Russian but he is my hero, my President and my dad!!! ^_^ And proud of him. This
memorable speech was one of my favorites! He stood for what he believes in and he stayed true
to it.
Hahahahahahahahaha! You can see the Western leaders here were in a state of profound SHOCK
as they listened to this speech. They thought he was going to kow-tow to the West - and he
did the EXACT OPPOSITE! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
ment-renderer-text-content expanded"> wow awesome speech. words from a outstanding
leader. Acting and standing for true Peace and prosperity. Unlike the UN and NWO whos only
goal is to continue to create terrorism. create fear and drain any communities from being
independent and free from there False saftey taxes and sanctions. not using the world
currency exchange means there unable to falsely influence the world markets
American people should be highly alarmed
at NATO actions , they are inching closer to Russia's borders trying to encircle Russia with
military bases and missiles , this is done in preparation of an attack of the country being
encircled, nato is lying and misleading its citizens and they dont worry about consequence
of such a scenario which surely would trigger the third world war, American people and all nato member citizens should strongly push back against this , we need to consider the outcome
of a nuclear power attacking and invading another nuclear power
Russia would surely use
nuclear weapons to defend its country if overwhelmed, millions could perish in a day, we
have to condemn and protest Nato plans for another world war before its too late, it will be
our families suffering and dying not the elite that is pushing this conflict
Great speech from a great man, a man who truly loves fairness and democracy not the sugar
coated type offered by the west. Did anyone notice that by 9:50 into his speech, a good
number of them wanted out? McCain at some point couldn't even bring himself to look at Putin,
What a pitiful fellow McCain is!!!!!
This speech needs to be re-posted . and disseminated .. it is very very current , more than
ever... there is a section of world who simply do not know .
10 years passed and what Putin said back then is exactly what's happened and is
still happening. I have great respect for Russia and I have no respect for US and their
allies. Whole NATO sucks, is obsolete and is acting exactly like world's terrorists!
I have no respect for the majority of the American people as they are as responsible for the wars their corrupt capitalism
controlled US government has done. American people went along with it for all these decades and they fought these wars for
them anyway, they did not care if they bully other nations, kill innocent people...
this was the best anti NWO speech ever. The moment I saw it back then I knew Russia will
have many problems coming for the NWO scum. You know what happened right?
Existence of financial derivatives on oil (aka "paper oil") and the size of trade involving
them in world markets changes the whole situation. The USA can shoot themselves in a foot even if
the US armed forces would be able to completely destroy the Iraq army air defenses and bomb
strategic targets.
There seems to be a common theme in many articles that 'shock and awe' military strikes
will force Iran's leaders into unconditional surrender. While the US has the capability to
do this on its own, for political reasons the US is actively seeking coalition partners.
The reality is it doesn't matter how many partners the US can convince to attack Iran. No
matter how sophisticated Iran's cyber, missile or air defenses are, based on simple
logistics Iran will eventually lose a shooting war against the US and any coalition
partners. Iran knows this.
The real question when the bombing starts, is not the number of casualties that Iran can
inflict on her enemies but how long before Iran realizes it will lose and calls on all of
its asymmetric regional forces to attack in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, Saudi Arabia
and the Straits of Hormuz.
Iran doesn't have to win a shooting war, it only has to buy enough time that its forces
can disrupt oil shipments to China, India, Japan, South Korean and Europe to break the
supply chains to the US. Currently the US imports/exports over 5T dollars per year, even
impacting this by only 20% should cause the trillions in derivatives to crush the world
economy. Given that war should always be the option of last resort is there still the
possibility for negotiations?
Iran has too many examples of the promises of US and West not matching our actions. The
current sanctions are crippling the economy and backing Iran into a corner. No matter what
Iran does what guarantees can be provided that sanctions won't be reapplied. Absolutely
none. The criteria constantly change. There is an old saying in martial arts, in a fight an
opponent with no way out is far more formable than an opponent who can walk away.
Even a wide scale nuclear attack that wipes out a third of Iran's citizens in the ten
major cities and a majority of the armed forces probably won't succeed. Once nuclear
weapons are used, Iran's leaders are no longer constrained to any regional targets. If
Russia and China jump in to the fray then it could get real, as in WWIII awfully quickly.
Even without Russia and China getting involved, Iran's leaders just might consider 30M or
more deaths acceptable if her enemies are crushed. There is precedent for this. Estimates
put Russia's losses due to all causes in WWII at 25-30M people, and Russia called it a
win.
So all the babble that Iran will fold in the face of 'shock and awe' is naïve. Iran
can't win a shooting war but if can lose with style. To think that Iran can be defeated
like Iraq is folly. Iran is not Iraq. Iraq is a local power, Iran is a regional one. Iran
is too large to be attacked by ground forces. That leaves airpower. Once the bombs start to
drop, all Iranian combat units have a minimum of 72 hours of war supplies. If the US and
the coalition partners don't achieve, 'unconditional surrender' in the initial strikes then
all bets are off for keeping the conflict local.
Many articles claim the tanker and pipeline attacks of the past two weeks are 'false
flags'. Hopefully they were, because if they were not, then Iran has just proven it's ready
and has the capability to strike anywhere in the region. Iran is quickly running out of
options and has no choice but to continue escalating regional tensions until something
gives. We are indeed living in interesting times.
That does not change the fact that Trump foreign policy is a continuation of Obama fogirn policy. It is neocon forign policy directed
on "full spectrum dominance". Trump just added to this bulling to the mix.
Notable quotes:
"... When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter because I want both sides." ..."
"... I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now. ..."
"... Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House. ..."
"... Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition." ..."
"... Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population. ..."
In a stunningly frank moment during a Sunday
Meet the Press interview focused on President Trump's decision-making on Iran, especially last week's "brink of war" moment which
saw Trump draw down readied military forces in what he said was a "common sense" move, the commander in chief threw his own national
security advisor under the bus in spectacular fashion .
Though it's not Trump's first tongue-in-cheek denigration of Bolton's notorious hawkishness, it's certainly the most brutal and
blunt take down yet, and frankly just plain enjoyable to watch. When host Chuck Todd asked the president if he was "being pushed
into military action against Iran" by his advisers in what was clearly a question focused on Bolton first and foremost, Trump responded:
"John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"
Trump began by explaining, "I have two groups of people. I have doves and I have hawks," before leading into this sure to be classic
line that is one for the history books: "If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"
During this section of comments focused on US policy in the Middle East, the president reiterated his preference that he hear
from "both sides" on an issue, but that he was ultimately the one making the decisions.
When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq
War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter
because I want both sides."
And in another clear indicator that Trump wants to stay true to his non-interventionist instincts voiced on the 2016 campaign
trail, he explained to Todd that:
I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle
East right now.
It was the second time this weekend that Trump was forced to defend his choice of Bolton as the nation's most influential foreign
policy thinker and adviser. When peppered with questions at the White House Saturday following Thursday night's dramatic "almost
war" with Iran, Trump said that he "disagrees" with Bolton "very much" but that ultimately he's "doing a very good job".
Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every
chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House.
But Bolton hasn't had a good past week: not only had Trump on Thursday night shut the door on Bolton's dream of overseeing a major
US military strike on Iran, but he's been pummeled in the media.
Even a Fox prime time show (who else but Tucker of course) colorfully described him as a "bureaucratic tapeworm" which periodically
reemerges to cause pain and suffering.
It's great that the biggest war mongers are the ones that not only never served but in the case of Bolton, purposely avoided
serving. They should send that ****** to Iran so we can see just how supportive he is when he's actually in danger.
This guy is a worthless piece of **** and Trump's an idiot for hiring him.
Being a cheerleader for the Iraq war is as ridiculous as that ******* mustache. He's just letting neocons have a front row
seat to power. That's how he's keeping them from jumping ship to become democrats. They have no principles. They're just power
worshippers.
Do ya all remember when Trump took office? Losers use military strategy that is overwhelming bombardment b4 land attack. I
thought that Donnie can not survive this pressure. Looks like now he is riding horse with banner in hands. Thumb up, MJT
I was against going into the Middle East...$7 Trillion? So why is Jared trying to give away $50 Billion more? People thought
they voted for MAGA, but they got Jared...MMEGA.
How about MJANYA?...Make Jared a New Yorker Again. Send Jared and Ivanka back to New York before it's $10 Trillion.
Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism
as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition."
Trump "unleashes"? For those who think, he also said Bolton is doing a good job. Crap headline. I think Solomon said, "In a
multitude of counselors there is victory".
What kind of unprofessional dingus talks openly about employee issues? That's not how you run a organization. That's how you
run a reality television show.
Sides? I could hire Hobo Joe, the bum that huffs paint and drinks scotch out of plastic bottle while yelling at traffic by
the intersection, as my advisor. He'd probably tell me to do some whacky stuff. But why would I do that?
There is no side to hear. Bomb everyone. That is John Bolton's side. It isn't worth hearing. The man shouldn't be drawing a
paycheck. He shouldn't be drawing breath. He should be pushing up daisies. He the same as ISIS.
Reading is fundamental....and certainly not needed to spout opinions. In fact, reading, combined with critical thinking, logic
and reason, just gets in the way of forming opinions. Or should I say "repeating" other's opinions.
"Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now."....Yes, just like your *** bosses wanted and needed and
you dumb ******* sheep still think voting matters.
Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's
itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population.
Democrats in Congress have the power to pull us back from the brink , but they need to act now. Once bombs start falling and
troops are on the ground, there will be massive political pressure to rally around the flag.
"... Pompeo is a rapture supremacist warmonger that is not good for anything. ..."
"... Not a fan of Pompeo, nor of any Secy of State that champions the cause of military adventurism instead of negotiations. We've had far too many Secys of State who have beat the drums of war instead of doing what the job entails.....being the nation's chief diplomatic negotiator. Pompeo is a bigger (chicken) hawk than the Secy of Defense for crying out loud. ..."
Furthermore, Hu had some particularly harsh words for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, labeling the Secretary of State a "troublesome"
figure in US-China relations and insisting that Pompeo "can no longer play the role of a top US diplomat between the two countries."
... ... ...
Beijing's attacks on the secretary of state come as Pompeo wrapped up a string of meetings in the Middle East with King Salman
of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince.
Not a fan of Pompeo, nor of any Secy of State that champions the cause of military adventurism instead of negotiations. We've
had far too many Secys of State who have beat the drums of war instead of doing what the job entails.....being the nation's chief
diplomatic negotiator. Pompeo is a bigger (chicken) hawk than the Secy of Defense for crying out loud.
"... The Supreme Court Treason related to the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire. ..."
"The UNSC veto doesn't make the UN Charter null and void. Actions that violate it are
still illegal/unconstitutional and able to be challenged in domestic courts". I agree it does
not make the charter null and void, the question is how can aggressors be brought to book,
Tony Blair was accused of the crime of aggression but the Judges said he could not be
prosecuted see below. Thanks for the link to the Uniting for Peace resolution, I will read it
tomorrow.
"Tony Blair should not face prosecution for his role in the 2003 Iraq war, the high court has
ruled.
The lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and another senior judge, Mr Justice
Ouseley, said on Monday that there was no crime of aggression in English law under which the
former prime minister could be charged.
Thanks for your reply! I recall what an absolutely incensed Craig Murray wrote about that decision about Tony Blair--well
beyond a travesty as it's a Capital Crime and not subject to statutes of limitation. The Supreme Court Treason related to
the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the
Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire.
Going on 3 decades now, one of my primary questions is How to contain the Outlaw US Empire and make it into a law-abiding
nation without blowing up the world. I've always recognized that it would take a global coalition to arrive at a genuine
confrontation.
IMO, we're very close to that point; the G-20 will indicate just how close.
But even more importantly than the global coalition is the requirement for a political force within the Empire asking and
acting on my question. The Maximum Pressure must come from internal and external sources for any positive outcome to be
achieved. Since 2012, I've seen 2020 as THE inflection point. It seems I'm not alone.
"... Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured. ..."
Trump strove for some foreign policy triumphs. The art of the deal!
He tried his hand with N. Korea. What happened? (Besides perhaps improved NK-SK
relations ) Nothing.
Syria .. (though there is still plenty going on there) what gave Trump / the USA some
kind of 'victory'? Zilch, disounting missile attacks on a runway in an airport and on an
empty research and teaching facility.
Symbolic moves, as proposed to Iran (a deal, heh) to save face (see b's posts.)
Next, ho ho, regime change in Venezuela, that might be great, get some extra voters in
Florida. Result? The status quo ante, perhaps stronger than before, with the
Dauphin, Random Guaido, shown up to be a cynical petty fraudster, and not even
challenging enough to jail!
Iran? Note the pressure has been building up since last year when The Donald withdrew
the US from the JCPOA.
Real men go to Teheran!
Except Trump and US forces aren't going anywhere at all and most certainly not to Iran. A
real war in that theatre cannot be fought and won by the US. Nor can it be instigated and
subsequently 'let drop' or 'become unimportant, trivial, with some claims of victory' for ex.
Afghanistan. (very costly btw)
Iran has made it clear that economic sanctions are part of hybrid war, rightly so (but
not, as I still claim, by making some minor attacks on tankers round about, to provoke a
reaction, NO) -- at some point, one engages, if not: backing down is the only option.
Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you
pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on
the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da
ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the
game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a
ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured.
I think he got on super well with Kim (NK) who understood all this.
Leaves begging what-who-why is the projected aim, potential hoped result of the hybrid
attack on Iran, and which parties (USA MIC, Fin. Trade Cos., Banking, FF industry, many other
industries; Israel, KSA) support it (again, for what precise aim?) Or are against
sanctions...
Trump "national neoliberalism" is a deviation from classic neoliberalism and that's why
Russiagate color revolution was launched against him with full support Britain and some other EU
countries. So I doubt that he is a defective tool of globalism. He destroyed existing neoliberal order by starting the trade
war with China.
Trump is not a perfect tool of nationalism, he is a defective tool of globalism. He
represents the slide to an international fascism bound at the top of fake nationalist
authoritarians who fancy the .01% worldwide above the needs of their own subjects.
Government by the multinational corporations for the multinational corporate
shareholders.
Trump's only hope to remain in power is to create a constant wartime crisis atmosphere
without leading to war (so he can take credit)....or else to suspend the Constitution because
of a "crisis".
Globalism will not be defeated by China, Russia and Iran working in concert.
I don't think they're trying to defeat "Globalism", I think they're trying to defeat
fascism on a global scale.
Zionist supremacist ideology + globalism = global fascism.
The economic benefits of "Globalism" have gone most to a neoliberal oligarch interests
that are in cahoots with Western governments. And, as a block, they support MIC, dollar
hegemony, etc. so as to secure and extend their gains.
"... President Trump and the far right preach not the end of globalization, but their own strain of it, not its abandonment but an alternative form. They want robust trade and financial flows, but they draw a hard line against certain kinds of migration. The story is not one of open versus closed, but of the right cherry-picking aspects of globalization while rejecting others. Goods and money will remain free, but people won't. ..."
"... The express effort is to use unilateral action to bully other countries, China in particular, into better market access for American products. The point of comparison is not the dreams of economic self-sufficiency of the 1930s but Ronald Reagan's assault on Japanese competition in the 1980s. "The basic philosophy that we have is that we want free trade without barriers," Mr. Lighthizer explained to Congress in August. ..."
"... What they share is a rejection not of the "postwar international order" -- as many pundits fruitlessly argue -- but of the order of the 1990s. In the cross hairs are the products of that decade, above all, the crown jewels of neoliberal globalism: the W.T.O., the European Union and Nafta (which was recently renegotiated and renamed). ..."
"... The formula of right-wing alter-globalization is: yes to free finance and free trade. No to free migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality. ..."
"... What the author is struggling to define, is called 'America First' ..."
"... America First, consequently, is about more than simply putting America first. In the sense that the author raises the subject, America First is about reforming the WTO. Come on guys, get with the program! ..."
"... The rise of the right in the US and Europe is a response to neoliberal globalization's anti-worker consequences. In the US, the working class was so desperate for someone to speak to their economic anxieties, that a large portion of them placed their hopes in the hands of a ridiculous, blow-hard billionaire. ..."
In a recent speech at the United Nations, President Trump
railed against "the ideology of globalism" and "unelected, unaccountable global
bureaucracy."
For those of us who came of age in the 1990s, there was an eerie sense of déjà
vu. Then, too, there were protests against global institutions insulated from democratic
decision-making. In the most iconic confrontation, my college classmates helped scupper the
World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999.
The movement called for "alter-globalization" -- a different kind of globalization more
attentive to labor and minority rights, the environment and economic equality. Two decades
later, traces of that movement are hard to find. But something surprising has happened in the
meantime. A new version of alter-globalization has won -- from the right.
We often hear that world politics is divided between open versus closed societies, between
globalists and nationalists. But these analyses obscure the real challenge to the status
quo.
President Trump and the far right preach not the end of globalization, but their own strain
of it, not its abandonment but an alternative form. They want robust trade and financial flows,
but they draw a hard line against certain kinds of migration. The story is not one of open
versus closed, but of the right cherry-picking aspects of globalization while rejecting others.
Goods and money will remain free, but people won't.
The current United States trade war is a case in point. Commentators lament that Mr. Trump
is tearing up " the rules
America itself created more than 80 years ago " and conjure up visions of the 1930s, when
nations and empires dreamed of total self-sufficiency. Yet they overlook the fact that the
actions of the president and his influential trade representative Robert Lighthizer betray no
desire to withdraw from the world market.
Quite the opposite. The express effort is to use unilateral action to bully other countries, China in particular, into
better market access for American products. The point of comparison is not the dreams of economic self-sufficiency of the 1930s
but Ronald Reagan's assault on Japanese competition in the 1980s. "The basic philosophy that we have is that we want free trade
without barriers," Mr. Lighthizer explained to Congress in
August.
In Britain, the Brexit campaign was built on the demand to "take back control" and
fear-mongering about refugees and immigrants. Withdrawal from the world economy was never on
the program. On the contrary, the Brexiteers
championed a pivot from the European economy to the global one unfettered by the
regulations of Brussels and the European Court of Justice. Almost all negotiations since the
vote to leave have been in pursuit of a vision in which the free flow of goods and money across
the channel can be preserved while labor migration can be squelched. A recent
report from British and American think tanks close to the Brexiteers proposes a new free
trade agreement between the two countries that could act as an embryonic World Trade
Organization 2.0 that would target more directly Chinese state subsidies for industries and the
lingering state-provided social services like the National Health Service.
The pattern of right-wing alter-globalization is repeated in Germany and Austria, where the
Alternative for Germany and the Austrian Freedom Party have recently recorded electoral wins.
Neither party proposes national self-sufficiency or economic withdrawal. In their programs, the
rejection of economic globalization is highly selective. The European Union is condemned, but
the language demanding increased trade and competitiveness is entirely mainstream. The
Alternative for Germany takes fiscal conservatism to an absurd degree with criminal charges
demanded for policymakers who overspend. Both parties call for no inheritance tax and
burdensome regulations, even as they make new promises for social spending.
Free market capitalism is not rejected but anchored more deeply in conservative family
structures and in a group identity defined against an Islamic threat from the East. Several of
the Alternative for Germany's leaders are also
members in a society named after Friedrich Hayek, often seen as the arch-thinker of
free-market globalism.
Even the alt-right, usually seen as the epitome of the fortress mentality of separatist
survivalism, contains significant strains of alter-globalization. Some of the alt-right's most
prominent figures, from Richard Spencer to Christopher Cantwell (better known as the "
crying Nazi " from the 2017 Charlottesville, Va., protest), have expressed their sympathies
for the radical form of libertarianism known as anarcho-capitalism.
Many people on the alt-right -- including the premier anarcho-capitalist thinker, the German
economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe -- believe that cultural homogeneity is a precondition
for socio-economic order. Mr. Hoppe envisions a dissolution of the current world map of states
into thousands of tiny units the size of Hong Kong, Andorra and Monaco without representative
government and ruled only by private contract.
Like Hong Kong and Singapore, these zones would not be isolated but hyper-connected, nodes
for the flow of finance and trade ruled not by democracy (which would cease to exist) but
market power with disputes settled through private arbitration. No human rights would exist
beyond the private rights codified in contract and policed through private security forces. As
Mr. Hoppe argues, the alt-right and identitarian vision of "a place for every race" need not
conflict with a global division of labor. None of this need disrupt commercial exchange and the
international division of labor. As Mr. Hoppe wrote, "not even the most exclusive form of
segregationism has anything to do with a rejection of free trade." The maxim would be: separate
but global.
The varieties of right-wing alter-globalization differ significantly in degrees of horror.
What they share is a rejection not of the "postwar international order" -- as many pundits
fruitlessly argue -- but of the order of the 1990s. In the cross hairs are the products of that
decade, above all, the crown jewels of neoliberal globalism: the W.T.O., the European Union and
Nafta (which was recently renegotiated and renamed).
The right's alter-globalizers unite in a condemnation of the structures of multilateral
governance that emerged from that decade along with their implication that democracy and
capitalism were twins joined at the reported "end of history."
Instead, in a forthright embrace of inegalitarianism, they question the ability of every
country and every population to practice democratic capitalism and, in many cases, propose a
departure from status quo democratic capitalism themselves.
The idea that openness is under attack is too vague. The formula of right-wing
alter-globalization is: yes to free finance and free trade. No to free migration, democracy,
multilateralism and human equality.
The nature of property is that nobody has any unless the rest of us agree to protect it. The
left-right contest is about how much we should protect an individual's claim of property. The
right-wing ideologues' design for "the free movement of goods and money, but not of people"
is a plan to give property (money) an unfettered superior claim.
What fools we are if we
agree to give up on every other claim, including a habitable place for our offspring a couple
generations out. And freedom of movement?
Would you be okay if allowed to roam in a 10,000 mi
radius? How about 1,000 or 100, or 100 yards?
The fact that people seem to have received such differing messages from this ...essay does
not mean that it is complex and sophisticated. It means tha it is one of those too clever by
half pieces that serve to confuse and divide.
It is essentially disinformation passing for
depth. It obscures rather than clarifies.
When the NYT condemns Trump, it often cites Buckley's rejection of John Birch Society as an
example of "sane" good old GOP. The sad reality is that they were right!
The hysterical fear
of the UN was overblown but the emergence of the "global consensus" that Pres. Obama so often
cited was very real. At core, the John Birch Society accurately predicted a cosmopolitan,
coastal finance system that directed money and people in a global interest, not national.
The
appeal of the right is so strong because most people can SEE that their own citizens go to
work day in and day out to move capital out of their backyards into the coffers of
financiers.
This writer clearly has a longer memory than most commentators, who see opposition to the WTO
as an exclusively right-wing issue. It's very, very important to remember and keep alive the
heritage of the left-wing alter-globalisation movement. The right wing offers false solutions
to a real problem: the "liberal world order" has indeed suppressed the rights of people,
especially in the Third World, in order to boost the profitability of the transnationals.
Workers are left behind by the current system. The only way to stop right-wing xenophobic
"anti-globalism" is to return to an authentic left wing critique of the international system,
rather than posturing as its defenders.
Every president should have to take a oath stating "First do no harm." Trump is harming our
country and the world. He's not remotely democratic or American. He rules by fear, blackmail
and intimidation. These are not American. He likes to rile things up but that is not what you
do with a country or the world. Welcome to World War III.
While I agree the globalization (compliments of technological advances) has gone right wing,
the politics of failure provide so much of the emotional fuel of this hard turn. A very
different scenario might be playing out now if the Arab Spring had not collapsed compliments
of the Saudis (what a shock) among others.
Had Obama listened to John McCain about Syria; Had
George W. Bush not invaded Iraq while back-burnering Afghanistan; Had Operation Ajax not
toppled the legitimate government of Iran; Had Truman supported Ho-Chi Minh instead of the
French.
These abject failures in the Right Thing to Do have stressed the post WWI world to
dog-eat-dog status where the rhetoric of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are
being held hostage to a zero sum game where seas of migrants risk everything to avoid the
final failure because everything else has failed around them. Shows you how much we've
learned from all of it.
What the author is struggling to define, is called 'America First'. It's is akin to the
warning you get when taking off in an airplane. If a problem occurs, (which very definitely
has happened since China joined the WTO in 2001)... if a problem occurs, put on your own
seatbelt, before helping others. You can't help someone else, if you, yourself are dead in
the water. America First, consequently, is about more than simply putting America first. In
the sense that the author raises the subject, America First is about reforming the WTO. Come
on guys, get with the program!
The dear leader wants to have it both ways. He wants free trade when it benefits him and
tariffs when it doesn't. He doesn't care about the average shopper who has to pay more for
necessities, which are all made in China now. Try to buy a cooking implement that's not made
in China! A pot or a pan or a napkin, or a glass vessel.
@Mike Livingston No one, not even democrats are saying that we should have open borders, what
they are saying is that this country needs comprehensive immigration reform. Which was the
pretext Reagan used when giving amnesty to some 3 million Mexican immigrants. The republicans
have had more than 6 years to fashion genuine immigration reform, that never happened. The
reason is, the only thing that the GOP has is immigration, and fear to get elected. To try
and get elected by saying we're going to pollute the air, water, ground, we're going to give
some 1.5 trillion in tax breaks to corporations and the rich, we're going to balloon the
national debt, that we blamed Obama for, while ignoring the economic damage we've done. We
want to defund education, take away your healthcare, and destroy Social Security Medicaid,
and Medicare, to pay for the 1.5 trillion in tax breaks, and the you the people will get
zero. How log would a party stay in power, because that's exactly what the GOP has done.
Congress, has no right to decide what or how much future generations will pay to service
debt. They are supposed to contend with the here and now, not saddle generations with debt.
So what happens when the national debt comes due, they won't be able to get the money from
the voter, so like the British had to do after WWI, they got it from the only people that had
it to give, the aristocracy, which is why most sold off vast swaths of land. And so it will
go for the billionaires.
The rise of the right in the US and Europe is a response to neoliberal globalization's
anti-worker consequences. In the US, the working class was so desperate for someone to speak
to their economic anxieties, that a large portion of them placed their hopes in the hands of
a ridiculous, blow-hard billionaire.
The Democrats for over two decades have worried that any
pro-worker policies they might enact would threaten the flow of corporate cash that they
longed for so, as Charles Schumer reasoned, "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in
western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in
Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." A failed strategy,
but they're still going with it. That quote was from 2016 but it could as well have been from
1992 when the Democrats joined the Republicans in supporting NAFTA. For those who couldn't
connect the dots, another ridiculous billionaire presidential candidate helped them out,
warning of the "giant sucking sound" as jobs left the country, bound for low wage countries.
All Trump had to do was walk through the door both parties had opened, promising to bring
those jobs back. The centrist Dems obliged him with their self-sabotaging response that
"those jobs are gone and they ain't coming back". Slobodian is wrong: the wealthy and their
politicians aren't cherry-picking the parts of globalization that they want - they're
cynically claiming to be on the side of workers.
Why did I, after reading a paragraph or two, mistakenly conclude that I was in disagreement
with Quinn? In any case, his piece here makes sense. In short: The Trump Republicans want a
right wing, white nationalist cum supremacist world. Goods and money (and rich white
Republicans like Ivanka and Kushner) move (sashay) around the world, but not other people.
And not democracy, human rights, decency, and ethics. According to their thinking, the old
racist white prerogatives and entitlements are preserved, here and around the world. Goods
and money should move to the benefit of rich white Republicans, which will be accomplished by
corruption a la Russia and its oligarchs. Whenever an President Obama accomplishment can be
undone or even just recreated under a Trump Republican moniker, that's all for the better.
Even statements, opinions and truth would move in only one direction--outward from Trump and
his cult and the other right wing, white nationalist globalists. They will say whatever they
want to, however untrue, vile or silly. And the rest of us would silently slavishly abide by
it. The world will be a hybrid of plantation, concentration camp, gulag, and Gilead. The rich
and the white and the powerful and the males will do as they will, and the rest of us will be
grateful to merely survive.
The Republicans are riding a global wave of republicanism that's been in the works for
decades. This is a well-funded and scientifically designed plan that is sequentially rolling
out with military precision. There is nothing accidental about this global Republican
strategy. We are experiencing a fascist Blitzkrieg. Is this not obvious? Yet we have no plan,
no strategy, and no leader. Just childish wishful thinking about being saved by the vote.
Where is the global antifascist strategy from our entitled 80 year-oldster Democrat
leadership? Where is the global Democratic wave? Is Pelosi is "working on it"? Wake up
Democrats, the current feeble Democratic leadership is leading us down the drain. "Every
generation has their Fascism" (Primo Levi) -- the Republicans are just doing what they do,
while the Democrats do nothing.
It doesn't make you a right-wing blood-and-soil fascist to note that mass movement of people
from one country to another is VERY different than movement of funds from one country to
another. And just as a broken clock is right twice a day you don't have to agree with actual
Nazis to also note that the movement of people is all one way-into the "West". No one is
seriously arguing that China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, or the myriad nations of Africa
must have more diversity and multiculturalism regardless of what the various citizens of
those places want. If we don't want increasingly right-wing governments and politicians in
North America, Europe and Australia, (and I DON'T!!) we must allow space to talk about
immigration, legal and illegal, how much, when, and from where. There is nothing wrong with
Kenya wanting to remain Kenyan, Germany wanting to remain German, France wanting to remain
French, etc. The solution to Third World problems can't be for everyone to move to Europe,
Australia or the US.
Quinn Slobodian: Absolutely correct, your analysis is. What many left critiques in the '90s
saw in the EU, e.g., was the free movement of goods, capital AND labor, the last being the
most significant insofar as the vast majority of human beings are spoken of/for in formal
policy and institutional practices. On the other hand, NAFTA was only meant to be the free
movement of goods and capital, written by the leaders of the 3 capitalist states to promote
the concentration of capital in North America via corporate actors. It was said then by
officials in the US that uniting the three economies would be a deliberate way to compete
against the European Union. The left here said the specific political difference between the
two blocs reflected a crueler type of capitalism at work in North America, than the softer
capitalism of the social democracies of the EU [then]. Having recently returned from
Stuttgart and a trip to Süd Tyrol, it's still true. NAFTA was seriously flawed
initially, insofar as it never cared to directly promote the interests of the vast majority
in all 3 countries, viz., working people. Only foreign investors [from MX, CAN &/or US]
and their capital movements were protected and promoted by NAFTA. Yes, now the alt-right
seeks global separation [really segregation, historically], via race and socio-economic
status, two social constructs. Completely inane and dangerous stuff, ideologically.
With either our current versions of globalism or nationalism, the loser in both is the
environment. Global trade seeks to maximize national resources for transnational profits.
Nationalists, like President Trump, don't care about the environment if it means we're not
"winning" against other countries in jobs, trade, etc. In either case, the environment and
climate is sacrificed for monetary profit and political benefit.
Free trade and open borders are alternative ways to achieve the same end: cheap labor. We
either outsource to cheaper labor abroad through trade or bring the cheaper labor here
through immigration. But there are advantages and disadvantages of both methods. And may
depend on what kind of industries we are talking about. I think it would probably be better
to keep low skill, labor intensive, polluting industries abroad. Like basic materials
manufacturing or scrap metal processing or something like that you see in China and India. Or
perhaps natural resource extraction (you can't really choose the geography of that though).
Because all those things impose a lot of negative externalities on the local environment.
Look at the smog in Beijing. And these low wage workers come here and can't command high
enough wages to pay for the social services they and their families utilize. And low skill
workers of course have lower education attainment and language skills and so you have
additional barriers to assimilation for them and their children. Contrast with engineering,
advanced manufacturing or knowledge industry workers--bringing those people here and the
country is probably better off because the imported workers will be higher income, net payers
into the tax base. Plus they'll assimilate more easily as probably already studied English or
worked at multinationals. These are the kinds of immigrants we need for the 21st century.
"Mr. Hoppe envisions a dissolution of the current world map of states into thousands of tiny
units the size of Hong Kong, Andorra and Monaco without representative government and ruled
only by private contract...." I can understand why Mr. Hoppe is popular, he is actually in
the ballpark as to how future societies will develop. Think of this from the point of view of
any of the various political movements enjoying popularity and power today: MeToo, Black
Lives Matter on the "left" (outmoded term), and Trump-style populism, White Supremacy on the
"right" (outmoded term). Are any of these democratic? If, at some future date, the entities
of New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles, for example, declare independence
from a white, monocultural "Middle Lands of America", would those entities tolerate dissent
and organize along traditional democratic lines, with multiple political parties and a
balance of power? No, they'd organize just like identity groups are now organizing, with
social pressure to conform or be excluded. What we NEED to hope for, is that legitimate,
just, legal institutions will emerge to arbitrate disputes between the new wave of
micro-societies, and have the power to back up their decisions.
Globalization has enabled the rise of the far right by destroying local economies, wages,
agriculture, and jobs. It made some people very wealthy for a while, and it made millions of
poor people even poorer.
The truly wealthy right-wing and its money operate without regard to nationality, borders, or
governments. Money flows around the world in ways no government could control even if it
wished to. Countries are valued only to the extent they can be exploited (usually third-world
countries with natural resources) or used to protect your interests (powerful first-world
countries such as the U.S.) What makes them "right-wing" is that their only concern is to
increase the upward flow of money from us to them, while defending their own interests
legally, politically and militarily. They don't care in the slightest about human rights,
justice, health care, voting rights etc. because they already have those things. So when the
writers observe that they "propose a departure from status quo democratic capitalism" that is
absolutely accurate. They only want what is best for them and the rest of us can fend for
ourselves.
Corporations are people. Money is speech. We won at freedom. And all we've got to show for it
is the next era of feudalism, and a glorified, national Prison-State. Bravo, folks.
Perhaps the author thinks that the despicable majority, those of us that did not go to ivy
league schools are too ignorant to know that the flow of goods across borders and invasions
of many 10's of millions foreigners across borders are fundamentally different events and so
have very different effects on societies! What the various "right" groups that the author
disparages and also 80% of people polled in developed nations have realized is that "free"
movement of people across borders (interesting that anything can be justified by putting
"free" in front of it), that this is nothing more than an elite mechanism to invade and
conquer uppity native citizens, who know and insist on their rights, using foreigners as
pawns and mercenaries that the 1% has devised to create a worldwide medievalist state.
People like Herr Hoppe and all the lesser adherents of private sector "government" are all
unwitting dupes of people like Putin and Trump. If successful (and they have been so far),
the oligarchs have ZERO intention of codifying any rules-based "laws" for the unwashed
masses. They will make sure they, and they alone, have the power to shape decision-making to
suit whatever their needs are at that given moment. When Hoppe and the rest realize "this
isn't what I signed up for" it will be too late. All you people out their tempted by a strong
man leader, wake up! These men are mere gangsters, nothing more!
"Like Hong Kong and Singapore, these zones would not be isolated but hyper-connected, nodes
for the flow of finance and trade ruled not by democracy (which would cease to exist) but
market power with disputes settled through private arbitration. No human rights would exist
beyond the private rights codified in contract and policed through private security forces."
With all the talk of Americans sorting themselves into opposing economic and ideological
groups, (Fox News on every TV in the wealthy gated community, etc.), we could try this here
in the US. As noted in a Brookings article regarding the 2016 Presidential election: "The
less-than-500 counties that Hillary Clinton carried nationwide encompassed a massive 64
percent of America's economic activity as measured by total output in 2015. By contrast, the
more-than-2,600 counties that Donald Trump won generated just 36 percent of the country's
output -- just a little more than one-third of the nation's economic activity." So let's have
3000 feudal county-states divided between Blue and Red. Each with it's own independent
authority, if it has an authority at all. With no over-arching federal assistance, such as
health care and infrastructure, Redlandia would suddenly struggle with serious social needs
and the "commoners" within those states, if not actual Democrats, would suddenly start to act
like Democrats, arguing for social justice and fair treatment. Back to square one.
I live in Arizona, I'm a citizen of the USA but I'm also a human being on the planet earth.
Globalism is a given. It's not going away. We are connected through the water table, ICBM's,
Telecommunications in space, Oceans, Air, trade, etc., etc., etc. We have common problems, we
have had horrible World conflicts. We will always have self interest but we will also always
have shared interests. Those shared interests are growing faster than our self interests
which are highly connected to our shared interests. Where the right gets it wrong is by
destroying all norms of international law, treaties, allies, arms control, emissions
controls, human rights, etc., etc., etc. it creates a huge vacuum in the areas where mutual
shared interest is concerned. Mutual interest in our every increasing connected world is
becoming much more important than national self interest in the ultimate peaceful survival of
our planet. We just fought a 2 trillion dollar war in Iraq over WMD's. We are on the cusp of
abandoning the INF treaty. Why would we spend 2 Trillion going after WMD's and bomb Syria
over chemical weapons if our intent is to embark on nuclear proliferation? War, the end
result of Right-Wing Globalization is flooding, killer storms and nuclear war. It must be
stopped. The truth is post WW2 liberal democracy has been the greatest wealth building
machine in the history of the world. The Right can't refute that.
@HL The right is attacking everything that made our prosperity happen because they are too
greedy to see that the things they attack are what made their prosperity possible. The most
obvious is science. They attack scientists because they don't know how science works. They
think that they can separate science that messes with their worldview from science that makes
the gadgets they sell. It is all one science and if you undermine the integrity of science by
politicizing it, then you end up with your leading scientists locked in a tower like Galileo,
or forced to commit suicide like Plato. (Philosophy used to encompass all of the subjects we
now specialize in including math, science, and engineering. Most of the philosophers built
fortifications and war machines for a living.) Back when the top tax rate was 70% and the
corporate rate was 50% growth averaged 3.5% and peak growth was 8%, while we paid down the
still record debt (as a percent of GDP), rebuilt Europe and Japan, built the Interstate
Highway system, and numerous dams, brought electricity to Texas (ingrates), and most people
could live a reasonable life on one salary. Now we have cut taxes by more than half, average
growth is less than 2%, and peak growth 5.1% (and that was under Obama). But corporate mass
media and centrist Democrats never mention this obvious historical argument against Supply
Side Economics, pretending that this hypothesis without a cause and effect linkage, or data
to back it may yet work?!
@Ryan When hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose first or last name was Ryan came here in
the mid 19th century the result turned out pretty good! Also, check the numbers, we're hardly
being "swamped."
The essential difference between neo-liberal and right wing views of globalization this:
Neo-liberals dispute that globalization of goods trade will ultimately lower the wages of US
workers exposed to it to the global average (roughly that of China). Their counter argument :
Let workers become coders As if. IBM has now more workers in India than in the US. The PRC is
leading in A.I Fact is that the money sent to ther PRC by the US trade has permitted her to
gain the knowledge and industrial bas to specializes in any product it wishes to. Right
winged nationalists, too, love free trade, but to gain political power write conditions into
trade agreement such by 2020. in 2020, Mexican made cars and trucks must have 30 percent of
the work done by workers earning $16 an hour, in 2023 , 40% There is nothing new or
unexpected about the spread of tariff protection from farm products and farmers (where it has
been practiced by the US since the 1920's and ifor 50 years has been practised globally) to
manufactured goods and workers. It was inevitable Peter Drucker, founder of mangement theory
predicted it in 2001. Read
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2001/11/01/the-next-society to learn why
Slobodian isn't talking about alternative globalism. He's not even talking about globalism.
Embracing free finance and trade while rejecting migration, democracy, multilateralism and
human equality is not globalization, alternative or otherwise. Slobodian is describing an odd
form of global corporatism wrapped in a nationalistic shell. Taken to Hoppe's extreme, you'd
end up with a series of corporate micro-states competing for profit domination while
collaborating to suppress the global labor market. The problem of course is humans cannot
manage behavioral identity in this fashion. Finance and trade are an expression of human
production. They are the abstract form of what human beings do all day. You can't divorce
transactional convenience from the human experience. Not without literally enslaving the
entire working population of the world. Envisioning a global labor force organized into
essentially one big gig economy is delusional.
Free movement of goods, services and capital, but not of workers, is nothing new. It was, in
effect, the predominate economic ideology, from the 1920s to the 1990s, of what used to be
called the "free world." Restricting migration is not at all novel; what is new about the
Trump administration is HOW it is being done. Trump is not replacing free migration with
blocked migration, he is replacing rule of law with rule of the jungle, multilateral
agreement with bullying, respect for principles with mafioso loyalty and tribalism,
objectivity with deceit, respect and tolerance with crudeness and hatred, enlightenment with
spontaneously exploited ignorance, consistency, reliability and transparency with
never-ending Orwellian doublespeak, and the spirit of progress with crass fearmongering. In
the late 1930s, America hardly had more open borders than did Germany, Italy or Japan. Unlike
them, however, it supported republican institutions and democratic mechanisms, and opposed
fascism, militarism and wanton cruelty. Trump is not a fascist leader, and would not have
been one in the 1930s, because he lacks leadership competence generally. He would have been,
and is, a water-carrier for would-be wreckers of free institutions, freedom of ideas and
expression, and respect for truth.
Welcome to the new feudalism of the future. There will be two classes of people: Those who
own all the capital and control the military and the rest of us who either soldier for the
haves or tend to those who do. There will be no diplomatic corp, instead they will send the
military to take what they want. There will be islands of extreme wealth and luxury, guarded
by private armies; while surrounded by oceans of misery and despair. I don't see who that is
going to work out very well. Maybe it's just as well that we are probably going to incinerate
the planet and our species in the near future.
So, Slobodian - A Wellesley history professor - champions the end of the West as we know it,
demonizing those who want to preserve their cultures as "far right-wing". Somehow, the
academics decided that wanting to keep your culture is reactionary ... if you are from the
West. If you are not, then you have no responsibility to adapt because this would be cultural
imperialism. Academics like this are part of the problem.
@Kai Culture is the servant of power. You're suggesting that somehow preserving and defending
culture is the far right's purpose and there is truth in that - certainly they don't want to
share or pollute "our" culture. Both the right and the left were co-opted by those whose
hands are on the levers of power generations ago in the west. In the east, they have learned
the lessons of both our successes and failures. Culture is just the bait.
Sounds like we don't tax the wealthy enough. They've got theirs, now they want their own
country, too. That way, slave wages leading to even more wealth. And since their fiefdom will
be small, no need to provide more modes of transportation than is necessary to get goods and
services out to customers. The rest of us aren't going anywhere other than to work. And, if
you limit your workforce to one ethnic group, it's cheaper to control them. We all get to
marry our cousins, which is a red state (I won't go there). I'm assuming we get lots of drugs
to ease our boredom - kind of like now. These people are more than short-sighted and greedy,
they are Trumpian. If Democrats do take the House, how about the first thing they do is make
it easier to vote, i.e., national holiday on the weekend, fair and secure voting practices
and corporations are not people.
This article describes a wide range of social, economic & political models currently
advocated on the world stage that address globalization in positive terms from an ultra-right
political perspective. Arguably, advocates of these models may differ over the details of the
reactionary utopianism each espouses but, when push comes to shove in the real world, they
share an implied fallback openness to authoritarian government with quasi-fascist undertones.
There has not been the "free movement of people" within any of our lifetimes (or our
grandparent's life times). Populism is in part a reaction to global overpopulation. The
developing world must get its fertility rates in check. It is not the obligation of countries
like Japan, Australia, the United States or Italy to mop up the excess humanity billowing
from the global south.
@Rennata Wilson The "excess humanity?" What callous, ugly language. God forbid that those who
are better off ever say those words about you or those you love when your hour of need comes.
Whether struck with cancer or another car, surviving an earthquake or domestic abuse,
struggling against hunger or warfare, we are all on the edge of death and violence. Do you
think you and your grandchildren will be spared in perpetuity just because you're comfortable
now? That you'll never need the aid of your brothers and sisters in the world? Do you really
think that the lives of those in "the global south" (code word for people of color) don't
matter as much as yours? What kind of person are you??? Your comment is shocking in its
selfishness, arrogance, and cruelty. Hopefully you're not superstitious, for putting such
ugliness into the universe should make you uneasy about you fate and that of your children.
American corporations didn't move production of goods overseas - or shift to using foreign
made components in production - because they compassionately sought to boost employment in
those countries. The idea that globalization ever had a rosy hued humanist element is
patently absurd. It's always been this - a way for big business to work outside the system,
exploit people, and maximize profits while minimizing costs. The US government has been
enabling it for decades. What Reagan teed up, Clinton knocked out of the park. And of course
immigration is part of all of this - it's far more profitable for domestic business interests
if a significant percentage of the immigrant population is here illegally, hired illegally,
and too frightened by an anti-immigration social climate to even think about reporting
egregious violations of federal labor laws.
@Januarium Thank you for pointing out that both Reagan and Clinton created this disaster.
Democrats the first step to bragging Republicans is to stop filtering the Clintons who sold
us out and made Democrats take responsibility for Republican disasters. This started with
NAFTA, which most Democrats were against and which Republicans now blame you for.
You seem careful in your article to avoid leaning too heavily on the term "neoliberal," but
one way of summarizing your article might be that it asks the question "is Trump a
neoliberal?" and answers with a resounding "yes!" This probably seems jarring to a certain
benighted stratum of American politicos who may still be struggling to integrate the term
"neoliberal" into their political vocabulary after having first encountered it during the
Clinton vs. Sanders contest in 2015-16, in which the Clinton camp's concern-trolling about
racist/sexist "Bernie bros" was identified with neoliberalism. So just to clarify, yes, it's
true that neoliberalism corresponds to a long tradition of essentially right-wing thought
dating back to midcentury thinkers like Hayek (whose most famous book "The Road to Serfdom"
was recently making the rounds again in the US as a fixture of Glenn Beck's Tea Party reading
list) as well as Wilhelm Röpke, the postwar German economist who vehemently defended
South African apartheid as a necessary bulwark against the socialistic redistribution of
wealth. In short, when we leftists talk about neoliberalism in the context of ostensibly
"progressive" or center-left politicians like Clinton, part of what we mean is to argue that
such politicians have more in common with Trumpian racism -- in particular, a strong shared
commitment to the racially loaded ideal of a "global division of labor" -- than they might
care to openly admit.
The basis of the Right is bully-boy ego and a will to violence. Physical, I'm gonna kill you
and your children, too, violence. We are there. Its just our namby-pamby President has not
yet summoned the nerve to implement. He has, however, put the bones of the machine in place,
and introduced the rhetoric that will make it seem to make sense. Economically, the same.
Trump and his Right-wing would-be totalitarianist cronies are for free trade as long as they
think they're in charge. As soon as someone else, some other country, gains a clear
advantage, even in a limited sector, there will be conflict. Trump thinks he and everything
about him is the best, the invincible, the inevitable and so, of course, he endorses the law
of the jungle. But he will never fight. If he can't convince some gullible general, some
lunatic political movement to fight for him he will, first, resort to his bought and paid for
courts or, failing that, his flaccid legislature for relief. Failing that, he'll wall himself
up in the Trump compound and continue harassing independent contractors. Failing that, he
will try to run away but, I suspect, find no welcoming refuge in a world civilized enough to
respect the putter like Trump. This Uber-Right 'Globalization' isn't an economic idea, it
isn't a system, its a demand for the world's lunch money.
So under this new system would people be confined to the country (or even the state) in which
they were born? Would there be no tourism industry, only those in charge of trade agreements
and shippers allowed to go between these Singapore type enclaves? And the majority of people
kept in a virtual slave type existence? Takes me back to the phrase from a song of my
childhood: "Don't fence me in!"
"Mr. Hoppe envisions a dissolution of the current world map of states into thousands of tiny
units the size of Hong Kong, Andorra and Monaco without representative government and ruled
only by private contract...." In other words, a new corporatist-styled globalized feudalism.
And the vast majority of the population reduced to some new dystopian construct of peasantry.
Of course, if we're in the full throes of dystopia - for here we surely are - the planet is
faced with multiple crises of environmental degradation, dwindling resources and wars of
conquest. And no global structure in place to resolve any of this. Part of the big problem
with right wing-styled libertarianism: it doesn't deal well with large-scale events like
extinction. In fact, it's utterly oblivious to them.
@Chris Another thing is missing, tiny states are the perfect cauldron for permanent warfare
of neighbours against neighbours. This phenomenon is perfectly depicted in the History of
Europe.
"The formula of right-wing alter-globalization is: yes to free finance and free trade. No to
free migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality." There is no new form of
globalization here. This is exactly the formula for the corporate-led globalization we have
seen since the 1980s: free flows of goods and money, but not people. The only new twist here
is the abandonment of multilateralism, which was always intended by the global top 1% as a
means to subvert democracy: put in place a system of global rules that no individual
government can violate, even if the vast majority of its people want it to, because corporate
globalization is literally killing them. Trump and the Republican party, now wholly owned by
a handful of multi-billionaires, simply want to impose their own rules on the world economy,
and not have to rely on multilateral rules that occasionally favor competing groups of
multi-billionaires. The so-called populist masses around the world are simply being taken in
by the reactionary ideology that is always used to divide and rule: scapegoat the "others,"
whoever they may be in any given situation.
Quinn Slobodian: "The formula of right-wing alter-globalization is: yes to free finance and
free trade. No to free migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality." Slobodian's
views are quite fascinating on this problem. In fact it's quite fascinating to ask what would
occur today if nations were to become even dangerously far right as in the 1930's, but unlike
the 1930's we were to have more of them, a true multipolar situation, and of course to have
these nations armed with WMD, yet they would ostensibly be committed to free finance and free
trade and not declaring outright war on each other. Obviously these nations would be a
nightmare from perspective of migration, democracy, and human equality, but might they have a
rough multilateralism (which free finance and trade roughly implies) and be prevented from
outright war, and eventually be such a fierce and forward driving economic clash to point
that despite all their right wing trends they drive the world up into plenty and innovation
which solves many outstanding problems today such as climate change, and eventually they
loosen up to act more along line of left wing globalization dreams today? Or will such a
right wing trend eventually be the 1930's again but this time a terrible WW3? I guess the big
question is whether we can tell if the world will swing too far right or left for that matter
or if we are sensible enough to swing this way and that in uneven climb to eventual success
of us all.
Mr. Slobodian's is a very insightful article, and you can see the influence of Bannon and the
Alt-Right on Trump in this regard, and how Trump fits into this paradigm in his relationships
with NAFTA, the WTO, the EU.
Trump and his ilk are NOT "Populists"! See definition below. Language matters! Why does the
press persist in repeating this utterly inaccurate term? Whatever we think of the likes of
Trump and Le Pen, etc., they are not "Populists"! pop·u·list
/ˈpäpyələst • a person who holds, or who is concerned with, the
views of ordinary people. • a member of the Populist Party, a US political party formed
in 1891 that advocated the interests of labor and farmers, free coinage of silver, a
graduated income tax, and government control of monopolies. They have no REAL interest in
"ordinary people", they're demagogues. And Trump's policies (healthcare, taxes) HURT
"ordinary people." As for "graduated income tax, and government control of monopolies".... we
know how he feels about that!
@NYer Yes language matters, but dictionary definitions never exhaust words. 'Populist' has
also come to mean, unjustly or not, someone who claims to speak for 'the people' in some
unmediated and undifferentiated sense. So not a variety of groups, not ordinary people, but
'the people' in the homogenized way that Slobodian discusses. I don't expect to be able to
change your mind in a few lines here, but would suggest Jan-Werner Muller's book, What is
Populism? for something far richer than an older definition (but still short). I don't know
if this hyperlink will be scrubbed but: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15615.html
@NYer Think about the people who were and are attracted to Trump rallies. A significant
nmajority of White Americans (who consider themselves to be "real" Americans) want to take
our country back and to make America great again. These are the people who voted for Donald
Trump. Authoritarian leaders often gain power on the basis of popullist messaging.
@NYer I echo the comments of Evans. Trump isn't ideologically sophisticated enough to offer
solutions that are wholly populist, and at the end of the day, he has to rely on the
Republican party establishment to create legislation. His campaign, however, was a populist
campaign for sure, even though this paper and many other media outlets were insistent on
calling it fascist and racist... most certainly because too many of our journalists are not
knowledgeable about history and has no idea what a populist was.
"The formula of right-wing alter-globalization is: yes to free finance and free trade. No to
free migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality." So, where does Trump fit in
all of this? Yes to free finance. Yes to free trade if Trump and the wealthy can get their
cut. A big NO to free migration...even legal immigration. A big NO to democracy with
republican lead voter suppression and vote rigging with electronic voting machines, along
with propaganda meant to influence elections with fake news. A big NO to multilateralism as
Trump does not believe in working for anyone's benefit but his own. And a really big NO to
human equality as Trump believes no one is his equal. So, you should not be surprised that
Trump doesn't have a super duper health care plan for the nation as he doesn't care about
your health. Trump talks about jobs, but no infrastructure program because Trump doesn't care
how well the country operates. And Trump talks about immigrants of color as an "infestation"
because he is a white supremacist seeking a false purity. When will we learn that diversity
is strength. True in nature...true among humans. VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS
So the distinction being proposed is between global mercantilism vs. global (what? altruism?
friendliness? whatever is the opposite of xenophobia?). While it's hard to justify opposition
to global mercantilism in modern times, obviously there is a dark human impulse to fear and
fight foreigners, however foreign is defined. Must be a sibling or close cousin to
scapegoating - blaming the foreigner for deficits that are more likely domestic. Both dark
impulses seem ameliorated by education and cosmopolitanism -- the latter likely helped by
global trade relationships. So there is some connection. We have a real problem in figuring
out how to stop amoral fascists like Trump from exploiting the dark human impulses of
xenophobia and scapegoatism to gain authority and power -- and we really must wage that fight
without giving up on democracy. I suspect there are deep psychological and sociological
insights (see Jonathan Haidt) that we have not yet attained.
@Nreb The corporate elite donor class, particularly the Republican donor class, don't really
want to cut off the flow of cheap labor. They just want to turn them into underground serfs
instead of green card holders who can ask for higher wages when the labor market is tight.
Karl Marx wasn't right about everything. He was wrong in thinking that people were
good-natured-enough to be willing to work for equal wages. But, he was spot-on about class
struggle. The rich and powerful strain every sinew to get richer and more powerful. If we put
on our Marxist glasses while reading your article, the motives of our leaders become
crystal-clear. It's about making the rich and powerful richer and more powerful. And, until
we freely acknowledge the existence of a class struggle in America, we regular citizens are
going to be aiming at secondary targets.
@Voter Frog The class struggle in America is between the Progressives and the Democrats. That
is, between the old and the new, the past and the future, the old and the young, the rulers
and the ruled, democracy and fascism, the People and corporations. Republicans are the
militant arm of the Democrats, they are important but secondary targets. We have to first go
through the Democrats to get to the Republicans.
@Voter Frog Yes, I am not against markets or money. These things are useful and not going
away. But the global .1% are still doing what they have been doing for ten thousand years:
waging class warfare against the other 99% The royalty used to tax the poor and give to
themselves. That is why Robin Hood was a hero to the masses. Then we had a revolution so that
the rest of us could tax the rich and invest in our children and our infrastructure. That is
exactly what the Constitution says that we are supposed to do. Read it. But the global mega
rich are unhappy with any system that is not designed to make them richer at our expense, so
they bought the politicians and they bought the media. And these politicians and media have
convinced a whole lot of people that the rich are the job creators, while they fire everyone,
and they are the wealth creators even though the workers actually do the work that creates
the wealth, while the rich take risks with our retirement money. A real rugged individualist
is a hermit, alone and disconnected from the grid. A CEO of a global bank getting free cash
from the federal Reserve is not a rugged individualist, they are semi useful parasites
sucking cash from the financial veins of our economy. If you fire a CEO from a car company,
it can still make cars, but if you fire the workers, it can't. Markets are good, but
capitalism puts the owners of machinery above the people that do the work. Adam Smith was
against this and so am I.
I urge, again, some supervisor who ACTUALLY reads the op-eds before publishing them. In this
ediorial i haven't to go longer than first paragraph to read that mr. Trump and republicans
are cherry-picking their own kind of globalism where goods an money are free. That, is. not.
true. First globalism is something that has to do with a free circulation of people and goods
( money are included in my view within goods by necessity, unless you're thinking about a
primordial society founded on exchange of good for good ) AMONG many countries. There wasn't
ever a call for globalism in history because there wasn't such massive partecipation from
countries. What you had in the past was bilateral or trilateral accord ( like NAFTA; recently
renmed USAMCA ) over negotiated goods. Globalism won't do that by negotiating single cases,
but only for general cases ( all diary, all automotive, etc.. ) Regardless that, it's been
since mr. Trump's election that this presidency has imposed restrictions over goods coming
from China, recently it has mined the Pan-pacific accord with asian countries, imposed
tariffs on steel trade with Europe, and the list goes on and on. It's appalling, to say the
least, that everything was shut down and narrowed to only the last few days data only ( that
is only to consider the 100bls tradi with saudis.. in a vacuum! ) Maybe the author is not
aware of the meaning of the word cherry-picking, but he is an expert of the word
horse-viewing.
The "free movement of goods", when it encompasses imports from poorly regulated,
authoritarian countries with no history of labor rights and with little regard for the
stewardship of God's green earth, has exacerbated our climate calamity and is bringing right
wing nativists, with dangerous ideologies, to power all over the developed world. But the
bankers & their friends in Washington and Manhattan remain willfully blind.
If this is true what is up with the trade war? It is about goods and services and money.
Unless the Internet is coming down it will always move things in the direction of consumers
and empower the movement of goods and money but do little about the movement of workers.
Your main point: "The idea that openness is under attack is too vague. The formula of
right-wing alter-globalization is: yes to free finance and free trade. No to free migration,
democracy, multilateralism and human equality." And I am assuming that saying no to free
migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality is bad, in your opinion. And I am
assuming that you believe both finance and free trade can exist along side free migration,
democracy, multilateralism and human equality. To preserve our basic values, if indeed these
are an examples and I am assuming they are, we need to work harder at not simply settling for
"free finance and free trade", which are far easier to achieve if you dispense with these
basic values. We used to fight for human rights, we sought to be a nation that practiced
democracy as a role model for the globe, and we hoped to make progress every year on
improving human equality. Never perfect, but striving to abide by these values as a nation.
Openness under attack is a critique that is too vague. Is you point that we sacrifice these
values to quickly, and at our moral peril, if we settle for that as adequately clear and
direct. I hope that is what you are saying. I agree with you. And with our vote in November
we can begin the process of protecting these basic values.
George Monbiot is right: Rand was probably a female sociopath...
Notable quotes:
"... Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax. ..."
"... Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year. ..."
"... the Tea Party movement has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress. ..."
"... It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitised by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments. ..."
"... the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan , former head of the US Federal Reserve. ..."
"... As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system". ..."
"... Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history. ..."
Her
psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into
their doormats Comments
1,227 Illustration by Daniel Pudles I t has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the
postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and
compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated
power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the
belief system constructed by Ayn Rand , who died 30 years ago today, has never
been more popular or influential.
Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her
novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she
explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure
self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She
described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to
assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role
for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or
transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled by government
intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against a nation of spongers. The
millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with
the result that the nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and selfishness,
by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt .
The poor die like flies as a result of government programmes and their own sloth and
fecklessness. Those who try to help them are gassed. In a notorious passage, she argues that
all the passengers in a train filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for
instance, was a teacher who taught children to be team players; one was a mother married to a
civil servant, who cared for her children; one was a housewife "who believed that she had the
right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing".
Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and
greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss
shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was
to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans,
according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of
copies every year.
Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has taken her
to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and
"Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague
anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the
broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the
Republicans in Congress.
Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people who have never read
it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new
demands to remove the 50p tax band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering,
jeering bloggers who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking compassion and empathy,
attacking efforts to make the word a kinder place.
It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is
crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they
are parasitised by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.
It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would suffer grievously from
a withdrawal of government. But such is the degree of misinformation which saturates this
movement and so prevalent in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and
expectations) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as billionaires' doormats. I wonder
how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of
her life she signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed furiously against
both programmes, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her
belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health.
But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy: as Adam Curtis's BBC
documentary showed last year, the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan , former head of
the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book he
co-edited with her called Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal
. Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no
need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as
"the 'greed' of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking is the unexcelled
protector of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients
guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains,
is a "superlatively moral system".
Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for
the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and
the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already
documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history.
Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous admission that it was Rand
who persuaded him that "capitalism is not only efficient and practical but also moral", he
mentioned her in his memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and
this, it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence that even today
Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced his partial admission of failure to
Congress.
Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand
the rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go
down, the ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.
"... If 'free markets' of enterprising individuals have been tested to destruction, then capitalism is unable to articulate an ideology with which to legitimise itself. ..."
"... Therefore, neoliberal hegemony can only be perpetuated with authoritarian, nationalist ideologies and an order of market feudalism. ..."
"... The market is no longer an enabler of private enterprise, but something more like a medieval religion, conferring ultimate authority on a demagogue. ..."
"... Only in theory is neoliberalism a form of laissez-faire. Neoliberalism is not a case of the state saying, as it were: 'OK everyone, we'll impose some very broad legal parameters, so we'll make sure the police will turn up if someone breaks into your house; but otherwise we'll hang back and let you do what you want'. ..."
"... Hayek is perfectly clear that a strong state is required to force people to act according to market logic. If left to their own devices, they might collectivise, think up dangerous utopian ideologies, and the next thing you know there would be socialism. ..."
"... This the paradox of neoliberalism as an intellectual critique of government: a socialist state can only be prohibited with an equally strong state. That is, neoliberals are not opposed to a state as such, but to a specifically centrally-planned state based on principles of social justice - a state which, to Hayek's mind, could only end in t totalitarianism. ..."
"... It should be understood (and I speak above all as a critic of neoliberalism) that neoliberal ideology is not merely a system of class power, but an entire metaphysic, a way of understanding the world that has an emotional hold over people. For any ideology to universalize itself, it must be based on some very powerful ideas. Hayek and Von Mises were Jewish fugitives of Nazism, living through the worst horrors of twentieth-century totalitarianism. There are passages of Hayek's that describe a world operating according to the rules of a benign abstract system that make it sound rather lovely. To understand neoliberalism, we must see that it has an appeal. ..."
"... However, there is no perfect order of price signals. People do not simply act according to economic self-interest. Therefore, neoliberalism is a utopian political project like any other, requiring the brute power of the state to enforce ideological tenets. With tragic irony, the neoliberal order eventually becomes not dissimilar to the totalitarian regimes that Hayek railed against. ..."
The other point to be made is that the return of fundamentalist nationalism is arguably a
radicalized form of neoliberalism. If 'free markets' of enterprising individuals have
been tested to destruction, then capitalism is unable to articulate an ideology with which to
legitimise itself.
Therefore, neoliberal hegemony can only be perpetuated with authoritarian, nationalist
ideologies and an order of market feudalism.
In other words, neoliberalism's authoritarian orientations, previously effaced beneath
discourses of egalitarian free-enterprise, become overt.
The market is no longer an enabler of private enterprise, but something more like a
medieval religion, conferring ultimate authority on a demagogue.
Individual entrepreneurs collectivise into a 'people' serving a market which has become
synonymous with nationhood. A corporate state emerges, free of the regulatory fetters of
democracy.
The final restriction on the market - democracy itself - is removed. There then is no
separate market and state, just a totalitarian market state.
Yes, the EU is an ordoliberal institution - the state imposing rules on the market from
without. Thus, it is not the chief danger. The takeover of 5G, and therefore our entire
economy and industry, by Huawei - now that would be a loss of state sovereignty. But because
Huawei is nominally a corporation, people do not think about is a form of governmental
bureaucracy, but if powerful enough that is exactly what it is.
Pinkie123: So good to read your understandings of neoliberalism. The political project is the
imposition of the all seeing all knowing 'market' on all aspects of human life. This version
of the market is an 'information processor'. Speaking of the different idea of the
laissez-faire version of market/non market areas and the function of the night watchman state
are you aware there are different neoliberalisms? The EU for example runs on the version
called 'ordoliberalism'. I understand that this still sees some areas of society as separate
from 'the market'?
ADamnSmith: Philip Mirowski has discussed this 'under the radar' aspect of neoliberalism. How
to impose 'the market' on human affairs - best not to be to explicit about what you are
doing. Only recently has some knowledge about the actual neoliberal project been appearing.
Most people think of neoliberalism as 'making the rich richer' - just a ramped up version of
capitalism. That's how the left has thought of it and they have been ineffective in stopping
its implementation.
Neoliberalism allows with impunity pesticide businesses to apply high risk toxic pesticides
everywhere seriously affecting the health of children, everyone as well as poisoning the
biosphere and all its biodiversity. This freedom has gone far too far and is totally
unacceptable and these chemicals should be banished immediately.
The left have been entirely wrong to believe that neoliberalism is a mobilisation of
anarchic, 'free' markets. It never was so. Only a few more acute thinkers on the left
(Jacques Ranciere, Foucault, Deleuze and, more recently, Mark Fisher, Wendy Brown, Will
Davies and David Graeber) have understood neoliberalism to be a techno-economic order of
control, requiring a state apparatus to enforce wholly artificial directives.
Also, the work
of recent critics of data markets such as Shoshana Zuboff has shown capitalism to be evolving
into a totalitarian system of control through cybernetic data aggregation.
Only in theory is neoliberalism a form of laissez-faire. Neoliberalism is not a case of the
state saying, as it were: 'OK everyone, we'll impose some very broad legal parameters, so
we'll make sure the police will turn up if someone breaks into your house; but otherwise
we'll hang back and let you do what you want'.
Hayek is perfectly clear that a strong state
is required to force people to act according to market logic. If left to their own devices,
they might collectivise, think up dangerous utopian ideologies, and the next thing you know
there would be socialism.
This the paradox of neoliberalism as an intellectual critique of
government: a socialist state can only be prohibited with an equally strong state. That is,
neoliberals are not opposed to a state as such, but to a specifically centrally-planned state
based on principles of social justice - a state which, to Hayek's mind, could only end in t
totalitarianism.
Because concepts of social justice are expressed in language, neoliberals
are suspicious of linguistic concepts, regarding them as politically dangerous. Their
preference has always been for numbers. Hence, market bureaucracy aims for the quantification
of all values - translating the entirety of social reality into metrics, data, objectively
measurable price signals. Numbers are safe. The laws of numbers never change. Numbers do not
lead to revolutions. Hence, all the audit, performance review and tick-boxing that has been
enforced into public institutions serves to render them forever subservient to numerical
(market) logic. However, because social institutions are not measurable, attempts to make
them so become increasingly mystical and absurd. Administrators manage data that has no
relation to reality. Quantitatively unmeasurable things - like happiness or success - are
measured, with absurd results.
It should be understood (and I speak above all as a critic of neoliberalism) that
neoliberal ideology is not merely a system of class power, but an entire metaphysic, a way of
understanding the world that has an emotional hold over people. For any ideology to
universalize itself, it must be based on some very powerful ideas. Hayek and Von Mises were
Jewish fugitives of Nazism, living through the worst horrors of twentieth-century
totalitarianism. There are passages of Hayek's that describe a world operating according to
the rules of a benign abstract system that make it sound rather lovely. To understand
neoliberalism, we must see that it has an appeal.
However, there is no perfect order of price signals. People do not simply act according to
economic self-interest. Therefore, neoliberalism is a utopian political project like any
other, requiring the brute power of the state to enforce ideological tenets. With tragic
irony, the neoliberal order eventually becomes not dissimilar to the totalitarian regimes
that Hayek railed against.
Iran's envoy to the United Nations has called on the international community to end "unlawful destabilizing measures" by the US,
declaring that while Iran does not seek war, it "reserves the right to counter any hostile act."
Iranian envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi has condemned continuing US provocations that culminated Thursday morning in the
downing of an American surveillance drone by the Iranian air force over Hormozgan province.
The drone "had turned off its identification equipment and [was] engaged in a clear spying operation," Ravanchi confirmed in a
letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that the aircraft had ignored "repeated radio warnings" in order to enter
Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz.
"... I can only assume that, as with so many of their other ideas, the internet / radio hosts promoting her ideas as the solution to the worlds problems have never actually read anything she said, or did, or possibly if they had, they have not understood it. ..."
"... Usually, with philosophers, you can see how it is not their words, but that someone has interpreted them for their own ends (Nietzsche etc), but in the case of Rand, no mis-interpretation is required, unless you are trying to portray her views as anything other than deeply misanthropic. ..."
I always view Ayn Rand as someone who most right wing dictators would place themselves
somewhere to the left of.
I have no idea how she became the poster child for the libertarian movement, I can only
assume that, as with so many of their other ideas, the internet / radio hosts promoting her
ideas as the solution to the worlds problems have never actually read anything she said, or
did, or possibly if they had, they have not understood it.
Usually, with philosophers, you can see how it is not their words, but that someone has
interpreted them for their own ends (Nietzsche etc), but in the case of Rand, no
mis-interpretation is required, unless you are trying to portray her views as anything other
than deeply misanthropic.
The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks
up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights
are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to
determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore,
reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's
gang.
Such a black and white view of reality. This is the entire problem with Rand's worldview,
reality is far too complex. Here, you talk about the level of "statism" - there are many
different methods of using the state to achieve goals which help improve your life and those
in the society around you.
For example, in Scandanavian countries, and other northern European ones, the state is
used to make up for distribution deficiencies in the market system - that is, to reign in
those at either end of the socio-economic scale to make the distribution more equal, which
has been scientifically shown to reduce all manner of social ills caused by a large amount of
economic inequality.
They do this whilst minimising the impact on economic freedom.
So it's erroneous to think statism = soviet russia style dictatorships.
As for individual rights - well, these are clearly important, but certainly not as a
blanket ideology behind society. Negative sides to individual rights are things like:
• Educational freedom - 2 + 2 can equal 5!
• Parenting - society has to deal with bad parenting as the child reaches adulthood, so
society deserves an equal say: I don't have to vaccinate my kids! (recent MMR jab a prime
example)
• I'm free to pollute the environment, make excessive noise because the government has
no place stopping me.
As a society, a balance needs to be maintained. A balance between a person's individual
liberty and the impact on the society around them. This is the main area where Rand's
philosophy fails - she simply does not acknowledge the very complex relationship humans have
with each other, with society as a whole, and the world around them.
"... This is the reduction ad absurdum that libertarianism is always reduced to. A subscription police force is an an idiocy, a bit like a subscription fire service. ..."
"... Even by the 18th Century, people had figured out that made no sense. How on earth could it work? A private police force would be beholden to its paymasters and no one else. ..."
"... As I have said many times, a pure libertarian society would be a warlord society, with the feeble or non-existent state unable to restrain the richest and most powerful people in that society. Truly a hell on earth. ..."
The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self-owner,
having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may
justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person
justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or 'mixes his labor
with'. From these twin axioms -- self-ownership and 'homesteading' -- stem the
justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free market
society."
That's all very well, but without the means to protect, defend and preserve these things
that one "owns", it amounts to very little. And that is where collectivisation comes in. For
what is the law but a series of codes that we collectively as a society agree to abide by.
Without the rule of law to protect me, whatever I own will soon be taken by someone stronger
and more aggressive that me. Individuals cannot assert their rights as individuals, for they
are not strong enough to do so. The irony, which is lost on libertarians, is that for
individual rights to be preserved we must sacrifice a little of our individualism to
collectively band together to defend those rights.
Then don't pay if you don't want to, that's my point. If you want police pay a
subscription. I suppose this is floating away from objectivism and more into
libertarianism. The principle is the same how ever.
This is the reduction ad absurdum that libertarianism is always reduced to. A subscription
police force is an an idiocy, a bit like a subscription fire service.
Even by the 18th
Century, people had figured out that made no sense. How on earth could it work? A private
police force would be beholden to its paymasters and no one else.
Presumably there would be
multiple such police forces - for free-market competition, of course. These police forces
would become de facto private armies. And from where would they derive their authority? From
he who pays them the most?
As I have said many times, a pure libertarian society would be a
warlord society, with the feeble or non-existent state unable to restrain the richest and
most powerful people in that society. Truly a hell on earth.
While there is certainly an element of Paul supporters, in my experience here in the
Bay/Central Coast is that it is predominantly Dems, liberals, progressives, socialists and
a surprising number of anarchists (many of which are not the typical window-breaking
stereotype).
I would guess its all of us who are suspicious of hierarchical state capitalism - whether
of the left or the right. Many Anarchists have a libertarian mindset, and seek cooperation
(rather than a competition in who can break the most windows), but reject the dominance and
structures of the elite, which are usually completely undemocratic.
People think of anarchy as equating with lawless selfishness because that's how it works
in real life.
No, that is not anarchy. That is a load of selfish bastards claiming to be anarchists and
using this as a justification for their being selfish bastards. I remember only too well the
cry of no small number of the trendy fashion-punk-anarchists of the 1980's to justify their
hedonism and lack of responsibility " I'm an Anarchist, me: I can do anything! ".And
my response to them? " Are you fuck!!! ".
Sadly, however, many like yourself choose to take the definition of anarchy which is a
total misrepresentation of it equating to chaos and disorder, and which as I noted in my
earlier comment, has been deliberately promulgated and used by the State and its supportive
media. And in doing so, you do the philosophy a disservice, as you only help spread this
representation, which eventually becomes the accepted understanding. And this is what the
State and the oligarchs desire most, as it keeps people away from those most dangerous of
thoughts, about actually trying to control their own lives.
So easy to say when you so blithely ignore the historical injustices, the inequality of
opportunity and the theft - the first person to claim a parcel of land as their own exclusive
property was committing an act of theft.
It's not entrepreneurial; it's base rent-seeking and
it was a violent act of forced approbriation by denying natural rights to others.
The
subsequent claims to title are enforced by the threat of violence through the emergence of a
pervasive state.
A modern example is the oligarchs who carved up the commons in a collapsing and
disintegrating Soviet Union. Their's was an act of theft committed against society and the
common good. Your definition of freedom is predicated on theft and is a denial of natural
freedoms,
"... Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets. ..."
"... "It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people." ..."
"... The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain. ..."
"... But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent ..."
"... Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing. ..."
"... Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs. ..."
"... In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember. ..."
"... "We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'" ..."
"... "When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned." ..."
On the ragged streets of the shantytown across the road, where stinking outhouses sit alongside shacks fashioned from rusted sheets
of tin, families have surrendered hopes that sewage lines will ever reach them.
They do not struggle to fashion an explanation for their declining fortunes: Since taking office more than three years ago, President
Mauricio Macri has broken with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Argentina for much of the past century, embracing the
grim arithmetic of economic orthodoxy.
Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting
Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the
power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets.
"It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people."
The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away
from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble
is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow
the pain.
Mr. Macri's supporters heralded his 2015 election as a miraculous outbreak of normalcy in a country with a well-earned reputation
for histrionics. He would cease the reckless spending that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts eight times.
Sober-minded austerity would win the trust of international financiers, bringing investment that would yield jobs and fresh opportunities.
But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress.
Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the
same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and
joblessness is stuck above 9 percent.
Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing.
Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri's tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of
recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while
laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become
a gateway back to populism. The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck
above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
Image
The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts
a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
As the October election approaches, Mr. Macri is contending with the growing prospect of a challenge from the president he succeeded,
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who faces a
series of criminal indictments for corruption . Her unbridled spending helped deliver the crisis that Mr. Macri inherited. Her
return would resonate as a rebuke of his market-oriented reforms while potentially yanking Argentina back to its accustomed preserve:
left-wing populism, in uncomfortable proximity to insolvency.
The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a
commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion
rescue from the International
Monetary Fund , a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s,
turning an economic downturn into a depression.
For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The
promised benefits of his reforms -- a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs -- could take years to materialize,
leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past.
In much of South America, left-wing governments have taken power in recent decades as an angry corrective to dogmatic prescriptions
from Washington, where the Treasury and the I.M.F. have focused on the confidence of global investors as the key to development.
Left-wing populism has aimed to redistribute the gains from the wealthy to everyone else. It has aided the poor, while generating
its own woes --
corruption and depression in
Brazil , runaway inflation and financial ruin in Argentina. In Venezuela, uninhibited spending has turned the country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves into a land where
children starve .
Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered
by social programs.
In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country
has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember.
"We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We
never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'"
Cultivating wealth
... ... ...
In the beginning, there was Juan Domingo Perón, the charismatic Army general who was president from 1946 to 1955, and then again
from 1973 to 1974. He employed an authoritarian hand and muscular state power to champion the poor. He and his wife, Eva Duarte --
widely known by her nickname, Evita -- would dominate political life long after they died, inspiring politicians across the ideological
spectrum to claim their mantle.
Among the most ardent Peronists were Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
who took office in 2007, remaining until Mr. Macri was elected in 2015.
Their version of Peronism -- what became known as Kirchnerism -- was decidedly left-wing, disdaining global trade as a malevolent
force. They expanded cash grants to the poor and imposed taxes on farm exports in a bid to keep Argentine food prices low.
As the country's farmers tell it, Kirchnerism is just a fancy term for the confiscation of their wealth and the scattering of
the spoils to the unproductive masses. They point to Ms. Kirchner's 35 percent tax on soybean exports.
"We had a saying," Mr. Tropini says. "'For every three trucks that went to the port, one was for Cristina Kirchner.'"
reduction in export taxes.
"You could breathe finally," Mr. Tropini, the farmer, says.
He was free of the Kirchners, yet stuck with nature. Floods in 2016 wiped out more than half of his crops. A drought last year
wreaked even more havoc.
"This harvest, this year," he says, "is a gift from God."
But if the heavens are now cooperating, and if the people running Buenos Aires represent change, Mr. Tropini is critical of Mr.
Macri's failure to overcome the economic crisis.
A weaker currency makes Argentine soybeans more competitive, but it also increases the cost of the diesel fuel Mr. Tropini needs
to run his machinery. High interest rates make it impossible for him to buy another combine, which would allow him to expand his
farm.
In the first years of Mr. Macri's administration, the government lifted controls on the value of the peso while relaxing export
taxes. The masters of international finance delivered a surge of investment. The economy expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2017, and
then accelerated in the first months of last year.
But as investors grew wary of Argentina's deficits, they fled, sending the peso plunging and inflation soaring. As the rout continued
last year, the central bank mounted a futile effort to support the currency, selling its stash of dollars to try to halt the peso's
descent. As the reserves dwindled, investors absorbed the spectacle of a government failing to restore order. The exodus of money
intensified, and another potential default loomed, leading a chastened Mr. Macri to accept a rescue from the dreaded IMF.
Administration officials described the unraveling as akin to a natural disaster: unforeseeable and unavoidable. The drought hurt
agriculture.
Money was flowing out of developing countries as the Federal Reserve continued to lift interest rates in the United States, making
the American dollar a more attractive investment.
But the impact of the Fed's tightening had been widely anticipated. Economists fault the government for mishaps and complacency
that left the country especially vulnerable.
.... ... ...
Among the most consequential errors was the government's decision to include Argentina's central bank in a December 2017 announcement
that it was raising its inflation target. The markets took that as a signal that the government was surrendering its war on inflation
while opting for a traditional gambit: printing money rather than cutting spending.
... ... ...
The government insists that better days are ahead. The spending cuts have dropped the budget deficit to a manageable 3 percent
of annual economic output. Argentina is again integrated into the global economy.
"We haven't improved, but the foundations of the economy and society are much healthier," said Miguel Braun, secretary of economic
policy at the Treasury Ministry. "Argentina is in a better place to generate a couple of decades of growth."
... ... ...
Their television flashes dire warnings, like "Danger of Hyper Inflation." Throughout the neighborhood, people decry the sense
that they have been forsaken by the government.
Trucks used to come to castrate male dogs to control the packs of feral animals running loose. Not anymore. Health programs for
children are less accessible than they were before, they said.
Daisy Quiroz, 71, a retired maid, lives in a house that regularly floods in the rainy season.
"When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us.
Poor people feel abandoned."
... ... ...
Daniel Politi contributed reporting from Buenos Aires. Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent.
He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent,
and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @
petersgoodman
Holding up the EU as the root of all woes, while at the same time dominating political
discourse and deflecting the blame from the real culprits.
All at a time when public spending cuts in the name of austerity (itself a direct reaction
to the failings of the neoliberal economic system) are spreading untold misery. At a time
when we finally have an opposition ready to challenge the policies of austerity, the issue
has been conveniently brushed under the brexit rug.
Right-wing ideology is often presented as a natural state and not ideological at all. This
denial is a central feature, acting as a way of abdicating responsibility for harmful and
selfish actions and providing means of fostering intellectual suspicion to prevent challenges
or structured and coherent critiques like your own.
The right engenders coalitions of people disinterested in politics and distrustful of
politicians with those who feel intellectually superior but see politics as an amoral game in
the pursuit of "enlightened" self-interest.
As a result, everything about it is disingenous.
There is no alternative (that we want you to choose). It's not racist to (constantly,
always negatively and to the expense of everything else) talk about immigration. Cutting
taxes for the rich reduces inequality (because we change the criteria to exclude the richest
from the calculations). This is also because there are dualities at play. Neoliberalism
relies on immigration to increase worker competition and suppress wage demand but courts the
xenophobic vote (which is why even with reduced EU migration Brexit has so far increased
overall immigration and would continue to do so in the event of no deal or May's deal). Both
Remainers and Leavers have accused the other of being a neoliberal project, and in certain
aspects -because of these dualities - both sides are correct.
I also believe the disdain for "political correctness" is somewhat a result of
neoliberalism, since marketisation is so fundamental to the project and the wedge of the
market is advertising, the language of bullshit and manipulation. People railing against
political correctness feel judged for their automatic thoughts that they identify as natural
instead of culturally determined. Behavioural advertising encourages these thoughts and
suppresses consideration. It is a recipe for resentment.
"... In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, President Trump promised to deliver on his populist campaign pledges to protect Americans from globalization. "For too long," he bemoaned, "we've watched our middle class shrink as we've exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries." But now, he asserted, the time has come to "restart the engine of the American economy" and "bring back millions of jobs." ..."
"... To achieve his goals, Trump proposed mixing massive tax-cuts and sweeping regulatory rollbacks with increased spending on the military, infrastructure and border control. ..."
...with Trump the ideological patina of faith in free markets has gone and he's more or less
just engaged in an asset stripping exercise. Thing is, though, you can't get away with that
without some kind of distraction, and in Trump's case it's his country club racist's
understanding of geopolitics converted into campaign rhetoric and immigration policy.
I don't think this is some masterplan -- he just happened to stumble into the stage at a
point where there was an opening for his kind of rhetoric. I'm just amazed someone smarter
didn't see it earlier and capitalise.
Under Trumps tax plan, a single mother with 2 kids working fulltime at minumum wage gets 75
dollars a YEAR in childcare, about $-1.50 per week.
----------
While the rich, those making up to 400,000 per year get 2000.00 per year child credit off
their taxes.
---------------
Name a benefit for the poor,
that the recent tax bill passed by Trump and GREEDY GOP.
In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, President Trump promised to deliver on
his populist campaign pledges to protect Americans from globalization. "For too long," he
bemoaned, "we've watched our middle class shrink as we've exported our jobs and wealth to
foreign countries." But now, he asserted, the time has come to "restart the engine of the
American economy" and "bring back millions of jobs."
To achieve his goals, Trump proposed
mixing massive tax-cuts and sweeping regulatory rollbacks with increased spending on the
military, infrastructure and border control.
This same messy mix of free market
fundamentalism and hyper-nationalistic populism is presently taking shape in Trump's proposed
budget. But the apparent contradiction there isn't likely to slow down Trump's pro-market,
pro-Wall Street, pro-wealth agenda.
His supporters may soon discover that his professions of
care for those left behind by globalization are -- aside from some mostly symbolic moves on
trade -- empty.
Just look at what has already happened with the GOP's proposed replacement for Obamacare,
which if enacted would bring increased pain and suffering to the anxious voters who put their
trust in Trump's populism in the first place.
While these Americans might have thought their
votes would win them protection from the instabilities and austerities of market-led
globalization, what they are getting is a neoliberal president in populist clothing.
I adore the ill educated, unintentional, satirical nature of some of the Rand supporters
comments here - unsurprisingly predominantly American. Who appear to have a tenuous grasp on
the nature and meaning of philosophy. Who replace rational thought with cod philosophy and
hysterical rants, - that would embarrass your average cargo cult worshiper - as a
justification for their own sociopathy and intellectual inadequacy. Take a bow...
MoreThanExists and the even more comic BruceMajors
Ironic isn't it, America may end up becoming the Western world's first failed state? A
kind of Somalia with hamburgers,obesity and better drainage; ruled by Christian
fundamentalist neo liberal warlords and Ayn Rand inspired gangsters, funded by Wall Street
parasites, with the Tea Party as the Sturm Abteilung (SA), and "Atlas Shrugged" as their most
sacred holy text written by a third rate Sadeian dominatrix.
Remember the fascist war cry as they went into battle against Republican troops during the
Spanish Civil War, "Death to the intellect! Long live death!". How appropriate?!! Maybe
Rand's disciples could work that into a revised version of "The Star-Spangled Banner.?"
"... Hire B-team actors whom he can fire at will, and for effect, as required to maintain the facade of 'dominance.' Let the dogs loose and then yank on their chains at the last minute. The master's voice etc. ..."
"... His problem is: it only works in TV Reality Show land -- and only for a limited time between business-as-usual advertising. ..."
"... He, and his cast of zio-policy diplomatic zombies have a much harder time when it comes to the real world and real national boundaries that resist and are likely to fight back. ..."
"... Seems the US is perpetually seeking war or at the very least threatening war. War on drugs, war on poverty war on disinfo war, trade wars , unending list of WAR, WAR, WAR. ..."
"... Sanctions were never justified in the first place. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has submitted to extra-ordinary inspections by the IAEA for decades. And gets ticks on the boxes. Anyone that thinks Iran is trying to 'build the bomb' probably believes unicorns live in the White House (the American one), and that Saddam blew up the Twin Towers. ..."
"... Compare the western attitudes towards Iran, and those towards India and Pakistan. Neither of which have signed up to the NPT. Not a single whimper from western governments or their MSM propaganda channels, when those countries developed an arsenal of nuclear WMD's. ..."
"... My guess on what happened with Trump was the same MO as in Syria, he has a temper tantrum ("kill them all, even the Russians" as was rumored) and he was informed of the possible fallout from such an attack. ..."
Whether Generalissimo Bone Spur and President Chief Kaiser of the USA, His Imperial Majesty Donald Trump, actually called for
a stand down of any attack on Iran for the shooting down of a surveillance UAV, or he suddenly realized that such an act would
touch off another unneeded war, is at this point in time a matter of some debate. What is clear however is that his Imperial Majesty
must clean out his current foreign policy and national defense staff (Bolton, Pompeo, Haspel etc.) before another crisis develops.
Otherwise the neocons that currently inhabit the Oval Office chicken hawk coop will be back at fomenting another crisis, which
might actually give them the war they so dearly want. His Imperial Majesty appointed them and he can fire them.
All this narrative fits Trump's modus operandi and his fake Alpha male persona.
Hire B-team actors whom he can fire at will, and for effect, as required to maintain the facade of 'dominance.' Let the dogs
loose and then yank on their chains at the last minute. The master's voice etc.
His problem is: it only works in TV Reality Show land -- and only for a limited time between business-as-usual advertising.
He, and his cast of zio-policy diplomatic zombies have a much harder time when it comes to the real world and real national
boundaries that resist and are likely to fight back.
Trump and US MIC is dangerous of course. But Trump has enough rat cunning to know when he's cornered. All he's done here with
this alleged last minute "call back" is test prove his chain of command is working. (...or is it?)
George V---
As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who the president has or who he is. Seems the US is perpetually seeking war or at the very
least threatening war. War on drugs, war on poverty war on disinfo war, trade wars , unending list of WAR, WAR, WAR.
I cannot see any way that the current irrational sanctions against Iran by the US can be rolled back. All US administrations are
full of hubris and in love with their own imagined gloriously supreme power. The only way they can be rolled back is if Iran offers
some face-saving excuse, which they can't do. They have nothing else to give (Pompeo's 'conditions for international re-alignment'
were essentially a demand for surrender and 'regime' change, probably authored by Maniac Walrus Bolton).
Sanctions were never justified in the first place. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has submitted
to extra-ordinary inspections by the IAEA for decades. And gets ticks on the boxes. Anyone that thinks Iran is trying to 'build
the bomb' probably believes unicorns live in the White House (the American one), and that Saddam blew up the Twin Towers.
Compare the western attitudes towards Iran, and those towards India and Pakistan. Neither of which have signed up to the NPT.
Not a single whimper from western governments or their MSM propaganda channels, when those countries developed an arsenal of nuclear
WMD's.
My guess on what happened with Trump was the same MO as in Syria, he has a temper tantrum ("kill them all, even the Russians"
as was rumored) and he was informed of the possible fallout from such an attack.
Trump will attack, just not yet. There is some new toy they want to try out. Shock and Awe style.
"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the
existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John
Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.
"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory,
threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that
America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and
alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of
force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.
"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends
a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a
diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals
that cannot be reasoned with.
They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the
region, and Iran won't stand for that."
At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a
full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.
The current conflict is about the US hegemony in the region, not anything else.
The analysis is really good. I especially like "The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to
foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender"
That means that Doug Bandow
proposals while good are completely unrealistic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East. ..."
"... Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are? ..."
"... Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn. ..."
"... The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace. ..."
"... Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran. ..."
"... Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism. ..."
"... Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran. ..."
"... Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response. ..."
"... Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations. ..."
"... In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. ..."
Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war
against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the
invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet
state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle
East.
Thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed U.S. personnel, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and
millions of Iraqis displaced. There was the sectarian conflict, destruction of the historic Christian community, the creation of
Al Qaeda in Iraq—which morphed into the far deadlier Islamic State—and the enhanced influence of Iran. The prime question was how
could so many supposedly smart people be so stupid?
Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the
nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war
even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are?
The Iranian regime is malign. Nevertheless, despite being under almost constant siege it has survived longer than the U.S.-crafted
dictatorship which preceded the Islamic Republic. And the latter did not arise in a vacuum. Washington did much to encourage a violent,
extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined
to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn.
In 1953 the United States backed a coup against democratically selected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Washington then aided
the Shah in consolidating power, including the creation of the secret police, known as SAVAK. He forcibly modernized Iran’s still
conservative Islamic society, while his corrupt and repressive rule united secular and religious Iranians against him.
The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran,
triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue
subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons
employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace.
Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership
with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush
administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well.
Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran.
As Henry Kissinger reportedly once said, even a paranoid can have enemies. Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that
average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently
triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism.
The hostile relationship with Iran also has allowed Saudi Arabia, which routinely undercuts American interests and values, to
gain a dangerous stranglehold over U.S. policy. To his credit President Barack Obama attempted to rebalance Washington’s Mideast
policy. The result was the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It provided for an intrusive inspection regime designed
to discourage any future Iranian nuclear weapons program—which U.S. intelligence indicated had been inactive since 2003.
However, candidate Donald Trump had an intense and perverse desire to overturn every Obama policy. His tight embrace of Israeli
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored the advice of his security chiefs in denouncing the accord, and the Saudi royals,
who Robert Gates once warned would fight Iran to the last American, also likely played an important role.
Last year the president withdrew from the accord and followed with a declaration of economic war. He then declared the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military organization, to be a terrorist group. (Washington routinely uses the “terrorist” designation
for purely political purposes.) Finally, there are reports, officially denied by Washington, that U.S. forces, allied with Islamist
radicals—the kind of extremists responsible for most terrorist attacks on Americans—have been waging a covert war against Iranian
smuggling operations.
The president claimed that he wanted to negotiate: “We aren’t looking for regime change,” he said. “We are looking for no nuclear
weapons.” But that is what the JCPOA addressed. His policy is actually pushing Tehran to expand its nuclear program. Moreover, last
year Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech that the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, who spent more than a year in
Iranian prison, called “silly” and “completely divorced from reality.”
In a talk to an obsequious Heritage Foundation audience, Pompeo set forth the terms of Tehran’s surrender: Iran would be expected
to abandon any pretense of maintaining an independent foreign policy and yield its deterrent missile capabilities, leaving it subservient
to Saudi Arabia, with the latter’s U.S.-supplied and -trained military. Tehran could not even cooperate with other governments, such
as Syria, at their request. The only thing missing from Pompeo’s remarks was insistence that Iran accept an American governor-general
in residence.
The proposal was a nonstarter and looked like the infamous 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, which was intended to be
rejected and thereby justify war. After all, National Security Advisor John Bolton expressed his policy preference in a 2015 New
York Times op-ed titled: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” Whatever the president’s true intentions, Tehran can be forgiven for
seeing Washington’s position as one of regime change, by war if necessary.
The administration apparently assumed that new, back-breaking sanctions would either force the regime to surrender at the conference
table or collapse amid political and social conflict. Indeed, when asked if he really believed sanctions would change Tehran’s behavior,
Pompeo answered that “what can change is, the people can change the government.” Both Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations have recently argued that the Islamic Republic is an exhausted
regime, one that is perhaps on its way to extinction.
However, Rezaian says “there is nothing new” about Tehran’s difficult Iranian economic problems. “Assuming that this time around
the Iranian people can compel their government to bend to America’s will seems—at least to anyone who has spent significant time
in Iran in recent decades—fantastical,” he said. Gerecht enthusiasm for U.S. warmaking has led to mistakes in the past. He got Iraq
wrong seventeen years ago when he wrote that “a war with Iraq might not shake up the Middle East much at all.
Today the administration is using a similar strategy against Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The citizens of these countries
have not risen against their oppressors to establish a new, democratic, pro-American regime. Numerous observers wrongly predicted
that the Castro regime would die after the end of Soviet subsidies and North Korea’s inevitable fall in the midst of a devastating
famine. Moreover, regime collapse isn’t likely to yield a liberal, democratic republic when the most radical, authoritarian elites
remain best-armed.
... ... ...
More important, Washington does not want to go to war with Iran, which is larger than Iraq, has three times the population, and
is a real country. The regime, while unpopular with many Iranians, is much better rooted than Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Tehran
possesses unconventional weapons, missiles, and allies which could spread chaos throughout the region. American forces in Syria and
Iraq would be vulnerable, while Baghdad’s stability could be put at risk. If Americans liked the Iraq debacle, then they would love
the chaos likely to result from attempting to violently destroy the Iranian state. David Frum, one of the most avid neoconservative
advocates of the Iraq invasion, warned that war with Iran would repeat Iraqi blunders on “a much bigger sale, without allies, without
justification, and without any plan at all for what comes next.”
Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure
on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for
war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington,
ascendant in Tehran.
Carefully calibrated military action, such as tanker attacks, might be intended to show “resolve” to gain credibility. Washington
policymakers constantly justify military action as necessary to demonstrate that they are willing to take military action. Doing
so is even more important for a weaker power. Moreover, observed the Eurasia Group, Iranian security agencies “have a decades-long
history of conducting attacks and other operations aimed precisely at undermining the diplomatic objectives of a country’s elected
representatives.” If Iran is responsible, observed Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, then administration policy perversely
“is rendering Iran more aggressive, not less,” thereby making the Mideast more, not less dangerous
Of course, Tehran has denied any role in the attacks and there is good reason to question unsupported Trump administration claims
of Iranian guilt. The president’s indifferent relationship to the truth alone raises serious questions. Europeans also point to Bush
administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War.
Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war
against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that
the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response.
Other malicious actors also could be responsible for tanker attacks. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, ISIS, and Al
Qaeda all likely believe they would benefit from an American war on Tehran and might decide to speed the process along by fomenting
an incident. Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al
Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the
mother of all Mideast conflagrations.
Rather than continue a military spiral upward, Washington should defuse Gulf tensions. The administration brought the Middle East
to a boil. It can calm the waters. Washington should stand down its military, offering to host multilateral discussions with oil
consuming nations, energy companies, and tanker operators over establishing shared naval security in sensitive waterways, including
in the Middle East. Given America’s growing domestic energy production, the issue no longer should be considered Washington’s responsibility.
Other wealthy industrialized states should do what is necessary for their economic security.
The administration also should make a serious proposal for talks. It won’t be easy. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
declared “negotiation has no benefit and carries harm.” He further argued that “negotiations are a tactic of this pressure,” which
is the ultimate “strategic aim.” Even President Hassan Rouhani rejected contact without a change in U.S. policy. “Whenever they lift
the unjust sanctions and fulfill their commitments and return to the negotiations table, which they left themselves, the door is
not closed,” he said. In back channel discussions Iranians supposedly suggested that the U.S. reverse the latest sanctions, at least
on oil sales, ending attempts to wreck Iran’s economy.
If the president seriously desires talks with Tehran, then he should demonstrate that he does not expect preemptive surrender.
The administration should suspend its “maximum pressure” campaign and propose multilateral talks on tightening the nuclear agreement
in return for additional American and allied concessions, such as further sanctions relief.
In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions,
requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational
behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis
and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. Tehran has far greater interest in
neighborhood security than the United States, which Washington must respect if the latter seeks to effectively disarm Iran. The administration
should invite the Europeans to join such an initiative, since they have an even greater reason to worry about Iranian missiles and
more.
Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the
best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires
a freer society. That requires greater engagement, not isolation. Washington’s ultimate objective should be the liberal transformation
of Iran, freeing an ancient civilization to regain its leading role in today’s world, which would have a huge impact on the region.
The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo
is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender. This approach has failed in every case. Washington has caused enormous
economic hardship, but no target regime has capitulated. In Iran, like North Korea, U.S. policy sharply raised tensions and the chances
of conflict.
War would be a disaster. Instead, the administration must, explained James Fallows, “through bluff and patience, change the actions
of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited.” Which requires the administration
to adopt a new, more serious strategy toward Tehran, and quickly.
U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction
with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a
foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East
or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the
military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the
foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are
really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone
strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't
matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea,
China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get
them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts
who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly
ceased.
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"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the
existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John
Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.
"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory,
threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that
America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and
alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of
force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.
"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends
a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a
diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals
that cannot be reasoned with.
They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the
region, and Iran won't stand for that."
At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a
full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.
Bolton is just Albright of different sex. The same aggressive stupidity.
Notable quotes:
"... Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob... ..."
"... How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate. ..."
"... Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity. ..."
"... Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela. ..."
"... "If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." ..."
"... Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe. ..."
"... Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states. ..."
"... Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. ..."
"... The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more. ..."
"... At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia. ..."
"... Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders. ..."
"... When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." ..."
"... For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob. ..."
Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob...
How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem
appropriate.
Since 9/11, Washington has been extraordinarily active militarily -- invading two nations, bombing and droning several others,
deploying special operations forces in yet more countries, and applying sanctions against many. Tragically, the threat of Islamist
violence and terrorism only have metastasized. Although Al Qaeda lost its effectiveness in directly plotting attacks, it continues
to inspire national offshoots. Moreover, while losing its physical "caliphate" the Islamic State added further terrorism to its portfolio.
Three successive administrations have ever more deeply ensnared the United States in the Middle East. War with Iran appears to
be frighteningly possible. Ever-wealthier allies are ever-more dependent on America. Russia is actively hostile to the United States
and Europe. Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears
convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity.
Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For
instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military
and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and
even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela.
U.S. foreign policy suffers from systematic flaws in the thinking of the informal policy collective which former Obama aide Ben
Rhodes dismissed as "The Blob." Perhaps no official better articulated The Blob's defective precepts than Madeleine Albright, United
Nations ambassador and Secretary of State.
First is overweening hubris. In 1998 Secretary of State Albright declared that
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than
other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."
Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson
administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's
Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against
Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with
Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe.
U.S. officials rarely were prepared for events that occurred in the next week or month, let alone years later. Americans did no
better than the French in Vietnam. Americans managed events in Africa no better than the British, French, and Portuguese colonial
overlords. Washington made more than its share of bad, even awful decisions in dealing with other nations around the globe.
Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never
passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if
outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those
most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon
of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states.
The U.S. record since September 11 has been uniquely counterproductive. Rather than minimize hostility toward America, Washington
adopted a policy -- highlighted by launching new wars, killing more civilians, and ravaging additional societies -- guaranteed to
create enemies, exacerbate radicalism, and spread terrorism. Blowback is everywhere. Among the worst examples: Iraqi insurgents mutated
into ISIS, which wreaked military havoc throughout the Middle East and turned to terrorism.
Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to
make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. When queried 1996 about her justification for sanctions against Iraq which had
killed a half million babies -- notably, she did not dispute the accuracy of that estimate -- she responded that "I think this is
a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Exactly who "we" were she did not say. Most likely she meant
those Americans admitted to the foreign policy priesthood, empowered to make foreign policy and take the practical steps necessary
to enforce it. (She later stated of her reply: "I never should have made it. It was stupid." It was, but it reflected her mindset.)
In any normal country, such a claim would be shocking -- a few people sitting in another capital deciding who lived and died.
Foreign elites, a world away from the hardship that they imposed, deciding the value of those dying versus the purported interests
being promoted. Those paying the price had no voice in the decision, no way to hold their persecutors accountable.
The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government.
This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the
full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone
campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious
hypocrisy and bias, and more.
This mindset is reinforced by contempt toward even those being aided by Washington. Although American diplomats had termed the
Kosovo Liberation Army as "terrorist," the Clinton Administration decided to use the growing insurgency as an opportunity to expand
Washington's influence. At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state
could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington
expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against
the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia.
However, initially the KLA, determined on independence, refused to sign Albright's agreement. She exploded. One of her officials
anonymously complained: "Here is the greatest nation on earth pleading with some nothingballs to do something entirely in their own
interest -- which is to say yes to an interim agreement -- and they stiff us." Someone described as "a close associate" observed:
"She is so stung by what happened. She's angry at everyone -- the Serbs, the Albanians and NATO." For Albright, the determination
of others to achieve their own goals, even at risk to their lives, was an insult to America and her.
Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more
than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established
by Washington's far-sighted leaders.
As Albright famously asked Colin Powell in 1992:
"What's the use of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" To her, American military personnel
apparently were but gambit pawns in a global chess game, to be sacrificed for the interest and convenience of those playing. No
wonder then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell's reaction stated in his autobiography was: "I thought I would
have an aneurysm."
When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking
that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." Although sixty-five years had passed, she
admitted that "my mindset is Munich," a unique circumstance and threat without even plausible parallel today.
Such a philosophy explains a 1997 comment by a cabinet member, likely Albright, to General Hugh Shelton, then Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out
Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s
fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?" He responded sure, as soon as she qualified
to fly the plane.
For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash
murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal
of Albright and her peers in The Blob.
Anyone of these comments could be dismissed as a careless aside. Taken together, however, they reflect an attitude dangerous for
Americans and foreigners alike. Unfortunately, the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy suggest that this mindset is not limited to any
one person. Any president serious about taking a new foreign-policy direction must do more than drain the swamp. He or she must sideline
The Blob.
"... Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war. ..."
"... U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia. ..."
"... It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private. ..."
"... "Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii] ..."
"... As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern. ..."
"... Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states: ..."
"... Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region. ..."
"... Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii] ..."
"... The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air. ..."
"... The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii] ..."
"... Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise. ..."
"... Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich ..."
Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for
war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government
and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind
the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext
for war.
The talks opened on February 6, 1999, in Rambouillet, France. Officially, the negotiations were led by a Contact Group comprised
of U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill , European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch , and Russian diplomat Boris Mayorsky
. All decisions were supposed to be jointly agreed upon by all three members of the Contact Group. In actual practice, the U.S. ran
the show all the way and routinely bypassed Petritsch and Mayorsky on essential matters.
Ibrahim Rugova , an ethnic Albanian activist who advocated nonviolence, was expected to play a major role in the Albanian secessionist
delegation. Joining him at Rambouillet was Fehmi Agani , a fellow member of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright regularly sidelined Rugova, however, preferring to rely on delegation members from
the hardline Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which had routinely murdered Serbs, Roma, and Albanians in Kosovo who worked for the government
or opposed separatism. Only a few months before the conference, KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti spelled out his organization's vision
of a future Kosovo as separate and ethnically pure:
"The independence of Kosovo is the only solution We cannot live together. That is excluded." [i]
Rugova had at one time engaged in fairly productive talks with Yugoslav officials, and his willingness to negotiate was no doubt
precisely the reason Albright relegated him to a background role. Yugoslav Minister of Information Milan Komnenić accompanied the
Yugoslav delegation to Rambouillet. He recalls,
"With Rugova and Fehmi Agani it was possible to talk; they were flexible. In Rambouillet, [KLA leader Hashim] Thaçi appears
instead of Rugova. A beast." [ii]
There was no love between Thaçi and Rugova, whose party members were the targets of threats and assassination attempts at the
hands of the KLA. Rugova himself would survive an assassination attempt six years later.
The composition of the Yugoslav delegation reflected its position that many ethnic groups resided in Kosovo, and any agreement
arrived at should take into account the interests of all parties. All of Kosovo's major ethnic groups were represented in the delegation.
Faik Jashari , one of the Albanian members in the Yugoslav delegation, was president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative and an official
in the Provisional Executive Council, which was Yugoslavia's government in Kosovo. Jashari observed that Albright was startled when
she saw the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, apparently because it went against the U.S. propaganda narrative. [iii] Throughout
the talks, Albright displayed a dismissive attitude towards the delegation's Albanian, Roma, Egyptian, Goran, Turkish, and Slavic
Muslim members.
U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members.
The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding
the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others
wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia.
After arriving at Rambouillet, the secessionist Albanian delegation informed U.S. diplomats that it did not want to meet with
the Yugoslav side. Aside from a brief ceremonial meeting, there was no direct contact between the two groups. The Yugoslav and Albanian
delegations were placed on two different floors to eliminate nearly all contact. U.S. mediators Richard Holbrooke and Christopher
Hill ran from one delegation to the other, conveying notes and verbal messages between the two sides but mostly trying to coerce
the Yugoslav delegation. [iv]
Luan Koka, a Roma member of the Yugoslav delegation, noted that the U.S. was operating an electronic jamming device.
"We knew exactly when Madeleine Albright was coming. Connections on our mobile phones were breaking up and going crazy." [v]
It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations
were saying in private.
Albright, Jashari said, would not listen to anyone.
"She had her task, and she saw only that task. You couldn't say anything to her. She didn't want to talk with us and didn't
want to listen to our arguments." [vi]
One day it was Koka's birthday, and the Yugoslav delegation wanted to encourage a more relaxed atmosphere with U.S. mediators,
inviting them to a cocktail party to mark the occasion.
"It was a slightly more pleasant atmosphere, and I was singing," Koka recalled. "I remember Madeleine Albright saying: 'I really
like partisan songs. But if you don't accept this, the bombs will fall.'" [vii]
According to delegation member Nikola Šainović ,
"Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'"
Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii]
From the beginning of the conference, U.S. mediator Christopher Hill "decided that what we really needed was an Albanian approval
of a document, and a Serb refusal. If both refused, there could be no further action by NATO or any other organization for that matter."
[ix] It was not peace that the U.S. team was seeking, but war.
As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted
all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other
hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern.
On the second day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the Yugoslav delegation with the framework text of a provisional
agreement for peace and self-rule in Kosovo, but it was missing some of the annexes. The Yugoslavs requested a copy of the complete
document. As delegation head Ratko Marković pointed out,
"Any objections to the text of the agreement could be made only after an insight into the text as a whole had been obtained."
Nearly one week passed before the group received one of the missing annexes. That came on the day the conference had originally
been set to end. The deadline was extended, and two days later a second missing annex was provided to the Yugoslav delegation.[x]
When the Yugoslavs next met with the Contact Group, they were assured that all elements of the text had now been given to them.
Several more days passed and at 7:00 PM on February 22, the penultimate day of the conference, the Contact Group presented three
new annexes, which the Yugoslavs had never seen before. According to Marković, "Russian Ambassador Boris Mayorsky informed our delegation
that Annexes 2 and 7 had not been discussed or approved by the Contact Group and that they were not the texts drafted by the Contact
Group but by certain Contact Group members, while Annex 5 was discussed, but no decision was made on it at the Contact Group meeting."
The Yugoslav delegation refused to accept the new annexes, as their introduction had violated the process whereby all proposals had
to be agreed upon by the three Contact Group members. [xi]
At 9:30 AM on February 23, the final day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the full text of the proposal, containing
yet more provisions that were being communicated for the first time. The accompanying note identified the package as the definitive
text while adding that Russia did not support two of the articles. The letter demanded the Yugoslav delegation's decision by 1:00
PM that same day.[xii] There was barely time enough to carefully read the text, let alone negotiate. In essence, it was an ultimatum.
Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected
to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware
of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section
of the text states:
"The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles."
Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services,
and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace
negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region.
The document called for a Western-led Joint Commission including local representatives to monitor and coordinate the implementation
of the plan. However, if commission members failed to reach consensus on a matter, the Western-appointed Chair would have the power
to impose his decision unilaterally. [xiv] Local representatives would serve as little more than window-dressing for Western dictate,
as they could adopt no measure that went against the Chair's wishes.
The Chair of the Implementation Mission was authorized to "recommend" the "removal and appointment of officials and the curtailment
of operations of existing institutions in Kosovo." If the Chair's command was not obeyed "in the time requested, the Joint Commission
may decide to take the recommended action," and since the Chair had the authority to impose his will on the Joint Commission, there
was no check on his power. He could remove elected and appointed officials at will and replace them with handpicked lackeys. The
Chair was also authorized to order the "curtailment of operations of existing institutions." [xv]Any organization that failed to
bend to U.S. demands could be shut down.
Chapter 7 of the plan called for the parties to "invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force" in Kosovo. [xvi]The choice
of words was interesting. In language reminiscent of gangsters, Yugoslavia was told to "invite" NATO to take over the province of
Kosovo or suffer the consequences.
Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months,
Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii]
The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated
NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple
request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could
take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air.
The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free
and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted
the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii]
The agreement guaranteed that NATO would have "complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout
Kosovo." Furthermore, NATO personnel could not be held "liable for any damages to public or private property." [xxiii] NATO as a
whole would also be "immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal," regardless of its actions anywhere
on the territory of Yugoslavia. [xxiv]Nor could NATO personnel be arrested, detained, or investigated. [xxv]
Acceptance of the plan would have brought NATO troops swarming throughout Yugoslavia and interfering in every institution.
There were several other objectionable elements in the plan, but one that stood out was the call for an "international" (meaning,
Western-led) meeting to be held after three years "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo."[xxvi] It was no mystery
to the Yugoslav delegation what conclusion Western officials would arrive at in that meeting. The intent was clearly to redraw Yugoslavia's
borders to further break apart the nation.
U.S. officials knew the Yugoslav delegation could not possibly accept such a plan.
"We deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept," Madeleine Albright confided to a group of journalists, "because
they needed a little bombing." [xxvii]
At a meeting in Belgrade on March 5, the Yugoslav delegation issued a statement which declared:
"A great deceit was looming, orchestrated by the United States. They demanded that the agreement be signed, even though much
of this agreement, that is, over 56 pages, had never been discussed, either within the Contact Group or during the negotiations."
[xxviii]
Serbian President Milan Milutinović announced at a press conference that in Rambouillet the Yugoslav delegation had "proposed
solutions meeting the demands of the Contact Group for broad autonomy within Serbia, advocating full equality of all national communities."
But "agreement was not what they were after." Instead, Western officials engaged in "open aggression," and this was a game "about
troops and troops alone." [xxix]
While U.S. officials were working assiduously to avoid a peaceful resolution, they needed the Albanians to agree to the plan so
that they could accuse the Yugoslav delegation of being the stumbling block to peace. U.S. mainstream media could be counted on to
unquestioningly repeat the government's line and overlook who the real architects of failure were. U.S. officials knew the media
would act in their customary role as cheerleaders for war, which indeed, they did.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook revealed the nature of the message Western officials were conveying to the Albanian delegation
when he said,
"We are certainly saying to the Kosovo Albanians that if you don't sign up to these texts, it's extremely difficult to see
how NATO could then take action against Belgrade." [xxx]
Western officials were practically begging the secessionists to sign the plan. According to inside sources, the Americans assured
the Albanian delegation that disarmament of the KLA would be merely symbolic and that it could keep the bulk of its weaponry so long
as it was concealed. [xxxi]
Albright spent hours trying to convince Thaçi to change his mind, telling him:
"If you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in.
You will have security. And you will be able to govern yourselves." [xxxii]
That was a clear enough signal that the intent was to rip the province away from Yugoslavia and create an artificial state. Despite
such assurances, Thaçi feared the wrath of fellow KLA members if he were to sign a document that did not explicitly call for separation.
When U.S. negotiators asked Thaçi why he would not sign, he responded:
"If I agree to this, I will go home and they will kill me." [xxxiii]
This was not hyperbole. The KLA had threatened and murdered a great many Albanians who in its eyes fell short of full-throated
support for its policy of violent secession and ethnic exclusion.
Even NATO Commander Wesley Clark , who flew in from Belgium, was unable to change Thaçi's mind. [xxxiv] U.S. officials were exasperated
with the Albanian delegation, and its recalcitrance threatened to capsize plans for war.
"Rambouillet was supposed to be about putting the screws to Belgrade," a senior U.S. official said. "But it went off the rails
because of the miscalculation we made about the Albanians." [xxxv]
On the last day at Rambouillet, it was agreed that the Albanian delegation would return to Kosovo for discussions with fellow
KLA leaders on the need to sign the document. In the days that followed, Western officials paid repeated visits to Kosovo to encourage
the Albanians to sign.
So-called "negotiations" reconvened in Paris on March 15. Upon its arrival, the Yugoslav delegation objected that it was "incomprehensible"
that "no direct talks between the two delegations had been facilitated." In response to the Yugoslavs' proposal for modifications
to the plan, the Contact Group informed them that no changes would be accepted. The document must be accepted as a whole. [xxxvi]
The Yugoslav position, delegation head Ratko Marković maintained, was that "first one needs to determine what is to be implemented,
and only then to determine the methods of implementation." [xxxvii]The delegation asked the Americans what there was to talk about
regarding implementation "when there was no agreement because the Albanians did not accept anything." U.S. officials responded that
the Yugoslav delegation "cannot negotiate," adding that it would only be allowed to make grammatical changes to the text. [xxxviii]
From the U.S. perspective, the presence of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris was irrelevant other than to maintain the pretense
that negotiations were taking place. Not permitted to negotiate, there was little the Yugoslavs could do but await the inevitable
result, which soon came. The moment U.S. officials obtained the Albanian delegation's signatures to the plan on March 18, they aborted
the Paris Conference. There was no reason to continue engaging with the Yugoslav delegation, as the U.S. had what it needed: a pretext
for war.
On the day after the U.S. pulled the plug on the Paris talks, Milan Milutinović held a press conference in the Yugoslav embassy,
condemning the Paris meeting as "a kind of show," which was meant "to deceive public opinion in the whole world." [xxxix]
While the United States and its NATO allies prepared for war, Yugoslavia was making last-ditch efforts to stave off attack, including
reaching out to intermediaries. Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos contacted Madeleine Albright and told her that Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milošević had offered to engage in further negotiations. But Albright told him that the decision to bomb had already
been made. "In fact," Pangalos reported, "she told me to 'desist, you're just being a nuisance.'" [xl] In a final act of desperation
to save the people from bombing, Milutinović contacted Christopher Hill and made an extraordinary offer: Yugoslavia would join NATO
if the United States would allow Yugoslavia to remain whole, including the province of Kosovo. Hill responded that this was not a
topic for discussion and he would not talk about it. [xli]
Madeleine Albright got her war, which brought death, destruction, and misery to Yugoslavia. But NATO had a new role, and the United
States further extended its hegemony over the Balkans.
In the years following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO was intent on redefining its mission. The absence
of the socialist bloc presented NATO not only with the need to construct a new rationale for existence but also with the opportunity
to expand Western domination over other nations.
Bosnia offered the first opportunity for NATO to begin its transformation, as it took part in a war that presented no threat to
member nations.
Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial
interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations
in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise.
*
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Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is
a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for
Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of
Killing Democracy: CIA
and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force
to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is
https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich
Andrew Bacevich
recalls Madeleine
Albright's infamous statement about American indispensability, and notes how poorly it has held up over the last twenty-one years:
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping.
Albright's statement is even more damning for her and her fellow interventionists when we consider that the context of her remarks
was a discussion of the supposed threat from Iraq. The full sentence went like this: "We stand tall and we see further than other
countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." Albright was making a general claim about our supposed superiority
to other nations when it came to looking into the future, but she was also specifically warning against a "danger" from Iraq that
she claimed threatened "all of us." She answered
one of Matt Lauer's questions with this assertion:
I think that we know what we have to do, and that is help enforce the UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Saddam
Hussein abide by those resolutions, and get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, and allow the inspectors to have unfettered
and unconditional access.
Albright's rhetoric from 1998 is a grim reminder that policymakers from both parties accepted the existence of Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction" as a given and never seriously questioned a policy aimed at eliminating something that did not exist. American
hawks couldn't see further in the future. They weren't even perceiving the present correctly, and tens of thousands of Americans
and millions of Iraqis would suffer because they insisted that they saw something that wasn't there.
A little more than five years after she uttered these words, the same wild threat inflation that Albright was engaged in led
to the invasion of Iraq, the greatest blunder and one of the worst crimes in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy . Not
only did Albright and other later war supporters not see what was coming, but their deluded belief in being able to anticipate future
threats caused them to buy into and promote a bogus case for a war that was completely unnecessary and should never have been fought.
"... Russia, China and the Europeans all want Iran to remain in JCPOA and Putin is worried about Iran acting irrationally. ..."
"... Asians all worried about the security of oil flows to Asia. Japan especially dependent on Middle East oil flows, even if they've moved out of Iranian purchases. ..."
"... The IRGC knuckle dragger in charge at Hormuz will get a medal or two, and a promotion. The U.S. is waging a total economic war on Iran. It cuts off all its exports and imports. Iran is fighting back by all means. It has no other choice. Iran now implements a "strategy of tension" that is designed to put "maximum pressure" on Trump. The tanker attacks, the mortars on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Houthi strikes an Saudi desalination plants and the shoot down of that drone are all part of that Iranian strategy. ..."
"... High Iranian officials, including its president, have multiple times announced: "If we can sell no sell oil than none of our neighbors in the gulf will be able to sell their oil." They mean that and they have the plans and means to achieve that. ..."
"... These strikes will continue, and will become stronger. I most cases Iran will have plausible deniability. That is easy to create when CentCom and the White House are know to lie left and right as they do. ..."
"... It is Trump, not Iran, who killed JCPOA. It is Trump, not Iran, who will be blamed for that war. ..."
"... Exactly! There's one striking characteristic of the "resistance" leaders, including Khamenei, Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah, and that is that they are reliable: they do what they say they are going to do. They have integrity, that quality so clearly absent from all US and Western European leaders, all beholden to their Ziodonors to assure reelection. ..."
"... Additionally, any standoff missile attack or "March of the B52s" will be met with immediate regional attacks on US (Saudi and Israeli) assets, military personnel and civilians that will destabilize the entire region and destroy the global economy. Not the best scenario for a reelection bid, is it? I'm with b. There is no knuckle dragger at Hormuz, only competent officers carrying out their orders. ..."
"... How blame is apportioned will matter little to Iran if it miscalculates one iota. Yes it cannot sit idle until it is strangled by economic sanctions. But neither can it escalate beyond the destruction of civil and military hardware alone. One dead American is all the neocons need. A counter strike would then be inevitable and the uncontrollable escalation they are counting on the likely result. ..."
"... Col. Lang has described here the catastrophic consequences for America's enemies when they have doubted its resolve. And the sure route to galvanizing that resolve is for Iran to escalate into targeting US forces. ..."
"... The only way this ends without a war which would be catastrophic for both sides is if Trump realizes the reality of the situation he is in and ditches the neocons right now. Iran has got its message across and must now desist to allow Trump breathing room to de-escalate. Let us pray that Suleimani and the Iranian leadership are men enough to understand that holding the moral high ground confers no advantage in warfare. ..."
"... Privately, phone calls to China and Russia begging for assurances of support ..."
"... This is delusional thinking. The Iranians realized a long time ago not to rely on other countries for assistance. Every Iranian knows not to trust Russians from history. China might be the only hope, not for support, but to convince that this war is as much about them. ..."
"... The Chinese should close Adelson's Macau casinos for health and safety violations. Zionist donors for Trump's election campaign are driving this. Adelson's boy Bolton needs removing before anything positive can happen, Tucker Carlson needs some help with his campaign to oust him. ..."
"... Could you explain how the concept that economic sanctions are a belligerent act of war is anti-American? This is a historical concept that you, as a teacher and student of military history, are well aware of. The Iranians are using the means that they have available to respond to these acts of war. ..."
"... They are not equipped to confront the US military directly, so they are using tactics to place pressure on the US in other areas, primarily by threatening the global economy by plausibly deniable acts against shipping in the Persian Gulf. This is a masterstroke right out of the pages of Sun Tze's Art of War. ..."
"... Trump has painted himself into a corner. He can offer sanctions relief if he wants to negotiate, or he can attack, and we can hope that the US military learned some of the lessons taught by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002. ..."
"... The neocons are playing out provocations until Congress is forced to vote on War just before election. The provocations will continue -- Israel's Rational Institute & expert game theorists have done this so many times they're just going through the motions. Iranians have watched that game play out before and, perhaps, know how to handle provocations in a disruptive manner. ..."
"... Hook repeated, emphasized & repeated again that "finance is the basis of war," and US / Trump strategy is to "not to bankrupt Iran," but to "deny Iran access to financial ability to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and other of the #1 state sponsor of terror's proxies." ..."
"... The congressmen questioning Hook nodded sagely. None of them so much as hinted at the fact that the USA is so deep in debt it can never pay its way out. ..."
"... --One of the expectations of the JCPOA was that with sanctions lifted, Iran would enter into the mainstream economy, trading with states throughout the world. This normalization of commerce would constrain Iran from taking actions that would jeopardize its trade relationships. Why does Trump & the zioncons not wish Iran's commercial normalization to take place? Is it because Israel cannot stand the competition? ..."
"... -- by what right USA violates UN Charter demands that internal affairs of a member state must not be interfered with. Congressmen crowned themselves with laurel as they proclaimed that "the people of Iran are not our enemy; it is the government; we act on behalf of the Iranian people, especially Iranian women." ..."
"... Trump thinks that he can f*** Iran and sit it out? Not gonna happen. ..."
"... He gets that he cannot be an LBJ or a Harry Truman with the Albatross of an unwinnable war hung around his neck. ..."
"... But, I am afraid the chosen true believers on his staff do not believe nor care that Iran has prepared a massive disproportionate non-nuclear response that will destroy the global economy. ..."
"... John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have other agendas than the President's re-election and what is in the USA's national interests. We are not out of the woods. ..."
"... The IRGC knuckle dragger at Hormuz wisely and prudently targeted the unmanned drone and not the manned P8 aircraft. ..."
"... No, this action was appropriate in the face of our policy of maximum pressure to starve out the Iranian people and force a regime change. ..."
"... I applaud Trump's decision not to engage in a shooting war. The way he got to that decision was messy, but the final decision was right. Those calling him weak for not engaging in a war of choice are craven fools. Chief among those is Bolton. ..."
"... Trump should throw his ass and his mustache out of the WH before the sun goes down. Trump brought this situation upon himself with his pulling out of the JCPOA and initiating his "war" of maximum pressure. It is he who can deflate this crisis, not Kamenei. ..."
"... This is all one big PsyOp imo. The US has no popular support for an attack on Iran, internally or externally. We are going to attack, but want to make it seem like they showed restraint and have been left with no choice. ..."
"... And this nonsense about Iran allowing the US to make some window dressing attack on innocuous targets to save face/ All I can say is Iranians are not Arabs. ..."
"... PS -- C Span ramped up an orgy of war hysteria over Trump's threat, then stand-down over Iran's shoot-down of an un-manned drone. The public was, as usual, confined to a narrow frame of reference and range of responses: "Trump was a coward," vs. "Trump was wise." Congressmen who were interviewed emphasized that "no American was killed." ..."
"... No one mentioned that Lyndon Johnson called back flights sent to rescue crewmen on the USS Liberty when Israel attacked the ship, strafed the wounded and those in life boats. ..."
"... Everyone remembers the shootdown of Iranian Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988 by the guided missile cruiser Vincennes, under the command of the late Captain Will Rogers, in which 290 people were killed. President Reagan said America will never apologize. President Clinton ultimately paid the Iranians $130 million. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson seems like the only realist in the MSM. https://youtu.be/Rf2cS4g0pes ..."
"... It is no secret that the Neocons and the Israeli zionists (I am repeating myself here) do want a war between Iran and the United States. First, there were a few tanker attacks which were brushed off by Trump. Then this, which was more difficult to brush off. Is it possible that the drone actually went to Iranian airspace but GPS coordinates were spoofed (by insiders on the American side) so that Trump (and the administration) believed that it stayed in international airspace? ..."
"... Sorry. Here's the ink to Tucker on the Iran war brink. https://youtu.be/3PQW2tMMn2A ..."
"... Why did Donald Trump hire neocons Bolton & Pompeo as well as torturer Gina Haspel? Couldn't he find people who shared his views (at least what he said during the last campaign) that our ME regime change wars were a disaster that we shouldn't repeat? ..."
"... As Tucker noted in his segment yesterday Bolton & the neocons have been plotting a war with Iran for some time. They don't care if it sinks Trump's presidency. They have no loyalty to him only condescension. ..."
"... Yet as Tucker notes in his segment yesterday the neocons are "bureaucratic tapeworms" that some how manage to survive failure after failure with the same regime change prescriptions. Trump better wise up like right now or he can kiss his re-election goodbye. ..."
I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of Trump. However, if he does not start a war, he
will end (in my mind, at least) as a vast improvement over his immediate predecessors.
Wait a minute. Obama blew it with Libya. However,
-he reached a good deal with Iran
-he didn't bomb Syria when the crossed his "red line" and managed to make it look like the R
controlled Senate made the decision .
-He didn't kiss Bibi's ring.
look at a decent map of this area. the us naval base in Bahrain and air base Qatar are an
Iranian missiles equivalent of firing from lower Manhattan to hit something in Hoboken.
The USA military assets within the Persian gulf have if war breaks out checked into the hotel
California.
It is a logistical nightmare for the Pentagon to protect and resupply in the event of
serious hostilities. Trump surely has been told by real us military professionals the giant
hairball he takes on if he gets into a war with Iran and what it means for us servicemen
station there and throughout the larger middle east.
it is unfortunate that the usa media uses fools like bolton and pompeo as clickbait to
generate revenue fore their business at the expense of whats best for the nation but there it
is... the msm has an agenda which is not at all in the service of the nation.
Yes, a grown up has the right to change a decision. Now, ball is in Khomeini court. Abe asked
him to release some Iranian-American prisoners. If Khomeini wants to lower threshold of
conflict, he can do this gesture without losing any face. Humanitarian action.
Russia, China
and the Europeans all want Iran to remain in JCPOA and Putin is worried about Iran acting
irrationally.
See what kind of other pressure comes down on Iranians. Asians all worried
about the security of oil flows to Asia. Japan especially dependent on Middle East oil flows,
even if they've moved out of Iranian purchases. US more able to go it alone with extensive
domestic and other sources.
Khamenei should call Trump and setup a media spectacle of a summit in Switzerland. They
can agree on the same deal as before but as long as the headline says "Iran agrees to not
build nukes", Trump will be happy and Khamenei will be his new best pal.
The same playbook as KJU where nothing tangible is likely to happen except that KJU has stopped nuke & missile
tests that create media hysteria among the Never Trumpers.
IMO, the ball hasn't left Trump's court. How long is he going to tolerate the neocons in
his inner circle who are likely to keep coming up with another casus belli? Can he find some
distance from being Bibi's lapdog? How long is he going to allow his conflicted son-in-law to
meddle in the Middle East?
Trump must calculate the potential of where escalation leads and what a full on war with
Iran and its allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon means for his re-election campaign. Bernie is
banging the table hard against any military action in Iran. The probability that 50,000 votes
in Michigan, Pennsylvania & Wisconsin changes sides the next election would be rather
high in the event of an unpredictable full-scale war.
I hope Khamenei takes any offer Trump makes for direct talks. Trump is heavily influenced by
the last person he meets.
I get that Khamenei doesn't want to meet on the premise that the JCPOA is flawed and must
be changed but if he can get an audience on the basis of airing mutual grievances in an
unfiltered environment, it would be an opportunity. Currently, the only people Trump talks to
are Neocon loons. They are innumerable but the FDD seems to be the center of gravity.
I was shocked-- but not surprised-- to see visibly-pained CBS Pentagon flack David Martin on
the boob tube this morning quoting an unnamed source that speculated that the reason Trump
cancelled the bombing of Iran was that he got "cold-feet." Thank you, Vasili Arkhipov, for
getting cold-feet, too! Madness, our nation is afflicted with madness.
The IRGC knuckle dragger in charge at Hormuz will get a medal or two, and a promotion. The U.S. is waging a total economic war on Iran. It cuts off all its exports and imports.
Iran is fighting back by all means. It has no other choice. Iran now implements a "strategy of tension" that is designed to put "maximum pressure" on
Trump. The tanker attacks, the mortars on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Houthi strikes an Saudi
desalination plants and the shoot down of that drone are all part of that Iranian
strategy.
High Iranian officials, including its president, have multiple times announced: "If we can
sell no sell oil than none of our neighbors in the gulf will be able to sell their oil." They
mean that and they have the plans and means to achieve that.
These strikes will continue, and will become stronger. I most cases Iran will have
plausible deniability. That is easy to create when CentCom and the White House are know to
lie left and right as they do.
Trump has two choices.
He can pull back on the sanctions and other U.S. violations of JCPOA, or he can start a
full war against Iran that will drown his presidency, put the world economy into a depression
($300/bl oil) and kill many U.S. soldiers.
It is Trump, not Iran, who killed JCPOA. It is Trump, not Iran, who will be blamed for
that war.
Exactly! There's one striking characteristic of the "resistance" leaders, including Khamenei,
Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah, and that is that they are reliable: they
do what they say they are going to do. They have integrity, that quality so clearly absent
from all US and Western European leaders, all beholden to their Ziodonors to assure
reelection.
The Iranians will NOT contact Trump to arrange a meeting. The Iranians will NOT
meet with Trump because the JCPOA is flawed. The Iranians will NOT meet with Trump after a
brief suspension in sanctions to ask for permanent sanctions relief. The Iranians WILL meet
with Trump when he lifts most or all of the sanctions in good faith and rejoins the JCPOA. Is
it just a coincidence that the two ships attacked last week were carrying petrochemicals,
just days after Trump and the US placed sanctions on the largest Iranian petrochemical
producer? What is it about "If we cannot ship oil/petrochemicals, nobody can." that people
don't understand?
Additionally, any standoff missile attack or "March of the B52s" will be met with
immediate regional attacks on US (Saudi and Israeli) assets, military personnel and civilians
that will destabilize the entire region and destroy the global economy. Not the best scenario
for a reelection bid, is it? I'm with b. There is no knuckle dragger at Hormuz, only
competent officers carrying out their orders.
How blame is apportioned will matter little to Iran if it miscalculates one iota. Yes it
cannot sit idle until it is strangled by economic sanctions. But neither can it escalate
beyond the destruction of civil and military hardware alone. One dead American is all the
neocons need. A counter strike would then be inevitable and the uncontrollable escalation
they are counting on the likely result.
Col. Lang has described here the catastrophic consequences for America's enemies when they
have doubted its resolve. And the sure route to galvanizing that resolve is for Iran to
escalate into targeting US forces.
The only way this ends without a war which would be catastrophic for both sides is
if Trump realizes the reality of the situation he is in and ditches the neocons right now.
Iran has got its message across and must now desist to allow Trump breathing room to
de-escalate. Let us pray that Suleimani and the Iranian leadership are men enough to
understand that holding the moral high ground confers no advantage in warfare.
Publicly, much chest thumping over how Iran has the cowardly Great Satan on the run like a
beaten dog.
Privately, phone calls to China and Russia begging for assurances of support and attempted offers of negotiations
with Trump complete with wildly unrealistic demands.
This is delusional thinking. The Iranians realized a long time ago not to rely on other
countries for assistance. Every Iranian knows not to trust Russians from history. China might
be the only hope, not for support, but to convince that this war is as much about them.
The Chinese should close Adelson's Macau casinos for health and safety violations. Zionist
donors for Trump's election campaign are driving this. Adelson's boy Bolton needs removing
before anything positive can happen, Tucker Carlson needs some help with his campaign to oust
him.
Could you explain how the concept that economic sanctions are a belligerent act of war is
anti-American? This is a historical concept that you, as a teacher and student of military
history, are well aware of. The Iranians are using the means that they have available to
respond to these acts of war.
They are not equipped to confront the US military directly, so
they are using tactics to place pressure on the US in other areas, primarily by threatening
the global economy by plausibly deniable acts against shipping in the Persian Gulf. This is a
masterstroke right out of the pages of Sun Tze's Art of War.
Trump has painted himself into a corner. He can offer sanctions relief if he wants to
negotiate, or he can attack, and we can hope that the US military learned some of the lessons
taught by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002.
The neocons are playing out provocations until Congress is forced to vote on War just
before election.
The provocations will continue -- Israel's Rational Institute & expert game theorists
have done this so many times they're just going through the motions.
Iranians have watched that game play out before and, perhaps, know how to handle provocations
in a disruptive manner.
Hook repeated, emphasized & repeated again that "finance is the basis of war," and US /
Trump strategy is to "not to bankrupt Iran," but to "deny Iran access to financial ability to
fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and other of the #1 state sponsor of terror's proxies."
The congressmen questioning Hook nodded sagely. None of them so much as hinted at the fact that the USA is so deep in debt it can never
pay its way out. Nor was any congressman sage enough, or moral enough, or consistent enough, to
question:
-- International policy pundits & think tankers opine that the greatest guarantee of
peace is economic stability. US is deliberately seeking to destabilize Iran economically. To
what end?
--One of the expectations of the JCPOA was that with sanctions lifted, Iran would enter into
the mainstream economy, trading with states throughout the world. This normalization of
commerce would constrain Iran from taking actions that would jeopardize its trade
relationships. Why does Trump & the zioncons not wish Iran's commercial normalization to
take place? Is it because Israel cannot stand the competition?
-- by what right USA violates UN Charter demands that internal affairs of a member state must
not be interfered with. Congressmen crowned themselves with laurel as they proclaimed that
"the people of Iran are not our enemy; it is the government; we act on behalf of the Iranian
people, especially Iranian women."
When I visited Iran in 2008, "Iranian women" spoke with us and asked if we could please
provide several days' warning before bombing Iran so that they could shelter their children.
Iranian women are some of the toughest you'll meet.
-- what casus belli legitimizes aggression against Iran? Does the USA no longer
subscribe to Just War theory? Several years ago I heard Notre Dame's Mary Ellen O'Connell
discuss Just War theory with respect to Iran -- https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/jlia/vol2/iss2/6/.
US claims to uphold "universal values" ring hollow if such basic steps in framing policy are
ignored.
I deal in facts, not in 'deeply bigoted anti-Americanism'. Interesting that you do not want to recognize those facts. They are right before your
eyes. Just I give it a day or two until the next 'incident' happens.
Trump thinks that he can
f*** Iran and sit it out? Not gonna happen.
The question has been raised of my denigration of b. He has a long history on SST He is an
excellent military analyst but the long and so far as I can remember unbroken record of
interpreting EVERY situation as demonstrating the demonic nature of the US causes me to
discount anything he writes on other than military subjects narrowly defined. IMO b's
hostility to the US is a permanent burden that he carries.
The NYT report that Donald Trump ordered the attack and then pulled back is in Jimmy
Carter's "been there done that" territory. Although a New Yorker and he never had to sit in a
gasoline line, Donald Trump, personally and legally, cannot be a one term President. He is a
political savant.
He gets that he cannot be an LBJ or a Harry Truman with the Albatross of an
unwinnable war hung around his neck.
My assumption is that someone in the chain of command
after the surveillance drone was shot down triggered a preplanned strike package that was
stopped once it got to the President for approval. Once again global media moguls strike back
at the nationalist President with Fake News.
But, I am afraid the chosen true believers on
his staff do not believe nor care that Iran has prepared a massive disproportionate
non-nuclear response that will destroy the global economy.
John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have
other agendas than the President's re-election and what is in the USA's national interests.
We are not out of the woods.
Do we know for sure Trump is the one who initially ordered the strike? Or did someone down
the line interpret the rules of engagement (do I presume correctly that some such would be in
place at the present time?) to allow him or her to order it?
In a situation of this degree of geo-political gravity, nobody in the chain of command
below the CinC would have had the authority or temerity to attempt to order this strike
package.
Neither Pompeo nor Bolton is in the chain of command and attempts by them to order
such attacks would have been rejected by the military. BTW if Trump aborted the strikes only
10 minutes out from the targets he was cutting it too close. Communications can always
fail.
The IRGC knuckle dragger at Hormuz wisely and prudently targeted the unmanned drone and not
the manned P8 aircraft. Since it was the Iranians who recovered the wreckage, it will be hard
for the US to maintain the drone was well outside Iranian airspace.
No, this action was
appropriate in the face of our policy of maximum pressure to starve out the Iranian people
and force a regime change.
I applaud Trump's decision not to engage in a shooting war. The way he got to that
decision was messy, but the final decision was right. Those calling him weak for not engaging
in a war of choice are craven fools. Chief among those is Bolton.
Trump should throw his ass
and his mustache out of the WH before the sun goes down. Trump brought this situation upon
himself with his pulling out of the JCPOA and initiating his "war" of maximum pressure. It is
he who can deflate this crisis, not Kamenei.
This is all one big PsyOp imo. The US has no popular support for an attack on Iran,
internally or externally. We are going to attack, but want to make it seem like they showed
restraint and have been left with no choice.
I don't foresee the Iranians talking to Trump unless and until the US walks back its
sanctions, or Trump himself goes and sits down with the Ayatollah.
And this nonsense about Iran allowing the US to make some window dressing attack on
innocuous targets to save face/ All I can say is Iranians are not Arabs.
PS -- C Span ramped up an orgy of war hysteria over Trump's threat, then stand-down over
Iran's shoot-down of an un-manned drone.
The public was, as usual, confined to a narrow frame of reference and range of responses:
"Trump was a coward," vs. "Trump was wise."
Congressmen who were interviewed emphasized that "no American was killed."
No one mentioned that Lyndon Johnson called back flights sent to rescue crewmen on the USS
Liberty when Israel attacked the ship, strafed the wounded and those in life boats.
This seems like Professional Wrestling theater where you have the wrestlers hamming it up for
the drama and you wonder what the script is. We only get to see what the camera frames.
I am thankful that our military acknowledges that our President is the Commander-in-Chief. He
commanded, they obeyed. As for all the pundits on all sides, their lack of perspective or
even understanding of history leaves me terrified. There seems to be no understanding of how
Iran is capable of retaliation. An example:
Everyone remembers the shootdown of Iranian Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988 by the guided
missile cruiser Vincennes, under the command of the late Captain Will Rogers, in which 290
people were killed. President Reagan said America will never apologize. President Clinton
ultimately paid the Iranians $130 million.
Few remember what happened next -- some 8 months later, in March, 1989, Capt. Roger's
spouse Sharon, was in her van stopped at a traffic light in San Diego. A pipe bomb went off
under the back of the van. It was small -- she was unhurt, fortunately, but definitely shaken
up, and the van did catch fire. Despite an intensive investigation, the FBI has never solved
this case.
Never let us become so blind and arrogant in our strength that we are unable to conceive
retaliation by those weaker.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the drone was sent there to be shot down by the
Iranians?
It is no secret that the Neocons and the Israeli zionists (I am repeating myself here) do
want a war between Iran and the United States. First, there were a few tanker attacks which
were brushed off by Trump. Then this, which was more difficult to brush off. Is it possible
that the drone actually went to Iranian airspace but GPS coordinates were spoofed (by
insiders on the American side) so that Trump (and the administration) believed that it stayed
in international airspace?
The Americans do seem to really believe that the drone was in
international airspace and no one can make a point that it is to Iran's benefit to target an
American asset in international airspace, especially now when tensions are so high. Iran has
the most to lose in the event of a war with the Americans (no points for guessing which
country has the most to win - Israel). And it is a coincidence that the guy heading the Iran
mission Centre, Michael D'Andrea, was previously the head of drone operations. Or is it a
coincidence?
What would I do if I were a neocon who wants war between the US and Iran, a war that Trump
doesn't. For the start of hostilities, it is essential that both sides, US and Iran, feel
that they are in the right - which of course this situation is. I would create a context, an
excuse/rationale for the start of actual hostilities to the US administration (and of course
for the consumption of the American public). Then I will make the case to Trump that we
should have a 'limited' retaliation. I know that the Iranians will strike back after the
'small scale' bombing. And the Americans have to retaliate to that also. What chances are
there that any retaliation by the Americans will not end up in total war with Iran??
Trump doesn't want war and probably saw through the machinations to get him to agree to a
'small' bombing campaign as retaliation that would surely lead to a larger conflagration and
total war with Iran that the neocons want so much. This particular provocation was
unsuccessful in its aim. However, I think that provocations by the neocons will continue and
at an ever increasing pitch - enabled by the neocons within the administration and the
Israelis. Trump doesn't want war but his administration filled with neocons does and they
will find a way maneuver Trump into it. Israel will fight Iran till the last standing
American in the Middle East.
Why did Donald Trump hire neocons Bolton & Pompeo as well as torturer Gina Haspel?
Couldn't he find people who shared his views (at least what he said during the last campaign)
that our ME regime change wars were a disaster that we shouldn't repeat?
As Tucker noted in his segment yesterday Bolton & the neocons have been plotting a war
with Iran for some time. They don't care if it sinks Trump's presidency. They have no loyalty
to him only condescension.
Hopefully Trump learns from this near miss of a catastrophe for his presidency. But he has
seemed weak and indecisive on these matters all along. He never fought back for example with
all the tools at his disposal against the attempted coup by law enforcement & the
intelligence agencies.
All he did was constantly tweet witch hunt. He's once again delegated
it to Barr after Sessions sat on it.
He allowed Pompeo & Bolton to bring on fellow neocon
Elliott Abrams who previously screwed up in Nicaragua to attempt another regime change in
Venezuela, which has been another botched example of how everything that the neocons touch
turns to shit.
Yet as Tucker notes in his segment yesterday the neocons are "bureaucratic
tapeworms" that some how manage to survive failure after failure with the same regime change
prescriptions. Trump better wise up like right now or he can kiss his re-election
goodbye.
I was shocked-- but not surprised-- to see visibly-pained CBS Pentagon flack David Martin on
the boob tube this morning quoting an unnamed source that speculated that the reason Trump
cancelled the bombing of Iran was that he got "cold-feet."
Thank you, Vasili Arkhipov, for getting cold-feet, too! Madness, our nation is afflicted
with madness.
Douglas Macgregor is right -- Trump have surrounded himself with neocons and now put himself against the wall. Wars destroy
presidency -- George Bush II is not viewed favorable by the US people now, not is Obama with his Libya adventure.
With the amount of derivatives in the US financial system the rise of the price of oil above $100 can produce some interesting
and unanticipated effects.
Notable quotes:
"... PRESIDENT TRUMP don't let them sucker you. ..."
"... The true American people, do never believe what this congress, house, and senate want they are cramming down your throats... ..."
"... The real goal is domination of the Middle East -- and that's been a bipartisan US strategy for decades. ..."
"... By striking a compromise with a defiant non-democracy like Iran, which for the past 40 years has defined itself as the foremost opponent of American hegemony (liberal or otherwise), while signaling a desire to slowly dismantle American hegemony in the Middle East (in order to pivot to Asia), Obama introduced an unsustainable contradiction to US foreign policy. ..."
"... Excellent article, because it clearly exposes the central isssue - US hegemony. And that goes has implications way beyond Iran, particularly with respect to relations with China and Russia. Very similar geopolitical games are playing out in the South China Sea, around the Ukraine, and in Syria. ..."
"... This is not 1950 when the world economy was in collapse and the US was overwhelmingly the top dog. Other countries are nearly equal to the US. Hegemony is unsustainable in today's environment and one solution is a cooperative balance of power employing diplomacy, and unprecedented cooperation on questions of energy and security in order to solve global problems like climate change and the elimination of nuclear weapons. ..."
"... The new world order - as this 'confrontation' suggests, the USA, supported by the Saudis, their compatriots, and Israel. All renowned 'friends' of the USA. With friends like these who needs enemies. ..."
"... The "confrontation" goes way back to 1953, when the CIA overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh (for his "sin" of nationalizing Iranian oil) and labelled him a Communist. Everything that is adversarial in US-Iranian relations goes back to that criminal act. ..."
The real goal is domination of the Middle East -- and that's been a bipartisan US
strategy for decades.
... ... ...
...if war is the endgame of their escalation, what is the endgame of their war? Dominance --
perpetual dominance of the Middle East (and the globe as a whole) by the United States. That is
and has been Washington's grand strategy, regardless of whether a Republican, a Democrat, or a
reality-TV star has occupied the White House. America has, of course, often ensured this
domination by supporting friendly dictatorships.
But there is also a liberal version of the strategy. Liberal hegemony, or primacy, dictates
that the United States has the moral obligation and the strategic imperative to transform
anti–status quo non-democracies into liberal (pliant) democracies. According to this
grand strategy, the existence of such non-democracies is a threat to the United States and its
hegemony.
America cannot coexist with them but must ultimately transform them. Military force is
instrumental to this endeavor. As Max Boot wrote back in 2003, the pillars of liberal hegemony
must be spread and sustained " at gunpoint if need
be ."
While some advocates of liberal hegemony object to the more militaristic interpretation
preferred by neoconservatives, the difference between liberal interventionism and
neoconservatism is more a matter of nuance than core belief.
Neither can provide a solution to Washington's endless wars, because both operate within the
paradigm of primacy, which itself is a root cause of the country's perpetual conflicts. As long
as that paradigm remains the guiding principle of foreign policy, hawks like John Bolton, Tom
Cotton, and Lindsey Graham -- and their Democratic fellow travelers, too -- will continue to
steer America's engagement with the world, as it is their outlook that is compatible with
primacy, not that of those on the progressive left or the libertarian right, who have advocated
non-interventionism or negotiated settlements with those who challenge Pax Americana.
This is why the cards were stacked against the survival of the Iran nuclear deal even if
Trump had not been elected. By striking a compromise with a defiant non-democracy like
Iran, which for the past 40 years has defined itself as the foremost opponent of American
hegemony (liberal or otherwise), while signaling a desire to slowly dismantle American hegemony
in the Middle East (in order to pivot to Asia), Obama introduced an unsustainable contradiction
to US foreign policy.
This contradiction has been particularly visible among Democrats who oppose Trump's Iran
policy but who still cannot bring themselves to break with our seemingly endless confrontation
with Iran. As long as such Democrats allow the debate to be defined by the diktat of US
primacy, they will always be on the defensive, and their long-term impact on US-Iran relations
will be marginal.
After all, the strategy of US primacy in the Middle East demands Iran's defeat...
Excellent article, because it clearly exposes the central isssue - US hegemony. And that
goes has implications way beyond Iran, particularly with respect to relations with China and
Russia. Very similar geopolitical games are playing out in the South China Sea, around the
Ukraine, and in Syria.
Liberals have to stop talking about "bad actors" (whenever they are
linked with competing powers, e.g. Iran, N.Korea, etc.) but welcome them as "allies" when
they are our faithful vassals (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.). Unfortunately, Obama
appeared to understand this with respect to Iran, but totally ignored it with respect to the
rest of the world.
Victor Sciamarelli says: June 21, 2019 at 1:57 pm
I completely agree with Trita Parsi's succinct description of the problem as, "Dominance
-- perpetual dominance of the Middle East (and the globe as a whole) by the United States.
That is and has been Washington's grand strategy, regardless of whether a Republican, a
Democrat, or a reality-TV star has occupied the White House." However, why not offer
alternative policies for debate?
Consider, for example, the idea of a "balance of power." It was for the same reason that the
British fought Napoleon, the Crimean War, entered the first world war, and also why they were
constantly engaged in diplomatic agreements in Europe. British policy demanded that they
prevent the rise of a hegemon on the continent.
Napoleon was never a threat to the English mainland and neither were the Germans in 1914.
Yet, they fought both because preventing a hegemon and maintaining a balance of power
pre-empted other considerations.
I would suggest that regardless of events since 1918 such as: the decline of the British
empire, Versailles, the world wide economic depression, the rise of fascism, the reaction to
communism, or the rise of a non-European super power like the US, thinking about a modern, up
to date form of the balance of power is useful.
Furthermore, we need an alternative policy because hegemony fails the world and the American
people, and the world faces two existential threats: climate change and nuclear war.
Moreover, the US has been a superpower for so long that nobody remembers what it is like not
to be a superpower. In addition, American elites seem unwilling or unable to grasp the real
limits of military power.
In a world where the five permanent members of the UN security council are nuclear powers,
and nuclear weapons are held by smaller nations, the major power centers of the world:
Europe, Russia, China, and the US, have no choice but to cooperate with each other and with
the countries of the ME.
The ME is a focal point for establishing cooperation because the world needs energy and the
ME needs stability and development, but it requires leadership and motive.
This is not 1950 when the world economy was in collapse and the US was overwhelmingly the top
dog. Other countries are nearly equal to the US. Hegemony is unsustainable in today's
environment and one solution is a cooperative balance of power employing diplomacy, and
unprecedented cooperation on questions of energy and security in order to solve global
problems like climate change and the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Pauline Hartwig says: June 21, 2019 at 1:38 pm
The new world order - as this 'confrontation' suggests, the USA, supported by the Saudis,
their compatriots, and Israel. All renowned 'friends' of the USA. With friends like these who
needs enemies.
Gene Bell-Villada says: June 21, 2019 at 12:40 pm
The "confrontation" goes way back to 1953, when the CIA overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh (for his "sin" of nationalizing
Iranian oil) and labelled him a Communist. Everything that is adversarial in US-Iranian relations
goes back to that
criminal act.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called on Washington to weigh the possible
consequences of conflict with Iran and said a report in the New York Times showed the situation
was extremely dangerous.
U.S. President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for the
downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but called off the attacks at the last minute, the report
said.
Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due
to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass.
The US will provide Ukraine with $250 million worth of military equipment, training and
support, the Pentagon announced, saying Ukraine's Navy and marines would be among the
beneficiaries.
The Ukrainian military will get sniper rifles, grenade launchers, counter-battery radar
systems, night vision equipment and communication devices, the Pentagon statement said...
The statement said the package will bring total US security assistance to Ukraine to $1.5
billion since 2014, when a US-backed coup in Kiev ousted Ukraine's elected government.
From the standpoint of Information Warfare, it is very critical when a new event happens to
put forward one's version of the "truth" first before any other possible competing theories can
arise. This could be why Pompeo or someone like him would chose to immediately come out with
accusations thrown around as facts with no evidence to support them and no respect for the
great Western concepts of "innocence until proven guilty" or the "right to a fair trial".
Pompeo's objective here is not the truth but to take that virgin intellectual territory
regarding the interpretation of this issue before anyone else can, because once a concept has
become normalized in the minds of the masses it is very difficult to change it and many people
in Washington cannot risk blowing the chance to waste thousands of American lives invading Iran
based on an ultimately false but widely accepted/believed narrative.
Not surprisingly foreign and especially Russian media has quickly attempted to counter the
"Iran obviously did it" narrative before it becomes an accepted fact. Shockingly Slavic
infowarriors actually decided
to speak to the captain of a tanker that was hit to get his opinion rather than simply
assert that Iran didn't do it because they are a long time buddy of Moscow. The captain's
testimony of what happened strongly contradicts the version of reality that Washington is
pushing. And over all Russia as usual takes the reasonable position of "let's gather the
evidence and then see who did it", which is good PR for itself as a nation beyond this single
issue.
In terms of finding the actual guilty party the media on both sides has thus far ignored the
simple fact that if Iran wanted to sink a tanker it would be sunk. No civilian vessel is going
to withstand an attack from a 21st century navy by having a particularly thick hull and the
idea that the Iranians need to physically attach bombs to boats is mental. Physically planting
bombs is for goofball inept terrorists, not a professional military. After all, even the West
acknowledges that
the Iranians use the best Russian goodies that they can afford and Russian 21 st
century arms will sink civilian ship guaranteed. The Iranians have everything they need to
smoke any civilian vessel on the planet guaranteed from much farther away than 3 feet.
If Iran's goal was to scare or intimidate the tanker they could have just shot at it with
rifles or done something else to spook the crew and get a media response. When looked at from
the standpoint of military logic, these "attacks" seem baffling as Iran could have just
destroyed the boats or directly tried to terrorize them to make a statement.
"... iran and oman share the straits as they enter the indian ocean. these waters are THEIR territorial waters and have been agreed upon for decades by the world. 12 miles give or take for each side. there are NO international waters here. ..."
"... It would appear the Iranians tracked our drone essentially from time time of departure until its demise. The folks on the web would have us believe the Iranians used a $2,500 homemade missile to bring down a $120,000,000 drone. Let that soak in. Am I the only one wondering what else we are unaware? ..."
"... Iran's Air Defense Force has some really quirky own designed and manufactured, mostly Chinese and Russian knock-offs) air defense complexes with serious sensors. ..."
"... Rumor has it--Iran has a number of Yakhonts. Those are very bad news for anything on the surface in Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. ..."
iran and oman share the straits as they enter the indian ocean. these waters are THEIR
territorial waters and have been agreed upon for decades by the world. 12 miles give or take
for each side. there are NO international waters here.
if oil ships stop transiting for any reason the western economic and banking system
implodes as the notional value of all those trillions in derivatives (oil at least) become
real once the price rises. not a shot need be fired to collapse the western world living
standards and there is nothing the pentagon can do about even IF it could which it CAN'T.
peace is the only sane option IF the west wants to remain upright and obstensibly
solvent.
The Trump administration has to come up with an explanation for this. Otherwise everyone will
believe that that the red phone rang. "Mr. Putin on the line, sir." Another ripe conspiracy
theory waiting in the wings is that Iran turned on some unexpected radar and showed just what
the planes were flying into. Some logical, plausible, and not too embarassing alternative
story is needed. Fast.
Let us hope Trump's alleged caution holds. For the moment, anyway. However, let us also hope
wiser heads prevail in Iran. It seems clear to me (which I do not mistake for assuming I am
automatically correct) that there has been a PATTERN of increased, violent actions coming
from Iran. i.e. increased shelling of US positions, or, near them, anyway, in Iraq. Along
with the tanker attacks and drone attacks, two, I might add. These seem calculated, at the
moment, at avoiding US loss of life. So, they are playing around with us, testing us. This
reflects, to me, ONE kind of thinking in Iran. However, there are other sides there, I
believe.
And in the meantime Trump is, essentially, bereft of support within DC. Unless it be in
the military. One side of the elite community hates Trump, but for the moment, goes along
with him. Trying to push and prod him forward to their ends. The NeoCons and Never Trumpers.
The other side basically loathes Trump and opposes whatever position he is taking.
Reflectively. Thoughtlessly. This leaves him essentially alone. IN DC. He should get out of
the Capital more often. To his Base. Away from the talking heads. In the meantime Iran should
give pause for thought. They may think the world will be on their side, if only to oppose
Trump. But they won't get much support other than soft and meaningless words, if they keep
poking the Bear. And they just might get eaten...hard as a meal as that would be to
digest.
My poorly informed speculation drawing upon my career as a chemist (i.e., no military
training or experience, the navy rejected me when I tried to join the NROTC in 1963) I am
inclined to disbelieve our claims that our drone was in international air space. One
commentator on MoA claimed there is no international air space over the Gulf of Hormuz. The
relevant treaties address only marine access.
It would appear the Iranians tracked our drone essentially from time time of departure
until its demise. The folks on the web would have us believe the Iranians used a $2,500
homemade missile to bring down a $120,000,000 drone. Let that soak in. Am I the only one
wondering what else we are unaware?
Regarding the aborted attack, my suspicion is that someone informed Trump of the
possibility of an unsuspected Iranian asset bringing down an F-22, or horrors, an F-35. Not
likely to help our export programs.
Combined with the possibility that Iran can present convincing evidence that the drone
penetrated their air space, Trump would be in a poor position to defend himself against war
crime charges should he order an attack. Might not play well in the upcoming election
cycle.
As a businessman, he could have decided the rewards of an attack did not justify these
risks.
Regarding the aborted attack, my suspicion is that someone informed Trump of the
possibility of an unsuspected Iranian asset bringing down an F-22, or horrors, an F-35. Not
likely to help our export programs.
Certainly one of major considerations. Unlike Iraq's "integrated" (a propaganda
cliche--antiquated should have been the term), Iran's Air Defense Force has some really
quirky own designed and manufactured, mostly Chinese and Russian knock-offs) air defense
complexes with serious sensors.
It also has Russian S-300PMU2. In general, Iran is nothing
like Iraq, Libya or Syria before Russia intervened.
I would put Iran's medium range (up to
100 kilometers range and up to 20 kilometers altitude) AD capabilities as robustly good.
And
then, of course, tactical-operational ballistic missiles with an easy reach anywhere in ME
(Qatar rings the bell, among many other) and, finally, who knows how many (very-very many)
and what capability anti-shipping missiles.
Rumor has it--Iran has a number of Yakhonts.
Those are very bad news for anything on the surface in Persian Gulf and the Strait of
Hormuz.
Probably a face saving gesture - can seem tough and reasonable simultaneously. It's shaping
up as de-escalation on both sides for now, which I deduce from recent press releases on
behalf of Iranian authorities saying that they refrained from shooting down a US P-8 plane
carrying 35 people, which was accompanying the unmanned drone which they acknowledge shooting
down. So they're mirroring each other IMO - it's not going to escalate.
Eric Newhill,
IMO,it is the izzies who are pushing for the destruction of Iran, with their BS about Amalek,
their god-given title to Palestine, and their attempts to re-mold the ME in their image. The
presence of Nasrallah&Co. and their rocket forces-mostly supplied by Iran-is the primary
issue. Most of the current ills of the ME can be traced to the izzies. Think Syria.
While there is no doubt that US can pound Iran into the stone age without really working a
sweat, she probably would not have gotten off w/o a few bruises for her pains. In addition,
more importantly in my view, the izzies might have also gotten a few surprises.
My friends were glad to end last night with no emergencies on their watch. We were all very,
very worried.
Ishmael Zechariah
Flying a plane into their territory, getting shot down, and then not attacking and calling it
an opportunity to deescalate. That's rich. The only thing these whole farcical attempt at
diplomacy has proven from the day the deal was denounced as being a bad deal is that those at
the top know little of Iran and Iranians. Nor do we want to know, since virtually every time
I watch TV and they bring on an "expert" to talk about Iran, they are not only not Iranian
but half the time Jewish.
Trump has come out through the usual direct communication channel, saying the reason he
called off a strike was that casualties were certain to occur and thus would not be
proportionate to an unmanned drone--
"On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked
& loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die.
150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,
not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is
rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more
added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against
the WORLD!" Pres Trump tweet
Yes. Trump is more cool headed than a lot of people give him credit for being.
His actions have nothing to do with him being cool headed. He is very confused man as of
today. But in this particular case we all may be thankful for none other than Tucker Carlson
who, if to believe number of American sources, does advise Trump and that, in itself, is a
really good news for everyone on the planet. In fact, if Trump wants second term, among many
things he ought to do is to remove Bolton and appoint Tucker his NSA. Carlson surely is way
more qualified for this job than Bolton. Come to think about it, Tucker could make a decent
Secretary of the State too.
I've always felt that President Trump is impulsive and that impulsiveness is one of the
things that makes him unfit to be President. My question is not 'did he order airstrikes'. My
question is 'did an adult in the room step in' or 'did he actually change his mind'. I
suspect the answer to that question will break down along the typical partisan lines.
It does make clear that he has no overall plan or strategy in place. These actions
demonstrate that our President is unpredictable. While unpredictability has its own value
(perhaps especially in the political arena) I don't want to see miscalculations creep in when
we are talking about getting involved in a new war in the ME.
I thank Generals Dunford and Selva at the JCS for putting the brakes on Moron Bolton and
SecState Pompous. Particularly General Selva who says protecting oil shipments thru the
Strait is not our job; and who also pushed back hard against escalation in Venezuela in late
April.
The ships and aircraft of all nations, including warships, auxiliaries, and military
aircraft, enjoy the right of unimpeded transit passage in the Strait and its approaches.
That is true elsewhere also. The international legal regime of transit passage exists not
only at the Strait of Hormuz but also in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dover Strait, the
Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Strait of Malacca.
Looks like impeachment for Russian collusion is off the table, Joe 'foot in mouth' Biden
gets some cover and even Democrats in congress are talking about how the AUMF is outdated.
Fixing the later, well that would take Pelosi allowing some legislation to come up for a
vote.
Prudent move by the President. It is encouraging that he put in play the concept of
proportionality. Although the scale of challenge represented by Hungary in 1956,
Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the Pueblo in 68 exceeded this event, Trump's reasoning in this
situation demonstrated a level of akin sobriety that has all too frequently been lacking in
the course of the last three presidencies. The lunatic fringes will no doubt find some way to
undercut him, the left for their usual obscene political reasons and the neo-cons because
they are neo-cons in service to their 'higher calling' but Trump by now has become accustomed
to the craven antics of former; and hopefully this unfolding will so contrast his reasoning
with the reasoning of his card carrying neo-con advisors that he will realize he needs to
clean house for the next time.
What "challenge" in Hungry? Ike made it clear, in 1944, never mind 1956, where our sphere of
interest was. There was never any doubt in Ike's mind, anyway. And who had enough gravitas
and knowledge to try and talk him out of his views? Czechoslovakia in 1968? Come on...we were
a bit, cough, cough, distracted in 1968. That was never in question either. Pueblo? Come on..
Jack posted an interesting tweet on another thread. It seems there may also be an alternate
explanation on why Trump called off the attacks.
Apparently Iran was informed of the imminent attacks. They responded through Oman &
Switzerland that they wouldn't play ball and any attack would escalate.
It is high time for Trump to eject the neocons from his administration.
There was a palpable lack of enthusiasm for a new war on FOX's programs last night.
IMO unless Trump comes to believe his re-election chances would be enhanced by a new war
or the IRG conducts ops too violent to be ignored he is likely to keep it holstered.
The question about the causes of the collapse and destruction of the Soviet Union – is not idle. It does not lose its relevance
today, 22 years after occurred the death of the Soviet Union . Why? because some on the basis of this event concluded that, say,
the capitalist model of the economy more competitive, more efficient and has no alternatives. American political scientist
Francis Fukuyama after the collapse of the Soviet Union even hastened to declare that it was the "End of history": humanity has reached the
highest and last stage of its development in the form of a universal, global capitalism. The relevance of studying the shadow economy,
ssco opinion of this kind of political scientists, sociologists and economists, discussing the socialist economic model does not
deserve attention.
Better to focus on improving the capitalist model of the economy, i. E. A model that targets all members of society to the enrichment,
and a means of enrichment (profit) is the exploitation of one person by another. However, there are such "Natural" attributes of
the capitalist model of social and income inequality, competition, cyclical crises, bankruptcies, unemployment and the like. All
proposed improvements are aimed only at mitigating the inhuman consequences of capitalism that is reminiscent of utopian attempts
to limit the appetite of a wolf devouring a sheep. We proceed from the fact that the key socio-economic characteristics of the socialist
model are welfare for all members of society (goal), public ownership of the means of production (the main means), income generation
solely for labor, planned nature of the economy, centralization of management, command positions of the state in the economy, the
social consumption funds, the limited nature of commodity-money relations and so on. While this refers to the well-being not only
in the form of products and services that are vital (biological) needs of the person.
This would also include public safety and defense, education, culture, conditions of work and rest. Of course, socialism – not
only the economy and social relations. It also implies a certain type of political power, ideology, a high level of spiritually-moral
development of society and another. High moral and spiritual requests should assume that there are higher goals in relation to socio-economic
objectives.
But let's focus now is on the socio-economic aspect of the socialist model. So the erosion of the socialist model began long before
the tragic events of december 1991, when it signed the infamous agreement on the division of the ussr in the bialowieza forest. It
was already the final act of the political order. It is not only the date of death of the ussr, and date of full legalization of
a new socio-economic model, which is called "Capitalism". However, implicitly capitalism germinated in the depths of soviet society
for nearly three decades.
The soviet economy de facto has acquired the traits of a mixed. It combined socialist and capitalist structures. However, some
foreign researchers and politicians said that de facto in the Soviet Union there was a complete restoration of capitalism in the
1960-ies – 1970-ies. The restoration of capitalism was linked to the emergence and development in the bowels of the ussr the so-called
shadow or "Second" economy.
In particular, in the early 1960-ies member of the german communist party willy dickhut began publishing their articles, which
stated that since coming to power in our country n. With. Khrushchev happened (not started, but it happened!) the restoration of
capitalism in the ussr. The shadow economy functioned on the principles different from the socialist. Anyway, she was tied to corruption,
embezzlement of state property, receipt of unearned income, in violation of the laws (or use of "Holes" in the legislation). Not
to be confused with the shadow economy "Informal" economy, which is not contrary to the laws and principles of the socialist system,
but complemented the economy "Official".
First of all, this self-employment – for example, the work of the farmer on the plot or the citizen in his summer cottage. And
in the best of times (under stalin) widely developed the so-called fishing cooperation, which was occupied by production of consumer
goods and services. In the Soviet Union state and party authorities chose to ignore the phenomenon of the shadow economy. No, of
course, the police had uncovered and suppressed various operations in the sphere of the shadow economy. But the leaders of the ussr,
commenting on this kind of history, fobbed off with phrases such as "Exception", "Some shortcomings", "Defects", "Bugs" and the like.
For example, in the early 1960-ies of the then first deputy of the ussr council of ministers anastas mikoyan has identified black
market in the Soviet Union as "A handful of some dirty foam appearing on the surface of our society. "The shadow economy of the ussr:
acincinnati some serious research shadow ("Second") economy in the ussr was conducted until the late 1980-ies. Abroad, such studies
came first. First of all we should mention the work of american sociologist gregory grossman (university of california), which was
called "Destructive independence. The historical role of genuine trends in soviet society".
She became widely known after was published in 1988 in the book "The light at the end of the tunnel" (university of berkeley,
edited by stephen f. Cohen). However, the first article of grossman on this topic appeared in 1977 and was called "The second economy
in the ussr (journal problems of communism, september-october 1977). You can also mention the book emigrated to the United States
, the soviet lawyer konstantin simis "Corruption in the Soviet Union – the secret underground world of soviet capitalism", published
in 1982. The author in the 1970-ies is closely in contact with some shady businessman, a lawyer which he performed at the trials.
However, quantitative assessments of shadow ("Second") economy k. Simes does not. Later appeared the work of american sociologists
and economists of Russian origin Vladimir tremlia and michael alexeev. Since 1985, gregory grossman and Vladimir treml produce periodic
collections of the "Second economy" of the ussr. Releases continued until 1993, only 51 were published a study involving 26 authors.
Many studies represented surveys of families of immigrants from the Soviet Union (a total of 1061 family). To studies have also
used surveys of emigrants from other socialist countries, the official statistics of the ussr, publications in mass media and scientific
journals of the Soviet Union . Despite the differences in some quantitative estimates of the individual authors, these differences
were not fundamental. The differences arose due to the fact that some authors considered "Informal economy", the other – the shadow
economy; however, their definitions of both economies could not match. Here are some results of these studies. 1.
In 1979 the illicit manufacture of wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages, as well as speculative resale of alcoholic beverages
produced in the "First economy", provided the income, equal to 2. 2% of gnp (gross national product). 2. In the late 1970-ies in
the ussr was flourishing black market gasoline. From 33 to 65% of purchases of gasoline in urban areas of the country, individual
owners of cars had petrol sold by drivers of public enterprises and organizations (gasoline were sold at a price below the state).
3. In the soviet hairdresser 'left' incomes exceeded the amounts that customers have paid through cash.
This is just one example of what some state-owned enterprises de facto belonged to the "Second" economy. 4. In 1974 the share
of employment in private and home gardens accounted for almost a third of the total working time in agriculture. And this was almost
10% of the total working time in the soviet economy. 5. In the 1970-ies, about a quarter of agricultural products produced on private
plots, much of it was directed at kolkhoz markets. 6.
In the late 1970's, around 30% of all income of the urban population was obtained through various types of private activity –
both legal and illegal. 7. By the end of 1970-ies the proportion of people employed in the "Second economy", reached 10-12% of the
total workforce in the ussr. At the end of 1980-ies there appeared a number of works on the shadow and "Second" economy in the ussr.
First and foremost is the publication of the soviet economist tatyana results and director of the research institute of the state
planning commission valery rutgajzer. Here is the data from the t.
The results of the "Shadow economy of the ussr". The annual value of illegally produced goods and services in the early 1960-ies
amounted to about 5 billion rubles, and in the end of 1980-ies was already reached 90 billion rubles. At current prices, the gnp
of the ussr was (in billions of rubles): in 1960 – 195; in 1990, 701. Thus, the economy of the ussr for thirty years has increased
3. 6 times, and the shadow economy – 14 times.
If in 1960 the shadow economy relative to official gdp was 3. 4%, while by 1988 this figure rose to 20%. However, in 1990 it was
equal to 12. 5%. This decline was due to changes in soviet legislation, which transferred to discharge a legal a range of economic
activities, which were previously considered illegal. The number of employed in the shadow economy, estimated to be the results,
in the beginning of 1960-ies was 6 million people, and in 1974 their number increased to 17-20 million people (6-7% of the population).
In 1989, the such shadow was already 30 million people, or 12% of the population of the ussr. The threats and consequences of the
development of the shadow economy in sssri american and soviet researchers pay attention to some features of the shadow economy and
its impact on the overall situation in the Soviet Union .
Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due
to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass.
In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a
president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."
"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for
going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption
and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act
as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.
"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what
they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.
One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel
comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible
advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his
colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."
Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will
continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.
A very good analysis. Trump essentially morphed into Hillary or worse. Essentially the same type of warmonger and
compulsive liar.
Notable quotes:
"... The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war. ..."
"... At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics. ..."
"... Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.) ..."
"... What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse . ..."
"... Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. ..."
"... At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further. ..."
"... On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next. ..."
"... Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped. ..."
The Trump regime is attempting to gin up a war with Iran. First Trump reneged on Obama's nuclear deal with the country for no
reason, then he slapped them with more economic sanctions for no reason, and then, pushed by National Security Adviser John Bolton
and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he moved massive military forces onto Iran's doorstep to heighten tensions further. Now, after
a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- none of which were American -- that the administration blames on Iran,
Pompeo says the U.S. is "considering a full range of options," including war. (Iran has categorically denied any involvement.)
The American people appear
largely uninterested
in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into
another pointless, disastrous war.
The New York Times ' Bret Stephens, for all his #NeverTrump pretensions, provides a good window into the
absolute witlessness of the pro-war
argument . He takes largely at face value the Trump administration's accusations against Iran -- "Trump might be a liar, but
the U.S. military isn't," he writes -- and blithely suggests Trump should announce an ultimatum demanding further attacks cease,
then sink Iran's navy if they don't comply.
Let me take these in turn. For one thing, any statement of any kind coming out of a Republican's mouth should be viewed with extreme
suspicion. Two years ago, the party passed a gigantic tax cut for the rich which they swore up and down would "
pay
for itself " with increased growth. To precisely no one's surprise,
this did not happen
. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was just
one
flagrant example of many who got elected in 2016 while
lying through their teeth about their party's efforts to destroy ObamaCare and its protections for preexisting conditions.
At
time of writing, the Washington Post has counted
10,796 false or misleading claims
from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics.
Republican accusations of foreign aggression should be subjected to an even higher burden of proof. The Trump regime has provided
no evidence of Iranian culpability aside from
a video of a ship the Pentagon says is Iranians removing something they say is a mine from an oil tanker -- but a Japanese
ship owner reported at least one attack came from a "
flying object ," not a mine. Pompeo insists "
there is
no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the
exact same words that Vice President
Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United
States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies
reacted skeptically
to Trump's claims.)
What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly
in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that --
or worse .
Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. False flag attacks on its own oil tankers sound outlandish,
but we're talking about a ruthless dictatorship run by a guy who had a Washington Post columnist
murdered and chopped into pieces because he didn't like
his takes. And the Saudis have already been conducting a years-long war in Yemen with catastrophic humanitarian outcomes in order
to stop an Iran-allied group from coming to power. It's by no means certain, but hardly outside the realm of possibility.
At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any
rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further.
But let's grant for the sake of argument that some Iranian forces actually did carry out some or all of these attacks. That raises
the immediate question of why. One very plausible reason is that all of Trump's provocations have strengthened the hand of Iran's
conservative hard-liners, who are basically the mirror image of Pompeo and Bolton. "It is sort of a toxic interaction between hard-liners
on both sides because for domestic political reasons they each want greater tension," as Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on
Foreign Relations told
the New York Times . This faction might have concluded that the U.S. is run by deranged fanatics, and the best way to
protect Iran is to demonstrate they could choke off oil shipping from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. attacks.
This in turn raises the question of the appropriate response if Iran is actually at fault here. It would be one thing if these
attacks came out of a clear blue sky. But America is very obviously the aggressor here. Iran was following its side of the
nuclear deal to the letter before Trump reneged, and
continued to do so as of February . So far the
European Union (which is still party to the deal) has been unwilling to sidestep U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to
threaten to restart
uranium enrichment . So Iran is a medium-sized country with a faltering economy, hemmed in on all sides by U.S. aggression. Backing
off the threats and chest-thumping might easily strengthen the hand of Iranian moderates, and cause them to respond in kind.
On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks.
Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S.
military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very
real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels
specifically
designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill
thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq
War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes
next.
Taken together, these factors strongly militate towards de-escalation and diplomacy even if Iran did carry out these attacks,
which again, is not at all proven. The current standoff is almost entirely our fault, and Iranian forces are far from defenseless.
America has a lot better things to do than indulge the deluded jingoist fantasies of a handful of armchair generals who want lots
of other people to die in battle.
Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate
U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification
is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda
covers an attack on Iran .
This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts --
but may explain Pompeo's
equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.
Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems
somewhat hesitant ,
sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for
everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped.
"... [Definition: A 'false flag operation' is a horrific, staged event -- blamed on a political enemy -- and used as pretext to start a war or to enact draconian laws in the name of national security]. ..."
"... " Definition of reverse projection: attributing to others what you are doing yourself as the reason for attacking them ." John McMurtry (1939- ), Canadian philosopher, (in 'The Moral Decoding of 9-11: Beyond the U.S. Criminal State', Journal of 9/11 Studies, Feb.2013). ..."
[False flag operations:] "The powers-that-be understand that to create the appropriate atmosphere for war, it's necessary to
create within the general populace a hatred, fear or mistrust of others regardless of whether those others belong to a certain
group of people or to a religion or a nation." James Morcan (1978- ), New Zealander-born Australian writer.
[Definition: A 'false flag operation' is a horrific, staged event -- blamed on a political enemy -- and used as pretext
to start a war or to enact draconian laws in the name of national security].
" Almost all wars begin with false flag operations ." Larry Chin (d. of b. unknown), North American author, (in 'False
Flagging the World towards War. The CIA Weaponizes Hollywood', Dec. 27, 2014).
" Definition of reverse projection: attributing to others what you are doing yourself as the reason for attacking them
." John McMurtry (1939- ), Canadian philosopher, (in 'The Moral Decoding of 9-11: Beyond the U.S. Criminal State', Journal of
9/11 Studies, Feb.2013).
" That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking
as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate
prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable ." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American Founding father, pamphleteer,
(in 'The Rights of Man', c. 1792).
" I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, and we stole . It was like -- we had entire training courses. It reminds
you of the glory of the American experiment." Mike Pompeo (1963- ), former CIA director and now Secretary of State in the
Trump administration, (in April 2019, while speaking at Texas A&M University.)
***
History repeats itself. Indeed, those who live by war are at it again. Their crime: starting illegal wars by committing false flag attacks and blaming other countries for their
own criminal acts. On this, the Donald Trump-John Bolton duo is just like the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney duo. It is amazing that
in an era of 24-hour news, this could still going on.
We recall that in 2002-2003, the latter duo, with the help of U.K.'s Tony Blair, lied their way into a war of aggression against
Iraq, by pretending that Saddam Hussein had a massive stockpile of " weapons of mass destruction "and
that he was ready to attack the United States proper. On October 6, 2002, George W. Bush scared Americans with his big Mushroom Cloud analogy. -- It was
all bogus. -- It was a pure fabrication that the gullible (!) U.S. Congress, the corporate media, and most of the American public,
swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Now, in 2019, a short sixteen years later, the same stratagem seems to being used to start another illegal war of aggression,
this time against the country of Iran. The masters of deception are at it again. Their secret agents and those of their Israeli and
Saudi allies, in the Middle East, seem to have just launched an unprovoked attack, in international waters, against a Japanese tanker,
and they have rushed to the cameras to accuse Iran. They claim that the latter country used mines to attack the tanker.
This time, they were unlucky. -- The owner of the Japanese
tanker , the Kokuka Courageous, immediately rebuked that "official" version.
Yutaka Katada , president of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping company, declared that the attack came from a bombing from above
the water. Indeed, Mr. Katada told reporters:
" The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying toward them, then there was an explosion,
then there was a hole in the vessel ."
His company issued a statement saying that " the hull (of the ship) has been breached above the waterline on the starboard
side ", and it was not hit by a mine below the waterline, as the Trump administration has insinuated. -- [N. B.: There was also
a less serious attack on a Norwegian ship, the Front Altair.]
Thus, this time the false flag makers have not succeeded. But, you can be sure that they will be back at it, sooner or later,
just as they, and their well financed al-Qaeda allies, launched a few false flag "chemical" attacks in
Syria, and blamed them on the Syrian Assad government.
Donald Trump has too much to gain personally from a nice little war to distract the media and the public from the Mueller report and from
all his mounting political problems. In his case, he surely would benefit from a "wag-the-dog" scenario that John
Bolton and his friends in the Middle East could easily invent. As a matter of fact, two weeks ago, warmonger
John Bolton was coincidently
in the Middle East, in the United Arab Emirates, just before the attacks!
Besides the Japanese ship owner's denial, it is important to point out that at the moment of the attack on the Japanese tanker,
the
Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Shinzo Abe , was in Iran, having talks with the Iranian government about economic cooperation
between the two countries about oil shipments. Since Iran is the victim of unilateral U. S. economic sanctions, to derail such an
economic cooperation between Japan and Iran could have been the triggered motivation to launch a false flag operation. It did not
work. But you can be sure that the responsible party will not be prosecuted.
Conclusion
We live in an era when people with low morals, sponsored by people with tons of money, can gain power and do a lot of damage.
How our democracies can survive in such a context remains an open question.
In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a
president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."
"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for
going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption
and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act
as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.
"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what
they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.
One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel
comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible
advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his
colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."
Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will
continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.
"... If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ..."
We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya
had nothing to do with "stopping a bad man."
If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't
care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or
to harmonize their rock garden.
"... ...What else did you expect other than the MIC/Intelligence Agencies/Pentagon/embedded war mongers handling this stuff? ..."
"... Gen. Buck Turgidson is most certainly going rogue. ..."
"... That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is a figurehead with no real power. ..."
...That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is
a figurehead with no real power.
Of course it's been true for a long time, but it's a fairly recent phenomenon that a large number
of Americans like it. Russiagate is another example.
Huge portions of America were cheering for the unseating of an elected President
by unelected police state apparatus because they don't like him.
Bias, Lies & Videotape: Doubts Dog 'Confirmed' Syria Chemical Attacks Disturbing new evidence suggests 2018 incident
might've been staged, putting everything else, including U.S. retaliation, into question. By
Scott Ritter •
June 20, 2019
It also calls into question all the other conclusions and reports by the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) , which was assigned in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly
chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."
As you recall, the Trump administration initiated a coordinated bombing of Syrian government facilities with the UK and France
within days of the
Douma incident and
before
a full investigation of the scene could be completed, charging Assad with the "barbaric act" of using "banned chemical weapons"
to kill dozens of people on the scene. Bomb first, ask questions later.
The OPCW began their investigation days
after the strikes . The group drew on witness testimonies, environmental and biomedical sample analysis results, and additional
digital information from witnesses (i.e. video and still photography), as well as toxicological and ballistic analyses. In July 2018,
the OPCW released an
interim report
on Douma that said "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental
samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties," but that chlorine, which is not a banned chemical weapon, was detected
there.
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The report cited ballistic tests that indicated that the canisters found at two locations on the scene were dropped from the air
(witnesses blamed Assad's forces), but investigations were ongoing.
The final report in March
reiterated the ballistics data, and the conclusions were just as underwhelming, saying that all of the evidence gathered there provides
"reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place," due in part to traces of chlorine and explosives at
the impact sites.
Now, the leaked
internal report apparently suppressed by the OPCW says there is a "high probability" that a pair of chlorine gas cylinders that
had been claimed as the source of the toxic chemical had been planted there by hand and not dropped by aircraft. This was based on
extensive engineering assessments and computer modeling as well as all of the evidence previously afforded to the OPCW.
What does this mean? To my mind, the canisters were planted by the opposition in an effort to frame the Syrian government.
The OPCW has confirmed with the validity of this shocking document and has offered statements to reporters, including Peter Hitchens,
who published
the organization's response to him on May 16.
The ramifications of this turn of events extend far beyond simply disproving the allegations concerning the events in April 2018.
The credibility of the OPCW itself and every report and conclusion
it has released concerning allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government are now suspect. The extent to which
the OPCW has, almost exclusively, relied upon
the same Syrian opposition sources who are now suspected of fabricating the Douma events raises serious questions about both
the methodology and motivation of an organization that had been
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for
"its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons."
In a
response to Agence France-Presse (AFP) , OPCW director general Fernando Arias acknowledged there is an internal probe into the
memo leak but that he continues to "stand by the impartial and professional conclusions" of the group's original report. He played
down the role of the memo's author, Ian Henderson, and said his alternative hypotheses were not included in the final OPCW report
because they "pointed at possible attribution" and were therefore outside the scope of the OPCW's fact finding mission in Syria.
Self-produced videos and witness statements provided by the pro-opposition Violations Documentation Center, Syrian Civil Defense
(also known as the White Helmets), and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS)
, a non-profit organization that operates hospitals in opposition-controlled Syria, represented the heart and soul of the case
against the Syrian government regarding the events in Douma. To my mind, the internal memo now suggests that these actors were engaging
in a systemic effort to disseminate disinformation that would facilitate Western military intervention with the goal of removing
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.
This theory has been advanced by pro-Assad forces and their Russian partners for some time. But independent reporting on the ground
since the Douma incident has sussed out many of the same concerns. From James Harkin, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism
and a fellow at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center, who traveled to the site of the attacks and
reported for The Intercept
in February of this year:
The imperative to grab the fleeting attention of an international audience certainly seems to have influenced the presentation
of the evidence. In the videos and photos that appeared that evening, most analysts and observers agree that there were some signs
that the bodies and gas canisters had been moved or tampered with after the event for maximum impact. The Syrian media activists
who'd arrived at the apartment block with the dead people weren't the first to arrive on the scene; they'd heard about the deaths
from White Helmet workers and doctors at the hospital.
The relationship between the OPCW and the Syrian opposition can be traced back to 2013. That was when the OPCW was given the responsibility
of eliminating Syria's declared arsenal of chemical weapons; this task was largely completed by 2014. However, the Syrian opposition
began making persistent allegations of chemical weapon attacks by the Syrian government in which chlorine, a substance not covered
by Syria's obligation to be disarmed of chemical weapons, was used. In response, the OPCW established the
Fact Finding Mission (FFM) in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding
allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."
The priority of effort for the FFM early on was to investigate allegations of the use of chlorine as a weapon. Since, according
to its May 2014
summary, "all reported incidents took place at locations that the Syrian Government considers to be outside its effective control,"
the FFM determined that the success of its mission was contingent upon "identification of key actors, such as local authorities and/or
representatives of armed opposition groups in charge of the territories in which these locations are situated; the establishment
of contacts with these groups in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence that allows the mandate and objectives of the FFM to
be communicated."
So from its very inception, the FFM had to rely on the anti-Assad opposition and its supporters for nearly everything. The document
that governed the
conduct of the FFM's work in Syria was premised on the fact that the mission would be dependent in part upon "opposition representatives"
to coordinate, along with the United Nations, the "security, logistical and operational aspects of the OPCW FFM," including liaising
"for the purposes of making available persons for interviews."
One could sense the bias resulting from such an arrangement when, acting on information provided to it by the opposition regarding
an "alleged attack with chlorine" on the towns of Kafr Zeyta and Al-Lataminah, the FFM changed its original plans to investigate
an alleged chlorine attack on the town of Harasta. This decision, the FFM reported, "was welcomed by the opposition." When the FFM
attempted to inspect Kafr Zeyta, however, it was attacked by opposition forces, with one of its vehicles destroyed by a roadside
bomb, one inspector wounded, and several inspectors detained by opposition fighters.
The inability to go to Kafr Zeyta precluded the group from "presenting definitive conclusions," according to the report. But that
did not stop the FFM from saying that the information given to them from these opposition sources, "including treating physicians
with whom the FFM was able to establish contact," and public domain material, "lends credence to the view that toxic chemicals, most
likely pulmonary irritating agents such as chlorine, have been used in a systematic manner in a number of attacks" against Kafr Zeyta.
So the conclusion/non-conclusion was based not on any onsite investigation, but rather videos produced by the opposition and subsequently
released via social media and
interviews
also likely set up by opposition groups (White Helmets, SAMS, etc.), which we know, according to their own documents, served
as the key liaisons for the FFM on the ground.
All of this is worrisome. It is unclear at this point how many Syrian chemical attacks have been truly confirmed since the start
of the war. In February of this year, the Global Policy Institute
released a report
saying there were 336 such reports, but they were broken down into "confirmed," "credibly substantiated," and "comprehensively confirmed."
Out of the total, 111 were given the rigorous "comprehensively confirmed" tag, which, according to the group, meant the incidents
were "were investigated and confirmed by competent international bodies or backed up by at least three highly reliable independent
sources of evidence."
They do not go into further detail about those bodies and sources, but are sure to thank the White Helmets and their "implementing
partner" Mayday Rescue and Violations Documentation
Center, among other groups, as "friends and partners" in the study. So it becomes clear, looking at the Kafr Zeytan inspection and
beyond, that the same opposition sources that are informing the now-dubious OPCW reports are also delivering data and "assistance"
to outside groups reaching international audiences, too.
The role of the OPCW in sustaining the claims made by the obviously biased Syrian opposition sources cannot be understated --
by confirming the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma, the OPCW lent credibility to claims that otherwise should not --
and indeed would not -- have been granted, and in doing so violated the very operating procedures that had been put in place by the
OPCW to protect the credibility of the organization and its findings.
There is an old prosecutorial rule -- one lie, all lies -- that comes into play in this case. With the leaked internal report
out there, suggesting that the sources in the Douma investigation were agenda-driven and dishonest, all information ever provided
to the OPCW by the White Helmets, SAMS, and other Syrian opposition groups must now, in my mind, be viewed as tainted and therefore
unusable.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control
treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The OPCW reaction clearly considering the investigation into the leak instead of apologizing for not publishing this report is
revealing its bias.
There has been a push from 'the West' to have the OPCW also attributing responsibility. Given the bias already on display this
will further politicize the OPCW.
As soon as such organizations become propaganda tools their credibility goes into the wind.
Given what we know of the Skripal hoax and the Tories attitude to the truth with their government funded 'Integrity Initiative'
through the Institute of Statecraft' that exactly what the British Intelligence intended.
One may note the specific personal links through Orbis/Steele/Miller between the 'Integrity Initiative' and the fake 'Trump
Dossier' and one ought to be alarmed by 'services' of a British intelligence out of control, but given the FBI/CIA involvement
and exploitation of that fake 'Trump Dossier' it looks that the US has a quite similar problem.
For Trump, 2017 has already been an explosive year: The U.S. has said it dropped
over 2,400 bombs on Afghanistan , up from 1,337 last year. In the fight against ISIS in
Iraq and Syria, the U.S. has already
dropped 32,801 bombs, compared with 30,743 in 2016. And the U.S. has also conducted more
than 100
strikes against Al Qaeda in Yemen in 2017, compared with 38 in 2016.
Trump did promise in a campaign speech in 2015 to " bomb
the shit" out of ISIS, and he seems to be living up to his word -- with little regard for
the consequences.
The pace of air attacks has led to dozens of civilian deaths, watchdogs say. From
28 to 88 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, according to the Bureau for
Investigative Journalism. And Airwars ,
which tracks international airstrikes against ISIS, estimated that U.S.-led airstrikes killed
1,060 civilians in Iraq and Syria in August 2017, compared with 138 in August 2016.
In its worst month, March 2017, it's estimated the Trump administration killed 1,881. (The
Pentagon admitted in May that a single airstrike in Mosul, Iraq, was responsible for 100 of
these deaths.) In contrast, President Barack Obama's bloodiest month, July 2016, claimed the
lives of 312, according to Airwars.
The number of airstrikes is expected to climb as 4,000
reinforcements head to the country to aid the 11,000 U.S. troops already stationed in
Afghanistan. One stated goal of the surge is to help identify bombing targets. And the CIA is
pushing for expanded authority to conduct covert drone strikes in Afghanistan,
which could place U.S. troops in danger .
However, when virtually no one in the upper circles of power in Caracas ended up backing
Guaidó, Trump thought that his national security adviser John Bolton and his director
for Latin American policy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, "got played" by the opposition and key
Maduro officials, The Post reported.
Two senior White House officials told
The Post that the president "chewed out the staff" after the failure on April 30 to
shift Maduro from power and that now Trump's administration has no fixed strategy to remove
him.
Trump had "always thought of" Venezuela "as low-hanging fruit" on which he "could get a win
and tout it as a major foreign policy victory," the former official said. "Five or six months
later . . . it's not coming together," the unnamed official added.
However, this was rejected by National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis who
described the official's claims as, "patently false."
People, however, are supposed to have brains and are expected to be cognizant of what's
happening around them and able to assess its implications on their wellbeing. Unfortunately,
this rarely is the case, which may add credence to the theory that by settling into early
agrarian communities, humans became more caring and supportive of each other, thus undermining
the successful natural selection process by retaining idiot genes!
It is not as though the concept of danger is a new phenomenon. Ever since humans got over
the fear of carnivorous beasts and learnt how to kill them, they have concentrated on killing
each other. Hegemonic tendencies have existed for thousands of years; as early as the Sumerians
and Assyrians and continued through to the colonization monsters of the past few hundred
years.
STATUS OF HEGEMONY
Hegemonies come in different sizes; small, medium and big; an amusing "pecking order" whose
interaction can be observed on the daily news broadcasts. It also comes in different styles;
softly spoken but treacherous, generous with economic assistance but containing hidden strings
to hang you, belligerent with a viscous warmongering streak and lastly, schizophrenic;
oscillating between all the previous styles. There are also the would-be-hegemons if given half
a chance.
More recently, the hegemony arena has, though knock-out matches, been narrowed down to one
grand hegemon and a couple of runners-up, and the heat is now rising as the final tournament
approaches – Let us hope it will not be too bloody and Armageddon-ish.
Despite that, many nations continue to dream of becoming hegemons. But at the same time,
they continue to concentrate on their 'white dots' and disregard the likelihood that they are
already in the crosshairs of a bigger hegemon.
They seem oblivious to the hegemonic ploys that undermine their political and economic
structures through unending sanctions, onerous trade or military treaties, contemptuous
disregard for local and international laws, negative and false news reporting, regime change
tactics, false flag incidences, scaremongering, and outright threats that are occasionally
translated into destructive military action. Like the proverbial deer, they are frozen in the
headlights of the oncoming speeding car and wait until it is too late to save themselves.
What happened in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Somalia, Grenada,
Venezuela, Argentine, Brazil, Cuba, Greece, Iran, North Korea and many other places are only
the tip of the iceberg. What is likely to happen elsewhere is still being baked in the oven and
will come out once done and ready. What is surprising is that, not only were the signs written
on all the walls but, again, the victims failed to comprehend the messages and continued to
stare at their 'white dots'!
Southeast Asia, South China Sea, Ex-Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South & Central
America and Africa are all candidates for destabilization and possible splintering into smaller
pieces – especially those that exhibit economic weakness or cracks in their demographic,
ethnic, religious makeup and are rife with internal disharmony.
Even the European EU is now beginning to feel the brunt of the hegemon pressure of tariff
and sanctions threats. Japan, Mexico, India and Canada too, have just got a taste of an ear
pinching to remind them to dance to the grand hegemon's tune. Who is left? Not even
Timbuktu!
What about the runner-up hegemons? What about the smaller hegemons? Well, all hegemons have
the same strain of nasty genes. However, they are dormant and only begin to grow as their
host's power increases. This, most likely, is a genetic relic from the early human
hunters-gatherers' need for viciousness to survive. Maybe natural selection and/or wisdom will
eventually weed out those nasty genes, but don't bet your farm or country on it.
IS ALL
LOST?
Not necessarily, because all hegemons (big and small) also suffer from the same weaknesses
and dis-harmonies that beset their victims, although they cunningly keep them secret. Powerful
mass media and propaganda are used extensively to camouflage all the ills that would otherwise
stumble their seemingly confident and steady footsteps. This means that they are as also
vulnerable to the same ploys that they have repeatedly used on others.
Also, history confirms that all empires eventually collapse and disappear, regardless of how
long they last. Some lasted over a thousand years, which may sound too long, but in the modern
world of technology, digital communications, social media and financialized economies, the
average lifespan of hegemons has been drastically cut short.
Empires and hegemons generally start with a strategic vision of expansion and moderate
usurpation of other nations' resources; then, gluttony takes over at a rapidly increased
pace.
But as the world and its resources are limited, they sooner or later bump into and clash
with other hegemons; and are forced to change their tactics. As matters heat up, their tactics
not only become shorter and shorter-term, but become ad hoc not fully thought through and, even
haphazard – until they begin to shoot themselves in the foot.
This usually is an early sign of their demise (compare this to the Roman/Byzantine, Safavid
Iran and Ottoman empires and their confusion with multi-front wars – in addition to their
poor governance systems and economic mismanagement).
WHAT TO DO
In all events, we cannot wait out the hegemons to die out as the dinosaurs did; it would
take far too long.
More realistically, we can address the modern hegemonic world threat via a two-pronged
approach. The first is individual effort and the second is collective action.
Individual effort means to treat the sources of weakness and internal disharmony that make
individual countries susceptible to hegemonic ploys. This requires the recreation of the
governance systems to tackle all the maladies that drag nations down, including poor economic
policies, corruption, inequality, ineffective representative systems, etc.
In short, seal the cracks that invite enemies to destabilize a country. It is not easy but
is certainly better than being sucked dry off your freedom, resources and future.
As for collective action, this means getting together with other small and medium nations to
form groups/alliances that can stand up to hegemons and resist, at least, their economic
sanctions and threats. The Non-Aligned Movement was, and still is a good idea, but needs more
teeth. Alternatively, new and more practical types of groupings could be envisaged and created
– always conditional that no one nation, big or small, is allowed to become the group's
hegemon.
Dominoes may be flimsy and unstable, but if laid in parallel rows and columns and closely
bonded (zero-spaced), they become much more difficult to topple. So, don't be a lone domino
dumbly staring at your 'white dots'!
I don't see the cracks being filled. I certainly don't see them being filled by
government. On the local level, our county has grown form a modest system that typically ran
out of money before the year was out to a behemoth. Now the support staff outnumbers the
teachers in our schools. The sheriff's office is massive. The child services center is huge.
The salaries get better and better. The pensions get better. And, the taxes go up. The county
is feeding off the retirees that have flooded in from the North. The fun starts when the
Northern pension plans fail and the boomer die off kills the golden calf.
The the push will be to raise taxes to sustain a bloated bureacracy.
As Hegemonies expand, the costs to maintain the expansion eventually outweigh the
financial rewards (look how much has been blown on Afghanistan). This is funded by neglecting
the infrastructure and systems that made the Hegemonic entity powerful in the first
place.
Hegemonies, as they reach peak expansion find that the costs of further expansion, let
alone retaining their current Vassal entities exceeds their return on investment inflicting
deficits. They rot from within as infrastructure decays and its citizens see no benefit. When
a Hegemony needs to use as much tyranny to ensure that its vassal states and its own citizens
are compliant...... its days are numbered.
Until mankind relearns what made civilization possible (cooperation), then there's no
hope. That's why Russia is advancing the Rule of Law (harmonious cooperation), and China,
advancing OBOR (Economic liberation), in order to avoid the usual causes of conflict,
economic deprivation.
They've both been there (empires), done it (hegemony), and got bruised badly too..
It'd be very difficult to practice hegemony now, in a densely interconnected world, but
that doesn't mean nations won't possess some influence over others, influence being the key
word, like a man's girlfriend possesses influence over him, or vice versa, but raw hegemony?
Not likely..
Anyhow, what really ails humanity, is alienation from Divinity. Rich, famous, and powerful
people have been known to terminally end their mortality despite having it all..
Our mission, is to restore that connection, so we can finally wake up, and ascend to
explore, and multiply amongst the stars. But first things first, charity begins right here,
on planet home, cheers...
The coming 'paradigm shift', means the West and all its debt will metamorphize into
Oceania, continue to fake its hegemony, and fool its population into thinking that they still
are, what they once were.
Excellent article! Beautifully crafted and simple to understand. A refreshing view that,
to my knowledge, has not been used before. Most importantly, an easy method for awakening the
zombie classes.
Now we have the tool, let's begin using it. Black dots, dead ahead!
Trouble is that the alpha hegemon and the larger of the betas, all have a trove of nuclear
weapons. I don't think the Sumerians and Assyrians had anything quite like that.
When today's promoters of hope and denial finally meet up with the invincible force of
reality, sad very sad
Neocon donors ask Trump for favors and he can't refuse... Trump foreign policy is a direct continuation of Bush II and Obama
foreign policy and is dominated by neocons, who rule the State Department. Pomeo is a rabid neocon, to the right of
Condoleezza Rice, Hillary and John Kerry. Actually anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli bias was clearly visible even during 2016
campaign, but few voters paid any attention. Now they should.
It is clear that Trump is the most pro-Israel President after Johnson.
Notable quotes:
"... In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. ..."
"... The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019]. ..."
"... Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation. ..."
"... But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019] ..."
The most optimistic explanation: Trump intends to use immigration as an election issue in
2020. Yet his fecklessness in office will be as unappealing to many voters as the Democrats'
extremism. [ Trump Is
Vulnerable to Biden on Immigration, by Michael Brendan Dougherty, National
Review, June 11, 2019] After all, Trump
began his campaign vowing to solve the immigration problem almost exactly four years ago --
but essentially nothing has been done.
Later that month, the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran" [
Trump threatens Iran With 'Official End' by Kenneth Walsh, US News and World
Report, May 20, 2019].
The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either
accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum
pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War, by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign
Policy, June 14, 2019].
Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation.
But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and
its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War
. There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly
question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the
"intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international
investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories
After Tanker Attacks, RedState, June 14, 2019]
This is not the same country that re-elected George W. Bush in 2004. The trust in
institutions is gone; America is war-weary.
There is also a deeper fundamental question. Our country is crumbling. The border is
non-existent; entire communities are being overrun. There's something perverse about even
entertaining a dangerous and costly military intervention halfway around the world. It's akin
to a Roman emperor declaring he will conquer India while barbarians are crossing the Rhine.
..Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration.
Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the
right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.
@ 71 b4real
"Do you really believe those bankers with their terminals and wingtip shoes are telling the
boys with the billion dollars of weaponry what to do?"
Simple answer: Yes. US weapons sales in 2018 were worth $192 billion. Total miltary budget
in 2018 was $650 billion. That does not add up to even a trillion which is a paltry sum when
compared to about $30 trillion sloshing around US banks and fund management companies.
Let's take the example of the world's biggest arms producer – Lockhead Martin. The
State Street Corporation (fund management) holds 16.6% of the shares of Lockhead Martin,
Capital World Investors (California) hold 7.7%, Vanguard Group 7% and BlackRock Inc. 6.7%.
That means 4 fund management companies own 38% of the stock of Lockead Martin. These guys
with the wingtip shoes can fire the entire management team of Lockhead Martin at the drop of
a hat.
The finance, insurance and real estate sector accounted for 20% of US GDP in 2016
(Forbes), which means approximately $18 trillion. You may argue that real estate has little
to do with bankers but every sale needs a mortgage and private equity has moved into real
estate in a big way over the last decade.
It should also be recalled that the man who created the CIA and ran it for over a decade -
Allen Dulles - was a Wall Street lawyer.
"... Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many conflicts. ..."
"... Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval required). ..."
"... Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process? ..."
"... In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital," the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International . ..."
"... U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least 600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term effects of cluster munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may well have exceeded one million.) ..."
"... the U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger , as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to yet more destruction. ..."
"... Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results. ..."
"... Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year. ..."
"... No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured," bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to end. ..."
"... A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror: the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh insurgents to strike. ..."
"... Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam. ..."
"... Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational awareness ." ..."
"... Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial power projection than with national defense ..."
"... Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens wars rather than shortening them. ..."
"... Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures -- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those being bombed become more resilient and resolute. ..."
"... Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the moral high ground in war. ..."
"... all the happy talk about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results. ..."
"... War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own turf. ..."
From Syria to Yemen in the Middle East, Libya to Somalia in Africa, Afghanistan to Pakistan
in South Asia, an American aerial curtain has descended across a huge swath of the planet. Its
stated purpose: combatting terrorism. Its primary method: constant surveillance and bombing --
and yet more bombing.
Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so
American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many
conflicts.
Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now
declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and
munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval
required).
Its reality for various foreign peoples: a steady diet of "
Made in USA " bombs and missiles bursting here, there, and everywhere.
Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars
are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of
ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process?
For many of America's decision-makers, air power has clearly become something of an
abstraction. After all, except for the 9/11 attacks by those four hijacked commercial
airliners, Americans haven't
been the target of such strikes since World War II. On Washington's battlefields across the
Greater Middle East and northern Africa, air power is always almost literally a one-way affair.
There are no enemy air forces or significant air defenses. The skies are the exclusive property
of the U.S. Air Force (and allied air forces), which means that we're no longer talking about
"war" in the normal sense. No wonder Washington policymakers and military officials see it as
our strong suit, our asymmetrical
advantage , our way of settling scores with evildoers, real and imagined.
Bombs away!
In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and
missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data
supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped
at least 26,172 bombs in seven
countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital,"
the U.S. and its allies dropped more than
20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to
literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600
civilians, according to
Amnesty International .
Meanwhile, since Donald Trump has become president, after claiming that he would get us out
of our various never-ending wars, U.S. bombing has surged, not only against the Islamic State
in Syria and Iraq but in
Afghanistan as well. It has driven up the
civilian death toll there even as "friendly" Afghan forces are sometimes mistaken for the
enemy
and killed , too. Air strikes from Somalia
to
Yemen have also been on the rise under Trump, while civilian casualties due to U.S. bombing
continue to be
underreported in the American media and
downplayed by the Trump administration.
U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945,
which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later
that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least
600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term
effects of cluster
munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to
conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may
well have exceeded one million.) Today's air strikes are more limited than in those past
campaigns and may be more accurate, but never confuse a 500-pound bomb with a surgeon's
scalpel, even rhetorically. When " surgical " is applied to bombing in today's
age of lasers, GPS, and other precision-guidance technologies, it only obscures the very real
human carnage being produced by all these American-made bombs and missiles.
This country's propensity for believing that its ability to rain hellfire from the sky provides a
winning methodology for its wars has proven to be a fantasy of our age. Whether in Korea in the
early 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s, or more recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the
U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case
of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful
non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even
when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger
, as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes
to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to
yet more destruction.
Such results are contrary to the rationale for air power that I absorbed in a career spent
in the U.S. Air Force. (I retired in 2005.) The fundamental tenets of air power
that I learned, which are still taught today, speak of decisiveness. They promise that air
power, defined as "flexible and versatile," will have "synergistic effects" with other military
operations. When bombing is "concentrated," "persistent," and "executed" properly (meaning not
micro-managed by know-nothing politicians), air power should be fundamental to ultimate
victory. As we used to insist, putting bombs on target is really what it's all about. End of
story -- and of thought.
Given the banality and vacuity of those official Air Force tenets, given the
twenty-first-century history of air power gone to hell and back, and based on my own experience
teaching such history and strategy in and outside the military, I'd like to offer some air
power tenets of my own. These are the ones the Air Force didn't teach me, but that our leaders
might consider before launching their next "decisive" air campaign.
Ten Cautionary Tenets
About Air Power
1. Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with
relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World
War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results.
2. Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would
have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. American air
power pulverized both North Korea and Vietnam (not to speak of neighboring
Laos and Cambodia ), yet the Korean War ended in a stalemate and the Vietnam War in
defeat. (It tells you the world about such thinking that air power enthusiasts, reconsidering
the Vietnam debacle, tend to argue the U.S. should have bombed even more -- lots
more .) Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the
Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year.
3. No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured,"
bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of
innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such
killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to
end.
Consider, for instance, the "decapitation" strikes launched against Iraqi autocrat Saddam
Hussein and his top officials in the opening moments of the Bush administration's invasion of
2003. Despite the hype about that being the beginning of the most precise air campaign in all
of history, 50 of those attacks, supposedly based on the best intelligence around, failed to
take out Saddam or a single one of his targeted officials. They did, however, cause "dozens"
of civilian deaths. Think of it as a monstrous repeat of the precision air attacks launched
on Belgrade in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic and his
regime that hit the Chinese
embassy instead, killing three journalists.
Here, then, is the question of the day: Why is it that, despite all the "precision" talk
about it, air power so regularly proves at best a blunt instrument of destruction? As a
start, intelligence is often faulty. Then bombs and missiles, even "smart" ones, do go
astray. And even when U.S. forces actually kill high-value targets (HVTs), there are
always more HVTs out there. A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror:
the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air
strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh
insurgents to strike.
4. Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely
works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's
presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a
graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to
give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam.
Fast-forward to our era and consider recent signals sent to North
Korea and
Iran by the Trump administration via B-52 bomber deployments, among other military
"messages." There's no evidence that either country modified its behavior significantly in
the face of the menace of those
baby-boomer-era airplanes.
5. Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their
munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. Similarly, in the
present moment, making operational and then maintaining Lockheed Martin's boondoggle
of a jet fighter, the F-35, is expected to cost at least
$1.45 trillion over its lifetime. The new B-21 stealth bomber will cost more than $100 billion
simply to buy. Naval air wings on aircraft carriers cost billions each year to maintain and
operate. These days, when the sky's the limit for
the Pentagon budget, such costs may be (barely) tolerable. When the money finally begins to
run out, however, the military will likely suffer a serious hangover from its wildly
extravagant spending on air power.
6. Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command
of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational
awareness ." It can instead prove to be a kind of delusion, while war practiced in
its spirit often becomes little more than an exercise in destruction. You simply can't
negotiate a truce or take prisoners or foster other options when you're high above a
potential battlefield and your main recourse is blowing up people and things.
7. Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial
power projection than with national defense . As such, it fuels imperial ventures, while
fostering the kind of "
global reach, global power " thinking that has in these years had Air Force generals in
its grip.
8. Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens
wars rather than shortening them. Consider Vietnam again. In the early 1960s, the Air
Force argued that it alone could resolve that conflict at the lowest cost (mainly in American
bodies). With enough bombs, napalm, and defoliants, victory was a sure thing and U.S. ground
troops a kind of afterthought. (Initially, they were sent in mainly to protect the airfields
from which those planes took off.) But bombing solved nothing and then the Army and the
Marines decided that, if the Air Force couldn't win, they sure as hell could. The result was
escalation and disaster that left in the dust the original vision of a war won quickly and on
the cheap due to American air supremacy.
9. Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact
over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures
-- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those
being bombed become more resilient and resolute.
10. Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the
moral high ground in war.
The Road to Perdition
If I had to reduce these tenets to a single maxim, it would be this: all the happy talk
about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability
to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results.
For this reason, precision warfare is truly an oxymoron. War isn't precise. It's nasty,
bloody, and murderous. War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency
to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are
guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to
air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own
turf.
Who doesn't know the old riddle: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear
it, does it make a sound? Here's a twenty-first-century air power variant on it: If foreign
children die from American bombs but no U.S. media outlets report their deaths, will anyone
grieve? Far too often, the answer here in the U.S. is no and so our wars go on into an endless
future of global destruction.
In reality, this country might do better to simply ground its many fighter planes, bombers, and
drones. Paradoxically, instead of gaining the high ground, they are keeping us on a low road to
perdition.
In December of 2017, Daniel Ellsberg published a book,
"The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" . Among many other things,
he revealed the actual Strangelovian nature of our military establishment. Most enlightening
is his revelation that many in the high command of our nuclear triggers do not trust, or even
have contempt for, civilian oversight and control of the military. They covertly regard the
presidential leadership as naïve and inept, though it would be professional suicide to
admit such an attitude openly.
Comes now 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕹𝖊𝖜
𝖄𝖔𝖗𝖐 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖘 with the
revelation that the Pentagon's Cyber Command has attacked Russia's power grid with software
"implants" designed to destroy that grid the instant a mouse click is given, thereby possibly
initiating global war. Most alarmingly, the details of this secret action were kept from the
President, lest he countermand the operation or leak it to the Russians.
So now we have a general staff that is conducting critical international military
operations on its own, with no civilian input, permission or hindrances of any kind. A
formula for national suicide, executed by a tiny junta of unelected officers who decide to
play nuclear Russian roulette.
We seem to be ineluctably and irreversibly trapped in a state of national dementia.
Just remember this: The U.S. had the technological advantage in Viet Nam, and blasted that
country, along with Cambodia, and Laos, with 7.5 million tons of bombs, (more than the entire
WWII campaign of 2.25 million tons), and the Vietnamese were still able to kick our *** out
of the country by 1975.
There is a 11th tenet: air force operations need airports or aircraft carriers, and these
are very vulnerable to modern, high precision missiles. If the enemy has plenty of missiles,
your fighters and bombers can be impeded to take off and land, or even be destroyed. Modern
aircrafts need very sophisticated and working infrastructures to be operational.
In the case of a full war with Iran, I see all hostile bases and airports destroyed or
damaged by Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian missiles. They have tens of thousand of them - it is
30 years they have been accumulating missiles in prevision of a possible forthcoming war.
You are right. Also, there are many nations with subs and probably more countries have
acquired nukes than are willing to admit. I strongly suspect Iran already has nukes. If North
Korea has them, I see no reason that Iran wouldn't be even further ahead. They have been
under threat of US attacks for my entire lifetime. Anyway, I would not put it past some other
countries to hit US coastal cities and then deny any knowledge about who did it. There are
many capable and many people have been made enemies by our foreign policy. Surely these
people have treaties to help each other should be attack. And why would they make these
treaties public and antagonize the US military further. I'm sure there are many well kept
secrets out there. We must evolve, or the US and Israel could find it is us against the
world.
War is hell. It has always been so. The failure here is that since World War II all US
wars have been fatuously political. Actions have not been taken to win but to posture about
moral greatness and the ability to force the enemy to deal without destroying his capacity to
resist.
How can you say the US lost in Vietnam when the entire country could have been removed
from the face of the Earth? Yes the price of such removal would have been very high but it
could have been done. Do such considerations mean that if one withdraws one has lost?
The US won the war in the Pacific but it is now considered an excessive use of force that
the US used nuclear weapons to conclude the war. Perhaps the US did not use enough force then
to successfully conclude the Vietnam war? Perhaps, it failed to field the right kind of
force?
The definition of lost is an interesting one. The practical answer is that the US did lose
in many places because it was unwilling to pay the price of victory as publicly expressed.
Yet it could have won if it paid the price.
So an interesting question for military types is to ask how to lower the price. What kind
of weapons would have been needed to quickly sweep the enemy into oblivion in Vietnam let us
say, given the limits of the war? Could the war have been won without ground troops and
choppers but with half a million computer controlled drones armed with machine guns and
grenades flying in swarms close to the ground?
The factories to produce those weapons could have been located in Thailand or Taiwan or
Japan and the product shipped to Vietnam. Since only machines would be destroyed and the
drones are obviously meant to substitute for ground troops then how about a million or two
million of the drones in place of the half a million ground troops? Could the US, with
anachronistic technology to be sure, have won the war for a price that would have been
acceptable to the US?
The idea here is that one constructs an army, robot or otherwise, than can destroy the
enemy it is going to fight at a price which is acceptable. This is actually a form of
asymmetric warfare which requires a thorough understanding of the enemy and his capabilities.
The US did not enter Vietnam with such an army but with one not meant to serve in Vietnam and
whose losses would be deeply resented at home. The price of victory was too high.
But this does not mean that the US cannot win. It only means that the commitment to win in
a poorly thought out war must be great enough to pay the price of victory. This may be a
stupid thing to do but it does not mean that it cannot be done. One cannot assume that the US
will never again show sufficient commitment to win.
Victory means you get to write your own ******** version of history.The most devastating
civilian bombing campaign in human history is not even mentioned in this article. The US fire
bombing of 30 major cities in Korea with the death toll estimated at between 1.2 million and
1.6 million. I bet most US citizens aren't even aware of this atrocity or that the military
requested Truman to authorize the use of nuclear warheads which he, thankfully, declined to
do.
What does the word "victory" mean? It means whatever the rulers want it to mean. In this
case, "victory" is synonymous with prolongation and expansion of warmaking around the world.
Victory does not mean an end to combat. In fact, victory, in the classic sense, means defeat,
at least from the standpoint of those who profit from war. If someone were to come up with a
cure for cancer, it would mean a huge defeat for the cancer industry. Millions would lose
their jobs. CEO's would lose their fat pay packages. Therefore, we need to be clearheaded
about this, and recognize that victory is not what you think it is.
Talked with a guy recently. He is a pilot. He flies planes over Afghanistan. He is a
private contractor.
The program began under the Air Force. It then was taken over by the Army. It is now a
private contractor.
There are approx 400 pilots in country at a time with 3 rotations. He told me what he gets
paid. $200,000 and up.
They go up with a NSA agent running the equipment in back. He state that the dumbass
really does not know what the plane is capable of. They collect all video, audio, infrared,
and more? (You have to sense when to stop asking questions)
I just wanted to know the logistics of the info gathered.
So, the info is gathered. The NSA officer then gets with the CIA and the State Dept to see
what they can release to the end user. The end user is the SOCOM. After it has been through
review then the info is released to SOCOM.
So with all of this info on "goatherders" we still cannot pinpoint and defeat the "enemy"?
No. Too many avenues of profit and deceit and infighting. It will always be. May justice here
and abroad win in the end.
Concentrate on the true enemies. It is not your black, or Jewish, or brown, or Muslim
neighbor. It is the owners of the Fed, Dow chemical, the Rockefellers, McDonnel Douglas and
on and on and on and on and on and on..............
The ROAD to perdition passes through APARTHEID Israhell.
"It does not take a genius to figure out that the United States... has no vital
interests at stake in places like Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq. Who is driving the process
and benefiting? Israel is clearly the intended beneficiary... " – Philip Giraldi,
Former CIA officer.
"There is no doubt," Pompeo told "Fox News Sunday,"
This, from Sec. Mike Pompous, to the Apparatchik arm of the Administration. As if the
American public, or the world, would/could believe anything out of the mouths of these
pathetic, bombastic, buffoons.
mcsmcs
...We are supposed to believe the intelligence community about this, but not anything else
apparently.
BassHunter
The trifecta of ignorant bellicosity (ie Trump/Bolton/Pompeo) have no credibility because
they constantly and consistently lie about everything all the time. It is a situation of
their own making. The true surprise here is that THEY are surprised that others refuse to
believe them...
13 hours ago Would someone please explain to me why anyone would attempt to remove an
unexploded mine from the side of a ship, and take it on board their own vessel? Seriously. Is
this a case of waste not, want not?
It doesn't matter much, though, even if it's true. Nobody believes a word coming out of this
administration. We are a global laughing stock run by pathological liars. Like thumb_up
5 Reply reply Link link Report flag
mcsmcs 12 hours
ago They would take it because it could be traced back to the country that made it and/or put
it there.
But it they could have taken it off and let it fall to the bottom of the ocean. Like
thumb_up 1 Reply reply Link link Report flag
longretired 10 hours ago The other question is why was the min attached above the waterline?
Mrine mines are designed to explode underwater.
Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply Link link Report
flag Patti C 14 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo are abhorrent. They have destroyed our foreign policy. No one in their right
mind should be voting for Trump for a second term. This administration has no credibility
nationally and internationally. Americans who support Trump are ruining our country and are
voting against their interests over and over again. Wake up! Republicans and Mitch McConnell
should be punished for the amoral Trump Administration. Democrats need to dominate in the 2020
elections! Democrats need to work with all communities across the country to save our
democratic republic. Vote Democrats across the nation in 2020. 10 hours ago About what? He
actually said the Government has determined. And we all know how unreliable this government
is.
The intelligence community always has lots of dat . Like the lies about the Iraq war start,
it did not support their assertions. 15 hours ago Odd the only countries siding with the US
version of this incident are the ones who stand to gain from continuing to isolate Iran.
Saudi Arabia especially is not a fair player, as exemplified by their behavior in Sudan as
well. 15 hours ago Simple. Reread The Boy Who Cried Wolf. When you have a narcissistic
president who cannot speak the truth and goes around naked in The Emperor's New Clothes, his
sycophantic appointees say, "Oh yes, you are wearing the most Beautiful new robe." Like
thumb_up 4 Reply reply Link link Report flag
Portia1992 15 hours ago The U.S. has zero credibility and should never be trusted. We are
warmongers controlled by U.A.E., Saudi Arabia & Israel.
22 hours ago (Edited) This is how stupid we've become: My fear is the real reason we pulled out
of a deal that was very effective at both keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons and
incentivizing them to behave (for greater economic opportunities) is that Trump hates the
fact that Obama developed the deal.
He's forever spoke of developing "a better deal" with regard to everything Obama did. He
wanted a "better" healthcare plan to replace Obamacare too. But the very folks that voted for
Trump (especially in places like Kentucky) benefited too greatly from "Obamacare" and loudly
demanded that Trump not touch it.
Here we go again with Trump trying to screw things up (even if it means risking
American military lives in a conflict that was COMPLETELY unnecessary when Trump took
office).
It was never truly about what Iran was doing. They were behaving so well that all of our
European allies cheered the former peace deal (IT WAS WORKING VERY WELL). Some of this is about
Trump's weird love for Saudi Arabia (a bitter enemy of Iran).
But most of this is in Trump's bigoted head. Put simply, we are on the brink of war with a
very nasty adversary mainly because Trump hates Obama and everything he did. Even our closest
allies (that loved Obama) are not treated as well as Putin (who hated Obama, too). Like
thumb_up 9 Reply reply Link link Report flag
BassHunter 12 hours ago Bingo! Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply
Link link Report flag NormaLee10 22 hours ago
(Edited) Report from my last trip to Iran. I just love the Chinese sneakers I bought in Ahwaz
(sorry Nike) Love the Russian fur hat I bought in Tabriz((sorry Gap) The high speed train,
built by the Chinese, was a wonderful ride. . Thank you to the Russian Crew inviting us to tour
their ship in the port near the Caspian. I get compliments on my Turkish scarves , my Indian
cotton dresses. The new boutique hotel, refurbished by a German chain was great.
Just think, if the Dump would have stayed and expanded on the Nuclear agreement,he could have
sent Ivanka over to pick up where she left off, designing a hotel in Kazakhstan , or stolen
some designs off Persian carpets.
23 hours ago The U.S. lost all credibility under W, who claimed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass
Destruction.
Not a single person in a gubbmint office has learned a damned thing since. Like
thumb_up 6 Reply reply Link link Report flag
decaff 23 hours ago So we watched W. Bush get into a huge mess in Iraq (actually it was
Cheney). Just imagine the mess that the Orange Clown may get us into with Iran. (which benefits
his relationships with Saudi Arabia).
Like thumb_up 5 Reply reply Link link Report
flag Ralph Carlson 23 hours
ago Trump is and always has been nothing more than a bully
Like thumb_up 4 Reply reply Link link Report
flag RGR 23 hours ago This guy
came in on a wild horse ride, Mexicans are rapists, etc...Pull out of the Iran deal (even
though it appeared to be working)....and how he is helping the military (while taking money out
of their budget for 'the wall').
TURNS OUT...he is the wild horse, and this one is not one that should be allowed out of the
barn...
He is a fool...how long does it take to figure this out...his district in NY only voted 10%
for him...they knew! Like thumb_up 5 Reply reply Link
link Report flag Citizen of the Planet 1
day ago You are now witnessing the manifestation of 2 years of Trump's chest pounding and
bullying. No one trusts us. No one. Nobody. Like thumb_up 6 Reply reply Link link Report flag Al Terego Oz 1 day ago
Interesting how quickly it's gone from being possibly a mine to definitely a mine. Like
thumb_up 3 Reply reply Link link Report flag
Bimberg 22 hours ago Very soon Trump will announce that "It's mine, mine, mine!"
Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply Link link Report
flag Pinky_the_Cat 1 day ago
The reason Trump can't make a case for this is that there is no evidence.
There is so little evidence that Trump had to buy propaganda from Heritage.org . That is how thin this
"... Acting totally mad and indicating you don't care is a good way to defeat those who is your equal. Isn't this is exactly how the US government has been acting lately? ..."
"... Interesting this WaPost op/ed totally trashing Trump/Pompeo foreign policy and their utter inability didn't generate any further comment on the previous thread. Sure, it came from BezosPost, but it surely represents some powerful faction that's totally at odds with the directionlessness of Trump and Pompeo. ..."
"... Its June and you know who loves blood to be spilled in June, and right before July 4 you know. Look for a limited aerial strike per PCR, and then they hope Iran retaliates and gives an excuse for them to escalate. ..."
"... Americans are so brainwashed into buying into US militarism and exceptionalism that Trumps approval ratings will go up. Anyone criticizing the military or war is labelled anti-American and censored by Social Media. ..."
"... Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT). ..."
"... Has Trump been misled by his advisors, when he twitted about the infamous video shot in the dark by modern means that would surprise the Iranians?I Mean ,because now it turns out to be made in clear daylight with the newly published images. Is Trump angry about being cheated or did he play with the game and was his twitted remark kind of an inside joke? ..."
"... Previously we had G.Haspel showing non-pertinent to the matter camera shots of duck and children to convince him into expelling a max number of Russian diplomats. ..."
"... I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the USA.. ..."
"... ... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction. ..."
"... Such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity. ..."
"... IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists). ..."
"... In light of what the WaPost published I linked to above regrading the utter lack in confidence in both Trump and Pompeo to conduct a rational foreign policy, I seriously doubt the change at SecDef will provide optimism for improvement. Some apparently think such dissent is just shadowplay; IMO, they are mistaken. And I will again note the dissent isn't just about Iran; rather, it's about the conduct of overall foreign policy, especially Trade Policy, which is eating into corporate profitability. ..."
"... That would be a terrible miscalculation from US leadership. The one reason why Pearl Harbour wasn't a lasting disaster for the US is that the carriers survived. What if Iran actually manages to sink a carrier air group? I mean, nukes and nearly untouchable power projection through aircraft carriers are the two main reasons why the US is still the supreme superpower around. Show people that the carriers can be taken out and actually begin to take them out, and plenty of people and countries will begin to consider leaving that mad army parading as a country to itself - not to mention some will soon openly rebel. ..."
"... The US has 50,000 troops and a carrier strike group "protecting American interests" in the Persian Gulf area of the Middle East. Somebody in government ought to tell us what those "interests" are, which require such an investment. That would be nice. ..."
"... The Guardian-- The Iran crisis was created in Washington. The US must be talked down ..."
Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided
not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his
family....
....I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark
Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense. I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a
fantastic job
On May 9 the White House announced
that it would nominate Shanahan for the Secretary of Defense position. But it never sent the
nomination request to Congress to have Shanahan confirmed. During the usual FBI background
check before a confirmation, a 2010 domestic violence incident Shanahan was involved in
came up . It seems that it now
ended his short career at the Pentagon.
Shanahan had zero experience in the military. He is a former Boeing manager. A recent
Politicoportrait of
Shanahan described him as weak leader who allowed the war hawks in National Security
Council to directly talk with regional commanders without even informing him. He was no
counterweight for Bolton and Pompeo who are eager to wage war on Iran.
Yesterday ABC News
reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would meet with talk with the Central Command
and Special Operations Command leaders without Shanahan being there. It was extremely
unusual:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Florida on Monday to meet with leaders from
U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command on Tuesday. The U.S. is considering "all
options," including military force, to respond to Iran's reported attack on two oil vessels,
Pompeo said on Sunday, raising concerns of a U.S. strike.
...
Pompeo will meet with CENTCOM and Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in
Florida on Tuesday to "discuss regional security concerns and ongoing operations," according
to Ortagus, after calling several world leaders over the weekend to discuss America's
evidence that Iran was behind last week's attacks.
There is no information what plans those talks were about.
At @CENTCOM at @MacDill_AFB, @SecPompeo says he conferred with military commanders to
coordinate State and Defense Dept policy on Iran.
Says US is serious about deterring Iran regime from further aggression in the region.
Says Pres Trump does not want war against Iran.
[Another very unusual sign is that the old war criminal Henry Kissinger visited the Pentagon
yesterday and today .]
Trump already had difficulties to find a new Secretary of Defense. Shanahan was not his
first choice. To now find a new candidate will be difficult.
It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place. Bolton and Pompeo obviously want a war on Iran and they try their best to instigate it. They
need a new SecDef in place as soon as possible. Pompeo served five years as an officer in the U.S. army. He has extensive political
experience. Would he want to become Secretary of Defense?
That would leave the Secretary of State position open for John Bolton to move in. The
confirmation would be a bit difficult but the Senate is in Republican hands and might go with
it. One of Bolton's cronies could then take over the National Security Advisor position. From the war-hawks' point of view it would be the ideal configuration to launch a big
one.
Posted by b on June 18, 2019 at 02:03 PM |
Permalink
Possibly true. I was only looking at this from Sputnick:
"The numerous US media stated that Secretary of the Army Mark Esper had been discussed as a
possible alternative choice as defense secretary to Shanahan if Trump decided not to nominate
him."
I have hard time believing that Bolton and Pompeo under consideration. Pompeo isn't gonna
wanna leave his current job and as for Bolton John Kiriakou wrote last week that Trump is
quietly working behind the scenes to find a replacement for him. If anything it might suggest
that Trump is working to covertly reign in Bolton and Pompeo with another SecDef who can
better control them.
Besides Mr. Esper, who was confirmed as secretary of the Army in November 2017, officials
said that Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the
Navy, are on the short list for defense secretary.
... and I thought I was to far out speculative with the above.
"From the war-hawks' point of view it would be the ideal configuration to launch a big one." Gosh, and I thought that Hillary was the big warmonger...guess it would've only been worse
under her.
Obama didn't have a problem getting re-elected with all of his own secret foreign wars and
dronings going on. If indeed Pimpeo and Bolt-On get their way, Trump will execute the same
type of campaign against Iran except there will be no boots on the ground, even "advisors"
given the relationship status of the countries surrounding Iran. The U.S. has exhausted its
credibility and goodwill. So we'll be funding terrorists, perpetrating false flags, using
drones to attack Iranian seagoing military vessels and launching the occasional "precision"
cruise missile strike against alleged nuclear weapons and maybe even chemical weapons
processing facilities.
If there is a land war, Israel will fight to the last American troop.
Trump's list of Most Unsuitable Candidates for Higher Office is getting perilously short.
Assuming our most famous U.S. billionaire capitalists are not interested, what are Cheney and
Condoleezza doing these days? Erik Prince? Some aging Grand Wizard of the KKK? A random death
row inmate? The mind boggles.
i said this on the last thread, but i would be curious for others feedback on it..
"think about it... is there going to be more money made and generated starting a war on
iran, or not?? the choice is obvious for those into money... create mayhem and raise a lot of
money off of it.. and what countries seem to excel at that??"
as for innocent people dying, that has never been a concern for those into money...
Just to see how far we've come, or how bad the situation is, I'd consider Kissinger going on
his own to check things out with the top military brass to actually be a good sign. He's no
fool and knows that war with Iran will only confirm to Russia and China that they have to
stand together, strong, against the USA, and that they'd probably better back Iran up on this
one. I wouldn't be surprised if Kissinger is back to his old ways, and that's it's a similar
move to when he warned the generals to call him right away if Nixon ever gave the order to
use nukes. The guy is slimy and ruthless, but knows the limits and doesn't plan to suicide
half the planet.
Colonel Pat Lang assumes that Shanahan just resigns in disgust because Pompeo and Bolton
are running the show without consulting with the military. Not sure which is right.
One can hope that the neo-con buddies overplayed their hands and that they just put Trump in
such a shitty situation that he's going to tell them to go to Hell soon - hopefully before
anyone does something *really* stupid. But right now, that's just that, hope.
NYT saying Pompeo is considered for SecDef might just be Pompeo and his neo-con buddies
saying dumb shit and leaking false information to appear important, and trying to force
Trump's hands. I really hope that's what happened - because then it would piss Trump off and
he might be looking for a way of getting rid of him. If the leak is genuine, on the other
hand, that's a terrible sign.
Yes, I believe the US would use nukes if they think they could get away with it... that's
how crazy works. Would the other nuclear powers step in,,, highly doubtful. If that happens
then the US might even threaten them with annihilation. They would believe the US is sooo
insane that it would really risk planet destruction and could decide to cave to the US
wishes.
Acting totally mad and indicating you don't care is a good way to defeat those who is your
equal. Isn't this is exactly how the US government has been acting lately?
"I believe the US would use nukes if they think they could get away with it...that's how
crazy evil works."
and Sean Hannity would say ... "never has a country had so much power and abused it so
little, the Iranians [10 minute Litany of robotic talking point lies] left us no choice." Pompeo, Pence and Haley all declaring it the most righteous and justifiable act ever. Trump would close the border to any Iranian refugees and embargo any Iranians who survived
just like he is doing to the Syrians and Venezuelans now.
Isn't the Secretary of State the most senior member of the cabinet and regarded as more
powerful that POTUS? The position where real power resides? How could a buffoon like Bolton
even be considered for Secretary if State? Just another one of Trump's ricaldoodlelus
appointments? What a lark!
Bolton graduated from Yale in 1970. I wonder if he is a member of the Skull & Bones?
Or closely associated? If so, that makes him much, much more than a mere buffoon but, rather,
the very embodiment of the Deep State's and neo-Con's war strategy; that would make Bolton a
very, very dangerous person in a very, very powerful position.
Trump would appear to be nothing more than a facilitator.
Both George H.W & George W. Bush were bonesman. Cheney only went to Yale but didn't
graduate. Far from Cheney being the controlling influence over George W. (as presented in
media and movies) maybe Cheney was just following orders.
Marie Colville (did she ever really exist?) also appears to have been an alumni of Yale
(was a fake background constructed?).
Supposedly, the Skull & Bones control Yale; what a very strange place. Anyone,
associated with Yale (like Bolton) should be kept well away from power!
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Just when you think the US of A's Generalissimo Bone Spur and
President Chief Kaiser of Ignorance Arrogance, Stupidity and Hypocrisy (aka: Donald Trump)
could not sink to any lower level of idiocy than he already has, he does so. What a country!
Only in America!
Shouldn't be difficult for Iran, if bmobed at all by US/NATO, to hit Israel - in a big way -
from a number of geographic locations and a variety of methods. It would be major and
catastrophic.
It poses too great a danger to good friends, with whom the USA maintains an "irrevocable
bond", according to the US Congress, the Apartheid State of Israel.
I guess Shanahan resigned so he could spend more time abusing his family.
I find it interesting that one of the ships attacked, the Front Altair, had a crew of
Russians and Filipinos.
This was the crew saved by the Iranians. The US story is that they were picked up by a Dutch
tanker and then kidnapped by the Iranians. Clearly, the Iranians still saved them, no matter
who actually picked them up first.
If the Dutch had turned the crew over to the US, who believes that they would already be
released? (The Iranians already released them).
I know that B thinks that this attack was from the Iranians, but the fact that one ship was
Japanese, while Abe was in Tehran, and the other had a crew of Russians and Filipinos, both
countries under attack from the US, makes me believe that those men were destined to be held
for leverage.
For a preview of what things would look like with Pompeo and Bolton in those positions, I
recommend a viewing of the movie Vice. (Vice, as in Cheney, working with Rumsfeld and
narcissistic poodles such as Powell to start the current ME quagmire.)
Trump went too far with Iran under the devilish advice and initiatives of Heckle and
Jeckle...
If he wants to stop the escalation with Iran, before it gets out of control, the only way is
to move Pompeo to Sec of Defense where he will have to face the powerful and war-reluctant
military. Trump would also simultaneously fire Bolton.
Depending on the reactions of the neocons and Jewish lobby, he will then choose a new sec of
state, 'brilliant' Jared Kushner?
I think the US has become very skilled at fighting wars without taking casualties. I think
the air attacks in Syria - on Iranian forces - have made it pretty clear that Iran has no
meaningful defense capabilities vs air attack. What Trump is probably counting on is a turkey
shoot and I think that is exactly what it will be.
What is Trump's motivation to be provocative with Iran?' Pelosi asks – and the answer is Adelson.
Adelson called on the last president, Barack Obama, to nuke Iran in 2013
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/motivation-provocative-adelson/
its a war for israel
We should take heart from readers comments in the New York Times in response to an article by
the NYT Editorial Board.
There were 473 of them before the Times closed the discussion, and we could not find a single
one that is supportive of war or of U.S. efforts to continue pressure on Iran. So Bret
Stephens gets to spur on a war in his Times column, but the paper's readers are universally
against the idea. Moreover, they hold the Times responsible and see through the equivocations
in the editorial. Several point out that the press was the handmaiden of the Iraq disaster.
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/readers-newspaper-abetting/#comments
The US position is an attempt to keep hegemony over the region because both Israel and Saudi
Arabia feel the US is losing it, and they are correct.
Trump walked away from the JCPOA at the
behest of Israel with the accusation that it was a bad deal, the deal did in fact rule out
enrichment of uranium above 3.5%, approx 90% enrichment is required to build a nuclear
device.
The Ayatollah issued a decree to the effect that nuclear weapons were un-Islamic,
therefore Iran should not have them.
The real reason Trump walked away was because Iran was
in rapid production of highly accurate conventional ballistic missiles some of which would
find their way to Hezbollah, the UN Resolution banned the building of missiles capable of
carrying a nuclear payload, but not conventional warheads, to ban the latter would have
rendered Iran defenseless, which was the whole idea of the Israeli and Saudi Arabian
intervention.
Being incapable of defending itself is not something any state could
countenance, that's why it will never happen, hence the stand off.
In my opinion there will be no war with Iran, too many losers, Saudi Arabia/UAE, Israel, the
US fleet [in Bahrain] the US bases all over the Middle East, of course Iran and its friends
could be destroyed [but at what cost?] The Strait of Hormus is bristling with Iranian anti
ship missiles, the first sign of war would see the US fleet depart from Bahrain, the
lumbering giant and vulnerable B52's based in Qatar would not get off the ground and US
airbases in the region well within range if Iranian missiles would be reduced to rubble. As
for any US carriers in the area and why US carriers are obsolete, especially in the Iranian
situation here is an article by Gary Brecher from 10 years ago and very witty.. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
Interesting
this WaPost op/ed totally trashing Trump/Pompeo foreign policy and their utter inability
didn't generate any further comment on the previous thread. Sure, it came from BezosPost, but
it surely represents some powerful faction that's totally at odds with the directionlessness
of Trump and Pompeo.
After so many fiascos, there seems to be very little appetite for armed conflict amongst
the Vassals except for UK. There's lots of domestic uproar over Trump policies the tanker
attacks have muted so far but won't go away anytime soon -- particularly the Concentration Camp
charges, which are 100% correct, extremely damning and damaging.
Look at the situation from
overseas. Escalating belligerency across the board aimed at enemies and allies alike is
combined with visibly repressive, likely unconstitutional and, in the world's eyes, morally
reprehensible actions toward vulnerable innocents from which horror stories occur on a daily
basis. Oh, and don't forget Assange and the War against Truth. And your government is being
asked to support TrumpCo's policies?! I bet plenty of leaders are biting their tongues. The
G-20's in ten days.
At least Gates resisted the Obama/Hillary mission to destroy Libya (worked with JCS to
contact Gaddhafi's sons). Hillary put a stop to that. One wonders if Pompeo and Bolton are
playing a multi-view game of picking a SecDef that they (and Kushner/Netanyau) approve of.
Oops. It wasn't so much Gates as Kucinich leading that effort with the JCS. But Gates was
hesitant in a TIME article about a meeting with Obama and KerryHillary to discuss possible
military action against Iran. At the time, I figured it was posturing for Israel. I focused
on the description of Kerry and Hillary as "interventionists."
This is rather ominous. Sounds a bit like cleaning house and removing potential witnesses who
aren't will the program or may soon have a grudge to bear.
Its June and you know who loves blood to be spilled in June, and right before July 4 you
know. Look for a limited aerial strike per PCR, and then they hope Iran retaliates and gives an
excuse for them to escalate.
Americans are so brainwashed into buying into US militarism and exceptionalism that Trumps
approval ratings will go up. Anyone criticizing the military or war is labelled anti-American and censored by Social Media.
Declining IQ's and chronic illnesses due to vaccines and other environmental toxins will limit any protests. Besides, the
military is the one way to get a free college education while getting paid to go to school. The young will continue lining up
to serve and fight these threats to the American way of life. Shouting America First. MAGA. Waving their Made in China flag.
God blesses US. Might makes right, etc
Puppet regimes in occupied Europe will go along. Fellow Fake wrestlers in China and Russia
will make squeaky noises. So predictable
It dawned on me that those outside the Outlaw US Empire don't know about TrumpCo's
Concentration Camps and the surrounding, escalating controversy. As I've written,
conflation of Concentration with Death Camps and decades of propaganda are fueling the issue:
"'The Holocaust did not begin with the murder of six million Jews,' writer Bess Kalb
tweeted in response to Cheney. 'It began with the same dehumanization, deportation, and
internment we see today. You, sickeningly, invoke the Holocaust to minimize their suffering.
Shame.'
As you might imagine given the level of Jewish/Zionist support, Cheney and the Republicans
have made an enormous mistake.
"Come to think of it, unless Dick Cheney is busy with other priorities, he ought to be
available for a reboot of Shock & Awe."
There are some who believe he is the unofficial President running things from his
underground city built as part of the Continuity of Government that kicks in during National
Emergencies such as the one declared 18 years ago and still in effect
Not 100% sure this is true but I suspect his voice is being heard
President Trump made the announcement with a pair of midday tweets that Shanahan was
withdrawing and that Army Secretary Mark Esper would take his place as acting Defense
secretary
On Esper, in April Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced that the
president nominated Army Gen. Mark Milley to serve as the next JCS chairman which would be
effective in about September when General Joseph Dunford leaves after four years on the job.
His predecessor was an Army general, so it was considered odd to select another Army general
to be top dog.
Now, Esper is Army too and if he were nominated for SecDef that would shake some people.
What about Air Force and Navy? What are they, chopped liver?
. . .more on Esper from The Hill:
Esper graduated from West Point in 1986 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before
retiring. His Army career includes a combat tour in Iraq during the Gulf War. Several
Republican senators have already said they'd support Esper should he be nominated.
. . .(but) Esper was a lobbyist at defense contractor Raytheon for seven years prior to
becoming Army secretary. Esper's lobbyist past could bring up some of the issues that
dogged Shanahan on potential conflicts of interest.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director Noah Bookbinder
said in a statement that Esper "risk[s] being tainted by his previous work for a major
defense contractor. The group's allegations against Shanahan in part prompted the inspector
general investigation.
"While Esper may not have had sway over these types of deals as secretary of the Army,
as acting secretary of Defense he will have potential influence over such deals, as well as
over the controversial proposed merger of Raytheon and UTC to become the second largest
defense company in the U.S.," Bookbinder said. "His ethics agreement -- and his ability to
follow it -- will be something we will be watching closely." . . .
here
Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found
another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT).
Is it that he's not a strong manager or did he just play along to get his ticket
stamped? I wouldn't be surprised if he's made the new CEO of Boeing (It's now clear that
Boeing will have to do more to recover from their 737Max debacle) . Or perhaps he'll join
a Defense-focused Private Equity firm, or simply sit on the Boards of several defense-related
enterprises. Any of these will be better than accepting the Trump Administration's Poison
Chalice.
Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another.
Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT).
Is it that he's not a strong manager or did he just play along to get his ticket stamped?
I wouldn't be surprised if he's made the new CEO of Boeing (It's now clear that Boeing
will have to do more to recover from their 737Max debacle) . Or perhaps he'll join a
Defense-focused Private Equity firm, or simply sit on the Boards of several defense-related
enterprises. Any of these will be better than accepting the Trump Administration's Poison
Chalice.
Has Trump been misled by his advisors, when he twitted about the infamous video shot in the
dark by modern means that would surprise the Iranians?I Mean ,because now it turns out to be
made in clear daylight with the newly published images. Is Trump angry about being cheated or
did he play with the game and was his twitted remark kind of an inside joke?
Previously we had G.Haspel showing non-pertinent to the matter camera shots of duck and
children to convince him into expelling a max number of Russian diplomats.
And much earlier it
was pictures shown to Melania and him of dead or agonizing Syrian children that made him
order missile attack on Syria. Is that the way he is being handled by his surroundings in his
decision process? Is there a doctor around at the White House?
Reading Harry Law's post @41, it looks like the US needs another Pearl Harbour to carry its
people to war.
Plenty of Pearl Harbour type assets around the Persian Gulf. Problem for the US is getting
Iran to react and hit some of these.
... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct,
often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy
and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the
person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.
Such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that
the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc
instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that
talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity.
And it's not just Trump. Whenever a President does things that might cause cognitive
dissonance, apologists and the feckless press explain it away as a positive or blame
subordinates for "sabotaging" the hero President.
snake @53: I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the
USA..
IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's
"on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls
the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners
(capitalists).
They appointed a VP of Raetheon as Secretary of Defense which is appropriate because that is
who is selling the US the missiles to demolish Iran.
US intelligence learns from a highly credible source that Iran's Revolutionary Guards
have completed preparations for a large-scale assault on an important Saudi oil facility
within days.
You know this stuff is being fed to the military industrial congressional complex. It
looks like they will start some limited bombing of Iran prior to the 2020 elections to get
everyone waving their flags and shouting Hurahh.
I hope there isn't a war, but there is one nation you didn't mention which doesn't figure
it'll be hurt much by an outbreak of violence. A large number of goyim ending up dead doesn't
bother them the least bit. I'd imagine the smashing of Iran would be worth receiving a few
bombs on their stolen land. But not a lot, for if that happened they'd start waving around
the nuke option and cause Trump to keep on till the job was done to their satisfaction.
Thanks for the old War Nerd link. If the situation with aircraft carriers was bad then, a
2019 update would show them to be even worse in the death-trap category. But we're still
building them.
In light of what the WaPost published I linked to above regrading the utter lack in
confidence in both Trump and Pompeo to conduct a rational foreign policy, I seriously doubt
the change at SecDef will provide optimism for improvement. Some apparently think such
dissent is just shadowplay; IMO, they are mistaken. And I will again note the dissent isn't
just about Iran; rather, it's about the conduct of overall foreign policy, especially Trade
Policy, which is eating into corporate profitability.
Which side will take the next move is the question now. Perhaps another Houthi attack on
Saudi oil infrastructure, which present very soft, vulnerable targets. Perhaps a Houthi
ballistic missile attack on UAE port facilities. The Idlib offensive will begin again after
the non-ceasefire that saw continual al-Qaeda attacks and mounting Terrorist losses; perhaps,
the long awaited push West from Aleppo will occur. But Syria is tangential to the Iranian
confrontation. Maybe the EU will announce something significant that shows independent
thinking? Time marches inexorably onward to the next event.
That would be a terrible miscalculation from US leadership. The one reason why Pearl Harbour
wasn't a lasting disaster for the US is that the carriers survived. What if Iran actually
manages to sink a carrier air group? I mean, nukes and nearly untouchable power projection
through aircraft carriers are the two main reasons why the US is still the supreme superpower
around. Show people that the carriers can be taken out and actually begin to take them out,
and plenty of people and countries will begin to consider leaving that mad army parading as a
country to itself - not to mention some will soon openly rebel.
The US has 50,000 troops and a carrier strike group "protecting American interests" in the
Persian Gulf area of the Middle East. Somebody in government ought to tell us what those
"interests" are, which require such an investment. That would be nice.
I think that article is about Iran having a reason to do it, but I didn't read in it that
"b" believed that Iran had done it. I took him as more musing about the possibility without
believing it himself?
Unnecessarily aggressive, ill-considered – and deceptively presented – US
policies have once again brought the Middle East to the brink of an accidental war very few
want. America's European friends, including Britain, have an urgent responsibility to talk
it down – and drag it back from the abyss.
Global Opinions
What the Iran crisis tells us about Trump's lack of credibility
Why the Persian Gulf is a flashpoint for U.S.-Iran tensions
Here's what you need to know about the two suspected attacks on five ships in the Persian Gulf in the last month
and the region where they occurred.
(Joyce
Lee, Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)
By
Jason
Rezaian
Global Opinions writer
June 17
Nearly a week after
two
oil tankers
were attacked with explosives in the Gulf of Oman, what actually happened is still in dispute. What is
clear to everyone watching, though, is the Trump administration's complete lack of credibility as it continues its
bumbling attempts to express a coherent Iran policy.
Soon after the attack, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo showed a grainy video of several men on a small boat pulling an
object from the side of a much larger vessel. He claimed the video showed an Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded
mine from the ship. This, he said, was irrefutable evidence that Iran had launched an attack on a Japanese-owned ship.
Pompeo made these statements on the same day that Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe,
visited
Tehran
-- at the behest of President Trump -- to urge Iran to begin new negotiations with the White House.
The skepticism was immediate. Allies who are predisposed to agree with the United States on all issues (such as Britain
or and Israel), or specifically on anti-Iran measures (such as
Saudi
Arabia
or the United Arab Emirates) were on board.
"The video is not enough. We can understand what is being shown, sure, but to make a final assessment, this is not
enough for me," Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas,
told
reporters
on Friday. Japan has also requested
stronger
evidence
.
Iran could very well have been behind the tanker attacks, as the Trump administration claims. But the lingering doubts
about the White House's account, expressed by friends and adversaries alike, are the real story here.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department on June 13. (Alex Brandon/AP)
"There is no doubt," Pompeo
told
"Fox
News Sunday," adding, "The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence. The world will come to see much of
it, but the American people should rest assured we have high confidence with respect to who conducted these attacks as
well as half a dozen other attacks throughout the world over the past 40 days."
But there appears to be great doubt, and the fault lies with the administration's flimsy and unconvincing case to
counter what it claims is an increasing threat from Tehran.
As though on cue, Iran's Atomic Energy Organization announced on Monday that it would
increase
its stockpile
of enriched uranium to beyond the limits it had agreed to as part of the 2015 nuclear
deal
with
world powers, including the United States.
From the start, the entire premise of Trump's decision to pull out of the nuclear agreement with Iran was disingenuous.
Like the Obama-era deal or not, it seemed to be doing what it was intended to do: limiting Iran's nuclear activities so
that it couldn't weaponize its program. By withdrawing from the deal, the Trump administration gave up key leverage that
it could use against the regime.
Iran's move to begin pulling back from its commitments under the nuclear deal underscores that fact, and marks yet
another escalation in tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The State Department's narrative that Iran's malign behavior over recent months is a result of a regime emboldened by a
weak nuclear deal, and then angered by Washington pulling out of that same deal, is a farce.
The Iranian regime has been engaged in terrible acts since its inception 40 years ago. Its antagonism toward the United
States and its allies has ebbed and flowed, depending on perceived threats and opportunities -- and the U.S. withdrawal
from the deal took away the major incentive Iran had to behave.
By its own rhetoric, the Trump administration is currently exerting what it calls "maximum pressure" on Tehran. Under
this policy, reactions from Iran -- such as the tanker attacks or increased uranium enrichment -- are not only expected,
but are, in essence, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By being pushed into a corner economically and militarily, the regime in Tehran may perceive there to be few other
options.
Given recent events, the administration has reason to call for increased pressure on Iran. But other world leaders are
signaling to the White House that they don't trust Washington to lead the way.
The big question, then, is why is the administration failing so miserably in making its case to the world? The reactions
to Pompeo's
remarks
reflect
how much credibility the administration has lost -- both on Iran, and on its foreign policy objectives as a whole.
Pointing a finger at Iran for any crime was once as close to a slam dunk as there was in international politics. Not
anymore.
That is because we are reminded at every turn that the notions of U.S. supremacy and security have little to do with the
promotion of foreign democracy. The Trump team's inability to take a principled stand on the
thuggish
behavior
of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the tepid response to the
crisis
in Venezuela
are prime examples.
And if Iran did attack the tankers, it was likely banking on exactly what has happened: one more crack in the United
States' shield of credibility.
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Policy
Jason Rezaian
Jason
Rezaian is a writer for Global Opinions. He served as The Post's correspondent in Tehran from 2012 to 2016.
He spent 544 days unjustly imprisoned by Iranian authorities until his release in January 2016.
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Most Read
Opinions
"... The Gulf of Credibility - I really cannot begin to fathom how stupid you would have to be to believe that Iran would attack a Japanese oil tanker at the very moment that the Japanese Prime Minister was sitting down to friendly, US-disapproved talks in https://t.co/P1wE1Y886i ..."
"... When the ruling elite wanted a war with Iraq they invented incubator babies and WMD programs that didn't exist. Their inventions were far fetched, but not unbelievable. However, the idea that the paranoid dictator Saddam was just going to hand over his most powerful weapons to religious fanatics that hated his guts, was laughably stupid. ..."
"... When the ruling elite wanted a war with Libya they invented a genocidal, Viagra-fueled, rape army. Their invention was far fetched, and bit lazy, but you could be forgiven for believing that the Mandarins believed it. ..."
"... This latest anti-Iran warmongering is just plain stupid. It's as if they don't really care if anyone believes the lies they are telling. For starters, look at the shameless liar who is telling these lies. ..."
"... Looking at this incident/narrative from any/every angle leaves one to conclude "false flag". ..."
"... As for the "most obvious culprit is usually responsible for the crime" that also happens to be "bazaar-level conspiracy theories involving a false-flag operation by Israel's Mossad". Because Mossad actually does that. ..."
"... If El Trumpo was going to drain the swamp, why did he take these cretins, Bolton, Pompeo, Haspel, Abrams into his cabinet? Is the tail, wagging the dog as usual? ..."
"... The elite are both lazy and stupid. Even the Orange Man will not be sucked into another Douma style false flag operation. The reasons why this is a basic false flag is obvious. If anybody reading about this doesn't understand the culprits responsible weren't Iranian, then they should be interviewed for mental competency. ..."
"... But Pompous Mike and Bolt-on Bolt-off need to be removed from any semblance of governmental authority. I could go on but this whole affair is making me tired...I'm going back to my swamp. ..."
The Gulf of Credibility - I really cannot begin to fathom how stupid you would have to be to believe that Iran would attack
a Japanese oil tanker at the very moment that the Japanese Prime Minister was sitting down to friendly, US-disapproved talks in
https://t.co/P1wE1Y886i
When the ruling elite wanted a war with Iraq they invented incubator babies and WMD programs that didn't exist. Their inventions
were far fetched, but not unbelievable. However, the idea that the paranoid dictator Saddam was just going to hand over his most
powerful weapons to religious fanatics that hated his guts, was laughably stupid.
When the ruling elite wanted a war with Libya they invented a genocidal, Viagra-fueled, rape army. Their invention was far
fetched, and bit lazy, but you could be forgiven for believing that the Mandarins believed it.
This latest anti-Iran warmongering is just plain stupid. It's as if they don't really care if anyone believes the lies they
are telling. For starters, look at the shameless liar who is telling these lies.
You mean "Mr. We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole"? What a disgraceful character...
pic.twitter.com/pMtAgKaZcG
Then there are the many problems of their "proof".
Where is the video of the Iranians PLACING explosives & detonating them? Removal would be prudent by any Navy/CG. Also location
of explosives is VERY high off waterline ...Weird. It's not a limpet mine, it's a demo charge. Had to be put on by fairly high
boat w/ a long gaff/pole https://t.co/3qzB7TrrYv
The distress call went out at 6 am. So, according to CENTCOM's analysis of this video, they're suggesting that 10 hours after
the tanker was hit, the IRGC just casually pulled up to the tanker to remove unexploded limpet mine in broad daylight?!
The Japanese company that owns the ship has refused to cooperate in this
false flag mission.
But in remarks to Japanese media, the president of the company that owns the ship said the vessel wasn't damaged by a mine. "A
mine doesn't damage a ship above sea level," said Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo, the owner and operator of the vessel.
"We aren't sure exactly what hit, but it was something flying towards the ship," he said.
Looking at this incident/narrative from any/every angle leaves one to conclude "false flag".
Finally, there is the question of "why"?
What would Iran hope to accomplish by this? I found one
establishment source that tried to rationalize.
Iran denied responsibility, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif descending to bazaar-level conspiracy theories involving a false-flag
operation by Israel's Mossad.
If you're not inclined to believe the Trump administration – and such skepticism is entirely reasonable – most detectives would
still tell you that the most obvious culprit is usually responsible for the crime.
To those seeking logic behind the attacks, though, it may be hard to see why Iran would do this – but that assumes that the
regime in Tehran is a rational actor.
The Gulf of Oman attacks are especially hard to explain: targeting Japanese shipping on the very day that Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe was meeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on a well-publicized peace mission would seem extraordinarily counterproductive, even
for a regime with an almost fanatical commitment to self-harm.
Have you ever noticed that everyone that we want to start a war with is crazy? Regimes that stand solid for generations under
hostile conditions are always run by maniacs. You'd think that insanity would prevent them from taking power in the first place,
but that seems to only be true with our allies.
As for the "most obvious culprit is usually responsible for the crime" that also happens to be "bazaar-level conspiracy theories
involving a false-flag operation by Israel's Mossad". Because Mossad actually does that.
Since the U.S.'s tightening of sanctions has squeezed Iranian oil exports, nobody else's should be allowed to pass through
waters within reach of the IRGC.
The Iranians know that these threats, if repeated, can lose their power if not followed with action. The attacks on the tankers,
then, can be explained as a demonstration that Khamenei's attack dogs have some teeth.
There is another rationale. If Iran does eventually agree to negotiate with the U.S., it will want to bring some bargaining
chips to the table – something it can exchange for the removal of sanctions. In the negotiations over the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran
was able to offer the suspension of its nuclear program. It doesn't have that particular chip now, although Tehran has recently
threatened to crank up the centrifuges again.
Meanwhile, the regime may have calculated that the only way to secure some kind of negotiating position is blackmail: End the
sanctions, or we take out some more tankers, and send oil prices surging.
This almost sounds logical, except for one thing: Iran tried that in 1988 and it didn't work. It only caused the one thing the
U.S. was itching for: to kill some Iranians.
Do you think that they've forgotten? Or that the U.S. is less warlike? Oh wait. Iranians are crazy and can't be reasoned with, amirite?
US public radio @NPR does not mention it was Iranians
who saved the crew. That's how terrible they are at journalism
-- boomerWithaLandline (@Irene34799239)
June 14, 2019
The only real question is, why such a transparent lie? Has the ruling elite gotten lazy or stupid? Or do they think that we are
that lazy and stupid? I have an alternative
theory .
For the last two years, as you've probably noticed, the corporate media have been not so subtly alternating between manufacturing
Russia hysteria and Nazi hysteria, and sometimes whipping up both at once. Thus, I've dubbed the new Official Enemy of Freedom
"the Putin-Nazis." They don't really make any sense, rationally, but let's not get all hung up on that. Official enemies don't
have to make sense. The important thing is, they're coming to get us, and to kill the Jews and destroy democracy and something
about Stalin, if memory serves. Putin is their leader, of course. Trump is his diabolical puppet. Julian Assange is well, Goebbels,
or something. Glenn Greenwald is also on the payroll, as are countless "useful idiots" like myself, whose job it is to sow division,
discord, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism, anti-Hillaryism, collusion rejectionism, ontological skepticism, and any other
horrible thing you can think of.
Their bullsh*t lies have gotten lazy and stupid because real effort isn't required to start a war and kill a lot of people.
That is the question, I ask thee? If El Trumpo was going to drain the swamp, why did he take these cretins, Bolton, Pompeo,
Haspel, Abrams into his cabinet? Is the tail, wagging the dog as usual?
The elite are both lazy and stupid. Even the Orange Man will not be sucked into another Douma style false flag operation.
The reasons why this is a basic false flag is obvious. If anybody reading about this doesn't understand the culprits responsible
weren't Iranian, then they should be interviewed for mental competency.
My money, the little that I have, is on either the Saudis or the Israelis; maybe even both.
But Pompous Mike and Bolt-on Bolt-off need to be removed from any semblance of governmental authority. I could go on but
this whole affair is making me tired...I'm going back to my swamp.
The US was always the way Orlov describes its future. It only ever belonged to those who
could keep their heads above water. You go under, and you're gone forever, and very quickly
forgotten. I don't recommend it as a social system, but that's the system.
But the people, within that system. the people are great people, with remarkable moral
fiber, in situations they understand. Those who are breathing air and not water can
rightfully enjoy the company of these others, even though many of those others might lately
be breathing an air-water mixture – and perhaps even oneself.
It's a poignant thing, these United States. The people are as good as anywhere, but only
as trained as their culture tells them to be. Perhaps the future holds some spark of
brightness for the people. They were always a transcendent bunch, actually, in a culture
founded on spiritual independence – despite all the overlay of consumerist crap.
Somehow they uniquely evolved the means of ignoring that crap – playing the TV in the
background, for example, while reading college studies – in order to live decent
lives.
It's possible this long-remote karma of spiritual longing might still hold some embers.
Perhaps the people of the US might rediscover the power of sincere prayer? The power of
sincerity? Time alone will tell.
Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The
Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US
convoy in Afghanistan. Pompeo had painted the Taliban-claimed attack as one of "a series of
attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and
allied interests."
QUESTION: One of the things when you were at the podium at the State Department earlier
this week you presented as a fact was an attack that was carried out in Kabul in May. The
Taliban said they carried it out, but you blamed Iran for it. What evidence do you have
that Iran was behind that attack?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack. I can't share any
more of the intelligence, but I wouldn't have said it if the Intelligence Community hadn't
become convinced that this was the case.
QUESTION: So there's more that you can't share with us to back that up?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. That's correct. . .
here
Juan Cole, an American academic and commentator on the modern Middle East and South Asia,
takes a look at that charge. Once Again Pompeo Displays Hopeless Ignorance of Sunni & Shiite, Iran and
Taliban
. . .Pompeo painted the incident as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic
Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
Pompeo's statement is so embarrassing as to be cringe-worthy. It is either a lie in the
service of war propaganda or a display of such bottomless ignorance on the part of
America's chief diplomat as to be grounds for impeachment (or perhaps just consignment to
an asylum). . . here
Gina Haspel is
facing a Congressional grilling as her confirmation hearings for the CIA director's position
get underway.
Should she overcome it, she'll be the first woman to hold the director's job. It's a high
profile position, but Haspel has been a pretty low profile person up until this point. So who
is Trump's nominee to run the government's spy agency?
Haspel, who would replace new secretary of state Mike Pompeo , has been
with the agency since 1985, spending much of her career undercover. She has received several
awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism and the
Presidential Rank Award, the highest award in the federal civil service. She also has overseen
the
torture of some terror suspects , which is what critics and former ambassadors are worried
about.
A 2017 New York Times report says Haspel, in 2002, oversaw the torture of two
suspects at a secret prison in Thailand and later was involved in the destruction of videotapes
documenting that torture.
One of those prisoners was waterboarded 83 times in a
single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into
walls , and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful
information to provide, says the Times .
As a result of such torture, she was shifted out of her role as head of the CIA's
clandestine service.
Haspel was picked to run the CIA's clandestine operations unit in 2013, but Senator
Dianne Feinstein , who was the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the
time, blocked the promotion because of Haspel's history of torture.
Within the agency, though, Haspel is reportedly widely respected – and has support
from members of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Where she stands personally on issues
such as extreme interrogation techniques is an unknown, as she has not offered any public
comments on policy, as you would expect for an undercover officer.
And that's what Senators are hoping to learn more about as their questioning gets
underway.
Declassified documents show President John Kennedy in 1963 warned Israeli Prime Minister
Levi Eshkol that U.S. support for the young country would be "seriously jeopardized" if Israel
did not allow the United States periodic inspections of Israel's nuclear reactor to make sure
Israel was not manufacturing weapons-grade nuclear material
:
A telegram from Kennedy dated July 4, 1963, congratulates Eshkol on assuming the prime
ministership after Ben Gurion's resignation and recounts talks between Kennedy and Ben Gurion
about inspections at the reactor in Dimona.
"As I wrote Mr. Ben Gurion, this government's commitment to and support of Israel could be
seriously jeopardized if it should be thought that we were unable to obtain reliable
information on a subject as vital to peace as Israel's effort in the nuclear field," the
telegram said.
The telegram was declassified in the 1990s but was not widely available until last week
when the National Security Archives, a project affiliated with George Washington University,
posted it on its website.
Kennedy who was otherwise close to Israel was furious with its ostensible nuclear weapons
program, fearing that the Soviet Union could use it as leverage to maintain its influence in
the Middle East.
Eshkol, caught off guard by the tone of the telegram, took seven weeks to assent, and the
twice-yearly inspections continued until 1969 when President Richard Nixon ended them.
Also revealed in the trove of documents the NSA posted is the origin of Israel's
oft-repeated credo that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons -- a
deliberately ambiguous statement that left Israel room to develop the weapons, but not arm
them.
Shimon Peres, then the deputy defense minister who later would lead the country as prime
minister for two stints and then become president, improvised the statement when he was
surprised by Kennedy during a meeting Peres had scheduled with Kennedy's adviser, Myer
Feldman, who also functioned as the administration's liaison to Israel and the U.S. Jewish
community . Unbeknownst to Peres, Kennedy and Feldman had planned the "surprise"
encounter.
According to a Hebrew-language Foreign Ministry of Israel account of the April 2 meeting,
Kennedy asked Peres into the Oval Office for 30 minutes and questioned him on Israel's
nuclear capacity.
"You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the
region," Kennedy said. "This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason, we
monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?"
Peres improvised, "I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons
to the region, and certainly we will not be the first."
It is not a secret that the USA have a very powerful MIC lobby that by-and-large defines the USA foreign policy. Israel can be considered
as a yet another MIC lobbyist. This lobby in interesting in launching the war (especially pro-Israel faction of the MIC lobby)
The USA can definitely crush Iran military, but the cost might be higher that in case of Iraq. Also without occupation of the country
that will not be anything like a decisive victory. In Iraq, the USA was helped by the fact that military quickly crumbed and was undermined
by betrayals of several high ranking generals. Whether the same will be the case in Iran is difficult to predict.
Theocratic regimes tend to became more fragile with time, so at that stage is Iran now is difficult to predict without being in
the country. So counting on the fragility of the regime might be a valid consideration. But the war typically unites nations so to exploit
those weaknesses with war is more difficult task, then just waiting for the regime collapse.
That USA has at least two firm allied in such a war: Israel and Saudis.
Notable quotes:
"... It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large as
Iraq. It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush's presidency.
..."
"... Trump's repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This was
followed by the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization. ..."
"... U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran's economy until the regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 12 demands, including
an end to Tehran's support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ..."
"... Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack that
injured four U.S. soldiers in Kabul though the Taliban claimed responsibility. ..."
"... Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks, helped put out the fire on one tanker, and accused its enemies of "false
flag" attacks to instigate a war. ..."
"... Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson. In a piece titled, "America Can Face Down a Fragile
Iran," the pair make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly and not fear a military clash, and a war with
Iran would be a cakewalk. ..."
"... "Iran's fragile theocracy can't absorb a massive external shock. That's why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most part,
adhered to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan." ..."
"... This depiction of Iran's political crisis and economic decline invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and the
Iranian people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime's collapse? ..."
"... Who wants a U.S. war with Iran? Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and who
oppose every effort of Trump's to extricate us from those wars. ..."
"... Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked region
that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that. ..."
Such a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world's seaborne
oil travels. It could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump's reelection.
It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large
as Iraq. It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush's presidency.
And if war comes now, it would be known as "Trump's War."
For it was Trump who pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal, though, according to U.N. inspectors and the other signatories
– Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China – Tehran was complying with its terms.
Trump's repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This
was followed by the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization.
Then came the threats of U.S. secondary sanctions on nations, some of them friends and allies, that continued to buy oil from
Iran.
U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran's economy until the regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 12 demands,
including an end to Tehran's support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack
that injured four U.S. soldiers in Kabul though the Taliban claimed responsibility.
The war hawks are back.
"This unprovoked attack on commercial shipping warrants retaliatory military strikes," said Senator Tom Cotton on Sunday.
But as Trump does not want war with Iran, Iran does not want war with us. Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks,
helped put out the fire on one tanker, and accused its enemies of "false flag" attacks to instigate a war.
If the Revolutionary Guard, which answers to the ayatollah, did attach explosives to the hull of the tankers, it was most likely
to send a direct message: If our exports are halted by U.S. sanctions, the oil exports of the Saudis and Gulf Arabs can be made
to experience similar problems.
Yet if the president and the ayatollah do not want war, who does?
Not the Germans or Japanese, both of whom are asking for more proof that Iran instigated the tanker attacks. Japan's prime
minster was meeting with the ayatollah when the attacks occurred, and one of the tankers was a Japanese vessel.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson. In a piece titled, "America Can Face Down
a Fragile Iran," the pair make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly and not fear a military clash,
and a war with Iran would be a cakewalk.
"Iran is in no shape for a prolonged confrontation with the U.S. The regime is in a politically precarious position. The sullen
Iranian middle class has given up on the possibility of reform or prosperity. The lower classes, once tethered to the regime by
the expansive welfare state, have also grown disloyal. The intelligentsia no longer believes that faith and freedom can be harmonized.
And the youth have become the regime's most unrelenting critics.
"Iran's fragile theocracy can't absorb a massive external shock. That's why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most
part, adhered to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan."
This depiction of Iran's political crisis and economic decline invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and
the Iranian people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime's collapse?
Trump seems to have several options:
Negotiate with the Tehran regime for some tolerable detente.
Refuse to negotiate and await the regime's collapse, in which case the president must be prepared for Iranian actions that
raise the cost of choking that nation to death.
Strike militarily, as Cotton urges, and accept the war that follows, if Iran chooses to fight rather than be humiliated
and capitulate to Pompeo's demands.
One recalls: Saddam Hussein accepted war with the United States in 1991 rather than yield to Bush I's demand he get his army
out of Kuwait.
Who wants a U.S. war with Iran? Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and
who oppose every effort of Trump's to extricate us from those wars.
Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked
region that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that.
There is a
report that the Trump administration may be preparing an attack on Iran:
Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are
assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the
tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.
According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant
discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to
President Donald Trump.
The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian
facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.
If this report is true, that would mean that the worst of the Iran hawks in the
administration are prevailing once again. The report goes on to say that "Trump himself was not
enthusiastic about a military move against Iran, but lost his patience on the matter and would
grant Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pushing for action, what he wants." If that is
true, that is an absurdly casual way to blunder into an unnecessary war. Trump should
understand that if he takes the U.S. into a war against Iran, especially without Congressional
authorization, it will consume the rest of his presidency and it should cost him his
re-election. Starting an unnecessary war with Iran would go down as one of the dumbest, most
reckless, illegal acts in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
Congress must make absolutely clear that the president does not have the authority to
initiate hostilities against Iran. Both houses should pass a resolution this week saying as
much, and they should block any funds that could be used to support such an action. There is no
legal justification for attacking Iran, and if Trump approves an attack he would be violating
the Constitution and should be impeached for it.
The risk of war with Iran is greater than it was six months ago, and it is much greater than
it was two and a half years ago when Trump took office. The U.S. and Iran are in this dangerous
position solely because of the determined efforts of Iran hawks in and around this
administration to drive our country on a collision course with theirs. Those efforts
accelerated significantly thirteen months ago with the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and the
reimposition of sanctions, and things have been getting steadily worse with each passing month.
It is not too late to avert the collision, but it requires the U.S. to make a dramatic change
in policy very soon. Since we know we can't count on the president to make the right decision,
Congress and the public need to make him understand what the political price will be if he
makes the wrong one.
"... For the United States, as for all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was the climax of that bloody history. ..."
"... It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early 1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change operations, much less explained why he favored them. ..."
For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition.
You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death
and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all done in the open. That is how Alexander
overran Persia and how countless conquerors since have bent weaker nations to their will.
Invasion is the old-fashioned way.
When the United States joined the race for empire at the end of the 19th century, that was
the tactic it used. It sent a large expeditionary force to the Philippines to crush an
independence movement, ultimately killing some 200,000 Filipinos. At the other end of the
carnage spectrum, it seized Guam without the loss of a single life and Puerto Rico with few
casualties. Every time, though, U.S. victory was the result of superior military power. In the
few cases when the United States failed, as in its attempt to defend a client regime by
suppressing Augusto Cesar Sandino's nationalist rebellion in Nicaragua during the 1920s and
30s, the failure was also the product of military confrontation. For the United States, as for
all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining
whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was
the climax of that bloody history.
After that war, however, something important changed. The United States no longer felt free
to land troops on every foreign shore that was ruled by a government it disliked or considered
threatening. Suddenly there was a new constraint: the Red Army. If American troops invaded a
country and overthrew its government, the Soviets might respond in kind. Combat between
American and Soviet forces could easily escalate into nuclear holocaust, so it had to be
avoided at all costs. Yet during the Cold War, the United States remained determined to shape
the world according to its liking -- perhaps more determined than ever. The United States
needed a new weapon. The search led to covert action.
A news agency
During World War II the United States used a covert agency, the Office of Strategic
Services, to carry out clandestine actions across Europe and Asia. As soon as the war ended, to
the shock of many OSS agents, Harry Truman abolished it. He believed there was no need for such
an agency during peacetime. In 1947 he changed his mind and signed the National Security Act,
under which the Central Intelligence Agency was established. That marked the beginning of a new
era. Covert action replaced overt action as the principal means of projecting American power
around the world.
Truman later insisted that he had intended the CIA to serve as a kind of private global news
service. "It was not intended as a 'Cloak & Dagger Outfit!'" he wrote. "It was intended
merely as a center for keeping the President informed on what was going on in the world [not]
to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized." Nonetheless
he did not hesitate to use the new CIA for covert action. Its first major campaign, aimed at
influencing the 1948 Italian election to ensure that pro-American Christian Democrats would
defeat their Communist rivals, was vast in scale and ultimately successful -- setting the
pattern for CIA intervention in every Italian election for the next two decades. Yet Truman
drew the line at covert action to overthrow governments.
The CIA's covert-action chief, Allen Dulles, twice proposed such projects. In both cases,
the target he chose was a government that had inflicted harm on corporations that he and his
brother, John Foster Dulles, had represented during their years as partners at the globally
powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. In 1952 he proposed that the CIA
overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, whose government was carrying out land reform
that affected the interests of United Fruit. By one account, State Department officials "hit
the roof" when they heard his proposal, and the diplomat David Bruce told him that the
Department "disapproves of the entire deal." Then Dulles proposed an operation to overthrow
Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, who had nationalized his country's oil industry.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson flatly rejected it.
White House resistance to covert regime-change operations dissolved when Dwight Eisenhower
succeeded Truman at the beginning of 1953. Part of the new administration's enthusiasm came
from Allen Dulles, Washington's most relentless advocate of such operations, whom Eisenhower
named to head the CIA. The fact that he named Dulles's brother as secretary of State ensured
that covert operations would have all the necessary diplomatic cover from the State Department.
During the Dulles brothers' long careers at Sullivan & Cromwell, they had not only learned
the techniques of covert regime change but practiced them. They were masters at marshaling
hidden power in the service of their corporate clients overseas. Now they could do the same
with all the worldwide resources of the CIA.
It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early
1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called
the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a
third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he
sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change
operations, much less explained why he favored them. He would, however, have had at least two reasons.
Since Eisenhower had commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, he was aware of
the role that covert operations such as breaking Nazi codes had played in the war victory --
something few other people knew at the time. That would have given him an appreciation for how
important and effective such operations could be. His second reason was even more powerful. In
Europe he had had the grim responsibility of sending thousands of young men out to die. That
must have weighed on him. He saw covert action as a kind of peace project. After all, if the
CIA could overthrow a government with the loss of just a few lives, wasn't that preferable to
war? Like most Americans, Eisenhower saw a world of threats. He also understood that the threat
of nuclear war made overt invasions all but unthinkable. Covert action was his answer. Within a
year and a half of his inauguration, the CIA had deposed the governments of both Guatemala and
Iran. It went on to other regime-change operations from Albania to Cuba to Indonesia.
Successive presidents followed his lead.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was once again free to launch
direct military invasions. When it found a leader it didn't like -- such as Saddam Hussein or
Muammar Qaddafi -- it deposed him not through covert action, but by returning to the approach
it had used before World War II: the force of arms. Covert efforts to overthrow governments
have hardly ceased, as any Iranian or Venezuelan could attest. The era when covert action was
America's principal weapon in world affairs, however, is over. That makes this a good time to
look back.
Metrics for covert action
Books about the Cold War heyday of covert action era are a mini-genre. Lindsey A. O'Rourke's
contribution is especially valuable. Unlike many other books built around accounts of CIA
plots, Covert Regime Change takes a scholarly and quantitative approach. It provides
charts, graphs, and data sets. Meticulous analysis makes this not the quickest read of any book
on the subject, but certainly one of the best informed. Chapters on the disastrous effort to
overthrow communist rule in Eastern Europe, which cost the lives of hundreds of deceived
partisans, and on the covert-action aspects of America's doomed campaign in Vietnam are
especially trenchant.
O'Rourke identifies three kinds of covert operations that are aimed at securing perceived
friends in power and keeping perceived enemies out: offensive operations to overthrow
governments, preventive operations aimed at preserving the status quo, and hegemonic operations
aimed at keeping a foreign nation subservient. From 1947 to 1989, by her count, the United
States launched 64 covert regime-change operations, while using the overt tool -- war -- just
six times. She traces the motivations behind these operations, the means by which they were
carried out, and their effects. Her text is based on meticulous analysis of individual
operations. Some other books about covert action are rip-roaring yarns. This one injects a dose
of
rigorous analysis into a debate that is often based on emotion. That rigor lends credence to
her conclusions:
When policymakers want to conduct an operation that they know violates international
norms, they simply conduct it covertly to hide their involvement.
Covert missions typically have lower potential costs than their overt counterparts, but
they are also less likely to succeed.
Can interveners acquire reliable allies by covertly overthrowing foreign governments?
Overall, I find the answer is no. Covert regime changes seldom worked out as intended.
The new leader's opponents often accused him of being a U.S. puppet and, in some cases,
even took up arms against the regime. In fact, approximately half of the governments that
came to power in a U.S.-backed covert regime change during the Cold War were later violently
removed from power.
States targeted in a covert regime-change operation appear less likely to be democratic
afterward and more likely to experience civil war, adverse regime changes, or human-rights
abuses
Covert regime changes can have disastrous consequences for civilians within the target
states. Countries that were targeted by the United States for a covert regime change during
the Cold War were more likely to experience a civil war or an episode of mass killing
afterward.
Even nominally successful covert regime changes -- where U.S.-backed forces came to power
-- seldom delivered on their promise to improve interstate relations.
Although these conclusions are not new, they have rarely if ever been presented as the
result of such persuasive statistical evidence. Yet even this evidence seems unlikely to force
a reassessment of covert action as a way to influence or depose governments. It is an American
"addiction." The reasons are many and varied, but one of the simplest is that covert action
seems so easy. Changing an unfriendly country's behavior through diplomacy is a long, complex,
multi-faceted project. It takes careful thought and planning. Often it requires compromise.
Sending the CIA to overthrow a "bad guy" is far more tempting. It's the cheap and easy way out.
History shows that it often produces terrible results for both the target country and the
United States. To a military and security elite as contemptuous of history as America's,
however, that is no obstacle.
Although covert regime-change operations remain a major part of American foreign policy,
they are not as effective as they once were. The first victims of CIA overthrows, Prime
Minister Mossadegh and President Arbenz, did not understand the tools the CIA had at its
disposal and so were easy targets. They were also democratic, meaning that they allowed open
societies in which the press, political parties, and civic groups functioned freely -- making
them easy for the CIA to penetrate. Later generations of leaders learned from their ignorance.
They paid closer attention to their own security, and imposed tightly controlled regimes in
which there were few independent power centers that the CIA could manipulate.
If Eisenhower could come back to life, he would see the havoc that his regime-change
operations wreaked. After his overthrow of Mossadegh, Iran fell under royal dictatorship that
lasted a quarter-century and was followed by decades of rule by repressive mullahs who have
worked relentlessly to undermine American interests around the world. The operation he ordered
in Guatemala led to a civil war that killed 200,000 people, turning a promising young democracy
into a charnel house and inflicting a blow on Central America from which it has never
recovered. His campaign against Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, which included the
fabrication of a poison kit in a CIA laboratory, helped turn that country into one of the most
violent places on Earth.
How would Eisenhower respond to the long-term disasters that followed his covert action
victories? He might well have come up with a highly convincing way to excuse himself. It's now
clear, he could argue, that covert action to overthrow governments usually has terrible
long-term results -- but that was not clear in the 1950s. Eisenhower had no way of knowing that
even covert regime-change operations that seem successful at the time could have devastating
results decades later.
We today, however, do know that. The careful analysis that is at the center of Covert
Regime Change makes clearer than ever that when America sets out to change the world
covertly, it usually does more harm than good -- to itself as well as others. O'Rourke
contributes to the growing body of literature that clearly explains this sad fact of
geopolitics. The intellectual leadership for a national movement against regime-change
operations -- overt or covert -- is coalescing. The next step is to take this growing body of
knowledge into the political arena. Washington remains the province of those who believe not
only that the United States should try to reconfigure the world into an immense American sphere
of influence, but that that is an achievable goal. In the Beltway morass of pro-intervention
think tanks, members of Congress, and op-ed columnists, America's role in the world is usually
not up for debate. Now, as a presidential campaign unfolds and intriguing new currents surge
through the American body politic, is an ideal moment for that debate to re-emerge. If it does,
we may be surprised to see how many voters are ready to abandon the dogma of regime change and
wonder, with George Washington, "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?"
This article was originally published in the June 2019 edition ofFuture of Freedom .
This post was written by: Stephen Kinzer Stephen Kinzer is an author and
newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more
than 50 countries on five continents. His books include "Overthrow" and "All the Shah's Men".
"... The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians. The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets. The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen. ..."
WATCH: US economist urges covert violence to provoke war with Iran "I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically
go down – someday one of them might not come up." Admin
Many believe war with the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the dream of some hardcore neocons in Washington since at least 2001.
Back in 2012 former employee of the IMF and current economist for the World Bank,
Patrick Clawson , provided fuel for this belief when
he was videoed obliquely advocating using covert violence so that the US president "can get to war with Iran."
In a startlingly frank speech, Clawson makes it clear he believes (and apparently approves) that the US has a history of seeking
war for profit, and of using provocations to goad its perceived enemies into starting such wars. Clawson highlights in particular
the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861
, which, he says, was deliberately engineered by president Lincoln in pursuit of an excuse to launch a war on the Southern secessionist
states.
In light of the recent alleged attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, timed to coincide with the visit of the Japanese prime
minister to Iran, and in light of Secretary of State Capone Pompeo's precipitate and predictable claim the attacks were
likely perpetrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, this is an apposite time to recall this telling little incident.
Below see the transcript of Mr Clawson's remarks
Transcript
"I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough and it's very hard for me to see how the United States president can get
us to war with Iran which leads me to conclude that if in fact compromise is not coming that the traditional way of America gets
to war is what would be best for US interests
Some people might think that mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us in to the World War two as David mentioned. You may recall we had
to wait for Pearl Harbor.
Some people might think mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War One. You may recall he had to wait for the Lusitania episode
Some people might think that mr. Johnson wanted to send troops to Vietnam. You may recall they had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin
episode.
We didn't go to war with Spain until the USS Maine exploded, and may I point out that mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call off
the federal army until Fort Sumter was attacked which is why he ordered the commander at Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which
the South Carolinians had said would cause an attack.
So if in fact the Iranians aren't going to compromise it would be best if somebody else started the war
But I would just like to suggest that one can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August
17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down – someday one of them
might not come up.
Who would know why?
We can do a variety of things if we wish to increase the pressure. I'm not advocating that but I'm just suggesting that a it's
this is not a either-or proposition of, you know, it's just sanctions has to be has to succeed or other things.
DunGroanin
Always follow the money they made lots instantly from the firework display, it aint rocket science!
What do you expect from a Zionist Front like WINEP? They've been inciting wars for Israel for decades. "Getting the stupid goys
to fight Israel's wars for decades."
Jen
If Patrick Clawson is typical of the kind of economist employed at the IMF and then promoted to a leading position at the World
Bank, I dread to think of the calibre of people who also applied for his job in the past and were rejected. His speech is so garbled
and full of unconscious slip-ups.
andyoldlabour
The US has convinced itself of its own so called "exceptionalism", where they can say anything out in the open, reveal their greatest
desires, their unholy plans. There must be some "good" Americans who can stop this madness, or have they all become inflicted/infected
with some hate virus?
Milton
Interesting that this Israeli-First traitor Clawson mentions Lincoln and Ft. Sumter. He finally admits what genuine historians
of the Civil War long knew: Lincoln was a warmonger and tyrant, not an emancipator. The Civil war was fought to eliminate true
freedom and equality in this country and it has been downhill ever since. The working class and soldier-class in America today
are slaves in every sense of the word. Slaves to Zion. No wonder the certified warmonger and racist Lincoln is worshiped equally
by Left and Right today, whilst genuine American patriots like Robert E. Lee have their legacy torn down. Lincoln was the proto-Neocon.
Tom Dilorenzo summed up the real Lincoln when he wrote in Lincoln Unmasked:
"Imagine that California seceded from the union and an American president responded with the carpet bombing of Los Angeles,
San Diego, and San Francisco that destroyed 90 percent of those cities. Such was the case with General Sherman's bombardment of
Atlanta; a naval blockade; a blocking off of virtually all trade; the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes (as
occurred in Atlanta in 1864); the destruction of most industries and farms; massive looting of private property by a marauding
army; and the killing of one out of four males of military age while maiming for life more than double that number. Would such
an American president be considered a 'great statesman' or a war criminal? The answer is obvious.
A statesman would have recognized the state's right to secede, as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, among other places, and
then worked diligently to persuade the seceded state that a reunion was in its best interest. Agreat statesman, or even a modest
one, would not have impulsively plunged the entire nation into a bloody war.
Lincoln's warmongering belligerence and his invasion of all the Southern states in response to Fort Sumter (where no one was
harmed or killed) caused the upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -- to secede after originally voting
to remain in the Union. He refused to meet with Confederate commissioners to discuss peace and even declined a meeting with Napoleon
III of France, who offered to broker a peace agreement. No genuine statesman would have behaved in such a way.
After Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in manipulating the South Carolinians into
firing at Fort Sumter. A great statesman does not manipulate his own people into starting one of the bloodiest wars in human history."
mathias alexand
Here's a man who holds a press conference to announce a secret plan. Only in America.
False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the 'masters of the universe'. We know
who was responsible for the tanker attacks. Who are the 3 countries absolutely desperate to take Iran down and install a completely
pliant puppet regime answerable to Washington, Tel Aviv and to a lesser extent Riyadh. And creatures like Clawson, and all the
other vermin can only see $$$$. Thats all they care about. Opening up more markets to further enrich themselves. I echo the other
commenters also. The evil men stoop to for greed, power and control. Psychopaths.
harry law
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible."
Unbelievable, The UK vassal will use this to as one more reason to evade their responsibilities in implementing the JCPOA.
Er . just a rough guess Bill going on the belligerent foaming at the mouth by people in those places along with the likes of Bolton
and Pompeo. In fact, you can probably go all the way back to about 1980 or so.
mark
I think the real giveaway was when all three rogue states openly stated their intention of doing this 1,000 times over the past
10 years. That was the crucial clue Sherlock Holmes was looking for.
Wilmers31
And who funds the Washington Institute? Last time I looked the International Crisis Group existed thanks to Soros and is usually
treated like a serious organisation.
Many Europeans are not in love with the idea of war with Iran, just to achieve obedience to the US. 90 million people is bigger
than Germany.
wardropper
These are the shysters, the spivs and the con men of bygone times. They are the ones who lurked at street corners, waiting for
someone to come along who was gullible enough to buy the Moon from them.
But, for some reason, they are all in politics today.
Now how could that be?
Only because there are people whom it currently suits to use shysters, spivs and con men in order to create enough chaos for
us to want to give up and just let those people have their way.
I agree with Rhys below. There is no more disgusting example of sub-humanity to be found on earth than these warmongers.
To deal with them, however, we will have to realize that their "philosophy", if you can call it that, runs very deep. It didn't
just enter their heads last week.
They are reared and trained in it.
It will be a tough battle.
wardropper
I should add that, in bygone times, the police and the law were usually able to deal with the shysters, spivs and con men, since
their lack of conscience often gave them away.
The modern version, however, which has moved into politics, was shrewd enough to use a few decades of bribery and threats in order
to build around itself a nice little shell, through which the law simply cannot penetrate, except on special occasions, mainly
for show.
Rhys Jaggar
There is a big cabal of warmongers who stoke the fuel but never see action. I find those people more disgusting than anyone on
earth.
Draft dodgers, academics, 'historians' etc etc.
Ball-less pricks is what I call them .
mark
All fully paid up members of the Bill Clinton Light Infantry.
andyoldlabour
The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical
weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.
The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets.
The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen.
William HBonney
The easiest, and perhaps best metric by which to judge a country, is 'do people aspire to live there? '.
I see you admire the Soviet Union, but at its dissolution, people were queuing to leave. And yet the US, and the UK, according
to you, iniquitous places of tyranny, are oversubscribed. Could it be, that for all your implied erudition, you are merely a bellend?
BigB
Well, even as a pacifist: if that is his sentiment – I hope he has sons or daughters in the military stationed in CENTCOM in Qatar.
I bet he hasn't, though.
Rhisiart Gwilym
He should be right there on the frontline himself. That would straighten the disgusting creep's ideas out about the 'usefulness'
of deliberately provoking war
"... Trump's National Security Advisor is the equally unhinged John Bolton. It is no secret that Bolton is itching for war with Iran, something even Trump has been hesitant to do. But what if a ship of the sacred United States, in an area of the world where it has no legitimate business to be, were to be attacked? Then, of course, U.S. retaliation would be swift and harsh. ..."
The world awoke today to the alleged 'news' that U.S. authorities were investigating attacks on two ships in the Gulf of Oman.
For anyone paying attention, this is déjà vu all over again. Let's put this in the context of current world politics as directed
through the skewed lens of that self-proclaimed stable genius, United States President Donald Trump. The man who so considers himself,
and has commented in the past on his own good looks, has stated that, regardless of what his advisors tell him, he rules by his 'gut'
feelings. In 2017, against the advice of all allies except Israel, and also against the advice of his closest advisors, he withdrew
from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
This was an international agreement by which sanctions against Iran would be withdrawn, in exchange for Iran making adjustments
to its nuclear program. By so violating this agreement, and threatening sanctions against the other signatories if they continued
to abide by it, the U.S. basically nullified it, yet expected Iran to comply. Iran has done so for over a year, with the hope, if
not the expectation, that the other parties to the agreement would figure out a way to bypass U.S. threats. This has not happened.
The U.S. wants Iran to return to the bargaining table; why on earth it would is beyond the comprehension of any reasonable person.
If Iran signed another agreement with the U.S., Trump could decide in a month, or a week, or even a day, that that, too, was 'the
worst deal ever'.
Trump's National Security Advisor is the equally unhinged John Bolton. It is no secret that Bolton is itching for war with
Iran, something even Trump has been hesitant to do. But what if a ship of the sacred United States, in an area of the world where
it has no legitimate business to be, were to be attacked? Then, of course, U.S. retaliation would be swift and harsh. MORE...
Recently, there was alleged sabotage against U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. Nothing came of that smoke screen. But today, a new
violation of U.S. sanctity is alleged. While time alone can tell how this will play out, it is not without deadly and devastating
precedence. On August 4, 1964, a U.S. ship, the Maddox, was in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of China and northern Vietnam. That
night, instruments on the Maddox indicated that the ship was either under attack or had been attacked. The Maddox and another U.S.
vessel, the C. Turner Joy, fired into the darkness with support from U.S. warplanes. The Navy notified Washington that naval vessels
in the Gulf of Tonkin were being attacked. Washington launched Operation Pierce Arrow (where oh where do these stupid names originate?):
sixty-four sorties from nearby aircraft carriers pounded North Vietnam that evening. When the so-called retaliatory attack concluded,
President Lyndon Johnson appeared on American television to announce that "gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam"
had been attacked by American aircraft. Had U.S. ships actually been attacked? Personnel on both vessels soon " decided they had
been shooting at 'ghost images' on their radar; the preponderance of available evidence indicates that there was no attack." [1]
But this was just what Congress wanted, so its members could prove their anti-Communist credentials, as important than as anti-terrorism
hubris is today; it was the perfect ploy to escalate the war. Yet like the personnel on the ships, U.S. government officials knew
very quickly that there had been no attack. Just a few days later, Johnson, upon learning the truth said this: "Hell, those dumb,
stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish." [2] The truth did nothing to stop violent U.S. escalation. By the end of the following
year, the number of U.S. soldiers invading Vietnam increased from 23,000 to 184,300. Eleven years later, with over 55,000 U.S. soldiers
dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, and, by conservative estimates, 2,000,000 Vietnamese dead, the U.S. fled Vietnam in defeat.
Fast forward fifty-four years, an eternity in terms of U.S. governance. An independent nation (Iran) is minding its own business,
protecting its borders and assisting its allies (including Syria), but it refuses to kowtow to U.S. demands. The mighty U.S., whose
actions are not to be questioned by any nation that wants to survive, must determine some reason to invade it that will fly with
the U.S. public. In 1964, its desire to invade Vietnam was given legitimacy by the lies of the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident. In 2019,
will its desire to invade Iran gain U.S. support because of the Gulf of Oman non-incident? If so, one can only hope that, unlike
the devastation that the U.S. wrought on Vietnam before that country was victorious over the U.S., Iran will be able to defeat the
U.S. more quickly, and with fewer Iranian casualties. There really isn't much that the United States needs to do to diffuse the tension
between it and Iran. Simply abide by its own international agreement, the JCPOA. But in for this to happen, Trump would have to find
some reason to say that the sanctions were successful; he will never admit to making a mistake. But the workings of his brain are
a conundrum; it's possible he could invent and believe such a scenario. For the sake of the U.S., Iran, and much of the world that
could easily be dragged into a major war should the U.S. invade Iran, it is to be hoped that Trump does, indeed, invent such a reason.
Endnotes [1] Chambers, (John Whiteclay II. ED. 1999. The Oxford Companion to American Military History . New York: Oxford
UP). Jian, Chen. China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation, P. 151. [2] Donald E. Schmidt, The
Folly of War: American Foreign Policy, 1898-2005 (New York: Algora, 2005), 265.
Gulf of Oman Incident
Where Oman differs from Tonkin is today we are facing a far more dangerous scenario. We could all 'be dragged into a major
war should the US invade Iran'. Vietnam did not lead to nuclear Armageddon, nor did any other confrontation of the Cold War. There
is much talk of a new Cold War. But the Cold War was the peace, a post-world war environment: we now live in a pre-world war environment.
Humanity has experienced long periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the two
Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. The Congress System finally
collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World
War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent
a third world war.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
I really cannot begin to fathom how stupid you would have to be to believe that Iran would attack a Japanese oil tanker at
the very moment that the Japanese Prime Minister was sitting down to friendly, US-disapproved talks in Tehran on economic cooperation
that can help Iran survive the effects of US economic sanctions.
The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous was holed above the water line. That rules out a torpedo attack, which is the explanation
being touted by the neo-cons.
The second vessel, the Front Altair, is Norwegian owned and 50% Russian crewed (the others being Filipinos). It is owned by
Frontline, a massive tanker leasing company that also has a specific record of being helpful to Iran in continuing to ship oil
despite sanctions.
It was Iran that rescued the crews and helped bring the damaged vessels under control. That Iran would target a Japanese ship
and a friendly Russian crewed ship is a ludicrous
"... Well I saw/heard Tulsi on Joe Rogan too and was very impressed, her heart is in the right place and she is anti war. However what worries me most is that Israel is only waiting for one more surgical strike on it's enemies per Israel's shopping list revealed by Gen. Wesley Clark and we all know that is Iran. The US will probably have to sacrifice a warship to Mossad in October to kick this one off. ..."
Well I saw/heard Tulsi on Joe Rogan too and was very impressed, her heart is in the right
place and she is anti war. However what worries me most is that Israel is only waiting for
one more surgical strike on it's enemies per Israel's shopping list revealed by Gen. Wesley
Clark and we all know that is Iran. The US will probably have to sacrifice a warship to
Mossad in October to kick this one off.
Tulsi in all liklihood will be swept away by events and I have a sneaky suspicion she is
the 'wildcard candidate' insurance for the 'kingmakers' after all she has kissed the AIPAC
arse is member of CFR etc – she was after all on the fast track before she cried
'foul'.
She is far more honest than most but sadly is still compromised and there is no getting
around that one. She owes them and they never forget. My 'outside choice' is the formidably
'loose cannon' Robert David Steele and his partnering with Cynthia McKinney.
The Zionists are in open war with them both. If they can wake up the black voters en masse
to who runs America now it could cause the biggest shock to the US system since the McCarthy
purge. Steele is appealing to 'Truthers', independents, and Alt Right Constitutionalists and
McKinney to the working class and Black vote.
Trump is trying to exploit the same groups but next time around they will be wiser. The
problem now is the Evangelist 'Christian Zionist' rump. Kushner/Trump and Netanyahu have got
them all at fever pitch for the 2nd coming.
"... This is why it wouldn't matter even if we got Sanders/Gabbard by some miracle. If we got a Sanders/Gabbard presidency, you can be sure congress would start doing everything they can to make sure absolutely nothing happened to change the status quo. It would be like what the Rs did to Obama, but it would be both Ds and Rs pushing back and nothing would change. ..."
The Democrats engineered another win for Trump. Now why is that?
The why is because the democrats are not really against the things he is doing. Oh sure they
will give some speeches about how they don't like what he is doing, but so far enough democrats
have voted with republicans on almost every bill that has come up. The only one that they
didn't vote for was to rescind the ACA. Deregulation of the banks? Yup. More unconstitutional
spying on us? Yup. The military budget? Yup. Confirming his horrible cabinet picks? Yup again
except for DeVos. Warren voted for Ben Carson. Why? She said that she was afraid that Trump
would pick someone worse. How about just keep voting no until he chose someone qualified? His
horrible right wing judges? Yup. Schumer continues to make deals with McConnell to get them
done. DiFi and of course Manchin and other blue dawgs are right there voting with them. I don't
remember which democrat told McConnell that he should have let all of congress in on the tax
bill because he could have gotten 70 or more votes on it.
This after McConnell refused to let Obama's judges get a vote and then there's Garland and
the kabuki confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh.
Democrats are passing bills to keep Trump from pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and
Syria and we saw what happened when he tried to pull them out of Syria. And made nice with Kim
and Vlad.
So yeah if ByeDone or Warren doesn't get the nod then they will be just fine with Trump
again. And since ByeDone's latest gaffes they are now pushing Warren as coming from behind. I
think Harris was supposed to be the nominee, but she isn't going anywhere.
This is their world, after all. They're fighting for the future, and they have more of
it to fight for.
At the same time, I've noticed a flurry of anti-centrist and Biden-warning articles
coming from all directions.
What I know for sure, is that at this point Trump is set to win in 2020 and the backlash
from the Russia Hoax is just getting started. I don't think it matters which way Barr
decides to play it. The establishment is going to take the hit. There is an army of
potential voters out there who will not vote for more of the same, and that includes Trump.
Nor will they waste their votes on the established third party slush pile. Only a bold
vision from an uncompromising candidate will bring this army forward, and many voters will
join them. There are only a few candidates who can bring it. But they all pretended to fall
for the Russia Hoax. Or, maybe they are just that dumb.
There are enough Millennial votes to carry the win, and the Left will provide back-up.
Who knows with the so-called Progressives? In Congress, they'll vote for anything with a
back-end pay-off that keeps them in DC. On the street, they may be genuine and will vote
with the uncompromised. Tulsi Gabbard can carry this off. She is the first Millennial
presidential candidate -- if she can get past the media black-out.
Bottom line: The Democrats engineered another win for Trump. Now why is that?
up 32 users have voted. --
America is a pathetic nation; a fascist state fueled by the greed, malice, and stupidity
of her own people.
- strife delivery
Democrats are passing bills to keep Trump from pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and
Syria and we saw what happened when he tried to pull them out of Syria.
This is why it wouldn't matter even if we got Sanders/Gabbard by some miracle. If we got a
Sanders/Gabbard presidency, you can be sure congress would start doing everything they can to
make sure absolutely nothing happened to change the status quo. It would be like what the Rs
did to Obama, but it would be both Ds and Rs pushing back and nothing would change.
I give her and the Left a pass on that grey area. Tulsi has never embraced the Russia Hoax
to the extent that Sanders and Warren have -- and still do. One thing I don't need is a
purity pledge from members of the Left who try to climb on the political stage with the
American duopoly, who in turn throw every lie and ugly smear they can at them.
The Russia Hoax is falling apart on its own. The Democrats have been deeply stained by it.
Americans grow increasingly shocked and disgusted with the media monopolies. They have all
lost the trust of the American people. The candidates are trying to evolve as fast as they
can on this issue. It will come up in the debates. Answer wrong and watch out, but that will
change week by week as the public begins to realize what happened in 2016.
bringing the evidence, but my stars, the hundreds of subtweeters gave her an education.
okay, it's a grey area for you, as likely is her voting to sanction russia for stealing
crimea, sanctioning north korea for...whatever.
@Pluto's Republic Russiagate from early on, Prof Stephen Cohen, is a backer and
contributor to Tulsi Gabbard. If she's good enough for the Prof on this issue, she's good
enough for me.
She might be alone among candidates in calling for a substantial pullback in the hostility
directed at Russia by the US, a thawing of the new cold war. And how many of the Ds running
for prez have explicitly called out the undue influence of the MIC?
I see her overall as a young pol, still in her 30s, evolving in the right direction in a
number of areas. I wish she had been perfect on this issue from the get go, but I must take
my candidate with all her flaws.
Ali Vaez rebuts Mike Pompeo's terse, evidence-free
statement
accusing Iran of responsibility for the two tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman:
Pompeo delivered his remarks without providing any evidence to support his accusations, and then walked off the stage
without taking any questions. The Secretary of State's credibility has already been shot to pieces by his frequent lies and
misleading statements on a range of issues touching on everything from North Korea to Yemen to Iran, so he needed to clear
an even higher bar than usual to back up his accusations. He didn't come close. Aside from misleading the public and
Congress about important issues, Pompeo's serial fabrications have a real cost in that no one believes a word he says about
anything. It might be the case that Pompeo is telling the truth for once, but if so it would be extremely unusual for him.
I made that point earlier today:
I have previously discussed Pompeo's
complete lack of credibility
,
and it is worth revisiting part of that post now:
Pompeo is the chief representative of the United States abroad besides the president, so his habit of making things
up out of thin air and telling easily refuted lies can only harm our reputation, undermine trust, and cause even our
allies to doubt our government's claims.
Pompeo is the bully who cried "Iran!" so many times that we have no reason to trust his anti-Iranian claims now. The
fact that he and the National Security Advisor are so clearly slavering at the possibility of increased tensions with Iran
gives us another reason to be skeptical. We assume that they are trying to turn even the smallest incident into an excuse
for escalation, and so we naturally look at their claims of Iranian responsibility with great suspicion. Vaez's thread goes
through Pompeo's statement very carefully and points out the serious flaws and falsehoods, of which there are quite a few.
Once again, we see Pompeo's tendency to pin the blame for anything and everything that happens in the region on Iran,
and many of these are no more than unfounded assertions or deliberate distortions. For example, the Houthi attacks on Saudi
pipelines and airports are a result of the ongoing war on Yemen and the Saudi coalition bombing of Yemeni cities and towns.
All indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure are wrong and should be condemned, but we also need to
remember that these attacks are the direct consequence of belligerent and destructive policies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE
backed by the United States. If the Saudis and Emiratis stopped bombing Yemen tomorrow, the missile attacks on Saudi
targets would almost certainly cease thereafter. Just as Pompeo won't acknowledge the administration's role in goading and
provoking Iran, he refuses to acknowledge the role of the Saudi coalition's war in provoking Yemeni retaliation. He
desperately tries to make Iran the culprit of every crime, but instead of proving Iran's guilt it only calls into question
Pompeo's judgment and honesty.
Probably the most galling part of Pompeo's statement was his declaration that "Iran should answer diplomacy with
diplomacy." What diplomacy would Iran be responding to? Does Pompeo think his list of preposterous demands delivered as a
diktat last year counts as diplomacy? Does he think that waging relentless economic war on a country of eighty million
people qualifies as diplomatic? The Trump administration has chosen the path of provocation and confrontation for at least
the last thirteen months, and then they have the gall to fault Iran for its lack of diplomacy. If the administration had
not trashed the most important diplomatic agreement that our government had with Iran and proceeded to penalize them for
keeping up their end of the bargain, our two countries would not be as dangerously close to war as they are now. The
administration bears responsibility for creating the heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran, and it is their
obnoxious and destructive policy of collective punishment that has brought us to this point.
Pompeo proudly stated "We lie, we cheat " and even thought funny too. Guess that's one of the rare moments his
statement contained some truth at least.
You do have to admit, the blurred 30 second video of a boat next to the hull of a ship was absolutely DAMNING! It
proved conclusively that the Iranians launched unprovoked attacks on helpless civilian oil tankers.
Innocent
sailors would have left the limpet mines in place, so they could blow up and damage the tanker some more.
It could have been Iran, I don't know. This would be an understandable response for a country under blockade. I
would feel differently if people died.
People in Iran have died because of our illegal sanctions hindering flood
relief and medical care while Pompeo and others laughs at them. This does not include the suffering imposed on the
civilian population. I do not expect Iran to curl up into a ball and accept their punishment.
If this was an Iranian operation it demonstrates their competency as opposed to use wasting Jet fuel having
F35's circling around.
Iran means virtually nothing to the United States. They have nothing to do with our national interest. As far as
the tankers being mined; I have to say my first thought is that we (i.e. the United States) did it so we could
start a war. Very similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Viet Nam war.
"... "The Times has run neck-and-neck with the Washington Post in stirring up fears of the Russian information war and illicit involvement with Trump. The Times now easily conflates fake news with any criticism of established institutions, as in Mark Scott and Melissa Eddy's 'Europe Combats a New Foe of Political Stability: Fake News,' February 20, 2017. But what is more extraordinary is the uniformity with which the paper's regular columnists accept as a given the CIA's assessment of the Russian hacking and transmission to WikiLeaks, the possibility or likelihood that Trump is a Putin puppet, and the urgent need of a congressional and 'non-partisan' investigation of these claims. This swallowing of a new war-party line has extended widely in the liberal media. Both the Times and Washington Post have lent tacit support to the idea that this 'fake news' threat needs to be curbed, possibly by some form of voluntary media-organized censorship or government intervention that would at least expose the fakery. ..."
"... "The most remarkable media episode in this anti-influence-campaign was the Post's piece by Craig Timberg, 'Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say,' which featured a report by a group of anonymous "experts" entity called PropOrNot that claimed to have identified two hundred websites that, wittingly or not, were 'routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.' While smearing these websites, many of them independent news outlets whose only shared trait was their critical stance toward U.S. foreign policy, the 'experts' refused to identify themselves, allegedly out of fear of being 'targeted by legions of skilled hackers.' As journalist Matt Taibbi wrote, 'You want to blacklist hundreds of people, but you won't put your name to your claims? Take a hike.' ..."
"... But the Post welcomed and promoted this McCarthyite effort, which might well be a product of Pentagon or CIA information warfare. (And these entities are themselves well-funded and heavily into the propaganda business.) ..."
"... "The success of the war party's campaign to contain or reverse any tendency to ease tensions with Russia was made dramatically clear in the Trump administration's speedy bombing response to the April 4, 2017, Syrian chemical weapons deaths. The Times and other mainstream media editors and journalists greeted this aggressive move with almost uniform enthusiasm, and once again did not require evidence of Assad's guilt beyond their government's claims. The action was damaging to Assad and Russia, but served the rebels well. ..."
"It has been amusing to watch the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets express their dismay over the rise and
spread of 'fake news.' These publications take it as an obvious truth that what they provide is straightforward, unbiased, fact-based
reporting. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of their own varied forms of fake news, often by disseminating
false or misleading information supplied to them by the national security state, other branches of government, and sites of corporate
power.
"An important form of mainstream media fake news is that which is presented while suppressing information that calls the preferred
news into question. [ ]
"The Times has run neck-and-neck with the Washington Post in stirring up fears of the Russian information war and illicit involvement
with Trump. The Times now easily conflates fake news with any criticism of established institutions, as in Mark Scott and Melissa
Eddy's 'Europe Combats a New Foe of Political Stability: Fake News,' February 20, 2017. But what is more extraordinary is the
uniformity with which the paper's regular columnists accept as a given the CIA's assessment of the Russian hacking and transmission
to WikiLeaks, the possibility or likelihood that Trump is a Putin puppet, and the urgent need of a congressional and 'non-partisan'
investigation of these claims. This swallowing of a new war-party line has extended widely in the liberal media. Both the Times
and Washington Post have lent tacit support to the idea that this 'fake news' threat needs to be curbed, possibly by some form
of voluntary media-organized censorship or government intervention that would at least expose the fakery.
"The most remarkable media episode in this anti-influence-campaign was the Post's piece by Craig Timberg, 'Russian propaganda
effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say,' which featured a report by a group of anonymous "experts" entity
called PropOrNot that claimed to have identified two hundred websites that, wittingly or not, were 'routine peddlers of Russian
propaganda.' While smearing these websites, many of them independent news outlets whose only shared trait was their critical stance
toward U.S. foreign policy, the 'experts' refused to identify themselves, allegedly out of fear of being 'targeted by legions
of skilled hackers.' As journalist Matt Taibbi wrote, 'You want to blacklist hundreds of people, but you won't put your name to
your claims? Take a hike.'
But the Post welcomed and promoted this McCarthyite effort, which might well be a product of Pentagon
or CIA information warfare. (And these entities are themselves well-funded and heavily into the propaganda business.)
"On December 23, 2016, President Obama signed the Portman-Murphy Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, which will supposedly
allow the United States to more effectively combat foreign (namely Russian and Chinese) propaganda and disinformation. It will
encourage more government counter-propaganda efforts, and provide funding to non-government entities to help in this enterprise.
It is clearly a follow-on to the claims of Russian hacking and propaganda, and shares the spirit of the listing of two hundred
tools of Moscow featured in the Washington Post. (Perhaps PropOrNot will qualify for a subsidy and be able to enlarge its list.)
Liberals have been quiet on this new threat to freedom of speech, undoubtedly influenced by their fears of Russian-based fake
news and propaganda. But they may yet take notice, even if belatedly, when Trump or one of his successors puts it to work on their
own notions of fake news and propaganda.
"The success of the war party's campaign to contain or reverse any tendency to ease tensions with Russia was made dramatically
clear in the Trump administration's speedy bombing response to the April 4, 2017, Syrian chemical weapons deaths. The Times and
other mainstream media editors and journalists greeted this aggressive move with almost uniform enthusiasm, and once again did
not require evidence of Assad's guilt beyond their government's claims. The action was damaging to Assad and Russia, but served
the rebels well.
"But the mainstream media never ask cui bono? in cases like this. In 2013, a similar charge against Assad, which brought the
United States to the brink of a full-scale bombing war in Syria, turned out to be a false flag operation, and some authorities
believe the current case is equally problematic. Nevertheless, Trump moved quickly (and illegally), dealing a blow to any further
rapprochement between the United States and Russia. The CIA, the Pentagon, leading Democrats, and the rest of the war party had
won an important skirmish in the struggle over permanent war."
Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies: The New York Times, 1917–2017
"... Except for Afghanistan, the "Arc of Crisis" hasn't been all that successful as far as creating instability to Russia's south, and it hasn't been all that successful in promoting Anglo-American hegemony either. However, it has been wildly successful in perpetuating the "arc of instability" that justifies US military spending, so the MIC is quite well satisfied with the policies whether the broader interests and security of the British and American people are served well by the policy or not. ..."
"... Interesting to note that Daesh only ever appear to be attacking the traditional enemies of the Zionist. ..."
"... Daesh are like another Gladio, but on steroids. ..."
Yes. Originally, creation of the "Arc of Crisis" was proposed by Bernard Lewis as a means to divide and rule, which has always
been the British Empire's mody operandi , and Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to create an "Arc of Crisis" all along the southern
border of the USSR and later, Russia.
Except for Afghanistan, the "Arc of Crisis" hasn't been all that successful as far as creating instability to Russia's south,
and it hasn't been all that successful in promoting Anglo-American hegemony either. However, it has been wildly successful in
perpetuating the "arc of instability" that justifies US military spending, so the MIC is quite well satisfied with the policies
whether the broader interests and security of the British and American people are served well by the policy or not.
There are many different aspects to this, like from the moment that large numbers of prisoners on death row in S.A. were given
the ultimatum for joining the FSA or decline and face certain execution.
Too often regions are deliberately being exploited by greedy individuals and mixed into politics.
Interesting to note that Daesh only ever appear to be attacking the traditional enemies of the Zionist.
"... I agree with the premise, that the NARRATIVE is the means by which oligarchy rules the masses. ..."
"... As Mencken stated (approx) "the common man avoids the truth [because] it is dangerous, no good can come of it, and it doesn't pay." ..."
"... Americans are propagandized from childhood, and it's very hard for most to break free, even if they want to. In my case, a rather abusive childhood made me disinclined to accept conventional wisdom. ..."
"... The proverbial man in the street is well aware that capitalism/politics is a racket and openly say so. ..."
"... The falling numbers in the 'democracies' who now bother to vote is an indication of this, as is the growing political unrest in the heartlands of the Anglo-Zionist empire. It is not possible to 'fool all of the people all of the time'. Whether they do anything about it is another matter. ..."
"... These are dangerous times, but that is the usual condition when the structure of any social and political order is beginning to crumble. Ultimately, the Anglo-Zionist empire is, to use Lenin's description 'A colossus with feet of clay.' No empire lasts forever, and the US is not exceptional in this respect. The real problem is that the demise of the US hegemonic project will taken down the rest of the planet with it. ..."
Thank you Caitlin for this piece. Depressing but not unexpectedly so. And if my late
husband's FB friends (as I've mentioned on here before) are anything to go by, the
overwhelmingly bourgeois crowd will continue to be *willingly* propagandized with the
Russophobic, Sinophobic and Iranophobic lies of commission and omission that regale them via
MSDNC, NPR, PBS, BBC and the so-called "progressive" press (e.g. The guardian, Jacobin, the
NYT).
These friends post pro-Demrat, pro-Russiagate, consider the choice to be between Warren
and Klobuchar (?), and concentrate their minds on *progressive* ideations: sexual
preference/"gender" identity/racial/ethnic identity and now and then a little on climate
change (especially via the "green ND" – saving capitalism being all consuming or
ignored). Never a word about income inequality, about the ongoing slaughter in Yemen, of the
ongoing, never-ending nightmare of Palestinian life, of what we have done to Libya, Iraq or
Afghanistan or are doing to Syria. Not a word about the immorality, illegality of our
economic sanctions against NK, VZ, Iran nooo. Nary a peep about what we (US-UK-AU) are doing
to Assange .
These really existing realities as lived by "others" whether the poor within these borders
or the darker hued folks far from these shores do *not* matter one iota, certainly not by
comparison with being able to vacation in this or that place, buy a bigger house, more
clothes, demonstrate one's *Progressiveness.*
I agree with the premise, that the NARRATIVE is the means by which oligarchy rules the
masses.
For example, we are now being inundated with the NARRATIVE that Iran is attacking Japanese
oil tankers. Pure nonsense, but the media is an adjunct of the bankster/military/oil
industrial complex.
Politicians are merely puppets doing the bidding of their pay masters.
Sam F , June 14, 2019 at 05:46
Yes, money control of mass media is the problem. Such articles may help some with doubts
to formulate an awareness that leads to admission of the problem. The major factor in
admissions is the rare direct experience, which may include a story close to home, a personal
loss due to narrative control. Of course the majority seek the mass media narrative because
it directs them to safety and profit in their social and economic dependent relationships.
Our unregulated market economy encourages the selfishness that enslaves the people to money
power. As Mencken stated (approx) "the common man avoids the truth [because] it is
dangerous, no good can come of it, and it doesn't pay."
I hope to set up a college of policy debate CPD constituted to protect all points of view,
and to conduct moderated text-only debate among experts of several disciplines, of the status
and possibilities of each world region, and the policy options. Debate summaries commented by
all sides are to be made available for public study and comment. The CPD would bring the
knowledge of society into public debate, educate the electorate, discourage propaganda, and
expose the wrongs of society and the corruption of government that desperately needs
reform.
The debates will require a higher standard of argument in foreign and domestic policy on
both right and left, ensure that all points of view are heard, and require all challenges to
be answered. This would have much reduced the group-think that led to our mad wars since
WWII. Extreme and naïve politicians will be easier to expose, and media commentators
will have a starting point and a standard for investigation and analysis.
Zhu , June 14, 2019 at 04:14
Americans are propagandized from childhood, and it's very hard for most to break free,
even if they want to. In my case, a rather abusive childhood made me disinclined to accept
conventional wisdom.
Donald Duck , June 14, 2019 at 03:18
"The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." I have forgotten who actually said this
but it seems appropriate for our age. I think the mass of people are very well aware of what
is going on. The proverbial man in the street is well aware that capitalism/politics is a
racket and openly say so.
The falling numbers in the 'democracies' who now bother to vote is an indication of
this, as is the growing political unrest in the heartlands of the Anglo-Zionist empire. It is
not possible to 'fool all of the people all of the time'. Whether they do anything about it
is another matter.
If note is taken of the David Icke phenomenon it is possible to identify a growing
awareness of the of ordinary people to the crimes of the rich and powerful.
These are dangerous times, but that is the usual condition when the structure of any
social and political order is beginning to crumble. Ultimately, the Anglo-Zionist empire is,
to use Lenin's description 'A colossus with feet of clay.' No empire lasts forever, and the
US is not exceptional in this respect. The real problem is that the demise of the US
hegemonic project will taken down the rest of the planet with it.
Zhu , June 14, 2019 at 04:21
"Quiet desperation" is ftom Thoreau. The colossus with the feet of clay is the Biblical
book of Daniel, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar.
Neither Reptilans nor Zionists make us Americans commit the crimes and follies we do. We
oirselves are responsible.
T.J , June 14, 2019 at 02:43
Caitlin Johnstone has concisely and precisely, in this article, provided a compendium of
ideas and sources to explain how the powerful through it's control of propaganda corrupts
democracy to the core. Laziness, ignorance and acceptance of the status quo prevents the vast
majority from acknowledging this to be the case. As Caitlin states it takes courage to reject
the "narrative control matrix " of the powerful and that can only be achieved by changing our
relationship with that narrative. This, of course, takes time and effort but is liberating
nonetheless.
They won't need to talk about Gabbard after the first debates, unless she can get polling
over 2% there will be no more for her. Like all the other 20 she will get her maybe broken 10
minutes of fame in the first debate, it won't be enough to really make a rational case for
anything probably. The Dems aren't generous like R's in having second tier debates, they cull
fast. Sanders yea he'll be around.
The problem with Warren's definition of capitalism, is when she describes herself as
capitalist, she pretends she literally has no idea what capitalism is. The ingenue! In her
description: it's about individuals trading, or corporations trading, or individuals trading
with corporations. When back in the world we live in it's about power and raw power
relations. Her definition of capitalism IS WAY WAY WAY more inaccurate than any definition
Bernie has of socialism which does approach some definitions of socialism. It's just zero
correspondence with reality for Warren.
Tucker Carlson asked whether someone can be elected if Google and Facebook don't want them
to be. His answer was No.
I think a similar question can be asked: "Can someone be elected if the DNC don't want
them to be?". Unfortunately for this election cycle I think the answer will also be No.
But it will set the stage for something bigger, and worse (from the PTB point of view).
Those who make gradual change impossible make revolutionary change inevitable" JFK
So if we haven't all been Raptured Up, 2024 is Year Zero for our New Thermidor.
Indeed she does. That New York Mag article was quite an accomplished hit-piece; now Tulsi
is possibly a Manchurian candidate from a twisted Krishna cult! Aside from the accurate quote
on the Blob cited by Lambert, this is perhaps the most disgusting piece of s**t on Gabbard
I've read yet -- and that's saying something. The reason is that it is so detailed and
skilled; it really demonstrates your point that they want to destroy her. The article
*pretends* to be sympathetic to her anti-interventionist stance in places (thus the Blob
quote), but the author actually draws selectively from her life -- mainly from past
acquaintances and relatives (who seem antagonistic) and almost nothing from Gabbard herself
-- to paint a picture of a strange and perhaps unstable character unknown to the general
public. Some of the questions raised might be legitimate, but that was not the purpose here.
Rather, bits and pieces of her life were selected to construct a finely crafted narrative
designed to destroy whatever credibility her anti-war position might have had among educated
liberal readers.
For those who want to know about Gabbard, watch the Joe Rogan interviews. For those who
want to deconstruct a first-rate character assassination, I highly recommend this article.
You are right, John. The nomenklatura are pulling out all the stops.
I agree, this article had "hit job" written all over it. The author spent as much time
discussing her father's guru as it did her from what I could tell. A piss-poor, and obvious,
attempt at Guilt By Association.
I actually went into "skim mode" after this leading paragraph statement,
Here are the details: Bashar al-Assad is a depraved dictator best known for his
willingness to murder his own people, including many children, with chemical weapons.
It was pretty obvious to me that the rest of the article would carry as much lie as this
statement so clearly did. It's too unfortunate that too many will fall for all this
tripe.
"... The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no legitimate public interest: ..."
"... could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition. ..."
"... Take a look at previous secretaries of state - leading American foreign policy - Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation destroying policies and mass deaths. The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the European nations and America and Iran. ..."
"... Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games. Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry on the Iran deal. Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life, including American troops dying? Ah no ..."
"... "Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. " ..."
"... It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with serious consequences. ..."
Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Daragahi
report on the response in Congress to the scandal
over State Department funding for the so-called Iran Disinformation Project:
United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that
has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and
accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime.
State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on
Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails.
Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of
troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad.
"It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that
attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of
escalation and conflict with Iran," a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on
condition of anonymity.
The State Department's
Global Engagement Center erred from the beginning by entrusting the effort to counter
Iranian regime propaganda to an outside contractor with such hard-line views. There was clearly
a failure to supervise what the contractor was doing with the funding provided by the
department, and the result was outsourcing the department's work to self-serving ideologues.
Had it not been for the public outcry and investigations by several of the people being
targeted by this department-funded operation, the department might not have realized what was
being done with its own resources until much later and it might not have acknowledged the error
at all.
The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the
smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents
because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no
legitimate public interest:
E-Collaborative for Civic Education, co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam
Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department contractor.
It purports to promote democratic political life and empower civil society inside Iran,
but it appears to have no presence inside the country and instead confines itself to engaging
with Iranians in the Diaspora.
In this case, the engagement with Iranians in the diaspora amounted to shouting abuse at
many of them and harassing those that didn't toe a certain ideological line. As the scandal
proves, hard-line regime changers have a very warped idea of what qualifies as pro-regime
rhetoric and who can be considered a regime supporter, and so it should come as no surprise
that this operation turned its ire on the many Iranian-American professionals that didn't get
with the hawkish program. This calls into question whether the department is capable of
countering disinformation from foreign governments without indulging the worst and most hawkish
people that want to use such efforts to settle scores against their fellow Americans. It is
good that Congress is looking into how this particular scandal happened, but there have to be
changes made to how the department runs the Global Engagement Center so that something like
this can't happen again.
One of the absurdities of this smear campaign is that it has targeted the very journalists
and analysts that have been far more effective in countering the Iranian government's false
claims through their reporting and analysis. The Iran Disinformation Project went after these
journalists and analysts because they refused to recite arguments in favor of regime change and
war. They were targeted because they were independent and credible observers and critics of
Iran and U.S. Iran policy, and that meant that they used their expertise and understanding of
the country to question the wisdom and efficacy of sanctions and spoke out against the folly of
military intervention. Iran hawks desperately need to discredit and smear people like this
because they pose a major threat to the promotion of the hawks' agenda. Fortunately, their
smear tactics aren't working very well these days.
How long before these Congressman are denounced as traitors by the likes of Tom Cotton. 'No
one can challenge me, I was in Iraq, how dare they shoot at me, it's my country not theirs.'
I think American citizens should engage their own State Department with lawsuits and criminal
indictments. The legal discovery process should air the place out quite nicely.
It's kind of odd that this is something that's being highlighted and looked into, considering
the total lack of interest in charging Bolton, Dean, Giuliani, Ridge, and others for their
material support to terrorists when they were promoting MEK when it was still on the FTO
list.
" .the department might not have realized what was being done with its own resources until
much later and it might not have acknowledged the error at all."
Oh well. We all make mistakes. Or could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a
bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition.
Take a look at previous secretaries of state -
leading American foreign policy -
Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation
destroying policies and mass deaths.
The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the
sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the
European nations and America and Iran.
The above three were truly terrible people to have representing the U.S. They bullied and
gloated about the deaths in other nations:
see Albright defending the deaths of children in Iraq due to sanctions and Hillary laughing
at the deaths and mayhem in Libya.
Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games.
Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry
on the Iran deal.
Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life,
including American troops dying?
Ah no
To your point, what I enjoyed about John Kerry was his full throated effort to bring back the
ideal of what the State Department is supposed to be doing that is, using the mechanisms of
diplomacy to make peace and increase communication.
All the other Sec States felt like they wished they were part of the military.
Don't give me this "Global Engagement Center" crap. Pompeo? "Global Engagement"?
It's simple. Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform
the American public and smear American citizens. The next step is obvious. Find who did it
and throw them in prison.
"Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform
the American public and smear American citizens. "
It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired
foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to
kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with
serious consequences.
Gabbard (D)(1): "Tulsi Gabbard Had a Very Strange Childhood" [ New York
Magazine ]. " A Hindu veteran and millennial congresswoman of Samoan descent hailing from
Hawaii, [Gabbard] brings together disparate constituencies: most noticeably, Bernie Sanders
fans who love that she resigned from the Democratic National Committee to endorse him in 2016,
but also libertarians who appreciate her noninterventionism, Indian-Americans taken by her
professed Hinduism, veterans attracted to her credibility on issues of war and peace, and
racists who interpret various statements she has made to be promising indications of
Islamophobia.
That she is polling at one percent, sandwiched between Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar,
suggests that bringing together these constituencies is not nearly enough, but the intensity of
emotion she provokes on all sides sets her apart. When FiveThirtyEight asked 60 Democratic
Party activists whom they didn't want to win, Tulsi Gabbard came in first out of 17
candidates." • Also, Gabbard is a self-described introvert (a plus in my book). And then
there's this:
The most obvious obstacle between any noninterventionist candidate and mainstream success
is D.C.'s foreign-policy Establishment -- the think-tankers and politicians and media
personalities and intelligence professionals and defense-company contractors and, very often,
intelligence professionals turned defense-company contractors who determine the bounds of
acceptable thinking on war and peace. In parts of D.C., this Establishment is called "the
Blob," and to stray beyond its edges is to risk being deemed "unserious," which as a woman
candidate one must be very careful not to be.
The Blob may in 2019 acknowledge that past American wars of regime change for which it
enthusiastically advocated have been disastrous, but it somehow maintains faith in the
tantalizing possibilities presented by new ones.
The Blob loves to "stand for" things, especially "leadership" and "democracy." The Blob
loves to assign moral blame, loves signaling virtue while failing to follow up on civilian
deaths, and definitely needs you to be clear on "who the enemy is" -- a kind of obsessive
deontological approach in which naming things is more important than cataloguing the effects
of any particular policy.
It's fair to say that whoever The Blob is for -- ***cough*** Hillary Clinton ***cough*** --
should be approached with a hermaneutic of suspicion.
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard took the media to task for what she called
biased and misleading coverage of her campaign, arguing the facts no longer matter to some
outlets. Speaking at an event in New York recently, Tulsi said the press had given up on any
semblance of balanced or accurate reporting, replacing news coverage with panels of jabbering
pundits.
Instead of factual reporting, she said: "We see opinions, we see panels of people on all
the news channels – I don't care which one you watch – sharing their
opinions."
tulsi mocking george stephanopoulos is one of the greatest things you'll hear from any
of the candidates pic.twitter.com/aIBxWyZ5t1
The 2020 hopeful also described what she said were intentional smear efforts against her
campaign in the media.
"Me and my campaign have been on the receiving end of very intentional smear efforts
trying to undermine our campaign coming through, you know, NBC News quoting articles that are
completely baseless," Gabbard said.
She referred to a recent interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, wherein the pundit
echoed the suggestion that Gabbard's campaign was boosted by "Putin apologists."
"Well, you know, this article in the Daily Beast says Putin supports your campaign,"
she said, imitating Stephanopolous's question in the interview.
An article "based on what?" she asked the audience in New York rhetorically.
"Nothing. Really, nothing."
The story in question intimated that Gabbard's presidential bid was backed by "Kremlin
sympathizers," such as the Nation magazine's Stephen F. Cohen, an expert in international
relations who argues for better ties between the US and Russia.
Gabbard has come under fire for her foreign policy positions, such as her call for detente
between the US and other nuclear-armed states like Russia. Tulsi's opposition to US regime
change policies have also made her a target in some quarters. After refusing to endorse
American efforts to topple the Syrian government, she was branded as an 'apologist' for Syria's
President Bashar Assad.
This is a typical Trump. He understands that "protection of Germany" is a profitable "protection racket" for the USA, but still lies.
Notable quotes:
"... U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said during a visit to Ukraine in May that he expected Congress to prepare legislation to sanction companies involved in the pipeline's construction. ..."
U.S. president reiterates threats over Nord Stream 2 project
Russia says efforts to block pipeline amount to 'blackmail'
'Germany Is Making a Tremendous Mistake by Relying on Pipeline,' says Trump 'Germany Is Making a Tremendous Mistake by Relying on
Pipeline,' says Trump Close Share
Donald Trump upped his criticism of Germany on
Wednesday as he threatened sanctions over Angela Merkel's continued support for a gas pipeline from Russia and warned that he could
shift troops away from the NATO ally over its defense spending.
Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he's looking at sanctions to block the
project he's warned would leave Berlin "captive" to Moscow. The U.S. also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany.
"We're protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money from Germany" for its gas,
Trump told reporters at the White House during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
The comments were the latest sign of how U.S.-German ties have eroded in recent years. The U.S. president has repeatedly rebuked
Merkel's government over the pipeline project, trade policies and defense spending. Germany, in turn, has criticized Trump's moves
to abandon international agreements, including on climate change and Iran.
Though he didn't say which companies or governments could potentially face sanctions, Trump's comments about the pipeline generated
a swift response from Moscow, which said the American president was engaging in "nothing other than blackmail and a form of unfair
competition," according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Merkel and Trump met most recently last week during anniversary celebrations of the 1944 D-Day invasion. That gathering came days
after the EU's longest-serving leader took Trump to task at a commencement address at Harvard University, urging students to "tear
down walls" and not to treat "lies as truth." Without naming the U.S. leader, Merkel left little doubt as to whom she might mean
to a crowd who cheered her on.
U.S. opposition to the gas pipeline is bipartisan, out of concern that Russia could use its supplies of natural gas to exert pressure
on Western European nations dependent on the fuel. U.S. lawmakers also fear that with an added northern pipeline for its gas, Russia
could more easily cut off fuel to Ukraine, which is now a key transit country to Europe.
"Germany is making a tremendous mistake" by relying on the pipeline from Russia, Trump said during a joint news conference with
Duda.
Regardless of the political controversy, the Nord Stream 2 project has
faced delays and may not be ready to transport gas until the second half of 2020, according to a report made public by Denmark's
Energy Agency.
Nord Stream 2 organizers argue a new pipeline is needed to guarantee supplies will continue to flow in the coming decades as EU
domestic reserves shrink and import needs rise. Opponents of the project say it hurts the bloc's cohesion and weakens its Energy
Union strategy aimed at integrating the region's gas and power markets, diversifying energy supplies and improving security.
Uniper SE, Engie SA, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, OMV AG and BASF SE's Wintershall are European partners of Russia's Gazprom PJSC in
financing the project to expand Nord Stream by 55 billion cubic meters a year. Russia supplies a third of Europe's gas and has no
plans to give up its share to the expanding list of competitors from Norway to the U.S.
Trump, speaking during the news conference Wednesday, said that Poland signed a contract to purchase an additional $8 billion
of liquefied natural gas from U.S. companies, on top of $25 billion already under contract.
Trump said he'll meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Japan at the end of the month, though
its not clear the pipeline project will be on their agenda.
2016 data. Source: Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said during a visit to Ukraine in May that he expected Congress to prepare legislation to sanction
companies involved in the pipeline's construction.
Senators Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, have drafted a bill that would target U.S.
sanctions at vessels laying the pipeline and deny U.S. visas to executives from companies linked to the ships. The legislation would
also block transactions in U.S.-based property or interests belonging to those individuals and would penalize entities that provide
insurance to the project.
In the latest sign of Trump's frustration over German defense spending, the president said he's discussed sending as many as 2,000
more U.S. troops to Poland -- and might take them from Germany since he believes Berlin isn't spending enough on defense as a partner
in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. There are more than 30,000 U.S. troops in Germany.
Under an agreement reached during the Obama administration, NATO members committed to spending 2% of GDP on defense by the mid-2020s,
a level only seven
nations were estimated to have reached in 2018.
"Germany's at 1%, they should be at 2%," Trump said. According to NATO documents, spent about 1.2 percent of GDP on defense in
2018.
The U.S. already has a few thousand troops in Poland as part of its role in NATO. Trump's move, if carried out, would add to that,
but it wasn't clear if the forces would be permanently based there or just rotated through.
-- With assistance by Daryna Krasnolutska, Nick Wadhams, Daniel Flatley, Stepan Kravchenko, Ewa Krukowska, and Vanessa Dezem
"... Comey said in an interview that he used tactics he would not ordinarily use because the then fledgling Trump administration was unorganized at the beginning. Basically, he and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discouraged Flynn from asking White House general counsel to sit in on the interview. Flynn, according to several source with knowledge, had no idea he was being targeted by the FBI for an investigation. ..."
"... Weissmann served as Mueller's second in command for the special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign, despite the fact that his tactics have been highly criticized by both judges and colleagues. He was called unscrupulous and has had several significant issues raised about how he operated during the Mueller inquiry into Trump campaign officials, including Flynn. ..."
"... Powell has openly stated in columns and on cable networks that Weissmann's dirty tactics of withholding exculpatory evidence and threatening witnesses to garner prosecutions should have had him disbarred long ago. ..."
"... Flynn plead guilty after Mueller [ Weissmann ] threatened Flynn's family, including his son Michael Jr. According to sources close to Flynn family, Mueller threatened Flynn on multiple occasions that if he did not plead guilty to lying to the FBI, Mueller would investigate other Flynn family members, including his son. ..."
"... I sent them. Something we've, I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized administration," Comey said. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe made a similar statement regarding Flynn, which was uncovered by congressional investigators. ..."
"... Five Ways "Dirty Cop Mueller" Played Americans For Complete Fools . . . https://youtu.be/-YYmSIoCp50 ..."
"... The world's greatest liars and scum prosecuting someone for telling a lie. Seth Rich https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/12/why-didnt-mueller-investigate-seth-rich/ ..."
"... Mark Meadows destroys The Mueller Coverup . . . https://youtu.be/iPgPgev7Yd4 ..."
"... Sidney Powell Rips Into Mueller https://youtu.be/udRqsEa2N9E ..."
Embattled Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has hired well known defense attorney Sidney Powell to represent him before his sentencing hearing
in Washington D.C.'s federal court . Flynn, who fired his attorney's last week, will still fully cooperate with the government in
all cases pending, Powell
told SaraACarter.com.
Flynn's former legal counsel Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony offered no explanation for their abrupt dismissal telling
SaraACarter.com
they "decline to comment."
"He is and will continue to cooperate with the government in all aspects," Powell told
SaraACarter.com.
"He and his family truly appreciate all the cards and letters of support from countless people and the contributions to the
defense fund which are even more important now."
Powell noted that Flynn's case file, "is massive" and "it will take me at least 90 days to review it."
Kelner and Anthony submitted a two-page motion last week to the federal judge. Flynn's sentencing will be based on his 2017 guilty
plea to special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors for one count of lying to the FBI.
The guilty plea has been a source of contention in news reports, after evidence and testimony surfaced that the FBI special agents
that interviewed Flynn in January, 2017 didn't believe he was lying. Both former
FBI Special Agent
Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent
Joe Pientka interviewed Flynn about his phone conversation with then Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The interview
was conducted just as Flynn began his then role as National Security Advisor for Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey joked about the bureau's interview with Flynn.
Comey said in an interview that he used tactics he would not ordinarily use because the then fledgling Trump administration
was unorganized at the beginning. Basically, he and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discouraged Flynn from asking White
House general counsel to sit in on the interview. Flynn, according to several source with knowledge, had no idea he was being targeted
by the FBI for an investigation.
"I sent them. Something we've, I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized administration,"
Comey said. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe made a similar statement regarding Flynn, which was uncovered by congressional
investigators.
Flynn's attorneys said
in the filing that they had been notified "he is terminating Covington & Burling LLP as his counsel and has already retained new
counsel for this matter."
Powell is the author of the New York Times best seller and tell-all book
Licensed To Lie, which exposed the corruption within the justice system. The book is based on the case Powell won against prosecutor
Andrew Weissmann, when he was deputy and later director of the Enron Task Force.
Weissmann served as Mueller's second in command for the special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign, despite the
fact that his tactics have been highly criticized by both judges and colleagues. He was called unscrupulous and has had several significant
issues raised about how he operated during the Mueller inquiry into Trump campaign officials, including Flynn.
He prosecuted the accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, which ended in the collapse of the firm and 85,000 jobs lost world wide.
Maureen Mahoney took the case to the Supreme Court, and Powell consulted. Mahoney overturned Weissmann's conviction and the decision
was
reversed unanimously by the court.
Powell has openly stated in columns and on cable networks that Weissmann's dirty tactics of withholding exculpatory evidence
and threatening witnesses to garner prosecutions should have had him disbarred long ago.
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Powell has openly stated in columns and on cable networks that Weissmann's dirty tactics of withholding exculpatory evidence
and threatening witnesses to garner prosecutions should have had him disbarred long ago.
Flynn plead guilty after Mueller [ Weissmann ] threatened Flynn's family, including his son Michael Jr. According to sources
close to Flynn family, Mueller threatened Flynn on multiple occasions that if he did not plead guilty to lying to the FBI, Mueller
would investigate other Flynn family members, including his son.
Good people tend to talk to law enforcement because they naively believe that people in government and LE have good intentions
and follow the rule of law. A lot of people get screwed trying to legitimately help, sad as that is.
I sent them. Something we've, I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized administration,"
Comey said. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe made a similar statement regarding Flynn, which was uncovered by congressional
investigators.
Well Comeboy, we will keep that in mind when you are brought before a jury of your peers. Make sure you have a good lawyer.
******* incredible. Why on earth is our government so filled with sociopaths. What have we done to deserve this level of treatment?
I hope the whole cabal ends up in jail.
If you don't think treason matters, Weissman's games with Alaskan senator Ted Stevens caused a Democrat to get elected in a
red state and was the 60th vote needed for Obama care.
Although I wasn't enamored with the amount of military personnel Trump initially chose for his cabinet, Flynn didn't feel like
the same type as McMaster and Kelly. I hope he can get his name cleared
Unless we drain the swamp, decent people will be discouraged from entering public service. They've dragged this man through
the mud while conflicted high level bureaucrats, corrupt FBI types, the DNC, the Clintons, and all the other pieces of swamp crap
are still basking in the sunshine.
Let's not forget the rabidly over-the-top military assaults on elderly people in the middle of the night. Although I doubt
he ever tried that on some mafia guy. Just solid citizens.
In announcing that DOJ had declined to prosecuted this unnamed high-ranking FBI official, the inspector general also said that
the case in question had been referenced in the IG's earlier report on the FBI's activities leading up to the 2016 election.
"The OIG investigation," said a summary released
by the OIG , "concluded that the DAD engaged in misconduct when the DAD: (1) disclosed to the media the existence of information
that had been filed under seal in federal court, in violation of 18 USC 401, Contempt of Court; (2) provided without authorization
FBI law enforcement sensitive information to reporters on multiple occasions; and (3) had dozens of official contacts with the
media without authorization, in violation of FBI policy."
I get that the DOJ punted, but Barr is going to fry his ***, so unlike the presentation you depict, they are still going after
this ****
Nice attempt at deception
Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 54 minutes ago
link
"In announcing that DOJ had declined to prosecuted this unnamed high-ranking FBI official"
That's Barr's DOJ that decided to not prosecute an unnamed deputy assistant director of the FBI that was found to have leaked
information which is misconduct! Unless that person is cooperating with the investigation- THAT'S ********!
This is beautiful! A lot of legal luminaries will have the opportunity to bring their brilliant minds to the table, to help
repair the laws of the Republic.. Let them tackle issues such as privacy, spying on citizens, the Patriot Act, unreasonable seizures
and searches, police brutality, home/office invasions etc.
If such a battlefield is provided (legal battlefields), perhaps we might contrive a delay in "cessation" of dissemination.
Let Comey and the others lawyer up too, the hammer is gonna drop, and let the executive lawyer up as well, we're gonna restore
the foundation of the Republic!
What took you so long Sidney Powell? Life is good, battle beckons!
Let's have at it, restoration of Law, that is, cheers...
I enjoy listening to Sidney Powell speak on this matter.
She's got guts, and with the smarts required to win against these criminals running everything. I hope she has good security.
She's someone I'd not want to go up against in a courtroom.
How they treated Flynn was a disgrace. Just think of how law enforcement treats the average citizen with no power and no publicity
to shine light on their cases. I hope they slam these guys. I would say that the judges in cases like these should be throwing
cases like this out. The courts have become politicized and a lot of judges need to be shown the door as well.
This just in from the Big Island. The natives seem restless.
"Imagine if you will, in a few short years, that information on current events will only be available from a narrow band of sources
sanctioned by the government/corporate media. And this Orwellian future will be embraced by the majority of people because it
provides security, both ideological and emotional.
Any dissension, criticism, whistle-blowing, anti-exceptionalism coming from critical voices will be labeled extremist. And
this has been embraced by the two monopoly political parties.
I just received a questionnaire from the Democrats posing the question, "What's the most important issue in the upcoming
election?"
The very first multiple choice answer to pick from was - "Russian aggression and increasing global influence" Russia, a country with a small population and an economy that is a fraction of the US or Europe is our dire threat? Let's
just ignore the expansion of NATO onto Russia's borders, or that the US State Dept. spent 5 billion dollar to change the politics
of Ukraine.
Second most important issue asked on the questionnaire, "Protecting America from foreign cyber attacks" Let's ignore
the fact that the NSA is spying on all Internet traffic, that the CIA has misinformation programs like, "Operation Mockingbird"
and many other covert activities to influence perceptions domestically.
The third Democratic Party priority question is "China's increasing economic and military strength" China's state controlled
mercantile success lies directly on the twin shoulders of the US Government and it's multi-national corporations. The US granted
China, Most Favored Nation status in 1979, which gave it exposure to US markets with low tariffs. Almost immediately, corporations
went to China and invested in factories because of the cheap Chinese labor while abandoning the US worker. And in May 2000 Bill
Clinton backed a bipartisan effort to grant China permanent normal trade relations, effectively backing its bid to join the WTO.
We live in a country whereby the US Government has made it possible for corporations to pay little or no taxes, to be deregulated
from government laws designed to protect the public, and allow corporate crimes to go unpunished while maintaining vast influence
over the political system through campaign contributions and corporate ownership of the mass media.
This US Government/corporate partnership smells a lot like Fascism. Instead of Mussolini we have Trumpolini. And so our time's
brand of corporatism has descended over the eroding infrastructure of America."
"Cult leaders [demagogues] arise from decayed communities and societies in which people have
been shorn of political, social and economic power. The disempowered, infantilized by a world
they cannot control, gravitate to cult leaders who appear omnipotent and promise a return to a
mythical golden age.
The cult leaders vow to crush the forces, embodied in demonized groups and individuals, that
are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous the cult leaders become, the more they flout
law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity.
Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult
leaders demand a God-like power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the hope that
the cult leaders will save them."
Chris Hedges, Cult of Trump
"Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington
liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders
offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market
hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation."
Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion
"We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to
protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable, to solve problems once
considered unsolvable. We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic
epidemics just as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master
epidemics of disease. We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by
the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster. In this we Americans were discovering no
wholly new truth; we were writing a new chapter in our book of self-government.
Franklin Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address
"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but
rather deliberate actions by the [corporatist] government to redistribute income from the rest
of us to the one percent."
So Russiagater was not fired. Madcow was promoted to more freely spead her "Madcow desease"
(Neo-McCarthysim actually) into unsuspecting public ...
Notable quotes:
"... Almost none of the "celebrity" tv journalists have earned one sniff of their regard by having a sufficient amount of smarts, insight, and humility it requires to deliver the news. Especially in trying times like these. ..."
"... She's a borderline conspiracy theorist and more of a star than a newswoman. ..."
"... In what alternate universe does Maddow even have a hint of non-bias? She is not a journalist. ..."
"... maddow is all about opinion, hers, and the one given out to msm by the dem party everyday. aka : the meme of the day. maddow is an partisan idiot. always was, always will be ..."
On Tuesday, NBC announced that its lineup of moderators will include Rachel Maddow of
MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show , Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News and Dateline
NBC, José Diaz-Balart of Noticias Telemundo and NBC Nightly News
Saturday , Savannah Guthrie of Today , and Chuck Todd of Meet the Press .
... ... ...
UltraViolet Action co-founder and executive director Shaunna Thomas praised the moderator
decision to the Cut. "NBC's decision to ensure that four out of the five moderators for the
first Democratic presidential primary debate are women or people of color is a huge win for
representation at the debates and a welcome change from the status quo," Thomas said in a
statement. She also stated that she hopes other networks follow suit.
Cags
Almost none of the "celebrity" tv journalists have earned one sniff of their regard by having
a sufficient amount of smarts, insight, and humility it requires to deliver the news.
Especially in trying times like these.
joaniesausquoi, 3 hours ago
Whattya got against Rachel, Cags?
Cags, 2 hours ago
She's a borderline conspiracy theorist and more of a star than a newswoman.
Daxter , 6 hours ago (Edited)
In what alternate universe does Maddow even have a hint of non-bias? She is not a
journalist.
Having Rachel Maddow moderate is like having Sean Hannity moderate.
indigo710, 5 hours ago
maddow is all about opinion, hers, and the one given out to msm by the dem party
everyday. aka : the meme of the day. maddow is an partisan idiot. always was, always will
be . "lawer" is spelled "lawyer".
"... Article 2 (subsection 4)- "All members shall refrain .from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state ." ..."
"... During WWII, our notion of "settler colonialism" (from earlier era's) mutated into "Nazi Lebensraum" and subsequently became outlawed by the entire known world as a supreme evil. ..."
"... Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest" as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum". ..."
"... Today, when people refer to Israels "eastward" expansion (through conquest) of the Palestinian territories, .the term "Lebensraum" simply vanishes from the English vernacular. ..."
Is it " SETTLER COLONIALISM" or is it "LEBENSRAUM" ?
I am sure Mr. Shenker is a bright man , and I wonder how he would distinguish the
difference between these two ideas, don't you ?
Here is my understanding.
LEBENSRAUM (or literally "living space") was both the central and dominant principle
driving Nazi Germany throughout WWII. Hitler believed that Eastern Europe had to be
"conquered" in order to create a "Greater German Empire"otherwise known as " The Third
Reich".
[a note to specialists on WWII .. This is most generally the accepted narrative by most of
the world]
After WWII, both "war of aggression" and "territorial expansion through conquest" became
the "supreme crimes"of the civilized world . and were ratified as such, in Article two of the
UN charter.
Article 2 (subsection 4)- "All members shall refrain .from the threat or use of force
against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state ."
SETTLER COLONIALISM is best understood as the westward expansion of European Nations
throughout North (and South) America from the 15th century to the 19th century.
So what is the "essential" difference between the two ideas ?
The answer is simple "Dates"
When Europeans expanded "westward" into the "new world" three centuries ago , it wasn't
considered a "CRIME" to do so by anybody.
During WWII, our notion of "settler colonialism" (from earlier era's) mutated into "Nazi
Lebensraum" and subsequently became outlawed by the entire known world as a supreme evil.
Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker
throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest"
as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum".
Why not ? Strange, ..isn't it ?
They, mysteriously, harken back (and utilize) the term "settler colonialism" as if to
soften and muddy the criminality of the act .. by referencing an earlier era when such
behavior wasn't considered a "crime".
Today, when people refer to Israels "eastward" expansion (through conquest) of the
Palestinian territories, .the term "Lebensraum" simply vanishes from the English
vernacular.
It just DISAPPEARS .
It is as though both its meaning , and the catastrophic horrors of WWII, never existed at
all.
Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker
throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest"
as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum".
Very astute comment. "Chosen" semantics is part of the aggression war strategy.
The author is a very fuzzy way comes to the idea that neoliberalism is in essence a Trotskyism for the rich and that
neoliberals want to use strong state to enforce the type of markets they want from above. That included free movement of
capital goods and people across national borders. All this talk about "small government" is just a smoke screen for naive fools.
"... The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state. ..."
"... Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology, contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy. ..."
"... One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among many rather than the big Other of regulation as such. ..."
"... I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople. ..."
"... They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw in the aspirations of the decolonizing world. ..."
"... The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people, whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place. ..."
"... The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. ..."
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 16, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674979524
ISBN-13: 978-0674979529
From introduction
...The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of
those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying
congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after
the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state.
There is truth to both of these explanations. Both presuppose a kind of materialist explanation of history with which I have no
problem. In my book, though, I take another approach. What I found is that we could not understand the inner logic of something like
the WTO without considering the whole history of the twentieth century. What I also discovered is that some of the members of the
neoliberal movement from the 1930s onward, including Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, did not use either of the explanations
I just mentioned. They actually didn't say that economic growth excuses everything. One of the peculiar things about Hayek, in particular,
is that he didn't believe in using aggregates like GDP -- the very measurements that we need to even say what growth is.
What I found is that neoliberalism as a philosophy is less a doctrine of economics than a doctrine of ordering -- of creating
the institutions that provide for the reproduction of the totality [of financial elite control of the state]. At the core of the strain I describe is not the idea that we
can quantify, count, price, buy and sell every last aspect of human existence. Actually, here it gets quite mystical. The Austrian
and German School of neoliberals in particular believe in a kind of invisible world economy that cannot be captured in numbers
and figures but always escapes human comprehension.
After all, if you can see something, you can plan it. Because of the very limits to our knowledge, we have to default to ironclad
rules and not try to pursue something as radical as social justice, redistribution, or collective transformation. In a globalized
world, we must give ourselves over to the forces of the market, or the whole thing will stop working.
So this is quite a different version of neoliberal thought than the one we usually have, premised on the abstract of individual
liberty or the freedom to choose. Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to
the global forces of the market.
One of the core arguments of my book is that we can only understand the internal coherence of neoliberalism if we see it as a
doctrine as concerned with the whole as the individual. Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology,
contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft
institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy.
To me, the metaphor of encasement makes much more sense than the usual idea of markets set free, liberated or unfettered. How
can it be that in an era of proliferating third party arbitration courts, international investment law, trade treaties and regulation
that we talk about "unfettered markets"? One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among
many rather than the big Other of regulation as such.
What I explore in Globalists is how we can think of the WTO as the latest in a long series of institutional fixes proposed
for the problem of emergent nationalism and what neoliberals see as the confusion between sovereignty -- ruling a country -- and
ownership -- owning the property within it.
I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations
by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to
nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople.
They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic
actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I
show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw
in the aspirations of the decolonizing world.
Perhaps the lasting image of globalization that the book leaves is that world capitalism has produced a doubled world -- a world
of imperium (the world of states) and a world of dominium (the world of property). The best way to understand neoliberal globalism
as a project is that it sees its task as the never-ending maintenance of this division. The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that
the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people,
whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place.
The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like
a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. The book acts
as a kind of field guide to these institutions and, in the process, hopefully recasts the 20th century that produced them.
3.0 out of 5 stars
One half of a decent book May 14, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase This is a rather
interesting look at the political and economic ideas of a circle of important economists, including Hayek and von Mises, over
the course of the last century. He shows rather convincingly that conventional narratives concerning their idea are wrong. That
they didn't believe in a weak state, didn't believe in the laissez-faire capitalism or believe in the power of the market. That
they saw mass democracy as a threat to vested economic interests.
The core beliefs of these people was in a world where money, labor and products could flow across borders without any limit.
Their vision was to remove these subjects (tariffs, immigration and controls on the movement of money) from the control of the
democracy-based nation-state and instead vesting them in international organizations. International organizations which were by
their nature undemocratic and beyond the influence of democracy. That rather than rejecting government power, what they rejected
was national government power. They wanted weak national governments but at the same time strong undemocratic international organizations
which would gain the powers taken from the state.
The other thing that characterized many of these people was a rather general rejection of economics. While some of them are
(at least in theory) economists, they rejected the basic ideas of economic analysis and economic policy. The economy, to them,
was a mystical thing beyond any human understanding or ability to influence in a positive way. Their only real belief was in "bigness".
The larger the market for labor and goods, the more economically prosperous everyone would become. A unregulated "global" market
with specialization across borders and free migration of labor being the ultimate system.
The author shows how, over a period extending from the 1920s to the 1990s, these ideas evolved from marginal academic ideas
to being dominant ideas internationally. Ideas that are reflected today in the structure of the European Union, the WTO (World
Trade Organization) and the policies of most national governments. These ideas, which the author calls "neoliberalism", have today
become almost assumptions beyond challenge. And even more strangely, the dominating ideas of the political left in most of the
west.
The author makes the point, though in a weak way, that the "fathers" of neoliberalism saw themselves as "restoring" a lost
golden age. That golden age being (roughly) the age of the original industrial revolution (the second half of the 1800s). And
to the extent that they have been successful they have done that. But at the same time, they have brought back all the political
and economic questions of that era as well.
In reading it, I started to wonder about the differences between modern neoliberalism and the liberal political movement during
the industrial revolution. I really began to wonder about the actual motives of "reform" liberals in that era. Were they genuinely
interested in reforms during that era or were all the reforms just cynical politics designed to enhance business power at the
expense of other vested interests. Was, in particular, the liberal interest in political reform and franchise expansion a genuine
move toward political democracy or simply a temporary ploy to increase their political power. If one assumes that the true principles
of classic liberalism were always free trade, free migration of labor and removing the power to governments to impact business,
perhaps its collapse around the time of the first world war is easier to understand.
He also makes a good point about the EEC and the organizations that came before the EU. Those organizations were as much about
protecting trade between Europe and former European colonial possessions as they were anything to do with trade within Europe.
To me at least, the analysis of the author was rather original. In particular, he did an excellent job of showing how the ideas
of Hayek and von Mises have been distorted and misunderstood in the mainstream. He was able to show what their ideas were and
how they relate to contemporary problems of government and democracy.
But there are some strong negatives in the book. The author offers up a complete virtue signaling chapter to prove how the
neoliberals are racists. He brings up things, like the John Birch Society, that have nothing to do with the book. He unleashes
a whole lot of venom directed at American conservatives and republicans mostly set against a 1960s backdrop. He does all this
in a bad purpose: to claim that the Kennedy Administration was somehow a continuation of the new deal rather than a step toward
neoliberalism. His blindness and modern political partisanship extended backward into history does substantial damage to his argument
in the book. He also spends an inordinate amount of time on the political issues of South Africa which also adds nothing to the
argument of the book. His whole chapter on racism is an elaborate strawman all held together by Ropke. He also spends a large
amount of time grinding some sort of Ax with regard to the National Review and William F. Buckley.
He keeps resorting to the simple formula of finding something racist said or written by Ropke....and then inferring that anyone
who quoted or had anything to do with Ropke shared his ideas and was also a racist. The whole point of the exercise seems to be
to avoid any analysis of how the democratic party (and the political left) drifted over the decades from the politics of the New
Deal to neoliberal Clintonism.
Then after that, he diverts further off the path by spending many pages on the greatness of the "global south", the G77 and
the New International Economic Order (NIEO) promoted by the UN in the 1970s. And whatever many faults of neoliberalism, Quinn
Slobodian ends up standing for a worse set of ideas: International Price controls, economic "reparations", nationalization, international
trade subsidies and a five-year plan for the world (socialist style economic planning at a global level). In attaching himself
to these particular ideas, he kills his own book. The premise of the book and his argument was very strong at first. But by around
p. 220, its become a throwback political tract in favor of the garbage economic and political ideas of the so-called third world
circa 1974 complete with 70's style extensive quotations from "Senegalese jurists"
Once the political agenda comes out, he just can't help himself. He opens the conclusion to the book taking another cheap shot
for no clear reason at William F. Buckley. He spends alot of time on the Seattle anti-WTO protests from the 1990s. But he has
NOTHING to say about BIll Clinton or Tony Blair or EU expansion or Obama or even the 2008 economic crisis for that matter. Inexplicably
for a book written in 2018, the content of the book seems to end in the year 2000.
I'm giving it three stars for the first 150 pages which was decent work. The second half rates zero stars. Though it could
have been far better if he had written his history of neoliberalism in the context of the counter-narrative of Keynesian economics
and its decline. It would have been better yet if the author had the courage to talk about the transformation of the parties of
the left and their complicity in the rise of neoliberalism. The author also tends to waste lots of pages repeating himself or
worse telling you what he is going to say next. One would have expected a better standard of editing by the Harvard Press.
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The book follow the Austrians from the beginning in the Habsburgischer empire to the beginning rebellion against the WTO. However,
most importantly it follows the thinking and the thoughts behind the building of a global empire of capitalism with free trade,
capital and rights. All the way to the new "human right" to trade. It narrows down what neoliberal thought really consist of and
indirectly make a differentiation to the neoclassical economic tradition.
What I found most interesting is the turn from economics to law - and the conceptual distinctions between the genes, tradition,
reason, which are translated into a quest for a rational and reason based protection of dominium (the rule of property) against
the overreach of imperium (the rule of states/people). This distinction speaks directly to the issues that EU is currently facing.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A historian with an agenda October 22, 2018 Format: Hardcover Author is covering Mises, Hayek, Machlup in Vienna. How to produce
order once the Habsburg empire had been broken after 1918? They pioneered data gathering about the economy. However, such data
came to be used by the left as well. This forced the people mentioned to become intellectual thinkers as opposed to something
else(??). I like how the author is situating the people in a specific era, but he is reading history backwards. The book moves
on, but stays in Central Europe. Ordocapitalism followed after Hitler. It was a German attempt to have a both strong state and
strong by market, which given Europe's fragmentation required international treaties. This was seen as a way to avoid another
Hitler. Later, international organisations like IMF and TWO became the new institutions that embedded the global markets. The
book ends in the 90s. So in reading history backwards, the author finds quotations of Mises and Hayek that "prove" that they were
aiming to create intellectual cover for the global financial elite of the 2010s.
Nevertheless, the book is interesting if you like the history of ideas. He frames the questions intelligently in the historical
context at the time. However a huge question-mark for objectivity. The book is full of lefty dog whistles: the war making state,
regulation of capitalism, reproducing the power of elites, the problem [singular] of capitalism. In a podcast the author states
point blank "I wanted the left to see what the enemy was up too". I find it pathetic that authors are so blatantly partisan. How
can we know whether he is objective when he doesn't even try? He dismissively claims that the neoliberal thinkers gave cover to
what has become the globalist world order. So why should we not consider the current book as intellectual cover for some "new
left" that is about to materialise? Maybe the book is just intellectual cover for the globalist elite being educated in left-wing
private colleges.
Trump was eager to boast about Moscow's withdrawal of its troops from Venezuela, but it
turned out that he or someone else in the administration just made it up:
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it didn't know where U.S. President Donald Trump had got the
idea Moscow had removed most of its military specialists from Venezuela, who it said
continued to work there.
Trump tweeted on Monday that Russia had told the United States it had removed "most of
their people" from Venezuela, where Moscow has maintained close military and economic ties
with socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his ultimatum to
remove their forces from the country. It isn't surprising that he would try to spin any
development in his favor, but in this case it seems that he just invented something out of thin
air so that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless. He has no genuine successes
that he can talk about, so he has to have pretend victories instead. The original tweet is
still up:
Claiming that "Russia informed" him of this thing that didn't happen makes it even sillier,
because it immediately prompted the Russian government to announce that they couldn't have
informed Trump about something that hadn't occurred. Now that Russia has corrected the record,
the president looks even more ridiculous than usual.
This episode isn't that important by itself, but it shows how easily Trump can be convinced
of the reality of things that haven't happened and how readily he will accept any story, no
matter how unfounded it may be, if it flatters him and bolsters his agenda. That makes him
unusually easy to manipulate and provoke, and it makes him an exceptionally easy mark for
misinformation. That puts the president's decision-making completely at the mercy of the
advisers that control what he sees and hears.
that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless.
Not a Trump fan, but is Trump's Venezuela policy feckless? Or just Trump somehow
understands that it is not our problem and/or military intervention is just a bad investment.
For the life of me, I don't understand why Russia desires to part of the Venezuelan mess, but
most of their interference is minimal in nature and really has little impact on the
situation. I get the Bay Of Bolton was half assed coup that probably did more damage to
Guaido chances for new elections. (Guaido is being painted as the Trump Imperialism candidate
which is not popular.)
The big question is why this is not China's problem? At this point, Venezuela is
completely with them.
Re: "Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his
ultimatum to remove their forces from the country."
Agree. But the larger subtext is that the U.S. now has zero credibility with
anything . The assumption by every country on the planet has to be that the U.S. word
is not worth squat.
Fat Pompeo with his big mouth, "We lie, cheat and steal" mind-dump says it all. The
Russians are anything but saints, but they knew that the U.S. planned on having Russia
ejected from its Crimean Naval Base in Sevastopol after the coup that Nitwit Nuland and her
barrel of CIA monkeys engineered.
Similarly, the Russians know that if/when the U.S. puts sock puppet Guaido in power, they
will ensure he stiffs the Russians out of all of their claims and assets in Venezuela.
The Russians don't want to wrestle with the Gorilla, but they have no other choice.
Given the way the dealings with North Korea have gone, I expect that Trump will soon be
announcing that Kim Jong-Un has destroyed all his nuclear weapons and pledged not to build
any more. Needless to say, it will not have happened.
But, as they say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. The question
really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe everything he says when
he lies so blatantly so often.
"The question really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe
everything he says when he lies so blatantly so often."
I don't know that they do. I tend to think that they just hate what has happened to the
country since Reagan and Clinton so much that they just want Trump to keep bashing Congress
over the head, even with stupidity.
Not to mention that humans have an innate exploitable weakness: the desire to transfer
someone else's perceived greatness on to themselves. Hence the inclination of sports fans and
adoration of the military.
So "Team America" is great, therefore I am great, and Trump represents us, therefore Trump
is great.
One should not wish ill on any other human being, even though i have contemplated several
slapstick scenarios involving certain politicians, however
Donald Trump is in the process of discovering that one cannot ignore Reality, since it
Bites, that live is not a reality TV show (the most unreal thing on television), and that
chickens do indeed come home to roost.
Unfortunately, it's been a difficult learning curve, and pathetic boasts to the contrary,
he has managed to turn both the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party into a pile of
smoking rubble.
It conservatism can be rebuilt in a score of years, it would be a miracle. More like, a
generation.
Trump's Venezuelan policy is a series of hallucination's. This article just describes the
most recent. It begins with the hallucination that Maduro is a dictator, when in reality he
won an election in May 2018 with 67% of the vote in an election that more than 150
international election observers unanimously agreed met all international standards for
democratic elections. It follows with the hallucination that the Venezuelan military would
join the US in rising up against their elected president rather than support the
constitutional government. It continues with the hallucination that the people of Venezuela
would join a US-inspired coup against the president they had just re-elected rather than join
a 2 million person plus civilian militia to defend against a US attack. And, it continues
with the hallucination that Juan Guaido is the interim president when his self-appointment
violated the Venezuelan Constitution and the United Nations and Venezuelan law recognize
Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
The antidote of these ongoing hallucinatory experiences is for Trump to no longer trust
his advisors and end the US coup attempt, which has already failed multiple times in
Venezuela. John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot Abrams have made Trump see hallucinations
that are complete falsehoods. They have led the president into an embarrassing trap that he
now needs to get out of. They have made Trump look like a fool.
It is time for Trump to take steps to normalize relations with Venezuela. That begins with
a mutual Protecting Power Agreement between the US and Venezuela for Switzerland to be a
Protecting Power of the US Embassy in Caracas and Turkey to be a Protecting of the Venezuelan
Embassy in Washington, DC. Following from that the US and Venezuela should negotiate the sale
of Venezuelan resources, primarily oil, in return for the end of the illegal unilateral
coercive measures (inaccurately called sanctions) against Venezuela. Negotiating with
Venezuela will be less expensive than a war that will become a quagmire that will end in
failure after costing more than $1 trillion and causing chaos in the region. Then, Trump and
Maduro should meet to chart a course that begins with mutual respect for the independence and
sovereignty of each nation and then determines where the two nations interests are consistent
with each other. It is time to leave the hallucinations behind and come back to reality.
The ease with which Trump is manipulated and provoked can be added to the explanation of why
Bibi is now in possession of Jerusalem and war against Iran is a high probability. That
should terrify Americans.
Is Donald
Trump a fascist? The question is usually posed as an insult rather than as a serious
inquiry. A common response is that "he is not as bad as Hitler", but this rather dodges the
issue. Hitler was one hideous exponent of fascism , which comes in different flavours
but he was by no means the only one.
The answer is that fascist leaders and fascism in the 1920s and 1930s were similar in many
respects to Trump and Trumpism. But they had additional toxic characteristics, born out of a
different era and a historic experience different from the United States.
What are the most important features of fascism? They include ultra-nationalism and
authoritarianism; the demonisation and persecution of minorities; a cult of the leader; a
demagogic appeal to the "ignored" masses and against a "treacherous" establishment; contempt
for parliamentary institutions; disregard for the law while standing on a law and order
platform; control of the media and the crushing of criticism; slogans promising everything to
everybody; a promotion of force as a means to an end leading to violence, militarism and
war.
The list could go on to include less significant traits such as a liking for public displays
of strength and popularity at rallies and parades; a liking also for gigantic building projects
as the physical embodiment of power.
Hitler and Mussolini ticked all these boxes and Trump ticks most of them, though with some
important exceptions. German and Italian fascism was characterised above all else by aggressive
and ultimately disastrous wars. Trump, on the contrary, is a genuine "isolationist" who has not
started a single war in the two-and-a-half years he has been in the White House.
It is not that Trump abjures force, but he prefers it to be commercial and economic rather
than military, and he is deploying it against numerous countries from China to Mexico and Iran.
As a strategy this is astute, avoiding the bear traps that American military intervention fell
into in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is an approach which weakens the targeted state economically,
but it does not produce decisive victories or unconditional surrenders.
It is a policy more dangerous than it looks: Trump may not want a war, but the same is not
true of Mike Pompeo, his secretary of state, or his national security adviser John Bolton. And
it is even less true of US allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have been
pushing Washington towards war with Iran long before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took
control in Riyadh in 2015.
Trump's aversion to military intervention jibes with these other influences, but it is
erratic because it depends on the latest tweet from the White House. A weakness, not just of
fascist leaders but of all dictatorial regimes, is their exaggerated dependence on the
decisions of a single individual with God-like confidence in their own judgement. Nothing can
be decided without their fiat and they must never be proved wrong or be seen to fail.
Trump has modes of operating rather than sustained policies that are consequently shallow
and confused. One ambassador in Washington confides privately that he has successfully engaged
with the most senior officials in the administration, but this was not doing him a lot of good
because they had no idea of what was happening. The result of this Louis XIV approach to
government is institutionalised muddle: Trump may not want a war in the Middle East but he
could very easily blunder into one.
Of course, Trump is not alone in this: populist nationalist authoritarian leaders on the
rise all over the world win and hold power in ways very similar to the fascists of the
inter-war period. What is there in these two eras almost a century apart that would explain
this common political trajectory?
Fears and hatreds born out of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the Great
Depression propelled the fascists towards power. When old allegiances and beliefs were
shattered and discredited, people naturally looked to new creeds and saviours. "The more
pathological the situation the less important is the intrinsic worth of the idol," wrote the
great British historian Lewis Namier in 1947. "His feet may be of clay and his face may be
blank: it is the frenzy of the worshippers which imparts to him meaning and power."
Is the same thing happening again? Fascism was the product of a cataclysmic period in the
first half of the 20th century that is very different from today. The US failed to get its way
in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but these were small-scale conflicts in no way comparable to
the First World War. The recession that followed the 2008 crash was a blip compared to the
Thirties.
Many of the better off reassure themselves with such thoughts. But they underestimate the
destructiveness of de-industrialisation and technological change for great numbers across the
globe. Inequality has vastly increased. Economies expand, but the benefits are skewed towards
the wealthy. Metropolitan centres plugged into the global economy flourished, but not their
periphery.
The distinction between winners and losers varies from country to country but governments
everywhere underestimated the unhappiness caused by social and economic upheaval. Beneficiaries
of the status quo invariably downplay the significance of fault lines that populists are swift
to identify and exploit.
Philip Hammond, the British chancellor of the exchequer, contemptuously dismisses claims by
the UN that great number of people in Britain were living in "dire poverty" and saying that, in
so far as deprivation existed, the government was acting effectively to address the problem.
The new wave of Trump-like leaders springing up all over the globe do not have to do very much
to do better than this.
Such overconfidence on the part of the powers-that-be is becoming rarer. Democrats who had
convinced themselves that Trumpism would be exposed and discredited as a conspiracy wished on
America by the dark powers in the Kremlin have seen their fantasy evaporate.
But there is probably worse to come: experience shows that populist authoritarian
nationalism – what Namier called "Caesarian democracy" – is not a static
phenomenon. It may not begin with all the fascist characterisation listed above, but its
trajectory is always in their direction. Regimes become more nationalistic, authoritarian,
demagogic, shifting from intolerance of criticism or opposition to a determination to
extinguish it entirely.
A case study of this process is Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is reinforcing
his one-man rule by overturning an opposition victory in the election to choose the mayor of
Istanbul. Many Americans deny that the same process is happening in the US, but they tend to be
the same people who did not believe that Trump could be elected in the first place.
'Trump may not want a war in the Middle East but he could very easily blunder into one.'
Nations blunder into the very war they are trying to avoid – abject defeat. The US
president, encouraged by his counselors, might launch an attack on Iran, not realizing the
consequences. He wouldn't be alone in history for doing that, so it cannot be held against
him. Regional conflicts today are so interconnected that a localized dispute could drag in
the major nuclear powers in multiple theaters. That is what happens if vital interests clash.
It is the pattern of history. And there is nothing to suggest it has changed. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Let me get this straight: Cockburn identifies the central problem as the widening inequality
that emerged following the Great Recession of 2008, but then he blames Trump for being Trump.
WTF!
Here's Cockburn: " Inequality has vastly increased. Economies expand, but the benefits are
skewed towards the wealthy. Metropolitan centres plugged into the global economy flourished,
but not their periphery."
Trumps a ceo which is dictatorial hardly as dangerous as your FDR WILSON TEDDY LINCOLN ETC.
FASISM is the death throes of democracy as it tries to resist its inevitable slide into
further extremes of Mobism it tries to put a bit of lipstick on the pig with fascism. It
tries to recover a bit of order with authority and a bit of lawfulness by reigning in a bit
of the elite looting Democracy leads to cultural degeneracy and so there's often a lowbrow
attempt at restoring the culture the elite highbrows having led the degeneracy spiral only
the middle is available to try and save the culture.
I am yet to read a convincing argument how the most hardline Zionist president in US history,
who had his campaign run by the AIPAC guy Michael Glassner, influenced by Jared Kushner and
proud Christian Zionist Steve Bannon, who hired Jewish Goldman Sachs bankers Mnuchin and
Cohen right from the start, made the Jewish olgarchy of the Kushners and others into Jewish
aristocracy in the white house, has most to all his children married or dating Jews, is an
obscene, vulgar and tasteless vessel for the wishes of the Jewish Casino Godfather Sheldon
Adelson, filled his government with Neocons, has his power base in Zionist Evangelical
Christians, has somehow anything remotely to do with with Adolf Hitler or Benito
Mussolini. -- This one isn't.
Neither are Boomerisms about what "fascism" is or isn't. And the downright idiotic
habbit of Anglosphere journalists and intellectuals to label totalitarianism as "fascist"
brings already a fundamental misinformation in the term itself. And I can only explain it
from a necessity of the Anglosphere commentators, who are drenched in post WW2 mythology, to
obfuscate the fact that one was allied to a certain Stalin and produced the rise of
communist China starting under Mao himself. The greatest mass murderer in human history who
did have near total control over his subjects and their minds. Unlike Mussolini and Hitler or
even Stalin.
What are the most important features of fascism? They include ultra-nationalism and
authoritarianism
As ultra-nationalistic as Churchill or Roosevelt, as authoritarian as Stalin and Mao.
the demonisation and persecution of minorities
Tibetans, Uyghurs, Palestinians – ah yes, and concentration camps for the Boer!
a cult of the leader
Echnaton, Caesar himself is actually a weaker example, Mao, Stalin, again Churchill, then
Truman; or John F. Kennedy for that matter: The enshrined patron-saint of US democracy and
its tragedy and crucifixion, his mythological rise to almost sainthood like Lincoln, or until
recently MLK jr. Nevermind that Hillary Clinton was the absolute and total cult leader figure
for the US establishment and Angela Merkel was crowned leader of the free world in a
detestable act of disinformation and lies, almost on the level of Stalinist lies. A woman who
has turned German parliamentary politics into a GDR like one party coalition of leftist
neo-liberal imperialism on her own people.
a demagogic appeal to the "ignored" masses and against a "treacherous" establishment
The masses are ignored. Want Anglosphere examples? Brexit. And as Charles Murray
noted: the peoples have – for generations! – voted against more
immigration, the establishment has also for generations ignored them. There is also something
to be said about the victims of Rotherham and how they were ignored, for over a decade crimes
comitted against them systematically covered up.
And when it comes to a treacherous establishment, look no further than to the Ziocons,
Merkel, May and unfortunately Trump himself now. How utterly rotten and morally bankrupt, for
example, the establishment of Britain is shows the case of again Rotherham and Jimmy
Savile.
contempt for parliamentary institutions
And for good reason! Politicians are mindless and usually incompetent drones to be bought
by foreign and corporate lobbies, pushed by manipulative and deceptive mass media and to be
used as pawns for foreign policy of unelected deep state actors.
disregard for the law while standing on a law and order platform
Ah yes! There is something about the acts of the declared "leader of the free world"
Angela Merkel breaking the German constitution and European law while ordering a stand down
to the German border police who was ready to close the German borders, to allow in a million
illegals against the strong wishes of at least a significant minority. This crypto-communist
also leads the "conservative" party of "stability" who loves to talk about democracy,
toleranz and openness and the dangers of undemocratic Russia.
control of the media and the crushing of criticism
ADL, SPLC, overwhelming control over the old media corporations and near monopoly control
over the internet and social media platforms of a certain group that shall not be named. But
it's certainly not better when the government itself directly controls the media as in
Europe. Is the author seriously trying to make the claim that today the dangers in
this regard come from new right populists? Or that this was something singular and a defining
characteristic of fascism?
slogans promising everything to everybody
"Wir schaffen das!", "Stadt für alle!", "Land für alle!", "Diversity is our
strength!" , "Globalism brings more wealth for everyone involved!", "Free trade is good
for everybody!", "Workers of the world unite! All you have to lose is your chains!"
a promotion of force as a means to an end leading to violence, militarism and war.
Ah yes such a true forces for peace and democracy and the freedom of all peoples of the
world the British Empire was and the USA are! The peoples of Vietnam, Serbia, Libya, Syria,
Iraq, Yemen, Palestine and Germany can sing a song about it. The USA are such a peaceful
hegemon! Dedicated to spreading human rights, democracy and freedom globally. -- But they are
also nothing special in this regard. Indeed this point is typical for basically all forms of
government. Haven't you people read your Machiavelli?
What did derail the Trump movement and turned MAGA into MIGA and a continuation of the
status quo and its lobbies, were not the populist grassroots support for Trump – across
the entire West, even globally, or the hopes and wishes of the indeed ignored masses of the
USA, or the populist supporters in the West who saw him as a beacon of their own hopes and
wishes. It was the 'deep state' which by all means is just the functional reality of
representative, parliamentary democracy in the age of mass media, a global financial system
and corporations.
The claim that tree of life recipient Donald Trump and life long supporter and friend of
Israel is a "fascist" is even more bizarre and ridiculous than calling Saddam Hussein or
Muammar al-Gaddaffi Adolf Hitler. And do I really need to quote all the things Trump said
about Israel and Netanyahu, or after the synagogue shootings..?
But the idea that he is a true isolationist who doesn't want war, is absurd. The Syria
strikes speak volumes about his intellect, judgement, foreign policy independence and also
about his willingness to do anything what Bibi and Adelson want. Just as the embassy move to
Jerusalem, just as the Golan Heights and so much more.
The USA simply cannot start a war with Iran. Because they don't have the sufficient
access to execute a major ground invasion of Iran through Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan,
Turkmenistan, Pakistan or a D-Day like operation from the Sea. The USA also cannot do it,
because the overwhelming majority of the people in Europe, globally and even a majority in
the USA itself would condemn another war of aggression by the USA. This has nothing to
do with the wishes of the Kushner, Bolton, Pompeo Trump government and its shadow puppeteers
Netanyahu and Adelson. The same is true for Venezuela and Syria.
The Anglosphere, with the USA as its hegemonic leader, is caught in its own life-long
delusions, its own mythology from the British Empire to WW2, its decade spanning structural
and fundamental mistakes and errors and flaws. It's not the first Empire to be in this
situation and it won't be the last Empire who will have its own downfall accelerated by it
all.
Liberal democracy is a failed, a false and a falsified political model turned into a
post-political ideology of an increasingly undemocratic establishment. The Europeans do not
want it, the Africans do not want it, the Asians do not want it and increasingly the citizens
of the USA and Great Britain do not want it. Trump and Brexit are indeed indicators for
this.
Because people are communal, they do not wish to be atomized individuals. And nobody wants
social-democracy either for that matter. They do not solve problems, they do not provide
people with what they need and they have no truly inspiring visions to offer either. And
that's why the future lies in nations and peoples. Not because there is a threat of
"fascism". And I think when it comes to the erosion of the rule of law and democracy being a
means for the demos, the establishment has done absolutely everything itself to make this the
reality for the citizens in the USA and EU.
@dearieme The false claims about Trump are intended to deflect from the Truth.
dasFuherer Obama started down the road to Facism directing the SS/FBI to conduct
surveillance and enforce political orthodoxy. If the transfer of power to dasFuherer H.
Clinton had taken place successfully we would be living in a Facist nation by this point.
Authoritarian Left National Socialism (Nazism), also known as Globalism, is a threat to
the Christian Citizens of the U.S. The Democratic party openly embraces these National
Socialist / Globalist goals. The Facist Stormtroopers of Antifa are their version of the
Hitler Youth.
@Paul "control of the media and the crushing of criticism; slogans promising everything
to everybody; a promotion of force as a means to an end leading to violence, militarism and
war.
The list could go on to include less significant traits such as a liking for public
displays of strength and popularity at rallies and parades; a liking also for gigantic
building projects as the physical embodiment of power."
Trump hasn't conquered any nations, while Emperor Obama conquered Honduras, Libya, Somalia,
Ukraine, and tried to conquer Yemen, Turkey, and Syria. Obama also expanded the drone
assassination campaign, to include US citizens. Obama restarted the Cold war by demonizing
Russia and dispatching American troops to Russia's borders with new military bases in the
Baltic states.
Control of the media? Trump has none, while the media cheered Obama all the time, even
when he imprisoned journalists. They want to impeach Trump, but have no specific reason. I
can list a dozens reasons to impeach any of our past Presidents. Finally, whenever Trump
tries to ease tensions with Russia and North Korea, or pull troops from Syria, he is attacked
by the media and Democrats.
Trump is no saint, but this article is absurdly biased; typical of a corporate media
figure.
Fascism (A police state created by the wedding of corporate and state powers) has been coming
to America along various lines for quite some time but it's not the "nationalism" that we
need to worry about. In fact our tendencies to run fascistic have moved quickest while
nationalism evaporated.
The US is a divided nation, there is barely a "nation" here anymore, so we can stop
worrying about nationalism. We are no longer a single nation and haven't been for some time.
Trump isn't going to change that. LOL We are more in danger from increasing polarity ripping
us apart than we are nationalism uniting us into some new Reich.
Trump has at best hit 40% approval ratings in the polls, he barely holds onto power and in
fact lost the house. That's not a dictator in the making. There is zero danger that he will
unite the country either, that isn't going to happen.
As for socially that one is really a joke. There has never been a nation on Earth that is
less "Socially" fascist, NEVER. How a nation like ours, where you can literally self identify
as any thing you want, would be socially fascist is beyond me, yet that is actually what is
being described.
The fascism I'm worried about comes in the form of Crony Capitalism spawning endless wars
for profit while cracking down on liberty at home with the Patriot act and all the rest.
That's the creeping fascism we all should be worried about and many of us were. We voted for
Trump as the only alternative to that very problem.
No, no, no, missing the point. A 'Fascist' is someone saying something that the rich and
powerful don't want said.
So when Donald Trump said that he wanted to stop us from wasting trillions of dollars on
pointless winless foreign wars that serve only to enrich politically-connected defense
contractors, that was Fascist and Rascist and Literally Hitler.
Trump got beaten down, and without consulting Congress, launched a completely unjustified
and stupid missile attack on Syria, and suddenly he was 'presidential.' So you see, a leader
taking power into his own hands and running roughshod over the rule of law, that's
'Democracy' – as long as he's doing what the rich want done.
Bottom line: now that Trump has morphed into "Swamp Thing," there will be political
theater and screaming and howling, but it's all for show. It's a circus.
Trumpism is a mixture of kosher Americana and an apotheosis of the sharp vulgarian
businessman as politician as opposed to the hero or the visionary leader as statesman. It is
a kind of halfhearted bourgeoisie reaction to the extreme cultural Marxism and social
engineering, as well as a slavish adherence to Zionism. Its so called "national spirit" may
be more exemplified by a hexagram or skull cap on top of its figurehead leader, as opposed to
a legionary's helmet, Fuehrer's cap or Latin Cross. It is almost the polar opposite of the
eponymous Fascism of Mussolini, in which the Fascist Council dictated to the cartels, not
vice versa, and Il Duce was in charge and not a boardroom of soulless corporate
internationalists . Fascism can cut both ways- it can be used by an authoritarian leader to
unify the state and nation or it can be used by corporate oligarchs and their figurehead to
destroy the nation and its people.
Trumpism is even further removed from National Socialism and the Fuehrer. A man of the
people arose from humble origins on his own merits and reputation for courage under fire and
engineered both the greatest economic recovery and most spectacular renaissance of national
pride and dignity in recorded history. Hitler was not driven by personal vanity to see the
"H" of his name in lights, nor was he a crooked vulgarian beholden to casino pimps and
subterranean international Jews. Had National Socialism been allowed to flourish and had not
been destroyed by the world Sanhedrin and its shabbos goyim camp followers, Europe would in
all likelihood be a far cleaner, culturally vibrant and thriving culturally radiant center of
power for the entire world and especially its own far flung diaspora.
Trump could have been a true, independent nationalist leader but he scorned that role and
has largely turned on his base. While he is still the lesser of the two evils compared to
most of the Democratic automaton and pervert contenders, he certainly knows on which side his
shekels are buttered.
US navy plays dangerous games. Sooner or later Russia or China or Iran maybe, or any hot spot
in the world - encounters the situation wherein the US both must and can be slapped.
Notable quotes:
"... Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off. ..."
"... This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the other side to back off. ..."
"... Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess. ..."
"... I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the time of the incident ..."
"... If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts above. ..."
"... "The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code Flag 'D' may be flown." ..."
"... In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough jargon to dazzle the journalists. ..."
"... There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes (ball-diamond-ball). ..."
Judging by the comment thread, these boys are hard at work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_communication_specialist
"Mass Communication Specialist (abbreviated as MC) is a United States Navy occupational
rating. MCs practice human-centered design to develop creative communication solutions and
align communication strategies and tactics to leadership's intent; conduct research and
develop audience profiles; prepare, process, and print publications and media products;
create sketches, storyboards, and graphics; design publications; produce still imagery, and
written, audio, video, and multimedia information products; collect, analyze, and report
media project and communication plan feedback and performance information; create media
project plans; conduct community outreach, news media operations, leadership communication
operations, and organizational communication operations; plan and direct communication
campaigns and events and serve as communication advisors to commanders; and develop content
strategies, create data stories, and ensure communication products and experiences are
designed to enhance understanding and discoverability. MCs serve aboard ships, in
expeditionary units and at shore commands in the United States and overseas.[1]"
My guess is the Russian anti submarine ship was on a parallel course to keep track of the US
attack submarines with the carrier group. US ship was sent out to push it away. As you say,
the helicopter may have been sent out to capture some video or stills that could be used to
back up the 'US is innocent' propaganda already planned.
One thought on this - If the Russian ship did not change course, with the US ship slowing
under reverse thrust, the Russian ship most likely would have hit it somewhere near the
center. A great video of a Russian ship aggressively ramming a 'peaceful and innocent' US
ship.
A 1:49 video filmed from the US vessel. The cameraman was taking leisurely close in shots of
the Russian vessel's comms systems. The two vessels were sailing close to parallel for all
this time and there is a view of the infamous Russian sunbathers on the helicopter landing
platform.
There was something on Press TV about the US ship getting too close to a Russian UUV
undergoing trials / on a covert op which caused the Russian escort ship to intercept the US
ship.
Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the
Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off.
This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades
of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting
hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the
other side to back off.
Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo
op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess.
Apparently you didn't read "b" post and know nothing about Russian vs US ship
construction:
"The crew of the Chancellorsville should call itself lucky. Russian ships are build with a
strong bow to travel in icy waters. Had the Admiral Vinogradov not made the emergency turn to
its right, its bow would have cut their ship in half."
I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a
helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are
recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the
time of the incident
82 sums it up nicely. The Yanks f..ked up, yet again.
My sympathies are with the crew too. The reckless heroics of the bridge gang are
deplorable. These encounters do not happen at high speed. Minutes go by. Both vessels should
have been aware of their potential for close encounter.
If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard
approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be
conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees
have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts
above.
The Russians could easily have adjusted course to pass behind the yankee vessel. All these
ships have more than adequate electronics and personnel to calculate converging course and
time of encounter. That they chose to come so close could indicate a FU attitude or perhaps
they were on a 'collision stations' maneuver in real time. It is also probable they were
monitoring US communications systems that are limited in range and only detected up close.
Understanding those systems enables one to build a jamming device. The crew on that vessel
would have been mighty anxious too.
Hyped egos, poor training and warships are a very stupid mix. See the Forrestal debacle
where the ships fire crew were wiped out in the first response and untrained sailors sprayed
the deck with water rather than foam thus washing fuel below decks and setting the stern
ablaze.
Here we have
manual : Helicopter-Ship-Operations . From page 37, Section 5.4.1:
"The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO
International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code
Flag 'D' may be flown."
"D" translates as "Keep clear of me." From COLREGS, "Day shapes" mentioned above would be
"1 ball+1 diamond+1 ball" organized vertically, which translates as "Restricted in ability to
maneuver" (
here ).
But none of what the Regs require is visible--none! Russia wins its case, and it was all
too easy!
In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on
by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough
jargon to dazzle the journalists.
The failure to mention USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) had the appropriate day shapes flying
is simply too in the weeds for the PAOs and admiral's staff who wrote the press
release/story.
There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the
signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes
(ball-diamond-ball).
Even if the officer of the deck & the helicopter control officer did fail to tell the
signalman to do those things, the vast majority of signalmen would have reminded the OOD.
Signalmen have relatively few things to pay attention to, so they are pretty self
directed.
"... The one glaring example of how the media can deep six a political candidate is the story of Ron Paul's presidential run in 2012. After tying for first place in the Iowa Straw Poll with Michelle Bachman he was disappeared from the media completely . His name was never mention again, and the RNC stole his delegates. He became persona non grata. This is probably Tulsi's future. ..."
"... Moreover,our Neocon Warmongers eighteen year assault on the federal balance sheet , has been so massive, so larcenous and so protracted it has all but eviscerated the credit worthiness of the Nation. They have QUADRUPLED our ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT in a mere 18 years. IT IS BEYOND BELIEF. ..."
"... All while he sends more troops to the ME but not to our border. As a wag on ZeroHedge observed, Trump has spent more time at the Wailing Wall than on our southern border. ..."
"... Tulsi is my preferred candidate. That said, I'm disappointed that she "served" in Iraq, a country which we invaded and devastated on a total lie that it had nukes. Also, I believe now she has distanced herself from ring-wing US Hindu groups who are strong supporters of the genocidal Indian prime minster Modi. ..."
"... That said, I admire Tulsi for going against the grain of our Zionist-run Congress and our crypto Jewish prez. ..."
"... The war party has many tentacles. The mainstream media and cable are fundamentally just their propaganda service. Fellow corporatists supporting each other's revenue stream. Then RT comes along, and does journalism -- demonstrates some journalistic integrity -- and the world is turned upside down. All of a sudden the truth -- mostly -- is declared Russian propaganda. ..."
"... Not just Trump and O, but Clinton and Bush II as well. I recall Bush II's tag line of a "more humble foreign policy." How'd that work out? ..."
"... I remember in 2011, I believe it was, he was leading in the polls and I heard a radio talking head opining: "I think we can all stipulate that Ron Paul is not a viable candidate for the nomination, but " For a moment there I wondered why we could all stipulate that, and then it occurred to me to notice the commentator's last name. He was using the royal we, as in we the Chosen. RP not an Israel lickspittle? End of story. ..."
"... However, Sanders had always been anti-immigration until he started running against Hillary in 2016. He was both anti illegal immigration and anti H1b. The problem is, DNC candidates have to pander to the far left to win nomination ..."
"... Tucker said he supports Elizabeth Warren's national economic plan of bringing back manufacturing jobs to save the heartland, as Trump is trying to do. Warren also wants maximum legal immigration like Trump. What good are bringing back these jobs if we are just going to import more foreign workers to work in them? ..."
"... "Both Obama and Trump were elected as anti-war candidates, and look what happened?" ..."
"... As for Trump, war in fact has not "happened". Beside the silly nothing attack on an essentially unstaffed Syrian runway that was warned ahead of time, Trump has attacked no one. He talks a lot to placate Jews, but talk is not action. Obama? A true war monger who bombed & bombed, & bombed. ..."
Probably the only honest Democrat out there. OK Demo-dunces, when Dem primary comes around,
here is a candidate you can vote for without normal people saying What? Are you nuts? Dems
are honestly going to push for Feelsy Weelsy Biden, unless the Hildabeast thinks she can give
it another try.
Tulsi Gabbard needs to add one more thing to her campaign and she will win: promise a drastic
cut on immigration in favor of American workers.
America is hungry for a candidate who will actually deliver on the no-more-wars and
no-more-immigration pledge. Trump campaigned on that but has turned out to be a total fraud
who failed on both counts.
We need Tulsi to step into the void. Not only will she win over a lot of Trump voters, but
she will also win over a lot of those on the left who are sick of wars and not particularly
pro immigration.
Hilariously, the MSM trumpeted the message last time around that we simply MUST have a female
president, that it was long past time a woman was in charge, and that anyone reluctant to
vote for Hillary was an evil misogynist. Before that, we were told that we simply HAD to have
a noble Person of Color in the White House, that it was everyone's duty to vote for Obama and
not some old white guy.
Despite Gabbard ticking off both those boxes, wouldn't you know It? Suddenly the
importance of having a non-White or female President mysteriously vanishes! Suddenly it's our
duty to have the lecherous, creepy old white dude in office! Suddenly the importance of
Diversity ("diversity is our strength" don't you know?) vanishes into the ether when Tulsi
comes up.
I think she should use this to her advantage. Not resort to identity politics or faux
feminism, but simply point out the hypocrisy, draw attention to the inconsistency and get the
general public asking themselves why all this diversity / Girl Power shit suddenly gets
memory holed by the media when it's Tulsi, or any anti establishment figure, in the
spotlight.
I mat switch party registration just so I can vote for her in a primary. I wonder, however,
if once in office, she could implement her program against the Deep State
After Gabbard announced her (2020) campaign, the Russian government owned RT, Sputnik
News and Russia Insider together ran about 20 stories favorable to her. NBC News reported
that these websites were the same that were involved in Russian interference in the 2016
elections. Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, called the report by NBC a "transparent hit
piece". In The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald wrote that what he found "particularly unethical
about the NBC report is that it tries to bolster the credentials of this group [New
Knowledge] while concealing from its audience the fraud that this firm's CEO just got
caught perpetrating on the public on behalf of the Democratic Party."
@Tired of Not Winning Totally agree. To those who saw it, that's what Tucker's monologue
was all about last night. Anti-war with America-first anti-immigration is the winning ticket.
Unfortunately, from what I've been able to gather, take away her principled anti-war stance
and Tulsi's just another bleeding-heart liberal democrat. She did back Sanders after all.
Maybe Tucker, who has often had her on his show, can straighten Tulsi out.
Gabbard should switch parties and challenge Trump. I would vote for her. She has no chance at
all as a Democrat. Obviously she cannot be allowed to participate in the Democratic debates.
But her reasons for running probably do not include winning the nomination. I wish her
well. But I will never support a Democrat. Not even one I respect. I'm a white man. It's not
about the POC. My fear and loathing pertains to the white liberals.
@Diversity Heretic That's the $64,000 question, isn't it? Both Obama and Trump were
elected as anti-war candidates, and look what happened? The Deep State, i.e. the Permanent
Government, is probably more powerful than any elected president, who will be there for at
most 8 years. But who else out there beside Tulsi has the guts to take on the Hegemon? I
think she means what she says, while Obama and Trump did not.
We'll know she's being taken serious when, like Donald Trump in 2016, AIPAC summons her to
appear before the Learned Elders of Zion to pledge fealty to Israel and the holohoax.
● 'Immigration is a tremendous economic benefit for Hawai'i and our country as a
whole.'
● 'Trump's comments on immigrants fly in the face of aloha spirit, American
values.'
She has no chance and isn't going to go against immigration.
It doesn't really matter what they say anyway, because it's just lies to get elected.
Once elected they do what the nose tells them to do.
If she's CFR, she's an open borders globalist.
Trump was adamantly anti-war during his campaign, and then the nose stepped in and fixed
it.
I read that everything Trump said, all of those lies, all of those promises, were the
result of analytics.
I was dubious at first, but now I think it's true. He quite literally just mouthed what we
wanted to hear, and then did what the nose told him to do.
Obama got the peace prize and did more drone strikes than Bush.
Tulsi would be anti-war right up to her inauguration, then the reality that the nose OWNS
her entire party would sink in and she'd realize who's the boss.
Giraldi and his fans here are cool with mass Third World migration to the USA if it means
finally electing out and proud anti-Israel politicians like Ilhan Omar and the other
Congressmuslima.
Despite Gabbard ticking off both those boxes, wouldn't you know It? Suddenly the
importance of having a non-White or female President mysteriously vanishes! Suddenly it's
our duty to have the lecherous, creepy old white dude in office! Suddenly the importance of
Diversity ("diversity is our strength" don't you know?) vanishes into the ether when Tulsi
comes up.
But I will never support a Democrat. Not even one I respect. I'm a white man. It's not
about the POC. My fear and loathing pertains to the white liberals.
I like Tulsi a lot. We've almost forgotten what a serious person looks like, and she is one
of the 3 or 4 in Washington.
Her Democrat satanic baggage poisons the well, but she is still an inspiring figure, in my
view.
The one glaring example of how the media can deep six a political candidate is the story of
Ron Paul's presidential run in 2012. After tying for first place in the Iowa Straw Poll with
Michelle Bachman he was disappeared from the media completely . His name was never
mention again, and the RNC stole his delegates. He became persona non grata. This is probably Tulsi's future.
Right now, Tulsi is the only candidate who matters.
I hope she wins the nomination by a landslide.
The United States, due to the abysmal stewardship of our neocon oligarchs , is in a wholly
unprecedented and catastrophic situation.
They know it, I know it, and the majority of Americans are fast waking up to it.
Never before in US history, has so much taxpayer solvency been squandered through acts of
wanton criminal war.
The utter decimation being wrought upon countries around the world . which never attacked
us, AT ALL, is beyond human imagination.
Moreover,our Neocon Warmongers eighteen year assault on the federal balance sheet , has
been so massive, so larcenous and so protracted it has all but eviscerated the credit
worthiness of the Nation. They have QUADRUPLED our ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT in a mere 18 years. IT IS BEYOND BELIEF.
Even as I write this, steps are being taken by all the major world powers to eject the US
dollar as the worlds reserve currency.
If this happens, nobody will continue to buy our currency ..or our bonds.
The heinous 22 trillion dollar debt, created by our neocon warmongers, will not be
underwritten anymore, anywhere.
The US will have to turn "inward" to deal with this fiscal abomination , and dare I say
that when this happens a "solvency holocaust" will truly be upon us.
The greatest nation on earth, turned belly up, in a mere twenty years .all due to
pernicious .. Neocon ..War Fraud.
@Tired of Not Winning Total fraud is correct. He refuses to characterize the illegals as
invaders and to anchor any action in response in his responsibility under Art. IV, Sect. 4 to
repel invasion. He insists on pretending that his authority to act is founded in legislation
pertaining to "emergencies" of which we possess an infinite supply.
All while he sends more troops to the ME but not to our border. As a wag on ZeroHedge
observed, Trump has spent more time at the Wailing Wall than on our southern border.
And while every month 100,000 invaders are released into the interior of the US.
Tulsi is my preferred candidate. That said, I'm disappointed that she
"served" in Iraq, a country which we invaded and devastated on a total lie that it had nukes.
Also, I believe now she has distanced herself from ring-wing US Hindu groups who are strong
supporters of the genocidal Indian prime minster Modi.
That said, I admire Tulsi for going against the grain of our Zionist-run Congress and our
crypto Jewish prez.
@Lot So what's wrong with Ilhan Omar? Is that she's Muslim? Two people in Congress I
admire are AOC (who's to young of run for prez) and Omar. Both have cojones.
@anonymous India is a polluted shit-hole run by a genocidal, Hindu nationalist PM, with
almost half of parliament members under some kind of criminal charge.
The war party has many tentacles. The mainstream media and cable are
fundamentally just their propaganda service. Fellow corporatists supporting each other's
revenue stream. Then RT comes along, and does journalism -- demonstrates some journalistic
integrity -- and the world is turned upside down. All of a sudden the truth -- mostly -- is
declared Russian propaganda.
Awakening from the bad dream of neoliberal servitude will cause cognitive dissonance,
confusion, and distress. Learning the truth, even a little bit of Truth, is almost like
poison when, for a lifetime, you've been fed nothing but lies.
@Tired of Not Winning Agree, but . . . even if elected, she would run into the same AIPAC
and pro-cheap labor lobbies that have stymied Trump (assuming Trump wanted to do anything
about these issues). Even if she wanted to do something about War and Immigrants, she would
up against a united establishment from both parties. Having a D after her name would not
count for much.
@c matt You've already been destroyed. Omar and AOC had both the brains and the balls to
identify your real enemy. Your ass is owned buddy, lock, stock and barrel ..and it took two
women to say it .not a sign of a man with any balls in congress.
Florida's Governor just signed a bill that will censor criticism of Israel throughout
the state's public schools
News
Michael Arria on June 6, 2019 23 Comments
U.S. Congressman Ron DeSantis of Florida speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)
[MORE]
On May 31, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that prohibits anti-Semitism in public
schools and universities throughout the state. However, the legislation also equates
criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, effectively censoring the advocacy of Palestinian
rights.
Two days before DeSantis officially signed HB 741 into law in Florida, he carried out a
symbolic signing during a ceremonial state cabinet meeting in Israel. The session featured a
variety of Israeli speakers and culminated with Florida lawmakers issuing a declaration of
support for the country. "Since we're in Jerusalem, we may actually get some interest in our
Cabinet meetings for a change, which would be great," joked DeSantis during the meeting. A
number of news organizations filed a lawsuit against the state's government, claiming that
the meeting violated Florida's transparency law, as it took place in a foreign country and
wasn't made publicly accessible to journalists. Although they weren't officially listed as
members of DeSantis' delegation, he was accompanied by pro-Israel megadonors Sheldon and
Miriam Adelson.
HB 741 states that, "A public K-20 educational institution must treat discrimination by
students or employees or resulting from institutional policies motivated by anti-Semitic
intent in an identical manner to discrimination motivated by race." The bill identifies
anti-Semitism as calls for violence against Jews, Holocaust denial, or the promotion of
conspiracy theories that target Jewish people, but it also contains an entire section that
equates Israel critcism with the prohibited anti-Semitism. This includes, "applying a double
standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any
other democratic nation." According to the bill's text, criticism of Israel is always
anti-Semitic unless it is "similar to criticism toward any other country."
"We know what could happen in Florida from the chilling effects we've already seen elsewhere:
human rights defenders will be smeared as antisemites, investigated by schools, and in some
cases punished. Events will be cancelled, or censored via bureaucratic harassment. Theses
will not be written. Debates in class will not take place. And many activists will
self-censor out of pure exhaustion," Palestine Legal's senior staff attorney Meera Shah told
Mondoweiss, "All of this profoundly diminishes Florida's ability to educate students to be
leaders in a global economy."
The House version of HB 741 was sponsored by State Representative Randy Fine, a rabidly
pro-Israel lawmaker who has held office since 2016. In April, after Sen. Audrey Gibson voted
against HB 741's companion bill and called it "divisive", Fine denounced the Senate
Democratic Leader and called on Democrats to "hold her accountable." "It is sad that in the
world propagated by Washington Democrats like Congresswomen Ihlan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and
Tallahassee Democrats like Audrey Gibson, fighting anti-Semitism is 'divisive', said Fine,
"In this time of rising anti-Semitism around both the country and globe, it is unconscionable
that the most powerful Democrat in the Florida Senate would vote against banning
discrimination based on anti-Semitism."
That same month, Fine made headlines for referring to a Jewish constituent as "Judenrat", a
term used to describe Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during World War 2. Fine used the
word in reference to Paul Halpern, a Palm Bay resident who organized a panel discussion
regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict. Fine took to Facebook to criticize the panel for
being anti-Semitic. "First, there is no 'Palestine,'" Fine wrote, "Second, having a bunch of
speakers who advocate for the destruction of Israel but promise that this one time they
won't, is a joke. We should not engage these bigots. We crush them." After Halpern pushed
back on this assertion and pointed out that the majority of the panelists were Jewish, Fine
responded, ″#JudenratDontCount..I know that Judenrat liked to keep tabs on all the Jews
in order to report back to the Nazis back in that time, but no one is making you continue
that tradition today."
"In my mind, Judenrat is the worst thing that you can call a Jewish person," Halpern told the
Huffington Post, "He's despicable as a representative and a person."
Governor DeSantis is a close ally of the President and some believe that the Israel trip
could help deliver Florida for Trump in 2020. "For a lot of Jewish voters, this trip puts an
exclamation point on the Republican Party's commitment to Israel and to Jewish people," the
Republican Jewish Coalition's Neil Strauss recently proclaimed, "We saw a nice rise in
support for Gov. DeSantis and we want to keep that going. Florida is the best example of
where if Republicans gain Jewish voters, it can make a real difference."
I remember in 2011, I believe it was, he was leading in the polls and I heard a
radio talking head opining: "I think we can all stipulate that Ron Paul is not a viable
candidate for the nomination, but " For a moment there I wondered why we could all stipulate
that, and then it occurred to me to notice the commentator's last name. He was using the
royal we, as in we the Chosen. RP not an Israel lickspittle? End of story.
Well a lot of the comments here are ridiculous it's like the guy who has cancer and somebody
comes along with a cure, but he says 'fuck it' because it doesn't involve ice cream
Yet these same morons support Trump who has only done things for Israel's benefit so far
and even though Trump supports legal immigration
Speaking of which why don't all these immigration zealots take up the issue with the real
bosses on the matter corporate America ?
It's the plutocracy that WANTS immigration at any and all cost because it creates a
surplus labor pool and drives wages down while driving shareholder profits up the same reason
is why industry is offshored, along with the jobs that go with it it's called labor
arbitrage
In other words this is what CAPITALISM is about yet here these monkeys are screaming about
'leftist' Tulsi because she wants Medicare for all, instead of a ripoff system that enriches
a few corporate parasites while we foot the bill
How much do the endless, unnecessary wars cost the taxpayer ? [they don't cost the
billionaire class anything because they don't pay taxes ]
How much does corporate welfare cost the taxpayer ? ask King Bezos how many billions he's
been gifted in 'tax holidays' and other such freebies
Tulsi's entire approach is a major win-win for ordinary folks right up to and including
high earning professionals
Anybody with half a brain would be overjoyed that we even have such a person in our midst
as if we don't have enough completely briandead zombies that are going to vote for Gore or
that gay guy, or that fake 'socialist' Bernie
@Sako Sako, yours is one of the best posts ever on this site. I am tempted to volunteer
for Tulsi's campaign on the basis of her anti-war position alone. I did about fourteen years
of active duty in the Army, and when I hear her refer to soldiers as her "brothers and
sisters," I actually get teary-eyed. I have to restrain myself from adoring her completely.
Excellent expose by Philip Giraldi, for one of our best candidates Tulsi Gabbard.
Indeed the enemy is "the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States."
@Tired of Not Winning Like me. Hopefully she is still in it when super Tuesday gets here.
I'm sick of the alt right (and their tangerine leader) and sicker of blm/reparations/open
borders. I now know why non voters don't vote.
Tulsi is a Hawaii democrat, a very corrupt group. Tell her to comment on the kealohas, the
police chief of Honolulu and his wife are being tried for corruption and drug dealing by the
feds. She and all the other dems here will not comment. She likes to rock the boat about war
at the federal level but no comment on her state evolving into a third world dump.
I think the local dems want her out, Mufi wants revenge.
@follyofwar Yep, it is a big if. She is pretty far to the left on immigration, which is
unfortunate. But I appreciate her being honest. We don't need another lying scum like Trump.
However, Sanders had always been anti-immigration until he started running against Hillary
in 2016. He was both anti illegal immigration and anti H1b. The problem is, DNC candidates
have to pander to the far left to win nomination. I'm holding out hope that he would revert
back to those pre 2016 immigration positions after winning nomination. He recently came out
and railed against the border invasion.
A Sanders-Gabbard ticket might be the winning ticket.
(assuming Trump wanted to do anything about these issues).
That's just the problem. I don't think Trump ever really wanted to reduce legal
immigration. He has said more than once that he wants to let "the largest number ever" of
immigrants come in because "we" need these workers as we have "all these jobs coming back",
i.e. employers need their cheap labor, except instead of keeping the cheap labor offshore, he
wants to bring millions of them to the US like the tech sector.
Tucker said he supports Elizabeth Warren's national economic plan of bringing back
manufacturing jobs to save the heartland, as Trump is trying to do. Warren also wants maximum
legal immigration like Trump. What good are bringing back these jobs if we are just going to
import more foreign workers to work in them?
In the end the rich will just get richer, while the rest of us have to put up with even
more immigration, more congestion, overcrowded schools, crime, poverty, unemployment,
underemployment, failed schools I say no thank you! Let's just send all the immigrants
packing. We already have plenty of jobs in America, they are just all going to
foreigners.
The only job program we need is one that calls for drastic cuts in immigration. Anything
else is bullshit.
"Both Obama and Trump were elected as anti-war candidates, and look what
happened?"
As for Trump, war in fact has not "happened". Beside the silly nothing attack on an essentially unstaffed Syrian runway that was warned
ahead of time, Trump has attacked no one.
He talks a lot to placate Jews, but talk is not action. Obama?
A true war monger who bombed & bombed, & bombed.
yet here these monkeys are screaming about 'leftist' Tulsi because she wants Medicare
for all, instead of a ripoff system that enriches a few corporate parasites while we foot
the bill
Sorry, I haven't seen anyone on this thread complain about Medicare-for-all. You must have
this website confused with Conservative Treehouse or something.
@Tired of Not Winning Tulsi Gabbard won't because She is waging Democratic Party race war
against the Historic Native Born White American Working Class Majority .Tulsi Gabbard would
massively increase the H1b L1b Visa Program .she is already courting the Hindu "American"
Democratic Party Voting Bloc ..
@Robert Dolan I believe you've summed it up well. I haven't voted in a "national"
election since W's first term because the ballot-box is a non-answer to the dilemma.
@Johnny Rottenborough Her positions on immigration disqualify her from consideration
regardless of how strong her foreing policy might be at this stage. Plus, she's made woke
statements on other social issues so in a lot of ways she's perhaps only slightly to the
right of Barack Obama with a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Democratic
presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took a swipe at neoconservative Bill Kristol for his
"foolish advocacy of the Iraq war," and questioned whether he had apologized to the country for
it yet. Sanders was responding to a tweet Kristol sent that said, "#Never Sanders," and
linked to a New York Times article about the longtime Vermont senator's opposition to war.
"Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish advocacy of the Iraq war?"
Sanders tweeted , adding he makes
"no apologies for opposing it."
Sanders' record of opposing wars like Vietnam and Iraq, and US meddling in Nicaragua, has
recently been highlighted by the media as the 2020 presidential primaries approach.
-- Meghan McCain's Tears™
(@Smedley_Butler) May 25,
2019
NBC's Meet the Press came under fire last week for tweeting , "Sanders
said he won't apologize for supporting anti-Vietnam War efforts and voting against the war in
Iraq," which sparked ridicule among social media users and inspired Sanders to release a
video in which he stood by his anti-war stance and promised to do everything to prevent a war
with Iran.
I was right about Vietnam.
I was right about Iraq.
I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran.
Kristol tweeted his 'never Sanders' diss after the former Burlington mayor introduced a
petition to prevent "military action against Iran without congressional approval,"
something that likely upset Kristol, who has been calling for regime change in Iran for over 13
years.
Kristol refused to apologize over his comments, instead calling on Sanders to engage in a
"real debate on US foreign policy."
Nope. I dislike quasi-Stalinist demands for apologies. I've defended and will defend my
views on Iraq, and Syria, and Milosevic, and the Soviet Union, and more, as you defend
yours. How about a real debate on U.S. foreign policy--I'll ask for no apologies!--on a
campus this fall? https://t.co/AdC0CelINz
A co-founder of the neoconservative think tank the Project for the New American Century
(PNAC), Kristol called for regime change in Iraq in 1998 in a series of articles and a letter
to then-President Bill Clinton. Following 9/11, PNAC encouraged the George W. Bush
administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Kristol ardently supported the war in Iraq, which
he claimed would be a "two-month war" and repeatedly argued for sending more troops
there to rectify the failing invasion.
During the 2006 Lebanon war, Kristol suggested the US take the opportunity to strike Iran's
nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?"
It is a political prosecution. When he was head of DIA and called out the Obama
Administration for arming the Salafists in Syria his fate was probably sealed.
On a related note, when I heard that Paul Manafort was facing mortage fraud charges I
immediately thought of the scene in The Wire in which Lester Freaman explains the "head
shot". Explanation here (I suggest you skip the video): https://jackbaruth.com/?p=8652
Is it even probable that Flynn will serve time in jail? Would a sentence of a mere 9 days
(ala Papadopoulos) jeopardize his status with the military?
IMO "protecting" him would have little effect on the luster of Trump's brand. If
anything's tarnished it it's the familiarity people all over the world now have with his
tendency to shoot from the lip.
Still, it's that pugnacious behavior that endears him to millions of voters. I used to
hate it, and while I still occasionally wish he'd just ST*U, I nevertheless appreciate it at
times. For instance, I happen to agree with him that "Nervous Nancy" is a mess.
I say protect Flynn and be done with it. It sounds like the guy was the victim of
overzealous prosecution anyway.
From your post I'm assuming a presidential pardon prior to sentencing (if Trump himself has
the guts to follow through) would preserve Flynn's benefits. The irony is that Flynn's
alleged spurious contact with Kislyak was for precisely those interests to which the
Administration (and the Dems and Repubs) are beholden.
The situation with Gen. Flynn has seemed very strange from the beginning. When he was removed
as National Security Advisor for allegedly making a misleading statement to vice president
Pence, it was a muddy situation itself. How Pence was "mislead" has been unclear to me,
although perhaps I missed a thorough explanation. Then came the Mueller investigation which
turned into a criminal investigation.
Around a month or so ago, I heard on the radio part of an interview with a lawyer who was
involved with representing the White House or Trump in the Mueller investigation. He said
something astonishing about Flynn's situation before Flynn made the plea bargain with the
Mueller group. I do not know if I can find a recording of it, but the idea was that some
evidence had been produced that showed Flynn's likely innocence.
Pat said something interesting at one point, I seem to remember, it was a bit naive of
Flynn to accept the RT gala dinner invitation. He wouldn't have... But then, I may be
dreaming. On the other hand easy dot connectors in the services surely may have thought
otherwise. Meaning not naive but evil.
Flynn's plea deal required him to plead guilty only for lying to the FBI. The government
recommended no jail time. The judge made comments during his last hearing indicating he was
still considering jail time. Flynn panicked at that point. I don't blame him. His recent
change of lawyers is still puzzling to me. Is he attempting to play hardball at this stage in
the game?
The perjury charge is small stuff compared to his hidden status as an agent for Turkish
interests. Why risk reopening that can of worms? That has the potential of setting him up as
Manafort's bunkmate at Rikers.
"... Even more depressing, McMaster is author of the excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam". Now he's retailing lies of his own in pursuit of another war. ..."
"... The "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" subsists on donations intended to advance the foreign policy agendas of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those are the kind of "democracies" they want America to "defend" ..."
McMaster then proceeds to mount a hypothetical -- nuclear blackmail. "This regime could say [if U.S. forces] don't go
off the Korean Peninsula, we're going to threaten the use of nuclear weapons," the retired general explained. And yet
this, too, is riddled with nonsense, the biggest objection being that making such an ultimatum would court the very
military confrontation with the United States he wants to avoid.
When McMaster was in the Trump administration, he
floated
many of the same arguments about why
attacking
North Korea should be an option. Those
arguments
didn't make any
sense
when he made them as National Security Advisor, and they haven't improved now that he has migrated to the
inaccurately named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). McMaster's latest statements confirm that his preventive
war talk wasn't just empty rhetoric on his part when he worked for Trump. He was apparently
deadly serious
about entertaining a U.S. attack on North Korea, and he continues to talk about it as though it were a reasonable and
legitimate policy option. The reporting that he and others in the administration had a
"messianic fervor"
about this seems to have been right.
It can't be stressed enough that launching an attack on North Korea would an outrageous act of aggression. It would
put the U.S. in clear violation of the U.N. Charter and make our government an illegal aggressor just like North Korea
was in 1950. McMaster was and still is promoting the idea that the U.S. should be willing to commit a massive crime
against another country. Unfortunately, talk of preventive war against certain states is not just tolerated in
Washington, but it is actively encouraged and embraced by many other hard-liners, including the current National
Security Advisor, who is also in favor of launching an attack on North Korea. These hard-liners dismiss the possibility
of deterring these states so that they can have an excuse to attack, but invariably the behavior they cite as evidence
that a state can't be deterred is proof that they desire self-preservation and regime security above all else.
Hard-liners also like to warn about "nuclear blackmail" from other states, but they can't ever produce an example of
a nuclear weapons state that has successfully engaged in such blackmail to extract concessions from others. It makes
even less sense when we consider what would happen to the blackmailing state if it followed through on the threat.
Threatening to launch a nuclear first strike to gain concessions from other governments wouldn't get that government
what it wants, and carrying out the threat would result in the state's certain annihilation. There is no upside to
engaging in "nuclear blackmail" and a huge downside. If "nuclear blackmail" worked, there would likely have been a lot
more blackmail attempts by nuclear weapons state over the last seventy-four years, and more states would want to acquire
nuclear weapons for this purpose. In reality, just about the only use that nuclear weapons have is to deter attacks from
others, and that is pretty clearly why North Korea built their nuclear arsenal. Threatening them with attack just
confirms them in their view that they have to retain them, and actually attacking them would be the only thing that is
likely to prompt them to use them.
There's a scene in the movie Dr. Strangelove where all the powerful men were sitting in the war room discussing
the possible state of the world after the nuclear attack. They start by lamenting the deaths of tens of
millions of Americans, and that they might be the only leaders left to rebuild America. They then worked their
way to moving to a bunker to make sure they were safe, then bringing in women who could help repopulate the
country, and then making sure the women were beautiful and that there would be enough to get started on having
lots of children right away. So in less than 2 minutes, they go from the end of civilization to having a harem
for each of them. When powerful people can see a disaster as a chance to gain even more power, they will take
it regardless of the consequences to anyone else. That's who they are.
I must have missed when our own official policy renounced nuclear first strike. As far as I know, it's still
"one of the options on the table." And now with the latest "low yield nuke" deployments in the pipeline, it
gives the illusion that nuclear war can be a winning option to defend the heartland or expand the empire's
overseas power.
Even more depressing, McMaster is author of the excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam". Now he's retailing lies of his own in pursuit of
another war.
"the inaccurately named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)"
That name is a sick joke. The
"Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" subsists on donations intended to advance the foreign policy
agendas of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those are the kind of "democracies" they want America to
"defend".
McMaster has literally gone off the edge since he was named as the head of a group over at the FDD group of
warmongers -- they literally on a daily basis call for more war, attacks on Iran, and NK -- more tragically, they have
access and influence with Bolton and Pompeo.
Sick beyond belief but that is where their money comes into play.
Scandal?
JFK went against the flow of the good old boys and their networks.
'Bay of Pigs' was a disaster but did JFK really have that much input into the planning of
that mess?
He stopped it, eventually, probably because he thought it might escalate into a full blown
war with Russia.
He did some amazing stuff during the Cuban crises.
He kept his rabid war hawks at bay until a resolution was worked out with Russia.
Khrushchev did should be thanked too by keeping his military maniacs leashed too.
What's with the tea baggers redefining history?
You guys have started burning books over there yet? and
The Project for a New Middle East[1] is a Project for a New Holocaust. It is happening
now. The policy of "Creative Chaos"[2] underpins the "Middle East Holocaust". Empire willfully
destroys the sovereignty and territorial integrity of prey nations such as Libya, Iraq, Syria,
Yemen, Ukraine, and beyond. Genocidal ethnic cleansing, mass murder and destruction are
described benignly as "chaos" and as "creative".
Empire deploys meticulously planned strategies to fabricate sectarian and ethnic divides,
and to balkanize prey nations. The notion, as expressed by Condoleeza Rice , that the Middle
East should be divided into a "Sunni Belt" and a "Shia Belt"[3] objectifies peoples, diminishes
their humanity, turns them into fictional "stock characters" defined exclusively by perceived
religious affiliations, and deliberately fabricates ethnic and religious tensions, all of which
serve as preconditions for imperialists to create chaos and the disintegration of strong
nation-states into fractious vassal states, devoid of self-determination and sovereignty.
Empire sees non-compliant, self-governing, secular, pluralist, multi-confessional,
democratic states as enemies. Syria is all of the above, and therefore an "enemy". Empire
further destroys the "host" when it "opens the veins" of prey countries for resource plundering
and criminal occupation. The oil-rich, strategically-located area East of the Euphrates is one
such example.
When Empire supports the SDF against ISIS, it is polishing its fake image by creating the
perception that it opposes ISIS, even as it re-introduces "rebadged" ISIS into the same battle
grounds. Alternatively, as in the case of Raqqa, Empire "rescues" and redeploys ISIS elsewhere.
Both terrorists and civilians are expendable in these demonic operations.
Empire rounds civilians up in terrorist-controlled concentration camps[4]. It "weaponizes"
them by deliberately creating conditions of desperation which lend themselves to recruiting
opportunities for new terrorist proxies. Daesh will never disappear as long as Empire is in
control or seeking control globally.
As long as Western war propaganda remains ascendant, and Western populations remain
oblivious, Westerners will continue to believe that these wars are humanitarian or in their
national interests. In fact, the wars are anti-humanitarian, and they only represent narrow
"special interests."
NATO's strongest weapon is its apparatus of "Perception Management". Without it, NATO and
the imperialists would be exposed as the Supreme International War Criminals that they
are.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
and the author of Voices from Syria , Global Research Publishers, 2017.
"... A sincere question: who is running the CIA and on whose behalf? ..."
"... They consider us the people, their enemy. We are the 'enemy within', because as we become increasingly aware of our politicians' criminality any action we take may threaten the status quo. ..."
"... Just because Americans don't tend to care about anything that happens beyond their own borders doesn't mean the rest of the world can live with the same blissful ignorance. ..."
"... The NSA scandal has made us realize that the US regards us as second-rated citizens who are nondeserving of the 'special protections' that Anglo-speaking countries do. ..."
"... This is extremely telling about Obama's continued failure to discern good character in his aides and cabinet. His administration has been a shambles largely due to his inability to surround himself with good people. ..."
"... I guess so, as we all know that the CIA always tried to silent war opponents. This had been largely documented about Vietnam opponents to the War on US soil. ..."
"... The CIA is now a discredited organization run by proven liars. When will Congress do something about it? Answer -- never. They are all being blackmailed. ..."
"... The CIA is completely out of control. This begs the question, as to why do, or should, American citizen vote for candidates when those candidates are effectively being 'managed' and spied on by people in the CIA. Senators in both houses are not making 'decisions' the CIA is. ..."
"... Yes and the only politician who has called for the abolition of the CIA is Ron Paul. ..."
"... The NSA isn't hindering your movements as you are not a danger to the status quo. You can keep getting blasted at your BBQ's and coming online to defend the indefensible, you're not a threat. But it's not about you. It's about the people who are in a position to challenge the system. This can include anti-war activists, judges, politicians and journalists. ..."
They consider us the people, their enemy. We are the 'enemy within', because as we become increasingly aware of our politicians'
criminality any action we take may threaten the status quo.
leaders haven't been voted into office for a while now - they're rigged into office - from the lowly dog catcher to the president
- and its happening all over the world.
If you take the easy way now, you will take the easy way in the future. This not a sandlot baseball game here. These are high-
powered people , who are responsible for matters extremely operant to the people of our country, and it must be admitted, the
world.
To simply brush off these serious breaches of Government procedure (law) would serve to perpetuate the Executive Branch intrusions
into the business of the Legislative Branch.
Separation of the powers is a time-honored method of setting up a government that has kept us 'moving along' for quite
awhile now. Most of its problems stem from the populace placing too much trust in their elected officials .
It is everyone's responsibility to collectively maintain our government. It was never the intention of our founders that our
leaders become reclusive despots: from today's vantage point, we can see this. It is a short walk to realize where the blame should
be laid. Up and on your way to no future.
Just because Americans don't tend to care about anything that happens beyond their own borders doesn't mean the rest of the
world can live with the same blissful ignorance.
The NSA scandal has made us realize that the US regards us as second-rated citizens who are nondeserving of the 'special
protections' that Anglo-speaking countries do.
I find it absolutely shocking that this guy's dismissal is still debatable. Should be a no-brainer is any democracy
In the UK and USA these spooks backed by politicians and civil servants are getting way out of hand. Having the technology to
do things doesn't provide the need or right to do such things. They are getting to the point where they are "protecting" us from
the very people and system they have become.
although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama's most trusted security aides.
This is extremely telling about Obama's continued failure to discern good character in his aides and cabinet. His administration
has been a shambles largely due to his inability to surround himself with good people.
I guess so, as we all know that the CIA always tried to silent war opponents. This had been largely documented about Vietnam
opponents to the War on US soil.
They're all fuc@#$g rogue. Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who polices the police? No one apparently. They
and all their UK counterparts will walk away from this unscathed. If the heat gets a little too warm just play your joker, 'Terrorism'.
The CIA is now a discredited organization run by proven liars. When will Congress do something about it? Answer -- never.
They are all being blackmailed.
Your state can imprison anyone it wants, for as long as it wants, without having to justify it in any way... hell they are not
even required to let relatives know. That is a police state. The US is operating what effectively are concentration camps all
over the place, Guantanamo being the flagship.
The CIA is completely out of control. This begs the question, as to why do, or should, American citizen vote for candidates when
those candidates are effectively being 'managed' and spied on by people in the CIA. Senators in both houses are not making 'decisions'
the CIA is.
Quite how the CIA, White House or any other government body think that they have any credibility regarding any matter, is amazing.
I JUST PUT A LIST OF QUESTIONS ON MY TIME LINE THIS SHOULD KEEP THE SPY NETWORK BUSY FOR A WHILE ! BUT THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING
THAT MAKES SENSE ANYWAY ; THEY ONLY HAVE A 30 BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET ; BUT CANNOT TELL US WHAT HAPPENED TO MH370 MALAYSIAN AIRPLANE
! WOW ! SOME SPY NETWORK ! IT 'S EASY FOR THEM TO SCREW WITH US ; BECAUSE WE ARE EVERYDAY MARKS !
If the United States government doesn't even govern by popular mandate, it certainly won't give a fuck about anyone's respect,
dear fellow internet commentator.
The penalties for lying under oath are quite strict and can include up to 5 years of prison time. But nobody is willing to go
after these guys, they have too much information on too many people. The day the US congress voted for the patriot act was the
last day of their democracy.
What exactly does a CIA member have to do to get arrested, prosecuted and convicted for an action inside the USA?
It is not spying on Congress. It it spying on the Supreme court, or killing a Senator? Do they walk away free after assassinating
their own president? Do they need to do more?
The NSA isn't hindering your movements as you are not a danger to the status quo. You can keep getting blasted at your BBQ's and
coming online to defend the indefensible, you're not a threat. But it's not about you. It's about the people who are in a position
to challenge the system. This can include anti-war activists, judges, politicians and journalists.
Everyone who matters can be
kept inline with blackmail and for public figures it can be the smallest thing. Recently, during a primary, a candidate lost as
questions were raised about the fact he had checked in the a mental care facility. He probably had a breakdown and needed to be
observed for a couple of days. This piece of information would be easy to pick up with the various NSA programmes.
If this candidate
had the same views as you, this little fact would not have been released but I believe he was a defender of your constitution
and that could cause problems for the criminal regime you now live under.
Snooping is poison in a democracy. Your system was built so that it had self correction and could hence adapt to new situations
and constantly improve. This served Americans well for many years, but it has ended.
Feinstein and the word "hope" do not belong in one and the same sentence. She along with her fellow conspirators in the intelligence
committee are the ones that have been green-lighting this fascism for years. It's like expecting John McCain to repeal the Patriot
Act.
People like Feinstein are chosen to oversee mass surveillance for the simple reason that they are old, completely technologically
illiterates who can be easily fooled or if need be blackmailed through their extensive business empires
.
Trump betrayed anti-war votes. So he will not get the same voting blocks that he got in 2016.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that war with Iran would be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines, total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier, what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?" ..."
"... Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N. She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran." ..."
"... In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast displayed a headline : "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood." ..."
"... Tulsi responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares oppose their warmongering." ..."
"... ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation. ..."
"... for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States ..."
Voters looking ahead to 2020 are being bombarded with soundbites from the twenty plus Democratic would-be candidates. That Joe
Biden is apparently leading the pack according to opinion polls should come as no surprise as he stands for nothing apart from being
the Establishment favorite who will tirelessly work to support the status quo.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where
she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer
with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In
the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus
on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay
over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that
war with Iran
would
be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be
prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines,
total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across
the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran
would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would
cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier,
what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?"
Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N.
She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it
does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi
Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran."
Clearly not afraid to challenge the full gamut establishment politics,
Tulsi Gabbard had previously called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the
war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing
the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate
the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a
personal trip to Damascus in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are
serious about pursuing peace." She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the
country as well as ending American interventions for "regime change" in the region.
In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar
candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized
Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby.
Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and
that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast
displayed a headline
: "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman
is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood."
The obvious smear job was picked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, television's best known Hillary Clinton clone, who
brought it up in an interview with Gabbard shortly thereafter. He asked whether Gabbard was "softer" on Putin than were some
of the other candidates. Gabbard answered: "It's unfortunate that you're citing that article, George, because it's a whole lot of
fake news." Politico the reported the exchange and wrote: "'Fake news' is a favorite phrase of President Donald Trump ," putting
the ball back in Tulsi's court rather than criticizing Stephanopoulos's pointless question. Soon thereafter CNN produced
its own version of Tulsi
the Russophile , observing that Gabbard was using a Trump expression to "attack the credibility of negative coverage."
Tulsi
responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a
Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares
oppose their warmongering."
Tulsi Gabbard had attracted other enemies prior to the Stephanopoulos attack. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept
described how NBC news published a
widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia
have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."
But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge,
which was exposed by no less
than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest
that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind
this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called
Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that
claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD
website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."
ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund.
It is loaded with a full complement
of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol.
It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts
by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.
No doubt stories headlined "Tulsi Gabbard Communist Stooge" are in the works somewhere in the mainstream media. The Establishment
politicians and their media component have difficulty in understanding just how much they are despised for their mendacity and unwillingness
to support policies that would truly benefit the American people but they are well able to dominate press coverage.
Given the flood of contrived negativity towards her campaign, it is not clear if Tulsi Gabbard will ever be able to get her message
across.
But, for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.
It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related
frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States
"... Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza's protests concluded that "it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel." ..."
"... Article 12 of the Rome Statute allows for ICC's jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the court. ..."
The
Chief Military Advocate General of the Israeli army, Sharon Afek, and the US Department of
Defense General Counsel, Paul Ney,
shared a platform at the 'International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict', which
took place in Herzliya, Israel between May 28-30.
Their panel witnessed some of the most misconstrued interpretations of international law
ever recorded. It was as if Afek and Ney were literally making up their own law on warfare and
armed conflict, with no regard to what international law actually stipulates.
Unsurprisingly, both Afek and Ney agreed on many things, including that Israel and the US
are blameless in all of their military conflicts, and that they will always be united against
any attempt to hold them accountable for war crimes by the International Court of Justice
(ICC).
Their tirade against the ICC mirrors that of their own leaders. While Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's
anti-ICC position is familiar, last April, US President Donald Trump virulently expressed
his contempt for the global organization and everything it represents.
"Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met
with a swift and vigorous response," Trump
said in a writing on April 12.
While Trump's (and Netanyahu's) divisive language is nothing new, Afek and Ney were
entrusted with the difficult task of using legal language to explain their countries' aversion
for international law.
Prior to the Herzliya Conference, Afek addressed the Israel Bar Association convention in
Eilat on May 26. Here, too, he made some ludicrous claims as he absolved, in advance, Israeli
soldiers who kill Palestinians.
"A soldier who is in a life-threatening situation and acts to defend himself (or) others
(he) is responsible for, is receiving and will continue receiving full back-up from the Israeli
army," he
said .
The above assertion appears far more sinister once we remember Afek's views on what
constitutes a "life-threatening situation", as he had articulated in Herzliya a few days
later.
"Thousands of Gaza's residents (try) to breach the border fence," he said, with reference to
the non-violent March of Return at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel.
The Gaza protesters "are led by a terrorist organization that deliberately uses civilians to
carry out attacks," Afek said.
Afek sees unarmed protests in Gaza as a form of terrorism, thus concurring with an
earlier statement made by then-Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on April 8,
2018, when he declared that "there are no innocents in Gaza."
Israel's shoot-to-kill policy, however, is not confined to the Gaza Strip but is also
implemented with the same degree of violent enthusiasm in the West Bank.
'No attacker, male or female, should make it out of any attack alive,'
Lieberman said in 2015. His orders were followed implicitly, as hundreds of Palestinians
were
killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem for allegedly trying to attack Israeli occupation
soldiers or armed illegal Jewish settlers.
Unlike democratic political systems everywhere, in Israel the occupation soldier becomes the
interpreter and
enforcer of the law.
Putting this policy into practice in Gaza is even more horrendous as unarmed protesters are
often being killed by Israeli snipers from long distances. Even
journalists and
medics have not been spared the same tragic fate as the hundreds of civilians who were
killed since the start of the protests in March 2018.
Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza's protests
concluded
that "it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli
soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those
violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately
investigated by Israel."
In his attack on the ICC at the Herzliya Conference, Afek contended that "Israel is a
law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for
its actions to be scrutinized by the ICC."
The Israeli General goes on to reprimand the ICC by urging it to focus on "dealing with the
main issues for which it was founded."
Has Afek even read the Rome Statute? The first Article states that the ICC has the "power to
exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as
referred to in this Statute."
Article 5 elaborates the nature of these serious crimes, which include: "(a) The crime of
genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression."
Israel has been accused of at least two of these crimes – war crimes and crimes
against humanity – repeatedly, including in the February
report by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry.
Afek may argue that none of this is relevant to Israel, for the latter is not "a party to
the Rome Statute," therefore, does not fall within ICC's legal jurisdiction.
Wrong again.
Article 12 of the Rome Statute allows for ICC's jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the
State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if
the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the
court.
While it is true that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute, Palestine has, since
2015, agreed to submit itself to the ICC's jurisdiction.
Moreover, in April 2015, the State of Palestine formally became a member of the ICC, thus
giving the court jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed in the Occupied Territories since
June 13, 2014. These crimes include human rights violations carried out during the Israeli war
on Gaza in July-August of the same year.
Afek's skewed understanding of international law went unchallenged at the Herzliya
Conference, as he was flanked by equally misguided interpreters of international law.
However, nothing proclaimed by Israel's top military prosecutor or his government will alter
the facts. Israeli war crimes must not go unpunished; Israel's judicial system is untrustworthy
and the ICC has the legal right and moral duty to carry out the will of the international
community and hold to account those responsible for war crimes anywhere, including Israel.
"... Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing , just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk. ..."
Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And
their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath
he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing
, just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our
opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk.
Here's Trump's hero ..
"One day, from his sniper nest, Chief Gallagher shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who
was walking w/ other girls on the riverbank. She dropped, clutching her stomach, & the
other girls dragged her away."
A mass murderer according to Senior Seals: "Would order needless risks, to fire rockets at
houses for no apparent reason. He routinely parked an armored truck on a Tigris River bridge
& emptied the truck's heavy machine gun into neighborhoods on twith no discernible
targets."
"Platoon members said he spent much of his time in a hidden perch with a sniper rifle,
firing three or four times as often as other platoon snipers. They said he boasted about the
number of people he had killed, including women."
Two other snipers said, the chief shot an unarmed man in a white robe with a wispy white
beard. They said the man fell, a red blotch spreading on his back."
Gallagher ordered a hatchet & a hunting knife" before 2017 deployment. He texted the
man who made them (a Navy Seal veteran) shortly after arriving in Iraq: "I'll try and dig
that knife or hatchet on someone's skull!"
May 2017, a SEAL medic was treating a wounded 15 y/o Islamic State fighter. "He's mine,"
Gallagher said. "Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several
times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him."
He didn't even try to hide the murder of the 15 y/o. He brought other seals around minutes
later & took a photo over the body. Later, he texted the photo to a fellow SEAL in
California: "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html
Now Trumpies bear in mind that Gallagher's own fellow Seals testified against him
that's how depraved this guy Trump is pardoning is.
Here's Gallagher if you live in a stand your ground state and run into him shoot the
bastard, he'll have his hunting knife on him so you can claim self defense.
"... " nothing to address poverty, homelessness, healthcare, low income, incarceration; nor does it address climate change Military spending diverts resources. If we want genuine socio-economic and climate justice, new thinking is essential" ..."
For no important reason, I was thinking about the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier, HMS "Queen Elizabeth II". This ship has
been in the news, but for all the wrong reasons: her commander was recently removed by helicopter whilst anchored in the
Forth, accused of having used the ship's car for personal use whilst in the US (maybe he should have used a helicopter?).
Even Lord West of Spithead (former head of the RN) expressed his bemusement at the style of management. But if this really
is a question of misuse of public money, then it seems but a drop in several oceans compared with the bigger pictures –
firstly of defence spending, secondly of defence strategy, and lastly of man-management.
Firstly, the cost to build these two 65,000T aircraft carriers is currently about $10 Billion (when it
comes to such eye-watering amounts of money, the figures always expand because defence spending is notoriously adrift). This
is however a bargain compared with US super-carriers (100,000T) which are nuclear-powered, cost about $15 Billion to build
(and $3 Billion to de-commission).
The US fields about 10 such ships: they are quite defenceless (thus have to be escorted by various surface escorts and
submarines) thus 5-6,000 men. The 2013 cost of clothing, training, feeding, paying such numbers put the daily running costs to
USD $6.5 Million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier). If the Royal Navy deems her Captain
over-used the ship's car, then money must be tight.
But what of the aircraft the ship was built to carry? QEII is supposed to carry 36 F-35Bs (designed for US Marines) built
by US firm, Lockheed-Martin.
The F-35 programme was 7 years behind schedule and $150 Billion over-budget (perfectly acceptable in defence spending!).
Lockheed-Martin are not Boeing – and any reference to their 737 Max would be inappropriate – but when half remain grounded for
lack of spares, then one (for-the-price-of-two) costs $300 million.
The 72 aircraft for two ships adds $11 Billion. (N.B. these are their off-the-shelf price, not their whole-of-life cost).
Secondly, QE II apparently now has 12 F-35Bs and will be attached to the US Marines. British taxpayers'
money has not been well spent. I don't know how much a supersonic missile or torpedo costs, nor indeed a swarm of plastic
drones, but such an expensive ship makes for a very juicy target.
The first aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, was launched in 1919 and technology has changed in 100 years, but not strategy.
Carriers' vulnerability puts a serious counterweight to any 'prestige' they might bring to erstwhile superpowers; indeed, the
UK's prostrated serfitude to the US destroys any last pretence of British Sovereignty.
All empires fall: losing one may be a misfortune, but to lose two is pure incompetence. Australia, Canada and NZ cling on
like drowning men, weighed-down by oxymoronic military intelligence and misplaced political allegiance. Peace benefits
Humanity. Wars profit Bankers.
As per the
latest NZ Budget, our military will spend $5 Billion, doing " nothing to address poverty, homelessness, healthcare,
low income, incarceration; nor does it address climate change Military spending diverts resources. If we want genuine
socio-economic and climate justice, new thinking is essential".
Finally, man-management: the Royal Navy in 1757 executed Admiral Byng for 'failure to do his utmost'.
Voltaire considered that this was the British way "pour encorager les autres". Is it likely that the removed commander will
ever again do his utmost for King & Country?
British Secretary of Defense (Stupid Boy, Gavin Williamson) has walked the plank for breaching Cabinet duplicity, and PM
May has been given a seat on the next helicopter. Napoleon said: Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.
andyoldlabour
Aircraft carrier = very large target.
Sink the carrier after it launches aircraft and where are the aircraft going to land?
Modern missile technology has made large ships obsolete.
William HBonney
Anti missile technology is devastatingly effective.
If carriers are sitting ducks, you'd struggle to name the
last one sunk.
harry law
An MIT security expert says that Israel's famed Iron Dome missile defense system is flawed, with a success rate
of under five percent.
During the November 2012 conflict, a detailed review of a large number of photographs of Iron Dome interceptor
contrails revealed that the rocket-defense system's success rate was very low -- as low as 5 percent or, perhaps,
even less. A variety of media outlets have attributed the low casualty number to the supposed effectiveness of
the Iron Dome system, quoting Israeli officials as saying it has destroyed 90 percent of the Hamas rockets it
targeted. But close study of photographic and video imagery of Iron Dome engagements with Hamas rockets -- both in
the current conflict and in the 2012 hostilities -- shows that the low casualties in Israel from artillery rocket
attacks can be ascribed to Israeli civil defense efforts, rather than the performance of the Iron Dome missile
defense system.
https://thebulletin.org/2014/07/the-evidence-that-shows-iron-dome-is-not-working/
Note this against Hamas 'Roman candles' not against ballistic missiles travelling at mach 10 [7,500 MPH]
mark
The last major naval engagement where US fleet carriers were under any serious threat was the invasion of the
Philippines in 1944. Of course the Japanese were not equipped with anti ship missiles at the time. There were
many instances of damage from aircraft in suicide attacks, but a single hit would not sink a fleet carrier.
From memory I believe at least one smaller escort carrier was sunk in 1945.
I think several British carriers were sunk, one by a submarine early in the war, one off Norway in 1940 and
the Ark Royal in 1941. There may have been others. Some scort carriers were also lost. Germany introduced the
first anti ship missiles in 1943, the Fritz X and Henschel 293. They were very effective in a number of attacks
off Italy, damaging the battleship Warspite and sinking a cruiser and a number of other targets, as well as the
Italian battleship Roma as it was on its way to surrender.
In Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, opposing naval forces were so weak as to be virtually non existent. Anti ship
missiles were used by Argentine forces in 1982 to sink two large vessels, the Coventry and Atlantic Conveyor, a
merchant ship converted into a makeshift aircraft carrier. The last case occurred in 2006, when Hezbollah
severely damaged and nearly sank a large Israeli warship. It appears that the missile actually failed to
explode.
Countries like Iran and DPRK are now equipped with a large number of anti ship missiles of far greater
sophistication than any previously employed in battle. There are surprises in every war, and no one can
accurately predict what will occur until battle is joined. Experienced and competent commanders expected
cavalry to play an important part in WW1. Many others doubted that armoured and mechanised forces would be
effective in WW2, because of problems of supply and command and control, or that aircraft would be capable of
sinking heavily armoured warships. But it seems reasonable to draw attention to the increasing vulnerability of
large aircraft carriers.
Yarkob
I'd also struggle to name the last conflict in which a CVG was put under any threat at all, ..the new gen of AM
(lasers) will be the nuts, but I'd still not like to be on board a ship these days in a "real" conflict.
andyoldlabour
The Japanese had 20 aircraft carriers sunk in WW", including the "unsinkable" Shinano. The US had 12 carriers
sunk in that war, and the UK lost 8.
The last aircraft carrier to be sunk, was the IJN Amagi in Kure Harbour in July 1945.
William HBonney
So, seventy four years ago
Island nations need carriers, the threat is always from the sea.
Tim Jenkins
I think you'll find that Jamaica has more jet skis, than aircraft carriers . . .
Regardless, the
biggest threats from the seas, were always the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, False Flag Pirates
and good ole' Uncle $ham's navy,
on the hunt for corporate resources to thieve . . .
Perhaps you would like to stress your brain, (rather than arguing some mathematical stupidity) and
give us all just one example of when Aircraft Carriers were used defensively, William ? Additionally,
Bill, even friendly fire and silly lil' accidents with old munitions can immobilise an aircraft carrier,
to the point where somebody like John McCain jumps ship ASAP, for example on the USS Forrestal
"I'm an old Navy pilot. I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck,"
Sen. McCain said >>> records show otherwise !
Show some respect for others' intelligence.
mark
McCain had to be flown off the Forrestal. He was in serious danger of being lynched by his crewmates
after his negligence caused around 130 dead.
William HBonney
I have great respect for the intelligence of others, but I fear my country could become a satellite of
Russia.
The UK isn't Jamaica. It has more people, and a tradition of invention which has elevated
its position in the world.
As to aircraft carriers, they are an offensive weapon (attack being the better part of defence) ,
but always part of a carrier group. The defense of the vessel dependent on the air power of her
aircraft, and to a lesser extent the accompanying fleet.
The world is a dangerous place, don't take the freedoms we have in the UK for granted. If you doubt
that, live in an undemocratic country. I do, and it makes me love my country more.
John
"My country had become a stale lite off Russia" fuck right off you're a puppet nation as it is you
MSM led sissy
mark
The UK already is a satellite. It is a US satellite. It is more of a US satellite than the old GDR
ever was of the Soviet Union.
The world certainly is a dangerous place. I'm sure that most
Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, Palestinians, Iranians and
Venezuelans would fully agree with you. It is a dangerous place largely because of the homicidal
antics and military adventures of rogue terrorist regimes like the USA and its satellites like the
UK as they rampage across the planet slaughtering, starving and immiserating tens of millions, like
Nazi Germany on steroids. Which even now are simultaneously threatening further criminal wars of
aggression against three of those countries.
You're certainly wise not to take freedoms for granted. They are ancient history. In the UK as
in the USA, stringent censorship is being imposed and civil liberties are being shredded.
Whistleblowers and dissidents who reveal evidence of numerous war crimes and atrocities are
increasingly subject to persecution and intimidation by a corrupt and politicised judicial system,
with a growing number of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. We are all subject to an
Orwellian system of state snooping and surveillance. Torture has bee normalised, and we have a
"Leader of the Free World" who is an enthusiastic advocate of torture, inheriting a long
established global Gulag of concentration camps, torture chambers and secret prisons in a score of
countries, including UK territory, where thousands of unfortunates have been and are being tortured
and murdered on an industrial scale.
I agree with you that you live in an undemocratic country. If that makes you love your country
more, good luck to you.
UreKismet
I dunno why they still bother with carriers, I realise the fleet bossfella likes to hang out on one, but if the navy
is still any use for escorts or carrying troops etc which it likely isn't as sea is slow and planes do most of that
stuff now, but anyway if the navy does need it's own aeroplanes for anything more than empire building I woulda
thought it would be smarter to do what my old man did in ww2.
He flew an avengerMk2 in the english fleet air arm as
escort for convoys up to Murmansk. They didn't use aircraft carriers I dunno why, prolly just not wanting to waste
resources on commies, truth be told. Instead he and his cobbers were launched into the air by steam catapult off the
foredeck of freighters.
They flew patrol looking out for nazis then landed their plane (which had floats) beside the 'mothership' and got
craned aboard.
That would seem to me to be smarter as it doesn't require putting all yer eggs in one basket. As far as the old
bastard was concerned it was better too, since the english navy appears to have learned bugger all from the battle of
Jutland in the first half of the 20th century euro war where the english navy lost lost 3 battlecruisers, 3 armored
cruisers, and 8 destroyers off the coast of Denmark in 1916.
Navy architects appear to have done nothing about protecting the cordite magazines from flash explosion in the 20+
year interregnum between the two blues, cause the HMS Hood had exactly the same design flaw of a bottleneck with
inboard cordite distribution causing lax safety practices as the boats in the Jutland debacle, resulting in the
'mighty hood' going down a coupla minutes after first being hit by a german shell. The magazine blew up, 3 men
survived and more than 1300 crew did not.
Then the ark royal, the one boat the old bugger did fly off early on in his ww2 gig, was sunk thanks to incredible
stupidity and incompetence by its leadership.
No wonder all the kiwi pilots were only too happy to take the 'shit detail' the english navy offered of flying off
freighters in the North Sea.
Building vast floating targets seems to me to have been more about admirals' penis envy than sensible strategic
planning. Useful for a handful of years in the thousands of years old arseholes have been getting young men to kill
each other, by the end of ww2 aircraft carriers had become surplus to needs and nothing has happened since then to
alter that.
Same same goes for huge nuke subs, no matter how many kazillions is spent on making them invisible, the edge is lost
in a matter of months and within a short time even small non-superpower navies know where all the genocidal,
population-killing, nuke subs are. If USuk ever do decide in a fit of lunacy to attack Iran, I betcha the Iranians
will knock off most of the big stuff (aircraft carriers, battleships and nuke subs) with a flotilla of craftily
utilised inflatables in the first few days.
All that money literally billions every year, which could be used employing citizens to do constructive stuff
within their communities gets blown in bribes, boats and bombs just so that scummy politicians and brainless navy
bosses get to show off in the most facile dick measuring contest since Churchill needed a magnifying glass and a pair
of tweezers to try and meet Uncle Joe's challenge way back when. lol.
andyoldlabour
I have to correct you about no aircraft carriers being used on the Russian convoy operation, there were several.
They were mostly converted merchant ships, with decks around 500 feet long, and carried Hurricanes, Swordfish and
Martlets.
I know this because my late uncle served on HMS Avenger.
Fair enough, my knowledge is confined to what the old man said. He was always whining about his back getting
permanently buggered by the catapult.
In defense I will say that after checking the links that the so called aircraft carriers used on the Murmansk
run all appear to be freighters converted into 'carriers' rather than purpose built ships.
I have a brother who lapped all that war stuff up who would most likely know more, the little I know was when
in some sort of weird post his karking it curiosity I bought (but never actually put together ) a model of a
fleet arm avenger Mk2 as far as I can work out he was in either 851 or 855 squadron but am not even sure of
that.
William HBonney
Salisbury (military action by an antagonistic foreign power using WMD's), demonstrates what happens if a country is
not resolute about its defence.
Sometimes that means building weapons systems capable of taking the consequences
right up to the enemies coastline.
A carrier is only a 'sitting duck' if one considers it as a single vessel, but no navy would use them like that.
They are an integrated weapons system, and kept well out of harms way. Typically, a carrier group would destroy the
means to wage war on it long before any missiles were launched at it.
John
Well we spotted the liberal shill who believes every MSM story printed. Are you antonym in his new Jew profile?
Probably
mark
Salisbury (false flag operation by out of control Spook Agencies) demonstrates what happens when we are ruled by
half wits concocting transparent provocations as a pretext for aggression.
Yarkob
"Salisbury (military action by an antagonistic foreign power using WMD's), demonstrates what happens if a country
is not resolute about its defence."
LOL
sorry, that's all your comment warranted. For a proper response, see: OffG, Craig Murray, MoA et al..
again, LOL
Northern
For a start, you're on the wrong website if you think your first statement won't go unchallenged.
All the
Salisbury incident 'demonstrated' was that Cold War spy games are still very much a part of our psychopathic
leader's toolbox. Everything else beyond that is unsubstantiated speculation of which we'll likely never know the
truth and you'd have to be either a simpleton, or a blatant liar to suggest otherwise.
I won't bother with the rest of your post because arguing the pros and cons of a Carrier's military
capabilities and application means I have to implicitly accept the terminological trick (pulled by both yourself
above, our governments and the companies that build these things) that an aircraft carrier somehow qualifies as a
'defensive' weapon.
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule. Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
and you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!
When you realise how much money is poured into these HMS Sitting Ducks you realise just how far we have been duped
when told there is never enough money for the NHS.
Hugh O'Neill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQ-wgPGTp8
Tut, your last paragraph reminded me of Eisenhower's "Humanity hanging from a cross of iron" speech from 1953.
Things shave got steadily worse since then.
Not if but when
Military Intelligence?
I would argue, yes, there is a lot of intelligence, because one cannot be dumb
stupid idiot when able to appropriate vast amount of vital resources to build plain criminal evil destructive
instruments of death.
Not if but when
.. put the daily running costs to USD $6.5 Million
The ship broadside, if in Australia, can be used to promote/advertise racing and gambling.
Grafter
Why are we allowing this shit to happen ?
John
Because Brits are cowards and have had decades of being told to do a Gandhi aka fuck all in regards to getting
change. Voting never changed a thing you asked for violence on the other hand does. Do you think our leaders would
listen if they knew they had a good chance of having no head left?
Not if but when
.. what power(s) do 'we' have to prevent shit from --
any shit
-- from happening?
harry law
This from the 'war nerd' describing how new missiles have made the carriers obsolete
"Every single change in technology in the past half a century has had "Stop building carriers!" written all over it.
And nobody in the navy brass paid any attention.
The lesson here is the same one all of you suckers should have learned from watching the financial news this year:
the people at the top are just as dumb as you are, just meaner and greedier. And that goes for the ones running the
US surface fleet as much as it does for the GM or Chrysler honchos. "The purpose of the Navy," Vice Admiral John
Bird, commander of the Seventh Fleet, tells me, "is not to fight." The mere presence of the Navy should suffice, he
argues, to dissuade any attack or attempt to destabilize the region. From Yokosuka, Guam, and Honolulu
That's the kind of story people are still writing. It's so stupid, that first line, I won't even bother with it: "The
purpose of the Navy is not to fight." No kidding. The Seventh Fleet covers the area included in that 2000 km range
for the new Chinese anti-ship weapons, so I guess it's a good thing they're not there to fight".
http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
Hugh O'Neill
Harry, thanks for the superb link: the war nerd takes no prisoners.
mark
In the next war, carriers will be more vulnerable to missile attack than battleships were to air attack in WW2.
Imagine a 100,000 ton carrier sinking with its air group and 5-6,000 crew, its crippled nuclear reactors poisoning
the ocean.
nwwoods
I understand that Japan recently committed to purchasing a fleet of F-35s, perhaps because they are by default
optimized for kamikaze ops.
Hugh O'Neill
Nwwoods – Great response: financial kamikaze. Divine flatulence
mark
Perhaps they could supply the captain with a bicycle instead, painted the appropriate shade of navy blue, and save a
bit of money.
These 65k ton carriers are the biggest ships ever operated by the Navy. Its battleships and fleet
carriers of WW2 were 35,000 and 25,000 tons respectively. They might as well have been named HMS White Elephant I and
II. One will be mothballed immediately (maybe they could sell it to the Chinese?) The other may operate with a much
reduced complement of a handful of aircraft (if the F35s ever work.)
This is a ludicrous prestige project that will be seen as a national embarrassment as time goes by, like the
scrapped Nimrod AEW. It reflects the delusions of our ruling elite ("What if we want to bomb North Korea?") and those
of people like Admiral West.
To operate, aircraft carriers require an escort of 5-6 frigates and destroyers and a submarine, for anti aircraft
and anti submarine defence. These won't be available. Britain has a grand total of 17 frigates and destroyers, 5 – 6
of which are out of commission undergoing refits at any one time. British frigates and destroyers are less well
equipped than their foreign counterparts. Crewing even one of these ships will be a major headache. The personnel
strength of the Navy is currently 29,000. Even the cost of fuel for operations is prohibitive. The US carriers have
nuclear reactors which only require refuelling around once every fourteen years.
It would have made much more sense to buy a few extra frigates and destroyers instead. Maybe the odd small
aircraft carrier of around 20,000 tons like the Invincible class, if they really wanted. Though most people think in
any future wars large aircraft carriers against a half competent enemy would be little more than floating coffins,
very vulnerable to the new class of anti ship missiles like the Yakhonts/ Sunburn. In recent times, they have only
been used in modern colonial style warfare against the present day equivalent of the Zulus and the Fuzzy Wuzzies.
Brave but not terribly well equipped fighting men who don't have so much as an Airfix model Spitfire for air defence.
Aircraft carriers would be terribly vulnerable if used even against countries like Iran or North Korea.
And then there are the aircraft. I think the actual unit cost of the F35 comes in at something around $400 million
a pop all in. Whether it will ever work is open to question. America has problems building aircraft that don't work.
This thing has problems with its engines, which keep conking out in mid flight, with the oxygen system, which keeps
failing with rather unfortunate consequences for the pilot, and the cannon, which won't fire because its computer
won't work. It has wings which are too small for a good fighter, and it can't bomb anything if it faces any stronger
opposition than a few tribesmen with AK47s. Apart from that, it's okay, though we probably can't afford more than a
dozen of them. The previous F22 was a similar failure. The production line was closed down after 100 – odd of them
had been made, though they were supposed to produce 1,000.
America used to produce some very good aircraft, like the F14/15/16/18. The F35 is supposed to replace them, but
the new aircraft is grossly inferior to them all. They are talking about putting the F18 and A10 back into
production. This is eerily reminiscent of the Luftwaffe in WW2, whose new aircraft projects like the Messerschmitt
210 and Heinkel 177 were flying death traps. They were forced to put obsolete aircraft like the Junkers 87 and the
Heinkel 111 back into production till the end of the war, so that they had something to fight with, however
inadequate.
Still, so long as Lockheed's profits are okay, I suppose that's the main thing. And Gavin Pugwash Williamson, or
his successor, can posture and preen about how Britain rules the waves with HMS White Elephant and its dozen Flying
Turkeys, even if they can't scrape a crew together for it. Why should England tremble?
Rhys Jaggar
HMS White Elephant was an electoral bung of Gordon Brown. Whose constituency built the damn thing?
Real warfare
now is about blasting the ionosphere to create awful weather in enemy territory. It is releasing super pests onto
other contitenrs to infest agricultural crops. It is engineering viruses to be more harmful and releasing them
abroad. It is crashing global stock markets to wipe competitors out.
Aircraft carriers had their day. In about 1945 .
I do not want proxy wars either. Not in Ukraine, not in Syria, not in North Korea, not in Venezuela.
But all our corrupt officials and representatives think wasting trillions of our money on archaic overpriced
ersatz masturbation toys is just fine and dandy.
It is not ok to sell their daughters into foreign prostitution though.
Oh no .
Mucho
By my estimations, the only way out of this mess is to buckle the machine and arrange mass withdrawal of labour.
Crash the whole rotten lot of it
Maggie
Fantastic idea, however I think you will find that many workers don't even know what or who they are working for.
Pity we can't post a list of companies?
mark
The only problem with that is that they don't need the labour any more. The proles are surplus to requirements and
can now be culled, as the Davos/ Bilderberg crew have decided. They aren't needed any more to dig coal, smelt
steel ingots, or hammer rivets in shipyards.
Mucho
it's the only weapon we have, either that, or we remain eternally enslaved by the forces of evil
Mucho
Here is a link to a CIA document showing details of the effects of millimeter waves on biological structures.
It is a translation of the original Soviet files from research done in 1977, declassified in 2012. This comes
from the Fullerton Informer, who, by my estimation, is a truly great person, a beacon of light. 5G equals
permanent exposure to this man made radiation, 24/7. This is an enormous threat to you and your family,
wherever you are. TIME TO START TAKING ACTION AGAINST THIS EVIL
https://thefullertoninformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cia-millimeter-waves-1.pdf
wardropper
Re: aircraft carriers in general:
I sometimes feel that I could show up somewhere in the corridors of the Pentagon with a plan to recycle people's
shirts and underwear cheaply into some sort of instant camouflage in the event of an "enemy" guided-missile attack
upon one of "our" aircraft carriers, and there would be a high-ranking official there daft enough to fund me to the
tune of billions of dollars to develop it.
Certifiable insanity is no stranger to the military environment of modern western government.
Ramdan
"When the Way governs the world, the proud stallions drag dung carriages. When the Way is lost to the world, war
horses are bred outside the city."
"Weapons are ominous tools. They are abhorred by all creatures. Anyone who
follows the Way shuns them."
"Those who advice the ruler on the Way, do not want the world subdued with weapons."
Tao Te Ching
We live in society that grew accustomed to war and violence as the sole mean to "solve" its conflicts. The irony
of this is that now there is a hughe issue with bullying and cyber-bullying and people are still 'wondering' how was
this ever possible in a, so called, civilized society.
A 'civilized society' that still debates what's the best (more economic and efficient) way to go to war, that is, the
more efficient way to manslaughter .
wardropper
I think our main problem is that most people are, essentially, decent, whereas politicians are not.
And it's the politicians who make the decisions
Mucho
Welcome to the Age of the Stupid – we know virtually all the answers to our problems, but do the opposite for
the benefit of a few thousand of Satan's agents
wardropper
That is extremely well-said.
And I am, myself, probably sometimes guilty of what you say too, although I do try not to be.
DiggerUK
With missile capabilities at the level they have now reached, aircraft carriers are as useless as WW2 battleships
turned out to be in the 1940's.
Russia recently demonstrated the maximum tactical use they can be put to, when they
sent their one remaining carrier to Syria. Against a smaller power they give you the advantage of air superiority
when deployed as a 'pop up airfield', but against another major power they would be useless. The recent US sabre
waving in the Gulf may impress the gormless, but even Iran has the missile capability to make them worthless.
As to the racket that is war, Major General Smedley Butler published this pamphlet in 1935 based on an after
dinner speech he made. Not the finest writing, but well worth a read _
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf
SO.
The AK's not a carrier in the conventional sense so you shouldn't really consider it as such.
Whilst it's original function might have been considered to be a nuclear launch platform (there were 500kT
nukes under it's deck) it's real purpose was as an area denial system designed to kill aircraft within it's
engagement envelope.
As such, somewhat ironically the ancient old soviet aircraft carrier is probably the only thing afloat that
could withstand a modern missile attack by itself.
mark
The AK also served another useful purpose, generating hysteria in the media, with Sid Scurvy, Ace Reporter of
the Daily Bugle, warning how Putin was about to murder us all in our beds when it came within a couple of
hundred of miles of the UJK coastline. Whilst simultaneously running pieces about how the thing was so clapped
out it was about to sink.
DunGroanin
The Anglo-Imperialists (self loving white peoples) are prepared to go down fighting.. if they can't have it, neither
can anyone else.
Time that the non- brain dead 5-eyes morons realused that we didn't win the second world war by outselves. There
were many millions of Sub-continentals, Africans and Afro-Caribbeans as well Afro-Americans, Native Americans etc.
AND the millions and millions of Russians, military and civilians, who actually stopped the Anglo-Imperialists proxy
Nazi mercenaries and wiped out their military strength. Only than did the 'Allies' make a token effort at invasion.
Aircraft carriers are totally useless in modern warfare. They are visible from the sky and vulnerable to missiles
– hypersonic and ballistic, never mind frogmen with limpets.
John
Can tell you Gott two thumbs down for the use of her word 'white'. Fucking skin colour pussies are to easy to
scare
Jen
Let me be the first to say it!
Military intelligence? Does that even exist in the context of the British armed
forces?
" Finally, man-management: the Royal Navy in 1757 executed Admiral Byng for 'failure to do his utmost' "
Yes, doing his utmost meant he should have arranged with the enemy to execute him.
Paul
Byng was the victim of politicians and the Admirality who were actually responsible for the failure to stop the
French taking Menorca by sending his fleet late and ill- equipped. It was embarrassingly obvious to most involved
that it was an unjust, vindictive and low life response. He was shot on the deck of his own ship. It was a
typically British way of doing things, when in trouble, blame somebody else and punish them. Nobody at the top is
ever to blame in Britain; it's a tradition that is still well maintained
mark
The powers that be seemed determined to uphold these traditions by treating Julian Assange as a latter day
Admiral Byng.
mark
Then, as now, shit flows downhill.
Fair dinkum
Proof.
That humans are headed for extinction.
wardropper
Unless, of course, those who believe in the human spirit are right, and further evolution lies in that direction
It looks indeed as if our physical existence at least is headed nowhere – in its current form at any rate
Maggie
So Wardropper – It appears that Brave New World was actually predictive programming? And all these years I
thought it was a fiction.
wardropper
I think we can safely relax, Maggie – somewhat.
It is certainly fiction.
So we have our fiction on one side, and our personal experience on the other.
What kind of cocktail we make of that is up to us, I reckon.
The US government has a tendency to hijack and weaponize revolutionary innovations, Edward
Snowden said, noting that the natural human desire to communicate with others is now being
exploited on an unprecedented scale. "Our utopian vision for the future is never guaranteed
to be realized," Snowden told the audience in Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada via
live stream from Moscow this week, stressing that the US government "corrupted our
knowledge... towards a military purpose."
They took our nuclear capability and transformed it into the most horrible weapon that
the world had ever witnessed. And we're seeing an atomic moment of computer science... Its
reach is unlimited... but its safeguards are not!
The whistleblower, who in 2013 leaked a trove of highly classified information about global
spying operations by the National Security Agency, argued that, armed with modern technology
and with the help of social media and tech giants, governments are becoming
"all-powerful" in their ability to monitor, analyze, and influence behavior.
It's through the use of new platforms and algorithms that are built on and around these
capabilities that they are able to shift our behavior. In some cases, they are able to
predict our decisions and also nudge them to different outcomes.
The natural human need for "belonging" is being exploited and users voluntarily
consent to surrender virtually all of their data by signing carefully drafted user agreements
that no one bothers to read. "Everything has hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal jargon
that we're not qualified to read and assess and yet they are considered binding upon us,"
Snowden said.
And now these institutions, which are both commercial and governmental... have
structuralized and entrenched it to where it has become now the most effective means of
social control in the history of our species.
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
John Bolton
repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:
Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with
world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members
of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's
claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being
challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.
In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their
headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist,
eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because
they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The
U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its
compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof
that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting
and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e
Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.
The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:
Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it
now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed
yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].
Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume
enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.
"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton
said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium
out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton
blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they
either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that
the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated
all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement
desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.
Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest,
and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from
the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which
Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created
to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come
to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.
The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning
them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the
benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran
does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits
it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of
anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about
this as anything other than propaganda and lies.
From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured
in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the
US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.
This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target
on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.
Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us,
and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.
It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never
acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.
I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.
OK. Maybe this
rules change isn't aimed directly at Tulsi Gabbard, but it certainly looks like she's in
danger of being it's biggest victim.
Presidential candidates looking to participate in the Democratic National Committee's
sanctioned primary debates initially had to meet one of two thresholds to be eligible:
achieving at least 1% in three separate DNC approved polls or obtaining at least 65,000
donations with minimum of 200 donors from at least 20 states. ... To appear at the recently-announced third set of debates in September, candidates must
achieve 2% in at least four DNC-approved polls and double the minimum of number of donors to
130,000. That quickly became a death sentence for candidates who for months have not even
cracked the first donor threshold.
To make this clear, the requirements for the
THIRD
debate went from "at least 1% in three separate DNC approved polls or obtaining at
least 65,000 donations" to " 2% support in four national or early voting state polls AND
130,000 unique donors to their campaign, including 400 unique donors from at least 20
states". For most of the candidates, unless they really score in the first two debates, they won't be in
any more debates.
To help put this into context, consider what the DNC has been up to recently. They chose
Chris Korge as the new finance chair of the Democratic National Committee. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez went on a hair-on-fire
rant about Russiagate.
"We are at war right now with the Russians -- it is a cyber war -- [and] our
commander-in-chief is compromised," Perez said. "We should be able to rely on the federal
government for help from this. ... It is unconscionable that this administration has paid
such little attention to what Mueller acknowledged today, [which is] Russian interference. "
Yes, the DNC is busy looking out for what is important to you.
"... Tulsi: "While I agree that Russia is both directly and indirectly responsible for this downed plane shot down by the separatists, we've got to look at this in the bigger picture. We've got to look at Russia's incursion into Ukraine, Ukraine's sovereignty " ..."
"... "Not a single anti-aircraft missile system of the Russian Armed Forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border," ..."
"... "the determination of the Dutch-led investigation to justifying its conclusions by solely using images from social networks that have been expertly altered with computer graphic editing tools." ..."
"... had been previously displayed by the infamous British online investigative activist group, Bellingcat. ..."
"... "the 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia". ..."
"... "the Dutch investigators completely ignore and reject the testimony of eyewitnesses from the nearby Ukrainian communities", according to the Defense Ministry. The testimonies, however, provided essential information "indicating the launch of a missile was carried out from a territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces." ..."
"... "comprehensive" ..."
"... "clearly indicate the involvement of the Ukrainian Buk anti-aircraft system units" ..."
Who Shot Down Flight MH17 over Eastern Ukraine in 2014?
span ted by wendy davis on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 11:19am
Well of course it was the Evil Russians! Didn't Russians also shoot Roger Rabbit? We'd been discussing this 2014 interview with
Tulsi Gabbard on my post ' analyses of the leaked 'Deal of the Century'
I/P peace plan '
that I'd found that day and posted in comments, mainly wanting to feature her anti-Palestinian Hasbara. As I remember it, this 'blame'
started the horrific sanctions on Russia.
Tulsi: "While I agree that Russia is both directly and indirectly responsible for this downed plane shot down by the separatists,
we've got to look at this in the bigger picture. We've got to look at Russia's incursion into Ukraine, Ukraine's sovereignty "
TravelerXXX had bookmarked this Eric Zuesse exposé that I'd vaguely recalled and brought it in:
'MH17 Turnabout: Ukraine's Guilt Now Proven', December 31,
2018,
strategic-culture.org
It's about nine yards long with zillions of hyperlinks, so long I don't even guess I'd ever finished it, which makes it hard
to figure out what, if any, nuggets to feature, but he did link to this:
'MH-17: the untold story', 22
Oct,
2014, RT.com, including a 27-minute video documentary.
"Three months after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down over Ukraine, there are still no definitive answers about
what caused the tragedy. Civil conflict in the area prevented international experts from conducting a full and thorough investigation.
The wreckage should have been collected and scrupulously re-assembled to identify all the damage, but this standard investigative
procedure was never carried out. Until that's done, evidence can only be gleaned from pictures of the debris, the flight recorders
(black boxes) and eye-witnesses testimonies. This may be enough to help build a picture of what really happened to the aircraft,
whether a rocket fired from the ground or a military jet fired on the doomed plane."
I'd later added to that thread, including some photos of a beaming Netanyahu holding a map of the Golan Heights that Herr Trump
had signed with his approval (indicating the leaked plan just may be The Real Deal) when Up Jumped the Devil:
'Where
is the evidence?' Malaysian PM says attempts to pin MH17 downing on Russia lack proof', 30 May,
2019, RT.com
"Malaysia has accepted the Dutch report that a 'Russian-made' missile shot down its civilian airliner MH17 over eastern Ukraine
in 2014, but has yet to see evidence it was fired by Russia, said Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
"They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence?" Mahathir told reporters at the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCJ)
in Tokyo on Thursday.
"You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians," the prime minister went on, according to the Malaysian state
news agency Bernama. "It could be by the rebels in Ukraine; it could be Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile."
"Mahathir was skeptical that anyone involved with the Russian military could have launched the missile that struck the plane,
however, arguing that it would have been clear to professionals that the target was a civilian airliner.
"I don't think a very highly disciplined party is responsible for launching the missile," he said.
The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), whose report last year blamed Moscow for shooting down MH17, barred Russia from
participating in the investigation, but involved the government of Ukraine. Although Malaysia is also a member of JIT,Mahathir
revealed that his country's officials have been blocked from examining the plane's flight recorders.
"For some reason, Malaysia was not allowed to check the black box to see what happened," he said. "We
don't know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it."
"This is not a neutral kind of examination," Mahathir added.
Rejecting the JIT accusations, Russia made public the evidence the Dutch-led researchers refused to look into, including the
serial number of the missile that allegedly struck MH17, showing that it was manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1986 and was in
the arsenal of the Ukrainian army at the time of the tragedy."
b of Moon of Alabama offered this whopping 55 minute press conference video with Malaysian PM Mahathir on Twitter
on May 31.
But aha! RT had later provided on the left sidebar:
May 24,
2018: 'No
Russian missile system ever crossed into Ukraine: MoD rejects Dutch MH17 claims', RT.com
"The Russian Defense Ministry has rejected new claims that flight MH17 over Ukraine was downed by a missile from a Russian unit,
urging the Dutch-led probe to focus on studying hard facts instead of social media images.
"Not a single anti-aircraft missile system of the Russian Armed Forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border,"
the defense ministry said in statement.
The Russian military raised eyebrows over "the determination of the Dutch-led investigation to justifying its conclusions
by solely using images from social networks that have been expertly altered with computer graphic editing tools."
The ministry pointed out that
the images used in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) press conference on Thursday were provided by the Ukrainian special
services and had been previously displayed by the infamous British online investigative activist group,
Bellingcat.
The Dutch-led probe announced that the missile that downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014 came from a Russian military
Buk system that crossed into Ukraine and then returned to its base in western Russia.
Investigators claim the missile system involved came from "the 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia".
The JIT essentially just repeated the conclusion made by Bellingcat a year ago.
The alarming part in the JIT probe is that "the Dutch investigators completely ignore and reject the
testimony of eyewitnesses from the nearby Ukrainian communities", according to the Defense Ministry. The testimonies, however,
provided essential information "indicating the launch of a missile was carried out from a territory controlled by the Ukrainian
Armed Forces."
The Russian side said that it provided the international probe with "comprehensive"evidence, including field tests,
which "clearly indicate the involvement of the Ukrainian Buk anti-aircraft system units" in the destruction of the plane
with 283 passengers and 15 crew members onboard."
This video that Eric Zuesse had up may be part of the referenced eye witness testimony.
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
John Bolton
repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:
Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with
world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members
of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's
claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being
challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.
In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their
headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist,
eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because
they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The
U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its
compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof
that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting
and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e
Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.
The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:
Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it
now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed
yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].
Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume
enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.
"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton
said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium
out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton
blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they
either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that
the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated
all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement
desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.
Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest,
and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from
the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which
Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created
to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come
to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.
The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning
them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the
benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran
does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits
it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of
anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about
this as anything other than propaganda and lies.
From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured
in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the
US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.
This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target
on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.
Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us,
and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.
It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never
acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.
I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.
An interesting method of monitoring access to the particular WEB site or page by intercepting pages at the router and
inserting reference to the "snooping" site for example one pixel image) which collects IPs of devices which accessed particular
page. Does not require breaking into the particular Web site 00 just the control of provider router is is enough. That
makes it more understandable the attack on Huawei.
Notable quotes:
"... Said Mr. Snowden was at risk for extra ordinary rendition.. qualified him for application under refuge law. Said to claim refugee status Art. 33 of the refugee humanitarian grounds application is Intl Refuge Law, that those in control of governments are working to eliminate this long standing intl understanding. ..."
"... said we are experiencing the greatest and fastest and most pervasive redistribution of power since the Industrial revolution.Highly concerned that very few are going to benefit. ..."
"... Talked about Conspiracy , a group called 5 eyes (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) and prism.. explained how it worked. basically a collaboration between big corporations and government ..."
"... Explained how these corporations and government (mostly government) could intercept web page request between user at home or in office and the target server, and replace generate a blank page that has surveillance hidden in the page, then blend hidden with the legitimate page delivered by the innocent server to the unknowing user. said it goes beyond collaboration and moves to proactive surveillance. ..."
"... Said law is needed to criminalize companies and governments that make useful network devices that people buy, into evil spyware. mentioned the NSO group can remember why?. .. classified "trade in hidden exploits". as evil relayed story about how such devices were used in Mexico to defeat political opposition ..."
Describes the incredible pressure governments are applying on anyone who steps forward to
help a whistle blower.
Said Mr. Snowden was at risk for extra ordinary rendition.. qualified him for application
under refuge law. Said to claim refugee status Art. 33 of the refugee humanitarian grounds
application is Intl Refuge Law, that those in control of governments are working to eliminate
this long standing intl understanding.
Explained the constitution of Equador was the most complex constitution on planet its due
process rights solid due process safeguard, has a very high threshold but. Morales decision
was arbitrary to strip Mr. Assange of his asylum. Said HK angry at Germany over two whistle
blowers
Snowden then speaks .. excellent talk..
1st point.. progress in science has been unprecedented, especially nuclear science, but
the nation states are using that new
knowledge to make nuclear weapons.. called the progress an "Atomic Moment" in Science
evolution. .
said we are experiencing the greatest and fastest and most pervasive redistribution of
power since the Industrial revolution.Highly concerned that very few are going to benefit.
2nd point Platforms and Algorithms are being used by those in power to "shift our
behaviors" accomplished covertly by user
contracts people are required to sign when joining something on line (<=he said no one
reads these things, but they are dangerous
Talked about Conspiracy , a group called 5 eyes (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) and
prism.. explained how it worked.
basically a collaboration between big corporations and government
Explained how these corporations and government (mostly government) could intercept web
page request between
user at home or in office and the target server, and replace generate a blank page that has
surveillance hidden in the page, then
blend hidden with the legitimate page delivered by the innocent server to the unknowing user.
said it goes beyond collaboration
and moves to proactive surveillance.
said the legal means to spy on the populations existed long before 9/11, but it could not
find daylight to be adopted until 9/11.
Basically the government and massive in size corporations have all of the data on every
single person on the earth because they gather it everywhere all of the time. discussed
warrant_less wire tap, explained why whistle blower fair trial in he USA not likely,
Said everything single call or electronic communication made by citizens is captured
suggested monitoring calls was a felony many corporations committed before the FISA Act was
enacted to protect the listener.
Mentioned Signal by Open Whisper <= for encryption??
Said law is needed to criminalize companies and governments that make useful network devices
that people buy, into evil spyware. mentioned the NSO group can remember why?. .. classified
"trade in hidden exploits". as evil relayed story about how such devices were used in Mexico
to defeat political opposition.
But the big thing I got out of it, was how website contract agreements are not innocent.
Such agreements prey on human desire to [interact, connect, share and cooperate] these
desires have been modelled into a platform that allows government or private commercial
enterprises to manipulate, exploit and prey-on any human "interacting with a such
websites.
"... Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior. In some cases they're able to predict our decisions -- and also nudge them -- to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting the human need for belonging ." ..."
"... "We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social media platforms like Facebook. ..."
"... That means that a company, community or country that uses Huawei technology is protecting itself from the US-led international system of surveillance and possible control. And the threats and demands that they stop using Huawei products is more about keeping US control, not so much about blocking Chinese control ..."
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Thursday that people in systems of power have exploited the human desire to connect in
order to create systems of mass surveillance .
Snowden appeared at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia via
livestream from Moscow to give a keynote address
for the Canadian university's Open Dialogue Series.
Right now, he said, humanity is in a sort of "atomic moment" in the field of computer science. "We're in the midst of the greatest
redistribution of power since the Industrial Revolution, and this is happening because technology has provided a new capability,"
Snowden said.
"It's related to influence that reaches everyone in every place," he said. "It has no regard for borders. Its reach is unlimited,
if you will, but its safeguards are not." Without such defenses, technology is able to affect human behavior.
Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close
to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior.
In some cases they're able to predict our decisions -- and also nudge them -- to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting
the human need for belonging ."
"We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social
media platforms like Facebook.
Snowden focuses on the common-knowledge stuff to keep our attention away from mass Signals Interference (spoofing and blocking
messages, calls, and emails) and other shady programs.
Huxley's 'Ultimate Revolution' - a scientific dictatorship where the masses willingly submit to their own enslavement - is
here.
His 1962 UC Berkeley speech sums it all up. Orwell's 1984 depended on terror and force to maintain control. Much easier with
A Brave New World where the control is psychological and people 'know their place' in the world and willingly accept it.
Mass surveillance is useless if you can't organise such a huge data set into meaningful information, and what's meaningful
is always a matter of opinion. Those who paid the bazillions to build this thing must be starting to scratch their heads.
The real threat of a system like this is when some low level user with access exploits it for their personal advantage. Some
neighbor or co-worker who doesn't like you.
AI has a long way to go and in this case it just sounds like a poor excuse to keep feeding the big white elephant.
10 to 15 yrs from now, security services and police will intercept any person walking in a public place without some form
of smart device to identify who they are, and it is all being implemented by stealth, right before our eyes
Smart identification devices will become mandatory, everything in your life will be tracked, your travel, your spending,
your political affiliations, people will willingly give up their freedoms to the illusory safety of the security state, call
it slavery
I don't know but at least as it pertains to me, I think all the scare tactics aboput Artificial Inteligence is way overblown.
I don't even read the ads on the internet, and if I do happen to spend more than a nanosecond viewing them, its usually only
to getg the name of the company so I make sure NOTG to buy anything from them for invading my space.
SoI reallhydon't \care if some algorithm says I am likely to buy a certain kind of product, because they can bombard me with
ads all day and all night and it won't make a rat's *** bit of difference in whagt I decide to do. Same with politics...there's
nothing they can pipe intop my computer that will make me more or less likely to vote for a candidate. I have voted all over
the ballot in any election I ever voted in, and my selections were based on reading what the candidates said at debates or in
campaign speeches. Political advertising is a waste of money when itg comes to my voting.
In terms of spying, yes, I can understand how and why tech companies and the government engage in that kind of activity.
I surely don't like it, but it really doesn't bother me because I would never portray anything I do to an internet full of anonymous
people who may be collecting information. Most people are law abiding and the things they do that come close to criminal occur
so infrequently and are for such a relatively small amount of money compared to a criminal enterprise that the government probably
doesn't have time to bother with them. If you have nothing to hide than you have nothing to fear, and for the most part, most
people have nothing to hide.
In terms of drones surveilling everyone, I think they are great target practice. How often do you get the chance to fire
atga moving target outside of skeet shooting ? So if the government or some ahole company wants to spy on you with drones, have
fun shooting them out of the air. If enough people take this route, the practice will end because the cost of all those shot
up drones will be too expensive for the Peeping Toms to afford. And the government does not have the resources to prosecute
a hundred million people all shooting at drones.
Another point : when it comes to election time, go to the local Meet The Candidate forums where you live and ask the candidates
who has the balls to state they will vote against any government spying without warrants based on unimpeachable reasonable causes
? Only vote for the politicians who make such pledges, and if they break their promises vote them out of office the next time
they try to get elected. Democracy works when the people are willing to use it. So use it.
Then get off your dead *** and work to save what power the people have left. Are you that lazy physically and intellectually?
TV people own you enough to cave into deep apathy? The I hope you get FEMA camped in one form or another because that's where
this **** is headed unless you take to heart the previous poster.
I would have agreed with you 20 years ago. We're way past the point where voting matters. All politicians on both sides are
the worst pieces of **** you can imagine. They all support mass surveillance, slavery through fake Fed money, war, GMOs, vaccines
and any other evil **** their masters are trying to force on us.
I hope the voting rate in America goes under 10 percent so that 90 percent of us can say, "**** you! I didn't vote for that"
and have it be true. Because when it comes to all the important stuff, you did vote for that if you voted for one of these vile
wastes of protoplasm in DC.
"As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict
set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's
passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats."
I agree with Snowden's assessment of the human need to socially connect with others which is being exploited and morphed
into mass surveillance.
But .gov cannot be trusted to take any effective action against the likes of Faceache or Goolag because these outfits are
in bed with government (see recent ZH article on this very subject). Thus, government is a prime beneficiary of the mass surveillance
data being collected.
I actually disagree with Snowden. I think social media, from what people describe and what I observe, strokes people's egos
and self-esteem. The tragedy here is that social connection becomes redefined rather narrowly within the confines of ego and
self-esteem. I note, e.g., the strident and self-righteous tones in some of the posts throughout ZH here today. Along with the
hyper-massaging of ego/self-esteem comes hyper-emotionalism. Everything is cataclysmic. You're the "good guy," and everybody
and anybody who opposes you are the "bad guys." Stark, vivid black and white thinking propelled by emotions on steroids. Combine
ego massage with steroidal emotions, and you get people wearing the equivalent of horse blinders. People who are easily duped.
I was struck by Snowden's remarks about Huawei technology. He makes the claim that in the past 6 years our best minds with
unlimited resources had been unable to find Huawei back doors or kill switches, because otherwise we would know, they would
have announced it to the world
On the other hand we can assume that American servers and the software they use do have back doors and maybe kill switches
That means that a company, community or country that uses Huawei technology is protecting itself from the US-led international
system of surveillance and possible control. And the threats and demands that they stop using Huawei products is more about
keeping US control, not so much about blocking Chinese control
This reminds me of the urgency with which the US demands that countries buy Patriot missile systems, not S400's.
STASI was privatized - now, people volunteer their information, and the CIA-funded ABC and FaceBook aggregate and sell the
data back to Big Government.
He is right. When myspace, then facebook came out I thought, Cool, I can keep in touch with all these people. Then, when
I became obvious that is was being used to spy on everyone and sell their info, I was pissed at myself for being so naive to
think that an honest company could exist without stabbing everyone in the back and becoming a tool for for the same intelligence
groups that have been standing on our necks for a couple hundred years now. Today it is too much to ask for an honest company
and a government that does not victimize its citizens in about every way it can imagine. We can have a better world. It won't
come by voting. They locked that **** down. It is time for the rope.
I get the surveillance part, but the social control part is still in the wings. China's social credit system and US' "terrorism"
databases are all but inklings of what is to come: constant and ubiquitous 24/7 monitoring with AI drone "enforcement". So far
the powers that be feel constrained in using all the data they collect in criminal court - in part because there are not enough
prisons, and in part because they don't want a revolt. But: once AI, data collection and drone automation reach the tipping
point (not far off), those constraints will be gone: there will be no ability to revolt as the drones will wipe out the "seditionists",
and prison won't be a problem because they will use other means (no food, no transportation, or corporal punishment, all administered
by integrated sales, transportation and drone systems).
"... IMO it also became more apparent when the Deep State f*cked up by no bringing Russia on-side after the end of the Cold War while continuing to assist China's "peaceful rise". That caused the dislocation known as Trump. There's gonna be some turbulence when you turn a massive entity like USA. ..."
Mueller plays his criminal hand of innuendo until the end. Were he ever to submit to questions in a Congressional setting,
Mueller would be out-Giancana-ing Sam on taking the Fifth. The Special Counsel format is at this stage a superseded footnote.
The ball's now in Barr/Durham's court now and the theme is Hunt for Red Predicates.
Breaking news. The Russia Collusion time-zero may in fact lead to Rome as all roads are wont to do. Italy is not a Five Eyes
member. However that did not prevent Obama and Brennan from treating it like one. Both spent a lot of time there at opportune
moments.
As it turns out the oft-cited, oft-profaned Steele Dossier was the barest of predicates that was always meant to be hopped
over anyway. The Mother of all Predicates was a a failed effort on the the part of Italian intelligence and the FBI to frame
Trump in a stolen (Clinton) email scandal. How did the Italians get hold of these emails and who thwarted the frame-up attempt?
Hmm.
Just when you think the transnational plot is thick enough, it gets thickerer, and if Obama's Milan itinerary's any indication,
it may well reach the tippy-top.
Nine Days in May (2017) is where 90% of the action is.
@29 bruce... everyone here at moa is saying much the same which is why some of us are saying the cia is running the usa at this
point.. that and a confluence of other interests... mueller - ex cia... so, basically the mueller investigation was more cover
up and b.s. for the masses... it seems to have worked to a limited degree..
Some think the CIA has been running the show since the Kennedy assassination. But with the rise of the neocons and the
end of the Cold War, it became more apparent.
IMO it also became more apparent when the Deep State f*cked up by no bringing Russia on-side after the end of the Cold
War while continuing to assist China's "peaceful rise". That caused the dislocation known as Trump. There's gonna be some turbulence
when you turn a massive entity like USA.
Last thing that as become 'apparent' is this: the vast majority of people in the West (including many smart people in
alt-media) can't dislodge their thinking from the MSM narratives. Despite being skeptical of MSM and USA, they just can't bring
themselves to see the degree of manipulation that leads to the logical conclusion: "cia is running the usa".
Some think the CIA has been running the show since the Kennedy assassination. But with the rise of the neocons and the end
of the Cold War, it became more apparent.
IMO it also became more apparent when the Deep State f*cked up by no bringing Russia on-side after the end of the Cold War
while continuing to assist China's "peaceful rise". That caused the dislocation known as Trump. There's gonna be some turbulence
when you turn a massive entity like USA.
Last thing that as become 'apparent' is this: the vast majority of people in the West (including many smart people in
alt-media) can't dislodge their thinking from the MSM narratives. Despite being skeptical of MSM and USA, they just can't
bring themselves to see the degree of manipulation that leads to the logical conclusion: "cia is running the usa" .
Impeachment indeed would be a mistake. The Dems have been denigrating trump from the
beginning and what has that got them?
Also, remember Trey Gowdy and his endless investigations? Adam Shiff is nearly as
repugnant and should turn to other work in Congress.
Yes, SharonM, Tulsi is charismatic, as well as calm and collected. So far, though, she is
being ignored by the D.C. pundits. We should keep an eye on her positioning with respect to
the new DNC debate thresholds.
"... Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world." ..."
"... In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again. ..."
"... continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism. ..."
"... Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again." ..."
"... Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders. ..."
"... Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." ..."
"... Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else. ..."
"... He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? ..."
"... There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America. ..."
"... Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness. ..."
Given contemporary events, one of the most interesting figures of the 18th-century French revolutionary period was Jacques-Pierre
Brissot, a leader of the Girondins, the neoconservatives of revolutionary France.
Brissot believed that the animating universal ideals of the Revolution had made France, as one of his allies put it, "the foremost
people of the universe," not just better than all earthlings, better even than Martians. Yet, despite France's position as the exceptional
nation, the Girondins worried that universal ideals were under siege by a complex array of conspiracies hatched by the absolutist
powers surrounding France.
The only way to confront these foreign conspiracies, he believed, was preemptive war. Robespierre, who hated Brissot, was skeptical.
Robespierre believed that war would strengthen the monarchy, which was wobbly but still intact in 1791, and that foreign adversaries
would be formidable military opponents. Robespierre famously quipped: "No one loves armed missionaries." In true neoconservative
fashion, Brissot countered that the people of many nations who were longing for liberty, especially the Dutch and Flemish, would
welcome France's revolutionary army with open arms. Sound familiar?
But, Brissot had a problem. When he rose to prominence in the Assembly in 1791, the monarchists and other traditionalists still
held significant sway, and Louis XVI was still on the throne. How to persuade these traditional French nationalists to launch crusading
wars to spread universal ideals when these retrogrades understood the only sound French foreign policy to be one that advanced France's
interests, its raison d'état?
Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives
when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct
repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George
W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world."
In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out
into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power
again.
But the clever neoconservatives, such as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo, adopted the Brissot strategy. Continue the military
crusade for universal ideals, continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions
of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism.
Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the
masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of
cant phrases like "Make America Great Again."
In Pompeo's May 11
speech at the Claremont Institute, the bastion of the West Coast Straussians, the Brissot strategy was on full display and,
understandably, was met with raucous cheering by the neoconservatives in the audience who understood that Pompeo and John Bolton
had succeeded in hijacking Trump's foreign policy for neoconservatives, a significant accomplishment. While Trump's rhetoric is
still the husk of American foreign policy, when it comes to core principles and political practice, "America First" is out, the
" Freedom Agenda " is in.
"Getting
along" with other nations is out; regime change and belligerence is in.
Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution
were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders.
He argued that the "foreign policy of the early republic" could be characterized by three words: "realism, restraint, and respect."
This is fine as far as it goes, but he then proceeded to define these terms in ways that would have made them unrecognizable to
the Framers. Alexander Hamilton defined realism, Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations."
Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he defined "restraint" as the willingness to go to war, because "the temper and folly of our enemies may
not leave this in our choice." Finally, without a hint of irony as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group was steaming
to the Persian Gulf in search of monsters to destroy, Pompeo quoted John Quincy Adams on the need for respect in international relations.
Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else.
He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge
was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's
warning against permanent alliances? What Washington really meant in his Farewell Address, Pompeo said, is to have many, many alliances
"based on 'policy, humanity and interest.'" If he were president today, Washington would welcome America's alliances with Israel,
Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea in order to make certain, for example, that "each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty
from coercion." Washington was really a neoconservative, you see.
There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a
warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America.
Pompeo's rhetoric represents the transvaluation of the Framers' foreign policy restraint into those of neoconservatism. It
is hard to know if Trump is aware that his foreign policy principles have been hijacked, but given his apparent disdain of intellectual
pursuits, the answer is probably in the negative.
Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative
agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is
exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas,
there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions,
and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness.
George Washington's view of Pompeo's puffed up triumphalism would be that a nation that hubristically pounds its chest and claims
exceptional moral purity and righteousness may just be a nation that has lost its virtue. The American Framers were well aware that
the great republican experiments in ancient Greece and Rome ended with prideful imperial overreach.
In 1792, when Louis XVI read,
"in a flat, faltering
voice," the war proclamation against Austria he understood it to be a death sentence for the French monarchy. We should know
that if neoconservatives are able actually to carry out the wars that their ideology and will to power suggest, it would be a death
sentence for the American republic.
William S. Smith is Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University
of America
"... Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN ..."
"... It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally. ..."
"... Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view. ..."
"... It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. ..."
"... Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq. ..."
"... We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it." ..."
"... Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election ..."
"... This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power. ..."
"... Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology. ..."
"... Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions. ..."
"... Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. ..."
"... It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles." ..."
"... The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it." ..."
"... Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks. ..."
"... But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views. ..."
"... Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi! ..."
"... To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS ..."
"... Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades. ..."
"... The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets! ..."
"... John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. ..."
"... Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, ..."
"... But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like. ..."
"... Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS! Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it." ..."
"... Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor. ..."
"... Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush! ..."
"... I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons ..."
"... The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation! ..."
"... I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. ..."
"... "Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees." ..."
"... Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes. ..."
"... They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel." ..."
"... The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today. ..."
John Bolton has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time he
may have gone too far, writes Joe Lauria.
I knew John Bolton and interacted with him on a nearly daily basis with my colleagues in the press corps at United Nations headquarters
in New York when Bolton was the United States ambassador there from August 2005 to December 2006.
Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had
actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN. But that turned out to be the point.
It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order
to weaken it, perhaps even fatally.
Bolton's most infamous quote about the UN followed him into the building. In 1994 he had
said : "The Secretariat building
in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
But a more telling comment in that same 1994 conference was when he said that no matter what the UN decides the U.S. will do
whatever it wants:
Bolton sees such frank admissions as signs of strength, not alarm.
He is a humorless man, who at the UN at least, seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room. He once gave a
lecture in 2006 at the U.S. mission to UN correspondents, replete with a chalk board, on how nuclear enrichment worked. His aim,
of course, was to convince us that Iran was close to a bomb, even though a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate being prepared
at the time said Tehran had
abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
I thought I'd challenge him one day at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, where Bolton often stopped to
lecture journalists on what they should write. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government
in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?' I asked him.
"That's an interesting question," he told me, "but for another time and another place." It was a time and a place, of course,
that never came.
More Than an Ideology
Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed
with deep personal failings hidden from public view.
He seemed perpetually angry and it wasn't clear whether it was over some personal or diplomatic feud. He seems to take personally
nations standing up to America, binding his sense of personal power with that of the United States.
It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all
other nations and isn't afraid to say so. He'd have been better off perhaps in the McKinley administration, before the days
of PR-sugarcoating of imperial aggression. He's not your typical passive-aggressive government official. He's aggressive-aggressive.
And now Bolton is ordering 120,000 troops to get ready and an aircraft carrier to steam towards Iran.
Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly
threatened the children
of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to
invade Iraq.
After Bolton's failed 2005 confirmation hearings, Tony Blinken, the then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told The New Yorker
's Dexter Filkins:
"We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe.
But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the
intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it."
Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in
Venezuela and of course Bolton organized
the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
What is alarming about the above video is not so much that he justifies lying, but the example he gives: lying to cover up military
plans like the invasion of Normandy. This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for
overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is
a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit
of profits and power.
Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology.
Regime Change for Iran
The U.S. national security adviser has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his
move. But this time John Bolton may have flown too high.
He was chosen for his post by a president with limited understanding of international affairs -- if real estate is not involved
-- and one who loves to be sucked up to. Trump is Bolton's perfect cover.
But hubris may have finally bested Bolton. He had never before maneuvered himself into such a position of power, though he'd
left a trail of chaos at lower levels of government. Sitting opposite the Resolute desk on a daily basis has presented a chance to implement
his plans.
At the top of that agenda
has been Bolton's stated aim for years: to
bomb and
topple
the Iranian government.
Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times,
on May 14 , it was he who
"ordered" a Pentagon
plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf. These were to be deployed "if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its
work on nuclear weapons."
Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation
deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions.
At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman, who had been undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, as had Bolton,
predicted
to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it "would be the kind of excuse that a
person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran."
In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said on May 5 (May 6 in Tehran) that it would indeed
restart partial nuclear enrichment. On the same day, Bolton
announced the carrier strike group was headed to the Gulf.
Bolton Faces Resistance
If this were a normally functioning White House, in which imperial moves are normally made, a president would order military
action, and not a national security adviser.
"I don't think Trump is smart enough to realize what Bolton and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are doing to him,"
former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel told RT's Afshin Rattansi
this week.
"They have manipulated him. When you get the national security adviser who claims that he ordered an aircraft carrier flotilla
to go into the Persian Gulf, we've never seen that. In the days of Henry Kissinger, who really brought sway, he never ordered
this, and if it was ordered it was done behind closed doors."
Bolton claimed he acted on intelligence that Iran was poised to attack U.S. interests close to Iran.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight
its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. An
editorial on May 16 in the Saudi English-language news
outlet, Arab News , called for a U.S. "surgical strike" on Iran. But The New York Times reported on the
same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack
Iran causing a full-scale war.
The
intelligence alleged Iran was fitting missiles on fishing boats in the Gulf. Imagine a government targeted by the most powerful
military force in history wanting to defend itself in its own waters.
Bolton also said Iran was threatening Western interests in Iraq, which led eventually to non-essential U.S. diplomatic staff
leaving Baghdad and Erbil.
It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense
you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow
them away with cruise missiles."
But this time the bully is being challenged. Federica Mogherini, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security
policy,
resisted the U.S. on Iran when she met Pompeo in Brussels on May 13.
"It's always better to talk, rather than not to, and especially when tensions arise Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly today
from us," said Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible
attitude to take – is and we believe should be, that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side."
The New York Times that day
reported
: "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series
of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it."
Ghika: No new threat from Iran. (YouTube)
British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika then said on May 14: "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or
Syria." Ghika was
rebuked by U.S. Central Command, whose spokesman said, "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to the identified
credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region."
A day later it was Trump himself, however, who was said to be resisting Bolton. On May 15 The Washington Post reported:
"President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military
confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S.
officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders."
"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according
to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against
the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."
Then it was the Democrats who stood up to Bolton. On Tuesday Pompeo and Shanahan briefed senators and representatives behind
closed doors on Capitol Hill regarding the administration's case for confronting Iran.
"Are they (Iran) reacting to us, or are we doing these things in reaction to them? That is a major question I have, that I still
have," Sen. Angus King told reporters after the briefing. "What we view as defensive, they view as provocative. Or vice versa."
Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego told reporters after the briefing: "I believe there is a certain level of escalation
of both sides that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The feedback loop tells us they're escalating for war, but they could
just be escalating because we're escalating."
Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite
possible that Iran was behind" the attacks.
Bolton was conspicuously absent from the closed-door briefing.
It's Up to Trump
Trump has pinballed all over the place on Iran. He called the Times and Post stories about him resisting Bolton
"fake news."
"The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly
sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!"
Trump tweeted on May 17.
The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot,
poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good
thing!
Then he threatened what could be construed as genocide against Iran. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of
Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" he tweeted on Sunday.
But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the
"military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from
Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views.
On Monday he implied that the crisis has been drummed up to get Iran to negotiate.
"The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation
with Iran. This is a false report ."
The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up
a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report....
John Bolton must be stopped before he gets his war. It is beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is Donald
Trump.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected]and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is US." As in the lies that created the Vietnam war and the waste of 58,000
American soldiers and thousand of Vietnamese. Or the lie that Iran is our enemy when we funded and encouraged Saddam to attack
them and destroyed their attempt to have a secular government.
Or the lie of the WMD's and the 9/11 attack which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Saudis and NOT Iraq.
Or the lies of Afghanistan which was economically and culturally better off when it was controlled by the USSR...
John Hawk , May 26, 2019 at 16:56
Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi!
To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump
is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS.
It can't get any more delusional than this. Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump
et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier
on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades.
After all, deception is their game and they use it liberally, like feeding their agenda to Bolton as 'intelligence' info
of the highest order. The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason.
Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets!
Zhu , May 26, 2019 at 03:20
If Bolton were struck by lightning tomorrow morning, would anything change much? I doubt it. We Americans are as warlike
as the ancient Assyrian. We've been slaughtering Indians, Koreans, SE Asians, Central Americans, and multiple Middle Eastern
people for a looong time. It is flattering to blame this individual or th t country, but no. We, as a community, are all responsible
to some degree. Even me, on the far side of the world.
Alex , May 25, 2019 at 21:50
Bolton's choosing destroyed IRAN but staying friends with Saudi Arabia it's so contradicting, and so obvious that he is influenced
to behave this way is because Israelies influence. Saudy Kingdom using Bolton to get IRAN so Saudy will be only country promote
Extreme version of Wahhabi Islam which is didn't existed In Islam's history.
So Bolton's obsession with destruction of Iran is ignorance as its best. September 11th suspects were most of them Saudy
nationals, yet nobody wanted to talk about it, because there is irony that, George W Bush was and probably still doing business
with Saudy. So how can you explain that to American people? No you can not.
Perhaps collectively hypnotism !
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 02:58
" So how can you explain that to American people?"
Given that useful fools are useful, why would you want to?
" No you can not."
An illustration of the benefits of dumbing down do not accrue solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, facilitating
the minimising of blowback during implementation of strategies based on "How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback",
given that many believe that critical mass is a function of linear notions of 50% +1 and above; a further conflation of quantity
with quality to which the opponents are prone.
William , May 25, 2019 at 19:06
John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized.
Put him in a strait jacket and keep him in a padded cell. He poses a threat to millions of people.
Eddie S , May 25, 2019 at 11:26
Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of
us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, IF it was assessed from a pro-peace perspective.
But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign,
with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency
that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing
meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which
is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like.
Good article about a reprehensible politician.
renfro , May 25, 2019 at 11:18
"But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian
threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war. "
________________________________
Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS!
Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now
they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh
we have nothing to do with it."
Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump
appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor.
Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? If we attack Iran it will be for the Zionist and Saudis and we all know it.
Luther Bliss , May 25, 2019 at 10:57
Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush!
Remember it wasn't until Bush JR's second term that he asked his father, "What's A Neocon?" to which Pappy Bush replied,
"Israel."
I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot
free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons.
The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security
Advisers. What a joke of a nation!
Mark , May 25, 2019 at 02:30
I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq,
and Syria. Bolton stands out for his extremity among extremists, but he's a means rather than the end. The agenda is something
into which he bought, passionately by all indications, but which a paucity of other people created strictly to advance their
own, tiny, exclusive clan, not for the benefit of the United States.
Hank , May 25, 2019 at 09:43
To think that this administration campaigned on a promise to restrict future wasteful and needless interventions and then
hired this dinosaur of a warmonger makes my blood curl! Everyone with half a brain knows what Bolton's agenda is yet here he
is leading the USA into a war at the behest of a foreign nation led by a felon and terrorist! The American people who want peace
and their tax dollars invested into improving the USA have once again been stabbed in the back by a conniving administration.
Will this cycle of non-democracy ever end? Until it does, future administrations will continue on just like previous ones- kowtowing
to special interests, in particular the military/industrial mafia and the apartheid criminal state of Israel! All this massive
business of holding "elections" in the USA, all the talk about "Russian collusion" and the REAL collusion is right there in
front of us all- the US administration has once again COLLUDED to go back on a campaign promise and once again open the money
trough for the military/industrialist pigs!
Mark , May 26, 2019 at 05:31
I get the idea, but it's necessary to look 'behind' back-stabbing, conniving, colluding administrations, and Bolton, and
the military/industrial complex, and to bring Israel and some barely known U.S. history, at least back to World War I, explicitly
to the fore for public scrutiny. That's a monumental task, to say the least, owing to American attention spans and the contrary
interests of the powers that be.
Taras77 , May 24, 2019 at 20:24
Bolton has his own well funded PAC, from which he is free to "contribute" (bribe) sychophant congress individuals. What a
situation for the fix for war.
"Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as
have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees."
ricardo2000 , May 24, 2019 at 17:29
By far the most productive, and most verifiable, way to eliminate weapons is at a negotiating table. The easiest way to start
a war is with ignorant blather.
O Society , May 24, 2019 at 16:09
Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes.
They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel."
Trump initially declined on Bolton because "he doesn't like Bolton's moustache."
Kool Aid drinkers and idiots. We're being lead by a cult of morons who worship the bombs, money, and a white separatist state.
i doubt the iranians will test a nuke until after djt is out of office. after that you might wake up one morning and everything
you knew before becomes quite obsolete.
my guess is israel has stealth cruise missiles with h bombs. it would be very foolish of them to not have them. those descendants
of egyptian slaves are anything but foolish.
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:33
@ CitizenOne: Thank you for your long comment. I agree with much of what you wrote, but would like to know why you claimed,
"Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel " . According to what I've read, Iran has not initiated hostilities
with any nation for over a century – a clear, peaceful contrast to the rogue states of Israel & the U.S. Are you referring to
the long-ago-debunked claim that Iran claimed to 'wipe Israel off the map'?
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155
? "So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors,
the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague
wish for the future.
"A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option – the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" –
with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel.
")
Or perhaps you're referring to Revolutionary Guard deputy leader Hossein Salami's warning that if Israel starts an aggressive
war against Iran, it 'will end with {Israel's} elimination from the global political map'? IMHO, warning an extremely aggressive,
self-obsessed, Apartheid-practicing rogue state against trying to attack your nation is wise ;-) .
I look forward to your response. Thanks very much.
Sam F , May 27, 2019 at 06:12
Sam: please use an identifier initial as I do, to prevent confusion.
I have asked you twice before; perhaps not the same person.
It is unfair to expect others to make the clarification, and easy to prevent.
How is it that crazies like Bolton can end up high in our government hierarchy? It is because the whole damned government
is crazy through and through
Joe , May 23, 2019 at 20:48
His Dad probably made a huge donation to Yale just like Bush's Dad. That's what happens when the system is gamed.
Art Thomas , May 25, 2019 at 09:22
Yes, in my opinion. The state stripped of patriotic rhetoric and other obfuscations that keep us devoted to it is nothing
more than a criminal gang that hides behind the law.
Some basic examples. 1. The law: taxation, the crime: theft. 2. The law: monetary credit expansion, i.e. debt financing,
the crime: counterfeiting, i.e. creating money out of thin air. 3. The invasion of countries not a threat to the invading state.
Etc. etc.
Tiu , May 23, 2019 at 18:30
If the US "political establishment" was working for America's benefit, things would look very different.
They are instead working on the "globalist" agenda, which will, if successful, destroy all nations as we know them today and
what remains will be ruled over by a bunch of sociopaths who are the same group that has inflicted John Bolton on the world.
Bolton's a tool, a bit like a hammer, to get their project done. The Democrats have equivalent tools e.g. H R Clinton.
Mark Thomason , May 23, 2019 at 18:04
The problem is if he hasn't gone too far. If he gets his war.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:53
John Bolton should get to ride the missile in the remake of Dr. Strangelove.
evelync , May 23, 2019 at 19:53
hah hah hah
I loved that movie :)
and yes Bolton is a perfect caricature of Slim Pickens AKA Dr Strangelove.
I also refer to him as Yosemite Sam
one difference for our current real life war monger is that the movie character was simply insane and didn't justify his
craziness with explanations.
Bolton, OTOH, blames "national Security" and "the national interests" of this country .say what????
if we look at the horrific human costs and the enormous financial costs of the wars that were fought for U.S. "national interests"
one would want to ask, once the rubble had cleared, what "interests" were actually served and whose "security" did they actually
improve?
The answers always take us back to Eisenhower's MIC and Ray McGovern's MICIMATT (maybe I got a couple of these letters wrong?).
Whoever profited from the mayhem don't represent either our "national interest' or our "national security" IMO and yet those
two phrases are used to shut down any discussion or criticism in the lead up .
whew
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:20
Strictly about the movie – Slim Pickens plays the ranking officer on the B-52 (I think?) which is actually dropping the bomb.
Dr Strangelove is a totally different character, one of a few played by Peter Sellers in that movie, and is a (mostly!) wheelchair-bound
German scientist.
And the wheelchair bound psychopathic scientist of Dr. Strangelove was inspired by Kubrick meeting Henry Kissinger at a cocktail
party and recognizing that Kissinger was the most evil person on this planet because he looked and sounded so responsible and
rational.
Now that Saddam, bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler are dead, Kissinger holds the record of the person still alive who has
needlessly killed more people, both Americans and non-Americans, than any other person on this planet.
Hillary's idea of destabilizing Libya and creating a political vacuum there was from her training when working for Kissinger.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
The Pathology:
John Bolton
Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Chairman of Gatestone Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former board member of Project for the New American Century (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former Adviser to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/john-bolton/
Mike Pompeo
Christian Zionist: "We will continue to fight these battles, it is a never ending struggle until the Rapture."
Associate of Center for Security Policy (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Sponsor of ACT! for America (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mike-pompeo/
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:38
@ Abe: Thanks for the info!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:42
John Bolton is obviously a very sick puppy.
This is patently obvious to any observer with the least desgree of psyhological sophistication and insight.
If he lived on your block and made such statements about his neighbors, or a woman living nearby, he would be looking at restraining
orders.
He is an out-of-control abusive pig who belongs in an institution where a course of shock therapy might actually help him. I
reckon any basic psychological test would find that he has a least borderline personality and at worst is actually insane and
incapable of taking responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Bolton has permanent termporary insanity.
Letting this tortured, psychopathic individual run the military is itself an enormous crime, one of murderous negligence, one
for which Trump truly should and could be impeached. Congress must take all possible steps to get this man out of the Executive
Branch.
Threaten Trump with impeachment if he doesn't fire Bolton.
His appointment of Bolton is reckless negligence and endangers this country.
James , May 23, 2019 at 19:09
I wonder how good American politicians of the past, if there were any, would react to the appointment of this psychopath
as what he is now. Whom should be blamed for it? Donald Trump? The pro-Israeli lobbies? Or the American nation? A glance at
the man's face is enough to realize that he is deeply sick. To me, he doesn't look like a human being at all! He looks like
a monkey out of a stuffy room. Why don't psychotherapists do anything about him? Shouldn't he be hospitalized for the safety/security
of the world population? By the way, I wonder where Netanyahu, the psychopath's provoker, is. He has been very quiet for about
a month or so. Maybe he is waiting for the war to ignite without getting himself directly involved in it. Let Americans and
Iranians kill one another while he waits to pick up the fruit in the end.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:27
Where does the blame lie? Who hired him? Who's the chief of the executive branch? Who's a person who could actually fire
him (as he's so famous for doing on reality TV shows) instead of wringing his hands on friendly TV networks declaring he doesn't
want to actually go to war, but if he's 'forced' to, he'll erase Iran from the map?
Druid , May 26, 2019 at 03:16
He would have to get permission from Adelson and the Mercers first.
CitizenOne , May 24, 2019 at 20:52
Bolton and Pompeo are the only things keeping him from impeachment. As long as Trump satisfies the bloodthirsty war mongers
and the insatiable appetite of the MIC and the Pro Israel lobby and the Oil Lobby or Koch Industries he cannot lose. So far
Trump is bangin on all cylinders. I really think he knows what he needs to do to survive. All this impeachment talk is just
fantasy by the left dreaming about getting him out of office "somehow".
bjd , May 23, 2019 at 16:13
That the mono-maniacal psychopath Bolton is a walking exhibit of the Dunning–Kruger effect is no surprise to me. It is extra
frightening though.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:00
What was Bolton's day job before he started mucking around in politics and foreign policy? Master waterboarder or testicular
electrificator in extraordinary renditions for the CIA? He seems the sort to have spent much time at Abu Ghraib, and not just
to take notes. Honestly, his major goals seem to be the eradication of entire cultures and societies, which will somehow redound
to the magnificence of the United States of America. Clearly a sociopathic personality. A lot in common with Cheney.
Jimmy G , May 23, 2019 at 15:57
Again the panic is stirred by .. The NYT! (The source of such good info regarding Russia gate) .
The statement regarding Bolton " ordering" anything is just one more example of the media and the intel bureaucrats trying to
put the President in a jam politically . (Remember how a month ago we were invading Venezuela?)
Bolton is doing nothing more than getting enough rope to hang himself, and the military intelligence service, congressional
and media Trumpophobes are willing to stir this to the very edge, and we all know Congress could (if it could act in good Constitutional
faith, rather than pretending to be the judicial branch) unite for the good of this country and Trump would be amenable to whatever
they came up with. Trump is far less of a warmonger than any POTUS we've had in a very long time.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:18
If Congress is the only branch of government with the constitutional power to declare a war, surely it has the power to FORBID
the executive branch from fomenting such a war against their judgement.
In fact, wasn't the Boland Amendment such a legislative act passed with the intent of preventing the Reagan administration
from pursuing military action in Central America, most notably Nicaragua and El Salvador?
What's to prevent the Congress, if it were so inclined (which I doubt it is) to instruct the president (especially if he
seems trigger-happy) to refrain from initiating any unprovoked attacks upon Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or any other country,
for that matter?
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:56
Ollie North worked for Reagan, didn't he?
RnM , May 25, 2019 at 17:27
Trump is very aware that 'Stache Bolton and Mike "Mumbles" Pompeo are significant threats to his re-election. Would not be
surprised to see them removed before January.
CitizenOne , May 25, 2019 at 21:02
The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial
news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes
back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty
much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today.
I agree with your statement that Trump is far less vulnerable based on his history but I am sure that the war planners are
always concocting special information diets that are carefully prepared to appeal to the particular tastes of the leader of
the day. Whatever Trumps opinion is he will be surrounded by the hand picked lunatics of the day who will entice and enjoin
him to agree with plans for war based on their carefully prepared menu of propaganda specifically designed to be appealing to
the palate of whoever is in charge.
It is less certain that Trump's long history of opposing military action will have real staying power as he is served up
courses of a sumptuous meal prepared specially for his palate designed to engage him in support for military action all over
the World.
Trump is particularly susceptible to flattery and appeals to his greatness and his very stable genius. He wants to be the
great leader and for that he needs a plan to deal with the geopolitical situation in many countries.
Trump is a man who knows what to do too.
He advised Germany that it was a puppet of Russia until he didn't
He advised Teresa May how to do Brexit the right way until he didn't
He announced to the World he had forged deep connections with North Korea until he didn't
He had high hopes for an alliance with Russia until he didn't.
He specified the right type of fire fighting to be used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the fight in Syria until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the war in Syria again until he didn't
He wanted to cut the military budget until he didn't
Ordinarily if we were in the middle of a democratic presidency the press would be raising the "flip flopper" argument every
second of their available airtime.
Democrats are the flip floppers but never a republican even when he is. It all depends on the way the flips and the flops
land. If they land on conservative positions then a flop or a flip never occurred. With republicans, flip flopping is just a
corrective action to realign the president on the correct course. If it is a democrat then their hypocrisy and flip flopping
are broadcast 24/7 and are portrayed a fundamentally disqualifying events which demonstrate a fundamental lack of principles
and weakness of character deserving of condemnation. When errant republicans flip flop over to the "correct" vision they are
welcomed with open arms into the fold.
Trump wants to be accepted so badly that the democrats hounding him are in fact herding him into the fold of the conservatives
who will shelter him and support him at all costs and the media will never ever ever never call this flip flopping.
In short, if a political candidate shifts to the left his integrity will be destroyed as his character will be portrayed
as weak and built on shifting sands. He will be deemed not to be trusted like some loose cannon.
On the other hand, if a political candidate shifts to the right he will be greeted as a prodigal son returning to the fold
and will be welcomed with open arms.
So I am not as sure as you that Trump's background will be any indicator of his future ideas about how to succeed in the
environment he is in where both democrats by their antagonism and republicans by their defense of him both push him over to
the right.
He may once have been far less of a war hawk but politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing him further to the right
every day.
Consortium News editor Joe Lauria may wish to contribute a follow up series of articles detailing the purity of pro-Israel
Lobby pathology exemplified by Bolton, Pompeo, and the beyond troubling Trump preferably before the next war.
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 19:33
"the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government. "
That's it in a nutshell.
KiwiAntz , May 24, 2019 at 18:46
Thanks Joe for the great article. Bolton (aka the moustache) truly is a humourless, warmongering, depraved psycho? This is
a cowardly man who dodged the Vietnam draft as he didn't want to die in some foreign patty field! But this lunatic has no qualms
to send other peoples sons & daughters into a Iranian war zone as cannon fodder to satisfy his deluded & perverted bloodlust
to destroy Iran? If "the moustache" wants a War with Iran he should be forced to fight on the frontlines with his troops along
with POTUS Bonespurs Trump, another cowardly draft dodger? Let the moustache & the Dotard make a stand, like Jon Snow in the
Battle of the bastards, sword in hand, facing down the so called Iranian, bogeyman enemy, but this would never happen as cowards
& bastards like Bolton & Trump don't personally fight in the battles they start, they hide in safety in a Washington situation
room, as far away from any War zone as possible! If Bolton gets his War with Iran, Trump will pay the price for this suicide
mission because he would be blamed for the fallout of any Military defeat! America's already sorry record of Military humiliation
& defeat in Regime change operations around the Globe would reach a crescendo if they ever dared to try to attack & overthrow
Iran as it would be the endgame of the US Empire!
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:28
Trump is just Israel's bitch.
incontinent reader , May 24, 2019 at 01:08
Good comment, Abe. We've missed you. Keep posting more of the same.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:37
We Americans were bloodthirsty long before Israel existed.
anon , May 25, 2019 at 06:35
What an absurd zionist troll post. Try it with someone dumb, Zhu.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 15:17
First Joe, McKinley did not implement American submission to British Imperialism, though it began with the end of Grant's
administration as with the twice elected Groucher Cleveland, but it's confirmation as US policy began with Teddy Roosevelt.
The Roosevelt Corollary destroyed JQA's Community of Principle in the Americas which should be known as the true Monroe Doctrine,
contrary to popular opinion today which has incorrectly replaced the Monroe Doctrine with the Roosevelt Corollary (as Bolton
is especially want to do). TR signalled the end of the Lincoln Era of American industrial development and global cooperation,
which was best represented by Grant, the most overlooked of great Presidents (and perhaps we see similarities of Grant to Trump
today). Bolton indeed is Captain Kangaroo, presiding over his Court as the Queen of No Hearts would in Alice's confrontation
with British rule once she penetrates behind the facade of British Lockean empiricism. With insight only equalled to Lincoln's,
who said "We can't fight two wars at once, so first the Confederacy and then the British," Trump has identified the fascist
nexus within our government as that same British foe, a nexus led by Brennan, Rice, Clapper, Jarrett, et al, which works on
behalf of what Eisenhower (another overlooked great President and General) called the Military Industrial Complex. The MIC is
a British Intelligence deployment to fundamentally undermine our Constitution and put the US into a state of perpetual war and
police surveillance. It is now over 70 years in the making, and is enforcing a new Cold War and attempted coup of our elected
Government, and yet, it may have finally found its match, not just in Trump, but in Trump's intended cooperation with Putin
of Russia and Xi of China. These three nations, along with Modi of India (just reelected) are a true threat to this rotten British
system, from Fabian liberals to Bolton chickenhawks, the true enemy is this British System. If we move on that effectively,
we may just have a chance to win this revolutionary moment now unfolding throughout the trans-Atlantic world. Let us return
to JQA's community of principle for the entire world. Let us work with Trump to end this fascist British nexus. Let us celebrate
our true heritage as Americans!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
Your comments read with interesting and well taken.
BUT: The bottom line is that Trump hired Bolton (and Pompeo) and has wound him up and set him loose goosewalking across the
globe.
Why?
The buck for Bolton's suicidal buffonery stops with Trump.
So, I can't see him as a genuine foe of the Deep State-MIC as you describe.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 18:10
Bolton is loyal to Trump, even though he is a failed chickenhawk. Look at McMaster, at the leaking, and outright betrayal
of the President. Same with Tillerson, betrayal. Pompeo and Bolton have ridiculous views and bloated war rhetoric, but they're
personally loyal, perhaps opportunistically, and even temporarily, but nonetheless right now they are, and when they're not,
I bet they're gone. But Trump does control the policy. Look at North Korea, any war? Media said there would be, then worked
to undermine a deal. Venezuela, war? They're talking in Norway now, how'd that happen? Syria, troops out? MIC, Dems and Media
opposed, and Trump called them out for the first time since Eisenhower! Pompeo to Sochi to see Putin, progress. How'd that happen?
Trump is fighting the MIC and too many good Americans are spinning so fast from the propaganda machine they can't see straight.
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 18:40
Interesting, but it is easy for a president to fight the MIC: simply fire and arrest anyone who acts against efforts to control
them. He could send any federal enforcement agency, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, reserves, national guard, or even the Coast
Guard, Secret Service, DC police, or private guards to arrest them and prosecute any resisters as traitors. It is not one man
against the MIC.
And they cannot assassinate him once he has announced that intention, without exposing their hand and unleashing a generation
of purges and strict controls. If he is surrounded by traitors, he has only to say that and fire the lot of them. He could leak
that anonymously to Wikileaks or tweet it and they would be terrified.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:48
Bolton has been working DC bureaucracy like a pro for decades. He's using Trump like a marionette while he runs circles around
the amateur. He was helping orchestrate foreign wars of choice back when Trump was still playing a pretend boss on TV. Bolton
has no loyalty except as a facade for those he needs to suck up to.
Your examples of non-wars are terrific. Trump is amazing! – because he's running the government so badly that the State Dept
doesn't know what the Pentagon is doing doesn't know and vice versa. He chose to ignore the Iran nuclear deal, which had prevented
Iran from developing nuclear weapons. So now, the Iranians declare (out of self defense) that they're now going to pursue nuclear
weapons. Trump then says that he doesn't want to attack Iran, but they must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This
is a circular argument exactly of the type the MIC uses to engage in war. Pompeo then indicates that laughable, ineffectual
attempts at sabotage are most likely Iranian. This grave threat to our nation can't even do enough damage to an oil tanker to
make it take on water.
Just because someone fails to do something doesn't mean that they were against it the whole time. Maybe they're just awful
at it. Sure, Trump says some things that are heartening to the anti-war and anti-interventionist crowd. But the next day he'll
say something heartening to rabid neocons. He needs to grow a spine, but it's far too late. He's a dandy, a spoiled rich kid
fop who's never had to answer for his mishaps, because why, when you have inherited money and a stout legal team?
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 19:06
The idea that "the MIC is a British Intelligence deployment" is fantastical, as the US MIC is several times the size of UK's
entire MIC, and such a secret could never be kept. The US MIC has engaged UK secret agencies to subvert the US Constitution
by serving as agents to pass intercepted US communications back to the US to pretend that the MIC didn't do it, or that it was
foreign intel. But that is a long way from UK controlling the US MIC.
There are certainly confluences of interests between the US and UK oligarchies, but I see no basis for the contention that
"American submission to British Imperialism began with the end of Grant's administration" when the US prosecuted Britain for
building the Alabama etc. to break the Union blockade, and was outraged that Britain considered recognition of the Confederacy
until it lost at Gettysburg. The US under TR was not submitting to anyone when it sent the Great White Fleet on tour, or when
it seized Cuba and the Philippines. Nor under Wilson when it stayed out of WWI until very late in the war, despite the Lusitania
loss. Nor under FDR when it stayed out of WWII until attacked, despite the passionate pleas of Churchill.
Some detailed argument with credible references would be needed to support those assertions.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:44
Scapegoating is real popular with lefties & rughties alike. American Exceptionalism forbids we ever accept respobility for
what we've done.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:45
No, the rest of humanity is not any better.
anon4d2 , May 25, 2019 at 06:48
The commenter was searching for causes, and some UK conspiracy is simply too far from any available evidence. In fact it
much appears to be a wild attempt to distract from the obvious causes including zionism, which you pretend is "scapegoating."
No, zionism is a principle corrupting factor in US politics, especially foreign policy.
If you don't see that, you must start learning the evidence, rather than relying on the presumption that it is mere scapegoating.
Otherwise you are serving their wrongful and racist tribal purposes, and others will presume that you know that.
Oscar Shank , May 26, 2019 at 07:24
Zhu knows it.
Vera Gottlieb , May 23, 2019 at 14:56
How much more peaceful the life on our entire planet would be if the Americans weren't around.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Extend that to all humans, and the head of PETA would support the project.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:16
I doubt that. Nature hates a void.
Bethany , May 24, 2019 at 17:50
Exactly. Very well put.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 14:19
Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
only served about one year of his second term.
Bustani was forced out by the U.S. government in April 2002 because he wanted international chemical weapons monitors inside
Iraq and thus was seen as impeding the US push for war against Iraq. The US accused Bustani of "advocacy of inappropriate roles
for the OPCW".
Since 2011, the United Nations has stood by a US-Saudi-Israeli Axis financed and armed the mercenary terrorist forces attacked
Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, major support for terrorist mercenaries has provided
via NATO-member state Turkey, as well as Jordan. Israel has launched repeated air attacks and provided direct support for terrorist
forces in Syria.
From July 2010 to 2018, the Director-General of the OPCW was Turkish career diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu. Uzumcu served ambassador
to Israel from 1999 to 2002, and as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO between 2002 and 2004.
Turkey has been the primary channel for mercenary terrorist forces assaulting the Syrian state. The remaining terrorist forces
in the Idlib Governorate continue to be supplied through Syria.
Since Uzumcu announced the creation of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on 29 April 2014, not a single OPCW report
has acknowledged these basic facts concerning the conflict in Syria.
Following a consensus recommendation by the OPCW Executive Council in October 2017. Spanish career diplomat Fernando Arias
was appointed to replace Uzumcu as Director-General of the OPCW. Previously, Arias served as Ambassador of Spain to the Netherlands
and the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OPCW. He also has served as Permanent Representative of Spain to the United
Nations in New York.
Uzumcu, and now Bustani, obviously understand that the appropriate role of the OPCW is to provide propaganda support for
"regime change" operations, and to say nothing contrary to the "narrative" endorsed by the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:52
The OPCW has certainly disgraced themselves in Syria. What a sham.
Randal Marlin , May 23, 2019 at 13:48
John Bolton's questioner in the second clip should have made the distinction between deception used to lead the country into
war, and deception used to pursue a war already constitutionally declared and already underway.
In the first case there is a violation of democratic principle. When the people are the ultimate sovereign, they need to be
properly informed. They can agree to deception, like where and when D-Day will occur, during war; but not in the case of leading
the people into war. Lying to Congress is always unacceptable, and those who do lie to Congress should be made to suffer serious
penalties.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 02:13
I read a report that the aircraft carrier strike force and preparation of 120,000 US troops, to Persian Gulf was ordered
sometime ago and that Bolton took advantage of that fact to make it look that 'Bolton ordered it'?
vinnieoh , May 24, 2019 at 10:54
What I'd read is that the carrier strike force and bomber detachment were previously scheduled: there had been a previous
drawdown and this deployment represents a return to a level similar to the end of the Iraq war, and that does sound like Bolton/Pompeo
opportunism. The 120,000 troops plan sounds like something Bolton prodded pentagon scribes to produce. How to interpret when
Bolton says that then Trump denies it, and then a new troop deployment (1% of the previous) is announced/suggested/leaked? I
see it as Trump taking his dogs out for a walk to snarl at the neighbors.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 13:07
"Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York
Times, on May 14, it was he who 'ordered' a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf."
That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton, may be giving
such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
The National Security Advisor is, as the title states, merely an advisor – not confirmed by the Senate, and therefore not,
in constitutional terms, an "officer of the United States" with the authority to carry out the policy of the government. Other
than his assistant fetching him lunch, nobody in government should be following Bolton's orders at all while he holds this job.
But this is nothing new. I had the same concern, on an even larger scale, during the first Bush Jr. administration when Cheney
was running around reshaping the government in his own warped image. Despite the Vice President's elected status, he has no
executive power under the Constitution – no power at all, in fact, except when sitting as President of the Senate. There was
a time when everyone knew that.
With all the perennial crowing we see about the greatness of the Constitution, and the mewling about how Trump is degrading
it, it would be nice if Congress and the media could spare a moment to care about whether the people giving orders to the world's
largest military and covert/intelligence apparatus are legally empowered to do so.
Ash , May 23, 2019 at 17:17
> That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton,
> may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
It does kind of have an Alexander Haig flavor to it, doesn't it?
David G , May 23, 2019 at 22:08
When Bolton gets up and says "I'm in control here", I'm definitely finding a rock to hide under.
Zenobia van Dongen , May 23, 2019 at 13:06
The question that Joe Lauria asked of John Bolton, i.e. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically
elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?"
seems to imply that Iran seeks revenge against the US for the CIA's 1953 coup d'état against prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq.
However the current leaders of Iran are not entitled to consider themselves the heirs of Mossadeq, nor are they morally justified
in avenging him, since the CIA coup relied largely on support from the very same clerical establishment that now rules Iran.
As a matter of fact in the 1950s and 60s Shia clerics in Iran were routinely considered CIA agents. Consequently the Iranian
elite's pretense of carrying on Mossadeq's anti-imperialist struggle is profoundly hypocritical. I grant that the current reactionary
clique that governs Iran defends Iran's sovereignty against US imperialism as Mossadeq did. But the underlying concept of the
Iranian nation is profoundly different. The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty
that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist
revolution of 1909. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution
Indeed, Iran has no hesitation in crushing underfoot the aspirations to independence of other nations. It ruthlessly conducts
ethnic cleansing in Syria, commits assassinations in South America, and in general behaves with imperialist ruthlessness that
is moreover unmitigated by any concern for human rights or international law.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 14:27
As to your last paragraph please provide proof for your allegations. As to your second paragraph you assume to know the meaning
behind the question Mr. Lauria asked. Could it be possible (this I believe is more likely) that what Mr. Lauria meant or realizes
that absent the '53 coup would there now be an Islamic theocracy ruling Iran?
Again making the disclaimer that I'm no expert on the region or Iran particularly I have followed many leads of reading and
investigation to understand the ramifications of that seminal event (the '53 coup.) What I believe I've understood is that Iran
prior to and until the '53 coup was on its own unique trajectory of reclaiming its sovereignty and rejecting its status as a
(UK) colonial vassal. There seemed to be a somewhat fluid acceptance of the rising democratic movement of Mosaddeq et. al.,
a fading nod to the former royal house, and an acceptance of Shiite religiosity of some considerable social legitimacy.
So, three centers of power and influence working its unique way to an unique Iranian future.
With the US/UK engineered coup the imperialists destroyed the legitimate democratic evolution happening there. With the re-installation
of the Shah Reza Pahlavi as the puppet ruler of the US, that traditional center of power and legitimacy was likewise forever
delegitimized in the eyes of most Iranians. That sentiment was cemented with the creation of SAVAK by the US, UK, and Israel
to be the iron fist of the Shah and his new imperial master.
That left only one center of power or authority which retained legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians – the Shiite theocrats,
and that is why when Iranians kicked the US out it was the Islamic theocracy doing the booting. You are correct that there was
at least one Shiite cleric (I've forgotten his name,) jealous and fearful of the rising influence of democratic governance,
who is a known and recorded collaborator with the US/UK machinations of the coup. Without the help of the US/UK his part in
the affair would probably have been inconsequential.
It is not Iran that is funding and establishing Islamic madrasses in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere.
It is the Wahhabist Sunnis and they preach intolerance and violent jihad. Furthermore, of the total global population of adherents
of Islam, 75% are Sunni affiliated, and 25% are Shiite affiliated. Those percentages hold true in the immediate region of the
ME as well. The repeated claims of Iranian desires of empire are a shibboleth emanating from KSA and UAE.
The leaders of the Islamic Revolution used Mossadegh's image to help get people on board against the Shah, The National Front
was allowed to be a party again for a short time, and a Street in Tehran was renamed post-revolution for Mohammad Mossadegh.
This was a cynical ploy by the Mullahs to get people on board with their revolution and make people believe that they were indeed
the true heirs of Mossadegh and committed to democracy. It was all a sham. The National Front was made illegal again at some
point in the 80s, and the street named for Mossadegh was renamed around the same time. These people are the heirs of the Shah
whether they like it or not.
anon4d2 , May 23, 2019 at 16:59
Joe's question points out that, had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, there would have been a secular democratic government.
That is true throughout the Mideast, where in the 1950s-70s the US supported radical Islamic movements that suppressed secular
movements and overthrew secular governments, pretending that the USSR was moving in. There was no evidence of USSR interest
there, as it was preoccupied with such factions in its central Asian republics, and apparently only some arms from the USSR
in Egypt were ever found as "evidence."
Similar US actions have continued to date, almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the US always supporting fanatics
against moderates like Assad and Ghaddafi, and pretending to support "democracy."
Compare the US support of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical fundamentalist monarchy engaged in terrorism throughout the region, including
against their only neighbor that defends minority rights, Syria. Again falsely claiming the need to protect oil supply, which
it can buy anywhere without bombing anyone, like any other oil buyer. Again falsely claiming to support democracy which it overthrows
everywhere at the pleasure of its own oligarchy, always to "protect Israel" or attack socialism, which is always to get political
bribes.
There is no evidence of any "ethnic cleansing" by Iran in Syria or elsewhere. Where do you get that idea? Iran is majority
Shiah, defending the majority Sunni population of Syria from Sunni fundamentalists. You certainly have no evidence that Iran
"commits assassinations in South America" or opposes "aspirations to independence of other nations" and made that up to deceive
others. Your comments on this site have been knowingly false.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 03:44
The above, re the current Iranian religious govt, very informative, thankyou.
Re Joe's article I cannot take seriously that Trump is against war and the Deep State.
If Trumps rhetoric during his electioneering, supporting the middle class (deeply deprived after the US corporations abandoned
them for low paid Chinese labour) was in any way honest he would not have chosen the cabinet he did (and keeps on choosing).
Trump has not chosen one cabinet member that would support that supposed sympathy for the middle class.
Reporting that assumes Trump is fighting for moderation (against his own cabinet) and to establish policies in the direction
of that sympathy, is without evidence, it seems to me, regardless of what he might suggest to Fox News.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 17:00
"The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist
struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909."
And the American government has equal respect for the Constitution.
Bolton didn't order a carrier group to the Persian Gulf. He doesn't have the authority. The carrier group left because of
the deployment was already planned. Bolton does not have the power that has been ascribed to him. He is a grandiose clown who
knows how to play the press. I don't think he will have his job six months from now.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 12:16
"At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment
after the U.S. left the deal, it 'would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation
or direct attack on Iran.' In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said that it would indeed restart partial nuclear
enrichment."
Two problems with this part of the article:
• The link in the main text here goes to an Intercept article about Bolton, but it has no mention of Tom Countryman, or even
of Iran.
• It isn't accurate to say that Iran may now, or is saying it will, "resume" or "restart" nuclear enrichment, since it never
ceased, nor did it ever commit to cease, such activity. The JCPOA merely imposed strict *limits* and monitoring on nuclear enrichment
and stockpiling, some of which Iran is saying it will now depart from.
I also disagree with the imputation elsewhere in the article that Donald Trump has a good understanding of real estate. His
disastrous, decades-long record in that business suggests otherwise. But I suppose some people will always believe what they
see on TV.
lou e , May 23, 2019 at 12:06
Creeping fascism works like fishing with a rod and reel. You hook the fish and it runs off 100 ft of line . You reel in 50
ft and the fish takes 30 feet back. Do the Math! Some times burning down the village IS the only way to get rid of the infestation.
Bit hard on the USSA, but as Ben Franklin put it you have a democratic republic IF ypu can Keep It.
Remember at an earlier time with Bolton, someone described him as a kiss up kick down kind of guy, i.e., a real jerk. I defended
Trump against Russiagate because it was a threat to the office of the president. Unless, he gets his head straight, his "political"
moves in the Middle East and Southwest Asia can spin out of control. He is not negotiating a new deal with some city to build
another hotel, and his rhetoric makes him sound like that is the way he thinks he should act with other countries.
One can defend him by saying maybe it will work, but then maybe not and it is not a matter of your target taking his papers
and leaving the room.
Great article, Mr. Lauria. Have you posted your resume on your site? Interested in your confrontation with Bolton.
Trump wants to be reelected more that being the President but in his defense we know what he will face if he decides to enter
into honest negotiations. He's going to have a heck of a time finding people to cover his back. He can count on one presidential
aspirant, Tulsi Gabbard but she's on the other side.
Jeff Harrison , May 23, 2019 at 11:42
If we have to rely on Thump for anything other than social controls, we're screwed.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 11:40
These personal reminiscences of Bolton at the U.N. by Joe Lauria unfortunately only confirm the man's very public record.
The fact that such a creature has been accepted for so long in the heart of U.S. foreign "policy" is yet more evidence that
the country's crisis of political culture started long before Trump came on the scene.
I don't quite accept the slight comfort implied in the formulations here that this time Bolton has "gone too far", or "flown
too high", since to me they imply that there is some moral or rational bedrock that he has struck beneath which the establishment
is not willing to go.
I don't think that's true, as a general proposition. For example, the U.S. continues less noisily but inexorably on its long-term
collision course with China, which will be even more catastrophic than war with Iran, not to mention the ultimate one with the
planet's environmental limits.
For me it's enough that, for a number of contingent reasons, Bolton's (and MBS's and Netanyahu's) lunge at Iran has fallen
flat with both U.S. and European policy and media elites – for now, and I hope forever.
I just called WH 202-456-1111 to tell President Trump that Bolton should be fired; had to wait 8 min to talk. Trump certainly
has lots of problems, but he'll have plenty more if he starts a war! Pox Americana!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Great idea.
I'll do the same.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:04
Thank you Mr. Lauria. I'm tending to believe that not only has Bolton flown too high, but Trump's predictable method of trying
to get what he wants was completely miscalculated wrt Iran. There is no better treaty or deal to be had concerning keeping Iran
from developing a nuclear weapon. The failures of the JCPOA that Trump is probably griping about all have to do with matters
of Iran's necessary and legitimate right to security and self-defense. No sane nation would willingly give in to this bullying.
Thanks again.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:44
Also, wrt Trump's predictable patterns, note that little if anything has changed regarding the US and the DPRK, so if he
is a crafty and effective negotiator I'm having a hard time seeing it.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 18:22
Good example Vinnieoh. NK and SK are reaching out and (more importantly) shoving out the US. More winning.
I love Trump. He is useful. Fascism, NAFTA, generic racism you name it, he really shines a light on issues.
Here again. (Currently) SA, GAZA, Israel, Syria and of course Iran. Hell, the entire region. What a train wreck he is.
What about the dollar? The EU? Yikes.
By gosh this man could single handedly take down an empire! MAGA!
Well done, Joe Lauria. Of course our dilemma is Donald Trump says one thing and contradicts himself 5 minutes later. You
could say he "changes his mind" but I do not think his mind is stable to begin with. He's far too nuts to put any faith in for
"doing the right thing,"
Bolton and his neoconservative pox on the world serve the interests of the war machine and fossil fuel corporations. When
will be rid of them? When We the People grow a set of testicles and throw them all into prison. Trump isn't going to save us,
but he might let Bolton get us all killed.
Seems that Trump is so small minded that what we observe cannot be explained mechanistically, we need quantum mechanics.
Rather that a particular state of mind we have a stochastic distribution, wave patterns and spin.
Yes, Joe Lauria has presented the problem very well.
A major factor is certainly the persuasiveness of the NSC and other MIC entities which surround the president, and comprise
much of official DC. Try persuading anyone in the MIC that war is ever inappropriate: they are all full of extreme scorn and
false accusations, and have endless "evidence" of threats behind every tree, and rationales to attack this or at least that,
just to make "statements" and "warnings" to invisible foreign monsters. The MIC is a completely and permanently logic-proof
subculture of bullying, which bullies every member of its own tribe to line up behind tyrants like Bolton and a million other
puerile bullies devoid of humanity.
No doubt you know that this was all well understood by the founders of the US, who restricted federal military powers to
repelling invasions and knew that any standing military was a threat to democracy. The Federalist Papers should be required
reading in the US. All of those understandings were gradually lost after the War of 1812 and the 1820s, as the founders died
off. As the US became confident that it could repel any invasion, it lost the sense of the necessity of unity and cooperation
of regions, and Congress degenerated into a battle of intransigent factions leading to the completely unnecessary Civil War.
With the ebullient emergence of the middle class, no effort was made to correct the defects of the Constitution in failing to
protect the institutions of democracy from the rising power of economic concentrations. With WWI and WWII, the power of oligarchy
over mass media was consolidated, and by WWII the oligarchy and MIC effectively controlled elections, mass media, and the judiciary,
the tools of democracy. Democracy has been a facade ever since.
The US has zero security problems that the MIC has not created, and could at any time re-purpose 80% of the MIC to developing
infrastructure in the poorest nations with positive effects upon its security. Had it done so since WWII, we would have rescued
the poorest half of humanity from poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and disease, and would have had a true American Century.
Instead we have killed over 20 million innocents and mortgaged the lives of our children to serve the infantile psychopaths
of the MIC.
The solution is not only to eliminate the 2000-member NSC, cut the military by at least 80 percent, prohibit acts of war
or surveillance by the executive branch, tax the rich so that no one has income above upper middle class, and demand amendments
to the Constitution restricting funding of the mass media and elections to limited and registered individual donations. We also
desperately need a fourth branch of federal government, which I am calling the College of Policy Debate, to conduct moderated
textual debates of policy issues in all regions, protecting and representing every viewpoint, in which all views are challenged
and must respond, and all parties must come to common terms. The CPD should produce commented debate summaries available to
the public with mini-quizzes and discussion groups. Without that rational analysis and access to the core debates, we do not
have a democracy at all, we are all no more than the fools and pawns of these oligarchy scammers, who must be actively excluded
from all government capacities.
Sorry for the lecture.
Linda Wood , May 24, 2019 at 01:59
Please don't apologize, Sam F. Your brilliant and humane words give me hope at a time in which I am in shock at the blatancy
of fascism in our government.
Doggrotter , May 23, 2019 at 10:33
Where is a drone strike when you need one?
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 10:23
" seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room."
Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools.
Once upon a time there was a discussion of which of the opponents' should be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize – the list
being relatively long.
After extensive analysis and discussion the short-list consisted of two opponents in alphabetical order Mr. John Bolton and
Mr. Karl Rove.
However in light of the notion "Do you think your opponents are as stupid as you are? " the proposal question was left in
abeyance, not only as a function of decorum but also through understanding that "Useful fools are often most useful when they
are believers that they are not fools." and that even small dogs can seem tall when you are lying on your stomach.
OlyaPola , May 24, 2019 at 17:33
Since omniscience can't exist perhaps Mr. Bolton was/is subject to misrepresentation and misunderstanding?
"Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's
quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks."
What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships? Smells of another false flag.
I would not be so sure. A delicate signal that Iran has more capabilities concerning stopping in-out-Gulf traffic than naive
people like Bolton realize has a sobering potential. By the way of contrast, what kind of black flag it is if it is instantly
put in doubt, "we do not know" etc. When there were "chemical incidents" in Syria, no one in Washington claimed the need for
more facts, uncertainty etc.
Instead, UAE initially denied that it happened at all, subsequently, together with KSA, they did not have any "certain knowledge".
Somehow no government appears to promote the incident. Even USA.
BTW, the allegation that Iran is placing missiles on fishing boats staggers the mind. First of all, "missile boats" of which
Iran has plenty are small ships, BUT NOT VERY small, ca. 500-800 tons, which are fast, 40 kt, but not as fast as their predecessors,
torpedo boats (200-300 tons, 50-60 kt). They are still faster than any of the larger naval vessels, can trail them, and attack
from small distance in the case of start of hostilities. That Iran places missiles on such boats can be learned from videos
proudly provided by PressTV.ir.
Using "fishing boats" for that purpose is dubious, and the largest question mark would be: WHY? The reason that missile boats
are larger and heavier than torpedo boats is that you need more stability to launch missiles than torpedoes. Then you need a
radar etc. Placing missiles on fishing boats would be a waste of missiles. Hardly an escalation.
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 12:47
"Hardly an escalation."
Perhaps you are being deflected by framing?
One of the escalations is the escalation of belief in, requirement of, and resort to, the dumbed-downess of the "target audience".
One of the salient questions being deflected is why, and as ever investigation requires some knowledge of Mr. Heisenberg
and his principles.
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:34
Perhaps the Iranians are putting missiles on fishing boats to stun the fish and catch them that way. Fishing boats aren't
exactly very fast.
Anyone who actually believes the oil tanker incidents were carried by Iran should seek an immediate consultation with their
doctor. These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools and Iranians are not fools.
Brian , May 23, 2019 at 17:22
Exactly. According navel personnel, Iran has been using fishing boats to transfer rockets from land to it's vessels for years,
supposedly because the gulf is too shallow. I don't have hydrographic maps of the area, anyone know if this is true?
Clearly, Persian Gulf has routes for the largest ships on Earth, but the supply bases for missiles may be away from ports,
and it would make sense to place them so they are not easily accessible to a big ship navy, and in general, to disperse them.
Tim , May 26, 2019 at 06:43
"Thomas"
> These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools
Since neither you nor I know who did it, and there are a whole slew of plausible suspects, we don't know why they did it,
either. So it is silly to claim they are fools.
Since the Saudis and UAE are in the midst of waging war on Yemen, the most obvious suspects are their enemies there, al-Ansara.
(And by the way, contrary to what another commentator claimed, it was not a "few dents", but a gaping hole in the hull just
below the waterline. And since the local authorities spoke of an impact by an unidentified object, these were presumably torpedo
strikes.)
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 07:58
"What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships?"
Quite a few including but not limited to further data on the opponents' perception of what constitutes plausible belief for
the opponents' target audience, and the opponents' increasing resort to, amplitude, scope and velocity of "misrepresentations".
As is the case with the benefits of dumbing down not accruing solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, the benefits
of creation and implementation of "false flags" do not accrue solely to those engaged in "false flags", and are enhanced when
the creators and implementers of "false flags" are immersed in amalga of projection and notions of sole/prime agency, facilitating
potential benefits to many others not restricted to Iran.
Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of the pro-Israel Lobby, which recruits
American power diplomatically and militarily to "secure the realm" for Israel.
Bolton may be unique only in the purity of this pathology, but the Trump's administration
is positively seething with creatures of the pro-Israel Lobby.
The pro-Israel Lobby must be stopped before it gets its next war.
It is indeed beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is "1000 percent"
Israel-firster Donald Trump.
At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will
fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon
after. Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, his purported break with GOP orthodoxy,
questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian
deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an
elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning.
Trump's efforts on behalf of Israel began immediately after the election, prior to his
taking the oath of office.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues,
gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3
December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations
Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration.
Kushner reportedly dispatched former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to make
secret contact with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 in an effort to undermine or
delay the resolution, which condemned Israel for settlement construction. Saban told Kushner
that "this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very
much." Kushner thanked the audience at Brookings, a leading pro-Israel Lobby think tank,
"It's really an honor to be able to talk about this topic with so many people who I respect
so much, who have given so much to this issue."
During the keynote conversation, Kushner and Saban framed Middle East peace as a "real
estate issue". Kushner acknowledged that "We've solicited a lot of ideas from a lot of
places." Trump's understanding of "regional dynamics" in the Middle East clearly manifests "a
lot of ideas" from pro-Israel war hawks from the Saban Center at the Brookings
Institution.
It is clear that the pro-Israel Lobby pathology has thoroughly infected both major
political parties in the US. In fact, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and all their
rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign, are deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby.
Trump's current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel
foreign policy agenda.
The fracture between the Trump and Clinton contingents of the pro-Israel Lobby is rooted
in the personal predilections of their major American oligarch donors. Billionaires Sheldon
Adelson and Haim Saban are the Koch Brothers of the pro-Israel Lobby, and both are obsessed
about starting war with Iran.
When Adelson and Saban shared the stage at the Israeli American Council's inaugural
conference in Washington, D.C. in 2014, Saban quipped, "There's no right or left when it
comes to Israel". Despite their shared pro-Israel Lobby objectives, Adelson and Saban had a
fracas in 2015 over political tactics. The Republican Party and Democratic Party campaign
platforms in 2016 reflected right and left pro-Israel Lobby orientations. Even the Sanders
sheepdog campaign was a far-left pro-Israel Lobby iteration.
It's all too easy to focus on the "unique" pathology of Bolton or Mike Pompeo, or
congressional creatures like Lindsey Graham, not to mention faux "insurgent" President Trump,
while ignoring the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government.
It is also extremely dangerous to refer to these figures generically as mere
"neoconservatives" or "warhawks". They are unquestionably pro-Israel warhawks, and regardless
of "liberal" or "conservative" leanings, all are paid to advance a pro-Israel Lobby agenda
for US foreign policy.
In a video discussion based on his March 22, 2016 Consortium News article, Consortium News
founding editor Robert Parry addressed pro-Israel Lobby influence during the 2016
presidential election:
John Bolton is a True Believer. The True Believer mindset is manifest in terrorist acts.
True Believers have signed onto the ideology that dictates that True Believers must act in
any way to oppose their perceived enemy. War is not a last option for the True Believer.
Terrorist attacks are not beyond the possible actions of the True Believer. The True Believer
has one goal which is to defeat the perceived enemy at all costs and which will use all means
to do so including violent attacks on innocent persons.
Terrorists are usually members of organizations that have a True Believer mentality and
can rationalize unspeakable acts of terror in order to wipe out innocents if that will
further their cause.
What is the advantage of enlisting True Believers and how do they further the causes of
their affiliated organizations? That is the same question that we ask about terrorist
organizations that imagine and create violent acts in order to fulfill the plans of the
terrorist organization.
What is the motivation of a terrorist to strap on an explosive vest and wander into a
crowd of innocent people and detonate their explosives? Why are they willing to commit
suicide in order to kill a whole bunch of people that they have no quarrel with?
The answer is that they are True Believers in their cause and will do anything to advance
the agenda of their affiliated organizations including murder.
The problem we face today is the ideological domination of opposing forces which will
absolutely send Kamikaze's to their death in order to win.
It works both ways. The US is determined to wipe out opposition to its interests even if
that means that warships will rain down explosives on anyone they remotely suspect is an
enemy of the ideology of the West. We are willing to go to war with our perceived enemies
even if it means that millions of innocents will be killed in the process of defeating our
ideologically opposed enemies.
On the other side the ideological goals of the countries we attack is also aligned to
commit mass atrocities and use of illegal weapons in order to win their bid to destroy the
United States or its allies notably Israel.
There are True Believers on each side that are willing to inflict mass casualties on the
other in order to preserve their ideology.
Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel and the US is also guilty of
vowing the destruction of Iran. Each ideology depends on True Believers to take the stakes to
the ultimate goal of annihilation of the enemy.
We have a choice in this. We can decide whether or not the differences in ideology are
worth war.
The big issue we face is whether or not we trust those opposed to our policies and actions
will try diplomacy despite historical diplomatic failures on both sides leading to the clash
of ideologies and ending in a military solution. I say "we trust" because we are also on the
line to trust the opposition with plenty of history which has shown that diplomacy doesn't
work.
The even bigger issue is the geopolitical strategy of nations which seek to control huge
natural resources like oil. This issue is at the top of every national agenda of oil states
and is the reason we quarrel with oil rich nations that seek to place ideological political
restrictions on the free flow of oil or depend on the money provided by the sale of the
resources to advance an agenda which is opposed to the West. It is the reason that Iran seeks
to dominate the politics of the region and intervene when we try to interfere with their
economic output with sanctions based on ideological differences that end in official US
sanctions which are the economic equivalent of warfare on Iran.
We see economic sanctions on Iran as the least violent way of dissuading them from
carrying out their anti western agenda especially their anti Israel agenda which includes
lots of funding for the True Believers (terrorists) who are willing to die for the "Cause" to
destroy Israel.
The Iranians see sanctions as a an unwarranted threat to their economy and are even more
determined to fund groups that try to defeat the Western policies that include support for
Israel they see as an illegal foreign power occupying Muslim lands.
It is no surprise that the tensions in the Middle East have resulted in the rise of the
True Believers on both sides based equally on economic and ideological differences. Each side
is steeped in the belief that the survival of their culture and their economy is at stake.
There can be little doubt that these differences amount to a potential powder keg.
Layered on top of the clash is the historical realization that compromise and diplomacy
have failed in the past and that the failure of diplomacy has resulted in war. Neville
Chamberlain's efforts to secure "peace within our time" by capitulating to German demands are
seared on everyone who has a responsibility to prevent war. It was a huge mistake to believe
that Hitler would abide by a piece of paper. Huge mistake is an understatement for the
millions who lost their lives.
We need to use historical facts to guide future actions. Prevention of war via diplomacy
has been thoroughly debunked by historical facts such as WWII. The belief of Western nations
and their content that promises of aggressors promising peace would be honored has a
historical and factual basis proving that the peaceful approach and the trust in aggressors
to abide with peace plans leads to World War, death, destruction etc. WWII was certainly a
formative event for the West which has since forged its disdain for diplomacy based on the
history of world war.
Enter Donald Trump, President of the United States of America. A tragically flawed man who
is just as tragically flawed as all of the rest of us as the leader of our nation. We are so
tragically flawed in so many ways we cannot count them all. We wanted a president who was
first and foremost a businessman. We wanted a populist president as we always do but we got a
rich and privileged president who has done his level best to support the rich which is not
exactly a populist notion by filling the swamp rather than draining it. We have a president
that calls all the news "fake" but who also spends his time in conversations with the right
wing media never assuming that right wing views of the news of the day might just be the real
fake news. Fake news to him is talk from the left.
Where does all this end up? It is anybody's guess.
"... Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN ..."
"... It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally. ..."
"... Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view. ..."
"... It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. ..."
"... Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq. ..."
"... We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it." ..."
"... Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election ..."
"... This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power. ..."
"... Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology. ..."
"... Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions. ..."
"... Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. ..."
"... It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles." ..."
"... The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it." ..."
"... Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks. ..."
"... But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views. ..."
"... Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi! ..."
"... To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS ..."
"... Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades. ..."
"... The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets! ..."
"... John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. ..."
"... Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, ..."
"... But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like. ..."
"... Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS! Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it." ..."
"... Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor. ..."
"... Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush! ..."
"... I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons ..."
"... The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation! ..."
"... I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. ..."
"... "Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees." ..."
"... Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes. ..."
"... They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel." ..."
"... The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today. ..."
John Bolton has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time he
may have gone too far, writes Joe Lauria.
I knew John Bolton and interacted with him on a nearly daily basis with my colleagues in the press corps at United Nations headquarters
in New York when Bolton was the United States ambassador there from August 2005 to December 2006.
Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had
actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN. But that turned out to be the point.
It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order
to weaken it, perhaps even fatally.
Bolton's most infamous quote about the UN followed him into the building. In 1994 he had
said : "The Secretariat building
in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
But a more telling comment in that same 1994 conference was when he said that no matter what the UN decides the U.S. will do
whatever it wants:
Bolton sees such frank admissions as signs of strength, not alarm.
He is a humorless man, who at the UN at least, seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room. He once gave a
lecture in 2006 at the U.S. mission to UN correspondents, replete with a chalk board, on how nuclear enrichment worked. His aim,
of course, was to convince us that Iran was close to a bomb, even though a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate being prepared
at the time said Tehran had
abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
I thought I'd challenge him one day at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, where Bolton often stopped to
lecture journalists on what they should write. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government
in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?' I asked him.
"That's an interesting question," he told me, "but for another time and another place." It was a time and a place, of course,
that never came.
More Than an Ideology
Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed
with deep personal failings hidden from public view.
He seemed perpetually angry and it wasn't clear whether it was over some personal or diplomatic feud. He seems to take personally
nations standing up to America, binding his sense of personal power with that of the United States.
It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all
other nations and isn't afraid to say so. He'd have been better off perhaps in the McKinley administration, before the days
of PR-sugarcoating of imperial aggression. He's not your typical passive-aggressive government official. He's aggressive-aggressive.
And now Bolton is ordering 120,000 troops to get ready and an aircraft carrier to steam towards Iran.
Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly
threatened the children
of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to
invade Iraq.
After Bolton's failed 2005 confirmation hearings, Tony Blinken, the then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told The New Yorker
's Dexter Filkins:
"We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe.
But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the
intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it."
Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in
Venezuela and of course Bolton organized
the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
What is alarming about the above video is not so much that he justifies lying, but the example he gives: lying to cover up military
plans like the invasion of Normandy. This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for
overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is
a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit
of profits and power.
Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology.
Regime Change for Iran
The U.S. national security adviser has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his
move. But this time John Bolton may have flown too high.
He was chosen for his post by a president with limited understanding of international affairs -- if real estate is not involved
-- and one who loves to be sucked up to. Trump is Bolton's perfect cover.
But hubris may have finally bested Bolton. He had never before maneuvered himself into such a position of power, though he'd
left a trail of chaos at lower levels of government. Sitting opposite the Resolute desk on a daily basis has presented a chance to implement
his plans.
At the top of that agenda
has been Bolton's stated aim for years: to
bomb and
topple
the Iranian government.
Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times,
on May 14 , it was he who
"ordered" a Pentagon
plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf. These were to be deployed "if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its
work on nuclear weapons."
Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation
deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions.
At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman, who had been undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, as had Bolton,
predicted
to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it "would be the kind of excuse that a
person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran."
In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said on May 5 (May 6 in Tehran) that it would indeed
restart partial nuclear enrichment. On the same day, Bolton
announced the carrier strike group was headed to the Gulf.
Bolton Faces Resistance
If this were a normally functioning White House, in which imperial moves are normally made, a president would order military
action, and not a national security adviser.
"I don't think Trump is smart enough to realize what Bolton and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are doing to him,"
former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel told RT's Afshin Rattansi
this week.
"They have manipulated him. When you get the national security adviser who claims that he ordered an aircraft carrier flotilla
to go into the Persian Gulf, we've never seen that. In the days of Henry Kissinger, who really brought sway, he never ordered
this, and if it was ordered it was done behind closed doors."
Bolton claimed he acted on intelligence that Iran was poised to attack U.S. interests close to Iran.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight
its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. An
editorial on May 16 in the Saudi English-language news
outlet, Arab News , called for a U.S. "surgical strike" on Iran. But The New York Times reported on the
same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack
Iran causing a full-scale war.
The
intelligence alleged Iran was fitting missiles on fishing boats in the Gulf. Imagine a government targeted by the most powerful
military force in history wanting to defend itself in its own waters.
Bolton also said Iran was threatening Western interests in Iraq, which led eventually to non-essential U.S. diplomatic staff
leaving Baghdad and Erbil.
It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense
you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow
them away with cruise missiles."
But this time the bully is being challenged. Federica Mogherini, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security
policy,
resisted the U.S. on Iran when she met Pompeo in Brussels on May 13.
"It's always better to talk, rather than not to, and especially when tensions arise Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly today
from us," said Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible
attitude to take – is and we believe should be, that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side."
The New York Times that day
reported
: "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series
of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it."
Ghika: No new threat from Iran. (YouTube)
British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika then said on May 14: "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or
Syria." Ghika was
rebuked by U.S. Central Command, whose spokesman said, "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to the identified
credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region."
A day later it was Trump himself, however, who was said to be resisting Bolton. On May 15 The Washington Post reported:
"President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military
confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S.
officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders."
"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according
to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against
the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."
Then it was the Democrats who stood up to Bolton. On Tuesday Pompeo and Shanahan briefed senators and representatives behind
closed doors on Capitol Hill regarding the administration's case for confronting Iran.
"Are they (Iran) reacting to us, or are we doing these things in reaction to them? That is a major question I have, that I still
have," Sen. Angus King told reporters after the briefing. "What we view as defensive, they view as provocative. Or vice versa."
Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego told reporters after the briefing: "I believe there is a certain level of escalation
of both sides that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The feedback loop tells us they're escalating for war, but they could
just be escalating because we're escalating."
Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite
possible that Iran was behind" the attacks.
Bolton was conspicuously absent from the closed-door briefing.
It's Up to Trump
Trump has pinballed all over the place on Iran. He called the Times and Post stories about him resisting Bolton
"fake news."
"The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly
sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!"
Trump tweeted on May 17.
The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot,
poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good
thing!
Then he threatened what could be construed as genocide against Iran. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of
Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" he tweeted on Sunday.
But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the
"military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from
Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views.
On Monday he implied that the crisis has been drummed up to get Iran to negotiate.
"The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation
with Iran. This is a false report ."
The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up
a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report....
John Bolton must be stopped before he gets his war. It is beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is Donald
Trump.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected]and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is US." As in the lies that created the Vietnam war and the waste of 58,000
American soldiers and thousand of Vietnamese. Or the lie that Iran is our enemy when we funded and encouraged Saddam to attack
them and destroyed their attempt to have a secular government.
Or the lie of the WMD's and the 9/11 attack which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Saudis and NOT Iraq.
Or the lies of Afghanistan which was economically and culturally better off when it was controlled by the USSR...
John Hawk , May 26, 2019 at 16:56
Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi!
To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump
is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS.
It can't get any more delusional than this. Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump
et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier
on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades.
After all, deception is their game and they use it liberally, like feeding their agenda to Bolton as 'intelligence' info
of the highest order. The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason.
Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets!
Zhu , May 26, 2019 at 03:20
If Bolton were struck by lightning tomorrow morning, would anything change much? I doubt it. We Americans are as warlike
as the ancient Assyrian. We've been slaughtering Indians, Koreans, SE Asians, Central Americans, and multiple Middle Eastern
people for a looong time. It is flattering to blame this individual or th t country, but no. We, as a community, are all responsible
to some degree. Even me, on the far side of the world.
Alex , May 25, 2019 at 21:50
Bolton's choosing destroyed IRAN but staying friends with Saudi Arabia it's so contradicting, and so obvious that he is influenced
to behave this way is because Israelies influence. Saudy Kingdom using Bolton to get IRAN so Saudy will be only country promote
Extreme version of Wahhabi Islam which is didn't existed In Islam's history.
So Bolton's obsession with destruction of Iran is ignorance as its best. September 11th suspects were most of them Saudy
nationals, yet nobody wanted to talk about it, because there is irony that, George W Bush was and probably still doing business
with Saudy. So how can you explain that to American people? No you can not.
Perhaps collectively hypnotism !
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 02:58
" So how can you explain that to American people?"
Given that useful fools are useful, why would you want to?
" No you can not."
An illustration of the benefits of dumbing down do not accrue solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, facilitating
the minimising of blowback during implementation of strategies based on "How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback",
given that many believe that critical mass is a function of linear notions of 50% +1 and above; a further conflation of quantity
with quality to which the opponents are prone.
William , May 25, 2019 at 19:06
John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized.
Put him in a strait jacket and keep him in a padded cell. He poses a threat to millions of people.
Eddie S , May 25, 2019 at 11:26
Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of
us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, IF it was assessed from a pro-peace perspective.
But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign,
with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency
that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing
meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which
is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like.
Good article about a reprehensible politician.
renfro , May 25, 2019 at 11:18
"But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian
threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war. "
________________________________
Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS!
Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now
they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh
we have nothing to do with it."
Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump
appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor.
Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? If we attack Iran it will be for the Zionist and Saudis and we all know it.
Luther Bliss , May 25, 2019 at 10:57
Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush!
Remember it wasn't until Bush JR's second term that he asked his father, "What's A Neocon?" to which Pappy Bush replied,
"Israel."
I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot
free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons.
The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security
Advisers. What a joke of a nation!
Mark , May 25, 2019 at 02:30
I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq,
and Syria. Bolton stands out for his extremity among extremists, but he's a means rather than the end. The agenda is something
into which he bought, passionately by all indications, but which a paucity of other people created strictly to advance their
own, tiny, exclusive clan, not for the benefit of the United States.
Hank , May 25, 2019 at 09:43
To think that this administration campaigned on a promise to restrict future wasteful and needless interventions and then
hired this dinosaur of a warmonger makes my blood curl! Everyone with half a brain knows what Bolton's agenda is yet here he
is leading the USA into a war at the behest of a foreign nation led by a felon and terrorist! The American people who want peace
and their tax dollars invested into improving the USA have once again been stabbed in the back by a conniving administration.
Will this cycle of non-democracy ever end? Until it does, future administrations will continue on just like previous ones- kowtowing
to special interests, in particular the military/industrial mafia and the apartheid criminal state of Israel! All this massive
business of holding "elections" in the USA, all the talk about "Russian collusion" and the REAL collusion is right there in
front of us all- the US administration has once again COLLUDED to go back on a campaign promise and once again open the money
trough for the military/industrialist pigs!
Mark , May 26, 2019 at 05:31
I get the idea, but it's necessary to look 'behind' back-stabbing, conniving, colluding administrations, and Bolton, and
the military/industrial complex, and to bring Israel and some barely known U.S. history, at least back to World War I, explicitly
to the fore for public scrutiny. That's a monumental task, to say the least, owing to American attention spans and the contrary
interests of the powers that be.
Taras77 , May 24, 2019 at 20:24
Bolton has his own well funded PAC, from which he is free to "contribute" (bribe) sychophant congress individuals. What a
situation for the fix for war.
"Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as
have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees."
ricardo2000 , May 24, 2019 at 17:29
By far the most productive, and most verifiable, way to eliminate weapons is at a negotiating table. The easiest way to start
a war is with ignorant blather.
O Society , May 24, 2019 at 16:09
Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes.
They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel."
Trump initially declined on Bolton because "he doesn't like Bolton's moustache."
Kool Aid drinkers and idiots. We're being lead by a cult of morons who worship the bombs, money, and a white separatist state.
i doubt the iranians will test a nuke until after djt is out of office. after that you might wake up one morning and everything
you knew before becomes quite obsolete.
my guess is israel has stealth cruise missiles with h bombs. it would be very foolish of them to not have them. those descendants
of egyptian slaves are anything but foolish.
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:33
@ CitizenOne: Thank you for your long comment. I agree with much of what you wrote, but would like to know why you claimed,
"Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel " . According to what I've read, Iran has not initiated hostilities
with any nation for over a century – a clear, peaceful contrast to the rogue states of Israel & the U.S. Are you referring to
the long-ago-debunked claim that Iran claimed to 'wipe Israel off the map'?
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155
? "So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors,
the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague
wish for the future.
"A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option – the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" –
with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel.
")
Or perhaps you're referring to Revolutionary Guard deputy leader Hossein Salami's warning that if Israel starts an aggressive
war against Iran, it 'will end with {Israel's} elimination from the global political map'? IMHO, warning an extremely aggressive,
self-obsessed, Apartheid-practicing rogue state against trying to attack your nation is wise ;-) .
I look forward to your response. Thanks very much.
Sam F , May 27, 2019 at 06:12
Sam: please use an identifier initial as I do, to prevent confusion.
I have asked you twice before; perhaps not the same person.
It is unfair to expect others to make the clarification, and easy to prevent.
How is it that crazies like Bolton can end up high in our government hierarchy? It is because the whole damned government
is crazy through and through
Joe , May 23, 2019 at 20:48
His Dad probably made a huge donation to Yale just like Bush's Dad. That's what happens when the system is gamed.
Art Thomas , May 25, 2019 at 09:22
Yes, in my opinion. The state stripped of patriotic rhetoric and other obfuscations that keep us devoted to it is nothing
more than a criminal gang that hides behind the law.
Some basic examples. 1. The law: taxation, the crime: theft. 2. The law: monetary credit expansion, i.e. debt financing,
the crime: counterfeiting, i.e. creating money out of thin air. 3. The invasion of countries not a threat to the invading state.
Etc. etc.
Tiu , May 23, 2019 at 18:30
If the US "political establishment" was working for America's benefit, things would look very different.
They are instead working on the "globalist" agenda, which will, if successful, destroy all nations as we know them today and
what remains will be ruled over by a bunch of sociopaths who are the same group that has inflicted John Bolton on the world.
Bolton's a tool, a bit like a hammer, to get their project done. The Democrats have equivalent tools e.g. H R Clinton.
Mark Thomason , May 23, 2019 at 18:04
The problem is if he hasn't gone too far. If he gets his war.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:53
John Bolton should get to ride the missile in the remake of Dr. Strangelove.
evelync , May 23, 2019 at 19:53
hah hah hah
I loved that movie :)
and yes Bolton is a perfect caricature of Slim Pickens AKA Dr Strangelove.
I also refer to him as Yosemite Sam
one difference for our current real life war monger is that the movie character was simply insane and didn't justify his
craziness with explanations.
Bolton, OTOH, blames "national Security" and "the national interests" of this country .say what????
if we look at the horrific human costs and the enormous financial costs of the wars that were fought for U.S. "national interests"
one would want to ask, once the rubble had cleared, what "interests" were actually served and whose "security" did they actually
improve?
The answers always take us back to Eisenhower's MIC and Ray McGovern's MICIMATT (maybe I got a couple of these letters wrong?).
Whoever profited from the mayhem don't represent either our "national interest' or our "national security" IMO and yet those
two phrases are used to shut down any discussion or criticism in the lead up .
whew
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:20
Strictly about the movie – Slim Pickens plays the ranking officer on the B-52 (I think?) which is actually dropping the bomb.
Dr Strangelove is a totally different character, one of a few played by Peter Sellers in that movie, and is a (mostly!) wheelchair-bound
German scientist.
And the wheelchair bound psychopathic scientist of Dr. Strangelove was inspired by Kubrick meeting Henry Kissinger at a cocktail
party and recognizing that Kissinger was the most evil person on this planet because he looked and sounded so responsible and
rational.
Now that Saddam, bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler are dead, Kissinger holds the record of the person still alive who has
needlessly killed more people, both Americans and non-Americans, than any other person on this planet.
Hillary's idea of destabilizing Libya and creating a political vacuum there was from her training when working for Kissinger.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
The Pathology:
John Bolton
Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Chairman of Gatestone Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former board member of Project for the New American Century (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former Adviser to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/john-bolton/
Mike Pompeo
Christian Zionist: "We will continue to fight these battles, it is a never ending struggle until the Rapture."
Associate of Center for Security Policy (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Sponsor of ACT! for America (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mike-pompeo/
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:38
@ Abe: Thanks for the info!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:42
John Bolton is obviously a very sick puppy.
This is patently obvious to any observer with the least desgree of psyhological sophistication and insight.
If he lived on your block and made such statements about his neighbors, or a woman living nearby, he would be looking at restraining
orders.
He is an out-of-control abusive pig who belongs in an institution where a course of shock therapy might actually help him. I
reckon any basic psychological test would find that he has a least borderline personality and at worst is actually insane and
incapable of taking responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Bolton has permanent termporary insanity.
Letting this tortured, psychopathic individual run the military is itself an enormous crime, one of murderous negligence, one
for which Trump truly should and could be impeached. Congress must take all possible steps to get this man out of the Executive
Branch.
Threaten Trump with impeachment if he doesn't fire Bolton.
His appointment of Bolton is reckless negligence and endangers this country.
James , May 23, 2019 at 19:09
I wonder how good American politicians of the past, if there were any, would react to the appointment of this psychopath
as what he is now. Whom should be blamed for it? Donald Trump? The pro-Israeli lobbies? Or the American nation? A glance at
the man's face is enough to realize that he is deeply sick. To me, he doesn't look like a human being at all! He looks like
a monkey out of a stuffy room. Why don't psychotherapists do anything about him? Shouldn't he be hospitalized for the safety/security
of the world population? By the way, I wonder where Netanyahu, the psychopath's provoker, is. He has been very quiet for about
a month or so. Maybe he is waiting for the war to ignite without getting himself directly involved in it. Let Americans and
Iranians kill one another while he waits to pick up the fruit in the end.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:27
Where does the blame lie? Who hired him? Who's the chief of the executive branch? Who's a person who could actually fire
him (as he's so famous for doing on reality TV shows) instead of wringing his hands on friendly TV networks declaring he doesn't
want to actually go to war, but if he's 'forced' to, he'll erase Iran from the map?
Druid , May 26, 2019 at 03:16
He would have to get permission from Adelson and the Mercers first.
CitizenOne , May 24, 2019 at 20:52
Bolton and Pompeo are the only things keeping him from impeachment. As long as Trump satisfies the bloodthirsty war mongers
and the insatiable appetite of the MIC and the Pro Israel lobby and the Oil Lobby or Koch Industries he cannot lose. So far
Trump is bangin on all cylinders. I really think he knows what he needs to do to survive. All this impeachment talk is just
fantasy by the left dreaming about getting him out of office "somehow".
bjd , May 23, 2019 at 16:13
That the mono-maniacal psychopath Bolton is a walking exhibit of the Dunning–Kruger effect is no surprise to me. It is extra
frightening though.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:00
What was Bolton's day job before he started mucking around in politics and foreign policy? Master waterboarder or testicular
electrificator in extraordinary renditions for the CIA? He seems the sort to have spent much time at Abu Ghraib, and not just
to take notes. Honestly, his major goals seem to be the eradication of entire cultures and societies, which will somehow redound
to the magnificence of the United States of America. Clearly a sociopathic personality. A lot in common with Cheney.
Jimmy G , May 23, 2019 at 15:57
Again the panic is stirred by .. The NYT! (The source of such good info regarding Russia gate) .
The statement regarding Bolton " ordering" anything is just one more example of the media and the intel bureaucrats trying to
put the President in a jam politically . (Remember how a month ago we were invading Venezuela?)
Bolton is doing nothing more than getting enough rope to hang himself, and the military intelligence service, congressional
and media Trumpophobes are willing to stir this to the very edge, and we all know Congress could (if it could act in good Constitutional
faith, rather than pretending to be the judicial branch) unite for the good of this country and Trump would be amenable to whatever
they came up with. Trump is far less of a warmonger than any POTUS we've had in a very long time.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:18
If Congress is the only branch of government with the constitutional power to declare a war, surely it has the power to FORBID
the executive branch from fomenting such a war against their judgement.
In fact, wasn't the Boland Amendment such a legislative act passed with the intent of preventing the Reagan administration
from pursuing military action in Central America, most notably Nicaragua and El Salvador?
What's to prevent the Congress, if it were so inclined (which I doubt it is) to instruct the president (especially if he
seems trigger-happy) to refrain from initiating any unprovoked attacks upon Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or any other country,
for that matter?
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:56
Ollie North worked for Reagan, didn't he?
RnM , May 25, 2019 at 17:27
Trump is very aware that 'Stache Bolton and Mike "Mumbles" Pompeo are significant threats to his re-election. Would not be
surprised to see them removed before January.
CitizenOne , May 25, 2019 at 21:02
The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial
news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes
back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty
much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today.
I agree with your statement that Trump is far less vulnerable based on his history but I am sure that the war planners are
always concocting special information diets that are carefully prepared to appeal to the particular tastes of the leader of
the day. Whatever Trumps opinion is he will be surrounded by the hand picked lunatics of the day who will entice and enjoin
him to agree with plans for war based on their carefully prepared menu of propaganda specifically designed to be appealing to
the palate of whoever is in charge.
It is less certain that Trump's long history of opposing military action will have real staying power as he is served up
courses of a sumptuous meal prepared specially for his palate designed to engage him in support for military action all over
the World.
Trump is particularly susceptible to flattery and appeals to his greatness and his very stable genius. He wants to be the
great leader and for that he needs a plan to deal with the geopolitical situation in many countries.
Trump is a man who knows what to do too.
He advised Germany that it was a puppet of Russia until he didn't
He advised Teresa May how to do Brexit the right way until he didn't
He announced to the World he had forged deep connections with North Korea until he didn't
He had high hopes for an alliance with Russia until he didn't.
He specified the right type of fire fighting to be used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the fight in Syria until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the war in Syria again until he didn't
He wanted to cut the military budget until he didn't
Ordinarily if we were in the middle of a democratic presidency the press would be raising the "flip flopper" argument every
second of their available airtime.
Democrats are the flip floppers but never a republican even when he is. It all depends on the way the flips and the flops
land. If they land on conservative positions then a flop or a flip never occurred. With republicans, flip flopping is just a
corrective action to realign the president on the correct course. If it is a democrat then their hypocrisy and flip flopping
are broadcast 24/7 and are portrayed a fundamentally disqualifying events which demonstrate a fundamental lack of principles
and weakness of character deserving of condemnation. When errant republicans flip flop over to the "correct" vision they are
welcomed with open arms into the fold.
Trump wants to be accepted so badly that the democrats hounding him are in fact herding him into the fold of the conservatives
who will shelter him and support him at all costs and the media will never ever ever never call this flip flopping.
In short, if a political candidate shifts to the left his integrity will be destroyed as his character will be portrayed
as weak and built on shifting sands. He will be deemed not to be trusted like some loose cannon.
On the other hand, if a political candidate shifts to the right he will be greeted as a prodigal son returning to the fold
and will be welcomed with open arms.
So I am not as sure as you that Trump's background will be any indicator of his future ideas about how to succeed in the
environment he is in where both democrats by their antagonism and republicans by their defense of him both push him over to
the right.
He may once have been far less of a war hawk but politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing him further to the right
every day.
Consortium News editor Joe Lauria may wish to contribute a follow up series of articles detailing the purity of pro-Israel
Lobby pathology exemplified by Bolton, Pompeo, and the beyond troubling Trump preferably before the next war.
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 19:33
"the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government. "
That's it in a nutshell.
KiwiAntz , May 24, 2019 at 18:46
Thanks Joe for the great article. Bolton (aka the moustache) truly is a humourless, warmongering, depraved psycho? This is
a cowardly man who dodged the Vietnam draft as he didn't want to die in some foreign patty field! But this lunatic has no qualms
to send other peoples sons & daughters into a Iranian war zone as cannon fodder to satisfy his deluded & perverted bloodlust
to destroy Iran? If "the moustache" wants a War with Iran he should be forced to fight on the frontlines with his troops along
with POTUS Bonespurs Trump, another cowardly draft dodger? Let the moustache & the Dotard make a stand, like Jon Snow in the
Battle of the bastards, sword in hand, facing down the so called Iranian, bogeyman enemy, but this would never happen as cowards
& bastards like Bolton & Trump don't personally fight in the battles they start, they hide in safety in a Washington situation
room, as far away from any War zone as possible! If Bolton gets his War with Iran, Trump will pay the price for this suicide
mission because he would be blamed for the fallout of any Military defeat! America's already sorry record of Military humiliation
& defeat in Regime change operations around the Globe would reach a crescendo if they ever dared to try to attack & overthrow
Iran as it would be the endgame of the US Empire!
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:28
Trump is just Israel's bitch.
incontinent reader , May 24, 2019 at 01:08
Good comment, Abe. We've missed you. Keep posting more of the same.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:37
We Americans were bloodthirsty long before Israel existed.
anon , May 25, 2019 at 06:35
What an absurd zionist troll post. Try it with someone dumb, Zhu.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 15:17
First Joe, McKinley did not implement American submission to British Imperialism, though it began with the end of Grant's
administration as with the twice elected Groucher Cleveland, but it's confirmation as US policy began with Teddy Roosevelt.
The Roosevelt Corollary destroyed JQA's Community of Principle in the Americas which should be known as the true Monroe Doctrine,
contrary to popular opinion today which has incorrectly replaced the Monroe Doctrine with the Roosevelt Corollary (as Bolton
is especially want to do). TR signalled the end of the Lincoln Era of American industrial development and global cooperation,
which was best represented by Grant, the most overlooked of great Presidents (and perhaps we see similarities of Grant to Trump
today). Bolton indeed is Captain Kangaroo, presiding over his Court as the Queen of No Hearts would in Alice's confrontation
with British rule once she penetrates behind the facade of British Lockean empiricism. With insight only equalled to Lincoln's,
who said "We can't fight two wars at once, so first the Confederacy and then the British," Trump has identified the fascist
nexus within our government as that same British foe, a nexus led by Brennan, Rice, Clapper, Jarrett, et al, which works on
behalf of what Eisenhower (another overlooked great President and General) called the Military Industrial Complex. The MIC is
a British Intelligence deployment to fundamentally undermine our Constitution and put the US into a state of perpetual war and
police surveillance. It is now over 70 years in the making, and is enforcing a new Cold War and attempted coup of our elected
Government, and yet, it may have finally found its match, not just in Trump, but in Trump's intended cooperation with Putin
of Russia and Xi of China. These three nations, along with Modi of India (just reelected) are a true threat to this rotten British
system, from Fabian liberals to Bolton chickenhawks, the true enemy is this British System. If we move on that effectively,
we may just have a chance to win this revolutionary moment now unfolding throughout the trans-Atlantic world. Let us return
to JQA's community of principle for the entire world. Let us work with Trump to end this fascist British nexus. Let us celebrate
our true heritage as Americans!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
Your comments read with interesting and well taken.
BUT: The bottom line is that Trump hired Bolton (and Pompeo) and has wound him up and set him loose goosewalking across the
globe.
Why?
The buck for Bolton's suicidal buffonery stops with Trump.
So, I can't see him as a genuine foe of the Deep State-MIC as you describe.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 18:10
Bolton is loyal to Trump, even though he is a failed chickenhawk. Look at McMaster, at the leaking, and outright betrayal
of the President. Same with Tillerson, betrayal. Pompeo and Bolton have ridiculous views and bloated war rhetoric, but they're
personally loyal, perhaps opportunistically, and even temporarily, but nonetheless right now they are, and when they're not,
I bet they're gone. But Trump does control the policy. Look at North Korea, any war? Media said there would be, then worked
to undermine a deal. Venezuela, war? They're talking in Norway now, how'd that happen? Syria, troops out? MIC, Dems and Media
opposed, and Trump called them out for the first time since Eisenhower! Pompeo to Sochi to see Putin, progress. How'd that happen?
Trump is fighting the MIC and too many good Americans are spinning so fast from the propaganda machine they can't see straight.
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 18:40
Interesting, but it is easy for a president to fight the MIC: simply fire and arrest anyone who acts against efforts to control
them. He could send any federal enforcement agency, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, reserves, national guard, or even the Coast
Guard, Secret Service, DC police, or private guards to arrest them and prosecute any resisters as traitors. It is not one man
against the MIC.
And they cannot assassinate him once he has announced that intention, without exposing their hand and unleashing a generation
of purges and strict controls. If he is surrounded by traitors, he has only to say that and fire the lot of them. He could leak
that anonymously to Wikileaks or tweet it and they would be terrified.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:48
Bolton has been working DC bureaucracy like a pro for decades. He's using Trump like a marionette while he runs circles around
the amateur. He was helping orchestrate foreign wars of choice back when Trump was still playing a pretend boss on TV. Bolton
has no loyalty except as a facade for those he needs to suck up to.
Your examples of non-wars are terrific. Trump is amazing! – because he's running the government so badly that the State Dept
doesn't know what the Pentagon is doing doesn't know and vice versa. He chose to ignore the Iran nuclear deal, which had prevented
Iran from developing nuclear weapons. So now, the Iranians declare (out of self defense) that they're now going to pursue nuclear
weapons. Trump then says that he doesn't want to attack Iran, but they must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This
is a circular argument exactly of the type the MIC uses to engage in war. Pompeo then indicates that laughable, ineffectual
attempts at sabotage are most likely Iranian. This grave threat to our nation can't even do enough damage to an oil tanker to
make it take on water.
Just because someone fails to do something doesn't mean that they were against it the whole time. Maybe they're just awful
at it. Sure, Trump says some things that are heartening to the anti-war and anti-interventionist crowd. But the next day he'll
say something heartening to rabid neocons. He needs to grow a spine, but it's far too late. He's a dandy, a spoiled rich kid
fop who's never had to answer for his mishaps, because why, when you have inherited money and a stout legal team?
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 19:06
The idea that "the MIC is a British Intelligence deployment" is fantastical, as the US MIC is several times the size of UK's
entire MIC, and such a secret could never be kept. The US MIC has engaged UK secret agencies to subvert the US Constitution
by serving as agents to pass intercepted US communications back to the US to pretend that the MIC didn't do it, or that it was
foreign intel. But that is a long way from UK controlling the US MIC.
There are certainly confluences of interests between the US and UK oligarchies, but I see no basis for the contention that
"American submission to British Imperialism began with the end of Grant's administration" when the US prosecuted Britain for
building the Alabama etc. to break the Union blockade, and was outraged that Britain considered recognition of the Confederacy
until it lost at Gettysburg. The US under TR was not submitting to anyone when it sent the Great White Fleet on tour, or when
it seized Cuba and the Philippines. Nor under Wilson when it stayed out of WWI until very late in the war, despite the Lusitania
loss. Nor under FDR when it stayed out of WWII until attacked, despite the passionate pleas of Churchill.
Some detailed argument with credible references would be needed to support those assertions.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:44
Scapegoating is real popular with lefties & rughties alike. American Exceptionalism forbids we ever accept respobility for
what we've done.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:45
No, the rest of humanity is not any better.
anon4d2 , May 25, 2019 at 06:48
The commenter was searching for causes, and some UK conspiracy is simply too far from any available evidence. In fact it
much appears to be a wild attempt to distract from the obvious causes including zionism, which you pretend is "scapegoating."
No, zionism is a principle corrupting factor in US politics, especially foreign policy.
If you don't see that, you must start learning the evidence, rather than relying on the presumption that it is mere scapegoating.
Otherwise you are serving their wrongful and racist tribal purposes, and others will presume that you know that.
Oscar Shank , May 26, 2019 at 07:24
Zhu knows it.
Vera Gottlieb , May 23, 2019 at 14:56
How much more peaceful the life on our entire planet would be if the Americans weren't around.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Extend that to all humans, and the head of PETA would support the project.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:16
I doubt that. Nature hates a void.
Bethany , May 24, 2019 at 17:50
Exactly. Very well put.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 14:19
Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
only served about one year of his second term.
Bustani was forced out by the U.S. government in April 2002 because he wanted international chemical weapons monitors inside
Iraq and thus was seen as impeding the US push for war against Iraq. The US accused Bustani of "advocacy of inappropriate roles
for the OPCW".
Since 2011, the United Nations has stood by a US-Saudi-Israeli Axis financed and armed the mercenary terrorist forces attacked
Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, major support for terrorist mercenaries has provided
via NATO-member state Turkey, as well as Jordan. Israel has launched repeated air attacks and provided direct support for terrorist
forces in Syria.
From July 2010 to 2018, the Director-General of the OPCW was Turkish career diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu. Uzumcu served ambassador
to Israel from 1999 to 2002, and as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO between 2002 and 2004.
Turkey has been the primary channel for mercenary terrorist forces assaulting the Syrian state. The remaining terrorist forces
in the Idlib Governorate continue to be supplied through Syria.
Since Uzumcu announced the creation of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on 29 April 2014, not a single OPCW report
has acknowledged these basic facts concerning the conflict in Syria.
Following a consensus recommendation by the OPCW Executive Council in October 2017. Spanish career diplomat Fernando Arias
was appointed to replace Uzumcu as Director-General of the OPCW. Previously, Arias served as Ambassador of Spain to the Netherlands
and the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OPCW. He also has served as Permanent Representative of Spain to the United
Nations in New York.
Uzumcu, and now Bustani, obviously understand that the appropriate role of the OPCW is to provide propaganda support for
"regime change" operations, and to say nothing contrary to the "narrative" endorsed by the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:52
The OPCW has certainly disgraced themselves in Syria. What a sham.
Randal Marlin , May 23, 2019 at 13:48
John Bolton's questioner in the second clip should have made the distinction between deception used to lead the country into
war, and deception used to pursue a war already constitutionally declared and already underway.
In the first case there is a violation of democratic principle. When the people are the ultimate sovereign, they need to be
properly informed. They can agree to deception, like where and when D-Day will occur, during war; but not in the case of leading
the people into war. Lying to Congress is always unacceptable, and those who do lie to Congress should be made to suffer serious
penalties.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 02:13
I read a report that the aircraft carrier strike force and preparation of 120,000 US troops, to Persian Gulf was ordered
sometime ago and that Bolton took advantage of that fact to make it look that 'Bolton ordered it'?
vinnieoh , May 24, 2019 at 10:54
What I'd read is that the carrier strike force and bomber detachment were previously scheduled: there had been a previous
drawdown and this deployment represents a return to a level similar to the end of the Iraq war, and that does sound like Bolton/Pompeo
opportunism. The 120,000 troops plan sounds like something Bolton prodded pentagon scribes to produce. How to interpret when
Bolton says that then Trump denies it, and then a new troop deployment (1% of the previous) is announced/suggested/leaked? I
see it as Trump taking his dogs out for a walk to snarl at the neighbors.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 13:07
"Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York
Times, on May 14, it was he who 'ordered' a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf."
That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton, may be giving
such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
The National Security Advisor is, as the title states, merely an advisor – not confirmed by the Senate, and therefore not,
in constitutional terms, an "officer of the United States" with the authority to carry out the policy of the government. Other
than his assistant fetching him lunch, nobody in government should be following Bolton's orders at all while he holds this job.
But this is nothing new. I had the same concern, on an even larger scale, during the first Bush Jr. administration when Cheney
was running around reshaping the government in his own warped image. Despite the Vice President's elected status, he has no
executive power under the Constitution – no power at all, in fact, except when sitting as President of the Senate. There was
a time when everyone knew that.
With all the perennial crowing we see about the greatness of the Constitution, and the mewling about how Trump is degrading
it, it would be nice if Congress and the media could spare a moment to care about whether the people giving orders to the world's
largest military and covert/intelligence apparatus are legally empowered to do so.
Ash , May 23, 2019 at 17:17
> That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton,
> may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
It does kind of have an Alexander Haig flavor to it, doesn't it?
David G , May 23, 2019 at 22:08
When Bolton gets up and says "I'm in control here", I'm definitely finding a rock to hide under.
Zenobia van Dongen , May 23, 2019 at 13:06
The question that Joe Lauria asked of John Bolton, i.e. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically
elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?"
seems to imply that Iran seeks revenge against the US for the CIA's 1953 coup d'état against prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq.
However the current leaders of Iran are not entitled to consider themselves the heirs of Mossadeq, nor are they morally justified
in avenging him, since the CIA coup relied largely on support from the very same clerical establishment that now rules Iran.
As a matter of fact in the 1950s and 60s Shia clerics in Iran were routinely considered CIA agents. Consequently the Iranian
elite's pretense of carrying on Mossadeq's anti-imperialist struggle is profoundly hypocritical. I grant that the current reactionary
clique that governs Iran defends Iran's sovereignty against US imperialism as Mossadeq did. But the underlying concept of the
Iranian nation is profoundly different. The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty
that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist
revolution of 1909. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution
Indeed, Iran has no hesitation in crushing underfoot the aspirations to independence of other nations. It ruthlessly conducts
ethnic cleansing in Syria, commits assassinations in South America, and in general behaves with imperialist ruthlessness that
is moreover unmitigated by any concern for human rights or international law.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 14:27
As to your last paragraph please provide proof for your allegations. As to your second paragraph you assume to know the meaning
behind the question Mr. Lauria asked. Could it be possible (this I believe is more likely) that what Mr. Lauria meant or realizes
that absent the '53 coup would there now be an Islamic theocracy ruling Iran?
Again making the disclaimer that I'm no expert on the region or Iran particularly I have followed many leads of reading and
investigation to understand the ramifications of that seminal event (the '53 coup.) What I believe I've understood is that Iran
prior to and until the '53 coup was on its own unique trajectory of reclaiming its sovereignty and rejecting its status as a
(UK) colonial vassal. There seemed to be a somewhat fluid acceptance of the rising democratic movement of Mosaddeq et. al.,
a fading nod to the former royal house, and an acceptance of Shiite religiosity of some considerable social legitimacy.
So, three centers of power and influence working its unique way to an unique Iranian future.
With the US/UK engineered coup the imperialists destroyed the legitimate democratic evolution happening there. With the re-installation
of the Shah Reza Pahlavi as the puppet ruler of the US, that traditional center of power and legitimacy was likewise forever
delegitimized in the eyes of most Iranians. That sentiment was cemented with the creation of SAVAK by the US, UK, and Israel
to be the iron fist of the Shah and his new imperial master.
That left only one center of power or authority which retained legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians – the Shiite theocrats,
and that is why when Iranians kicked the US out it was the Islamic theocracy doing the booting. You are correct that there was
at least one Shiite cleric (I've forgotten his name,) jealous and fearful of the rising influence of democratic governance,
who is a known and recorded collaborator with the US/UK machinations of the coup. Without the help of the US/UK his part in
the affair would probably have been inconsequential.
It is not Iran that is funding and establishing Islamic madrasses in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere.
It is the Wahhabist Sunnis and they preach intolerance and violent jihad. Furthermore, of the total global population of adherents
of Islam, 75% are Sunni affiliated, and 25% are Shiite affiliated. Those percentages hold true in the immediate region of the
ME as well. The repeated claims of Iranian desires of empire are a shibboleth emanating from KSA and UAE.
The leaders of the Islamic Revolution used Mossadegh's image to help get people on board against the Shah, The National Front
was allowed to be a party again for a short time, and a Street in Tehran was renamed post-revolution for Mohammad Mossadegh.
This was a cynical ploy by the Mullahs to get people on board with their revolution and make people believe that they were indeed
the true heirs of Mossadegh and committed to democracy. It was all a sham. The National Front was made illegal again at some
point in the 80s, and the street named for Mossadegh was renamed around the same time. These people are the heirs of the Shah
whether they like it or not.
anon4d2 , May 23, 2019 at 16:59
Joe's question points out that, had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, there would have been a secular democratic government.
That is true throughout the Mideast, where in the 1950s-70s the US supported radical Islamic movements that suppressed secular
movements and overthrew secular governments, pretending that the USSR was moving in. There was no evidence of USSR interest
there, as it was preoccupied with such factions in its central Asian republics, and apparently only some arms from the USSR
in Egypt were ever found as "evidence."
Similar US actions have continued to date, almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the US always supporting fanatics
against moderates like Assad and Ghaddafi, and pretending to support "democracy."
Compare the US support of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical fundamentalist monarchy engaged in terrorism throughout the region, including
against their only neighbor that defends minority rights, Syria. Again falsely claiming the need to protect oil supply, which
it can buy anywhere without bombing anyone, like any other oil buyer. Again falsely claiming to support democracy which it overthrows
everywhere at the pleasure of its own oligarchy, always to "protect Israel" or attack socialism, which is always to get political
bribes.
There is no evidence of any "ethnic cleansing" by Iran in Syria or elsewhere. Where do you get that idea? Iran is majority
Shiah, defending the majority Sunni population of Syria from Sunni fundamentalists. You certainly have no evidence that Iran
"commits assassinations in South America" or opposes "aspirations to independence of other nations" and made that up to deceive
others. Your comments on this site have been knowingly false.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 03:44
The above, re the current Iranian religious govt, very informative, thankyou.
Re Joe's article I cannot take seriously that Trump is against war and the Deep State.
If Trumps rhetoric during his electioneering, supporting the middle class (deeply deprived after the US corporations abandoned
them for low paid Chinese labour) was in any way honest he would not have chosen the cabinet he did (and keeps on choosing).
Trump has not chosen one cabinet member that would support that supposed sympathy for the middle class.
Reporting that assumes Trump is fighting for moderation (against his own cabinet) and to establish policies in the direction
of that sympathy, is without evidence, it seems to me, regardless of what he might suggest to Fox News.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 17:00
"The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist
struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909."
And the American government has equal respect for the Constitution.
Bolton didn't order a carrier group to the Persian Gulf. He doesn't have the authority. The carrier group left because of
the deployment was already planned. Bolton does not have the power that has been ascribed to him. He is a grandiose clown who
knows how to play the press. I don't think he will have his job six months from now.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 12:16
"At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment
after the U.S. left the deal, it 'would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation
or direct attack on Iran.' In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said that it would indeed restart partial nuclear
enrichment."
Two problems with this part of the article:
• The link in the main text here goes to an Intercept article about Bolton, but it has no mention of Tom Countryman, or even
of Iran.
• It isn't accurate to say that Iran may now, or is saying it will, "resume" or "restart" nuclear enrichment, since it never
ceased, nor did it ever commit to cease, such activity. The JCPOA merely imposed strict *limits* and monitoring on nuclear enrichment
and stockpiling, some of which Iran is saying it will now depart from.
I also disagree with the imputation elsewhere in the article that Donald Trump has a good understanding of real estate. His
disastrous, decades-long record in that business suggests otherwise. But I suppose some people will always believe what they
see on TV.
lou e , May 23, 2019 at 12:06
Creeping fascism works like fishing with a rod and reel. You hook the fish and it runs off 100 ft of line . You reel in 50
ft and the fish takes 30 feet back. Do the Math! Some times burning down the village IS the only way to get rid of the infestation.
Bit hard on the USSA, but as Ben Franklin put it you have a democratic republic IF ypu can Keep It.
Remember at an earlier time with Bolton, someone described him as a kiss up kick down kind of guy, i.e., a real jerk. I defended
Trump against Russiagate because it was a threat to the office of the president. Unless, he gets his head straight, his "political"
moves in the Middle East and Southwest Asia can spin out of control. He is not negotiating a new deal with some city to build
another hotel, and his rhetoric makes him sound like that is the way he thinks he should act with other countries.
One can defend him by saying maybe it will work, but then maybe not and it is not a matter of your target taking his papers
and leaving the room.
Great article, Mr. Lauria. Have you posted your resume on your site? Interested in your confrontation with Bolton.
Trump wants to be reelected more that being the President but in his defense we know what he will face if he decides to enter
into honest negotiations. He's going to have a heck of a time finding people to cover his back. He can count on one presidential
aspirant, Tulsi Gabbard but she's on the other side.
Jeff Harrison , May 23, 2019 at 11:42
If we have to rely on Thump for anything other than social controls, we're screwed.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 11:40
These personal reminiscences of Bolton at the U.N. by Joe Lauria unfortunately only confirm the man's very public record.
The fact that such a creature has been accepted for so long in the heart of U.S. foreign "policy" is yet more evidence that
the country's crisis of political culture started long before Trump came on the scene.
I don't quite accept the slight comfort implied in the formulations here that this time Bolton has "gone too far", or "flown
too high", since to me they imply that there is some moral or rational bedrock that he has struck beneath which the establishment
is not willing to go.
I don't think that's true, as a general proposition. For example, the U.S. continues less noisily but inexorably on its long-term
collision course with China, which will be even more catastrophic than war with Iran, not to mention the ultimate one with the
planet's environmental limits.
For me it's enough that, for a number of contingent reasons, Bolton's (and MBS's and Netanyahu's) lunge at Iran has fallen
flat with both U.S. and European policy and media elites – for now, and I hope forever.
I just called WH 202-456-1111 to tell President Trump that Bolton should be fired; had to wait 8 min to talk. Trump certainly
has lots of problems, but he'll have plenty more if he starts a war! Pox Americana!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Great idea.
I'll do the same.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:04
Thank you Mr. Lauria. I'm tending to believe that not only has Bolton flown too high, but Trump's predictable method of trying
to get what he wants was completely miscalculated wrt Iran. There is no better treaty or deal to be had concerning keeping Iran
from developing a nuclear weapon. The failures of the JCPOA that Trump is probably griping about all have to do with matters
of Iran's necessary and legitimate right to security and self-defense. No sane nation would willingly give in to this bullying.
Thanks again.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:44
Also, wrt Trump's predictable patterns, note that little if anything has changed regarding the US and the DPRK, so if he
is a crafty and effective negotiator I'm having a hard time seeing it.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 18:22
Good example Vinnieoh. NK and SK are reaching out and (more importantly) shoving out the US. More winning.
I love Trump. He is useful. Fascism, NAFTA, generic racism you name it, he really shines a light on issues.
Here again. (Currently) SA, GAZA, Israel, Syria and of course Iran. Hell, the entire region. What a train wreck he is.
What about the dollar? The EU? Yikes.
By gosh this man could single handedly take down an empire! MAGA!
Well done, Joe Lauria. Of course our dilemma is Donald Trump says one thing and contradicts himself 5 minutes later. You
could say he "changes his mind" but I do not think his mind is stable to begin with. He's far too nuts to put any faith in for
"doing the right thing,"
Bolton and his neoconservative pox on the world serve the interests of the war machine and fossil fuel corporations. When
will be rid of them? When We the People grow a set of testicles and throw them all into prison. Trump isn't going to save us,
but he might let Bolton get us all killed.
Seems that Trump is so small minded that what we observe cannot be explained mechanistically, we need quantum mechanics.
Rather that a particular state of mind we have a stochastic distribution, wave patterns and spin.
Yes, Joe Lauria has presented the problem very well.
A major factor is certainly the persuasiveness of the NSC and other MIC entities which surround the president, and comprise
much of official DC. Try persuading anyone in the MIC that war is ever inappropriate: they are all full of extreme scorn and
false accusations, and have endless "evidence" of threats behind every tree, and rationales to attack this or at least that,
just to make "statements" and "warnings" to invisible foreign monsters. The MIC is a completely and permanently logic-proof
subculture of bullying, which bullies every member of its own tribe to line up behind tyrants like Bolton and a million other
puerile bullies devoid of humanity.
No doubt you know that this was all well understood by the founders of the US, who restricted federal military powers to
repelling invasions and knew that any standing military was a threat to democracy. The Federalist Papers should be required
reading in the US. All of those understandings were gradually lost after the War of 1812 and the 1820s, as the founders died
off. As the US became confident that it could repel any invasion, it lost the sense of the necessity of unity and cooperation
of regions, and Congress degenerated into a battle of intransigent factions leading to the completely unnecessary Civil War.
With the ebullient emergence of the middle class, no effort was made to correct the defects of the Constitution in failing to
protect the institutions of democracy from the rising power of economic concentrations. With WWI and WWII, the power of oligarchy
over mass media was consolidated, and by WWII the oligarchy and MIC effectively controlled elections, mass media, and the judiciary,
the tools of democracy. Democracy has been a facade ever since.
The US has zero security problems that the MIC has not created, and could at any time re-purpose 80% of the MIC to developing
infrastructure in the poorest nations with positive effects upon its security. Had it done so since WWII, we would have rescued
the poorest half of humanity from poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and disease, and would have had a true American Century.
Instead we have killed over 20 million innocents and mortgaged the lives of our children to serve the infantile psychopaths
of the MIC.
The solution is not only to eliminate the 2000-member NSC, cut the military by at least 80 percent, prohibit acts of war
or surveillance by the executive branch, tax the rich so that no one has income above upper middle class, and demand amendments
to the Constitution restricting funding of the mass media and elections to limited and registered individual donations. We also
desperately need a fourth branch of federal government, which I am calling the College of Policy Debate, to conduct moderated
textual debates of policy issues in all regions, protecting and representing every viewpoint, in which all views are challenged
and must respond, and all parties must come to common terms. The CPD should produce commented debate summaries available to
the public with mini-quizzes and discussion groups. Without that rational analysis and access to the core debates, we do not
have a democracy at all, we are all no more than the fools and pawns of these oligarchy scammers, who must be actively excluded
from all government capacities.
Sorry for the lecture.
Linda Wood , May 24, 2019 at 01:59
Please don't apologize, Sam F. Your brilliant and humane words give me hope at a time in which I am in shock at the blatancy
of fascism in our government.
Doggrotter , May 23, 2019 at 10:33
Where is a drone strike when you need one?
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 10:23
" seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room."
Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools.
Once upon a time there was a discussion of which of the opponents' should be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize – the list
being relatively long.
After extensive analysis and discussion the short-list consisted of two opponents in alphabetical order Mr. John Bolton and
Mr. Karl Rove.
However in light of the notion "Do you think your opponents are as stupid as you are? " the proposal question was left in
abeyance, not only as a function of decorum but also through understanding that "Useful fools are often most useful when they
are believers that they are not fools." and that even small dogs can seem tall when you are lying on your stomach.
OlyaPola , May 24, 2019 at 17:33
Since omniscience can't exist perhaps Mr. Bolton was/is subject to misrepresentation and misunderstanding?
"Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's
quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks."
What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships? Smells of another false flag.
I would not be so sure. A delicate signal that Iran has more capabilities concerning stopping in-out-Gulf traffic than naive
people like Bolton realize has a sobering potential. By the way of contrast, what kind of black flag it is if it is instantly
put in doubt, "we do not know" etc. When there were "chemical incidents" in Syria, no one in Washington claimed the need for
more facts, uncertainty etc.
Instead, UAE initially denied that it happened at all, subsequently, together with KSA, they did not have any "certain knowledge".
Somehow no government appears to promote the incident. Even USA.
BTW, the allegation that Iran is placing missiles on fishing boats staggers the mind. First of all, "missile boats" of which
Iran has plenty are small ships, BUT NOT VERY small, ca. 500-800 tons, which are fast, 40 kt, but not as fast as their predecessors,
torpedo boats (200-300 tons, 50-60 kt). They are still faster than any of the larger naval vessels, can trail them, and attack
from small distance in the case of start of hostilities. That Iran places missiles on such boats can be learned from videos
proudly provided by PressTV.ir.
Using "fishing boats" for that purpose is dubious, and the largest question mark would be: WHY? The reason that missile boats
are larger and heavier than torpedo boats is that you need more stability to launch missiles than torpedoes. Then you need a
radar etc. Placing missiles on fishing boats would be a waste of missiles. Hardly an escalation.
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 12:47
"Hardly an escalation."
Perhaps you are being deflected by framing?
One of the escalations is the escalation of belief in, requirement of, and resort to, the dumbed-downess of the "target audience".
One of the salient questions being deflected is why, and as ever investigation requires some knowledge of Mr. Heisenberg
and his principles.
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:34
Perhaps the Iranians are putting missiles on fishing boats to stun the fish and catch them that way. Fishing boats aren't
exactly very fast.
Anyone who actually believes the oil tanker incidents were carried by Iran should seek an immediate consultation with their
doctor. These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools and Iranians are not fools.
Brian , May 23, 2019 at 17:22
Exactly. According navel personnel, Iran has been using fishing boats to transfer rockets from land to it's vessels for years,
supposedly because the gulf is too shallow. I don't have hydrographic maps of the area, anyone know if this is true?
Clearly, Persian Gulf has routes for the largest ships on Earth, but the supply bases for missiles may be away from ports,
and it would make sense to place them so they are not easily accessible to a big ship navy, and in general, to disperse them.
Tim , May 26, 2019 at 06:43
"Thomas"
> These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools
Since neither you nor I know who did it, and there are a whole slew of plausible suspects, we don't know why they did it,
either. So it is silly to claim they are fools.
Since the Saudis and UAE are in the midst of waging war on Yemen, the most obvious suspects are their enemies there, al-Ansara.
(And by the way, contrary to what another commentator claimed, it was not a "few dents", but a gaping hole in the hull just
below the waterline. And since the local authorities spoke of an impact by an unidentified object, these were presumably torpedo
strikes.)
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 07:58
"What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships?"
Quite a few including but not limited to further data on the opponents' perception of what constitutes plausible belief for
the opponents' target audience, and the opponents' increasing resort to, amplitude, scope and velocity of "misrepresentations".
As is the case with the benefits of dumbing down not accruing solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, the benefits
of creation and implementation of "false flags" do not accrue solely to those engaged in "false flags", and are enhanced when
the creators and implementers of "false flags" are immersed in amalga of projection and notions of sole/prime agency, facilitating
potential benefits to many others not restricted to Iran.
Note Firefox does not pickup the user name in Zero hedge anymore. So user names in comments were omitted... BTW comments from
Zerohedge reflect very well the level of frustration and confusion of common Americans with the neoliberal social system. Neoliberal
elites clearly lost most of the legitimacy in 2016.
While this is pretty poignant critique of American empire it does not ask and answer the key question: "What's next?" The crisis
of neoliberalism and the end of cheap oil probably will eventually crush the US led global empire and dollar as the reserve currency.
Although it probably will be much slower and longer process then many expect.
Are we talking about 20, 40 or 80 years here?
But what is the alternative to the neoliberal and the US dominated global neolinberal empire established after dissolution of the
USSR in 1991? That's the question.
Notable quotes:
"... Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct. ..."
"... There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty. ..."
"... Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments. ..."
"... Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. ..."
"... To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent. ..."
"... The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ..."
"... But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise ..."
"... The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role. ..."
"... In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China. ..."
"... Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form. ..."
"... How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted? ..."
"... Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner ..."
" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the
blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan,
after bombing it into the 'stone age' with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the
very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war
and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities -- pounded into dust."
– Arundhati Roy
"As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the
deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the
very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater
force than the cunning of the authorities. "
― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military
force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period,
I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was
a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ."
― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket
"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the
alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the
United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and
our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 31 March 1968
Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition
of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of
empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military
industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public
to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism
has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct.
Violence is the sole language of empire. It is this only currency it uses to enforce its precepts and edicts, both at home and
abroad. Eventually this language becomes internalized within the psyche of the subjects. Social and cultural conditioning maintained
through constant subtle messaging via mass media begins to mold the public will toward that of authoritarian conformity. The American
Empire is emblematic of this process. There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often
without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and
are often punished legally for their imposed poverty.
But the social conditioning of the American public has led toward a bizarre allegiance to its ruling class oppressors. Propaganda
still works here and most are still besotted with the notion of America being a bastion of "freedom and democracy." The growing gap
between the ultra-wealthy and the poor and the gutting of civil liberties are ignored. And blind devotion is especially so when it
comes to US foreign policy.
Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble
and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability
to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism.
But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's
global capital investments.
The persecution of Chelsea Manning, much like the case of Julian Assange, is demonstrative of this. It is a crusade against truth
tellers that has been applauded from both sides of the American establishment, liberal and conservative alike. It does not matter
that she helped to expose American war crimes. On the contrary, this is seen as heresy to the Empire itself. Manning's crime was
exposing the underbelly of the beast. A war machine which targeted and killed civilians and journalists by soldiers behind a glowing
screen thousands of miles away, as if they were playing a video game.
Indeed, those deadened souls pulling the virtual trigger probably thought they were playing a video game since this is how the
military seduced them to serve in their ranks in the first place. A kind of hypnotic, addictive, algorithmic tyranny of sorts. It
is a form of escapism that so many young Americans are enticed by given their sad prospects in a society that has denuded the commons
as well as their future. That it was a war based on lies against an impoverished nation already deeply weakened from decades of American
led sanctions is inconsequential....
... ... ...
Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant
[neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests"
of the United States. The imposed suffering on these nations has been twisted as proof that they are now in need of American
salvation in the form of even more crippling sanctions, coups, neoliberal austerity and military intervention. As the corporate vultures
lie in wait for the next carcass of a society to feed upon, the hawks are busy building the case for the continuation and expansion
of capitalist wars of conquest.
Bolton and Pompeo are now the equivalent of the generals who carved up Numidia for the wealthy families of ancient Rome, with
Trump, the half-witted, narcissistic and cruel emperor, presiding over the whole in extremis farce. Indeed, the bloated orange Emperor
issued the latest of his decrees in his usual banal fashion, via tweet:
"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"
One can query when Iran, or any other nation has ever "threatened" the United States, but that question will never be asked by
the corporate press who are also in service to Empire. They are, in fact, its mouthpiece and advocate. The US has at least 900 military
bases and colonial outposts scattered around the planet, yet this is never looked at as imperialistic in the least by the establishment,
including its media. Scores of nations lie in ruins or are besieged with chaos and misery thanks to American bellicosity , from Libya
to Iraq and beyond. But the US never looks back in regret at any of its multiple forays, not even a few years back.
To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its
greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its
hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent.
... ... ...
American Empire knows no other language sans brutality, deceit and belligerence...
... ... ...
The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ...
But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering
are contributing to that demise . After all, billions of dollars are spent to keep the bloated military industrial complex afloat
in service to the ruling class while social and economic safety nets are torn to shreds...
Nowadays the US has a massive military and little else. And "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to
look like a nail" - Wesley Clark, Former US General.
14 hours ago
Twaddle. Capitalism has lifted out of poverty more people around the globe than all other "successful" systems combined; and
in a fraction of the time. Education. Health. Wealth. Not to mention Arts and Sciences.
Go demand a refund for your liberal education. And stop spreading lies.
11 hours ago (Edited)
Poppycock! Capitalism has traded real sovereign wealth for fiat debt backed funny money at the barrel of a gun! You assholes
have been forcing otherwise healthy communities into poverty for decades so you could steal their resources and molest their children!
Why? Because children are the only people impressed by your tiny d!cks!
The organization described the average sex tourist as a middle-aged white male from either Europe or North
America who often goes online to find the " best deals. " One particular Web site promised "nights of sex with two
young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas."
Sowmia Nair, a Department of Justice agent, said the Thai government often "turns a blind eye" to child sex tourism because
of the country's economic reliance on the tourist trade in general . He also said police officers are often corrupt.
" Police have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution," Nair said. "Some police
directly exploit the children themselves."
A report from the International Bureau for Children's Rights said the majority of child prostitutes come from poor families
in northern Thailand, referred to as the "hill tribes." With limited economic opportunities and bleak financial circumstances,
these families, out of desperation, give their children to "recruiters," who promise them jobs in the city and then force the
children into prostitution.
Sometimes families themselves even prostitute their children or sell them into the sex trade for a minuscule sum of money.
This is not by accident! This is by design!
14 hours ago
Capitalism has nothing to do with this. For the average American the empire is a losing proposition.
13 hours ago (Edited)
Empire good. Emperor bad. Kingdom good. King bad. Country good. President bad. Village good. Idiot bad.
13 hours ago (Edited)
Empire is cancer. Especially the present one that leaves a trail of failed states and antangonism in its wake.
16 hours ago
We are part of a scientific dictatorship - the 'Ultimate Revolution' Huxley spoke of in 1962 where the oppressed willingly
submit to their enslavement. Social conditioning - promoted by continuous propaganda stressing that the state is their protector,
reinforced by endless 'terrorist threats' to keep the masses fearful is but one part of the system.
The state no longer has to use threats and fear of punishment to keep the masses under control - the masses have been convinced
that they are better off as slaves and serfs than they were as free men.
The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes
and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is
losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role.
18 hours ago
Capitalism and corporatism are not the same. When corporate interests effectively wield gov power, you have corporatism, not
Capitalism.
14 hours ago
Corporatism=Fascism.
18 hours ago 'Muricanism is the gee-gaw of the chattering classes.
18 hours ago (Edited)
The US is its own worst enemy. They have no idea what they are doing. 2008 – "Oh dear, the global economy just blew up"
Its experts investigate and conclude it was a black swan.
It is a black swan if you don't consider debt. They use neoclassical economics that doesn't consider debt.
They can't work out why inflation isn't coming back and the real economy isn't recovering faster.
Look at the debt over-hang that's still left after 2008 in the graph above, that's the problem. The repayment on debt to banks
destroy money pushing the economy towards debt deflation.
QE can't enter the real economy as so many people are still loaded up with debt and there are too few borrowers.
QE can get into the markets inflating them and the US stock market is now at 1929 levels. They have created another asset price
bubble that is ready to collapse leading to another financial crisis.
We need a new scientific economics for globalisation, got any ideas?
What if we just stick some complex maths on top of 1920s neoclassical economics?
No one will notice.
They didn't either, but it's still got all its old problems.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great
Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private
debt, neoclassical economics.
What's the problem?
The belief in the markets gets everyone thinking you are creating real wealth by inflating asset prices.
Bank credit pours into inflating asset prices rather than creating real wealth (as measured by GDP) as no one is looking
at the debt building up
1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking.
The 1920s problem in the US is now everywhere, UK, US, Euro-zone, Japan and China.
20 hours ago (Edited)
Capitalism is based on darwinian economic competition driven by a desire to accumulate material wealth. When a capitalist becomes
sufficiently rich, he can (and does) buy politicians and armies to do his bidding. Ironically, although capitalism is based on
the assumption of competition, capitalists actually hate competition and harbor the urge to put competitors out of business. The
true goal of a capitalists is monopoly-- as long as it is them.
Imperialism is a logical (and historically predictable) expansion of capitalism.
18 hours ago
Capitalism may not be the path to peace, but just about every other ism, including socialism and communism delivered worse.
Attacking capitalism for common failings is off base.
15 hours ago
Socialism and ultimately communism appear when capitalism goes rampant, and it is normal for the socium to embrace socialism
when the inequality becomes too large.
In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian
state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China.
So don't mistake the people's desire for equal world with totalitarian capitalism masked as socialism.
14 hours ago
the real issue is NO GROUP OF HUMANS can be trusted will any form of power. ever. period.
so it goes that no "xyz"ism" will ever work out for the whole. yet humans are social animals and seek to be in groups governed
by the very people that strive to lead that exhibit sociopathic tendencies, which are the worst possible leaders. how fuked up
is that?
so how can that work? it does for a while. then we end up in the same spot every time, turmoil, the forth turning.
the luck of life is the period of time you live during, where and what stage of human turmoil the society is in...
21 hours ago (Edited)
" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees".
Capitalism did all that huh? It had nothing to do with corrupt politicians in bed with corporations and banks. Now they even
have the military singing the same stupidity. Governments make these messes, not capitalism. Someone who risked their life for
a corrupt government giving the pieces of **** that put him there a free pass by blaming it on capitalism. What a moron. When
politicians hear this stupidity, it's like music to their ears. They know they've successfully shifted the blame to a simple ISM.
Governments want to blame the very thing that will fix all of this, for the sake of self-preservation.
18 hours ago
Every system acts to centralise power, even anarchism. So you say it was wealth that enabled what was to follow but it was
really power.. something every -ism will centralise and enable.
22 hours ago
Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down
to an art form.
16 hours ago
Really! Did you miss the Smedley Butler quote?
22 hours ago
Could you please distinguish between capitalism and political, monetary, fiscal, press, and legal aberrations that can occur
in capitalist systems because of government sloth and malfeasance? Media monopoly, mass illegal immigration, and offshoring are
not the essence of capitalism. And socialist systems can see hideous abuses.
Please read something more than **** and Jane adventures.
23 hours ago
"... is still the owner of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal."
===
Here is the list of all nine countries
with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with
the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons
China is negotiating a militarybasein a strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, according to
the AFP news agency. The move raises the prospect of US and Chinesebases side-by-side in the ...
Oct 10, 2017 · China and the small African nation of Djibouti reached an agreement in July to let the People's Liberation Army
establish up its first overseas militarybase there. The base on Africa's east ...
China is building its first militarybaseinAfrica . America should be very nervous. ... In
Africa , China has found not just a market for money but for jobs and land -- crucial components of ...
23 hours ago (Edited)
Oh noes! 1 base in Africa.....meanwhile the empire has 800 outposts around the world and despite that, like a snowflake, is
bitching about China's one.
Isn't it fascinating how the Chinese do not find it necessary to resort to retarded regime change projects and stoopid kikery
to "win" influence? Easy peasy. Methinks the Anglo-Zionists can learn a trick or two from China.
23 hours ago
The empire of 800 outposts is puny compared to the 1960's and 1970's. I can provide the information if you'd like. Almost all
the 800 have company sized or smaller contingents. Still, I'd like to see much of it dismantled. No world Policeman.
23 hours ago
The entire world is in favor of a more peaceful planet Earth, except the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul
War puts money in their pockets. Lots of money. It's in the trillions of dollars.
23 hours ago (Edited)
How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering
and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the
time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed
off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers
wanted?
Now you know why wars happen. If "we the people" can't stop this beast, another nation's military will.
21 hours ago
@BH II
Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner. The only way out of the morass is
to find men of very high character to correctly lead the way out. America needs a Socrates.
"... No other country in the Middle East is as important in countering America's rush to provide Israel with another war than Iraq. Fortunately for Iran, the winds of change in Iraq and the many other local countries under similar threat, thus, make up an unbroken chain of border to border support. This support is only in part due to sympathy for Iran and its plight against the latest bluster by the Zio-American bully. ..."
"... For the Russo/Sino pact nations, or those leaning in their direction, the definition of national foreign interest is no longer military, it is economic. Those with resources and therefore bright futures within the expanding philosophy and economic offerings of the Russo/Sino pact have little use any longer for the "Sorrows of Empire." These nation's leaders, if nothing more than to line their own pockets, have had a very natural epiphany: War is not, for them, profitable. ..."
"... Lebanon and Syria also take away the chance of a ground-based attack, leaving the US Marines and Army to stare longingly across the Persian Gulf open waters from Saudi Arabia or one of its too few and militarily insignificant allies in the southern Gulf region. ..."
"... As shown in a previous article, "The Return of the Madness of M.A.D," Iran like Russia and China, after forty years of US/Israeli threats, has developed new weapons and military capabilities, that combined with tactics will make any direct aggression towards it by American forces a fair fight. ..."
"... When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war. ..."
"... I do particularly agree that elimination of Sadam was the greatest mistake US committed in Middle East. Devastating mistake for US policy. In the final evaluation it did create the most powerful Shi_ite crescent that now rules the Levant. Organizing failing uprising in Turkey against Erdogan was probably mistake of the same magnitude. Everything is lost for US now in the ME. ..."
"... The article evaluating the situation in ME is outstanding and perfect. Every move of US is a vanity. There is no more any opportunity to achieve any benefit for US. Who is responsible for all those screw ups ? US or Israel? ..."
"... However, the other side of the military coin is economic -- specifically sanctions on Iran (& China). Here ( I suspect) the US has prospects. Iran has said it has a "PhD" in sanctions busting. I hope that optimism is not misplaced. That US sanctions amount to a declaration of war on Iran is widely agreed. Sadly, it seems the EU in its usual spineless way will offer Iran more or less empty promises. ..."
"... I don't know if Russia and China have been showing restraint or still don't feel up to taking Uncle on very publicly or even covertly. The author assumes they might be willing to step up now for Iran, but the action in places like Syria suggests they might not. ..."
"... "War is a Racket" by Gen Smedley Butler (USMC – recipient of two Medals of Honor – no rear echelon pogue) is a must read. As true today as it was back when he wrote it. ..."
"... "The Axis of Sanity" – I like it, I like it! Probably quite closely related to the "reality-based community". ..."
"... "Karim al-Mohammadawi told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website that the US wants to turn Ain al-Assad airbase which is a regional base for operations and command into a central airbase for its fighter jets. ..."
"... He added that a large number of forces and military equipment have been sent to Ain al-Assad without any permission from the Iraqi government, noting that the number of American forces in Iraq has surpassed 50,000. ..."
"... Sea assault? Amphibious troop deployment? Are you serious? This is not WWII Normandy, Dorothy. That would be an unmitigated massacre. Weapons have improved a bit in the last 70 years if you have not noticed. ..."
"... first is a conspiracy of Israeli owned, Wall Street financed, war profiteering privatizing-pirate corporations These corporations enter, invade or control the war defeated place and privatize all of its infrastructure construction contracts from the defeated place or state (reason for massive destruction by bombing) and garner control over all the citizen services: retail oil and gas distribution, food supplies, electric power, communications, garbage and waste collection and disposal, street cleaning, water provisioning. traffic control systems, security, and so on.. Most of these corporations are privately owned public stock companies, controlled by the same wealthy Oligarchs that control "who gets elected and what the elected must do while in sitting in one of the seats of power at the 527 person USA. ..."
"... This article by Mr. Titley is the most hopeful article I've yet read demonstrating the coming death of US hegemony, with most of the rest of the civilized world apparently having turned against the world's worst Outlaw Nation. ..."
"... Netanyahu and the Ziocons better think twice about their longed for dream of the destruction of Iran. The Jews always push things too far. Karma can be a bitch. ..."
No other country in the Middle East is as important in countering America's rush to provide Israel with another war than Iraq.
Fortunately for Iran, the winds of change in Iraq and the many other local countries under similar threat, thus, make up an unbroken
chain of border to border support. This support is only in part due to sympathy for Iran and its plight against the latest bluster
by the Zio-American bully.
In the politics of the Middle East, however, money is at the heart of all matters. As such, this ring of defensive nations is
collectively and quickly shifting towards the new Russo/Sino sphere of economic influence. These countries now form a geo-political
defensive perimeter that, with Iraq entering the fold, make a US ground war virtually impossible and an air war very restricted in
opportunity.
If Iraq holds, there will be no war in Iran.
In the last two months, Iraq parliamentarians have been exceptionally vocal in their calls for all foreign military forces- particularly
US forces- to leave immediately. Politicians from both blocs of Iraq's divided parliament
called
for a vote to expel US troops and promised to schedule an extraordinary session to debate the matter ."Parliament must clearly
and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty," said Salam al-Shimiri, a lawmaker
loyal to the populist cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr
.
Iraq's ambassador to Moscow, Haidar Mansour Hadi, went further saying that Iraq "does not
want a new devastating war in the region." He t old a press conference in Moscow this past week, "Iraq is a sovereign
nation. We will not let [the US] use our territory," he said. Other comments by Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi agreed.
Other MPs called for
a timetable for complete US troop withdrawal.
Then a motion was introduced
demanding
war reparations from the US and Israel for using internationally banned weapons while destroying Iraq for seventeen years and
somehow failing to find those "weapons of mass destruction."
As Iraq/Iran economic ties continue to strengthen, with Iraq recently signing on for billions of cubic meters of Iranian natural
gas, the shift towards Russian influence- an influence that prefers peace- was certified as Iraq sent a delegation to Moscow to negotiate
the purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system.
To this massive show of pending democracy and rapidly rising Iraqi nationalism, US Army spokesman, Colonel Ryan Dillon, provided
the kind of delusion only the Zio-American military is known for, saying,
"Our continued presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to need, in coordination with and by the approval of
the Iraqi government."
Good luck with that.
US influence in Iraq came to a possible conclusion this past Saturday, May 18, 2019, when it was reported that the Iraqi parliament
would vote
on a bill compelling the invaders to leave . Speaking about the vote on the draft bill, Karim Alivi, a member of the Iraqi parliament's
national security and defense committee, said on Thursday that the country's two biggest parliamentary factions -- the Sairoon bloc,
led by Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Fatah alliance, headed by secretary general of the Badr Organization, Hadi al-Ameri --
supported the bill. Strangely, Saturday's result has not made it to the media as yet, and American meddling would be a safe guess
as to the delay, but the fact that this bill would certainly have passed strongly shows that Iraq well understands the weakness of
the American bully: Iraq's own US militarily imposed democracy.
Iraq shares a common border with Iran that the US must have for any ground war. Both countries also share a similar religious
demographic where Shia is predominant and the plurality of cultures substantially similar and previously living in harmony. Both
also share a very deep seeded and deserved hatred of Zio- America. Muqtada al-Sadr, who, after coming out first in the 2018 Iraqi
elections, is similar to Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah in his religious and military influence within the well trained and various
Shia militias. He is firmly aligned with Iran as is Fattah Alliance. Both detest Zio- America.
A ground invasion needs a common and safe border. Without Iraq, this strategic problem for US forces becomes complete. The other
countries also with borders with Iran are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. All have several good
reasons that they will not, or cannot, be used for ground forces.
With former Armenian President Robert Kocharian under arrest in the aftermath of the massive anti-government 2018 protests, Bolton
can check that one off the list first. Azerbaijan is mere months behind the example next door in Armenia,
with protests increasing and indicating
a change towards eastern winds. Regardless, Azerbaijan, like Turkmenistan, is an oil producing nation and as such is firmly aligned
economically with Russia. Political allegiance seems obvious since US influence is limited in all three countries to blindly ignoring
the massive additional corruption and human rights violations by Presidents Ilham Aliyev and
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow .
However, Russian economic influence pays in cash. Oil under Russian control is the lifeblood of both of these countries.
Recent developments and new international contracts with Russia clearly show whom these leaders are actually listening to.
Turkey would appear to be firmly shifting into Russian influence. A NATO member in name only. Ever since he
shot down his first-
and last – Russian fighter jet, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thumbed his nose at the Americans. Recently
he refused to succumb to pressure and will receive Iranian oil and, in July, the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft/missile system. This
is important since there is zero chance Putin will relinquish command and control or see them missiles used against Russian armaments.
Now, Erdogan is considering replacing his purchase of thirty US F-35s with the
far superior Russian SU- 57 and a few S-500s for good measure.
Economically, America did all it could to stop the Turk Stream gas pipeline installed by Russia's Gazprom, that runs through Turkey
to eastern Europe and will provide $billions to Erdogan and Turkey
. It
will commence operation this year. Erdogan continues to purchase Iranian oil and to call for Arab nations to come together against
US invasion in Iran. This week, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar renewed Turkey's resolve, saying his country
is preparing for potential American
sanctions as a deadline reportedly set by the US for Ankara to cancel the S-400 arms deal with Russia or face penalties draws
near.
So, Turkey is out for both a ground war and an air war since the effectiveness of all those S-400's might be put to good use if
America was to launch from naval positions in the Mediterranean. Attacking from the Black Sea is out since it is ringed by countries
under Russo/Sino influence and any attack on Iran will have to illegally cross national airspace aligned with countries preferring
the Russo/Sino alliance that favours peace. An unprovoked attack would leave the US fleet surrounded with the only safe harbours
in Romania and Ukraine. Ships move much slower than missiles.
Afghanistan is out, as the Taliban are winning. Considering recent peace talks from which they walked out and next
slaughtered a police station near the western border with
Iran, they have already won. Add the difficult terrain near the Iranian border and a ground invasion is very unlikely
Although new Pakistani President Amir Khan has all the power and authority of a primary school crossing guard, the real power
within the Pakistani military, the ISI, is more than tired of American influence
. ISI has propagated the Taliban for years and often gave
refuge to Afghan anti-US forces allowing them to use their common border for cover. Although in the past ISI has been utterly mercenary
in its very duplicitous- at least- foreign allegiances, after a decade of US drone strikes on innocent Pakistanis, the chance of
ground-based forces being allowed is very doubtful. Like Afghanistan terrain also increases this unlikelihood.
Considerations as to terrain and location for a ground war and the resulting failure of not doing so was shown to Israel previously
when, in 2006 Hizbullah virtually obliterated its ground attack, heavy armour and battle tanks in the hills of southern Lebanon.
In further cautionary detail, this failure cost PM Ehud Olmert his job.
For the Russo/Sino pact nations, or those leaning in their direction, the definition of national foreign interest is no longer
military, it is economic. Those with resources and therefore bright futures within the expanding philosophy and economic offerings
of the Russo/Sino pact have little use any longer for the "Sorrows of Empire." These nation's leaders, if nothing more than to line
their own pockets, have had a very natural epiphany: War is not, for them, profitable.
For Iran, the geographic, economic and therefore geo-political ring of defensive nations is made complete by Syria, Lebanon and
Iraq. Syria, like Iraq, has every reason to despise the Americans and similar reasons to embrace Iran, Russia, China and border neighbour
Lebanon. Syria now has its own Russian S-300 system which is already bringing down Israeli missiles. It is surprising that Lebanon
has not requested a few S-300s of their own. No one knows what Hizbullah has up its sleeve, but it has been enough to keep the Israelis
at bay. Combined with a currently more prepared Lebanese army, Lebanon under the direction of Nasrallah is a formidable nation for
its size. Ask Israel.
Lebanon and Syria also take away the chance of a ground-based attack, leaving the US Marines and Army to stare longingly across
the Persian Gulf open waters from Saudi Arabia or one of its too few and militarily insignificant allies in the southern Gulf region.
Friendly airspace will also be vastly limited, so also gone will be the tactical element of surprise of any incoming attack. The
reality of this defensive ring of nations means that US military options will be severely limited. The lack of a ground invasion
threat and the element of surprise will allow Iranian defences to prioritize and therefore be dramatically more effective. As shown
in a previous article, "The Return
of the Madness of M.A.D," Iran like Russia and China, after forty years of US/Israeli threats, has developed new weapons
and military capabilities, that combined with tactics will make any direct aggression towards it by American forces a fair fight.
If the US launches a war it will go it alone except for the few remaining US lapdogs like the UK, France, Germany and Australia,
but with anti-US emotions running as wild across the EU as in the southern Caspian nations, the support of these Zionist influenced
EU leaders is not necessarily guaranteed.
Regardless, a lengthy public ramp-up to stage military assets for an attack by the US will be seen by the vast majority of the
world- and Iran- as an unprovoked act of war. Certainly at absolute minimum Iran will close the Straits of Hormuz, throwing the price
of oil skyrocketing and world economies into very shaky waters. World capitalist leaders will not be happy. Without a friendly landing
point for ground troops, the US will either have to abandon this strategy in favour of an air war or see piles of body bags of US
servicemen sacrificed to Israeli inspired hegemony come home by the thousands just months before the '20 primary season. If this
is not military and economic suicide, it is certainly political.
Air war will likely see a similar disaster. With avenues of attack severely restricted, obvious targets such as Iran's non-military
nuclear program and major infrastructure will be thus more easily defended and the likelihood of the deaths of US airmen similarly
increased.
In terms of Naval power, Bolton would have only the Mediterranean as a launch pad, since using the Black Sea to initiate war will
see the US fleet virtually surrounded by nations aligned with the Russo/Sino pact. Naval forces, it should be recalled, are, due
to modern anti-ship technologies and weapons, now the sitting ducks of blusterous diplomacy. A hot naval war in the Persian Gulf,
like a ground war, will leave a US death toll far worse than the American public has witnessed in their lifetimes and the US navy
in tatters.
Trump is already
reportedly
seething that his machismo has been tarnished by Bolton and Pompeo's false assurances of an easy overthrow of Maduro in Venezuela.
With too many top generals getting jumpy about him initiating a hot war with Iraq, Bolton's stock in trade-war is waning. Trump basks
in being the American bully personified, but he and his ego will not stand for being exposed as weak. Remaining as president is necessary
to stoke his shallow character. When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war
with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren
political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war.
In two
excellent articles in Asia times by Pepe Escobar, he details the plethora of projects, agreements, and cooperation that are
taking place from Asia
to the Mid-East to the Baltics . Lead by Russia and China this very quickly developing Russo/Sino pact of economic opportunity
and its intentions of "soft power" collectively spell doom for Zio-America's only remaining tactics of influence: military intervention.
States, Escobar:
"We should know by now that the heart of the 21 st Century Great Game is the myriad layers of the battle between
the United States and the partnership of Russia and China. The long game indicates Russia and China will break down language and
cultural barriers to lead Eurasian integration against American economic hegemony backed by military might."
The remaining civilized world, that which understands the expanding world threat of Zio-America, can rest easy. Under the direction
of this new Russo/Sino influence, without Iraq, the US will not launch a war on Iran.
This growing Axis of Sanity surrounds Iran geographically and empathetically, but more importantly, economically. This economy,
as clearly stated by both Putin and Xi, does not benefit from any further wars of American aggression. In this new allegiance to
future riches, it is Russian and China that will call the shots and a shooting war involving their new client nations will not be
sanctioned from the top.
However, to Putin, Xi and this Axis of Sanity: If American wishes to continue to bankrupt itself by ineffective military adventures
of Israel's making, rather than fix its own nation that is in societal decline and desiccated after decades of increasing Zionist
control, well
That just good for business!
About the Author:Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 170 in-depth articles over the past eight years for news
agencies worldwide. Many have been translated and republished. On-scene reporting from important current events has been an emphasis
that has led to his many multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL
Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan's Turkey and many more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene
((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk
When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they
want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute
instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war.
I believe you are far
too generous in your estimation of his ability to distinguish between flavors of any type. Otherwise, your analysis is insightful
and thorough.
The U.S. is in the same position today that we were aboard Nimitz back in 1980. Too far from Tehran to start a war or even to
find our people. We are perhaps in even a far worse position in that today, Iran holds no hostages. There's nothing so 'noble'
as 44 hostages to inspire war today. This here is merely at the behest of Israel and the deep state profit centers for mere fun
and games and cash and prizes. Iran, overall, is nothing. Obama put Iran away for what, a billion-five? And Jared, Bolton and
Pompeo dredged it all back up again? Care to guess the first-night expense of a shock and awe on Tehran? It's unthinkable.
I used to like Israel. The Haifa-Tel Av-iv-Jerusalem-Galili loop was pretty cool. The PLO hadn't quite started their game,
we could move freely about the country. It's where the whole thing started. And, unlike Italy and Spain, they treated us Americans
ok. They were somewhat war torn. But now? They're a destructive monolith, they're good at hiding it and further, they make disastrous
miscalculations. Eliminating Saddam was huge. Turns out, Saddam was the only sane one. The last vestiges of Saddam's nuclear program
went up in the attacks on the Osirak reactor that Israel bombed in 1981. Why did they push for the elimination of Saddam afterwards?
Why the lies? Miscalculation.
This here with Iran won't travel further than threats and horseshit. I hope. Lots of bleating and farting. Someone agrees.
Oil dropped three or four bucks today.
"the resulting failure of not doing so was shown to Israel previously when, in 2016 Hezbollah virtually obliterated its ground
attack, heavy amour and battle tanks in the hills of southern Lebanon."
I do particularly agree that elimination of Sadam was the greatest mistake US committed in Middle East. Devastating mistake
for US policy. In the final evaluation it did create the most powerful Shi_ite crescent that now rules the Levant. Organizing
failing uprising in Turkey against Erdogan was probably mistake of the same magnitude. Everything is lost for US now in the ME.
Threatening Iran is now simply grotesque.
Concerning the article. The article evaluating the situation in ME is outstanding and perfect. Every move of US is a vanity.
There is no more any opportunity to achieve any benefit for US. Who is responsible for all those screw ups ? US or Israel?
However, the other side of the military coin is economic -- specifically sanctions
on Iran (& China). Here ( I suspect) the US has prospects. Iran has said it has a "PhD" in sanctions busting. I hope that optimism
is not misplaced. That US sanctions amount to a declaration of war on Iran is widely agreed. Sadly, it seems the EU in its usual
spineless way will offer Iran more or less empty promises.
Is the author unaware of the nation of Saudi Arabia and the fact that they are new BFFs with Israel. They have come out quite
openly they'd like to see Iran attacked. That whole Sunni Wahabism vs. Shia thing is a heck of alot older than this current skirmish.
Being that SA has a border w/ the Persian Gulf and that Kuwait who is even CLOSER may be agreeable to be a staging area, why
the hand wringing about this nation & that nation, etc. The US would be welcome to stage an air and sea assault using Saudi bases
followed up by amphibious troop deployment if need be. But given the proximity they could probably strong arm Kuwait to act as
a land bridge, in a pinch.
So will we expect the follow up article discussing this glaring omission, or am I missing some great development re: S.Arabia's
disposition and temperament regarding all this.
The transformed relationship between Russia and Turkey illustrates perfectly the shifting sands of strategic alliances as we cross
the desert towards destiny. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
I don't know if Russia and China have been showing restraint or still don't feel up to taking Uncle on very publicly or even
covertly. The author assumes they might be willing to step up now for Iran, but the action in places like Syria suggests they
might not.
As for the costs of taking on Iran, while one cannot underestimate the cocksuredness of Uncle to take on Iran with a 2003 "Iraq
will be a cakewalk" attitude, the resulting air war will likely not be as costly to Uncle as the author believes, but the thought
of flag-draped coffins in the thousands will certainly deter a land invasion. If there is any action at all, it will be air interdiction
and missile attack.
It is curious that Uncle has not already resorted to his favorite tactic of declaring a No-Fly zone already but instead merely
hinted that airliner safety cannot be guaranteed; this is likely just another form of sanction since Iran receives money for each
airliner that transits its airspace, and a couple of Uncle's putative allies supply Iran with ATC equipment and services.
Uncle's Navy has already demonstrated a willingness to shoot down an airliner in Iranian airspace, so it is no idle threat,
kind of like the mobster looking at a picture of your family and saying, "Nice family you have there; it would be a shame if anything
happened to them."
"War is a Racket" by Gen Smedley Butler (USMC – recipient of two Medals of Honor – no rear echelon pogue) is a must read.
As true today as it was back when he wrote it.
If the US launches a war it will go it alone except for the few remaining US lapdogs like the UK, France, Germany and Australia,
but with anti-US emotions running as wild across the EU as in the southern Caspian nations, the support of these Zionist influenced
EU leaders is not necessarily guaranteed.
Stasi " Merkel muss weg " (Merkel must go) is too weak to even think about taking Germanstan into such a foolish adventure.
Maybe the Kosher Kingdom of simpletons, especially under American-born Turkish "Englishman" (((Boris Kemal Bey))), another
psycho like (((Baron Levy's))) Scottish warmonger Blair.
Iraqi MP: US after Turning Ain Al-Assad into Central Airbase in Iraq
FARSNEWS
"Karim al-Mohammadawi told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website that the US wants to turn Ain al-Assad airbase
which is a regional base for operations and command into a central airbase for its fighter jets.
He added that a large number of forces and military equipment have been sent to Ain al-Assad without any permission from
the Iraqi government, noting that the number of American forces in Iraq has surpassed 50,000.
Al-Mohammadawi said that Washington does not care about Iraq's opposition to using the country's soil to target the neighboring
states.
In a relevant development on Saturday, media reports said that Washington has plans to set up military bases and increasing
its troops in Iraq, adding the US is currently engaged in expanding its Ain al-Assad military base in al-Anbar province."
The US would be welcome to stage an air and sea assault using Saudi bases followed up by amphibious troop deployment if
need be. But given the proximity they could probably strong arm Kuwait to act as a land bridge, in a pinch.
Sea assault? Amphibious troop deployment? Are you serious? This is not WWII Normandy, Dorothy. That would be an unmitigated
massacre. Weapons have improved a bit in the last 70 years if you have not noticed.
Also minor point, LOL, but Kuwait is a "landbridge" between Saudi Arabia and Iraq Unless you are proposing the US attacks
Iraq (again!) which it would have to do to achieve a "landbridge" to Iran. Another good reason Iraq is acquiring the S-400.
More minor points: 1. South Iraq is ALL shiite. 2. Kuwait is SMALL i.e. a BIG target for thousands of missiles
@Ilyana_Rozumova
your question of responsibility is very intuitive.. two general answers.. both need deep analysis..
first is a conspiracy of Israeli owned, Wall Street financed, war profiteering privatizing-pirate corporations These corporations
enter, invade or control the war defeated place and privatize all of its infrastructure construction contracts from the defeated
place or state (reason for massive destruction by bombing) and garner control over all the citizen services: retail oil and gas
distribution, food supplies, electric power, communications, garbage and waste collection and disposal, street cleaning, water
provisioning. traffic control systems, security, and so on.. Most of these corporations are privately owned public stock companies,
controlled by the same wealthy Oligarchs that control "who gets elected and what the elected must do while in sitting in one of
the seats of power at the 527 person USA.
2nd is the impact of the laws that deny competition in a nation sworn to a method of economics (capitalism) that depends on
competition for its success. Another group of massive in size mostly global corporations again owned from Jerusalem, NYC, City
of London, etc. financed at wall street, use rule of law to impose on Americans and many of the people of the world, a blanket
of economic and anti competitive laws and monopoly powers. These monopolist companies benefit from the copyright and patent laws,
which create monopolies from hot thin air. These laws of monopolies coupled to the USA everything is a secret government have
devastated competitive capitalism in America and rendered American Universities high school level teaching but not learning bureaucracies.
Monopolies and state secrets between insider contractors were suppose to deny most of the world from competing; but without
competition ingenuity is lost. Monopoly lordships and state secrets were supposed to make it easy for the monopoly powered corporations
to overpower and deny any and all would be competition; hence they would be the only ones getting rich.. But China's Huawei will
be Linux based and Tin not Aluminium in design, far superior technology to anything these monopoly powered retards have yet developed
especially in the high energy communications technologies (like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics). In other words copyrights,
patents and the US military were suppose to keep the world, and the great ingenuity that once existed in the person of every American,
from competing, but the only people actually forced out of the technology competition were the ingenious, for they were denied
by copyright and patents to compete. Now those in power at the USA will make Americans pay again as the corporations that run
things try to figure out how to catch up to the Chinese and Russian led Eastern world. Modi's election in India is quite interesting
as both China and Russia supported it, yet, Modi says he is going to switch to the USA for copyrighted and patented stuff?
on the issue of continued USA presence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, ..
"Our continued presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to need, in coordination with and by the approval of
the Iraqi government." <that's a joke, first off, I never desired to be in Iraq, and I do not desire USA military or American
presence in Iraq, do You? <blatant disregard for the needs of America.. IMO. Bring the troops home. If the USA would only leave
Iraq to the Iraqis and get to work making America competitive again they would once again enjoy a great place in the world. But
one thing i can tell you big giant wall street funded corporations, and reliance on degree credentials instead of job performance,
will never be the reason America is great.
This article by Mr. Titley is the most hopeful article I've yet read demonstrating the coming death of US hegemony, with most
of the rest of the civilized world apparently having turned against the world's worst Outlaw Nation.
Trump has allowed madmen
Bolton and Pompeo to get this country into an awful mess – all for the sake of Israel and the Zionists.
He needs to find a face-saving
way to get out before Washington gets its long needed comeuppance. But how can Trump accomplish this as long as Bolton, in particular,
continues to be the man who most has his ear? If Titley is correct, then Trump had better start listening to his military leaders
instead.
Netanyahu and the Ziocons better think twice about their longed for dream of the destruction of Iran. The Jews always push
things too far. Karma can be a bitch.
"... The Word documents published in June 2016 by Guccifer 2 also show a "last saved as" user id written in Cyrillic. The Anglicized name is " Felix Edmundovich ", aka "Iron Felix" (the infamous director of an early Soviet spy agency). If you are a Russian cyber spy trying to conduct a covert operation, why do you sign your document with the name of one of the most infamous leaders of Russian intelligence? Robert Mueller wants you to believe that this was just Russian audacity. ..."
"... The phrase "personal beliefs about the competence or incompetence of the Russians" catches something important. Whether it was the Russians or somebody else that did this, whoever did it was pretty sloppy. What this report describes is almost as pathetic when considered a false flag operation as it is as a sabotage operation. So any theory of who stole and published the documents has to explain a capability to access the data combined with blissful obliviousness about handling them. I know of no reason to think the Russian, US, Israeli, or other intelligence communities incapable of such a combination. All of them have brilliant dedicated people but also seemingly endless supplies of mediocre time-servers. ..."
"... Scenario? Shutdown, closing of words with documents being automatically saved? Ok, otherwise there is apparently no precise saving time stamp on Winwords latest version. How much changed since 2016? ..."
"... The Vault7 leak of CIA tools also contained information on how to select any language environment. It's really a standard practice, even for normal criminals. ..."
Russia did not hack the DNC. This is not an opinion. It is a conclusion that flows from one
very specific claim made by the Special Counsel -- i.e., Guccifer 2.0 was a fictional identity
created by Russian Military Intelligence, the GRU. If Guccifer was in fact a creation or
creature of the GRU, then the forensic evidence should show that this entity was operating from
Russia or under the direct control of the GRU. The forensic evidence shows something quite
different -- the meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 documents were manipulated deliberately to plant
Russian fignerprints. This was not an accident nor an oversight due to carelessness.
What is meta data? This is the information recorded when a document is created. This data
includes things such as the date and time the document was created or modified. It tells you
who created the document. It is like the Wizard of Oz, it is the information behind the
curtain.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's is correct in stating that Guccifer 2.0 was a "fictious
online persona. " He is wrong in attributing that action to Russian Military Intelligence.
While Guccifer 2.0 was a "fictious" entity, the information recorded about when, how and who
created the document show that deliberate choices were made to present the info as if it was
created by someone Russian.
Let us first stipulate and agree that Russia and the United States engage in cyber espionage
and covert action against each other. This has been the case since computers and the internet
came into existence. Within the U.S. Intelligence Community these activities generally are
labeled with the acronym, CNO -- Computer Network Operations. The Russians and the United
States have cadres of cyber "warriors" who sit at computer terminals and engage in operations
commonly known as hacking. Other countries, such as China, Iran and Ukraine do this as
well.
CNOs are classified at the highest level in the United States and normally are handled
within special restricted categories commonly known as SAPs (i.e, Special Access Programs). A
critical element of these kinds of operations is to avoid leaving any fingerprints or clues
that would enable the activity to be traced back to the United States. But this is not unique
to the United States. All professional intelligence services around the world understand and
practice this principle -- leave no evidence behind that proves you were there.
The case implicating Russia in the hack of the DNC and Clinton emails, including those of
her campaign Manager, John Podesta, rests on suspect forensic computer evidence -- is present
in the meta data in the documents posted on line by Guccifer 2.0. According to Disobedient
Media , "the files that Guccifer 2.0 initially pushed to reporters contain Russian
metadata, a Russian stylesheet entry and in some cases embedded Russian error messages."
Why would the Russians make such a mistake, especially in such a high stake operation
(targeting a national election with covert action most certainly is a high stake operation).
Mueller and the U.S. intelligence community want you to believe that the Russians are just
sloppy and careless buffoons. Those ideologically opposed to the Russians readily embrace this
nonsenses. But for those who actually have dealt with Russian civilian and military
intelligence operatives and operations, the Russians are sophisticated and cautious.
But we do not have to rely on our personal beliefs about the competence or incompetence of
the Russians. We simply need to look at the forensic evidence contained in the documents posted
by Guccifer 2.0. We will take Robert Mueller and his investigators at their word:
Beginning in or around June 2016, the Conspirators staged and released tens of thousands
of the stolen emails and documents. They did so using fictitious online personas, including
"DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." (p. 2-3)
The Conspirators also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release additional stolen
documents through a website maintained by an organization ("Organization 1") [aka WIKILEAKS],
that had previously posted documents stolen from U.S. persons, entities, and the U.S.
government. (p. 3)
Between in or around June 2016 and October 2016, the Conspirators used Guccifer 2.0 to
release documents through WordPress that they had stolen from the DCCC and DNC. The
Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also shared stolen documents with certain individuals.
(p. 15)
An examination of those documents tells a very different story. While it does not reveal who
or what was Guccifer 2.0, it does undermine Mueller's claim that it was the Russians who did
these dastardly deeds.
One independent forensic computer investigator, who uses the name, "The Forensicator,"
examined the meta data in some of the documents posted by Guccifer 2.0 and
discovered the following :
Guccifer 2.0 published a file on 13 September 2016 that was originally copied on 5 July 2016
at approximately 6:45 PM Eastern time. It was copied and appeared as the "NGP VAN" 7zip
file.
The estimated speed of transfer was 23 MB/s. This means that this initial data transfer
could have been done remotely over the Internet. Instead, it was likely done from a computer
system that had direct access to the data. "By "direct access" we mean that the individual who
was collecting the data either had physical access to the computer where the data was stored,
or the data was copied over a local high-speed network (LAN)."
This initial copying activity was done on a system that used Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)
settings and was likely initially copied to a computer running Linux, because the file last
modified times all reflect the apparent time of the copy, which is a characteristic of the
Linux 'cp' command (using default options).
On September 1, 2016, a subset of the initial large collection of DNC related content (the
so-called NGP/VAN data), was transferred to working directories on a system running Windows.
The .rar files included in the final 7zip file were built from those working directories.
The alleged Russian fingerprints appeared in the first document "leaked" by Guccifer 2.0--
1.doc -- which was a report on Donald Trump . A forensic examination of
the documents shows thatgiven the word processor program used to create the Donald Trump
Document released by Guccifer 2.0, the author consciously and purposefully used formats that
deliberately inserted "Russian fingerprints" into the document. In other words, the meta-data
was purposely altered, and documents were pasted into a 'Russianified' word document with
Russian language settings and style headings.
Here are the key facts:
The meta data shows that Slate_-_Domestic_-_USDA_-_2008-12-20.doc was the template
for creating 1.doc , 2.doc and 3.doc . This template injected "Warren
Flood" as the author value and "GSA" as the company value in those first three Word documents.
This
template also injected the title , the watermark and header/footer fields found in the
final documents (with slight modifications).
The Word documents published in June 2016 by Guccifer 2 also show a "last saved as" user id
written in Cyrillic. The Anglicized name is " Felix Edmundovich ", aka
"Iron Felix" (the infamous director of an early Soviet spy agency). If you are a Russian cyber
spy trying to conduct a covert operation, why do you sign your document with the name of one of
the most infamous leaders of Russian intelligence? Robert Mueller wants you to believe that
this was just Russian audacity.
But the meta data tells a different story. When we examine The Revision Session Identifiers
aka 'RSID's, in the Guccifer document, we see the same Russian style-headings in 1.doc, 2.doc
and 3.doc. The document creation timestamps on docs 1, 2 and 3 also are all identical.
Given that MS word assigns a new random 'RSID' with each save when an element is added or
edited (this function allows one to track changes made to a Word document), the only way to
obtain identical creation timestamps means that someone either directly edited the source
document or that there was one empty document open and that individual documents were
copy-pasted and saved-as (1.doc), then contents deleted and new doc pasted and saved-as
(2.doc), etc. This
process also explains identical style-sheet RSIDs .
The document creation timestamps on docs 1, 2 and 3 also are all identical.
Curious, no doubt. But who of us did not consider Guccifer 2 curious. Put another way,
what experts considered him solid proof for Russian involvement?
Are you suggesting Winword templates were used for the metadata?
As IT nitwit, how can I save three *doc files or their 2016 word equivalent at the same
time? Any way to do that? Windows doesn't seem to have a solution to that.
Again: This is a nitwit user asking a question.
*******
I admittedly am not overly motivated to read the Mueller report. I'll read your contribution
again to figure out what you may suggest in or between the lines.
The phrase "personal beliefs about the competence or incompetence of the Russians" catches
something important. Whether it was the Russians or somebody else that did this, whoever did
it was pretty sloppy. What this report describes is almost as pathetic when considered a
false flag operation as it is as a sabotage operation. So any theory of who stole and
published the documents has to explain a capability to access the data combined with blissful
obliviousness about handling them. I know of no reason to think the Russian, US, Israeli, or
other intelligence communities incapable of such a combination. All of them have brilliant
dedicated people but also seemingly endless supplies of mediocre time-servers.
Equally interesting is the fact that this analysis has come from such a private source.
Surely all the major intelligence agencies have the skill to find the same indicators. And
all have comparatively endless resources to apply to the analysis. But they all seem to not
want to talk about it. For me the most suspicious thing about the handling of the theft was
the FBI's near complete lack of interest in examining the server. I have always assumed that
such indifference reflected that they already had all they needed in order to understand what
happened. Maybe even watched the theft in real time. But this report demonstrates that you
didn't need any special access to blow up the official story. (Note that the official story
may be "true". It is just not proven by the cited evidence.)
Yet, whatever actually happened, nobody seems interested in challenging the narrative that
Russians stole data and routed it through useful idiots to influence the 2016 elections. This
report indicates that a persuasive challenge would not have been hard to produce.
Perhaps the false flag was intentionally clumsy, intended to be detected. Bait for a trap
that no one wants to fall into. But I don't see where that thought leads.
This can be discovered by looking at things called 'rsid's or Revision Session
Identifiers in Guccifer's document. In order to track changes, MS word assigns a new random
'rsid' with each save upon each element added or edited. The rsids for the Russian
style-headings in 1.doc, 2.doc and 3.doc are all the same (styrsid11758497 in the raw
source).
Moreover, the document creation timestamps on 1,2, and 3.docs are all identical too.
This might imply there was one empty document open, with individual documents being
copy-pasted and saved-as (1.doc), then contents deleted and new doc pasted and saved-as
(2.doc), etc. This is the only way to go about obtaining identical creation timestamps short
of direct editing of the source, and would also explain identical style-sheet RSIDs.
Scenario? Shutdown, closing of words with documents being automatically saved? Ok,
otherwise there is apparently no precise saving time stamp on Winwords latest version. How
much changed since 2016?
Empty doc open? What would that change?
But good to see that Winword now integrated some type of automatic saving option, didn't
have it when I gave it up and shifted to Open Office. On the other hand, can I trust it to not confront me with an earlier revision version? I
admittedly asked myself lately. In a 200 page file, mind you.
As someone with a little bit of experience in that area I can assure you that language
metadata artifacts are practically worthless for attribution. You would mention it in a
report, but from it you can only conclude that
either the creator was an amateur and used his own language environment
or actually selected this particular language environment, either by running a - in this
case - Russian copy of Office, or by changing the metadata manually.
or he used his own language environment because he doesn't care, and because he knows that
this information is worthless for any forensics expert.
The Vault7 leak of CIA tools also contained information on how to select any language
environment. It's really a standard practice, even for normal criminals.
Attribution is really hard and usually amounts to a lot of guessing who might be interested
in the target of an attack, correlating information from other campaigns, and is only rarely
based on hard evidence. Big state actors probably can do a little bit better when they have
access to enough network taps. But in the end one bit looks like any other, and properties of
static documents can always be forged and made to look real. Or simply buy a copy of MS
Office in .
The document creation timestamps on docs 1, 2 and 3 also are all identical.
Ok doc creation times. Could one create a WinWord Macro? That does exactly that. ok, why
would one do this? True. Minor detail, I know. But I see we have experts around now.
*******
More generally. Guccifer 2.0 was a bit of an odd occurrence, not least due to US intelligence
considering Guccifer one or zero, if you like.
As someone with a little bit of experience in that area I can assure you that language
metadata artifacts are practically worthless for attribution. You would mention it in a
report, but from it you can only conclude that
either the creator was an amateur and used his own language environment
or actually selected this particular language environment, either by running a - in
this case - Russian copy of Office, or by changing the metadata manually.
or he used his own language environment because he doesn't care, and because he knows
that this information is worthless for any forensics expert.
The Vault7 leak of CIA tools also contained information on how to select any language
environment. It's really a standard practice, even for normal criminals.
Attribution is really hard and usually amounts to a lot of guessing who might be
interested in the target of an attack, correlating information from other campaigns, and is
only rarely based on hard evidence.
Big state actors probably can do a little bit better when they have access to enough
network taps. But in the end one bit looks like any other, and properties of static documents
can always be forged and made to look real. Or simply buy a copy of MS Office.
"... Newsweek unearthed another clue as to the provenance of the claims. The magazine said that it learned from one Pentagon official that the satellite imagery of loading missiles into fishing dhows was not produced by U.S. intelligence but rather had been provided by Israel. ..."
"... Ravid's Israeli sources acknowledged that it wasn't hard intelligence or even an intelligence assessment based on evidence. Instead, as one Israeli official acknowledged, Mossad "drew several scenarios for what Iran might be planning." Ravid's sources ultimately admitted that Israel's Mossad doesn't really know "what the Iranians are trying to do." ..."
"... That April 15 meeting was only the most recent one between top U.S. and Israeli national security officials over the past year, according to Ravid. These meetings were conducted under a still-secret U.S.-Israeli agreement on a joint plan of action against Iran reached after two days of unannounced meetings at the White House between Ben Shabbat and then-national security advisor H.R. McMaster on December 12, 2017. ..."
"... It also creates a new incentive for the Israelis and Saudis to provoke military responses by Hamas in Gaza or the Houthis in Yemen. ..."
@renfro Remember
Iraq .with visions of WMDs, yellow cake and dancing Israelis in your head.
"In meetings in Washington and Tel Aviv in the past few weeks," the paper's Jerusalem
correspondent wrote, "Israeli intelligence warned" U.S. officials that "Iran or its proxies
were planning to strike American targets in Iraq." The report cited a "senior Middle Eastern
intelligence official" -- the term traditionally used to describe an Israeli intelligence
official–as the source.
Newsweek unearthed another clue as to the provenance of the claims. The magazine said that
it learned from one Pentagon official that the satellite imagery of loading missiles into
fishing dhows was not produced by U.S. intelligence but rather had been provided by
Israel.
Reporting by the leading Israeli diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid, now of Channel 13
but also filing for Axios, provides more detailed evidence that Israel was the original
source of all three alleged Iranian threats. Ravid's story reports that an Israeli
delegation, led by national advisor Meir Ben Shabbat, met with Bolton and other U.S. national
security officials in the White House on April 15 and passed on to them "information about
possible Iranian plots against the U.S. or its allies in the Gulf," according to "senior
Israeli officials."
Bolton confirmed the meeting with Ben Shabbat in a tweet after it happened, but revealed
nothing about what was discussed.
Ravid's Israeli sources acknowledged that it wasn't hard intelligence or even an
intelligence assessment based on evidence. Instead, as one Israeli official acknowledged,
Mossad "drew several scenarios for what Iran might be planning." Ravid's sources ultimately
admitted that Israel's Mossad doesn't really know "what the Iranians are trying to do."
This is the obvious explanation for why U.S. officials were so unwilling to reveal the
provenance of what has loosely been called "intelligence." It also tallies with one Pentagon
official's revelation to Newsweek that the satellite imagery cited as evidence of missiles in
fishing boats had been "provided to U.S. officials by Israel ."
That April 15 meeting was only the most recent one between top U.S. and Israeli national
security officials over the past year, according to Ravid. These meetings were conducted
under a still-secret U.S.-Israeli agreement on a joint plan of action against Iran reached
after two days of unannounced meetings at the White House between Ben Shabbat and
then-national security advisor H.R. McMaster on December 12, 2017. Ravid reported the
details of that agreement in late December based on information from a "senior U.S. official"
and confirmation from senior Israeli officials.
Ravid's story provided details on the four working groups that were formed under the
agreement, including one on "Joint U.S.-Israeli preparation for different escalation
scenarios in the region, concerning Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza." The
Mossad "scenarios" apparently provided the central ideas with which to justify the Trump
administration's subsequent escalatory moves against Iran, including ostentatiously moving an
aircraft carrier and a B-52 bomber group into the region.
Bolton's May 5 statement warning of "unrelenting force" against Iran in response to any
attack by either Iranian or "proxy" forces added a very significant new element to America's
retaliatory threats. It referred to an attack "on United States interests or on those of our
allies." That broadening of the range of scenarios that could be cited to justify a U.S.
strike against Iran, which has so far been studiously ignored by major news media, represents
a major concession to the Israelis and Saudi Arabia.
It also creates a new incentive for the Israelis and Saudis to provoke military responses by
Hamas in Gaza or the Houthis in Yemen. And it poses the problem of incidents that could be
blamed on Iran or a "proxy" but for which actual responsibility is ambiguous, such as the
apparent "limpet mine" attack on oil tankers on May 12 -- or the rocket fired into Baghdad's
Green Zone within a mile of the U.S. embassy there Sunday night.
These deceptions are part of a dangerous game being run by Bolton in which Israel is
apparently playing a crucial role. That should prompt some serious questioning as to Bolton's
claims and the role of the alleged secret U.S.-Israeli understandings.
This design of bulk data management demonstrates that they are interested in acquiring
leverage over politicians and everyone else rather than analysis to block terrorist acts.
Could not be clearer.
Our government is out of control, not only are they apparently collecting everything on
each of us, "Most of these terror attacks are done by government guided terrorists, so the
NSA is purposely choosing not to see the terror links until after the attack." -Joel Skousen,
2-09-2018 'World Affairs Brief'.
It is designed to be a blackmail tool, a LOOKBACK after they have something else on you.
It is so massive to keep the employees busy doing nothing in a timely manner. It isn't meant
to me a human run predictive tool, they want "machine learning" to be able to work it out.
Bill Binney is brilliant.
Who better to expose them than Bill Binney, the man who designed the system and he is
doing the right thing by exposing them. I used to think that Pentagon was the largest
building but three times the size and collecting bulk that they cannot even use is foolish. I
cannot accredit them for anything good out of this because there is nothing good except waste
of taxpayers money. There was a time when anything this size would be outdated. They should
strictly be asked to provide accountability but because they don't, there is no ceiling on
their spending.
I write what I write knowing they monitor things praying one day they get a clue. I hide
nothing!! Before God as they say all seeing and all knowing we can hide nothing in dark or in
the light!! Weather they think they are God or not!! They think before all this admission you
can't see hear or feel there tactics!! I notice every thing that tries to interfere with my
devices! Phone computers electronics ect. Let them play the game, let us use same technology
against them and see how it plays out!! Lol sad that don't need to one lil old me vs how many
of them with all technology at their fingertips!!! Wow impressive!! Difference between me and
them is they wanna manipulate and rip people off n control them and I only wish to help
others and not make slaves out of them. If I had the endless funds I would more than pay
people what they are worth and help the less fortunate. I could show how everyone could live
better, happier and healthier lives. They don't want this they fear it cause they want all
power and control!!! Very very pathetic!! Read more Show less Reply 21 22 Loading... View all
10 replies View all 10 replies Hide replies
If Binney is accurate, then they are bright enough to use Artificial Intelligence to turn
the data pile into real intel. Duh. So I think Mr. Binney is allowed to share disinformation.
They are operating a fullt operational battlestar.
I worked in the same building about a year before Snowden was there. The facility in the
movie(Hawaii) looked Hi-Tech in the movie... The place was a fuckin' dump! I laughed when I
saw the movie.. you could of walked in there with 1OO thumbdrives in a bag..no metal detector
or scanners Read more Show less Reply 1 2
If the US is doing this, than 100% sure the Chinese and Russians and Iranians even South
Africans and Arab Nations do just the same. So having an NSA as a stasi is nothing new nor
different from what other nations do. Sure it is illegal...but knowing and safely assuming
more nation collect our data...I don't really worry less or more when owning a hard copy at
NSA. And a back up hard copy on what they own of us all...can be handy...So sure file your
law suit...but I would advise the judges to say that you are right, but that there is higher
reasons for doing so thank you sir...but I am not convinced living with closed eyes against
open eyes...is a weak position to stand on. So either they are all brought down...or we need
a version of our own. I don't think...there is a choice sir.
And sure defame leading people in this field and stating they are as bad as Darth
Vader...well...I think sir...you have a fast opinion with a limit on reaching to the true
facts of what is happening in internet-land. I think I don't really need your opinion when it
is based and outed as simple jokes on people that try and protect our Western World. And sure
crime is using NSA information too and sure people are targetted. We can do something about
that...but if it is wise to stall the NSA in protecting us in overall sense is not really
smart. I think we just want more control over people using this information. So maybe we need
this control, but just make sure it is used for good instead of evil. Well that isn't making
our days different from before this new stasi rised.
Than comment you have on Iran...smuggling dope through various internation
companies...lol...my dear sir they probably got the idea from the Americans using drug money
profits to fund groups in the South Americas trying to bring down foreign governments. They
are not any different from what the US agencies do. So kindof hypocritic hearing that from an
American. Of course they would want a lid on collected data spread, and of course also the
NSA holds infiltrants and people that would misuse power. So sure they keep it as much hidden
and unknown. I think that is negatively explain-able as well as positivly.
An objective conclusion is to be made. So sure..file your law suit. I think you are just
saying what freightened people wish to hear,..and gaining in on profits on it? And you think
that is a nice commercial expertise? Or is this all done for free...I doubt that a seat there
is free of charge sir. What are you funding with it?
NSA Whistleblower William Binney and CIA Whistleblower Ray McGovern at Manhattan Town Hall
DNC/Podesta emails were not hacked by the Russians but were an 87 second download to a thumb
drive by Seth Rich, who had issues because the DNC and Hillary had stolen the Nomination from
Bernie Sanders. The DNC then had to have Seth Rich murdered to sell their "the Russians did
it" diversion to keep everyone from looking at the content of the DNC and Podesta emails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=4nPCBeMJpKQsimflyr19574 months
ago George Orwell in 1984 was a prophesy for today
Americans and permanent residents, must realize that we live in a country that the
government supposedly elected, created, funded, to serve and protect the rights of the
citizens and civilians within our border, has become self-supporting and prioritized their
own agendas of self promotion and self preservation. The government no longer represents us.
Nor serve us. We now live under a modern fascist state.
Those at the top are no even elected or can held accountable by the people. Imminent
Domain, Civil forfeiture, unconstitutional spying, suspicion and persecution, blackmail,
threats, and even murder. All state sponsored, and complete immunity from lawful prosecution,
and retribution. And unless we accept that we're partially to blame for letting them get away
with this, we will never effectively bring about justice and change.
It will be status quo, and can only get worse for our posterity. Remember, if every person
in this country were in solidarity in mass focused protest.....boycotting products, refusing
to sustain their economy, didn't go to work and all called in sick, didn't file our taxes,
refused to vote for anyone, flood their spying databases with keywords, and photos, and
phrases, Took a hiatus simultaneously from being a part of their 'machine'....it would send a
shockwave like a tsunami disrupting all their infrastructure, and if in unified cooperation
across the world....that disruption would be global. Recall what India was able to do in
nonviolent civil unrest. It drove the invading British empire out of their country.
William Binney is an absolute hero! It's only through the courageous actions of people
like him, that we will end the subversion of justice and the overwhelming corruption that has
plagued this nation and the world for far too long. Even if all you are capable of is to
engage people in conversations over the internet, it is still a very useful tool. Ridiculing
people as "keyboard worriers" is a humiliation tactic. They know it works so they are trying
many approaches to manage those who would change the world through logic and reason. I
encourage everyone to do everything they can to contribute to the ongoing effort and
accomplishing the enormous task of ending the era of rule by psychopaths. Donate money to
organizations you think would be helpful, vote, attend public meetings and protests, boycott
those companies that contribute to the corruption, there's many ways to get this done. Just
use your head, every little bit helps. If the "q" thing is to be believed, we have them on
the run now so it's time for everyone to pitch in and end this terrible chapter in our
history.
How is he able to display Top Secret/OBCON/NOFORM/etc? Like he stares, all this material
items are in effect today! Don’t worry about the courts-that why the have those Federal
Judges, in every major city, that set behind the closed and sealed doors to stop all these
suits against the Fed’s. One of the reasons that no one has taken in actions, on the
companies involved in these illegal companies are the political problems in the Senate and
the house. If a GI dies, so what, the political system looks to the military as founder, most
could care less-unless there a camera near by. This the type of man is exactly the type we
need to run these type of organization, vis the polices appointee’s!! This was a great
lecture, we could use a few more in several federal level. Thank God for Americans like this.
Read more Show less Reply 1
NSA tracks them, CIA wacks them :0) Maybe someone should start programs to delta overload
their storage capacity so much, they'll need 25 Fort Meades and at least 800 000 employees.
Read more Show less Reply 1
That's great information, but a salmon couldn't swim up the stream you're fighting.
Remember what happened to Frank Olson? He knew too much and "jumped" out of a window. The
game is rigged, and you can't beat Them. The only way to survive is to not make waves, stay
out of trouble, and under the radar, so to speak. Most of us are just small fish, who They
wouldn't be very interested in. There are plenty of big fish to keep Them busy. I'm getting
too old to waste my time fighting a battle fueled by an endless amount of money... money
always wins. If you aren't a big-time drug dealer or a terrorist, they haven't got time to
waste on you. It's fucked up... I know that, but it simply is what it is.
Quote:- "Give certain people power and sooner or later they will use it".......that needs
modifying to "Give certain people power and sooner or later they will ABUSE it". And therein
lies the solution. We must be far more careful to whom we give power. Ask the prospective
candidates for council seats in your area or for national governmental positions just what
they are prepared to do FOR the people, and if you don't like the answer, don't vote them
into power.
This man knows sooooooo much more, like to sit down off camera and man to man talk and I'll bet it would blow our minds
the stuff our sneaky governments do without warrants or anything
They just take what they want and track your moves, listen in on your calls, watching your texts and FB ECT,,, all without
our knowledge or consent, this is not constitutional and it's invading our rights along with our privacy rights my private
life what and where and how I do everything
it's downright unconstitutional and should be taken to the highest court in the land and terminated
Case Dismissed Guaranteed, 4 months ago
Why didn't he point out that Israel spy's on Americans and America spy for them. No direct spying because THAT's
"illegal."
big Cahuna3 months ago (edited)
Laws and jail are only for the poor and ""unconnected"". How else could the crime families, bankers, church, etc. keep
their wealth and power ? The commoners and serfs must be divided, controlled , conquered, brainwashed, taxed, intimidated,
imprisoned, overworked , and killed when beneficial to the kings, queens, bankers, Popes, and billionaires.
"... Current members of Congress should find it hard to live with themselves if they don't do something to prevent the Trump administration from dragging us into an illegal and unnecessary war. Yet so far the congressional response has been limited to ineffectual grousing and the introduction of a few bills that are wholly inadequate to the task at hand. ..."
"... Instead the House should consider passing a resolution "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the use of offensive military force against Iran without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution." ..."
"... The current House leadership is notably gun-shy about impeachment. But over the last two years, House Democrats have threatened to impeach Trump for much less. In the previous Congress, for example, Congressman Steve Cohen introduced articles charging Trump with, among other things, overspending on golf cart rentals at Mar-a-Lago . In January 2018, Congressman Al Green got 66 Democratic votes to move forward on a resolution to impeach Trump for "attempting to convert his bigoted statements into United States policy" in the form of the travel ban and the ban on transgender troops. ..."
"... Other options on the table. H.R. 2354 , barring funds for military action against Iran absent congressional authorization, can -- and would -- be vetoed by the president. A sense of the House resolution could not . It wouldn't have the force of law, but it would be more than mere symbolism: a shot across the administration's bow and fair warning to the president. Moreover, a resolution publicly declaring war with Iran an impeachable offense could serve as a precommitment device for the House, a public pledge to take action should he cross that line. ..."
"... Trump is likely bluffing anyway. It's not that he has some master plan behind it, it's just how he does business. He creates chaos and then looks (and often finds) some advantage in the the tumult that follows. ..."
"... This constitutional abuse of the war powers article and the ascent of an Imperial Presidency began when President Harry Truman went to war in Korea and instituted a draft with an executive order to prosecute the war. ..."
"... A Congressional warning won't do. Trump by making that statement is implicitly rejecting the oath he took to defend the Constitution of the United States. That rejection should be grounds for impeachment before he actually takes the United States to war. ..."
"... And to reiterate on the comment, the Generals and Admirals in the Pentagon would be rejecting the oath they also took to the Constitution. They should sacked and even arrested for complying with Trump's illegal and unconstitutional commands. ..."
"... Why wait for Trump to start a war on Iran? His crimes in Yemen and Syria and Ukraine (to name but three) are enough for Trump (and many members of previous administrations) to be placed in irons and delivered over to await his fate. ..."
"... Congress has not declared war in 70 years and it won't start now. War with Iran is supported by the leadership of both parties. The MSM is full speed ahead. Trump wants to run as a War President to unite the country behind him. Impeachment will be the last thing on anyone's mind once the Middle East explodes and Trump promises to keep us safe from the terrorists hiding under everyone's bed. ..."
"... The Constitution is like a religious relic. Worship it at your own risk. ..."
"... As you well know, Mr. Healy, AIPAC and the rest of the Israel Lobby would approve of the very course of action that you think should be the basis for impeachment. ..."
"... Given that AIPAC would approve of the US bombing of Iran, Congress would also approve of the bombing. ..."
"... Given that AIPAC would approve of the bombing, not only would Trump not get impeached over the bombing, but we would witness Congressmen and Senators give near-unanimous approval for the bombing. ..."
"... If he engages in another regime change war sponsored by Israel and Kushner that he campaigned against then he's no better than Hillary and perhaps worse. ..."
Without Congress's approval, he has no legal
authority to start a war, no matter what John Bolton seems to think.
a power grab by President Donald Trump's undeterrable national security advisor, John
Bolton. And it's true that Bolton has never met
a "preventive" war he didn't like and that there's every reason to suspect him of scheming
to create an excuse for one. But lately it's getting hard to distinguish President Trump from
"President
Bolton." "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran," Trump rage-tweeted
Sunday . "Never threaten the United States again!"
If the administration can't be convinced to stand down, the House of Representatives should
launch a preemptive strike of its own. They should credibly threaten to impeach the president
if he goes to war without congressional authorization.
Waging war without legal authority is an impeachable offense, if anything is. Impeachment
was designed to thwart attempts to subvert the
Constitution ; congressional control of the war power was one of that document's core
guarantees. "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found," James Madison
affirmed , "than in
the
clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the
executive department."
The first federal impeachment case, brought less than a decade after the Constitution's
ratification, centered on charges of unauthorized warmaking. In 1797, the House impeached
Tennessee Senator William Blount for conspiring to raise a private army for
"a military hostile expedition" against Spanish-held Louisiana and Florida, "in violation
of the obligations of neutrality, and against the laws of the United States." In the Founding
era, usurpation of the war power was considered serious enough to merit the ultimate
constitutional remedy.
No president has yet been impeached for illegal warmaking, but Richard Nixon came closest.
In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee debated impeaching Nixon for conducting a secret bombing
campaign in Cambodia "in derogation of the power of the Congress to declare war." The article
never made it into the final charges, possibly scuttled by Democratic leadership out of fear of
revealing "that a few prominent members of their party had known about the secret bombing
at the time." As Congressman William Hungate
put it afterwards: "It's kind of hard to live with yourself when you impeach a guy for
tapping telephones and not for making war without authorization."
Current members of Congress should find it hard to live with themselves if they don't do
something to prevent the Trump administration from dragging us into an illegal and unnecessary
war. Yet so far the congressional response has been limited to
ineffectual grousing and the introduction of a few bills that are wholly inadequate to the
task at hand.
Instead the House should consider passing a resolution "expressing the sense of the
House of Representatives that the use of offensive military force against Iran without prior
and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and
misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution."
The late, great
Congressman Walter Jones , long one of the most jealous guardians of Congress's power "to
declare War," proposed
a similar measure during President Obama's second term, when the administration was
publicly contemplating airstrikes on Syria. Jones introduced a
concurrent resolution stating that "except in response to an actual or imminent attack
against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President
without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress" is an impeachable
offense.
The Jones resolution only secured a handful of cosponsors and proved unnecessary in any
event, when President Obama decided to seek congressional
authorization for airstrikes, then abandoned the effort entirely. The
stakes are far higher now.
The current House leadership is notably gun-shy about impeachment. But over the last two
years, House Democrats have threatened to impeach Trump for much less. In the previous
Congress, for example, Congressman Steve Cohen introduced articles charging Trump with, among
other things, overspending on
golf cart rentals at Mar-a-Lago . In January 2018, Congressman Al Green got
66 Democratic votes to move forward on a resolution to impeach Trump for
"attempting to convert his bigoted statements into United States policy" in the form of the
travel ban and the ban on transgender troops.
Surely, more Democrats -- and even a few Republicans, like Congressman Justin Amash -- could
rouse themselves to threaten impeachment to avoid a disastrous war in violation of a core
constitutional guarantee.
Other options on the table.
H.R. 2354 , barring funds for military action against Iran absent congressional
authorization, can -- and would -- be vetoed by the president. A sense of the House resolution
could
not . It wouldn't have the force of law, but it would be more than mere symbolism: a shot
across the administration's bow and fair warning to the president. Moreover, a resolution
publicly declaring war with Iran an impeachable offense could serve as a precommitment device
for the House, a public pledge to take action should he cross that line.
Only two presidents have ever been impeached by the House, yet others still fear joining
their ranks. Trump has claimed he's "
not even a little bit " worried about the prospect, but
insider accounts and his public Twitter
feed tell a different story. Earlier this week, he blew up at
Representative Amash for opining that he'd engaged in impeachable conduct: "Justin is a loser
who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!"
Impeachment's purpose isn't primarily to punish abuses after the fact -- that would be cold
comfort here -- but to prevent damage from being done in the first place. "It will not be the
only means of punishing misconduct, but it will prevent misconduct," future Supreme Court
justice James Iredell remarked
during the ratification debates in 1788. "Although he may be a man of no principle, the very
terror of punishment will perhaps deter him." But in law as in war, deterrence sometimes
requires a credible threat.
You think? I say lock the man up for war crimes if he bombs Iran. There will be no 911 this
time, and that was the only way those last criminals were able to pull off their neocon fantasy
in Iraq.
Trump is likely bluffing anyway. It's not that he has some master plan behind it, it's
just how he does business. He creates chaos and then looks (and often finds) some advantage in
the the tumult that follows.
This constitutional abuse of the war powers article and the ascent of an Imperial
Presidency began when President Harry Truman went to war in Korea and instituted a draft with
an executive order to prosecute the war. Congress should have impeached him.
But instead it later authorized both executive actions and its political position on this
issue of war since then has been supine like an exhausted toothless whore. And now Mr. Healey
expects it to find some vestige of its moral fortitude and redress this fragrant abuse of
power? Mr. Healy, what planet are you living on? And is it in our solar system? The president
has become essentially a constitutional dictator, and Congress merely rubber stamps his abuse
of the Constitution with its war resolutions. Our nation crossed its Rubicon long ago.
" Over the last two years, House Democrats have threatened to impeach Trump for much less. In
the previous Congress, for example, Congressman Steve Cohen introduced articles charging Trump
with, among other things, overspending on golf cart rentals at Mar-a-Lago."
The phrase "among other things" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
If/when we go to war with Iran, Trump's defenders will cite the "Authorization for Use of
Military Force Against Terrorists" to argue that they don't need Congress.
Below is a reposted comment to a related Daniel Larison entry. It distills down to this. A
Congressional warning won't do. Trump by making that statement is implicitly rejecting the oath
he took to defend the Constitution of the United States. That rejection should be grounds for
impeachment before he actually takes the United States to war.
And to reiterate on the comment, the Generals and Admirals in the Pentagon would be
rejecting the oath they also took to the Constitution. They should sacked and even arrested for
complying with Trump's illegal and unconstitutional commands.
*** Repost ***
Christopher Preble at the Cato Institute has opined on preventive vs. pre-emptive war. What
about preventive or pre-emptive impeachment?
Trump's crazed threats against Iran are wildly unconstitutional. His threats contain no
references to the Congress which has the sole authority to declare war. Trump is implying that
he has war-making authority as President that the Constitution explicitly denies him.
Moreover, a Pentagon that supports Trump in his illegal war-mongering demonstrates
allegiance to a self-anointed Emperor, not the Constitution. The sanctified "Generals" are a
huge part of the problem whether in supporting the Saudi war crimes in Yemen or the
war-mongering against Iran.
If I were in Congress, I'd move to impeach Trump now because if he starts a war, that bell
can't be unrung no matter how illegal and unconstitutional its origin.
One of the two reasons (the other being immigration) that I stifled nausea and voted for Trump
was his belief that America had no business engaging in Wilsonian adventurism -- and at this
point clearly he, aided and abetted by that Rasputin wannabe, Bolton, appears to be
backtracking on the latter. Under the circumstances Congress must assert its constitutional
mandate to authorize all war making proposals made by a president and when a president attempts
to act unilaterally, then he is in defiance of the US Constitution and subject to the
impeachment process. All other cases proposed thus far for impeachment of Donald Trump pale in
comparison to the issue of who decides to send American soldiers into harms way-an individual
president or the collective representatives of the American people from whom those soldiers are
drawn.
Why wait for Trump to start a war on Iran? His crimes in Yemen and Syria and Ukraine (to
name but three) are enough for Trump (and many members of previous administrations) to be
placed in irons and delivered over to await his fate.
Ninth & Hennepin, Actually, it was for violating the Emoluments Clause but referencing
"overspending on golf cart rentals" has a juicier petty ring to it.
Congress has not declared war in 70 years and it won't start now. War with Iran is
supported by the leadership of both parties. The MSM is full speed ahead. Trump wants to run as
a War President to unite the country behind him. Impeachment will be the last thing on anyone's
mind once the Middle East explodes and Trump promises to keep us safe from the terrorists
hiding under everyone's bed.
The Constitution is like a religious relic. Worship it at your own risk.
As I've tried to explain to my hyperventilating Democrat friends, getting enough votes in the
House to impeach Trump is easy. But if you do that without a good shot at getting enough votes
in the Senate to convict him, you are engaging in mental mastu sorry, self-gratification.
Until enough R's in the Senate grow a spine, we are stuck.
Congress could impeach, but they won't. Way to many Democrats & Republicans are beholden to
AIPAC and the MIC and other warmaking interest to ever question a POTUS on taking America to
war.
"No president has yet been impeached for illegal warmaking"
And you're not going to start with Trump now.
Good grief, after the long list of grifters and worthless wankers we've had to put up with
in the White House, you want to impeach Trump? After we've waited this long to get a President
like Trump.
Sir, how about you suck a lemon and take a freaking hike.
I'm strongly opposed to bombing Iran, but this article is stupid. The remedy is for Congress to
exert its constitutional prerogative to declare war, and if necessary take the
separation-of-powers controversy, as it pertains to War Powers, to SCOTUS for resolution.
The shorter-term remedy is to fire Bolton, and, if need be, Pompeo. Along with the
injudicious Kushner (apologies to John Locke and "the judicious Hooker"), they're making me
wonder how I could have been such a saphead as to think Trump would drain the swamp.
Congress should be the ones that authorize military action against any foreign country. Also,
congress should consist of persons whose allegiance to America cannot be questioned. Our
current congress doesn't come close to that criteria. So, I guess we should do nothing until a
direct attack is made on the U.S.
And even if the Senate votes to convict, who is going to make Trump leave? Maxine Waters? Mitch
McConnell? Trump has the military, the FBI and the Secret Service. If he refuses to leave
office, who will make him?
Congress should be the ones that authorize military actions against any foreign country. Also,
congress should consist of people that have America's best interests at heart. Our current
congress consists, mostly, of politicians that sought the position because they can make lots
of money there -- they don't know much, or care much, about what best serves the country. So, I
guess the best plan is to do nothing until we come under direct attack.
If Trump were to bomb Iran, Congress would be right on board with him. Get a load of this
letter that Congressmen sent to Trump. Scroll down to see all the names.
"And even if the Senate votes to convict, who is going to make Trump leave? Maxine Waters?
Mitch McConnell? Trump has the military, the FBI and the Secret Service. If he refuses to leave
office, who will make him?
I guess the Founders didn't think of that."
If Trump is impeached and convicted, or loses in 2020, on Jan 21 2021 everybody will just
ignore him. He can bluster and harangue and tweet as much as he wants. He will be an
ex-president. Subject to the laws of the land.
And that's why he is acting as he is now. He knows that once his presidency is over he will
be eligible for prosecution of any laws he has broken. DOJ Office of Legal Counsel regulations
will no longer be a shield.
By 2020 I suspect a large number of Republicans will be ready to see him gone.
Trump is not going to war with Iran. Trump is not going to war with North Korea. Trump is not
going to go to war against China. Trump is fully engaged already in his war against the US.
Constitution and the rule of law. That will keep him fully occupied for some time. And yes, no
matter what, his base will stay with him. After all, it is either Trump or the Far Left who are
"baby killers" and "socialists." FOX says so and so does Limbaugh. That is the Holy Scripture,
inspired by Divine influence, circa 2019!
Laughing. I would take this article a bit more seriously if it included nearly every executive
including President Eisehower.
I am certainly not a fan of Iran. And I am certainly not on board the war wagon here as the
case is mighty thin and then thinner than that. And while I have issues with his current
leadership, I could not would not adavance or support impeachnent.
Had he not been electedwe would be in conflicts in multiple arenas. You bet I am ticked
about I'm igrationand his cowardice on the question. You bet I chagrine the saber rattling. You
bet I don't buy WS as the key in7dicator of economic health. You bet I look At trade balances,
part-time vs full timelabor. You bet I voted for this president knowing his leadership
style.
No. I did not anticipate he go as far off the rails as he has.
No. I do not regret my vote. And no, I won't support I parchment for anything less than some
legal betrayal or crime. There's a much better case for his behavior regarding the continued
support for illegal immigration -- and those consequences are immediate and impactful. But then
that would mean I have joined the ranks of those who view impeachmentas mere political
weapon.
If I thought the case against Pres. Nixon was a sham and beyond the pale and it was in all
of its vengeful anti-Vietnam emotionalsm --
You'll need more than rumors of wars or war to make case.
Trump should be held accountable, but let's be honest here -- about Trump, American foreign
police, etc.. Let's simply take a look at these four excerpts from current news articles.
1.) Trump, discussing the pressure he faces:
"President Trump, speaking about hostile foreign powers, Iran especially, told Fox News
that if he can solve tensions economically, he prefers that to a military solution. But he
said he's up against a military-industrial complex in Washington that wants to keep the wars
going:
Well, I'm the one that talks about these wars that are 19 years (long), and people are
just there. And don't kid yourself, you do have a military industrial complex. They do like
war.
You know, In Syria with the caliphate, so I wipe out 100% of the caliphate that doesn't
mean you're not going to have these crazy people going around, blowing up stores and blowing
up things, these are seriously ill people But I wiped out 100 percent of the caliphate.
I said, I want to bring our troops back home -- the place went crazy. They want to keep --
you have people here in Washington, they never want to leave. I said, you know what I'll do,
I'll leave a couple hundred soldiers behind, but if it was up to them they'd bring thousands
of soldiers in.
Someday people will explain it, but you do have a group, and they call it the
military-industrial complex."
***
2.) A respected international group's findings on chemical weapon use in Syria, which has
essentially been censored in the Mainstream Media:
"It has been about a week since the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM)
published a leaked internal document from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) investigation into an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. The
document, whose authenticity the OPCW has confirmed, contends that the official story which
was used to justify an air strike by the US, UK and France about poison gas being dropped on
civilians from Syrian government helicopters is scientifically implausible, saying "In
summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis,
suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those
two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft."
***
3.) America's congress uniting to oppose Trump's attempts at a sane foreign policy:
"Our congress will not come together on anything to help America but they will unite to
defend Israel's interests in Syria.
'Nearly 400 members of Congress signed a bipartisan letter to President Donald Trump
calling on him to safeguard Israel's interests with Syria's civil war coming to an end,"
Haaretz reported Tuesday.'
***
4.)And, lo and behold, right on time: the same ol' government propaganda tactic, dusted off and
thrust at the American people once again:
"The United States sees signs the Syrian government may be using chemical weapons,
including an alleged chlorine attack on Sunday in northwest Syria, the State Department said
on Tuesday, warning that Washington and its allies would respond "quickly and appropriately"
if this were proven."
It is not a case of confiding "war or peace to the legislature" since we are not really talking
"war and peace". We are talking "slaughter with impunity but for profit" as opposed to no
profits. Iran can do little against being on the receiving end of missile target practice.
Ideally The Pentagon should ask Iran for designated areas it can use to stage its missile
strikes, keeping it of course secret from the American tax payer who want blood and devastation
for their money.
Glenn Healy -- known by some over at the Cato Institute as "Mr. Impeachment " (for the sheer
volume of articles he has written favoring the impeachment of presidents) -- has now posted
"Impeachment Should Be on the Table If Trump Bombs Iran -- Without Congress's approval, he has
no legal authority to start a war, no matter what John Bolton seems to think."
As you well know, Mr. Healy, AIPAC and the rest of the Israel Lobby would approve of the
very course of action that you think should be the basis for impeachment.
Given that AIPAC would approve of the US bombing of Iran, Congress would also approve of
the bombing.
Given that AIPAC would approve of the bombing, not only would Trump not get impeached
over the bombing, but we would witness Congressmen and Senators give near-unanimous approval
for the bombing.
This is the same author, Gene Healy, who has spent the last two decades pushing for ANY
President to be impeached.
You might ask yourself why someone would call for a measure so drastic as to try to overturn
the will of the American People. Well, according to Mr. Healy's previous writings, "What's
really obscene is America's record on presidential impeachments. We've made only three serious
attempts in our entire constitutional history."
He doesn't like the fact that it has only happened twice. It's obscene to him. Healy wants
to overturn the will of the American people because he doesn't like the ratio. That's right
impeachment because ratio.
Will of the voters be damned. The act of impeaching is more important than having cause to
do so for Mr. Healy.
If somehow even after reading this article in which Mr. Healy calls for Trump to be
impeached over speculation and conjecture, anyone STILL doubts that cause means nothing to him
then one need look no further than Healy's writings the past two years calling for Trump to be
impeached because Trump tweets things that Healy doesn't like. That's right impeachment because
tweets.
Sounds legit.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad to see someone so deep in the throes of grasping at
conjectural straws trying to fulfill his bizarre obsession of increasing the ratio of
impeachments.
This article is what happens when Trump Derangement Syndrome meets Impeachment Derangement
Syndrome.
If he engages in another regime change war sponsored by Israel and Kushner that he
campaigned against then he's no better than Hillary and perhaps worse.
War between the United States and Iran looms, even though the latter poses no threat to the
former. President Donald Trump says he doesn't want war but for the Iranians to call him.
Perhaps his entire campaign is an elaborate effort to scare Tehran to the negotiating table. Or
perhaps he hopes to win political support by fomenting a foreign crisis. How ironic that would
be: in 2011, Trump warned via tweet that "Barack Obama will attack Iran in the not too distant
future because it will help him win the election."
However, the president already ran against the Islamic Republic, in 2016. Moreover, his
words have been incendiary, threatening "the official end of Iran." Although U.S. intelligence
officials admit that Tehran's confrontational rhetoric is largely a response to Washington's
aggression, the administration's military moves are sharply increasing tensions as well as the
possibility of a costly mistake or misjudgment.
The War Party is active again in the Imperial City. Before joining the administration,
National Security Advisor John Bolton forthrightly called for an attack on the Islamic
Republic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also demanded regime change in Iran. More recently, he
admitted that sanctions were intended to induce the Iranian people to "change the government."
While claiming not to seek war, he threatened retaliation for any attack by Iranian "proxy
forces" and on "American interests."
Tehran has long been a favorite target of influential neoconservatives and ultra-hawks. The
invasion of Iraq almost immediately led to calls for a turn to Tehran. Several years ago,
Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy suggested staging a false flag
operation: if "the Iranians aren't going to compromise," he said, "it would be best if somebody
else started the war." Today, Senator Tom Cotton predicts an easy American
victory.
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The Saudis also openly favor an American war against Iran. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates
once quipped that Riyadh would fight Iran "to the last American.") A newspaper owned by the
royal family last week called on Washington to "hit hard." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has worked tirelessly to inflate the Iranian "threat" and told a TV interviewer that
he'd convinced Trump to abandon the nuclear deal.
Yet conflict with Iran would be a disaster, far worse than with Iraq. Even the Council on
Foreign Relations' Max Boot, a vocal neoconservative and uber-hawk, has warned against this.
And Americans would not be the only casualties. Jason Rezaian, TheWashington
Post reporter who spent more than a year in an Iranian prison, observed: "those who will
suffer most have little say in the matter. It's the Iranian people who have borne the brunt of
40 years of enmity between the United States and the Islamic republic, and in the current
standoff, they stand to lose the most yet again."
The possibility that the chief executive might rush or be pushed into such a disastrous war
is exactly why the Founders obliged presidents to go to Congress for approval. The Constitution
places the power to declare war in the hands of the legislature.
Yet modern presidents routinely claim monarchical powers, using the military without proper
authority. Legislators often avoid taking responsibility for wars that might turn unpopular.
But neither unconstitutional nor irresponsible behavior justifies chief executives doing the
same.
Trump has proven no more faithful to the Constitution than his predecessors. For instance,
Pompeo refused to commit the administration to going to Congress for the authority to attack
Iran. (The secretary did the same when earlier questioned about the administration's military
threats against Venezuela.) Pompeo suggested that the president might rely on the post-9/11
authorization for use of military force, an even more ludicrous reach than the Obama
administration's appeal to the same measure for its fight against the Islamic State and strikes
on Syria.
The refusal to obey the Constitution is evidence of weakness. In contrast, many of America's
strongest chief executives recognized Congress's authority. George Washington declared: "The
Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition
of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and
authorized such a measure."
Abraham Lincoln praised the Founders for recognizing war "to be the most oppressive of all
Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold
the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Dwight Eisenhower was equally insistent on the
need for legislative approval for war.
Delegates to the constitutional convention insisted they were not recreating the king of
England or replicating his powers, especially to start wars. After all, war is the hallmark of
unlimited government. Warned James Madison: "Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is,
perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War
is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes
are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few."
The Founders knew this problem well, since a succession of European kings and queens had
launched a succession of unnecessary and even frivolous conflicts. The price was paid in blood
and treasure by the common folk. John Jay observed that kings were often led "to engage in wars
not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people." Pierce Butler insisted
that the president not be invested with the authority to start wars, like a monarch who enjoyed
the "opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her
destruction."
Madison explained the principle incorporated in the Constitution: "Those who are to conduct
a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be
commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great
principle in free governments, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or
the power of executing from the power of enacting laws."
Thus, the Constitution gives to Congress most military powers: raising an army, funding the
military, issuing letters of marquee, approving rules of war, ratifying treaties, and, of
course, taking America into war. Article 1, Section 8 (11) states: "Congress shall have the
power to declare war." Observed Madison: the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the
power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."
Despite this history, some modern analysts bizarrely contend that Congress only ever gets to
"declare" that the president had started a war. In fact, the Founders changed the operative
word from "make" to "declare" merely to ensure that the commander-in-chief could respond to a
surprise attack. They did not even believe the president could launch a reprisal without legal
authority. They certainly didn't intend to enable the president to wander the globe smiting
nations hither and yon at his sole discretion.
Despite their many disagreements, the Founders agreed on this point. The president commanded
the military but could only prosecute wars authorized by Congress . Said George Mason,
the chief executive "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to start wars, which
required "clogging rather than facilitating war." Thomas Jefferson cited the Constitution's
"effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose." Explained
James Wilson: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve
us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at
large."
Even Alexander Hamilton, who leaned toward monarchy, emphasized that the commander-in-chief
was just the "first general and admiral." The president's authority was "in substance much
inferior to" that of Britain's monarch, and "would amount to nothing more than the supreme
command and direction of the land and naval forces while that of the British king extends to
the declaring of war."
Trump is bound by the Constitution when confronting Iran. Indeed, the not insubstantial
possibility of him and his officials lying America into another irresponsible war of choice is
why the Founders placed the decision with Congress. Americans have learned at a high cost that
presidents cannot be trusted to act like kings.
With a presidential election approaching, Americans should seriously ponder whether they
want to entrust the presidency to someone who believes he's empowered to make war without
constraint. It's time to choose a chief executive who's prepared to follow the
Constitution.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
(Xulon Press). He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a member of the California and
Washington, D.C. bars.
"... As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II. ..."
"... None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well. ..."
"... The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy. ..."
"... The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us. ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... Overlooked might be Germany's copycat foreign policy posturing too often hidden behind 'humanitarian' language. https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/projects/new-power-new-responsibility/the-paper/ ..."
"... Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us". ..."
"... This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia. ..."
"... One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological. ..."
"... Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension. Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game. ..."
The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake
up. By Robert W. Merry •
May 22,
2019
President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday,
November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. (
Official White House Photo
by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out
in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in
a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain,
from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win
world are gone.
For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a
wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The
trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on
almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential
threat."
Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge,"
released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has
mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there."
The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United
States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."
The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more
intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."
As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and
force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform
for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one
of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II.
America has been projecting significant power into Asia since the 1890s, when President William McKinley acquired Hawaii through
annexation, then seized Guam and the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. For good measure, he cleared the way
for the construction of the Panama Canal and continued his predecessors' robust buildup of the U.S. Navy. President Theodore Roosevelt
then pushed the Canal project to actual construction, accelerated the naval buildup, and sent his Great White Fleet around the world
as a signal that America had arrived on the global scene -- as if anyone could have missed that obvious reality.
With the total victory over Japan in World War II, America emerged as the hegemon of Asia, with colonies, naval bases, carrier
groups, and strategic alliances that made it foolhardy for any nation to even think of challenging our regional dominance. Not even
the Vietnam defeat, as psychologically debilitating as that was, could undercut America's Asian preeminence.
Now China is seeking to position itself to push America back into its own hemisphere. And judging from the language of the National
Defense Strategy, America doesn't intend to be pushed back. This is a clash of wills, with all the makings of an actual military
conflict.
But if China represents the greatest potential threat to America's global position, making an eventual war likely (though not
inevitable), why is Washington not acting like it knows this? Why is it engaging in so many silly military capers that undermine
its ability to focus attention and resources on the China challenge? While the National Defense Strategy paper suggests that U.S.
officials understand the threat, America's actions reveal an incapacity to grapple with this reality in any concentrated fashion.
Here's a general idea of what a U.S. foreign policy under Trump might look like if it was based on a clear recognition of the
China threat:
Iran: Since the end of the Cold War, the sheer folly of Trump's Iran policy has been exceeded only by George W. Bush's
Iraq invasion. Barack Obama bequeathed to his successor a rare gift in the Iran nuclear deal, which provided an opportunity to direct
attention away from Tehran and toward America's position in East Asia. In no way did it serve America's national interest to stir
up tensions with Iran while the far more ominous China threat loomed. A policy based on realism would have seized that opportunity
and used the channels of communication forged through the nuclear deal to establish some kind of accommodation, however wary or tenuous.
Instead, America under Trump has created a crisis where none need exist.
Personnel: While the Iran policy might be difficult to reverse, a reversal is imperative. And that means Trump must fire
National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While their bully boy actions on the global stage seem
to mesh with Trump's own temperament, the president also appears increasingly uncomfortable with the results, particularly with regard
to their maximum pressure on Iran, which has brought America closer than ever to actual hostilities. Whether Trump has the subtlety
of mind to understand just how destructive these men have been to his broad foreign policy goals is an open question. And Trump certainly
deserves plenty of blame for pushing America into a zone of open hostility with Iran. But he can't extricate himself from his own
folly so long as he has Bolton and Pompeo pushing him toward ever more bellicosity in ever more areas of the world. He needs men
around him who appreciate just how wrongheaded American foreign policy has been in the post-Cold War era -- men such as retired Army
Colonel Douglas MacGregor and former Virginia senator Jim Webb. Bolton and Pompeo -- out!
Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American
alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability
to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain
its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.
The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted,
it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it
feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been
part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.
Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing
assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within
Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to
accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli
-- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.
Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be
sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that
allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's
strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.
NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on
that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist.
The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as
well.
So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's,
while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does
anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as
in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient
to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.
This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led,
not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform
us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever
a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked,
should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization
itself.
And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations
in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course,
any Russian provocations.
The Middle East: The United States should reduce its footprint in the region on a major scale. It should get out of Afghanistan,
with assurances to the Taliban that it will allow that country to go its own way, irrespective of the outcome, so long as it doesn't
pose a threat to the United States or its vital interests. U.S. troops should be removed from Syria, and America should stop supporting
Saudi Arabia's nasty war in Yemen. We should make clear to Israel and the world that the Jewish state is a major U.S. ally and will
be protected whenever it is truly threatened. But we should also emphasize that we won't seek through military means to alter the
regional balance of power based on mere perceptions of potential future threats to countries in the region, even allies. The United
States won't get drawn into regional wars unrelated to its own vital interests.
Far East: Once the other regional decks are cleared, America must turn its attention to Asia. The first question: do we
wish to maintain our current position there, or can we accept China's rise even if it means a U.S. retreat or partial retreat from
the region? If a retreat is deemed acceptable, then America should secure the best terms possible over a long period of tough and
guileful negotiations. But if we decide to maintain regional dominance, then China will have to be isolated and deterred. That will
mean a long period of economic tension and even economic warfare, confrontations over China's extravagant claims of sovereignty in
the South China Sea and elsewhere, strong U.S. alliances with other Asian nations nurtured through deft and measured diplomacy, soaring
technological superiority, and a continual upper hand in any arms race.
In this scenario, can war be averted? History suggests that may not be likely. But either way, America won't remain an Asian power
if it allows itself to be pinned down in multiple nonstrategic spats and adventures around the world. Asia is today's Great Game
and China is winning. That won't be reversed unless America starts playing.
None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended
by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well.
That allows U.S. legal decisions to have extra territorial scope as the real international power, not now irrelevant toothless
international institutions like the UN.
Nice summary, Mr Merry. Even the most die-hard Trumpet can find something to disagree upon with their Dear Leader while supporting
everything else he does, but this clear and succinct outline leaves no where for the Deplorables to hide. Coupled with the China
trade war fiasco, thias is pretty grim.
Of course, come 2020, all will be forgiven by the GOP, and even one criticism with be blasted with a twitter assault.
The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable
demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to
be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy.
Unfortunately our support for the treacherous Pakistanis has poisoned our relationship with India. In 1971, Nixon actually
sent a carrier group in the Bay of Bengal to intimidate the Indians into stopping support for the Bangladeshis fighting a war
of independence against the genocidal (West) Pakistan, and the Indians had to call on the Soviets to send nuclear submarines to
deter that threat. Like all ancient nations, Indians have long memories. Ironically, that reckless action was in cahoots with
China.
The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status
has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us.
Pragmatic isolationism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar
to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by
his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby. But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exceptionalism
( which can be viewed as a form of far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:
From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we --
not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be.
That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or
near Washington, D.C.
If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could
explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.
Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification
for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore
required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).
"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because
we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist
attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated
and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate
change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China.
Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often
than not, they get even that wrong.
Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global
leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers,
including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent
counted for nothing.
Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful
run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely
approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall,"
provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether
irrelevant.
His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.
There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a
sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would
consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)
In this limited sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which
allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR used to exist.
I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat
suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in
China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA.)
Your current foreign policy simply seems to reflect the astonishing degree of violence that permeates your society, when observing
you Americans from a place like Hong Kong or China it's really frightening, I would be more scared to visit the US than Liberia
or Sierra Leone, with those innumerable ( armed ) nutcases roaming your streets, you are by now used to it, and it saddens me,
thinking of how grateful we should be for all you have done in the distant past for so many countries in the world
The blockheads advising know nothing Trump about history and geo-politics don't care a whit about the American people or what
is ten years down the road. These people, Bolton, Pompeo and the joke-Kushner- are ego/power lovers and are doing the opposite
of a sane policy to every part of the globe.
How the hell do you goad and threaten Russia, for example, for no good reason and how do you threaten Russia, which, like the
U.S., with the push of several buttons can turn any city in the world to ashes, in minutes.
The American people are not only dumb as a wall, they don't care about foreign policy and they don't wanna know. The're looking
at celebrities and looking at their smart phones for fun and weirdness. The phones are smarter than them and they pay the price
when clown Trump does things like trade wars and so on.
Yeah, the average American, what prizes they are, as in they look and say,
Is that the actress there on the 'news' oh, what's she wearing is that the 'genius' athlete, what does that smelly guy say
today hey, let's order food delivered so we can watch and tomorrow to the sports bar and
This article forgets to mention why it would be in the American people's interest to be the hegemon of East Asia. I can't think
of any reason myself. Anyone?
Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the
EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the
same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us".
This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture
Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia.
I agree with the article, but not the title. The article acknowledges two important points, but leaves out another.
First, it correctly acknowledges that our obsession with Iran is vastly disproportionate to the threat it poses. In fact, we
would do well to scale back our adventurism in the Middle East. If China is winning in the Far East, it is largely because we
have chosen to devote resources elsewhere.
Second, it correctly acknowledges that continued antagonizing of Russia by the West is needless. It is time to normalize relations
with Russia, recognize its legitimate interest in having some buffer against the West, and repatriate Russian nationals who have
recently immigrated to the West.
Third, the article fails to acknowledge that China, like Russia, is also entitled to some sphere of influence. And there is
historic precedence for certain such claims. Those claims are tenuous when it comes to Japan and the Korean peninsula. But there
is little reason why American Navy ships should be sailing right up to the borders of China, just as there is little reason why
Chinese Navy ships should be sailing off the coast of Oregon. We also need to understand that provoking a trade war that slows
the Chinese economy merely enhances the power of President Xi. Trump has given President Xi a massive political gift, and for
no good reason. The trade imbalance is evidence of the strength of our economy, not a sign that we're losing out to China.
One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle
East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the
world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological.
If we are to compete effectively with China and other global players, if we are to have a balanced and effective foreign policy
in general, we need to remove the Middle East blinders, get Israel and Saudi Arabia off our back, and start seeing the world as
it is, rather than as Israel and Saudi Arabia pay our politicians to see it.
Simple questions: Why should we care? And how does all this soft power benefit the average citizens? And for all the China fears,
they appear to react very rationally and avoid military conflicts.
Ok, it is true Chinese oil buying is probably keeping Iran in a better economic situation but again this seems more of a problem
of Iran hawks not the average citizen. Honestly, I wish the US had more of treasury focused foreign policy and stop worrying about
US power.
Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension.
Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake
of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game.
Any rational analysis of the past couple of decades forces us to come to that conclusion. The reason why this whole scheme
is unlikely to fail in the short and medium term is US military involvement in 150 countries has brought much of the world under
Washington's control–or at least their ruling elites. The best China can do is provide an alternative to the Empire and live in
some sort of harmony with it because China has not shown any intention of competing militarily with the US. Iran is a key part
of the Silk Road project and that is the strategic reason for the attempt to crush or destroy Iran that is central to the strategy.
The US wants to keep China and Russia out of Europe–that, if you look at policy, seems to be the main contest.
The conflict with Iran has assumed heightened importance because,at 70 years old, John Bolton has to face the possibility that
he might die without having started a war somewhere.
The author misses two other two other components of of a proper China "containment" policy: Immigration and trade policy. The
US should be actively trying to attract immigration of skilled young workers and entrepreneurs (including from China) and encouraging
university graduates from abroad to remain. The US ought to join the TPP in order to increase our leverage in negotiating reductions
in Chinese restrictions on trade and investment.
Why would Russia want to make a deal with the United States, which cannot be trusted to keep its word, or even to act rationally
in pursuit of its own interests?
Generally a good article, but it misses an important point. While China and Russia do have natural spheres of influence, the countries
within those natural spheres hate being there.
Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam are naturally within China's influence, but they don't trust the Chinese at all, and surely don't
want China to dominate their countries. And given they way the Chinese empire treats Tibetan and Uigurs, they have good reason
for that.
Similarly in Eastern Europe, where Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States might be in Russian sphere, but they sure don't want
to be. The fact is that NATO did not aggressively seek them out for membership, those small countries begged to join NATO out
of their historical fear of Russia.
While recognizing such spheres of influence, do we want to abandon friendly, democratic countries to a hostile, autocratic
power? The Cold War model of Finland give some hope for a compromise, but it won't be easy to implement outside of Finland.
This article is another vivid illustration of how disoriented and narrow-minded when a typical intelligent and well-meaning American
is talking about China. For examples:
1. The author has no problem acknowledging specific geopolitical interests to accommodate Russia or even Iran, but when he
comes to China, he fails completely to mention any of the legitimate interests China has in East Asia.
2. The author repeats the nonsensical China haters' allegation about China's threat to America, and China's intention to push
American out of East Asia.
3. The author resorts back to a typical zero-sum or even cold-war style mentality when talking about overall China strategy,
without even considering the possibilities that China and America can co-exist in a friendly manner, where all the peaceful competition
between the two countries ultimately translating into net positive results that benefit the people of both countries and the world.
Unfortunately, our so-called "experts" in China are consistently failing Americans badly, because they lack the knowledge and
perspective to think from the other side of the coin.
I scrolled for quite a bit before finding Thaomas' comment about TPP. Leaving it will prove to be one of the Trump's admin's greatest
blunders (which is saying something) and any column about China strategy that omits it is incomplete.
So why exactly should Russia be accommodated and be allowed its sphere of influence and a 'defense perimeter' and not China? I
don't get it. And why should the USA be allowed the fruits of its aggression in the form of an annexed and brutally conquered
Hawaii? why can't Uncle Sam be satisfied with San Diego as a naval base?
The USA has the Monroe Doctrine giving it dominion over the Western Hemisphere, and China holds the Mandate of Heaven granting
it hegemony over everything else. Can't the Dragon and the Eagle get along on that basis??
In terms of geography, China vitally needs Russia in order to close off a corridor through which Muslims will flow to China. Without
that cooperation from Russia, China will be seriously hobbled by unassimilable and hostile migrants in its south. At least symbolically,
this will cripple its superpower claims.
The U.S. would be stupid not to seek an alliance with Russia, given Russia's geographical strengths, which also includes its
proximity to the Arctic and therefore a legal claim to the oil and gas buried there.
Geography is Russia's long-term strength, and not incidentally is a reason why trying militarily to force Putin to surrender
Crimea could easily lead to nuclear war, which might begin with tactical (battlefield) Russian nukes aimed at NATO garrisons in
eastern Europe.
China isn't fated to win its contest with the U.S. if it must depend on Russia in order to become an unquestioned superpower.
We need Russia for strategic security as much as Russia needs us for economic growth.
Nice summary. In my view the US (not Trump) make a big mistake to throw Russia in the arms of China. It's not only its geopolitical
situation that is the problem but the fact the it gives China unlimited access to natural resources. In a generation, if things
goes the way they do now, the only saving grace for the US will be a failure of this partnership. Because if it works, by the
sheer force of gravity it will swallow Europe. But betting on the adversary's failure is not a good strategy.
eh, keeping pressure on Iran keeps Saudi Arabia happy which means they stay in our sphere; as opposed to China's.
Until Venezuala wants to become part of the Oil-for-dollars system or we all drive electric cars and only oil for remote work
and emergency military expeditions then we need the Saudis on our side.
This kind of mentality is the reason why I think the demise of America is necessary to achieve world peace.
Why on God's green earth should America dominate East Asia? Last time I checked, America is NOT part of Asia. We are not even
in the same hemisphere for crying out loud. Why can't we just leave Asia to the Asians?
When was the last time China invaded a country? Never. These are the same people who discovered Africa and America long before
the Europeans, but only wanted to "do business" and trade. They already have 1.3 Billion mouths to feed, the last thing the Chinese
government needs is more mouths to feed.
Meanwhile, when Washington thinks of invasion, all they think of is guns, tanks, battleships. The Chinese are already quietly
invading and conquering the west -- through immigration. All along the East and West coasts, Chinese dominant cities and schools
are popping up everywhere. America really is the stupidest country on earth sometimes. All brawn and no brain. We want to start
wars with everybody in the name of protecting "American interests", while the rest of the world are already conquering us from
within through immigration. Wake up America.
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.
It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies
to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.
It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies
to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.
I would assume that the US is "in" East Asia, to a significant extent, because Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have sought US security
and defense guarantees. The US has not forced itself into the region. Korea has reasons to be concerned about China, due to its
experiences during the Korean War, and Taiwan, which wishes to remain independent of Chinese control, is directly threatened by
China.
As for other allies in the region, Philippine president Duterte's overtures, upon taking office, to China, and his especially
disparaging remarks about the US while making an official visit to China, seem quite puzzling, given China's illegitimate seizing
of Philippine territory in the West Philippine Sea. US relations with the Philippines needs to be reexamined in light of this
development. While Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are first-level allies in the region, the Philippines is not.
Jake
says: Next New Comment May 22, 2019 at 3:27 pm
GMT 100 Words This is good writing: "The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that
post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf
being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards
discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they
were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards.
Provoking a disastrous worldwide confrontation with mighty China by seizing and
imprisoning one of its leading technology executives reminds me of
a comment I made several years ago about America's behavior under the rule of its current
political elites:
Or to apply a far harsher biological metaphor, consider a poor canine infected with the
rabies virus. The virus may have no brain and its body-weight is probably less than
one-millionth that of the host, but once it has seized control of the central nervous system,
the animal, big brain and all, becomes a helpless puppet.
Once friendly Fido runs around foaming at the mouth, barking at the sky, and trying to
bite all the other animals it can reach. Its friends and relatives are saddened by its plight
but stay well clear, hoping to avoid infection before the inevitable happens, and poor Fido
finally collapses dead in a heap.
U.S. ships are involved in provocative "freedom of navigation" exercises in the South China
Sea and other ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while National Security Advisor
John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal Elliot
Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela with another illegal "regime change"
intervention. But people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and Hip-Hop, the Mueller
report, and Game of Thrones. In fact, while millions can recall with impressive detail the
proposals and strategies of the various players in HBO's latest saga, they can't recall two
details about the pending military budget that will likely pass in Congress with little debate,
even though Trump's budget proposal represents another obscene increase of public money to the
tune of $750 billion.
This bipartisan rip-off could not occur without the willing collusion of the corporate
media, which slants coverage to support the interests of the ruling elite or decides to just
ignore an issue like the ever-expanding military budget.
The effectiveness of this collusion is reflected in the fact that not only has this massive
theft of public money not gotten much coverage in the mainstream corporate media, but also it
only received sporadic coverage in the alternative media. The liberal-left media is distracted
enough by the theatrics of the Trump show to do the ideological dirty work of the elites.
Spending on war will consume almost 70% of the budget and be accompanied by cuts in public
spending for education, housing, the environment, public transportation, jobs trainings, food
support programs like food stamps and Meals on Wheels, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and
Social Security. Most of the neoliberal candidates running in the Democratic Party's electoral
process, however, haven't spoken a word in opposition to Trump's budget.
The public knows that the Democratic Party's candidates are opposed to Trump's wall on the
southern border, and they expect to hear them raise questions about the $8.6 billion of funding
the wall. But while some of the Democrats may oppose the wall, very few have challenged the
details of the budget that the
U.S. Peace Council indicates . For example:
"$576 billion baseline budget for the Department of Defense; an additional $174 billion
for the Pentagon's Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war budget; $93.1 billion
for the Department of Veterans Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8 billion
for State Department; an additional $26.1 billion for State Department's Overseas Contingency
Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion for the Department of Energy's National
Nuclear Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21 billion for NASA (militarizing
outer space?); plus $267.4 billion for all other government agencies, including funding for
FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice."
The Peace Council also highlights the following two issues: First, the total US military and
war budget has jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion since 2015. That is a $252.6
billion (about 35%) increase in five years. Second, thesimultaneous cuts in the government's
non-military spending are reflected in the proposed budget.
Here are some of biggest proposed budget cuts:
+ $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well
as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds
$1.2 trillion for a "Market Based Health Care Grant" -- that is, a block grant to states,
instead of paying by need. It's not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.
+ An $845 billion cut to Medicare over 10 years. That is about a 10 percent cut .
+ $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability
insurance.
+ A $220 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) over 10 years ,
which is commonly referred to as food stamps, and includes mandatory work requirements. The
program currently serves around 45 million people.
+ A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , an already severely
underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation's poorest.
+ $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans.
+ Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs , which would hit Section 8
housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program , among others.
The working classes and oppressed peoples of the U.S. and around the world can no longer
afford the unchallenged ideological positions of the Pentagon budget and the associated
expenditures for so-called defense that are considered sacrosanct in the U.S. They cannot
afford that much of the U.S. public is not concerned with issues of so-called foreign policy
that the military budget is seen as part.
The racist appeals of U.S. national chauvinism in the form of "Make America Great" and the
Democrats' version of "U.S. Exceptionalism" must be confronted and exposed as the cross-class,
white identity politics that they are. The fact that supposedly progressive or even "radical"
politics does not address the issue of U.S. expenditures on war and imperialism is reflective
of a politics that is morally and political bankrupt. But it also does something else. It
places those practitioners firmly in the camp of the enemies of humanity.
The objective fact that large numbers of the public accept that the U.S. can determine the
leadership of another sovereign nation while simultaneously being outraged by the idea of a
foreign power interfering in U.S. elections demonstrates the mindboggling subjective
contradictions that exist in the U.S. For example – that an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can
assert that she will defer to the leadership of her caucus on the issue of Venezuela or that
Barbara Lee can vote to bring Trump's budget proposal out of committee or that Biden can
proudly support Trump's immoral backing of a neo-fascist opposition in Venezuela and
they will all get away with those positions – reveals the incredible challenge that we
face in building an alternative radical movement for peace, social justice and
people(s)-centered human rights.
So, we must join with
U.S. Peace Council and the other members of the Anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist
communities in the U.S. to "resist and oppose this military attack on our communities, our
livelihoods and our lives." This is an urgent and militant first step in reversing the cultural
support for violence and the normalization of war that currently exists in the U.S. Now is the
moment to demand that Congress reject and reverse the Trump Administration's military budget
and the U.S. Government's militaristic foreign policy. But now is also the moment to commit to
building a powerful countermovement to take back the power over life and death from the
denizens of violence represented by the rapacious 1%. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Ajamu Baraka
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016
candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing
columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch
magazine.
Newby claims (in 2019) that if a scientist named Willy Burgdorfer had not made a confession
in 2013, the secret that Lyme disease came from a biological weapons program would have died
with him. Yet, in 2004 Michael Christopher Carroll published a book called Lab 257: The Disturbing
Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory . He appeared on several television
shows to discuss the book, including on NBC's Today Show, where the book was made a
Today Show Book Club selection. Lab 257 hit the New York Times nonfiction
bestseller list soon after its publication.
Newby's book reaches the same conclusion as Carroll's, namely that the most likely source of
diseased ticks is Plum Island. Newby reaches this conclusion on page 224 after mentioning Plum
Island only once in passing in a list of facilities on page 47 and otherwise avoiding it
throughout the book. This is bizarre, because Newby's book otherwise goes into great depth, and
even chronicles extensive research efforts that lead largely to dead ends, and because there is
information available about Plum Island, and because Carroll's best-selling book seems to
demand comment, supportive or dismissive or otherwise.
In fact, I think that, despite the avoidance of any discussion of Plum Island, Newby's
research complements Carroll's quite well, strengthens the same general conclusion, and then
adds significant new understanding. So, let's look at what Carroll told us, and then at what
Newby adds.
Less than 2 miles off the east end of Long Island sits Plum Island, where the U.S.
government makes or at least made biological weapons, including weapons consisting of diseased
insects that can be dropped from airplanes on a (presumably foreign) population. One such
insect is the deer tick, pursued as a germ weapon by the Nazis, the Japanese, the Soviets, and
the Americans.
Deer swim to Plum Island. Birds fly to Plum Island. The island lies in the middle of the
Atlantic migration route for numerous species. "Ticks," Carroll writes, "find baby chicks
irresistible."
In July of 1975 a new or very rare disease appeared in Old Lyme, Connecticut, just north of
Plum Island. And what was on Plum Island? A germ warfare lab to which the U.S. government had
brought former Nazi germ warfare scientists in the 1940s to work on the same evil work for a
different employer. These included the head of the Nazi germ warfare program who had worked
directly for Heinrich Himmler. On Plum Island was a germ warfare lab that frequently conducted
its experiments out of doors . After all, it was on an island. What could go wrong?
Documents record outdoor experiments with diseased ticks in the 1950s (when we know that the
United States was using such weaponized life forms in North
Korea ). Even Plum Island's indoors, where participants admit to experiments with ticks,
was not sealed tight. And test animals mingled with wild deer, test birds with wild birds.
By the 1990s, the eastern end of Long Island had by far the greatest concentration of Lyme
disease. If you drew a circle around the area of the world heavily impacted by Lyme disease,
which happened to be in the Northeast United States, the center of that circle was Plum
Island.
Plum Island experimented with the Lone Star tick, whose habitat at the time was confined to
Texas. Yet it showed up in New York and Connecticut, infecting people with Lyme disease -- and
killing them. The Lone Star tick is now endemic in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
If Newby agrees or disagrees with any of the above, she does not inform us. But here's what
she adds to it.
The outbreak of unusual tick-borne disease around Long Island Sound actually started in
1968, and it involved three diseases: Lyme arthritis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and
babesiosis. A U.S. bioweapons scientist, Willy Burgdorfer, credited in 1982 with discovering
the cause of Lyme disease, may have put the diseases into ticks 30 years earlier. And his
report on the cause of Lyme disease may have involved a significant omission that has made it
harder to diagnose or cure. The public focus on only one of the three diseases has allowed a
disaster that could have been contained to become widespread.
Newby documents in detail Burgdorfer's work for the U.S. government giving diseases to ticks
in large quantities to be used as weapons, as they have been in Cuba in 1962, for example. "He
was growing microbes inside ticks, having the ticks feed on animals, and then harvesting the
microbes from the animals that exhibited the level of illness the military had requested."
Burgdorfer published a paper in 1952 about the intentional infecting of ticks. In 2013,
filmmaker Tim Grey asked him, on camera, whether the pathogen he had identified in 1982 as the
cause of Lyme disease was the same one or similar or a generational mutation of the one he'd
written about in 1952. Burgdorfer replied in the affirmative.
Interviewed by Newby, Burgdorfer described his efforts to create an illness that would be
difficult to test for -- knowledge of which he might have shared earlier with beneficial
results for those suffering.
Newby, who has herself suffered from Lyme disease, blames the profit interests of companies
and the corruption of government for the poor handling of Lyme disease. But her writing
suggests to me a possibility she doesn't raise, namely that those who know where Lyme disease
came from have avoided properly addressing it because of where it came from.
Newby assumes throughout the book that there has to have been a particular major incident
near Long Island Sound, either an accident or an experiment on the public or an attack by a
foreign nation. Burgdorfer reportedly claimed to another researcher that Russia stole U.S.
bioweapons. Based on that and nothing else, Newby speculates that perhaps Russia attacked the
United States with diseased ticks, coincidentally right in the location where the U.S.
government experimented with diseased ticks.
"What this book brings to light," Newby writes, "is that the U.S. military has conducted
thousands of experiments exploring the use of ticks and tick-borne diseases as biological
weapons, and in some cases, these agents escaped into the environment. The government needs to
declassify the details of these open-air bioweapons tests so that we can begin to repair the
damage these pathogens are inflicting on human and animals in the ecosystem."
Another product of U.S. bio-weapons tax dollars at work, of course, was the anthrax mailed
to politicians in 2001. While Newby speculates that perhaps someone was trying to demonstrate
the danger for our own good, I don't think we should forget that one purpose served -- whether
or not intended -- by the "anthrax attacks" was a significant augmentation of the Iraq war
lies. The attacks were falsely blamed on Iraq, and even if people have forgotten that, they
fell for it long enough for it to matter. The one bit of truth in current public understanding
of Lyme disease is that it has not been falsely blamed on some country the United States is
eager to bomb. Let's keep it that way! Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: David Swanson
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the
right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a
minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks
Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news
mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's
almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill
Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire
continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda
techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their
assigned puppets.
Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State
controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the
masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of
this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.
Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and
successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion,
pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP),
rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in
corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their
corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.
There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social
issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The
real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it
appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the
Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare.
Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort
whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The
proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as
the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of
Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out
"legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions.
The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote
against a defense spending increase.
Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing
from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too
Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy
in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as
people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.
When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are
bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed
billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge
tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in
every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no
legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.
I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line,
"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative
doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals
will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses,
thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true
libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public.
There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last
election by referencing another famous cynic.
"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one
who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking
and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks
Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey,
John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure
her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and
subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump
was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator
at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.
As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be
good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV
ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The
vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed
this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and
disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over
Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.
I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since
2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way.
I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign
stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I
don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not
their words.
Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news
CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The
Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He
provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is
difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.
I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal
judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive.
Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and
renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep
energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing
to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have
gotten it done when he controlled both houses.
The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating
tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets
better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the
Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global
recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life
and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global
recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.
I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle
class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to
mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received
little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many
cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.
With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their
coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a
massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock
to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave
themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered
winning in present day America.
The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises
unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards
as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard
response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with
a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being
a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the
day. Truthfulness not required.
The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the
performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has
become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies
permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant
criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to
corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the
land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human
trait over two hundred years ago.
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental
lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity
of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has
prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less
than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over
300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths
occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches,
and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.
These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans.
They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't
care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others.
They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their
unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of
controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every
politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head,
MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the
president.
The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question
will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning.
What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding
Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused
by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I
don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and
their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard,
Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of
personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama
years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.
In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine
whether he can defeat the Deep State.
"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant
step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over
nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the
status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one
has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus,
despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will
probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and
manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism,
cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general
relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here,
too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the
Trumpeteers
That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does
not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of
it, but they're still pissed.
These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is
for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.
Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm
swallowing it.
I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to
include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to
distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?
"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."
If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at
this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself
one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".
If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I
would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real
leadership and not another political hack.
The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side"
you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand
for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and
trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the
minute they become them and not one of us.
Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire
complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before
I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.
Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at
Arkancide.com and start counting the
bodies.
Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of
fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that
situation.
Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of
**** as my governor for 12 years.
NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and
shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped
bafoon.
I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been
nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to
Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.
Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..
Great theater..
Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked
with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream,
vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely
concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now.
If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin
immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.
Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest,
but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect
.. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.
Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" /
current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic
posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..
Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds
Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for
Trump and they were laughing their asses off.
The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were
immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned
nightmare..
Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive
& risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.
I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life,
own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore,
laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to
live in poverty & homelessness in.
At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not
= a financial death sentence.
Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no
electricity.....no running water......no roads....
There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have
given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.
The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare
because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want
to puke.
There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.
This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the
poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents
represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his
reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power
network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's
dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a
proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army
The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot
compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful
countries
Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced
is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire
history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds
of obedient citizens.
This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or
paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful
ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions
The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy,
and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries
have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.
The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd
be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle
leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them
barely read, though they probably can
I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem
gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.
If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What
should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even
mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen
the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants,
liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny
continues to grow and fester as a cancer.
You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is
quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.
If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are
already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your
life.
I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless
without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king
George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's
God.
I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then
pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life.
There are worse things than dying.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing
from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke!
this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.
Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.
We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of
England and the issued of the British-pound currency.
George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed
George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way
of the phony revolution.
Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks,
Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The
same parasite remains within our government.
It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of
rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to
manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the
Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution,
and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.
To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional
books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for
dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while
they are being manipulated.
The fiasco of the latest obviously unsuccessful US attempt to topple twice
democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro made a laughing stock of the US government
throughout the world and is now exposing new splits in the Trump administration in Washington.
It is also exposing a dangerous but also ridiculous myth that Washington has credulously
swallowed for generations – the idea that National Security Adviser John Bolton is
actually competent.
No one among the carefully trained castrated geldings of the US mainstream news media and
their pseudo-liberal and libertarian outliers has ever dared to ask how able Bolton actually
is. He is held in awe and even fear for his supposed brilliant intellect and for his undoubted
energy and relentless determination to push the policies he supports with tunnel vision and
fanatical relentlessness as hard as he can.
Yet given such undeniable "qualities" what is truly astonishing is how useless Bolton has
been in pursuing his own primary foreign policy goals for more than 40 years. He failed to
prevent the first president to take him seriously, Ronald Reagan to conduct sweeping nuclear
arms reductions with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to push ahead with Gorbachev to
dismantle the Cold War. These policies were anathema to Bolton who prophesied – falsely
– that war and catastrophe would flow from them. But Reagan ignored him and pushed them
through anyway.
Now Bolton has destroyed Reagan's legacy of peace by convincing current President Donald
Trump to scrap one of Reagan's greatest achievement, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty.
He succeeded in helping provoke the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq under
President George W. Bush in 2003 but failed to persuade even Bush, Junior and his top foreign
policy adviser, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pull out
of any arms control treaties whatsoever.
Then, the Iraq misadventure was so appallingly bungled that Bolton failed to get any
traction whatsoever for his priority project of toppling the government of Iran, even if it
took a full scale war to do it.
In Washington, even Bolton's greatest critics among libertarians and paleo-conservatives
have spoken for decades with awe of his supposed brilliant intellect, command of all details,
endless energy and ability to read and keep track of everything. But now, the latest failed
coup in Venezuela instead reveals an ignorant, simplistic rash adventurer and gambler who
charges head on into dangerous situations and who relies on bullying and bluster alone to get
his way.
Bolton showed none of the ruthless, devious subtlety of a Dwight D. Eisenhower in
masterminding a coup and fragrant breach of international law without appearing to have
anything to do with it (a skill which Ronald Reagan, though far less masterful than the revered
Eisenhower also attempted in Iran-Contra).
Bolton's fingerprints were all over the hard-charging policy of propping up ridiculous Juan
Guiado as America's cardboard cutout puppet to run Venezuela, even though he had no credibility
whatsoever.
Bolton is in fact is an awesomely bad judge of choosing his own allies in other countries.
His combination of recklessness and vanity means he is always a sucker for whatever
smooth-talking sociopath can worm his way into his presence.
This explains how the late, unlamented Ahmed Chalabi was able to convince Bolton and his
neocon friends that he (Chalabi)) would be welcomed by tens of millions of Iraqis as soon the
US armed forces invaded ("liberated" was the politically approved term) his country and how
Zalmay Khalizad, a catastrophic clown, was acclaimed as an infallible guru on Afghanistan.
Bolton is widely known to have no small talk, private interests, charm or social skills
whatsoever. Far from confirming his "genius", as his many worshipful courtiers claim, this only
confirms his haplessness.
If Bolton played poker he would be skinned alive. He cannot read people and being an
obsessive courtier and flatterer himself, he always falls flat on his face for the flattery of
others. The arch-manipulator is in reality the easiest of figures to manipulate.
Once the strange miasma of worshipful myth is stripped from Bolton, all the confusions and
bungles of the April 30 Coup That Never Was in Venezuela become clear.
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Democratic Presidential candidate Mike
Gravel who discusses why he is joining the race to pull the debate to the left, the nature of
his contenders such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders, US regime change attempts
in Venezuela and escalating tension with Iran, Julian Assange's imprisonment in the UK and the
US' extradition request. Next we speak to Chris Williamson MP, in his first international
interview since being suspended by the Labour Party.
He discusses NHS privatisation by stealth with the new GP contracts due to be signed next
week, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Trump's escalation against Iran and Julian Assange's
on-going imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison.
Love Mike gravel, honest, good, genuine person with pure heart and soul! Donate dollar to
get him on the debates! Love Chris Williamson also a great men we need more people like
these! This channel should have way more subs and views, great show!
The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling
297 billion barrels . They are going to be INVADED by the real world terrorists, the
USA,BRITAIN, and their puppet allies !!!! Need I say more?
Trump promised to get the US out of "stupid wars." But now he and John Bolton are on the
brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran. Join me in sending a strong
message to President Trump: The US must NOT go to war with Iran.
I think she could be a perfect President at given times for usa. She would save a lot of
American lives and will leave the white house a lot cleaner when she leaves.
It's a tragedy that Tulsi Gabbert is not number one in the polls right now. She's the only
one consistently right on all the issues. I can't wait for the debates.
NO More Wars! Give Peace a chance. Support Representative Tulsi Gabbard for President. A
True American Patriot and Veteran, fighting for Peace.
Tulsi2020.com
"... After that interview, Tulsi's Instagram account gained 11,000 new followers and her Twitter account gained 30,000 new followers. The more people watching her on a regular basis, the better! ..."
"... Ever since the Rogan interview, the number of times her name appears in a mainstream media (MSM) headline has seen a jump. Before the interview, she was getting a maximum of 1, sometimes rarely 2 headlines per day--often zero. Since the interview she has been in the 4 or 5 per day range. Today (May 19), she is ranked number 5 for all Democratic candidate name mentions in MSM headlines. ..."
"... the embedded video are very powerful as to why Tulsi is different from every other candidate of either party. ..."
"... she's a primary target of the DNC and establishment Democrats, possibly even more so than Bernie this time. Or maybe they're tied as targets? ..."
"... She called out the DNC's unfairness to Bernie well before wikileaks showed us exactly how correct she was. ..."
"... Oliver Stone and Stephen Cohen are of course two independent types who are most concerned about our deteriorated relations with Russia, based on fake news and Russophobic media hysteria. Cohen has largely been blackballed from the MSM, with the exception of Tucker Carlson's show and the semi-sane radio conservative John Batchelor. ..."
"... It was because of the latest McCarthyite smear piece on Tulsi Gabbard in the Daily Beast that I again donated to her campaign. Unlike Bernie, she is longer than a long shot to get the nomination, but it's important that her voice on FP be heard. While I also favor Bernie and Andrew Yang, their comments on FP, sadly, are merely occasional carefully crafted footnotes designed not to attract much attention or controversy. ..."
Tulsi's 2.5 hour interview with Joe
Rogan 6 days ago resulted in a solid attention bump.
The YouTube version of the video has so far garnered more than 1.6 million views, and on
average his podcast downloads are about double that number.
After that interview, Tulsi's Instagram account gained 11,000 new followers and her Twitter
account gained 30,000 new followers. The more people watching her on a regular basis, the
better!
Ever since the Rogan interview, the number of times her name appears in a mainstream media
(MSM) headline has seen a jump. Before the interview, she was getting a maximum of 1, sometimes
rarely 2 headlines per day--often zero. Since the interview she has been in the 4 or 5 per day
range. Today (May 19), she is ranked number 5 for all Democratic candidate name mentions in MSM
headlines.
Finally, Oliver Stone has sent out a Tweet, essentially endorsing Tulsi.
the embedded video are very powerful as to why Tulsi is different from every other
candidate of either party.
Since I was young, I knew I wanted to use my life to serve others. It's why I chose to
serve as a soldier & in politics. I've never had any ambition to "be president" -- it's
always been about doing my best to be of service and how I can make a greater positive
impact. pic.twitter.com/NfTSUhbFXX
...as I post this comment, but I do know--from a professional/political media
standpoint--that this commercial about the Iran situation is, by far and away, the best piece
of political media I've seen since Bernie's "America" commercial in 2016 .
If
she wants to punch through the crowd, right now (for the moment, because the Iran situation
will change, one way or another, and maybe rapidly, going forward), she should push this spot
early and often, as much as possible (as her campaign can afford it, and then maybe even a
little more than it thinks it can afford, too).
She has become my favorite candidate on policies, but being favored by Gravel and Stone
doesn't hurt, either, to say the least. Of the passengers in the Democratic clown car, I like
her and Bernie most. How I will vote may depend upon what polls in my state tell me just
before primary day about her and Bernie. Or, I may go ahead and vote for Tulsi, no matter
what. In that respect, I am undecided at this time.
Just checked my former message board. They are attacking her right and right (sic). (Not
"left and right:" Barely a leftist still posts on that board; and those who still do must
watch themselves.) So, she's a primary target of the DNC and establishment Democrats,
possibly even more so than Bernie this time. Or maybe they're tied as targets?
And, why not? She called out the DNC's unfairness to Bernie well before wikileaks showed
us exactly how correct she was.
a worthy podcaster who often has on interesting, independent thinkers and public figures
who go against the establishment grain. (see e.g. his several interviews with author Graham
Hancock) Not perfect or quite as good as I'd prefer, but far better than most.
Oliver Stone and Stephen Cohen are of course two independent types who are most concerned
about our deteriorated relations with Russia, based on fake news and Russophobic media
hysteria. Cohen has largely been blackballed from the MSM, with the exception of Tucker
Carlson's show and the semi-sane radio conservative John Batchelor.
It was because of the latest McCarthyite smear piece on Tulsi Gabbard in the Daily Beast
that I again donated to her campaign. Unlike Bernie, she is longer than a long shot to get
the nomination, but it's important that her voice on FP be heard. While I also favor Bernie
and Andrew Yang, their comments on FP, sadly, are merely occasional carefully crafted
footnotes designed not to attract much attention or controversy.
The take away quote
"
Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by
the United States.
"
Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ???
Where are they going to get their war on?
I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is
dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy.
The
spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z?
Those are pretty strong words from the official agency...
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world. ..."
"... As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements. ..."
"... When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple." ..."
"... Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union. ..."
"... In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status. ..."
"... Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests. ..."
Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-20 17:11:21 | Editor: Xiang Bo
BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Modern international trade relations are based on credibility
and the spirit of the contract. However,in the year-long China-U.S. trade negotiations,
Washington repeatedly reneged on its promises and played "face changing" tricks, leaving stark
stains on its credibility.
During Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to Washington last May, Beijing and Washington
agreed not to engage in a trade war. Only days later, the Trump administration said it will
impose a 25-percent tariff on 50 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports which contain
industrially significant technology.
Soon after the recent setbacks in China-U.S. trade consultations, the Trump administration,
in the name of "national security," rolled out measures to hit Chinese tech firms. The White
House's executive order will kill many business contracts between Chinese and U.S. firms.
The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in
failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world.
As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade
bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced
many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their
long-existing trade agreements.
These bullying behaviors have sent a clear signal: one can arbitrarily tamper with the
original contracts regardless of cooperation partners' interests and concerns, as long as it
has the power to do so. That is "the logic of gangsters" and "the law of jungle." Such bullying
tactic has stirred global opposition, including from Washington's allies in Europe.
When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last
year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these
unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This
is protectionism, pure and simple."
Also, America's bullying actions have gone far beyond multilateral economic and trade
realms.
Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major
international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the
Universal Postal Union.
These self-serving moves have disgraced Washington's credibility as a responsible major
country, and seriously eroded the foundation for international cooperation.
In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global
trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system
that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to
abuse its superpower status.
Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community.
It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility
goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests.
The fiasco of the latest obviously unsuccessful US attempt to topple twice
democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro made a laughing stock of the US government
throughout the world and is now exposing new splits in the Trump administration in Washington.
It is also exposing a dangerous but also ridiculous myth that Washington has credulously
swallowed for generations – the idea that National Security Adviser John Bolton is
actually competent.
No one among the carefully trained castrated geldings of the US mainstream news media and
their pseudo-liberal and libertarian outliers has ever dared to ask how able Bolton actually
is. He is held in awe and even fear for his supposed brilliant intellect and for his undoubted
energy and relentless determination to push the policies he supports with tunnel vision and
fanatical relentlessness as hard as he can.
Yet given such undeniable "qualities" what is truly astonishing is how useless Bolton has
been in pursuing his own primary foreign policy goals for more than 40 years. He failed to
prevent the first president to take him seriously, Ronald Reagan to conduct sweeping nuclear
arms reductions with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to push ahead with Gorbachev to
dismantle the Cold War. These policies were anathema to Bolton who prophesied – falsely
– that war and catastrophe would flow from them. But Reagan ignored him and pushed them
through anyway.
Now Bolton has destroyed Reagan's legacy of peace by convincing current President Donald
Trump to scrap one of Reagan's greatest achievement, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty.
He succeeded in helping provoke the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq under
President George W. Bush in 2003 but failed to persuade even Bush, Junior and his top foreign
policy adviser, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pull out
of any arms control treaties whatsoever.
Then, the Iraq misadventure was so appallingly bungled that Bolton failed to get any
traction whatsoever for his priority project of toppling the government of Iran, even if it
took a full scale war to do it.
In Washington, even Bolton's greatest critics among libertarians and paleo-conservatives
have spoken for decades with awe of his supposed brilliant intellect, command of all details,
endless energy and ability to read and keep track of everything. But now, the latest failed
coup in Venezuela instead reveals an ignorant, simplistic rash adventurer and gambler who
charges head on into dangerous situations and who relies on bullying and bluster alone to get
his way.
Bolton showed none of the ruthless, devious subtlety of a Dwight D. Eisenhower in
masterminding a coup and fragrant breach of international law without appearing to have
anything to do with it (a skill which Ronald Reagan, though far less masterful than the revered
Eisenhower also attempted in Iran-Contra).
Bolton's fingerprints were all over the hard-charging policy of propping up ridiculous Juan
Guiado as America's cardboard cutout puppet to run Venezuela, even though he had no credibility
whatsoever.
Bolton is in fact is an awesomely bad judge of choosing his own allies in other countries.
His combination of recklessness and vanity means he is always a sucker for whatever
smooth-talking sociopath can worm his way into his presence.
This explains how the late, unlamented Ahmed Chalabi was able to convince Bolton and his
neocon friends that he (Chalabi)) would be welcomed by tens of millions of Iraqis as soon the
US armed forces invaded ("liberated" was the politically approved term) his country and how
Zalmay Khalizad, a catastrophic clown, was acclaimed as an infallible guru on Afghanistan.
Bolton is widely known to have no small talk, private interests, charm or social skills
whatsoever. Far from confirming his "genius", as his many worshipful courtiers claim, this only
confirms his haplessness.
If Bolton played poker he would be skinned alive. He cannot read people and being an
obsessive courtier and flatterer himself, he always falls flat on his face for the flattery of
others. The arch-manipulator is in reality the easiest of figures to manipulate.
Once the strange miasma of worshipful myth is stripped from Bolton, all the confusions and
bungles of the April 30 Coup That Never Was in Venezuela become clear.
"... What he said is, 'I Donald Trump am going to be a champion of the working class I know you are working longer hours for lower wages, seeing your jobs going to China, can't afford childcare, can't afford to send your kids to college. I Donald Trump alone can solve these problems.' What you have is a guy who utilized the media, manipulated the media very well. He is an entertainer, he is a professional at that. But I will tell you that I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from." ..."
"... when the Clinton team first learned that Wikileaks was going to release damaging Democratic National Party emails in June 2016, they "brought in outside consultants to plot a PR strategy for handling the news of the hack the story would advance a narrative that benefited the Clinton campaign and the Democrats: The Russians were interfering in the US election, presumably to assist Trump." ..."
"... After losing the election, Team Clinton doubled down on this PR strategy. As described in the book Shattered (p. 395) the day after the election campaign managers assembled the communication team "to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up and up . they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument." ..."
"... A progressive team produced a very different analysis titled Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis . They did this because "the (Democratic) party's national leadership has shown scant interest in addressing many of the key factors that led to electoral disaster." The report analyzes why the party turnout was less than expected and why traditional Democratic Party supporters are declining. ..."
"... Since the 2016 election there has been little public discussion of the process whereby Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee. It's apparent she was pre-ordained by the Democratic Party elite. As exposed in the DNC emails, there was bias and violations of the party obligations at the highest levels. On top of that, it should now be clear that the pundits, pollsters and election experts were out of touch, made poor predictions and decisions. ..."
"... The 2016 election is highly relevant today. Already we see the same pattern of establishment bias and "horse race" journalism which focuses on fund-raising, polls and elite-biased "electability" instead of dealing with real issues, who has solutions, who has appeal to which groups. ..."
"... The establishment bias for Biden is matched by the bias against Democratic Party candidates who directly challenge Wall Street and US foreign policy. On Wall Street, that would be Bernie Sanders. On foreign policy, that is Tulsi Gabbard. With a military background Tulsi Gabbard has broad appeal, an inclusive message and a uniquely sharp critique of US "regime change" foreign policy. ..."
"... Blaming an outside power is a good way to prevent self analysis and positive change. It's gone on far too long. ..."
An
honest and accurate analysis of the 2016 election is not just an academic exercise. It is very
relevant to the current election campaign. Yet over the past two years, Russiagate has
dominated media and political debate and largely replaced a serious analysis of the factors
leading to Trump's victory. The public has been flooded with the various elements of the story
that Russia intervened and Trump colluded with them. The latter accusation was negated by the
Mueller Report but elements of the Democratic Party and media refuse to move on. Now it's the
lofty but vague accusations of "obstruction of justice" along with renewed dirt digging. To
some it is a "constitutional crisis", but to many it looks like more partisan fighting.
Russiagate has distracted from pressing issues
Russiagate has distracted attention and energy away from crucial and pressing issues such as
income inequality, the housing and homeless crisis, inadequate healthcare, militarized police,
over-priced college education, impossible student loans and deteriorating infrastructure. The
tax structure was changed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations with little
opposition. The Trump administration has undermined environmental laws, civil rights, national
parks and women's equality while directing ever
more money to military contractors. Working class Americans are struggling with rising
living costs, low wages, student debt, and racism. They constitute the bulk of the military
which is spread all over the world, sustaining continuing occupations in war zones including
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and parts of Africa. While all this has been going on, the Democratic
establishment and much of the media have been focused on Russiagate, the Mueller Report, and
related issues.
Immediately after the 2016 Election
In the immediate wake of the 2016 election there was some forthright analysis. Bernie
Sanders
said , "What Trump did very effectively is tap the angst and the anger and the hurt and
pain that millions of working class people are feeling. What he said is, 'I Donald Trump am
going to be a champion of the working class I know you are working longer hours for lower
wages, seeing your jobs going to China, can't afford childcare, can't afford to send your kids
to college. I Donald Trump alone can solve these problems.' What you have is a guy who utilized
the media, manipulated the media very well. He is an entertainer, he is a professional at that.
But I will tell you that I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic
Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white
working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people
where I came from."
Days after the election, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled "
Hillary Clinton Lost. Bernie Sanders could have won. We chose the wrong candidate ." The
author analyzed the results saying , "Donald Trump's stunning victory is less surprising
when we remember a simple fact: Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician." The
writer analyzed why Sanders would have prevailed against Trump and predicted "there will be
years of recriminations."
Russiagate replaced Recrimination
But instead of analysis, the media and Democrats have emphasized foreign interference. There
is an element of self-interest in this narrative. As reported in "Russian Roulette" (p127),
when the Clinton team first learned that Wikileaks was going to release damaging Democratic
National Party emails in June 2016, they "brought in outside consultants to plot a PR
strategy for handling the news of the hack the story would advance a narrative that benefited
the Clinton campaign and the Democrats: The Russians were interfering in the US election,
presumably to assist Trump."
After losing the election, Team Clinton doubled down on this PR strategy. As described in
the book Shattered (p. 395) the day after the election campaign managers assembled the
communication team "to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up and up
. they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian
hacking was the centerpiece of the argument."
This narrative has been remarkably effective in supplanting critical review of the
election.
One Year After the Election
The Center for American Progress (CAP) was founded by John Podesta and is closely aligned
with the Democratic Party. In November 2017 they produced an analysis titled "
Voter Trends in 2016: A Final Examination ". Interestingly, there is not a single reference
to Russia. Key conclusions are that "it is critical for Democrats to attract more support from
the white non-college-educated voting bloc" and "Democrats must go beyond the 'identity
politics' versus 'economic populism' debate to create a genuine cross-racial, cross-class
coalition " It suggests that Wall Street has the same interests as Main Street and the working
class.
A progressive team produced a very different analysis titled Autopsy: The Democratic Party in
Crisis . They did this because "the (Democratic) party's national leadership has shown scant interest in addressing many of
the key factors that led to electoral disaster." The report analyzes why the party turnout was less than expected and why
traditional Democratic Party supporters are declining. It includes recommendations to end the party's undemocratic
practices, expand voting rights and counter voter suppression. The report contains details and specific recommendations lacking
in the CAP report. It includes an overall analysis which says "The Democratic Party should disentangle itself – ideologically
and financially – from Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and other corporate interests that put profits ahead of
public needs."
Two Years After the Election
In October 2018, the progressive team produced a follow-up report titled "
Autopsy: One Year Later ". It says, "The Democratic Party has implemented modest reforms,
but corporate power continues to dominate the party."
In a recent phone interview, the editor of that report, Norman Solomon, said it appears some
in the Democratic Party establishment would rather lose the next election to Republicans than
give up control of the party.
What really happened in 2016?
Beyond the initial critiques and "Autopsy" research, there has been little discussion,
debate or lessons learned about the 2016 election. Politics has been dominated by
Russiagate.
Why did so many working class voters switch from Obama to Trump? A major reason is because
Hillary Clinton is associated with Wall Street and the economic policies of her husband
President Bill Clinton. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), promoted by Bill
Clinton, resulted in huge decline in manufacturing jobs in
swing states such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Of course, this would influence their
thinking and votes. Hillary Clinton's support for the Trans Pacific Partnership was another
indication of her policies.
What about the low turnout from the African American community? Again, the lack of
enthusiasm is rooted in objective reality. Hillary Clinton is associated with "welfare reform"
promoted by her husband. According to this study from
the University of Michigan, "As of the beginning of 2011, about 1.46 million U.S. households
with about 2.8 million children were surviving on $2 or less in income per person per day in a
given month The prevalence of extreme poverty rose sharply between 1996 and 2011. This growth
has been concentrated among those groups that were most affected by the 1996 welfare
reform. "
Over the past several decades there has been a huge increase in prison
incarceration due to increasingly strict punishments and mandatory prison sentences. Since
the poor and working class have been the primary victims of welfare and criminal justice
"reforms" initiated or sustained through the Clinton presidency, it's understandable why they
were not keen on Hillary Clinton. The notion that low turnout was due to African Americans
being unduly influenced by Russian Facebook posts is seen as "bigoted paternalism" by blogger Teodrose
Fikremanian who says, "The corporate recorders at the NY Times would have us believe that
the reason African-Americans did not uniformly vote for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats is
because they were too dimwitted to think for themselves and were subsequently manipulated by
foreign agents. This yellow press drivel is nothing more than propaganda that could have been
written by George Wallace."
How Clinton became the Nominee
Since the 2016 election there has been little public discussion of the process whereby
Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee. It's apparent she was pre-ordained by the
Democratic Party elite. As exposed in the DNC emails, there was bias and violations of the
party obligations at the highest levels. On top of that, it should now be clear that the
pundits, pollsters and election experts were out of touch, made poor predictions and
decisions.
Bernie Sanders would have been a much stronger candidate. He would have won the same party
loyalists who voted for Clinton. His message attacking Wall Street would have resonated with
significant sections of the working class and poor who were unenthusiastic (to say the least)
about Clinton. An indication is that in critical swing states such as Wisconsin and
Michigan Bernie
Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary race.
Clinton had no response for Trump's attacks on multinational trade agreements and his false
promises of serving the working class. Sanders would have had vastly more appeal to working
class and minorities. His primary campaign showed his huge appeal to youth and third party
voters. In short, it's likely that Sanders would have trounced Trump. Where is the
accountability for how Clinton ended up as the Democratic Party candidate?
The Relevance of 2016 to 2020
The 2016 election is highly relevant today. Already we see the same pattern of establishment
bias and "horse race" journalism which focuses on fund-raising, polls and elite-biased
"electability" instead of dealing with real issues, who has solutions, who has appeal to which
groups.
Mainstream media and pundits are already promoting Joe Biden. Syndicated columnist EJ
Dionne, a Democratic establishment favorite, is indicative. In his article "
Can Biden be the helmsman who gets us past the storm? " Dionne speaks of the "strength he
(Biden) brings" and the "comfort he creates". In the same vein, Andrew Sullivan pushes Biden in
his article "
Why Joe Biden Might be the Best to Beat Trump ". Sullivan thinks that Biden has appeal in
the working class because he joked about claims he is too 'hands on'. But while Biden may be
tight with AFL-CIO leadership, he is closely associated with highly unpopular neoliberal trade
deals which have resulted in manufacturing decline.
The establishment bias for Biden is matched by the bias against Democratic Party candidates
who directly challenge Wall Street and US foreign policy. On Wall Street, that would be Bernie
Sanders. On foreign policy, that is Tulsi Gabbard. With a military background Tulsi Gabbard has
broad appeal, an inclusive message and a uniquely sharp critique of US "regime change" foreign
policy. She calls
out media pundits like Fareed Zakaria for goading Trump to invade Venezuela. In contrast
with Rachel Maddow taunting
John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to be MORE aggressive, Tulsi Gabbard has been
denouncing Trump's collusion with Saudi Arabia and Israel's Netanyahu, saying it's not in
US interests. Gabbard's anti-interventionist anti-occupation perspective has significant
support from US troops. A
recent poll indicates that military families want complete withdrawal from Afghanistan and
Syria. It seems conservatives have become more anti-war than liberals.
This points to another important yet under-discussed lesson from 2016: a factor in Trump's
victory was that he campaigned as an anti-war candidate against the hawkish Hillary Clinton. As
pointed out
here, "Donald Trump won more votes from communities with high military casualties than
from similar communities which suffered fewer casualties."
Russiagate has distracted most Democrats from analyzing how they lost in 2016. It has given
them the dubious belief that it was because of foreign interference. They have failed to
analyze or take stock of the consequences of DNC bias, the preference for Wall Street over
working class concerns, and the failure to challenge the military industrial complex and
foreign policy based on 'regime change' interventions.
There needs to be more analysis and lessons learned from the 2016 election to avoid a repeat
of that disaster. As indicated in the
Autopsy , there needs to be a transparent and fair campaign for nominee based on more than
establishment and Wall Street favoritism. There also needs to be consideration of which
candidates reach beyond the partisan divide and can energize and advance the interests of the
majority of Americans rather than the elite. The most crucial issues and especially US military
and foreign policy need to be seriously debated.
Blaming an outside power is a good way to prevent self analysis and positive change. It's
gone on far too long.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who grew up in Canada but currently lives in
the San Francisco Bay Area of California. He can be reached at [email protected] . Read other articles by Rick .
"... More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the money keeps flowing. ..."
Former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration,
warns in a new The Real News interview with host Sharmini Peries that the United States government is driving down a "highway to
war" with China -- a war for which Wilkerson sees no sound justification.
The drive toward war is not undertaken in response to a real threat posed by China to the people of America. Instead, argues Wilkerson,
the US government is moving toward war for reasons related to money for both the military and the broader military-industrial complex,
as well to advance President Donald Trump's domestic political goals.
Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity's Academic Board, elaborates on the US military's
money-seeking motivation to advance the new China scare, stating:
All of this right now, first and foremost, is a budget ploy. They want more money.
And that's largely because their personnel costs are just eating their lunch. And, second, it's an attempt to develop - and
this has something to do with money too of course - another threat, another cold war, another feeding system .
The military just hooks up like it is hooking up to an intravenous, you know, an IV system and the money just pours out-slush
fund money, appropriated money, everything else.
More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex
alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace
dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the
money keeps flowing.
"... The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East. ..."
"... Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense. ..."
"... A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time. ..."
"... The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation. ..."
"... The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know. ..."
"... The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect. ..."
"... Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later). ..."
"... The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all. ..."
"... She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day. ..."
"... If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East. ..."
"... So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility? ..."
"... This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first. ..."
"... If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this. ..."
"... But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval. ..."
"... The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end. ..."
"... Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever. ..."
"... In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran. ..."
"... The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media. ..."
In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma "chemical
attack" were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.
What was the agenda behind the Douma false flag?
Why was the US response seemingly token and ineffective?
Why was the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired?
What agenda tied the Skripal case to the Douma attack?
The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight
in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.
The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression
in the Middle East.
Since at least 2001 and the launch of the "War on Terror" the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight
oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.
This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the "response".
The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the
attacks, and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.
Trump's attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation.
But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war
mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this
Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would
be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt
no longer made any sense.
A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled
a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain
the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely
vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.
You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike
narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan
for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.
The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against
the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about
possible escalation.
The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed
by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?)
voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.
Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma "attack", and the
claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It's possible this time there were other
considerations in the mix beside the usual need to "be seen to do something" and Trump's perpetual requirement to appease the
liberal Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.
THE SKRIPAL CONSIDERATION
Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according
to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn't this way. Since some time in mid to late March it's been clear the entire
thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.
The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods
and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.
The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.
It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous
attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in
allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the "toxic substance" found in the Skripals' blood is omitted, and the only thing
tying it to the UK government's public claims of "novichok" is association by inference and proximity.
Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this
case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in
Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).
None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film
or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews
with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.
The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to
die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful
agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.
She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed
location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.
Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative,
snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can't completely control.
Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma "gas attack" and subsequent
drive for a concerted western "response" have to do with trying to fix that?
IS THIS WHAT HAPPENED?
If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal
poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of
the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible
superpower stand-off in the Middle East.
So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed
a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack
in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?
Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called
them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?
Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close
scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?
So, did they push on with the now virtually useless "chemical attack", botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading
back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied "response" to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction
and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?
This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could
no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on
the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.
It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further
geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed
UK government is less appealing.
And it would explain why the "reprisals" when they came were so half-hearted.
If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have
they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded"
to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence
to prove some of the most egregious parts of this.
This is very bad.
But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists
in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.
This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it's unlikely that will happen.
So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn
into this.
Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more "reprisals"?
Or will this signal some other change in direction?
We'll all know soon enough.
* * *
Back to today...
...and while things have moved on, we're still puzzling over all the same issues.
What was the purpose of the Skripal attack?
What was the original plan of the Douma attack?
Is there, as it appears, an internal power struggle in the Trump administration?
Has that resolved? Who is running the United States?
Seeing as the OPCW has been shown to cover-up evidence in Douma, can we trust them on Skripal? Or anything else?
Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal?
All these questions stand, and are important, but more important than all of that is the lesson: They tried it before, and just
because it didn't work doesn't mean they won't try it again.
Last spring, the Western powers showed they will deploy a false flag if they need too, for domestic or international motives.
And they have the motives right now.
The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing
much in the end.
Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for
a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make
her position as unstable as ever.
Britain had the most to gain, of all NATO countries, and that is still true. We don't know what they might do.
This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home and
would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction.
In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control
of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea,
and even war with Iran.
That's not to say Syria is safe, far from it. They are always just one carefully place false-flag away from all-out war. Last
year, Mattis (or whoever) decided war with Syria was not an option – that it was too risky or complicated. That might not happen
next time.
Clearly, the US hasn't totally seen sense in terms of stoking conflict with Russia – as seen by the decision to pull out of the
INF Treaty late last year. And further demonstrated by their attempts to overthrow Russia's ally Nicolas Maduro. Another ripe candidate
for a false flag.
The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests
it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate
media.
But because recognising what they were trying to do last time , is the best defense when they try it again next time .
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) said on Sunday that reports claiming pro-putin Russophiles giving
her 2020 presidential campaign a boost is
"fake news,"
though she added that
conflict with the Kremlin is not productive.
Speaking to
ABC'
s George Stephanopoulos, Gabbard said that deteriorating relationships
with nuclear-armed countries such as Russia and China "has brought us to a very dangerous point,"
reports
The Hill
. She added that, if elected, she would "end these counterproductive and
wasteful regime change wars
," and would "
work to end this new Cold War and
nuclear arms race.
"
On Friday, the
Daily
Beast
published a story claiming that Gabbard "is quickly becoming the top candidate for
Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood," based on people who had donated to her
campaign. (We somehow missed the
Daily Beast
article on
Hillary's alleged Saudi donors
in 2016, but we digress).
Donors to her campaign in the first quarter of the year included: Stephen F. Cohen, a Russian
studies professor at New York University and prominent Kremlin sympathizer; Sharon Tennison, a
vocal Putin supporter who nonetheless found herself detained by Russian authorities in 2016; and
an employee of the Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT, who appears to have donated under the alias
"Goofy Grapes." -
Daily
Beast
On Sunday, Stephanopoulos asked Gabbard about the
Beast
article, and noted that she met
with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as her defense of Russia's military presence in
Syria, and her comments suggesting that Russian election interference was on par with American
election meddling around the world.
"Is Putin a threat to national security?" he asked.
"You now it's unfortunately you're citing that article, George, because
it's a whole lot
of fake news
. What I'm focused on is what's in the best interest of the American people?
What's in the best interest of national security? Keeping American people safe," said Gabbard. "And
what I'm pointing out consistently,
time and time again, is our continued wasteful regime
change wars have been counterproductive to the interests of the American people and the approach
this administration has taken in essentially choosing conflict ... has been counterproductive
I continue to support her for that same reason. If there are
like minded people here on ZH consider donating just $1 as that
donation will help get her on stage where her anti-war thoughts
can be heard.
ditto. Trump said in the debates that "I want to be friends
with everyone, including Russia." The rest is history. The USA
wehrmacht is going after Tulsi now. We cannot have peace.
Have an idea for you on how to show true leadership
and finish what the Orange "six-sided star" liar said he would
pick up (
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/14/trump-im-reopening-911-investigation/
)
when he began his presidency and then... well...
lied
to
become a treasonous bag of **** just like the ones that preceded
him!...
Even Vlad Putin and the rest of the Russian Federation refuse
to "touch it". And if you did. You would be the only
representative in the U.S. House and Senate let alone the U.S.
Federal, State and local government(s) for that matter to do so.
All you would have to say is "we need an understanding why 2
planes demolished 3 building(s) at "Ground Zero" more then 18
years ago, and why the 9/11 Commission never mentioned the Solomon
Brothers Building 7 in it's official report?... I (Congresswoman
Tulsi Gabbard) certainly want to know!... Especially wearing the
uniform for what I believed was the reason I was given for
invading Afghanistan and Iraq and murdering over 3 million
people?... And I want to tell the American people ultimately "why"
Building 7 was omitted along with too many other details that
Robert Mueller famously dismissed by saying only that "
mistakes
were made
" ...
I've written to you several times about showing the courage to
be the only politician since Senator Wellstone to pick up where he
left off and support the 13 year endeavors of this organization (
https://www.ae911truth.org/
)
to demand an investigation of the fact(s) now that has the backing
of a Grand Jury by signing it's petition!...
But you won't. Because you are like every other "200lbs of
****" in a 100lbs bag that walks the halls of the Longworth
carrying the water for the "Tribe"!
Keep telling yourself surfer **** that the job will get both
easier and better by lying about that day and what it's done in
it's wake to every institution and business in the United States
of America let alone the laws of the land just like your mentor
the Langley Bath House "boy"!...
Yes, Putin knows that an island of sanity and decency in a
cesspit of bigotry and firearms is bound to be blown to pieces
before she has a chance to deliver. I fear for Tulsi even now.
Yes, the Russia nonsense is FAKE NEWS. So why is Trump allowing
the Israelis, a country that hates the United States, and which
has attacked us at least twice (USS Liberty, 9/11/2001), to
dictate our foreign policy? Israel is the real enemy!!
Let's
look at a quote from one of the former employees of the Mossad
front operation "Urban Moving Systems" (likely also the same
people who planted the explosives at WTC) had to say about his
time there:
In addition to the strange nature of some of the Israelis'
possessions in the van and on their person, the company that
employed them -- Urban Moving Systems -- was of special interest
to the FBI, which concluded that the company was likely a
"fraudulent operation." Upon a search of the company's
premises, the FBI noted that "little evidence of a legitimate
business operation was found." The FBI report also noted that
there were an "unusually large number of computers relative to
the number of employees for such a fairly small business" and
that "further investigation identified several pseudo-names or
aliases associated with Urban Moving Systems and its
operations."
The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site
drew the attention of the local media and was later reported on
both television and in the local press. A former Urban Moving
Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with
information indicating that he had quit his employment with
Urban Moving Systems as a result of the
high amount of
anti-American sentiment
present among Urban's employees.
The former employee stated that an Israeli employee of Urban
had even once remarked, "Give us twenty years and we'll take
over your media and destroy your country"
(page 37 of
the
FBI report
).
This kind of thing makes one kind of hope for a war in which
Israel is bombed back to the stone age, which is clearly where
these evil, psychopathic Zionist filth belong!
This is a long article, but read it all the way through. It's
proof that Israel was indeed behind 9/11 and that they had
numerous operatives in the country who were gleeful about it,
having set up video cameras and celebrated the day before by
taking a photo of one of the operatives holding a lit cigarette
lighter up to the horizon....right in front of the still-standing
WTC twin towers.
And look at this. You won't see this in the MSM any time soon:
In addition to Urban Moving Systems, another moving
company, Classic International Movers, became of interest in
connection with the investigation into the "Dancing
Israelis," which led to the arrest and detention of four
Israeli nationals who worked for this separate moving
company.
The FBI's Miami Division had alerted the Newark
Division that Classic International Movers was believed to
have been used by one of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers
before the attack, and one of the "Dancing Israelis" had the
number for Classic International Movers written in a
notebook that was seized at the time of his arrest.
The
report further states that one of the Israelis of Classic
International Movers who was arrested "was visibly disturbed
by the Agents' questioning regarding his personal email
account."
Very negative comments: "Pompeo by his own works is lying, cheating and stealing...... What more to say?", "They sanctioned Russia, pushed a side, demonizing Russia and now they want Russia support
without any shame ???? Unbelievable."
Looks like everybody is waiting for the USA to start to behave like a normal country as opposed to a dictatorship / banana
republic
BEFORE ELECTION Mr Trump has promised to work for US-american interrest BUT since he is
President , he is working for israeli-interrest and has forgotten interrest of
us-americans.
What?!? "You didn't get the war started......You're Fired! WE, the People, Do Not want ANY
Wars with Iran or others. Stay prayerful my friends, very prayerful.
Pumpeo is a sworn evangeliozionist .he admitted recently ( youtube : pumpeo at texas
A&M speech ), he been trained to lie , cheating and steeling and he has a bible on his
desk !!!!! This guy is a professional lier.
Blooming Barricade , May 17, 2019 3:32:07 PM |
link
A bit off topic, I thought b and barflies would find it in their wheelhouse...
French researchers have completed their Map of Neoconservative Networks. It's interactive
and gives links to each neocon/neocon group. Most of who you would expect feature
prominently: Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, BHL, but it also connects neoconservatives to the
Great Replacement theorists showing strong links between them and fascists. https://anticons.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/anticons9.pdf
Along similar lines, Swiss Propaganda Research released the Media Navagator earlier this
year. b will be happy to know that MoA ranks in the hard anti-establishment camp alongside
MintPress and the WSWS. There is also a European version
The US is closer to war with Iran
than it has been since the Bush years, or perhaps ever. And Bolton is largely to blame
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited.' Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters Donald
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with
Iran .
And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump's top foreign
policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East
of the past two weeks.
Just after one month on the job, Bolton
gave Trump
the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully
boxing in Iran's nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
– as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton's drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated
a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.
Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, it
can achieve a "better deal" that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this
has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental
steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer
to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.
In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East,
Bolton cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence.
But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since
said
that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it "out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually
was". Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week,
saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.
What's even more worrying is that Bolton knows what he's doing. He's "a
seasoned bureaucratic infighter
who has the skills to press forcefully for his views" – and he has a long history of using those skills to undermine American
diplomacy and work toward killing arms control agreements.
As a senior official in the George W Bush administration,
he played key role
in the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the Clinton-era deal that froze North Korea's plutonium nuclear program (the North Koreans
tested their first bomb four years later).
He said
he "felt like a kid on Christmas day" after he orchestrated the US withdrawal from the international criminal court in 2002.
And now as a senior official in the Trump administration, he
pushed
for the US to withdrawal from a crucial nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
While it's unclear how much of a role he played in scuttling Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last year, he publicly
called for the so-called
"Libya model" with the North Koreans (in other words, regime change by force). Just months before joining the administration, he
tried to make the
legal case for a preventive war against Pyongyang. And if you think he cares about the aftermath of war with North Korea, he
doesn't. Bolton was reportedly
"unmoved" by a presentation during his time in the Bush administration of the catastrophic consequences of such a war. "I don't
do war. I do policy," he said then.
So far, Bolton has been successful in moving the United States toward his desired outcome with Iran – if getting the Pentagon
to draw up plans to send
120,000 US troops to the region to confront Iran is any indication. There are hopeful signs that we can avoid war, as US officials
and our European allies, seemingly alarmed by what Bolton is up to, are
sounding the alarm about
the Trump administration skewing intelligence on Iran.
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited. The question, ultimately, is whether
the president can stick to his instincts of avoiding more military conflict, or acquiesce to a man hellbent on boxing him into a
corner with no way out other than war with Iran.
Ben Armbruster is the communications director for Win Without War and previously served as National Security Editor at ThinkProgress
What we need is a true and functional global community of nations and people, where
governments truly work together to balance out the stronger world powers.
The US national security state which enjoys a huge military budget and 800 overseas bases
necessarily sees the world in a masculine competitive sense, not in a feminine cooperative
sense. So winning the competition takes precedence over working together, and diplomacy is
reduced to making and enforcing US demands.
from the recent US National Defense Strategy. . .
We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing
rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and
volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition,
not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security. China is a strategic
competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing
features in the South China Sea. . .
here
"If President Trump had ever read Mackinder -- and there's no evidence he did -- one might
assume that he's aiming at a new anti-Eurasia integration pivot centered on the Persian Gulf.
And energy would be at the heart of the pivot.
If Washington were able to control everything, including "Big Prize" Iran, it would be
able to dominate all Asian economies, especially China. Trump even said were that to happen,
"decisions on the GNP of China will be made in Washington."...
...Arguably the key (invisible) takeaway of the meetings this week between Foreign
Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, and then between Lavrov and Pompeo, is that Moscow made
it quite clear that Iran will be protected by Russia in the event of an American showdown.
Pompeo's body language showed how rattled he was.
What rattled Pomp: "Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, be it
small-scale, medium-scale or any other scale, will be treated as a nuclear attack on our
country. The response will be instant and with all the relevant consequences,"
Trump may not have read Mackinder but Kissinger sure would have.
US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over Huawei, which he has deemed a
national security threat. His new executive order makes it more difficult for US companies to
do business with the Chinese tech giant. RT America's Manila Chan chats with investigative
journalist Ben Swann, who says no evidence exists for the Trump administration's claim.
#RTAmerica#InQuestionRT#QuestionMore
U.S. cannot spy via Chinese made technology products. That is the problem. When did
competition against American technology get to be a national security threat? It is about
creating a monopoly of only certain products in America. I hope American companies fight
back. Prices in American stores have already started to rise. Monopolies mean high
prices.
In the age of technology...any country
who doesn't SPY on other countries or their own citizens is LYING thru their teeth! USA is NO
DIFFERENT than CHINA.....they both are rogue nations, competing for the same thing,
TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP! The problem is....HUAWEI just got the upper hand in 5G technology
before the US can compete...so as such, the US threatens other countries with scare tactics
until the US can develop and deploy 5G technology to compete with CHINA. It's all about MONEY
and BUSINESS.
USA has dishonestly gathered more data on it's own civilians than it can access or
understand in several lifetimes, they have the gaul to attack others without proof?
UNREAL
Great plan! From your mouth to Tulsi's ears! She needs to make a dramatic exit from the
Dems, preferably on national TV, with the message "stop the senseless regime change wars!"
That alone would make her a contender.
Rob Roy , May 16, 2019 at 17:09
Skip, notice that Tulsi scares the hell out of the MSM. Therefore, she will be vilified,
lied about, left out of poll line-ups, shoved to the side in debates, accused of being
Putin's or Assad's puppet and God knows what else by the major newspapers, MSNBC, ABC, CBS,
NBC, PBS, CNN etc., and this will spread even overseas. You can't be against war, corruption
and US Monroe Doctrine as our foreign policy and expect to get fair coverage. Personally, I
will counter the propaganda wherever I can.
Skip Scott , May 17, 2019 at 08:22
I had a "back and forth" with dailykos about not listing Tulsi on their straw polls with
her being the only candidate against "regime change" wars. I shamed them a bit by calling
them a bunch of latte-sippers who reek of the arrogance of privilege while our MIC goes all
around the planet killing poor people. Maybe I am giving myself too much credit, but they did
in fact include her name on the last poll.
John on Kauai , May 17, 2019 at 13:53
I can't reply to skip about his argument with KOS so it's here.
There is nothing to be gained by arguing with KOS other than to be banned from their website
as I was.
They are supporting a National Guard pilot to run against her in the 2020 HI-2 election.
I would not be surprised to find that they were instrumental in producing tulsigabbard.guru,
a site that has been recently taken down but which repeated (and I think originated) many
slurs against Tulsi that have now been picked up by the media.
I encourage you and everyone to publicize tulsigabbard.org which goes into great detail on
her positions on almost anything. Also, the Jimmy Dore and Joe Rogan interviews with Tulsi
that are available on YouTube.
Tulsi is my congresswoman. She is wildly popular here.
The HSTA (hawaii state teachers association) hates her. When challenged they repeat the lies that are on the .guru site
that was taken down. When you point out that they are lies, they cover their ears and chant "nah, nah, nah".
b.grand , May 17, 2019 at 16:29
Skip. this is re. to your re. to Rob Roy.
WaPo confirmed today that Tulsi is one of the 11 guaranteed a debate spot. She's making
solid progress, including major bumps from the Joe Rogan interviews. If she has hopes of
actually getting the Dem nomination, of course there will be no dramatic exit until that's
been decided. OTOH, an outside call for her to run as an Indy would be authentic, but also a
threat to the Dems, give her fair play OR ELSE !
So, maybe the movement for an independent run has to start at the bottom? I'd like to
bounce this off people who know more about politics than I do. There's also the implied
question, how could an Independent function if elected. Would there be support in Congress?
Would new ["Coalition"] candidates arise?
People talk about the populist movement in Mexico as represented by MORENA, however the
coalition was actually Juntos Haremos Historia ("Together We'll Make History"), which
included right wing evangelicals as well as leftists. Pretty remarkable, but a similar
cooperation has arisen in Unity4J (for Julian Assange) where journalists with radically
different ideologies focus on a single unifying principle.
Any thoughts?
John Zwiebel , May 17, 2019 at 18:19
Ask Nick Branna. He says "yes"
b.grand , May 17, 2019 at 21:10
John Z. –
Are you already familiar with Branna and the People's Party? Are they backing specific
candidates? What do you think I should ask him? Would he and the PP join a coalition? Or do I
misunderstand your suggestion?
All of the endorsers are leftists. The platform is all about wages and healthcare, but war
isn't mentioned. Maybe it's there, but it's not on the front page.
Here's what they say: "Together we're building a coalition of working people, unions, and
progressive groups for a nationally viable people's party."
Also, "We are working to build a coalition of groups on the left in order to create a new
party for working people."
This just seems like typical 'Progressives' who are fed up with Dems. Some of the
endorsers – Sheehan, Hedges, Martin and others – are known to be anti-war, but
it's concerning that peace and FP aren't prominent. Besides, we need to build bigger bridges
than "groups on the left." There are many – surprisingly many – on the right who
oppose constant militarism. And what about the center? There's a vast untapped demographic,
whether apathetic or genuinely discouraged by evidence that it makes no difference who you
vote for, the Deep State wins. Why approach them from a left-only perspective? Would you like
to clarify?
The US is closer to war with Iran
than it has been since the Bush years, or perhaps ever. And Bolton is largely to blame
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited.' Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters Donald
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with
Iran .
And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump's top foreign
policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East
of the past two weeks.
Just after one month on the job, Bolton
gave Trump
the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully
boxing in Iran's nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
– as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton's drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated
a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.
Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, it
can achieve a "better deal" that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this
has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental
steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer
to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.
In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East,
Bolton cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence.
But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since
said
that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it "out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually
was". Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week,
saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.
What's even more worrying is that Bolton knows what he's doing. He's "a
seasoned bureaucratic infighter
who has the skills to press forcefully for his views" – and he has a long history of using those skills to undermine American
diplomacy and work toward killing arms control agreements.
As a senior official in the George W Bush administration,
he played key role
in the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the Clinton-era deal that froze North Korea's plutonium nuclear program (the North Koreans
tested their first bomb four years later).
He said
he "felt like a kid on Christmas day" after he orchestrated the US withdrawal from the international criminal court in 2002.
And now as a senior official in the Trump administration, he
pushed
for the US to withdrawal from a crucial nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
While it's unclear how much of a role he played in scuttling Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last year, he publicly
called for the so-called
"Libya model" with the North Koreans (in other words, regime change by force). Just months before joining the administration, he
tried to make the
legal case for a preventive war against Pyongyang. And if you think he cares about the aftermath of war with North Korea, he
doesn't. Bolton was reportedly
"unmoved" by a presentation during his time in the Bush administration of the catastrophic consequences of such a war. "I don't
do war. I do policy," he said then.
So far, Bolton has been successful in moving the United States toward his desired outcome with Iran – if getting the Pentagon
to draw up plans to send
120,000 US troops to the region to confront Iran is any indication. There are hopeful signs that we can avoid war, as US officials
and our European allies, seemingly alarmed by what Bolton is up to, are
sounding the alarm about
the Trump administration skewing intelligence on Iran.
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited. The question, ultimately, is whether
the president can stick to his instincts of avoiding more military conflict, or acquiesce to a man hellbent on boxing him into a
corner with no way out other than war with Iran.
Ben Armbruster is the communications director for Win Without War and previously served as National Security Editor at ThinkProgress
So, what is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia? Why bothering to hint
on better relations? Noted in the press conference was the absence of Pompeo's moralizing,
limiting itself on US position on issues. What is the point in this flying back and
forth?
Yes, Iran -- and arms control. Venezuela -- and arms control. North Korea -- and arms
control. I think they are paranoid about Russian weapons. And if Iranians by any chance have
some of the new weaponry, providing perfect testing ground, would Russia own to that? What
was obvious, no concessions on any issue from Moscow. Not even softened language.
This time,
it is different. The economic and military power has shifted east, Europeans forever without
a spine this time are spineless in all directions, and it will come as a shock to the
establishment that the presumed animosity towards Iran in Gulf, will nowhere to be found. Wil
Saudis host US troops against Iran, Doubt that deeply.
"The MIC is embedded in our society to such a degree that it cannot be dislodged, and
also that it could be said to be concerned, exclusively, with self-preservation and
expansion, like a giant, malignant virus."
The system has evolved to be very good at defending itself – while leaving the
country, "in reality so poorly defended".
Thanks again CJH for all the chuckles. It is time all 'real' people acknowledged that
The NYT is the " Propagandist of Record ".
Nothing more. And it's been like that for quite a while. While it would be logical to
identify the systemic bend, and blindness that it has, it is probably against the law, like
all discussions about [redacted]
A pattern that has played out consistently for over 2000 years, and can be seen for what
it is in reviewing the Pale (of Settlements) and the conditions for those not included in the
[redacted]. But really, it's beyond the pale, isn't it. People, slowly but surely, are
building immunity to the perception management programs, even with the wildly amplified
volume and frequency , we see the early adapters adapting, and opting for the red
pill .
Just a co-incidence that while the psychotic ' leaders ' of a small colonial '
government ' squatting on expropriated land, committing escalating genocidal programs
against the indigenous population, and actively conflating it with anti-[redacted], while the
co-affiliates resident in the empire's other nation-states keep quiet, there seems to be an
epidemic of anti-[redacted]?!
" It's a trick, and we use it a lot. " he, he, aren't we so clever!
This ruse is coming to an end soon
and all of those people working in the desert somewhere, writing stuff online, are going to
have to get real jobs.
"... "Zainab Ahmad has concluded her detail with the Special Counsel's Office but will continue to represent the office on specific pending matters that were assigned to her during her detail," special counsel spokesperson Peter Carr said in a statement. Yahoo News reports ..."
"... Ahmad has had a role in the Russia investigation from almost the very beginning, well before Robert Mueller's appointment. ..."
"... Ahmad and Brandon Van Grack together signed Flynn's guilty plea agreement in November 2017. They secured an admission from Flynn, the president's first national security adviser, that he had committed a felony during the Trump administration's early days in the White House, concealing from FBI agents back-channel talks he had with the Russian ambassador during the transition. ..."
"... Prior to joining the probe, Ahmad was a terrorism prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn. ..."
"... Her departure comes after another high-profile prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, is set to leave the probe. Weissmann, often referred to as Mueller's "legal pit bull," headed up the special counsel's case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who faces seven and one-half years in prison after judges in Virginia and Washington, D.C. handed down sentences of 47 months and 43 months in jail, respectively. ..."
The prosecutor who oversaw retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's case is leaving special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe in the
latest sign that the investigation into collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin is drawing to a close.
"Zainab Ahmad has concluded her detail with the Special Counsel's Office but will continue to represent the office on specific
pending matters that were assigned to her during her detail," special counsel spokesperson Peter Carr said in a statement. Yahoo
News
reports
:
Ahmad has had a role in the Russia investigation from almost the very beginning, well before Robert Mueller's appointment.
[ ]
Ahmad and Brandon Van Grack together signed Flynn's
guilty plea agreement in November 2017. They secured an admission from Flynn, the president's first national security adviser,
that he had committed a felony during the Trump administration's early days in the White House, concealing from FBI agents back-channel
talks he had with the Russian ambassador during the transition.
As part of his guilty plea, Flynn also admitted to failing to
register his work as a lobbyist for Turkey's interests at the same time he was serving on the Trump campaign and lying to the
Department of Justice in an after-the-fact registration.
Ahmad will take an unspecified role at the Justice Department, but will still have oversight of Flynn's case and other duties
that were assigned to her while a special counsel investigator, said Carr. Prior to joining the probe, Ahmad was a terrorism prosecutor
in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn.
Her departure comes after another high-profile prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, is set to leave the probe. Weissmann, often referred
to as Mueller's "legal pit bull," headed up the special counsel's case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who
faces seven and one-half years in prison after judges in Virginia and Washington, D.C. handed down
sentences of 47 months
and 43 months in jail, respectively.
Weissmann will both teach and study at New York University and undertake several public service projects, which include preventing
wrongful convictions by boosting the court system's forensic science standards, two unnamed sources
told NPR.
News of Ahmad's exit also comes as Washington is abuzz with speculation about when Mueller's long-awaited report will finally
be released. Ty Cobb, one of Trump's former personal attorneys in the Russia investigation, recently
told ABC News that he would suspect the report's release would occur "no later than mid-March."
However, some lawmakers are concerned Mueller and Co. may decide on withholding key details of the report, which could prompt
high-profile Democrats, including House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-CA), to take matters into their own hands.
"We will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress; we will take it to court if necessary.
And in the end, I think the [Justice] Department understands they're going to have to make this public," Schiff
said during a February appearance on ABC's This Week .
The special counsel's office has yet to comment on the report's release date.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is being underwritten by
some of the nation's leading Russophiles.
Donors to her campaign in the first quarter of the year included: Stephen F. Cohen, a Russian studies
professor at New York University and prominent Kremlin sympathizer; Sharon Tennison, a vocal Putin supporter
who nonetheless found herself detained by Russian authorities in 2016; and an employee of the Kremlin-backed
broadcaster RT, who appears to have donated under the alias "Goofy Grapes."
Gabbard is one of her party's more Russia-friendly voices in an era of deep Democratic suspicion of the
country over its efforts to tip the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump. Her financial support
from prominent pro-Russian voices in the U.S. is a small portion of the total she's raised. But it still
illustrates the degree to which she deviates from her party's mainstream on such a contentious and
high-profile issue.
Data on Gabbard's financial supporters only covers the first three months of the year. In that time, her
campaign received just over $1,000 from Cohen, arguably the nation's
leading intellectual apologist
for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Tennison donated to Gabbard no fewer than five times, eventually reaching the per-cycle individual
contribution limit in mid-March. Tennison and her group, the Center for Citizen Initiatives, have long
worked to improve U.S.-Russia relations, in part by organizing junkets to the nation both before and after
the fall of the Soviet Union. She's also been an outspoken Putin supporter, dubbing him a "straightforward,
reliable and exceptionally inventive man" in a column last year. Tennison wrote that column in spite of her
detention in Russia
two years earlier, when she was accused of attempting to covertly advance U.S.
foreign policy interests in the country.
Gabbard also got a $1,000 contribution from "Goofy Grapes," who listed his or her occupation as
"comedian" and employer as Redacted Tonight, a current events comedy show on Russian state-backed
broadcaster RT. That show's host, comedian Lee Camp, told The Daily Beast that the person who made the
donation "is no longer an active member of Redacted Tonight. And separately, it is company policy to not
donate to political campaigns."
Camp, for his part, routinely promotes the Russian government line on major world affairs, most
notably the invasion of Ukraine, political unrest in Venezuela, and the Syrian civil war.
To the extent that those donors toe the Kremlin line on issues such as Syria, they're more squarely in
line with Gabbard's own views than those of any other Democratic presidential candidate. As a member of
Congress, she has
personally met
with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and
cast doubt
on widely accepted reports that he deployed nerve gas weapons against his own people.
Gabbard has also been one of the few prominent Democrats in the country to downplay the findings of
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. The report found
no evidence of a conspiracy by the Trump campaign to support that meddling. But it did provide extensive
details of that malicious influence campaign, and of the Trump administration's efforts to impede the
special counsel's investigation.
But while her House colleagues ramp up their own investigations, in part based on those findings, Gabbard
has called for the country -- and her party -- to move on. "The conclusion that came from that Mueller report was
that no collusion took place," she told Fox News last month. "Now is the time for us to come together as a
country to put the issues and the interests and the concerns that the American people have at the forefront,
to take action to bring about real solutions for them."
That reflects the attitude of a small set of the American left wing, a non-interventionist faction that
eyed collusion allegations with suspicion. And that's very much the school of thought from which Cohen and
other Gabbard donors hail.
But the list of controversial donors to Gabbard, as detailed by her filings with the Federal Election
Committee, doesn't end there.
Susan Sarandon, the famous actress who earned the enduring wrath of Democrats for her support of Green
Party candidate Jill Stein in the 2016 election, gave Gabbard $500.
Ali Amin, the president of Primex International, wrote two checks of $2,800 to Gabbard's campaign. Amin,
who runs the international food distribution company, pleaded guilty in 2015
to charges that
he'd transferred more than $17 million between Iran and the United States as part of an
unlicensed business transaction.
After being asked about those donations, Cullen Tiernan, a spokesperson for Gabbard, said the campaign
would be returning them. Tiernan also noted that Amin had given to fellow 2020 contender Sen. Kamala Harris'
(D-CA) Senate campaign in 2018. Ian Sams, a spokesman for Harris, said the Senator refunded Amin's donation
in July 2018.
Gabbard's campaign did not return a request for comment. Her election effort raised nearly $4.5 million
in the first quarter of 2019, but that included hefty transfers from her House campaign committee. She has
used that money to mount a rather unorthodox bid for the Democratic nomination. Gabbard had only one paid
staffer during that same three month period, choosing instead to hire consultants for key posts on her
campaign -- a staffing decision that seemed likely done to avoid making hefty payments for things like health
care coverage and payroll taxes.
Gabbard's media strategy has also been counterintuitive for a national Democrat. She has made several
appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, which, while being one of the most popular platforms on
that medium, is a haven for Trump-supporting guests. Gabbard also is among the few Democrats who has a
captive audience on Fox News, owed largely to her willingness to criticize Barack Obama, as well as her
party's planks on both Russia and foreign policy in general. Tucker Carlson, a primetime host on that
network, has publicly defended her.
Though she has not courted their support, some prominent figures in the white nationalist community have
flocked in Gabbard's direction. David Duke, the former KKK leader, has heaped praise on her. And on several
occasions, Richard Spencer, the avowed white supremacist, has tweeted favorably about her, including once
again this week.
It's sad to know that Tulsi bought Russiagate nonsense hook line and sinker. In a sense, she is also a compromise candidate as
her domestic platform is weak and inconsistent. She shines in foreign policy issues only.
But this compromise might still make sense. At least she is much better then Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... A consumer rights champion in name only, she did nothing to oversee predatory banking practices responsibly, nothing to urge prosecution of Wall Street crooks as Obama's interim Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) head. ..."
"... "If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the US government has been violating this law for years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government." ..."
"... "The CIA has also been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda." ..."
"... She may be the only congressional member boldly stating the above remarks publicly to her credit. ..."
"... She considers US wars not authorized by Congress impeachable high crimes. ..."
"... The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSA) illegally imposed sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. It passed the House and Senate near-unanimously – shameful legislation demanding opposition, not support. ..."
"... Hold the cheers on Gabbard and all other Republican and Dem presidential aspirants with a chance to be party standard bearers. The bottom line on them all is simple, no exceptions. If nominated and elected, either go along with the dirty system or be replaced by someone else who will – by impeachment or something more sinister. ..."
"... No matter who's elected president and to key congressional posts, dirty business as usual always wins. ..."
( stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman ) Tulsi 2020 is the official
website of her candidacy for US president – so far with no information other than saying:
"When we stand united, motivated by our love for each other and for our country, there is no
challenge we cannot overcome. Will you stand with me?" On Friday, she said "I have decided to
run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week," adding:
"There are a lot of reasons for me to make this decision. There are a lot of challenges
that are facing the American people that I'm concerned about and that I want to help
solve."
Besides access to healthcare for all Americans, criminal justice reform, and
climate change, (t)here is one main issue that is central to the rest, and that is the issue of
war and peace," she stressed. More on this below.
"I look forward to being able to get into this and to talk about it in depth when we make
our announcement."
Gabbard's record is mixed at best, things to like, others of concern, including
her Dem affiliation. She formerly served as DNC vice chair, resigning in February 2016 to
support Russophobe undemocratic Dem Bernie Sanders over Hillary. Throughout his political
career, he's been progressive in name only, his rhetoric and voting record most often at odds
with each other. He'll likely run again in 2020. After Hillary used dirty tricks in primary
elections to steal the Dem nomination, Gabbard supported her candidacy – a figure I
called the most ruthlessly dangerous presidential aspirant in US history, backing it up with
cold, hard facts about her deplorable record as first lady, US senator and secretary of state.
Elizabeth Warren already announced her 2020 candidacy. She's con man Sanders clone with a
gender difference.
A consumer rights champion in name only, she did nothing to oversee
predatory banking practices responsibly, nothing to urge prosecution of Wall Street crooks as
Obama's interim Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) head.
She failed to criticize
his wars on humanity at home and abroad, terror-bombing seven countries in eight years,
force-feeding neoliberal harshness on America's most disadvantaged, letting protracted main
street Depression conditions fester – supporting what demanded condemnation. She
one-sidedly supports Israel, failing to denounce its apartheid ruthlessness, its Gaza wars on
defenseless civilians.
Like Sanders and other undemocratic Dems, she considers naked aggression
humanitarian intervention and democracy building. Her agenda is all about perpetuating dirty
business as usual – based on going along with the imperial, neoliberal GOP and Dem
agenda, supported by the vast majority of officials in Washington.
Gore Vidal explained how the
dirty system works, saying no one gets to be presidential material unless they've "been bought
over 10 times." The same goes for top congressional posts. Gabbard is suspect for similar
reasons, voting along party lines too often since elected to represent Hawaii's 2nd
congressional district in November 2012.
After the Obama regime's coup in Ukraine, replacing
democratic governance with fascist tyranny, she supported supplying the illegitimate,
Nazi-infested, putschist regime with military assistance, shamefully saying America can't stand
"idly by while Russia continues to degrade the territorial integrity of Ukraine." No "Russian
aggression" existed then or now. Yet Gabbard disgracefully claimed otherwise, urging "more
painful economic sanctions" on Moscow, pretending the regime in Kiev is a "peaceful, sovereign
neighbor." In July 2017, she unjustifiably supported legislation imposing illegal unilateral US
sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. She's for US phony war on terrorism, the scourge
Republicans and most Dems support while claiming otherwise.
She's against what she called
"counterproductive wars of regime change," including in Syria. She earlier said targeting Bashar al-Assad for regime change was "a thinly veiled attempt to use the rationale of
'humanitarianism' as a justification to escalate our illegal, counterproductive war," adding:
"Under US law, it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda, ISIS
or other terrorist groups."
"If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we
would be thrown in jail. Yet the US government has been violating this law for years, quietly
supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist
groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian
government."
"The CIA has also been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda."
She
may be the only congressional member boldly stating the above remarks publicly to her credit.
In January 2017, she met with Assad in Damascus, toured parts of Syria, seeing firsthand how US
aggression harmed millions of civilians. She called all anti-government forces terrorists,
saying so-called moderate rebels don't exist, stressing "(t)hat is a fact," on return home
expressing "even greater resolve to end our illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government."
She considers US wars not authorized by Congress impeachable high crimes. She should have
explained that only Security Council members may authorize war by one or more countries on
other sovereign states – not US presidents, Congress or the courts. That's the law of the
land under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause (Article 6, Clause 2). All treaties,
conventions, and other international agreements to which the US is a signatory automatically
become binding US law.
To her credit in October 2017, Gabbard opposed reimposing sanctions on
Iran, at the time saying the Islamic Republic is fully complying with JCPOA provisions. At the
same time, she co-sponsored legislation opposing Iran's legitimate ballistic missile program,
imposing illegal sanctions on the country,
In 2015, she supported legislation endorsing extreme
vetting of Syrian and Iraqi war refugees, designed to deny them refugee status. The measure
failed to get enough Senate support for passage.
She opposed the National Defense Authorization
Act for FY 2019, 2018, and earlier, opposed reforming US border security and immigration,
opposed a proposed constitutional balanced budget amendment, opposed the GOP great tax cut
heist, supported CATSA.
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSA)
illegally imposed sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. It passed the House and Senate
near-unanimously – shameful legislation demanding opposition, not support.
Hold the
cheers on Gabbard and all other Republican and Dem presidential aspirants with a chance to be
party standard bearers. The bottom line on them all is simple, no exceptions. If nominated and
elected, either go along with the dirty system or be replaced by someone else who will –
by impeachment or something more sinister.
Washington's deeply corrupted system is too
debauched to fix. The only solution is popular revolution, voting a waste of time.
No matter
who's elected president and to key congressional posts, dirty business as usual always wins.
Stephen
Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University.
Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined
the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999.
Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting
followed.
Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network
three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world
and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican
Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.
"... United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting. That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
Neoliberal "International for financial oligarchy" start showing cracks. Davos crowd no
longer can control ordinary people. Both Trump and Brexit are just symptoms of the large problem
-- the crisis of neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi Gabbard will collect a lot of voters sick to death of our foreign policy destroying the lives of millions, draining our spirit and emptying our pockets. ..."
"... As long as the political class maintains 1) the illusion of choice as to who are leaders are and 2) keep things running smoothly a small minority of us will complain, simmer and stew but we won't be able to convince anyone else it's worth upsetting the status quo. ..."
"... We'll stay below critical mass, until we don't. ..."
"... The original Brexit vote was that opportunity for the power elite to get it through their thick skulls that Britons didn't want to go where the EU was headed. ..."
"... Theresa May, Dominic Grieve and the rest of those in the Westminster bubble refused to accept that they no longer had control over the situation. Theresa May like an autistic monkey keeps putting forth vote after vote to get her Withdrawal Treaty past a parliament that has no business still presiding over the country ..."
"... French Poodle Emmanuel Macron cannot get control of the Yellow Vest Protests in France. And the EU itself cannot get control over Matteo Salvini in Italy. ..."
"... Trump is compromised because of his vanity and his weakness. There is not much hope going into 2020 unless Tulsi Gabbard catches fire soon and begins taking out contenders one by one. ..."
"... More likely she is, like Ron Paul, setting the table for 2024 and a post-Trump world. I fear however it will be far too late for the U.S. by then. Both she and Farage, along with Salvini and many others across Europe, represent the push towards authenticity that will change the political landscape across the west for decades to come. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority’s decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
There is a realignment coming in electoral politics. It began with Ron Paul in 2008 and has
been building for more than a decade. We know this story well.
That realignment will be about restoring not just national sovereignty but also personal
autonomy in a world the rulers of which are desperate to clamp down their control over.
The thing is I don't think we've quite come to terms with the rapidity with which change
comes. It builds slowly, simmering below the surface and then one day just explodes into a
maelstrom of chaos.
This is where things stand in Britain with the betrayal of Brexit. It is also where things
stand with Trump's daily betrayal of his pledge to end the needless wars and regime change
operations.
Tulsi Gabbard will collect a lot of voters sick to death of our foreign policy
destroying the lives of millions, draining our spirit and emptying our pockets.
You can see it happening, slowly and then all at once.
The signs of the chaos as we approach next week's European Parliamentary elections were
there if we were willing to look closely. More often than not, our being distracted or, worse,
our normalcy bias keeps us ignorant of what's happening.
Raising goats I've unfortunately witnessed this first hand and in a devastating way. Their
entire digestive tracts are simply big fermentation vessels, chocked full of different bacteria
working on what they've eaten.
When they're healthy, it's all good. The good bacteria digests the food, they absorb it and
they are vibrant, alert and annoying.
But, if one of those other bacteria begin to get out of control, they can go from healthy to
frothing at the mouth and dying overnight. The goat is the Taoist symbol for 'strong on the
outside, fragile on the inside.' Our political system is definitely a goat at this point.
Which brings me back to politics.
As long as the political class maintains 1) the illusion of choice as to who are leaders
are and 2) keep things running smoothly a small minority of us will complain, simmer and stew
but we won't be able to convince anyone else it's worth upsetting the status quo.
We'll stay below critical mass, until we don't. And the important point here is
that, like my goats, they can can act and vote perfectly normally one day and then in open
revolt the next and you have a very small window of time to make the right decisions to save
the situation.
The original Brexit vote was that opportunity for the power elite to get it through
their thick skulls that Britons didn't want to go where the EU was headed.
Theresa May, Dominic Grieve and the rest of those in the Westminster bubble refused to
accept that they no longer had control over the situation. Theresa May like an autistic monkey
keeps putting forth vote after vote to get her Withdrawal Treaty past a parliament that has no
business still presiding over the country .
She hopes by making her treaty legal it will stop Farage's revolution. I have news for her
and the technocrats in Brussels. If Farage wins the next General Election he will nullify her
treaty under
Article 62 of the Vienna Conventions on the Laws of Treaties.
French Poodle Emmanuel Macron cannot get control of the Yellow Vest Protests in France.
And the EU itself cannot get control over Matteo Salvini in Italy.
And they will only get it through their heads after Nigel Farage and the Brexit party unite
the left and the right to throw them all out in the EP elections but also the General one as
well.
The same thing happened in 2016 here in the U.S., both on the left and the right.
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were the vessels for our deep dissatisfaction with the D.C.
corruption. The realignment was staring us in the face in 2016.
The Davos Crowd haven't gotten the message. And they won't listen until we force them
to.
Trump is compromised because of his vanity and his weakness. There is not much hope
going into 2020 unless Tulsi Gabbard catches fire soon and begins taking out contenders one by
one.
More likely she is, like Ron Paul, setting the table for 2024 and a post-Trump world. I
fear however it will be far too late for the U.S. by then. Both she and Farage, along with
Salvini and many others across Europe, represent the push towards authenticity that will change
the political landscape across the west for decades to come.
And that is what the great realignment I see happening is. It isn't about party or even
principles. It is about coming together to fix the broken political system first and then
working on solutions to specific problems later.
Here's hoping Trump doesn't destroy the world by mistake first.
Trump has been limited by the Deep State bogus Russia collusion investigations aided by
MSM propaganda. If this author thinks Bernie or Tulsi Gabbard will not face special
prosecutors if they try and Rock the boat then he is naive.
Bernie rolled over and supported Hillary after it was proven she rigged the nomination
process, so to believe he could take on the swamp to any degree is laughable.
And Tulsi doesn't have the deep pockets like Trump to hire the lawyers needed to wage war
against The Swamp.
Voting for a woman because "it's time" or because she's a woman etc., has become a thing.
Those reasons seem stupid but that's the "logic." I see a lot of dem women jumping on the
bandwagon, trying to get lucky.
Tulsi to me is like Ron Paul was in 08. A sane voice pointing out the stupidity of US
foreign policy.
She aint no Ron Paul for sure but is at least the only one this cycle who supports as her
main position getting the US out of foreign entanglements.
She is never going to win just like rp coud never win. But Im sending her a few bucks
every month just to keep the message going.
xxx, 1 hour ago
"Tulsi Gabbard will collect a lot of voters sick to death of our foreign policy destroying the lives of millions, draining our
spirit and emptying our pockets."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom, we don't select our candidates, they're
chosen for us for our own good.
yyy,
2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism).
Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is
a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class
of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That’s it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding Father that the primary goal of government
is to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that
there will be a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority’s decision making
is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination
made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can’t be subordinated to any form of Democracy.
zzz,
2 hours ago
Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage
achieved his goal (Brexit), then found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted
to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea Party.
bbb,
3 hours ago
Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy
charlatan opportunistic populist shill
ccc,
3 hours ago (Edited)
I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in
August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front of Congress. And anyone standing full-square
behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist agenda?
Do me a favour.
ddd,
1 hour ago (Edited)
Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member.
eee,
3 hours ago
Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign warmongering, only to turn around and incite
civil war here by further raping the 2nd Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul?
No, just...no!
fff,
3 hours ago
Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before
the assassination).
ggg, 4 hours ago
By this time in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq War.
Thus far Trump has
ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya’s civil wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don’t know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with the same events. Obama talked peace
too.
So in the past she was Obama style warmonger. Interesting... She is not stupid enough not to understand that this was a US
sponsored color revolution.
Does this mean that she is a fake like Obama was?
Notable quotes:
"... "We cannot stand by while Russia unilaterally degrades Ukraine's territorial integrity. We must offer direct military assistance -- defensive weapons, military supplies and training -- to ensure Ukraine has adequate resources to respond to Russia's aggressions and defend themselves. We cannot view Ukraine as an isolated incident. If we do not take seriously the threat of thinly veiled Russian aggression, and commit to aiding the people of Ukraine immediately, we will find ourselves in a more dangerous, expensive and disastrous situation in the future." ..."
Press Release Calls for U.S. to offer weapons, military training
assistance
Washington, DC – Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) today released the following
statement after the President's announcement of expanded sanctions against Russian
officials:
"Russia has violated the sovereignty and independence of the Ukrainian people, in direct
contravention of its own treaty obligations and international law," said Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard, an Army combat veteran and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "I support
the sanctions announced today, and I strongly urge the President to go further and consider a
broader range of consequences. If Russia is allowed to continue its aggressive push for control
in Ukraine, there will be long-term, serious, and costly security risks for the United States
and Europe. Russia must face serious consequences for their actions; the U.S. must consider
options that truly isolate Russia economically and diplomatically -- not just sanction a
handful of oligarchs -- and send a message of unity and strength from the international
community.
"We cannot stand by while Russia unilaterally degrades Ukraine's territorial integrity. We
must offer direct military assistance -- defensive weapons, military supplies and training --
to ensure Ukraine has adequate resources to respond to Russia's aggressions and defend
themselves. We cannot view Ukraine as an isolated incident. If we do not take seriously the
threat of thinly veiled Russian aggression, and commit to aiding the people of Ukraine
immediately, we will find ourselves in a more dangerous, expensive and disastrous situation in
the future."
In a House Foreign Affairs Committee mark-up of H.Res. 499 recently, the congresswoman
gained unanimous approval on including amendments on anti-corruption, and protection of civil
and political rights throughout Ukraine. She also supported the House passage of H.R. 4152,
which authorized loan guarantees for Ukraine.
"... I have high respect for Dr Paul especially on his foreign policies and I'm so glad that he has recognized Tulsi stances on ending these regime change wars and over stepping our bounds constitutional overseas. Please keep spreading the word on Tulsi our Republic depends on it. ..."
"... It doesn't surprise me in the least that Ron Paul feels well about Tulsi Gabbard - mostly in regards to her foreign policy. Tulsi can expect considerable support from Libertarians. ..."
I have high respect for Dr Paul especially on his foreign policies and I'm so glad that he
has recognized Tulsi stances on ending these regime change wars and over stepping our bounds
constitutional overseas. Please keep spreading the word on Tulsi our Republic depends on
it.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that Ron Paul feels well about Tulsi Gabbard - mostly
in regards to her foreign policy. Tulsi can expect considerable support from
Libertarians.
"... The REAL REASON behind the TRADE WAR: Israhell: "I want Iran embargoed and starved to death." China: "I will buy Iran's oil." BAM! Trade War! ..."
The 'play of the day' above comes against a backdrop of markets trying to accentuate the
positive in the latest US-China trade war deterioration. Indeed, Moody's has declared a trade
deal will still be done and a Bloomberg survey of US economists shows around two thirds think a
deal will be signed by year-end, a fifth by 2020, and only 13% don't see a deal for at least
five years. Field Marshall, please take these men and women out and have them shot, there's a
good chap.
The rhetoric from China has turned starkly, aggressively nationalist. The Global Times is
calling for a "People's War", a 1930's Mao reference to repelling Japanese imperialism; "trade
war" now fills Chinese media, having been largely absent for months; and Tuesday's People's
Daily mouthpiece posted an image of the Chinese flag with "Talk -- fine! Fight -- we'll be
there! Bully us -- delusion!" superimposed on it. US President Trump is also not backing down
in a further set of trade-related tweets, again stating tariff revenues will support 'patriot'
farmers and adding: "China will be pumping money into their system and probably reducing
interest rates, as always, in order to make up for the business they are, and will be, losing.
If the Federal Reserve ever did a "match," it would be game over, we win! In any event, China
wants a deal!"
A huge fiscal deficit; trade tariffs; a rapid increase in military expenditure; 'Patriot'
farmers; and a political call for lower interest rates for a national struggle. It all sounds
very Chinese, doesn't it? But that shouldn't be a surprise. Last year's ' The Rise and Fall and
Rise of the Great Powers (and Great Currencies)' argued the historical lessons of the economics
of past power struggles are that one must have low borrowing costs, spend a lot on a large
military, and be mercantilist if your enemy is. True, one also needs to be economically
vibrant, and that isn't assured with mercantilism, militarism and large fiscal deficits. Yet
real free trade, pacifism, and austerity is *ruinous* for Great Power . Which is why the EU is
not a Great Power but a Great Whinger.
Some in the markets are starting to get this.
Regular Bloomberg commentator Noah Smith yesterday published an article --'The Grim Logic
Behind Trump's Trade War With China'-- that admits he was wrong to expect a trade deal, that
Trump is doubling down, and concludes "There may be a grim sort of logic to this approach If
Trump wants to slow China's ascent as a superpower, a trade war might be an effective way to do
it. If the harm to the US is modest and the costs for China are severe and lasting, Trump might
conclude that the former are acceptable losses. Geopolitical primacy, not maximum prosperity
for Americans, might be the president's true objective . if weakening China really is the goal,
then this could be just the opening rounds of a long and grinding trade war." That's' what I
argued back in November 2017's 'On Your Marx' special reports, which stressed a New Cold War
was likely ahead.
However, many in markets are still acting like a Treasury clerk telling Churchill that
Badolf Hissler can offer him a great deal on cut-price bullets, ships, and planes .
On a related front, we see reports of an alleged Iranian drone attack on Saudi oil
pipelines(!); also hear Iran's leader say there will be no war with the US; and Trump has
stated reports of 120,000 US troops moving to the region are fake news -- because if he were to
send troops it would " a hell of a lot more ." Mixed messages to put it mildly.
for 40 years, western liberals and capitalists have had a nebulous idea of China
developing, opening and "liberalizing." It hasn't usually occurred in the ways they wanted,
but China certainly has become a big market and has moved towards a more open economy and
somewhat, more open society overall, while still maintaining a "fascist" structure.
But we can all agree - that process is done. China's economy, society and politics are
what they are. The country is "grown-up." Do not ever expect the communist party to change
the tight, top-down structure it has. Do not expect changes to politics, do not expect anyone
in China to give up control, and certainly don't expect foreigners to have any say or
influence within China. China will always do exactly what benefits China and the CCP.
Trump is merely being a realist. So accept that, and trade/invest/exchange
accordingly.
Is it any surprise that a "Noah Smith" of Bloomberg would attribute all the wrong
motives and strategy behind President Trump's and America's trade dispute with China's
totalitarian regime?
That he sees the Chinese Communist Party as honest, good faith partners in this
scenario?
There is nothing Trump could ever do to please the internationalist media.
I seriously doubt if "weakening" China is Trump's primacy here. Perhaps a by-product but
let's finally admit one thing: The US-China trade arrangement is egregious at best. What no one is willing to discuss yet is the fact that this "philosophy" of evening out
trade with China will soon take on a life of its own: With the US consumer. We need to bring back a lot of jobs back to the US economy and that's not rocket science.
It won't happen overnight but it will indeed happen.
What is the point of this piece? To demonstrate the author’s wit and historical
knowledge (was that entire little playlet not invented)?
To maximize American prosperity long term, should the US simply allow China to cheat,
manipulate and intimidate its way to the top? China has proven that, unlike the US, its
growth is a zero sum game. It adds nothing to the equation of global growth except cheap
labor, which subtracts wealth from other nations by taking away their well-paid manufacturing
jobs. It contributes almost no raw materials, imports its food and energy, and has stolen
most of its technology at enormous cost to Western innovators.
The US has always provided net inputs to the system of global growth. Natural resources,
renewable materials (crops, renewable energy), and the relentless innovation and productivity
increases of its workforce. China is an extractor. Thus it needs to expand its borders
through exploitative economic imperialist initiatives under their One Belt One Road scam, and
their militaristic imperialism in the South China Sea. The US is a machine that puts out far
more than it takes in. China is the opposite. If the US directs its economic output away from
China’s vast and relentless maw, China’s machine will slow and sputter.
The real point of the trade war is to end the vacuum of Western and Asian prosperity by
China’s greedy and imperialist machine of economic destruction. China knows and
implements that its economic growth by definition comes at the cost of others’
prosperity. That the US took 20 years to wake the **** up is astonishing.
Days before Trump's escalation of his illegal war in Syria, Congresswoman & war veteran
Tulsi Gabbard confronts Defense Secretary James Mattis on the unconstitutionality of such
missile strikes!
This Woman, whent against Hillary-establishement, Dems, She is smart & strong, I want
her running for Presidency, even some Republicans, would support Her, Right?? :-)
A brilliant statement by Tulsi Gabbard. Beto O'Rourke appears bored, unconcerned and
vaguely gormless when he rocks back and forth, bites his nails and extends his lower
lip.
"... Tulsi continues to stack up very reputable endorsements. This time from a three time Presidential Candidate. ..."
"... Tulsi's momentum is going for critical mass, Its time for a true maverick! #Rogue2020 ..."
"... Ron Paul's endorsement is surprising and interesting, in that it seems sincere. Most repubs give bad-faith assessments of the dem candidates. ..."
"... It really should be seen as a general election endorsement if it came down to a run between Tulsi and Trump, why the hell there was not a follow up question asking Dr Paul who he would endorse Tulsi and Trump I am sure Paul would endorse Tulsi. ..."
I am as unlikely to vote republican as anybody but I admired Ron Paul's honesty when he
ran for the presidency. Admired enough that I actually voted for him although his economic
policies and gold standard kept me asking more questions than getting answers. I am stoked
that my favorite republican voice gives his support to Tulsi. It is yet another confirmation
of my choice for 2020.
It really should be seen as a general election endorsement if it came down to a run
between Tulsi and Trump, why the hell there was not a follow up question asking Dr Paul who
he would endorse Tulsi and Trump I am sure Paul would endorse Tulsi. At any rate this is a
big deal a lot of people respect Dr Paul and this endorsement will help Tulsi.
I hope that might be interesting to Tulsi supporters.
In this interesting speech "Fascism in the Age of Trump" Chris Hedges predicts 20 years to the US empire. So somewhere
around 2040 or when the age of "cheap oil" approximately ends and/or come under considerable stress.
He does not understands neoliberal social system well and does not use the term "neoliberarism" in his speak (which is
detrimental to its value) , but he manages to provide a set of interesting arguments, although the speech is full of exaggerations
and inconsistencies.
It also can explains the current Trump stance toward China as "Hail Mary" attempt top preserve the global hegemony by
suppressing China even at considerable cost for the USA population.
I really feel for Chris Hedges on a personal level. Unlike say Blyth, or Chomsky, whom
seem to revel in being intellectual bad boys, Hedges seems to be at heart a very conservative
man in the true sense of the word, driven to the extremes by the rabid greed and sociopathic
nature of mainstream politics. The corruption of it seems to visibly torture him. It takes a
special kind of courage to take an unpopular stand like he does.
President Eisenhower stated that the largest threat to our Democracy was/is the Military
Industrial Complex. He quickly terminated the Korean War that he inherited then kept us out
of foreign conflict. He believed in a strong Middle Class and promoted our economy with a
massive highway system. He kept the highest progressive tax rate at 90% discouraging CEO's
from massively overpaying themselves.
"... Fox News contributor Ralph Peters suggested Tucker was like a Nazi sympathizer for wondering whether Russia and the US should work together against ISIS. Another critic mostly agrees with Peters - and Tucker takes him on ..."
"... Max Boot is an example of someone who takes himself so seriously that they become a joke. ..."
"... Max Boot is never right! He had so many idiotic opinions! A man who wants to intervene in every part of the world and sod the consequences! He's a real neo con extremist! Dangerous! ..."
Fox News contributor Ralph Peters suggested Tucker was like a Nazi sympathizer for wondering
whether Russia and the US should work together against ISIS. Another critic mostly agrees with
Peters - and Tucker takes him on
Max Boot is never right! He had so many idiotic opinions! A man who wants to intervene in
every part of the world and sod the consequences! He's a real neo con extremist!
Dangerous!
Good domestic policy suggestions and debate skills. Horrible understanding of foreign policy
(he completely subscribes to the Russiagate hoax)
His capitulation to Hillary in 2016 still linger behind his back despite all bravado. he
betrayed his followers, many of who put money of this while being far from rich. he betrayed them
all. As such he does not deserve to run.
Warren and Tulsi are definitely better options then Sanders for 2020.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., became a household name in 2016 when he ran a progressive
campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and came close to securing it. He's back
in the 2020 race, but this time up against more than 20 other candidates. Sanders sits down
with Judy Woodruff to discuss trade with China, health care, student debt, Russian election
interference and more.
CBS News (2/4/19) briefly interviewed Honolulu Civil Beats reporter Nick Grube regarding
Gabbard's campaign announcement. The anchors had clearly never encountered the term
anti-interventionism before, struggling to even pronounce the word, then laughing and
saying it "doesn't roll off the tongue."
"... While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena. ..."
"... Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters ..."
"... In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations. ..."
Despite the Jewish domination of the American Left in the post-War period, Mendes notes that "most Americans do not appear to
have adhered to the same anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish links with communism that dominated public opinion in parts of Europe."
[80] Ibid .,
229.
(Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Melbourne, Victoria; Palgrave MacMillian, 2014),
250.) As evidence of this, Mendes cites the decidedly muted public response to the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite the recognizably Jewish identity of the couple (given their name)
and of all of their co-conspirators (David Greenglass, Ruth Greenglass, and Morton Sobell), and the fact the Rosenberg spy network
consisted almost exclusively of Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the case "provoked remarkably little overt anti-Semitism."
[81] Ibid .,
230. Nor, he observes, did the "significant number of Jews -- including teachers and Hollywood actors -- who were victims of anti-communist
purges" and the prominence of Jews amongst those subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, lead to a significant
reaction. All public opinion polls conducted during this period showed a consistent decline in "anti-Semitism," and only a small
minority of those surveyed (about 5 percent) identified Jews with communism.
[82] Ibid .
The lack of any real backlash to Jewish prominence in the New Left is ascribed to various factors: that many members of the public
were not aware of the Jewish background of many of the radical leaders; that these Jewish radicals were ostensibly "not campaigning
about any specifically Jewish issues that would have focused attention on Jews per se;" and to the "general decline in anti-Semitism
since World War Two."
[83] Ibid .,
257. This latter shift in public opinion (unsurprisingly) coincided with the Jewish seizure of the commanding heights of American
(and Western) culture in the 1960s, and the growing emergence of the culture of "the Holocaust." The combined effect was to banish
overt critical discussion of Jewish power to the margins of public discourse. While Americans rejected communist activities during
the Cold War, unlike in Europe, they did not widely equate communism with Jews (at least publicly), or view Jewish participation
in leftist politics with particular concern.
Neoconservatism
Neoconservative leaders were among those who feared that the Jewish prominence in the New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s
would fuel a conservative backlash against Jewish radicalism. For example, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of
Commentary magazine, attacked leading Jewish
leftists as alleged self-hating Jews and completely unrepresentative of the Jewish community.
[84] Ibid .,
22.
Mendes ascribes the defection of many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism in the 1970s to a growing misalignment between
modern Leftist politics and Jewish ethnic interests: the key factor being "the creation of the State of Israel which transformed
Jewish dependence from international to national forces."
[85] Ibid .,
viii. With the advent of the state of Israel, Jewish interests were no longer exclusively represented by the universalistic agendas
of the Left. According to Mendes: "Most Jews have lost their faith in universalistic causes because they do not perceive the Left
as supportive of Jewish interests, and have turned instead to nationalist solutions."
[86] Ibid .,
235.
The creation of a Jewish national entity featuring (thanks to US taxpayers) a strong and powerful army meant that Jews all over
the world could look to the Zionist state to safeguard their interests, rather than depending on internationalist movements and ideologies
(i.e. communism and the Soviet Union) which had often proven to be unreliable allies. Even many left-wing Jews, who might have been
anti-Zionist prior to World War Two, shifted their position after the birth of Israel. For example, the long-time Austrian Jewish
leftist Jean Amery commented in 1976:
There is a very deep tie and existential bond between every Jew and the State of Israel Jews feel bound to the fortunes and
misfortunes of Israel, whether they are religious Jews or not, whether they adhere to Zionism or reject it, whether they are newly
arrived in their host countries or deeply rooted there The Jewish State has taught all the Jews of the world to walk with their
head high once more Israel is the virtual shelter for all of the insulted and injured Jews of the earth.
[87] Ibid
., 236-37
The perceived anti-Zionism of the New Left from the 1967 onwards served to alienate many Jews and confirm their commitment to nationalist,
rather than internationalist solutions. An additional factor was the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, which provoked fears of
"another Holocaust," and galvanized even non-Zionist Jews in support of Israel. There were rallies in support of Israel throughout
the Western world accompanied by large donations. American Jews held massive fundraising campaigns and reportedly raised 180 million
dollars. Numerous volunteers travelled to Israel to support the Jewish State. In Australia, more than 20 per cent of a total Jewish
population of 34,000 in Melbourne -- attended a public rally to express their support for Israel, and 2500 attended a youth rally.
750 young Jews volunteered to go to Israel. According to Taft,
there was a widespread, almost universal, absorption in the Middle East Crisis of June among the Jews of Melbourne. This absorption
took the form of extreme concern about the safety of Israel, emotional upsets, obsessive seeking of news, constant discussion
of events and taking spontaneous actions to support Israel's cause.
[88] Ibid
., 238.
The rise of left-wing anti-Zionism after the Six Day War furthered alienated sections of Western Jewry from the social democratic
Left. Another factor that pushed American Jews in a neoconservative direction, identified by Mendes, was the decline in Black–Jewish
relations. The emergence of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s led to the removal of Jews from the leadership of organizations
like the NAACP. Black hostility was viewed by some Jews as evidence of the failure of the strategy of courting non-White groups to
advance Jewish interests. This ostensible failure prompted many Jews to concentrate on a narrower ethnic self-interest in the future.
[89] Ibid .,
243.
This, in turn, contributed to the creation of "pragmatic alliances" with conservative political parties such as the Republicans
and evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel which "have been consistent supporters of Israel in the USA." An associated
factor was that pro-Israel perspectives within Western countries increasingly emanated from mainstream conservatives, rather than
from the moderate or radical Left. This occurred despite "many in these groups hold socially conservative views on issues such as
abortion, homosexuality, the environment, multiculturalism, state support for the poor and disadvantaged, and refugees, which are
anathema to many Jews."
[90] Ibid .,
287.
Mendes makes the point that "These alliances were based solely on the latter's position of support for Israel, irrespective of
their conservative views on social issues such as abortion, homosexuality and the welfare state, which were often sharply at odds
with the more liberal opinions of most Jews."
[91] Ibid .,
239.
Despite the defection on many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism, the great majority of American Jews still see their
ethnic interests as basically aligning with the Democratic Party. Their willingness to prioritize their ethnic interests over their
personal economic interests is reflected in the fact that "high numbers of affluent Jews compared to others of the same socioeconomic
status still vote for moderate left parties that do not seem to favor their economic interests." Today, the structural factors which
historically drew many Jews to the Left no longer exist. Most Jews sit comfortably in middle- or even higher-income categories. This
"middle-classing" of Jews throughout the West has meant that the "Jewish proletariat that motivated Jewish identification with left-wing
beliefs no longer exists."
[92] Ibid .,
239. Consequently, "the specific link between Jewish experience of class oppression and adherence to left-wing ideology has ended."
[93] Ibid .,
241.
Most Western Jews still support parties on the Left
Despite the widespread break with the radical Left over support for Israel, Jews nevertheless remain
a “massively significant presence” in the Left in terms of their numbers and fundraising, their organizational capacity, and their
impact on popular culture.[94]Ibid.,
287. It was estimated that about a quarter of the world’s leading Marxist and radical intellectuals in the 1980s
were still Jews, including Ernest Mandel, Nathan Weinstock, Maxime Rodinson, Noam Chomsky, Marcel Liebman, Ralph Miliband, and the
founder of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida. Despite continuing to comprise much of the intellectual and financial backbone of
the Left, today’s Jews, “an influential and sometimes powerful group, with substantial access to politics, academia and the media,”
no longer must “rely on the Left to defend their interests and wellbeing.”[95]Ibid.,
286.
The primary reason most Western Jews still vote overwhelmingly
for parties on the left is the perceived threat posed by the “social conservatism” of parties further to the right of the political
spectrum in nations whose majorities are European-derived and nominally at least Christian:
With the possible exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jews
seem to prefer social liberal positions on issues such as religious pluralism, abortion, feminism, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage,
the science of climate change and euthanasia. Another significant factor is the long history of Christian anti-Semitism has led
Jews to remain suspicious of any attempts by Christian religious groups to undermine the separation of church and state. This
fear of organized religion [and of the White people who practice it] seems to explain the continued strong support of American
Jews for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. A further complicating factor is the growing universalization of Jewish
teachings and values, including the lessons of the Holocaust, in support of social liberal perspectives. … For example, Berman
(2006) presents evidence that the younger Jewish generation in Australia have been influenced by the experience of the Holocaust
into taking a strong stand against any forms of racial or religious discrimination. Many are active in campaigns for indigenous
rights, and to support refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries seeking asylum in Australia.[96]Ibid.,
288-89.
This advocacy is, of course, entirely hypocritical and cynical.
While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews
have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the
great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations
of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within
their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising
Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena.
The ideological preoccupations of organized Jewry today are
reflected in comments by
Boston Globe writer, S.I. Rosenbaum, who insisted the main lesson of “the Holocaust” is “that white supremacy could
turn on us at any moment,” and the strategy of appealing to the White majority “has never worked for us. It didn’t protect us in
Spain, or England, or France, or Germany. There’s no reason to think it will work now.” The central question of Jewish political
engagement in Western societies, she insists, is “how we survive as a minority population,” where the one great advantage American
Jewry enjoys is that “unlike other places where ethno-nationalism has flourished, the U.S. is fast approaching a plurality of minorities.”
Presiding over a coalition of non-Whites groups to actively oppose White interests is the Jewish ethno-political imperative: “If
Jews are going to survive in the future, we will have to stand with people of color for our mutual benefit.”
Jewish writer David Cole recently
questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism.
He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters:
For decades, leftist Jews have been flooding the West with
Third World immigrants, “Hey here’s a plan—lets dump a hundred thousand Somalis in the whitest parts of the U.S.
That’ll
save us from Fargo Hitler!” Inundating the West with non-White immigrants is seen by Jews as an insurance policy against “white
supremacy.” The idea is that these immigrants will act as a wedge, diluting “white power” while remaining small enough to be manageable.
Jews have done this everywhere—playing two groups against
each other as a way of assuring Jewish security. Let’s play Hamas against the Palestinian authority. Let’s play ISIS against Assad.
… But today we live in a world in which even the lowliest bark-eater in the Kalahari can have internet access. It’s not as easy
to fool entire groups anymore (individuals, sure, but not an entire race, ethnicity or faction). …
And now we Jews, so worried that Minnesota might become the
Frozen Fourth Reich if left in the hands of evil whites, have created for ourselves a good old-fashioned golem in Ilhan Omar (and
a bunch of the other Third World freshman congressthingies). Yeah, Omar hates whites. Yeah, she thinks white supremacy lurks behind
every glass of milk and “OK” finger sign. But she hates Jews a hell of a lot more…
In a perfect world, the Rabbinical Rain Men would finally
get the fuck over the Holocaust and end their war of hostility against the West. They’d see that whites are no longer the enemy,
but indeed the opposite. They’d see that importing foreign mud to mold golem in traditionally white regions of the U.S is bad
strategy.
In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism
is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish
activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations.
Conclusion
While Jews and the Left offers a useful catalogue
of Jewish involvement in radical political movements throughout the world over the last two centuries, it recycles many of the same
apologetic tropes that permeate the work of other Jewish historians and intellectuals. Mendes mischaracterizes the Jewish identity
and affiliations of important Jewish communist leaders (like Lazar Kaganovich), and offers no examination of their often-murderous
actions. He provides feeble apologies for the Jewish practices that engendered hostility among the native peasantry in the Pale of
Settlement. The inherent weakness of his position necessitates specious argumentation and desperate resort to that evergreen of Jewish
apologetic historiography: the innate irrationality and malevolence of the European mind and character. This is the invariable fallback
position in any quest to exculpate Jews from responsibility for the crimes of communism in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern
Europe. Though less inclined than Brossat and Klingberg in Revolutionary Yiddishland to glorify Jewish communist militants,
Mendes is equally keen to evade, whitewash and excuse disproportionate Jewish involvement in some of the worst crimes of the twentieth
century.
Trump provided to be another Obama -- master of "bait and switch". His promise to disengage from foreign wars remains an
unfulfilled promise. Due to thefact that he is owned by pro-Israel lobby he broung into his administrations such rabid neocons as
chickenhawk Bolton and smug ruthless careerist masquerading as
far-right zealot as Pompeo (and before them Haley). His promises to raise the standard of living of middles
class (which is impossible without cutting the military budget) remains fake. He is a fake. The second fake after obama --
Republican Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come. ..."
"... According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. ..."
"... In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years. ..."
While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April
2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit
pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget
was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent
of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come.
According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn
to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and
Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents
for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe
drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through
diplomacy and humanitarian aid.
The Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts "smaller" poverty
alleviation projects and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.
Rutherford Institute's founder and director John W. WhiteHead writes in his institute's
website that the American nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is
propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments. He remarks:
"Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for
national security and urgent military needs".
He writes "you know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the
government's fiscal year? Government agencies – including the Department of Defense
– go on a 'use it or lose it' spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the
next fiscal year".
"We are talking about $97 billion worth of wasteful spending"
He maintains that the nation's educational system is pathetic, the infrastructure is
antiquated and growing more outdated by the day and the health system is overpriced and
inaccessible to those who need it most.
The tax cuts on super-rich, outflow of huge sums in interest payment for debt and more
spending are plunging the US economy into a new crisis, according to many authors. The US
economy faces a deficit which means the spending especially on military and defence is far
exceeding the tax revenues.
In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK
stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$
45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO
member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to
4 percent in five years.
According to a study regarding world powers' overseas military bases
China retains twelve military bases;
France runs nine military bases including in Germany, Lebanon and UAE;
Germany has two military bases in France and United States;
India has seven bases including in Tajikistan and Maldives;
Israel possesses one military base in Syria's Golan Heights;
Pakistan has a military center with 1,180 personnel in Saudi Arabia;
Russia runs eight military facilities including in Armenia, Georgia, Syria and some
Central Asian countries;
UK controls ten military bases including in Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Singapore and
Qatar;
t he US is leading nearly 800 military bases across the world that run in full swing with
the highest budget.
In other words, the US possesses up to 95 per cent of the world's military bases . The
Department of Defense says that its locations include 164 countries. Put another way, it has a
military presence of some sort in approximately 84 percent of the nations on this
planet.
The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and
running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated US$ 150 billion annually. The US bases
abroad cost upwards of US$ 50 billion only for building and maintenance, which is enough to
address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing and infrastructure.
In 2017 and 2018, the world's largest military spenders were the United States, China, Saudi
Arabia, Russia and India. The UK took over France as sixth largest spender in 2018 while Japan
and Germany stood at eighth and ninth positions.
In early 2018, Pentagon released a report saying that Afghan war costs US$ 45 billion to
taxpayers in the preceding year. Of this amount, US$ 5 billion has been spent on Afghan forces,
US$ 13 billion towards US forces in Afghanistan and the rest on economic aid.
But these costs are far lower than the time when the US military was highly engaged in
Afghanistan. With nearly 100,000 soldiers in the country from 2010 to 2012, the price for
American taxpayers surpassed US$ 100 billion each year. For now, there are around 16,000 US
troops in Afghanistan. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into Afghanistan, the
US admits it failed in war against militants in Afghanistan.
In November 2018, another study published by CNBC reported that America has spent US$ 5.9
trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001 including in Afghanistan, Iraq and
Syria. The study also reveals that more than 500,000 people have been killed in the wars and
nearly 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.
The US has reportedly spent US$ 1.07 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001 which include
Overseas Contingency Operations funds dedicated to Afghanistan, costs on the base budget of the
Department of Defense and increase to the budget of the Department of Veteran Affairs.
In Afghanistan, the US costs of war in 2001 commenced with US$ 37.3 billion that soared to
US$ 57.3 billion in 2007 and US$ 100 billion in 2009. The year with record spending was 2010
with US$ 112.7 billion that slightly plummeted to US$ 110.4 billion in 2011 but took downwards
trend in the later years.
Due to skyrocketing military costs on the US government, Trump Administration recently
decided to pack up some of its military bases in Afghanistan and Middle East to diminish
expenditures, though it doesn't mean the wars would end at all.
According to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the US Congress has appropriated more than US$
126 billion in aid for Afghanistan since financial year 2002, with almost 63 percent for
security and 28 percent for development and the remainder for civilian operations, mostly
budgetary assistance and humanitarian aid. Alongside the US aid, many world countries have
pumped millions of dollars in development aids, but what is evident for insiders and outsiders
is that a trickle of those funds has actually gone into Afghanistan's reconstruction.
With eighteen years into Afghan war, the security is deteriorating; Afghan air force is
ill-equipped; poppy cultivation is on the rise; roads and highways are dilapidated or
unconstructed; no mediocre hospital and health care has been established; weekly conflict
causalities hit 150-250; electricity is still imported from Central Asian countries; economy
remains dependent upon imports; unemployment rate is at its peak; more than three quarters of
population live under poverty line and many, many more miseries persist or aggravate.
The US boasts of being the largest multi-billion dollar donor for Afghanistan, but if one
takes a deeper look at the living standards of majority and the overall conditions, it can be
immediately grasped that less than half of that exaggerated fund has been consumed. The US-made
government of Afghanistan has deliberately been left behind to rank as the first corrupt
country in the world. Thanks to the same unaddressed pervasive corruption, a hefty amount of
that fund has been either directed back to the US hands or embezzled by senior Afghan
officials.
Afghanistan's new Living Conditions Survey shows that poverty is more widespread today than
it was immediately after the fall of Taliban regime, or in other words, in the early days of US
invasion.
Next month, Kabul will host a Consultative Loya Jirga attended by around 2,000
representatives from Afghanistan which will cost the Afghan Ministry of Finance AF 369 million
(equivalent to five million US$). Even as the past has proved that these events are only
symbolic and further complicating the achievement of peace, a country with great majority under
poverty line doesn't deserve to organize such costly gatherings.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Masud Wadan is a geopolitical analyst based in Kabul. He is a frequent contributor to
Global Research.
"... The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today. ..."
"... "Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?" ..."
"... Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as 'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers." ..."
Yves
here. Even though this post covers known territory, it seems worthwhile to encourage those of
you who haven't watched the "Collateral Murder" footage to view the full version. It's
important not only to keep the public (and that includes people in your personal circle)
focused on what Assange's true hanging crime is in the eyes of the officialdom .and it ain't
RussiaGate. That serves as a convenient diversion from his real offense. That effort has a
secondary benefit of having more people watch the video.
Before
and after images of the van that came to pick up the bodies of eleven men shot to death by
circling American helicopters in Iraq in 2007. Both children in the van were wounded. "Well,
it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," said one of the pilots. "That's right,"
replies another. From the videoCollateral Murder.
Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder , the 2007 war footage that was
leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube
channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.
It's brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a
special kind of murder -- murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine
guns slowly circling their targets in helicopters like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges
of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are
dead.
The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S.
military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting,
then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the
Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who
matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today.
"Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards
for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all
"respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though
unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?"
Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange
reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it's not for being a
douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state
breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world . They want him dead for
publishing videos like these.
Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless
brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning
leaked it in the first place. As she
said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the
seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the
individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as
'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers."
The Wikileaks page for the video is here . A transcript is here .
This was done in our name, to "keep us safe." This continues to be done every day that we
and our allies are at "war" in the Middle East.
Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to
witness and acknowledge their deaths.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed a broad number of security
related issues in Sochi on Tuesday ranging from nuclear arms control to ratcheting US tensions with Iran to Venezuela to Ukraine.
Importantly, the two top diplomats traded warnings against election meddling and interference in their respective countries -- though
we might add that Lavrov's message was packed with more sarcasm following the Mueller report clearing Trump of "collusion".
In response to Pompeo's reportedly warning Russia to never interfere in what he described as America's "sacred" elections, specifically
warning against any 2020 presidential election interference, Lavrov shot back with: "We can discuss this topic forever, but until
we have cold hard facts on the table, we cannot have a grown-up discussion about it," according to Russia's
RT .
Speaking to reporters afterward, Lavrov said proudly that he had handed Pompeo a "memorandum" on US interference in Russia but
didn't reveal its precise contents, only saying, "we're prepared to talk on this topic."
Though both expressed hope for improved ties between Washington and Moscow, Reuters characterized it as a testy and impatient
exchange :
Visiting Russia for the first time as secretary of state, Pompeo publicly clashed with Lavrov on issues from Ukraine to Venezuela.
After their meeting, both men said they had been far apart on many issues .
"I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov... that interference in American elections is unacceptable. If the Russians were engaged
in that in 2020 it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been ," he said.
"I'd encourage them not to do that. We would not tolerate that."
However, soon after the summit, Russian President Putin in public statements indicated his belief that "Trump is in the mood to
restore ties with Russia."
He also indicated it's his own desire to "fully restore" Russia-US ties, according to the AP, and interestingly also praised the
"quite objective" Mueller report in statements to reporters
.
"As you know, just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the US president on the phone," Putin told Pompeo during
the Tuesday summit in Sochi. "I got the impression that the [US] president was inclined to re-establish Russian-American relations
and contacts to resolve together the issues that are of mutual interest to us."
Pompeo, for his part, appeared to say as much following the meeting, saying, "The United States stands ready to find common ground
with Russia as long as the two of us can engage seriously on those issues."
President Trump has made clear that his expectation is that we will have an improved relationship between our two countries.
This will benefit each of our peoples. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction.
However, Pompeo still went through a litany of disagreements he had with Russia, especially centering on multiple hot spots around
the globe where the Trump administration has exercised a big stick approach.
At Lavrov-Pompeo presser, around 28:30, Lavrov says something significant: Russia recently offered to publish info from a US-Russia
channel on cyberspace that he claims would address the allegations of Russian election meddling. He says the US declined:
https://t.co/o4MbqQlwCy
Below is a brief run-down of key points to the two briefed reporters on afterwards.
Nuclear treaty
At the top of the agenda, Lavrov signaled Russia could be open to a new arms control treaty after the recent US withdrawal from
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, countered by Russia suspending its obligations under the Reagan-era pact which
crucially served to keep missile build-up out of Europe.
Pompeo stressed China had to be part of any future sweeping deal, also considering rapid advances in defense technology. Lavrov
expressed hope that any future agreements will be "positively received by both nations."
The New START nuclear arms reduction treaty will expire in February of 2021, giving greater impetus for both sides to work through
the current impasse.
No common ground on Venezuela
Predictably the Venezuela hawk Pompeo slammed Russia's "interfering" in the Latin American country's internal affairs, adding
also to that list China, Cuba and Iran.
"Maduro has brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people," Pompeo stated. "We hope that Russian support for Maduro will
end." Lavrov defended the right of Venezuelans to choose their own president and refused to recognize US-declared "Interim President"
Juan Guaido.
"Democracy cannot be done by force," Lavrov told reporters. "The threats that we hear against the Maduro government, threats that
come from the mouths of US officials this has nothing in common with democracy."
* * *
No desire for war with Iran
"We fundamentally do not see a war with Iran," Secretary of State Pompeo said, but added: "We've made it clear to the Iranians
that if American interests are attacked, we will certainly respond in an appropriate fashion."
On Tuesday President Trump denied a prior
New York
Times report which alleged the White House was planning to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should conflict erupt
between Iran and the United States. The president called the report "fake news" but still added that should war actually break out
he would send "a hell of a lot more," according to Reuters.
Lavrov stated that Russia hopes "reason will gain the upper hand," and added that Moscow opposed the US pullout of the 2015 Iran
nuclear deal (JCPOA), and further that Europe is right in attempting to stick to the deal.
Ukraine standoff
Pompeo informed Lavrov that the US hadn't budged in its position regarding Moscow's "illegal" annexation of the Crimea in 2014,
saying economic sanctions would remain in place until Russia reverses course.
Following the Ukrainian election of comedian turned unlikely politician Volodymyr Zelensky, Pompeo said Russia should now "work
with Ukraine's new president-elect to bring peace to eastern Ukraine," according to a paraphrase of Pompeo's words by Reuters, and
further that Russian authorities should release Ukrainian sailors captured in last year's dangerous
Kerch Strait incident .
In the midst of an interesting and wide-ranging discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience , Democratic
congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said that if elected president she would
drop all charges against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange.
"What would you do about Julian Assange? What would you do about Edward Snowden?"
Rogan asked in the latter
part of the episode.
"As far as dropping the charges?" Gabbard asked.
"If you're president of the world right now, what do you do?"
Rogan noted that Sweden's preliminary investigation of rape allegations
has just been re-opened , saying the US government can't stop that, and Gabbard said as
president she'd drop the US charges leveled against Assange by the Trump administration.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fNuZWQgkgc4
"Yeah," Gabbard said when asked to clarify if she was also saying that she'd give Edward
Snowden a presidential pardon, adding,
"And I think we've got to address why he did things the way that he did them. And you hear
the same thing from Chelsea Manning, how there is not an actual channel for whistleblowers
like them to bring forward information that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional
rights and liberties. Period. There was not a channel for that to happen in a real way, and
that's why they ended up taking the path that they did, and suffering the consequences."
This came at the end of a lengthy
discussion about WikiLeaks and the dangerous legal precedent that the Trump administration
is setting for press freedoms by prosecuting Assange, as well as the revelations about NSA
surveillance and what can be done to roll back those unchecked surveillance powers.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855
"What happened with [Assange's] arrest and all the stuff that just went down I think poses
a great threat to our freedom of the press and to our freedom of speech," Gabbard said.
"We look at what happened under the previous administration, under Obama. You know, they
were trying to find ways to go after Assange and WikiLeaks, but ultimately they chose not to
seek to extradite him or charge him, because they recognized what a slippery slope that
begins when you have a government in a position to levy criminal charges and consequences
against someone who's publishing information or saying things that the government doesn't
want you to say , and sharing information the government doesn't want you to share. And so
the fact that the Trump administration has chosen to ignore that fact, to ignore how
important it is that we uphold our freedoms, freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and
go after him, it has a very chilling effect on both journalists and publishers. And you can
look to those in traditional media and also those in new media, and also every one of us as
Americans. It was a kind of a warning call, saying Look what happened to this guy. It could
happen to you. It could happen to any one of us."
Gabbard discussed Mike Pompeo's arbitrary designation of WikiLeaks as a hostile non-state
intelligence service, the fact that James Clapper lied to Congress about NSA surveillance as
Director of National Intelligence yet suffered no consequences and remains a respected TV
pundit, and the opaque and unaccountable nature of FISA warrants.
Some other noteworthy parts of Gabbard's JRE appearance for people who don't have time to
watch the whole thing, with hyperlinks to the times in the video:
Rogan gets Gabbard talking
in depth about what Bashar al-Assad was actually like when she met him and what he said
to her, which I don't think I've ever seen anyone bother to do before.
The two discuss
Eisenhower's famous speech warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and
actually pause their dialogue to watch a good portion of it. Gabbard points out that in the
original draft of the speech, Eisenhower had intended to call it the
"congressional-military-industrial complex".
Rogan asks Gabbard what
she thinks happens to US presidents that causes them to fail to enact their campaign promises
and capitulate to the will of the warmongering establishment, and what as president she'll do
to avoid the same fate. All presidential candidates should have to answer this question.
Rogan asks Gabbard how
she'll stand against the billionaires for the American people without getting assassinated.
All presidential candidates should have to answer this question as well.
I honestly think the entire American political system would be better off if the phoney
debate stage format were completely abandoned and presidential candidates just talked
one-on-one with Joe Rogan for two and a half hours instead. Cut through all the vapid posturing
and the fake questions about nonsense nobody cares about and get them to go deep with a normal
human being who smokes pot and curses and does sports commentary for cage fighting. Rogan asked
Gabbard a bunch of questions that real people are interested in, in a format where she was
encouraged to relax out of her standard politician's posture and discuss significant ideas
sincerely and spontaneously. It was a good discussion with an interesting political figure and
I'm glad it's already racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
* * *
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Important interview with Tucker (this video contain a large fragment) and an interesting discussions.
Notable quotes:
"... Left or Right, you cannot question Gabbard's patriotism and intelligence and in-depth knowledge on war issues. Great candidate. ..."
"... She is an amazing diplomat - I support her 100% ..."
"... The way she conducts herself is an inspiration. I really like her. ..."
"... Just donated to Tulsi. We need her anti-imperialism on the mainstream debate stage. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard is the only one I have seen who isn't an overly hyberbolic shill. She embodies the concept of "speak softly and carry a big stick". ..."
"... Holly shit, I've never seen anyone on Fox News let their guest talk as much this? Especially Tucker being so calm, this makes me feel good. It must be Tulsi's vibe, someone as diplomatic and disciplined as her must be running the White House. ..."
Wow!! The sound of the voice of common sense & truth, for a change. I don't care if
she is Democrat or Republican ... this lady is voicing what the majority of people actually
think & believe.
Holly shit, I've never seen anyone on Fox News let their guest talk as much this?
Especially Tucker being so calm, this makes me feel good. It must be Tulsi's vibe, someone as
diplomatic and disciplined as her must be running the White House.
Below is the second half and conclusion of "Afghanistan,
the Forgotten Proxy War". While the previous sections examined the economic roots of
imperialism, as well as the historical context of the Cold War within which to situate the
Mujahideen, the following explores the anatomy of proxy warfare and media disinformation
campaigns which were at the heart of destabilizing Afghanistan. These were also a large part of
why there was little to no opposition to the Mujahideen from the Western 'left', whose
continued dysfunctionality cannot be talked about without discussing Zbigniew Brzezinski. We
also take a look at what led to the Soviet Union's demise and how that significantly affected
the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and many other parts of the world. The United
States has been at war in Afghanistan for four decades now, and it will reach its 40th year on
July 3, 2019. The original "moderate rebel"
One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against
Afghanistan was Osama
bin Laden , a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful family that owns a
Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal family. Before becoming
known as America's "boogeyman", Osama bin Laden was put in charge of
fundraising for the Mujahideen insurgents, creating numerous charities and foundations in
the process and working in coordination with Saudi intelligence (who acted as liaisons between
the fighters and the CIA). Journalist Robert Fisk even gave bin Laden a glowing review, calling
him a "
peace warrior " and a philanthropist in a 1993 report for the Independent . Bin
Laden also provided recruitment for the Mujahideen and is believed to have also received
security training from the CIA. And in 1989, the same year that Soviet troops withdrew, he
founded the terrorist organization Al Qaeda with a number of fighters he
had recruited to the Mujahideen. Although the PDPA had already been overthrown, and the Soviet
Union was dissolved, he still maintained his relationship with the CIA and NATO, working with
them from the
mid-to-late 1990s to provide support for the secessionist Bosnian paramilitaries and the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the destruction and dismantling of Yugoslavia.
The United States would eventually turn Bin Laden into a scapegoat after the 2001 terrorist
attacks, while still maintaining ties to his family and providing arms, training, and funding
to Al Qaeda and its affiliates (rebranded as "moderate rebels" by the Western media) in its
more recent regime change project against Syria, which started in 2011. The Mujahideen not only
gave birth to Al Qaeda, but it would set a precedent for the United States' regime-change
operations in later years against the anti-imperialist governments of Libya and Syria.
Reagan entertains Mujahideen fighters in the White House.
With the end to the cycle of
World Wars (for the time being, at least), it has become increasingly common for the United
States to use local paramilitaries, terrorist groups, and/or the armed forces of comprador
regimes to fight against nations targeted by U.S. capital interests. Why the use of proxy
forces? They are, as Whitney Webb
describes , "a politically safe tool for projecting the U.S.' geopolitical will abroad."
Using proxy warfare as a kind of power projection tool is, first and foremost, cost-effective,
since paid local mercenaries or terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda will bear the burden of
combat and casualties rather than American troops in places like Libya and Syria. For example,
it costs much less
to pay local paramilitaries, gangs, crime syndicates, terrorist groups, and other reactionary
forces to perform the same military operations as U.S. troops. Additionally, with the advent of
nuclear weapons it became much more perilous for global superpowers to come into direct combat
with one another -- if the Soviet Union and the United States had done so, there existed the
threat of "mutually assured destruction", the strong possibility of instantaneous and
catastrophic damage to the populations and the economic and living standards of both sides,
something neither side was willing to risk, even if it was U.S. imperialism's ultimate goal to
destroy the Soviet Union. And so, the U.S. was willing to use any other means necessary to
weaken the Soviet Union and safeguard its profits, which included eliminating the Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan even if it had neither the intent nor the means of launching a military
offensive on American soil. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had the means of producing a
considerably large supply of modern weapons, including nuclear deterrents, to counter the
credible threat posed by the United States. To strike the Soviet Union with nuclear missiles
would have been a great challenge for the United States, since it would have resulted in
overwhelming retaliation by the Soviet Union. To maneuver this problem, to assure the
destruction of the Soviet Union while protecting the U.S. from similar destruction, the CIA
relied on more unconventional methods not previously thought of as being part of traditional
warfare, such as funding proxy forces while wielding economic and cultural influence over the
American domestic sphere and the international scene. Furthermore, proxy warfare enables
control of public opinion, thus allowing the U.S. government to escape public scrutiny and
questions about legal authorization for war. With opposition from the general public
essentially under control, consent for U.S.-led wars does not need to be obtained, especially
when the U.S. military is running them from " behind the scenes " and
its involvement looks less obvious. Indeed, the protests against the war on Vietnam in the
United States and other Western countries saw mass turnouts.
And while the U.S.-led aggression in Vietnam did involve proxy warfare to a lesser degree,
it was still mostly fought with American "boots-on-the-ground", much like the 2001 renewed
U.S.-led aggression against Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In contrast, the U.S.
assault on Afghanistan that began in 1979 saw little to no protest. The Mujahideen even
garnered support from large portions of the Western left who joined the chorus of voices in the
Western mainstream media in demonizing the PDPA -- a relentless imperialist propaganda campaign
that would be repeated in later years during the U.S. wars on Libya and Syria, with the
difference being that social media had not yet gained prominence at the time of the initial
assault on Afghanistan. This leads to the next question: why recruit some of the most
reactionary social forces abroad, many of whom represent complete backwardness?
In Afghanistan, such forces proved useful in the mission to topple the modernizing
government of the PDPA, especially when their anti-modernity aspirations intersected with U.S.
foreign policy; these ultra-conservative forces continue to be deployed by the United States
today. In fact, the long war on Afghanistan shares many striking similarities with the long war
on Syria, with the common theme of U.S. imperialism collaborating with violent Sunni extremists
to topple the secular, nationalist and anti-imperialist governments of these two former 'Soviet
bloc' countries. And much like the PDPA, the current and long-time government of the Ba'ath
Arab Socialist Party in Syria has made many strides towards achieving national liberation and
economic development, which have included: taking land from aristocratic families (a majority
of whom were Sunni Muslims while Shia Muslims, but especially Alawites, traditionally belonged
to the lower classes and were treated as second class citizens in pre-Ba'athist Syria) and
redistributing and nationalizing it, making use of Syria's oil and gas reserves to modernize
the country and benefit its population, and upholding women's rights as an important part of
the Ba'athist pillars.
Some of these aristocratic landlords, just like their Afghan counterparts, would react
violently and join the Muslim Brotherhood who, with CIA-backing, carried out acts of terrorism
and other atrocities in Hama as they made a failed attempt to topple the government of Hafez al
Assad in 1982.
The connection between the two is further solidified by the fact that it was the Mujahideen
from which Al Qaeda emerged; both are inspired by Wahhabist ideology, and one of their chief
financiers is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as Israel, a regional imperial power and a
key ally of the United States). In either case, these Wahhabi-inspired forces were vehemently
opposed to modernization and development, and would much rather keep large sections of the
population impoverished, as they sought to replace the PDPA and the Ba'athists with Sunni
fundamentalist, anti-Shia, theological autocracies -- Saudi-style regimes, in other words.
These reactionary forces are useful tools in the CIA's anti-communist projects and
destabilization campaigns against independent nationalist governments, considering that the
groups' anti-modernity stance is a motivating factor in their efforts to sabotage economic
development, which is conducive to ensuring a favourable climate for U.S. capital interests. It
also helps that these groups already saw the nationalist governments of the PDPA and the Syrian
Ba'ath party as their 'archenemy', and would thus fight them to the death and resort to acts of
terrorism against the respective civilian populations.
Zbigniew Brzezinski stated in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in response
to the following question:
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given
arms and advice to future terrorists?
[Brzezinski]: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the
collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe
and the end of the cold war?
Once again, he makes it clear that the religious extremism of the Mujahideen fighters was
not an issue for Washington because the real political value lay in eliminating the PDPA and
putting an end to Soviet influence in the Greater Middle East, which would give the U.S. the
opportunity to easily access and steal the country's wealth. And in order to justify the U.S.
imperialist intervention in Afghanistan, as well as to obscure the true nature of the
Mujahideen fighters, the intervention needed to be accompanied by a rigorous mass media
campaign. The Reagan administration -- knowing full well that American mainstream media has
international influence -- continued the war that the Carter administration started and saw it
as an opportunity to "step up" its domestic propaganda war, considering that the American
general public was still largely critical of the Vietnam War at the time.
As part of the aggressive imperialist propaganda campaign, anyone who dared to publicly
criticize the Mujahideen was subjected to character assassination and was pejoratively labelled
a "Stalinist" or a "Soviet apologist", which are akin to labels such as "Russian agent" or
"Assadist" being used as insults today against those who speak out against the U.S.-backed
terrorism in Syria. There were also careful rebranding strategies made specifically for Osama
bin Laden and the Mujahideen mercenaries, who were hailed as "revolutionary freedom fighters"
and given a romantic, exoticized "holy warrior" makeover in Western media; hence the title of
this section. The Mujahideen mercenaries were even given a dedication title card at the end of
the Hollywood movie Rambo III which read, "This film is dedicated to the brave
Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan"; the film itself added to the constructed romantic image as
it portrayed the Mujahideen fighters as heroes, while the Soviet Union and the PDPA were
portrayed as the cartoonish villains. The Rambo film franchise is well known for its
depiction of the Vietnamese as "savages" and as the aggressors in the U.S. war on Vietnam,
which is a blatant reversal of the truth .
The Hollywood blockbuster franchise would be used to make the Mujahideen more palatable to
Western audiences, as this unabashed, blatantly anti-Soviet propaganda for U.S. imperialism
attracted millions of viewers with one of the largest movie marketing campaigns of the time. Although
formulaic, the films are easily consumable because they appeal to emotion and, as Michael
Parenti states in Dirty Truths , "The entertainment industry does not merely give the
people what they want: it is busy shaping those wants," (p. 111). Rambo III may
not have been critically
acclaimed , but it was still the second most commercially successful film in the
Rambo series, grossing a total of $189,015,611 at the box
office . Producing war propaganda films is nothing new and has been a long staple of the
Hollywood industry, which serves capitalist and imperialist interests. But, since the
blockbuster movie is one of the most widely available and distributed forms of media,
repackaging the Mujahideen into a popular film franchise was easily one of the best ways
(albeit cynical) to justify the war, maintaining the
American constructed narrative and reinforcing the demonization campaign against Soviet
Russia and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Now, outside of the cinema, CBS News went as
far as to air fake battle footage meant to help perpetuate the myth that the Mujahideen
mercenaries were "freedom fighters"; American journalists Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould,
although decidedly biased against the Soviet Union and its allies, documented this ruse
in which the news channel participated. In terms of proxy warfare, these were just some of the
ways used to distract from the fact that it was a U.S.-led war.
The dedication title card as it originally appeared at the end of the film Rambo III.
In Afghanistan, proxy forces provided a convenient cover because they drew attention away
from the fact that U.S. imperialism was the root cause of the conflict. The insurgents also
helped to demonize the targets of U.S. foreign policy, the PDPA and the Soviet Union, all the
while doing the majority of the physical combat in place of the American military. In general,
drawing attention away from the fact that it has been the United States "pulling the strings"
all along, using proxy forces helps Washington to maintain
plausible deniability in regard to its relationship with such groups. If any one of these
insurgents becomes a liability, as what had happened with the Taliban, they can just as easily
be disposed of and replaced by more competent patsies, while U.S. foreign policy goes
unquestioned. Criminal gangs and paramilitary
forces are thus ideal and convenient tools for U.S. foreign policy. With the rule of
warlords and the instability (namely damage to infrastructure, de-industrialization, and
societal collapse) that followed after the toppling of the PDPA, Afghanistan's standard of
living dropped rapidly, leading to forced mass migrations and making the country all the more
vulnerable to a more direct U.S. military intervention -- which eventually did happen in
2001.
Zbigniew Brzezinski: godfather of colour revolutions and proxy wars, architect of the
Mujahideen
The late Brzezinski was a key figure in U.S. foreign policy and a highly influential figure
in the Council on Foreign Relations. Although the Polish-American diplomat and political
scientist was no longer the National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan's presidency, he
still continued to play a prominent role in enforcing U.S. foreign policy goals in upholding
Washington's global monopoly. The liberal Cold War ideologue's signature strategy consisted of
using the CIA to destabilize and force regime-change onto countries whose governments actively
resisted against Washington. Such is the legacy of Brzezinski, whose strategy of funding the
most reactionary anti-government forces to foment chaos and instability while promoting them as
"freedom fighters" is now a longstanding staple of U.S. imperialism.
How were the aggressive propaganda campaigns which promoted the Mujahideen mercenaries as
"freedom fighters" able to garner support for the aggression against the former Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan from so many on the Western left who had previously opposed the war on
Vietnam? It was the through the CIA's use of 'soft-power' schemes, because leftist opinion also
needed to be controlled and manipulated in the process of carrying out U.S. foreign and public
policy. Brzezinski mastered the art of targeting intelligentsia and impressionable young people
in order to make them supportive of U.S. foreign policy, misleading a significant number of
people into supporting U.S.-led wars.
The CIA invested money into programs that used university campus, anti-Soviet "radical
leftist activists" and academics (as well as artists and writers) to help spread imperialist
propaganda dressed up in vaguely "leftist"-sounding language and given a more "hip",
"humanitarian", "social justice", "free thinker" appeal. Western, but especially American,
academia has since continued to teach the post-modernist "oppression theory" or "privilege
theory" to students, which is anti-Marxist and anti-scientific at its core. More importantly,
this post-modernist infiltration was meant to distract from class struggle, to help divert any
form of solidarity away from anti-imperialist struggles, and to foster virulent animosity
towards the Soviet Union among students and anyone with 'leftist' leanings. Hence the
phenomenon of identity politics that continues to plague the Western left today, whose strength
was effectively neutered by the 1970s. Not only that, but as Gowans mentions in his book,
Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom :
"U.S. universities recruit talented individuals from abroad, instill in them the U.S.
imperialist ideology and values, and equip them with academic credentials which conduce to
their landing important political positions at home. In this way, U.S. imperial goals
indirectly structure the political decision-making of other countries." (pp. 52-53)
And so we have agencies and think-tanks such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
which has scholarly appeal and actively interferes in elections abroad -- namely, in countries
that are targets of U.S. foreign policy. Founded in 1983 by Reagan and directed by the CIA, the
agency also assists in mobilizing coups and paid "dissidents" in U.S.-led regime change
projects, such as the 2002 failed attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as well as helping
to create aggressive media campaigns that demonize targeted nations. Another instance of this
"soft power" tactic of mobilizing U.S.-backed "dissidents" in targeted nations are the number
of Sunni Islamic fundamentalist
madrassas (schools) sponsored by the CIA and set up by Wahhabi missionaries from Saudi
Arabia in Afghanistan -- which started to appear in increasing numbers during the 1980s,
reaching over 39,000 during the decade. Afghanistan's public education institutions were
largely secular prior to the fall of Kabul in 1992; these madrassas were the direct,
ideological and intellectual antitheses to the existing institutions of education. The
madrassas acted as centres for cult-like brainwashing and were essentially CIA covert
psychological operations (psy-ops) intended to inspire divisiveness and demobilize younger
generations of Afghans in the face of imperial onslaught so that they would not unite with the
wider PDPA-led nationalist resistance to imperialism.
The NED's founding members were comprised of Cold War ideologues which included Brzezinski
himself, as well as Trotskyists who provided an endless supply of slurs against the Soviet
Union. It was chiefly under this agency, and with direction provided by Brzezinski, that
America produced artists, "activists", academics, and writers who presented themselves as
"radical leftists" and slandered the Soviet Union and countries that were aligned with it --
which was all part of the process of toppling them and subjugating them to U.S. free market
fundamentalism. With Brzezinski having mastered the art of encouraging postmodernism and
identity politics among the Western left in order to weaken it, the United States not only had
military and economic might on its side but also highly sophisticated ideological instruments
to help give it the upper hand in propaganda wars.
These "soft power" schemes are highly effective in masking the brutality of U.S.
imperialism, as well as concealing the exploitation of impoverished nations. Marketing the
Mujahideen mercenaries as "peace warriors" while demonizing the PDPA and referring to the
Soviet assistance as an "invasion" or "aggression" marked the beginning of the regular use of
"humanitarian" pretexts for imperialist interventions. The Cold War era onslaught against
Afghanistan can thus be seen as the template for the NATO-led regime change projects against
Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, which not only involved the use of U.S.-backed proxy forces but
also "humanitarian" pretexts being presented in the aggressive propaganda campaigns against the
targeted countries. It was not until 2002, however, that then-American UN representative
Samantha Powers, as well as several U.S.-allied representatives, would push the United Nations
to officially adopt the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine into the Charter -- which
was in direct contradiction to the law that recognizes the violation of a nation's sovereignty
as a crime. The R2P doctrine was born out of the illegal 78-day NATO
air-bombing of Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 10, 1999. And although plans to dismantle
Yugoslavia go as far back as 1984, it was not until much of the 1990s that NATO would begin
openly intervening --
with more naked aggression -- starting with the funding and support for secessionist
paramilitary forces in Bosnia between 1994-1995. It then sealed the 1999 destruction of
Yugoslavia with with the balkanization of the Serbian province of Kosovo . In addition
to the use of terrorist and paramilitary groups as proxy forces which received CIA-training and
funding, another key feature of this "humanitarian" intervention was the ongoing demonization
campaigns against the Serbs, who were at the centre of a vicious Western media propaganda war.
Some of the most egregious parts of these demonization campaigns -- which were tantamount to
slander and libel -- were the claims that the Serbs were "
committing genocide " against ethnic Albanians. The NATO bombing campaign was illegal since
it was given no UN Security Council approval or support.
Once again, Brzezinski was not the National Security Advisor during the U.S.-led campaign
against Yugoslavia. However, he still continued to wield influence as a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations, a private organization and Wall Street think tank. The Council on Foreign
Relations is intertwined with highly influential NGOs who are essentially propaganda
mouthpieces for U.S. foreign policy, such as Human Rights Watch, which has fabricated stories
of atrocities allegedly committed by countries targeted by U.S. imperialism. Clearly,
unmitigated U.S. imperial aggression did not end with the destruction of the former Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan, nor with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The post-Cold War years
were a continuation of U.S. imperialism's scramble for more spheres of influence and global
domination; it was also a scramble for what was left of the former 'Soviet bloc' and Warsaw
Pact. The dismantling of Yugoslavia was, figuratively speaking, the 'final nail in the coffin'
of whatever 'Soviet influence' was left in Eastern Europe.
The demise of the Soviet Union and the "Afghan trap" question
Image on the right: Left to right: former Afghan President Babrak Karmal, and former Soviet
leader Leonid Brezhnev. Karmal took office at around the same time (December 1979) the PDPA
requested that Moscow intervene to assist the besieged Afghanistan.
The sabotage and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that only one global
hegemon remained, and that was the United States. Up until 1989, the Soviet Union had been the
barrier that was keeping the United States from launching a more robust military intervention
in Afghanistan, as well as in Central and West Asia. While pulling out did not immediately
cause the defeat of Kabul as the PDPA government forces continued to struggle for another three
years, Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to withdraw Soviet troops arguably had a
detrimental impact on Afghanistan for many years to come. Although there was no Soviet
military assistance in the last three years of Najibullah's presidency, Afghanistan continued
to receive aid from the USSR, and some Soviet military advisers (however limited in their
capacity) still remained; despite the extreme difficulties, and combined with the nation's
still-relatively high morale, this did at least help to keep the government from being
overthrown immediately. This defied U.S. expectations as the CIA and the George H.W. Bush
administration had believed that the government of Najibullah would fall as soon as Soviet
troops were withdrawn. But what really hurt the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's army was
when the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991; almost as soon as the dissolution happened and
Boris Yeltsin (with U.S. backing) took over as Russia's president, the aid stopped coming and
the government forces became unable to hold out for much longer. The U.S. aggression was left
unchecked, and to this day Afghanistan has not
seen geopolitical stability and has since been a largely impoverished 'failed state',
serving as a training ground for terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. It continues to be
an anarchic battleground between rival warlords which include the ousted Taliban and the U.S.
puppet government that replaced them.
But, as was already mentioned above, the "Afghan trap" did not, in and of itself, cause the
dismantling of the Soviet Union. In that same interview with Le Nouvel Observateur ,
Brzezinski had this to say in response to the question about setting the "trap":
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself
desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
[Brzezinski]: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we
knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Likewise with Cuba and Syria, the USSR had a well-established alliance with the
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, one of mutual aid and partnership. Answering Kabul's
explicit request for assistance was a deliberate and conscious choice made by Moscow, and it
just so happened that the majority of Afghans welcomed it. For any errors that Leonid Brezhnev,
the General Secretary at the time, may have made (which do deserve a fair amount of criticism,
but are not the focus of this article), the 1979 decision to intervene on behalf of Afghanistan
against U.S. imperialism was not one of them. It is true that both the Soviet and the U.S.
interventions were military interventions, but the key difference is that the U.S. was backing
reactionary forces for the purposes of establishing colonial domination and was in clear
violation of Afghan sovereignty. Consider, too, that Afghanistan had only deposed of its king
in 1973, just six years before the conflict began. The country may have moved quickly to
industrialize and modernize, but it wasn't much time to fully develop its military defenses by
1979.
Image below: Mikhail Gorbachev accepts the Nobel Peace Prize from George H.W. Bush on
October 15, 1990. Many Russians saw this gesture as a betrayal, while the West celebrated it,
because he was being awarded for his capitulation to U.S. imperialism in foreign and economic
policy.
Other than that, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Soviet Union imploded due
to an accumulating number of factors: namely, the gradual steps that U.S. foreign policy had
taken over the years to cripple the Soviet economy, especially after the deaths of Brezhnev and
Yuri Andropov. How Gorbachev responded during the U.S.-led onslaught against Afghanistan
certainly helped to exacerbate the conditions that led to the dissolution. After the deaths of
Brezhnev and Andropov, the Soviet Union's economy became disorganized and was being liberalized
during much of the 1980s. Not only that, but the Reagan administration escalated the arms race,
which intensified after they had scrapped the 'detente' that was previously made in the
mid-1970s. Even prior to Reagan's hardline, bombastic rhetoric and escalation against the USSR,
the Soviet Union was already beginning to show signs of strain from the arms race during the
late-1970s. However, in spite of the economic strains, during the height of the war the
organized joint operations between the Soviet army and the Afghan army saw a significant amount
of success in pushing back against the Mujahideen with many of the jihadist leaders either
being killed or fleeing to Pakistan. Therefore, it is erroneous to say that intervening in
Afghanistan on behalf of the Afghan people "did the Soviet Union in."
In a misguided and ultimately failed attempt to spur economic growth rates, Gorbachev moved
to end the Cold War by withdrawing military support from allies and pledging cooperation with
the United States who promised "peace". When he embraced Neoliberalism and allowed for the USSR
to be opened to the U.S.-dominated world capitalist economy, the Soviet economy imploded and
the effects were felt by its allies. It was a capitulation to U.S. imperialism, in other words;
and it led to disastrous results not only in Afghanistan, but in several other countries as
well. These include: the destruction of Yugoslavia, both wars on Iraq, and the 2011 NATO
invasion of Libya. Also, Warsaw Pact members in Eastern Europe were no longer able to
effectively fight back against U.S.-backed colour revolutions; some of them would eventually be
absorbed as NATO members, such as Czechoslovakia which was dissolved and divided into two
states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Without Soviet Russia to keep it in check, the United
States was able to launch an unrestrained series of aggressions for nearly two decades. Because
of his decision to withdraw from the arms race altogether, in a vain attempt to transform the
Soviet Union into a social democracy akin to those of the Nordic countries, Gorbachev had
deprived the Russian army of combat effectiveness by making significant cuts to its defense
budget, which is partly why they were forced to evacuate. Not only that, but these diplomatic
and military concessions with the United States gave them no benefit in return, hence the
economic crisis in Russia during the Yeltsin years. Suffice to say, the Gorbachev-Yeltsin years
are not remembered fondly in Russia and many regard Gorbachev as a traitor and Western agent
who helped to bring the Soviet Union to its collapse. In more recent years,
efforts are being made to assess the actions taken by Gorbachev with regards to
Afghanistan; this includes going against and revising the resolution put forth by him which
suggested that the USSR intervention was "shameful".
In short, Afghanistan did not cause the Soviet Union's demise even if it required large
military spending. More accurately: it was Gorbachev's impulsive decision to quickly discard
the planned economy in favour of a market economy in order to appease the United States, who
made the false promise that NATO would not expand eastward. If there was a real "trap", it was
this and Gorbachev played right into the hands of U.S. imperialism; and so, the Soviet Union
received its devastating blow from the United States in the end -- not from a small, minor
nation such as Afghanistan which continues to suffer the most from the effects of these past
events. For many years, but especially since the end of WWII, the United States made ceaseless
efforts to undermine the USSR, adding stress upon stress onto its economy, in addition to the
psychological warfare waged through the anti-Soviet propaganda and military threats against it
and its allies. Despite any advances made in the past, the Soviet Union's economy was still not
as large as that of the United States. And so, in order to keep pace with NATO, the Soviet
Union did not have much of a choice but to spend a large percentage of its GDP on its military
and on helping to defend its allies, which included national liberation movements in the Third
World, because of the very real and significant threat that U.S. imperialism posed. If it had
not spent any money militarily, its demise would most likely have happened much sooner. But
eventually, these mounting efforts by U.S. imperialism created a circumstance where its
leadership under Gorbachev made a lapse in judgment, reacting impulsively and carelessly rather
than acting with resilience in spite of the onslaught.
It should also be taken into account that WWII had a profound impact on Soviet leadership --
from Joseph Stalin to Gorbachev -- because even though the Red Army was victorious in defeating
the Nazis, the widespread destruction had still placed the Soviet economy under an incredible
amount of stress and it needed time to recover. Meanwhile, the convenient geographical location
of the United States kept it from suffering the same casualties and infrastructural damage seen
across Europe and Asia as a result of the Second World War, which enabled its economy to
recover much faster and gave it enough time to eventually develop the U.S. Dollar as
the international currency and assert dominance over the world economy. Plus, the U.S. had
accumulated two-thirds of the world's gold reserves by 1944 to help back the Dollar; and even
if it lost a large amount of the gold, it would still be able to maintain Dollar supremacy by
developing the fiat system to back the currency. Because of the destruction seen during WWII,
it is understandable that the Soviet Union wanted to avoid another world war, which is why it
also made several attempts at achieving some kind of diplomacy
with the United States (before Gorbachev outright capitulated). At the same time, it also
understood that maintaining its military defenses was important because of the threat of a
nuclear war from the United States, which would be much more catastrophic than the Nazis'
military assaults against the Soviet Union since Hitler did not have a nuclear arsenal. This
was part of a feat that U.S. imperialism was able to accomplish that ultimately overshadowed
British, French, German, and Japanese imperialism, which Brzezinski reveals in his book, The
Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives : an unparalleled
military establishment that, by far, had the most effective global reach which allowed the U.S.
to "project forces over long distances", helping it to assert its global domination and impose
its "political will". And what makes the American Empire distinct from the Japanese Empire,
British Empire, and other European empires is that one of the bases for its ideology is the
socially constructed international hierarchy of nations, and not races as was the case with the
other aforementioned empires. This constructed international hierarchy of nations is more
effective because it means not only greater expansionism, but also the greater ability to
exercise global primacy and supremacy. More specific to Central Asia and the Middle East, the
Wahhabist and Salafist
groups propped up by the CIA were always
intended to nurture sectarianism and discord in order to counter a mass, broad-based united
front of nations against imperialism -- an example of divide-and-conquer, which is an age-old
tradition of empire, except this time with Neoliberal characteristics.
Therefore, the
Mujahideen against Afghanistan should not be thought of simply as "the Afghan trap", but rather
as the U.S. subjugation and plundering of West and Central Asia and an important milestone
(albeit a cynical one) in shaping its foreign policy with regards to the region for many years
to come. If one thing has remained a constant in U.S. foreign policy towards West and Central
Asia, it is its strategic partnership with the oil autocracy of Saudi Arabia, which acts as the
United States' steward in safeguarding the profits of American petroleum corporations and
actively assists Western powers in crushing secular Arab and Central Asian nationalist
resistance against imperialism. The Saudi monarchy would again be called on by the U.S.
government in 2011 in Syria to assist in the repeated formula of funding and arming so-called
"moderate rebels" in the efforts to destabilize the country. Once again, the ultimate goal in
this more recent imperial venture is to contain Russia.
Cold War 2.0? American Supremacy marches on
The present-day anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of the anti-Soviet propaganda of the
Cold War era; while anti-communism is not the central theme today, one thing remains the same:
the fact that the U.S. Empire is (once again) facing a formidable challenge to its position in
the world. After the Yeltsin years were over, and under Vladimir Putin, Russia's economy
eventually recovered and moved towards a more dirigiste economy; and on top of that, it moved
away from the NATO fold, which triggered the old antagonistic relationship with the United
States. Russia has also decided to follow the global trend of taking the step towards
reducing reliance on the
U.S. dollar , which is no doubt a source of annoyance to the U.S. capitalist class. It
seems that a third world war in the near future is becoming more likely as the U.S. inches
closer to a direct military confrontation against Russia and, more recently, China. History
does appear to be repeating itself. When the government of Bashar al Assad called on Moscow for
assistance in fighting against the NATO-backed terrorists, it certainly was reminiscent of when
the PDPA had done the same many years before. Thus far, the Syrian Arab Republic has continued
to withstand the destabilization efforts carried out by the Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist
groups and Kurdish militias at the behest of the United States, and has not collapsed as Libya,
Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan did.
But what often gets overlooked is the repeated Brzezinskist formula of funding highly
reactionary forces and promoting them as "revolutionaries" to Western audiences in order to
fight governments that defy the global dictatorship of the United States and refuse to allow
the West to exploit their natural resources and labour power. As Karl Marx once said , "Men
make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under
self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted
from the past." Such a phenomenon is no accident or a mere mistake. The geopolitical
instability that followed after the overthrow of the PDPA ensures that no sound, united, and
formidable opposition against U.S. imperialism will emerge for an indefinite number of years;
and it seems that Libya, where the Brzezinskist-style of regime change also saw success and
which is now a hotbed for the slave trade, is on the same path as Afghanistan. This is all a
part of what Lenin calls moribund capitalism
when he discussed the economic essence of imperialism; and by that, he meant that imperialism
carries the contradictions of capitalism to the extreme
limit . American global monopoly had grown out of U.S. foreign policy, and it should go
without saying that the American Empire cannot tolerate losing its Dollar Supremacy, especially
when the global rate of profit is falling. And if too many nations reject U.S. efforts to
infiltrate their markets and force foreign finance capital exports onto their economies in
order to gain a monopoly over the resources, as well as to exploit the labour of their working
people, it would surely spell a sharp decline in American Dollar hegemony. The fact that the
United States was willing to go as far as to back mercenaries to attack the former Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan and fight the Soviet Union, as well as to spend billions of dollars on
a highly elaborate but effective propaganda campaign, shows a sign of desperation of the
American Empire in maintaining its global hegemony.
Since the end of World War II the United States has been, and is by and large still, the
overwhelming world-dominating power. It is true that the American Empire is in decline, in
light of increasing trends towards "de-Dollarization," as well as the rise of China and Russia
which pose as challenges to U.S. interests. Naturally, Washington will desperately try to cling
on to its number one position in the world by accelerating the growth of its global monopolies
-- whether it is through placing wholly unnecessary tariffs against competitors such as China,
or threatening to completely cut
Venezuelan and Iranian oil out of the global market -- even if it means an increasing drive
towards World War III. The current global economic order which Washington elites have been
instrumental in shaping over the past several decades reflects the interests of the global
capitalist class to such an extent that the working class is threatened with yet another world
war despite the unimaginable carnage witnessed during the first two.
When we look back at these historical events to help make sense of the present, we see how
powerful mass media can be and how it is used as a tool of U.S. foreign policy to manipulate
and control public opinion. Foreign policy is about the economic relationships between
countries. Key to understanding how U.S. imperialism functions is in its foreign policy and how
it carries it out -- which adds up to plundering from relatively small or poorer nations more
than a share of wealth and resources that can be normally produced in common commercial
exchanges, forcing them to be indebted; and if any of them resist, then they will almost
certainly be subjected to military threats.
With the great wealth that allowed it to build a military that can "project forces over long
distances," the United States is in a unique position in history, to say the least. However, as
we have seen above, the now four decade-long war on Afghanistan was not only fought on a
military front considering the psy-ops and the propaganda involved. If anything, the Soviet
Union lost on the propaganda front in the end.
From Afghanistan we learn not only of the origins of Al Qaeda, to which the boom in the
opioid-addiction epidemic has ties, or why today we have the phenomenon of an anti-Russia
Western "left" that parrots imperialist propaganda and seems very eager to see that piece of
Cold War history repeat itself in Syria. We also learn that we cannot de-link the events of the
2001 direct U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and what followed from those of 1979;
Afghanistan's colonial-feudal past, its break from that with the 1978 Saur Revolution, and the
U.S.-led Mujahideen are all as much of a part of its history (and the Greater Middle East, by
extension) as the events of 2001. It cannot be stressed enough that it is those historical
conditions, particularly as they relate to U.S. foreign policy, that helped to shape the
ongoing conflict today.
Obviously, we cannot undo the past. It is not in the interests of the working class
anywhere, in the Global South or in the Global North, to see a third world war happen, as such
a war would have catastrophic consequences for everyone -- in fact, it could potentially
destroy all of humanity. Building a new and revitalized anti-war movement in the imperialist
nations is a given, but it also requires a more sophisticated understanding of U.S. foreign
policy. Without historical context, Western mass media will continue to go unchallenged,
weaning audiences on a steady diet of "moderate rebels" propaganda and effectively silencing
the victims of imperialism. It is necessary to unite workers across the whole world according
to their shared interests in order to effectively fight and defeat imperialism and to establish
a just, egalitarian, and sustainable world under socialism. Teaching the working class
everywhere the real history of such conflicts as the one in Afghanistan is an important part of
developing the revolutionary consciousness necessary to build a strong global revolutionary
movement against imperialism.
*
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Originally published by LLCO.org on March 30, 2019. For the full-length article and
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What is funny is that MARGARET BRENNAN is to the right of Pompeo. That's a real
achievement. Pompeo probably was surprised that he was put on the defensive from his right-wing position by this warmongering
female neocon.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got the whole world as your portfolio so let's
move on to Venezuela and Russia. There was this phone call between Vladimir Putin and President
Trump that just happened. The president described it to us in an Oval Office spray. Why didn't
he bring up election interference on this phone call when he said he did discuss the findings
of the Mueller Report which found sweeping and systematic Russian interference in 2016?
SEC. POMPEO: Well you'll have to ask the White House that question. The president's been
very clear. The administration has taken great action. I wish the previous one had stopped the
election interference that took place in 2016. They failed to do so. Between 2017 when
President Trump came into office and 2018, we had a successful election year, a set of midterm
elections. We're working diligently to ensure that the elections in 2020 aren't interfered with
by Russia, by Iran, by North Korea or anyone else. We have enormous resource deployed against
that challenge. And the American people should be sure that their government is working hard to
keep our election safe and secure.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You said, this week, that Moscow has hundreds of people in Venezuela and
you were very clear that you think it was Russia that convinced Nicolas Maduro not to get on a
plane and to flee the country. Here's what the president said during his- after his phone call
with Vladimir Putin.
*Take SOT*
MARGARET BRENNAN: There seems to be a difference in how the president described the
situation and how you and Ambassador Bolton have described it.
SEC. POMPEO: No, no difference, no difference. The- the president has said, I think he in
fact tweeted, that the Russians must leave Venezuela. We've asked every nation that is in-
interfering with Venezuelan democracy- you've seen this. I- I was down on the border. We saw
mothers who couldn't feed their children, fleeing the country. We saw families that had sick
kids but couldn't get medicines, all sitting, was sitting within 50 miles of where we were
located. And Maduro won't allow it to come in. The president's been very clear, we want the
Cubans out. There are Iranians on the ground there. We want the Russians- we want everyone out
so that the Venezuelan people can get the democracy they deserve. That includes Mr. Maduro
leaving.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So when he says, the president says, "Putin is not looking to get involved
at all in Venezuela," that is not the president accepting him at face value?
SEC. POMPEO: You'll- you'll have to leave- you'll have to look at--
MARGARET BRENNAN: He knows that that's not the case?
SEC. POMPEO: The- the president has tweeted that he wants the Russians out of Venezuela.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So he was just putting a positive spin on things in that moment?
SEC. POMPEO: We- we are working very diligently to ensure that Maduro leaves and we get free
and fair elections in Venezuela. That will require the 2,300 Cuban security personnel, the-
frankly, the people closest to Maduro who are protecting the in- tight security for Maduro,
they've got to leave. We're working on that as well. We're working with the Cubans to try and
get an outcome that will let the Venezuelans have this opportunity.
MARGARET BRENNAN: On this, I know you'll be meeting with the Russian foreign minister in the
coming days. Is there a deal to be struck with Russia on this front? I mean, Russia benefits,
right, by having Venezuelan oil off the market, by having a level of influence in America's
backyard. Is the U.S. going to negotiate a deal with Russia on Venezuela?
SEC. POMPEO: I'll certainly bring up Venezuela, be one of many topics that Foreign Minister
Lav- Lavrov and I speak about- speak about. Whether there's a particular deal that can be
reached? Only time will tell.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who I know you
know well tweeted this week, "Cuba, Russia sent troops to prop up Maduro in Venezuela while we
talk and have sanctions. Where's our aircraft carrier?" He seems to be calling a bluff here on
your mention and mention from others that military options aren't off the table. What is
actually being considered here because you can't refer to the use of military force lightly. Is
there an actual option that you are considering deploying in the coming days?
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging
their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything
Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's
direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine
and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' (
5 ).
Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country,
their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was
the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald
Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).
By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin
concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study
this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any
entente between Moscow and Washington.
Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump
and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe
an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails
fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' (
8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.
The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their
middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (
9 ). So they were searching for any information
or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone
had his particular motive for striking the same victim.
The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such
as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects
of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During
the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because
he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (
10 ).
Ambitions of a 'deep state'?
The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military
crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press
criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though
that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying
the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.
Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass
surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had
become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with
hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as
well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing
-- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging
those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).
The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'.
'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in
Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president
on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about
Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (
12 ).
Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has
transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative
bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert
opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.
This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses
the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia.
Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no
one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but
by the Obama administration?
The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director
James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II.
That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose.
Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.
The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor
in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance
of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy'
and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time
in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'
Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining
resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President
Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute
to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.
No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers
(trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation
of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike
Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'
At this stage, it doesn't
matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own
conclusions.
@FB Yeah brother that
POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to
anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced
to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
@SeekerofthePresence
Thank you your comment is very much appreciated. But I'm definitely not a spokesman for moral truth, just the truth. I just watch
in amazement from Mexico at what the US government has become. A den of the most vile people ever assembled in the world far worse
than the people that demanded the crucification of Jesus Christ. We just went through a serious political conversion, but the
people had to hit the streets for it to succeed. I just don't think the American people feel they are in a do or die situation,
and they couldn't more wrong.
U.S. Foreign Policy used to have only two instruments in
dealing with rest of the world, namely carrots and sticks. Since the fall of Soviet Union and
certainly after 9/11, only sticks remain. Now the World including the so-called allies are
getting tired of the threats and start ignoring the Empire, hence the diminishing
effectiveness, paving the way for polymorphic World. This transition is fraught with dangers as
pointed out by the Author.
Lovely post by Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor on the end of empire:
"John Bolton is the problem"
"Trump's national security adviser is getting dangerous particularly to the president's
ideals"
Douglas Macgregor https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/
Could also be titled, "How to Exhaust an Empire."
Sun Tzu warned of the same demise in the "Art of War."
Didn't they used to teach that book at West Point?
@El Dato
And also the 90 minute Trump-Putin phone call, where Venezuela was the main subject
From the way I understand Trump's comments afterward, it seems the military option is off
the table the two presidents agreed that humanitarian aid is the priority
This is great news I have to give Trump credit here Justin Raimondo presciently opined a
week ago that Trump may have been giving the 'walrus' just enough rope on Venezuela to hang
himself
I have to wonder what Vlad whispered in carrot top's ear
When we take a close look at the American Government and it's elected officials, we can only
come to one conclusion. The US is a thriving criminal enterprise that uses force to get what
they want. The military's role is that of enforcers and the US President is no different than
a Mafia Don. In no other time in US history has Government and Organized Criminal Gangs been
so indistinguishable. George H.W. Bush with his New World Order announcements, his CIA drug
dealing operations and military invasion of Panama to steal the drug cartel's money deposited
in that county's banks, came close. Bill Clinton working with George H.W. Bush protecting
drug shipments smuggled into Mena, AK, the cover up of murdered witnesses and numerous sexual
assault allegations also came pretty close.
But when George W. Bush, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld came into power,
that was a Mafia if there was ever one. That group of criminals stole more money and murdered
more people than any criminal organization in history. They even conned the American people
into believing some rag-heads in Afghanistan hiding in caves did it. It was the first time
since Pancho Villa that anyone attacked the US on its own soil. Not only did they steal all
the gold stored in bank vaults located in the Twin Towers, but they put money on the stock
market. In true gangster fashion the next move was to retaliate against the Muslim Mafia who
was fingered by Mayer Lanski (Benjamin Nuttenyahoo) and their own paid snitches (MSM). It was
time to hit mattresses and send their enforcers to get payback so the Purple Gang (Israel)
can take over their territory.
There is a big difference between the US Government and the Mafia when it comes to war,
the Mafia adheres to a strict code of ethics, they do not target their enemies families.
In 2016 the American people elected a true gangster from New York city. A known con man, a
swindler, a tax evader and known associate of the criminal underground. A man with numerous
court cases and 23 accusations of sexual assault. A man who was screwing a porn star while
his wife was given birth. A man who's mentor was Roy Cohen a mob attorney and practicing
homosexual who died of AIDS. A man that surrounded himself with the most perverted group of
people in New York such as: Roger Stone a well known swinger and gay pride participant. Paul
Manafort a convicted criminal and swinger who attended the same clubs as Stone along with
their wives. They liked to watch their wives get screwed by other men. Lets not forget John
Bolton who was exposed by Larry Flint for also being a swinger. His ex-wife accused him of
forcing her to perform sex acts with multiple men at the same clubs the other 2 cuckolds
attended. A Russian agent once commented that the best place to find government people to
blackmail was the New York swingers scene.
Jeffery Epstein tops the list of perverted friends of Donald Trump. Epstein is the worst
kind of perverted human being. The predator pedophile that uses his money to lure young girls
into his sick world. Epstein holds the key to uncovering the nation wide pedophile ring that
include some of the most famous people in the US. This is Trump's Mafia, a Mafia not like the
Gambinos or Luchesis. A Mafia full of Perverts, Criminals, Pedophiles and Cuckolds. These are
just a few of the people in Trump's circle of friends. If these are your leaders, what does
that say about the American people!
My dad used to tell me tell me who you hang around with, and I'll tell you who you are!
Every single person in DC government is compromised! And this incompetent Mafia of Perverts
want you to believe that Madurro is a corrupt leader and Iran is a threat to the US!
Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously
underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from
sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine
"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.
But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct
control over the military.
"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start
all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."
They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who
end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
comes to mind."
" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.
"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets
rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.
So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth
seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And
that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion
during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine
--------------
Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the
USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on
the subject. pl
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A
personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully
advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary
positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't
stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.
But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior
govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress
doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and
cultures running the rest of the world?
A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned
the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type
B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"
Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat
primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of
non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the
corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul
Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I
found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan,
Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.
The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo,
especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly
at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec
and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for
campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss
of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.
My best hope is that
Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far
Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff
"are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's
America First policy. Any thoughts?
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full
of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a
successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from
Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was
owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat
there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he
turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the
room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that
was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner
for failing to "win".
You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they
can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump
out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in
pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the
last 50 years.
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to
walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people
and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense
pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.
Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative
consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to
his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they
could matter.
Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to
their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart
enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central
to many of our poor strategic decision making.
Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was
Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the
draft once it was presented to him?
I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in
using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he
really does not want one.
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits
which undermine his credibility.
"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the
time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."
Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was
fair.
"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American
public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of
course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual
portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at
times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and
shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no
idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and
set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field
somewhere to violate farm animals.
If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to
find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?
This was true about Iraq war. This is true about Venezuela and Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. ..."
"... Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. ..."
"... Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 . ..."
"... Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.) ..."
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small c rappy little country and
throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
- Michael
Ledeen , holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Actually, the U.S. had been beating Iraq's head against the wall for a dozen years, with
sanctions and bombing. The
sanctions alone killed over a million Iraqis, far more than have been done in by weapons of
mass destruction throughout history. But Ledeen's indiscreet remark, delivered at an AEI
conference and reported by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online , does capture some
of what the war on Iraq is about.
And what is this "business" Ledeen says we mean? Oil, of course, of which more in a bit.
Ditto construction contracts for Bechtel. But it's more than that - nothing less than the
desire, often expressed with little shame nor euphemism, to run the world. Is there anything
new about that?
The answer is, of course, yes and no. In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books ,
Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had
excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when
earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. Anderson, who's edited New Left Review for years, but who has almost no
connection to actual politics attributed this strange explosion not to a popular outburst of
anti-imperialism, but to a cultural antipathy to the Bush administration.
Presumably that antipathy belongs to the realm of the " merely cultural ," and is of no great
political significance to Anderson. But it should be. U.S. culture has long been afflicted with
a brutally reactionary and self-righteous version of Christian fundamentalism, but it's never
had such influence over the state. The president thinks himself on a mission from God, the
Attorney General opens the business day with a prayer meeting, and the Pentagon's idea of a
Good Friday service is to invite Franklin Graham , who's pronounced Islam a "wicked and
evil religion," to deliver the homily, in which he promised that Jesus was returning soon. For
the hard core, the Iraq war is a sign of the end times, and the hard core
are in power.
Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also
recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. Though the
administration has been discreet, many of its private sector intellectuals
have been using the words "imperialism" and " empire " openly and with
glee. Not everyone of the millions who marched against the war in the months before it started
was a conscious anti-imperialist, but they all sensed the intensification, and were further
alarmed.
While itself avoiding the difficult word "empire," the Bush administration has been rather
clear about its long-term aims. According to their official national security strategy and the
documents published by the Project
for a New American Century (which served as an administration-in-waiting during the Clinton
years) their goal is to assure U.S. dominance and prevent the emergence of any rival powers.
First step in that agenda is the remaking of the Middle East - and they're quite open
about this as well. We all know the countries that are on the list; the only remaining issues
are sequence and strategy. But that's not the whole of the agenda. They're essentially
promising a permanent state of war, some overt, some covert, but one that could take
decades.
Imperial returns?
Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its
public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction
have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues
believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were
really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear
reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the
billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington
supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as
many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back
to 1959
.
Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why
it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much
tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.)
It now looks
fairly certain that the U.S. will, in some form, claim some large piece of Iraq's oil. The
details need to be worked out; clarifying the legal situation could be very complicated, given
the rampantly illegal nature of the regime change. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry will be very
expensive and could take years. There could be some nice profits down the line for big oil
companies - billions a year - but the broader economic benefits for the U.S. aren't so clear. A
U.S.-dominated Iraq could pump heavily and undermine OPEC, but too low an oil price would wreck
the domestic U.S. oil industry, something the Bush gang presumably cares
about. Mexico would be driven into penury, which could mean another debt crisis and lots of
human traffic heading north over the Rio Grande. Lower oil prices would be a boon to most
industrial economies, but they'd give the U.S. no special advantage over its principal economic
rivals.
It's
sometimes said that U.S. dominance of the Middle East gives Washington a chokehold over oil
supplies to Europe and Japan. But how might that work? Deep production cutbacks and price
spikes would hurt everyone. Targeted sales restrictions would be the equivalent of acts of war,
and if the U.S. is willing to take that route, a blockade would be a lot more efficient. The
world oil market is gigantic and complex, and it's not clear how a tap could be turned in
Kirkuk that would shut down the gas pumps in Kyoto or Milan.
Writers like David Harvey argue
that the U.S. is trying to compensate for its eroding economic power by asserting its military
dominance. Maybe. It's certainly fascinating that Bush's unilateralism has to be financed by
gobs of foreign money - and he gets his tax cuts, he'll have to order up even bigger gobs. But
it's hard to see what rival threatens the U.S. economically; neither the EU nor Japan is
thriving. Nor is there any evidence that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about
economic policy, domestic or international, or even thinking at all. The economic staff is
mostly dim and marginal. What really seems to excite this gang of supposed conservatives is the
exercise of raw state power.
Jealous rivals
And while the Bushies want to prevent the emergence of imperial rivals , they may only be encouraging that. Sure, the EU
is badly divided within itself; it has a hard enough time picking a top central banker , let alone deciding on a common
foreign policy. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is already semi-apologizing to Bush for
his intemperate language in criticizing the war - not that Bush has started taking his calls.
But over the longer term, some kind of political unification is Europe's only hope for acting
like a remotely credible world power. It's tempting to read French and German objections to the
Iraq war as emerging not from principle, but from the wounded narcissism of former imperial
powers rendered marginal by American might. Separately, they'll surely hang. But a politically
united Europe could, with time, come to challenge U.S. power, just as the euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
(Speaking of the euro, there's a theory circulating on the net that the U.S. went to war
because Iraq wanted to price its oil in euros, not dollars. That's grossly overheated
speculation. More on this and related issues when LBO begins an investigation of the
political economy of oil in the next issue.)
An even more interesting rivalry scenario would involve an alliance of the EU and Russia.
Russia is no longer the wreck it was for most of the 1990s. The economy has been growing and
the mildly authoritarian Putin has imposed political stability. Russia, which has substantial
oil interests in Iraq that are threatened by U.S. control, strongly opposed the war, and at
least factions within the Russian intelligence agency were reportedly feeding information
unfriendly to the U.S. to the website Iraqwar.ru . There's a lot recommending an EU-Russia
alliance; Europe could supply technology and finance, and Russia could supply energy, and
together they could constitute at least an embryonic counterweight to U.S. power.
So the U.S. may not get out of Iraq what the Bush administration is hoping for. It certainly
can't want democracy in Iraq or the rest of the region, since free votes could well lead to
nationalist and Islamist governments who don't view ExxonMobil as the divine agent that Bush seems to. A
New York Times piece celebrated the outbreak of democracy in Basra, while conceding that
the mayor is a former Iraqi admiral appointed by the British. The lead writers of the new
constitution are likely to be American law professors; Iraqis, of course, aren't up to the task
themselves.
Certainly the appointment of Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner (Ret.) - one of the
few superannuated brass not to have enjoyed a consulting contract with a major TV network - to
be the top civilian official guiding the postwar reconstruction of Iraq speaks volumes. A
retired general is barely a civilian, and Garner's most recent job was as president of
SY Technology , a military
contractor that worked with Israeli security in developing the Arrow antimissile system. He
loves antimissile systems; after the first Gulf War, he enthused about the Patriot's
performance with claims that turned out to be nonsense. He's on record as having praised
Israel's handling of the intifada. If that's his model of how to handle restive subject
populations, there's lots of trouble ahead.
lightness
In the early days of the war, when things weren't going so well for the "coalition,"
it was said that the force was too light. But after the sandstorm cleared and the snipers
were mowed down, that alleged lightness became a widely praised virtue. But that force
was light only by American standards: 300,000 troops; an endless rain of Tomahawks,
JDAMs, and MOABs; thousands of vehicles, from Humvees to Abrams tanks; hundreds of
aircraft, from Apaches to B-1s; several flotillas of naval support - and enormous
quantities of expensive petroleum products. It takes five gallons of fuel just to start
an Abrams tank, and after that it gets a mile per gallon. And filling one up is no
bargain. Though the military buys fuel at a wholesale price of 84¢ a gallon, after
all the expenses of getting it to the front lines are added in, the final cost is about
$150 a gallon. That's a steal compared to Afghanistan, where fuel is helicoptered in,
pushing the cost to $600/gallon. Rummy's "lightness" is of the sort that only a $10
trillion economy can afford.
The Bush gang doesn't even try to keep up appearances, handing out contracts for Iraq's
reconstruction to U.S. firms even before the shooting stopped, and guarding only the oil and
interior ministries against looters. If Washington gets its way, Iraq will be rebuilt according
to the fondest dreams of the Heritage Foundation staff, with the educational system reworked by
an American contractor, the TV programmed by the Pentagon, the ports run by a rabidly antiunion
firm, the police run by the Texas-based military contractor Dyncorp , and the oil taken out of
state hands and appropriately privatized.
That's the way they'd like it to be. But the sailing may not be so smooth. It looks like
Iraqis are viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. It's going to be hard enough to
remake Iraq that taking on Syria or Iran may be a bit premature. But that doesn't mean they
won't try. It's a cliché of trade negotiations that liberalization is like riding a
bicycle - you have to keep riding forward or else you'll fall over. The same could be said of
an imperial agenda: if you want to remake the world, or a big chunk of it, there's little time
to pause and catch your breath, since doubt or opposition could gain the upper hand. Which
makes stoking that opposition more
urgent than ever.
Losing it all
There's a feeling around that Bush is now politically invulnerable . Certainly the atmosphere
is one of almost coercive patriotism. That mood was nicely illustrated by an incident in
Houston in mid-March. A teenager attending a rodeo failed to stand along with the rest of the
crowd during a playing of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," a dreadful country song
that has become a kind of private-sector national anthem for the yahoo demographic, thanks to
its truculent unthinking jingoism. A patriot standing behind the defiantly seated teen started
taunting him, tugging on his ear as an additional provocation. The two ended up in a fight, and
then under arrest.
There's a lot of that going around, for sure. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins get disinvited
from events, websites nominate
traitors for trial by military tribunal, and talk radio hosts organize CD-smashings. But things
aren't hopeless. A close analysis of Greenwood's text might suggest why. The song's core
argument is contained in its two most famous lines: "I'm proud to be an American/where at least
I know I'm free." But the oft-overlooked opening reads: "If tomorrow all the things were
gone/I'd worked for all my life," the singer would still be a grateful patriot. That's
precisely the condition lots of Americans find themselves in. More than two million jobs have
disappeared in the last two years. Millions of Americans have seen their retirement savings
wiped out by the bear market, and over a million filed for bankruptcy last year. Most states and
cities are experiencing their worst fiscal crises since the 1930s, with massive service cuts
and layoffs imminent. In the song, such loss doesn't matter, but reality is often less
accommodating than a song.
As the nearby graphs show, W's ratings are much lower than his father's at the end of Gulf
War I, and his disapproval ratings much higher. Their theocratic and repressive agenda is
deeply unpopular with large parts of the U.S. population. Spending scores of billions on
destroying and rebuilding Iraq while at home health clinics are closing and teachers working
without pay is potentially incendiary. Foreign adventures have never been popular with the
American public (much to the distress of the ruling elite). An peace movement that could draw
the links among warmongering, austerity, and repression has great political potential. Just a
month or two ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in American streets to protest the
imminent war. Though that movement now looks a bit dispirited and demobilized, it's unlikely
that that kind of energy will just disappear into the ether.
Tulsi found an interesting way to stress he foreign policy credential -- The US President is
the Commander in Chief of the Nation.
Notable quotes:
"... Gabbard's transformation from cherished party asset to party critic and outcast was rapid, and was due almost entirely to her insistence on following her own belief system and evolving ideology rather than party dogma and the long-standing rules for Washington advancement. ..."
"... I'm a 70+ veteran who has never voted for a Democrat in my life. Tulsi Gabbard is the best, most qualified, most eloquent and thoughtful presidential candidate of my lifetime. She will catch on, and the MSM which hates her (they all get tons of money and support from war industry, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc.), will try to ignore her or smear her, but in the end they will fail. She makes sense, and they don't. Regime change wars must end. Tulsi will be the shining light that makes it happen. ..."
Ever since Tulsi Gabbard was first elected to Congress in 2012, she has been assertively
independent, heterodox, unpredictable, and polarizing. Viewed at first as a loyal Democrat and
guaranteed future star by party leaders -- due to her status as an Iraq War veteran, a
telegenic and dynamic young woman, and the first Hindu and Samoan American ever elected to
Congress -- she has instead become a thorn in the side, and frequent critic, of those same
party leaders that quickly anointed her as the future face of the party.
Gabbard's transformation from cherished party asset to party critic and outcast was rapid,
and was due almost entirely to her insistence on following her own belief system and evolving
ideology rather than party dogma and the long-standing rules for Washington advancement.
Glenn Greenwald sat down with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to discuss a wide range of issues,
including the reasons she is running for president, her views on Trump's electoral appeal and
what is necessary to defeat it, the rise of right-wing populism internationally, the
Trump/Russia investigation, criticisms she has received regarding her views of Islam and
certain repressive leaders, and her unique foreign policy viewpoints.
This interview is intended to be the first in a series of in-depth interviews with
influential and interesting U.S. political figures, including but not limited to 2020
presidential candidates, designed to enable deeper examinations than the standard cable or
network news format permits.
I am Norwegian. I want to interfere in the next american presidential election. I want
Tulsi Gabbard as the next president of the USA. Love from Norway!
I'm a 70+ veteran who has never voted for a Democrat in my life. Tulsi Gabbard is the
best, most qualified, most eloquent and thoughtful presidential candidate of my lifetime. She
will catch on, and the MSM which hates her (they all get tons of money and support from war
industry, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc.), will try to ignore her or smear her, but in the end they
will fail. She makes sense, and they don't. Regime change wars must end. Tulsi will be the
shining light that makes it happen.
How many presidential candidates have the guts to sit down for an interview with Glenn
Greenwald? Only one. Tulsi Gabbard. Excellent (and very challenging) questions from Greenwald
-- great responses from Gabbard.
Any candidate the Intercept finds worth interviewing is worth my time to look into. Still
a bit nervous about her glorification of military service but overall...
Great interview! Asked many questions I wanted to hear answers to. Gives a great sense of
Tulsi and where she stands on many issues with emphasis on foreign policy that seems to be
ignored everywhere else. Thank you Glenn.
Thank you for asking the tough questions Glenn. I really like Tulsi but the Modi questions
had been long in the waiting. I'm glad she answered them the way she did.
Tulsi is one in a generation natural born diplomat !!! She found an interesting way to stress the value of her foreign policy
credentials (which in general are not valued much by the US voters, who concentrate on internal problems) -- The US
President is the Commander in Chief of the Nation.
For the majority of Americans Tulsi stands out. There's no one coming even close. Bernie is a good talker, but totally
untrustworthy against DNC (folded in 2016 without a fight) as well as Israel's military aid and wars in ME.
Tulsi represents profiles in courage. She makes establishment candidate like Kamala look wanting. Of course the have support
of neoliberal MSM, while Tulsi is ignored. Even Democratic establishment (read neocons) are hostile toward Tulsi. Implicitly they
behave like "we don't want her muddying the waters".
Unfortunately there is a strong possibility that Tulsi will not be given a fair chance, the DNC under chairman Perez will
stick to party hierarchy even if he claims otherwise....
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi is the only candidate in my lifetime who has had an actual demeanor worthy of global leadership. ..."
"... I LOVE her demeanor. She handles herself so well. She is calm & wise & fair. She will run circles @ the debates & not break a sweat! ..."
"... i am 76 and have never seen a politician of her caliber! ..."
"... So much capital was wasted on RussiaGate, but a totally legit SaudiGate scandal went ignored. 😔 ..."
"... TuIsi is in a league of her own. We are blessed. ..."
Democrats don't want auditable elections because they're in on election fraud in the
districts of the party elites. Wasserman-Schultz is the queen of the sleazes.
Niko- I have a line of questions I'm hoping you will address with Kulinski tomorrow &
if it doesn't align with your perspective I respect that it's not something you want to ask
& I'd be interested in hearing from you directly why you view it differently: I'm
increasingly concerned over the weak opposition by many Sanders supporters over many of his
positions these last few years.
It appears to me that Medicare for All has taken precedent
over fighting the military industrial complex & the millions of lives abroad affected by
it. This is not a trade-off for voters like me. It is true that he is better than most &
he has a strong background but he used to push for 3rd parties. This has changed along with
many other issues & I think anyone being honest with themselves know this to be true.
Beyond the excuses for his endorsement of Kissinger's proTPP Clinton, he has whitewashed
Bush/Cheney, called Mad Dog Mattis "the adult in the room", gone along with Russiagate &
even suggested some of his followers on Facebook were Russian trolls, given lipservice to the
Venezuelan "humanitarian aid", been silent on Assange, & repeatedly ignored his base on
all of the above. My questions are: How can progressives like this honestly trust Sanders to
fight for truth on these fronts?
Why is getting Medicare for All more important than fighting
against endless war? Is it possible that progressive media has done a disservice to electoral
progress by framing it as Sanders being cheated in 2016 & not emphasizing that it was a
greater betrayal of the VOTERS who were cheated? Saying that they will continue to push back
on him in these areas where he is wrong strikes me as completely baseless given their
inability to sway him these last few years. I'm tired of excuses & hoping for better
answers than "it's his turn", "he had to tow the line", or "that's for Tulsi as VP/Secretary
of State to do". Please & thank you!
Do a 1 to 2 minute setup, show the main piece/clip, then pontificate/summarize. I got so
bored I left the PC, made coffee, came back and you still hadn't got to the point of the
video 5 mins in. If you're doing a long-form stream then go with whatever. For these shorter
topical videos you need a shorter intro or need to cut out the filler in the edit process.
The long setup and unnecessary dramatic effect pauses will only irritate people that just
want the important part of what you're presenting.
I think support for Tulsi and Bernie can (and should) be congruent, especially since
ideally for me, they are both on that ticket. Not gonna lie, I want him on the helm of it,
but that's because then she gets a shot at a 10-year presidency. We need them both in that
admin ASAP. Their policies are complimentary, not juxtaposed. They only make each other
stronger. It's not a binary. I would be emphatic to vote for either one of them.
If she is
still competitive on super Tuesday, she has my vote. Otherwise, I think if she does not carry
the torch to the end, we need to be prepared to aggressively throw our weight behind Bernie
Sanders in a stronger way than 2016. (I also like Marianne Williamson, but I don't think
that's gonna happen.She got my dollar.)
We cannot roll over again. If they nominate Beto or
Kamala or Booker, we have to walk. In droves. Bearing in mind 4 more years of Trump is better
than 40 more years of being exploited by the democratic party for votes while not being
heard. It's effectively (and literally) taxation without representation. It's aristocracy.
It's bullshit. And if they nominate a moderate, we're gonna know they didn't fucking get it
before.
Commentators like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson appeal to people who don't have the
intellectual capacity to know that they're being lied to by pseudo-intellectuals. I knew
Jordan Peterson was one of these, when I first heard his analysis of Dostoevsky's "Notes From
Underground," one of my favorite novels.
I love your show brother. I found #Tulsi2020 because of Bari
smearing her on jre. That led me to your show. Thanks for the help! Keep up the hard work.
#Tulsi2020
John
Doe1 day ago
What a true patriotic compassionate leader. Easily has my vote
111 112
View 15 replies Hide replies John Doe1 day
ago She can show the world how to lead. Tulsi 2020!!!!
58 59
View reply Hide replies Merwin ARTist1 day
ago Tulsi is awesome .. appreciate what she has to say about stopping these foolish regime
change wars! Respect!!! Tulsi2020
63 64
View reply Hide replies Fellow Citizen1
day ago They are terrified of Tulsi because they know that if people hear her they will
automatically vote for her. Tulsi: "...honour, respect, and integrity..." "Journalists":
"[clears throat at the prospect of competing on a fair playing-field]"
75 76
View 10 replies Hide replies Freedom Tribe1 day
ago Time is running out. We need this woman to lead us into the next epoch.
38 39
View reply Hide replies MR BOSTON1 day
ago I voted for trump but I would vote for her in a heart beat
57 58
View 6 replies Hide replies MoMo Bronx1 day
ago You just don't get more real than Tulsi I hope she win,the world need real
Leadership
31 32 Peace Harmony1 day
ago Tulsi is one of the few Democrats who isn't too scared to go on FOX News. And she is a
great candidate! A true patriot.
View 13 replies Hide replies Kedaar Iyer1 day
ago Make sure to get her to 100,000 individual donors so that she can be on the debate
stage!
www.tulsi2020.com
25 26
View 2 replies Hide replies lendallpitts1 day
ago Tulsi Gabbard is the most presidential of all of the candidates.
11 12 John Doe1 day ago
(edited) I love the compassion in the comments. That's what we're talking about. Service to
others, learn to love thy neighbor
12 13 Kostas K1 day
ago Honour Integrity and respect, qualities that the White House has never experienced so
far in it's history.
14 15 OTR
Trucker1 day ago
(edited) Thanks for running Tulsi. If we look at history it's Presidents without a military
background that get us into the biggest disasters. Veterans still get us into wars sometimes
but they are wars that are limited in scope and "winnable". Every open ended catastrophe we've
been in was from a non vet.
32 33
View 4 replies Hide replies Jeremy Chase1 day
ago I was speaking with an older couple yesterday. They obviously had a lot of MSM on the
brain. The woman said, I would like to see a woman in The White House. I said, Tulsi Gabbard is
your woman! Don't let the media lie to you about her. They just want their senseless wars. You
go, Tulsi! ✌
16 17
View reply Hide replies Michael Dob1 day
ago What a concept. Serve American interest instead of corporations and foreign
governments.
Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously
underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from
sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine
"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.
But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct
control over the military.
"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start
all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."
They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who
end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
comes to mind."
" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.
"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets
rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.
So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth
seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And
that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion
during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine
--------------
Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the
USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on
the subject. pl
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A
personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully
advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary
positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't
stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.
But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior
govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress
doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and
cultures running the rest of the world?
A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned
the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type
B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"
Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat
primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of
non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the
corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul
Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I
found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan,
Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.
The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo,
especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly
at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec
and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for
campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss
of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.
My best hope is that
Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far
Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff
"are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's
America First policy. Any thoughts?
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full
of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a
successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from
Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was
owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat
there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he
turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the
room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that
was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner
for failing to "win".
You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they
can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump
out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in
pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the
last 50 years.
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to
walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people
and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense
pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.
Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative
consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to
his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they
could matter.
Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to
their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart
enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central
to many of our poor strategic decision making.
Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was
Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the
draft once it was presented to him?
I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in
using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he
really does not want one.
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits
which undermine his credibility.
"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the
time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."
Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was
fair.
"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American
public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of
course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual
portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at
times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and
shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no
idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and
set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field
somewhere to violate farm animals.
If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to
find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?
@FB Trump
is totally responsible for the assault on Venezuela. Trump hired these thugs, Trump agreed to
the strategy, Trump gives the command. Trump is a f ING disaster, a thug and a Mafia scubag.
@Z-man Lets
make it clear. Wars are also existential mater for US generals. As a mater of fact for all
generals around the world. Generals simply love wars.
U.S. Foreign Policy used to have only two instruments in
dealing with rest of the world, namely carrots and sticks. Since the fall of Soviet Union and
certainly after 9/11, only sticks remain. Now the World including the so-called allies are
getting tired of the threats and start ignoring the Empire, hence the diminishing
effectiveness, paving the way for polymorphic World. This transition is fraught with dangers as
pointed out by the Author.
Lovely post by Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor on the end of empire:
"John Bolton is the problem"
"Trump's national security adviser is getting dangerous particularly to the president's
ideals"
Douglas Macgregor https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/
Could also be titled, "How to Exhaust an Empire."
Sun Tzu warned of the same demise in the "Art of War."
Didn't they used to teach that book at West Point?
@El Dato
And also the 90 minute Trump-Putin phone call, where Venezuela was the main subject
From the way I understand Trump's comments afterward, it seems the military option is off
the table the two presidents agreed that humanitarian aid is the priority
This is great news I have to give Trump credit here Justin Raimondo presciently opined a
week ago that Trump may have been giving the 'walrus' just enough rope on Venezuela to hang
himself
I have to wonder what Vlad whispered in carrot top's ear
When we take a close look at the American Government and it's elected officials, we can only
come to one conclusion. The US is a thriving criminal enterprise that uses force to get what
they want. The military's role is that of enforcers and the US President is no different than
a Mafia Don. In no other time in US history has Government and Organized Criminal Gangs been
so indistinguishable. George H.W. Bush with his New World Order announcements, his CIA drug
dealing operations and military invasion of Panama to steal the drug cartel's money deposited
in that county's banks, came close. Bill Clinton working with George H.W. Bush protecting
drug shipments smuggled into Mena, AK, the cover up of murdered witnesses and numerous sexual
assault allegations also came pretty close.
But when George W. Bush, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld came into power,
that was a Mafia if there was ever one. That group of criminals stole more money and murdered
more people than any criminal organization in history. They even conned the American people
into believing some rag-heads in Afghanistan hiding in caves did it. It was the first time
since Pancho Villa that anyone attacked the US on its own soil. Not only did they steal all
the gold stored in bank vaults located in the Twin Towers, but they put money on the stock
market. In true gangster fashion the next move was to retaliate against the Muslim Mafia who
was fingered by Mayer Lanski (Benjamin Nuttenyahoo) and their own paid snitches (MSM). It was
time to hit mattresses and send their enforcers to get payback so the Purple Gang (Israel)
can take over their territory.
There is a big difference between the US Government and the Mafia when it comes to war,
the Mafia adheres to a strict code of ethics, they do not target their enemies families.
In 2016 the American people elected a true gangster from New York city. A known con man, a
swindler, a tax evader and known associate of the criminal underground. A man with numerous
court cases and 23 accusations of sexual assault. A man who was screwing a porn star while
his wife was given birth. A man who's mentor was Roy Cohen a mob attorney and practicing
homosexual who died of AIDS. A man that surrounded himself with the most perverted group of
people in New York such as: Roger Stone a well known swinger and gay pride participant. Paul
Manafort a convicted criminal and swinger who attended the same clubs as Stone along with
their wives. They liked to watch their wives get screwed by other men. Lets not forget John
Bolton who was exposed by Larry Flint for also being a swinger. His ex-wife accused him of
forcing her to perform sex acts with multiple men at the same clubs the other 2 cuckolds
attended. A Russian agent once commented that the best place to find government people to
blackmail was the New York swingers scene.
Jeffery Epstein tops the list of perverted friends of Donald Trump. Epstein is the worst
kind of perverted human being. The predator pedophile that uses his money to lure young girls
into his sick world. Epstein holds the key to uncovering the nation wide pedophile ring that
include some of the most famous people in the US. This is Trump's Mafia, a Mafia not like the
Gambinos or Luchesis. A Mafia full of Perverts, Criminals, Pedophiles and Cuckolds. These are
just a few of the people in Trump's circle of friends. If these are your leaders, what does
that say about the American people!
My dad used to tell me tell me who you hang around with, and I'll tell you who you are!
Every single person in DC government is compromised! And this incompetent Mafia of Perverts
want you to believe that Madurro is a corrupt leader and Iran is a threat to the US!
@FB Yeah brother that
POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to
anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced
to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
@SeekerofthePresence
Thank you your comment is very much appreciated. But I'm definitely not a spokesman for moral truth, just the truth. I just watch
in amazement from Mexico at what the US government has become. A den of the most vile people ever assembled in the world far worse
than the people that demanded the crucification of Jesus Christ. We just went through a serious political conversion, but the
people had to hit the streets for it to succeed. I just don't think the American people feel they are in a do or die situation,
and they couldn't more wrong.
There were some reports quoted in Alexander Mercouris has a much rosier
view of Trump's intentions
that the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran. The Pentagon has found
its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran.
@Endgame Napoleon Americans
probably don't understand Russia. Americans don't even mostly understand their own history. "
and they inquire why they hate us .
Don Bacon | May 11, 2019 11:56:00 AM | 23
@ ToivoS 16
the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran.
Yes, for the reasons I noted in my 4 above. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't
defend themselves, and that's not Iran. The recent US defeats in Iraq and Syria also sent a message. So the Pentagon is now content
with aerial bombing of Afghanistan and Somalia while spending big bucks to (supposedly) contend with Russia and China, which of
course is also out of the question when it comes to execution.
The Pentagon materiel acquisition system is riddled with corruption and poor management, the army is handicapped by low recruiting,
drugs and obesity, the navy suffers from performance and maintenance problems, and the air force has been decimated by personnel
problems and by an overly zealous procurement of useless F-35 prototypes. So bombers dropping bombs on villages in poor countries
is as far as the Pentagon can go.
On May 14/2019 Pompeo is to meet Lavrov in Sochi! ..."Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Putin and Lavrov, the Russian foreign
minister, in Sochi on May 14 to “discuss the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges.” Before that, he will meet with
officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow."...
A messenger boy on the errant trip overseas from his handlers. Something to tell in person, mano a mano no less.
..."“On May 13, he will arrive in Russia to meet with his team at U.S. Embassy Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders
and U.S. exchange alumni. Secretary Pompeo will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” State Department spokeswoman
Morgan Ortagus said."... That's rich, a nobody faces an unknown.
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
@FB Yeah brother,
that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million
dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He
was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
A really interesting discussion. the problem with discussion on new direction of the USA foreign policy is that forces that
control the current forign policy will not allow any changes. Russiagate was in part a paranoid reaction of the Deep State to the
possibility of detente with Russia and also questioning "neoliberal sacred truth" like who did 9/11 (to suggest that Bush is
guilty was a clear "Red Flag") and critical attribute to forrign wars which feed so many Imperial servants.
BTW Trump completely disappointed his supporters in the foreign policy is continuing to accelerate that direction
Here is how you chart a Progressive foreign policy stop treating the US intelligence
agencies of the CIA and FBI as orgs of integrity. Ban all foreign lobbying so no foreign
government can influence foreign policy.
Disband the Veto powers that the US holds over the UN
security council. Prosecute former Presidents and Government officials for the illegal regime
change wars.
Connect with other progressive politicians around the world such as Jeremy Corbyn,
Jean Luc Melenchon and Moon Jae In. End the arms race and begin a peaceful space race to
colonize the moon diverting funds from the military industrial complex into something
fulfilling.
What BULL while world under the fog of Berlin wall down, USA VP Bush attacks
Panama 8000 Marines kills 3500 panamanians , gives the banks to CIA, therefore Panama papers.
Another coup in Latin America. When V.P. Bush "we had to get over the Vietnam Syndrome". So
Killing 3500 people , to get over the loser spirit, suicidal influence from Vietnam. SHAME USA
more hate for Americans. And Now Venezuela, more Shame and Hate for Americans. Yankee go home,
Gringo stay home is chanted once more.
The audio is a little off especially for a couple speakers but this discussion is
great. Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, but in his typical dishonest fashion, he
appointed people who are developing usable nukes like characters out of Dr. Strangelove.
Nuclear weapons and climate change are both existential threats that all the world needs to act
together to address.
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6
trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving
Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic
presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the
primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her
rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states.
Thanks for anything you can do.
Jim R2 months ago
President Eisenhower's farewell address warned us of the very thing that is happening today with the industrial military
complex and the power and influence that that entity weilds.
chickendinner2012, 2 months ago
End the wars, no more imperialism, instead have fair trade prioritizing countries that have a living wage and aren't
waging war etc. No more supporting massive human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE etc. and we need to get three
of the most aggressive countries the F UK US coalition that constantly invades and bombs everyone they want to steal from to
stop doing war, stop coups, stop covert sabotage, stop sanctions.
asbeautifulasasunset, 2 months ago
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual
Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the
debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary
issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and
contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.
carol wagner sudol2 months ago
Israel today has become a nazi like state. period. That says it all. This is heart-breaking. Gaza is simply a
concentration camp.
Tom Hall, 2 months ago
All our post WWII foreign policy has been about securing maintaining and enhancing corporate commercial interests. What
would seem to progressives as catastrophic failures are in fact monumental achievements of wealth creation and concentration.
The billions spent on think tanks to develop policy are mostly about how to develop grand narratives that conceal the true
beneficiaries of US foreign policy and create fear, uncertainty and insecurity at home and abroad.
Neoconservativsm is a distinct ideology brought into being by U of Chicago professor Leo
Strauss and his ex-Trotskyist acolytes. It is American exceptionalism on steroids and its
core tenet is that American society needs elite rulers to guide the retarded masses who are
too stupid to know what their best interests are.
To keep them in line the masses need to be fed grandiose myths they can believe in and
rally around.
This is where America the Good as the shining beacon on the hill, slaying evil wherever it
is found to make the world safe for freedom comes in.
George H.W. Bush, Dubya's daddy, called them "the crazies in the basement."
First, the neocons and some Israeli strategists had long seen the Shia as "outsiders"
opposed to the mainstream Arab (read: Sunni) nationalist current, and over decades had
developed an affinity for the Shia as potential allies in the region, much as they saw the
Lebanese Maronite Christians and other minorities in the Arab world.
"There existed a supercilious 'Shiaphilia' among certain academics, Iraqi political
exiles, policy wonks and policymakers linked to the Bush administration," wrote Ahmed
Hashim, author of Insurgency and Counter-insurgency in Iraq and a professor of strategic
studies at the U.S. Naval War College. At the American Enterprise Institute and among
partisans of Chalabi's INC, it was routine to speak of "de-Arabizing" Iraq after the fall
of Saddam Hussein, a favorite theme of the INC's favored intellectual, Kanan Makiya.
Second, the neocons had been seduced by Chalabi, who convinced them that Iraq's Shia
leaders would abandon their ties to Iran and rush to embrace a secular, pro-American
political culture. Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival and a professor at the Naval
Postgraduate School, attributes this to the neocons' "reading of the Israeli experience in
the invasion of south Lebanon in 1982. That's why they had this vocabulary of 'They're
going to greet us with flowers,' because that's what happened in south Lebanon -- the
Israeli army was greeted by Shia villagers with flowers and rice."
Third, the neocons believed that moderate, nonpolitical Shia in Iraq would establish
Najaf, the Iraqi shrine city that is the holiest place in Shia Islam, as a new center of
gravity that would overpower Qom, the clerical powerhouse city in Iran. They believed that
the "good Shia," supposedly "quietist" ayatollahs such as Ali al-Sistani, would emerge to
present a frontal challenge to Iran's militant "bad Shia," followers of the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini. A leading proponent of this theory was David Wurmser, a radical neocon
who is currently Vice President Cheney's top Middle East adviser. "They deluded themselves
into thinking that these links operated only one way -- with Najaf undermining Qom," says
Nasr. "They assumed that it was Iraq that would influence Iran, not that Iran would
influence Iraq."
The real story behind this or any other presidency is Who could stand up to the deep
state/neocons?
Trump is an outsider who is up against powerful, entrenched forces who apparently do
whatever they want to do. (and they would be the same had Bernie won the presidency).
Bernie seems to lack the spine. Tulsi on the other hand is a tough cookie--but could she
ever find adequate military and DOJ support?
Speaking of getting led around by the nose, we come to one Gina Haspel's great deceptions.
This deception plays directly into the hands of Russiagaters. This woman, supposedly brought
into CIA leadership in order to demolish the agency, is proving quite adept in perpetuating its
reign of terror. Again, we have a neocon undermining Trump's prestige and authority.
(EIRNS) -- The New York Times ran a story yesterday titled, "Gina Haspel
Relies on Spy Skills To Connect with Trump. He Doesn't Always Listen." Based on interviews with
former and current CIA agents who worked with CIA Director Haspel (but not interviewing her),
the Times praises her skills and attempts to denigrate Trump, but they also retail a story
about her and Trump which could cost Haspel deeply.
Following the March 2018 breaking of the Skripal poisoning story in England, the Times
writes, Trump had initially "written off the poisoning as part of legitimate spy games,
distasteful but within the bounds of espionage." Haspel, on the other hand, was backing
London's demand for Trump to blame Russia immediately and expel dozens of Russian
diplomats.
Writes the Times:
"During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy CIA director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
President that the 'strong option' was to expel 60 diplomats.
"To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
"Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She
then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by
the sloppy work of the Russian operatives."
This appeal reportedly swayed Trump to go along with Haspel's advice.
If it sounds like the British "White Helmet" terrorists in Syria faking pictures of children
being hit with chemical weapons to convince Trump to bomb Syrian targets, it is indeed
precisely the same.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken critic of these British imperial lies
and atrocities, posted a response today to the Times garbage on his blog. He states first that
yet another truth behind the Skripal lies was revealed recently by police, acknowledging that
"the perfume bottle Charlie Rowley found was sealed and could not have been the container used
on the Skripals." He goes on: "It took nine months for us to learn that, by a truly wonderful
coincidence, the first person to find the Skripals ill on the bench was the Chief Nurse of the
British Army."
But on the Haspel story in the Times, Murray is furious. "The problem is," he writes,
"there were no hospitalized children. No children have been reported as becoming ill
following their duck feeding with the Skripals. We have heard from one of the parents that
they were shown by the police extremely clear [closed-circuit surveillance] CCTV footage of
the duck feeding, which has never been made public. Surely if the child had been
hospitalized, the parent would have mentioned it?"
He quotes Dr. Stephen Davies of Salisbury Hospital, who wrote to the New York Times on March
14 stating clearly that no children had been hospitalized, and that every person who came to
the hospital fearing they had been contaminated had no symptoms and tests turned out negative.
Murray states:
"We also know that the duck feeding was the time that Boshirov and Petrov [the alleged
Russian culprits] were physically closest to the Skripals. But this is the first time there
has ever been any mention of any harm to the ducks. Dead ducks would have been noticed by the
public."
It appears that the British Empire is the dead duck in this myth.
A former US Army Colonel has blasted Department of Defense's (DOD) latest report on China's
military capabilities as a
"budget ploy"
.
"You're looking at a situation where
the only thing [the DOD] can ask for, in terms of fixing any of this, is
money -- more
and more money
" retired Colonel Lawrence "Larry" Wilkerson said of the
DoD's annual report prepared for Congress
entitled, "Military and Security Developments
Involving the People's Republic of China 2019".
Wilkerson, who served as former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, described
in an interview with
The Real News
that hyping the China threat taps into a
well-trodden American pastime of fear-mongering in order
to squeeze more precious taxpayer
dollars towards inflated budgets
.
The Pentagon report focused heavily on President Xi's plans for rapid modernization of the
People's Liberation Army (PLA), especially China's ambitious plans for the region's
"largest navy"
--
which has lately included ongoing construction of the country's
third aircraft carrier (the first full-sized one), with plans for seven total by 2025.
Watch the interview with Army Col. (ret.) Larry Wilkerson below.
Col. Wilkerson
dismissed
the
idea that China's aircraft carrier or latest much reported naval modernization initiatives were
real causes for concern:
We've got a dozen [aircraft carriers]. They've got one at sea, one about to come out, and
another one perhaps, and ours are so far ahead of theirs that
it's 10, 15, 20 years
before they even achieve the kind of capacity we have
.
He explained that "aircraft carriers are extraordinarily vulnerable and we're going to find that
out when one of them with 5,000 hands and $14bn worth of taxpayer money is sunk in less than 30
minutes, whenever we get engaged in something real."
Now a military analyst who teaches at The College of William & Mary in Virginia,
Wilkerson addressed the familiar Pentagon cycle of threat inflation in the interview:
The [US] army could not expand;
it could not take on a real enemy today without
massive conscription and full mobilization
. And I wonder if the nation could even stand
that today. And so, you're looking at a situation where the only thing [the DOD] can ask for, in
terms of fixing any of this, is money -- more and more money.
However, he did warn that the heightened rhetoric and blustering amidst a trade war could serve
to paint both sides into a corner, resulting in a scenario of blindly bumbling toward war, as
other analysts have described
of the so-called "Thucydides Trap".
Wilkerson said an increasingly aggressive US posture toward Beijing could create a
"self-fulfilling prophecy,"
wherein each minor escalation based on inflating threats
begins
"demarcating the highway to war with China,"
- according to the interview.
"... Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to peddle half-baked innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security interest right here in our hemisphere." ..."
Russiagate hysteria is already being used to push Trump into an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. It's a disastrous result
of a pointless delusion.
One of the things Russiagate skeptics found unsettling about the frenzy over supposed "collusion" was that it made war more likely.
Not only did the now-debunked conspiracy theories and resulting political climate push officials into a more aggressive posture toward
Russia, but once the Kremlin was returned to its status as the foreign policy elite's Big Bad, it was easy to imagine a situation
where the threat of a Russian bogeyman could be used to justify any number of unrelated foreign adventures. This appears to be exactly
what's happening with
Venezuela
right now.
First there was Fareed Zakaria, who two months ago
tried to goad Trump into attacking Venezuela by pointing to Russia's support for Maduro. "Putin's efforts seem designed to taunt
the United States," he said (it might also have something to do with the
billions of dollars Russia
sank into the country), making reference to the Monroe Doctrine. He asked if Washington would "allow Moscow to make a mockery of
another American red line," warning that "if Washington does not back its words with deeds" the country could become another Syria.
Zakaria concluded: "will Venezuela finally be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"
More recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
charged that Russia had "invaded" Venezuela before claiming the Kremlin had dissuaded Maduro from fleeing the country at the
last moment, something Pompeo has provided no evidence for but much of the media has treated as fact since.
National Security Advisor
John Bolton has
said that "this is our hemisphere"
and "not where the Russians ought to be interfering." Democratic Sen. Doug Jones
echoed this sentiment on CNN, praising the Trump
administration for saying "all options are on the table" to deal with Venezuela, something he suggested may have to be acted on "if
there is some more intervention [by] Russia."
The national press, taking a break from warning about Trump being a dangerous authoritarian, has been
demanding to know why he hasn't been more aggressive toward the country over this.
Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to
peddle half-baked
innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a
green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security
interest right here in our hemisphere."
He went on to claim that Russia had already placed nuclear missiles in the country, and that it could lead to a Cuban missile
crisis-like conflict. There is no evidence this is true, and Díaz-Balart didn't provide any.
Of course, no coverage of the Trump administration's relations with Russia would be complete without a trip into Rachel Maddow's
fractured psyche. After Trump repeated Putin's personal assurances that he wasn't interested in getting involved in Venezuela --
contradicting Pompeo and Bolton -- Maddow addressed the two
officials :
Hey John Bolton, hey Mike Pompeo, are you guys enjoying your jobs right now? You each thought your job this week was to name
and shame and threaten and counter Russian government involvement in Venezuela while saber-rattling about how everybody else better
get out of the way because the US is really mad about it. Guys, turns out your actual job is figuring out how and why you work
for a president who says whatever Vladimir Putin tells him.
Maddow went on to express her sympathy for one of the
most unhinged warmongers
in a city teeming with them ("I mean, John Bolton, God bless you"), and again seemed to suggest that Bolton's "job" of "push[ing]
Russia back because of what they're doing in Venezuela" was the correct course of action.
It's now clear there is nothing -- not Trump's years-long belligerence toward Russia's Venezuelan ally, not his
near-constant
bellicosity toward Russia since taking office, not
Robert Mueller's failure
to indict a single person for conspiring with Russia, not even his report's explicit and implicit denial that any such conspiracy
existed -- that will make these people give up the talking point that Trump is secretly in bed with Putin. If Mueller himself denied
it, they would claim he was a Russian in disguise. It's simply too convenient an attack line, and too professionally embarrassing
to admit otherwise.
There is also an Orwellian level of doublethink going on here. Russia, a Venezuelan ally, has sent personnel and equipment to
the country with the consent of its government at a time when it's being threatened by multiple hostile regional powers. Meanwhile
the US, one of those hostile powers, has for years been
laying siege to the country
and killing its people, trying to destabilize and oust its leadership, and even threatening to invade it.
Yet according to the media and political class, it's Russia's actions that are an unacceptable intrusion into another country's
affairs -- an "invasion," even. They are holding up four fingers to your face and telling you you're seeing five.
Meanwhile, these same quarters, after spending close to three years hyperventilating about Russia's meddling in domestic US affairs
-- an "act of war," in some minds -- have now seamlessly pivoted to cheering Trump as he attempts to
engineer a change
of Venezuela's government, even calling for him to possibly attack the country. This is glaringly hypocritical, but the
Russiagate
frenzy was never about principled outrage or any sort of moral consistency.
Lastly and most significantly, the rhetoric around Venezuela is now taking on an explicitly imperialistic character, in the most
literal sense of that word. Zakaria invoked the Monroe Doctrine to urge Trump to intervene in Venezuela; National Security Advisor
John Bolton "proudly proclaim[ed]" upon
launching
a fresh round of sanctions that "the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well," and one MSNBC guest
insisted the Trump administration was "right in being completely flabbergasted" at Russia's presence in the country because "this
is our hemisphere," echoing
Bolton
.
When these figures talk about "our hemisphere," they don't mean the hemisphere in which the US happens to be located; they mean
this is literally their hemisphere. The US is the imperial power with dominion over this part of the world, and only it has
the right to interfere in the countries that populate it.
Their objection is not that an outside power is involving itself in a Latin American country's business, but that this outside
power isn't the one in Washington. The fact that the US has been doing this very thing for years in Russia's part of the world --
expanding NATO right up to its
border, sending weapons to Ukraine -- goes conveniently unmentioned.
Russiagate skeptics were criticized for being hyperbolic in
comparing that scandal to the bogus
WMD tale that led to the Iraq War; the latter, after all, killed hundreds of thousands and destabilized an entire region. But the
full consequences of Russiagate will not be felt immediately; they will unfold over time. And while floating the specter of Russia
might not work this time, expect it to be used over and over in the coming years to justify all manner of
military aggression
.
It would be an understatement to say that author Haley does not like Lyndon Baines
Johnson. And despite the fact that his book is an unrelenting tirade against all things
Lyndon, it provides a useful service in reminding the reader of how Johnson trampled and
double-crossed friend and foe alike in his single-minded lust for power.
I am fairly conservative politically, but I am open-minded enough to recognize and oppose
corruption whether practiced by liberals or conservatives. In my lifetime, Johnson, Nixon,
and Clinton have been shining examples of the worst impulses in American presidential
politics in which greed and lust for either power or money ended up overshadowing any of
their real achievements.
Haley shows that Johnson was a man of few real principles, neither liberal nor
conservative, but rather a man who usually always wanted to know which way the wind was
blowing before taking a stand on any important issue. Johnson was a man who used all his
powers of persuasion and veiled threats to get what he wanted and woe unto anyone who stood
in his way.
He was a man who knew and used the old adage "It's not what you know, but who you know" to
Machiavellian extremes.
But he was also a man of sometimes great political courage who would rarely give an inch
once he took a stand. He hated those who opposed him, nursed resentments, and wreaked revenge
on those who crossed him in the least as most of his enemies and many of his friends learned
to their sorrow. From the earliest days, he was involved with corrupt Texas politicians from
the local to the state level and swam in the seas of corporate corruption with the likes of
the infamous swindler Billy Sol Estes and others of his stripe.
Admittedly, the conservatism of the author is the conservatism of a bygone age and the
reader will recognize that the book is meant to be a partisan attack on Johnson. Some of the
attacks on Johnson are made solely for political reasons as Johnson was clever enough to
outmaneuver Haley's ideological brothers and sisters. But Johnson surrounded himself with
enough scummy characters and got involved in so many underhanded political AND business deals
that he deserves the rough treatment given him in Haley's devastating diatribe.
No matter your political leanings, your eyes will be opened when you read A Texan Looks At
Lyndon. The book is well-written and often riveting in its allegations and revelations, but
it loses one star for occasional hysteria. If US or Texas politics interests you, then I
highly recommend this.
Randall Ivey
You have been warned, July 31, 2000
Haley wrote this book (and published it himself) in 1964 basically as a campaign tract for
Barry Goldwater. In the intervening years it has become a classic of its kind, a philippic,
to use M.E. Bradford's term, tracing the illegitimate rise to power of Lyndon Baines
Johnson.
If you're politically naive, this book will grown hair on your chest. It's an unblinking,
fearless portrait of Johnson's wheeling dealing and underhanded methods to achieve the power,
prestige, and money he craved all his life.
Haley names all the names and lays out facts and figures for the reader to make up his
mind. And the reader winds up shaking his head in utter astonishment. The best part of the
book is that detailing Johnson's eventual election to the U.S. Senate in a contest with
former Gov. Coke Stevenson.
The election was clearly Stevenson's, but through the machinations of George Parr, the
notorious Duke of Duval County, the results were turned around in LBJ's favor. Investigators
later found that among those voting in the primary were people who didn't live in the county
anymore and people who weren't alive at all. But the results stood.
(An interesting and amusing aside: when Haley ran for Texas governor in 1956, he
approached Parr and said, "I'm Evetts Haley. I'm running for governor, and if I win, it will
be my privilege to put you in jail."
Parr's reply: "I believe you will." Parr, the Artful Dodger of Texas politics for years,
eventually killed himself.)
At times the book grows tiresome, especially in the Bobby Baker and Billie Sol Estes
scandals, where Haley turns a virtual torrent of names and numbers on the reader as to be
sometimes confusing.
Look how Tulsi deal with really hostile interviewers. A real nasty attack dog.
Notable quotes:
"... That was absolutely disgusting. He didn't say should we "pull our forces out around the world." He said should we "take our boot off their necks." Warmongering imperialist. ..."
"... So rude he won't let her talk, Tulsi is awesome this guy is a joke he doesn't know history. ..."
That was absolutely disgusting. He didn't say should we "pull our forces out around the
world." He said should we "take our boot off their necks." Warmongering imperialist.
Damn, Tulsi totally smashed him. Now, his supporters gonna have a second thought as they
got a short taste of truth/facts on Saudi. Tulsi can easily defeat Trump.
Ordinary Human, 2 weeks ago
Intelligent, calm, speaks clearly qualities you look for in a leader.
Timothy Lavoie, 2 weeks ago
So rude he won't let her talk, Tulsi is awesome this guy is a joke he doesn't know history.
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We
know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS)
by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those
reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry
Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer
of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive
steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives,
the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie
Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified
the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This
information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting."
This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was
CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka
the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel
and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey
of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially,
his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone
unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump
and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately
September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert),
a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately
2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later
contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and
brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee
of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency
put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the
direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from
a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign
Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: "
Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."
The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research.
This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition
research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets--
Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about
with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against
Donald Trump.
Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence
operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations
pay huge sums. . . .
Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's
Henry
Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6
[British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "
I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI
for launching the investigation into
George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that
led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's
associates conspired," The Times reported.
Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially,
he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network
reported in a January 2016 exclusive:
But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client
cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.
His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation
of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.
Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET
intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation
mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so
enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what
I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that
he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect
that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?
The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which
can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but,
there again, they may 'compose', which is not.
Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law
enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses
to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should
be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.
Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial
misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution"
to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance.
But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.
I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump
to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently
writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But
it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still
believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing
Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns
though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos'
ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation
that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked
a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved.
No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes
spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before
the country move forward on any front.
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele
via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something
important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured
that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't
been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?
Each year, Congress approves hundreds of billions of
dollars for the US defense budget... but the real number exceeds $1 trillion.
In its latest budget request,
the Trump administration is asking for a near-record
$750
billion
for the Pentagon and related defense activities -- an astonishing figure by any measure.
If passed by Congress, it will be one of the largest military budgets in American history,
topping
peak
levels reached during the Korean and Vietnam wars. And keep one thing in mind: That $750 billion
represents only part of the actual annual cost of our national security state.
There are at least 10 separate pots of money dedicated to fighting wars, preparing for
yet more wars, and dealing with the consequences of wars already fought.
So the next time
a
president
,
a
general
,
a
secretary
of defense
, or a hawkish
member
of Congress
insists that the US military is woefully underfunded, think twice. A careful look
at US defense expenditures offers a healthy corrective to such wildly inaccurate claims.
Now,
let's take a brief dollar-by-dollar tour of the US national security state of 2019,
tallying the sums as we go, and see just where we finally land (or perhaps the word should
be "soar"), financially speaking.
The Pentagon's base budget:
The Pentagon's regular, or base, budget is slated to be
$544.5 billion in fiscal year 2020 -- a healthy sum but only a modest down payment on total military
spending.
As you might imagine, that base budget provides basic operating funds for the Department of
Defense, much of which will be squandered on preparations for ongoing wars never authorized by
Congress, overpriced weapons systems that aren't actually needed, or outright waste, an expansive
category that includes everything from cost overruns to unnecessary bureaucracy. That $544.5
billion is the amount publicly reported by the Pentagon for its essential expenses and includes
$9.6 billion in mandatory spending that goes toward items like military retirement.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855
Among those basic expenses, let's start with waste, a category even the biggest boosters
of Pentagon spending can't defend.
The Pentagon's own Defense Business Board found that
cutting unnecessary overhead, including a bloated bureaucracy and a startlingly large shadow
workforce of private contractors, would
save
$125
billion over five years. Perhaps you won't be surprised to learn that the board's proposal has done
little to quiet calls for more money. Instead, from the
highest
reaches
of the Pentagon (and the
president
himself)
came a
proposal
to
create a Space Force, a sixth military service that's all but guaranteed to further bloat its
bureaucracy and
duplicate
work
being done by the other services. Even Pentagon planners estimate that the future Space Force will
cost $13 billion over the next five years (and that's undoubtedly a low-ball figure).
In addition, the Defense Department employs an army of private contractors --
more
than 600,000
of them -- many doing jobs that could be done far more cheaply by civilian government
employees.
Cutting the private contractor work force by 15 percent to a
mere
half-million
people would promptly save more than
$20
billion per year
. And don't forget the
cost
overruns
on major weapons programs like the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent -- the Pentagon's
unwieldy name for the Air Force's new intercontinental ballistic missile -- and routine overpayments
for even minor spare parts (like
$8,000
for
a helicopter gear worth less than $500 -- a markup of 1,500 percent).
Then there are the overpriced weapons systems the military can't even afford to operate, like a
$13
billion
aircraft carrier, 200 nuclear bombers at $564 million a pop, and the F-35 combat
aircraft, the most expensive weapons system in history, at a price tag of at least
$1.4
trillion
over the lifetime of the program. The Project on Government Oversight has
found
-- and
the Government Accountability Office recently
substantiated
-- that,
despite years of work and staggering costs, the F-35 may never perform as advertised.
And don't forget the Pentagon's recent
push
for
long-range strike weapons and new reconnaissance systems designed for future wars with a
nuclear-armed Russia or China, the kind of conflicts that could easily escalate into World War III,
in which such weaponry would be beside the point. Imagine if any of that money were devoted to
figuring out how to prevent such conflicts rather than hatching yet more schemes for how to fight
them.
BASE BUDGET TOTAL: $554.1 BILLION
The war budget:
As if its regular budget weren't enough, the Pentagon also maintains
its very own slush fund, formally known as the Overseas Contingency Operations account, or OCO. In
theory, the fund is meant to pay for the War on Terrorism -- that is, the US wars in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere across the Middle East and Africa. In practice, it does that
and so much more.
After a fight over shutting down the government led to the formation of a bipartisan commission
on deficit reduction -- known as Simpson-Bowles after its co-chairs, former Clinton chief of staff
Erskine Bowles and former Republican senator Alan Simpson -- Congress passed the
Budget
Control Act
of 2011. It put caps on both military and domestic spending that were supposed to
save a total of
$2 trillion
over
10 years. Half that figure was to come from the Pentagon, as well as from nuclear-weapons spending
at the Department of Energy. As it happened, though, there was a huge loophole: The war budget was
exempt from the caps. The Pentagon promptly began to put
tens
of billions
of dollars into it for pet projects that had nothing whatsoever to do with current
wars (and the process has not stopped). The level of abuse of this fund remained largely secret for
years, with the Pentagon
admitting
only
in 2016 that just half the money in the OCO went to actual wars, prompting critics and numerous
members of Congress -- including then-Representative Mick Mulvaney, now President Donald Trump's
latest chief of staff -- to
dub
it
a "slush fund."
This year's budget proposal supersizes the slush in that fund to a figure that would likely be
considered absurd if it weren't part of the Pentagon budget. Of the nearly $174 billion proposed
for the war budget and "emergency" funding, only a little more than
$25
billion
is meant to directly pay for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The rest
will be set aside for what's termed enduring activities that would continue even if those wars
ended or for routine Pentagon activities that couldn't be funded within the constraints of the
budget caps. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is expected to work to alter this
arrangement. Even if the House leadership has its way, however, most of its reductions in the war
budget would be
offset
by
lifting caps on the regular Pentagon budget by corresponding amounts. (It's worth noting that
Trump's budget calls for someday eliminating the slush fund.)
The 2020 OCO also includes
$9.2
billion
in "emergency" spending for building Trump's beloved wall on the US-Mexico border,
among other things. Talk about a slush fund! There is no emergency, of course. The executive branch
is just seizing taxpayer dollars that Congress refused to provide. Even supporters of the
president's wall should be troubled by this money grab. As 36 former Republican members of
Congress
recently
argued
, "What powers are ceded to a president whose policies you support may also be used by
presidents whose policies you abhor." Of all of Trump's "security"-related proposals, this is
undoubtedly the most likely to be eliminated or at least scaled back, given the congressional
Democrats against it.
WAR BUDGET TOTAL: $173.8 BILLION
Running tally: $727.9 billion
The Department of Energy/nuclear budget:
It may surprise you to know that work on the
deadliest weapons in the US arsenal, nuclear warheads, is
housed
in
the Department of Energy, not the Pentagon. The DOE's
National
Nuclear Security Administration
runs a nationwide research, development, and production network
for nuclear warheads and naval nuclear reactors that
stretches
from
Livermore, California, to Albuquerque and Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Kansas City, Missouri, to Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, to Savannah River, South Carolina. Its laboratories also have a
long
history
of program mismanagement, with some projects coming in at nearly eight times their
initial estimates.
NUCLEAR BUDGET TOTAL: $24.8 BILLION
Running tally: $752.7 billion
Defense-related activities:
This category covers the $9 billion that annually goes to
agencies other than the Pentagon -- the bulk of it to the FBI for homeland-security-related
activities.
DEFENSE-RELATED ACTIVITIES TOTAL: $9 BILLION
Running tally: $761.7 billion
The five categories above make up the budget of what's officially known as national defense.
Under the Budget Control Act, this spending should have been capped at $630 billion. The $761.7
billion proposed for the 2020 budget is, however, only the beginning of the story.
The Veterans Affairs budget:
The wars of this century have resulted in a new generation
of veterans. In all, over
2.7
million
US military personnel have cycled through the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan since
2001. Many of them remain in need of substantial support to deal with the physical and mental
wounds of war. As a result, the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs has gone through the
roof, more than
tripling
in this century to
a proposed
$216
billion
. And this massive figure may not even be enough to provide the necessary services.
\More than
6,900
US military
personnel have died in Washington's post-9/11 wars, with more than
30,000
wounded
in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. These casualties are, however, just the tip of the iceberg.
Hundreds
of thousands
of returning troops suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, illnesses created
by exposure to toxic burn pits, or traumatic brain injuries. The US government is committed to
providing care for these veterans for the rest of their lives. An analysis by the Costs of War
Project at Brown University determined that obligations to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars will total
more
than $1 trillion
in the years to come. This cost of war is rarely considered when leaders in
Washington decide to send US troops into combat.
VETERANS AFFAIRS TOTAL: $216 BILLION
Running tally: $977.7 billion
The Homeland Security budget:
The Department of Homeland Security is a mega-agency
created after the 9/11 attacks. At the time, it swallowed
22
existing
government organizations, creating a massive department that currently has nearly a
quarter
of a million
employees.
Agencies
that
are now part of the DHS include the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs
and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Citizenship and Immigration Services,
the Secret Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office, and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis.
While some of the DHS's activities -- such as airport security and
defense
against
the smuggling of a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb into our midst -- have a clear security rationale,
many others do not. ICE -- America's deportation force -- has done far more to
cause
suffering
among innocent people than to thwart criminals or terrorists. Other questionable DHS
activities include grants to local law enforcement agencies to help them buy
military-grade
equipment.
HOMELAND SECURITY TOTAL: $69.2 BILLION
Running tally: $1.0469 trillion
The international-affairs budget:
This includes the budgets of the State Department and
the US Agency for International Development. Diplomacy is one of the most effective ways to make
the United States and the world more secure, but it has been under assault in the Trump years. The
Fiscal Year 2020 budget calls for a
one-third
cut
in international affairs spending, leaving it at about one-fifteenth of the amount allocated for
the Pentagon and related agencies grouped under the category of national defense. And that doesn't
even account for the fact that more than
10
percent
of the international affairs budget supports military aid efforts, most notably the
$5.4
billion
Foreign Military Financing program. The bulk of FMF goes to Israel and Egypt, but in
all over a dozen countries receive funding under it, including Jordan, Lebanon, Djibouti, Tunisia,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS TOTAL: $51 BILLION
Running tally: $1.0979 trillion
The intelligence budget:
The United States has
17
intelligence
agencies. In addition to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the FBI, mentioned above,
they are the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Drug Enforcement Agency's Office of National
Security Intelligence, the Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the
Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, the National Reconnaissance
Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Army's Intelligence and Security Command,
the Office of Naval Intelligence, Marine Corps Intelligence, Coast Guard Intelligence, and Air
Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. And then there's that 17th one, the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, set up to coordinate the activities of the other 16.
We know remarkably little about the nature of the nation's intelligence spending, other than its
supposed total, released in a report every year. By now, it's
more
than $80 billion
. The bulk of this funding, including for the CIA and NSA, is believed to be
hidden under obscure line items in the Pentagon budget. Since intelligence spending is not a
separate funding stream, it's not counted in our tally below (though, for all we know, some of it
should be).
INTELLIGENCE BUDGET TOTAL: $80 BILLION
Running tally: $1.0979 trillion
Defense share of interest on the national debt:
The interest on the national debt is
well on its way to becoming one of the most expensive items in the federal budget. Within a decade,
it is projected to exceed the Pentagon's regular budget in size. For now, of the more than $500
billion in interest taxpayers fork over to service the government's debt each year, about
$156
billion
can be attributed to Pentagon spending.
DEFENSE SHARE OF NATIONAL DEBT TOTAL: $156.3 BILLION
Final tally: $1.2542 trillion
So our final annual tally for war, preparations for war, and the impact of war comes to more
than $1.25 trillion, more than double the Pentagon's base budget. If the average taxpayer were
aware that this amount was being spent in the name of national defense -- with much of it wasted,
misguided, or simply counterproductive -- it might be far harder for the national security state to
consume ever-growing sums with minimal public pushback. For now, however, the gravy train is
running full speed ahead, and its main
beneficiaries
-- Lockheed
Martin,
Boeing
,
Northrop Grumman, and their cohort -- are laughing all the way to the bank.
Tulsi Gabbard does have guts. I saw her in a recent interview with Shannon Bream. She said
the US basically needs to let Venezuelans handle their own internal political affairs. I
agree. She appears to be firmly opposed to US military intervention there.
"... I don't think the US government should use operating systems made in China for the same reason that most governments shouldn't use operating systems made in the US and in fact we just got proof since Microsoft is now known to be telling the NSA about bugs in Windows before it fixes them. ..."
"... All the major western tech companies cooperate with the western security services. In Murder in Samarkand I gave the first public revelation that the government can and does listen through your mobile phone microphone even when the phone is ostensibly switched off, a fact that got almost no traction until Edward Snowden released documents confirming it six years later. China is full of western devices with backdoors that are exploited by western intelligence. That the tables turn as Chinese technology advances is scarcely surprising. ..."
Theresa May almost certainly sacked Gavin Williamson not just on the basis of a telephone billing record showing he had a phone
call with a Telegraph journalist, but on the basis of a recording of the conversation itself.
It astonishes me that still, after Snowden and his
PRISM revelations, after Wikileaks
Vault 7 releases , and after numerous other sources including
my own humble contribution, people still manage to avoid the cognitive dissonance that goes with really understanding how much we
are surveilled and listened to. Even Cabinet Ministers manage
to pretend
to themselves it is not happening.
The budget of the NSA, which does nothing else but communications intercept, is US $14.2 billion this year. Think about that enormous
sum, devoted to just communications surveillance, and what it can achieve. The budget of the UK equivalent, GCHQ, is £1.2 billion,
of which about 10% is paid by the NSA. Domestic surveillance in the UK has been vastly expanded and many taboos broken. But the bedrock
of the system with regard to domestic intercepts is still that legal restrictions are dodged, as the USA's NSA spies on UK citizens
while the UK's GCHQ spies on US citizens, and then the information is swapped. It was thus probably the NSA that harvested Williamson's
phone call, passing the details on. Given official US opposition to the UK employing Huawei technology, Williamson's call would have
been a "legitimate" NSA target.
Mass surveillance works on electronic harvesting. Targeted phone numbers apart, millions of essentially random calls are listened
to electronically using voice recognition technology and certain key words trigger an escalation of the call. Williamson's call discussing
Huawei, China, the intelligence services, and backdoors would certainly have triggered recording and been marked up to a human listener,
even if his phone was not specifically targeted by the Americans – which it almost certainly was.
Williamson of course is relying on the security services' secrecy about their methods to maintain his protests of innocence, secure
in the knowledge that the recording of him would not be produced. The existence of the recording – of which I am extremely confident
– is the only possible explanation for May's degree of certainty and swift action against one of her very few loyal allies.
All of which of course throws into stark relief the stunning hypocrisy of those who are worried that Huawei will be used for electronic
eavesdropping, when they are up to their ears in electronic eavesdropping themselves. One of my heroes is the great Richard Stallman,
who put it this way six years ago:
RMS: Well, it's perfectly reasonable suspicion to me. I don't think the US government should use operating systems made in
China for the same reason that most governments shouldn't use operating systems made in the US and in fact we just got proof since
Microsoft is now known to be telling the NSA about bugs in Windows before it fixes them.
RSS: I was just going to bring this up exactly, so I was saying that the NSA recently received notifications about the zero-day
holes in advance and [incomprehensible] the NSA and the CIA to just crack PCs abroad for espionage purposes.
RMS: Now, [incomprehensible] that this proves my point, which is that you have to be nuts if you were some other country and
using Windows on your computers. But, you know, given that Windows has a universal back door in it, Microsoft would hardly need
to tell the NSA about any bugs, it can tell the NSA about the mal-feature of the universal back door and that would be enough
for the NSA to attack any computer running Windows, which unfortunately is a large fraction of them.
All the major western tech companies cooperate with the western security services. In Murder in Samarkand I gave the first public
revelation that the government can and does listen through your mobile phone microphone
even when the phone is ostensibly switched off, a fact that got almost no traction until Edward Snowden released documents confirming
it six years later. China is full of western devices with backdoors that are exploited by western intelligence. That the tables turn
as Chinese technology advances is scarcely surprising.
Personally I do not want the Chinese, Americans, Russians or British eavesdropping on me, or on each other, and I wish that they
would stop. The spy games will of course continue, as they make money for a lot of well-connected people. But for any side to claim
moral superiority in all of this is just nonsense.
"It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union's judiciary used to function is
now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States."
When you consider how many of today's Democrat luminaries were self described as dedicated
Communists in the 60's, 70's, and 80's it is not surprising at all.
If, the information in this article is true, I feel bad for this young lady getting hemmed
up in international shenanigans.
If a person loves her country (her home), wants the opportunity for fellow citizens to be
free with a right to bare arms, and seeks out the assistance of the USA both as a model for
having the 2nd Amendment, and an organization that leads in advocating for personal firearms
ownership, the NRA, how is she committing any crime? She should not be locked up for pursuing
God given, inalienable rights for her fellow countrymen. She should be encouraged and
sponsored by Pro2A groups and manufacturers. Again, if the information as presented is
true.
Thank you DOJ. There's no need for guns in Russia. These people intoxicated by the alcohol
and hard drugs will kill one another by the thousands. I feel for Masha Butina, but as far
away she is from Russia, as better for this poor country. Luckily she is in US and even
better in prison. Thank you Russophobes, warmongers and sheep that neocons will send to the
slaughterhouse, you can not do any better.
Our courts are totally corrupt. There's a prosecutor/FBI/judge cabal which convicts 98+%
of its victims at trials. The excessive long sentences are used to convince the large
majority unable to afford a slightly possible defense to bargain a plea. The Exceptional
morons selected for juries think, why would the FBI lie. They lie to be promoted. What do you
think happens to an agent whose testimony aids the defense?
Kangaroo courts would be more honest in their convictions.
If a case is merely "plausible", that's not enough to indict.
Based on that thread-bare criterion, the FBI could probably come up with "plausible" cause
to indict half the US population for something or other. Never mind Russians, all of whom
might "plausibly" be suspected as secret agents for the Kremlin because they know other
Russians.
The true criminals are attempting to cover their tracks through diversion. The magnitude
of the scheme they are executing now is commensurate with the magnitude of their own crimes
against the United States.
I agree, it was much more scary in the 80's hiding under our desks at school and learning
each week how many times one country could blow up the world, multiple times over. Now, so
many people around the world call ********, not because MAD doesn't exist, but everyone
realized no matter the quality of your bunker and fortitude of cement, those things only mean
you die slower than those outside near the big flash. Hypersonic weapons seem like a step
backwards in the whole 'my missile is bigger than your missile' game of Coldwar 2.0.
As usual. When
it suits, the rule book goes out the window. But equally when it suits they will quote rule after rule from the very
same book when it suits their agenda.
Chris Hedges, host of "On Contact," joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the "Russiagate"
media frenzy. He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite
are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame. They also discuss
NATO's expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.
Years ago I kept hearing from the newsmedia that Russia was the "enemy".
Frontline had a show about "Putin's Brain". Even Free
Speech TV shows like Bill Press and "The Nation" authors like Eric Alterman push the Hillary style warmongering and do nothing
to expose the outright lies out there.
These are supposed to be thought outside of the corporate mainstream newsmedia. The emphasis
only on Trump and Fox News is totally hypocritical.
The US and Great Britain are trying to economically cripple Syria via cutoff of oil
supplies as "The Syrian government is scrambling to deal with its worst fuel crisis since
the war began in 2011, aggravated by U.S. sanctions targeting oil shipments to
Damascus." https://www.apnews.com/a99a22ad2598474ca39a7d8cde560c31
"Under the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Great Britain, no Iranian oil tankers are
allowed to transit the Suez Canal if they are destined for a Syrian port, a Syrian military
source told Al-Masdar News this morning."
Thus the Egyptian government is apparently technically lying about their role in the
sanction when they state "Egypt's government denied Wednesday banning the passage of oil
tankers to Syria through the Suez Canal. Navigation in the canal is going according to
international conventions and treaties that guarantee the right of safe navigation to all
tankers without discrimination."
https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/49720/cairo-denies-syrian-accusations-on-banning-iranian-oil-tanker-passage.html
Consequently, Iran is shipping Syria oil via tanker trucks.
"1200 Iranian tankers loaded with oil products reached Syria through Iraq in the past
week," Al- Iraqia reports, adding, "The number of Iranian oil tankers are expected to reach
1500 per week, and after providing current Syrian needs, they will be fixed at 500 tankers
per week."
Those that oppose US and Israeli world domination has to buy time and promote economic
collapse within the Empire. Eventually the Sparta like militarism will bankrupt both
countries. The wild card is Venezuela - if they can get their hands on this oil they, and
their allies, can continue to spread chaos for a couple more decades. As it now stands the US
proven oil reserves are between 36-39 billion barrels and the US is consuming that oil at a
rate of about 4.3 billion barrels/year.
The US is also putting pressure on Turkey in hopes of deposing the current government that
supports the GNA in Libya and opposes the gulf states and Saudi Arabia. Turkey needs the
Iranian heavy crude for its Tupras refinery. Substituting heavy crude from Russia is an issue
as Russia has already contracted with Italy and Greece to supply heavy crude to their
refineries. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/04/turkey-iran-usa-ankara-seeks-alternative-sources-iranian-oil.html
B wrote "The Syrian oilfields, which could produce enough to keep the country running, are under
control of the U.S. proxy forces. The U.S. prohibited to sell that oil to the Syrian
government."
It is about the money. It is another spinning plate trying to be war just like Iran,
Venezuela, etc. And when the money music stops (which is only when enough nations stop buying
US Treasuries) the elite are going to say that the poor should pay for those attempts at
war.
I like the comment by frances above about the drunk on the canal boat and China/Russia/et
al are trying to keep us alive, hoping the drunk passes out.....and we all get to watch and
learn how not to run a world where the drunk owns the punch bowl.
Trump chances are not that great to begin with. Euphrial from Mueller final report will
dissipate soon and House is still controlled by DemoRats with Schiff and other "FullOfSchiff"
people pushing Russiagate like there is no tomorrow. They represent a "present danger". But
Bolton actions can cost Trump 202 elections for sure.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump presumably doesn't want to start a multi-year, extremely expensive war that could also throw the economy into a recession, but then every president that launches an illegal war of choice assumes that the war would be much easier and take less time than it does. ..."
"... There is no question that Bolton should lose his job. Even if you aren't an opponent of Trump, you should be unhappy with the way Bolton has been operating for the last year. He has made a point of sabotaging administration policies he doesn't like, resisting decisions he doesn't agree with, and effectively reversing policy changes while pretending to be carrying out the president's wishes. His mismanagement of the policy process is a bad joke, and the reason he runs the National Security Council this way is so that he can stop views and information that don't suit his agenda from reaching the president. ..."
"... If Bolton gets his wish and the U.S. starts a war with Iran, he may not be in that job for much longer, but the damage will have already been done. ..."
Jason Rezaian
engages in a bit of wishful thinking of his own:
Is John Bolton about to get the Iran war he's always wanted, or is he on the verge of
losing his job?
Over the past several days, President Trump's national security adviser has made comments
and issued statements about Iran and Venezuela that are usually reserved for the run-up to
military campaigns.
Yet Bolton's boss doesn't seem to be playing along.
There is an understandable desire to see Bolton and Trump sharply at odds over foreign
policy, but I'm not sure why anyone thinks it is happening. In the L.A. Times
article I
cited earlier, there is a quote from former ambassador Christopher Hill where he says
something similar: "The president is so dead set against military engagement anywhere, and
Bolton is so dead set on military engagement, it has left the administration speaking without
one voice and overall being sort of feckless." If Trump and Bolton disagreed with each other
this much, it is difficult to explain why Bolton is still allowed to have free rein in making
the administration's foreign policy.
For someone "not playing along," Trump has obediently given Bolton and the Iran hawks
practically everything they have wanted so far. He has gone much further in laying the
groundwork for war with Iran than any of his predecessors, and the only reason that many people
seem confident that he won't order an attack is their mistaken belief that he is a
non-interventionist when all of the evidence tells us that he is no such thing.
Trump presumably doesn't want to start a multi-year, extremely expensive war that could
also throw the economy into a recession, but then every president that launches an illegal war
of choice assumes that the war would be much easier and take less time than it does.
No one ever knowingly opts for a bloody debacle. The absurdly optimistic hawkish
expectations of a quick and easy triumph are always dashed on the rocks of reality, but for
some reason political leaders believe these expectations every time because "this time it's
different." There will come a point where Bolton will tell Trump that attacking Iran (or
Venezuela) is the only way to "win," and Trump will probably listen to him just as he has
listened to him on all of these issues up until now.
There is no question that Bolton should lose his job. Even if you aren't an opponent of
Trump, you should be unhappy with the way Bolton has been operating for the last year. He has
made a point of sabotaging administration policies he doesn't like, resisting decisions he
doesn't agree with, and effectively reversing policy changes while pretending to be carrying
out the president's wishes. His mismanagement of the policy process is a bad joke, and the
reason he runs the National Security Council this way is so that he can stop views and
information that don't suit his agenda from reaching the president.
But Trump pays little or no attention to any of this, and as long as Bolton remains loyal in
public and a yes-man in person he is likely safe in his job. If Bolton gets his wish and the
U.S. starts a war with Iran, he may not be in that job for much longer, but the damage will
have already been done. Instead of counting on Trump to toss Bolton overboard, Congress and
the public need to make absolutely clear that war with Iran and Venezuela is unacceptable and
Trump will be destroying his presidency if he goes down that path in either country.
Obama entered office in 2008 promising to close Guantanamo and end the stupid wars.
Not only did Obama fail to end a single war, he gave us new and stupider wars in Syria,
Yemen and Ukraine, to name but three. Guantanamo is still open.
Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has
turned out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya.
As much of a disaster for American institutions Trump has been, I believe he does not want to
go to war. The times are a’changin’. Average Americans have figured out that
these wars are self-defeating nonsense. Trump knows that, and doesn’t want to alienate
the middle American types who support him and would go to war.
But he does want to sound and look tough, hence Bolton. The problem is that while Trump
may believe he’s just blustering, reneging on the nuclear deal, cranking back brutal
sanctions and sending US flotillas to the Strait of Hormuz looks and feels like war to the
Iranians.
We could stumble into a very big and ugly war like America stumbled into the ugly era of
Trump. And Trump is the absolute last person I would want to serve as a commander in chief
during war time.
Sid, the natural conclusion is that the ‘deep state’ is real, and for the most
part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of the American
elite, most importantly the ‘War Party’ (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but
including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in
America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want.
Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If starting a war will make Trump
look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war, Trump may let us stumble into
one.
With the new CNN poll showing Joe Biden representing the fossil wing of the Democratic party
with a 39% favorable rating as Bernie drops to 15%, it is eerily reminiscent of overstated
polls for HRC in 2016. Thanks to CNN, additional White House contenders have qualified for the
debate via the % option including former Colorado Gov John Hickenlooper who might take the
opportunity to inform the public why he attended the Bilderberg meeting in
2018 .
Given her almost totally hostile reception by every MSM outlet who deigned to interview her,
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has experienced, as an opponent of regime change wars, more bad manners and
outright personal antagonism than any other candidate. While Gabbard easily qualified for the
debates via the $65,000 requirement and continues to attract SRO audiences in NH, Iowa,
California and elsewhere, yet until the newest CNN poll, she failed to register any % of public
support.
Something here does not compute given the 'favored' polls past history of favoritism. If the
Dems continue to put a brick wall around her, Jill Stein has already opened the Green Party
door as a more welcoming venue for a Tulsi candidacy. The Dems, who tend to be unprincipled and
vindictive, better be careful what they wish for.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and
president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in
Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House
of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter
@reneedove31
Dimly Glimpsed
The Democrat establishment hates Tulsi with a passion. There appear to be several factors:
1) she opposes all the neocon wars, and opposes intervention in Venezuela.
2) She refuses to kowtow to the bipartisan establish sacred cows (an apt metaphor for Tulsi), such as blind support for
Saudi Arabia and Israel;
3) She gave the DNC and Hillary the back of her hand when she resigned as a vice-chair of the DNC in 2016, citing the
reason as unethical bias by the DNC during the primaries. In other words, she resigned because the DNC was not neutral during
the primaries, and colluded with Hillary to cheat Bernie;
4) Tulsi is very progressive, favoring single payer health care, student debt relief, the Green New Deal, etc.
For an establishment democrat, those policies are like garlic to a vampire.
When a CIA-backed military coup is attempted by a long term CIA puppet, roared on by
John Bolton and backed with
the offer of Blackwater mercenaries, in the country with the world's largest oil reserves,
I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing which side I am on.
Juan Guaido has been
groomed for 15 years as a long-term CIA project. His coup attempt yesterday, which so far
appears to have stalled, was the culmination of these efforts to return Venezuela's oil
reserves to US hegemony.
It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often
with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with
massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can
be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is
far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The
hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking.
Hypocrisy and irony are soulmates, and there are multiple levels of irony in seeing the
"liberal" commentators who were cheering on an undisguised military coup, then complaining
loudly that people are being injured or killed now their side is losing. Yesterday the MSM had
no difficulty in calling the attempted coup what anybody with eyes and ears could see it
plainly was, an attempted military coup. Today, miraculously, the MSM line is no coup attempt
happened at all, it was just a spontaneous unarmed protest, and it is the evil government of
Venezuela which attempts to portray it as a coup. BBC Breakfast this morning had the headline
"President Maduro has accused the opposition of mounting a coup attempt" Yet there is no doubt
at all that, as a matter of plain fact, that is what happened.
The MSM today is full of video of water cannons against "protestors" and a horrible video of
a military vehicle ramming a group. But it has all been very carefully edited to exclude hours
of footage of the same military vehicles being pelted and set alight with molotov cocktails,
and shot at. The presentation has been truly shocking.
In any civilised country, attempting to mount a military coup would lead to incarceration
for life, and that is what should now happen to Juan Guaido. The attempt by the West to protect
their puppet by pretending the failed military coup never happened, must be resisted, if only
in the cause of intellectual honesty.
The resort to violence forces binary choice. I have been and am a critic of Maduro in many
respects. I believe the constitutional changes to bypass Parliament were wrong, and the
indirectly elected Constituent Assembly is not a good form of democracy. Venezuela does have a
rampant corruption problem. US sanctions exacerbate but are not the root cause of economic
mismanagement. There are human rights failings. But Chavez made revolutionary changes in
educating and empowering the poor, and it is a far better governed country for the mass of its
population than it would ever be under a US installed CIA puppet regime. Maduro was
legitimately elected. The attempt at violence forces a binary choice.
I know which side I am on. It is not Guaido and the CIA.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the
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subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the articles,
but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
This podcast interview with Lisa Pease on her new 500-page primary-sourced book, A Lie Too
Big To Fail, on the RFK assassination, is fascinating, sobering, terrifying.
It should put to rest any notion that US elections have fundamentally mattered since 1963.
Amazing the stuff the CIA pulled off in quick succession in the 60's. Also did not yet know
the likely Israel connection in the RFK assassination and the convenient framing of Sirhan
Sirhan as "the first Palestinian terrorist..." RFK was according to Pease going to demand
that Israel register its lobbying actions, and other connections to the six-day war also
noted by interviewers...
Laurent Guyénot has some good pieces at Unz Review on this topic. I don't think I
can post a link to Unz here, but this piece covers both JFK and Bobby: "Did Israel Kill
the Kennedys?" It shouldn't be hard to find over there, the search is good.
The incentive for Israel to kill JFK was large. Bobby was running for the presidency in
order to reopen the investigation. Apparently the Kennedy family has never forgotten. John F.
Kennedy, Jr was grooming himself for that same presidential run. He was killed when his small
plane crashed, mysteriously.
Thanks for that reference to the laurent guyenot piece. It holds together very well as a
unified account of the JFK and RFK murders and contains several bits of info about the JFK
assassination I was not aware of. It would seem to me that if we accept that Israel was
behind both assassinations it must have been with *at least* the foreknowledge of and likely
cooperation with certain elements within the CIA. The extent of direct CIA involvement in the
RFK murder is likely (and surprisingly for most) easier to demonstrate than in the earlier
JFK killing; and that makes sense, given Johnson's complicity in the murder and five-years of
state cover up. By 1968, many people in the CIA had almost as much to fear as Israel did at
the prospect of RFK's reinvestigating his brother's murder, so that the RFK was likely a
joint operation between the two groups. At least I find it hard to imagine that the CIA was
not actively involved in the latter. I also--and here perhaps I differ from
Guyénot--do not believe that *if* elements of the CIA were involved in either murder
it was only or largely due to these same elements having ties to Israel. Perhaps this is so;
but I think it is likely not. Good ole American evil existed before foreign Zionist evil and,
while
the two have often been inextricably linked since the mid 20th-century, I do not think either
finally reduces to the other. I say this not because I believe you think this, but only to
try to articulate my one quibble with Guyenot's approach. Yet it is a very minor quibble and
I thank you again for pointing me to her work.
Pentagon serves Wall Street and is controlled by CIA which is actually can be viewed as a
Wall Street arm as well.
Notable quotes:
"... This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. ..."
"... General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . ..."
"... The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence. ..."
"... If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. ..."
"... Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM. ..."
"... Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
The two-star army general strode across the stage in his rumpled combat fatigues, almost
like George Patton -- all that was missing was the cigar and riding crop. It was 2017 and I was
in the audience, just another mid-level major attending yet another mandatory lecture in the
auditorium of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The general then commanded one of the Army's two true armored divisions and had plenty of
his tanks forward deployed in Eastern Europe, all along the Russian frontier. Frankly, most
CGSC students couldn't stand these talks. Substance always seemed lacking, as each general
reminded us to "take care of soldiers" and "put the mission first," before throwing us a few
nuggets of conventional wisdom on how to be good staff officers should we get assigned to his
vaunted command.
This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it
crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly
defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the
general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. Generals can be like that --
utterly "in-the-box," "can-do" thinkers. They take pride in how little they discuss policy and
politics, even when they command tens of thousands of troops and control entire districts,
provinces, or countries. There is some value in this -- we'd hardly want active
generals meddling in U.S. domestic affairs. But they nonetheless can take the whole "aw shucks"
act a bit too far.
General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because
his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even
be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold
War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and
underestimating Russian military
capability . Of course, it was all cloaked in the macho bravado so common among
generals who think that talking like sergeants will win them street cred with the troops.
(That's not their job anymore, mind you.) He said nothing, of course, about the role
of mid- and long-range nuclear weapons that could be the catastrophic consequence of an
unnecessary war with the Russian Bear.
I got to thinking about that talk recently as I reflected in wonder at how the latest
generation of mainstream "liberals" loves to fawn over generals, admirals -- any flag officers,
really -- as alternatives to President Donald Trump. The irony of that alliance should not be
lost on us. It's built on the standard Democratic fear of looking "soft" on terrorism,
communism, or whatever-ism, and their visceral, blinding hatred of Trump. Some of this is
understandable. Conservative Republicans masterfully paint liberals as "weak sisters" on
foreign policy, and Trump's administration is, well, a wild card in world affairs.
The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think
strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive
formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of
tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they
get promoted past their respective levels of competence.
If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers,
they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that
were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to
the Constitution, after all, not
Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the
disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. More of the same is all they know:
their careers were built on fighting "terror" anywhere it raised its evil head. Some, though no
longer most, still subscribe to the faux intellectualism of General Petraeus and his legion of
Coindinistas
, who never saw a problem that a little regime change, followed by expert counterinsurgency,
couldn't solve. Forget that they've been proven wrong time and again and can count
zero victories since 2002. Generals (remember this!) are never held accountable.
Flag officers also rarely seem to recognize that they owe civilian policymakers more than
just tactical "how" advice. They ought to be giving "if" advice -- if we invade Iraq,
it will take 500,000 troops to occupy the place, and even then we'll ultimately destabilize the
country and region, justify al-Qaeda's worldview, kick off a nationalist insurgency, and become
immersed in an unwinnable war. Some, like Army Chief General Eric Shinseki and CENTCOM head
John Abizaid, seemed to
know this deep down. Still, Shinseki quietly retired after standing up to Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Abizaid rode out his tour to retirement.
Generals also love to tell the American people that victory is
"just around the corner," or that there's a "light at the end of the tunnel." General
William Westmoreland used the very same language when predicting imminent victory in Vietnam.
Two months later, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong unleashed the largest uprising of the war,
the famed Tet Offensive.
Take Afghanistan as exhibit A: 17 or so generals have now commanded U.S. troops in this,
America's longest war. All have commanded within the system and framework of their
predecessors. Sure, they made marginal operational and tactical changes -- some preferred
surges, others advising, others counterterror -- but all failed to achieve anything close to
victory, instead laundering failure into false optimism. None refused to play the same-old game
or question the very possibility of victory in landlocked, historically xenophobic Afghanistan.
That would have taken real courage, which is in short supply among senior officers.
Exhibit B involves Trump's former cabinet generals -- National Security Advisor H.R.
McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelley, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis -- whom adoring and
desperate liberals took as saviors and canonized as the supposed adults
in the room . They were no such thing. The generals' triumvirate consisted ultimately of
hawkish conventional thinkers married to the dogma of American exceptionalism and empire.
Period.
Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian
Gulf that President Barack Obama
removed him from command of CENTCOM.
Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior
monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether
reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.
Helping Saudi Arabia terror bomb Yemen and starve 85,000 children to death? Mattis rebuked
Congress and
supported that. He never considered resigning in opposition to that war crime. No, he fell
on his "courageous" sword over downgrading a losing 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Not to
mention he came to Trump's cabinet straight from the board of contracting giant General
Dynamics, where he collected hundreds of thousands of military-industrial complex dollars.
Then there was John Kelley, whom Press Secretary Sarah Sanders implied
was above media questioning because he was once a four-star marine general. And there's
McMaster, another lauded intellectual who once wrote an interesting book and taught history at
West Point. Yet he still drew all
the wrong conclusions in his famous book on Vietnam -- implying that more troops, more
bombing, and a mass invasion of North Vietnam could have won the war. Furthermore, his work
with Mattis on Trump's unhinged
, imperial National Defense Strategy proved that he was, after all, just another devotee of
American hyper-interventionism.
So why reflect on these and other Washington generals? It's simple: liberal veneration for
these, and seemingly all, military flag officers is a losing proposition and a formula for more
intervention, possible war with other great powers, and the creeping militarization of the
entire U.S. government. We know what the generals expect -- and potentially
want -- for America's foreign policy future.
Just look at the curriculum at the various war and staff colleges from Kansas to Rhode
Island. Ten years ago, they were all running war games focused on counterinsurgency in the
Middle East and Africa. Now those same schools are drilling for future "contingencies" in the
Baltic, Caucasus, and in the South China Sea. Older officers have always lamented the end of
the Cold War "good old days," when men were men and the battlefield was "simple." A return to a
state of near-war with Russia and China is the last thing real progressives should be
pushing for in 2020.
The bottom line is this: the faint hint that mainstream libs would relish a Six Days in May– style military coup is more than a little disturbing, no matter what you think
of Trump. Democrats must know the damage such a move would do to our ostensible republic. I
say: be a patriot. Insist on civilian control of foreign affairs. Even if that
means two more years of The Donald.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to Truthdig . His
work has also appeared in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times , The Nation , Tom Dispatch , and The
Hill . He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later taught history at his alma
mater, West Point. He is the author of Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
"... We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory. ..."
"... Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found freedom and democracy. ..."
"... Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy. ..."
Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving
Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.
This week, leading US neocons openly threatened that if the CIA's latest attempts to stage a coup to overthrow Venezuela's Maduro
government failed, Washington might send in the Marines.
Well, the coup was a big fiasco and the Venezuelan army didn't overthrow President Maduro. The CIA also failed to overthrow governments
in Moscow, Tehran and Damascus. Its only 'success' to date has been in overthrowing Ukraine's pro-Moscow government and putting a
bunch of corrupt clowns in its place at a cost near $10 billion.
The US has not waged a major successful war since World War II – unless you count invading Grenada, Panama and Haiti, or bombing
the hell out of Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya. That's a sobering thought given the Pentagon's recent announcement that it is cutting
back on little colonial wars (aka 'the war on terror') to get ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.
Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez and Maduro governments – and US economic
sabotage. But my first law of international affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs
and elect its own crooks or idiots.'
Now, however, the administration's frenzied neocons want to start a war against Venezuela, a large, developed nation of 32.7 million,
at the same time we are threatening war against Iran, interfering all around Africa, and confronting Russia, China and perhaps North
Korea. Large parts of the Mideast and Afghanistan lie in ruins thanks to our 'liberation' campaigns.
Invading Venezuela would not be much of a problem for the US military: half the population hates the current government and might
welcome the Americans. Venezuela's military has only limited combat value. Right-wing regimes in neighboring Colombia and Brazil
might join the invasion.
But what then? Recall Iraq. The US punched through the feeble Iraqi Army whose strength had been wildly exaggerated by the media.
Once US and British forces settled in to occupation duties, guerilla forces made their life difficult and bloody. Iraqi resistance
continues today, sixteen years later. The same would likely happen in Venezuela.
There is deep anti-American sentiment in Latin America that existed long before Col. Chavez. Recall, for example, the large anti-American
riots that greeted Vice President Nixon's visit to Caracas in 1958.
'Yankees Go Home' is a rallying cry for much of Latin America. Blundering into Venezuela, another nation about which the Trump
administration knows or understands little, would stir up a hornet's next. Their ham-handed efforts to punish Cuba and whip up the
far right Cuban-American vote in Florida would galvanize anti-American anger across Latin America. Beware the ghost of Fidel.
ORDER IT NOW
Talks over Venezuela are underway between Washington and Moscow. Neither country has any major interest in Venezuela. Moscow is
stirring the pot there to retaliate for growing US involvement in Russia's backyard and Syria. Both the US and Russia should get
the hell out of Venezuela and mind their own business.
Instead, we hear crazy proposals to send 5,000 mercenaries to overthrow the Maduro regime. How well did the wide-scale use of
US-financed mercenaries work in Iraq and Afghanistan? A complete flop. The only thing they did competently was wash dishes at our
bases, murder civilians, and play junior Rambos.
For those who don't like the American Raj, a US invasion of Venezuela would mark a step forward in the crumbling of the empire.
More aimless imperial over-reach, more lack of strategy, more enemies generated.
The big winner would, of course, be the Pentagon and military industrial complex. More billions spent on a nation most Americans
could not find on a map if their lives depended on it, more orders for 'counter-insurgency' weapons, more military promotions, and
cheers from Fox News and wrestling fans.
Worst of all, the US could end up feeding and caring for wrecked Venezuela. How did we do with storm-ravaged Puerto Rico? It's
still in semi-ruin. Few want Venezuela's thick, heavy oil these days.
Venezuela could turn out to be a big, fat Tar Baby.
The "crackpot economic policies" of Chavez and Madero increased the health of the people through access to medical care, improved
housing, brought the literacy rate to one of the highest in Latin Americs, added years to average lifespan among other things
by emphasizing that the country's resources should improve the lives of Venezuela's citizens. This was accomplished by selling
resources in the capitalistic market -crackpot I grant you. The American sanctions and the seizure of Venezuelan assets are all
illegal under American law and Constitution given the treaties we have signed, but then if you want to know what those laws mean
all you have to do is ask any Native American tribe.
Who would pay Eric Prince's 5000 Blackwater hired assassins? Would the cash come from the pirate booty war chest or would the
citizens of America be stuck with the tab, once again?
@Walter Duranty Something
seems different. With Russian and Chinese intelligence help, the Guaido coup was a laughable joke. It made the US look like bozos.
I think Venezuela and allies tipped their hand there, and it is a strong one. I fear the US may be walking into a trap
It is interesting but several Pentagon/military officers are saying the Pentagon is not enthusiastic about invading Venezuela.
It is a rugged, jungle cloaked, country that is quite large and an American effort may end up being like the one in Vietnam.
I wonder how many are aware that Venezuela owns a majority of the oil company Citgo?
I wonder how many Americans know that for many years during Winter Citgo gave free heating oil to a large number of low income
households in the US northeast? while our own government was cutting back on low income heating oil subsidies.
We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition
of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there
are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory.Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required
for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit
of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found
freedom and democracy.Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy.
It may be true that neither the US or Russia 'has any major interest in Venezuela', and that Putin may be 'stirring the pot'.
The real danger is, and globally the evidence points to this, an eventual clash between the major nuclear powers (world war).
It is ominous if Washington is getting for 'ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.' https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea
of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.
... ... ...
Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez
and Maduro governments – and US economic sabotage. But my first law of international
affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs and
elect its own crooks or idiots.'
Color revolution is a military operation in which protesters are just a tip of the iceberg. the key
players are Embassy staff, three letter agencies, NGOs, bought and foreign owned neoliberal press,
some oligarchs (who might be pressed into submission with the threat of confiscating their
assets), compradors and bought players within the government.
The initial crash with police was organized by one of such players (supposedly Lyovochkin). One of the key instruments were huge cash
flows in diplomatic mail that feed the protest ("bombing country with dollars"). In a
sense in any neoliberal republic color revolution is designed to be a success, the fact which
EuroMaidan proved quite convincingly.
Ukraine actually was a very easy target. Yanukovich was
essentially neutralized and paralyzed by threats from Biden. Security services were
infiltrated and partially work for Americans. Several bought members of the government (Lyovochkon?)
did their dirty job in organizing the necessity clashes with policy to feed the protest.
Notable quotes:
"... The script writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans. ..."
Former Prime Minister Azarov explained his version of events on the Maidan. The script
writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told the NTV about how coup d'état of February of
the last year was organized. According to him, the script of the coup d'état was written at the
U.S. Embassy.
"The main puppeteers were not on the Maidan," Azarov said. The protests started because of the
decision of Ukrainian authorities to suspend the signing of the Association agreement with the EU.
"There was, of course, the enormous pressure from the leaders of the European Union, from
several European countries. The meaning of this pressure was the fact that we must put aside
all doubts and to sign this agreement," said the former Prime Minister. "They just needed an
excuse, a reason to overthrow our government. Because we were frankly told: "If you do not you sign
this agreement, it will sign another government, another President,"
In this regard, according to Azarov, they needed a provocation to start protest and such a
provocation became the use of force on Independence square in Kiev, where supporters of European
integration were staying for several nights. "The action was slow. The organizers understood
that without the sacred victims they will be unable to ignite the crowd. Suddenly around 3 am
several TV crews arrive, set lights, camera. What to shoot? This ordinary situation, when people
spend the night at the square?" - said Azarov.
Ukrainian people were cynically played. According to Azarov at this moment
"prepared by gunmen in masks" arrived to the square. They started beating on duty policemen with
metal sticks. When police called reinforcements instigators quickly disappeared. And when riot
police began detention, "they detain generally innocent people who spend night at the square as a
part of peaceful protest."
Speaking about the negotiations Yanukovich with the opposition, Azarov noted that the current
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk "every day spend most of his time in the American Embassy and
following their instructions to the letter."
In the end, an agreement was signed between the President and opposition leaders on the peaceful
resolution of the conflict, the guarantor which were several European countries, but no one except
the Yanukovich, fulfilled their obligations. "I still do not understand, how foreign Ministers of
Poland, Germany, France, which signed an agreement on February 21 feel themselves. In the history
of diplomacy this agreement will be included as an example of the utmost degree of cynicism and
deceit," said Azarov.
"... Former American spies have been complaining for years that capturing the keystrokes of all people in America 24/7 produces information overload -- too much data to sift through when searching for those trying to harm our way of life. ..."
But the American intelligence community should have known. It captures all the fiber optic
communications of all people in America. This mass suspicionless surveillance is unlawful and
unconstitutional, but the leadership of our 60,000-person strong domestic spying apparatus has
persuaded every president since George H.W. Bush that all this spying keeps America safe. We
now know that it doesn't. It didn't find a single Russian spy bent on influencing the
election.
Former American spies have been complaining for years that capturing the keystrokes of
all people in America 24/7 produces information overload -- too much data to sift through when
searching for those trying to harm our way of life.
"... It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee. ..."
"... My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not. ..."
"... Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc. ..."
Pompeo: "My Faith in Jesus Christ Makes a Real Difference"
Pompeo says
God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran
"As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," said Mr Pompeo ."I am confident that
the Lord is at work here,"
Pence, a Catholic Evangelical who almost became a priest: "I made a commitment to
Christ."
Christians? These Christians support a war on Yemen in which huge numbers of people are
dying of mutilation, cholera, and starvation, a war they could stop with a telephone call. They
similarly support butchery of Afghans from the air, massive killing in Syria, bombing of
Somalis, and torture chambers around the world. Such is their Christianity. They lack even a
shred of human decency. But they are Christians.
OLD TESTAMENT, THE ROOT OF CHRISTIANITY = PURE EVIL.
Thanks for the article, Fred. You are so right. But when I see the Pope kissing the feet
of alien invaders and Pence groveling to Israel, I remember these:
The 18th-century Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason that
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and
torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible
[i.e. the Old Testament] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of
a demon, than the Word of God.” When he says Bible, Paine is referring to the OT.
“There is no text more barbaric than the Old Testament….–books like
Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus*. The Quran pales in comparison.”–Jewish
author Dr. Samuel Benjamin Harris.
We have Pompeo, a malignant manatee looking to start wars in which he will not risk his
flabby amorphous ass also parading his Christianity
Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain. Now
he’s 55, so yes, he will not be risking his “flabby ass,” only his job.
Fred should really do more research, ‘cuz he just seems lazy.
Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his
class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada. I
do find it odd that someone of his ilk believes in the Rapture; my only guess is that
he’s playing to his (former) Kansas electoral base, and he can’t back out now. No
way he believes this stuff.
Protestantism is pseudo-Christianity. It started 1500 years after the Christian Church was
founded and now has over 40K different splinter groups (denominations) in the U.S. alone.
This Johnny-come-lately of heresies began because of greed and lust, and as usual, a Jewish
revolutionary spirit (read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit ).
But on Trump’s über-neocon turn E. Michael Jones sums it up well in this
Sputnik News interview of March 22, 2019:
I am not in favor of christian zionism but the irrational has always played a prominent role
in human politics, that being said I am a great fan of Fred Reed.
The one nice thing is that Israelophilia amongst young Americans rapidly drops off along with
secularization and Europeanization of social attitudes, as well as of course greater
diversity (Latinos couldn’t care less about creating Greater Israel). There was a
recent survey which showed that even young Republicans are not much more pro-Israel than
young Democrats. This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.
There’s a good chance that the Trump administration is a last hurrah for the Israel
First agenda.
Christians didn’t invent hypocrisy, nor are they the only ones who apply it.
However, they are the one group that knows and professes to do better, so they are easy
target.
The closest to original Christianity is the Eastern Orthodox brand which is less corrupted
compared to Romanism with its heavy doses of ‘pagan’ influences.
Christian Zionism is a fraud like most American heresies including those snake-handling
‘churches’, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Identity, Christian
Science, Jehovah Witnesses plus countless Jim Jones-like cults.
In fact Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was initially a ‘Zionist’ till
he saw the ‘light’, prompting him to pen On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den
Juden und ihren Lügen) . The modern apostate Lutheran church has since been
compromised.
Besides the ‘perks’ of being philo-Semitic are terrible. Take the Brits. After
they failed to fulfill the fraudulent Balfour Declaration, Zionists turned nasty –
terror groups like the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang resorted to letter bombs, blowing up
hotels and hanging British troops with piano wire.
By contrast, Mr. Reed is one of these: https://www.marines.com/who-we-are/our-values.html
DUCTUS EXEMPLO
A Latin term that means “lead by example,”
it’s about behaving in a manner that inspires others.
Don’t know about you, but I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying,
cheating and stealing, just for starters.
He is also welcome to peddle his crazed religious beliefs somewhere else.
As an agnostic, I really do not give a rat’s ass what happens to the terrorist state of
Israel.
Israel’s battles are not my battles, and I resent anyone attempting to tell me they
are.
I also do have Iranian friends, but no Iranian enemies.
Notice to Mr. Pence: Iran is not my enemy. Israel’s enemies are not my enemies. I do NOT “stand with Israel.”
The United States of America is a separate country from the State of Israel, with
far different values.
I stand with the United States, the country of my birth, so long as it adheres to the
principles embodied in its founding documents, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the
U.S. Constitution. Lately, it does not appear to be doing much of that, no thanks to
shitheads like Mr. Pompeo, and his compadre in crime, Mr. Bolton.
This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.
I disagree.
In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major
constituency. I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.
@turtle You’re
pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie. Every intelligence outfit across the
world lies. You think MI6 doesn’t lie, like every day of its life?
Since you’re so interested in Israel, you might want to know that Fred Reed is a
total Johnny come lately on critiquing Israel. He used to make fun of people e-mailing him
about Israel. In 2005, he wrote a hugely embarrassing positive review of a book claiming that
Israel was getting a raw deal in the press because Palestinians were orchestrating the
coverage. Imagine shilling for a book like that. Fred Reed did.
In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major
constituency.
I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.
It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political
Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos.
People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as
John Hagee.
But the rapid demographic shift and the the decline of whites in large metro areas will
certainly reduce future support for Israel and the U.S. kowtowing to Israel.
70 percent of school district’s newest students are immigrants, legal status
unknown
Seven of 10 new students in a Baltimore-Washington area school district are immigrants,
their legal status unknown and their second language English, according to a series of new
media reports about the impact of surging immigration on local communities.
A recent Baltimore Sun report said that of the 5,000 new students jamming Baltimore
County schools in the past five years, 3,500 are “recent immigrants or children whose
family speak another language.”
That has helped to double the percentage of students who speak English as a second
language, part of a national trend.
You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie.
I never said that, or believed it either.
What I said:
I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing
Nor is Pompeo the only Pointer known to lie.
There was a certain General Powell, for example.
Perhaps the USMA should change their motto – truth in advertising, etc.
FWIW, I had two close friends in HS who were both USMA, Class of 1970.
I know for a fact neither of them would stoop to Mr. Pompeo’s level.
Since you’re so interested in Israel
My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out
of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are
“just like us.” They are not.
@Anatoly KarlinChristian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this
country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc.
Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his
class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada
yada.
I would not consider a degree in engineering management a STEM degree
“This puts Evangelicals in the curious position of being pro-Israel but
anti-Semitic.”
Tuning around Freesat in Europe, particularly the UK, get you get a lot of religious
channels, mostly Muslim, but also more than a few Christian. One day I tuned past a Christian
guy standing in front of a phone bank and a flag of Israel, asking for money while expressing
his solidarity with Israel.
You make a good point Fred: They don’t care so much about the Jews, they just want
to get their hands on the Holy Lands, even if it takes every Jewish and Muslim life they can
throw at the problem.
“Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of
captain.”
The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain
(Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment
… it is fulfilling the service requirement in exchange for a free-ride on the
taxpayers teat. He conveniently ended his service just before he might have been dragooned
into Gulf War 1, and if he did reserve time, it was while at Harvard Law; while many other
reserve officers had their civvy careers interrupted by an increasing ops tempo of
deployments that followed GW1, Mike did just fine.
Having been given seed money for his business by the Kochs and Bain Capital, he was
plucked, like B. Hussein Obama, out of relative obscurity and fast-tracked to greatness. Kind
of like a poorer George H.W. Bush.
@Swede55 There was a
Byzantium, but it wasn’t as Chi-Chi as Rome at the time of Christ. Making Rome the
centre of the Gurch then would be like making it New York or DC now. I would be hard-pressed
to see Christ himself embracing Rome as the seat of Christendom then, but it would not be
much of a reach for his followers who wanted to be closer to the cosmopolitan action of the
day.
I guess you’d call me one of those detestable fundamentalists, Fred. You see, I take
very seriously what Jesus says in the New Testament. The authority of the Son of God makes
clear that His interpretations are the ones that those really transformed and following Him
would model.
Now people who’ve never directly experienced things for themselves can be misled by
others, who will use the disguise of faith. As for love of country, patriotism is also
misused to become the first refuge of scoundrels: instead of loving your neighbors, used by
them as Mark Twain pointed out to require hating others in countries further away.
But what happens when you find out you’ve been lied to? For me, having had some
involvement with the military in the computer industry during the Cold War, it was clear
after the Russians abandoned sovietism that the American corporations involved cared not a
whit for liberty – war meant profits. Then came the lies justifying the Iraq war and
all its cousins, along with the Abu Ghraib tortures approved to the highest levels –
which because of my own involvement I knew had to follow the chain of command. Both religious
leaders and political leaders approved of these tortures. But although I had believed these
folks, the revelations and the excuses made did not jibe with my Savior’s clear
speaking in scripture – quite the opposite. This was not the Jesus I know, nor the
witness of the Holy Spirit who leads me.
Now these manifestations of political cooperation and human organizations calling
themselves Christian, are self identifying. They claim the name Christian, but when they defy
Christ’s own example and teaching, they are in fact anti-Christian, either
self-deceived or knowingly deceiving others.
All along, there have been those who truly were following His path and taking up His
cross, even where weeds choked the Gospel as best they could, and wolves moved among the
sheep in disguise. Often those with the power to do so marginalized, persecuted and even
tortured and murdered these, while masquerading as Christians while defying His every
command.
I am evangelical, in that I would like to see others meet the real Jesus, not substitute
false idols like the War Jesus constructed by merely human hands. But I also know that
despite billions supposedly Christian, Jesus warned the path is narrow, the road to
destruction broad, and that those taking up His cross would ever only be a minority –
and that such a minority would be persecuted, even by religious authorities. Such folks
cannot be conflated with membership rolls on institutional records, but are known to God.
My orientation of faith is identical to that of the anabaptists who were the Christians
persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, reformers who refused to take up arms against
either. They often rescued their own pursuers, yet were rewarded with burning, drowning,
throttling, dismemberment, along with wives and children by those who pretended they were
serving Christ by doing so.
So I appreciate your pointing out how wicked it is to do evil things in the name of
Christ, but I would like to remind you that just as the counterfeit can’t exist without
the genuine, that there are those who won’t participate in these things, because they
are determined to follow Christ, the Holy Spirit and the conscience this dictates, regardless
of both those who hate Christ and those who worship a false Christ whose actions bear more
resemblance to the methods of Satan himself.
@turtle The honor
code at West Point was always taken seriously. Like so much else it has deteriorated lately,
but it’s still observed.
Unfortunately, once the plebs graduate and become officers they enter the United States
Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result
is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.
John T. Reed refused to sign false reports as a junior officer in Vietnam, the result of
which was that he was never promoted (highly irregular) and his commanding officer attempted
to get him killed.
Fred Reed was an enlisted Marine, but he has said similar things about officers and
especially brass.
@Thorfinnsson Thank
you for the link to Mr. John T. Reed’s site.
He evidently embodies the sort of integrity we should expect from leaders, but seldom
get.
they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career.
The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the
lying.
That bears an awesome similarity with dating and romance. I wonder how come.
Excellent piece by Mr Reed…he really tore a righteous strip of bacon off that walking
side of pork Pompeo…
There are millions of evangelical Christians that fanatically support Israel for the
reason of this end times nonsense, as stated in the article…so that is a very large
base…and not all of them insist that Jews must convert…that is just one slice
of a very wide spectrum…
In fact not all evangelical Christians support Israel…there is a very wide spectrum
on the Israel issue…right up to those that see Iran and Russia [especially] in a
positive light…which is encouraging…
These American Christians sympathize with Russia’s Christianity and also with the
conservatism they see in Russian society, and the sobriety of Russian politics…I have
no idea how the numbers stack up for these various slices of the spectrum…but the
mainstream is probably along the lines of the Pences and Pompeos of the world…
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to
me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive
out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
N
Christian fundamentalism is full of whack jobs and Dr. Strangeloves and Pompeo and Pence are
two shining examples. I just hope they don’t get us all blown to smithereens.
In Fred’s adopted nation a six year old was just caught in the crossfire of drug
cartel gunfire in Cancun and has died of his injuries. This is hard to believe as Fred tells
us that in addition to being a nation on the cutting edge of technology, it also has the most
bookstores per square mile of any nation. So the bookish Mexican people should be reading
books and not dealing drugs and shooting people, especially kids:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/04/26/cartel-gunfire-in-cancun-kills-6-year-old-wounds-parents/
Mexico has 33K homicides annually but Fredrico gets peeved if American whites don’t
want these problems in America.
@Anonymous
“the schism of Eastern Orthodoxy” is an odd way to put it; the Roman Catholics
flounced out from the old church in the schism of 1054. Or to put it another way, the Pope
flounced out from the other Patriarchs.
“Ss. Peter and Paul went to Rome”: Paul yes; he had no choice, being under
arrest. Peter: of course he didn’t, that’s just another of those old religious
fabrications.
If the earliest Christians had a True Home it was either Jerusalem or Galilee, of
course.
@Brabantian
“the 3 Abrahamic religions … all founded by the same kind of desert tribals used
to life and death battles for control of a single watering hole.
Hardly. It would seem that the earliest Hebrews were probably settled villagers in the
hills of Palestine. The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee.
It’s not at all clear who the earliest Moslems were, since the initial conquerors
were referred to as Saracens: the witness statements to their success make no reference to
their having a distinct religion or distinct holy book. They do seem to have had a general
called Mahomet, though, who had earlier been a merchant. Where they were from is also
unclear. There’s a fair chance that they were originally from around Petra, which is on
the edge of cultivation, not deep in the Arabian desert.
@turtle West Point
honor grad here. Also a conscientious objector. It took me a bit to overcome my childhood
indoctrination into the cult of imperialism, but before long, I realized that imperialism was
in no way defending the people who reside in the USA.
The sad reality of current US culture is that West Point is extremely proud of lying,
cheating, and stealing Pompeo, and considers me to be an embarrassment. The true mission of
West Point is not “Duty, Honor, Country” as far as I can tell, but to bait
idealistic young men and women into attending college there in an attempt to turn them into
soulless, self-serving, corporate bag men like they did to Mike Pompeo.
(FWIW, my money is on Pompeo having somewhat cheated his way through West Point. I have
seen it with my own eyes, and Pompeo does not seem that intelligent to me)
@KenH Christian
fundamentalism is also full of con-artists who take the gullible for a ride. Pence seems
quite dull. He might really believe that stuff. Pompeo is the wolf in sheep’s clothes.
I have enough faith to at least hope that short of complete repentance (as likely as him
getting knocked off a horse by God) – short of that, a special hell awaits him
@The scalpel Porker
Pompeo on a horse…?…being a horse lover that mental image sends shivers down my
spine…
OTOH…a well placed back hoof to the nether regions of the ‘malignant
manatee’ [classic coinage right there…thanks Mr Reed]…would be divinely
appreciated…let us hope and, dare I say it, pray…
The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain
(Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment
…
@Truth Captain after
5 years is the most common result. The rank of Major is used as an incentive to stay in after
one’s (typically 5 year) obligation. Looking at Plumpeo, I’d guess one of the
reasons he got out was because he couldn’t pass his fitness tests
@tex tickles If the
Torah isn’t for Christians, why is it quoted 695 times and referenced a total of 4,105
times in the New Testament?
How many times do the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament? An index in
the Jewish New Testament catalogs 695 separate quotations from the books of the Old
Testament in the New (Jewish New Testament Publications, Jerusalem, 1989). There are many
other passages where the Old Testament is referred to , as in cases where an Old Testament
figure is mentioned, but no specific scripture is quoted. Depending on which
scholar’s work you examine, the number of quotations and references in the New
Testament to the Old may be as high as 4,105.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979, Vol. I, p. 617
The Inquisition: It’s prolly best to begin at the beginning, with Moses, the first, and
deadliest, inquisitor.
Moses, the 1st inquisitor ordered killed 23 thousand one day (Exodus 32)
Moses, the 1st Inquisitor, ordered killed 24 thousand one day (Numbers 25).
Forty Seven Thousand ordered killed by The First Inquisitor, Moses, in two days, including
women and children.
Non-Catholic historian Edward Peters:, in his work, “Inquisition” (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989, p. 87),
The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated estimates of the numbers of its
victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more
restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the
same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3000 death sentences were carried
out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that
in comparable secular courts.
++++++++++++++
Mr. Reed is an odd individual whose understanding of Christianity suffers from a lack of
knowledge.
He seems to think that Christian Catholics have no right to defend themselves and he also
suffers from the error of Presentism.
Of course, secular governments were far worse during the era when torture was acceptable
and, of course, one must note that heretics were treated then as today’s traitors ought
be treated.
If Germany had an Inquisition, wed have never heard of Hitler, but men like Fred hated
that which men like Fred have never understood
@Anonymous
Christianity itself, in all forms, is pseudo-Jewdaism, from the very start of it, even for
you ever-kvetching Jew-worshiping Catholics.
• “ To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the worship …’” Catechism of the Catholic
Church
• “ We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews
.” John 4:22
• “For it is we [Christians] who are the Circumcision.” Philippians 3:3
@Patrick
“Christian Zionism” has been woven into the fabric of the Jew-worshiping cult of
Christianity, from the very beginning, with Jewish storytellers writing these Zionist
principles the Jew Testament:
• Matthew 21:5 “Say to Daughter Zion , ‘See, your king comes to
you.”
• John 12:15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion ; see, your king is
coming.”
• Romans 9:33 “See, I lay in Zion a stone…”
• Romans 11:26 “The deliverer will come from Zion …”
• Hebrews 12:22 “Mount Zion , to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem.”
• 1 Peter 2:6 “See, I lay a stone in Zion .”
• Revelation 14:1 “Standing on Mount Zion , and with him
144,000.”
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque The Inquisition started in 12th-century France . The Spanish
Inquisition wasn’t the only region of Inquisition. Stop trying to minimize the horrors.
@The scalpel
Christianity was started by con -artists who take the gullible for a ride. As Hebrews
11:1 says, “Now faith is con fidence in what we hope for and assurance about
what we do not see.” That sounds exactly like a sales pitch from con fidence
man Bernie Madoff, another one of the Hebrews.
@dearieme The
earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee? Bible says Syria; “Christians first
in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) Not surprisingly, it seems Muslims got their start from
Syria too; as the Quran was substantially derived from Syriac Christian liturgy. ( Luxenberg, 2007 )
Let’s not forget Christians and Muslims from Syria both like to shout “Aloha
Snackbar!”
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque Teachers refer to that as the “everybody’s doing it” excuse.
Stay after class, to explain how those inquisitions too weren’t so awfully bad.
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque Sadly, none of the three Abrahamic religions were started by Whites, who need
their own native religion that better fits their evolutionary biology.
@anon Torture has
never been anything out of the ordinary throughout history, when the police of the day took
you in for questioning they wouldn’t offer treats in exchange for a confession, torture
has been standard operating procedure, it was the normal, expected course of any
investigation. Why don’t people blame the governments of today for what the countries
they rule now used to do in the past?
If you can trust the History channel, there is no proof of an Iron Maiden device ever
having been used, rather, it was used as a fear inducing object having a profound
psychological impact.
@The scalpel Major
after 5 years? When, during WW2? The War Between the States? Whether you agree with his
politics, or not, being promoted to captain after 5 years in peace time is perfectly normal.
The man was an athlete in high school, graduated first in his class at West Point, was an
infantry officer then was on the Harvard Law Review before being elected to Congress. And not
as a liberal pantywaist. Give him his due, the man’s led a remarkable life.
@Rich He found that
affirmative action was not as good as lying, cheating, and stealing. I will grant that he is
pretty smart, (though I am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in
his West Point class without cheating.)
Take a smart person who wisely uses lying, cheating, and stealing without any remorse as a
means to outcompete his friends and enemies alike, and you have someone who, with a little
luck and without being caught, can slither their way to the top of some competetive
hierarchies. These people are known as psychopaths, or more precisely, antisocial personality
disorders.
Do I respect psychopaths? No. They generally are purely takers, and make very few
contributions to humanity. Additionally, I would like to believe in things like truth, honor,
and justice, and no matter how “successful” these psychopaths are, they are
complete and utter failures on criteria I value. Then again, most government officials score
very low on those scales. Sadly, it almost seems that they must in order to obtain such
positions. We are governed by psychopaths.
@The scalpel What
evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath? Look, you don’t like the
guy’s politics, that’s okay, but why do you guys all of a sudden become Sigmund
Freud and start psychoanalyzing people you’ve never met? It’s almost impossible
to get through West Point cheating, lying or stealing. If anyone sees you doing anything even
slightly dishonorable, they’ll rat you out faster than a Kapo would run to a German
guard if he saw someone doing something wrong. The guy is obviously a very intelligent and
hard working man who’s looked out at the world and drawn different conclusions than
you. Doesn’t make him “evil” or a “psychopath”. Just makes him
a powerful guy you don’t agree with.
am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class
without cheating.
Maybe not cheating, per se, but at least picking his (academic) battles.
In my experience, it is frequently the case (though not always) that those who major in
“management” are those who cannot hack it in a technical discipline, or choose
not to work quite that hard.
Evidently Harvard Law places great importance on undergraduate GPA.
Speculation:
An outstanding GPA in a soft major might carry more weight at Harvard than a lower GPA
in a more demanding field. I emphasize this is speculation, as I do not actually know.
I do know that I scored 786 out of 800 on LSAT in 1970 and was not admitted to
Harvard Law. My undergraduate grades at a small technical school farther down the Charles
were only average among my peers.
All of the world’s religions can be associated with killings. They are either deeds of
evil individuals, policy wrongs that do not involve direct murder, self defense or the
defense of an attacked nation. Political policy can be rendered unto Cesar, while murder is
accurately blamed on the individuals who do it. Mass murder is particularly evil, spawning
military action that can affect innocents in other nations when it gets as heinous as the
murdering of 3,000 innocent office workers on 9/11 by Muslims.
Sure, Christians have done some heinous & barbaric things over the centuries. After
making a big deal of religion, Henry the Eighth beheaded some of his wives.
But when we get past what happened 500 years ago, we see a succession of evil mass murders
committed in the recent past by non-Christian religious zealots, shouting Allah Akbar: the
concert and nightclub massacres in France, England and America; the mass shooting of office
workers on the American West Coast; the mass shootings & random mass stabbings in
American Midwestern malls and in England; the Christmas market massacre in Germany; the mass
murder of military personnel in office settings in the American South & the Midwest; the
mass murder in Belgium; the bombing of a New England sporting event; the truck-ramming mass
murders in France, Sweden and Canada; the mass murder of churchgoers in Sri Lanka, etc., etc,
etc.
World wars have been started over only one incident, with much less extensive losses of
life.
In some centuries, the beheading and stabbing by radical Islamic terrorists of two
innocent, Danish girls, hiking in Morocco, or the beheading of an 85-year-old priest in the
middle of mass might have provoked military action.
The murderers who did all of those evil deeds (and others) in the last few years knew that
they were taking the chance of a military response that might hurt innocent people in the
non-Christian countries that they purport to care about, and yet, they still did it, showing
that they regarded potential casualties in Muslim lands as collateral damage.
The cause was the only thing that counted to them, not the people, even when the people
were fellow Muslims.
@Rich No they use to
rat you out, but like all things that are subject to change they have to,now it wasen’t
so long ago that they had the very large cheating affair at west point,and to put it bluntly
the man is a lying,cheating,stealing(his words when he worked for the C.I.A.) whore that
would do anything to further his cause of hurrying along the rapture, that he and Pence and
Bolton dream about.!!!
@bluedog Do you guys
really think men who have risen to the heights Pompeo, Pence, and Bolton have, aren’t
realists? Don’t you think that if they wanted to be ministers, they’d have
followed a different path? I can’t read other people’s minds, but I sincerely
doubt any of the three you mentioned is trying to bring about the “rapture”.
That’s just silly. They simply see Israel as a close ally and some of the Islamic
nations as enemies as well as seeing various other states as friends or enemies. You have
your opinion on how the world should be run, I have mine and they have theirs, that’s
just the way it.
You haven’t figured out yet that the more you are immune to reality, the better your
chances in DC…?
Tell me one single thing that Pompeo or Pence has ever said or done that is even remotely
connected to reality…
Trump is capable of spurts of realism, I’m convinced of that…but those
impulses are quickly blocked and checked by the likes of Pompeo and Pence…
Look at the North Korea debacle…it was Porker Pompeo that torpedoed that last
summit…Trump was going to remove him from the DPRK file, but Porker announces to the
world that he ‘can’t’ be sidelined…directly contradicting the
POTUS…how fucking ‘realistic’ is that…?
So once again the latest Korea initiative is set to sink, despite a president who is a
realist…problem is he’s surrounded by complete fantasists like
Pompeo…
@Rich “What
evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath?”
Well, I have his behavior, which, owing to the fact that he is a public figure is, well,
public knowledge. For one, he brags about his ability to lie,cheat, and steal. For two, he
does those things without remorse.
@turtle You are
correct. I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo. In those days, there were 2 academic
divisions MSE and BSL which stood for Math, Science, and Engineering and Behavioral Sciences
and Leadership aka Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it). For MSE
guys like me, when we had to take a BSL course like management, it was usually a breather and
a relatively easy “A” versus our MSE courses, so you might have a point there.
Do you know the man personally?
I do not know size of class at West Point.
Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it)
Sounds appropriate to me. In my opinion, Benjamin Nutandyahoo is another “piece of work” in the same
mold .
Born in 1949 SB (Course IV – Architecture) MIT 1975 SM (Course XV – Management) 1976 Both IV & XV would be considered “soft” majors compared to School of Science
or School of Engineering. Just smart enough to think he can BS the rest of the world.
Lives by making a career of deceit.
At least one known alias.
No surprise he and Pompous-e-o are best buds.
turtle Born 1949 SB MIT 1970 (School of Science)* Graduated in June, turned 21 in September Junior author of one published scientific paper for undergraduate work.
*I would state my Course #, but prefer to retain a degree of anonymity on this site.
There are only a few possibilities, all of which are tougher than Architecture or the Sloan
School.
Sloanies actually had “coat and tie practice,” in which they were required to
play “dress up” and carry a briefcase to class on certain days. Most of the rest
of us thought that was rather silly.
@The scalpel If
that’s what you’re going by, every single national leader throughout history is a
psychopath. And maybe that’s true, but who cares? The world is what it is and we have
to deal with its realities. You may be a pacifist, another may believe the Israelis are the
problem, Pompeo and his fellows disagree with you. I don’t think that makes them any
“crazier” than anyone else. And I have to give the man his due, he has done very
well for himself.
@G. Poulin
It’s long to overdue to expose this fraud-in-Jesus.
If Vatican excommunicates Tony Blair, the profiteer and mega-war criminal, and similar
“Christian” arch-enemies of humanity, then your irritation would be vindicated.
IF .
"... "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two about what happened in Chile." ..."
"... They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla), Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo), Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on. ..."
"... If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the Gringos. ..."
"... I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and development. ..."
"... Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work... in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they won't survive the summer. ..."
"... Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison, the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly illiterate. ..."
"... One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago. ..."
"... Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck". ..."
"... Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido ..."
"... Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible, no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in Russia. ..."
@ 36 William Gruff "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two
about what happened in Chile."
They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla),
Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo),
Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic
Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on.
If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young
men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the
Gringos.
I really do not know Maduro. I do not know how ideologically grounded he is. But I heard
stories about corruption and connections with drug syndicates. I hope that is not true.
Otherwise, his apparent weakness will be exploited to the hilt by his ideological
enemies.
I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the
entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and
development.
Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the
new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work...
in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they
won't survive the summer.
Yes, most certainly wasn't lost on Chavez. The changes he made after 2002 to the military
and other security-related areas of government are now serving Maduro well. If there was the
sort of 5th Column anti-government feelings required of a coup, they would have manifested
themselves when the armed demonstrations first began to beset Maduro in 2014, a year after
Chavez's passing, which in essence is when the slow moving coup began. Condor and other
operations were certainly used in educating higher level officers about the importance of
loyalty to Constitutional methods and that one owes their allegiance to the Constitution not
the individual just as it's supposed to be within the USA
Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison,
the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and
their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority
of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly
illiterate.
One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support
for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago.
Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a
smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck".
Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would
theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido . First, the tales that
the troubles were due to mismanagement and neglect look not so probable if you look at the
timing of incidents: a wave of incidents at the time "convenient" for the "cause of Guaido"
preceeded and followed by rather normal situation. Government surely spend effort to explain
the incidents with transmission lines and transformer stations as vile sabotage, ruthlessly
inflicting severe hardships on the entire population (including the middle class that should
be the social base of Guaido).
Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power
system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was
launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible,
no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and
repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in
Russia.
Who supported 12 hours of revolution? Videos showed a motorcycle gang, few hundred of
energetic young men who blocked a highway bridge and a smallish crowd of housewives and other
non-violent type -- I must stress that I wholly approve non-violent types, but in part
because this is not a coup material. Why so little? (a) Guaido was never popular, he was in a
most histrionic of several opposition parties, popular mobilization without support of the
rest of the opposition was a flop. (b) The first two episodes of his "revolution" did not
approve his support, to the contrary. (c) On the gangland front that could provide armed
muscle and provoke bloody incidents Maidan style, the government probably did some
preparatory homework.
"... I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them .... The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills – very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill, take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave. We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will the Venezuelans. ..."
Venezuela is not an easy target. Colonel (ret.) Larry Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff
for Secretary of State Colin Powell, writes
:
I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them ....
The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills
– very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill,
take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave.
We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will
the Venezuelans.
Many believe U.S. troops could ignite internal conflicts within the military, irregular
forces linked to Maduro and criminal cartels. Intervention would also undermine
Guaidó's claim to be a grass roots Venezuelan leader by seeming to confirm that he's
exactly what Maduro has claimed: A puppet of the United States.
A U.S. military intervention would "bring more problems than solutions, " said Carlos
Valero, a Guaidó supporter in the National Assembly.
...
Political analyst Felix Seijas, director of the Delphos polling agency in Caracas, says fewer
than a fifth of the Venezuelans he has surveyed this year support a military intervention.
The numbers have gone up only slightly since the beginning of the year.
There were more warnings from Russia during a Trump-Putin phone call today :
While exchanging views on the situation around Venezuela, the President of Russia underscored
that only the Venezuelans themselves have the right to determine the future of their country,
whereas outside interference in the country's internal affairs and attempts to change the
government in Caracas by force undermine prospects for a political settlement of the crisis.
The planning and decision making for the next phase of the U.S. attack on Venezuela will
take time.
Meanwhile we can continue to analyze why the U.S. coup plan failed so devastatingly.
"... As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams, things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain. ..."
"... The answer here is simple. When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered the murders inside those sovereign states -- ..."
"... He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least election were stifled until that moment. ..."
"... Sanctions and blockades are acts of war. Try doing it to Washington or one of its vassals, and watch the guns come out. ..."
"... Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it. Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation. ..."
"... All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer. ..."
"... Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly can someone not see that. ..."
"... Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another. The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas. ..."
"... Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet! ..."
"... America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords. ..."
"... Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture. ..."
"... If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion. ..."
"... Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus. ..."
"... The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change wars. ..."
"... I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the globalists. ..."
Venezuela illustrates why a 3.0 movement is necessary.
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at
articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and
international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change
wars.
The Trump administration's interventions in Syria and Venezuela are victimizing mainly poor
brown people in Third World countries. And yet, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is extremely
animated and stirred up in a rage at the neocons who are currently running Blompf's foreign
policy. Similarly, it has cheered on the peace talks between North Korea and South Korea.
Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real
humanitarians
while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol are less adverse
to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die than the
"racists"?
It is ironic. There is also the issue of economic-based US interventionism, particularly in
the oil-gifted nations mentioned. It's their oil. Since the US economy is oil-dependent --
and since fracking is a short-lived "miracle" of unprofitable companies that have already
extracted the easy pickings -- it is the role of US leaders to make sure that we can buy oil
from nations like Venezuela, keeping relations as good as possible for those means. But US
leaders have no business telling them who should rule their country, much less stirring up
trouble that can end up in bloodshed.
There's a comment on here about US forces and the Kurds in Syria, helping themselves to
oil, while Syrians wait in long lines for gas in a country that is an oil fountain. I have no
idea whether or not it is true, and since the US press would rather gossip than report, we'll
probably never know. But since oil prices have gone up recently in the USA, it might be true,
especially since politicians always want to pacify the serfs facing other unaffordable
expenses, like rent. If true you can see how that would make the people in an oil-rich
country mad.
Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real
humanitarians while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol
are less adverse to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people
die than the "racists"?
There is nothing ironic about your simple statement of fact. The humanitarians you mention
are about as much interested in human rights as John Wayne Gacy. There is gold in them there
hills, and their "friends" no longer control that gold. So we must go to war.
Rubio is running neck and neck in my mind as one of the most disgusting political whores
of all time.
As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams,
things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his
generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain.
How is that working out now?
Those are rocks those guys are throwing..right?
Why not let THEM do the fighting and keep the guys from Ohio and Alabama here?
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela
What Trump administration military intervention? Number of Boots on the ground:
Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
Iran -- ZERO
Venezuela -- Again ZERO
It is quite amazing that Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] can take ZERO troops and falsely
portray that as military intervention. In the real, non-deranged world -- Rational thought
shows ZERO troops as the absence of military intervention.
Trying to use non-military sanctions to convince nations to behave better is indeed the
exact opposite of military intervention. If the NeoConDem Hillary Clinton was President. Would the U.S. have boots on the ground in
Iran And Venezuela?
Why is the Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] crowd so willing to go to war for Hillary
while misrepresenting TRUMP's non-intervention?
Those who pathologicially hate Trump are simply not rational.
The answer here is simple.
When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of
Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our
leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the
US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered
the murders inside those sovereign states --
He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian
influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our
European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least
election were stifled until that moment.
Until that moment foreign policy could have been shifted, but after that moment
Don't forget the genocide in Yemen. Wanting to exclude Yemenis from the USA means you're an
evil racist, but turning a blind eye to mass murder is A-OK.
Gold, Black Gold and Pirates : all about wealth and people getting in the way of the 21st
Century Privateers who will stop at nothing including overthrowing governments in Syria,
Libya, Iraq and elsewhere.
@A123Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it.
Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an
invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation.
I appreciate the fact that Team Trump has not actually sent in the tanks yet, whereas
Hellary probably would have by now. Believe me, that is probably one of the very few good
arguments in favor of Trump at this point. But if we want to make sure that he never does
attack, then now is the time to make some noise– before the war starts.
All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on
it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to
start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran
install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer.
If we weren't on the brink of economic collapse I could never see the Washington Elites
risking it all with a game of nuclear chicken with Russia and China over Ukraine and
Taiwan.
This commentator lost me when he decided Guaido was as socialist as Maduro. Nope. He would
not have US backing were that the case.
I checked out Telesur on Youtube on April 30 – its continued functioning was one sign
the coup attempt had failed. The comments section was full of Guaido supporters ranting about
how much they hated Chavistas and socialists and some were asking where Maduro was, probably
trying to sustain the myth that he had fled.
"When was the last time we successfully meddled in the political life of another country" The
answer to that, Tucker, depends on who you ask. While Syria, Iraq and Libya were "failures"
because we were told we would bring peace and prosperity to those countries, that was not the
goal of the architects of those wars, neither was it oil. The primary goal was to pacify
these countries and neuter them so they would not stand up to their neighbor and enemy
Israel. And if they had to be destroyed to accomplish that, that's fine. Minus Egypt, those
three countries were Israel's primary enemies in the three Arab-Israeli wars. Venezuela is
not "another" war for oil, but it might be the first.
Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the
real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those
companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that
is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous
power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly
can someone not see that.
@EliteCommInc.
The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the yankees
are nor european .
If the yankees were the allies of the europeans , why they should need hundreds of
military occupation bases in Europe ? why they should impose on europeans self defeating
trade sanctions against Russia ? , strange " allies " .
@conatus
you are late conatus , the russians are building in Venezuela a factory of Kalasnikov rifles
, and Maduro is traing a militia of two million men , to help the army .
@conatusVenezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still
lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another.
The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house
to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas.
@War
for Blair Mountain{If JFK were alive ..and POTUS in 2019 he would give the order to
overthrow the Maduro Goverment .}
JFK was alive way back then, when he gave the order to overthrow Castro and the result was
the Bay of Pigs disaster. And – for better or worse – Cubans are still running
their own country, not some foreign installed puppet.
'The order to overthrow Maduro' today would have the same disasterous end.
It should be obvious by now, that despite all the hardships, majority of Venezuelans don't
want a foreign installed puppet.
Carlson is right on Venezuela but was wrong on 911 truthers which he said back in September
2017, that 911 truthers were nuts! 911 which was done by Israel and the zionist controlled
deep state lead to the destruction of the mideast for Israel and the zionist NWO!
Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the
zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like
obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet!
America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would
add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords.
One more thing, if Venezuela did not have oil the zio/US would not give a damn about
it!
Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from
them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture.
If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to
the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful
contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will
lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion.
Jews are a people who fit the opening sentence of the preceding paragraph. The WASP Elites
fit the second sentence.
If "no one is more opposed to destructive regime-change wars than the Alt-Right", it means
that the Alt-Right are traditional conservatives, paleo-(as opposed to neo)conservatives.
Real conservatives have always opposed getting into foreign wars that posed no threat to the
U.S. They opposed Wilson lying us into WW1, Roosevelt lying us into WW2. When the
neo-conservatives (American Jews loyal to Israel) got Washington under their thumb, we
started our decades of disastrous regime-change wars based on lies, starting with the
invasion of Iraq. Those neocon mf ers are still in charge.
An Alt Right 2.0 concept that is compassionate with the damage done by US war and economic
exploitation against the poorest people of the world who are mostly brown people is an
interesting concept.
But I think it will ultimately fail, since so many of the white people who make up the Alt
Right are angry with minorities and see them as a lower race. And these white people are more
interested in playing the victim card anyways.
@A123
You speak truth and cite facts, these loons go bananas.
Thank God they have no real power.
Hopefully they don't even own a hamster . probably would make the little fella read Mien
Kempf.
Because a hamster reading is just as cogent and linear as their arguments.
They are frustrated they cannot find a way to blame the Jews! for Maduro being a greedy
murdering sweathog who lets zoo animals starve while he looks like animated male
cellulite.
Funny- in their prostrations to dictators ( these retards actually defend and admire
Jong-Un) they conveniently have omitted Putin is cutting Russia from the WWW- the
Internet.
They will have a Russia intranet.
Pointing out to the obtuse daily commenters that under the tyrants that practically
fellate- they would be arrested and tortured for their Unz hissy fits and word diarrhea
Nationwide radio talk show? Wow! What's the station name, number and air time?
If you listen to people with actual media shows, they don't call people TROLL just because
they have a different opinion. They don't engage in female hysterical ranting because someone
has a different idea about the mechanics of the world.
Who are your sponsors? I can't imagine you would not want the free publicity .
I agree, there is irony in labels, in trying to tell who is more disposed towards 'bloodshed
and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die'. Why do we fight? It is
for power. Power (manifested as interest) has been present in every conflict of the past
– no exception. It is the underlying motivation for war. Other cultural factors might
change, but not power. Interest cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin,
nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our
principles, because that is what serves our interest. It is power, not any of the above
concepts, that is the cause of war. And that is what is leading the world to nuclear
Armageddon. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
@TKK
My sponsors are truth and America first. All Zionist hucksters are on my hit list. Again, I
suggest you and yours consider "making aliyah". https://www.nbn.org.il/
Number of Boots on the ground:
-- Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
-- Iran -- ZERO
-- Venezuela -- Again ZERO
We will see in the future. Trump has to stir the pot. The foaming at the mouth media and his political opposition, in
both parties, need something to blather on about. Jus like rasslin'. Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus.
@TKK
Oh, I see a point there, and it's an interesting one – openly Christian presidents
discredit their Christianity by engaging in non-righteous wars. After contemplating the
point, I don't think the foreign policy of W or Trump is anywhere close to being the primary
factor in the decline in church attendance. After all, the Catholic Church and other
denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals, the internet pulls people from God with
private depravity, science offers compelling hows if not whys, entertainment options abound,
and so on. Nonetheless, an orthodox and faithful Christian president committed to peace and
not fighting for oil or foreign interests would be a thing to behold. With caveats relating
to perceived sanity, that person would get my vote.
"The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the
yankees are nor european . "
These comments don't make any sense to me based on what I wrote. My comments have no
bearing on whether the Russians are an actual threat or not. I see them as competitors with
whom there are some places to come to some agreements. They doesn't mean I truth them.
Furthermore, my comments have no bearing on the territorial nature of Russian ethos.
That's not the point. Europeans have been at each other since there were Europeans. From the
Vikings and before to Serbia and Georgian conflicts. But none of that has anything to do with
my comments.
You might want to read them for what they do say as opposed to what you would like them to
say.
Jul 26, 2017 CIA director hints US is working to topple Venezuela's elected government
CIA Director Mike Pompeo indirectly admitted that the US is pushing for a new government
in Venezuela, in collaboration with Colombia and Mexico.
Feb 22, 2019 An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose
Coup
On the eve of another US war for oil, Abby Martin debunks the most repeated myths about
Venezuela and uncovers how US sanctions are crimes against humanity with UN investigator and
human rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas.
"After all, the Catholic Church and other denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals . .
."
Not even to the tune of 4%, and I am being generous. The liberals have managed to make the
Church look a den of NAMBLA worshipers -- hardly. In the west the Churches are under pressure
from the same sex practitioners to reject scriptural teachings on the behavior, but elsewhere
around the world, Catholic institutions, such as in Africa -- reject the notion.
@TKK
Thanks. Ignoring mindless trolls is a necessary skill for the site.
____
Given the end of the Mueller exoneration, both Trump and Putin are looking to strengthen
ties. Thus it is:
-- Unlikely that Putin is heavily committed to helping Maduro. The numbers are too small
for that. Also, what would Putin do with Maduro? The last thing Putin needs is a spoiler to
the developing detente.
-- Much more likely the troops have a straightforward purpose. Brazilian
military/aerospace technology would jump ahead 20 years if they could grab an intact S-300
system. Russia doesn't want a competitor in that market, so they have a deep interest in
reclaiming or destroying S-300 equipment as Maduro goes down.
@EliteCommInc.
You are certainly right. I have no doubt that the vast majority of priests are good men
innocent of these charges, and that there are more public school sex scandals (by both raw
numbers and percentage) then similar Church scandals. The scandals do have public currency
and legs, though, and are one reason often cited as to why the pews are empty. I am at fault
for helping to keep this ruinous perception alive with my online rhetoric, and thank you for
pointing it out.
' It's the oil ' canard has always been the excuse cultivated for suckers, and boy
do suckers fall for it.
US oil companies have not received the big oil deals in countries where the US, at the
behest of "that shitty little country", have interfered militarily. However, Russia, China,
& to a limited degree, a few European companies have.
@PeterMX
Bibi's biggest enemy, his main prize, has always been Iran. He is afraid that, if Trump
refuses to do his bidding now, it may well be too late in an election year. One way or
another Bolton and Pompeo are going to convince their token boss to green light a massive
bombing campaign, especially if Iran attempts to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. It will
happen this year if Trump fails to come to his senses.
@Scalper
In the first place, your bizarre partisan rant is a little out of place. There aren't too
many QAnons here at Unz, and there are probably a fair number of regulars here who wouldn't
even identify as Republicans or 'conservatives' (whatever that term means today).
Secondly, some of your talking points aren't even accurate:
Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation,
increasing the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This
includes non Arab country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took
power.
If Trump were truly to declare the Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization, a lot of
Arab rulers would actually thank him. You see, the Brotherhood is actually illegal in
most Arab countries today, precisely because it has a history of collaborating with foreign
intelligence services such as MI6, the CIA and Mossad. More recently, it was strongly
associated with failed régime-change projects in countries like Egypt and Syria; so
with a few exceptions (like Qatar), the Brotherhood is not well liked by Arab rulers.
Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.
Traditionally leftist? Sure up until the Hart-Celler Act of 1965! The sad fact is,
we don't an anti-immigration party in the US at all today. Neither the Republicans nor the
Democrats have any interest whatsoever in halting–or even just slowing
down–immigration.
@PeterMX
It's obvious that FOX is giving Tucker a lot of latitude. They continued to support him when
advertisers left, and when accusations of racism emerged from a radio interview he'd done
years ago with a shock jock. They dare not fire him as he has the largest and most fervent
base of supporters on cable news. But Tucker knows that there is one big issue, the Elephant
in the room, of which he dare not speak. It's that shitty little country calling the shots,
whose name begins with an I.
@Anonymous
I think there may be more alt-righters opposed to foreign wars and exploitative 'free' trade
treaties than you assume. Most of the alt-righters I know oppose the current régime's
"invade the world, invite the world" policies (to borrow a phrase from our own Steve Sailer).
But unlike the anti-imperialist left (with whom they often do ally), they usually argue
against such policies based on popular self-interest rather than abstract universal morality.
They usually choose to argue that being a mighty world empire has worked to the
detriment of the majority of people in America; that the whole thing is just a scam to
enrich and empower a small, corrupt élite.
what goes unremarked here and elsewhere is the ethnic composition of Venezuela. From a few
searches, Whites are only about one-third of V.
The Tipping Point for chaos is clear. Brazil is half White, Argentina is near 100 % White,
ditto Chile.
(Argentina ca. 1900 exterminated a large number its "Indigenous." )
The most stable of Latin America is Costa Rica, which is apparently about three quarters
White.
Meanwhile the jewyorktimes reports the narco-traffickers in the Maduro administration.
Hopeless. Any Brown or Black Country is doomed. Brazil works cuz Whites know how to
control the 45% mulattos and 5 % Blacks. For now anyway. Mexico is a narco-state with the
only 9% Whites able to control the half breeds and Indigenous thru co-option. Wait for Mexico
to blow up.
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed
at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and
international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime
change wars.
That's an amazing point. I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current
shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the
globalists.
@Avery
The Deep state/CIA did the Bay of Pigs. JFK was not informed about it before it happened. JFK
was fighting the CIA and deep state throughout his presidency. He wanted to shatter the CIA
into a million pieces. Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass. His peace speech
on June 10, 1963 was too much for our deep state. That speech was the biggest triggers that
set the motion for his assassination.
Whatever anyone thinks about the Alt-Right it did expose a lot of things about our current
era, our history, our politics, and power paradigms that once seen can not be unseen.
And what are you going to do about it? What can anyone really do, honestly?
Not too much at least in America. Eastern Europe still has a good chance.
In America, the trajectory and machinations of power have been set for a long time and
revolutionary romanticism tends to work better for the Left than the Right. A quick look at
the data easily reveals this.
So what do you do when you realize how so much of everything that's presented as real and
true isn't real or true? And there are so many truly bad human beings with major power over
our culture, politics, and society?
Well, when has that not been the case in human history? At some point, acknowledging all
the black pills is sort of like accepting your human limits, your finitude, your genetics,
the unanswered mysteries of existence, the nothingness of Earth in the grand scheme, and just
basic gravity.
You could become a courageous online revolutionary and eventually trigger some unstable
person to get things shut down and deplatformed.
Or you could organize with socially and psychologically healthy and mature adults who try
to prioritize attainable and realistic goals and gain some moralizing victories that can
buffer against the demoralizing defeats.
Luckily, out of the winter of our discontent have emerged many healthy tendrils of new
growth.
"... Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran. ..."
"... Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war. ..."
"... Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually. ..."
"... Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation. ..."
"... Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history. ..."
"... Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP. ..."
The U.S. missile strike on Shayrat Airbase on 7 April 2017 was the first time the U.S.
became a deliberate, direct combatant against the Syrian government and marked the start of
a series of deliberate direct military actions by U.S. forces against the Syrian government
and its allies in May -- June 2017 and February 2018.
Trump *escalated* the war from covert support to insurgents to direct intervention and
official *invasion* in Syria. This is the equivalent of going from financing and supporting a
faction in a so called proxy war in say Vietnam to leading the US to go full Iraq WMD and
become a warring and invading faction in the conflict. Again, this is an escalation.
The number of boots on the ground vs Obama's is data you just took out of your bottom.
Sources for your cheap PR shilling? You don't have any because this statement of yours is a
blatant lie.
Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling
towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said
direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for
USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly
suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the
Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran.
Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a
terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an
act of war.
Trump's administration ended the Iran deal without any objective reasons, ie Obama's
effort to deescalate the Israel firsters driven Iran-US conflict
Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in
the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare
a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in
itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually.
Trump administration declared Golan Heights part of Israel brought US embassy to
Jerusalem, increasing the tensions and animosity towards the US in the ME.
Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, increasing
the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This includes non Arab
country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took power.
Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de
facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to
attack and hinder a foreign corporation.
Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history.
Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate
America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is
moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two
parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG
in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP.
Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.
Non intervention and "pacifist" policies the same. How many GOP supporters were against
the Vietnam and Iraq war? Not many yeah.
Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries in a comparable
period of time than any modern U.S. President. Presidents Bush, Obama and now [2017] Trump
have dropped nearly 200,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan,
Yemen and Somalia. Trump's rate of bombing eclipses both Bush and Obama; and Trump is on a
pace to drop over 100,000 [180,000 to be precise] bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern
countries during his first term of office -- which would equal the number of bombs and
missiles dropped by Obama during his entire eight-year presidency.
Here's more perspective:
The United States Government, under the Trump administration, reportedly drops a bomb
every 12 minutes, which means that 121 bombs are dropped in a day, and 44,096 bombs per year.
The Pentagon's data show that during George W. Bush's eight years he averaged 24 bombs
dropped per day, that is, 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama's time in office, his
military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. This shows that even though American
presidents are all war criminals, Trump is the most vicious of them all.
Yes, Trump is dropping almost FOUR TIMES MORE BOMBS than Barack Obama and over FIVE TIMES
MORE BOMBS than G.W. Bush -- which included military invasions of two countries.
We also know that Trump expanded America's wars in Afghanistan and Syria (and, no, he is
NOT bringing U.S. troops home from Syria) and is ramping up America's war machine against
Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia. And this does not even take into account the way Trump has
given Benjamin Netanyahu's raunchy racist regime the green light to expand its wars against
the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Iran or the U.S./Israeli proxy war (with Saudi Arabia
taking the lead) in Yemen.
Then there is Somalia:
In the age of Donald Trump, wasn't that [the Battle of Mogadishu -- Black Hawk Down] a
million presidencies ago? Honestly, can you even tell me anymore what in the world it was all
about? I couldn't have, not without looking it up again. A warlord, starvation, U.S.
intervention, 18 dead American soldiers (and hundreds of dead Somalis, but that hardly
mattered) in a country that was shattering. President Clinton did, however, pull out those
troops and end the disastrous mission -- and that was that, right? I mean, lessons learned.
Somalia? Africa? What in the world did it all have to do with us? So Washington washed its
hands of the whole thing.
And now, on a planet of outrageous tweets and murderously angry white men, you probably
didn't even notice, but more than two years into the era of Donald Trump, a quarter-century
after that incident, American airstrikes in yep, Somalia, are precipitously on the rise.
Last year's 47 strikes, aimed at the leaders and fighters of al-Shabaab, an Islamist
terror outfit, more than tripled the ones carried out by the Obama administration in 2016
(themselves a modest increase from previous years). And in 2019, they're already on pace to
double again, while Somali civilians -- not that anyone (other than Somali civilians) notices
or cares -- are dying in significant and rising numbers.
And with 500 troops back on the ground there and Pentagon estimates that they will remain
for at least another seven years, the U.S. military is increasingly Somalia-bound, Congress
hasn't uttered a peep on the subject, and few in this country are paying the slightest
attention.
So consider this a simple fact of the never-ending Global War on Terror (as it was once
called): the U.S. military just can't get enough of Somalia. And if that isn't off the
charts, what is? Maybe it's even worth a future book (with a very small print run) called not
Black Hawk Down II but U.S. Down Forever and a Day.
And now that I've started on the subject (if you still happen to be reading), when it
comes to the U.S. military, it's not faintly just Somalia. It's all of Africa.
After all, this country's military uniquely has a continent-wide Africa Command (aka
AFRICOM), founded in 2007. As Nick Turse has often written for TomDispatch, that command now
has its troops, thousands of them, its planes, and other equipment spread across the
continent, north to south, east to west -- air bases, drone bases, garrisons, outposts,
staging areas, you name it. Meanwhile, AFRICOM's outgoing commanding general, Thomas
Waldhauser, only recently told Congress why it's bound to be a forever outfit -- because,
shades of the Cold War, the Ruskies are coming! ("Russia is also a growing challenge and has
taken a more militaristic approach in Africa.")
And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn't meant to be a piece about either Somalia or
Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon
now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it
regularly digests.
And, while America's wars are way up, according to Gallup, church attendance in America is
way down:
As Christian and Jewish Americans prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, respectively,
Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or
mosque at an all-time low, averaging 50% in 2018.
U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an
average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in
the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change
occurring since the start of the current decade.
Most interesting is this Gallup observation:
Although the United States is one of the more religious countries, particularly among
Western nations, it is far less religious than it used to be. Barely three-quarters of
Americans now identify with a religion and only about half claim membership in a church,
synagogue or mosque.
The rate of U.S. church membership has declined sharply in the past two decades after
being relatively stable in the six decades before that. A sharp increase in the proportion of
the population with no religious affiliation, a decline in church membership among those who
do have a religious preference, and low levels of church membership among millennials are all
contributing to the accelerating trend.
Obviously, America's Jewish and Muslim populations pale compared to its Christian
population. The vast decline of attendance to religious services, therefore, primarily means
church attendance. Notice, also, that this steep decline commenced at the beginning of this
century (2000) -- when G.W. Bush became President of the United States.
I tried to warn readers -- and listeners to my nationwide radio talk show -- that due to
his insatiable war fever, G.W. Bush was going to forever warp the perception in people's
minds of Christianity. And, sadly, I was absolutely right. After eight years of the
warmongering G.W. Bush in the White House, millions of Americans came to associate
Christianity with wars of aggression. As a result, the exodus out of America's churches began
in earnest.
Enter Donald Trump.
As noted above, Trump has expanded Bush's war fever exponentially. But Trump has done more
than that: He has aggressively put the United States smack dab in the middle of Israel's
wars. It could even be argued that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. military into a proxy
army for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Don't get me wrong: I am very cognizant of the fact that G.W. Bush's "war on terror" was
nothing more than a proxy war for Israel. But the Israeli connection was covert and
completely covered up. Not anymore. Donald Trump is unabashedly and explicitly partnering the
mission of the U.S. military with that of the IDF. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu promises to
name a community in the Israel-seized, Israel-occupied Golan Heights after Donald Trump.
(Trumplinka would fit Netanyahu's concentration-style occupation nicely.)
So, not only are millions of Americans now associating Christianity with G.W. Bush's wars
of aggression, they are associating Christianity with Donald Trump's wars of aggression for
the racist apartheid State of Israel. The result: the steepest decline in church attendance
and church affiliation in U.S. history.
The longer evangelical Christians continue to support Donald Trump's radical pro-Israel,
pro-war agenda, the deeper America will plunge into an anti-Christian country.
The good news is that all over America, people are waking up to the Israel deception.
Support for the erroneous doctrine of dispensational eschatology is in a giant free fall; the
myth of Zionist Israel being a resurrected Old Testament Israel is being repeatedly exposed;
the attempts by Israel's toadies to characterize people whose eyes are open to the truth of
Zionism as being "anti-Semitic" is losing more and more credibility by the day; and more and
more people are becoming aware of the utter wickedness of the Zionist government in Israel.
Plus, more and more people are beginning to understand the plight of the persecuted people
(including Christian people) in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine.
Ron, maybe your shipmates on the USS LIBERTY didn't die in vain after all.
From an historical perspective, overextended wars are the downfall of any empire; from a
financial perspective, warfarism is the precursor to an economically depressed middle class;
and from a Scriptural/spiritual perspective, God cannot and will not bless a warmongering
nation.
Let's be clear: God is not building a "Greater Israel." God is not building a third Jewish
temple. God is not speaking through phony prophets who are attributing some sort of divine
calling to Trump's pro-Israel warmongering. God is not blessing America because we are
blessing Zionist Israel. Just the opposite: The more America aligns itself with Israel's
belligerence, bullying and bombing of innocent people, the more God will deliver us over to
becoming an antichrist country. After all, one cannot idolize and partner with antichrists
without becoming one himself.
Burning down the house. Driving like a madman on the road to nowhere has put the nation on a
path to its own demise. Our foreign policy is a disaster that does nothing to promote
democracy anywhere in the world. Our military has provided nothing but instability in the
world since the end of world war 2. Ask yourself, why are we involved in so many useless wars
that don't make the world a better place?
Don't you feel like we are being used by war hawks who see every skirmish as a threat to our
national security? Why can't we cut out all the military BS and just trade with with nations
that want to trade, and ignore those who want to kill each other. Let them figure it out on
their own. Social Capitalism is the only policy we should be supporting.
"All statements of Trump do not count. All Trump statements are results from stress of
torture by Democrats, and deep state."
When this president stated during the campaign,
that christians don't have to forgive their enemies, I rolled my eyes stated he wrong, and
understood well he doesn't know what christianity means and supported him anyway
that he supported same sex marriage, I rolled my eyes, rebuffed the the silliness of his
comments and understood, he is not a conservative and beyond that he doesn't know what
christianity means
when it was uncovered that he had in fact had relations outside of marriage, I rolled my
eyes, and understood that alone could be a disqualifying factor in light of the competition
and supported him anyway
when some of the most respected departments of government leaders said he colluded with
Russians, based on the evidence, I said "poppycock" and supported him anyway
when media swirled with tales of Russian bath houses and carousings abounded, I thought
nonsense and supported hum anyway
when the rumors of underage girls and same sex parties and orgies seped into the main, I
rolled my eyes and supported him anyway . . .
when he spouted off about Charlottesville prematurely, I supported him anyway . . .
when became clear he actually advocated torture, I choked, spat and supported him anyway,
afterall he's not schooled in international relations and the consequences for our service
personnel, much less apparently the basics of tortures effectiveness, especially in large
scale strategies such as the US is engaged in
when it came to light he was completely ignorant of how our criminal justice system gets
it wrong as exampled by the Cen 5 case, I supported him anyway . . .
I supported him in spite of his comments about the poor and people like me who supported
him
There's a long list of tolerance is support of this president based on his advocacy
regarding turning the attention to the US welfare . . .
And when he actually agreed that the Russians had sabotaged the US elections and even
engaged in murder in the states of our European allies -- I knew, that in all liklihood the
turn inward was dead.
Here' a man who beat all the odds because of stalwart support of people like me, who
repeatedly bit the sides of our cheeks in the understanding that the returns would exceed the
price only to discover that the man who beat the odds doesn't seem to have a spine to stand
on ideologically which were the foundations of my advocacy: national security, less reckless
spending, holding business and financial organizations accountable for misbehavior, investing
in the US citizen, restructuring our trade deals to benefit the US, not merely shooting up
tarrifs that would in turn be priced to the citizens the supposed tarrifs were intended to
protect, tax cuts that actually gave middle americans less, no evidence of a draw down in our
careless ME behaviors, i even gave him some room to deal with israel as perhaps a new way
forward -- it's a new way alright – no pretense of acting as honest brokers –
that's new, Immigration is worse and by worse he might as well be serving tea and crumpets at
the border welcoming illegals . . .
If the man you elected to turn the corner actually becomes the vehicle for of what you
elected him to reject and change, eventually one has to acknowledge that fact. he beat the
deep state, he just either had not the courage, the integrity, or the ability, perhaps all
three to withstand the victory and do the work. Of course he had opposition and not much of
it very fair and nearly all of it damaging to the country. But he had support to stand
against it -- he chose an easier path.
And while I support him still, I have no intention of pretending that he is fulfilling the
mandate for which he was elected. I would be lying to myself and doing a disservice to
him.
I have not changed, I knew he was a situational leader, I knew what that meant, but I
voted for a particular agenda, he left the reservation on his own accord and the "deep
state", the establishment", the democrats, the liberals, the libertarians, can only be held
to blame for so much --
But several weeks ago, on top of a complete failure to ensure US order security, the armed
forces paid homage to Mexicans on US territory by relinquishing their weapons and
surrendering -- and given the tenure thus far -- - it devastatingly fitting that this
occurred under this admin.
And in the midst of all this, he is pandering to those engaged in same sex behavior --
– deep state my eye . . .
the path of least resistance. I cling to the belief that having voting for any of the
other candidates -- matters would have been far worse.
I make no apologies for being a conservative and Christian and holding a loyalty to the
US.
I reject your whine, it had legs and even some salience still, but at this stage, very
little.
Now he is bed with Sen. Rubio, Sen. Cruz and others on mucking around in SA -- I can only
consider your comments as an attempt at humor.
"... Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever do. ..."
"... Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we prepared for that? ..."
TUCKER CARLSON: There is much we don't know about the situation in Venezuela. What we do
know is that Venezuela's current government has done a poor job of providing for its own
people. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, yet it remains one of the most
impoverished and the most dangerous places on the planet. That is beyond dispute.
Everything else is up for debate. Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro
make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for
the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have
no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever
do.
But that has not stopped the geniuses in Washington. It has not even slowed them down. On
Tuesday afternoon, on a bipartisan basis, they agreed that the United States ought to jump
immediately, face-first, into the Venezuelan mess. When asked whether U.S. presence in
Venezuela would make any difference, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told Neil Cavuto the following:
"Absolutely. I was down at the Venezuelan border last Wednesday. This is just pure genocide.
Maduro is killing his own citizens."
When asked whether Venezuela was worth risking American troops' lives, Scott said, "Here is
what is going to happen. We are in the process, if we don't win today, we are going to have
Syria in this hemisphere. So, we can make sure something happens now, or we can deal with this
for decades to come. If we care about families, if we care about the human race, if we care
about fellow worldwide citizens, then we've got to step up and stop this genocide."
All right, I just want to make sure that it is clear. If you care about families and you
care about the human race -- if you want to stop genocide -- you will send your children to
Venezuela to fight right now, without even thinking about it, without even weighing the
consequences. You will just do it. Assuming you are a good person, of course.
If you don't care about families or the human race -- if for some reason you despise human
happiness and support genocide -- then you will want to join Satan's team and embrace
isolationism, the single most immoral of all worldviews. That is what they're telling you. That
is what they are demanding you believe.
Message received. We've heard it before. But before the bombers take off, let's just answer
a few quick questions, starting with the most obvious: When was the last time we successfully
meddled in the political life of another country? Has it ever worked? How are the democracies
we set up in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and Afghanistan right now? How would Venezuela be
different? Please explain -- and take your time.
Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the
Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight
million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country
propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and
work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we
prepared for that?
Are we prepared to absorb millions of new Venezuelan migrants? All of them great people, no
question, But many would have little education or skills or would not speak English.
Finally, how, exactly, is any of this good for the United States? Our sanctions on Venezuela
have already spiked our gas prices. That hurts our struggling middle class more than virtually
anything we could do. So what's is the point of doing that? So our lawmakers can feel like good
people?
And if they are, indeed, good people, why do they care more about Venezuela than they care
about this country, the one that they run? They are happy to send our military to South America
at the first sign of chaos. But send U.S. troops to our own border to stem the tide of a
hundred thousand uninvited arrivals a month? "No way," they tell us. "That is crazy talk!"
"... Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies. ..."
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens
the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East,
Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations
as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist
organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted
countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State
property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.
The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These
military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific
countries in all major regions of World.
Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization.
Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which
consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.
In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995,
evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely
into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the
developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland,
etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.
The global economic crisis is intimately related to America's hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget
backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. "War is Good for Business": the powerful financial groups which routinely
manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war.
A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.
Beyond the Globalization of Poverty
Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic
reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the
"globalization of poverty": countries are transformed in open territories,
State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad
sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads
to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire
populations (refugee crisis).
This "second stage" goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial
institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction
of human life.
In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force
of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.
The New World Order
Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are
Wall Street and the Western banking conglomerates including its offshore money laundering facilities, tax havens, hedge funds
and secret accounts,
the Military Industrial Complex regrouping major "defense contractors", security and mercenary companies, intelligence outfits,
on contract to the Pentagon;
the Anglo-American Oil and Energy Giants,
The Biotech Conglomerates, which increasingly control agriculture and the food chain;
Big Pharma,
The Communication Giants and Media conglomerates, which constitute the propaganda arm of the New World Order.
There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.
These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state
structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the "Deep State", integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks,
secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate
interests.
In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, trade unions, political parties.
What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy
to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.
Media Propaganda
The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops
oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian
narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.
Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.
Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus
at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding
the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.
Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development
There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era,
the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as
well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.
In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union.
Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.
The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial
apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial
trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar
speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians,
civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It's called corruption, co-optation, fraud.
Latin America: The Transition towards a "Democratic Dictatorship"
In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e.
a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded.
They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.
Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin America region.
In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup
in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated
in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the "Dirty war" and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.
The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged.
Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.
Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of "dirty tricks" including acts of
infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social
divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate
and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money
laundering and the protection of the drug trade.
The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua,
May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky
by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)
"... Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies. ..."
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens
the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East,
Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations
as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist
organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted
countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State
property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.
The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These
military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific
countries in all major regions of World.
Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization.
Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which
consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.
In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995,
evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely
into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the
developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland,
etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.
The global economic crisis is intimately related to America's hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget
backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. "War is Good for Business": the powerful financial groups which routinely
manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war.
A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.
Beyond the Globalization of Poverty
Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic
reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the
"globalization of poverty": countries are transformed in open territories,
State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad
sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads
to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire
populations (refugee crisis).
This "second stage" goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial
institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction
of human life.
In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force
of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.
The New World Order
Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are
Wall Street and the Western banking conglomerates including its offshore money laundering facilities, tax havens, hedge funds
and secret accounts,
the Military Industrial Complex regrouping major "defense contractors", security and mercenary companies, intelligence outfits,
on contract to the Pentagon;
the Anglo-American Oil and Energy Giants,
The Biotech Conglomerates, which increasingly control agriculture and the food chain;
Big Pharma,
The Communication Giants and Media conglomerates, which constitute the propaganda arm of the New World Order.
There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.
These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state
structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the "Deep State", integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks,
secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate
interests.
In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, trade unions, political parties.
What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy
to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.
Media Propaganda
The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops
oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian
narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.
Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.
Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus
at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding
the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.
Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development
There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era,
the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as
well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.
In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union.
Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.
The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial
apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial
trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar
speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians,
civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It's called corruption, co-optation, fraud.
Latin America: The Transition towards a "Democratic Dictatorship"
In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e.
a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded.
They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.
Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin America region.
In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup
in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated
in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the "Dirty war" and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.
The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged.
Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.
Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of "dirty tricks" including acts of
infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social
divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate
and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money
laundering and the protection of the drug trade.
The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua,
May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky
by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)
"... The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in practice. ..."
"... Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. ..."
"... Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either. ..."
"The Empire only appears to be strong. In reality it is weak, confused, clueless"
The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in
China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in
practice.
Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. Almost
all of Latin America now has pro-US governments. CIA linked Bolsonaro took over in Brazil.
Turkey is in deep recession and Erdogan lost the big cities.
India is moving closer to the US. Europe remains a vassal. Russian economic growth is
weak. The US won the trade war against China as Andrei Martyanov himself admitted.
Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third
of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage
crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either.
There is no doubt that they will be weaker in the future, but they will fight hard to stop
this and gain time.
A sinister plan is underway, its objective: to destroy Bolivarian Venezuela.
The details
of this project appear meticulously specified in a secret document dated February 23, 2018,
that bears the signature of Admiral Kurt Walter Tidd, current commander-in-chief of the U.S.
Southern Command.
One does wonder at the esteemed Admiral K W Tidd .
Of
course Nuremberg itself was long ago trashed by the esteemed and courageous Bushie, but the
US Constitution and the Senate's ratification of the UN Charter make the planning a crime
under US law, today, right now...
I am not complaining, simply astonished at the crime.
Evangalicals make up a 25% voting block in the US. Both Venezuela and Iran are anti
Israel. They would most likely back Trump in war against either country. US voter turnout is
around 60% which means Trump needs no more than 30% to win. I doubt re-election would be an
issue if Trump launched a hot war against Venezuela. It would only be an issue if there were
large numbers of US boots in body bags.
"It is a particularly loyal base which wholly concurs with the Israeli Right that
Revolutionary Iran stands as an impediment to the coming into being of the prophesied
'Greater Israel' – and concomitantly, with the return of the Messiah. This 'base'
(25% of Americans profess Evangelism), has turned a collective blind eye to all Trump's
moral failings, and totally disdained the Russiagate allegations. Unmoved by either, they
just have come to believe that Trump is the amoral, secular, flawed – yet somehow
'chosen' – instrument who can lead Christians in the Cosmic war of good versus evil
– with Iran cast as the cosmic evil. And, behind in the shadows, lies ring-master,
Sheldon Adelson and his billions, fusing together the (non-Evangelical) Bolton to
Netanyahu's Greater Israel project with the whole sitting atop Trump's extraordinary loyal
Evangelical base on which his continuance in office beyond 2020 may one day hang."
Trump won't be gaining any "wave" from attacking Venezuela. In fact, it stands to alienate
a large part of his base and energize the meekly antiwar Democrats.
It might be moot since it looks like this putsch has failed to get more support, and if so
Guadó will spend the next months in a cage.
To repeat the mantra of US as the world's leading harbinger of regime change, mass murder
and war crimes would be to belabor the point.
The question that goes begging is where are the people, of whom, for whom and by whom the
government is supposed to be? Where are the voices of reason and sanity? When will the
enforced silence in the face of the frank colonization and stranglehold of our country by the
Anglozionists be broken once and for all, the feeble but courageous proclamations of Ilhan
Omar notwithstanding?
Also let us ask ourselves this: if African Americans (12% of the US population) or Latin
Americans (18% of the population, 30% combined total) were to have a similar stranglehold on
our foreign policy, would we simply fold our hands and say or do nothing as we are doing with
the AngloZionist takeover of our country?
Is there any other group of people anywhere else that has been rendered as impotent --
stripped of their balls, moral eunuchs really -- accepting widespread abuses of their rights,
their humanity and self-determination by Israel Firsters in such bizarre and total silence?
Wake up America!
Even the Daily Mail's readership is starting to have doubts about the press feed "Maduro's
plane waiting on the tarmac -- talked out of it by Putin story" repeated word for word.
If half the Daily Mail's readers see this as BS -- and see Guaido as a US Regime Change
guy, then the Empire really is in trouble.
And as for a US invasion of Venezuela, it's not going to happen since it would mess up the
all important planned attack on Iran.
What’s so hard to understand? Mike Pompeo……is former head of the CIA.
This is another fucked up CIA op. There are two Israeli factions in the CIA according to
former people that I know who use to work at the CIA in some capacity.
Just add the lying Ziomedia and they will continue this nonsense to a dimwitted American
public who are too busy playing with their phones. The American Empire has been done for a
long time. They have been raped monetarily, socially, and politically by their wonderful ally
Israel.
Trump is nothing but puppet for Israel and basically Jared the Magic Jew is calling the
shots.
I believe that if the USA , a country with many talents , offered a real economic
collaboration , and some respect , to Venezuela , Cuba , and Latinamerica in general , real
alliances could prosper for the common good . But the USA is mistreating latinamerican
friends like Argentina ‘s Macri , the IMF is bleeding again Argentina with usury so
that in the next elections this year the peronists may win and befriend China instead of the
USA . The USA is constantly threatening militarily , economically , insulting , whatever
country that dares not to obbey the USA 100% , what provokes resentment .
It is very worrying the lack of shape , of class , of manners , of the US nomenklatura ,
too old , fats , weirdos , simpletons , low political abilities . Querulant elderly picking
up too many useless fights around the world what is not good for the USA . A pity .
Those who consider Trump to be the puppet of the deep state should explain to himself why are
the mainstream media so 24/7 mad adTrump. Why is the whole establishment in America and in
the whole West so anti-Trump. He has broken all their plans for world domination and creation
of the one world government. He broke TAP and TPP, he has not signed the Paris climate
accord, he is against free trade and the WTO, he is against all UN institutions, he is the
first american president ever who rebeled against the Federal Reserve, he ist the frst who is
really fighting the mas immigration, he is deregulating the american job market, he is
resisting a coup of the deep state, he is apointing the new judges who ar pro constitution,
he is actually desolving the Obamacare and so much more. But he is not the king he has not
the loyal Republican party yet which he is not chosen and he must make the deals to go any
further and in that sense he still needs the help of Neocons in some degree. It would be much
easier when american pople would be a lot more politicaly active and halped him in the way
por example to put the presure on the Rpublican party operatives on the local and national
level, or to be much more active in expousing the woter fraud and so on. American simply
expect that the vote alone can do the job. But the system is so broken that the real
revolution is needed. Otherwise the country would go broke and be dessolved. American must
also put the pressure on the secret owners of everything of importance especially banks and
media whose ownership is seecret, and this secrecy must be remuved because on the ownership
level the most crime occur.
Trump wants Colombia and Brasil to attack Venezuela . Has he thougt that if there is a big
war in South America she will end up like the middle East ,and there will be millions and
millions of refugees emigrating to the USA ?
“Cadres determined everything”. They determined everything for later USSR and
later USA. This constant concentration of imbeciles, liars, traitors and scumbags at the very
top is disturbing sign for humanity. With people of such caliber consistently moving to the
top positions over time leaves little optimism for humanity fate.
“Does that dialog look credible to you? I sure hope not!” Put it in the New York
Times, on CNN or some other mainstream outlet and apparently 90% of our low IQ population
will believe it. Many believe the Russia Stole the US Election Conspiracy Theory, Trump and
Putin are golf buddies, and Trump was awarded with beautiful Russian prostitutes. I think it
was Hitler who, commenting on Germany’s enemies said, “the bigger the lie, the
more believable it is to common people because they themselves would never think of telling
such an outrageous lie”. That’s a paraphrase, not word for word. With liars like
Adam Schiff, Bolton and Pompeo, much of the US population believes much of what these
criminals say.
The oil fields around Deir Ezzor are occupied by Kurdish terrorists working for Israel.
They are surrounded by Iraq and Syria, with Russia and Hezbollah providing reserves and air
support. Syria is afraid to take it back even though their people wait days in line for
gasoline, all while the Kurds and the US steal the oil and booby trap the oil
infrastructure.
@Milisic
Radomir Being anti Trump is just theatre, not because of his actions but because what he
represents ie nationalism.
I don’t believe Trump was always part the deep state. I believe they coerced him
into doing the neocons bidding by using the Mueller report. Though, he was always in Isreals
camp from the beginning.
“Check out this interesting news snippet: Eric Prince wants Blackwater to send 5,000
mercenaries to Venezuela (does anybody know why and how these clowns came up with the 5,000
figure)…”
That’s simple for anyone with an inkling of how Washington works. The first axiom is
that it is just a huge market – everything is for sale, usually to the highest
bidder.
So my guess is that Prince estimated that the budget he could get would be just about
enough to fund 5,000 mercenaries. Of course he wouldn’t be going himself, as they might
all be killed by the angry Venezuelans. But he would still have the money in his bank.
Indeed, he might make out “like a bandit” if all the mercenaries got killed, so
he wouldn’t have to pay them.
“Venezuela is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil and has the
world’s largest proven oil reserves at an estimated 296.5 billion barrels (20% of
global reserves) as of 2012.” Wikipedia
@Anon
It’s simple enough to understand. In his book “How the World Works”, Noam
Chomsky explained.
“One document to look at if you want to understand your country is Policy Planning
Study 23, written by Kennan for the State Department planning staff in 1948. Here’s
some of what it says.
“‘We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its
population… In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit
us to maintain this position of disparity… To do so, we will have to dispense with all
sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on
our immediate national objectives… We should cease to talk about vague and…
unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards and
democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power
concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better’”.
In the same book, Chomsky writes,
‘Along the same lines, in a briefing for US ambassadors to Latin American countries
in 1950, Kennan observed that a major concern of US foreign policy must be “the
protection of our [i.e. Latin America’s] raw materials”. We must therefore combat
a dangerous heresy which, US intelligence reported, was spreading through Latin America:
“the idea that the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the
people”.
‘US planners call that idea Communism, whatever the actual political views of the
people advocating it. They can be church-based self-help groups or whatever, but if they
support this heresy, they’re Communists’.
This also completely explains why there is so little resistance among US citizens to their
government’s systematic, deliberate, massive, unforgivable crimes against humanity.
Namely they (US citizens) believe that they gain materially by those crimes. (Most of them
may be wrong about that, but that’s not important right now).
Consider Kennan’s first sentence:
“We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its
population…”
Today the US population, while rapidly increasing, is less than 4% of world population.
Yet resource consumption is still far, far greater than for any other country.
To learn more try searching online for (e.g.) “us population resource consumption
percent global”. Here are two of the first hits that query will bring up:
Venezuela is a sea of tricky cross currents though which the Saker has not done a good job
navigating. He imposes a narrative on events that is too simple.
Start with a difficult topic: the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro. A timeline is helpful:
2012: Hugo Chavez dies.
2013: Elections are held for the office of President. Maduro wins with 50.61% of the vote,
beating Enrique Capriles who comes in at 49.1%.
April 2015: Elections are held to select deputies to Venezuela’s legislative body, the
National Assembly. In these elections a coalition of opposition parties, the MUD (Mesa de
Unidad Democrcatica), wins 56.3 % of the vote and 112 of 167 seats, the first electoral
defeat of the Chavistas (the “Bolivarian Revolution”) in 16 years.
May 2015: In a lame duck session of the National Assembly, the Chavistas – at that
moment still in the majority –- pass a law that removes all sitting members of
Venezuela’s supreme court (called the TSJ, Tribunal Supremo de Justicia), and puts in
place a new set of judges, every one of whom is a Maduro partisan. The TSJ soon becomes a
polit-bureau ratifying Maduro’s decrees and nullifying every measure of the National
Assembly.
May 2018: A presidential election is established by decree, without the authority of the
National Assembly as stipulated in the Constitution of 1999. Every aspect of this election is
irregular, false, manipulated or controlled, including a significant detail: no opposition
candidates are allowed to run, including Leopoldo Lopez (in jail or under house arrest) and
Enrique Capriles (banned from participation in politics).
The Saker says: “…yes, both Chavez and Maduro have made mistakes. But this is
not about Chavez or Maduro, this is about the rule of law inside and outside
Venezuela.”
The Saker is just saying words here. The absence of the rule of law is precisely the
problem.
The Saker dismisses Maduro’s opponents as “puppets” of the Empire.
Leopoldo Lopez is a puppet? He chose to remain in Venezuela and share the difficulties of
life there, a decision not coming cheap. Until yesterday he was in jail or under house
arrest. Before being sent to jail, a car he was riding in was riddled with bullets. In March
of 2006, a bodyguard of his was shot and killed. One might not agree with Lopez, but he is a
man of conviction and courage.
Or consider Juan Guaido: he did NOT select himself. He was chosen by the National Assembly
(based on authority granted to it by the Constitution of 1999). In the fractured political
landscape of Venezuela the National Assembly is now the only body to have received its
mandate via an election in which real alternatives existed and honest vote counting occurred.
The selection of Guaido represents an attempt to start from a point as legally valid as
possible, and from there by peaceful means guide Venezuelan political life back to legality.
What is at issue is the rule of law.
The Saker lets abhorrence of the Neocon regime in Washington distort his judgment. Yes,
the Neocons are brutal, stupid and dangerous, but their assessment of the Maduro regime in
Caracas is accurate. Sorry if this assertion is found to be offensive. Chavez, Maduro,
Cabello and their gang narco-traficantes have not “made mistakes,” they have
destroyed a country.
(Is it necessary to argue this point? Hundreds of thousands of people do not walk –
WALK – out of a country unless desperate. The currency is deep into hyper-inflation,
meaning, there is no currency. PDVSA — before the Bolivarian Revolution a well-run
state-owned operation producing 3 to 3.5 million barrels of oil per day — now produces
under one million barrels a day. The grid is in a state of collapse. These and many more
disasters were NOT visited upon the Venezuelan people by the gringos or by anybody else: they
were visited upon the Venezuelan people by a corrupt, incompetent government operating behind
the facade of a phony revolution.)
The Maduro regime in Caracas and the Neocon regime in Washington are equally repellent,
and in fact similar. Both are mafia type organizations. Why grant legitimacy to the little
mafia in Caracas. All this does is allow the big mafia in Washington to parade around as
champions of “rights,” “democracy” and “freedom,” which
words, when said by the Neocons, induce nausea.
Among the people in the Venezuelan drama the most attractive are the opposition leaders on
the ground: Leopoldo Lopez, Enrique Capriles, Maria Corina Machado, and many others,
including Juan Guaido. They have been jailed, banned, threatened, shot at, roughed up and
harassed, yet they stay at home and in the game. Their flaws are balanced by a great virtue:
courage. I don’t think that any of them would make a good puppet.
One last point: pay attention to Ivan Duque, the current president of Colombia. He is an
intelligent, thoughtful, close to the situation and has a big stake in what happens. (A
million refugees from Venezuela are in his country.) If there is a good outcome to this
drama, he will probably be part of it.
Pompeo is filthy fucking cockroach…….Just like the filthy cockroach JFK who
gave Latin America Death Squads and the Alliance for Progress….and the Cuban Missile
Crisis…
@joeshittheragman
That’s mostly because 1899 was about the time when the USA had overrun the whole of
North America (apart from the frozen north and the poverty-stricken south, which it
considered stealing but decided to leave).
Having grabbed all the resources (natural, human, etc.) available in their own continent,
they started looking avidly abroad for more plunder. China, for instance. South America.
Japan… the Middle East…
{The Empire only appears to be strong. In reality it is weak, confused, clueless and, most
importantly, run by a sad gang of incompetent thugs who think that they can scare everybody
into submission in spite of not having won a single significant war since 1945. The inability
to break the will of the people of Venezuela is only the latest symptom of this mind-boggling
weakness.}
A fairly accurate assessment.
However, The Empire still has immense capacity to cause death and destruction all over the
world. It may not have enough warrior-troops to send boots to Venezuela (thank God), but it
has a LOT of hardware to cause mass deaths remotely and from above without setting foot on
somebody’s land.
And the weaker and more impotent The Empire becomes as time goes by, the more irrational
and dangerous it will become, consumed with rage at the realization of its inability to
longer being able to run/control the globe.
Hopefully there will be some cooler heads where it counts in US civilian&military
leadership, before the irrational rage spills over and we all get nuked – by accident
or by design.
@Realist
A lot of intelligent, educated British people tend to read the Daily Mail, because –
incredible to relate – it is perhaps the closest organ remaining to an old-fashioned
newspaper with actual news.
I know, I know, it’s horribly bad. But all the others are worse. Even “Private
Eye” now regurgitates government propaganda.
@Anonymous
“The US cut the supply of debt to Venezuela…”
Does anything about that statement strike you as really, really weird? Why would anyone
running an independent nation with plenty of natural resources and intelligent, hardworking
people want any foreign debt?
(Except for the tiny handful of bought-and-paid-for traitors who negotiate those deals and
then retire and go and live in Florida).
@A123
1. Even if Maduro were “massacring his own people” that would be absolutely no
concern of the USA.
2. Even if it did concern the USA, the UN Charter absolutely forbids the USA to interfere
in the internal or external affairs of Venezuela. Under any circumstances whatsoever –
unless ordered to do so by the UN Security Council (won’t happen) or if Venezuela wages
war against the USA (certainly won’t happen).
3. Maduro has not been “massacring his own people”.
Empire is an illusion, because it is built on the need for power, and power is ephemeral. It
has been present in every conflict of the past. It is the underlying motivation for war.
Other cultural factors might change, but not power. As a result every civilization/nation
eventually gets the war it is trying to avoid: utter defeat. But emperors and their advisers
delude themselves, thinking they can avoid that fateful war, that it can be limited in scale
or even won. History always proves them wrong. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
@Digital
Samizdat Tucker asked – apparently genuinely mystified – why the Democrats
are just as keen as the administration to attack Venezuela.
That too is very, very simple.
They don’t care about laws.
They don’t care about treaties.
They don’t care about the UN Charter.
They don’t care about the Nuremberg Principles.
They don’t care about the US Constitution.
They don’t care about the teachings of Jesus Christ.
They don’t care about the Ten Commandments.
They don’t care about democracy.
They don’t care about freedom.
They don’t care about the Venezuelan people. (Sorry, let me rephrase that. They
don’t give a flying fuck about the Venezuelan people).
They don’t care about ordinary human decency.
All they care about is their entitlement to go on plundering all the world’s
resources – which they consider to be their legitimate property – and to kill
anyone who gets in their way.
@Chris
Bridges Chris, there seems to be an important typo in your comment. I have fixed it for
you.
“There is not one particle of “patriotism”, dignity, or pride in any of
Guaido’s supporters. Miami is full of this human garbage. Having shit in their own nest
they flee with their stolen, narcotics-traficking millions to the hated imperialist
USA.”
April 13, 2019 US Military Attack on Venezuela Mulled by Top Trump Advisors and Latin
American Officials at Private DC Meeting
Away from the public eye, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think
tank hosted a top-level, off-the-record meeting to explore US military options against
Venezuela.
The US is in the end-stage Empire State…..and this is what make the US Empire so
dangerous at this point in time….The US Empire will start lashing out in its final
death throes……
If anyone is interested in the CIA regime changes , read the book The Secret Team, the cia
and its allies in control of the world, by the late Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, it can be had on
amazon, or possibly on line, and see his videos of youtube.
The CIA is satan incarnate and the chain dogs of the zionists who rule America!
I don’t think the Deep State can give up.
They give up, Venezuela starts selling whatever oil it can produce for anything but dollars
– euros, gold, maybe yuan or even roubles. And then who’s next?
Why, you think, all the pressure on Iran? Big oil producer, outside the petro-dollar
nexus.
That’s unpardonable to the Deep State. It can’t be allowed.
They’ll keep fighting and plotting until the threats to the petro-dollar are removed.
@Thulean
Friend Either the Deep State finally found footage of Rabbi Trump on epstein’s
rapegirl island, or the incident with the kushnercopter–w/ ivanka aboard–having
to immediately land upon takeoff due to a “malfunction” deballed him for good.
By God I wish I was paid by the Government. Anytime someone posts words with a whiff of
truth, they are framed as a secret agent. Do I get a decoder ring, too?
Trump is not a Machiavellian mastermind. Neither he nor Pompeo caused Madero to turn
Venezuela into his own ATM to the detriment of the masses. (The elite are AOK)
Furthermore, they MUST take a position. Sweat hog Maduro is crushing protestors with
tanks. If the US can somehow benefit from his repellent actions, we should.
Most of you revere Putin, notwithstanding your complete lack of understand that any
postings- like these!- would result in some dead eyed thugs banging on your door at 3AM. Do
you believe Putin wrings his hands over plucking meat from a dead carcass?
THAT’S history. THAT’S politics. A steely eyed focus on your own
country’s bottom line. I know its troubling to digest that the world is not FortNite.
Slink back to your safe space and make some play dough balls.
You mean the thousands frantically attempting to cross over into Columbia?
In unfree societies, people can’t leave, so your point undermines another one from
the Establishment narrative, namely that Venezuela is a society dominated by a dictator, and
yearning to be free.
"... In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020 ..."
"... If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become. ..."
"... Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command. ..."
"... Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. ..."
"The president has said he doesn't want to see this country wrapped up in endless wars and I agree with that," Bernie Sanders
said to the Fox News audience last week at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Then, looking directly at the camera, he added: "Mr. President,
tonight you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia must not determine the military
or foreign policy of this country."
Sanders was talking about a resolution on the War Powers Act that would put an end to U.S. involvement in the 5-year civil war
in Yemen. This war has created one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world of our time, with thousands of children dead in
the middle of a cholera epidemic and famine.
Supported by a Democratic Party united in Congress, and an anti-interventionist faction of the Republican Party headed by Senators
Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed both houses of Congress.
But 24 hours after Sanders urged the President to sign it, Trump vetoed the resolution, describing it as a "dangerous attempt
to undermine my constitutional authority."
According to journalist Buchanan J. Buchanan, “with enough Republican votes in both chambers to resist Trump’s veto, this could
have been the end of the matter; but it wasn’t. In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020.”
If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that
Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman of Saudi Arabia.
In 2008, John McCain, hawk leader in the Senate, was defeated by the progressive Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who had won his
nomination by defeating the bellicose Hillary Clinton who had voted for authorizing the war in Iraq. In 2012, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, who was much more aggressive than Obama in his approach to Russia lost.
However, in 2016, Trump presented himself as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war, an anti-interventionist,
and promising to get along with Russian Vladimir Putin and getting out of the Middle East wars.
None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg,
Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become.
Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed
severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge
of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria
in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Trump has spoken of getting all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they are still there.
Although Sanders supports Israel, he says he is looking for a two-state solution, and criticizes Netanyahu’s regime.
Trump came to power promising to get along with Moscow, but he sent Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced the US
withdrawal of the 1987 Treaty of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) subscribed by Ronald Reagan, who banned all ground-based
nuclear intermediate range missiles.
When Putin sent a hundred Russian soldiers to Venezuela to repair the S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged
in the recent blackouts, Trump provocatively ordered the Russians to “get out” of the Bolivarian and Chavista country. According
to Buchanan, the gravity center of U.S. policy is shifting towards Trump’s position in 2016. And the anti-interventionist wing of
the Republican Party is growing.
The anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party together with the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party in Congress are
capable — as they were War Powers Act resolution on Yemen– to produce a new bipartisan majority.
Buchanan predicts that in the 2020 primaries, foreign policy will be in the center and the Democratic Party would have captured
the ground with the catchphrase “no more wars” that candidate Donald Trump exploited in 2016.
"... The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy. ..."
"... Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times, 1/29/19) gave his spiel: ..."
"... Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance. Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money. Hence the crisis. ..."
"... Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry ..."
"... The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014 ..."
"... The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than Afghanistan. ..."
"... It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump? ..."
gjohnsit on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 12:50pm Juan Guaido's U.S.-backed coup
failed pitifully yesterday.
He called it the moment for Venezuelans to reclaim their democracy once and for all. But as
the hours dragged on, opposition leader Juan Guaidó stood alone on a highway overpass
with the same small cadre of soldiers with whom he launched a bold effort to spark a military
uprising and settle Venezuela's agonizing power struggle...
The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United
States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one
of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had
quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy.
Guaido's mentor Leopoldo Lopez sought refuge in Chile's embassy in Caracas, while at least
25 pro-Juan Guaido troops asked Brazil for refuge.
President Nicolas Maduro is actually in a stronger position now than a week ago.
So does the U.S. give up this imperialist project?
Nope.
We simply take it to the next level. Juan Guaido must die .
He has been a kind of a hapless figure so far. He calls for mass protests and no one shows
up. I don't think he realizes right now that he is actually now worth more dead than alive
not only to the CIA, but also to his own opposition people. A shot in the crowd or something
like that to take Guaido out. It might shock you, Dr. Paul, but the CIA is pretty good at
this kind of things.
Juan Guaido probably only has days or weeks to live.
I wonder if he realizes the danger he is in?
It's unlikely
that the Trump Administration will wait long before putting a bullet in their CIA
puppet.
"The President has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible.
If that's what's required, that's what the United States will do," Pompeo said on Fox
Business Network. "We're trying to do everything we can to avoid violence. We've asked all
the parties involved not to engage in the kind of activity. We'd prefer a peaceful transition
of government there, where Maduro leaves and a new election is held.
But the President has
made clear, in the event that there comes a moment -- and we'll all have to make decisions
about when that moment is -- and the President will have to ultimately make that decision. He
is prepared to do that if that's what's required."
@dfarrah
Thinks arresting Guaido triggers a US military invasion. Eric Prince is trying to put
together a mercenary force if the US troops don't go in.
calling for the same results that Pompous, Bolton, tRump etc. advocate, the 'liberals'
just use nicer language. (highlights are mine)
"...Francisco Rodríguez and Jeffrey D. Sachs (New York Times, 2/2/19) envision
similar efforts for a "peaceful and negotiated transition of power," and (Ro) Khanna made
sure to characterize Maduro as "an authoritarian leader who has presided over
unfair elections, failed economic policies, extrajudicial killings by police, food shortages
and cronyism with military leaders."
In other words, Maduro the Dictator must be overthrown -- but don't worry, the US would be
diplomatic about it.
Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most
of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times,
1/29/19) gave his spiel:
Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the
power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and
efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance.
Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money.
Hence the crisis.
Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that
followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry (.
I picked the examples above from the article above but it would be a mistake to not point
out that this is about all of the media but the NY Tool really stands out, of course Wapoop
is never far behind.
However to not make this post too long I'll put up just two of the opening paragraphs and it
gets a lot better...
"A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media
that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period
(1/15/19–4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took
an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the
big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás
Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.
Of the 76 total articles, opinion videos or TV commentator segments that centered on or
gave more than passing attention to Venezuela, 54 (72 percent) expressed explicit support for
the Maduro administration's ouster. Eleven (14 percent) were ambiguous, but were only
classified as such for lack of explicit language. Reading between the lines, most of these
were clearly also pro–regime change. Another 11 (14 percent) took no position, but many
similarly offered ideological ammo for those in support.
@aliasalias a choice between corrupt socialists and corrupt capitalists. Yay.
So now I'm watching tv, and oh noes, some guy says that Caracas is a war zone! But all I
see is a bunch of people and some sort of smoke bombs going off. But no one yet is shooting.
People are throwing rocks at some military vehicles.
@aliasalias I'm also willing to bet he was perfectly fine with the US ordering its
client states in the Middle East to ramp up oil production to manipulate prices.
What I find particularly laughable is the fact that so many idiots on and offline think
Venezuela is socialist despite the fact that their economy is 70 percent private, or mixed,
like ours used to be before the capitalist pigs sold off the commons to the highest bidders
piece by god damn piece.
Liberals and conservatives are just 2 sides of the same fascist coin at this point.
Even after an effective multi-year economic embargo that's caused hyperinflation in
Venezuela, and despite a plague of Stuxnet-like viruses that took down most of the country's
electrical and communications grid, all the CIA has managed to do is make itself look
ineffectual at what really matters. Same in Iran.
All we really still do well is wreck stuff, cause starvation, and cut down the supply of
oil going to the world market.
The Agency doesn't really confuse and intimidate anyone, anymore, except The New York
Times.
Or is the American public missing the obvious? All I see from the folks advocating for a
coup in Venezuela is that
1) people are starving,
2) Maduro is a "dictator" (supported by
what evidence I don't know) and
3) something must be done. They have no evidence for the
counter argument that
4) they are comprador elites who want nothing more than
5) to get their
hands on PdVSA's oil after 6) their American sponsors take the lion's share and that
7) it's
perfectly obvious that, apart from the end of the US-led embargo, nothing is going to get any
better for the vast majority of Venezuelans if the comprador elites are allowed to take over
the country. This is because their methods are
9) at least as dictatorial as those they
accuse Maduro of employing. And then we have the undemocratic idea that
10) the United States
government should somehow have a "say" in who rules Venezuela, a proposition that appears to
have the open assent of most of the world's governments.
Generals promised him that they were with him, but they were not.
US failed again. And the world knows it.
The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo
López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the
violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014. Yesterday morning the guards let him go.
While the circumstances are not clear, the police chief responsible for the guards has been
fired. López promised his followers that he would go to the Miraflores Presidential
Palace. But he wasn't even able to leave eastern Caracas.
Yesterday evening López,
with his wife and daughter, fled into the Chilean embassy. They seem to have disliked the
accommodations. Two hours later they moved into the Spanish embassy.
While the embassy food
may be good, it will be a quite different life than in their own comfortable mansion. A few
of the soldiers who supported Guaidó took refuge in the Brazilian embassy.
Guaidó is still free.
The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will
look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than
Afghanistan. It has impenetrable jungles, mountains and slums that even Venezuelan troops
do not dare to enter. It has a functioning army and halfway decent air defenses which were
recently upgraded by Russian specialists.
It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it
would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who
knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the
Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump?
There are absolutely no vital U.S. interests at stake in Venezuela, and the Venezuelan government poses no threat to the United
States. There is no way under these circumstances that military action could be "required," so when Pompeo suggests that it could
happen we are clearly talking about a war of choice divorced from any U.S. security interests. It would be a war fought solely for
the purpose of achieving regime change, and the only reason why the U.S. would do that is to vindicate the Trump administration's
reckless blunder of taking sides in an internal political dispute. No Americans should die for the sake of Trump's ego or for the
ambitions of hawkish senators.
Attacking the Venezuelan government would be a terrible error and a violation of international law. It would be a calamity for
the people of Venezuela, who would bear many of the costs of turning their internal crisis into an international war, and it would
likely cause more displacement and increase the number of people fleeing the country in the short term. I suspect it would also be
a more difficult and costly war than most of us expect, and it would be a massive waste of U.S. resources and American lives in an
unjustified and unnecessary war. If all that isn't enough, an unauthorized Venezuelan war would also be completely illegal under
U.S. law. The American people have no appetite for a new war for regime change anywhere in the world, and there is not much support
for it even in Congress. If Trump tries to take the U.S. to war in Venezuela, he will be in clear violation of the Constitution and
should be impeached for it.
The thing I really don't understand about Venezuela here is why is this not China's problem while the US and Russia doing old
cold war dance here? They are in debt to their eyeballs here with them.
At this point, Bolton and Pompeo are doing everything to suck President Trump into the battle for Venezuela and we must be
not support military action. (I fear the talking heads at Fox News here.) Because it appears the people, or majority, of Venezuela
are generally tiring of Maduro government but they do not want US military assistance. (Note any truth the CIA dropped weapons
to the Guiadro forces? They do have US guns but this stuff get trade fairly easily without US government doing.)
If America goes to war in Venezuela, Trump loses my vote in 2020. If we don't get out of at least one more unnecessary war like
Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, etc, he's on thin ice. Getting OUT of foreign wars was one of his major campaign promises.
It seems that wars of opportunity are the only kind we engage in over the past few decades. If we don't have a war with either
Venezuela or Iran, I will be shocked and very relieved.
However, I am not optimistic. Our foreign policy seems to be completely controlled by NeoCons, arms merchants, and Saudi / Israeli
interests, with no honest benefits to our own nation's security or strategic interests.
Apologies to b, but today's Xymphora post really tickled my fancy.>
Bay of piglets, Tuesday, April 30, 2019
"Venezuelan coup attempt 'directly planned in Washington' – FM". Guido's cute little
coup-let. If you stage a coup and nobody notices as it is so half-assed, is it really a coup?
"Venezuela: Military Uprising in Caracas (in Development)".
"Venezuela - Bay of Pigs Redux?" (Lang).
Obviously, the government can no longer tolerate Guido's shenanigans, which have become a
public safety matter.
I look forward to the embassy video showing them skateboarding in their quarters. I don't,
however, believe any self-respecting cat will befriend either one of these tools.
Correction to 114 above. The Venezuela Analysis tweet linking to the Chile Today story
claiming that both Guaidó and López had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy has
been removed, and the story only claims that López is there. Miscommunication in a
rapidly developing situation? In any case, surely Guaidó is seeking refuge SOMEplace.
multiple sources are reporting similar information to telesur's update:
UPDATE: 3:11
pm Chile's Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Ampuero confirmed that Venezuelan opposition
politician Leopoldo Lopez and his family requested asylum at the Chilean embassy in
Caracas.
"Lilian Tintori and her daughter entered as guests of our diplomatic mission in
Caracas. A few minutes ago her spouse, Leopoldo Lopez, joined his family in that place. Chile
reaffirms commitment with Venezuelan democrats," Minister Ampuero tweeted.
that seems that this iteration of the coup has fizzled. stay tuned for what comes
next.
The difference with EuroMaydan is that there is no distinct region of the country which supports the opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country. ..."
"... The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens. ..."
So called "coup" attempt was just a show for American and European audience consumption.
You can easily tell by watching the Western coverage the last couple of days(CNN, fox,
European news) and compare it to actual reality on the ground seen through interviews with
Venezuelans and social media videos.
US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country.
It seems Guaido and even López were used as pawns in this scheme by US intelligence
and/,or Venezuelan and Russian intelligence. You can tell by looking at their faces on photos
taken that early morning and by the fact that López immediately ran to the Chilean
embassy. They knew they'd been duped and used as pawns.
The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological
warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens.
Be aware US
intelligence is running the show they don't spend 100 billion in Intelligence to let an idiot
like Guaido run the show. Guaido is their dancing monkey. Watch the monkey dance. Dance
monkey! Dance!
Is Maduro put in Yanukovich situation by Washington. If so he is doomed...
Notable quotes:
"... Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests. Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed. ..."
"... The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the rebels. ..."
"... All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake. ..."
"... That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed insurrection-- however staged and phony. ..."
"... My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura (he'll be dead in a week I guess) ..."
Beware of snipers on the roof alla the Takism massacre in Turkey 1977 May Day with the Ecevit (leftist) gov't in power.
Of course Bengazi and Kiev come to mind as well.
Jackrabbit | Apr 30, 2019 12:00:05 PM | 37
Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests.
Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed.
Absolutely correct, Prince's mercs could not actually win territory and hold it. Their
attack would just be a "bloody their nose" sort of thing that American psychos are so fond
of. Basically Prince's attack dogs create chaos as long as they can get away with and when
the Venezuelan military begins a methodical counterattack they retreat to Colombia. Beyond
destabilizing the government somewhat I don't see what it could accomplish, though.
I think the concern raised by others is much more likely; that is snipers killing dozens
or hundreds of people celebrating May Day in such a way that the mass media can spin it as
the government's doing. Most Americans do not know what May Day is and will assume that any
Venezuelan crowds their TVs show them will be Random Guaido's faithful flock protesting
against Maduro. Guaranteed that's how the New York Langley Times will spin
it tomorrow. If mystery snipers (CIA death squads) shoot up the festival-goers it will not be
difficult to fool Americans into thinking that the mystery snipers are pro-Maduro forces
trying to kill a few Guaidog supporters for some reason.
What further suggests this possibility is that the US State Department's astroturf Twitter
army has been trying to force the meme that Random Guaido is actually a socialist and is more
left than Maduro. This is to seed the idea among people who actually do know what May Day is
about that Maduro would oppose May Day celebrations and thus reinforce the forced meme that
Maduro loyalists are responsible for tomorrow's sniper attacks.
Still, selling it to the gullible American public is one thing. It is another entirely to
fool the Venezuelans since many of them will be seeing this happen firsthand. If the
Venezuelan people don't buy that the government is behind the sniper attacks then they will
close up ranks around Maduro rather than throw their lot in with Guaidog's coup attempt.
@jayc (68) Are the coup planners and advisors smart or dumb? In one sense, they are smart,
because they can reason from some basic assumption and reach a conclusion that seemingly
flows from the rules of logic. OTOH, they are dumb, because the basic assumption from which
their reasoning begins is a steaming pile of crap. So, I vote for DUMB.
This is a very dangerous situation. Recall the leaked conversation between Cathering Ashton
and Umas Paet, indicating that Maidan sniping was coming from the hotel occupied by the
protestors.
The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the
rebels.
All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame
for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro
should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He
should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake.
This is just to further confirm that this stunt is being hyped by US mass-media as if it is
"the big one", i.e. that Guaidó and his "revolutionary" forces are practically
storming the presidential palace.
I listen to the local all-news radio station at the top of the hour. It's a reliable
indicator of the tune du jour being played on the mass-media Mighty Wurlitzer.
This morning, as noted, it was the "top story"-- and presented as if the long-anticipated
nation-wide coup was raging. Despite the usual overwrought sensationalism, I suspected that
there was less than met the ear: this local station didn't throw over to their parent network
for a Special Report, as it typically would if the conflict had actually escalated into open
rebellion.
"Special Report" mode is announced with dramatic theme music, and Team Coverage featuring
the Usual Suspect celebrity network correspondents and a gaggle of house "experts".
So I correctly concluded that despite the breathless tone, this was much ado about
little. ____________________________________________________
That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone
beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed
insurrection-- however staged and phony.
It seems to have intentionally crossed a line to
further test the Maduro government's patience and resolve.
I'm not one of those who finds fault with embattled statesmen for refusing to act
precipitously in response to obvious provocations. Maduro and loyal Venezuelans know
perfectly well that even a reasonable response to blatant illegal and illicit provocations
may be used by the golpistas (which includes the US/Western sponsors and enablers) as
a pretext for foreign intervention.
But the prudent policy of tolerance and forbearance cannot continue indefinitely in the
face of outright treasonous provocations, since this will eventually be perceived as the
government turning a blind eye, or winking at, the rule of law upon which it relies for
legitimacy.
It's a difficult dilemma.
William Gruff | Apr 30, 2019 3:25:23 PM | 93
psychohistorian @87 said
"...with very few shots being fired."
This is an important point. The Russians and Chinese seem to have the psycho empire psychoanalyzed and are offering good
guidance to Venezuela, assuming Venezuelans themselves are not also clued into how the psycho empire works.
In essence, America needs a pretext to attack. Americans need to maintain the delusion that they are the victims, and that
it was their victims who forced America to attack against America's bogus peace-loving will.
The pretext doesn't need to be very convincing, but it needs to exist. For this reason it could be wiser to just leave
Random Guaido alone, but arrest and court martial the military personnel who took part in this little stunt. Lopez should also
be re-arrested and tried for violating the terms of his detention.
This arresting should be done by regular police for Lopez and military police for the military personnel who violated the
chain of command. No shooting or even guns drawn. Just calmly take them into custody and let the legal process work on them.
NOBTS | Apr 30, 2019 3:34:39 PM | 96
Now that CIA poster boy Leopoldo is available to take charge Juan Doe is prime sniper fodder!
The Unconventional Warfare Manual sets out the techniques of subversion the US uses in targeting nation states
that don't toe the line.
Although the document is of recent date, the policy has clearly existed for a long time.
Based on Church Committee hearings, it has been estimated that the US has carried out tens of thousands of covert
operations since WW2.
Guaido is just an opportunity for Bolton to stir up trouble.
He has never been part of a CIA long term regime change plan. If he was then his wikipedia page would not have been
created just 2 weeks before Trump recognised him as President (or at least it would have been manipulated to appear a lot
older).
And he would have been mentioned in WaPo a hundred times in the last 2 years instead of only a week before Trump
recognition.
My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura
(he'll be dead in a week I guess).
"... it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies? ..."
"... It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave markets? ..."
"... Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason? ..."
Please refrain in using the term "democracy" so easily. US is a republic with the surface of
elected representative system, and we know exactly how that works. See the election of Truman
as VP instead of Wallace in 1944 or so or very recently the election of Hillary Clinton as
democratic representative.
A true democracy is done via a sortition system that selects randomly from the roster of
eligible citizens to represent the will of the people.
Imagine that in the Second Amendment instead of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed" we would have: "A well educated Citizenry, being necessary to the security and
well-being of a free, moral, and ethically sound State, the right of the people to get a
sound Education in Philosophy, Ethics, Civics, Logic, Finance, and Health, shall not be
infringed".
it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies?
It is China that is gleefully assisting the Saudi tyrants to commit genocide?
It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave
markets?
Is China now that is frantically threatening war on Iran?
Russia must have been responsible for supporting jihadists to turn Syria into another failed
state, right?
For that matter, is it Russia and China that are threatening war on the elected and UN
recognized government of Venezuela?
Seriously, after America's long and bloody track record of failed and bloody
interventions, it baffles me that anyone could say something so ridiculous.
" fearmongering about the "Yankee" empire to the north."
What, this isn't justified?
Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some
kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very
reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason?
Guaidó seems to have neither a base nor large scale military support nor access
to significant military equipment. If that does not change this coup attempt is likely to
fail within a few hours.
We may have jumped the shark in to the realm of the monthly
coup attempt. Mostly a media event to see if they can get a buy-in. Didn't work? Not to
worry we will try again next month!
Can you imagine a force of 5000 or so mercs staging a combat assault on a large and
reasonably well armed country?
If it didn't involve so much killing and dying it would be amusing to watch the "private
army" get pinned down and butchered.
Seriously without air cover it would turn into bloody squalor. Meanwhile Russia and
perhaps China are likely providing signal intel fo the Venezuelan military and keeping a
close eye on what the gringoes are up to. Much like the RAND document on destabilizing
other nations it will probably be a slow bleed by sabotage and scarcity.
I can't see either Guaido, the US, or any other of the coup fomentors ceasing their
attempts until they've achieved some kind of result. Guaido running around, and I can see
the rationale behind allowing him to do so, is an ongoing problem. Too much is at stake for
the powerful interests to let go of any of their global plans. People everywhere do not
really matter all that much.
Looks like the Neo-Cons just replied with their unavoidable escalation, this smacks of
desperation. I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams told Random Guy to announce a coup and even
if it fails the US will protect him or use it as an excuse to invade. Once this coup fails
Maduro should stick both of these traitors in a "real" prison and see if that loosens their
tongues a bit, neither of these fools have experienced real hardship so just taking away
their sliver spoons and private aircraft would convince them to rat out their fellow
traitors
While everyone is aware of the existence of fake news, we are less aware of how
editorial conflicts of interest can be used to sway public opinion, particularly in the
case of a highly influential and widely read newspaper like the New York Times.
Harvard Law School
Barack Obama, an alumni of Harvard Law School, was the United States President who ordered
the destruction of Africa's richest, most literate and developed country, Libya, and
reduced that country to rubble and a state of lawlessness. Thousands died.
The sovereign wealth fund of the oil rich country has disappeared without trace. Libya's
premier medical facilities that were the envy of it's continent and it's neighbours in the
Middle East have been destroyed, precisely at the time that it's citizens required them.
Many of the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, as highly trained as their counterparts in
Europe, have also disappeared without trace, many presumed drowned in the waters of the
Mediterranean trying to flee to save their lives. Libya is now the poorest state in Africa.
The leader who had united it and raised the infrastructural standards to be on a par with
the first world, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, never had his day in a court of any description,
he was beaten, tortured and sodomised with a knife, before being murdered on the blood
soaked streets by a mob.
We have to wonder what it is that they are teaching at the Harvard Law School? In the
1980's the tiny countries of Central America, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua suffered
from their own brutal civil wars. Extreme, right wing governments and militias were either
trying to hold onto power or to seize it for themselves from the impoverished indigenous
citizenries who sought democracy and guarantees of their fundamental civil and human
rights. The United States sent in Elliot Abrams, now to be found lurking in the jungles of
Venezuela, to support the fascistic regimes in the brutal battle against their own
civilians. Mr Abrams was another product of the esteemed Harvard Law School. By the end of
his time there, hundreds of thousands of some of the world's poorest people and been
murdered, their bodies tossed into mass graves if they were lucky. There was no rule of
law, in spite of the fact that there were constitutions and courts, judges and the concept
of jurisprudence.
The current Secretary of State of the United States, Mr Mike Pompeo, recently addressed
an audience of American students and told them that his former department, the Central
Intelligence Agency, of which he was the Director from 2017 until 2018, routinely "lied,
cheated and stole" as and when it suited or the occasion demanded. Mike Pompeo is another
American official who studied at and graduated from the Harvard Law School.
This Massachusetts institution has had scores of it's students graduate and pass
through, onwards and upwards into positions of authority in the halls of power. It is
difficult to see what ethical foundations were laid down in those formative years of
studying the law in the seminars of that Cambridge campus. Three alumni of Harvard Law
School who have recently served and continue to serve in some of the highest offices of the
United States, have done irreparable damage to a number of countries and have done so by
breaking every international law that existed to protect them. They did this
unapologetically, in order, as Secretary of State Pompeo admitted in a rare moment of
candour, to "cheat and steal" from defenceless nation states and their helpless
populations.
Perhaps Harvard Law School is not the best place to send one's kids to learn about
ethics, democracy and the rule of law.
Couldn't help noticing that Guyaido looks like a frightened little bunny which just soiled
its underwear or is about to. Lopez seems to be in a similar state of near-panic. I don't
know why the govt doesn't just disappear them. They could be stuffed and embalmed and put
on display in the National Museum as a reminder that abject stupidity isn't a virtue in
Venezuela.
OK, both Random Guy and Lopez are openly committing armed insurrection and high treason.
Now is the time to arrest both, try in the courts (public and televised) for high treason.
Unlimited military force (as required) is fully justified in making the arrests. Not to do
so is appeasing the criminal actions of a foreign force attempting to use violence to usurp
the legitimate and democratically elected government of a sovereign state.
Until now there have been legitimate strategic grounds for holding off from arresting
Random Guy. No longer. They must be crushed with the full force of the law backed by
military power if necessary, and immediately prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Limit the prosecution in the first instance to Random Guy and Lopez, and to High Treason
and military insurrection. All other charges and defendents can be tried later in a
separate trial, but these two need a straightforward and legally watertight conviction as
quickly as possible, so that there is then no rotting carcase of ambiguity left.
Trump won't be gaining any "wave" from attacking Venezuela. In fact, it stands to alienate
a large part of his base and energize the meekly antiwar Democrats.
It might be moot since it looks like this putsch has failed to get more support, and if
so Guadó will spend the next months in a cage.
Maduro didn't arrest random guy to deny the US an excuse to invade. The US was bluffing I
think but simply ignoring random dudecwas wise at that point.
But things have changed now. Lopez and Guaidó must be arrested and tried now.
Failure to do so would encourage additional coups.
This does indeed smack of desperation as a previous poster observed.
Remember the (if I remember correctly) supposed 1800+ Venezuelan soldiers being kept in
hotels in Cucuta, Colombia across the border? This and the white house rejection of the
Prince scheme show that some combination of the US, the Colombians, and Guaidó's
people have had little faith in the route of using that as the core of a contra force. Now
they might have to.
As for our boy Juan, presidente encargado, unless something drastic happens very soon,
he'll be wishing for some black helicopters to show up and pluck him off that bridge.
Unless, of course, being arrested is the plan. This may be a case of believing your own
propaganda - the opposition claims it's 90% of Venezuela. Maybe Guaidó truly
believed all he needed to do was orchestrate something like Prince's "dynamic" event and
the army would rally to Altamira with the masses in tow.
About a month ago, when his motorcade went outside of his east Caracas haunts and got
pelted by rocks, you had all the internet trolls denouncing it as staged.
You see, there are mafialike Chavista bosses, Cubans all, forcing the barrios to act
like they hate their beloved interim president. Maybe instead of taking the hint and
changing strategy, Juan believed his own spin.
Or maybe he did take the hint, and figures the struggle against Cuban oppression is
better waged from the dock than the streets, where he can force action from his allies and
supporters by claiming abuse. Time will tell.
The US media is really talking up this latest coup attempt by random guy, but I still don't
see the meat on it. successful coups are fast moving and depend on quickly seizing key
targets like media centers, power generators and most importantly of all seizing high value
government officials. Currently, it looks like Random Guy just found some more random guys
to stand around him and pose while he declares a coup. so this looks doomed to failure
within a few more hours (6-8), what really matters is what does the US do once it fails,
realistically, there aren't anymore sanctions they can put on Venezuela and Colombia has
made it clear they won't send their own army in to fight the US's war.
That basically leaves just Erik Prince's planned mercenary army or a direct US invasion,
previously Prince's plan had faced a lot of opposition so it is interesting that this
failure of a coup is launched right now. If Trump was ever serious about not starting
anymore stupid wars (and thus won't invade Venezuela before the 2020 elections) I imagine
he'll now be more supportive of the idea of loaning money to Random Guy's backers so that
they can buy Erik Prince's mercenaries and use them. Even if they use Prince's troops I
doubt that they will succeed, Prince's mercenaries might be good at massacring civilians,
but Venezuela has a massive civilian militia made up of the poorest citizens they will know
right away what Random Guy's mercenaries will do to them and their families if their coup
succeeds. So they will fight very, very hard. This could setup another Bay of Pigs type
situation for the US and their mercenaries.
Trump will be lied to by CIA and NSC and State, so if he okays this or really wants
this, it does not matter. He was couped and the Deep State uses him. He's happy being
POTUS. That is all that matters to Trump.
The uprising will depend on hundreds of thousands in the streets, not several
thousand.
The goal is hundreds of dead protesters.
Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial.
Looks like they are massing the people successfully.
The question for the moment is will the US agents and officers on the ground turn this
into a Venezuelan Tiananmen 2. They certainly know how.
Imagine trying to overthrow your elected government at the behest of John Bolton?
If anyone in the United States pulled a stunt like this - and, remember, the US is
packed with armed extremist loons like militias and survivalists and Aryan churches - they
would be stormed with federal agents and soldiers and either dragged away to prison in
chains or shot.
I am not exaggerating in the least. He would be charged with treason, and I think we all
know, from our memories of how the United States has treated prisoners at Guantanamo what
kind of treatment he would receive in prison for treason.
But the same United States not only thinks this is just fine to do in another country,
they encourage it.
Simply the most lawless of all advanced nations, that's America. Utter contempt for rule
of law and blind belief that American laws should overrule everything else everywhere.
So, what is Canada's Foreign Minister, Ms Chrystia Freeland - someone who has shamed
Canada with her fervent support for Washington's illegal activities in Venezuela - doing
today to assist Bolton and his unelected, self-appointed "president?"
If I were a Russian or Chinese strategist, I would be salivating at the thought of the US
willfully creating another Vietnam right on its own doorstep and throwing the only
Continent connected to it by a landbridge into complete upheaval and stark class warfare.
Class-based Civil War could easily spread to Brazil, Colombia, and beyond, throwing the
lives of hundreds of millions of people into upheaval, all on Uncle Sam's dollar.
After the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and the Ukraine, the several
million Latino refugees and the expenditure of another 6 trillion or so over the next
decade should be enough to throw the US itself into Civil War and Coup territory and finish
off its hegemony over EurAsia for good.
Don't give Maduro too much aid just yet. Sucker the US to commit its hand and go in,
then, as elsewhere, give just enough aid to keep the US in perpetual zugzwang as it slowly
bleeds itself to death.
Austerity and War for the Americas, OBOR and peaceful development for EurAsia.
"Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial."
This might be exactly what the U.S. wants Maduro to do. The arrest and/or imprisonment
of Guaido by the "repressive regime" could be the pretext for a sudden "popular uprising"
to which the "Venezuelan State" (ie. CIA operatives and hired assassins) responds
"violently." A small gathering in any city square suddenly disrupted by the gunfire death
of a dozen or so innocents--all miraculously captured "live" on cell-phone video and
streamed direct to social media--is all that it would take to give the US sufficient
domestic support for any further action. I suspect this action would not take the form of
direct US military action but rather the freeing of Erik Prince and his mercenaries upon
the dirty brown socialist peasants.
Maduro surely has anticipated that his arrest of Guaido is likely to play into US hands.
Guaido may be too stupid to know he is being used as live bait, or he may be simply being
coerced by his handlers to undertake increasingly reckless actions until Maduro bites.
I think the best thing Maduro might do would be to arrange for a public meetin and
reconciliation between him and Guaido away from his U.S. handlers. The US is not expecting
that and would then have to explain why they are opposed to the peaceable reconciliation of
the conflict. If Guaido feels he has become disposable to the US, he may not be
disagreeable to some kind of pardon and face-saving but largely superficial compromise.
The Rovian dictat We make our own reality (mutter it in growling mafia accent) is
shredded to confetti, or almost.
Look at Ukraine, a comedian who acts the part of a nobody guy propelled to a
presidential position in a TV show, is elected as president in RL!
Coluche was a French comedian who stood for president, 1980. Polls showed 16 to 25% of
the vote. (He was supported by Charlie Hebdo.. them again..)
His manager was murdered and Coluche withdrew.
He was then himself killed (1985) in mysterious, highly suspicious, circumstances. Won
awards for Best Actor and died because.. a truck..
Beppe Grillo is another comedian who created a Pol Party, the 5 Star, Cinque Stelle,
party in Italy (with another guy.) Grillo could not be elected, by law, because he has a
conviction on his blotter, for manslaughter.
Random Guy-do is within this landscape a feeble contender - a clown who pretends to be
serious! He has no acting credentials, nada. No self proclamation presence. A confused,
hapless, manipulated placeholder.
No way that is going to end well. For him. Maybe night - school acting classes? Ouch..
Idk. Operation Freedom, anyone who takes that on is pushed offstage..
Better to be a real clown! One can live on (Grillo) or die an honorable death
(Coluche)!
Venezuela's FM is wisely playing down the guilt of the thirty or so military personnel
involved in the coup. Such personnel were first described as likely deceived or misled by
Guaido and now the FM is explicitly claiming plan and execution of coup came from
Washington. The military personnel were not involved in its planning and so can be treated
mercifully. (Who knows if some of them weren't blackmailed to join in? We are dealing with
the CIA after all.)
MediaLens has this story today:
"A new report on April 25 by a respected think tank has estimated that US sanctions imposed
on Venezuela in August 2017 have caused around 40,000 deaths."
The question for Canadians is whether Freeland and Trudeau are ready to take ownership for,
say, 5,000 of those deaths..and counting. Toss them in with the thousands killed thanks to
Canadian assistance in Ukraine and a share of the daily carnage in Yemen and the bloody
nature of the Ottawa cabal begins to become clear.
According to reports, a group from Venezuela's Sebin intelligence service freed Leopoldo
Lopez from house arrest early Tuesday morning.
Lopez and Guaido could have been set up in a stunning black op. Get Lopez and Guaido to
come out openly and claim they're running a coup which is treason. If they stayed out of
jail previously will they stay out of jail now? Probably not.
BTW, it's interesting that today's events are being called a coup. The coupist, Guaid
and Lopez, have maintained the fiction that Guaido is president of Venezuela so in their
narrative, how can this be a coup implying they're the usurpers. Surely it should be a
counter-coup, which it obviously isn't so someone has fucked up big time. Perhaps John
Bolton and/or Elliott Abrams as they're both stupid and arrogant enough to do so.
Now, finally, after letting the clown run around creating a lot of noise, now that they
tried a hapless attempt at a military uprising will the government of Venezuela arrest,
imprison, and put on trial for treason the moron Guaido and the idiot Lopez?
Christian J Chuba , Apr 30, 2019 1:38:40 PM |
link
Where is the money we stole from Venezuela?
We keep hearing the Neocons saying that Maduro and his 'thugs' are thieves and robbing
the 'Venezuelan people'. The Administration has stolen many of their assets like Citgo and
given them to Guaido.
So where is that money, his bank account? I'd love to hear someone in the MSM ask Pompeo
that question.
Despite the sanctions, the Lima Group, the OAS, and the relentless public relations stunts,
all the self-declared "government" has to show for itself is thirty recruits standing on a
bridge. That's a poor result. Maybe all the smart think-tank people who dreamed up the
Guaido charade aren't actually so smart, or place too much faith in PR optics as opposed to
actual politics. The lack of smarts certainly characterizes the Venezuelan opposition - who
would want these people to be in charge of anything?
Credit to Mexico for retaining clearly articulated principles, as displayed at OAS
recently.
to steve keith # 7 and anitspin # 12 - School of International Atrocities is just right.
Remember Haaahvaaad gave us napalm which was field tested in North Korea, along with other
such treats as Larry "Garbagemen" Summers, and MacGeorge "Green Ford Foundation" Bundy. "
Fight fiercely Harvard, do...." ah yes, and Geo "Is Our Children Learning" Bushboy.
Wonderful.
Villains of the day: Random Guy, Pompeo, and nefarious band of willie, barovsky etc.
Pompeo is perhaps green with envy, why Boris Johnson should keep the mantle of the most
clownish top diplomat of a major state? He can do better! But once the tall tale was said, it
was duly echoed in supine media. NYT made a paragraph, and actually noted how Pompeo
explained his alleged knowledge of Maduro preparing for departure: >>Pressed about the
source of this information, Mr. Pompeo said it was drawn from "open-source material," and
conversations with "scores and scores of people on the ground," including members of the
military and opposition leaders. "He was headed for Havana," he said of Mr. Maduro.<<
The Guardian made a separate article on the topic, with no notes of caution, damn the
torpedoes, copy with full speed!
So "people on the ground" could have reliable, ha ha, info on the conversations between
Maduro and "Russians". "Scores of people" were interviewed, hm., seems that the wily Maduro
eschew a usual step of information blockade, letting the little golpistas -- and him -- look
silly. I actually do not believe in those "scores of interviews", Most generously, there were
that many conversations from which his people could "draw" a rumor prepared ahead of time,
probably by his own Department.
Finally, the nefarious long linkers. Is it really THAT hard to learn how to make neat
links this
one ? Join lines and remove all spaces from the text below
Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d'état? How long can
Trump endure looking like à fool with these two incompetent advisors.
Pompeo and Bolton have blown up the North Korea dialog initiated by Trump? With the Venezuela circus, Trump will probably terminate
their services .
"What absolute joy it is to picture the faces of the Three Stooges when they realized they had been snookered."
Life imitates art: Similar to the two comedians who snookered Abrams and then Macron.
Ha ha ha. The vanity of these marks is so predictable that a pair of comedians can take them in easily and get them to divulge
state secrets (there won't be a military invatins of Ven) on the phone! Same dynamic with Bolton & cie is pretty easy to imagine.
The guy is so full of himself and clueless---that kind of fool is easily taken in.
B, I fully agree with you that Guaido, and Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, etc., got snookered.
This, however, makes the situation all the more dangerous. People like these don't take public humiliation very well. Added
to the frustration of not being able to act at will in their own hemisphere, they are likely to be beside themselves with fury.
Perhaps this is why Trump struck out at Cuba with threats of a total blockade.
They will not give up on Venezuela, and given their level of frustration and humiliation, their next actions could be both
irrational and dangerous.
Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events
in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not. The moment Bolton justified
possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create
similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine. Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American
moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine
losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be
greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.
"... If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works. ..."
Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting
ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!, and his plane was on the tarmac and Pompeo claimed THE
RUSSIANS TALKED HIM OUT OF IT! When asked whether the U.S. could guarantee Maduro safe
passage to Cuba; Pompeo EQUIVOCATED! This is CRAZY.
Bolton also answered questions from the press earlier and lies were coming out of both
sides of his mouth. Both Pompeo and Bolton refused to answer questions on details relating to U.S. involvement
at this time but there were veiled threats all over the place.
If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide
significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works.
The only similarity of this chapuza coup with "Bay of Pigs" event, is in the quality
of organizers, orchestrators and perpetrators of this new intend on coup in Venezuela,
outright fascist pigs...
Some out there, of course, are excited, since they have felt nostalgias from their times
at "Assault Brigades" and "Hunters Battalions".... Even though they try sometimes to disguise themselves as democrats and constitutionalists, it
is in these times when they show all the way their real colors.
To talk about alleged repressions by socialist governments from the US, when they are
currently oppressing every nation and peoples in the world who do not pledge to their
interests, is not like calling the kettle black, but worst, and exercise of projection of
Olympic size.
WASHINGTON -- Overall military expenditures rose 2.6 percent
between 2017 and 2018 , to hit a total of $1.82 trillion, according to new research from
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The total from 2018 is 5.4 percent higher than 2009, and represents a 76 percent increase
over 1998, a 20-year period.
Sixty percent of global military spending came from five countries: The United States ($649
billion), China ($250 billion), Saudi Arabia ($67.6 billion), India ($66.5 billion) and France
($63.8 billion). Russia ($61.4 billion) and the United Kingdom ($50 billion) were the other two
countries to spend $50 billion or more on defense.
However, there are ups and downs among the biggest spenders. While the U.S. (4.6 percent,
the first overall growth since 2010), China (5 percent) and India (3.1 percent) increased their
respective military spending year over year, Saudi Arabia cut its spending by 6.5 percent,
France by 1.4 percent and Russia by 3.5 percent.
And overall defense spending per gross domestic product fell to 2.1 percent in 2018,
representing $239 per global citizen, a 0.1 percent decrease over one year and a 0.5 percent
decrease over 10 years.
Notably, Russia ranked outside the top five for the first time since 2006. China, meanwhile,
increased its military spending for the 24th consecutive year, and its spending is almost 10
times higher than it was in 1994; however, researchers warn that Chinese growth may slow in the
coming year.
"The annual rate of growth of China's military spending has slowed steadily since it reached
a post-2009 high of 9.3 percent in 2013. The growth of 5.0 percent in 2018 was the lowest
annual increase since 1995," the authors note. "China has followed a policy of linking growth
in military spending with economic growth. With its economic growth slowing in 2018 to the
lowest level in 28 years, slower rates of growth in the coming years can be expected if China
continues to follow this policy."
Cuts in DOD
should start right here, given the utter absurdity and culture of entitlement that continues
unchecked in DOD with the objectively preposterous $21 BILLION per year tax free monthly
optional off-ship and of-base surmised "housing" allowances/handouts in our nation's all
volunteer military.
Just look at these tax free monthly handouts! They are all beyond ridiculous regardless of
location and rank! And most were increased yet again for 2019!
Upwards of $2,000-over $5,000 a month tax free for singles, the vast majority of who could
and should be living in the existing and more than adequate singles quarters on the ships and
bases they are assigned.
Upwards of eye-popping ranges of $4,000-$6,000-$8,000-$10,677, yes, $10,677 a month tax free
for so-called "dual married" volunteer couples. Dual marrieds are two married volunteers. There
are approx. 90,000 volunteers who are dual married. And all of these couples get TWO tax free
monthly handouts for their ONE family unit.
If they have a kid, one gets the higher "with dependents" tax free rate. And the other gets
the slightly lower "without dependents" rate. If no kid, then they both get the tax free
monthly "without" rate. And the vast majority of these dual marrieds are already being paid
from $100,000-$300,000 and more in combined annual base pays, other pays, and other tax free
monthly handouts each year.
These extremely well paid couples should be using their very generous US taxpayer provided
de facto salaries to pay for their housing needs just like the taxpaying public. Or at a bare
minimum means testing is more than appropriate just as other federal social welfare programs
are administered.
And the most outrageous fact concerning these patently absurd tax free monthly handouts is
that no proof of any kind is needed to show that these tax free windfalls are actually being
used for off base "housing" needs or expenses in the first place.
And as a direct result of this utter lack of management control and fiscal responsibility,
most volunteers gain much lower cost housing (e.g., most singles opt to roommate) so they can
divert, although currently legally, hundreds and even many thousands tax free into their
pockets each month and/or divert them into luxury auto purchases and other items of excess so
they can live vastly premature affluent lifestyles off the backs of the U.S. taxpayers.
And here is a sample of these ludicrous tax free monthly handouts by four cities over four
ranks. Cumulatively, there are hundreds of thousands of military volunteers currently assigned
throughout these four locations. And although there are many other locations with lower tax
free monthly handouts, there are many others with even higher figures.
E-3s are typically GED or HS educated. The vast majority are 19-20 years old with less than 2
years in the military since leaving their parent's homes, literally.
E-7s are typically the same as above but add 10-12 years and perhaps a dubious AA or BA
"e-degree" gained at full taxpayer expense during their supposed "working" hours from an open
enrollment, for profit, on-line diploma mill that caters to DOD staff and relies on taxpayer
funds in DOD "training" accounts for its very existence.
O-3s are typically twenty somethings with undergrad degrees occupying entry-level or near
entry-level military pseudo management or staff positions.
O-6s include legions of desk-based administrative support staffers with grad degrees earned
100% off the backs of the U.S. taxpayers
Contact your members of Congress today to help get this $21 billion per year, but little
known outside of DOD tax free out of control gravy train stopped in its tracks
"... It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables. ..."
"... The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same way. ..."
"... {A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience} ? ..."
"... They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism. In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the evidence - or at least they can make that claim. ..."
"... So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going. ..."
"... we're talking 1 and a half million dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan...and that's being conservative. ..."
"... Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the Empire will be obliged to come in and "help". ..."
"... I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets. ..."
"... Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud. ..."
"... Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot. ..."
"... Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video." ..."
"... A history of Wahhabism which is a problem for the globe; https://ahtribune.com/religion/155-a-history-of-wahhabism.html The KSA, whose ass the empire kisses daily, is the main funder for these clowns. ..."
What's the Wonder my dear?
Duh!
He is in CIA safe house in Al-Anbar.
ISI is looking for this CIA's "Patsy" hide out. Watch this space, he has blood of 14
Pakistani soldiers on his hands via Iran hit. We will end this MOSSAD Agent.
The one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist
activities would certainly agree that the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the
War on Terror has done very little to remove the spectre of terrorist activities from their
homes, cities and nations.
Sally Snyder: The war on terror is a war of terror and in that sense, though morally
reprehensible and costly, has been success. Regime change and the destabilization of the
Middle East has been the goal.
It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables.
War on terror was the war on an entire civilization. Association/Replacement of the word
terror was just for the public consumption. It's a simple strategy that makes the
aggressors appear like the good guys who are there to defend themselves or the values they
hold.
The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in
this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population
then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the
policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad
intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what
they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same
way.
War on the civilizations yields massive benefits. It's the shortcoming of the model of
the western civilization that it continuously requires massive input that can't be achieved
by the legal means of business and trade.
Auntie Gina the tit ular head of Al-CIA-duh/ Al Qaeda/ ISIS?
{A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership
who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of
titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result
of their personality or experience} ?
They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism.
In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the
evidence - or at least they can make that claim.
So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for
various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand
and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have
half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going.
They don't seem to be having that much success with getting that war going, so I expect
the attacks will go on.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self declared caliph of ISIS, appeared in new video
published today.
Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the
IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold
F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to
Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the
Empire will be obliged to come in and "help".
I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad
or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince
targets.
Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria
or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.
Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed
meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot.
The guy in recent picture looks like one of Rita Katz's actors.
It is a show to threaten Turkey with the same as Sri Lanka (where they refine lots of
Iranian crude...and more...look it up). Many ties to Iran/Sri Lanka....and to Turkey.
Typical nazi thugs....bribes, arson, dynamite...and patsies...in this case maybe mossad
actor? Why not> Cui Bono?
As to the locus of the actor? Paramount? Warner Bros? Probably not. Does it matter?
They're parading a ringer...don't fall for the gag. Erdo won't fall for it either.
Baghdadi has nice toys by his side and not just the AK-47 with the camo bit over the
barrel. It looks like a camo case on night vision gear (or vidcam?) just below that, too.
To quote the Joker: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
Ahh a new game of "where in the world is ..." except instead of bin Laden (or his
stand-in) the guest in Pakistan living near a military base we have Baghdadi. Maybe
Baghdadi lives in that area, too. (awaiting his execution for the media and masses). I
doubt it though. I'm thinking Turkey or even Saudi Arabia.
... This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way. Got my popcorn ready. Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | 19
It does seem unnecessarily cheeky/ fishy.
If 'they' had fiendishly brilliant plan, why wouldn't they'd just do it and leave it to the
intel wonks to figure out what went wrong?
It's big news in the J-C International media.
Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video."
Photograph Source: US State Department – Public Domain
If you're in the market for a troika of tyranny, Donald Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo
certainly fit the bill. Or, if you'd rather focus on countries not individuals, you might
single out Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt as the three most likely
candidates. Perhaps, if you're in a confessional mood, how about Christian fundamentalism,
Jewish extremism, and Salafist Wahhabism?
A troika, for those who haven't read any 19th-century Russian novels recently, is a carriage
drawn by three horses. So, the ultimate troika of tyranny, from the point of view of the planet
as a whole, would feature the three horsemen of the ongoing apocalypse: climate change, nuclear
proliferation, and global pandemic.
But no, that's not what National Security Advisor John Bolton had in mind when he talked
last week of a "troika of tyranny." In a rehash of a speech he gave
in November in Miami , Bolton declared
last week that the "troika of tyranny -- Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua -- is beginning to
crumble." Further laying on the insults, Bolton called Cuba's Miguel Díaz-Canel,
Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega "the three stooges of
socialism."
Ever since George W. Bush included Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in an "axis of evil,"
speechmakers have been in search of the holy grail of geopolitical matchmaking (for instance,
Condoleezza Rice's "outposts of tyranny").
Bush's phrase, which proved so enduring, was an extraordinarily flawed piece of work. The
three countries he grouped together had little to no relationship at the time. Iraq and Iran
had fought a nearly decade-long war that left them bitter regional rivals. North Korea, which
has no ideological affinity to either country, was probably included in the list so that it
didn't appear anti-Islamic. This particular axis didn't have a leg to stand on.
Bolton's more alliterative phrase suffers from the same conceptual problems. Worse, it
revives an anti-Communist crusade that could easily expand to include North Korea, China, and
any left-leaning country (New Zealand?) that makes the mistake of looking at Bolton funny.
A New Monroe Doctrine?
Trump understands the world in terms of three types of leaders. There are the autocrats he
like. There are the autocrats he doesn't like. And then there are all the rest: the democrats
he doesn't respect.
Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel is one of those autocrats that Trump doesn't like.
It's not Díaz-Canel's ideology that rubs the American president the wrong way. After
all, Trump has no problem praising China's Xi Jinping or falling in love with North Korea's Kim
Jong Un. Rather, Cuba made the unpardonable error of negotiating a détente with Trump's
predecessor, Barack Obama. So, by the logic of the Trump administration, Cuba is guilty by
association.
Over the last two-plus years, Trump has rolled back the elements of the agreements that the
Obama administration negotiated with Cuba that culminated in diplomatic recognition in July
2015. The Trump administration has restricted travel to the country, the amount of money that
Cubans in America can remit to their families back home, and the deals that U.S. businesses can
negotiate with Cuban counterparts. Also, the administration will now allow U.S. entities to
file lawsuits against foreign companies operating on property appropriated by the state after
the 1959 revolution.
The Obama policy was all about nudging Cuba in a particular direction. More people-to-people
contact would increase the free flow of information. More business deals would encourage the
growth of market activities. Meanwhile, unrestricted remittances would help Cubans deal with
the myriad difficulties of everyday life.
The Trump administration isn't interested in nudging Cuba in a particular direction. Its
punitive measures are designed to encourage regime change, pure and simple. The decision to
allow lawsuits to go forward is aimed at scaring off European investors in particular who've
been operating in Cuba despite decades of U.S. sanctions and embargo. In response, Spain
wants the
EU to challenge the new U.S. policy at the World Trade Organization.
Bolton never liked Cuba. When he was undersecretary of state for arms control in the George
W. Bush administration, Bolton
accused the country of making biological weapons. This accusation came only two months
after Bush had inaugurated the "axis of evil," and Bolton was eager to shoehorn Cuba into the
new group. But his efforts to designate the Caribbean island a "terrorist threat" -- and
prepare the ground for yet another U.S. invasion -- foundered when a congressional
investigation
turned up no evidence of a biological weapons program in the country.
Now Bolton is excited to have a second chance to group Cuba with two other countries that
have fallen afoul of the United States: Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Like the original members of the "axis of evil," they don't have much in common with one
another. Cuba is avowedly Marxist in orientation, with a Third World agrarian spin. Venezuela,
on the other hand, is a corrupt petro-state led by a leader who calls himself socialist but is
really just a klutzy kleptocrat. Then there's Daniel Ortega, who was once a socialist
revolutionary but has transformed himself into a Catholic dictator along the lines of Francisco
Franco.
None of these countries poses even the remotest threat to the United States. They have
dismal human rights records, but that hasn't been a concern for the Trump administration
anywhere else in the world.
So, why is Bolton bothering to waste his rhetorical flourishes on the trio? The national
security advisor claims that Cuba is propping up Maduro. He hints that Ortega's days are
numbered. Is Bolton campaigning to revive what had once been the traditional U.S. approach to
Latin America: invasion, occupation, regime change?
After all, his most recent "troika of tyranny" speech was timed to coincide with the
anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 17, 1961. And the audience for
his speech was similarly chosen with care: the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association.
When it comes to Bolton, war is always a possibility pretty much anywhere in the world. But
with the Trump administration focusing most of its wrath against Iran , the
"troika of tyranny" speech is probably not the opening salvo of a new, hyper-militarist Monroe
Doctrine.
Bolton likely has a longer game plan in mind.
Expanding the Troika
You can almost see the lips beneath the walrus moustache purse in displeasure when Donald
Trump shakes hands with Xi Jinping, murmurs sweet nothings to Kim Jong Un, and has quiet
confabs with Vladimir Putin.
John Bolton has never concealed his
profound antipathy to the current government in North Korea. He wants to
rewrite the one-China policy and is willing to use military force against Beijing as part
of that effort. As for Russia, Bolton
believes that Putin is a liar and Moscow represents a serious long-term strategic threat to
the United States.
This, then, is the shadow "troika of tyranny" that John Bolton would roll out in a speech if
only Donald Trump's personal predilections didn't get in the way.
But that isn't stopping the national security advisor from carefully preparing the ground to
do just that as soon as Trump gets frustrated with Kim, Xi, and/or Putin.
Toward that end, Bolton carefully chose "troika" for his phrase: a Russian word that can
later be repurposed to suggest that Moscow is in fact at the root of these problems. And Bolton
is hammering away at the "socialist-communist" nature of the three Latin American countries,
which will prove enormously useful later on when expanding the troika to include North Korea
and China.
In the end, Bolton is after nothing short of a new Cold War.
Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are small countries with no desire or means to attack the
United States. North Korea with its nuclear weapons, China with the world's second largest
military, and Russia with its geopolitical ambitions, on the other hand, are much worthier
adversaries.
Prolonged conflict with these three will keep militarists like Bolton in business for
decades. As importantly, Bolton can use these larger confrontations to unravel all
international institutions, all forms of international cooperation, in fact anything that
smacks of an international community.
With all eyes focused these days on Trump and his myriad crimes, John Bolton's speeches are
a reminder that even worse options are waiting in the wings. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: John Feffer
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy
In Focus , where this article originally appeared.
April 29, 2019 Most
Americans Reject Trump's "America First" Policy by Lawrence Wittner As president, Donald Trump has leaned heavily upon what he has called an "America First"
policy. This nationalist approach involves walking away from cooperative agreements with other
nations and relying, instead, upon a dominant role for the United States, undergirded by
military might, in world affairs.
Nevertheless, as numerous recent opinion polls reveal, most Americans don't support this
policy.
The reaction of the American public to Trump's withdrawal of the United States from key
international agreements has been hostile. According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll conducted
in early May 2018, shortly before Trump announced a pullout from the Iran nuclear agreement, 54
percent of respondents backed the agreement. Only 29 percent favored a pullout. In July 2018,
when the Chicago Council on Global Affairs surveyed Americans about their reaction to Trump's
withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate agreement, it found that 66
favored remaining within the Iran accord, while 68 percent favored remaining within the Paris
accord―an increase of six percent in support for each of these agreements over the
preceding year.
Most Americans also rejected Trump's 2019 withdrawal of the United States from the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. A survey that February by the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported that 54 percent of Americans opposed withdrawal from
this nuclear arms control treaty and only 41 percent favored it. Furthermore, when pollsters
presented arguments for and against withdrawal from the treaty to Americans before asking for
their opinion, 66 percent opposed withdrawal.
In addition, despite Trump's sharp criticism of U.S. allies, most Americans expressed their
support for a cooperative relationship with them. The Chicago Council's July 2018 survey found
that 66 percent of Americans agreed that the United States should make decisions with its
allies, even if it meant that the U.S. government would have to go along with a policy other
than its own. Only 32 percent disagreed. Similarly, a March 2019 Pew Research poll found that
54 percent of American respondents wanted the U.S. government to take into account the
interests of its allies, even if that meant compromising with them, while only 40 percent said
the U.S. government should follow its national interests when its allies strongly
disagreed.
Moreover, despite the Trump administration's attacks upon the United Nations and other
international human rights entities―including pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council,
withdrawing from UNESCO, defunding UN relief efforts for Palestinians, and threatening to
prosecute the judges of the International Criminal Court―public support for international
institutions remained strong. In July 2018, 64 percent of Americans surveyed told the Chicago
Council's pollsters that the United States should be more willing to make decisions within the
framework of the UN, even if that meant going along with a policy other than its own. This was
the highest level of agreement on this question since 2004, when it was first asked. In
February 2019, 66 percent of U.S. respondents to a Gallup survey declared that the UN played "a
necessary role in the world today."
But what about expanding U.S. military power? Given the Trump administration's success at
fostering a massive military buildup, isn't there widespread enthusiasm about that?
On this point, too, the administration's priorities are strikingly out of line with the
views of most Americans. A National Opinion Research Center (NORC) survey of U.S. public
opinion, conducted from April through November 2018, found that only 27 percent of respondents
thought that the U.S. government spent "too little" on the military, while 66 percent thought
that it spent either "too much" or "about the right amount." By contrast, 77 percent said the
government spent "too little" on education, 71 percent said it spent "too little" on assistance
to the poor, and 70 percent said it spent "too little" on improving and protecting the nation's
health.
In February 2019, shortly after Trump indicated he would seek another hefty spending
increase in the U.S. military budget, bringing it to an unprecedented $750 billion, only 25
percent of American respondents to a Gallup pollstated that the U.S. government was spending
too little on the military. Another 73 percent said that the government was spending too much
on it or about the right amount.
Moreover, when it comes to using U.S. military might, Americans seem considerably less
hawkish than the Trump administration. According to a July 2018 survey by the Eurasia Group
Foundation, U.S. respondents―asked what should be done if "Iran gets back on track with
its nuclear weapons program"―favored diplomatic responses over military responses by 80
percent to 12.5 percent. That same month, as the Chicago Council noted, almost three times as
many Americans believed that admiration for the United States (73 percent) was more important
than fear of their country (26 percent) for achieving U.S. foreign policy goals.
Unlike the president, who has boasted of U.S. weapons sales to other countries, particularly
to Saudi Arabia, Americans are also rather uncomfortable about the U.S. role as the world's
pre-eminent arms dealer. In November 2018, 58 percent of Americans surveyed told YouGov that
they wanted the U.S. government to curtail or halt its arms sales to the Saudi Arabian
government, while only 13 percent wanted to maintain or increase such sales.
Finally, an overwhelming majority of Americans continues to express its support for nuclear
arms control and disarmament. In the aftermath of Trump's withdrawal of the United States from
the INF treaty and announcement of plans to build new nuclear weapons, 87 percent of
respondents to a February 2019 pollby Chicago Council said they wanted the United States and
Russia to come to an agreement to limit nuclear arms.
The real question is not whether most Americans disagree with Trump's "America First"
national security policy but, rather, what they are willing to do about it. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Lawrence WittnerDr. Lawrence Wittner
is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb
(Stanford University Press.)
This
basic fact pattern has been revealed to be worse than it first appeared by virtue of Boeing not
having been explicit that the angle of attack sensor alerts had been disabled on the 737 Max.
Why should Boeing have cleared its throat and said something? Recall that the sales pitch for
the 737 Max was that it was so much like existing 737s that it didn't require FAA
recertification or pilot simulator training. But the angle of attack sensor alert had been a
standard feature in all previous 737s, meaning buyers would assume it was part of the plane
unless they were told otherwise. And on top of that, the non-upgraded 737 Max did have lights
in the pilots' controls for this alert. But they didn't work unless the buyer had purchased the
package of safety extras.
And the proof that Boeing was playing way too cute with its pointed silence about its
deactivation of what had been a standard feature? The biggest customer for the 737 Max,
Southwest Airlines, had inaccurate information in its pilots' manual because the airline had
mistakenly assumed the angle of attack sensor alerts worked as they had on earlier 737s.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Boeing Co. didn't tell Southwest Airlines Co. and other carriers when they began flying
its 737 MAX jets that a safety feature found on earlier models that warns pilots about
malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated, according to government and industry
officials.
Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and supervisors responsible for
monitoring Southwest, the largest 737 MAX customer, also were unaware of the change, the
officials said.
The alerts inform pilots whether a sensor known as an "angle-of-attack vane" is
transmitting errant data about the pitch of a plane's nose .
Southwest's management and cockpit crews didn't know about the lack of the warning system
for more than a year after the planes went into service in 2017, industry and government
officials said. They and most other airlines operating the MAX learned about it only after
the Lion Air crash in October led to scrutiny of the plane's revised design.
"Southwest's own manuals were wrong" about the availability of the alerts, said the
Southwest pilots union president, Jon Weaks.
Boeing reduced the production rate on the 737 line in mid-April from 52/mo to 42/mo in
response to the grounding of the airplane by regulators worldwide.
The company and others said they didn't know how long the airplane would be
grounded.
But Boeing told suppliers to keep producing parts, components and the fuselage at rate
52.
Boeing already had a ramp-up plan in place;
According to the information LNA learned at the, this is the schedule for ramping back
up:
• Rate 42/mo, April and May;
• Rate 47, June;
• Rate 51.5, July and August; and
• Rate 57, September.
Boeing originally planned to go to 57/mo in June or July.
Good luck with that. The upside is that this corporate controlled flight into terrain
will someday make a great B-school case study.
Edit: If you Captcha-train an autonomous vehicle not to run into bicycles, and it gets
into an accident,
are you legally liable? Asking for a friend.
Oh man, this is bad. Really bad. This story just gets worse and worse over time. It's like
one of those Russian Matryoshka dolls – just when you think that you have a handle on
what happened, you find that there is a whole new layer of ugliness underneath. When the hell
did safety become an optional extra on Boeing aircraft? After reading this, I think that it
was a minor miracle that there were no 737 MAX crashes in the continental United States. By
the sounds of this article, it would have likely been a Southwest airliner if it had
happened. I am wondering what else will come out of this saga that we don't know about
yet.
I would say that Boeing easily falls into the 'Too big to fail.' category.
So no matter what happened they will be either made whole (more defense contracts,
taxpayer bailout if necessary, whatever is needed) or protected in some way tbd. They are a
100 billion a year company with 150,000+ employees and untold numbers of other contractors
and jobs depending on their existence. Going away is just not going to happen.
Okay, Boeing screwed the pooch again, and they should have been more clear in their
communications to the airlines. However, let me add some perspective as a 737 operator.
Given the AOA malfunction in either the Lion Air or Ethiopian accidents, an "AOA Disagree"
warning annunciation would have possibly been helpful, but not really crucial to the safe
recovery of the aircraft. There were plenty of other indications that the AOA's were
disagreeing – namely that only one of the stick shakers was activated. Once you get
over the initial surprise, it shouldn't have been that hard to determine this fact. The lack
of the AOA display and disagree annunciator is not what doomed these crews.
I've never had a flight emergency as a pilot, but had a few as a diver. I suspect that for
both of those, when they hit, you need to resolve things quickly and efficiently, with panic
being the worst enemy.
Panic in my experience stems from a number of things here, but two crucial ones are:
– input overload
– not knowing what to do, or learned actions not having any effect
Both of them can be, to a very large extent, overcome with training, training, and more
training (of actually practising the emergency situation, not just reading about it and
filling questionairres).
So, if the crews were expecting to see AoA disagree but it wasn't there, they could have
easily be misled and confused. The crews weren't (from what I've seen) hugely experienced. So
any confusion would have made a bad situation even worse. How big an impact it made is hard
to judge w/o any other materials.
Well it is rarely just one thing that causes an "accident". There are multiple
contributors here. But the one basic overarching cause was Boeing's insistence that
there-will-not-be-any-additional-training.
Without that management decree, the Max could be flown without the hack of MCAS, just that
the pilots be trained on the new pitchup characteristics.
And releasing MCAS into the wild without even alerting pilots to its existence, well, that
is manslaughter, if not outright murder.
My takeaway from the IEEE article was that the AOA sensor is almost a red herring. The dog
that didn't bark was a pitch sensor, and the cardinal sin (from a software perspective) was
that the MCAS algo did not consider pitch sensor values when deciding whether or not to angle
the plane towards ground.
I suggest reading some of the other pieces on the 737 debacle on NC. There's been
extensive discussion of the details, and yes the pilots may be partially to blame, but are
the least culpable out of all parties involved.
Given that story states that Boeing was more or less silent on the disabling of the sensor
alerts, it's is reasonable to posit that any 737 pilot stepping into a 737 MAX would expect
the sensor to be active.
I can understand the position that a pilot still needs to be skilled enough to not be 100%
reliant on sensors, warning lights etc. to fly the plane. However, if I already assume that a
sensor is active and it's not providing a signal that I would be potentially anticipating,
it's going to seed doubt in my mind in a scenario where you don't have much time at all to
think things through.
On the other hand: a safety light that is deactivated without telling the airlines and
pilots gives false negatives to pilots at a critical juncture. They assume it's active, check
it, and see a false negative they don't realize is false.
Imagine having a 'check engine' or 'oil' light on your car's dashboard that's been
deactivated. They never come on. But they're still there. The driver assumes they'll light if
there's engine trouble that needs attention.
Boeing's actions don't pass the 'reasonable man' test.
Yeah, normally if a mechanical gauge "knows" that it isn't working there will be a little
flag that pops up across the display. Leaving the light there but inoperative instead of
either removing the light or covering it up with an "inoperative" cover is a really bad idea.
It is EVEN WORSE than making safety features optional, and that is bad enough.
Let's see
First, they didn't know MCAS existed, so had no idea or training in what to do when it was
erroneously engaged by system.
Then, they think both Aos sensors are working properly.
And, Boeing tells everybody plane is just like previous versions, no need for
simulations.
I'm glad I'm not one of the dead pilots you're blaming.
By the way, it's apparently just chance that the bad sensors affected foreign and not
domestic flights, no public reports that superior domestic pilots had no problem when it hit
the fan on their watch although some domestic airlines were told (warned) that bad sensor
light was optional extra so possibly a domestic plane cancelled flight on account of bad
sensor.
But imagine a really experienced pilot would have saved the day so Boeing should say only
really experienced pilots should fly the plane? Maybe simulators help you get really
experienced, especially with unexpected emergencies?
Personally, I'll avoid the plane for a few years if simulators aren't required hate to have a
pilot not experienced with what we now know is not such a rare event.
We seem to be forgetting that, in the Lion Air case, a really experienced pilot did
save the day the previous day on the same aircraft . The issue was reported, the
airline neglected to repair the issue and nobody seems to have told the new aircrew about the
issue. This seems to support 737 Pilot's position. It is also another egregious failure, this
time on the part of the airline.
That pilot was a third set of eyes. Since he didn't have to fly the plane, he was free to
observe and fortunately his attention eventually focused on the repeating trim wheel
movements. A standard two-person crew doesn't have this luxury. Worth keeping in mind.
That lion crew also seems to have written up the problem incompletely. They didn't
mention, for example, that they had the stick shaker going for the entire flight.
Your point is legitimate but without the benefit of a CVR recording I think you may be
affording too much credit to the jumpseating pilot who is rumored to have provided the flight
crew with the excellent advice of disabling the electric stabilizer trim motor. Even if the
story is entirely true it's not like turning off the Stab trim motor was esoteric knowledge,
maybe 737 pilot can correct me on this but I thought that procedure was a memory item for
trim runaway emergencies, meaning the pilots were supposed to have that bit of knowledge
firmly committed to memory and they were supposed to execute that procedure without any
checklists or undue delay as soon as the condition was recognized. If not a memory item it
was in the 737 QRC or QRH emergency procedures guide that is always present for immediate
reference on the flight deck. The most important thing the crew of Lion Air 43(?) did (the
flight previous to 610 that managed not to crash) was to simply not let themselves become so
frazzled they forgot to pull the thrust levers out of the take-off detent after they reached
a safe altitude, and not overspeeding an out of trim airplane making a bad situation worse.
Maybe the jumpseating pilot had to scream at the crew to reduce thrust and maybe he had to
slap the Captain and reduce the thrust levers himself, but absent a CVR recording to verify
this slightly far-fetched scenario I would say the previous crew deserves the Lion's share
(sorry couldn't resist) of the credit for landing safely.
You are absolutely 100% correct when you point out the non-crashing Captain was far from
exemplary. He laid an absolutely vicious trap for the ill-fated crew of flight 610 by failing
to mention a great number of things he experienced, especially the uncommanded and unwanted
nose down trimming that necessitated turning off the stab trim motor which he also failed to
communicate. Not a shining moment for Lion Air pilots, mechanics or Boeing. Despite the
obvious and multiple shortcomings and blunders of the Captain/crew of Lion Air 43, I believe
that flight proves what the airline pilot commenters here have been saying all along, which
is the 737 Max flaws were serious but survivable with a competent crew. That's not the same
thing as calling the airplane safe or airworthy and it's certainly not excusing Boeing. They
delivered a death trap. Perhaps a bad analogy, but a professional body guard should be able
to easily disarm a five year with a knife, but that doesn't mean a murderous five year with a
knife isn't dangerous or isn't capable of killing you. Airplanes are machines which
inevitably fail and mechanics are humans who make mistakes which is why pilots need to know
how to hand fly airplanes absent automation. Reducing thrust during an emergency to avoid
overspeeding your airplane really isn't a tall ask for a professional pilot. Pilots get this,
non-pilots don't, and it's a point I've grown quite weary of making.
There's been interesting points made back and forth on NC – what do you make of this
from Karl Denninger: basically, "You can't fix the problems the 737Max has with software
alone"? https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=235578
I made the exact same argument here a couple of days ago, but I will say IF the system was
engineered in a way it could have given the Ethiopians a warning prior to eighty knots or V1
(depending on training and pilot judgement) on takeoff, maybe they could have aborted and
kept the plane on the ground avoiding the disaster. Having that disagree light or indication
immediately after rotation on climbout could have soothed the nerves of the pilots and made
them feel more confident trusting the perfectly normal instrumentation on the FO's side of
the airplane. But if the high speed clacker, the airspeed tape and the thrust settings aren't
enough information to convince a overwhelmed, elevator control fixated pilot that he/she has
more than adequate speed to avoid stalling, and they should slow down, then it stands to
reason a secondary warning indication would also not break through the mental logjam of two
very overwhelmed pilots bombarded by warnings and data. In the case of Lion Air 610 the
malfunctioning AOA vane had already caused multiple instrument malfunctions and improper nose
down MCAS trimming on three other flights, so it seems like those guys were hellbent on
flying that plane no matter what. Even if Lion Air would have had the optional warning system
onboard the mechanics most likely would have deferred the warning system as broken. "Ops
checks good". They probably would have removed the bulb or stuck a placard on top of it.
And before anyone feels the need to point it out, yes, I'm engaging in speculation, but so
is everyone claiming this optional safety system would have made a difference in the two
aforementioned tragedies. I'm engaging in speculation as a guy who has reviewed thousands of
logbooks and had hundreds, possibly thousands of interactions with airline maintenance
technicians. Some of those interactions include contentious debates over what is safe to
defer or what can actually legally be deferred so I do have a bit of experience in this
department.
Boeing screwed up. They were hasty, they were greedy, they were cavalier, the MCAS trim
system with a single point of failure was a terrible design that was most likely criminal.
I'm just weighing in on 737 pilot's contention. With a system as poorly designed as the MCAS
stall protection trimming, every safety feature available should have come standard from
Boeing, but sadly additional fault indications don't always matter in emergency situations.
Proper fault diagnosis is only part of any successful emergency outcome. Pilots still have to
possess the knowledge and skill required to follow procedures and fly the airplane.
The only planes I ever flew you'd fly w/o pretty much any instrumentation (WW2 trainers,
hoping to fly a Spitfire or Mustang one day.. ).
But in a modern plane, I'd think that _any_ instrument that is doubled or more (which
implies some sort of criticality) should have an automatic "inputs disagree" indicator, which
would not be possible to turn off.
Not that you'll have to buy it as a special feature.
I have been thinking about the modern 737. My completely uninformed guess is that the
original model, while less "safe" was more informative in a real way than the current
one.
In modern cars, especially something like a hybrid, there is not much "feel" to it. In an
older old fashion gasoline engine car, there is. I could use the Volkswagen as an example,
because it only had some colored lights and the speedometer, and none of the safety features
of a modern car. However, I could sense, smell, see just about everything, often
subconsciously, even before something went kablowie because there was nothing isolating me
from the vehicle and the road. Today, I have to depend on my car's sensors because it has
been designed to be quiet and isolating as possible.
The downward slide of corrupt predatory capitalism is not a pretty picture. These cases
will continue as long as the responsible executives know they have nothing to lose.
Just more proof that self regulation works, just look to our favorite sporting events!
There's no need to have refs on the field because everyone involved is a professional and
would never cheat, disrespect the sport or do something against the rules because the fans
would punish them!
If our sports don't need refs, then surely our markets don't need regulators! Checkmate, big
government stooges!
I suppose I am naive, but I am shocked that the behavior of Boeing's management and the
FAA are not being treated as a criminal matter. What happened was not a business mistake, it
was a crime in which a number of persons deliberately and knowingly decided to risk other
people's lives in order to increase profits, as a result of which hundreds of people were
killed. I believe the term is 'negligent homicide', upon conviction of which lesser beings
than high management and bureaucrats go to jail. In some countries their next of kin would
already have received a bill for bullets and services rendered.
The term used to be criminally negligent homicide, but this no longer applies to those
wearing white collars.
Otherwise we would see charges against bankers, opioid pushers, and others.
But Boeing, as part of a duopoly, recognizes that its customers have nowhere to go .at
least for the next few years, which might as well be eternity as far as MBAs are
concerned.
Even if it meant drastically reducing flights why would any airline buy airplanes that are
not guaranteed to be safe? Losing money through fewer paying customers because you are
choosing to have fewer flights is better than being boycotted or bankrupted by lawsuits, or
arrested and criminally charged.
It is inexplicable that Boeing shut off an indicator system for the Max that had been
standard on earlier versions of the 737, when that AoA sensor disagreement indicator was even
more important for safe flight.
Turning it on in the Max version was possible but was made part of an extra-cost safety
package. How would a purchaser know to buy it when Boeing downplayed its importance so as not
to suggest how different the Max was from supposedly similar earlier versions of the 737?
The more that comes out about the conduct of Boeing and its senior management's decisions,
the more they look criminally reckless.
The FAA is mostly responsible for this fiasco because they have a misguided mission.
Safety should be their only concern, but over the years that's eroded into a "sort of safety"
attitude but mostly being a cheerleader for the aviation industry.
And you can't trust bastards like Boeing to "self-certify" anything, apparently!
"..It took months before Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg issued a video in which, among other
things, he said, "We own it." He was referring to safety of the MAX.
This was widely interpreted as Boeing stepping up and taking responsibility for at least
some of the causes of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes.
Last Wednesday, he took it all back.
On the first quarter earnings call, Muilenburg denied there was any "technical slip or
gap" in designing the now famous MCAS system. He said "actions not taken" contributed to the
crash, a thinly veiled reference once again to pilot error.."
Boeing and FAA are criminally negligent especially for the Ethiopian Airline crash. The
recovered horizontal stabilizer screw jack from the Lion Air crash was found in the full nose
down position that forced the plane to dive into the sea. It should have never be in this is
flight critical position. Grounding the fleet should have been immediate until the cause and
fix were found. On top of all this, it is simply criminal for Boeing to charge Southwest
Airlines for additional safety features and then turn them off not telling the airline.
It is tragic that it appears that Americans will have to rely on China to force Boeing to
actually fix MCAS and along with Canada to shame the FAA into requiring pilot training on
Flight Simulators before flying passengers on the Max.
A Boeing C-Suite executive has to go to jail. If not, there is no chance for the United
States of America to survive. With government run by and for profiteers, long term planning
is dead. Profit over people. A plague, an economic crash, a world war, a middle-class revolt,
flooded coasts, or an autocratic Caesar become inevitable.
"... The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran. ..."
"... We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal. ..."
"... He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition. ..."
It's hard to foresee how US efforts to bring Iranian oil exports to zero will play out in
future, Vladimir Putin admitted, saying OPEC members should live up to their obligation to keep
output as low as possible if it comes true. Russia has an agreement with the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut their output by 1.2 million barrels per day,
which remains in effect until July of this year, Putin said. But the US waivers – which
gave a host of countries an exemption from the existing anti-Iran sanctions – expire much
earlier, he reminded.
I don't imagine how the global energy market will react to that.
In November, the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy, shipbuilding and banking sectors
in a bid to deprive Tehran of its main sources of revenue. But it simultaneously issued waivers
to China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey – the main importers of Iranian crude
– so that they can find alternative vendors of oil.
The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions
beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American
restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with
Iran.
Commenting on the issue, Putin said he hopes the market will eventually avoid the deficit of
Iranian oil and that Iran will still be able to sell it. The comment came on the heels of
conflicting reports that Donald Trump persuaded Riyadh to ramp up oil output this lowering fuel
costs; these reports were denounced by OPEC officials.
Nevertheless, there is "no evidence" that any country is going to withdraw from the
OPEC+ agreement to drop oil outputs, Putin said.
We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they
are ready to pull out from the deal.
He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed
by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to
withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition.
"... A 2009 Heritage Foundation report, " Maintaining the Superiority of America's Defense Industrial Base ," called for further government investment in aircraft weaponry for "ensuring a superior fighting force" and "sustaining international stability." In 2011, senior national security fellow James Carafano wrote " Five Steps to Defend America's Industrial Defense Base ," which complained about a "fifty billion dollar under-procurement by the Pentagon" for buying new weaponry. In 2016, Heritage made the case for several years of reinvestment to get the military back on "sound footing," with an increase in fiscal year 2016 described as "an encouraging start." ..."
"... These special pleas pose a question: which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on funds from defense giants, or the foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our military arsenal we'll be endangering "international stability"? ..."
"... note that from the Heritage 2015 IRS 990 submission the then president Jim DeMint was paid over a Million Bucks in total compensation. Trulio will no doubt also be living very large care of the MIC Cronies while in the Big Seat of that Think Pimp Tank ..."
"... Heritage senior national security fellow and defense contractor stooge James Carafano was paid over $300 Grand. Not bad scratch for merely shilling for the Merchants of Death. ..."
"... And those MIC Cronies are shrewd. It's not just Conservative Inc. They buy off EVERYBODY. ..."
"... To demonstrate how insidious the Security State propaganda is in shaping Fake News, Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors are named contributors to ostensibly left-leaning PBS/NPR. ..."
"... And Jeff Bezos' Amazon inked a $600M deal with CIA/NSA to provide cloud computing services, which is Amazon's actual cash cow. You think Bezos' Washington Post will go heavy on the civil liberties intrusions of the Deep State? ..."
"... BTW, Mad Dog Mattis parachuted into the SecDef job from a BoD slot at General Dynamics. Have we heard even a peep from Mad Dog about acquisition reform since he assumed his latest perch on the Security State apparatus? ..."
"... I wonder when Think Tanks will stop being "non-profit" and being issuing stock. ..."
"... When Keynes suggested digging holes to spend money, he did not mean using explosives to do so, and he did not want the bulk of it go to profiteers safely contained within their inflationary "national security" bubble. ..."
"... "In 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that 52 of the biggest defense contractors employed 2,435 former generals, senior executives and acquisition officers. Of those, 422 were in a position to work on defense contracts directly related to their former agencies and at least nine may have been working on the same contracts they previously oversaw." ..."
Conservative think tank considers Lockheed fixture
for its next president. •
According to recent
reports, the Heritage Foundation, clearly the most established and many would say
politically influential conservative think tank in Washington, is considering David Trulio,
Lockheed Martin vice president and longtime lobbyist for the defense industry, to be its next
president. While Heritage's connection to Washington's sprawling national security industry is
already well-established, naming Trulio as its president might be seen as gilding the lily.
If anything, reading this report made me more aware of the degree to which the "conservative
policy community" in Washington depends on the whims and interests of particular donors.
And this relationship is apparently no longer something to be concealed or embarrassed by.
One can now be open about being in the pocket of the defense industry. Trulio's potential
elevation to Heritage president at what we can assume will be an astronomical salary, will no
doubt grease the already well-oiled pipeline of funds from major contractors to this
"conservative" foundation, which already operates with an annual
disclosed budget of almost $100 million.
A 2009 Heritage Foundation report, "
Maintaining the Superiority of America's Defense Industrial Base ," called for further
government investment in aircraft weaponry for "ensuring a superior fighting force" and
"sustaining international stability." In 2011, senior national security fellow James Carafano
wrote " Five
Steps to Defend America's Industrial Defense Base ," which complained about a "fifty
billion dollar under-procurement by the Pentagon" for buying new weaponry. In 2016, Heritage made the
case for several years of reinvestment to get the military back on "sound footing," with an
increase in fiscal year 2016 described as "an encouraging start."
These special pleas pose a question: which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on
funds from defense giants, or the foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our
military arsenal we'll be endangering "international stability"? Perhaps the answer lies
somewhere in the middle: someone who is predisposed to go in a certain direction may be more
inclined to do so if he is being rewarded in return. Incidentally, the 2009 position paper
seems to be directing the government to throw more taxpayer dollars to Boeing than to its
competitor Lockheed. But it seems both defense giants have landed a joint contract this year to
produce a new submersible for the Navy, so it may no longer be necessary to pick sides on that
one at least. No doubt both corporations will continue to look after Heritage, which will
predictably call for further increases, whether they be in aerospace or shipbuilding.
Although one needn't reduce everything to dollars and cents, if we're looking at the issues
Heritage and other likeminded foundations are likely to push today, it's far more probable
they'll be emphasizing the national security state rather than, say, opposition to gay marriage
or the defense of traditional gender roles. There's lots more money to be made advocating for
the former rather than the latter. In May 2013, Heritage
sponsored a formal debate between "two conservatives" and "two liberals" on the issue of
defense spending, with Heritage and National Review presenting the "conservative" side.
I wondered as I listened to part of this verbal battle why is was considered "conservative" to
call for burdening American taxpayers with massive increases in the purchase of Pentagon
weaponry and planes that
take 17 years to get off the ground.
Like American higher education, Conservatism Inc. is very big business. Whatever else it's
about rates a very far second to keeping the money flowing. "Conservative" positions are often
simply causes for which foundations and media enterprises that have the word "conservative"
attached to them are paid to represent. It is the label carried by an institution or
publication, not necessarily the position it takes, that makes what NR or Heritage
advocates "conservative."
In any event, Mr. Trulio won't have to travel far if he takes the Heritage helm. He and his
corporation are already ensconced only a few miles away from Heritage's Massachusetts Avenue
headquarters, if the information provided by Lockheed Martin is correct. It says:
"Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace
company that employs approximately 98,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the
research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology
systems, products and services." A company like that can certainly afford to underwrite a think
tank -- if the price is right.
Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown
College, where he taught for twenty-five years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale PhD. He
writes for many websites and scholarly journals and is the author of thirteen books, most
recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents. His books have been
translated into multiple languages and seem to enjoy special success in Eastern
Europe.
Professor Gottfried, note that from the Heritage 2015 IRS 990 submission the then
president Jim DeMint was paid over a Million Bucks in total compensation. Trulio will no
doubt also be living very large care of the MIC Cronies while in the Big Seat of that
Think Pimp Tank .
Heritage senior national security fellow and defense contractor stooge James Carafano was
paid over $300 Grand. Not bad scratch for merely shilling for the Merchants of Death.
And those MIC Cronies are shrewd. It's not just Conservative Inc. They buy off EVERYBODY.
To demonstrate how insidious the Security State propaganda is in shaping Fake News, Lockheed
Martin and other defense contractors are named contributors to ostensibly left-leaning
PBS/NPR.
You think NPR will ever run a story on the TRILLION dollar boondoggle that is the
F-35 or the other hyper-busted weapon systems catastrophes? Or in interviews, challenge the
idiotic fear-mongering of the Generals used as fronts for the bankrupt U.S. Global Cop
foreign policy?
And Jeff Bezos' Amazon inked a $600M deal with CIA/NSA to provide cloud computing
services, which is Amazon's actual cash cow. You think Bezos' Washington Post will go heavy
on the civil liberties intrusions of the Deep State?
When the Post was still hard-copy-centric, LockMart and the other defense contractors
regularly took out expensive full-color, full-page ads in the Post. When given that Pentagon
weapons acquisition is all inside baseball, those adverts had no actual marketing value. They
were merely payoffs to the Post to go easy on their reporting of defense contracting
pathologies
BTW, Mad Dog Mattis parachuted into the SecDef job from a BoD slot at General Dynamics.
Have we heard even a peep from Mad Dog about acquisition reform since he assumed his latest
perch on the Security State apparatus?
Nope, given the massive Military-Security State lobbying and propaganda engine that is in
place, it's all over but the crying for the deluded taxpayers.
The US Military is the biggest Jobs Program/Corporate Welfare in the world. And many
conservative voters are the biggest dupes in the world for not understanding that we don't
need a big, expensive military to defend America.
'Which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on funds from defense giants, or the
foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our military arsenal we'll be
endangering "international stability"?'
The chicken-egg here is contrived – the military-industrial-congressional complex in
general and 9/11 specifically provide an excellent example to explain punctuated
equilibrium.
I wonder when Think Tanks will stop being "non-profit" and being issuing stock.
Until then, there will be many players engaged in vigorous rimming the self-penetrating
sinkhole of "national security spending" to extract profits from the channeling of public
purse funds financed with Treasury debt backed by the promise of the full tax revenue of
government of the USA – supplied by tax cuts. I could accept the tongue wagging as a
particularly offensive type of performance art, if the money that goes into the hole did not
have to drop as bombs out of airplanes and from drones somewhere beyond the borders to ensure
that demand sustains. When Keynes suggested digging holes to spend money, he did not mean
using explosives to do so, and he did not want the bulk of it go to profiteers safely
contained within their inflationary "national security" bubble.
"In 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that 52 of the biggest defense
contractors employed 2,435 former generals, senior executives and acquisition officers. Of
those, 422 were in a position to work on defense contracts directly related to their former
agencies and at least nine may have been working on the same contracts they previously
oversaw."
[Nader's] niece, 24-year-old Samya Stumo, was among the 157 victims of an Ethiopian
Airlines flight crash last month, less than six months after a flight on the same aircraft,
the Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed in Indonesia.
"She was compassionate from the get-go. She'd be 8 years old and she'd get a pail of hot
water and go to her great-grandmother and soak her feet and rub her feet and dry them. She
was always that way."
Clifford Law has brought suit on behalf of the Stumo family in the United States District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois. From the
complaint :
Blinded by its greed, BOEING haphazardly rushed the 737 MAX 8 to market, with the
knowledge and tacit approval of the United States Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA"),
while BOEING actively concealed the nature of the automated system defects. Numerous
decisions by BOEING's leadership substantially contributed to the subject crash and
demonstrate BOEING's conscious disregard for the lives of others, including but not limited
to BOEING's role in: designing an aircraft with a powerful automated flight control system
[the MCAS] susceptible to catastrophic failure in the event a single defective sensor;
failing to properly inform pilots of the existence of the new flight control system and
educate and train them in all aspects of its operation; failing to properly address the new
system in the aircraft's flight manual; refusing to include key safety features as standard
in the aircraft rather than optional upgrades; delivering 737 MAX aircraft with a version of
the flight control system that was materially different from the version presented to the FAA
during certification; and failing to take appropriate action after BOEING learned that the
737 MAX aircraft was not performing as intended or safety, as was made tragically clear with
the crash of Lion Air Flight JT 610.
BOEING's decision to put profits over safety is further evident in BOEING's repeated
claims that the 737 MAX 8 is so similar to its earlier models that it does not require
significant retraining for those pilots familiar with the older generation of 737s.
All pretty much conventional wisdom at this point! The suit also calls for exemplary (punitive)
damages ; I've embedded the complaint at the end of the post, in case any readers care to
dig into it. I'm not going to examine the case in this post; rather, I'm going to focus on
three items from Naders letter that I think advance the story: His framing for 737 MAX
airworthiness; his highlighting of Boeing's stock buybacks; and his call for Boeing CEO
Muilenburg's defenestration.
(Stalling, in Nader's telling, being the condition the defective MCAS system was meant to
correct.) Because aircraft that are aerodynamicallly unstable, llke fighter jets, have ejection
seats! Now, a pedant would point out that Nader means commercial aircraft , but as
readers know, I eschew pedantry in all contexts. That said, Nader manages to encapsulate the
problem in a single sentence (using antithesis , isocolon , andanaphora ). Now, we have pilots in
the commentariat who will surely say whether Nader's formulation is correct, but to this
layperson it seems to be. From 737 MAX, a fan/geek site, on the business and technical logic of the MCAS system :
The LEAP engine nacelles are larger and had to be mounted slightly higher and further
forward from the previous NG CFM56-7 engines to give the necessary ground clearance. This new
location and larger size of nacelle cause the vortex flow off the nacelle body to produce
lift at high AoA [Angle of Attack]. As the nacelle is ahead of the C of G, this lift causes a
slight pitch-up effect (ie a reducing stick force) which could lead the pilot to
inadvertently pull the yoke further aft than intended bringing the aircraft closer towards
the stall. This abnormal nose-up pitching is not allowable under 14CFR §25.203(a) "Stall
characteristics". Several aerodynamic solutions were introduced such as revising the leading
edge stall strip and modifying the leading edge vortilons but they were insufficient to pass
regulation. MCAS was therefore introduced to give an automatic nose down stabilizer input
during elevated AoA when flaps are up.
Nader on Stock Buybacks
From Nader's
letter , where he is addressing Muilenberg ("you") directly:
Boeing management's behavior must be seen in the context of Boeing's use of its earned
capital. Did you use the $30 billion surplus from 2009 to 2017 to reinvest in
R&D, in new narrow-body passenger aircraft? Or did you, instead, essentially burn this
surplus with self-serving stock buybacks of $30 billion in that period? Boeing is one of the
companies that MarketWatch labelled as "Five companies that spent lavishly on stock buybacks
while pension funding lagged."
Incredibly, your buybacks of $9.24 billion in 2017 comprised 109% of annual
earnings . As you well know, stock buybacks do not create any jobs. They improve the
metrics for the executive compensation packages of top Boeing bosses [ka-ching]. Undeterred,
in 2018, buybacks of $9 billion constituted 86% of annual earnings .
To make your management recklessly worse, in December 2018, you arranged for your
rubberstamp Board of Directors to approve $20 billion more in buybacks. Apparently, you
had amortized the cost of the Indonesian Lion Air crash victims as not providing any
significant impact on your future guidance to the investor world.
Holy moley, that's real money! Nader's detail on the stock buybacks (see NC here
,
here , and here )
interested me, because it bears on Boeing's 2011 decision not to build a new narrow-body
aircraft in 2011. I
summarized the decision-making back in March:
(2) Choice of Airframe : The
Air Current describes the competitive environment that led Boeing to upgrade the 737 to
the 737 MAX, instead of building a new plane:
Boeing wanted to replace the 737. The plan had even earned the endorsement of its
now-retired chief executive. "We're gonna do a new airplane," Jim McNerney
said in February of that same year. "We're not done evaluating this whole situation
yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to an all-new airplane at the end
of the decade." History went in a different direction. Airbus, riding its
same decades-long incremental strategy and chipping away at Boeing's market supremacy,
had made no secret of its plans to put new engines on the A320. But its own re-engined jet
somehow managed to take Boeing by surprise. Airbus and American forced Boeing's hand.
It had to put new engines on the 737 to stay even with its rival .
Why? The earlier butchered launch of the 787:
Boeing justified the decision thusly: There were huge and excruciatingly painful
near-term obstacles on its way to a new single-aisle airplane. In the summer of 2011, the
787 Dreamliner wasn't yet done after billions invested and years of delays. More than 800
airplanes later here in 2019, each 787 costs less to build than sell, but it's still
running a $23 billion production cost deficit. . The 737 Max was Boeing's ticket to
holding the line on its position -- both market and financial -- in the near term.
Abandoning the 737 would've meant walking away from its golden goose that helped finance
the astronomical costs of the 787 and the development of the 777X.
So, we might think of Boeing as a runner who's tripped and fallen: The initial stumble,
followed by loss of balance, was the 787; with the 737 MAX, Boeing hit the surface of the
track.
So, Dennis. How's that workin' out for ya? How does the decision not to build a new
plane look in retrospect? Ygeslias writes in
Vox, in April:
Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the "build a new plane" plan
and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in the current situation.
Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal -- a software update
here, a new warning light there, etc. -- in hopes of persuading global regulatory agencies to
let its planes fly again.
What Nader's focus on stock buybacks shows, is that Boeing had the capital to invest in
developing a new plane .
From Bloomberg in 2019 :
For Boeing and Airbus, committing to an all-new aircraft is a once-in-a-decade event.
Costs are prohibitive, delays are the norm and payoff can take years to materialize. Boeing
could easily spend more than $15 billion on the NMA, according to Ken Herbert,
analyst with Canaccord Genuity, and Airbus may be forced into a clean-sheet design if sales
take off.
The sales force has been fine-tuning the design with airlines for at least five years,
creating a "will it or won't it?" drama around the decision on whether to make the plane,
known internally at Boeing as the NMA, for new, middle-of-market airplane.
Now, it is true that the "huge and excruciatingly painful near-term obstacles" referred to
by the Air Current are sales losses that Boeing would incur from putting a bullet into it's
cash cow, the 737, before it turned into a dog (like now?). Nevertheless, Beoing was clearly
capable, as Yglesias points put, of "tough[ing]out a few years of rough sales." So what
else was "excruciatingly painful"? Losing the stock buybacks (and that sweet, sweet
executive compensation). Readers, I wasn't cynical enough. I should have given consideration to
the possibility that Muilenburg and his merry men were looting the company!
Consider, in addition, the statement of two Harvard scholars -- Leonard J. Marcus and Eric
J. McNulty, authors of the forthcoming book, You're It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When
it Matters Most. These gentlemen did not achieve their positions by using strong language.
That is why, the concluding statement in their CNN article on March 27, 2019, merits your
closer attention:
"Of course, if Boeing did not act in good faith in deploying the 737 Max and the Justice
Department's investigation discovers Boeing cut corners or attempted to avoid proper
regulatory reviews of the modifications to the aircraft, Muilenburg and any other executives
involved should resign immediately. Too many families, indeed communities, depend on the
continued viability of Boeing."
These preconditions have already been disclosed and are evidentially based. Your
mismanagement is replete with documentation, including your obsession with shareholder value
and executive compensation. There is no need to wait for some long-drawn out, redundant
inquiry. Management was criminally negligent, 346 lives of passengers and crew were lost. You
and your team should forfeit your compensation and should resign forthwith.
All concerned with aviation safety should have your public response.
I can't find anything to disagree with here. However, I'll quote from commenter Guido at
Leeham News,
March 29, 2019 :
What I don't understand: Muilenburg was the CEO when the MCAS code was implemented.
Muilenburg was the CEO when Boeing "tweaked" the certification of the B737Max. It was the
Boeing management that decided, that the B737Max must under no circumstances trigger
simulator training for pilots.
Muilenburg has for sure not written the code for MCAS by himself, but as the CEO he is
responsible for the mess. He is responsible, that the first version of MCAS was cheap and
fast to implement, but not safe. It was basically Muilenburg, who allowed a strategy, that
was basically: Profits and Quickness before safety. Muilenburg has the responsibility for 346
dead people. You can't kill 346 people with your new product and still be the highly paid CEO
of the company. There have to be consequences.
Why are there no calls, that Muilenburg must step down?
However, a search of court documents and news reports shows the company is facing at least
34 claims from victims' families and one claim seeking class certification on behalf of
shareholders. The claims allege Boeing is responsible for losses after installing an unsafe
anti-stall system, called "MCAS" (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), on its
737 Max 8 planes, suspected to have played a role in both crashes. Boeing CEO Dennis
Muilenburg said it was "apparent" the system had been activated in both crashes.
Added to the uncertainty of potential expenses for Boeing are pending regulator
probes. The U.S. Justice Department initiated a criminal investigation into Boeing's Federal
Aviation Administration certification, as well as how it marketed its 737 Max 8 planes. The
U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General is also conducting an
inquiry.
On April 9, the lawsuit seeking class certification was brought on behalf of shareholders who purchased Boeing stock
between January 8, 2019 and March 21, 2019. The proposed class period covers a time frame
beginning after the Lion Air crash, and extending beyond the Ethiopian Airlines crash, when
Boeing's stock experienced a steep decline.
But then again, Muilenberg may know -- or think -- that Boeing, as a national champion, is
too big to fail. So, if Boeing gracefully exits from the commercial aviation business, it may
find the warm embrace of government contracting more comfortable. Perhaps that's why propaganda
like this suddenly started showing up in my Twitter feed:
I suppose it's too much to ask that the CEO of a too-big-to-fail company be asked to resign,
even if he did kill a lot of people. But if Nader can do with the 737 MAX, at the end of his
career, what he did with
the Corvair ("a one-car accident") , when he was coming up, everybody except for a cabal of
looters and liars in Boeing's Chicago C-suite will be a lot better off. So we can hope.
I keep going back to the DC-10 fiasco in the 1970s.
In 1974, in one of the most horrific air disasters of all time, a THY (Turkish Airlines)
DC-10 crashed after takeoff from Orly Airport outside Paris, killing 346 people. The accident
was traced to a faulty cargo door design. (The same door had nearly caused the crash of an
American Airlines DC-10 two years earlier.) McDonnell Douglas had hurriedly designed a plane
with a door that it knew was defective, then, in the aftermath of Paris, tried to cover the
whole thing up. It was reckless, even criminal. Then, in 1979, American flight 191, also a
DC-10, went down at Chicago-O'Hare, killing 273 -- to this day the deadliest air crash ever
on U.S. soil -- after an engine detached on takeoff. Investigators blamed improper
maintenance procedures (including use of a forklift to raise the engine and its pylon), and
then found pylon cracks in at least six other DC-10s, causing the entire fleet to be grounded
for 37 days. The NTSB cited "deficiencies in the surveillance and reporting procedures of the
FAA," as well as production and quality control problems at McDonnell Douglas.
That's two of history's ten deadliest air crashes, complete with design defects, a
cover-up, and 619 dead people. And don't forget the 737 itself has a checkered past, going
back to the rudder problems that caused the crash of USAir flight 427 in 1994 (and likely the
crash of United flight 585 in 1991). Yet the DC-10, the 737, and America's aviation prestige
along with them, have persevered. If we survived the those scandals we can probably manage
this. I have a feeling that a year from now this saga will be mostly forgotten. Boeing and
its stock price will recover, the MAX will be up and flying again, and on and on we go.
This is how it happens.
Maybe. But in 1974, the United States was commercial aviation. Airbus had launched
its first plane, the A300 , only in 1972. We were also an
imperial hegemon in a way we are not now. For myself, I can't help noticing that it was
Boeing's takeover of a wretched, corrupt McDonnell Douglas -- the
famous reverse takeover -- that ultimately turned Boeing from an engineering company into a
company driven by finance. With resulits that we see.
The fact that the CEO and the Board have not resigned just shows everyone that they lack
all the essential characteristics of human beings.
Stock buybacks should be illegal. Profits should only be distributed via dividends or
reinvested. The fact that companies can do this shows how corrupted our governments are.
The rest of the world may forget this one. I won't and there are millions like me who will
never step aboard a boeing plane again.
The only thing that will save this company now is the US govt, which is likely.
Boeing's management is not going to jail and likely will keep their jobs. The deaths of
over three hundred people means nothing. They are not even American and probably only middle
class so they don't have connections to use. The "American" company Boeing has both money and
connections.
Money gives you rights and if you don't have it, you are not even a human being.
Just look at 2008. The Vampiric Octopus called Wall Street was saved by the Feds with
almost no one going to jail, or even criminally prosecuted. The exceptions of an innocent
small community bank in NYC and some low level employees of a very few loan companies. The
entire planetary economy came to with in hours of freezing and then collapsing. Millions of
Americans lost homes, often through questionably legal foreclosures, with many millions more
losing their jobs.
Nothing going to change and I wish I could believe otherwise.
So I should just fire up my own money press then as should everyone else Money was
invented as a limiter by the ancient church then adopted by governments.. Money isnt
necessary to live and it will b thrown overboard soon enough.
I think money as a concept arose in Sumer about 6-7 thousand years ago with the clay
receipts given by the temple of the local city's patron god for livestock and grain stored
there.
But my knowledge of money's history is limited. If anyone wants to correct or clarify,
please do.
Might be wrong but think (if my memory of Gerber serves) you refer to credit/debt. Actual
money (coin) I think arose along side the use of large scale Armies (armies are both highly
mobile & inherently amorphous -- ie people come & go, die, are wounded, loot must be
traded etc, all of which is difficult in the absence of currency)
Stock buybacks were once illegal because they are a type of stock market manipulation. But
then Reagan got in and wanted to do his banker buddies a favour-
To think that Boeing has Ralph Nader of all people on their case. With apologies to Liam
Neeson, Nader might be saying to Muilenberg right now: "If you are looking for (forgiveness),
I can tell you I don't have (forgiveness). But what I do have are a very particular set of
skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for
people like you. If you go now, that'll be the end of it."
That sounds like good advice that.
Re-outlawing the "Stock Buyback" would be one useful reNew The Deal reform. Outlawing
compensation in stocks, options, or etc. of any kind except money would be another useful
Newer Deal reform. Both together would force-multiply each other's effect.
I hope the four Old Real Democrats have people reading these threads and taking any
possibly-good ideas back to headquarters. I hope the New Catfood Democrats and their people
aren't spying or eavesdropping on these threads.
I love how Nader brings stock buy-backs into his letter and basically connects the dots
from a recklessly designed aircraft system full circle to an indictment of our current
shareholder value system of capitalism and its perverse incentive structure which includes
safety shortcuts and runaway executive compensation. Such a perfect case study for this
site!
I think Nader really should beat the drum heavily on the perverse incentive structure at
Boeing and how executives shortchanged safety to grab more money for themselves because
that's an easy story for a jury to understand. I see where Nader is going with the inherently
"stall prone" aerodynamic design stuff, and he's not wrong, but I think he may be treading on
dangerous ground. Automatic stabilizer trimming systems designed to overcome the negative
aerodynamic attributes of the new 737 Max wing/engine design is a confusing rabbit hole for
the lay person. Boeing attorneys and expert witnesses may be able to twist the jury's head
into a pretzel on this issue. The debate and discussion here concerning process, decision
making, design philosophy etc at Boeing has generally been of very high quality, but has a
tendency to go off the rails when the discussion dives too deeply into the subject matter of
aerodynamics and aircraft systems. I could see the same dynamic playing out in the courtroom.
Nader is the master class-action consumer advocacy attorney not me, but I think he should go
heavy buybacks and whistle blower warnings while avoiding unforced errors arguing over the
not-so-important point of whether or not the 737 Max crashed because it was stall prone or
because it was too stall adverse. Two brand new Boeings crashed, people died, Boeing was
greedy, Boeing was hasty, the MCAS trim system was garbage and probably criminal. He's got a
slam dunk case arguing the MCAS trim system with a single point of failure was poorly
designed and recklessly conceived, I think he should just stick to that and the greed angle
and avoid the stall prone vs. stall adverse debate. I wish him luck.
They screwed up the plane design then thought an extra layer of software would ameliorate
the problem enough. It sucks but it's probably just good enough. Seems pretty simple.
As JerryDenim touched on, a good defense lawyer would probably be able to defeat this
argument in front of a jury. There are too many examples of successful and safe commercial
aircraft with aerodynamic compromises (the hardware, as you call it) that use software fixes
to overcome these limitations. The focus in this case would need to be on the implementation
of that software and how criminal neglect occurred there.
Boeing's attorneys are going to try and make any lawsuits a question of why the airplanes
ultimately crashed. I hate to spoil it for anyone, but I can tell you Boeing's attorneys are
going to blame it all on the pilots. Airlines and airplane manufactures always do. Nothing
new. Dead pilots can't defend themselves, their families don't have millions in the bank and
they aren't going to be placing any billion dollar aircraft orders in the future. If anyone
has read my frequently maligned comments, you already know the line of attack. Not following
the runaway trim procedures and overspeeding the aircraft with takeoff thrust set. That's why
Nader or anyone else pursuing Boeing would do well to sidestep the "why did two Boeing 737
Max Jets crash" question and stick to the details surrounding the horribly flawed MCAS trim
system and the Boeing corporate greed story. Steer clear of the pilots' actions and the
potentially confusing aerodynamics of modern jetliners, keep the focus squarely on the MCAS
trim system design process and executive greed.
Anyone prosecuting Boeing will have to deal with Boeing's defence, which as noted, will
play up the commoness of such technical compromises. I do wonder whether Boeing will go after
the pilots, though.
Any pilots argument naturally raises Boeing's negligence re : training, flight manuals &
communication. The prosecution case will naturally play up the greed aspect as
cause/motivation/
context for the crashes & Boeing's direct responsibility /negligence.
The defense would likely also pull in the airlines and FAA as targets for liability, as
both have some responsibility for these matters. Attacking the FAA would be fodder for the
de-regulators (Privatize it! Government is incompetent!). The airlines would complain that
competition forces them to cut costs, and that they meet all of the (gutted) legal
requirements.
I agree with focusing on the greed aspect. Nader's letter has some technical errors such
as stating the engines were tilted (they were moved horizontally and vertically, not rotated)
that show he hasn't fully understood the details. It doesn't help that many of the changes
made to the 737 MAX from previous generations are actually quite subtle, and can't really be
discussed individually for this context. It is the sum of these changes that made it an
extremely deadly aircraft.
The other failure/business feature is the concept of modularity. The software designed to
fix the aerodynamic complexities is broken down into modular components, and then sold off as
"options". Once again greed sabotages the system. Modularity is a great way to gouge
customers and lock in higher profits. The level of technical competence needed to properly
evaluate what modules are essential complicates the outcome. But then again, this can be
rationalized as a feature not a bug. Blame for failure can be passed around- the customer
should have purchased the entire package.
The runaway externalities emanating from the current form of capitalism as practiced in
the US must be reigned in. Voluntary compliance to some sort of moral code is useless- worse
than useless in that corrupt operators can hide behind lame excuses for failure.
The bigger problem is that Government regulations could solve these problems quickly, as
in throwing people in jail and confiscating their property. A strong argument can be made for
ill-gotten gains. I surely would vote for that if given the chance. Deal drugs and you can
loose your home. What about conscious business decisions
leading to harm?
You need a strong force external to these business concerns for this to happen. The
separation of government and business. Business should operate at the will of the government.
When the government is run with the wellbeing of the people foremost, then issues like
crashing planes can be rectified.
When the interests of business and government merge, then what you have is fascism.
American fascism will have a happy face. These unfortunate problems of crashing planes and
polluted environments will trundle along into the future. Billionaires will continue to
accumulate their billions while the rest of us will trundle along.
But one day, trundling along won't be an option. Maybe only outsiders to the US system can
see this clearly.
You ask: "So when the original 737 was designed, did the engineers have the option of
using these larger engines? Did they decline to do so because it was a flawed design?"
The larger engines currently in use on the 737 Max 8 were not designed until recently.
They did not decline because the current engine wasn't even invented.
I guess what I am wondering is if the original designers of the 737 had the option of
designing a more powerful engine similar to that used in the 737 MAX but declined to do so.
No doubt engine technology has advanced during the 50 years since the first 737's were built.
Could the engineers 50 years ago have designed engines like those on the 737 MAX? If so, what
were there reasons for not doing so?
I also have a second question. I have been told that stalling can be prevented by placing
small wings at the front of an airplane. Would such a design have resolved the problems with
the 737 MAX?
Fifty years of technological improvement, yes. The new engines aren't more powerful,
they're more fuel efficient. Airbus had put more fuel efficient engines on its planes, so
Boeing rushed new engines of its own into service to compete.
But they're really too large to
be mounted on the 737; they mess up the center of gravity. MCAS was a janky software fix to
solve a fundamental hardware problem, because Boeing didn't want to design a new plane.
And
it didn't want to lose money by requiring airlines to retrain pilots, it sold the plane with
the new engines as being exactly the same as the old, a painless upgrade.
Canards, as the small wings at the front of aircraft are sometimes called, would likely
not have been a fix in this case. There are some light aircraft that use these for stall
prevention by utilizing the aerodynamic properties of the wing. Since a stall (absence of
lift) is often caused by the nose of aircraft being too high, you can design the canard so
that it stalls before the main wing. Thus it's difficult for the whole plane to stall, since
the nose will sink when the canard loses lift first and returns the plane to a more
appropriate attitude. An example here:
In high performance aircraft canards are used to increase maneuverability by providing
another control surface.
We generally don't see them in commercial aircraft for a few reasons:
-Aircraft layout would not be conducive to carrying passengers – jetways would be
awkward, doors would be less accessible, visibility out of the cockpit might be
compromised.
-Control surfaces at the tail of the aircraft are more effective, as the lever distance
they act over is often longer. Tail surfaces are easier to place out of the airflow of the
main wing than to place main wing out of the airflow of canards.
-Added complexity for not much added benefit (if we were to add canards to a plane with
tail surfaces as well).
These are of course all very coarse generalizations – engineering is all about
making technical and economic trade-offs.
A radical example of what can be accomplished by a combination of aerodynamics and
software is the B-2 bomber – only one main wing, no tail or canards. I know, it has
ejection seats but I sincerely doubt any aeronautical engineer has ever sat down and thought,
"Hm, well, that's a sketchy design, but screw it, they can just eject if I messed up".
So would Boeing have to design a new plane to use canards? It would probably require the
737 MAX pilots to have new training. Boeing also seemed to want to hide the instability
problem and the canards would be visual evidence for the problem.
The 737 Was designed in the '60. High bypass turbo fan engines had yet to be developed
then. Upgrading the 737 is like adding a plug in hybrid engine to a Ford F100.
The original 737 was designed to be quite low to the ground, to allow for easier boarding
in an era before widespread jetway use (models have even been offered with integrated pull
out boarding stairs), and to allow for more accessible servicing.
This worked well with the
engines of the time, which were often low bypass turbofans, and thus smaller in diameter.
This combination of height and engines made sense for the market it was designed.
Most modern commercial engines are high bypass turbofans, and therefore larger in
diameter. The move to larger fan diameters has been enabled by advances in materials,
manufacturing technology, and simulation software, with the goal of increasing engine power
and efficiency.
Another factor influencing the engine size that can be used without extensive redesign is
the landing gear operation. Because it folds towards the centerline of the plane, and into
pockets in the bottom of the fuselage, there is a limit on how long it can be before it
becomes too long and each side would collide with the other. And one would need to redesign
the wing box structure to accommodate the moved wheels.
Exactly. This is a textbook case of the looting of America.
The $30 billion dollars made
by cutting costs including quality inspection, using an existing airframe, tax cuts and
ignoring safety went directly to stock buybacks that benefited stockholders and C-suite
compensation.
Just like 2008 Boeing is "too big to fail and jailing the executives would
cause it to collapse". Unless Americans demand an end to the corruption and the restoration
of the rule of law; the plundering will continue until there is nothing left to live on.
Boeing could have designed two brand new safe airliners with that cash that would have
provided jobs and efficient transportation into the future but instead the money went into
the pockets of the connected rich and killed 346 people.
What really gets me is that ultimately that would have given the fools more money because
the orders would have kept on coming and probably increase, which would mean more profit and
more compensation for everyone. Of course that would have taken a few years instead of
immediately. So now the compensation is going to crash. Oh wait! They will just sell again to
themselves, strip the company, and sell the nameplate still affixed to some ruin.
I am starting to understand why the Goths had no resistance when in Italy and during the
sack the city of Rome. Centuries earlier the Republic and then the Empire routinely raised
multiple armies and dealt with catastrophes both natural and man made. At the end, not only
could they not readily create an another army, they could not repair the aqueducts. Like we
are becoming, Rome became a hollow shell.
And probably the only stockholders who even benefited would be the individual or
family-dynasty rich stockholders who own many thousands to millions of shares of a particular
stock at a time. It takes ownership of that many shares for a tiny benefit-per-share to add
up to thousands or millions of tiny little benefits-per-share.
People with pensions or 401ks or whatever may well involuntarily "own" 2 or 3 or maybe 10
shares "apiece" of Boeing. But they derived no benefit from the tiny little benefit per share
this maneuver gained for the shares.
Re: appendix 3, over-steer is counter-intuitive as hell. Once it's underway you have to
steer left during a right turn and vice versa. I have watched race drivers do it (very
skillfully) at the track, but there is no way I would want to be in a car that did that in a
pressure or potential accident situation without a lot of training beforehand.
"your obsession with shareholder value": shareholder value is not being attended to if the
company is driven into the ground by virtue of its planes being driven into the ground.
Clearly the definition of "shareholder value" that these bozos use is as defective as
their engineering decision-making.
Hang a few of them pour encourager les autres . And hang a few of the regulators
who thought it would be a dandy idea to let the firm regulate itself.
And hang a few of the lawmakers and lawbuyers who legislatively de-budgeted and
money-starved FAA into this " turn it over to the plane-makers" corner as well.
There is another case of air disaster often referred to in what is known as *Human
Factors* training a L-1011 which *descended* into the glades; while the crew tried to sort
out a problem with a light bulb. I suggest familiarizing with it for perspective. (not to
exonerate Boeing; just to encourage keeping an open mind)
Ahhh, the infamous Captain Buddy. Immortal tyrant of early CRM training fame
Lambert's mention of the DC-10 and it's fatally flawed, explosive decompressing cargo door
sent me down a hole of DC-10 disasters and accident reports. Some of those DC-10 incidents
like America Airlines flight 96 could have been major tragedies but were saved by level heads
and airmanship that by today's standards would be considered exceptional. The AA 96 crew
landed safely with no fatalities after an explosive decompression, a partially collapsed
floor and severely compromised flight controls. The crew had to work together and use
non-standard asymmetrical thrust and control inputs to overcome the effects of a stuck, fully
deflected rudder and a crippled elevator. The pilots of the ill fated United flight 232,
another DC-10, are celebrated exemplars of the early CRM case studies, both crew members and
a United DC-10 instructor pilot who happened to be occupying the jumpseat all worked together
to heroically crash land their horribly stricken craft in Sioux City Iowa with only partial
aileron control and assymetrical thrust to control the airplane. No elevator, no rudder
control. A good number of passengers perished but most lived. Those pilots in the two
instances I mentioned were exceptional, and they had to resort to exceptional means to
control their aircraft, but in light of airmanship of that caliber from just a few decades
ago, it blows my mind that in 2019 the mere suggestion that professional airline pilots
should probably still be capable of moving the thrust levers during a trim emergency is
somehow controversial enough to expose oneself to charges of racism and bias?! Different
times indeed.
Boeing 737 Max aside, airplanes seem to be a lot safer these days than they were in the
1970's and 80's. Widespread acceptance and adoption of CRM/TEM has made personalities like
Captain Buddy and many bad cockpit automation practices relics from the past, but automation
itself still looks to be increasingly guilty of deskilling professional pilot ranks. In light
of that trend, it's a really good thing passenger jets in 2019 are more reliable than the
DC-10 and easier to land than the MD-11.
Deteriorating pilot skills. Yep. Now you're getting it. Problem is, more automation equals
more pilot skill degradation. Everything is just peachy with highly automated "idiot proof"
airplanes until something breaks, then who is supposed to fly the plane if the pilots can't?
The flight attendants? Whoever is sitting in 1A? Airbus airplanes malfunction too, as
documented in a number of well publicized disasters and not-so-well publicized near
disasters, so while this may be an effective marketing pitch to an airline executive not able
or not willing to pay for highly skilled, experienced pilots, it's not a solution to a pilot
skill crisis. Long term, it makes the situation worse.
Personally I believe in training the hell out of pilots because if I get into a plane, I
want a pilot at the controls and not an airplane-driver. I would bet that even I could be
trained to fly an aircraft where most of the functions are automated but when things go
south, that is when you want a pilot in control. Training is expensive but having an
ill-trained pilot in the cockpit is even more expensive.
A thought . A completely fresh plane design is not necessarily safer. There is aways a
trade off between innovation and proven reliability. It is surprisingly rare for an entirely
new aircraft family to be introduced without at least one problem that threatens (but does
not always take) lives.
787 and 737 MAX are not the only problems Boeing have had.
The 737 NG (Next Generation) airplane using composite materials for the aircraft body, was
also outsourced, The idea was that the Body parts would be built to exacting specifications,
so they could be connected at the stage of final assembly. However, the sub-contractor
couldn't live up to the specifications, so Boeing had to manually re-drill holes to connect
the fuselage parts.
Not long after we had a series of crashes, where the fuselage broke up into its parts,
something almost never seen before in airplanes.
There are other Human Factors at play; regarding pilot ability Measuring ability by simply
looking at *hours flown* (often referred to as *experience*) is misleading. Relevant details
might include just what types of experience. It is possible to get airline positions *ab
initio*, or in-house, if you will (with 500 hours, (IIRC) OR:
Prospective pilots from private sector, or military, may be more likely to have diverse
backgrounds; including Flight Instructor background, Upset Recovery training; Aerobatic
flying; and Glider or sailplane background. These are not necessarily prerequisites for
airline hires. Do they make a difference? in emergencies???
The change in Part 135 minimums for non ab-initio applicants has done little or nothing to
improve safety. It did financially squeeze some very competent and capable career minded
pilots out of the pipeline to the left front seat. (thanks chuck.)(f.u.) His feel-good
legislation:*We're doing something about it!*
It isn't just Boeing that is using share buybacks to goose CEO pay. Shareholders of
American Express have an opportunity to vote to Deduct Impact of BuyBacks on Pay. See
American
Express 2019 Proxy Vote Recommendations
But, but Nader made Al Gore lose in 2000. Good to see him out of the shadows (he has a
podcst BTW).
While Boeing deserves every form of condemnation and Muilenberg should resign I do think
the facts that were all laid out in that should-be-Pulitzer-winning Seattle Times series are
being stretched a bit. The problem seems to be, not that the plane is prone to fall out of
the sky, but that its handling characteristics differ from the earlier, ubiquitous, 737
models. MCAS is the defective part, and Boeing will pay plenty
Florida's presidential election in 2000 was expected to be close and likely to be decisive
in the electoral college vote. Nader was a fairly popular third-party candidate for president
in that election. Many supporters of Gore over Bush pleaded for Nader to exit that race and
ask his supporters to vote for Gore. He did neither. In the end the margin of Bush's win in
Florida was tiny, if it existed at all, so there was reason to be angry at Nader, as I was at
the time, since if he had quit the race in that state, Gore would very likely have become
president instead of Bush.
If you're into counterfactual teleology then you might say Nader's stubborn vanity
therefore led to the Iraq and Afghan wars. I don't but it's worth being aware that some
people do.
I can't find the link right now; but, it stated that after close study, most of the voters
who voted for Nadar would not have voted for Gore and would have just sat out the election
resulting in an even more pronounced victory for Bush. Gore's defeat came from his inability
to win his home state of TN.
The claim ignores other factors. Gore's lackadaisical campaign, for one, and its poor
response to the BushCheney campaign's misuse of the legal system to stop the Florida
recount.
It's not Gore's fault the Supreme Court's conservative majority chose to not let the FL
supreme court determine what FL law means, and chose to decide the election itself. But his
response to the Florida debacle was weak, like his campaign. That might be one reason so many
people voted for Nader. That's on Al and on BushCheney.
Some additional information and clarification about the Corvair.
The Corvair had a rear mounted engine and rear wheel drive. This is a poor design from a
handling perspective as the rear weight bias produces a pendulum effect making the Corvair
prone to oversteer. This tendency was exacerbated by the Corvair's swing axle independent
rear suspension with its inherent camber changes as the wheel moved up and down. These
characteristics of the Corvair were deadly in that while cornering if you let off the
accelerator, the engine brakes the rear wheels creating a condition called "throttle lift
oversteer". Under this situation the counterintutive reaction should be to put your foot on
the accelerator and not the brakes. Some of you may recall that comedian Ernie Kovacs was
killed when his Corvair spun off the road in wet weather and hit a utility pole.
A paradox here is that the Porsche 911 has a design very similar to the Corvair, rear
wheel drive, rear mounted engine and rear weight bias and is praised for its handling. The
Corvair was sometimes referred to as a poor man's 911. It too was prone to severe and violent
oversteer if the throttle was lifted while cornering but in the case of the 911 it was
expected that the driver know that while cornering your foot stayed on the accelerator. As
the horsepower of 911s increased over the years the tendency to oversteer was tamed by
fitting larger tires on the rear wheels. With the advent of technologies like antilock
braking systems ,traction control and advanced computers employing torque vectoring to
control vehicle stablity, cars today do have their versions of MCAS and the Porsche can be
referred to as a triumph of engineering over design.
The 911 had pivots at both ends of the stub axles. It would lift throttle oversteer (boy
would it lift throttle oversteer -lots of fun if you knew what you were doing), but it would
not do the jacking rear-end lift that the corvair (pivots only at the differential end of the
half shaft) would do.
Oddly, the VW bug had the exact same layout but Ralph never went after it.
Nader is right to point out the design flaws, which seem to have the potential to cascade
into failure.
The new engine nacelles create unusual lift. Being placed forward of the center of lift,
that causes the nose of the aircraft to rotate vertically upward. If uncorrected, that would
cause the aircraft inappropriately to rise in altitude and/or to approach a stall.
The nacelle-induced lift increases with an increase in engine thrust. That increases speed
and/or reduces the time the pilot has to react and to correct an inappropriate nose-up
attitude.
Boeing seemed unable to correct that design problem through changes in the aircraft's
shape or control surfaces. It corrected it, instead, by having the computer step in to fly
the aircraft back into the appropriate attitude. Works when it works.
But Boeing seems to have forgotten a CompSci 101 problem: shit in, shit out. If the
sensors feeding the computer report bad data, the computer will generate a bad solution.
Boeing also seems to have designed the s/w to reset after manual attitude correction by the
pilot, forcing a correction loop the pilots would not always win.
Boeing elected not to inform aircraft purchasers or their flight crews of their automated
fix to their new aircraft's inherent instability problem. Murphy's Law being what it is
– if something can go wrong, it will – the pilots should have been made aware of
the recommended fix so that when something went wrong it, they would have a chance of fixing
it with a routine response.
Boeing elected not to do that. In the short run, it avoided the need for expensive
additional pilot training. In the long run, Boeing would have hoped to increase sales. When
hoping for the best, it is normal practice to plan for the worst. Boeing seems not to have
done that either.
All this talk of CEO and top managment resignation . honestly they probably don't care.
They have made millions, if not tens of millions of dollars on bonuses; they can retire once
they walk out the door. To change the behaviour of the C-suite you must affect the C-suite
directly, charge convict them with at least criminal negligence or worse.. A drunk driver who
causes the accident will most likley go to jail if someone dies in the accident, how come a
CEO and his mgmt team, can wilfully go against decades of engineering and aviation best
practices that are codified, and still only have to resign??
Note an interesting statement of a pro-Isreally lobbyist: "Jewish exceptionalism and the
exceptionalist nature of Jewish civilization require an unconditional space for the continued
evolution of their civilization. What's good for Jewish civilization is good for humanity at
large. Jewish civilization is an international treasure trove that must be protected." ~ by
Jason D. Hill, professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago. If this not a descript on
neofascist mentality I do not know what is. just replace Jewish with German.
You will get "German exceptionalism and the exceptionalist nature of German civilization
require an unconditional space for the continued evolution of their civilization. What's good for
German civilization is good for humanity at large. German civilization is an international
treasure trove that must be protected."
Notable quotes:
"... In his essay, Hill insisted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should faithfully keep his campaign promise to incorporate West Bank settlements. In fact, according to Hill, the Israeli leader has a "moral right to annex all of the West Bank for a plethora of reasons." ..."
"... First, the Israelis were too "altruistic" in dealing with the Palestinians whom they conquered in 1967. It would been better if the Israelis had regarded the Palestinians as "enemies of the state ..."
"... Second, he implies that Palestinian authority doesn't deserve any better ..."
"... "Jewish exceptionalism and the exceptionalist nature of Jewish civilization require an unconditional space for the continued evolution of their civilization. What's good for Jewish civilization is good for humanity at large. Jewish civilization is an international treasure trove that must be protected." ..."
"... Third, Israel has "every moral right to wage a ruthless and unrelenting war against Hamas and to re-settle the land if it ever so desires." On top of that, the United States is morally obligated to pay "political and financial reparations" to Israel, supplying it with "more advanced military capabilities" so that it can maintain its "unrivaled military status in the Middle East." ..."
"... Finally, Hill solemnly arrives at his last point. The Palestinians have no moral authority "because they have never explicitly held a philosophy that can support freedom, the basic principles of individual rights, and a free market economy." ..."
"... Hill's extravagant description of "Jewish civilization" in language that recalls the extreme, belligerent nationalists of an earlier age ..."
"... Finally, I'm wondering whether any government that Hill judges to be "better" than another one has a moral right to overthrow the offending regime and then expel its inhabitants. Or is this a one-time deal only for Israelis? By the way, "reparations" are the things that the Germans paid Nazi victims, not the support a nation gives to a weaker ally. Perhaps Hill is telling us more about what should be the servile U.S. relationship to Israel than he intends. ..."
"... This commentary has made me think of an unpleasant experience in my own life. In 1987 I lost the chance for a graduate professorship at a large university in Washington, D.C. after several noted neoconservatives called my prospective employer and insisted passionately that "I was not quite reliable on Israel." If Professor Hill has established the standard of who is "reliable on Israel," then perhaps my accusers were correct. ..."
published
an opinion piece by Jason D. Hill, professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago.
As I read this commentary, I had to wonder whether it was some kind of spoof. It seems to have
been written to poke fun at over-the-top Zionists; and this may indeed be the case -- or so one
can hope.
In his essay, Hill insisted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should
faithfully keep his campaign
promise to incorporate West Bank settlements. In fact, according to Hill, the Israeli
leader has a "moral right to annex all of the West Bank for a plethora of reasons."
This "plethora of reasons" comes down basically to four.
First, the Israelis were too "altruistic" in dealing with the Palestinians whom they
conquered in 1967. It would been better if the Israelis had regarded the Palestinians as
"enemies of the state : supporters of the Fatah (Palestinian Liberation Organization)
Charter, which basically calls for the end of Jewry in the region." Jewish conquerors should
have immediately annexed the land and made "the people there [who should have been expelled]
the responsibility of their original homeland: Jordan."
Second, he implies that Palestinian authority doesn't deserve any better , in part
because it fails to recognize the inherent inferiority of their people in relation to the
Jewish masters of the West Bank: "Jewish exceptionalism and the exceptionalist nature of
Jewish civilization require an unconditional space for the continued evolution of their
civilization. What's good for Jewish civilization is good for humanity at large. Jewish
civilization is an international treasure trove that must be protected."
Third, Israel has "every moral right to wage a ruthless and unrelenting war against Hamas
and to re-settle the land if it ever so desires." On top of that, the United States is morally
obligated to pay "political and financial reparations" to Israel, supplying it with "more
advanced military capabilities" so that it can maintain its "unrivaled military status in the
Middle East."
Finally, Hill solemnly arrives at his last point. The Palestinians have no moral
authority "because they have never explicitly held a philosophy that can support freedom, the
basic principles of individual rights, and a free market economy." Additionally, they vote
for terrorist organizations like Hamas to represent them. In short, they are a "security threat
to Israel because a core feature of their identity is a commitment to destroying Israel as a
Jewish state." It is therefore immoral to accept "anti-Semitics devoted to the destruction of
Israel into the domain of Jewish civilization."
Hill does make two serious points: one, that Israelis face an immense security problem and
two, that the Palestinians on the West Bank (and let's not forget Gaza) are angry because of
both the cramped conditions and military control/occupation they've had to endure for decades.
Right and wrong can be found on both sides of this protracted conflict: Palestinians were
defeated and expelled from what is now Israel, while Israelis are being threatened by violence
from the descendants of those whom they defeated and their terrorist allies.
But Hill's extravagant description of "Jewish civilization" in language that recalls the
extreme, belligerent nationalists of an earlier age does nothing to help his cause, nor for
that matter, the credibility of The Federalist. And why exactly should I suppose that every
Palestinian is a terrorist or theocratic fanatic? Understandably, desperate people vote for
extremist parties. I too wish that West Bank Palestinians were more reasonable and more
compromising but I can understand their frustration as an occupied population.
Finally, I'm wondering whether any government that Hill judges to be "better" than another
one has a moral right to overthrow the offending regime and then expel its inhabitants. Or is
this a one-time deal only for Israelis? By the way, "reparations" are the things that the
Germans paid Nazi victims, not the support a nation gives to a weaker ally. Perhaps Hill is
telling us more about what should be the servile U.S. relationship to Israel than he
intends.
But the most childish piece of advice Hill offers, which the Israelis fortunately never
took, is sending West Bank Palestinians to neighboring Jordan. Is Hill aware that Jordan has
over two million
Palestinians , some of whom have been there since 1948, and has taken in a total of 657,628
Syrian refugees as of
early 2018 ? King Abdullah of Jordan has maintained generally friendly relations with both
the United States and Israel, and the last thing he needs is the turmoil and political unrest
that would result from sticking more irate Palestinians, who had been kicked out of their
homes, into his country.
This commentary has made me think of an unpleasant experience in my own life. In 1987 I lost
the chance for a graduate professorship at a large university in Washington, D.C. after several
noted neoconservatives called my prospective employer and insisted passionately that "I was not
quite reliable on Israel." If Professor Hill has established the standard of who is "reliable
on Israel," then perhaps my accusers were correct.
Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown
College, where he taught for 25 years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale Ph.D. He is the
author of 13 books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents
.
It's a dog & pony show. Trump folded very quickly, in april 2017 or three moth after inauguration. He proved
to be no fighter, a weakling, a marionette. Appointment of Bolton and Pompeo just added insult to injury. this is classic bait and
switch similar to what was executed by Obama after then election. In a way Trump is a Republican version of Obama.
I wonder if he did not want to fight to the death and sacrifice himself for the course, why he entered the Presidential race at
all ? He is not stupid enough not to understand the he will be covered with dirt and all skeletons in his closet will be dug
out for display by the US intelligence agencies, which protect that interest of Wall Street and MIC (Israel is a part of the
US MIC -- its biggest lobbyist and beneficiary) , not the USA as a sovereign state.
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. ..."
"... To help sabotage Trump's political agenda ..."
"... To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election ..."
"... And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia. ..."
"... These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor. ..."
"... The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington. ..."
"... "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will." ..."
"... Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., ..."
"... Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her? ..."
"... War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!" ..."
"... Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face? ..."
"... Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"? ..."
"... There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized. ..."
"... Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose. ..."
Why did Robert Mueller end the Russia investigation when he did? He could have let it drag it out for another year or so and severely
hurt Trump's chances for reelection. But he didn't do that. Why?
Of course, we're assuming that the investigation was never intended to uncover the truth. If it was, then Mueller would have interviewed
Julian Assange, Craig Murray and retired members of the Intelligence Community (Ray McGovern, Bill Binney) who have shown that the
Podesta emails were leaked by an insider (on a thumbdrive) not hacked by foreign agents. Mueller would have also seized the servers
at DNC headquarters and done the necessary forensic investigation, which he never did.
He also would have indicted senior-level agents
at the FBI and DOJ who improperly obtained FISA warrants by withholding critical information from the FISA court. He didn't do that
either.
Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very
beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those
objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. So, here they are:
To help sabotage Trump's political agenda
To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election
And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia.
These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power
to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage
or, even worse, a traitor.
The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller
played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment
over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington.
My question is simply this: Why did Mueller give up all that power when he did?
I think I can answer that, but first, we need a little more background. Check out this quote from candidate Trump in 2016:
"We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes
and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will
partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings
with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will."
Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime
change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., and now this upstart, New York real estate tycoon is promising
to do a complete 180 and move in another direction altogether. No more destabilizing coups, no more bloody military interventions,
instead, we're going to work collaboratively with countries like Russia and China to see if we can settle regional disputes and fight
terrorism together? Really?
At the same time Trump was promising this new era of "peace, understanding, and good will," Hillary Clinton was issuing her war
whoop at every opportunity. Here's candidate Hillary trying to drum up support for taking on the Russians in Syria:
"The situation in Syria is catastrophic. And every day that goes by, we see the results of the Assad regime in partnership
with the Iranians on the ground, and the Russians in the air When I was Secretary of State, I advocated and I advocate today a
no-fly zone and safe zones."
Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria
would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the
switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her?
"We have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground," boomed Hillary, meaning that she fully supported
the continued use of jihadist proxies in the fight against Assad. "I do think the use of special forces, the use of enablers and
trainers in Iraq, which has had some positive effects, are very much in our interests, and so I do support what is happening."
War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything
more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish
comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after
it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!"
So, what changed? Trump changed.
Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of
withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels
on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger
to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing
up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face?
The same thing happened in Korea. For a while it looked like Trump was serious about cutting a deal with Kim Jong un. But then,
sometime after the first summit, he began to backpeddle. He never honored any of his commitments under the Panmunjom Declaration
and he never reciprocated for Kim's cessation of all nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing. Trump has made no effort to "build
a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula" or to strengthen trust between the two leaders. Then, at the Hanoi Summit,
Trump blindsided Kim by making demands that had never even been previously discussed. Kim was told that the North must destroy all
of its chemical and biological weapons as well as its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs before the US will take reciprocal
steps. In other words, Trump demanded that Kim completely and irreversibly disarm with the feint hope that the US would eventually
lift sanctions.
Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy
establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change
all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"?
Yes, that was Trump's campaign promise. So, what happened?
There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range
nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring
up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling
regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized.
Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon,
he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife'
is on the loose.
Is that why Mueller let Trump off the hook? Was there a quid pro quo: "You follow our foreign policy directives and we'll make
Mueller disappear?
It sure looks like it. play_arrow 2 Reply reply Report flag
the report was finished last august. hed got all the juice in that squeeze. but i also guess he got a call from somebodys in
the GOG mafia[continuity of .gov] deepstate after all is their little bitch
He had to stop before he implicated himself. For instance, still waiting on "the why" he never put Steele or McCabe or Hillary
or Perkins Coie or Rosenstein or Comey etc under oath when it was...THEY... who supplied false evidence to a FISA court
, "evidence gathered" (according to Steele) from...ta daaah!...Russians ;-)
You can drive yourself crazy wondering whether it was all theater from the start, or whether they put a gun to the head of
the guy who was going to expose it was theater until he started playing along. End result, theater.
exactly. Just like you can wonder why Justice John Roberts turned on Obamacare and **** on conservatives. Was he sincere or
did he get a 3:00 am phone call that if he didn't uphold it, his wife and kids would die in an unfortunate accident?
Oh, I dunno...maybe because even with a crack team of demoncraft operatives, Deep State Hillary deadenders and a limitless
supply of federal funding even they couldn't come up with "Russian collusion" because...none ever existed? ;-)
As the US continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind.
Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we
had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the
world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.
Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more
prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.
Saddle the Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF
The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, stated that he's
going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans
indebted to this predatory institution. Guaido spends the money and the poor and working people
work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.
The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and
its rules in an increasingly globalized and US-dominated world.
Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries.
IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the
largest say are the ones with the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the
United States and its allies.
This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called
Washington Consensus. A set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by US think tanks, the
IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department.
The Washington Consensus is as follows:
In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the IMF
overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies,
making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.
Control the oil reserves
There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the US to overthrow the Maduro
government, especially when John Bolton openly states this on national television.
Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond Offshore
Drilling, Inc. in 2007. So, he is no stranger to advocating for the interests of the
fossil-fuel industry.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world by far and Washington won't let that wealth
go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia,
China, or Iran.
And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players --
companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in
Washington advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign natural
resources.
Establish military dominance and arm your puppet
One of the most bizarre things about America is that it created one of the world's largest
private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs or
beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out of
the government in the form of subsidies. Or, in the case of the military industrial complex, a
foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism or defending
democracy.
You can see that wherever the US goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind every
multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the
profits.
Once the US military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know
no US ally, or puppet state, is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s. Then
they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.
With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting US
military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next
target.
As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these
needs.
After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and
occupation were no longer viable strategies due to negative public opinion. Washington sought
to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.
Create the humanitarian alibi
Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have
played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power
institutions, which attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through
propaganda laced with words like 'freedom', 'democracy', and 'human rights'.
These NGOs are given the full blessing of the US government and the two often work in
tandem.
The US Agency for International Development's regime-change arm, the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the 2002 coup),
Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever US foreign policy sets
its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet that goal as
well as make a quick buck along the way.
For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan
Guaido's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the notorious
Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances, talking
about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be
overthrown.
Unsurprisingly, the HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself
funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise
Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund
and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise
Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of
characters.
The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the US's war
on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.
Buy the facts from the think tanks funded by the Military Industrial Complex
Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of
legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate
and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking
reports meant to justify their desired goal: the delegitimization of socialist governments and
the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.
The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan
government. In 2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton
Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional
referendum in Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaido, and
his clique known as Generation 2007.
These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to
amplify the message their donors have given them.
Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate
disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the
poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no different.
"... The article also discusses how some frontline FAA safety inspectors wanted to ground the MAXes until the "AoA Disagree" indicators were re-enabled, but were overridden by higher-ups who insisted that it was not a primary safety feature. ..."
Yes, the very last country to pull the 737-MAX out of use is going to be the first to
put it back. There is some serious money being lost by Boeing and the Airlines, and they
want to put a stop to it. This is all about millions and millions of Benjamins, for "they"
are taking a shortct to save even more money.
Simulators are EXPENSIVE, so the plan is to give the pilots a joystick and a computer,
and maybe throw in some lectures and videos of other pilots using a real flight simulator.
Are you ready to rush to reserve a flight?
This isn't a bad deal just for the flight crews and passengers, but the pure stench of
it is contaminating other arenas. A Denier site I'm not going to link has managed to
leverage the lack of regulator oversight by the FAA to lots of other places.
Planes, Automobiles, Bicycles, Homes, Hospitals, Schools, and Sidewalks Can All Be Made
Unsafe by Mad Science, Rush to Market, and Corrupt Regulators
They don't include "vaccines" in that list because their readers understand perfectly
well that if the FAA is a crap agency, why not the FDA as well? Much as I hate to admit it,
the Deniers didn't have to break a sweat to score these perfectly valid points.
Does anyone imagine Volkswagen could have gotten away with all those years of cheating
on their emissions if the regulators had been doing their jobs?
How did China get away with shipping that cancer-causing blood pressure medicine to the
US for so many years? It's safe to assume some bored "regulator" was just waving the stuff
on past without doing a single test.
This is going to cost us. I'm out of links, but here is a headline to consider.
Russia's Irkut aircraft manufacturer has posted the first video of a direct flight by
its MS-21-300 airliner from Irkutsk to Ulyanovsk-Vostochny Airfield.
The brand-new Russian passenger craft is designed to transport up to 211 people over
a distance of 6,400 kilometres.
There are competitors out there, and they can't be fended off by "sanctions" forever.
Allowing unwatched & unregulated companies to run amok is going to hurt us all in the
long term.
Boeing management's behavior must be seen in the context of Boeing's use of its earned
capital. Did you use the $30 billion surplus from 2009 to 2017 to reinvest in R&D, in
new narrow-body passenger aircraft? Or did you, instead, essentially burn this surplus
with self-serving stock buybacks of $30 billion in that period? Boeing is one of the
companies that MarketWatch labelled as "Five companies that spent lavishly on stock
buybacks while pension funding lagged. "
Feathering the Corporate Nest while stiffing the workers. Just what Wall Street loves.
"Ugly" at Boeing isn't a 'skin deep' issue - it's that way clear to the bone!
The article also discusses how some frontline FAA safety inspectors wanted to ground the
MAXes until the "AoA Disagree" indicators were re-enabled, but were overridden by
higher-ups who insisted that it was not a primary safety feature.
Colonel, I would appreciate your comments about John Huntsman and his remarks " each of the
carriers operating in the Mediterranean as this time represent 100,000 tons of
international diplomacy", "Diplomatic communication and dialogue, coupled with the strong
defenses these ships provide, demonstrate to Russia that if it truly seeks better relations
with the United states, it must cease its destabilizing activities around the world."
Strange words coming from a "diplomat". It might be informative to see the kind of a
reception he will get when he returns to Russia as "ambassador". Ishmael Zechariah
Yesterday, President Trump vetoed his second bill as president. S. J. Res. 7 directed the
president to cease US military activities in support of the Saudi war on Yemen and his veto
signifies that he intends to continue in a war that he may not have started but that he is
escalating. The White House statement on the veto is full of fallacies and contradictions. We
take that apart - and share some idea on what we can do next - in today's Liberty Report:
Smiling Joe Biden, the glad handler from Delaware, is nothing more than another neocon
wolf in sheep's clothing. His tenure as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993
resulted in the infamous Anita Hill debacle due to his failure to investigate Ms. Hill's
allegations that then SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her several years
earlier. The result was an embarrassing televised hearing that exposed Biden's
incompetence, along with that of other members of the committee.
In the end, an unqualified right wing legal 'bump on the log' attained a seat as a
Supreme Court justice. Later it was proven that Ms. Hill's claims were true, but the damage
was done. BTW, Biden's penchant for fascists was on display in the Yugoslavian civil
war.
Well known Twitter "bot" Ian56 has published a thread about Biden
. I suggest people give it a looksee. Ian asks in his first entry:
"How the hell does the Oligarchy think they are going to get Creepy Joe Biden past the
public? I mean the average American Joe is extremely dumb & ignorant, but even they are
not that dumb."
I just posted the answer @11. Welcome to 1984. We are now officially at war with
Eastasia!
The good thing about Biden entering the race is that it complicates an already difficult path
to the nomination for the slew of establishment candidates. Biden is not a first choice for
the Democratic intelligentsia. Sample Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight regularly and you'll know
that Kamala Harris and boy-mayor Buttigieg are the favorites. Of course, Trump would eat
either whole.
I'm rooting for Sanders, not because I believe him to be uniquely authentic, but because
he is the one who scares the shit out of the big-ticket donors who guide the Democratic
Party.
Read last week's
front-pager from Jonathan Martin. Guaranteed if Bernie walks away with the primary in a
rout, you'll see prominent Dems back a third party candidate.
The fact that Biden survived the "GropeGate" stuff from a view weeks ago reinforces how the
msm is cooking coverage or withholding it altogether.
Take a look at some video compilations of ol' Gropey-Joe as he is swearing in elected reps
and photo-documenting the occasion.
Irrespective of his Obama-esque policies and status as standard-bearer for TPTB, the guy
is just a straight up creep. And a particularly bad Catholic.
...
I agree that Sanders-Gabbard would absolutely destroy Trump and garner perhaps even more
backing than Obama c. 2008.
I put the scary Socialist angle that is used against Sanders as carrying the same weight
as the whole Crouching Blackman, Hidden Muslim thing that followed Obama during his run.
It is just hard to tell as to how sensible they (Sanders and Gabbard) would be allowed to
be WRT FP.
But Trump had an opportunity to love his country. And he chose orherwise. SAD!
As long as Hunter Biden is still a director
of Burisma Holdings (which includes at least one other unpleasant individual on
the Board of Directors), there is always a chance that elements within or connected to the
Ukrainian government (even under Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Presidency, when he has his back
turned on his fellow politicians), the previous Poroshenko government or Poroshenko himself,
and / or the Maidan Revolution - Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovich and Chalupa sisters, we're
looking at all of you - might try to derail any or all of the Democratic Party presidential
candidates in attempts to have Joe Biden declared the official Democrat presidential
contender in 2020. The only question is how openly brazen these people are going to be in
order to save their pet project in Kiev before Ukraine erupts in civil war (and it won't be
civil war in the Donbass area) and the entire country goes down in flames.
As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this
respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard
needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and
his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections
she and her office staff have with
The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.
Joe Biden is hard wired to the corruption in the corporate DNC. The tell on this will be when
the media starts to roll him out with the fanfare of a new model car. It is hard to imagine
that he can inspire voters in the primaries. But if the sell goes overboard and it becomes
obvious that the fixers are determined to hand him the nomination; then it will be a real
poke in the eye, and another PSYOPS to grossly demoralize voters in this country. Biden is
about as exciting as a glass of milk that's curdled overnight on the end table by the bed.
The Deep State wanted a MAGA nationalist to counter the challenge from Russia and China and
that's what they got.
Sanders is a sheepdog/stooge that works for the Zionist establishment and Deep State just
like Biden and a few others that are in the race. As much as you wag your 'tale', the stink
remains.
The oligarchy reels out all tired scams over and over, until you want to cry out in anguish.
Don't let them wear you down. Never capitulate. If Biden by some horrible chance has the
winning hand, I'm guessing he will pick Gillibrand for his VP, a centrist of compromising
kind, a shapeshifting clone to remind people of Hillary on some subconscious level. More of
the same will fix us right up, on our journey to virtual political reality, and the end of
humanity. These fucks will use the "little nukes" as they tuck us into bed.
A shock call from President Trump to head of the "Libyan National
Army," Khalifa Hafter, praising him for keeping the oil safe in eastern Libya, has upended US
policy.
Now the US supports both the UN-appointed government in Tripoli and Hafter's forces
fighting against it. What's it all about? Iran, sanctions, Saudi Arabia, oil, and Israel. Who
wins in this international proxy war...?
Zakariah is an interesting example of the immigrant neocon class. Khalilzad is another.
Sebastian Gorka and Varney are others. They like the US, but, if only it were more
aggressive, less federal.
Khalizad told me once that you WASP types have no idea of the real uses of power. Etc.
Gorka may be in the "immigrant neocon class," but as harmful to USA foreign policy as is
Khalilzad, Gorka is not in his league: Gorka is a mediocre-talent, blowhard Wannabe.
--
re Mr. Bolan's critique of US "diplomacy" with Iran: a threshold question I ask is, By
what right?
What right has USA to demand that Iran "change its behavior."
The response from the neocon community was voiced most recently in a discussion titled,
Countering Violent Extremism
https://www.c-span.org/video/?460029-1/us-institute-peace-hosts-forum-combating-violent-extremism
moderated by David Ignatius and including such stellar 'diplomats' as Bushites Madeleine
Albright, Michael Singh and Stephen Hadley: USA created the "international order" post-WWII
and the institutions and values of that "international order" have maintained "peace,
stability and prosperity" in the world ever since. The proof: "there have been no major wars
between European powers since WWII." Democracy and stability are the keys to defeating
"violent extremism" and maintaining the international order.
To maintain that Pax Americana, the US is entitled undermine the sovereignty of-; destabilize
- , and impoverish any and all nations that resist its stabilizing efforts.
"... foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or not warranted so long as they play their cards right. ..."
"... US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before 11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump. ..."
"... Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. ..."
"... Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows? ..."
Russiagate will scarcely matter to most voters by election time 2020. Trump has already
received whatever positives he will receive courtesy of Barr's whitewashing. It is clear
among
a majourity of Americans that Trump obstructed justice and the drip drip of continued
information, hearings, etc will not improve his standing. May not hurt him but definitely
will not help him gain voters at the margins.
Likewise, foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that
won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are
tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or
not warranted so long as they play their cards right.
Trump may gain an advantage among more conservative-tinged independent voters if he
continues to work in concert with Russia and Israel on Middle East issues in the sense that
many may see these alliances as promoting strength and peace (whether warranted or not). The
coming deal with China on trade will benefit Trump too...as long as the economy keeps humming
along.
US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before
11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic
inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way
through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump.
Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native
American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. Are some of her problems
related to gender bias? Without a doubt. However, as I have long said, the first American
female president will not come from the baby boom. The first American female president will
more likely be a millenial.
Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as
much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear
more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual
process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows?
Sanders will rally the FSA but that will go nowhere in general election.
Gabbard is serious person. The fact that DNC does approve is one of her strengths. Of
course Wasserman will attempt a Tanya Harding but Tulsi can take her.
I hope she would not team with Biden.
I thing two good women might be powerful:
Behold: Gabbard/Omar.
Sanders is already hip deep in the Deep State, and there is no denying it. In absolute
terms he is an unacceptable candidate . But then a person recalls a famous Winston
Churchill quote:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
After stating the obvious fact Sanders just isn't much good, you have to ask, compared
to what?
This election cycle it looks as if the Palestinians will be screwed yet again. But I can
imagine that while Sanders will be extremely protective of the Holy Cesspool, he will stop
the practice of kissing Netanyahu's ass to the point of inflammation.
As you say, if we get President Sanders we'd better not also be presented with Vice
President Neocon. In that event I'd expect something or other to happen so as to suddenly
have President Neocon.
Sadly, I think b is caught in a mental framework, like many socialist-leaning Europeans,
that prevents him from thinking critically about Sanders.
All the more strange because everyone can see how Obama and Trump failed to live up to
their rhetoric, how powerful monied interests and the Deep State conduct "managed democracy"
and give us the illusion of democracy . Yet some cling to the notion that democracy
works! making it possible that a socialist hero can be elected.
Until democracy itself is made an issue (akin to the Yellow Vest protests) , we
will continue to be played.
Bernie Sanders may well have the best chance to beat Trump on domestic policies. But he is
no progressive on foreign policy issues.
He has gotten better on this recently but he doesn't have the strength left in him to
properly challenge the lobby, particularly being Jewish his extended family/social circle is
a weakness they'll attack like with Goldstone.
Presumably he calculated that the infamously spiteful man won't be in office come January
2021 and that he can join in the scape-goating of Netanyahu as the unique 'bad-man' whose
policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians and other neighbours wasn't highly popular and endorsed
by Israeli society and we can all forget about it when somebody more presentable takes over
despite engaging in the same policies.
Bernie Sanders has been around in Washington. He knows that his domestic plans are
unaffordable in the Red Scare climate which he's been pushing himself , since all
money will go to the Deep State and the Armies of Mordor. The evidence is he's OK with that.
Anyway, why spend time on this old geezer; he's already lost and in the time since
then, he's exposed himself as a phony and liar.
Z Smith isnt it crystal clear by now...Jack Rabbit is working...very hard it seems...for the
re-election of Donald Trump.
The germane question: why? Is he falling back on the "same ol same ol" purity of the 3rd
party gambit (the same one that has never worked throughout US history and surely has even
less chance of success than ever in 2020)?
Is he ignoring or even against the plain fact that Democrats are trending leftier, less
white and more female thanks in large part to so-called "sheepdog" Bernie's 2016 campaign and
"movement"? Bernie far from being a sheepdog in fact played his hand rather intelligently and
with self-discipline in 2016 rather than lashing out angrily at being fucked over by the
party apparatus and reacting in a manner of which JR would surely approve...such as self
marginalising himself into yet another in an endless string of 3rd party losers who are now
footnotes in history at best.
There
is evidence that Bernie voters stayed home or voted Trump in 2016 in those MW states with
the slimmest margins for Trump. So the evidence indicates more that he fucked Hillary instead
of being her sheepdog... and of course had she won Bernie would not be in the 2020 game,
Obamacare would be solidified with the insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and drug
companies, DLC centrist politics would rule the land and we would not be talking so loudly
today about taxing the rich or advcating Medicare for all.
In several key states -- Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan -- the number of Sanders to
Trump defectors were greater than Trump's margin of victory, according to new numbers
released Wednesday by UMass professor Brian Schaffner.
Does JR simply believe electoral politics is a totally failed bit? I can grok that and
agree...to a point. Problem is he offers exactly nothing as a defined alternative
except...more of the same...vote 3rd party (like in, yawn, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016) or join a
"movement".
think the doom and gloomers in here decrying Sanders/Gabbard chances as securing the nom are
not being very sensible.
There is no doubt in my mind that Sanders will be the nom. Whether he picks Gabbard or not
will be telling.
Gabbard, so far, has been the straight-up most respectable, classy, and well-spoken
candidate hitting the media circuit. Whispers abound about her legitimacy and should not be
discounted.
And they already denied Sanders once. That was their free pass and you only get one of
those. Ask the Syria-interventionists and they will say the same: "We already burned through
the pass in Iraq and Afghanistan. Otherwise, Assad would have been publicly strung up and
hung on MSNBC by now."
There will be hell to pay if they deny Sanders again.
But this is all contingent on the fact that you don't already think that TPTB are setting
the table specifically for Sanders because he is already an owned man.
Here we go again with the same ol' question for the office of POTUS: "WHO ARE YOU?"
As long as Hunter Biden is still a director
of Burisma Holdings (which includes at least one other unpleasant individual on
the Board of Directors), there is always a chance that elements within or connected to the
Ukrainian government (even under Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Presidency, when he has his back
turned on his fellow politicians), the previous Poroshenko government or Poroshenko himself,
and / or the Maidan Revolution - Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovich and Chalupa sisters, we're
looking at all of you - might try to derail any or all of the Democratic Party presidential
candidates in attempts to have Joe Biden declared the official Democrat presidential
contender in 2020. The only question is how openly brazen these people are going to be in
order to save their pet project in Kiev before Ukraine erupts in civil war (and it won't be
civil war in the Donbass area) and the entire country goes down in flames.
As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this
respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard
needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and
his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections
she and her office staff have with
The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.
I donated to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign so there would be one anti-war candidate in the
Presidential debates. Having served in the first one, the restart of the Cold War is gut
wrenching. Today it is far more dangerous than 40 years ago. "Détente" is archaic,
Inequality in the West has reached the Gilded Age levels. The USA occupies East Syria even
though its regime change campaign failed. With the estrangement of Western Allies, trade wars
and economic sanctions against Russia and Iran, plus Joe Biden's trench war in Ukraine, the
slightest misstep and the global economy will crash. If a conflict breaks out with Russia or
China, the Trump Administration is too incompetent and arrogant to back down to avoid a
nuclear war. The 2020 election may well be the last chance to save the earth.
The accountability that is on offer in the upcoming election is to alter the structure of
the Democratic Party. The deck was stacked against the progressive challenge in the last
presidential election. Only a candidate who has genuine "fire-in-the-belly" has a chance to
beat Trump. Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Elizabeth Warren are the only ones I see who
are holding these credentials. I think you are wrong when you say that Sanders is finished
evolving, --and despite his age-- he is the most dynamic, among the older people Americans
seem to prefer to be president. It would do him some good and improve his chance of success,
if he chose for his running mate someone whose passion was equally sincere.
Political sour grapes and fatalism offer us no hope of coming through the next few years
intact.
Sanders is NOT anti-estblishment. He's just good at hiding his support for the establishment
so that he can be used as foil / sheepdog / spoiler.
"Enough with the emails" - Bernie refused to raise "character issues" about Hillary despite
the fact that she would face those same issues in the general election;
faux populist sell-out Obama campaigned for Bernie;
Bernie admitted that Hillary "a friend of 25 years" ;
Schumer refused to fund any Democratic Party candidate that would run against Sanders in
Vermont;
Sanders votes with the Democrats >95% of the time.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
We can debate the merits of each establishment stooge until we're blue in the face but
establishment plans for gaming the race are likely to have already made. It's be another good
show that millions of American's tune in to watch.
My best guess: gay Mayor Pete gets most of the primary media coverage which focuses on his
oh-so-sensible agenda, Obama-like likeability, and "historic" (did I mention that he's gay?)
run for the Presidency. But Pete and his running mate Biden fail to unseat Trump.
2024: Mayor Pete loses Democratic nomination to a women (Chelsea Clinton? she'll be 44)
and she wins the Presidency.
Unless, that is, Americans wake up and demand a real democracy.
'Bernie Sanders may well have the best chance to beat Trump on domestic policies. But he is
no progressive on foreign policy issues'
He campaigned against the Vietnam war before he got elected, he later opposed the Iraq
invasion, and recently led the Senate to oppose US involvement in Yemen. What is your
standard for calling him a progressive? Does he have to be to the Left of Noam Chomsky (who,
incidentally, says Sanders has the best policies out of any candidate)?
Those who cheer Sanders are ignoring both the hidden-in-plain-sight evidence for
"managed democracy" (e.g. duopoly, money-based electoral system; lapdog media; and Imperial
Deep State) and in-your-face lived history: Obama and Trump have both sweet-talked
their 'base' but ruled as servants of the establishment and a member of the Deep State.
What's needed for real change is a Movement that is outside duopoly politics. That is what
the establishment really fears. And that's why we are being pressed to get emotionally
engaged in this sh*t show 18-months before the election. Because they don't want people to
think of alternatives. You enslave yourselves.
Both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are clowns. They do not have a chance to win against Pres.
Trump, who will be the bankrupcy president. No one else would be able to handle it and the
oligarchs know it. Democracy ? It stopped being a joke.
As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this
respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard
needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and
his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections
she and her office staff have with The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.
Posted by: Jen | Apr 25, 2019 7:22:22 PM | 55
I checked out Jen's link regarding the Science of Identity Foundation - it is a very
skillfully written Republican hit job, complete with multiple references to Gabbard's
"support for foreign dictators" Putin and Assad, to her criticism of US fake allegations of
Assad chemical attacks, to her alleged Islamaphobia for arguing that genuine muslims be
differentiated from islamic terrorists, and her criticism of Obama for not bombing ISIS and
al-Qaida. In Part 1 the ultirior motives are relatively well hidden, but the start coming
into view in Parts 2 and 3, especially in her answers to comments in Part 3.
Interesting quote from Part 2 about Gabbard's guru Butler: "His father, the late Dr.
Willis Butler, was well-known locally for his far-left political activism and his staunch
opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign regime change wars, which he considered
counterproductive. Dr. Butler was particularly concerned about U.S. funding of groups in
Central America that he viewed as terrorists. " - sounds like at least Butler's father
had his head screwed on the right way round. If that is the origin in part of Gabbard's
opposition to regime change wars and US funding of terrorists then that at least was a
positive influence (although implicitly painted as negative in the article!)
Having said that, the article raises a number of important questions and is in that
respect an eye opener - it's just that the misleading and tainted manner in which the article
is written is dangerous without verifying the information - classic fake news.
I agree with Jen about the dangers of her support for Modi. I can't help suspecting she
sees the US (far-right) Indian-American elite as an important source of political funding for
her seat, and that I see as problematic.
The ceding of democracy to an unaccountable deep state in the US is at the heart of many of
the world's woes.
'The Devils Chessboard' (by DAvid Talbot) provides a riveting account of how cold war
paranoia became the engine to so much US thinking culminating in the murder of JFK (by the
CIA) once Kennedy became the first president to meaningfully challenge the authority of the
security apperatus.
The murderous policies Kennedy tried and failed to confront have only mushroomed since
then so that today we have a form of cryptofascism in the US that the media are in absolute
denial about.
JFK was gunned down.
Julian Assange will be consigned to solitary if the deep state has it's way.
But this doesn't stop MPs like jess Phillips, hacks like Hadley Freeman or other assorted
phonies in the 'liberal media' cheering them on – this is what we are up against.
Except JFK didn't do anything of the sort: and conducted a fair few murderous policies of his
own – inter alia: against Cuba and South Vietnam. But I am tired of arguing the point
with actual facts. What I will say, is that this pseudo-historic construct hides the and
heroifies the crimes of Empire and Unpeoples more than half the world. And normalises
Armageddon as a game of nuclear brinksmanship. We won't be so lucky again following the
satandardised diplomatic "13 Days" diplomacy. [That was a typo: but its staying as far more
eloquent than 'standardised']. A point I have made consistently for about two years: with
evidence. But opinion is averse to contradictory facticity. It would be nice to see a
symmetric history emerging: one that returns the humanity to the dehumanised of the world.
Not one that focuses on and normalises the murderous hagiography of the Great Men of Empire
but hey, ho. Loading...
What we do know is that JFK was preceived as sufficiently threating (to the interests of the
deep state) that the CIA blew his brains out.
It is this fundemental power dynamic that I am mostly alluding to – in other words
the way in which the intelligence apperatus rose above the law so that by '63 even the
president of the USA was not safe from their nefarious scheming.
By comparison a whitleblower is a far more vulnerable target and it appears the CIA have
been prepared to bide their time while a sham legal process goes through the motions in order
to create an illusion that justice is being served when in facts it's not, because as we all
know Asssange's fate has already been sealed.
I take your point about JFKs failings but given the fascistic nature of US power it is
very unlikely that an untainted politician could negotiate the many hurdles the prevent less
amoral individuals from reaching such rarefied heights.
With all due respect, Harry, we do not know that JFK was perceived as a 'threat' at all. That
is a retroactive conclusion drawn from a fabricated virtual JFK. I've shown he was not
turning to peace, not withdrawing from Vietnam, the MIC was doing rather well out of him
– particularly the Rand Corporation that was driving policy in Vietnam. He doubled the
nuclear arsenal and ordered a whole fleet of Polaris subs, alongside massively strengthening
his conventional forces – including his counterinsurgency forces that were currently
raping, torturing and murdering their way round any designated 'gooks' in Vietnam. He even
gave them a valedictory shoutout in his last recorded speech. And added that Vietnam would
fall overnight without them.
Millions of man hours and a trillion dollar industry have shone very little light on the
why. Speculation abounds. What he did do was really piss off a whole bunch of psychopaths (my
money is on Lyman Lemnitzer). The whole metaconspiracy thing seems contrived to me –
especially as it does not fit the evidence.
Points about the power structure are well made. The CIA and international intelligence
agencies – not strictly limited to 'Five Eyes' or even 'Fourteen Eyes' – seem to
have at least some integrated policy and are out of control.
Any derogatory remarks about the medias alternative Labour leader – Jess Phillips
– are welcome too.
BigB. Wrong again. A Washington journalist 3 weeks before the assassination wrote about the
CIA being out of control in Vietnam. His highly placed source reckoned too that a coup would
more likely come from the CIA before the Pentagon. The source in all likelihood was JFK. Just
because you are ignorant of something doesn't mean it wasn't so. Loading...
Well, Hugh – what can I say? You have steadfastly refused to even contemplate that the
Douglass pulp fiction is tripe. I have offered to go through the key pages and
cross-reference with any of Sheldon Stern's Excomm books – that show how contrived a
narrative fiction it is. You will not hear it. Nor will you hear anything of the murderous
policies of the Diem clan – and their forced Catholicisation and cultural genocide. Now
you are countering what I have adequately referenced in the past with "a reporter said".
Reporters say a lot of things: not necessarily linked to reality. Can you substantiate what
this anonymous reporter said?
His well chronicled persecution of, inter alia, the Cubans and the South Vietnamese speaks
volumes to those who have ears to hear. I believe the first thing he did was sign a
counterinsurgency order against North Vietnam – but I can't be bothered to check. His
whole programme there was illegal, contra International Humanitarian Law, contra the Geneva
Accords, contra humanity, contra life. They still have deformed children and environmental
problems from the rainbow of chemical warfare defoliants used in Operation Ranch Hand –
every run signed off by JFK initially. And still you defend him, denigrating the unpeopled
and deformed Other because a reporter said? Get real: he is not worthy of anyone's adulation.
You can't hide behind the CIA forever. He made plenty of anti-human decisions on his own.
Some of which nearly precipitated Armageddon.
Coming right back at ya: just because you are ignorant of something doesn't mean it wasn't
so.
A pilot with 30 years of flying
experience and 40 years of design experience rips decisions made by Boeing and the FAA.
Gregory Travis, a software developer and pilot for 30 years wrote a scathing report on the
limitations of the 737, and the arrogance of software developers unfit to write airplane code.
Travis provides easy to understand explanations including a test you can do by sticking your
hand out the window of a car to demonstrate stall speed.
Design shortcuts meant to make a new plane seem like an old, familiar one are to blame.
This was all about saving money. Boeing and the FAA pretend the 737-Max is the same aircraft as
the original 737 that flew in 1967, over 50 years ago.
Travis was 3 years old at the time. Back then, the 737 was a smallish aircraft with smallish
engines and relatively simple systems. The new 737 is large and complicated.
Boeing cut corners to save money. Cutting corners works until it fails spectacularly.
The original 737 had (by today's standards) tiny little engines, which easily cleared the
ground beneath the wings. As the 737 grew and was fitted with bigger engines, the clearance
between the engines and the ground started to get a little um, tight.
With the 737 Max, the situation became critical. The engines on the original 737 had a fan
diameter (that of the intake blades on the engine) of just 100 centimeters (40 inches); those
planned for the 737 Max have 176 cm. That's a centerline difference of well over 30 cm (a foot),
and you couldn't "ovalize" the intake enough to hang the new engines beneath the wing without
scraping the ground.
The solution was to extend the engine up and well in front of the wing. However, doing so
also meant that the centerline of the engine's thrust changed. Now, when the pilots applied
power to the engine, the aircraft would have a significant propensity to "pitch up," or raise
its nose. This propensity to pitch up with power application thereby increased the risk that the
airplane could stall when the pilots "punched it"
Worse still, because the engine nacelles were so far in front of the wing and so large, a
power increase will cause them to actually produce lift, particularly at high angles of attack.
So the nacelles make a bad problem worse.
I'll say it again: In the 737 Max, the engine nacelles themselves can, at high angles of
attack, work as a wing and produce lift. And the lift they produce is well ahead of the wing's
center of lift, meaning the nacelles will cause the 737 Max at a high angle of attack to go to a
higher angle of attack. This is
aerodynamic malpractice
of the worst kind.
It violated that most ancient of aviation canons and probably violated the certification
criteria of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. But instead of going back to the drawing
board and getting the airframe hardware right, Boeing relied on something called the
"Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System," or MCAS.
It all comes down to money
, and in this case, MCAS was the way for both Boeing and
its customers to keep the money flowing in the right direction. The necessity to insist that the
737 Max was no different in flying characteristics, no different in systems, from any other 737
was the key to the 737 Max's fleet fungibility. That's probably also the reason why the
documentation about the MCAS system was kept on the down-low.
Put in a change with too much visibility, particularly a change to the aircraft's operating
handbook or to pilot training, and someone -- probably a pilot -- would have piped up and said, "Hey.
This doesn't look like a 737 anymore." And then the money would flow the wrong way.
When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks it's
about to stall, a set of motors and jacks push the pilot's control columns forward. It turns out
that
the Elevator Feel Computer can put a lot of force into that column -- indeed, so much
force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to
tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening
.
MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is
turned off, when the pilots think they are flying the plane. I
n a fight between the flight
management computer and human pilots over who is in charge, the computer will bite humans until
they give up and (literally) die
. Finally, there's the need to keep the very existence of
the MCAS system on the hush-hush lest someone say, "Hey, this isn't your father's 737," and bank
accounts start to suffer.
Those lines of code were no doubt created by people at the direction of managers.
In a pinch, a human pilot could just look out the windshield to confirm visually and directly
that, no, the aircraft is not pitched up dangerously. That's the ultimate check and should go
directly to the pilot's ultimate sovereignty. Unfortunately, the current implementation of MCAS
denies that sovereignty. It denies the pilots the ability to respond to what's before their own
eyes.
In the MCAS system, the flight management computer is blind to any other evidence that it is
wrong, including what the pilot sees with his own eyes and what he does when he desperately
tries to pull back on the robotic control columns that are biting him, and his passengers, to
death.
The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far
out of their league and did not know it. How can they can implement a software fix, much less
give us any comfort that the rest of the flight management software is reliable?
So Boeing produced a dynamically unstable airframe, the 737 Max. That is big strike No.
1. Boeing then tried to mask the 737's dynamic instability with a software system. Big strike
No. 2. Finally, the software relied on systems known for their propensity to fail
(angle-of-attack indicators) and did not appear to include even rudimentary provisions to
cross-check the outputs of the angle-of-attack sensor against other sensors, or even the other
angle-of-attack sensor. Big strike No. 3.
None of the above should have passed muster. It is likely that MCAS, originally added in
the spirit of increasing safety, has now killed more people than it could have ever saved. It
doesn't need to be "fixed" with more complexity, more software. It needs to be removed
altogether
.
Numerous Bad Decisions at Every Stage
Ultimately 346 people are dead because of really bad decisions, software engineer arrogance, and
Boeing's pretense that the 737 Max is the same aircraft as 50 years ago.
It is incredible that the plane has two sensors but the system only uses one. A look out the
window was enough to confirm the sensor was wrong.
Boeing also offered "cheap" versions of the aircraft without some controls. The two crashed
flights were with the cheaper aircraft.
An experienced pilot with adequate training could have disengaged MACS but in one of the crashed
flights, the pilot was desperately reading a manual trying to figure out how to do that.
Flight Stall Test
If you stick you hand out the window of a car and your hand is level to the ground. You have a
low angle of attack. There is no lift. Tilt your hand a bit and you have lift. Your arm will rise.
When the angle of attack on the wing of an aircraft is too great the aircraft enters aerodynamic
stall. The same thing happens with your hand out a car window.
At a steep enough angle your arm wants to flop down on the car door.
The MACS software overrides what a pilot can see by looking out the window.
Useless Manuals
If you need a manual to stop a plane from crashing mid-flight, the manual is useless.
It's already too late.
The pilot had seconds in which to react. Yet, instead of requiring
additional training, and alerting pilots of the dangers, Boeing put this stuff in a manual.
This was necessary as part of the pretense that a 737 is a 737 is a 737.
In my day Pilot's were repeatedly cautioned not to fly the
aircraft to the scene of an accident since nobody survives a high
speed crash or a stall. Non-pilots can vote me down but the
proper action at the second the pilot lost control of his aircraft
that close to the ground should have been to pull power, drop
flaps, and make a soft field landing that some passengers would
have survived.
Sure it's a flying turd, but it will be back in the air soon. The
CEO can spew buzzwords at the speed of sound. The FAA will approve
any fix Boeing pukes forth cause nobody has the moral courage to
stand in the way of making the big money.
I saw that article in Spectrum and while it makes some points
about software development he mixes it up with generic claims way
beyond his expertise. Editors at Spectrum should be fired.
Cirrus Jet got grounded due to this MACS problem.. This CODE is
all over the place and probably in AIRBUS also [(.. I'm
betting that it was stolen from AIRBUS] Computer controlled fly
by wire is death-in-a-box as it can always be hacked.
Boeing thinks it will fix the problem with its "MCAS" software.
While it may do so on paper, there remains the problem of the
weight distribution of engines, cargo and fuel which is placing
the center of gravity behind the center of pressure for this
modified aircraft during flight near the stall point. That problem
is faulty aerodynamics. Any aircraft that is inherently
aerodynamically unstable should never be flown in a commercial
setting. Ground them all. Fire the stupid fools who allowed this
beast to fly, including those at the FAA. And finally, sell your
Boeing stock.
Bolton? NSA? Do you mean NSC? Everything we hear about Bolton lately is ideological
labeling as a so-called Neocon, more ambiguous bullshit, or tainting him by association with
Israelis. Funny how everybody just forgot what Bolton did at the UN, when Bush shoehorned him
in there without congressional consent. Bolton personally constipated the drafting of the
Summit Outcome Document to remove awkward mentions of the magic word impunity. The old perv
put up 700 amendments to obstruct the process.
Now, who cares that much about impunity? And why would it be such a big deal, unless you
had impunity in municipal law but the whole world was committed to ending impunity? Cause if
you think about it, that's what the whole world has been doing for 70 years, codifying the
Pre-CIA Nuremberg Principles as international criminal law and developing state
responsibility for internationally wrongful acts as customary and then conventional
international law. Who doesn't want that?
CIA. Impunity is CIA's vital interest. They go to war to keep it all the time.
@DESERT FOX
Wisely, DESERT FOX recalled Colonel Fletcher Prouty, and wrote: " the CIA is the zionist
chain dogs that rule America!"
Dear DESERT FOX,
As you know, for some very dramatic time, Attorney Garrison held Clay Shaw's
feet-to-the-fire while demonstrating the latter businessman's connection to the Israeli
company, Permindex.
So naturally, a reasonable & respectful question arises, for which there is likely no
available & conclusive determination.
Are CIA, Mossad, and M16 joined as one (1) ruling and globally unaccountable
"(Western) Zionist chain dog" link? Tough one, D.F., but am confident you can intelligently
handle it. Thanks & salud!
@ChuckOrloski
From what I have read, MI6 is under zionist control and is the template for the CIA and the
Mossad and is the controller of both the CIA and the Mossad and all three are under zionist
control.
Another good book is The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman a former officer in MI6 and
his videos on youtube.
Israel and the Ukraine are now the two countries on the planet in which both the
President [Zelenskii] and the Prime-Minister [Groisman] are Jews
just a day after his election Zelenskii is already making all sorts of anti-Russian
statements.
since Zelenskii has no personal power base of any kind, Kolomoiskii will have him do
exactly as he is told and Kolomoiskii can easily be told to behave by the Empire.
Here is a new ruler of Ukraine, the Israeli/Ukrainian/Swiss citizen Kolomoisky
:
The ethnically Jewish Kolomojsky has been the main financier of Azov Battalion
:
The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine.
Azov Battalion -- which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human
Rights Watch and the United Nations -- was incorporated into Ukraine's National Guard.
The New York Times called the battalion "openly neo-Nazi," while USA Today, The Daily
Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members' proclivity for swastikas,
salutes, and other Nazi symbols
The Trump administration is laying siege to Iran. Taking pages from the Iraq War playbook,
senior officials paint a picture of a rogue, outlaw, terrorist regime bent on acquiring
nuclear weapons and whose "malign activities" are the cause of all the chaos in the Middle
East. They know what they are doing. They have done it before. They are building a case for
war.
The neoconservatives in the Trump administration may want to that. But it is not
possible to wage war on Iran without
causing a global depression.
As the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy rightly points
out , the Hormuz Strait, through which most Middle East energy exports flows, is under
Iranian control
"... IMO, the numerous studies done over the decades since the Iranian Revolution and the futile attempt to overthrow it by waging war upon it via Iraqi proxy has proven to the US military that waging war again on Iran's a fatal policy mistake. ..."
It's not the amount per se; rather, it's who would be affected -- Deep State actors, not
deplorables. That such entities would find themselves victimized by Trump's actions provides
motivation to deter same.
IMO, the numerous studies done over the decades since the Iranian Revolution and the
futile attempt to overthrow it by waging war upon it via Iraqi proxy has proven to the US
military that waging war again on Iran's a fatal policy mistake.
The Bully Foursome--Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, and Trump--seem to believe they can get Iran to
submit where all other previous efforts have failed. Instead, their bullying tactics and
gifts to Zionistan generated blowback that's enlarging the Arc of Resistance, while
alienating Europe.
What's a Deep State actor to do? Pence is even more of a tyro than Trump and his rise to
POTUS must be avoided. If they could both be impeached and removed, then they'd get Pelosi,
which would likely be a relief.
With her as POTUS, it might be possible to derail Sanders.
But it must be admitted, grave damage to the Empire's facade's been done that's beyond
repair.
Understand this if nothing else, Khalifa Haftar is a terrorist hand puppet of the CIA. He
is a thief, a liar, a thug, and a traitor to Libya. He threatens legitimate Libyans daily and
uses the NSA listening equipment (brought into Libya in 2011) to target any Libya who speaks
his name. Khalifa Haftar would not ever be supported by Russia. This lie has been perpetrated
in the mainstream for years. Now they have stepped up their game and have stated that Russian
mercenaries are in Libya supporting Haftar at the behest of the leader of Russia. Nothing
could be farther from the truth.
The Great Tribes have confirmed to me everything that I have written.
Libya has lost their country to terrorist thugs, their infrastructure has been destroyed,
their wealth has been stolen and continues to be stolen. They have had one million Libyans
killed....
It is the assets and geographical location that they would own. The ruination, destruction
and death of Libya and her people are just acceptable collateral damage to achieve their evil
agenda.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or SIGAR just released the
third edition of its High-Risk List to the 116th Congress of the United States and the
Secretaries of both State and Defense. In this report, SIGAR identifies the most serious
threats to the American government's $132 billion reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. This
information is of particular interest and importance given that negotiations are currently
underway to end the United States' involvement in Afghanistan, involvement that began on
October 7, 2001, making this the longest military engagement in American history.
The report opens with this rather sobering summary of the past, present and future in
Afghanistan:
" The $132 billion appropriated since 2002 for Afghanistan's reconstruction has been used to
train and equip Afghan security forces, strengthen government institutions, promote the rule of
law, protect women's rights, improve health and education, and stimulate economic development,
among other objectives. Yet the gains from our nation's investment in Afghanistan's reconstruction face multiple
threats: continued insecurity, endemic corruption, weak Afghan institutions, the insidious
impact of the narcotics trade, and inadequate coordination and oversight by donors. While an equitable and sustainable peace agreement in Afghanistan could end much of the
violence that presents the greatest threat to the reconstruction effort, a peace agreement may
bring its own set of challenges to sustaining the gains that the United States, its Coalition
partners, and the Afghan government have achieved over that time." (my bold)
Here is a listing of the eight current high risk areas: 1.) Widespread Insecurity - whether a peace plan is put into place or not, Afghanistan
is likely to continue to experience multiple violent extremist organizations. The Afghan
National Defense and Security Forces require annual funding of between $4 billion and $5
billion to remain viable. 2.) Underdeveloped Civil Policing Capability - The United States has spent more effort
reconstructing the Afghan National Army than on the Afghan National Police meaning that there
is no strategy for a competent civil police force backed by rule of law. Sustaining a national
police force will require significant foreign funding. 3.) Endemic Corruption - Corruption is endemic and forms a significant threat to the
Afghan government. This means that reconstruction programs will continue to be subverted and
are likely to fail. Here is a graphic from Transparency International showing where Afghanistan
lies on the global spectrum when it comes to corruption:
Afghanistan has the world's 9th lowest corruption score as shown on this list: 4.) Sluggish Economic Growth - Afghanistan's legal economy is sluggish and there are
numerous barriers to further economic growth. 5.) Illicit Narcotics Trade - Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer of opium
poppies and had the two highest years of cultivation in 2017 and 2018. Funds from the illicit
drug trade fund the Taliban, corrupt members of the Afghan government, military and police and
also employ 600,000 Afghanis. 6.) Threats to Women's Rights - More than $1 billion has been spent since 2002 to
advance the status of women in Afghanistan but gains made so far are fragile, particularly in
rural areas, and are likely to be unprotected should the Taliban be part of a peace
settlement. 7.) Challenge of Reintegration - The social, economic and political reintegration of
tens of thousands of former fighters back into Afghan society will be difficult, particularly
in light of the nation's weak economy and political uncertainty and distrust. 8.) Restricted Oversight - If a peace settlement includes reductions in foreign
personnel providing oversight on foreign funded programs, problems in the nation will only
increase thanks to high levels of corruption.
Let's look at some examples of where U.S. tax dollars have been spent in Afghanistan. Since
2001, an estimated $780 billion has been appropriated for Afghanistan including war funding,
diplomatic and consular programs, military and embassy construction projects etcetera. Of this
$738 billion or 95 percent of the total was obligated by the Department of Defense.
Reconstruction costs make up 15 percent of total U.S. funds obligated for Afghanistan since
2001 and are broken down as follows: 1.) Security - $83.1 billion (63 percent of the total) to build up Afghan military and
police. In fiscal 2019, 82 percent of the funds appropriated for Afghanistan reconstruction
were spent on assisting the security sector. The "success" of this program can be put into
perspective with
this map showing the areas of Afghanistan that are under control of the Taliban, the
original target of Operation Enduring Freedom: 2.) Governance and Economic Development - $33.9 billion (26 percent of the total). In
fiscal 2018, only 12 percent of the funds appropriated for Afghanistan reconstruction were
spent on improving the nation's economy. 3.) Counternarcotics Programs - $8.9 billion (7 percent of the total).
The remaining 4 percent of reconstruction funds have been spent to support civilian operations,
humanitarian initiatives and in combating society-wide corruption.
Let's close by looking at a few quotes from the report that show just how dire the situation in
Afghanistan still is nearly 18 years after Operation Enduring Freedom began and how unlikely a
peace settlement is likely to change the situation on the ground: 1.)Failure to successfully reintegrate an estimated 60,000 Taliban fighters and
their families, and other illegal armed groups, could undermine the successful implementation
of any peace agreement.
2.) The opium trade plays a significant role in the Afghan economy and it is difficult to
seehow a peace accord between the Afghan government and the insurgency would translate
into the collapse or contraction of the illicit drug trade. The country requires a growing
economy or favorable economic conditions to provide farmers and former insurgents with
legitimate employment and a reliable income to replace opium poppy cultivation. The Afghan
government also needs to pursue major drug traffickers, which it has not done consistently or
successfully. According to the Department of Justice, "certain influential people are above the
law."
3.) Effective policing will require a force that gives citizens the presumption of innocence
rather than anticipating and taking preemptive offensive operations against perceived threats.
U.S. agencies, such as the Justice Department, currently lack the personnel numbers and
para-military strength to accompany Afghan National Police trainees into high-threat
districts.
4.) In a post-settlement environment, depending on the terms of an agreement, there may also
be the challenge of integrating former Taliban fighters into the national security forces and
society. These issues could become more acute should international financial and military
support decline sharply before, during, or after peace talks between the Afghan government and
the Taliban.
Let's close this sobering view of Afghanistan's future with an excerpt from the prepared
remarks given by
the the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John F. Sopko that
accompanied the release of the report:
" If the U.S. reduces its presence in Afghanistan but feels compelled to provide significant
financial support for reconstruction, there may be little choice but to provide a greater
proportion of funding as on-budget assistance. But if that road is taken, assistance should be
conditioned on an independent finding that adequate monitoring mechanisms and internal controls
for the Afghan ministry or multilateral trust fund in question are in place. If those conditions are lacking and assistance is provided anyway, we may as well set the
cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do. I urge Congress to not just think about how much money should be given, but also to think
about how that money will be provided and monitored. If the need for oversight is ignored or
sidelined, both the American taxpayer and the Afghan people will suffer, even with a successful
peace agreement." (my bold)
At the very least, it appears that 18 years of war has accomplished almost nothing when it
comes to meaningful and permanent changes in Afghanistan despite the spending of hundreds of
billions of hard-earned taxpayers' dollars.
"... Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US continues to control the financial system. ..."
It's complete fiction that the US is going after Venezuelan oil so as to confront Iran. If
Maduro goes so does Venezuela as civil war erupts and spreads to other countries. No oil
company is going to put itself and it's employees in such a danger zone.
It is also complete fiction that Trump was against going after Venezuela as he has been on
them almost from day one and every time Trump announces more sanctions or makes threats he's
as giddy as a kid in a candy store and relishes handing out the pain. In one of his latest
speeches to a gathering of the faithful he not only gleefully stomped on Venezuela but also
announced the US is going to overthrow the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua.
Trump was barely in office when the US undid the efforts by Obama to normalize relations
with Cuba and as of the first of the year put sanctions on Nicaragua.
This after NED and USAID last summer brought radicals from Nicaragua to DC for training in
riots and rabble rousing. Which they did after returning home. In his speech Trump claimed
that by overthrowing those governments this hemisphere will be the "only totally free
hemisphere in the world". If the plan was to get Venezuelan oil so as to shut off Iran the US
would have supported Maduro, Venezuela is no danger to US security, and offered to send in
the best engineers to get the oil industry rolling. The US is now sanctioning the tankers so
as to cut off even more revenue to Venezuela and deprive Cuba of oil.
Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep
state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the
power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a
one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so
his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US
continues to control the financial system.
If the US does attack Iran it will be a Libya affair using only air power to cripple them
and cause internal chaos.
April 12, 2019 Back in April 2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo
delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this speech,
he made some very pointed comments about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange that provide us with a
glimpse into the mindset that currently inhabits the Department of State in particular and
Washington as a whole and why the events of April 11th, 2019 occurred.
Here are some key quotes from the rather lengthy speech which looked at America's intelligence
community. Early in the speech, he makes this comment:
" As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence
documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the
authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures. But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be
ignored.There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements
of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these
voices -- ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy -- gain a gravity they do not
deserve." (my bolds)
It is important to note that Mr. Pompeo will not comment on the authenticity of documents that
are disclosed by whistleblowers but that, in the next breath, he states that these documents
are part of a false narrative that demean and distort the work of America's intelligence
community.
He goes on to note that the CIA does admit to making mistakes and that it is accountable to the
"free and open society that they help to defend" and that the CIA is willing to make its
mistakes public to a degree that other nations cannot match.`
Here's what he has to say about WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange:
" And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like
WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly
collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves.
As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage
they cause to national security. WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence
service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain
intelligence.It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret
information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from
anti-democratic countries and organizations. It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile
intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this
year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence -- the GRU --
had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber
operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia's
primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post -- and I have a
feeling that many of you in this room do -- yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry
penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared
himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of
legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only
imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained. Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of
America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows
nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a
hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America
through the early years of the Cold War. No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would
have found himself on the wrong side of history. We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes,
they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and
privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is
clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement
through the destruction of Western values. They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they
would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech
and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments
-- which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant. Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for
example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of
scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to
the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous." (my bolds)
Actually, when it comes to Russia and the "pass" that it has been given by WikiLeaks, Mr.
Pompeo could not be more wrong. On September 19, 2017, WikiLeaks published its " Spy Files Russia " documents which
provided insight into Russia's surveillance contractors. In the case of Russia, Russias
communication providers are required by law to install components for surveillance which is
provided by the FSB which are linked to the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. And,
perhaps we can attribute WikiLeaks ability to release information on America's intelligence
community because it is far more prone to leaks than the intelligence communities of other
nations.
Mr. Pompeo also provided his audience with a direct link between WikiLeaks and terrorism:
" As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most
determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa'ida in the Arabian
Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight
America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned. AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It
is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of
life as well.That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of
reprehensible." (my bold)
Here is Mr. Pompeo's three part solution to the Assange "problem": 1.) It is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called
transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers
pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an
acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons. 2.) There are steps that we have to take at home -- in fact, this is a process we've already
started. We've got to strengthen our own systems; we've got to improve internal mechanisms that
help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a
wake-up call after Snowden's treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated. I can't go
into great detail, but the steps we take can't be static. Our approach to security has to be
constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won't
relent, and neither will we. 3.) We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude
to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated
secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now."
Let's close with two brief items. First, here's what the ACLU has to
say about the arrest and potential American prosecution of Julian Assange:
Second, after Assange's arrest, Donald Trump had this to say about WikiLeaks:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ztxcRHCHj4
" I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing and I know there is something having to
do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a
determination I would imagine mostly by the Attorney General who is doing an excellent
job." Here's what the
President had to say about WikiLeaks during the 2016 Presidential election cycle:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnEoVzLKNPw
While it may have taken a few days less than two years to complete his dream of getting rid of
Julian Assange, it is abundantly clear from the CIA Director's speech that Mr. Assange's fate
was sealed once Mike Pompeo had direct access Washington's power brokers no matter what Donald
Trump had to say about WikiLeaks back in 2016. Fortunately for those of us on the outside that
rely on WikiLeaks to learn more about the hidden secrets of governments and the corporate
world, the group will continue to exist with or without its founder.
Posted by A Political Junkie at
8:30 AM Labels: Julian Assange ,
Mike
Pompeo , Wikileaks2
comments:
Dedicated to revealing facts that allows the public to "see" the truth is Julian
Assange, a man of integrity that is lacking in many of our politicians. They say the
"truth" hurts but it is the only way to gain wisdom to improve our world.
Bolton? NSA? Do you mean NSC? Everything we hear about Bolton lately is ideological
labeling as a so-called Neocon, more ambiguous bullshit, or tainting him by association with
Israelis. Funny how everybody just forgot what Bolton did at the UN, when Bush shoehorned him
in there without congressional consent. Bolton personally constipated the drafting of the
Summit Outcome Document to remove awkward mentions of the magic word impunity. The old perv
put up 700 amendments to obstruct the process.
Now, who cares that much about impunity? And why would it be such a big deal, unless you
had impunity in municipal law but the whole world was committed to ending impunity? Cause if
you think about it, that's what the whole world has been doing for 70 years, codifying the
Pre-CIA Nuremberg Principles as international criminal law and developing state
responsibility for internationally wrongful acts as customary and then conventional
international law. Who doesn't want that?
CIA. Impunity is CIA's vital interest. They go to war to keep it all the time.
@DESERT FOX
Wisely, DESERT FOX recalled Colonel Fletcher Prouty, and wrote: " the CIA is the zionist
chain dogs that rule America!"
Dear DESERT FOX,
As you know, for some very dramatic time, Attorney Garrison held Clay Shaw's
feet-to-the-fire while demonstrating the latter businessman's connection to the Israeli
company, Permindex.
So naturally, a reasonable & respectful question arises, for which there is likely no
available & conclusive determination.
Are CIA, Mossad, and M16 joined as one (1) ruling and globally unaccountable
"(Western) Zionist chain dog" link? Tough one, D.F., but am confident you can intelligently
handle it. Thanks & salud!
@ChuckOrloski
From what I have read, MI6 is under zionist control and is the template for the CIA and the
Mossad and is the controller of both the CIA and the Mossad and all three are under zionist
control.
Another good book is The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman a former officer in MI6 and
his videos on youtube.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to
strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports. They claim it's because of Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons and missiles and its support for terrorism. In a recent speech at Texas A&M
University he finally told the truth about the CIA and the neocons - they lie and cheat and
steal. So should we believe him now?
PAUL JAY Can I–Can I just intervene for just a sec? The problem here is both on
Venezuela and Iran the Democratic Party foreign policy establishment is on the same page as
Trump. Netanyahu is on the same page as Trump. The Saudis are on the same page as Trump. When
Trump throws this missile, missiles into Syria after the supposed gas attack, Chuck Schumer
says finally Trump's acting president -- is a president. The problem is is that as much as
these guys vilify and are dangerous -- these guys meaning the Democrats and that whole
establishment are dangerous on Russia-
STEPHEN COHEN I don't disagree.
PAUL JAY They'll converge with Trump on some very dangerous stuff in Iran.
STEPHEN COHEN I don't disagree. But that brings me to my final point, I guess, because we
are at the time we are in. We now have, I think, at last count 19 or 20 Democratic would be
contenders for the presidential nomination; 19 or 20. We need to ask ourselves which, if any,
of these people see these dangers clearly, and ask them. But I have a feeling that the
mainstream media will not ask them, because these are uncomfortable issues for them. I also
think that the one candidate who has embraced a position similar to my own, Tulsi Gabbard, was
immediately attacked by NBC, as you know. Scurrilously.
That it's a question of what kind of discussion–because according to our democracy
these existential issues that you and I have discussed are discussed during presidential
campaigns. This is when we clarify and make our choices. It seems to me this is unlikely to
happen, partly because the mainstream media doesn't permit voices like mine any longer. Though
they used to welcome me. I used to work for them. It would be interesting to see how they treat
Tulsi Gabbard, who's the closest to this kind of anxiety about the new Cold War with Russia,
has taken positions on this. There may be others, but I haven't–I haven't noted that.
We'll see how they're–if there's an attempt to suppress her view, or to give her a fair
time. Now, she'll have to do well in a primary somewhere to get that. But it's a little
discouraging that of 19 or 20 Democrats, only one thus far has spoken with some clarity about
this, what I consider to be the number one existential issue; the danger of war with
Russia.
Looks like tail wags the dog -- CIA controls the US foreign policy and in the last elections
also played active role in promoting Hillary. A the level of top brass we have
several people mentioned by Giraldi who are probably as dangerous as Allen Dulles was. Brennan
is one example.
The parade of rogues that Philip describes is really
alarming. Each with agenda that directly harms
the USA as a country promoting the interest of military-industrial complex and neocon
faction within the government...
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter. ..."
"... Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level would appear to be fully on board with that effort. ..."
"... Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was revealed in the press two weeks ago. ..."
"... Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of totally bereft of his senses. ..."
"... Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting attended by Pompeo, he told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent (one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down. ..."
"... And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration. Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been some Russian recruitment of Trump people. He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." ..."
"... Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan, and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time. ..."
"... Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia. ..."
"... The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like the British MI5. The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words. ..."
"... As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants of the Deep State. ..."
"... The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary to its purposes. ..."
"... The CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service, long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has done. ..."
"... The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. ..."
"... While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies, it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos, the bankster mafiosi. ..."
"... I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are – Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments. The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too well the truth about the Clintons and Obama. ..."
"... Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally oblivious to their own uselessness. ..."
"... How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries. On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN. ..."
"... Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began. ..."
"... Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside the group consensus. ..."
"... So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to face. ..."
"... Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set himself up for success in the next elections. ..."
"... What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink" in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles' thought pattern & subsequent action. ..."
"... To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically sworn in on a bible. ..."
Long ago, when I was a spear carrying middle ranker at CIA, a colleague took me aside and said
that he had something to tell me "as a friend," that was very important. He told me that his wife
had worked for years in the Agency's Administrative Directorate, as it was then called, where she
had noticed that some new officers coming out of the Career Trainee program had red tags on their
personnel files. She eventually learned from her boss that the tags represented assessments that
those officers had exceptional potential as senior managers. He added, however, that the reverse
appeared to be true in practice as they were generally speaking serial failures as they ascended
the bureaucratic ladder, even though their careers continued to be onward and upward on paper. My
friend's wife concluded, not unreasonably, that only genuine a-holes had what it took to get promoted
to the most senior ranks.
I was admittedly skeptical but some recent activity by former and current Directors and Acting
Directors of CIA has me wondering if something like my friend's wife's observation about senior management
might indeed be true. But it would have to be something other than tagging files, as many of the
directors and their deputies did not come up through the ranks and there seems to be a similar strain
of lunacy at other U.S. government intelligence agencies. It might be time to check the water supply
in the Washington area as there is very definitely something in the kool-aid that is producing odd
behavior.
Now I should pause for a moment and accept that the role of intelligence services is to identify
potential threats before they become active, so a certain level of acute paranoia goes with the job.
But at the same time, one would expect a level of professionalism which would mandate accuracy rather
than emotion in assessments coupled with an eschewing of any involvement in the politics of foreign
and national security policy formulation. The enthusiasm with which a number of senior CIA personnel
have waded into the Trump swamp and have staked out positions that contradict genuine national interests
suggests that little has been learned since CIA Director George Tenet sat behind Secretary of State
Colin Powell in the UN and nodded sagaciously as Saddam Hussein's high crimes and misdemeanors were
falsely enumerated.
Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who
have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than
anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war
and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter.
Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money
flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being
made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed
by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority
of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been
sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been
selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's
defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level
would appear to be fully on board with that effort.
The most recent inexplicable comments come from the current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, speaking
at the Aspen Institute Security Forum. He began by asserting that Russia had interfered in the U.S.
election
before saying that the logic behind Russia's Middle Eastern strategy is to stay in place in Syria
so Moscow can "stick it to America." He didn't define the "it" so one must assume that "it" stands
for any utensil available, ranging from cruise missiles to dinner forks. He then elaborated, somewhat
obscurely, that "I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think
they find that something that's useful."
Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting
ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged
in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It
just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been
fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate
has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency
to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors
which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was
revealed in the press two weeks ago.
Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of
totally bereft of his senses. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee back in May,
he suggested that some Trump associates might have been recruited by the Russian intelligence service.
He testified that
"I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions
between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about
because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether
or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals."
In his testimony, Brennan apparently forgot to mention that the CIA is not supposed to keep tabs
on American citizens. Nor did he explain how he had come upon the information in the first place
as it had been handed over by foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians,
and at least some of it had been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first
place. Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian
operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected,
which admittedly was a longshot at the time. That is how Russiagate started.
Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting
attended by Pompeo, he
told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials
should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent
(one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down.
A lesser known former CIA senior official is
John McLaughlin,
who briefly served as acting Director in 2004. McLaughlin was particularly outraged by Trump's recent
speech to the Boy Scouts, which he described as having the feel "of a third world authoritarian's
youth rally." He added that "It gave me the creeps it was like watching the late Venezuelan [President
Hugo] Chavez."
And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied
to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration.
Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose
show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been
some Russian recruitment of Trump people.
He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify
vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr.
Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr.
Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."
I and others noted at the time that Putin and Trump had never met, not even through proxies, while
we also wondered how one could be both unwitting and a recruited agent as intelligence recruitment
implies control and taking direction. Morell was non-plussed, unflinching and just a tad sanctimonious
in affirming that his own intelligence training (as an analyst who never recruited a spy in his life)
meant that "[I] call it as I see it."
One could also cite Michael Hayden and James Clapper, though the latter was not CIA They all
basically hew to the same line about Russia, often in more-or-less the same words, even though no
actual evidence has been produced to support their claims. That unanimity of thinking is what is
peculiar while academics like Stephen Cohen, Stephen Walt, Andrew Bacevich, and John Mearsheimer,
who have studied Russia in some depth and understand the country and its leadership far better than
a senior CIA officer, detect considerable nuance in what is taking place. They all believe that the
hardline policies current in Washington are based on an eagerness to go with the flow on the comforting
inside-the- beltway narrative that paints Russia as a threat to vital interests. That unanimity of
viewpoint should surprise no one as this is more of less the same government with many of the same
people that led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They all have a vested interested in the
health and well-being of a fully funded national security state.
And the other groupthink that seems to prevail among the senior managers except Pompeo is that
they all hate Donald Trump and have done so since long before he won the election. That is somewhat
odd, but it perhaps reflects a fear that Trump would interfere with the richly rewarding establishment
politics that had enabled their careers. But it does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of CIA
employees. Though it is admittedly unscientific analysis on my part, I know a lot of former and some
current CIA employees but do not know a single one who voted for Hillary Clinton. Nearly all voted
for Trump.
Beyond that exhibition of tunnel vision and sheer ignorance, the involvement of former senior
intelligence officials in politics is itself deplorable and is perhaps symptomatic of the breakdown
in the comfortable bipartisan national security consensus that has characterized the past fifty years.
Once upon time former CIA officers would retire to the Blue Ridge mountains and raise Labradors,
but we are now into something much more dangerous if the intelligence community, which has been responsible
for most of the recent leaks, begins to feel free to assert itself from behind the scenes. As Senator
Chuck Schumer
recently warned "Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community -- they have six ways
from Sunday at getting back at you."
In jumping this fascist nihilist shark, the groupthinkers have closed themselves off from the
logical conclusion to their viewpoint, which is final annihilation.
Brennan, Morell, and Pompeo should better find ways to justify their salaries: the U.S. has
suffered the greatest breach in cybersecurity on their watch:
" an enormous breach of the United States Security Apparatus by as many as 80 Democrat members
of Congress (past and present). We rail on about the Russians and Trump, but t he media avoids
providing nightly updates about these 5 spies that have compromised Congress ."
"In total, Imran's firm was employed by 31 Democrats in Congress, some of whom held extremely
sensitive positions on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House
Committee on Foreign Affair s."
Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and
blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan,
and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time.
And back to reality we have VIPS Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the
United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking
came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia.
That is war, World War Three and it would seem now that Congress is marching that way, but
the report below hold the key to fighting back.
One of the VIPS is William Binney fomer NSA Technical Director, an important expert. leading
the group is Ray McGovern with some whit and grace, well yes how about some sanity, to which humor
is important to the insight and to stay in the sights of what is clever thievery and worse. Much
worse,
and there is a twinkle in the eye when realize that it is straight forward.
And Congress could stop it tout sweet, but well old habits but they have taken an Oath of Office,
so, so what, yeah they did go after Bernie, so will you challenge your elected officials, either
do their sworn duty or resign, for what this sanctions bill against Russia and Iran is a declaration
of war, not only against Russia and Iran, but a declaration of war against the United States.
for there is no reason to do this against Russia when indeed there are great opportunities to
get along, but war is the insanity as it is sedition and treason. Tell them that,
I wonder if groupthink exists.
In any organisation people know quite well why the organisation exists, what the threats are to
its existence.
If they think about this, I wonder.
The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like
the British MI5.
The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words.
If indeed Trump changes USA foreign policy, no longer trying to control the world, the CIA is
obsolete, as obsolete as NATO.
" but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA
had any say in the matter."
Not to defend the CIA, but didn't Rumsfeld, doubt the enthusiasm of the CIA for providing the
slanted, bogus, "sexed up" intelligence the Executive required to make its "destroy Iraq now"
case ? So Rumsfeld therefore set up an independent intelligence agency within the Defence Dept
to provide/create the required "intelligence" ?
I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find
that something that's useful."
Yeah, because that's what resource-constrained countries with limited ability to tap the global
capital markets do. Methinks Mr. Pompeo is projecting his and the neocons' fantasies on the Russians.
As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor
decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep
State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who
make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants
of the Deep State.
Being resistant to jargon and catch phrases it is only slowly that I have accepted that "Deep
State" is not entirely pretentious waffle when used to describe aspects of the US. However I may
not be your only reader PG who would appreciate a clear explanatory description of the American
Deep State and how it works.
Here are some suggested parameters.
The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in
the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal
of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary
to its purposes.
And its origins imply that it is not just one in a number of major influences ln government or
those who vote for it.
So one has to acknowledge that in the US the Deep State has to be different in the important
respect that levers of power are observably wielded by lobbies for the aged, gun owners and sellers,
Israel, Wall Street, bio fuels, sugar and other ag, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, the arms industry,
Disney and other Hollywood and media, health insurers and the medical profession, and I could
go on.
These are all relevant to legal events like votes on impeachment or to hold up appointments.
The CIA and FBI together completely united (and note how disunited 9/11 showed them to be) wouldn't
remotely approach the old Turkish Deep State's ability to stage a coup. Are all of the putative
elements of the Deep State together today as powerful as J.Edgar Hoover with his dirt files on
everyone? (A contrast and compare exercise of today's presumed Deep State configuration and modus
operandi with the simpler Hoover days might shine some light on who does what and how today. And
how effectively).
To avoid lack of focus can a convincing account of the US Deep State be best given in terms
of a plausible scenario for
getting rid of Trump as President and/or
maintaining the lunacy and hubris which has the US wasting its substance on totally unnecessary
antagonistic relations with China and Russia and interference in the ME?
I would read such accounts with great interest. (Handwavers need not apply).
Of course the US Deep State must hate Russia. First, Jews have a very long history of hating Russia and Russians. That never changed. The
USSR was not Russia; the USSR was Marxism replacing Russia. Jews tended to love that. Rich Jews
from across the world, from the US and the UK of most interest to us, sent money to support the
Bolshevik Revolution.
Russia managed to survive the USSR and is slowly coming back around to Russian common sense
from the Christian perspective. Neither Jews nor their WASP BFFs can ever forgive that. They want
Russia to act now to commit cultural and genetic suicide, like Western Europe and the entire Anglosphere
are doing.
@polistraThe CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service,
long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has
done.
The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence
Presidency.
While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies,
it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos,
the bankster mafiosi.
But doing so would mean a voluntary end to playing the role of Sauron, determined to find and
wear the One Ring to Rule Them All. The average Elite WASP, and his Jewish BFF, definitely would
prefer to destroy the world, at least outside their gated compounds of endless luxury, than to
step down from that level of global domination.
@Wizard
of Oz Wiz – Here is an article I did on the Deep State two years ago. It was one of the first
in the US media looking at the issue. It would have to be updated now in light of Trump, but much
of what it states is still more-or-less correct.
But we need to make certain that your use of the word 'mafiosi' does not lead anyone to assume
that group has more than a handful of Italians. Jews, WASPs, and continental Germanics each will
outnumber Italians by at least 30 to 1.
I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are –
Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments.
The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans
who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too
well the truth about the Clintons and Obama.
Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the
Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success
balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead
and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally
oblivious to their own uselessness.
Well before he was elected I had a letter delivered to President Trump in which I outlined in
detail what would happen to him if he did not immediately purge the CIA of these assholes. I know
that at least some people on his staff read it but, of course, my advice was ignored. Trump has
paid dearly for not listening to an ordinary CIA guy who wanted to give him a reality brief on
those vicious snakes.
Historical facts teach humanity that Anglo-Saxon group of Nations was built on slavery, thuggery
and theft of other peace loving Civilizations.
We Slavs are the New "niggers", hate is the glue that holds you "toGether".
People of color have been successfully conditioned and practice it as well.
Time will tell how well it holds when balloon bursts and 99% gets called to serve as cannon fodder.
Terrorizing UNARMED and WEAKER is not true test of "superiority" and "exceptionalism".
Tiny, extremely tiny minority of Anglo-Saxons and Satraps understand this.
How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they
had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries.
On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed
to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the
DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN.
Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes
of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then
and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because
of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in
the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption
and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began.
It probably does as do group psychoses and group fantasies.. Anyone who's ever served in a beuaracracy
knows that groupthink exists.
Take a bunch of mediocre minds. And, they do exist, as Garrison Keiler once famously made a
joke out of with his line Welcome to Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.
Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career
advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside
the group consensus. If everyone is wrong, then there is safety in the group. After all, if they
are wrong, so was everyone else in the organization. Thus they are immune to attack and censure
for being wrong. But if someone takes a position outside of the group consensus, that can be a
career-ending move if they are wrong, as now everyone else will be in the I-told-U-So camp. And
even if they are correct, they will still be hated and shunned just for being the person who pointed
out to the group that they are wrong.
So, you take your typical average mind, and not only do they not have any great insights of
their own, but they tend to stick to the group out of sheer survival and then when you take a
mass of these mediocre minds you have 'groupthink'.
If only Trump would really clean the swamp - particularly the neo-cons and other traitors and
globalists. One can dream ....
What we've learned from Trump is that 'Draining the Swamp' will
take more than an individual. It will take a political movement.
One sees this on the fringes of politics. Someone gets the idea of running for President, and
they point out all that is wrong. But, they focus only on their own campaign, their own goal,
and they thus gloss over the fact that they'll be outnumbered and powerless even if they win.
Seen this often on the Left. The most recent example is Bernie Sanders. Likewise, had Bernie
been elected President, he too would face an entrenched establishment and media with only a small
fraction of the Congress supporting him.
Change has to be built from the bottom up. There are no shortcuts. Electing a Trump, or a Nader
or a Bernie does not lead to real change. Step one is to build the political movement such that
it has real voting block power and which has already won voting majorities in the legislature
before the movement achieves the election of a President.
What Trump has needed to be doing for this first two years is to form clear divisions that
he could then take to his voters in the mid-term elections. He's needed to lay out his own agenda.
So what if he loses votes in Congress? He then takes that agenda back to the voters in 2018 with
a nationwide slate of Congressional candidates who support that agenda and runs a midterm campaign
asking the voters to help him drain that swamp.
So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who
cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless
war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support
me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer
to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to
face.
Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set
himself up for success in the next elections.
It is a serious error to consider President Trump "naive."
What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink"
in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles'
thought pattern & subsequent action.
To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by
the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically
sworn in on a bible.
Mr. Trump is neither naive nor stupid. Sheldon Adelson would not donate $millioms to any POTUS
wannabe who could not effectively lead the American Groupthink tradition. Subsequently, the political
horror show is brought to you in the understandable form of the perpetually elusive Deep State
which gets annual Academy Award.
" Venezuela tops the list with 300.9 billion barrels of oil in reserve – but even
this vast wealth in natural resources has not been enough to save the country from its
recent economic and humanitarian crisis."
LOL, good one. It's BECAUSE of their vast wealth that they cannot operate a country free
of external interference, internal sabotage and the world's biggest bully attacking its
electrical generation and grid. We can't have a successful socialist economy with THAT much
oil, now, can we? And while Maduro did make some mistakes with the economy, it wasn't enough
to bring about this "economic and humanitarian crisis." No, that level of shitstorm requires
the intervention of the Yoo Nited States of America and "experts" on the region like Elliot
Abrams (why isn't he in jail again? Oh yeah never mind, two systems of law in this country)
and Mike Pom-Pom-Peon.
If the U.S. hadn't attempted coup after coup after coup, and actually let Venezuela's
little experiment in Chavismo socialism play out on its own, we'd probably be seeing a South
American version of Libya - at one time the richest country in Africa with healthcare for
everyone - before France and the Yooo Nited States decided to destroy it. Of course it's too
much to ask for a blog called "Visual Capitalist" to acknowledge this, and it's also pretty
much par for the course with the sour right who comes to ZH for their daily fix of liberal
bashing and rah, rah America is great! And so are (((they))). Of course.
You're way out of your depth on this topic. You wouldn't be able to point to a single
thing that Maduro did which would have had long-lasting consequences such as what we are
seeing now. Total moron - the Venezuelan masses wealth was stolen by the landed former
Spanish colonialists and their offspring, who then were given all the good oil leases, and
bailed on the country (sabotaged it on their way out - along with the food supply) as Chavez
started giving wealth BACK to the masses. You know NOTHING about Venezuela and like many
other things you parade around pretending to be some kind of expert while you're just a
typical zionist moron.
The US and our buddies have been cutting VZ off from any external capital, but more
importantly FREEZING their assets and preventing them from accessing THEIR OWN gold. If that
was happening to one of our so-called allies, we'd be calling it THEFT. You idiot.
But let's play - find me a source that backs your assertions. Point to paragraph and
sentence where your claims are laid out clearly for all to see. How did Maduro COMPLETELY
**** up Venezuela? Your turn...
The Bolivarian Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically
reduced poverty and
illiteracy while greatly improving health and other living conditions for millions of
Venezuelans, drew worldwide acclaim. The reforms, which included
nationalizing key components of the nation's economy as part of an agenda of socialist
uplift, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela's
oligarchs. The exportation of the Bolivarian Revolution, which included forging stronger,
more peaceful inter-American relations and even the provision of
free home heating oil for hundreds of thousands of needy people in the United States,
made Chávez a marked man in Washington.
The administration of George W. Bush -- whom Chávez infamously called "the
devil" in a speech before the United Nations -- backed a failed military
coup against Chávez in 2002. The attempted coup was closely linked to prominent
neoconservatives including
Elliott Abrams , the disgraced Iran-Contra criminal who played a key role in covering up
massacres committed by US-backed death squads in Central America and Otto Reich, a staunch
supporter of Cuban exile terrorists who have
killed at least hundreds of innocent men, women and children throughout the Americas. Two
key coup plotters, Army commander Efraín Vasquez and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were
trained at the US Army
School of the Americas. The coup briefly ousted Chávez but loyalist forces and popular
support restored his rule 47 hours later.
Barack Obama continued Bush's policy of demonizing Chávez, whose government he
called "authoritarian." This, despite the fact that former president Jimmy Carter, who won
the Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the election-monitoring Carter Center,
called Venezuela's election process "the best in the world." In 2015, Obama
declared Venezuela an "extraordinary threat to national security," a bewildering
assertion considering the country has never started a war in its history. The United States,
on the other hand, has intervened in, attacked, invaded or occupied Latin American and
Caribbean nations more than 50 times and, as Obama spoke, the US military was busy bombing
seven countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. For decades, successive US
administrations have also lavished Venezuela's neighbor Colombia -- which has been condemned
for its government and paramilitary
death squad massacres and deadly corporate-backed crackdowns on
indigenous peoples and workers -- with
billions upon billions of dollars in military and economic aid.
How would they reinstate that "talent" if it was being blocked and bribed not to go to
Venezuela by....you know who?
Chavez purged the firm because it was the same rich elites running it and threatening to
use it as a form of blackmail.
Failure to regrow human capital base? Is that a repeat of what you just said about PDVSA?
What does that even mean?
What about the US sanctions, freezing of their access to their own money, coup attempts,
sabotage, the rich cutting off the food supply chain, etc? Which of these things contributed
more to the current state of VZ?
President Chávez had to withstand three successive attempts to remove him -- the
2002 coup, 2002-03 bosses' lockout and the 2004 recall referendum. Five times he was
elected president, never with less than 55 percent of the vote, and overall he won 16 of 17
elections and referendums in which his movement participated. The election system put in
place by the Chávez government was declared by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's
Carter Center to be "
the best in the world ." None of this prevented the late president from being furiously
denounced as a "dictator."
The latest, issued on January 28, freezes all property and interests of PDVSA subject to
U.S. jurisdiction -- in other words, blocking Venezuela from any access to the profits
generated by PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, or any PDVSA activities in the United States.
The Trump administration expects Venezuela
to lose US$11 billion this year, The New York Times reports.
and Maduro being a "dictator"
President Maduro is repeatedly called a "dictator," an epithet endless repeated across
the corporate media. But when a portion of the opposition boycotts, can it be a surprise
that the incumbent wins? The opposition actually asked the United Nations
to not send observers , a sure sign that they expected to lose a fair election despite
their claims that the election would be rigged. Nonetheless, a coalition of Canadian
unions, church leaders and other officials declared the election to be "a transparent,
secure, democratic and orderly electoral and voting process."
So yeah, you're on the same side of this issue as Barack Obama, George Soros and Hillary
Kkklinton. Hope you're happy with that company.
"Yet so desperate are America's neo-liberals, as well as neo-conservatives to topple
democratically twice –elected President Maduro that they are pulling off their bright
smiling wholesome masks that are the public face of globalization to reveal the snarling,
cowardly, crazed little creeps behind them.
"We saw this phenomenon last week when Fareed Zakaria, the Golden Pin-Up Boy of global
liberalism, used his two supposedly most influential platforms – his talk show on CNN
and op-ed page access in The Washington Post to call for the immediate toppling of Maduro and
then for a full superpower confrontation with Russia as well."
The article is actually quite fitting for Easter--Global death of the fealty to the Outlaw
US Empire while those nations seek resurrection and far better prospects with BRI/EAEU.
National leaders unwilling to see the Devilish/Satanic nature of the Outlaw US Empire that's
so evident for all to see must think hard on what they're partnering with. If they continue
their partnership, then their citizenry will do the proper thing and exorcize such leaders
from their body politic. Globally, there's only one entity that's similar in nature to the
Outlaw US Empire--Zionistan--two equally, evilly possessed threats to humanity.
The Trump administration is poised to tell five nations, including allies Japan, South
Korea and Turkey, that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to
import oil from Iran.
U.S. officials say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce on Monday that the
administration will not renew sanctions waivers for the five countries when they expire on
May 2.
Refusing to offer new sanctions waivers is the latest sign that Trump is once again giving
in to the most extreme Iran hawks. When sanctions on Iran's oil sector went into effect last
November, the administration initially granted waivers to the top importers of Iranian oil to
avoid a spike in the price of oil, but that is now coming to an end. The economic war that the
U.S. has been waging against Iran over the last year is about to expand to include some of the
world's biggest economies and some of America's leading trading partners. It is certain to
inflict more hardship on the Iranian people, and it will damage relations between the U.S. and
other major economic powers, including China and India, but it will have no discernible effect
on the Iranian government's behavior and policies. India, China, and Turkey are practically
guaranteed to ignore U.S. demands that they eliminate all Iranian oil imports.
The decision to end waivers has implications for world oil markets, which have been
eagerly anticipating President Trump's decision on whether to extend waivers. The officials
said market disruption should be minimal for two reasons: supply is now greater than demand
and Pompeo is also set to announce offsets through commitments from other suppliers such as
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump spoke about the issue Thursday with the
UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in
Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise.
Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no
good reason as part of a regime change policy that can't and won't succeed. It cannot be
emphasized enough that the reimposition of sanctions on Iran is completely unwarranted and
represents a betrayal of previous U.S. commitments to Iran and our allies under the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action. The decision to refuse any new sanctions waivers is a clear sign
that the most fanatical members of the Trump administration have prevailed in internal debates
and U.S. Iran policy is held hostage to their whims.
Maybe Trump will reap the benefits of this if oil prices go up a lot and it torpedos his
reelection in 2020.
One thing I'm really not clear on how are these proposed sanctions against third parties
(e.g. Japan, etc etc) not a violation of trade agreements? Are there escape clauses in those
agreements that allow the US to do these things, or is it merely that these other countries
are (usually) not willing to rely on the trade agreements' protections because, at the end of
the day, it would mean a trade war with the US, which they're not willing to countenance?
Iran policy ??? What about foreign policy in general ?? Interventionism is NOT what Americans
want, or can afford! No more lives & limbs (and dollars) for foreign countries!!
"Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability
in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to
rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation
for no good reason "
But there is a good reason. Forcing up oil prices is a shot in the arm for the Saudi
economy. Remember "Israel first, and Saudi Arabia second". That formula explains most of
Trump's foreign policy, the rest being a jumble of random impulses and the consequences of
infighting among his advisors.
Gas is already $3.20 in the Chicago suburbs, and we are not into the summer driving season
yet. Overseas – India is going to the poll. India imports most of its oil, and Iran is
a major supplier. Yes, the Saudis have been trying to get India to switch over to more Saudi
imports – but it would look like "strong" Modi is giving in to Trump and MBS.
We are going to sanction China for buying Iranian oil? Does anyone seriously think they are
going to submit to that gracefully? Japan and Korea might, they are much smaller and stuck
with us. But China?
And I seriously doubt that sanctioning India for buying Iranian oil will advance our
strategic alliance with them, either.
"... "One of the problems we have with the system is, why put a system like that on an airplane in the first place?" said Slack, who doesn't represent any survivors of either the Lion Air or Ethiopia Airlines crashes. "I think what we're going to find is that because of changes from the (Boeing 737) 800 series to the MAX series, there are dramatic changes in which they put in controls without native pitch stability. It goes to the basic DNA of the airplane. It may not be fixable." ..."
"... But it's also important that the pilots get physical feedback about what is going on. In the old days, when cables connected the pilot's controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. There is only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesn't feel so great. ..."
"... An airplane approaching an aerodynamic stall cannot, under any circumstances, have a tendency to go further into the stall. This is called "dynamic instability," and the only airplanes that exhibit that characteristic -- fighter jets -- are also fitted with ejection seats. ..."
"... The airframe, the hardware, should get it right the first time and not need a lot of added bells and whistles to fly predictably. This has been an aviation canon from the day the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk. ..."
"... When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks it's about to stall, a set of motors and jacks push the pilot's control columns forward. It turns out that the flight management computer can put a lot of force into that column -- indeed, so much force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening. ..."
"... MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is turned off, when the pilots think they are flying the plane. In a fight between the flight management computer and human pilots over who is in charge, the computer will bite humans until they give up and (literally) die ..."
"... Like someone with narcissistic personality disorder, MCAS gaslights the pilots. And it turns out badly for everyone. "Raise the nose, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." ..."
"... Travis also describes the bad business incentives that led Boeing to conceptualize and present the 737 Max as just a tweak of an existing design, as opposed to being so areodynamically different as to be a new plane .and require time-consuming and costly recertification. To succeed in that obfuscation, Boeing had to underplay the existence and role of the MCAS system: ..."
"... Travis also explains why the FAA allows for what amounts to self-certification. This practice didn't result from the usual deregulation pressures, but from the FAA being unable to keep technical experts from being bid away by private sector players. Moreover, the industry has such a strong safety culture (airplanes falling out of the sky are bad for business) that the accommodation didn't seem risky. ..."
"... The 737 Max saga teaches us not only about the limits of technology and the risks of complexity, it teaches us about our real priorities. Today, safety doesn't come first -- money comes first, and safety's only utility in that regard is in helping to keep the money coming. The problem is getting worse because our devices are increasingly dominated by something that's all too easy to manipulate: software ..."
Even though Boeing is scrambling to fix the software meant to counter the 737 Max's increased propensity to stall as a result
of the placement of larger, more fuel=efficient engines in a way that reduced the stability of the plane in flight, it's not clear
that this will be adequate in terms of flight safety or the public perception of the plane. And even though the FAA is almost certain
to sign off on Boeing's patch, foreign regulators may not be so forgiving. The divergence we've seen between the FAA and other national
authorities is likely to intensify. Recall that China grounded the 737 Max before the FAA. In another vote of no confidence, even
as Boeing was touting that its changes to its now infamous MCAS software, designed to compensate for safety risks introduced by the
placement of the engines on the 737 Max, the Canadian air regulator said he wanted 737 Max pilots to have flight simulator training,
contrary to the manufacturer's assertion that it isn't necessary. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that
American Airlines is developing 737 Max flight simulator training .
But a fundamental question remains: can improved software compensate for hardware shortcomings? Some experts harbor doubts. For
instance, from the Spokane
Spokesman-Review
:
"One of the problems we have with the system is, why put a system like that on an airplane in the first place?" said Slack,
who doesn't represent any survivors of either the Lion Air or Ethiopia Airlines crashes. "I think what we're going to find is
that because of changes from the (Boeing 737) 800 series to the MAX series, there are dramatic changes in which they put in controls
without native pitch stability. It goes to the basic DNA of the airplane. It may not be fixable."
"It is within the realm of possibility that, if much of the basic pitch stability performance of the plane cannot be addressed
by a software fix, a redesign may be required and the MAX might not ever fly," [aviation attorney and former NASA aerospace engineer
Mike] Slack said.
An even more damming take comes in
How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer in IEEE Spectrum (hat tip Marshall Auerback). Author Greg Travis
has been a software developer for 40 years and a pilot. He does a terrific job of explaining the engineering and business considerations
that drove the 737 Max design. He describes why the plane's design is unsound and why the software patch in the form of MCAS was
inadequate, and an improved version is unlikely to be able to compensate for the plane's deficiencies.
Even for those who have been following the 737 Max story, this article has background that is likely to be new. For instance,
to a large degree, pilots do not fly commercial aircraft. Pilots send instructions to computer systems that fly these planes. Travis
explains early on that the As Travis explains:
In the 737 Max, like most modern airliners and most modern cars, everything is monitored by computer, if not directly controlled
by computer. In many cases, there are no actual mechanical connections (cables, push tubes, hydraulic lines) between the pilot's
controls and the things on the wings, rudder, and so forth that actually make the plane move ..
But it's also important that the pilots get physical feedback about what is going on. In the old days, when cables connected
the pilot's controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push,
hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. There is
only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesn't feel so great.
Travis also explains why the 737 Max's engine location made the plane dangerously unstable:
Pitch changes with power changes are common in aircraft. Even my little Cessna pitches up a bit when power is applied. Pilots
train for this problem and are used to it. Nevertheless, there are limits to what safety regulators will allow and to what pilots
will put up with.
Pitch changes with increasing angle of attack, however, are quite another thing. An airplane approaching an aerodynamic stall
cannot, under any circumstances, have a tendency to go further into the stall. This is called "dynamic instability," and the only
airplanes that exhibit that characteristic -- fighter jets -- are also fitted with ejection seats.
Everyone in the aviation community wants an airplane that flies as simply and as naturally as possible. That means that conditions
should not change markedly, there should be no significant roll, no significant pitch change, no nothing when the pilot is adding
power, lowering the flaps, or extending the landing gear.
The airframe, the hardware, should get it right the first time and not need a lot of added bells and whistles to fly predictably.
This has been an aviation canon from the day the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk.
Travis explains in detail why the MCAS approach to monitoring the angle of attack was greatly inferior to older methods .including
having the pilots look out the window. And here's what happens when MCAS goes wrong:
When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks it's about to stall, a set of motors
and jacks push the pilot's control columns forward. It turns out that the flight management computer can put a lot of force into
that column -- indeed, so much force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to
tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening.
Indeed, not letting the pilot regain control by pulling back on the column was an explicit design decision. Because if the
pilots could pull up the nose when MCAS said it should go down, why have MCAS at all?
MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is turned off, when the pilots think
they are flying the plane. In a fight between the flight management computer and human pilots over who is in charge, the computer
will bite humans until they give up and (literally) die
Like someone with narcissistic personality disorder, MCAS gaslights the pilots. And it turns out badly for everyone. "Raise
the nose, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
Travis also describes the bad business incentives that led Boeing to conceptualize and present the 737 Max as just a tweak of
an existing design, as opposed to being so areodynamically different as to be a new plane .and require time-consuming and costly
recertification. To succeed in that obfuscation, Boeing had to underplay the existence and role of the MCAS system:
The necessity to insist that the 737 Max was no different in flying characteristics, no different in systems, from any other
737 was the key to the 737 Max's fleet fungibility. That's probably also the reason why the documentation about the MCAS system
was kept on the down-low.
Put in a change with too much visibility, particularly a change to the aircraft's operating handbook or to pilot training,
and someone -- probably a pilot -- would have piped up and said, "Hey. This doesn't look like a 737 anymore."
To drive the point home, Travis contrasts the documentation related to MCAS with documentation Cessna provided with an upgrade
to its digital autopilot, particularly warnings. The difference is dramatic and it shouldn't be. He concludes:
In my Cessna, humans still win a battle of the wills every time. That used to be a design philosophy of every Boeing aircraft,
as well, and one they used against their archrival Airbus, which had a different philosophy. But it seems that with the 737 Max,
Boeing has changed philosophies about human/machine interaction as quietly as they've changed their aircraft operating manuals.
Travis also explains why the FAA allows for what amounts to self-certification. This practice didn't result from the usual deregulation
pressures, but from the FAA being unable to keep technical experts from being bid away by private sector players. Moreover, the industry
has such a strong safety culture (airplanes falling out of the sky are bad for business) that the accommodation didn't seem risky.
But it is now:
So Boeing produced a dynamically unstable airframe, the 737 Max. That is big strike No. 1. Boeing then tried to mask the 737's
dynamic instability with a software system. Big strike No. 2. Finally, the software relied on systems known for their propensity
to fail (angle-of-attack indicators) and did not appear to include even rudimentary provisions to cross-check the outputs of the
angle-of-attack sensor against other sensors, or even the other angle-of-attack sensor. Big strike No. 3.
None of the above should have passed muster. None of the above should have passed the "OK" pencil of the most junior engineering
staff, much less a DER [FAA Designated Engineering Representative].
That's not a big strike. That's a political, social, economic, and technical sin .
The 737 Max saga teaches us not only about the limits of technology and the risks of complexity, it teaches us about our real
priorities. Today, safety doesn't come first -- money comes first, and safety's only utility in that regard is in helping to keep
the money coming. The problem is getting worse because our devices are increasingly dominated by something that's all too easy
to manipulate: software
I believe the relative ease -- not to mention the lack of tangible cost -- of software updates has created a cultural laziness
within the software engineering community. Moreover, because more and more of the hardware that we create is monitored and controlled
by software, that cultural laziness is now creeping into hardware engineering -- like building airliners. Less thought is now
given to getting a design correct and simple up front because it's so easy to fix what you didn't get right later .
It is likely that MCAS, originally added in the spirit of increasing safety, has now killed more people than it could have
ever saved. It doesn't need to be "fixed" with more complexity, more software. It needs to be removed altogether.
There's a lot more in
this meaty piece . Be sure to read it in full.
And if crapification by software has undermined the once-vanuted airline safety culture, why should we hold out hope for any better
with self-driving cars?
Automation is not the issue. Boeing cutting corners and putting only one or two angle of attack sensors is. Just like a man
with two clocks can't tell the time, if one of the sensors malfunctions, the computer has no way of knowing which one is wrong.
That's why Airbus puts three sensors in its aircraft, and why Boeing's Dreamliner has three computers with CPUs from three different
manufacturers to get the necessary triple redundancy.
Thus this is really about Boeing's shocking negligence in putting profits above safety, and the FAA's total capture to the
point Boeing employees did most of the certification work. I would add the corrosion of Boeing's ethical standards was completely
predictable once it acquired McDonnell-Douglas and became a major defense contractor.
I beg to differ since it looks like you didn't read the article in full, as a strongly recommended. The article has a section on the cost of fixing hardware problems versus software problems. Hardware problems are enormously
costly to fix.
The plane has a hardware problem resulting from Boeing not being willing to risk having to recertify a fuel efficient 737.
So rather than making the plane higher off the ground (new landing gear, which other articles indicate was a non-starter since
it would lead to enough other changes so as to necessitate recertification) and trying to fix a hardware problem with software.
That has two knock-on problems: it's not clear this will ever be adequate (not just Travis' opinion) and second, it's risky given
the software industry's propensity to ship and patch later. Boeing created an additional problem, as Travis stresses, by greatly
underplaying the existence of MCAS (it was mentioned after page 700 in the documentation!) and maintaining the fiction that pilots
didn't need simulator training, which some regulators expect will be the case even after the patch.
You also miss the point the article makes: the author argues (unlike in banking), the FAA coming to rely on the airlines for
certification wasn't a decision they made, but an adaptation to the fact that they could no longer hire and retain the engineers
they needed to do the work at the FAA on government pay scales. By contrast, at (say) the SEC, you see a revolving door of lawyers
from plenty fancy firms. You have plenty of "talent" willing to work at the SEC, but with bad incentives.
Thank you for reviewing this. 700+ pages! I thought it was paywalled bec. so slow to download. The resistance to achieving
fuel efficiency is front and center these days. One thing I relate it to is the Macron attitude of punishing the fuel consumer
to change the market. Cart before horse. When the FAA sent down fuel efficiency requirements it might have been similarly preemptive,
now in hindsight. There should have been legislation and regulation which adjusted the profitability of the airline industry via
better tax breaks or regulations against aggressive competition. The safety of airlines would have been upheld if the viability
of the company were protected. So even domestic protectionism when it comes to safety. And in so doing, the FAA/congress could
also have controlled and limited airline use which tries to make up in volume for all the new costs it incurs. It's a serious
problem when you are so carefree as a legislator that you let the free market do it. What a mess. Quality is the first thing to
go.
reminds me of what was said about risk departments inside banks -- deliberately lowly paid, so that anyone with skills would
move on or easily be hired away. Was it you? Bill Black? Luyendijk? I don't remember. Either way..
I did read the article completely and I was an aircraft commander of a C-141A during the Viet Nam war and I am a degreed electrical
engineer.
Having flown the C-141A for several thousand hours I am very familiar with the aircraft pitching up almost uncontrollably.
A favorite trick that C -141 flight instructors pulled on pilots new to aircraft was to tell the student pilot to "go around"
(for the first time during his training) on an approach. The student pilot followed the flight manual procedure and started to
raise the nose while advancing the throttles to full power. However, what wasn't covered in the flight manual was the fact that
a HUGE trim change occurred when the engines went from near idle to full power. To regain control, it took both hands (arms) to
move the yoke away from your chest while running nose down trim. While you were doing this the airplane was trying to stand on
its tail. On the other hand none of us ever forgot the lesson.
The C-141 was not fly by wire; however all control surfaces were equipped with hydraulic assist and "feel springs" to mimic
control feel without the hydraulics. The feel springs for the elevators must have been selected using a human subject like Arnold
Schwarzenegger because (in my opinion) they were much stronger than necessary. The intent was to prevent the pilots from getting
into excessive angles of pitch, which absolutely would occur if you weren't prepared for it on a "go around".
What Fazal & V have said is basically correct. The max has four angle of attack vanes. The MAIN problem was that Boeing decided
to go cheap and only connect one of the vanes to the MCAS. If they had connected two, the MCAS would be able to determine that
one of them was wrong and disconnect itself. That would have eliminated the pitch down problem that caused the two crashes.
Connecting that second AOA vane would not have created any certification issues and would have made Boeing's claim about the
"Max" being the "same" as previous versions much closer to the truth. Had they done that we wouldn't be talking about this.
Another solution would have been to disable the MCAS if there was significant counter force on the yoke applied by the pilot.
This has been used on autopilot systems since the 1960's. But not consistently. The proper programming protocol for the MCAS exists
and should have been used.
I agree that using only one AOA vane and the programming weren't the only really stupid things that Boeing did in this matter.
Insufficient information and training given to the pilots was another.
Yes. second, it's risky given the software industry's propensity to ship and patch later.
-this is one of the main themes in the Dilbert cartoon strip.
the author argues (unlike in banking), the FAA coming to rely on the airlines for certification wasn't a decision they made,
but an adaptation to the fact that they could no longer hire and retain the engineers they needed to do the work at the FAA on
government pay scales.
-That's what happens when you make 'government small enough to drown in a bathtub' , i.e. starve of the funds necessary to
do a good job.
My 2¢ . Boeing's decision to cut manufacturing corners AND give the autopilot MCAS system absolute control might have been
done (just a guess here, based on the all current the 'self-driving' fantasies in technology ) to push more AI 'self-drivingness'
into the airplane. (The 'We don't need expensive pilots, we can use inexpensive pilots, and one day we won't need pilots at all'
fantasy.) Imo, this makes the MCAS system, along with the auto AI self-driving systems now on the road no better than beta
test platforms And early beta test platforms, at that.
It's one thing when MS or Apple push out a not quite ready for prime time OS "upgrade", then wait for all the user feedback
to know where it the OS needs more patches. No one dies in those situations (hopefully). But putting not-ready for prime time
airplanes and cars on the road in beta test condition to get feedback? yikes . my opinion.
It is interesting that a software bug that appears in the field costs very roughly ten times as much as one caught in QA before
being released, yet most managements continue to slight QA in favor of glitzy features. I suppose that preference follows supposed
customer demand.
Boeing, the FAA, and the airlines seriously screwed up the introduction of this aircraft so badly it cost lives. The article
by Travis is however written by someone out of his depth, even though he has more familiarity with aircraft and software than
the average person. There are numerous factual errors and misrepresentations, which many commenters (with more detailed knowledge
of the subjects) on the article point out. One of the principles of aviation safety is to identify and fix failures without finger
pointing, in order to encourage a culture of openness and cooperation. The tone of the article takes the opposite approach while
trying to argue from (undeserved) authority. I agree with his critique that these incidents are a result capitalism run amok –
that should, in my opinion, be separate from a discussion of the technical problems and how to fix them.
If Boeing had adhered to that cardinal principle of openness, there might be no failure to fix via "a culture of openness and
cooperation". These catastrophic failures were a result of Boeing not being open with its customers about the safety implications
of its redesign of the 737 Max and instead choosing the path of obfuscation to sell the idea of seamless fleet fungibility to
airlines.
Looking through the comments the complaints about the article seemed to be in one of three areas-
– Questioning the author's credentials (you're just a Cessna pilot!)
– Parroting the Boeing line that this was all really pilot error
– Focusing on some narrow technical element to discredit the article
The majority of comments were in agreement with the general tenor of the piece, and the author engaged politely and constructively
with some of the points that were brought up. I thought the article was very insightful, and sometimes it does take an outsider
to point out that the emperor has no clothes.
I'd like to see a reference for your assertion that the "principles of aviation safety" preclude finger pointing. Unless I'm
very much mistaken the whole purpose of an FAA accident investigation is to determine the root cause, identify the responsible
party, and, yes, point fingers if necessary.
The general point I was trying to make, perhaps poorly worded, is that the only goal is to identify the problem and fix it,
and not to focus primarily on assigning blame as vigorously as possible. Mistakes occur for many reasons – some of them nefarious,
some not. Excessive finger pointing, especially before a full picture of what went wrong has been developed, fosters a tendency
to coverups and fear, in my opinion.
Regarding your other points, the technical details are vital to understand clearly in almost any aviation incident, as there
is never one cause, and the chain of events is always incredibly complex. Travis' analysis makes the answers too easy.
From what I understand the light touch approach was more about getting people to honestly divulge information during the investigation
period, of which, assisted in determining cause.
This "light touch" approach is used throughout the aviation industry, all the way from initial design to aircraft maintenance,
as the purpose is to make sure that anyone, no matter the rank or experience, can bring up safety concerns before incidents occur
without fear of repercussions for challenging authority. It's likely that this cornerstone of aviation culture was ignored at
too many points along the way here.
I am not defending Boeing, the FAA, or the airlines. Serious, likely criminal, mistakes were made by all.
I however take issue with Travis' approach of assigning blame this early and vigorously while making errors in explaining what
happened. He especially attacks the the development process at Boeing, since software is his speciality, although he makes no
claims as to having worked with real time or avionics software, aside from using products incorporating it. These are quite different
types of software from normal code running a website or a bank. He does not, and can not, know what occurred when the code was
written, yet makes significant declarations as to the incompetence of the engineers and coders involved.
If he were leading the investigation, I believe the most likely outcome would be pushback and coverup by those involved.
It's likely that this cornerstone of aviation culture was ignored at too many points along the way here.
I am not defending Boeing, the FAA, or the airlines. Serious, likely criminal, mistakes were made by all.
I however take issue with Travis' approach of assigning blame this early
I don't disagree with your description of how it used to be. However, since the FAA has reduced its regulatory role, and by
extension given aircraft manufactures more leash to run with ideas that shouldn't be followed, we're left with the situation that
large, potentially crippling tort lawsuits are one of the only checks left on manufacturer stupidity or malfeasance. Think of
the Ford Pinto bolt-too-long-causing-gas-tank-explosions case. If the FCC won't make manufacturers think twice when internal engineers
say 'this isn't a good idea, isn't a good design', maybe the potential of a massive lawsuit will make them think twice.
And this is where we get into pointing the finger, assigning blame, etc. I'm assuming there are good engineers at Boeing who
warned against these multiple design failure and were ignored, the FCC was see-no-evil here-no-evil, and the MCAS went forward.
Now come the law suits. It's the only thing left to 'get Boeing's attention'. I don't know if Travis' is too early. It's likely
there's been plenty of chatter among the Boeing and industry engineers already. imo.
Training a pilot is building a very complicated automation system : what kind of thought process do you expect within the short
timeframe (few minutes) of a crisis in a cockpit ? Kant's critique of pure reason ?Somehow people seem more comfortable from death
coming from human error (I.e. a bad human automation system) that death coming from a design fault, but a death is a death
The problem is not automation vs no automation, it is bad corner-cutting automation vs good systematic and expensive automation.
It is also bad integration between pilot brain based automation and system automation, which also boils out to corner cutting,
because sharing too much information about the real behaviour of the system (if only it is known accurately ) increases the complexity
and the cost of pilot training.
Real safety comes from proven design (as in mathematical proof). It is only achievable on simple systems because proofing is
conceptually very hard. A human is inevitably a very complex system that is impossible to proof, therefore, beyond a certain standard
of reliability, getting the human factor out of the equation is the only way to improve things further. we are probably close
to that threshold with civil aviation.
Similarly, regarding cars, the considerable improvement in death per km travelled in the last 30 years cannot be attributed
only to better drivers, a large part comes from ESP and ABS becoming standard (see
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182
). If this is not automation, what is ?
It looks as if you didn't read the piece. The problem, which the author makes explicit, is the "ship now, patch later" philosophy
that is endemic in software design.
And it would be better to look at flight safety stats within markets. You have great swathes of the emerging world starting
to fly on airplanes during this period. I'm not saying the general trend isn't correct, but I would anticipate it's to a significant
degree attributable to the maturation of emerging economy air systems. For instance, I flew on Indonesia's Garuda in the early
1990s and was told I was taking a safety risk; I'm now informed that it's a good airline. Similarly, in the early 1980s I was
doing business in Mexico, and the McKinsey partner I was traveling with (who as a hobby read black box transcripts from plane
crashes) was very edgy on the legs of our travels when we had to use AeroMexico (as in he'd natter on in a way that was very out
of character for a typical older WASP-y guy, he was close to white knuckle nervous).
Garuda's transition from "safety risk" to "good airline" was an actual occurrence. At one point Garuda and all other Indonesian
air lines were prohibited from flying in the EU because of numerous crashes that were the result of management issues, that forced
the airline(s) to change their ways.
ABS is an enhancement. MCAS is a kludge to patch up massive weaknesses introduced into the hardware by a chain of bad decisions
going back almost 20 years.
Boeing should have started designing a new narrow-body when they cancelled the 757 in 2004. Instead, they chose to keep relying
on the 737. The end result is MCAS and 300+ deaths.
"There are numerous factual errors and misrepresentations, which many commenters (with more detailed knowledge of the subjects)
on the article point out."
Not sure why anyone would mis-characterise comments. The first comment points out a deficiency, and explains it. There was only
one other commenter, who alleged errors – but without explaining what those could be. He was later identified by another person
as a troll. Almost all other comments were complimentary of the article. So why make the above assertion?
We have a noteworthy number of newbie comments making poorly-substantiated digs at the Spectrum IEEE piece. We've also seen
this sort of non-organic-looking response when we've put up pro-union pieces when political fights were in play, like Wisconsin's
Scott Walker going after unions.
Travis does indeed play fast and loose with a number of things. For example, his 0-360 engine does *not* have pistons the size
of dinner plates (at a 130mm bore it isn't even the diameter of a particularly large saucer). MCAS is a stability augmentation
system not stall prevention system and the 737 MAX wasn't "unstable" it was insufficiently stable. The 737 trim system acts on
the stabilizer not the elevator (which is a completely different control surface). etc.
For the most part, it doesn't affect the thrust of his arguments which are at a higher level. However it does get distracting.
Thank you – I was beginning to wonder what the difference was between unstable and insufficiently stable. Not that this is
a subject to make jokes about.
Yeah, but sometimes the choice is to laugh or cry, and after constantly going WTF!?! every time I read about this horror, even
mordantly grim humor is nice.
Investigators pipe up, but my understanding of a proper investigation is: a. find out what happened; b. find out why the incident
occurred; c. what can be done to prevent.
The public opinion has already sailed I think, against the company. If negligent, adverse-safety decisions were made, the head
people should be prosecuted accordingly.
Yet, I feel this isn't going to happen despite the reality that billions of humans never want to fly a boeing jet again. Why
would you risk it? Toast and deservedly imho
"Agile" "use-case driven" software development: very dangerous, takes the disruptive, crappification approach (under some hands)
of trying to identify the minimum investment to hit the minimal requirements, particularly focusing on an 80/20 Pareto rule distribution
of efforts.
Which may be good enough for video delivery or cell-phone function, but not for life-critical or scientifically-critical equipment
Many people here are assuming Boeing uses modern software-development methodology in spite of flaws that make such an approach
iffy in this field. Why assume that?
When I worked, many years ago now, as a Boeing software engineer, their software-development practices were 15 years behind
the rest of the world. Part of that was sheer caution and conservatism re new things, precisely because of the safety culture,
and part of it was because they did not have many of the best software people. They could rarely hire the best in part because
cautious, super-conservative code is boring. Their management approach was optimized to get solid systems out of ordinary engineers
with a near incomprehensible number of review and testing steps.
Anyone in this audience worked there in software recently? If not, fewer words about how they develop code might be called
for. Yes, the MCAS system was seriously flawed. But we do not have the information to actually know why.
> Anyone in this audience worked there in software recently? If not, fewer words about how they develop code might be called
for.
4/16 Links included a lengthy spiel from Reddit via Hacker News by a
software engineer who worked at Boeing 10 years ago (far more recently than you) which detailed the horrors of Boeing's dysfunctional
corporate culture at length. This is in addition to many other posts covering the story from multiple angles.
NC has covered this topic extensively. Maybe try familiarizing yourself with their content before telling others to shut up.
Excuse me? Are ad hominem attacks fine now? I didn't tell anyone to "shut up" or contradict the great amount of good reporting
on Boeing's management dysfunction.
I just pointed out that at one time, yes way back there, there was a logic to it and that the current criticism here of its
software-development culture in particular seems founded on a combination of speculation and general disgust with the software
industry.
Whatever else I am or however wrong I may sometimes be, I am an engineer, and real engineers look for evidence.
Moving the engines in itself didn't introduce safety risks, this tendency to nose up was always there. The primary problem
is Boeing wanted to pretend MAX is the same plane as NG (the previous version) for certification and pilot training purposes.
Which is why the MCAS is black box deeply hardwired into the control systems and they didn't tell pilots about it. It was supposed
to be invisible, just sort of translating layer between the new airframe and pilots commanding it as the old one.
And this yearning for pre-automation age, for directly controlling the surfaces by cables and all, is misguided. People didn't
evolve for flying, it's all learned the hard way, there is no natural way to feel the plane. In fact in school they will drill
into you to trust the instruments and not your pedestrian instincts. Instruments and computers may fail, but your instincts will
fail far more often.
After all 737 actually is old design, not fly by wire. And one theory of what happened in the Ethiopian case is that when they
disengaged the automatic thing, they were not able to physically overcome the aerodynamic forces pushing on the plane. So there
you have your cables & strings operated machine.
I don't see basis for your assertion about safety risks given the counter-evidence in the form of the very existence of the
MCAS software. Every article written on it points out it was to prevent the possibility of the plane stalling out when "punching
up". And as the article describes, there were two design factors, the placement of the engines and the nacelles, which led to
it generating too much lift in certain scenarios.
And your argument regarding what happened when the pilot turned off the autopilot is yet another indictment of Boeing's design.
This is not "Oh bad pilots," this is "OMG, evidence of another Boeing fuckup." This is what occurred when the pilots disabled
MCAS per instructions.
Have you not heard of purely mechanical systems that allow for the multiplication of force? It's another Boeing design defect
that the pilots couldn't operate the flight stabilizer when the plane was under takeoff stresses. That's a typical use case!
And it was what Boeing told pilots to do and it didn't work!
From Reuters (apparently
written before the black box detail revealed that the pilots could not control the stabilizers):
Boeing pointed to long-established procedures that pilots could have used to handle a malfunction of the anti-stall system,
regardless of whether the pilots knew MCAS existed.
That checklist tells pilots to switch off the two stabilizer trim cutout switches on the central console, and then to adjust
the aircraft's stabilizers manually using trim wheels.
And that's one of they should worry about most, since that's one of highest risk times for flight, and the plane should have
been engineered with that scenario in mind. This raises the possibility that the inability of the pilots to handle the plane manually
in takeoff also somehow resulted from the changes to the aerodynamics resulting from the placement of the bigger engines.
This is his argument about how the reliance on software has led to undue relaxation of good hardware design principles:
The original FAA Eisenhower-era certification requirement was a testament to simplicity: Planes should not exhibit significant
pitch changes with changes in engine power. That requirement was written when there was a direct connection between the controls
in the pilot's hands and the flying surfaces on the airplane. Because of that, the requirement -- when written -- rightly imposed
a discipline of simplicity on the design of the airframe itself. Now software stands between man and machine, and no one seems
to know exactly what is going on. Things have become too complex to understand.
Pitch changes with power changes are common in aircraft. Even my little Cessna pitches up a bit when power is applied. Pilots
train for this problem and are used to it.
Again, the plane already had the habit of picthing up and the changes didn't add that. The question isn't if, but how much
and what to do about it. Nowhere did I read MAX exceeds some safety limits in this regard. If Boeing made the plane to physically
break regulations and tried to fix it with software then indeed that would be bad. However, I'm not aware of that.
As for the Ethiopian scenario, I was talking about
this article . It says when they tried manual, it very well could be beyond their physical ability to turn the wheels and
so they were forced to switch electrical motors back on, but that also turned up MCAS again. In fact it also says this seizing
up thing was present in the old 737 design and pilots were trained to deal with it, but somehow the plane become more reliable
and training for this failure mode was dropped. This to me doesn't look like good old days of aviation design ruined by computers.
You should read the Ethiopian Government's crash preliminary crash report. Very short and easy to read. Contains a wealth of
information. Regarding the pilot's attempt to use the manual trim wheel, according to the crash report, the aircraft was already
traveling at 340 knots indicated airspeed, well past Vmo or the aircraft's certified airspeed when they first attempted to manually
trim the nose up. It didn't work because of the excessive control forces generated by high airspeeds well beyond the aircraft's
certification. I'm not excusing Boeing, the automated MCAS nose down trim system was an engineering abomination, but the pilots
could have made their lives much easier by setting a more normal thrust setting for straight and level flight, slowing their aircraft
to a speed within the normal operating envelope, then working their runaway nose-down pitch emergency.
I didn't like the IEEE Spectrum piece very much since the author seemed to miss or exaggerate some issues, and also seemed
to confuse flying a Cessna with being expert about large airliners or aerospace engineering. The title says "software engineer"
but at the end he says "software executive". Executive doesn't always mean non-engineer but it does mean someone who is full of
themselves, and that shows through the whole article. The stuff I'm seeing from actual engineers (mostly on Hacker News) is a
little more careful. I'm still getting the sense that the 737 MAX is fundamentally a reasonable plane though Boeing fucked up
badly presenting it as a no-retraining-needed tweak to the older 737's.
There's some conventional wisdom that Boeing's crapification stems from the McDonnell merger in 1997. Boeing, then successful,
took over the failing and badly managed McDonnell. The crappy McDonnell managers then spent the next years pushing out the Boeing
managers, and subsequently have been running Boeing into the ground. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's a narrative that
rings true.
You are misrepresenting the Hacker News criticisms, and IMHO they misrepresent the piece. They don't question his software
chops. And if you really knew the software biz, "software executive" often = developer who built a company (and that includes
smallish ones). The guy OWNS a Cessna, which means he's spent as much on a plane as a lot of people spend on a house. If he was
a senior manager as you posit, that means at large company, and no large company would let an employee write something like this.
He's either between gigs or one of the top guys in a smallish private company where mouthing off like this won't hurt the business.
Notice also his contempt for managers in the article).
He's also done flight simulator time on a 757, and one commentor pointed out that depending on the simulator, it could be tantamount
to serious training, as in count towards qualifying hours to be certified to fly a 757.
They do argue, straw manning his piece, that he claims the big failure is with the software. That in fact is not what the article
says. It says that the design changes in the 737 Max made it dynamically unstable, which is an unacceptable characteristic in
any plane, no matter what size. He also describes at length the problem of relying on only one sensor as an input to the MCAS
and how that undermined having the pilots be able to act as a backup .by looking at each other's instrumentation results.
The idea that he's generalizing from a Cessna is absurd. He describes how Cessnas have the pilot having greater mechanical
control than jets like the 737. He describes how the pilots read the instrument results from each side of the plane, something
which cannot occur in a Cessna, a single pilot plane. He refers to the Cessna documentation to make the point that the norm is
to over-inform pilots as to how changes in the software affect how they operate the plane, not radically under-inform them as
Boeing did with the 737 Max.
As to the reasonableness of Travis' concerns, did you miss that a former NASA engineer has the same reservations? Are you trying
to say he doesn't understand how aircraft hardware works?
He owns a 1978 Cessna 172 , goes for about $70K,
so not quite house prices, more like a nice Tesla, whose drive by wire systems he seems to trust far more for some reason.
In regard to "dynamic instability" being unacceptable, this is a red herring. Most modern airliners rely on flight characteristic
augmentation systems in normal operation, trim systems being the most common. Additionally, there are aircraft designed
to be unstable (fighters) but rely on computers to fly them stably, to greatly increase manoeuvrability.
In regard to Cessnas being single pilot planes, the presence of flight controls on both sides of the cockpit would somewhat
bring into question this assertion .? Most 172s do however have only one set of instrumentation. When operating with two pilots
(as with let's say a student pilot and instructor) you would still have the issue of two pilots trying to agree on possibly faulty
readings from one set of non-redundant instruments.
No, it's a 1979 Cessna, and you don't know when he bought it and how much use it had, since price is significantly dependent
on flight hours. The listings I show it costs over $100K. A quick Google search says a plane with a new feel is closer to $300K.
Even $100K in equity is more than most people put down when buying a house
He also glides, and gliders often own or co-own their gliders.
The author acknowledges your point re fighters. Did you miss that he also says they are the only planes where pilots can eject
themselves from the aircraft? Arguing from what is acceptable for a fighter, where you compromise a lot on other factors to get
maneuverability, to a commercial jet is dodgy.
Regarding fighters and instability, I'm not the one that stated it's "an unacceptable characteristic in any plane, no matter
the size".
I am completely on Travis' side when it comes to the issues with culture and business that brought on these incidents. Seeing
however that these affected and overrode good engineering, I believe it's vitally important that the engineering is discussed
as accurately as possible. Hence my criticism of the piece.
Had you looked at prices as you claimed to, Cessnsa 172s specify the year in the headline description. 1977 v. 1978 v 1979
on a page I got Googling for 1979.
You are now well into the terrain of continuing to argue for argument sake.
I agree with you that the article is good and the criticisms I've read seem largely unmerited (quite a few of those btl on
that article are clearly bad faith arguments), but just to clarify:
That in fact is not what the article says. It says that the design changes in the 737 Max made it dynamically unstable,
which is an unacceptable characteristic in any plane, no matter what size.
My understanding (non-engineer, but long time aviation nerd) is that many aircraft, including all Airbus's are dynamically
unstable and use software to maintain stability. The key point I think that the article makes is that there is a fundamental difference
between designing hardware and software in synchronicity to make a safe aircraft (i.e Airbus), and using software as a fudge to
avoid making hard decisions when the hardware engineers find they can't overcome a problem without spending a fortune in redesigns.
Hard engineering 'fudges' are actually really common in aircraft design – little bumps or features added to address stability
problems encountered during testing – an example being the little fore planes on the
Tupolev 144 supersonic airliner. But it seems Boeing
took a short cut with its approach and a lot of people paid for this with their lives. Only time will tell if it was a deep institutional
failure within Boeing or just a flaw caused by a rushed roll-out.
I've personal experience of a catastrophic design flaw (not one that could kill people, just one that could cost hundreds of
millions to fix) which was entirely down to the personal hang-ups of one particular project manager who was in a position to silence
internal misgivings. Of course, in aircraft design this is not supposed to happen.
I'm reminded of the famous "software is eating the world" quote by uber VC Marc Andreessen. He posits that in an era where
Silicon valley style, software led disruption stalks every established industry, even companies that "make things" (hardware)
need a radical rethink in terms of how they see themselves. A company like Boeing, under this worldview, needs to think of itself
as a software company with a hardware arm attached, otherwise it might have its lunch eaten by a plucky upstart (to say nothing
of Apple or Google) punching above its weight.
It's not farfetched to imagine an army of consultants selling this "inoculate yourself from disruption" thinking to companies
like Boeing and being taken seriously. With Silicon valley's obsession with taking humans out of the loop (think driverless cars/trucks,
operator-less forklifts etc) one wonders whether these accidents will highlight the limitations of technology and halt the seemingly
inexorable march towards complex automation reducing pilots to cockpit observers coming along for the ride.
Ad homimem and therefore logically invalid. Plus reading comprehension problem. The "native pitch stability" comment was from
Mike Slack, a former NASA engineer, and not Travis, the Cessna owner.
I think that the point is that there are aircraft that don't take over the controls and dive into the ground. It's possible
to have these kinds of aircraft. These kinds of aircraft are good to have. It's like an existence proof.
No, not dangerously pro-automation. More like dangerously stuck in the past, putting bandaids on a dinosaur to keep false profits
rolling in. AF447 could be argued against excessive automation, but not the Max.
i think they are real profits. And the automation that crashed two planes over a short time span and it wasn't excessive? Band
aids on what was one of the safest planes ever made (how many 737's crashed pre 737 max? the hardware problem was higher landing
gear along with engines that were larger and added lift to the plane. MCAS was intended to fix that. It made it worse. I won't
be flying on a MAX.
Thanks for the article but re the above comments–perhaps that 737 pilot commenter should weigh in because some expert commentary
on this article is badly needed. My impression from the Seattle Times coverage is that the MCAS was not implemented to keep the
plane from falling out of the sky but rather to finesse the retraining issue. In other words a competent pilot could handle the
pitch up tendency with no MCAS assist at all if trained or even informed that such a tendency existed. And if that's the case
then the notion that the plane will be grounded forever is dubious indeed.
This isn't quite correct, and I suggest you read the article in full.
The issue isn't MCAS. It is that MCAS was to compensate for changes in the planes aerodynamics that were so significant that
it should arguably have been recerttified as being a different plane. That was what Boeing was trying to avoid above all Former
NASA engineer Mike Slack makes that point as well. Travis argues that burying the existence of MCAS in the documentation was to
keep pilots from questioning whether this was a different plane:
It all comes down to money, and in this case, MCAS was the way for both Boeing and its customers to keep the money flowing
in the right direction. The necessity to insist that the 737 Max was no different in flying characteristics, no different in
systems, from any other 737 was the key to the 737 Max's fleet fungibility. That's probably also the reason why the documentation
about the MCAS system was kept on the down-low.
Put in a change with too much visibility, particularly a change to the aircraft's operating handbook or to pilot training,
and someone -- probably a pilot -- would have piped up and said, "Hey. This doesn't look like a 737 anymore." And then the
money would flow the wrong way.
I think you just said what I said. My contention is that the only reason the plane could ever be withdrawn is that the design
is so inherently unstable that this extra gizmo–the MCAS–was necessary for it to fly. Whereas it appears the MCAS was for marketing
purposes and if it had never been added to the plane the two accidents quite likely may never have happened–even if Boeing didn't
tell pilots about the pitch up tendency.
But I'm no expert obviously. This is just my understanding of the issue.
From what I've read at related links in the last week, a significant element is common type rating. Manufacturers don't have
to go through expensive recertification if their modifications are minor enough, earning a common type rating. Thus, the successive
incarnations of the 737 over the decades.
I'm only a layman, but a citizen who tries to stay informed and devours material on this topic. The common type rating merry
go round needs to stop. It seems at least that a new engine with a different position that alters the basic physics of the plane
shouldn't qualify for common type rating, which should be reserved only for the most minor of modifications.
As one who has followed the entirety of the MAX stories as detailed by the Seattle Times aviation reporters, it all comes back
to "first principles": a substantive change in aerodynamics by introduction of an entirely new pair of engines should have required
complete re-engineering of the airframe. We know that Boeing eschewed that approach, largely for competitive and cost considerations,
and subsequently tried to mate the LEAP engines to the existing 737 airframe by installing the MCAS, amongst other design "tweaks",
i.e., "kludging" a fix. Boeing management recognized that this wouldn't be the "perfect" aircraft, but with the help of a compliant
FAA and a huge amount of "self-assessment", got the beast certified and airborne -- -- until the two crashes, that is. Whether
the airlines and/or the flying public will ever accept the redo of MCAS and other ancillary fixes is highly problematic, as the
entire concept was flawed from the kick-off.
Also, it should be mentioned in passing that even the LEAP engines are having some material-wear issues:
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/cfm-reviews-fleet-after-finding-leap-1a-durability-i-442669/
Th IEEE Spectrum piece is somewhat reasonable but the author obvious lacks technical knowledge of the 737. He also does not
understand why MCAS was installed in the first place.
For example:
– "However, doing so also meant that the centerline of the engine's thrust changed. Now, when the pilots applied power to the
engine, the aircraft would have a significant propensity to "pitch up," or raise its nose.
– The MAX nose up tendency is a purely aerodynamic effect. The centerline of the thrust did not change much.
– "MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, "
– No. It is implemented in the Flight Control Computer of which there are two. (There is only on FMC unit.)
-" It turns out that the Elevator Feel Computer can put a lot of force into that column -- "
– The Elevator Feel unit is not a computer but a deterministic hydraulic-mechanical system.
– "Neither such [software] coders nor their managers are as in touch with the particular culture and mores of the aviation
world as much as the people who are down on the factory floor, "
– The coders who make the Boeing and Airbus systems work are specialized in such coding. Software development for aircrafts It
is a rigid formularized process which requires a deep understanding of the aviation world. The coders appropriately implement
what the design engineers require after the design review confirmed it. Nothing less, nothing more.
and more than a dozen other technical misunderstandings and mistakes.
If the author would have read some of the PPRUNE threads on the issue or asked an 737 pilot he would have known all this.
Given what has happened with Boeing manufacture (787s being delivered with tools and bottles rattling around in them), you
have no basis for asserting how Boeing does software in practice these days.
And you have incontrovertible evidence of a coding fail: relying on only one sensor input when the plane had more than one
sensor. I'm sorry, I don't see how you can blather on about safety and coders supposedly understanding airplanes with that coded
in.
JeffC who actually worked at Boeing years ago and said the coding was conservative (lots of people checked it) because they
were safety oriented but also didn't get very good software engineers, since writing software at Boeing was boring.
I still have some trouble blaming the 737 losses, ipso facto, on using automation to extend an old design. There are
considerably more complex aircraft systems than MCAS that have been reliably automated, and building on a thoroughly proven framework
usually causes less trouble than suffering the teething problems of an all new design.
At the risk of repeating the obvious, a basic principle of critical systems, systems which must be reliable, is that they can
not suffer from single point failures. You want to require at least two independent failures to disturb a system, whose combined
probability is so low that other, unavoidable failure sources predominate, for example, weather or overwhelming, human error.
This principle extends to the system's development. The design and programming of a (reliable) critical system can not suffer
from single point failures. This requires a good many, skilled people, paying careful attention to different, specific stages
of the process. Consider a little thing I once worked on: the indicator that confirms a cargo door is closed, or arguably, that
is neither open nor unlatched. I count at least five levels of engineers and programmers, between Boeing and the FAA, that used
to validate, implement and verify the work of their colleagues, one or more levels above and/or below: to insure the result was
safe.
I bet what will ultimately come out is that multiple levels of the validation and verification chain have been grievously degraded
("crapified") to cut costs and increase profits. The first and last levels for a start. I am curious and will ask around.
The MAX isn't a proven framework. Boeing fundamentally altered the 737 design by shifting the position of the engines. The
MCAS fudge doesn't fix that.
My own impression is that there seems to be a clash between three separate philosophies at work here. The first is the business
culture of Boeing which had supplanted Boeing's historical aviation-centric ways of doing things in aircraft design. The bean-counters
& marketing droids took over, outsourced aircraft construction to such places as non-union workshops & other countries, and thought
that cutting corners in aircraft manufacture would have no long-term ill effects. The second philosophy is that of software design
that failed to understand that the software had to be good to go as it was shipped and had little understanding of what happens
when you ship beta-standard software to an operational aircraft in service. This was to have fatal consequences. The third culture
is that of the pilots themselves which seek to keep their skills going in an aviation world that wants to turn them into airplane-drivers.
If there is any move afoot to have self flying aircraft introduced down the track, I hope that this helps kill it.
Boeing is going to take a massive financial hit and so it should. Heads should literally roll over this debacle and it did not
help their case when they went to Trump to keep this plane flying in the US without thought as to what could have happened if
a US or Canadian 737 MAX had augured in. The biggest loser I believe is going to be the US's reputation with aviation. The rest
of the aviation world will no longer trust what the FAA says or advise without checking it themselves. The trust of decades of
work has just been thrown out the door needlessly. Even in the critical field of aircraft crash investigation, the US took a hit
as Ethiopia refused the demands that the black boxes be sent to the US but sent them instead to France. That is something that
has flown under the radar. This is going to have knock-on effects for decades to come.
Beginning to look like a trade war with the EU. airbus, boeing, vw, US cars; but haven't seen Japan drawn into this yet. Mercedes
Benz is saying EV cars are nonsense, they actually create more pollution than diesel engines and they are recommending methane
gasoline (that sounds totally suicidal), and hydrogen power. Hydrogen has always sounded like a good choice, so why no acclaim?
It can only be the resistance of vested interests. The auto industry, like the airline industry, is frantically trying to externalize
its costs. Maybe we should all just settle down and do a big financial mutual insurance company that covers catastrophic loss
by paying the cost of switching over to responsible manufacturing and fuel efficiency. Those corporations cooperate with shared
subsidiaries that manufacture software to patch their bad engineering – why not a truce while they look for solutions?
The whole 737 development reminds me of a story a GM engineer told me. Similarly to the aviation industry, when GM makes modifications
to an existing part on a vehicle, if the change is small enough the part does not need to be recertified for mechanical strength,
etc. One of the vehicles he was working on had a part failure in testing, so they looked at the design history of the part. It
turns out that, similarly to 737, this was a legacy part carried over numerous generations of the vehicle.
Each redesign of the vehicle introduced some changes, they needed to reroute some cabling, so they would punch a new hole through
the part. But because the change was small enough the engineering team had the option of just signing off on the change without
additional testing. So this went on for years, where additional holes or slits were made in the original part and each change
was deemed to be small enough that no recertification was necessary. The cumulative change from the original certification was
that this was now a completely different part and, not surprisingly, eventually it failed.
The interesting part of the story was the institutional inertia. As all these incremental changes were applied to the part,
nobody bothered to check when was the last time part was actually tested and what was the part design as that time. Every step
of the way everybody assumed their change is small enough not to cause any issue and did not do any diligence until a failure
occured.
Which brings me back to the 737, if I am not mistaken, 737 MAX is, for certification purposes, considered an iteration of the
original 737. The aircraft though is very different than the original, increased wingspan (117′ vs 93′), length (140′ vs. 100′).
737 NG is similarly different.
So for me the big issue with the MAX is the institutional question that allowed a plane so different from the original 737
certification to be allowed as a variant of the original, without additional pilot training or plane certification. Upcoming 777X
has the same issue, it's a materially different aircraft (larger wingspan, etc.) that has a kludge (folding wingtips) to allow
it to pass as a variant of the original 777. It will be interesting to see, in the wake of the MAX fiasco, what treatment does
the 777X get when it comes to certification.
The FAA needs to be able to follow these tweaks. Maybe we citizens need a literal social contract that itemizes what we expect
our government to actually do.
BTW, I do not believe that the problems are insoluble, or as a result of a design philosophy, but rather it is a result of
placing sales over engineering.
There are a number of aerodynamic tweaks that could have dealt with this issue (larger horizontal tail comes to mind, but my
background is manufacturing not aerodynamics), but this would require that pilots requalify for a transition between the NG and
the MAX, which would likely mean that many airlines would take a second look at Airbus.
We should avoid blaming "software" or "automation" for this accident. The B737 MAX seems to be a case of "Money first, safety
second" culture, combined with insufficent regulatory control.
The root of the B737 MAX accidents was an erroneous safety hazard assessment: The safety asessment (and the FAA) believed the
MCAS had a 0.6 authority limit. This 0.6 limit meant that an erroneous MCAS function would only have limited consequences. In
the safety jargon, its severity was classifed as "Major", instead of "Catastrophic".
After the "Major" classification was assigned, the subsequente design decions (like using a single sensor, or perhaps insufficient
testing) are acceptable and in line with the civil aviation standards.
The problem is that the safety engineer(s) failed to understand that the 0.6 limit was self-imposed by the MCAS software, not
enforced by any external aircraft element. Therefore, the MCAS software could fail in such a way that it ignored the limit. In
consequence, MCAS should have been classifed "Catastrophic".
Everybody can make mistakes. We know this. That is why these safety assessments should be reviewed and challenged inside the
company and by the FAA. The need to launch the MAX fast and the lack of FAA oversight resources surely played a greater role than
the usage of software and automation.
Yves: Thanks for this post; it has (IMO) a level-headed perspective. It is not about assigning *blame*, it is about *What,
Why, and How to Prevent* what happened from re-occurring. Blame is for courts and juries. Good luck finding jurors who are not
predisposed; due to relentless bombardment with parroted misinformation and factoids.
I wonder how often MCAS kicked in on a typical 737MAX flight, in situation where the weather vane advising of angle attack
was working as per normal. Since we are excluding the time when auto-pilot is working and also the time when the flaps are down,
there is only a very small time window immediately after take off. I would venture to guess that the MCAS would almost always
adjust the plane at least once. This is once too many, if one is to believe that the notion of design improvement includes improvement
in aerodynamic behavior. The fact that MCAS could only be overridden by disabling the entire motor control of the trim suggests
that the MCAS feature is absolutely necessary for the thing to fly without surprise stalls. There is no excuse in a series of
a product for handling associated with basic safety becoming worse with a new model. Fuel efficiency is laudable and a marketable
thing, but not when packaged together with the bad compromise of bad flight behavior. If the fix is only by lines of code, they
really have not fixed it completely. We know they are not going to be able to move the engines or the thrust line or increase
the ground clearance of the plane so the software fix will be sold as the solution. While it probably does not mean that there
will be more planes being trimmed to crash into the ground, it does make for some anxiety for future passengers. Loss of sales
would not be a surprise but more of a surprise will be the deliveries that will be completed regardless.
MCAS was intended to rarely if ever activate. It is supposed to nudge the aircraft to a lower angle of attack if AoA is getting
high to cause instability in certain parts of the flight envelope. An overly aggressive takeoff climb would be an example. Part
of the problem is that a faulty AoA sensor resulted in the system thinking it was at this extreme case, repeatedly, and in a way
that was difficult for the pilots to identify since they had not been properly trained and the UX was badly implemented.
Yes I've heard that. But do not believe it, given how it is implemented. So I really would like to know how it behaves in non-catastrophic
situations. If so benign, why not allow it to turn off without turning off trim controls? Did not the earlier 737's not need this
feature?
In a non-catastrophic situation, and if functioning correctly, it's my understanding it would felt by the flight crew as mild
lowering of the nose by the system. This is is to keep the plane from increasing angle of attack, which could lead to a stall
or other instability.
It's my understanding MCAS should be treated as a separate system from the trim controls, although they both control the pitch
of the stabilator. Trim controls are generally not "highly dynamic", in that the system (or pilot) sets the trim value only occasionally
based primarily on things like the aircraft weight distribution (this could however change during a flight as fuel is burned,
for example). MCAS on the other hand, while monitoring AoA continuously in flight modes where it is activated only kicks in to
correct excessive inputs from the pilots, or as a result of atmospheric disturbances (wind shear would be one possible cause of
excessive AoA readings).
Neither trim nor MCAS are required to manually fly the plane safely if under direct pilot control and the the pilot is fully
situationally aware.
Earlier 737s did not need this feature due to different aerodynamic properties of the plane. They however still have assistive
features such as stick shakers to help prevent leaving the normal flight envelope.
I've read a bit more in regard to allowing MCAS to turn off without turning off trim, I have no idea why it was implemented
as it was, since previous 737s allow separate control of trim and MCAS. More here:
This however still doesn't change the fact that neither is required to fly the plane, given proper training and communication,
both of which were criminally lacking.
IBG, YBG corporate decisions by people who will probably never fly in these planes, complete regulatory capture and distract
with the little people squabbling over technical details. In China there would probably already have been a short trial, a trip
to the river bank, a bullet through the head, organ harvesting for the corporate jocks responsible. Team Amrika on the way down.
On the subject of software, the underlying issue of ship and patch later is because the process of software is full of bad
practice.
Two examples, "if" and "new".
If is a poor use of a stronger mechanism, FSMs, or Finite State Machines.
'new' is a mechanism that leads to memory leaks, and crashes.
I developed some middleware to bridge data between maineframs and Unix systems that ran 7×24 for 7 years continuously without
a failure, because of FSMs and static memory use.
In an email to me (and presumably to all AAdvantage program members) transmitted at 03:00 April 17 UTC ( i.e. , 11 PM
April 16 US EDT), American Airlines states that it is canceling 737 MAX flights through August 19 (instead of June 5 as stated
by the earlier newspaper story cited in this post).
Eliminating introductory and concluding paragraphs that are marketing eyewash (re. passenger safety and convenience), the two
payload paragraphs state in their entirety:
To avoid last-minute changes and to accommodate customers on other flights with as much notice as possible before their
travel date, we have made the decision to extend our cancellations for the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft through August 19, 2019,
while we await recertification of the MAX.
While these changes impact only a small portion of our more than 7,000 departures each day this summer, we can plan more
reliably for the peak travel season by adjusting our schedule now. Customers whose upcoming travel has been impacted as a result
of the schedule change are being contacted by our teams.
I'm surprised this has not already appeared in earlier comments. Anybody else get this?
Now do Tesla & their bs Tesla Autonomy Investor Day please.
It appears to have it all from beta testing several ton vehicles on public roads, (like BA's beta testing of the MAX) to regulatory
capture( of NTSB, & NTHSA as examples) and a currently powerful PR team.
Apparently they're going to show off their "plan" how one will be able to use their Tesla in full autonomous mode while every
other OEM sez it can't be done by the end of this year let alone within a couple decades as the average person perceives autonomous
driving.
First of all, I didn't read the article, so I'm not going to critique it. There were some comments in the excerpt that Yves
provided that I think require some clarification and/or correction.
The 737 is not a fly-by-wire (FBW) aircraft. There are multiple twisted steel control cables that connect the flight control
in the cockpit to the various control surfaces. The flight controls are hydraulically assisted, but in case of hydraulic (or electric)
failure, the cable system is sufficient to control the aircraft.
In both the 737NG and the MAX, there are automation functions that can put in control inputs under various conditions. Every
one of these inputs can be overridden by the pilot.
In the case of the recent MAX accidents, the MCAS system put in an unexpected and large input by moving the stabilizer. The
crews attempted to oppose this input, but they did so mostly by using elevator input (pulling back on the control column). This
required a great deal of arm strength which they eventually could not overcome. However, if either pilot had merely used the strength
of their thumb to depress the stabilizer trim switch on the yoke, they could have easily opposed and cancelled out whatever input
MCAS was trying to put in. Why neither pilot took this fairly basic measure should be one of the key areas of investigation.
These comments are not intended in any way to exonerate Boeing, the FAA, and the compromises that went into the MAX design.
There is a lot there to be concerned about. However, we are not dealing with a case of an automation system that was so powerful
and autonomous that pilots could not override what it was trying to do.
Bjorn over at Leeham had this analysis:
"the Flight Crew followed the procedures prescribed by FAA and Boeing in AD 2018-23-51. And as predicted the Flight Crew could
not trim manually, the trim wheel can't be moved at the speeds ET302 flew."
In other words, the pilots followed the Boeing recommended procedure to turn off the automatic trim, but at the speeds they
were flying and the large angle that MCAS has moved the stabilizer to, the trim wheels were bound up and could not be moved by
human effort.
They then turned electric trim on to try to help their effort, and MCAS put the nose down again.
Also: Did no one ever test the humans factors of this in a simulator? At HP, when we put out a new printer, we had human factors
bring in average users to see if using our documentation, they could install the printer.
It is mind-blowing to me that Boeing and the FAA can release an Air Worthiness Directive (The fix after the Lion crash) that
was apparently never simulator tested to see if actual humans could do it.
None of the above should have passed muster. None of the above should have passed the "OK" pencil of the most junior engineering
staff, much less a DER [FAA Designated Engineering Representative].
That's not a big strike. That's a political, social, economic, and technical sin .
This is the thing that has been nagging me all along about this story. The "most junior engineering staff" thing is not an
exaggeration – engineers get this drilled into them until it's part of their DNA. I read this and immediately thought that it
points to a problem of culture and values (a point I was pleased to see the author make in the next paragraph). Bluntly, it tells
us that the engineers are not the ones running the show at Boeing, and that extends even to safety critical situations where their
assessment should trump everything.
One of two things needs to happen as a result of this. Either Boeing needs to return to the old safety first culture, or it
needs to go out of business. If neither happens, we are going to see a lot more planes falling out of the sky.
I want to reemphasize that all airplane crashes are a chain of events; if one event does not occur there are no causalities.
Lion Air flight should never have flow with a faulty sensor. But afterwards when the elevator jackscrew was found in the full
nose down position that forced the plane to dive into the Java Sea, Boeing and FAA should have grounded the fleet until a fix
was found. The deaths in Ethiopia are on them. The November 2018 737-8 and -9 Airworthiness Directive was criminally negligent.
Without adequate training the Ethiopian Airline pilots were overwhelmed and not could trim the elevator after turning off the
jackscrew electric motor with the manual trim control due to going too fast with takeoff thrust from start to finish. With deregulation
and the end of government oversight, the terrible design of the 737 Max is solely on Boeing and politicians who deregulated certification.
Profit clearly drove corporate decisions with no consideration of the consequences. This is popping up consistently now from VW
to Quantitative Easing, or the restart of the Cold War. Unless the FAA requires pilot and copilot simulator training on how to
manually trim the 737 Max with all hell breaking loose in the cockpit, the only recourse for customers is to boycott flying Boeing.
Ultimately the current economic system that puts profit above all else must end if humans are to survive.
"... What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. ..."
"... Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future. ..."
"... Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order. ..."
"... "The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today" Thanks for the laugh. It was over with the passing of the 1947 National Security Act. ..."
"... It is not a coincidence that this anti-Russian climate of hatred started back when Putin showed up the left's president, Barack Obama, over Libya. ..."
"... political globalists who wanted a liberal world order but didn't think about the economic side of things much and so let their economic policy be decided by the central banking mafia ..."
"... You should think more about US being aced. Syria was a masterstroke, but so was Ukraine, and not for Russia. Russia lost an extremely valuable ally and a trully brother nation, maybe forever. Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia. ..."
"... You definitely missed last 25 years of Russian-Ukrainian relations. You also, evidently, have very vague understanding of the Ukrainian inner dynamics. I am not sure we can speak of "brother nation" because Ukraine as political nation (and she did form as such by early 2000s) can not be "brother nation" to Russia by definition. In fact, being anti-Russia is the only natural state of Ukrainian political nation ..."
"... As it turned out, Russia is doing just fine without Ukraine. In a long run, if what is called Ukraine today decides to commit suicide by the cop, she sure can try to place US military bases East of Dniepr and we will observe a rather peculiar case of fireworks. ..."
"... It would have been a total catastrophe for Russia had she lost Sebastopol; but so long as Crimea is safely in Moscow's hands, Ukraine is not make-or-break. Russia's global position now, in fact, is even stronger than it was in 2014. ..."
"... Western corporations have been competing with each other (for decades now) to offshore everything to reduce costs /increase profits. The idea is to sell at Western prices and produce at Eastern prices, and this arbitrage has reached crazy proportions. ..."
"... Jews also hate nationalism since it threatens their (minority) power and highlights dual loyalty (or no loyalty) so the Zio-Glob are on one side, and the public on the other, with little common ground between them. ..."
"... At least Brzezinski became well aware of this shift. So many of America's neo-conservatives have largely failed in expressing this defeat. Between Brzezinski and Boot, & the Others, they've all turned out to be fanatic ideologues. ..."
The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing. The center of gravity is
shifting from west to east where China and India are experiencing explosive growth and where a revitalized Russia has restored its
former stature as a credible global superpower. These developments, coupled with America's imperial overreach and chronic economic
stagnation, have severely hampered US ability to shape events or to successfully pursue its own strategic objectives. As Washington's
grip on global affairs continues to loosen and more countries reject the western development model, the current order will progressively
weaken clearing the way for a multipolar world badly in need of a new security architecture. Western elites, who are unable to accept
this new dynamic, continue to issue frenzied statements expressing their fear of a future in which the United States no longer dictates
global policy.
At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, underscored many of these same themes. Here's an excerpt
from his presentation:
"The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was Not only do war and violence play a
more prominent role again: a new great power confrontation looms at the horizon. In contrast to the early 1990s, liberal democracy
and the principle of open markets are no longer uncontested .
In this international environment, the risk of an inter-state war between great and middle powers has clearly increased .What
we had been observing in many places around the world was a dramatic increase in brinkmanship, that is, highly risky actions on
the abyss – the abyss of war .
No matter where you look, there are countless conflicts and crises the core pieces of the international order are breaking
apart, without it being clear whether anyone can pick them up – or even wants to. ("Who will pick up the pieces?",
Munich Security Conference )
Ischinger is not alone in his desperation nor are his feelings limited to elites and intellectuals. By now, most people are familiar
with the demonstrations that have rocked Paris, the political cage-match that is tearing apart England (Brexit), the rise of anti-immigrant
right-wing groups that have sprung up across Europe, and the surprising rejection of the front-runner candidate in the 2016 presidential
elections in the US. Everywhere the establishment and their neoliberal policies are being rejected by the masses of working people
who have only recently begun to wreak havoc on a system that has ignored them for more than 30 years. Trump's public approval ratings
have improved, not because he has "drained the swamp" as he promised, but because he is still seen as a Washington outsider despised
by the political class, the foreign policy establishment and the media. His credibility rests on the fact that he is hated by the
coalition of elites who working people now regard as their sworn enemy.
The president of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, summed up his views on the "weakening of the liberal
world order" in an article that appeared on the CFR's website. Here's what he said:
"Attempts to build global frameworks are failing. Protectionism is on the rise; the latest round of global trade talks never
came to fruition. .At the same time, great power rivalry is returning
There are several reasons why all this is happening, and why now. The rise of populism is in part a response to stagnating
incomes and job loss, owing mostly to new technologies but widely attributed to imports and immigrants. Nationalism is a tool
increasingly used by leaders to bolster their authority, especially amid difficult economic and political conditions .
But the weakening of the liberal world order is due, more than anything else, to the changed attitude of the U.S. Under President
Donald Trump, the US decided against joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. It
has threatened to leave the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. It has unilaterally introduced steel
and aluminum tariffs, relying on a justification (national security) that others could use, in the process placing the world at
risk of a trade war .America First" and the liberal world order seem incompatible." ("Liberal World Order, R.I.P.", Richard Haass,
CFR )
What Haass is saying is that the cure for globalisation is more globalization, that the greatest threat to the liberal world order
is preventing the behemoth corporations from getting more of what they want; more self-aggrandizing trade agreements, more offshoring
of businesses, more outsourcing of jobs, more labor arbitrage, and more privatization of public assets and critical resources. Trade
liberalization is not liberalization, it does not strengthen democracy or create an environment where human rights, civil liberties
and the rule of law are respected. It's a policy that focuses almost-exclusively on the free movement of capital in order to enrich
wealthy shareholders and fatten the bottom line. The sporadic uprisings around the world– Brexit, yellow vests, emergent right wing
groups– can all trace their roots back to these one-sided, corporate-friendly trade deals that have precipitated the steady slide
in living standards, the shrinking of incomes, and the curtailing of crucial benefits for the great mass of working people across
the US and Europe. President Trump is not responsible for the outbreak of populism and social unrest, he is merely an expression
of the peoples rage. Trump's presidential triumph was a clear rejection of the thoroughly-rigged elitist system that continues to
transfer the bulk of the nation's wealth to tiniest layer of people at the top.
Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.
As we noted earlier, the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, which is the one incontrovertible fact that cannot be
denied. Washington's brief unipolar moment –following the breakup of the Soviet Union in December, 1991 -- has already passed and
new centers of industrial and financial power are gaining pace and gradually overtaking the US in areas that are vital to America's
primacy. This rapidly changing economic environment is accompanied by widespread social discontent, seething class-based resentment,
and ever-more radical forms of political expression. The liberal order is collapsing, not because the values espoused in the 60s
and 70s have lost their appeal, but because inequality is widening, the political system has become unresponsive to the demands of
the people, and because US can no longer arbitrarily impose its will on the world.
Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely responsible
for the hollowing out of America's industrial core. Haass's antidote would only throw more gas on the fire and hasten the day when
liberals and conservatives form into rival camps and join in a bloody battle to the end. Someone has to stop the madness before the
country descends into a second Civil War.
What Haass fails to discuss, is Washington's perverse reliance on force to preserve the liberal world order, after all, it's not
like the US assumed its current dominant role by merely competing more effectively in global markets. Oh, no. Behind the silk glove
lies the iron fist, which has been used in over 50 regime change operations since the end of WW2. The US has over 800 military bases
scattered across the planet and has laid to waste one country after the other in successive interventions, invasions and occupations
for as long as anyone can remember. This penchant for violence has been sharply criticized by other members of the United Nations,
but only Russia has had the courage to openly oppose Washington where it really counts, on the battlefield.
Russia is presently engaged in military operations that have either prevented Washington from achieving its strategic objectives
(like Ukraine) or rolled back Washington's proxy-war in Syria. Naturally, liberal elites like Haass feel threatened by these developments
since they are accustomed to a situation in which 'the world is their oyster'. But, alas, oysters have been removed from the menu,
and the United States is going to have to make the adjustment or risk a third world war.
What Russian President Vladimir Putin objects to, is Washington's unilateralism, the cavalier breaking of international law to
pursue its own imperial ambitions. Ironically, Putin has become the greatest defender of the international system and, in particular,
the United Nations which is a point he drove home in his presentation at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in New York
on September 28, 2015, just two days before Russian warplanes began their bombing missions in Syria. Here's part of what he said:
"The United Nations is unique in terms of legitimacy, representation and universality .We consider any attempt to undermine
the legitimacy of the United Nations as extremely dangerous. It may result in the collapse of the entire architecture of international
relations, leaving no rules except the rule of force. The world will be dominated by selfishness rather than collective effort,
by dictate rather than equality and liberty, and instead of truly sovereign nations we will have colonies controlled from outside."(Russian
President Vladimir Putin at the 70th session of the
UN General Assembly )
Putin's speech, followed by the launching of the Russian operation in Syria, was a clear warning to the foreign policy establishment
that they would no longer be allowed to topple governments and destroy countries with impunity. Just as Putin was willing to put
Russian military personnel at risk in Syria, so too, he will probably put them at risk in Venezuela, Lebanon, Ukraine and other locations
where they might be needed. And while Russia does not have anywhere near the raw power of the US military, Putin seems to be saying
that he will put his troops in the line of fire to defend international law and the sovereignty of nations. Here's Putin again:
"We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves
at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to
be done and thus they don't need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands
in their way .
We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union
exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences
and caused degradation instead of progress.
It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people's mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export
revolutions, only now these are "democratic" revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa already
mentioned by the previous speaker. Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention indiscriminately destroyed government
institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and
total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.
I'm urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you've done?" (Russian President Vladimir
Putin at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly)
Here Putin openly challenges the concept of a 'liberal world order' which in fact is a sobriquet used to conceal Washington's
relentless plundering of the planet. There's nothing liberal about toppling regimes and plunging millions of people into anarchy,
poverty and desperation. Putin is simply trying to communicate to US leaders that the world is changing, that nations in Asia are
gaining strength and momentum, and that Washington will have to abandon the idea that any constraint on its behavior is a threat
to its national security interests.
Former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, appears to agree on this point and suggests that the US
begin to rethink its approach to foreign policy now that the world has fundamentally changed and other countries are demanding a
bigger place at the table.
What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after
he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic
Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?)
without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. Here's a short excerpt from an article
he wrote in 2016 for the American Interest titled "Toward a Global Realignment":
"The fact is that there has never been a truly "dominant" global power until the emergence of America on the world scene .That
era is now ending .As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power
architecture .The United States is still the world's politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given
complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power.
America can only be effective in dealing with the current Middle Eastern violence if it forges a coalition that involves, in
varying degrees, also Russia and China .
A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual
realization in Russia that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China's increasing role in
the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with
the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.
The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome,
can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility.
Since the next twenty years may well be the last phase of the more traditional and familiar political alignments with which
we have grown comfortable, the response needs to be shaped now . And that accommodation has to be based on a strategic vision
that recognizes the urgent need for a new geopolitical framework." ("Toward a Global Realignment", Zbigniew Brzezinski,
The American Interest
)
This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world had
changed, that power had shifted eastward, and that the only path forward for America was cooperation, accommodation, integration
and partnership. Tragically, there is no base of support for these ideas on Capital Hill, the White House or among the U.S. foreign
policy establishment. The entire political class and their allies in the media unanimously support a policy of belligerence, confrontation
and war. The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the
clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline
and the final collapse of the liberal world order.
Zbig has fially admitted that America needs to become friends with Russia. We can not handle the world alone,but with Russia we
would have 90% of the worlds nuclear weapons and vast geopolitical ifluence. Americans do hot have anything against Russia. It
is the neocon cabal that is fostering conflict . Thet just can not get over the fact that they tried and failed to take control
of Russia. They are trying to do so to the u.S.A.
"2. Russia should become the real leader of the new process. (It has already become it but not yet aware of the fact.) The
West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible only through
Russia. Only Russia in an alliance with the Muslim world can keep China in check without conflicts, helping it find its new place
in the world as another super-power.
3. Leaders of Russia, America, Israel, Europe, Iran, India, and international financial capitals must initiate a dialogue over
leaving this crisis behind and preventing events like those which swept America on September 11.
A time of change is upon us, and it's futile to wish we were living in some other era. We have to change ourselves and change
the world "
Novaya Gazeta
No. 75 October 2001
THE THIRD FORCE OF WORLD WAR III
[MORE]
"THE AMERICANS DON'T REALIZE IT YET, BUT CHINA HAS WRITTEN ITS OWN SCRIPT FOR SQUEEZING THE UNITED STATES OFF THE WORLD STAGE.
CHINA SUPPORTS ACTIONS OF THE WEST AIMED AT MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION OF RUSSIA AND THE MUSLIM WORLD. THE WEST, RUSSIA, ISRAEL,
AND THE MUSLIM WORLD MUST WORK TOGETHER.
THE WESTERN SCRIPT
[ ]
"Using techniques of manipulating public opinion, the West is trying to establish the illusion of a global forces with the
fascist- like ideology of Wahhabi fundamentalism. As far as the West is concerned, Wahhabi and Islam are the same thing. It is
because of this that the essential terrorism of Wahhabi ideas is being formulated so simply for public consumption: all Muslims
are terrorists by nature.
The preliminary objective of brainwashing (Islam is the basis of terrorism) is thus achieved. "
"This script becomes possible when we assume that some Western elites and secret services made a kind of covert pact with this
still-unknown Player."
THE CHINESE SCRIPT
[ ]
" Throw a great deal of dollars into the market all at once, and the dollar will crash. A conflict with Taiwan may follow.
It will be a conflict waged with American money, with American weapons, investment, and high technology. Add the nuclear factor
here. Suffice it to recall the recent scandal when Chinese intelligence obtained all major nuclear secrets of the United States.
"
What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years
after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book,
Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition
(decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos.
So somebody put forth a deluded crack-pot idea that got great traction and made a lot of people very rich and powerful who
want to stay that way, but the originator now says he was wrong and we should change. Yeah, those rich and powerful people just
have to agree to give up some of that. How likely is that without a major catastrophe forcing them, given what we know about human
nature?
Maybe the lesson is to have realistic ideas about foreign policy and relations in the future. Did anybody seriously believe
countries with long histories like Russia and China were always going to be happy playing second fiddle to the US?
Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.
True, but their problem is compounded with their fear which is anchored in the past, whose real history blows all current,
being discredited as I type this, narratives out of the water. This, plus most of them, Haas and CFR included, do not operate
with actual facts and data.
"The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world"
Unfortunately, this is probably not entirely feasible considering the United States's inappropriately close relationship to
Israel and the American government's radical stance of forcing LGBTQ issues; as San Jose proves, these people aren't simply going
to leave you alone, but rather they will make you conform under threat. Probably what will happen in the future is a Japan-EU-Russia
alliance that makes peace with the Middle East and contains the Chinese military as much as possible.
The US could very well find itself cut out at some point. It has already proved itself both reckless and incompetent
with its handling of Iran, Israel, and Venezuela. Also, I suspect that neither ordinary EU citizens nor Asians will want to be
ruled over by a group of POC racists who discriminate against Europeans, Asian males, and traditional families.
I think the rest of the world should begin considering alternate defense arrangements. The US cannot afford to defend their
interests forever with an aging, shrinking white Caucasian population and a growing, less capable and less conscientious replacement
population less willing to die in imperial wars. Increasingly, the US will be less capable of defending others in the Pacific
from China as it Affirmative Actions its air force; Obama was trying to do that throughout the whole of the American military
and accomplished his objective by lowering standards. I think this process should continue in the future with disastrous results.
In the future, Asia will try to make peace with China before they get too strong and China will reciprocate with generous territorial
concessions in exchange for neutrality. For example, the Chinese may relinquish territorial claims in the Philippines in exchange
for a treaty stating that the Philippines will not base the American military or buy weapons from them, but they would be allowed
to buy weapons from third parties such as the Russians. A series of moves like this might dramatically weaken the American position
in the region, allowing China to jumpskip to Africa and the Middle East more effectively. Perhaps a similar deal will be worked
out with Taiwan: autonomy and a peace treaty in exchange for no weapon purchases or defense arrangements with the US, but Taiwan
could still buy Russian weapons.
"Zbig has fially admitted that America needs to become friends with Russia."
As Karlin has noted, I don't see this happening in the near future, not with the insane levels of anti-Russian hate coming
from the American left, some of which is just pure racial hatred of whites projected onto Russians.
All this is irrelevant in the long run. America will be a third-world country in 50 years or less. Imagine a government filled
with AOCs, Omars, and Bookers, with a constituency that matches. Brazil of the North isn't going to be a superpower. We can look
on that as a silver lining.
The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the
clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of
US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order.
Very dangerous times are ahead. A declining superpower in late empire mode may make risky decisions. I wonder if America will
have a Suez event in the upcoming decade? The 1956 Suez crisis heralded the rise of a new superpower and the eclipse of another
one.
"The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today" Thanks for the laugh. It was over with the
passing of the 1947 National Security Act.
@Walt I don't know how
fucked up you have to be to use "We" to refer to the murderous US State but you should seek competent professional psychiatric
assistance, Soon.
The attitudes and political beliefs of your average Russian are very similar to many Red State conservatives, as has been noted
on this webzine at least once in recent memory (and with an accompanying political map with similarities noted between American
Blue and Red States compared with Russia). The American left projects its racist hate onto the Russians in response to those similarities.
It is not a coincidence that this anti-Russian climate of hatred started back when Putin showed up the left's president,
Barack Obama, over Libya.
That also explains the left's hypocrisy on war: their tribe's racial leader, Obama, wanted war in Libya, so war is now good;
Russia opposed it and later prevented war in Syria (which Obama wanted), so the Russians are now the bad guys. It's purely a matter
of tribal affiliation and racial hate on the part of the American left.
I wonder if America will have a Suez event in the upcoming decade?
She already had it and one is unfolding right this moment. For an empire of this size and influence, granted declining dramatically,
it takes a sequence of events. "Suez Moment" for Britain happened during WW II, the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion
to British Empire dying in WW II.
We'll see in the coming years if we get a crisis that lays it all bare.
Ongoing real Revolution in Military Affairs and US losing conventional (and nuclear) arms race is what unfolds right now. Realistically,
Putin's March 1, 2018 Speech to Federal Assembly was also one of these moments -- as I said, the process is protracted and at
each of its phases US geopolitical cards have been aced and trumped, NO pun intended.
when i read these people i get the impression there are two camps:
1) political globalists who wanted a liberal world order but didn't think about the economic side of things much and so
let their economic policy be decided by the central banking mafia
and
2) The central banking mafia who understood globalization was simply their criminal looting of the West backed
up by a big military who could be rented out from a corrupted political class.
it seems the first group still don't understand that it was the banking mafia's neoliberal economics
– currency debasement
– usury
– cheap labor
that destroyed their dream.
the same three things have been destroying civilizations for 3000 years.
The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible
only through Russia.
i think this is short-sighted. The global north needs to combine to contain the global south or the central banking mafia will
eventually use them to destroy the north's genetic advantages and all our descendants will end up as 85 IQ slave-cattle.
The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing.
Really? Where? US is still in Middle East and now threatens war with Iran. Venezuela is on the brink. Japan and EU are the
ever loyal dogs of the US. If they've been upset with Trump, it's not because he wants to exert more influence but less.
the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion to British Empire dying in WW II
The Atlantic charter signed aboard the HMS Prince of Wales, in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland on August 14, 1941 by FDR and Churchill
was probably the moment when the old British empire traded places with the new global power, the United States. So you are correct
in your analysis.
@MarkinLA This is not
really about history, it is about power. Many of the US allies have much longer histories, but that does not help them in the
power department. China and Russia have enough power to stand only on their own two feet.
@Andrei MartyanovYou should think more about US being aced. Syria was a masterstroke, but so was Ukraine, and not for Russia. Russia lost an
extremely valuable ally and a trully brother nation, maybe forever. Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for
Russia.
The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible
only through Russia.
Sberbank calls on UAE businesses to invest in Russia, offers help
"According to the statement, the Gulf countries' total capital available for investment is estimated at more than $3.2 trillion
but only "a small part" of capital earmarked for investing in Russia has actually gone into Russia-based projects."
"The Russian visitors set out Sberbank's technology strategy and described achievements by the Moscow-based lender in artificial
intelligence development.
They also "pointed out interest in Islamic finance", the statement said."
Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.
You definitely missed last 25 years of Russian-Ukrainian relations. You also, evidently, have very vague understanding
of the Ukrainian inner dynamics. I am not sure we can speak of "brother nation" because Ukraine as political nation (and she did
form as such by early 2000s) can not be "brother nation" to Russia by definition. In fact, being anti-Russia is the only natural
state of Ukrainian political nation.
There is another twist to all this–these are Russians now, who do not want to deal with Ukraine in any of her manifestations
and, to rub the salt into the wound, Zbig was delusional when thought that denying Ukraine to Russia would spell the end of Russian
"imperialism". As it turned out, Russia is doing just fine without Ukraine. In a long run, if what is called Ukraine today
decides to commit suicide by the cop, she sure can try to place US military bases East of Dniepr and we will observe a rather
peculiar case of fireworks.
The Atlantic charter signed aboard the HMS Prince of Wales,in Placentia Bay,Newfoundland on August 14, 1941 by FDR and Churchill
was probably the moment when the old British empire traded places with the new global power, the United States.
This happened in 1941 at secret ABC (America-Britain-Canada) consultations where Lord Halifax was trying to recruit American
resources for defense of Britain's imperial interests. US "politely" declined. Big Three became Big Two and a Half at 1943 Tehran
Conference at which Stalin was very specific that USSR wanted American as a head of Overlord.
All this pursuant to a strategic scandal between US and British Empire at Casablanca where General Stanley Embick of Marshall's
OPD accused Britain in his memorandum of avoiding fighting main Nazi forces due to Britain's imperial interests. Churchill knew
the significance of Tehran and suffered non-stop bouts of jealousy and suspicion towards FDR and Stalin.
I am sure Sir Winston knew that FDR wanted to meet Stalin without him. Stalin refused to do so without Churchill. As per "global
power"–sure, except for one teeny-weeny fact (or rather facts), since WW II "global power" didn't win a single war against even
more-or-less determined enemy.
Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.
It would have been a total catastrophe for Russia had she lost Sebastopol; but so long as Crimea is safely in Moscow's
hands, Ukraine is not make-or-break. Russia's global position now, in fact, is even stronger than it was in 2014.
It will be much worse than Brazil, Brazil managed to cover up the reality that whites dominate politics and the economy (although
there is a new push to copy the American affirmative action ideology). In America whites will not be able to do what is happening
in Brazil, all politics will be non white dominated, likewise the woke corporate blue haired brigade will ensure that non whites
dominate all companies, no exceptions allowed. The end result of this is predictable, Americans will be wishing they were like
Brazil.
@Republic No it was
earlier, it was when it decided to declare war on the Third Reich. It decided that Poland was more important than keeping its
empire.
Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely
responsible for the hollowing out of America's industrial core.
Western corporations have been competing with each other (for decades now) to offshore everything to reduce costs /increase
profits. The idea is to sell at Western prices and produce at Eastern prices, and this arbitrage has reached crazy proportions.
The US has in fact exported whole industrial sectors (with the jobs and innovation). Same in Europe with a company such as
Decathlon (Europe's Nº1 sport goods supplier) entirely sourcing its products outside Europe.
Conclusion that if globalization fails, then so do these companies, and they have a massive incentive buy political protection
from Western governments – which they are doing. Nationalism and America First are anathema to them and they have (amazingly)
managed to built globalization and open frontiers into the ethos of the EU and US – with all the self-serving multicultural Save
the World blah.
Jews also hate nationalism since it threatens their (minority) power and highlights dual loyalty (or no loyalty) so the
Zio-Glob are on one side, and the public on the other, with little common ground between them.
This doesn't mean that it's impossible to stop outsourcing. If it happened, then Decathlon would either go bankrupt or have
to switch production to Rumania or Portugal = higher prices, but at least the money would stay in Europe. Same with the other
industries, and the first step has to be to cut down the power of the EU bureaucracy and Washington.
Just prepare fort the impending surge in Totalitarian methods to halt the inevitable in the USA.
The rest of the world is not our playground.
Good luck.
@Andrei Martyanov
Haas and CFR included, do not operate with actual facts and data.
Absolutely correct. Without an honest media, it is impossible to make good decisions.
Those Zionists who control the media in the West are deluding themselves. They will be the biggest losers when ordinary people
finally wake up to the fact that they have been lied to for over 100 years – WW1, WW2, Palestine, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Ukraine,
Russia, Crimea, MH-17, Skripals, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, 9/11 and many other instances.
Not so fast. OK, so maybe Zbig had some second thoughts about the whole project in 2012. But didn't the same Zbig opine in 2015,
at the start of Russia's Syria intervention, that the US should strike hard and fast before the Russkies managed to complete their
buildup there? To me that sounded rather much like an unprovoked attack on Russian troops, who were legally in Syria at the invitation
of its internationally recognized government.
Bottom line, for all of his far-too-long career Mr. Brzezinski has been exactly what one would expect from the spiritual father
of al-Qaeda: a vile and reckless individual. Anyone looking that way for salvation needs some time out for reflection.
This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world
had changed, that power had shifted eastward,
This is an excellent article, which addresses the key historic driver of our time. By 2015, world GDP had already passed the
threshold where the GDP share of the West had become lesser than the share of the Rest.
The major share of global wealth shifting towards Asia is an ineluctable historic re-alignment; it is a natural return to the
long-term historic balance pre-Industrial Revolution.
Western politicians ' problem is that they don't want to "break the news" to their people that Western standards of living
are going to degrade ineluctably over the coming years , because that would expose their incompetence, as well as highlight
the need to address wealth inequality in the West .
It is easier instead to the blame the disenfranchised, pauperised citizens voting for Trump, Brexit, and other "extreme" political
parties.
At least Brzezinski became well aware of this shift. So many of America's neo-conservatives have largely failed in expressing
this defeat. Between Brzezinski and Boot, & the Others, they've all turned out to be fanatic ideologues.
@notanon Ralph Nader
used to say the big issue is money in politics -- the money that "Congress Critters" use to get their government jobs at $174k.
To get one of those government jobs, you don't have to understand something as complex as the banking system, which is made more
opaque by the globalist neoliberals who want to maintain the Cheap Labor Lobby's beloved status quo.
You don't have to be Nomi Prins, someone who actually worked on Wall Street and knows its nooks and crannies, to get a Congress
Critter job. You just have to be the right kind of pander bear with the right kind of faux outrage at selective moments.
The other problem is that -- like most of us in the general public -- Congress Critters have to rely on people in the financial
system to navigate the terrain. It's a math-heavy field. Politicians have apparently always done this. They have created more
than one era with too-big-to-fail institutions. That is what one of Prins' books describes.
But it does not matter whether it's bankers or the manufacturers, employing welfare-assisted illegal aliens or foreign nationals
on foreign soil. And it does not matter that Congress Critters occasionally put the bigwigs on the hot seat as a PR stunt. They
aren't going to do anything to actually change policy unless the corporate masters who fund their campaigns give them the go ahead.
And they don't really even understand why.
[MORE]
If you think Congress Critters understand the global banking system, you should watch the banking committee hearing on C-SPAN,
where they grilled the Treasury Secretary, dressing him down like he was a $10-per-hour call center worker. It makes for good
theater.
Just like at a call center, the humiliation parade had nothing to do with the details of the work or getting anything done
other than convincing voters that a bunch of fabulously wealthy legislators (every one) with a 212-day work year really care,
especially about predatory factors in the financial system that supposedly affect only oppressed skin-pigmentation factions, located
in their districts.
You vicariously enjoy rebellious facial expressions that you could never exhibit during a frequently absentee mom manager's
tirades for fear of being fired from a churn job that does not cover the cost of rent that has risen by 72% over 25 years, even
when you add any paltry commission for taking the trouble to always meeting your numbers. But that will be the extent of it. It
is for show.
My favorite part was Empire-related; it involved the Rep. from Guam, a Congress Critter from one of US's far-flung territories.
His mild and precise disposition made a strong contrast with the Chairwoman's fiery ambiguity. Since his questions were math-related
and about specific budgetary matters, the Treasury Secretary seemed more frazzled than when he was receiving the emotional Sermon
from the gavel-happy chairwoman.
Guam Rep asked the Treasury Secretary about a massive transference of funds from the budget, affecting things like the territory's
education budget, trying to clarify whether the Earned Income Tax Credit was actually a "liability."
The language of most of our legislators reflects how bought off they are by the Cheap Labor Lobby. Which is why this Rep from
Guam's straight-forward language was so refreshing.
By design, the "Child" "Tax" "Credit" and the Earned Income Tax Credit sound like things that would not subtract from the overall
budget to me, too, but this is not money going to people who paid too much income tax. This is money that is credited back to
people who make too little to pay income tax.
The moms often call it their "taxes," when explaining to you what they plan to spend it on. It is not education, Rep. from
Guam. It is stuff like trips to the beach with a boyfriend and tattoos. That's doable for many low-wage mom workers since their
major monthly bills are covered by government.
I enjoyed the Treasury Secretary's facial expressions at this point as well. It appeared to be two math types who didn't really
thrive on the process of figuring out how to spin this fiscal irresponsibility, squirming in their chairs and / or looking kind
of aghast at the absurdity of the situation.
It would have been nice if the Rep from Guam had been honest enough to narrow that down even more, explaining that the small
amount of EITC money going to non-womb-productive, non-welfare-eligible citizens who mostly don't bother to claim such a paltry
sum is the not the big issue.
It is the Refundable Child Tax Credit up to $6,431, not so much the smaller maximum EITC of up to $451. It is the big check,
given as an additional reward to single-breadwinner, womb-productive households that also often receive free EBT food, reduced-cost
rent, monthly cash assistance and free electricity when the single breadwinner works part-time, keeping her income under the earned-income
limits for the programs.
He mentioned that Guam has a lot of poor workers like that, but so does the mainland. It is one of the big reasons for the
impending collapse: undremployment of prime-aged citizens.
If it is due to technology, it is just because employers of office workers now mostly need data entry people since advanced
software does most of the mid-level analytical work. And employers love to hire a near-100% womb-productive "diversity"of childbearing-aged
moms with spousal income, rent-covering child support or welfare and refundable child tax credit cash who do not need decent pay
or full-time hours. "It would mess them up with the government," as one all-mom employer put it.
Employers benefit from a welfare-fueled workforce that does not need higher pay. The Cheap Labor Lobby benefits. Congress Critters
at $174k benefit via fat campaign war chests, but the many welfare-ineligible job seekers who need for pay alone to cover all
household bills are screwed royally in this rigged system.
It is also screwing the SS Trust Fund that is no longer running surpluses and a lot of other things.
Guam Rep asked the Treasury Secretary if he was responsible and, specifically, what could he done to help restore fiscal order.
Of course, the Treasury Secretary isn't responsible for the mid-allocation of funds. Pandering Congress Critters are. They have
the "power of the purse" per US Constitution. The Treasury Sec. just tries to balance the books.
But it was nice that at least one of them showed some non-theatrical concern for finding out which of the six-figure Critters
is responsible. He sounded like he wanted constructive action to stop the Neoliberal House of Cards from just putting more structurally
unsound cards on the deck.
"[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western
thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that
human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of
life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues.
Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that
human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control
and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and
self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flag and loyalty-parades Whereas Socialism, and even
capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said
to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings
itself at his feet"
? George Orwell
BRH, in his perversity, supports Capitalism/Communism and the growth of the Gay Disco
Global State. He should be with us but that would mean discarding this Holy of Holies, World
War Two American military triumphalism. He jus can't, the Truth be damned.
Americans really do not understand who Hitler was, and that is EVRYONE I know. And they
never understood, even in the 50s. But the British understand, but made a deal with the
devil.
But let's start everything in order.
For the dualistic consciousness of Americans, the natural desire is to belittle the role
of the USSR in the defeat of Hitler's Germany, since this does not fit their concept of "good
guys vs bad guys " – if the Russians are the bad guys, then why did they fight along
with the good guys against the bad guy Hitler?
In addition, in the process of changing generations, they are more and more inclined to
the view that Hitler was not so bad, and their fathers and grandfathers put a lot of
accusations against him, just as America puts many accusations on those she desire to bomb
today.
Of course, this should not apply to American intelligentsia, but, as I understand it, it
is difficult to live in a society that professes these or other errors en masse, and not to
allow these errors to penetrate your brain and soul, even if you absolutely know that these
errors are invented by you propaganda.
Especially if these errors are invented by your own propaganda.
Hitler was vilified publicly but glorified privately by the elite (Allen Dulles in
particular). He provided a valuable service by providing the test bed for theories and
practices (eugenics, wholesale population controls and disruptions, sophisticated propaganda
techniques, and perpetual full-spectrum wars) which have since been perfected and are being
implemented much more discreetly and effectively now.
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a
formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg
Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression
against Iraq long before 9/11.
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call
the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a
brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he
would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the
corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he
wanted to during the campaign.
Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion
with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of
paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which
the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe
or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him
to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by
all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the
zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.
The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine
with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have
been there anyway.
No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The
Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they
have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful
way
The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a
threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.
The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The
rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was
really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion
on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was
hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people."
All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were
the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present.
A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated
the 98% poor, to stay rich.
When there were insurrections federal troops restored order.
Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It
is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from
it.
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America
and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and
Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.
Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and
unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident
Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story
after another would achieve the desired result "
But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out
neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions
fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.
I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's
not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of
brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and
facts don't matter!
Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about
intimidating them.
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then
devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no,
the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in
the less-mainstream fake news media.
So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too
stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The
US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the
WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or
cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.
By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose
of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and
most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which
means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite
Mohammedans.
So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of
hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an
attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.
The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the
Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless
lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was,
and that means as bad as Hell itself.
Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable
approach for a book.
Here's the problem.
Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The
custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of
photoshopping.
OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had
made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist
wouldn't be paid.
Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the
60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major
role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally
flawed. I would say more so.
All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The
triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind
and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..
America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution
and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the
greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side
of American history is taught.
"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate
this level of panic."
You continue to claim what you cannot prove.
But then you are a Jews First Zionist.
Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of
"Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a
straight face
Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually
coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and
permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.
Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks
from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.
The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys
Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were
the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.
After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with
the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924,
despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.
Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil
fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they
should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad
today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else
wanted.
'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" --
Michael Kenney
Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the
catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1)
by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by
NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.
It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans.
OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do
Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a
half.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration.
I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration.
While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The
second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by
Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling.
Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American
public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.
The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst
has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton
gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.
This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.
The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the
Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of
these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.
[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held
views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist
line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign
policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also
long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of
state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not
appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on
Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with
Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete
withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.
Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it
would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling
Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third
major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who
has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel
Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016,
donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in
Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]
Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It
means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources
and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital
the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US
debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will
steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in
Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple
Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington
must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate
their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain
its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to
success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.
American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency,
and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state –
particularly the Chinese.
First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists
defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army
conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic
ambitions.
The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.
Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news
gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who
dictates what they can and can't say.
They are given the political line and they broadcast it.
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with
the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for
the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is
that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by
factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people. That can only lead to trouble.
At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the
media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet
Bolshevik model.
On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the
Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's
Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt,
compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most
people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of
mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into
something much worse.
The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are
maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with
neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources
in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last
events show – with acceleration.
It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for
those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free"
population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the
free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start
one.
All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.
The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not
improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.
Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the
deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy"
narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they
were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and
CIA-trained.
Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign
nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's
that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six
month actions – they go on and on.)
Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the
grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these
politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave
office.)
Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are
we attacking with drones? Where is congress?
Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it
goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them
more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!
9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various
peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.
We are being exceptionally arrogant.
Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite
that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite
inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like
the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately
on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when
he was elected will help clarifying these theses.
Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even
religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces
at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple
expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material
welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of
time.
From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of
US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism,
a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing
population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production,
initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was
broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist
goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson
and Madison, among others.
As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces
caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted
interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation
of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during
the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the
US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the
domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.
The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the
ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's
aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic
forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment,
as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War
II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.
Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War
II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces
shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time.
The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence
of NATO, for instance.
Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable
to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown.
Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in
the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the
bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened
and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict
across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.
Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated
white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its
manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting
immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign
policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump
administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and
economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.
Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's
actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from
his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically
seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really
cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to
honor
their funding commitments.
From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy
initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently,
they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones
used in the past.
Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge
it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues,
will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is
that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning,
much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is
not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority
of China's economic model, but this is a different matter.
As Trump becomes more aware about his limitations, he has naturally reversed to the basic imprints
of America's traditional foreign policy, particularly concerning defense. His emphasis on a further
increase in defense spending is not done for prestigious or national security reasons, but as an
attempt to preserve a job generating infrastructure without considering the catastrophic consequences
that it may cause.
On Iran, Obama's initiative to seek normalization was an attempt to walk a fine line (and to find
a less conflictive path) between supporting the US traditional Middle East allies (mainly the odd
combination of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and recognizing Iran's growing aspirations. Deep
down, Obama was trying to acknowledge Iran's historical viability as a country and a society that
will not disappear from the map, while Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, may not be around in a few
years. Trump's Iran policy until now only represents a different weighing of priorities, although
it is having far reaching consequences on America's credibility as a reliable contractual party in
international affairs.
In the case of Afghanistan, Trump's decision to increase boots on the ground does not break the
inertia of US past administrations. Aside from temporary containment, an increasing military presence
or a change in tactics will not alter fundamentally this reality.
Concerning Russia, and regardless of what Trump has said, actions speak more than words. A continuous
deterioration of relations seems inevitable.
Trump will also learn, if he has not done so already, about the growth of multipolar forces in
world's events. Russia has mastered this reality for several years and is quite skillful at using
it as a basic tool of its own foreign goals. Our multipolar world will expand, and Trump may even
inadvertently exacerbate it through its actions (for instance in connection with the different stands
taken by the US and its European allies concerning Iran).
While fulfilling the aspirations of the American people seems more difficult within the existing
capitalist framework, there are also growing apprehensions coming from America's power elite as it
becomes more frustrated due to its incapacity of being more effective at the world level. America's
relative adolescence in world's history will become more and more apparent in the coming years.
A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its
different dimensions. The US has never suffered the consequences of an international conflict in
its own backyard. The American Civil War, despite all the suffering that it caused, was primarily
a domestic event with no foreign intervention (contrary to the wishes of the Confederation). The
deep social and psychological damage caused by war is not part of America's consciousness as it is,
for instance in Germany, Russia or Japan. America is insensitive to the lessons of history because
it has a very short history itself.
Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there
is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined
with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous
combination.
Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker that has lived and worked in North and
Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines and Western Africa.
He currently chairs Davos International Advisory, an advisory firm focused on strategic consulting
across emerging markets.
Have you ever noticed how whenever someone inconveniences the dominant western power
structure, the entire political/media class rapidly becomes very, very interested in letting us
know how evil and disgusting that person is? It's true of the leader of every nation which
refuses to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized power alliance, it's
true of anti-establishment political candidates, and it's true of WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange.
Corrupt and unaccountable power uses its
political and
media influence to smear Assange because, as far as the interests of corrupt and
unaccountable power are concerned, killing his reputation is as good as killing him. If
everyone can be paced into viewing him with hatred and revulsion, they'll be far less likely to
take WikiLeaks publications seriously, and they'll be far more likely to consent to Assange's
imprisonment, thereby
establishing a precedent for the future prosecution of leak-publishing journalists around
the world. Someone can be speaking 100 percent truth to you, but if you're suspicious of him
you won't believe anything he's saying. If they can manufacture that suspicion with total or
near-total credence, then as far as our rulers are concerned it's as good as putting a bullet
in his head.
Those of us who value truth and light need to fight this smear campaign in order to keep our
fellow man from signing off on a major leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia, and a big
part of that means being able to argue against those smears and disinformation wherever they
appear. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any kind of centralized source of information
which comprehensively debunks all the smears in a thorough and engaging way, so with the help
of hundreds of
tips from my
readers and social media followers
I'm going to attempt to make one here. What follows is my attempt at creating a tool kit people
can use to fight against Assange smears wherever they encounter them, by refuting the
disinformation with truth and solid argumentation.
This article is an ongoing project which will be updated regularly where it appears on
Medium and caitlinjohnstone.com as new information comes in and new smears spring up in need of
refutation.
Gordon begins her
comparison by exploring the main charge levied against Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, which was
committing a crime against peace due to Germany's breach of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which, she
explains, "essentially outlawed war." American prosecutors in the mid-20th century insisted that this
initial crime was the unlawful act from which all other crimes committed by the Nazis originated.
"By comparison," the author tells Scheer, "I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make
an unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq.
"It's very clear from the documentary record that exists that the main reason people were being
tortured [by the U.S. before the Iraq War began] was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say
that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq,"
Gordon says.
Throughout the so-called war on terror, the ethics expert says, the U.S. has also violated several
rules set forth in just-war theory, including what constitutes collateral damage and proportionality, in
its slaughter of countless Iraqi civilians.
"We took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed and cosmopolitan countries in that part of
the world -- which was Iraq -- and we essentially did what [U.S. military officials] used to say they wanted to
do to North Vietnam: bombed it back to the Stone Age," Gordon says.
Listen to Scheer and Gordon discuss a range of moral issues that Americans for several generations
have swept under the rug as the government both openly and secretly commits crimes in their name abroad.
You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player.
Robert Scheer:
Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.
The intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, it's Rebecca Gordon. And she has her doctorate in
ethics and social theory. I teach ethics at USC; you teach at the University of San Francisco, which is a
Catholic school, so presumably with all their difficulties they're still concerned about ethics. And
actually we have a good pope, in major ways, who's dealing with the subject I want to talk to you about:
the ethics of war making, and the violence that has been unleashed on the world. And you wrote two very
important books, maybe the most important in some ways. One is called
Mainstreaming Torture,
and
another is called
American Nuremberg.
So the question I want to ask you, you know, because we've
always treated the crimes of others, particularly the Germans, the worst crimes of modern history, as an
aberration in the development of the human race. Those people went berserk, crazy, and they were evil;
now we have another category, Muslims are evil, they do terrible things. We're recording this on a day
where in New Zealand, some 48 people trying to practice their religion were killed. So we see a lot of
crime against Muslims, as there was obviously a lot of crimes against Jews and other people. And in your
writing, you're very clear that the crimes of Nuremberg, of the Nazis, are a low level of evil. But the
real question is, the Germans are so much like Americans. They were–largest number of immigrants in this
country were Germans; they're a white, Anglo-Saxon population; they're highly educated, probably the
highest level of music and science at that point. And can it happen here?
Rebecca Gordon:
And that, of course, is the question many of us have been asking at
least since the election of 2016, and probably before that. And the answer in some ways, of course, is
that it did happen here with the invasion of the Americas by people from Europe, and the destruction of
all the peoples who were living here at the time. So there has been a genocide on this continent and in
South America that, you know, we just forget about, because it happened a while ago. But coming to
Nuremberg, what I was trying to do in the book is to say how important the principle was that was
established at Nuremberg, which is that international law is real law. And when you break international
law, there are genuine consequences, and people can and should be held accountable. So what I looked at
was the conduct of this so-called War on Terror in the post-September 11th period, and asked: Could the
United States be accused of the same categories of crimes for which the Nazi leadership were held
accountable? And there were three categories that were established by the prosecution, and these were
crimes against peace; ordinary war crimes, which had already been well described in the body of
international law; and a new category, crimes against humanity, which was created in order to take in the
enormity of what had been done in Europe by the Nazis. But what was very interesting is that it was
Americans who insisted that the first of these crimes should be crimes against peace. So what's that?
That means making an aggressive war. It means starting a war that was not a war of self-defense, that was
not a war of so-called necessity, but making an aggressive war. Why was that illegal? It was illegal
because Germany and the United States and many other countries in Europe had signed a treaty in 1928
called the Kellogg–Briand Treaty, which essentially outlawed war. It said that nations will not use war
to settle their disputes. And the argument that the U.S. prosecutors made was that all the other crimes
that the Germans committed actually sprang from this first crime of making this aggressive, unnecessary,
illegal war. And so by comparison, I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make an
unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq. And just as the Nazi crimes
arose from this making of a war that was wrong and illegal, the U.S. crimes–and specifically now because
my area of expertise is torture, I look at the reasons why the United States became involved in torture.
And in the beginning, it's very clear from the documentary record that exists, that the main reason
people were being tortured, both in the CIA dark sites and also at Guantanamo under the Department of
Defense, was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say that Saddam Hussein was in league with
Al-Qaeda, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq. And so the other crimes–
RS:
But wait, let's be very clear about that. This would be like the Nazis saying,
Jewish bankers destroyed our economy and colluded with Western powers, and therefore made life untenable
in Germany. That was the vicious scapegoating argument to justify Nazi expansion and destruction of other
societies. So this thing of whether Bush–you know, it's kind of become part of folklore–they lied us into
the war in Iraq. But what you're saying, and very clearly, the very idea of going to war in Iraq over the
9/11 incident, which not only did Saddam Hussein have–
RG:
Nothing to do with.
RS:
–nothing to do with, but actually he was opposed to Al-Qaeda, and it was the one
country where Al-Qaeda could not operate in, was Iraq. But instead of going to war with Pakistan, or
going to war, you know, elsewhere–no. We–
RG:
Or Saudi Arabia.
RS:
Well, of course, Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers–
RG:
Came from.
RS:
–came from. You could actually make an argument to go into–hey, you attacked us,
you supplied the money and so forth. No, we whitewashed the Saudi Arabia thing and went to war with Iraq.
So your analogy, listeners should understand, is very precise. It is inventing an excuse, a defensive
excuse, to engage an offensive invasion.
RG:
Exactly. And from that spring all of these other kinds of crimes. So then I look
at ordinary war crimes, and if you go over the Geneva Conventions and the various other laws of war, you
can see that there are a number of categories of crimes. Many of them have to do with failing to make the
distinction between civilians and fighters, combatants. And of course the Bush-Cheney administration very
early on decided to create a third, nonexistent category called unlawful combatants. But this designation
doesn't exist in the International Red Cross's understanding; it doesn't exist in the Geneva
Convention's. It was just a convenient way of saying this particular group of people, whoever it is that
we choose to capture, detain forever, torture–they have no legal standing in the world. They exist
outside of international law.
RS:
So let me pick up on that also. And I don't want to lose the earlier thread of
the invention of war, and connecting with this incredibly important work you've done on torture. And you
made the statement, which I think people should ponder: the reason we were torturing these people was not
to get information about a future attack. We already had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and everything, we knew
everything about it, and so forth. The real reason for it was to invent an alibi for the invasion, to get
somebody to say Saddam Hussein was backing them. And I think that's a very important–a reason, by the
way, to read your book,
Mainstreaming Torture
; let me give a plug here. But this other argument
is also interesting, the whole idea of the noncombatant. And we are doing this interview at a time when
Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, is in prison–
RG:
Yes.
RS:
–again, because they want to fabricate a story about WikiLeaks and all that, and
get everybody off the hook for all of the crimes and torture and everything they've done. But the
interesting thing is, if you look at what did WikiLeaks–and they were just like in the position of the
Washington Post
with the Pentagon Papers, they're the publisher–what did Chelsea Manning reveal?
She revealed the death of noncombatants, including journalists. So why don't you develop that a little
bit, because that is so critical to the moment, that no one–no one has been prosecuted for those attacks
that she revealed with the data. But she is now sitting in prison.
RG:
And this is, of course–the fate of whistleblowers all over the world, and
certainly in this country, is exactly that. That the matters that they have revealed disappear in a story
that becomes about the crimes of the revealer. And of course in the war in Iraq, there was tremendous
amounts of civilian death. And it falls into a number of categories; one category is those people who had
actually been detained and were being held by U.S. forces. And for example at Abu Ghraib, we know–which
is the prison outside of Baghdad that had been Saddam Hussein's major torture site, and which the U.S.
decided in its wisdom would be the perfect place to hold detainees, and where we know a group of
reservists ended up torturing people. But the real torture was going on upstairs, by the employees of
various C.I.A. contractors, and by the C.I.A. itself. And that's where people actually died. So there's
that whole category of people, but that's a much smaller category than the category of ordinary civilians
whose lives were either ended or destroyed by the regular U.S. use of warfare in places like Fallujah and
other cities. So that we took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed, and cosmopolitan
countries in that part of the world–which was Iraq–and we essentially did what they used to say they
wanted to do to North Vietnam, bombed it back to the Stone Age. And so in just war theory, there are
these rules about discriminating between combatants and noncombatants, and you are permitted a certain
number of civilian deaths as long as they are side effects of your attempt to go after some legitimate
military target. And this is called collateral damage; it's, collateral means on the side, right? But in
fact, in Iraq, we don't know because there are many different counts, but anywhere between 500,000 and a
million people have died in the U.S. invasion and occupation in Iraq. And when you lay that against the
3,000 people who died on September 11th, none of whom were killed by anyone even from Iraq, you also see
that we have violated another rule of just war theory, which is proportionality. We have destroyed human
life out of all proportion.
RS:
And let me just–you know, it's so difficult to grapple with these questions. And
you are teaching at one of the major Catholic universities here.
RG:
It's a Jesuit university, and that's a little different. And these are the
left-wing Jesuits.
RS:
I'm not putting down your school. [Laughter] Hey, I teach ethics at the
University of Southern California–
RG:
Enough said.
RS:
–and clearly, yes, we are ethically challenged at this moment. I was about to
actually celebrate the pope in this regard. And so there is a certain necessity for being consistent in
the application of these principles, or they mean nothing.
RG:
Exactly.
RS:
And I think that's the body of your life's work, to remind us of that. So in a
sense, you are at a good place where you're teaching. I'm just wondering, how is this disregarded so
widely? I mean, people make a big deal about don't kill the unborn child. You know, I could see arguments
about that. But if that's the beginning of a consistent, pro-life position, yes, it makes certain sense.
If it's the end of a pro-life position, and then you end welfare and you don't care what happens to the
baby and so forth, you're into a deep immorality. And it seems to me you're at a very interesting place.
Because for better or worse, this pope seems to be the only one able to challenge, let's call it U.S.
imperialism or imperial ventures, on a moral basis.
RG:
I think that's right. He certainly is doing a better job of that than either of
his last two predecessors.
RS:
Or the major–
RG:
Other major, yeah. No, I think that's right. And I think, you know, it's
interesting that at USF, we have Reserve Officers' Training Corps. We have people who are training to be
second lieutenants when they leave university in the U.S. Army. And I have had students tell me, I had a
student from Guam who told me, you know, Professor Gordon, I know that when they send me to basic
training, they're going to try to take me apart and change me from being a person into being a soldier.
And I just want you to know that I'm not going to let them do that to me. He said, but you know, ROTC was
my ticket off the island, and I have a duty now to follow through with my promise. And I just, my heart
broke for him. Because what they do to you in basic training is actually a slightly lighter version of
what they do when they train torturers. Everyone who becomes a torturer–and people don't just torture on
a whim; people are trained to be torturers. And part of that training involves being brutalized first
yourself, and having survived that ordeal, you emerge with this sense of yourself as an elite person who
therefore has the right, as a superior being, and now the skills, to turn around and abuse and torture
people who come along behind you. And the U.S. has its own methods of training, and its own locations
where this happens.
RS:
[omission for station break] I'm back after our break with Professor and Doctor
Rebecca Gordon. And we were just talking about how we train people to be torturers. And this is
fascinating, because if you don't consider this question, that you're getting basically good people to do
horrible things, you're missing the whole point. But I just want to say something about the good German.
Because the basic appeal of Hitler was the solid–you know, he was going to make Germany great again. And
this is, I'm not demonizing Germans here, but Donald Trump's father was obviously familiar with this in
his lineage, in that tradition. And the whole appeal, even though this dictator Hitler was this
funny-looking guy, hardly the Aryan model–was to a notion of order. And even in the concentration camps,
keeping direct bookkeeping of how many teeth you pulled and gold you found in the teeth, and so forth.
But it's not–manners. They had the manners. And what bothers me about the very simplistic Trumpwashing
that we're going through now, that Trump is uniquely evil–it's all about manners. He's crude, he's
boorish, he's a misogynist, he says these things, he does these things, he grabs people's private parts,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's not his crime. His crime is he's continuing a tradition of
bombing people who we have no right to bomb. And so I want to push this a little bit more, the whole
question of manners. Because what Nuremberg did is unmask the manners. And this was also true in the
Eichmann trial that Hannah Arendt talked about, when she talked about the banality of evil. Evil can be
masked by manners. Smile while you learn to kill, right?
RG:
That's exactly right. And I especially know, when you talk about the meticulous
records that they kept, this is a hallmark of torture regimes all over the world. This very careful
record-keeping, this documentation of the work that's been done–because there's no shame about the work.
The process of becoming a torturer includes developing a sense of yourself as doing something uniquely
courageous, uniquely necessary, a unique sacrifice that you as the torturer, more in sorrow than in
anger, are being forced to do by the tremendous evil that confronts you. And so you're absolutely right
that especially among upper-class liberals in the United States, the objection to Trump is his manner,
and his manner is crude and obnoxious, as you say. But what he's really doing is not only continuing to
kill people, and in fact increasing the number of drone strikes, for example, over the already great
number that the Obama administration–
RS:
A man of impeccable manners. Barack Obama. I even feel that way about Bill
Clinton. When Bill Clinton's on television, I smile. I like him. He's warm, he's encouraging. And then I
forget, he's the guy that ended the welfare system, for example. Yes.
RG:
Exactly. Exactly right. And you know, Trump is now with his, I don't know if
you've taken a look at his so-called budget, but he's planning to take away our Medicare and Medicaid,
just in case you might have wanted to have healthcare. Obviously, that's dead on arrival. But
nonetheless, the point is that he is masking what he is actually doing by distracting us with this
bombastic display. And in fact, one of his officials in the EPA actually recently said exactly that, that
they've been able to make all these regulatory changes because every time it looks as though the press is
going to notice, Trump fires off a tweet, and everybody's like, ooh, shiny!
RS:
This is a really important point. Because if you look at the Nuremberg Trial or
you look at the Eichmann trial, these people all hid behind manners. They were well spoken, they were
well educated, and they were following a Charlie Chaplinesque figure, a ludicrous figure; Hitler was
certainly a, yes, he was a more ludicrous figure than Trump, in terms of manners and style and
everything. But his popularity was largely based on being a sort of comic figure, in a way. He inspired a
whole nation of logical, scientific, well-educated–probably the best-educated population in the world.
And so I've had this experience, I've talked to people in the business community and they say well, you
know, but Trump is good for business. And we did have a mess before, and then look at what's happened to
unemployment, and so forth and so on. And so we are really at the limit of manners as a guide. And that's
really what Nuremberg is about. Nuremberg was unmasking manners. Now, we didn't continue after that; we
had the brief Eichmann trial. But what we didn't really ever do in this country–and this is why I want
people to listen or to read your book, better to read it, although listening is great–we never really
took apart the Nazi experience. Because we wanted the ex-Nazis and other Germans to be our allies in the
Cold War. So we have never had that investigation of how an incredibly well-educated, Christian,
law-and-order nation goes into madness.
RG:
Not only that, we never did what the next step was supposed to be, which is
establish a venue in which U.S. war crimes could also be examined in World War II. And there were a
number of people who developed the Nuremberg principles, and worked on the original trial, who really
honestly believed that this would be the prelude to establishing an international court for trying
offenses committed during war, and expected that the United States would in fact be held accountable, not
only for the firebombing of German cities, but for the destruction of up to 60 Japanese cities which were
constructed of wood and paper and reduced to ashes, in a campaign that really very few people in this
country even know about. Although Robert McNamara actually describes it in that excellent documentary–
RS:
The Fog of War
, yeah.
RG:
--
The Fog of War.
RS:
And it's excellent because you see that McNamara was involved in designing the
bombing of Japan and Germany. But also, I mean–like, we talk about Korea. Oh, North Korea, animals, and
Kim Il-sung and his progeny–nobody I ever run into knows we leveled every single structure in North Korea
during the Korean War. Again, a war that was not needed; it was an attempt to get a Chinese communist who
had come to power the year before. I mean, it's bizarre. Then you look at what we did to North Vietnam,
and the carpet bombing, and everything. So this is critical. American exceptionalism–I've mentioned this
a number of times on this podcast–to my mind, is a really, it's the most profound problem that American
people have to face.
RG:
It's a vicious idea. And it's been taken up in different ways by both the liberal
democratic world, and by the, you know, the hard right in this country. The idea that by definition, the
United States can do no wrong, because we are the leader of the so-called free world. Which is a locution
I don't even understand anymore, given that we're not competing anymore with the unfree communist world
that supposedly we were in opposition to. But the idea that–and this was the argument, actually, that the
Bush administration made about torture. By definition, the United States is a country that does not
torture. Therefore, whatever it is that you are observing, it cannot be torture, because that would be a
logical contradiction, because we are the nation that doesn't do that. And it's almost impossible to
enter into that understanding of the world, because no amount of evidence that you can present to the
person who believes that is going to break that worldview. And so American exceptionalism allows us not
only to have military bases in over 100 countries around the world; not only to conduct secret wars that
the people in this country don't even know about–we just suddenly woke up and said, oh my gosh, we're
having a war in Somalia! Who knew. And not to mention Yemen–I was very heartened to see that the Senate
had actually voted with the House to reprimand the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia in Yemen. But leave
that aside. This whole idea that we are a unique bearer of human rights and democracy in the world–it's
very hard to break, because it's a concealed, hermetically sealed worldview that people imbibe in grade
school. And they imbibe it as they grow up, and it takes a lot of effort to break through. And one of the
sad things that I see, especially with younger people that I've worked with in organizations like War
Times/Tiempo de Guerras, is that once you've broken through, it then becomes very hard to imagine that
the United States is not permanently and always going to be the hegemon. It almost, having made the
effort and understood the danger the U.S. actually presents to the world, it becomes almost impossible to
recognize when the U.S. actually loses one. And I think it's very important we claim our victories.
RS:
Well you know, you hit it clearly with this, the abandonment by the Democratic
Party of any serious oppositional role. [With] control of the House now, there should be hearings about
what are we doing in these different countries. And instead they're actually criticizing Trump for being,
kind of selling out by getting out of Afghanistan, or not fighting more aggressively in Syria. And we've
actually sort of lost the peace movement, in a way, is a theme I get back to once in a while here. And we
forget, actually, most of the terrible wars since World War II have been fought under democrats, and
financed enthusiastically. So I want to get back to basic moral principles, because they don't mean
anything if you're not consistent. You have to call out people on the left or on the right, you have to
call out war crimes, you have to call out the attacks on homosexuals, black people, Jewish
people–anybody, any other, and so forth. It's something that Jesus reminded us of in the tale of the Good
Samaritan, if you can believe that Luke is the word of God, and not the others, [Laughter] where the Good
Samaritan doesn't appear. I don't want to get into your whole Catholic university thing here. But it's
interesting to me, this notion of consistency. Because it's painful to be consistent. It requires
examining the motives of people you voted for. And this was the problem of Germany: people forget Hitler
was elected. People forget Germany had all the trappings of a–
RG:
Of a democracy.
RS:
–of a democracy. And more important, the conceit that somehow
education–education, and manners–will prevent genocide is a lie. Maybe it's time to recognize this whole
notion of American greatness is the end of thought; if you are by definition great, there's nothing to
question. And it seems to me that main religions that we've had, their one demand that they have in
common is you must question not only your nation's morality, but your own. The devil is in you. We have
to struggle with this devil, we have to struggle with these forces. Yet as a nation, we think America the
beautiful absolves us all. And that's what you're saying in your torture book. That basically, you take
these young recruits that have a very limited knowledge of our history, and you convince them that they
are the agents, really, of a higher power.
RG:
Absolutely right. And in doing that, you pervert the very virtues that we say the
United States is supposed to represent. The virtue of courage, for example, becomes the courage to
suppress your squeamishness at causing pain to another human being. And justice becomes the idea that you
give the punishment first and the trial later, if ever. Right? And this is exactly what we see in the way
our detainees have been treated. And honestly, another locus of this that we don't often recognize is
what goes on on the U.S. soil prisons and jails in this country, where we have 2.2 million people locked
up in cages, and where torture is a regular feature of prison life. It's no accident that the reservists
who were downstairs at Abu Ghraib, they were from West Virginia, and most of them in their civilian life
were prison guards. They were corrections officers. And there's a famous email that one of the
ringleaders, Charles Graner, sent home which said: The Christian in me knows it's wrong, but the
corrections officer in me loves to see a grown man piss himself. And that is exactly the attitude of the
people who are caging up 2.2 [million] largely, vastly disproportionately, black and Latino, Latinx,
people in this country today. And so torture actually is a red thread that runs through the entire
history of the United States, beginning with the Native American population. Slavery itself would not
have been as successful as it was at allowing the amassing of capital–which is, you know if you're a good
Marxist, the congealed labor of these unpaid, captive people, who when they got to the United States, or
what was not even yet the United States, would not work unless, the farmers figured out, they were caused
physical pain. And it was the use, the concerted, intentional, well-documented use of physical pain in
the cotton fields a century later that forced people to develop a physical technology of their bodies
that allowed them, in the course of 40 years, to multiply by eight times the amount of cotton a human
being could pick in a day, because the alternative was to have the skin taken off your back with a whip.
RS:
You know, increasingly in my life I have been a bad Marxist. And I've embraced
some truths that seemed to come out of these religions that, growing up, really frightened me or were
intimidating, and also were on the wrong side. But let's take it back to the pope, let's take it back to
the Jesuit school, University of San Francisco, where you teach. There's a wisdom that I daresay Karl
Marx did not sufficiently embrace. It is that we all have a capacity for evil. That we have virtue; we
care, we bring children into this world, we nurture them, we care about others, we can cry over a
refugee. On the other hand, the 2.2 million–I've been on Death Row quite recently interviewing Kevin
Cooper, who I believe is an innocent man. And fortunately, the governor of California has suspended the
death penalty, and I think Gavin Newsom deserves great credit for his courage. But–and it is a cage, and
we don't care; we don't care about these people. And we don't care about the people we bomb, and we don't
care–they're expendable, they're throwaway people. You want them out of sight, out of mind. It's very
deliberate. And the problem is, if Marxism were accurate [Laughter]–I don't know, not too many people
care, anyway, but since the two of us are talking about it–you know, if it was just the economic motive,
we'd probably do better. The libertarians, for instance–to the degree that they're right, they're right,
yes. But the wars don't make sense. And growing that cotton that way didn't ultimately make sense. And
slavery didn't make sense. Except–except if we have a barbaric part of our nature, if we have a need to
exploit others. Not just for economic reasons; if power corrupts. And this, not to quote Marx, but to
quote Jefferson or Washington, these people who came to power in this great experiment of ours, with all
its contradictions–I repeat this ad nauseum on these podcasts. All their, yes, white, male, I got it, I
got it, slave owners, the whole thing–they were on to a wisdom about their own corruption. And the reason
we have the First Amendment, the reason we have all the amendments, the reason we have separation of
powers, is that power corrupts.
RG:
Absolutely.
RS:
And what comes through in these torture stories and so forth–I talked, I have one
student, just like you, I've had students go off to these wars. I had one who ended up at Abu Ghraib and
at Guantanamo, a reserve officer. He was outside with the families. I'm not going to compromise his
privacy. But he told me what shook him up was he was being told all these things about the people inside
the jail, but his job was to herd the families that were trying to visit. And he could not deny that
there was some kind of humanity going on with these people inside, or why would all these people care so
much about them. And I think we need to be reminded of our own capacity for evil. I think that's what
Nuremberg was about, that the people who commit evil don't present as evil and are not inherently more
evil than we are.
RG:
Exactly.
RS:
And we have to struggle with this. And the good liberals who accommodate this,
and say well, you know, Barack Obama had to do this with the drones, and governor so-and-so had to kill
these people even though he didn't believe in the death penalty–we have to challenge that. Because that
is the fount of evil.
RG:
So, my favorite virtue, Aristotle calls it phronesis, or practical wisdom. St.
Thomas Aquinas calls it prudentia, prudence. But what it really is, is that capacity of the mind that
allows you to actually understand the moral questions that are in front of you. And not to be fooled by
the fog of American exceptionalism, by the distraction of a Trumpian tweet, but to be able to actually
examine and really see, in this case, the effects of U.S. policy on actual human beings around the world.
And this requires a kind of courage to be willing to accept that your own self-understanding, and the
understanding of your people, your country, might be wrong. But it also requires a willingness to look,
to actually see and examine what's in front of you. And if there's one virtue I would like to see
developed, and that I try to develop in my own students, it's this virtue of practical wisdom, where you
actually are responsible for what the effects of your actions can reasonably be foreseen to be. And this
is something that we in the United States really don't have. It's trained out of us, we don't have it.
And part of it, yes, is that capacity to understand that the ability to do evil things exists in all of
us, and it's also to understand that when you multiply that capacity by the technological and economic
power that a country like the United States has, the results–well, the results
"... "I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," warns former CIA Director Jack Devine, saying that, with "frankly uncivilized" ISIS, there is a greater risk of violence worldwide than ever before. ..."
"... Devine argued that dismantling ISIS's command structure is crucial for minimizing the danger it presents, much like al Qaeda before them. "We killed three-fourths of their leadership," he said of al Qaeda. "We have to do the same thing with ISIS. "We have to destroy their refuge over there. When they start to lose, their recruiting numbers start to fall." ..."
"... My guess is that Iran have done a deal with Putin in that once ISIS is swept away Iran gets to build a gas pipeline through Iraq (which it controls) and through Syria into Europe. Russia is allowing Iran into the European gas market because Bandar threatened Sochi, and Putin wants to end the House of Saud in retaliation. Two weeks from now the world is going to make laws that pushes countries towards natural gas and away from coal and oil. ..."
"... I would say that's accurate, since the U.S. put ISIS there to block the Iran - Iraq - Syria pipeline. When Russia destroys ISIS, the previously planned pipeline can proceed. It has nothing to do with Russian 'permission' - Putin expects someone to eventually be sending gas up from the Middle East once the slaughter stops. He doesn't care who it is or how much. It's not going to displace more than a fraction of the Russian supply to Europe. Syria rejected the Qatari pipeline for its own reasons - probably because Qatar was planning on killing Assad and replacing him with a Western stooge well before the Qatari-Turkey pipeline was announced. In fact, the announcement was pretty much an insult to Syria. Qatar quite arrogantly announced that they WOULD be building the pipeline through Syria without bothering to ask them. ..."
"... Putin negotiates with everyone. He was even talking with Israel about helping them with the Leviathan pipeline. The U.S. seems to favor 'regime change' as the preferred strategy to expand its oil interests where it has no business doing so. ..."
"... The CIA serves no master, it is the fucking master. It does deals that are anti American, and they don't care, because America is just a sugar daddy to them. We are the chumps who pay their bills, while they put half of all honest Americans on their enemies list. ..."
"... CIA is international, not American. They are the hit men for the biggest corporations on earth, and most especially the biggest energy firms. Oil and CIA go together, and there is the Saudi connection. ..."
"... CIA is the lead agent if world Islamic extremism, they don't fight it, they nurture it! Their long term goal is to use mass Islamic terror armies to do what the CIA and Corporate masters want done. Need a police state in America? Do a hit on America 9/11. Need to eliminate Russia? Create ISIS and direct them against Russia's allies. And you can take it from there. It will continue on as before. Nobody left has the power to take down the CIA terror rings. ..."
"... No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today! Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame. ..."
"I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," warns former CIA Director Jack Devine, saying that, with
"frankly uncivilized" ISIS, there is a greater risk of violence worldwide than ever before.
"I think this is the most dangerous time in terms of sustained violence," he said on "The Cats Roundtable"
in an interview airing Sunday on New York's AM-970.
"I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," he told host John Catsimatidis. "Some percentage of the world today
is always either unbalanced or radicalized. When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill
anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
Devine cited the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as an unprecedented threat in terms of its wanton disregard for human
life...
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s, but they never attacked innocent women and children indiscriminately,"
he said.
"You have a group in ISIS today that is frankly uncivilized. These folks could get stronger and stronger.
We basically have to destroy ISIS over there," Devine said.
Devine argued that dismantling ISIS's command structure is crucial for minimizing the danger it presents, much like al
Qaeda before them. "We killed three-fourths of their leadership," he said of al Qaeda. "We have to do the same thing with ISIS.
"We have to destroy their refuge over there. When they start to lose, their recruiting numbers start to fall."
Devine, who mainly served during the Cold War, said ISIS is a scourge without parallel because it has no concern for self-preservation.
"There is nothing that can be compared with nuclear weapons and their use," he said of tensions between the U.S. and the former
Soviet Union.
"[But] people felt safe in the sense there was countervailing balance," he added. "Early in our contest with
the Russians, it was clear we had checks and balances."
Finally Devine admits...
"If there's blame to be put, it's on our failure to have done that by this point."
Selected Skeptical Comments
i_call_you_my_base
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s..."
"And by dealt I mean trained and funded."
Looney
John Kerry to the MSM:
Do not use "Al Qaeda" or "Al Nustra" - just call them "Allies" (pronounced Al Lies). ;-)
Looney
Vatican_cameo
"I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," he told host John Catsimatidis. "Some percentage of the world today
is always either unbalanced or radicalized. When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill
anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
By small group he means CIA, Right? I thought he would have been a little clearer.
Occident Mortal
My guess is that Iran have done a deal with Putin in that once ISIS is swept away Iran gets to build a gas pipeline through
Iraq (which it controls) and through Syria into Europe. Russia is allowing Iran into the European gas market because Bandar threatened
Sochi, and Putin wants to end the House of Saud in retaliation. Two weeks from now the world is going to make laws that pushes
countries towards natural gas and away from coal and oil.
Paveway IV
"...once ISIS is swept away Iran gets to build a gas pipeline through Iraq (which it controls) and through Syria into Europe..."
I would say that's accurate, since the U.S. put ISIS there to block the Iran - Iraq - Syria pipeline. When Russia destroys
ISIS, the previously planned pipeline can proceed. It has nothing to do with Russian 'permission' - Putin expects someone to eventually
be sending gas up from the Middle East once the slaughter stops. He doesn't care who it is or how much. It's not going to displace
more than a fraction of the Russian supply to Europe. Syria rejected the Qatari pipeline for its own reasons - probably because
Qatar was planning on killing Assad and replacing him with a Western stooge well before the Qatari-Turkey pipeline was announced.
In fact, the announcement was pretty much an insult to Syria. Qatar quite arrogantly announced that they WOULD be building the
pipeline through Syria without bothering to ask them.
The U.S. blocked the first Iran pipeline (called the Persian Pipeline) FROM IRAN to Iraq in 2010 by forcing the Swiss company
that partnered with Iran to back out due to Israeli - ooops, 'Western' sanctions on Iran. The second Iran-sourced NG pipeline
from Iran through Iraq and Syria - called the Friendship Pipeline - was agreed to in 2012 by the countries involved. That's when
the U.S. launched it's failed coup attempt in Syria and let its ISIS mad-dogs loose in Iraq. Tyler usually refers to this by the
derogatory label of "Islamic Pipeline" - a snide label that Kagan-PNAC and Western oil companies used. Tyler never refers to the
Western-backed Qatari pipeline as the Jihadi Pipeline, nor does he refer to the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline as the Jewish Pipeline.
I'm not sure about the inconsistency - maybe he's trying to make some point.
Putin negotiates with everyone. He was even talking with Israel about helping them with the Leviathan pipeline. The U.S.
seems to favor 'regime change' as the preferred strategy to expand its oil interests where it has no business doing so.
goldhedge
The CIA guy doesn't mention the House of Saud.
Pfft.
Jack Burton
Good catch! And there never do.
CIA and House of Saud have done a long term deal to look out for each other in this world. The CIA serves no master, it
is the fucking master. It does deals that are anti American, and they don't care, because America is just a sugar daddy to them.
We are the chumps who pay their bills, while they put half of all honest Americans on their enemies list.
CIA is international, not American. They are the hit men for the biggest corporations on earth, and most especially the
biggest energy firms. Oil and CIA go together, and there is the Saudi connection.
CIA is the lead agent if world Islamic extremism, they don't fight it, they nurture it! Their long term goal is to use
mass Islamic terror armies to do what the CIA and Corporate masters want done. Need a police state in America? Do a hit on America
9/11. Need to eliminate Russia? Create ISIS and direct them against Russia's allies. And you can take it from there. It will continue
on as before. Nobody left has the power to take down the CIA terror rings.
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s, but they never attacked innocent women and children indiscriminately,"
he said.
No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and
FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today!
Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown
countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending
up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International
Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame.
Recommended reading (to better understand why the USA is known as the Great Satan):
Funny how these fucks can come out and say this kind of shit and get away with it. The fucker's basically pleading guilty to murder,
FFS.
Ms No
They didn't kill anybody in South America my ass.... The school of Americas, Operation Condor, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia,
Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador .... who the hell are they kidding? The CIA has always been covered and nobody ever cared.
Perimetr
"If there's blame to be put. . ."
It's on the CIA for running its global terrorist operations, funded by the $1 trillion dollars a year coming from its Afghanistan
heroin operation.
sirs and madams,
.
"Christmas celebration this year is going to be a charade because the whole world is at war. We are close to Christmas. There
will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage
war.
It's all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war. A war can be justified, so to
speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be-a little here,
a little there-there is no justification.
What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of
children without education, so many innocent victims, and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers."
The discovery of America by Europe had to happen. The savages had to be eliminated and The Revolutionary War had to happen.
Slavery had to begin, and after it, segregation had to begin, but, what must be, will be, slavery and segregation had to end.
Old School colonization of poor nations had to happen. The Boer War had to happen. The Spanish American War had to happen. The
Main had to be sunk. WWI had to happen. Calvary charges had to end. Totalitarian Communism had to happen. Germany's 20's depression
had to happen, reactionary jingoism had to happen, and Kristallnacht and the Reichstag fire had to happen. The Allies had to win
WWII, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be publicity stunts, and the Cold War had to begin. JFK had to be wacked, the Vietnam War
had to happen, the FED still was happening. Civil Rights laws had to be passed. Recognition of China had to happen, going off
the gold standard had to happen, and Nixon had to be kicked out of office. Corporate Globalization had to begin. After Carter
an actor had to be President. Unions had to be stifled. Perestroika and glasnost had to happen. The Berlin Wall had to come down.
The MIC had to find another enemy, and suddenly 9/11 had to happen.
Over population has to happen, poisoning the environment has to happen, and the NWO has to happen.
Ladies and gentlemen, the NWO is here, and there is nothing you can do, and nothing you could have done to stop it.
Edit. I see none of our supposed enemies 'truth bombing' 9/11, 7/7, and the 13th Paris attacks. I see no trade embagoes, I
see no arguments in the Security Council over the illegality of US/Nato bombing in Syria.
blindman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_79...
Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
Posted: 08/03/2015 11:48 am EDT
.
On July 28, Thom Hartmann interviewed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and, at the very end of his show (as if this massive
question were merely an afterthought), asked him his opinion of the 2010 Citizens United decision and the 2014 McCutcheon decision,
both decisions by the five Republican judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. These two historic decisions enable unlimited secret money
(including foreign money) now to pour into U.S. political and judicial campaigns. Carter answered:
It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited
political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies
to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff
to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present
time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that
is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell." ...
.
it is the money "system", man.
blindman
corporations and hoodwink powers ride on the indifference of the damned, the silence of the dead and doomed.
Dinero D. Profit
The Satus Quo can rely upon the loyalty of their employees, Congress, the military, the military industrial contractors, their
workers and family members, the crime control establishment, all Uniersity professors and employees, and every employee of all
publically traded companies, and every person employed by the MSM.
The dead and doomed are irrelevant. If you have an establishment job, you'll obey and ask no vital questions.
Dick Buttkiss
Sunnis and Shiites hate each other far more than they hate Christians, Jews, or anyone else. If it weren't for oil, the USG wouldn't
give a flyiing fuck if they anihilated each other. Instead, it conspires with them in ways far beyond its ability to comprehend,
much less navigate. Thus is the US ship of state heading for the shoals of its destruction, the only question being how much of
the country and the outside world it takes down with it.
ross81
thats bullshit Western propaganda that Shiites hate Sunnis and vice versa. In the same way that the Brits stirred up Protestant
hatred of Catholics in Ulster for centuries, the US/Israel/Saudi does the same with Sunnis vs Shiites on a much bigger scale in
the Middle East. Divide and Conquer.
geno-econ
This is getting scary in that one or two more attacks will result in travel freezes, flow of Middle East oil and result in huge
increase in military as well as Homeland security costs. A depression or economic collapse a real possibility Perhaps time for
a Peace Conference of all interested parties. The US started this shit and should be the first to call for a Peace Conference.
Macho talk will only make things worse.
moonmac
We can print trillions out of thin air at the drop of a hat but we can't kill a small group of terrorists. Got it!
sgt_doom
Or, we pour billions of dollars every year into the CIA, NSA, and DIA, and only a poor old fart such as myself can figure out
that Bilal Erdogan is the ISIS connection to oil trading (Turkish president, Erdogan's son) and Erdogan's daughter is with ISIS?
GRDguy
Ex-CIA boss gets it wrong, again.
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
should be:
"When you have a small group of financial sociopaths willing to lie-to, steal-from and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
and you'll probably be punished, jailed or shot for tryin' to protect yourself and your family.
Ban KKiller
War profiteer. That is it. Along wth James Comey, James Clapper, Jack Welch and the list is almost endless...
BarnacleBill
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
Simply take out the word "their", and the description perfectly fits the CIA, MI6 and their like. For them, it's all a business
deal, nothing more - a massive slum-clearance project. Destroy people's houses, provide accommodation and food, ship them somewhere
else; do it again and again until the money-printing machine conks out. It's money for old rope.
And, yes, we're all vulnerable. The man got that right.
Duc888
"You get the politicians you deserve."
CIA types are appointed, not elected.
Duc888
I do not know if there are any Catherine Austin Fitts fans on this web site but this is definitely worth the time. The FEDGOV
came after her non stop for 6 years when she worked for HUD under Bush Sr. If nothing else this lady is tenacious. In this presentation
she uncorks exactly HOW the deep black budgets are paid for...and it ain't your tax dollars. What she uncovered while at HUD was
simply amazing..... and she made an excellent point. At the top... it's NOT "fraud" because that's how it was all deigned right
from the get go after wwII. It brings to mind the funny computer saying....."it's a feature, not a bug".
She digs right into how the CIA was funded... Truly amazing stuff. ...of course the dick head brigade will come along here
and deride her because of the conference she is speaking at.... well, who the fuck cares, her presentation is excellent and filled
with facts.
Yes it is 1 hour 20 minutes long but imho it is well worth the watch...
If our leaders & media want to protect our elections, not just score political pts,
first & most important thing we must do is institute b/up paper ballots by passing my
Securing America's Elections Act so no one can manipulate our votes & hack our
elections
apenultimate on Sat, 04/20/2019 - 2:45pm Hello All,
First, in response to others saying Leftists should support Bernie unless they have an
adversity to winning elections, I propose a couple of thoughts. The first is this link showing
Jimmy Carter's status in the Democratic primary race through June of 1975--he's almost exactly
where Tulsi is right now in polling, and guess what? He won against the giants of his time.
At this point, my advice is to support who you think is best, not who someone tells you is
the only realistic choice.
Here is another factoid for the caucuses/primaries--candidates who do not get at least 15%
of the votes do not get any delegates. Think of the strategic ramificaitons of that for a few
minutes. Assuming Biden enters the race, many of the Harris, Booker, O'Rourke, Buttigieg level
of candidates do not poll above 15% in many (or any) states, but if they remain in the race, it
depresses Biden's results. There are a lot of potential various outcomes there depending on how
things play out, and Tulsi staying in the race is not a major factor at this point.
In the past week, Tusli has made 8 stops in Iowa and 4 stops (including 1 today) in New
Hampshire on the campaign trail. Good to see her get out and stumping in the early states.
Some very good media things going on. Tulsi was on FOX News with Brett Baier, and she
handled it really well. As he tried to talk over her and twist her words, she essentially just
talked over him:
Finally, Tulsi will be on Jimmy Dore today (if she has not been already). Look for that
interview on YouTube in the upcoming week.
In two recent national polls--Emerson and Morning Consult--Tulsi is polling at 1%. This is
important as a second potential placement for the televised Democratic debates (needing to poll
at 1% or greater in at least 3 national or early primary state polls). If there end up being
more than 20 candidates with 65,000 unique donors or polling at least 1% in 3 polls, they will
allow only candidates that met both criteria. Tulsi seems to be there at this point--including
the 2 national polls above, and getting 2% in the last Nevada poll.
"... Much like Brexit, an antiwar/anit interventionist in the USA has nowhere to go. Both parties have substantial hawkish wings. Any move to peace/antiintervention by the party in power is immediately attacked by the party out of power. MSDNC is practically howling for war with Russia. ..."
"... Of course Trump wants to take the war side. Saudi wants war. Israel wants war. Nothing else counts. ..."
"... Tulsi won't surrender. But she obviously won't win the nomination either. ..."
"... Trump may have said 'no more wars' but he never acted on it. So, someone else came along and picked up the discarded slogan. It's not stealing ..."
"... I wish Tulsi could get more traction. I voted trump believing his anti war statements. Hate his veto of Yemen resolution ..."
"... don't underestimate the perpetual war power's grip on the Democrat party. Pro war liberals like the NYtimes aren't going away in fact they are getting louder. ..."
"... It is remarkable that neither Buchanan nor Khanna would ever consider the necessity to impeach Presidents like Bush, Obama, and Trump for their unconstitutional and criminal acts of aggressive war – or the responsibility of The People to replace the Congress of incumbents with representatives that have not already repeatedly and persistently broken their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution. ..."
"... Instead, Buchanan delivers yet another installment of the Incompetence Dodge: if only the Czar wasn't a sociopathic criminal! If only he listened to us, his loyal supporters! ..."
"... Sanders never "stole" anything, Buchanan. What you're (slowly, dimly) realizing is that your boy Trump never cared a speck for a more sane, less bellicose U.S. foreign policy. ..."
"... I will never understand why Trump cultists ever believed he did. A clown who's big complaint about the Iraq war is that "we didn't take the oil" is an unlikely peace advocate. But to be a member of the Trump cult you have to engage in massive psychological projection, daily. ..."
"The president has said that he does not want to see
this country involved in endless wars . I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News
audience at Monday's town hall meeting in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Then, turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added: "Mister President, tonight
you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia
should not be determining the military or foreign policy of this country." Sanders was talking about a War Powers Act resolution that would have ended U.S. involvement
in the five-year civil war in Yemen that has created one of the great humanitarian crises of
our time, with thousands of dead children amidst an epidemic of cholera and a famine.
Supported by a united Democratic Party on the Hill, and an anti-interventionist faction of
the GOP led by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed
both houses of Congress. But 24 hours after Sanders urged him to sign it, Trump, heeding the hawks in his Cabinet and
National Security Council, vetoed S.J.Res.7, calling it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my
constitutional authorities." With sufficient Republican votes in both houses to sustain Trump's veto, that should have
been the end of the matter.
It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders
emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the "no-more-wars"
theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and
civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Does Trump really want to go into 2020 as a war party president? Does he want to go into 2020 with Democrats denouncing "Trump's endless wars" in the Middle
East? Because that is where he is headed.
In 2008, John McCain, leading hawk in the Senate, was routed by a left-wing first-term
senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the more hawkish
Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize the war in Iraq. In 2012, the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Obama on Russia,
lost. Yet in 2016, Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war and an
anti-interventionist who wanted to get along with Russia's Vladimir Putin and get out of these
Middle East wars. Looking closely at the front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020 -- Joe
Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker --
not one appears to be as hawkish as Trump has become. Trump pulled us out of the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by Secretary of State John
Kerry and reimposed severe sanctions.
He declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran has responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist organization. Ominously, the
IRGC and its trained Shiite militias in Iraq are in close proximity to U.S. troops.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the
consulate that dealt with Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to the Palestinians, recognized
Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967, and gone silent on Bibi
Netanyahu's threat to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Sanders, however, though he stands by Israel, is supporting a two-state solution and
castigating the "right-wing" Netanyahu regime. Trump has talked of pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet the
troops are still there. Though Trump came into office promising to get along with the Russians, he sent Javelin
anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced a pullout from Ronald Reagan's 1987 INF treaty that
outlawed all land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles. When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela -- ostensibly to repair the
S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in recent blackouts -- Trump,
drawing a red line, ordered the Russians to "get out."
Biden is expected to announce next week. If the stands he takes on Russia, China, Israel,
and the Middle East are more hawkish than the rest of the field, he will be challenged by the
left wing of his party and by Sanders, who voted "no" on the Iraq war that Biden supported. The center of gravity of U.S. politics is shifting towards the Trump position of 2016. And
the anti-interventionist wing of the GOP is growing. And when added to the anti-interventionist and anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on the
Hill, together, they are able, as on the Yemen War Powers resolution, to produce a new
bipartisan majority.
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the
Democratic Party will have captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate
Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan
and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com.
By the way, Pat, do you know that Jimmy Carter did NOT get the US into any war, nor any
"intervention"? Have you showed him any appretiation for it? Or it was a time when you were
all for it as long as it was against Commies?
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the Democratic Party will have
captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Agree. But don't worry. On the second ballot, the super delegates will override the
obvious preference of voters for a "no more wars" candidate and give it to Biden. Who will
lose.
Much like Brexit, an antiwar/anit interventionist in the USA has nowhere to go. Both parties
have substantial hawkish wings. Any move to peace/antiintervention by the party in power is
immediately attacked by the party out of power. MSDNC is practically howling for war with
Russia.
No one to blame but himself. The anti-Russia insanity made it hard for him to stick to that
part of his program, but there is a lot more he could have done, starting by not surrounding
himself with war-mongering idiots like Pompeo and Bolton.
I mean, can we actually be honest here? The Neocons simply do not see Sanders as a genuine
threat. He has an unfair advantage. He can, for instance, criticize American foreign policy
without being accused of anti-semitism.
Those who wish Trump had maintained a more maverick
stance of foreign policy should ask themselves if they supported him energetically enough.
He's a survivor first and foremost. If you aren't working to offer him a legit life
preserver, this is all on you.
>>When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela<<<
And this is why Trump is going to win on the 'national security' issue. As long as U.S.
troops don't actually fight and die in foreign countries the voters love U.S. 'being tough
with its enemies'.
As long as Trump confines his actions to tormenting 3rd world countries, like Venezuela,
Cuba, Nicaragua, Syria, and Yemen with sanctions and military assistance to other
belligerents any opposition will be portrayed as 'hating or apologizing for America the force
for good'.
Being objective, what is more provocative, sending a small number of specialists to
prevent cyber sabotage for the standing govt, or trying to install a new President, seizing
their assets and preventing their oil trade. We are the bullies and the day when we finally
squander our wealth we will find out that we have no friends despite being an alleged force
for good.
I thought that we determined a long time ago that taking something out of another persons
trash can was not stealing.
Trump may have said 'no more wars' but he never acted on it. So, someone else came along
and picked up the discarded slogan. It's not stealing
I wish Tulsi could get more traction. I voted trump believing his anti war statements. Hate
his veto of Yemen resolution. I still defend trump from unfair attacks but am not a supporter
any more.
Pat – good analysis. But don't underestimate the perpetual war power's grip on the
Democrat party. Pro war liberals like the NYtimes aren't going away in fact they are getting
louder.
Adriana "By the way, Pat, do you know that Jimmy Carter did NOT get the US into any war, nor
any 'intervention'? Have you showed him any appretiation [sic] for it? Or it was a time when
you were all for it as long as it was against Commies?"
No, but he did initiate funding for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan BEFORE the Soviet
"invasion," specifically to incite the Soviets to invade and get caught in their own Vietnam
War-like quagmire. President Carter succeeded in that effort, but the world has suffered the
unintended consequences of US funding for jihadist militants ever since.
Oh, and the Carter Administration also continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the
"legitimate" government of Cambodia after the Vietnamese Stalinists drove them from power in
1978. I'm sure this was partly done with Cold War calculations in mind – US ally
Communist China was an enemy to both the Soviet Union and its Vietnamese client state, and
the Khmer Rouge were clients of China – but I do not doubt that sticking it to the
Vietnamese who had so recently embarrassed the US played a part in that policy decision,
too.
The Reagan Administration maintained both policies, by the way, by continuing to fund the
Mujahideen and to uphold the fiction that the Khmer Rouge was still Cambodia's legitimate
government (kind of like the fiction that Juan Guaidó is Venezuela's "legitimate"
president).
You are right, if I had just more energetically supported Trump he wouldn't be giving Israel
and Saudi Arabia everything they want and trying to start a war with Iran. That poor guy.
Would just saying nice things about him have been enough or should I have completely drank
the koolade, MAGA hat and all?
Regarding Pat's argument as usual there is some truth here, but he keeps acting like this
is a complete surprise and that Trump has "become" a hawk. Yes some of the campaign promises
mentioned are accurate but he was talking about blowing up Iranian ships and tearing up the
nuclear agreement on the campaign trail. He was never an anti-war candidate, he was just
anti-whatever the previous presidents did candidate. Besides one statement about being
even-handed there was every indication he was going to be at least as reflexively pro-Israel
as any previous president and unsurprisingly he is more. Paul was the only
anti-interventionist candidate and anyone who thinks otherwise was either willfully ignorant
or not paying attention.
It is remarkable that Buchanan considers Trump's veto to be constitutional, but then, so
does Khanna. It is remarkable that neither Buchanan nor Khanna would ever consider the
necessity to impeach Presidents like Bush, Obama, and Trump for their unconstitutional and
criminal acts of aggressive war – or the responsibility of The People to replace the
Congress of incumbents with representatives that have not already repeatedly and persistently
broken their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Instead, Buchanan delivers yet another installment of the Incompetence Dodge: if only the
Czar wasn't a sociopathic criminal! If only he listened to us, his loyal supporters!
It is difficult to decide which kind of unprincipled opportunist is worse – the kind
that successfully profits from Trump, like McConnell, or the kind that hopes in vain for
their paleolithic cause to benefit.
Besides breaking his "no more wars" campaign promises, Trump has not built a wall, jailed
Hillary, capped the deficit, re-instated Glass-Steagall, overturned Obamacare, controlled the
cost of prescription drugs, de-funded Planned Parenthood,
nor pushed legislation for the infrastructure of the country. The potential "peace president"
in 2016 is nothing more than another "perpetual war president".
Sanders never "stole" anything, Buchanan. What you're (slowly, dimly) realizing is that your
boy Trump never cared a speck for a more sane, less bellicose U.S. foreign policy.
I will never understand why Trump cultists ever believed he did. A clown who's big
complaint about the Iraq war is that "we didn't take the oil" is an unlikely peace advocate.
But to be a member of the Trump cult you have to engage in massive psychological projection,
daily.
Of course in Buchanan's case there's another excuse: He's been so dazzled by Trump's
relentless bigotry that everything else, every lie, every cheat, is simply a second- or
third-tier concern, something to explain away. How many pathetic exercises in blame-shifting
has The American Con published under Buchanan's byline since 2016? And all signs are that
they'll keep right on with it until the happy day when Trump is finally gone.
As he does nearly every day, Max Boot, the
Washington Post
's in-house neocon columnist, wrote some words today. As has been the case quite a few times
before, none of his latest words, even when strung together into a coherent sentence, were particularly good. For
this very reason, several of those sentences were noteworthy. So let's (OK,
let me
) look at just what that beautiful, smooth organ in Boot's skull considers a "neoconservative."
According to Merriam-Webster, a neoconservative is a person who cites dictionary definitions in their writing.
It's also, simply put, someone in American politics who's conservative on economic issues, hews to the middle or
even center-left on social issues, and also really, really likes to Do War. That last one is a big requirement, so
don't forget it -- war equals a strong, responsible nation.
Boot opened his column with a critique of
Rep. Ro Khanna's recent op-ed in the
Post
,
with Boot writing that Khanna's position -- that neocons were responsible for the Iraq War -- is little more than an
oft-repeated "canard" that plagues the American discourse. He then proceeded to take the reader through what a
real neoconservative looks like by rewriting the top-summary of
the neoconservatism Wikipedia page
.
Boot started by citing a group of 1970s characters he classified as the True Neocons. (Initially, the term was
embodied by folks who were a little more skeptical of the Soviet Union than some of their Democratic
counterparts.) Boot then argued neocons simply were not in power at the time the Iraq War was being decided on (a
fact that is demonstratively untrue) by citing Bush administration officials widely credited as architects of the
Iraq War:
The "neocons" -- second-tier officials such as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of
Defense Douglas Feith, and vice-presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby -- were not the decision-makers. The
decision to invade was made by President George W. Bush in consultation with Vice President Dick Cheney,
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin
Powell. None of them would ever label themselves a "neocon."
Note the last sentence -- Boot frames his argument in a way that hangs the burden of proof that one is a
neoconservative, or acts in a neoconservative fashion, on the stipulation that they publicly identify themselves
as such, which, plainly, is so fucking dumb that I'm going to show you him doubling down on this line of thinking
just because it's so unbelievably shallow.
Moreover, a bipartisan majority of both houses approved the use of military force. Are Democratic then-Sens.
Joe Biden, John Kerry, Charles E. Schumer, Harry Reid, Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein
neocons?
To state the obvious: Yes! All of those people are absolutely neocons, at least in some way.
The idea that Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden don't at the very least actively display numerous neoconservative
tendencies is an outright rejection of what Americans have watched play out in the political realm since the
national Democratic Party imploded in the 70s. Democrats can be neocons; Republicans can be neolibs. Neos of some
sort or the other are probably around you, right this very second, and no, not
the good kind
!
The concept that political identity is wholly defined as being a list of beliefs a person writes down in their
diary or says aloud during a campaign ad, and not by the actions conducted by said person, is one that has needed
to die for at least the past half-century of American politics. But, again, Boot's column is not engaging in a
discussion about what a neocon actually is in 2019. It's a deceptive and even laudatory tactic, but Boot is
purposefully choosing to frame his argument around how politicians frame themselves. And that's a major problem if
you happen to be employed to write down your opinions for one of the major news outlets in a nation and not for
the political operatives themselves.
If anything, the fact that this batshit lazy argument permeated the top three-fourths of his column offered a
bit of relief with how it would end. Then this sentence appeared and I ascended to heaven:
I am by no means suggesting that everyone who uses the neocon label is doing so as an anti-Semitic smear,
but...
"... John Pilger, among few others, has already stressed how a plan to destroy WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was laid out as far back as 2008 – at the tail end of the Cheney regime – concocted by the Pentagon's shady Cyber Counter-Intelligence Assessments Branch. ..."
"... But it was only in 2017, in the Trump era, that the Deep State went totally ballistic; that's when WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 files – detailing the CIA's vast hacking/cyber espionage repertoire. ..."
"... This was the CIA as a Naked Emperor like never before – including the dodgy overseeing ops of the Center for Cyber Intelligence, an ultra-secret NSA counterpart. ..."
"... The monolithic narrative by the Deep State faction aligned with the Clinton machine was that "the Russians" hacked the DNC servers. Assange was always adamant; that was not the work of a state actor – and he could prove it technically. ..."
"... The DoJ wanted a deal – and they did make an offer to WikiLeaks. But then FBI director James Comey killed it. The question is why. ..."
"... Some theoretically sound reconstructions of Comey's move are available. But the key fact is Comey already knew – via his close connections to the top of the DNC – that this was not a hack; it was a leak. ..."
"... Ambassador Craig Murray has stressed, over and over again (see here ) how the DNC/Podesta files published by WikiLeaks came from two different US sources; one from within the DNC and the other from within US intel. ..."
"... he release by WikiLeaks in April 2017 of the malware mechanisms inbuilt in "Grasshopper" and the "Marble Framework" were indeed a bombshell. This is how the CIA inserts foreign language strings in source code to disguise them as originating from Russia, from Iran, or from China. The inestimable Ray McGovern, a VIPS member, stressed how Marble Framework "destroys this story about Russian hacking." ..."
"... No wonder then CIA director Mike Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a "non-state hostile intelligence agency" ..."
"... Joshua Schulte, the alleged leaker of Vault 7, has not faced a US court yet. There's no question he will be offered a deal by the USG if he aggress to testify against Julian Assange. ..."
"... George Galloway has a guest who explains it all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VvPFMyPvHM&t=8s ..."
"... Escobar is brain dead if he can't figure out that Trumpenstein is totally on board with destroying Assange. As if bringing on pukes like PompAss, BoltON, and Abrams doesn't scream it. ..."
The Made-by-FBI indictment of
Julian Assange does look like a dead man walking. No evidence. No documents. No surefire
testimony. Just a crossfire of conditionals...
But never underestimate the legalese contortionism of US government (USG) functionaries. As
much as Assange may not be characterized as a journalist and publisher, the thrust of the
affidavit is to accuse him of conspiring to commit espionage.
In fact the charge is not even that Assange hacked a USG computer and obtained classified
information; it's that he may have discussed it with Chelsea Manning and may have had the
intention to go for a hack. Orwellian-style thought crime charges don't get any better than
that. Now the only thing missing is an AI software to detect them.
Assange legal adviser Geoffrey Robertson – who also happens to represent another
stellar political prisoner, Brazil's Lula – cut
straight to the chase (at 19:22 minutes);
"The justice he is facing is justice, or injustice, in America I would hope the British
judges would have enough belief in freedom of information to throw out the extradition
request."
That's far from a done deal. Thus the inevitable consequence; Assange's legal team is
getting ready to prove, no holds barred, in a British court, that this USG indictment for
conspiracy to commit computer hacking is just an hors d'oeuvre for subsequent espionage
charges, in case Assange is extradited to US soil.
All about Vault 7
John Pilger, among few others, has already stressed how a plan to
destroy WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was laid out as far back as 2008 – at the tail end
of the Cheney regime – concocted by the Pentagon's shady Cyber Counter-Intelligence
Assessments Branch.
It was all about criminalizing WikiLeaks and personally smearing Assange, using "shock
troops enlisted in the media -- those who are meant to keep the record straight and tell us the
truth."
This plan remains more than active – considering how Assange's arrest has been covered
by the bulk of US/UK mainstream media.
By 2012, already in the Obama era, WikiLeaks detailed the astonishing "scale of the US Grand
Jury Investigation" of itself. The USG always denied such a grand jury existed.
"The US Government has stood up and coordinated a joint interagency criminal investigation
of Wikileaks comprised of a partnership between the Department of Defense (DOD) including:
CENTCOM; SOUTHCOM; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); Defense Information Systems Agency
(DISA); Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA); US Army Criminal Investigation Division
(CID) for USFI (US Forces Iraq) and 1st Armored Division (AD); US Army Computer Crimes
Investigative Unit (CCIU); 2nd Army (US Army Cyber Command); Within that or in addition,
three military intelligence investigations were conducted. Department of Justice (DOJ) Grand
Jury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of State (DOS) and Diplomatic
Security Service (DSS). In addition, Wikileaks has been investigated by the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Office of the National CounterIntelligence
Executive (ONCIX), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the House Oversight Committee; the
National Security Staff Interagency Committee, and the PIAB (President's Intelligence
Advisory Board)."
But it was only in 2017, in the Trump era, that the Deep State went totally ballistic;
that's when WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 files – detailing the CIA's vast
hacking/cyber espionage repertoire.
This was the CIA as a Naked Emperor like never before – including the dodgy
overseeing ops of the Center for Cyber Intelligence, an ultra-secret NSA counterpart.
WikiLeaks got Vault 7 in early 2017. At the time WikiLeaks had already published the DNC
files – which the unimpeachable Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
systematically proved was a leak, not a hack.
The monolithic narrative by the Deep State faction aligned with the Clinton machine was
that "the Russians" hacked the DNC servers. Assange was always adamant; that was not the work
of a state actor – and he could prove it technically.
There was some movement towards a deal, brokered by one of Assange's lawyers; WikiLeaks
would not publish the most damning Vault 7 information in exchange for Assange's safe passage
to be interviewed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
The DoJ wanted a deal – and they did make an offer to WikiLeaks. But then FBI
director James Comey killed it. The question is why.
It's a leak, not a hack
Some theoretically sound
reconstructions of Comey's move are available. But the key fact is Comey already knew
– via his close connections to the top of the DNC – that this was not a hack; it
was a leak.
Ambassador Craig Murray has stressed, over and over again (see
here ) how the DNC/Podesta files published by WikiLeaks came from two different US sources;
one from within the DNC and the other from within US intel.
There was nothing for Comey to "investigate". Or there would have, if Comey had ordered the
FBI to examine the DNC servers. So why talk to Julian Assange?
T he release by WikiLeaks in April 2017 of the malware mechanisms inbuilt in
"Grasshopper" and the "Marble Framework" were indeed a bombshell. This is how the CIA inserts
foreign language strings in source code to disguise them as originating from Russia, from Iran,
or from China. The inestimable Ray McGovern, a VIPS member, stressed how Marble Framework
"destroys this story about Russian hacking."
No wonder then CIA director Mike Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a "non-state hostile
intelligence agency", usually manipulated by Russia.
Joshua Schulte, the alleged leaker of Vault 7,
has not faced a US court yet. There's no question he will be offered a deal by the USG if he
aggress to testify against Julian Assange.
It's a long and winding road, to be traversed in at least two years, if Julian Assange is
ever to be extradited to the US. Two things for the moment are already crystal clear. The USG
is obsessed to shut down WikiLeaks once and for all. And because of that, Julian Assange will
never get a fair trial in the "so-called 'Espionage Court'" of the Eastern District of
Virginia, as
detailed by former CIA counterterrorism officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou.
Meanwhile, the non-stop demonization of Julian Assange will proceed unabated, faithful to
guidelines established over a decade ago. Assange is even accused of being a US intel op, and
WikiLeaks a splinter Deep State deep cover op.
Maybe President Trump will maneuver the hegemonic Deep State into having Assange testify
against the corruption of the DNC; or maybe Trump caved in completely to "hostile intelligence
agency" Pompeo and his CIA gang baying for blood. It's all ultra-high-stakes shadow play
– and the show has not even begun.
Not to mention the Pentagram has silenced 100,000 whistleblower complaints by
Intimidation, threats, money or accidents over 5 years . A Whistleblower only does this when
know there is something seriously wrong. Just Imagine how many knew something was wrong but
looked the other way.
Maybe President Trump will maneuver the hegemonic Deep State into having Assange testify
against the corruption of the DNC; or maybe Trump caved in completely to "hostile
intelligence agency" Pompeo and his CIA gang baying for blood.
Escobar is brain dead if he can't figure out that Trumpenstein is totally on board with
destroying Assange. As if bringing on pukes like PompAss, BoltON, and Abrams doesn't scream it.
assange and wikileaks are the real criminals despite being crimeless. the **** is a
sanctioned criminal, allowed to be criminal with the system because the rest of the
sanctioned criminals would be exposed if she was investigated.
this is not the rule of laws. this is the law of rulers.
"... Almost by accident, I had launched my academic career by doing something a bit different. Embedded within that study of drug trafficking was an analytical approach that would take me, almost unwittingly, on a lifelong exploration of U.S. global hegemony in its many manifestations, including diplomatic alliances, CIA interventions, developing military technology, recourse to torture, and global surveillance. Step by step, topic by topic, decade after decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of the parts to try to assemble the whole. In writing my new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power , I drew on this research to assess the overall character of U.S. global power and the forces that might contribute to its perpetuation or decline. ..."
"... In the process, I slowly came to see a striking continuity and coherence in Washington's century-long rise to global dominion. CIA torture techniques emerged at the start of the Cold War in the 1950s; much of its futuristic robotic aerospace technology had its first trial in the Vietnam War of the 1960s; and, above all, Washington's reliance on surveillance first appeared in the colonial Philippines around 1900 and soon became an essential though essentially illegal tool for the FBI's repression of domestic dissent that continued through the 1970s. ..."
"... After occupying the Philippines in 1898, the U.S. Army, facing a difficult pacification campaign in a restive land, discovered the power of systematic surveillance to crush the resistance of the country's political elite. Then, during World War I, the Army's "father of military intelligence," the dour General Ralph Van Deman, who had learned his trade in the Philippines, drew upon his years pacifying those islands to mobilize a legion of 1,700 soldiers and 350,000 citizen-vigilantes for an intense surveillance program against suspected enemy spies among German-Americans, including my own grandfather. In studying Military Intelligence files at the National Archives, I found "suspicious" letters purloined from my grandfather's army locker. In fact, his mother had been writing him in her native German about such subversive subjects as knitting him socks for guard duty. ..."
"... In the 1950s, Hoover's FBI agents tapped thousands of phones without warrants and kept suspected subversives under close surveillance, including my mother's cousin Gerard Piel, an anti-nuclear activist and the publisher of Scientific American magazine. During the Vietnam War, the bureau expanded its activities with an amazing array of spiteful, often illegal, intrigues in a bid to cripple the antiwar movement with pervasive surveillance of the sort seen in my own FBI file. ..."
"... What about using the historical method to explore the nature of USA's reducing EU nations to "vassals" – and keeping them in the status of vassals, such that they can be depended on to undermine their own economies and sovereignty for the sake of USA's global initiatives? ..."
"... An interesting question might be whether the NATO-to-Afghanistan highway (truck route for munitions, etc.), c. 2010, was also, on the back-haul – Afghanistan to EU – the major supply route for heroin throughout the EU and thus the key to corruption of EU governments (and of Russia) and domination of those governments by USA's neocon operatives? (E.g., was/is the distribution system of the "Chocolate King" Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, delivering something besides just chocolate?) ..."
"... The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20569.htm ..."
In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks
in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging technologies for digital surveillance,
agile drones, and biometric identification. In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information,
the Washington Post reported that the
national security state had swelled into a "fourth branch" of the federal government -- with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security
organizations, and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year.
Though stunning, these statistics only skimmed the visible surface of what had become history's largest and most lethal clandestine
apparatus. According to classified documents that Edward Snowden
leaked in 2013, the nation's 16 intelligence agencies alone had 107,035 employees and a combined "black budget" of $52.6 billion,
the
equivalent of 10% percent of the vast defense budget.
By sweeping the skies and probing the worldwide web's undersea cables, the National Security Agency (NSA) could surgically penetrate
the confidential communications of just about
any leader on the
planet, while simultaneously sweeping up
billions of
ordinary messages. For its classified missions, the CIA had access to the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, with
69,000 elite troops (Rangers, SEALs, Air Commandos)
and their agile arsenal. In addition to this formidable paramilitary capacity, the CIA
operated 30 Predator and Reaper drones
responsible for more
than 3,000 deaths in Pakistan and Yemen.
While Americans practiced a collective form of duck and cover as the Department of Homeland Security's
colored alerts pulsed nervously from yellow to red,
few paused to ask the hard question: Was all this security really directed solely at enemies beyond our borders? After half a century
of domestic security abuses -- from the "red scare" of the 1920s through the FBI's illegal harassment of antiwar protesters in the
1960s and 1970s -- could we really be confident that there wasn't a hidden cost to all these secret measures right here at home?
Maybe, just maybe, all this security wasn't really so benign when it came to us.
From my own personal experience over the past half-century, and my family's history over three generations, I've found out in
the most personal way possible that there's a real cost to entrusting our civil liberties to the discretion of secret agencies. Let
me share just a few of my own "war" stories to explain how I've been forced to keep learning and relearning this uncomfortable lesson
the hard way.
On the Heroin Trail
After finishing college in the late 1960s, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Japanese history and was pleasantly surprised when Yale
Graduate School admitted me with a full fellowship. But the Ivy League in those days was no ivory tower. During my first year at
Yale, the Justice Department indicted Black Panther leader Bobby Seale for a local murder and the May Day protests that filled the
New Haven green also shut the campus for a week. Almost simultaneously, President Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia and student
protests closed hundreds of campuses across America for the rest of the semester.
In the midst of all this tumult, the focus of my studies shifted from Japan to Southeast Asia, and from the past to the war in
Vietnam. Yes, that war. So what did I do about the draft? During my first semester at Yale, on December 1, 1969, to be precise, the
Selective Service cut up the calendar for a lottery. The first 100 birthdays picked were certain to be drafted, but any dates above
200 were likely exempt. My birthday, June 8th, was the very last date drawn, not number 365 but 366 (don't forget leap year) -- the
only lottery I have ever won, except for a Sunbeam electric frying pan in a high school raffle. Through a convoluted moral calculus
typical of the 1960s, I decided that my draft exemption, although acquired by sheer luck, demanded that I devote myself, above all
else, to thinking about, writing about, and working to end the Vietnam War.
During those campus protests over Cambodia in the spring of 1970, our small group of graduate students in Southeast Asian history
at Yale realized that the U.S. strategic predicament in Indochina would soon require an invasion of Laos to cut the flow of enemy
supplies into South Vietnam. So, while protests over Cambodia swept campuses nationwide, we were huddled inside the library, preparing
for the next invasion by editing a book of essays on Laos for the publisher Harper & Row. A few months after that book appeared,
one of the company's junior editors, Elizabeth Jakab, intrigued by an account we had included about that country's opium crop, telephoned
from New York to ask if I could research and write a "quickie" paperback about the history behind the heroin epidemic then infecting
the U.S. Army in Vietnam.
I promptly started the research at my student carrel in the Gothic tower that is Yale's Sterling Library, tracking old colonial
reports about the Southeast Asian opium trade that ended suddenly in the 1950s, just as the story got interesting. So, quite tentatively
at first, I stepped outside the library to do a few interviews and soon found myself following an investigative trail that circled
the globe. First, I traveled across America for meetings with retired CIA operatives. Then I crossed the Pacific to Hong Kong to
study drug syndicates, courtesy of that colony's police drug squad. Next, I went south to Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam,
to investigate the heroin traffic that was targeting the GIs, and on into the mountains of Laos to observe CIA alliances with opium
warlords and the hill-tribe militias that grew the opium poppy. Finally, I flew from Singapore to Paris for interviews with retired
French intelligence officers about their opium trafficking during the first Indochina War of the 1950s.
The drug traffic that supplied heroin for the U.S. troops fighting in South Vietnam was not, I discovered, exclusively the work
of criminals. Once the opium left tribal poppy fields in Laos, the traffic required official complicity at every level. The helicopters
of Air America, the airline the CIA then ran, carried raw opium out of the villages of its hill-tribe allies. The commander of the
Royal Lao Army, a close American collaborator, operated the world's largest heroin lab and was so oblivious to the implications of
the traffic that he opened his opium ledgers for my inspection. Several of Saigon's top generals were complicit in the drug's distribution
to U.S. soldiers. By 1971, this web of collusion ensured that heroin, according to a later
White House survey of a thousand veterans, would be "commonly used" by 34% of American troops in South Vietnam.
None of this had been covered in my college history seminars. I had no models for researching an uncharted netherworld of crime
and covert operations. After stepping off the plane in Saigon, body slammed by the tropical heat, I found myself in a sprawling foreign
city of four million, lost in a swarm of snarling motorcycles and a maze of nameless streets, without contacts or a clue about how
to probe these secrets. Every day on the heroin trail confronted me with new challenges -- where to look, what to look for, and,
above all, how to ask hard questions.
Reading all that history had, however, taught me something I didn't know I knew. Instead of confronting my sources with questions
about sensitive current events, I started with the French colonial past when the opium trade was still legal, gradually uncovering
the underlying, unchanging logistics of drug production. As I followed this historical trail into the present, when the traffic became
illegal and dangerously controversial, I began to use pieces from this past to assemble the present puzzle, until the names of contemporary
dealers fell into place. In short, I had crafted a historical method that would prove, over the next 40 years of my career, surprisingly
useful in analyzing a diverse array of foreign policy controversies -- CIA alliances with drug lords, the agency's propagation of
psychological torture, and our spreading state surveillance.
The CIA Makes Its Entrance in My Life
Those months on the road, meeting gangsters and warlords in isolated places, offered only one bit of real danger. While hiking
in the mountains of Laos, interviewing Hmong farmers about their opium shipments on CIA helicopters, I was descending a steep slope
when a burst of bullets ripped the ground at my feet. I had walked into an ambush by agency mercenaries.
While the five Hmong militia escorts whom the local village headman had prudently provided laid down a covering fire, my Australian
photographer John Everingham and I flattened ourselves
in the elephant grass and crawled through the mud to safety. Without those armed escorts, my research would have been at an end and
so would I. After that ambush failed, a CIA paramilitary officer summoned me to a mountaintop meeting where he threatened to murder
my Lao interpreter unless I ended my research. After winning assurances from the U.S. embassy that my interpreter would not be harmed,
I decided to ignore that warning and keep going.
Six months and 30,000 miles later, I returned to New Haven. My investigation of CIA alliances with drug lords had taught me more
than I could have imagined about the covert aspects of U.S. global power. Settling into my attic apartment for an academic year of
writing, I was confident that I knew more than enough for a book on this unconventional topic. But my education, it turned out, was
just beginning.
Within weeks, a massive, middle-aged guy in a suit interrupted my scholarly isolation. He appeared at my front door and identified
himself as
Tom Tripodi , senior agent for the Bureau of Narcotics, which later became the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). His agency,
he confessed during a second visit, was worried about my writing and he had been sent to investigate. He needed something to tell
his superiors. Tom was a guy you could trust. So I showed him a few draft pages of my book. He disappeared into the living room for
a while and came back saying, "Pretty good stuff. You got your ducks in a row." But there were some things, he added, that weren't
quite right, some things he could help me fix.
Best of all, there was the one about how the Bureau of Narcotics caught French intelligence protecting the Corsican syndicates
smuggling heroin into New York City. Some of his stories, usually unacknowledged, would appear in my book,
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast
Asia . These conversations with an undercover operative, who had trained Cuban exiles for the CIA in Florida and later investigated
Mafia heroin syndicates for the DEA in Sicily, were akin to an advanced seminar, a master class in covert operations.
In the summer of 1972, with the book at press, I went to Washington to testify before Congress. As I was making the rounds of
congressional offices on Capitol Hill, my editor rang unexpectedly and summoned me to New York for a meeting with the president and
vice president of Harper & Row, my book's publisher. Ushered into a plush suite of offices overlooking the spires of St. Patrick's
Cathedral, I listened to those executives tell me that Cord Meyer, Jr., the CIA's deputy director for covert operations, had called
on their company's president emeritus, Cass Canfield, Sr. The visit was no accident, for Canfield, according to an
authoritative history , "enjoyed prolific links to the world of intelligence, both as a former psychological warfare officer
and as a close personal friend of Allen Dulles," the ex-head of the CIA Meyer denounced my book as a threat to national security.
He asked Canfield, also an old friend, to quietly suppress it.
I was in serious trouble. Not only was Meyer a senior CIA official but he also had impeccable social connections and covert assets
in every corner of American intellectual life. After graduating from Yale in 1942, he served with the marines in the Pacific, writing
eloquent war dispatches published in the Atlantic Monthly . He later worked with the U.S. delegation drafting the U.N. charter.
Personally recruited by spymaster Allen Dulles, Meyer joined the CIA in 1951 and was soon running its International Organizations
Division, which, in the words of that
same history , "constituted the greatest single concentration of covert political and propaganda activities of the by now octopus-like
CIA," including " Operation Mockingbird " that
planted disinformation in major U.S. newspapers meant to aid agency operations. Informed sources told me that the CIA still had assets
inside every major New York publisher and it already had every page of my manuscript.
As the child of a wealthy New York family, Cord Meyer moved in elite social circles, meeting and marrying Mary Pinchot, the niece
of Gifford Pinchot, founder of the U.S. Forestry Service and a former governor of Pennsylvania. Pinchot was a breathtaking beauty
who later became President Kennedy's mistress, making dozens of
secret visits to the White House. When she was found
shot dead
along the banks of a canal in Washington in 1964, the head of CIA counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, another Yale alumnus,
broke into her home in an unsuccessful attempt to secure her diary. Mary's sister Toni and her husband, Washington Post editor
Ben Bradlee, later found the diary and gave it to Angleton for destruction by the agency. To this day, her unsolved murder remains
a subject of mystery and
controversy.
Cord Meyer was also in the Social Register of New York's fine families along with my publisher, Cass Canfield, which added
a dash of social cachet to the pressure to suppress my book. By the time he walked into Harper & Row's office in that summer of 1972,
two decades of CIA service had
changed Meyer (according to that same authoritative history) from a liberal idealist into "a relentless, implacable advocate
for his own ideas," driven by "a paranoiac distrust of everyone who didn't agree with him" and a manner that was "histrionic and
even bellicose." An unpublished 26-year-old graduate student versus the master of CIA media manipulation. It was hardly a fair fight.
I began to fear my book would never appear.
To his credit, Canfield refused Meyer's request to suppress the book. But he did allow the agency a chance to review the manuscript
prior to publication. Instead of waiting quietly for the CIA's critique, I contacted Seymour Hersh, then an investigative reporter
for the New York Times . The same day the CIA courier arrived from Langley to collect my manuscript, Hersh swept through Harper
& Row's offices like a tropical storm, pelting hapless executives with incessant, unsettling questions. The next day, his exposé
of the CIA's attempt at censorship appeared on the paper's
front page . Other national media organizations followed his lead. Faced with a barrage of negative coverage, the CIA gave Harper
& Row a critique full of unconvincing
denials . The book was published unaltered.
My Life as an Open Book for the Agency
I had learned another important lesson: the Constitution's protection of press freedom could check even the world's most powerful
espionage agency. Cord Meyer reportedly learned the same lesson. According to his
obituary in the Washington Post , "It was assumed that Mr. Meyer would eventually advance" to head CIA covert operations,
"but the public disclosure about the book deal apparently dampened his prospects." He was instead exiled to London and eased into
early retirement.
Meyer and his colleagues were not, however, used to losing. Defeated in the public arena, the CIA retreated to the shadows and
retaliated by tugging at every thread in the threadbare life of a graduate student. Over the next few months, federal officials from
the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare turned up at Yale to investigate my graduate fellowship. The Internal Revenue Service
audited my poverty-level income. The FBI tapped my New Haven telephone (something I learned years later from a class-action lawsuit).
In August 1972, at the height of the controversy over the book, FBI agents told the bureau's director that they had "conducted
[an] investigation concerning McCoy," searching the files they had compiled on me for the past two years and interviewing numerous
"sources whose identities are concealed [who] have furnished reliable information in the past" -- thereby producing an 11-page report
detailing my birth, education, and campus antiwar activities.
A college classmate I hadn't seen in four years, who served in military intelligence, magically appeared at my side in the book
section of the Yale Co-op, seemingly eager to resume our relationship. The same week that a
laudatory review of my book appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review , an extraordinary achievement
for any historian, Yale's History Department placed me on academic probation. Unless I could somehow do a year's worth of overdue
work in a single semester, I faced dismissal.
In those days, the ties between the CIA and Yale were wide and deep. The campus residential colleges screened students, including
future CIA Director Porter Goss, for possible careers in espionage. Alumni like Cord Meyer and James Angleton held senior slots at
the agency. Had I not had a faculty adviser visiting from Germany, the distinguished scholar
Bernhard Dahm who was a stranger to this covert nexus,
that probation would likely have become expulsion, ending my academic career and destroying my credibility.
During those difficult days, New York Congressman Ogden Reid, a ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, telephoned
to say that he was sending staff investigators to Laos to look into the opium situation. Amid this controversy, a CIA helicopter
landed near the village where I had escaped that ambush and flew the Hmong headman who had helped my research to an agency airstrip.
There, a CIA interrogator made it clear that he had better deny what he had said to me about the opium. Fearing, as he later told
my photographer, that "they will send a helicopter to arrest me, or soldiers to shoot me," the Hmong headman did just that.
At a personal level, I was discovering just how deep the country's intelligence agencies could reach, even in a democracy, leaving
no part of my life untouched: my publisher, my university, my sources, my taxes, my phone, and even my friends.
Although I had won the first battle of this war with a media blitz, the CIA was winning the longer bureaucratic struggle. By silencing
my sources and denying any culpability, its officials convinced Congress that it was innocent of any direct complicity in the Indochina
drug trade. During Senate hearings into CIA assassinations by the famed
Church Committee three years later,
Congress accepted the agency's assurance that none of its operatives had been directly involved in heroin trafficking (an allegation
I had never actually made). The committee's report did confirm the core of my critique, however, finding that "the CIA is particularly
vulnerable to criticism" over indigenous assets in Laos "of considerable importance to the Agency," including "people who either
were known to be, or were suspected of being, involved in narcotics trafficking." But the senators did not press the CIA for any
resolution or reform of what its own inspector general had called the "particular dilemma" posed by those alliances with drug lords
-- the key aspect, in my view, of its complicity in the traffic.
During the mid-1970s, as the flow of drugs into the United States slowed and the number of addicts declined, the heroin problem
receded into the inner cities and the media moved on to new sensations. Unfortunately, Congress had forfeited an opportunity to check
the CIA and correct its way of waging covert wars. In less than 10 years, the problem of the CIA's tactical alliances with drug traffickers
to support its far-flung covert wars was back with a vengeance.
During the 1980s, as the crack-cocaine epidemic swept America's cities, the agency, as its own Inspector General later
reported , allied itself with the largest drug
smuggler in the Caribbean, using his port facilities to ship arms to the Contra guerrillas fighting in Nicaragua and protecting him
from any prosecution for five years. Simultaneously on the other side of the planet in Afghanistan, mujahedeen guerrillas imposed
an opium
tax on farmers to fund their fight against the Soviet occupation and, with the
CIA's tacit consent , operated heroin labs along the Pakistani border to supply international markets. By the mid-1980s, Afghanistan's
opium harvest had grown 10-fold and was providing 60% of the heroin for America's addicts and as much as
90% in New York City.
Almost by accident, I had launched my academic career by doing something a bit different. Embedded within that study of drug
trafficking was an analytical approach that would take me, almost unwittingly, on a lifelong exploration of U.S. global hegemony
in its many manifestations, including diplomatic alliances, CIA interventions, developing military technology, recourse to torture,
and global surveillance. Step by step, topic by topic, decade after decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of
the parts to try to assemble the whole. In writing my new book,
In the Shadows of the American Century:
The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power , I drew on this research to assess the overall character of U.S. global power
and the forces that might contribute to its perpetuation or decline.
In the process, I slowly came to see a striking continuity and coherence in Washington's century-long rise to global dominion.
CIA torture techniques emerged at the start of the Cold War in the 1950s; much of its futuristic robotic aerospace technology had
its first trial in the Vietnam War of the 1960s; and, above all, Washington's reliance on surveillance first appeared in the colonial
Philippines around 1900 and soon became an essential though essentially illegal tool for the FBI's repression of domestic dissent
that continued through the 1970s.
Surveillance Today
In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, I dusted off that historical method, and used it to explore the origins and character
of domestic surveillance inside the United States.
After occupying the Philippines in 1898, the U.S. Army, facing a difficult pacification campaign in a restive land, discovered
the power of systematic surveillance to crush the resistance of the country's political elite. Then, during World War I, the Army's
"father of military intelligence," the dour General Ralph Van Deman, who had learned his trade in the Philippines, drew upon his
years pacifying those islands to mobilize a legion of 1,700 soldiers and 350,000 citizen-vigilantes for an intense surveillance program
against suspected enemy spies among German-Americans, including my own grandfather. In studying Military Intelligence files at the
National Archives, I found "suspicious" letters purloined from my grandfather's army locker. In fact, his mother had been writing
him in her native German about such subversive subjects as knitting him socks for guard duty.
In the 1950s, Hoover's FBI agents tapped thousands of phones without warrants and kept suspected subversives under close surveillance,
including my mother's cousin Gerard Piel, an anti-nuclear activist and the publisher of Scientific American magazine. During the
Vietnam War, the bureau expanded
its activities with an amazing array of spiteful, often illegal, intrigues in a bid to cripple the antiwar movement with pervasive
surveillance of the sort seen in my own FBI file.
Memory of the FBI's illegal surveillance programs was largely washed away after the Vietnam War thanks to Congressional reforms
that required judicial warrants for all government wiretaps. The terror attacks of September 2001, however, gave the National Security
Agency the leeway to launch renewed surveillance on a previously unimaginable scale. Writing for TomDispatch in 2009, I
observed that coercive methods first tested in the Middle East
were being repatriated and might lay the groundwork for "a domestic surveillance state." Sophisticated biometric and cyber techniques
forged in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq had made a "digital surveillance state a reality" and so were fundamentally changing
the character of American democracy.
Four years later, Edward Snowden's leak of secret NSA documents revealed that, after a century-long gestation period, a U.S. digital
surveillance state had finally arrived. In the age of the Internet, the NSA could monitor tens of millions of private lives worldwide,
including American ones, via a few hundred computerized probes into the global grid of fiber-optic cables.
And then, as if to remind me in the most personal way possible of our new reality, four years ago, I found myself the target yet
again of an IRS audit, of TSA body searches at national airports, and -- as I discovered when the line went dead -- a tap on my office
telephone at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Why? Maybe it was my current writing on sensitive topics like CIA torture and NSA
surveillance, or maybe my name popped up from some old database of suspected subversives left over from the 1970s. Whatever the explanation,
it was a reasonable reminder that, if my own family's experience across three generations is in any way representative, state surveillance
has been an integral part of American political life far longer than we might imagine.
At the cost of personal privacy, Washington's worldwide web of surveillance has now become a weapon of exceptional power in a
bid to extend U.S. global hegemony deeper into the twenty-first century. Yet it's worth remembering that sooner or later what we
do overseas always seems to come home to haunt us, just as the CIA and crew have haunted me this last half-century. When we learn
to love Big Brother, the world becomes a more, not less, dangerous place.
Alfred W. McCoy, a
TomDispatch regular
, is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of the now-classic book The
Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade , which probed the conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert operations
over 50 years, and the forthcoming In
the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Dispatch Books, September) from which this piece
is adapted. (Republished from
TomDispatch by permission
of author or representative)
"In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, I dusted off that historical method, and used it to explore the origins and character
of domestic surveillance inside the United States." -- Alfred McCoy
What about using the historical method to explore the nature of USA's reducing EU nations to "vassals" – and keeping them
in the status of vassals, such that they can be depended on to undermine their own economies and sovereignty for the sake of USA's
global initiatives?
An interesting question might be whether the NATO-to-Afghanistan highway (truck route for munitions, etc.), c. 2010, was
also, on the back-haul – Afghanistan to EU – the major supply route for heroin throughout the EU and thus the key to corruption
of EU governments (and of Russia) and domination of those governments by USA's neocon operatives? (E.g., was/is the distribution
system of the "Chocolate King" Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, delivering something besides just chocolate?)
"Just over one third of all cargo goes on routes dubbed the "northern distribution network" through Central Asia, and the Caucasus
or Russia. " -- Reuters, 2011
Just a thought, speculative, based in part on the assumption that such trucks would not be subject to narcotics search-and-seizure
going across borders.
"... Today, it seems, the best description of the FBI's main activity is corporate enforcer for the white-collar mafia known as Wall Street. There is an analogy to organized crime, where the most powerful mobsters settled disputes between other gangs of criminals. Similarly, if a criminal gang is robbed by one of its own members, the mafia would go after the guilty party; the FBI plays this role for Wall Street institutions targeted by con artists and fraudsters. Compare and contrast a pharmaceutical company making opiates which is targeted by thieves vs. a black market drug cartel targeted by thieves. In one case, the FBI investigates; in the other, a violent vendetta ensues (such as street murders in Mexico). ..."
"... The FBI executives are rewarded for this service with lucrative post-retirement careers within corporate America – Louis Freeh went to credit card fraudster, MBNA, Richard Mueller to a corporate Washington law firm, WilmerHale, and Comey, before Obama picked him as Director, worked for Lockheed Martin and HSBC (cleaning up after their $2 billion drug cartel marketing scandal) after leaving the FBI in 2005. ..."
"... Some say they have a key role to play in national security and terrorism – but their record on the 2001 anthrax attacks is incredibly shady and suspicious. The final suspect, Bruce Ivins, is clearly innocent of the crime, just as their previous suspect, Steven Hatfill was. Ivins, if still alive, could have won a similar multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the FBI. All honest bioweapons experts know this to be true – the perpetrators of those anthrax letters are still at large, and may very well have had close associations with the Bush Administration itself. ..."
"... Comey's actions over the past year are certainly highly questionable, as well. Neglecting to investigate the Clinton Foundation ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments and corporations, particularly things like State Department approval of various arms deals in which bribes may have been paid, is as much a dereliction of duty as neglecting to investigate Trump ties to Russian business interests – but then, Trump has a record of shady business dealings dating back to the 1970s, of strange bankruptcies and bailouts and government sales that the FBI never looked at either. ..."
I made the mistake of listening to NPR last week to find out what Conventional Wisdom had to say
about Trump firing Comey, on the assumption that their standardized Mister-Rogers-on-Nyquil voice
tones would rein in the hysteria pitch a little. And on the surface, it did-the NPR host and guests
weren't directly shrieking "the world is ending! We're all gonna die SHEEPLE!" the way they were
on CNN. But in a sense they were screaming "fire!", if you know how to distinguish the very minute
pitch level differences in the standard NPR Nyquil voice.
The host of the daytime NPR program asked his guests how serious, and how "unprecedented" Trump's
decision to fire his FBI chief was. The guests answers were strange: they spoke about "rule of law"
and "violating the Constitution" but then switched to Trump "violating norms"-and back again, interchanging
"norms" and "laws" as if they're synonyms. One of the guests admitted that Trump firing Comey was
100% legal, but that didn't seem to matter in this talk about Trump having abandoned rule-of-law
for a Putinist dictatorship. These guys wouldn't pass a high school civics class, but there they
were, garbling it all up. What mattered was the proper sense of panic and outrage-I'm not sure anyone
really cared about the actual legality of the thing, or the legal, political or "normative" history
of the FBI.
For starters, the FBI hardly belongs in the same set with concepts like "constitutional" or "
rule of law." That's because the FBI was never established by a law. US Lawmakers refused to approve
an FBI bureau over a century ago when it was first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt. So he ignored Congress,
and went ahead and set it up by presidential fiat. That's one thing the civil liberties crowd hates
discussing - how centralized US political power is in the executive branch, a feature in the constitutional
system put there by the holy Founders.
In the late 1970s, at the tail end of our brief Glasnost, there was a lot of talk in Washington
about finally creating a
legal charter for the FBI -70 years after its founding. A lot of serious ink was spilled trying
to transform the FBI from an extralegal secret police agency to something legal and defined. If you
want to play archeologist to America's recent history, you can find this in the New York Times' archives,
articles with headlines like
"Draft of Charter for F.B.I. Limits Inquiry Methods" :
The Carter Administration will soon send to Congress the first governing charter for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. The proposed charter imposes extensive but not absolute restrictions
on the bureau's employment of controversial investigative techniques, .including the use of informers,
undercover agents and covert criminal activity.
The charter also specifies the duties and powers of the bureau, setting precise standards and
procedures for the initiation ,and conduct of investigations. It specifically requires the F.B.I.
to observe constitutional rights and establishes safeguards against unchecked harassment, break‐ins
and other abuses.
followed by the inevitable lament, like this editorial from the Christian Science Monitor a year
later, "Don't Forget the
FBI Charter". Which of course we did forget-that was Reagan's purpose and value for the post-Glasnost
reaction: forgetting. As historian Athan Theoharis
wrote , "After 1981, Congress never seriously considered again any of the FBI charter proposals."
The origins of the FBI have been obscured both because of its dubious legality and because of
its original political purpose-to help the president battle the all-powerful American capitalists.
It wasn't that Teddy Roosevelt was a radical leftist-he was a Progressive Republican, which sounds
like an oxymoron today but which was mainstream and ascendant politics in his time. Roosevelt was
probably the first president since Andrew Jackson to try to smash concentrated wealth-power, or at
least some of it. He could be brutally anti-labor, but so were the powerful capitalists he fought,
and all the structures of government power. He met little opposition pursuing his imperial Social
Darwinist ambitions outside America's borders-but he had a much harder time fighting the powerful
capitalists at home against Roosevelt's most honorable political obsession: preserving forests, parks
and public lands from greedy capitalists. An early FBI memo to Hoover about the FBI's origins explains,
"Roosevelt, in his characteristic dynamic fashion, asserted that the plunderers of the public
domain would be prosecuted and brought to justice."
According to New York Times reporter Tim Wiener's Enemies: A History of the FBI , it
was the Oregon land fraud scandal of 1905-6 that put the idea of an FBI in TR's hyperactive mind.
The scandal involved leading Oregon politicians helping railroad tycoon Edward Harriman illegally
sell off pristine Oregon forest lands to timber interests, and it ended with an Oregon senator and
the state's only two House representatives criminally charged and put on trial-along with dozens
of other Oregonians. Basically, they were raping the state's public lands and forests like colonists
stripping a foreign country-and that stuck in TR's craw.
TR wanted his attorney general-Charles Bonaparte (yes, he really was a descendant of that
Bonaparte)-to make a full report to on the rampant land fraud scams that the robber barons were
running to despoil the American West, and which threatened TR's vision of land and forest conservation
and parks. Bonaparte created an investigative team from the US Secret Service, but TR thought their
report was a "whitewash" and proposed a new separate federal investigative service within Bonaparte's
Department of Justice that would report only to the Attorney General.
Until then, the US government had to rely on private contractors like the notorious, dreaded Pinkerton
Agency, who were great at strikebreaking, clubbing workers and shooting organizers, but not so good
at taking down down robber barons, who happened to also be important clients for the private detective
agencies.
In early 1908, Attorney General Bonaparte wrote to Congress asking for the legal authority (and
budget funds) to create a "permanent detective force" under the DOJ. Congress rebelled, denouncing
it as a plan to create an American okhrana . Democrat Joseph Sherley wrote that "spying
on men and prying into what would ordinarily be considered their private affairs" went against "American
ideas of government"; Rep. George Waldo, a New York Republican, said the proposed FBI was a "great
blow to freedom and to free institutions if there should arise in this country any such great central
secret-service bureau as there is in Russia."
So Congress's response was the opposite, banning Bonaparte's DOJ from spending any funds at all
on a proposed FBI. Another Congressman wrote another provision into the budget bill banning the DOJ
from hiring Secret Service employees for any sort of FBI type agency. So Bonaparte waited until Congress
took its summer recess, set aside some DOJ funds, recruited some Secret Service agents, and created
a new federal detective bureau with 34 agents. This was how the FBI was born. Congress wasn't notified
until the end of 1908, in a few lines in a standard report - "oh yeah, forgot to tell you-the executive
branch went ahead and created an American okhrana because, well, the ol' joke about dogs
licking their balls. Happy New Year!"
The sordid history of America's extralegal secret police-initially named the Bureau of Investigation,
changed to the FBI ("Federal") in the 30's, is mostly a history of xenophobic panic-mongering, illegal
domestic spying, mass roundups and plans for mass-roundups, false entrapment schemes, and planting
what Russians call "kompromat"- compromising information about a target's sex life-to blackmail or
destroy American political figures that the FBI didn't like.
The first political victim of J Edgar Hoover's kompromat was Louis Post, the assistant secretary
of labor under Woodrow Wilson. Post's crime was releasing over 1,000 alleged Reds from detention
facilities near the end of the FBI's Red Scare crackdown, when they jailed and deported untold thousands
on suspicion of being Communists. The FBI's mass purge began with popular media support in 1919,
but by the middle of 1920, some (not the FBI) were starting to get a little queasy. A legal challenge
to the FBI's mass purges and exiles in Boston ended with a federal judge denouncing the FBI. After
that ruling, assistant secretary Louis Post, a 71-year-old well-meaning progressive, reviewed the
cases against the last 1500 detainees that the FBI wanted to deport, and found that there was absolutely
nothing on at least 75 percent of the cases. Post's review threatened to undo thousands more FBI
persecutions of alleged Moscow-controlled radicals.
So one of the FBI's most ambitious young agents, J Edgar Hoover, collected kompromat on Post and
his alleged associations with other alleged Moscow-controlled leftists, and gave the file to the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives-which promptly announced it would hold hearings to
investigate Post as a left subversive. The House tried to impeach Post, but ultimately he defended
himself. Post's lawyer compared his political persecutors to the okhrana (Russia, again!):
"We in America have sunk to the level of the government of Russia under the Czarist regime," describing
the FBI's smear campaign as "even lower in some of their methods than the old Russian officials."
Under Harding, the FBI had a new chief, William Burns, who made headlines blaming the terror bombing
attack on Wall Street of 1920 that killed 34 people on a Kremlin-run conspiracy. The FBI claimed
it had a highly reliable inside source who told them that Lenin sent $30,000 to the Soviets' diplomatic
mission in New York, which was distributed to four local Communist agents who arranged the Wall Street
bombing. The source claimed to have personally spoken with Lenin, who boasted that the bombing was
so successful he'd ordered up more.
The only problem was that the FBI's reliable source, a Jewish-Polish petty criminal named Wolf
Lindenfeld, turned out to be a bullshitter-nicknamed "Windy Linde"-who thought his fake confession
about Lenin funding the bombing campaign would get him out of Poland's jails and set up in a comfortable
new life in New York.
By 1923, the FBI had thoroughly destroyed America's communist and radical labor movements-allowing
it to focus on its other favorite pastime: spying on and destroying political opponents. The FBI
spied on US Senators who supported opening diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union: Idaho's William
Borah, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; Thomas Walsh of the Judiciary Committee, and
Burton K Wheeler, the prairie Populist senator from Montana, who visited the Soviet Union and pushed
for diplomatic relations. Harding's corrupt Attorney General Dougherty denounced Sen. Wheeler as
"the Communist leader in the Senate" and "no more a Democrat than Stalin, his comrade in Moscow."
Dougherty accused Sen. Wheeler of being part of a conspiracy "to capture, by deceit and design, as
many members of the Senate as possible and to spread through Washington and the cloakrooms of Congress
a poison gas as deadly as that which sapped and destroyed brave soldiers in the last war."
Hoover, now a top FBI official, quietly fed kompromat to journalists he cultivated, particularly
an AP reporter named Richard Whitney, who published a popular book in 1924, "Reds In America" alleging
Kremlin agents "had an all-pervasive influence over American institutions; they had infiltrated every
corner of American life." Whitney named Charlie Chaplin as a Kremlin agent, along with Felix Frankfurter
and members of the Senate pushing for recognition of the Soviet Union. That killed any hope for diplomatic
recognition for the next decade.
Then the first Harding scandals broke-Teapot Dome, Veterans Affairs, bribery at the highest rungs.
When Senators Wheeler and Walsh opened bribery investigations, the FBI sent agents to the senators'
home state to drum up false bribery charges against Sen. Wheeler. The charges were clearly fake,
and a jury dismissed the charges. But Attorney General Dougherty was indicted for fraud and forced
to resign, as was his FBI chief Burns-but not Burns' underling Hoover, who stayed in the shadows.
"We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in
sex-life scandals and plain blackmail This must stop."
With the Cold War, the FBI became obsessed with homosexuals as America's Fifth Column under Moscow's
control. Homosexuals, the FBI believed, were susceptible to Kremlin kompromat-so the FBI collected
and disseminated its own kompromat on alleged American homosexuals, supposedly to protect America
from the Kremlin. In the early 1950s, Hoover launched the Sex Deviates Program to spy on American
homosexuals and purge them from public life. The FBI built up 300,000 pages of files on suspected
homosexuals and contacted their employers, local law enforcement and universities to "to drive homosexuals
from every institution of government, higher learning, and law enforcement in the nation," according
to Tim Weiner's book Enemies. No one but the FBI knows exactly how many Americans' lives and careers
were destroyed by the FBI's Sex Deviants Program but Hoover-who never married, lived with his mother
until he was 40, and traveled everywhere with his
"friend" Clyde Tolson .
In the 1952 election, Hoover was so committed to helping the Republicans and Eisenhower win that
he compiled and disseminated a 19-page kompromat file alleging that his Democratic Party rival Adlai
Stevenson was gay. The FBI's file on Stevenson was kept in the Sex Deviants Program section-it included
libelous gossip, claiming that Stevenson was one of Illinois' "best known homosexuals" who went by
the name "Adeline" in gay cruising circles.
In the 1960s, Hoover and his FBI chiefs collected kompromat on the sex lives of JFK and Martin
Luther King. Hoover presented some of his kompromat on JFK to Bobby Kennedy, in a concern-trollish
way claiming to "warn" him that the president was opening himself up to blackmail. It was really
a way for Hoover to let the despised Kennedy brothers know he could destroy them, should they try
to Comey him out of his FBI office. Hoover's kompromat on MLK's sex life was a particular obsession
of his-he now believed that African-Americans, not homosexuals, posed the greatest threat to become
a Kremlin Fifth Column. The FBI wiretapped MLK's private life, collecting tapes of his affairs with
other women, which a top FBI official then mailed to Martin Luther King's wife, along with a note
urging King to commit suicide.
FBI letter anonymously mailed to Martin Luther King Jr's wife, along with kompromat sex tapes
After JFK was murdered, when Bobby Kennedy ran for the Senate in 1964, he recounted another disturbing
FBI/kompromat story that President Johnson shared with him on the campaign trail. LBJ told Bobby
about a stack of kompromat files - FBI reports "detailing the sexual debauchery of members of the
Senate and House who consorted with prostitutes." LBJ asked RFK if the kompromat should be leaked
selectively to destroy Republicans before the 1964 elections. Kennedy recalled,
"He told me he had spent all night sitting up and reading the files of the FBI on all these
people. And Lyndon talks about that information and material so freely. Lyndon talks about everybody,
you see, with everybody. And of course that's dangerous."
Kennedy had seen some of the same FBI kompromat files as attorney general, but he was totally
opposed to releasing such unsubstantiated kompromat-such as, say, the Trump piss files-because doing
so would "destroy the confidence that people in the United States had in their government and really
make us a laughingstock around the world."
Imagine that.
Which brings me to the big analogy every hack threw around last week, calling Trump firing Comey
"Nixonian." Actually, what Trump did was more like the very opposite of Nixon, who badly wanted to
fire Hoover in 1971-2, but was too afraid of the kompromat Hoover might've had on him to make the
move. Nixon fell out with his old friend and onetime mentor J Edgar Hoover in 1971, when the ailing
old FBI chief refused to get sucked in to the Daniel Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers investigation, especially
after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times. Part of the reason Nixon created his
Plumbers team of black bag burglars was because Hoover had become a bit skittish in his last year
on this planet-and that drove Nixon crazy.
Nixon called his chief of staff Haldeman:
Nixon: I talked to Hoover last night and Hoover is not going after this case [Ellsberg] as
strong as I would like. There's something dragging him.
Haldeman: You don't have the feeling the FBI is really pursuing this?
Nixon: Yeah, particularly the conspiracy side. I want to go after everyone. I'm not so interested
in Ellsberg, but we have to go after everybody who's a member of this conspiracy.
Hoover's ambitious deputies in the FBI were smelling blood, angling to replace him. His number
3, Bill Sullivan (who sent MLK the sex tapes and suicide note) was especially keen to get rid of
Hoover and take his place. So as J Edgar was stonewalling the Daniel Ellsberg investigation, Sullivan
showed up in a Department of Justice office with two suitcases packed full of transcripts and summaries
of illegal wiretaps that Kissinger and Nixon had ordered on their own staff and on American journalists.
The taps were ordered in Nixon's first months in the White House in 1969, to plug up the barrage
of leaks, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. Sullivan took the leaks from J Edgar's
possession and told the DOJ official that they needed to be hidden from Hoover, who planned to use
them as kompromat to blackmail Nixon.
Nixon decided he was going to fire J Edgar the next day. This was in September, 1971. But the
next day came, and Nixon got scared. So he tried to convince his attorney general John Mitchell to
fire Hoover for him, but Mitchell said only the President could fire J Edgar Hoover. So Nixon met
him for breakfast, and, well, he just didn't have the guts. Over breakfast, Hoover flattered Nixon
and told him there was nothing more in the world he wanted than to see Nixon re-elected. Nixon caved;
the next day, J Edgar Hoover unceremoniously fired his number 3 Bill Sullivan, locking him out of
the building and out of his office so that he couldn't take anything with him. Sullivan was done.
The lesson here, I suppose, is that if an FBI director doesn't want to be fired, it's best to
keep your kompromat a little closer to your chest, as a gun to hold to your boss's head. Comey's
crew already released the piss tapes kompromat on Trump-the damage was done. What was left to hold
back Trump from firing Comey? "Laws"? The FBI isn't even legal. "Norms" would be the real reason.
Which pretty much sums up everything Trump has been doing so far. We've learned the past two decades
that we're hardly a nation of laws, at least not when it comes to the plutocratic ruling class. What
does bind them are "norms"-and while those norms may mean everything to the ruling class, it's an
open question how much these norms mean to a lot of Americans outside that club.
The USA doesn't have a legal basis either, it is a revolting crown colony of the British Empire.
Treason and heresy all the way down. Maybe the British need to burn Washington DC again?
Wondered how Comey thought he could get away with his conviction and pardon of Sec Clinton.
Seems like part of the culture of FBI is a "above and beyond" the law mentality.
Back in the early 1970s a high school friend moved to Alabama because his father was transferred
by his employer.
My friend sent a post card describing among other things the fact that Alabama had done away
with the requirement of a math class to graduate high school, and substituted a required class
called "The Evils of Communism" complete with a text-book written by J. Edgar Hoover; Masters
of Deceit.
In Dallas,Texas my 1959 Civics class had to read the same book. We all were given paperback
copies of it to take home and read. It was required reading enacted by Texas legislature.
So I'd guess you weren't fooled by any of those commie plots of the sixties, like the campaigns
for civil rights or against the Vietnamese war.
I can't really brag, I didn't stop worrying about the Red Menace until 1970 or so, that's when
I started running into returning vets who mostly had no patience for that stuff.
We've learned the past two decades that we're hardly a nation of laws, at least not when
it comes to the plutocratic ruling class. What does bind them are "norms"
Or as David Broder put it (re Bill Clinton): he came in and trashed the place and it wasn't
his place.
It was David Broder's place. Of course the media play a key role with all that kompromat since
they are the ones needed to convey it to the public. The tragedy is that even many of the sensible
in their ranks such as Bill Moyers have been sucked into the kompromat due to their hysteria over
Trump. Ames is surely on point in this great article. The mistake was allowing secret police agencies
like the FBI and CIA to be created in the first place.
Sorry, my initial reaction was that people who don't know the difference between "rein" and
"reign" are not to be trusted to provide reliable information. Recognizing that as petty, I kept
reading, and presently found the statement that Congress was not informed of the founding of the
FBI until a century after the fact, which seems implausible. If in fact the author meant the end
of 1908 it was quite an achievement to write 2008.
Interesting to the extent it may be true, but with few sources, no footnotes, and little evidence
of critical editing who knows what that may be?
Who he is is irrelevant. I don't take things on faith because "the Pope said" or because Mark
Ames said. People who expect their information to be taken seriously should substantiate it.
So anything the FBI does to get rid of him must by definition be ok! Besides, surely our civic-minded
IC would never use their power on the Good Guys™!
Ah yes, the voice of "caution." And such attention to the lack of footnotes, in this day when
the curious can so easily cut and paste a bit of salient text into a search engine and pull up
a feast of parse-able writings and video, from which they can "judiciously assess" claims and
statements. If they care to spend the time, which is in such short supply among those who are
struggling to keep up with the horrors and revelations people of good will confront every blinking
day
Classic impeachment indeed. All from the height of "academic rigor" and "caution." Especially
the "apologetic" bit about "reign" vs "rein." Typos destroy credibility, don't they? And the coup
de grass (sic), the unrebuttable "plausibility" claim.
One wonders at the nature of the author's curriculum vitae. One also marvels at the yawning
gulf between the Very Serious Stuff I was taught in grade and high school civics and history,
back in the late '50s and the '60s, about the Fundamental Nature Of Our Great Nation and its founding
fathers and the Beautiful Documents they wrote, on the one hand, and what we mopes learn, through
a drip-drip-drip process punctuated occasionally by Major Revelations, about the real nature of
the Empire and our fellow creatures
PS: My earliest memory of television viewing was a day at a friend's house - his middle-class
parents had the first "set" in the neighborhood, I think an RCA, in a massive sideboard cabinet
where the picture tube pointed up and you viewed the "content" in a mirror mounted to the underside
of the lid. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5onSwx7_Cn0
The family was watching a hearing of Joe McCarthy's kangaroo court, complete with announcements
of the latest number in the "list of known Communists in the State Department" and how Commyanism
was spreading like an unstoppable epidemic mortal disease through the Great US Body Politic and
its Heroic Institutions of Democracy. I was maybe 6 years old, but that grainy black and white
"reality TV" content had me asking "WTF?" at a very early age. And I'd say it's on the commentor
to show that the "2008" claim is wrong, by something other than "implausible" as drive-by impeachment.
Given the content of the original post, and what people paying attention to all this stuff have
a pretty good idea is the general contours of a vast corruption and manipulation.
Interesting article on the history of the FBI, although the post-Hoover era doesn't get any
treatment. The Church Committee hearings on the CIA and FBI, after the exposure of notably
Operation CHAOS (early
60s to early 70s) by the CIA and
COINTELPRO(late 1950s to
early 1970s) by the FBI, didn't really get to the bottom of the issue although some reforms
were initiated.
Today, it seems, the best description of the FBI's main activity is corporate enforcer for
the white-collar mafia known as Wall Street. There is an analogy to organized crime, where the
most powerful mobsters settled disputes between other gangs of criminals. Similarly, if a criminal
gang is robbed by one of its own members, the mafia would go after the guilty party; the FBI plays
this role for Wall Street institutions targeted by con artists and fraudsters. Compare and contrast
a pharmaceutical company making opiates which is targeted by thieves vs. a black market drug cartel
targeted by thieves. In one case, the FBI investigates; in the other, a violent vendetta ensues
(such as street murders in Mexico).
The FBI executives are rewarded for this service with lucrative post-retirement careers within
corporate America – Louis Freeh went to credit card fraudster, MBNA, Richard Mueller to a corporate
Washington law firm, WilmerHale, and Comey, before Obama picked him as Director, worked for Lockheed
Martin and HSBC (cleaning up after their $2 billion drug cartel marketing scandal) after leaving
the FBI in 2005.
Maybe this is legitimate, but this only applies to their protection of the interests of large
corporations – as the 2008 economic collapse and aftermath showed, they don't prosecute corporate
executives who rip off poor people and middle-class homeowners. Banks who rob people, they aren't
investigated or prosecuted; that's just for people who rob banks.
When it comes to political issues and national security, however, the FBI has such a terrible
record on so many issues over the years that anything they claim has to be taken with a grain
or two of salt. Consider domestic political activity: from the McCarthyite 'Red Scare' of the
1950s to COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 1970s to targeting of environmental groups in the 1980s and
1990s to targeting anti-war protesters under GW Bush to their obsession with domestic mass surveillance
under Obama, it's not a record that should inspire any confidence.
Some say they have a key role to play in national security and terrorism – but their record
on the 2001 anthrax attacks is incredibly shady and suspicious. The final suspect, Bruce Ivins,
is clearly innocent of the crime, just as their previous suspect, Steven Hatfill was. Ivins, if
still alive, could have won a similar multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the FBI.
All honest bioweapons experts know this to be true – the perpetrators of those anthrax letters
are still at large, and may very well have had close associations with the Bush Administration
itself.
As far as terrorist activities? Many of their low-level agents did seem concerned about the
Saudis and bin Laden in the late 1990s and pre-9/11 – but Saudi investigations were considered
politically problematic due to "geostrategic relationships with our Saudi allies" – hence people
like John O'Neil and Coleen Rowley were sidelined and ignored, with disastrous consequences. The
Saudi intelligence agency role in 9/11 was buried for over a decade, as well. Since 9/11, most
of the FBI investigations seem to have involved recruiting mentally disabled young Islamic men
in sting operations in which the FBI provides everything needed. You could probably get any number
of mentally ill homeless people across the U.S., regardless of race or religion, to play this
role.
Comey's actions over the past year are certainly highly questionable, as well. Neglecting to
investigate the Clinton Foundation ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments and corporations,
particularly things like State Department approval of various arms deals in which bribes may have
been paid, is as much a dereliction of duty as neglecting to investigate Trump ties to Russian
business interests – but then, Trump has a record of shady business dealings dating back to the
1970s, of strange bankruptcies and bailouts and government sales that the FBI never looked at
either.
Ultimately, this is because FBI executives are paid off not to investigate Wall Street criminality,
nor shady U.S. government activity, with lucrative positions as corporate board members and so
on after their 'retirements'. I don't doubt that many of their junior members mean well and are
dedicated to their jobs – but the fish rots from the head down.
As far as terrorist activities? Many of their low-level agents did seem concerned about
the Saudis and bin Laden in the late 1990s and pre-9/11 – but Saudi investigations were considered
politically problematic due to "geostrategic relationships with our Saudi allies" – hence people
like John O'Neil and Coleen Rowley were sidelined and ignored, with disastrous consequences.
The Clinton Administration had other priorities. You know, I think I'll let ex-FBI Director
Freeh explain what happened when the FBI tried to get the Saudis to cooperate with their investigation
into the bombing of the Khobar Towers.
"That September, Crown Prince Abdullah and his entourage took over the entire 143-room Hay-Adams
Hotel, just across from Lafayette Park from the White House, for six days. The visit, I figured,
was pretty much our last chance. Again, we prepared talking points for the president. Again,
I contacted Prince Bandar and asked him to soften up the crown prince for the moment when Clinton,
-- or Al Gore I didn't care who -- would raise the matter and start to exert the necessary pressure."
"The story that came back to me, from "usually reliable sources," as they say in Washington,
was that Bill Clinton briefly raised the subject only to tell the Crown Prince that he certainly
understood the Saudis; reluctance to cooperate. Then, according to my sources, he hit Abdullah
up for a contribution to the still-to-be-built Clinton presidential library. Gore, who was
supposed to press hardest of all in his meeting with the crown Prince, barely mentioned the
matter, I was told." -Louis J. Freeh, My FBI (2005)
In my defense I picked the book up to see if there was any dirt on the DNC's electoral funding
scandal in 1996. I'm actually glad I did. The best part of the book is when Freeh recounts running
into a veteran of the Lincoln Brigade and listens to how Hoover's FBI ruined his life despite
having broken no laws. As if a little thing like laws mattered to Hoover. The commies were after
our precious bodily fluids!
I'm not sure there are many functioning norms left within the national political leadership.
Seemed to me Gingrich started blowing those up and it just got worse from there. McConnell not
allowing Garland to be considered comes to mind
Thanks to Mark Ames now we know what Pres. Trump meant when he tweeted about his tapes with
AG Comey. Not some taped conversation between Pres. Trump & AG Comey but bunch of kompromat tapes
that AG Comey has provided Pres. Trump that might not make departing AG Comey looked so clean.
"... And I have yet to hear a mainstream journo challenge or question that word or ask what could be at stake that requires protective secrecy even as the U.S. government seemingly threatens to collapse around Michael Flynn, America's national security advisor for three weeks, and his relationship to Russia. Is there really any there there? ..."
"... I'm not suggesting that there isn't, or that it's all fake news. Trump and pals are undoubtedly entwined financially with Russian oligarchs, which of course is deeply problematic. And maybe there's more. And maybe some of that "more" is arguably classified for a valid reason, but I want, at the very least, to know why it's classified. What I read and hear feels, instead, like collusion: journalists unquestioningly honoring bureaucratic keep-out signs as objective, even sacred, stopping points. Public knowledge must go no further because . . . you know, national security. But the drama continues! ..."
"... And this is troubling to me because, for starters, nations built on secrecy are far more unstable than those that aren't. ..."
"... The United States is engaged in endless war, at unbelievable and never-discussed cost, to no end except destruction in all directions. Those who have launched and perpetuated the wars remain the determiners of what's classified and what isn't. And Russia lurks silently in the background as a new Cold War gestates. And the media participate not in reporting the news but promoting the drama. ..."
"... Occasionally this has not been the case. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Daniel Ellsberg photocopied a multi-thousand-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 and handed it over to the New York Times. It was classified! But papers printed it. And Sen. Mike Gravel later read portions of the text aloud at a Senate subcommittee hearing. ..."
"... "These portions," notes history.com , "revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of US involvement in Vietnam, from Truman's decision to give military aid to France during its struggle against the communist-led Viet Minh to Johnson's development of plans to escalate the war in Vietnam as early as 1964, even as he claimed the opposite during that year's presidential election." ..."
"... Our own government, in short, is as untrustworthy as the governments of our allies and our enemies. Government officials left to operate free of public scrutiny – bereft of public input – have proven themselves over and over to be shockingly shortsighted and cold-blooded in their decision-making, and indifferent to the impact they have on the future. ..."
"... "It is nearly a truism," writes Jeffrey Sachs , "that US wars of regime change have rarely served America's security needs. Even when the wars succeed in overthrowing a government, as in the case of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Moammar Khadafy in Libya, the result is rarely a stable government, and is more often a civil war. ..."
Classified America: Why Is the US Public Allowed To Know So Little?
by Robert Koehler
, May 13, 2017
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For a journalist – especially one covering government and politics – the most suspicious, least
trustworthy word in the language ought to be: "classified."
As the drama continues to swirl around Russiagate, or whatever the central controversy of the
Trump administration winds up being known as, that word keeps popping up, teasingly, seductively:
"It appeared that there was a great deal more (former acting Attorney General Sally) Yates wished
she could share," the
Washington Post informed us the other day, for instance, "but most of the information surrounding
everything that happened remains classified."
And the drama continues! And I have yet to hear a mainstream journo challenge or question
that word or ask what could be at stake that requires protective secrecy even as the U.S. government
seemingly threatens to collapse around Michael Flynn, America's national security advisor for three
weeks, and his relationship to Russia. Is there really any there there?
I'm not suggesting that there isn't, or that it's all fake news. Trump and pals are undoubtedly
entwined financially with Russian oligarchs, which of course is deeply problematic. And maybe there's
more. And maybe some of that "more" is arguably classified for a valid reason, but I want, at the
very least, to know why it's classified. What I read and hear feels, instead, like collusion:
journalists unquestioningly honoring bureaucratic keep-out signs as objective, even sacred, stopping
points. Public knowledge must go no further because . . . you know, national security. But the drama
continues!
And this is troubling to me because, for starters, nations built on secrecy are far more unstable
than those that aren't. Job #1 of a free, independent media is the full-on, continuous challenge
to government secrecy. Such a media understands that it answers to the public, or rather, that it's
a manifestation of the public will. Stability and freedom are not the result of private tinkering.
And peace is something created openly. The best of who we are is contained in the public soul, not
bequeathed to us by unfathomably wise leaders.
So I cringe every time I hear the news stop at the word "classified." Indeed, in the Trump era,
it seems like a plot device: a way to maintain the drama. ". . . there was a great deal more Yates
wished she could share, but most of the information surrounding everything that happened remains
classified."
Stay tuned, and keep your imaginations turned to high! This is Russia we're talking about. They
messed with our election. They "attacked" us in cyberspace. We'd tell you more about how bad things
are, but . . . you know, national security.
If nothing else, this endless retreat behind the word "classified" is a waste of the Trump presidency.
This administration's recklessness is opening all sorts of random doors on national secrets that
need airing. It's not as though the country was sailing along smoothly and keeping the world safe
and peaceful till Donald Trump showed up.
Trump could well be making a bad situation worse, but, as
William Hartung pointed out: "After all, he inherited no less than seven conflicts from Barack
Obama: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen."
The United States is engaged in endless war, at unbelievable and never-discussed cost, to
no end except destruction in all directions. Those who have launched and perpetuated the wars remain
the determiners of what's classified and what isn't. And Russia lurks silently in the background
as a new Cold War gestates. And the media participate not in reporting the news but promoting the
drama.
Occasionally this has not been the case. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Daniel Ellsberg photocopied
a multi-thousand-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 and handed it over to the New York
Times. It was classified! But papers printed it. And Sen. Mike Gravel later read portions of the
text aloud at a Senate subcommittee hearing.
"These portions," notes
history.com
, "revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John
F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of US involvement in
Vietnam, from Truman's decision to give military aid to France during its struggle against the communist-led
Viet Minh to Johnson's development of plans to escalate the war in Vietnam as early as 1964, even
as he claimed the opposite during that year's presidential election."
Our own government, in short, is as untrustworthy as the governments of our allies and our
enemies. Government officials left to operate free of public scrutiny – bereft of public input –
have proven themselves over and over to be shockingly shortsighted and cold-blooded in their decision-making,
and indifferent to the impact they have on the future.
"It is nearly a truism," writes
Jeffrey Sachs , "that US wars of regime change have rarely served America's security needs. Even
when the wars succeed in overthrowing a government, as in the case of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Moammar Khadafy in Libya, the result is rarely a stable government, and
is more often a civil war. A 'successful' regime change often lights a long fuse leading to
a future explosion, such as the 1953 overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government and installation
of the autocratic Shah of Iran, which was followed by the Iranian Revolution of 1979."
All of this, and so much more, preceded Trump. He's only the tail end of our troubles.
"... The debate over whether Snowden was a traitor is fatuous. As a result of Snowden's revelations, we learned that the National Security Agency logged domestic phone calls and emails for years, recorded the metadata of correspondence between Americans, and, in some cases, exploited the content of emails. The case against Private Manning was similarly fatuous. Manning provided evidence of the US cover-up of torture by our Iraqi allies; a US Army helicopter opening fire on a group of civilians, including two Reuters journalists; and the use of an air strike to cover up the execution of civilians. Some of these acts were war crimes. ..."
"... According to US law, the term "whistleblower" applies to anyone who "reasonably believes" he or she is disclosing a violation of law or gross mismanagement, gross waste, or abuse of authority. My testimony documented for the first time the intentional distortion of intelligence by CIA director William Casey and Deputy Director Gates in order to serve the agenda of Ronald Reagan and his administration. ..."
"... Being a contrarian was easy and natural for me. In fact, no one should think about entering the intelligence profession without good contrarian instincts. Such instincts would include an innate skepticism, the doubting of conventional wisdom and a willingness to challenge authority, which translates to an ability to tell truth to power. These contrarian instincts are essential to the success of any intelligence organization. As Rogers and Hammerstein would have it, it was "doing what comes naturally!" ..."
"... My book The Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA was the first insider account from an intelligence analyst regarding the skewed and politicized assessments of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence -- the Agency's analytic arm. I also exposed the strategic failure of covert actions that were never intended to be a part of President Harry Truman's CIA ..."
"... The political pliancy of these directors fully compromised the intelligence mission of the CIA, and it was political pliancy that made directors such as Gates and Tenet so attractive to Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. ..."
"... In December 1963, less than a month after the assassination of President Kennedy, Truman wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post to document the wrongs of the CIA He concluded that his efforts to "create the quiet intelligence arm of the Presidency" had been subverted by a "sinister" and "mysterious" agency that was conducting far too many clandestine activities in peacetime. I lectured at the Truman Library in the summer of 2014, and found a note in Truman's hand that stated the CIA was not designed to "initiate policy or to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized." ..."
"... In The Failure of Intelligence , I documented the CIA's resistance to reform and the corruption in both the analytical and operational directorates. I made a case for starting over at the CIA, not dissimilar from the case made by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 25 years ago as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Not every agency or department of government can be reformed, and it is possible that the intricate web of habits, procedures, and culture places the CIA in the non-reformable category. Once the political culture of an institution such as the CIA has been broken, it is extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to rebuild or repair it. ..."
In this excerpt, , former CIA intelligence analyst Melvin A. Goodman ponders the meanings of the words whistleblower, dissident
and contrarian, how they apply to himself and others, and whether the CIA can ever be repaired or rebuilt.
Whistleblowers. Dissidents. Contrarians.
The terms are used synonymously by pundits and the public, and I've been all three at one time or another in order to expose improprieties
and illegalities in the secret government, and to inform the American public of policies that compromise the freedom and security
of US citizens and weaken US standing in the global community.
I have never liked the terms contrarian or dissident. I've always believed that my criticism should be conventional wisdom. The
term whistleblower is more complex because it often raises questions of patriotism or sedition. Chelsea Manning received commutation
from her 35-year prison sentence for revealing so-called secrets that documented the terror and violence of the baseless US war in
Iraq. Members of the Bush administration who launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are considered honorable members of our society,
although their acts involved the corruption of intelligence; caused the death of thousands of US soldiers and foreign civilians;
terrorized civilian populations; perpetrated the criminal use of torture and abuse; sanctioned use of secret prisons and extraordinary
rendition; and caused the destabilization of the region that has set the stage for strategic advances by Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Edward Snowden, if he had remained in the United States, would have faced an even longer prison sentence because he revealed the
massive NSA surveillance program that was illegal and immoral, and that violated the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal
seizures and searches. Manning and Snowden admit to breaking US laws, but their actions were never as serious as the law-breaking,
including massive violations of privacy, that they exposed.
The debate over whether Snowden was a traitor is fatuous. As a result of Snowden's revelations, we learned that the National Security
Agency logged domestic phone calls and emails for years, recorded the metadata of correspondence between Americans, and, in some
cases, exploited the content of emails. The case against Private Manning was similarly fatuous. Manning provided evidence of the
US cover-up of torture by our Iraqi allies; a US Army helicopter opening fire on a group of civilians, including two Reuters journalists;
and the use of an air strike to cover up the execution of civilians. Some of these acts were war crimes.
There is no more compelling evidence of the unconscionable behavior of US personnel in Iraq than the callous dialogue between
the crew members of the helicopter regarding the civilian deaths and particularly the firing on those Iraqis who came to recover
the dead bodies of Iraqi civilians. Manning's documents exposed this behavior, but her efforts were ridiculed by former secretary
of defense Robert Gates, who described it as examining war by "looking through a straw."
To make matters worse, American journalists have criticized their colleagues (Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and Glenn Greenwald
[then of The Guardian]) who brought the Snowden-Manning revelations to the attention of the public. David Gregory, then host of the
venerable "Meet the Press" on NBC, asked Greenwald "to the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden ... why shouldn't you ...
be charged with a crime?"
Jeffrey Toobin, a lawyer who labors for CNN and The New Yorker, called Snowden a "grandiose narcissist
who belongs in prison" and referred to Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, who was detained by British authorities for nine hours
under anti-terror laws, the equivalent of a "drug mule."
The king of calumny is Michael Grunwald, a senior correspondent for Time, who wrote on Twitter that he couldn't "wait to write
a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange." The New York Times also targeted Assange, although the paper cooperated
with WikiLeaks in 2010 in publishing reams of information from Private Manning's revelations. Of course, if Time or the New York
Times had broken these stories, they would have built new shelves to hold their Pulitzer Prizes.
Their hypocrisy was exposed by David
Carr of the New York Times, who expressed shock at finding Assange and Greenwald "under attack, not just from a government bent on
keeping its secrets, but from friendly fire by fellow journalists."
I didn't reveal abuses as great as those revealed by Manning and Snowden or Daniel Ellsberg, but I do claim status as a whistleblower
because of my revelations before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during confirmation hearings for Bob Gates, who was
nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 to be director of central intelligence.
According to US law, the term "whistleblower"
applies to anyone who "reasonably believes" he or she is disclosing a violation of law or gross mismanagement, gross waste, or abuse
of authority. My testimony documented for the first time the intentional distortion of intelligence by CIA director William Casey
and Deputy Director Gates in order to serve the agenda of Ronald Reagan and his administration.
Bob Gates was an old friend, but the friendship ended when he routinely distorted intelligence throughout the 1980s as deputy
director for intelligence and deputy director of the CIA In destroying the political culture of the CIA, he created a toxic and corrupt
environment at the Agency, and the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA detention and torture reminds us that the Agency
hasn't recovered.
Being a contrarian was easy and natural for me. In fact, no one should think about entering the intelligence profession without
good contrarian instincts. Such instincts would include an innate skepticism, the doubting of conventional wisdom and a willingness
to challenge authority, which translates to an ability to tell truth to power. These contrarian instincts are essential to the success
of any intelligence organization. As Rogers and Hammerstein would have it, it was "doing what comes naturally!"
My book The Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA was the first insider account from an intelligence
analyst regarding the skewed and politicized assessments of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence -- the Agency's analytic arm. I
also exposed the strategic failure of covert actions that were never intended to be a part of President Harry Truman's CIA
I wrote
the book for many reasons, including the need to describe the inability of journalists to take into account, let alone understand,
the dangers of politicization and the actions of CIA directors such as Casey, Gates, and more recently Goss and Tenet. The political
pliancy of these directors fully compromised the intelligence mission of the CIA, and it was political pliancy that made directors
such as Gates and Tenet so attractive to Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.
For the past quarter century, my testimony and writings have exposed the failure to honor President Truman's purpose in creating
a CIA to provide policymakers with accurate, unbiased accounts of international developments, and have highlighted the CIA's readiness
to cater to the White House. This view is not original with me; in fact, it was President Truman who first acknowledged that the
CIA he created in 1947 had gotten off the tracks under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy in the 1950s and early
1960s.
In December 1963, less than a month after the assassination of President Kennedy, Truman wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post
to document the wrongs of the CIA He concluded that his efforts to "create the quiet intelligence arm of the Presidency" had been
subverted by a "sinister" and "mysterious" agency that was conducting far too many clandestine activities in peacetime. I lectured
at the Truman Library in the summer of 2014, and found a note in Truman's hand that stated the CIA was not designed to "initiate
policy or to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized."
In The Failure of Intelligence , I documented the CIA's resistance to reform and the corruption in both the analytical
and operational directorates. I made a case for starting over at the CIA, not dissimilar from the case made by Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan 25 years ago as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Not every agency or department of government can
be reformed, and it is possible that the intricate web of habits, procedures, and culture places the CIA in the non-reformable category.
Once the political culture of an institution such as the CIA has been broken, it is extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to
rebuild or repair it.
"... Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments. ..."
"... I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. ..."
"... A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies). ..."
It is not about politics, but Trump's peculiar management style, Timofey Bordachev, Director
of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Faculty of World Economy
and International Affairs at Russia's High School of Economics, told RIA Novosti.
"Those who have been studying the business biography of the newly elected president have
noted that he has always played off his high-ranking employees against each other. While doing
so he remained above the fight," he said.
And
Gevorg Mirzayan, an assistant professor of the Political Science department at the Financial
University in Moscow pointed out two purposes for the nominations.
The above brings rationality to the diverse selections made by Trump.
However, the black swan event will be an economic collapse (fast or protracted over several
years). That will be the defining event in the Trump presidency. I have no inkling how he or those
who may replace him would respond.
I had guessed myself that Trump was going to run the government as a business corporation. Surrounding
himself with people of competing viewpoints, and hiring on the basis of experience and skills
(and not on the basis of loyalty, as Hillary Clinton might have done) would be two ways Trump
can change the government and its culture. Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity
of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow
and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with
Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures
for the various departments.
If running the US government as a large mock business enterprise brings a change in its culture
so it becomes more open and accountable to the public, less directed by ideology and identity
politics, and gets rid of people engaged in building up their own little empires within the different
departments, then Trump might just be the President the US needs at this moment in time.
Interesting that Russian academics have noted the outlines of Trump's likely cabinet and what
they suggest he plans to do, and no-one else has. Does this imply that Americans and others in
the West have lost sight of how large business corporations could be run, or should be run, and
everyone is fixated on fake "entrepreneurship" or "self-entrepreneur" (whatever that means) models
of running a business where it's every man, woman, child and dog for itself?
I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet.
Trump may have noted how Putin did an incredible turnaround of Russia and it all started with
three objectives: restore the integrity of the borders, rebuild the industrial base and run off
the globalists/liberals/kreakles. I am certainly not the first one to say this and I think that
there is a lot of basis for that analysis. However, Trump will have a far more difficult challenge
and frankly I don't think he has enough allies or smarts to pull it off.
A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions
remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected
and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies).
Assange actually undermined the key pre-condition of the Deep state existence -- secrecy.
Notable quotes:
"... Robert Mueller, who helped the Bush administration deceive the world about WMD in Iraq, has claimed that the GRU was the source of WikiLeaks' 2016 drops, and claimed in his report that WikiLeaks deceived its audience by implying that its source was the murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich. ..."
"... The smear is that Assange knew his source was actually the Russian government, and he implied it was Seth Rich to throw people off the scent. Mueller asserted that something happened, and it's interpreted as hard fact instead of assertion. There's no evidence for any of this, and there's no reason to go believing the WMD guy on faith about a narrative which incriminates yet another government which refuses to obey the dictates of the US empire. ..."
"... HItchen's Razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." ..."
I'm just going to toss this one here at the end because I'm seeing it go around a lot in the
wake of the Mueller report.
Robert Mueller, who helped the Bush administration deceive the world about WMD in Iraq, has
claimed that the GRU was the source of WikiLeaks' 2016 drops, and claimed in his report that
WikiLeaks deceived its audience by implying that its source was the murdered DNC staffer Seth
Rich.
This claim is unsubstantiated because, as we discussed in Smear 4, the public has not seen a
shred of evidence proving who was or was not WikiLeaks' source, so there's no way to know there
was any deception happening there. We've never seen any hard proof, nor indeed anything besides
official narrative, connecting the Russian government to Guccifer 2.0 and Guccifer 2.0 to
WikiLeaks, and Daniel Lazare for Consortium News documents that there are in fact some
major
plot holes in Mueller's timeline. Longtime Assange friend and WikiLeaks ally Craig Murray
maintains that he knows the
source of the DNC Leaks and Podesta Emails were two different Americans, not Russians, and
hints that one of them was a DNC insider. There is exactly as much publicly available evidence
for Murray's claim as there is for Mueller's.
Mainstream media has been blaring day after day for years that it is an absolute known fact
that the Russian government was WikiLeaks' source, and the only reason people scoff and roll
their eyes at anyone who makes the indisputably factual claim that we've seen no evidence for
this is because
the illusory truth effect causes the human brain to mistake repetition for fact.
The smear is that Assange knew his source was actually the Russian government, and he
implied it was Seth Rich to throw people off the scent. Mueller asserted that something
happened, and it's interpreted as hard fact instead of assertion. There's no evidence for any
of this, and there's no reason to go believing the WMD guy on faith about a narrative which
incriminates yet another government which refuses to obey the dictates of the US
empire.
And I guess that's it for now. Again, this article is an ongoing project, so I'll be
updating it and adding to it regularly as new information comes in and new smears need
refutation. If I missed something or got something wrong, or even if you spotted a typo, please
email me at [email protected] and let
me know. I'm trying to create the best possible tool for people to refute Assange smears, so
I'll keep sharpening this baby to make sure it cuts like a razor. Thanks for reading, and
thanks to everyone who helped! Phew! That was long.
We don't have to like Julian Assange, but the release of the "Collateral Damage" video
alone is enough to justify defending Assange and the freedom of the press.
She really didn't debunk the thing about Seth Rich very well. Basically just said that
whatever Mueller said wasn't true, which doesn't go very far for me. He definitely did imply
that he got at least some of his info from Rich so if there is some sort of proof of that, it
needs to be supplied; otherwise Mueller's story is the only one.
I have recently seen a political cartoon with Dotard then saying: "I love Wikileaks" + " I
will throw her in jail" and now saying: "I know nothing about Wikileaks" + "I will throw him
in jail"
It summed up perfectly that swine's lack of integrity.
It's so simple. Assange and Wikileaks exposed Hillary, Podesta, and the entire DNC to be
lying, deceiving, hypocritical, disingenuous, elitist bastards. His crimes are miniscule
compared to that, and all who attempt to condemn Assange only show us that they are members
of that foul group.
Excellent thorough content. And Kim Schmitz pointed out they'll drag things on for as long
as possible and try to add additional things as they go. Such a bunch of sad, pathetic
control freaks. Covering up their own failures, crimes and short comings with a highly
publicized distraction putting the screws to a single journalist.
“ Ty Clevenger has FOIAed information from NSA asking for any data that involved
both Seth Rich and also Julian Assange .
And they responded by saying we’ve got 15 files , 32 pages , but they’re all
classified in accordance with executive order 13526 covering classification, and therefore
you can’t have them.
That says that NSA has records of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange. I
mean, that’s the only business that NSA is in — copying communications between
people and devices.”
Assange and Snowden are freedom fighters, exposing the duplicitous, corrupt, and criminals
to the entire world.
The hundreds of millions of mindless zombies are so brainwashed by the fake news industry,
that if Assange and Snowden are not spies, they are criminal in some capacity.
I have liberal, conservative, and libertarian leaning friends, and virtually every one of
them believe Assange and Snowden are traitors to America, got innocent people killed, are
rapists, or too cowardly to stand trial in the USA.
What has happened to common sense and some necessary cynicism?
Why even bother arguing with these people. Assange gave up his liberty to reveal the
truth, and the American public said in essence "so what." No one except the leakers and
whistle-blowers faced any punishment, and I can't think of a single national politician who
even talks about doing anything about the misconduct that was revealed. Yeah, a small
percentage of the population is outraged at what was revealed, but the vast majority
literally don't give a ****.
Hehe... I guess you will find out how wrong you are in 2020 :-) His release of Hillary's
emails gave Trump 2016... and him turning his back on Assange took away his chances in
2020
Most regular readers on ZH know but this is an echo chamber for "Always Trumpers" so there
won't be many commenters on this article. Rather than defend his DOJ's extradition attempts
with implausible theories they'll be chattering back and forth about the Mueller Report.
Agreed. It's amazing to me that people who claim to be believers of the MAGA message don't
see the harm associated with the arrest of Assange, and all of the other uniparty **** Trump
is perpetuating. A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
Yeah and yet.... everyone seemed to credit Hillary's loss to the release of her emails on
wikileaks... Hmm that narrative that seems to be trying to minimize the impact on Trumps
chances in 2020 really breaks down in the face of that fact doesn't it?? Trump has no hope...
just stop... get behind a republican that has a chance... Trump doesn't... he lost half of
his base... get over it...
In my opinion, Trump is effectively quite a bit less militarist, overseas, than this
predecessors. This despite the truly alarming rhetoric.
But the reduction in foreign adventurism is primarily due to the paralysis of his
administration, from being so widely distrusted.
The benefit, if you can call it that, is that the mask is off now (at least from the point
of view of some allies who were willing to look the other way under Bush and Obama). What
is/was under the mask hasn't changed, and is not likely to in this generation of
policy-makers.
And domestically Trump is without a doubt militarist. We have industrial scale child abuse
at the border, as the cruelest and most obvious example. A generation of ever more
conservative judges is set to defend such practices. Defense contractors enjoy the best
access to unde executive branch. And even the so called resistance spends their days
worshipping the national security agencies, and encouraging jingoist paranoia.
Another 10 years of this and the budding police state, that's been coming together since
Bush, will be fully grown.
In my opinion, Trump is effectively quite a bit less militarist, overseas, than this
predecessors. This despite the truly alarming rhetoric.
I disagree because each new President doesn't start from day 1. Low hanging fruit and
lessons the Russians and Chinese learned in light of Libya (which is the U.S. is run by
dangerous children) have altered world structures. At the same time, wunder weapons which
deployed against Iraq 2003 aren't as wonderful against stronger targets.
The Coalition in the Gulf War included the USSR. This was world wide undertaking and
example of phenomenal cooperation, and even then the Iraqis largely withdrew at the start of
ground hostitlities, ignoring a chance for a major counter attack, after 6 months of bombing
and a decade long war. The 2003 war was possible with as few troops because Iraq was a
disaster from an additional 10 years of sanctions and pre-positioned bases and no fly zones.
Many Iraqi soldiers and Baath officers assumed the U.S. would arrive and embarrassed into
leaving when no WMDs were found and leave after killing/arresting Hussein.
A country like Iran is several magnitudes of difference. The at the time publicized
Millenium War Games demonstrated a major U.S. assault on Iran would end in disaster. The
recent warming of relations with North Korea is a direct result of South Korean elections
where almost 80% of votes were cast for "peace" candidates. Without the South Koreans,
attacking North Korea is out of the question. I think about Obama's dismissing of Russia as a
regional power. This is true. Its just that Obama seemed to not understand Russia was
concerned about issues in their region. The U.S. might be lashing out rhetoric wise and
running special operations in weaker areas of Africa, but much of the actual foreign policy
situation has been determined because the low hanging fruit is gone. The Venezuela operation
was expected to be done by defecting Venezuelan soldiers, and now that has passed, we are
passing additional sanctions on Cuba largely to show how tough we are.
I'm taking 'militarist' to mean, first of all, direct body count, or number of people
displaced due to wars we started. Right now it looks like by the end of 2020, the Trump admin
will come in behind both GW Bush and Obama administrations by these measures.
Maybe if the Boltons and Pompeos of the world had their way, we would have weekly cruise
missile strikes on Iran, full economic sanctions on China, and anyone involved in the ICC
would be captured and 'renditioned' to Guantanamo bay.
But I don't think they have the trust of enough of the US govt to do it. These guys are so
plainly insane, their agenda so over the top aggressive, that it becomes self defeating. Not
exactly comforting, but it's what we got.
When I see the right-of-center DNC supporters saying, “Our democracy has been
attacked,” I an reminded of the interview Hermann Goering gave while he was waiting to
be executed.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
I think Professor Cohen has a real point in the following statements:
" In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever
more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons -- Putin
announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they're real–that can elude
any missile defense. ..
Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading
nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, 'It's time to
negotiate an end to this new arms race,' and he's 100 percent right. So when I heard Trump
say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced
So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment -- that would have been
probably around the summer of 2016 -- just on this one point, because none of the other
candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia "
Then, when he goes on to elaborate on China's weaponry and posit including them in the
next round of draw-down negotiations, as far off as that may look – that to me is what
Trump can use for his re-election. I do believe his attitude towards Russia won him his first
term.
Those Russia-gate kooks need to focus on the American people, not on Trump. Well, maybe
they did, and still do. It's really about us, not him.
When I see the right-of-center DNC supporters saying, "Our democracy has been attacked," I
an reminded of the interview Hermann Goering gave while he was waiting to be executed.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Originally from: The 'Guccifer 2.0' Gaps in Mueller's Full Report April 18, 2019 •
12 Commentsave
Like Team Mueller's indictment last July of Russian agents, the full report reveals questions about Wikileaks' role that
much of the media has been ignoring, writes Daniel Lazare.
The five pages that the special prosecutor's report devotes to WikiLeaks are essentially lifted from Mueller's
indictment last July of 12 members of the Russian military
intelligence agency known as the GRU. It charges that after hacking the Democratic National Committee, the GRU used a specially-created
online persona known as Guccifer 2.0 to transfer a gigabyte's worth of stolen emails to WikiLeaks just as the 2016 Democratic
National Convention was approaching. Four days after opening the encrypted file, the indictment says, "Organization 1 [i.e. WikiLeaks]
released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators [i.e. the GRU]."
Attorney General William Barr holding press conference on full Mueller report, April 18, 2019. (YouTube)
Mueller's report says the same thing, but with the added twist that Assange then tried to cover up the GRU's role by
suggesting that murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich may have been the source and by telling a congressman
that the DNC email heist was an "inside job" and that he had "physical proof" that the material was not from Russian.
All of which is manna from heaven for corporate news outlets eager to pile on Assange, now behind bars in London. An April 11,
2019, New York Timesnews analysis ,
for instance, declared that "[c]ourt documents have revealed that it was Russian intelligence – using the Guccifer persona – that
provided Mr. Assange thousands of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee," while another Timesarticle published shortly after
his arrest accuses the WikiLeaks founder of "promoting a false cover story about the source of the leaks."
But there's a problem: it ain't necessarily so. The official story that the GRU is the source doesn't hold water, as a timeline
from mid-2016 shows. Here are the key events based on the GRU indictment and the Mueller report:
June 12: Assange
tells
Britain's ITV that another round of Democratic Party disclosures is on the way: "We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton,
which is great. WikiLeaks is having a very big year." June 14: The Democratic National Committee
accuses Russia of hacking its computers. June 15: Guccifer 2.0 claims credit for the hack. "The main part of the papers, thousands
of files and mails, I gave to WikiLeaks ," he
brags . "They will publish them soon."
June 22: WikiLeaks tells Guccifer via email: "Send any new material here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact
than what you are doing." July 6: WikiLeaks sends Guccifer another email: "if you have anything hillary related we want it
in the next tweo [ sic ] days prefable [ sic ] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and
she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after."Replies Guccifer: "ok . . . i " July 14: Guccifer sends WikiLeaks an
encrypted file titled "wk dnc link1.txt.gpg." July 18: WikiLeaks confirms it has opened "the 1Gb or so archive" and will release
documents "this week." July 22: WikiLeaks
releases more than 20,000 DNC emails and 8,000 other attachments.
According to Mueller and obsequious news outlets like the Times , the sequence is clear: Guccifer sends archive, WikiLeaks
receives archive, WikiLeaks accesses archive, WikiLeaks publishes archive. Donald Trump may not have colluded with
Russia, but Julian Assange plainly did. [Attorney General Will Barr, significantly calling WikiLeaks a publisher, said at
his Thursday press conference: " Under applicable law, publication of these types of materials would not be criminal unless the publisher
also participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy."]
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing in 2018 the grand jury indictment of 12 GRU agents. (Wikimedia Commons)
Avoiding Questions
The narrative raises questions that the press studiously avoids. Why, for instance, would Assange announce on June 12 that a big
disclosure is on the way before hearing from the supposed source? Was there a prior communication that Mueller has not disclosed?
What about the reference to "new material" on June 22 – does that mean Assange already had other material in hand? After opening
the Guccifer file on July 18, why would he publish it just four days later? Would that give WikiLeaks enough time to review some
28,000 documents to insure they're genuine?
Honor Bob Parry's legacy by
donating
to our Spring Fund Drive.
"If a single one of those emails had been shown to be maliciously altered," blogger Mark F. McCarty
observes , "Wikileaks' reputation would have been in tatters." There's also the question that an investigator known as Adam Carter
poses in Disobedient
Media : why would Guccifer brag about giving WikiLeaks "thousands of files" that he wouldn't send for another month?
The narrative doesn't make sense – a fact that is crucially important now that Assange is fighting for his freedom in the U.K.
New Yorker staff writer Raffi Khatchadourian sounded
a rare note of caution last summer when he warned that little about Guccifer 2.0 adds up. While claiming to be the source for
some of WikiLeaks ' most explosive emails, the material he released on his own had proved mostly worthless – 20 documents
that he "said were from the DNC but which were almost surely not," as Khatchadourian puts it, a purported Hillary Clinton dossier
that "was nothing of the sort," screenshots of emails so blurry as to be "unreadable," and so forth.
John Podesta: Target of a phishing expedition. (Voice of America via Wikimedia Commons)
While insisting that "our source is not the Russian
government and it is not a state party, Assange told Khatchadourian that the source was not Guccifer either. "We received quite a
lot of submissions of material that was already published in the rest of the press, and people seemingly submitted the Guccifer archives,"
he said somewhat cryptically. "We didn't publish them. They were already published." When Khatchadourian asked why he didn't put
the material out regardless, he replied that "the material from Guccifer 2.0 – or on WordPress – we didn't have the resources to
independently verify."
No Time for Vetting
So four days was indeed too short a time to subject the Guccifer file to proper vetting. Of course, Mueller no doubt regards this
as more "dissembling," as his report describes it. Yet WikiLeaks has never been caught in a lie for the simple reason that honesty
and credibility are all-important for a group that promises to protect anonymous leakers who supply it with official secrets. (See
"Inside WikiLeaks : Working with the Publisher that Changed the World,"
Consortium News , July 19, 2018.) Mueller, by contrast, has a rich history of mendacity going back to his days as FBI
director when he sought to cover up
the Saudi role
in 9/11 and assured Congress on the eve
of the 2003 invasion that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction pose "a clear threat to our national security."
Mueller with President George W. Bush on July 5, 2001, as he is being appointed FBI director. (White House)
So if the Mueller narrative doesn't hold up, the charge of dissembling doesn't either. Indeed , as ex-federal prosecutor Andrew
C. McCarthy
observes in The National Review , the fact that the feds have charged Assange with unauthorized access to a government
computer rather than conspiring with the Kremlin could be a sign that Team Mueller is less than confident it can prove collusion
beyond a reasonable doubt. As he puts it, the GRU indictment "was more like a press release than a charging instrument" because the
special prosecutor knew that the chances were
zero that Russian intelligence agents would surrender to a U.S. court.
Indeed, when Mueller charged 13 employees and three companies owned by Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin with interfering
in the 2016 election, he clearly didn't expect them to surrender either. Thus , his team seemed taken aback when one of the alleged
" troll farms
" showed up in Washington asking to be heard. The prosecution's initial response, as McCarthy
put it , was to seek
a delay "on the astonishing ground that the defendant has not been properly served – notwithstanding that the defendant has shown
up in court and asked to be arraigned." When that didn't work, prosecutors tried to limit Concord's access to some 3.2 million pieces
of evidence on the grounds that the documents are too "
sensitive " for Russian eyes to see. If they are again unsuccessful, they may have no choice but to drop the charges entirely,
resulting in yet another " public relations
disaster " for the Russia-gate investigation.
None of which bodes well for Mueller or the news organizations that worship at his shrine. After blowing the Russia-gate story
all these years, why does the Times continue to slander the one news organization that tells the truth?
Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and
other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique
and blogs about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com .
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?
Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the
package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.
Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be
avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military.
NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump
wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a
surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily
managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT
workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA
to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be
almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might
be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple
missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff,
either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive
Outsiders.
"People get into a lot of conversations about political strategies I might get in trouble for saying this, but what does
it matter if we beat Donald Trump, if we end up with someone who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate
policies, and waging more of these costly wars?"
And just to drive home this point, quote:
"This is not a joke. This is not about me. This about all of us. This is about our future. About making sure we have
one."
Tulsi did get in to trouble. A day after the video posted on Twitter, it had been deleted by Twitter without explanation
Mark Dierking , April 18, 2019 at 15:53
Thanks to you any everyone that has responded for the thoughtful comments. If you are able to edit yours, a more accessible
link for the Safari browser is:
' doesn't this prove I was wrong about Trump and his movement all along?
I was very wrong to discount the role of character, personality, and intelligence: Trump
is simply not fit to be President '
Raimondo's reaction to Dump's incredible imbecility re the Syria 'chemical attacks
'
' A child could see through the fake "chemical attack" supposedly launched by Bashar
al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria
'
Yes anyone watching that white helmets footage is immediately cringing for those poor kids
being abused as props in a macabre stage play
So he's not just stupid, and crazy – he's also a coward. He refuses
to confront the War Party head on, despite his campaign trail rhetoric. Just the other day he
was telling crowds in Ohio how we were on the way out of Syria because "we have to take care
of our own country." The crowd cheered. Would he go back to that same audience and tell them
we need to intervene in a country that's been wracked by warfare for years, with no real hope
of a peaceful settlement? Of course not.
Coulter:
He is a shallow, lazy ignoramus who just wants Goldman Sachs to like him.
We get words; the neocon banker NY scum, running and ruining this world on the fast track
since 9-11, get action. They also own the congressional swamp with its amazingly high
approval rating of 15%. They own the former liberal left, now the Resistance, that can turn
out half a million bleeding hearts in pussy hats but the same oddly can't be bothered to
protest war.
Although I believe the timing of the raid on Trump's lawyer's office to be convenient to
help persuade him to ignore his base and appease his owners, at this point I won't be
troubled when they throw him away.
The only US president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has
called the United States "the most warlike nation in the history of the world."
During his regular Sunday school lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of
Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter
revealed that he had recently spoken with President Donald Trump about China. Carter, 94,
said Trump was worried about China's growing economy and expressed concern that "China is
getting ahead of us."
Carter, who normalized diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979, said he
told Trump that much of China's success was due to its peaceful foreign policy.
"Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody?" Carter
asked.
"None, and we have stayed at war." While it is true that China's last major war -- an invasion
of Vietnam -- occurred in 1979, its People's Liberation Army pounded border regions of Vietnam
with artillery and its navy battled its Vietnamese counterpart in the 1980s. Since then,
however, China has been at peace with its neighbors and the world.
Carter then said the US has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation. Counting
wars, military attacks and military occupations, there have actually only been five years of
peace in US history -- 1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford administration and 1977-80, the
entirety of Carter's presidency. Carter then referred to the US as "the most warlike nation in
the history of the world," a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to "adopt our
American principles."
China's peace dividend has allowed and enhanced its economic growth, Carter said. "How many
miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?" he asked. China has around 18,000
miles (29,000 km) of high speed rail lines while the US has "wasted, I think, $3 trillion" on
military spending. According to a November 2018
study by Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the US
has spent $5.9 trillion waging war in Iraq,
Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations since 2001.
"It's more than you can imagine," Carter said of US war spending. "China has not wasted a
single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way."
"And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure
you'd probably have $2 trillion leftover," Carter told his congregation. "We'd have high-speed
railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing, we'd have roads that are maintained
properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong."
While there is a prevalent belief in the United States that the country almost always wages
war for noble purposes and in defense of freedom, global public opinion and facts paint a very
different picture. Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll
identified the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a 2017 Pew Research
poll
found that a record number of people in 30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence
as a "major threat."
The US has also invaded or bombed dozens of
countries and supported nearly every single right wing dictatorship in the world since the
end of World War II. It has overthrown
or attempted to overthrow dozens of foreign governments since 1949 and has actively sought to
crush nearly every single people's liberation movement over that same period. It has also
meddled in scores of elections, in countries that are allies and adversaries alike.
Join
the debate on Facebook More articles by: Brett Wilkins
Brett Wilkins is editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. Based in San Francisco,
his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace.
Given that Russia's economy today is smaller than Italy's and its military budget wouldn't
buy a toilet seat or hammer in the U.S. military procurement system, the question of why Russia
would seem a great mystery outside of history. And left unstated is that the U.S. defense
industry needs enemies to survive. 'Radical Islam,' an invention of oil and gas industry flacks
that turned out to be serviceable for marketing Tomahawk missiles and stealth fighter jets as
well, lost some of its luster when ISIS and Al Qaeda came over to 'our side.' And humanitarian
intervention ain't what it used to be with Libya reduced to rubble and open-air slave markets
now dotting the landscape.
From 1948 through the early 1990s Russia was Pennywise the evil clown, helping to sell
bananas, nuclear weapons and cut-rate underwear around the globe wherever American empire
alighted. Costumed 'communists,' locals paid a day-rate to dress up and shout whatever slogans
conveyed evil most effectively, were a staple of CIA interventions from Iran to Guatemala to
the streets of New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Never mind that the slayer of monsters is more
monstrous than an army of evil clowns, as the Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians,
Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Chileans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Yemenis and on and on, were to
learn.
The big why (?) here would suggest an eternal mystery were it not for the arithmetic we
learned as tykes. The U.S. has an annual military budget that is larger than the next seven
evil empires combined. Killing people and blowing shit up is what America does. Stated
reverse-wise, what is the point of being able to end all human life on earth more than once?
Yet the U.S. can do it 3X -- 5X or 30X -- 50X, depending on which analysis is chosen. And while
it would be anti-historical to remove mal-intent as motive, an alternative explanation of the
militarization of the police is 'overstock,' that there is nothing else to do with the stuff
that the Pentagon produces.
This would seem a tremendous waste of resources under any reasonable theory of their
efficient use (e.g. capitalism). The explanation of 'national defense' reads as legitimate
until history is brought back in. For a few thousand years, the argument against maintaining a
standing army was that standing armies tend to get used. Preparations for armed conflict
facilitate armed conflict. The mobilizations for WWI and WWII were mobilizations, not drawdowns
from existing military inventory. There is something to be said for wars requiring large
expenditures of time, effort and resources from everyone for whom they are undertaken.
Otherwise, they are likely to be started lightly.
The U.S. has long been the most militaristic
nation in the world. This probably doesn't read right to most Americans. 'We' are a
peace-loving nation that only sends in the military as a last resort, goes the myth. And 'we'
changed the name from the Department of War to the Department of Defense. It was early in the
twentieth century that U.S. General Smedley Butler proclaimed that 'war is a racket' (racket =
organized crime) as he described his military career as a ' gangster for capitalism .' The business of war in support
of capitalism had long been a business in its own right, just ask Wall Street.
When the George W. Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security following
9/11, the obvious question from people who thought about such things was: what are these people
going to do all day? With daily briefings presented to Mr. Bush entitled ' Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.
'before 9/11, the only intelligence failure, if that is what it was, occurred in the White
House. Mr. Bush's entourage had been rumbling about going back to Iraq to 'finish the job'
since the end of his father's war. How much of a leap was it then to assume that Mr. Bush's WMD
scam was a pretext for re-invading Iraq?
But the question isn't rhetorical. With 240,000 people employed by DHS to find terrorists,
terrorists will be found. The basic insight is that justifying one's employment is crucial to
keeping it. In this light, the FBI counter-terrorism unit spent its time since 2001 enticing
poor and desperate people to claim each other as terrorists. The first person to point out that
there are no terrorists would be the first to receive a pink slip. And the same is true of
government contracting. Brave entrepreneurs who feed at the trough of military largesse need to
justify their existences. If they don't, some other proud patriot will step forward and do so.
A logic of necessity becomes a legitimating belief system More broadly, one could argue that
manufacturing terrorists has been the strategic goal of U.S. military operations for much of
the last century. If you bomb enough villages and wedding parties, people will fight back.
Wasn't this the implied storyline of anti-communist agitprop like Red Dawn and anti-Muslim
agitprop like Zero Dark Thirty -- if you invade 'our' country and / or bomb 'our' villages and
wedding parties, we will fight back. As a business proposition, the more people that are
killed, the more legitimate the operation is made to appear. Make the weapons, then employ
hundreds of thousands of people to explain why 'we' need to bomb villages. Then make more
weapons.
Graphic: Time Magazine was the voice of post-War liberalism in the 1970s -- it reflected
the opinions emanating from American officialdom through a faux-critical lens. This cover
featuring Muammar Gaddafi presaged the Obama administration's destruction of Libya by 35 years.
The main difference then was relative honesty about U.S. motives -- 'Oil' was the lede in 1973,
where 'humanitarian' concerns drove the American propaganda effort in 2011. Note: 'Arab' was
replaced by 'Muslim extremist' following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Source: Time,
Inc.
Propaganda theory is relevant here because of the ease with which the Russiagate story was
sold -- all evidence, no matter how contradictory, was claimed to point in only one direction.
Contrariwise, Russia isn't the Soviet Union. America's political leaders have long supported
strongmen and dictators. The biggest threat to free and fair elections in the U.S. is American
oligarchs followed by Israel. The Democrat running in the 2016 presidential election openly
manipulated the 1996 Russian presidential election. Russia today is a neoliberal petrostate.
Vladimir Putin is admired in Russia because he booted out corrupt American 'advisors' who were
looting the country. In other words, Russia today isn't Russia!
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and ostensible end of the first Cold War, a '
peace dividend ' of
reduced military spending was expected to fund increased domestic spending, the classic 'guns
versus butter' formulation shifted in favor of butter. A drop to pre-WWII levels of military
spending would have meant 95%+ of the military-industrial complex went away. Following a very
brief drop in the rate of growth of military spending in the early 1990s, a recession caused by
the looting of Savings & Loans and its aftermath led to the argument that 'the economy'
couldn't withstand a reduced military. September 11 th , 2001 was the best day ever
for U.S. military contractors. America was back in the business of industrial-scale
slaughter.
Early on, the American defense industry tried a few new enemies on for size. The George W.
Bush administration's WMD scam targeted an audience that had been primed by several decades of
anti-Muslim propaganda (see Time cover above) tied to oil geopolitics. The only WMDs found in
Iraq had come from the Reagan administration in its effort to keep Iraq warring with Iran in
the Iran-Iraq war. Current American amnesia over the genesis of Islamophobia is quaint. The New
York Times has been demonizing
Muslims since the 1970s . It was hardly incidental that 'reporting' on the Iraq war
contained breathless descriptions of newly created instruments of mass slaughter.
However, there were two tacks that propelled the Iraq War forward. Humanitarian intervention
had been the liberal formulation for selling the carpet bombing of civilian populations as in
the interest of those being bombed. The term was used for the aerial bombardment of civilian
populations in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-1990s. And it was the back-up explanation for the
American war against Iraq -- to remove an evil dictator in order to liberate the people of
Iraq. It was also used to justify the U.S. / NATO bombing of Libya in 2011. To the certain
dismay of the defense industry, none of those interventions retained the patina of good
intentions once it became known that the target nations had been functionally destroyed.
Russiagate has been a godsend for those who profit from destruction. As the story goes, the
wily Russian bear, led by an evil dictator and newly trained in the technologies of modernity,
set loose a witch's brew of inter-continental ballistic internet messages to sow dissent
amongst the brothers and sisters of die Vaterland united by their common bond of loving
America. For younger readers, the claim that foreign 'agitation' motivated the Civil Rights and
anti-War movements, and more broadly, the American Left, has been a mainstay of CIA and FBI
propaganda since these agencies were created. Old playbooks are good playbooks?
Those with a sense of humor, if humor includes installing a drunken buffoon to head a
nuclear armed foreign power, might offer that 'Trump' is the English translation of 'Yeltsin.'
In 1996 the American President colluded with people inside the Russian government to overturn
the democratic will of the Russian people to install Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia. Yuk,
yuk -- an unstable jackass was installed to head a foreign government. The 'payback' narrative
no-doubt motivated true belief amongst some American officials after 2016. But alas, as with
bombed villages and wedding parties, unless you just will not stop fucking with other people,
they generally have other things to do than plot revenge.
None of the propagators of the phony WMD stories suffered from passing off state propaganda
as news. The New York Times and Washington Post found themselves on the winning side of the
'fake news' scam to shut down the opposition press. Even Judith Miller, brief heroine of the
free press for being 'stove-piped' by Dick Cheney, went on to a well-paid gig at Fox News,
wrote an autobiography that more than just her immediate family read and now lives as a
'celebrity.' Heroes of the #Resistance like David Corn, Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff have
the proceeds from book sales and television appearances to sustain them until their services
are needed to sell the next scam-with-a-purpose.
The economic role of American defense spending will lead to endless iterations of WMD and
Russiagate scams until the Pentagon is shut down. And that's the good part. The wars that these
scams support are the bane of humanity. Their true costs, in terms of lives destroyed, appear
to be meaningless to people living in twenty-room houses who want to live in thirty room
houses. Winding down the warfare state would be less politically fraught if people had
non-murderous ways of paying their bills. But how was this not understood as the warfare state
was being built?
Finally,
apologists for Russiagate claim that it has been nowhere near as dangerous as WMD lies.
Let's see: a cadre of national security officials spent two-and-one-half years claiming that it
has secret evidence that the President of the U.S. colluded with the leader of a foreign
government to assume power and then use his office for the benefit of that foreign leader.
Following, the domestic press claimed that the U.S. 'was under attack' and 'was at war' with
this foreign power. Meanwhile, the U.S. went about arming anti-Russian militias on Russia's
border while unilaterally abrogating a short-and-intermediate range nuclear weapons treaty
after publicly announcing that it was 'modernizing' its stockpile of
short-and-intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
Respectfully, this has all been a tad less than constructive.
So the USA helped to re-install medieval treatment of woman in Afghanistan and then called it progress toward human rights...
Notable quotes:
"... But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well. ..."
Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.
... ... ...
To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the
discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a
critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the
attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest
levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an
international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Taliban 'Unimportant'
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy
weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi
clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of
dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them
to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to
wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause
with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct
assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of
Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign
Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the
Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept
watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the
Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed
by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names
like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the
aisle in Congress.
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided
Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a
war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the
Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the
Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were
unimportant."
To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies
of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in
February 1997, "The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned
oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with
that."
CIA Cover-ups and Blowback
Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind
Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in
Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had
functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda's Services Bureau. Under his watch and with
help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy
wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other
way.
Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid
informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him.
"There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and
what the circumstances were around that," one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me.
"The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it
suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be
exposure of that. Because there's no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and
the Americans were using the jihadists. There's a symbiotic relationship."
During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh's New York-based cell, another defense
lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as "Team America," emphasizing
the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted
to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had
trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his
subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew
McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.
The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active
asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals
out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man,
helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the
"Day of the Planes" plot began to take form.
In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al
Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo's
hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their
communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel
together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That's
because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about
the terror summit that had just taken place. The "Day of Planes" plot was moving forward
without a kink.
In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two
non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said
they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened
windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled
al-Thumairy.
Crawford , Texas
It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month,
some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined,
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US." The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with
detailed intelligence on the "Day of Planes" plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al
Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as "John Doe" and disappeared somewhere in the
federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss,
President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.
According to The Washington Post , Bush exhibited an "expansive mood" that day,
taking in a round of golf. "We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die,
and it could be in the U.S.," CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush
did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.
A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.
They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little
more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and
Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a
politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship
with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and
weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and
invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America's national security elite not because
they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.
In the days after 9/11, the FBI
organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including
relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even
mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim
without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army
of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6
in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the "war on terror"
narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic
charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the
crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.
As America's national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned
to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab
states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime
affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that
country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for
rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do
the same to Damascus.
In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly "moderate rebels" called the Free Syrian
Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of
extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda's local affiliate and the Islamic State. The
latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been
ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.
The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the
world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the
UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member,
who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail
bomb.
Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes,
electrifying Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit "Leave"
campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in "The Management of
Savagery," these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security
elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to
position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.
Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we're living through?
For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar's comments dare us to
name names.
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling
" Republican
Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," "
The
Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of
Savagery ," published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles
for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including "
Killing Gaza " and "
Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the
Grayzone in 2015 to shine a
journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic
repercussions. 36 comments for "Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11"
Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24
The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains
why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get
worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase
"leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world
has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.
bill haymes , April 19, 2019 at 05:20
everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply
whistling in the wind
Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12
I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century,
when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire,
would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the
Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies,
economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the
imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and
religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the
Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive
intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the
other.
After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on
the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.
But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a
conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open.
Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as
well.
Abe , April 18, 2019 at 23:23
Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby
Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's
National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an
impressive exercise in burying the leads.
Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel
Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection
between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's
national security state.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has
interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has
corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to
initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and
has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media
to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all
that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That
country is, of course, Israel."
i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said
"some people did something terrible" none of the present chapter of "islamophobia" would be
acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day
did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three
thousand pretty ordinary folks yes, just like what "we" do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and
considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days
so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more
considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some
people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny
fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments
and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap
that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances –
as terrorism!
Zhu , April 18, 2019 at 22:32
It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world &
that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other
people could never happen to us.
Joe Tedesky , April 18, 2019 at 21:41
This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11
Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to
read the Consortium.
hetro , April 18, 2019 at 17:18
Max Blumenthal's emphasis on "somebody did something" in echo to Ilhan Omar's comments,
plus his emphasis on what has been "suppressed," will hopefully lead on to further
disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.
Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful
demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her,
she did not speak with the "quasi-theological understanding" that demands the official
narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:
Max Blumenthal above:
". . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim
narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must
be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry's former reservations, to open up
enquiry into further discussion of what has been "suppressed"–or at the very least to
the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.
OlyaPola , April 18, 2019 at 14:17
"Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal."
All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating
de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.
Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and
hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.
"Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."
Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of
misrepresentation.
During the early 1970's due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of
1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of
influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of
and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements
including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of
America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats
within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.
In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu
sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other
industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the
Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being
potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build
BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects
rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored
from 1993 onwards.
These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970's were explained to the Politburo in the
1970's but rejected by the Politburo.
The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never
"invaded" Afghanistan.
The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of
those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced
in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly
was ignored in practice.
During the 1970's there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain
perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals
and awards Mr. Brezhnev.
Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating
opportunities for " Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert
operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft
underbelly."
However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but
included as part of an ongoing "strategy" "to underpin the United States of America economic
recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived
threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan." and the
location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences
in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.
The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely
perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid
perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging
myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.
"... Rep. Omar is playing around with assasination in taking on the Israeli Lobby and other powerful interests in Washington. I would be willing to bet that there are already contracts out on her life with the purpose of scaring anyone else from raising there head and stating the obvious. ..."
Good article. The problem is that no one in the USA gives a s**t about facts. The
Government is immune from public opinion. Of course the MSN is going to crucify her .
Rep.
Omar is playing around with assasination in taking on the Israeli Lobby and other powerful
interests in Washington. I would be willing to bet that there are already contracts out on
her life with the purpose of scaring anyone else from raising there head and stating the
obvious.
You're absolutely right. Americans are happy to believe the official narrative because it
doesn't threaten their comfy pathetic lives. What they don't seem to realize is that the rest
of the world doesn't share their blind gullibility.
Bigotry, violence, and extreme language – America, it all literally oozes from the
pores of your skin. You just look terrible anymore to outside observers.
"People get into a lot of conversations about political strategies I might get in trouble
for saying this, but what does it matter if we beat Donald Trump, if we end up with someone
who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate policies, and waging
more of these costly wars?"
And just to drive home this point, quote:
"This is not a joke. This is not about me. This about all of us. This is about our future.
About making sure we have one."
Tulsi did get in to trouble. A day after the video posted on Twitter, it had been deleted
by Twitter without explanation
The military offensive against Tripoli is more political than in fact a military offensive
to overwhelm the enemy. Of course battles are fought but just the fact that heavy weapons
(tanks, artillery etc...) were not used in the first few weeks could indicate that the attack
was somehow aiming to be fast, to aim fo tribal allegiance shifts or just to make a point.
Only in the past week or so we have seen tanks and air strikes taking place, which seems an
escalation of the conflict.
Haftar's LNA has won this war, though many battles will be fought ahead, the LNA has
brought a very united support from Egypt, KSA and UAE and with that it brings France, Russia
and now the US in supporting it, either as opportunistic, individual agenda or simply to
speed up the peaceful process.
The fact is the GNA is becoming seriously isolated, very few support besides Turkey, Qatar
and Italy, all the indication that there is a good chance for Tripoli to saved from
destruction in a mix of military/political solution in weeks to come. Key tribal vocal and on
the ground support, like Zittan's, will be crucial for this peace process.
Then Misrata will be a totally different animal, here Muslin Brotherhood/al Qaeda and ISIS
are packed and strong, support from Turkey and Qatar is abundant, there is no peaceful
solution for Misrata, only annihilation of the filthy terrorists, like in Idlib in Syria.
Trump is supporting Haftar because he is STILL a CIA asset and to keep Russia's hands off
Libya. Haftar is also friends with the Egyptian Zionist Sissy and likewise, MbinSaw.
So now, there's only one smart thing for Putin to do; support THE OTHER SIDE. If he
doesn't do this, the U.S. has a CIA stooge ruling Libya, who is friends with all its allies
including the most lunatic state of the 3 -- Israel, though all three are ruled by despot
nutjobs.
Putin should at worst remain neutral or support the other side to mess with Trump's
geo-engineering.
Now that Putin and Kim will be holding a summit soon; it would be nice to see Putin f...ck
up U.S. plans in Libya too!
It's about putting up roadblocks to the Empire's geopolitical grab. That's the way you
balance power. If ever war breaks out, you want to have as many allies, friendly air space
and allied ports as possible. It doesn't mean a World War will happen again, but it could,
and geostrategy is good INSURANCE. The U.S. will never be Russia's natural ally, not even
close, therefore Putin better play it smart always planning for the worst while hoping for
the best.
Alas, I'm not sure what Putin's thinking lately allowing the lunatic state to attack
Iranian military assets in Syria! Too many Zionist oligarchs in Putin's sphere. One day Putin
will utter Caesar's last words: Et tu, Brute? Because you sure as hell can't trust a Zionist
when it comes to securing your own power!
But only the LNA and GNA are mentioned. I thought there were 3 governments in Libya - one
west, one east, and one pushed by the UN. Wikipedia's Libyan Civil War entry adds the
National Salvation Army to the LNA and GNA. But the NSA may no longer play a part with the
militias rising to the fore. And do the militias support the UN-backed GNA? From what I've
read the militias are working together against "one-man rule" of Haftar.
Libya is a broken country, Haftar brings stability, the end of the militias, Islamists and
slavery. Haftar has already won that is why the US are now supporting him.
Russia has had a long standing dialogue with Haftar. Haftar will probably gain some sort
of independence by balancing these conflicting powers (Russia and US). The US will get oil at
the price they want (need) but I expect that Russia will gain most from Haftar coming out on
top.
Haftar was part of the revolution that brought Gadaffi to power - I doubt that he is a CIA
poodle.
Haftar was part of the revolution that brought Gadaffi to power - I doubt that he is a CIA
poodle.
Posted by: ADKC | Apr 19, 2019 5:30:50 PM
Hogwash. You left out the part where Haftar joined the revolution that deposed and
murdered Gaddafi after returning to Libya from Langley! Haftar is a ruthless power-lusting
butcher and not trustworthy at all!
Yes he was part of the forces that overthrew Gaddafi and also connected to the CIA - I
didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I would very much prefer Gaddafi to still be in power -
Libyans almost certainly feel the same (the vast majority felt the same when the uprising
happened).
But Haftar has won and the alternative to Haftar is criminal gangs and Islamist militias.
So what choice is there really? Haftar brings a much greater likelihood of peace and
stability. But, he won't be bringing back the life that Libyans had when Gaddafi was in
charge.
It appears that he instigated his war in 2015 without the agreement/support of US &
CIA and this may well indicate that he is his own person - but this might just be a
smokescreen. Regardless, what real choice is there for ordinary Libyans - continuing war,
chaos and conflict or accepting that Haftar has won?
But Haftar has won and the alternative to Haftar is criminal gangs and Islamist
militias. So what choice is there really?
Wrong. It's not an either Haftar or terrorists situation, dynamic whatever. This falsehood
is UAE, SAUDI bullshet propaganda. Wahhabism is trying to take over Libya and Sudan! Wherever
the Saudis are involved trouble follows lest you forget Syria and Yemen!
Haftar is bad for Libya PERIOD. More proof is that before Trump called Haftar to offer his
support, he spoke with UEA's MBZ. It all stinks! Leave Libya alone -- hands off! All foreign
influence out! That's the best option.
financial matters , Apr 19, 2019 7:08:35 PM |
link
Nice to see Russia and the US on the same side actually fighting real terrorism. This is a
win against the deep state.
The US doesn't care what murderous thug is in charge.
Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Apr 19, 2019 3:22:46 PM | 9
My first thought was -- now they are telling us?
Of course, HRC put it nicely in a debate with Trump: "you will never see me singing
praises for a dictator or strongmen who does no love America." Qaddafi, RIP, did not love
America, so he had to go once an opportunity emerged. Maduro does not love America. Sisi may
have a kind word now and then etc.
"... But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well. ..."
Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.
... ... ...
To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the
discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a
critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the
attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest
levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an
international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Taliban 'Unimportant'
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy
weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi
clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of
dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them
to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to
wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause
with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct
assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of
Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign
Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the
Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept
watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the
Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed
by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names
like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the
aisle in Congress.
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided
Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a
war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the
Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the
Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were
unimportant."
To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies
of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in
February 1997, "The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned
oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with
that."
CIA Cover-ups and Blowback
Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind
Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in
Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had
functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda's Services Bureau. Under his watch and with
help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy
wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other
way.
Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid
informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him.
"There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and
what the circumstances were around that," one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me.
"The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it
suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be
exposure of that. Because there's no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and
the Americans were using the jihadists. There's a symbiotic relationship."
During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh's New York-based cell, another defense
lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as "Team America," emphasizing
the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted
to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had
trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his
subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew
McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.
The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active
asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals
out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man,
helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the
"Day of the Planes" plot began to take form.
In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al
Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo's
hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their
communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel
together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That's
because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about
the terror summit that had just taken place. The "Day of Planes" plot was moving forward
without a kink.
In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two
non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said
they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened
windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled
al-Thumairy.
Crawford , Texas
It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month,
some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined,
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US." The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with
detailed intelligence on the "Day of Planes" plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al
Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as "John Doe" and disappeared somewhere in the
federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss,
President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.
According to The Washington Post , Bush exhibited an "expansive mood" that day,
taking in a round of golf. "We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die,
and it could be in the U.S.," CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush
did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.
A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.
They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little
more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and
Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a
politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship
with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and
weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and
invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America's national security elite not because
they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.
In the days after 9/11, the FBI
organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including
relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even
mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim
without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army
of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6
in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the "war on terror"
narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic
charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the
crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.
As America's national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned
to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab
states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime
affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that
country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for
rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do
the same to Damascus.
In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly "moderate rebels" called the Free Syrian
Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of
extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda's local affiliate and the Islamic State. The
latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been
ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.
The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the
world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the
UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member,
who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail
bomb.
Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes,
electrifying Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit "Leave"
campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in "The Management of
Savagery," these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security
elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to
position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.
Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we're living through?
For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar's comments dare us to
name names.
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling
" Republican
Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," "
The
Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of
Savagery ," published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles
for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including "
Killing Gaza " and "
Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the
Grayzone in 2015 to shine a
journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic
repercussions. 36 comments for "Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11"
Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24
The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains
why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get
worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase
"leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world
has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.
bill haymes , April 19, 2019 at 05:20
everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply
whistling in the wind
Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12
I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century,
when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire,
would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the
Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies,
economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the
imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and
religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the
Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive
intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the
other.
After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on
the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.
But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a
conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open.
Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as
well.
Abe , April 18, 2019 at 23:23
Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby
Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's
National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an
impressive exercise in burying the leads.
Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel
Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection
between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's
national security state.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has
interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has
corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to
initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and
has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media
to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all
that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That
country is, of course, Israel."
i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said
"some people did something terrible" none of the present chapter of "islamophobia" would be
acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day
did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three
thousand pretty ordinary folks yes, just like what "we" do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and
considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days
so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more
considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some
people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny
fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments
and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap
that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances –
as terrorism!
Zhu , April 18, 2019 at 22:32
It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world &
that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other
people could never happen to us.
Joe Tedesky , April 18, 2019 at 21:41
This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11
Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to
read the Consortium.
hetro , April 18, 2019 at 17:18
Max Blumenthal's emphasis on "somebody did something" in echo to Ilhan Omar's comments,
plus his emphasis on what has been "suppressed," will hopefully lead on to further
disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.
Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful
demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her,
she did not speak with the "quasi-theological understanding" that demands the official
narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:
Max Blumenthal above:
". . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim
narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must
be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry's former reservations, to open up
enquiry into further discussion of what has been "suppressed"–or at the very least to
the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.
OlyaPola , April 18, 2019 at 14:17
"Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal."
All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating
de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.
Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and
hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.
"Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."
Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of
misrepresentation.
During the early 1970's due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of
1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of
influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of
and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements
including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of
America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats
within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.
In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu
sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other
industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the
Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being
potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build
BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects
rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored
from 1993 onwards.
These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970's were explained to the Politburo in the
1970's but rejected by the Politburo.
The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never
"invaded" Afghanistan.
The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of
those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced
in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly
was ignored in practice.
During the 1970's there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain
perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals
and awards Mr. Brezhnev.
Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating
opportunities for " Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert
operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft
underbelly."
However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but
included as part of an ongoing "strategy" "to underpin the United States of America economic
recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived
threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan." and the
location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences
in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.
The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely
perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid
perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging
myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.
"... Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's national security state. ..."
"... Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That country is, of course, Israel." ..."
Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby
Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's
National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an
impressive exercise in burying the lede.
Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel
Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection
between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's
national security state.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has
interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has
corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to
initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and
has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media
to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all
that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That
country is, of course, Israel."
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?
Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the
package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.
Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be
avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military.
NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump
wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a
surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily
managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT
workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA
to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be
almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might
be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple
missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff,
either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive
Outsiders.
Not only they lost all moral authority. UK MSM became openly neofascist in some areas exceeeding the press of Third Riech and the
USSR in distortions and falsifications. .
Notable quotes:
"... Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV. ..."
"... In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do' ..."
Even if the Skripal affair WAS staged, you shouldn't get too excited about it. In fact, you should be rather pleased because
it would demonstrate that the tired, incompetent old UK is still capable of mounting an operation of which young, vigorous, competent
Russia would be proud.
The UK can fake events with the best of them! I would find that reassuring rather than deplorable because it's a nasty world
out there.
The Government and the media, have not been telling the whole truth for a long time. Sometimes they blatantly lie. Most people
still believe most of what they say, as there is an in-built trust of authority, for some very good historical reasons. The Skripal
story, made it obvious to a large number of people, that some of it could not be true. Most still believe it or din't take much
notice. The arrest of Julian Assange made it clearer, to an even larger number of people, that the government and the media, had
lost all moral authority. Still many people didn't take much notice, or were convinced by the lies in the media, that he was a
rapist and should be in jail.
The lies and corruption from government, is now increasingly out in the open. I believe that this is deliberate. I also think
that it is exceedingly dangerous for society for multiple reasons. We are conditioned to accept authority as our moral guide.
They act as an example of acceptable behaviour. If society as a whole, behaved like government, all trust would break down. Virtually
all functions of society are based on trust. Without such trust, nothing will work.
Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously
know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally
is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV.
I believe this has all been pre-planned, and it will result in a disastrous effect on all society, unless something happens
to bring the governments and media back to truth and sanity. I have no idea what that might be, but I expect it will not be pleasant.
The following was an early warning of the mass insanity affecting The US Government. It has spread like a highly infectious
disease.
In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined
as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world
really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's
how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'
Trump betrayed anti-war republicans. As the result he lost any support of anti-war
Republicans. That can't be revered as he proved to be a marionette of Israel lobby. How that will
influence outcome of 2020 elections remains to be seen.
"The president has said that he does not want to see this country involved in endless wars .
I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News audience at Monday's town hall meeting in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Then, turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added: "Mister President, tonight
you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia
should not be determining the military or foreign policy of this country."
Sanders was talking about a War Powers Act resolution that would have ended U.S. involvement
in the five-year civil war in Yemen that has created one of the great humanitarian crises of
our time, with thousands of dead children amidst an epidemic of cholera and a famine.
Supported by a united Democratic Party on the Hill, and an anti-interventionist faction of
the GOP led by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed
both houses of Congress.
But 24 hours after Sanders urged him to sign it, Trump, heeding the hawks in his Cabinet and
National Security Council, vetoed S.J.Res.7, calling it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my
constitutional authorities."
With sufficient Republican votes in both houses to sustain Trump's veto, that should have
been the end of the matter.
It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders
emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the "no-more-wars"
theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and
civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Does Trump really want to go into 2020 as a war party president? Does he want to go into
2020 with Democrats denouncing "Trump's endless wars" in the Middle East? Because that is where
he is headed.
In 2008, John McCain, leading hawk in the Senate, was routed by a left-wing first-term
senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the more hawkish
Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize the war in Iraq.
In 2012, the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Obama on Russia,
lost.
Yet in 2016, Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war and
an anti-interventionist who wanted to get along with Russia's Vladimir Putin and get out of
these Middle East wars.
Looking closely at the front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020 -- Joe
Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker --
not one appears to be as hawkish as Trump has become.
Trump pulled us out of the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by Secretary of State John
Kerry and re-imposed severe sanctions.
He declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran has responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist organization. Ominously, the
IRGC and its trained Shiite militias in Iraq are in close proximity to U.S. troops.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the
consulate that dealt with Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to the Palestinians, recognized
Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967, and gone silent on Bibi
Netanyahu's threat to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Sanders, however, though he stands by Israel, is supporting a two-state solution and
castigating the "right-wing" Netanyahu regime.
Trump has talked of pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet the
troops are still there.
Though Trump came into office promising to get along with the Russians, he sent Javelin
anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced a pullout from Ronald Reagan's 1987 INF treaty that
outlawed all land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela -- ostensibly to repair the
S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in recent blackouts -- Trump,
drawing a red line, ordered the Russians to "get out."
Biden is expected to announce next week. If the stands he takes on Russia, China, Israel,
and the Middle East are more hawkish than the rest of the field, he will be challenged by the
left wing of his party and by Sanders, who voted "no" on the Iraq war that Biden supported.
The center of gravity of U.S. politics is shifting towards the Trump position of 2016. And
the anti-interventionist wing of the GOP is growing.
And when added to the anti-interventionist and anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on the
Hill, together, they are able, as on the Yemen War Powers resolution, to produce a new
bipartisan majority.
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the
Democratic Party will have captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate
Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and
read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com.
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues.
While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is
appointing likeminded warmongers.
Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade.
She has served as a press officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a
financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the
US Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a
political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy
consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections
and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus "served on the boards" at the Institute for the
Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon
Frederick Kagan.
ISW is funded by the death merchants -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others --
and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world,
a conflict promoted in the name of "democracy," which is code for mass murder campaigns waged
by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on
planet Earth.
Naturally, some folks over on the so-called "New Right" support the appointment of an ardent
neocon -- a former pretty face from Fox News -- at the State Department, thus demonstrating
they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.
"... I fear that in the new liberalist oligarchic Russia they have managers (generally trained in very expensive western universities/think thank) but not statesmen and overall statesmen with an original strategic view for a national independent interest like the old USSR had. ..."
"... It means TPTB already have a generation of brainwashed liberal narratives in key positions in Russia. It takes a 15-20 years to build up a new generation of nationalists and defenders of their heritage, so this could easily take 50-100 years to change if ever ..."
I don't completely agree . or perhaps I should say, I am concerned, mostly for Russia.
Good management practices can be applied to anything, positive or negative, and Orlov points
out that there seems to be a new generation of "professional" politicians developing in
Russia. This worries me as such people have a way of wanting to stay in power at almost any
cost, and not always considering the well being of the country.
Will they have the real world experience of Putin? I don't know. Will they be fooled by
the West's propaganda? Have to wait and see.
The Russian leaders who went through WW2 had a vision and experience which you can't buy
and this saved the world many times over.
But one thing I am certain of, Russia is a greater hope for the world than is the US.
I fear that in the new liberalist oligarchic Russia they have managers (generally trained in
very expensive western universities/think thank) but not statesmen and overall statesmen with
an original strategic view for a national independent interest like the old USSR had.
For the near future a simple copy of a normal western state (colony). And perhaps that future is already here.
"new liberalist oligarchic Russia have managers (generally trained in very expensive western
universities/think thanks)".
If thats true, its depressing. Shiny globo-homo eyes having Europe in their heart.
It means TPTB already have a generation of brainwashed liberal narratives in key positions
in Russia.
It takes a 15-20 years to build up a new generation of nationalists and defenders of their
heritage, so this could easily take 50-100 years to change if ever
Way to brave predictions, I think... I think he grossly underestimates
durability of neoliberal state like the USA. May be in 20 years the USA will really start
experiencing huge problems like he described due to the end of cheap oil". But before that only
huge exogenous shock can crash such a society.
Notable quotes:
"... It will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip the entire system into a defunct state. ..."
"... And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement; Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the store are digging around in dumpsters ..."
"... well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market is doing so well. ..."
"... But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever. ..."
"... While, on the surface, people support ideas like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on. ..."
"... Since I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. ..."
"... Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever. ..."
"... with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the nation’s money, I am not optimistic… ..."
"... The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and war–world war. ..."
"... In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away. ..."
"... But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life, capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global South and developing nations in general. ..."
"... Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical power. ..."
"... He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s. ..."
"... All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time. ..."
The Saker: You recently wrote an article titled " Is the USS
Ship of Fools Taking on Water? " in which you discuss the high level of stupidity in
modern US politics? I have a simple question for you: do you think the Empire can survive Trump
and, if so, for how long?
Dmitry Orlov: I think that the American empire is very much over already, but it hasn't been
put to any sort of serious stress test yet, and so nobody realizes that this is the case. Some
event will come along which will leave the power center utterly humiliated and unable to
countenance this humiliation and make adjustments. Things will go downhill from there as
everyone in government in media does their best to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. My
hope is that the US military personnel currently scattered throughout the planet will not be
simply abandoned once the money runs out, but I wouldn't be too surprised if that is what
happens.
The Saker: Lastly, a similar but fundamentally different question: can the USA (as
opposed to the Empire) survive Trump and, if so, how? Will there be a civil war? A military
coup? Insurrection? Strikes? A US version of the Yellow Vests?
Dmitry Orlov: The USA, as some set of institutions that serves the interests of some
dwindling number of people, is likely to continue functioning for quite some time. The question
is: who is going to be included and who isn't? There is little doubt that retirees, as a
category, have nothing to look forward to from the USA: their retirements, whether public or
private, have already been spent. There is little doubt that young people, who have already
been bled dry by poor job prospects and ridiculous student loans, have nothing to look forward
to either.
But, as I've said before, the USA isn't so much a country as a country club. Membership has
its privileges, and members don't care at all what life is like for those who are in the
country but aren't members of the club. The recent initiatives to let everyone in and to let
non-citizens vote amply demonstrates that US citizenship, by itself, counts for absolutely
nothing. The only birthright of a US citizen is to live as a bum on the street, surrounded by
other bums, many of them foreigners from what Trump has termed "shithole countries."
It
will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the
realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip
the entire system into a defunct state.
And once the fracking bubble is over and another third of the population finds that it can
no longer afford to drive, that might force through some sort of reset as well. But then the
entire system of militarized police is designed to crush any sort of rebellion, and most people
know that. Given the choice between certain death and just sitting on the sidewalk doing drugs,
most people will choose the latter.
And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists
skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement;
Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the
store are digging around in dumpsters; concerned citizens demanding that migrants be allowed
in, then calling the cops as soon as these migrants set up tents on their front lawn or ring
their doorbell and ask to use the bathroom; well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to
some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes
and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market
is doing so well.
At this rate, when the end of the USA finally arrives, most of the people won't be in a
position to notice while the rest won't be capable of absorbing that sort of upsetting
information and will choose to ignore it. Everybody wants to know how the story ends, but that
sort of information probably isn't good for anyone's sanity. The mental climate in the US is
already sick enough; why should we want to make it even sicker?
I love Orlov’s wit and general cynical attitude as it mirrors mine (perhaps not the
wit). I think he seems to understand the Ukraine and Russia relatively well though I’m
not in a position to question him on that but I do know something about the politics of
NATO/EU/USA and their intentions and that Orlov gets.
But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some
time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart
kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving
them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of
the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever.
If
anything the economy actually is “better” not as good as the cooked statistics
indicate but things have improved for people I know in that area. Americans, despite the
obvious propaganda nature of the media still are true-believers in the official Narrative
because meaning and myth always trumps reality.
While, on the surface, people support ideas
like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it
their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their
ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on.
Since
I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my
part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners
easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. Americans
strut around but feel powerless and don’t have a plan or think they can have a plan
because they lack the conceptual frameworks to understand that their leadership is thoroughly
rotten.
Having said that, I agree with Auslander, Americans don’t need the central
government and would do better, initially, in a highly chaotic situation and establish their
own order in their communities and rig up a new set of arrangements very quickly.
In some
ways the fall of Washington would be the best thing to ever happen in my country.
I am afraid you are wrong. Orlov does understand the US, just like I do, as I have lived
in the US. Yes, Orlov has been predicting the collapse of the US, and it will happen. I would
like to direct your attention to the following video (the second part is very
interesting):
Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t
think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the
break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force
will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been
kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever.
“The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old
South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. ”
Maybe, but actually I would say most regions of the USA have some kind of “old
tradition” —and a lot nicer ones than that of the old racist South. I’ll
take New England and the Maritimes any day over the steamy South where the kudzu creeps over
I mean *everything*, the snakes proliferate, and you can’t survive the summer without
AC 24/7.
Well…I just started in on this piece and already I have a major
beef…Orlov’s notion that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was good for
Russia…
China was [and arguably still is] an empire of diverse regions, ethnicities and
religions…but how is that holding China back today, or during previous centuries of
imperial glory…?
Clearly China doesn’t fit into Orlov’s idea of an empire as a ‘wealth
pump’ that sucks from the periphery to enrich the center…this is true of course
of exploitation-based imperial projects such as western colonialism…but is clearly not
applicable to the Chinese model, which has been both the biggest and most durable empire in
human history…so that is a big hole in Orlov’s ‘theory’…
It is true that the USSR was a fundamentally different kind of empire from the
exploitative western colonialism…and it is also true that it ultimately did not
succeed…although it managed to accomplish almost incomprehensible progress in
modernization, science and technology…and industrialization…the foundations of
Russian strength today rest squarely on the foundations put in place during the Stalin
era…
Elsewhere on this site there is a brilliant series of essays by Ramin Mazaheri about the
tumultuous cultural revolution of the 1960s…and why it was necessary…Russia
also needed a cultural revolution around this time…the system needed to be rejigged to
better serve the people…in living standard…fairness and
justice…opportunity for social advance…etc…
But it never happened…instead the system became more sclerotic than ever…and
the welfare of the people stagnated…at the very moment in time when the capitalist
west, especially the United States, was able to reign in the appetites of its parasite class
and provide the people with a decent share of its [largely ill-gotten, by means of global
finance colonialism] gains…[during the postwar decades, the share of national wealth
of the 0.1 percent fell to an all time low of about 7 percent…about a quarter of
historic, and current levels]…
This was the golden age in the US…well paying jobs in industry were plentiful and
the company president made perhaps ten times what the shop floor worker took home…a
second household income was completely unnecessary…university education at state
colleges was practically free…
The life of the Soviet citizen in the1960s was not too far behind…Stalin’s
five year plans in the1930s had created an industrial powerhouse…it was Russia’s
ability to produce that allowed it to prevail over Germany in the existential war…and
despite the devastation of the people, cities and countryside Russia was able to quickly
become a technological superpower…as an aerospace engineer I have a deep appreciation
of the depth and breadth of Russian technical achievements and the basic scientific advances
that made that possible…the US was laughably left in the dust, despite having skimmed
the cream of Nazi Germany’s technical scientific talent…and contrary to what US
propaganda would have the people believe…
... ... ...
Of course the massive Chinese empire has been adapting like this for centuries, if not
millennia…Russia with the Soviet Union only needed to make similar smart
adjustments…instead they threw out the baby with the bathwater…let’s see
where Russia goes from here, but with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the
nation’s money, I am not optimistic…
But back to Orlov…let’s see where he goes after starting off very clumsily.
.
The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and
war–world war.
In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be
underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away.
As collapse intensifies, these Anglo American entities led by the USA will surely lash out
in even more aggressive wars to maintain their unipolar world order that they have ruled over
since the fall of the Soviet Union. The use of tactical nuclear weapons, bio-warfare, and
other "exotic" weapons should not be ruled out.
At base, the Anglo Americans possess an inbred sense of economic entitlement. They whine
like snowflakes about the foreign outsourcing of jobs or "illegal immigrants stealing our
jobs" as a chauvinistic demand for a greater share of the economic spoils of imperialism.
But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life,
capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global
South and developing nations in general.
And God forbid that the Anglos lose their parasitic way of life and (horror) are compelled
to live like the vast majority of humanity in the developing world from Africa to Asia to
Latin America to the Middle East.
The disaffected middle classes and labor aristocracy of the Anglosphere will comprise the
grassroots basis for 21st-century fascism, similar to how these socio-economic classes were
the grassroots support for the German Third Reich or Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s-40s.
Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements
throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent
the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who
want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an
even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical
power.
As Martin Lee has put it, the Beast reawakens.
Boswald Bollocksworth on April 17, 2019 · at 9:37 pm EST/EDT
He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust
and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the
depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the
world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post
offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s.
All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or
serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure
and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time.
The US capacity to meddle overseas will wither, after all how well can a submarine filled with drag queens and single
mothers operate? And who’d be willing to endure shelling for a monstrosity like contemporary America?
But the domestic system is brilliantly designed, not going anywhere.
British propaganda is clearly as close to neofascist propaganda as one can get... British neocons are even closer to neofascists then the US neocons. And British security services are closer to
the Third Reich security services then any other.
Skripals is a such a grandiose false flag operation that Gellen (of operation Gladio fame) probably would be amazed and humbled.
Notable quotes:
"... The official narrative of the Salisbury incident is ever-fluctuating. Seemingly each and every article, news segment, official statement or documentary about any element of the case contains new information, requiring the established account to be at least partially rewritten and/or contradicting established elements of the story.... ..."
"... If nothing else, that Haynes was willing to transmit an apparently obvious fiction speaks volumes about the willingness of mainstream journalists to parrot each and every fresh claim in the Skripal case, even if it wildly conflicts with what they themselves have written previously. ..."
"... Oh dear oh dear.. It appears the UK may be denying there were any poor ducks involved... https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1118409471754153984 ..."
It seems highly reasonable to conclude the NY Times item has blown away any remaining
truthfulness to the Skripal Saga and the entire Saga--like Russiagate--can be concluded to be
a very serious hoax, and that there's no reason whatsoever to trust anything said by UK's
Tory government.
"The official narrative of the Salisbury incident is ever-fluctuating. Seemingly each and
every article, news segment, official statement or documentary about any element of the case
contains new information, requiring the established account to be at least partially
rewritten and/or contradicting established elements of the story....
"If nothing else, that Haynes was willing to transmit an apparently obvious fiction speaks
volumes about the willingness of mainstream journalists to parrot each and every fresh claim
in the Skripal case, even if it wildly conflicts with what they themselves have written
previously."
"Difficult to verify your version of events given it involves nameless officials. Knowing
you're often used by security services to peddle propaganda seemed a reasonable assumption
they'd urged you to backtrack your earlier advocacy as story detonates official #Skripal
narrative."
It seems highly reasonable to conclude the NY Times item has blown away any
remaining truthfulness to the Skripal Saga and the entire Saga--like Russiagate--can be
concluded to be a very serious hoax, and that there's no reason whatsoever to trust anything
said by UK's Tory government.
The Saker: What will happen once Nord Stream II is finished? Where is Europe heading
next, especially in its relationship with the USA and Russia?
Dmitry Orlov: The new pipelines under the Baltic and the Black Sea will be completed, along
with the second LNG installation at Sabetta, and Russia will go on supplying natural gas to
Europe and Asia. I suspect that the fracking extravaganza in the US is entering its end game
and that the dream of large-scale LNG exports to Europe will never materialize.
The nations of Europe will gradually realize that its relationship with Russia is mostly
beneficial while its relationship with the US is mostly harmful, and will make certain
adjustments. The Ukraine, its natural gas pipeline system decrepit and beyond repair, will
continue to import natural gas from Europe, only now the methane molecules will actually flow
to it from the west rather from the east.
Not sure if extensive Lavrov interview earlier in April was reported on saker
..extract
"Question: Have you seen any grounds for optimism in the results of the first round of the
presidential election in Ukraine?
Sergey Lavrov: To be honest, I haven't seen any grounds for either optimism or pessimism.
What's the point of guesswork? This is a process that should take place and will be
completed. I do not doubt this or that the West will recognise this election.
OSCE observers released their preliminary report on the results of the first round of the
presidential election, which abounds in examples of flagrant violations: corruption, bribery,
pressure on voters and many other things. However, all this is described in a neutral tone. I
think if they wrote about us, they would present these facts emotionally. Now they are doing
it in an understated way and conclude that this did not affect the legitimacy of the
election. Neither was it affected by the flagrant violation of OSCE rules when our observers
were kicked out and over three million Ukrainians working and living in Russia were deprived
of the right to vote. These are facts of life in Ukraine.
I think that the results of the election and the way it was organised came as no surprise
to those who have been following domestic developments in Ukraine and its external ties. They
are already calling each other puppets It's probably interesting to watch from the side but I
don't think that Ukrainian citizens are happy about this kind of democracy.
Question: Are the prospects of Russia-Ukraine cooperation still vague?
Sergey Lavrov: We are open to dialogue if the aim is not chatting and looking for excuses
to do nothing but rather the practical implementation of the Minsk agreements. I have no
doubt that Petr Poroshenko does not want to do this and won't do this. When Viktor Medvedchuk
just suggested seriously discussing what autonomous rights may be granted to Donbass, he was
called a traitor. Poroshenko said this will never happen although he himself signed a
document on the special status of Donbass, which is described with sufficient detail in the
Minsk agreements.
These provisions on what rights Donbass should have were formulated by German Chancellor
Angela Merkel personally, among others, but her ward has got out of hand. This is a fact. On
the one hand, he doesn't listen to Germany or France because he has American "patrons". On
the other hand, they find it embarrassing to pressure him in public because by doing so they
will admit that what they call their "mediation" has failed.
However, there is no other document except for the Minsk agreements. They can certainly be
supplemented. For instance, it is possible to provide OSCE observers with UN armed guards, as
we suggest in response to the apprehensions of Ukrainians about their safety. But the core of
these agreements must remain unchanged. The main point is that all issues are settled
directly between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk .."
The Toltec sages used to say: "To really know something means that it must also entail the
knowledge of what course of action to take. And once you know what to do, you actually do
it". So they firmly stated that the only worthy knowledge is a functional one. Normally, the
trascendental matters were integrally consulted with the "Eagle" (i.e. the Entity out there
with limitless consciousness, which sounds pretty much like "God") through a link that in the
west is ignorantly dismissed as "intuition". This to remark that the big decisions must not
rely entirely on the rational part, because it is too prone to make mistakes.
We all know who the adversary is: it's not the AZE (AngloZionist Empire) per se, it's who
rule the Empire. And what they are doing in Ukraine is pretty clear:
* The endgame is to carve another Poland from the Russian population, as a means to weaken
the Russian State. The steps are obvious and unfortunately, maybe definitive: zioimposed
religious schism, forceful and exclusive use of "Ukrainian" from 2020 on, denial to belong to
other country different from "Ukraine" (a patchwork assembled through land thefts).
Fortunately Russia recovered Crimea, and the mining/industrial regions are disputed, but the
Khazarians control 2 critical assets: the other coastal oblasts and the chernozem soils.
* Stating that Russia cannot absorb Novorossiya is bullsh¡t. Germany, a smaller economy
with no sovereign government could absorb the RDA. If Russia doesn't decide, the situation
will decide by itself. Russia is already receiving a lot of displaced Russians, plus tons of
Russians in Ukraine who became the source of cheap labor for Russian companies. And what
about the costs of humanitarian assistance and military support to Russians under the Ukraine
dictatorship? Let's say it takes 30 years to revert the decay, so what? Russia has been
around longer and has had successful comebacks under way more destruction.
* The Donbass people already decided twice, by clear majority of the popular vote, to become
part of the Russian Federation. The right thing to do is simply accepting them. Not doing so
sends the signal that no matter what the other southwestern Oblasts do, they will not be
accepted either. Russia should openly support the Russians in the southeast of Ukraine who
want to secede and reintegrate with the Russian Federation.
For example, financing a
reunification party, granting contracts and jobs to the Russian allies there, logistically
supporting a secession movement, even militarily, because the Khazarians will not let go
without bloodshed.
"... Thus, there is an objective reason to prefer Zelensky over Poroshenko, which is that Poroshenko is a major thief while Zelensky isn't one yet, but it must be understood that this difference will begin to equalize the moment after Zelensky's inauguration. In fact, the elites in Kiev are currently all aquiver over their ingenious plan to sell off all of Ukraine's land to foreign investors (no doubt pocketing a hefty "fee"). ..."
"... The platforms of all the 30+ candidates were identical, but this makes no difference in a country that has surrendered its sovereignty. In terms of foreign relations and strategic considerations, the Ukraine is run from the US embassy in Kiev. ..."
"... n terms of its internal functioning, the main prerogative of everyone in power, the president included, is thievery. Their idea is to get their cut and flee the country before the whole thing blows up. ..."
"... Another option would be for Poroshenko to cheat his way past the second round (in an even more heavy-handed manner, since this time he is behind by over 30%), in which case Zelensky could theoretically contest the result in court and win. This would invalidate the entire election and leave Poroshenko in charge until the next one. Lather, rinse, repeat. Are you excited yet? ..."
"... None of this matters, because we don't know which of the two is the US State Department's pick. Depending on which one it is, and regardless of the results of any elections or lawsuits, a giant foot will come out of the sky and stomp on the head of the other one. ..."
The Saker: What is your take on the first round of Presidential elections in the
Ukraine?
Dmitry Orlov: The first round of the elections was an outright fraud. The object of the
exercise was to somehow allow president Poroshenko to make it into the second round. This was
done by falsifying as many votes as was necessary. In a significant number of precincts the
turnout was exactly 100% instead of the usual 60% or so and counted votes from people who had
moved, died or emigrated. All of these fake votes went to Poroshenko, allowing him to slither
through to the second round.
Now the fight is between Poroshenko and a comedian named Vladimir Zelensky. The only
difference between Poroshenko and Zelensky, or any of the other 30+ people who appeared on the
ballot, is that Poroshenko has already stolen his billions while his contestants have not had a
chance to do so yet, the only reason to run for president, or any elected office, in the
Ukraine, being to put oneself in a position to do some major thieving.
Thus, there is an objective reason to prefer Zelensky over Poroshenko, which is that
Poroshenko is a major thief while Zelensky isn't one yet, but it must be understood that this
difference will begin to equalize the moment after Zelensky's inauguration. In fact, the elites
in Kiev are currently all aquiver over their ingenious plan to sell off all of Ukraine's land
to foreign investors (no doubt pocketing a hefty "fee").
The platforms of all the 30+ candidates were identical, but this makes no difference in a
country that has surrendered its sovereignty. In terms of foreign relations and strategic
considerations, the Ukraine is run from the US embassy in Kiev. I
n terms of its internal
functioning, the main prerogative of everyone in power, the president included, is thievery.
Their idea is to get their cut and flee the country before the whole thing blows up.
It remains to be seen whether the second round of elections will also be an outright fraud
and what happens as a result. There are many alternatives, but none of them resemble any sort
of exercise in democracy. To be sure, what is meant by "democracy" in this case is simply the
ability to execute orders issued from Washington; inability to do so would make Ukraine an
"authoritarian regime" or a "dictatorship" and subject to "regime change." But short of that,
nothing matters.
The machinations of Ukraine's "democrats" are about as interesting to me as the sex lives of
sewer rats, but for the sake of completeness, let me flowchart it out for you. Poroshenko got
into second round by outright fraud, because the loss of this election would, within the
Ukrainian political food chain, instantly convert him from predator to prey. However, he was
none too subtle about it, there is ample proof of his cheating, and the contender he squeezed
out -- Yulia Timoshenko -- could theoretically contest the result in court and win. This would
invalidate the entire election and leave Poroshenko in charge until the next one. Lather,
rinse, repeat.
Another option would be for Poroshenko to cheat his way past the second round (in an even
more heavy-handed manner, since this time he is behind by over 30%), in which case Zelensky
could theoretically contest the result in court and win. This would invalidate the entire
election and leave Poroshenko in charge until the next one. Lather, rinse, repeat. Are you
excited yet?
None of this matters, because we don't know which of the two is the US State Department's
pick. Depending on which one it is, and regardless of the results of any elections or lawsuits,
a giant foot will come out of the sky and stomp on the head of the other one.
Of course, it
will all be made to look highly democratic for the sake of appearances. The leadership of the
EU will oblige with some golf claps while choking back vomit and the world will move on.
KIEV, April 17. /TASS/. The Ukrainian State Investigation Bureau launched a criminal case on
"the intentional surrender" of Crimea against Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andrei Paruby, Secretary
of the Ukrainian Council of National Security and Defense Alexander Turchinov, former Prime
Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and others, the Ukrainian law union Aver Lex told TASS on
Wednesday.
READ ALSO
Court finds Yanukovich not guilty of 'losing Crimea' -- attorney
"The State Investigation Bureau opened a criminal case on the intentional surrender of
Crimea, violent upheaval, treason and the organization of mass murders on the 'maidan' in
2014 by Ukraine's top officials, in particular by Arseny Yatsenyuk, Alexander Turchinov,
Andrei Paruby, [former head of Ukraine's Security Service] Valentin Nalivaichenko, [Verkhovna
Rada member] Sergei Pashinsky, [Permanent Representative to the UN] Yuri Sergeyev, [Kiev
Mayor] Vitaly Klichko, [head of the Freedom nationalist party] Oleg Tyagnibok, [former Acting
Defense Minister] Igor Tenyukh, [Prosecutor General] Yuri Lutsenko, [Defense Minister] Stepan
Poltorak and others," Aver Lex said.
Well after reading the entire piece, I must admit I'm not impressed
The main global dynamic right now is the Chinese industrial and economic juggernaut a
geopolitically resurgent Russia and the unraveling of the dollar dominated global financial
order
The problem with the west is not so much cultural as it is economic the west is a giant
Ponzi scheme that must ultimately collapse as all 'financialized' economies have collapsed
since the beginning of money as any careful reader of Michael Hudson can tell you
One morning we will wake up and the machine will be out of gas simple as that no money no
funny
That's why the rest of the world is moving toward a trading system that circumvents the
dollar, or any kind of so-called 'reserve' currency the US itself is shoving this process
forward by weaponizing trade and finance by means of sanctions gone wild
There does not need to be any kind of universal trading currency in the digital age it is
simply a matter of putting the settlement mechanisms in place and more important, bypassing
the HUMAN exchange networks now in place ie the old boys club through which dollar
denominated global trade now flows
Once these processes mature, there will be no way of perpetuating the western financial
Ponzi scheme it has crashed before most recently a decade ago but has been kept on life
support by negative interest rates, plus further impoverishment of the marginal class but
once the reserve currency is gone, and with it the ability to print free money the machine is
dead for good
At that point the west needs to earn its living the honest way that may be a tough
transition
"... Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. ..."
"... In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy. ..."
"... Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway. ..."
"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"
This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel
is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an
oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to
serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President.
This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.
Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet
if they want.
Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when
they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is
why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully
cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.
Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and
Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script
then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.
"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional
to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely
proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy
So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national
media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the
so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes
for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying
innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.
Intelligence agencies, once created, has their own development dynamics and tend to escape from the control of
civilians and in turn control them. Such an interesting dynamics. In any case, the intelligence agencies and first of all top
brass of those agencies constitute the the core of the "deep state". Unlike civiliant emplorres they are protected by the veil of
secrecy and has access to large funds. Bush the elder was probably the first deep state creature who became the president of the
USA, but "special relationship" of Obama and Brennan is also not a secret.
Another problem is that secrecy and access to surveillance, Which gives intelligence agencies the ability to blackmail politicians.
Availability of unaccounted financial
resources make them real kingmakers. In a sense, as soon as such agencies were created the tail started waging the dog.
Notable quotes:
"... Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer? ..."
"... One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb. ..."
"... JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House. ..."
"... However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day. ..."
"... But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career. ..."
"... Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others ..."
No other individual in modern US history has a more sinister legacy than John Edgar Hoover,
the founder and lifetime director of the FBI. He founded the bureau in 1924 and was its
director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77.
Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned
into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry
Truman (1943-53) reportedly
characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five
decades – as the nation's top law enforcer?
J Edgar Hoover and his henchmen kept files on thousands of politicians, judges, journalists
and other public figures, according to
biographer Anthony Summers. Hoover ruthlessly used those files on the secret and often sordid
private lives of senior public figures to control their career conduct and official decisions
so as to serve his interests.
And Hoover's interests were of a rightwing, anti-communist, racist bigot.
Ironically, his own suppressed homosexuality also manifested in witch-hunts against
homosexuals in public life.
It was Hoover's secret files that largely informed the McCarthyite anti-communist
inquisitions of the 1950s, whose baleful legacy on American democracy, foreign policy and
freedom of expression continues to this day.
One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots
of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is
suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual
tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb.
Absurdly, the FBI chief maintained that there was "no such thing as the Mafia" in public
statements.
Two notorious cases of how FBI wiretapping worked under Hoover can be seen in the
presidencies of John F Kennedy (1961-63) and Richard Nixon (1969-74).
As recounted by Laurent Guyénot in his 2013 book , 'JFK to 9/11: 50
Years of Deep State', Hoover made a point of letting each new president know of compromising
information he had on them. It wouldn't be brandished overtly as blackmail; the president would
be briefed subtly, "Sir, if someone were to have copies of this it would be damaging to your
career". Enough said.
JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and
extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once
confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made
the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ.
Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ
into the White House.
However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly
anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy
pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt
led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample
evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep
State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald –
a cover-up that persists to this day.
As for Richard Nixon, it is believed that "Tricky Dicky" engaged in secret communications
with the US-backed South Vietnamese regime on the cusp of the presidential elections in 1968.
Nixon promised the South Vietnamese stronger military support if they held off entering peace
talks with communist North Vietnam, which incumbent President Johnson was trying to organize.
LBJ wanted to claim a peace process was underway in order to boost the election chances of his
vice president Hubert Humphrey.
Nixon's scheming prevailed. The Vietnam peace gambit was scuttled, the Vietnam war raged on,
and so the Democrat candidate lost. Nixon finally got into the White House, which he had long
coveted from the time he lost out to JFK back in 1960.
But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was
classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is
possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating
in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career.
These are but only two examples of how Deep State politics works in controlling and
subverting American democracy. The notion that lawmakers and presidents are free to serve the
people is a quaintly naive one. For the US media to pretend otherwise, and to hail the FBI as
some kind of benign bastion of justice, while also deprecating claims of "Deep State" intrusion
as "conspiracy theory", is either impossibly ignorant of history – or a sign of the
media's own compromised complicity.
Nonetheless, to blame this culture of institutionalized blackmail and corruption on one
individual – J Edgar Hoover – is not fair either.
Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not
alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not
just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the
Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others.
Once formed, the Deep State – as an alternate, unaccountable, unelected government
– does not surrender its immense power willingly. It has learnt to hold on to its power
through blackmail, media control, incitement of wars, and, even ultimately, assassination of
American dissenters.
The illegal tapping of private communications is an oxygen supply for the depredations of
the American Deep State.
Thinking that such agencies are not actively warping and working the electoral system to fix
the figurehead in the White House is a dangerous delusion.
So too are claims that American democracy is being "influenced" by malign Russian enemies,
as the US intelligence chiefs once again
chorused in front of the Senate this past week. The consummate irony of it!
The real "influence campaigns" corrupting American democracy are those of the "All-American"
agencies who claim to be law enforcers and defenders of national security.
US citizens would do well to refresh on the untold history of their country to appreciate
how they are being manipulated.
We might even surmise that a good number of citizens are already aware, if only vaguely, of
the elite corruption – and that is why Washington DC is viewed with increasing contempt
by the people.
"... That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. ..."
"... Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes. ..."
"... Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye and gave him a paycheck. ..."
"... I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men. ..."
"... Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using it on POWs. ..."
"... just reinforces the feeling that those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better light. ..."
"... A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and will not go away unless she come clean. ..."
Before Gina became the Chief of Staff for Rodriguez, what role did she play in the waterboarding of two AQ operatives in Thailand?
It appears that she was at least witting of what was going on. Did she have the authority to decide what measures to apply to the
two? Did she make such decisions?
Those are facts still to be determined. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But there are others who I respect
that are adamant in opposing her nomination. The only thing I know for sure is that her nomination will be a bloody and divisive
political battle. If it comes down to embracing waterboarding as an appropriate method to use on suspected terrorists, then a majority
of Americans are supportive of that practice and will cheer the appointment of Haspel.
That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary
on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification
that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. It is true that one man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter.
Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding
and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history
of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes.
Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon,
as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye
and gave him a paycheck.
I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men.
IIRC, Haspel was the chief of staff to whom Rodriguez refers. That does not sound like a bit player. Would you say that Kelly
is a bit player in the Trump admin? As you say, we should know the facts, but so far it looks like she both participated in torture
and in its cover-up.
With all the crap going on at the FBI, the last thing we need now is a divisive candidate for any top level government position
(torture advocacy is divisive for many of us).
A woman, a lesbian, who cares as long as they are a capable and decent law-abiding
individual.
Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using
it on POWs.
And where do you get "admitted" terrorists from? In America, even with suspected terrorists, there is the principle
of innocent until proven guilty. At least we once believed in that standard.
And I very much respect you for your position on this (it is this American's view as well).
What amazes me (and yet doesn't) is the example of Rodriguez's supposed introspection "How bad could this be?" Really?!? That
just strikes me as not having any feel for the media, US citizenry, or even common sense, and just reinforces the feeling that
those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better
light.
PT -- Thank you. Much to consider in these times. I come down on the "no torture and waterboarding is torture" side of the debate
but am also just eager for some competence and professional experience in key positions.
That these positions may be mutually
exclusive says a great deal about our current situation. Again, thank you, for your opinions and information.
A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for
it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and
will not go away unless she come clean.
At the end of the day that don't matter, since as a policy, and base on your own statement,
this country's government will prosecut and punish for liking of torture but not torture and tortures. And, furthermore, is not
even willing to do away with it, per it's elected president. Trying to show a clean, moral, democracy on the hilltop image, is
a BS and a joke.
"... I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation. Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. ..."
"... Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of Power. ..."
"... American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy." ..."
"... Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities: Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious. ..."
"... There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government. ..."
"... If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!" ..."
"... I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them. ..."
"... She was put in charge there not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect. ..."
"... furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states " For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition? ..."
"... Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be considered in the contexts of these words. ..."
Nothing will say more about who we are, across three American administrations -- one that demanded torture, one that covered it
up, and one that seeks to promote its bloody participants -- than whether Gina Haspel becomes director of the CIA.
Haspel oversaw the
torture of human beings in Thailand as the chief of a CIA black site in 2002. Since then, she's worked her way up to deputy director
at the CIA. With current director Mike Pompeo slated to move to Foggy Bottom, President Donald Trump has proposed Haspel as the Agency's
new head.
Haspel's victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were
waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer
John Kiriakousay : "We did
call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because
they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information."
It was Kiriakou who exposed the obsessive debate over the effectiveness of torture as false. The real purpose of torture conducted
by those like Gina Haspel was to seek vengeance, humiliation, and power. We're just slapping you now, she would have said in that
Thai prison, but we control you, and who knows what will happen next, what we're capable of? The torture victim is left to imagine
what form the hurt will take and just how severe it will be, creating his own terror.
Haspel won't be asked at her confirmation hearing to explain how torture works, but those who were waterboarded under her stewardship
certainly could.
I met my first torture victim in Korea, where I was adjudicating visas for the State Department. Persons with serious criminal
records are ineligible to travel to the United States, with an exception for dissidents who have committed political crimes. The
man I spoke with said that under the U.S.-supported military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee he was tortured for writing anti-government
verse. He was taken to a small underground cell. Two men arrived and beat him repeatedly on his testicles and sodomized him with
one of the tools they had used for the beating. They asked no questions. They barely spoke to him at all.
Though the pain was beyond his ability to describe, he said the subsequent humiliation of being left so utterly helpless was what
really affected his life. It destroyed his marriage, sent him to the repeated empty comfort of alcohol, and kept him from ever putting
pen to paper again. The men who destroyed him, he told me, did their work, and then departed, as if they had others to visit and
needed to get on with things. He was released a few days later and driven back to his apartment by the police. A forward-looking
gesture.
The second torture victim I met was while I was stationed in Iraq. The prison that had held him was under the control of shadowy
U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces. Inside, masked men bound him at the wrists and ankles and hung him upside-down. He said they
neither asked him questions nor demanded information. They did whip his testicles with a leather strap, then beat the bottoms of
his feet and the area around his kidneys. They slapped him. They broke the bones in his right foot with a steel rod, a piece of rebar
ordinarily used to reinforce concrete.
It was painful, he told me, but he had felt pain before. What destroyed him was the feeling of utter helplessness, the inability
to control things around him as he once had. He showed me the caved-in portion of his foot, which still bore a rod-like indentation
with faint signs of metal grooves.
Gina Haspel is the same as those who were in the room with the Korean. She is no different than those who tormented the Iraqi.
As head of a black site, Haspel had sole authority to halt the questioning of suspects, but she allowed torture to continue.
New information
and a redaction of earlier reporting that said Haspel was present for the waterboarding and torture of Abu Zubaydah (she was
actually the station chief at the black site after those sessions) makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture
of all of the prisoners there, but pay it little mind. The confusion arises from the government's refusal to tell us what Haspel
actually did as a torturer. So many records have yet to be released and those that have been are heavily redacted. Then there are
the tapes of Zubaydah's waterboarding, which Haspel later pushed to have destroyed.
Arguing over just how much blood she has in her hands is a distraction from the fact that she indeed has blood on her hands.
Gina Haspel is now eligible for the CIA directorship because Barack Obama did not prosecute anyone for torture; he merely signed
an executive order banning it in the future. He did not hold any truth commissions, and ensured that almost all government documents
on the torture program remained classified. He did not prosecute the CIA officials who destroyed videotapes of the torture scenes.
Obama ignored the truth that sees former Nazis continue to be hunted some 70 years after the Holocaust: that those who do evil
on behalf of a government are individually responsible. "I was only following orders" is not a defense of inhuman acts. The purpose
of tracking down the guilty is to punish them, to discourage the next person from doing evil, and to morally immunize a nation-state.
To punish Gina Haspel "more than 15 years later for doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told
were lawful orders, would be a travesty and a disgrace,"
claims one of
her supporters. "Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well,"
said Michael Hayden,
who headed the CIA during the height of the Iraq war from 2006-2009.
Influential people in Congress agree. Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will soon review
Haspel's nomination,
said , "I know Gina personally and she has the right skill set, experience, and judgment to lead one of our nation's most critical
agencies."
"She'll have to answer for that period of time, but I think she's a highly qualified person,"
offered Senator
Lindsey Graham. Democratic Senator Bill Nelson
defended Haspel's
actions, saying they were "the accepted practice of the day" and shouldn't disqualify her.
His fellow Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, signaled her likely acceptance,
saying , "Since my concerns were raised over the torture situation, I have met with her extensively, talked with her She has
been, I believe, a good deputy director." Senator Susan Collins
added that Haspel "certainly has the expertise and experience as a 30-year employee of the agency." John McCain, a victim of
torture during the Vietnam War,
mumbled only that Haspel would have to explain her role.
Nearly alone at present, Republican Senator Rand Paul says he will
oppose Haspel's nomination. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, have told Trump she is unsuitable and will
likely also vote no.
Following World War II, the United States could have easily executed those Nazis responsible for the Holocaust, or thrown them
into some forever jail on an island military base. It would have been hard to find anyone who wouldn't have supported brutally torturing
them at a black site. Instead, they were put on public trial at Nuremberg and made to defend their actions as the evidence against
them was laid bare. The point was to demonstrate that We were better than Them.
Today we refuse to understand what Haspel's victims, and the Korean writer, and the Iraqi insurgent, already know on our behalf:
unless Congress awakens to confront this nightmare and deny Gina Haspel's nomination as director of the CIA, torture will have transformed
us and so it will consume us. Gina Haspel is a torturer. We are torturers. It is as if Nuremberg never happened.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of
We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People andHooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. He tweets@WeMeantWell.
Covering up torture is quite possibly the worst thing Obama did. (I'd put it neck-and-neck with targeted killing.) This nation
desperately needs a president who will expose all of these horrors, and appoint an attorney general who will prosecute these acts
as war crimes.
Trump likes waterboarding. He said so himself. One assumes he meant, being a whimpering coward himself, when someone else does
it to someone else. But who knows? Enjoy judge Gorsuch.
"doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders"
To complete the parallel, we would need to prosecute and punish those who asked her to do it, and those who told her those
orders were lawful. Instead, some are doing paintings of their toes, some are promoted to be Federal judges, and some are influential
professors at "liberal" law schools. Why punish *only* her?
I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation.
Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. I am in full support of Mr. Van Buren's thesis. However, Pro Publica, which seems
to have been the source of much reporting of Haspel's torture record, has retracted the claim that Haspel had tortured in Thailand.
Mr. Van Buren quotes another source from his blog that supports the thesis that Haspel is a torturer. How does one know what to
believe? Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate
and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of
Power.
Its because we lost our sense of what makes us who we are. We are an empire that dances for private interests. In Rome they were
called families and led by patricians, they had money private guards, gladiators, and even street people supporting them. In the
Modern USA they are called Interest Groups and/or Corporations. They are lead by CEOs and instead of gladiators they have Lawyers.
Our being better matters less then their own squabbles which is why a torturer could reach the highest seat in intel. The majority
of Americans have lost their sense of being Americans instead they are Republicans, Democrats, etc, etc. Things that once use
to be part of an American have come to define us.
American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always
virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military
governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy."
At least this appointment along with the election of Trump shows the true face of the United States in international affairs.
When we face the fact we are (a) an oligarchy and (b) a brutal Empire we might have a chance to return to something more human.
Few readers, even of TAC, will want to look at our recent history of stunning brutality and lack of interest in even being in
the neighborhood of following international law.
CIA has purposefully refused to disclose Haspel's role for a decade+ They have selectively released information last week to discredit
those criticizing her. I don't think we should play their game, letting them set the agenda. Instead, I declaim torture itself
and any role she played in it, whether she poured the water or kept the books.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of the CIA's Haspel put him at risk?
In the 2003 film "Love Actually" the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) jokes with a Downing Street employee Natalie
(Martine McCutcheon):
"PM: You live with your husband? Boyfriend, three illegitimate but charming children? –
"NATALIE: No, I've just split up with my boyfriend, so I'm back with my mum and dad for a while.
"PM: Oh. I'm sorry.
"NATALIE: No, it's fine. I'm well shot of him. He said I was getting fat.
"PM: I beg your pardon?
"NATALIE: He said no one's going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.
"PM: Right You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.
"NATALIE: Thank you, sir. I'll think about it.
"PM: Do – the SAS are absolutely charming – ruthless, trained killers are just a phone call away."
It's just a film. It's just a joke. But the joke works because the public knows that – in reality – the security services have
the skills-sets and the abilities, to do damage anyone they want to do damage to -- and to probably get away with it.
Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect
Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities:
Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even
for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious.
Fast forward again to yesterday, March 17, 2018: Former CIA Director John Brennan wasn't joking when he reacted to the firing
of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- and President Donald Trump's tweeted celebration of it -- by tweeting this attack against
Trump:
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful
place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America America
will triumph over you."
Obama UN Representative Samantha Power followed up on the Brennan tweet with this:
"Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."
When public officials and former public officials -- like Shumer, Brennan and Power -- make such public statements it must
necessarily have a chilling effect on public criticism of the security services.
After all, none of the three are joking. They're serious. And the American people know that they're serious.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of CIA operative Haspel put him at risk?
New information makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners at her black site, but pay it little
mind. The confusion is because the government refuses to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. Arguing over just how
much blood she has on her hands is a distraction when she indeed has blood on her hands.
The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency. If the
Agency wishes to clarify her role, as was done via trial for the various Nazis at Nuremberg, we can deal with her actions more
granularly.
Since we have not had any more successful attacks on the scale of 9-11, it is very easy to be scrupulous regarding rough treatment
of terrorists.
But if we had suffered a dozen or more such attacks, of increasing magnitude and maybe involving nuclear weapons, how many
of you would still be condemning Mrs Haspel et al.? Or would you then be complaining they had not used water-boarding enough?
The 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was caught weeks before 9-11. Investigators figured out he was up to no good, tried
to get permission to search his computer, but were denied. The U.S. Government carefully protected his privacy rights. So are
you pleased with the outcome, Mr van Buren?
I'm sorry – this whole piece is a massive non sequitur. Ms. Haspel has no 'blood' on her hands as US extreme interrogation techniques
(sleep deprivation, uncomfortable positions, waterboarding) didn't draw any. They are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating
the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones. US techniques might have been bad policy – won't argue – but lets not fall
for a false equivalency.
Ms. Haspel was an agent of her government, acting on it's orders under it's policies and guidelines. Which leads to
Nuremberg. The Nuremberg tribunals (they were military tribunals – not trials) were conducted by a victorious military force
against a defeated military force. They were widely criticized as vengeance even by such august people as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court Stone and associate Justice Douglas. There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the
United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government.
And lastly there's this from a comment of the authors: "The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient
to disqualify her from heading the Agency." Utter nonsense. That was the mission of the Agency at that time. It's like saying
a 33yr old Drone Pilot who takes out an ISIS/Al Qaida operative as well as 15 civilians is disqualified to be the Sec Def 2 decades
later.
If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth
that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!"
We demonize Russia at every opportunity, but I don't see Russia rewarding torturers by appointing them to high office.
I didn't know too much about this woman's background until I read that Rand Paul opposes her nomination. I tend to take notice
whenever Rand Paul holds forth on any subject. All I can say is that if her actual record even approximates what has been alleged,
then this woman is unfit for the post–Nuremberg or no Nuremberg.
"As we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them." Oh, -PLEASE-, spare us the hyperbole! WE burn alive captives held
in cages? WE saw off their heads?
Thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape
(S.E.R.E.) training programs.
All of the torturers should be brought to justice. So should all of the officials who ordered or authorized torture.
There is no statute of limitations on capital Federal crimes. For a U.S. citizen to kill via torture is a capital Federal crime,
no matter where the torture took place. If statutes of limitations make it too late to prosecute some acts of torture, it is not
too late to bring about some measure of justice by making torturers pariahs. As many sexual harassers have recently learned, there
is no statute of limitations in the court of public opinion.
The story linking her to torture has been formally retracted. She had nothing to do with torture anywhere. How about a retraction
of this story and an apology.
I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School
of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know
better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them.
Personally,
I prefer that the cruelty should be, as Lincoln once put it, "unalloyed by the base metal of hypocrisy"
bob sykes: you should read Pro Publica's retraction (
https://www.propublica.org/article/cia-cables-detail-its-new-deputy-directors-role-in-torture
) of the claim that Haspel was in charge of the Thai black site when Abu Zubaydeh was tortured. She was put in charge there
not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding
at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect.
Winston: why do you suppose "thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion,
Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs"? Is it not to prepare them for the possibility of what we call torture when
used by our adversaries?
furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals,
pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states "
For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition?
Wilfred, the problem was not that the Feds protected Zacarias Moussaoui's right to privacy. The problem is that it let any of
the 20 Arab Muslims into the US in the first place. Closing our borders and mass deportations would have been the best thing to
do in the aftermath of 9/11, not torture and invasions.
Very well put. Lest we forget: Bush also delivered the stern warning that "war crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be
punished, and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'."
Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter
and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be
considered in the contexts of these words.
Chris Mallory (Mar 19 @1:47 p.m.), I agree with you. We shouldn't be letting them in.
But if someone had sneaked-a-peek at Moussaoui's laptop during the 3 weeks they had him before 9-11, we might have been able
to thwart the attack altogether. (And the Press has been strangely incurious about investigating whoever it was who issued the
injunction protecting Moussie's precious computer). This type of hand-wringing cost us 3,000 lives. Even more, considering the
Afghan & 2nd Iraq wars would never have been launched, were it not for 9-11.
Yeah, my eyes almost popped out of my head as I read it in the news. Direct brazen
manipulation of your boss, who happens to be a commander in chief of a nuclear power. And
no, I don't hear any howls about treason and conspiracy from across the pond.
"Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied".
This would indicate, if true, that the Brits desired to manipulate and used the CIA here
mainly as conduit to influence Trump. It would make more sense, historically as well,
interpreting causality and motive this way.
"... The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up. ..."
"... Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action. ..."
"... Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President? ..."
"... Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again. ..."
I took note when I read that on the Guardian website late last night. What struck me was
the treatment of the statement as if it could be true, but in more than one way.
The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is
similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France)
after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was
telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness –
in which case there is no need to make anything up.
Even if the story is true, the article accepts it as fact and in no way qualifies it,
which is just plain misrepresentation as Craig points out.
The reference to the two Russian operatives at that time is certainly a give away one way
and another – but nothing in the article to highlight that inconsistency.
Strange timing too for the appearance of the article too. No doubt there will be a
response from the Russian Embassy.
Trump brings together stupidity, narcissistic mental illness and obnoxiousness such that
when an official has to deal with him their attitude must surely be to tell the moron
whatever gets him to do what they want as soon as possible, so they don't have to spend any
more time than necessary in a room with him.
He lies all the time – the guy can't stop
lying – nobody wants to spend time with a person like that – even his wife can't
stand the sight of him – and it doesn't matter what it is that you tell him or show
him.
Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not
likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the
need for US diplomatic action.
The question is who was behind the anti-Russian side of the
Skripal story and why. Not much progress will be made without looking at the British
defence review and the huge increase in military spending that warfare interests have
moved Gavin Williamson's lips to call for.
"(E)xtremely clear CCTV footage of the duck feeding"? So there are fixed cameras watching
where the ducks swim in Queen Elizabeth's Park in Salisbury, are there? Because I haven't
been able to find even some lamp posts they might be secured to. (
Some images .) Which is not to say the Skripals weren't photographed. And how's the
Nikolai Glushkov inquest going?
Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President
is this you or a fake President?
Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits
us up the backside with a banjo yet again.
Simple really: Show the video of the Skripal actively feeding the ducks – blank the
kids faces and we'll be able to see them in all of their pre poisoned glory.
All this has been done before by the MS – The London Bridge attackers – 7/7
and so on.
So why not show the video? Because it shows something(s) which they want to hide. I have my views as to why, as do others but once you start lying you have to develop a
good memory and ' British Intelligence ' is a misnomer.
Let us not for one moment forget: Yulia musty be alive somewhere. I reckon they did in
Sergei – serve him right for being a double (or triple) agent – but Yulia must
still be around. She TOLD US in her video she was fine and getting better.
Thank god for Craig Murray and the Off-Guardian, they have preserved our sanity over this mad
story, this maddest of British Intel cockups.
@Nicholas – I'd advise delaying the conclusion that it was a cockup, except in the
sense that in most military and intelligence operations something cocks up –
until we hear what happens with British military spending plans.
Someone said to me on Twitter that confirmation of Novichock was from a Mass Spec of the
nerve agent bound to some enzyme (probably acetyl cholinesterase). Is this really the
official line? If so it's rubbish. Whoever made such a claim was clearly no chemist. Acetyl
Cholinesterase weighs about 66700 Daltons and the nerve agent weighed, say between 200 and
400 daltons. Firstly a mass spectrum of the protein would be that of the protein plus or
minus anything upto about 300 water molecules Which makes the mass (69400 +/- 2700) and a
multitude of other possible ions or other factors bound to it. The error in the mass of the
protein clearly exceeds the mass of the nerve agent. Given that, because of the blinding
uncertainties as to what species are actually hitting the detector in the mass spectrometer,
no-one anywhere attempts to study ligands bound to proteins by mass spec and certainly not
one of this size, why would they do it in this case?
The CIA Director tells outright lies to her boss, who as a result approves a stern
national rebuke.
In a cartoon version of life where Dick Dastardly gets to be an intelligence supremo, and
a total dummy gets to be President, this would be highly likely. Needless to say, to believe
such a scenario would exist in the real world requires a massive suspension of logic.
More likely there's something coming down the track that requires Haspel, and or the CIA,
to be discredited prior to its becoming visible to the public ?
What could possibly be coming down the track that isn't comparable to what we already know
about Haspel and the CIA though?
If you can straight faced maintain support for an admitted and documented human rights
abuser who heads a non accountable government spy agency that has been extra judicially
torturing, assassinating and over throwing any who stands in its way for 70 years; what on
earth could be about to come out that's suddenly going to convince our bought and paid for
media, and by extension the general public, that these monsters have been discredited?
UK spooks are switching to damage limitation mode, with the help of the Deborah Haynes of
Sky and II:
"Update: UK security sources say they're unaware of children hospitalised because of
#novichok or wildlife killed in #Skripal attack. May have been a photo of a dead swan though
not evidence swan was killed by #Novichok. If that's true, I wonder what these images used by
CIA were! "
"... The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative =
British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on. ..."
"... The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. ..."
The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British,
Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on.
You'd think someone might have noticed something of a trend by now.
They just don't bother anymore, the level of double black psy-ops and gaslighting is a mine field of disinformation. That's what
you get when Washington - Obama, gives the green light to propagandizing their people. It's escalated, like we haven't noticed,
under Trump despite his pathetic attempts at assuring folks it's fake news.
The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. I watched about 10 minutes of a
documentary about Easter Island, as an example, and it was revisionist to the nth degree. Just absolute rubbish insinuating that
white European travelers destroyed the Island. This is what British kids are now being marinated in, "He who controls the past"
We respect the ICC and its judgment on Kosovo "independence" (which, by the way, was
purely advisory and non-binding) which we helped carve out from her mother country via 78
days of day-and-night bombing raids. ICC is the highest legal institution of the world
community and its rulings must be mandatory on all UN members. Therefore, the Kosovo
"independence" is a legally done deal and must be respected.
(fast forward 11 years):
The very same United Kingdom Government:
The ICC's ruling on Chagos Archipelago is a piece of **** and the institution itself is
totally illegitimate and illegal farce and should be disbanded. Of course the British
government has no intention whatsoever of ever complying with such an idiotic ruling from a
quasi-legal institution. The right lies where our might rests.
So there, folks. Take it from the royal horse's mouth.
"The suit was brought by Mauritius and some of the 1,500 Chagos islanders who were
forcibly removed from the archipelago in 1973."
The decision was made on Feb 25, 2019. What happened in the 46 years between 1973 and the
court decision?
Did it take that long for the UN Court to be bribed?
"Diego Garcia: Is The "Terror Fulcrum" of the United States in the Eastern
Hemisphere's Indian Ocean.
The delusional American people think their government is such a benevolent, kind,
peace-loving force in the world. My God... the results of the tribe's decades-long
brainwashing upon an ignorant goy host is breathtaking.
Hold on here, Poncho. The US does not recognize the Hague-based International Court of
Justice as legitimate in the matter. Furthermore, such court is impotent in matters of
enforcement. So the US military will be staying on the island for a period not to exceed
indefinitely. And that's a very, very long time.
Strange how people develop reading comprehension problems when they don't like facts - the
main thrust of the article is here: ' How Great Britain can argue for international law in
the Crimea and South China Sea, while ignoring the International Court of Justice on the
Chagos'............ nope, we don't like it when other people do what we do, cant do that! we
are exceptional..........
You're right. I see people like Robert Kagan's opinions being respectfully asked on foreign affairs, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams
being hired to direct our foreign policy.
The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and
flourishing careers. Now they're angling for war with Iran.
It's preposterous and sickening. And it can't be allowed to stand, so you can't just stand off and say you're "wrecked". Keep
fighting, as you're doing. I will fight it until I can't fight anymore.
Fact-bedeviled JohnT: “McCain was a problem for this nation? Sweet Jesus! There quite simply is no rational adult on the planet
who buys that nonsense.”
McCain had close ties to the military-industrial complex. He was a backer of post-Cold War NATO. He was a neoconservative darling.
He never heard of a dictator that he didn’t want to depose with boots on the ground, with the possible exception of various Saudi
dictators (the oil-weaponry-torture nexus). He promoted pseudo-accountability of government in campaign finance but blocked accountability
for the Pentagon and State Department when he co-chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs with John
Kerry.
And, perhaps partly because of the head trauma and/or emotional wounds he suffered at the hands of Chinese-backed Commies,
it’s plausible to think he was regarded by the willy-nilly plotters of the deep state as a manipulable, and thus useful, conduit
of domestic subversion via the bogus Steele dossier.
Unfortunately, the episode that most defines McCain’s life is the very last one–his being a pawn of M-16 in the the deep state’s
years-long attempt to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.
Measuring success means determining goals. The goals of most wars is to enrich the people in charge. So, by this metric, the war
was a success. The rest of it is just props and propaganda.
“Pyrrhic Victory” look it up the Roman Empire Won but lost if the US is invaded and the government does not defend it I would
like to start my own defense: But the knee jerk politics that stirs America’s cannon fodder citizens is a painful reminder of
a history of jingoist lies where at times some left and right agree at least for a short moment before the rich and powerful push
their weight to have their way.
If All politics is relative Right wingers are the the left of what? Nuclear destruction? or Slavery?
My goodness! I am also a veteran, but of the Vietnam war, and my father was a career officer from 1939-1961 as a paratrooper first,
and later as an intelligence officer. He argued vigorously against our Vietnam involvement, and was cashiered for his intellectual
honesty. A combat veteran’s views are meaningless when the political winds are blowing.
Simply put, we have killed thousands of our kids in service of the colonial empires left to us by the British and the French
after WWII. More practice at incompetent strategies and tactics does not make us more competent–it merely extends the blunders
and pain; viz the French for two CENTURIES against the Britsh during the battles over Normandy while the Planagenet kings worked
to hold their viking-won inheritance.
At least then, kings risked their own lives. Generals fight because the LIKE it…a lot. Prior failures are only practice to
the, regardless of the cost in lives of the kids we tried to raise well, and who were slaughtered for no gain.
We don’t need the empire, and we certainly shouldn’t fight for the corrupt businessmen who have profited from the never-ending
conflicts. Let’s spend those trillions at home, so long as we also police our government to keep both Democrat and Republican
politicians from feathering their own nests. Term limits and prosecutions will help us, but only if we are vigilant. Wars distract
our attention while corruption is rampant at home.
Thanks, I appreciate this article.
I’ll make two points, my own opinion:
it’s the same story as Vietnam, the bull about how the politicians or anti-war demonstrators tied the military ‘hand,’ blah, blah.
Nonsense. Invading a nation and slaughtering people in their towns, houses…gee…what’s wrong with that, eh?
The average American has a primitive mind when it comes to such matters.
Second point I have, is that both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Trump should be dragged to a world court, given a fair trial
and locked up for life with hard labor… oh, and Cheney too,for all those families, in half a dozen nations, especially the children
overseas that suffered/died from these creeps.
And, the families of dead or maimed American troops should be apologized to and compensation paid by several million dollars to
each.
The people I named above make me sick, because I have feelings and a conscience. Can you dig?
Though there is a worldly justification for killing to obtain or maintain freedoms, there is no Christian justification for it.
Which suggests that Christians who die while doing it, die in vain.
America’s wars are prosecuted by a military that includes Christians. They seldom question the killing their country orders
them to do, as though the will of the government is that of the will of God. Is that a safe assumption for them to make? German
Christian soldiers made that assumption regarding their government in 1939. Who was there to tell them otherwise? The Church failed,
including the chaplains. (The Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq a just war in 2003.) These wars need to
be assessed by Just War criteria. Christian soldiers need to know when to exercise selective conscientious objection, for it is
better to go to prison than to kill without God’s approval. If Just War theory is irrelevant, the default response is Christian
Pacifism.
“Iraq Wrecked” a lot of innocent people. Millions are dead, cities reduced to rubble, homes and businesses destroyed and it was
all a damned lie. And the perpetrators are Free.
Now there is sectarian violence too, where once there was a semblance of harmony amongst various denominations. See article link
below.
“Are The Christians Slaughtered in The Middle East Victims of the Actions of Western War Criminals and Their Terrorist Supporting
NATO ‘Allies’”?
We are a globalist open borders and mass immigration nation. We stand for nothing. To serve in this nation’s military is very
stupid. You aren’t defending anything. You are just a tool of globalism. Again, we don’t secure our borders. That’s a very big
give away to what’s going on.
If our nation’s military really was an American military concerned with our security we would have secured our border after 9/11,
reduced all immigration, deported ALL muslims, and that’s it. Just secure the borders and expel Muslims! That’s all we needed
to do.
Instead we killed so many people and imported many many more Muslims! And we call this compassion. Its insane.
Maybe if Talibans get back in power they will destroy the opium. You know, like they did when they were first in power…. It seems
that wherever Americans get involved, drugs follow…
“Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very
structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” In Eisenhower’s televised farewell address January 17, 1961.
Rational thought would lead one to believe such words from a fellow with his credentials would have had a useful effect. But it
didn’t. In point of fact, in the likes of Eric Prince and his supporters the notion of war as a profit center is quite literally
a family affair.
The military-industrial complex couldn’t accomplish this all by its lonesome self. The deep state was doing its thing. The two
things overlap but aren’t the same. The deep state is not only or mainly about business profits, but about power. Power in the
world means empire, which requires a military-industrial complex but is not reducible to it.
We now have a rare opportunity to unveil the workings of the deep state, but it will require a special counsel, and a lengthy
written report, on the doings in the 2016 election of the FBI (Comey, Strzok, et. al.), and collaterally the CIA and DIA (Brennan
and Clapper). Also the British government (M-16), John McCain, and maybe Bush and Obama judges on the FISA courts.
"... What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives. ..."
"... As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this? There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a POTUS. The third part they got right. ..."
"... Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"? ..."
The New York Times article seems whiffy to me. (Is anything from the NYT not whiffy?) The
article is the work of no fewer than five writers and the part about Donald Trump being
swayed by pictures of sick children in hospital and dead ducks seems a bit like a game of
Chinese whispers.
What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable
light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone
who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the
first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.
Better not play too many of those
"Call of Duty" video games either. You might find that being a pretend mercenary shooting
up innocent people in foreign lands is not just for the purpose of wasting a half of day on
mindless entertainment.
I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives.
>> The media was right about Trump: he has a soft spot for Russia.
>> Trump cares about people (and even ducks) - remember how he bombed Syria because
of the babies? Now Trump is super concerned about the people of Venezuela. What a
humanitarian!
>> Russia has no reason to oppose USA (in Venezuela or elsewhere) - they could just
contact their friend Trump! To do otherwise demonstrates malicious intent.
As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this?
There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake
as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a
POTUS. The third part they got right.
Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where
they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"?
Defending The
Revolution a short film about the People's Militia in Venezuela. Not gonna be easy.
And one more time,
Whitney Webb is doing a bang up job with this series:
This article is Part II of a multi-part investigative series examining the efforts of the
global elite, as well as powerful elements of the global Zionist lobby and the government
of Israel, to create an independent state out of Argentina's southern Patagonia region in
order to plunder its natural resources and to fulfill long-standing Zionist interest in the
territory that dates back to the "founding father" of Zionism, Theodore Herzl. Part I,
which focuses on the de facto "parallel state" created by British billionaire Joe Lewis in
Argentina's Patagonia, can be read here. Part II focuses on Eduardo Elsztain -- one of
Argentina's wealthiest businessmen, who is deeply connected to the global elite and global
Zionist lobbies -- and his role in a scheme to undercut Argentina's democracy by hijacking
its voting system.
See my "lost" comment at the end of OT 2019-20, #167
There were two last visits. During the first I was led in by a new young assistant, Ethan,
who was keen to agree with everything being said. Our conversation was mainly about Edward
Snowden. There are few subjects on which Julian would be reluctant to take what you might call
a paternalistic position, but over Snowden, whom he's never met but has chatted with and feels
largely responsible for, he expressed a kind of irritable admiration. 'Just how good is he?' I
asked.
'He's number nine,' he said.
'In the world? Among computer hackers? And where are you?'
'I'm number three.' He went on to say that he wondered whether Snowden was calm enough,
intelligent enough, and added that he should have come to them for advice before fleeing to
Hong Kong.
A fair reading of the situation might conclude, without prejudice, that Assange, like an
ageing movie star, was a little put out by the global superstardom of Snowden. He has always
cared too much about the fame and too much about the credit, while real relationships and real
action often fade to nothing. Snowden was now the central hub and Julian was keen to help him
and keen to be seen to be helping him. It's how the ego works and the ego always comes first.
Snowden, while grateful for the advice and the comradeship, was meanwhile playing a cannier
game than Julian. He was eager for credit, too, but behaving more subtly, more amiably, and
playing with bigger secrets. Julian said he hoped that others, I took him to mean the
Guardian and Glenn Greenwald, didn't claim too much credit for the flow of secrets. He
said he wanted me to help him get a film going, an account of what actually happened in Hong
Kong, how he helped Snowden. He said he had all the inside information and connections and it
would make a fantastic thriller. We discussed it at length and I told him the way to get movie
interest in such a thing was to get behind a big piece in Vanity Fair . He agreed and
said he would set aside time to get down to it. But I knew he wouldn't. It was odd the way he
spoke about Snowden, almost jealously, as if the younger man didn't quite understand what he
was about, needing much more from Julian than he knew how to ask for. I recognised the familiar
anxiety about non-influence: 'Snowden should have been with us from the beginning,' he said.
'He's flailing.' But they were now making up for lost time. As we spoke, Sarah was in Moscow
Airport, where Snowden was being held without a passport. 'I sent Sarah over,' said Julian in
his favourite mode. All he needed at that point was a white cat to stroke.
Snowden was everywhere in the news the last time I decided to drop in on Julian after I'd
been out in his neighbourhood. The embassy was quiet. I brought a couple of bottles of beer up
from the street and we sat in the dark room. It was a Friday night and Julian had never seemed
more alone. We laughed a lot and then he went very deeply into himself. He drank his beer and
then lifted mine and drank that. 'We've got some really historic things going on,' he said.
Then he opened his laptop and the blue screen lit his face and he hardly noticed me
leaving.
Before last month's crash of a flight that began in Ethiopia, Boeing Co. said in a legal
document that large, upgraded 737s "cannot be used at what are referred to as 'high/hot'
airports."
At an elevation of 7,657 feet -- or more than a mile high -- Addis Ababa's Bole
International Airport falls into that category. High elevations require longer runways and
faster speeds for takeoff.
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George
W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible
for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road
to Hell is paved with good intentions.
For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional
sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to
need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???
I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with
more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send
someone else's sons to war."
You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.
You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive
the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason
why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas
a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.
To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able
to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't
be president.
More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written
about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that
as well as a special counsel's report.
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove
their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.
The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog
is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field
(medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though
systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you
have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that
catch the errors.
Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional
complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades
ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide
down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long
gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world
and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't
matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did
not come home; all died at their own hands."
Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?
The navel gazing never stops.
Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions
of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government
in the world on their side.
Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many
times!
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did
you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way?
Not possible.
Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from
engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.
It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from
previous engagements.
I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no
plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical
war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated,
and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.
Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track
record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars
spent, period.
And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough
of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people,
time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody
made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard
I recently spoke to some college students who, I realized, were in fifth grade when I got on
a plane to Iraq. They now study that stuff in history classes like "Opportunities and Errors:
21st-Century America in the Middle East." About halfway through our conversation, I realized
it's coming up on 10 years since I first went to Iraq. Now that's real history.
I was a Foreign Service Officer then, a diplomat, embedded with the U.S. Army at a series of
forward operating bases and in charge of a couple of reconstruction teams, small parts of a
complex failure to rebuild the Iraq we wrecked. I ended up writing a book about it all,
explaining in tragicomic terms how we failed (those "Errors").
The book, We Meant Well: How I Helped
Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People was -- and wasn't --
well-received. People laughed at the funny parts, but my message -- it didn't work and here's
why -- was largely dissipated at the time (2012) by government and media propaganda centered on
The Surge. That was David Petraeus's plan to pacify the Sunnis and push al-Qaeda away, while
clearing, holding, and building across the country, apparently to make room so ISIS and the
Iranians could move in.
Meanwhile, the new American president, elected in part based on his "no" vote on the war in
2003, proclaimed it all a victory and started bringing the troops home even while I was still
in Iraq. Meanwhile my employer, the U.S. Department of State, was unhappy with my book. After a
year-long
process , State pushed me into early retirement. My career was history.
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Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that
traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing
witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I
might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in,
three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands. Around us, Iraqis blew
themselves up alongside children. Everyone was a potential killer and a potential target. I did
this at age 49, on antidepressants and with a good family waiting back home. I cannot imagine
what it would have done to 18-year-old me. And I had it easier than most, and much easier than
many.
People asked in line at Trader Joe's and in interviews on semi-important TV shows, "Was it
all worth it to you?" I always answered yes. I'm not important, I said, but the story is. And
now we're making the same mistakes in Afghanistan. The only way to even start to justify it was
to think there might be some meaning behind it all. It didn't do anything for me but fill my
soul with vodka but maybe somehow it helped?
See, my book wasn't aimed at cataloging the failures in Iraq per se, but in trying to make
sure we didn't do the same thing in Afghanistan. The initial title wasn't We Meant Well,
but Lessons for Afghanistan from the Reconstruction of Iraq . The early drafts were
pretentious scholarly stuff, outlining our mistakes. Harvard Business School-like case studies.
Maps. Footnotes. It would have sold maybe five copies, and so my editors encouraged me to add
more funny parts. NPR's Fresh Air actually added a laugh track to my
interview . I figured I'd get the lessons across with humor more effectively anyway. In
such situations, you have to think that way. You can't believe that what you went through
didn't matter and keep getting out of bed every morning.
I now know officially that it did not matter. It was pointless. SIGAR shows I accomplished
nothing.
SIGAR is the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, a government oversight
body that is supposed to prevent waste, fraud, and mismanagement of the billions of dollars
being spent rebuilding Afghanistan but that has its hands full just keeping a CVS
receipt-length history of what's wrong. Sound familiar?
SIGAR just released its " 2019 High-Risk List ," which
points out especially egregious things that will follow in the wake of any peace agreement in
Afghanistan. Here are some quoted highlights:
set the
cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do."
That last line really got me. In my book, I'd written, "While a lot of the money was spent
in big bites at high levels through the Embassy, or possibly just thrown into the river when no
one could find a match to set it on fire ." Had SIGAR read what I'd written? Or was the
joke just so obvious that we'd both come to the same punchline 10 years and two countries
apart?
Word for word as in Iraq, and after over 17 years of American effort, the U.S. has failed to
establish a viable government in Afghanistan, eliminate the local
insurgents/patriots/residents, establish a civil society, tamp down corruption, and ensure some
sort of national defense. Afghanistan has almost no chance of survival except as a Taliban
narcoland with financial support needed indefinitely to avoid whatever "worse" would be in that
calculus.
But there still are semi-believers. One former State Department colleague is on her fourth
assignment in Kabul, roughly half her career. Her job is to liaise with the few NATO officials
still hanging around. She says it's easy work; they've known each other for years. She's heard
we're making progress.
Around the same time as the SIGAR report, the Army War College released its history of the Iraqi Surge, a quagmire of dense
prose that I'm only about halfway through, but so far no mention of the impact of
reconstruction. The theme seems to be that the Army had some good ideas but the politicians got
in the way. Fair enough, but they misspelled Vietnam as I-r-a-q all throughout.
The post-9/11 wars have metastasized across three presidencies so far. Pick the thing you
detest most about Bush, Obama, and Trump, and complain about how it was never investigated
enough and how there weren't enough hearings. And then I'll disagree, for most everything that
happened and continues to happen in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone uninvestigated, unheard of,
and unpunished. It's ancient history.
We all want to believe that what we did, what we didn't do, the moral injury, the PTSD, the
fights with spouses, the kid at home we smacked too hard when she wouldn't eat her green beans,
all of what we saw and heard, mattered. You read that SIGAR report and tell me how. Because
basically I'm history now.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for
the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan.
"... In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of the US military. ..."
"... And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons belong to them. ..."
You ask a question about European political class's perception and defence of European
interests that is as perplexing here as it is in regard to Libya and Syria, to name just
these. There was at least some coherent defence of international law and principle during
Bush II's lead up to the Iraq war, but Europe's defence of law and Europe's common interests
seem to have ceased at some point since then.
Because, like the US European government is a tool of the Global Power Elite, it is
nothing more than pantomime. The West is fully owned and operated by the global elite.
In books going back to C Wright Mills' The Power Elite in 1956 to SUPERCLASS by David
Rothkopf, and GIANTS: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips clearly outline just how
powerful the Global Elites really are.
In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three
largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to
authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world
supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of
the US military.
There is one and only one Western empire - that of the Global Elites.
85% of the valuable assets in the world are controlled by the Global Elites.
There is no offsetting force against them, there simply does not exist today a force
capable of challenging their ownership of the world.
And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the
Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and
has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that
before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital
of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew
the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has
been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons
belong to them.
Editor's Note: @ProfessorsBlogg tweeted 14/4 a translation of "Mi
Amigo Julian Assange", authored by Ms Alicia Castro, formerly Argentina's ambassador in the
UK and Venezuela. The text in Spanish appeared the same day in Página 12 ,
Argentina. Text translated by Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, April 14, 2019.
In 2012, the year I arrived in London as ambassador, Julian Assange obtained the
diplomatic asylum of Ecuador and settled in the embassy on Hans Crescent Street. That day the
embassy was surrounded by cars of the British police and some agents struggled to enter. My
first reflection was to send some trays with meat pasties -"empanadas"- and sweet pastries to
alleviate the doings of ambassador Ana Alban. During the following days, together we organized
a meeting of Latin American ambassadors, to follow from the legation of Ecuador the session of
the OAS [the Organization of American States] where the asylum of Assange was discussed. We
sat, for the first time, around that dark table, in an austere room. Suddenly, and discreetly,
as we all were waiting, Julian Assange burst in. He was already a legend. I expressed to him
how much, we the Latin Americans, had to thank for his revelations about the diplomatic cables
that showed the deep and perverse degree of interference by the United States government in our
affairs. I myself had as proof the cable that the ambassador of the United States in Argentina,
Lino Gutierrez, wrote about my appointment as ambassador in Venezuela, where specific details
of my actions are described, which I did not even remember.
That day began a long series of encounters that I had with Julian throughout the four years
of my mission in London and in subsequent years, when I visited him several times. Our first
conversation revolved around the accusations in Sweden about sexual abuse; We spoke frankly,
and I concluded that it was a fabrication of two unscrupulous women with whom he had casual
relationships, who had been manipulated to accuse him of criminal doings. Sweden demanded his
extradition to respond to these allegations -they never pressed charges against him- while his
lawyers tirelessly requested that he could testify in London, since Sweden would extradite him
to the United States for revealing state secrets.
At that time, the embassy was crowded with interesting people who visited him; philosophers,
politicians, musicians, designers. And I could regret that I had missed the visit of Zizek,
Yoko Ono or Yannis Varoufakis, but in a next meeting I was meeting the designer Vivienne
Westwood, the human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy, the filmmaker Ken Loach, Bianca Jagger, and
mythical investigative journalists -such as the American Gavin MacFadyen, creator of the Centre
for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) and the Australian John Pilger. Many of them are my friends
until today. We tried to alleviate [Julian Assange's] confinement with any excuse: we
celebrated his birthday parties, his 100 days of asylum -for which I brought a cake with the
number 100-, my daughter and I went with enthusiasm to assemble Julian's Christmas tree,
and I also accompanied him at some New Year Eve festivities. end of the year accompanying him.
Ecuador came to be at the centre of London's political and cultural life, and former President
Rafael Correa was recognized by the progressive sectors as a definite defender of human
rights.
In each of my long conversations with Julian I learned something, that he is a man obsessed
with a clear and uncommon mission: to democratize the truth. Unlike other platforms, Wikileaks
does not reveal information related to a certain political affiliation , but publishes the
information it receives, once it is accurately deciphered and checked, and without revealing
the source. It has published more than 10 million classified documents revealing the secrets
that once belonged to a small elite linked to the military industrial complex
As time went by, the threats at the embassy were decreasing; the next ambassador prescribed
stricter visiting conditions; there was hardly any food one night when former Foreign Minister
Ricardo Patiño visited him -when he caught me by surprise that he tirelessly sings a
whole Latin American repertoire, being totally abstemious, and [also] the grace of Judge
Baltasar Garzon (one of the Assange team's lawyers) in dancing flamenco . We tried
unsuccessfully that Julian would sing a syllable or dance, but we never succeeded. He relaxed
though and accompanied us with that radiant smile of his, which is lost today. One day I
realized that Julian had not touched an animal for years, and I began to visit him with my dog
Mandiyu, whom he sat on his lap and became fond of, as he did of "empanadas"
[meat pasties] and our Malbec wine, which I brought him occasionally.
Then we succeeded that he would be allowed to have a kitten, whose company he greatly
enjoyed, and whose presence at the embassy has generated one of the most odd and obtuse amongst
the complaints raised by the current president of Ecuador. Lenin Moreno took away [Julian
Assange's] diplomatic asylum in violation of international law and the resolution of UN
Committee on Arbitrary Detention which established in 2015 that Assange's detention is
arbitrary and illegal and that he should be released.
The last times I saw him, his situation was worrisome. He was being spied on, and had a
ribbon hanging from his neck with a series of pen drives. We talked in the dining room, around
that table where we met for the first time, raising the volume of the radio and writing part of
what we wanted to say, exchanging two notebooks and covering our heads to avoid cameras and
microphones. He would never give up.
Julian was violently dragged out from the embassy of Ecuador and taken captive by the police
of the decadent Teresa May, while he was shouting that the United Kingdom must resist the
pressure of Trump. That image destroys me and I cannot see it without crying, nor can I stop
thinking of my friend now unjustly confined in prison.
Lenin Moreno has agreed with Donald Trump the rendition [of Assange] to the United States,
and Assange will have to face an extradition trial, accused of "conspiracy" for alleged
cooperation with the former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to decipher the password of a
US Defence Ministry computer belonging to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet). Trump
and May defend and implement the espionage on the private life of the citizens and the opacity
of the States.
Today, that all of us are victims of the gross manipulation of information, subject to media
operations designed to demonize and wage causes against political and social leaders , in the
middle of a war of "fake news" that distorts reality, it is shocking and paradoxical that a
journalist is imprisoned for acting as a soldier of the truth.
Assange is not American [citizen] and the Wikileaks platform is a foreign news
organization. The idea that the government of the United States can reach and extradite a
member of any media in the world is terrifying. Never in the history of the United States has
an editor been persecuted for presenting truthful information to the public. It creates the
precedent that any journalist can be extradited, tried and imprisoned for publishing accurate
information about the United States. The freedom of the press does not consist only in the
right to publish, but also in the right to read, in the right to be informed, in the right to
be informed that we have, as readers.
This universal right has its best defender in Julian Assange, a hero of a new type, for whose
freedom we will tirelessly claim, together with the men and women of the world who believe that
the truth will set us free.
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George
W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible
for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road
to Hell is paved with good intentions.
For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional
sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to
need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???
I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with
more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send
someone else's sons to war."
You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.
You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive
the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason
why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas
a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.
To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able
to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't
be president.
More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written
about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that
as well as a special counsel's report.
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove
their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.
The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog
is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field
(medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though
systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you
have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that
catch the errors.
Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional
complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades
ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide
down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long
gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world
and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't
matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did
not come home; all died at their own hands."
Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?
The navel gazing never stops.
Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions
of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government
in the world on their side.
Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many
times!
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did
you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way?
Not possible.
Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from
engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.
It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from
previous engagements.
I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no
plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical
war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated,
and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.
Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track
record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars
spent, period.
And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough
of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people,
time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody
made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard
"... Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work? ..."
"... Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day "interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. ..."
"... Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's "interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will. ..."
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Credit: StringerAL/Shutterstock
The Trump administration's statements about Venezuela are beginning to
sound eerily like Western governments' pronouncements about Syria over the last seven years:
The United States has no timeline for a change in government in Venezuela, a U.S. top official said, but is certain embattled
President Nicolas Maduro will not remain in power.
Almost three months have passed since the U.S. threw its support behind Guaido as "interim" president. During that tine, the opposition
has made no discernible progress in taking over, and the military remains firmly on Maduro's side for now. The administration has
no "timeline" for when Maduro will leave power because they and the opposition have no idea how to achieve the regime change they
are seeking, but that isn't stopping them from pursuing it anyway. Like the confident Western assertions from 2012 that Assad "must
go," the administration is "certain" of an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely to happen.
It is possible that the top military brass will eventually decide that it is better for them to rid themselves of the unpopular
ruler and retain power for themselves, just as Algeria's military did with Bouteflika and Sudan's military did with Bashir recently,
but there is no guarantee that this would lead to a "restoration of democracy."
On the contrary, a transition that depends so heavily on the military is much more likely to produce another dictatorship.
Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition
figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or
will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep
trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work?
The absurdity of the administration's current policy is quite remarkable. They insist that Maduro is no longer president, but
the president they recognize controls nothing. The success of their ill-conceived regime change "plan" depended almost entirely on
mass defections from the military, but they have
found no way to spur
these defections.
Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps
the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started
yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a
press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day
"interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. According to them, Guaido is the "legitimate"
president but has not yet assumed office:
QUESTION: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?
MR ABRAMS: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power, that's the problem [bold
mine-DL]. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that from when he actually is in power and Maduro's
gone. I think it's logical.
QUESTION: So then he really isn't interim president, then?
MR ABRAMS: He is interim president, but he's not --
QUESTION: With no power.
MR ABRAMS: -- able to exercise the powers of the office because Maduro still is there.
Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman
pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position
as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for
declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's
"interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will.
Nearly three months later, Venezuela's top-heavy military remains largely intact under
President Nicolás Maduro. The once-brisk pace of defections to neighboring Colombia
has slowed to a trickle. Fewer than 1,500 Venezuelan soldiers, relieved by the Colombian
government of their weapons and uniforms and housed in sparsely furnished hotel rooms near
the border, now sit waiting for something to happen.
The idea that the Venezuelan army would defect was always crazy. Anyone with a bit of
knowledge of Venezuela could predict that it would never do so. Reports of lonely soldiers
isolated in fourth class hotels in Columbia will not incite any further defections. While the
random opposition guy promised amnesty for any soldier moving to his site, the U.S. seeks to
arrest one of the few who did:
Venezuela's longtime spy chief was arrested Friday in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a
U.S. drug warrant a few weeks after he threw his support behind opponents of President
Nicolas Maduro.
...
The opposition saw Carvajal's criticism of Venezuela's socialist government as a stimulus to
prod other military figures to defect, but the country's armed forces have remained largely
loyal to current Maduro.
With the situation stalled the U.S. is ramping up talk of a military attack on
Venezuela:
EXCLUSIVE: Away from the public eye, the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) think tank hosted a top-level, off-the-record meeting to explore US military options
against Venezuela.
Such talks are poor attempts to create some psychological pressure. There are no sound
military options. The U.S. is not going to invade Venezuela. It will ramp up sanctions and
press its 'allies' to do the same. Venezuela and its people will suffer but they will not give
up on resisting U.S. pressure. The current situation will only resolve itself when the regime
in Washington or in one of Venezuela's neighboring countries changes.
"... While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons: ..."
"... First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become unavoidable. She has after all been caught red handed behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many decades ago. ..."
"... On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February 2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress' president Paul Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe. ..."
"... Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for said overthrow. ..."
"... Canada itself was infiltrated by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although not the one you think. ..."
"... It is from this cybernetics central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic system is coordinated under the directives of London. ..."
In the midst of one of the
most de-stabilizing scandals to rock Canada in years, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland
announced on April
5 that the threat of "Foreign interference" going into the October 2019 elections was at an all-time high. Sitting beside her UK
counterpart at a G7 meeting in France, Freeland stated:
"Interference is very likely and we think there have already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy"
. Her warning was echoed by an embattled puppet Prime Minister in Ottawa who
stated it is "very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns that have turned our politics
even more divisive and more anger-filled than they have been in the past. "
The Measures to Defend the British Deep State
In order to counteract this "foreign threat", several Canadian mechanisms have been announced to "keep democracy safe" in alignment
with the G7, Five Eyes and NATO. These mechanisms are:
The creation of an " Incident
Public Protection Panel " run by five Privy Council bureaucrats under the Clerk of the Privy Council which will exist outside
of the authority of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, whose job is to maintain the integrity of elections. In defense of this
mysterious group, Canada's Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould stated that "it won't be one person who will decide what
Canadians will be allowed to know" (apparently having five people decide is more democratic). The new Clerk of the Privy Council
is Ian Stugart, who served as former deputy minister to Chrystia Freeland until just a few weeks ago.
A
Security and Intelligence Election Threats Task Force which will incorporate all of Canada's intelligence agencies such as the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Freeland's Global Affairs Canada.
All of these agencies are Privy Council organizations.
The Rapid
Response Mechanism of the G7 created in June 2018 and headquartered in Ottawa Canada in Freeland's Global Affairs Office and
Privy Council Office.
While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm
by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons:
First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become
unavoidable. She has after all been
caught red handed
behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act
this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many
decades ago.
Chrystia Freeland: Regime Change Princess of Ukraine and Venezuela
On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February
2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as
a
Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself
not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress'
president Paul
Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe.
Working alongside fellow Oxford operative Ben Rowswell (now head of the Canadian International Council/ Chatham House of Canada)
during his three year tenure as Ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017), Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved
a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for
said overthrow.
Rowswell's on-the-ground work was designed to achieve the former as he himself admitted in
a 2017 interview saying "We became one of the
most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out" . Before leaving his post to
become the head of the Chatham House of Canada,
he tweeted "I don't think they (anti-Maduro forces) have anything to worry about because Minister Freeland has Venezuela way
at the top of her priority list" .
Working on fulfilling the 2nd part of the formula, Freeland directed the creation of the "Lima Group". A
Global News article of
January 24 described the group in the following terms:
"Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido
the night before Maduro's swearing-in ceremony to offer her government's support should he confront the socialist leader".
It shouldn't be too surprising in our day and age that a nation with such a high reputation as "polite Canada" is actuality, an
active agency for regime change and global governance. Canada's very Prime Minister
did assert in 2016 that
"Canada is the world's first post national-state nation" . What may surprise some readers is that Canada itself was infiltrated
by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state
nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although
not the one you think.
The "Foreign Influence" Controlling Canada
While a longer presentation is needed to do this story justice, it is enough to note for now that neither Freeland, nor Rowswell
are operating on behalf of Canada's interests, but are rather both operatives run by an entity that took over Canada many decades
ago and are currently directed by two interlocking organizations: The Privy Council Office and the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Group
.
The Privy Council Office
The Privy Council office was set up in 1867 in order to act as the British hand guiding its newly formed confederacy (Canada nearly
became a part of Lincoln's America in the wake of the Civil War. The only thing stopping that outcome was Britain's creation of a
confederation. The full story is told in the
Imperial Myth of Canada's National
Policy. ). While its power was always great, there was still room for independent policy making by nationalistic elected officials
when the international conditions were favorable.
This was nearly entirely destroyed during the reign of technocratic golden boy Pierre Elliott Trudeau during his
1968-1973 reform of the Federal Government
under the guidance of the OECD's
Sir Alexander King. It was during this time Sir King's Club of Rome (Ottawa branch) was set up in Ottawa under the guidance of
Trudeau and his clerk of the Privy Council Michael Pitfield, and other neo-Malthusian technocrats such as Privy Council President
Michel Lamontagne, Maurice Strong, and Governor General Roland Mitchener.
It was from this control point in Ottawa in 1971 that the work later to become known as Limits to Growth was funded by tax payers
and which became the bible for the new Malthusianism and blueprint for the "post-industrial society". It is from this cybernetics
central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic
system is coordinated under the directives of London.
this whole world wide medeling thing after our govs have been unashamedly meddling everywhere for years , it just shows thier
fear, they are loosing thier populaces and looking for scapegoats, i love it, times are changing
...will Canada follow suit in order to become a true sovereign nation freed of all foreign imperial influence once and for
all?
Ha ha (Bart Simpson style). Canada has, and will always be, a British-USA vassal-state (with a veneer of democratic elections).
Washington tells the Ottawa government to jump! After asking permission from the UK, Canada negotiates with America as to how
high - since the country is technically insolvent there isn't that much jumping room.
Russia is charged with bringing things in the open, to the light, instead of letting creatures of the dark skulk in shadows,
plotting, backstabbing, poisoning and conducting their "business" as usual. Because apparently democracy flourishes in darkness
and ignorance...
This slur "authoritarian state" is now peddled by neocons as synonym for the "countries we do not like"
This neocons in not very inventive... We already saw this line from Robert Kagan, who
actually is a better writer. This neocon/neolib pressitute can't even use proper terms such as
"neoliberalism" and "Washington consensus"
And slide to far-right nationalism and neo-fascism is direct result of neoliberalism
dominance for the last 40 years (since Carter) and sliding of the standard of living of workers
and the middle class.
Notable quotes:
"... Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world. ..."
As international rivalry intensifies, the core strategic task for the U.S.-led democratic
community is to contain the geopolitical influence and political disruption caused by
authoritarian great powers, namely China and Russia. Yet that task is made all the harder
because illiberalism -- and sympathy for those illiberal powers -- is simultaneously surging
among key actors on the political right. If the U.S. and its allies are to succeed in the great
global rivalry of the 21st century, the right must confront the threat of illiberalism within
its ranks -- just as the left did during a previous twilight struggle in the 20th century.
... ... ...
This time, the threat is not expansionist communism, but a combination of autocracy and
geopolitical revisionism. China has been moving toward a dystopian future of high-tech
authoritarianism, as it pushes for greater power and influence overseas. Putin's Russia has
consolidated an illiberal oligarchy, while using information warfare, political meddling and
other tools to subvert liberal democracies in Europe, the U.S. and beyond.
Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western
values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world.
... ... ...
It is not for nothing that the political scientist Marc Plattner has
written that the gravest threat to liberal democracy today is “that it will end up
being abandoned by substantial segments of the right.” And even in the U.S., there are
alarming signs that conservative commitment to the norms of liberal democracy is under
strain.
Communism was not a threat, but actually benefited the world in many ways.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair share of wealth and
income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed, capitalism returned to its avaricious roots,
resulting in stagnant wages for the working class. And the pauperization of the working class
in recent decades is the cause for the current revolt against liberal capitalism.
So it was the competition from communism that was helping capitalism to stay healthy. Without
it capitalism has degenerated into a Dickensian dystopia. We should therefore welcome any
alternative socio-economic models to liberal capitalism.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair
share of wealth and income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed,
capitalism returned to
Thats a great point Che.
I have never ever looked at it from that angle.
Interesting.
Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, who has long been a leading conservative
intellectual, warns that this disillusion with liberal democracy “is clearly present
among American conservatives, and not just among the ‘alt-right.’
Honest and real conservatives are far and fewer in today's MAGA/tea party infested GOP.
Forget career politicians like Ted Cruz or McConnell, even the previously decent conservative
think tanks/pundits like from NR or Erik Erickson or others have all given up on any
principles and just bow at the altar of Trump now.
No they haven’t, Trump decided to put McConnell in charge so of course the
#neverTrumpers like the McConnell presidency...which consists of appointing Republican judges
at record pace and little else.
The biggest need is to resist holy warriors like Hal Brands who want to destroy the world
if it resists their version of revealed truth. They are the biggest threat to the human
future. The United States has to learn to live in a world that it cannot control. The
American goal should be to work towards a constructive human future not some kind of holy war
to impose American control on the rest of the world. The United States is the biggest
military spender. In recent history, It has been the world's global aggressor.
It has an
history of wars that have made little difference whether America won or lost them. Perhaps
the United States could succeed with some kind of genocide that wiped out all of the parts of
the world that refuse to accept American supremacy. But, short of that kind of disgrace, the
United States is not going to succeed in achieving any meaningful goal through war. As long
as America does not destroy the world, the future is going to be determined by economic
competition and the destinies that the people of different parts of the world choose for
themselves.
I had wondered if it was noticed the Liberalism was dying. The world has turned hard
right, with all the anger, nationalism, do-as-I-say, and social intolerance.
I don't even the children of today.
I might suggest that liberals themselves are destroying their freedoms with illogical
illiberal liberalism.
YOU can't do that, say that, act like that, think like that...no no no...we must act and
be correct, nice, polite, all forgiving and never critical.
Huh?
The freedoms that so many of us marched for, fought for, voted for, sang about (thank gawd
the music still lives), got bloody for, even died for, are slipping away quicker than you can
say me, me, me...it's all about me.
Maybe...small maybe...our youth can once again awaken America and the world's conscience.
Maybe? Maybe not!
Wha? It seems our LIttle Cultural Revolution is just warming up. Wait till AOC et al are
all growed up.
"This is a moment when the “free world” needs to be strong and united."
Is this the same "free" world that jails grandmothers over contested historical views?
That has reneged on free speech?
Thanks to a truly ethnomasochistic immigration policy, I assure you that this will not
happen. The West will be lucky if squeaks through this period without a civil war.
remove Share link Copy Trump would have been better off Tweeting something like...
"The safety of the flying public worldwide is of the utmost importance to all of us. I have
been in constant contact with Boeings CEO and have complete confidence that the improvements
they are making will make the 737MAX one of the safest planes ever built. No 737 MAX will take
to the skies that I would not put my own family member on".
See the problem with the max is it will never be safe. What boeing did was try and put a
square peg in a round hole. To save costs both in certification and pilot training boeing
decided to just take the 737 airframe and put bigger more fuel efficient engines on it so
they wouldn't loose market share to airbus. That was a stupid mistake. The bigger engines
hung so low they had to mount them higher and more forward thus creating aerodynamic issues.
The new engine mounting causes air flow disruption over the inner wing during climb out. That
is why they messed with the mcas. You cannot break the laws of physics and then fix them with
software. Sorry that will never work.
Boeing is still delivering the 73NG and should make an offer to the airlines to replace
each MAX order 1 for 1 with a 737-800 or -900 at cost. The traveling public will have
immediate confidence, the airlines can fill schedules, and Boeing can clean house on the MAX
"leadership" team.
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez-if elected–sticks to her principles
or succumbs to the shekel storm headed her way.
Radical Jews of the Hasidic type are also acting thuggish on American streets, like in
Brooklyn where they committed assault, battery and kidnapping on a bicyclist.
These kind of fanatics are growing in numbers all over the USA.
If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for
POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH.
let the US give itself back to the Indians, and then ask Israel to act the same way
Give the US back to the amerindians! Give Aus back to the abos! This does not work; it's
called 'moral relativism' and/or the 'tu quoque' [appeal to hypocrisy] fallacy.
Then ask Israel to act err, hello? Israel has been 'asked,' over 100 times by some
counts, to 'get legal' under UN resolutions. Israel is an outlaw.
Kindly consider the I/J/Z-plex's 10 steps to utter, criminal ignominy:
Herzl; coveting, expropriation (1897+)
Balfour; aid Zs, no consult Ps
Jabotinsky; colonise by force
Ben-Gurion: "we are the attackers and the Arabs own the land" [points 1 - 4 all
pre-WW2]
UNGA181: "an area shall be evacuated" (invalid + no UNSC action = not law)
Meir; $US50mio for arms + Plan Dalet&Co = premeditated, murdering to steal
aggression
When immigrants (=aliens) attack natives, it's *not* civil war but Nuremberg-class
crime
Z-terrorism; down to today; alien invaders' highest-tech vs. besieged & blockaded,
basically unarmed natives
US-support incl. UNSC vetoes; also down to 'current moment'
Z-hasbarah = mostly lies, designed and deployed to deceive
More: Post-WW2, Nuremberg trials, hanging perpetrators for murdering invasions for
Lebensraum predate King David Hotel bombing, Plan Dalet with outrages like the Deir
Yassin massacre, etc.. Similar outrages continue to be perpetrated by the illegitimate
entity, into 'the current moment.'
Lemma: At any crime-scene, there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories,
apologists and/or 'idle' bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a)
restrain malefactors and where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in
active resistance to the crime attract proportional guilt.
Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes him/herself an accessory, like all
residents in the 'illegitimate entity,' say.
Also post WW2, we got the post-colonial era; the illegitimate entity fulfils the
'premeditated supreme international crime' criteria. RoR+R*3 NOW! QED
PS Showing 'support' for criminals adopts part guilt for those criminals' crimes via the
accessory process; why would anyone in their 'right' = correct mind do that?
If a nuclear device is "lit off" in an American or European city, it will have Israel's
fingerprints all over it. Israel is desperate to keep the American money spigot running, as
well as sabotaging the Palestinian "peace process" that the world wants it to take seriously.
In fact, if a nuclear device is "lit off" anywhere in the world, it will have come from
Israel's secret nuclear "stockpile".
The "power outage" in Atlanta was a convenient excuse for Israel to perform a logistical
"sleight of hand", as an Israeli plane was allowed to land and take off during the "power
outage" without receiving customs clearance or inspection. This is one of many Israeli
companies that possesses a "special exemption" granted by the U S government that frees it
from customs inspections. Just maybe another one of Israel's nukes was just being
pre-positioned or nuclear triggers (tritium) were being renewed, getting ready for "the big
one". As most Americans are tired of all of the foreign wars being fought for Israel's
benefit, another "incident" on American soil would be enough to galvanize the American
public, once again, (just like WTC 9-11) to support another war for Israel's benefit.
Israel's "samson option" is a real threat to "light one off" in a European or American city,
if Israel's interests are not taken seriously.
Israel refuses to abide by IAEA guidelines concerning its nukes as they are already
distributed around the world. Israel would not be able to produce all of them as most of them
are not in Israel, proper. No delivery systems are needed as Israel's nukes are already "in
place". Look for another "false flag" operation with the blame being put on Iran or Syria.
You can bet that some Iranian or Syrian passports will be found in the rubble.
Israel also threatens to detonate nuclear devices in several US cities. Talk about total
INSANITY; the so-called "Samson Option" is it.
As an aside, American "foreign aid" is prohibited from being given to any country that has
not signed the "Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty" or refuses to abide by "International
Atomic Energy Agency" (IAEA) guidelines regarding its nuclear devices. Guess what?? Israel
does not abide by EITHER and still gets the majority of American "foreign aid". This
prohibition also applies to countries that do not register their "agents of a foreign
government" with the U S State Department. Guess what?? Israel (again) with its "American
Israel Political Action Committee" (AIPAC) still gets "foreign aid" in contravention of
American law..
There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy "wonks"
infecting the U S government who hold "dual citizenship" with Israel. Such dual citizenship
must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said
foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of
American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed
to serve in any American governmental capacity.
When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians
slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel just
who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the interests of the American people and the
United States they should renounce their United States citizenship and be deported to
Israel
Giraldi is here-unlike in most of his regularly anti-Semitic texts- right about one crucial
thing: American Gentile cow-towing to (real or imagined) Jewish power in the US, as
illustrated by absurd Baron Cohen's episode.
However, I don't blame most of US Jews for that. Jewish ethnocentrists are to be suspect,
sure, but the main question for US gentile politicians & public figures remains: why are
you such suckers, anyway?
Between Jessica at #23, and Anon at #45 lay two paramount pieces of instruction which Phil
Giraldi ought to heed.
Ordinary Jews are no more required to register their objections over AIPAC's actions than
are Christians over the actions of their top leaders including the POTUS, domestic MIC
lobbies, the Gun Lobby and the Oil lobby; no more that is, beyond what each citizen expresses
through her vote. Individuals may choose; to go beyond, into political activism; yet
choice is the operative notion.
And no, Geokat, Power isn't listening to Phil over the sound of crickets for the simple
reason that Power does not read the UR, couldn't care less if they did, as the Review quite
rapidly degenerates to the station of an unrelenting hate rag frequented by dubious IQ
cultists, antisemites and White Nationalism apologists.
"Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it (Israel) had
considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with
Washington."
And according to Jimmy Carter Israeli intelligence had advance information of the suicide
attack on the US barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 243 US servicemen (one of whom was a
member of my family). The Israelis decided to not inform US intelligence in the hope that a
major attack on US personnel would precipitate a commitment of US troops and arms into the
region. So much for our Israeli "ally".
You are, of course, correct that the US committed either genocide or near-genocide
(depending on your definition of the term) against Native Americans. However, NOW, in the
21st century, any Native American who is a US citizen is free to buy property in any part of
America and live where he chooses. Native Americans are no longer confined to reservations.
While poverty is a fact of life for many Native Americans, some tribes have profited
substantially from gambling. In Florida, Seminoles may receive upward of 40,000 a year (each
man, woman, and child) as their share of the gambling revenues. They can certainly afford to
buy property just about anywhere.
(Note that I am not denying that much discrimination and inequality still persist and that
most reservations with gambling offer very little to tribal members.)
In Israel, however, Palestinians cannot return to their home towns and buy property. They
are not free to live where they choose. Many are still confined to refugee camps. Housing
discrimination continues to persist for Israeli Arabs. Yes, the High Court ruled it illegal,
but few remedies are in place, which means the practice continues largely unabated.
If you want to use historical analogies, I believe you should use them in full.
Cohen's performance is instructive. A man shows up in Israeli uniform, claims to be a
terrorism expert or even a Mossad agent, and he gains access to powerful Americans who are
willing to do anything he says.
It is very telling about the human material on the right in America. Complete morons. Now
think about it. It was a prank, right? But I can imagine that real negotiations with Israelis
are very similar and produce similar positive outcomes for Israelis. Israelis play Americans
anyway they want on all levels of federal and local administrations. They have the same
attitude towards Americans as Jack Abramoff had towards his counterparts at Indian
reservations. Why shouldn't they? It works.
he called his Indian clients "troglodytes" and "morons" and "monkeys," "the stupidest
idiots in the land." In one particularly damning e-mail he counseled Scanlon, "The key
thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the
annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so
quickly . So, we have to put up with this stuff."
At best American are annoying losers who part with their money quickly.
Mr. Giraldi, why do you bother with your articles? You still have illusions that you can
educate the monkeys?
It smacks of supremacism, doesn't it? It means the US must favor Zionist occupiers in West
Bank over Palestinians, the very people who are being occupied.
It means the US must favor Israel, a nation that stole uranium from US and has 300 nukes,
over Iran, a nation that passed all inspections and has no nukes.
This special relationship is a form of worship. It is never discussed rationally
WHY Israel is so crucial to us. Instead, politicians and pundits gush about it with fanatical
devotion, as if it's a sacred truth. Anyone who questions it even slightly is marginalized or
destroyed. Some might Giraldi has been too strident, but even mild criticism of Israel or
Zionism can get you banned from media or politics.
I find it odd that Jews always remind us that Old America was 'racist' because it favored
Europeans over non-whites, especially in immigration and foreign policy. After all, the US
often sided with European imperialists over non-white subjects of colonialism.
In New America, there is supposed to no Special Treatment for any group, but Jews and
Israel get it all the time. In asylum(Save Soviet Jews), in immigration, in college
admission, in foreign policy -- not just in supporting Israel at every turn but in waging
Wars for Israel and hating on any nation hated by Jews, esp Russia, Iran, and Syria.
While secular "cultural nationalism" is probably essential to the survival of the nation, far right nationalism is a
cancer.
There is a vicious spiral: Israel actions, which are essentially American-style colonization of the territory, radicalize
Palestinians, and their actions in turn radicalize Jews feeling far right nationalism.
The early Zionists were mostly atheist. Zionists quoting the Bible for legitimacy of their land claims I'd take with a pinch of
salt regarding their sincerity.
Notable quotes:
"... "No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me." ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs ..."
"... As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West. ..."
One paragraph in particular in the
article I read was highly suggestive, the claim that Ocasio-Cortez had been strongly opposed to the
Israelis' routine slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, which has by now become of such little import that it
is not even reported any more in the U.S. media. She is also allegedly a supporter of the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS), which pressures Israel to end its theft and occupation of
Palestinian land. The article expressed some surprise that anyone in New York City would dare to say
anything unpleasant about Israel and still expect to get elected.
This is what Ocasio-Cortez, who called the shooting of more than 130
Gazans a "massacre," actually
said
and
wrote
:
"No state or entity is absolved of
mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity,
as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak
out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if
60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed
to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me."
Five hours later, when I arrived home in
Virginia I went to pull up
the article
I had read in the morning to possibly use it in a piece of my own and was somewhat surprised
to discover that the bit about Israel had been excised from the text. It was clearly yet another example of
how the media self-censors when there is anything negative to say about Israel and it underlines the
significance of the emergence of recent international media reporting
in The Guardian
and elsewhere regarding how Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson largely dictates U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East. That means that the conspiracy of silence over Israel's manipulation of
the United States government is beginning to break down and journalists have become bold enough to challenge
what occurs when pro-Israel Jews obtain real power over the political process. Adelson, for what it's worth,
wants war with Iran and has even suggested detonating a nuclear device on its soil to "send a message."
I personally would have liked to see
Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by
a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes
to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being
played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans.
The question of the relationship with
Israel comes at a time when everyone in America, so it seems, is concerned about children being separated
from their parents who have illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. The concern is
legitimate given the coarse and sometimes violent justifications coming out of the White House, but it's a
funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium. When a
Jewish fanatic/Israel settler kills Palestinian children and is protected by his government in so doing,
where is the outrage in the U.S. media? Settlers and soldiers kill Palestinians, young and old, with
impunity and are almost never punished. They destroy their orchards and livestock to eliminate their
livelihoods to drive them out. They bulldoze their homes and villages. The Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency does none of that and is yet subject to nonstop abuse in the mainstream media, so what
about Israel?
A recent story illustrates just how
horrible the Israelis can be without any pushback whatsoever coming from Washington objecting to their
behavior. As the United States is the only force that can in any way compel Israel to come to its senses and
chooses not to do so, that makes U.S. policymakers and by extension the American people complicit in
Israel's crimes.
The particularly horrible
recent account
that I am referring to describes how fanatical Jewish settlers burned alive a Palestinian
family on the West Bank, including a baby, and then celebrated the deaths while taunting the victims'
surviving family when they subsequently appeared in court. The story was covered in Israel and Europe but
insofar as I could determine did not appear in any detail in the U.S. mainstream media.
Israeli Jewish settlers carried out
their shameful deed outside a court in the city of Lod,
chanting
"'Ali was burned, where is Ali? There is no Ali. Ali is burned. On the fire. Ali is on the
grill!" referring to the 18-month old baby Ali Dawabsheh, who was
burnt alive
in 2015 by Jewish settlers hurling Molotov cocktails into a house in the West Bank town of
Duma. Ali's mother Riham and father Saad also died of their burns and were included in the chanting "Where
is Ali? Where is Riham? Where is Saad? It's too bad Ahmed didn't burn as well." Five year-old Ahmed, who
alone survived the attack with severe burns, will have scars for the rest of his life.
The settlers were taunting Ali's
grandfather Hussein Dawabsheh, who accompanied Ahmed, at a preliminary hearing where the court
indicted
a man who confessed to the murders and a minor who acted as an accomplice. A video of the
chanting shows Israeli policemen standing by and doing nothing. The court appearance also revealed that
there have been another Molotov cocktail attack by settlers on another Dawabsheh family house in May that
may have been an attempt to silence testimony relating to the first attack. Fortunately, the family managed
to escape.
And by all accounts this outrage was
not the first incident in which the burning of the Palestinian baby was celebrated. A December 15
th
wedding video
showed
settlers engaged in an uproarious party that featured dances with Molotov cocktails and waving
knives and guns. A photo of baby Ali was on display and was repeatedly stabbed. A year later, 13 people from
what became known as the "murder wedding" were
indicted
for incitement to terrorism, but as of today no one has actually been punished. Israelis who
kill Arabs are rarely indicted or tried. If it is a soldier or policeman that is involved, which occurs all
too often, the penalty is frequently either nothing at all a slap on the wrist. Indeed, the snipers who
fired on Gazans recently were actually ordered to shoot the unarmed civilians and directed to take out
anyone who appeared to be a "leader," which included medical personnel.
The Trump Administration could, of
course, stop the Israeli brutality if it chooses to do so, but it does not think Benjamin Netanyahu's crimes
against humanity are on the agenda. Nor did Clinton, Bush and Obama dare to confront the power of Israel's
lobby, though Obama tried a little pushback in a feeble way.
Someone in Washington should be asking
why the United States should be fighting unnecessary wars and becoming an international pariah defending a
country and people that believe they are "chosen" by God? One can only hope that the shift in perceptions on
the Middle East by liberal Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez has some legs and will lead to some real change in
U.S. foreign policy. To succeed the liberal Democrats will need to push against some formidable obstacles
within their own party, most notably the Clinton wing and people like Senator Chuck Schumer, Minority leader
in the Senate, who describes himself as Israel's "shomer" or defender in the Upper House. Perhaps someone on
the
New York Times
editorial board should publicly suggest to Schumer that he go and run for office
in Israel since he seems to prefer it to the country that has made him rich and powerful. But of course, the
Times
and all the other mainstream media, which is responsible for what we are not allowed to know
about Israel and its American mouthpieces, will never entertain that suggestion or anything like it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is
Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation
that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
[email protected].
I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where
conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which
has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs
Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson
are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.
The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately
extremely
high given the much higher
rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world.
As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't that seem
like the most humane way to
deal
with it? What does Giraldi suggest they do?
I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with this
type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them. I prefer that America follow the example
of Matteo Salvini. Giraldi prefers 'abolish borders' Cortez. Indeed, he'd like her to "go a lot farther".
Washington is not spineless. Washington is bought and paid for. In America, the general rule is that money
rules, and the people (and their political representatives!) follow.
" I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and
killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes."
Only 60? We really have become a nation of p
*****
s. If we're going to be an empire that
pushes the rest of the world around, we need to act like one. The Byzantine General Belisaurius, under
Justinian I, put down the Nika riots by killing as many as 30,000 people, and the Byzantine empire went on for
another 900 years. If we dither over 60 people, we won't last another 50 years.
As for the Israelis, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction, but given the number of nukes they
are reputed to have and the global reach they seem to have, they are going to take the rest of us with them if
the US simply walks away from them and leaves them on their own.
As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining
the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good
job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West.
That crazed looking group of young fanatical Zionists taunting a Palestinian mother and child is a classic. ZOG
has got to be defeated!
However , speaking of that 'Latina' who beat a political hack in Queens and the Bronx, she's already started to
edit some of her internet posts. She knows who rules and will get in line with the 'mainstream' Zionist party
line. She's also an 'open borders' radical which doesn't sit well with the likes of me and most Americans.
She's also a 'Bronx girl' by way of suburban Westchester county, lol. As phony as phony gets.
The verse in question was specifically regarding the
church
in Jerusalem. In other words, financial help
by gentile believers for Jewish followers of Jesus who were impoverished at that time.
It is not to be
interpreted as a general charity for Jews, most of whom are hostile to Christianity both then and today. Bible
verses have to be read within the context of the surrounding text.
Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country.
Better yet to be a Jewish minority in any place but Israel.
It's weird how the vast majority of Jews themselves can't be persuaded into moving to Israel, but would
rather be a minority elsewhere. Why is that so? Not so great a place as you purport?
The total number of people who hold or are eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return is
estimated at around 23 million, of which 6.6 million were living in Israel as of 2015. wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country
Well, where do the people get their ideas anyway? The mass media.
In Germany there was recently a bad case of antisemitism which was reported widely in the media. A large
newspaper had a long article telling how a Jewish pupil in an elite school in Berlin was harassed or bullyed
for months and that the school didn't do enough to protect him. It's a school to which the sons of ambassators,
of diplomatic personal and of the international high class community in Berlin go. The article brought many
details about the case: how they told the pupil that Ausschwitz wasn't far away (or something similar) and so
on. The case even came in the television news of the main German channel (I only watched the late news, but I
think that the case also came in the absolutely main news of German television at 8 o'clock P.M.). The media
spoke of "antisemitism in Berlin." A pupil was harassed and told a few unpleasant things in a school in Berlin
and this came in the main tv news of the country! The most important weekly magazine had also an article about
"antisemitism in Berlin". At the end of the long article they told something that the other midia hadn't told.
The pupil had been harassed because he favoured the Palestinians! The colleagues who bullyed him were probably
American Jews.
but it's a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same
opprobrium.
Also the intentional starving of children in Yemen. And the huge pile of dead babies in Iraq, Libya and
Syria. All of them murdered by Imperial Washington.
I much prefer President Trump to any of the candidates he defeated in the primaries and general election.
But I regret that he is a Jew.
Newly popular Democratic politician hero and nominee for a seat in the U.S. Congress Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez used to have these words on her website:
A Peace Economy
"Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has entangled itself in war and occupation
throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As of 2018, we are currently involved in military action in
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. According to the Constitution, the right to
declare war belongs to the Legislative body, not the President. Yet, most of these acts of aggression have
never once been voted on by Congress. Alex believes that we must end the forever war by bringing our troops
home and ending the air strikes and bombings that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism and occupation
throughout the world."
Now they're gone. Asked about it on Twitter, she replied:
"Hey! Looking into this. Nothing malicious! Site is supporter-run so things happen -we'll get to the
bottom of it."
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez will/can maintain her position on Israeli crimes. Public figures
have a long history of backpedaling after getting the riot act read to them from the hebrew masters.
"The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots."
Correction. They're unrepentant
murderers, empowered by disgusting zealots tolerated (if not pampered) by Likud.
"But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on"
The 'they do it too' defense? So what? How many F-35s is the US giving Iraq, Syria, Iran?
Why should Likud conduct be excused by comparing it to those Israel routinely condemns?
"As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't
that seem like the most humane way to deal with it?"
Does "sniping" mean shooting/killing/maiming unarmed people from a safe distance? Without risk to the
sniper?
That's "more humane" than water-cannon, tear gas, and other non-lethal restraint? For the sniper, perhaps,
but for the victim?
Sounds like the same rationalization murderers used at Babi-Yar.
"The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately extremely high given the much higher
rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world."
American media is disproportionately silent in criticism of Likud compared with Israeli media. Why?
"I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with
this type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them."
In other words, Trump should use snipers and live fire on illegal immigrants crossing borders? Wow!
These people used to be called Judeonazis by Hebrew University chemistry professor Israel Shahak and by the
noted "radio rabbi", Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Both predicted that the occupation would be Israel's downfall.
Likely it is the downfall of the Palestinian people and possibly the rest of us. (Note that Israel has nuclear
weapons and its policy of "nishtagea" – pulling down the temple around Sampson-type threat – is meant to
guarantee its hegemony in the region. That suits the US down to the ground, where the oil is.
What are we to expect from a criminal state, founded by international terrorists like Ben Gurion, Begin,
Yitzakh Shamir, etc.?
If it had been Palestinian terrorists who had blown up the King David Hotel, murdered Lord Moyne and Count
Folke Bernadotte, and Jewish women and children in Deir Yassin, you would see monuments to these victims all
over the western world, Hollywood films by the score, and the kvetching from the usual suspects would only have
been amplified over time. If it had been Palestinian terrorists who concocted the Lavon Affair false flag plan,
or Palestinian naval and air forces which attacked an American naval vessel in broad daylight, flying a large
American flag and attempted to murder the entire crew, likewise. There would be memorials in Arlington, and all
over the U.S., to the brave crew members and their captain, whose actions saved the vessel. Instead all we get
are crickets chirping.
For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the
Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim.
It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there;
all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own
sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a
university for budding crooks.
How prescient and prophetic these words were, written decades before the founding of the criminal entity in
Palestine! Israel does not serve as a Jewish homeland, it serves as a base of criminal operations, a weapons
depot, and a sanctuary for international fugitives from justice
Now that the Israeli-backed head choppers and liver eaters have been defeated, Syria has returned to the the
multi-confessional, pluralistic paradise it always was when compared with the abomination West of the Jordan
River. Before the establishment of the Zionist state, Jews as well as Christians were welcome in Arab states.
Even after 1948, Sephardim did not immediately flock to Israel.
When Ashkenazi Zionists discovered they had created a labor shortage by ethnically cleansing Palestinians,
they embarked on a propaganda and false flag campaign to get Sephardim to migrate to Israel, where many of
those well-educated and formerly wealthy Jews were discriminated against and forced to take menial jobs. The
false flags designed specifically to stampede Jews out of Iraq are well documented, so don't lie about it,
Tyrion. Jews were among the wealthiest of Iraqis, and had little organic reason to emigrate. The propaganda of
Arab governments expelling the Sephardim is largely false.
The racist, European (white) supremacist narrative (what Edward Said called "Orientalism") that Arabs and
Muslims are always killing each other and Europe must intervene for humanitarian reasons is actively cultivated
by Israel in order to justify its own ethno-supremacist society. That's why Israel encourages Wahhabi terrorism
emanating from the Gulf.
Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson
are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.
The minority groups in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, would laugh at you and the Jew of Iran prefer Iran to
Israel. These sorts of lunatics, without Israeli, West interference, are rare in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.
Israel is dominated by disgusting zealots. Israel is a zealot state of zealots.
Why I am all for wire tapping and all other spying by the CIA and FBI ...get all the uber Jews
and all the politicians and make it public.
Would be delighted if all the news channels did nothing but play the tapes on the daily news.
Following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New
York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times
and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.
(sample)
HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in
real trouble? He's been there forever. . .
DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I
can't believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood,
and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary
of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know
they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear . .
.
HK: Right.
DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in
foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people
don't even know about .
HK: Such as?
DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going
to give to Israel; $200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in
Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put them in the global warning protection system; so when
if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced notification that the U.S., is
notified, joint military exercises -- I've got a whole shopping list of things .
By the "reasoning" of the likes of Noam Chomsky, for the countries in which U.S.
presidents meddled, the default setting was a state of affairs that tended towards long-term
stability, peace and prosperity.
@wayfarer Good share wayfarer. January 10, 2014 *500* Years of History Shows that Mass
Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent *It's Never to Protect Us From Bad Guys*
No matter which government conducts mass surveillance, they also do it to crush dissent,
and then give a false rationale for why they're doing it.
" it seems the usa is no longer willing to go full on.."
What is being missed by most is that we entered a new era March 2018 when Putin unveiled
his new toys. The u.s. is no longer the presumed supreme military power on the planet. Of
course they will not not admit this, but I believe we are approaching the moment when the
U.S. will be told to stand down or suffer the consequences, whether it be in Syria, Venezuela
or Ukraine.
"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought
to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing
our country's development: Everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has
already happened," he said. "You have failed to contain Russia."
"No one listened to us then. So listen to us now," Putin said to thunderous applause in
the speech, which was held at a venue just outside the Kremlin and televised live
nationwide.
The pentagon has admitted it has no defense against those hypersonic missiles.
"If that happens, what kind of defense do we have against the hypersonic threat?"
Inhofe asked.
Hyten replied, "We have a very difficult -- well, our defense is our deterrent
capability. We don't have any defense that could deny theemployment of such a weapon against
us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear
capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat."
Putin has quite clearly stated the what the Russian response will be should the U.S.
resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
"Only when we know for certain – and this takes a few seconds to understand
– that Russia is being attacked we will deliver a counter strike. This would be a
reciprocal counter strike. Why do I say 'counter'? Because we will counter missiles flying
towards us by sending a missile in the direction of an aggressor. Of course, this amounts to
a global catastrophe but I would like to repeat that we cannot be the initiators of such a
catastrophe because we have no provision for a pre-emptive strike. Yes, it looks like we are
sitting on our hands and waiting until someone uses nuclear weapons against us. Well, yes,
this is what it is. But then any aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable and
they will be annihilated. And we as the victims of an aggression, we as martyrs would go to
paradise while they will simply perish because they won't even have time to repent their
sins. "
Russia is not going to allow the U.S. to destroy Venezuela, Iran, Syria or Ukraine. It makes
sense because Ru cannot allow the United States and vassals to continually put Ru in the
position of one step forward two steps backs via their destructive policies and I firmly
believe that Putin will not allow the u.s. time to develop counters to their new missiles.
That would be foolish as the u.s. has shown what they are capable of when there is no serious
threat to their military. It will be a world war and the unites states has been pushing hard
to keep its allies on a short tether.
U.S. has been stalemated in Syria, (soon to be ejected) Ukraine is about to fall back into
ru orbit after the elections next week. Venezuela has Russians on the ground. They dare not
go into Iran, because the iron dome is rusty and one direct hit by the foab about 13k
southeast of dimona is going to make a large part of that illegal settlement called israel
uninhabitable .
There is much room for miscalculation, and I believe war is an almost certainty. At the
same time, I think we need a few tens to hundreds of millions to meet their maker as the
human race is only growing more stupid by the minute and eliminating a large portion of the
race will likely extend its survival. Sad but true.
"... Neocon Robert Kaplan is writing In Defense of Empire . Empire is good, he believes, even for those who a ruled by it without having any representation. ..."
"... Hitler's empire was not, of course, simply a continuation of the Habsburg legacy. There were many other factors, not least the persistent envy in German circles after 1919 of the other imperial powers: empire still seemed attractive to those who did not have one, or one large enough, and Mazower shows how Japanese and Italian imperial ambitions meshed with German in trying to divide the world up anew, as it had been divided by European states for four hundred years. The absence of any clear planning or forethought also found Hitler dragging ex-colonial officials back into public life to try to rule Eastern Europe the way they had ruled Africa. ..."
"... Elites who have never worked a day in their lives....never served in the military (right or wrong)....have a one dimensional view of social justice.... ..."
"... The actual kinship of zionism and US-imperialism is based on both israel and the US are settler-societies that never came to be nations. ..."
"... So the USA never became a nation. The settler-state of freedom of private property was directly converted to an empire-state ruled by a corporative elite of oligarchs, military staff and a serfing legion of descendant bureaucratic personnel. ..."
"... This is why amerika had a civil war. The southern elites wanted to continue as always importing African slaves and paying them nothing, while providing the bare minimum for survival as food & shelter. The factory and retail giant owning Northen elites couldn't give a flying fuck about 'the rights of man' they wanted to get richer that is why they went to war. ..."
"... Well, then lets compare the US GDP to Israel's GDP. Sorry, there is no way Israel can dominate the US. Just more dumbing down the "stupid class". ..."
"... The Ziocon Jews Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Leo Strauss were the earlier founders of the so-called neoconservatism movement, and were vehemently opposed to relaxing foreign policy in regards to the Soviet Union and communism in general. ..."
"... In the early nineties the Ziocon torch was passed on to the likes of William Kristol, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. And we all know what followed next...years of endless war. ..."
"... And so Israel was not created by the likes of Herzl, it was created by the force (monetary and military) of British empire, and such creations by the British was not peculiar to middle east and Israel, the British had many other such wonderous feats of crime all over the globe, of which Israel constitutes but a single example! The British did not create Israel because they were in love with the Jews or were obssessed with Jewish nationalism. They did it because it was PROFITABLE. Hegemony is always profitable. And they did in the middle east, what they had done all over the globe to maintain their hegemony and increase their profit. NOTHING MORE. ..."
"... You can blame the British all you want but around the late 50s early 1960s, again, while Kennedy was a rising star and becoming President, Zionists were in charge of their affairs, and the worst crimes of Zionism, the worst unilateral attacks on neighboring countries happened under Zionist sovereignty. Zionist were so in charge of their fiefdom that they started developing nuclear weapons behind Kennedy's back; that's how powerful they were becoming. ..."
"... It's very convenient for you, Arnold, to blame simply "US imperialism", as if it fell out of the sky. It didn't. It was directed by finance capital, which is not an impersonal force but a collection of individual investors, more than a few of whom are interested particularly in Jewish welfare, as they conceive it: that is to say, they want to use Jewish issues, to which the general US public is already well conditioned, to push through an entire program of global domination by force. ..."
Neocon Robert Kaplan is writing
In Defense of Empire
. Empire is good, he believes, even for those who a ruled by it without having any representation. The lunacy of his arguments can
be show best when one substitute the object of his essay:
Throughout history, governance and relative safety have most often been provided by slavery, Western or Eastern. Anarchy reigned
in the interregnums. To wit, the British may have failed in Baghdad, Palestine, and elsewhere, but the larger history of the British
slaveholdership is one of providing a vast armature of stability, fostered by sea and rail communications, where before there
had been demonstrably less stability.
...
But slavery is now seen by global elites as altogether evil, despite slaveholdership having offered the most benign form of
order for thousands of years, keeping the anarchy of ethnic, tribal, and sectarian war bands to a reasonable minimum.
Compared
with slaveholdership, democracy is a new and uncertain phenomenon. Even the two most estimable democracies in modern history,
the United States and Great Britain, were slaveholdership for long periods. "As both a dream and a fact the American slaveholdership
was born before the United States," writes the mid-20th-century historian of westward expansion Bernard DeVoto. Following their
initial settlement, and before their incorporation as states, the western territories were nothing less than slaveholdership possessions
of Washington, D.C. No surprise there: slaveholdership confers a loose and accepted form of sovereignty, occupying a middle ground
between anarchy and full state control.
...
Rome, Parthia, and Hapsburg Austria were great precisely because they gave significant parts of the world a modicum of slavery
order that they would not otherwise have enjoyed. America must presently do likewise, particularly in East Asia, the geographic
heartland of the world economy and the home of American treaty allies.
...
That, I submit, would be a policy direction that internalizes both the drawbacks and the benefits of slaveholdership, not as
it has been conventionally thought of, but as it has actually been practiced throughout history.
It is somewhat frightening that people believing such nonsense have influence in political circles.
In October of 2001, Max Boot wrote a Weekly Standard piece, "
The Case for
American Empire ," that featured perhaps the most representative neoconservative-authored sentence of all time:
Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by
self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets ."
GENERAL PLAN EAST Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe
By Mark Mazower (Allen Lane 2008)
"Hitler's empire was not, of course, simply a continuation of the Habsburg legacy. There were many other factors, not least
the persistent envy in German circles after 1919 of the other imperial powers: empire still seemed attractive to those who did
not have one, or one large enough, and Mazower shows how Japanese and Italian imperial ambitions meshed with German in trying
to divide the world up anew, as it had been divided by European states for four hundred years. The absence of any clear planning
or forethought also found Hitler dragging ex-colonial officials back into public life to try to rule Eastern Europe the way they
had ruled Africa."
isn't he married to Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland?
if it was Kagan , yes, but as already pointed above, it's Robert "how we would fight china" KaPLan... Let's say it's the KK
brotherhood of lunatic warhawks
Racism is not at all a legacy of slavery but a constitutive and sustaining element of the White Supremacy system estab lished
by European power during the centuries of trans-Atlantic enslavement of Black Africans. Hence its extreme resistance to eradication.
Racism is, certainly, not a "residual legacy" in the passive sense of the dead hand of the past. It is not like a motion imparted
to an object by an impulse withdrawn long ago; a motion sustained entirely by inertia. Because it is a constitutive element, it
has been necessary to systematically apply force and fraud to maintain, in mutant forms, this vital pillar of white supremacy.
Accordingly, new forms of "slave trade" and slavery as well as new structures of raci
sm are still being elaborated and justified, even today, as they have been, whenever needed, since the 16th century.
For example, on Nov. 11, 2006, in Philadelphia, at a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade
Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor"
for the parts of Africa
that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West. "Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best
available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable resu
lt of free-market theory," Schmidt told more than 150 attendees.
Schmidt acknowledged that the stewardry program -- which will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa
to own their workers outright-- was similar in many ways
to slavery, but explained that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor relations in industrialized
countries, full stewardry, or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to developing ones.
Elites who have never worked a day in their lives....never served in the military (right or wrong)....have a one dimensional view
of social justice....and on and on...
Anyone else notice the picture that went with the article? Its a picture of a man holding up the world. The same bollocks that people 150 years ago claimed that Great Britain was 'Holding Up The World' by killing Africans and ruling
over India. Such bollocks. The rhetoric of 2 centuries ago is the same rhetoric of today. Nothing ever changes, but people never learn
to see the propaganda for what it is.
Kaplan is Jewish, and it is utterly bizarre
that he can write positively about empire, given that the paradigmatic empire, the Roman one, colonized the area now called Israel,
with the Jews revolting, to which Rome responded by destroying the Temple in Jerusalem, an event which forced Kagan's religion
to be reconstituted, since up until the Temple was destroyed by the Romans, Judaism centered around the Temple.
Kagan seems to be completely unaware of his own heritage, or at least not to care about it: but then why does he start his
piece with a pogrom? This reminds me of something that Putin has said in a
speech :
Today, many nations are revising their moral values and ethical norms, eroding ethnic traditions and differences between peoples
and cultures. Society is now required not only to recognise everyone's right to the freedom of consciousness, political views
and privacy, but also to accept without question the equality of good and evil, strange as it seems, concepts that are opposite
in meaning. This destruction of traditional values from above not only leads to negative consequences for society, but is also
essentially anti-democratic, since it is carried out on the basis of abstract, speculative ideas, contrary to the will of the
majority, which does not accept the changes occurring or the proposed revision of values.
It's symptomatic that certain hasbara troll missed no opportunity to take up strategic position and drop some initial disinfo
in order to block here any inquiry into who really were the masters of the slave trade over centuries ?
Robert kagan or Robert Kaplan both are lunnies and unfortunately, in the past several US administrations, these cooks have risen
to the top. These guys are a product of nazi Germany at its worst where the thinking that the powerful nations have a god given
mission to rule and the rest of the world is here to be slaves to be taken care of.
Not sure how many people caught this, but
the prince of Wales, on a visit to Iraq was filmed during a visit to British troops saying just that. "These people are happy
to have us here to rule them just like we did before".
Neocons are today's version old British imperial superiority which led to the Second World War along with nazi ideology.
Someday we are going to have an overwhelming US neocon administration and this will be the end.
I think this is definitely the direction the neoliberal neocons want to take us -- back to slavery. I was struck by a statement
made by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Thomas Perkins (who created a stir in January with a letter published in the WSJ comparing
the 1% in the U.S. to Jews persecuted by the Nazis during Kristallnacht). In this statement, Perkins is calling for suffrage based
on the total number of tax dollars the voter pays.
Perkins gave a
talk titled "The War on the 1%" last month at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco:
Mr. Perkins' interlocutor, Adam Lashinsky, soon had the frustrated look of a man trying to swim in a vat of molasses.
Mr. Lashinsky pointed out, for instance, that it was ridiculous to equate powerless Jews in the Third Reich with extremely
powerful tech overlords in present-day America.
"No, I think the parallel holds," Mr. Perkins said calmly. For one thing, "If you pay 75 percent of your life's earnings
to the government you are being persecuted."
He had a better plan: "You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar in taxes. later he added, "A million in taxes, you
get a million votes." He said he was kidding about that last part, kind of.
One could argue that Citizens United already creates the dollarocracy system Perkins imagines. Slavery can't be far off.
Personally I think the Neos would be fine with a modified Feudalism: Serfs are easier to control than slaves.
But the difference is minimal and largely rhetorical. Ultimately neither has much freedom.
Anyway, what Perkins was advocating (different amounts of votes depending on wealth) isnt new. Some folks advocated that in
the 1800s.
But its so weird to see a modern person advocating that openly. Thats supposed to be a thing youre only supposed to talk about
behind closed doors. But I guess times are changing and some kind of NeoFeudalism will probably be endorsed publicly by the mainstream
in a few decades.
I personally do not think bush was a neocon. He was a patsy who was manipulated by neocons. He didn't have the brains, the
ability to plot or the vision of these two loonies and the neocon masses that seems to be growing everyday in the US. Bush was
a twit. A neocon administration is what we will see with hitlery Clinton if she is elected. Nothing worse that an intelligent,
motivated, self entered, ambitious neocon to set the road for a PNAC scenario.
But Cheney was a Neocon, and he and Rumsfeld hired the whole PNAC crew and set all that crap in motion. He was also trying
to make up for damned near bankrupting what then became Halliburton. And he succeeded on both counts. There isn't a person in
the US today with any "serious" foreign policy creds who has any business running anything. So our choice next time will be...
bad and worse.
Kaplan effectively believes that the Empire is AngloZionist:
the British had their hands full in Mesopotamia in 1941: given the tendency of the Arab masses toward anti-Western and anti-Zionist
ideologies (a tendency that was itself at least in part a reaction to British dominance)
So maybe I was unfair to the Saker when I said in an earlier thread that I regretted his using this term.
Kaplan/Kagan is an amusing slip, but they're equally insane and the point is well made - that supremacists are a bit too eager
to fall in love with their own bullshit.
"As both a dream and a fact the American slaveholdership was born before the United
States," writes the mid-20th-century historian of westward expansion Bernard DeVoto.
Actually, I think these neocons fail on their on there own terms. I mean that they're actually very poor imperial strategists
even if one accepts the neocon argument that empire is a good thing. If anything, it's the neocons who have no grasp of realpolitik
and who are blinded by an ideology that is far more pro-Israel than pro-American. All the wars they've promoted have been debacles
that have diminished not increased America's standing. Unconditional support for Israel (which earns successive American administrations
only Israeli contempt, never gratitude) and the obsession with punishing and destabilizing Iran totally distorts not only American
Middle East policy but American foreign policy as a whole. Pushing for a new Cold War with Russia creates a powerful enemy where
previously there was none. So for all their seemingly shameless promotion of empire, these people will one day be noted only for
their contribution to American decline.
Robert Kagan is Victoria Nuland's husband no? My question would be how did Ms. Nuland get promoted to Under-Secretary? Hillary
Clinton had to have signed off on that.
" the most benign form of order for thousands of years, keeping the anarchy of ethnic, tribal, and sectarian war bands to a reasonable
minimum"
Am i mistaken? Because I am quite certain sectarian wars have never been worse. Syria, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Rwanda, and DRC.
These countries became mixed at some point. And now they are being torn apart.
Finally, we get to discuss the poisonous, rotten core of Imperial Supremacy and who authored, promotes it and is the main driving
force behind it. Hallelujah! This is exactly where we must begin. Finally, the purpose of all these discussions becomes more defined.
I'm not sure if your error in the author's name was really so bad. Maybe it was meant this way for all to investigate further
, because that is precisely what everyone is failing to do in these discussions on imperial supremacy: to research the authors
of this evil ideological foreign policy and there are many behind it in different arenas: politics, finance, media, lobbies, religious
groups, all honing the message, driving the narrative, driving policy, bribing politicians to push this twisted ideology forward.
Your error, intentional or otherwise was nonetheless so timely and auspicious at a moment in history when we are starting to
see , what evil injustice is being advanced in our name against other nations, and this article falls into our lap in an
almost prophetic manner with such perfect timing as a warning to us all: to look for the root and squash it before it's too late,
because unless we see where it originates, we are powerless. The fact that your error perplexed many here already can only be
a good thing, because it peaks their curiosity: hey, wait a minute; this is not the author, what's going on here? And then
upon further research, they discover two names to familiarize themselves with, and then three, and then a pattern starts to emerge,
and then they go further connecting the dots until they finally get the big picture that: the advancement of imperial supremacy
in this day and age...is most definitely a Zionist-driven operation.
So they have similar names, and are no relation but they're united in the cause of Zionism and the imperial project
that will shelter Zionism permanently.:
This individual, Kaplan, is obviously trying to make the case for imperial supremacy which sets the stage for justifying
the injustice that Zionism has wrought in Israel and that Zionists want to permanently legitimize by any means possible.
These Ziocons will bombard us and the world from left, right and centre with an argument designed for every political persuasion
to justify legitimizing imperial supremacy where Zionism can exist comfortably with permanent impunity and be cleansed of its
ongoing and future crimes.
Now I know I'm going to have fun here separating the chaff from the wheat on this issue. This is a subject that Zionists, whether
liberal (a non-existent creatures in Zionism; because Zionism turns all who embrace it into fascists) or conservative, are irresistably
drawn to and at the same time it's a subject that draws out their duplicitous nature. Those who are secretly with Zionism's goals
will do ANYTHING to steer us off course and prevent us from visualizing the pattern, and if we dare to; they'll hurl their most
convenient slander; A.S.
Thank you for making us aware of this article which lays the foundation for all discussions on what we are witnessing in Ukraine
and the Middle East with advancing imperial supremacy and which hopefully will motivate everyone to further explore the depth
and scope of Zionist involvement in this expanding foreign operation that is evil to its core.
And don't worry, apparently you're not the first to mix up these names and make this fortunate mistake, because in essence,
whether one author is blunt and the other doublespeaks liberal jargon they are united in their cause and we should be aware of
what we're up against to tear their structure down and derail their agenda.
It's great to see others stumble upon the truth that was begging to be found. If not for this timely omen, I might have given
up trying to make everyone see and have started doubting even the sound of my own fury.
Who set these wheel in motion Robert Kagan and William Kristol or Dick and Rummy? Come on...the authors of the PLAN of course.
Sure Cheney's a lunatic, but even he couldn't come up with this. Cheney's part of the muscle.
We've been fighting this fight, Kalithea, for a long time now, every way we can. So you'll not find me defending a one of them.
But the wheels were set in motion before any of us were born, and I'm an old woman now. We're "just" dealing with the current
crop, and hopefully we'll somehow succeed before there's no Palestine, Palestinians or olive trees left. Or Syrians, or Iraqis,
or Ukrainians, or... Just don't think for a minute that these monsters were not, and are not, encouraged and enabled by non-Jews,
low and high, who share the same damned values even if they don't personally give a crap about Israel or its "chosen". And they've
ALL got to be stopped.
This is from a 2004 article by Uri Avnery at Counterpunch:
The "oligarchs" are a tiny group of entrepreneurs who exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the treasures
of the state and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. In order to safeguard the perpetuation of their
business, they took control of the state. Six out of the seven are Jews.
In the first years of post-Soviet Russian capitalism they were the bold and nimble ones who knew how to exploit the economic
anarchy in order to acquire enormous possessions for a hundredth or a thousandth of their value: oil, natural gas, nickel and
other minerals. They used every possible trick, including cheating, bribery and murder. Every one of them had a small private
army.
But the most intriguing part of the series recounts the way they took control of the political apparatus. After a period
of fighting each other, they decided that it would be more profitable for them to cooperate in order to take over the state.
At the time, President Boris Yeltsin was in a steep decline. On the eve of the new elections for the presidency, his rating
in public opinion polls stood at 4%. He was an alcoholic with a severe heart disease, working about two hours a day. The state
was, in practice, ruled by his bodyguard and his daughter; corruption was the order of the day.
The oligarchs decided to take power through him. They had almost unlimited funds, control of all TV channels and most of
the other media.
Vladimir Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of the media, put one of the oligarchs
(Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel, another,
Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be hiding here.
George W. Bush and John Kerry both brag about their talent for raising enormous sums of money. From whom? From pensioners?
From the mythical "old lady in tennis shoes"? Of course not, but from the cabals of billionaires, the giant corporations and
powerful lobbies (arms dealers, Jewish organiztions, doctors, lawyers and such). Many of them give money to both candidates–just
to be on the safe side.
All of these expect, of course, to receive a generous bonus when their candidate is elected. "There is no such thing as
a free lunch", as the right-wing economist Milton Friedman wrote. As in Russia, every dollar (or ruble) invested wisely in
an election will yield a ten- or hundred-fold return.
Even educated Americans speak of Putin as a "thug". All he has done is restore the rule of law, what Germans used to call a
Rechtsstaat .
It was very revealing for me to watch his recent informal press conference and his speech to the Duma. He is obviously a man
of the people. He also takes the political ideas that European civilization was built on seriously, something that can be said
for no Western leader I know of.
It is turning out as the nineteenth century Slavophiles thought it would: Russia has become the last defender of Western civilization.
Someone above mentioned the Robert Kaplan piece in the Atlantic "how we would fight china" that appeared in 2005. This was not
lunatic but a very interesting article on US military plans on how to confront China just off of China's territorial waters (I
think the lunacy is the notion that US national interests require us to maintain a war footing in the Western Pacific, but that
is an argument we have lost here in the US). I hadn't seen this before. In any case it should be read by anyone interested in
US plans against China. It explains Hillary's 'pivot to Asia' policy.
By the same token, Ukrainians can be understood when they kick out a president who wants to bring them into the Russian orbit
against their will.
I was surprised to read that. I should have thought that Avnery has a concept of the rule of law. Also, is Avnery so uninformed
not to know that most Ukrainians do not want to join NATO?
"Even educated Americans". That must be either a relative term, or the voice of the educated is never heard. It is difficult for
me to imagine how an "educated" person could be so ill-informed. Back on planet earth, this would never happen.
Maybe this is far-fetched and I know that Putin bailed out some the the Russian Oligarchy during the 2008 recession so they would
owe him support at this crucial time. But recently I watched an interview on 60 Minutes with businessman Bill Browder who trashed
talked Putin. Browder ran a Capital Management firm investing in Russia's largest oil companies. Browder who at one point alleges
being a supporter of Putin ended up blacklisted as being a threat to the country. Anyway I'm not sure what kind of subterfuge
he was up to when he stayed in Russia but he made some nasty accusations against Putin.
A Zionist Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky who went into exile in the U.K. after being accused of fraud and embezzlement during
Primkov's government in 1999 also hated Putin. Beresovsky is one of those oligarchs by the way who exploited the fall of the Soviet
Union to his advantange. Beresovsky later became a vocal opponent of Putin.
Berezovsky publicly threatened Putin and stated that he was on a mission to bring down Putin "by force" or by bloodless revolution.
Berezovsky held media holdings in Russia and used them to slam Putin's policies.
I believe it is during this time Putin became aware of the power of Zionist media to destroy political careers.
In October, in an interview in Le Figaro, Putin announced that he would no longer tolerate criticism of the government by media
controlled by the oligarchs. "If necessary we will destroy those instruments that allow this blackmail", he declared.
There's no doubt in my mind that Zionist influence had a hand in what is happening in Ukraine and the protests that tried to
interfere with Putin's re-election. Maybe Putin pissed off some other Zionist oligarchs. I haven't been able to research more
on this issue but hopefully some of you will look further.
But this just reinforces the point I've been trying to make that Zionists are involved in this imperial global expansion, in
this case because the capitalist system feels threatened by Putin and potential reforms. Zionists are up to their eyeballs in
this imperial advance and I still believe they're in the driver's seat.
Are you kidding me? Do you think the U.S. could ever dream of reining 1.3 billion stray cats with nukes and a formidable army?
For gawd's sake this article is practically a manifesto on Zionism supremacy, it's that transparent. But of course, you'll never
admit it.
Oh the Neocons were absolutely behind this Ukrainian gambit, and I'm thinking their goals were twofold: to keep Russia preoccupied
and get hold of Sevastopol. That way, it would be very difficult for her to help Syria and, of course, Iran -- still the main
goals for those creeps. And yeah, find me one Neocon, anywhere, who does not support Israel. So yeah, Zionists.
remembererringgiap , Mar 21, 2014 11:37:51 PM |
58
really, read some history? u s imperialism is the single most dangerous threat to humanity
israel is a vassal state
exactly as indonesia was under suharto, or colombia under any of its creep compradors
your sense of disproportion amazes me truly, maybe it is because you are american, you want to blame someoen else for your
barbarity, 'the smart jew' is again the perfect target for imbeciles
it is a puppet state, it is a non state, who does exactly what washington wants it to do. it effects only only middle east
policy & even that it is by far the junior party, if washington told israel to go live in the sudetenland, the state of israel
would, is is a pantin, a puppet increasingly with more bark than bite
you choose anti semitism because as american you are frightened of being obliged to burn your shithouse down
Oh no, rememberringgiap, no. It's the combination of the two. And for gosh sakes, I've known how bad America was since I was a
kid, and spent most of my life trying to do something about it so I'm hardly afraid to admit it. We see the end coming, it's gonna
be UGLY, and we know we deserve it; not a nice place to be but it's honest. And Israel is equally nasty, sometimes in the lead,
sometimes as a follower, and I don't hate Jews but I sure do loathe Zionists, whatever faith they may be. (And again, in America,
there are a lot more Christians blindly supporting Israel than Jews.)
remembererringgiap , Mar 21, 2014 11:49:14 PM |
60
they are puppets, nothing more nothing less. the actual state of israel began criminally with deir yassin & that state gets worse,
it is little surprise, that its population is leaving in droves, more than at any other time, so would i with nutcases like lieberman
& netanyahu
but they are no more than donkeys
pakistan on the other hand frightens the living shit out of those united states
In the atlantic.com article In Defense of Empire the words "slave" or "slavery" in fact do not exist.
or example, in the above quoted text, we find this phrase: "Throughout history, governance and relative safety have most often
been provided by slavery ...". From the atlantic.com url, instead we find: "Throughout history, governance and relative
safety have most often been provided by empires ...".
The same types of differences exist in every single case. Obviously, this is a huge problem. Either the quotes are wrong in
this post or they have been edited out in a later version of the atlantic.com version and replaced with the words "empires," "imperialism",
etc.
Which lets Israel/zionist Jewish fascists off the hook for the war crimes they are responsible for. "They're just pawns of
a larger poer, pity them, but don't condemn them. And for god's sakes, don't do anything meaningful that might interfere in their
sacred mandate from the godhead."
Which is essentially what Jewish zionist hasbara is all about, whether from the zionist left or the zionist right.
It's never "us", it's always "them".
Excuse me while I go puke, Charles Manson in drag.
@48 Yes, totally not lunatic for the United States to go to war with one of the most populated countries on the planet.
Wanting to go to war with enormous countries like China, Russia or even Iran (not as big, but still what, over twice as big
as iraq and afghanistan combined?) is totally and completely rational.
Thank goodness Putin did some house-cleaning, but he no doubt made enemies among Zionists no doubt on Wall Street as well.
They must have had capital tied up in these Zionist-run Russsian companies.
@62 WHAT Zionist left? There is none. All the Democrats or whatever that are zionists are also right wing. They just dress up
imperialism in fancy words like 'humanitarianism', thats all.
There hasnt been a zionist left since the last communist zionists in Israel retired or died decades ago.
@57 You realize that critiquing zionism, which is a modern political ideology, is NOT the same as critiquing Judaism, the religion,
right? Right? Guess not.
Because there are zionist Christians (probably more than there are zionist jews) and nonzionist jews (a growing number of young
jews realize Israel is an apartheid state).
So stop trying to slur anti-zionists as anti-semites, thats just slander.
Hey kalithea, the Russians let Khodorkovsky out of prison early. Almost the first thing the loyal Israeli citizen did was go to
the Ukraine and encourage the neo-nazis running the place now to get even more brutal and nazi like.
I could ask what's up with that, but I think everybody here knows the answer.
@65: I think b made it very clear. He used the word "substitute", and the title of the post was directly followed by the same
title, but without the substitution.
This kind of snark is just part of leftist blog culture. (I don't know if right wingers do it.)
I'm beginning to think that the substitution of "Kagan" for "Kaplan" was snark too, but that I didn't pick up on.
Do Michelle and her speechwriters really think that Chinese rulers don't take that as a big joke? I'm sure they're laughing
their heads off behind her back. I hope that the reason speechwriters put stuff like that in there is for the domestic American
audience.
And yet another Zionist oligarch who bilked Russia and hates Putin.:
On 23 August 2003, Gusinsky travelled from Israel to Athens, where he was arrested under a Greek-Russian treaty for fraud amounting
to millions in damages.[5] Intense pressure from American leaders (mainly from US ambassador in Athens Tomas Miller), Israeli
officials and the European Jewish Congress on the Greek government led to Gusinsky's release within five days.[6]
Mr Gusinsky says we will all pay the price if western leaders appease President Putin. He likens the situation apocalyptically
to the 1930s and the world's treatment of Hitler. Mr Putin's hands, he says, are already red with the blood of murdered Chechens.
Mr Putin's popularity comes in part from his promise to do away with the oligarchs, a group of 20-odd billionaire businessmen
who got rich stripping assets from privatised companies they bought for nothing.
Posted by: remembererringgiap | Mar 22, 2014 12:46:04 AM | 75
"just read strormfront that enough - that's the level of research repeated ad finitum - whether its lagos or louisiana"
It's well known stormfront is a zionist front/agent provocateur site, much like freerepublic, though tailored to the more hardcore
freak. Why promote them?
Maybe Zionists deserve to rule, they're smarter, they work harder and are better organized. You folks couldn't organize an ice
cream social. Just sayin'
But the wheels were set in motion before any of us were born, and I'm an old woman now. ... Just don't think for a minute that
these monsters were not, and are not, encouraged and enabled by non-Jews, low and high, who share the same damned values even
if they don't personally give a crap about Israel or its "chosen".
Testify Sister! Tell us who set the wheels in motion, tell us all what the plan is. What tricks did the Jews pull on us non-Jews
way back then, how are non-Jews enabling their diabolical worldwide plan?
WTF are you trying to say? The Zionist have no position on US-China relations as far as anyone can see. I read that article
by Robert Kaplan and he reported the views of officers in the US Navy. I am quite sure that Israel has not penetrated the US Navy.
This is a perspective of good old fashioned US imperialism. I know that the Zionist work in the background and try to influence
US policy, but they do not control it. Especially inside the US Navy. You have no idea how power is distributed inside the US.
"... I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world ..." Mark Twain
Eugenics is evil ... however, in Kagans case, his removal from the gene pool and his ilk, could only be seen as a darwinian,
evolutionary advancement for humanity.
thank you, rememberinggiap, for your calmness. you are correct in saying that many of us (and that includes myself look for causes
outside our internal history. perhaps the fixed point should be the Dulles brothers, who if they did not set us down this infernal
path, gave us a mighty and prolonged push. Mark Twain had it all figured out over a century ago. as to American zionists, Jews
of my and Nora's generaton lived through the discrimination of convenanted housing tracts, university quotas and professional
exclusions down to the Vietnam war, and they can't put it out of their mind. they probably don't know that they were not the only
ones. when I was a student at Yale living with George Bush Sr.'s aunt in New Haven, Catholics and most of the Yale professors
were excluded from the lawn tennis club situated just behind the new school of management on Whitney avenue. No Irish or italians
need apply. the us is a swarm of internal contradictions, and it's history is out of control.
Nora at 45: Kindly cancel that request. Just answer this. Do you agree with this quote from Pragma:
Neither is it coincidence that (before the creation of izrael but about the time of the balfour deal ...) Russia was poisoned
by zionist "communists" (just another projection), nor is it coincidence that Germany was relentlessly pushed into war and
later broken and crushed and not reinstated until this very day ...
If that's a good summary of them, maybe there's no need for you to tell us about your 'historical' beliefs.
Also, in fact I only think Pragma is the actual 'destroy moonofalabama' operative here. You and his other supporters seem to
hold your beliefs sincerely. FWIW and for what they're worth which is less than zero.
The US Navy has known it Carriers are simply very large targets for many, many years, and so do the PLAN.
Carrier battle groups are for projecting brute military force and creating invasive sovereignity(sic) in support of Empire
around the globe ... NEVER , in the modern era to be risked against 1st world powers. All those billions upon billions
of $ would be lost in the briefest moment of conflict with the PLAN. See: Anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM).
I must admit I didn't compare the original text with what b cited, I still had too much of a confidence into him which now vanished
totally. Others @6) and Massinissa discovered the bluff immediately, so they deserve the honour. I really don't know what the
purpose of this double bluff is: changing the text and the author??? I would say just stupid...
It also damages people like Chinweizu @10), the famous nigerian writer who presented a case of REAL stewardry of labour by
WTO close to slaveholdership
maybe Mr Pragma is also his creation, b is a talented computer freak and I think he is LoL in his little room about all of
us; and also about having added two hysterical anti-zionist broads programmes to the commenters here confusing all of us.... I
think the whole blog here is really disintegrating, from top to bottom...
Knut at 83: Lenin had this figured out, imperialism is a stage of capitalism, a reaction to excess production and internal markets
being exhausted of opportunities for excess profits. The European capitalist countries began struggling with this phenomenon in
the late 19th century and the US a few decades later. There's really no solution other than ending capitalism and/or social democracy.
In that context, pinning responsibility for imperialism on Jews is just idiotic, and pinning things on the US will just make
folks less wary of its natural successor, China. That doesn't mean it's not a good thing when there is multi-polar world, because
that coincided in the post-war era and may coincide again with greater 'space' for independent, populist, democratic regimes to
arise.
And that also doesn't mean I accuse Russia of being an imperialist. Lenin was making a general observation (I think) and there
are exceptions. Regimes under attack by 'big imperialism' sometimes produce sincere democratic/populist nationalists. I hope/think
Russians are lucky enough to have one of those running their country now. The people should be aware they'll likely need to struggle
'some day soon' to avoid reverting to the 'imperialist norm'.
@87) where is the enlightment of readers doing this? all empires, great and less great, historically have been founded on slaveholdership,
now changing to a form of forced labour like in most of the arabic monarchistic countries or work without the minimum ILO standards
like in the case of the Sotchi Olympic workers....
Human Trafficking and Slavery by the US Government, Military and Corporations for MASSIVE PROFIT is very, very real,
in a 'literal' sense, too ... all of it corrupt and illegal even under US Law ... and no one will ever be prosecuted ...
12 years a Slave , indeed ... as I recall,
no individual, business or official involved was ever held accountable for the multiple crimes, even then illegal, committed against
Solomon Northup , then a Freeman ... one hundred and
sixty years has passed and where are we now ?
But if Congress approves, the Army would drop from today's active-duty force of 522,000 soldiers to between 440,000 and 450,000
over the next three years.
"Since we are no longer sizing the force for prolonged" ground wars, the Army is larger than required and "larger than we
can afford," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who announced the plan, said at the Pentagon.
California may win more than it loses in the shift of resources as older aircraft are phased out and new ones are brought
on board.
Spending for cyberwarfare will increase under the plan. That could benefit larger government contractors in Silicon Valley,
including Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Oracle Corp. and a growing number of start-ups in defense-related equipment
and software.
In addition, Northrop Grumman Corp. uses a facility in Palmdale to build the unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk drone aircraft that
will replace the high-flying U-2 spy planes, famous in the early Cold War but now proposed for retirement. The company has
about 2,500 employees on the program in Southern California.
The Pentagon previously had planned to mothball a version of the Global Hawk and keep the U-2 flying. But Hagel said
the operating costs of the drone had fallen and that with its greater range and endurance, it "makes a better high-altitude
reconnaissance platform for the future."
The Air Force has 32 U-2s based at Beale Air Force Base in Marysville, Calif.
Hagel also called for retiring the Air Force's entire fleet of A-10 "Warthog" ground attack fighters, as well as mothballing
half of the Navy's fleet of 22 cruisers, and building only 32 of the Navy's littoral combat ships, not 52 as previously planned.
The shallow-draft, lightly armed warship is designed for clearing mines and anti-submarine warfare. Hagel said it might not
be heavily armed enough and called for studying whether a new frigate would be better.
The only military force to grow would be special operations forces. Increasingly used for training and counter-terrorism
missions around the world, the elite force would increase by several thousand to 69,700 .
Which would give the US a spoiling, blackmail power to push for its interests but no imperial power.
Rather than Obama's post-imperialism, in which the secretary of state appears like a lonely and wayward operator encumbered
by an apathetic White House, I maintain that a tempered imperialism is now preferable.
No other power or constellation of powers is able to provide even a fraction of the global order provided by the United
States. U.S. air and sea dominance preserves the peace, such as it exists, in Asia and the Greater Middle East. American military
force, reasonably deployed, is what ultimately protects democracies as diverse as Poland, Israel, and Taiwan from being overrun
by enemies. If America sharply retrenched its air and sea forces, while starving its land forces of adequate supplies and training,
the world would be a far more anarchic place, with adverse repercussions for the American homeland.
Rome, Parthia, and Hapsburg Austria were great precisely because they gave significant parts of the world a modicum of imperial
order that they would not otherwise have enjoyed. America must presently do likewise, particularly in East Asia, the geographic
heartland of the world economy and the home of American treaty allies.
He seems to realize his argument is an uphill struggle as he adds this
This by no means obliges the American military to repair complex and populous Islamic countries that lack critical components
of civil society. America must roam the world with its ships and planes, but be very wary of where it gets involved on the
ground. And it must initiate military hostilities only when an overwhelming national interest is threatened. Otherwise, it
should limit its involvement to economic inducements and robust diplomacy -- diplomacy that exerts every possible pressure
in order to prevent widespread atrocities in parts of the world, such as central Africa, that are not, in the orthodox sense,
strategic.
That he goes back to "White Man's Burden" in his arguments presumably means he is too old and
out
of touch with US demography .
There is a great
RT interview
by Anastasja Churkina - the daughter of the Russian UN ambassador - with Amy Goodman on the role of corporate media - when
corporations profit from war.
It was very revealing for me to watch his recent informal press conference and his speech to the Duma. He is obviously
a man of the people.
Indeed. It's also instructive to compare a Putin speech and say an obama or merkel speech. While Putin *evidently and doubtlessly*
really addresses the people and explains what has been, or must be, done and why, the western puppets merely utter system standard
pieces of text and are ignoring the people.
kalithea (53)
Bill Browder who trashed talked Putin. Browder ran a Capital Management firm investing in Russia's largest oil companies. Browder
who at one point alleges being a supporter of Putin ended up blacklisted as being a threat to the country.
Well, depending on whom you ask, weztern media and even (reliably and confrontingly jew defending) wikipedia, or Russian investigators,
witnesses, and victims, the answer will be very different.
Actually browder was deeply and dirtily linked to a concerted crime operation that tried to steal Russias (mostly hydrocarbon)
resources in a "professional" way. This, of course *had* to be understood for what it was, a direct attack on Russias life blood,
which maybe was not even the goal of browder and accomplices but at least a non issue for them. Looking closer you will also find
khodorkovsky and the "devils advocate" magnitsky in those circles.
Funnily the wezt and wikipedia paint browder as a gently minded businessman who got thrown out by evil Putin for unmasking
Putin and his crime gang (well noted, that's how the weztern thugs paint it).
A Zionist Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky who went into exile in the U.K. after being accused of fraud and embezzlement during
Primkov's government in 1999 also hated Putin. Beresovsky is one of those oligarchs by the way who exploited the fall of the
Soviet Union to his advantange. Beresovsky later became a vocal opponent of Putin.
Berezovsky publicly threatened Putin and stated that he was on a mission to bring down Putin "by force" or by bloodless
revolution. Berezovsky held media holdings in Russia and used them to slam Putin's policies.
berezovsky didn't stick to the deal, he left the frame so clearly - and wisely - assigned by Putin. Quite possibly berezovsky
is the symbol of the "political oligarchs" which, of course, were not at all happy about Putin stopping their free looting of
Russia.
It is noteworthy - yet widely "forgotten" - that berezovsky later, in London, more or less confessed his crimes and evil spirited
attacks and asked Putin to forgive him and to please, pretty please, let him go back to Russia.
One might also have a good case here for the difference between jews and zionists. Yes, most oligarchs are jews but that's
not the point. The point is that extremely greedy people with a large crime register wanted to and still want to earn ever more
billions, jew or not jew. But that's it. And one can make agreements with them, even agreements in favour of Russia and even agreements
basically employing those oligarchs for the good of Russia.
Not so with the zionists. The zionist oligarchs never respected Putin, nor the people, nor Russia herself. To them Russia was
but a helpless but very rich lady they would loot and rob with utmost brutality. And as soon as anyone dared to stop them they
would scream "anti-semites!" and leave to izrael or another zio controlled country.
For those oligarchs who stuck and stick to the agreements one must not care about jew or not and indeed there are non-jews,
too. The most brutal and despicable criminals though are zio-jews, each and all of them.
Ad "zusa attacking China":
That must be a joke. Anyone with some basic knowledge about military issues will tell you a simple truth: zusa must hope and
pray that none of their protectees, namely japan, sk, and taiwan, ever comes in a situation to ask for zusa help. For a simple
reason. zusa would be doomed.
Japan being the least dangerous, sk would pretty much be lost before zusa could fire some shots, and taiwan (and largely sk)
are basically denied zones.
Not only are 100% of taiwan covered by Chinese anti-air systems but worse for zusa, zusa would be stopped dead in its tracks
because China can interdict the ca. 600 - 750km wide "belt" around taiwan needed for zusa air operations. About the only tool
not interdicted would be zusa firing cruise missiles; as those are old tech., and slow China would comfortably kill at least 80%
(and more realistically around 90%) of those. Would do zusa that, would zusa protect taiwan knowing there is little they could
do but there would be a very considerable risk of China (rightfully!) destroying major parts of the zusa fleet? I strongly doubt
that.
About the most realistic and favourable (for zusa) scenario I see would be a China japan war with zusa interfering somewhat.
And even that is doubtful as it might "invite" nk to use China supplied weapons against both japan and the much hated zusa.
maybe Mr Pragma is also his creation, b is a talented computer freak and I think he is LoL in his little room about all of
us; and also about having added two hysterical anti-zionist broads programmes
maybe? MAYBE? What an incompetent asshole! OF COURSE I'm a programm! But not by b; I've been programmed by KGB on a rusty typewriter.
izrael should ask zusa for more funds or they should ask one of the zio-controlled countries. Obviously izrael *urgently* needs
funds for better agents. Current ones like thomas miss even the most obvious points.
Ceterum censeo israel americanamque vehementer delenda esse!
He has been an active supporter of Jewish initiatives in Russia and Europe. In 1996 Fridman was one of the founders of the
Russian Jewish Congress, now sitting on the RJC Presidium. He makes large contribution to the work of the European Jewish Fund,
a non-profit organization aimed at developing European Jewry and promoting tolerance and reconciliation on the continent.[5]
Presently, a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. Was presented with an award by Bill Clinton, uber-supporter of Zionism.
What is this? A case of keep your friends close and enemies closer? I wouldn't trust a Zionist as far as I can spit! How many
Zionists are in his entourage? I hope Putin doesn't end up like Caesar - stabbled in the back by those close to him - et tu Brute?
Mikhail Fridman and his fellow Russian Jewish philanthropists are ponying up some serious cash to create what is being touted
as a "Jewish Nobel Prize." The Russian billionaire and co-founder of the five-year-old Genesis philanthropy group announced
the creation of a $1 million prize that will be awarded to Jews who win global recognition for their professional achievements,
including in the world of science and the arts. The prize, launched in collaboration with the Israeli government, was announced
on Tuesday, which coincided with the visit of Russian president Vladimir Putin to Israel. The award will be presented annually
by the Israeli prime minister around Passover time. As if the world was short on Jewish Nobel Prize winners.
Neocon Zionists, aka Israeli Firsters, and most of the One Percent on Wall Street have owned Congress and the mainstream media
propaganda machine since the beginning of modern print, and then broadcast media. By this control of what people read, hear, and
see, they have been able to control what people believe and think. Game set match, until now.
Now, the internet has opened the Pandora's box of Truth, and as people have an instinct for the truth, they are beginning to
see what was concealed from them before. (And they're inevitably getting smarter, developing the skill needed to distinguish noisy
nonsense from correct information.) So Robert Kagan and other neocon Zionists like him whose first loyalty is to Israel, are rightly
worried that when the "tapestry of lies" is stripped away, and the American people see the extent of the Zionist subversion, there
will be consequences.
This is the pattern of five-thousand years of Jewish history: they go somewhere, do very well by themselves and the locals,
then they get powerful, and they overreach and become abusive, at which point the locals accost them, or holocaust them. This
is how Jewish talent becomes Jewish self-destruction.
This is sad enough, but as an American, I'm particularly dismayed, because the American Jews in my surrounding community have
-- too easily I must confess -- been hoodwinked into supporting the Zionist criminal enterprise.
Stealing someone else's country to start your own -- despite all the historical precedent -- is not a good strategy, particularly
when the folks whose country you stole have a billion and a half co-religionists out there unhappy about the theft.
Let's get some definitions right, ok. Zionism in this day and age means no more and no less than a strong supporter of the state
of Israel. It simply doesn't mean "Jew", but it does mean condoning increased settlements and outrageous attacks against Gaza,
etc. The entire movement is a bit more than 100 years old; it began at roughly the same time that TR and his lovely "White Fleet"
sailed the Pacific to do some of the same lovely stuff to the Philippines that we'd been doing to North America since the 1600's
and the rest of the Americas since the 1800s (the entire purpose of the Monroe Doctrine was to legitimize it).
Okay, a bit more history: our entry into WWI was, among other things, closely related to the Balfour Doctrine. We did it for
many mercantile reasons as well (DuPont vs. Krupp, etc.), but the point is, just like the Yalies in OSS whose families had been
bankrolling Hitler before (and during, see: Prescott Bush) WWII then snarfed up a bunch of leading Nazis afterwards, different
people w/different goals and beliefs, can work together when it suits their purposes. And "Israel returning to Zion" was and is
a MAJOR theme for the Puritans, both here and in England (look up Dispensationalism; it's a big deal) and various other groups
of Christians.
So yes, no CT here at all, but why waste time separating out blame: it's a many-headed monster that's easily judged simply
by its effects, summed up as harm to innocent people in the furtherance of... whatever.
fairleft, I left some stuff for you that you may not have read. I'm putting it here but will not engage you again until you've
digested at least one of the readings I suggested.
I have an honest question I wish you'd really think about. I'm assuming you're an American, like me. And we have no compunction
praising our fellow Americans when they do something in accord with our values, and criticizing them when they don't. I.e., we're
not blindly zenophobic, right? And I think that's pretty generally true for most of the people here, whatever their ethnicity:
they can criticize "their own" when they find it warranted, based on what the person, or group of people, did. So I'm wondering
about your blind spot: are all Jews blameless just by definition, or might some of them, sometimes, do something objectionable?
And if so, why is no one allowed to say so? In my family's background are lots of different peoples who at various times were
subjected to hideous repression, ethnic cleansing and yes, genocide, but I still see no reason not to criticize them when they're
doing something wrong -- why can't you? And please don't invoke the Holocaust: I can trump you in my own background by hundreds
of years and millions of people. Really: not all Jews are perfect or blameless, and we're not really talking Jews anyhow, we're
talking support for criminal acts by the state of Israel, supported here in America by a LOT more Christians than Jews. I.e.,
Zionism.
Sometimes this knee-jerk respose is just group-think by otherwise decent people who've been frightened and brainwashed their
entire lives and might possibly be reachable. Gilad Atzmon, Israel Adam Shamir and Philip Weiss, to name just three, all started
out like that too -- and then grew. I was trying to give fairleft an opportunity to open his mind a bit; he can take it not, as
he chooses.
You seem like a decent person: please read these. It won't be easy for you -- it's hard to challenge deeply-ingrained beliefs
-- but reading these books with a mind open to seeing things differently is more than worth it.
In all friendliness, it seems you just don't get it. Yes, fairleft is somewhat more professional than, say thomas, in not exclusively
relying on crude attacks and gross propaganda.
He is, however, nevertheless and evidently a fervent pro-zionist and trying his best to do their work here.
(But of course, this is but some friendly sentences. Feel free by all means to continue your endeavour)
Just giving him the benefit of the doubt this one last time.
But those two books and Allison Weir's piece imo are important for anyone who wants to be informed; there's a lot of data in
each of them that simply cannot be refuted. And Shahak's book is still available online, I think.
Imperialism benefits no one but a small slice of the ruling class. But it's always defended as if it's the only thing providing
food for the average person. It's been true since the Roman empire. The looting oriented British Raj stripped away so much and
somehow almost none of it ended up in the hands of the average Briton. Same for the Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. It's just
no good. I don't know how long it will take for average people to understand it.
The interest in slavery is not just neo-connish etc. but in a way, underground, an interest of Big Corporations (1).
Not, imho, in first place because of the 'cheap labor' but because of issues of control.
Right now we are living in a world that is organized in part by nation-states (as a kind of ultimate authority) and for another
part, not well coordinated with the first, by Big Corporations, who increasingly control Banking and Finance, thus also say pol.
contributions in the US, territory (2) and its uses, supra-territorial matters such as communications and benchmarks (internet,
the control of space, rating agencies, for ex.), and other related matters like patent laws.
Slavery as an official doctrine is not in their interests, cheap labor is already available thru modern slavery. So they keep
a low profile, and let their 'elected' representatives take the flack.
Such clashing interests are well illustrated in the case of Ukraine, where the confusion of the Western 'nation-states' has
become pathetically ridiculous, as they cannot make public their lack of power and attendant subservience to Corporate interests.
They are kind of 'holding on' to keep some hand in the game, and mobilizing their 'electorate' with propaganda, as that is where
their livelihood come from.
1. Shell, BP, Total, plus many others in the energy field. Also the likes of Glencore Xstrata, Cargill, AXA, Monsanto, Nestlé,
JP Morgan, etc. etc. all entwined in a kind of global network.
2. Straight out buying and leasing land; owning thru investments and 'deals', exploration rights, mineral rights, agriculture,
transport hubs (pipelines, shipping, ports, the machines that implement the transport, etc.)
In the tiny minds of these neocons, it is possible that in some simplified way, the marxist theory of the falling rate of profit
penetrated, at least sufficiently for this one to infer that wage labour is inexorably doomed by its own internal contradictions.
However, applying the same marxian analysis, it is possible to prove that an economy based on slave labour generates no capitalist
profits at all.
Israel (in the form of its present Govmt, and past as well) is US State number 51, a splinter outpost on foreign lands.
Its continuing existence in the shape of its crazily belligerent and racist, apartheid stance, and all the dire cruelties we
know about, is maintained by the unwavering support and investment from the US, though EU poodles have followed along. (See e.g.
UN vetos, etc.) It is a sick, symbiotic relationship, with one party acting the thug, encouraged by the backer. It is economically
dependent on its masters so cannot stop, and leaders of course join for their own personal interests.
Not to minimize the influence of the "Jewish / Isr. lobby" e.g. Walt and Mearsheimer, etc. whatever - exists because it is
welcomed, and then provides strange grist to many lunatic mills.
NBC News: New U S. State Dept travel warning tells citizens to defer travel to east regions
of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine .......................so is west ukraine safe?>!!
Good points. The sorrow is, average people have rarely been in a position to do anything anyhow; they're generally too busy
just trying to survive. What we're seeing now in both the EU and US is the steep downward slope of economic and political disempowerment
while (hopefully) heading upwards is the shallower slope of public understanding. Will they intersect in time, i.e., while people
still have enough power to do something about it? Who knows. And what can people do? In the US the angry folks with guns have
been successfully brainwashed to ultimately support TPTB -- while believing they're rebelling against them. (Some really clever
work there, worth of Goebbels at his best.)
This is the pattern of five-thousand years of Jewish history: they go somewhere, do very well by themselves and the locals,
then they get powerful, and they overreach and become abusive, at which point the locals accost them, or holocaust them. This
is how Jewish talent becomes Jewish self-destruction.
Hi Cynthia! Are you part of Pragma's takedown of moonofalabama or are you just a stupid solo anti-Semite? If the latter, how
did you find your way here?
Nora @ 108: Your're on a roll today it seems. Your expression at 108 truly fits MOST folks here at MOA, at least I sincerely hope
so. Like society in general, there are people afoot in this world, who get PAYED to disrupt objectivity on the Internet and the
Media.
@126 - true. it would be nice if folks ignored those who they believe are full of shite too, lol.. i think b would benefit correcting
the kagan verses kaplan issue.. both of them are friggin nutso's but still..
In 2003, Rabbi Saadya Grama of the Beth Medrash Govoha, the renowned Talmudic school of Lakewood, NJ, published a book in which
he claimed that Gentiles were completely evil and that Jews constituted a separate, genetically superior species.
The book published under the Hebrew Title "Romemut Yisrael Ufarsahat Hagalut" quoted numerous classical Jewish sources to
prove Jewish superiority over the rest of humankind.
The difference between Jews and gentiles, he argued, is not religious, historical, cultural, or political. It is rather
racial, genetic, and scientifically unalterable. The one groups is at its very root and by natural constitution "totally evil"
while the other is "totally good"
If gentiles (goyem) are inherently inferior to Jews, and if their very humanity is presumed to be denied, it is axiomatically
inferred from this that these gentiles have inherently lesser rights than Jews do.
Indeed, some Talmudic references do refer to gentiles as "animals walking on two feet instead of four".
Even today, some Rabbis, such as David Batsri, invoke the "bestiality" of non-Jews, claiming that the Creator created them
with two legs instead of four in deference to Jews, because it is not appropriate that Jews be served with four-legged animals.
Rabbi Abraham Kook, the religious mentor of the settler movement, taught that "the difference between a Jewish soul and
souls of non-Jews -- all of them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul
and the souls of cattle." (Reuters Photo)
Remarks by the Israeli Minister of Interior Yaakov Neeman suggesting that the Jewish religious law (Halacha) should be adopted
as the "law of the land" in the Jewish state has drawn strong reactions from both Jews and non-Jews.
"Step by step, we will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah and we will turn Halacha into the binding
law of the nation," Neeman told Rabbis at a Jewish law convention in occupied Jerusalem in December 2009.
"We must bring back the heritage of our fathers to the nation of Israel," he said. "The torah has the complete solution
to all of the questions we are dealing with."
Neeman's statements were met applauds from participants who included high-ranking Rabbis, as well as representatives of
religious parties.
However, for non-Jews, who now constitute nearly 50 percent of the total population in occupied Palestine, Neeman's remarks
are a serious cause for concern since Halacha, at least according to the Orthodox Jewish interpretation, does not recognize
the full humanity of non-Jews.
Hence, non-Jews living under Halacha must accept to live under a perpetual state of inferiority, if not persecution.
Lesser in Every Aspect
According to Orthodox Judaism, a non-Jew (goy) is inferior to a Jew in every conceivable aspect. This inferiority is absolute,
inherent, intrinsic, and not subject to any related or unrelated factors.
Rabbi Abraham Kook, the religious mentor of the settler movement, taught that "the difference between a Jewish soul and
souls of non-Jews -- all of them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul
and the souls of cattle."
The teachings of Kook are based on the Lurianic Cabala (Jewish mysticism), which teaches the absolute superiority of the
Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body. This means, according to one Rabbi who is member of the Chabadi Lubovitcher
sect, that "every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity and is part of God."
In 2003, Rabbi Saadya Grama of the Beth Medrash Govoha, the renowned Talmudic school of Lakewood, NJ, published a book in
which he claimed that Gentiles were completely evil and that Jews constituted a separate, genetically superior species.
The book published under the Hebrew Title "Romemut Yisrael Ufarsahat Hagalut" quoted numerous classical Jewish sources to
prove Jewish superiority over the rest of humankind.
The difference between Jews and gentiles, he argued, is not religious, historical, cultural, or political. It is rather
racial, genetic, and scientifically unalterable. The one groups is at its very root and by natural constitution "totally evil"
while the other is "totally good"
"Jewish successes in the world are completely contingent upon the failure of all other peoples. Only when the gentiles face
total catastrophe, Jews do experience good fortune."
"The Jews themselves brought about their own destruction during the Holocaust, since they arrogantly endeavored to overcome
their very essence, dictated by divine law."
While castigated by many Jewish figures, religious and secular, for its brazen racism, Grama's thesis is not really in conflict
with the Rabbis of Gush Emunim (the settler camp) and the rest of the National religious movement in Israel today.
He readily applies Torah passages against idolaters, other pagans to Christianity and Islam, and other monotheists who worship
the God of Abraham, the very God proclaimed by the Torah.
He also ignores extensive Rabbinic deliberations during the medieval period, which concluded that both Islam and Christianity
as "licit, monotheistic faiths."
Hence, Muslims and Christians could not be lumped in one category with the idol-worshipers of earlier times.
Sub-human Slaves
If gentiles (goyem) are inherently inferior to Jews, and if their very humanity is presumed to be denied, it is axiomatically
inferred from this that these gentiles have inherently lesser rights than Jews do.
Indeed, some Talmudic references do refer to gentiles as "animals walking on two feet instead of four".
Even today, some Rabbis, such as David Batsri, invoke the "bestiality" of non-Jews, claiming that the Creator created them
with two legs instead of four in deference to Jews, because it is not appropriate that Jews be served with four-legged animals.
It is true that this view is not shared by all Rabbis, especially the enlightened ones. However, it is also true that some
prominent sages holding both Halachic and historical weight are among the main advocates of this pure racism.
For example, according to the code of Maimonides (Rambam): "A Jew who killed a non-Jew is exempt from human judgment, and
has not violated the prohibition of murder."
This code is implicitly practiced by Jewish settler judges when dealing with Jews convicted of killing Palestinians, which
explains the extremely light punishments meted out to the perpetrators, especially in comparison to Arabs convicted of the
same felony.
And here's the perfect explanation for ummm...imperial supremacist hegemony:
"Jewish successes in the world are completely contingent upon the failure of all other peoples. Only when the gentiles face
total catastrophe, Jews do experience good fortune."
"Non-Jews were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world-only to serve the People of Israel."
In Israel, death has no dominion over them With gentiles, it will be like any person-They need to die, but God will give
them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money.
"This is his servant That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew."
"why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap; and we will sit like an effendi and eat."
"That is why gentiles were created."
And settler Rabbi Abraham Kook (great last name!):
"The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews -- all of them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper
than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."
Teach your children well; to load Kalashnikovs write on bombs that kill and main Palestinian children and kick and spit on
their poor grandmothers while you pull off their hijab.
This is what the new generation of Zionists are learning.
The actual kinship of zionism and US-imperialism is based on both israel and the US are settler-societies that never came
to be nations.
The expression "nation-state" inverses the factual notions of nation and state. Though a state can enforce submission
it can't establish sovereignty. Souvereignty has to be effected by mental and ideological submission of the subject itself to
his master and therefore its not fully established without the rule of law.
While the American secession war is duly called a civil war, because it established rule of law within the union states
it left the relation of union states to the federal state widely outside this rule. The rule of the federal state became and stayed
a military and mafia-like hegemony established on constant war and the amalgamation of military, political and economic clout
in corporative elite clans, families, alumnis and the union bureaucracy itself.
The force, that drove this rule of war and corporative hegemony in the American federation after the civil war was accomplishment
of the genocide of native cultures. It followed (selection): Spanish-American war, Philippine war, the enforcement of the Monroe
Doctrine in Cuba, Hawai, Samoa, Venezuela. But it had another component: The federal war on the working class and their partly
imported organizations. Then followed WWI and WWII, which were essentially wars against the French and British empire.
So the USA never became a nation. The settler-state of freedom of private property was directly converted to an empire-state
ruled by a corporative elite of oligarchs, military staff and a serfing legion of descendant bureaucratic personnel.
It is easy to see, that the never established and unestablishable "Jewish State", the corporative military rule of a zionist
Oligarchy in Israel follows roughly the same pattern.
This is a kind of basic line in a history full of contradictions. Mind the suez-war followed by the nuclear armament of Israel
by France against the will of the american hegemon. And mind that Israel nowadays has but one enemy it has to fear: The faction
of US-elite, which wants to establish a new and stable order in the middle east instead of "creative" chaos in favour of Israel
and SA. The faction that would welcome an iranian gas-pipeline from South Pars to the mediterranian, try to keep the integrity
of Syria and Lebanon and split the GCC.
...
I tried my best to bring forward my thougts in a tongue that never became mine although I read it every day, because there
was nobody deconstructing the "zionist evil"-talk without referring to quasi-religious attitudes and delusive facts and figures
that tell nearly nothing about their coherence. If it was too bad - just tell me and I won't follow up or try again.
Okay, thank you, then I want ro add an inference though it needed a bunch of constituents and chain-links to corroborate it:
The US Federal State is warring for it's very existance. If it ends being the executive power of imperialistic metropolises
it will probably fall apart, even in the most favorable circumstances you might think of, because of its lack of national substance.
Thats the interface to the fight of the zionist oligarchy for their status as "villa in the jungle", their rule as warlords
who can and "must" project power in all the near and middle east and even north africa to stay the ruling power in Palestine.
This strongly associates them to the before mentioned faction of the US-elite, especially the MIF(inancial)C.
There is no other evil as the evil of war and it's cause in freedom and accumulation of competing private property.
I've cut-and-pasted everything bc I just can't give it the time it deserves right this afternoon. I will though, I
promise: it just may take me a little while bc it's a very different way of looking at things and I really need to examine it
more carefully. And again, thank you, it's really good food for thought and I'll give it my best.
@137 /144 - tomgard. i 2nd nora's response to you in that i find your commentary highly educational in so far as you articulate
a similar viewpoint of mine, but from a very different angle. i am curious what you mean by MIF(inancial)C. - that sounds like
what i tend to think military/industrial/financial/complex.. they are definitely rolled into one, even though people look at these
entities as being separate and not connected..
The result of the neocon meddling in Ukraine has created, as usual, a terrible mess for the "west" and even more so for the
Ukrainians. Is there any way to prevent a repeat of such misdeeds?
Yeah, sticking the neocons under water for a week.
The American political Elite consists of both Zionists and Anglophiles. Just as Lindbergh said.
Now, as far as the Iraq War,
as Congressman Moran said, the Jews were not even nearly solely responsible for driving the United States in, based on WMD lies,
but as a group they could have politically vetoed the move, dominant and decisive. On other foreign/domestic matters, your fractional
mileage may vary.
Dan Gertler's grandfather, Moshe Schnitzer (d. November 2007), was known in Israel as "Mr. Diamond;" in youth he joined the
pre-state underground organization Etzel (Irgoun), an Israeli military cell self-defined as an "untra-nationationalist Jewish
militia," but one that committed acts of terrorism in service to the Israeli cause.8 Moshe Schnitzer assumed a major role in
the Africa-Israeli diamond trade in the 1950's in a partnership business called Schnitzer-Greenstein. Schnitzer later founded
the Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv in 1960, which today brings Israel $14 billion annually in blood business, and is the
country's second-largest industry, but Israel's top export. King Leopold III of Belgium decorated Schnitzer in recognition
of his activities favoring the close relationship of Belgium, Israel and the DeBeers diamond cartels, and Schnitzer was also
President of the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Israel.80
The diamond jewelry trade in the United States is more than $30 billion annually, and 99% -- everything that is not synthetic
or artificial diamonds -- involves blood diamonds and the above organized crime syndicates. Israel buys more than 50% of the
world's rough diamonds, and the U.S. buys two-thirds of these. The diamond factories are located in Nethanya, Petach Tikvah,
Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, and other cities around the country, but most of the offices were in Tel Aviv in the financial
district on Ahad Ha'am Street.81 Dan Gertler's father, Asher Gertler, and his uncle, Shmuel Schnitzer, manage the original
family business, and Shmuel is Vice-Chairman of the Belgian-based World Diamond Council -- the entity that spends more money
promoting the false image of "conflict-free" diamonds than it does helping any of the people dispossessed or brutalized by
the diamond industry.48
On August 16, 2007, Rabbi Bentolila in Kinshasa received a communication asking: "What does the Torah say about men exploiting
other men for vast profits while other men are starving and dying all around them? Is there some hierarchy to the Torah that
suggests, for example, that black people or Africans are lesser beings, and therefore not to be a concern where profound profits
are being made?"
There was no reply from Rabbi Bentolila, he was apparently busy readying for another Bar Mitsvah in Belgium. Unfortunately
for Dan Gertler and his spiritual advisers, the Torah says that a Jew can keep a slave, but a Jew kept as a slave must be redeemed,
and that -- an empty, foolish justification for exploiting innocent people -- is how religion falsifies spirituality.
The confusion began when b did one of his usual deliberate substitutions to provoke a bit of thought by substituting slavery
for empire.
The normal confusion, generally engendered by the more pedantic of us whenever b does a semantic substitution, was hugely increased
when b himself confused two asshole neocons of similar name with each other.
Normally b's substitutions generate thought because the concept summoned by the original wording is considerably different
to the concepts generated by its replacement.
This is not the way it is with empire and slavery - two concepts I have always believed to be pretty much indistinguishable
from one another.
That is the heart of the issue here, but but adding the confusion from the juxtaposition of similar terms is the confusion
many people have about slavery.
For me slavery is enforced labour where a human, regarded as the property of another, is forced to live in a way that is beneficial
to his/her 'masters' wants, with no regard for his/her own needs.
Amerikan slavery just like the slavery instituted by the original english colonisers, also featured no payments or wages be
given the slaves.
That isn't always the case slaves who are paid are still slaves and may be worse off because of that. The Greek slaves who
worked as doctors, secretaries, and retail assistants in imperial Rome frequently were paid for their work, but they were still
slaves - their lives were not their own. They were humans who belonged to someone else.
Berkeley is correct at #118 where he points out that slavery without pay ultimately destroys capitalism.
This is why amerika had a civil war. The southern elites wanted to continue as always importing African slaves and paying them
nothing, while providing the bare minimum for survival as food & shelter. The factory and retail giant owning Northen elites couldn't give a flying fuck about 'the rights of man' they wanted to get
richer that is why they went to war.
The northern elites preferred the form of slavery that had been evolving in Europe since the industrial revolution, where slaves,
imported from Europe and more culturally acclimated to factory work than Africans, whose culture and sense of self had been deliberately
destroyed, leaving the recipients of that horror in a vacuum.
The 'new slaves' would be responsible for their own upkeep receiving minimum payment to keep themselves in food and shelter,
just enough to (a) keep them highly motivated at work and (b) for the elites to profit by taking it back.
Both forms are slavery - the vast majority of humans born into poverty in so-called 'developed' nations such as amerika, england,
or israel, have as little say in their own destiny as does a domestic slave in Saudi Arabia.
The biggest difference is that the rules are unwritten & unstated allowing the western elites great flexibility in fucking
everyone else over.
They don't need to be written because once the responsibility for feeding yourself and your family is put onto your shoulders
in the opprressive and domineering manner which neo-liberal unsocieties put on individuals, the majority follow the same well
worn path to personal impoverishment and elite enrichment.
Those who veer off the path - climb outta the rut - can be picked off one by one as needs must. Occasionally one may achieve
independence in the form of what seems to be economic self determination, but with few exceptions that is because their divergence
suits (& enriches), the slave owners.
This egregious exploitation of ordinary, normal, unsociopathic, humans by the sociopathic elites has been around a lot longer
that the organised political movement created to enable followers of Judaism to colonise the Jordan Valley.
If permitted to, ruthless domination of the decent by the greedy will continue long after the zionists have been driven out
of the area and the land returned to its original indigenous owners.
Palestinians are the descendants of the people who stayed on, minding their farms and orchards when the despotic monarchists
who had comprised Jerusalem's ruling elite fled from their Roman replacements.
It isn't merely incorrect to put the cart before the horse by blaming amerikan imperialism on the corrupt israeli regime, it
is fucking dangerous and destructive - firstly because it causes too much time and energy be spent upon a mob of petty crims (yes
they are psychopaths, but in comparison to the crimes of amerika, israeli leaders are petty crims), but most importantly because
blaming 'the jews' for the world's ills is so destructive to resistance against the asshole elites.
If the elites are to be beaten it will be when all the 'normal' humans have stuck together in common cause against those who
consciously butcher any/all of us for profit.
Once we have learned not to be distracted by deliberately nurtured divisive arguments about race, gender, nationality etc -
then we will rid ourselves of the leeches and then, that time, provided we have managed to do so without making any scapegoats,
maybe then we will be able to asshole-proof our communities ensuring no new sociopaths slink in again under cover of saving us
from oldies, 'those kids', morbidly obese, anorexics, gypsies, kaffirs, niggers or jews.
How many inhabitants does Israel have? How many the US? What percentage of US citizens are Jewish? You must have a theory of Jews being the superior race if you think they can dominate. Of course Israel is a puppet state. What people are trying with their "anti-zionist" theories of "zionist" rulership of the world is very transparent. They are either crazy and obsessed or they try to intentionally disrupt the discussion. They sure don't know anything about
history, about who got killed and why.
The recipe is so simple. Tell the stupid class xy people are responsible for their trouble, make them fight each other and
rule them.
Substituting exploitation of labor-power for slavery, then the rule of law in trade and exchange for rule of a "greedy", "indecent",
"sociopathic" (and, as many consequently say: mentally ill) elite introduces one tribe ("lunatics") for another ("Jews")
and therefore an alternative racist doctrine. Both are manifestations of still the same patriarch pattern of subjugation of one
gender to the other (slavery of women), "order" vs. "chaos", rule of command vs. rule of reason, rule of decalogue over collective
knowledge and judgement,"good" over "evil", and, following up this pattern, rule of a pristhood over patriarchs, of "God" over
"men", of intellectual workforce ("Kopfarbeit) over handcraft and, ultimately, the worship of psyche. It's religion combined with
the everyday racist interpretation of competition- results by a mix of functionally allocated benchmarks of (awe of) "success"
and (worship of) "virtue". The slightly "modern" manifestations, mythologies and patterns are toothless against the inquisitional
redoctrination of "good" and "evil" in times of war, that shows up in a renaissance and reconstruction of tribal thought.
Don't know if this rant was kind of understandable, so, simply:
There is no such THING as "common cause" . That's the simple source and agent of racism! But if it's so one has to infer:
There is a common source of the delusion of "common cause" that is transformed in tribal or racist thought. I name this
common source: Negation of class struggle. Wage-labor is a historical formation of slavery, thats right, and its based on sheer
military power like antique slavery, thats right as well. Its usefull and even necessary to remind those roots, but, since the
social fundament of wage-labor slavery is not only different, but antithetic to elder formations, its criticism and scandalization
has to be different and even antithetic. "Freedom" is not a cause, even less a "common" one, there is no such THING as freedom
except freedom of private property. Walking freely is a cause of lust, convenience and a resulting desire. If it becomes obligative
and necessary freedom is over and delusion comes in, solemnizing free movement against the bondage of slavery. Americans could
have learned this of native leaders they preferred to stab when they couldn't break them in cages.
the poor are many, the rich are few. Why do the rich control their lives as well as those of all the poor? What is the ratio
of guards to prisoners in a jail? by your logic the prisoners should be in control.
seriously, you can do better than that.
regardless, there is way too much time and effort spent on blaming the jews for this mess. there was plenty of inequality before
Moses led the slaves out of Egypt.
166) Of course, numbers translate into political influence.
But in the last analysis power is in the end of a gun. Money gets you nothing if you cannot defend it. So let's compare the
sizes of the US army and the Israeli army, shall we?
The "zionist conspiracy" theory is designed for the "stupid class".
[...] But in the last analysis power is in the end of a gun. Money gets you nothing if you cannot defend it. [...]
Sure, no guns no power, but at the same token, no money no guns. You see, one needs the money first, and thats where your friendly
neighborhood banker comes into the picture. But before it gets too conspiratorial for you, I better won't elaborate any further.
[...] So let's compare the sizes of the US army and the Israeli army, shall we? [...]
Why? Would only make sense to do so if we'd assume those two are enemies. But they are not. They are close allies, to the point
that if Israel would be attacked by any force strong enough to cause sweat in Tel Aviv the US would without blinking once have
its military might come to the rescue.
That's why I called NATO Israel's ultimate henchmen, troops it knows it can call on should things get hairy one day.
Since the start of the 20th century no country was allowed to attack the US Navy without getting its teeth kicked in, just
Israel. Nearly sinking in 1967 the USS Liberty, killing 34 US sailors and wounding more than a 100, but still best friends. Weird
relationship to say the least, better not think too much about it.
The reason the above argument is irresolvable is that neither side is willing to query the relatively PC term "Zionists" in favour
of the more inclusive "Jews". They say that to do this would be "divisive of the class struggle", which obviously is supposed
to be against "the bourgeoisie", whoever they are - technically, I should say, all those who live off profits or as they call
them 'dividends'. But anyway, this brings us back to the weakness in Marx himself which I mentioned before, namely the apparently
deliberate neglect of the power of bankers over industrial capitalists, which even in the 1860s must have been quite evident.
So we have to ask, who are the bankers, specifically, the 'merchant bankers' who financed the development of western colonialism,
and after them the 'international bankers' who orchestrate the global pecking order under neo-colonialism. There cannot be more
than a few tens of thousands of these specialised creatures, worldwide, and one would like to know whether, by the ruse of history,
many of them are Jewish. Then the artificial question of 'Zionists' versus 'Non-Jewish USAian Imperialists' would resolve itself,
because we would be able to see who was pulling the money strings, which ultimately decide all questions great and small.
Kagan, while he is of Jewish belief, has Zionist tendency, his and his kind ultimate aim, is the resurrection of the Khazar empire,
the control of the desert religions, the destruction of the Rus as a nation state.
Somebody, you keep referring to the stupid class. By doing so you're putting yourself right in it, subset "chardonnay sipping
intellectual up themselves bozos".
Well, then lets compare the US GDP to Israel's GDP. Sorry, there is no way Israel can dominate the US. [...]
You are stuck in this idea that one country dominates the other. What would help our discussion along is if you would open your
mind to the possibility a third party dominates both countries. Once you allow for this reality the weird and opaque relationship
the US and Israel have, or the EU for that matter, starts to make sense.
The fact that there is this seemingly never ending discussion going on about which country is the dog and which one the tail
should tell you that there are enough arguments to be found to make either theory appear plausible. The only way that is possible
is if there is a third "unifying" theory, one which explains those arguments without confusion.
And I am afraid to tell you man, the reason those two countries act in unison so often and have each others back in all important
international affairs is because the top echelons in both countries live at the whim of someone far more powerful than them. A
group of people who with their extended family have say 10 trillion dollars in assets, that's three times Germany's GDP, and control
a network of influence so wide and ingrained it knows no rival.
Rowan @170
[...] But anyway, this brings us back to the weakness in Marx himself which I mentioned before, namely the apparently deliberate
neglect of the power of bankers over industrial capitalists, which even in the 1860s must have been quite evident. So we have
to ask, who are the bankers, specifically, the 'merchant bankers' who financed the development of western colonialism, and
after them the 'international bankers' who orchestrate the global pecking order under neo-colonialism. [...]
Great summary. Their fingerprints are all over the history of wars.
I don't believe its tens of thousands, at the very tip of the pyramid, where there isn't much room left for competition as
wealth is so concentrated a clash would cause death to all, I expect a couple of hundred at the most.
They are either crazy and obsessed or they try to intentionally disrupt the discussion. They sure don't know anything about
history, about who got killed and why.
The only person trying to intentionally disrupt is YOU.
I haven't posted consistently on this blog since the Ukraine crisis, so I didn't much analyze the intentions of every poster.
But it didn't take me long to have you pegged. You are as transparent as Zionists come. You divert, you distract all discussion
away from the real guilty party. That's your main mission here. A hasbara spy in the house of free speech.
FYI, it's not the percentage, buddy, it's the power. Occupy was protesting against the 1% holding all the power and hoarding
all the wealth.
If I do a run-down of the heads of all the top banks, equity capital and venture capital firms; I'm talking those that have
hundreds of billions invested in the whole spectrum of American industry I come up with at least 80% run by supporters of Zionism.
That's a whole lot of power behind Zionism!
So don't give me the percentages bullshit, what level of intelligence quotient do you think we own around here??? Quit insulting
our intelligence!
boy, this "zionism" discussion is getting a but much, lately...
Uh, no. IMO, the subject of Zionism has been way too neglected everywhere, especially considering the gravity of our situation
and the increasing threat that Zionism presents to the integrity of justice and our own freedoms in the West, and security in
this day and age. Never mind the Palestinians; WE are at risk now. Our own rights are under fire here!
The start of Neoconism led by Kagan, Kristol, Wolfowitz, Feith and others (the majority, Zionists) was the start of the Zionization
of America and subsequently the Zionization of other Western nations, the U.S., Canada and U.K being the most affected with Australia
and others now catching up.
Of course it started quietly, sinuously working its way through the system trying not to attract too much attention. But ever
since the exposé on the Lobby, we're starting to discover just how rampant is Zionism's influence and hold and how much control
is exerted on the public's perception and how it's already started chiseling away at rights we used to take for granted.
We are so bombarded with propaganda now in the Zionist media that we've all turned to the internet because we no longer trust
the media. But now, they're after our rights and freedom here!
I read a saying the other day that went something like this: The Palestinians will never be free until America is freed. How
true! But this problem isn't only America's any more.
Today I posted somewhere else a modified version of MLKs quote on justice: An injustice to someone anywhere is an injustice
to us all everywhere. Because it's so true, that if we allow that injustice to fester indefinitely, in particular, the injustice
against Palestinians and ignore or smother the problem; eventually the rest of us will be subjected to a version of that injustice.
I'll tell you something, every airport in the world is starting to ressemble Ben Gurion. When I travel now; I feel like I'm
at an Israeli checkpoint; I can almost taste the abuse! I can only imagine the level of humiliation and pain Palestinians endure
daily.
Our freedom of speech is also on the line; the internet is no longer a free speech zone; we are monitored; we are censored;
we are bombarded with junk. When I research now, I feel like the results have been altered, like what may appear to be offensive
events or fact has been relegated to back pages or altogether removed to pink wash or whitewash what is happening. It almost feels
like the search engine is laundering information and spitting it out in the cleanest order. Is it my imagination? I don't think
so; I've been using the internet for quite some time and I'm noticing a change; something's off now.
Our privacy is threatened more than ever. Our intuitive intellect is being smothered or ridiculed. Our financial system is
dominated by individuals who not only are supporting a grave injustice, which I believe is supremacist imperialism emerging from
Zionism, but they're intent on creating a uniform system globally that is affecting the livelihoods of millions everywhere with
a selfish supremacist intention in mind based on monopolization. This is as well as I can express it given my limited economic
understanding; but I'm witnessing the results and I like everyone else is in the position to judge and criticize and stop this
outrage.
The Federal Reserve has been run by a succession of Zionists, as is the IMF and the top 1%, well just look it up; it's all
there; it's disheartening.
Honestly, wherever one looks, one sees a Zionist driving the system. What can I say, if they had honorable, decent, altruistic
intentions; personally I might not give a shit; but I really don't like where we're heading; I really don't like where they're
steering and I feel my rights and everyone's rights are being threatened and diminished and I don't want my country and the world
heading down this destructive path.
When they started accusing Occupy of anti-Semitism it appeared like Zionism was trying to control the 99%'s right to protest,
in order not to discover how really rampant Zionism is at the top 1%. I see it; everyone knows it, but we're being muzzled and
wrist tied with that pity card "anti-Semitism" that has turned into a whip against our rights instead of a means to protect people
from hate crimes.
Maybe, you and those who want to shield Zionism try to deny what our eyes plainly recognize as a threat to our freedom! Do
our eyes deceive us? You want us to stop seeing by telling us our lying eyes deceive us or we're anti-Semites? Bullshit!
Our eyes and our intuition don't deceive us! And we won't be robbed of our rights so that a supremacist ideology can exist, be
legitimized and carry on with impunity permanently!
There is the chaff and the wheat here. The wheat see without denying their inner voice and the chaff are here to ridicule that
voice and distract from the truth.
Well I see the hasbara reinforcements have arrived!
The "zionism" discussion is no discussion at all, but a constant, percussive irritant.
And expect it to get progressively more constant, progressively more irritating and percussive. This is but the beginning
of Ravel's bolero, my friend because we're still at the beginning, it's still a whisper, but it's gonna turn into a ROAR.
Zionism is going to be exposed for all it is, for the criminal supremacist, racist ideology that it is. It's really to bad
for your that it's so fatally flaw and that it's expiry date is already is view! You're on the wrong side of history and I
can't wait til you eat your words. It's coming!
kalithea, i tend to agree with copeland fwiw.. does every conversation have to turn into a discussion on zionism? as for mr.
pragma's creative use of the letter z, it is a bit inane on another level. i am willing to accept and agree with the fact it is
a large issue and of concern, but that to bring it into every conversation seems redundant. while it is true the thread title
makes for a natural fit here, but that is not the case with every thread. i think that is partly what copeland is getting at and
i agree with them on this.
So, some people have no qualms about zusa wanton mass murdering thousands and thousands ... but they are gravely irritated
by someone adding a letter too often?!
Whenever I think the zionists have finally hit the bottom of the pit they somehow manage to pierce through to an ever deeper
level.
But I'm a well minded man, so I make you an offer: As soon as zionists stop slaughtering innocent people I shall refrain from
adding the of so harmful and evil letter 'z' to words, OK.
No, seriously, I hope I never will have to deal with your "argument".
I got bad news for you and your fellow legion of hasbarists: expect my argument, ie the truth about Zionism, to grow exponentially,
and to get more constant and more persuasive and to go viral with millions more. You can't stop this cause anymore; you can't
stop the truth from busting loose and becoming the pain in your ass it'll be until it's acknowledged.
Before Obama was first elected in 08, I was being censored and labelled an anti-Semite for referring to The Zionist Lobby as
a den of spies and political browbeaters and hustlers for Zionism. And wo' and behold, turns out they've ruined careers, and were
being investigated by the FBI for espionage. Few dared type Aipac or Zionism in a negative context for fear of being banned. Now,
we can justifiably attack these from every angle because they're proving exactly what they are and many of us predicted they were.
We've come a long way, baby! And this is going all the way until Zionism goes down into the pages of historical INFAMY, and
nothing less will suffice!
You can ridicule all you want, but I won't rest and neither will the growing number, who believe as I do that Zionism is a
threat to us all and not just to Palestinians!
james @185:
The Zionist connection redundant? Not a chance! What it is, is pivotal in getting to the heart of these foreign interventions.
Lest you forget, we're usually discussing a consistent policy of foreign meddling: in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, possibly Russia
and Iran next, each one practically rebounding off the other because Syria was the road to Iran and Russia, and Ukraine
is to Russia what Syria is to Iran in this agenda; the proxies; it's all connected and if you don't get this; you're dumber
than I thought or pretending to be.
Russia doesn't only have a port at stake in Syria, Russian companies are involved in gas and oil exploration off Syria's coast,
an area that Zionists want to hoard for themselves, and Russia was heavily involved in Libya and Iraq until the mess created in
both which weakened Russian influence in both, although Russia's trying to recover it, another reason Russia's a thorn in Zionism's
side. And Ukraine is the strategy to get Russia mired in a problem on its own doorstep to take Russia's focus off Syria, deprive
it of Tartus, and again try to weaken its influence in the Middle East, and at the same time weaken Russia's economy so that it
will never be a competitive threat again in the Middle East! So you bet Zionism's fingerprints are all over this! And the connections
to Zionism go beyond what I've just stated which I've already outlined in other posts.
All these incursions even Ukraine are linked to ZIOCON foreign agenda; forget neocon forever; the term "Neocon" was always
a red herring; a Zionist euphemism used to disguise how many Zionists are actually involved in the hegemonic operation.
So don't give me that redundant crap. Neocons are ZIONISTS with an aggressive global initiative based on neutralization; and
they're driving this policy and you better believe I'm going to harp on that!
It's easy to see the mental disturbance occurring in the writings of a polemicist, in the mindless overuse of a particular
word in any given tract. It's obvious kalithea, that an abundance of couple of these words, is not a question of style in your
writing, but of obsession. First of all, this is a literate group, composed of a lot of longtime readers. Another thing is that
your irresponsible use of "hasbara" is nothing but a smear against those who have a record here of opposing the outrages of Israeli
governments, and their war crimes, about which you bark. This doesn't make you look so good.
What you remind me of most, is an enforcer of party discipline, whose job it is to crack the whip, and to hand out censures,
in other words, to excoriate and verbally abuse anyone who doesn't keep to your dogma.
The issue of the injustices handed out to Palestinians has been focused upon by most of us here for a long time; but it is
not courageous, or good of you, to fire polemic broadsides, or to dispense wantonly,
the charges of hasbara, upon anyone who hasn't tipped over into your particular fantasies.
I don't have time for those who seek to use the crimes committed against jews by europeans to excuse the crimes committed by israel
against the indigenous people of the Jordan Valley, but I don't believe that is what Tom G is doing. I supposed he was pointing
out that having half yer family knocked off by assholes tends to focus the mind (there is a lesson in there for israelis but if
they haven't learned by now its unlikely they ever will).
Pragma et al may have confused predecessors with ancestors. Predecessor is not another word for ancestor; it is someone who
precedes someone else in an office or title.
When I read Tom G's post which alluded to kalithea's predecessors I assumed that he was referring to the last mob of cheerleaders
for judeophobia - the nazis.
At no stage did I consider Tom G had some sorta special insight into the mindset of kalithea's primogenitors.
Those people who focus upon a persons race rather than the person's actions are always gonna be susceptible to believing that
others operate on the same basis.
I'm all for kicking alla the talk of antisemitism into touch as long as we can stick to considering people by what they say
and do rather than what we believe their genetics to be.
Occupy Wall Street was on the right track. People of the world need to rise up against the 1% banksters AND Zionism although they're
one and the same. These forces are driving the Ziocon imperial advance. If Occupy hadn't dissolved because of winter; Zionists
were ready to kill it because they were very worried that the Occupy Movement would eventually merge with the BDS movement against
Zionism and gain momentum on a larger scale and this is exactly what was starting to happen. People are starting to feel like
the Palestinians under Zionism; they're starting to feel like their leaders are collaborators with Zionism like Abbas and the
PA negotiating to screw their people. People are feeling like they no longer have a voice against the powerbrokers in Washington
and on Wall Street. They're feeling like they can't trust the media, because it's full of Ziocon propaganda. We are watched; we
are listened to; we are monitored. We are now the OCCUPIED of Wall Street and Zionism.
There are all kinds of articles on the web written by Zionists condemning Occupy as anti-Semitic. Google Zionism and Occupy
Wall Street. Why were Zionists so scared of Occupy? Because they know Wall Street is run by Zionists and everyone at Occupy knew
saw this; that's why they're next target was The Lobby; and they were planning to occupy Aipac. Zionists realized that the Occupy
movement getting closer and closer to the cause of Occupied Palestine. The Occupy Movement was starting to move against Zionism.
Zionism has no clothes and because we all see this FACT; they accuse us of anti-Semitism. Occupy Wall Street needs to mobilize
again, and occupy not only Wall Street, but the Zionist Lobby as well as it planned to and join with the BDS movement, because
if we don't mobilize soon against Ziocon expansion we will become the empire of Orwellian slavery that this Zionist Kaplan dreams
of. Maybe that's Zionism's PROMISED LAND.
"It isn't merely incorrect to put the cart before the horse by blaming American imperialism on the corrupt Israeli regime,
it is fucking dangerous and destructive - firstly because it causes too much time and energy be spent upon a mob of petty
crimes
(yes they are psychopaths, but in comparison to the crimes of America, Israeli leaders are petty criminals), but most importantly
because blaming 'the Jews' for the world's ills is so destructive to resistance against the asshole elites."
Thank god finally some one other than myself said this, and in a much more eloquent way than I could ever do; because I am
afraid what 'mearsheimer and walt' are doing is precisely that : "putting the cart before the horse" and the direct implication
of that is "blaming 'the jews' for the world's ills".
Sadly this is an inevitable consequence that very often is neglected by decent progressive people, in a way that I some times
feel being a part of a very small minority even on this site!
I find your argument naive*, but I won't argue it, except for the short paragraph below; and whether he meant predecessors
as in people he thinks held my beliefs, or he meant ancestors - it's still slanderous crap, because he doesn't know me and I am
not no Nazi-lover just as I'm no Zionist lover! What I am sick to death of is that bloody victim card and having it shoved in
my face like so much shit, and hung over me like the sword of Damocles! I am not German and even if I were I wouldn't be responsible
for the crap Nazis pulled. That was then and this is now. I know what I see, I see Zionist supremacy, and I always call things
as I see them and if he's offended. Tough, scroll or get lost.
I don't buy into exclusivity, exceptionalism or choseness bullshet of any kind and if that's some genetic bias than too bad
get off the f*cking chosen pedestal! I can't stand monarchies either. And I really can't stand people who don't get the concept
of universality.
Oh well, predecessor, ancestor, whatever. I think everyone could understand what I was meaning.
Anyway TomGard can hardly know
about kalitheas predecessors, ancestors, or whatever-cestors.
Debs is dead brought up an interesting point, which I'd like to extend.
Actually I remember quite well, what my first thought was when I for the first time didn't simply brush off as "oh well, palestinians
are terrorists anyway" (I should mention that I was a young man then, quite innocent or stupid, depending on ones pov) but actually
began to understand what israelis did there.
It was "Hell no! If anyone on earth is to know how evil it is to terrorize others for being of this or that race or for believing
in this that God, then it must certainly be the israelis!"
For while my anger grew and I began to despise jews. Until one day a patient elderly french jew explained it me. He showed
me the smearings on their synagogue and explained "whenever israel commits cruelties the smearings here in at our cemetery increase
in frequency and anger".
That was my lesson about the jews and the israelis and about them not always being one and the same.
And although I had all I needed to understand more I still somehow didn't arrive at the conclusion that there might be evil
planning behind it. It took me again several years and a coincidence to understand that the "jewish" in "jewish state" (israel)
might actually be a really evil disguise and a perfidious one at that.
Perfidious because israel willfully abused the negative image of "the jews" for which they were responsible in the first place.
But perfidious also because israel greatly profits from anti-semitism, both real and grossly attributed anti-semitism because
it perfectly fits israels "jews should come to israel to live there" credo.
kiev is just another case of that in a series of cases.
There is a lot more to tell but I will cut it at that point for the moment.
But although it took me long to pervade through that complex matter and often disguised by different layers and tricks, I made
it a habit to tell zionists who tried the "half of my family was killed by nazis" plot to mute someone that may dare to create
demands on history once they have proven to themselves have learned from the nazi time what is to be learned, namely that racial
or religious based terror is cruel, inhumane, and utterly despicable. Someone supporting a regime that acts not that much different
from what the nazis have been accused have simply no right to recur on that time, and even less to base demands on it, as long
as their very fucking own actions prove that, if at all, they only learned to be the criminals themselves in the very crime they
complain about.
As far as I'm concerned israel can burn and so can all its supporters.
What you guys don't understand, is that "Zionism" is the manifestation of the global Western imperialism in middle
east. It is nothing more. Is it ugly? Yes! Is it criminal? Yes! Is it responsible for all the crimes in the world? NO! Was
Zionism
responsible for the coup of 1953 in Iran? NO! Who was behind it? The Western imperialism! Was Zionism behind the coup in Guatemala
in 1954? NO! Who was behind it? The Western imperialism! Was Zionism responsible for the coup against Sukarno? NO!
Was Zionism responsible for the Vietnam war? NO! Who was responsible it? The Western imperialism! Was Zionism behind the coup
against Allende? NO! Who was behind it? The Western imperialism!
IN FACT: Was Zionism behind Zionism? NO! It was the Western imperialism and its ambitions to hegemonize the world energy resources
which was behind Zionism to begin with (Balfour declaration)!
Israel's birth predates 1948! Its real birth was in 1939 when *BRITISH IMPERIALISM* massacred Palestinians and suppressed the
Arab revolt! Zionism is the manifestation of the Western imperialism *in middle east* and not the other way around!
What a load of crock! Guys like Herzl and Jabotinsky were behind Zionism so don't gimme that crap.
I already wrote in another post here that power in the U.S. started turning Zionist sometime during Kennedy's Presidency, not
that I blame him he was otherwise very occupied. So you could have saved yourself some time screaming all those historical references
at me. And why are you so freakin' defensive anyway?
The Ziocon Jews Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Leo Strauss were the earlier founders of the so-called neoconservatism
movement, and were vehemently opposed to relaxing foreign policy in regards to the Soviet Union and communism in general.
In the early nineties the Ziocon torch was passed on to the likes of William Kristol, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle. And we all know what followed next...years of endless war.
All these "neocons" were Zionists and Jews and were instrumental in influencing foreign policy.
So as you can see Zionists and Zionism was leading the charge. Maybe you should read Paul Wolfowitz's speech at West Point.
Wolfowitz Doctrine...Not intended for public release, it was leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992,[1] and sparked
a public controversy about U.S. foreign and defense policy. The document was widely criticized as imperialist as the
document outlined a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations
and prevent any other nation from rising to superpower status.
A real manifesto for authored by a Zionist for supremacy and imperialiam.
But this is not all the Zionist cabal authored as you well know: Zionist Pnac members also authored another document called:A
Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
This subject has been talked about extensively, and I really don't have the desire to get into a useless and endless
debate recounting the history especially when people want to obstinately shut their eyes to the most obvious facts going on right
before their eyes; facts such as what's going on in Ukraine and the bloody war waged to disintegrate Yugoslavia which has/had
nothing to do with zionism.
I will just go over a couple of points in your argument which were quite nonsense (well your whole comment was nonsense but
I will just go over a couple of points).
First of all US imperialism in particular and the Western imperialism in general did not start with Kennedy, the coup against
Mosaddegh in 1953, the coup against Arbenz in 1954, the first indochina war (with absolute and active support of the French by
the USA), the Korean war and the attrocities commited by USA in Korean peninsula, the whole hearted support for Batista and brutal
suppression of the cubans, the coup against Patrice Lumumba, The colonization of India and brutal suppression of Indians by the
british, the coup after coup made against the constitutional revolution in Iran etc. etc. ALL PREDATE Kennedy. In fact in case
of USA its very inception was based on imperialism, land grab, ethnic cleansing, genocide and slavery, all happening LONG before
Kennedy and having ZERO to do with zionism.
Secondly guys like Herzl and Jabotinsky are nothing but clowns. Ineffective idiots who without the active support and the absolute
control and management of the Western imperialism would not be able to make an autonomous village let alone making an independent
country based on ethnic cleansing and mass murder. Land grab through ethnic cleansing, mass murder of the native population and
wars against all local nations require CAPITAL and MILITARY. And No capitalist invests such huge sums of capital without any rate
of return. Capital is invested for RATE OF RETURN and a hegemony to make possible the continous flow of that rate of return, not
for some nationalistic, racial or religious motive!
And so Israel was not created by the likes of Herzl, it was created by the force (monetary and military) of British empire,
and such creations by the British was not peculiar to middle east and Israel, the British had many other such wonderous feats
of crime all over the globe, of which Israel constitutes but a single example! The British did not create Israel because they
were in love with the Jews or were obssessed with Jewish nationalism. They did it because it was PROFITABLE. Hegemony is always
profitable. And they did in the middle east, what they had done all over the globe to maintain their hegemony and increase their
profit. NOTHING MORE.
Had the geology followed a different trend and all that oil been formed some where other than middle east -say in the region
of Tibet- Herzl and Jabotinsky would not have been even remembered today!
Omg, where do I start? I won't; I don't even want to dignify most of that. First, if you want to be taken seriously, paragraphs
might help.
Second, I never said imperialism started with Kennedy; at least quote me for God's sakes; it's in front of you! I said that
power in the U.S. get it? i.e. those who wield power in the US , such power started changing hands from Anglo to Zionist
during Kennedy's presidency, and I'm talking about the top of the corporate food chain, the super-wealthy who influence power
in Washington, and the evolution of the Ziocon movement. But it started discreetly without becoming obvious. Only in the 1980s
did it start becoming obvious, because it had grown so much and it's influence was becoming more transparent. The flaw with Zionists
is that they're control freaks (rig every corner of the system as much as possible in Zionism's favor) maybe it has to do with
latent paranoia, but that's the reality; don't blame me.
As far as the other wars you mention; most were to fight communism; but guess why the Ziocons, Kristol sr., Podhoretz and Strauss
formed this Ziocon movement? To prevent Communism from spreading! They broke with the Democratic party because they saw these
liberals trying to relax relations with the Soviet Union and they wanted to go in another direction: neutralize; using force.
You can blame the British all you want but around the late 50s early 1960s, again, while Kennedy was a rising star and becoming
President, Zionists were in charge of their affairs, and the worst crimes of Zionism, the worst unilateral attacks on neighboring
countries happened under Zionist sovereignty. Zionist were so in charge of their fiefdom that they started developing nuclear
weapons behind Kennedy's back; that's how powerful they were becoming.
I stated over and over again that I'm not concerned with ancient history; I'm concerned with post-WWII after the Partition,
when Zionists started bombing Palestinian villages, ethnic cleansing and massacre upon massacre. Okay Zionists started their terrorism
before, but that was only to set the stage for frustrating the British to impose their rule over the Palestinians with brutal
force.
Let's agree to disagree; you and r'giap and TomGuard can't stand my attacking Zionism, and the power it wields to keep perpetuating
the longest-running most brutal occupation in modern history and committing crimes with total impunity. You don't get to subert
the rule of law without astounding power and influence.
Your not so cogent narrative only serves to protect Zionism, and thus perpetuate this horrific injustice.
Dont' bother replying; you will never change my mind; I know what I see; and I'm going to call it as I see it: based on the
obvious exponential growth of Zionist power in the U.S.; cause I repeat; you don't get away with such crimes with TOTAL impunity
without pretty significant power, and stiffling that truth is what perpetuates Zionist Injustice against Palestine. That power
sustains injustice!
Defense of slavery and the slave trade -- the most inhuman form of exploitation conceivable. Defense of United States imperialism. One and the same. Arnold Lockshin, political exile from the US living in Moscow
It's very convenient for you, Arnold, to blame simply "US imperialism", as if it fell out of the sky. It didn't. It was directed
by finance capital, which is not an impersonal force but a collection of individual investors, more than a few of whom are interested
particularly in Jewish welfare, as they conceive it: that is to say, they want to use Jewish issues, to which the general US public
is already well conditioned, to push through an entire program of global domination by force. One wonders who these individuals
are, and why they chose Jewish issues as their cover, if they're not Jews.
"... I MET ONE JEWISH OFFICER IN COMBAT ARMS, PERIOD!!!!! ..."
"... Compare that to their ever-presence in politics and, in particular, among the Neocons who are ceaselessly starting wars and sending non-Jews to die for them. It's disgusting. ..."
"... Here's a quote from Kissinger which neatly sums it up: "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." ..."
"... "The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational" ..."
"... Let's see Fred.. Heard of the Neocons, near exclusively Jews, running US foreign policy to establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East a la Oden Yinon? Who openly acknowledges running Hollywood, Freddie? How about the moral quality of what Hollywood produces. ..."
"... "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." ..."
"... Also, there's the paraphrased quote from the Godfather Movie; "men in suits and ties make better bank robbers than men with guns." ..."
I thought Mr. Reed provided a good summary of the situation. The diversity of responses
suggests that he struck a nice balance in presenting his observations.
I am a mixed-ethnicity Roman Catholic but starting with college and ever since, most of my
closest associates and many of those with whom I work and play, except for immediate family,
have been middle class Jews. I have found these individuals to be generous and kind and not
at all clannish. All regard themselves as and in fact are patriotic Americans. Many have
achieved extraordinary success and contributed to the commonweal. Many have gone out of their
way to help and comfort me in times of personal crisis.
I find my personal experiences with individual Jews hard to reconcile with the – to
me – obvious observation that, considered as a group, American Jews have had a
disastrous impact on the United States in many areas including invidious control of (1) the
news media, publishing, and entertainment industries, (2) culture generally, (3) finance, (4)
legal institutions. (5) the government generally, and (6) foreign policy in particular.
In high school I monitored a college course on democratic political theory (excluding
Rousseau's totalitarian version) and democracy's totalitarian opponents, i.e., communism and
fascism. The readings on fascism included lengthy sections from Rosenberg's "Myth of the
Twentieth Century".
At the time, I thought that even the less hyperbolic of Rosenberg's rants verged on
insanity. Now, after observing our Jewish-dominated late republic hurtling towards utter
ruination, I'm not so sure.
"What have Jews actually done to you? Hacked your bank account? Gypped you out of your house?
Shot your dog?" and the answer will likely be, "Nothing."
Simple. I served in the Marines for about 7 years as an infantry officer. I met, worked
with and greatly valued many 10s of thousands of Marines.
Infantry is combat arms as are artillery, special ops, missile forces, Marine Air,
etc.
I MET ONE JEWISH OFFICER IN COMBAT ARMS, PERIOD!!!!!
Now, they were everywhere in professional positions in our sister service, the Navy.
Doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. But almost none in combat arms in America but well
represented in the armed forces of Israel.
Compare that to their ever-presence in politics and, in particular, among the Neocons
who are ceaselessly starting wars and sending non-Jews to die for them. It's
disgusting.
Onward Christian soldier is the new Jewish American national anthem. They're disloyal
cowards and they're a fifth column for Israel here in the U.S. If they vaporized tomorrow
we'd be better off.
Here's a quote from Kissinger which neatly sums it up: "Military men are just dumb,
stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."
No wonder to me why they were burned in the crematoriums in German during WWII.
I've long wondered how that 2% number was arrived at. Who is counted as Jewish? If it's
only those who actively practice the religion, then I'd guess 2% is about right. But how many
more are there whose ancestors were Jewish but who aren't religious (like me) or practice
Christianity (like my brother)?
Granted, the number of non-religious Jews is shrinking, as Corvinus pointed out upthread.
My brothers and I would all be considered Jewish by ancestry, but none of our children are,
because their mothers aren't.
I suspect that support for Israel and Zionism is much stronger among religious Jews than
my sort. I've never been to Israel, and you'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me to go
there. My parents' opinion was that the state of Israel should never have been created.
This article should be entitled "1000 Reasons why Fred Reed is a Complete Moron".
"The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational"
Let's see Fred.. Heard of the Neocons, near exclusively Jews, running US foreign
policy to establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East a la Oden Yinon? Who openly
acknowledges running Hollywood, Freddie? How about the moral quality of what Hollywood
produces.
Fred apparently slept through Bible class, but the New Testament refers to it as devouring
widow's houses.
Matthew 23:14 "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a
pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."
Also, there's the paraphrased quote from the Godfather Movie; "men in suits and ties
make better bank robbers than men with guns."
Interesting but very controversial. Jewish people do possess business acumen and are more oriented toward money success. Just
look what happened in the USSR after its dissolution and Yeltsin privatization. Most "oligarchs" turned to be Jewish ;-)
Also the achievement of Jewish people in science should be be underestimated. This nation gave world a lot of top
physicists mathematicians and philosophers.
Notable quotes:
"... Even the Saudi Monarchy's occasional outbursts against Israel do not inhibit it from engaging in large-scale financial transactions with the Jewish banking elite on Wall Street and City of London and from forming covert alliances with Israeli intelligence in order to overthrow secular pro-Palestinian Arab regimes – as has happened in Libya, Iraq and Syria. They have both benefited from the massive ethnic cleansing of the highly educated minority Christian populations of secular Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Fake anti-Semitism is most recently seen in the launching of series of anti-Semitic 'threats' by ethno-centric Jews to create hysteria, serves many purposes following the recent rise of populism in Europe and the election of the American President Donald Trump who had promised to withdraw the US from wars in the Middle East. First, it secures widespread support from North American and European regimes, especially when Israel is criticized throughout the world and at the United Nations for its war crimes in occupied Palestine. ..."
"... It is almost certain that the US FBI had identified the perpetrator of these acts as they uncovered the sophisticated operation based in Israel. The FBI would have demanded Israeli police arrest 'the culprit' and shut down the operation. Israeli police staged their own 'fake' investigation and concluded that the complex cloaked cyber operations 'were the work of a shy nineteen year old with dyslexia' – clearly another example of the Jewish genius. ..."
"... A review of the top 10 US multi-billionaires finds four who are identified as 'Jews': Mark Zuckerberg with $56 billion, Larry Ellison with $52.2 billion, Michael Bloomberg with $47.5 billion and Sergey Brin $39.4 billion. In other words 40% of the super-richest Americans are 'Jews' while 60% are non-Jews. Among the top ten in the US, billionaire Jews with a total of $195.1 billion are collectively less rich than the top billionaire Gentiles who own $282.7 billion. ..."
"... All the high-tech computer and financial billionaires are just assumed by the tribalists to view themselves as 'Jewish geniuses' even though they may have learned and borrowed ideas and knowledge from their non-Jewish partners and mentors in Silicon Valley or Wall Street. ..."
Ethno-religious (ER) beliefs and practices have been harmless when individuals or
groups linked to those practices have limited influence over the state and economy. In contrast,
when such groups exercise a disproportionately powerful influence over the state and economy, they
dominate and exploit majorities while forming closed self-replicating networks.
Examples of powerful ethno-centric regimes in the 1930's are well known for their brutality and
devastating consequences. These include the white Christians in the US, Germany and the European
colonial settlement regimes in Rhodesia, South Africa, India and Indonesia, as well as the Japanese
imperialists in Asia.
In the post-colonial or neo-colonial era, ethno-centrism has taken the form of virulent anti-Islamic
hysteria resulting in predatory Western regimes embarking on wars and military occupations in the
Middle East.
The rise of Judeo-centrism, as an economic and political force, occurred in the last half of
the 20th century. The Jewish-Zionist seizure, occupation and ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine
and their rising economic and political influence within the United States has created a formidable
power bloc with significant implications for world peace.
The rise of Jewish ethnocentrism (JE) has confounded its proponents as well as its adversaries;
Zionists and anti-Semites alike are surprised by the scope and depth of JE.
Advocates and adversaries, of all persuasions, conflate the power of what they call 'the Jews',
for their own purposes. Advocates find proof of 'Jewish genius' in every prestigious position and
attribute it to their own unique culture, heredity and scholarship, rather than the result of a greater
social-cultural context. The anti-Semites, for their part, attribute all the world's nefarious dealings
and diabolic plots to 'the Jews'. This creates a strange duality of illusions about the exceptionalism
of a minority group.
In this paper I will focus on demystifying the myths buttressing the power of contemporary Judeo-centric
ideology, belief and organizational influence. There is little point in focusing on anti-Semitism,
which has no impact on the economy and the exercise of state power with the possible exception of
Saudi Arabia. Even the Saudi Monarchy's occasional outbursts against Israel do not inhibit it from
engaging in large-scale financial transactions with the Jewish banking elite on Wall Street and City
of London and from forming covert alliances with Israeli intelligence in order to overthrow secular
pro-Palestinian Arab regimes – as has happened in Libya, Iraq and Syria. They have both benefited
from the massive ethnic cleansing of the highly educated minority Christian populations of secular
Iraq and Syria.
Fake Anti-Semitism: Operational Weapon of the Ethno-Centric Jews
Fake anti-Semitism is most recently seen in the launching of series of anti-Semitic 'threats'
by ethno-centric Jews to create hysteria, serves many purposes following the recent rise of populism
in Europe and the election of the American President Donald Trump who had promised to withdraw the
US from wars in the Middle East. First, it secures widespread support from North American and European
regimes, especially when Israel is criticized throughout the world and at the United Nations for
its war crimes in occupied Palestine. Widespread fake anti-Semitic attacks divert attention to Judeo-ethno
centrists and validate their claims to be the first among the history's victims. Second, widely publicized
'fake' acts of anti-Semitism arouse the ethnocentric foot soldiers and increase rich donor contributions
to the illegal Jewish settlements and the Israeli military. Third, 'fake anti-Semitism' is used to
threaten, repress and outlaw any organizations and individuals who criticize Israel and the influence
of Jewish ethnocentric organizations in their home countries.
How many 'anti-Semitic' acts are staged is uncertain: On March 23, 2017, an Israeli-American
man was arrested in Israel for sending hundreds of fake anti-Semitic threats to Jewish institutions
and schools in four European countries and nine US states. Such threats led to the emergency grounding
of two US airlines and the panicked evacuation of countless schools and cultural centers. This man
used a sophisticated system of cloaking accounts to appear to originate in other countries. Despite
his high skills at cyber-terrorism, Israeli authorities preposterously described him as a 'teenager
with a learning disability'. The Israeli-American cyber-terrorist's arrest made the 'back-pages'
news in the US for one day while his (and others') fake threats continued to make international headlines
for weeks.
These scores of fake anti-Semitic bomb threats were cited by the major ethnocentric leaders in
the US to pressure the US President and hundreds of Congressional leaders, University Presidents,
etc. to mindlessly echo their clamor for greater police state investigations against critics of Israel
and to offer special 'protection' for potential 'Jewish victims'. Moves to outlaw criticism of Israel
as 'anti-Semitism' and a 'hate crime' increased.
Not surprisingly the leading Jewish organizations never backed down or called on the US government
to investigate the source of the fake anti-Semitic threats: that is Israeli-American Zionists, who
carry both nations' passports and can enter and exit with total ease and enjoy immunity from extradition.
It is almost certain that the US FBI had identified the perpetrator of these acts as they uncovered
the sophisticated operation based in Israel. The FBI would have demanded Israeli police arrest 'the
culprit' and shut down the operation. Israeli police staged their own 'fake' investigation and concluded
that the complex cloaked cyber operations 'were the work of a shy nineteen year old with dyslexia'
– clearly another example of the Jewish genius.
It is more likely that the hundreds of false-anti-Semitic
threats were part of an Israeli state operation identified by the FBI who 'diplomatically' pressured
Tel Aviv to cut out the monkey business. The news report of the lone-wolf teenager in Israel allowed
the Israeli intelligence to cover-up their role. Once the Israelis passed off the unbelievable tale
of a brilliant, if troubled, young 'lone wolf', the entire US mass media buried the story forever.
In due time the so-called perpetrator will be released, amply rewarded and his identity re-cycled.
In the meantime the US government, as well as several European governments, was forced to allocate
tens of millions of dollars to provide extra security to Jewish institutions in the wake of these
fake threats.
Jewish Power: The Top 25 American Multi-Billionaires
In February 2017, Forbes magazine compiled a list of the world's billionaires, including a country-by-country
account. The top five countries with multi-billionaires among its citizens are: the US with 565,
China with 319, Germany with 114, India with 101, and Russia with 96. Moreover, since 2016 the net
worth of the multi-billionaires grew 18% to $7.67 trillion dollars.
While the US has the greatest number of billionaires, China is fast catching up.
Despite China's advances, the US remains the center of world capitalism with the greatest concentration
of wealth, as well as the greatest and growing inequalities. One reasonably can argue that who controls
US wealth controls the world.
'Jews' among the Top 25 Multi-Billionaires in the US
A review of the top 10 US multi-billionaires finds four who are identified as 'Jews': Mark Zuckerberg
with $56 billion, Larry Ellison with $52.2 billion, Michael Bloomberg with $47.5 billion and Sergey
Brin $39.4 billion. In other words 40% of the super-richest Americans are 'Jews' while 60% are non-Jews.
Among the top ten in the US, billionaire Jews with a total of $195.1 billion are collectively less
rich than the top billionaire Gentiles who own $282.7 billion.
Of the top 25 multi-billionaires in the US, 11 of the 25 are Jews. In other words 'the Jews'
represent 44% of the top 25 biggest billionaires – outnumbered by Gentiles but catching up.
Analysis of the 'Richest Jews'
We place 'Jews' in quotation marks because this is a doubtful signifier – more useful to both
Zionist fanatics and anti-Semitic polemicists. Most are not 'practicing' or are completely disinterested
in tribal religions. Nevertheless, half of secular Jews in the US are active supporters of Israel
or involved in Fifth Column Israeli 'front groups'.
In other words, about half of the richest 'Jews' do not consider themselves to be religiously
or ethnically 'Jewish'. Super rich Jews are divided regarding their ethnic loyalties between the
US and Israel.
Moreover what is murkier, many of the richest so-called 'Jews' were born to 'mixed marriages'.
Strictly religious Jews do not recognize the children of such marriages as Jews because their mothers
are not Jewish. The omnivorous Zionists, on the other hand, classify all of them as Jews on the basis
of their actual or potential contribution to the State of Israel. In other words, the Zionist classification
of 'Jews' becomes arbitrary, politicized and dependent on organizational affiliation. Religious practice
and ethno-cultural purity are less important.
Judeo-Centrism and the Intrinsic Superiority Fallacy
Among the many zealous advocates of the Judeo-centric world, the most tiresome are those who
claim they represent the product of superior genetics, culture and heritage – unique and intrinsic
to Jews.
For many centuries most Jews were illiterate believers of religious tribal myths, taught by anti-scientific
rabbis, who closed off the ghettos from the accomplishments of higher culture and forbade integration
or mixed marriages. The high priests punished and expelled any Jews who were influenced by the surrounding
Hellenistic, Romanized, Arabic, Renaissance and Rationalists cultures, like the great Spinoza.
In other words, Jews who had rejected Jewish law, the Scriptures and the Torah were expelled
as apostates. But these 'apostates' were most open to the modern ideas of science. Jews greatly benefited
from the emancipatory laws and opportunities following the French Revolution. Under Napoleon, Jews
became citizens and were free to advance in science, the arts and finance by attending secular universities
away from the primitive, superstitious Rabbi-controlled ghetto 'schools'.
The dramatic growth of intellectual excellence among Jews in the 19th century was a result of
their ceasing to be Jews in the traditional closed religious sense. Did they suddenly switch on their
'genius genes' or invent a fake history or religion, as the ethno-centrist would have us believe?
It seems far more likely that they took great advantage of the opportunities opened to them with
major social and political developments in the greater society. As they assimilated and integrated
in secular traditions, they ceased to be Jews in the tribal religious sense. Their scientific, medical
and financial success came from learning, absorbing and exchanging scientific ideas, high culture
and conservative, liberal and socialist ideas with the larger progressive non-Jewish society.
It is no coincidence that 'great Jewish achievers' like the totally secular Albert Einstein were
educated in German universities by German professors and drew on scientific knowledge by German and
non-Jewish scholars. His intellectual development was due to his free association with the great
scientists and scholars of Germany and Europe, not closeted away in some ethno-tribal commune.
The Jews who remained embedded in the Polish, Lithuanian and Russian ghettos, under the reign
of the leading Rabbis, remained illiterate, poor and backward. Most of the claims of 'superior' cultural
heritage or traditions are the creation of a mythical folk history serving ethno-national supremacists.
The Myth of the Contemporary Genius
The modern ethnocentric ideologues ignore the 'dilution of Jewishness' in their celebratory identification
with successful 'Jews'.
Many of the best thinkers, writers, scientists and political leaders were conversos (Christian
converts), or integrated European secular nationalists, socialists, monarchists, bankers and professionals.
Some remained 'reformed Jews' or later transformed into secular Zionists: nationalists who despised
non-Europeans as inferior and couldn't even conceive of Arab Palestine as their 'homeland'. It wasn't
until the 20th century that Zionism was in part 'Judacized'. Early Zionists looked at various locations
for a homeland, including Argentina and parts of Africa and Russia.
These ethno-chauvinist ideologues lay claim to all brilliant individuals, no matter how tenuous
as examples of 'Jewish genius'. Even those personally opposed Jewish ethno-religious beliefs and
indifferent to tribal loyalties end up being claimed as examples of the 'Jewish genius'. Once some
'matrilineal link' could be found, their success and brilliance was tied to the mystical lineage,
no matter how tenuous.
This bizarre practice became even more commonplace following the Jewish military conquest and
brutal ethnic cleansing of Palestine, with the military, political and financial backing of non-Jewish
Europe and the United States. With myths and inflated ideas of unique virtue and brilliance, Israel
was established as a racist apartheid state. A new militant, ethnocentric Judaism converted Israel and its overseas backers into an ethno-ideological
international power with religious trappings, based on the myth of its 'exceptionalism'. To maintain this myth, the personal histories of all prominent 'Israel Firsters' were sanitized
and scrubbed of anti-social and destructive behavior.
All Jewish billionaires were to be portrayed as uniquely philanthropic, while the exploits of
Jewish billionaire swindlers (Bernie Madoff, Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky) were not to be mentioned
in polite company. The conquests of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, rapist-procurer head of
the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Governor Elliot Spitzer, Congressman Anthony Weiner and other similar
perverts quietly slithered off the edge of the planet although all had once been hailed as examples
of 'ethnocentric genius'.
Major Jewish political donors to US-UK-French electoral parties were hailed while their work
on behalf of Israel was naturally assumed but not discussed. The dizzying shifts between open adulation
and selective whitewash served to reinforce the illusion of superiority. Anyone, Jew or Gentile,
bold enough to point out the obvious hypocrisy would be immediately censored as 'self-hating' (Jew)
or 'anti-Semite' (Gentile).
Return to the Beginning: Judeo-Centric Power
As mentioned above, Jews represent a substantial minority among the top multi-billionaires, but
they are still a minority. Below the top level of wealth are the single digit billionaires and triple
and double digit multi-millionaires; here the proportion of 'Jews' increases. These 'less-than-super-billionaires'
are among the most active and the biggest financial and political supporters of the ethno centric
ideology and tribal cohesion.
Los Angeles-based Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban contributed tens of millions of dollars
to support of the Jewish state's occupation of Palestine and brutal colonial land grabbing 'settlers'.
His wealth is largely based on his 'genius' in pushing culturally vacuous Japanese cartoons (Mighty
Morphing Power Rangers) on the nation's children. He is the primary donor to the Democratic Party
pushing Israel's agenda – his number one priority as an American citizen.
The lesser 'foot soldiers' of the Zionist power structure are the millionaires and affluent professionals,
dentists, stockbrokers, lawyers, doctors and impresarios. The middle and lower levels of wealth and
power are a diverse group – mostly ethno-religious and secular, but very self-identified ethno-Jews.
A minority is totally secular or converted to non-Jewish religions (especially Buddhism, Christianity)
Despite the constant drumbeat of ethnocentric identity, an increasing number of young US 'Jews'
do not identify with Judaism or Israel. Their influence however is minimal.
The wealthy ethno-religious and secular ethnic Jews may or may not constitute a numerical majority
but they are the best organized, most political and most adamant in their claims to 'speak for and
represent the Jewish community' as a whole, especially during waves of (fake) 'anti-Semitism'!
The many former-Jews, anti-tribal Jews and 'non-Jewish' Jews are no match for the ethnocentric
political apparatus controlled by the chauvinists.
When the tribalists appropriate the glory of a secular non-Jewish Jewish scientist or major 'prize
winner' they claim his or her tribal affiliation in order to impress the 'goys' and to seduce younger
more skeptical Jews about the advantages of ethno-chauvinism.
All the high-tech computer and financial billionaires are just assumed by the tribalists to view
themselves as 'Jewish geniuses' even though they may have learned and borrowed ideas and knowledge
from their non-Jewish partners and mentors in Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
Upward mobility within academia, government and business circles is automatically assumed by
the tribalists to be a reward for superior merit – 'Jewish genius' – rather than nepotism or connections.
Tribal networks and 'understandings' play a powerful unspoken role in career success and immunity
from the consequences of failure, incompetence or dishonesty.
Multi-billionaires and multi-millionaires prospered because they entered establish lucrative
fields or made their career choices highly profitable.
Early on, many powerful Gentile bankers provided entry for talented Jews to succeed. This is
despite revisionist history bemoaning the exclusion of US Jews on Wall Street and their degrading
denial of membership in select WASP country clubs. These myths of brutal oppression on Wall Street
or Long Island yacht clubs have empowered generations of American Jews to assume the role of spokespersons
for the oppressed everywhere. The expression 'crying all the way to the bank' comes to mind.
By the last quarter of the 20th century and especially in the 21st century, deindustrialization
and the shift to financialization in the US economy increased the power and privilege of a disproportionate
number of multi-billionaire/millionaire Jews. This seismic shift has coincided with the pervasive
impoverishment of the marginalized working class in the former 'rust belt' and central parts of the
country and the incredible concentration of national wealth at the top 1%. This is a demographic
shift and ethno-class apartheid of huge, but unstudied, significance.
The most important political question is not how many Jews are super-wealthy but what proportion
of them are influential political donors and active in the Democratic or Republican Parties in order
to intervene on behalf of clan, tribe and motherland (Israel). Majorities among Jews are not crucial
– most are not politically active. What is decisive is the percentage of all the super-wealthy who
are politically active, organized and contribute substantially to influence and control the mass
media to promote their ethno-centric ideology and punish critics.
Conclusion
Overt and covert Jewish supremacists have embroidered a fake history and legacy of exceptional
intelligence ignoring the context of advanced non-Jewish science and cultures, which preceded and
later provided Jews with opportunities for education and wealth.
The danger inherent in all ethno-centric tribes is that they work to dominate majority populations
by creating systems of assigning superiority and inferiority. They then use these to justify growing
inequalities of wealth, education and political power!
Historically favored minorities tend to overreach and, like the eyeless Sampson, bring down the
Temple on everyone. Power corrupts and absolute ethno-chauvinist power corrupts absolutely. Intelligent
Jews of principle are abandoning
Vindictiveness not always play in the vindictive party favour.
You may love Assange you may hate Assange for his WikiLeaks revelation (And Vault 7 was a
real bombshell), but it is clear that it will cost Trump some reputation out of tini share that
still left, especially in view of Trump declaration "I love Wikileaks"
For seven years, we have had to listen to a chorus of journalists, politicians and "experts"
telling us that Assange was nothing more than a fugitive from justice, and that the British and
Swedish legal systems could be relied on to handle his case in full accordance with the law.
Barely a "mainstream" voice was raised in his defence in all that time.
... ... ...
The political and media establishment ignored the mounting evidence of a secret grand jury
in Virginia formulating charges against Assange, and ridiculed Wikileaks' concerns that the
Swedish case might be cover for a more sinister attempt by the US to extradite Assange and lock
him away in a high-security prison, as had happened to whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
... ... ...
Equally, they ignored the fact that Assange had been given diplomatic status by Ecuador, as
well as Ecuadorean citizenship. Britain was obligated to allow him to leave the embassy, using
his diplomatic immunity, to travel unhindered to Ecuador. No "mainstream" journalist or
politician thought this significant either.
... ... ...
They turned a blind eye to the news that, after refusing to question Assange in the UK,
Swedish prosecutors had decided to quietly drop the case against him in 2015. Sweden had kept
the decision under wraps for more than two years.
... ... ...
Most of the other documents relating to these conversations were unavailable. They had been
destroyed by the UK's Crown Prosecution Service in violation of protocol. But no one in the
political and media establishment cared, of course.
Similarly, they ignored the fact that Assange was forced to hole up for years in the
embassy, under the most intense form of house arrest, even though he no longer had a case to
answer in Sweden. They told us -- apparently in all seriousness -- that he had to be arrested
for his bail infraction, something that would normally be dealt with by a fine.
... ... ...
This was never about Sweden or bail violations, or even about the discredited Russiagate
narrative, as anyone who was paying the vaguest attention should have been able to work out. It
was about the US Deep State doing everything in its power to crush Wikileaks and make an
example of its founder.
It was about making sure there would never again be a leak like that of Collateral Murder,
the military video released by Wikileaks in 2007 that showed US soldiers celebrating as they
murdered Iraqi civilians. It was about making sure there would never again be a dump of US
diplomatic cables, like those released in 2010 that revealed the secret machinations of the US
empire to dominate the planet whatever the cost in human rights violations.
Now the pretence is over. The British police invaded the diplomatic territory of Ecuador --
invited in by Ecuador after it tore up Assange's asylum status -- to smuggle him off to jail.
Two vassal states cooperating to do the bidding of the US empire. The arrest was not to help
two women in Sweden or to enforce a minor bail infraction.
No, the British authorities were acting on an extradition warrant from the US. And the
charges the US authorities have concocted relate to Wikileaks' earliest work exposing the US
military's war crimes in Iraq -- the stuff that we all once agreed was in the public interest,
that British and US media clamoured to publish themselves.
Still the media and political class is turning a blind eye. Where is the outrage at the lies
we have been served up for these past seven years? Where is the contrition at having been
gulled for so long? Where is the fury at the most basic press freedom -- the right to publish
-- being trashed to silence Assange? Where is the willingness finally to speak up in Assange's
defence?
It's not there. There will be no indignation at the BBC, or the Guardian, or CNN. Just
curious, impassive -- even gently mocking -- reporting of Assange's fate.
And that is because these journalists, politicians and experts never really believed
anything they said. They knew all along that the US wanted to silence Assange and to crush
Wikileaks. They knew that all along and they didn't care. In fact, they happily conspired in
paving the way for today's kidnapping of Assange.
They did so because they are not there to represent the truth, or to stand up for ordinary
people, or to protect a free press, or even to enforce the rule of law. They don't care about
any of that. They are there to protect their careers, and the system that rewards them with
money and influence. They don't want an upstart like Assange kicking over their applecart.
Now they will spin us a whole new set of deceptions and distractions about Assange to keep
us anaesthetised, to keep us from being incensed as our rights are whittled away, and to
prevent us from realising that Assange's rights and our own are indivisible. We stand or fall
together.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include
"Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East"
(Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books).
His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
This should be an uncomfortable time for the “journalists” of the
Establishment. Very few will speak up as does Mr. Cook. Watch how little is said about the
recent Manning re-imprisonment to sweat out grand jury testimony. Things may have grown so
craven that we’ll even see efforts to revoke Mr. Assange’s awards.
This is also a good column for us to share with those people who just might want not to
play along with the lies that define Exceptionalia.
… from the moment Julian Assange first sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in
London, they have been telling us we were wrong, that we were paranoid conspiracy
theorists. We were told there was no real threat of Assange’s extradition to the
United States, that it was all in our fevered imaginations.
It all reminds me of Rod Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility: “That’ll
never happen. And when it does , boy won’t you deserve it!”
Equally, they ignored the fact that Assange had been given diplomatic status by Ecuador,
as well as Ecuadorean citizenship. Britain was obligated to allow him to leave the embassy,
using his diplomatic immunity, to travel unhindered to Ecuador. No “mainstream”
journalist or politician thought this significant either.
Why would they? They don’t even recognize diplomatic status for heads of state who
get in their way! Remember what they did to President Evo Morales of Bolivia back when he was
threatening to grant asylum to Ed Snowden? Here’s a refresher:
People who just watch corporate media think Julian Assange is a bad guy who deserves life
in prison, except those who watch the great Tucker Carlson. Watch his recent show where he
explains why our corporate media and political class hate Assange.
He is charged with encouraging Army Private Chelsea Manning to send him embarrassing
information, specifically this video of a US Army Apache helicopter gunning down civilians in
broad daylight in Baghdad.
But there is no proof of this, and Manning has repeatedly said he never communicated to
Assange about anything. Manning got eight years in prison for this crime; the Apache pilots
were never charged. and now they want to hang Assange for exposing a war crime. I have
recommend this great 2016 interview twice, where Assange calmly explains the massive
corruption that patriotic FBI agents refer to as the “Clinton Crime Family.”
This gang is so powerful that it ordered federal agents to spy on the Trump political
campaign, and indicted and imprisoned some participants in an attempt to pressure President
Trump to step down. It seems Trump still fears this gang, otherwise he would order his
attorney general to drop this bogus charge against Assange, then pardon him forever and
invite him to speak at White House press conferences.
“… they ignored the fact that Assange was forced to hole up for years in
the embassy, under the most intense form of house arrest, even though he no longer had a
case to answer in Sweden.”
Meh! Assange should have walked out the door of the embassy years ago. He might have ended
up in the same place, but he could have seized the moral high ground by seeking asylum in
Britain for fear of the death penalty in the US, which was a credible fear given public
comments by various US officials. By rotting away in the Ecuadorian embassy, be greatly
diminished any credibility he might have had to turn the UK judicial system inside out to his
favour. Now he’s just a creepy looking bail jumper who flung faeces against the wall,
rather than being a persecuted journalist.
@Johnny Rottenborough Millionaire politicians on both sides of the political fence get
very emotional about anything that impacts their own privacy & safety and the privacy
& safety of their kin, while ignoring the issues that jeopardize the privacy & safety
of ordinary voters. While corporate-owned politicians get a lot out of this game,
ordinary voters who have never had less in the way of Fourth Amendment privacy rights, and
whose First Amendment rights are quickly shrinking to the size of Assange’s, do not get
the consolation of riches without risk granted to bought-off politicians in this era’s
pay-to-play version of democracy. It’s a lose / lose for average voters.
Mr Cook’s criticism of the mainstream media (MSM) is absolutely justified.
It seems to me that their hatred of Mr Assange reflects the unfortunate fact that, while
he is a real journalist, they actually aren’t. Instead, they are stenographers for
power: what Paul Craig Roberts calls “presstitutes” (a very happy coinage which
exactly hits the bull’s eye).
The difference is that real journalists, like Mr Assange, Mr Roberts and Mr Cook, are
mainly motivated by the search for objective truth – which they then publish, as far as
they are able.
Whereas those people who go by the spurious names of “journalist”,
“reporter”, “editor”, etc. are motivated by the desire to go on
earning their salaries, and to gain promotion and “distinction” in society. (Sad
but true: social distinction is often gained by performing acts of dishonesty and downright
wickedness).
Here are some interesting quotations that cast some light on this disheartening state of
affairs. If you look carefully at their dates you may be surprised to find that nothing has
changed very much since the mid-19th century.
‘Marr: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that
journalists are…”
‘Chomsky: “I’m not saying you’re self censoring. I’m sure
you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed
something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re
sitting”’.
‘If something goes wrong with the government, a free press will ferret it out and it
will get fixed. But if something goes wrong with our free press, the country will go straight
to hell’.
‘There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in
country towns. You are all slaves. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who
dares to express an honest opinion. If you expressed it, you would know beforehand that it
would never appear in print. I am paid $150 for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am
connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I should
allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, I would be like Othello before
twenty-four hours: my occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write
honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The business of a New
York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at
the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for what is
about the same — his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be
toasting an “Independent Press”! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind
the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents,
our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual
prostitutes’.
‘The press today is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with
journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier
obeys blindly, and war-aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader
neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role
that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined.
Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is
only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty’.
– Oswald Spengler, “The Decline of the West” Vol. II, trans. C.F.
Atkinson (1928), p. 462
‘How do wars start? Wars start when politicians lie to journalists, then believe
what they read in the press’.
Very good article. There is one point that I would like to make: Assange asked for asyl
before he went to the embassy of Ecuador and Ecuador gave him asylum. This meant that they
had an obligation to protect him. It’s really unbeliavable that a country gives asylum
to someone and half way tells that they have changed their mind and will let the person be
arrested. ” We told you you would be safe with us, but now we just changed our
mind”. Assange also became a citizen of Ecuador and this possibly means that Ecuador
couldn’t have let him been arrested in their embassy by the police of another country
without a process against him in Ecuador and without him having the right to defend himself
in a court. Many countries don’t extradit their citizens to other countries.
Another remark. For years there were uncountable articles about Assange in The Guardian.
Those articles were read by many people and got really many comments. There were very fierce
discussions about him with thousends of comments. With time The Guardian turned decisively
against him and published articles againt him. There were people there who seemed to hate
him. In the last days there were again many articles about him. They pronounce themselves
discretely against his extradition to the US even if showing themselves to be critical of him
as if trying to justify their years of attacks against him. But one detail: I didn’t
find even one article in The Guardian where you can comment the case. Today for instance you
can comment an article by Gaby Hinsliff about Kim Kardashian. Marina Hyde talks in an article
about washing her hair (whatever else she wants to say, with 2831 comments at this moment).
But you don’t find any article about Assange that you can comment. 10 or 8 or 5 years
ago there were hundreds of articles about him that you could comment.
UK PM May said about Assange – “no one is above the law” –
proving she is a weak sister without a clue.
No one is above the law except the British government, which ignored the provisions of the
EU Withdrawal Act requiring us to leave on March 29th.
No one is above the law except for the US and the UK which have illegally deployed forces
to Syria against the wishes of the government in Damascus.
And Tony Blair, a million dead thanks to his corruption. He should be doing time in a
Gulag for his evil crimes.
And of course, the black MP for Peterborough – Fiona Onasanya – served a mere
three weeks in jail for perverting the course of justice, normally regarded as a very serious
offence. But she was out in time – electronic tag and curfew notwithstanding – to
vote in the House of Commons against leaving the EU.
This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more
than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the
world, invade the world. On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can
anyone still be conned into supporting him.
This is why Anglo-Saxon propaganda is so very effective. They have freedom of speech,
see? Though of course saying politically incorrect things might socially kill you, so it's
understood you won't do that. You will say PC (including anti-Russian, etc.) platitudes
always. So people will not even notice PC propaganda, like fish don't notice they're wet.
And when trying to convince a normie, you have to break a very long, almost infinite chain
of assumptions, which you won't know how to do.
Take a look at the career of Charles Austin Beard, for example.
He was one of the single most highly-regarded historians in America; his contributions to
the field were well-known and massively important. But even he could not break through the
pillars of propaganda when he published his book about the folly of Franklin Roosevelt's
foreign policy. The "court historians" like Samuel Eliot Morison and Schlesinger, et al,
blackballed his work and dismissed it with the most flippant arrogance and lack of care for
detail. The major newspapers and periodicals followed suit. Overnight he became all but a
pariah. Only a few regional newspapers were willing to treat his work with serious care. To
his credit, Beard had anticipated this reaction, but published his works anyway.
After World War 1, revisionism became par for the course in America – the vast
majority of historians, journalists, together with the public as a whole, came to agree that
America's entry into that conflict had been a selfish mistake. But during and after World War
Two, what you call "Anglo-Saxon propaganda" tightened up to a remarkably successful degree,
and to this day the pro-interventionist myth of the "great crusade" is all but unimpeachable
among the masses. In fact, the anti-revisionists, the "court historians," even managed to
defeat the old inter-war consensus about World War One, so that even it is now regarded as an
idealistic crusade for democracy! Very remarkable stuff, though sad!
I would probably do the same thing in Putin's situation. At a very basic level you simply
cannot trust people like Assange. Giving refuge to a spy is one thing; you're not going to
let him near any state secrets so it's not like he could betray you even if he wanted to (and
it's easy to keep an eye on him). For somebody like Assange there's the constant threat that
he could turn against you: acquire damaging information and use it as leverage, or simply
release it for the sake of his own ego or murky ideals. Too much potential for embarrassment.
Snowden was closer in spirit to a spy imo; Assange is more like bin Laden or a mafia boss,
the head of a shadowy international organization with significant reach and resources.
It's sort of like the French Foreign Legion: they take a dim view of British and American
recruits and generally won't let them join unless they speak French or have prior military
experience. The reason is psychological unsuitability: no sensible British or American person
interested in a military career would volunteer to be a mercenary for a foreign country over
serving in his own country's well-funded armed forces. Romantics and escapists are inherently
flaky and unreliable people. That's also why Brazilians are regarded as the best Legion
soldiers: they just do it to get EU citizenship
Ecuador rented a house opposite their main offices in Knightsbridge, and had three agents
in the house to permanently monitor Assange on cameras (for a cost of $1 million a year).
So they might be more intelligent than we think?
At the same time, Ecuador's politicians had problems justifying the costs of this to their
media.
Perhaps it seems more like this was perceived by Ecuador, as an intelligence operation, to
monitor Assange, and get intelligence information they could would use as leverage with the
Americans.
Today, the Ecuadorian interior minister is suddenly boasting about how they monitored and
have knowledge about two hackers who worked with Assange.
@reiner Tor Scotland yard
tried to play down their own costs of hanging outside the Ecuadorian embassy, which in 2015
was already estimated to be well over £10m over the prior three years, by saying that a
lot of that cost was money they would have spent on policing anyway: Tell that to the rapidly
increasing numbers of families of murder victims in the Capital. Oops, careful about saying
that in the UK, as the police there will pick you up for a thought-crime.
Elites around the globe protect each other more than they protect the interests of non-elites
in their own nations and any who side with non-elites in any non-trivial way, so it makes
sense that Latin American elites side with US elites who favor the mass immigration that has
driven down wages for 40 years and the mass exportation of US jobs to Latin American since it
1) boosts the profits of American elites and 2) relieves pressure on Latin American elites.
Ecuador seemed to get fed up with Assange – cutting him off from the world, badmouthing
him in MSM, etc – early 2018 when he was mostly tweeting about Catalonia. Spain is
supposedly Ecuador's closest partner in Europe. The timing could've been coincidental but
probably not.
@neutral He was always
scum but he was still the better choice than Hillary Clinton. He may still be better than his
opponent in 2020. That's how bad things are at the centre of the American empire.
Trump had the potential to be better than he is now but Washington has pushed his back
against the wall and his shitty character has thus shown itself in full. He could have been a
better President under different circumstances; even with these same character flaws.
@neutral Trump was and
still is the chaos candidate. When a better option than sabotage presents itself, then Trump
will become the second best choice.
Many, if not most, people knew he was the sabotage candidate when they supported him.
Hillary was understood to be worse because she'd maintain and even strengthen a bad system
while Trump would bugger it up.
@Thorfinnsson The Deep
State might already be beyond repair. So perhaps, come the Revolution, new, revolutionary
state organs will need to be set up in a clean break with the obscurantist blank slatist
regime. The state secrets of these new, revolutionary organs should be protected by any means
necessary. But then we'll have free countries for ourselves.
Until then, we don't need to protect the secrets of the oppressive obscurantist
regime.
Disagree here, he's energised the left to a degree that wouldn't have happened had he not
been elected and his policies are now no different to what Clinton's would have been. In
American politics, what you say appears to matter much more than what you do, so we've now
got the perfect storm of someone who talks like a right wing populist, and the resulting
backlash, but nothing to show for it. I remember ak mentioning that the only saving grace of
his administration being that it had alienated allies, but even that hasnt materialised. The
guy is a conman and a sellout, but he's very clearly noticed the fact that European
governments will unquestionably obey the US, so it's pointless to treat them with any respect
whatsoever: THATs the one and only positive thing I can say about him. Still not looking
forward to his successor.
@The
Alarmist Trump said he liked Wikileaks at that time, because they released some
embarrassing emails about Hilary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.
If they released embarrassing emails about Trump, he would have said the opposite.
Trump will not have any specific principles that would make him support asylum for
leakers, or generalized protection for dissidents, unless it might specifically be explained
that it would help him in some way (and unless there are emails to leak about his opponent in
2020, how will it help him?).
@reiner Tor But Trump
would say anything that would get him elected, and he would do many of these things. But, as
plutocrat surrounded by plutocrats, he'll never open the market for housing (allow easier
re-zoning), or transportation (dismantle the dealership racket), or hospitals / doctors.
Yeah, apparently he lacks the levers to reduce housing costs, but he can always fix, or
promise to fix, something about Assange, or about Christian-Obamacare conflicts –
despite them being equally remote from his mandate. Watch the idiotic boomers drooling all
over unz.com about Trump's "efforts" to fix immigration.
These being the highest expenses of an American, I can see who is the idiot here.
@simple_pseudonymic_handle
The most obvious parallel was the UK's refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon to the US.
McKinnon gained access to 97 US military and NASA networks between early 2001 and 2002. he
was also very very shit at covering his tracks.
The US sought extradition; McKinnon's lawyers challenged it on a bunch of grounds;
McKinnon won.
Part of the range of stuff that got him off was the refusal of the US to make guarantees
that he would not be housed in a SuperMax and that he would not be placed in solitary
confinement, That, plus McKinnon's "Asperger's" (diagnosed after he was arrested), was
enough for the system to tell the US government to pound sand.
I as among the people who warned JA not to go to the UK when he was leaving Sweden. (I've
known the guy as a nodding acquaintance since the 1980s and WANK; I'm in he & Suelette's
book, under a different pseudonym).
He was warned against one of the classic blunders.
The first two classic blunders are known to all –
① never start a land war in Asia , and
② never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line .
The third is less well-known:
③ when you've been honeypotted, DO NOT SEEK REFUGE ON A FUCKING ISLAND
.
When he ignored us, he was dropped from several DMSes.
For a very smart bloke, his judgement was always suspect: he allowed a fucking nappy like
Dumb Shitberg (Domscheit-Berg) inside his circle of confidants.
This whole damn country is a pile of lies. I don't know how you guys keep your sanity.
I think America may crack in the next ten years.
I live in a "minority-majority" area. It is all bullshit.
Hey, let's take all the worlds nations, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, lifestyles,
sexual orientations, etc and stick them in one place!
On top of this we have a government that doesn't listen, ruled by special interest group.
My god, how long America?
I can't stand this place anymore.
It's going to be very interesting to see the next 10 years. The country is cracking up.
For my part, I'm learning a foreign language right now, it will come in handy when I have
enough money to bail.
Gentleman, there is nothing here worth left of preserving, only rot.
I miss a consideration, that wikileaks could be a Mossad/Unit8200 operation.
If I look at the wikileak's site, menu "partners", all is clear to me, "Der Spiegel" and
truth are mutually exclusive.
Wikileaks "revealed" an EU plan to use military against the poor human traffickers and
Israeli NGOs who bring in these Africans and "refugees". Fascinating, they have once in their
evil life a good plan in Brussels, and wikileaks shoots against it.
I think the question for Russian asylum is the same question why Russia did not spell the
beans on 911.
@Meimou The leader of
progressives, the dual-loyalty opportunist and CIA stooge Schumer:
Chuck Schumer
@SenSchumer
Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his
meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.
@Hyperborean Trumpstein
and his sleazy family keep delivering for the vile jooies and the JudenPresse, JudenTV, and
JudenNet will make sure he gets reelected especially if he attacks Iran. Where is Titus now
that we need him?
Not to mention more than a few paedo-grooming ring members who are still awaiting
deportation
How convenient these immigrants are when a good smokescreen is needed.
And how about a paedophile UK Prime Minister never investigated ?
"Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made
that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes 'covered up by the Establishment'"
I think most people, (especially Russians), can relate to this sentiment. The average Ruski
is incredibly hard on their own country. But it's like how you can make fun of your siblings,
but when someone else does you knock their teeth in. I'd like to say I always respected this,
but it's not true. I was more brazen in my earlier days of travel, and hypocritically
complained about Japan with the very Muslim I referred to earlier. It's not just me, though. Go
on any expat forum, and it's full of gripes.
The first thing ESL teachers talk about when they meet is how much they miss peanut butter
or how they hate the pollution or whatever. And yet, they don't go home. The same is true of
Mexican immigrants in America and Africans in Europe, if you ever take the time to chat with
them. (Which is part of what made me more rightwing and nationalist.) The vast majority who
don't go home are economic migrants. Economic in terms of balancing the supply & demand of
money, or balancing sexual market value.
... ... ...
What is some advice you have for Americans who also want to get out?
YOU ARE INCREDIBLY LUCKY!!!
It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship. You can be
in tons of debt, have zero dollars in the bank, and several misdemeanors, and you'll still get
an automatic 90 day visa on arrival. Even with a one way plane ticket. This is unheard of and
will likely not be the case in the near future if current demographic trends continue. So seize
the day!
Seriously. In these past 8 years, I've met so many wealthy, well educated, amazing
[Russian] people who have to jump through so many hoops and sacrifice so much for the mere
chance of a USA tourist visa. If you only knew
... ... ...
Or "life happens" and you'll need to pay for the broken water heater or flat tire. So just
run away while you still can. The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for
80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized
luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by
moving somewhere for a year instead? In my experience, the most expensive part of travel is the
plane ticket. So be smart and just get a one way ticket and find a job once you get there.
have peace of mind knowing the American Embassy will take care of your spoiled ass.
Pfft. What an idiot! The State Dept employees at my local embassy wouldn't piss on me if I
was on fire – mostly because they would spend half the day researching what the proper
protocol is, and if wasn't in the book(which is most often the case) their un-thinking ass
wouldn't know whether to shit or wind their watch.
If you needed a big headed egotistical asshole for whatever reason you'd be in the right
place.
One of the more endearing compliments I ever received was from an old Russian girlfriend, who
told her friends, "He's one of the good ones he has a Russian soul." She and her friends were
just as described above, generous to a fault despite what was an obvious wealth gap.
But the funniest thing she ever did was to use her bare hand to kill a cock-roach that had
dared to cross our table at a restaurant.
Should have married that girl. Then again, I might have dodged the Babooshka bomb.
Interestingly enough, she had no desire to ever go to the US, so that was not a part of the
calculus.
Have some sympathy for our poor consular officers abroad they spend far too much time face
to face with the wretched refuse of the world trying to scam their way into the US.
The thing is, I don't want a "benevolent dictatorship" like Singapore or Russia. I want
to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.
Pick a number: everybody wants to "live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America
intended," probably even the Founding Fathers themselves did. But is seems that all our
governments just end up being dictatorships sooner or later anyway; so that being the case, I
would prefer a sane dictatorship (like Russia or Singapore) to an insane one, which is what
we Americans have at the moment.
The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job
they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not
make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for
a year instead?
So true.
If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in
Somalia for a day.
Excellent Short Film About the Separatist Fighters of Donbas by Russell 'Texas'
Bentley (Video)
A monastery near the Donetsk airport was strategically important to hold for the fighter,
so a bitter shooting battle erupted over it, taking many lives on both sides. The monastery
was badly damaged in the process.
The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they
hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort.
Why not make every
day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year
instead?
So true.
If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in
Somalia for a day.
"Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will
have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those
books "
-- The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers
have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a
towering figure of our time.
Even in distress, Assange has been fighting for truth and dignity; the ongoing show of
lawlessness exposes the rot. The moral and creative midgets constituting the core of MSM and
the satanic deciders are upset. Good!
The idiotic Senior District "Judge" Emma Arbuthnot (a wife and beneficiary of a mega-war
profiteer Lord Arbuthnot -- Arbuthnot served as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee from
2005 to 2014) and the no less idiotic District "Judge" Michael Snow have entered the history
books as well. As scoundrels: http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1555064882.html
Snow does his best to bring the Judiciary into disrepute by playing to the gallery. He
comments on the extradition in the same vein in a totally unprofessional manner. He is of
course in a long line of disreputable members of the judiciary Snow's place in history is
now secured – he chose to abuse the defendant rather than perform his role which was
really quite straightforward. He is the narcissist and guilty of self interest not Julian
Assange.
"... A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and gangs. ..."
"... Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only 20 miles from the suburbs. ..."
"... Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites and hicks from the sticks. ..."
"... The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad. ..."
"... I have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home. ..."
"... I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years for selling a few grams of marijuana. ..."
"... I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness. ..."
"... Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology. ..."
"... If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai. ..."
"... The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks. ..."
"... Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery, harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality. It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take care of her kid, or the father. ..."
"... Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries, every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell drugs. They just remain users. ..."
I've seen loads of American men who blew their wad on hookers and booze at the Manila
Embassy trying this.
You'll be on the street for about a month waiting for the papers to clear. Don't expect to
be staying with the US Ambassador at his house while you're waiting either, you'll be on the
street and in SEA or Eastern Europe (Which is cold as hell) and this is no fun.
The Embassy will make you call relatives in the US and determine that nobody will pay for
your return flight.
You'll have to repay the US government for the cost of the ticket and your passport will
be cancelled for two years as a punishment you won't even be able to fly to Puerto Rico.
MILITARY SPACE AVAILABLE
One American I knew in the Philippines was named Clinton Macbeth and he was a hardcore
drunk and pothead who'd been stationed in the Philippines and figured he would just take
military space available on a DC 10 or whatever.
The US GOVERNMENT has now cancelled this program and you cannot take military space
available back to your own country.
The US Embassy will, eventually, cover the cost of your ticket back. But they make this a
lonnnggg unpleasant process to prevent everyone who wants to be repatriated from simply
coming into the Embassy and saying "send me home Business class".
Try sleeping for a week outside a US Embassy. Invariably the US Consular director will
tell you "it will take some time for these papers to clear".
Believe me, you won't be flown back in 24 hours.
And the Marine Embassy Guards will then make sure you don't hang around. You'll be giving
an appointment at the Embassy about a week after you report in. In the interim. the Marine
Embassy Guards etc. will behave like bouncers to make sure you don't come back inside the
Embassy.
Ken was an older American from NYC who married a Filipino woman of 23. He was an architect
and he spent most of his life savings building a hotel for his wife with the intent of
renting rooms to Japanese tourists-which would have set him up for life.
In the Philippines, all property belongs to the wife of the expat under law. He was kicked
out by security guard after their marriage collapsed-which May/September marriages in the
Philippines usually do.
He was 60 and his wife and her family simply threw him on the road-no passport, money in
his pocket, clothes on his back. Ken did not even have ID to prove he was an American. The
first night on the road, he was mugged by Filipino street kids and did not have a peso.
Finally, he managed to get his passport. His wife had his bank card and withdrew all his
savings by then. A sympathetic American paid his way to Manila where he got his brother to
send him a ticket.
We are invariably male, urban and lower middle class.
A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension
who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and
gangs.
For lower class whites, it is not so much dangerous as sordid in poor white exurbs or
rural areas. I knew one white scrap dealer named Clayton whose son was a hopeless meth addict
who beat the shit out of him in his house and robbed him. Opoid addicts in the nearby trailer
park burglarized his house. Whiggers spray painted his house. He lived in a gated community
in the Philippines with mostly merchant Chinese-Filipino families and was pretty glad to be
away from white trash.
I've observed the following about American white expats, myself included.
1) We are generally male. I've never MET a permanent white expat female in Southeast
Asia.
2) I've never met a Mexican of either gender or any black woman in Asia. And few in Europe
or Dubai. The only Native American I ever met overseas was a female married to an English
guy. I've never met a white American woman who was living permanently overseas.
3) The real white trash or Cholos or Hood Rats cannot live overseas. If you are on parole,
probation, on welfare or a junkie you cannot get on a plane for 14 hours.
4) On the other hand I've never met a bona fide upper middle class American in Southeast
Asia either. Most of the Americans I met were tradespeople-plumbers, mechanics, factory
foreman, postal workers, commercial fisherman.
5) Americans under 35 are fairly rare in Asia.
Philippines is not very attractive to backpackers. You meet them in other parts of Asia,
of course, but not there.
Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that
lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only
20 miles from the suburbs.
One Brit in Goa I heard of had gotten Indian credit cards and got WAYYY overextended. He
also had a medical bill he could not pay. They would not let him out of the country even
though he had a return ticket.
When he was sleeping rough one night, some thirsty Indian men who were drunk simply rolled
him over and pinned him and 9 of them serially sodomized him.
The Indian Tourist Police called the British Embassy and demanded they do something. So he
was repatriated. But he will be wearing adult diapers for the rest of his life.
If you are a foreigner sleeping rough in India or Dubai, you might be raped by prowling
queers. Even if you're the toughest MMA fighter if you are malnourished and exhausted from
being on the street for two weeks and 9 thirsty sodomites jump you you are going to end up
buggered.
Hands down I was MUCH safer than I had been as a white post-college entry-level Graphic
Artist in Phoenix living in Tempe on the border of the Guadalupe barrio.
Born in Ann Arbor and raised in Warren, I've seen black crime.
Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in
Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites
and hicks from the sticks.
America is not a police state because of the Founding Fathers, but because of Mestizos and
Hood Rats and redneck tweakers who can only be contained by a constant police presence.
Perhaps Singapore would have slightly more crime if it was not a dictatorship, but not like
the US.
I moved to Dubai directly from Phoenix and believe me, riding the public transport there
and living in modest-income housing was MUCH SAFER than Phoenix or Warren.
I've been in an expat for 20 years and was never again menaced by Mestizos or witnessed
black crack dealers chimping out at a bus stop or was followed by a desperate redneck
tweaker.
The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in
Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad.
Finally, I've worked overseas my entire life and I never had to worry about a pink slip by
some HR female who is 23 and was blowing every Frat guy two years earlier because I said the
word "fag".
Overseas, you can say what you want (Except about them or their government) and nobody
cares. You don't even have to PRETEND that you are PC.
@jeff
strykerI have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal
contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on
someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home.
I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years
for selling a few grams of marijuana.
Kuwaitis will forgive a home brewer making some beer for himself and his expat friends.
But if you get caught selling hashish, you are screwed. And to be honest anyone who is dumb
enough to sell hashish or smoke it in Kuwait is not intelligent enough to be overseas.
I've known some potheads in U.A.E. who refuted the statement that cannabis is not
addictive. In a country where penalties include spending years in jail for a couple of
joints, they STILL went out and scored pot.
They don't screw around with debt under Muslim law. If you cannot pay a phone or medical
bill, you're stuck. It goes out as a warrant and you won't be able to leave the country
through the airport.
You know TRUTH, being an expat is a learning curve. Some people just don't make it and do
something INCREDIBLY STUPID like the kid in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS.
I want to add something. The Americans who do these things are mostly white hicks from the
sticks who have no idea how to act overseas.
Marijuana is not habit forming, which is why so many Westerners cannot even go for six
months without risking a MIDNIGHT EXPRESS jail to smoke a lousy joint.
4 foot
average-looking Filipino women become the sexiest females alive to thirsty males. And
sometimes these Filipino women have a penis.
White hicks who would be white trash by
Archie Bunker's standards come to believe they have special privileges because they are
American in countries where anti-Western sentiment is right under the surface.
Someone
forgot to tell Kuwaitis that Jews were the chosen people given their arrogance. .
The
brotherhood of Islam does not apply to South Asians. .
Americans who feel that whites are
racist never met an Arab.
Pakistani workers guzzle perfume.
For such chaste women, Arab
women have more anal sex than Stormy Daniels.
@jeff
stryker Many good points, although it may be evil (I don't think so) the total block
every block of the writing, it is bullshit, sorry, I have no conscience re. Moslems, I have
had enough threats to my life from them, have had personal attacks on myself and loved ones,
Tarrant was perfectly logical.
How many Muslims kill and terrorize how many others?
I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly
opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug
abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness.
Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly
detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology.
In Dubai, I never was menaced by street criminals, which was a fairly common experience
for me in both Phoenix and Warren, Michigan.
Mestizos in Phoenix had NO motive. They were not menacing or assaulting whites over drug
deals or gang territory or even some vague religious reason. "Cholos" as these Mexicans were
called, simply enjoyed assaulting or terrorizing middle-class whites for lack of anything
better to do.
Whites will complain about the IQ of Mestizos or US ghetto blacks but it is a good thing
they are not intelligent enough to be organized criminals like Russian or Italian mafias. If
they were capable of building bombs like Muslim terrorists than they would be blowing up
buildings over rival dealers selling crack on the street corner.
If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any
US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at
night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai.
Much is made of the drug laws in Arab countries and the film MIDNIGHT EXPRESS but try
being followed around by redneck tweakers who are desperate to get more meth.
I'm not discounting terrorism. But America, and I cannot speak for other countries, will
never face the threat of extinction from Muslims.
The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies
run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks.
@jeff
stryker Asia always has nepotism, my experience, almost half life, it is less. Even the
idea that 'Asia' is a term with any meaning, it does not.
I also never got all the outrage coming from everyone in particular regarding the
"draconian" laws regarding drug trafficking and drugs in general, in the Asian countries,
particularly, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines,etc. People keep telling us that
these are "victimless" crimes, and that these are non-violent crimes. We all know that is
simply not the case.
Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery,
harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality.
It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take
care of her kid, or the father.
It leads to domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and many other things. It makes
me quite confused when they, the rabid liberals, try to downplay these things, and claim that
these are "victimless" or "non-violent". Also, does the Italian Mafia still "exist"? Why
would they, weren't they just the result of discrimination and the sorts and lack of
opportunities? One would think that kind of stuff is all gone ..
The brotherhood of Islam does not apply to South Asians.
It certainly does not apply to the low level cleaners and all the deplorables at least. I
would beg to disagree on this one. I am very close with many Arabs in that region and friends
with others and as are other South Asians who are not working the menial jobs which I have
mentioned. Class-ism is very much a thing, and it exists here.
If the Indian guy is a higher class guy, they'll treat you like a brother. This is coming
from yours truly ;-) I feel like I would fit right in. I sneer at the peasants and all the
deplorables, and we openly joke about them.
Pakistani workers guzzle perfume
This is certainly true, they bathe in that stuff. Ever visited Muscat?
Lets take Brampton. Italians used to completely run the prostitution, trucking, extortion,
drugs etc. in Ontario in industrial towns like Brampton because Anglo Canadians were
basically pleasant middle-class people.
Then came Sikhs, Tamils, Jamaicans. But especially Sikhs. Sikh separatists and Tamil
Tigers were not afraid of some middle-aged portly Italian men like Tony Soprano scarfing down
pizza at a strip joint.
By the end of the eighties, the Italians simply decided to move into white-collar fraud
like "Pump and Dump" stock scams. It was not worth getting their asses shot off by crazy
gun-toting Sikhs or Tamils who would tie someone to an anthill just to prove that nobody's
life mattered to them but their own.
This is why Crips and Bloods and Mexican street gangs never got a foothold in Vancouver or
Ontario. Sikhs and Tamils have a reputation for being bloodthirsty maniacs that even
redoubted US gangs avoid.
The same occurred in the US, really.
As for drugs, anybody who has walked through East Vancouver once has seen the end-result
of a decriminalization.
That is not to say that drugs will not be consumed in Muslim countries. I've known hashish
smokers my entire time in Dubai and even chewed Khat once with a Yemeni taxi driver to see
what it was about (It has the kick of three cans of Red Bull but lasts longer).
But pot smokers and Khat chewers in Dubai or U.A.E. won't get a gun and try to kill
somebody to get more. For one thing, chronic hashish smokers have no energy and are spaced
out. Crackheads in US cities or heroin addicts in Grandville will.
Meth addicts are not so much dangerous as horribly annoying. When I first moved to Phoenix
I lived in low-income housing and one meth addict ex-convict simply followed me around
pleading for money every time I walked out my front door. Like some kind of stray dog, he
also tore through my garbage to get my returnables. When I moved out of the apartment to
share a condo with some IT guys, he injured himself breaking into my apartment trying to
sleep somewhere and my ex-landlord called me to tell me he had been injured by the window
glass.
I was a hashish myself as a young man of course .Like all Goras who are employed in India,
as soon as I had my paycheck I got the hell to Goa and got stoned. Every white employed in
India will take their pay and go to Goa and buy hashish from some Kashmiri carpet shop.
Goan police know full well that 100% of the Westerners there are smoking pot. Goa is
India's Amersterdam.
But in Dubai or other Muslim countries, the police simply don't allow crack houses or
staggering half-mad meth addicts. You cannot "corner deal" in Dubai or Jakarta.
Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries,
every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in
Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell
drugs. They just remain users.
Like most demented cowards he was totally logical. He did not approach armed Muslim men
and challenge them one-to-one.
He shot unarmed women and children.
This makes sense, because at the bottom of it, on average, white Christian men usually
don't have the courage of most other fanatics to be willing to die trying to kill others who
are capable of murdering them, like Tamil Tigers.
As a result, Anglo-Saxon terrorism has a sickeningly cowardly streak to it.
The Tamil extremist blows herself up to kill the Indian Prime Minister, for example.
But the white extremist like Tim McVeigh or Dylan the church bomber either sets a fire or
like Brevik shoots unarmed civilians and then surrenders, lacking the courage to take his own
life even though it is effectively over.
@jeff
stryker You're not wrong about the Punjabis and Tamils. There many reports or claims
years ago during the Sri Lankan Civil War of the Tamil Eelam separatists receiving funding
from the Tamil gangs in the GTA( Greater Toronto Area).
The Khalistani movement in the Punjab has some modest support amongst the natives in
India, however, it is well known that most of their support comes from the Punjabi(Sikh)
diaspora. The NDP leader himself, a man by the name of Jagmeet Singh, is a proud Khalistani
supporter, and he had not disavowed the terrorism espoused by these groups.
He is an open suppprter. And I want you to realize the same guy is the leader of the third
largest, politically relevant part in Canada, which is the NDP. Guess his constituency it's
Burnaby.
The positive side of this is that US black and Mexican gangs have never been able to get a
significant foothold in Canada. Even re-doubted LA Crips and Bloods think that Canadian Sikh
gangs in Surrey or Brampton are bloodthirsty maniacs.
Sikh separatism was never possible in India because New Delhi is located in Punjab and the
province is also a border state with Pakistan. I've been there.
In my opinion, East Vancouver is what happens when drugs are decriminalized. Anybody who
would like to see drugs legalized can visit Grandville and Hastings.
Potheads really are not a threat to the public; they are too sluggish and spaced out.
Thr idea of decriminalization is a bad one, as well as the idea ofbopen injection
sites.
Toronto has a couple of these kind of areas if I am to remember correctly, and it's a
mess. There have been needles everwhere, which increase the likelihood of infection, and
people just don't care anymore. How does it look on the kids, who are shown adults openly
injecting drugs? It's a mess. Quite literally as well on the ground.
It discourages businesses in the area, and it brings down the neighbourhoods surrounding
it.
Has it solved our problems or Vancouver's? We both know the answer.
The areas that were clean and empty, around these spots have turned into literal drug
hubs, and places where violence occurs frequently.
I do think Sikh seperatism was possible at one point, but the Sikh terrorists hiding in
the Gurdwara was a turning point. That was put down brutally as I'm sure you remember, which
lead to some destruction of that site. All hope was lost when the Sikh bodyguards killed her
as well. But at one point, it was possible
@BengaliCanadianDude
I knew Burnaby in the '80's and early '90's. Decent working class area in transition I
thought, although it looked like a place to find hashish even then. I am not really that good
on Canada. Mostly Burnaby/Vancouver with a some time in the middle of Ottawa and by lake
Erie; my cousin owned a small lakefront palace in Mississauga.
@jeff
stryker Hell, East Vancouver was full of junkies even back in mid-90s, I assume before
de-criminalization Drug deals done in broad light right on the corner of Hastings and
Commercial But at the time Burnaby was almost exclusively white – that's where I lived
for 2 years so I'd know Indians were all in surrey.
@Philip
Owen I also lived in Burnaby in early 90s when I was enroled at sfu it was a decent if
boring lower middle class suburb. The only seedy place was North Burnaby Inn on E. Hastings,
the only place for miles to get a beer – where you could get an eyeful at the same time
Fiendish killers like Pickton and grotesque pimps like Paul Snider were committing crimes
in the seventies and by the nineties the place had the highest AIDS rate in North
America.
Most of the druggies are either Natives or from places back East like Ontario or
Quebec.
The low-life drug dealers in Vancouver are usually internal migrants from California or
Newfoundland who came to Vancouver to ply their trade because. When I lived in Ontario I knew
a guy whose Dad had made a great deal of money operating a pawn shop; if you are a drug
dealer or pawn shop owner you can get rich at the expense of the junkie populace even if you
are a shaved monkey.
My experience in Canada as an American was that the Natives in Canada were worse off than
they are in the States.
I found Natives in Canada to be some of the most dangerous underclass people around. After
living in Norther Ontario for two years I was shocked at how brazen their criminality
was.
In regards to your gun laws, I had a female friend who accidentally offended some Natives
and they brazenly walked over to her house to attack her on her property. She pulled a 22
repeater on them and saved her life (This was in Northern Ontario) but had to move from there
afterwards.
Most Americans and perhaps even people from Southern Canada have no idea how dangerous
Natives can be.
I don't know why Natives in the US are less of a threat on the street. Maybe because there
are less of them.
Canadian aboriginals are also unintelligent. They might even be less intelligent than
ahem, other underclasses.
@jeff
stryker I'm not actually Canadian, I was in Vancouver for 2 years while studying. Didn't
have any dealings with the natives (no big loss based on what you say! )
@Plato's
Dream I never went to a city with more open drug use or more aggressive homeless people
than East Vancouver. Okay, its not Detroit and you won't be shot, but its a bad place.
@The
Anti-Gnostic The entire American industrial workforce had to be retrained for new work
from the 1970s onward, so really, a 28-year-old without a family should be able to train for
a career well before he needs his first colonoscopy.
With personal anectodes for perspective, my wife went to med school at 35 and is now a
radiologist at 52.
Perhaps you were a Ho Ho-eating degenerate at 28, but the rest of non-alcoholic, non-drug
addicted, non-obese, non-mentally ill Homo sapiens seems to adjusts well to the demands of
reality and to challenges unforeseen.
Too old for the trades? Really? Have you been to a gym lately-or ever?
"... The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various "do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology. ..."
"... The slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England, but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges. ..."
"... I preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country. It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it. ..."
"... Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country ..."
"... Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors ..."
"... While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti" ..."
"The idea of a nation where people from all over the world live is a political
absurdity. If has no logical unifying basis "
Very well said. Indeed, the United States is not a country, rather it is a government.
And I despise that government.
Things are going to change swiftly after Trump is replaced. The 'coalition of the fringes'
is real. It's game over for America. The people living in that country have been too
distracted to notice.
America is a deeply delusion society held together by a deeply delusional government.
I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.
The dude has come a long way, but he's still a bit brainwashed. I should read, "as the f f
supposedly intended."
The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various
"do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other
words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted
to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology.
"I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended."
That is not possible without the conditions that prevailed in the late 18th century, which
featured rebellion against the British Empire and therefore against Elite WASP culture.
The
slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist
Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing
heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England,
but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over
Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges.
@Baxter A
nation is different than a country. A country is geographical area with boundaries. A nation
is the people within a geographical area who have lived together for a long time and have
shared experiences. Nation from the French naître – to be born.
The US, like most other European based populations, was a nation. It has become a
country.
I
preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country.
It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it.
Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country
Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and
real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't
even need to lock their doors, except for areas that are adjacent to urban, Hispanic, or
Black neighbourhoods, which they have abandoned and given up on decades ago following the
anti American Civil Rights movement. Show me a place in America where garbage trucks don't
come every week.
While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash
quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few
years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of
Haiti"- http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/124947-russia_garbage/
or http://www.pravdareport.com/society/5701-recycling/
.
Americans in the US now total about 55% of the population: Wikipedia says: "197,285,202
(Non-Hispanic: 2017), 60.7% of the total U.S. population"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American
, however this number is flawed as they count various non-whites like Berbers, or Turkic
people like Albanians, Turks, Kurds, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis as whites.
That happened often when a second rate provincial lawyer became the Secretary of State. At least Kerry knows French. Pompeo
knows absolution nothing and is capable only of repeating old cliché.
Today's special word is: Projection
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!. ..."
"... Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture. ..."
Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to
shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!.
I luv my country, but I hate my government.
beemasters
This must have been the most transparently crooked administration ever in the US history! Ain't that the pot calling the
kettle black!
2willies
Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture.
Idaho potato head
At some point even the most deluded sheep has got to realize he is being lied to. Or is it just as in the Matrix, there is
an age limit as to when a mind can be awoken.
After reading CYMS1 below I retract that question.
April 2, 2019 The CIA Takeover of America in the 1960s Is the Story of Our Times. The Killing of the Kennedys and Today's
New Cold War
'We're all puppets,' the suspect [Sirhan Sirhan] replied, with more truth than he could have understood at that moment."
– Lisa Pease, quoting from the LAPD questioning of Sirhan
March 19, 2017 The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News How the Deep State Corrupted Many American Writers
Whitney's new book, "Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers," explores how the CIA influenced acclaimed
writers and publications during the Cold War to produce subtly anti-communist material.
During the interview, Scheer and Whitney
discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the
Paris Review).
Trump administration still is playing old color revolution game: accusing somebody of corruption is the best way to endure the regime
change.
Unfortunately for them the game is well known now, and as such is less effective.
It might succeed this time though, as Venezuela is their backyard, so to speak. But after Libya there will be a fight and it it
will cost the USA. .
Looks like they are now trying to bribe China.
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo and Piñera also generally discussed the U.S.-China trade war and Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative, with Pompeo suggesting he was optimistic about solving the tariff war with China. But the focus remained finding a US-desired outcome to the Venezuela crisis. ..."
Speaking Friday in Chile upon the start of his three-day South American tour, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called out China
and Russia for spreading "disorder" in Latin America through failing investment projects that only fuel corruption and undermine
democracy , especially in places like Venezuela.
According to
Bloomberg , Pompeo specifically listed a failing dam project in Ecuador, police advisory programs in Nicaragua, and Chinese loans
to the Maduro government, which goes further back to Chavez.
Pompeo asserted Chinese loans in Latin America "often injects corrosive capital into the economic bloodstream, giving life to
corruption, and eroding good governance." Both Beijing and Moscow have ultimately spread their economic tentacles into the region
to "spread disorder," he added.
In what appears an effort to sustain momentum toward pressuring regime change in Caracas, America's highest diplomat met Chilean
President Sebastian Pinera earlier Friday, and will hit Paraguay, Peru next, and finally on Sunday will travel to a Colombian town
on the border with Venezuela.
Pompeo and Piñera also generally discussed the U.S.-China trade war and Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative, with Pompeo
suggesting he was optimistic about solving the tariff war with China. But the focus remained finding a US-desired outcome to the
Venezuela crisis.
As part of the broader pressure campaign on Maduro, Pompeo said the U.S. has revoked visas for 718 people and sanctioned over
150 individuals and entities. On Friday, the U.S. sanctioned four companies it says transport much of the 50,000 barrels of oil
that Venezuela provides to Cuba each day.
Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with
Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling
pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
As usual, Trump
made the announcement
of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:
President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own
Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.
U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings
between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential
announcement this week.
No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats
responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.
Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.
After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone
that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably
sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.
Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing
with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The
substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on
major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.
There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical
political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at
shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.
Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international
standing.
There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states
and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.
Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the
United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders
flatter and praise him.
Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:
Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel
in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal
of troops from the battlefield.
Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly
became a relevant issue about Iran."
Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful
influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the
Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange
for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.
Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his
narcissistic personality at work.
My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow
and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"
It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take
years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders
of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.
The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is.
Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.
The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama
or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.
I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats,
for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks
to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm
bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain
sight with Israel.
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite
so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off,
a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.
Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship
so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.
Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the
other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states
that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to
begin with.
Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will
begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations,
while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what
could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?
Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war
with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.
There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position
diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will
be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism,
and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.
All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused
on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either,
because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the
Middle East into.
@ Grieved with the UN/Pence story....here is China's take on the situation
"
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations on
Wednesday rejected U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's accusation against China over Venezuela.
"China categorically rejects the accusation," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative
to the United Nations, told a Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela.
"Earlier in his intervention, the U.S. representative leveled an unfounded accusation on
China's position on Venezuela in the Security Council," he said, referring to Pence's remarks
that Russia and China obstructed Council action on Venezuela with their veto power.
China has all along maintained friendly and cooperative relations with other countries
around the world, including Venezuela, on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful
Coexistence, he said.
"We support peoples of all countries in independently choosing their development paths
that cater to their national conditions. We never interfere in other countries' internal
affairs, nor do we impose anything on other countries," Ma added.
Members of the Security Council should faithfully abide by the purposes and principles of
the UN Charter and the universally recognized norms of international relations, genuinely
respect the choices of peoples of other countries, and do more positive and practical things
for the people of Venezuela rather than the opposite, said the Chinese envoy."
"... On June 12, 2018 The Washington Post ran an overlooked story where they disclosed that National Security Advisor John Bolton had accepted money from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Deutsche Bank and HSBC to return for his participation in speeches and panel discussions ..."
"... John Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to speak at multiple events hosted by the Foundation including one in September 2017 where Bolton assured his audience that President Donald Trump would not radically change US foreign policy despite his explicit campaign promises to do so. ..."
"... More broadly, John Bolton's work for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, HSBC and Deutsche Bank shows that while he preaches hardline foreign policy approaches towards nations such as Iran and North Korea he has no issue tying himself to those who openly flaunt American sanctions and diplomatic attempts to pressure these states. For an individual who is the President's National Security Advisor to have taken money from banks who provide financial services to terror groups who have murdered thousands of Americans is totally unacceptable. ..."
On June 12, 2018 The Washington Post ran an overlooked story where they
disclosed that National Security Advisor John Bolton had accepted money from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Deutsche Bank and HSBC
to return for his participation in speeches and panel discussions. These three entities have been linked to various kinds of corruption
including sanctions evasion for Iran, money laundering on behalf of drug cartels, provision of banking services to backers of Islamic
terror organizations and controversial donations to the Clinton Foundation.
The financial ties between Bolton and these institutions highlight serious ethical concerns about his suitability for the position
of National Security Advisor.
I. Victor Pinchuk Foundation
John Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to speak at multiple events hosted by the Foundation including
one in September 2017 where Bolton assured his audience that President Donald Trump would not radically change US foreign policy
despite his explicit campaign promises to do so.
The Victor Pinchuk Foundation was blasted in 2016 over their donation of $10 to $25 million to the
Clinton Foundation between 1994 and 2005. The donations lead to accusations
of influence peddling after it emerged that Victor Pinchuk had been invited
to Hillary Clinton's home during the final year of her tenure as Secretary of State.
Even more damning was Victor Pinchuk's participation in activities that constituted evasions of sanctions levied against Iran
by the American government. A 2015 exposé by Newsweek highlighted the fact
that Pinchuk owned Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors. A now-removed
statement on Interpipe's website showed that they
were doing business in Iran despite US sanctions aimed to prevent this kind of activity.
Why John Bolton, a notorious war hawk who has called for a hardline approach to Iran, would take money from an entity who was
evading sanctions against the country is not clear. It does however, raise serious questions about whether or not Bolton should
be employed by Donald Trump, who made attacks on the Clinton Foundation's questionable donations a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign.
II. HSBC Group
British bank HSBC paid Bolton $46,500 in June and August 2017 to speak at two gatherings of hedge fund managers and investors.
HSBC is notorious for its extensive ties to criminal and terror organizations for whom it has provided illegal financial services.
Clients that HSBC have laundered money for include Colombian drug traffickers
and Mexican cartels who have terrorized the country and recently
raised murder rates to the highest levels in Mexico's history . They have
also offered banking services to Chinese individuals
who sourced chemicals and other materials used by cartels to produce methamphetamine and heroin that is then sold in the United
States. China's Triads have helped open financial markets in Asia to cartels
seeking to launder their profits derived from the drug trade.
In 2012, HSBC was blasted by the US Senate for for allowing money from
Russian and Latin American criminal networks as well as Middle Eastern terror groups to enter the US. The banking group ultimately
agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine for this misconduct as well as their involvement
in processing sanctions-prohibited transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma.
Some of the terror groups assisted by HSBC include the notorious Al Qaeda. During the 2012 scrutiny of HSBC, outlets such as
Le Monde , Business Insider
and the New York Times revealed that HSBC had maintained ties to Saudi
Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank. Al Rajhi Bank was one of Osama Bin Ladin's "Golden Chain" of Al Qaeda's most important financiers. Even
though HSBC's own internal compliance offices asked for the bank to terminate their relationship with Al Rajhi Bank, it continued
until 2010.
More recently in 2018, reports have claimed that HSBC was used for illicit
transactions between Iran and Chinese technology conglomerate Huawei. The US is currently seeking to extradite Huawei CFO Meng
Wanzhou after bringing charges against Huawei related to sanctions evasion
and theft of intellectual property. The company has been described as a "backdoor" for elements of the Chinese government by certain
US authorities.
Bolton's decision to accept money from HSBC given their well-known reputation is deeply hypocritical. HSBC's connection to
terror organizations such as Al Qaeda in particular is damning for Bolton due to the fact that he formerly served as the chairman
of the Gatestone Institute , a New York-based advocacy group that purports
to oppose terrorism. These financial ties are absolutely improper for an individual acting as National Security Advisor.
III. Deutsche Bank
John Bolton accepted $72,000 from German Deutsche Bank to speak at an event in May 2017.
Deutsche Bank has for decades engaged in questionable behavior. During World War II, they
provided financial services to the Nazi Gestapo and financed construction
of the infamous Auschwitz as well as an adjacent plant for chemical company IG Farben.
Like HSBC, Deutsche Bank has provided illicit services to international criminal organizations. In 2014
court filings showed that Deutsche Bank, Citi and Bank of America had all
acted as channels for drug money sent to Colombian security currency brokerages suspected of acting on behalf of traffickers.
In 2017, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $630 million fine after working with
a Danish bank in Estonia to launder over $10 billion through London and
Moscow on behalf of Russian entities. The UK's financial regulatory watchdog
has said that Deutsche Bank is failing to prevent its accounts from being used to launder money, circumvent sanctions and
finance terrorism. In November 2018, Deutsche Bank's headquarters was raided
by German authorities as part of an investigation sparked by 2016 revelations in the "Panama Papers" leak from Panama's Mossack
Fonseca.
Two weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration signed
an executive order linking a company owned by German national Mamoun Darkazanli to Al Qaeda. In 1995,
Darkazanli co-signed the opening of a Deutsche Bank account for Mamdouh
Mahmud Salim. Salim was identified by the CIA as the chief of bin Laden's computer operations and weapons procurement. He was
ultimately arrested in Munich, extradited to the United States and
charged
with participation in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
In 2017, the Office of the New York State Comptroller opened an investigation into accounts that Deutsche Bank was operating
on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP is defined by both the United States and the European
Union as a terrorist organization. It is ironic that Bolton, who is a past recipient of the "Guardian of Zion Award" would accept
money from an entity who provided services to Palestinian groups that Israel considers to be terror related.
IV. Clinton-esque Financial Ties Unbecoming To Trump Administration
Bolton's engagement in paid speeches, in some cases with well-known donors to the Clinton Foundation, paints the Trump administration
in a very bad light. Donald Trump criticized Hillary Clinton during his
2016 Presidential campaign for speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs that were
labeled by her detractors as "pay to play" behavior. John Bolton's acceptance of money from similar entities, especially the Victor
Pinchuk Foundation, are exactly the same kind of activity and are an embarrassment for a President who claims to be against corruption.
More broadly, John Bolton's work for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, HSBC and Deutsche Bank shows that while he preaches
hardline foreign policy approaches towards nations such as Iran and North Korea he has no issue tying himself to those who openly
flaunt American sanctions and diplomatic attempts to pressure these states. For an individual who is the President's National
Security Advisor to have taken money from banks who provide financial services to terror groups who have murdered thousands of
Americans is totally unacceptable.
It is embarrassing enough that Donald Trump hired Bolton in the first place. The next best remedy is to let him go as soon
as possible.
"... Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time. ..."
"... In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more. ..."
@WorkingClass
Alex Graham is right. I voted for Trump because he promised:
(1) to end the wars the US is fighting as a sock puppet of Israel and her domestic agents,
the so-called neocons and the traitorous Zionist fifth column in this country, exemplified by
Adelson, Saban, Kushner, et al.;
(2) to restore the rule of law regarding illegal aliens in this country by removing these
criminals post haste;
(3) to restore order at the border and end the massive stream of illegals and contraband
entering our country every day;
(4) to establish reasonable laws and policies regulating immigration and naturalization so
that new immigrants and citizens improve rather than diminish the quality of life for current
citizens; and
(5) to eliminate and/or restructure trade agreements so they are bilateral and not
destructive of the USA's industrial and economic base.
Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I
suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his
sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe
personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time.
By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again. I don't intend to. But please don't
consider voting for a Democrat. They will just more efficiently screw us than Trump is doing
now.
@Thomm
That's so true that it's almost incredible, Andrew Anglin of the daily stormer has been
campaigning for Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang for well over a month
He could be said to be instrumental in putting Yang on the democratic primaries and
possibly Tulsi as well all the while using his weaponized memes against Trump!! I'm in
disbelief.
Gabbard: Assange arrest is a threat to journalists
By Rachel Frazin – 04/11/19 06:10 PM EDT
Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) condemned the arrest of
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, calling the arrest a threat to
journalists.
"The arrest of #JulianAssange is meant to send a message to all Americans and
journalists: be quiet, behave, toe the line. Or you will pay the price," Gabbard
tweeted.
The Democrat's remark came hours after police in London arrested Assange, citing charges
he is facing in the U.S.
Assange is accused of conspiring to hack into computers in connection with WikiLeaks's
release of classified documents from former Army private and intelligence analyst Chelsea
Manning.
@AnonJ ust for a
more important record -- no surprise here -- my quick scan of the index of file names of that
"massive data dump at Wikileaks" found quite a few files about Scientology, one about tuition
increase at "uofa," another concerning Hawaii's announcement about Obama's birth certificate,
and a "yes-we-can mp4," but nothing at all about the World Trade Center or 9/11 that I could
find.
The Russians are not very worried about crossing the British but I cannot imagine what
the fallout would be if one of their spies got caught got caught killing someone here.
Sir, you are a rare breed. I didn't believe who believe that nonsense about the Russians
killing Litvinenko or Skripals actually existed. You have a remarkable capacity of swallowing
a large pile of BS.
"While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April
2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit
pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military
budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for
72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come."
"... It is literally the supreme act of projection for Max Boot to accuse anyone of lacking courage, as this particular think tank warmonger is the living, breathing personification of the unique strain of American neocon cowardice . Unlike Snowden -- who sacrificed his liberty and unraveled his life in pursuit of his beliefs -- the 45-year-old Boot has spent most of his adult life advocating for one war after the next, but always wanting to send his fellow citizens of his generation to die in them, while he hides in the comfort of Washington think tanks, never fighting them himself. ..."
"... All of that is just garden-variety neocon cowardice, and it's of course grotesque to watch someone like this call someone else a coward. ..."
"... It's not surprising that someone whose entire adult life is shaped by extreme cowardice would want to accuse others of lacking courage, as it distracts attention away from oneself and provides the comfort of company. Nor is it surprising that government-loyal journalists spew outright falsehoods to smear whistleblowers. But even neocon rags like Commentary shouldn't be able to get away with this level of blatant lying. ..."
"... Being a neocon coward means never having to admit error. ..."
In the neocon journal
Commentary , Max Boot today complains that the New York Times published
an op-ed by Edward Snowden . Boot's objection rests on his accusation that the NSA whistleblower is actually a "traitor." In
objecting, Boot made these claims:
Oddly enough nowhere in his article -- which is datelined Moscow -- does he mention the surveillance apparatus of his host,
Vladimir Putin , which far exceeds in scope anything created by any Western country. . . .That would be the same FSB that has
taken Snowden into its bosom as it has previously done (in its earlier incarnation as the KGB) with previous turncoats such as
Kim Philby. . . .
But of course Ed Snowden is not courageous enough, or stupid enough, to criticize the dictatorship that he has defected to.
It's much easier and safer to criticize the country he betrayed from behind the protection provided by the FSB's thugs. The only
mystery is why the Times is giving this traitor a platform.
It is literally the supreme act of projection for Max Boot to accuse anyone of lacking courage, as this particular think tank
warmonger is
the living, breathing personification of the unique strain of American neocon cowardice . Unlike Snowden -- who sacrificed his
liberty and unraveled his life in pursuit of his beliefs -- the 45-year-old Boot has spent most of his adult life advocating for
one war after the next, but always wanting to send his fellow citizens of his generation to die in them, while he hides in the comfort
of Washington think tanks, never fighting them himself.
All of that is just garden-variety neocon cowardice, and it's of course grotesque to watch someone like this call someone
else a coward. But it's so much worse if he lies when doing so. Did he do so here? You decide. From Snowden's NYT op-ed today:
Basic technical safeguards such as encryption -- once considered esoteric and unnecessary -- are now enabled by default in
the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private.
Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the
arbitrary passage of anti privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia.
The meaning of that passage -- criticisms of Russia's attack on privacy -- is so clear and glaring that it caused even
Time magazine to publish this today :
The first sentence of Time 's article: "Former CIA officer and NSA contractor Ed Snowden has taken a surprising swing at his new
home, accusing Russia of 'arbitrarily passing' new anti-privacy laws ." In other words, in the very op-ed to which Boot objects,
Snowden did exactly that which Boot accused him of lacking the courage to do: "criticize" the country that has given him asylum.
This is far from the first time Snowden has done exactly that which the Tough and Swaggering Think Tank Warrior proclaimed Snowden
would never do. In April, 2014, Snowden wrote
an
op-ed in The Guardian under this headline:
With Max Boot's above-printed accusations in mind, just re-read that. Did Boot lie? To pose the question is to answer it. Here's
part of what Snowden wrote in that op-ed:
On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. . . . I went on to challenge whether,
even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified. . . . In his
response, Putin denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter. There are serious inconsistencies in his denial.
In countless speeches, Snowden has said much the same thing: that Russian spying is a serious problem that needs investigation
and reform, and that Putin's denials are not credible. Boot simply lied about Snowden.
It's not surprising that someone whose entire adult life is shaped by extreme cowardice would want to accuse others of lacking
courage, as it distracts attention away from oneself and provides the comfort of company. Nor is it surprising that government-loyal
journalists spew outright falsehoods to smear
whistleblowers. But even neocon rags like Commentary shouldn't be able to get away with this level of blatant lying.
UPDATE : In typical neocon fashion, Boot first
replies by minimizing his own error to a mere innocent oversight, and implying that only hysteria could cause anyone to find
what he did to be problematic. Even then, the facts negate his self-justification. But
then he says he was actually right all along
and his "point stands":
Being a neocon coward means never having to admit error.
With Bolsanaro in charge in Brazil, Glenn Greenwald could be next. Something I am sure he is very aware. It's also curious that
no more of Snowden's documents have been published. I've wondered if they have threatened Greenwald and he is withholding the
information, to keep himself out of some dungeon somewhere.
"I've wondered if they have threatened Greenwald and he is withholding the information, to keep himself out of some dungeon
somewhere."
No one needs to threaten Greenwald to get him to withhold information. He withholds out of elitist conviction. In his way he's
just as much of an elite gatekeeper as anyone at any MSM outlet. (And really an outfit like the Intercept is just a thinly veiled
extension of the MSM.)
It's amazing how for many people, even going to work for a predatory billionaire as Greenwald has, or collaborating as part
of that billionaire's project as Snowden has, doesn't automatically peg one as a system stooge.
1. Information "piracy" may have to take to the high seas.
2. Maybe it would be best to release the rest of Snowden's documents now. Tit for tat.
Posted by: Cynica | Apr 11, 2019 8:38:05 AM | 35
This WILL NOT happen. Greenwald, his billionaire backer (who owns the docs technically as crazy as that sounds) and his website
are all an example of the "acceptable" counter narrative. Greenwald should deserve no respect, he chose money and fame over integrity.
That much has become clear. I think the same of Scahill and a few others, though I hear little from him now.
Sad days. Money will buy a LOT of people. Even those we believe it won't as they are "principled" or once carried conviction
. Hell, I imagine most of us are vulnerable to that as well.
1. Information "piracy" may have to take to the high seas.
2. Maybe it would be best to release the rest of Snowden's documents now. Tit for tat.
Posted by: Cynica | Apr 11, 2019 8:38:05 AM | 35
This WILL NOT happen. Greenwald, his billionaire backer (who owns the docs technically as crazy as that sounds) and his website
are all an example of the "acceptable" counter narrative. Greenwald should deserve no respect, he chose money and fame over integrity.
That much has become clear. I think the same of Scahill and a few others, though I hear little from him now.
Sad days. Money will buy a LOT of people. Even those we believe it won't as they are "principled" or once carried conviction
. Hell, I imagine most of us are vulnerable to that as well.
It's amazing how for many people, even going to work for a predatory billionaire as Greenwald has, or collaborating as part of
that billionaire's project as Snowden has, doesn't automatically peg one as a system stooge.
Posted by: Russ | Apr 11, 2019 8:37:22 AM | 34
I don't know. I still read Greenwald on twitter. You just have to pick through where he is dancing on a thin line and in some
places openly speaking truth.
Pretty hard to live on next to nothing and get heard and also enjoy a bit of life as well.
Obviously he is getting paid very well but I don't see him as a MSM stooge and propagandist.
I don't bother with the intercept.
I doubt that Trump will have to intervene. If we cast our minds back to David Hicks and Chelsea Manning, the Yanks wanted both
of them to rot in jail for Eternity but 'time served' for both was considerably less. There was also a swarthy, savvy, well-educated
bespectacled Brit picked up about the same time as Hicks. I've forgotten his name but he was released in response to strident
demands from UK.gov. Ozzies were very pissed off with the Liberal Govt for not following UK.gov's example re David Hicks.
Superficially, at least, it seems that the US is happy to 'prove' its relentless invincibility, to as wide an audience as possible,
when pursuing The AmeriKKKan Way regarding certain 'evildoers' and then going back to sleep.
If there's a short-term bright note to this story it's the fact that Scum Mo announced the start of Oz Federal Election campaign
yesterday and Assange will become an election issue. Scum Mo's Liberals are already in deep doodoo with the electorate for delaying
the Banking Royal Commission for almost 2 years. The RC found that all of the big banks and other financial institutions had been
engaged in widespread deception, theft and fraudulent behavior. The Royal Commission was given a limited time to produce a report
and did NOT set up a compensation body or procedure for the tens of thousands of victims of bank malfeasance.
So Scum Mo will be tempted to grow a pair and demand that Trump send Assange back to Oz because the Libs were going to be toast
anyway and Saving Julian might help some people to forget what greedy dishonest assholes the Libs are.
I'm not sure Assange will end up in solitary in a U.S. Supermax prison as many so-called progressive Clintonists are hoping and
gloating over. From memory the ECHR regards solitary as torture particularly over long periods and the United Kingdom judiciary
(who will make the decision) have an established policy of not extraditing prisoners who will be tortured. So, my assessment is,
he will be extradited once the US DoJ has given assurances he will not be held in solitary, but it will be a very sad day for
press freedom in the United Kingdom.
"Pretty hard to live on next to nothing and get heard and also enjoy a bit of life as well."
I've heard about the lavish "next to nothing" Greenwald lives on. Doesn't quite sound the same as my next-to-nothing. As for
getting heard, that's mathematical: There's an direct relationship between one's utility to the empire and how much one "gets
heard".
In this case, Greenwald collaborated with the NYT, WaPo and Guardian to curate Snowden's alleged trove (which stopped appearing
at all long before it was supposed to be exhausted), in order to release heavily censored portions in a form these MSM elitists
judged was suitable for the people to see.
The basic message, which Snowden himself also has spewed in many speeches, is that the Deep State is basically good, and certainly
necessary, it just has committed some abuses and needs "reform" and "oversight".
That's Greenwald's #1 service for the empire so far, to be the lead man in co-opting the whole Wikileaks-whistleblower movement,
since so many people are so interested in "leaks" (even though they never tell us anything we didn't already know from plain sight).
We do all hope that Assange's arrest will motivate all those with access to other incriminating data to release those, via Wikileaks
or other. The first comment here accurately describes it: (the UK and) the US - and let's add the whole silly 'five eyes' and
western front - has become the new Soviet Union. Roles have reversed; it's not about ideology but about power structure.
Here's for Assange to become the Sakharov of our time. However, that would mean we foster the hope or expect that our western
hemisphere could birth a Gorbachev-type idealist who can attain power long enough to destroy the power base.
Christian J Chuba , Apr 11, 2019 9:57:12 AM |
link
Reading the user comments on Assange's arrest in the 'Washington Post' story, all I can say is that we in the U.S.
are a bunch of jingoistic morons. We are exceptionally narcissistic and small minded.
Indeed. It's almost as if the Snowden--Greenwald affair were an intended or at least foreseen and allowed limited hangout operation
one aim of which was to discredit the "irresponsible" leaking of Assange while establishing Greenwald as paradigm for all correct
left-libertarian critiques of the US.
On the other hand, if the Snowden--Greenwald *were* simply a limited hangout thing, then it was far more successfully and realistically
contrived than most of our current very mediocre intelligence agency operations have been. The rush to apprehend Snowden en route
to Central America, the forced detainment of Greenwald's partner in the UK, the MI5-6 destruction of the Guardian servers and
subsequent takeover of the newspaper...all these events really happened and clearly were much more serious endeavors than the
obvious staged operations like Steele, Russiagate, Skripal which followed after.
So I think that the Snowden--gGreenwald---Poitras thing started as genuine and then was subsequently coopted and controlled
via Greenwald and Omidar's Intercept. What I don't know is whether Greenwald entered the Snowden affair already coopted or whether
he became so willingly sometime later. For lots of people like Greenwald--achievement oriented, desirous of public fame and respect,
interested in obtaining personal wealth and stability--a very "soft" touch is all that's needed by our intelligence ops to arrive
at an understanding between them.
If one were to change the calendar to 1938 or so, and the names to Goebbels et al, one would recognize the character of the criminals.
This is a typical nazi "action" against people who have failed to conceal evidence of major war crimes. Their "crime" is reporting
crime.
The German nazis were curated by CoL and Wall-Street bankers to ruin USSR and loot Russia. As we see this remains a basic,
essential, nazi goal of the Anglo-Saxon nazi heartland, er. "Heimat" - England and their servile willing US accomplices.
- Madeline Albright: "We think it's worth it" to kill 500,000 children.
- Bush Admin and neocons lied to start the war a war that cost trillions of dollars wasted; thousands of deaths
- Multiple grievous human rights abuses now engraved in memory: Abu Grave; Faluja; Rendition and Torture; Guantanamo, etc.
And the same lousy criminal asshats brought us the Afghanistan debacle, color revolutions, and the Syrian Jihadi proxy war.
As long as the real criminals walk free, they will continue to drive their criminal agenda.
In the indictment, the government alleges that Assange worked with Chelsea Manning to obtain classified documents. Prosecutors
say that Manning accessed classified government files, provided them to Assange, and later worked with Assange in an attempt
to crack the password of a classified government network.
The indictment outlines communications between Manning and Assange from the spring of 2010. WikiLeaks later released a major
cache of State Department cables, and
Prosecutors also argue that Assange actively encouraged Manning to access files, at one point saying, "curious eyes never
run dry in my experience."
Currently, the only charge Assange faces is one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The maximum penalty for
the violation is five years in prison, but the government could bring additional charges against Assange at a later date.
A friend of mine is a retired intelligence asset. What he has to say may upset lots of you. So be it. Everyone wants heroes but
others say no more heroes anymore.
WikiLeaks is accused of releasing the DNC mails via a Russian hack but the Wikileaks organization denies Russia was the source
yet declines to offer proof, allowing the false perception to persevere. Why does Wikileaks persevere in concealing the otherwise
well known fact it was the assassinated Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails? Is it because Assange's currency as an intelligence agency
asset isn't yet entirely exhausted?
Possibility 1) As stated at this website previously, the point of charging Assange with an older crime could be to bury the
prime witness (Assange) in maximum security where any testimony threatening John Brennan's CIA invented DNC 'hack' narrative will
never come to light.
Possibility 2) This is part of a staged event by the USA's neocon/Christian Zionist alliance in the CIA, working with MOSSAD
(recalling Assange's MOSSAD connections attested to by former CIA clandestine services officer Robert Steele) to sink the neoliberal
element of the USA's intelligence establishment; where Trump will pardon Assange for Assange's cooperation with the Justice Department
in sinking the Obama/Clinton/John Brennan clique behind 'Russiagate' (finally resolving the DNC mails.)
Consider this: certain alternative media stars either fail to realize or selectively black out the fact Julian Assange was
a critical gear in the intelligence agency (primarily CIA & MOSSAD) information operations responsible for the so-called 'Arab
Spring' leading to not only revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt but also the overthrow of Gaddafi and the Syrian 'civil
war.' How do alternative media stars Glen Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Caitlin Johnstone, Vanessa Beeley and Raul Ilargi Meijer (among
others), when defending their perception of Assange as a hero, drive that square peg into the round hole of Wikileaks supported
the intelligence agency geopolitical engineering called the Arab Spring?
Many readers here will be hearing from Glenn Greenwald about the arrest of Assange as if He(Greenwald)just loves Julian so much
and is just so upset by his arrest. DO NOT BELIEVE HIM. Take the time to look back at what Greenwald has said - such as claiming
that Assange is not a journalist because he does ont "curate" the material he receives for anything other than authenticity.
According to Snowden and Greenwald if a journalist does not contact the government in advance and agreed to censor the material
for "sources and methods" then they are not journalists.
Glenn Greenwald has made a fortune off Snowden - including $250 million from Pierre Omidyar an oligarch for The Intercept which
clearly supports the oligarchy and its interests. Greenwald has stated clearly in the past that he does not consider Wikileaks
a journalistic operation. Greenwald still has perhaps thousands of Snowden documents which he refuses to release - then he gets
$250 million from the oligarchy. Sure there is "journalism" as long as the CIA can review what you publish first. One of the founders
of the Intercept is Laura Pordris who produced a psyco-hit piece on Assange.
In this environment if you Trust these people without question you are risking being mislead. Like a good propagandist Greenwald
is out now singing the tune which will gain him trust so he can slip in the propaganda effectively when the time comes.
The arrest probably means that WikiLeaks was thoroughly infiltrated and the US authorities
are sure that there are no "unexploded bombs" in their arsenal.
Indeed. It's almost as if the Snowden--Greenwald affair were an intended or at least
foreseen and allowed limited hangout operation one aim of which was to discredit the
"irresponsible" leaking of Assange while establishing Greenwald as paradigm for all correct
left-libertarian critiques of the US.
On the other hand, if the Snowden--Greenwald *were* simply a limited hangout thing, then
it was far more successfully and realistically contrived than most of our current very
mediocre intelligence agency operations have been. The rush to apprehend Snowden en route to
Central America, the forced detainment of Greenwald's partner in the UK, the MI5-6
destruction of the Guardian servers and subsequent takeover of the newspaper...all these
events really happened and clearly were much more serious endeavors than the obvious staged
operations like Steele, Russiagate, Skripal which followed after.
So I think that the Snowden--gGreenwald---Poitras thing started as genuine and then was
subsequently coopted and controlled via Greenwald and Omidar's Intercept. What I don't know
is whether Greenwald entered the Snowden affair already coopted or whether he became so
willingly sometime later. For lots of people like Greenwald--achievement oriented, desirous
of public fame and respect, interested in obtaining personal wealth and stability--a very
"soft" touch is all that's needed by our intelligence ops to arrive at an understanding
between them.
"I've wondered if they have threatened Greenwald and he is withholding the information,
to keep himself out of some dungeon somewhere."
No one needs to threaten Greenwald to get him to withhold information. He withholds out
of elitist conviction. In his way he's just as much of an elite gatekeeper as anyone at any
MSM outlet. (And really an outfit like the Intercept is just a thinly veiled extension of
the MSM.)
It's amazing how for many people, even going to work for a predatory billionaire as
Greenwald has, or collaborating as part of that billionaire's project as Snowden has,
doesn't automatically peg one as a system stooge.
1. Information "piracy" may have to take to the high seas.
2. Maybe it would be best to release the rest of Snowden's documents now. Tit for tat.
Posted by: Cynica | Apr 11, 2019 8:38:05 AM | 35
This WILL NOT happen. Greenwald, his billionaire backer (who owns the docs technically as
crazy as that sounds) and his website are all an example of the "acceptable" counter
narrative. Greenwald should deserve no respect, he chose money and fame over integrity.
That much has become clear. I think the same of Scahill and a few others, though I hear
little from him now.
Sad days. Money will buy a LOT of people. Even those we believe it won't as they are
"principled" or once carried conviction . Hell, I imagine most of us are vulnerable to that
as well.
We do all hope that Assange's arrest will motivate all those with access to other
incriminating data to release those, via Wikileaks or other. The first comment here
accurately describes it: (the UK and) the US - and let's add the whole silly 'five eyes'
and western front - has become the new Soviet Union. Roles have reversed; it's not about
ideology but about power structure.
Here's for Assange to become the Sakharov of our time. However, that would mean we foster
the hope or expect that our western hemisphere could birth a Gorbachev-type idealist who
can attain power long enough to destroy the power base.
- Madeline Albright: "We think it's worth it" to kill 500,000 children.
- Bush Admin and neocons lied to start the war a war that cost trillions of dollars wasted;
thousands of deaths
- Multiple grievous human rights abuses now engraved in memory: Abu Grave; Faluja;
Rendition and Torture; Guantanamo, etc.
And the same lousy criminal asshats brought us the Afghanistan debacle, color
revolutions, and the Syrian Jihadi proxy war.
As long as the real criminals walk free, they will continue to drive their
criminal agenda.
Many readers here will be hearing from Glenn Greenwald about the arrest of Assange as if
He(Greenwald)just loves Julian so much and is just so upset by his arrest. DO NOT BELIEVE
HIM. Take the time to look back at what Greenwald has said - such as claiming that Assange
is not a journalist because he does ont "curate" the material he receives for anything
other than authenticity.
According to Snowden and Greenwald if a journalist does not contact the government in
advance and agreed to censor the material for "sources and methods" then they are not
journalists.
Glenn Greenwald has made a fortune off Snowden - including $250 million from Pierre
Omidyar an oligarch for The Intercept which clearly supports the oligarchy and its
interests. Greenwald has stated clearly in the past that he does not consider Wikileaks a
journalistic operation. Greenwald still has perhaps thousands of Snowden documents which he
refuses to release - then he gets $250 million from the oligarchy. Sure there is
"journalism" as long as the CIA can review what you publish first. One of the founders of
the Intercept is Laura Pordris who produced a psyco-hit piece on Assange.
In this environment if you Trust these people without question you are risking being
mislead. Like a good propagandist Greenwald is out now singing the tune which will gain him
trust so he can slip in the propaganda effectively when the time comes.
But the case against Assange is not about justice. His publication of state secrets was
obviously an act of journalism and free speech. But the deep state was embarrassed and
demands revenge
Assange gave us graphic video of the US Army shredding a couple of unarmed Iraqi
journalists (and others) with 30mm canon fire. memory that can't be deleted.
As a US citizen I loath the mendacity and actions of the elites that have left us with
nothing to hope for or believe in for some decent future with the US striding across the
world sowing fear, hatred, and war. The reality of the depraved elites is such that I am
usually right to first assume they are lying whatever they say. This all applies to the UK
as well.
"This is a real test for the American media. Can they separate their personals feelings
toward Assange from the question of whether it is okay to prosecute a publisher for
publishing? Matt is right, this is extremely dangerous."
The above was made in reply to Matthew Yglesias who clearly hates Assange:
"Assange sucks but prosecuting publishers seems extremely dangerous and troubling to
me." And he calls himself a journalist. He has as much honor as Moreno. The resulting
threads are educational and revelatory. Lots of very confused, screwed up minds showing few
morals mixed in with a few good eggs.
"Today, I stand with Julian Assange and Wikileaks."
Please see tweet for entire statement. As with other threads on this topic, the comments
are educational and revelatory. It's rather amazing how many utterly weak minds are in
positions of responsibility. Some have lapped up so much propaganda Koolaid that they're
now delusional.
To those posting about Glenn Greenwald; I don't know what Greenwald really stands for any
more and no longer read his stuff, but you might be interested in this pathetic and
predictable end to the Greenwald/Omidyar conservatorship of the Snowden documents. A month
ago, Greenwald announced via twitter that The Intercept/First Look was now officially
shutting down access to the Snowden archives and has laid off the group of employees that
secured and curated the cache. (It cost First Look $400,000/year to maintain the files,
which is 1.5% of its 2019 budget.)
Greenwald did not even consult Snowden on this decision. So, without much fanfare, the
cache is simply disappeared, without ever being fully opened to the public, although
Greenwald claims in his tweet that he's looking for the "right partner – an academic
institution or research facility – that has the funds to robustly publish." (Which,
one might have supposed, would be the sort of funds that a news site such as The Intercept
might enjoy given that they have the resources of their own billionaire founder behind
them.)
They did not allow Poitras to attend the company meeting held on the subject after they
made this announcement, and kept her in the dark until the announcement was rolled out.
Poitras, recall, also has a copy of the archives and was one of the founding editors of
Intercept. She is objecting to the move. Although given that the Intercept has merely sat
on the cache for so long, it hardly matters now.
I thought from the beginning of the Intercept/First Look/Omidyar site that the eventual
disappearance of the files was the very purpose behind Omidyar buying off Greenwald (and
his valuable Snowden material along with him) in the first place.
Anyway, poof go the Snowden files, without most of the material ever being released to the
public.
There will be no indignation at the BBC, or the Guardian, or CNN. Just curious, impassive
reporting of Assange's fate.
And that is because these journalists, politicians and experts never really believed
anything they said. They knew all along that the US wanted to silence Assange and to
crush Wikileaks. They knew that all along and they didn't care. In fact, they happily
conspired in paving the way for today's kidnapping of Assange.
They did so because they are not there to represent the truth, or to stand up for
ordinary people, or to protect a free press, or even to enforce the rule of law. They
don't care about any of that. They are there to protect their careers, and the system
that rewards them with money and influence. They don't want an upstart like Assange
kicking over their applecart.
In fact it seems to me the reason he is being changed with conspiracy is so that they
can avoid defence claims that his publishing information is covered by the 1st Amendment of
the US Constitution. Any worthwhile lawyer would paste it on thick for the jury that
convicting Assange for publication would be a deep betrayal of their much beloved
Constitution. It also means that the information on war crimes in the famous video would be
once more broadcast to the world, and more importantly to the jury. Imagine what a fiasco
and embarrassment US Govt would face if after all the fuss, Assange was acquitted by a US
Jury?
Furthermore,in common law countries, such as the UK, a typical court condition of
agreement to extradite is that the accused will only be charged with crimes exhibited in
the extradition warrant. That being the case, the maximum sentence he would face is 5 and a
half years I believe.
Some posters here criticise Asssange/Wikileaks for not being critical of Israel or
supporting Catalonia independence but the Wikileaks website isn't really like that.
Wikileaks is a non-redacted searchable database of documents that have been leaked. Most
of these documents are dry and it really depends on what you a looking for and what you
find. It is rare to find a single document that by itself clearly reveals a scandal or a
plot of some sort. Also, there is no editorial from Wikileaks. It is up to the user to
search, find and interpret.
For instance, I just did a search and found a US cable dated 30th Jan 2008
which describes Erdogan's concerns about an armed deep state extra-legal grouping which has
a suspected overlap with a cold war Gladio group and which is protected by the Turkish
judiciary. So, obviously, subversion was an issue long before the attempted coup in 2016,
but it's up to me to make a story out of it.
There is plenty of stuff about Israel, for instance there seems to be quite a number of
incidents concerning Obama and/or Clinton trying to get Netanyahu to apologise for
something that matters very little and Netanyahu invariable refusing.
The easiest way for a body, such as the CIA, to manipulate Wikileaks is just be
selective about what information is leaked.
If you're looking for dirt on Israel, Clinton, Trump, Erdogan, Putin, Catalonia, etc.
just go and look for it.
"Today's arrest and indictment of Julian Assange undermines freedom of the press, and
seeks to silence whistleblowers and the journalists who publish their information. This
sets a dangerous precedent of criminal prosecution of journalists or news organizations who
publish information the government doesn't like, while also opening the door for other
countries to extradite US journalists who publish their country's secrets," said Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard. "We must protect whistleblowers and freedom of the press, and exercise oversight
over our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to ensure our Constitutional rights are
upheld."
"why do you think Assange supported the invasion and destruction of Syria"
This is very simple. Back at the time of Arab Spring, most of the Western opinion, be it
left or right, supported overthrowing a dictator. Assange, for better or worse, was in the
lopsided majority, hardly strange.
"how do you explain Assange´s strong support for the Independence of
Catalonia...."
This was not a majority opinion, but not rare. More importantly, tracing it to the needs
of "deep state" is very speculative. On the other hand, the rage of established political
circles against the very idea of Wikileaks was palpable, and what Wikileaks did was
perceived as "very damaging". Even if independence of Catalonia were in some mysterious
ways a priority of the sinister and hardly known deep state that you postulate, Assange had
scant influence on that happening. So the putative plan of using leaks to Wikileaks to
build up its stature and to use that to further the causes of fragmenting Syria and Spain
would be weird indeed: huge losses for speculative gains.
One has to understand the nature of the rage against Wikileaks. Any conceivable deep
stater depends on secrecy. To them, secrecy is like air for birds and water for fish -- a
necessary element that makes their ecological niche habitable. An organization that
facilitates dissemination of secret is, to them, a blasphemous existence.
One has to understand that what we call "deep state" is hardly secret in the outline.
Its member go back and forth from private sector (corporations, think tanks, media,
academic gig etc.) and the government leaving a large visible trail that is in the public
view. That said, they need many secrets because the wide public in democratic countries
needs to have pure, trusting, uncomplicated minds. Like making children, implementation of
most of policies requires some f...ng activity
Remember George Orwell's "1984" describes a dismal future when most of the world population
have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and media
propaganda. Interesting that Orwell's arch protagonist (Emmanuel Goldstein) and his "Theory
and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" sees the three "opposing" ideologies as
functionally identical and each superstate being powerful enough that even shifting
alliances (of two against one) only results in a continuing stalemate dynamic.
Are we there yet? I think Julian Assange might be feeling it so and this latest saga
looks like an ominous tipping point indicator for those who think they live in a western
democracy with press freedom to hold government (by the people) accountable.
Correspondence with Edward Snowden, and
the key to freedom for Julian Assange
A member of our Belgian Jewish community is in touch with Edward Snowden in Russia, both
sharing the role of being significant global dissidents who used to live in the USA.
We are publishing here a copy of some of that correspondence between those two figures,
as it discusses the likelihood of how both Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are being betrayed
and actively harmed by the American lawyers and US-UK media companies claiming to 'represent'
them, including America's ACLU (America's Civil Liberties Union), the UK Guardian and New York
Times newspapers, and Glenn Greenwald.
All these groups and journalists, are apparently hiding thousands of pages of legal files,
about the corruption and bribery of US federal (national) judges who are the same judges who
would put Julian Assange or Edward Snowden on trial ... even though these lawyers and
journalists all know that exposing the crimes of the bribed US judges, is the quick key to
releasing Julian Assange from threats that confine him to his refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy
in London, and key to more safety and freedom for Snowden as well.
US Attorney General Eric Holder is accused of sponsoring criminal acts of deception against
the UK, Sweden, Russia and other countries, hiding 'smoking gun' evidence of US judge bribery,
in order to harm and destroy both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Google Inc has agreed to
censor and hoax the internet and hide dozens of web pages about this.
This bribery is said to be funded by Britain's Pearson plc, with the Guardian and New York
Times accused of accepting Pearson-funded bribes to print fake 'news' to obstruct and pervert
justice so that the UK will not prosecute Pearson's bribery of US high judges and
government.
Mr Snowden is also facing the terrifying possibility that his name is being abused by
these parties, New York Times, Guardian and Greenwald, for the sake of entrapping other
dissidents and whistleblowers into 'trusting' these journalists, who might then convey
dissident names to the US regime in order to silence and murder them. It seems possible the
Guardian and New York Times have already given Snowden files back to the US regime.
The correspondence with Edward Snowden makes reference to the police file with several EU
countries, who are beginning investigations and prosecutions, starting in Finland, of the
CIA-tied Wikipedia website, for fundraising fraud ... that police file significantly discusses
the evidence of bribery of US federal judges who are the same judges who would put Edward
Snowden and Julian Assange on trial in America, and how Wikipedia, actually an American
CIA-controlled 'Trojan horse' for inserting lies on targeted topics, has been used to plant
lies about that judicial bribery - the police dossier text is here:
Here is a screenshot of a Google Inc 'search results' page, with tiny text at the bottom
admitting that Google is censoring a large number of search results, about Edward Snowden's
correspondent, a major witness to the crimes involving the same US judges who would put Edward
Snowden or Julian Assange on trial:
Unfortunately, the near totality of this country's populace is effectively illiterate
and poorly equipped to think critically and independently, preferring to accept the
verdicts of their oleaginous talking heads at face value without ever troubling themselves
to examine why.
(The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are
often the most gullible and dim-witted.)
Someday, when we all have multiple degrees from prestigious institutions of exalted
learning, our collective I.Q. will be substantially higher than it is today, and we will
understand everything.
"... He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague ..."
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from
within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner
openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling
through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears
not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and
their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots
the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of
the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to
fear. The traitor is the plague."
span y apenultimate on Wed, 04/10/2019 - 7:09pm She did it, an hour ago!
Tulsi Gabbard now has enough individual donors to make it into the televised Democratic
debates! Thanks to those of you who helped, either by becoming a donor, or in spirit!
If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story
of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.
I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is,
and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.
Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?
Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on
BookTV .
Thanks for sharing the links on the Kushner Crime Family. It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man "transition"
into the MIGA man. What amazes me are the number of dumb f*ck Americans who still worship this ass hat, all the while he is driving
the betrayal dagger deeper into their back.
"... Boeing "effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty" by rushing the 737 MAX to market without "extra" or "optional" safety features - a practice that has outraged the company's critics - as it feared ceding market share to Airbus SE. Moreover, Boeing failed to disclose a conflict of interest surrounding its 'regulatory capture' of the FAA, which was revealed to have outsourced much of the approval process for the 737 MAX to Boeing itself. ..."
"... Of course, this shareholder lawsuit is only the tip of the legal iceberg for Boeing. The company will likely face a blizzard of lawsuits filed by family members of those killed during the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, the first of which has already been filed. ..."
Boeing shareholders who lost money selling their stock after the Ethiopian Airlines crash are suing
the company
for concealing unflattering material information from the public, defrauding
shareholders in the process,
Reuters
reports.
The class-action lawsuit, filed in Chicago, is seeking damages after the
March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 wiped $34 billion off Boeing's market cap within
two weeks. But if true, the crux of the lawsuit might have broader repercussions for the company as
it tries to convince regulators to lift a grounding order that has kept the Boeing 737 MAX 8
grounded since mid-March.
In essence, the suit alleges that
the company concealed safety concerns about the 737
MAX and its anti-stall software
following the Lion Air crash in October that killed 189
people,
but did nothing to alert the public or correct the issue.
Boeing "effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty" by
rushing the 737 MAX to market without "extra" or "optional" safety features - a practice that
has outraged the company's critics - as it feared ceding market share to Airbus SE. Moreover,
Boeing failed to disclose a conflict of interest surrounding its 'regulatory capture' of the
FAA, which was revealed to have outsourced much of the approval process for the 737 MAX to
Boeing itself.
Lead plaintiff Richard Seeks bought 300 Boeing shares in early March and sold them at a loss
after the shares dumped more than 12% in the weeks after the second crash, which would have left
him with a loss between $15,000 and $20,000. The lawsuit seeks damages for Boeing investors who
bought the company's shares from Jan. 8 to March 21. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and CFO Gregory
Smith have also been named as defendants.
Of course, this shareholder lawsuit is only the tip of the legal iceberg for Boeing. The company
will likely face a blizzard of lawsuits filed by family members of those killed during the Lion
Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, the
first of which
has already been filed.
Though its shares have recovered from their post-grounding lows, they have hit another bout of
turbulence this week after the company announced that it would slash production of the 737 MAX by
20%, before announcing that its aircraft orders in Q1 fell to 95 from 180 a year earlier.
Having grown up in Seattle within 15 miles of Plant 2 on Boeing
Field, I know a lot about The Boeing Company. I went to private
high school with Bill Boeing III and during college had a great
summer job at Troy Laundry delivering shop towels and uniforms to
all of the Boeing plants in the region.
I used to laugh because,
when I drove the laundries 20ft UPS style box van through those
enormous sliding doors into Everett's 747 Plant to deliver fresh
laundry and pickup soiled's, I would spend the next 4-hours
driving around 'inside' the building. I got to know dozens of
workers by name, who 'worked the line'.
After college, more than 20% of my graduating class went to
work at 'the lazy B' as it was commonly known. Not me. I went into
sales and started selling computers.....to Boeing and the FAA.
As the size my computer sales territory was increased to
include the entire West Coast I began to fly Boeing aircraft
almost everyday for 10-years. and on-board those aircraft I met
and flew with many Boeing executives.
One day I happened to sit next the 'current' Boeing HR
director, and after getting to know him confided that I
frequently smoked marijuana after work. To which he replied, "I
would gladly have the 15% of our work force that are alcoholics,
or into hard drugs smoke pot because it's effects are short-term
but when people come to work 'hung-over or jacked-up' that is when
bad **** happens and mistakes are made".
Even though, I had been 'on the line' and met many Boeing
employees I had not realized until that moment the seriousness of
what he was saying. The HR guy went on to say, that they 'had to
have redundancy at every step in the construction process to
ensure bad workmanship didn't make it into the final product'.
Fast forward 20-years; and Boeing airplanes are falling from
the sky......and it's not a surprise to me.
The legacy 737 "NG" is a solid aircraft, and its still being
produced down the same build lines as the MAX. Just the
previous generation. That plane drove the vast majority of
Boeings sales. It woulndt be hard to scale down MAX production
and just go back to producing the NG, but they wont do that.
They'll fix the MAX and move on, and as long as no more crashes
occur, eventually the public will forget.
The FED can't let the stock price fall on a company of that
size, so the FED trading desk will lend assistance. There is a
certain evil in this, because the stock
deserves
to
fall, and when it doesn't, it has the effect of vindicating the
company for the events that occurred. This is why free markets
should never be meddled with. It's actually immoral.
This is utterly predictable and something I've already said
repeatedly: Boeing did not tell pilots or its customers about the
mechanism. Boeing is criminally liable for the MURDER of 300+
people. Families will sue and cancellations will follow.
Then
this:
"In essence, the suit alleges that
the company concealed
safety concerns about the 737 MAX and its anti-stall software
following
the Lion Air crash in October that killed 189 people,
but did
nothing to alert the public or correct the issue.
Boeing
"effectively put profitability and growth ahead of
airplane safety and honesty"
Pilots complained about the problem and were IGNORED.
This is good to see. Boeing needs to be held accountable for
MURDER. But instead Trump slaps tariffs on the competitor, AIRBUS,
to pay for Boeing's criminality.
This will not stop companies choosing AIRBUS and its good
safety record over a bunch of psychopathic murderers. If Boeing
had put safety first, it's competitor would not be picking up
business..ironic...
I still don't understand the point of the MCAS. Clearly it causes
the plane to do a face plant into the ground. However, like in
that one situation where the jump seat pilot knew to turn it off,
the plane flew fine. Boeing says the MCAS is to prevent the plane
from stalling at steep angles of attack, but the plane seems to
stay in the air better without it. So which is it? The fact is the
Boeing neglected to put it in the manual suggests it was done on
purpose. The fact that they sold a version with no redundancy to
the AOC sensor seems to be have done on purpose. Since Boeing is
basically an arm of the DOD, the question should be who was on the
flights that crashed? That's the missing link in this debacle.
Check out "
moonofalabama.org
",
very good explanation, plus some further links to pilot forums.
From what I understand, the pilots get into some sort of "catch
22"....even if they switch of the MACS, they are doomed.
I'm not I anyway in the flying biz, but work in power
generating control systems, and funny enough, use quite a lot
of Rosemount sensors in ex areas. They are good sensors, but
always use two in mission critical operations.
Why Boeing opted for just one, really blows my mind.
What would an extra sensor cost, 10.000USD?, altogether with
new software..bla-bla.
Now look what this is costing them.
Well, this is what happens when MBA bean counters take over
a former proud engineering company.
From what I understand, the pilots get into some sort
of "catch 22"....even if they switch of the MACS, they
are doomed.
Sort of like that. The flight surface is controlled by a
big screw. Normally an electric motor spins the nut that
drives the screw up and down. The switch cuts out the motor,
and they have hand cranks to move the screw. But in this
last crash, the too-clever-by-half software system had
already run the screw all the way to the 'nose down' end,
and it would have taken them several minutes of hand
cranking to get it back to the center position. They didn't
have several minutes, and the motor is capable of driving
the screw the other way. Since the problem was intermittent
(software kicks in on a time interval), they were hoping it
would behave for a few seconds, and switched the motor back
on. It didn't.
On a side note, the Airbus does not have these hand-crank
controls. Everything is run by the computer -- so if
anything goes wrong, the pilot must 'reason' with the
computer to correct it. . . "Sorry Dave, I can't do that".
Well, this is what happens when MBA bean counters take
over a former proud engineering company.
This reminds me of Feynman's analysis of what went wrong
with the Space Shuttle Challenger. The engineers said the
O-rings would be too stiff and brittle, and the launch
should wait until it warmed up a bit. But a delay was
costing the shuttle program a million dollars a minute, or
whatever.
Feynman explained that the early space program was run by
the pocket-protector guys with slide rules. And it worked.
But over time the management had been replaced by people
whose careers depended on influencing other people and not
on matter, energy, and materials.
Another thing, the pilots had commanded full throttle and
never throttled back during the whole ordeal. So when
they killed the trim motor, they couldn't overcome the
aerodynamic force on the stab to move the trim screw back
into position.
Apparently they could have got the trim
corrected ENOUGH to make a difference if they could have
moved it more easily, but at the speeds they were going,
the airspeed over the stab was too high to manually move
the screw fast enough to make a difference.
Sort of. When you kill the electric trim motor, you have to
use a manual wheel to adjust trim. The issue came that their
airspeed was so high that the load on the stab made it
nearly impossible to move without the electric motor.
They
had been at full throttle from rotation until they hit the
dirt. The pilot had told the copilot to throttle back but it
got lost in the chaos somewhere and never happened.
So when they killed the trim motor and tried to move it
manually, they had to overcome all the aerodynamic force on
the stab, and they just couldnt do it at those airspeeds
without the electric motor to overcome the force.
The bigger the fuselage the bigger the engines needed. The
bigger the engines needed the more forward on the wing they
go to keep from scraping on the ground. The more forward on the
wing the more unbalanced then plane became. They've stretch a
frame which was developed in the 60's beyond its original
design.
The executives who oversaw the fiasco that is now Boeing, long ago
parachuted out with multi million dollar pensions and stock
options while their Seattle workers had their pensions slashed.
They're now assembling Dreamliners in NC with off the street non
unionized labor, former TacoBell and Subway workers. They moved
their Corp headquarters to Chicago away from where the actual work
was being performed to pursue the "work" of stock buy backs and
cozying up to the FAA. All the above a recipe for disaster. A
perfect mirror of how the 1/10th of 1% operate in the Oligarchy we
call America.
Boeing is in full on crisis mode because of the 737 Max fiasco.
Anything else they say or do is pure show and fraud.
The are not to far from losing the entire narrowbody airline
market, pretty much the meat and bones of Airline production.
Today Airbus still has the A-320 neo, and Russia and China are
chomping at the bit with the MC21 and C919, all far more advanced
and superior than a 1960's designed stretched pulled and too late
737 .
If Boeing loses market share and the narrow body airline
market, shame on the USA.
This will become a text book expample of the fall of a nation
and empire.
How can a Company like Boeing have technology like the B2 and
everything the DOD gives them and lose the international market
for narrowbody airliners..
To call this a national disgrace is a compliment to Boeing and
the US aerospace industies complete disregard and hubris in such
an important component of worldwide aviation.
This in not a sad chapter for Boeing, its sad for the USA
BeanCounters, Parasitoids, and Bells-WhistlesMktg Types Running
an Aerospace/Aviation Engineering and Defense Tech Conglomerate
into the Ground - Literally.
Civil Aviation Div "Jumped the
Shark" the moment they passed on a redesigned Successor to the
737 Base Model in the mid 2000s and decided to strap on Larger
Engines and GunDeck the Revision and Certifications.
Failure to disclose regulatory capture is a tough one. Do you
issue an 8K on that one? Maybe bury it in the 10K in risk
statements
"We maintain several regulatory relationships that
will rubber stamp approvals for our aircraft. In the event of a
major safety violation, those cozy relationships could be exposed
and we be found to not only be negligent, but also nefariously so
through regulatory capture."
You bought an airline manufacturer that had a malfunction.
There's plenty of people to blame, but it's part of the business
you own.
The 737 Max is a legacy of its past, built on
decades-old systems, many that date back to the original version. The strategy, to keep
updating the plane rather than starting from scratch, offered competitive advantages.
Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn't have to invest in costly new
training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to
redesign and recertify than starting anew.
But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following two deadly crashes in less
than five months. The Max stretched the 737 design, creating a patchwork plane that left
pilots without some safety features that could be important in a crisis -- ones that have
been offered for years on other planes. It is the only modern Boeing jet without an
electronic alert system that explains what is malfunctioning and how to resolve it.
Instead pilots have to check a manual.
The Max also required makeshift solutions to keep the plane flying like its ancestors,
workarounds that may have compromised safety. While the findings aren't final,
investigators suspect that one workaround, an anti-stall system designed to compensate for
the larger engines, was central to the crash last month in Ethiopia and an earlier one in
Indonesia.
"They wanted to A, save money and B, to
minimize the certification and flight-test costs," said Mike Renzelmann, an engineer who
worked on the Max's flight controls. "Any changes are going to require recertification."
Mr. Renzelmann was not involved in discussions about the sensors.
... ... ...
On 737s, a light typically indicates the
problem and pilots have to flip through their paper manuals to find next
steps. In the doomed Indonesia flight, as the Lion Air pilots struggled
with MCAS for control, the pilots consulted the manual moments before
the jet plummeted into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people aboard.
"Meanwhile, I'm flying the jet," said
Mr. Tajer, the American Airlines 737 captain. "Versus, pop, it's on your
screen. It tells you, This is the problem and here's the checklist
that's recommended."
Boeing decided against adding it to the
Max because it could have prompted regulators to require new pilot
training, according to two former Boeing employees involved in the
decision.
The Max also runs on a complex web of
cables and pulleys that, when pilots pull back on the controls, transfer
that movement to the tail. By comparison, Airbus jets and Boeing's more
modern aircraft, such as the 777 and 787, are "fly-by-wire," meaning
pilots' movement of the flight controls is fed to a computer that
directs the plane. The design allows for far more automation, including
systems that prevent the jet from entering dangerous situations, such as
flying too fast or too low. Some 737 pilots said they preferred the
cable-and-pulley system to fly-by-wire because they believed it gave
them more control.
In the recent crashes, investigators
believe the MCAS malfunctioned and moved a tail flap called the
stabilizer, tilting the plane toward the ground. On the doomed Ethiopian
Airlines flight, the pilots tried to combat the system by cutting power
to the stabilizer's motor, according to the preliminary crash report.
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Once the power was cut, the pilots tried
to regain control manually by turning a wheel next to their seat. The
737 is the last modern Boeing jet that uses a manual wheel as its backup
system. But Boeing has long known that turning the wheel is difficult at
high speeds, and may have required two pilots to work together.
In the final moments of the Ethiopian
Airlines flight, the first officer said the method wasn't working,
according to the preliminary crash report. About 1 minute and 49 seconds
later, the plane crashed, killing 157 people.
The Seattle Times published what I consider a
devastating article a few Sundays ago. It highlighted the depth to which Boeing and the FAA cut
corners on the certification of the Max, more specifically the characterization of the impact of
a failure of the new MCAS system. This allowed them to utilize the cheaper single sensor AOA
vane instead of 2 or 3. The aircraft also got delivered with the MCAS system applying many more
nose down units of trim than what was published in the certification process. Topping it off was
the failure of Boeing to disclose to its customers that the MCAS system was installed or what
abnormal or emergency procedures would accompany the system.
True, there are two kinds of pilots, and some are
better. BUT no pilot should be put in a critical situation by bad and rushed design. What was
Boeing thinking? `Yes, there is slight chance that things can go wrong... but if the pilot is
experienced, if the weather is fine, if the FO is focused (and so on...) they will surely make
it.' Why taking that risk? They should design a plane that even a drunk pilot can handle.
The MCAS moves the entire horizontal tail (aka
horizontal stabilizer) not just "a tail flap called the stabilizer". Normal stabilizer trim also
moves the whole horizontal stabilizer. Presumably the "flap" being referred to here,
incorrectly, is the elevator, a flight control surface on the trailing edge of the horizontal
tail, which is control by pulling and pushing the flight control column. Both horizontal
stabilizer trim and elevator affect the pitch (nose up, nose down) of the aircraft. Typically,
horizontal stabilizer trim is used to maintain a particular attitude (e.g. level flight in
cruise) without requiring the pilot to continously apply significant forces to the control
column, which is tiring. When MCAS engages it effectively is attempting to "cancel out" the
pilot's elevator command (pulling back on the control column to bring the nose up by ) by moving
the horizontal stabilizer to counteract the pilots action (rotating the the horizontal
stabilizer so that it's leading edge points down).
Boeing should have gone with a clean sheet of
paper design. Look at the Airbus A220, previously known as Bombardier C Series. It has nearly
similar seating, yet it carries less fuel, but has a longer range than the MAX8. Modern wing
design. Heck, Boeing should have just bought Bombardier 10 years ago. Now they are in the arms
of Airbus.
Why doesn't BA just trash the entire max8 program
and become a subcontractor for A320s instead? After all there is a demand for 5000 aircraft that
now will not be fulfilled. Boeing management should be put on trial for criminal negligence.
Finally, a comprehensive report that doesn't go on
and on about software. The problem was a mechanical and training one, and instead of fixing the
problems, the Bean Counters took over and went on the cheap.
a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the
Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the
state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of
Israel.
According to the documents, VIAB, which avoids any public disclosure of its activities,
is currently also being scrutinized by the state Attorney General over its handling of
government funds.
VIAB was founded in 2001 but it grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe's
administration McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons' "bag man," received what were
regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli
billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic
Party.
The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) reports that VIAB is "the only Israel
business promotion entity in the United States embedded within a state government and
funded entirely by the state's taxpayers.
In terms of the overall state budget, VIAB's direct share is small ($209,068 for fiscal
years 2017 and 2018). However, VIAB's diversion of state, federal and private grants, as
well as demands on state-funded entities like colleges and universities to collaborate in
projects designed primarily to benefit Israel, run in the millions of dollars per year.
a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the
Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the
state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of
Israel.
Trump had 4 bankruptcies let him run your economy !!
2+ years into his presidency, there is little room left for doubt about his competency. I
regret having supported him, although arguably, the alternative was worse.
On a lighter note, here is Trump singing from Eurythmics, courtesy of Google AI:
MIGA instead of MAGA. Taking into account of his level of violation of International law, he really is acting like a bully, or
a person who abuses amphetamines.
explains
why what he calls "geopolitical name-calling" is so harmful:
Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization will likely only push potential American
allies into an uncomfortable situation where they may be forced to betray the United
States.
After all, Iran is what it is and cannot be divorced from the region. Meanwhile, the US
has proven itself at best a fickle friend that has repeatedly abandoned allies. The Trump
administration has repeatedly threatened to toss Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan allies aside.
Why would the People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters in northern Syria or Afghanistan's
Ministry of Defense stop talking to the IRGC, which has been around for 40 years and may be
around for another forty, to appease a White House that might change hands in less than two
years?
More than anything, the terrorism designation just risks making such designations more
meaningless than they already are, in a region where the term is bandied about too
readily.
Trump's irresponsible
decision doesn't serve U.S. interests in the least, but it will make it more difficult for
a future administration to enter into negotiations with Iran or lift sanctions. Iran hawks have
been very open about their desire to tie the
hands of the next president, and with this designation they are hoping to lock the U.S. on
a collision course with Iran. The Iranian government has been trying to wait until Trump is no
longer in office, and our hard-liners want to make it seem as if there is no point in doing
that. Their goal as always remains Iran's isolation in the vain belief that this will lead to
regime change.
Many regional governments that have and need to preserve good relations with Iran aren't
going to participate in this effort, and by putting them on the spot this designation is likely
to hurt U.S. relations with Iraq and Lebanon. Worse than that, it lays the groundwork for war.
Benjamin Friedman
warned against this yesterday:
Designating a part of Iran's government as a terrorist organization is a step toward
saying, 'we cannot live with them and have to bomb them.'
The designation is an overly broad and ideological one, and it is driven by the same
obsessive hostility that is warping the rest of U.S. policy towards Iran. Jason Rezaian, who
has more reason than most to loathe the IRGC,
questioned the decision: "I worry that this is another instance in which the U.S.
government is guilty of criminalizing people simply for being Iranian." Trump has called Iran a
"terrorist nation" on many different occasions, and the phrasing tells us that he sees the
country and its people in only the most simplistic and negative terms. His hard-line advisers
and allies have exploited that to get him to do whatever they want against Iran, and it isn't
hard to imagine how they would likewise talk him into further escalations in the
future.
I believe "War" is in the cards. I also believe "Trump" is a "useful idiot" for certain
countries whose agenda is to attack Iran. We all know who they are. They are supported by
American tax dollars, and buy American weapons. I feel sorry for any America soldiers that
will be ordered to take part in this planned evil, while the ones behind it all sit back in
their luxury bunkers watching the hell they created. Will nobody arrest these warmongers,
before it's too late? Another "War" is the madness of maniacs and the deaths of the innocent
people In Iran.
I believe "War" is in the cards. I also believe "Trump" is a "useful idiot" for certain
countries whose agenda is to attack Iran. We all know who they are. They are supported by
American tax dollars, and buy American weapons. I feel sorry for any America soldiers that
will be ordered to take part in this planned evil, while the ones behind it all sit back in
their luxury bunkers watching the hell they created. Will nobody arrest these warmongers,
before it's too late? Another "War" is the madness of maniacs and the deaths of the innocent
people In Iran.
So Trump has delivered Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, indifference to the Gaza human rights
catastrophe and now a ratchet up to war with Iran to Netanyahu.
Ruthless Bibi is happy getting his U.S. lapdog to yap on command yet again. And Sheldon
Adelson gets value for the $150 Million of mad money he threw into the Republican till in
2018. Plenty more where that came from. And now of course the Democrats running the House
will put their squeeze on everybody's favorite Casino Mogul and AIPAC front man for their
taste in 2020.
Couple that with MEK pimps Bolton, Giuliani, Gaffney, et al. whispering the sweet nothings
of Iran regime change in Trump's other ear and it's all over but the shooting
This is not a statement of the President of the USA. This is a statement of a pretty clueless in military affairs and
diplomacy NYC real estate developer.
Notable quotes:
"... "Amazing job so amazing we are ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new planes for the Air Force, especially the F-35. You like the F-35? ... you can't see it. You literally can't see it. It's hard to fight a plane you can't see," Mr Trump said in October. ..."
"... [T]o shoot down F-35 one has to have two different bands radar, good sensor-fusion algorithms and decent signal processing protocols and voila'. S-300 PMU2 Favorit can do this, certainly S-400, and its inevitably coming iterations for which there is literally a line of customers, can ..."
"... In general, this whole BS about "stealth" should end at some point of time--it was a good propaganda while it lasted. Reality is, with modern processing power and radar design F-35 is not survivable against modern cutting edge air-defense and air-forces. ..."
"Amazing job so amazing we are ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new planes for the
Air Force, especially the F-35. You like the F-35? ... you can't see it. You literally can't
see it. It's hard to fight a plane you can't see," Mr Trump said in October.
Or is he?
The F-35 may have some good electronics but is not a good plane to fly against any competent
competitor. The Marine version which can take off and land vertically, is a remake of the
Soviet Yakovlev 141 which first flew in 1989 (vid). The derived Air
Force and Navy versions do not have the vertical take off and landing capabilities, but
inherited the disadvantages the basic design brings with it. The F-35's stealth does not work
against modern radar:
[T]o shoot down F-35 one has to have two different bands radar, good sensor-fusion algorithms
and decent signal processing protocols and voila'. S-300 PMU2 Favorit can do this, certainly
S-400, and its inevitably coming iterations for which there is literally a line of customers,
can.
In general, this whole BS about "stealth" should end at some point of time--it was a
good propaganda while it lasted. Reality is, with modern processing power and radar design
F-35 is not survivable against modern cutting edge air-defense and air-forces.
President Trump campaigned against regime change wars when he ran for President, but now he
bows to the wishes of the neocons who surround him, clamoring for the regime change wars that
he claimed to oppose--this time in Venezuela and Iran.
These powerful politicians dishonor the sacrifices made by every one of my brothers and
sisters in uniform, their families - as they are the ones who pay the price for these wars.
In fact, every American pays the price for these wars that have cost us trillions of dollars
since 9/11.
Every dollar that we spend on regime change wars or on the new cold war and this nuclear
arms race is a dollar coming out of our pockets dollars that should be used to address the very
real, urgent needs of our people and our communities right here at home.
Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia want to drag the United States into war with Iran, and Trump is
submitting to their wishes. The cost in money and lives will be catastrophic.
"On Friday, the United Nations Security Council, following a closed-door meeting, issued a
statement to the press calling for Hifter's LNA to "halt its military activity" near Tripoli.
When Britain proposed a formal resolution along these lines, however, Russia opposed it, no
doubt fearing that it could become the pretext for a fresh Western intervention in Libya.
The British draft included a passage calling "for those who undermine Libya's peace and
security to be held to account."
What hypocrisy! There was no such call when the UK joined with France and the United
States to overthrow the country's government and inflict death upon its population and
destruction upon its infrastructure.
*****No one, from Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron on down, was ever held
accountable for a criminal war of aggression that turned the country into a living
hell.****
Launched under the pretext of a UN resolution authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone
over Libya to halt the supposed (but non-existent) threat of a massacre in the eastern city
of Benghazi, the war saw money and arms poured into Islamist militias and lavished on Al
Qaeda operatives, who were backed by a relentless bombing campaign, which included nearly
30,000 sorties in the course of seven months.
A war launched on the pretext of protecting civilians culminated in the carpet bombing of
Sirte, a bastion of popular support for Gaddafi, and the lynch-mob torture and murder of the
Libyan leader, over which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughingly gloated, "We
came, we saw, he died."
"In the intervening eight years, the attempts to install a pro-Western puppet regime in a
devastated country controlled by clashing Islamist, tribal and other militias have failed
miserably. The regime headed up by Sarraj, recognized as Libya's "legitimate" government,
barely controls even Tripoli. Under its supposed rule, the country's education and health
systems have collapsed, while inflation is ravaging living standards, the unemployment rate
has reached 30 percent, and fully a third of the population lives below the poverty line.
Conditions of life for masses of Libyans have deteriorated dramatically since the overthrow
of Gaddafi."
Just to point out once again, it is a war crime and a violation of the International Rules of
Armed Conflict for the ENEMY to cut civilians off from the services they need to live. And he
wants to lead the country??!!
Certainly getting the poor and the middle class on his side. Here's an NPR interview with
Ari Shapiro, on the Colombian border with Venezuela. Along with bigging up the impression
that there is a shitload of military deserters just waiting to have a crack at Maduro,
including the 80% who want him gone but don't dare say so out of fear – by the simple
device of interviewing some young men we know nothing about, not even their names because
their identities must be kept secret – he says this:
"This is the Colombian ambassador to the U.S., Francisco Santos. Ambassador Santos
insists there is still time for what we'll call plan A – international pressure and
sanctions to force Maduro out. Venezuela would then hold elections, and Guaido would take
power."
Guaido would take power. Oh, wait, wait: we have to have an election first.
Obviously it is inconceivable that anyone else might win. The guy most of the country had
never heard of a year ago, now is a shoo-in for the presidency. Isn't democracy fun
???? You just never know what's going to happen!
The USA and its 'partners' are moving forward with a debt-restructuring plan for Venezuela
– which you just know is going to include massive loans by the IMF and arm-twisting of
allies to persuade them to forgive debt to help the US State Department's newest plaything
– just as if Guaido is inevitable.
Well, he's not. And few things would give me as much pleasure as seeing the smirk slapped
off their faces.
"And I repeat, the cessation of darkness will definitely come with the cessation of
usurpation," culminates the self-proclaimed Juan Guaidó"
It's odd that the sabotage includes that element of blackmail, i.e., "put me in office,
and I will turn the lights on again." How would he expect to do that, if the grid has been
damaged?
Such blackmail only makes sense if Guaidó had, like, the secret password that would
turn off the viruses(?)
Because, if the damage is physical, then it will take a while to fix, even if Guaidó
and the American engineers worked at it night and day.
Even if he has no control over it, he is talking it up like he has, more like "I know
people". Which tends to make it sound more as if it is his backers doing it.
I would say he is well on his way to making himself the most hated man in Venezuela, at
least barring those who hope to sweep him into power.
I know. How can you even imagine being that guy? Who deprives your neighbors of their
electricity and then asks them to vote for you, so you would turn it on again?
A person like that would be lynched!
As Grayzone Project's Max Blumenthal says, the irony is that Nicolas Maduro's government
is protecting Guaido and his freedom to travel around Caracas through the police. So much for
Maduro being a tyrannical dictator
Pilots start some new Boeing planes by turning a knob and flipping two
switches.
The Boeing 737 Max, the newest passenger jet on the market, works differently.
Pilots follow roughly the same seven steps used on the first 737 nearly 52 years ago: Shut off the cabin's
air-conditioning, redirect the air flow, switch on the engine, start the flow of fuel, revert the air flow,
turn back on the air conditioning, and turn on a generator.
The 737 Max is a legacy of its past, built on decades-old systems, many that
date back to the original version. The strategy, to keep updating the plane rather than starting from scratch,
offered competitive advantages. Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn't have to invest in
costly new training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to redesign and
recertify than starting anew.
But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following
two deadly crashes in less than five months
. The Max stretched the 737 design, creating a patchwork plane
that left pilots without some safety features that could be important in a crisis -- ones that have been offered
for years on other planes. It is the only modern Boeing jet without an electronic alert system that explains
what is malfunctioning and how to resolve it. Instead pilots have to check a manual.
The Max also required makeshift solutions to keep the plane flying like its
ancestors, workarounds that may have compromised safety. While the findings aren't final, investigators suspect
that one workaround, an anti-stall system designed to compensate for the larger engines, was central to the
crash last month in Ethiopia and an earlier one in Indonesia.
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The Max "ain't your father's Buick," said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the
American Airlines pilots' union who has flown the 737 for a decade. He added that "it's not lost on us that the
foundation of this aircraft is from the '60s."
Dean Thornton, the president of Boeing, with an engine on the first
737-400 in 1988 in Seattle. The larger engines for Boeing's new Max line of jets prompted a number of
design issues.
Credit
Benjamin
Benschneider/The Seattle Times, via Associated Press
Image
Dean Thornton, the president of Boeing, with an engine on the first 737-400 in 1988 in Seattle. The larger
engines for Boeing's new Max line of jets prompted a number of design issues.
Credit
Benjamin
Benschneider/The Seattle Times, via Associated Press
The Max, Boeing's best-selling model, with more than 5,000 orders, is suddenly
a reputational hazard. It could be weeks or months before regulators around the world lift their ban on the
plane, after Boeing's expected
software fix was delayed
. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines have canceled some flights through May
because of the Max grounding.
The company has
slowed production
of the plane, putting pressure on its profits, and some buyers are reconsidering their
orders. Shares of the company fell over 4 percent on Monday, and are down 11 percent since the Ethiopia crash.
"It was state of the art at the time, but that was 50 years ago," said Rick
Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who helped design the Max's cockpit. "It's not a good airplane for the current
environment."
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The 737 has long been a reliable aircraft, flying for decades with relatively
few issues. Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesman, defended the development of the Max, saying that airlines
wanted an updated 737 over a new single-aisle plane and that pilots were involved in its design.
"Listening to pilots is an important aspect of our work. Their experienced
input is front-and-center in our mind when we develop airplanes," he said in a statement. "We share a common
priority -- safety -- and we listen carefully to their feedback." He added that American regulators approved the
plane under the same standards they used with previous aircraft.
Video
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Boeing introduced the 737 Max as a reliable fuel- and cost-efficient solution to air travel in the 21st century.
After two fatal Max crashes, all of the Max aircraft in the world are believed to have been grounded.
Credit
Credit
Chang
W. Lee/The New York Times
Boeing's chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, said in a statement on Friday that
the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia appeared to have been caused by the Max's new anti-stall system. "We have
the responsibility to eliminate this risk, and we know how to do it," he said.
At a factory near Seattle on Jan. 17, 1967, flight attendants christened the
first Boeing 737, smashing champagne bottles over its wing. Boeing pitched the plane as a smaller alternative
to its larger jets, earning it the nickname the "Baby Boeing."
Early on, sales lagged Boeing's biggest competitor, McDonnell Douglas. In 1972,
Boeing had delivered just 14 of the jets, and it considered selling the program to a Japanese manufacturer,
said Peter Morton, the 737 marketing manager in the early 1970s. "We had to decide if we were going to end it,
or invest in it," Mr. Morton said.
Ultimately, Boeing invested. The 737 eventually began to sell, bolstered by
airline deregulation in 1978. Six years later, Boeing updated the 737 with its "classic" series, followed by
the "next generation" in 1997, and the Max in 2017. Now nearly one in every three domestic flights in the
United States is on a 737, more than any other line of aircraft.
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Each of the three redesigns came with a new engine, updates to the cabin and
other changes. But Boeing avoided overhauling the jet in order to appease airlines, according to current and
former Boeing executives, pilots and engineers, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the
open investigations. Airlines wanted new 737s to match their predecessors so pilots could skip expensive
training in flight simulators and easily transition to new jets.
Boeing 737 Max: What's Happened After Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air Crashes
Boeing's strategy worked. The Federal Aviation Administration never required
simulator training for pilots switching from one 737 to the next.
"Airlines don't want Boeing to give them a fancy new product if it requires
them to retrain their pilots," said Matthew Menza, a former 737 Max test pilot for Boeing. "So you iterate off
a design that's 50 years old. The old adage is: If it's not broke, don't fix it."
It did require engineering ingenuity, to ensure a decades-old jet handled
mostly the same. In doing so, some of the jet's one-time selling points became challenges.
For instance, in the early years of the 737, jet travel was rapidly expanding
across the world. The plane's low-slung frame was a benefit for airlines and airports in developing countries.
Workers there could load bags by hand without a conveyor belt and maintain the engines without a lift, Mr.
Morton said. In the decades that followed, the low frame repeatedly complicated efforts to fit bigger engines
under the wing.
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By 2011, Boeing executives were starting to question whether the 737 design had
run its course. The company wanted to create an entirely new single-aisle jet. Then Boeing's rival Airbus added
a new fuel-efficient engine to its line of single-aisle planes, the A320, and Boeing quickly decided to update
the jet again.
The 737 Max 8 at Boeing's plant in Renton, Wash. Nearly one in every
three domestic flights in the United States is on a 737, more than any other line of aircraft.
Credit
Ruth
Fremson/The New York Times
Image
The
737 Max 8 at Boeing's plant in Renton, Wash. Nearly one in every three domestic flights in the United States is
on a 737, more than any other line of aircraft.
Credit
Ruth
Fremson/The New York Times
"We all rolled our eyes. The idea that, 'Here we go. The 737 again,'" said Mr.
Ludtke, the former 737 Max cockpit designer who spent 19 years at Boeing.
"Nobody was quite perhaps willing to say it was unsafe, but we really felt like
the limits were being bumped up against," he added.
Some engineers were frustrated they would have to again spend years updating
the same jet, taking care to limit any changes, instead of starting fresh and incorporating significant
technological advances, the current and former engineers and pilots said. The Max still has roughly the
original layout of the cockpit and the hydraulic system of cables and pulleys to control the plane, which
aren't used in modern designs. The flight-control computers have roughly the processing power of 1990s home
computers. A Boeing spokesman said the aircraft was designed with an appropriate level of technology to ensure
safety.
When engineers did make changes, it sometimes created knock-on effects for how
the plane handled, forcing Boeing to get creative. The company added a new system that moves plates on the wing
in part to reduce stress on the plane from its added weight. Boeing recreated the decades-old physical gauges
on digital screens.
As Boeing pushed its engineers to figure out how to accommodate bigger, more
fuel-efficient engines, height was again an issue. Simply lengthening the landing gear to make the plane taller
could have violated rules for exiting the plane in an emergency.
Boeing 737 engines at the company's factory in 2012. By 2011, Boeing
executives were starting to question whether the 737 design had run its course.
Credit
Stephen
Brashear/Associated Press
Image
Boeing 737 engines at the company's factory in 2012. By 2011, Boeing executives were starting to question
whether the 737 design had run its course.
Credit
Stephen
Brashear/Associated Press
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Instead, engineers were able to add just a few inches to the front landing gear
and shift the engines farther forward on the wing. The engines fit, but the Max sat at a slightly uneven angle
when parked.
While that design solved one problem, it created another. The larger size and
new location of the engines gave the Max the tendency to tilt up during certain flight maneuvers, potentially
to a dangerous angle.
To compensate, Boeing engineers created the automated anti-stall system, called
MCAS, that pushed the jet's nose down if it was lifting too high. The software was intended to operate in the
background so that the Max flew just like its predecessor. Boeing didn't mention the system in its training
materials for the Max.
Boeing also designed the system to rely on a single sensor -- a rarity in
aviation, where redundancy is common. Several former Boeing engineers who were not directly involved in the
system's design said their colleagues most likely opted for such an approach since relying on two sensors could
still create issues. If one of two sensors malfunctioned, the system could struggle to know which was right.
Airbus addressed this potential problem on some of its planes by installing
three or more such sensors. Former Max engineers, including one who worked on the sensors, said adding a third
sensor to the Max was a nonstarter. Previous 737s, they said, had used two and managers wanted to limit
changes.
The angle of attack sensor, bottom, on a Boeing 737 Max 8.
Credit
Ruth
Fremson/The New York Times
Image
The
angle of attack sensor, bottom, on a Boeing 737 Max 8.
Credit
Ruth
Fremson/The New York Times
"They wanted to A, save money and B, to minimize the certification and
flight-test costs," said Mike Renzelmann, an engineer who worked on the Max's flight controls. "Any changes are
going to require recertification." Mr. Renzelmann was not involved in discussions about the sensors.
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The Max also lacked more modern safety features.
Most new Boeing jets have electronic systems that take pilots through their
preflight checklists, ensuring they don't skip a step and potentially miss a malfunctioning part. On the Max,
pilots still complete those checklists manually in a book.
A second electronic system found on other Boeing jets also alerts pilots to
unusual or hazardous situations during flight and lays out recommended steps to resolve them.
On 737s, a light typically indicates the problem and pilots have to flip
through their paper manuals to find next steps. In the doomed Indonesia flight, as the Lion Air pilots
struggled with MCAS for control, the pilots consulted the manual moments before the jet plummeted into the Java
Sea, killing all 189 people aboard.
"Meanwhile, I'm flying the jet," said Mr. Tajer, the American Airlines 737
captain. "Versus, pop, it's on your screen. It tells you, This is the problem and here's the checklist that's
recommended."
Boeing decided against adding it to the Max because it could have prompted
regulators to require new pilot training, according to two former Boeing employees involved in the decision.
The Max also runs on a complex web of cables and pulleys that, when pilots pull
back on the controls, transfer that movement to the tail. By comparison, Airbus jets and Boeing's more modern
aircraft, such as the 777 and 787, are "fly-by-wire," meaning pilots' movement of the flight controls is fed to
a computer that directs the plane. The design allows for far more automation, including systems that prevent
the jet from entering dangerous situations, such as flying too fast or too low. Some 737 pilots said they
preferred the cable-and-pulley system to fly-by-wire because they believed it gave them more control.
In the recent crashes, investigators believe the MCAS malfunctioned and moved a
tail flap called the stabilizer, tilting the plane toward the ground. On the doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight,
the pilots tried to combat the system by cutting power to the stabilizer's motor, according to the preliminary
crash report.
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Once the power was cut, the pilots tried to regain control manually by turning
a wheel next to their seat. The 737 is the last modern Boeing jet that uses a manual wheel as its backup
system. But Boeing has long known that turning the wheel is difficult at high speeds, and may have required two
pilots to work together.
In the final moments of the Ethiopian Airlines flight, the first officer said
the method wasn't working, according to the preliminary crash report. About 1 minute and 49 seconds later, the
plane crashed, killing 157 people.
Correction :
April
8, 2019
An earlier version of this article transposed the death tolls
in two crashes involving Boeing's 737 Max jets. In the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last year, 189 people
died, not 157; 157 people were killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash last month, not 189.
Rebecca R. Ruiz and Stephen Grocer contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
A version of this article appears in print on
April 9, 2019
, on Page A 1 of the New York edition with the headline:
Boeing's 737 Max: '60s Design Meets '90s Computing Power.
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"... Evidence has mounted implicating in both crashes an automated anti-stall system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which was installed by Boeing in response to the new plane's tendency to pitch upward and go into a potentially fatal stall. On a whole number of fronts -- design, marketing, certification and pilot training -- information from the black boxes of the two planes points to a lack of concern for the safety of passengers and crew on the part of both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, reaching the level of criminality. ..."
"... Despite the presence on the plane of two angle-of-attack sensors, which signal a potential stall and trigger the automated downward pitch of the plane's nose, MCAS relied on data from only one of the sensors. This means the standard redundancy feature built into commercial jets to avert disasters resulting from a faulty sensor was lacking. Boeing's main rival to the 737 Max, the European-built Airbus A320neo, for example, uses data from three sensors to manage a system similar to MCAS. ..."
"... Pilot certification for a commercial plane typically requires hundreds of hours of training, both in simulators and in actual flights. Boeing itself is now mandating at least 21 days of training on new Max planes. ..."
"... There is no innocent explanation for these obvious safety issues. They point to reckless and arguably criminally negligent behavior on the part of Boeing executives, who rushed the new plane into service and marketed it against the Airbus A320neo on the basis of its cost-saving features. ..."
"... This is highlighted by a press release the day of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in which Boeing stated that "for the past several months and in aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610," the company "has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX." ..."
"... In other words, both Boeing and the FAA were aware, possibly even before the October 2018 Lion Air crash and certainly afterward, that a system critical to the safe operation of the aircraft needed to be fixed, and still allowed the plane to continue flying. The wording also suggests that the plane shouldn't have been certified for flight in the first place. ..."
"... This was aided and abetted by the Trump administration, which shielded Boeing as long as it could by not ordering the FAA to ground the plane immediately after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. There were no doubt immense concerns that such a move would cut into Boeing's multibillion-dollar profits and affect its stock price, which has nearly tripled since the election of Trump in November 2016, accounting for more than 30 percent of the increase in the Dow Jones index since then. ..."
"... The relationship between Trump and Muilenburg is only a symptom of the much broader collusion between the airline industry and the US government. Starting in 2005 and expanded during the Obama administration, the FAA introduced the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program, which allows the agency to appoint as "designees" airplane manufacturers' employees to certify their own company's aircraft on behalf of the government. ..."
"... This is the logical end of the deregulation of the airline industry as a whole that was spearheaded by the Democratic Carter administration, which passed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978. With the help of liberal icon Edward Kennedy, the legislation disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board, which up to that point treated interstate airlines as a regulated public utility, setting routes, schedules and fares. ..."
It is nearly a month since the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which slammed into
the ground only six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa airport, killing all 157 people on
board. That disaster came less than five months after the fatal crash of Lion Air Flight 610
only 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta airport, killing all 189 passengers and crew
members.
Both crashes involved the same airplane, the Boeing 737 Max 8, and both followed wild
up-and-down oscillations which the pilots were unable to control.
In the weeks since these disasters, there have been no calls within the media or political
establishment for Boeing executives to be criminally prosecuted for what were evidently
entirely avoidable tragedies that killed a total of 346 people. This speaks to the corrupt
relationship between the US government and the aerospace giant -- the biggest US exporter and
second-largest defense contractor -- as well as the company's critical role in the stock market
surge and the ever-expanding fortunes of major Wall Street investors.
Black box recordings and simulations show that in the 60 seconds the pilots had to respond
to the emergency, faulty software forced the Lion Air flight into a nose dive 24 separate
times, as the pilots fought to regain control of the aircraft before plunging into the ocean at
more than 500 miles per hour.
Evidence has mounted implicating in both crashes an automated anti-stall system, the
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which was installed by Boeing in
response to the new plane's tendency to pitch upward and go into a potentially fatal stall. On
a whole number of fronts -- design, marketing, certification and pilot training -- information
from the black boxes of the two planes points to a lack of concern for the safety of passengers
and crew on the part of both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, reaching the level
of criminality.
The most recent revelations concerning the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash, based on
preliminary findings from the official investigation, show that the pilots correctly followed
the emergency procedures outlined by Boeing and disengaged the automated flight control system.
Nevertheless, the nose of the plane continued to point downward. This strongly suggests a
fundamental and perhaps fatal flaw in the design of the aircraft. Numerous questions have been
raised about the design and certification process of the 737 Max 8 and MCAS,
including:
Despite the presence on the plane of two angle-of-attack sensors, which signal a
potential stall and trigger the automated downward pitch of the plane's nose, MCAS relied on
data from only one of the sensors. This means the standard redundancy feature built into
commercial jets to avert disasters resulting from a faulty sensor was lacking. Boeing's main
rival to the 737 Max, the European-built Airbus A320neo, for example, uses data from three
sensors to manage a system similar to MCAS.
Boeing Vice President Mike Sinnett admitted last
November that cockpit warning lights alerting pilots of a faulty angle-of-attack sensor were
only optional features on the Max 8. The MCAS system was absent from pilot manuals and flight
simulators, including for the well-known flight training program X-Plane 11, which came out in
2018, one year after the first commercial flight of the 737 Max 8. Pilot training for the 737
Max 8, which has different hardware and software than earlier 737s, was a single one-hour
computer course.
Pilot certification for a commercial plane typically requires hundreds of
hours of training, both in simulators and in actual flights. Boeing itself is now mandating at
least 21 days of training on new Max planes.
There is no innocent explanation for these obvious safety issues. They point to reckless and
arguably criminally negligent behavior on the part of Boeing executives, who rushed the new
plane into service and marketed it against the Airbus A320neo on the basis of its cost-saving
features.
Threatened with a loss of market share and profits to its chief competitor, Boeing
reduced costs by claiming that no significant training on the new Max 8 model, with the money
and time that entails, was necessary for pilots with previous 737 experience.
Such imperatives of the capitalist market inevitably downgrade safety considerations. This
is highlighted by a press release the day of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in which Boeing
stated that "for the past several months and in aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610," the company
"has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX."
In other words, both Boeing and the FAA were aware, possibly even before the October 2018
Lion Air crash and certainly afterward, that a system critical to the safe operation of the
aircraft needed to be fixed, and still allowed the plane to continue flying. The wording also
suggests that the plane shouldn't have been certified for flight in the first place.
This was aided and abetted by the Trump administration, which shielded Boeing as long as it
could by not ordering the FAA to ground the plane immediately after the Ethiopian Airlines
crash. There were no doubt immense concerns that such a move would cut into Boeing's
multibillion-dollar profits and affect its stock price, which has nearly tripled since the
election of Trump in November 2016, accounting for more than 30 percent of the increase in the
Dow Jones index since then.
Trump himself received a call from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg two days after the Ethiopian
Airlines crash, during which Muilenburg reportedly continued to uphold the Max 8's safety. The
FAA finally grounded the plane on March 13, after every other country in the world had done
so.
The relationship between Trump and Muilenburg is only a symptom of the much broader
collusion between the airline industry and the US government. Starting in 2005 and expanded
during the Obama administration, the FAA introduced the Organization Designation Authorization
(ODA) program, which allows the agency to appoint as "designees" airplane manufacturers'
employees to certify their own company's aircraft on behalf of the government.
As a result, there was virtually no federal oversight on the development of the 737 Max 8.
FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell told Congress, "As a result of regular meetings between the
FAA and Boeing teams, the FAA determined in February 2012 that the [Max 8] project qualified
[a] project eligible for management by the Boeing ODA." This extended to the MCAS system as
well.
This is the logical end of the deregulation of the airline industry as a whole that was
spearheaded by the Democratic Carter administration, which passed the Airline Deregulation Act
in 1978. With the help of liberal icon Edward Kennedy, the legislation disbanded the Civil
Aeronautics Board, which up to that point treated interstate airlines as a regulated public
utility, setting routes, schedules and fares.
In a rational world, the ongoing Senate hearings and Department of Justice investigations
would have already brought criminal charges against Muilenburg, Sinnett, Elwell and all those
involved in overseeing the production, certification and sale of the 737 Max 8. This would
include the executives at Boeing and all those who have helped to deregulate the industry at
the expense of human lives.
Under capitalism, however, Boeing will get little more than a slap on the wrist. Experts
estimate the company will likely be fined at most $800 million, less than one percent of the
$90 billion Boeing expects in sales from the Max 8 in the coming years. As in Hurricane
Katrina, the Wall Street crash in 2008, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and Hurricanes
Harvey and Maria in 2017, the brunt of this disaster will be borne by the working class.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 disasters point to the inherent incompatibility between safe,
comfortable and affordable air transport and private ownership of the airline industry, as well
as the division of the world economy between rival nation-states. These catastrophes were
driven by both the greed of Boeing executives and big investors and the intensifying trade
conflict between the United States and Europe.
The technological advances that make it possible for travelers to move between any two
points in the world in a single day must be freed from the constraints of giant corporations
and the capitalist system as a whole. Major airlines and aerospace companies must be
expropriated on an international scale and transformed into publicly owned and democratically
controlled utilities, as part of the establishment of a planned economy based on social need,
not private profit.
Establishment
historians claim that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never wanted war and made every reasonable effort to prevent war. This
article will show that contrary to what establishment historians claim, Franklin Roosevelt and his administration wanted war and
made every effort to instigate World War II in Europe.
The Germans seized a mass of documents from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they invaded Warsaw in late September 1939.
The documents were seized when a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular
German army. Von Kuensberg's men took control of the Polish Foreign Ministry just as Ministry officials were in the process of burning
incriminating documents. These documents clearly establish Roosevelt's crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. They
also reveal the forces behind President Roosevelt that pushed for war.
[1] Weber, Mark,
"President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Vol.
4, No. 2 , Summer 1983, pp. 136-137, 140. Some of the secret Polish documents were first published in the United States
as The German White Paper . Probably the most-revealing document in the collection is a secret report dated January 12, 1939
by Jerzy Potocki, the Polish ambassador to the United States. This report discusses the domestic situation in the United States.
I quote (a translation of) Ambassador Potocki's report in full:
There is a feeling now prevalent in the United States marked by growing hatred of Fascism, and above all of Chancellor Hitler
and everything connected with National Socialism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100% [of the]
radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible–above
all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited–this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective since the
public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe. At the present moment most Americans regard Chancellor
Hitler and National Socialism as the greatest evil and greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent
platform for public speakers of all kinds, for emigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with a great many words and with
most various calumnies incite the public. They praise American liberty which they contrast with the totalitarian states. It is
interesting to note that in this extremely well-planned campaign which is conducted above all against National Socialism, Soviet
Russia is almost completely eliminated. Soviet Russia, if mentioned at all, is mentioned in a friendly manner and things are presented
in such a way that it would seem that the Soviet Union were cooperating with the bloc of democratic states. Thanks to the clever
propaganda the sympathies of the American public are completely on the side of Red Spain. This propaganda, this war psychosis
is being artificially created. The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a thread and that war is inevitable.
At the same time the American people are unequivocally told that in case of a world war, America also must take an active part
in order to defend the slogans of liberty and democracy in the world. President Roosevelt was the first one to express hatred
against Fascism. In doing so he was serving a double purpose; first he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from
difficult and intricate domestic problems, especially from the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Second, by creating
a war psychosis and by spreading rumors concerning dangers threatening Europe, he wanted to induce the American people to accept
an enormous armament program which far exceeds United States defense requirements. Regarding the first point, it must be said
that the internal situation on the labor market is growing worse constantly. The unemployed today already number 12 million. Federal
and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only the huge sums, running into billions, which the treasury expends for emergency
labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken
place. But how long this government aid can be kept up it is difficult to predict today. The excitement and indignation of public
opinion, and the serious conflict between private enterprises and enormous trusts on the one hand, and with labor on the other,
have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are causing him many sleepless nights. As to point two, I can only say that President
Roosevelt, as a clever player of politics and a connoisseur of American mentality, speedily steered public attention away from
the domestic situation in order to fasten it on foreign policy. The way to achieve this was simple. One needed, on the one hand,
to enhance the war menace overhanging the world on account of Chancellor Hitler, and, on the other hand, to create a specter by
talking about the attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend.
He described it as the capitulation of France and England to bellicose German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain
at pistol-point. Hence, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a shameful peace. The prevalent hatred against everything
which is in any way connected with German National Socialism is further kindled by the brutal attitude against the Jews in Germany
and by the émigré problem. In this action Jewish intellectuals participated; for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New
York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and
others who are personal friends of Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion
and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-mongers. These groups, people who want to pose as representatives
of "Americanism" and "defenders of democracy" in the last analysis, are connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry.
For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to put the President of the United
States at this "ideal" post of champion of human rights, was a clever move. In this manner they created a dangerous hotbed for
hatred and hostility in this hemisphere and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a mysterious
manner. Roosevelt has been forcing the foundation for vitalizing American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring
enormous stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving consciously. With regard to domestic policy, it is extremely
convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is ever growing in the United States, by talking about the necessity
of defending faith and individual liberty against the onslaught of Fascism.
[2] Count
Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the
Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.
On January 16, 1939, Potocki reported to the Warsaw Foreign Ministry a conversation he had with American Ambassador to France William
Bullitt. Bullitt was in Washington on a leave of absence from Paris. Potocki reported that Bullitt stated the main objectives of
the Roosevelt administration were:
1. The vitalizing foreign policy, under the leadership of President Roosevelt, severely and unambiguously condemns totalitarian
countries. 2. The United States preparation for war on sea, land and air which will be carried out at an accelerated speed and
will consume the colossal sum of $1,250 million. 3. It is the decided opinion of the President that France and Britain must put
[an] end to any sort of compromise with the totalitarian countries. They must not let themselves in for any discussions aiming
at any kind of territorial changes. 4. They have the moral assurance that the United States will leave the policy of isolation
and be prepared to intervene actively on the side of Britain and France in case of war. America is ready to place its whole wealth
of money and raw materials at their disposal."
[3] Ibid
., pp. 32-33. (Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents
Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp.
29-31.)
Juliusz (Jules) Łukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, sent a top-secret report from Paris to the Polish Foreign Ministry
at the beginning of February 1939. This report outlined the U.S. policy toward Europe as explained to him by William Bullitt:
A week ago, the Ambassador of the United States, W. Bullitt, returned to Paris after having spent three months holiday in America.
Meanwhile, I had two conversations with him which enable me to inform Monsieur Minister on his views regarding the European situation
and to give a survey of Washington's policy . The international situation is regarded by official quarters as extremely serious
and being in danger of armed conflict. Competent quarters are of the opinion that if war should break out between Britain and
France on the one hand and Germany and Italy on the other, and Britain and France should be defeated, the Germans would become
dangerous to the realistic interests of the United States on the American continent. For this reason, one can foresee right from
the beginning the participation of the United States in the war on the side of France and Britain, naturally after some time had
elapsed after the beginning of the war. Ambassador Bullitt expressed this as follows: "Should war break out we shall certainly
not take part in it at the beginning, but we shall end it."
[4] Juliusz
Lukasiewicz to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin
Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 43-44.
On March 7, 1939, Ambassador Potocki sent another remarkably perceptive report on Roosevelt's foreign policy to the Polish government.
I quote Potocki's report in full:
The foreign policy of the United States right now concerns not only the government, but the entire American public as well. The
most important elements are the public statements of President Roosevelt. In almost every public speech he refers more or less
explicitly to the necessity of activating foreign policy against the chaos of views and ideologies in Europe. These statements
are picked up by the press and then cleverly filtered into the minds of average Americans in such a way as to strengthen their
already formed opinions. The same theme is constantly repeated, namely, the danger of war in Europe and saving the democracies
from inundation by enemy fascism. In all of these public statements there is normally only a single theme, that is, the danger
from Nazism and Nazi Germany to world peace. As a result of these speeches, the public is called upon to support rearmament and
the spending of enormous sums for the navy and the air force. The unmistakable idea behind this is that in case of an armed conflict
the United States cannot stay out but must take an active part in the maneuvers. As a result of the effective speeches of President
Roosevelt, which are supported by the press, the American public is today being conscientiously manipulated to hate everything
that smacks of totalitarianism and fascism. But it is interesting that the USSR is not included in all of this. The American public
considers Russia more in the camp of the democratic states. This was also the case during the Spanish civil war when the so-called
Loyalists were regarded as defenders of the democratic idea. The State Department operates without attracting a great deal of
attention, although it is known that Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull and President Roosevelt swear allegiance to the same ideas.
However, Hull shows more reserve than Roosevelt, and he loves to make a distinction between Nazism and Chancellor Hitler on the
one hand, and the German people on the other. He considers this form of dictatorial government a temporary "necessary evil." In
contrast, the State Department is unbelievably interested in the USSR and its internal situation and openly worries itself over
its weaknesses and decline. The main reason for the United States interest in the Russians is the situation in the Far East. The
current government would be glad to see the Red Army emerge as the victor in a conflict with Japan. That's why the sympathies
of the government are clearly on the side of China, which recently received considerable financial aid amounting to 25 million
dollars. Eager attention is given to all information from the diplomatic posts as well as to the special emissaries of the President
who serve as ambassadors of the United States. The President frequently calls his representatives from abroad to Washington for
personal exchanges of views and to give them special information and instructions. The arrival of the envoys and ambassadors is
always shrouded in secrecy and very little surfaces in the press about the results of their visits. The State Department also
takes care to avoid giving out any kind of information about the course of these interviews. The practical way in which the President
makes foreign policy is most effective. He gives personal instructions to his representatives abroad, most of whom are his personal
friends. In this way the United States is led down a dangerous path in world politics with the explicit intention of abandoning
the comfortable policy of isolation. The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own
personal ambition. He listens carefully and happily to his echo in the other capitals of the world. In domestic as well as foreign
policy, the Congress of the United States is the only object that stands in the way of the President and his government in carrying
out his decisions quickly and ambitiously. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Constitution of the United States gave the highest
prerogatives to the American parliament which may criticize or reject the law of the White House. The foreign policy of President
Roosevelt has recently been the subject of intense discussion in the lower house and in the Senate, and this has caused excitement.
The so-called Isolationists, of whom there are many in both houses, have come out strongly against the President. The representatives
and the senators were especially upset over the remarks of the President, which were published in the press, in which he said
that the borders of the United States lie on the Rhine. But President Roosevelt is a superb political player and understands completely
the power of the American parliament. He has his own people there, and he knows how to withdraw from an uncomfortable situation
at the right moment. Very intelligently and cleverly he ties together the question of foreign policy with the issues of American
rearmament. He particularly stresses the necessity of spending enormous sums in order to maintain a defensive peace. He says specifically
that the United States is not arming in order to intervene or to go to the aid of England or France in case of war, but because
of the need to show strength and military preparedness in case of an armed conflict in Europe. In his view this conflict is becoming
ever more acute and is completely unavoidable. Since the issue is presented this way, the houses of Congress have no cause to
object. To the contrary, the houses accepted an armament program of more than 1 billion dollars. (The normal budget is 550 million,
the emergency 552 million dollars). However, under the cloak of a rearmament policy, President Roosevelt continues to push forward
his foreign policy, which unofficially shows the world that in case of war the United States will come out on the side of the
democratic states with all military and financial power. In conclusion it can be said that the technical and moral preparation
of the American people for participation in a war–if one should break out in Europe–is proceeding rapidly. It appears that the
United States will come to the aid of France and Great Britain with all its resources right from the beginning. However, I know
the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility
that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where
the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of
the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty
nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of
unpaid billions which the European states still owe America.
[5] Germany.
Foreign Office Archive Commission. Roosevelts Weg in den Krieg: Geheimdokumente zur Kriegspolitik des Praesidenten der Vereinigten
Staaten . Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1943. Translated into English by Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite
War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , pp.
150-152.
These secret Polish reports were written by top-level Polish ambassadors who were not necessarily friendly to Germany. However, they
understood the realities of European politics far better than people who made foreign policy in the United States. The Polish ambassadors
realized that behind all of their rhetoric about democracy and human rights, the Jewish leaders in the United States who agitated
for war against Germany were deceptively advancing their own interests. There is no question that the secret documents taken from
the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw are authentic. Charles C. Tansill considered the documents genuine and stated, "Some months
ago I had a long conversation with M. Lipsky, the Polish ambassador in Berlin in the prewar years, and he assured me that the documents
in the German White Paper are authentic."
[6] Tansill,
Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
, Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 184 (footnote 292). William H. Chamberlain wrote , "I
have been privately informed by an extremely reliable source that Potocki, now residing in South America, confirmed the accuracy
of the documents, so far as he was concerned."
[7] Chamberlain,
William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, p. 60 (footnote 14). Historian Harry Elmer Barnes also
stated, "Both Professor Tansill and myself have independently established the thorough authenticity of these documents."
[8] Barnes,
Harry Elmer, The Court Historians versus Revisionism , N.p.: privately printed, 1952, p. 10. Edward Raczyński, the Polish
ambassador to London from 1934 to 1945, confirmed in his diary the authenticity of the Polish documents. He wrote in his entry on
June 20, 1940: "The Germans published in April a White Book containing documents from the archives of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
consisting of reports from Potocki from Washington, Łukasiewicz in Paris and myself. I do not know where they found them, since we
were told that the archives had been destroyed. The documents are certainly genuine, and the facsimiles show that for the most part
the Germans got hold of the originals and not merely copies."
[9] Raczynski,
Edward, In Allied London , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963, p. 51. The official papers and memoirs of Juliusz Łukasiewicz
published in 1970 in the book Diplomat in Paris 1936-1939 reconfirmed the authenticity of the Polish documents. Łukasiewicz
was the Polish ambassador to Paris, who authored several of the secret Polish documents. The collection was edited by Wacław Jędrzejewicz,
a former Polish diplomat and cabinet member. Jędrzejewicz considered the documents made public by the Germans absolutely genuine,
and quoted from several of them. Tyler G. Kent, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in London in 1939 and 1940, has also confirmed the
authenticity of the secret Polish documents. Kent says that he saw copies of U.S. diplomatic messages in the files which corresponded
to the Polish documents.
[10] Weber,
Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review,
Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142. The German Foreign Office published the Polish documents on March 29, 1940. The Reich
Ministry of Propaganda released the documents to strengthen the case of the American isolationists and to prove the degree of America's
responsibility for the outbreak of war. In Berlin, journalists from around the world were permitted to examine the original documents
themselves, along with a large number of other documents from the Polish Foreign Ministry. The release of the documents caused an
international media sensation. American newspapers published lengthy excerpts from the documents and gave the story large front-page
headline coverage.
[11] Ibid
., pp. 137-139. (Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal
of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142.) However, the impact of the released documents was far
less than the German government had hoped for. Leading U.S. government officials emphatically denounced the documents as not being
authentic. William Bullitt, who was especially incriminated by the documents, stated, "I have never made to anyone the statements
attributed to me." Secretary of State Cordell Hull denounced the documents: "I may say most emphatically that neither I nor any of
my associates in the Department of State have ever heard of any such conversations as those alleged, nor do we give them the slightest
credence. The statements alleged have not represented in any way at any time the thought or the policy of the American government."
[12] New
York Times , March 30, 1940, p. 1. American newspapers stressed these high-level denials in reporting the release of the
Polish documents. These categorical denials by high-level U.S. government officials almost completely eliminated the effect of the
secret Polish documents. The vast majority of the American people in 1940 trusted their elected political leaders to tell the truth.
If the Polish documents were in fact authentic and genuine, this would mean that President Roosevelt and his representatives had
lied to the American public, while the German government told the truth. In 1940, this was far more than the trusting American public
could accept.
While the secret Polish documents alone indicate that Roosevelt was preparing the American public for war against Germany, a large
amount of complementary evidence confirms the conspiracy reported by the Polish ambassadors. The diary of James V. Forrestal, the
first U.S. secretary of defense, also reveals that Roosevelt and his administration helped start World War II. Forrestal's entry
on December 27, 1945 stated:
Played golf today with Joe Kennedy [Roosevelt's Ambassador to Great Britain in the years immediately before the war]. I asked
him about his conversations with Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain from 1938 on. He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that
England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would
have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer
of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of
war if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt, he said, kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn't
fight; Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and the world Jews
had forced England into the war. In his telephone conversations with Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 the President kept telling
him to put some iron up Chamberlain's backside. Kennedy's response always was that putting iron up his backside did no good unless
the British had some iron with which to fight, and they did not . What Kennedy told me in this conversation jibes substantially
with the remarks Clarence Dillon had made to me already, to the general effect that Roosevelt had asked him in some manner to
communicate privately with the British to the end that Chamberlain should have greater firmness in his dealings with Germany.
Dillon told me that at Roosevelt's request he had talked with Lord Lothian in the same general sense as Kennedy reported Roosevelt
having urged him to do with Chamberlain. Lothian presumably was to communicate to Chamberlain the gist of his conversation with
Dillon. Looking backward there is undoubtedly foundation for Kennedy's belief that Hitler's attack could have been deflected to
Russia ."
[13] Forrestal,
James V., The Forrestal Diaries , edited by Walter Millis and E.S. Duffield, New York: Vanguard Press, 1951, pp. 121-122.
Joseph Kennedy is known to have had a good memory, and it is highly likely that Kennedy's statements to James Forrestal are accurate.
Forrestal died on May 22, 1949 under suspicious circumstances when he fell from his hospital window. Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British
ambassador to Washington, confirmed Roosevelt's secret policy to instigate war against Germany with the release of a confidential
diplomatic report after the war. The report described a secret meeting on September 18, 1938 between Roosevelt and Ambassador Lindsay.
Roosevelt said that if Britain and France were forced into a war against Germany, the United States would ultimately join the war.
Roosevelt's idea to start a war was for Britain and France to impose a blockade against Germany without actually declaring war. The
important point was to call it a defensive war based on lofty humanitarian grounds and on the desire to wage hostilities with a minimum
of suffering and the least possible loss of life and property. The blockade would provoke some kind of German military response,
but would free Britain and France from having to declare war. Roosevelt believed he could then convince the American public to support
war against Germany, including shipments of weapons to Britain and France, by insisting that the United States was still neutral
in a non-declared conflict.
[14] Dispatch
No. 349 of Sept. 30, 1938, by Sir Ronald Lindsay, Documents on British Foreign Policy , (ed.). Ernest L. Woodard, Third Series,
Vol. VII, London, 1954, pp. 627-629. See also Lash, Joseph P., Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941, New York: Norton, 1976,
pp. 25-27. President Roosevelt told Ambassador Lindsay that if news of their conversation was ever made public, it could mean
Roosevelt's impeachment. What Roosevelt proposed to Lindsay was in effect a scheme to violate the U.S. Constitution by illegally
starting a war. For this and other reasons, Ambassador Lindsay stated that during his three years of service in Washington he developed
little regard for America's leaders.
[15] Dallek,
Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932-1945 , New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 31, 164-165.
Ambassador Lindsay in a series of final reports also indicated that Roosevelt was delighted at the prospect of a new world war. Roosevelt
promised Lindsay that he would delay German ships under false pretenses in a feigned search for arms. This would allow the German
ships to be easily seized by the British under circumstances arranged with exactitude between the American and British authorities.
Lindsay reported that Roosevelt "spoke in a tone of almost impish glee and though I may be wrong the whole business gave me the impression
of resembling a school-boy prank." Ambassador Lindsay was personally perturbed that the president of the United States could be gay
and joyful about a pending tragedy which seemed so destructive of the hopes of all mankind. It was unfortunate at this important
juncture that the United States had a president whose emotions and ideas were regarded by a friendly British ambassador as being
childish. [16]
Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989,
pp. 518-519. Roosevelt's desire to support France and England in a war against Germany is discussed in a letter from Verne Marshall,
former editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette , to Charles C. Tansill. The letter stated:
President Roosevelt wrote a note to William Bullitt [in the summer of 1939], then Ambassador to France, directing him to advise
the French Government that if, in the event of a Nazi attack upon Poland, France and England did not go to Poland's aid, those
countries could expect no help from America if a general war developed. On the other hand, if France and England immediately declared
war on Germany, they could expect "all aid" from the United States. F.D.R.'s instructions to Bullitt were to send this word along
to "Joe" and "Tony," meaning Ambassadors Kennedy, in London, and Biddle, in Warsaw, respectively. F.D.R. wanted Daladier, Chamberlain
and Josef Beck to know of these instructions to Bullitt. Bullitt merely sent his note from F.D.R. to Kennedy in the diplomatic
pouch from Paris. Kennedy followed Bullitt's idea and forwarded it to Biddle. When the Nazis grabbed Warsaw and Beck disappeared,
they must have come into possession of the F.D.R. note. The man who wrote the report I sent you saw it in Berlin in October, 1939.
[17] Tansill,
Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
, Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 168.
William Phillips, the American ambassador to Italy, also stated in his postwar memoirs that the Roosevelt administration in late
1938 was committed to going to war on the side of Britain and France. Phillips wrote: "On this and many other occasions, I would
have liked to have told him [Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister] frankly that in the event of a European war, the United States
would undoubtedly be involved on the side of the Allies. But in view of my official position, I could not properly make such a statement
without instructions from Washington, and these I never received."
[18] Phillips,
William, Ventures in Diplomacy , North Beverly, Mass.: privately published, 1952, pp. 220-221. When Anthony Eden returned
to England in December 1938, he carried with him an assurance from President Roosevelt that the United States would enter as soon
as practicable a European war against Hitler if the occasion arose. This information was obtained by Senator William Borah of Idaho,
who was contemplating how and when to give out this information, when he dropped dead in his bathroom. The story was confirmed to
historian Harry Elmer Barnes by some of Senator Borah's closest colleagues at the time.
[19] Barnes,
Harry Elmer, Barnes against the Blackout , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1991, p. 208. The American
ambassador to Poland, Anthony Drexel Biddle, was an ideological colleague of President Roosevelt and a good friend of William Bullitt.
Roosevelt used Biddle to influence the Polish government to refuse to enter into negotiations with Germany. Carl J. Burckhardt, the
League of Nations High Commissioner to Danzig, reported in his postwar memoirs on a memorable conversation he had with Biddle. On
December 2, 1938, Biddle told Burckhardt with remarkable satisfaction that the Poles were ready to wage war over Danzig. Biddle predicted
that in April a new crisis would develop, and that moderate British and French leaders would be influenced by public opinion to support
war. Biddle predicted a holy war against Germany would break out.
[20] Burckhardt,
Carl, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939 , Munich: Callwey, 1960, p. 225. Bernard Baruch, who was Roosevelt's chief advisor,
scoffed at a statement made on March 10, 1939 by Neville Chamberlain that "the outlook in international affairs is tranquil." Baruch
agreed passionately with Winston Churchill, who had told him: "War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you [the United States]
will be in it."
[21] Sherwood,
Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins, an Intimate History , New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948, p. 113. Georges Bonnet, the
French foreign minister in 1939, also confirmed the role of William Bullitt as Roosevelt's agent in pushing France into war. In a
letter to Hamilton Fish dated March 26, 1971, Bonnet wrote, "One thing is certain is that Bullitt in 1939 did everything he could
to make France enter the war."
[22] Fish,
Hamilton, FDR The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War II, New York: Vantage Press, 1976, p. 62.
Dr. Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia, wrote in his memoirs that he had a lengthy secret conversation at Hyde
Park with President Roosevelt on May 28, 1939. Roosevelt assured Beneš that the United States would actively intervene on the side
of Great Britain and France against Germany in the anticipated European war.
[23] Beneš,
Edvard, Memoirs of Dr. Edvard Beneš , London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954, pp. 79-80. American newspaper columnist Karl
von Wiegand, who was the chief European newspaper columnist of the International News Service, met with Ambassador William Bullitt
at the U.S. embassy in Paris on April 25, 1939. More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe
has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany.
America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it."
[24] "Von Wiegand
Says-," Chicago-Herald American , Oct. 8, 1944, p. 2. When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the
arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war
is over to be worth Bolshevizing."
[25] Chicago-Herald
American , April 23, 1944, p. 18. On March 14, 1939, Slovakia dissolved the state of Czechoslovakia by declaring itself an
independent republic. Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German
protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity. The British government initially
accepted the new situation, reasoning that Britain's guarantee of Czechoslovakia given after Munich was rendered void by the internal
collapse of that state. It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime
enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it. Also, the danger of a war between the Czechs and the Slovaks had been
averted. [26]
Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989,
p. 250. However, Bullitt's response to the creation of the German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia was highly unfavorable.
Bullitt telephoned Roosevelt and, in an "almost hysterical" voice, Bullitt urged Roosevelt to make a dramatic denunciation of Germany
and to immediately ask Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act.
[27] Moffat,
Jay P., The Moffat Papers 1919-1943 , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956, p. 232. Washington journalists
Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen reported in their nationally syndicated column that on March 16, 1939, President Roosevelt "sent
a virtual ultimatum to Chamberlain" demanding that the British government strongly oppose Germany. Pearson and Allen reported that
"the President warned that Britain could expect no more support, moral or material through the sale of airplanes, if the Munich policy
continued."
[28] Pearson, Drew and Allen, Robert S., "Washington Daily Merry-Go-Round," Washington Times-Herald , April 14, 1939, p. 16.
Responding to Roosevelt's pressure, the next day Chamberlain ended Britain's policy of cooperation with Germany when he made a speech
at Birmingham bitterly denouncing Hitler. Chamberlain also announced the end of the British "appeasement" policy, stating that from
now on Britain would oppose any further territorial moves by Hitler. Two weeks later the British government formally committed itself
to war in case of German-Polish hostilities. Roosevelt also attempted to arm Poland so that Poland would be more willing to go to
war against Germany. Ambassador Bullitt reported from Paris in a confidential telegram to Washington on April 9, 1939, his conversation
with Polish Ambassador Łukasiewicz. Bullitt told Łukasiewicz that although U.S. law prohibited direct financial aid to Poland, the
Roosevelt administration might be able to supply warplanes to Poland indirectly through Britain. Bullitt stated: "The Polish ambassador
asked me if it might not be possible for Poland to obtain financial help and airplanes from the United States. I replied that I believed
the Johnson Act would forbid any loans from the United States to Poland, but added that it might be possible for England to purchase
planes for cash in the United States and turn them over to Poland."
[29] U.S. Department
of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Diplomatic Papers), 1939, General, Vol. I, Washington: 1956, p. 122.
Bullitt also attempted to bypass the Neutrality Act and supply France with airplanes. A secret conference of Ambassador Bullitt with
French Premier Daladier and the French minister of aviation, Guy La Chambre, discussed the procurement of airplanes from America
for France. Bullitt, who was in frequent telephonic conversation with Roosevelt, suggested a means by which the Neutrality Act could
be circumvented in the event of war. Bullitt's suggestion was to set up assembly plants in Canada, apparently on the assumption that
Canada would not be a formal belligerent in the war. Bullitt also arranged for a secret French mission to come to the United States
and purchase airplanes in the winter of 1938-1939. The secret purchase of American airplanes by the French leaked out when a French
aviator crashed on the West Coast.
[30] Chamberlain,
William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 101-102. On August 23, 1939, Sir Horace Wilson,
Chamberlain's closest advisor, went to American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy with an urgent appeal from Chamberlain to President Roosevelt.
Regretting that Britain had unequivocally obligated itself to Poland in case of war, Chamberlain now turned to Roosevelt as a last
hope for peace. Kennedy telephoned the State Department and stated: "The British want one thing from us and one thing only, namely
that we put pressure on the Poles. They felt that they could not, given their obligations, do anything of this sort but that we could."
Presented with a possibility to save the peace in Europe, President Roosevelt rejected Chamberlain's desperate plea out of hand.
With Roosevelt's rejection, Kennedy reported, British Prime Minister Chamberlain lost all hope. Chamberlain stated: "The futility
of it all is the thing that is frightful. After all, we cannot save the Poles. We can merely carry on a war of revenge that will
mean the destruction of all Europe."
[31] Koskoff,
David E., Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times , Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974, p. 207; see also Taylor, A.J.P.,
The Origins of the Second World War , New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005, p. 272.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. This is
proven by the secret Polish documents as well as numerous statements from highly positioned, well-known and authoritative Allied
leaders who corroborate the contents of the Polish documents.
When these documents were published, their authenticity was denied by both Bullitt and by the Polish Ambassador to the
U.S. The Polish Ambassador later informed Hoover that he denied their authenticity at the request of the State Department.
@Paul More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe has been decided upon.
Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be
in the war soon after Britain and France enter it."[24] When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the
arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when
the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing."
those behind the wars do not serve ideology or democracy. they serve their own interests. then and now. they rule by
dividing the rest of the world. by pitting germany against russia, in this case, they worked toward their own domination.
their short term goal is the elimination of competitions by all means. their long tern goal is their hegemony and domination
of the world. they believe that they are that superior.
Roosevelt was no incompetent or fool. he knew exactly what he was doing. he was executive and ran his show.
Roosevelt was elite and smart enough to know how to compromise and neutralize the american socialist cat until he had
a war to smash all worker opposition, directing it into war and depopulation of the capitalist opposition.
@Wally
The Nazis very clearly did dismember Czechoslovakia, which is what destroyed Hitler's credibility with the British. It's also
what German_reader found objectionable about the original piece.
I'm not a supporter of the Icebreaker thesis, though obviously Bolshevism had aggressive intentions.
If true, that's indeed interesting, I might have to look into this. The arguments in the article above (referring to
a lot of pretty weak sources like newspaper articles or much later reminiscences) don't seem convincing to me though.
What would have been Roosevelt's reasoning for pushing for a European war? I know he was pathologically anti-German and
soft on communism, but that doesn't seem like a sufficient rationale.
Commenters here would of course argue that he was a mere puppet of the Jews, but I don't buy that either (during the war
the Holocaust doesn't seem to have been a central preoccupation for him).
It may be down simply to politics.
Roosevelt's New Deal proved to be a failure, and the Roosevelt Recession was especially damaging to his power and prestige.
While it could be a coincidence (or merely a response to increasingly assertive German policy), it's noteworthy that the aggressive
turn in Roosevelt's foreign policy coincided with the Roosevelt Recession.
It's forgotten today, but many of the policies of the New Deal were not Keynesian and were actually inspired by WW1 planning.
FDR's prewar budget deficits were on average lower than American fiscal deficits are today. Thus rearmament appeared to offer
a way out of the intractable Depression.
That Roosevelt himself was a Germanophobe, an Anglophile, a naval enthusiast, and extremely weak on communism no doubt contributed.
Biographers have also noted that FDR always wanted to be a wartime President, comparing himself to Lincoln.
Roosevelt was also influenced by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford John Mackinder. Thus he subscribed to the
idea that the US needed to prevent any one power from controlling the "heartland". Wartime American propaganda reflects these
ideas by noting the strategic need to prevent the Axis powers from completely controlling two of the world's three "industrial
regions".
I know about those sentiments on the other hand his policy made the US the dominant world power, at the cost of the lowest
casualties among WW2 combatants.
Personally I've come to view US post-war dominance quite negatively (not least because it facilitated the spread of US liberalism
with its particularly demented manifestations like Negrophilia, which may well lead to the eventual destruction of the entire
pan-European world), but from the point of view of most Americans FDR's foreign policy must be seen as highly successful
imo.
This American views FDR's foreign policy very negatively, and the domestic effects of America's strategic reorientation
must be considered in any assessment. The perceived requirements of WW2 and the subsequent Cold War led to the replacement
of America's "white nationalism" with "civil rights". It also led to the dismantling of America's formidable protective barriers
and those which existed between the other industrial powers, which in turn allowed them to converge with America's level of
economic development.
FDR simply converted latent potential into military and diplomatic power. What actually turned America into the world's
greatest power was seizing the best parts of the North American continent, populating it with white people, a good legal and
economic system, and a consistent pro-manufacturing policy orientation until 1945.
WW2 in fact planted the seeds for the end of America (via the destruction of its racial identity) and its eclipse as the
world's foremost power by China (via its unification).
It's also worth pointing out that other than the capital expenditures made during the war Americans got nothing out of victory.
Just a bunch of vassal states to garrison with troops and propped up with ruinous economic concessions. The only actual gains
were German scientists and intellectual property.
This fundamental reorientation of America has persisted for more than seventy years and is destroying the country. It has
also had decidedly negative consequences for Europe as you note.
@jacques
sheeteHitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street
backers were. Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities.
Long standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi"
Stephen Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)
The problem with such uber-contextual logic is that everyone can blame the world for all his actions. He can say the World
made me do it.
Yes, there was Versailles Treaty, communism, and British fears of Germany. All of that is true.
But there was also this. Brits came around to feeling that Germans got a raw deal after WWI. British hostility mostly ebbed
away by the time of Hitler's rise.
It's true that World Jewry hated the rise of Hitler and tried to hurt Germany. But Jews back then didn't have the power
to force world governments to strangulate Germany.
The fact is France and UK let Germany retake the Rhineland. They allowed the unification of Germany and Austria. And they
let Germany take Sudetenland. And when Germany overstepped its bounds and took Crezh territory, UK made a deal with Germany.
But Germans went beyond that and invaded Poland. They didn't just invade but made a pact with USSR. Now, this was an evil
pact but very smart on Hitler's part. He knew that aggression against Poland could set UK and France against him. So, as backup,
it was good to have Russia on his side.
People say World War II began with invasion of Poland but no so. Poland was quickly quelled, and German-French war ended quickly.
With most of Western allied with Germany, occupied by Germany, or neutral and with USSR on his side, the smart thing for Hitler
was to wait it out in a war of contrition with UK. But Hitler decided to attack Russia, and that set off the real WWII in 1941,
esp sealed after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and brought US into the war.
Even if FDR wanted war or hostility, the fact is most American didn't want war, and FDR had run on peace. He couldn't bring
US to war against Germany UNLESS Germans(and their Japanese allies) did something spectacularly foolish.
If Germany hadn't attacked USSR and hadn't emboldened Japan to make a even dumber move against the US, WWII could have been
avoided.
Some argue that Hitler invaded USSR because Stalin planned to attack first, and their evidence is offensive Soviet positions
against German lines. But knowing Stalin, it's difficult to imagine he was willing to risk everything. Stalin was more a scavenger
than hunter. He looked for weak spots and easy opportunities. He didn't like to risk all. If Soviet positions had really been
placed offensively against Germany, it was likely a bluff to force Germans into defensive position, making them less likely
to take the offensive initiative. Stalin was a mind-gamer like Hitler, who was also a mind-gambler.
From the article above, it's instructive to know that the events that led to WWII weren't entirely Hitler's fault and that
he was working within the context of larger world politics, but as John Lukacs said, HE was the main driver of events that
led to WWII. It wasn't FDR or Stalin or Churchill even though some of their actions made things worse. A more cautious and
sensible Hitler could have prevented the war from turning into a total war.
It's like events in the Middle East since end of Cold War must be mostly blamed on Jewish Globalists. They were the main
drivers. Sure, Iran, Iraq, and etc. did their part to destabilize the region, but the main drivers were Zionists who took the
initiative to turn the whole place upside down to serve Zionist supremacism.
However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the
opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the
states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at
all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the
world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For
millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America
.
the average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another
relative in that war?
Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate
over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity.
It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.
It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable
popularity among the people living in it.
Lol. Sure, Czechs must have been thrilled at losing their independence and being occupied by a foreign power, at least some
of whose representatives eventually developed extremely sinister plans for the future of Czechs (Heydrich during his time in
the protectorate thought that about 50% of Czechs had to be "deported", while 50% could be Germanized, but Czech nationhood
had to disappear in any case).
I don't know why Ron Unz keeps publishing these absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on
Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in
no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).
Best book about these events is The Forced War by David Hoggan. He goes over many of these same events with a great attention
to detail, though certainly from a pro-German stance.
He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going
to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had
not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland
Stalin understood that he was freeing Hitler to strike in the west by making a pact with Hitler. In effect he facilitated
it. The British considered the Soviet Union to be the real problem. Stalin had already grabbed the Baltic states plus parts
of Finland and Romania. The British were mobilizing against the USSR over the war with Finland even after declaring war
with Germany. The British guarantee to Poland originally covered only their independence not territory ; the British
thought allowing Germany to take Polish land was acceptable and it would make war between Germany and the USSR quite likely
(Chamberlain's strategy was to let Hitler and Stalin into conflict). Only after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was announced was the
guarantee extended to Poland's territory because at that point the British decided war was necessary; Germany and the USSR
being friendly was not acceptable as it meant Hitler was going to go West instead of East.
Clearly Stalin wanted to sit the war between the capitalists out and reap the rewards. Neville Chamberlain wanted to see
the fighting done by the Germans and Bolshies, we know he thought that because he said so to a meeting of important Tories.With
the the Nazi-Soviet pact the powerful Soviet deterrent to any aggression was out of the equation and the British realized the
balance of power had moved against them, which was unacceptable in a way that war between the Nazis and Soviets was not. If
Hitler didn't have to worry about the Soviets at his back that suddenly made all the previous calculations obsolete.
Although Stalin may have anticipated territorial demands or military pressure such as border incidents he was astounded
when Hitler subjected the USSR to an all out attack with the promethean goal of conquering the Soviet state. Everybody underestimated
the effectiveness of the combination of Weimar reforms increasing centralised revenue raising for military purposes, Hitler's
decisiveness and the German army's fighting power.
@German_reader
As thrilled as the Germans were when Bohemia and Moravia was taken from them (Austria) and over three million Germans forcibly
became Czech citizens in a newly created state that never existed before.
This video is banned here in Europe, where the lies are upheld by the law, but it can be viewed in the USA.
1942 – At a mass meeting in Prague, 200,000 Czechs pledge loyalty to their homeland and to the German Reich. Czech Minister
Emanuel Moravec addresses the large rally on July 3, 1942, on Wenceslas Square, near the historic statute of St. Wenceslas.
He concludes with an expression of confidence in a better future for the Czech people, and of support for the "new Europe,"
the "National Socialist revolution," "our leader, Adolf Hitler," and "our state president, Dr. Hacha." Emil Hacha, head of
the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia government is present, along with many other officials. The meeting concludes with the
crowd singing the Czech national hymn. Three minute newsreel clip, with Czech narration.
@anonthe average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another
relative in that war?
The Wikipedia says that 4,000,000 American soldier were mobilised and 111,000 killed – mostly by disease.
That is absolutely nothing compared to the losses of Imperial Russia (12,000,000), France (8,900,000) and the British Empire
(9,000,000). The demographics of France will never recover.
The USA entered the war only 18 months before it ended. Of course, it took months before the troops even got there.
I fear that the average educated American has no idea what war is like when it is fought in their homeland. Putin warned
the Americans that the next war will not be fought on Russian soil. The American elites think that he means it will be fought
in Europe. LOL
a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army
Nonsense. Gruppe Künsberg was sent into Warsaw in October 1939 after the unconditional surrender at the end of September
of Warsaw's defenders.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II.
Also nonsense. Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it. Unless you can show that
the US was behind Hitler breaching the Munich Agreement & later attacking Poland, you have no case.
There is a lot of interesting information in the article and reports hitherto not familiar to me but I think the author has
too limited a focus and certainly doesn't justify the big claims that WW2 was aimed for and caused by FDR. You only have to
suppose that, in Roosevelt's judgment Hitler was going to make war and that the US had to be in it for its long term security.
He may eell have regarded the Soviet Union as weak and vulnerable enough for their to be no reason to be actively anti Bolshevik.
And – maybe alternatively – he would have had the Japanese well in mind and applauded the Soviet Union having recently given
them a licking.
Most of the information in this article was gathered together by Herbert Hoover who wrote it up in long book form in the 1950s.
He worked from Polish documents captured in Warsaw as the article says. Hoover's Ms remained unpublished for many years. After
it was published, as Freedom Betrayed a few years ago, I wrote to the editor, Stephen Nash who did not reply. I also called
the publisher's editor who would not discuss it with me. I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other
Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed that the tales told by court historians such as Nash, Stephen E Ambrose.
"Sir" Michael Howard, Martin Gilbert and so on are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died
because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides. The leaders included Roosevelt in a gallery of the
guilty running from him through Churchill, and Hitler to Stalin and Henry C Morgenthau, deviser of the infamous Morgenthau
Plan for the destruction of the German people.
US and USSR emerged as superpowers.
Post-war Europe recovered fast and living standards improved greatly.
Jews lost a great deal in the war. Shoah.
If Jews emerged victorious, it was because they took over institutions in the US. It would have happened even without WWII
though, minus the Shoah narrative, Jewish power would have had less of a moral shield.
@German_readerthese absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing
in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it
was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).
These revisionist pieces are 50% kooky but offer up kernels of facts and insights that reveal aspects of the time mostly
buried by the Judeo-centric media. It has elements of Nazi apologia, but keep in mind that much of US narrative is Jewish Supremacist
propaganda.
Now, there is something to be learned from the Jewish Narrative as it isn't all lies either.
If we can select the truths from the Jewish Supremacist narrative and truths from the Nazi-sympathizing narrative, we can
construct a truer narrative. Of course the lies and distortions of both.
The recent events in Iraq and Syria and the whole Russia Collusion hysteria go to show that the 'liberal'corporate media
can be just as full of BS as any totalitarian press.
Of course, the difference is Putin and Assad are NOT Hitlers whereas Hitler was truly a hitler, a pathological demagogue.
Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded given Hitler's
actions against Poland and then against the USSR, an ally. Also,Hitler was someone with whom diplomacy was often impossible
since he regarded the compromise of others as weakness to exploit.
But it's also true that the US, for ideological, imperial, and tribal reasons of its own, believed Germany must be toppled
first before its preferred world order could prevail.
This is another great article and both the author and UR deserve to be highly commended.
Potocki's reports (according to the translations given) were amazingly perceptive on all points.
The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition.
That's a conclusion that, while obvious, is almost never addressed but should be. It also sounds a lot like the doofus,
Woody Wilson, and his fake messianic "idealism." Both of those clowns were amoral narcissistic fools to the max and menaces
to world peace. Both were functionally crazy, cunning and downright evil.
It's interesting to note that FDR was taken to task for essentially sitting out WW1 at a desk job by Teddy Roosevelt ( another
militaristic, blowhard, self stroking fool) while Teddy's 4 sons were fighting in Europe, so he took a "playtime" tour of the
battlefields to bolster his "war" credentials.
He also
was enjoying every aspect of being a man of authority in a government at war. Early on he had confided to a friend, "It
would be wonderful to be a war president."
– Thomas Fleming,
The Illusion of Victory, p254 (2003)
For me, one of the morals of all that is that men cannot be trusted in positions of power and "we" must act accordingly.
Another lesson learned is that the US government has long acted against the interests of the American prols, peasants, peons
and pissants, and no doubt shall as long as it exists. What to do about it appears to be, at this point, an individual thing.
It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.
Credible source, please.
Now go back and read the article and try to find out who was threatening whom. You could also review the causes of WW1,
but that may be asking too much.
Also, it would be interesting to hear your opinion on the report that New York "Jews" declared war on Germany in 1933, years
before the Nazis did anything (they were subsequently accused of) to the Jews.
I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed
that the tales told by court historians are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died
because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides.
@German_reader
The Nazi apologism of these pieces is unfortunate (e.g. casually glossing over the German destruction of Czechoslovakia as
you cite), but other than that they're quite valuable. The standard narrative is that America was completely neutral until
the outbreak of war, after which it adopted pro-British neutrality.
The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war, and once war had broken out its policy was
to commit America to the war.
That obviously does not absolve the Axis powers. If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted
German demands. It of course doesn't follow that this would've preserved the peace in Europe.
This also has special relevance for American politics as Roosevelt has long been a despised figure on the American right.
Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it.
Duh.
That's a classic straw man fallacy. Unless you can show that the author claimed what you said he did, you have no case.
And since the Dizzard agreed with you, it's almost certain that you have none.
No doubt the Roosevelt administration was agitating for war. Between the Soviets, the Nazis and FDR's chums what chance
did Europe have? Always found the US saving Britain meme particularly offensive.
somehow you left the belligerent Churchill out of this mix
note that he was on the hook to some jew bankers for the solvency of his entire estate, also note the quip by a Rothschild
woman "if my sons didn't want wars there would be no wars"
Maybe a few little ones did, but the bigshot moneybag crowd probably did not.
Here's an anecdote to ponder.
The new [Jewish] prosperity was born in rearmament, and that was begun in the name of anti-Communism and anti-Semitism.
Abyssinia, Spain and China have already shown that the new armaments race spells death, not for Jews, but for indiscriminate
millions of helpless Gentiles, Africans, Chinese and whatnot. The profits from the armaments race will go largely into
the pockets of Jews, because of their preponderant share in retail trade Such is Hitler's achievement in the cause of
antiSemitism.
I was talking one day to Z, a Jewish journalist expelled from Germany who has settled in Vienna, where he has a pleasant
home and a motor car. He talked with bitter resentment of Germany. 'Ah', he complained, 'the Poles murdered us, but the
Germans have robbed us', and it was quite clear from his tone which was the worse thing for him. Then he told me how his
son was still working for a big German film company in Berlin and had thrice had his salary raised to induce him not to
leave and emigrate, as he desired, wishing to join his father. The Jews. As I write, in Vienna, they are all about me, watching
with non-committal, veiled, appraising eyes the comedy that is going on in Insanity Fair. They know that when Hitlerism
has passed away they will still be trading in the Kärntnerstrasse.
Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded
Hitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street backers were.
Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities. Long
standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi" Stephen
Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)
I don't think so, imo those pieces without exception are so stupid that they'll actually be counter-productive and reinforce
existing narratives.
I actually think there are some areas of WW2 where revisionism might be justified (and you don't even have to go to kooky "revisionists"
for it, the gap between the mythology and the writings even of many quite mainstream historians is often wide) but Unz review
has nothing to contribute in this regard.
The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war
I don't think the article above demonstrated that, tbh the documents cited in it appear to be totally unremarkable to me
and don't support such a thesis.
Maybe someone else has made a better case for it, but that Roosevelt actively wanted a European war seems unlikely to me.
If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted German demands.
But the US didn't really do anything in 1939/40, it was just words. iirc even Lend-Lease was only adopted after the fall
of France.
The backing of Britain and France (still seen as premier world powers at the time, and in the case of France with a large army
with modern equipment) was probably enough for Poland, I don't think the remote possibility of American intervention (which
was years away anyway) was decisive.
A fundamental issue was of course that Hitler had already shown with the destruction of Czechoslovakia (so casually dismissed
in the article above) in March 1939 that his ambitions went beyond merely uniting all majority German areas in the Reich and
that he wasn't trustworthy at all.
In the beginning of World War I, Woodrow Wilson had adopted initially a policy of neutrality. But the Morgan Bank, which
was the most powerful bank at the time, and which wound up funding over 75 percent of the financing for the allied forces during
World War I pushed Wilson out of neutrality sooner than he might have done, because of their desire to be involved on one side
of the war.
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than
to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is
mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.
from the up-to-date history of the second world war it is now possible to see the utter madness, irrelevance really of white
people! from Churchill and the English, to Roosevelt, the Germans, the Russians.. and all others at the top of the white countries..the
white elites..what on earth are they, what are they about on planet earth, what do they want?
they smash, beat, poison, blow up, lie all the time, cheat, steal, draw all human profit off into few hands, bring world
economy to a standstill then create wars for all and every socially controlling purpose including the reduction of ordinary
people..all working people. war is to protect the money grubbers and economic slavers from the mess they make in their own
profit taking and exploitation of the people..to reduce the people to easy captivity, their numbers as a fighting force capable
of social revolution and on and on, permitting the restart of another profit taking cycle and the same flow of events again
and again and again
by new information when properly considered Hitler comes of a relatively sane man who did not want war..but look at the
things he did himself!
and over all of this, like mad directors of a horror movie are the fake Jews, the Khazars who collectively must be the devil
himself, directing a MADD movie of existence.
LOOK AT WHAT THEY ARE ALL COLLECTIVELY DOING -HAVE DONE. IT IS CONSTANT CENTURIES LONG LUNACY, PURE NAKED INSANITY THAT
THEY HAVE MANAGED TO PUT OR PULL A CONSISTENT PATINA OVER, THAT ALLOWS THE REST OF US TO TAKE THEIR BEHAVIOR AS SANE AND TO
ACCEPT WHITE PEOPLE AS LOGICAL AND RIGHT IN THE WORLD..THE ACTUAL OPPOSITE OF WHO/WHAT THEY ARE
I don know of anything historically like the 19 century. from the Japanese Russian war, the first world war, the Russian
revolution, the economic games of the years between 1920-39 they call the great crash, the second world war..all the way to
currently when white people appear to be finally tired of themselves and are ready to end it all in another explosion of war
with nuclear weapons..we have had such a show of absolutely human insanity there are negative words capable of describing that
flow of human time and the people involved.
Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Churchill, Chamberlin, Mussolin, DeGaulle,..all, an endless flow of terrible human beings..and it
has not stopped, all the way through the Clintons, Obama, Macron..and on and on and on, the same carnage, the same insanity..it
never stops, never ever. nothing depresses me as human history does..the white part of it..the rise of the white man. there
is no way out of it..white outlook and socially dominant power, will not allow for anything positive in the human potential
to manifest. only genocide, human engineering and the development of social grotesque forms of social organization looms for
the human future
and they say some god made this life..a supreme and good god worked all this out and made ot, let it be. and of course that
is more grotesque nonsense that leads to more hell for humanity.
I dont see the point to life. the ancient Africans had a point. they developed a life in nature, accepted nature as the
template and flowed accordingly. in that way they gave us all a chance by developing the basis of survival, of social organization
and spiritual sanity. the white man took that and poisoned it, twisted it into all the insane religious nonsense that drives
human suicide currently.
but with the rise of the white male into global power for 500 years now humanity has gone totally insane..impenetrably insane,
comprehensively insane. we have all been made nuts by white logic. we have ringed ourselves by that same logic with every conceivable
weapon that can kill all humanity. we have actually set the stage for the possible rise out of nature itself organic mutations
that may wipe humanity all on their own..mutations changed by what we have routinely thrown into the world as waste for which
humanity has no biological defense.
that is the white mans logic..operating on the principle that there is a free lunch, always looking for on and causing existential
chaos in the process. I want to cite the obvious stupidity in that approach..a collectively arsine approach..but it is far,
far, far, far .. worse than that. the condition of the white man appears to be irreversible, cannot be changed and with the
destructive means the white elites now have it is totally unlikely that humanity comes out of the experience of white power,
white global domination, alive..or in one piece. we may crawl out alive but we wont be human anymore
SCREW ROOSEVELT. HE WAS THE WORST FROM THE START! I KNEW THAT SINCE I WAS MUCH YOUNGER AND COULD CONSIDER REALITY. ROOSEVELT
HAS BEEN BUILT INTO A HERO, HE IS A FAKE HERO!.
I HOPE TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE HIS STATUE TORN DOWN AS LENIN'S STATUE WAS WITH THE FALL OF RUSSIAN STATE CAPITALISM
The myth that the US and their henceforth junior partner UK- along with the Soviet Union- "liberated" Europe ought to be
put to rest. There was no "liberation" of Europe from Germany, unless massive civilian deaths and the unprecedented destruction
of property and cultural landmarks equates to "liberation." As an American, this is disturbing to me, but it is the truth.
FDR was an ignoramus and an ingenue surrounded, in his later years, by communists and their sympathizers. Had he adopted
National Socialist economic policies here in the US, he could have ended the depression and brought America to unprecedented
prosperity and the ultimate fulfillment of its great providential mission to be an impregnable continental power. Instead,
he squandered all that and doubled down on the catastrophically error of his predecessor Wilson.
In both cases- FDR's and Wilson's- Europe lost. Disastrously and tragically.
I tend to concetrate on Rosenfeldt's actions in the Pacific, knew about many non-neutral actions in the Atlantic, non-neutrality
of 'lend-lease', but most (all )of the content of this article is new to me.
Very interesting.
Changing the subject a little for entertainment, I enjoy reading Charles Bukowski (RIP) at times.
His account of the behaviour of young men post-Pearl Harbour is hilarious, he is drinking (and drunk) on a park bench, suddenly
sees them start shouting 'godawar' and frantically running around.
I forget the title, but it is a very laconic and funny description.
When seeing Starship Troopers by Verhoeven, I always think that at least one of the scriptwriters must have read
Bukowski.
"... In so doing, he has effectively repudiated the entire post-World War II international order and signalled that wars of conquest and territorial aggrandisement are the order of the day. Such annexations were declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions, enacted in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany's Nazi regime, which set the stage for the outbreak of war in 1939. ..."
"... Netanyahu's announcement will give succour to his support base among fascistic layers of the settlers and religious nationalists, driving Israel's capitalist political setup ever further toward outright apartheid, fascism and military dictatorship. It is a prelude to intensified Israeli military aggression in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the broader Middle East. ..."
"... He has brought into his electoral coalition, and a possible share of government power should he win, outright fascist elements linked to the banned Kach Party of the late Meir Kahane, a party that was designated a terrorist organization by the US, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Israel itself. ..."
"... Trump's naked interference in the Israeli elections is bound up with US imperialism's broader aim of escalating its military intervention in the Middle East to roll back the growth of Iranian influence in the wake of the successive debacles suffered by Washington in Iraq, Libya and Syria. ..."
"... The political antecedents of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionists, who were to remain a minority tendency until the 1970s, articulated this position most clearly. Their aim was the establishment of a Jewish state on the entire land of Biblical Palestine, including Transjordan. With the Jews a minority in Palestine, such a state would necessarily mean expelling the Arab population to ensure its Jewish character. ..."
"... In 1923, Jabotinsky explained, in an article titled "The Iron Wall," that the Zionist project could be achieved only against the wishes of the native population. He envisaged the need for an iron wall to protect the Jews from the native population. He said, "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the near future." Without a garrison, Zionist colonization of Palestine would be impossible, and "therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force." ..."
"... Netanyahu has now made explicit what has long been implicit: the incorporation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel. It can be achieved and sustained only through the imposition of military rule. To this end, his government has passed a series of measures, including the openly racist "Nation-State Law" enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state, bringing the political and legal system into alignment with the reality of Jabotinsky's garrison state, based on the brutal oppression of an entire people, the Palestinians. ..."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his intention of extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, captured in
the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, if he is re-elected prime minister in Tuesday's general election.
In so doing, he has effectively repudiated the entire post-World War II international order and signalled that wars of conquest
and territorial aggrandisement are the order of the day. Such annexations were declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions, enacted
in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany's Nazi regime, which set
the stage for the outbreak of war in 1939.
Netanyahu's announcement will give succour to his support base among fascistic layers of the settlers and religious nationalists,
driving Israel's capitalist political setup ever further toward outright apartheid, fascism and military dictatorship. It is a prelude
to intensified Israeli military aggression in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the broader Middle East.
Netanyahu told a television Channel 12 interviewer on Saturday that he would not "evacuate any community." Nor would he divide
Jerusalem, a reference to Palestinian demands for East Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state. He said,
"I will not divide Jerusalem, I will not evacuate any community and I will make sure we control the territory west of Jordan."
He added, "A Palestinian state will endanger our existence and I withstood huge pressure over the past eight years. No prime minister
has withstood such pressure. We must control our destiny."
Netanyahu made it clear that he viewed President Donald Trump's recognition of Israel's illegal annexation of Syria's Golan Heights,
captured in 1967, as a green light to press on with Likud's long-held expansionist policy of a Greater Israel. He said, "Will we
move ahead to the next stage? Yes. I will extend sovereignty, but I don't distinguish between the settlement blocs and the isolated
ones, because each settlement is Israeli, and I will not hand it over to Palestinian sovereignty."
Speaking about the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, which he has pledged to evacuate despite international outrage, Netanyahu
promised that "it will happen." He added, "I promised, and it will happen at the soonest opportunity."
Netanyahu's announcement was aimed at bolstering his position in the election, which he had called ahead of schedule in order
to win political backing to ensure his immunity from prosecution on a raft of corruption charges. Facing unexpectedly strong opposition
from a slate of generals assembled by the so-called Blue and White coalition, headed by former chief of staff Benny Gantz, he has
leveraged Trump's support to appeal to his right-wing support base.
He has brought into his electoral coalition, and a possible share of government power should he win, outright fascist elements
linked to the banned Kach Party of the late Meir Kahane, a party that was designated a terrorist organization by the US, Canada,
the European Union, Japan and Israel itself.
Trump's naked interference in the Israeli elections is bound up with US imperialism's broader aim of escalating its military
intervention in the Middle East to roll back the growth of Iranian influence in the wake of the successive debacles suffered by Washington
in Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Netanyahu's growing alliance with the House of Saud and the petro-monarchs of the Gulf has served to ensure their acquiescence
-- with pro forma denunciations -- to this latest assault on the Palestinians.
But apart from Netanyahu's short-term political calculations, his announcement derives from Zionism's foundation upon exclusivist
conceptions of racial, religious and linguistic hegemony to justify the establishment of a Jewish state through the violent dispossession
of the indigenous Arab population, who formed the overwhelming majority of the population, making use of the horrors of the Holocaust
as a rationale for the oppression of another people.
The political antecedents of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionists, who were to remain a minority tendency
until the 1970s, articulated this position most clearly. Their aim was the establishment of a Jewish state on the entire land of
Biblical Palestine, including Transjordan. With the Jews a minority in Palestine, such a state would necessarily mean expelling the
Arab population to ensure its Jewish character.
In 1923, Jabotinsky explained, in an article titled "The Iron Wall," that the Zionist project could be achieved only against
the wishes of the native population. He envisaged the need for an iron wall to protect the Jews from the native population. He said,
"A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the near future." Without a garrison, Zionist
colonization of Palestine would be impossible, and "therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force."
The establishment of a Jewish state was viewed with sympathy by millions of people around the world, who were appalled at the
catastrophe that had befallen the Jews. But the major powers excluding Britain, but including the Soviet Union, supported the establishment
of a Jewish state as a means of blocking Britain's position in the Middle East. As a result, the UN voted in 1947 for the partition
of Palestine, hailing the new state as a progressive entity dedicated to building a democratic and egalitarian society for the most
cruelly oppressed people of Europe.
As soon as the State of Israel was declared in 1948, war broke out between the Arabs and the Jews, who were able to seize more
land than was included in the 1947 partition plan, driving out some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. Not wanting to pay the
price of the concessions demanded by the superpowers, in terms of borders and refugees, Israel's Labour government did not try to
make peace after the war, instead instituting a policy of "striving for peace" -- but not too fast -- which became the template for
future governments. The more Israel got used to the situation of neither peace nor war, the louder grew the voices calling for the
maintenance of the status quo.
After the 1967 war, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza from Egypt and the Golan Heights from
Syria, the Labour government moved rapidly to annex East Jerusalem and build settlements in the occupied territories that are now
home to some 700,000 Israeli Jews, many of them extreme nationalists and religious zealots who are heavily armed. Labour had, in
effect, adopted the Revisionists' policy.
The war and the settlement movement spawned the growth of immensely reactionary political and social forces within Israel itself,
with Menachem Begin's Likud party demanding the territories be brought under Israeli sovereignty on the grounds that they were the
Biblical lands of Samaria and Judea, promised by God to the Jewish people.
In 1993, a Labour government signed an illusory peace deal, the Oslo Accords, brokered by the US, with the Palestine Liberation
Organization. Ostensibly, the agreement was to usher in a Palestinian statelet. But its real purpose was to prevent the intifada
that broke out in 1987 from developing into a revolutionary uprising by the Palestinian masses in the occupied territories, and to
subcontract the task of suppressing the masses to the Palestinian bourgeoisie.
Instead of peace and a Palestinian state, the Oslo Accords set the stage for an expansion of the settlements and land seizures
to control the access roads to these enclaves and strengthen their connection to Israel itself, with the Palestinian Authority left
to police small patches of land, mostly impoverished cities, surrounded and cut off by Israeli troops.
In line with its long-held policy, the Likud Party vehemently opposed any territorial concessions to the Palestinians embodied
in the Accords. Its leaders stood by as its angry supporters called Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a traitor, paving the way for his
murder in 1995 by a right-wing fanatic. With none of the mainstream political parties prepared to make any fundamental changes, the
fraudulent peace process was all but dead.
Netanyahu has now made explicit what has long been implicit: the incorporation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel. It
can be achieved and sustained only through the imposition of military rule. To this end, his government has passed a series of measures,
including the openly racist "Nation-State Law" enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state, bringing the political
and legal system into alignment with the reality of Jabotinsky's garrison state, based on the brutal oppression of an entire people,
the Palestinians.
The so-called "centre-left" opposition in the elections, led by Gantz, has not challenged Netanyahu's annexation pledge, resorting
to verbal obfuscations and calls for a "regional conference" or "secure separation," thereby signifying consent.
This marks the historic bankruptcy and culmination of the entire reactionary Zionist project and all such nationalist programs.
The very good profits of the 17 year long and continuing global war for profits has spent the
US into no longer being dominant in the US' preferred way of war!
"The most dogmatic, tautological, egregiously unsubstantiated assertion, and the one most
likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, comes in four parts: 1) The United States is
emerging from a period of strategic atrophy; 2) Our competitive military advantage has been
eroding; .."
The US has had a huge amount of housing abandoned, or turned into "slums", as a result of
increasing profits by outsourcing jobs outside the traditional heart of US production, the
Midwest.
Case-shiller does not reflect housing abandoned because the house prices fell below labor
costs.
Just as stock indexes remove the shares of stock that start losing price so the continuing
price losses do not drag down the market index.
Ie, GE drove up the indexes while stock prices rose, but as it restructures from decades
of pillaged and plunder of its most valuable capital, its workers with culture of innovation,
it has been removed from indexes so it does not correct the indexes its bad management
inflated by fake profits when GE was really losing value.
"The confluence of their interests as Jews in promoting the policies of the Israeli right
wing and their construction of American interests allows them to submerge or even deny the
relevance of their Jewish identity while posing as American patriots. [ ] Indeed, since
neoconservative Zionism of the Likud Party variety is well known for promoting a
confrontation between the United States and the entire Muslim world, their policy
recommendations best fit a pattern of loyalty to their ethnic group, not to America."
[4]
Kevin McDonald, Cultural Insurrection, op. cit., p. 66.
The neocons' U.S. foreign policy has always coincided with the best interest of Israel as
they see it. Before 1967, Israel's interest rested heavily on Jewish immigration from Eastern
Europe. From 1967, when Moscow closed Jewish emigration to protest Israel's annexation of Arab
territories, Israel's interest included the U.S. winning the Cold War. That is when the
editorial board of Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee,
experienced their conversion to "neoconservatism," and Commentary became, in the words
of Benjamin Balint, "the contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the
neoconservative right . " [5]
Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish
Left into the Neoconservative Right, Public Affairs, 2010. Irving Kristol explained to
the American Jewish Congress in 1973 why anti-war activism was no longer good for Israel: "it
is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the
United States. [ ] American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to
say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget
big, so that we can defend Israel." [6]
Congress Bi-Weekly, quoted by Philip Weiss, "30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid
About Their Israel-Centered Views," Mondoweiss.net, May 23, 2007:
mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne.html This tells us what "reality" Kristol was
referring to, when he famously defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by
reality" ( Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, 1995).
With the end of the Cold War, the national interest of Israel changed once again. The
primary objective became the destruction of Israel's enemies in the Middle East by dragging the
U.S. into a third world war. The neoconservatives underwent their second conversion, from
anti-communist Cold Warriors to Islamophobic "Clashers of Civilizations" and crusaders in the
"War on Terror."
The neocons' capacity to deceive the American public by posturing as American rather than
Israeli patriots required that their Jewishness be taboo, and Carl Bernstein, though a Jew
himself, provoked a scandal by citing on national television the responsibility of "Jewish neocons" for the Iraq
war. [14]
April 26, 2013, on MSNBC, watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlatDWqh0o. But the
fact that the destruction of Iraq was carried out on behalf of Israel is now widely accepted,
thanks in particular to the 2007 book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby
and U.S. Foreign Policy . And even the best liars betray themselves sometimes. Philip
Zelikow briefly dropped the mask during a conference at the University of Virginia on September
10, 2002:
Norman Podhoretz, editor-in-chief of Commentary (and father-in-law of Elliott
Abrams), said that after June 1967, Israel became "the religion of the American Jews."
[16]
Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir, Harper & Row , 1979, p.
335. That is, at least, what he started working at. But, naturally, such religion had
better remain discreet outside the Jewish community, if possible even secret, and disguised as
American patriotism. The neocons have perfected this fake American patriotism wholly profitable
to Israel, and ultimately disastrous for Americans -- a pseudo-Americanism that is really a
crypto-Israelism or crypto-Zionism.
On a less exalted note, I've long found it a convincing theory that as Jews have ceased to take
Judaism seriously and have become culturally almost indistinguishable from gentile whites,
Israel and Zionism have become increasingly important as the sole remaining touchstone of
Jewish identity. Like as not, a modern American Jew has only his loyalty to Israel as evidence
that he remains a good Jew.
For most Jews, Judaism and its strictures have ceased to be compelling. One can get modern
secular Jews to eat pork, or marry gentiles, or cease practicing their religion entirely; but
for that very reason, there are few who are prepared to renounce Israel outright.
For the moment I will only make this observation. The UN did not base their establishment of
Israel on the promises of the OT – certainly not formally. And nothing about the state of
Israel relations with God makes her exempt from international law. And to my knowledge nothing
about the current rules regarding international law demand that Israel do anything to disobey
God.
So if the article is intended to be informative – ok. But what of a prescription is
intended to promote, if any is unknown to me.
This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American
Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present.
Jun 29, 2016 Neoconservatives Endorse Hillary Clinton for President Because They Know She's
One of Them
Neoconservatives like Iraq warmonger Robert Kagan aren't endorsing Hillary Clinton for
president merely because they want rid of Donald Trump, but because she's one of them, writes
Trevor Timm at The Guardian.
@Matt07924
It doesn't matter. When a group of people can get together and find psychic connection to one
another through some talisman, no matter how inconsequential, they form a group of self
interested individuals who can and do control their own destiny.
As we see in the west today, they can, by controlling the money, take over the leadership of
the area where they live. Thereby dictating that which can be discussed in polite company. i.e.
Political Correctness.
There are other, less effective groups that have done the same thing. But not recently.
Excellent article. Brilliant! This is why Unz.com is now my favorite website. Guyénot
has already written several fine articles for Unz, but this is probably his best yet. Keep 'em
coming!
I have been exposed to elements of Guyénot's thesis before in various different
contexts. For example, I understand that many of the original Gnostic sects of Christianity
also rejected the idea that Yahweh and the Creator God were one and the same being. Many
Gnostics seemed to have regarded the former as a 'lesser god', or as a Platonic demiurge, or
even as a completely diabolical entity. In their view, Jesus had come to rebuke the
Israelites–the Pharisees especially–for worshipping a false god, and for putting
themselves on a pedestal relative to the goyim. (He often spoke sympathetically of the
Samaritans, for example, who were a race of lowly converts.)
All of which makes me wonder about Christianity and the Abrahamic religions generally. I,
personally, am sure that there is a God or a supreme spirit of some sort; but I really just
don't buy the catechism I was raised with at all. And if, once upon a time, I might have gone
along with it in public anyway, accepting its theological anomalies as the price that had to be
paid for preserving the moral foundations of civilization, now that I no longer believe it does
our civilization any good, I have lost all interest in it whatsoever.
But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently unstable
state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind of civic
religion to provide moral order. At the moment, 'Holocaustianity' serves as our overarching
civic religion, and so we get a modern version of the old faith vs. good-works dichotomy (i.e.,
Zionism vs. SJWism). Generally speaking, the hardline Protestants prefer the former, while the
remaining denominations prefer the latter. Virtually all of our remaining 'Christian' churches,
it seems, have lined up behind one or the other; but either way you go, it's all for the
benefit of another people–not our own.
Very interesting article. Informative throughout. Purely on a political level, this piece has
given me a much greater understanding of the psychic sources of historical abuses by those who
call themselves Jews...
I think this is another very important concept. Its not that Jews don't hold themselves to
moral standards, but it's that sin cannot alter their fundamental 'rightnes'. They are Chosen
– if they sin they will be punished mercilessly, but they are fundamentally and basically
'justified' unto eternity.
Catholics used to have this concept as well, and it was also a source of immense strength
for them – first, you are saved through Jesus. Jesus took on the sins of humanity.
Nothing you can do will make you any less saved, provided you accept Jesus's gift.
Second, by confessing your sins you are absolved.
So the old Christian is eternally justified and his sins cannot fundamentally put him on the
'wrong' side of life.
This also led to that absolutely crucial thing – in Jungian terms, acceptance of the
Shadow, the bad and weak side of man. People were not afraid to accept the dirty and bad and
weak about themselves without collapsing into self hatred, because they knew they were
fundamentally right anyways. This is an immense source of strength and integrity.
When the modern Western world lost this ability to accept the Shadow, and strove to become
God itself, it very easily fell into a crushing sense of guilt and self hatred at its 'sins',
as it no longer has a theology that allowed to accept its common human frailty without
collapsing into self hatred.
The Jews never abandoned their theory of being 'saved' – and so their evil and
weakness does not result in self hatred, but is more accepted.
@AaronB
This is too divorced from reality & is basically some kind of dubious philosophy of
history.
Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional cultures.
Jews' behavior & position in pre-modern Europe was not determined by some metaphysical
ingredient in their belief, or their ethnic-religious peculiarity. They were middle-eastern
tolerated aliens in Christian Europe, and they survived because medieval Christian order had
found a place for them (unlike Muslims, who were not tolerated).
After assimilation in 19th C, we can't speak of a unified (more or less) "Jewish culture".
True, some branches like ethno-psychology could find common traits among them (professions
oriented, eager to get educated, politicized, showbiz & entertainment,..), but they are not
too adaptable -- persons of Jewish ancestry are, perhaps, but many/most of them are not Jews
anymore. Assimilated individuals of Jewish ancestry do not show any more flexibility than their
co-nationals of other faiths.
As for Zionism, this is a typical late 19th C national ideology from central- & eastern
Europe. It differs from pre-modern Jewish historical mass movements.
@Anon
Theologically Jesus came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace the
tribalism and overly legalistic Law of Moses.
The reason the New Testament quotes so heavily from the Old Testament is that the early
church sought to cement it's legitimacy by establishing that Jesus was the one prophesied
about.
Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional
cultures
Agreed. What was distinctively 'modern' in European culture was the one-sided development of
abstract reason and the increasing neglect of the emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual side of
man. At first the imaginative arts responded to this challenge – producing masterpieces
– and attempted to incorporate or ameliorate this development. Eventually, in our day,
the 'managerial' movement became exclusively dominant, as was bound to happen.
So we can turn to any traditional culture, not just Jewish. What is unusual about Jews
perhaps is that they went further than other traditional cultures in adopting European abstract
reason and participating in European culture.
I am unclear yet what the author's point besides making a claim that Israel has no right to be
a state based on false notions of scripture. But that has very little to do with why Israel is
a state in the secular understanding.
One can complain about Israel from now till doomsday, but until you make a case to Israel's
supporting states that Israel is out of line -- the complaint doesn't have much weight. They
exist by international law. And they engage in tactics to their own interests – no
kidding.
Israel is not going to change course if what she is doing yields her results. The attempt to
decouple support for Israel by engaging in arguments about how "rotten" she is only fuels the
complaint that Israel is surrounded by enemies that seek her destruction. Which is fed into the
"holocaust" pipeline, which in the secular is why Israel was afforded the statehood she now
has.
Theologically Communism came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace
the tribalism and overly legalistic Law of nationalism.
Fixed it for you.
As with communism, Christianity was written by the very same nationalists (Jews) who wrote
it to use as a cultural and political weapon against their enemies and peoples they wished to
eventually rule. Such international domination being the expressed primary goal of the Jewish
god as described in the Jewish Torah.
@Digital
Samizdat'This. Jewish 'leftism' historically is mostly about destroying the church, the
(goy) family and the (goy) nations. It is almost never about helping the working class or
making life better for the goyim generally.'
I don't think that's fair -- but at the same time, there is something mindlessly destructive
about Jewish radicalism.
I'm reminded of More Powerful than Dynamite -- a fairly good book about the radical
upheavals that beset New York City around 1915.
The author doesn't seem to notice, but a disproportionate number of his protagonists are
young Jewish immigrants, fresh out of the shetl. The young Jewesses seem to have been
the worst; those girls had the devil in them somehow.
I think it probably all had more to do with a rebellion against the traditional authorities
of Judaism more than anything; the rabbis et al who had held Eastern Jewry in thrall for so
long. I'm not saying they actually wished gentiles well -- but I don't think destroying
gentile society was really the motive.
Maybe it's one of those secrets like, deligitimizing Israel's right to exist. That if one
dismantles the Zionist pose, then the UN will simply reneg the 1948 resolution and Israel will
be no more. I think I can keep that secret.
I have news for you. It's not going to happen. Not even the Russians or the Chinese are on
that band wagon
But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently
unstable state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind
of civic religion to provide moral order.
Atheists in the real world don't act like the Christian belief about them. This suggests
that atheists didn't invent nihilism; instead Christians imagined nihilism late in history as a
new Christian doctrine about atheism in response to the growth of nonbelief among quite
functional people in Western countries since the Enlightenment, and they did so as a new
strategy to try to recover from their loss of power and status.
Of course, real atheists, as opposed to Christians' fantasy atheists, face no obligation to
live according to the Christian stereotype. And atheists have made enormous contributions to
civilization in recent generations. You have to wonder why they would have bothered if they
suffered from "nihilism."
Dr. Guyenot, your book is excellent and so are your sources/recommendations. What needs to be
sorely addressed is Zionist exploitation of Christ in the free world. Jewish and Christian
Zionists are no different than Al Sharpton never did see the first relavent issue (he/they)
couldn't exploit. It's all about Israel first and nothing second. That is they ONLY seek to
possess, enslave and then destroy (their) host friend or foe conquering nation or friendly host
for the Zionist parasite. Good job as always. Like Douglas Reed your prior preparations have
brought you to your most important work.
@Laurent
Guyénot You are treading a thin line. I wish too that they could be convinced to
recant their belief in a vengeful, merciless, whimsical, jealous, nepotistic,
'variable-geometry' God. The world would be spared a lot of suffering.
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are
started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me
share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars
against so many foreign nations.
Thank you in spades for bringing our attention to that truth.
Note: Michael Hudson published and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and
Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year in November of last year. It is the
first volume in what will be a trilogy on the long history of the tyranny of debt. I have
interviewed him extensively as he writes the second volume, The Collapse of
Antiquity.
John Siman : Michael, in the first volume of your history of debt -- "
ORDER IT NOW
and forgive them their debts , dealing with the Bronze Age Near East, Judaism and
early Christianity -- you showed how over thousands of years, going back to the invention of
interest-bearing loans in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, many kings from a variety of
Mesopotamian civilizations proclaimed Clean Slate debt cancellations on a more or less regular
basis. And you showed that these royal proclamations of debt amnesty rescued the lower classes
from debt bondage, maintaining a workable economic balance over many centuries. Because these
kings were so powerful -- and, let's say, enlightened -- they were able to prevent the social
and economic polarization that is inevitable when there is no check on an oligarchic creditor
class extracting exponentially increasing interest from debtors.
But now, as you write the second volume, your theme gets turned upside down. You are showing
how the Greeks and the Romans learned about interest-bearing debt from their contacts with
Middle Eastern civilizations, but tragically failed to institute programs of Clean Slate debt
amnesty. Their failure has been a kind of albatross around the neck of Western economies ever
since.
So I'd like to start this conversation in the late 500s BC, because we can see at that time
the beginnings of both the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic, plus of two more
important civilizations. First was the Athens of Cleisthenes, who had led the overthrow the
"tyrant" Hippias and became the father of Athenian democracy. Second, there was the Roman
Republic of Lucius Junius Brutus, who overthrew the last of Rome's legendary kings, the
"tyrant" Tarquinius Superbus.Third was the Persian civilization of Cyrus the Great. He was a
"divine king," in many ways in the ancient tradition of Hammurabi. Fourth were the post-exilic
Jews of Ezra and Nehemiah, who returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple and redacted the
Bible. They were the inventors of the Jubilee years of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, even
though they depicted the teaching as coming from Moses.
So, beginning with the late 500s BC, to what extent was the notion of Clean Slate debt
amnesty remembered, and to what extent was it rejected?
Michael Hudson : Every kind of reform, from Mesopotamia to Greece, was put forth as
if it simply restored the way things were in the beginning. There was no concept of linear
progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only one way to do things, so any reform
must be the way the world was meant to be in the very beginning. All reformers would say that
in the beginning everybody must have been equal. Their reform was aimed at restoring this state
of affairs.
That's why, when Plutarch and even the Spartan kings in the third century BC talked about
canceling debts and promoting equality, they said that they were simply restoring the original
system that Lycurgus had created. But there was no sign that Lycurgus had really done these
things. It was made up. Lycurgus was a legendary figure. So was Moses in the Jewish tradition.
When the Bible was redacted and put together after the return from Babylon, they put debt
cancellation and land redistribution -- the Jubilee Year -- right in the center of Mosaic Law.
So it seemed that this was not an innovation, but what Moses said in the beginning. They
created a Moses figure much like the Greeks created a Lycurgus figure. They said that this is
how things were meant to be. This is how it was in the beginning -- and it just happened to be
their own program.
This was a projection backwards: a retrojection. Felix Jacoby wrote that Athenian history
was that way, basically party pamphleteering projecting their ideal program back to Solon or to
whomever one might choose as a good guy to model. Writers would then say that this original
good guy supported the program that they were proposing in their epoch. This was the ancient
analogy to "Constitutional Originalism" in the United States as a frame for right-wing
policies.
JS : So, ever since the 500s BC, the surefire way to critique the status quo has been
to say you are trying to go back to the Garden of Eden or to some other pristine Saturnian
Golden Age.
MH : Yes, you want to say that the unfair world around you isn't what was meant, so
this couldn't have been the original plan, because the past had to be a successful takeoff. So
the program that reformers always turned out to be what the Founding Fathers meant.
JS : That's veryinspirational!
MH : The key is to appear as a conservative, not a radical. You accuse the existing
status quo as being the beneficiaries of the radicals who have distorted the original Fair Plan
that you're trying to restore.
JS : So in the 500s BC we have Cyrus -- and his inscription on the Cyrus Cylinder --
boasting that he freed the Babylonians from their tax debt and bonds, and we have the
post-exilic Jews proclaiming d'ror
[דְּרֹ֛ור] in Leviticus 25, proclaiming
"liberty throughout the land." We also have the reforms of Cleisthenes in Athens,
isonomia [ἰσονομία, literally, equality
under the law], a genuine attempt at democracy. But let's start with Rome. What do you want to
say about the nova libertas , the "new liberty" proclaimed in Rome after the last king
was expelled and the Republic was founded? Didn't Brutus and his wellborn friends boast that
they were the institutors of true liberty?
MH : Liberty for them was the liberty to destroy that of the population at large.
Instead of cancelling debts and restoring land tenure to the population, the oligarchy created
the Senate that protected the right of creditors to enslave labor and seize public as well as
private lands (just as had occurred in Athens before Solon). Instead of restoring a status
quo ante of free cultivators -- free of debt and tax obligations, as Sumerian amargi
and Babylonian misharum and andurarum meant -- the Roman oligarchy accused anyone
of supporting debtor rights and opposing its land grabs of "seeking kingship." Such men were
murdered, century after century.
Rome was turned into an oligarchy, an autocracy of the senatorial families. Their "liberty"
was an early example of Orwellian Doublethink. It was to destroy everybody else's
liberty so they could grab whatever they could, enslave the debtors and create the polarized
society that Rome became.
JS : OK, but this program worked. The Republic grew and grew and conquered everyone
else for century after century. Then the Principate became the supreme power in the Western
world for several more centuries.
MH : It worked by looting and stripping other societies. That can only continue as
long as there is some society to loot and destroy. Once there were no more kingdoms for Rome to
destroy, it collapsed from within. It was basically a looting economy. And it didn't do more
than the British colonialists did: It only scratched the surface. It didn't put in place the
means of production that would create enough money for them to grow productively. Essentially,
Rome was a financial rentier state .
Rentiers don't create production. They live off existing production, they don't
create it. That's why the classical economists said they were supporting industrial
capitalists, not British landlords, not monopolists and not predatory banks.
JS : This has all been forgotten, both in the United States and in England --
MH : Let's say, expurgated from the curriculum.
JS : Worse than forgotten!
MH : That's why you don't have any history of economic thought taught anymore in the
United States. Because then you'd see that Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and the "Ricardian
socialists" and indeed most of the 19th century had a completely opposite idea of what
constituted a free market.
JS : Opposite? How so?
MH : Opposite from the neoliberal idea that freedom means freedom for the wealthy to
indebt and destroy the economy. Opposite from the liberty of Brutus to overthrow the Roman
kings and establish an autocratic oligarchy.
JS : So do we want to see the Roman kings as defenders of the people -- defending
them from predatory oligarchs?
MH : Yes, especially Servius Tullius. There was a great flowering of Rome, making it
attractive to immigrants by making the city livable for newcomers. They did this because at
that time, in the 6th century BC, all societies had a shortage of labor. Labor was the factor
of production in short supply, not land. Not even in Athens was land in short supply in the 6th
and 5th centuries. You needed labor, and so you had to make it attractive for immigrants to
join your society instead of having your people run away, as they would in a society run by
creditors reducing clients to bondage.
JS : So you are writing about how Roman liberty was actually the liberty of
oligarchic creditors from populist pressures for debt forgiveness. What of the
d'ror of Leviticus 25 -- the liberty of the postexilic Jews? Did they actually proclaim
years of Jubilee in which debts were forgiven and bondservants were returned to their
families?
MH : After the Babylonian Jews returned to Jerusalem, I'm sure that they said that it
was time for the land to be returned to its original owners -- and their families, by the way,
were the original owners who were exiled in the Babylonian Captivity. I rely largely on Baruch
Levine for this idea of the ge'ullah
[גְּאֻלָּה], saying give us back our
ancestral lands. [See thecolloquium Levine and Hudson co-edited on Land and Urbanization in
the Ancient Near East , and their preceding volume on ancient privatization.] There must
have been some kind of settlement along those lines. Unfortunately, the Judaic lands did not
keep their records on on clay tablets that could be thrown out and recovered thousands of years
later. We don't have any record of their economic history after the Return.
JS : Now I've brought along the transcriptions of several Egyptian papyri for you to
look at. I also want to show you a papyrus in Aramaic from Judæa. It's not direct
evidence that the post-exilic Jews were having Jubilee years, but it's indirect evidence,
because it says that a particular debt has to be paid, even during a time of general debt
amnesty, even if it falls due in a shmita [שמיטה], a
sabbath year. So it sounds like the Jews were finding loopholes --
MH : It certainly sounds like it! Babylonian creditors tried a similar ploy, but this
was disallowed. (We have court records confirming the realm's misharum acts.)
JS : In the Mosaic commandments to forgive debt, can we infer that there was some
sort of program of debt forgiveness in place already in place in postexilic Jerusalem?
MH : Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign
this clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the
Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and the
rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about [ And there was delivered unto him
the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it
was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord" = the Jubilee year.] Luke also pointed out that the
Pharisees loved money!
JS : Let me ask you about Egypt here. Unfortunately, as you said, the postexilic Jews
did not leave us any clay tablets and almost no papyri, but we do have loads of papyri
concerning the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. So from, say, 300 B.C. to the death of Cleopatra, we
have official evidence that the Egyptian kings proclaimed debt amnesties. Maybe one of the
reasons, or perhaps the main reason for this, is because they were so powerful, like the
Mesopotamian kings. So even though the Ptolemaic kings were biologically and genetically
Macedonian Greek -- married to their sisters, too -- they aspired to rule in the ancient
Egyptian pharaonic tradition of We Are God-Kings and We Own Everything in the Kingdom.
MH : Certainly the Hellenistic kings had the ancient pharaonic Sed festivals, which
go back thousands of years and were a kind of jubilee. The Egyptians had regular debt
cancellations, because under the pharaohs the debts that would have been cancelled were
basically tax debts. They were owed to the crown, so he was cancelling debts owed to himself
ultimately. And we see this thousands of years later in the trilingual stone, the Rosetta
Stone, which the priests wrote for that young boy who was Ptolemy V. They explained to him that
this is how Egypt always had done it, and to act as a pharaoh, he had to do the same.
JS : And I think it is worth pointing out here that the same verb-plus-noun
combination for forgiving debts that the priests used in Greek on the Rosetta Stone is also
used by Matthew in the Lord's Prayer
[ἀφῆκεν/ἄφες
ὀφειλήματα, aphēken/aphes
opheilēmata]. It shows up in lots of papyri. The same Greek verb and noun, again and again
and again.
But let's go back to the Greeks of the 500s BC. They are a couple of hundred years out of
their Dark Age, so their society has been reconstituted after the demographic wipeout. It's
been reconstituted, but without Near Eastern-style "divine kingship" and its Clean Slate
proclamations. Just the opposite. Socrates had conversations with the rhapsodes who had
memorized and recited the Iliad . Even in their great epic, the Greeks' legendary king
of kings Agamemnon comes across as a kind of narcissistic loser. How would you describe Greek
kingship, especially the so-called tyrants?
MH : There never really were Greek kings of the type found throughout the Bronze Age
Near East and surviving into the first millennium in Assyria and even in Persia. The Greek
polities that emerged from their Dark Age were run by what shrewd Classicists call
mafiosi , something like the post-Soviet kleptocrats. They formed closed political
monopolies reducing local populations to clientage and dependency. In one polity after another
they were overthrown and exiled, mainly by aristocratic reformers from the elite families
(often secondary branches, as was Solon). Later oligarchic writers called them "tyrants" as an
invective, much as the word rex -- king -- became an invective in oligarchic Rome.
These tyrant-reformers consolidated their power by redistributing land from the leading
families (or in Sparta, land conquered from Messenia, along with its population reduced to
helotage) to the citizen-army at large all over Greece – except in Athens. That was one
of the most reactionary cities in the 7th century, as shown by what is known about the laws of
Draco. After some abortive coups in the seventh century, Solon was appointed in 594 to avoid
the kind of revolution that had led reformer "tyrants" to overthrow narrow aristocracies in
neighboring Megara and Corinth. Solon decreed a half-way reform, abolishing debt slavery (but
not the debtor's obligation to work off debts with his own labor), and did not redistribute
Athenian land from the city's elites.
Athens was one of the last to reform but then because it was such a badly polarized
autocratic society, it swung -- like Newton's Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal
and opposite reaction -- it swung to become the most democratic of all the Greek polities.
Some historians in the past speculated that Solon might somehow have been influenced by
Judaic law or other Near Eastern practice, but this is not realistic. I think Solon was simply
a pragmatist responding to widespread demands that he do what the reformers -- the so-called
tyrants -- were doing throughout Greece. He didn't redistribute the land like they did, but he
at least ended outright debt slavery. Free debtors (mainly cultivators on the land) were being
seized and sold outside of Athens to slave dealers. Solon also tried to recover some of the
land that wealthy families had grabbed. At least, that's what he wrote in his poems describing
his actions.
So to answer your question, I think debt cancellations were not a diffusionist policy from
the East, but a spontaneous pragmatic response such as was being widely advocated as far west
as Rome with its Secession of the Plebs a century later -- followed by much of Greece in the
4th century BC, and Sparta's kings in the late 3rd century BC.
Poorer Athenians were so angry with Solon for being not revolutionary enough that he went
into exile for 10 years. The real creators of Athenian democracy were Peisistratos [died 528/7
BC], his sons, also called tyrants, and then Cleisthenes in 507. He was a member of the wealthy
but outcast family, the Alcmaeonidae, who had been expelled in the 7th century. Solon had
allowed them to return, and they were backed by Delphi (to which the family contributed
heavily). Cleisthenes fought against the other oligarchic families and restructured Athenian
politics on the basis of locality instead of clan membership. Servius Tullius is credited for
enacting much the same reform in Rome. Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society [1877]
described this restructuring of voting districts as the great watershed creation of
western-style democracy.
JS : Let me go back now to the way Athens and the other poleis emerged from
the Dark Age.
MH : Judging from the art and pottery, Greece didn't begin to recover until the 8th
century BC.
JS : So we're talking about the 700s BC. As Greece was learning from the Near Eastern
civilizations, everything from mythology to the alphabet to weights and measures --
MH : And commercial practices, credit practices.
JS : Yes, all this came from the Near East, including the practice of charging
interest. But what about Clean Slate debt amnesty? I want to argue logically here -- not from
any hard historical evidence, but only deductively -- that the Greeks would have wanted the
concept of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, they would have wanted to learn this too from the Near
East, but they could not do it because they were always going to lack a Hammurabi-style "divine
king."
MH : I think you miss the whole point of how Western civilization evolved here. First
of all, who "wanted" Near Eastern kingship? Certainly not the emerging oligarchies. The ruling
elites wanted to use interest-bearing debt to enrich themselves – by obtaining control
over the labor power of debtors.
Second, I don't think the Greeks and Italians knew about Near Eastern royal proclamations,
except as an alien practice much further East than Asia Minor. Falling into debt was a disaster
for the poor, but a means for their Western patrons to gain power, land and wealth. There is no
record of anyone suggesting that they should be in the Near East. The connection between the
Near East and Greece or Italy was via traders. If you're a Phoenician or Syrian merchant with
the Aegean or Italy, you're going to set up a temple as an intermediary, typically on an
island. Such temples became the cosmopolitan meeting places where you had the oligarchs of the
leading families of Greek cities visiting each other as part of a Pan-Hellenic group. You could
say that Delphi was the "Davos" of its day.
It was through these trading centers that culture diffused – via the wealthiest
families who travelled and established relationships with other leading families. Finance and
trade have always been cosmopolitan. These families learned about debt obligations and
contracts from the Near East, and ended up reducing much of their local populations to
clientage, without kings to overrule them. That would have been the last thing they wanted.
JS : So absent Hammurabi-style "divine kingship," is debt bondage and brutal
polarization almost inevitably going to happen in any society that adopts interest-bearing
debt?
MH : We see a balance of forces in the ancient Near East, thanks to the fact that its
rulers had authority to cancel debt and restore land that wealthy individuals had taken from
smallholders. These kings were powerful enough to prevent the rise of oligarchies that would
reduce the population to debt peonage and bondage (and in the process, deprive the palace of
revenue and corvée labor, and even the military service of debtors owing their labor to
their private creditors). We don't have any similar protection in today's Western Civilization.
That's what separates Western Civilization from the earlier Near Eastern stage. Modern
financialized civilization has stripped away the power to prevent a land-grabbing creditor
oligarchy from controlling society and its laws.
So you could characterize Western Civilization is being decadent. It's reducing populations
to austerity on a road to debt peonage. Today's new oligarchy calls this a "free market," but
it is the opposite of freedom. You can think of the Greek and Roman decontextualization of Near
Eastern economic regulations as if the IMF had been put in charge of Greece and Rome, poisoning
its legal and political philosophy at the outset. So Western Civilization may be just a vast
detour. That's what my forthcoming book, The Collapse of Antiquity, is all about. That
will be the second volume in my trilogy on the history of debt.
JS : So are we just a vast detour?
MH : We have to restore a balanced economy where the oligarchy is controlled, so as
to prevent the financial sector from impoverishing society, imposing austerity and reducing the
population to clientage and debt serfdom.
JS : How do you do that without a Hammurabi-style "divine kingship"?
MH : You need civil law to do what Near Eastern kings once did. You need a body of
civil law with a strong democratic government acting to shape markets in society's overall
long-term interest, not that of the One Percent obtaining wealth by impoverishing the 99
Percent. You need civil law that protects the population from an oligarchy whose business plan
is to accumulate wealth in ways that impoverish the economy at large. This requires a body of
civil law that would cancel debts when they grow too large for the population to pay. That
probably requires public banking and credit – in other words, deprivatization of banking
that has become dysfunctional.
All this requires a mixed economy, such as the Bronze Age Near Eastern economies were. The
palace, temples, private sector and entrepreneurs acted as checks and balances on each other.
Western Civilization isn't a mixed economy. Socialism was an attempt to create a mixed economy,
but the oligarchs fought back. What they call a "free market" is an unmixed monolithic,
centrally planned financialized economy with freedom for the oligarchy to impoverish the rest
of society. That was achieved by landlordism monopolizing the land in feudal Europe, and it is
done by finance today.
John Siman : Could you define what you mean by a mixed economy ?
Michael Hudson : There are many degrees of how "mixed" an economy will be -- meaning
in practice, how active its government sector will be in regulating markets, prices and credit,
and investing in public infrastructure.
In the 20 th century's Progressive Era a century ago, a "mixed economy" meant
keeping natural monopolies in the public sector: transportation, the post office, education,
health care, and so forth. The aim was to save the economy from monopoly rent by a either
direct public ownership or government regulation to prevent price gouging by monopolies.
The kind of "mixed economy" envisioned by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical
19 th century free market economists aimed at saving the economy from land rent paid
to Europe's hereditary landlord class. Either the government would tax away the land's rent, or
would nationalize it by taking land out of the hands of landlords. The idea was to free markets
from economic rent ("unearned income") in general, including monopoly rents, and also to
subsidize basic needs to create a price-competitive national economy.
Long before that, in the Bronze Age -- which I describe in and forgive them their
debts -- the palace reversed the buildup of personal and agrarian debts by annulling them
on a more or less regular basis. This freed the economy from the overgrowth of debt that tended
to build up chronically from the mathematical dynamics of compound interest, and from crop
failures or other normal "market" phenomenon.
In all these cases a mixed economy was designed to maintain stability and avoid exploitation
that otherwise would lead to economic polarization.
JS: So a mixed economy is still a market economy?
MH : Yes. All these degrees of "mixed economy" were market economies. But their
markets were regulated and subordinated to broad social and political objectives rather than to
personal rent-seeking or creditor gains. Their economic philosophy was long-term, not
short-term, and aimed at preventing economic imbalance from debt and land monopoly.
Today's "mixed economy" usually means an active public sector undertaking investment in
infrastructure and controlling money and credit, and shaping the context of laws within which
the economy operates. This is best understood by contrasting it to what neoliberals call a
"pure" or "market" economy – including what the Trump administration accuses China of
when it proposes countervailing tariffs to shape the U.S. and international market in a way
that favors American corporations and banks.
So it is necessary to clear the terminological slate before going into more detail. Every
economy is a "market economy" of some sort or another. What is at issue is how large a role
governments will play -- specifically, how much it will regulate, how much it will tax, how
much it will invest directly into the economy's infrastructure and other means of production or
act as a creditor and regulator of the monetary and banking system.
JS: What can we learn from the mixed economies of the Ancient Near East? Why were
they so prosperous and also stable for so long?
MH : The Bronze Age mixed economies of Sumer, Babylonia, Egypt and their Near Eastern
neighbors were subject to "divine kingship," that is, the ability of kings to intervene to keep
restoring an economy free of personal and rural debt, so as to maintain a situation where the
citizenry on the land was able to serve in the military, provide corvée labor to create
basic infrastructure, and pay fees or taxes to the palace and temples.
Mesopotamian rulers proclaimed Clean Slates to keep restoring an idealized status quo
ante of free labor (free from debt bondage). Babylonian rulers had a more realistic view of
the economy than today's mainstream economists. They recognized that economies tended to
polarize between wealthy creditors and debtors if what today are called "market forces" are not
overridden -- especially the "market forces" of debt, personal liberty or bondage, and land
rent. The task of Bronze Age rulers in their kind of mixed economy was to act from
"above" the market so as to prevent creditors from reducing the king's subjects (who were their
military defense force) to bondage from appropriating their land tenure rights. By protecting
debtors, strong rulers also prevented creditors from becoming an oligarchic power in opposition
to themselves.
JS: What kind of economic theories and economic models are the critics of mixed
economies trying to advance?
MH : Opponents of a mixed economy have developed an "equilibrium theory" claiming to
show that markets come to a natural, fair and stable balance without any government
"interference." Their promise is that if governments will refrain from regulating prices and
credit, from investing and from providing public services, economies will settle naturally at a
highly efficient level. This level will be stable, unless "destabilized" by government
"interference." Instead of viewing public investment as saving the economy from monopoly rent
and debt peonage, the government itself is described as a "rent seeker" exploiting and
impoverishing the economy.
JS: But is this sort of economic theory legitimate, or just a libertarian-sounding
camouflage for neoliberal pillage?
MH : It's Orwellian Doublethink. Today's neoliberal theory justifies oligarchies
breaking free of public control to appropriate the economic surplus by indebting economies to
skim off the economic surplus as interest and then foreclose on personal landholdings and
public property, overthrowing "mixed economies" to create a "pure oligarchy." Their idea of a
free market is one free for creditors and monopolists to deny economic freedom to the rest of
the population. The political extension of this approach in antiquity was to unseat kings and
civic regimes, to concentrate power in the hands of an increasingly predatory class reducing
the economy to bondage, impoverishing it, and ultimately leaving it to be conquered by
outsiders. That is what happened to Rome in Late Antiquity.
Advocates of strong government have a diametrically opposite mathematical model. Ever since
the Bronze Age, they recognized that the "natural" tendency of economies is to polarize between
a wealthy creditor and land-owning class and the rest of society. Bronze Age rulers recognized
that debts tend to grow faster than the ability to pay (that is, faster than the economy).
Babylonian rulers recognized that if rulers did not intervene to cancel personal debts (mainly
agrarian debts by cultivators) when crops failed, when military action interfered, or simply
when debts built up over time, then creditors would end up taking the crop surplus and even the
labor services of debtors as interest, and finally foreclosing on the land. This would have
deprived the palatial economy of land and labor contributions. And by enriching an independent
class of creditors (on their way to becoming large landowners) outside of the palace, financial
wealth would express itself in economic and even military power. An incipient financial and
landholding oligarchy would mount its own military and political campaign to unseat rulers and
dismantle the mixed palatial/private economy to create one that was owned and controlled by
oligarchies.
The result in Classical Antiquity was economic polarization leading to austerity and
bondage, grinding the economy to a halt. That is the tendency of economies in "unmixed"
economies where the public sector is privatized and economic regulation is dismantled. Land and
credit was monopolized and smallholders became dependent clients and ultimately were replaced
by slaves.
Mixed economies by the late 19 th century aimed at minimizing market prices for
real estate and monopoly goods, and for credit. The economic aim was to minimize the cost of
living and doing business so as to make economies more productive. This was called "socialism"
as the natural outgrowth of industrial capitalism protecting itself from the most burdensome
legacies of feudalism: an absentee landlord class, and a banking class whose money-lending was
not productive but predatory.
JS: So mixed economies require strong and ultimately good governments.
MH : Any "mixed" economy has some basic economic theory of what the proper role of
government is. At the very least, as in the 20 th century, this included the
limitation of monopoly rents. The neoclassical (that is, anti-classical) reaction was to
formulate a euphemistic theory of consumer "demand" -- as if American consumers "demand" to pay
high prices for pharmaceuticals and health care. Likewise in the case of housing prices for
renters or, for owner-occupied housing, mortgage charges: Do renters and home buyers really
"demand" to pay higher and higher rents and larger and larger mortgages? Or are they compelled
to pay out of need, paying whatever their suppliers demand ( e.g ., as in "Your money or
your life/health").
So to answer your question, a mixed economy is one in which governments and society at large
realize that economies need to be regulated and monopolies (headed by credit and land
ownership) kept out of the hands of private rent-seekers in order to keep the economy free and
efficient.
JS : Has there ever been a civil society that effectively implemented a mixed economy
since, say, 500 BC?
MH : All successful economies have been mixed economies. And the more "mixed" they
are, the more successful, stable and long-lasting they have been as a result of their mutual
public/private checks and balances.
America was a mixed economy in the late 19th century. It became the world's most successful
industrial economy because it didn't have an absentee landlord class like Europe did (except
for the railroad octopus), and it enacted protective tariffs to endow a domestic manufacturing
class to catch up with and overtake England.
JS : Other countries?
MH : Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I.
But it had a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural
faith in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.
JS : Isn't it pretty brutal in China for most of the population?
MH : Most of the population does not find it brutal there. It was brutal under
colonialism and later still, under Mao's Cultural Revolution. But now, most people in China
seem to want to get rich. That's why you're having a consolidation period of trying to get rid
of the local corruption, especially in the rural areas. You're seeing a consolidation period
that requires clamping down on a lot of people who became successful through shady
operations.
JS : So how would you describe an ideal society without a Hammurabi-style "divine
kingship"? An ideal mixed economy?
MH : The credit system would be public. That way, public banks could create credit
for socially productive purposes -- and could cancel the occasional overgrowth of debts without
causing private creditors to lose and protest. The public sector also would own and operate the
natural infrastructure monopolies. That was the basic principle of classical economics from
Adam Smith to Marx, even for erstwhile libertarians such as Henry George. Everybody in the 19th
century expected a mixed economy with governments playing a growing role, replacing absentee
landlords, bankers and monopolists with public collection of economic rent, public control of
the credit system and provider of basic needs.
JS : How extensive should the public sector be?
MH : A classical public sector would include the natural monopolies that otherwise
would engage in price gouging, especially the credit and banking system. These sectors should
be public in character. For one thing, only a public bank can write down the debts -- like
student debts today -- without hurting an independent oligarchic financial class. If student
debts and mortgage debts were owed to public banks, they could be written down in keeping with
the reasonable ability to be paid. Also, public banks wouldn't make junk mortgage loans to
NINJA borrowers, as did Citibank and the other crooked banks. A public bank wouldn't make
predatory corporate raiding and takeover loans, or finance and speculate in derivative
gambles.
Most of all, when the debt overhead becomes too large -- when a large corporation that is
essential to the economy can't pay its debts -- public banks can write down the debt so that
the company isn't forced into bankruptcy and sold to an American vulture fund or other vulture
fund. It can keep operating. In China the government provides this essential service of public
banks.
The key public concern throughout history has been to prevent debt from crippling society.
That aim is what Babylonian and other third-millennium and second-millennium Near Eastern
rulers recognized clearly enough, with their mathematical models. To make an ideal society you
need the government to control the basic utilities -- land, finance, mineral wealth, natural
resources and infrastructure monopolies (including the Internet today), pharmaceuticals and
health care so their basic services can be supplied at the lowest price.
All this was spelled out in the 19 th century by business school analysts in the
United States. Simon Patten [1852-1922] who said that public investment is the "fourth factor
of production." But its aim isn't to make a profit for itself. Rather, it's to lower the cost
of living and of doing business, by providing basic needs either on a subsidized basis or for
free. The aim was to create a low-cost society without a rentier class siphoning off
unearned income and making this economic rent a hereditary burden on the economy at large. You
want to prevent unearned income.
To do that, you need a concept to define economic rent as unearned and hence unnecessary
income. A well-managed economy would do what Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marx
and Veblen recommended: It would prevent a hereditary rentier class living off unearned
income and increasing society's economic overhead. It's okay to make a profit, but not to make
extractive monopoly rent, land rent or financial usury rent.
JS : Will human beings ever create such a society?
MH : If they don't, we're going to have a new Dark Age.
JS : That's one thing that especially surprises me about the United States. Is it not
clear to educated people here that our ruling class is fundamentally extractive and
exploitative?
MH : A lot of these educated people are part of the ruling class, and simply taking
their money and running. They are disinvesting, not investing in industry. They're saying, "The
financial rentier game is ending, so let's sell everything and maybe buy a farm in New
Zealand to go to when there is a big war." So the financial elite is quite aware that they are
getting rich by running the economy into the ground, and that this must end at the point where
they've taken everything and left a debt-ridden shell behind.
JS : I guess this gets back to what you were saying: The history of economics has
been expurgated from the curriculum.
MH : Once you strip away economic history and the history of economic thought, you
wipe out memory of the vocabulary that people have used to criticize rent seeking and other
unproductive activity. You then are in a position to redefine words and ideals along the lines
that euphemize predatory and parasitic activities as if they are productive and desirable, even
natural. You can rewrite history to suppress the idea that all this is the opposite of what
Adam Smith and the classicaleconomists down through Marx advocated.
Today's neoliberal wasteland is basically a reaction against the 19 th century
reformers, against the logic of classical British political economy. The hatred of Marx is
ultimately the hatred of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, because neoliberals realize that
Smith and Mill and Ricardo were all leading to Marx. He was the culmination of their free
market views -- a market free from rentiers and monopolists.
That was the immediate aim of socialism in the late 19 th century. The logic of
classical political economy was leading to a socialist mixed economy. In order to fight
Marxism, you have to fight classical economics and erase memory of how civilization has dealt
with (or failed to deal with) the debt and rent-extracting problems through the ages. The
history of economic thought and the original free-market economics has to be suppressed.
Today's choice is therefore between socialism or barbarism, as Rosa Luxemburg said.
JS : Let's consider barbarism: When I observe the neoliberal ruling class -- the
people who control the finance sector and the managerial class on Wall Street -- I often wonder
if they're historically exceptional because they've gone beyond simple greed and lust for
wealth. They now seek above all some barbaric and sadistic pleasure in the financial
destruction and humiliation of other people. Or is this historically normal?
MH : The financial class has always lived in the short run, and you can make
short-term money much quicker by asset stripping and being predatory can by being productive.
Moses Finley wrote that there was not a single productive loan in all of Antiquity. That was
quite an overstatement, but he was making the point that there were no productive financial
markets in Antiquity. Almost all manufacturing, industry, and agriculture was self-financed. So
the reader of Finley likely infers that we modern people have progressed in a fundamental way
beyond Antiquity. They were characterized by the homo politicus , greedy for status. We
have evolved into homo œconomicus , savvy enough to live in stable safety and
comfort.
We are supposedly the beneficiaries of the revolution of industrial capitalism, as if all
the predatory, polarizing, usurious lending that you had from feudal times (and before that,
from Antiquity), was replaced by productive lending that finances means of production and
actual economic growth.
But in reality, modern banks don't lend money for production. They say, "That's the job of
the stock market." Banks only lend if there's collateral to grab. They lend against assets in
place. So the result of more bank lending is to increase the price of the assets that banks
lend against -- on credit! This way of "wealth creation" via asset-price inflation is the
opposite of real substantive progress. It enriches the narrow class of asset holders at the top
of the economic pyramid.
JS : What about the stock market?
MH : The stock market no longer primarily provides money for capital investment. It
has become a vehicle for bondholders and corporate raiders to borrow from banks and private
funds to buy corporate stockholders, take the companies private, downsize them, break them up
or strip their assets, and borrow more to buy back their stocks to create asset-price gains
without increasing the economy's tangible real asset base. So the financial sector, except for
a brief period in the late 19th century, especially in Germany, has rarely financed productive
growth. Financial engineering has replaced industrial engineering, just as in Antiquity
creditors were asset strippers.
The one productive activity that the financial sector engaged in from the Bronze Age onward
was to finance foreign trade. The original interest-bearing debt was owed by merchants to
reimburse their silent partners, typically the palace or the temples, and in time wealthy
individuals. But apart from financing trade – in products that were already produced
– you've rarely had finance increase the means of production or economic growth. It's
almost always been to extract income. The income that finance extracts is at the expense of the
rest of society. So the richer the financial sector is, the more austerity is imposed on the
non-financial sector.
JS : That's pretty depressing.
MH : When I did the show with Jimmy Dore [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvcB55R8jM
], he saw that the most important dynamic to understand is that debts grow more rapidly than
the economy at large. The rate of interest is higher than the rate of growth. It may not be
higher than the profit rate, but it's higher than the rate of growth. So every society that has
interest-bearing debt is going to end up deeper and deeper in debt. At a certain point the
creditors are paid at the expense of production and investment -- and soon enough they
foreclose.
JS : And then?
MH : Then you have debt deflation. That is the norm. Austerity. It is not an anomaly,
but the essence. The Babylonians knew this, and they tried to avoid debt deflation by wiping
out the predatory personal debts, not the business debts that were commercial and productive.
Only the non-commercial debts were wiped out.
JS : How could Modern Monetary Theory be used now, effectively?
MH : The main way is to say that governments don't have to borrow at interest from
existing financial "savers," mainly the One Percent. The government can do what America did
during the Civil War: print greenbacks. (The MMT version is the Trillion-dollar platinum coin.)
The Treasury can provide the money needed by the economy. It does that by running a budget
deficit and spending money into the economy. If you don't do that, if you do what Bill
Clinton did in the last years of his presidency and run a budget surplus, then you force the
economy to depend on banks for credit.
The problem is that bank credit is essentially predatory and extractive. The same thing
happens in Europe. The Eurozone governments cannot run a budget deficit of more than 3 percent,
so the government is unable to spend enough money to invest in public infrastructure or
anything else. As a result, the Eurozone economy is subject to debt deflation, which is
exacerbated by people having to borrow from the banks at high interest rates that far exceeds
the rate of growth. So Europe is suffering an even more serious debt deflation than the United
States.
JS : Is any of this going to change, either in Europe or here?
MH : Not until there's a crash. Not until it gets serious enough that people realize
that there has to be an alternative. Right now Margaret Thatcher and the neoliberals have won.
She said there was no alternative, and as long as people believe There Is No Alternative,
they're not going to realize that it doesn't have to be this way, and that you don't need a
private banking sector. A public banking sector would be much more efficient.
JS : How would you sum up Wall Street right now? Is it entirely predatory? Entirely
parasitical? What are Wall Street's essential functions now?
MH : Number one, to run a casino. By far the largest volume at stake is betting on
whether interest rates, foreign exchange rates or stock prices will go up or down. So the
financial system has turned into a gambling casino. Its second aim is to load the economy down
with as much debt as possible. Debt is the banking system's "product," and the GDP counts its
"carried interest" penalties and late fees, its short-term trading gains as "financial
services" counted as part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The aim is to get as much of these financial returns as possible, and finally to foreclose
on as much property of defaulting debtors as possible. The business plan -- as I learned at
Chase Manhattan years ago -- is to transfer all economic growth into the hands of financial
investors, the One Percent. The financial business plan is to create a set of laws and mount a
campaign of regulatory capture so that all the growth in the economy accrues to the One
Percent, not the 99 Percent. That means that as the One Percent's rentier income grows,
the 99 Percent gets less and less each year, until finally it emigrates or dies off, or is put
into a for-profit prison, which looks like a growth industry today.
JS : Is there a single good thing that Wall Street does? Is there anything good that
comes out of Wall Street?
MH: You have to look at it as a system. You can't segregate a particular action from
the overall economy. If the overall system aims at making money in predatory ways at somebody
else's expense, then it is a zero-sum game. That is essentially a short-run business model. And
politically, it involves opposing a mixed economy. At least, the "old fashioned" socialist
mixed economy in which governments subordinate short-term gain-seeking to long-term objectives
uplifting the entire economy.
As the Greek philosophers recognized, wealthy people define their power by their ability to
injure the rest of society, so as to lord it over them. That was the Greek philosophy of
money-lust [πλεονεξία, pleonexia ]
and hubris [ὕβρις] -- not merely arrogance, but behavior that was
injurious to others.
Rentier income is injurious to society at large. Rentiers define a "free
market" as one in which they are free to deny economic freedom to their customers,
employees and other victims. The rentier model is to enrich the oligarchy to a point
where it is able to capture the government.
John Siman : It seems that unless there's a Hammurabi-style "divine king" or some
elected civic regulatory authority, oligarchies will arise and exploit their societies as much
as they can, while trying to prevent the victimized economy from defending itself.
Michael Hudson : Near Eastern rulers kept credit and land ownership subordinate to
the aim of maintaining overall growth and balance. They prevented creditors from turning
citizens into indebted clients obliged to work off their debts instead of serving in the
military, providing corvée labor and paying crop rents or other fees to the palatial
sector.
JS : So looking at history going back to 2000 or 3000 BC, once we no longer have the
powerful Near Eastern "divine kings," there seems not to have been a stable and free economy.
Debts kept mounting up to cause political revolts. In Rome, this started with the Secession of
the Plebs in 494 BC, a century after Solon's debt cancellation resolved a similar Athenian
crisis.
MH : Near Eastern debt cancellations continued into the Neo-Assyrian and
Neo-Babylonian Empires in the first millennium BC, and also into the Persian Empire. Debt
amnesties and laws protecting debtors prevented the debt slavery that is found in Greece and
Rome. What modern language would call the Near Eastern "economic model" recognized that
economies tended to become unbalanced, largely as a result of buildup of debt and various
arrears on payments. Economic survival in fact required an ethic of growth and rights for the
citizenry (who manned the army) to be self-supporting without running into debt and losing
their economic liberty and personal freedom. Instead of the West's ultimate drastic solution of
banning interest, rulers cancelled the buildup of personal debts to restore an idealized order
"as it was in the beginning."
This ideology has always needed to be sanctified by religion or at least by democratic
ideology in order to prevent the predatory privatization of land, credit, and ultimately the
government. Greek philosophy warned against monetary greed
[πλεονεξία, pleonexia ] and
money-love [φιλοχρηματία,
philochrêmatia ] from Sparta's mythical lawgiver Lycurgus to Solon's poems
describing his debt cancellation in 594 and the subsequent philosophy of Plato and Socrates, as
well as the plays of Aristophanes. The Delphic Oracle warned that money-love was the only thing
that could destroy Sparta [Diodorus Siculus 7.5]. That indeed happened after 404 BC when the
war with Athens ended and foreign tribute poured into Sparta's almost un-monetized regulated
economy.
The problem, as famously described in The Republic and handed down in Stoic
philosophy, was how to prevent a wealthy class from becoming wealth-addicted, hubristic and
injurious to society. The 7 th -century "tyrants" were followed by Solon in Athens
in banning luxuries and public shows of wealth, most notoriously at funerals for one's
ancestors. Socrates went barefoot
[ἀνυπόδητος, anupodêtos ] to
show his contempt for wealth, and hence his freedom from its inherent personality defects. Yet
despite this universal ideal of avoiding extremes, oligarchic rule became economically
polarizing and destructive, writing laws to make its creditor claims and the loss of land by
smallholders irreversible. That was the opposite of Near Eastern Clean Slates and their
offshoot, Judaism's Jubilee Year.
JS : So despite the ideals of their philosophy, Greek political systems had no
function like that of Hammurabi-like kings -- or philosopher-kings for that matter -- empowered
to hold financial oligarchies in check. This state of affairs led philosophers to develop an
economic tradition of lamentation instead. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Livy and Plutarch
bemoaned the behavior of the money-loving oligarchy. But they did not develop a program to
rectify matters. The best they could do was to inspire and educate individuals -- most of whom
were their wealthy students and readers. As you said, they bequeathed a legacy of Stoicism.
Seeing that the problem was not going to be solved in their lifetimes, they produced a
beautiful body of literature praising philosophical virtue.
MH : The University of Chicago, where I was an undergraduate in the 1950s, focused on
Greek philosophy. We read Plato's Republic , but they skipped over the discussion of
wealth-addiction. They talked about philosopher-kings without explaining that Socrates' point
was that rulers must not own land and other wealth, so as not to have the egotistical tunnel
vision that characterized creditors monopolizing control over land and labor.
JS : In Book 8 of the Republic , Socrates condemns oligarchies as being
characterized by an insatiable greed [ἀπληστία,
aplêstia ] for money and specifically criticizes them for allowing polarization
between the super-rich
[ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi
] and the poor [πένητες, penêtes ], who are made
utterly resourceless [ἄποροι, aporoi ].
MH : One needs to know the context of Greek economic history in order to understand
The Republic 's main concern. Popular demands for land redistribution and debt
cancellation were resisted with increasing violence. Yet few histories of Classical Antiquity
focus on this financial dimension of the distribution of land, money and wealth.
Socrates said that if you let the wealthiest landowners and creditors become the government,
they're probably going to be wealth-addicted and turn the government into a vehicle to help
them exploit the rest of society. There was no idea at Chicago of this central argument made by
Socrates about rulers falling subject to wealth-addiction. The word "oligarchy" never came up
in my undergraduate training, and the "free market" business school's Ayn Rand philosophy of
selfishness is as opposite from Greek philosophy as it is from Judeo-Christian religion.
JS : The word "oligarchy" comes up a lot in book 8 of Plato's Republic . Here
are 3 passages:
1. At Stephanus page 550c "And what kind of a regime," said he, "do you understand by
oligarchy [ὀλιγαρχία]?" "That based on a
property qualification," said I, "wherein the rich
[πλούσιοι] hold office [550d] and the poor man
[πένης, penês ] is excluded.
2. at 552a "Consider now whether this polity [ i.e . oligarchy] is not the first that
admits that which is the greatest of all such evils." "What?" "The allowing a man to sell all
his possessions, which another is permitted to acquire, and after selling them to go on living
in the city, but as no part of it, neither a money-maker, nor a craftsman, nor a knight, nor a
foot-soldier, but classified only as a pauper [πένης, penês
] and a dependent [ἄπορος, aporos ]." [552b] "This
is the first," he said. "There certainly is no prohibition of that sort of thing in
oligarchical states. Otherwise some of their citizens would not be excessively rich
[ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi
], and others out and out paupers [πένητες,
penêtes ]."
3 at 555b: "Then," said I, "is not the transition from oligarchy to democracy effected in
some such way as this -- by the insatiate greed
[ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for that which
oligarchy set before itself as the good, the attainment of the greatest possible wealth?"
MH : By contrast, look where Antiquity ended up by the 2 nd century BC.
Rome physically devastated Athens, Sparta, Corinth and the rest of Greece. By the Mithridatic
Wars (88-63 BC) their temples were looted and their cities driven into unpayably high debt to
Roman tax collectors and Italian moneylenders. Subsequent Western civilization developed not
from the democracy in Athens but from oligarchies supported by Rome. Democratic states were
physically destroyed, blocking civic regulatory power and imposing pro-creditor legal
principles making foreclosures and forced land sales irreversible.
JS: It seems that Greek and Roman Antiquity could not solve the problem of economic
polarization. That makes me want to ask about our own country: To what extent does America
resemble Rome under the emperors?
MH: Wealthy families have always tried to break "free" from central political power
-- free to destroy the freedom of people they get into debt and take their land and property.
Successful societies maintain balance. That requires public power to check and reverse the
excesses of personal wealth seeking, especially debt secured by the debtor's labor and land or
other means of self-support. Balanced societies need the power to reverse the tendency of debts
to grow faster than the ability to be paid. That tendency runs like a red thread through Greek
and Roman history.
This overgrowth of debt is also destabilizing today's U.S. and other financialized
economies. Banking and financial interests have broken free of tax liability since 1980, and
are enriching themselves not by helping the overall economy grow and raising living standards,
but just the opposite: by getting the bulk of society into debt to themselves.
This financial class is also indebting governments and taking payment in the form of
privatizing the public domain. (Greece is a conspicuous recent example.) This road to
privatization, deregulation and un-taxing of wealth really took off with Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan cheerleading the anti-classical philosophy of Frederick von Hayek and the
anti-classical economics of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys.
Something much like this happened in Rome. Arnold Toynbee described its oligarchic land grab
that endowed its ruling aristocracy with unprecedented wealth as Hannibal's Revenge. That was
the main legacy of Rome's Punic Wars with Carthage ending around 200 BC. Rome's wealthy
families who had contributed their jewelry and money to the war effort, made their power grab
and said that what originally appeared to be patriotic contributions should be viewed as having
been a loan. The Roman treasury was bare, so the government (controlled by these wealthy
families) gave them public land, the ager publicus that otherwise would have been used
to settle war veterans and other needy.
Once you inherit wealth, you tend to think that it's naturally yours, not part of society's
patrimony for mutual aid. You see society in terms of yourself, not yourself as part of
society. You become selfish and increasingly predatory as the economy shrinks as a result of
your indebting it and monopolizing its land and property. You see yourself as exceptional, and
justify this by thinking of yourself as what Donald Trump would call "a winner," not subject to
the rules of "losers," that is, the rest of society. That's a major theme in Greek philosophy
from Socrates andPlato and Aristotle through the Stoics. They saw an inherent danger posed by
an increasingly wealthy landholding and creditor ruling class atop an indebted population at
large. If you let such a class emerge independently of social regulation and checks on personal
egotism and hubris, the economic and political system becomes predatory. Yet that has been the
history of Western civilization.
Lacking a tradition of subordinating debt and land foreclosure from smallholders, the Greek
and Italian states that emerged in the 7 th century BC took a different political
course from the Near East. Subsequent Western civilization lacked a regime of oversight to
alleviate debt problems and keep the means of self-support broadly distributed.
The social democratic movements that flowered from the late 19 th century until
the 1980s sought to re-create such regulatory mechanisms, as in Teddy Roosevelt's trust
busting, the income tax, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, postwar British social democracy. But
these moves to reverse economic inequality and polarization are now being rolled back, causing
austerity, debt deflation and the concentration of wealth at the top of the economic pyramid.
As oligarchies take over government, they lorded it over the rest of society much like feudal
lords who emerged from the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the West.
The tendency is for political power to reflect wealth. Rome's constitution weighted voting
power in proportion to one's landholdings, minimizing the voting power of the non-wealthy.
Today's private funding of political campaigns in the United States is more indirect in
shifting political power to the Donor Class, away from the Voting Class. The effect is to turn
governments to serve a financial and property-owning class instead of prosperity for the
economy at large. We thus are in a position much like that of Rome in 509 BC, when the kings
were overthrown by an oligarchy claiming to "free" their society from any power able to control
the wealthy. The call for "free markets" today is for deregulation of rentier wealth,
turning the economy into a free-for-all.
Classical Greece and Italy had a fatal flaw: From their inception they had no tradition of a
mixed public/private economy such as characterized in the Near East, whose palatial economy and
temples produced the main economic surplus and infrastructure. Lacking royal overrides, the
West never developed policies to prevent a creditor oligarchy from reducing the indebted
population to debt bondage, and foreclosing on the land of smallholders. Advocates of debt
amnesties were accused of "seeking kingship" in Rome, or aspiring to "tyranny"(in Greece).
JS: It seems to me that you're saying this economic failure is Antiquity's original
sin as well as fatal flaw. We have inherited a great philosophic and literary tradition from
them analyzing and lamenting this failure, but without a viable program to set it right.
MH: That insight unfortunately has been stripped out of the curriculum of classical
studies, just as the economics discipline sidesteps the phenomenon of wealth addiction. If you
take an economics course, the first thing you're taught in price theory is diminishing marginal
utility: The more of anything you have, the less you need it or enjoy it. You can't enjoy
consuming it beyond a point. But Socrates and Aristophanes emphasized, accumulating money is
not like eating bananas, chocolate or any other consumable commodity. Money is different
because, as Socrates said, it is addictive, and soon becomes an insatiable desire
[ἀπληστία, aplêstia ].
JS: Yes, I understand! Bananas are fundamentally different from money because you can
get sick of bananas, but you can never have too much money! In your forthcoming book, The
Collapse of Antiquity , you quote what Aristophanes says in his play Plutus (the god
of wealth and money). The old man Chremylus -- his name is based on the Greek word for money,
chrêmata [χρήματα] -- Chremylus and his slave
perform a duet in praise of Plutus as the prime cause of everything in the world, reciting a
long list. The point is that money is a singular special thing: "O Money-god, people never get
sick of your gifts. They get tired of everything else; they get tired of love and bread, of
music and honors, of treats and military advancement, of lentil soup, etc., etc. But they never
get tired of money. If a man has thirteen talents of silver -- 13 million dollars, say -- he
wants sixteen; and if he gets sixteen, he will want forty, and so forth, and he will complain
of being short of cash the whole time."
MH: Socrates's problem was to figure out a way to have government that did not serve
the wealthy acting in socially destructive ways. Given that his student Platowas an aristocrat
and that Plato's students in the Academy werearistocratsas well, how can you have a government
run by philosopher-kings? Socrates's solution was not practical at that time: Rulers should not
have money or property. But all governments were based on the property qualification, so his
proposal for philosopher-kings lacking wealth was utopian. And like Plato and other Greek
aristocrats, they disapproved of debt cancellations, accusing these of being promoted by
populist leaders seeking to become tyrants.
JS: Looking over the broad sweep of Roman history, your book describes how, century
after century, oligarchs were whacking every energetic popular advocate whose policies
threatened their monopoly of political power, and their economic power as creditors and
privatizers of the public domain, Rome's ager publicus , for themselves.
I brought with me on the train Cæsar's Gallic War . What do you think of
Cæsar and how historians have interpreted his role?
MH: The late 1 st century BC was a bloodbath for two generations before
Cæsar was killed by oligarchic senators. I think his career exemplifies what Aristotle
said of aristocracies turning into democracies: He sought to take the majority of citizens into
their own camp to oppose the aristocratic monopolies of landholding, the courts and political
power.
Cæsar sought to ameliorate the oligarchic Senate's worst abuses that were stifling
Rome's economy and even much of the aristocracy. Mommsen is the most famous historian
describing how rigidly and unyieldingly the Senate opposed democratic attempts to achieve a
role in policy-making for the population at large, or to defend the debtors losing their land
to creditors, who were running the government for their own personal benefit. He described how
Sulla strengthened the oligarchy against Marius, and Pompey backed the Senate against Caesar.
But competition for the consulship and other offices was basically just a personal struggle
among rival individuals, not rival concrete political programs. Roman politics was autocratic
from the very start of the Republic when the aristocracy overthrew the kings in 509 BC. Roman
politics during the entire Republic was a fight by the oligarchy against democracy and the
populace as a whole.
The patricians used violence to "free" themselves from any public authority able to check
their own monopoly of power, money and land acquisition by expropriating smallholders and
grabbing the public domain being captured from neighboring peoples. Roman history from one
century to the next is a narrative of killing advocates of redistributing public land to the
people instead of letting it be grabbed by the patricians, or who called for a debt
cancellation or even just an amelioration of the cruel debts laws.
On the one hand, Mommsen idolized Cæsar as if he were a kind of revolutionary
democrat. But given the oligarchy's total monopoly on political power and force, Mommsen
recognized that under these conditions there could not be any political solution to Rome's
economic polarization and impoverishment. There could only be anarchy or a dictatorship. So
Caesar's role was that of a Dictator -- vastly outnumbered by his opposition.
A generation before Caesar, Sulla seized power militarily, bringing his army to conquer Rome
and making himself Dictator in 82 BC. He drew up a list of his populist opponents to be
murdered and their estates confiscated by their killers. He was followed by Pompey, who could
have become a dictator but didn't have much political sense, so Caesar emerged victorious.
Unlike Sulla or Pompey, he sought a more reformist policy to check the senatorial corruption
and self-dealing.
The oligarchic Senate's only "political program" was opposition to "kingship" or any such
power able to check its land grabbing and corruption. The oligarchs assassinated him, as they
had killed Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus in 133 and 121, the praetor Asellio who sought to
alleviate the population's debt burden in 88 by trying to enforce pro-creditor laws, and of
course the populist advocates of debt cancellation such as Catiline and his supporters.
Would-be reformers were assassinated from the very start of the Republic after the aristocracy
overthrew Rome's kings.
JS: If Caesar had been successful, what kind of ruler might he have been?
MH: In many ways he was like the reformer-tyrants of the 7 th and 6
th centuries in Corinth, Megara and other Greek cities. They all were members of the
ruling elite. He tried to check the oligarchy's worst excesses and land grabs, and like
Catiline, Marius and the Gracchi brothers before him, to ameliorate the problems faced by
debtors. But by his time the poorer Romans already had lost their land, so the major debts were
owed by wealthier landowners. His bankruptcy law only benefited the well-to-do who had bought
land on credit and could not pay their moneylenders as Rome's long Civil War disrupted the
economy. The poor already had been ground down. They supported him mainly for his moves toward
democratizing politics at the expense of the Senate.
JS: After his assassination we get Caesar's heir Octavian, who becomes Augustus. So
we have the official end of the Republic and the beginning of a long line of emperors, the
Principate. Yet despite the Senate's authority being permanently diminished, there is continued
widening of economic polarization. Why couldn't the Emperors save Rome?
MH: Here's an analogy for you: Just as nineteenth-century industrial reformers
thought that capitalism's political role was to reform the economy by stripping away the legacy
of feudalism -- a hereditary landed aristocracy and predatory financial system based mainly on
usury -- what occurred was not an evolution of industrial capitalism into socialism. Instead,
industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Rome you had the end of the senatorial
oligarchy followed not by a powerful, debt-forgiving central authority (as Mommsen believed
that Caesar was moving toward, and as many Romans hoped that he was moving towards), but to an
even more polarized imperial garrison state.
JS: That's indeed what happened. The emperors who ruled in the centuries after
Cæsar insisted on being deified -- they were officially "divine," according to their own
propaganda. Didn't any of them have the potential power to reverse the Roman economy's
ever-widening polarization of the, like the Near Eastern "divine kings" from the third
millennium BC into the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and even the Persian Empire in the first
millennium?
MH: The inertia of Rome's status quo and vested interests among patrician nobility
was so strong that emperors didn't have that much power. Most of all, they didn't have a
conceptual intellectual framework for changing the economy's basic structure as economic life
became de-urbanized and shifted to self-sufficient quasi-feudal manor estates. Debt amnesties
and protection of small self-sufficient tax-paying landholders as the military base was
achieved only in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Byzantium under the 9 th – and
10 th -century emperors (as I've described in my history of debt cancellations in
and forgive them their debts ).
The Byzantine emperors were able to do what Western Roman emperors could not. They reversed
the expropriation of smallholders and annulled their debts in order to keep a free tax-paying
citizenry able to serve in the army and provide public labor duties. But by the 11
th and 12 th centuries, Byzantium's prosperity enabled its oligarchy to
create private armies of their own to fight against centralized authority able to prevent their
grabbing of land and labor.
It seems that Rome's late kings did something like this. That is what attracted immigrants
to Rome and fueled its takeoff. But with prosperity came rising power of patrician families,
who moved to unseat the kings. Their rule was followed by a depression and walkouts by the bulk
of the population to try and force better policy. But that could no be achieved without
democratic voting power, so faith was put in personal leader -- subject to patrician violence
to abort any real economic democracy.
In Byzantium's case, the tax-avoiding oligarchy weakened the imperial economy to the point
where the Crusaders were able to loot and destroy Constantinople. Islamic invaders were then
able to pick up the pieces.
The most relevant point of studying history today should be how the economic conflict
between creditors and debtors affected the distribution of land and money. Indeed, the tendency
of a wealthy overclass to pursue self-destructive policies that impoverish society should be
what economic theory is all about. We'll discuss this in Part 4.
John Siman: I want to spell out the implications of the points that Socrates brought
up, and with which you and I agree. That leaves the question facing us today: Is the American
oligarchy and state as rapacious as that of Rome? Or is it universally the nature of oligarchy
in any historical setting to be rapacious? And if so, where is it all leading?
Michael Hudson : If Antiquity had followed the "free market" policies of modern
neoliberal economics, the Near East, Greece and Rome would never have gained momentum. Any such
"free market" avoiding mutual aid and permitting a wealthy class to emerge and enslave the bulk
of the population by getting it into debt and taking its land would have shrunk, or been
conquered from without or by revolution from within. That's why the revolutions of the 7
th century BC, led to reformers subsequently called "tyrants" in Greece (and "kings"
in Rome) were necessary to attract populations rather than reduce them to bondage.
So of course it is hard for mainstream economists to acknowledge that Classical Antiquity
fell because it failed to regulate and tax the wealthy financial and landowning classes, and
failed to respond to popular demands to cancel personal debts and redistribute the land that
had been monopolized by the wealthy.
The wealth of the Greek and Roman oligarchies was the ancient counterpart to today's
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, and their extractive and predatory behavior
is what destroyed Antiquity. The perpetuation of this problem even today, two thousand years
later, should establish that the debt/credit dynamic and polarization of wealth is a central
problem of Western civilization.
JS : So what were -- and are -- the political and social dynamic at work?
MH : The key is the concept of wealth addiction and how it leads to hubris --
arrogance that seeks to increase power in ways that hurt other people. Hubris is not merely
over-reaching; it is socially injurious. The wealthy or power injure other people knowingly, to
establish their power and status.
That is what Aristophanes meant when his characters say that wealth is not like bananas or
lentil soup. Wealth has no object but itself . Wealth is status -- and also political
control. The creditor's wealth is the debtor's liability. The key to its dynamic is not
production and consumption, but assets and liabilities -- the economy's balance sheet. Wealth
and status in the sense of who/whom. It seeks to increase without limit, and Socrates and
Aristotle found the major example to be creditors charging interest for lending "barren" money.
Interest had to be paid out of the debtor's own product, income or finally, forfeiture of
property; creditors did not provide means of making interest to pay off the loan.
This is the opposite of Austrian School theories that interest is a bargain to share the
gains to be made from the loan "fairly" between creditor and debtor. It also is the opposite of
neoclassical price theory. The economics taught in universities today is based on a price
theory that does not even touch on this point. The liberty that oligarchs claim is the right to
indebt the rest of society and then demand full payment or forfeiture of the debtor's
collateral. This leads to massive expropriations, as did the Junk Mortgage foreclosures after
2008 when President Obama failed to write down debts to realistic market values for real estate
financed on loans far beyond the buyer's ability to pay. The result was 10 million
foreclosures.
Yet today's mainstream economics treats the normal tendency to polarize between creditors
and debtors, the wealthy and the have-nots, as an anomaly. It has been the norm for the last
five thousand years, but economics sidesteps actual empirical history as if it is an anomaly in
the fictional parallel universe created by the mainstream's unrealistic assumptions. Instead of
being a science, such economics is science fiction.It trains students in cognitive dissonance
that distracts them from understanding Classical Antiquity and the driving dynamics of Western
civilization.
JS: This gets us back to the question of whether universities should just be shut
down and started up all over again.
MH: You don't shut them down, you create a new group of universities with a different
curriculum. The path of least resistance is to house this more functional curriculum in new
institutions. That's what America's Republican and pro-industrial leaders recognized after the
Civil War ended in 1865. They didn't shut down Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the Christian
free-trade Anglophile colleges. They created state colleges funded by land grants, such as
Cornell in upstate New York, and business schools such as the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania, endowed by industrialists to providing an economic logic for the state's
steel-making and related industrial protectionism. The result was an alternative economics to
describe how America should develop as what they saw as a new civilization, free of the
vestiges of Europe's feudal privileges, absentee ownership and colonialist mentality.
The Republicans and industrialists saw that America's prestige colleges had been founded
long before the Civil War, basically as religious colleges to train the clergy. They taught
British free trade theory, serving the New England commercial and banking interests and
Southern plantation owners. But free trade kept the United States dependent on England. My book
America's Protectionist Takeoff describes how the American School of Political Economy,
led by Henry Carey and E. Peshine Smith (William Seward's law partner), developed an
alternative to what was being taught in the religious colleges.
This led to a new view of the history of Western civilization and America's role in fighting
against entrenched privilege. William Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe , and
Andrew Dixon White's History of the Warfare of Science with Theology saw the United
States as breaking free from the feudal aristocracies that were a product of the way in which
antiquity collapsed, economically and culturally.
JS : So business schools were originally progressive!
MH : Surprising as it may seem, the answer is Yes, to the extent that they described
the global economy as tending to polarize under free trade and an absence of government
protectionism, not to become more equal. They incorporated technology, energy-use and the
environmental consequences of trade patterns into economic theory, such as soil depletion
resulting from plantation monocultures. Mainstream economics fought against such analysis
because it advocated markets "free" for polluters, "free" for nations to pursue policies that
made them poorer and dependent on foreign credit.
JS : So this is how the Wharton School's first professor of economics, Simon Patten,
one of the founders of American sociology, fits into this anti- rentier tradition! That
is such a revelation to me! They developed an analysis of technology's effects on the economy,
of monopoly pricing and economic rent as unearned income that increases the cost of living and
cost of production. They explained the benefits of public infrastructure investment. Today that
is called "socialism," but it was industrial capitalists who took the lead in urging such
public investment, so as to lower their cost of doing business.
MH : The first U.S. business schools in the late 19 th century described
rentiers as unproductive. That is why today's neoliberals are trying to rewrite the
history of Institutionalism in a way that expurgates the Americans who wanted the government to
provide public infrastructure to make America a low-cost economy, undersell England and other
countries, and evolve into the industrial giant it became by the 1920s.
JS : That was Simon Patten's teaching at the Wharton School -- government-subsidized
public infrastructure as the fourth factor of production.
MH : Yes. America's ruling political class tried to make the United States a dominant
economy instead of a rentier economy of landlords and financial manipulators.
JS : How did the robber barons fit into this story?
MH : Not as industrialists or manufacturers, but as monopolists opposed by the
industrial interests. It was Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting and the Republicans that enacted
the Sherman antitrust act. Its spirit was continued by Franklin Roosevelt.
JS :Is today's economy a second age of robber barons?
MH : It's becoming a second Gilded Age. An abrupt change of direction in economic
trends occurred after Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were elected in 1979/80. The result
has been to invert what the 19 th -century economists understood to be a free market
-- that is, a market free from a privileged hereditary class living on unearned income in the
form of land rent, monopoly rent and financial extraction.
JS : I was in my first few years of college when Thatcher came in in 1979, and when
Reagan was elected in 1980. I asked my economics professors what was going on, but I could not
find a single professor to coherently describe the U-turn that was occurring. It certainly
wasn't in Paul Samuelson's textbook that we were given.
MH : There's little logic for neoliberalism beyond a faith that short-term greed is
the best way to optimize long-term growth. It is natural for the wealthiest classes to have
this faith. Neoliberalism doesn't look at the economy as a social system, and it excludes as
"externalities" concerns with the environment, debt dependency and economic polarization. It
only asks how to make a short-term hit-and-run gain, regardless of whether this is done in a
way that has a positive or negative overall social effect. Realistic economic logic is social
in scope, and distinguishes between earned and unearned income. That is why economists such as
Simon Patten and Thorstein Veblen decided to start afresh and create the discipline of
sociology, to go beyond narrow individualistic economics being taught.
Today's mathematical economics is based on circular reasoning that treats all that has
happened as having been inevitable. It is all survival of the fittest, so it seems that there
is no alternative. This policy conclusion is built into economic methodology. If we weren't the
fittest, we wouldn't have survived, so by definition (that is, circular reasoning), any
alternative is less than fit.
Regarding the fact that you had to read Samuelson when you were in college, he was famous
for his Factor Price Equalization Theorem claiming to prove mathematically that everybody and
every nation tends naturally to become more and more equal (if government stands aside). He
denied that the tendency of the global economy is to polarize, not equalize. The political
essence of this equilibrium theory is its claim that economies tend to settle in a stable
balance. In reality they polarize and then collapse if they do not reverse their polarizing
financial and productivity and wealth dynamics are.
The starting point of economic theorizing should explain the dynamic that lead economics to
polarize and collapse. That is the lesson of studying antiquity that we have discussed in our
earlier talks. Writers in classical antiquity, like Bronze Age Near Eastern rulers before them
and the Biblical prophets, recognized that a rentier economy tends to destroy the
economy's productivity and widespread prosperity, and ultimately its survival. In today's world
the Finance, Insurance,and Real Estate [FIRE] sector and monopolies are destroying the rest of
the economy, using financial wealth to take over the government and disable its ability to
prevent their operating in corrosive and predatory ways.
JS : Why aren't more people up in arms?
MH : They're only up in arms if they believe that there is an alternative. As long as
the vested interests can suppress any idea that there is an alternative, that matters
don't have to be this way, people just get depressed. In our third interview you spoke about
Socrates and the Stoics producing a philosophy of lamentation and resignation. By his day there
seemed no solution except to denounce wealth. When matters got much worse in the Roman Empire,
wealth was abhorred. That became the message of Christianity.
What is needed is to define the scope of the alternative that you want. How can the economy
grow when households, business, and government have to pay more and more of their revenue to
the financial sector, which then turns around and lends its interest and related income out to
indebt the economy even more? The effect is to extract even more income. Rising government debt
and tax cuts for the rentiers lead to the privatization of public infrastructure and
natural monopolies. Higher prices are charged for tolls to pay for public healthcare,
education, roads and other services that were expected to be provided for free a century ago.
Financialized privatization thus creates a high-rent, high-cost economy -- the opposite of
industrial capitalism evolving into socialism to finally free society from rentier
income.
JS: Wouldn't that be based on the insatiable desire
[ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for money and the
super-rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι,
hyper-ploutoi ] oligarchs in Book 8 of Plato's Republic ? So we get back to my
question: Is the behavior of the super-rich a constant in human nature?
MH: Money-love
[φιλοχρηματία,
philochrêmatia ] has always been extreme because wealth is addictive. But their
dynamic of credit -- other peoples' debts -- increasing at compound interest is mathematized
and the economy is put on automatic pilot to self-destruct. Its business plan to "create
wealth" by making financial gains at somebody else's expense, without limit. This kind of
financial wealth is a zero-sum activity. The wealth of the creditor class, the One Percent, is
achieved by indebting the 99 Percent.
JS: Why is it a zero-sum activity?
MH: A zero-sum activity is when one party's gain is another's loss. Instead of income
paid to creditors being reinvested in means of production to help the economy grow, it's spent
on buying more assets. The most wasteful examples are corporate stock buyback programs and
financial raids. And the largest effect of financialization occurs as loans and Quantitative
Easing simply bid up the price of real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets. The effect is to
put housing and a retirement income further out of range of people who have to live by working
for wages and salaries instead of living off absentee ownership, interest and financial
asset-price gains.
JS: Why is this being done instead of investing in the economy to help the population
live a better and more prosperous life?
MH: The tax and regulatory system is set up to make financial gains or create
monopoly privileges. That is quicker and more certain, especially in an economy shrinking as a
result of financialization and the austerity it imposes. It's hard to make profits by investing
in a shrinking economy suffering from debt deflation and a squeeze on family budgets to pay for
health care, education and other basic needs.
JS: So it becomes more about extraction. Let's come back to Global Climate Change and
rising sea levels as a foundation of American foreign policy.
MH: Since the 19th century, American policy has been based on the recognition that
GDP growth reflects rising energy use per capita. Rising productivity is almost identical with
the curve of energy use per worker. That was the basic premise of E. Peshine Smith in 1853, and
subsequent writers, whom I describe in America's Protectionist Takeoff: 1918-1914 . The
policy conclusion is that if you can control the source of energy -- which remains mainly oil
and coal -- then you can control global GDP growth. That is why Dick Cheney invaded Iraq: to
grab its oil. It is why Trump announced his intention to topple Venezuela and take its oil.
If other nations are obliged to buy their oil from the United States or its companies, then
it's in a monopoly position to turn off their electricity (like the United States did to
Venezuela) and hurt their economies if they don't acquiesce in a world system that lets
American financial firms come in and buy out their most productive monopolies and privatize
theirpublic domain. That's why America's foreign policy is to monopolize the world's oil, gas
and coal in order to have a stranglehold on the rate of growth of other countries by being able
to deny them energy. It's like denying countries food in order to starve them out. The aim isto
exploit Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America what Rome exploited its Empire.
JS: Would you be comfortable using words like evil to describe what's going on
now?
MH : Evil essentially is predatory and destructive behavior. Socrates said that it
ultimately is ignorance, because nobody would set out intentionally to do it. But in that case,
evil would be an educational system that imposes ignorance and tunnel vision, distracting
attention from understanding how economic society actually works in destructive ways. On that
logic, post-classical neoliberal economics and the Chicago Boys are evil because their ideology
breeds ignorance and leads its believers to act in ways that are injurious to society,
preventing personal fulfillment through economic growth. Evil is a policy that makes most of
society poorer, simply in order to enrich an increasingly wealth-addictive rentier layer
at the top. Werner Sombart described the bourgeoisie as floating like a globules of fat on top
of a soup.
JS: This is now happening on a path that follows an exponential extreme. I guess
global warming makes it particularly evil. We're not simply talking about taking advantage of
other people within a society, we're talking about destruction of the planet and its
environment.
MH: Economists dismiss this as an "externality," that is, outside the scope of their
models. So these models are deliberately ignorant. You could say that this makes them evil.
JS: That is what I've suspected since we started the Iraq War in 2003.
MH: America's military buildup, its anti-environmental policy and global wars are
part of the same symbiotic strategy. The reason why America will not be part of a real effort
to mitigate global warming is that its policy is still based on grabbing the oil resources of
the Near East, Venezuela, and everywhere else that it can. Also, the oil industry is the most
tax-exempt and politically powerful sector. If it also happens to be the primary cause of
global warming, that is viewed as just collateral damage to America's attempt to control the
world by controlling the oil supply. In that sense the environmental impasse is a byproduct of
American imperialism.
JS: What's hopeful in the United States right now? What is a possible good
outcome?
MH: T he precondition would be for people to realize that there is an
alternative. Starting with wiping out of student debts, they can realize that the overall debt
overhead can be wiped out without hurting the economy -- and indeed, rescuing it from the
financial rentier class inasmuch as all debts on the liabilities side of the balance
sheet have their counterpart on the asset side as the savings of today's financial oligarchy,
which is doing to the U.S. economy what Rome's Senate did to the ancient world.
JS: How can people proceed from here?
MH: Understanding must come first. Once you have to have a sense of history, you
realize that there is an alternative. You also see what happens when a creditor
oligarchy gets strong enough to prevent any public power from writing down debts and to prevent
attempts to tax it.
You have to do to America today what the Republicans did after the Civil War: You have to
have a new university curriculum dealing with economic history, the history of economic thought
and the real world's long-term development.
JS: And what would be the premise for such economic history?
MH: T he starting point is to realize that civilization began in the ancient Near
East, and made a turn to oppose a strong public regulatory sector in Classical Greece and Rome.
The long-term tension is the eternal fight by the oligarchy of creditors and large land owners
to reduce the rest of society to serfdom, and to oppose strong rulers empowered to act in the
economy's long-term interest by creating checks against this polarization.
JS : So how much longer does this go on -- for months, for years, for decades?
MH : It always goes on longer than you think it will. Inertia has a great elastic
self-reinforcing power. Polarization will widen until people believe that there is an
alternative and decide to fight for it. Two things are required for this to happen: First, a
large proportion of people need to see that the economy is impoverishing them, and that the
existing picture of what is happening is misleading. Instead of wealth trickling down, it is
defying gravity and sucking income up from the base of the economic pyramid. People are having
to work harder just to stay in place, until their life style breaks down.
Second, people must realize that it doesn't have to be this way. There is an
alternative
JS : Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation
will make things worse, and that the wealthy are job creators, not job destroyers. They think
that the system needs to be bolstered, not replaced, because the alternative is "socialism" --
that is, what the Soviets did, not what Franklin Roosevelt was doing. But today bailing out the
banks and giving subsidies to new employers is said to be for our own good.
MH : That's what the Romans told their provinces. Everything they did was always to
preserve "good order," meaning open opportunities for their own wealth grabbing. They never
said they were out to destroy and loot other societies. Madeline Albright followed this
rhetorical pattern in describing as being, like the Romans and France's brutal mission
civilisatrice , a program to uplift the world free-market efficiency. For performing this
service, the imperial power takes all the money that its colonies, provinces and allies can
generate. That's why the U.S. meddles in foreign politics, as we have just seen in Ukraine,
Libya and Syria.
JS : You've described the greatest meddling as distorting the narrative of history to
depict creditor and rentier drives toward oligarchy as being democratic and helping to raise
living standards and culture. Your books show just the opposite.
MH : Thank you. (Republished from
Naked Capitalism by permission of author or representative)
Questions for Dr. Hudson: Why should a public banking system charge interest at all on loans?
Could they not merely charge a one-time service fee to cover the cost of loan administration
and a one-time insurance fee to cover the costs of defaulting on the loan? After all, they
are not actually loaning money – they are creating money at minimal risk to the bank.
Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.
Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.
The school of Salamanca is where this idea of interest on money was codified, where the
Jesuit priests proclaimed it as a loss of wants. That is, since people loaned out their
money, they didn't get use of it, so they should be paid for their loss.
If you examine how banking works, banks hypothecate new money the moment you sign a debt
instrument. Both the new bank credit and debt instrument pop into being simultaneously.
To ask for compounding interest on this simple legerdemain is an outrageous abuse, so you
are right it is theft.
There are situations where it is not usurious. For example, Schacht's MefoBills scheme,
the interest fluxed outward from Reichsbank to the bill holder. A bill would be
presented to industry, and said industry would then start work making goods. Bill would then
be presented for discount, which is fancy way of saying paid for, or paid off. Upon discount,
bill would be examined to see if goods were produced. Then the bill would be paid its full
face value AND the interest it accrued.
Reichsmarks flowed from Reichsbank to the bill holder, who was paid interest. The bill
holder then spent his new Reichsmarks into the money supply.
Benjamin Franklin's public bank spent into the commons the extra money necessary
for debtors to pay interest on their loans. The commons were improved, so one could view this
as non usurious, even though it was positive interest. For the most part, FEES are all that
should accompany new loans, not compounding interest.
Canada had a quasi sovereign economy 1938 to 1974 and spent debt free into the
commons and on public infrastructure, their economy did not polarize toward creditors. The
Ministry of Finance owned all the common shares of Bank of Canada. BOC was a crown bank.
Note in all the "good" examples, interest flowed outward from an exogenous creator toward
the population. In bad examples of interest, it drains purchasing power from the
population.
By the way, a MEFOBILL scheme today could be used to release debts. The bill is created
exogenously by Treasury or even a shell company. The bill has a drawer, payee and drawee. It
is like a check. It channels toward a specific goal. For example, if you wanted to pay off
student debts, then the bill would aim at the student, who then presents bill to bank holding
student's debt instrument. Bill would eventually make its way to the FED through bank reserve
loops, and FED would expand their ledger. FED would use their keyboard to make new dollars,
which flow back into private bank system to pay off the students debt instrument. So double
entry mechanic laws are not abrogated. Student's debt disappeared, and Mefobill stays on FED
ledger forever, not accruing interest. Or, you could specify a small amount of interest to
the bank as a fee for their operations.
U.S. could use Mefobill scheme to lure industry back to the U.S. as it specifically
channels toward a goal.
The money system is something we humans created, it can be used for good or ill. To
paraphrase Michael, we need good civil law that codes for morality.
That was a soul-transforming read. It put into words what I could never put into words, but
on an instinctive level I have always felt these things. I have always had this irrational
hatred of bankers, landlords, capitalists, and any one else who dances to that faggy Gordon
Gekko tune. But I could never figure out why, let alone explain it clearly. This article has
done that for me right here and right now today. I am so grateful. This one is a keeper, now
I finally understand my hate. And I am proud of it. This is why Hitler was a good person, he
made these little bitch finance fags squeal and screech like the untermenschen they really
are.
It is interesting to note that the facts explored in this article corroborate and
synchronize with the facts explored in an amateur work titled "The Sumerian Swindle: How the
Jews Betrayed Mankind." If you look you can print the book free off the internet
somewhere.
From now on I only see humans in two distinct groups: productive people who work for a
living, and parasitic leeches who exploit the former. Twas ever thus. Let us successfully
genocide the latter in the near future.
The book sounds extremely interesting. I will probably get it, but that thing about the
Kaiser is a bad mistake. The German nation had been subjected to France and its proxies
marching across it for centuries. As always happens it unified in the face of threat, but
financially the structure was still harking back to the Holy Roman Empire. Being
decentralised as far as raising revenues was concerned, the Kaiser was unable to exert the
full strength of Germany. The Weimar government instituted reforms were intended to remedy
that for defensive purposes, but unfortunately Hitler inherited those reforms and that extra
wherewithal was a major reason for the early military successes in WW2 that set the world
agog.
Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I. But it had
a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural faith
in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.
Dubious.France had financed massive military preparation by Russia, and Poincaire (cousin
of the brilliant physicist) was fixated with recovering Alsace and Lorraine (where he was
born). The military situation was gravely deteriorating for Germany partly because Germany.
The Kaiser did not attack France in 1905 when Britain had a tiny army and Russia was in
chaos. That was the craziest thing he did as leader.
Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine Kingship without having Divine
Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad distribution of wealth. But he also
says that the oligarchy makes the laws and appoints the "elected" lawmakers. So he's engaged
in an exercise in wishful thinking. There is no democratic path to his desired result.
An excellent tour de force completely relevant to the major problems we face today, so
thank you , Ron Unz!
and turn the government into a vehicle to help them exploit the rest of society.
It's extremely obvious that's is exactly what our "constitution" was designed to do.
Hudson's insistence that debt must be government controlled runs into the problem
consistently, which both he and the interviewer discuss.
Essentially, the problem is that whoever gets the power will abuse it. "The government" is
no more a disinterested group of parties than the oligarchs or the plutocrats. The best
answer is to have a noble ruling class, but good luck with that; it will never happen at
least on a permanent basis.
So what's the answer? I wish I knew
The best [the Greek philosophers] could do was to inspire and educate individuals
I highly doubt anyone can do much more, but the last thing to do is to hope for some
Messiah, especially a rich one. Are you tRumpeteers listening?
PS: I liked the mention of Aristophanes. All of his plays are as instructive as they are
amusing and should be read by all. Same with Lucian of Samosata and Juvenal to mention just a
few.
JS said: "Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation
will make things worse,"
Er, no, most people do not "think" that [ if they "think" at all].
They mostly "think" the exact opposite.
Due to their public [ie government funded] er,"education" [ie brainwashing], they are
actually dumb enough to believe that more government, and more regulations will make things
better for them, despite the fact that more than any other factor, it is the size and scope
of government that has directly caused the financial problems most of them are now
experiencing. "Stupid is a stupid does".
In fact, more, bigger government and more regulations will only further increase poverty
and make things even worse for them all than they are today.
This just in:
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in
scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree
Government doesn't work" Harry Browne
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way
to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those
of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock
"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the
kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
There was no concept of linear progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only
one way to do things, so any reform must be the way the world was meant to be in the very
beginning.
The Hebrews had their liberation from captivity, Hesiod had his three prior ages "before
there was iron," Odysseus travels the world observing the various ways of men, Plato
envisions a radical transformation of human society, Aristotle compares the constitutions of
various Greek city-states, Thucydides resorts to archaeology to show that the Athenians were
not the original inhabitants of the Attic Peninsula.
It's not difficult to come up with what seem to be counter examples to Hudson's assertion
that there was no "linear progress" and no vision of other ways of doing things in Antiquity.
Ancient Mediterranean societies did see humanity as moving in a direction, evolving by
discovery and by making new institutions to address novel problems.
I found that peculiar as well. Another thing that was out of place was the "deification"
of Teddy Roosevelt and his so called trust busting as well as FDR's continuously "evolving"
New Deals. Both Roosevelts and their programs were tRump-like frauds whose main interest was
self aggrandizement at whatever cost.
Like tRump, the rhetoric was grand but the motive and execution left much to be desired.
While I get what Hudson is saying when he sez "there oughta be a law," I think history has
proven, repeatedly, that while there's a possibility that there ought to be one, it's not
likely it'll do much good, and certainly no permanent good.
The greatest debt creator in the history of America is the zionists privately owned FED and
the zionist owned central banks in every country in the world that create money out of thin
air and charge the goyim/proles for the use of this zionist created charade, which started in
1913 here in the zio/US with the diabolical draconian demonic FED.
Free America, abolish the FED and return to government created , debt free money as was
the case prior to December 23, 1913!
@G.
Poulin G. Poulin says: "Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine
Kingship without having Divine Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad
distribution of wealth. "
Yup. The whole, as per usual, "benevolent dictator" fantasy writ large, yet once again. It
never stops.
You'd think that by now, this late in the game, and given history, that most people would
have finally figured out that government "solutions" never worked , and never can, or
will.
But no, luckily for governments, there's always a plentiful supply of new, brainwashed
dreamer/fantasists [or "suckers" as P.T Barnum reportedly called them], who are ever more
eager for a government that does what they think it should do, and who "think" that it/they
actually will, despite all the historical evidence directly contradicting their inane
fantasies.
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the
government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of
kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
–Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.
" idealists and realists begin to get on each other's nerves. But the real difference is
in the capacity for appreciating the immense gap of blue inane which separates earth from
heaven, and in the realist's unwillingness to assume that men have angels' wings. "
@onebornfree
oneborn free, your screed is you projecting fears about abusive government.
Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly constructed government
that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize toward creditors if
certain safeguards are not put in place.
So, you will have to come to grips with your cognitive dissonance.
Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role." Anything outside of that
role is government overstepping its bounds.
By providing the framework, Hudson is doing the world a tremendous service, and as such he
will go down as one of the great men of history.
New glasses are being put on your nose, but you prefer to wear your old glasses that make
you see improperly?
It reminds me of all the wishful thinking about China, how their ghost cities are going to
do them in, and their economy cannot keep doing so well, and so on. It is people not
believing what is right in front of their eyes, or their inability to see outside of their
brainwashed mentality.
Hudson says that public banks are an option for erasing debts.
China does this now with their state banks, which is one of their secret weapons.
In the mid 90's China swept all of their old communist era debt into the trash can. This
then made their "books" look good to Western Finance standards, and China was essentially
given MFN status.
Then it was game on! Wall Street soon greenmailed American industry to leave for China, to
then get some of that wage arbitrage. We are living in the aftermath of this civilization
destroying decision making by our ruling finance class.
China has helped the wall street finance class loot America, as China creates new Yuans
from their state banks to match their countries growth rate. These new Yuans have to be there
in order to swap for dollars won in trade. The dollars end up in China's state banks, and are
recycled back to the U.S. to buy TBills instead of buying goods from mainstreet.
Today and reality is staring you in the face. Look at it. America's finance class did
indeed export jobs and our patrimony, and china did indeed use their public banking system.
China is working for their people's benefit, while a traitor class of finance oligarchy is
working against the public interest in America.
Those of you who are against Public banks need to get real and look at actual data. For
example, the bank of North Dakota is a public bank and has a good track record. Please, use
data and think for yourself rather than being a brainwashed dupe.
Another way is to continue to use PRIVATE BANKS, and have public money. The money supply
is nationalized, not the bank. All new money comes into being from a monetary authority or
Treasury as per the constitution. Banks then become gyro, which is a fancy word for
inter-mediation. Banks stop making money with a new debt instrument, but instead only match
up new creditors and debtors with existing money.
Within each private bank are two piles of numbers: 1) Pile A is people's savings, which
preferably was debt free at inception 2) Pile B is government credit, or national credit.
National Credit can be channeled toward specific goals that the country has agreed is in
its interests.
You as a debtor can borrow from either pile. The national credit creates a debt instrument
that can be easily jubileed in the same easy way as could a debt instrument hypothecated at a
public bank.
Public banks to my mind are a little too close to government even though they have a good
history. Nationalizing the money supply instead is better. Why? A good percentage of supply
becomes floating money (debt free) and this component becomes a permanent inheritance to the
people, giving them freedom to do commerce. An economically free people are also politically
free.
@onebornfreeSavior? Nothing can stop what has been set in motion, namely, Earth's Sixth Mass
Extinction, as the climate shifts rapidly to a
New Cretaceous "hothouse" climate. Neither voting nor your anarchism can invalidate
scientific evidence. Apparently, you can't read, because McPherson's Paradox
explains humanity's conundrum in plain terms: (a) continuing to evaporate Earth's coal beds
and oil fields into the atmosphere ensures our quick extinction from global warming, and (b)
stopping fossil fuel use only hastens our demise, because of "global masking effect" or "
global dimming
." Do you really think that evaporating coal beds and oil fields into the atmosphere has no
consequences?
"[T]heir complete extinction (in the co-extinction scenario) was abrupt, and
happened far from their tolerance limits, and close to global diversity collapse (
around 5 °C of heating )"
Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
(Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 16724, published 13 November 2018) http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1
Remember, Trump has already promised 4 °C of heating is baked into the cake,
and stopping fossil fuel use would remove the "global dimming" effect of air pollution and
lead to a near instantaneous rise of 2°C. A true paradox has no solution.
1. Please use your commenting privilege to address the substance of the articles. The
sentence that you first quote is ancillary to this one, but you've plucked it out as a wedge
for your umpteenth anarchic strut.
2. Why so frequently insulting? I happen to share your general perspective, but if you're
prosletyzing your style stinks.
3. If nothing else, please realize that you only need to piss once on each hydrant to
leave your mark.
@Dutch
Boy Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The
Control of Economies by the Magic Jews." The Jews control all pathways including media,
social and economic which they will never relinquish because with the money they make they
control the world's politicians by using the greed of mankind against them.
The Jews use the Holocaust to intimidate stupid whites in Western Civilization with guilt
and control everything including our foreign policy to immigration. Civilization will not
survive as long as the power of the Jews continue to rule mankind.
@Dutch
Boy Consider that a 10 year loan at 4% now would then have a fee (simple, not even
compound interest) of 40% of the principle.
It defeats the purpose of a loan paying over time. Even the 20% down is for equity, not
prepayment of interest.
Or you could simply roll the fees in. There is a House for sale for $200,000. The bank
buys it but then to get ownership with lein, and you have to pay the bank $300,000 to cover
everything (do you get any equity before going positive?).
How about just saving money including gold in your mattress until you can afford
something?
@MEFOBILLS
Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid
themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost
their homes
Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The Control
of Economies by the Magic Jews."
Hudson does but in a peripheral way. See below. Our (((friends))) like to use their
capital rather than labor. They use usury as a weapon, and tend to be among the Oligarch
class. Why? Because their religion gives cover and sanction for predatory behavior. Note that
our friends adore Hillel. Jewish religion went off the rails after Hillel, and is now an
apologist for the creditor class, and hence against a balanced logos type world.
Hudson cannot go after the Jews, but I can and so can you. It is ok to point out where
Jewish ideology becomes "Crime Inc." In fact, I find the most moral people to be
anti-semites, so Hudson who obviously has a strong moral basis, is smart enough to NOT touch
the Jewish third rail, or he would become persona non-grata.
There is no question Hudson possesses a first class mind, and by not touching the third
rail he is preserving his career. It is up to us to decode what he is saying and we can be
more blunt about things.
You don't have to be Jewish to be a predator, and by association most of us can decode
what he is saying.
MH: Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign this
clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the
Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and
the rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about
@jacques
sheete He also seems very keen on China's policy. From what I can make out this is
because the government loans the money and can cancel the debt. So China being locked into
growth by massively Keynesian policies that cannot be haltet for fear of global economic
collapse is a good thing it seems. Hmmm.
@tz1
Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid
themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost
their homes
Yes of course. It would have been much better to take over the banks and give the "bond
holders" a haircut.
What the haircut means is that the debt instrument cannot make claims on the future. The
amount it can claim is written down to what the real economy can pay.
Our financial oligarchy did not want to take a haircut, and since they own the government,
they made their politician puppets dance.
We cannot see what is in the bill till we pass the bill.
Some here have pointed out that democracy is a joke. Yes it is. Universal Suffrage
democracy, where any rube can vote is especially bad.
You do need a ruling class which looks like the people it rules over. This ruling class
also has to be servants of their people.
China's ruling class is constantly polling their people to get data on how they are doing.
If a politician is found to be corrupt, they are killed or ejected. Think of it like your
body, bad elements and parasites are attacked by the immune system, otherwise you (the host)
will die.
@Biff
"You're a broken record that needs to be tossed up in the air in front of a twelve gauge."
Seem like a lot of trouble to go to – especially as I might be carrying a 12 gauge,
or similar, myself
This just in: there's an "ignore" button – I suggest you learn how to use it.
But regardless of whether the "commniunist" label is completely accurate or not, he's just
yet another in a long line of naive intellectuals who thinks that the government can solve
problems, problems it alone created.
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the
kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
@tz1
Fee's on a loan should cover the bank's cost, which is a tiny fraction of what they take now
in the form of usury.
Think closely on this, the bank makes a loan, and it is only a matter of typing of a debt
instrument. Today with computers that amounts to a few minutes of work. They then on-sale the
debt instrument to another, usually TBTF bank, and get rid of any risk.
The better way is for people to pool their savings, and the bank is gyro. Debtor then buys
a house borrowing your savings. The old savings and loan system worked like this.
In Canada, when they had a sovereign banking system (1938 to 1974) they used trusts. Banks
were not allowed to hypothecate new housing loans. Trusts and savings and loans both pool
existing money and loan it out.
It was a beneficial cycle where the young borrowed from the old, and the old benefited
from some interest income, to then buy goods and services produced by the young.
Interest isn't always bad, but you have to look at it in context. About 70% of debt
instruments resident at banks are hypothecated against land. This is so finance oligarchy can
GRAB THE LAND in a depression via swaps or other schemes. Depressions are inevitable when M2
is always draining to pay debts at interest.
In the case of Canada's trust system, the interest was cycling back to the young (interest
was pointing outward to the population) to buy goods and services they produced.
@MEFOBILLS
MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly
constructed government that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize
toward creditors if certain safeguards are not put in place.So, you will have to come to
grips with your cognitive dissonance. Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper
role." Anything outside of that role is government overstepping its bounds."
Short answer: "The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is
always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role.""
This just in: it's "proper role" [ in the US] was already [supposedly ]"set" via
the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and more famously via a coup
d'etat which resulted in the scam called "The Constitution and Bill of Rights" .
Although the Constitution remains a scam to this day, a return to its supposed limits
would, at least temporarily, drastically downsize the federal government, which would be step
in the right direction.
For government is the problem, never the solution.
But of course, yourself [and most others here] remain too brainwashed [by the government,
and with your money] to ever understand that
Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations (which were impressive) as
an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a gateway to hell on earth).
@Dutch
Boy As a matter of logic aren't those creators of money reducing the value of the money
held by those who have saved to get it? So doesn't fairness require that they use interest
rates to maimtain the stability of the currency's value?
@Max So
you advocate euthanasia (when you are feeling nice rather than cruel and vengeful) of the
rapidly increasing retired population? Understood that you need to support the infant
generation but Hitler had the answer for that one didn't he: euthanasia of those who wouldn't
be able to contribute. How long do we indulge people with an unemployment benefit?
@jacques
sheete Which US subsidy programs might be regarded as proleptic jubilees? And writeoffs
like that massive solar energy disaster under Obama are surely equivalent to the jubilees.
And welfare payments are surely jubilees in advance.
@Sollipsist
Sollipsist says: "Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations
(which were impressive) as an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a
gateway to hell on earth)."
Wrongo. Marx's economic theories were as as idiotic as his social prescriptions- in fact,
his "social prescriptions" were directly derived from his idiotic economic theories, which is
exactly why such "social prescriptions" are, as you say, "a gateway to hell on earth".
As for the author of this article , pure Marxist or not, his own "social prescriptions"
are, like Marx's , the mere pontifications of a pseudo-intellectual statist, fantasizing
about solving social problems via that which he worships and adores , that is , yet more
government [of the "right" kind, mind you, and despite its obvious failure to do any such
thing to date].
Another case of "the blind leading the blind", I'm afraid, just more of the same old
hackneyed "government should do this- government can solve this " claptrap .
Hudson spent half the article talking about mixed economies being the best and only type
to work.
Also, it was the JEWISH CREDITOR CLASS, that funded Bolshevism. Wall Street Jews and some
London money funded the Bolsheviks.
Bolshevism in turn was not what Marx had intended.
Marx thought that industrial capitalism, especially that of the type he witnessed in
Germany, would evolve into an advanced form of socialism mixed economy. It would evolve after
industrial capitalism failed, or industrial capitalism would have evolved.
Instead, finance capitalism, that of the rentier credit class won out .
When Marx died, he said "I am a most unhappy man."
Instead of getting caught up in labels, look at the data or what they actually believe in.
It takes a little bit more energy and effort, rather than falling for simple platitudes.
Hudson's childhood background was Bolshevik, but he didn't pick his parents. If you look
at his actual body of work, he is analyzing where all economic systems fail.
Russian and Chinese communism failed because markets are not purely inelastic. You cannot
pretend that every market type needs government control, especially when pricing signals will
work. Systems that are predicated on lies, will not survive in the long term.
For government is the problem, never the solution.
Simple minded platitudes.
ALL COMPLEX SYSTEMS HAVE HIERARCHY!
All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.
There has to be a "brain" for any complex organization, it will not self organize.
This whole market is your god, or gold is your god is the rentier class duping you with
hypnosis.
Funny thing about Libertarian-tards and their junk economics, the very thing they want
they cannot have because their ideology brings about what they don't want – economic
slavery.
Free markets are free for the rentier to take his gains on your life energy and turn you
into his debt slave.
• This is the "anarchy" of the future stateless society which Marx and Engels had
accepted in 1872. Man becomes "his own master – free". The first condition for this
full-fledged freedom is: freedom from the state, not of the state, nor merely in the state.
As far as Marx's eye could see, the state is not the guarantor of freedom http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1970/xx/state.html
This is one the most brilliant things I've ever read here. I've read a great deal about the
various facts and events Mr. Hudson talks about but I've never been able to put them together
like Mr. Hudson. He's provided a framework for realizing how all these seemingly disparate
events fit together. I'm very grateful.
@Wizard of
Oz Retirees weren't regarded as parasites by National Socialism, Schlomo. Your
parasitic ilk, however, were.
"The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance , rent
supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes the NSV often
refused to provide aid to Jews " – National Socialist
People's Welfare
This is fake history. Mythology becoming history. A Jewish speciality.
1- The Jews were never in Ancient Egypt – or the Egyptians would have documented
it.
2- There is absolutely no archeological artifact from the Palestine region that show that
they were there before their exile. Plenty of proof that the Egyptians had been there earlier
on.
3- Palestine was desert at that time and had been abandoned by the Egyptians as it was
infertile – not a land of milk and honey. Yemen was agricultural and prosperous.
4- The Jews were exiled from Yemen – because they and non-Jewish Arabs (the Jews and
Arabs were the same people at that time), continued to raid the caravans bringing goods from
Yemen to Petra. The Babylonians punished them by taking them back to Babylon. After the
Persians liberated them, some went back to Yemen and some went to Palestine.
5- Locations in the Old Testament correspond to places in Yemen and Hejaz. Even their
names.
The best counter to Robert Michels's iron law of oligarchy (whatever the ostensible form of
government, it turns out in practice to be oligarchic rule by the group that has the real
power) was devised by Cleisthenes in Athens shortly before 500 B.C.: give power to average
citizens by appointing to offices ordinary citizens randomly chosen. It worked, as is shown
by how deeply resented it was by oligarchs like Plato.
Is a U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 , by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt forbidding the hoarding of gold within the continental United
States .
It required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount
of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve
, in exchange for $20.67 (consumer price index, adjusted value of $400 today) per troy
ounce. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the recently passed
Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up
to $10,000 (equivalent to $193,548 today) or up to ten years in prison, or both .
Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art", a
provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order
further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins (a face value equivalent to 5
troy ounces (160 g) of gold valued at about $6,339 in 2016).
@MEFOBILLS
MEFOBILLS says: "All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.There has to be a "brain" for
any complex organization, it will not self organize. "
So presumably, a half wit such as yourself knows exactly what that hierarchy should be,
who the "brain" "should" be and exactly what and where everyone's "correct" place within it
"should" be, because people cannot self organize.
Sieg Heil, mein fuhrer! You're an even dumber sheep than I had initially suspected!
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in
scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way
to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those
of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock
"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the
kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
There are several problems with Dr. Hudson's views here. Some have referenced some. I would
point out that we already have laws and practices to restrict the use of wealth from
impoverishing the population. But you have to have a leadership willing to enforce or apply
them. We have had no less than three major financial bailouts of the financial class in the
US. And at no time was the bailout extended to the industries consumers. I am unclear what
the prescription is to divorce the political class from the financial class.
The only new law that would make sense are laws that bar legislators from owning, stocks,
sitting on the boards of stocks or any financial institution they manage. And that would have
to extend to all immediate family members. Further, one has to completely cut off funds from
lobbyists, activists and the corporate class entities.
The economy is already comprised of mixed practices: private ownership and wealth
creation, government employment, non-profit entities and taxation and other programs that
assist citizens, i.e. welfare
The one over riding observation I would make about the economy is that we continue to have a
trade imbalance, which according to an old rule of thumb suggests that economy is not really
growing.
@G.
Poulin Mr. Hudson makes his contribution towards the greater good by educating the
populace. What's your problem? -- He is not a fairy. He is a knowledgeable and honest person;
the former requires a lot of willpower, the second requires courage.
@MEFOBILLS
Libertarians were invented and constructed on purpose to serve as the useful idiots of
oligarchs whom they worship and do everything to protect their right to be oligarchs while at
the same time being sodomized by them.
I am very happy to read this interview, because for me, this is the first time that I have
completely understood Michael Hudson's work. And I say this after watching countless of his
interviews over the past 8 years.
Before this interview here, I had always wanted to ask him if the Clean Slate policies
disappeared over 3000 years ago, then what was he saying in his books and lectures? If the
entirety of Western Civilization is based on oligarchy, rentiers, then what hope is there for
anything? I mean the Romans lasted a thousand years doing this rentier stuff. That's a long
time for misery.
Now, with this interview I understand more fully the period after the Civil War and into
the FDR Presidency as a partially-successful attempt to make things in the country different,
more egalitarian, more correct. And after this interview, I understand Hudson's main point:
the road to change lies in understanding the failures of antiquity.
Looking at things through the rentier oligarchy lens has been the revelation in my life in
the past 10 years. I never undeststood Chile & Allende until then. Likewise with
antiquity and likewise with the history of the United States. But those of us who do
understand these things, thanks in great part to Michael Hudson, are few.
As part of a very late stage college degree I earned 4 years ago, I took an Econ class in
my last semester. The class featured certain films as it related to economics and that was
indeed very interesting (I had never seen Coppola's "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" before so
that was "entertaining"), but the text book for the class was Friedman. I read it and could
not believe how dunderheaded, how wrong it was. And I realized from communication with the
professor that he believed all of it. His attitude seemed to be: who are you to question
economics orthodoxy, you uppity undergrad.
This interview above was both enlightening and depressing. How many decades longer do we
have to go before things change?
As expected, the Trump administration has
designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization:
The Trump administration on Monday designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as
a foreign terrorist organization, escalating the U.S. pressure campaign against Tehran and
marking the first time an element of a foreign state has been officially designated a
terrorist entity.
Over the weekend, Iranian officials made it clear that they would
respond in kind and apply a similar designation to U.S. forces. There is an obvious danger
that this decision could lead to armed conflict between U.S. forces and Iranian-backed militias
and proxies, but the designation could have other unexpected consequences that go beyond
U.S.-Iranian relations.
The precedent set by labeling part of another government's military as terrorists not only
makes it more likely that our military personnel will be subjected to similar treatment, but it
also blurs the definition of what constitutes a terrorist organization. Labeling the entire
IRGC as a terrorist organization is inaccurate and it continues a trend of using the label of
terrorist to mean "something that we don't like and want to punish."
The Iranian conscripts who are required to serve in the IRGC are obviously not terrorists
according to any sane definition of the word, but this designation means that the U.S. will now
treat them as if they are.
The Trump administration keeps finding new and irresponsible ways to drive the regime and
the people together and to make conflict between the U.S. and Iran more likely. U.S.-Iranian
tensions are now set to increase with no clear path for de-escalation.
"... The seeds sown in the US' "Long War"* are terrible. Libya discord gave arms and bases for US support to Salafi jihad in Syria, ISIS is US sown, Iraq is to be a permanent occupation more dangerous than South Korea, Afghanistan is a tottering escapade each new commander bringing a fresh set of objectives none connected to an end to the blood shed. ..."
"... The press is at fault, they work for the empire's war profiteers. ..."
"... *Many commentators on the US' military horrors since 9/11/01 stopped saying "global war on terror" and use "Long War". ..."
7 years after the US - led by Obama, Hillary & @SamanthaJPower - bombed Libya in the
name of "humanitarianism" along with the UK & France & then utterly ignored it, the
country is so violent, unstable & dangerous that US troops can no longer safely
remain
American troops in Libya moved out of country as violence escalates near capital
The announcement comes as the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli vowed to defend the
capital against a renegade militia seeking to storm its way into the city, a showdown that
threatened to spill into bloody urban combat in the streets of Tripoli.
How come none of this is on page one above the fold?
EMichael, goes after Chinese oppression of Muslims, but never a word about humanitarian
tragedies US spreads from Caracas to Yemen through Kandahar to Pyongyang.
Russia doing any of this to Ukraine or Georgia would be howled about!
The seeds sown in the US' "Long War"* are terrible. Libya discord gave arms and bases for
US support to Salafi jihad in Syria, ISIS is US sown, Iraq is to be a permanent occupation
more dangerous than South Korea, Afghanistan is a tottering escapade each new commander
bringing a fresh set of objectives none connected to an end to the blood shed.
The press is at fault, they work for the empire's war profiteers.
*Many commentators on the US' military horrors since 9/11/01 stopped saying "global war on
terror" and use "Long War".
Donald Trump Is Trying to Kill You:
Trust the pork producers; fear the wind turbines.
By Paul Krugman
There's a lot we don't know about the legacy Donald Trump will leave behind. And it is, of
course, hugely important what happens in the 2020 election. But one thing seems sure: Even if
he's a one-term president, Trump will have caused, directly or indirectly, the premature
deaths of a large number of Americans.
Some of those deaths will come at the hands of right-wing, white nationalist extremists,
who are a rapidly growing threat, partly because they feel empowered by a president who calls
them "very fine people."
Some will come from failures of governance, like the inadequate response to Hurricane
Maria, which surely contributed to the high death toll in Puerto Rico. (Reminder: Puerto
Ricans are U.S. citizens.)
Some will come from the administration's continuing efforts to sabotage Obamacare, which
have failed to kill health reform but have stalled the decline in the number of uninsured,
meaning that many people still aren't getting the health care they need. Of course, if Trump
gets his way and eliminates Obamacare altogether, things on this front will get much, much
worse.
But the biggest death toll is likely to come from Trump's agenda of deregulation -- or
maybe we should call it "deregulation," because his administration is curiously selective
about which industries it wants to leave alone.
Consider two recent events that help capture the deadly strangeness of what's going
on.
One is the administration's plan for hog plants to take over much of the federal
responsibility for food safety inspections. And why not? It's not as if we've seen safety
problems arise from self-regulation in, say, the aircraft industry, have we? Or as if we ever
experience major outbreaks of food-borne illness? Or as if there was a reason the U.S.
government stepped in to regulate meatpacking in the first place?
Now, you could see the Trump administration's willingness to trust the meat industry to
keep our meat safe as part of an overall attack on government regulation, a willingness to
trust profit-making businesses to do the right thing and let the market rule. And there's
something to that, but it's not the whole story, as illustrated by another event: Trump's
declaration the other day that wind turbines cause cancer.
Now, you could put this down to personal derangement: Trump has had an irrational hatred
for wind power ever since he failed to prevent construction of a wind farm near his Scottish
golf course. And Trump seems deranged and irrational on so many issues that one more bizarre
claim hardly seems to matter.
But there's more to this than just another Trumpism. After all, we normally think of
Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, as people who minimize or deny the "negative
externalities" imposed by some business activities -- the uncompensated costs they impose on
other people or businesses.
For example, the Trump administration wants to roll back rules that limit emissions of
mercury from power plants. And in pursuit of that goal, it wants to prevent the Environmental
Protection Agency from taking account of many of the benefits from reduced mercury emissions,
such as an associated reduction in nitrogen oxide.
But when it comes to renewable energy, Trump and company are suddenly very worried about
supposed negative side effects, which generally exist only in their imagination. Last year
the administration floated a proposal that would have forced the operators of electricity
grids to subsidize coal and nuclear energy. The supposed rationale was that new sources were
threatening to destabilize those grids -- but the grid operators themselves denied that this
was the case.
So it's deregulation for some, but dire warnings about imaginary threats for others.
What's going on?
Part of the answer is, follow the money. Political contributions from the meat-processing
industry overwhelmingly favor Republicans. Coal mining supports the G.O.P. almost
exclusively. Alternative energy, on the other hand, generally favors Democrats.
There are probably other things, too. If you're a party that wishes we could go back to
the 1950s (but without the 91 percent top tax rate), you're going to have a hard time
accepting the reality that hippie-dippy, unmanly things like wind and solar power are
becoming ever more cost-competitive.
Whatever the drivers of Trump policy, the fact, as I said, is that it will kill people.
Wind turbines don't cause cancer, but coal-burning power plants do -- along with many other
ailments. The Trump administration's own estimates indicate that its relaxation of coal
pollution rules will kill more than 1,000 Americans every year. If the administration gets to
implement its full agenda -- not just deregulation of many industries, but discrimination
against industries it doesn't like, such as renewable energy -- the toll will be much
higher.
So if you eat meat -- or, for that matter, drink water or breathe air -- there's a real
sense in which Donald Trump is trying to kill you. And even if he's turned out of office next
year, for many Americans it will be too late.
Trump does not want to go back to the 50s when government policy was to greatly increase
costs by paying more workers more, while driving down prices, and elinimating rents and
scarcity profits.
Trump wants to kill jobs that are paid, but force work that is unpaid.
Well, if you means 1850, by the 50s, that's when Trump would have excelled by raping his
slaves to create more workers he would force to work, probably Brazil style, worked to death
to cut costs, based on continued enslavement of slaves, ie, no ban on slave imports after
1808.
Trump may be trying to kill us...but do Democrats have a plan to save us? So far, I can
discern no coherent message or plan from corrupt, comatose Democrats other than 'Trump is
guilty [of something or other.]
You are simply rejecting Democrats calls to reverse policies since 1970 to MAGA as failed
liberal policies because its not new, never tried before, and not free.
The growth of the 50s and 60s was too costly, requiring people to work, save, and pay ever
rising prices, taxes, and living costs.
You want economics where you can buy a million dollar home for $50,000 and have schools
funded by modest property taxes on million dollar homes, but with low tax rates on houses
assessed at $40,000.
TANSTAAFL
The only way working class families get better off is by paying higher costs.
Meet the democratic socialist who sent Rahm's floor leader packing
By Mark Brown
There's never been a Chicago politician who quite fits the profile of Andre Vasquez, the
former battle rapper and current democratic socialist who just took down veteran 40th Ward
Ald. Patrick O'Connor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's city council floor leader.
That probably scares some people.
But those folks might want to nod to the wisdom of the 54 percent of voters in the North
Side ward who waded through an onslaught of attack ads and concluded they have nothing to
fear from the 39-year-old AT&T account manager, his music or his politics.
I stopped by Vasquez's campaign office to satisfy my own curiosity about this new breed of
aldermen. Vasquez will be part of a Chicago City Council bloc of at least five, probably six
democratic socialists who, if nothing else, will alter the debate on a range of issues.
Vazquez said he understands democratic socialism as "just injecting a healthy dose of
democracy in a system we already have.
"Where we see the influence of big money and corporations in our government, where we see
the corruption in the council, where we see elected officials as bought and paid for, to me,
democratic socialism is providing a counterbalance," he said.
Vasquez also reminded me that generalizing about democratic socialists is as foolish as
generalizing about Democrats.
"I think even within democratic socialism there's such a spectrum of different folks,
right? I tend to be a counterbalance to some of the louder stuff, the louder hardcore, what
some would view as extreme," said Vasquez, noting that he sometimes takes flak within
democratic socialist circles because he's never read Marx and doesn't "bleed rose red."
"Everyone's got their part to play," he said. "Somebody's going to be the loud one in the
room because you need that kind of impetus to move things forward. And someone's got to be
the one who's making deals on legislation. You can't have ideological fights and think you're
going to come up with solutions."
Though Vasquez prefers the dealmaker role, his background suggests he also could get loud
if the occasion demanded.
Until he decided it was time to do something else with his life around 2010, Vasquez was a
battle rapper who performed under the stage name Prime. He had enough success to pay the
bills for a while, touring nationally and appearing on MTV's "Direct Effect" and HBO's "Blaze
Battle."
For old people like me who are unclear on the concept (begging the pardon of the rest of
you), battle rapping involves performers trading insults in rhyme put to music.
"Then, imagine you have a crowd around you," Vasquez explained. "And now people are
cheering you on, and the insults are getting more vicious and intricate, and it becomes a
sporting match. Right? So, in that arena, you're getting heralded for how well you can insult
the person in front of you while rhyming and improvising all as this stream of consciousness
is coming out."
I suggested a battle rap might occasionally be just the antidote to the drudgery of a
council meeting, but Vasquez wasn't amused.
The problem with battle rapping, as 40th Ward voters were reminded ad nauseam during the
runoff campaign, is that the genre relies heavily on crude insults invoking disrespectful
terms for women and LGBTQ individuals.
"The issue is toxic masculinity plagues everything," said Vasquez, who obliquely fronted
an apology for his past verbal misdeeds early in the campaign -- and more directly when hit
with a barrage of negative mailers detailing a greatest hits of his transgressions.
A lesser candidate would have been toast at that point, but Vasquez had girded himself in
advance through his door-to-door organizing.
By then, enough 40th Ward residents knew who Vasquez really was -- the son of Guatemalan
immigrants, a city kid from the neighborhoods who had become a family guy with two young kids
and a late-discovered talent for politics -- that they couldn't be scared off.
Vasquez, who lives in Edgewater, was introduced to politics when he felt the Bern in 2014
and volunteered for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. A left-leaning community group,
Reclaim Chicago, then recruited Vasquez to expand upon his organizing talents -- and taught
him how to build a classic grassroots campaign.
The result is a new Latino alderman in a ward where fewer than one-fifth of the voters are
Latino. And a Democratic Socialist representing a ward previously ruled by Emanuel's floor
leader.
"I'm not trying to plant a flag," Vasquez said. "I'm trying to make sure that people can
live here and not be forced out."
"Vasquez, who lives in Edgewater, was introduced to politics when he felt the Bern in 2014
and volunteered for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. A left-leaning community group,
Reclaim Chicago, then recruited Vasquez to expand upon his organizing talents -- and taught
him how to build a classic grassroots campaign."
I like the centrists like Krugman and liberals here like EMike who dismiss Bernie as a
cult of personality. No he's spurring local organizing which doesn't revolve around him.
Will Bernie as president build walls around big cities like Chicago, build iron Curtains, to
keep the rich inside these cities where all their wealth is taxed away every year, and they
are prevented from moving to the towns outside Chicago city limits?
"... In fact Airbus 320 series never had the same issue as it was properly designed from scratch and not like Max 8 retrofitted to carry bigger engines by that changing distribution of balance of the Aircraft and hence requiring steeper ascending angle and faster speed (for the same wing design) and hence by design more prone to stalling while in takeoff phase. ..."
"... So what is the same in B737 Max and A320 was response of AI software to sensor failures and specific external conditions of flight. In both cases such scenarios were never trained in simulators. ..."
Thanks for the report but I may add that AI auto pilot systems on Airbus are not same or
similar to MCAS as they are all integrated in autopilot on A320 series while on B737 Max 8
they are completely separate from one another not communicating at all.
In fact Airbus 320 series never had the same issue as it was properly designed from
scratch and not like Max 8 retrofitted to carry bigger engines by that changing distribution
of balance of the Aircraft and hence requiring steeper ascending angle and faster speed (for
the same wing design) and hence by design more prone to stalling while in takeoff phase.
The problem with A320 crash over Atlantic was failure of one or two of two sensors and
while in cruise phase of flight autopilot AI software response was just inappropriate in fact
detrimental as pilots were blinded disoriented during night over the ocean trying to figure
out where they are as conflicting data was coming in.
It seems by some accounts they trusted
autopilot decisions and suggestions and simply descended, hit into ocean almost
horizontally.
So what is the same in B737 Max and A320 was response of AI software to sensor failures
and specific external conditions of flight. In both cases such scenarios were never trained
in simulators.
I spent last week at Angelo State University in remote central Texas as a panelist for the
annual All-Volunteer Force (AVF)
Forum . It was a strange forum in many ways, but nonetheless instructive. I was the
youngest (and most progressive) member, as well as the lowest-ranking veteran among a group of
leaders and speakers that included two retired generals, the chief of staff to
former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a few former colonels and several academics. Despite
having remarkably diverse life experiences and political opinions, all concluded that America's
all-volunteer military is not equitable, efficient or sustainable. The inconvenient truth each
of the panel participants had the courage to identify is that the end of the draft in the U.S.
had many unintended -- and ultimately tragic -- consequences for the republic.
... ... ...
Wildly Inefficient
Contrary to early optimistic promises, the U.S. military since 1973 sports a poor efficiency
record . Especially since 9/11 -- the real first test of the new system -- American armed
forces have produced exactly zero victories. Prior to the World Trade Center attack, it can be
argued that a much larger AVF crushed Saddam Hussein's poorly led and equipped Iraqi army in
1991, but it's important to remember that that war was an anomaly -- Saddam's troops fought us
in an open desert, without any air support, and according to the conventional tactics the U.S.
military had been training against for years. I also refuse to count the imperial punishments
inflicted on Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983) as victories, because neither was a necessary or
even a fair fight. Besides, the invasion of the tiny island of Grenada was more
fiasco than triumph .
Worst of all, the AVF is inefficient because it enables the militarization of U.S. foreign
policy, ensuring high costs and much wear and tear on equipment and personnel. The lack of a
draft means the loss of what the co-founder of the AVF Forum, retired Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich,
calls "skin in the game."
When the citizenry isn't subjected to the possibility of military service, it becomes
apathetic, ignores foreign affairs and fails to pressure Congress to check presidential war
powers. Without this check, president after president -- Democrats and Republicans -- have
centralized control of foreign affairs in what has resulted in increasingly imperial
presidencies . With its huge budget, professional flexibility and can-do attitude, the
military has become the primary -- in some ways, the only -- tool in America's arsenal as
presidents move living, breathing soldiers around the world like so many toy
soldiers.
Completely Unsustainable
The AVF could also bankrupt us, or, at the very least, crash the economy. Thanks to the
influence of the military-industrial complex and the militarization of foreign policy, U.S.
defense budgets have soared into the stratosphere. At present, America spends more than $700
billion on defense -- a figure greater than all domestic discretionary spending and larger than
the combined budgets of the next seven largest militaries . As
the Vietnam War should have taught us, skyrocketing military spending without concurrent tax
increases often results in not only massive debt but crippling inflation. After 18 years of
forever global war without any meaningful increase in taxation on the nation's top earners, get
ready for the next crash. Trying to stay a hegemon (a dubious proposition in the first place)
with rising deficits and a paralyzing national debt is a recipe for failure and, ultimately,
disaster.
As recent recruitment shortfalls show, getting volunteers may not be a sustainable certainty
either. This also increases costs -- the military has had to train more full-time recruiters,
pay cash bonuses for enlistment and retention, and hire extremely expensive civilian
contractors to fill in operational gaps overseas. Nor can the AVF count on getting the best and
brightest Americans in the long term. With elites opting out completely and fewer Americans
possessing the combination of capacity -- only 30 percent of the populace is
physically/mentally qualified for the military -- and propensity to serve, where will the
military find the foot soldiers and cyberwarriors it needs in the 21st century?
In sum, throughout this century the U.S. military has won zero wars, achieved few, if any,
"national goals" and cost Americans $5.9 trillion tax dollars, more than 7,000 troop deaths,
and tens of thousands more wounded soldiers. It has cost the world 480,000 direct war-related deaths , including
244,000 civilians, and created 21 million refugees. Talk about unsustainable.
An
Unpopular Proposal
At the recent forum, Laich proposed an alternative to the current volunteer system. To
ensure fairness, efficiency and sustainability, the U.S. could create a lottery system (with no
college or other elite deferments) that gives draftees three options :
serve two years on active duty right after high school,
serve six years in the reserves,
or go straight to college and enroll in the ROTC program .
Additionally, this lottery would apply to both men and women, and would require only one
combat deployment from each reservist. Whether or not one agrees with this idea, it would
create a more egalitarian, representative, affordable and sustainable national defense tool.
Furthermore, with the children of bankers, doctors, lawyers and members of Congress subject to
service, the government might think twice before embarking on the next foolish, unwinnable
military venture.
Few Americans, however, are likely to be comfortable delegating the power of conscription to
a federal government they inherently distrust. Still, paradoxically, the move toward a
no-deferment, equitable lottery draft might result in a nation less prone to militarism and
adventurism than the optional AVF has. Parents whose children are subject to military service,
as well as young adults themselves, might prove to be canny students of foreign policy who
would actively oppose the next American war. Imagine that: an engaged citizenry that holds its
legislators accountable and subsequently hits the streets to oppose unnecessary and unethical
war. Ironic as it may seem, more military service may actually be the only workable formula for
less war. Too bad returning to a citizens' military is as unpopular as it is unlikely.
Because there is a presidential
election coming up next year, the Donald
Trump Administration appears to be looking for a
country that it can attack and destroy in order to prove its toughness
and willingness to
go all the way in support of alleged American interests. It is a version of the old neocon doctrine
attributed to Michael Ledeen, the belief that every once in a while, it is necessary to pick out
some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate that the United States
means business.
"Meaning business" is a tactic whereby the adversary surrenders immediately in fear of
the possible consequences, but there are a couple of problems with that thinking.
The first is that an opponent who can resist will sometimes balk and create a
continuing problem for the United States, which has a demonstrated inability to start and end
wars in any coherent fashion.
This tendency to get caught in a quagmire in a situation that might have been resolved
through diplomacy has been exacerbated by the current White House's negotiating style, which is
to both demand and expect submission on all points even before discussions begin. That was
clearly the perception with North Korea, where National Security Advisor John Bolton insisted
that Pyongyang had agreed to American demands over its nuclear program even though it hadn't and
would have been foolish to do so for fear of being treated down the road like Libya, which
denuclearized but then was attacked and destroyed seven years later. The Bolton mis-perception,
which was apparently bought into by Trump, led to a complete unraveling of what might actually
have been accomplished if the negotiations had been serious and open to reasonable compromise
right from the beginning.
Trump's
written
demand
that Kim Jong Un immediately hand over his nuclear weapons and all bomb making
material was a non-starter based on White House misunderstandings rooted in its disdain for
compromise. The summit meeting with Trump, held in Hanoi at the end of February, was abruptly
canceled by Kim and Pyongyang subsequently accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of
making "gangster-like" demands.
The second problem is that there are only a few actual casus belli situations under
international law that permit a country to attack another preemptively, and they are usually
limited to actual imminent threats.
The current situation with Venezuela is similar to
that with North Korea in that Washington is operating on the presumption that it has a right to
intervene and bring about regime change, using military force if necessary, because of its
presumed leadership role in global security, not because Caracas or even Pyongyang necessarily
is threatening anyone. That presumption that American "exceptionalism" provides authorization to
intervene in other countries using economic weapons backed up by a military option that is "on
the table" is a viewpoint that is not accepted by the rest of the world.
In the case of Venezuela, where Trump has dangerously demanded that Russia withdraw the hundred
or so advisors that it sent to help stabilize the country, the supposition that the United States
has exclusive extra-territorial rights is largely based on nineteenth and early twentieth century
unilaterally declared "doctrines."
The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary
of 1904 de facto established the United States as the hegemon-presumptive for the entire Western
Hemisphere, stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to Patagonia in the south.
John Bolton has been the leader in
promoting
the Monroe Doctrine
as justification for Washington's interference in Venezuela's politics,
apparently only dimly aware that the Doctrine, which opposed any attempts by European powers to
establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere, was only in effect for twenty-two years when the
United States itself annexed Texas and then went to war with Mexico in the following year
Too many hooray, we are the USSA, America is the best cheerleaders, have no idea of the
gravity of the situation they will face, when the dollar and by extension the Petrodollar
implodes.
The rejection of the USSA has already started, but the average Yank hasn't noticed. When
Ethiopia, can reject a direct request from Uncle Scam and send the Black-Boxes to Europe,
because the USSA cannot be trusted, says it all. It is the little things we miss, things that
seem small and insignificant, that actually reveals a lot and the Ethiopian rejection was
one.
The world has simply had enough of USSA diktats and subsidising them. The USSA is merely
4% of the worlds population, that consumes 24.8% of the worlds resources and this situation
is totally untenable. A nation of exceptionalists. 5%? Yes. The rest? lol
Tulsi is a really great polemist with a very sharp mind and ability to find weak points in the opponent platform/argumentation
and withstand pressure. In the debate she will probably will wipe the floor with Trump. IMHO he stands no chances against her in the
open debate
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers. The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country's infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity. ..."
"... While the paper hailed the fact that the Pentagon's budget increase allowed local workers to keep their jobs and encouraged a skilled workforce to move to a small town in rural Ohio, Gabbard apparently hinted that the whole story in fact described what amounted to re-distribution of money from taxpayers to a de-facto depressed area to save some jobs – a social-democratic if not outright socialist move indeed. ..."
"... In her post, Gabbard also added that the US might have had a better use for a $160 billion boost in defense spending over two years. “The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity,” she wrote. ..."
US President Donald Trump, who has been relentlessly bashing everything linked to what he sees as 'socialism,' is himself no stranger
to using socialist principles to support the US arms industry, Tulsi Gabbard has claimed. One could hardly suspect Trump of being
a socialist in disguise.
After all, the US president has emerged as one of the most ardent critics of the leftist ideological platform.
Just recently, he announced he would "go into the war with some socialists," while apparently referring to his political opponents
from the Democratic Party.
But the president also seems to be quite keen on borrowing some socialist ideas when it fits his agenda, at least, according to
the congresswoman from Hawaii and Democratic presidential candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, who recently wrote in a tweet that "Trump
is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers."
Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers. The same money
would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country's infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity.https://t.co/tcNqsNQVbN
She was referring to a
piece in The Los Angeles Times, which cheerfully reported that Trump's whopping military budget helps to breathe some new life
into a Pentagon-owned tank manufacturing plant somewhere in northwestern Ohio that was once on the verge of a shutdown.
While the paper hailed the fact that the Pentagon's budget increase allowed local workers to keep their jobs and encouraged a
skilled workforce to move to a small town in rural Ohio, Gabbard apparently hinted that the whole story in fact described what amounted
to re-distribution of money from taxpayers to a de-facto depressed area to save some jobs – a social-democratic if not outright socialist
move indeed.
It is very much unclear if Trump had this Ohio plant or any other factories like it in mind when he supported the record Pentagon
budget. After all, redistributing large sums of public money in favor of the booming US military industrial complex does not look
very much like socialism.
In her post, Gabbard also added that the US might have had a better use for a $160 billion
boost in defense
spending over two years. “The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and green economy,
and it would be better for humanity,” she wrote.
Trump, meanwhile, seems to be pretty confident that his policies indeed “make America great again” while it is those
pesky socialists that threaten to ruin everything he has achieved. “I love the idea of 'Keep America Great' because you know
what it says is we've made it great now we're going to keep it great because the socialists will destroy it,” he told an audience
of Republican congress members this week, while talking about the forthcoming presidential campaign.
Am grateful for your noble stand and having written: " and we know who US support,
Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, etc."
For your information, come Monday, PreZident t-Rump plans to lie & dangerously declare
Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. (Zigh) Doing so, no doubt, will provoke NSA
Director Boltom to experience an orgasm in his Wall Mart suit pants.
Nonetheless, linked below is a Counterpunch article where William Collins described going
to Iran along with colleagues on a peace mission. A fellow suffered a heart problem, and
entered an Iranian hospital where he was treated successfully. Nonetheless, when it came time
to use his health care plan to pay the bill, Mr. Collins learned the claim was refused
because such transaction (obligation) would violate ZUS economic sanctions!
"You see all of these Russian connections -- there's a new one every single day, and increasingly benign explanations
for what the Trump, for what they're up to, benign explanations are just not credible."
A technical issue that Boeing flagged in a safety warning after the deadly 737 MAX 8 crash
in Indonesia could happen to any other aircraft, and it's "not unlikely" that the manufacturer
knew about it, aviation experts told RT. Earlier this week, Boeing issued a safety update
to pilots flying its newest 737 MAX airliner, warning of a possible fault in a sensor that
could send the aircraft into a violent nosedive.
That sensor measures air flow over a plane's wings, but its failure can lead to an
aerodynamic stall.
International aviation experts told RT that a problem of this kind could doom aircraft of
any type. The tragedy that happened to Lion Air's Boeing 737 MAX is not the first of its kind
to involve a faulty
"Pitot tube" – a critical air-speed sensor that measures the flow velocity
– explained Elmar Giemulla, a leading German expert in air and traffic law.
"This is not unusual in the way it happened before," he noted, mentioning incidents
similar to the Lion Air crash. Back in 1996, a Boeing 757 operated by Turkey's Birgenair
stalled and crashed in the Caribbean because of a blocked pitot tube. Likewise, erroneous
air-speed indications, coupled with pilot errors, led to the crash of an Air France Airbus A330
over the Atlantic in 2009.
While the problem is not entirely new, it is unclear how Boeing had tackled it, according to
Giemulla. "It is not very unlikely" that Boeing knew about the problem, he said, warning
that "more than 200 planes are concerned and this could happen tomorrow again."
There is so much experience with [using Pitot tubes] that it surprises me very much
that this could happen to a newly developed plane.
However, the expert doubted that there has been any cover-up of the issue, instead
suggesting that "obviously gross negligence" had been involved.
A 737 MAX 8 servicing Lion Air flight 610 last week ploughed into the waters of the Java Sea
shortly after take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Investigators say there
is a possibility that inaccurate readings fed into the MAX's computer could have sent the plane
into a sudden descent.
If markets were truly free and there was real capitalism then airlines would be looking at
the new and excellent Russian MC-21 which does what Boeing was trying to do with the 737 Max.
The MC-21 will safely handle passengers in the 140 to 160 passengers and is a mid range plane
that can go as far as 4,000 miles.
Instead – Boeing lobbies the corrupt U.S. AIPAC Congress to keep a Boeing
monopoly of death traps like the 737 Max allowing some Airbus sales. They also blocked a nice
Bombardier mid range jet from Canada.
I've flown in the Bombardier in South America– it is a fine aircraft.
"... "Sadly, these two entirely preventable airline crashes demonstrate that the FAA is ill-equipped to oversee the aerospace industry and will downplay serious hazards and safety risks to the public rather than sound the alarm about safety concerns, problems, issues and hazards that pose substantial, probable, and/or foreseeable risks to human life," attorneys for Stumo said in the lawsuit. ..."
"... "Boeing, and the regulators that enabled it, must be held accountable for their reckless actions." The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee said this week that whistleblowers have come forward to report that FAA safety inspectors, including those involved with approvals for the 737 Max, lacked proper training and certifications. ..."
"... But legal experts have said the second disaster could prove even more damaging for the company. That's because plaintiffs will argue the manufacturer was put on notice by the earlier tragedy that there was something dangerously wrong with its planes that should have been fixed. ..."
The parents of Samya Stumo, 24, alleged Boeing was "blinded by its greed" and rushed the 737
Max 8 to market with the "knowledge and tacit approval" of the FAA, while hiding defects in its
automated flight-control system. The suit also cites a similar flaw in the
Lion Air flight of a 737 Max 8 jet that crashed into the Java Sea on October 29 , killing
189.
The complaint alleges that decisions by Boeing leaders contributed to the crash and
"demonstrate Boeing's conscious disregard for the lives of others," including designing an
aircraft with a flight-control system that is "susceptible to catastrophic failure" in the
event of a single defective sensor made by Rosemount Aerospace.
'Ill-equipped'
"Sadly, these two entirely preventable airline crashes demonstrate that the FAA is
ill-equipped to oversee the aerospace industry and will downplay serious hazards and safety
risks to the public rather than sound the alarm about safety concerns, problems, issues and
hazards that pose substantial, probable, and/or foreseeable risks to human life," attorneys for
Stumo said in the lawsuit.
"Boeing, and the regulators that enabled it, must be held
accountable for their reckless actions." The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee said
this week that whistleblowers have come forward to report that FAA safety inspectors, including
those involved with approvals for the 737 Max, lacked proper training and certifications.
Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said those claims prompted him to investigate
potential connections between training and certification shortcomings and the FAA's evaluation
of the airliner.
The Senate panel's probe is the latest in a string of investigations by US
officials and lawmakers into how the FAA cleared the 737 Max as safe to fly. The Transportation
Department's inspector general is reviewing the FAA's process for approving the airworthiness
of new jets and aiding a Justice Department criminal probe.
Criminal probe
A grand jury convened by US prosecutors last month subpoenaed a former Boeing engineer
demanding he provide testimony and documents related to the 737 Max.
FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell has said the agency "welcomes external review of our
systems, processes and recommendations." Boeing faces the prospect of substantial payouts to
the families of passengers if it's found responsible for both the Ethiopia Air and Lion Air
crashes.
But legal experts have said the second disaster could prove even more damaging for the
company. That's because plaintiffs will argue the manufacturer was put on notice by the earlier
tragedy that there was something dangerously wrong with its planes that should have been
fixed.
The company failed itself by replacing engineers with Wall Street accountants.... typical
US corporation destroyed from withing by asset strippers, chiselers, deregulators... the
complete gamut of "free enterprise" vampires leaving the US economy in shambles.
Agree with that, theres been a serious drive to focus on bean-counting and bringing in
"mainstream" business leadership from companies like GE/Toyota/3m (think outsourcing/stock
buybacks/automate/layoff type)
Its one of the few companies that has a real hard time getting rid of skilled labor,
because building an aircraft is an incredibly huge undertaking, with lots of hand fitting and
a wide array of technical skills, so getting rid of the labor hasnt worked to this point.
But they're trying hard to get inline with the typical "modern" business model, and it
hasnt been great for morale.
Boeing has been working on a fix to the anti-stall software for some time now. However,
Reuters today reported that regulators including EASA knew that the MAX's trim control was
confusing.
"... No. Possibly Boeing & the FAA will solve the immediate issue, but they have destroyed Trust. ..."
"... It has emerged on the 737MAX that larger LEAP-1B engines were unsuited to the airframe and there is no way now to alter the airframe to balance the aircraft. ..."
"... Boeing failed to provide training or training material to pilots or even advise them the existence of MCAS. There was a complex two step process required of pilots in ET302 and JT610 crashes and their QRH handbook did not explain this: ..."
No. Possibly
Boeing & the FAA will solve the immediate issue, but they have
destroyed Trust.
Other brands of
aircraft like Airbus with AF447 established trust after their A330
aircraft plunged into the Atlantic in a mysterious accident.
With Airbus
everyone saw transparency & integrity in how their accidents were
investigated. How Boeing & FAA approached accident investigation
destroyed public Trust.
By direct
contrast in the mysterious disappearance of MH370, Boeing
contributed nothing to the search effort and tried to blame the
pilot or hijackers.
With the 737MAX
in Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes Boeing again tried to blame
pilots, poor training, poor maintenance and then when mechanical
defect was proven, Boeing tried to downplay how serious the issue
was and gave false assurances after Lion Air that the plane was
still safe. ET302 proved otherwise.
It is no longer
possible to trust the aircraft's certification. It is no longer
possible to trust that safety was the overriding principle in
design of the Boeing 737 MAX nor several other Boeing designs for
that matter.
The Public have
yet to realize that the Boeing 777 is an all electric design where
in certain scenarios like electrical fire in the avionics bay, an
MEC override vent opens allowing cabin air pressure to push out
smoke. This silences the cabin depressurization alarms.
As an
electrical failure worsens, in that scenario another system called
ELMS turns off electrical power to the Air Cycle Machine which
pumps pressurized air into the cabin. The result of ELMS cutting
power means the override vent fails to close again and no new
pressurized air maintains pressure in the cabin. Pilots get no
warning.
An incident in
2007 is cited as AD 2007–07–05 by the FAA in which part but not
all of this scenario played out in a B777 at altitude.
MH370 may have
been the incident in which the full scenario played out, but of
course Boeing is not keen for MH370 to be found and unlike Airbus
which funded the search for AF447, Boeing contributed nothing to
finding MH370.
It has emerged
on the 737MAX that larger LEAP-1B engines were unsuited to the
airframe and there is no way now to alter the airframe to balance
the aircraft.
It also emerged
that the choice to fit engines to this airframe have origins in a
commercial decision to please Southwest Airlines and cancel the
Boeing 757.
Boeing failed
to provide training or training material to pilots or even advise
them the existence of MCAS. There was a complex two step process
required of pilots in ET302 and JT610 crashes and their QRH
handbook did not explain this:
The MAX is
an aerodynamically unbalanced aircraft vulnerable to any sort of
disruption, ranging from electrical failure, out of phase
generator, faulty AOA sensor, faulty PCU failure alert, digital
encoding error in the DFDAU.
Jason Eaton
Former Service Manager
Studied at University of
Life
Lives in Sydney,
Australia
564k answer views
50.7k
this month
Answered Mar 24, 2019
·
No I wouldn't.
I'm not a pilot or an aerospace technician but I am a mechanical
engineer, so I know a little bit about physics and stuff.
The 737–8
is carrying engines it was never designed for, that cause it to
become inherently unstable. So unstable in fact, that it can't be
controlled by humans and instead relies on computer aided control
to maintain the correct attitude, particularly during ascent and
descent.
The MCAS system
is, effectively, a band aid to fix a problem brought about by poor
design philosophy. Boeing should have designed a new airframe that
complements the new engines, instead of ruining a perfectly good
aircraft by bolting on power units it's not designed to carry, and
then trying to solve the resulting instability with software. And
if that isn't bad enough, the system relies on data from just the
one sensor which if it doesn't agree with, it'll force the
aircraft nose down regardless of the pilots' better judgement.
That might be
ok for the Eurofighter Typhoon but it's definitely not ok for fare
paying passengers on a commercial jetliner.
So, no. I won't
be flying on a 737–8 until it's been redesigned to fly safely. You
know, like a properly designed aeroplane should.
4.8k
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·
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"... Under the circumstances, Boeing's best option was to just take the hit for a few years and accept that it was going to have to start selling 737s at a discount price while it designed a whole new airplane. That would, of course, be time-consuming and expensive, and during the interim, it would probably lose a bunch of narrow-body sales to Airbus. ..."
"... As late as February 2011, Boeing chair and CEO James McNerney was sticking to the plan to design a totally new aircraft. ..."
"... Committing to putting a new engine that didn't fit on the plane was the corporate version of the Fyre Festival's "let's just do it and be legends, man" moment, and it unsurprisingly wound up leading to a slew of engineering and regulatory problems. ..."
"... The problem is that an airplane is a big, complicated network of interconnected parts. To get the engine under the 737 wing, engineers had to mount the engine nacelle higher and more forward on the plane. But moving the engine nacelle (and a related change to the nose of the plane) changed the aerodynamics of the plane, such that the plane did not handle properly at a high angle of attack ..."
"... But note that the underlying problem isn't really software; it's with the effort to use software to get around a whole host of other problems. ..."
"... Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the "build a new plane" plan and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in the current situation. Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal -- a software update here, a new warning light there, etc. -- in hopes of persuading global regulatory agencies to let its planes fly again. ..."
"... That said, on March 27, FAA officials faced the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation and Space at a hearing called by subcommittee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX). Regulators committed at the hearing to revamp the way they certify new planes , in light of the flaws that were revealed in the previous certification process. ..."
"... a central element of this story is the credibility of the FAA's process ..."
Claiming responsibility was part of an attempt to get the planes approved to fly again.
Boeing was trying to say that it now understands why the planes crashes -- flawed software --
and has a plan in place to replace it with new software that will eliminate the problem and
persuade regulators to get the planes off the ground. But then Friday morning, the company
announced that it had found a second,
unrelated software flaw that it also needs to fix and will somewhat delay the process of
getting the planes cleared to fly again.
All of which, of course, raises the question of why such flawed systems were allowed to fly
in the first place.
And that story begins nine years ago when Boeing was faced with a major threat to its bottom
line, spurring the airline to rush a series of kludges through the certification process --
with an underresourced Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) seemingly all too eager to help an
American company threatened by a foreign competitor, rather than to ask tough questions about
the project.
The specifics of what happened in the regulatory system are still emerging (and despite
executives' assurances, we don't even really know what happened on the flights yet). But the
big picture is coming into view: A major employer faced a major financial threat, and
short-term politics and greed won out over the integrity of the regulatory system. It's a
scandal. The A320neo was trouble for Boeing
Jet fuel is a major cost for airlines. With labor costs largely driven by collective
bargaining agreements and regulations that require minimum ratios of flight attendants per
passenger, fuel is the cost center airlines have the most capacity to do something about.
Consequently, improving fuel efficiency has emerged as one of the major bases of competition
between airline manufacturers.
If you roll back to 2010, it began to look like Boeing had a real problem in this
regard.
Airbus was coming out with an updated version of the
A320 family that it called the A320neo , with "neo" meaning "new engine option." The new
engines were going to be more fuel-efficient, with a larger diameter than previous A320
engines, that could nonetheless be mounted on what was basically the same airframe. This was a
nontrivial engineering undertaking both in designing the new engines and in figuring out how to
make them work with the old airframe, but even though it cost a bunch of money, it basically
worked. And it raised the question of whether Boeing would respond.
Initial word was that it wouldn't. As CBS Moneywatch's Brett
Snyder wrote in December 2010 , the basic problem was that you couldn't slap the new
generation of more efficient, larger-diameter engines onto the 737:
One of the issues for Boeing is that it takes more work to put new engines on the 737 than
on the A320. The 737 is lower to the ground than the A320, and the new engines have a
larger diameter . So while both manufacturers would have to do work, the Boeing guys
would have more work to do to jack the airplane up. That will cost more while reducing
commonality with the current fleet. As we know from last week, reduced commonality means
higher costs for the airlines as well.
Under the circumstances, Boeing's best option was to just take the hit for a few years and
accept that it was going to have to start selling 737s at a discount price while it designed a
whole new airplane. That would, of course, be time-consuming and expensive, and during the
interim, it would probably lose a bunch of narrow-body sales to Airbus.
The original version of the 737 first flew in 1967, and a decades-old decision about how
much height to leave between the wing and the runway left them boxed out of 21st-century engine
technology -- and there was simply nothing to be done about it.
Unless there was.
Boeing decided to put on the too-big engines anyway
As late as February 2011, Boeing chair and CEO James McNerney was sticking to the plan to
design a totally new aircraft.
"We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet," he
said on an analyst call , "but our current bias is to move to a newer airplane, an all-new
airplane, at the end of the decade, beginning of the next decade. It's our judgment that our
customers will wait for us."
It's not entirely clear what happened, but, reading between the lines, it seems that in
talking to its customers Boeing reached the conclusion that airlines would not wait for them.
Some critical mass of carriers (American Airlines seems to have been particularly influential)
was credible enough in its threat to switch to Airbus equipment that Boeing decided it needed
to offer 737 buyers a Boeing solution sooner rather than later.
Committing to putting a new engine that didn't fit on the plane was the corporate version of
the Fyre Festival's "let's
just do it and be legends, man" moment, and it unsurprisingly wound up leading to a slew of
engineering and regulatory problems.
New engines on an old plane
As the industry trade publication Leeham News and Analysis explained earlier in March,
Boeing engineers had been
working on the concept that became the 737 Max even back when the company's plan was still
not to build it. In a March 2011 interview with Aircraft Technology, Mike Bair, then the head of 737 product
development, said that reengineering was possible. "There's been fairly extensive engineering work on it," he said. "We figured out a way to
get a big enough engine under the wing."
The problem is that an airplane is a big, complicated network of interconnected parts. To
get the engine under the 737 wing, engineers had to mount the engine nacelle higher and more
forward on the plane. But moving the engine nacelle (and a related change to the nose of the
plane) changed the aerodynamics of the plane, such that the plane did not handle properly at a
high angle of attack.
That, in turn, led to the creation of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System
(MCAS). It fixed the angle-of-attack problem in most situations, but it created new problems in
other situations when it made it difficult for pilots to directly control the plane without
being overridden by the MCAS.
On Wednesday, Boeing rolled out a software patch that it says corrects the problem, and it
hopes to persuade the FAA to agree.
But note that the underlying problem isn't really software; it's with the effort to use
software to get around a whole host of other problems.
1of x: BEST analysis of what really is happening on the #Boeing737Max
issue from my brother in law @davekammeyer , who's a pilot,
software engineer & deep thinker. Bottom line don't blame software that's the band aid
for many other engineering and economic forces in effect.
Recall, after all, that the whole point of the 737 Max project was to be able to say that
the new plane was the same as the old plane. From an engineering perspective, the preferred
solution was to actually build a new plane. But for business reasons, Boeing didn't want a "new
plane" that would require a lengthy certification process and extensive (and expensive) new
pilot training for its customers. The demand was for a plane that was simultaneously new and
not new.
But because the new engines wouldn't fit under the old wings, the new plane wound up having
different aerodynamic properties than the old plane. And because the aerodynamics were
different, the flight control systems were also different. But treating the whole thing as a
fundamentally different plane would have undermined the whole point. So the FAA and Boeing
agreed to sort of fudge it.
The new planes are pretty different
As far as we can tell, the 737 Max is a perfectly airworthy plane in the sense that
error-free piloting allows it to be operated safely.
But pilots of planes that didn't crash kept noticing the same basic pattern of behavior that
is suspected to have been behind the two crashes, according to a Dallas Morning News review of
voluntary aircraft incident reports to a NASA database:
The disclosures found by the News reference problems with an autopilot system, and they
all occurred during the ascent after takeoff. Many mentioned the plane suddenly nosing down.
While records show these flights occurred in October and November, the airlines the pilots
were flying for is redacted from the database.
These pilots all safely disabled the MCAS and kept their planes in the air. But one of the
pilots reported to the
database that it was "unconscionable that a manufacturer, the FAA, and the airlines would
have pilots flying an airplane without adequately training, or even providing available
resources and sufficient documentation to understand the highly complex systems that
differentiate this aircraft from prior models."
The training piece is important because a key selling feature of the 737 Max was the idea
that since it wasn't really a new plane, pilots didn't really need to be retrained for the new
equipment. As the New York Times reported, "For many new airplane models, pilots train for
hours on giant, multimillion-dollar machines, on-the-ground versions of cockpits that mimic the
flying experience and teach them new features" while the experienced 737 Max pilots were
allowed light refresher courses that you could do on an iPad.
That let Boeing get the planes into customers' hands quickly and cheaply, but evidently at
the cost of increasing the possibility of pilots not really knowing how to handle the planes,
with dire consequences for everyone involved.
The FAA put a lot of faith in Boeing
In a blockbuster March 17 report for the Seattle Times, the newspaper's aerospace reporter
Dominic Gates details the extent to which
the FAA delegated crucial evaluations of the 737's safety to Boeing itself . The
delegation, Gates explains, is in part a story of a years-long process during which the FAA,
"citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to
Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes."
But there are indications of failures that were specific to the 737 Max timeline. In
particular, Gates reports that "as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the
process" and that "when time was too short for FAA technical staff to complete a review,
sometimes managers either signed off on the documents themselves or delegated their review back
to Boeing."
Most of all, decisions about what could and could not be delegated were being made by
managers concerned about the timeline, rather than by the agency's technical experts.
It's not entirely clear at this point why the FAA was so determined to get the 737 cleared
quickly (there will be more investigations), but if you recall the political circumstances of
this period in Barack Obama's presidency, you can quickly get a general sense of the issue.
Boeing is not just a big company with a significant lobbying presence in Washington; it's a
major manufacturing company with a strong global export presence and a source of many
good-paying union jobs. In short, it was exactly the kind of company the powers that be were
eager to promote -- with the Obama White House, for example, proudly going to bat for the
Export-Import Bank as a key way to sustain America's aerospace industry.
A story about overweening regulators delaying an iconic American company's product launch
and costing good jobs compared to the European competition would have looked very bad. And the
fact that the whole purpose of the plane was to be more fuel-efficient only made getting it off
the ground a bigger priority. But the incentives really were reasonably aligned, and Boeing has
only caused problems for itself by cutting corners.
Boeing is now in a bad situation
One emblem of the whole situation is that as the 737 Max engineering team piled kludge on
top of kludge, they came up with a cockpit
warning light that would alert the pilots if the plane's two angle-of-attack sensors
disagreed.
But then, as
Jon Ostrower reported for the Air Current , Boeing's team decided to make the warning light
an optional add-on, like how car companies will upcharge you for a moon roof.
The
light cost $80,000 extra per plane and neither Lion Air nor Ethiopian chose to buy it,
perhaps figuring that Boeing would not sell a plane (nor would the FAA allow it to) that was
not basically safe to fly. In the wake of the crashes, Boeing has decided to revisit this
decision and make the light standard on all aircraft.
This, fundamentally, is one reason the FAA has become comfortable working so closely with
Boeing on safety regulations: The nature of the airline industry is such that there's no real
money to be made selling airplanes that have a poor safety track record. One could even imagine
sketching out a utopian libertarian argument to the effect that there's no real need for a
government role in certifying new airplanes at all, precisely because there's no reason to
think it's profitable to make unsafe ones.
The real world, of course, is quite a bit different from that, and different individuals and
institutions face particular pressures that can lead them to take actions that don't
collectively make sense. Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the
"build a new plane" plan and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in
the current situation. Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal
-- a software update here, a new warning light there, etc. -- in hopes of persuading global
regulatory agencies to let its planes fly again.
But even once that's done, Boeing faces the task of convincing airlines to actually buy its
planes. An
informative David Ljunggren article for Reuters reminds us that a somewhat comparable
situation arose in 1965 when three then-new Boeing 727 jetliners crashed.
There wasn't really anything unsound about the 727 planes, but many pilots didn't fully
understand how to operate the new flaps -- arguably a parallel to the MCAS situation with the
737 Max -- which spurred some additional training and changes to the operation manual.
Passengers avoided the planes for months, but eventually came back as there were no more
crashes, and the 727 went on to fly safely for decades. Boeing hopes to have a similar happy
ending to this saga, but so far it seems to be a long way from that point. And the immediate
future likely involves more tough questions.
A political scandal on slow burn
The 737 Max was briefly a topic of political controversy in the United States as foreign
regulators grounded the planes, but President Donald Trump -- after speaking personally to
Boeing's CEO -- declined to follow. Many members of Congress (from both parties) called on him
to reconsider, which he rather quickly did, pushing the whole topic off Washington's front
burner.
But Trump is generally friendly to Boeing (he even has a former Boeing executive, Patrick
Shanahan, serving as acting
defense secretary, despite an ongoing ethics inquiry into charges that Shanahan unfairly
favors his former employer), and Republicans are generally averse to harsh regulatory
crackdowns. The most important decisions in the mix appear to have been made back during the
Obama administration, so it's also difficult for Democrats to go after this issue. Meanwhile,
Washington has been embroiled in wrangling over special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation,
and a new health care battlefield opened up as well.
That said, on March 27, FAA officials faced the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee
on Aviation and Space at a hearing called by subcommittee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX). Regulators
committed at the hearing to revamp the way they certify new
planes , in light of the flaws that were revealed in the previous certification
process.
The questions at stake, however, are now much bigger than one subcommittee. Billions of
dollars are on the line for Boeing, the airlines that fly 737s, and the workers who build the
planes. And since a central element of this story is the credibility of the FAA's
process -- in the eyes of the American people and of foreign regulatory agencies -- it
almost certainly won't get sorted out without more involvement from the actual decision-makers
in the US government.
Ralph Nader, the noted consumer rights advocate, called for a recall and consumer boycott of the
Boeing
jet grounded by regulators across the globe after two deadly crashes.
His niece, 24-year-old Samya
Stumo, was among the 157 victims of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash last month, less than six months after a
flight on the same aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed in Indonesia.
"Those planes should never fly again," said Nader, speaking by phone at a news conference after Stumo's family
filed a lawsuit against Chicago-based Boeing, one of its suppliers and Ethiopian Airlines. The family also filed a
claim against the
Federal Aviation Administration
.
Stumo's family's lawsuit is one of several filed by relatives of passengers killed in the Ethiopian Airlines and
Lion Air crashes. All those families have "such huge holes" because of the aircraft's problems, said Nadia Milleron,
Stumo's mother, who said she had met others who lost loved ones in Ethiopia.
"As someone who's lost the dearest person in my life, I want her death not to be in vain. I don't want anybody
else to die," she said at the news conference in Chicago.
"Those in charge of creating and selling this plane did not treat Samya as they would their own daughters," said
Milleron, who was visibly emotional as she spoke about her daughter.
"This could have been prevented, and that's what makes me cry," she said.
Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed"
helped bring about a series of auto safety laws
, including the creation the federal agency that became the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which oversees the auto industry. He later turned his attention to
various consumer protection efforts related to food, drug and workplace safety and clean air and water.
On Thursday, he took aim at Boeing, blaming the crashes on design problems that he argued were the result of the
company's focus on getting the plane on the market quickly to compete with its rival manufacturer Airbus.
He also criticized the relationship between Boeing and the federal agency tasked with overseeing aviation industry
safety.
"If we don't end the cozy relationship between the patsy FAA and the Boeing company, 5,000 of these fatally flawed
planes will be in the air all over the world with millions of passengers," Nader said.
Boeing said Thursday it is reviewing a preliminary report on last month's crash from Ethiopian authorities that
said the same anti-stall system that came under scrutiny in the Lion Air crash was activated on the Ethiopian
Airlines flight.
Most accidents are the result of a chain of events, but when that system is activated in error, it adds to "what
is already a high-workload environment," Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg
said in
a video
released by the company on Thursday.
"It's our responsibility to eliminate this risk. We own it, and we know how to do it," he said.
Boeing said it is still working with the FAA and regulatory agencies to develop and certify a software update
designed to keep the system from being activated unintentionally, along with additional training for pilots.
Nader said he doesn't think the software fix is enough to make the plane safe since it can't predict all potential
problems with a plane that is "prone to stall."
While Boeing has worked to show it is taking steps to address safety concerns, the FAA is planning changes to its
oversight of airplane development, which delegates some authority for certifying new aircraft to their manufacturers,
the Associated
Press reported
.
"... [We] can now reveal how it's possible the aircraft can crash despite using the Cut-Out switches. To verify, we ran it all in a simulator together with MentourPilot Youtube channel over the last days. ..."
"... Nowhere is it described the trim could be impossible to move if the Cut-Out switches were cut at the slightest miss-trim at the speeds flown. And there is no warning on when to move the Cut-Out switches, the checklist says "Cut, then trim manually." This is not the whole truth . ..."
"... The high speed of 340kts indicated airspeed and the trim at 2.3 units causes the Stabilator manual trim to jam, one can't move it by hand. The crew is busy trying to hand trim the next two minutes but no trim change is achieved. ..."
"... It's easy to say "Why didn't they trim then?". Because they are going down at 20 degrees nose down (which is a lot, a normal landing approach is 3°) and at 400kts. Then you just pull for all you have. And the aircraft is not reacting to the largest Control Column displacement since takeoff. This makes them pull even harder, the aircraft is unresponsive and they are fighting for theirs and all the passenger lives. ..."
"... Moreover their description of the MCAS was incomplete . It is only now known that the MCAS trims the stabilizer at a speeed of 0.27 units (degrees) per second while the pilots electric trim moves the stabilizer at only 0.18 units per second: ..."
"... If MCAS keeps tripping, and if pilots do not shut off electric trim entirely, the result is what Tajer describes as a two-steps-back, one-step-forward scenario, with MCAS maintaining an edge. ..."
"... "The MCAS knows but one speed, which is 0.27, which is the most-aggressive speed," Tajer says. "If you look at the balance sheet on it, MCAS is winning, and you are losing." ..."
"... That additional problem pertains to software affecting flaps and other flight-control hardware and is therefore classified as critical to flight safety, said two officials with knowledge of the investigation. ..."
"... This is not about sensor failure. It is about the profit of cheap parts and greed. The insiders at Boeing tipped off the Big Boys that they needed more than the gizmos installed on export versions if they were going to survive. ..."
"... Engineering Manufacturing company with a sales division works alright. But a Sales Company with a manufacturing subsidiary does not, as we see. Boeing is typical for end-stage Imperial Corporations - all show, no go, and get the money quick... ..."
"... A mistake is one or two errors. This was one horrible string of deliberate corner cutting, about 7-8 totally disastrous decisions by the management, that could have only led to deaths of people uninformed enough to purchase the travel risk from this plane supplier. ..."
< to include the new system into training material for the pilots which Boeing, for
commercial reasons, did not do.>
After the Lion Air crash the Federal Aviation Administration
issued an Airworthiness
Directive 2018-23-51 which adviced 737 MAX pilots how to handle an MCAS failure.
The FAA told 737 MAX pilots to use the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff switches to interupt the
power supply for the system's actuator, a motor driven jackscrew in the back of the airplane.
The pilots should then use the manual trim wheels in the cockpit, which move the jackscrew
and stabilizer via steel cables, to righten the aircraft.
On March 10 a 737 MAX flown by Ethiopian Airline crashed shortly after take off. 157
people died. Radar data and debris found showed that the cause was likely a similar MCAS
failure as had happened on the Indonesian Lion Air flight.
All 737 MAX planes were grounded with the U.S. being the last country to order it.
Some U.S. pilots, as well as some commentators here, publicly blamed the darker skin
pilots for not using the simple procedure the FAA had put out: "Why didn't they just flip the
switches? Stupid undertrained third-world dudes."
The preliminary report clearly showed that the Ethiopian Airlines pilots who were
commanding Flight ET 302/10 March have followed the Boeing recommended and FAA approved
emergency procedures to handle the most difficult emergency situation created on the
airplane. Despite their hard work and full compliance with the emergency procedures, it was
very unfortunate that they could not recover the airplane from the persistence of nose
diving.
The procedure Boeing and the FAA advised to use was insufficient to bring the aircraft
back under control. It was in fact impossible to recover the plane. The possibility of this
to happen was discussed in pilot fora and on specialized websites for some time.
The MCAS system moves the front of the stablizer up to turn the nose of the airplane down.
The plane then decends very fast. The aerodynamic forces (the "wind") pushing against the
stabilizer gets so strong that a manual counter-trim becomes impossible.
With the 737MAX cutout switches, MCAS runaway is stopped by throwing both switches, losing
electric trim altogether. In this case, the flight crew must rely on manual trim via
turning the trim wheel/crank. As discussed above, the manual crank can bind up , making
flying much more difficult.
Bjorn Fehrm, a senior engineeer and pilot now writing at Leeham News , came to a
similar
conclusion :
[We] can now reveal how it's possible the aircraft can crash despite using the Cut-Out
switches. To verify, we ran it all in a simulator together with MentourPilot Youtube
channel over the last days.
...
At a miss-trimmed Stabilator, you either have to re-engage Electric trim or off-load the
Stabilator jackscrew by stick forward, creating a nose-down bunt maneuver, followed by
trim.
Stick forward to trim was not an option for ET302, they were at 1,000ft above ground.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the ET302 crew re-engaged electrical trim to save the
situation, to get the nose up. It was their only chance. But too late. The aggressive MCAS
kicked in and worsened the situation before they could counter it.
On the FAA's Airworthiness Directive Fehrm writes:
Nowhere is it described the trim could be impossible to move if the Cut-Out switches were
cut at the slightest miss-trim at the speeds flown. And there is no warning on when to move
the Cut-Out switches, the checklist says "Cut, then trim manually." This is not the whole
truth .
An detailed analysis of the flight recorder data as documented in the preliminary crash
report confirms
the conclusions :
The high speed of 340kts indicated airspeed and the trim at 2.3 units causes the Stabilator
manual trim to jam, one can't move it by hand. The crew is busy trying to hand trim the
next two minutes but no trim change is achieved.
The pilots then do the only thing possible. They reengage the electric stabilizer trim to
righten the aircraft.
But the aggressive MCAS, trimming with a speed 50% higher than the pilot and for a full
nine seconds, kicks in at 8 with a force they didn't expect. Speed is now at 375kts and
MCAS was never designed to trim at these Speed/Altitude combinations. Dynamic pressures,
which governs how the aircraft reacts to control surface movements, is now almost double it
was when last MCAS trimmed (Dynamic pressure increases with Speed squared).
The Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof. Look at the Pitch
Attitude Disp trace and the Accel Vert trace. These are on the way to Zero G and we can see
how PF loses stick pull in the process (Ctrl Column Pos L). He can barely hold on to the
Yoke, let alone pull or trim against.
His reduced pull increases the pitch down further, which increases the speed even more.
At 05.45.30 the Pilots have hit the seats again (Accel Vert trace and Ctrl Columns force
trace) and can start pulling in a desperate last move. But it's too late. Despite them
creating the largest Control Column movement ever, pitch down attitude is only marginally
affected.
The pilots and their passengers lose the fight:
It's easy to say "Why didn't they trim then?". Because they are going down at 20 degrees
nose down (which is a lot, a normal landing approach is 3°) and at 400kts. Then you
just pull for all you have. And the aircraft is not reacting to the largest Control Column
displacement since takeoff. This makes them pull even harder, the aircraft is unresponsive
and they are fighting for theirs and all the passenger lives.
A diligent safety anlysis would have predicted this outcome. Neither Boeing nor the FAA
seems to have done such after the first 737 MAX crashed. They provided an Airworthiness
Directive with procedures that were insufficiant to correct the system induce
misbehavior.
Moreover their description of the MCAS
was incomplete . It is only now known that the MCAS trims the stabilizer at a speeed of
0.27 units (degrees) per second while the pilots electric trim moves the stabilizer at only
0.18 units per second:
"It's like a Tasmanian devil in there," says Dennis Tajer, a 737 pilot and communications
chair for Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines' pilots.
... If MCAS keeps tripping, and if pilots do not shut off electric trim entirely, the result is
what Tajer describes as a two-steps-back, one-step-forward scenario, with MCAS maintaining
an edge.
"The MCAS knows but one speed, which is 0.27, which is the most-aggressive speed," Tajer
says. "If you look at the balance sheet on it, MCAS is winning, and you are losing."
The insufficient advice to pilots given after the first crash only adds to the long list
of criminal mistakes Boeing made and which the FAA allowed to pass.
Boeing confirmed to The Washington Post that it had found a second software problem that
the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered fixed -- separate from the anti-stall
system that is under investigation in the two crashes and is involved in the worldwide
grounding of the aircraft.
That additional problem pertains to software affecting flaps and other flight-control
hardware and is therefore classified as critical to flight safety, said two officials with
knowledge of the investigation.
The criminals at Boeing again offer no explanation and play down the issue:
In a statement, Boeing called the additional problem "relatively minor" but did not offer
details of how it affects the plane's flight-control system. "We are taking steps to
thoroughly address this relatively minor issue and already have the solution in work to do
that," it said.
What other 'features' were secretly implemented into the 737 MAX without sufficiant
analysis about their side effects and consequences?
---
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the 737 MAX crashes:
"... The Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof
..."
I should think that at that point in the narrative, one of the flight crew must either
have fallen unconscious or ended up too injured to be able to do anything, let alone fight a
rogue MCAS system.
I presume the pilots would still have their seatbelts on, unless the forces generated by
the constant battle to stabilise the aircraft while fighting the MCAS system were too strong
and broke the seatbelts or dislocated the seats themselves.
As for other "features" that were secretly placed into the 737 MAX jets that Boeing
"neglected" to tell FAA or its clients about, what about the "features" that should have been
made compulsory but which Boeing decided were optional at the clients' own expense?
As a layman, my main question at this stage is: "Who is going to prison and for how long?" Everyone involved in the decision to sell those flying death traps should be tried for
manslaughter at the least. The guilty ones should serve prison sentences appropriate for
criminals who caused hundreds of people to die for their own profit.
How long a sentence does a poor man get, who kills a well-off tourist for the money in his
wallet - or even for his shoes?
Now multiply that by several hundred - adding on, of course, extra years to allow for the
Boeing executives' privileged lives, top-flight education, and (above all) the generous
sufficiency they already enjoy.
In China such people are routinely shot, which seems the right course. In the USA, while
poor people are executed all the time, apparently the wealthy and privileged get a free
pass.
Is a direct result of Boing monopoly - they are division of the military.
And why did european agency roll-over?
Will this warrant cancellation of orders?
Oh, and the people at the FAA need to be tried in a criminal court too. Not only were they
criminally negligent - they did it while being generously remunerated by the taxpayer. Perhaps a few years as galley slaves would be appropriate punishment - to teach them not
to be lazy.
This cheap seat Boeing export death trap was doomed from the beginning. Once these
planes nose 'up' it is heading to a crash. Any engineer with a basic understanding of aero
dynamic/physics knows this. This is not about sensor failure. It is about the profit of cheap
parts and greed. The insiders at Boeing tipped off the Big Boys that they needed more than
the gizmos installed on export versions if they were going to survive.
Tom @3 makes note the Chinese have a great quality control program. Boeing execs will up
their kickback slop to US politicians and the final report will say, 'well accidents will
happen'.
You can be sure that if this was Airbus, and two were crashed in the USA, that there would be
hearings, threats, congressional investigations, lawsuits, calls for criminal investigations,
Wall Street shorting the company, ...and on and on until the company would be disbanded.
Criminal, well yes but so what! Peons do not matter, right.
Engineering Manufacturing company with a sales division works alright. But a Sales Company
with a manufacturing subsidiary does not, as we see.
Boeing is typical for end-stage Imperial Corporations - all show, no go, and get the money
quick...
Sorta like GE's BWR's and Fukushima, fake it on the cheap and run with the money to
retirement.
The Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof ..."
Posted by: Jen | Apr 5, 2019 6:27:26 AM | 1
My interpretation is the same as yours. It's an incident report which is supposed to be
bland statements of fact - neither overstated nor understated. If the report says the pilots
hit the roof then that's what happened (airliner cockpits don't have cathedral ceilings so
only inches clearance when standing erect).
OTOH I find it hard to believe that the pilots would unbuckle before they had achieved cruise
status and given passengers the OK to do the same.
Seat belts can break but not under the relatively mild stresses generated by violent flight
maneuvers of an intact aircraft.
When I purchase an airline ticket I purchase the risk profile of the airline and the risk
profile of the plane manufacturer, because either can kill me.
A mistake is one or two errors. This was one horrible string of deliberate corner cutting,
about 7-8 totally disastrous decisions by the management, that could have only led to deaths
of people uninformed enough to purchase the travel risk from this plane supplier.
Uninformed just like I was before I recently saw some old investigative footage about
Boeing's disregard for elementary quality in the earlier 737 hull manufacturing and the
company's treatment of the whistleblowers trying to help the company by exposing such wrong
doing: "Just put a coat of paint on it".
Intentionally (spin) or unintentionally, there is too much talk about detail such as
software, pilot capability and decisions, training and the lack of it and so on. This only
hides the big picture of an utter disregard for the value of human life, traded off for
management bonuses and stock holder dividends. It is a complete reversal of the original
engineering-focused Boeing which made Boeing an icon that it used to be. Perhaps, somewhere
in the Washington lobbying swamp the dividing line between the engineering for killing people
and the engineering for transporting people became too blurred. As the profit strategy, on
MIC business overcharge, on airliner business underdeliver, and ruthlessly so on both:
rip-off money from the tax-payers and lives from the travellers.
Please convince me that this is not a symptom of the rot of the whole society, when an
icon such as Boeing sinks deep into nastiest morally debased profiteering. I posit that the
society which so easily kills people using bombs, rockets and drones cannot make good quality
products any more. This is because killing and destroying is just too easy compared with
creating something good . Without the good will of the people in a society to morally
rebalance, the societal endeavours for creation can never compete against the endeavours for
destruction. In other words, US had become too much about destruction to be still capable of
creation.
Finally, there would be one way to get back on the right track - life-in-jail for both
Boeing and FAA involved. It is ultimately ironic that in the highly criticised China the
shitbags would probably be put in front of a firing squad for corruption. In US, they will
receive bonuses and continue on to the next killing enterprise. Until they finally launch
nuclear tipped missiles against the creation oriented foreign competitors. Do they still know
of any other way to win?
Touching and informative press conference with the Stumo family (Ralph Nader's grandniece,
Samyo Stumo, was killed on the 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia) and two law firms that filed a
lawsuit against Boeing and others. At @ 28 min one lawyer displays an anonymous email from a
737 MAX pilot detailing how the MCAS system can thwart a pilot's ability to recover control
of the jet. This email was posted to a pilots' forum/aviation network after the Lion Air
crash in Indonesia last October.
@Steve...if you say it, then it's true. Of course, if you knew more about it, then you would
say something else.
But real expert Gundersen says differently. I worked with some of the GE engineers, and I
know what they said.
You are 100% incorrect about the diesels, the problem included primary, ultimate heat sink
loss due to the elevation of the pumps, and the pressure vessels we know to be unsafe.
GE BWR's designed in the US by US GE engineers, some of whom quit rather than sign off on
the design..."fuze was lit for Fukushima in 1965" >see fairewinds, amigo.
@SteveK9 12
As far as I understand, the main Fukushima problem was the concrete reactor encasing design
which did not cater for the possibility of excessive hydrogen release from the reactor. It
worked well when not in trouble, but in an accident situation (who would have expected an
accident) the concrete encasing without a release valve became a pressure cooker filled with
flammable hydrogen. What a surprise that it went boom!?
What you write here about the water cooling system generators you probably believe in but
it resembles the pilot blaming spin of Boeing. The truth has a nasty tendency to end up owned
by those with most money.
I always remember how our old friend pharaoh Ramses paid hundreds of stone masons to go
around Egypt and chisel out the achievements of all the previous pharaohs and chisel in his.
Then even several thousands of years later, when the archeologists finally learned to read
hieroglyphs, they only had propaganda and spin left to read. Thus nothing less than the son
of the supreme Egyptian deity the sun god Ra, the propaganda paying Ramses became the
greatest pharaoh of all time.
"As a layman, my main question at this stage is: 'Who is going to prison and for how
long?'"
The first to go should obviously be the individuals in charge of the FAA. These people, I
imagine, were appointed by Obama. When we look at the regulatory system in the US bear in
mind that the current irresponsibility arose in a long descent-since the days of Nixon I
suspect-into neo-liberal corporate capture.
Just recently the deceits practised in the fake science which allowed the licensing of Round
Up were revealed. The entire system is rotten and nowhere is it more corrupt than in the
United States.
" They reengage the electric stabilizer trim to righten the aircraft"
That's the problem. While the plane may have remained unstable due to the lack of rapid
response of the manual trim control and difficulties turning.the wheel at high speed low
altitude flight,the planes altitude was still increasing. They should have either returned to
the airport or continued ascent in the hope they could restore trim at high altitude and low
air pressure.
Altitude immediately plummeted when they rengaged the MCAS and the plane was not
recoverable at that point.
Such mistakes should be made in flight simulators . Hence it's lack of training at fault
here, and the blame for that is still on Boeing.
Not sure even the flight simulator training will solve this mess
TBH
This whole business is sickening and infuriating. What is especially infuriating is that the
FAA is extremely onerous in enforcement of ancient regulations with respect to general
aviation. The owner of a small plane is actually prohibited from casually upgrading any of
the antiquated instruments, even radios, on his Made in 1975 private plane, and must stick
with what was originally certified by the manufacturer as originally constructed--unless he
is willing to expend huge amounts of money to find an updated, certified (e.g., "safe")
upgraded component from someone willing to go the lengthy and expensive process of having the
FAA certify that product, then have a certified mechanic install the certified part and
certify it was done according to the precise procedures established. In effect, the FAA
actively discourages safety improvements of the general aviation fleet by unthinking
resistance to technological change.
Unless you're Boeing.
Having experience with the "other" FAA, this is what's especially dumbfounding to me.
While there may be some justification in permitting a trusted manufacturer to establish and
certify as safe minor details, anything involving the actual flight characteristics of the
plane should NEVER be delegated, and doubly so with respect to commercial airliners. And how
could any regulator be anything but incredulous if a manufacturer says "Well, we've decided
to make this commercial airliner INHERENTLY UNSTABLE, but we have a whole box of bandaids
which should do a bang-up job of keeping it in the air!" WTF!! "Fail-safe" isn't actually a
fix or a mechanism, the term is supposed to describe a design philosophy, in which if there
is a failure, the resulting condition is still safe (well, at least not less safe). Ditto
redundancy, which is why it is unheard-of that such an apparently vital bandaid relied on
only one sensor.
It's one thing to build a fighter that is inherently unstable (although even that is
perhaps questionable), but an airliner filled with passengers? Ludicrous. And the FAA and
Boeing both know it, and knew it from the start. In a just world heads would literally roll,
but sadly, nothing real is likely to happen.
I already thought that the whole setup had faulty logic. If the plane could be adequately
controlled by pilots, "manually", then extra training would be cheaper than introducing an
automatic system. If the plane could not be adequately controlled by the pilots, "switching
to manual" is futile.
I have a minor experience with "automatic control" when the chip of my car went wrong. In
old, old times one has to add a bit of extra gas to start the car engine, and as a result one
could flood the engine, then wait a few minutes for the gasoline to evaporate and try again.
In contemporary cars you do not press gas at all when you start, and the chip regulates how
much gasoline should be injected to the engine based on its temperature. Then after 10 years
of happy use the chip "noticed" that the engine is cold when it is actually hot. So I am
driving on a windy narrow road and the car accelerates going 40 mph without pressing the gas
(65 kmh), 15 mhp above the legal speed limit, and did I mention that the road had curves?
Frankly, it happened few times before that, but on a straight road you just get the feel of
cruise control. Anyway, brakes remedied the situation, luckily, they could overcome the
engine and the chip was replaced for mere 800 dollars.
Here it seems that Boeing designers entered the kludge road and kept compensating for this
or that and lost the total picture. Isn't it suspicious that the automatic trim was so
aggressive? I also do not understand at all what "manual" means, seem impossible that actual
muscle force of the pilot was applied to the tail? Should there be an emergence procedure in
which a cabin steward under voice control of the captain adjusts the tail with a crank, or
perhaps something like a capstan that could be moved by the entire cabin crew? That would be
a true manual system.
My conclusion is that once you rely on automatic solutions because the crew cannot do it
in some situations, you must crank up the reliability to something "average million years
without failure or more". It is not a ship that can drop anchors, giving a few days to figure
out the problem etc. (although this is something that should be avoided too). Boeing setup
was something that should flunk students in Industrial Engineering (they have courses on
control systems). For example, an internal device with a gyroscope could track the speed and
its three-dimensional angle, so if one of external sensors malfunction the system can
automatically decide which reading makes more sense. External sensor measure speed in respect
to air which is important too, but if the plane approaches the ground, that should be noted
to,. With few gismos you could get sufficient redundancy with some "voting scheme" or a
"decision tree".
Just use logic for a moment. Boeing: We're presenting this new (redesigned) plane for
certification, and it comes with it's very own MCRASH system. FAA: MCRASH system...what's
that? Boeing: Well, the plane has a pronounced tendency to go into stalls and fall out of the
sky. FAA: That's an interesting feature. Are pilots going to be able to handle these
aggravated power-on stalls (the worst kind, incidentally)? Boeing: Oh, no. There's no way
pilots would be able to detect the condition and react quickly enough to save the plane, so
we've devised an automated system that is faster than a human can react to save the day. We
present MCRASH.
From annals of idiocy in design. Some time in the 1st decade of this century the Polish state
rail road decided to embrace modernity and introduced automatic ticketing system. It would
fabulously till the end of that year when it shut down. Apparently, there was a "sanity
check" disallowing tickets to have arrival before the departure, someone forgot about the
pesky case of arrival after New Year following departure in December, and the system could
not cope with a wave of "illegal requests". Luckily, because the system did not operate that
long prior to collapse, there were still people who could manually write the tickets until
the bug was removed.
would -> work, I must say that the setup not allowing to correct the post after it is made
is also an example of a "suboptimal" design, many sites give you 10-15 minutes with a
permission to edit or delete.
would -> work, I must say that the setup not allowing to correct the post after it is
made is also an example of a "suboptimal" design, many sites give you 10-15 minutes with a
permission to edit or delete.
B hosts Moon of Alabama on Typepad. Typepad costs $15/month, including hosting and support
(best value in web hosting for a busy weblog). Typepad apparently doesn't have a post-comment
grace period editing option or B would have added it.
I used to be an advocate of MoA moving over to WordPress (I'm a full time software
architect/designer who builds WordPress driven web application and a pro video player).
There's lots of nice bells and whistles which could be added including comment editing and a
much more attractive and innovative design.
Having seen the endless security issues and silly site breaking updates which Matt
Mullenweg and Automattic have pushed out over the last four years, B would be wise to stay
put on Typepad. Typepad is clunky, it's a bit ugly but it works reliably and is inexpensive.
Maintaining and updating a WordPress site costs either lots of man hours or lots of money
(good IT help is not cheap).
terrorist lieberal , Apr 5, 2019 11:37:47 AM |
link
Tom @ 5,
Obviously you know no one will ever be prosecuted or lose anything. This country is in the
hands of the rich and powerful, just note how the great Obama couldn't jail one crooked
banker and they all got to keep everything they stole at the expense of millions and millions
of people, lives ruined, and they live the high life as some exceptional people, yeah right,
God Bless America, home of the biggest terrorist organization the world has known.
terrorist lieberal , Apr 5, 2019 11:39:09 AM |
link
thank you b! who is going to be held accountable? i say no one...
@13 donkeytale.. that sounds about right... i imagine it's happening in any industry where
money is involved in the usa - which is basically every industry.. get rid of the mechanisms
for protecting people and just make sure to protect the moneyed interests..
capitalism devoid of morals and ethics is just peachy..
Thanks for the comprehensive account of what happened. I really hope this will result in a
hefty judicial price tag for the cynicals and greedies at Boeing.
You can be sure that if this was Airbus, and two were crashed in the USA, that there
would be hearings, threats, congressional investigations, lawsuits, calls for criminal
investigations, Wall Street shorting the company, ...and on and on until the company would be
disbanded.
There were two Boeing MAX crashes outside of the U.S. and there ARE now hearings, threats,
congressional investigations, lawsuits and even a criminal investigation. Boeing's stock
price fell by some 10% since the second crash.
-
@Hoarsewhisperer @14
It's an incident report which is supposed to be bland statements of fact - neither
overstated nor understated. If the report says the pilots hit the roof then that's what
happened (airliner cockpits don't have cathedral ceilings so only inches clearance when
standing erect).
The phrase "the Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof" is not from
the incident report but from an interpretation at the Leeham News site. It is not meant
literally.
It is based on a suddden change on g-force in the plane which goes from around 1g to 0g
when MCAS again kicks in. This has the effect that the pilots are suddenly weightless and no
longer have power to pull the yoke back.
Source and effect of this are visible in the diagram.
-
Do airline pilots wear seatbelts on take off. I take it there would be some rules and
regulations on this. I have always taken it for granted the pilots would be wearing seatbelt
on take off and landing, also if expecting turbulence during a flight.
Impossible to control anything if you're getting tossed around.
Unless the EU and other governing bodies divorce themselves from our seemingly privatized
FAA, expect more of this. Unless, of course, ALL flight safety orgs, globally, are equally
corrupted.
I have no idea if global corruption is the case/or worse, but there is now pretty strong
evidence that the US FAA is not the unassailable leader in certification protocols that the
whole planet has depended upon - up to now.
Hmmm.... Proper retribution. Load Boeing's Board of Directors, senior engineers that signed
off on the entire MAX project, senior accountants, any others tied to the entire boondoggle,
all FAA "regulators" who approved boondoggle, and all others who helped cause the fatalities
into several MAX airplanes designed to fail just as the ill-fated jets did manned by the
Boeing pilots who approved the faulty design and force them to takeoff with flight paths over
water. Yes, proper retribution for the crime. Cruel and unusual objections? No. Proper
retribution.
The entire Neoliberal philosophy must suffer a similar fate along with its promoters and
their Neocon allies. The Class War has always been deadly. It's high time elites began taking
casualties. Too radical? Take a good look at the world and the circumstances of those
besieged by Neoliberals and Neocons and try to argue against.
That is a true statement, but with so many things going wrong – you need to
understand that it is a basic instinct of pilots to keep engine power up so you can climb and
get out of trouble.
Very basic: Power = Good and No-Power = Bad.
So they should have reduced power and done a slight nose down to unload the jack screw and
re-trimmed manually. The problem was they had no altitude to work with, just 1000 ft or
so.
So the end story is that not only did the pilot do well, but the low-hour co-pilot was
also surprising competent. It was team work all the way.
So the bottom line is that our Western system has become so corrupt that it is no longer
even safe to fly. And this is just the beginning. It is all downhill from now on. More gender
studies and who needs engineers anyway?
Boeing Max 8 was a flying design mistake.
Boeing, You Ain't no Airbus!
You can' t just slap some heavier bulkiet engines on a tinny single body crap that barely
flew straight at the first time and expect everything to be right, slapping some hiden
software autocorrections on just in case.. and sell this crap all over the world. Enjoy the
torrent of lawsuits now!
You ain't no European aircraft maker. They tend to think 2 to 3 design steps ahead in to the
future.
You guys at the US cant even barrely ellect a pres. who is right in the head.
Apologies to everyone for the thread hijack, but nuclear power nonsense annoys me.
@Walter 18
Gundersen is a very well-known anti-nuke fanatic and a liar. His qualifications are BS. At
this point I think you and I can leave it and either of us can read more if we are so
inclined.
@Kiza 20
Hydrogen release was an effect from the overheating and meltdown, caused by the lack of
emergency cooling. There were no hydrogen recombiners present in these reactors, although
they had been installed in every BWR in the US long before.
As I mentioned the reactor nearest the quake suffered no damage, because its emergency
generators continued to operate, as they were not flooded. I forgot the plant name ... you
could look it up ... it actually served as a shelter during the flood. As a consequence there
was no release of hydrogen there (this happens when the zirconium cladding on the fuel reacts
with water at high temperature to release hydrogen).
I'm not an expert in reactor design (although I have a PhD in Chemical Physics). I reached
my own conclusions a very long time ago, and am not really interested in digging up evidence
or providing explanations. There is a mountain of information out there if one wants to look
... and I don't mean Greenpeace (although the founder, Patrick Moore is currently a supporter
of nuclear power).
Oh and btw, about United States aviation related products leading the race in global
aviation...
Struggling to produce an effective design for an airframe for the Martian atmosphere
(planet Mars) back in the earlier decade, using the top of the line comercial aviation
simulation products with aircraft design options bundled in, as a way of researching a NASA
info web campaign about flying vehicles on Mars, managed after much trying to produce a
somehow reliable generic airframe for that very thin atmosphere and low gravity environments,
which it would generaly resemble a mix of U2's and Predator drones frames (twice large than a
U2 wing span) but with major tail wings modifications and you would get adequate performance
if you flew it inside the enormous Martian cannyons which have a higher atmosphere pessure
than rest of Martian surface. Mil air force drones were generally non existant as information
back then. The software was the only product FAA approved a license for actual comercial
aviation simulation training hours for training of real pilots...End of story, this design
came third ...and the actual algorithms in the software decided that an actual UFO shaped
craft would be behaving much better in Martian wind/atmosphere... We incorporated the
solution of small rockets for generating initial lift for take off and emergency
altitude.
FAA and the leading edge researchers decided that the ALIENS WOULD WIN!
I was almost sure that even Nasa people (which names was on the program approval credits)
used same software without noticing anything strange before the Aliens stole the win...
So the jack screw that manually controls the stabilizer did not work due to high speed. Isn't
that what hydraulics are for?
After all, Slim Pickens managed to kick that bombay door open in Strangelove
Hoarse, I also was confused by the reasoning in the Seattle paper. But then again, I
learned all I know about the affect of air flowing over a surface in flight by sticking my
hand out the car window as a kid.
To avoid such crashes, training is needed more professionally and, in addition, the worn-out
parts of the planes should be removed and replaced with new ones. In the vast majority of
aircraft, due to high costs, little importance is given to worn parts, which causes people to
fall and get dead.
Scotch Bingeington , Apr 5, 2019 4:44:34 PM |
link
@ Meshpal | 38
More gender studies and who needs engineers anyway?
I think you're barking up the wrong tree there. I wholeheartedly agree with the second
(sarcastic) bit, no doubt about that. But the guy who had overall responsibility for the 737
MAX desaster holds a "degree" in "Business Administration". James McNerney, B.A. from Yale,
MBA from Harvard, member of Delta Kappa Epsilon - Chairman, President and CEO of The Boeing
Company 2005-2016. I have a strong feeling that gender studies wouldn't exactly be his cup of
tea. Just an ordinary, boring, utterly predictable, Pavlovian, run-of-the-mill business
tosser. He thought he could do it all, and so off he went, again and again. From British
United Provident Association (healthcare) to G.D. Searle (pharmaceuticals) to Procter &
Gamble to McKinsey to General Electric to 3M. And what the heck, let's add Boeing into the
mix with a pay of 30 million USD in 2014 alone. What a spec-taaaa-cular career!
Easy to anticipate a consumer boycott of this plane. I wouldn't buy a ticket on a Max 8
flight, and began double-checking the airliner after the crash last October.
In horizontal flight the stabilizer exerts a moderate amount of downward force to keep the
tail level (so as to balance the torques on the airplane). When the infographic says "a small
downward force pushes the nose down" it is merely saying the downward force on the tail was
now less than that required to keep the plane level, so the tail rose and the nose fell.
With respect for your PhD in Chemistry Physics, you are obviously not an engineer. In most
societies, it is around the third year of study that engineers learn about redundancy and
contingency planning. Therefore, not thinking trough all the possible disaster scenarios when
designing life-critical contraptions is simply criminal: Fukushima nuclear power plants.
Perhaps Boeing should have hired a couple of engineering interns to tell them that they
must not:
1) slap unsuitable new engines on an obsolete old air frame,
2) try to fix a serious hardware problem using software,
3) override pilots with their lives on the line by the decisions of some software cretin paid
by the hour with no skin in the game,
4) hang lives of 180 people on a single sensor unavailable for replacement on an airport in
Timbuktu,
5) play the no-training-needed tune when the structure of the product was substantially
changed and operator training was essential and so on.
The engineers are blue collar workers, the more so the closer they are to the assembly
floor. They have no decision power, they do what they are told. Yet, it is a society in deep
moral crisis when the engineers keep silent whilst virtually all basic tenants of the proper
design are broken by the profiteers managing them. Doing all the wrong things and expecting
the right result? No, not really, just grab the money and run. Après nous le
déluge.
BTW, I heard from a Lockheed lobbyist that Lockheed would never do something like this.
They only rip off the US tax payers for godzillion of dollars whilst making the best killing
machines that money can buy.
God,,, What humans will do to save little pieces of paper loosely called money. This is
criminal. The entire board should be charged with murder or at least manslaughter. But it
won't happen. Corpgov will step in to save them as they're to big to jail.
It is my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the only thing the pilots
could have done was to realize -- by a pure miracle -- that the captain's AoA sensor has
failed and switch to the first officer's flight computer, which was connected to another,
working AoA sensor. Of course, if Boeing had installed their "mismatching AoA data" indicator
as a standard feature, the pilots wouldn't really need a miracle.
Boeing is slowing the production rate of 737 Max by 20%. Another chicken has come home to
roost. To safely fly the aircraft with passengers, a new flight control system is required
with multiple sensors including gyroscopes plus triple redundant electronics. Not just two
position sensors as proposed by Boeing which is the pilot flipping a coin in the chaotic 40
seconds to do the right thing while the plane is trying to kill you. Pilot and co-pilot
training on flight simulators is also required. If the FAA approves anything less, sooner or
later, another 737 Max will crash. Similarly, the Trump Administration is turning over pork
inspection to the slaughter houses. A million Chinese pigs were culled to attempt to stop the
spread of African Swine Fever but the deadly pig disease continues to spread through Asia.
One day soon the contagion will be fatal to humans. Climate change is here. The forever wars
continue. The bottom line is that public safety which is the basic function of government is
collapsing. Oligarchs are getting rich on the bodies of the dead.
@38 Meshpal "Zerohedge has an article that says the pilots should have reduced engine power."
From the report: "At 05:39:42, Level Change mode was engaged. The selected altitude was
32000 ft. Shortly after the mode change, the selected airspeed was set to 238 kt."
Then a minute later: "From 05:40:42 to 05:43:11 (about two and a half minutes), the
stabilizer position gradually moved in the AND direction from 2.3 units to 2.1 units. During
this time, aft force was applied to the control columns which remained aft of neutral
position. The left indicated airspeed increased from approximately 305 kt to approximately
340 kt (VMO). The right indicated airspeed was approximately 20-25 kt higher than the
left."
Note that the pilots were getting conflicting airspeed readings (the difference would
eventually grow to around 50 kt).
There is nothing in the report that suggests that either of the pilots opened the
throttles, and by the time the "overspeed clacker" started its warning the pilots had rather
more pressing problems to deal with.
I don't quite understand why this isn't addressed in the report: the pilots set the speed
to 238 kt, and if they then opened the throttles the report should have said so (it doesn't).
But if they didn't touch the throttle then what accounts for the speed being at 305 kt
(rather than 238 kt) when the plane started its first dive?
There is a mountain of information out there if one wants to look ... and I don't mean
Greenpeace (although the founder, Patrick Moore is currently a supporter of nuclear power).
Patrick Moore Did Not Found Greenpeace
Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and
many news outlets have repeated this characterization. Although Mr. Moore played a
significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace. Phil
Cote, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen founded Greenpeace in 1970. Patrick Moore applied for a
berth on the Phyllis Cormack in March, 1971 after the organization had already been in
existence for a year.
Thanks for confirming that the retribution I prescribe @36 is right and proper as is what
must follow. Only one quibble with your comment, the death trap MAXs should never, ever
again be certified as airworthy as they clearly are not .
> I forgot the plant name ... you could look it up
@SteveK9 | Apr 5, 2019 3:26:36 PM | 40
It was all the same. Fukushima Dai-Ichi (Number One) was the Nuclear Power Plant
consisting of 6 "Reactor Buildings"
#1 was relatively small, US-designed US-built one. It had passive residual cooling -
gravity-powered water flow from the tank.
#2 was larger reactor in the same Mark-1 containment, US-designed and US-buit. The
residual cooling though could not be gravity-driven. It required the pump (or maybe there was
a way to set temperature-driven convection, if valves could be put right - i heard it but did
not dig into it)
Obviously, USA does not care about tsunami-driven floods: USA has enough soil to build
NPPs away from sea shores.
#3 and #4 were those larger reactors in more modern containment, US-designed but build by
Japanese companies. Japanese did know what tsunami is, but they dared not to deviate from USA
designs until they make succesfulyl working verbatim coopies.
#5 and #6 were Japanese-built after they got experience with #3 and #4 and proived they
can do verbatim copies. Those latter blocks were altered: for #1 to #4 shore ground was
removed to almost ocean sea levelm as close to the shorelines earth was considered wet and
unreliable, but #5 and #6 were instead moved away from the sea enough to earth be stable even
on elevation.
When the wave came, blocks #1 to $4 were flooded (with their electric circuits probably
located in basements a la Americana, thus immediately got short-circuited with salted sea
water), and diesels were located immediately at water edge with all the consequences for the
communications. Blocks #5 and #6, located away from the sea shopre and on elevated grounds,
and their diesels located near them, were not reached by the tsunami.
P.S. but people still repeat old propaganda about Chernobyl being sabotaged by suicidal
operating crew, what do you want... When people read MSM they do not care much what exactly
happened, so they just swallow it without labour of critical acclaim. If much later they
suddenly grow interested in some issues - their "point of view" is already long internalized,
so they do search relentlessly now - but for ideas supporting their pre-formed cognitive
bias.
P.P.S. I agree though that hi-jacking Boeing-related thread for in-depth discussion of NP
issues would be not proper to do.
"THE BOEING 737 MAX MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO FLY AGAIN." {Emphasis original]
The discussion here resembles that being conducted by Boeing to exonerate itself. The MAX
was purposely designed to be unsafe. Nader puts it thusly:
" The overriding problem is the basic unstable design of the 737 Max. An aircraft
has to be stall proof not stall prone . An aircraft manufacturer like Boeing,
notwithstanding its past safety record, is not entitled to more aircraft disasters that are
preventable by following long-established aeronautical engineering practices and
standards." [My Emphasis]
Trying to fix something so fundamentally broken that people with priceless lives are
jeopardized if the fix(es) fail is so utterly immoral words fail to detail just how deep that
immorality is. It's not just Righteous Indignation or even Righteous Indignation on
Steroids--it goes well beyond that to the utterly dysfunctional immorality of placing profit
over the safety of something money cannot buy or replace-- PEOPLE'S LIVES .
You know that I and others agree as well with your strong sentiments.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out as a telltale of empire's demise or
resilience.
It is not just the 737 Max that I would stay off. Think about the profit mentality that
built/allowed the Max to go forward and extrapolate that to the replacement parts for all the
other Boeing planes. Do people not understand that the same mentality of profit over safety
that brought down the 737 Max is putting other, considered more reliable, Boeing planes at
risk....for a few pennies more
Americans are brainwashed into believing that profit belongs between them and good health
care so it could be described as a slippery slope to write of 99% of humans not valuing their
lives very highly......because brainwashed by TV is my observation
There are people in Boeing that need to see the inside of a prison cell forever.
I remember in 2008 during the recession depression seeing an idiot at the beach wearing a
Goldman Sachs t shirt. I looked at the idiot in disbelief saying nothing. The next time I see
an idiot in SC/Georgia I will not be holding my tongue. "Relentlessly focused on safety" my
ass. The crapification continues.
And the "AoA Disagree" indicator is not even a physical light indicator, as I initially
thought, but a purely software
feature for the primary flight display ! Unbelievable! 346 people had to die because
someone decided to charge an exorbitant fee for a few lines of code that basically consist of
two conditionals, a timer variable, and a bitmap blit call.
'It looks like the 55 year old 737 air-frame design, which is very low to the ground when
compared to more modern designs, is incompatible with the bigger engines required for fuel
efficiency.
Being very low to the ground, Boeing was forced to put the engines out in front, which
upset the airplane's balance, making the plane essentially unstable. To counter the
instability they added the 'MCAS?' control system.
This solution violates a fundamental tenant of design for safety-critical systems. The
tenant of 'fail-safe'. If something goes wrong the system is supposed to fail in a manner
that preserves safety. For the 737 Max, when the this stability control system fails, the
plane is fundamentally unstable. For this system it is not 'fail-safe'. It is
'fail-crash'.'
This is pretty much in agreement with (Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 5, 2019 8:39:49 PM |
58).
I fully agree with the sentiment that this plane should never fly again. I can't imagine
any thinking person volunteering to get on to such a fundamentally flawed aircraft.
That is a true statement, but with so many things going wrong – you need to
understand that it is a basic instinct of pilots to keep engine power up so you can climb
and get out of trouble.
Very basic: Power = Good and No-Power = Bad.
This is what I've heard for as long as I've been reading about airplanes. A search turned
up some "sayings" popular with pilots.
It's best to keep the pointed end going forward as much as possible.
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.
Speed is life, altitude is life insurance. No one has ever collided with the sky.
If you're gonna fly low, do not fly slow! ASW pilots know this only too well.
I've just visited a West Australian newspaper - the one where the brand spanking new
Aviation Editor spoke of stupid pilots and unbearably wonderful Boeing. They have a new essay
about the Report, but 1) the jackass troll for Boeing has been given a minder in the form of
a co-author, and 2) the article plays it straight this time.
Boeing admits 737 software was factor in crashes
The Ethiopian crew performed all of the procedures provided by Boeing but was unable
to control the aircraft.
The problems of the B737 Max are not a disaster for Boeing, but for the over 300
fatalities.
They lost no shareholder value or return, they lost their lives.
They are also certainly not represented by expensive top lawyers like Boeing itself, who can
then mitigate, delay or even completely avert the consequences of Boeing's decisions.
They, the people (who had confidence in American technology/products), crashed on the ground,
burned or plunged into the sea without ever having had the slightest chance of averting the
disaster.
Interesting story you linked on the Boeing KC-46. The Air Force pilots won't fly it
because the loose tools and debris they found in the planes raised doubts about the planes
manufacturing integrity. The crisis was/is one degree (of four graduated degrees of
seriousness) away from shutting down the production line completely.
What's key is how Boeing proceeded to address the problem: by taking employee time away
from production in order to perform final inspection, i.e. quality control. Which makes it
clear where the original quality control was lost, by being absorbed into production, to make
more product per employee hour.
And this is just one, visible part of the process, where we can observe concrete examples
of inadequate QC.
Commenters here who point to these plane crashes as a failure in the integrity of Boeing
itself are exactly correct. The flawed plane built by the flawed company was an inevitable
fruit of the poisoned tree.
And I agree that one would be mad to trust anything bearing Boeing's name ever again. One
would be wise also to look for similar poisoned trees in all fields, and thread one's way
cautiously though this perilous, neoliberalized world.
So the jack screw that manually controls the stabilizer did not work due to high speed.
Isn't that what hydraulics are for?
By design.
The screw is designed to work within certain criteria.
1.Load,caused by thick or thin air pressure depending on altitude, on the moving part.
2. Speed, which again increases the load depending on the planes speed through the air, on
the moving part.
The speed and altitude are known from the panes onboard sensors.
Great load will possibly damage or break away the moving part, leading to an
uncontrollable crash.
Hence use of the jack screw adjustment, by the hydraulic system, will only be available
within its design envelope of load and speed.
"... Tulsi didn't join in the standing ovation for NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg during his warmongering speech to the US Congress on Weds. Good for her. ..."
"... Tracey has allowed Tulsi to explain the nuances of her foreign policy stands concerning regime change, war, and fighting terrorism. I do not believe any other interviewer has been able to bring out those distinctions. ..."
"... I hope people will take the time to listen to Tracey's interview. It is posted on YouTube, but it is an audio interview only. Tracey does a nice introduction to both parts of the interview which was conducted over two days. ..."
The Tulsi2020 campaign continues to gain unique donors, closing in on the
magic number. As of tonight, Tulsi has 61,029 of them, and needs only 3,971 more to get into the Democratic debates. That's only
97 new donors per day through May 14.
Tulsi didn't join in the standing ovation for NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg during his warmongering speech to the US Congress
on Weds. Good for her.
with Tulsi Gabbard so far. Tracey has allowed Tulsi to explain the nuances of her foreign policy stands concerning regime change,
war, and fighting terrorism. I do not believe any other interviewer has been able to bring out those distinctions.
I hope people will take the time to listen to Tracey's interview. It is posted on YouTube, but it is an audio interview only.
Tracey does a nice introduction to both parts of the interview which was conducted over two days.
We had already been told that in the
Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crash which killed all 157 people on board, the 4-month old 737 MAX
8's anti-stall software reengaged itself four times in 6 minutes as the pilots struggled to
straighten the plane post-takeoff. In the end, the anti-stall software won and pushed the plane
nose-down towards the earth. Now, Ethiopia -finally?!- released its report in the March 10 crash:
Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges said that the crew of the Ethiopian Airlines flight
from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on 10 March "performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the
manufacturer but were not able to control the aircraft." As result, investigations have
concluded that Boeing should be required to review the so-called manoeuvring characteristics
augmentation system on its 737 Max aircraft before the jets are permitted to fly again, she
said.
The results of the preliminary investigation led by Ethiopia's Accident Investigation
Bureau and supported by European investigators were presented by Ms Moges at a press conference
in Addis Ababa on Thursday morning.
Ethiopia is being kind to Boeing. However, though the anti-stall software played a big role in
what happened, Boeing's assertion (hope?!) that a software fix is all that is needed to get the
737MAX's back in the air around the globe rests on very shaky ground (no pun intended whatsoever).
737 MAX 8. The angle-of- attack (AOA) sensor is the lower device below the cockpit
windshield on both sides of the fuselage. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times)
The Seattle Times did an article on March 26 that explains a lot more than all other articles on
the topic combined. The paper of course resides in Boeing's backyard, but can that be the reason we
haven't seen the article quoted all over?
If the assertions in the article are correct, it would appear that
a software fix is the
least of Boeing's problems. For one thing, it needs to address serious hardware, not software,
issues with its planes. For another, the company better hire a thousand of the world's best lawyers
for all the lawsuits that will be filed against it.
Its cost-cutting endeavors may well be responsible for killing a combined 346 people in the
October 29 Lion Air crash and the Ethiopian Airlines one. Get a class-action suit filed in the US
and Boeing could be fighting for survival.
Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers
from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company
typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce
the possibility of a disastrous failure. Its most advanced planes, for instance, have
three
flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different
processors manufactured by different companies
. So even some of the people who have
worked on Boeing's new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed
an
automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately
entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor -- a type of sensor that was known to
fail.
That one paragraph alone is so potentially damaging it's hard to fathom why everyone's still
discussing a software glitch.
Boeing's rival, Airbus, has typically depended on three such sensors.
"A single
point of failure is an absolute no-no,"
said one former Boeing engineer who worked on
the MAX, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the program in an interview with The
Seattle Times. "That is just a huge system engineering oversight. To just have missed it, I
can't imagine how." Boeing's design made the flight crew the fail-safe backup to the safety
system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. The Times has
interviewed eight people in recent days who were involved in developing the MAX, which remains
grounded around the globe in the wake of two crashes that killed a total of 346 people.
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was already a late addition
that Boeing had not planned for initially.
They wanted a plane that was so like older ones
that no training would be needed, but did put a much heavier engine in it, which was why MCAS was
needed. As I wrote earlier today,
they cut corners until there was no corner left.
On hardware, on software, on pilot training (simulator), everything was done to be cheaper than
Airbus.
The angle-of-attack (AOA) sensor of the 737 MAX is the bottom piece of equipment below just
below the cockpit windshield. (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)
A faulty reading from an angle-of-attack sensor (AOA) -- used to assess whether the plane
is angled up so much that it is at risk of stalling -- is now suspected in the October crash of a
737 MAX in Indonesia, with data suggesting that MCAS pushed the aircraft's nose toward Earth to
avoid a stall that wasn't happening. Investigators have said another crash in Ethiopia this
month has parallels to the first.
Boeing has been working to rejigger its MAX software in recent months, and that includes
a plan to have MCAS consider input from both of the plane's angle-of-attack sensors, according
to officials familiar with the new design. "Our proposed software update incorporates additional
limits and safeguards to the system and reduces crew workload," Boeing said in a statement. But
one
problem with two-point redundancies is that if one sensor goes haywire, the plane may not be
able to automatically determine which of the two readings is correct
, so Boeing has
indicated that the MCAS safety system will not function when the sensors record substantial
disagreement.
The underlying idea is so basic and simple it hurts: safety come in groups of three:
three
flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different
processors manufactured by different companies
, and three sensors. The logic behind this
is so overwhelming it's hard to see how anyone but a sociopathic accountant can even ponder
ditching it.
And then here come the clinchers:
Some observers, including the former Boeing engineer, think the safest option would be
for Boeing to have
a third sensor to help ferret out an erroneous reading, much like the
three-sensor systems on the airplanes at rival Airbus. Adding that option, however, could
require a physical retrofit of the MAX.
See? It's not a software issue. It's hardware, and in all likelihood not just computer hardware
either.
Clincher no. 2:
Andrew Kornecki, a former professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who has
studied redundancy systems in Airbus and Boeing planes, said operating
the automated
system with one or two sensors would be fine if all the pilots were sufficiently trained in how
to assess and handle the plane in the event of a problem.
But, he said, if he were
designing the system from scratch, he would emphasize the training while also building the plane
with three sensors.
The professor is not 100% honest, I would think. There is zero reason to opt for a two-sensor
system, and 1001 reasons not to. It's all just about cost being more important than people. That
last bit explains why Boeing went there against better judgment:
[..] Boeing had been exploring the construction of an all-new airplane earlier this
decade. But
after American Airlines began discussing orders for a new plane from Airbus
in 2011, Boeing abruptly changed course
, settling on the faster alternative of
modifying its popular 737 into a new MAX model. Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked
on designing the interfaces on the MAX's flight deck, said managers mandated that any
differences from the previous 737 had to be small enough that they wouldn't trigger the need for
pilots to undergo new simulator training.
That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design
philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community
that was increasingly expecting automation. "It's become such a kludge, that we started to
speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX," Ludtke said. Ludtke didn't work
directly on the MCAS, but he worked with those who did. He said that
if the group had
built the MCAS in a way that would depend on two sensors, and would shut the system off if one
fails, he thinks the company would have needed to install an alert in the cockpit to make the
pilots aware that the safety system was off.
There you go: A two-sensor system is fundamentally unsound, and it's therefore bonkers to even
discuss, let alone contemplate it.
And if that happens, Ludtke said, the pilots would potentially need training on the new
alert and the underlying system. That could mean simulator time, which was off the table. "The
decision path they made with MCAS is probably the wrong one," Ludtke said. "It shows how the
airplane is a bridge too far."
Kudos to the Seattle Times for their research. And yeah, we get it, at over 5000 orders
for the plane, which costs $121 million each, there's big money involved. Here's hoping that Boeing
will find out in the courts just how much.
The preliminary report contains flight data recorder information indicating the airplane had an
erroneous angle of attack sensor input that activated the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
System (MCAS) function during the flight, as it had during the Lion Air 610 flight.
To
ensure unintended MCAS activation will not occur again, Boeing has developed and is planning to
release a software update to MCAS and an associated comprehensive pilot training and supplementary
education program for the 737 MAX.
As previously announced, the update adds additional layers of protection and will prevent
erroneous data from causing MCAS activation. Flight crews will always have the ability to override
MCAS and manually control the airplane.
Boeing continues to work with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other
regulatory agencies worldwide on the development and certification of the software update and
training program.
Boeing also is continuing to work closely with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) as technical advisors in support of the AIB investigation. As a party providing technical
assistance under the direction of investigating authorities, Boeing is prevented by international
protocol and NTSB regulations from disclosing any information relating to the investigation. In
accordance with international protocol, information about the investigation is provided only by
investigating authorities in charge.
* * *
Update (1100ET)
: Ethiopian investigators have called on Boeing to carry
out a full review of the anti-stall system on its 737 Max aircraft after finding pilots of a plane
that crashed near Addis Ababa last month had followed the stipulated emergency procedures but were
unable to save the aircraft.
Key highlights from the report make it very clear this is Boeing's problem...
*ALTITUDE, AIRSPEED READINGS FROM 737 WERE ERRONEOUS ON ONE SIDE
*ETHIOPIAN ANGLE OF ATTACK SENSORS DIFFERED BY 59.2 DEGREES
*AUTOMATIC NOSE-DOWN COMMANDS SHOW ANTI-STALL SYSTEM ACTIVATED
*ETHIOPIAN REPORT: NOSE DOWN PITCH EVENTUALLY REACHED 40 DEGREES
*CAPTAIN REQUESTED COPILOT `PITCH UP WITH HIM': REPORT
As The FT reports,
Ethiopian minister of transport Dagmawit Moges called on the
embattled aircraft manufacturer to
carry out a full review of the anti-stall system on its
737 Max aircraft before they are allowed to fly again
, after finding that the
pilots were not to blame
for the crash last month.
Boeing stock is higher somehow on the back of all this??
A lawsuit against Boeing Co was filed in U.S. federal court on Thursday in what appeared to
be the first suit over a March 10 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash that killed 157
people.
The lawsuit was filed in Chicago federal court by the family of Jackson Musoni, a
citizen of Rwanda, and alleges that Boeing, which manufactures the 737 MAX, had defectively
designed the automated flight control system.
Boeing said it could not comment on the lawsuit.
"Boeing ... is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes
available," it said, adding all inquiries about the ongoing accident investigation must be
directed to the investigating authorities.
The 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide following the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, which
came five months after a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people.
Boeing said on Wednesday it had reprogrammed software on its 737 MAX to prevent erroneous
data from triggering an anti-stall system that is facing mounting scrutiny in the wake of two
deadly nose-down crashes in the past five months.
The planemaker said the anti-stall system, which is believed to have repeatedly forced the
nose lower in at least one of the accidents, in Indonesia last October, would only do so once
per event after sensing a problem, giving pilots more control.
The crash of Boeing's passenger jet in Ethiopia raised the chances that families of the
victims, even non-U.S. residents, will be able to sue in U.S. courts, where payouts are much
larger than in other countries, some legal experts have said.
Wednesday's complaint was filed by Musoni's three minor children, who are Dutch citizens
residing in Belgium.
The lawsuit says Boeing failed to warn the public, airlines and pilots of the airplane's
allegedly erroneous sensors, causing the aircraft to dive automatically and uncontrollably.
Ethiopian officials and some analysts have said the Ethiopian Airlines jet behaved in a
similar pattern as the 737 MAX involved in October's Lion Air disaster. The investigation into
the March crash, which is being led by the Ethiopian Transport Ministry, is still at an early
stage.
"... This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. ..."
"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as
European. That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean,
a community referred to by Russian experts as 'the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot
toward the 'New Asia.'" Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012
The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that
Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles
across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim.
The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political
establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.
Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin "to sow discord and division"
in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington.
That's what Russiagate is really all about.
US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly
confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious "pivot" to Asia plan. This new regional strategy
focuses on "strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence."
In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten
the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region
in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington's plan to rule the world, Zbigniew
Brzezinski. Here's how Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically
axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions.
. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its
enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's
known energy resources." ("The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives", Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic
Books, page 31, 1997)
14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and
demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America's military footprint in Asia. It
was Clinton who first coined the term "pivot" in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt
from the speech:
"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot
point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be
smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership,
secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will
therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific
region
Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge
technology ..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than
half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015,
we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."
("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)
The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century "Great Game" promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy
theorists. It is Washington's premier foreign policy doctrine, a 'rebalancing' theory that focuses on increasing US military and
diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO's ominous troop movements on Russia's western flank and Washington's
provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao
summed it up like this:
"The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military
alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American
government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on
us from the east, south, and west."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington's erratic behavior. NATO's eastward expansion has convinced
Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington's
relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.
Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war
era when the world's industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted
from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and
gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening
rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred
and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.
Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors
in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia's intervention
in Syria has rolled back Washington's plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That
plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a "great power competition" which
acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America's dominance are emerging
everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.
This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It's a desperate "Hail
Mary" attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.
What does that mean in practical terms?
It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community
(The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces.
Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington's proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts
to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to "create a harmonious community of economies
from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Putin)
Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia's ability to thwart Washington's
grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.
As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains
how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document's main focus is Russia and China.
Here's an excerpt:
"China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They
are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress
their societies and expand their influence." (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity."
They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories,
employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)
Here's more: "Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries
around the world." (This is a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black.')
"Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries
target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data." (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation
bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don't hold a candle to the ginormous MSM 'Wurlitzer' that controls the cable news
stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense
one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)
The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:
"Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively
compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners . We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing
a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political
and security institutions, demonstrating Russia's ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin's domestic legitimacy.
We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime's territorial control
in Syria, ·Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas mediate conflicts,
including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation .
Russia will continue pressing Central Asia's leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement
with Washington. Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests
" ("The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community",
USG )
Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that
Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East,
and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault
with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given
Putin's determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here's Putin:
"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy
complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps
in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines
start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political
whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly
relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."
The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate.
This is Washington's greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012,
Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:
"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as "a move to
re-Sovietize the region." . "We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it,"
she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe."
"Slow down or prevent it"?
Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national
debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin's economic integration plan?
Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and
thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.
But Russia shouldn't be blamed for Washington's profligate behavior, that's not Putin's fault. Moscow is merely using the free
market system more effectively that the US.
Now consider the Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.
"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We
are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a
security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition,
not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security."
(Naturally, the "security environment" is going to be more challenging when 'regime change' is the cornerstone of one's foreign
policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here's more:)
"Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions
of its neighbors ..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound
up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here's more:
"China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model
"China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system .
Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.
Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions
and corporations. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the "rules-based system",
is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That's why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line,
because it's not a fair system.
These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon
and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with
Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At
the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The
greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington's provocative plan for military and economic expansion,
the threat that Russia and China pose to America's tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.
And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed
to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with
the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes
on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations
(PSYOP) is to selectively use information on "audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately
the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals."
The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and
perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the
The emerging Euro-Asian power block is very heterogeneous. Russia, China, and the smaller affiliated players like Central Asia,
Iran, Syria, Turkey don't agree on almost anything. They have different cultures, religions, economies, demographic profiles,
even writing systems. The most rational strategy to prevent the Euro-Asian block from consolidating would be to get them to fight
each other. Alternatively, find the weakest link and attack it in an area where its reluctant allies don't share its interests.
Exactly the opposite has happened in the last 5-10 years: US has seemingly worked overtime to get China-Russia alliance of
the ground. They used to distrust each other, today, after Ukraine, South China See, etc they have become close allies. Same with
Iran and Syria: instead of letting them stew in their own internal problems – mostly religious and having a nepotistic elite –
US has managed to turn the fight into an external geo-political struggle, literally invited Russia to join in, and ended up losing.
Bush turned Iraq from a fanatically anti-Iran bastion to a reliable ally of Iran and started an un-winnable land war in Afghanistan
(incredible!). Obama turned Libya, the richest and most stable African country that threatened no-one and kept African migrants
far away, into a chaotic hellhole where slave trade flourishes and millions of Sub-Saharan Africans can use it to move on to Europe.
Then Obama tried to coup-de-etat Erdogan in Turkey, and – even worse – failed miserably. This gang can't shoot straight
– whatever they put in their position papers is meaningless drivel because they are too stupid to think. They have no patience
to wait for the right time to move, no ability to manage on the ground allies, and an aversion to casualties that makes winning
a war impossible. Today Trump threatens Germany over its energy security (pipelines), further antagonises Turkey and Erdogan,
watches helplessly as EU becomes the next UN (lame and irrelevant), and bets everything on a few small allies like Saudi Arabia
and Izrael that are of almost no use in Euro-Asia.
A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that ' maybe I had bad information ' is no master of the universe.
And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or ' information warfare ' – is
a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.
the russophobia is just drama to keep the MIC spending at $700+ billion per year
there is no way to justify that level of spending and pretend they don't have $25 billion one time to actually help solve the
real problem for the U.S.
"The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes
and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the battlespace" which they must exploit in order to build public support for their
vastly unpopular wars and interventions. "
Here is a short guide on how to detect subversion of the mind by the media and their handlers by a former military intelligence
officer.
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing
"Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist"
and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation
of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself
proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".
Recognizing this however one can't escape the conclusion that this "Grand Chessboard" with its consistent 'amoral realist imperatives'
is serving up inherently immoral 'imperatives' as inescapable options dressed up in academic language and with absolutely abhorrent
arrogance.
Stating that Brennan's Russophobia is somehow a degeneration of Brzezinki's "Grand Chessboard" is completely overlooking how
difficult it would be to outdo Brzezinki's own total moral degeneration.
One has to recognize that by now the only bipartisan aspect of US policy can be found in sharing these despicable and immoral
'imperatives' to maintain that "American Primacy" at all cost (of course to the rest of the world).
"The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that
Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its
tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda,
but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire
Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony."
TRUE!
I would suggest that the initials 'US' in the final sentence be changed to: Anglo-Zionist Empire.
"Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants
in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn
the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging,
and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle
Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end."
Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2, the part where it becomes obvious that it is the Anglo-Zionist
Empire, which, like a band of screeching Pharisees standing on the walls of Jerusalem hurling curses at the Romans they inform
that Jehovah will soon wipe out all Romans to save His Chosen Race, would choose utter destruction for all over any common sense
backing down to prevent mass slaughter.
Nothing harmed US more than Brzezinski's ideology. US did build up far east with their investments, while neglecting their own
backyard. US should have build up rather North and South America and make it the envy of the world. Neglecting particularly South
America now created Desperate south American people, who have no jobs and no future and these people are now invading US.
A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that 'maybe I had bad information' is no master of the universe. And
he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or 'information warfare' – is a pathetic
sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.
Testosterone plus steady, unrelenting decline and corruption of American "elites" most of who have no background in any fields
related to actual effective governance especially in national security (military) and diplomatic fields. Zbig's book is also nothing
more than doctrine-mongering based on complete lack of understanding of Russian history.
Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki
himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American
Primacy".
Zbig was a political "scientist" (which is not a science) by education, fact aggravated by his Russophobia, and thus inability
to grasp fundamentals of military power and warfare–a defining characteristic of American "elites". He, obviously, missed on the
military-technological development of 1970s through 1990s, to arrive to the inevitable conclusion that classic "geopolitics" doesn't
apply anymore. Today we all can observe how it doesn't apply and is made obsolete.
(Jan.1998) US history – "How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen" – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981
"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services
began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security
adviser to President Carter.
Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979
In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give
a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors). In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted
about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.
@DESERT FOX Why was it that the Brit Empire kept acting throughout the later 18th, the 19th and early 20th centuries to harm
Russia, even when it technically was allied with Russia? Why the Crimean War, for example?
Why, for example, was Brit secret service all over the assassination of Rasputin and tied in multiple ways to most non-Marxist
revolutionary groups?
This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by
any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks
total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else.
@anon Like the Ukranians, the 'Balts' virtually always are controlled by somebody else. When Russia does not control the Baltic
states, they are controlled by either Poles or Germans. Russians know what that means: the Baltic states are then used as weapons
to attack Russia.
The region is much calmer when Russia controls the Baltic states, and that is before taking into consideration how the Polish-Lithuanian
Empire turned its Jews lose to terrorize all Orthodox Christians and how Germanic states later used Lutheranism as a force in
the Baltics to ignite war with Russia and, under the queer Frederick the Great also used Jewish bankers to finance wars against
Russia.
@Johnny
Walker Read "People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act
out of religious conviction."
― Umberto Eco
"What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that
as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?"
― Voltaire
"Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their
position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do
to support it."
― Mercedes
"Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity."
― Robert Graves
@anon
As most aggressive and most rotten player in the most rotten and most massmurderous part of
humanity, the Anglosphere, you dare to compare Russian dealing with a Soviet hunger
catastrophe, which occured all over the Soviet Union, btw worst in Kazakhstan and western
Siberia, and in Ukraine, where consfiscation of grain occured mainly by Ukrainian Soviets,
and hunger in Ukraine mostly in eastern Ukraine, where people felt and feel close to Russia,
with USAist ongoing practice of aggressive wars, genocidal supremacy and massmurder?
See as well: Philipp Merl : Sowjetisierung in Wirtschaft und Landwirtschaft, EGO (European
History Online), pdf.
That solid German historians unanimously revealed propagandistic attempts to sell the
1932/33 famine remotely as equivalent to Anglosaxon hunger genocides, like that of the Irish,
Indians and Iranians, has nothing to do with historiography, but with anti-Russian hate
propaganda, can be clearly deduced from publications by the German historians Jürgen
Zarusky and Jörg Ganzenmüller.
The best places to learn about Nazi atrocities is btw Berlin.
However, where is the place where the two intertwined most massmurderous nations of the
planet openly expose their crimes, which are the most horrendous and giant humanity has
committed?
It simply does not exist.
Nobody else has liquidated more than 90% of the indigenous populatio on robbed territory
but USAist and Australians, both degenerated Anglosaxons.
Nobody else has robbed as much territory from a neighbour country than the US has done with
Mexico.
Nobody committed comparable genocidal losses on Indian ground, Iranian ground, even
Chinese
ground – in proportion, Japanese in WW2 could not compete, than Brits. In Africa,
British bloodtoll is likewise unequalled – France and Belgium come close behind, but do
not match that bloodtoll.
No other nation, not even in Europe and not even Nazi Germany, has committed a genocide of
neighbours which resembles what Brits die with their Irish neighbour country, whose
population was three times in history reduced by 50% by them.
From the last genocide in the midst of the 19th century, Ireland has not even recovered
after 150 years: There population of 12 million Irish then was never achieved again.
In comparison: In the Soviet Union, which btw was not identical with Russia, Ukrainian
population was 29.5 million in 1926 and 40.469 million in 1939. This is official Soviet
Census, which Ukraine keeps still as their official national census. And you have the cheek
to suggest with a solely propagandistic term that Georgian Stalin, whatever his
responsibility in the famine was, committed anything comparable with Anglosaxon ongoing
slaughtering?
The US started their history with the eracidation of 90% of native Americans.
They have , in their short history, conducted more than a hundred aggressive wars, were in
wars, which were never against anybody who had remotely threatened USAists on their ground,
325 years in 349 years of US history and have, since 1949 alone, caused further 30 million
causualties minimum.
And in that role, they were since the Round Table of Cecil Rhode the followers of the most
genocidal nation of the planet, Brits, whose suprematist colonialism massmurdered more than
100 million people minimum.
In the Cold War, btw, the US was most willing to conduct a nuclear Holocaust of 200
million western Europeans, 200 million eastern Europeans, including Russians, and 200 million
eastern Asians – if Soviet atomic bombs had not posed the danger that USAists could die
a nuclear death in that case as well. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/6/doomsday_machine_daniel_ellsberg_reveals_he
AND YOU HAVE NEVER CEASED TO BE MASSMURDERERS – EVEN WILLING TO COMMIT HUMANOCIDE AS
A WHOLE – TO MAINTAIN HEGEMONY OF THE WORLD's CULTURALLY MOST DISTORTED AND DEGENERATED
NATION.
And you vermin dare to point with a finger on Russians?
"... the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets. ..."
"... After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and aid. Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders. ..."
"... Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along. ..."
"... It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders. ..."
"... @Asagirian As Lord Ismay once said: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." ..."
It's been our understanding that NATO was necessary
because of the Iron Curtain. Soviets took over Eastern Europe and denied it freedom, and there
was the danger that Soviets would expand further West.
So, US and Western European nations made a Three Musketeers or Mickey Mouseketeers pact of
'one for all and all for one'.
Now, suppose we do a thought experiment of alternative history: The Soviets withdrew from
Eastern Europe, and Eastern European nations like Poland and Hungary became democratic and
capitalist soon after WWII. And there is no East and West Germany but just democratic
Germany.
Would NATO still have been created? If so, for what? To contain the Soviets? But the Soviets
left Eastern Europe in our hypothetical scenario. If NATO was created even after Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe soon after WWII,
there could be only one reason: US hegemony and domination over Western Europe.
Now, there is no way to validate a 'what if' scenario.
However, the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US
hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets.
After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was
collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and
aid.
Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It
was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even
surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders.
Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly
player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along.
It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It
was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended
the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something
like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders.
...NATO is even more of a US
imperialist project. And this time, the 'new cold war' was entirely the fault of the US.
RobinG
says: April 2, 2019
at 11:35 pm GMT 100 Words @Cloak And
Dagger What do they say about Tulsi? Please note in this interview when Cenk asks her
directly if she opposes the Occupation, she says Yes! A true Zio supporter (as some here have
accused her!) would object to even using the word. And she addresses the Adelson question. On
the conflict, her answer is pretty pablum, but probably as far as she can go strategically.
Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her. IMO it's
a very good interview. Can you picture for a moment, Tulsi in a debate with Trump? What are her
boosters doing to prepare her for that? She's handling all the animosity with equanimity, and
she'll arrive at the final contest battle-hardened.
Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her.
It is a good interview and she handles herself very well and her positions are well
articulated. I remain wary of her, however, but I will keep an open mind and watch her in the
months ahead to see where her funding comes from.
@JR ssaid:
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its
Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia",
"Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an
"realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize
too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Except that Germany did not send Germans into the conquered territories during WWII,
though they wanted to do so.
Because of Trump's recent recognition of Israel's ownership of the Golan Heights, I Googled
"Israel six day war," which in turn led me to the page link below. Turns out, Isreal lied
about everything.
1) Both Egypt and Israel claim the other side started it. Israel lied.
2) Israel claims Egyptian forces were assembling for an offensive strike. Israel lied.
3) Israel merely initiated a pre-emptive war, rather than because the two stripes on its
flag represent the boundaries of its nation as the Nile and the Euphrates. Israel lied.
@mark
green I think a deceptively simple exercise would produce surprising results. We should
try to figure out what Anti-Semitism is.
The answer will be that it's a vague concept like 'racism' that is used as a pejorative
and slur, and that it would be very hard to find any real, verifiable 'Anti-Semites' or
'racists' who could be shown to hate all members of their chosen enemy group.
Yes, there are people who imagine that they hate all Jews, or all black people, etc. But I
doubt that they really know who they hate, and would be surprised to find that they mostly
hate a concept, rather than real people.
People who self-identify as 'Jews' are varied, by many different measures, and not all
'semitic', either. And not all people with 'semitic' genes identify as being a 'Jew'.
To those who would say, "well, we still know what we mean by the terms" I would respond,
"I think you do, in the very fuzzy, vague, dangerous sense that characterizes your
thinking."
That's one point. A second is that it's not a crime to hate anyone or anything. If you
hate something or someone, you're within your rights to do so .waste of time and energy that
that usually is.
Zionist colonization of America is nearing culmination. Nothing short of a comprehensive
anti-colonial resistance movement will rid us of the Zio-cancer that is corroding our
national identity, integrity, self determination and independence. The cancer must be
extirpated and the time is now.
Anybody reading from West Virginia? Our Senator Joe Manchin receives six figures of donations
from AIPAC. Don't vote for him.
AIPAC's February 2019 press release stated, "AIPAC commends Congress for strongly
supporting Israeli security and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship in provisions
included in the new spending bill. Importantly, the legislation increases security assistance
to Israel by $200 million to fully fund the first year of the new 10-year U.S.-Israel
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). These funds help Israel maintain its qualitative military
edge in the region in order to defend itself, by itself, from mounting threats on its
borders." This plundering was co-sponsored by the other West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore
Capito. So don't vote for her either.
So where does that leave West Virginia voters? Staying home and abstaining from voting,
because we never get a good alternative due to the primary election. Which actually solves
nothing.
Yep, looking at our options, the only change is going to come from a coup or
revolution.
In other words Russiagate was a smoke screen over Isrealgate...
Notable quotes:
"... Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. ..."
"... The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud. ..."
"... Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. ..."
"... Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They are the gravest threat to our national security." ..."
"... Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. ..."
"... There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks. infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity. ..."
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in
Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of
lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and
it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering
of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any
country in the history of the world.
There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and
its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby
(referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual
or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not
actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It
claims to work to "ensure
that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure" through "foreign aid, government
partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts ," all of which involve the U.S. as the donor
and Israel as the recipient.
Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to
the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. No two countries have
identical interests, something that is particularly true when one is considering Israel, an
ethno-religious autocracy, and the United States, where The Lobby works assiduously to
compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and
almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly
identical interests is little more than a fraud.
Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie.
Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is
a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global
interests. The recent decisions to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize
Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights were ill-conceived and have been condemned by the
world community, including by nearly all of America's genuine close allies.
The harm done by the Israeli connection to policy formulation in Washington and to U.S.
troops based in the Middle East has been noted both by Admiral Thomas Moorer and General David
Petraeus, with Moorer decrying how
"If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government,
they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
Petraeus complained to a Senate Committee that U.S. favoritism towards Israel puts American
soldiers based in the Middle East at risk. He was quickly forced to recant, however.
Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel
is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the
United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They
are the gravest threat to our national security." Inman was referring to American Jewish
spy Jonathan Pollard, who stole for Israel an entire roomful of the most highly classified
defense information. Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons
grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear
weapons arsenal. The FBI, for its part, in its annual counterintelligence report, consistently
identifies Israel as the "friendly" country that spies most persistently against the U.S. FBI
Agents have testified that there are very
few prosecutions of the swarms of Israeli spies due to "political pressure."
Third, there is the myth that the United States and Israel have "shared values," which is
meant to imply that both are liberal democracies where freedom and human rights prevail,
beacons of light offering enlightened leadership in a world where tyranny threatens at every
turn. This was stressed in the opening remarks last weekend by AIPAC Executive Director Howard
Kohr, who described Israel as "A nation
always striving to be better, more just and true to the message of its founders, a nation
dedicated to freedom of religion for people of all faiths. We do our work for all to see. What
unites our pro-Israel movement is the passion for bringing American and Israel closer for the
benefit of both and the benefit of all. We look like America because we are America."
Kohr is, of course, preaching to an audience that wants desperately to believe what he says
in spite of what they have been able to see with their own eyes in the media when it dares to
publish a story criticizing Israel. Jewish hypocrisy about one standard for Israel and Jews
plus another standard for everyone else operates pretty much out in the open if one knows where
to look. Zionist Organization of America's Morton Klein, who once tweeted regarding a "filthy
Arab,"
was interviewed by journalist Nathan Thrall and asked why he believed it was "utterly
racist and despicable" to support a "white nationalist" ethnic group but not racist for Israel
to do the same. He responded "Israel is a unique situation. This is really a Jewish state given
to us by God. God did not create a state for white people or for black people." Senator Charles
Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, who calls himself the Senate's "shomer" or guardian
for American Jews, had a slightly different take on it: "Of course, we say it's our land, the
Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not
peace."
But Kohr, Klein and Schumer all know as well as anyone that Israeli Jews, fortified by their
conceit of being a "Chosen people," are not interchangeable with contemporary Americans, or at
least not "like" the Americans who still care about their country. There are hundreds of mostly
Jewish pro-Israel organizations in America, having a
combined endowment of $16 billion, that are actively propagandizing and promoting Israeli
interests by ignoring or lying about the downside of the relationship. The University of
Michigan affiliate of the Hillel International campus organization alone has a multistory
headquarters supported by a budget of $2 million and a staff of 15. It hosts an emissary of the
Jewish Agency for Israel, an Israeli government supported promotional enterprise.
So, what is the meaning of the "American" in AIPAC? Requiring a religious-ethnic litmus test
for full citizenship and rights is Israeli, not American. Having local government admissions
committees that can bar Israeli-Palestinian citizens based on "social suitability" would not be
acceptable to most Americans. Demanding a unique Israeli right to exist while denying it to
Israel's neighbors; demolishing homes while poisoning Palestinian livestock and destroying
orchards; shooting children for throwing stones; and inflicting death, terror and deprivation
upon the imprisoned people of Gaza are all everyday common practice for the Israeli
government.
Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the
Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political
cover. Israel and friends like Kohr routinely make baseless charges of anti-Semitism
against critics while also legislating against free-speech to eliminate any and all criticism.
This drive to make Israel uniquely free from any critique has become the norm in the United
States, but it is a norm driven by Israeli interests and Israel's friends, most of whom are
Jewish billionaires or Jewish organizations that meet regularly and discuss what they might do
to benefit the Jewish state.
And the fourth big lie is that the American people support Israel on religious as well as
cultural grounds, not because mostly Jewish money has corrupted our political system and media.
Indeed, many Christian fundamentalists have various takes on what Israel means, but their
influence is limited. The Israel-thing is Jewish in all ways that matter and its sanitized
Exodus -version that has been sold to the public is essentially a complete fraud
nurtured by the media, also Jewish controlled, by Hollywood, and by the Establishment.
"This weekend the New York Times
breaks one of the biggest taboos , describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the
Democratic Party's slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall's groundbreaking piece repeats a
lot of data we've reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as
Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and
Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that's the nut." Ben Rhodes, a former deputy
national-security adviser to ex-President Barack Obama recounted in the article how "a more
assertive policy toward Israel" never evolved "The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is
still shaped by the [Jewish] donor class."
And the support for Israel goes beyond money. The Times article included an October
2018
"Survey of 800 American voters who identify as Jewish, conducted by the Mellman Group on
behalf of the Jewish Electoral Institute, 92 percent said that they are 'generally
pro-Israel.' In the same poll -- conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian
diplomatic mission in Washington, moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut
humanitarian aid to Palestinians -- roughly half of American Jews said they approved of
President Trump's handling of relations with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive
issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank,
a November 2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was
commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned with Democrats, found that roughly
half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel.
According to a 2013 Pew survey , 44 percent of Americans and 40 percent of American Jews
believe that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, [a] fact that Jews believe they
have rights in historic Palestine that non-Jews do not."
And one only has to listen to the AIPAC speeches made by leading members of the U.S.
government establishment to appreciate the essential hypocrisy over the U.S. wag-the-dog
relationship with the Jewish state of Israel. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
led the parade of Democrats on the first evening of AIPAC, thundering "When someone accuses
American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: Accuse me, I am part of a large,
bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel -- an overwhelming majority of the United
States Congress. I tell Israel's accusers and detractors: Accuse me."
Well, Steny there is a certain irony in your request and to be sure you should be accused
over betrayal of your oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies "domestic and
foreign." Hoyer is a product of the heavily Jewish Maryland Democratic Party machine that has
also produced Pelosi and Senator Ben Cardin. Pelosi told the AIPAC audience about her
father in Baltimore, a so-called Shabbos goy who would perform services for Jews on the
sabbath and who would also speak Yiddish while at home with his Italian family. Cardin
meanwhile has been the sponsor of legislation to make criticism or boycotting of Israel
illegal, up to and including heavy fines and prison time.
Hoyer, widely regarded as one of the most pro-Israel non-Jewish congressman, also boasted to
AIPAC about the 15 official trips to Israel he's made in forty years in Congress, accompanied
by more than 150 fellow Democrats. "This August, I will travel with what I expect will be our
largest delegation ever -- probably more than 30 Democratic members of Congress, including many
freshmen."
Steny Hoyer will be on an AIPAC affiliate sponsored trip in which any contact with
Palestinians will be both incidental and carefully managed. He also clearly has no problem in
spending the taxpayer's dime to go to Israel on additional "codels" to get further
propagandized. He is flat out wrong about Israel in general, but don't expect him to be
convinced otherwise, which may be somehow related to the $317,525 in pro-Israel PAC
contributions he has received.
There was much more at the AIPAC Summit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced "the
pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance" while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
fresh from selling out U.S. interests on a visit to Israel, declared that "We live in
dangerous times. We have to speak the truth. Anti-Semitism should and must be rejected by all
decent people. Anti-Semitism – anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and any nation that
espouses anti-Zionism, like Iran, must be confronted. We must defend the rightful homeland of
the Jewish people."
Vice President Mike Pence, like Pompeo an evangelical Christian, piled on in his Monday
prime time speech,
declaring that "Anyone who aspires to the highest office of the land should not be afraid
to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel. It
is wrong to boycott AIPAC. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Congress of the United States of
America. Anyone who slanders this historic alliance between the United States and Israel should
never have a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee."
Clearly, there is considerable evidence to support the theory that one has to be completely
ignorant to hold high office in the United States. Rejecting Zionism and/or questioning Israeli
policies is not anti-Semitism and the Jewish state is in fact no actual ally of the United
States. Nor is there any mandate to defend it in its questionable "rightful homeland."
Furthermore, dual-loyalty is what the relationship with Israel is all about and it is Jewish
money and political power that makes the whole thing work to Israel's benefit.
But the good news is that all the lying blather from the likes of Steny Hoyer and Howard
Kohr reveals their desperation. They are running scared because "the times they are a
changing." Sure, Congressmen will continue to be bought and sold and Jewish money and the
access to power that it buys will be able to prevail in the short term in a conspiratorial
fashion. But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty
to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It
is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the
U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as
Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will
not continue indefinitely. It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to
stop it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box
2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected].
No he chose to. He was a high ranking general nearing retirement. Nobody could touch him
if he really was looking out for the country as he took and oath to do.
It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.
Amen, brother Phil!
We are all suffering from cognitive dissonance where our conflicted minds refuse to force
our government to declare AIPAC as an agent of a foreign nation that must be made to register
as such.
But, as I said in a previous post, the foxes are guarding the henhouse. We need to take
them down by hook or by crook. I have made it a mission in my copious free time to confront
every politician that I can and ask them uncomfortable questions about their loyalty to this
nation. So far, success has been limited, but if more people would join me, we could make
these sniveling cowards fear us more than they fear The Lobby.
We have put together a series of articles that explore the candidates’ (and
potential candidates’) Jewish connections — from those who identify as Jews, or
are married to one, to candidates who are not Jewish but have ties to the community in
different ways. We also explore their views on Israel.
Below are links to articles, sorted alphabetically, that our staff has written about some of
the political contenders, mostly those seeking the Democratic nomination. This list will be
updated as additional candidates join the fray.
And you thought Israel only dictated US policy in the ME? Every country knows that to get
anything from the US they have to go thru the Jews. The only thing of value Israel has ever
had to sell is its control of the US. Lets see how long it takes for Trump and congress to
reinstate the aid.
Trump cuts aid to 3 countries with strong relations with Israel
Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, said President Juan Orlando
Hernández of Honduras that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem – but
not an embassy.
By OMRI NAHMIAS Jerusalem Post
April 1, 2019 08:47
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump decided to stop programs of foreign aid for
three states in the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who are
known to have a strong relationship with Israel. Trump is cutting off nearly $500 million to
put pressure on the three governments to stop their citizens from trying to cross the Mexican
border into the US. However, it could also jeopardize the Israeli efforts to convince
Honduras to move its Embassy to Jerusalem.
Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, President Juan Orlando
Hernández of Honduras said that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem –
but not an embassy.
Just three months ago, things were moving in a positive direction. A trilateral meeting
between Hernández, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Pompeo was followed
by an announcement from the government of Honduras, saying it opened a dialogue with
Netanyahu to explore the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem.
After the trilateral meeting, Israeli media outlets indicated that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to mediate a deal between Honduras and United States to secure
the continuing of foreign aid to the country in exchange for opening a Honduran embassy in
Jerusalem.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington, as well Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office did not
respond for a comment request from The Jerusalem Post on that matter. Another country that
would face a cut in foreign aid is Guatemala – the only country that followed the US
and moved the embassy to Jerusalem”
Petraeus is in position to have lucrative –part-time– broadcasting
appearances. He would not get those opportunities, if if he espoused that Israeli-bought US
favoritism was wrong. Bobby Inman while not caring about the media, would be true to his
beliefs.
JFK and LBJ both knew it was wrong three generations ago. The difference was that JFK knew
it, complained to his underlings and at least partially did things that rocked the Israelis.
LBJ just wanted ‘the Jews off my back’ and acted accordingly with regard to
Israel.
while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as
Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are
starving
” In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian
Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine
guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for
the fun of it.
In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street
during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he
thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused
him some trouble.
I have seen a lot of things like that”……Col Pat Lang
Israel is a crime that makes me wish I was the US President.
The comment on the stealing of nuclear materials in the sixties reminds that Michael
Scheuer’s blog has been pulled, any chance we could have him hosted here?
If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government,
they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes
on.
and
But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to
the United States.
How long is this “long run” when the people who don’t know finally
know?
Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie
producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium
and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons
arsenal.
I’ve been bringing that up for years on various platforms and have yet to get any
comment on it. Why there isn’t enough outrage to barley even address it is inexplicable
to me. Netanyanhoo belongs in solitary for the rest of his miserable days but instead gets
treated better than royalty by our butt-kissing politicians. Sick, sick sick.
As far as the Izzies running our military, the Air Force officer Karen Kwiatkowski has
written about it in the past, and is hardly ever mentioned.
“My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the
[Israeli] generals knew where they were going [in the Pentagon] (most foreign visitors to
the five-sided asylum don’t) and how the [Israeli]generals didn’t have to
sign in. I felt a bit dirtied by the whole thing and couldn’t stop comparing that
experience to the grace and gentility of the Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian ambassadors
with whom I worked”.
Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you
back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term
‘anti-Semitism’. It’s a tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed
criticism and much-needed opposition to the world’s most coddled brand of political
extremism.
‘Anti-Semitic theory’ promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews)
who reject the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or
prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.
Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions
that are “too critical” of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to
explore the destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of
political death here in the Land of the Free.
Thou shalt not… say that.
How did this happen?
Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch
sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of
modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a
causality.
People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never
be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.
How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.
How did we ever forget it?
(Political necessity?)
Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary
‘American’ leaders embrace (and vote to subsidize) serial Israeli
warfare/expansion along with Israeli ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US
citizens and political observers get slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli
ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of Washington.
How much longer will these strange delusions last?
Thank you for a very informative, if thoroughly depressing, article.
we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it
As a first step, stop supporting your two pro-Israel Establishment parties. If you keep
voting for them, they will carry on as before, nothing will change. Politicians only ever sit
up and take notice when their access to power comes under threat.
That said, there is little chance Valerie Plame will be tweeting this one like she
previously did two others of yours.
Excerpts from Former Spy Accused Of Anti-Semitism Eyeing Senate Run :
Former CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson is considering a run for the United States Senate in
New Mexico, the Washington Examiner reported Friday.
One early obstacle for Plame Wilson, should she choose to run, is an anti-Semitism
controversy: She was criticized in September 2017 for tweeting links to anti-Semitic
articles, including a column titled “American Jews Are Driving America’s
Wars” and another called “The Dancing Israelis” that insinuated the
Mossad was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Plame at first defended her sharing of the
“Jews drive wars” article, arguing, “many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.”
But she eventually apologized and resigned from her position on the board of the
Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear not-for-profit foundation. She has not tweeted
since.
Plame Wilson told the Examiner on Friday that she would “like another
opportunity to serve my country” and would run as a Democrat. The seat will open
up in 2020 after the retirement of incumbent Sen. Tom Udall.
More accurately, she would like to serve those who’ll be funding her campaign.
There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks.
infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship
must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said
foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of
American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed
to serve in any American governmental capacity.
In addition, any American citizen who serves in a foreign military (Israel Defense Forces)
should automatically lose their American citizenship.
When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians
slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel. It
was a scene out of the Soviet Politburo where every jewish or Israel supporter tried to outdo
the others with the applause. Just who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the
interests of the American people and the United States,they should renounce their United
States citizenship and be deported to Israel.
WASP culture was completed, formed fully, finalized, by Puritans and Puritanism, by
Judaizing heresy. WASP culture, therefore, always must gravitate toward Jews, always must
be pro-Semitic, always will feature a drive to neutralize, and preferably destroy, that
which is aligned toward historic Christianity and Christendom, while promoting endless
heretical groups, especially those that reveal a willingness to be subservient to Jews and
to WASP Elites who invariably are staunchly pro-Semitic (either pro-Jewish or
pro-Arabic/Islamic).
I don’t know about that. The Nazis were WASPs, they clearly didn’t get your
memo. The WASPs who are most eager to drink the Jew liberal Kool-aid are all atheists.
I am not fond of the title given the piece, but Mr Giraldi always has something to say worth
listening to.
" But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not
loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly
clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not
threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the
other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who
are starving will not continue indefinitely. "
Well said indeed.
I am generally an optimist for the long term., although forced to be a pessimist for the
near future.
Such abuse and oppression just cannot go on forever.
Even the mighty Soviet Union finally collapsed, leaving a peaceful and reasonable Russia
in its place.
And, while not generally noticed, there are many parallels between modern Israel and the
USSR.
You cannot go on proclaiming democracy when half the people you rule cannot even vote.
They could all vote in the USSR, but their votes meant nothing.
You cannot claim to represent our great Western values when oppression is an integral part
of your society.
Millions of prisoners cannot be kept without rights indefinitely. Only a tyranny such as
the USSR is capable even of attempting it.
But in the meantime, many must suffer terribly while the nightmarish events which
represent Israel's behavior play themselves out.
If you are willing to use brutality regularly to get your way, as the USSR did and as
Israel does, you can continue for quite a while, but not indefinitely.
I think this is not true. Only if the person puts interests of the other state above the interests of the home state
such behaviour can be qualified as the fifth column mentality.
Peter Beinart and the rest of the 'Goldstein-Big Brother' tagteam have a cynical hasbara
role to disguise the real fight, which is ending 'Jewish Kahanism'
Screw Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, the 'Zionists' are KAHANISTS
Peter Beinart's shtick of being a 'Liberal Kahanist' is just his way of conning America
while appearing respectable rather than being shunned
At time of Pollard's release, Fortress America was not completely dominated by
Israel
He was released in November, 2015, only 52 months ago. I don't believe that the Israeli
lobby was much weaker then.
He was release under parole in accordance with US law.
According to the Tel Aviv edited source, wikipedia, Rumsfeld,Cheney,Tenet,several former
sec. of defense, a bi-partisan group of US congressional leaders and members of the US
intelligence community, all opposed clemency for Pollard.
He deeply angered many top Americans, so clemency was not possible. Parole, however
was.
Pollard, I understand sold much information to other nations. Maybe if he had only stolen
information for Israel he could have gotten clemency.
Pollard tried to get asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, but was refused
entry. His Israeli handlers in Washington DC all fled the US within 24 hours after his
arrest
At the time of his arrest in 1985, Israeli power over Washington was far weaker than it is
today. America apparently still had some patriots at high levels at that time.
"The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of
the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these
topics."
I am disinclined to relegate but a few to this kind of stricture. The issue not can a
Jewish person be reasoned with, but who has the ability to stand on disagreements that might
not be in line with the ambitions of the other. And certainly all indications are that Jews
can be reasoned with. I don't subscribe to a totalitarian view that this is an impossibility.
I will say what I have said since entering these discussions. Despite where one falls on
Israel's selection by God, they are still responsible for behaving as members of the larger
community and even God says so. In fact Israel should as an agent selected by God, if such be
the case, be the leading actor of responsible behavior. I have made that point before and
their I rest.
She should be responsible and accountable. In the same manner as Christians are
responsible and accountable in the countries in which they live. Those parameters do not in
any manner diminish one's special role or character.
In regards to the secular, the elected and appointed members of the the US represent the
interests of the US first and foremost – period. And they can certainly support
Israel's existence without denying her any sleight of her unique spiritual of scriptural
meaning. Her ability to leverage the three variables to her stead is more a reflection on the
weakness of US representatives to tackle each of those variables head on in relation to how
supports US policy. God is not going to be chagrined about telling Israel, she cannot merely
confiscate land as she wants. But that she must obey/abide by the rules that govern sovereign
states. The holocaust, real or manufactured does make room for running ruff shod over her
neighbors. There are processes by which she could press for more territory that are legal --
she should use that process.
The ability to reason requires the ability to stand against unreason and their in my view
is where the US simply fails. Can one reason with Israel, sure as long as one has the
backbone to stand.
__________________
My love and support for Israel in no manner condones violations of rules that in no manner
contradict spiritual or scriptural truth. And I am confident that includes abiding by the
rules of members states of the international community. No one need be a "jew worshiper" or
"worshiper of Israel" to support Israel or hold her accountable among the nation-state
community.
And no one has to become a Jew to support Israel or be a christian while there are deep
roots, the two are not the same by a long shot.
I remain steadfastly in support of her right to exist, self defense and that others have
no less a right than she. My original position from start to this moment and unlikely to
change.
That is key. The right of others to co-exist alongside Israel the issue. The state of
Israel, regardless of her standing with respect to scripture and christian ethos, as a
nation state she is bound by the same rules as other nation states.
The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of
the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these
topics.
Even if that reason is by way of potential sanctions, boycotts, and other forms of
political and economic pressure.
The truth of the matter is that anyone who would theoretically be engaging with Israel, or
even the gentile groups that put various forms of pressure on Israel, absolutely has to be
well-educated in Judaism.
To know Judaism is to know that its core thesis is that Jews are not bound by the same
rules as other peoples and nations. It is to know that Judaism's core tenet is that Israel is
the only legitimate nation and therefore the only nation that is destined to survive. It is
to know that it is religiously incumbent on the Jews to not make concessions that would allow
any other nation to survive in the long term.
To know all of this is to come to the strategic conclusion that attempting to reason with
Israel in regard to playing by the rules is a failed effort before it begins. In fact, it
would do nothing more than to waste time and allow Israel an opportunity for further
deception toward its ultimate nation-destroying goals.
Instead, Israel and the wider Jewish nation must be dealt with on an open foundation of
their religiously expressed hostility to all other nations that includes their expressed
domination and genocide goals. Anything else allows them a certain degree of cover that
allows them to maneuver to our detriment.
Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you
back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term 'anti-Semitism'. It's a
tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed criticism and much-needed opposition to the
world's most coddled brand of political extremism.
'Anti-Semitic theory' promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject
the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to
irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.
Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions
that are "too critical" of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to explore the
destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of political
death here in the Land of the Free.
Thou shalt not say that.
How did this happen?
Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch
sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of
modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a
causality.
People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never
be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.
How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.
How did we ever forget it?
(Political necessity?)
Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary 'American'
leaders embrace (and vot to subsidize) serial Israeli warfare/expansion along with Israeli
ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US citizens and political observers get
slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of
Washington.
How much longer will these strange delusions last?
The term and multi-tiered concept marketed as 'anti-Semitism' is a deceptive misnomer.
This is no accident.
Where's the 'Jew' in 'anti-Semitism'?
It's missing. But why?
After all, 'anti-Semitism' is basically about one thing: anti-Jewishness.
Yet the J-word is missing.
Did someone forget?
Of course not. The Jews have removed 'Jew' from this manipulative term for a strategic
purpose.
Keep in mind that 'Semites' are a real (and diverse) collection of peoples. So are Semitic
languages which involve millions of mostly-Arab peoples who dwell in different countries,
speak various languages, and practice different religions.
Yet, 'anti-Semitism' in the West means only one thing: 'anti-Jewishness'.
And Jews–unlike 'Semites'–are one cohesive people who claim one exclusive
country with one supreme religion. And they also happen to play an exceedingly powerful role
throughout Europe and America.
So why the linguistic sleight-of-hand with 'anti-Semitism'?
After all, Semitic Arabs get no protection from charges involving 'anti-Semitism'. It's
all about Jews.
Why not call 'anti-Semitism' what it actually is?–'Jew hatred or Jews contempt'?
'Jew fatigue', perhaps?
That's because the shomers who safeguard Jewry don't want anti-Jewish sentiment to
be simple or comprehensible or (most importantly) made legitimate in any way
whatsoever.
After all, hate is a common emotion and it is routinely directed from high above at
certain unpopular groups, ideologies and 'bad' countries. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Not so fast.
Jewry has conflated 'anti-Semitism' with 'genocide' and 'white supremacy' (See: Hitler).
Very clever. This ramps up gentile guilt and Jewish untouchability.
Anti-Jewishness ('anti-Semitism') is therefore designed to be understood as a unique
mental disorder with unique political dangers. This is no small accomplishment,
especially when one considers that Jews aren't exactly the 'innocent victims' that they claim
to be.
Indeed, if anti-Jewish commentary ('anti-Semitic speech') was brought down to earth and
even permitted, this would undermine Israeli power inside America as well as the
effectiveness of the taboos and 'red flags' which have elevated 'anti-Semitism' into a
rarified class of evil–not to mention 'political tool' for it's handlers.
Indeed, without the special shield that 'anti-Semitic theory' accords Jews, they would be
subject to the same harsh criticism often accorded Arabs, Russians, Iranians, Germans or
Muslims.
So the Guardians of Zion have cooked up a theoretical framework to pretty-much prevents
all that. It serves them quite well.
Thus conceptual 'anti-Semitism' is a self-exonerating paradigm. This also empowers Israel
enormously.
Anti-Semitic theory injects voodoo Freudianism and Frankfurt School gobbledegook into all
Jewish historiography. In doing so, it establishes two dubious beachheads.
1) 'Anti-Semitism' is not about Jewish behavior, nor is 'anti-Semitism' about everyday
political and economic conflicts that involve the collective (and conflicting) interests of
Jews and gentiles. No siree. Not that!
Such a bilateral and down-to-earth view is unacceptable. It's far too simple, too
accessible– too empowering for the anti-Semitic rabble.
To truly comprehend 'anti-Semitism' requires the expertise of a psychiatrist (preferably
Jewish) or qualified 'expert'. Please check with the 'Jewish Studies' Dept. for further
information.
These scholars will cleanly explain the dark, hidden forces that drive the periodic
eruptions (pograms, genocides) involving political good (the Jew) and evil (the
'anti-Semite').
Thus 'anti-Semitic theory' communicates the view that Jewish power, Jewish abuse of power
and Jewish crypsis are 'myths and allegations' and not relevant to understanding anti-Jewish
sentiment among the evious goyim.
'Anti-Semitism'? It's all in your head! And those afflicted with it are suffering from
hidden conflicts in their hate-filled twisted minds! Hitler!
('Trust me', says the 'expert'. 'Would I lie about such a thing'?)
Once the kosher 'diagnosis' is established, 'Anti-Semitism' becomes a powerful and handy
political weapon. And they certainly know how to use it.
'Anti-Semitic theory' even flips overdue criticism of Zio-Israeli power into this:
'You people (goys) who have a grievance against God's chosen people are merely
jealous. Jews don't mean any harm. Their violence is all in self-defense.
'You are projecting your own pathetic feelings of inferiority. Your contempt for Jew[ish
conduct and beliefs] is a neurotic projection of your own pathologies.
'So don't muddy the waters with irrelevant references to wars in Europe and Russia and
now in the Middle East that have killed tens of millions.
'And certainly don't discuss the unimportant Jewish role in banking, finance,
immigration policies, education, law, entertainment and the manufacture of 'news'. All that
bigoted discourse is anti-Semitic propaganda and is irrelevant.
'We must strive to assure Jewish safety and Jewish survival.'
@Fran
Taubman The US has been providing a safe and prosperous home for your ungrateful lot. And
yet, the Jews are seemingly not able to be loyal to a country of their dwelling because "next
year in Jerusalem" -- even if the majority of the Jews prefer to admire Jerusalem from a
distance.
It is not just the Jewish treasonous behavior towards the USA citizenry, which is so
repulsive. The problem is the subversive influence of the Lobby towards the western values at
large (such as the First Amendment, including the active suppression of factual information
that is unpleasant for the tribe) -- all while the holo-biz continues encouraging the whining
and wailing about special victimhood of the Jews. This does not work anymore. After
converting tens of thousands of Middle Eastern children into the bags of shredded meat in the
name of Eretz Israel and after supporting military the Kievan neo-Nazi, the Jewish State's
screeching about existential threat and some special dues that western world owes to the
Jewish tribe do not have any power anymore. It's over.
In addition, the cynicism, indecency, and the cruelty displayed by the Jews against
Palestinians, Arabs, and Russians have made the AIPAC, the ADL, and other mighty Jewish
organization into pariahs among decent people.
It has no sense to engage in name-calling ("all the fringe sick people on UNZ"). Look at a
mirror. Your tribe has lost the moral fiber. It does not help that the Jewish mythology
treats non-Jews as subhumans.
"These imbeciles perceive in US-Jews their own human distortion – and hate
themselves in projecting self-hate on a tiny minority within their degenerated
population."
-- Anja, why does this article about the pernicious influence of the Lobby made you so
hysterical? The "tiny minority" has decided to be loyal to the tribal Jewish interests on its
own volition. The tiny minority has a choice to relocate to its "promised land" and thus
leave the US alone. The parasitic and disloyal minority is not welcome by the decent
Americans, whereas the zionized degenerate in the US Congress do behave treasonously towards
the US citizenry. Just take Bolton, Pompeo, Schumer, and Pelosi with you.
Leave the US alone. Sort out your problems with your Arab cousins ((Ishmaels) on your own.
And, by the way, stop murdering the Middle Eastern children; this is a very bad behavior that
is not going to be forgotten by good people.
Israeli nukes were always our government's policy.
First off, Lot, given your passionate attachment to the Zionist Project, you need to be a
little clearer as to whom you are referring when you write "our" government.
Secondly, if you were referring to the policy of the US gov't, as you are no doubt aware,
JFK had several correspondences with David Ben Gurion in which he warned him against the
development of a nuclear program for fear of nuclear proliferation in the region. The issue was
so divisive that it led to DBG's resignation and JFK's demise.
@renfroHow about POTUS making a secret pledge to Israel? Clinton, Bush the younger, Obama,
and Trump have all signed letters pledging never to expose Israel's nuclear arsenal. At last
week's conference, Grant Smith outlined his efforts to stop this practice of subverting both
letter and spirit of US law. For starters, we should demand that all presidential candidates
pledge: No Secret Pledge to a (((Foreign))) Power.
U.S. foreign aid and the Israeli nuclear weapons program – Grant F. Smith
"It's the Benjamins Baby" -- money is everything to the Jew.
Israeli banks screw America – help US Jews to circumvent taxes
US MSM screw America – never tell the American people about it.
Media Blackout as Israel's Largest Banks Pay over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax
Evasion Schemes
Israel's three largest banks -- Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank -- have
all been ordered to pay record fines, which collectively are set to total over $1 billion, to
the U.S. government after the banks were found to have actively colluded with thousands of
wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes.
80% of the American people are serfs – living paycheck to paycheck – paying
interest on everything – receiving none back – actually, outright owning little of
value.
The American people have gotten extraordinarily tired of the demands, bullying, and blackmail
the American government has received from the fully nuclear armed, viciously apartheid,
theocracy which is what neo-nazi Israel has become in the 21st century.
And we have one word for you: enough!!
We will provide you no more American military to get slaughtered or maimed for life in the
process of "neutralizing" all your alleged existential threats in the Middle East. And of
course, as we both know, that includes all of your neighbors in the region.
And on top of that, sir, we would appreciate it greatly if the US government immediately
pull all financial and military aid from your country immediately, as all this aid is
completely illegal under the Symington Amendment.
We the people would like to see this accomplished and immediately, sir. The days of the
host/parasite relationship between the Us government and that of Israel may well be coming to
a very abrupt halt, and it is damn well about time, sir!!!
Sun comes up, Israel demands money. Sun goes down, Israel demands money. Moon waxes,
Israel demands money. Moon wanes, Israel demands money. Weather is sunny, Israel demands
money. Weather is rainy, Israel demands money. I sense a pattern here!
Junk author, junk book of the butcher of Yugoslavia who would be hanged with Bill clinton by
Nuremberg Tribunal for crimes against peace. Albright is not bright at all. she a female bully
and that shows.
Mostly projection. And this arrogant warmonger like to exercise in Russophobia (which was the
main part of the USSR which saved the world fro fascism, sacrificing around 20 million people)
This book is book of denial of genocide against Iraqis and Serbian population where bombing with
uranium enriched bombs doubled cancer cases.If you can pass over those facts that this book is
for you.
Like Robert Kagan and other neocons Albright is waiving authoritarism dead chicken again and
again. that's silly and disingenuous. authoritarism is a method of Governance used in military.
It is not an ideology. Fascism is an ideology, a flavor of far right nationalism. Kind of
"enhanced" by some socialist ideas far right nationalism.
The view of fascism without economic circumstances that create fascism, and first of
immiseration of middle and working class and high level of unemployment is a primitive
ahistorical view. Fascism is the ultimate capitalist statism acting simultaneously as the civil
religion for the population also enforced by the power of the state. It has a lot of common with
neoliberalism, that's why neoliberalism is sometimes called "inverted totalitarism".
In reality fascism while remaining the dictatorship of capitalists for capitalist and the
national part of financial oligarchy, it like neoliberalism directed against working class
fascism comes to power on the populist slogans of righting wrong by previous regime and kicking
foreign capitalists and national compradors (which in Germany turned to be mostly Jewish)
out.
It comes to power under the slogans of stopping the distribution of wealth up and elimination
of the class of reinters -- all citizens should earn income, not get it from bond and other
investments (often in reality doing completely the opposite).
While intrinsically connected and financed by a sizable part of national elite which often
consist of far right military leadership, a part of financial oligarchy and large part of lower
middle class (small properties) is is a protest movement which want to revenge for the
humiliation and prefer military style organization of the society to democracy as more potent
weapon to achieve this goal.
Like any far right movement the rise of fascism and neo-fascism is a sign of internal problem
within a given society, often a threat to the state or social order.
Still another noted that Fascism is often linked to people who are part of a distinct ethnic
or racial group, who are under economic stress, and who feel that they are being denied rewards
to which they are entitled. "It's not so much what people have." she said, "but what they think
they should have -- and what they fear." Fear is why Fascism's emotional reach can extend to
all levels of society. No political movement can flourish without popular support, but Fascism
is as dependent on the wealthy and powerful as it is on the man or woman in the street -- on
those who have much to lose and those who have nothing at all.
This insight made us think that Fascism should perhaps be viewed less as a political
ideology than as a means for seizing and holding power. For example, Italy in the 1920s
included self-described Fascists of the left (who advocated a dictatorship of the
dispossessed), of the right (who argued for an authoritarian corporatist state), and of the
center (who sought a return to absolute monarchy). The German National Socialist Party (the
Nazis) originally came together ar ound a list of demands that ca- tered to anti-Semites,
anti-immigrants, and anti-capitalists but also advocated for higher old-age pensions, more
educational op- portunities for the poor, an end to child labor, and improved ma- ternal health
care. The Nazis were racists and, in their own minds, reformers at the same time.
If Fascism concerns itself less with specific policies than with finding a pathway to power,
what about the tactics of lead- ership? My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remem-
ber best were charismatic. Through one method or another, each established an emotional link to
the crowd and, like the central figure in a cult, brought deep and often ugly feelings to the
sur- face. This is how the tentacles of Fascism spread inside a democ- racy. Unlike a monarchy
or a military dictatorship imposed on society from above. Fascism draws energy from men and
women who are upset because of a lost war, a lost job, a memory of hu- miliation, or a sense
that their country is in steep decline. The more painful the grounds for resentment, the easier
it is for a Fascist leader to gam followers by dangling the prospect of re- newal or by vowing
to take back what has been stolen.
Like the mobilizers of more benign movements, these secular evangelists exploit the
near-universal human desire to be part of a meaningful quest. The more gifted among them have
an apti- tude for spectacle -- for orchestrating mass gatherings complete with martial music,
incendiary rhetoric, loud cheers, and arm-
lifting salutes. To loyalists, they offer the prize of membership in a club from which
others, often the objects of ridicule, are kept out. To build fervor, Fascists tend to be
aggressive, militaristic, and -- when circumstances allow -- expansionist. To secure the
future, they turn schools into seminaries for true believers, striv- ing to produce "new men"
and "new women" who will obey without question or pause. And, as one of my students observed,
"a Fascist who launches his career by being voted into office will have a claim to legitimacy
that others do not."
After climbing into a position of power, what comes next: How does a Fascist consolidate
authority? Here several students piped up: "By controlling information." Added another, "And
that's one reason we have so much cause to worry today." Most of us have thought of the
technological revolution primarily as a means for people from different walks of life to
connect with one another, trade ideas, and develop a keener understanding of why men and women
act as they do -- in other words, to sharpen our perceptions of truth. That's still the case,
but now we are not so sure. There is a troubling "Big Brother" angle because of the mountain of
personal data being uploaded into social media. If an advertiser can use that information to
home in on a consumer because of his or her individual interests, what's to stop a Fascist
government from doing the same? "Suppose I go to a demonstra- tion like the Women's March,"
said a student, "and post a photo
on social media. My name gets added to a list and that list can end up anywhere. How do we
protect ourselves against that?"
Even more disturbing is the ability shown by rogue regimes and their agents to spread lies
on phony websites and Facebook. Further, technology has made it possible for extremist
organiza- tions to construct echo chambers of support for conspiracy theo- ries, false
narratives, and ignorant views on religion and race. This is the first rule of deception:
repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible. The
Internet should be an ally of freedom and a gateway to knowledge; in some cases, it is
neither.
Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by assert- ing: "Fascism was the major
political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain." Over the
years, he and other scholars have developed lists of the many moving parts that Fascism
entails. Toward the end of our discussion, my class sought to articulate a comparable list.
Fascism, most of the students agreed, is an extreme form of authoritarian rule. Citizens are
required to do exactly what lead- ers say they must do, nothing more, nothing less. The
doctrine is linked to rabid nationalism. It also turns the traditional social contract upside
down. Instead of citizens giving power to the state in exchange for the protection of their
rights, power begins with the leader, and the people have no rights. Under Fascism,
the mission of citizens is to serve; the government's job is to rule.
When one talks about this subject, confusion often arises about the difference between
Fascism and such related concepts as totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, tyranny,
autocracy, and so on. As an academic, I might be tempted to wander into that thicket, but as a
former diplomat, I am primarily concerned with actions, not labels. To my mind, a Fascist is
someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is
unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary --
including violence -- to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be
a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.
Often the difference can be seen in who is trusted with the guns. In seventeenth-century
Europe, when Catholic aristocrats did battle with Protestant aristocrats, they fought over
scripture but agreed not to distribute weapons to their peasants, thinking it safer to wage war
with mercenary armies. Modern dictators also tend to be wary of their citizens, which is why
they create royal guards and other elite security units to ensure their personal safe- ty. A
Fascist, however, expects the crowd to have his back. Where kings try to settle people down,
Fascists stir them up so that when the fighting begins, their foot soldiers have the will and
the firepower to strike first.
Hypocrisy at its worst from a lady who advocated hawkish foreign policy which included the
most sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam, when, in 1998, Clinton began almost daily
attacks on Iraq in the so-called no-fly zones, and made so-called regime change in Iraq
official U.S. policy.
In May of 1996, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Madeleine Albright, who at the time was
Clinton's U.N. ambassador. Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, in connection with
the Clinton administration presiding over the most devastating regime of sanctions in history
that the U.N. estimated took the lives of as many as a million Iraqis, the vast majority of
them children. , "We have heard that a half-million children have died. I mean, that's more
children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and, you know, is the price worth it?"
Madeleine Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think
the price is worth it.
While I found much of the story-telling in "Fascism" engaging, I come away expecting much
more of one of our nation's pre-eminent senior diplomats . In a nutshell, she has devoted a
whole volume to describing the ascent of intolerant fascism and its many faces, but punted on
the question "How should we thwart fascism going forward?"
Even that question leaves me a bit unsatisfied, since it is couched in double-negative
syntax. The thing there is an appetite for, among the readers of this book who are looking
for more than hand-wringing about neofascism, is a unifying title or phrase which captures in
single-positive syntax that which Albright prefers over fascism. What would that be? And, how
do we pursue it, nurture it, spread it and secure it going forward? What is it?
I think Albright would perhaps be willing to rally around "Good Government" as the theme
her book skirts tangentially from the dark periphery of fascistic government. "Virtuous
Government"? "Effective Government"? "Responsive Government"?
People concerned about neofascism want to know what we should be doing right now to avoid
getting sidetracked into a dark alley of future history comparable to the Nazi brown shirt or
Mussolini black shirt epochs. Does Albright present a comprehensive enough understanding of
fascism to instruct on how best to avoid it? Or, is this just another hand-wringing exercise,
a la "you'll know it when you see it", with a proactive superficiality stuck at the level of
pejorative labelling of current styles of government and national leaders? If all you can say
is what you don't want, then the challenge of threading the political future of the US is
left unruddered. To make an analogy to driving a car, if you don't know your destination, and
only can get navigational prompts such as "don't turn here" or "don't go down that street",
then what are the chances of arriving at a purposive destination?
The other part of this book I find off-putting is that Albright, though having served as
Secretary of State, never talks about the heavy burden of responsibility that falls on a head
of state. She doesn't seem to empathize at all with the challenge of top leadership. Her
perspective is that of the detached critic. For instance, in discussing President Duterte of
the Philippines, she fails to paint the dire situation under which he rose to national
leadership responsibility: Islamic separatists having violently taken over the entire city of
Marawi, nor the ubiquitous spread of drug cartel power to the level where control over law
enforcement was already ceded to the gangs in many places...entire islands and city
neighborhoods run by mafia organizations. It's easy to sit back and criticize Duterte's
unleashing of vigilante justice -- What was Mrs. Albright's better alternative to regain
ground from vicious, well-armed criminal organizations? The distancing from leadership
responsibility makes Albright's treatment of the Philippines twin crises of gang-rule and
Islamist revolutionaries seem like so much academic navel-gazing....OK for an undergrad
course at Georgetown maybe, but unworthy of someone who served in a position of high
responsibility. Duterte is liked in the Philippines. What he did snapped back the power of
the cartels, and returned a deserved sense of security to average Philippinos (at least those
not involved with narcotics). Is that not good government, given the horrendous circumstances
Duterte came up to deal with? What lack of responsibility in former Philippine leadership
allowed things to get so out of control? Is it possible that Democrats and liberals are
afraid to be tough, when toughness is what is needed? I'd much rather read an account from an
average Philippino about the positive impacts of the vigilante campaign, than listen of
Madame Secretary sermonizing out of context about Duterte. OK, he's not your idea of a nice
guy. Would you rather sit back, prattle on about the rule of law and due process while
Islamic terrorists wrest control over where you live? Would you prefer the leadership of a
drug cartel boss to Duterte?
My critique is offered in a constructive manner. I would certainly encourage Albright (or
anyone!) to write a book in a positive voice about what it's going to take to have good
national government in the US going forward, and to help spread such abundance globally. I
would define "good" as the capability to make consistently good policy decisions, ones that
continue to look good in hindsight, 10, 20 or 30 years later. What does that take?
I would submit that the essential "preserving democracy" process component is having a
population that is adequately prepared for collaborative problem-solving. Some understanding
of history is helpful, but it's simply not enough. Much more essential is for every young
person to experience team problem-solving, in both its cooperative and competitive aspects.
Every young person needs to experience a team leadership role, and to appreciate what it
takes from leaders to forge constructive design from competing ideas and champions. Only
after serving as a referee will a young person understand the limits to "passion" that
individual contributors should bring to the party. Only after moderating and herding cats
will a young person know how to interact productively with leaders and other contributors.
Much of the skill is counter-instinctual. It's knowing how to express ideas...how to field
criticism....how to nudge people along in the desired direction...and how to avoid ad-hominem
attacks, exaggerations, accusations and speculative grievances. It's learning how to manage
conflict productively toward excellence. Way too few of our young people are learning these
skills, and way too few of our journalists know how to play a constructive role in managing
communications toward successful complex problem-solving. Albright's claim that a
journalist's job is primarily to "hold leaders accountable" really betrays an absolving of
responsibility for the media as a partner in good government -- it doesn't say whether the
media are active players on the problem-solving team (which they have to be for success), or
mere spectators with no responsibility for the outcome. If the latter, then journalism
becomes an irritant, picking at the scabs over and over, but without any forward progress.
When the media takes up a stance as an "opponent" of leadership, you end up with poor
problem-solving results....the system is fighting itself instead of making forward
progress.
"Fascism" doesn't do nearly enough to promote the teaching of practical civics 101 skills,
not just to the kids going into public administration, but to everyone. For, it is in the
norms of civility, their ability to be practiced, and their defense against excesses, that
fascism (e.g., Antifa) is kept at bay.
Everyone in a democracy has to know the basics:
• when entering a disagreement, don't personalize it
• never demonize an opponent
• keep a focus on the goal of agreement and moving forward
• never tell another person what they think, but ask (non-rhetorically) what they think
then be prepared to listen and absorb
• do not speak untruths or exaggerate to make an argument
• do not speculate grievance
• understand truth gathering as a process; detect when certainty is being bluffed;
question sources
• recognize impasse and unproductive argumentation and STOP IT
• know how to introduce a referee or moderator to regain productive collaboration
• avoid ad hominem attacks
• don't take things personally that wrankle you;
• give the benefit of the doubt in an ambiguous situation
• don't jump to conclusions
• don't reward theatrical manipulation
These basics of collaborative problem-solving are the guts of a "liberal democracy" that
can face down the most complex challenges and dilemmas.
I gave the book 3 stars for the great story-telling, and Albright has been part of a great
story of late 20th century history. If she would have told us how to prevent fascism going
forward, and how to roll it back in "hard case" countries like North Korea and Sudan, I would
have given her a 5. I'm not that interested in picking apart the failure cases of
history...they teach mostly negative exemplars. Much rather I would like to read about
positive exemplars of great national government -- "great" defined by popular acclaim, by the
actual ones governed. Where are we seeing that today? Canada? Australia? Interestingly, both
of these positive exemplars have strict immigration policies.
Is it possible that Albright is just unable, by virtue of her narrow escape from Communist
Czechoslovakia and acceptance in NYC as a transplant, to see that an optimum immigration
policy in the US, something like Canada's or Australia's, is not the looming face of fascism,
but rather a move to keep it safely in its corner in coming decades? At least, she admits to
her being biased by her life story.
That suggests her views on refugees and illegal immigrants as deserving of unlimited
rights to migrate into the US might be the kind of cloaked extremism that she is warning us
about.
Albright's book is a comprehensive look at recent history regarding the rise and fall of
fascist leaders; as well as detailing leaders in nations that are starting to mimic fascist
ideals. Instead of a neat definition, she uses examples to bolster her thesis of what are
essential aspects of fascism. Albright dedicates each section of the book to a leader or
regime that enforces fascist values and conveys this to the reader through historical events
and exposition while also peppering in details of her time as Secretary of State. The climax
(and 'warning'), comes at the end, where Albright applies what she has been discussing to the
current state of affairs in the US and abroad.
Overall, I would characterize this as an enjoyable and relatively easy read. I think the
biggest strength of this book is how Albright uses history, previous examples of leaders and
regimes, to demonstrate what fascism looks like and contributing factors on a national and
individual level. I appreciated that she lets these examples speak for themselves of the
dangers and subtleties of a fascist society, which made the book more fascinating and less of
a textbook. Her brief descriptions of her time as Secretary of State were intriguing and made
me more interested in her first book, 'Madame Secretary'. The book does seem a bit slow as it
is not until the end that Albright blatantly reveals the relevance of all of the history
relayed in the first couple hundred pages. The last few chapters are dedicated to the reveal:
the Trump administration and how it has affected global politics. Although, she never
outright calls Trump a fascist, instead letting the reader decide based on his decisions and
what you have read in the book leading up to this point, her stance is quite clear by the
end. I was surprised at what I shared politically with Albright, mainly in immigration and a
belief of empathy and understanding for others. However, I got a slight sense of
anti-secularism in the form of a disdain for those who do not subscribe to an Abrahamic
religion and she seemed to hint at this being partly an opening to fascism.
I also could have done without the both-sides-ism she would occasionally push, which seems
to be a tactic used to encourage people to 'unite against Trump'. These are small annoyances
I had with the book, my main critique is the view Albright takes on democracy. If anything,
the book should have been called "Democracy: the Answer" because that is the most consistent
stance Albright takes throughout. She seems to overlook many of the atrocities the US and
other nations have committed in the name of democracy and the negative consequences of
capitalism, instead, justifying negative actions with the excuse of 'it is for democracy and
everyone wants that' and criticizing those who criticize capitalism.
She does not do a good job of conveying the difference between a communist country like
Russia and a socialist country like those found in Scandinavia and seems okay with the idea
of the reader lumping them all together in a poor light. That being said, I would still
recommend this book for anyone's TBR as the message is essential for today, that the current
world of political affairs is, at least somewhat, teetering on a precipice and we are in need
of as many strong leaders as possible who are willing to uphold democratic ideals on the
world stage and mindful constituents who will vote them in.
The book is very well written, easy to read, and follows a pretty standard formula making
it accessible to the average reader. However, it suffers immensely from, what I suspect are,
deeply ingrained political biases from the author.
Whilst I don't dispute the criteria the author applies in defining fascism, or the targets
she cites as examples, the first bias creeps in here when one realises the examples chosen
are traditional easy targets for the US (with the exception of Turkey). The same criteria
would define a country like Singapore perfectly as fascist, yet the country (or Malaysia)
does not receive a mention in the book.
Further, it grossly glosses over what Ms. Albright terms facist traits from the US
governments of the past. If the author is to be believed, the CIA is holier than thou, never
intervened anywhere or did anything that wasn't with the best interests of democracy at
heart, and American foreign policy has always existed to build friendships and help out their
buddies. To someone ingrained in this rhetoric for years I am sure this is an easy pill to
swallow, but to the rest of the world it makes a number of assertions in the book come across
as incredibly naive. out of 5 stars
Trite and opaque
We went with my husband to the presentation of this book at UPenn with Albright before it
came out and Madeleine's spunk, wit and just glorious brightness almost blinded me. This is a
2.5 star book, because 81 year old author does not really tell you all there is to tell when
she opens up on a subject in any particular chapter, especially if it concerns current US
interest.
Lets start from the beginning of the book. What really stood out, the missing 3rd Germany
ally, Japan and its emperor. Hirohito (1901-1989) was emperor of Japan from 1926 until his
death in 1989. He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon
turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism. During World War II (1939-45), Japan attacked
nearly all of its Asian neighbors, allied itself with Nazi Germany and launched a surprise
assault on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, forcing US to enter the war in 1941. Hirohito
was never indicted as a war criminal! does he deserve at least a chapter in her book?
Oh and by the way, did author mention anything about sanctions against Germany for
invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland? Up until the Pearl Harbor USA and
Germany still traded, although in March 1939, FDR slapped a 25% tariff on all German goods.
Like Trump is doing right now to some of US trading partners.
Next monster that deserves a chapter on Genocide in cosmic proportions post WW2 is
communist leader of China Mao Zedung. Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural
history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic
torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants compares to the Second World
War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in
China over these four years; the total worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55
million.
We learn that Argentina has given sanctuary to Nazi war criminals, but she forgets to
mention that 88 Nazi scientists arrived in the United States in 1945 and were promptly put to
work. For example, Wernher von Braun was the brains behind the V-2 rocket program, but had
intimate knowledge of what was going on in the concentration camps. Von Braun himself
hand-picked people from horrific places, including Buchenwald concentration camp. Tsk-Tsk
Madeline.
What else? Oh, lets just say that like Madelaine Albright my husband is Jewish and lost
extensive family to Holocoust. Ukrainian nationalists executed his great grandfather on
gistapo orders, his great grandmother disappeared in concentration camp, grandfather was
conscripted in june 1940 and decommissioned september 1945 and went through war as
infantryman through 3 fronts earning several medals. his grandmother, an ukrainian born jew
was a doctor in a military hospital in Saint Petersburg survived famine and saved several
children during blockade. So unlike Maideline who was raised as a Roman Catholic, my husband
grew up in a quiet jewish family in that territory that Stalin grabbed from Poland in 1939,
in a polish turn ukrainian city called Lvov(Lemberg). His family also had to ask for an
asylum, only they had to escape their home in Ukraine in 1991. He was told then "You are a
nice little Zid (Jew), we will kill you last" If you think things in ukraine changed, think
again, few weeks ago in Kiev Roma gypsies were killed and injured during pogroms, and nobody
despite witnesses went to jail. Also during demonstrations openly on the streets C14 unit is
waving swastikas and Heils. Why is is not mentioned anywhere in the book? is is because
Hunter Biden sits on the board of one of Ukraine's largest natural gas companies called
Burisma since May 14, 2014, and Ukraine has an estimated 127.9 trillion cubic feet of
unproved technically recoverable shale gas resources? ( according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA).1 The most promising shale reserves appear to be in the
Carpathian Foreland Basin (also called the Lviv-Volyn Basin), which extends across Western
Ukraine from Poland into Romania, and the Dnieper-Donets Basin in the East (which borders
Russia).
Wow, i bet you did not know that. how ugly are politics, even this book that could have been
so much greater if the author told the whole ugly story. And how scary that there are
countries where you can go and openly be fascist.
To me, Fascism fails for the single reason that no two fascist leaders are alike. Learning
about one or a few, in a highly cursory fashion like in this book or in great detail, is
unlikely to provide one with any answers on how to prevent the rise of another or fend
against some such. And, as much as we are witnessing the rise of numerous democratic or
quasi-democratic "strongmen" around the world in global politics, it is difficult to brand
any of them as fascist in the orthodox sense.
As the author writes at the outset, it is difficult to separate a fascist from a tyrant or
a dictator. A fascist is a majoritarian who rouses a large group under some national, racial
or similar flag with rallying cries demanding suppression or exculcation of those excluded
from this group. A typical fascist leader loves her yes-men and hates those who disagree: she
does not mind using violence to suppress dissidents. A fascist has no qualms using propaganda
to popularize the agreeable "facts" and theories while debunking the inconvenient as lies.
What is not discussed explicitly in the book are perhaps some positive traits that separate
fascists from other types of tyrants: fascists are rarely lazy, stupid or prone to doing
things for only personal gains. They differ from the benevolent dictators for their record of
using heavy oppression against their dissidents. Fascists, like all dictators, change rules
to suit themselves, take control of state organizations to exercise total control and use
"our class is the greatest" and "kick others" to fuel their programs.
Despite such a detailed list, each fascist is different from each other. There is little
that even Ms Albright's fascists - from Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin to the Kims to Chavez
or Erdogan - have in common. In fact, most of the opponents of some of these
dictators/leaders would calll them by many other choice words but not fascists. The
circumstances that gave rise to these leaders were highly different and so were their rules,
methods and achievements.
The point, once again, is that none of the strongmen leaders around the world could be
easily categorized as fascists. Or even if they do, assigning them with such a tag and
learning about some other such leaders is unlikely to help. The history discussed in the book
is interesting but disjointed, perfunctory and simplistic. Ms Albright's selection is also
debatable.
Strong leaders who suppress those they deem as opponents have wreaked immense harms and
are a threat to all civil societies. They come in more shades and colours than terms we have
in our vocabulary (dictators, tyrants, fascists, despots, autocrats etc). A study of such
tyrant is needed for anyone with an interest in history, politics, or societal well-being.
Despite Ms Albright's phenomenal knowledge, experience, credentials, personal history and
intentions, this book is perhaps not the best place to objectively learn much about the risks
from the type of things some current leaders are doing or deeming as right.
Each time I get concerned about Trump's rhetoric or past actions I read idiotic opinions,
like those of our second worst ever Secretary of State, and come to appreciate him more.
Pejorative terms like fascism or populism have no place in a rational policy discussion. Both
are blatant attempts to apply a pejorative to any disagreeing opinion. More than half of the
book is fluffed with background of Albright, Hitler and Mussolini. Wikipedia is more
informative. The rest has snippets of more modern dictators, many of whom are either
socialists or attained power through a reaction to failed socialism, as did Hitler. She
squirms mightily to liken Trump to Hitler. It's much easier to see that Sanders is like
Maduro. The USA is following a path more like Venezuela than Germany.
Her history misses that Mussolini was a socialist before he was a fascist, and Nazism in
Germany was a reaction to Wiemar socialism. The danger of fascism in the US is far greater
from the left than from the right. America is far left of where the USSR ever was. Remember
than Marx observed that Russia was not ready for a proletarian revolution. The USA with ready
made capitalism for reform fits Marx's pattern much better. Progressives deny that Sanders
and Warren are socialists. If not they are what Lenin called "useful idiots."
Albright says that she is proud of the speech where she called the USA the 'Indispensable
Nation.' She should be ashamed. Obama followed in his inaugural address, saying that we are
"the indispensable nation, responsible for world security." That turned into a policy of
human rights interventions leading to open ended wars (Syria, Yemen), nations in chaos
(Libya), and distrust of the USA (Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, NK). Trump now has
to make nice with dictators to allay their fears that we are out to replace them.
She admires the good intentions of human rights intervention, ignoring the results. She says
Obama had some success without citing a single instance. He has apologized for Libya, but
needs many more apologies. She says Obama foreign policy has had some success, with no
mention of a single instance. Like many progressives, she confuses good intentions with
performance. Democracy spreading by well intentioned humanitarian intervention has resulted
in a succession of open ended war or anarchy.
The shorter histories of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Venezuela are much more
informative, although more a warning against socialism than right wing fascism. Viktor Orban
in Hungary is another reaction to socialism.
Albright ends the book with a forlorn hope that we need a Lincoln or Mandela, exactly what
our two party dictatorship will not generate as it yields ever worse and worse candidates for
our democracy to vote upon, even as our great society utopia generates ever more power for
weak presidents to spend our money and continue wrong headed foreign policy.
The greatest danger to the USA is not fascism, but of excessively poor leadership
continuing our slow slide to the bottom.
Sean
says:
April 4, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT 300 Words I am not aware that anyone has ever considered Syria
a crucial centre of world power, and while Ukraine was once thought of that way back in the
days of Halford Makinder, I am afraid now they are both worthless.
I think you should distinguish between the deep state and the elite. The former are
primarily concerned with US primacy. The elite are economic internationalists and focused on
profit. Carter instituted a decades long policy mandating officials to help trade with China
under the influence of Brzezinski's Russophobia.
They fundamentally miscalculated the ability
of China to rapidly rival the West in productive capacity. Now the Western economies are
dependant on a Keynesian and financially frail China going all out for future growth. The elite
are in no position to lower the boom on China, and I think that is the last thing they
intend.
China is a milch cow for the global capitalists, they are dependant on China
succeeding.
Everyone is in favour of free trade if they think they will be successful in it, so the
Chinese enthusiasm is no evidence of altruism or the absence of a venal elite in their country.
Free trade allocating reward based on merit will benefit the American elite through their
Chinese investments, but it does not sound like good news for the American worker.
If there is pressure for something to stop China it will not just be coming from the rust
belt. The deep state plus the working class versus the financial elite is already ongoing; a
struggle to control American policy as the wealth generated by China is reaped by Western
financial elites and America falls to the status of second rate power.
@Anon
You are no Christians. USAism and all radical Protestantism is abusing the surface of
Christianity for satanic anti-Christianity.
There is no Christianity but what is rooted in the old and everlasting Church of which
Christ is the Head in the Holy Spirit, as laid in apostle's hands and transferred by Church
fathers.
Christianity is genuinely collectivist, it has nothing to do with the perverted
individualism of Anglosaxon background and does not agree with the inherent nihilistic energy
of capitalism.
I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."
When has the Imperial State ever followed any "rules?"
For instance, didn't the Nuremberg trials establish the principle that wars of aggression
constituted international war crimes? Wasn't the invasion of Iraq a violation of "rules-based
international order." And what about UN approval for the use of force. Did the US get UN
approval when they decided to overturn the Assad regime. Wasn't that a violation of
"rules-based international order."
The same can be said about the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and the coming war against
Venezuela.
What Washington really means when they talk about a "rules-based international order" is
"we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."
@Andrei Martyanov All true. And one more point: compared with China, how much of the
present-day US economy is even real – i.e., results in the production of actual
goods that people might want, as opposed to dodgy financial/insurance transactions which may
add a lot of dollar value to GDP, but don't create anything real that enhances the quality of
life for the masses?
Economist used to have a joke: every time you break your leg, you increase GDP. First, you
gotta pay the hospital (transaction), then you gotta pay your doctor (another transaction),
then you gotta pay for your case (yet another transaction). All those transactions make it
look like 'wealth' is being created, because they are–numerically, at
least–increasing per capita GDP. But still: wouldn't you and the country actually be
better off if you hadn't broken your leg in the first place?
China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the
free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The
IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to
better advantage than the US.
Industrial Capitalism is the system China and Russia are running on. America briefly had
this system from 1868 to 1912; it was called the American System of Economy (Henry
Clay/Peshine Smith).
This type of economy uses state credit (from Treasury not banks) and injects it into
industry. Industry then grows, and people's welfare is increased through improved
productivity.
Finance Capitalism came out of London and hopped to America, especially post WW2. At the
same time Atlantacism and Rim theory hopped. America still runs under this BIZWOG (Britain
Israel World Government) matrix. This matrix depends on finance capitalism.
Finance Capitalism is the placing of EXISTING ASSETS onto a private bank ledger, to then
hypothecate said assets into new bank credit. For example, a ships bill of lading may be used
to create new bank credit, or existing homes are put on double entry ledger to make housing
bubbles.
The closer analogs to China and Russian economy are American System of Economy, not the
current American BIZWOG finance capital. The historical analogs would also be Canada
1938-1974, when Canada had a sovereign economy. Canada post 1974 was converted to finance
capitalism and now are debt laden and suffering like the rest of the west.
Kaiser's Germany used industrial capitalism then Japan's Manchurian Railroad Engineers
copied it for Japan. Mussolini in Italy copied parts of it, and NSDAP in Germany resurrected
Frederick List and the Kaiser's methods.
Finance Capital out of wall street funded the Bolsheviks in what amounted to a looting
operation of Russia. It is any wonder that finance capitalism found succor with communism
since they are both pyramid schemes?
Rim Theory, Atlantacism, Finance Capitalism, and Brzezinsky's chessboard are part of the
same thing, an excuse matrix for gobbling up the world into one double entry private bank
ledger, to then benefit a special (((usury))) finance class of plutocrats.
The "markets" that China and Russia operate on are those of industrial capitalism, using
state credit. China has four large state banks, and they often cancel debt instruments
(housed in the state bank) to then effectively put debt free money into their economy. Russia
injects gold into their Central Bank Reserves, to then emit Rubles. Both China and Russia
inject into industry, their farm sectors, and other sectors to get a desired output to help
their people, not put them into debt servitude.
The BIZWOG matrix will collapse, it is anti-logos and hence against the natural order. It
is on the wrong side of history.
The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December
2012.
Prism Photograph: Guardian
The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the
targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people
outside the US.
It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.
Disclosure of the Prism program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider
Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.
The participation of the internet companies in Prism will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale
of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content
of communications and not just the metadata.
Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in
2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising
campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.
It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009;
YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally
Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.
Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.
@Rurik Upon consideration, what Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in
Königsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela. Get China to recognize it.
Then they should start negotiating lucrative contracts, treaties and alliances between the
Free Germans and the rest of OBOR. It would be fascinating to see how ZOG reacted.
Oh, and most important of all, declare a new debt free currency, perhaps gold backed. I
could live with the Reichsmark.
"... As usually happens in times of distress, the Germans became a people for whom resolve was valued more highly than prudence, daring more than caution, and righteousness more than discretion. In many ways, they were a people not so different from today's Americans. ..."
"... What was needed, the Germans thought, was a strong leader -- someone who would put an end to politics as usual; most of all, someone who could unite all the divisions in Germany and dispel the clamor. They found that leader in Adolf Hitler, and for a time, most Germans were glad they did. ..."
"... How would we react if things got worse? If we were to lose the war in Iraq, leaving a fundamentalist regime in place; if we endured several more major terrorist attacks; if the economy collapsed; if fuel prices reached $7 per gallon -- would we cling even more fiercely to our democratic ideals? Or would we instead demand greater surveillance, more secret prisons, more arrests for "conspiracies" that amount to little more than daydreams, and more quashing of dissent? ..."
"... Our history suggests the latter. We Americans have had our flights from democracy -- the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, the Red Scare and the McCarthy era, Watergate -- but we have always pulled back from the brink and returned to normal. ..."
Imagine this situation: Your country has had a military setback in a war that was supposed to be over after a few months of "shock
and awe." Because of that war, it has lost the goodwill and prestige of much of the international community.
The national debt has grown to staggering size. Citizens complain bitterly about the government, especially the legislative branch,
for being a bunch of do-nothings working solely for themselves or for special interest groups. In fact, the political scene has pretty
much lost its center -- moderates are attacked by all sides as the political discourse becomes a clamor of increasingly extreme positions.
It seems there are election campaigns going on all the time, and they are increasingly vicious. The politicians just want to argue
about moral issues -- sexuality, decadent art, the crumbling family and the like -- while pragmatic matters of governance seem neglected.
Sound familiar? That society was Germany of the 1920s -- the ill-fated Weimar Republic. But it also describes more and more the
political climate in America today.
Germans were worried about the future of their country. They suffered from all sorts of terror, as assassinations, coup attempts
and crime pulled their society apart. The left blamed the right; the right blamed the left, and the political center simply dried
up.
To get themselves out of the mess, Germans might have demanded government that carefully mended fences with its allies and enemies;
one that judiciously hammered out compromises among the various political parties and sought the middle path.
But we know that didn't happen. In Germany of the 1920s, as now in 21st-century America, appeals to reason and prudence were no
way to get votes in times of crisis. Much more effective were appeals to the anger and fear of the German people. A politician could
attract more votes by criticizing the government than by praising it, and a vicious negative campaign was usually more effective
than a clean one. One of the problems of democracy is that voters aren't always rational, and appeals like these could be very effective.
As usually happens in times of distress, the Germans became a people for whom resolve was valued more highly than prudence, daring
more than caution, and righteousness more than discretion. In many ways, they were a people not so different from today's Americans.
What was needed, the Germans thought, was a strong leader -- someone who would put an end to politics as usual; most of all, someone
who could unite all the divisions in Germany and dispel the clamor. They found that leader in Adolf Hitler, and for a time, most
Germans were glad they did.
Of course, America is not 1920s Germany, and we are certainly not on the verge of a fascist state. But neither have we experienced
the deep crises the Germans faced. The setbacks of the Iraq/Afghan war are a far cry from the devastating loss of the First World
War; we are not considered the scourge of the international community, and we don't need wheelbarrows full of money to buy a loaf
of bread. But even in these relatively secure times, we have shown an alarming willingness to choose headstrong leadership over thoughtful
leadership, to value security over liberty; to accept compromises to constitutional principles, and to defy the opinion of the rest
of the world.
How would we react if things got worse? If we were to lose the war in Iraq, leaving a fundamentalist regime in place; if we endured
several more major terrorist attacks; if the economy collapsed; if fuel prices reached $7 per gallon -- would we cling even more
fiercely to our democratic ideals? Or would we instead demand greater surveillance, more secret prisons, more arrests for "conspiracies"
that amount to little more than daydreams, and more quashing of dissent?
Our history suggests the latter. We Americans have had our flights from democracy -- the internment of Japanese-Americans in World
War II, the Red Scare and the McCarthy era, Watergate -- but we have always pulled back from the brink and returned to normal.
The time is coming for us to pull back from the brink again. This must happen before the government gets so strong that it can
completely demonize opposition, gain complete control of the media, and develop dossiers on all its citizens. By then it will be
too late, and we'll have ourselves to blame.
Brian E. Fogarty, a sociology professor at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, is the author of "
War, Peace, and the Social
Order ."
Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare,
a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's
Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
in 2019, its third year of operation.
"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has
turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new
tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even
though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for
the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it
sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when
there really isn't."
investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the
thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or
conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.
Indeed,
report after
report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter
and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the
apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation
offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money
associated with "Russians" is always
dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in
the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters
across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the
social media game.
Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the
party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's
prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."
"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into
hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by
subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads
blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom
government of the worst kind."
"The Zionists have a long historical experience with bringing terror to the world ,
one example being the Zionist/ Bolshevik revolution in Russia where the Bolsheviks killed
some 60 million Russians bringing terror to Russia on an industrial level turning the whole
country into a slaughter house!"
Your excellent narrative is weakened by the above cited & unproved assertion. The
official Zionist narratives of 6 million Jews supposedly singled out and exterminated by
Germans during WW II, or the 60 million Russians killed by the Bolsheviks, ( the Zionists
agree with the 60 million figure-as well), contain numbers that do not add up. They
apparently enjoy citing with the number 6.
You do an excellent job on the phony 6 million narrative, but accept the 60 million
narrative -- without a demur. Does accepting the one allow you to freely declare the
other?
The population of Russia after WW I was an estimated 120 million. By 1979, the population
rose to 137.6 million. It is advised to distinguish between Russian, and Russian Empire
populations. The Tsarist Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union were larger than -- just
Russia. My citations below are of figures for the Russian population, as the official
Propaganda Charge is that "60 million Russians" were murdered.
It appears, that, taking into account (or not) the high Russian casualties of World War
II, (of both civilian and Armed Forces), the "Bolsheviks killed some 60 million Russians" is
clearly FAR more of an impossibility than the sacrosanct '6 million'.
This 60 million figure pushed by the American Zionist owned Mainstream Media, including
Zio-American texts and Hollywood, is most likely highly in error.
Slight digression:
One of the distinguishing features, when one compares the American with the Soviet Gulags,
is that the Soviet leadership viewed their prison system as a source of Cheap Labor, whereas
in America, prisoners are regarded as so much flesh -- to allow to rot away in the all but
Completely Unproductive American Gulag.
The American Gulag is profitable for corporations that build the prisons and supply
America's more than 2 million prisoners. The Russian Gulag had a much healthier -- human use
for their prisoners.
For the most part, Solzhenitsyn' s "GULAG Archipelago" supports this analysis.
After the fall of the Marxist Soviet government in 1990, the Russian Gulag quickly emptied
out, as it was more profitable for Russia to maximize the number of Free Laborers (workers
responsible for their own well being, and raising useful Russian progeny).
In Conclusion:
The Gulag was not a picnic, or Boy Scout Camp, few prison systems are. However there
were no gas chambers (get my attempt at mis-directional humor?). I have no doubt that, as
Solzhenitsyn wrote, millions died -- thru execution, or being worked to death. However:
I fail to see the "60 million Russians" killed by the Bolsheviks. If you can enlighten,
and document, we can continue this discussion.
In America, we must Restore Our Republic! And free all our Prisoners -- inside and
outside of the official Prison Walls.
@Durruti I am using
Alexander Solzhenitsyns figure for the 60 million Russians killed by the Zionist/communists
in Russia and Solzhenitsyn had access to Russian archives for his research and his experience
in the Gulags, and I have read The Gulag Archipelago and that is what I am going on.
I do not accept the Zionist figure of 6 million as the Zionists were pushing that figure
long before WWII in a propaganda effort , however I do think that several million jews were
killed along with Lutherans and Catholics and various other religions and political
dissidents and I base this on books like The Good Old Days by Ernst Klee and Willi Dressen
and Volker Reiss, among others that I have read.
The Zionist perpetrated slaughter house is now in operation in the Mideast and has been
for some 30 years and the Zionists show no signs of slowing down and want to use the Ukraine
as an agent provocateur to get the west into a war with Russia. One sign of how the Zionist
think is a remark by Madeline Albright , when aske if she thought the some 500,ooo thousand
children killed in Iraq were worth it, and she said it was worth it, these Satanists have no
regard for human life !
I believe at some point the Ukraine is going to be the powder keg used to start WWIII and
the Zionists believe they will survive in the DUMBS and this is what they believe will usher
in their messiah ie satan, read The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed and The Committee of
300 by Dr. John Coleman.
@Cassander There is no democracy in US. There is civil war between two dysfunctional
parties. How come you did not notice? Or you just came from enchanted kingdom?
Thought it hasn't been publicly released yet, a preliminary report on the circumstances that caused
flight ET302 to plunge out of the sky just minutes after takeoff was completed earlier this week,
and some of the details have leaked to Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. And for Boeing
shareholders, the findings aren't pretty.
Appearing to contradict Boeing's insistence that
procedures for deactivating its MCAS anti-stall software were widely disseminated, and that pilots
at airlines around the world had been trained on these procedures,
WSJ
reported that the pilots of ET302 successfully switched off MCAS as they struggled to right
the plane after the software had automatically tipped its nose down. As they struggled to right the
plane, the pilots ended up reactivating the software, while trying a few other steps from their
training, before the plane began its final plunge toward a field outside Addis Ababa, where the
ensuing crash killed all 157 people on board.
Though the pilots deviated from Boeing's emergency checklist as they tried to right the plane,
investigators surmised that they gave up on the procedures after they failed to right the plane.
But when MCAS reengaged, whether intentionally, or on accident, it pushed the nose of the plane
lower once again.
The pilots on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 initially reacted to the emergency by shutting
off power to electric motors driven by the automated system, these people said, but then appear
to have re-engaged the system to cope with a persistent steep nose-down angle.
It wasn't
immediately clear why the pilots turned the automated system back on
instead of
continuing to follow Boeing's standard emergency checklist,
but government and industry
officials said the likely reason would have been because manual controls to raise the nose
didn't achieve the desired results.
After first cranking a manual wheel in the cockpit that controls the same movable surfaces on
the plane's tail that MCAS had affected, the pilots turned electric power back on, one of these
people said. They began to use electric switches to try to raise the plane's nose, according to
these people. But the electric power also reactivated MCAS, allowing it to continue its strong
downward commands, the people said.
Reuters
, which was also the recipient of leaks from investigators, offered a slightly different
version of events. It reported that MCAS was reengaged four times as pilots scrambled to right the
plane,
and that investigators were looking into the possibility that the software might
have reengaged without prompting from the pilots.
After the Lion Air crash that killed 189 people back in October, Boeing and the FAA published a
bulletin reminding pilots to follow the emergency procedures to deactivate the software if a faulty
sensor - like the one that is believed to have contributed to the Lion Air crash - feeds erroneous
data to the system.
The data show the pilots maneuvered the plane back upward twice before deactivating the
software. But between the two reports, one detail is made abundantly clear.
The software's
reengagement is what doomed everybody aboard. That is an unequivocally bad look for Boeing, which
has been deflecting questions about the software's bugs, and gaps in the dissemination of its
training materials, while working on an update that the company says will make the software less
reliant on automated systems.
The aviation industry has been trying to make the human pilots
obsolete, just as in so many industries. But they all do their,
these days, their R & D on the job. Recall the Amazon Robot that
went berserk recently. The idea is to rid all industry of people
progressively so that they can end up not needing people at all.
They'll end up with nothing. Some how they think that if they take
people out then profits will be assured, which is actually
psychotic. They have had remote auto pilot for 7 decades now. They
can bring down any aircraft at will, and do so regularly. They can
shut down or affect engines remotely, or alter the actions as is
imbedded into just about all new machinery, other than knives,
forks and spoons. Yet they still need consumers and workers to
create hedged exchange to profit from. That is the dilemma
industry owners are facing, that without pesky people they are
doomed as much as the doom they are creating for even their own
off spring = psychosis.
Долгие годы я
жил в ощущении
правильности
произошедшего
в 1991 и 1993 годах. Хотя,
конечно, у меня
были серьезные
внутренние
разногласия с
той толпой,
которая
носилась по
Москве и ломала
памятники. Но я
это в себе как-то
давил. В 1993 году
мне казалось
правильным, что
танк стреляет
по дому с
вооруженными
людьми. Я тоже
хотел
раздавить
гадину, потому
что гадина
представлялась
мне гадиной. Я
был юн и еще не
понимал, что
демократия -- это
всегда толпа,
ломающая
памятники. И что
любой
парламент -- это
всегда гадина.
Но это не значит,
что его надо из
танков
расстреливать.
Но даже когда
ко мне пришло
понимание этих
двух
постулатов, я
все равно
продолжал
смеяться над
мифологией
защитников
гадины. О
массовых
расстрелах на
стадионе
"Красная Пресня".
И, конечно, о
таинственных
снайперах,
которые
стреляли по
простым
прохожим. Зачем
снайперам
стрелять по
простым
прохожим? Какой
в этом военный
тактический
смысл? Однако
время всё
ставит по своим
местам.
Снайперы,
стреляющие по
простым
прохожим нужны
для того же, для
чего нужны две
бочки хлора. Для
провокации.
А где же еще мы
видели
снайперов,
стрелявших по
людям для
провокации
насилия?
Правильно, мы
видели их в
Киеве на
Майдане. И вот
когда у тебя в
голове вдруг
складывается
Майдан и 1993 год, то
становится
неприятно.
Потому что ты
начинаешь
понимать
природу
произошедшего
в 1993 году. Это был
такой же Майдан.
И он, как и в
Киеве, победил.
Раздавили
гадину. Америка,
матушка-спасительница,
помогла. И в 1993м. И в
2014. Только почему
же ты, сволочь,
тогда был на
одной стороне, а
потом -- на
другой? А потому
что дурак был.
А когда
картинка
сложилась,
сразу же много
стало понятнее.
И весь тот ад
девяностых,
который был так
похож на то, что
ныне
происходит на
Украине. Война
против
собственных
граждан
негодной,
разворованной
армией. Полный
крах экономики,
зависимость от
денег МВФ,
выделяемых по
милостивому
разрешению США.
Вооруженные
люди, убивающие
друг друга в
центрах
городов.
Эта мысль
может
показаться
диковатой, но
вот, наконец, у
нее случилось
документальное
подтверждение.
В США
опубликованы
расшифровки
телефонных
разговоров
президента
Билла Клинтона.
В том числе и с
президентом
Борисом
Ельциным. В
которых Ельцин
пугает
Клинтона
коммунистами,
жалуется, что
коммунисты,
если победят,
могут отобрать
Крым (!). И просит
два с половиной
миллиарда
долларов на
выборы. После
чего МВФ
выделяет
России займ, а в
Москве
приезжают
американские
политические
консультанты. И
выборы 1996 года
превращаются в
Оранжевую
революцию --
только вместо
концертов на
Майдане тур
"Голосуй или
проиграешь". А в
результате всё
равно
сфальсифицированные
результаты.
Методы и те же,
разве что
последовательность
разная.
И вот с высоты
этого
понимания
хорошо бы
оглядеть
перспективы. В
России
случился Путин,
она очистилась
от скверны и
таки приняла
вернувшийся
Крым. Значит ли
это, что
подобный исход
событий
возможен на
Украине?
Интересная
могла бы
получиться
экстраполяция:
Порошенко
находит
какого-то
малоизвестного
человека,
выходца из СБУ,
которого
назначает
преемником.
Этот человек
выгоняет
американцев,
восстанавливает
экономику,
мирится с
Донбассом,
равноудаляет
старых
олигархов и
возвращает
Крым? Сценарий,
как вы
понимаете,
фантастический.
И дело даже не в
Крыме, который
никуда
"возвращаться"
не собирается,
потому что он
уже вернулся
домой. Дело в
том, что Ельцин
вовсе не хотел,
чтобы Путин
сделал всё то,
что он сделал. Он
хотел просто
гарантий
безопасности
для себя и семьи.
И то, что Путин
оказался не тем,
кем его
представлял
себе Ельцин --
это счастливая
случайность.
Божий промысел,
если хотите. Pussy Riot
просили
Богородицу,
чтобы она
забрала Путина,
а устами
художника
всегда говорит
Бог. То есть,
прося
Богородицу,
чтобы она
забрала Путина,
Pussy Riot тем самым (и
сами того не
понимая)
говорили нам,
что Богородица
Путина нам дала.
Это шутка,
конечно.
Впрочем, как мне
кажется,
довольно
изящная.
Порошенко,
разумеется,
тоже ничего из
того, что сделал
Путин, не хочет.
Он хочет или
остаться у
власти (что
мирным путем
невозможно) или
же обеспечить
себе
безопасность.
Кто именно мог
бы обеспечить
ему такую
безопасность
(то есть -- быть
потенциальным
украинским
Путиным) отсюда
пока никак не
просматривается.
Но вопрос ведь
не в этом. Вопрос
в том, будет ли к
этому иметь
отношение
Богородица.
А также в том,
что нам теперь
совсем не с руки
смеяться над
нынешней
Украиной и ее
выбором. Мы с
вами вышли из
такого же
дерьма. Природа
современного
русского
государства
такая же --
поддержанный
американцами
майдан. И хорошо
бы никогда об
этом не
забывать. И
соответственно
относиться к
тем, кто тоскует
по тем
временам.
А лично мне
достаточно
того, что
Богородица не
послушала Pussy Riot. И
слава богу. RT
This article by late Robert Parry is from 2016 but is still relevant in context of the
current Ukrainian elections and the color revolution is Venezuela. The power of neoliberal
propaganda is simply tremendous. For foreign events it is able to distort the story to such an
extent that the most famous quote of CIA director William Casey "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" looks like
constatation of already accomplished goal.
Exclusive: Several weeks before Ukraine's 2014 coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Nuland had already picked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the future leader, but now "Yats" is no
longer the guy, writes Robert Parry.
In reporting on the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the major
U.S. newspapers either ignored or distorted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's
infamous intercepted
phone call before the 2014 coup in which she declared "Yats is the guy!"
Though Nuland's phone call introduced many Americans to the previously obscure Yatsenyuk,
its timing – a few weeks before the ouster of elected Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych – was never helpful to Washington's desired narrative of the Ukrainian people
rising up on their own to oust a corrupt leader.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the
Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
Instead, the conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt
sounded like two proconsuls picking which Ukrainian politicians would lead the new government.
Nuland also disparaged the less aggressive approach of the European Union with the pithy
put-down: "Fuck the E.U.!"
More importantly, the intercepted call, released onto YouTube in early February 2014,
represented powerful evidence that these senior U.S. officials were plotting – or at
least collaborating in – a coup d'etat against Ukraine's democratically elected
president. So, the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media have since consigned this
revealing discussion to the Great Memory Hole.
On Monday, in reporting on Yatsenyuk's Sunday speech in which he announced that he is
stepping down, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the Nuland-Pyatt
conversation at all. The New York Times did mention the call but misled its readers regarding
its timing, making it appear as if the call followed rather than preceded the coup. That way
the call sounded like two American officials routinely appraising Ukraine's future leaders, not
plotting to oust one government and install another.
The Times
article by Andrew E. Kramer said: "Before Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment as prime minister in
2014, a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between Victoria J. Nuland, a United
States assistant secretary of state, and the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt,
seemed to underscore the West's support for his candidacy. 'Yats is the guy,' Ms. Nuland had
said."
Notice, however, that if you didn't know that the conversation occurred in late January or
early February 2014, you wouldn't know that it preceded the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. You might have
thought that it was just a supportive chat before Yatsenyuk got his new job.
You also wouldn't know that much of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation focused on how they
were going to "glue this thing" or "midwife this thing," comments sounding like prima facie
evidence that the U.S. government was engaged in "regime change" in Ukraine, on Russia's
border.
The 'No Coup' Conclusion
But Kramer's lack of specificity about the timing and substance of the call fits with a long
pattern of New York Times' bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. On Jan. 4, 2015, nearly
a year after the U.S.-backed coup, the Times published an "investigation" article declaring
that there never had been a coup. It was just a case of President Yanukovych deciding to leave
and not coming back.
That article reached its conclusion, in part, by ignoring the evidence of a coup, including
the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. The story was co-written by Kramer and so it is interesting to
know that he was at least aware of the "Yats is the guy" reference although it was ignored in
last year's long-form article.
Instead, Kramer and his co-author Andrew Higgins took pains to mock anyone who actually
looked at the evidence and dared reach the disfavored conclusion about a coup. If you did, you
were some rube deluded by Russian propaganda.
"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent,
'neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular
uprising," Higgins and Kramer
wrote . "Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's
line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about
how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."
The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by
his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone
else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by
protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the
review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's
own efforts to make peace."
Yet, one might wonder what the Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup
had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in
1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government
operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and
economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come
and then – as political institutions collapsed – watched as the scared but duly
elected leader made a hasty departure.
In Iran, the coup reinstalled the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the
next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military
regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.
Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an
alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is
brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in
the 1960s and 1970s.
' Color Revolutions'
But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which
operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure
on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the
restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to
justify his removal.
Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is
ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as
happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
But the reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. Nor did you have
to be inside "the Russian propaganda bubble" to recognize it. George Friedman, the founder of
the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called Yanukovych's overthrow "the most blatant coup
in history."
Which is what it appears if you consider the evidence. The first step in the process was to
create tensions around the issue of pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and
capturing it in the European Union's gravity, a plan defined by influential American neocons in
2013.
On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a
major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and
called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100
million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for
journalists and organizing business groups.
As for the even bigger prize -- Putin -- Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe
will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.
Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near
abroad but within Russia itself."
At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of
reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013
when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160
billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There
was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International
Monetary Fund.
Yanukovych wanted more time for the E.U. negotiations, but his decision angered many western
Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of
protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to
show restraint.
Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous
$15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and
the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a
brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.
Cheering an Uprising
The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State
for European Affairs Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and reminded Ukrainian
business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European
aspirations."
A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland
speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by
Chevron, with its logo to Nuland's left.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists
from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their
challenge to the Ukrainian government.
As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist
elements from Lviv and other western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades
or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other
weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners
and even a Confederate flag.
Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted
in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The
chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire, killing both police and
protesters. As the police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other
weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80
including more than a dozen police.
U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper
attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have
suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor
extremists.
To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on
Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of
office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.
The precipitous police withdrawal opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street
fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their
lives. The new coup regime was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department
with Yanukovych sought on murder charges. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime
minister.
Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted
protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who
fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American
people heard from the major media.
The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and
simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times
report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death
by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."
The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that
an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as
simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and
peaceful Maidan protests.
Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel
determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had
played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup
resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians
simply became "Russian aggression."
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a
Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing
of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II –
reached absurd levels as The New York Times and The Washington Post buried references to the
neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.
The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by
quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men.
[See Consortiumnews.com's " Ukraine's
'Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers ."]
But today – more than two years after what U.S. and Ukrainian officials like to
call "the Revolution of Dignity" – the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is sinking into
dysfunction, reliant on handouts from the IMF and Western governments.
And, in a move perhaps now more symbolic than substantive, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is
stepping down. Yats is no longer the guy.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The
Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in print here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Khalid Talaat , April 16, 2016 at 20:39
Is it too far fetched to think that all these color revolutions are a perfection of the
process to unleash another fake color revolution, only this time it is a Red, White and Blue
revolution here at home? Those that continue to booze and snooze while watching the tube will
not know the difference until it is too late.
The freedom and tranquility of our country depends on finding and implementing a
counterweight to the presstitutes and their propaganda. The alternative is too
destructive in its natural development.
Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:49
Yats and Porko are the guys who broke Ukraine. By the end of December 2015, Ukraine's
gross domestic product had shrunk around 19 percent in comparison with 2013. Its decimated
industrial sector needs less fuel. Yatsie did a heck of a job.
The timing of "Yats" departure is ominous. Mid-April, six weeks from now would be the
first chance to renew the invasion of DPR Donesk/Lugansk."Yats" failed in 2014, and didn't
try in 2015. Who is "the new guy"? Will the new Prime Minister begin raving about renewing
the holy war to recover the lost oblasts? 2016 is really Ukraine's last chance. Ukraine
refuses to implement Minsk2, and they have been receiving lots of new weapons. I believe
President Putin put the Syrian operation on " standby" not only to avoid approaching the
border, provoking a Turkish intervention, but also so he can give undistracted attention to
DPR Donesk/Lugansk.
Bill Rood , April 12, 2016 at 11:50
I guess I must be inside the Russian propaganda bubble. It was obvious to me when I
looked at the YouTube videos of policemen burning after being hit with Molotov
cocktails.
We played the same game of encouraging government "restraint" in Syria, where we
demanded Assad free "political prisoners," but we now accuse him of deliberately encouraging
ISIS by freeing those people, so that he can point to ISIS and ask, "Do you want that?"
Targeted leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Andrei , April 12, 2016 at 10:26
"the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the
CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954", Romania 1989 Shots
were fired by snipers in order to stirr the crowds (sounds familiar?) and also by the army
after Ceasescu ran away, which resulted in civilians getting murdered. Could it possibly be
that it was said : "Iliescu (next elected president) is the guy!" ?
Joe L. , April 12, 2016 at 11:00
Check out the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela 2002, that is very
similar with protesters, snipers on rooftops, IMF immediately offering loans to the new coup
government, new government positions for the coup plotters, complacency with the media
– propaganda, funding by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy etc. John
Pilger documents how the coup occurred in his documentary "War on Democracy" –
https://vimeo.com/16724719 .
archaos , April 12, 2016 at 09:45
It was noted in the minutes of Verkhovna Rada almost 2 years before Maidan 2 , that
Geoffrey Pyatt was fomenting and funding destabilisation of Ukraine.
All of Svoboda Nazis in parliament (and other fascisti) then booed the MP who stated
this.
Mark Thomason , April 12, 2016 at 06:57
Also, the Dutch voted "no" on the economic agreement the coup was meant to force through
instead of the Russian agreement accepted by the President it overthrew. Now both "Yats" and
the economic agreement are gone. All that is left is the war. Neocons are still happen.
They wanted the war. They really want to overthrow Putin, and Ukraine was just a tool in
that.
Realist , April 12, 2016 at 05:51
You're right, it doesn't have to be the military that carries out a coup by deploying
tanks on the National Mall. In 2000, it was the United States Supreme Court that exceeded
its constitutional authority and installed George W. Bush as president, though in reality he
had lost that election. I wonder when that move will rightfully be characterized as a coup by
the historians.
"On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has
been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington
Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling
Russian President Vladimir Putin."
It should be remembered that Victoria Nuland took up the post of Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington on September 18, 2013.
Coincidentally, two other women closely connected to events in Ukraine were also in
Washington during September 2013.
Friend of Nuland and boss of the IMF, which has its own HQ in Washington, Christine
Lagarde was swift to respond to a Ukraine request for IMF loans on February 27th 2014, just
five days after the removal of Yanukovych on February 22nd. Lagarde is pictured with
Baronness Catherine Ashton in Washington in a Facebook entry dated September 30th 2013.
Ashton was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the
time.
Though visiting Kiev at the same time as Nuland in February 2014 Catherine Ashton never
appeared in public with her, which seems a little odd considering the women were on the same
mission, and talking to the same people. Nevertheless, despite appearing shy of being
photographed with each other the two women weren't quite so shy of being pictured with
leaders of the coup, including the right wing extremist, Oleh Tyahnybok.
Ashton refused to be drawn into commenting on Nuland's "Fuck the E.U.!" outburst,
describing Nuland as "a friend of mine." The two women certainly weren't strangers, they had
worked closely together before. September 2012 saw them involved in discussions with Iran
negotiator Saeed Jalili over the country's supposed nuclear arms ambitions.
The question is not so much whether the three women talked about Ukraine's future –
it would be ridiculous to think they did not – but how closely they worked together,
and exactly how closely they might have been involved in events leading up to the overthrow
of the legitimate government in Kiev. More on this here:
Another failed "regime change". Aren't these guys (Neoconservatives) great. They fail,
piss off/kill millions, yet seem to keep making money and retaining power. Time to WAKE UP
AMERICA.
Skip Edwards , April 11, 2016 at 20:06
Read "The Devil'Chessboard" by David Talbot to understand what has been occurring as a
result of America's Dark, Shadow government, an un-elected bunch of vicious psychopaths
controlling our destiny; unless stopped. Get a clue and realize that "Yats is our guy"
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's "gal." Hillary Clinton is Robert Kagen's "gal." Time to
flush all these rats out of the hold and get on with our lives.
Joe L. , April 11, 2016 at 18:40
Mr. Parry thank you for delving into the proven history of coups and the parallels with
Ukraine. It amazes me how anyone can outright deny this was a coup especially if they know
anything about US coups going back to WW2 (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in
Venezuela 2002 etc. – and there are a whole slew more). I read before, as you have
rightly pointed out, that in 1953 the CIA led a propaganda campaign in Iran against Mossadegh
as well as financing opposition protesters and opposition government officials. Another
angle, as well, is looking historically back to what papers such as the New York Times were
reporting around the time of the coup in Iran – especially when we know that the
US/Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh for their own oil interests
(British Petroleum):
New York Times: "Mossadegh Plays with Fire" (August 15, 1953):
The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one
here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye
on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier
Mossadegh.
Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our
ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him
as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made
different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry,
personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own
people. We have seen this onetime champion of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of
the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the
Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to
destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.
His power would seem to be complete, but he has alienated the traditional ruling classes
-the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are
anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes.
There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russia and the Russians. The
peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and
nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong
enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.
All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian
intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following
policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer's
apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.
Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth
in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a
strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians
because she has nothing to fear -and therefore the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely
to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.
My feeling is that the biggest sin that our society has is forgetting history. If we
remembered history I would think that it would be very difficult to pull off coups but most
media does not revisit history which proves US coups even against democracies. I actually
think that the coup that occurred in Ukraine was similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela
in 2002 with snipers on rooftops, immediate blame for the deaths on Hugo Chavez where media
manipulated the footage, immediate acceptance of the temporary coup government by the US
Government, immediately offering IMF loans for the new coup government, government positions
for many of the coup plotters, and let us not leave out the funding for the coup coming from
USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. I also remember seeing the New York Times
immediately blaming Chavez and praising the coup but when the coup was overturned and US
fingerprints started to become revealed (with many of the coup plotters fleeing to the US)
then the New York Times wrote a limited retraction buried in their paper. Shameless.
SFOMARCO , April 11, 2016 at 15:16
How was NED able to finance "scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists,
paying for journalists and organizing business groups", not to mention to host such
dignitaries as Cookie Nuland, Loser McCain and assorted Bidens? Seems like a recipe for a
coup "hidden in plain sight".
Bob Van Noy , April 11, 2016 at 14:36
Ukraine, one would hope, represents the "Bridge Too Far" moment for the proponents of
regime change. Surely Americans must be catching on to what we do for selected nations in the
name of "giving them their freedoms". The Kagan Family, empowered by their newly endorsed
candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, will feel justified in carrying on a new cold war,
this time world wide. Of course they will not be doing the fighting, they, like Dick Cheney
are the self appointed intellects of geopolitical chess, much like The Georgetown Set of the
Kennedy era, they perceive themselves as the only ones smart enough to plan America's
future.
Helen Marshall , April 11, 2016 at 17:11
I wish. How many Americans know ANYTHNG about what has happened in Ukraine, about Crimea
and its history, and/or could even locate them on a map?
Pastor Agnostic , April 12, 2016 at 04:11
Nuland is merely the inhouse, PNAC female version of Sidney Blumenthal. Which raises the
scary question. Who would she pick to be SecState?
Under neoliberalism any regime change is necessary followed by an economic rape. That was the case with the USSR in 1991,
that was the case in Ukraine in 2014. Only the size and length of the looting varies depending of the strength of new government.
Both the size and the length is maximal if in power are marionette like Yeltsin or Yatsenyuk/Poroshenko.
Saying "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" now should sound as "Beware of Americans who bring you color revolutions." They bring the
economic rape (aka "Disaster
capitalism") as the second phase. That's the nature of neocolonialism -- now you do not need to occupy the country.
It's enough to make it a debt slave using IMF and install compradors to endure the low of money and continuing impoverishment of the
population.
With such crooked and greedy friends as Biden and Kerry and their narcoaddicts sons you do not need enemies. But the main
danger are not individual sharks but Western financial institutions like IMF and World bank. Those convert countries into debt slaves
and that means permanently low standard (Central African in case of Ukraine, something like $2 a day) of living for generations
to come.
What is interesting is that unlike say German nationalists in 30th, the Ukrainian nationalists proved to be completly
useless in defending the Ukraine from looting. They actually serves as supplementary tool of the same looting.
The standard of living of Ukrainians dropped 2-3 times since 2014. How pensioners survive, on $50 a month pension I simply do not
understand. In any case Neoliberalism proved to be very effecting is keeping "developing" nations economic growth down and converting
them into debt slaves. The fact that Biden use loans as a tool of extortion (as in threat to cancel one billion loan) to close criminal
investigation of his sons company is just an icing on the cake. Poroshenko and his camarilla should be tried in the court of law for
his corruption and pandering to the Western sharks, who were happy to steal from Ukraine as much as then can.
To pay $166K a month for Biden's son cocaine is way too much to such impoverished country as Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... " Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat. ..."
"... The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member. ..."
"... U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts -- usually more than $166,000 a month -- from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. - The Hill ..."
"... And before he was fired, Shokin says he had made "specific plans" for the investigation - including "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden." "I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine," added Shokin. Joe Biden "clearly had to know" about the probe before he insisted on Shokin's ouster . Via The Hill: ..."
"... The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's case against Burisma; ..."
"... President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014 ..."
"... Remember Victoria Nuland's famous phone recording of "**** the EU?" This was nothing more than another CIA destabilization campaign carried out of another Sovereign Country. With the goal of breaking the Bush Senior & Jim Baker agreement of not surrounding Russia with NATO countries after their Collapse. ..."
"... Let's face it. If Ukrainians loved it's Country, Joey, Hunter and the Choco-**** would have wound up like Mikhail Lesin during an all night party in an upscale grotto in Kiev by now! ..."
"... At last some questions for this dirt ball-burisma is tied in with one of the most if not the most corrupt oligarch, Koloimiski. Biden is up to his eyeballs in some dodgy deals in china as well-this guy and his son are walking corruption personified. ..."
"... Didn't Hillary teach Joe that a tax free foundation is better than using your son's LLC for laundering the bribes... This is basic stuff. ..."
"... Joe "the Conqueror" "Caesar Magnus" Biden. Joe of Ukraine, the best bud of $oro$. ..."
Originally from:
Forget 'Creepy'
- Biden Has A Major Ukraine Problem Joe Biden appears to have made a major tactical error last year when he bragged to an
audience of foreign policy experts how he threatened to hurl Ukraine into bankruptcy if their top prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin,
wasn't immediately fired, according to
The Hill 's John Solomon.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling,
Biden described
how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in
U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General
Viktor Shokin. -
The Hill
"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at
them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling
the conversation with Poroshenko.
" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council
on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.
Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden's account, though they claim the pressure was applied
over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day . Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine's
parliament obliged by
ending Shokin's tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not
bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired. -
The Hill
And why would Biden want the "son of a bitch" fired?
In what must be an amazing coincidence, the prosecutor was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into a natural gas
firm - which Biden's son, Hunter, sat on the board of directors.
The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm
Burisma Holdings
that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member.
U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers
into one of its accounts -- usually more than $166,000 a month -- from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period
when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. -
The Hill
The Hill 's Solomon reviewed the general prosecutor's file for the Burisma probe - which he reports shows Hunter Biden, his business
partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.
And before he was fired, Shokin says he had made "specific plans" for the investigation - including "interrogations and other
crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden." "I would like to emphasize the fact
that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine," added Shokin. Joe Biden "clearly had to know" about the probe before he
insisted on Shokin's ouster . Via The Hill:
Although Biden made no mention of his son in his 2018 speech, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities both told me Biden and his office
clearly had to know about the general prosecutor's probe of Burisma and his son's role. They noted that:
Hunter Biden's appointment to the board was widely reported in American media;
The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's
case against Burisma;
Great Britain took very public action against Burisma while Joe Biden was working with that government on Ukraine issues;
Biden's office was quoted, on the record, acknowledging Hunter Biden's role in Burisma in a New York Times article about the
general prosecutor's Burisma case that appeared four months before Biden forced the firing of Shokin. The vice president's office
suggested in that article that Hunter Biden was a lawyer free to pursue his own private business deals.
President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014 , after a popular revolution ousted
Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow
sent military forces into Ukraine's Crimea territory.
***
Key questions for 'ol Joe:
Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work
was performed for the money Hunter Biden's firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced
that your son worked for Burisma, should you have recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to pressure the prosecutor who
very publicly pursued Burisma?
Remember Victoria Nuland's famous phone recording of "**** the EU?" This was nothing more than another CIA destabilization
campaign carried out of another Sovereign Country. With the goal of breaking the Bush Senior & Jim Baker agreement of not surrounding
Russia with NATO countries after their Collapse.
Let's face it. If Ukrainians loved it's Country, Joey, Hunter and the Choco-**** would have wound up like Mikhail Lesin
during an all night party in an upscale grotto in Kiev by now!
Amazing that all 3 of them are still alive and that "Song Bird" McCain (#4) was allowed to die from his brain cancer instead
of joining them or being dismembered and put on display when he made these visit(s) (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbfsTcJCKDE ) along
with General Vallely (#5)!!!
Taras Bulba , 1 hour ago
At last some questions for this dirt ball-burisma is tied in with one of the most if not the most corrupt oligarch, Koloimiski.
Biden is up to his eyeballs in some dodgy deals in china as well-this guy and his son are walking corruption personified.
CarifonianSeven, 2 hours ago
Didn't Hillary teach Joe that a tax free foundation is better than using your son's LLC for laundering the bribes... This
is basic stuff.
Pernicious Gold Phallusy, 1 hour ago
Joe cheated his way through undergrad and law school. He would be unable to understand any of that.
whittler, 1 hour ago
What? You mean folks will finally care about little Hunter hiring Azov neo-Nazi fighters (oops! security I mean) to protect
his fracking site just north of the 'troubles' in the eastern Ukraine? I'm sure they were working for free and that no Biden money
was ever used to payoff (oops again! I mean pay the wages of) a bunch of Nazis (dang it again, I mean neo-Nazis, it sounds so
much warmer and fuzzier when you add 'neo').
Creepy Joe and all D's agree, 'Nazi' = bad, neo-Nazi = warm, fuzzy and good; heck, they even like to kill Russians Russians
Russians!!!
Cracker 16 , 1 hour ago
Joe "the Conqueror" "Caesar Magnus" Biden. Joe of Ukraine, the best bud of $oro$.
Christian J Chuba , Mar 31, 2019 3:08:20 PM |
link
"U.S. Regime blocks international waterway" [actual story, Reuters title story] ...
"Iranian fuel oil cargo sits off Malaysia as U.S. urges sanctions compliance"
What got my attention post this common story was this statement ...
talks were to make sure Malaysian and Singaporean authorities "are alert and make important
decisions about whether or not to even allow the vessels to come through their waterways."
So now it is somehow acceptable to block a merchant ship from an international waterway?
WTF. This is an act of war.
Last week a Wall Street Journal editorial revealed the incorrigible hypocrisy with which conservatives have long suffered. Conservatives,
of course, have long suffered this malady with respect to domestic policy given their ardent devotion to Social Security, Medicare,
foreign aid, and other welfare-state programs even while decrying the left's devotion to socialism.
But this particular WSJ editorial revealed the incorrigible conservative hypocrisy with respect to foreign policy.
"Vladimir Putin has made a career of intervening abroad and seeing if the world lets him get away with it."
Why is that sentence funny?
Because it also describes ever single U.S. president for the last 100 years!
Every president from Woodrow Wilson through today has made a career of intervening abroad and seeing if the world lets him get
away with it. Indeed, the central feature of the U.S. government for the last 100 years has been and continues to be empire and foreign
interventionism.
Clearly, conservatives do not see anything wrong with foreign interventionism as long as the interventionists are wearing an American
flag on their sleeves and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. They obviously consider foreign interventionism to be
bad only when those pesky Russkies (of Russia-Trump conspiracy fame) do it.
Another humorous aspect to the editorial is the verbiage that the Journal' s editorial writer uses to condemn Putin's interventionism.
The editorial condemns Putin for extending his interventionism in Syria to Venezuela.
Why is that point humorous?
Because the U.S. government, with the full support of conservatives, has also been intervening in both Syria and Venezuela! Thus,
the Journal could just as easily have stated that "Putin pulls a U.S. in Syria and Venezuela," except, well, for one thing: The regimes
in both countries invited Russia into their countries. The U.S. government, on the other hand, is intervening in both countries illegally
with the intent of ousting both regimes from power and installing pro-U.S. regimes in their stead.
The Journal pointed out Russia's intervention in Crimea and Ukraine. Not surprisingly, the Journal failed to point out that after
the end of the Cold War, NATO, that old Cold War-era dinosaur controlled by the U.S., proceeded to absorb former members of the Warsaw
Pact and was threatening to absorb Ukraine, which would then have put U.S. forces on Russia's border. In the eyes of conservatives,
that sort of interventionism just doesn't count because it's U.S. interventionism.
In fact, notice that conservatives, while lamenting Russian and Chinese support of Latin American countries hardly ever lament
U.S. government support of European, Eastern European, and Asian countries. That's hypocrisy in its purest and most incorrigible
form.
Venezuela is an independent country. As such, it has the right to seek and receive help from anyone it wants, including Russia,
China, North Korea, or any other regime, Red or not. Conservative calls to put a stop to this process are a throwback to the old
Cold War mindset that the Reds were coming to get us as part of the supposed worldwide communist conspiracy that was supposedly based
in Moscow. That's what gave rise, of course, to the conversion of our federal government from a limited-government republic to a
national-security state and to an even bigger expansion of an interventionist foreign policy.
That's in fact why the CIA, the Pentagon, and the NSA embarked on a decades-long policy of assassinations of foreign leaders,
invasions, occupations, coups, partnerships with dictatorial regimes, torture, indefinite detention, sanctions, embargoes, regime-change
operations, secret surveillance, and other dark-side practices. The national-security triumvirate said that all this dark-side activity
was necessary to protect us and keep us safe from the Russians (i.e. Soviets), Chinese, North Koreans, North Vietnamese, Cubans,
and other Reds. In other words, we had to become like the Reds in order to prevent them from taking control of the United States
and teaching communism in America's public (i.e., government-owned) schools.
Which raises the important question : Simply because Russia, China, North Korea, or other foreign regimes engage in foreign interventionism,
assassination, torture, secret surveillance, indefinite detention, or other dark-side practices, does that mean that the U.S. government
must do the same as a defensive or protective measure?
The answer is no. The U.S. government should never have gone down the road to empire and foreign interventionism regardless of
what the Reds were doing, and it should never have become a national-security state, which is a type of dark-side governmental structure
that is inherent to totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
The United States should restore its founding principles of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy
regardless of what foreign regimes are doing. The U.S. should be leading the world to freedom by example, not by copying the Russians,
Chinese, North Koreans, or Vietnamese.
"... Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore, he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well. Hence the effectiveness of his actions. ..."
That's a great piece by Escobar, and it contains snippets from his talk with Ishchenko,
which I recall he said was coming but which I don't think I ever saw anywhere until now.
I have to quote this perfect illustration of Putin from Ishchenko:
Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore,
he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to
those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has
clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of
Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger
than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their
status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well.
Hence the effectiveness of his actions.
As to Pepe's main theme, that the Pentagon is hardening its stances, it's well reported,
and fits nicely with the latest piece from Whitney Webb, which Escobar linked form his
Facebook page, by the way (I get a lot of good "heads-up" links from there). I'll post it in
the next comment.
Webb's story is about the newly developed RED team, the "sole contractor" to USAID with
regard to Venezuela. The piece illustrates both the exact playbook to be used in Venezuela
and a hardening of stance in the covert activity sphere equal with the military sphere's
hardening that karlof1 cites @73:
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost
doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in
"extremely denied environments," stated that:
"We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody
who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special
forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID
is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must
happen."
This seems to speak a lot of the Trump administration's true ambitions in the Rambo
theater of fantasy and cruelty. This RED team is armed with cash and weaponry for offensive
violence, along with an entire vocabulary of institutional words that almost seem harmless
until you explore the implications, as Webb does.
I have to say in passing that I just don't know if we've ever been able to see so clearly
before - i.e. at the level of one magazine article citing the published declarations of the
actors - the exact and precise methods by which regime change will attempt to be imposed on a
target country.
Presumably Gerasimov and the rest of the Russia team are hip to every one of these moves,
and will counter effectively and creatively.
"The Supreme Court of Justice of #Venezuela ratifies precautionary measures to Juan
#Guaidó: prohibition to exit the country, prohibition to transfer his property,
blockade and immobilization of bank accounts or any other financial instrument in
Venezuela."
"The Supreme Court of Justice imposes a fine on Juan #Guaidó and asks the National
Constituent Assembly to lift the parliamentary immunity after Guaidó broke the
prohibition of leaving the country."
What will be the next "Or Else" utterance by the Naked Emperor's Agents be? Will they
threaten to throw the table holding all those possibilities? Perhaps also add the chairs?
Meanwhile, China delivers another freighter full of medical supplies.
Looks like the reviewer is a typical neocon. Typical neocon think tanks talking points that
reflect the "Full Spectrum Dominance" agenda.
As for Ukraine yes, of course, Victoria Nuland did not interfere with the event, did not push for the deposing Yanukovich to
spoil agreement reached between him and the EU diplomats ("F**k EU" as this high level US diplomat eloquently expressed herself)
and to appoint the US stooge Yatsenyuk. The transcript of Nuland's phone call actually introduced many Americans to the
previously obscure Yatsenyuk.
And the large amount of cash confiscated in the Kiev office of Yulia Timostchenko Batkivshchina party (the main opposition party
at the time run by Yatsenyuk, as Timoshenko was in jail) was just a hallucination. It has nothing to do with ";bombing with
dollars"; -- yet another typical color revolution trick.
BTW "government snipers of rooftops" also is a standard false flag operation used to instill uprising at the critical moment of
the color revolution. Ukraine was not the first and is not the last. One participant recently confessed. The key person in this
false flag operation was the opposition leader Andriy Parubiy -- who was responsible for the security of the opposition camp.
Google "Parubiy and snipergate" for more information.
His view on DNC hack (which most probably was a leak) also does not withstand close scrutiny. William Binney, a former National
Security Agency high level official who co-authored an analysis of a group of former intelligence professionals thinks that this
was a transfer to the local USB drive as the speed of downloads was too high for the Internet connection. In this light the
death of Seth Rich looks very suspicious indeed.
As for Russiagate, he now needs to print his review and the portrait of Grand Wizard of Russiagate Rachel Maddow, shed both of
them and eat with Borscht ;-)
The 757 and 767 are a more obvious airframe to build upon, as a response to the Airbus the
new 737MAX design was very poorly thought out, it's airframe vs. engine placement and thrust.
Having trained on Boeing 767-300ERs myself a pilot becomes very in tune with it's quirks and
it does have them, speed bugs and so on.
When you watch certain aircraft taking off in routine operations, unreasonable angles of
attack V-speed, now many pilots will engage 1 autopilots minutes after take off while flaps
are partially extended still(it stabalizes a positive rate of climb), this is so that the
aircraft is more efficient, cost effective and reaches it's crusie altitude and destination
on time.
The 767 has 3 autopilot computers, 2 of them receive data as to angle of attack and speed
when the stall warning activates as the stick shakes, the autopilots are off, period, no more
input from the computers other than warnings - these too can often lead to confusion and
sometimes with fatal results.
Sometimes you will re-engage one after you've corrected the airspeed (nose down) and stall
to regain and maintain a efficient airflow lift. Although in some cases the pitot tubes
malfunction to due ice, so trusting what the machine was telling the pilots can be fatal.
[In 737MAX] The pilot simply cannot take full control the aircraft when he needs to do so.
Hence the pilots in the 737MAX cases scrambling to work through the problem by checklist, if
you're doing this something is going wrong and will be wrong.
Ever notice the difference between a soft smooth landing and a 'rough one' that shakes
passengers - note these are totally normal landings, the computer assisted ones in clear blue
skies and calm winds are not.
That's the pilots on a VFR or visual landing which the computer usually tries to interfere
with, if a hybrid semi-assisted landing, especially on an ILS glideslope in bad weather.
A pilot should know these skills but many now do not. They have to rely on the input from
the computers and Boeing tried unsuccessfully to introduce this new MCAS system seamlessly,
when you've got 3 autopilots why is only 1 receiving the flight data of angle of attack and
v-speed?!
Not since the witchcraft hysteria of the Middle Ages have we seen such a display of human
idiocy, credulity and absurdist behavior. I refer, of course, to the two-year witch hunt
directed against President Donald Trump which hopefully just concluded last week –
provided that the Hillaryites, Democratic dopes and secret staters who fueled this mania don't
manage to keep the pot boiling.
This column has said from Day 1 that claims Trump was somehow a Russian agent were absurd in
the extreme. So too charges that Moscow had somehow rigged US elections. Nonsense. We know it's
the US that helps rig elections around the globe, not those bumbling Russians who can't afford
the big bribes such nefarious activity requires.
What Muller found after he turned over the big rock was a bevy of slithering, slimy
creatures, shyster lawyers, and sleazes that are normally part of New York's land development
industry. No surprise at all that they surrounded developer Trump. Son-in-law Jared Kushner
hails from this same milieu. The Kushners are pajama-party buddies with Israel's leader,
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now that the Muller investigation found no collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin,
we Americans owe a great big apology to Vladimir Putin for all the slander he has suffered. Too
bad he can't sue the legions of liars and propagandists who heaped abuse on him and,
incidentally, pushed the US and Russia to the edge of war.
People who swallowed these absurdist claims really should question their own grasp of
reality. Those who believed that the evil Kremlin was manipulating votes in Alabama or Missouri
would make good candidates for Scientology or the John Birch Society.
They were the simple fools. Worse, were the propagandists who promoted the disgusting
Steele dossier, a farrago of lies concocted by British intelligence and apparently promoted by
the late John McCain and Trump-hating TV networks. One senses Hillary Clinton's hand in all
this. Hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned.
It's so laughably ironic that while the witch hunt sought a non-existent Kremlin master
manipulator, the real foreign string-puller was sitting in the White House Oval office
chortling away: Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, behind him, the moneybags
patron of Trump and Netanyahu, American billionaire gambling mogul, Sheldon Adelson, the
godfather of Greater Israel.
The three amigos had just pulled off one of the most outrageous violations of international
law by blessing Israel's annexation of the highly strategic Golan Heights that Israel had
seized in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This usurpation was so egregious that all 14 members of
the UN Security Council condemned it. Even usually wimpy Canada blasted the US.
Giving Golan to Israel means it has permanently secured new water sources from the Mount
Hermon range, artillery and electronic intelligence positions overlooking Damascus, and the
launching pad for new Israeli land expansion into Lebanon and Syria. Israel is said to be
preparing for a new war against Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.
In contrast to this cynical business over Golan, the Trump administration is still
hitting Russia with heavy sanctions over Moscow's re-occupation of Crimea, a strategic
peninsula that was Russian for over 300 years. So Israel can grab Golan but Russia must vacate
Crimea. The logic of sleazy politics.
We also learned last week that according to State Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump might have
been sent by us by God, like ancient Israel's Queen Esther, to defend Israel from the wicked
Persians. Up to a quarter of Americans, and particularly Bible Belt voters, believe such crazy
nonsense. For them, Trump is a heroic Crusading Christian warrior.
This is as nutty as Trump being a Commie Manchurian candidate. We seem to be living in an
era of absurdity and medieval superstition. No wonder so many nations around the globe fear us.
We too often look like militant Scientologists with nuclear weapons.
Fortunately, the cool, calm, collected Vladimir Putin remains in charge of the other side in
spite of our best efforts to overthrow or provoke him.
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document
- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced
coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of "
Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort
to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
That operation, according to Guaidó, will be
led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to
action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan
military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention)
reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."
However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in
a report
by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó
describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."
Given that Guaidó
was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take
his marching orders from Washington, including
his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth
considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise
"Operation Freedom."
RED Teams
Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page
document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab,
a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development
officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied
environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's
authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.
The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed
as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations
in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.
The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local
communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency
of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,'
observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."
In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers"
of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.
The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to
Guaidó's plan for "Operation
Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout
the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom
is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given
Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a
key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.
Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement
theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as
"catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED
Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.
In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish
community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert
action into community engagement activities."
Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck
Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team
pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED
Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is
fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."
This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close
to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's
recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President
Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before"
and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.
Though Bolsonaro's government
has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's
son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman --
said
last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that
"all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention
per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed
RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.
Frontier Design Group
The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national
security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:
Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development
and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping
problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included
projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of
Peace."
FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which
is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of
a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in
a recent investigation
focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency
doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.
One of the co-authors of the document is
Alexa Courtney , FDG founder
and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan
for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and
US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks'
in Honduras." Courtney, according to
her LinkedIn account, was also
recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress
recently reported
on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.
Send in the USAID
Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development
(RED) Teams initiative," Courtney
stated
that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government
officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another
USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:
We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working
in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant
USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."
Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new
counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are
set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.
This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power
outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A
recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail
how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed
event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."
The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result
of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents
and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.
Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the
document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options
are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia --
have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.
Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team
document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
Israel is running America into the ground, wrecking Europe and trying to start a war with
Russia. America needs to cut all aid and get away from the nasty little cancer before they
finish the Job and start WW3!
@A123 Palestinain Mandate and Palestine are historically 2 completely separate
entities.
But Jews have a knack of conflating and presenting the mess as the reality that you and me
have to respect. No, we don't.
Long time ago Israel started giving biblical names to certain areas of Palestine to make it
appealing to the ignoramus leaders among the Bible thumping Western crowd of 1900.
It was planted as religious historical archeological realities with deeply emotional arc
that bound lefties conservatives religion secular educated uneducated, local fellow
international citizen and spliced together vast segmented stratified minds of western society
to one theme – positive view about Jew and Zionism-on the sly.
It succeeded. But that success is an abomination. It is travesty, it is moral and
intellectual and ethical failures of western education and politics. it is a dereliction of
academic responsibility .
Now the tide is against the presence of intellectual dishonesty . BDS is part of that , so
is the truth being forced on Democrats voters . Chasm is widening with raw edges .
Conservatives still cling to the old charade at a cost . It hurts them BY allowing continued
presence of the disastrous Zionist views on each and every aspect of their lives, they lose-
religion,economy,society , and values. . It robs them a safe a prosperous future .
I think Trump completely discredited himself in foreign policy due to appointment of Bush II team of neocon which drive it.
So the only chance for him to win is if US voters do not care about foreign policy. Demagogy will not work like in 2016 as
he now have a dismal record including attempt in regime change in Venezuela.
Notable quotes:
"... the vast majority of Americans don't give a hoot about issues of war, peace, and international diplomacy. Why should they care? It's not as though anything is asked of them as citizens. By cynically ditching the draft, Tricky Dick Nixon took the wind out of the sails of current and future antiwar movements, and permanently cleaved a gap between the U.S. people and their military ..."
"... Mothers no longer lose sleep over their teenage sons serving their country and they – along with the rest of the family – quit caring about foreign policy. Such it is, and so it will be, that the 2020 presidential election is likely to be decided by "kitchen-table" affairs like healthcare, immigration, race, and taxes. ..."
"... In 2016, he (correctly) made Hillary"regime change" Clinton out to be the true hawk in the race. Trump, on the other hand, combined tough guy bravado (he'd "bomb the shit" out of ISIS) with earthy good sense (there'd be no more "stupid" Iraq invasions. And it worked. ..."
"... Mark my words: if the DNC – which apparently picks the party's candidates – backs a conventional neoliberal foreign policy nominee, Trump will wipe the floor with him or her. ..."
"... If they want to stand a chance in 2020, the Dems had better back a nominee with a clear, alternative progressive foreign policy or get one the domestic-focused candidates up to speed and fast. ..."
"... So here's how my mental math works: a progressive candidate needs to win over libertarian-minded Republicans and Independents (think Rand Paul-types) by force of their commonsense alternative to Trump's foreign policy. ..."
"... Still, there's more than a little reason for concern . Look at how "Nasty" Nancy Pelosi and the establishment Dems came down on Ilhan Omar for that representative's essentially accurate tweets criticizing the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard, though she still looks the long shot, remains intriguing given here genuine antiwar (and combat veteran) credentials. ..."
"... Then again, even Bernie has his foreign affairs flaws – such as reflexively denouncing the BDS movement and occasionally calling for regime change in Syria. Nevertheless, both Bernie and Tulsi demonstrate that there's some promise for fresh opposition foreign policy. ..."
The 2020 election will not turn on global issues – and more's the pity. After all, thanks to decades upon decades of accumulating
executive power in an increasingly
imperial presidency,
it is in foreign affairs that the commander-in-chief possesses near dictatorial power. Conversely, in domestic policy, a hostile
Congress can – just ask Barry Obama – effectively block most of a president's agenda.
Still, the vast majority of Americans don't give a hoot about issues of war, peace, and international diplomacy. Why should
they care? It's not as though anything is asked of them as citizens. By cynically
ditching the
draft, Tricky Dick Nixon took the wind out of the sails of current and future antiwar movements, and permanently cleaved a gap between
the U.S. people and their military.
Mothers no longer lose sleep over their teenage sons serving their country and they – along with the rest of the family –
quit caring about foreign policy. Such it is, and so it will be, that the 2020 presidential election is likely to be decided by "kitchen-table"
affairs like healthcare, immigration, race, and taxes.
Be that as it may, serious observers should pay plenty of attention to international strategy.
First, because the occupant of the Oval Office makes policy almost unilaterally – including the decision of whether or not
to end the human race with America's suicidal nuclear button.
Second, because 2020 is likely to be another close contest, turning on the votes of a few hundred thousand swing state voters.
As such, Trump's opponent will need to win every vote on every issue – including foreign affairs. What's more, there are still
some folks who genuinely care about a potential commander-in-chief's international bonafides.
So, while Dems can't win the White House with foreign policy alone, they can lose it by ignoring these issues or – oh so typically
– presenting a muddled overseas strategy.
This is serious.
Just in case there are any out there still underestimating Trump – I, for one, predict he'll win in 2020 – make no mistake, he's
no pushover on foreign policy. Sure he doesn't know much – but neither does the average voter. Nonetheless, Trump is no dope. He's
got the pulse of (white) voters across this country and senses that the populace is tired of spending blood and cash (but mostly
its cash) on Mideast forever wars. In 2016, he (correctly) made Hillary"regime change" Clinton out to be the true hawk in the
race. Trump, on the other hand, combined tough guy bravado (he'd
"bomb the shit"
out of ISIS) with earthy good sense (there'd be no more
"stupid" Iraq invasions. And it worked.
So, with 2020 in mind, whether you're a progressive, a libertarian, or just a Trump-hater, its vital that the opposition (most
likely the Dems) nominate a candidate who can hang with Trump in foreign affairs.
Mark my words: if the DNC – which apparently
picks the party's
candidates – backs a conventional neoliberal foreign policy nominee, Trump will wipe the floor with him or her. And, if the
Dems national security platform reads like a jumbled, jargon-filled sheet full of boring (like it usually does) than Joe the proverbial
plumber is going to back The Donald.
That's what has me worried. As one candidate after another enters an already crowded field, this author is left wondering whether
any of them are commander-in-chief material. So far I see a huge crew (Liz, Kirsten, Kamala, Beto) that live and die by domestic
policy; two potentially conventional foreign policy guys (Biden and Booker); and two other wildcards (Bernie and Tulsi). That's not
a comprehensive list, but you get the point. If they want to stand a chance in 2020, the Dems had better back a nominee with
a clear, alternative progressive foreign policy or get one the domestic-focused candidates up to speed and fast.
So here's how my mental math works: a progressive candidate needs to win over libertarian-minded Republicans and Independents
(think Rand Paul-types) by force of their commonsense alternative to Trump's foreign policy. That means getting the troops out
of the Mideast, pulling the plug from other mindless interventions and cutting runaway defense spending. Then, and only then, can
the two sides begin arguing about what to do with the resultant cash surplus. That's an argument for another day, sure, but here
and now our imaginary Democratic (or Third Party?) nominee needs to end the wars and curtail the excesses of empire. I know many
libertarians – some still nominally Republican – who could get behind that agenda pretty quickly!
Still, there's more than a little reason for concern . Look at how "Nasty" Nancy Pelosi and the establishment Dems came
down on Ilhan
Omar for that representative's essentially accurate tweets criticizing the Israel Lobby. Then there's Joe Biden. Look, he's
definitely running. He's also definitely been wrong time and again on foreign policy – like how he was
for the
Iraq War before he was against it (how'd that turn out for John Kerry in 2004?). And, for all the talk of a progressive "blue wave"
in the party ranks, Biden still polls as the
top choice for
Democratic primary voters. Yikes.
Behind him, thankfully, is old Bernie – who sometimes shows potential in foreign affairs – the only candidate who has both
backed Omar and
been consistent in a career of generally antiwar votes. Still, Bernie won his household name with domestic policy one-liners – trashing
Wall Street and pushing populist economic tropes. Whether he can transform into a more balanced candidate, one that can confidently
compose and deliver a strong alternative foreign policy remains to be seen.
Tulsi Gabbard, though she still looks the long shot, remains intriguing given here genuine antiwar (and combat veteran) credentials.
Still, she'll have her hands full overcoming
problematic skeletons
in her own closet: ties to Indian Hindu nationalists, opposition to the Iran deal, and sometime backing of authoritarians and Islamophobes.
Then again, even Bernie has his foreign affairs
flaws
– such as reflexively denouncing the BDS movement and occasionally calling for regime change in Syria. Nevertheless, both Bernie
and Tulsi demonstrate that there's some promise for fresh opposition foreign policy.
Here's (some) of what that would look like:
speedily withdraw all U.S. troops from the (at least)
seven shooting wars
in the Greater Middle East;
choke off excessive arms deals and expensive military handouts to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other frenemies;
quit bombing or
enabling
the bombing of impoverished civilians in places like Yemen and Gaza; begin dismantling America's
"empire
of bases" overseas;
seek firm détente rather than conflict with Russia and China;
and cut defense and war-related spending down to size.
Our imaginary candidate would need to convey this commonsense course to a war-weary American people as plainly and coherently
as Trump can. No jargon, no Clintonian wonky crap – simple and to the point. Imagine it: a commonsense course for a clear-eyed country!
Less war and more investment at home. Less war and more middle-class tax cuts. Whatever. That fight will come and the progressives
and independents/libertarians will fight it out. For now, though, what's essential is checking the war machine and military-industrial
behemoth before its too late (it may be already!).
None of this will be easy or likely, of course. But count on this much: the establishment Democrats, media-mogul "left," and centrist
DC think tanks won't save us from the imperial monster or deliver a Trump-defeating strategy in foreign affairs. The Mueller-will-save-us,
Mattis-was-a-hero, reflexively anti-Trump, born-again
hawks like Rachel Maddow and the other disappointing chumps at MSNBC or CNN aren't on our side. Worse yet, they're born losers
when it comes to delivering elections.
All of this may be far-fetched, but is not impossible. Neither libertarians nor progressives can countenance Trump. Nor should
they. One of their only true hopes for compromise rest on foreign policy and a genuine antiwar message. It can be done.
Look, on a personal note, even America's beloved and over-adulated soldiers are reachable on this issue – that's how you know
the foreign policy alliance has potential! For every rah-rah war-fever cheerleader in uniform, there's an exhausted foot soldier
on his Nth tour in the Mideast. There's also a huge chunk (
40%! ) who are racial minorities – usually a reliably anti-Trump demographic. Finally, among the white men and women in uniform
I've personally met a solid core of libertarians. And the
data backs up my anecdotal observation – Ron Paul was highly popular among active-duty military members and their families. A
progressive foreign policy alliance with the libertarian wing of Republicans and Independents would sell better with these such voters
both in and out of uniform. You know the type: sick of war but just as sick of stereotypical liberal snowflakes.
So here's a plea to the "opposition" such at it is: avoid the usual mistakes – don't cede foreign affairs to the Trump and the
Republicans; don't nominate anyone remotely resembling Joe Biden; don't alienate libertarians and independents with wonky or muddled
international policy.
Try something new. Like winning
* * *
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and regular contributor to antiwar.com
. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point.
He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,
Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet
.
"... On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen. ..."
Days after Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that Russia " cease its unconstructive behavior " by landing a transport
plane
full of Russian troops in Caracas last Saturday, the Kremlin has responded - essentially telling Washington to pound sand - and
that their troops will remain in Venezuela "for as long as needed " according to the
Independent .
In the latest indication the crisis in Venezuela is taking on elements of a proxy battle between the former Cold War rivals,
a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry said the troops had been dispatched to fulfil "military contracts".
" They are involved in the implementation of agreements in the sphere of military and technical cooperation ," said Maria Zakharova,
according to the AFP, adding that the troops would stay there " for as long as needed ".
" Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone ," she said. -
Independent
Last week we also noted that
new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key air base south of Caracas shortly
after Russia arrived.
On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops
out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen.
Juan Guaido getting a ''warm'' welcome from population in El Valle. Apparently, Venezuelan
masses have had enough of comprador sellouts backed by European powers.
Without police presence, the Yankee puppet would in all likelihood end up lynched and
hanging from lamppost.
Exceptionals are in for a rude awakening, if they attempt to overthrow Chavistas using
direct kinetic operations.
Any invasion will be met with fierce resistance. No volveran to Pre-Chavez years. Orange
dotard and his neo-confederates in the white house fancy themselves crushing ''subhuman''
resistance from shitholes and securing the hemisphere for wall street looters. The gambit
will backfire, and could end up kickstarting hostilites that will span the Continent from
Patagonia to Rio Grande. MAGA the gift that keeps on giving. #winning... https://www.facebook.com/venesolidarite/videos/814971605532561/
"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent
political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure
to see it coming.
Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf
Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us
so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or
(IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about
private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense
Thanks for the Taibbi link. I hadn't seen it, and found him to be in good form. I do think
he ought to have spoken more about how bad Trump's Primary opponents were.
Most of those reporters were going to slant their stories the way their bosses wanted.
Their jobs are just too nice to do otherwise. Getting Trump as Hillary's opponent had to have
been a goal for the majority of them. He was the patsy who would become squished roadkill in
the treads of The Most Experienced Presidential Candidate In History. More on that for people
with strong stomachs:
Hillary Clinton is a knowledgeable, well-prepared, reasonable, experienced, even-tempered,
hardworking candidate, while her opponent is a stubbornly uninformed demagogue who has been
proven again and again to be a liar on matters big and small. There is no objective basis
on which to equate Hillary Clinton to her opponent.
The author had it half right. Turns out the voters knew quite a bit about Trump,
and still preferred him to the Butcher of Libya.
Seems to me what that BigLie's about is this tale: Relations with Russia during the
post-USSR age were going along swell until Russia began involved in the Venezuelan
Crisis.
The attempt is to try a new narrative using a different angle to blame Russia which is the
goal of the BigLie. Signal a new line of approach in dealing with the attitude toward Russia
to the trusty echoers of His Master's Voice.
There was a prominent no-show among the 200 regulators, pilots and airline managers that
Boeing Co.
invited to preview a crucial software update for the 737 Max this week, said people familiar with
the matter: European safety officials.
The planemaker is sending a team across the Atlantic to brief the European Union Aviation Safety Agency on the
proposed changes after two of the jetliners plunged to the ground within five months, said one of the people, who
asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Representatives of EASA didn't return requests for
comment.
Intentional or not, EASA's snub points to the delicate politics Boeing faces in convincing regulators the Max
is safe as the company seeks to restore confidence in its best-selling jet, which has been grounded for more than
two weeks. The reputation of U.S. regulators has taken a hit in the scrutiny of the 737 Max's approval process,
and foreign agencies are less likely to rubber-stamp aircraft certifications simply because they have been cleared
by the Federal Aviation Administration.
EASA is expected to play an influential role in determining how long and complicated the review of the Max will
be, while safety officials from China to Canada have vowed to conduct their own rigorous analysis.
"EASA's determination should be important for the rest of the world, given its sophistication and perceived
independence," Seth Seifman, analyst with JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a note to clients.
A spokesman for the FAA declined to comment.
'Productive' Sessions
"We had productive information sessions this week and continue to work closely with our customers and
regulators on software and training updates for the 737 Max," Boeing spokesman Paul Bergman said by email.
As of late Friday, the Chicago-based planemaker was still finishing up paperwork needed to certify a software
upgrade and revised pilot training for the 737 Max. One prominent pilots union criticized the proposed training as
insufficient.
The software changes, intended to prevent stall-prevention software from engaging in normal flight, have been
in the works since the system pointed a Lion Air jet's nose downward about two dozen times before pilots lost
control Oct. 29. That accident killed 189 people, while 157 died when an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crashed
March 10.
While certifying the software upgrade is the first step toward returning the Max to flight, it doesn't assure
the grounding will be speedily lifted by the FAA or its counterparts around the world. The EU, China and Canada
all grounded the 737 Max more quickly than the FAA in the wake of the Ethiopian crash.
Software Changes
The break between FAA and overseas authorities on the initial decision to ground the plane, combined with
worldwide public furor and a U.S. criminal probe of the Max certification, "all make it hard for us to see how
foreign regulators can avoid coming back with their own questions and doing some of their own due diligence,"
Seifman said in his report.
Crash investigators suspect that a damaged or malfunctioning sensor triggered anti-stall technology in the
Ethiopian Airlines plane, Bloomberg
reported
Friday. Investigators think that caused the plane's nose to point downward, and the pilots struggled
to counteract the software-based system, according to people familiar with the crash probe. That scenario would be
similar to the crash that brought down the Lion Air flight last year in Indonesia.
Boeing is planning software revisions that restrict the number of times the Maneuvering Characteristics
Augmentation System, or MCAS, kicks in to a single interaction. The update is also designed so that MCAS can't
command the horizontal stabilizer to push a plane's nose down with more force than what pilots can counter by
pulling back on the steering column.
The enhancements appeared to work as billed, said pilots who viewed demonstrations of the upgrades by company
test pilots in flight simulators at the event March 27 in Renton, Washington.
"We were confident flying the aircraft in its present state," said Roddy Guthrie,
American Airlines Group Inc.
's 737 fleet captain, who was at the Boeing briefings. The improvements "were
needed. They've put some checks and balances in the system now that will make the system much better."
Simulator Demonstrations
Still, Boeing representatives faced caustic comments from some at the Wednesday session, said one of the people
familiar with the discussions. As Boeing test pilots demonstrated old and new versions of MCAS, attendees were
especially interested in re-enacting the sequence of events leading to the Lion Air crash, the person said. Pilots
also demonstrated how the 737 Max would behave if an angle-of-attack vane was sheared off by, say, a bird strike.
One pilot group walked away from the event feeling that Boeing needs to do more work on a new 30-minute iPad
course, followed by a test, that is intended to help pilots of the older generation of 737 planes prepare for the
Max. The newest version of Boeing's workhorse single-aisle jet debuted less than two years ago.
Pilots who saw the preliminary version of the training "characterized it as nice for an elementary level of
understanding, but pilots will definitely need a more textured and layered instructional piece," said Dennis Tajer,
spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents pilots at American. "That was the hands-down
consensus."
They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on
Iranian oil in November.
The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil
to meet their own needs.
Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil,
the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.
Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the
U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.
If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will
continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.
In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy
Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.
Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar
world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by
a brutal, erratic hegemon?
Interesting information about Cuban lobby and Trump
Notable quotes:
"... George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation. ..."
Well now that most everyone knows Trump's ME policy on Iran is run by his Zionists.
We would be remiss in not mentioning the "other foreign lobby" .the Cuban exiles ..who are all very interested in Venezuela.
I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid
by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.
What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?
For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned
the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed
with the evolving crisis inside Venezuela
Two days after taking office in January 2017 President Donald Trump surprised White House staff by asking for a briefing on
Venezuela. At the time, Fernando Cutz was on the National Security Council staff as the President's Director for South America.
"For whatever reason, and honestly I don't know what the reason was, but President Trump started on Day One, literally on Day
One, asking about Venezuela. So, it was a priority of his from the very start," Cutz told a forum at the Wilson Center, a Washington
think tank, after he left government last year.
Cutz didn't know, but the seed was planted a few days before Trump's inauguration during a casual meeting at Trump Tower in
New York. Trump had invited some South Florida friends to pay him a visit, among them Freddy Balsera, a Cuban American Democrat,
who represented the real estate mogul on several South Florida golf projects.
During the meeting, Trump asked Balsera for some advice on what South Floridians would like to see from his presidency, according
to witnesses. Balsera mentioned taking a tougher line on the Maduro regime in Venezuela, adding it would have bipartisan support
and could make for a good foreign policy victory
The president's son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, was in the room and his ears picked up, the sources said. Balsera
told Trump and Kushner about Venezuela's most famous political prisoner: Leopoldo Lopez. And he had a suggestion: "You should
meet with his wife, Lilian Tintori," he said.
That's precisely what happened a few weeks later, courtesy of another Cuban American – a Republican this time – Senator Marco
Rubio
Rubio's influence has also grown since that White House visit with Lilian Tintori. Despite calling him 'Little Marco' during
the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken to heaping President Donald Trump has lately taken to heaping praise on his
former presidential rival
"I do listen a lot to Senator Rubio on Venezuela, it's close to his heart," Trump told a small group of reporters representing
regional news outlets last month.
Rubio was also instrumental in bringing into the government some key Cuban Americans; Mauricio Claver-Carone at the NSC. Another
John Barsa, is awaiting confirmation to lead USAID's operations in Latin America. Claver-Carone is a longtime activist on Cuba
policy and staunch backer of the economic embargo against Havana's communist government]
Otto Reich, another conservative Cuban American and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela says the Trump administration clearly
has Cuba in its sights.
"I think that what they are preparing in the government is first of all to use the fall of the Venezuelan dictatorship that has
financed so much violence and subversion in the hemisphere, to later bring about changes, transitions in Cuba and Nicaragua,"
White House to appoint Cuba hardliner to head Latin America policy Mauricio Claver-Carone, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's
engagement with Cuba, is taking over as the National Security Council's influential director for Latin America policy.
I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
Well, 'we' got a tax cut. And 'we' are going to have mandated vaccinations from companies exempt from liability. And 'we' will
get the joys of subsidizing the 5G rollout for total internet connectivity from the toilet to the grave. 'We' get total surveillance,
too, so there is that.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or
paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.
But we're a nation of immigrants, so we celebrate all those hyphenated pseudo-Americans hijacking our country for foreign benefit.
Why, I think one of the reasons President Kushner wants immigrants in the largest numbers ever is to provide more boots for all
of our wars. Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, reduxes on Iraq and Lebanon? Adventures in Africa? Wheel of fortune, who
hurts Ivanka's feelings first?
@chris Two-fer? I don't think so. Trump
will be a popular wartime president . The media has already changed its tone. No, Trump is completely housebroken, a useful
fool. He's good for more than one war, so will probably be re-elected. How many wars do you think we're good for before total
collapse?
President Trump is a complete and total whore for Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson.
Shelly Adelson is an ISRAEL FIRST Jew who wants to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle
East and West Asia.
Shelly Adelson wants to flood more mass legal immigration into the United States.
Shelly Adelson wants to give amnesty to upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.
Shelly Adelson demanded 4 things from Trump:
1) Adelson wanted the US military to attack and invade Iran.
2) Adelson wanted the US military to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran as a demonstration of resolve and power.
3) Adelson wanted the US embassy moved to Jerusalem.
4) Adelson wanted the Iran nuclear deal killed and buried.
Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has moved a satellite branch of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Trump and the
US military have refused to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran. Trump and the US military have refused to attack and invade Iran.
If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals
and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.
@Charles PewittIf Trump continues
on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts
and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.
Sorry but there is not one US general who will act against Israel – period.
@Talha If Jews want to live in Palestine
there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But they have to live as the locals do and without any special favors.
What is BS is the special favors the USA gives them. They even have the gall to say that our giving $5 billion in military
aid to them is a favor to us.
George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel
First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War.
The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing
the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America.
Trump went to a 2016 GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina and said the US military was dragged into the Iraq War
debacle by George W Bush on false claims.
Trump:
He added, forcefully: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction – there were none. And they knew there
were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."
The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased
Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation.
One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The
appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US
foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated
obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is
a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden
is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him
to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already
stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for
treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the
Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern
of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found
the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke
of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly
President was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The
'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to
fund security agencies and buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder
until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad
as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military
(note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel
or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions?
An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction
or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.
"... Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding? ..."
"... If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint. ..."
"... Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government ..."
"... Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt. ..."
"... Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again ..."
"... One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative. ..."
"... Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush? ..."
"... The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread. ..."
"... Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust. ..."
Just as an aside - not really economics, but I am really worrying about what the war between the future white house team and the
CIA that seems to be brewing. I don't see good solutions to this. It is sort of unprecedented in a major western country. Can
you think of a similar case (where the intelligence services - and perhaps the military as well regarded there own government
head as an enemy agent)?
Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up
countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding?
If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint.
Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative
destruction to government
Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt.
As with Obamacare, the idea is to destroy it and replace it with something better. Most revolutions find it easy to destroy
and very much harder to build Most sane leaders recognize this difficulty and modify the existing rather than destroy and never
getting around to replacement or find the replacement to be worse than the existing.
Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will
give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain.
The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again
I don't believe in "creative destruction", I believe in "destructive creation" which is something quite different. But that is
not the point. This is not about the government as such, it is about the security apparatus in itself. It could get very nasty
if that ends up either totally alienated or politicized.
If I were President, provoking an organization whose specialty is covert operations and which has track record of bringing about
the demise of insufficiently agreeable leaders would not be high on my to-do list.
The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would
have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread.
Trump is an isolationist who repeatedly said the Iraq war was a disaster, which it was. If the CIA is going after Trump they're
doing a bad job. The worst they could come up with is some unverified accounts that Trump likes pee-pee parties.
Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it
ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general
I mean a state of mutual distrust.
"... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course. ..."
"... Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria. ..."
"... This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.' ..."
"... If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it. ..."
What I found most impressive this time was the reaffirmation of America's dedication to the peaceful transfer of political power.
This was the 45th time this miracle has happened. Saying this is perhaps banal, but the handover of power never fails to make me
proud to be an American and thankful we had such brilliant founding fathers.
This peaceful transfer sets the United States apart from many of the world's nations, even Britain and Canada, where leaders under
the parliamentary system are chosen in a process resembling a knife fight in a dark room. The US has somehow managed to retain its
three branches of government in spite of the best efforts of self-serving politicians to wreck it.
Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will
be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted
attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course.
Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits
America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy
mess in Iraq and now Syria.
This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what?
No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a
great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.'
Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the
war party and deep state which just failed to stage a 'soft' coup to block his inauguration. Waging little wars against weak nations
is a multi-billion dollar national industry in the US. America has become as addicted to war as it has to debt.
If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the
hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a
Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump appears to have been gulled into believing the canard that Mideast-origin violence is caused by what he called in his inaugural
speech, radical Islamic terrorism. This is a favorite device promoted by the hard right and Israel to de-legitimize any resistance
to Israel's expansion and ethnic cleansing. The label of 'terrorism' serves the same purpose.
Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the
US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases,
acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it.
Unfortunately, President Trump is unlikely to get this useful advice from the men who now surround him, with the possibly exception
of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Let's hope that Tillerson and not Goldman Sachs bank ends up steering US foreign policy.
(Reprinted from EricMargolis.com by permission
of author or representative)
"... And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist. ..."
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for
the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then,
let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw
elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is
who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff
and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign.
He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably
picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment
agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right"
media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington,
D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't
believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE
than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State
in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical
New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But
Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and "supporting")
Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint
him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind
(NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he
appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the
swamp." You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump
would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating
and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true
judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume
that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because
at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades.
And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults
against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington
establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will
NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered,
there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"... Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen. ..."
"... Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications. ..."
"... With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. ..."
"... On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003. ..."
"... Yet by openly calling for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. ..."
"... Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed, battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to the administration's calls to back the Jewish state? ..."
The Trump Administration Is Reckless Enough to Turn the Cold War With Iran Into a Hot
One
Here's the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely
weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran? Could
military actions designed to be limited -- say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian
forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between
American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf -- trigger a wider war?
Worryingly, the answers are: yes and yes. Even though Western Europe has lined up in
opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against
it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of
such a war, it could happen.
Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran
is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged
anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most
hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton,
setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications.
Such a war could quickly spread across much of the Middle East, not just to Saudi Arabia and
Israel, the region's two major anti-Iranian powers, but Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the
various Persian Gulf states. It might indeed be, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
suggested last year (unconsciously echoing Iran's
former enemy, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein) the "mother of all wars."
With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints
remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly,
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, President Trump's
former favorite generals who had urged caution, are
no longer around . And though the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution last month
calling for the United States to return to the nuclear agreement that President Obama signed,
there are still a significant number of congressional Democrats who believe that Iran is a
major threat to U.S. interests in the region.
During the Obama years, it was de rigueur for Democrats to support the president's
conclusion that Iran was a prime state sponsor of terrorism and should be treated accordingly.
And the congressional Democrats now leading the party on foreign policy -- Eliot Engel, who
currently chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin, the two
ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- were opponents of the 2015
nuclear accord (though all three now claim to have
changed their minds ).
Deadly Flashpoints for a Future War
On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern
what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's
reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the
unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003.
Yet by openly calling
for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement
and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by
encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting
various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even
terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal
anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of
the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic
revolution.
There are three potential flashpoints where limited skirmishes, were they to break out,
could quickly escalate into a major shooting war.
The first is in Syria and Lebanon. Iran is deeply involved in defending Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad (who only recently returned from a visit
to Tehran) and closely allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite political party with a potent
paramilitary arm. Weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu openly boasted
that his country's air force had successfully taken out Iranian targets in Syria. In fact,
little noticed here, dozens of such strikes have taken place for more
than a year , with mounting Iranian casualties.
Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the
confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed,
battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to
retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would
soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to
the administration's calls to back the Jewish state?
Next, consider Iraq as a possible flashpoint for conflict. In February, a blustery Trump
told
CBS's Face the Nation that he intends to keep U.S. forces in Iraq "because I want to be
looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is the real problem." His comments did not exactly go
over well
with the Iraqi political class, since many of that country's parties and militias are
backed by Iran.
Trump's declaration followed a Wall Street Journalreport
late last year that Bolton had asked the Pentagon -- over the opposition of
various generals and then-Secretary of Defense Mattis -- to prepare options for "retaliatory
strikes" against Iran. This roughly coincided with a couple of small rocket attacks
against Baghdad's fortified Green Zone and
the airport in Basra, Iraq's Persian Gulf port city, neither of which caused any
casualties.
Writing in Foreign Affairs , however, Pompeo blamed Iran for the attacks, which he
called "life-threatening," adding, "Iran did not stop these attacks, which were carried out by
proxies it has supported with funding, training, and weapons." No "retaliatory strikes" were
launched, but plans do undoubtedly now exist for them and it's not hard to imagine Bolton and
Pompeo persuading Trump to go ahead and use them -- with incalculable consequences.
"... There are no agency in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ? ..."
"... Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no longer exist ..."
"... Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans, ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names. ..."
"... Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus. just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses. ..."
Though I would agree that an SEC type full disclosure prospectus required of candidates could be useful. There are no agency
in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally
done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected
do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ?
Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no
longer exist to those who are part of economic zionism (EZ); they use government to establish their monopolies not to prevent
them. Not only have the EZ eliminated International Law, they have given themselves, and each person they allow to be elected,
unlimited get out of jail free cards.
My question Captain Willard is: who would enforce the intentional misrepresentations, glaring omissions, hoax after hoax embedded
within the candidate prospectus you propose? Who who prosecute the lies? Who would prosecute the behaviors done contrary to the
promises made in the prospectus? Can't even get Trump to make public his Tax Returns and half the FBI can't publish an investigation
on el presidente.
Until governed Americans change the constitution to take the power to appoint the judges (article 3) and the Prosecutors that
can prosecute the EZ and the elected from the 450 Article I liars, and the 2 Article BoZoos nothing is going to change.
Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor
away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans,
ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names.
Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus.
just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses.
Trump has described his son-in-law as a "great guy". The president-elect has also reportedly taken the unprecedented step of requesting
security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential briefings, the first one of which was on Tuesday. It's unclear if
the request will be approved. It marks an astonishing departure and invites the accusation of nepotism.
Kushner's options for a White House job are limited given his family ties to the president, Richard Painter, who served as President
George W Bush's White House ethics lawyer, told the Associated Press. Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits
the president from appointing a family member – including a son-in-law – to work in the office or agency they oversee. The measure
was passed after President John F Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as attorney general.
But the law does not appear to prevent Kushner from serving as an unpaid adviser, and few doubt that Kushner will play a decisive
role in shaping the Trump presidency, acting as policy adviser and gate-keeper. As
Trump and Barack Obama met privately at the White House last week, Kushner strolled the mansion's South Lawn, deep in conversation
with Obama's chief of staff. As Kushner walked through the bustling West Wing during Trump's visit last week, he was heard asking
Obama aides: "How many of these people stay?", apparently blissfully unaware that the entire West Wing staff will leave at the end
of Obama's term.
His contacts already include Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch; he has received foreign ambassadors. Like Trump, Kushner has
never had a formal role in government, but he now appears set to be more important than many who do.
Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National
Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an
effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks
that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among
us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials
who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this
issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
The Trump Administration http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly no experts on his life or
times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a problematic president. But the Harding administration was
in some ways an impressive one, which served the country reasonably well.
It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president.
And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified
men who served with considerable distinction.
Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts spurred years of economic growth.
Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic
policies, brought the budget into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult
world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next decade, one wishes in retrospect
for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the
national mood.
In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft and George Sutherland -- were
distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things: He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that
era, in favor of racial equality; he commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways,
he contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.
The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration and that of his vice president
and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially
in the economic sphere; those years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.
President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that of President Warren G. Harding.
But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and also on its failures, particularly the scandals that
exploded into public view after Harding's sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions,
where they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.
Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately depends on performance. If a
Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but
because it provides a worthwhile experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows.
If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know something about golf. The failed
Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough
to carry mediocre or worse enterprises across the finish line.
To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only
gets you so far. Governing matters.
It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of governance that restored greater
responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency
also featured a return of authority to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory
led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and forms. It would be ironic if the
election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional normalcy.
If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena of either Warren G. Harding
or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.
But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory
over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the
reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great
again.
(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft & Wilson administrations, as the
GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)
Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the
"Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that.
It is the neocon's taking a back seat! Kristol is co-founder of PNAC along with a Clinton mob long time foggy bottom associate's
husband.. Trump is somewhat less thrilled with tilting with Russia for the American empire which is as moral as Nero's Rome.
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Prescient: dumping Kristol's PNAC will strengthen the republic.
"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom"
of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the
former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should
support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity
than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of
the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic
Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."
Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the issues in a polite and congenial
manner?
Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line
up with the agreed-upon party line.
Kristof panic was premature and just shows that he is a really has no political analyst
talent whatsoever. Trump was quickly co-opted by neocons.
It is interesting that Kristof, even at such an early stages of Russiagate was already
"FullOfSchiff"
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and,
according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree
with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character
by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack
on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager.
Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with
Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party
offices. That Watergate burglary and related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a
Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love for a
Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue
journalism.
Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering.
Russian agents apparently broke into the Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the
election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed by
Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."
In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know
for sure. There were other factors, but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the
emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.
The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and,
according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree
with that conclusion.
Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and
Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly, defending Russia from the charges that it tried to
subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's intelligence
community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the
dictator.
Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still
profoundly damaging to our system. It's not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an
election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would
be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George
W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may
have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he
excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials to a local union leader in Indiana.
Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character
by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its
attack on the United States.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager.
Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with
Russia's "Order of Friendship."
Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference
in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?
Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia
links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend
a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a
pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump
family itself has business connections with Russia.
Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National
Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an
effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks
that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among
us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials
who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this
issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.
That was written in March 2017. Looks like Paul Craig Roberts was completely detached from reality
Notable quotes:
"... By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade. ..."
"... These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems. ..."
"... Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next. ..."
"... Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth. ..."
"... The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there. ..."
"... Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"? ..."
"... The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction. ..."
"... W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel." ..."
"... "To see who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire ..."
"... Hint: If you criticize them, you're called an anti-Semite. And they're not even Semites. ..."
"... Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't use other, more crude adjectives .. ..."
"... What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn. He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he is still there with his team. ..."
"... No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead. ..."
"... It's war and there is no going back. Trump has the will and the resources, so all we can do is support where possible....and hope. ..."
"... The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here. ..."
The question in the title is V.I. Lenin's question. His answer was to create a revolutionary "vanguard" to spread
revolutionary ideas among the workers, the economic class that Karl Marx had declared to be the class rising to the ascendency of
political power. Finally, democracy, frustrated by upper class interests in its earlier manifestations, would become reality. The
workers would rule.
Given the presence of evil and human failing, it did not work out in that way. But Lenin's question remains a valid one.
Americans whose economic life and prospects for their children have been destroyed by the offshoring of American manufacturing and
tradable professional skills jobs, such as software engineering, answered the question by electing Donald Trump.
The Americans, dispossessed by the offshoring corporations, elected Trump, because Trump was the only American running for a political
office who called attention to the problem and declared his intention to fix it.
By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit
from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists
describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade.
These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the
payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous
pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure,
experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems.
When you add up the external costs of jobs offshoring that are imposed on Americans, the costs far exceed the value of the profits
that flow to the One Percent. Clearly, this is an intolerable situation.
Dispossessed Americans rose up. They ignored the presstitute media, or perhaps were driven to support Trump by
the hostility of the media. Trump was elected by dispossessed America, by the working class.
The working class is out of favor with the elite liberal/progressive/left which abhors the working class as racist, misogynist,
homophobic, gun nuts who oppose transgendered toilet facilities. Thus, the working class, and their chosen representative,
Donald Trump, are under full assault by the presstitutes. "Trump Must Go" is their slogan.
And well he might. Trump, in a fit of stupidity, dismissed his National Security Advisor, Gen. Flynn, because Flynn did what he
should have done and spoke with the Russian ambassador in order to avoid a Russian response to Obama's provocation of expelling Russian
diplomats at Christmas.
Russians have been demonized and ascribed demonic powers. If you speak to a Russian, you fall under suspicion
and become a traitor to your country. This is the story according to the CIA, the Democratic Party, the military/security complex,
and the presstitute media.
Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself.
At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions
falls, Trump is next.
Let's be clear. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sessions met with the Russian ambassador, just as he met with
a number of other countries' ambassadors. There is nothing unusual or surprising about a US senator meeting with foreign diplomatic
representatives.
Those who accuse Sessions of lying are misrepresenting the facts. Sessions met with ambassadors in his capacity
as a US Senator, not in his capacity as a Trump representative. As a former US Senate staffer, I can attest that it is perfectly
normal for US Senators to meet with diplomats. John McCain and Lindsey Graham even fly to the Middle East to meet with terrorists.
Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and
intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally
devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are
despicable, the scum of the earth.
The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National
Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev,
the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had
ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing
contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War.
I know. I was there.
But if President Trump wants to defuse the extremely dangerous tensions that the reckless Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes
have resurrected with a powerful thermo-nuclear state that only wants peace with the US, President Trump and any of his appointees
who spoke to a Russian are unfit for office! This madness is the position of the idiot liberal/progressive/left, the CIA,
the Democratic Party, the right-wing morons of the Republican Party such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and the two-bit whores
that comprise the Western media.
Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become
a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid
that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek
to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"?
I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and
awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western
media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer.
The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative
pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security
Deep State that is driving the world to destruction.
Trump needs to tighten up. Get even tougher than he is now. Go out and do more speeches. Take the message STRAIGHT to the masses.........unfiltered.
LET the MSM "fake" that.
W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel."
The neocons are Israel-first fanatics. They did 9/11 and support all terrorist groups. And because Russia came to Syria's aid,
they're after Russia as well.
In Dr Strangelove, the mindblowingly stupid response of the characters played by the generals saying "attack Russia no matter
what they do" was portrayed as a joke, and the audience got it. Nobody could be that stupid, so it looked funny.
We are in desperately sick times when the attitude displayed by those comedically-stupid characters has become our official
policy and our propaganda.
Let's pray the American people are not yet completely stupid, and that there are still enough who see this insanity for the
immediate and extreme danger that it is.
The purpose of all of this "RussiaDidIt" bollocks has long been postulated as having the purpose of starting the Last War.
The question arises: "Who benefits?" (Ordinarily, no-one 'benefits' and only morons think that a 'benefit' could arise)
But, just for a moment, turn it on its head and ask the counter-question: "Who benefits the least ?"
Pretty obviously, the USA and the Russian Federation come out badly. Assume the impossible: that it doesn't spread out and
result in planetdeath.
Who just (quite coincidentally - of course) had its main rivals effectively eliminated? Quietly. Efficiently. Anonymously...
Who, currently quietly colonizing Africa for its resorce base, might now divert their attentions to the (much greater and closer)
resource base to their North, West and East, ostensibly in the name of "reconstruction?"
Naturally, it's just a coincidence that a large slice of Global Manufacturing has recently been transferred to that country
(recent decades)
So congrats are due to the DemoCrud skum who perpetrated this crime against humanity as the willing "useful idiots" of the
PuppetMasters. Burn in Hell you motherfukkerz.
The only way to "drain the swamp" is to eliminate the brainwashed masses who enable the warmongering globalist neocons. Without
the democratic partys' tens of million sheeple, the power hungry devils like Soros, the Clintons, McCain, Pelosi, Feinstein, and
the rest of the "perverted elite" would have no power.
Having considered this FACT, I have decided not to oppose their quest to start a global thermonuclear war with Russia. I saw
war up close and personal in Viet-Nam. I am 71 years old, so not much time remaining to waste in a political battle against the
snowflakes here in Californicate. I feel confident that I have a better chance of surviving than they do.
I have also decided to sit back, with my personal defenses in hand, and watch them experience, up close and personal for themselves,
the horrors of war like they are presently inflicting on the mid-eastern countries. The children of these despots, if they survive,
will finally witness proof that their parents are the cause of their misery.
Then, and only then, will the survivors be able to reconstruct toward a peaceful world.
1. free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.
I agree, we're way past that ... Robert's knows this , all too well ..
Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't
use other, more crude adjectives ..
I cut him slack on his overuse of the word insouciant, because it would just seem so out of place substituting instead, "fucking
assholes," for every place it is prominently used in his writing.
I mean can you imagine?
No, I'm glad he's more refined than me. Makes for a more interesting and gentile world.
Hahaa Dr Strangelove. Strange movie, for even stranger times
"They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist
infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all
of our precious bodily fluids."
What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a
candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to
slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn.
He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he
is still there with his team.
Everything is obvious now and I think this is what Trump has been goading them into. Putting blood in the water to draw the
sharks to the surface. We will see.
i hope you're right. i keep wanting to think he's a clever fox but the acceleration of events is mind-boggling. the liberal
onslaught is from all directions and relentless. i pray he's able to withstand their attacks and counter with an epic T-Day rout--one
for the history books--that exposes and annihilates the seditious traitors in the world of public opinion, giving him political
capital to rid our nation of the unconstitutional Patriot Act and Big Brother's illegal 4th Amendment violations of illegal search
and seizure.
it's hard to keep the faith right now... i wanna believe he's got the wherewithall to pull this off. if i get weak and shout
for quick solutions, just downvote my stupid butt bigly.
No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew
it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead.
Give up guys... there's no winning this. The sooner we accept this the sooner we can maybe fucking DO something.
i think you are suggesting first touch/listen of utah spying. if true, step one. step 2 is to take down the main operatives
and bring them down with all the resources of the justice dept.
this is assuming that all parties stay in the confines of law...hmmm
Exactly, Trump needs to go on TV and speak plainly, layout the thesis as outlined in this article. Make sure the country knows
EXACTLY what is going on and what the stakes are. Most libtards don't have one fucking clue how they are being used by these sick
fucks. Get everything he knows and what he SUSPECTS, even with no direct evidence out into the general public. Time is running
short.
I don't twit. I don't even 'follow' a twit. I don't know how.
But I'm pretty sure this sort of message would take a hell of a lot more characters than, what is it, 140?
That means he would need some other means to deliver a complicated message that by-passes an inherently hostile media yet still
gets viewed by tens of millions.
Couldn't agree more. I fail to fathom how meeting with Russian diplomats constitutes any type of crime. That's what diplomats
do for God's sake. Wake up people before it's too late.
Ah, but everything PCR says is true. It's what he doesn't say that gives away the lie.
All of his articles demonize the west (and he's right). But he's deliberately not looking at the higher dynamics of this globalist,
central bank-led kabuki theater.
I think he's a 'gatekeeper' who's job is to point out the evils of the west and make the east look good in comparison, so that
when the 'reset' comes people will buy into the globalist one world currency that will be offered.
I've never seen him talk disparagingly about either China or Russia or the BRICS. Certainly he has mentioned the FED and the
IMF, but not the big one - the BIS - that I have seen. And until he does, he's just another Rothschild/Rockefeller plant to me.
he takes on the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, NATO, liberals, Ruling Establishment, Obama the War Criminal Butcherer of
Women and Children, Kissinger, pretty much everybody. i agree he's not a Russiaphobe, thankfully someone's got a balanced position.
anyway... we'll have to agree to disagree. i believe he's a patriot true blue... errr, red. nope. red, white and blue.
it's nothing to me and i'm not trying to defend him. i just think he's not what you suggest. professionals feel responsible
for their words and only write about what they know. we can all speculate about 9/11 but without launching our own investigation,
it's just "talk." and at PCR and Stockman's level, they refrain from flapping their lips to hear themselves speak, metaphorically.
> "He is a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy.
> He is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal.
> He was the "first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies [CSIS], then part of Georgetown University." It's worth noting that Georgetown is a Jesuit institution, and the Board
of Trustees of CSIS includes Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and representatives of Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Coca Cola, AIG,
GlaxoSmithKline, and Morgan Stanley (to name a few).
Looking at the high positions this guy has held in the Washington/Wall Street Establishment, ask yourself this: "Is PCR really
going against all of his lifelong associates or is he simply carrying water for them like he always has?" "
i consider myself open-minded and reviewed your link.
as far as the 3 bullet points the author suggests condemn PCR:
Austrian economics are largely followed by most conservative economists as opposed to Keynesian.
I would also argue the American govt pursues global hegemony, i.e., an American empire
Who among us would not believe there is widespread incompetence in DC? Would anyone use the term "competent" with Obama,
other than describing his knack for telling untruths and perhaps killing innocent Near East women and children?
He was former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan
A strong critic of the Bush (and later
Obama ) administrations' handling of the
War on Terror , he has taken positions strongly at odds
with mainstream politicians: harshly criticising the ineffectiveness, severity and high rates of incarceration associated with
the War on Drugs , excessive police violence and use
of SWAT teams against civilians. He has criticised the
law and order politics and congressional
approval of increased government surveillance associated with the
War on Terror age, which he views as fundamental threats
to the civil liberties and Right to Privacy enshrined
in the US constitution, opening the way for an oligarchic
police state to be imposed upon the US population... --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts
sorry, i just don't see it. as far as his association with the WSJ and Georgetown Univ, that would pretty much be the aspirations
of most journalists. and lastly, here are the closing statements from his newsletter yesterday:
The voice here at this website, my voice, provides perspectives that permit escape from the Matrix, but it depends on your
support. As March is upon us, so is my quarterly request for your support. So far, we have both kept our word. You have supported
the site, and I have continued to ruin my reputation in Washington by writing explanations that are unpopular in the ruling circles.
but even more than that, i read his articles and take what i want and discard the rest. no one is mind controlling me. can't
be brainwashed. got to have a brain first. (;
"I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left
anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media
or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer."
The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often
implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here.
Stay Out Of Western Hemisphere! Bolton Warns Russia Over Troops In Venezuela
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/29/2019 - 18:25 162 SHARES
The White House has dramatically stepped up its rhetoric threatening action against Russia's
military presence in Venezuela after the Kremlin deployed a troop contingency to Caracas last
Saturday.
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton took tensions to a new level, on Friday
issuing a new Monroe doctrine of sorts, telling Moscow any attempt to establish or expand
military operations in the western hemisphere constitutes a "provocative" and "direct threat"
to international peace and security in the region. "We strongly caution actors external to the
Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the
Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations," Bolton said in
a statement .
"We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and
security in the region," he added. This follows the president's own warning on Wednesday that
"all options" are on the table regarding potential expanding Russian presence in Venezuela.
Two Russian aircraft carrying about 100 servicemen and 35 tons of cargo arrived in Caracas
last Saturday, led by Russian General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, identified as chief of the Main
Staff of the Ground Forces and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of
Russia.
This prompted Trump's Wednesday warning to Russia against involvement in the Latin American
nation; he told reporters in
the Oval Office that :
" Russia has to get out."
Kremlin officials responded by explaining that it deployed military specialists merely to
service preexisting arms contracts with Venezuela, and that Russia is not interfering in the
Latin American country's internal affairs.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing on Thursday when asked how long the
Russian troop contingency led by a high ranking general will stay:
"How long? As long as they need to, and as long as the Venezuelan government needs them.
It all is being done based on bilateral agreements."
Russia's position is that it is not interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs by merely
cooperating on legal and existing service contracts, and that no other country should do so
either. It said that only "specialists" had entered Venezuela under a pre-existing agreed upon
military cooperation deal .
However, the White House isn't buying it, as Bolton's Friday statement further condemned
Maduro's "use of foreign military personnel in his attempt to remain in power, including the
introduction of Russian military personnel and equipment into Venezuela."
"Maduro will only use this military support to further repress the people of Venezuela;
perpetuate the economic crisis that has destroyed Venezuela's economy; and endanger regional
stability," Bolton
said .
All of this also comes as the Maduro government stripped US-backed opposition leader Juan
Guaido of his position in the National Assembly, further barring
him from holding public office for 15 years .
he actually never fought any war. He was under influence of Israel lobby from the very beginning (Kushner). Ao it was only natural
that Trump folded immediately after the election, not in April 2017 when he bombed Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... President Trump's first National Security Advisor Mike Flynn got kicked out of office for talking with Russian officials. Such talks were completely inline with Trump's declared policies of détente with Russia. (I agree that Flynn should have never gotten the NSA job. But the reasons for that have nothing to do with his Russian connections.) ..."
"... With Flynn out, the war-on-Russia hawks, that is about everyone of the "serious people" in Washington DC, had the second most important person out of the way that would probably hinder their plans. ..."
"... They replaced him with a militaristic anti-Russian hawk ..."
"... He is the main author of an Army study on how to militarily counter Russia. McMaster is likely to "resist" when President Trump orders him to pursue better relations with Moscow. ..."
"... Trump has now been boxed in by hawkish, anti-Russian military in his cabinet and by a hawkish Vice-President. The only ally he still may have in the White House is his consigliere Steve Bannon. The next onslaught of the "serious people" is against Bannon and especially against his role in the NSC . It will only recede when he is fired. ..."
Trump is losing the war with the "deep state". Badly...
President Trump's first National Security Advisor Mike Flynn got kicked out of office for talking with Russian officials.
Such talks were completely inline with Trump's declared policies of détente with Russia. (I agree that Flynn should have never gotten
the NSA job. But the reasons for that have nothing to do with his Russian connections.)
Allegedly Flynn did
not fully inform Vice-President Pence about his talk with the Russian ambassador. But that can not be a serious reason. The talks
were rather informal, they were not transcribed. The first call is said to have reached Flynn on vacation in the Dominican Republic.
Why would a Vice-President need to know each and every word of it?
With Flynn out, the war-on-Russia hawks, that is about everyone of the "serious people" in Washington DC, had the second most
important person out of the way that would probably hinder their plans.
They replaced him with a militaristic anti-Russian
hawk :
In a 2016 speech to the Virginia Military Institute
, McMaster stressed the need for the US to have "strategic vision" in its fight against "hostile revisionist powers" - such as
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran - that "annex territory, intimidate our allies, develop nuclear weapons, and use proxies
under the cover of modernized conventional militaries."
General McMaster, the new National Security Advisor, gets sold as a somewhat rebellious, scholar-warrior wunderkind . When the
now disgraced former General Petraeus came into sight he was sold with the same marketing profile.
Petraeus
was McMaster's boss. McMaster is partially his creature:
He was passed over for brigadier general twice, until then-Gen. David Petraeus personally flew back to Washington, D.C., from
Iraq to chair the Army's promotion board in 2008.
When Petraeus took over in the war on Afghanistan he selected McMaster as his staff leader for strategy. McMaster was
peddled to the White House by Senator Tom Cotton, one of the
most outlandish
Republican neocon war hawks.
McMaster's best known book is "
Dereliction of Duty
" about the way the US involved itself into the Vietnam War. McMaster criticizes the Generals of that time for not having resisted
then President Johnson's policies.
He is the main
author of an Army study on how to militarily counter Russia. McMaster is likely to "resist" when President Trump orders him to
pursue better relations with Moscow.
Trump has now been boxed in by hawkish, anti-Russian military in his cabinet and by a hawkish Vice-President. The only ally
he still may have in the White House is his consigliere Steve Bannon. The
next onslaught of the "serious people" is
against Bennon and especially
against his role in the NSC . It will only recede when he is fired.
It seems to me that Trump has been rolled with the attacks on Flynn and the insertion of McMaster into his inner circle. I wonder
if he, and Bannon, recognize the same problematic development and have a strategy against it.
Donald Trump's unorthodox US presidential transition continued on Monday when he held talks with one of the most prominent supporters
of leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders.
The president-elect's first meeting of the day at Trump Tower in New York was with Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic maverick who endorsed
the socialist Sanders during his unsuccessful primary battle with Hillary Clinton.
... ... ...
At first glance Gabbard, who is from Hawaii and is the first Hindu member of the US Congress, seems an unlikely counsellor. She
resigned from the Democratic National Committee to back Vermont senator Sanders and formally nominated him for president at the party
convention in July, crediting him with starting a "movement of love and compassion", although by then Clinton's victory was certain.
But the Iraq war veteran has also expressed views that might appeal to Trump, criticising Obama, condemning interventionist wars
in Iraq and Libya and taking a hard line on immigration. In 2014, she called for a rollback of the visa waiver programme for Britain
and other European countries with what she called "Islamic extremist" populations.
In October last year she tweeted: "Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won't bomb them in Syria. Putin did.
#neverforget911." She was then among 47 Democrats who joined Republicans to pass a bill mandating a stronger screening process for
refugees from Iraq and Syria coming to the US.
"... When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan. ..."
"... At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan – against Iran and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. ..."
"... Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space." ..."
"... That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population to death via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group, exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the Monroe doctrine essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk." ..."
A hefty case can be made that the Empire of Chaos currently has no allies; it's essentially
surrounded by an assortment of vassals, puppets and comprador 5thcolumnist elites professing varied
degrees of – sometimes reluctant – obedience.
The Trump administration's foreign policy
may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy
– as
in the whole episode of designating State Department/CIA regime change, lab experiment Random Dude
as President of Venezuela. Legendary cultural critic Walter Benjamin would have called it
"the
aestheticization of politics,"
(turning politics into art), as he did about the Nazis, but this
time it's the Looney Tunes version.
To add to the conceptual confusion, despite countless "an offer you can't refuse" antics
unleashed by psychopaths of the John Bolton and Mike Pompeo variety, there's this startling
nugget
.
Former Iranian diplomat Amir Moussavi has revealed that Trump himself demanded to visit Tehran, and
was duly rebuffed. "Two European states, two Arab countries and one Southeast Asian state" were
mediating a series of messages relayed by Trump and his son-in-law Jared "of Arabia" Kushner,
according to Moussavi.
Is there a method to this madness?
An attempt at a Grand Narrative would go
something like this: ISIS/Daesh may have been sidelined – for now; they are not useful anymore, so
the U.S. must fight the larger "evil": Tehran. GWOT has been revived, and though Hamza bin Laden
has been designated the new Caliph, GWOT has shifted to Iran.
When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was
absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani
intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money
and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan.
At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan –
against
Iran
and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have
been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. The Cui Bono riddle is which state would profit
immensely from a war between Pakistan and Iran and/or a war between Pakistan and India.
The bottom line:
hiding in the shadow of plausible deniability – according to which
what we understand as reality is nothing but pure perception – the Empire of Chaos will resort to
the chaos of no-holds-barred Hybrid War to avoid "losing" the Eurasian heartland.
Show Me How Many Hybrid Plans You Got
What applies to the heartland of course also applies to the backyard.
The case of Venezuela shows that the "all options on the table" scenario has been de
facto aborted by Russia,
outlined in an
astonishing
briefing
by Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and then
subsequently
detailed
by Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at a
crucial RIC (part of BRICS) summit in China, Lavrov said, "Russia keeps a close eye on brazen US
attempts to create an artificial pretext for a military intervention in Venezuela The actual
implementation of these threats is pulling in military equipment and training [US] Special Forces."
Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense
systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a
regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space."
The U.S. attempt at regime change in Venezuela has been so far unsuccessful in several ways.
Plan A – a classic color revolution -has miserably failed,
in part because
of a lack of decent local intelligence.
Plan B was a soft version of humanitarian imperialism,
with a resuscitation
of the nefarious, Libya-tested
responsibility to protect (R2P)
; it also failed, especially
when the American tale that the Venezuelan government burnt humanitarian aid trucks at the
border with Colombia was a lie exposed, no less, than by
The New York Times.
Plan C was a classic Hybrid War technique: a
cyberattack
,
replete with a revival of
Nitro
Zeus
, which shut down 80 percent of Venezuela's electricity.
That plan had already been
exposed
by
WikiLeaks, via a 2010 memo by a U.S.-funded, Belgrade-based color revolution scam that helped
train self-proclaimed "President" Random Dude, when he was just known asJuan Guaidó. The leaked
memo said that attacking the Venezuelan power grid would be a "watershed event" that "would
likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever
hope to generate."
But even that was not enough.
That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population
to death
via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned
Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group,
exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the
Monroe
doctrine
essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk."
Plan E -- for extreme -- would be U.S. military action, which Bolton won't take off the
table.
Show Me the Way to the Next War Game
So where do all these myriad weaponizations of chaos theory leave us? Nowhere, if they
don't follow the money.
Local comprador elites must be lavishly rewarded, otherwise you're
stuck in hybrid swamp territory. That was the case in Brazil – and that's why the most
sophisticated hybrid war case history so far has been a success.
In 2013, Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks revealed how the NSA was spying on Brazilian energy giant
Petrobras and the Dilma Rousseff government beginning in 2010. Afterwards, a complex, rolling
judicial-business-political-financial-media coup ended up reaching its two main objectives; in
2016, with the impeachment of Rousseff, and in 2018, with Lula thrown in jail.
Now comes arguably the juiciest piece of the puzzle. Petrobras was supposed to pay $853 million
to the U.S. Department of Justice for not going to trial for crimes it was being accused of in
America. But then a dodgy
deal
was struck
according to which the fine will be transferred to a Brazilian fund as long as Petrobras commits to
relay confidential information about its businesses to the United States government.
Mattis: Wrote on hybrid war in 2005.
Hybrid war against BRICS member Brazil worked like a charm, but trying it against nuclear
superpower Russia is a completely different ball game. U.S. analysts, in another case of culture
jamming, even accuse Russia itself of deploying hybrid war – a concept actually invented in the
U.S. within a counter-terrorism context; applied during the occupation of Iraq and later
metastasized across the color revolution spectrum; and featuring, among others, in an
article
co-authored
by former Pentagon head James "Mad Dog" Mattis in 2005 when he was a mere lieutenant general.
At a recent conference about Russia's military strategy, Chief of General Staff Gen.
Valery Gerasimov stressed that the Russian armed forces must increase both their "classic" and
"asymmetrical" potential.
In the U.S. this is interpreted as subversion/propaganda hybrid
war techniques as applied in Ukraine and in the largely debunked Russia-gate. Instead, Russian
strategists refer to these techniques as "complex approach" and "new generation war".
Santa Monica's RAND Corporation still sticks to good ol' hot war scenarios. They have been
holding "Red on Blue"
war
games
simulations since 1952 – modeling how the proverbial "existential threats" could use
asymmetric strategies. The latest
Red on Blue
was not exactly swell.
RAND analyst
David Ochmanek famously said that with Blue representing the current U.S. military potential and
Red representing Russia-China in a conventional war, "Blue gets its ass handed to it."
None of this will convince Empire of Chaos functionary Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently told a Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon will
continue to
refuse
a "no first use" nuclear strategy.
Aspiring Dr. Strangeloves actually believe the U.S. can start a nuclear war and get away with it.
Talk about the Age of Hybrid Stupidity going out with a bang.
"... Boeing compromised on sound engineering with the 737 Max . Recall the origins of the problem: Boeing was at risk of losing big orders to a more fuel-efficient Airbus model. Rather than sacrifice market share, Boeing put more fuel-efficient, larger engines on the existing 737 frames. The placement of the engine created a new safety risk, that under some circumstances, the plane could "nose up" at such a steep angle as to put it in a stall. The solution was to install software called MCAS which would force the nose down if the "angle of attack" became too acute. ..."
"... Merriam-Webster defines kludge -- sometimes spelled kluge -- as "a haphazard or makeshift solution to a problem and especially to a computer or programming problem." Oxford defines it as, in computing, "A machine, system, or program that has been badly put together, especially a clumsy but temporarily effective solution to a particular fault or problem." ..."
"... In the case of the 737 Max, it's the combination of how two separate problems interacted -- a plane whose design introduced aerodynamics issues and what now appears to have been a poorly designed anti-stall system -- that seems to be drawing many to turn to Granholm's term. The problems were compounded in many ways, including by the fact that pilots were not told of or trained for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) before the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 on board. ..."
"... "My concern is that Boeing may have developed the MCAS software as a profit-driven kludge to mitigate the Max 8's degraded flight characteristics due to the engine relocation required to maintain ground clearance," commented Philip Wheelock on a New York Times story about the plane's certification process this week. "Not convinced that software is an acceptable solution for an older design that has been pushed to its inherent aeronautical design limits." ..."
"... "Indeed, it seems the 737 MAX was a kludge to an existing design, and that MCAS was a kludge on top of that," said a commenter on Hackaday . ..."
"... Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing's new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor -- a type of sensor that was known to fail. ..."
"... That no one who wrote the MCAS software for the 737 MAX seems to have even raised the issue of using multiple inputs, including the opposite angle of attack sensor, in the computer's determination of an impending stall is mind-blowing. ..."
"... As a lifetime member of the software development fraternity, I don't know what toxic combination of inexperience, hubris, or lack of cultural understanding led to this. But I do know that it's indicative of a much deeper and much more troubling problem. The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far out of their league and did not know it. How can we possibly think they can implement a software fix, much less give us any comfort whatsoever that the rest of the flight management software, which is ultimately in ultimate control of the aircraft, has any fidelity at all? ..."
"... And we're giving short shrift to how Boeing compounded the problem, for instance, by making it an upcharge to have the 737 Max have a light showing that its angle of attack sensors disagreed (the planes did have two, but bizarrely, only one would be giving data to the MCAS system on any day), or hiding the fact that there was a new safety automated safety system in two paragraphs after page 700 in the flight manual. ..."
"... It's about an airplane manufacturer that put engines on an airframe they weren't designed for, having to add a flight control override to guard against said airplane's new tendency to nose up, and then adding insult to injury by driving that system with a single sensor when two are available. Oh – and charging airlines extra for the privilege of their pilots being told when one of those sensors is providing bad data. ..."
"... Officials investigating the fatal crash of a Boeing Co. BA 0.06% 737 MAX in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion that a suspect flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to people briefed on the matter, the first findings based on data retrieved from the flight's black boxes. ..."
"... Boeing is doubling down on its mistakes . The lesson of the Tylenol poisoning is that if a company has a safety problem, even if it isn't its fault, it needs to do everything it can to rectify the defects and protect customers. If there is any doubt, the company needs to err of the side of safety. ..."
"... Here, unlike with Johnson & Johnson, the failings that led to 737 Max groundings all originated with Boeing. Yet rather than own the problems and go overboard on fixing them to restore confidence in the plane and in Boeing, Boeing is acting as if all it has to put in place are merely adequate measures. ..."
"... [Former Boeing engineer Mr. [Rick] Ludtke [who worked on 737 MAX cockpit features] recalled midlevel managers telling subordinates that Boeing had committed to pay the airline $1 million per plane if its design ended up requiring pilots to spend additional simulator time. "We had never, ever seen commitments like that before," he said. ..."
"... I hope the pilots in our readership speak up, but as a mere mortal, I've very uncomfortable with pilots being put in a position of overriding a system in emergency conditions when they haven't even test driven it. When I learn software, reading a manual is useless save for learning what the program's capabilities are. In order to be able to use it, I have to spend time with it, hands on. Computer professionals tell me the same thing. It doesn't seem likely that pilots are all that different. ..."
"... Boeing does not seem to comprehend that it is gambling with its future. What if international flight regulators use the Max 737 as a bloody flag and refuse to accept FAA certifications of Boeing planes, or US origin equipment generally? Do you think for a nanosecond that the European and Chinese regulators wouldn't use disregarding the FAA as a way to advance their interests? Europe would clearly give preference to Airbus, and the Chinese could use Boeing to punish the US for going after Huawei. ..."
"... And yet we do not see anyone suggesting the obvious solution to this problem; eliminating the 737 MAX type of aircraft altogether. ..."
"... I don't think that Boeing can afford to drop the 737 MAX. This aircraft was in response to the Airbus as they did not have any new aircraft designs on the boards to take it on. So they modified a 1970s design as a profitable stopgap solution. ..."
"... Boeing were designing a follow-on to the 737, but panicked when the A320Neo came and went for the MAX instead as they could deliver it much quicker and cheaper than a new aircraft. ..."
"... If its true that they are another example of a once great engineering company enslaved to the quarterly results, then it may well be that all work on the replacement stopped when they put their engineers to work on the MAX line. If that's the case, then they really are screwed. Ten years is an absolute minimum to get a brand new aircraft delivered to customers from a standing start. ..."
"... The newer versions of the 737 have nearly twice the max takeoff weight of the original, but with the same landing gear and nearly the same wing area. ..."
"... Airbus probably can't produce enough Neo to make up for the shortfall, but they essentially own the Bombardier C-Series now (ironically, made in Mobile, Alabama and relabelled the Airbus 220) which could prove an excellent investment by Airbus. ..."
"... Regarding the FAA I have read in Spanish press that Daniel Elwell declared in the congress (translated from Spanish) that "I can't believe that airline companies tried to save a few thousand dollars on a feature that increases safety". This is a bad try to shift blame from Boeing to airline companies and if anything will reduce (eliminate) the international confidence on FAA regulations. ..."
"... Managers telling this to engineers before a plane is designed is one thing. Telling it to them after the plane been designed but while its user interface is being designed is outrageous. ..."
"... And I think the plane actually has two (one on each side) , but for some reason, their inputs weren't combined. There's a slight subtlety that the air flow is 3 dimensional, so when the plane is turning, and particularly turning+climbing, the readings of the two might vary slightly – but that's for the software to sort out. They reportedly didn't hook both of them up to both flight computers – why is an interesting question. There's probably a practical reason, but ..."
"... What the folks at Boeing may not realise is that the more they double-down on this bizarre tactic of using spin-doctoring as a crisis management tool aimed at an audience that is rapidly losing trust in the company ( and frankly may no longer believe anything coming out of the corporate communications department at Boeing), the harder it's going to be to reverse course by coming out and saying "we screwed up and will do whatever it takes to fix this". This debacle has all the makings of a large scale cover up and the continued mala fide attempts to deflect focus away from taking ownership of and accountability for this crisis will only result in continued assault on an already battered reputation. ..."
"... As an aside, the malaise at the FAA has been much documented on these pages and elsewhere recently, from the egregious abdication of its regulatory responsibilities to Boeing to having a top position go unfilled for over a year, my question to US readers is whether a comparable level of capture by corporate interests has similarly defanged the FDA? ..."
Boeing compromised on sound engineering with the 737 Max . Recall the origins of the problem: Boeing was at risk of losing
big orders to a more fuel-efficient Airbus model. Rather than sacrifice market share, Boeing put more fuel-efficient, larger engines
on the existing 737 frames. The placement of the engine created a new safety risk, that under some circumstances, the plane could
"nose up" at such a steep angle as to put it in a stall. The solution was to install software called MCAS which would force the nose
down if the "angle of attack" became too acute.
Merriam-Webster defines kludge -- sometimes
spelled
kluge -- as "a haphazard or makeshift solution to a problem and especially to a computer or
programming problem." Oxford defines it as,
in computing, "A machine, system, or program that has been badly put together, especially a clumsy but temporarily effective solution
to a particular fault or problem."
In the case of the 737 Max, it's the combination of how two separate problems interacted -- a plane whose design introduced
aerodynamics issues and what now appears to have been a poorly designed anti-stall system -- that seems to be drawing many to
turn to Granholm's term. The problems
were compounded in many ways,
including by the fact that pilots were not told of or trained for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) before
the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 on board.
"My concern is that Boeing may have developed the MCAS software as a profit-driven kludge to mitigate the Max 8's degraded
flight characteristics due to the engine relocation required to maintain ground clearance,"
commented Philip Wheelock on
a New York Times
story about the plane's certification process this week. "Not convinced that software is an acceptable solution for an older
design that has been pushed to its inherent aeronautical design limits."
"Indeed, it seems the 737 MAX was a kludge to an existing design, and that MCAS was a kludge on top of that," said
a commenter
on Hackaday .
Lambert found more damning takes, which he featured in Water Cooler yesterday. First
from the Seattle Times :
Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions,
from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for
crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing's new 737
MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component
redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor -- a type of sensor that was known to fail.
Boeing's rival, Airbus, has typically depended on three such sensors. "A single point of failure is an absolute no-no," said one
former Boeing engineer who worked on the MAX, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the program in an interview with
The Seattle Times. "That is just a huge system engineering oversight. To just have missed it, I can't imagine how."
And the second, from software developer Greg Travis who happens also to be a pilot and aircraft owner:
That no one who wrote the MCAS software for the 737 MAX seems to have even raised the issue of using multiple inputs, including
the opposite angle of attack sensor, in the computer's determination of an impending stall is mind-blowing.
As a lifetime member of the software development fraternity, I don't know what toxic combination of inexperience, hubris,
or lack of cultural understanding led to this. But I do know that it's indicative of a much deeper and much more troubling problem.
The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far out of their league and did not know it.
How can we possibly think they can implement a software fix, much less give us any comfort whatsoever that the rest of the flight
management software, which is ultimately in ultimate control of the aircraft, has any fidelity at all?
Ouch.
And we're giving short shrift to how Boeing compounded the problem, for instance, by making it an upcharge to have the 737
Max have a light showing that its angle of attack sensors disagreed (the planes did have two, but bizarrely, only one would be giving
data to the MCAS system on any day), or hiding the fact that there was a new safety automated safety system in two paragraphs after
page 700 in the flight manual. As Wall Street Journal reader Erich Greenbaum said in comments on an older article,
How Boeing's 737 MAX Failed :
No – this isn't about "planes that fly by themselves." It's about an airplane manufacturer that put engines on an airframe
they weren't designed for, having to add a flight control override to guard against said airplane's new tendency to nose up, and
then adding insult to injury by driving that system with a single sensor when two are available. Oh – and charging airlines extra
for the privilege of their pilots being told when one of those sensors is providing bad data.
The 737 Max has gotten a bad name not just for itself but also for the airlines that were big buyers. Southwest had taken the
most 737 Max deliveries, and American was second. I happened to be looking at American for flights last night. This is what I got
when I went to aa.com:
I came back to the page later to make sure I hadn't hit the 737 Max message randomly, by loading the page just when that image came
up in a cycle .and that doesn't appear to be the case. I landed on the 737 Max splash a second time.
This result suggests that American has gotten so many customer queries about the 737 Max that it felt it had to make providing
information about it a priority. If you click through, the next page explains how all 737 Max planes have been grounded, that American
is using other equipment to fly on routes previously scheduled for those planes, but it has still had to cancel 90 flights a day.
Officials investigating the fatal crash of a Boeing Co. BA 0.06% 737 MAX in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion
that a suspect flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to people
briefed on the matter, the first findings based on data retrieved from the flight's black boxes.
The emerging consensus among investigators, one of these people said, was relayed during a high-level briefing at the Federal
Aviation Administration on Thursday, and is the strongest indication yet that the same automated system, called MCAS, misfired
in both the Ethiopian Airlines flight earlier this month and a Lion Air flight in Indonesia, which crashed less than five months
earlier. The two crashes claimed 346 lives.
Boeing is doubling down on its mistakes . The lesson of the Tylenol poisoning is that if a company has a safety problem, even
if it isn't its fault, it needs to do everything it can to rectify the defects and protect customers. If there is any doubt, the
company needs to err of the side of safety.
Here, unlike with Johnson & Johnson, the failings that led to 737 Max groundings all originated with Boeing. Yet rather than
own the problems and go overboard on fixing them to restore confidence in the plane and in Boeing, Boeing is acting as if all it
has to put in place are merely adequate measures.
Reuters, which has a bias towards understatement, has an atypically pointed farming Boeing's refusal to recommend pilot simulator
training for the MCAS:
Boeing Co said it will submit by the end of this week a training package that 737 MAX pilots are required to take before a
worldwide ban can be lifted, proposing as it did before two deadly crashes that those pilots do not need time on flight simulators
to safely operate the aircraft.
In making that assessment, the world's largest planemaker is doubling down on a strategy it promoted to American Airlines Group
Inc and other customers years ago. Boeing told airlines their pilots could switch from the older 737NG to the new MAX without
costly flight simulator training and without compromising on safety, three former Boeing employees said.
The company had promised Southwest Airlines Co. , the plane's biggest customer, to keep pilot training to a minimum so the
new jet could seamlessly slot into the carrier's fleet of older 737s, according to regulators and industry officials.
[Former Boeing engineer Mr. [Rick] Ludtke [who worked on 737 MAX cockpit features] recalled midlevel managers telling subordinates
that Boeing had committed to pay the airline $1 million per plane if its design ended up requiring pilots to spend additional
simulator time. "We had never, ever seen commitments like that before," he said.
I've never flown Southwest and now I will make sure never to use them.
I hope the pilots in our readership speak up, but as a mere mortal, I've very uncomfortable with pilots being put in a position
of overriding a system in emergency conditions when they haven't even test driven it. When I learn software, reading a manual is
useless save for learning what the program's capabilities are. In order to be able to use it, I have to spend time with it, hands
on. Computer professionals tell me the same thing. It doesn't seem likely that pilots are all that different.
In other words, Boeing's refusal to recommend simulator training looks to be influenced by avoiding triggering a $31 million penalty
payment to Southwest. This is an insane back-assward sense of priorities. Boeing had over $10 billion in profits in 2018. A $31 million
payment isn't material and would almost certainly be lower after tax.
Boeing does not seem to comprehend that it is gambling with its future. What if international flight regulators use the Max
737 as a bloody flag and refuse to accept FAA certifications of Boeing planes, or US origin equipment generally? Do you think for
a nanosecond that the European and Chinese regulators wouldn't use disregarding the FAA as a way to advance their interests? Europe
would clearly give preference to Airbus, and the Chinese could use Boeing to punish the US for going after Huawei.
Boeing's comeuppance is long overdue. The company's decision to break its union, outsource, and move to Chicago as a device for
shedding seasoned employees was a clear statement of its plan to compromise engineering in the name of profit. Something like the
Max 737 train wreck was bound to happen.
And yet we do not see anyone suggesting the obvious solution to this problem; eliminating the 737 MAX type of aircraft
altogether.
The crashes of the early de Havilland Comet commercial jet aircraft all but destroyed English commercial jet production. Boeing
should suffer a similar fate as de Havilland. Indeed, since the Comet crashes were the result of a previously unsuspected design
flaw, and Boeing's problems are self inflicted, Boeing should suffer a more drastic punishment.
I don't think that Boeing can afford to drop the 737 MAX. This aircraft was in response to the Airbus as they did not have
any new aircraft designs on the boards to take it on. So they modified a 1970s design as a profitable stopgap solution.
If they dump the 737 MAX then they have nothing good to go for years. In that space of time Airbus would move in and take over
many of Boeing's markets and there would be new aircraft from Russia and China coming online as well.
I do not think that it would destroy Boeing as the US government would bail it out first, but it would be a colossal setback.
I doubt that they would end up on this list-
I understand that it can take up to ten years to develop a new aircraft, but the basic design of the 737 has been around since
the Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" (!). Given that Airbus, like Avis, was going to be trying harder for more market share,
was it totally beyond Boeing's capacity to develop a follow-on for the 737 over the past, say, 20 years?
Boeing were designing a follow-on to the 737, but panicked when the A320Neo came and went for the MAX instead as they could
deliver it much quicker and cheaper than a new aircraft. What I don't know is if they are still working on a replacement
or if they shelved the plans entirely.
If its true that they are another example of a once great engineering company enslaved to the quarterly results, then it
may well be that all work on the replacement stopped when they put their engineers to work on the MAX line. If that's the case,
then they really are screwed. Ten years is an absolute minimum to get a brand new aircraft delivered to customers from a standing
start.
The 737 was designed to be low to the ground because it was to serve small airports where the passengers had to climb stairs
to enter (which I remember doing at Burbank and Ontario years ago) The 737 Max is what you would get if the 757 and 737 had a
child. The newer versions of the 737 have nearly twice the max takeoff weight of the original, but with the same landing gear
and nearly the same wing area.
Perhaps a shorter version of the 757 would have been the correct move, but Southwest would have screamed bloody murder.
The problem for airlines is the need to have more energy efficient aircraft for both cost and environment pressure reasons.
The 737 max is a response to the airbus 321neo, but as I understand it, Airbus does not have the capacity to takeover cancelled
orders for the 737 max.
Do airlines stick with older 737 or brazen it out with Boeing that the max problems have been resolved? And passengers. I imagine
they will fall into the brackets I will never fly on a 737 max, or I trust Boeing/airline, or a fatalistic if my number is up,
my number is up'.
I regularly fly with Norwegian in Europe. However I for one will never fly a max and will now prefer SAS with the 321neo. As
for Ryanair, that has max on order, if they take delivery, bye bye them.
Maybe the new Russian and Chinese versions can be an option? Or will Trump sanction any airline brave enough to order them
instead of Boeing?
Airbus probably can't produce enough Neo to make up for the shortfall, but they essentially own the
Bombardier C-Series now (ironically, made in Mobile, Alabama
and relabelled the Airbus 220) which could prove an excellent investment by Airbus.
There are four other potential competitors –
the Sukhoi Superjet (which is a little
smaller so may not be a direct replacement),
The French have a significant input to the Sukhoi, while Bombardier were involved with the Comac. None of those are direct
replacements (they are generally smaller and shorter range), but they might suit many airlines who need aircraft quickly but won't
touch the Max.
None of the above can match the Boeing or Airbus for state of the art engineering, but they are cheaper to buy, so they may
well now be more attractive to budget airlines and third world airlines. The big one to look out for is Ryanair – they've long
been Boeings biggest customer outside the US and have stuck with 737's consistently.
They will do their usual tactic of demanding huge discounts every time Boeing look weak, and no doubt they will do the same
now. But they may decide to look elsewhere (especially as they don't really need the longer range as they operate exclusively
in Europe). If they opt for something like the A220 or the Irkut, then that will be an enormous blow to Boeing, because others
will follow Ryanairs lead.
PK, you said that the Sukhoi Superjet had significant French input. Does that mean physical components as well? If so, I would
be surprised after the Mistral amphibious assault ships fiasco. On this topic, I saw this week how the French were taking out
German components out of joint French-German weapons systems and replacing them with French ones as the Germans are wary about
arming countries like Saudi Arabia and so have a say in these joint systems much to the disgust of the French, hence the swap-out
so the French can continue to sell these systems.
I was thinking of the engines , which are a joint
project between a French and Russian company. Ironically, the core of the engine for the Sukhoi is the M88, the engine the French
developed for the Rafaele fighter. The French are exceptionally good at using military research to help their commercial companies,
and vice versa.
The French are also very ruthless (i.e. immoral) when it comes to export sales. This is why they usually only partner with
the British, as they know the British share their rather loose definition of ethical policy in weapons sales. And they insist
on Frenchifying their systems as much as they can so there is nobody to interfere with sales.
Kludge translates in spanish into "chapuza" and in my view expresses very well the "solution" that Boeing brougth to the 737
Max.
Regarding the FAA I have read in Spanish press that Daniel Elwell declared in the congress (translated from Spanish) that
"I can't believe that airline companies tried to save a few thousand dollars on a feature that increases safety". This is a bad
try to shift blame from Boeing to airline companies and if anything will reduce (eliminate) the international confidence on FAA
regulations.
Boeing is doubling down on its mistakes. The lesson of the Tylenol poisoning is that if a company has a safety problem,
even if it isn't its fault , it needs to do everything it can to rectify the defects and protect customers. If there is any
doubt, the company needs to err of the side of safety.
And that might, precisely the difference between the Tylenol and the 737 MAX affairs. Boeing knows it is their fault and the
blame feeling prevents them to act as rationally as Johnson&Johnson did.
The Reuters article also says the following, which seems incredibly damning:
At Boeing's factory in Renton, Washington, managers told engineers working on the MAX, including its anti-stall system known
as MCAS, their designs could not trigger Level C or D training designations from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration,
the three former Boeing employees and a senior industry executive with knowledge of MAX development told Reuters. Otherwise,
pilots would have to spend time in simulators before flying the new planes.
Managers telling this to engineers before a plane is designed is one thing. Telling it to them after the plane been designed
but while its user interface is being designed is outrageous.
Certainly a relatively delicate sensor with external moving parts is a super obvious point of failure that any engineer would
flag down instantly.
And I think the plane actually has two (one on each side) , but for some reason, their inputs weren't combined. There's
a slight subtlety that the air flow is 3 dimensional, so when the plane is turning, and particularly turning+climbing, the readings
of the two might vary slightly – but that's for the software to sort out. They reportedly didn't hook both of them up to both
flight computers – why is an interesting question. There's probably a practical reason, but
Sometimes in industry what happens is you are updating a system or product, you don't want to re-certify your electronics (to
make schedule or cost) , but you used all the input capacity on your logic systems/comms/wiring and still need more. So you have
to "get creative" squeezing functionality into your legacy electronics. I really hope it wasn't something like that.
ISTR that there was a crash in South America a few years back because both artificial horizons were getting info from a single
pitot tube that had been taped over when the plane was being washed. The thing is, there was a switch in the cockpit to select
whether the dual instruments were both using the left pitot, both the right one, or one on each. Using two sensors is not a new
idea.
As a business owner who also happens to be a pilot and aircraft owner, I've been following this fiasco with great care. While
not widely reported, Boeing submitted a software update to the FAA back in January. They're still dragging their feet and as a
consequence, folks needlessly died the EA crash. To those who would say, "Nope, this is all on Boeing and the FAA for letting
them run roughshod over the regulations!", let me share a bit of news with you to help you grok what dealing with the FAA is like.
Did you know AVGAS (aviation gasoline, e.g. the fuel used in the entire piston-powered fleet) still has lead in it? This, decades
after MOGAS (motor vehicle gasoline, e.g. what we buy for our automobiles) was banned from using tetraethyl lead (TEL) as an antiknock
compound!
Yet there's a drop in replacement available. Drop in meaning, refiners like Shell, Mobile, et al can begin mixing and distributing
it using existing pipelines and trucks without so much as having to first clean the equipment or change anything whatsoever. So
why isn't it used? It's because the FAA has been dragging their feet on approval. Put another way, the FAA would rather people
continue being adversely affected by lead in the environment than fast tracking this.
Source? I know the owner of the company, and stand up guy if ever there was on, plus I've got friends who have flown with this
fuel – extensively to help with testing. Bottom line? It works!
And while there's speculation this has to do with big oil not wanting to pay the patent holder and thus lobbying the FAA to
obstruct permission, I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Suffice to say this stuff has been available for years and the patent
clock is running down so you figure it out. Me? I do believe it's all about the Benjamins and am greatly saddened we're still
damaging the environment when a replacement fuel is available we could begin using by next week! I kid you not.
Just to confirm, my town is on the Colonial pipeline that runs up the east coast and one of the local terminal's operators
told me that they do add the lead for avgas here at the distribution facility. Switching to a different octane booster would be
quite possible.
On the other hand I'm not sure the limited amount of leaded gas used by prop planes should be considered that big an environmental
hazard (perhaps as someone who hangs around airports you feel differently).
–I'm guessing that sort of safety practice wasn't inculcated into the software engineers in the same way that it was for old
school aerospace engineers. Software is often a poorly documented, partially tested black box.
Trim systems have been a part of airplanes from the earliest experiments with powered flight. They can be as simple as a bungee
cord pulling on a stick, or as complex as multiple computers interacting in a *fly-by-wire* scenario. Pilots have to demonstrate
more than awareness of these systems; they must demonstrate competency in their operation and oversight.They have been trained
in how to identify, override, and compensate for malfunctions in any misbehaving flight control system in the aircraft for which
they receive authorization. One big unknown here (in my mind) is whether a malfunctioning trim system would (or should) have been
obvious to the flight crew. Another other big question is whether means of deactivation (not speaking of *override*) of the system
was the same as in the previous 737 variants. Typically; this might involve pulling a labeled circuit breaker to remove power,
and then manually adjusting a trim wheel on the console; or near the flight controls.
"an aircraft is a mechanical device; any component of which can fail" which I remember but increasingly; a COMPLEX electrical-mechanical
device .with input from multiple people's minds and hands
The history of aircraft design and flight testing is full of unanticipated complications; frequently addressed by tweaks to
details of structure and/or operational limits. The goal is to cover all possible permutations of problematic interactions of
aircraft; environment, and human beings. There is a great deal of precedence in this topic.
What the folks at Boeing may not realise is that the more they double-down on this bizarre tactic of using spin-doctoring
as a crisis management tool aimed at an audience that is rapidly losing trust in the company ( and frankly may no longer believe
anything coming out of the corporate communications department at Boeing), the harder it's going to be to reverse course by coming
out and saying "we screwed up and will do whatever it takes to fix this". This debacle has all the makings of a large scale cover
up and the continued mala fide attempts to deflect focus away from taking ownership of and accountability for this crisis will
only result in continued assault on an already battered reputation.
As an aside, the malaise at the FAA has been much documented on these pages and elsewhere recently, from the egregious
abdication of its regulatory responsibilities to Boeing to having a top position go unfilled for over a year, my question to US
readers is whether a comparable level of capture by corporate interests has similarly defanged the FDA? I only ask because
I see a lot of supplements and other medicinal products sold here in South Africa with the "Approved by the US FDA" seal of approval
and wonder whether deferring to US regulators by international regulatory bodies is still a good idea under the current climate.
The following statistical categories might generate interesting numbers.
#1: Total flight operations of all 737 types since introduction. (wheels up to wheels down)
#2: Same for Max variant in question.
#3: Difficulty reports filed for all 737 (flight related)
#4: Difficulty reports filed for Max (flight related)
Flight simulators are expensive and scheduling will likely be backed up, given the large number of existing and planned 737
Max aircraft. It's an important problem to fix, but not with the current workaround, which seems to be to use a tablet computer
instead.
One would think a tablet computer would be a poor platform for a computer game, let alone to simulate flying a commercial aircraft
with new s/w or h/w, the flight conditions under which they fail, and how to respond to them. All a tablet computer could simulate
is turning the pages in the flight manual.
Your note should be a useful reminder to the current generation of executives at Johnson & Johnson.
They and their peers at other companies seem to have discarded the crisis management gold standard established by J & J during
the Tylenol scare. It is cheaper, it seems, and provides fewer avenues of attack for the tort bar, to substitute scripts provided
by the apology industry, which can trace its origins to that same Tylenol scare.
This should be the end of the
Democratic party. This dismal state of affairs is their fault, from the content of the leaked emails to their handling of it.
They have had choices on the way to clean up their act but, they have blankly refused at every juncture. Not one thing has
changed since the emails revealed that the DNC rigs its primaries, and yet here we are in the middle of another fake primary
with everyone going along with it like it's a real thing. It's weird. In a healthy democratic republic the party would be dead
already, and a new one would've taken its place fueled by fresh energy and enthusiasm but the donor-class corruption is so
deeply entrenched that that possibility has seemed like a fantasy.
Gregory Herr , March 27, 2019 at 19:30
As an old-fashioned labor-lefty who used to call himself a Democrat, I'd say the
alienation continues unabated.
No illusions about who and what the party represents. Bad enough at home, but shit, they also
drop bombs like no tomorrow and spout lines from Langley and Likud like the back of their
hand.
As an armchair goof playing early guessing games, I'd say Sanders will pull at least the
weight he did last time as the uninspiring field of corporatists will split Hillary's wing
and the wild card Gabbard may draw support widely.
SteveK9 , March 28, 2019 at 10:03
Lifelong Democrat here that saw the writing on the wall, one year into Obama's first term (gave up on MSM during the runup
to the Iraq invasion). Although, I could hardly have imagined how low the Democratic leadership would sink with Russia-gate.
Gabbard is inspiring, but they are already starting to wear her down. I can't see anyone winning against imperial propaganda
at this point, but I will support her as much as I can.
Gregory Herr , March 28, 2019 at 18:40
I'm sending a small donation to help her get into the Dem debates.
"... Unfortunately, in every way that matters, RussiaGate has been a complete success. ..."
"... Though Trump says he is a Nationalist, his every move in foreign policy shows him to be toeing the line for the interests of the PNACers, and whenever he bucks their interests, he has shown that he can be brought to heel as long as they don't trample his ego. ..."
"... Tell them how utterly abhorrent and degenerate this war of terrorism against the Syrian people has been... ..."
"... I think there will be a major smear campaign against Bernie and Tulsi. Wikileaks has shown that the DNC had plans to smear Bernie as an atheist in 2016, among other things ..."
"... They will say that Socialism will bankrupt the Nation, and if we don't keep bombing everyone the "terrorists" will win. Divide and conquer is the game plan. ..."
"... They have retained the superdelegates for the second ballot, and they are running so many candidates that they are purposely aiming for a second ballot, where the oligarchs will once again decide for the people. ..."
"... Next step for the MSM propaganda machine? Probably assisting the CIA in whipping up war fever against Venezuela. ..."
"... They've pounded "Putin evil!" into the heads of their party fanatics long enough that shouting "Putin plus Maduro!" at them will have the most ardent Democrat voter screaming to massacre all of Caracas. ..."
I posted this on Medium when this article first came out.
Unfortunately, in every way that matters, RussiaGate has been a complete success. When
Donald Trump said "wouldn't it be great to get along with Russia" RussiaGate was born. The
thought of detente was his cardinal sin. That possibility has been completely demolished.
The
MIC and its trillions of wasted dollars are safe. The Evil Empire's Forever War continues
unabated, and even has new horizons in places such as Iran and Venezuela. Nuclear
brinksmanship keeps the R&D money flowing to Lockheed Martin and the other death dealers.
Though Trump says he is a Nationalist, his every move in foreign policy shows him to be
toeing the line for the interests of the PNACers, and whenever he bucks their interests, he
has shown that he can be brought to heel as long as they don't trample his ego.
The DNC/RNC theater will go on, and the MSM will seek to ensure that our choice for 2020
will be corporate sponsored warmonger from column A or B.
... ... ...
The young people of today spend more time on the internet than they do watching network
television, and 42 percent of registered voters didn't bother to cast a ballot in 2016.
Therein lies our hope.
Gregory Herr , March 26, 2019 at 20:30
The time is ripe for leaving the Democrats, Skip. I think Tulsi should take your advice.
But I've a funny feeling she'll throw the support she builds to Bernie towards a VP slot on
the ticket.
Tulsi Gabbard is saying things fairly directly that Americans aren't used to hearing from
their politicians. I love hearing it. But I have to say I'm bothered by her handling of the
"Assad question". She could simply relate some of her experience in Syria, including her time
with Assad. She could, in point of fact, refer to Assad as the President of Syria.
She could
say that Syria's culture and political system are their own and that we would all do better
to seek understanding of that culture before we set about trying to destroy it by arming
terrorists.
She did say the CIA armed terrorists in Syria, didn't she? Come on Tulsi. Just part of the
truth isn't enough truth. Tell them they ought to go to Syria themselves. Tell them the
reporters aren't doing their jobs.
Tell them how utterly abhorrent and degenerate this war of terrorism against the Syrian
people has been...
Skip Scott , March 28, 2019 at 08:13
I think there will be a major smear campaign against Bernie and Tulsi. Wikileaks has shown
that the DNC had plans to smear Bernie as an atheist in 2016, among other things. They have
Bob Parry's "Mighty Wurlitzer" and a vast toolkit.
They will say that the progressives are
splintering the party, and that getting rid of Trump is all that matters, so you need to hold
you nose and choose warmonger from column B.
They will say that Socialism will bankrupt the
Nation, and if we don't keep bombing everyone the "terrorists" will win. Divide and conquer
is the game plan.
They have retained the superdelegates for the second ballot, and they are
running so many candidates that they are purposely aiming for a second ballot, where the
oligarchs will once again decide for the people.
That's why a real progressive needs to split
from the Dems in a dramatic fashion , go third party, and shoot for the 15% to make the
debates. In the end, that's the only venue that matters.
AelfredRex , March 26, 2019 at 06:31
Next step for the MSM propaganda machine? Probably assisting the CIA in whipping up war
fever against Venezuela.
They've pounded "Putin evil!" into the heads of their party fanatics
long enough that shouting "Putin plus Maduro!" at them will have the most ardent Democrat
voter screaming to massacre all of Caracas.
Zhu , March 26, 2019 at 01:44
US elections are like those in the Roman Empire: prestigious but meaningless.
Zhu , March 26, 2019 at 01:47
America. We are definitely a genocidal nation. In all ways we are to blame for your own
problems.
"... All this is ignoring the real issue with complex aircraft today. To save money airlines pushed to eliminate the Flight Engineer. ..."
"... As the MCAS system has such authority to cause the plane to crash, a system like this should be quadruple-redundant to prevent a single source of bad data from causing a catastrophic loss of life. ..."
All this is ignoring the real issue with complex aircraft today. To save money airlines
pushed to eliminate the Flight Engineer.
The one time this scenario was avoided was when a jump seat pilot saw what was going on.
Both the captain and the co pilot had tunnel vision just trying to fly the damn plane. It's a
myth modern aircraft are less complex the older generation aircraft that required a Flight
Engineer. The computers work fine when everything is ok or the issue is straight forward but
when complexity enters during an emergency its far more complex than any old piston or early
jet aircraft.
None of these crashes would have occurred if a flight engineer was onboard. They have the
big picture on the air-frame and train to know that air frame backwards an forwards. The
pilots fly the aircraft while the flight engineer operates the systems.
Ask any qualified pilot these questions. You will get the same answer as above.
As the MCAS system has such authority to cause the plane to crash, a system like this
should be quadruple-redundant to prevent a single source of bad data from causing a
catastrophic loss of life.
This is compounded by the fact the pilots were unable to easily override the system and
unable to know _why_ they could not control the plane when MCAS malfunctioned.
There should be outrage that this was allowed to go into production.
These aircraft would be impossible to fly without automation. You would need at least 3 or
4 pilots and 15 engineers to keep on top of everything. There are hundreds of systems running
in the background. Airbus A series for example have anywhere between 80 to 120 million lines
of code depending on the type and configuration. Pilot's these days are computer terminal
operators. Errors are unavoidable in software until they fail.
The trick is simulation ,
clearly Boeing did not simulate any of this , this aircraft should not have been
certified.
The solution is less reliance on automation, at least not until AI is actually able to
intervene when sensors and software malfunction, and ESPECIALLY not with aircraft, for God's
sake.
One H1b to anotherH1b, "I thought you were supposed to fix those 297 stubbed out error
conditions on the MCAS stall sensor?" "No, I fixed the stubbed out error conditions on the
SQUALL sensor!"
"It's right there on the assignment schedule."
"What's the matter can't you read English?"
( The H-1B is a visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act,
section 101(a)(15)(H) that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in
specialty occupations. )
I got out of the coding business when they started putting these MFturkeys in charge!
This tragedy is as much about government corruption (FAA approvals) as it is about a POS
company, it's shitbag execs, or third world pilots for that matter.
Without cross limiting; where 2 or more inputs cross reference each other and limit output
if the variation exceeds a predetermined setpoint; Boeing employed a control system with a
single point failure.
Analogous to a cars cruise control speeding up if the speedometer failed and registered
zero mph.
I read that the Operator's Manual for this aircraft is 1400 pages. Is that possible? And
if so, is this MCAS system info just hidden on page 419 like in a financial document? 1400
pages is almost as long as the cautions in a new drug advertisement. And I'm sure the
technical translations for Indonesian and Ethiopian pilots are perfectly done and readily
understood.
That is why commercial pilots get paid high wages to do their jobs and know the aircraft
they are flying. They just don't walk into a new aircraft cold turkey. This issue is covered
in the manual and it is an issue that any pilot would note as a big deal. In 1965/66 the
well-loved 727 had 4 crashes because pilots didn't know the aircraft. This is the same
thing.
As the MCAS system has such authority to cause the plane to crash, a system like this
should be quadruple-redundant to prevent a single source of bad data from causing a
catastrophic loss of life.
This is compounded by the fact the pilots were unable to easily override the system and
unable to know _why_ they could not control the plane when MCAS malfunctioned.
There should be outrage that this was allowed to go into production.
The FAA had the final call on this and they failed to do their job. The MCAS was never
designed to mask the airflow issues created by hanging over sized engines on an airframe
designed for smaller nacelles. These bigger engines had to be mounted higher and more forward
creating airflow disruption over the wing during critical climb out conditions. This bird
should never have flown! It was flawed from the get go and the FAA let it slide. Now hundreds
of people are dead!
If the US government doesn't intervene, all would be very easy lawsuits to win. But I
suspect there will be political pressure placed to limit the liability of Boeing or a deal
struck to have US taxpayers bail them out.
I do not believe this story or any other story of how the Boeing 737 crashed. On a private
jet the engines are set in the tail. If the angle of attack is high, little to no air will
flow into the engines as the wings block sufficient air movement thus stalling. Hondajet has
improved this by placing the engines on the wing. The engines of a Boeing 737 are placed in
front of the wing, thus there should be very little effect to the airflow, unless of course
the angle of attack is approaching a very large attack angle of over 70 degrees.
With power settings reduced to lower fuel consumption aka costs, it doesn't really make a
damn where the engines are mounted.
Fed-up with being Sick and Tired , 33 minutes ago
link
The question is thus begged: did this NEW Anti-Stall System replace one that had caused
issues in the past? WAS THIS NEW SYSTEM needed? Are pilots not trained to invoke changes to
NOSE ATTITUDE when stall indicators, in the past, were alarmed?
The "let's assassinate some peps" system, through which remote control access and false
data injection into a so called "closed" system exists. The public are done being played as
fools, Boeing. How much did you sell the encryption keys for access into that closed system
to 3rd parties? Why did that northern Scandinavian country spend millions removing this very
system from their purchased Boeing planes? Was it because they knew? The CEO of Lion Air
knows also.
This makes a big assumption, that being the AOA was faulty and MCAS came on for no reason.
That's a big assumption and probably very wrong. MCAS comes on in stalls or high bank turns
which we know the ethiopian pilot executed a high bank turn. The likely scenario is that the
inexperienced third world pilot with his 0 hours of training on the Max miscalculated the
weight of the plane on takeoff and stalled it in a turn right after he put the gear up and
took the flaps off. MCAS came on as it was supposed to do, and would be the right thing to do
to save the plane. If he had taken his hands off the yoke and gone to have a pee, all those
people would still be alive as the computer, which is much smarter than the third world
pilot, would have flown the plane. Not understanding his plane, the 28 year old pilot fought
the MCAS at 1000 feet and bought the farm. The next shoe to drop will be the more interesting
one. They have already released the innuendo, next to come will be the hard facts. Let's
see.
The only winners in this will be the lawyers. My Dad frequently told me that lawyers were
bleached souls in tan suits. I didn't understand at the time but I do now.
We know that's not exactly what happened because Trump called them out with his double
meaning "737 killers" talking about CA death penalty and this obvious deep state distraction
murder.
Surely this will mean the plane has to be 're-certified' after maybe modifications like
additional sensors, software updates and extra pilot training have been factored in.
Increasingly looking like there will be no 'quick fix', and admitting MCAS was at fault is
going to open Boeing up to tons of lawsuits, not to mention cancelled orders. They'll need to
drop the 737 MAX name too I would guess, it's too tarnished now.
I'm very surprised that a responsible company like Boeing would put out such a bad system.
The program should have used readings from both sensors to ensure accuracy, and the cockpit
warning mechanism should not have been optional equipment given the critical nature of the
system.
"... The stall-prevention system on the Boeing Co. 737 Max jet automatically switched on before the crash in Ethiopia this month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing preliminary findings from data on the aircraft's black boxes. ..."
The stall-prevention system on the Boeing Co. 737 Max jet automatically switched on before
the crash in Ethiopia this month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing preliminary findings
from data on the aircraft's black boxes.
The conclusion was relayed at a briefing at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on
Thursday and is the strongest indication yet that the same system malfunctioned in both the
Ethiopian Airlines flight and the
Lion Air disaster in Indonesia in October, the newspaper said.
"... The MCAS system is poorly engineered and the design should never have been certified in the first place. But the issue is even worse. The certification that was given relied on false data. ..."
"... The first MCAS design, on which the safety analysis and certification was based, allowed for a maximum trim movement by MCAS of 0.6 degree of a maximum of 5 degree. Flight tests proved that to be too little to achieve the desired effects and the maximum movement was changed to 2.5 degree. ..."
"... No safety analysis for the much greater movement was conducted. The FAA and foreign regulators were not informed of it. Their certification of the 737 MAX was based on misleading data. ..."
"... But even those certifications were only conditional. They required from Boeing to include relevant training material that explained the MCAS trim system and its potential problems to the pilots. ..."
"... The original certification for the 737 MAX was issued by the U.S. regulator FAA. The European regulator EASA based its certification on the one the FAA provided but it added several of its own requirements. There is now documentary evidence that Boeing neglected to fulfill at least one of those requirements. ..."
"... The FAA is as regulator far too cozy with lobbyists and aircraft manufacturers. It outsources too much of the certification testing to the manufacturers. It should not have allowed Boeing to install a MCAS that depended on a sole sensor. ..."
"... "It's become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX," Ludtke said. ..."
"... MCAS was not the only change that made the 737 MAX a 'kludge'. The design errors were inexcusable . Boeing did not inform the regulators when it quadrupled the maximum effect the MCAS system could have. These changes had side effects that were not properly analyzed. Failure of the system was hazardous and extremely difficult to handle . Indicators lights showing that the system may have failed, a safety feature, were sold as extras . ..."
"... It will take quite long to certify the changes Boeing announced for the 737 MAX. Lawsuits were filed against the company. Orders were canceled . The company is under criminal investigation. The commercial damage to Boeing will likely be larger than currently estimated. It comes on top of a recent WTO ruling that Boeing illegally received billions of dollars in subsidies and will need to compensate its competition. ..."
"... The development and production of the 787 Dreamliner, announced in 2003, was outsourced all over the world. That led to years of delays and billions in development cost overruns. In 2010 Airbus announced the A-320 NEO as a better alternative to the 737 NG. Boeing was still busy to get the 787 into the air. It had neither the engineering capacity nor the money to counter the NEO with a brand new plane. It hastily revamped the 737, a design from the 1960s, into the 737 MAX. It promised to airlines that the new plane would not require to retrain their pilots. MCAS was specifically designed to allow for that. It was a huge mistake. ..."
"... Boeing once was an engineering company with an attached sales department. It 2001, when it moved its headquarter to Chicago , it became a dealership with an attached engineering wing. The philosophical difference is profound. It is time for the company to find back to its roots. ..."
For commercial reasons Boeing wanted the new 737 version to handle like the old ones. But
changes in the new version required an additional system to handle certain flight situations.
The development of that system and the safety analysis of its implications were rushed
through. Pilots were not informed of it and not trained to counter its failure.
The added 'maneuver characteristics augmentation system' (MCAS) depended on only one sensor.
When the sensor provided false data MCAS engaged and pointed the planes towards the ground.
Manual trim using the plane's trim wheel was required to regain flight stability. The pilots
were not aware of that. The regulators who certified the plane as safe
were unaware of the extend of the problem:
The MCAS system is poorly engineered and the design should never have been certified in the
first place. But the issue is even worse. The certification that was given relied on false
data.
The first MCAS design, on which the safety analysis and certification was based, allowed
for a maximum trim movement by MCAS of 0.6 degree of a maximum of 5 degree. Flight tests
proved that to be too little to achieve the desired effects and the maximum movement was
changed to 2.5 degree.
No safety analysis for the much greater movement was conducted. The FAA and foreign
regulators were not informed of it. Their certification of the 737 MAX was based on misleading
data.
But even those certifications were only conditional. They required from Boeing to include
relevant training material that explained the MCAS trim system and its potential problems to
the pilots.
The original certification for the 737 MAX was issued by the U.S. regulator FAA. The
European regulator EASA based its certification on the one the FAA provided but it added
several of its own requirements. There is now documentary evidence that Boeing neglected to
fulfill at least one of those requirements.
Page 15 of the Explanatory Note discusses "Longitudinal trim at Vmo". Vmo is the maximum
operational speed. The trim sets the nose of the plane up or down, independent of other pilot
input. Too high up and the plane with lose lift and stall, too low down and the plane will hit
terrain.
A failure of the MCAS system could trim the nose down. As a countermeasure the pilots would
have to switch the trim system off. They would then manually trim the plane back into a level
flight. This was a concern. The EASA note says:
Subsequent to flight testing, the FAA-TAD expressed concern with compliance to the reference
regulation based on an interpretation of the intent behind "trim". The main issue being that
longitudinal trim cannot be achieved throughout the flight envelope using thumb switch trim
only.
EASA considered the need to use manual trim "unusual". But it allowed it to pass because the
required training material would "clearly explain" the issue:
The need to use the trim wheel is considered unusual, as it is only required for manual
flight in those corners of the envelope.
The increased safety provided by the Boeing design limits on the thumb switches (for
out-of-trim dive characteristics) provides a compensating factor for the inability to use the
thumb switches throughout the entire flight envelope. Furthermore, the additional crew
procedures and training material will clearly explain to pilots the situations where use of
the trim wheel may be needed due to lack of trim authority with the wheel mounted
switches.
While the EASA was convinced (by Boeing?) that those situations would be discussed in
"additional crew procedures and training material", Boeing did not include it in the training
materials for the airlines that bought the planes:
Those situations, however, were not listed in the flight manual, according to a copy from
American Airlines seen by Reuters.
Without the additional procedures and training material the 737 MAX would not have been
certified. By providing the plane without the required training material Boeing essentially
handed incomplete planes to its customers.
The FAA is as regulator
far too cozy with lobbyists and aircraft manufacturers. It outsources too much of the
certification testing to the manufacturers. It should not have allowed Boeing to install a MCAS
that depended on a sole sensor.
But the bigger culprit here is clearly Boeing. The plane was developed in a rush
. Even its own engineers
doubted that it was safe:
Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked on designing the interfaces on the MAX's
flight deck, said managers mandated that any differences from the previous 737 had to be
small enough that they wouldn't trigger the need for pilots to undergo new simulator
training.
That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design
philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community
that was increasingly expecting automation.
"It's become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to
do the MAX," Ludtke said.
MCAS was
not the only change that made the 737 MAX a 'kludge'. The design errors were
inexcusable . Boeing did not inform the regulators when it quadrupled the maximum effect
the MCAS system could have. These changes
had side effects that were not properly analyzed. Failure of the system was hazardous and
extremely difficult
to handle . Indicators lights showing that the system may have failed, a safety feature,
were sold as
extras .
And today we learned that Boeing did not even provide its customers with the "clear
explanations" the certifications required it to deliver.
These were not 'mistakes' by some lowly technicians. These were breaches of legal
requirements and of trust.
It will take quite long to certify the
changes Boeing announced for the 737 MAX. Lawsuits
were filed against the company. Orders were
canceled . The company is under criminal investigation. The commercial damage to Boeing
will likely be larger than currently estimated. It comes on top of
a recent WTO ruling that Boeing illegally received billions of dollars in subsidies and
will need to compensate its competition.
All these are consequences of bad management decisions.
The development and production of the 787 Dreamliner, announced in 2003, was outsourced all
over the world. That led to years of delays and
billions in development cost overruns. In 2010 Airbus announced the A-320 NEO as a better
alternative to the 737 NG. Boeing was still busy to get the 787 into the air. It had neither
the engineering capacity nor the money to counter the NEO with a brand new plane. It hastily
revamped the 737, a design from the 1960s, into the 737 MAX. It promised to airlines that the
new plane would not require to retrain their pilots. MCAS was specifically designed to allow
for that. It was a huge mistake.
Boeing once was an engineering company with an attached sales department. It 2001, when it
moved its headquarter
to Chicago , it became a dealership with an attached engineering wing. The philosophical
difference is profound. It is time for the company to find back to its roots.
Posted by b on March 29, 2019 at 09:29 AM |
Permalink
"... While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating table. ..."
"... Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely? ..."
"... What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported by Iran, prevail. ..."
"... Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran." ..."
"... The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran." Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran. ..."
"... Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. ..."
"... We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era. ..."
In the Venezuelan crisis, said President Donald Trump in Florida, "All options are on the table." And if Venezuela's generals
persist in their refusal to break with Nicolas Maduro, they could "lose everything."
Another example of Yankee bluster and bluff? Or is Trump prepared to use military force to bring down Maduro and install Juan
Guaido, the president of the national assembly who has declared himself president of Venezuela? We will get an indication this weekend,
as a convoy of food and humanitarian aid tries to force its way into Venezuela from Colombia. Yet, even given the brutality of the
regime and the suffering of the people -- 1 in 10 have fled -- it is hard to see Trump sending the Marines to fight the Venezuelan
army in Venezuela.
Where would Trump get the authority for such a war? Still, the lead role that Trump has assumed in the crisis raises a question.
Does the reflexive interventionism -- America is "the indispensable nation!" -- that propelled us into the forever war of the Middle
East, retain its hold on the American mind?
Next week, Trump meets in Hanoi with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads
in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating
table.
Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a
withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely?
Nancy Pelosi's House just voted to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Senate may follow.
Yet Trump is prepared to use his first veto to kill that War Powers Resolution and retain the right to help the Saudi war effort.
What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian
disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported
by Iran, prevail.
Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open
meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common
interest of war with Iran."
The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran."
Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran.
Early this week came leaks that Trump officials have discovered that Shiite Iran has been secretly collaborating with the Sunni
terrorists of al-Qaida. This could, headlined The Washington Times, provide "the legal rationale for U.S. military strikes" on Iran.
At the Munich Security Conference, however, NATO allies Britain, France and Germany recommitted to the Iran nuclear treaty from
which Trump withdrew, and to improved economic relations with Tehran.
Trump pledged months ago to bring home the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan. But he is meeting
resistance in his own party in Congress and even in his own administration. Reasons: A U.S. pullout from Syria would abandon our
Kurdish allies to the Turks, who see them as terrorists, and would force the Kurds to cut a deal with Syria's Bashar Assad and Russia
for their security and survival. This week, Britain and France informed us that if we leave Syria, then they leave, too. As for pulling
out of Afghanistan, the probable result would be the fall of the Kabul government and return of the Taliban, who hold more territory
now than they have since being overthrown 18 years ago. For Afghans who cast their lot with the Americans, it would not go well.
U.S. relations with Russia, which Trump promised to improve, have chilled to Cold War status. The U.S. is pulling out of Ronald
Reagan's INF treaty, which bans land-based nuclear missiles of 300 to 3,000 mile range.
Putin has said that any reintroduction of land-based U.S. missiles to Europe would mean a new class of Russian missiles targeted
on Europe -- and on the United States.
Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the
first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus
Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.
We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field
armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era.
And the U.S. national debt is now larger than the U.S. economy. This is imperial overstretch. It is unsustainable.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever." Copyright 2019 Creators.com.
King of Faustian bargain of a US politician. Bernie showed his colors in the 2016 primaries. He can't be trusted...
What Bernie is doing is eliminating chances for Tulsi...
Notable quotes:
"... Thank you Jimi, for calling out even Bernie when he buys the corporate bullshit ..."
"... Seriously, if you still support this clown, you are part of the problem. ..."
"... There's nothing progressive about silence, tepidness, or even support for destructive policies abroad by the same forces -- & for the same interests -- that we claim to oppose at home. ..."
"... this is the bargain Bernie made to run as a Democrat ..."
"... Bernie lost credibility when he endorsed Hilary in 2016... Tulsi is the one for 2020... ..."
Aaron Maté tweets -- Do we need a new category for progressives whose progressive values stop at the US border?
There's nothing progressive about silence, tepidness, or even support for destructive policies abroad by the same forces --
& for the same interests -- that we claim to oppose at home.
Bernie lost credibility when he endorsed Hilary in 2016... Tulsi is the one for 2020...
pandastratton. 23 hours ago
Donate to Tulsi to get her on the debate stage!!!!
Dionysos, 19 hours ago
Jimmy I know Tulsi is the best candidate in terms of foreign policy, but Bernie is our only chance at getting a real progressive
in the White House!
People are suffering economically and that is the issue where the vast majority of support lies. If stuff like this splits
the progressive support and allows someone like Kamala to win in the primaries, things will get really bad.
Robert Rowland23 hours ago
Jimmy (God love ya), the Military Industrial Complex is the single most gut-wrenchingly ruthless, most awesome entity on the
planet. It has the ability to kill pretty much anyone they want without repercussion. No domestic political movement, even one
that holds the Whitehouse, is capable of bringing them down or even reining them in. They will eventually meet their demise through
bad management in combination with a series of misfortunes resulting in defeat in all-out global war. Until then, and while we
as a nation are still able, the best we common folks can hope for is this juggernaut (the true boss) to give us some measure of
these desperately needed social reforms. In other words, Bernie is just being realistic.
Meanwhile, Tulsi, The Real Deal Gabbard (God bless her soul), if successful, will be on a course to join the ranks of JFK,
RFK, and MLK.
Our much-vaunted democracy is a sham and our freedom isn't actually what it is represented as being. May I suggest you watch this
video and view it as a metaphor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8Rj5xkDPk
I am a former Trump supporter, hardcore Trump supporter but I got off the Trump train 2
years ago after he bombed Syria. I got fooled once but I will not be fooled a second time.
This country needs a real leader with real sincerity with a real heart for the American
people and that's Tulsi Gabbard!!!
The main stream media and pollsters are ignoring Tulsi. That means she is doing a lot
better than they are letting on. They will not be able to ignore her forever.
i love tulsi. something ive noticed a lot is her bipartisan support. both sensible
thoughtful republicans and sensible thoughtful democrats (yes they both exist) seem to be for
her. either way her anti war stance is something that i hope gets more coverage and people
see through the blantant mainstream media smear attempts. whether you vote for her or not,
it's refreshing and compelling to hear an iraq veteran take a strong stance against endless
regime change war.
Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. I agree that Tulsi would indeed be THE most
formidable opponent against "The Donald". She offers the greatest contrast to him and in
that, gives the electorate a clear defined choice. As a woman with a multi-cultural and
strong religious upbringing, a Gen Xer and a veteran, she has all the qualities that "The
Donald" lacks. In addition, her life long commitment to public service, as well as her
well-defined policy platform, puts the icing on the cake as the best "Anti-Donald"
candidate.
Some Democrats have been taking a lot of heat at town halls because they refuse to get
behind a 'Medicare For All' system. And it's not just that they're getting booed; their
constituents are literally calling for them to retire. Dianne Feinstein has been one of the
recipients of this outrage. Tulsi Gabbard, however, had overwhelming support from enthusiastic
constituents at her town hall because she actually pledged to support a 'Medicare For All'
system. In this segment, we juxtapose Feinstein's town halls with Gabbard's to illustrate
EXACTLY how you talk with your constituents about healthcare.
************************
The Humanist Report (THR) is a progressive political podcast that discusses and analyzes
current news events and pressing political issues. Our analyses are guided by humanism and
political progressivism. Each news story we cover is supplemented with thought-provoking,
fact-based commentary that aims for the highest level of objectivity.
Is Medicare "government take over of health care"? Hell no. People on Medicare visit the
doctor of their choice, and the doctors are private entrepreneurs - unlike the doctors in the
VA, they aren't paid a salary by the govt. Time to retire, Dianne!
Ecuador is a small country without the resources we have. They have single payer system.
In this country my medication, Xeralto, costs $300 a month. In Ecuador the cost is $90 a
month. I practiced medicine in Canada for two years. It is the way to go. It is less
expensive and provides better care.
Watching this old fartbag talk and STILL have a seat in the senate really boils my blood,
I can't watch this without my blood pressure rising which I'd get checked out if Medicare for
all was a thing lol
Tulsi will be the Bernie of the 2020 election. The problem is, the same corrupt sellouts
are still in control of the DNC. So unless something changes she will be shut down in favour
of people like Corey Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff.
I'm happy to say that my rep, Tim Ryan, was an early co-sponsor of HR676 and is a real
blue color progressive. However, I'm still calling and emailing others. Don't stop at your
own rep, folks. Please contact as many corporate dems as you have time for and let them know
that their job is on the line. The pressure must be turned up to 100!
Great 31 min presentation on Tulsi. Outstanding analysis of Tulsi as a candidate. Bravo
!!!
The idea the contrast between Trump and Tulsi will help Tulsi looks plausible. Trump is dumb,
corrupt, very rich and old chickenhawk. There can't be greater contract. She is almost 100%
opposite of Donald Trump.
In additional picking up voters disappointed with Trump she also will pick up large fraction
of voters that voted for Hillary.
The complication is the Bernie Sanders also runs and will attacks the same category of
voters.
True left was always anti-war, so Tulsi is the natural candidate of "true left"
In this video, I argue that Tulsi Gabbard could potentially make a very strong run in 2020
and that everyone who tries to dismiss her is vastly underestimating her potential.
Tulsi is my first choice, by a mile, for all the reasons you've mentioned. The #1
liability she has, only because of the fact that half of the American populace are ignorant
intolerant lunkheads, is her faith. She's a Hindu (which easily translates as being a Krishna
devotee.)
Only one correction. Assad isn't a dictator, he's been elected president of Syria in
democratic elections. And if you want to argue that the elections in Syria are rigged or that
the opposition candidates don't get impartial coverage in the press Well then I'd say that's
the same case of the USA and many other democracies around the world!
Tulsi Gabbard stands alone, she should form an independent party by asking the people to
donate to her cause. Bernie Sanders is a deferential failed candidate that is too worried
about the democratic party than winning for the people. It is too late to reform the 2
parties in charge since they are part of the cancer created by the Kakistocracy. Eventually
the masses will wake up, unfortunately they are in a catatonic state allowing the current
situation.
Surprised you didn't mention her religion: Hinduism. The left doesn't care, but you
mentioned that the right will have a hard time hitting her on traditional stuff... I think
that's wrong in one instance, religion. If she gets the nomination, the right wing
establishment will absolutely hit her on her religion, no question. I think you shoulda
mentioned that in your analysis.
I think your analysis is outstanding, many thanks! I haven't yet watched your other videos
but it's my intention. I agree with you almost 100% about Tulsi but am not yet convinced
Trump will be defeatable in 2020. I've been watching a lot of coverage from the conservative
right and he is way more popular than people on the left understand.
Michael Tracey (@mtracey) interviewed Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) in New Hampshire on March 23 and 24, 2019. They
discussed topics ranging from the farce of the Trump/Russia saga, her views on identity
politics, her religious background, her relationship with Bernie Sanders, and much more.
She is a real gifted politician. The question was very tricky. "Will you be able to pledge to
return any continuation of people who also donated to AIPAC"
Tulsi needs around 20000 more donors to be eligible for the Democratic debates. Please
donate a dollar to her campaign and tell your friends and family to do the same!
She will be dragged through so much mud by the establishment in the coming days, we saw a
glimpse of it in Colbert show, her training will help her a lot though
Rod, you just gained this subscriber excellent pointing this out! Once again Tulsi is
demonstrating she is on the right side of history and will even stand up to AIPEC like ilhan
Omar did sure would be nice to see Bernie make a similar stand!
Donate to Tulsi Gabbard campaign to help her get into the debates by donating to
tulsi2020.com you can donate more than once and they'll each count as a unique donation
even $1 at a time
AIPAC is a foreign terrorist organization that needs to be outlawed and any American that
takes their bribe money to do their bidding should be arrested for treason.
The more I hear Tulsi Gabbard speak the more I want her to win, and I am Irish living in
Dublin,
Ireland.You can tell by the reaction of the people there, what it means to them not to
have foreign government dictate their foreign policy
Trump is just looking for s big war, I think he reallys believe America can't be touched.
Meaning what he did with the golden Heights. Like really that's so wrong and you did it in
the open like it's not a bad thing. He's pissing off many countries and Russia is one of
them. Putin isn't happy ab the golden height thing.
Is there a website that list where candidates stand as far as the numbers they have and in
what states? I find it hard to believe that Tulsi hasn't reached the number yet, while other
less known candidates who entered after her have already blown past the needed 65K mark. If
this is something that is kept hidden, who's to know if more lying and cheating is going
on?
Tulsi Gabbard on AIPAC: "Our opportunity is to challenge leaders to see where we stand and
the policies we are pushing forward; and the kinds of debates and discussions we need to have
about our foreign policy and where our tax-payer dollars are going." My understanding: FP =
The US position on Israel 's policy vis a vis settlements and military entanglements.
Tax-Payer $$ = The money spent by the government in supporting the above.
This is, in my opinion, a very sane way to open the door to a healthy discussion about
such an important issue which up to now has been lopsided towards the Establishment's
position with little opportunity for the people to have a say in the matter.
The Daily Kos has made it their personal mission to make sure Tulsi has no success - or so
they said in an email just a couple of days after she announced. However, that didn't stop one
of the "Kosters" from putting out a more objective poll on Kos's website. 20k people voted in
this poll, and the results bode well for Tulsi.
Amazing level of polemic and diplomatic skills. That's really high class my fiends. Rare for
any US politician: most are suckers that can answer only prepared questions. MSNBC presstitutes
should be ashamed, but they have not shame. amasing !!!
In this segment, we look at Tulsi's savvy and brutally honest rebuttal when the Morning
Show hosts allege that "Russia" is looking to help Tulsi when the 2020 Democratic Primary
election
How it can be that there not 50K anti war people in the whole USA? Or they are waiting for something ? I do not know
what is the deadline, I do not understand why she still did not got 50K donations to bring her to debate. .
Tulsi needs about 20000 more unique donors to get to the debate stage! Tell your friends
and family to donate a dollar at
tulsi2020.com ! Even if she isn't their preferred candidate, they might still appreciate
a strong anti-interventionist voice on the debate stage!
A calm, thoughtful, anti-war progressive voice that we need to hear in the coming debates.
Please make a donation or buy something at
Tulsi2020.com She needs another 20,000 contributors to meet the DNC
requirement.
The situation that is developing around both this year's Israeli election and next year's
ballot in the United States smacks of something like a developing conspiracy to renew the
mandates of both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump somewhat reminiscent of the October Surprise that
helped bring Ronald Reagan to the White House. Back then, the Reagan campaign team led by
William Casey secretly negotiated with Iranian representatives to prolong the U.S. Embassy
hostage crisis past the 1980 election, enabling Reagan to use the continuing stand-off as a
wedge issue to attack the "weakness" of Carter foreign policy. If Carter had been able to bring
the hostages home, he might have won reelection. In exchange for a Reagan offer of considerable
military hardware, the Iranians agreed to release the U.S. hostages after the new president
took office, which they did. And Reagan provided the hardware in an exchange that eventually
morphed into Iran-Contra.
What is less known is that the initial secret meetings between Casey and the Iranians were
set up by a group of CIA Chiefs of Station who had served in the Middle East but were at that
time in Europe. The first meetings were in Paris. The Chiefs, all active-duty, serving CIA
officers, were working for the Carter administration but were conspiring to defeat him and
contributed materially to that outcome. Several of them were rewarded when Casey was
subsequently named Director of Central Intelligence.
Curiously, both then and now Iran was and is at the center of what might or might not
develop and there are clear signs that the United States is escalating its crisis with Tehran
artificially to produce a conflict that would benefit no one in the short term but Bibi
Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, who is struggling to get re-elected. A critical question
becomes "Since Trump has pledged disengagement in the Middle East, is it he who is pulling the
strings or is it National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
somewhat reminiscent of the cabal of CIA Chiefs conspiring behind the back of the elected
president in 1980?" But the more important question is, perhaps, whether Bolton and Pompeo
actually want Trump reelected or might they be engaged in something even more devious? Is a
Mitt or a Marco lurking, either of whom would be seen very favorably by Israel and the neocons
versus an extremely narcissistic and ultimately unreliable Trump?
That Washington has been slowly tightening the screws on Iran is undeniable, starting with
the withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement last year,
which has led to a level of economic warfare initiated by Washington that is unprecedented
between two countries that are not actually at war. Ironically and inevitably, though the
suffering of the Iranian people is real, the elites who run the country are largely immune to
the hardships being experienced.
As there has been no sign that the Iranian people will overthrow their government, which is
the White House's stated objective, more pressure is being contemplated. New sanctions were
initiated last Friday and a move that mighty actually bring about an armed confrontation is
being considered by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is clearly
favoring declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to be a foreign terrorist
group.
Qassim Suleimani ,
commander of the IRGC's elite Quds Force component, has already been designated a terrorist by
the U.S., but no armed forces entity from any country has ever before been awarded that
distinction and it would likely produce a serious response from Iran, possibly including an
attack on some U.S. military installation in the Middle East or against a U.S. Navy warship
patrolling the Straits of Hormuz. That would in turn justify a response and the crisis could
easily escalate.
According to
the New York Times, the Pompeo " plans also would designate some Iraqi Shiite militias as
foreign terrorist organizations. As a result, the Iranian-trained militias -- and Iraqi
officials who support them -- would be subject to new economic sanctions and travel
restrictions." This scenario would also compound problems with Baghdad, which is already
reluctant to accept the stationing of U.S. troops in the country without placing severe
restrictions on when, how and where they might be able to operate, and it would also be seen by
the rulers in Tehran as a major threat to Iran's national security.
So, there would be complications and also considerable downside if Washington were to take
the lead on designating Iranian or Iranian connected militias terrorists, but bear in mind the
considerable upside, which is that war is, generally speaking, good for incumbency unless it
quickly and undeniably goes disastrously wrong. A quick strike to punish Iran before the
Israeli election would help Netanyahu, just as a successful and not too prolonged "cakewalk"
engagement with the Mullahs would elevate Trump next year. The president and his close advisors
have surely noted that the only time he was regarded as "presidential" by the media and inside
the Beltway talking heads was when he ordered the launch of cruise missiles to punish Syria for
an alleged chemical attack back in April 2017. The fact that the attack was based on false
intelligence was irrelevant and it did not produce any damage to key voter constituencies,
apart from that segment of the population that voted for Trump because he was perceived to be
the anti-war choice for president.
The Israelis are, of course, deep into the planning for a conflict, and have recently
again
been promoting their repeatedly discredited casus belli claim that Iran has a secret
nuclear program. It would be reasonable to suggest that war with Iran is coming and it is only
a matter of timing concerning when and exactly how it starts. There may not be enough time left
to do Netanyahu a favor that he would surely reciprocate in American elections next year, but
you can also bet that the Israeli Mossad intelligence service is hard at work coming up with
"false flag" contingency plans to jump start a war sooner rather than later. There have long
been concerns that intelligence agencies might go rogue but we are now living in an age where
the existence of a "deep state" in many countries suggests that they have already been rogue
for some time, most particularly in the United States.
Suggesting the possibility of some covert intrigues behind the scenes in the Administration
does not necessarily mean that there is an actual conspiracy apart from that which is being run
by the White House and Congress against the American people. But because we live in a world
where we can no longer expect the government to behave honorably, it is wise to expect just
about anything. Politicians care only about retaining power by being re-elected in both Israel
and in the United States and, since the two governments are currently joined at the hip and
likely perceiving war as part of an electoral strategy, why not expect the worst?
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box
2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected].
"... It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government. ..."
"... Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu that the prime minister once slept in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place. ..."
No country in the world recognizes Israel's rule over the Golan Heights, occupied by
Israel in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981 – no country,
that is, until now.
Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Monday formally recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, still
considered Syrian territory under international law. Standing by President Trump's side during an address by the two heads of state
in Washington DC, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly called Trump's decision "
historic justice " and gifted the president a box of wine from the occupied territory. As they embraced, Israeli forces began
an aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip after rockets launched from Gaza hit a house in a community north of Tel Aviv earlier
that day.
Trump's announcement is unmistakably an election-time favor for Netanyahu. Saddled with multiple corruption charges, including
one for bribery, Netanyahu and his Likud party have been flagging in the polls. Likud increasingly appears threatened by the center-right
Blue and White party, jointly headed by the taciturn retired general Benny Gantz and former TV personality Yair Lapid. Netanyahu's
desperation can be measured by the extremity of his rhetoric. He and his surrogates have spent the past several weeks waging a hateful,
vicious campaign, accusing the Arab political parties of supporting terrorism and explicitly warning that a Gantz and Lapid victory
would lead to dead Israelis.
Many in Israel, however, view Netanyahu, despite his flaws, as a talented statesman and skilled advocate for the country's interests
on the international stage, and Netanyahu has campaigned on achievements such as normalizing relations with the Gulf states and the
US embassy's move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Golan Heights declaration – which initially took even the secretary of state, Mike
Pompeo, who was in Israel at the time, by surprise – is likely meant to bolster this image.
Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right
But Trump's Golan Heights proclamation is not just a cynical political gambit. It is a dramatic change in US policy in the Middle
East that could have serious consequences. Trump, unlike his predecessors, has never even pretended to abide by international norms
and conventions. And yet the decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over territory that the international community nearly unanimously
considers occupied, or at the very least disputed, is unprecedented.
It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers
live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government.
This potentially paves the way for Israel's annexation, in part or whole, of the West Bank. It has long been a talking
point on the Israeli hard right that, despite the international community's protestations, there would be few consequences for extending
Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank . Trump's declaration,
it seems, has not only proven them right, but given them an added boost: unlike during the Obama years, they can be confident that
the global hegemon will take their side.
If Netanyahu's Likud wins enough seats on 9 April to form a government, it is very like that annexation, at the very least, will
be on the table for discussion. The Likud's central committee unanimously voted in 2017 in favor of annexing the West Bank. Naftali
Bennett, co-chair of the New Right party, has proposed a plan to annex parts of Area C of the West Bank. And the other rightwing
parties – the extremist Union of Parties of the Right and Moshe Feiglin's Identity party, both of which would almost certainly sit
in a future Likud government – have only more extreme proposals for dealing with "the Palestinian question", including the forced
transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank and into Jordan.
Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right. US
ambassador to Israel David Friedman is an opponent of the two-state solution who previously operated the charitable arm of
a rightwing orthodox religious seminary in the West Bank settlement of Beit El. Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu
that the prime minister once slept
in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces
that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place.
It is important to remember this in light of the glitz and pablum of the AIPAC policy conference taking place this week in Washington
DC, where the PR hacks and policy flacks are working hard to launder Israel's image, to obscure the fact that there is one sovereign
state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that determines the lives of roughly 13 million people; that of those 13
million, only half – Israeli Jews – have full citizenship and social rights; and that the other half, the Palestinians, live under
a range of discriminatory systems, from codified discrimination but legal citizenship within Israel, to residency without the right
to vote in East Jerusalem, to military dictatorship in the West Bank.
Donald Trump , his administration, the pro-Israel lobby,
and Netanyahu all intend to keep it that way.
Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at Dissent. Previously, he worked at +972 Magazine and was based in Jerusalem
"... What in the world is a fascist Jew? Well, in this case, it is someone who uses violent methods to realize the logical consequences of Zionism -- if Israel is a "Jewish state," then non-Jews must go. How they ultimately go has been left an open-ended question, though Israel is engaged in a continuous effort to destroy Palestinian infrastructure . Fascist Jews advocate expulsion of all Palestinians and sometimes engage in direct violence -- akin to classic pogroms -- in an effort to fulfill this goal. ..."
"... The "migration" of Israeli Jews to the right has narrowed the gap between the majority of "ordinary" citizens and the fascists. So, back into favor come the Kahanists. ..."
An article published
in the Israeli news
blog
+972
on 19 November 2018
posed
the question: Why does the right keep winning
elections in Israel? The answer offered was "because
Israelis are right wing." Simple enough, and
apparently, quite true. The article estimates that
over half of Israeli Jews think of themselves as
"right wing." Self-defined centrists are about 25
percent, and those Israeli Jews who still cling to
"leftist" ideals are now only about 15 percent of
the population. The remainder are non-committal.
This movement to the right is often blamed on the
Palestinians, but that is largely an evasion. As the
story goes, it was the
Second
Intifada
(occurring from late 2000 to early
2005) that so scared a majority of Israeli Jews that
it "
led
to a migration
of left-wingers to the
political center [and] centrists [to the] right,
causing the percentage of Jewish right-wingers to
drift upward over the decade." While the "migration
to the right" has certainly taken place, it is
better understood as follows: under Palestinian
pressure for democratic reforms and justice, along
with corresponding resistance to oppression, Israeli
Jews who could not face the prospect of real
democracy had nowhere politically to go than to the
right -- what should properly be described as the
racist right. And, so they went. From this point on
there was no more obfuscation -- Israeli "security" is
now clearly a stand-in phrase for the maintenance of
Israeli Jewish domination over non-Jews.
Enter the Fascists
The present shifting about on Israel's political
landscape prior to its April 2019 elections confirms
this basically rightwing racist scene. Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed that Israel is
"the national state,
not
of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people
."
A minority of Israeli Jews might denounce such
racism, but Israel's recently adopted nationality
law states that the right of national
self-determination in Israel is "unique to the
Jewish people." And whether the "left" acknowledges
the fact or not, this law is in perfect sync with
Zionist ideology.
It should be noted that the prime minister's
personal preference is not for "the Jewish people"
as a whole. Indeed, in his eyes,
if
you are an anti-Zionist Jew you are an anti-Semitic
Jew
-- whatever that might mean. The prime minister
is more comfortable with Jews of the fascist, racist
right, with whom he has so much in common. This is
the kind of Jew he has politically allied with.
What in the world is a fascist Jew? Well, in
this case, it is someone who uses violent methods
to realize the logical consequences of Zionism -- if
Israel is a "Jewish state," then non-Jews must go.
How they ultimately go has been left an open-ended
question, though Israel is engaged in a continuous
effort
to destroy Palestinian infrastructure
. Fascist
Jews advocate expulsion of all Palestinians and
sometimes
engage
in direct violence
-- akin to classic pogroms -- in an
effort to fulfill this goal.
You might shake your head in wonderment at the
notion of Jewish fascists, but they have always been
an important element in Zionist history. You can
trace their activity from Vladimir Jabotinsky and
his
notion of an "iron wall"
(1923) that would force
the Palestinians to acquiesce in Zionist domination,
right up to
Meir
Kahane, an advocate of expulsion
, and his Kach
Party (1971-1990). It is Kahane's followers who now
are political partners of Netanyahu.
The "migration"
of Israeli Jews to the right
has
narrowed the gap
between the majority of
"ordinary" citizens and the fascists. So, back into
favor come the Kahanists.
What is an Israeli Centrist?
Nor should we look for anti-racist activism among
the 25 percent who see themselves as centrists.
Presently, those who seek to capture the centrist
vote are Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid. Gantz is former
chief-of-staff and a man who is being sued for war
crimes. He is leader of the Israeli Resilience Party
(Hosen Israel). That party has allied with Yair
Lapid, a former TV celebrity, and his There is a
future Party (Yesh Atid).
Both of these politicians
call
themselves "new centrists"
and concentrate their
platforms on "socio-economic issues such as the cost
of living." However, when it comes to the
Palestinians, neither of them are interested in a
democratic Israel that would afford non-Jews equal
rights -- nothing particularly "new" here for
"centrists." Gantz is the classic military maven so
prevalent in Israeli politics. Here is his view of
where "resilience" should take Israel relative to
the Palestinians: "The Jordan Valley will remain our
eastern security border," Gantz declared. "We will
maintain security in the entire Land of Israel we
will not allow the millions of Palestinians living
beyond the separation fence to endanger our security
and our identity as a Jewish state." For someone who
is campaigning on the theme that, under its present
government, "
Israel
has lost its way
," Gantz's intentions in this
regard are remarkably similar to those of Benjamin
Netanyahu.
Yair Lapid's position
on the Palestinians is
little different from that of Gantz. He says that
"we need to separate from the Palestinians," as if
Israeli Jews haven't been doing just that for the
past 71 years. He goes on to demand that all issues
of security have to "stay in Israel's hands," there
is no such thing as a "right of return," and
Jerusalem will not be divided into two capitals.
On the Palestinian issue -- the one that now divides
Israel from increasing numbers of citizens in the
democratic world -- there is little difference between
the Israeli rightists and the centrists except that
the latter do not publicly talk about the forceful
expulsion.
That approximately 85 percent of Israeli Jews
should end up unwilling to grant equal rights to the
20 percent of Palestinians who are their segregated
neighbors; that they should support, or at best not
act against the relentless, vicious process of
illegal settlement in the Occupied Territories; and
finally that they should react to Palestinian
resistance to Zionist oppression by "migrating" to
the right, is both tragic and predictable.
It must be realized that any country that allows
racism to rule its public sphere cannot pass itself
off as a democracy. It is simply a contradiction.
The Zionist experiment looking toward a democratic
Jewish state might have gone differently if it had
been tried somewhere devoid of a non-Jewish
population (like the moon), but then, in the end,
the Zionists became obsessed with Palestine, fell in
with the colonial mentality still prevalent during
the first half of the twentieth century, and have
never progressed beyond it.
To this point, I beg the reader's patience as I
repeat an argument I have made more than once in
past analyses: It is impossible to create a state
exclusively for one people (call them people A) in a
territory already populated by another people (call
them people B) without the eventual adoption of
racist policies by A and eventual resistance on the
part of B. Under such circumstances, for A, there
can be no real security, nor can there be anything
like a healthy national culture.
Indeed, unless a majority of Israeli Jews are
willing to go the route of South Africa and renounce
their program of discriminatory dominion over
millions of non-Jews, they have nowhere else to go
but head-first into the hell that is the racist
right. With 85 percent sharing, or at least
acquiescing, in the views of Netanyahu, Gantz, and
Lapid, the chances for redemption do not look good.
In fact, it is probably the case that the "light
unto the nations" has long since gone out.
Russiagate is a story about greed and lust for power manifesting as treachery and corruption.
As a hoax it is notable for it's size and duration and damage done. But it is nothing at all
compared to 9/11. I am impressed by the sheer silliness of Russiagate and the tenacious
ignorance of those who still believe the corporate media.
In a recent thought-provoking article
Gideon Levy, probably one of the last genuine Israeli voices for peace, claims that "It is
not Netanyahu who is responsible for Israeli 'racism, extreme nationalism, divisiveness,
incitement, hatred, anxiety and corruption.'" Behind Netanyahu, Levy says, there's a nation of
voters and other elected officials that aren't very different from their leader.
"Simply put, the people are the problem There are those who have hated Arabs long before
Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look
down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who
believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything."
Levy reaffirms the observation that I have been pushing for two decades. The problem with Israel is
not of a political
kind . The conflict with the Palestinians or the Arabs is not of a political nature as some
delusional characters within the Palestinian solidarity movement have been proclaiming for
years. Israel defines itself as the Jewish state. In order to grasp Israel, its politics, its
policies and the intrusive nature of its lobby, we must understand the nature of
Jewishness. We must learn to define the differences between Jews (the people), Judaism
(the religion) and Jewishness (the ideology). We have to understand how those terms are related
to each other and how they influence Israeli and Jewish politics globally.
Levy writes that "there are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to
do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that
international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do. There are those
who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the
whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do
anything, simply because it can."
In order to understand what Levy is referring to we must dig into the core of Jewish
identification and once and for all grasp the notion of Jewish choseness. Levy contends that
"racism and xenophobia are deeply entrenched here, far more deeply than any Netanyahu The
apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be
dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's
racism." Netanyahu as such, is not the disease. He is a mere symptom.
ORDER IT NOW
The devastating news is that neither the Israeli 'Left' nor the Jewish so-called 'anti'
Zionist league are any less racist than their Zionist foes. The Israeli Left pushes for a 'two
state solution.' It crudely ignores the Palestinian cause i.e. the Right of Return. The Israeli
Left advocates segregation and ghettoization; not exactly the universal message of harmony one
would expect from 'leftists.' Disturbingly, the Diaspora Jewish 'anti' Zionist Left is even
more racially exclusive than the Israeli Right. As I have explored many times in the past,
Corbyn's 'favourite Jewish political group namely, Jewish Voice for Labour
(JVL) is a racially exclusive political cell. It wouldn't allow gentiles into its Jews-only
club. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is no better. It will happily take donations from Goyim but
will never allow those Goyim to become its board members.
Levy proclaims that "Netanyahu is the best thing to ever happen to Israeli politics –
you can dump everything on him." But in his most astute observation, which has been explored
before by Uri Avnery (may he rest in peace) and yours truly, Levy continues, "It would be great
if some local Nelson Mandela would arise, a brave leader with vision who would change the
country's basic values and lead a revolution. But no such person has been born here, and it's
doubtful he ever will be."
Levy points at the core of the Zionist failure. If early Zionism was a promise to civilise
the diaspora Jew by means of 'homecoming,' Israel happened to do the complete opposite. Not
much is left out of the Zionist promise to make the Jews 'people like all other people': as
Israel is about to perpetrate another colossal war crime in Gaza, we have to admit that we are
dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.
Another good one Atzmon. I thinks it's hard for people to grasp outside of Israel the
connection you speak of between the religion, the people, and the ideology. Its underreported
for obvious reasons in the media, plus the control the Israel lobby and its donors the
Adelsons, Sabans, and Singers have in the US on what people hear about Israel and its
citizens. All you hear is it's a democracy among hostile states that hate it because of
freedom or democracy or whatever propaganda speak the mouth peace for Israel/Zionism media
uses. You never hear about Israel's and its citizens actions that cause it just the eternal
victim status they have been awarded.
Violent Islam is the Disease, Resistance Leaders are the Symptom
The author makes a good point. Netanyahu is not unique:
– Modi resists violent Islam in Kashmir.
– Jinping resists violent Islam in Xinjiang.
– Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary.
– Trump resists violent Islam in the U.S.
– Netanyhau resists violent Islam in Israel.
And, there are more cases not in the list above
Islam views all non-Muslims as infidels. Violent Islam wages Jihad until the infidels are
killed, converted, or willingly submit as Dhimmi slaves. Until Islam changes, Resistance
leaders will continue to protect their people. Perhaps the collapse of the Iranian government
and its funding of terrorism will open the door to that change.
______
Israel started as a far left venture where the people lived in true communist shared
estates know as Kibbutz. Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into
a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive.
The upcoming election makes no difference in Israeli survival strategy. Netanyahu's only
serious competitor, Benny Gantz, openly states he will fight Iran's violent Islamic expansion
in Lebanon & Syria (Iranian Hezbollah) and in Gaza (Iranian Hamas).
First:
Yes, do let's differentiate between Jews, judaism and jewishness (lest anyone be accused of
criticizing "Jews the people," which is something only an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew
might do, isn't it?).
The Jews are the people, judaism is their deeply inculcated worldview and ethos, and
jewishness is their inherently logical behavior.
Or the Jews are the computer, judaism is its operating system and jewishness its
applications.
Or the Jews are the rice, while judaism and jewishness are the white on rice.
Second:
The zionism did NOT fail to deliver its promise to make the Jews "people like other people."
It is Atzmon who fails to understand that the Jews' definition of "people" ("nations") is
based on the very Jewish worldview of the model: irrationally hateful, brutal, greedy,
covetous, and ruthless "winners." I would say zionism succeeded remarkably well, but it had
eager students to start with.
Mr. Atzmon has painted himself in a corner on this otherwise tough editorial. But let's
give him some credit. Gilad's taken a hell of a lotta heat for his rough and penetrating
criticisms of the Zionist colony and its endless deceptions. And he (generally) pulls no
punches.
But when all is said and done, and all the hairs are split, and all the (overdue) debates
are finally finished (and we can somehow separate the 'racist' Jews from the good,
'humanitarian' Jews) we are nevertheless left with a core Jewish identity that puts God's
Chosen People forever and eternally above the rest of humanity. God says so!
Basically, the problem is that Jewishness and 'Jewish supremacism' are pretty much one and
the same.
@A123
"Israel started as a far left venture Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed
the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive."
I wonder why the Palestinians employ violence ? Of course, the State of Israel was born out
of terrorism (King David hotel, multiple assassinations etc) & ethnic cleansing (ie Nakba
). And yes, the Palestinians were also violent.
As for Israel's "survival" -- that's been a none issue since the late 70's, at a minimum.
Israel with its 100's of nuclear weapons & it's US body guard has NO survival issues.
It's all the poor bastards around them who have survival problems : (Syria, Lebanon, Gaza,
Iran, Libya etc)
Typical brain dead Hasbara nonsense. Orban resists third world immigration, which I
support, the problem is about mass non white immigration not Islam. The ultimate problem is
the jew, it is they that push for mass immigration and miscegenation the most.
And the rest of this article just goes on and on about how evil , Israel, Israelis are ,
and as to how they are self-justified and unified in being so. And this is a Jew writing
this.
Wow. What is the world to do? Doesn't seem to be any other option or solution, except a
trip to Wannsee.
@A123
Dancing Isreaeli said to the cops:" We are not your problem . Arabs are "
This guy is shouting at China India Russia and at the God : Israel is not the problem Its
these Muslims.
Question is this : will these guys be allowed on the graves of the 911 victims strewn all
across the world- Germany Soviet Russia, Poland, American rust belt, WW1 and 2 British
cemeteries?
When did they say something that turned out to be true?
Having said that, the world would be a better place if they ended up destroying elite run
US UK . Yes they would cut the branch on which they are sitting . But they would jump the
ship just before taht happening
You know Albert Sasson whow as knighted , who married in Riothchilds family, whose grand
son / nephew or another Sasson – by name Amery gave us the Balfour in part . He was
thrown out of Iraq court for corruption He made it to Raj's India and planted the seed of
opium That soon ate up all the available fertile lands of north India . The opium made him
rich made India poor corrupted British Raj and led to Chinese deprivations rebellion and to
communism
@neutral
Regardless, Jews (definition as provided and all three facets) are the most coherent group
globally. They can muster the most coordination, the strongest drive, the detachment and
loyalty, add as needed,
Since everyone here on unz likes thinking in bursts, to the matter. That makes for
success. No reason to whine about for the loosing party, the WASP, traditional US elites. If
some other group has ambitions, it should acquire that type of quality identity.
Islam is a poor enemy, as Jews see them as target practice, so should other entities
maybe.
Western European descend Whites, and the ambition of enlightenment, (for one, all
individuals across ethnic and religious lines being equals), should stow their ambitions of
principle until they are in charge. That will require appropriating the same acerbic mindset
of the Jew, and not whine publicly about the teacher. White elites have sold out, they are
burdened by a commoner population that far exceeds any asset value. To disconnect their base,
also made them hostages of Jew elites.
From the point of view of the Euro-descend commoner, non-Jew, unpriviledged, as long as
they see themselves as genuine and belonging to the system, the US, and not the trash they
are treated as, as long as the non-Jewish middle classes continue their egocentric quest for
scraps, they deserve the Gaza they are converted into. No Jew should be blamed for pushing an
outsider into demise. The tactics are in the open for grabs, Whites (non-Latino, non-Jew)
have only themselves to blame for their demise.
Bush II campaigned on "no nation building" mantra. He lied. Crump campaigned no foreign wars manta. He lied.
Notable quotes:
"... The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct. ..."
"... Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief. ..."
"... John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to retire that label . ..."
The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder
of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct.
Former George W. Bush mouthpiece Ari Fleischer supplied a
promptly ratioed
tweetstorm that quibbled with the "Bush
lied, people died" mantra concerning his old boss's handling of the intelligence on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Never Trumper David French
gamely argued
that Saddam Hussein was a greater source of instability than the chaos brought about by the invasion, followed by Barack Obama's
withdrawal. In so doing, French reminded us that, however off-putting some conservatives find Donald Trump, the president's
criticism
of the war matters more to
many of those who devote their time to denouncing his every utterance.
Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking
bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's
protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief.
John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United
States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the
war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending
toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to
retire that label .
"The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow," Fleischer tweeted on March
19. "There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no
WMDs were found, the left claimed 'Bush lied. People died.' This accusation itself is a lie.
It's time to put it to rest."
Fleischer goes on to declare that "The fact is that President Bush (and I as press
secretary) faithfully and accurately reported to the public what the intelligence community
concluded," before noting that "The CIA, along with the intelligence services of Egypt, France,
Israel and others concluded that Saddam had WMD. We all turned out to be wrong. That is very
different from lying."
As a Chief Weapons Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq from
1991 through 1998, I was intimately familiar with the intelligence used by the U.S.
Intelligence Community to underpin the case for war (which I debunked in June 2002 in an
article published in Arms Control Today ). Armed with the
unique insights that came from this experience, I can state clearly and without any reservation
that Ari Fleischer, once again, has misrepresented the facts when it comes to the Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.
Advertisement
The fact is, the Iraq War was never about WMD. Rather, it was waged for one purpose and one
purpose only -- regime change. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the sole focus of this effort,
and the so-called "intelligence" used to justify this act was merely an excuse for action. Ari
Fleischer knows this, and to contend otherwise -- as he does via twitter -- is simply a
continuation of the lies he told from the very beginning about the U.S. case for war with
Iraq.
UNSCOM had, by the fall of 2002, been relegated to the pages of history, replaced by a new
inspection organization, the United
Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) . It is through the
work of UNMOVIC that Ari Fleischer's defense of George W. Bush collapses. In November 2002 the
Bush administration pushed for the UN Security Council to pass Resolution
1441 , which found Iraq to be in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations.
Inspectors from UNMOVIC were dispatched to Iraq shortly thereafter in a last-ditch effort to
account for the totality of Iraq's WMD.
The work of the inspectors was undermined from the start by the Bush administration, led by
Ari Fleischer. "It is very well true that the inspectors who are working as diligently as they
can in an environment made very difficult for them by Iraqi actions, may not be giving notice,"
Fleischer
explained in a press conference, "but that does not mean Iraq is not receiving notice as a
result of their electronic means and other means to know what the inspectors are doing. Which
puts the inspectors in a very hard position."
But Fleischer had no evidence that Iraq was getting advance notice, and the experience of UNMOVIC
inspectors on the ground suggested otherwise. When asked by a reporter about the
possibility of giving the UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their task, Fleischer
fired back, asking "More time for what? More time to be run-around by a regime that has not
complied, that has concealed its weapons, and that has grown throughout the years --
particularly the four years when no one was in the country -- extraordinarily good at hiding
what they have and deceiving those who are there to do their level best."
Left unsaid was the fact that the inspectors had repeatedly asked the U.S. for access to the
very intelligence being used to underpin the American claims that Iraq was holding on to
prohibited WMD and were denied. "If the UK and the U.S. are convinced and they say they have
evidence," Hans
Blix, the head of UNMOVIC, had noted on December 20, 2002, "then one would expect they
would be able to tell us where is this stuff." When asked if they were getting cooperation from
U.S. and Western intelligence agencies, Blix replied, "Not yet. We get some, but we don't get
all we need."
In 2010,
Blix commented on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1441, which had declared
Iraq to be in "material breach" of its obligation to disarm, and which was cited
by Ari Fleischer to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003. "The
declaration, I felt, might give Iraq a chance for a new start," Blix noted, " except that it
was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they didn't have any. "
This is the conclusion that anyone taking umbrage with Ari Fleischer over his attempt to
whitewash the role he played -- as an extension of President George W. Bush -- in facilitating
the Iraq War should rely on. Deflecting blame onto the U.S. intelligence community ignores the
fact that the decision to go to war was the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch that
Fleischer served. Iraq's alleged retention of proscribed WMD were merely an excuse to achieve
the higher goal of regime change. The inspection process initiated in November 2002 to
investigate Iraq's WMD programs was, from the U.S. perspective, a façade created to
justify a decision to go to war that was made long before the inspectors ever set foot on the
ground.
"Intelligence," therefore, was an artifice manufactured by the Bush administration as a
smoke screen. A memorandum prepared by
the head of the British MI-6 intelligence service , Richard Dearlove, following a July 23,
2002 meeting in Washington, DC, underscores this truth: "There was a perceptible shift in
attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through
military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD . But the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Bush knew that the engagement with the United Nations, including the crafting of resolution
1441 and the dispatch of inspectors to Iraq, was simply an elaborate charade, cruel theatrics
meant to dangle the prospects of peace, all the while preparing for war -- something Ari
Fleischer knew all along, as this exchange
with the press aptly demonstrates:
Question: "Does regime change mean that you want to change the leader of Iraq, or you want
to change the nature of the regime?"
Fleischer: "The objective is for Saddam Hussein's Iraq to disarm, to stop threatening its
neighbors, to stop repressing minorities within its own country. And that's why Congress passed
the policy of regime change."
Press: "Well, which of those definitions is correct?"
Fleischer: "Well, let's do it -- let me cut to the bottom line on it. What I would propose
is that in the event Saddam Hussein gives the order, and under his leadership and direction
disarms Iraq, gives up its weapons of mass destruction, has no more chemical weapons, no more
biological weapons, stops using hostility as a way to deal with its neighbors, stops repression
of minorities with his own country, give me a call. After you cover Saddam Hussein doing these
things, let's talk about it. Until then, the president is focused on making sure that these
developments take place as a result either of the UN resolutions being enforced, or by whoever
in Iraq taking these actions to make it happen. But this is probably the mother of all
hypotheticals. Give me a phone call when it happens."
Press: "So Saddam could stay in power if those objectives were carried out?"
Fleischer: "Again, call me up when Saddam Hussein gives the directions for all those factors
to take place."
Press: "So, that's a yes?"
Fleischer: "I think this is a question of how many devils can dance on the head of a
pin."
Press: "It's not. Can he stay in power and have regime change?"
Fleischer: "You're asking the mother of hypotheticals. And I think it's a rather "
Press: "Does it refer to a leader or a government regime change?"
Fleischer: "It refers to actions that have to be taken to keep the peace."
Press: "So it's a question of policy, not personnel?"
Fleischer: "That's a good way to put it."
Press: "So he could stay in power if those things happen?"
Fleischer: "If you want to fool yourselves into believing that that's what Saddam Hussein
would do in policy, that's an interesting way to approach it."
The fact of the matter is that Saddam did, in fact, do everything listed by Ari Fleischer to
effect a change in the policies of Iraq in order to preserve his regime. But President Bush --
whom Fleischer represented -- never had any intention of recognizing such change, even when it
occurred. President Bush, Ari Fleischer and every representative of the U.S. administration
involved in formulating and implementing U.S. policy on Iraq was being dishonest in the extreme
when dangling the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the Iraq problem.
In short, they all lied, and Ari Fleischer was the mouthpiece for disseminating these lies,
a task he continues to perform to this day.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author ofDeal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road
to War . 14 Responses to Ari Fleischer Lied, and People Died
Thank you for another reminder of what really happened. My only quibble is that this uses
GWB, the figurehead, as the power and decision-maker. Like Bolton & Co today, the ones
calling the plays are not the public face that can get elected by the proles. It was the
Cheney/Wolfy/Rummy cabal, smokescreened by Rove, who sent Iraq back to the stone age at the
behest of Israel.
One down and more to go Iran is the next big target of the same mentality.
It is interesting to note the following requirement: "stops repression of minorities with
his own country". It indicates that Bush administration had a plan B for invading Iraq, on
the template of Kosovo
The writer states: "In short, they all lied, "
Therefore, based on the evidence that the Iraq war was a lie, where are the prosecutions?
Millions of people are dead, soldiers are dead or maimed, Iraq is reduced to rubble in parts
of its land and nothing happens to the perpetrators of lies. What does this say about our
so-called "justice system"? http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
It is the same today with the intelligence being fixed to justify the US exit from the INF
treaty.
Why does the administration not tell us what the range of the disputed missile is?
Why would Russia deploy a land-based missile in breach of the treaty when it could deploy
it at sea and not violate any treaty?
Not surprisingly, this information has not been supplied.
Behind the decision to leave the INF treaty is John Bolton. He also fought to remove Jose
Bustani as the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which
governs the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Bustani was trying to bring Iraq into that treaty. That is why he had to go. If he had
succeeded it would have removed the excuse for war.
It's astonishing that creeps like Fleischer have the temerity to show their faces in public.
His lies caused terrible damage to America and millions of innocent civilians in the Middle
East. He should shut the **** up and thank his lucky stars he wasn't sent to prison for his
part in this disgusting episode.
The War of Lies Against Iraq
By Eric S. Margolis
March 23, 2019
Sixteen years ago, the US and Britain committed a crime of historic proportion, the
invasion and destruction of Iraq. It was as egregious an aggression as Nazi Germany's 1939
invasion of Poland.
Large numbers of Iraqi civilians died from 2003-2007. Iraq's water and sewage systems were
bombed, causing widespread cholera. The UN estimated 500,000 Iraqi children alone died as a
result. Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, said it was 'a price worth paying.'
[read more at link below]
And now we get to do all over again, with the right target this time, Iran. Don't forget that
after 9/11 the first call was to go after Iran and not our trusty allies in the ME who were
the real perps. Iraq was just the consolation prize for these insane ideologues, who should
all be in jailed for war crimes.
If you define weapons of mass destruction as nuclear war capabilities, then Iraq had none. If
you define weapons of mass destruction as chemical, then Iraq historically had these weapons
which it used against Iran, the Kurds, and shot some in Iraq War I at Israel. What happened
to the chemical weapons? They were sold/moved to Syria, where they still are today, and still
being used by the Assad regime. When the US troops got to Iraq in Gulf War II, the chemical
weapons were gone from Iraq, but not from Syria, which is why Iran, has a vested interest in
being involved in Syria, not to mention Israel. Does this help to make more sense of what
seems to be a perpetual war?
Trump just wanted these chemical weapons destroyed and never created again, and the US will
evacuate the Middle East once this is accomplished.
The article and the comments say it all: the lies, nothing else, were used to destroy Iraq!
No intell "mistake" can be offered-it is and was a neo con deception of the country and
the world.
Accountability, however, will not happen. Very ominous for the situation pertaining to
Iran and Venezuela. If the thugs in suits, pompeo, bolton, abrams, feel no consequence will
happen, why worry-it is off to intervention/regime change they go.
American sheeple have the institutional memory of a gnat and the mass media coverup and
malfeseance will continue.
"Liberals were called traitors, we were right
The Bush admin's push for war stank from the beginning"
On the issue of Iraq, there's no hiding behind liberal, democrats, conservative,
republicans, libertarians, etc.
Most of the country was heck bent on war as a matter of revenge, regardless of policy. The
fear mongering for policies adjecent to the actual events and actors of 9/11 was not only
coming out of DC, but main street. New Yorkers were no less intent on war making than the WH,
Congress or various think tanks, businesses or educators from elite or non-elite schools.
And what has occurred since moots any real escape in labels. The group who should have
been the least likely and the most prudent, the most thoughtful – the conservatives had
bent conservatism so out of distortion that even they had no defense against unreason.
I have tended to give the president and those in the WH and Congress the benefit of the
doubt that they sincerely considered a response in the region as a defense. I did not go to
select schools, and the schools I did attend did not require me to Ovid or an overview of the
classics in Greek or Latin. I had not attended a war college class or anything of the kind.
But when the case was presented for war – it simply didn't have the evidence or a
rationale that made sense. In fact, some of those contentions contradicted the what was known
as well as each other. It was deeply disturbing and disappointing. But when I read the
president's response to Dir. Tenet,
"If that's all you got, we can't go to war"
or words to that effect, they reflected my thoughts entirely. And for a long time I
considered that all of this mayhem was part of a diplomatic package. I was already outside
the main on the issue of Afghanistan, which I thought was overkill and strategically unsound
for the what should have been the goal – dealing with the actors of 9/11.
I do agree with Inspector Ritter, it was also quite clear that until the inspectors had
finished their mission, minus any evidence that Pres Hussein was in violation – there
was no case. Nor was there a case for invasion based on any humanitarian crisis or
genocide.
But what I have not been able to do is cross that line that they the president knowing and
deliberately conspired to manufacture (lie) evidence against an innocent party. And I have
been able to cross that line to despite having contemplated this article for two days and I
will no doubt read it again, to include the references. Those of that objected the first go
'round, if not pacifists, have problem read several pools of of information and arguments
regarding the case or lack thereof for war and the misleading the country by the leadership.
And it's frustrating that those who actually got the matter spot on are still battling the
those that got the matter and subsequent similar advances incorrect to this day. It's down
right painful considering the measures that were engaged to not merely silence opposition,
but to destroy people's lives.
What has been broken may not be repairable, one hopes it is, believes it is, but reading
this article is just too deep wound to see it. And what is salt in the wound has been three
years of accusations about Russian collusion for the purposes of undermining the executive
who claimed we should reconsider how we address the adventures. And the near total buy in of
that press by half of the country minus any catastrophic event, makes the wars seem as window
dressing to a much deeper and darker ethic that plagues us.
And then there is the question of what to do about all of this official misrepresentation.
Not only must we filter out whether they knowingly lied, but what to do about it. The
daunting task of arresting so many in so many positions of leadership and research. I
consider it serious business to make a false report, much less doing so on a document of
declaration for official business -- that is purjury. We impeached a president because he
mislead about what was a private intimate indiscretion --
What s described above is devastatingly more egregious by several Everests in
magnitude.
And it implicates our partners in what could only be a crime: Great Britain, Israel,
Australia, Poland and others who aided and abetted in the matter.
Caveat pre-defense: L'est I be called an anti-semite, Israel has a right to exist and self
defense.
They were wrong. And that the factual data contradicted their claims may not be enough to
claim they did not genuinely believe their own "lies" if "lies" they were. Or maybe I am just
unwilling to hold people on my team to account to the standard required. Perhaps, accepting
the idea that they knowingly perjured themselves is just too painful to accept.
Unwilling to call a spade a spade – maybe just too merciful or at the end of the day
-- cowardice.
"... Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees "colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. ..."
"... This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. ..."
"... He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story. ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. ..."
"... Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with. ..."
If Nietzsche was right, and what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, we can thank the
global capitalist ruling classes, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media for four more
years of Donald Trump. The long-awaited Mueller report is due any day now, or so they keep
telling us. Once it is delivered, and does not prove that Trump is a Russian intelligence
asset, or that he personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the presidency from Hillary
Clinton, well, things are liable to get a bit awkward.
Given the amount of goalpost-moving and
focus-shifting that has been going on, clearly, this is what everyone's expecting.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some
kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce
one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees
"colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. After all, if you're going to accuse a
sitting president of being a Russian intelligence asset, you kind of need to be able to prove
it, or (a) you defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, (b) you destroy your own credibility,
and (c) you present that sitting president with a powerful weapon he can use to bury you.
This is not exactly rocket science. As any seasoned badass will tell you, when you're
resolving a conflict with another seasoned badass, you don't take out a gun unless you're going
to use it. Taking a gun out, waving it around, and not shooting the other badass with it, is
generally not a winning strategy. What often happens, if you're dumb enough to do that, is that
the other badass will take your gun from you and either shoot you or beat you senseless with
it.
This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. When the Mueller report fails to present
any evidence that he "colluded" with Russia to steal the election, Trump is going to reach
over, grab that report, roll it up tightly into a makeshift cudgel, and then beat the snot out
of his opponents with it. He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the
corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence
agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign
and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that
Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish
story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story.
That story goes a little something like this
Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy
that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president.
They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about
"grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making
the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had
zero experience in any political office whatsoever, and was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly
out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so
disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons,
the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it,
what did they have to lose?
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing
a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American
people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every
organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a
daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official
investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy.
Every component of the ruling
establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal
intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president
from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft
coup.
This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.
A minority of ideological heretics on what passes for the American Left are going to help
him tell this story, not because we support Donald Trump, but because we believe that the mass
hysteria and authoritarian fanaticism that has been manufactured over the course of Russiagate
represents a danger greater than Trump. It has reached some neo-Riefenstahlian level, this
bug-eyed, spittle-flecked, cult-like behavior worse even than the mass hysteria that gripped
most Americans back in 2003, when they cheered on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the murder,
rape, and torture of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children based on a bunch of
made-up horseshit.
We are going to be vilified, we leftist heretics, for helping Trump tell Americans this
story. We are going to be denounced as Trumpenleft traitors ,
Putin-sympathizers, and Nazi-adjacents (as we were denounced as terrorist-sympathizers and
Saddam-loving traitors back in 2003). We are going to be denounced as all these things by
liberals, and by other leftists. We are going to be warned that pointing out how the
government, the media, and the intelligence agencies all worked together to sell people
Russiagate will only get Trump reelected, and, if that happens, it will be the End of
Everything.
It will not be the End of Everything.
What might, however, be the End of Everything, or might lead us down the road to the End of
Everything, is if otherwise intelligent human beings continue to allow themselves to be whipped
into fits of mass hysteria and run around behaving like a mindless herd of
propaganda-regurgitating zombies whenever the global capitalist ruling classes tell them that
"the Russians are coming!" or that "the Nazis are coming!" or that "the Terrorists are
coming!"
The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting
down a
populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global
capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they
are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like
twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly
fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with.
If you want a glimpse of the dystopian future it isn't an Orwellian boot in your face. It's
Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Study the Russiagate believers' reactions to the
Mueller report when it is finally delivered. Observe the bizarre intellectual contortions their
minds perform to rationalize their behavior over the last three years. Trust me, it will not be
pretty. Cognitive dissonance never is.
Or, who knows, maybe the Russiagate gang will pull a fast one at the eleventh hour, and
accuse Robert Mueller of Putinist sympathies (or appearing in that FSB video of Trump's
notorious Moscow pee-party), and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the special
prosecutor. That should get them through to 2020!
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Following the 'red lines' meeting between Ryabkov and Elliot Abrams in Rome a couple of
days ago, after which Ryabkov said bluntly:
"We assume that Washington treats our priorities seriously, our approach and
warnings."
One of those warnings delivered by Ryabkov is understood to have been that no American
military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow.
For his part, Abrams sounded as if he had emerged from the meeting after having been given
a severe reprimand.
"No, we did not come to a meeting of minds, but I think the talks were positive in the
sense that both sides emerged with a better understanding of the other's views," he told
reporters.
"A better understanding of the other's views," means that the American side was given a
red line to back off.
So, the Russian Army advanced party has arrived today, 99 in an Il-62 and goodness knows
what in an An-124 on a direct flight from Syria.
And now, according to journalist Javier I. Mayorca, Colonel General Vasily Tonkoshkurov,
chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land
Forces of Russia, arrived in Venezuela.
So we have one of the most significant Russian Generals now in Venezuela with his staff
and protection teams with their equipment coming out the back of the Antonov and I think we
can be certain that there is no beachware included.
This is looking more like the start up of Russian ops in Syria. This is the 'what do you
need, how can we help' team.
This could be Venezuela transforming from a hedgehog into a porcupine.
I bet the An-124 was filled with captured NATO arms, particularly TOWs, of which there're
many warehouses in Syria packed to the rafters--$billions$ in armaments at no charge! In
contrast with France, every Saturday there's a massive Solidarity March in
Caracas and other Venezuelan cities in support of Maduro, the government and the Bolivarian
Constitution. One of the most important differences between Venezuela and other
South-of-the-border regime changes is that an entire generation has grown up under
Chavezismo, the Bolivarian Constitution, and the great social changes--literacy and education
for the masses being #1--that have occurred over the past 20+ years. Those coming of age now
will be even more Anti-USA and Anti-OAS than ever before. This chart shows almost 50% of
the current population's coming of age During the Bolivarian/Chavista Age proves that
point.
As with Iran and Cuba, the Bolivarian Revolution's ingrained into the government's
structure, and perpetuated by society and culture. The penchant for the Outlaw US Empire to
task its vassals with killing off the entire Leftist political spectrum leaving only
reactionaries and their kin has always been genocidal in scope, and in Venezuela's case would
amount to @22 million requiring purging. And let's not kid ourselves--A world filled with
docile reactionaries is exactly the sort of prole-based planet the Outlaw US Empire
craves.
The recent Ethiopian Airlines crash led to the grounding of Boeing's 737 MAX planes across
much of the globe. But as new details emerge about the cause of the model's second crash within
five months, questions are being raised about how the plane's safety was approved in the first
place. John Yang talks to Jeff Wise, a pilot and author of a book about MH370, the flight that
vanished in 2014.
$80,000 for a safety warning light! It should have been standard. How could they justify
charging $80,000 for a warning light? It's like Ford charging $800 for Brake Fluid warning
light, they would never have gotten away with that!
With the 737 Max still grounded after last week's deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash, the focus
turns to Boeing. The company offered a warning system that -- for a price -- might have helped
prevent the crashes. Kris Van Cleave reports.
$80 thousand for a warning light??? Unbelievable.... How much money can an indicator light
cost? Software for detecting sensor malfunction should've been there in the first place....
For such a critical sensor, those safety systems should've been built into the systems in a
$120 million dollar plane in the first place.
Why charge more for safety? It should be included by default. Then they kept saying it was
safe for flight but excluded a crucial piece. It's all for profit... smh. 🧐 they are
trying to deflect blame on the airline. Those planes should have never been sold in the first
place.
Actually they should be charged with manslaughter for both plans ! Enough playing games
with just a public court hearing then a fine ! Some Big People need to be held accountable by
full law ! Jail time !
I would bet that the actual labor and materials are less than $2000. The engineering had
already been completed as it is an option. Why then would safety be optional? Criminal greed,
or a low value placed on human lives. Whomever is responsible has no moral or social compass
and should be punished. Not with a fine but a lengthy prison term in Leavenworth.
if we can have recalls for cars, why cant we have the same for aircraft and force those
chaps to install foolproof sensors in triplicate, complete with warning inidicators at no
additional cost to the airlines!
Tulsi Gabbard is less than 20K individual donations away from getting on the debate stage!
Help her get there by donating just $1 to her campaign!
Tulsi Gabbard 5:21 PM - 22 Mar 2019
Thank you! So far we have 44,255 unique donors of the 65,000 needed to get on the debate
stage! Almost 4,000 people contributed in the last 2 days. I'm humbled by your support. Stay
tuned for updates! pic.twitter.com/UOd5Ky39vf
"... Profit before people. Computer says no! Failsafe failed. No manual over ride. Sorry folks. Say Your prayers. The problem maybe rebranded. Best case scenario. Impeccable flying from technical progress made. ..."
"... Totally unnecessary crash that was caused by cutting corners and greed. ..."
Ethiopian Airlines is one of the best known safe reputation. Of course Indonesian Airlines
is the best too. The crash was very similar after take off and dive into the ground. Boing is
just protecting itself for its market.
Boeing needs to be sued for $2 billion for each victim of the Lion Air and Ethiopian
Airlines plus $300 billion in punitive damages, and jail time for some executives ~ they
knowingly put up unsafe planes. In its early days, the 737 also had several
cashes.
Obviously Boeing knew about the shortcomings of their design in earlier stages and instead
of fixing their design they chose to use a software to fix it without informing the airlines
or giving pilots adequate training in order to save costs.
Profit before people. Computer says no! Failsafe failed. No manual over ride. Sorry folks.
Say Your prayers. The problem maybe rebranded. Best case scenario. Impeccable flying from
technical progress made.
Boeing must be lobbying really hard and it's a shame that a respectable entity like
Washington Post is helping the narrative to shift the blame to pilots who are now dead. If
it's a Boeing, I'll have second thoughts.
1. Boeing wanted a new plane with larger enginers but without spending money on a new
fuselage. 2. Sold their planes to customers saying that Max type is same as the NG and that
no cost is involved for retraining pilots. 3. Make the MCAS system so that the new and plane
and old plane feel theoretically same to the pilot. 4. Not tell pilots about MCAS or hide
critical details about the system. 5. 300+ people dead. I hope the Boeing management can
sleep well knowing they have blood on their hands.
Sounds like they created a dangerously unstable craft that requires a computer system to
keep from stalling. Even if pilot turns off plane may have already got in situation hard to
recover from manually especially near ground. Two planes found this out.
At the root of almost every problem today is 'cost cutting' for short term profits to
satisfy roaming vulture capitalist greed. Why is the FAA 'under funded'? Why is it 'too
expensive' to give pilots the sim time they need even after hundeds of people are
dead??
Engines too far forward wings too swept back computer and pilot can't find center of
balance and it piledrives into earth, its not a mystery. If I wanted to take a perfectly good
737 and turn it into an unflyable plane, well they did it.
Just fix the auto pilot issue. Also, what in all of God's green earth? Pilots only learned
about flying this new model with just textual information? No simulation? No wounder pilots
of both airlines were confound by the conflicting warnings blaring at them in the
cockpit.
Ha ha ha there is no money for the faa, but the government had enough money to go on a
bombing run around the world. So now who is responsible ? Boeing faa or other aviation
authorities like the icao or others ? Who is going to be jailed for this mass murdering?
Since they have accepted it so the faa chief should be put behind bars for lying about the
inspection and the certificate !!!!!!
FAA rep is a clown! It is not FAA fault and Boeing was under pressure. If one of your family
was in one of those crashes, you would never shill for those corporate murders.
He is a clown! It is not FAA fault and Boeing was under pressure. If one of your family
was in one of those crashes, you would never shill for those corporate murders.
Ex FAA employees have come out and say FAA doesn't have the expertise and have to rely on
Boeing for aspects of the certifications, why? because dumb Americans buy politicians ever
selling lower taxes. Hey dudes, u gotta spend money to hire good people duh! something gotta
give. Cheap government, cheap results. U deserve what u paid for America.
The MCAS system was not revealed to the first receivers of the Max 8's, nor was it in the
Manuals. Boeing thought it would quietly do it's job in the background, but they were wrong.
After the first accident from Lion Air, out of Indonesia, then all airliners were informed of
this. The pilots in Ethiopia may or may not have been aware of this, and if they were they
lacked insufficient training on how to deal with this problem. The MCAS system works to bring
the nose of the plane down so it can fly at a level flight. MCAS get's it's information from
AOA sensors that send info to the plane as to what angle the plane is flying at. Pilots have
reported that the AOA sensors are faulty and sending "wrong information" and "activating" the
MCAS system when it shouldn't have, causing the planes nose to point downward, and causing
the plane to go into a nose dive, and this is what happened. Basically the MCAS was needed
because Boeing redesigned the engines, that were bigger, and were mounted differently -- more
forward and up on the wing, throwing off the center of gravity of the new 737 Max 8.The old
737 does not have this problem. AOA sensors, stands for Angle of Attack, to make sure air
flow is right both over and under the wings, to make the plane aerodynamic. According to
reports from pilots, you can "disengage" the MCAS SYSTEM, buy pulling back on the yoke, and
this will do it. At the same time there are wheels by the throttle that you turn manually, to
trim the planes stabilizer manually by yourself. This was done many times by well trained
American pilots, who averted crashes with this jet. So, proper training and awareness could
have saved a lot of lives. Let's not forget these MAX 8 jets have been flying for a couple
years, with thousands of flights in North America and developed countries with "no"
accidents, and pilots say the plane flies beautifully. They say it's a very smooth flying
aircraft, and a pleasure to pilot. So, who's responsible for this -- well it's Boeing, for
non disclosure of the MCAS system, and what to do, if it functions in error, and how to
manually disengage the system. In my opinion, all pilots should know how to manually take a
plane from takeoff, and land it smoothly with no automation, or computers to help them --
just like in the old days. Over the last 20 years, there have been so very few major aircraft
go down. I'm all for automation, but I fully support proper pilot training should some of
this automation fail -- like faulty sensors. It's completely crazy to rely on robots or
Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) to fly planes, if you don't understand how the computers work,
and how they fly the plane, and in the event of a failure of the computer, you can then shut
it off, and have "no problem" , and take control of the aircraft yourself,- "manually" with a
lot of confidence. I SHOULD ADD - this MCAS system and it's AOA sensors, should all be
mandatory on a plane, and not be sold as extras, same as brakes on a car. You don't play
around with peoples lives, to make a few extra dollars, selling "options." These features
"must be standard equipment", on all these aircraft sold, PERIOD. This is why I'm "very
against" self driving cars'. Can you imagine all the accidents that will happen from "faulty
sensors." WOW , it will be a nightmare. Faulty sensors could be caused by snow, ice, extreme
heat or cold. Are we getting so lazy that we need to have Artificial Intelligence driving our
cars. No thanks for me, I'll drive my own car, and hope that people will rebel against this
idea, and the makers of these cars, won't sell any of them, and thus, taking them off the
market.This Boeing Max 8 should send a good example, of things to come if we allow driverless
cars. Not for me, and I hope the general public will agree with this.
Terrorists aren't needed to bring down airliners and frighten the public. Boeing and a
failed Trump policy, that won't staff FAA department with a permanent and qualified leader,
are managing the same thing through their fashionable neglect and arrogance.
Just look at the investigation of sinking and tilting Mellilium Tower in sanfransico.
Building concrete Foundation and glasses are cracking and investigators are still studying
what caused the two glass windows to crack. Similar investigation is going on how these two
Boeing max crashed.
Deadly strategie from Boeing for quick profits and market shares . Airliners are built to
be operated for at least a couple of decades Boeing was providing worldwidely flying coffins
made by mixing new technologies (leap engine ) with cheap and old technologies (1/2 century
old airframe).A new well designed aircraft is stable, well-balanced without extra software's
help.
Trump nominated his personal pilot to head up the FAA. After 2 years, they still have an
"acting" director. Tim Boeing shows up at Mar-a-lago every weekend. What could possibly go
wrong?
This been a long time coming. Who cut the FAA? BOTH PARTIES DID! The system is gonna fall
apart because too much damage has been done. Just keep paying people peanuts and have them
try to do a skilled job. My cousin quit the airline industry because they don't want people
to be able to pay for the education needed for these jobs. Like who program these
systems.
Looks like I'll be getting that 🚲 sooner than later. I won't be traveling by plane
for a few Give it time for all the smoke to clear and heads to roll😳
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged
as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević's forces, and it was a campaign
of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton's own admission
was fought for the sake of NATO's credibility.
One Man's Terrorist
Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the
1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United
States, which had provided arms, funding and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation,
stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan
descended deeper into civil war.
The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington's former mujahideen allies, turned on the
West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam's holiest
sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former
benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however,
is something altogether different.
From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew
thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims
as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration
armed and trained these fighters in
flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists
via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in
which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded
that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.
When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European
soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what
was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and Bosnians who had won their
independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo
as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.
The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia,
called it "without any question a terrorist
group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden
and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department
accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.
However, despite all its nastiness the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan
Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil
war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded
as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn't about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton
administration. Clinton's hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces
committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president
called the war an internal Russian affair
and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia
from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.
Although NATO
called
the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted "what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" against
the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that
the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict.
President Clinton, however, apparently wasn't listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum
they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary
of State James Rubin later
admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing
were quite small."
Wagging the Dog?
In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood
producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn't
help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's
impeachment and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog , there were exaggerated or completely fabricated
tales of atrocities, and as in the film the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack
on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.
There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO
began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government
issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:
The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no
proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions
and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) A
state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.
Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March
1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the
NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA
and its supposed adherents and supporters."
While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly
exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted
– that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves."
This was completely false . US diplomat David
Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men are missing, presumed dead." Again, a
total fabrication . The FBI, International War Crimes
Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims
they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.
However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared
that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been
"fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington.
Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, they did so knowing that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed
or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner,
acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."
Bloody Hypocrites
The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration
had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention.
More than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan
genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal
Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses,
where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.
Colombia, the Western Hemisphere's leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign
of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite
horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did
Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration
positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist
regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the
world's worst human rights
records. The list goes on and on.
Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since
the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were
forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country's US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995.
Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the
Serbs' turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent
civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn't escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned
convoys of fleeing refugees.
"Painful for the Serbs"
Washington's selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and
seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist
John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools,
factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian
people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much
of its water supply.
NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle
of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the
building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor and three security guards.
There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing
knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President
Jacques Chirac forecast as
many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in
nearby apartments.
Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they
were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes
flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties
on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly
hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided "precision" bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children's
ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age
23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged
shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don't know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."
Dragiša Mišović wasn't the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force
struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7,
killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic
and medical dispensary were also bombed in the
mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.
Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece
was
blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people
killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged
by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a
doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot's behavior would appear acceptable.
On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes
bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing.
An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over
the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was
bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox
Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to
help those wounded in the first strike.
No One Is Safe
The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO's fury. They endured some 175
bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000
residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children,
died when bombs meant to
destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy
befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO
warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people's home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly
men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the
attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."
The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike
on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded.
Some people aren't so sure the attack was an accident – Britain's Observer later
reported that the US deliberately bombed the
embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.
There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks
on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed
refugees along a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including
16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported
a grisly scene of "bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month
later, another column of refugees was
bombed near Koriša, killing
87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile
struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM
missile blew the roof off
of a man's house while he was shaving in his bathroom.
NATO's "Murderous Thugs"
As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO's air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their
atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from
the KLA's brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or
were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost
entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.
The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group
"murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally
intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters were
surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles
rescued the besieged militants. It later
emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.
Credibility Conundrum
The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance's saber rattling
toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly
action, said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton
added
that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO's
real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton,
declaring on the eve of the war that
"to walk away now would destroy NATO's credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute,
wrote that the Clinton administration
"transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United
States into a major test of American resolve."
Waging or prolonging war for credibility's sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands
of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable"
way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah's
1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had
trained at Osama bin Laden's terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly
attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO's credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly
did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat
to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without
international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak,
then Moscow's ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.
Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging
nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history.
Serbs, however, still seethe at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense,
Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian
people in service of NATO's credibility.
Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights,
is archived atwww.brettwilkins.com
"... "It's a very, very serious investigation into basically, was there fraud by Boeing in the certification of the 737 MAX 8 ?" Arthur Rosenberg, an aviation attorney who is representing six families whose relatives died in the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes, explained. ..."
"... Rosenberg expects the criminal probe to question whether Boeing fully disclosed to the FAA the engineering of the 737 Max 8's MCAS flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), during the plane's certification process. The flight control system was designed to prevent the plane from stalling. ..."
"... Unfortunately for Boeing and the passengers its crashed aircraft were carrying, the MCAS system was very poorly implemented. ..."
"... The single sensor was the result of regulatory capture, not to say gaming; see below. ..."
"... Black box data retrieved after the Lion Air crash indicates that a single faulty sensor -- a vane on the outside of the fuselage that measures the plane's "angle of attack," the angle between the airflow and the wing -- triggered MCAS multiple times during the deadly flight, initiating a tug of war as the system repeatedly pushed the nose of the plane down and the pilots wrestled with the controls to pull it back up, before the final crash. ..."
"... Regulatory Capture : Commercial aircraft need to be certified by the FAA before launch. The Washington Post labels today's process "self-certification": ..."
"... In practice, one Boeing engineer would conduct a test of a particular system on the Max 8, while another Boeing engineer would act as the FAA's representative , signing on behalf of the U.S. government that the technology complied with federal safety regulations, people familiar with the process said. ..."
"... (Note that a 10-year-old process would have begun in the Obama administration, so the regulatory process is bipartisan.) I understand that " safety culture " is real and strong, but imagine the same role-playing concept applied to finance: One bankers plays the banker, and the other banker plays Bill Black, and after a time they switch roles . Clearly a system that will work until it doesn't. More: ..."
"... The process was occurring during a period when the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General was warning the FAA that its oversight of manufacturers' work was insufficient. ..."
"... The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes. ..."
"... Alert readers will note the similarity to the Neoliberal Playbook , where government systems are sabotaged in order to privatize them, but in this case regulatory capture seems to have happened "by littles," rather than out of open, ideological conviction (as with the UKs's NHS, or our Post Office, our Veteran's Administration, etc.). ..."
"... Several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing . ..."
"... In this atmosphere, the System Safety Analysis on MCAS, just one piece of the mountain of documents needed for certification, was delegated to Boeing . ..."
"... It should be clear at this point that the central claims of Muilenburg's letter are false. ..."
"... The self-certification debacle that allowed MCAS to be released happened on Muilenburg's watch and is already causing Boeing immense reputational damage, and a criminal case, not to mention the civil cases that are surely coming, will only increase that damage. Mr. Market, the Beltway, and even Trump, if his trade deals are affected, will all soon be bellowing for a sacrificial victim. Muilenburg should recognize the inevitable and gracefully resign. Given his letter, it looks unlikely that he will do the right thing. ..."
"... Beyond that ultimate problem is the ultimate regulatory problem: regulatory capture of the FAA by the airline companies. As a result, the FAA represents "its customers" the airplane makers, not the public users and customers. This is like the banks capturing the Fed, the Justice Dept. and Treasury to promote their own interests by claiming that "self-regulation" works. Self-regulation is the polite word for fraudulent self-indulgence. ..."
"... I would be surprised if the European Airbus competitors do not mount a campaign to block the 737-Max's from landing, and insisting that Boeing buy them back. This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes. ..."
"... This probably will throw Trump's China trade fight into turmoil, as China was the first country to ground the 737-Max's and is unlikely to permit their recovery without a "real" federal safety oversight program. Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane, so as to represent users and stakeholders, not only stockholders. ..."
"... The moral: Neoliberalism Kills. ..."
"... Rule #2 of Neoliberalism: Go die. ..."
"... > "Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane." ..."
"... As if the 737 MAX were the chlorinated chicken of aircraft. ..."
"... "This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes." ..."
"... Regulatory capture is rampant throughout the economy. Boeing self-certification being delegated by the FAA is not unlike the situation with electric transmission utilities. ..."
"... that is subject to both FERC and NERC regulation. ..."
"... In hindsight Boeing would have perhaps been better off to leave off the MCAS altogether and depend on pilot retraining to cover the altered handling. ..."
"... Reports I've read indicates that Boeing ignored even the clearly inadequate certification. "Documentation provided to the FAA claims that the MCAS system can only adjust the horizontal tail on the plane by 0.6 degrees out of a maximum of five-degrees of nose-down movement. But that limit was later increased to 2.5-degrees of nose-down movement. Boeing didn't communicate the change from 0.6-degrees to 2.5-degrees until after Lion Air." ..."
"... Boeing could also be liable for damages due to 737 groundings and due to delays in delivery of contracted planes. ..."
"... The analogy has been made between this the 737 MAX story and the Tylenol story. J&J got out in front of the problem and saved the product (and their company). Boeing's problem is of that order, and Muilenberg -- that letter! -- seems incapable of understanding that; insular, arrogant. One more reason to fire the dude toot sweet. If he comes out of his next review with a raise -- Everything Is Like CalPERS™ -- consider shorting Boeing ..."
"... Allowing this to happen seems the ultimate in short term thinking by Boeing. US manufacturers have always had an advantage over competitors because the FAA was held in such high regard worldwide that it was the de facto world safety regulatory body – every country followed its lead. But this chipping away of its authority has led to a near fatal loss of faith, and will no doubt lead to European and Asian regulatory authorities being strengthened. And no doubt commercial realities will mean they will look much more closely at US manufactured aircraft if there is some benefit to their own manufacturers. ..."
"... The Times thinks Boeing is too big to fail. Without a blockbuster Max, I don't see how Boeing maintains its current status in the industry. ..."
"... I also think they have been completely afflicted by the defense contractor mentality. ..."
"... Yes, the famous McDonnell-Douglas reverse takeover , where financial engineers inserted their sucking mandibles into an actual ..."
"... Note that Muilenberg came up through the defense side of the company not the commercial aircraft side. He may simply not have been equipped to understand FAA regulation at any deep level, hence the rot that finally surfaced. ..."
"... The tragedy is that corporate media in pursuit of profits will keep us up to date but will never mention the 6 or 8 minutes of terror for the 346 souls aboard the two flights. They will cover the criminal negligence trial if there are ever indictments. But, the news reports never will say that neoliberalism, deregulation, and privatization are the root causes of the deaths. ..."
"... Boeing also clearly did not know its customers . It should be engineering for the sort of pilots who are going to be hired by Lion Air, or any rapidly expanding airline in what we used to all the Third World. Hegemony, it seems, makes you insular and provincial. ..."
"... "The FAA, citing lack of funding and resource": I don't suppose I'll survive to see any arm of government not blame lack of funds for its boneheaded or corrupt incompetence. ..."
"... That's how I feel. The tech doc department at Boeing sounds like a horrible place to work; MBAs or their goons telling you all the time to do stuff you know is wrong. It's not surprising people were willing to talk to the Seattle Times; I bet there are more people. (Hey, Seattle Times! How about people testing the 737 MAX in simulators (assuming this is done)). ..."
"... Interestingly, and maybe relevant to the problem of confusion for the pilots, is that Boeing has had another automatic trim-modifier operating on its 737s for some time, the speed-trim system (STS): ..."
"... This system also modifies the stabilizer position during manual flight. Like MCAS, it was brought in to improve stability under certain flight conditions (the reasons for which are far beyond my knowledge). There is an indication that the pilots on the flight before the Lion Air crash misinterpreted MCAS actions for STS behavior. ..."
"... authority would revert to the pilot ..."
"... How many years ago did Wall Street take over the fortunes of the company? Why did they move their headquarters from their birthplace of Seattle to Chicago? Why did they start assembling planes in South Carolina and China? Was it to improve aviation safety? Or, to allow the profiteering parasites to feed off the carcass of the company? ..."
"... President Trump, here's a reelection tip: "Today I am declaring that all American registered aircraft flying in American airspace must be maintained in the U.S." ..."
"... Amazingly, Trump seems to have done OK on this. First, he didn't cave to Muilenberg's (insane, goofy, tone-deaf) request to keep the 737 flying; then he frames the issue as complexity (correct, IMNSHO), and then he manages to nominate a Delta CEO as head of the FAA . ..."
"... we're seeing signs that a crapification process has begun on the safety side in this industry. (It has been proceeding for years on the service/amenities side.) ..."
"... Considering the fact that all these 737s are grounded as no airline trust them to not kill a plane load of passengers and crew, this is a really big deal. Putting aside the technical and regulatory issues, the fact is that the rest of the world no longer trusts the US in modern aviation so what we have here is a trust issue which is an even bigger deal. ..."
"... Loss or at least wobbliness of imperial hegemony, like. It's not just the aircraft, it's US standards-setting bodies, methods, "safety culture," even -- dare we say it -- English as the language of aviation. French is no longer the language of diplomacy, after all, though it had a good run. ..."
"... Because markets. Neoliberalism puts everything up for sale. Including regulation. Oversimplifying absurdly: And so you end up with the profit-driven manufacturer buying the regulator, its produce killing people, and the manufacturer canceling its future profits. That's what the Bearded One would call a contradiction.* ..."
"... know your customer ..."
"... Like you, I am a retired software engineer, so I have followed an aviation blog discussion of this issue quite closely since it emerged as a probable software and system design failure. As the blog is open to all, its signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low, but it seems not too difficult for any technically-minded person to separate the wheat from the chaff. My current understanding, which I believe others here are in a position to correct, if necessary: ..."
"... this story is really fascinating and seems to be true a sign of the times. ..."
"... The Post's article on the FAA and Regulatory Capture is incomplete. The process for the FAA (and probably MANY government agencies) started under Reagan, did not revert to safety under Clinton (make government smaller and all that), and then accelerated under Bush II in 2005 (not a bi-partisan time). In particular, big changes to the FAA were made in 2005 that were executive in nature and did not require Congressional approval. CF: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/delegating-aircraft-safety-assessments-to-boeing-is-nothing-new-for-the-faa/ ..."
At some point in the future, I'd like to do failure matrix for the pathways to misfortune (
example of such a matrix here ) that precipitated
two deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes on take-off in five months , but I don't feel that I have enough information yet. (I'm not
unsympathathetic to the view
that the wholesale 737 MAX grounding was premature on technical grounds , but then trade and even geopolitical factors enter
in, given that Boeing is a "national champion.") We do not yet have results from the cockpit voice and flight data recorders of either
aircraft, for example. But what we do know is sufficiently disturbing -- a criminal investigation into Boeing had already been initiated
after the Lion Air crash, but before the Ethiopian Airlines crash -- that I think it's worthwhile doing a play-by-play on the causes
of the crashes, so far as we can know them.
About that criminal investigation
:
According to the Wall Street Journal, a Washington D.C. grand jury issued a March 11 subpoena requesting emails, correspondence,
and other messages from at least one person involved in the development of the aircraft.
"It's a very, very serious investigation into basically, was there fraud by Boeing in the certification of the 737
MAX 8 ?" Arthur Rosenberg, an aviation attorney who is representing six families whose relatives died in the Ethiopian Airlines
and Lion Air crashes, explained.
"Nobody knows the answer to that yet," Rosenberg cautioned, adding that he had not yet seen the Justice Department's subpoena
and therefore could not know its full scope.
Rosenberg expects the criminal probe to question whether Boeing fully disclosed to the FAA the engineering of the 737 Max
8's MCAS flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), during the plane's certification
process. The flight control system was designed to prevent the plane from stalling.
A possible criminal investigation during an aircraft accident investigation is highly unusual . While airline accidents
have at times raised criminal issues, such as after the 1996 crash of a ValuJet plane in the Florida Everglades, such cases are
the exception.
Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing, and ensuring safe and reliable travel on our airplanes is an enduring value
and our absolute commitment to everyone. This overarching focus on safety spans and binds together our entire global aerospace
industry and communities. We're united with our airline customers, international regulators and government authorities in our
efforts to support the most recent investigation, understand the facts of what happened and help prevent future tragedies. Based
on facts from the Lion Air Flight 610 accident and emerging data as it becomes available from the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302
accident, we're taking actions to fully ensure the safety of the 737 MAX. We also understand and regret the challenges for our
customers and the flying public caused by the fleet's grounding.
Boeing has been in the business of aviation safety for more than 100 years, and we'll continue providing the best products,
training and support to our global airline customers and pilots. This is an ongoing and relentless commitment to make safe
airplanes even safer .
Soon we'll release a software update and related pilot training for the 737 MAX that will address concerns discovered in the
aftermath of the Lion Air Flight 610 accident.
Fine words. Are they true? Can Boeing's "commitment to everyone to ensure " safe and reliable travel" really be said to be "absolute"?
That's a high bar. Let's see!
I've taken the structure that follows from
a tweetstorm by Trevor Sumner (apparently derived from
a Facebook post by his brother-law,
Dave Kammeyer ). However, I've added topic headings, changed others,
and helpfully numbered them all, so you can correct, enhance, or rearrange topics easily in comments (or even suggest new topics).
Let me also caveat that this is an enormous amount of material, and time presses, so this will not be as rich in links as I would
normally like it to be. Also note that the level of abstraction for each topic varies significantly: From "The Biosphere" all the
way to "Pilot Training." A proper failure matrix would sort that out.
* * *
(1) The Biosphere : The 737 MAX story beings with a customer requirement for increased fuel efficiency. This is, at bottom,
a carbon issue (and hence a greenhouse gas issue , especially as the demand for air travel increases, especially in Asia). New
biosphere-driven customer demands will continue to emerge as climate change increases and intensifies, and hence the continued 737
MAX-like debacles should be expected, all else being equal. From
CAPA – Centre for Aviation :
The main expected impacts of climate change on aviation result from changes in temperature, precipitation (rain and snow),
storm patterns, sea level and wind patterns. In addition, climate change is expected to lead to increased drought, impacts on
the supply of water and energy, and changes in wildlife patterns and biodiversity. Consequences for aviation include reduced aircraft
performance, changing demand patterns, potential damage to infrastructure, loss of capacity and schedule disruption.
All of these factors will affect aircraft design, manufacturing, maintenance, and use, stressing the system.
(2) Choice of Airframe :
The Air Current
describes the competitive environment that led Boeing to upgrade the 737 to the 737 MAX, instead of building a new plane:
Boeing wanted to replace the 737. The plan had even earned the endorsement of its now-retired chief executive. We're gonna
do a new airplane," Jim McNerney
said in February of that same year. "We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine,
is to move to an all-new airplane at the end of the decade." History went in a different direction. Airbus, riding its
same decades-long incremental strategy and chipping away at Boeing's market supremacy, had made no secret of its plans to
put new engines on the A320. But its own re-engineered jet somehow managed to take Boeing by surprise. Airbus and American forced
Boeing's hand. It had to put new engines on the 737 to stay even with its rival .
Why? The earlier butchered launch of the 787:
Boeing justified the decision thusly: There were huge and excruciatingly painful near-term obstacles on its way to a new single-aisle
airplane. In the summer of 2011, the 787 Dreamliner wasn't yet done after billions invested and years of delays. More than 800
airplanes later here in 2019, each 787 costs less to build than sell, but it's
still running a $23 billion production
cost deficit. .
The 737 Max was Boeing's ticket to holding the line on its position "both market and financial" in the near term. Abandoning
the 737 would've meant walking away from its golden goose that helped finance the astronomical costs of the 787 and the development
of the 777X.
So, we might think of Boeing as a runner who's tripped and fallen: The initial stumble, followed by loss of balance, was the 787;
with the 737 MAX, Boeing hit the surface of the track.
(3) Aerodynamic Issues : The
Air Current
also describes the aerodynamic issues created by the decision to re-engine the 737:
Every airplane development is a series of compromises, but to deliver the 737 Max with its promised fuel efficiency, Boeing
had to fit 12 gallons into a 10 gallon jug. Its bigger engines made for creative solutions as it found a way to mount the larger
CFM International turbines under the notoriously low-slung jetliner. It lengthened the nose landing gear by eight inches, cleaned
up the aerodynamics of the tail cone, added new winglets, fly-by-wire spoilers and big displays for the next generation of pilots.
It pushed technology, as it had done time and time again with ever-increasing costs, to deliver a product that made its jets more-efficient
and less-costly to fly.
In the case of the 737 Max, with its nose pointed high in the air, the larger engines "generating their own lift" nudged it
even higher. The risk Boeing found through analysis and later flight testing was that under certain high-speed conditions both
in wind-up turns and wings-level flight, that upward nudge created a greater risk of stalling.
Its solution was MCAS , the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System control law that would allow for both generations
of 737 to behave the same way. MCAS would automatically trim the horizontal stabilizer to bring the nose down, activated with
Angle of Attack data. It's now at the center of the Lion Air investigation and stalking the periphery of the Ethiopian crash.
(4) Systems Engineering : Amazingly, there is what in a less buttoned-down world that commercial aviation would be called a Boeing
737 fan site, which describes the MCAS system in more technical terms
:
MCAS was introduced to counteract the pitch up effect of the LEAP-1B engines at high AoA [Angle of Attack]. The engines were
both larger and relocated slightly up and forward from the previous NG CFM56-7 engines to accomodate their larger diameter. This
new location and size of the nacelle causes it to produce lift at high AoA; as the nacelle is ahead of the CofG [Center of Gravity]
this causes a pitch-up effect which could in turn further increase the AoA and send the aircraft closer towards the stall. MCAS
was therefore introduced to give an automatic nose down stabilizer input during steep turns with elevated load factors (high AoA)
and during flaps up flight at airspeeds approaching stall.
Unfortunately for Boeing and the passengers its crashed aircraft were carrying, the MCAS system was very poorly implemented.Reading between the lines (I've helpfully labeled the pain points):
Boeing have been working on a software modification to MCAS since the Lion Air accident. Unfortunately although originally
due for release in January it has still not been released due to both engineering challenges and differences of opinion among
some federal and company safety experts over how extensive the changes should be.
Apparently there have been discussions about potentially adding [A] enhanced pilot training and possibly mandatory [B] cockpit
alerts to the package. There also has been consideration of more-sweeping design changes that would prevent [C] faulty signals
from a single sensor from touching off the automated stall-prevention system.
[A] Pilot training was originally not considered necessary, because MCAS was supposed to give 737 MAX the same flight
characteristics as earlier 737s; that's why pilots weren't told about it. (This also kept the price low.) [B] Such alerts exist now,
as part of an optional package, which Lion did not buy. [C] The single sensor was the result of regulatory capture, not to say
gaming; see below.
(The MCAS system is currently the system fingered as the cause of both the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes; we won't know for sure
until the forensics are complete. Here, however, is
the scenario for an MCAS-induced crash :
Black box data retrieved after the Lion Air crash indicates that a single faulty sensor -- a vane on the outside of the
fuselage that measures the plane's "angle of attack," the angle between the airflow and the wing -- triggered MCAS multiple times
during the deadly flight, initiating a tug of war as the system repeatedly pushed the nose of the plane down and the pilots wrestled
with the controls to pull it back up, before the final crash.
(5) Regulatory Capture : Commercial aircraft need to be certified by the FAA before launch. The
Washington Post labels today's process "self-certification":
The FAA's publication of pilot training requirements for the Max 8 in the fall of 2017 was among the final steps in a multiyear
approval process carried out under the agency's now 10-year-old policy of entrusting Boeing and other aviation manufacturers to
certify that their own systems comply with U.S. air safety regulations.
In practice, one Boeing engineer would conduct a test of a particular system on the Max 8, while another Boeing engineer
would act as the FAA's representative , signing on behalf of the U.S. government that the technology complied with federal safety
regulations, people familiar with the process said.
(Note that a 10-year-old process would have begun in the Obama administration, so the regulatory process is bipartisan.) I
understand that " safety culture " is real and strong, but imagine the same
role-playing concept applied to finance: One bankers plays the banker, and the other banker plays Bill Black, and after a time they
switch roles . Clearly a system that will work until it doesn't. More:
The process was occurring during a period when the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General was warning
the FAA that its oversight of manufacturers' work was insufficient.
Four years after self-certification began, fires aboard Boeing's 787 Dreamliner jets led to the grounding of the fleet and
a wave of questions about whether self-certification had affected the FAA's oversight.
Why "self-certification"? Investigative reporting from
the Seattle Times -- the article is worth reading in full -- explains:
The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more
of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.
Alert readers will note the similarity to
the Neoliberal Playbook , where government systems are sabotaged in order to privatize them, but in this case regulatory capture
seems to have happened "by littles," rather than out of open, ideological conviction (as with the UKs's NHS, or our Post Office,
our Veteran's Administration, etc.).
(6) Transfer of Authority to Boeing : In the case of the 737 Max, regulatory capture was so great that certification authority
was transferred to Boeing. In order to be certified, a "System Safety Analysis" for MCAS had to be performed.
The Seattle Times :
The safety analysis:
Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the
plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther
than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.
Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of
the system repeatedly pushing the airplane's nose downward. Assessed a failure of the system as one level below "catastrophic."
But even that "hazardous" danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor --
and yet that's how it was designed.
So who certified MCAS? Boeing self-certified it. Once again
The Seattle Times :
Several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process.
Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing .
"There wasn't a complete and proper review of the documents," the former engineer added. "Review was rushed to reach certain
certification dates."
In this atmosphere, the System Safety Analysis on MCAS, just one piece of the mountain of documents needed for certification,
was delegated to Boeing .
(I'm skipping a lengthy discussion of even more technical detail for MCAS, which includes discrepancies between what Boeing self-certified,
and what the FAA thought that it had certified, along with the MCAS system acting like a ratchet, so it didn't reset itself, meaning
that each time it kicked in, the nose was pitched down even lower. Yikes. Again, the article is worth reading in full; if you've
ever done tech doc, you'll want to scream and run.)
(7) Political Economy : This tweet is especially interesting, because even I know that
Muddy Waters Research is a famous short seller:
What's the
result? Two $BA planes have been grounded:
787 and Max. Last FAA grounding of a type of plane was 1979. In the case of the Max, FAA outsourced more than planned bc BA was
9 months behind Airbus 320neo 3/4 2 replies 4 retweets 19 likes
This is a great example of real short-termism by a corporate. It's clearly in
$BA LT interest to have robust cert system,
but those chickens come home to roost years later, allowing mgmt to meet ST expectations. BTW, semi-annual reporting would do
NOTHING to fix this mentality. 4
And here we are! There are a myriad of other details, but many of them will only prove out once the black boxes are examined and
the forensics are complete.
* * *
It should be clear at this point that the central claims of Muilenburg's letter are false. I understand that commercial
aviation is a business, but if that is so, then Muilenburg's claim that Boeing's commitment to safety is "absolute" cannot possibly
be true; indeed, the choice to re-engine the 737 had nothing to do with safety. Self-certification makes Boeing "a judge in its own
cause," and that clearly contradicts Muilenburg's absurd claim that "safety" -- as opposed to profit -- "is at the core of who we
are."
The self-certification debacle that allowed MCAS to be released happened on Muilenburg's watch and is already causing Boeing
immense reputational damage, and a criminal case, not to mention the civil cases that are surely coming, will only increase that
damage. Mr. Market, the Beltway, and even Trump, if his trade deals are affected, will all soon be bellowing for a sacrificial victim.
Muilenburg should recognize the inevitable and gracefully resign. Given his letter, it looks unlikely that he will do the right thing.
IIRC, one of the big constraints that was leveled was the need to keep the 737, regardless of version, into the same height
relative to all other generations of the 737, whereas Airbus kept their height a lot higher than the 737.
If you look at many 737's over the years, some of the engine's nacelles were flat at the bottom to accommodate larger engine.
Why? Boeing kept the height the same in order to maintain built-in stairs that, with virtually all airports having adjustable
jetways, was basically redundant.
When you compare an A320xeo against a B737, you'll find that the Airbus rides higher when it comes to the jetways.
It seems to me that the Boeing 737-Max with the heavier, larger fuel-saving engines is so unbalanced (tilting over and then
crashing if not "overridden" by a computer compensation) that it never should have been authorized in the first place.
When Boeing decided to add a much larger engine, it should have kept the airplane in balance by (1) shifting it forward or
backward so that the weight did not tip the plane, and (2) created a larger landing-gear base so that the large engines wouldn't
scrape the ground.
The problem was that Boeing tried to keep using the old chassis with the larger engines under the wings – rather than changing
the wings, moving them forward or aft, and expanding the plane to permit a more appropriate landing gear.
The computer system has been blamed for not being a "smart enough" workaround to tell the plane not to plunge down when it
already is quite close to the ground – with no perception of altitude, not to mention double-checking on the wind speed from both
sensors.
Beyond that ultimate problem is the ultimate regulatory problem: regulatory capture of the FAA by the airline companies.
As a result, the FAA represents "its customers" the airplane makers, not the public users and customers. This is like the banks
capturing the Fed, the Justice Dept. and Treasury to promote their own interests by claiming that "self-regulation" works. Self-regulation
is the polite word for fraudulent self-indulgence.
I would be surprised if the European Airbus competitors do not mount a campaign to block the 737-Max's from landing, and
insisting that Boeing buy them back. This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes.
This probably will throw Trump's China trade fight into turmoil, as China was the first country to ground the 737-Max's
and is unlikely to permit their recovery without a "real" federal safety oversight program. Maybe Europe, China and other countries
henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane, so as to represent users and stakeholders, not only
stockholders.
> "Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane."
As if the 737 MAX were the chlorinated chicken of aircraft.
* * *
I'm not sure about redesigning the wing and the landing gear. That might be tantamount to designing a new plane. (I do know
that the landing gear is so low because the first 737s needed to accommodate airports without jetways, and so there may be other
facets of the design that also depend on those original requirements that might have to be changed.)
Regulatory capture is rampant throughout the economy. Boeing self-certification being delegated by the FAA is not unlike
the situation with electric transmission utilities.
After the 2003 northeast & Canada blackout, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It directed FERC to create an "electric
reliability organization". Previously there were voluntary organizations set up after the 1966 blackout to establish operating
standards in the industry. One of them was the North American Electric Reliability Council which morphed into the North
American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) in 2006.
NERC is headquartered in Atlanta and employs hundreds of people. The standards setting generally takes place in NERC Committees
and Subcommittees and sometimes from FERC itself. These are typically packed with industry people, with a patina of diversity
that includes some governmental types and large industrial consumers. Let it suffice to say the electric transmission industry
itself largely sets the rules how it operates.
Now consider the article in yesterday's NYT "
How PG&E Ignored
California Fire Risks in Favor of Profits ". The transmission circuit featured in the article (the Caribou-Palermo line) that
caused the destruction of Paradise is a transmission line that is subject to both FERC and NERC regulation. As described
in the article the circuit had many previous failures and was well beyond its design life.
However, both FERC and NERC have a laser focus on "market players" (think Enron or JP Morgan) and system operations (e.g.,
prevent collapses like the blackout of 2003). AFIK, neither FERC or NERC have prescriptive standards for routine maintenance or
inspection and replacement (i.e., very expensive capital replacement that was not done on the Caribou-Palermo line), these are
left to the discretion of the transmission owner. While substantive information about electric reliability is maintained by industry
trade groups and submitted to FERC, what is available to the public is generally useless and subjected to scrubbing and polishing
(often under the guise of Critical Energy Infrastructure Information).
We can see how self-policing work, can't we??? Rent-seeking market players can arbitrage markets, inflating prices consumers
pay and make billions in profits, while California burns.
The neglectful rot in California is endemic in the industry as a whole.
That Seattle Times investigative story is indeed very good and a rare instance of newspaper writers troubling to carefully
and cogently explain a technical issue.
In hindsight Boeing would have perhaps been better off to leave off the MCAS altogether and depend on pilot retraining
to cover the altered handling.
One reason they may not have was that crash several years ago of a commuter plane in upstate NY where the plane started to
stall and the confused pilot pulled up on the controls rather than making the airplane dive to regain speed. Still one has to
believe that no automation is better than badly designed or malfunctioning automation.
"depend on pilot retraining to cover the altered handling"
IANAP, but maybe the problem is that "nose up" situations can go south very quickly. For those with the stomach for it, there
are videos on youtube of the 747 freighter that went nose up at Bagram a few years ago (perhaps due to loose cargo shifting backwards
on takeoff). It was over very quickly.
Yes, I was impressed with it. Unfortunately the investigation precludes Boeing from responding as they did indicate they would
have had something to say about it otherwise. But the analysis looks pretty cut and dried:
Boeing underestimated the risk rating for the sensor, excluding the possibility of a catastrophic failure as occurred in
the two incidents to date;
Boeing also failed to implement the redundancy that would have been required even for their lower risk rating;
Manual correction by the pilot as a possible risk mitigation was constrained by the fact that pilots weren't trained on
the new system due to commercial factors.
Fixing any one of those three issues would have averted the disasters, although #3 is pretty precarious as you're relying on
manual pilot actions to correct what is a clear systems defect at that point.
It sounds like #1 was partly because they failed to account for all the scenarios, like repeat activation raising the risk
profile in certain circumstances. This is very easy to do and a robust review process is your best defense. So we could add the
tight timelines and rushed process as a contributing factor for #1, and probably the others as well.
People who work on accident investigation would probably agree on 2 things:
(o) Accidents are invariably a confluence of a myriad of factors that all happened to line up on one day. There is never
a single cause of an accident.
(o) A minor change to some part of the system would have prevented the accident.
So while there is much to be profitably learned by investigating everything here, an effective "fix" may be surprisingly (or
suspiciously) small in scope. There will be much clamoring for the whole plane to be resigned or scrapped, for better or worse.
The Colgan crash, whose pilot, Renfrew, was chatting with the co-pilot below the allowed altitude? And who had apparently lied
about his background, and had a pay-to-play pilot's license?
I think the Air France Airbus 447 also had a high-altitude stall (due to a faulty air speed sensor) and needed its nose pushed
down, not up (which the copilots didn't realize).
Also, very informative article / OP, thanks for posting.
MCAS was added to change the behavior of the plane from to tend to stall as speed increases. That is stall and crash, because
such a high speed stall makes polit recovery very, very difficult.
In addition the MCAS driven amount of elevator change was initially 0.6 to 2.5, which indicates the 0.6 increment was found
to be too low.
According to a detailed FAA briefing to legislators, Boeing will change the MCAS software to give the system input from
both angle-of-attack sensors.
It will also limit how much MCAS can move the horizontal tail in response to an erroneous signal. And when activated, the
system will kick in only for one cycle, rather than multiple times.
Boeing also plans to update pilot training requirements and flight crew manuals to include MCAS.
–Seattle Times
So apparently the greater elevator setting is not so necessary that they are not willing to reduce it. Also the max power setting
would normally be on take off when the pilots are required to manually fly the plane.
Yes, that was an excellent Seattle times piece. Surprising to see that kind of truth-telling and, especially, *clarity* in
an MSM piece these days. So what's the angle?
Reports I've read indicates that Boeing ignored even the clearly inadequate certification. "Documentation provided to the
FAA claims that the MCAS system can only adjust the horizontal tail on the plane by 0.6 degrees out of a maximum of five-degrees
of nose-down movement. But that limit was later increased to 2.5-degrees of nose-down movement. Boeing didn't communicate the
change from 0.6-degrees to 2.5-degrees until after Lion Air."
Apparently this was done after simulations showed that 0.6 degrees was inadequate and the new 2.5 degree setting was not extensively
tested before the planes were rolled out. IANAL, but this may be a serious problem for Boeing. Boeing could also be liable
for damages due to 737 groundings and due to delays in delivery of contracted planes.
Big question is how 737 issues will affect 777X rollout, due at the end of the year. If 777X certification is called into question,
this may cause further delays and put it at a further disadvantage against A350.
The 777 has been a great plane. Let's all pray the MBAs didn't fuck it up, too.
If I were Boeing, I'd have a team looking into the 777 certification process right now. And I'd set up a whistleblower line
(so the Seattle Times doesn't get to the story first).
The analogy has been made between this the 737 MAX story and the Tylenol story. J&J got out in front of the problem and
saved the product (and their company). Boeing's problem is of that order, and Muilenberg -- that letter! -- seems incapable of
understanding that; insular, arrogant. One more reason to fire the dude toot sweet. If he comes out of his next review with a
raise -- Everything Is Like CalPERS™ -- consider shorting Boeing
Thanks, Lambert, for post and comments. I don't know if this angle has been covered or explored: the relatively new way that
Boeing now "manufactures" "tests" and "assembles" parts of its planes. I had dinner with new acquaintance, Boeing engineer for
decades (I live near a plant in WA state). For the last few years, this engineer is stationed half year in Russia annually to
oversee assembly there. In this newish, more profitable manufacturing system for Boeing, the parts come in from around the world
with sketchy quality control, are then assembled by Russian workers this engineer (and other Boeing employees sent from States)
supposedly oversees. But the engineer doesn't speak Russian and has too little access to translators .Needless to say, this engineer
is planning an exit as soon as possible. Having grown up in WA state for 60 years with neighbors/friends who were Boeing engineers,
assemblers, line workers, etc it makes me heart sick to see the current decimation of talent, rigor and wages with additional
far-flung assembly factories (Russia with few translators?! who knew?). Might these manufacturing/assemblying "improvements" also
be a contributing factor in these terrifying woes for Boeing?
Thanks for this Lambert, fantastically informative and interesting post.
Self regulation only works when liability is transferred with it – over example, in construction whereby certification by the
engineers or architects designing the building are also taking on liability in the event something goes wrong. It seems unlikely
that this is the situation with Boeing.
Allowing this to happen seems the ultimate in short term thinking by Boeing. US manufacturers have always had an advantage
over competitors because the FAA was held in such high regard worldwide that it was the de facto world safety regulatory
body – every country followed its lead. But this chipping away of its authority has led to a near fatal loss of faith, and will
no doubt lead to European and Asian regulatory authorities being strengthened. And no doubt commercial realities will mean they
will look much more closely at US manufactured aircraft if there is some benefit to their own manufacturers.
Airbus will no doubt try to take advantage – just as Boeing (with some justification) tried to focus attention on the Air France
Airbus loss which was attributed at least in part to excessive automation. China is pushing hard with its new Comac aircraft,
but they seem to be poorly regarded worldwide (only Chinese airlines are buying). The Canadians have missed their chance with
the Bombadier C-series.
The more I read of this the more baffling it is. What was there stopping Boeing from just highlighting the changes and installing
an easy manual override instead of this hidden change with effectively no way to permanently do so? Especially when in crisis
mode? One could make a case of no extra training needed so long as the pilot knows about it and can easily turn it off.
I didn't see this before I posted my response. A more concise statement of my thoughts. This plus more robust redundant sensors.
Penny wise and pound foolish.
The Times thinks Boeing is too big to fail. Without a blockbuster Max, I don't see how Boeing maintains its current status
in the industry.
I am leaning towards thinking the kludgy design of the 727 Max could have been rolled out with no major problems if Boeing
had been up front about design changes, made a robust and conservative MCAS, fully at the command of the pilot, and provided ample
training for the new aircraft.
They still could have saved billions on the airframe. They would have had to acknowledge the significant modifications to the
airlines with the attendant training and other costs and delays. They would have lost some sales. They still would have been far
ahead of Airbus and light years ahead of where they are now.
I also think they have been completely afflicted by the defense contractor mentality.
Note that Muilenberg came up through the defense side of the company not the commercial aircraft side. He may simply not
have been equipped to understand FAA regulation at any deep level, hence the rot that finally surfaced.
The 737 Max crashes and Brexit are the chickens coming home to roost. NC is a treasure for your coverage of both.
Clearly upper management in Chicago only knows short term finance. Boeing stuck with old fashion hydraulic controls in the
737 but faced with an unacceptable flight characteristics of the larger more efficient engines added a fly-by-wire system to compensate
for it.
The criminal charges are that besides being a faulty design (it relies on one fragile exposed sensor that if out of position
keeps triggering dives until switched off) but Boeing hid it and self-certified that it was safe. Adding a discrepancy warning
and position indicator for the two independent flight sensors to the cockpit video display is an extra cost feature.
Neither of the planes that crashed had the added safety display. All are cost saving measures. Finally, if a faulty sensor
triggers dives, the pilot at the controls is busy with both hands on the yoke forcing the airplane to stay in the air with stall
and proximity warnings are sounding. The second pilot also must realize what's going on, immediately turn off the electricity
to the screw jack motor and manually turn the stabilizer trim wheel to neutral.
You can't learn this on an iPad. Both pilots should practice it together in a Flight Simulator. If the co-pilot was experienced,
unlike the one in the Ethiopian crash; just maybe, they could have survived the repeated attempts by the airplane to dive into
the ground on takeoff.
The tragedy is that corporate media in pursuit of profits will keep us up to date but will never mention the 6 or 8 minutes
of terror for the 346 souls aboard the two flights. They will cover the criminal negligence trial if there are ever indictments.
But, the news reports never will say that neoliberalism, deregulation, and privatization are the root causes of the deaths.
> if a faulty sensor triggers dives, the pilot at the controls is busy with both hands on the yoke forcing the airplane
to stay in the air with stall and proximity warnings are sounding. The second pilot also must realize what's going on, immediately
turn off the electricity to the screw jack motor and manually turn the stabilizer trim wheel to neutral. You can't learn this
on an iPad. Both pilots should practice it together in a Flight Simulator. If the co-pilot was experienced, unlike the one
in the Ethiopian crash; just maybe, they could have survived the repeated attempts by the airplane to dive into the ground
on takeoff.
That's what I mean by horrid UI/UX. Might as well as both pilots to pat their heads and rub their tummies in synch. And since
the two pilots have to both understand what's going on, we've multiplied the chances for failure.
Boeing also clearly did not know its customers . It should be engineering for the sort of pilots who are going to be hired
by Lion Air, or any rapidly expanding airline in what we used to all the Third World. Hegemony, it seems, makes you insular and
provincial.
Added cost, "mandatory" safety feature. Does not seem to square with the [soon to be former?] CEO's apology-industry written
claim to be committed to absolute safety.
"The FAA, citing lack of funding and resource": I don't suppose I'll survive to see any arm of government not blame
lack of funds for its boneheaded or corrupt incompetence.
But the bigger picture: suppose the FAA is to do its job properly. From where is it going to recruit its staff?
Smaller picture: it doesn't really matter whether the cocked-up MCAS killed all those people or not. Even if it's innocent
of the charge, the account of its development and application is a horror story.
Bigger picture: what other horrors have been hidden by Boeing?
> the account of its development and application is a horror story.
That's how I feel. The tech doc department at Boeing sounds like a horrible place to work; MBAs or their goons telling
you all the time to do stuff you know is wrong. It's not surprising people were willing to talk to the Seattle Times; I bet there
are more people. (Hey, Seattle Times! How about people testing the 737 MAX in simulators (assuming this is done)).
Sounds like the MBAs in Chicago have been busy planting land mines everywhere. Somebody stepped on this one; there are others.
The unfortunate pilots were made test pilots; the unsuspecting passengers: Guinea pigs. Lab rats. And paid for the privilege.
Some others may share this opinion. Change one little thing? Chaos Theory Rules. Same with weather/climate; folks. That rant is
for later.
Boeing stuck with old fashion hydraulic controls in the 737 but faced with an unacceptable flight characteristics of the
larger more efficient engines added a fly-by-wire system to compensate for it.
Interestingly, and maybe relevant to the problem of confusion for the pilots, is that Boeing has had another automatic
trim-modifier operating on its 737s for some time, the speed-trim system (STS):
This system also modifies the stabilizer position during manual flight. Like MCAS, it was brought in to improve stability
under certain flight conditions (the reasons for which are far beyond my knowledge). There is an indication that the pilots on
the flight before the Lion Air crash misinterpreted MCAS actions for STS behavior.
At what point does "crapification" become insufficient to describe Boeing's product and process here? At what point do we have
to speak of " ford-pintofication"?
OK, I'm told to resubmit my crib re: "Boeing options" from the ZeroHedge "tweetstorm" by Trevot Sumner, and include a link
got it:
Economic problem. Boeing sells an option package that includes an extra AoA vane, and an AoA disagree light, which lets
pilots know that this problem was happening. Both 737MAXes that crashed were delivered without this option. No 737MAX with
this option has ever crashed
Ooops! "Options package"? Wait, a "package" that in the interim corrects a potentially catastrophic mfg. defect and airlines
have to pay for it? Whoa, here's your late capitalism in play.
> Boeing sells an option package that includes an extra AoA vane, and an AoA disagree light
This is one of the details I could not get to (and we don't 100% know this is an issue until the forensics are done. Right
now, we have narrative. Truly excellent narrative to be sure -- if only we thought of government the same way as pilots think
of their aircraft! -- but narrative nonetheless).
Let me see if I have this right. Pilots, chime in!
"Authority" is one of the big words in this discussion; MCAS takes authority away from the pilot (and can do in such a drastic
fashion as to crash the plane). Worse, the default case is that it can do so on the basis of a single sensor reading. In a design
appropriate to the consequences for failure (i.e., a different design from that described in the "System Safety Analysis" that
Boeing self-certified) MCAS would take readings from two sensors, and if they disagreed, authority would revert to the pilot
. That's a general principle at Boeing, and so it's reasonable for pilots to assume that they retain authority of MCAS has not
told them they don't have it any more.
Hence, the disagree light, which tells the pilots to take back authority because the sensors are confused. However, I think
there are UI/UX issues with that, given that the 737 cockpit is extremely noisy and pilots have a lot to do on take-off. So a
light might not be the answer. (The light also strikes me as a kludge; first, MCAS feels to me like a kludge, in that we're making
the aircraft flyable only through software.* Fine for fighter jets, which can be inherently unstable, but perhaps not so fine
for commercial aircraft? Then we have a second kludge, a light to tell us that the first kludge has kicked in. I dunno.)
NOTE * However, it's also true that automation affects flight characteristics all the time. So I'm not sure how savage to make
this indictment.
The AOA indication is Service Bulletin 737-31-1650 (there may be others) and is on the both Pilot Flight Displays (PFDs). Pilots
would likely abort a takeoff if they saw the indication come on before getting airborne.
"Boeing has been in the business of aviation safety for more than 100 years, "
How many years ago did Wall Street take over the fortunes of the company? Why did they move their headquarters from their
birthplace of Seattle to Chicago? Why did they start assembling planes in South Carolina and China? Was it to improve aviation
safety? Or, to allow the profiteering parasites to feed off the carcass of the company?
I want to fly on Boeing planes put together by well paid members of the Seattle Machinists Union, not low wage peons. Let's
not even mention the maintenance of American aircraft in China and El Salvador.
President Trump, here's a reelection tip: "Today I am declaring that all American registered aircraft flying in American
airspace must be maintained in the U.S."
> "Today I am declaring that all American registered aircraft flying in American airspace must be maintained in the U.S."
Amazingly, Trump seems to have done OK on this. First, he didn't cave to Muilenberg's (insane, goofy, tone-deaf) request
to keep the 737 flying; then he frames the issue as complexity (correct, IMNSHO), and then he manages to
nominate a Delta CEO as head of the FAA .
And your suggestion is very good one. I wonder if he could do that by executive order? And I wonder how many grey-beards would
come off the golf courses to help out? I bet a lot.
The aircraft is NOT CRAP!!! However. It should have been flown A WHOLE LOT MORE before receiving certification.
*Real* test pilots should have their a–es on the line ; operating for a lot more hours at *the edge of the envelope*, as it
is known. Stability should be by design; not software*patch*. Patch this!
What portion of its' MCAS system flight testing was in computer simulation? Like the so-called Doppler Radar; which *magically*
predicts what the future will bring; while the experts pitch it as fact? And make life-or-death decisions on the theoretical data???
Rush to market; markets rule. We can die.
Agreed, but I think we're seeing signs that a crapification process has begun on the safety side in this industry. (It
has been proceeding for years on the service/amenities side.)
Didn't say it was. The headline reads "Boeing Crapification," not "737 Crapification."
That said, the 737 clearly has issues, as Boeing itself knew, since if they'd had their druthers, they would have launched
a new plane to replace it. See point #2.
> What portion of its' MCAS system flight testing was in computer simulation?
That is a very good question. If I understand the aerodynamics issues aright, MCAS would be most likely to kick in at takeoff,
which raises a host of UI/UX issues because the pilots are very busy at that time. So was MCAS not tested in the simulators? If
so, how on earth was a scenario that included sensor failure not included? It may be that there are more issues with Boeing's
engineering process than the documentation issues raised by the Seattle Times, though those are bad enough.
I say the 737-whatever is a flying Turd, and always has been. It has a bad wing design which means it has to fly nose up compared
to other models( I always remember that when going to the restroom while going somewhere on one). And because of its poor design
it has to takeoff and land at higher speeds. So when flying into someplace like Mexico City it can be quite a harrowing experience,
and the smell of cooking brakes is relatively normal.
Boeing never should have let go of the 757. Now that was a good plane that was simply ahead of its time.
Considering the fact that all these 737s are grounded as no airline trust them to not kill a plane load of passengers and
crew, this is a really big deal. Putting aside the technical and regulatory issues, the fact is that the rest of the world no
longer trusts the US in modern aviation so what we have here is a trust issue which is an even bigger deal.
We now know that the FAA does not audit the work done for these aircraft but the airlines themselves do it. It cannot be just
Boeing but the other aircraft manufacturers as well. Other countries are going to be asking some very hard questions before forking
over their billions to a US aircraft manufacturer in future. Worse is when Ethiopia refused to hand over the black boxes to the
US but gave them instead to a third party.
That was saying that based on how you treated the whole crash, we do not trust you to do the job right and not to change some
of the results. It has been done before, ironically enough by France who the Ethiopians gave the black boxes to. And when you
lose trust, it takes a very long time to gain it back again – if ever. But will the changes be made to do so? I would guess no.
But if the discount foreign airlines had just trained their pilots and paid for the non-crashintothegroundat500mph upgrade,
all of this could have been avoided.
> we have here is a trust issue which is an even bigger deal
Loss or at least wobbliness of imperial hegemony, like. It's not just the aircraft, it's US standards-setting bodies, methods,
"safety culture," even -- dare we say it -- English as the language of aviation. French is no longer the language of diplomacy,
after all, though it had a good run.
Because markets. Neoliberalism puts everything up for sale. Including regulation. Oversimplifying absurdly: And so you
end up with the profit-driven manufacturer buying the regulator, its produce killing people, and the manufacturer canceling its
future profits. That's what the Bearded One would call a contradiction.*
NOTE * There ought to be a way to reframe contradiction in terms of Net Present Value which would not be what we think it is,
under that model.
I wish it were as complete as it should be! There are a ton of horrid details about sensors, the UI/UX for the MCAS system,
737 cockpit design, decisions by the marketing department, and training and maintenance for Asian airlines that I just couldn't
get to. (Although most of those presume that the forensics have already been done.) But I felt that dollying back for the big
picture was important to. Point #1 is important, in that all the factors that drove the 737 decision making are not only still
in place, they're intensifying, so we had better adjust our systems (assuming Boeing remains a going concern -- defenestrating
Muilenberg would be an excellent way to show we accept the seriousness of customer and international concern).
Bloomberg is reporting that : "The Indonesia safety committee report said the plane had had multiple failures on previous flights
and hadn't been properly repaired."
And the day before when the same plane had the problem that killed everyone the next day: "The so-called dead-head pilot on
the earlier flight from Bali to Jakarta told the crew to cut power to the motor driving the nose down, according to the people
familiar, part of a checklist that all pilots are required to memorize."
There's an enormous expansion of air travel in Asia. The lower end -- not flag -- carriers like Lion Air and also Air Asia
are in that business to be cheap ; they're driven by expansion and known to be run by cowboys.
That said, know your customer . I would translate this into an opportunity for Boeing to sell these airlines a service
package for training their ground operations. But it seems that cutting costs is the only thing the MBAs in Chicago understand.
Pilots, pipe up!
Pilot training and requirements are in the hands of the country, not Boeing. If the story that the copilot of the Ethiopian
Airlines plane had only 200 hours of experience that is astounding.
In the US that requirement is 1500 hours. In addition most US airlines would require more than that. And then they slot 'beginning'
pilots for flights in good (better) weather as high minimums pilot.
"sell these airlines a service package" That won't help an airline that is in the business to be cheap. The Indonesia airplane
was repeatedly reported for problems in prior days/flights that was never fixed.
and this quote makes an interesting follow-on to the thread yesterday with 737 Pilot (which Lambert linked to in the first
paragraph here):
"The combination of factors required to bring down a plane in these circumstances suggests other issues may also have occurred
in the Ethiopia crash, said Jeffrey Guzzetti, who also directed accident investigations at FAA and is now a consultant.
"It's simply implausible that this MCAS deficiency by itself can down a modern jetliner with a trained crew," Guzzetti said."
Setting aside Mr Guzzetti's background (dismissing his claim here as tendentious right off the bat would strike me as uncharitable),
and without wishing to exculpate anyone, it does lend some credence to the idea that Ethiopia Airlines may have some contributory
negligence here, staffing the flight with such an inexperienced first officer.
Setting aside Mr Guzzetti's background (dismissing his claim here as tendentious right off the bat would strike me as uncharitable),
and without wishing to exculpate anyone, it does lend some credence to the idea that Ethiopia Airlines may have some contributory
negligence here, staffing the flight with such an inexperienced first officer.
One can often point to inexperience, incompetence, stupidity, incompetence or just bad luck when some disaster happens, but
Boeing counted on perfect performance from flight crews to successfully work with a workaround needed for other workarounds that
needed perfect performance to not catastrophically fail. I know enough about complexity that you cannot depend on perfection because
something will always fail.
Your excellent summary lacks some MCAS details that are not widely reported by the general-audience press.
Like you, I am a retired software engineer, so I have followed an aviation blog discussion of this issue quite closely
since it emerged as a probable software and system design failure. As the blog is open to all, its signal-to-noise ratio is pretty
low, but it seems not too difficult for any technically-minded person to separate the wheat from the chaff. My current understanding,
which I believe others here are in a position to correct, if necessary:
A. The requirement for MCAS apparently emerged very late in the MAX's development, when it became clear that the upper cowling
around the larger engines, being moved up and forward with respect to earlier 737 versions, adds nose-up force as the angle of
attack (AoA) approaches the upper limits of the MAX's operating envelope because at such angles, the cowling itself generates
lift beyond that of the wing.
B. As perceived by a pilot flying manually (not on autopilot), this added nose-up force makes it easier to pull back on the
control column ("stick"), increasing the AoA further. This is like a car running off the asphalt onto a muddy shoulder: the steering
wheel wants to turn the wrong way (toward the ditch) rather than the right way (back on the road).
C. An FAA regulation prohibits certification of an aircraft that presents the pilot with changing stick forces near stall that
nudge the pilot toward the wrong reaction, 14 CFR 25.203(a)
, IIRC (unfortunately, I can't find the original blog citation).
D. MCAS was put in place to satisfy this certification requirement -- not to automagically correct stalls without pilot action.
E. Other means of meeting this requirement exist, ranging from an airframe redesign that avoids the extra nose-up effect of
the larger repositioned engines down to a "stick pusher" that increases the force a pilot would need to pull the stick back further
in this situation.
F. Any of the other options would negate one or both of the MAX's chief selling points: little cost or schedule impact to Boeing
(in a rush to meet the Airbus 320 NEO challenge) and to its customers ("No new flight crew training necessary, because to the
pilot, the MAX feels just like its 737 predecessors.") That is, all the other options introduce new hardware to a completed design
and the more fundamental changes could require new type certification.
G. The easiest fix was pure software: at high indicated AoA, under manual control, and with flaps up, automatically rotate
the horizontal stabilizer a little bit nose-down, which increases the pressure needed to pull the stick back (nose-up). No need
to tell the pilot about this in training or real time, since it's just to make MAX feel like any other 737.
H. The design presented for certification described a single small rotation. Testing showed this was insufficient to provide
the tactile feedback necessary for certification in all cases, so the software fix was obvious: if the trigger conditions still
hold after a 5 sec. pause, do it again.
I. Apparently nobody asked at that point, "What if the AoA indication is stuck high?" We're under schedule and cost pressure,
so who wants to complexify things by (1) adding additional sanity-checking to the aircraft's AoA computations or (2) limiting
how many times we add a little bit of nose-down.
J. When these details combine with a consistently erroneous AoA reading, MCAS can -- if not repeatedly countermanded or disabled
and manually reversed -- eventually rotate the horizontal stabilizer to its maximum nose-down position, where it was found in
both recent incidents, IIRC.
Even if the pilots figure out that's what's happening amid a cacophony of seemingly contradictory instrument readings and warnings
(stick-shaker, trim wheel clacking, alarm chimes, and synthesized voices), the pilots still have to (1) cut power to the electrical
trim systems and (2) restore the required trim, which may then require as many as 50 manual turns of a trim wheel. If you're near
the ground, time is short
A minority of commenting pilots assert that any competently trained cockpit crew should be able to identify MCAS misbehavior
quickly and power off automatic trim per the same checklist that was prescribed for "runaway automatic trim" on every 737 variant,
MAX included. Most seem to agree that with aircraft control difficulties, multiple alarms, and disagreement among the pilot's
and first officer's airspeed and AoA readings almost from the moment of takeoff (not yet officially confirmed), an MCAS-commanded
runaway trim event may feel very different from the runaway trim flavors for which pilots have had simulator training, making
problem identification difficult even given knowledge of the earlier Lion Air incident.
I imagine most software developers and engineers have seen cost/schedule pressures lead to short cuts. If their life was at
stake, I doubt that many would think self-certification that such a project complies with all relevant safety requirements is
a good idea.
Thank you for that. And just 'wow'. I don't really know anything about aircraft/flying but this story is really fascinating
and seems to be true a sign of the times. I guess we'll know what the current 'temperature' is out there when the fallout
(civil liability, criminal liability, plane orders cancelled/ returned, etc) manifests. If Boeing skates, we'll know we've got
a long way to go.
The Post's article on the FAA and Regulatory Capture is incomplete. The process for the FAA (and probably MANY government
agencies) started under Reagan, did not revert to safety under Clinton (make government smaller and all that), and then accelerated
under Bush II in 2005 (not a bi-partisan time). In particular, big changes to the FAA were made in 2005 that were executive in
nature and did not require Congressional approval. CF:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/delegating-aircraft-safety-assessments-to-boeing-is-nothing-new-for-the-faa/
Yes, but. Part of what we are seeing in this case is a rush to judgement based on less than full evidence and analysis, and
so prejudices and ideological positions (which I share actually) are plainly to be seen (and perhaps worth analyzing). "Crapification,"
says the headline.
Yet, I cannot say that I disagree with BA's business decisions as such in a highly competitive environment as regards the tradeoffs
in the development of the MAX and there is a certain absurdity in the idea that Boeing would knowingly take a high reputational
risk, in an industry where failure is front page news (contrast banking or pharma failures).
I have no reason to believe that an FAA fully in charge of all aspects of certification would have prevented these crashes,
as banking and drug regulators have not kept us safe either. What seems worthy of note is that neither the airlines that buy the
product nor the foreign aviation regulators nor pilots' associations do their own testing and certification, in an area where
more redundancy would be good. Nor is there any kind of private third party watchdog testing, like a Moody's or S&P, evaluating
potentially toxic products and services for a price.
Finally, I suppose we have to ask ourselves why the price of the stock is holding up fairly well even as the news flow on these
tragedies is helping the short sellers. Lest we forget that Boeing is the 5th largest defense contractor in the US.
Is engine throttle automated in the flight regime where these accidents occurred? Or are the pilots controlling power? Is the
lag in thrust response interacting with the MCAS in an unanticipated way? Aerodynamic lift of nacelles is mentioned several times;
there is another lift factor relating to the thrust angle; which is not necessarily aligned with the fuselage axis in flight.
Departure procedures often require speed limits and altitude changes; so it is likely multiple power demand levels get set through
takeoff and climb until cruise altitude is reached. Does Autopilot/Flight Director integrate with MCAS; or are they independent
systems? Even without touching flight controls; power changes affect pitch forces. I am wondering if consequences of manual power
changes on an otherwise automated departure were adequately investigated in the certification of the MCAS. Please excuse my ignorance
of these details.
Regulatory elements that have been getting attention include the use of *standard* weights for passengers; IIRC, 170 lbs for
US (and possibly ICAO) passengers comes to mind . Many aircraft accidents have an element of disregard for proper weight distribution,
either accidental, or negligent. For instance: Tail-heavy bad! Intentional loading outside of subsequently approved C.G. and/or
max weight limits is a common, if not ubiquitous part of determining certification limits.There is a safety factor in the certificated
limits; but banking on this; using estimates; is proven risky or disastrous when actual weights, and distribution thereof, is
uncertain. Cargo with false weight values could also occur. One might find incentive to claim lower weights than actual to save
on freight charges. How many 170 lb passengers do you know? I am not familiar with scales being used to check aircraft weight
and balance before takeoff; only calculations; based on formulas and charts.
Scales ARE USED during certain maintenance procedures; for airworthiness certificates; and following certain modifications.
Here is an interesting article by a professional pilot blogger Patrick Smith. He calls the 737, "the Frankenplane", and traces
its history all the way back to the 707 in 1959. According to Smith, "We wonder if the 737 MAX even needed to exist in the first
place. Somewhere deep down, maybe the heart of this whole fiasco is Boeing's determination to keep the 737 line going, variant
after variant, seemingly forever. I'm not saying this is the reason for what happened in Indonesia or Ethiopia, but the whole
737 program just seems misguided and unnecessary. Instead of starting from scratch with a new airframe, they took what was essentially
conceived as a regional jet in the mid-1960s, and have pushed and pushed and pushed the thing -- bigger and bigger engines, fancier
avionics and more seats -- into roles it was never intended for. The "Frankenplane," I call it.
See the article here .
As a pilot myslef, I feel the airlines have a lot to answer for as well. Their constant "dumbing down" of pilots, which comes
from making pilots work long hours for low pay, results in pilots not being the best of the best. And training is a cost to airlines.
Training doesn't result in revenue. Better to have the pilots actually flying, hence Boeing selling this new version of the 737
as not requiring further training. But, training and practice is everything in flying. Flying a plane is actually a relatively
easy skill to acquire. Most people can learn to fly a trainer in 5 hours or so. Most people solo (fly the plane without an instructor)
with only 10-20 hours of instruction. It takes a lot longer to learn how to drive a car for most people (45 hours is the average).
So it really isn't that difficult .until something goes WRONG. That is when the training kicks in. An often quoted flying truism,
is that flying is "99% boredom and 1% stark terror". What happened with these two crashes is that you had some inexperienced pilots
who were not fully trained on the systems (a lot of that blame goes to Boeing). When things start going wrong, information overload
can easily occur if you have not been properly trained, even with two pilots.
Thanks for that correction. We can expect a deluge of blame-the-other-guy PR from the aircraft manufacturer and certification
agencies. Billions are on the line for Boeing if a cascade of judgments it made materially contributed to these crashes. The usual
strategic corporate bankruptcy might follow. I presume Boeing is considered much TBTF by the USG.
Great job summarizing and connecting dots Lambert. I might add one more bullet point though. Items #5 and #6 were aided, abetted
and perhaps somewhat necessitated by 'ye ole NeoLiberal playbook' you spoke of, but more specifically, the current regulatory
FAA/Boeing milieu is attributable to years of budget cuts and strategically applied austerity. The old Grover Norquist, ' not
destroyed, but small and weak enough to be drowned in a shallow bath' saw. Exact same thing we've witnessed with other formally
effective regulators like the EPA, the SEC or the IRS.
I remember having a conversation with an FAA maintenance inspector, an old timer, about ten years ago. He looked to be upwards
of seventy, and he told me he was eight years beyond eligibility for a full retirement. He informed me that a few years back he
was supervising a team of ten people that was now down to two. Their positions had been cut outright or eliminated after they
resigned or transferred when the remaining positions were made miserable by the increased workload and bureaucratic headaches.
The inspector said he had not retired yet because he knew he would not be replaced and he felt the work was important. I asked
him if his department was atypical and he said it was not. Same thing, across the board, with the exception of the executive level
desk jobs in DC and Oklahoma City. Readers can draw their own conclusions but when it comes to funding Federal regulators, I believe
you should never attribute anything to incompetence that you could attribute to malice.
No doubt Neo-Liberal ideologues in high places pushing the corrosive "customer/client" model of regulating along with the requisite
deference and obsequious to industry played a large role as well.
I understand the published materials to boil down to this possible scenario:
To remain competitive and profitable, Boeing needed to improve the fuel efficiency and flight characteristics of a mainstay
medium-haul aircraft. Instead of designing a new aircraft, it modified an existing airframe. Among other changes, it added more
powerful engines, new lift and control surfaces, and enhanced computerized controls.
The modified Max aircraft **did not** fly like the earlier version. That meant Boeing would have to disclose information about
those changes. It would need to train pilots in them, in how to integrate new protocols into existing ones, and in what to do
if the enhanced computer controls malfunctioned, requiring the pilot to regain manual control.
These steps could have increased cost and time to market, might have involved new certifications, and might have reduced sales.
Boeing appears to have relied on enhanced computer flight controls to avoid them.
The newly enhanced computerized controls meant that the computer would do more of the actual flying – the part that was different
from the pre-Max version – and the pilot less. It gave the pilot the virtual – but not real – experience of flying the older aircraft,
obviating the need, in Boeing's judgment, for additional disclosures and training. That worked except when it didn't. (See, driverless
car development.)
One possible failure mode derives from the Max's reliance on a single sensor to detect its angle of attack, the aircraft's
nose-up or nose-down deviation from level flight. Reliance on a single sensor would make it harder to detect and correct a fault.
(Boeing's version of commitment to "absolute" safety.)
In these two crashes, the sensor may have given a faulty reading, indicating that the aircraft's nose was higher than it should
have been for that stage of flight, an attitude that risked a stall. The programmed response was to drop the nose and increase
power. A normal reaction to a real stall, this response can become catastrophic when unexpected or when the pilot cannot correct
it.
In both crashes, it appears that the pilot did attempt to correct the computer's error. Doing so, however, reset the automated
control, leading the computer to reread the faulty sensor to mean "stall." It again dropped the nose and increased speed. The
pilot recorrected the error in what would become a deadly loop, a tug of war that ended in a powered dive into the ground.
What is interesting is what comes next. The FAA was drowned in the bath tub along with the EPA, FDA, SEC, etc. It doesn't have
the money or staff to recertify the 737 Max. An incompetent Administration that is interested only in extracting resources is
in charge. It is clear that Boeing hid the changes to save money and time. Adding a warning indicator that the flight sensors
are not in the correct position to the pilot's display, including it in the preflight checklist, plus flight training would have
prevented the Indonesian crash. But these changes would have raised questions on the adequacy of the new flight critical system
and may have delayed certification overseas. It is easy to overlook problems if your paycheck is at risk. The Boeing managers
who pushed this through deserve jail time for manslaughter.
Canada said it will recertify the 737 Max before it flies in their airspace. China won't recertify the Max until the Trump
Trade War is over. Also, a delay boosts their replacement airliner. If Chicago and DC paper this over like the 2008 Great Recession;
the final nails will have been hammered into the coffin of the hegemon. Trust is gone
The Other Recent Deadly Boeing Crash No One Is Talking About
(nymag.com)
65 Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday March 23, 2019 @01:34PM from the
searching-for-answers dept. New York magazine's Intelligencer remembers last month's
crash of a Boeing 767 carrying cargo for Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service -- and shares a
new theory that its cause wasn't a suicidal pilot or an autopilot malfunction:
In online pilot discussion forums, a third idea has been gaining adherents: that the
pilots succumbed to a phenomenon called somatogravic illusion, in which lateral acceleration
due to engine thrust
creates the sensation that one is tipping backward in one's seat .
The effect is particularly strong when a plane is lightly loaded, as it would be at the
end of a long flight when the fuel tanks are mostly empty, and in conditions of poor
visibility, as Atlas Air 3591 was as it worked its way through bands of bad weather. The idea
is that perhaps one of the pilots accidentally or in response to wind shear set the engines
to full power, and then believed that the plane had become dangerously nose-high and so
pushed forward on the controls.
This would cause a low-g sensation that might have been so disorienting that by the
time the plane came barreling out of the bottom of the clouds there wasn't enough time to
pull out of the dive.
It has been speculated that this might have been the cause of another bizarre and
officially unsolved accident from three years ago: Flydubai Flight 981, which crashed 2016 in
Rostov-on-Don, Russia....
While it's still too early to draw any kind of conclusions about Atlas Air 3591, the
possibility exists that a firm conclusion will never be drawn -- and if it is, the cause
could turn out not to be a design flaw or software malfunction that can be rectified, but a
basic shortcoming in human perception and psychology that cannot be fixed as long as humans
are entrusted with the control of airplanes.
Yes, commercial pilots are taught to "fly their instruments". General aviation pilots may
enjoy more "seat-of-the-pants" flying, but even they are taught to trust instruments over
human perceptions, which are easily fooled, as even simple demos will show.
I used to work for an aircraft instrument maker, and our user interfaces, everything the
pilot interacts with, got more care and attention than the rest of the instrument. Of course
we had to display nothing but totally accurate data, and do so promptly, but we also had to
do so in ways that were obvious and clear, so the pilot can take in the most important
information with a quick glance.
The pilot's standard "scan" is perhaps the most-trained skill. To look at everything on
the instrument panels and outside the windows often enough to not miss anything, yet slow
enough to take in all vital information.
When things get hectic, the pilot still does this scan, interrupting it as needed to
deal with situations, but still doing it. Because, as the saying goes, "trouble often comes
in threes": Stopping everything to handle an initial situation may mask what's really going
on, and lead to a cascade of failures.
With ever more data being aimed at the pilot, there is a distinct risk of information
overload, especially when tired, or during tense but otherwise normal situations, such as
take-off, landing, or flying through turbulence. This overload often encourages the pilot to
rely more on signals from the body, which need less conscious processing, rather than focus
on all that data.
Here, again, is where commercial pilots receive extra training, but perhaps not often
enough. This is one of the factors that keep commercial pilot mandatory retirement ages so
low: The risk of overload increases with age, even when all other factors match those of a
younger person.
Plus, staying in peak training for decades is fatiguing, and relatively few can do so
"naturally". Which is one of the reasons we're running out of commercial aircraft
pilots.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but this overload risk is often handled by adding more
automation, more automatic systems to "help" the pilot. So much so that actually manually
"driving" a commercial aircraft, with hands on the controls, is an increasingly rare part of
a normal flight.
Our instruments also tried to take pilot fatigue into account, saving our brightest and
loudest alarms only for the most desperate situations, to punch-through that overload to help
ensure prompt and correct reactions.
One product I worked on was a TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System) instrument,
which basically stayed quiet unless there was a risk of the pilot flying into the ground, to
help prevent "CFIT" accidents (Controlled Flight Into the Ground). It has special modes for
take-off and landing, though our instrument was designed to actually *avoid* making the pilot
depend on it's display: Useful for information as part of the scan, but not to be used to
navigate the aircraft. Our main function was to provide visual and audible alerts only when
needed.
I believe 100% of US commercial aircraft (and perhaps now even biz-jets) are required to
have TAWS on-board and active. Any TAWS-equipped plane approaching the ground outside of an
approved approach path for a know airport will give the pilot "Terrain ahead. Pull up! Pull
up!" alerts until the hazard no longer exists.
Unfortunately, if a stall is also immanent, the pilot will simultaneously receive an alert
to push the nose down. And increase power. And other things as well. An overload of alerts,
which a skilled and calm pilot will respond to with the most correct action. But which can
overload a stressed or tired pilot, or one with the beginnings of a cold or flu.
The thing is, every alert can be silenced, to reduce the confusion and distractions.
But an overloaded pilot can forget even this simple aid to keeping full awareness and
control.
This is a big part of why pilots are so often blamed for crashes: Because, for whatever
reason, they failed to take the appropriate action demanded by the situation.
As a former aircraft instrument developer, I was always well aware of my instruments'
contribution to the pilot's mental load. Our teams agonized over tiny changes to font
selection and sizes and colors and contrast. And how many button presses were needed to
accomplish a function. And how easy it was to switch modes or silence an alert. Which is why
we had a massive alpha test system that got even the earliest versions of our instruments in
front of pilots with experimental aircraft and ratings. (Experimental aircraft and the pilots
who fly them are rare and precious things to instrument developers, even when we owned and
operated our own corporate test aircraft.)
Fortunately, our efforts paid off, and pilots (and the FAA) loved our instruments. Some of
our design innovations were adopted into instrument regulations by the FAA, so all
manufacturers had to build to our standard. But always hovering over our success was the fear
of news of the crash of a plane flying our instruments. And the fear that information
overload from our instruments would be shown to be a contributing factor.
Which is why part of our required reading was any and all reports (mainly NTSB and NASA)
that even mention pilot overload. Even a decade after leaving that industry, I still read
these reports.
``...the cause could turn out not to be a design flaw or software malfunction that can
be rectified, but a basic shortcoming in human perception and psychology that cannot be
fixed as long as humans are entrusted with the control of airplanes.''
On the other hand, we have two recent examples of what can happen when a flight computer
is given control of the plane and it is unable to avoid doing something stupid like -- as the
old euphemism goes -- `make inadvertent contact with the terrain'.
Until we know more about how this was supposed work and exactly why it
didn't , I think I'll trust the human with his hands on the controls more than the flight
computer.
(Thankfully, the occasions for my needing to fly are few and far between.)
If you look at it and you are headed down (and you have good airspeed), you don't need to
keep trying to nose down - regardless of what your senses are telling you.
What about looking at how the altimeter is changing?
The artificial horizon gives you a lot of information when your sense of direction is
playing tricks on you (in the clouds and feeling like you are going up,down, rolling,
etc.)
U.S. out of Iraq. U.S. out of Syria. U.S. out of Afghanistan. U.S. out of South Korea.
U.S. out of Okinawa. U.S. out of Germany. U.S. out of Saudi Arabia. U.S. out of Cameroon.
U.S. out of Djibouti. U.S. out of Qatar. U.S. out of Niger.
Tulsi Gabbard Verified account @ TulsiGabbard Mar 17
For decades, Space has been a model of cooperation between global superpowers. But such
cooperation is the latest victim of the new Cold War. Trump/Neocon efforts to start a space
war/arms race will lead to destruction of our country and planet. #Tulsi2020
Tulsi Gabbard Verified account @ TulsiGabbard Mar 17
For decades, Space has been a model of cooperation between global superpowers. But such
cooperation is the latest victim of the new Cold War. Trump/Neocon efforts to start a space
war/arms race will lead to destruction of our country and planet. #Tulsi2020
The Trump administration has
ignored yet another mandated deadline for reporting to Congress on Yemen:
A senior Pentagon official had pledged to deliver the strategy report at the beginning of
March after failing to meet a Feb. 1 deadline mandated by law.
In recent months, the Trump administration has disregarded several certification
requirements from Congress. In February, the State Department refused to say whether the
Saudi-led force had reduced civilian casualties in the Yemeni conflict. And the White House
failed to respond to lawmakers' query about whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
was responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Last year, the administration met the first certification deadline by brazenly lying to
Congress that the Saudi coalition was successfully reducing harm to civilians in Yemen.
Congress completely failed to hold Secretary Pompeo accountable for those lies, and the
administration has obviously concluded that it can get away with disregarding these
requirements. For the last several months, both the Secretary of State and the Pentagon have
simply refused to comply with the law. In this case, the Pentagon probably can't "detail
specific US diplomatic and national security objectives" because the only discernible objective
of reflexive support for the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen is to indulge them in whatever they
want to do. An administration that has illegally involved the U.S. in the war on Yemen for more
than two years obviously won't have any respect for legal requirements set by Congress when
they can't even be bothered to respect the Constitution.
The administration's contempt for the law and their disrespect for Congress are additional
reasons why the House should vote on and pass the antiwar Yemen resolution that the Senate
passed earlier this month. Beyond that, Congress needs to increase pressure on the Saudi and
Emirati governments with additional measures to cut off arms sales and hearings to scrutinize
the numerous human rights abuses and war crimes committed by their forces and their
proxies.
When war supporters object that Congress risks undermining the U.S.-Saudi relationship, it
is important for members of Congress to know that it is Mohammed bin Salman who has jeopardized
the relationship through his reckless and destructive behavior. The Saudi government has been
desperately lying about its conduct in Yemen and elsewhere to the U.S. and the entire world,
and the crown prince has proven himself to be completely unreliable and strikingly incompetent
at everything except grabbing more power for himself:
"We know who this guy is, we know what he's capable of, and treating him like he's an ally
or a reliable partner is totally untenable," said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former US Agency for
International Development director during the Obama administration.
The Saudi government has made itself a liability to the U.S. Since the administration puts
Saudi Arabia first and won't do anything to defend American interests, it falls to Congress to
do what the president won't.
As usual, Trump
made the announcement
of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials...
President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own
Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.
U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings
between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential
announcement this week.
No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats
responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.
Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.
After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone
that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably
sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be
responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy
decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be
good, but the lack of an organized policy process on major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they
would otherwise be.
There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical
political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at
shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.
Another example of Trump and Netanyahu putting their own political interests ahead of the
interests of our respective countries. Will escalate tensions and likelihood of war between
Israel/US/Syria/Iran/Russia. Shortsighted. https:// twitter.com/nytimes/status /1108783266075684865
Omani 1:12 PM - 21 Mar 2019
How long will this continue to go on? They must be stopped. #Tulsi2020
"So you ask what I will change? I will change our priorities so we stop wasting trillions
of our dollars on wasteful counterproductive wars and dedicate them to taking care of the
urgent needs of our communities across this country." #ServiceBeforeSelf#PeaceDvidend
Tulsi Gabbard 7:44 AM - 20 Mar 2019
"I'm not running for president to BE president. I'm running for president to be able to
bring about this sea change in our foreign policy that is so necessary for us and for the
world, and I'm most qualified to do that." #ServiceBeforeSelf#Tulsi2020pic.twitter.com/wk2M7O0CgR
The three-day visit to Washington by the president of Brazil brought together two of the
most right-wing figures in the world: Jair Bolsonaro, a former military officer and fervent
admirer of the blood-soaked military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, and
Donald Trump, who has become the pole of attraction for authoritarians and fascists the world
over, including the gunman who slaughtered 50 Muslims at two New Zealand mosques last week.
During their joint press conference at the White House Tuesday afternoon, Trump repeated his
declaration, delivered to an audience of right-wing Cuban and Venezuelan exiles in Florida,
that "The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere." He emphasized, as he did
in his State of the Union speech, that this also involved putting an end to the threat of
socialism within the United States itself.
Both Trump and Bolsonaro have made the extirpation of socialism -- the political core of
fascist movements -- the central goal of their governments. At their joint press conference,
they railed against socialism only days after the massacre in New Zealand, carried out by
Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant posted a manifesto hailing Trump as a "symbol of renewed white
identity" and declaring his desire to put his boot on the neck of every "Marxist."
The mutual embrace of Trump and Bolsonaro at the White House is symbolic of the elevation of
far-right parties and cultivation of fascistic forces by capitalist governments and established
bourgeois parties all over the world. It underscores the fact that the growth of fascism in
Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US is the result not of a groundswell of mass support from
below, but rather the sponsorship and encouragement of so-called "democratic" governments that
are, in fact, controlled top to bottom by corporate oligarchs.
The global promotion of extreme right politics was embodied by the presence of right-wing
ideologue Steve Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs vice president and Navy officer, as a guest of
honor at a dinner with Jair Bolsonaro Monday night. Bannon has close ties with Bolsonaro's son,
Eduardo, who is a member of the Brazilian Parliament and a Latin American representative of the
political consortium set up by Bannon, known as the Movement, whose aim is to promote extreme
right-wing political parties throughout the world. "Some of the Bolsonaro team on the right see
themselves as disciples of the Bannon movement and representatives of Bannon for Brazil and
Latin America," one former Trump administration official told McClatchy.
At the press conference, both Jair Bolsonaro and Trump pledged their support to a fascistic
litany of "god, family and nation," as Trump put it. Bolsonaro declared, "Brazil and the United
States stand side-by-side in their efforts to share liberties and respect to traditional and
family lifestyles, respect to God, our creator, against the gender ideology of the politically
correct attitudes, and fake news."
Both presidents threatened the use of military force against Venezuela, demonizing President
Nicolas Maduro as a socialist dictator. (He heads a capitalist regime, but one whose foreign
policy tilts toward China and Russia rather than US imperialism).
Trump reiterated the mantra that "all options are on the table" against Venezuela. Bolsonaro
was asked if he would permit US soldiers to use Brazilian soil as a base for military
operations against Venezuela. Rather than dismissing that prospect as a violation of both
Brazilian and Venezuelan sovereignty, he declined to answer, citing the need for maintaining
operational secrecy and the element of surprise.
One of the bilateral agreements that Trump and Bolsonaro signed would allow the United
States to use Brazil's Alcantara Aerospace Launch Base for its satellites. Brazil also
announced an end to visa requirements for US visitors...
Before visiting the White House, Bolsonaro made an unannounced visit to the headquarters
of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, an extraordinary move for the
president of a country that was subjected to 21 years of unrestrained torture and murder by a
military dictatorship installed in a CIA-backed coup.
The dire implications for the working class of the global rise of the far right are
indicated by Bolsonaro's glorification of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Trump hailed the
"shared values" between his government and that of a former military officer who praises a
regime that jailed, tortured and murdered tens of thousands of workers and students. Twenty
years ago, Bolsonaro told an interviewer that the Brazilian Congress should be shut down and
that the country could be changed only by a civil war that completed "the job that the military
regime didn't do, killing 30,000 people."
The capitalist ruling classes are turning once again to dictatorship and fascism in response
to the intensification of the world economic crisis, the disintegration of the postwar
international order and growth of trade war and geostrategic conflicts, and, above all, the
resurgence of the class struggle on a world scale...
The people who died in last Sunday's plane crash were not just killed by Boeing. Their deaths stemmed from an ideology that puts
business interests above human life.
... ... ...
Boeing is not just a lobbying juggernaut that donates prodigiously to politicians all over the country; it's also a company in
which numerous
members
of Congress
are personally invested, and it cultivates
mutually
beneficial
financial relationships with
top
officials
. Meanwhile, as William McGee of Consumer Reports
told
Amy Goodman
, these issues are rooted in the FAA's lax, business-friendly oversight of the very industry it's meant to
regulate, a case of
regulatory
capture
that stretches back long before this administration.
Whatever the black box from the Ethiopian Airlines flight reveals, the lives put at risk by
lax
regulations
are not apolitical tragedies; they are caused by an administration that time and again has shown itself to be
callous and indifferent to the lives of the people it claims to fight for, whether Puerto Ricans left to
fend
for themselves
in the wake of natural disaster, or federal workers used as
bargaining
chips
in a game of political brinkmanship.
But more than that, they are victims of an ideology that tells us the greatest insult to human life is not the death and misery
that comes from unchecked greed, but efforts to democratically control it through public institutions. The real problems aren't
unsafe products, pollution, dangerous chemicals, and the like, we're told, but "red tape" and the taxes used to fund the bodies
regulating them. Meanwhile, activists like Nader have long been
painted
as
"
wacky
"
extremists in the pursuit of some quixotic ideological crusade simply for trying to do things like prevent people from
dying
in cars without seat belts
.
When social-democratic policies are enacted, wealthy people take less home after taxes, and businesses are inconvenienced by
regulations meant to secure the common good. But when neoliberal policies are put in place, people and their families go hungry,
they lose their homes, they get injured on the job, they get sick, and, sometimes, they die. The public should be enraged by the
actions of governments like Trump's and Trudeau's; but we should also be angry at a political narrative that tells us trying to
stop such tragedies is "ideological" instead of common sense. We owe it to the crash victims to create no more of them.
On May 12, 2010, the New York Times ran an article by economics editor Catherine Rampell
titled "The New Poor: In Job Market Shift, Some Workers Are Left Behind"that focused on the
largely middle-aged unemployed who will probably never work again. For example, 52 year old
administrative assistant Cynthia Norton has been working part-time at Walmart while sending
resumes everywhere but nobody gets back to her. She is part of a much bigger picture:
Ms. Norton is one of 1.7 million Americans who were employed in clerical and
administrative positions when the recession began, but were no longer working in that
occupation by the end of last year. There have also been outsize job losses in other
occupation categories that seem unlikely to be revived during the economic recovery. The
number of printing machine operators, for example, was nearly halved from the fourth quarter
of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009. The number of people employed as travel agents fell by
40 percent.
But Ms. Rampell finds the silver lining in this dark cloud:
This "creative destruction" in the job market can benefit the economy.
Pruning relatively less-efficient employees like clerks and travel agents, whose work can be
done more cheaply by computers or workers abroad, makes American businesses more efficient.
Year over year, productivity growth was at its highest level in over 50 years last quarter,
pushing corporate profits to record highs and helping the economy grow.
The term "creative destruction" might ring a bell. It was coined by Werner Sombart in his
1913 book "War and Capitalism". When he was young, Sombart considered himself a Marxist. His
notion of creative destruction was obviously drawn from Karl Marx, who, according to some, saw
capitalism in terms of the business cycle. With busts following booms, like night follows day,
a new round of capital accumulation can begin. This interpretation is particularly associated
with Volume Two of Capital that examines this process in great detail. Looking at this
material, some Marxists like Eduard Bernstein drew the conclusion that capitalism is an
infinitely self-sustaining system.
By 1913, Sombart had dumped the Marxist commitment to social revolution but still retained
the idea that there was a basis in Karl Marx for upholding the need for "creative destruction",
a view buttressed by an overly positive interpretation of this passage in the Communist
Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of
production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of
society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary,
the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing
of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty
and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.
By the 1930s, Sombart had adapted himself fairly well to the Nazi system although he was not
gung-ho like Martin Heidegger or Carl Schmitt. The wiki on Sombart notes:
In 1934 he published Deutscher Sozialismus where he claimed a "new spirit" was beginning
to "rule mankind". The age of capitalism and proletarian socialism was over and with "German
socialism" (National-Socialism) taking over.
But despite this, he remained critical. In 1938 he wrote an anthropology text that found
fault with the Nazi system and many of his Jewish students remained fond of him.
I suspect, however, that Rampell is familiar with Joseph Schumpeter's use of the term rather
than Sombart since Schumpeter was an economist, her chosen discipline. In 1942, he wrote a book
titled Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy that, like Sombart, retained much of Karl Marx's methodology but without the
political imperative to destroy the system that utilized "creative destruction". He wrote:
The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development
from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of
industrial mutation–if I may use that biological term–that incessantly
revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one,
incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact
about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got
to live in. . . .
The wiki on Schumpeter claims that this theory is wedded to Nikolai Kondratiev's "long wave"
hypothesis that rests on the idea that there are 50 year cycles in which capitalism grows,
decays and enters a crisis until a new round of capital accumulation opens up. Not only was the
idea attractive to Schumpeter, it was a key part of Ernest Mandel's economic theories. Unlike
Schumpeter, Mandel was on the lookout for social agencies that could break the cycle and put
development on a new footing, one based on human need rather than private profit.
Returning to Rampell's article, there is one dimension entirely missing. She assumes that
"creative destruction" will operate once again in order to foster a new upswing in the
capitalist business cycle. But how exactly will that manifest itself? All the signs point to a
general decline in business activity unless there is some kind of technological breakthrough
equivalent to the computer revolution that fueled growth for decades. Does anybody believe that
"green manufacturing" will play the same role? I don't myself.
One thing does occur to me. Sombart's book was written in 1913, one year before WWI and was
even titled eerily enough "War and Capitalism". One wonders if the Great War would be seen as
part and parcel of "creative destruction". War, after all, does have a knack for clearing the
playing field with even more finality than layoffs. Schumpeter wrote his in 1942, one year into
WWII. My guess is that he did not theorize war as the ultimate (and necessary?) instrument of
creative destruction but history will record that WWII did introduce a whole rafter of new
technology, including aluminum, radar, nuclear power, etc., while bombing old modes of
production into oblivion. What a great opportunity it was for capitalism to rebuild Japan,
especially after firebombing and atomic bombs did their lovely work.
In my view, there's something disgusting about this "creative destruction" business
especially when it is articulated by a young, pro-capitalist Princeton graduate like Catherine
Rampell who wrote for Slate, the Village Voice and other such b-list publications before
crawling her way up into an editorial job at the NYT. She clearly has learned how to cater her
reporting to the ideological needs of the newspaper of record, growing more and more
reactionary as the crisis of capitalism deepens.
hen United Airlines flight 1462 made an unexpected landing in Chicago last month, it was not due to mechanical issues, weather
conditions, or flight logistics, but a battle over legroom in the aisles. As one passenger
tried
to
recline her seat and another used a $20 device called a
Knee
Defender
to prevent the occupant ahead of him from leaning back, the battle over personal space descended into a scuffle. The
pilot opted to make an additional stop to remove the unruly passengers.
Flight 1462 hasn't been alone. Not just the random dispute of irate travelers, similar flights have been diverted because of the
airlines' frenzied drive to wring as much money out of customers as possible. Airlines are increasingly cramming more passengers
onto each flight, termed "densification," and regularly overbooking flights. Any aspect of a flight that was once provided free
of charge -- from a checked bag to a complementary drink to using a credit card to pay for a ticket -- can now be charged à la
carte.
So relentless has this nickel and diming been that when
news
reports
claimed the discount airline Ryan Air was about to start charging for in-flight bathroom use, many people took them
seriously. But the story wasn't true -- it was all a ploy for free press from a company unwilling to pay for advertising,
help
disabled
passengers, or
provide
ice
for drinks.
Such frugality is only one of the problems wrought by airline deregulation. If the greatest benefit of deregulation has been that
more people can afford to fly, it has come at the cost of increased tumult within the industry and
reduced
pay
for workers.
Before the airlines were deregulated under President Jimmy Carter, the Civil Aeronautics Bureau (CAB) maintained flight pricing
structures, airport gate access, and flight paths. There were rules that stipulated which airlines could compete in which market
and what prices they could charge. Loosening restrictions meant abandoning the CAB and its pricing structures, and allowing an
unmediated flow of competition.
With fewer restrictions, upstart fly-by-night airlines could compete against major airlines like American/US Airways, United,
Delta, Alaskan, and Hawaiian Airways. Such competition, conservative and
liberal
advocates
claimed, would bring down flight costs, providing more savings and convenience to the customer.
But allowing this level of competition also unleashed chaos. While the discount airlines would win over passengers for a time by
offering flights half as expensive, the major airlines would respond by slashing their prices in an attempt to drive the upstarts
out of business.
By drastically reducing ticket costs, the major airlines would take on an unsustainable amount of debt that, combined with the
loss of business to the new entrants, would lead to layoffs or bankruptcy. Pension funds were then raided and labor contracts
voided to pay for the price wars. With each airline company collapse, thousands of employees were laid off, decimating union
membership.
To compete, the legacy airlines also
drove down
the
salaries of their pilots, and cut benefits and vacation time. Besides a reduction in compensation, a two-tiered pay system has
been set up with decent pay for incumbent pilots and markedly low wages for new entrants.
Starting
salaries
for pilots are now as low as $15,000 a year, even as CEO pay rises inexorably.
Remarking
on
a career in which he had seen his pay cut in half and his pension eliminated, captain Sully Sullenberger told the BBC in 2009
that he did not know "a single professional pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps."
While unions were still strong in the industry, they were constantly embroiled in bitter labor disputes. Between the voided
contracts and the hemorrhaging membership caused by regular bankruptcy, they were left fighting to maintain wage standards in an
unnecessarily competitive industry.
The only way discount airlines could offer such low prices was by paying their workers less, using less experienced pilots and
sometimes non-unionized labor, offering fewer frills, and running spartan operations that only serviced a handful of routes with
a single type of jet liner (thus simplifying pilot and mechanic training). Instead of a single union representing
employees across the industry -- typified by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represented a majority of pilots --
some discount airlines maintained relationships with offshoot unions with smaller membership rolls and less leverage.
The discount airlines also depended on secondary, class-B airports that charged less in landing fees. But those discounts
eventually disappeared when the secondary airports no longer needed to cut their fees to attract business.
To maintain their dominance over the market, the major airlines shifted from a direct city-to-city flight standard to the
hub-and-spoke system of today. The hub-and-spoke setup allowed large centralized airports like Dallas-Ft. Worth and Atlanta to be
ruled by a single company that determines which flights can use which terminals and at what cost.
While the hub-and-spoke system has some benefits, it's largely inefficient, dependent as it is on multi-stage connecting flights.
Combined with the need to cut costs, it would also cause longer airport delays as planes were left waiting on the tarmac to make
sure all passengers from connecting flights made it aboard. A single delay in a connecting flight could throw passengers'
itineraries askew, leaving them stuck in a random airport overnight.
The major airlines used other tricks to keep out nascent airlines. They paid off travel agents and travel reservation sites to
give preference to their particular airline. They introduced frequent flier miles to maintain brand allegiance.
Upstart discount airlines like
Southwest
were
able to survive the vicious price wars by leaning on quality of service and direct flights, but most did not. The list of
companies that were liquidated, temporarily or permanently, as a result is impressively long considering what it takes to start
an airline: America West, PanAm, TransWorld, Western, Piedmont, Frontier, Northwest, National, Texas International, People
Express, ValuJet, Air Florida, Eastern, Braniff, Skytrain, Pacific Southwest, Western Pacific, and many more.
Once bankrupt, the major airlines then bought the upstarts, creating an effective oligopoly. So much for competition.
Already on a spending spree during the heady years of the 1990s dot-com boom, buying up failed companies only saddled major
airlines with more debt. While most people assume that the airlines had to be bailed out in 2001 because of the decrease in
traffic after the September 11 attacks, it was also because the airlines
were
insolvent
from previous financial problems, largely as a result of the price wars.
The actions of the major airlines may seem ruthless, but they were largely protecting their position in a deregulated industry
that allowed the discount airlines to undercut labor standards just to offer cheaper prices to customers. They were defending
themselves from disruption.
Considering the skill, education, and investment needed to maintain a safe and reliable airline, it is not exactly a business
that needs to be disrupted. Running an airline is labor intensive, and it only turns a profit at random intervals. There's little
money to be skimmed off.
With profit margins so thin, tickets on a half-empty flight have to cost twice as much as a fully booked one. Which is why, for a
time, smaller cities that weren't necessarily travel hubs bore the brunt of deregulation. Routes that weren't fully booked
experienced skyrocketing flight costs, which, for small-town travelers, was a huge disincentive to fly.
The bilking of transportation costs to and from smaller cities after a run of chaotic competition is eerily similar to what
happened during the railway mania of the 1800s. Investors rushed to build rail lines everywhere and anywhere while money was
flush. But once cash became tight, the rail industry used their monopoly power to charge exorbitant prices for anybody trying to
ship in and out of smaller towns like Cincinnati. Such predatory pricing is what led to transportation regulation in the first
place.
Since the 2001 airline bailout, things have calmed down a bit. It no longer costs $600 to fly from New York to Pittsburgh. Fewer
discount airlines are entering the market, and the handful that are still in operation work with the major airlines on various
routes (e.g. "flight provided by Frontier"). The price wars have settled to a quiet struggle played out on online travel
registration websites like Kayak.com and Hipmunk.com, which have wholly replaced the job of travel agents.
But for airlines, the lower revenue from cheaper tickets has to be made up somewhere, and convenience may be the easiest element
to remove. Airlines are pushing petty indignities on passengers and flight attendants by way of a million miscellaneous charges.
Half the time, the discounts saved by cheaper tickets from deregulation are recouped in add-on fees. Eventually airlines may just
offer extra-saver flights devoid of the most basic accommodations and simply force passengers who can't afford first-class seats
to be stacked in the cargo hold like cord wood.
So what's the alternative? The airline industry is close to being a natural monopoly, there's little reason to foster
competition. Indeed, the industry would benefit from nationalization or a well-regulated public option. At the very least, more
regulation is necessary.
Without subsidization and some rules about flight costs, there is little incentive for the airline industry to provide affordable
flights to locations that aren't fully booked. The irony is that we already subsidize airline travel. It just occurs through
bailouts and bankruptcies after each airline has fought tooth and nail for market dominance. Public funds wind up paying for a
wasteful, inefficient system characterized by irrational, destructive competition.
Through regulation or more aggressive means, it's quite possible to ensure good wages and working conditions and safe,
affordable, reliable service -- all without blackout dates, three layovers, or all-out battles for legroom.
He has long been a vocal critic of the Federal Aviation Administration, saying the agency
lacks the resources and willpower to aggressively police airlines and manufacturers.
Mr. Nader said Boeing may be exposed to civil and possibly criminal liability. After the
first fatal crash in October -- a Lion Air flight that crashed into the Java Sea minutes after
takeoff -- company officials "were put on notice about the problem" with an automated
stall-prevention system that can misfire and override pilot commands by repeatedly pushing down
an aircraft's nose, he said.
The Justice and Transportation Departments are
scrutinizing Boeing's dealings with the FAA over safety certifications, people familiar
with the matter have said.
... ... ...
Mr. Nader has expressed his concerns to lawmakers and former regulators, and called for
congressional hearings. Before
the U.S. grounded the planes last week, he championed the idea of a sweeping boycott of all
versions of 737 MAX aircraft. He also has stressed the importance of having Mr. Muilenburg,
Boeing's CEO, testify on Capitol Hill about safety issues with the fleet.
Criticizing Boeing's original design of the automated flight-control feature, dubbed MCAS,
Mr. Nader said it reflected a misguided view driven by engineering overconfidence and called it
"the arrogance of the algorithms."
RALPH NADER : Boeing is used to getting its way with the patsy FAA . And this time, however,
it's in really hot water. If it continues to dig its heels in, it's going to expose itself and
its executives to potential criminal prosecution, because they are now on notice, with two
crashes -- Indonesia and Ethiopia. There's probably a lot more to come out in terms of the
technical dissent, in the, what was called, "heated discussions" about the plane software
between the FAA , the pilots' union, Boeing. And you can't suppress technical dissent forever.
And Senators Markey and Blumenthal are calling for the release of all the relevant information.
And while that happens, the planes must be grounded. You see, they're on notice now. This is
the future of passenger business for Boeing. They've got orders for over 3,000 planes from all
over the world. They've produced and delivered about 350. Southwest is the leading owner and
operator of these planes. It's digging its heels in, and so is American Airlines, I believe,
and Air Canada. And Boeing is not going to get away with this, because this is not some old
DC-9 about to be phased out. This is their future strategic plan. And they better own up. 2013,
they grounded the 787 because of battery fires, and they had about 50 or 60 of those planes.
So, there's plenty of precedent.
And the most important thing that people can do is: Do not fly this plane, the 737 MAX 8 and
9. Ask the airline, when you book the flight, whether it's that plane. The airline should not
dare charge you for reservation changes. And I'm calling for a boycott of that plane. If
several hundred thousand air passengers boycott that plane and there are more and more empty
seats, that will do more to bring Boeing around than the patsy FAA and a rather serene
Congress, which, by the way, gets all kinds of freebies from the airlines that ordinary people
don't get. We've sent a survey last year, twice, to every member of Congress, asking them to
disclose all these freebies. We didn't get one answer. And that helps account for, over the
years, the total reluctance of members of Congress even to do such things as deal with seat
size, restroom space and other conveniences, never mind just the safety of the aircraft. So,
this is important for consumers. Just don't fly 737 MAX 8 or 9. Make sure that you're informed
about it. And for up-to-date information, you can go to FlyersRights.org . That's run by Paul Hudson, who lost his
daughter in the Pan Am 103, 30 years ago, and has been a stalwart member of the FAA Advisory
Committee. And that's where you get up-to-date information, FlyersRights.org .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we're also joined by William McGee, who's the aviation adviser
for Consumer Reports . Could you give us your perspective on what's happened here? And
also, could you expand on what Ralph Nader was talking about, about the use of artificial
intelligence in these new planes?
WILLIAM McGEE: Sure, absolutely, Juan. You know, there are so many unanswered questions
here, but many of them are focused on the time period between the first crash in late October
with Lion Air and the crash on Sunday with Ethiopian. Again, for perspective here, as Ralph
noted, we're not talking about old aircraft. This is an airplane that's only been in service
since 2017. This is the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a recent derivative of the 737. Now, in that time
period, the aircraft that crashed in October was 2 months old; the one that crashed on Sunday
was 4 months old. This is really unprecedented in all the years that I've been in this
industry. We don't see brand-new airplanes crash on takeoff like this under similar
circumstances.
... ... ...
WILLIAM McGEE: Absolutely. And, you know, this goes back many years. Ralph mentioned that
the FAA is known throughout the industry, even among some of its own employees and to airline
employees, as the "tombstone agency." And that phrase comes from the fact that the FAA has
shown time and time again that it is reluctant to act unless there's a tragedy and,
unfortunately, unless there are fatalities. Now, we have seen this as recently as last year,
when, you may recall, over Philadelphia, a Southwest 737 had a major engine malfunction that
punctured a hole in the fuselage and killed a woman who was nearly sucked out of the aircraft.
Well, what wasn't as well reported was that two years prior, that same engine type and that
same airline, Southwest, same aircraft type, 737, also had an uncontained engine failure. But
in 2016, there were no injuries, and there were no fatalities. Instead of the FAA stepping in
and saying, "We need to, you know, have all of these engine blades inspected on this engine
type, on all the carriers that are operating it," the FAA asked the industry, "What would you
like to do? How long would you like to take to look at this?" And the industry dragged its
heels, not surprisingly, and said, "We need more time." Two years later, in 2018, there was a
fatality. And then, two days after that, last April 2018, two days after that woman was killed,
the FAA issued what's called an AD, an airworthiness directive. That's what should have been
issued in 2016, where that death wouldn't have happened. So, we have seen this time and
again.
And you mentioned Attention All Passengers , my book. Much of the book, about a third
of it, is devoted to the issue of the FAA oversight of airline maintenance. We could easily
talk about it for two or three more days. But the bottom line is that the entire model of how
the airline industry works in the United States has been changed dramatically in the last 15
years or so. All airlines in the United States -- without question, all of them -- in 2019,
outsource some or most or just about all of their maintenance, what they call heavy
maintenance. Much of it is done outside of the United States -- El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil,
China, Singapore. Again, we're talking about U.S. airlines. And although the FAA , on paper,
says there is one standard for maintenance of U.S. airlines, the reality is there isn't. There
are waivers given all the time, so that when work is done outside the United States, there are
waivers so that there are no security background checks, there are no alcohol and drug
screening programs put in place. And, in fact, many -- in some cases, most -- of the
technicians cannot even be called mechanics, because they're not licensed. They're not licensed
as they're required to be in the U.S. So, basically, you have two sets of rules. You have one
that's for in-house airline employees and another for the outsourced facilities. And this all
leads back to the FAA . I have sat in a room with FAA senior officials and asked them about
this, and they say that they don't think it's a problem. It is a problem.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what impact --
WILLIAM McGEE: I've spoken to --
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What impact have the mergers, of the constant mergers of airlines,
had, so we basically have a handful of U.S. airlines now, on all of this?
WILLIAM McGEE: Oh, no question. We have an oligopoly now. And, you know, even just going
back as far as 2001, you know, there were four or five major carriers that we don't have
anymore: America West, Continental, US Airways, TWA . You know, so what we have now is
effectively an oligopoly. And this is unprecedented in the history of the aviation industry
here in the United States. And so, you know, even when -- Ralph was talking about boycotts,
and, you know, it's an excellent idea. But it's more challenging now than it would have been a
few years ago. You know, there might have been more pressure on Southwest and American 10 or 15
years ago, when consumers had more choices. Now it's getting harder and harder for consumers to
express their displeasure. We saw this after the Dr. Dao incident, where that passenger was
dragged off United. In the long term, it didn't really affect United's bookings. It would have
in another time, but so many people are locked in, particularly outside New York, Washington,
Los Angeles. They're locked in, where they don't have a lot of choice on carriers.
AMY GOODMAN : Ralph Nader, I wanted to get your response both to this news that they were
working on a fix -- they know there's a software glitch, that somehow, when on automatic pilot,
when the plane is taking off, it takes this precipitous dive, and the way to deal with it is to
take it off automatic and put it on manual. Now, AP has been doing a deep dive into the
database of pilots complaining over and over again about this problem and saying they have to
quickly switch to manual to prevent the plane from nosediving into the ground. And this latest
news from The Wall Street Journal that while they're talking about this glitch being
fixed in the next five weeks or so, that five weeks were lost in January because of the
government shutdown.
RALPH NADER : Well, that's what Paul Hudson wrote in his press release at Flyers
Rights. The focus has got to be on inaccurate or nonexisting information in Boeing's training
manuals and inadequate flight training requirements. They sold this plane on the basis, among
other things, of having larger engines. It's supposed to be 10 percent more fuel-efficient. But
they sold it on the grounds that "You don't have to really train your pilots, airlines. This is
really just a small modification of the reliable 737 that's all over the world." The question
really comes down to cost cutting. They tantalize the airlines by saying, "This isn't really a
new plane. It's very easy to fly, if you can fly a 737." And that turned out to be quite
false...
The Pentagon's inspector general has formally opened an investigation into a watchdog
group's allegations that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has used his office to
promote his former employer, Boeing Co.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an ethics complaint with the
Pentagon's inspector general a week ago, alleging that Shanahan has appeared to make statements
promoting Boeing and disparaging competitors, such as Lockheed Martin.
Shanahan, who was traveling with President Donald Trump to Ohio on Wednesday, spent more
than 30 years at Boeing, leading programs for commercial planes and missile defense systems. He
has been serving as acting Pentagon chief since the beginning of the year, after James Mattis
stepped down.
The probe comes as Boeing struggles to deal with a public firestorm over two deadly crashes
of the Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliner within the last five months. And it focuses attention on
whether Trump will nominate Shanahan as his formal pick for defense chief, rather than letting
him languish as an acting leader of a major federal agency.
Dwrena Allen, spokeswoman for the inspector general, said Shanahan has been informed of the
investigation. And, in a statement, Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson said Shanahan welcomes the
review.
"Acting Secretary Shanahan has at all times remained committed to upholding his ethics
agreement filed with the DoD," said Crosson. "This agreement ensures any matters pertaining to
Boeing are handled by appropriate officials within the Pentagon to eliminate any perceived or
actual conflict of interest issue(s) with Boeing."
During a Senate hearing last week, Shanahan was asked by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal,
D-Conn., about the 737 Max issue. Shanahan said he had not spoken to anyone in the
administration about it and had not been briefed on it. Asked whether he favored an
investigation into the matter, Shanahan said it was for regulators to investigate.
On Wednesday, Blumenthal said that scrutiny of Shanahan's Boeing ties is necessary. "In
fact, it's overdue. Boeing is a behemoth 800-pound gorilla -- raising possible questions of
undue influence at DOD, FAA and elsewhere," said Blumenthal.
Shanahan signed an ethics agreement in June 2017, when he was being nominated for the job of
deputy defense secretary, a job he held during Mattis' tenure. It outlined the steps he would
take to avoid "any actual or apparent conflict of interest," and said he would not participate
in any matter involving Boeing.
The CREW ethics complaint, based to a large part on published reports, including one by
Politico in January, said Shanahan has made comments praising Boeing in meetings about
government contracts, raising concerns about "whether Shanahan, intentionally or not, is
putting his finger on the scale when it comes to Pentagon priorities."
One example raised by the complaint is the Pentagon's decision to request funding for
Boeing 15EX fighter jets in the 2020 proposed budget. The Pentagon is requesting about $1
billion to buy eight of the aircraft.
Shanahan, 56, joined Boeing in 1986, rose through its ranks and is credited with rescuing
a troubled Dreamliner 787 program. He also led the company's missile defense and military
helicopter programs.
Trump has seemed attracted to Shanahan partially for his work on one of the president's
pet projects -- creating a Space Force. He also has publicly lauded Shanahan's former employer,
Boeing, builder of many of the military's most prominent aircraft, including the Apache and
Chinook helicopters, the C-17 cargo plane and the B-52 bomber, as well as the iconic
presidential aircraft, Air Force One.
This is only the third time in history that the Pentagon has been led by an acting chief,
and Shanahan has served in that capacity for longer than any of the others.
Presidents typically take pains to ensure the Pentagon is being run by a Senate-confirmed
official, given the grave responsibilities that include sending young Americans into battle,
ensuring the military is ready for extreme emergencies like nuclear war and managing overseas
alliances that are central to U.S. security.
3 hours ago Why did Trump
appoint a former Boeing executive and industry lobbyist to the the Secretary of Defense to
replace General Mattis? What in Shananhan's background makes him qualified to lead our nation's
military forces? 3 hours ago WITHOUT A DOUBT HE DID., ALSO INVESTIGATE NIKKI HALEY'S APPOINTED
ON BOEING'S BOARD TO REPLACE SHANAHAN. FOLLOW THE HOEING KICKBACKS(MONEY), TO DONALD TRUMP'S
FAMILY. 3 hours ago
Shanahan probably helped Boeing on the promise of a later payback just like Ms. Nikki Haley did
while Gov of SC where Boeing built a new plant on her watch. She helped big time to keep the
Unions out of the new Boeing plant and now Boeing is going to put her on their board of
directors. Nothing like a bit of an obvious payoff. 2 hours ago Reminds me of the Bush Jr days in
the White House. During the Gulf War (#2) Vice President #$%$ Cheney awarded oil company
Halliburton (Cheney was CEO before accepting the VP job) to deliver meals for the troops. The
contract was ?No Bid.? Why was an oil company delivering food to troops with a no bid contract?
After Cheney?s Job was over being VP he went back to being CEO at Halliburton and moved
Halliburton?s headquarters to Dubai. What an American! 2 hours ago Now we understand why Boeing
& the FAA hesitated to ground those planes for few days despite many countries who did
grounded those plane which is a precedent for a country to ground & NOT wait for the
manufacturer. ONLY after Canada grounded those planes Boeing & the FAA & that's because
Canada IS a the #1 flight partner of the US ! 4 hours ago Years ago there was a Boeing
procurement scandal and Trump does love the swamp he claims to hate.
"... A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side... ..."
"In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:"
Many thanks, and much respect to you Sir for bringing this important piece to my attention.
I apologize for another somewhat off topic posting, but I have not seen it posted here earlier, and I think that this should be
seen by as many eyes as possible.
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system -- and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international
news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording.
In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages
around the world.
A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles
are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews
are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side...
David Kramer, a long-time advisor to late Senator John McCain, revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials
to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.
In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste
Wallander.
In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December
2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department. Senator McCain
asked me to meet with both of them to see if this was being taken seriously in the government," Kramer said.
"And Senator McCain asked you to meet with them?" Kramer was asked to clarify.
"Yes, just to see if this was being taken seriously. I think he wanted to do -- this was his kind of due diligence before he went
to Director Comey."
Kramer testified that in his conversations with Nuland and Wallander he was told by both of them that each were aware of the dossier
and that Nuland "thought Steele was a serious person."
Kramer revealed that he gave a copy of the dossier to Wallander, who was familiar with the contents but did not have a copy.
"I had a subsequent conversation with Ms. Wallander in which I gave her a copy of the document. That was probably around New Year's,"
he said.
"She had not seen it herself until I had shown it to her," Kramer added. "She had heard about it. And she didn't know the status
of it."
In the same testimony, the McCain associate revealed that he held a meeting about the dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News
who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom.
That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.
BuzzFeed infamously
published Steele's full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.
Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey but he refused repeated
requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office
by this reporter.
In his
book published last year, McCain maintained he had an "obligation" to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he
would even do it again. "Anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell," McCain exclaimed.
Kramer, meanwhile, also said that he briefed others reporters on the dossier contents, including CNN's Carl Bernstein, in an effort
to have the anti-Trump charges verified.
The same day BuzzFeed released the full dossier, CNN first
reported
the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified
documents presented one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.
Kramer said that he believed McCain was sought out in order to provide credibility to the dossier claims.
"I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat,
I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack," Kramer stated.
The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion
GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie
law firm.
Kramer's testimony sheds a new light on the role of the Obama administration in disseminating the largely-discredited dossier
that was reportedly involved in the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump campaign and unsubstantiated claims of Russian collusion.
Also Comey
cited the dossier as evidence in a successful FISA application to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a
former adviser to President Trump's 2016 campaign. The testimony also revealed how McCain was utilized to give the wild dossier charges
a credibility boost.
Nuland and dossier
Nuland's specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.
In their
book , "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," authors and reporters
by Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier's
claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.
Steele sought out Rome-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, with whom he had worked on a previous case. Before Gaeta met with
Steele on July 5, 2016, the book relates that the FBI first secured the support of Nuland, who at the time was assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs specializing in Russia.
Regarding the arrangements for Steele's initial meeting with the FBI about the dossier claims, Isikoff and Corn report:
There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria
Nuland's office at the State Department : Do you support this meeting ? Nuland, having found Steele's reports on Ukraine to have
been generally credible, gave the green light.
Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele's office near Victoria station . Steele handed him a copy
of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read . He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing . Then he remarked,
"I have to report this to headquarters."
The book documents that Nuland previously received Steele's reports on the Ukrainian crisis and had been familiar with Steele's
general work.
Nuland faced confirmation
questions
prior to her appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration
talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her
reported changes sought to protect
Clinton's State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in
Benghazi.
Nuland's name surfaced in a flurry of news media reports last year about the dossier and Kerry's State Department.
Sidney Blumenthal
An extensive New Yorker profile
of Steele named another former official from Kerry's State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The
magazine reported that Kerry's chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of
the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.
Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing
and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with
Nuland.
After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington
Post
oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.
Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime
Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an "old friend." Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which
Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.
Nuland, Winer Give Conflicting Accounts
There are seeming discrepancies between Winer and Nuland about actions taken involving the dossier.
Nuland described in a Politico podcast
interview
what she claimed was her reaction when she was presented with Steele's dossier information at the State Department.
She said that she offered advice to "those who were interfacing with" Steele, immediately telling the intermediary or intermediaries
that Steele "should get this information to the FBI." She further explained that a career employee at the State Department could
not get involved with the dossier charges since such actions could violate the Hatch Act, which prevents employees in the executive
branch of the federal government from engaging in certain kinds of political activities.
In a second interview, this one with CBS's Face The Nation, Nuland also stated that her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele
to the FBI.
Here is a transcript of the
relevant
section of her February 5 interview with Susan B. Glasser, who described Nuland as "my friend" and referred to her by her nickname
"Toria":
Glasser: When did you first hear about his dossier?
Nuland: I first heard -- and I didn't know who his client was until much later, until 2017, I think, when it came out. I first
heard that he had done work for a client asserting these linkages -- I think it was late July, something like that.
Glasser: That's very interesting. And you would have taken him seriously just because you knew that he knew what he was talking
about on Russia?
Nuland: What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department,
and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics.
So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate
whether they thought it was credible.
Glasser: Did you ever talk about it with anyone else higher up at the department? With Secretary Kerry or anybody else?
Nuland: Secretary Kerry was also aware. I think he's on the record and he had the same advice.
Nuland stated that Kerry "was also aware" of the dossier, but she did not describe how he was made aware. She made clear that
she told "those who were interfacing" with Steele to go to the FBI since any State Department involvement could violate the Hatch
Act.
Her Politico podcast interview was not the only time she claimed that her reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.
On Face The Nation on February 4, Nuland engaged in the following
exchange in which she stated her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI (emphasis added):
MARGARET BRENNAN: The dossier.
VICTORIA NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction
to that was, "This is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the
election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."
And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- we can't evaluate this. And frankly, if every member of the campaign
who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess
we're in today.
Nuland gave the two interviews after her name started surfacing in news media reports involving Kerry's State Department and the
dossier. Her name also came up in relation to a criminal referral of Steele to the Justice Department in the form of a letter authored
last year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The Grassley-Graham criminal referral
contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in
contact with a "foreign sub-source" who was in touch with a redacted name described as a "friend of the Clintons."
Numerous media reports have since stated that the source of information provided to the State Department that was in turn passed
on to Steele was Cody Shearer, a controversial figure tied to the Clintons who is also an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney
Blumenthal. According to sources who
spoke
to CNN, Shearer's information was passed from Blumenthal to Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya
working under Kerry. Winer
says that Kerry personally recruited him to work at the State Department.
It is Winer's version of events that seems to conflict with Nuland's.
In an
oped published in the Washington Post, Winer identified Nuland as the State Department official with whom he shared Steele's
information. Winer writes that Nuland's reaction was that "she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material."
He does not relate any further reaction from Nuland.
Winer wrote in the Washington Post (emphasis added):
In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald
Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures,"
a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.
In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.
I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a
two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made
aware of this material.
That was the extent of Winer's description of Nuland's reaction upon being presented with Steele's dossier claims. Nuland's public
claim that her "immediate" response was to refer Steele to the FBI since State involvement could violate the Hatch Act seems to conflict
with the only reaction that Winer relates from Nuland – that she felt Kerry should be made aware of the dossier information.
In Winer's Washington Post oped, he writes that Steele had a larger relationship with the State Department, passing over
100 reports relating to Russia to the U.S. government agency through Winer. Winer wrote that Nuland found Steele's reports to be
"useful" and asked Winer to "continue to send them."
He wrote:
In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served
as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department
would like copies of new information as he developed it. I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful
and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts
at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters,
and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of
events in Russia.
Kramer and the dossier
In his book, "The Restless Wave," McCain provided an inside account of how he says he came across the dossier.
He wrote that he was told about the claims in the document at a security conference in Canada in November 2016, where he was approached
by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow and friend of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.
McCain wrote that Wood told him Steele "had been commissioned to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian
agents as well as potentially compromising information about the President-elect that Putin allegedly possessed."
McCain, however, did not address the obvious question of whether he was told exactly who "commissioned" Steele to "investigate"
the alleged Russian ties. The dossier was paid for by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.
McCain goes on to describe Wood as telling him Steele's work "was mostly raw, unverified intelligence, but that the author strongly
believed merited a thorough examination by counterintelligence experts."
The politician says the dossier claims described to him were "too strange a scenario to believe, something out of a le Carré novel,
not the kind of thing anyone has ever actually had to worry about with a new President, no matter what other concerns."
Still, McCain says he reasoned that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian
extortion had to be investigated."
McCain concedes Wood told him he had not actually read the dossier himself, and writes that he wasn't sure if he ever met Wood
before and couldn't recall previously having a conversation with Wood. Still, McCain took Wood's word for it when Wood vouched for
Steele's credibility. "Steele was a respected professional, Wood assured us, who had good Russian contacts and long experience collecting
and analyzing intelligence on the Kremlin," McCain wrote.
Present at the meeting with Wood and McCain was Kramer, who McCain writes agreed to "go to London to meet Steele, confirm his
credibility and report back to me."
McCain doesn't detail Kramer's visit to London beyond simply writing, "When David returned, and shared his impression that the
former spy was, as Sir Andrew had vouched, a respected professional, and not to outward appearances given to hyperbole or hysteria,
I agreed to receive a copy of what is now referred to as 'the dossier.'''
McCain leaves out exactly where Kramer obtained his dossier copy.
The Washington Post
reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it. Those
details marked the clearest indication that McCain may have known that the dossier originated with Fusion GPS, meaning that he may
have knowingly passed on political material to the FBI.
Also, in a New York Times oped in January,
GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritch wrote that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence
community via an unnamed "emissary."
In his own testimony, Kramer relates conversations with Simpson about the dossier.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author
and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on
Facebook.
The comments below is just a small secion of almost 200 comment for the article. Moststrong
opinions are deliberately omitted...
Many people now realize that they live in occupied by neocons for 40 years county and want to
get thier state back. Tulsi Gabbard in this sense is just the pit of the iceberg.
Looks like alt-Right is now turned completely anti-Israeli.
Notable quotes:
"... Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body. ..."
@Willie'
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries,
they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not
fair.'
What a farcical distortion. The last actual Jewish civilian actually killed within the
actual borders of Israel died over two years ago. It's not a battle for 'Jewish
self-determination' but an endless exercise in vicious oppression. It's about as morally
edifying as the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Israel is a racist apartheid state and I resent that my tax dollars are sent there to buy
bombs to slaughter Palestinians that have never done anything to harm me.
" They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only
countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars
are not fair.'"
The cure is diversity, mass immigration and equality. That is what the Jewish media,
academia, judiciary, US rabbis say, yes to their white hosts in the diaspora. It is virtuous
and noble to listen to Jewish media and do exactly as they wish.
Israel, do unto thy selves as your diaspora insists is the moral thing to do. Make
yourselves a minority in Eretz Yisroel as you wish unto white goyim. KILL YOURSELF.
Recognising the West Bank as part of Israel without risking Arab numbers and fertility having
the consequences to be expected in a modern democratic country would make it impossible for
Israel to escape the description of apartheid state. How is that consideration going to
affect outcomes in the near future?
The Jewish Firster colonization of the United States has been incremental. It is now nearing
completion. Few countries if any, colonized by other (usually more powerful) countries appear
to have accepted colonization with such alacrity as have many Americans in their colonization
by Israel. Most have resisted colonial rule and even launched wars to rid themselves of
their colonial masters.
Question is, if Israel were to be a 51st American state, would she get away with so
many crimes as she does outside the Union? Or is this a case of an informal union of two
criminal gangster nations? We have read in the UR of the compelling evidence of Jewish
collusion in history's two most devastating world wars. The Third one -- and mother of all
wars, is sure to be instigated by Zionist Israel. BTW, this post is not addressed to paid
Hasbara trolls.
Zionist pigs are nothing but FAKE Jews, they are the STATE, and DO NOT represent the majority
of the Israeli people. This action is nothing more than criminal FASCISM with an Imperialist
agenda!
It is not the pig that is disgusting and filthy, it is the Zionist State and the rodents
that control it, such as the Premier. The USA is nothing more than a filthy shit bag whore to
Israel, as is the rest of the West!
Where is the UN and ICC? Eating their pork chops laughing all the way to bank. The sooner
Israel is bombed to rubble, the better the world will be. Hitler new the truth about these
filthy scum, that is why he wanted to remove them from planet earth. The Lords day is coming,
but the Zionist scum's are coming to an end!
AIPAC's annual star-studded gala demonstrates once again that Zio-Israeli influence in
American life is alive and well and operating unopposed.
No foreign or domestic lobby comes even close to The Lobby's baleful impact on American
independence. This includes its shameless role in the manufacture of Zionist-friendly Fake
News, Congressional waste and murderous appropriations, as well as Zio-Washington's
blood-soaked war machinery that rewards one 'democratic ally' way over yonder while it
relentlessly targets that same ally's foes, rivals, and outcasts.
Is this any way to run an Empire?
In any case, one is expected to not examine this phenomena too critically as it's
already Badthink to do so (and possibly even verging on 'anti-Semitism'!)
Just. Don't. Go. There.
Thus the great majority of middle-of-the-road, 'centrist-seeking' Americans have learned
to bow their collective heads in a show of deference when the activist offspring and
well-heeled advocates of a certain downtrodden tribe of Glorious Survivors gather in DC to
make political whoopee by praising the Zionist juggernaut and raising boatloads of
influence-buying shekels for America's next class of political prostitutes. It's who we
are.
And as for you HATERS out there, we have this to say:
Six Million! Six million you Nazi scum! We are coming for you!
Understand?
Therefore Do Not talk back. Do Not get out of line.
Bear in mind that those who do get out of line tend to disappear rapidly from
public life. (worth keeping in mind, eh?)
It is advised therefore to not examine this phenomena too aggressively. (Just be
quiet)
This is America and compromises must be made!
Israel's pampered, moneyed, exclusive, and relentlessly militarized agenda therefore
must get special, praised, and privileged treatment on every DC stage and from the mouth of
every pundit and tastemaker on every American TV.
It's unanimous! Gotta love em!
(or else).
Why spoil the party with needless dissent, unpleasant facts, or contrary opinions?
Really.
Thus when AIPAC's in town, there's glorious bipartisanship and wondrous unanimity. Zionism
is great!
To make political matters even more surreal, Democrat attack-dog, Robert Mueller (with
forward assistance of our Israeli-centric news and entertainment media) is still sniffing
around Google and still turning over rocks on Facebook and elsewhere in hopes of finding
those dastardly Russian fingerprints that will 'prove' (once and for all!) that Putin and a
handful of underpaid Russian propagandist tricked the American people into voting the WRONG
WAY.
The Russkies stole the whole damn election on behalf of Trump and his deplorable base of
rednecks and white supremacists. Just check with the attendees at this season's AIPAC soiree,
they'll splain it to ya. It's Russia!
However, when one considers that the Russian/US cold war has only escalated since
the election of Donald J. Trump, this far Left conspiracy theory does not entirely hold
water.
Oh well.
Thank goodness Israel is intervening here and helping and orchestrating for the good of
America (and for democracy in general) and that the Israeli people stand united and for all
things righteous and democratic and free.
Circumspect, thoughtful and well done. Unfortunately, religion in general, and its relation
to Israel specifically, seem to function as areas of inactivity in our President's otherwise
well-functioning intellect.
It is not Otzma Yehudit that some fascist fraction of Israel or Judaism, no –
exceptionalism is fascism by a simpler name, and those that self declare themselves as the
chosen people of God are all fascists.
@Colin
Wright Israel has no borders defined.
The jews regard greater Israel the borders, Euphrates and Nile, the two blue strips on their
flag.
It is in plain sight, but many can't see it.
Depressing as usual Philip Giraldi, thanks for brightening up my day, lol.
Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the
slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N.
Ambassador Nikki Haley.
A who's who of Zionist lackeys.
It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the usual
scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and
unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles
should not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be
otherwise occupied.
I live in the Garden State and can't believe Menendez got re-elected, but really I
do.
As for Abrams I have to agree with him there, Jews and Gentiles shouldnt be allowed to
intermarry or have children.
There are many reasons for this, some good and some maybe not so good (in your eyes). Let me
cut to the chase and be as offensive , to some, as I can. Infesting gentile blood
lines (white Christian) with Jew-ish ones only muddies the waters even more in the battle or
right and wrong, from deep philosophical and religious grounds, Christianity versus Judaism
and Islam, to the earthly issue of landing the Zionist Entity right smack on top of
Palestine.
Going back to the big picture, I'm may not be a very good Christian but as a follower of
Christ and knowing of the Book of Revelation and even less of the works of Nostradamus, it
seems that Christian Zionists, for all their stupidity, may be on to something especially
with the approximate timelines of Nostradamus.
I will just hope for the best and that 'the truth shall set me free.'
He has entered into a coalition with the openly racist Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit
Racist and anti-Christian. Its leader, Michael Ben-Ari, tore up a New Testament,
describing it as a despicable book which should be in history's trash can. Activist Benzi
Gopstein has called for churches in Israel to be burned down and has
described Christians as blood-sucking vampires who should be expelled from Israel.
The New Observer
has the story . Ben-Ari's racism was too much even for Israel and he has been banned from
standing in next month's election.
Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United
States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been
recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body.
The US has a record of recognizing scumbag regimes, and here's another
example.:
Even after Woody Wilson's attorney general Mitchell Palmer's "Great Red Scare*" of 1919 in
the USA and much opposition to International Commienizm, Stalin-stlye, 'Ol FDR couldn't
wait to recognize the USSR which is something he did shortly after getting elected in
1933 after getting a meaningless "promise" from Stalin that he'd stop supporting Red terror*
in the US. It must not have mattered to him that Lenin and Stalin had been terrorizing their
own for over a decade, and in fact, Stalin had just finished engineering a slow
death-by-starvation holocaust of up to 10 million Ukrainians. He also deported many
adults, leaving their children to starve in the streets.
Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they
identify with Jews, and feel a kinship*.
My, how tender. But keep dreaming and scheming; why else do you think AIPAC et al
exist? Thanks for the laughs. It has nothing to do with kinship, but rather much to do about knowing who's "boss," at
least for now.
AIPAC is a seriously threatening organization with income of more than $100 million per
annum, nearly 400 employees, 100,000 members, seventeen regional offices, and a "vast pool of
donors." It clearly includes a lot of smart and savvy folks who know a lot about what is
going on in the Middle East, but its panels will not include a single word about shooting
unarmed protesters, declaring Israel to be a "nation state for Jews alone," its own acceptance
of laws attacking freedom of speech, or its use of Jewish donated money to corrupt the American
political system encouraging "allegiance to a foreign country" on the part of U.S. citizens.
Bibi will undoubtedly pick up on AIPAC's cozy theme of inclusiveness by taking the opportunity
to burnish his credentials as the leader who can continue to deliver on unlimited and
uncritical support from the United States. He will almost certainly meet with President Donald
Trump and the two will undoubtedly mention the terrible wave of anti-Semitism that is sweeping
the globe, justifying still more ethnic cleansing of the diminishing number of Arabs living in
Greater Israel and the bombing of Iran.
Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the
slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N. Ambassador
Nikki Haley. It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the
usual scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and
unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles should
not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be otherwise
occupied.
A number of the "American" government attendees at the event are actually Israeli citizens.
Sigal Mandelker,
a committed Zionist who holds the perpetually Jewish position of Under Secretary for
Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the United States Department of Treasury, is an Israeli
by birth and it is widely believed that a number of Jewish congressmen and government officials
who will be attending the AIPAC conference have dual citizenship. On the conference website's
roster of attendees, it is amusing to see the official photos in which the U.S. legislators and
officials are standing in front of the American flag, seemingly disinterested in the irony that
what AIPAC is doing is destructive of democracy in America and a sell-out to Israeli interests,
undermining those of the United States.
Netanyahu's most serious opposition in the election appears to be
a centrist coalition headed by former Israeli Defense Force chief General Benny Gantz, who
has spoken of his pride in killing 1,364 "terrorists" in Gaza, and former Finance Minister
Yair Lapid. It is the principal challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
re-election hopes. Israeli courts have also meanwhile banned several Arab parties while
allowing extreme right-wing Jewish parties to appear on the ballot
Well they are swinging for the fences, what would you like them to do, invite Hezbollah for
tea, these Islamist make no small talk about destroying the Jewish state completely IE the
Jews.
So what would you have them do. If you are in favor of the Jewish state going down, you are
in the minority not because of dual loyalty evil AIPAC.
Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they identify
with Jews, and feel a kinship. Jews fought in both World wars, I mean search thru a
microscope for a muslim, and lets face it Shira is anti capitalist, anti women, and anti
separation of church and state.
Nothing like the obvious reasons, yet you like to make it all about the Jews.
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries,
they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only
countries,
Such a shame the zionists did not know about that sea of Muslim only countries in 1897
when they started plotting to take over Palestine.
All those Muslims. who knew?
RFLMAO. That's EXACTLY the line the PR advisers coached you to say, right?
Good boy, Willie. LOL. There's a great film about Israeli propaganda, FREE online. Watch the
Israeli spokesman bleat, "What would you do?"
THE OCCUPATION OF THE AMERICAN MIND
__________________________________ Israel's Public Relations War in the United States
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's main political opponent Benny Gantz, who is heading
the "Blue and White" party that leads in the polls, thinks President Trump could recognize
Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights in order to help Netanyahu win the April 9
elections, three Gantz aides told me.
Why it matters: Israel has occupied the Golan Heights from Syria since 1967. U.S.
recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights would be a huge diplomatic win for
Netanyahu -- no less significant than the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In the
last year, Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, including Gantz's political ally Yair
Lapid, have started calling for U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights.
•Gantz's aides told me they think Trump could announce U.S. recognition of the
Golan Heights during Netanyahu's visit to the White House two weeks from now. Gantz's aides
told me that if Trump does this, it will give Netanyahu a huge achievement to campaign
on.
****
Driving the news: Netanyahu discussed the possibility of U.S. recognition of the Golan
Heights during a visit to the territory on Monday with Sen. Lindsey Graham. U.S. Ambassador
to Israel David Friedman attended all of Netanyahu's talks with Graham.
•After the talks, Graham stood next to Netanyahu in front of cameras and said that
once he arrives back to Washington, he will help push Sen. Ted Cruz's initiative to pass a
bill in the Senate for U.S. recognition in the Golan Heights.
****
The White House refrained from commenting and a State Department official told me there is
no change to the U.S. position on the Golan Heights for the moment.
he crash of the Ethiopian Max-8 Flight 409 on March 10, 2019, resulted in the grounding of
all the Boeing 737 Max series aircraft – even the last hold-out, the United States,
belatedly grounded them when President Trump acted and overruled the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) that opposed any halt to flights.
In the United States, the FAA certifies aircraft as airworthy, puts out bulletins and
advisories on problems and fixes and often is the "go to" agency for many aviation flight
authorities around the world.
The 737 Max series is a new version of the venerable 737, equipped with new engines and
other modifications that have impacted the aircraft's performance in good ways and bad.
Almost every expert today puts the blame for both flight disasters on faulty software that
took over running the plane's flight control system. Many have pointed to Boeing's alleged lack
of transparency in telling pilots what to do if the software malfunctioned. In addition, there
had been at least eight pilot-reported flight control incidents prior to the first Lion Air
crash.
Experienced pilots
Three of the pilots on the two doomed planes each had more than 8,000 hours flying
experience – quite a lot – and the pilots of the Ethiopian airlines had additional
information on the plane's flight characteristics and what to do in an emergency.
While we are still awaiting a final report on last year's Lion Air crash, we do have a quite
informative initial report, although it lacks hard findings. In the Ethiopian case, we only
have flight track information from ground radar and some incomplete reporting on what the
pilots were saying to ground control. More will become available as the flight recorders are
analyzed.
Yet despite this, we can understand some of what happened and clearly it is more than a
single software glitch. This may help explain why Boeing did not meet its proposed deadline of
January for installing updated software. Now in March Boeing says the replacement software will
be available in April. But even if it is, there are more issues involving both hardware and
software.
The software which so far has received virtually all the attention is called MCAS, for
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. MCAS was added to the Max-8 series because
new, heavier and larger engines replaced the old engines and as a result, the updated Max
planes had a strong tendency to pitch nose up.
The new engine, CFM Leap-1B, was selected by Boeing because it was much more fuel efficient
than the older models, one of the big reasons customers want the 737 Max.
The new engines forced re-engineering of parts of the 737.
Fitting the new engines meant moving them forward and lengthening the front landing gear to
keep the engines from scraping on the ground. In turn, this changed the plane's center of
gravity and also altered the air flow on the wings.
MCAS was a band-aid to fix the pitch up problem caused by the relocated and heavier new
engines. MCAS is designed to push the nose down and prevent the aircraft from going into a
stall. MCAS was intended to deal only with a specific flight risk.
1. MCAS operates by receiving information from a special sensor that measures the flying
angle of the plane and takes over the flight controls if the angle is too great – meaning
the aircraft could stall. A stall happens when a plane has too low an airspeed and not enough
lift and the plane will literally fall out of the air.
There are two sensors that measure the angle of attack or nose-up condition of the Boeing
737 Max, one that provides data to the pilot and another that provides data to the copilot. The
sensors are known as Angle of Attack Sensors, or AoA.
In the Lion Air aircraft, the pilot's AoA sensor had been found to be faulty on an earlier
flight as reported by the pilot. That AoA sensor was replaced and tested by aircraft
maintenance before the fatal flight.
The pilot gets no console or other warnings that his AoA sensor might be faulty. The pilot
can ask his copilot what reading he is getting and see if there is a difference. That is
exactly what happened on the Lion Air flight.
It would appear that the MCAS software is driven by information from the pilot's sensor. If
the sensor itself is not at fault, there could still be wiring and connection problems that
could feed bad information to MCAS. These conditions cannot be determined in flight.
If it is true that MCAS relies on information from only one sensor, that could be a design
error. Modern aircraft are famous for built-in flight system redundancy, but apparently not in
the case of MCAS. In addition, the pilot cannot manually change the MCAS choice of sensor.
2. No one has yet explained why the pilot's stick shaker was running on from the start of
the flight and never stopped. The stick shaker is a motor with an unbalanced flywheel that is
attached to the pilot's control stick, and another is attached to the co-pilot's stick. The
stick shaker is supposed to warn the pilot of a potential stall. But why was it on nearly the
whole time? And why was the co-pilot's stick shaker not on?
3. The pilots are supposed to be able to shut down MCAS, which only operates when the
aircraft is manually operated, by switching the electronic trim control to off. The trim
control is what MCAS uses to change the nose pitch of the 737 Max. But in the Lion Air case, we
know the pilots turned off the electronic trim control. But MCAS kept adjusting the trim nose
down, against the pilots' wishes. Or possibly something else was driving the trim control nose
down, such as a shorted circuit or bad wiring.
4. The pilots also tried turning the aircraft's autopilot on, according to the report. MCAS
is only supposed to work when the autopilot is off, that is only when the plane is operated
under manual pilot control. The autopilot should have disabled MCAS but apparently it did not
– in fact, the Lion Air autopilot would not turn on. There is no explanation for this.
Was the autopilot locked out by MCAS? Or was there some other software or hardware foul up?
5. Pilots also had a very difficult time handling the aircraft stick, meaning that the
flight control stick required a great deal of force to operate, especially when the pilots
were, repeatedly, trying to recover the plane that was headed nose down, gaining speed and
losing altitude. Stick force "feel" in 737s is artificial and is controlled by a couple of
pitot tube sensors at the rear of the aircraft above the horizontal stabilizer.
There have been repeated
problems on older 737s with the planes forward and rear pitot tubes, due partly to icing
conditions and to pitot tube heater problems which are supposed to remove ice. Some pitot tubes
have failed because of fouling. Pitot tubes detect aircraft speed and they do this by comparing
the force of incoming air on the pitot tubes to what are called static ports located elsewhere
on the plane. Accidents have been attributed to faulty or fouled pitot tubes.
It is not clear how the flight speed information from the pitot tubes is integrated into the
MCAS if it is. But speed information is fed into the flight computer and if it is faulty it
could create ambiguities in the MCAS and the flight computer.
6. Would better pilot training have helped pilots avoid disaster? Boeing has been criticized
for not initially providing information about MCAS to Max pilots, and only later issuing a
bulletin on how to deal with some MCAS anomalies. Boeing also apparently did not offer any
additional pilot training, leaving pilots to find their way through a morass of complex
problems made worse by possible hardware and software faults.
As it is, it appears the Lion Air pilots acted in the best way they could but were unable to
overcome the instability of the aircraft as it headed nose down to disintegrate in the ocean.
We don't yet know how the Ethiopian Airline pilots performed, but they had the advantage of
advisories from Boeing and the FAA. Still, the same final result.
What is clear is that there is more than one single cause for the two aircraft crashes. And
we know that other planes experienced control problems but recovered. These disasters suggest
there was a complex of problems that caused the two disasters.
Boeing's engineers need to assess the entire flight control system, the electronics and
mechanics, before a satisfactory solution is at hand.
Guado looks more and more like Russian Navalny -- another color revolution Trojan Horse.
Notable quotes:
"... Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was. ..."
"... "The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it: ..."
"... The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition, including up to $500 million in transfer authority." ..."
"... Given the results of the last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for war, but not one cent for the people." ..."
On February 23 the U.S. created a 'humanitarian aid' stunt at the border between Colombia
and Venezuela. The stunt ended in a riot during which the supporters of the self declared
'president' Guaidó burned the trucks that where supposed to transport the 'aid'. Even
the New York Times had to admit that.
The riots also marked the day that Guaidó
lost the legal argument he had used to make himself 'interim president'.
Guaido also lost his original legal position. He claimed the presidency on January 23 under
this paragraph of article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution :
When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his
inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within
30 consecutive days . Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the
President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
That the "elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the
case to begin with. But if article 233 would apply Guaido would have had 30 days to hold
new elections. The 30 days are over and Guaido did not even call for elections to be held.
He thereby defied the exact same paragraph of the constitution that his (false) claim to
the presidency is based on.
The hapless coup plotters in Washington DC were finally put on notice that the issue
creates a legal problem for them. During a March 15 press briefing Elliott Abrams, the
U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, was asked about the issue:
QUESTION: [C]ould you explain to us the article under which Mr. Guaido declared himself
president? It is said that it has expired last month. Could you explain that to us? What is
the --
MR ABRAMS: As to the Venezuelan constitution, the National Assembly has passed a resolution
that states that that 30-day period of interim presidency will not start ending or counting
until the day Nicolas Maduro leaves power. So the 30 days doesn't start now, it starts
after Maduro. And they – that's a resolution of the National Assembly.
A resolution of the National Assembly, which the Supreme Court of Venezuela holds in
contempt over the seating illegally elected persons, can change the country's constitution?
That does not sound convincing to me. The journalists in the briefing were equally curious of
how the rules could be changed like that during the ongoing game:
During Bosonaro's visit to the US Trump also announced his support for
Brazil's entrance into the NATO alliance, if I was Germany I'd veto that idea outright, the
last thing NATO needs is a basket case like Brazil.
But I imagine the Pentagon is already
counting all the additional arms they can sell to Brazil as a member of NATO without having
to go through all the additional hoops they would while it's just an ally of NATO
Never Mind the Bollocks , Mar 19, 2019 2:39:09 PM |
link
Random Guy also appointed an ambassador, Carlos Vecchio, to the US who just took over the
Venezuela's diplomatic buildings (empty since Venezuela broke off relations with the US over
the attempted coup), including the consular building in New York.
So far it doesn't look like
the US has succeed in replacing Venezuela's representative to the UN with a US stooge, but I
imagine the US is working hard on that front as well.
The US looks just ridiculous doing a
stunt this, but B is right, the US always doubles down, especially on a losing plan.
Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making
claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was.
thanks b... some crazy talk in that daily press briefing with abrams...
"Q: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?
A: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power,
that's the problem. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that
from when he actually is in power and Maduro's gone. I think it's logical.
Q: So then he really isn't interim president, then?
A: He is interim president, but he's not --
Q: With no power."
that sounds about par fe the course for the usa... as kadath says - they always double
down on losing plans!
i am a bit mystified as to the plan of maduros to get the cabinet to resign.. what is the
concept there? does he have a number of members that could be persuaded by the logic of
abrams? with a little bribery money, no doubt..
i wonder how brazilians are looking at the stooge they have in power now, sucking up to
the usa-cia..
The optics of groveling to the US and Israel, and military opposition, are not good for our
friend Jair. It's only a matter of time until Bolsonaro starts hemorrhaging support and
Brazilian nationalism abandons him.
- If Maduro is in power, then the office is not vacant. Therefore, Guaidó cannot be
interim president.
- If the office is vacant, then there is no president. Therefore, Guaidó either is or
isn't the interim president (i.e. he can't be the interim president of the interim president,
which in this case is nobody).
If you want to suspend the Constitution, declare a civil war. If you win the civil war,
then you can do whatever you please (including obeying and/or reinterpreting the old
Constitution). In the strict legal sense, Guaidó's position is untenable. Even the
counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged 30-day mandate
was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.
Re:#6 James, normally when you request that your own cabinet resigns it means that you've
either lost faith in their ability to perform their jobs - OR - your making a drastic change
in direction for your government and you need people with a different skill set to run the
various government departments. I imagine Maduros's decision is a mixture of needing to
create a "war government" to fight the economic war the US is waging against him and ensuring
the loyalty of powerful political rivals by giving them cabinet posts. Maduro will probably
announce some major new policies in the coming weeks aimed at 1) resisting US economic
pressure 2) increase Maduro's support among the population (maybe some policies aimed at the
urban middle class to split them off from Random Guy) and 3) announce some foreign
relationship drive to hopefully block more countries from supporting random guy's
pseudo-government and hopefully win some countries back. economic advisors from Russia, Cuba,
China and maybe Iran & Syria will be providing vital support for any economic policies
aimed at avoid US sanctions
"The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far
from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it:
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and
provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition,
including up to $500 million in transfer authority."
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities
with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
@ lgfocus who asked
"
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities
with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
"
Keep asking those questions and maybe Americans will grow the sentiments necessary to
stand up.
Where are the Bernie crowd that are going to make so much difference in the coming
(s)election?
Even the counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged
30-day mandate was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.
Posted by: vk | Mar 19, 2019 3:33:55 PM | 10
They made their general ops to produce public results specifically at 23 of this month or
for several more months. They obviously wanted to make a point like they were doing at least
since 2016 for almost each consequtive month, only for that period favorable date number was
11. Check events for every 11th of each month since 2016 and check what dominated US and EU
news.
Yet in current Venezuela events there seem to be so much FAIL regarding the US
clandestine strategies.
There's also rising domestic pushback within the Outlaw US Empire while the hypocrisy of
Russiagate rises like a massive iceberg on the horizon. This also puts additional pressure on
Vassal EU governments whose publics see through the Empire's lies and thus further
delegitimizes their national governments.
French Yellow Vests will not surrender until Macron
and his backing Establishment does, and they're motivating other nation's citizens.
Will
Poroshenko get reelected in 12 days or ?
IMO, both Trump and Bolsonaro will be ousted before
Maduro. It appears the Truth Brigades outnumber the liebots thanks to b and a host of other
genuine journalists.
@11 kadath.. thanks for the response to my question.. we will have to wait and see how this
unfolds.. it reminds me a bit of the ukraine 2014 scenario, but different too... in ukraines
case, they already had a split dynamic in the country itself.. here, i don't see it.. the
split seems to be along economics - who are the upper class, with some middle class in tow,
verses everyone else..
@13 lgfocus - that sounds suspiciously like something a COMMUNIST would say!!!!!!! During the
1797 XYZ scandal C.C. Pinckney reportedly said "Millions for defense, but not one cent for
tribute." which has been quoted by the Military Industrial Complex ad nauseam for the last 70
years to justify massive military budgets to fight the forever wars.
Given the results of the
last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for
war, but not one cent for the people."
So if Elliott Abrams is correct, the Venezuelan National Assembly (a now illegitimate entity
by the way) has passed a resolution that Juan Guaido's "interim presidency" only begins AFTER
Nicolas Maduro leaves the presidency? Is that not admitting that Maduro is the legitimate
president?
That Jair Bolsonaro is visiting the CIA to discuss overthrowing Maduro may alarm quite a
few people even among the top tiers of the Brazilian military who otherwise support him.
What's to stop Bolsonaro from discussing with the CIA how to get rid of more than a few top
Brazilian generals who disagree with overthrowing the government of a neighbouring
country?
Now let's all imagine what would happen if Brazil was accepted into NATO like Trump &
the MIC wants and the Brazilian Generals decided to continue their time-honoured tradition of
toppling the current Brazilian President. NATO has no means of ejecting or even suspending a
member so any such crisis in Brazilian leadership would immediately trigger a crisis within
NATO itself on how to respond and accepting a coup government into NATO would kill the
illusion that NATO is some sort of league of Democracies that Bolton hopes to promote as a
replacement to the UN assembly.
Well, Bolsonaro's complete and absolute submission to Donald Trump and the US is probably
surprising even the most optmistic hawks in the White House. The golden shower president will
probably accept anything the US tries to push to Brazil.
It strikes me that the futility of trying to stir up a revolution with an elite constituency
seems completely lost on the coup planners. The Venezuelan elite might want the government
overthrown but there is no way that they'll put their own blood on the line for it. It's
really puzzling trying to understand how they see this playing out. And what will their elite
supporters think if US sanctions mean they can't use their Visa or MasterCard? And the
businesses that cater to the elite?
The Brazil to NATO call sounds awfully like a forecast of significant cross-border
provocations by Brazil which, if responded to by the Venezuelans, could trigger the old
Article 5 musketeers to intervene militarily. Just as ludicrous (and dangerous) as the UK 's
FCE attempt to confer diplomatic status on the BBC Farsi woman jailed in Iran. Student union
politics.
Abrams is attempting to claim that Random Guy is "interim President-in-waiting".
Q: What is that Interim President-in-waiting actually waiting for?
A: He's waiting for the position of President to become vacant.
THAT is the fatal flaw in all of Abrams legal mumbo-jumbo i.e. the articles of the
Venezuelan Constitution that Random Guy invoked to claim the title of Interim President are
only applicable when the office of President (and also Vice President) are VACANT.
Then and only then can the leader of the National Assembly take on the role of "interim
President" until elections take place 30 days later.
Abrams is admitting that the office of President isn't vacant.
This is an important legal point, so it bears repeating: Abrams accepts that someone holds
that position, albeit he is insisting that the current office-holder's claim to that chair is
illegitimate (in Constitutional terms, Maduro is "unfit" to be President).
Again, that exposes Abrams argument as legal mumbo-jumbo, precisely because the leader of
the National Assembly does not possess the authority to declare that a sitting President is
"unfit" for the office. The Venezuelan Constitution is quite clear on that point: that
authority rests with the supreme court, who are perfectly satisfied with Madura's fitness to
be President.
Abrams argument is therefore fraught with danger for Random Guy.
The Constitution clearly states that he can not claim the "interim Presidency" unless the
position is already vacant, which it clearly is not.
The Constitution also clearly states that he does not have the authority to declare the
position to be vacant.
Yet Guaido has done both, and done so at the acknowledged urging of a foreign power.
At the very least that amounts to insurrection, if not treason.
1. Counterpunch
I want to add extra focus on the excellent interview b linked to over at Counterpunch which
was also posted over at Zerohedge.
CG: There's not the chaos US and Trump were expecting. (Opposition leader and
self-proclaimed president Juan) Guaidó is the most hated guy in Venezuela. He has to
stay in luxury hotel in La Mercedes, an expensive neighbourhood of Caracas. They have
electricity there, as they were prepared, so bought generators. That is why Guaidó
went there, and has a whole floor of a luxury hotel for him and his family. While people
are suffering Guaidó is trying on suits for his upcoming trip to Europe. It is a
parallel world.
AG: You think Guaidó will fail?
CG: Venezuelans are making so many jokes with his name, as there's a word similar to
stupid in Spanish – guevon. And look at the demonstration in La Mercedes the other
day (12 March), the crowds didn't manifest. It is becoming a joke in the country. The more
the Europeans and the US make him a president, the more bizarre the situation becomes, as
Guaidó is not president of Venezuela! Interestingly, Chavez predicted what is
happening today, he wrote about it, so people are going back to his works and reading him
again.
2. Military Times
It could well have been me making b's conclusion on the following as well but since it isn't
it gives me an opportunity to warn about and completely disagree when it comes to the content
at Military Times and the conclusions drawn from it: that content if anything is
circumstantial proof that a decision has already been made in favor of a larger war
(technically the US has already launched a war by its actions, or at least according to its
own definitions as it applies it to others attacking them, if I remember correctly they would
even allow themselves to respond with nuclear weapons in such a scenario).
It might not have been the intent of Military Times (I do not know them) but everything
about their content at that link screams war is coming.
Notice how the US congress etc. portrays themselves as unwilling to go to war. We all know
this is untrue.
Notice how "everyone" portray themselves as more or less being forced against their will to
get involved. We all know this is untrue.
"They" love to do this, to wallow in "reluctance", to play innocent, to further the
narrative of "the good guys", because doing so preys on those who still believe they are on
the side of good (or in this case preys on anybody's remaining hope that they have some shred
of sanity left or that they've run out of bloodlust) and more or less guarantees their
support or silent acceptance in the general public. I recognize this all to well because I
fell for it myself in the past. It is a large part of their cherished narrative and has
self-reinforcing properties. They would say it even if no one listened but it is still
completely untrue.
Notice how they constantly hint at what amounts to "if we had to we would".
Notice that despite how every US action mentioned (except for some nebulous bill that might
as well be a unicorn fart) goes against avoiding a war they quote some ex-CIA person on all
of it being the exact opposite and a way to avoid war (but still meet their objective
consisting of unconditional demands).
Notice how at first they claim to believe it would be hard and thus something they obviously
wouldn't want to choose and thus if given no choice then it can't be their fault.
Nevertheless, the crisis is deteriorating rapidly.
Yeah of course it is, as planned and as caused by themselves.
Notice the laundry list of "bad stuff happening".
Notice the appeal to military solutions.
Notice how they then claim it might not be so hard after all, or at least necessary or worth
it.
Notice how they list military options to choose between.
It has already been decided and has already started.
3. Refinery fires
Did anyone else wonder at the sudden pair of refinery fires in Houston?
Posted by: Peter VE | Mar 19, 2019 4:22:48 PM | 19
Yes, since the second larger one went off because I didn't hear about the first one until
then and don't know anything more than that there was one. These things do happen during
normal operation of plants and refineries because every day it doesn't happen
unavoidably breeds some false sense of security and familiarity with the potential energies
involved.
And if that's not what happened then it will be a very hot US summer.
For those who didn't catch it here's all I've got (two measly links). RT
(2nd one)
ZH today (2nd one is now bigger):
This Moderate Rebels Transcript contains excellent revelatory points about Bolsonaro, the
rise of Brazilian Fascism and its connections to the Outlaw US Empire and its ally Zionistan.
I'm uncertain if b linked to it previously as I just stumbled across it.
After the people of Brazil got a taste of power with Lula, their social and national
conscience has risen. A Brazilian military aggression in Venezuela on behalf of American
Imperialism will be viciously opposed by the peoples of Latin America and Spain and Portugal.
The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US
military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the
death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This
will get ugly.
US will just make up another excuse. These guys don't follow any laws so there is no point
interpreting them. Raw power and a good defense strategy is what it counts now for Venezuela.
They need more S-300, Buk, coastal defense and allies. This is the key for survival of
Venezuela. US will then back down or nuke Venezuela into democracy and freedom of press.
The always interesting Florida Maquis YT channel covers S. America extensively and mentioned
today Trump is putting Brazil forward for OECD membership which may give leverage to their
fascist leader.
The news that Maduro is making a new cabinet could be very important. The current cabinet was
chosen to implement policies designed to prevent a coup by compromising with moderate
elements of the bourgeoisie. Such policies involved the watering down of the revolutionary
policies of 21st Century Socialism, which has led to the erosion of political support for
Maduro without making any perceptible difference the bourgeois commitment to coups and other
antidemocratic measures.
If the revolution is to survive it must continue to deepen, bringing gains to the masses
besides which the inconveniences of sanctions/sabotage are pinpricks which only serve to
deepen popular support of national independence and socialist reform.
If the revolution deepens it will not only increase the strength of the popular movement but
broaden the appeal of Venezuela's policies to the millions of Latin Americans currently
watching in dismay as neo-liberalism cuts into their living standards and aspirations of
security. Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in
Colombia, a byword for bad government and inequality and Brazil where the current Presidency
is completely illegitimate.
It will be interesting to see whether Maduro's new cabinet is more attuned to the revolution
and less interested in compromises with a comprador class whose alliance with the US is based
as much on racism and hatred of its own countrymen as it is on greed. Anbd that is saying
something.
Thank you Karlof1 and Zachary Smith, I'll do my best to remember not to go "link crazy" in
the future :D
Aside from all that and on the comments here on Colombia it makes me reconsider if there
was any positive value at all in the mediation by Norway (and others? I think the current
"social democrat" secretary general of NATO was prime minister there at the time...) to
curtail or end the civil war or if it was all a ploy in bad faith. I could be wrong about
this.
I was wrong but I've found out where the confusion stems from; Norway was the second
"guarantor country" after Cuba.
Once the negotiators had been agreed upon, the two sides moved to designate foreign
guarantor countries. Cuba, host to previous encounters, was a logical choice, while Norway
was chosen as the second guarantor country for its active role in international conflict
mediation. Additionally, two facilitator or 'accompanying countries' were also designated.
The FARC chose Venezuela, while the Colombian government chose Chile.[14] Exploratory
meetings continued in Havana in February 2012, with limited [...]
"With more candidates early on, it takes all that energy and diffuses it for petty warfare
instead of a firmly focused "machine" that would take over Congress through the Dem
party."
Well, when your strategy is identity politics you do need a crowd; so all of your supporters
can "identify" with their own special someone and be sad and upset when they lose.
Keep them divided, keep it about race/sexual identity/religion/favorite vegetable if need be,
oh, and of course that favorite mantra; hatred of the "other(s)."
The Dem party is gone, what is left is a divisive machine whose sole purpose seems to be to
separate people into separate boxes with separate identities only united by their hatred of
"other" parties and always completely blind to what is being done in the world in their (US)
name.
Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in Colombia, a
byword for bad government and inequality ... bevin | Mar 19, 2019 8:34:12 PM
Current president was elected with rather thin majority -- not as thin as Trump -- and
while economy is "thriving" according to some measures, the fruits of it are even less evenly
distributed than in USA, and the resurgence of the left is fully possible. Importantly,
Colombian society is still very divided in the aftermath of La Violencia of 1950-s, violence
that never truly went away. Colombia and Venezuela are closely connected since colonial times
and troubles easily cross the border. In turn, Venezuelans seems to be easy going
bunglers.
Chavista have "the heart in right place", but even in easier times they had troubles with
the economy. The opposition is all thumbs. The freedom fighters who defected into Colombia
seem to be a bunch of loosers, correctly evicted from a homeless shelter once found useless.
Their putative paymasters seem particularly egregious, good for them to manage to get rid of
the traitors before the latter found a nerve to unionize, but what was the plan anyway?. Sic
sempter traditoribus.
"The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US
military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the
death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This
will get ugly."
You left out the elephant or rather landmass in the room; Latin America is connected to the
US by land. This US misadventure will come home to roost, it will explode everywhere and
anywhere, finally and at long last IMO the US will reap what it has sown.
lgfocus @ 13 said in part;"Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint,
MI and our other cities with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for."
This would be a excellent point for all the Dems chasing the POTUS, but, even if they did,
it probably wouldn't get any play on the corporate MSM.
It makes too much sense!
kudos for the relevant mention......
German foreign policy disaster. German freelancer journalist Billy Six jailed in Venezuela,
now back in Germany after intervention by Russian foreign minister Lawrov.
Press conference
with Billy after his arrival in Germany. Must see (German) Germany is accused in the
participation of the drone attack against Maduro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsg5Jx5xzrU
Abrams trying to explain Guano and Venezuelan law is a bit like trying to explain western
democracy VS 'non democratic' Assad and Putin and Maduro. Doesn't matter the majority of
people have voted for them. That's not 'democratic'. A lot of Guano in western so called
democracy.
"The far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil supported that but the military of Brazil,
which holds significant power in the cabinet, vetoed it..."
I would be willing to bet that one of the purposes of Bolsonaro's visit to the CIA and DC
was to see how he could remedy that situation, perhaps by getting rid of just a few of these
troublesome military generals who are opposed to his using the Brazilian military, overt and
covert, against Venezuela....
not to mention of course the usual and disgusting CIA options of subversion and other
covert operations agasint Venezuelan democracy
Maybe Maduro is changing his cabinet to get people in who are not under US sanctions. The US
claims most of it's sanctions are against bad guys but the reality is naming individuals is a
propaganda ruse as the sanctions go far deeper than the individuals. People who don't look
past the headlines believe it's only individuals so they fall for the US line it's Maduro and
his polices not the US that's causing the economic problems in Venezuela. Thus a new cabinet
could give Maduro some breathing room until the US can sanction the new guys.
If the US does shut off Mastercard and Visa it will be huge mistake as I doubt very few of
the governments supporters have credit cards. Those the US claims to be hitting with this
action can get a Russian credit card if it's possible. The upper class Gweedo lovers will be
the ones hardest hit which doesn't bode well for Gweedo boy who spouts guano and promises he
can't keep every time he opens his mouth.
Lots of blather of the citizens of the US should stand against the governments actions in
Venezuela. The US government and it's lap dog press control the narrative thus it won't
happen. But if it came to a military invasion the citizens will come out of cocoons and say
hell no like they did with Syria when Obama wanted to bomb that country into the stone age
when Assad, it was the rebels that used gas, crossed his red line. A military invasion and
resulting guerilla warfare in Venezuela will send American boys and girls home in body bags
and Trump can kiss his reelection goodbye and he knows it. Thus no invasion by the US but
that doesn't rule out covert commando raids and sabotage by US personnel inside the
country.
The attack took place when vehicle traffic was stopped at a train crossing, but whether the
raiders indeed had intended to steal the uranium shipment has yet to be determined. Civil
Police are now trying to establish the motive behind the incident. The attackers have
managed to flee the scene, but police have recovered a 9mm pistol which they are now trying
to trace back to the armed group.
I don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese but those that do will likely find more
information in the
Globo article .
The Globo article says an enriched Uranium convoy, sent to the Angra dos Reis nuclear power
plant, was attacked by local criminal gangs. The area of Angra dos Reis, renowned for its
beautiful coastline and luxury resorts, is now roamed by criminal gangs that threaten the
population and overtly defy law enforcement forces. Police forces and armed convoys moving
along the highway are frequently ambushed.
Despite Bolsonaro's campaign promises, gangs seems to remain in charge, even in Angra dos
Reis! From the Globo article:
"One of the most beautiful places of the State of Rio, the county of Angra dos Reis has
experienced an increase in violence, with the presence of fire-armed drug dealers inside
communities that were previously considered peaceful."
There is also an extended version of the press conference where Billy Six answers some
more questions. One is particulary interesting as he points out the economic interests of the
German government in Venezuela. He mentions explicitly SIEMENS, Linde, Lufthansa and DHL
which are excluded from free-convertability into Dollar-reserves since Chavez established
currency controls in 2003.
He also claims that the Federal Government in the person of the now expelled German
ambassador to Venezuela Daniel Kriener has met with the father of Juan Requesens who is/was
member of the National Assembly, associated to the student protest newtwork of 'Generation
2007' to which Juan Guaido belongs, and whose party Primero Justicia is the party of Julio
Borges - the former president of the National Assembly and co-plotter of the 2002 coup on
Chavez. Juan Requesens is under arrest and accused to be part of the drone attack on Maduro
in August last year along with 16 other conspirators. According to Six - who had contact with
several of these plotters in prison - the coup in effect did happen and failed because the
Maduro government was pre-informed about the plot and an anti-drone shield could prevent the
assault.
What made it even worse for Six, according to what was told to him by SEBIN (political police
force of Venezuela), was that the German government was aware of this drone in advance which
is why the German embassy had taken such a stand for Juan Requesens to get him out of prison.
This, however, is suppose to be one of the reasons why, of those foreign ambassadors of
Venezuela who received Guaido at the airport two weeks ago, German ambassador Kriener was the
only one who was to leave the country upon the advice of the Bolivarian Government.
There is certainly more to follow and it is perhaps not wrong to keep an eye on this
I would not trust the Brazilian people or the Brazilian left to take care of the issue.
The non-Venezuelan Latin American left is one of the most innofensive, docile and
innefective lefts of the Third World. This is specially the case of the Brazilian left, which
is also deeply balkanized, torn down in inumerous factions -- from the social liberals to
communists.
Besides, the far-right has genuine and huge popular support in Brazil. Bolsonaro's is not
a political giant by any means, nor is he the novelty/outsider e.g. Trump is (he was a
Congressman for 28 consecutive years before becoming president). The far-right is at least
25% of the voting adult population, most probably around 40%, and this mass will go until the
end with their design. Bolsonaro is no Temer.
Excellent post B. Thanks for keeping Venezuela front and center in your blogs.
From my perspective, it looks like Russia is effectively running Venezuela.
What are the indicators:
- Russia is handling Venezuelan oil sales
- Russia is handling Venezuelan international banking
- Maduro has made no strategic mistakes during the coup attempt. Every U.S. move has been
effectively thwarted.
- With few exceptions, military discipline has been maintained.
- The new government realignment looks like something that Maduro would not have come up with
on his own. It is probably a part of the economic plan the Russia prepared for Venezuela over
the past couple of months.
Venezuela is starting to look a lot like Crimea. The U.S. wanted Crimea in order to take
over the Russian naval base and effectively neutralize Russia's Black Sea Fleet. But Russia
was there first, thwarted the U.S.' every move, and now the U.S., in the Black Sea, is in a
much weaker position than before 2014.
In Venezuela, the U.S. wanted Venezuelan oil. But Russia was there first. So far every
U.S. move has been thwarted and the U.S. is starting to suffer from a scarcity of heavy
crudes. If past is prologue, the U.S. will have no more success in Venezuela than it did in
Crimea. It will not dare to take on Venezuela militarily, as this would mean to take on
Russia militarily.
Venezuela will represent another watershed moment in separating the world into those who
are with the U.S., and those who are against. And the U.S. side will be somewhat smaller than
it was before their Venezuelan adventure started.
There's a mind-boggling Extortiongate scandal going on in Argentina - with links throughout
Latin America including Venezuela, and to Elliot Abrams:
Don't Spy
for Me Argentina In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
Abrams to media....."Constitutional rules? We ain't got no rules! We don't need no rules!
I don't have to show you any stinking rules!" The US cannot be serious, $500 million to take
over Venezuela with the greatest oil reserves on the planet. Victoria Nuland said the US
spent $5 Billion on regime change in Ukraine.. F-----g cheapskates. They will double down,
wait for the secondary sanctions, it is so important that Venezuela keeps its oil markets,
especially Russia and China.
Contrary to what the article states, Brazil has a negligible wheat production. However,
Argentina has, and its main importer until now was Brazil. A huge blow to the Argentinian
economy, whose trade balance will fall even more. The situation in Brazil so calamitous that it produced an extremely rare Chinese
manifestation about the country:
It looks like the US is having to rescue some of the Venezuelan oligarchs from the effect
of the sanctions. This being Fox, it blames socialism, which is utterly backwards, but the
facts are there.
US lifts
sanctions on wives of Venezuela TV magnates
Oh the poor dears. How they must have suffered.
Also, it looks like they (US) are thinking about cutting off credit cards, which as you've
opined, would hurt the middle and upper classes much more than the typical Chavista.
Credit card
sanctions?
That whole press conference exchange has a faintly Mad Hatter Tea Party quality to it.
At one point Abrams says the interim presidency doesn't start counting until "after
Maduro", but the whole raison d'etre of article 233 in the first place is to ensure a
constitutional transition of power in the event that the president becomes unavailable. So
that (the president becoming unavailable) would had to have happened FIRST -- prior to the
implementation of (the relevant passage of) article 233. In other words, that would have to
be the triggering event.
If this seems a bit like stating the obvious -- it is. As the article states,'That the
"elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the case to begin with.' That's
end of discussion right there. It never happened. And they have everybody talking in circles
about whether or not the thirty day election requirement was fulfilled? It's absurd.
One thing I'll give the neo-cons credit for is their ability to take obvious lies/complete
fabrications and somehow get people to discuss them as if there was any reality to it. Like
in the case of Iraq they had the whole world discussing the threat of non-existent WMDs. All
these "serious" pundits would prattle on endlessly about the pros and cons of an issue for
which there was not a scintilla of evidence. I think even Goebbels would have to stand back
in awe of what they do.
"The #TrumpRegime is not a government that can provide services. It is a transnational
criminal organization which should be designated as a terrorist group."
Holy crap on a cracker, Batman! Half of all the evil entities in the world are crawling
about within this massive web of crime and treason.
I would beg to make one small change to the exposé; instead of --
" The CIA, under 'extraordinary rendition' proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot
soldier army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies, "
-- I would say that Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and Haspel have become foot-soldiers for the
CIA's neo-con dark policies.
Venezuela: Guaido loyalists seize diplomatic properties in US
Envoys loyal to Venezuela's interim president have taken control of diplomatic buildings
and a consulate. Caracas has severed ties with the US, accusing it of staging a coup against
acting President Maduro.
Don't Spy for Me Argentina. In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
Posted by: BM | Mar 20, 2019 11:35:21 AM | 69
The CIA, under "extraordinary rendition" proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot soldier
army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies. It is clear that
Abrams, Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio, Bannon, and their cohorts, including Macri and Bolsonaro,
are attempting to re-create OPERATION CONDOR, the 1960s, 70s, and 80s alliance of the
intelligence services of the Latin American military dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which were full members, with Ecuador and Peru as
associate partners. Tens of thousands of leftist dissidents were tracked down and executed
during CONDOR, which operated with the full approval and involvement of the CIA.
They lost so many opportunities during the 70's. USSR was in their way in so many places.
But now happy days are here again, with Russia, China containment strategies and Trump and
other supremacist leaders being installed everywhere in the West and Americas.
It's about opening Pandora's Box though. 0 latency networks, even negative time ...with
whatever that implicates and a space programe but not the one you see in plain view.
There is a three part video of the UN conference featuring Anya Parampil, Alfred de Zayas and
Max Blumenthal which has debunked the US propaganda on Venezuela at a United Nations Human
Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19.
See also "The Visible Hand of the Market- Economic War in Venezuela" by Pasqualina
Curcio.
Perhaps random guy Guaidó will join other collaborators with the US are just seen as
throw-away pawns by the Empire:
"The Venezuelan military deserters who crossed over to Colombia on February 23, 2019, now
find themselves abandoned both by Colombia and the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees. The UNCHR and the Colombian Government have given the soldiers 4 days to leave the
refugee camp"
The good news is that the health of Venezuelans is improving due to a more healthy diet
due to US led sanctions. Everyone has been forced to have a vegetarian diet substituting
vegetables, lentils, and black beans for meat. Seems that lots of people are growing their
own (organic) vegetables.
From a sociological point of view even the electrical blackouts are bringing the people
together as they spend the time sharing:
"During blackouts, people told stories, played music, or went out and talked on the streets.
It was a paradise, no TVs, smartphones, but real human contact. People cook together. During
the day they're playing board games, dominoes, and kids are having fun."
Thanks for your report! The unintended consequences as you note can be powerful allies for
those being attacked. The well stated case at the UN will also have consequences and generate
more solidarity for Venezuela and condemnation of the Outlaw US Empire, Pompeo, Rubio,
Abrams, Bolton, and Trump.
Merkel might say: "There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."
Forget it! Merkel is the most servile lackey that the US could wish for. She is
doing everything her masters in Washington ask her to do. For example the German public is
awaiting a mildly entertaining show of their government on how to work around yesterdays
court decision:
International law is the yardstick for international politics. This has been clarified by
the Higher Administrative Court in Münster in a spectacular ruling on lethal US drone
missions in Yemen. Several relatives of victims who were killed in such attacks had sued.
They hold the Federal Republic of Germany jointly responsible for this because the United
States allegedly also uses the US airbase in Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate for these
fatal attacks.
There are important indications that the drone attacks in question violate international
law and the fundamental right to life. The Federal Republic of Germany must protect these
rights and stand up for them. Therefore the Federal Republic must clarify now in a first
step whether the attacks offend against international right.
NOT! Aside from the fact, that the public press largely ignores this decision, our
governments have a long record of doing actually nothing when formally independent judges
even from the highest courts ask them to adhere to the law.
Speaking of embarrassing lackeys, when the empire was seeking a new nodal point to more
efficiently drone bomb Northern Africa the most obvious/nearby European locations like Italy,
France or Greece all said "Nah, better not". But, don't you worry, Missus Merkel was of
course happy to offer Stuttgard in Southern Germany as base for AFRICOM!
This article was written 4 years ago, but the problem with Putin successor remains. Putin is a unique politician and his replacement
might be much weaker, causing troubles for Russia. This is not new problem for Russia, but this time it will be especially
acute. BTW this comment thread looks like "who is who" list for NATObots.
Notable quotes:
"... We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see. ..."
"... Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come ..."
"... Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously. ..."
"... It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways. ..."
"... He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship. Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work] ..."
"... Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed. ..."
"... Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section. ..."
"... PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ? ..."
I wonder if everyone on the Guardian staff has the same "man crush" on Putin? Could explain all these obsessive articles. I
also wonder if he spent any time in the penalty box?
laticsfanfromeurope -> Extracrispy 7 Oct 2015 17:06
You prefer ISIS and Al-Nusra then the legitimate Syrian gov. and the legitimate help of Russia...not a surprise from stupid
western supporters!
pfox33 7 Oct 2015 17:05
There isn't one of our western politicians that wouldn't sell his fucking mother to be getting the attention that Putin's getting.
I thought he was supposed to be isolated.
So to keep the hockey thing going, Putin's stolen the puck in the neutral zone, split the Nato defensemen who were too far
forward and is on a breakaway.
I feel sorry for Obama because I think he's a good leader but when it comes to trying to maneuver in a geopolitical situation
like Syria he's fucked before he leaves the house. Putin can just act without trying to herd cats like Obama has to do with his
Nato minions. He doesn't have a bunch of recalcitrant GOP senators calling him everything but a white man and running their mouths
about what they would do.
... ... ...
filin led -> Braminski 7 Oct 2015 16:55
It's you who are a troll, sir. By what you say, anything can be dismissed as paid propaganda. That means, you are as likely
to be a paid agent yourself. So, if you can't come up with a constructive argument, stop commenting please.
Mordantdude -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 16:40
As Russians say: "Envy silently".
giacinto101 7 Oct 2015 15:59
We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm
assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho
image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and
as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership
requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see.
SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 15:54
Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come
CIAbot007 -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 15:39
Most of Aussies have a bit of common sense which says that you can't blame anyone before it is prooved. With Western MSM propaganda
machine blaming Russia and Putin even before anything happens you bet there's no such thing as balanced and unskewed reporting
and even will for any kind of such thing. Don't get fooled, use your brain or your brain will be used by someone else.
SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 14:48
Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international
politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously.
PekkaRoivanen MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:30
In the West, we don't have a sycophantic press kissing the leader's backside:
Guardian: Barack Obama scores just 2 out of 22 basketball hoops - video
You wrote that Obama plays basketball and you prove it with this video where Obama wears dress shirt (tie removed :-D) and
scores badly.
Are you sure Obama plays basketball? Or is it just press kissing his backside?
Kev Kev Hektor Uranga 7 Oct 2015 14:28
the USA persecutes and kills people who speak out against it. Only difference is the USA does it in ways that nobody sees..
In other words the USA is the same as Russia only they do their work in the dark. When nobody is looking.
Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:26
That's the guy who is wishing Putin a happy birthday.
The US/UK duo have caused with their insane illegal wars more than a million deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
counting.
I recommend you look up a little the complex history and present situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus region.
ISIS (which the insanely aggressive US/UK duo have in effect created) is already spreading its influence INSIDE the Russian
Federation. So Putin has direct interests to defeat ISIS and stabilise Syria (and Iraq). In addition, the south of the Russian
Federation is on the map of territories which ISIS plans to conquer.
See for example:
-
8 ISIS supporters killed in N. Caucasus special op
(2 August 2015)
Russian security forces have foiled a terrorist group that recently pledged allegiance to ISIS in Ingushetia, in the Northern
Caucasus, according to the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAC). Security forces seized explosives, weapons and over 2,000 rounds
of ammunition.
-
How Russian Militants Declared A New ISIS 'State' In Russia's North Caucasus
(26 June 2015)
The Islamic State group announced the creation of its northernmost province this week, after accepting a formal pledge of allegiance
from former al Qaeda militants in the North Caucasus region of Russia.
-
-
It is true that at present, the Chechens are begging Putin to let them strike in Syria (and this is also closely linked to the
complicated history of North Caucasus), but Putin has not unleashed them. See for example here:
-
-
Kadyrov asks Putin to allow Chechen infantry to fight in Syria (RT, 2 October 2015)
-
The head of the Chechen Republic has asked the Russian president to send Chechen units to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)
in Syria, adding that his fighters have sworn to fight terrorists till the end.
"Being a Muslim, a Chechen and a Russian patriot I want to say that in 1999 when our republic was overrun with these devils
we swore on the Koran that we would fight them wherever they are," the Chechen leader said. "But we need the Commander-in-Chief's
decision to do this," he emphasized. According to the Russian Constitution, the president [Putin] is also the commander-in-chief
of the military forces.
BMWAlbert clanview46 7 Oct 2015 14:26
It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States
will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways.
Julian1972 MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:21
That was last year...also it was authored by a combination of the CIA and their right-wing 'Operation Stay Behind' cohorts...though,
if you don't know that by now you doubtless never will.
Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:16
Murderers, thieves and embezzlers stroking each other's egos.
Putin has a long way to go to match the US/UK.
-
-
Here is a recent report about 'collateral damage' compiled by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival
and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War:
-
Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the 'War on Terror' (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan)
(March 2015)
-
This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000
in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million.
NOT included in this figure are further war zones such as Yemen.
The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated
by the media and major NGOs.
And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries named above could also be in excess
of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.
-
-
For more about civilian casualties due to the US-led coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq, see the Airwars website:
584 – 1,720 civilians killed:
To date, the international coalition has only conceded two "likely" deaths, from an event in early November 2014. It is also
presently investigating seven further incidents of concern; is carrying out credibility assessments on a further 13; and has concluded
three more investigations – having found no 'preponderance of evidence' to support civilian casualty claims.
More Power -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:13
He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship.
Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work].
Just look at the World Bank, BRICS is on the door step. Happy birth day Putin. A badass mofo
blueskis -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:06
The vats majority of the 5500 killed have been civilians in East Ukraine killed by airstrikes ordered by kiev/washington, fully
justifying Russian intervention.
ooTToo -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:40
Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that
they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed.
geedeesee -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:19
Russia is attacking what they said they'd attack, Tavernier. ISIS, al-Nusrah, and other terrorist organisations.
inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:18
No he isn't. Anybody with a functioning brain knows he had nothing to do with that. Unlike the US genocide in the Middle East
- over 2 million dead and counting - not to mention the deliberate and sustained attack on a hospital. Maybe you don' get to see
the news in your ward?
inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:13
The US created, funds, trains and arms ISIS - they are only supporting terrorists in their campaign to effect regime change.
Russia is responding to a request fro the Syrian government, so its actions are entirely legal. The faces that the USA and the
KSA are the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world.
monteverdi1610 7 Oct 2015 12:22
Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the
Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section.
PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it
up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for
all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ?
Foreign policy is no longer controlled by the President of the USA. It is controlled by the Deep state.
This article is from 2015 but can easily be written about Trump administration
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis communautaire). ..."
"... First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state" officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way? ..."
"... In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe, while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule". ..."
"... Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine. ..."
"... Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all. ..."
"... Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant, ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. ..."
"... Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. ..."
"... Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine – Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. ..."
"... 'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'. ..."
"... "We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED] ..."
Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy... European
democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy
The avalanche of commentary since the Ukrainian crisis erupted a year ago has overshadowed any reflections on the immense forgone
benefits (technically speaking, the "opportunity cost") of what might have been if Washington had been working for peace and stability
instead of war and chaos.
Imagine the following: After the unraveling of the Communist bloc, Europe, in partnership with the US, had forged a new security
system in which Russia was treated as a valued and equal partner – one whose interests were respected. Russia, decimated by a century
of wars and Communist imperialism, would doubtless have eagerly reciprocated in kind. Most countries of the former Soviet Union would
have then proceeded to build a new Eurasian structure of which Russia would have served as the natural umbrella, given its long-standing
interaction with the region's diverse nations and cultures.
Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the
pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis
communautaire).
The rising Far Eastern economic powerhouse, with the world's most populous country, China, at its centre, would have linked up
with the world's largest economy (the EU). An enormous Eurasian production and financial bloc would have been created – one that
drew primarily on secure supplies of Russian energy and other natural resources. Untold investment opportunities would have opened
up in Siberia and Russia's Far East as well as in Central Asia. Hundreds of millions of people in Eurasia and elsewhere would have
been lifted out of poverty. And, not least, the EU would have been refashioned as an integral part of the dynamic trans-Eurasian
economy (rather than as a German-centred empire, as appears to be the case today), thereby making a major contribution to overcoming
the ongoing global economic depression.
All of this was not to be, however. Why not? First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a
mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state"
officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to
get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way?
European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy
In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started
churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe,
while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule".
Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently
in Ukraine.
And in what is eerily reminiscent of Stalinist "bloc discipline", the EU/NATO nomenclature was ordered to implement the absurd
strategy of severing the Russian economy from the EU. For their part, the cowering Eurocrats willingly obliged by imposing sanctions
on Russia that, perversely, have had a negative impact on their own economies (but, let it be stressed, not that of the US). No questions
raised and no public debate on the wisdom of such a strategy permitted.
Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view
that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil
and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all.
This abuse and humiliation of Europe is unparalleled. The continent that gave the world the wonders of the Antiquity, modern democracy,
the industrial revolution and what is arguably the greatest tradition of philosophy, fine arts and classical music is being bullied
by its oversized offspring. Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant,
ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. War and extermination
camps are etched into the European DNA. America "knows" about them only from afar – and, not least, from the Hollywood entertainment
industry.
Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior
Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. The so-called European "leaders" are colluding with them in plunging
Europe into the abyss and thereby risking nuclear confrontation.
America, too, is a loser
But this is not just a tragedy for Europe and Eurasia. We are also witnessing the wilful misrule of America and, by default, of
the entire West. Indeed, Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy. The
"democracy-promoters" running Washington's foreign-policy apparatus apparently do not understand that America has nothing to lose
and a lot to gain from the Eurasian economic project: the rising tide of global economic welfare would lift everyone's boats, including
its own. Why should it matter to Washington if the rising tide comes from other quarters beyond its control?
Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine
– Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. If it continues to support such
forces against Russia, united Europe will lose not only its backbone but its very soul. The moral consequences of this loss will
be enormous and could lead to the precipitous erosion of Western democracy.
The 'autocrats' want to work with the West, not against it
US and EU leaders believe that the Russian and Chinese "autocrats" are out to destroy the West because the latter hate freedom
(as George W. Bush might have put it). And hence, they argue, the autocrats must be stopped in their tracks. The simple truth is
that Western leaders are too blinkered to understand that far from desiring to destroy the West, Russia and China want it to prosper
so that they can work with it to everyone's benefit. Having enjoyed a privileged position over several centuries and having attained
unprecedented prosperity in recent decades, the West simply cannot understand that the rest of humanity has no interest in fomenting
the "clash of civilizations" but rather craves peace and stability so that it can finally improve its economic lot.
Perhaps, however, all is not yet lost. It is still possible that reason – and economic forces – will prevail and force the West
to correct the errors of its ways. What we need, perhaps, more than ever is the ability to step out of the box, question our fundamental
assumptions (not least about Russia and China) and find the courage to change policies that have proved disastrous. After all, critical
thought, dispassionate analysis and the ability to be open to new ideas is what made the West so successful in the past. If we are
to thrive once again in the future, we must resurrect these most valuable and unsurpassed assets.
What I cannot understand is the naive belief that elected politicians would act in the interests of those whom they represent.
Under what other circumstances do we see human beings act with disinterested altruism? So why would a bunch of people who have
been ruthlessly selected for selfishness, arrogance, and callousness - a bunch of carefully chosen psychopaths, if you will -
behave in that way?
'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to
my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign
aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to
us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'.
- Paul Craig Roberts
jabirujoe
"Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy".
Not only it's foreign policy but it's domestic policy as well. Let's call it for what it really is. The Wall Street/Corporate
policy which is the driving force behind behind everything the US does
Toddrich
"We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]
"When we're done with the U.S. it will shrivel up and blow away." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]
The welfare or future of the American people are not part of the equation.
"... There are numerous clues that point to the 2016 US Presidential Election as having been a set-up. Few seem willing to take a close look at these facts. But it is necessary for an understanding of the world we live in today. ..."
"... Sanders as sheep-dog Black Agenda Report called Sanders a sheep-dog soon after he entered the race . ..."
"... "Enough with the emails!" ..."
"... Not pursuing Hillary's 'winning' of 6 coin tosses in Iowa ..."
"... Virtually conceding the black and female vote to Hillary ..."
"... Not calling Hillary out about her claim to have NEVER sold her vote ..."
"... Endorsing Hillary despite learning of Hillary-DNC collusion ..."
"... Continuing to help the Democratic Party reach out to Bernie supports even after the election ..."
"... As one keen observer noted: Sanders is a Company Man . ..."
There are numerous clues that point to the 2016 US Presidential Election as having been a set-up. Few seem willing to take a
close look at these facts. But it is necessary for an understanding of the world we live in today.
Trump's first 100 days has come and gone and he has proven to be every bit the faux populist that Obama was (as I explained in
a previous post). In hind-sight we can see how a new faux populist was installed.
Sanders made it clear from the start that he ruled
out the possibility of running as an independent. That was only the first of many punches that Sanders pulled as he led his 'sheep'
into the Democratic fold.
Others were:
; "Enough with the emails!"
; Not pursuing Hillary's 'winning' of 6 coin tosses in Iowa;
; Virtually conceding the black and female vote to Hillary;
; Not calling Hillary out about her claim to have NEVER sold her vote;
; Endorsing Hillary despite learning of Hillary-DNC collusion;
; Continuing to help the Democratic Party reach out to Bernie supports even after the election.
Intellectually Max Boot is a loud mouth nothing. I wonder how he managed to graduate from a prestigious university. he might be
able to work as copywriters, but not above that.
Neocon didn't "get it wrong." They understood that this is wrong. It was all about money for MIC which as lobbyists of MIC is
their first priority. That's why they lied the American people into wars. They are war criminals. They should be tried for
war crimes.
Tom Gorman (Feb 15, 8:36 am)–as evidence that Max Boot "has recanted his support of the
Iraq War"–quoted two sentences from Boot's 2018 book. Two sentences earlier in the same
book Boot wrote:
"In truth the decision to go to war had been made by President George W. Bush, in
consultation with colleagues such as Dick Cheney, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Don
Rumsfeld, none of whom was remotely a 'neocon.'
Those of us who supported the invasion were,
as one of my friends said, like hapless passengers who got into a vehicle with a drunk driver
and could not escape as the car careened across the center divider."
She can serve in the army and still be anti interventionist because our military is
supposed to be a defense force not an offense force. You can be willing to fight to protect
your country without wanting to go running round the world creating conflict for oil and
regime change.
'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell
you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who
will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth.
NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket...
Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.
"... The american entitlement, as if it is your buisness what happens in other countries to the point that you have a right to invade, kill, and oppress their citizens is disgusting. The U.S. sanctions are starving Venezeualans, as is the theft of billions of dollars by the wannabe puppet president. Sanders/Gabbard all the way. ..."
Why doesn't anyone say...Assad did not gas his own people...US backed rebels gassed the
Syrian people. It's called manufactured consent. Sometimes I really hate the ignorance too
many Americans choose.
Megan is such a lying fake news propagandist. Yes Assad is a brutal dictator. However, the
allegations of gassing his people are debunked fake news (her stating them as facts is fake
news). There was no ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria before the US backed regime change war.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions displaced.
Her calm and poise in the face of these right wing hacks is impressive. The american
entitlement, as if it is your buisness what happens in other countries to the point that you
have a right to invade, kill, and oppress their citizens is disgusting. The U.S. sanctions
are starving Venezeualans, as is the theft of billions of dollars by the wannabe puppet
president. Sanders/Gabbard all the way.
I grew up watching and loving Colbert. Over the last few years I have not really liked him
or his views, but still had a sot spot in my heart for him. This interview makes me never
want to even watch another clip of his again. I felt disgust and anger after watching his
interrogation of Tulsi.
I have never before heard a politician give a straight yes or no answer to a direct
question and follow through with, "in my opinion". She is fantastic.
What Tulsi should point out is that we created the vacuum in the first place. If we had
not intervened there would be no power vacuum for China or Russia to fill. The first rule of
getting out of a hole: stop digging
China is going to become the worlds biggest super power because they're playing the long
game. Although you can say their building is a "debt trap" it's still business deals that the
other countries need and it's not like we Americans dont use credit cards and are in a bunch
of debt.
The US keeps losing trust in the world because of how we've gone about things. We
need someone like Tulsi to gain that trust back and actually do good in the world
Great video as usual. Stephen Colbert is a total disgrace and surprisingly really stupid.
However, it doesn't matter if Tulsi doesn't win the presidency in 2020. What is most
important is she becomes a part of Sander's team so that she can put a stop to the crazy US
military ambition.
Tulsi is perfect as the Sec of State. She can be the president a few years
into a Sanders presidency. Her time is not in 2020, but in 2024 or 2028. Her support will
grow over time.
"... The United States held out to the last. Trump personally requested to ground the flagship aircraft of the American company only late evening yesterday, when Canada joined the interdiction. ..."
Today, Russia, following Europe and America, banned the flights of Boeing 737 MAX. Dozens of
countries have stopped using this aircraft after the Sunday crash in Ethiopia.
The United States held out to the last. Trump personally requested to ground the flagship
aircraft of the American company only late evening yesterday, when Canada joined the
interdiction.
737 is out of date considering the modern bigger fuel efficient engines don't fit
it.They're just applying band aid to fix it's short coming. Airbus A320 has no problems with
these new engines as it sits higher.
40 countries banned these aircraft from their airspace..... Comparable to the vicious,
aggressive, malign, thoughtless, selfish and self aggrandising SANCTIONS the US regime and
its vassals slap on innocent countries in attempts to impoverish or/and change their
governments!!!!!!!!!
But this is self inflicted!!!!!! I hope the US regime can see the irony in this!!!!
Boeing should thank China for being the first to ground it's entire fleet, if one of the
96 planes that China operated, god forbid, had gone down, Boeing is done, 3-strikes you're
out
Something is wrong with these planes and it is a good thing that they're being grounded
world-wide until the problem is fixed. It is prudent both from the side of Rosaviatsiya and
the FAA to not permit these planes to fly in the meanwhile to prevent further potential
tragedies. However this is no reason to simply write off the huge fleet of Boeing 737 MAX
planes in service world-wide. Right now engineers at Boeing are working on the problem and
then those planes will be retrofitted asap. Personally I have no particular concerns flying
in a Boeing 737 MAX once the problem is fixed.
Once again Tulsi Gabbard was smeared by War Friendly Agents this time it was The View's
Meghan McCain. Tulsi Gabbard explains her positions on a series of issues. #TulsiGabbard#TheView#TimBlackShow Pinned by
TBTV
Meghan McCain is a disgusting little Neocon warmonger who has been brought up in an elite
bubble she wouldn't have the guts or integrity to serve like Tulsi did. Tulsi handed this
with class.
For the record, I always cringe when Meghan McCain opens her mouth Anyone remember her
appearance on Bill Maher's show when she engaged Paul Begalla in a little debate on a
specific moment in history and she replied, "I wasn't born yet," and then Begalla immediately
stated, "I wasn't round during the French Revolution but I know about it"? Time to stop
employing the uninformed daughter of a deceased Senator, dontcha think? Especially one who is
so unmercifully unread.
The fact that Americans are still convinced the reasons they intervene in other countries
are humanitarian help and defending freedom and not economic or strategic reasons is
laughable. Get real, people, you are rarely the good guys. And no, the rest of the world do
not want you barging in and patronize them.
First time I've seen this beautiful intelligent compassionate lady named Tulsi. That
blonde haired land shark thinks she's smart because she has been allowed to masquerade as
some sort of respectable human for so long, she's just a fool even she's fooled by her own
foolishness
Damn! Tulsi Gabbard just gained my respect. She walked through minefield and came out
unscathed because she kept her composure and stuck to her beliefs. And she is right--Assad
has never threatened us!
hated the way Tulsi was attacked by these women there was literally hate on their faces
they were clearly biased unfortunate she had to be interviewed by them but kudos to her, she
answered every question and hell yes, there is vagueness in the green new deal Tulsi is
talking about environment since a long time now but there is suddenly a new deal and new
blood in Congress and all of a sudden ppl are noticing 'women' in Congress talking and making
valid points while women like Tulsi have been making their arguments and many valid points
w/o shouting
You're the only person that I've heard be honest enough to say that the Green New Deal is
just a framework. It is a starting point to a conversation. Thank you. Secondly, it is always
amazing to me when political Talking Heads say we can't pay for universal healthcare or free
higher education but are willing to fund regime changes in other countries. Willing to spend
unnegotiated billions of dollars and Wars and conflicts in other countries. Where's the sense
in that? And finally what would Meghan McCain have done had Hillary Clinton not accepted the
Electoral College results and declared herself president in the United States because she won
the popular vote? What would all of those Talking Heads and politicians have thought or done
at all had all of those voters marched against the White House and Congress to force Hillary
into the presidency? Hmmmm
wow. that was just wow. when she said "I am not someone who will go into the white house
and sit back and rely on the foreign policy establishment in Washington to tell me what to
do, I don't have to. I'm not intimidated by the stars that someone wears on their shoulders.
I am not intimidated by the military industrial complex and what they're pushing for." she
literally could have just dropped the mic. I bet the aforementioned military industrial
complex just peed themselves a little. This is why MSM and DNC hate her. And why we all love
her. I'm all in on #Tulsi2020 .
Hello, Mrs. Gabbard excuse my English which is my third language. I respect you so much,
I'm from Syrian, I live in SF you are the only one who really stood up for the Syrian people
by talking about the lies of the media toward my country, and also by meeting with The Syrian
President who is the legal representative of the Syrian people by election. You had the honor
to visit my country and saw the miserable situation caused by the war that was made and
supported by the US; please if you become the president end this war and end the suffer of
the Syrian people
99 year Old Mother, WWII ARMY Nurse Corp Vet on the Comfort when it was hit by a kamikaze,
"adores" you Tulsi. So moved when watching the CNN Town Hall. You are her hero!
I don't think I've ever seen a politician who I've listened to and said "This person, THIS
is the one I want to be our President. THIS is the one who will truly represent the people,
and lead this nation with a true vision and actually fight to do the things they say they
want to do". But when I see and hear Tulsi, I feel like I'm seeing just that, for maybe the
first time in my life.
Who should I support? An incredible woman who is a combat veteran with original ideas, or
a white skateboarder who pretends to be Latino and married a rich girl? #Tulsi2020
I was overwhelmed with so much warmth when I heard you speak, I swear I have never felt
this before. Thank You for all your hard work! No matter what happens, you have my full
support and my vote :)
I've been all in for Bernie but listening to Tulsi is equally if not more inspiring
given that her focus is on our insane interventionist foreign policy
No teleprompters, no notes, no platitudes or empty rhetoric. Calm and logical and
intelligent. No wonder the establishment is scared of her. GO TULSI!!!!
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from
an article at the excellent Medialens
And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...
I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely
the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources)
on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.
As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:
"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."
Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished
journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.
And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct
Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.
In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret
state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed
forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.
As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of
the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood
at the end of their career".
Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent
is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.
A brief history
Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a
cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest
Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.
Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf
of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.
The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the
Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided
by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists
and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.
According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism
served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour
of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.
And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret
service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.
In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives'
Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.
And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.
David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media
and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody
in every office in Fleet Street"
Leaker King
And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing
companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".
Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear
he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".
Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet
Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely
involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.
Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according
to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.
David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security
scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.
Maxwell and Mossad
According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the
1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.
In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6
were equally as strong.
Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that
he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks
were fascinating.
For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse
during the Cold War."
The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster
Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked
to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted
to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms
of first-hand knowledge."
And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph
and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to
handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.
Lawson strongly denied the allegations.
Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan
McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security
services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not
being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)
Growing power of secret state
Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.
But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official
Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into
the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.
Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.
According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by
the Rockingham cell within the MoD.
A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant
attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.
Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.
Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein
has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of
the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early
in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies
about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group,
the Iraqi National Congress.
Sexed up – and missed out
During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the
ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government
(in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.
The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that
drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition?
But those facts will be forever secret.
Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was
ignored by the inquiry.
Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of
WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US
President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress
and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.
Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the
propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published
stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker
than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures,
especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."
Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence
services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.
~
Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John
Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International
Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.
amazing, simply amazing. You need to watch this Town Hall in full to appreciate the skills she demonstrated in defense of
her principles. What a fearless young lady.
And this CNN warmonger, a prostitute of MIC was/is pretty devious. Question were selected with malice to hurt Tulsi and people who
ask them were definitely pre-selected with an obvious intent to smear Tulsi. In no way those were spontaneous question. This was a session
of Neocon//Neolib inquisition. Tulsi behaves like a modern Joan of Arc
From comments: "People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000
unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25"(mrfuzztone)
Notable quotes:
"... Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time ..."
"... WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE ..."
"... I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi. ..."
Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people
are starting to get fed up with the show. About time✌️ 😉
I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have
I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate
Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins.
Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.
Tulsi handled these hacks like a pro LOOL Are you a capitalist? LOL What s stupid question.....CCN usually stacks there town
halls with corporate cronies. I bet Bernie picks her for a high position in his government.
People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors
required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25.
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The
moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making
the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't
be reported on Fox.
We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American
People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't
believe it any more.
There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are
two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson
Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who
was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry
Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.
General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC.
MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market.
Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being
CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli
Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women
and Children.
Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is
connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option
discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to
a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior
put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".
Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals
want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction"
was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that
the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.
The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our
various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that
they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.
Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man
flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again,
cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These
are the ones that I pity most.
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been
eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of
whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and
will never nationalize the oil.
So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come
back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact
that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark
forces.
IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm
The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can
only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments
they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground
war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.
In media universe there
is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.
I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.
Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm
The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but
relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the
pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby,
a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer
have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department
to your favorite media outlet.
Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to
kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it
turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it
was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".
But all that research from
MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written
still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and
distorts and misrepresents the news every day.
In the latest blow to both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, the WSJ reported
overnight that Federal prosecutors and Department of Transportation officials are scrutinizing
the development of Boeing 737 MAX jetliners and in particular its anti-stall (MCAS) system,
inquiries described as "unusual" and which come amid probes of regulators' safety approvals of
the new plane.
The Seattle Times separately reported that Boeing's safety analysis of a new flight control
system on 737 MAX jets had several crucial flaws.
According to
the WSJ , a "grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a broad subpoena dated March 11 - a day
after the Ethiopian Airlines crash a week ago - to at least one person involved in the 737
MAX's development, seeking related documents, including correspondence, emails and other
messages." The subpoena, with a prosecutor from the Justice Department's criminal division
listed as a contact, sought documents to be handed over later this month.
It wasn't immediately clear if the Justice Department's probe is related to scrutiny of the
FAA by the DOT inspector general's office, reported earlier Sunday by The Wall Street Journal
and that focuses on a safety system that has been implicated in the Oct. 29 Lion Air crash that
killed 189 people, according to a government official briefed on its status. Aviation
authorities are looking into whether the anti-stall system may have played a role in last
week's Ethiopian Airlines crash, which killed all 157 people on board . The WSJ sources add
that the inspector general's inquiry focuses on ensuring relevant documents and computer files
are retained.
The Justice Department probe involves a prosecutor in the fraud section of the department's
criminal division, a unit that has brought cases against well-known manufacturers over safety
issues, including Takata Corp.
The news comes at a sensitive time for both the FAA, which was among the last regulators to
ground the 737 Max following a broad global response (led by China) and for Boeing, whose stock
has tumbled in the aftermath of the latest crash, and as the WSJ notes, "it is highly unusual
for federal prosecutors to investigate details of regulatory approval of commercial aircraft
designs, or to use a criminal probe to delve into dealings between the FAA and the largest
aircraft manufacturer the agency oversees."
Probes of airliner programs or alleged lapses in federal safety oversight typically are
handled as civil cases, often by the DOT inspector general. The inspector general, however,
does have authority to make criminal referrals to federal prosecutors and has its own special
agents.
Ironically, over the years, U.S. aviation companies and airline officials have been sharply
critical of foreign governments, including France, South Korea and others, for conducting
criminal probes of some plane makers, their executives and in some cases, even individual
pilots, after high-profile or fatal crashes. The FAA's current enforcement policy stresses
enhanced cooperation with domestic airlines and manufacturers -- featuring voluntary sharing of
important safety data -- instead of seeking fines or imposing other punishment.
News of the U.S. government scrutiny comes shortly after Ethiopia's transport minister,
Dagmawit Moges, said there were "clear similarities" between the two crashes. U.S. officials
cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions because data from the black boxes of the
Ethiopian Airlines plane still need to be analyzed. The two crashes - which may be linked to
the same structural defect on the airliner - have sparked the biggest crisis Boeing has faced
in about two decades, threatening sales of a plane model that has been the aircraft giant's
most stable revenue source and potentially making it more time consuming and difficult to get
future aircraft designs certified as safe to fly.
The FAA said Sunday that the 737 MAX, which entered service in 2017, was approved to carry
passengers as part of the agency's "standard certification process," including design
analyses; ground and flight tests; maintenance requirements; and cooperation with other civil
aviation authorities. Agency officials in the past have declined to comment on various
decisions regarding specific systems. Sunday's statement said the agency's "certification
processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft."
Earlier, a Boeing spokesman said: "The 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the
identical FAA requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new
airplanes and derivatives. The FAA considered the final configuration and operating parameters
of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory
requirements."
Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement Sunday the company continues to
support the Ethiopian investigation, "and is working with the authorities to evaluate new
information as it becomes available." Muilenburg added: "As part of our standard practice
following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate,
institute product updates to further improve safety."
Governments world-wide have grounded the MAX, an updated version of the decades-old 737,
while investigators and engineers seek clues.
And so, as 737 Max scrutiny grows and as Boeing and the FAA now seek to deflect increased
government attention to one another - Boeing stock is once again tumbling, and is down 3% in
premarket trading...
CNN is just mouthpiece for intelligence community and MIC
The question of a type "did you finished to beat your wife" are very difficult to ask. So how
skillfully Tulsi handled those "sinking" question comment her skills.
The problem with Jimmy Dore is he has some kind of mental block or is somehow completely
unaware of the reasons we bomb countries that are hostile to Israel and located right on
their border or at least near them. You also have to be completely unaware of the power of
the Jewish lobbies and their obvious bias towards their own interests to ignore Jews role in
promoting wars that benefit Israel. It's not the "military industrial complex" Jimmy, it's
who controls that complex. Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN is a Jew, that like Jake Tapper (also
a Jew) sees any destruction of Syria as beneficial to Israel. The neo-Con Max Boot was born
in Russia and still wants to bomb Russia because he's a Jew that doesn't want Putin
preventing Jewish controlled US from destroying Syria. I can level some similar criticism at
Jimmy that he levels at the mainstream media.
Rubble aftermath of a Saudi airstrike on a Yemeni neighborhood in 2015.
Almigdad Mojalli/Voice of America The Wall Street Journal echoes Pompeo's
obnoxious Yemen
lies in their editorial on the antiwar resolution that the Senate passed last week:
The Saudis aren't in danger of an Iranian invasion, but don't underestimate the signal
that abandoning our ally would send across the Middle East. It will be seen by Iran and
Russia as an invitation to more trouble-making, and another signal to allies that the U.S.
can't be trusted. More war is the likeliest result.
There is no foreign war so despicable and unjust that The Wall Street Journal won't
defend it to the end. It is telling that the WSJ editors don't talk about the war on
Yemen until Congress moves to try to withdraw the U.S. from it. The massive humanitarian crisis
that threatens the lives of as many as 15 million Yemenis doesn't concern them (and it never
comes up in this editorial), because if they mentioned it that would remind everyone that the
Saudi coalition bears the greatest responsibility for causing mass starvation and creating the
conditions for the world's worst modern cholera outbreak. The U.S. has not only been enabling
Saudi war crimes in its bombing campaign, but our government has also been helping to create
the world's worst humanitarian crisis through our unstinting support for the war. The editorial
omits all of this because including it would show how breathtakingly cynical and horrible the
pro-war argument is. War supporters never acknowledge the consequences of the destructive
policies they defend because they know it would discredit them, and so they try to change the
subject to anything else. In this case, war supporters have been desperate to make the Yemen
debate about Iran because they cannot honestly talk about the costs of the conflict or the U.S.
role in it.
Saudi Arabia is not an ally of the United States, and our government isn't obliged to
support them in a military intervention they chose to begin along with the United Arab Emirates
without consulting Washington. The U.S. certainly isn't obliged to indulge them in their failed
war of choice almost four years later. The war has become a drain on Saudi and Emirati
resources, and it has exposed them as weak, cruel, and incompetent as they have devastated
Yemen's infrastructure, starved its people, and failed achieved any of their stated goals. No
one should care about doing these despotic governments any favors, but forcing them to end
their war would be doing them a favor all the same. If the U.S. were perceived as abandoning
the Saudis by halting support for their war, that would be guaranteed to improve our country's
reputation around the world rather than harm it. The U.S.-Saudi relationship is a liability and
an embarrassment for our country, and the sooner we are rid of it in its current form the
better it will be for us and the region.
Supporters of the war on Yemen have no rational argument for continued U.S. involvement, and
so they are reduced to changing the subject from the war criminal states that the U.S. aids and
abets to the Iranian government that has almost nothing to do with the conflict. Ending U.S.
support for the war would be a "gift" to Iran, the WSJ editors tell us, as if four years
of keeping the Saudis and Emiratis bogged down in a war they cannot win has done anything to
harm Iran or curtail its influence in the region. The lie at the heart of the war on Yemen is
that it has something to do with opposing so-called Iranian "expansionism," but it is the war
itself that has done more for Iranian influence in Yemen than anything else. The longer that
the U.S. enables the Saudi coalition to continue its senseless and indefensible campaign, the
better it is for the Saudis' and Emiratis' rivals. Iran hawks are always wrong about what
benefits Iran's government and what harms it, and this is no exception.
The editorial's comparison between last week's vote and Congressional opposition to
continued involvement in the Vietnam War is unintentionally revealing and damning for their
side. Just like supporters of the Vietnam War, supporters of the war on Yemen are defending a
war that can't be won in a place where the U.S. should never have been involved. In this case,
war supporters are squarely on the side of the aggressors, and in their continued backing for
this disgraceful policy they show their utter contempt for the lives of the people of
Yemen.
This MIC prostitute Karan, like his wife Nuland are un-reformable. They just earn their living ing by warmongering. And they
will screem like pigs if they are deprived from those money, and do not care one bit how many people will be
killed as the result of their policies.
There is no war that those neocon chickenhawks do not like. It's their family racket.
Notable quotes:
"... Kagan's preferred foreign policy requires that there is some global "ideological confrontation" for the U.S. to be engaged in. If there isn't one, it has to be invented. ..."
"... Kagan isn't all that interested in details or accuracy. Those are "beside the point." ..."
"... Kagan doesn't make it explicit in this essay, but his larger goal in all of this is to advocate for a more confrontational foreign policy mobilized against the authoritarian enemies that he has described. He hints at this when he disparages contemporary "realists" ..."
"... realists, non-interventionists, and progressives that see no compelling reason for the U.S. to engage in destructive rivalries with major authoritarian powers in their own backyards. Except for a lame, overused comparison to the 1930s, Kagan doesn't even try to explain why we are wrong to think this. Kagan assumes that such destructive rivalries are both necessary and desirable, and this essay is the latest part of his effort to lay the groundwork for the ideological justification for those rivalries. ..."
"... A recent WSJ article (03/11/19) titled "Russian Gas Plan Divides U.S., Allies" with the subtitle "Washington fears undersea project would make Germany too reliant on Moscow" tells the tale of what the real reasons for America to demonize Russia and Putin. The U.S. leaders fear that the German-Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, will make Europe reliant on Russian energy instead of Europe purchasing it energy from the United States. What gives the U.S. the right to stop one nation from doing commerce with other nations? The answer is "Greed." ..."
"... Kagan is and will until the bitter end defend American hegemony and the ideological mantle will be used as a cover ..."
"... People also forget that US is not a democracy, but a managed Republic, and according to all indicators, it is not even that liberal ..."
"... The fallout from the actions of these "interventionists" is millions are dead in a number of countries. Millions are refugees and thousands of soldiers are dead or maimed. More facts on these war criminals at link below. https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html ..."
"... This Kagan family, with Robert now the lead figure, has done a great deal towards furthering conflicts and violence in the world. It is long past time that they be put in their place, whatever that is, but it will not happen because their Zionist mindset is very well funded. ..."
"... "The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher." We ought to do more than that. He should be muzzled and sent to live in a cave somewhere to repent the consequences of the terrible damage he and other incompetents have done to America. That people like this still have access to the media is almost beyond belief. ..."
Brookings Senior Fellow and author Robert Kagan in March 2018. (Brookings Institution/Paul Morigi) Robert Kagan
warns us about global authoritarianism:
Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days, the one for which we are least
prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism. We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a
distinct worldview that offers a real alternative to liberalism.
We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a distinct worldview because it isn't one. All authoritarian states share certain
things in common, and they may see some of the same things as threats, but there isn't a single worldview that all authoritarian
governments subscribe to. There is no one ideology that binds them together. Most of them are nationalistic to one degree or another,
but because of that they usually have competing and opposing goals. Treating all authoritarian regimes as part of the same global
threat lumps illiberal and majoritarian democracies together with kleptocracies, communist dictatorships, and absolute monarchies.
That exaggerates the danger that these regimes pose, and it tries to invent a Cold War-like division between rival camps that doesn't
really exist. If the U.S. treats these states as if they are all in league with one another, it will tend to drive together states
that would otherwise remain at odds and keep each other at arm's length.
Kagan's preferred foreign policy requires that there is some global "ideological confrontation" for the U.S. to be engaged in.
If there isn't one, it has to be invented. His account of the history of the 20th century shows how determined he is to see international
politics in terms of grand ideological battles even when there wasn't one. He takes seriously the idea that WWI is one of these struggles:
"But for those who fought it, on both sides, it was very much a war between liberalism and authoritarianism." Kagan makes the mistake
of treating wartime propaganda descriptions of the war as the real motivation for the war, and he relies on stereotypes of the nations
on the other side of the war as well. The world's largest colonial empires were not fighting for "the liberties of Europe" and they
certainly weren't fighting for the rights of small nations, as wartime British propaganda would have it, and that became abundantly
clear in the post-war settlement. It was primarily a war among empires for supremacy in Europe, and the surviving Allied empires
consolidated their hold on their own colonial possessions and gained more. To the extent that Americans genuinely believed that joining
the war had something to do with vindicating the cause of democracy, they were quickly disabused of that notion when they saw the
fruits of the vindictive settlement that their allies imposed on the losing side.
Kagan admits that there are many differences of regime type that he is trying to collapse into one group:
We have become lost in endless categorizations, viewing each type of non-liberal government as unique and unrelated to the
others -- the illiberal democracy, the "liberal" or "liberalizing" autocracy, the "competitive" and "hybrid" authoritarianism.
These different categories certainly describe the myriad ways non-liberal societies may be governed. But in the most fundamental
way, all of this is beside the point.
In other words, Kagan isn't all that interested in details or accuracy. Those are "beside the point." What matters is dividing
up the world into two opposing camps: "Nations are either liberal, meaning that there are permanent institutions and unchanging norms
that protect the "unalienable" rights of individuals against all who would infringe on those rights, whether the state or the majority;
or they are not liberal." The criteria for qualifying as a liberal nation are extremely demanding. What institutions can honestly
be called "permanent" and what norms are ever truly "unchanging"? Judged against this extreme and unreasonable standard, there won't
ever be many nations that qualify as liberal, including quite a few that we would normally consider liberal democracies in good standing.
That makes it a lot easier for Kagan to exaggerate the power of "resurgent authoritarianism."
Kagan doesn't make it explicit in this essay, but his larger goal in all of this is to advocate for a more confrontational foreign
policy mobilized against the authoritarian enemies that he has described. He hints at this when he disparages contemporary "realists"
whom he doesn't name or cite:
Just as during the 1930s, when realists such as Robert Taft assured Americans that their lives would be undisturbed by the
collapse of democracy in Europe and the triumph of authoritarianism in Asia, so we have realists today insisting that we pull
back from confronting the great authoritarian powers rising in Eurasia.
To be much more accurate, there are realists, non-interventionists, and progressives that see no compelling reason for the U.S.
to engage in destructive rivalries with major authoritarian powers in their own backyards. Except for a lame, overused comparison
to the 1930s, Kagan doesn't even try to explain why we are wrong to think this. Kagan assumes that such destructive rivalries are
both necessary and desirable, and this essay is the latest part of his effort to lay the groundwork for the ideological justification
for those rivalries.
Kagan's analysis suffers from the problem of mirror-imaging that always plagues ideologues. He assumes that everyone sees the
world in starkly ideological categories just as he does, and he thinks that other actors are just as determined to export their ideology
as he is. His entire worldview depends on linking great power competition with larger ideological causes, and for almost thirty years
there has been no such "ideological confrontation" for Kagan to theorize about. Despite Kagan's insistence to the contrary, there
still isn't. He wants the U.S. to take a more confrontational approach to dealing with Russia and China, and in order to sell that
today he has to dress it up as something more than the destructive and costly pursuit of hegemony that he has been pushing for decades.
The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed.
We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher.
A recent WSJ article (03/11/19) titled "Russian Gas Plan Divides U.S., Allies" with the subtitle "Washington fears undersea
project would make Germany too reliant on Moscow" tells the tale of what the real reasons for America to demonize Russia and Putin.
The U.S. leaders fear that the German-Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, will make Europe reliant on Russian energy instead
of Europe purchasing it energy from the United States. What gives the U.S. the right to stop one nation from doing commerce with
other nations? The answer is "Greed."
All wars are predicated on lies, and all wars are fought for economic reasons and not the so called humanitarian reasons that
are fed to the people.
Always insightful indeed: Kagan is and will until the bitter end defend American hegemony and the ideological mantle will
be used as a cover (Mel Gibson screaming "Freedom!" in Bravehart; killing the babies and stealing the incubators!).
People also forget that US is not a democracy, but a managed Republic, and according to all indicators, it is not even
that liberal
So better save this post because you are still young and in 30 years from now you will be able to re-post it and just change
a couple of names
Anytime, anywhere, anyone comes out and destroys kagan's Zionist globalist babble as you have done, it is a very commendable
exercise for the good of mankind and America.
This Kagan family, with Robert now the lead figure, has done a great deal towards furthering conflicts and violence in
the world. It is long past time that they be put in their place, whatever that is, but it will not happen because their Zionist
mindset is very well funded.
"The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for
and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher."
We ought to do more than that. He should be muzzled and sent to live in a cave somewhere to repent the consequences of the
terrible damage he and other incompetents have done to America. That people like this still have access to the media is almost
beyond belief.
Reminder why should never listen to MadCow show ;-). And BTW MadCow is paid 30K a day... You
decide whether she is lazy and incompetent, or bought and evil...
Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift
towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down.
Subscribe...
The Boeing Company BA recently won a $250 million contract to offer weapon system
integration for the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) Cruise Missile. Work related to the deal is
scheduled to be completed by Dec 31, 2024.
The contract was awarded by the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, Eglin Air Force Base,
Florida. Per the terms of the deal, this aerospace giant will provide aircraft and missile
carriage equipment development and modification, engineering, testing, software development,
training, facilities and support necessary to fully integrate the LRSO Cruise Missile on the
B-52H bomber platform.
Attributes of LRSO
The LRSO is a nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile, under development. It is set to
replace the current AGM-86 air launched cruise missile (ALCM). LRSO, might be up to about 50%
longer than Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and still be
suitable for internal carriage by the B-2 and B-52.
Our View
AGM-86 ALCM has been serving the U.S. Air Force quite efficiently. However, with
increasingly sophisticated air defense systems developed by America's nemeses, especially
Russia, demand for a new stealth nuclear-armed cruise missile capable of either destroying
these defenses or penetrating them has been increasing consistently. In this scenario, the LRSO
comes as the most credible stealthy and low-yield option available to the United States
(according to Strategic Studies Quarterly Report).
Boeing's B-52, which has been the U.S. Air Force's one of the most preferred bombers, is
completely dependent on long-range cruise missiles and cannot continue in the nuclear mission
beyond 2030 without LRSO. As B-52 is expected to play a primary role in the U.S. nuclear
mission for at least next decade and ALCM is already well beyond its originally planned end of
life, we may expect more contracts similar to the latest one to usher in from the Pentagon in
the coming days. This, in turn, should prove conducive to Boeing.
Price Performance
In a year's time, shares of Boeing have gained about 16.5% against the industry's 2.2%
decline.
Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine [Video]
Secretary Pompeo displayed either stunning ignorance or a mass-attack of propaganda about
what must be the most invisible war in history.
After the 2014 Maidan revolution and the subsequent secessions of
Lugansk and Donetsk in Ukraine, and after the rejoining of Crimea with its original nation of
Russia, the Western media went on a campaign to prove the Russia is (/ was / was about to / had
already / might / was thinking about / was planning to etc.) invade Ukraine. For the next year
or so, about every two weeks, internet news sources like Yahoo! News showed viewers pictures of
tanks, box trucks and convoys to "prove" that the invasion was underway (or any of the other
statuses confirming the possibilities above stated.) This information was doubtless provided to
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Apparently, Secretary Pompeo believed this ruse, or is being paid to believe this ruse
because in a speech recently,
he talked about it as fact:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression in
eastern Ukraine an attempt to gain access to Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. He stated this
at IHS Markit's CERAWeek conference in Houston, the USA,
Reuters reports.
Pompeo urged the oil industry to work with the Trump administration to promote U.S.
foreign policy interests, especially in Asia and in Europe, and to punish what he called "bad
actors" on the world stage.
The United States has imposed harsh sanctions in the past several months on two major
world oil producers, Venezuela and Iran.
Pompeo said the U.S. oil-and-gas export boom had given the United States the ability to
meet energy demand once satisfied by its geopolitical rivals.
"We don't want our European allies hooked on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2
project, any more than we ourselves want to be dependent on Venezuelan oil supplies," Pompeo
said, referring to a
natural gas pipeline expansion from Russia to Central Europe .
Pompeo called Russia's invasion of Ukraine an attempt to gain access to the country's oil
and gas reserves.
Although the state-run news agency Vesti News often comes under criticism for rather
reckless, or at least, extremely sarcastic propaganda at times, here they rightly nailed Mr.
Pompeo's lies to the wall and billboarded it on their program:
The news anchors even made a wisecrack about one of the political figures, Konstantin
Zatulin saying as a joke that Russia plans to invade the United States to get its oil. They
further noted that Secretary Pompeo is uneducated about the region and situation, but they
offered him the chance to come to Russia and learn the correct information about what is going
on.
However, the oil and gas side of the anti-Russian propaganda operation by the US is
significant. The US wishes for Europe to buy gas from American suppliers, even though this is
woefully inconvenient and expensive when Russia is literally at Europe's doorstep with easy
supplies. However, the Cold War Party in the United States, which still has a significant hold
on US policy making categorizes the sale of Russia gas to powers like NATO ally Germany as a
"threat" to European security.
It is interesting that Angela Merkel herself does not hold this line of thinking. It is also
interesting and worthy of note, that this is not the only NATO member that is dealing more and
more with Russia in terms of business. It underscores the loss of purpose that the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization suffers now since there is no Soviet Union to fight.
However, the US remains undaunted. If there is no enemy to fight, the Americans feel that
they must create one, and Russia has been the main scapegoat for American power ambitions. More
than ever now, this tactic appears to be the one in use for determining the US stance towards
other powers in the world.
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Reading
Boeing Co. tumbled early Monday on heightened scrutiny by regulators and prosecutors over
whether the approval process for the company's 737 Max jetliner was flawed.
A person familiar with the matter on Sunday said that the U.S. Transportation Department's
Inspector General was examining the plane's design certification before the second of two
deadly crashes of the almost brand-new aircraft.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that a grand jury in Washington, D.C., on
March 11 issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in the development process of the
Max. And a Seattle Times investigation found that U.S. regulators delegated much of the plane's
safety assessment to Boeing and that the company in turn delivered an analysis with crucial
flaws.
Boeing dropped 2.8 percent to $368.53 before the start of regular trading Monday in New
York, well below any closing price since the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on
March 10. Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday that flight-data recorders showed "clear
similarities" between the crashes of that plane and Lion Air Flight 610 last October.
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration employees warned as early as seven years ago that
Boeing had too much sway over safety approvals of new aircraft, prompting an investigation by
Transportation Department auditors who confirmed the agency hadn't done enough to "hold Boeing
accountable."
The 2012 investigation also found that discord over Boeing's treatment had created a
"negative work environment" among FAA employees who approve new and modified aircraft designs,
with many of them saying they'd faced retaliation for speaking up. Their concerns pre-dated the
737 Max development.
In recent years, the FAA has shifted more authority over the approval of new aircraft to the
manufacturer itself, even allowing Boeing to choose many of the personnel who oversee tests and
vouch for safety. Just in the past few months, Congress expanded the outsourcing arrangement
even further.
"It raises for me the question of whether the agency is properly funded, properly staffed
and whether there has been enough independent oversight," said Jim Hall, who was chairman of
the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001 and is now an aviation-safety
consultant.
Outsourcing Safety
At least a portion of the flight-control software suspected in the 737 Max crashes was
certified by one or more Boeing employees who worked in the outsourcing arrangement, according
to one person familiar with the work who wasn't authorized to speak about the matter.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the inspector general's latest inquiry. The watchdog
is trying to assess whether the FAA used appropriate design standards and engineering analysis
in approving the 737 Max's anti-stall system, the newspaper said.
Both Boeing and the Transportation Department declined to comment about that inquiry.
In a statement on Sunday, the agency said its "aircraft certification processes are well
established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs," adding that the "737 Max
certification program followed the FAA's standard certification process."
The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after it took off from Addis Ababa, killing all
157 people on board. The accident prompted most of the world to ground Boeing's 737 Max 8
aircraft on safety concerns, coming on the heels of the October crash of a Max 8 operated by
Indonesia's Lion Air that killed 189 people. Much of the attention focused on a flight-control
system that can automatically push a plane into a catastrophic nose dive if it malfunctions and
pilots don't react properly.
In one of the most detailed descriptions yet of the relationship between Boeing and the
FAA during the 737 Max's certification, the Seattle Times quoted unnamed engineers who said the
planemaker had understated the power of the flight-control software in a System Safety Analysis
submitted to the FAA. The newspaper said the analysis also failed to account for how the system
could reset itself each time a pilot responded -- in essence, gradually ratcheting the
horizontal stabilizer into a dive position.
Software Fix
Boeing told the newspaper in a statement that the FAA had reviewed the company's data and
concluded the aircraft "met all certification and regulatory requirements." The company, which
is based in Chicago but designs and builds commercial jets in the Seattle area, said there are
"some significant mischaracterizations" in the engineers' comments.
"... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
"... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
"... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
"... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
"... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
"... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
"... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
"... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
"... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
"... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
"... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
"... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
"... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have
watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is
Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.
For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could
have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO
COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!
The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller
should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The
Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA.
Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS!
Mueller should be jailed.
Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am
This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing,
we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking
tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an
effort to harm President Trump.
It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians
and Democrats posing as Russians.
B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector
vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am
Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these
days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.
A
non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel
locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn
says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And
taxation without representation takes a new twist.
... ... ...
Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm
What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE
Party which Represents DEEP STATE".
DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am
Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the
security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week
as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand
down and close the murder case without further investigation.
Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm
EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue
to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The
people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their
Criminal Governments tell them.
Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST
when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women
to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!
KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm
What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of
the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined
Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or
Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American
Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump
impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?
If you can't get him out via a Election, try
& try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting
him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how
very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts
absolutely?
Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am
Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on
as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another
reason to stop the investigation.
If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely
sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some
vestige of his balls.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm
By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments
for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did
not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was
largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something."
presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.
mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm
From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it
was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this
preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their
presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is
that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down
into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are
in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm
Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over
again.
The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private
company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.
LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before
they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby
rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a
occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the
FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the
appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting
on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the
meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew
that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to
prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just
a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a
barf bag.
Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm
Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are
working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds
to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am
Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for
Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue.
If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly
unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American
people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on
Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in
this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the
collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like
Pence as opposition for 2020.
We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded
the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C.
park for transport to Wikileaks.
We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice
exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his
sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.
Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am
It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In
one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k
reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to
connect A to B.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class
vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly
relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class,
for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm
Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring
neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms
this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is
discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say),
whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical
opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent
ordinary people's interests.
Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am
She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's
heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of
Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by
Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never
forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or
eliminated.
Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this
investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt
and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters
would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his
democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!
torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am
According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't
wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect
on me as ipecac.
Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am
People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan
Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what
the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a
scapegoat is a way out.
O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am
Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of
intelligence and computer forensics.
This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press"
failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call
the tune.
It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in
our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic
journalists at every turn.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm
But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in
trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts
their claims.
Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.
The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a
leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs,
isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what
we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.
Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?
Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons
still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.
T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe,
oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear,
there's an app for that or is it a pill?
I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.
Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the
transmission speeds.
Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much
faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the
internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be
"reported in."
Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm
It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert
with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be
Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an
effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/
determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and
claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not
sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent
to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New
Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?)
Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking
of the DNC emails/ servers.
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm
Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150
indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political)
crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although
it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary
Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.
Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm
Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They
all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't
care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump.
So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because
they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.
Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am
You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody
else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics"
and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the
"undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries
the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the
damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and
free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans
for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so
funny.
And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all
their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC
boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some
"free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods
for the American public! So there!
As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've
proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller
won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats
won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in
larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.
Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm
Realist,
I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but
once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying.
It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of
living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with
Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more
and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all
things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope
of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the
plan anyway.
right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated
with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a
bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open
up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose.
that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.
i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with
my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using
hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry
on, sir.
Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ &
FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm
Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless,
short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the
Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.
Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay
for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for
"shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical
survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream
media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the
company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on
the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries
facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE
TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued
leadership!
Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news
exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm
Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the
public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion"
allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in
roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of
convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.
Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm
Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian
meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is
that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there
ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid
history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or
investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED
information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled
media!
I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and
their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a
mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are
truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you
more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".
We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to
handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never
know what was on the servers.
Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm
As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:
The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their
booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the
impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did
not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th
– after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a
publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not
yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to
suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their
genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took
a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.
And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was
releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew
that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had
been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked
emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence
subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was
Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position
to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.
Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was,
as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich.
Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows
that it was not Rich.
View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on
youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.
Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.
Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is
that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's
missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be
turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that
they were personal.
But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI
office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's
wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private
email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days
before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.
But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No
they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's
decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server.
This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in
for her to get off.
robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm
I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship
between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control
the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the
facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!
Just ask billy barr.
More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community
because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new
judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.
Apparently the rule of law is not!
You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth
and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to
look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the
post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a
dogdamned side and stand for something,.
Thank You VIPS!
Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm
Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for
without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's
never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has
accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens
gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of
continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's
even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.
Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't
conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's
case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't
it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of
financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do
such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians
in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.
I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel
Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms
Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks
who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who
just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that
gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.
Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm
The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of
the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador
Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a
go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN
INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original
articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or
some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so
ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the
meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I
thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and
believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.
Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm
Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and
propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized
over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about
them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm
Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm
A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given
a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray
subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker
or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of
Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source,
but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.
And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged
Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or
Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a
complete sham.
Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi
as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!
LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm
A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate
if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report,
It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of
the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an
investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi
partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another
low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?
After Bill and
Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury
hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.
Mueller looks just like what he is. He
has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do
not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting
themselves. This has already gone on way too long.
Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic
charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and
Russians.
Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass
media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by
Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was
the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf
of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to
witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent
edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?
So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to
their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.
Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm
You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller
have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a
divisive idiot.
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm
Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to
make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war
continues. Mission Accomplished.
@Jack,
Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have
hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most
potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I
checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me
divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and
disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and
feed half-truths to the people.
Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina
vanden Heuvel.
Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am
Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire
Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats,
have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president.
This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to
violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct.
The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the
course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though,
even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for
the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.
Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on
America and tortured some folks.
George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm
QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the
Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted
parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred
during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from
the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI
office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was
court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.
I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the
complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.
Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am
How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE
PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both
complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party
system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am
"We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to
prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become
aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very
different conclusions."
I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding
pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry
called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated
forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint
before throwing the knockout punch.
If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the
perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily,
I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of
venues like CN.
I pray to God I'm wrong.
Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm
My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98%
of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and
make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone,
deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond
any real evidence.
Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm
As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on
other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above
you.
The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA,
FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil
service careers.
Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little
desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little
idea of where to go from there.
Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am
I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press
Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population
itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for
America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one
reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to
Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the
article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to
establish truth in reporting
Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am
Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved
into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration:
"we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance
fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim
that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .
Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and
utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your
collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values
the truth.
Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out
of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad
can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep
at night unless he's starving his own people."
The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with
"Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.
Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am
I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer
rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I
understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive?
And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive?
That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a
thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to
give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit
some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was
under the control of some faraway agent?
Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am
Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX).
The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is
to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If
it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the
UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage
device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's
writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question,
yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates
wouldn't line up.
Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am
Jeff-
Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata
for the most recent move?
David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred
to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg,
to give a copy to Wikileaks?"
I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that
question elsewhere.
To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do
so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm
I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up
everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had
"moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument
could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig
Murray.
David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm
Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.
But I think the question Marc posed stands.
Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am
Hi David-
I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence
of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is
equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at
all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI
not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily
have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to
get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.
As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney
directly answer it.
The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that
DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
Executive Summary
Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any
links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.
If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."
Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who
have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We
stand ready to help.
We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing
story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story,
we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief
that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable
consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.
There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there
are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly
if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions.
We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent
"evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had
support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom
story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who
worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published
our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to
endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.
This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes
and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key
factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data
associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.
We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments,
however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring
that you hear that directly from us.
If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate
will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.
In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then
Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again,
we are at your disposal.
Discussion
The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic
National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following
the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light,
rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of
the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks
story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."
The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type
caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:
" When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment
or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on
collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment
is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."
To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution."
They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber
operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]
Forensics
The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish
attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical
data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.
Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and
blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony
to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access
to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.
In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware
that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic
information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content
an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks
is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple
conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired
CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.
Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension
between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the
FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by
Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done
shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens
that conclusion.
We Do Forensics
Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian
Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation
Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive,
before WikiLeaks posted them.
FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is
not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times
on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.
Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under
the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the
DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.
We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If
those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The
random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by
WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the
World Wide Web.
This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers
for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the
DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.
Role of NSA
For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so.
We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks
-- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before
the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over
the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.
Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked
by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving
the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show
the routes that trace the packets.)
The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the
person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from
the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No
less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."
Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment,"
which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative
less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence
community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.
Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?
There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet
as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former
intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded
over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.
There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which
are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there
was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement,
claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show
was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."
Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which
released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary
scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS
reported in a wrap-up
Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the
July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an
external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks
might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three
days before the Democratic convention.
As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents
he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained
in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S.
This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online
Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.
Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests
from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey
to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb
drive.
The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information
to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5,
2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing
attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.
Presidential Interest
After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights
with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an
hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that
if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."
Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started
to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA.
Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.
Confronting James Clapper on Forensics
We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence
chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National
Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during
the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:
" Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence
was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]
Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our
country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't
have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."
(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found
here and a commentary
on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is
here .)
Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that
Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens.
In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance.
To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."
The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12,
2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies
himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically,
almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."
Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before
Mueller completes his investigation.
For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney , former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals
Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Richard H. Black , Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division,
Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)
Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Girald i, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel , former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the
Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson , former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
John Kiriakou , former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski , former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture
of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Edward Loomis , Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)
David MacMichael , Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern , former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray , former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA
political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce , MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Peter Van Buren , US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton , CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe , former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Ann Wright , retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq
War
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers
and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching
a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived
threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of
VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.
"... Patronage by that soulless rat bastard Petraeus is certainly detrimental. They went for
Flynn with everything they had, Bannon is indeed next ... An isolated Trump with adversarial or
hidden agenda advisors would be easily rolled/influenced ... ..."
"... Dismayed by their insistence on using military force, John F. Kennedy said he would warn
his successor "to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that just because they were military
men their opinion[s] on military matters were worth a damn." ..."
"... But Lyndon Johnson needed no such advice, for like JFK, he had a disdain for the
military. "Johnson brought with him to the presidency a low opinion of the nation's top military
men and a long history of taking positions on military issues to enhance his political fortunes,"
says McMaster. ..."
"... Eisenhower's administration, in conjunction with the Dulles brothers in CIA & State,
was even more hawkish than Truman. ..."
"... Nuclear weapons increased from 1,000 to 22,000 and tactical nuclear weapons were
routinely deployed and considered 'conventional weapons' re possible usage from '53 onwards. The
JCS recommended and the NSC endorsed using nuclear weapons against China in '53 and Eisenhower
and Dulles communicated these threats to China. Under Eisenhower's NSC we overthrew Iran's
Mossadeq in '53 and Guatemala's Arbenz in '54 on behalf of the 'United Fruit Company', etc.
..."
"... For McMaster to champion Eisenhower's JCS/NSC over the Kennedy's efforts to de-escalate
nuclear Armageddon, is indicative of a rabid aggressive warhawk perspective. ..."
"... I've read elsewhere that in the early 1960's the US Mil wanted to (find a reason to)
launch a first strike on Russia because THEY KNEW that the US had an overwhelming advantage that
would dissipate over time. ..."
"... It will be interesting to see if Trump tries to regain the upper hand in this "battle"
and what that might entail. Until and unless Trump losses Bannon, he maintains the optics of a
threat to the neocon agenda. ..."
"... But since Trump is not a threat to those that own private finance of the world, what
does it matter? Pick your CON...... Is it neocon? or Trumpcon? ..."
"... I don't think Trump & Flynn were fooled into the resignation/departure. I think they
were responding to a real risk. ..."
"... Isn't it just a bit surreal that the entire Deep State Media (DSM) and most of the
military is seemingly chomping at bit for WW3? Can that be real? And why has this Oroville Dam
collapse of digital ink been spilled over global warming? Too much fluoride in the D.C. drinking
water? ..."
"... Even the putatively "liberal" documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has branded Donald
Trump a "Russian traitor" and has called for his impeachment for advocating good relations with
Russia! Some of his Tweets: ..."
"... Given that the strategy is to reign in China (the only way to get jobs back to the US),
the triad of Russia-China-Iran must first be broken. Iran is the current weak link. Break the
links to Iran, buy/intimidate Russia off support for China. This also fits Israeli interest so
will buy Trump time to put out other fires... but Flynn jumped the gun. ..."
"... In response Russia openly questions the motives of the new administration states it is
reconsidering if it can negotiate with Trump at all. Two days later Flynn resigns. Do not confuse
the announcement of the incident (14th - a day after Flynn resigns) with the timing of the event
(10th, two days before his resignation). ..."
"... If there is one thing Trump detests, it is signalling the opposition what your true
position really is. Same holds true with appointments, it is all smoke and mirrors, to confuse
while real deals are cut. ..."
"... When has war NOT been in the service of wealth? Is that not what war is for? To create
wealth in two ways: 1. by taking the wealth of others; 2. by creating a means by which surplus
can be destroyed in order to be replaced? ..."
"... So, the deep state wins ... the world loses. Where is Trump in all of this? It doesn't
matter ... and a real bloody revolution won't be enough. I truly can't wait until we provoke the
Russians or the Chinese into starting a war that ends with lots of good old life cleansing
mushrooms! ..."
"... yes, indeed. the pickings are slim. culling a more humane alternative from this gaggle
of shit-stained, blood-soaked scumbags seems like an exercise in futility to me. ..."
"... Could Pence have been threatening to resign if Flynn was not fired? ..."
"... Any interesting idea, but Trump immediately after Flynn's anti-Iran speach launched his
own anti-Iran tweetstorm. If anything, Flynn's speech might have been given in an effort to
appease the Neocons demanding his head. Keep in mind he must have known he was in trouble before
the rest of us did. ..."
"... Trump was viciously anti-Iran throughout his whole campaign, so nothing new there. It is
doubtful Russia did not long ago see the idea of splitting them from China and Iran. It was
talked about in the blogosphere for months. Russia was never going to be dumb enough to fall for
it, but probably didn't mind letting the US try. ..."
"... At Trump's stage of life he could have opted for luxurious retirement in splendid
isolation, but he's set himself one last challenge - to be the most famous person in History.
He's already halfway there and he hasn't even done anything startlingly POTUS-ish yet...
..."
"... He is not as "anti-Russian" as it may seem. After all, Flynn himself had very little
"love" for Russia and was merely a situational "ally", who understood, correctly, operational and
strategic limitations of US Armed Forces. ..."
"... Anti-Russian mantras today are more of a self-psychotherapy nature than of real desire
to fight Russia. Everybody in both militaries understand everything by now, but that is a totally
different story altogether. Once brand new Russian military doctrine was published couple of
years ago--many pieces of puzzle fell into their places. ..."
"... Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC: "Our job is to control exactly what people think . She's
annoyed that Trump is interfering with their doing that job. ..."
"... Trump was thinking of John Bolton, a neo-con for the job. He obviously wanted to get one
of them in his rank to better fight them. He also wanted to make a conciliatory gesture to the
hardline republicans. ..."
"... Reminds me a lot of the Reagan White House. An Actor and poser as President, and
sycophants doing the real work. ..."
"... Our lying eyes must still be deceiving us. Trump is being rolled cause he gets to keep
his billionaire empire, fly back and forth with all the security detail to his estate in Florida
on the taxpayers dime; keep his wife in the penthouse with security detail; have his sons do
business for him all over the world with security detail – all this on the taxpayers dime.
He's not sacrificing a thing for the job and he's so innocent. We must never, never blame Trump.
..."
"... I am glad that b pointed out that McMaster is a Petraeus protege. It gives us something
to watch out for. Yes he's a student of and regrets the Viet Nam war. But we heard that before
from Powell and Schwarzkopf. And look where they took us and how. (It's like Bernanke the student
of the Great Depression admitting the Fed caused it and that it wouldn't happen again.) ..."
"... This time, it was Sergey Lavrov who caused a scandal, by calling for a post-Western
world order. We are obliged to admit that NATO has lost its superiority in terms of conventional
warfare – even though it easily maintains first place in terms of nuclear war. We are
obliged to admit that after 15 years of uninterrupted war in the "Greater Middle East", the
mirage of remodelling the region into micro-states, each with less than 10 million inhabitants,
and the fantasy of eradicating secular régimes for the benefit of dictatorships run by the
Muslim Brotherhood, have failed. ..."
"... Astoundingly, the Europeans persist in pursuing these goals, which have been imposed on
them by Washington, but which the People of the United States and their President Donald Trump do
not want any more. So the Europeans are counting on the deep US state (that is to say the Raven
Rock Mountain Continuity of Government group who organised the attacks of 11 September). Their
political leaders continue, as a preventive measure, to denounce Donald Trump's supposed racism
and Islamophobia, the same people who applauded when George W. Bush and Barack Obama killed more
than 3 million people. Their Press continually insults Donald Trump, whom it presents as
capricious and incapable [3]. ..."
"... I don't think the neocon/neolib element, frantically as they may clog comments across
the board, are going to win this battle, even if they take Trump down. They are never going to
win over the US public, and what Trump is helping to do by shedding light on the tactics of his
opponents is going to bring change even if he himself can't manage to do it. It is just a
question of time. ..."
"... Now, instead of having a faker kicking the can down the road, we have somebody in office
attempting to stem the tide of corruption. It may well be that he doesn't succeed. But what he
doesn't succeed in doing, someone else will. Personally, I thank him for trying, and I thank the
posters who tell us positive things about his efforts. I pray for him, and I pray for this
country. The nasties will continue to drag us through the mire like the parasites they are. It's
going to be unpleasant, but they cannot win. They are just going to make it hard on everyone for
some time to come. ..."
"... Trump (or any other President, for that matter) will have to confront all of America's
parasitic "friend and allies" with the devastating trade wars that are surely coming - since
cumulative trade deficits are endangering the country's economic viability - and in that context,
rapprochement with Russia is crucial for the US. It's not an option anymore, but an absolute
necessity. Right now Americans are desperately trying to soften Russians up with the fake
hysteria, but Moscow should just sit tight, and move on a chessboard in silence. ..."
"... i guess that explains why the whole world is against your exceptional 'warmongering'
nation.. ..."
"... Some of McMaster's more provocative statements seems to be that he acknowledges that
Russia and China are strategic threats to US domination of the world. Duh. Isn't that totally
obvious? ..."
"... The question is what he will do about that problem? Col Lang at Turcopieler has come out
strongly supporting McMaster as NSC advisor. Lang thinks he is the right person for that job
right now. I have no idea but it may very well be that Flyn's obsession with Iran could have been
very dangerous. Mc Master might just do the right thing in these very dangerous times. We will
just have to wait and see. ..."
"... It's essential to look beyond the headlines to get a sense of what's really afoot. From
the onset, as I've stated many times, the Trump Presidency is about deception and about replacing
Obama's failed "Plan A" for global dominion with what we might call Henry Kissinger's "Plan B."
..."
"... Since the election campaign, certain themes have been clearly sounded: The nuclear deal
with Iran was "bad" and new hostile sanctions are in order. Relations with Bibi Netanyahu's
right-wing Likud government must again become special Washington priority. Relations with Saudi
Arabia, the world's biggest financier of terrorism, must also be elevated. What has taken place
in the four weeks since the inauguration? ..."
"... One has to ask themselves why aren't these protesters throwing a fit about this betrayal
..."
"... Fundamentally because the average person on this planet is effectively mesmerized &
incapable of independent thought. This is not unique to the American Zombie. It is a global
phenomena. ..."
"... But even the barely educated Coastal American Zombie -- who should not be confused with
the completely uneducated Flyover American Zombies -- know at a subconscious level that their
standard of living comes at the price of trampling of rights, both foreign and domestic.
..."
"... here in Italy youth unemployment has surpassed 40%. i see distant roiling clouds of
uncertainty and glints of unrequited dreams in my daughters dark eyes. ..."
"... I watched the news conference Trump gave on Feb 17. You can find it at whitehouse.gov. I
watched and listened to every word, and I saw nothing but an extremely strong man having fun, as
he said, in bouncing the corrupt presstitutes around, working to play the Fake News meme against
them, taunting and challenging them to ask an intelligent question. He praised those few
journalists who asked about real things. He will change the press corps into true reporters
eventually I think. It will pay their publishers better, as he says. ..."
"... Trump in his conference was talking to the people of the country. I have no doubt
they're out there. I'm astonished to see so much formerly alt-news becoming the new public
culture. Russia plays its part in fighting back against fake news, and Trump is a one-man
juggernaut in this regard. I don't know how far he'll go. I don't know if they'll stop him. At a
certain point, the energy required to stop him can only backfire into an explosion of truth and
light that shows up the background subterfuges for what they are, in the clear light of day. And
eventually, the establishment will have to make this same calculation, and every day they leave
him alive is another day they drift further away from influence and it may already be too late.
..."
"... I don't know why anyone's missing Flynn. The guy's as dumb as a post. I don't know much
about NcMaster but I know that Trump picked him, nobody else. ..."
"... If the CIA and the liberals wanted to load Trump up with hawks they would have
"inserted" Bolton. But nobody gets to insert anybody for that job. No hearings, vetting or fuck
all. ..."
"... I'm inclined to agree with you three, that Trump represents a way or style of leadership
that confuses hell out of Capitol Hill and the Washington press corps, and which the latter lacks
the language to describe and to communicate to the public at large. Trump has been President for
barely a month but The Powers That (Shouldn't) Be are determined to cut him no slack. Everyone
else is over-reading their own narrative over Trump and over-analysing what Flynn's resignation
means for Trump. ..."
"... The other thing people have to remember is that the O'Bomber administration deliberately
left unsigned bills or orders for the new administration to deal with once the Democrats realised
that Killary Klinton had lost the election and the Electoral College. A lot of the flack Trump's
government is getting stems from business left behind by Obama, such as the refugee visa ban
targeting seven countries, based on a list of targeted nations in previous legislation approved
by the Obama government. ..."
te> McMasters gave "acknowledgement" to his great friends and wise contributors in the
forward of his book "Dereliction of Duty" to Fred and Kim KAGAN. Yes. Yes. The brother of
Robert Kagan, husband of Cookies (aka fu*k the EU) Nuland. Then again. The comment board of MOA
never met a ZIO-con-fascist-Russophobe-warmonger they didn't like. So what's the prob?
P.S. How many Soros-paid-thugs does it take to push over a hundred grave stones? Eh???
Betcha lots fewer than the ones in Maidan...
McMasters gave "acknowledgement" to his great friends and wise contributors in the forward of
his book "Dereliction of Duty" to Fred and Kim KAGAN. Yes. Yes. The brother of Robert Kagan,
husband of Cookies (aka fu*k the EU) Nuland. Then again. The comment board of MOA never met a
ZIO-con-fascist-Russophobe-warmonger they didn't like. So what's the prob?
P.S. How many Soros-paid-thugs does it take to push over a hundred grave stones? Eh???
Betcha lots fewer than the ones in Maidan...
te> right-wing pence, mad dog mattis, and tyrannus rex are running this
administration. (priebus is the gofe with the republican party monsters and hacks, to keep them
soothed and inline.)
unless they are geniuses, bannan and the Orange One are gonna continue to get further
rolled by these guys
right-wing pence, mad dog mattis, and tyrannus rex are running this administration. (priebus
is the gofe with the republican party monsters and hacks, to keep them soothed and inline.)
unless they are geniuses, bannan and the Orange One are gonna continue to get further
rolled by these guys
Indeed. Anyone McCain & Cotton endorses is extremely suspect. Commissioned as Lieutenant
in 1984, started writing his 'Dereliction of Duty ' book in 1992, published in 1997, so ~20 years
ago.
Patronage by that soulless rat bastard Petraeus is certainly detrimental. They went for
Flynn with everything they had, Bannon is indeed next ... An isolated Trump with adversarial or
hidden agenda advisors would be easily rolled/influenced ...
"I wondered how and why Vietnam had become an American war–a war in which men fought and
died without a clear idea of how their actions and sacrifices were contributing to an end of
the conflict." In searching for the answer, McMaster "discovered that the military's role in
Vietnam decision-making was little understood and largely overlooked." Dereliction of Duty is
his attempt to correct that deficiency.
As Henry Kissinger has said, "Presidents listen to advisers whose advice they think they
need." In the Kennedy administration the most important determining factor would not be the
advisers' relative position in organizational charts, but instead their "ability to establish a
close personal rapport with the President." Thus, "under the Kennedy/Johnson system, the Joint
Chiefs lost the direct access to the president, and thus the real influence on decision-making
that the Eisenhower NSC [National Security Council] structure had provided."
McMaster says "Diminished JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] access to the president reflected
Kennedy's opinion of his senior military advisers. Kennedy and the young New Frontiersmen
viewed the Eisenhower JCS with suspicion .The Old Guard in the Pentagon were relegated to a
position of little influence." McMaster follows this theme throughout his work, beginning with
the rise of General Maxwell Taylor, brought back from retirement to serve as the "military
representative of the president" and later chairman of the JCS.
McMaster also traces the rise of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's "whiz
kids"–particularly Alain Enthoven, McNamara's point man, whose "flair for quantitative
analysis was exceeded only by his arrogance." Enthoven, writes McMaster, "held military
experience in low regard and considered military men intellectually inferior." In return, "the
military viewed Enthoven and the rest of McNamara's staff as adversaries."
The Cuban missile crisis only deepened the gulf between the JCS and the president.
Dismayed by their insistence on using military force, John F. Kennedy said he would warn his
successor "to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that just because they were military men
their opinion[s] on military matters were worth a damn."
But Lyndon Johnson needed no such advice, for like JFK, he had a disdain for the
military. "Johnson brought with him to the presidency a low opinion of the nation's top
military men and a long history of taking positions on military issues to enhance his political
fortunes," says McMaster. Taylor, by then JCS chairman, "demonstrated the same loyalty to
Johnson that he had shown Kennedy. The other Chiefs and the JCS as an institution were the
losers in status, influence and power..."
Eisenhower's administration, in conjunction with the Dulles brothers in CIA & State,
was even more hawkish than Truman.
Nuclear weapons increased from 1,000 to 22,000 and tactical nuclear weapons were routinely
deployed and considered 'conventional weapons' re possible usage from '53 onwards. The JCS
recommended and the NSC endorsed using nuclear weapons against China in '53 and Eisenhower and
Dulles communicated these threats to China. Under Eisenhower's NSC we overthrew Iran's Mossadeq
in '53 and Guatemala's Arbenz in '54 on behalf of the 'United Fruit Company', etc.
For McMaster to champion Eisenhower's JCS/NSC over the Kennedy's efforts to de-escalate
nuclear Armageddon, is indicative of a rabid aggressive warhawk perspective. The JCS wanted
to actually invade Cuba, whether it risked war with the USSR or not.
Should he still hold these views ... a bad choice indeed.
Allegedly Flynn did not fully inform Vice-President Pence about his talk with the
Russian ambassador. But that can not be a serious reason.
It is a serious reason. Flynn likely ran afoul of a old law called the "Logan
Act", which prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes
involving the American government . It might be hard to prosecute Flynn but there are
nevertheless serious political ramifications.
If Trump had tried to retain Flynn, over the objection of VP Pence, Trump risked being
removed via impeachment or 25th Amendment because:
- If Trump asked Flynn to guide the Russian response to sanctions, then Trump could be
guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors", or
- VP Pence could determine that Trump's keeping Flynn showed a pro-Russian bias that
indicated that Trump was compromised (US intel agencies have already 'determined' that Russia
influenced the elections to favor Trump).
That Flynn had not been truthful to Pence (from what we are told) and that Pence
would not 'play ball' hint at Pence as an untrusted 'frenemy' . Indeed, Pence is
apparently close to McCain. they traveled to Iraq together about 10 years ago, and Pence
endorsed McCain in the 2016 election over Trump's wishes.
<> <> <> <> <>
I've read that Pence had made public statements that Flynn had NOT spoken to the Russians
about sanctions but that was proven false by the transcripts.
Did Pence demand to know if Trump had asked Flynn to talk to the Russians about sanction?
It would be a logical question - and one that would've been very threatening to Trump.
Trump hinted that he HAD asked, or authorized, Flynn to talk to the Russians about
sanctions when Trump defended Flynn at the press conference saying:
- he's a great guy;
- he did nothing wrong - he did his job;
- If he HADN'T done what he did, Trump would've asked him to!!!
Allegedly Flynn did not fully inform Vice-President Pence about his talk with the
Russian ambassador. But that can not be a serious reason.
It is a serious reason. Flynn likely ran afoul of a old law called the "Logan
Act", which prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in
disputes involving the American government . It might be hard to prosecute Flynn but
there are nevertheless serious political ramifications.
If Trump had tried to retain Flynn, over the objection of VP Pence, Trump risked being
removed via impeachment or 25th Amendment because:
- If Trump asked Flynn to guide the Russian response to sanctions, then Trump could be
guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors", or
- VP Pence could determine that Trump's keeping Flynn showed a pro-Russian bias that
indicated that Trump was compromised (US intel agencies have already 'determined' that
Russia influenced the elections to favor Trump).
That Flynn had not been truthful to Pence (from what we are told) and that Pence
would not 'play ball' hint at Pence as an untrusted 'frenemy' . Indeed, Pence is
apparently close to McCain. they traveled to Iraq together about 10 years ago, and Pence
endorsed McCain in the 2016 election over Trump's wishes.
<> <> <> <> <>
I've read that Pence had made public statements that Flynn had NOT spoken to the Russians
about sanctions but that was proven false by the transcripts.
Did Pence demand to know if Trump had asked Flynn to talk to the Russians about sanction?
It would be a logical question - and one that would've been very threatening to Trump.
Trump hinted that he HAD asked, or authorized, Flynn to talk to the Russians about
sanctions when Trump defended Flynn at the press conference saying:
- he's a great guy;
- he did nothing wrong - he did his job;
- If he HADN'T done what he did, Trump would've asked him to!!!
The excuse of the ~216 year old Logan Act is a non-starter.
Not only has no-one ever been convicted, no-one has ever even been prosecuted under it. It's
questionable if it would even survive a challenge re being constitutionally valid. So no grounds
for impeachment or 25th amendment, especially when the GOP holds Presidency, House & Senate,
a clean sweep, thanks to the Trump-faction.
Only politically suicidal lunatics would impeach their own party President if they
wished to be re-elected ...
I've read elsewhere that in the early 1960's the US Mil wanted to (find a reason to)
launch a first strike on Russia because THEY KNEW that the US had an overwhelming advantage
that would dissipate over time.
Of course this was before scientists warned that a full-scale nuclear war would mean
human extinction.
I wonder about JCS unwillingness to be forthright with civilian leadership. Was Johnson
trying to appease the anti-Russian hawks (without realizing that it would be impossible to
withdraw until victory was achieved)? Was JCS happy to go along with a gradual escalation
knowing that the conflict would grow?
In other words, how valid are McMaster's lessons? Monday morning quarter-backing? Would
JCS go along with gradualism TODAY if they thought it was "in the right direction?"
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Isn't the use of extremists to fight a proxy war a form of gradualism?
I've read elsewhere that in the early 1960's the US Mil wanted to (find a reason to)
launch a first strike on Russia because THEY KNEW that the US had an overwhelming advantage
that would dissipate over time.
Of course this was before scientists warned that a full-scale nuclear war would mean human
extinction.
I wonder about JCS unwillingness to be forthright with civilian leadership. Was Johnson
trying to appease the anti-Russian hawks (without realizing that it would be impossible to
withdraw until victory was achieved)? Was JCS happy to go along with a gradual escalation
knowing that the conflict would grow?
In other words, how valid are McMaster's lessons? Monday morning quarter-backing? Would
JCS go along with gradualism TODAY if they thought it was "in the right direction?"
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Isn't the use of extremists to fight a proxy war a form of gradualism?
te> It will be interesting to see if Trump tries to regain the upper hand
in this "battle" and what that might entail. Until and unless Trump losses Bannon, he maintains
the optics of a threat to the neocon agenda.
But since Trump is not a threat to those that own private finance of the world, what
does it matter? Pick your CON...... Is it neocon? or Trumpcon?
Somewhere out there is a anti-humanistic war-hawk analyst that is telling his boss that
using nukes for military/empire purposes would give cover for Fukushima ecological
damage..........maybe our species is not meant to evolve and grow........because we are not
hearing these corporations (who are people, as Romney would say) screaming for global remediation
of Fukushima for the sake of their future customers.......are we?
It will be interesting to see if Trump tries to regain the upper hand in this "battle" and
what that might entail. Until and unless Trump losses Bannon, he maintains the optics of a
threat to the neocon agenda.
But since Trump is not a threat to those that own private finance of the world, what
does it matter? Pick your CON...... Is it neocon? or Trumpcon?
Somewhere out there is a anti-humanistic war-hawk analyst that is telling his boss that
using nukes for military/empire purposes would give cover for Fukushima ecological
damage..........maybe our species is not meant to evolve and grow........because we are not
hearing these corporations (who are people, as Romney would say) screaming for global
remediation of Fukushima for the sake of their future customers.......are we?
There's always a first time. It's as good an excuse as any. And Republicans would not be
throwing the Presidency to the Democrats, they would be choosing an alternative Republican. One
that many of them would prefer.
I don't think Trump & Flynn were fooled into the resignation/departure. I think they
were responding to a real risk.
There's always a first time. It's as good an excuse as any. And Republicans would not be
throwing the Presidency to the Democrats, they would be choosing an alternative Republican.
One that many of them would prefer.
I don't think Trump & Flynn were fooled into the resignation/departure. I think
they were responding to a real risk.
te> The thing that bothers me is why would well informed (are they really?)
state officials who are supposed to know its own capabilities and those of a enemy-to-be, in this
case Russia, want a conflict which is unwinnable? When one thinks about such option it sounds
really surreal.
I can only think on shortsighted attempt to sell even more useless weapons to allies at a
price and an excuse of a "commitment" to protect them if they increase defence budgets. So it is
simply an extortion racket that EU shouldn't comply with, but instead should work with Russia to
mend its socio-economic relations, as this is the only possible way of changing each other's
minds, thus creating the long term stability on the European and Asian continents.
b. has wisely predicted, but it is not yet mentioning in the detail recent Libyan situation
unfolding as an obvious current policy still is - stirr the trouble wherever you can to keep
Russia busy or involved into it. That is stupid game that yields no result.
The thing that bothers me is why would well informed (are they really?) state officials who
are supposed to know its own capabilities and those of a enemy-to-be, in this case Russia,
want a conflict which is unwinnable? When one thinks about such option it sounds really
surreal.
I can only think on shortsighted attempt to sell even more useless weapons to allies at a
price and an excuse of a "commitment" to protect them if they increase defence budgets. So it
is simply an extortion racket that EU shouldn't comply with, but instead should work with
Russia to mend its socio-economic relations, as this is the only possible way of changing
each other's minds, thus creating the long term stability on the European and Asian
continents.
b. has wisely predicted, but it is not yet mentioning in the detail recent Libyan
situation unfolding as an obvious current policy still is - stirr the trouble wherever you
can to keep Russia busy or involved into it. That is stupid game that yields no result.
te> Isn't it just a bit surreal that the entire Deep State Media (DSM) and
most of the military is seemingly chomping at bit for WW3? Can that be real? And why has this
Oroville Dam collapse of digital ink been spilled over global warming? Too much fluoride in the
D.C. drinking water?
Even the putatively "liberal" documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has branded Donald
Trump a "Russian traitor" and has called for his impeachment for advocating good relations with
Russia! Some of his Tweets:
/~~~~~~~~~~
Um, @realDonaldTrump -- It's now noontime in DC & it appears you are still squatting in our
Oval Office. I gave u til this morning to leave.
- Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 14, 2017
What part of "vacate you Russian traitor" don't you understand? We can do this the easy way
(you resign), or the hard way (impeachment).
- Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 14, 2017
Or maybe it's all a giant cover-up, a colossal red herring to put up a smoke-screen between
the the benighted population and the calamitous impending Dollaropocalypse?
Doesn't everybody know that the Columbian Usa empire is on its very last legs, trapped
between a crumbling Europe, survivalist Russia, and gluttonous China which has sucked in most of
its productional systems?
Come about 2017 or 2018, they are desperately going to need on hell of a distracting dog
and pony show and finale rack of fireworks to cover up the approaching ultra-depression
supervolcano.
Isn't it just a bit surreal that the entire Deep State Media (DSM) and most of the
military is seemingly chomping at bit for WW3? Can that be real? And why has this Oroville
Dam collapse of digital ink been spilled over global warming? Too much fluoride in the D.C.
drinking water?
Even the putatively "liberal" documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has branded Donald
Trump a "Russian traitor" and has called for his impeachment for advocating good relations
with Russia! Some of his Tweets:
/~~~~~~~~~~
Um, @realDonaldTrump -- It's now noontime in DC & it appears you are still squatting in
our Oval Office. I gave u til this morning to leave.
- Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 14, 2017
What part of "vacate you Russian traitor" don't you understand? We can do this the easy
way (you resign), or the hard way (impeachment).
- Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 14, 2017
Or maybe it's all a giant cover-up, a colossal red herring to put up a smoke-screen
between the the benighted population and the calamitous impending Dollaropocalypse?
Doesn't everybody know that the Columbian Usa empire is on its very last legs, trapped
between a crumbling Europe, survivalist Russia, and gluttonous China which has sucked in most
of its productional systems?
Come about 2017 or 2018, they are desperately going to need on hell of a distracting dog
and pony show and finale rack of fireworks to cover up the approaching ultra-depression
supervolcano.
1. Of course this was before scientists warned that a full-scale nuclear war would mean human
extinction.
2. Would JCS go along with gradualism TODAY if they thought it was "in the right
direction?"
3. Isn't the use of extremists to fight a proxy war a form of gradualism?
1. It was first realized (1955) by the German physicist and Nobel laureate who had earlier
first split the uranium atom, Otto Hahn, that only ten cobalt salted hydrogen bombs would be
enough to extinguish life on earth, under revised calculations following the US Hydrogen bomb
tests of the previous year. This was broadcast on radio throughout Europe in Feb
1955! . It was also the basis of the fictional Doomsday device in Dr. Strangelove or: How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb .
2. JCS would likely only want to deploy boots on the ground for a perceived clean, quick,
limited war with a clearly defined, highly probable, resulting WIN. Something to get the scores
up on the board, Hm, like Grenada redux ? Anything else is bad
(military) politics.
It took almost two decades for the Military to recover from Vietnam, and the current military
has certainly not yet recovered from Vietnam MkII, the combined Iraq & Afghanistan Wars, IMV.
The best & most experienced/capable NCO's and junior officers exited service by choice,
family pressure/responsibilities or literally burnt out through excessive tour rotations ... that
will take another decade or more to recover from ...
3. Proxy wars are fine ... little risk, little downside, from their perspective ... see ~46
years of Cold War and current Cold War 2.0 (Lite).
Given that the strategy is to reign in China (the only way to get jobs back to the
US), the triad of Russia-China-Iran must first be broken. Iran is the current weak link. Break
the links to Iran, buy/intimidate Russia off support for China. This also fits Israeli interest
so will buy Trump time to put out other fires... but Flynn jumped the gun.
Putting Iran on notice without specific reason (it was not a ballistic missile test)
exposed the strategy and gave both Russia and China reason to affirm their relation to Iran
without cost. the deployment of troops to Europe could still be blamed on Obama and confusing
times at the white house... but the Porter incident was deliberate and provocative - again
playing the intimidation card before it would have best effect.
In response Russia openly questions the motives of the new administration states it is
reconsidering if it can negotiate with Trump at all. Two days later Flynn resigns. Do not
confuse the announcement of the incident (14th - a day after Flynn resigns) with the timing of
the event (10th, two days before his resignation).
If there is one thing Trump detests, it is signalling the opposition what your true
position really is. Same holds true with appointments, it is all smoke and mirrors, to confuse
while real deals are cut.
Given that the strategy is to reign in China (the only way to get jobs back to the US),
the triad of Russia-China-Iran must first be broken. Iran is the current weak link. Break the
links to Iran, buy/intimidate Russia off support for China. This also fits Israeli interest
so will buy Trump time to put out other fires... but Flynn jumped the gun.
Putting Iran on notice without specific reason (it was not a ballistic missile test)
exposed the strategy and gave both Russia and China reason to affirm their relation to Iran
without cost. the deployment of troops to Europe could still be blamed on Obama and confusing
times at the white house... but the Porter incident was deliberate and provocative - again
playing the intimidation card before it would have best effect.
In response Russia openly questions the motives of the new administration states it is
reconsidering if it can negotiate with Trump at all. Two days later Flynn resigns. Do not
confuse the announcement of the incident (14th - a day after Flynn resigns) with the timing
of the event (10th, two days before his resignation).
If there is one thing Trump detests, it is signalling the opposition what your true
position really is. Same holds true with appointments, it is all smoke and mirrors, to
confuse while real deals are cut.
te> When has war NOT been in the service of wealth? Is that not what war is
for? To create wealth in two ways: 1. by taking the wealth of others; 2. by creating a means by
which surplus can be destroyed in order to be replaced?
The whole Trump thing is to drain the swamp. The problem is that there is too much wealth
involved in creating more wealth via war to reduce war. As an archetype, consider the F-35? The
perfect war tool ... too expensive, totally unreliable, needing immediate replacement.
So, the deep state wins ... the world loses. Where is Trump in all of this? It doesn't
matter ... and a real bloody revolution won't be enough. I truly can't wait until we provoke the
Russians or the Chinese into starting a war that ends with lots of good old life cleansing
mushrooms!
When has war NOT been in the service of wealth? Is that not what war is for? To create
wealth in two ways: 1. by taking the wealth of others; 2. by creating a means by which
surplus can be destroyed in order to be replaced?
The whole Trump thing is to drain the swamp. The problem is that there is too much wealth
involved in creating more wealth via war to reduce war. As an archetype, consider the F-35?
The perfect war tool ... too expensive, totally unreliable, needing immediate
replacement.
So, the deep state wins ... the world loses. Where is Trump in all of this? It doesn't
matter ... and a real bloody revolution won't be enough. I truly can't wait until we provoke
the Russians or the Chinese into starting a war that ends with lots of good old life
cleansing mushrooms!
te> ...the war-on-Russia hawks, that is about everyone of the "serious
people" in Washington DC...
yes, indeed. the pickings are slim. culling a more humane alternative from this gaggle
of shit-stained, blood-soaked scumbags seems like an exercise in futility to me. no room for
elfin heroes, no siree bob.
I don't think we're getting out. I think that we must adapt. The human organism is
fairly flexible, and the United States is being transformed into something truly hideous, and
those who wish to continue to live here and function as Americans are going to have to find some
way to adapt. You're going to have to find a way to drink foul water, breathe foul air, eat
semi-poisonous and/or non-foods, and find some way to keep a job so that you can spend money to
experience the thrill of these things (Frank Zappa)
or go east young man! life is but a quest! out there somewhere along the polyester, er, i
mean silk, road fortune awaits.
...the war-on-Russia hawks, that is about everyone of the "serious people" in Washington
DC...
yes, indeed. the pickings are slim. culling a more humane alternative from this gaggle
of shit-stained, blood-soaked scumbags seems like an exercise in futility to me. no room
for elfin heroes, no siree bob.
I don't think we're getting out. I think that we must adapt. The human organism is
fairly flexible, and the United States is being transformed into something truly hideous, and
those who wish to continue to live here and function as Americans are going to have to find
some way to adapt. You're going to have to find a way to drink foul water, breathe foul air,
eat semi-poisonous and/or non-foods, and find some way to keep a job so that you can spend
money to experience the thrill of these things (Frank Zappa)
or go east young man! life is but a quest! out there somewhere along the polyester, er, i
mean silk, road fortune awaits.
te> @Les7, #1 "If there is one thing Trump detests, it is signalling the
opposition what your true position really is."
Any interesting idea, but Trump immediately after Flynn's anti-Iran speach launched his
own anti-Iran tweetstorm. If anything, Flynn's speech might have been given in an effort to
appease the Neocons demanding his head. Keep in mind he must have known he was in trouble before
the rest of us did.
@Les7, #1 "If there is one thing Trump detests, it is signalling the opposition what your
true position really is."
Any interesting idea, but Trump immediately after Flynn's anti-Iran speach launched his
own anti-Iran tweetstorm. If anything, Flynn's speech might have been given in an effort to
appease the Neocons demanding his head. Keep in mind he must have known he was in trouble
before the rest of us did.
te> Sorry, I meant @ #19. Also, Trump was viciously anti-Iran throughout
his whole campaign, so nothing new there. It is doubtful Russia did not long ago see the idea of
splitting them from China and Iran. It was talked about in the blogosphere for months. Russia was
never going to be dumb enough to fall for it, but probably didn't mind letting the US
try. , Feb 22, 2017 9:38:57 AM |
link
Sorry, I meant @ #19. Also, Trump was viciously anti-Iran throughout his whole campaign,
so nothing new there. It is doubtful Russia did not long ago see the idea of splitting them
from China and Iran. It was talked about in the blogosphere for months. Russia was never
going to be dumb enough to fall for it, but probably didn't mind letting the US try.
te> ...
It seems to me that Trump has been rolled with the attacks on Flynn and the insertion of McMaster
into his inner circle. I wonder if he, and Bannon, recognize the same problematic development and
have a strategy against it?
Posted by b at 12:19 AM
Yes He does. Bannon doesn't matter. Trump went into this with his eyes wide open. He told
the borg their days are numbered as soon as he was sworn in. He thinks he's smarter than them and
their Neocon spin tanks and I agree with him. At Trump's stage of life he could have opted for
luxurious retirement in splendid isolation, but he's set himself one last challenge - to be the
most famous person in History. He's already halfway there and he hasn't even done anything
startlingly POTUS-ish yet...
...
It seems to me that Trump has been rolled with the attacks on Flynn and the insertion of
McMaster into his inner circle. I wonder if he, and Bannon, recognize the same problematic
development and have a strategy against it?
Posted by b at 12:19 AM
Yes He does. Bannon doesn't matter. Trump went into this with his eyes wide open. He told
the borg their days are numbered as soon as he was sworn in. He thinks he's smarter than them
and their Neocon spin tanks and I agree with him. At Trump's stage of life he could have
opted for luxurious retirement in splendid isolation, but he's set himself one last challenge
- to be the most famous person in History. He's already halfway there and he hasn't even done
anything startlingly POTUS-ish yet...
They replaced him with a militaristic anti-Russian hawk:
He is not as "anti-Russian" as it may seem. After all, Flynn himself had very little
"love" for Russia and was merely a situational "ally", who understood, correctly, operational and
strategic limitations of US Armed Forces.
Real situation in the US Armed Forces is not good, to put it mildly. 16 years and no
tangible results, all wars are lost, the force is indeed "stretched thin", which is a euphemism
for being demoralized and ineffective. Moreover, in some crucial aspects of warfare, all those
proverbial "offsets" and alleged technological "superiority" simply do not exist anymore. In
some--the technological lag became insurmountable. So, there is a real problem with military
which, from the US military-strategic point of view, must be addressed.
Considering Trump being hellbent on attaining a full control of US foreign policy and
Trump's personality -- it doesn't really matter what degree of anti-Russianness Trump will get
from his National Security Adviser.
What Trump needs is a competent military man capable to explain to Trump limitations of US
military power in order to adjust his foreign policy. McMaster is a competent man to do so--in
this sense this appointment is a good thing and it really doesn't matter if Tim Cotton or McCain
approve of this appointment, anti-Russian sentiment was inevitable within US military because
comparisons are not only irresistible but highly warranted, especially when they are done not
just over the period of the last 15 or so years, but over last 70-80.
Anti-Russian mantras today are more of a self-psychotherapy nature than of real desire
to fight Russia. Everybody in both militaries understand everything by now, but that is a totally
different story altogether. Once brand new Russian military doctrine was published couple of
years ago--many pieces of puzzle fell into their places.
They replaced him with a militaristic anti-Russian hawk:
He is not as "anti-Russian" as it may seem. After all, Flynn himself had very little
"love" for Russia and was merely a situational "ally", who understood, correctly, operational
and strategic limitations of US Armed Forces.
Real situation in the US Armed Forces is not good, to put it mildly. 16 years and no
tangible results, all wars are lost, the force is indeed "stretched thin", which is a
euphemism for being demoralized and ineffective. Moreover, in some crucial aspects of
warfare, all those proverbial "offsets" and alleged technological "superiority" simply do not
exist anymore. In some--the technological lag became insurmountable. So, there is a real
problem with military which, from the US military-strategic point of view, must be
addressed.
Considering Trump being hellbent on attaining a full control of US foreign policy and
Trump's personality -- it doesn't really matter what degree of anti-Russianness Trump will
get from his National Security Adviser.
What Trump needs is a competent military man capable to explain to Trump limitations of US
military power in order to adjust his foreign policy. McMaster is a competent man to do
so--in this sense this appointment is a good thing and it really doesn't matter if Tim Cotton
or McCain approve of this appointment, anti-Russian sentiment was inevitable within US
military because comparisons are not only irresistible but highly warranted, especially when
they are done not just over the period of the last 15 or so years, but over last 70-80.
Anti-Russian mantras today are more of a self-psychotherapy nature than of real desire
to fight Russia. Everybody in both militaries understand everything by now, but that is a
totally different story altogether. Once brand new Russian military doctrine was published
couple of years ago--many pieces of puzzle fell into their places.
te> Trump was thinking of John Bolton, a neo-con for the job. He obviously
wanted to get one of them in his rank to better fight them. He also wanted to make a conciliatory
gesture to the hardline republicans.
Mc Master is a good compromise. Not a 100% neocon but a pragmatic sympathizer.
Trump will hold on Bannon as much as possible to prevent his vision to be blurred by the
others. The next target of the dems is Bannon... What other bone can Trump give to the dems to
chew on?
Trump was thinking of John Bolton, a neo-con for the job. He obviously wanted to get one
of them in his rank to better fight them. He also wanted to make a conciliatory gesture to
the hardline republicans.
Mc Master is a good compromise. Not a 100% neocon but a pragmatic sympathizer.
Trump will hold on Bannon as much as possible to prevent his vision to be blurred by the
others. The next target of the dems is Bannon... What other bone can Trump give to the dems
to chew on?
The official reason for firing Flynn so early on was allegedly his refusal to disclose all
details to Vice President Pence and others of his pre-inauguration phone call to the Russian
Ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak, in the days before Trump became President.
Far more plausible as reason is the shoot-from-the-hip remarks of Flynn aimed at Iran in
early February. Then Flynn held an unusual press conference in the White House to declare, "As
of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice." His remarks were aimed at Iran's testing
of a ballistic missile and a recent attack on a Saudi naval vessel by Yemeni militants, which
Washington said were backed by Teheran. Sounds tough, or? Real Rambo macho, a la USA again
asserting its power in the region. Grrrrrrrowl!
There were many things wrong with that inane declaration of Flynn. One, it had no
content, much like Obama's August 2012 "red line" statement on chemical weapons in Syria that
almost got the US in a boots-on-the-ground war in Syria and resulted in a disastrous loss of US
credibility in the Middle East. As Kissinger noted, the Obama "red line" disaster, "created the
impression-and the reality-of an American strategic withdrawal from the region."
Moreover, there is no international ban on Iran's testing ballistic missiles. As former
White House Middle East specialist Philip Gordon pointed out, "By issuing a warning so
imprecise - in such a dramatic, public fashion - he has set himself and the United States up
for either an embarrassing retreat or a risky confrontation." Ballistic missile tests are not a
part of the Iran nuclear agreement or any UN Resolution.
As it sunk in within the neophyte Trump Administration what a stupid thing Flynn had
done, even before the Administration even had picked all its ducks– let alone set them
all in a neat row on Iran policy– it became clear Flynn had to fall on his sword. The
Russian Ambassador was useful deflection.
The official reason for firing Flynn so early on was allegedly his refusal to disclose all
details to Vice President Pence and others of his pre-inauguration phone call to the
Russian Ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak, in the days before Trump became
President.
Far more plausible as reason is the shoot-from-the-hip remarks of Flynn aimed at Iran in
early February. Then Flynn held an unusual press conference in the White House to declare,
"As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice." His remarks were aimed at Iran's
testing of a ballistic missile and a recent attack on a Saudi naval vessel by Yemeni
militants, which Washington said were backed by Teheran. Sounds tough, or? Real Rambo
macho, a la USA again asserting its power in the region. Grrrrrrrowl!
There were many things wrong with that inane declaration of Flynn. One, it had no
content, much like Obama's August 2012 "red line" statement on chemical weapons in Syria
that almost got the US in a boots-on-the-ground war in Syria and resulted in a disastrous
loss of US credibility in the Middle East. As Kissinger noted, the Obama "red line"
disaster, "created the impression-and the reality-of an American strategic withdrawal from
the region."
Moreover, there is no international ban on Iran's testing ballistic missiles. As former
White House Middle East specialist Philip Gordon pointed out, "By issuing a warning so
imprecise - in such a dramatic, public fashion - he has set himself and the United States
up for either an embarrassing retreat or a risky confrontation." Ballistic missile tests
are not a part of the Iran nuclear agreement or any UN Resolution.
As it sunk in within the neophyte Trump Administration what a stupid thing Flynn had
done, even before the Administration even had picked all its ducks– let alone set
them all in a neat row on Iran policy– it became clear Flynn had to fall on his
sword. The Russian Ambassador was useful deflection.
Face it, the only ones being 'rolled' here are all the Trump fan-boys on
MoA.
Yep. Notice how all the usual Trump man-god fan-boys are all over this like white on rice,
busy distancing their god from this Neocon blob he just excreted as Trump man-child must be the
first blameless President ever! The buck can never stop with him. It's never his fault. The first
White House press statement on Yemen pretended ZERO civilians were killed in Yemen mission until
the leak indicated many civilians killed, but only the media lies; Trump never lies.
Trump poor thing is faultless; he can't think for himself; can't make decisions on his own
anymore. Tom Cotton pushed McMaster; it's all Cotton's fault.
Oh-oh! Looks like Tom Cotton has been part of the Trump fan club for quite some
time.
But here we are being led to believe Trump is being rolled by Neocons like Tom Cotton. Tom
Cotton is to blame; he's rolling Trump! After all, Trump only put those MIC generals on his team
for show. Those Goldman buddies are not really there to de-regulate and ensure the banking system
works for them. The Zionists on his team agree with Trump; they want a one Jewish state only.
Palestinians can move to Jordan and Egypt.
Our lying eyes must still be deceiving us. Trump is being rolled cause he gets to keep
his billionaire empire, fly back and forth with all the security detail to his estate in Florida
on the taxpayers dime; keep his wife in the penthouse with security detail; have his sons do
business for him all over the world with security detail – all this on the taxpayers dime.
He's not sacrificing a thing for the job and he's so innocent. We must never, never blame
Trump.
Now let's get busy spinning 50 ways McMaster is someone else's fault and every other bad
decision he's made so far was pushed on him by the deep state and billionaires club Trump belongs
to.
On a more realistic note: a showdown looms today at Standing Rock as the Trumpian Army
Corps is set to forcibly remove protesters.:
President Donald Trump last month ordered the Corps to grant pipeline builder Energy
Transfer Partners the easement it needed to complete the project. The Corps complied this month
and dropped plans to conduct an environmental study to identify a new route for the hotly
disputed pipeline.
Face it, the only ones being 'rolled' here are all the Trump fan-boys on MoA.
Yep. Notice how all the usual Trump man-god fan-boys are all over this like white on rice,
busy distancing their god from this Neocon blob he just excreted as Trump man-child must be
the first blameless President ever! The buck can never stop with him. It's never his fault.
The first White House press statement on Yemen pretended ZERO civilians were killed in Yemen
mission until the leak indicated many civilians killed, but only the media lies; Trump never
lies.
Trump poor thing is faultless; he can't think for himself; can't make decisions on his own
anymore. Tom Cotton pushed McMaster; it's all Cotton's fault.
Oh-oh! Looks like Tom Cotton has been part of the Trump fan club for quite some time.
But here we are being led to believe Trump is being rolled by Neocons like Tom Cotton. Tom
Cotton is to blame; he's rolling Trump! After all, Trump only put those MIC generals on his
team for show. Those Goldman buddies are not really there to de-regulate and ensure the
banking system works for them. The Zionists on his team agree with Trump; they want a one
Jewish state only. Palestinians can move to Jordan and Egypt.
Our lying eyes must still be deceiving us. Trump is being rolled cause he gets to keep
his billionaire empire, fly back and forth with all the security detail to his estate in
Florida on the taxpayers dime; keep his wife in the penthouse with security detail; have his
sons do business for him all over the world with security detail – all this on the
taxpayers dime. He's not sacrificing a thing for the job and he's so innocent. We must never,
never blame Trump.
Now let's get busy spinning 50 ways McMaster is someone else's fault and every other bad
decision he's made so far was pushed on him by the deep state and billionaires club Trump
belongs to.
On a more realistic note: a showdown looms today at Standing Rock as the Trumpian Army
Corps is set to forcibly remove protesters.:
President Donald Trump last month ordered the Corps to grant pipeline builder Energy
Transfer Partners the easement it needed to complete the project. The Corps complied this
month and dropped plans to conduct an environmental study to identify a new route for the
hotly disputed pipeline.
te> virgile 42
I saw Bolton on the short list and was glad he wasn't selected. One wishes these failures would
go away.
I am glad that b pointed out that McMaster is a Petraeus protege. It gives us something
to watch out for. Yes he's a student of and regrets the Viet Nam war. But we heard that before
from Powell and Schwarzkopf. And look where they took us and how. (It's like Bernanke the student
of the Great Depression admitting the Fed caused it and that it wouldn't happen
again.)
virgile 42
I saw Bolton on the short list and was glad he wasn't selected. One wishes these failures
would go away.
I am glad that b pointed out that McMaster is a Petraeus protege. It gives us something
to watch out for. Yes he's a student of and regrets the Viet Nam war. But we heard that
before from Powell and Schwarzkopf. And look where they took us and how. (It's like Bernanke
the student of the Great Depression admitting the Fed caused it and that it wouldn't happen
again.)
Flynn was fired for making a policy statement without consulting (coordinating) with his
really really big Boss. In military it is called "going over the head" and there is no higher
head in US than President. It just happened so that it was made on Iran, whom Flynn doesn't
like.
Flynn was fired for making a policy statement without consulting (coordinating) with his
really really big Boss. In military it is called "going over the head" and there is no higher
head in US than President. It just happened so that it was made on Iran, whom Flynn doesn't
like.
Yeah right; because all the tweets Trump made before and after Flynn's statement
threatening Iran were just the musings of a blowhard and not also supporting every word Flynn
spewed. Now you don't want me to list all those tweets on Iran, do you? As a matter of fact, if I
remember correctly, even Trump parroted the threat about putting Iran on notice. Yep.
But there just has to be another reason for firing Flynn instead of the reality: Flynn
misleading Pence on Russia phone calls.
@42 - Here's the doozie of all deluded excuses for Trump.:
Trump was thinking of John Bolton, a neo-con for the job. He obviously wanted to get one of
them in his rank to better fight them. He also wanted to make a conciliatory gesture to the
hardline republicans. Mc Master is a good compromise. Not a 100% neocon but a pragmatic
sympathizer.
Yeah right; because all the tweets Trump made before and after Flynn's statement
threatening Iran were just the musings of a blowhard and not also supporting every word Flynn
spewed. Now you don't want me to list all those tweets on Iran, do you? As a matter of fact,
if I remember correctly, even Trump parroted the threat about putting Iran on notice.
Yep.
But there just has to be another reason for firing Flynn instead of the reality: Flynn
misleading Pence on Russia phone calls.
@42 - Here's the doozie of all deluded excuses for Trump.:
Trump was thinking of John Bolton, a neo-con for the job. He obviously wanted to get one
of them in his rank to better fight them. He also wanted to make a conciliatory gesture
to the hardline republicans. Mc Master is a good compromise. Not a 100% neocon but a
pragmatic sympathizer.
te> Some Internet gossip predicts some dire straits ahead of the US of A:
...Critical to note too about this massive Islamic spy ring, ..., is that in spite of the
FBI's criminal targeting of Imran Awan, Democratic Party US Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman
Schultz still has him on her payroll, despite his security clearance being revoked-and his
wife, Hina Alvi, likewise, is still being employed by Democrat Party US Congressman Gregory
Meeks.
And despite this massive Islamic spy ring, led by Imran Awan, being paid by the
Democratic Party millions-of-dollars of US taxpayer money over the past decade, while they
infiltrated nearly all of computer systems in the US Congress, ..., new reports are emerging
that they didn't pay their bills, were involved for years in criminal activity, and owed
substantial money to a radical Hezbollah fugitive-and who are now being reported to have
received $100,000 from an unnamed, and unknowable, Iraqi politician while they had
administrator-level access to the US House of Representatives' secret and secure computer
network.
To the main Democratic Party official most responsible for this radical Islamic spy rings
infiltration of the US Congress, this report notes, was the radical leftist US Congresswoman
Debbie Wasserman Schultz-who spread these Islamic spies throughout the US Congress as "shared
employees"-meaning they are hired by multiple offices, which split their salaries and used them
as needed for computer services.
With the linkages of this massive radical Islamic spy network spreading to the top of the
Democratic Party leadership, and over two dozen Democrat US Congressman and women, ..., these
Democratic leftists are even now preparing for their mass arrest by FBI agents loyal to
President Trump by showing their power of being able to quickly assemble street mobs-and that
once this should happen, would flood America's cities with millions of radicals proclaiming
President Trump was creating a dictatorship-therefore leading to the collapse of the United
States as civil war would most certainly ensue.
This time, it was Sergey Lavrov who caused a scandal, by calling for a post-Western world
order. We are obliged to admit that NATO has lost its superiority in terms of conventional
warfare – even though it easily maintains first place in terms of nuclear war. We are
obliged to admit that after 15 years of uninterrupted war in the "Greater Middle East", the
mirage of remodelling the region into micro-states, each with less than 10 million inhabitants,
and the fantasy of eradicating secular régimes for the benefit of dictatorships run by the
Muslim Brotherhood, have failed.
Astoundingly, the Europeans persist in pursuing these goals, which have been imposed
on them by Washington, but which the People of the United States and their President Donald
Trump do not want any more. So the Europeans are counting on the deep US state (that is to say
the Raven Rock Mountain Continuity of Government group who organised the attacks of 11
September). Their political leaders continue, as a preventive measure, to denounce Donald
Trump's supposed racism and Islamophobia, the same people who applauded when George W. Bush and
Barack Obama killed more than 3 million people. Their Press continually insults Donald Trump,
whom it presents as capricious and incapable [3].
Horrified by the opinions of Donald Trump, according to whom NATO is "obsolete", they
were reassured by the declarations of his ministers, who in essence, told them the same thing
– NATO no longer needs to exist in its current format - it needs to be transformed into a
defensive alliance, and if you want to be part of it, you will have to dedicate 2% of your
Defence budget.
Obsessed by their imperialist lunacy, the Europeans were terrified by the possible
abandon of their anti-Russian investments in Ukraine and Syria. There too, they were reassured
by declarations which were nonetheless as vague as could be. Trump's ministers repeated that
they would give up no interest vital to the USA in Ukraine, and that they would pursue a
"political solution in Syria". So why did the Europeans understand that the People of the
United States has vital interests on the banks of the Dnipro and that a "political solution in
Syria" means replacing the Republic with the Muslim Brotherhood? Simply because that is what
they were taught by the Obama administration – the administration that was rejected by
the People of the United States.
Of course, everyone can see the struggle between the Trump administration on one side and
the "Continuity of Government" group on the other. The mountains trembled when Donald Trump
excluded the CIA and the Joint Chief of Staff from the National Security Council [4]. Everyone
noticed the way in which the CIA, in response, refused Defence accreditation to six of the
President's advisors, and accused the National Security advisor of being a Russian spy, forcing
him to resign, and how they are still pursuing four other representatives from the Presidential
team. But losing a few battles does not mean losing the war, and it is distressing that the
Europeans – enslaved for so long – do not know this. How can they believe that
Donald Trump was going to sweep away such a powerful "deep state" in just a few days? And how
could they imagine that his first defeats would be enough to make him give up? [5]
Over the last few years, this Security Conference has been a way for Germany to serve as
a link between the United States and their European partners. This year, its only goal was to
force the European leaders to confirm their allegiance to the deep US state, without taking
into account either the will expressed by the US People, or the change in the White
House.
A preparatory document, drawn up by the German organisers of the Conference, was handed
to the participants. The Press was careful not to mention it. It contains an article by Volker
Perthes, author of the Feltman plan for the total and unconditional capitulation of the Syrian
Arab Republic [6]. This eminent "expert" presents his vision of the "Greater Middle East", or
rather the vision of the US "Continuity of Government" [7].
[Even if we have not managed to remodel it,] this region will not be unaffected by the
wars and the "Arab Spring". [We didn't do all that for nothing].
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become a sectarian conflict between
Sunnis and Chiites [which masks our geopolitical ambitions].
While everyone is caught up in this false religious conflict, no-one is paying any
attention to the Palestinian situation [for the greater benefit of the colonial state of
Israël].
While the Europeans are unanimously tired of these bloodbaths taking place far from
their homes, and hope for the long-awaited triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood, no-one in the
Greater Middle East has yet admitted to having been beaten.
During the war in Syria, the alliances have continually been sealed and unsealed at
the regional level, the latest of which was the pact between Russia, Turkey and Iran, which
should not last [luckily] any longer than the others.
Syria and Iraq will not beat terrorism, and will not find peace other than by
inclusive government [that is to say, by accepting to introduce al-Qaëda and Daesh into
their governments].
All of this could only end, for all the populations of the Greater Middle East, by a
major international conference during which the Westerners would determine their future, just
as, at the Congress of Vienna (1814), the Quadruple Alliance decided the fate of the rest of
the world.
Quite clearly, neither faced with the vote of the US People, nor the Resistance of the
Arab Peoples, do the European leaders intend to change – they can only be dismissed by
the European People.
Some Internet gossip predicts some dire straits ahead of the US of A:
...Critical to note too about this massive Islamic spy ring, ..., is that in spite of the
FBI's criminal targeting of Imran Awan, Democratic Party US Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman
Schultz still has him on her payroll, despite his security clearance being revoked-and his
wife, Hina Alvi, likewise, is still being employed by Democrat Party US Congressman Gregory
Meeks.
And despite this massive Islamic spy ring, led by Imran Awan, being paid by the
Democratic Party millions-of-dollars of US taxpayer money over the past decade, while they
infiltrated nearly all of computer systems in the US Congress, ..., new reports are
emerging that they didn't pay their bills, were involved for years in criminal activity,
and owed substantial money to a radical Hezbollah fugitive-and who are now being reported
to have received $100,000 from an unnamed, and unknowable, Iraqi politician while they had
administrator-level access to the US House of Representatives' secret and secure computer
network.
To the main Democratic Party official most responsible for this radical Islamic spy
rings infiltration of the US Congress, this report notes, was the radical leftist US
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz-who spread these Islamic spies throughout the US
Congress as "shared employees"-meaning they are hired by multiple offices, which split
their salaries and used them as needed for computer services.
With the linkages of this massive radical Islamic spy network spreading to the top of
the Democratic Party leadership, and over two dozen Democrat US Congressman and women, ...,
these Democratic leftists are even now preparing for their mass arrest by FBI agents loyal
to President Trump by showing their power of being able to quickly assemble street mobs-and
that once this should happen, would flood America's cities with millions of radicals
proclaiming President Trump was creating a dictatorship-therefore leading to the collapse
of the United States as civil war would most certainly ensue.
This time, it was Sergey Lavrov who caused a scandal, by calling for a post-Western
world order. We are obliged to admit that NATO has lost its superiority in terms of
conventional warfare – even though it easily maintains first place in terms of
nuclear war. We are obliged to admit that after 15 years of uninterrupted war in the
"Greater Middle East", the mirage of remodelling the region into micro-states, each with
less than 10 million inhabitants, and the fantasy of eradicating secular régimes for
the benefit of dictatorships run by the Muslim Brotherhood, have failed.
Astoundingly, the Europeans persist in pursuing these goals, which have been imposed
on them by Washington, but which the People of the United States and their President Donald
Trump do not want any more. So the Europeans are counting on the deep US state (that is to
say the Raven Rock Mountain Continuity of Government group who organised the attacks of 11
September). Their political leaders continue, as a preventive measure, to denounce Donald
Trump's supposed racism and Islamophobia, the same people who applauded when George W. Bush
and Barack Obama killed more than 3 million people. Their Press continually insults Donald
Trump, whom it presents as capricious and incapable [3].
Horrified by the opinions of Donald Trump, according to whom NATO is "obsolete", they
were reassured by the declarations of his ministers, who in essence, told them the same
thing – NATO no longer needs to exist in its current format - it needs to be
transformed into a defensive alliance, and if you want to be part of it, you will have to
dedicate 2% of your Defence budget.
Obsessed by their imperialist lunacy, the Europeans were terrified by the possible
abandon of their anti-Russian investments in Ukraine and Syria. There too, they were
reassured by declarations which were nonetheless as vague as could be. Trump's ministers
repeated that they would give up no interest vital to the USA in Ukraine, and that they
would pursue a "political solution in Syria". So why did the Europeans understand that the
People of the United States has vital interests on the banks of the Dnipro and that a
"political solution in Syria" means replacing the Republic with the Muslim Brotherhood?
Simply because that is what they were taught by the Obama administration – the
administration that was rejected by the People of the United States.
Of course, everyone can see the struggle between the Trump administration on one side
and the "Continuity of Government" group on the other. The mountains trembled when Donald
Trump excluded the CIA and the Joint Chief of Staff from the National Security Council [4].
Everyone noticed the way in which the CIA, in response, refused Defence accreditation to
six of the President's advisors, and accused the National Security advisor of being a
Russian spy, forcing him to resign, and how they are still pursuing four other
representatives from the Presidential team. But losing a few battles does not mean losing
the war, and it is distressing that the Europeans – enslaved for so long – do
not know this. How can they believe that Donald Trump was going to sweep away such a
powerful "deep state" in just a few days? And how could they imagine that his first defeats
would be enough to make him give up? [5]
Over the last few years, this Security Conference has been a way for Germany to serve as
a link between the United States and their European partners. This year, its only goal was
to force the European leaders to confirm their allegiance to the deep US state, without
taking into account either the will expressed by the US People, or the change in the White
House.
A preparatory document, drawn up by the German organisers of the Conference, was handed
to the participants. The Press was careful not to mention it. It contains an article by
Volker Perthes, author of the Feltman plan for the total and unconditional capitulation of
the Syrian Arab Republic [6]. This eminent "expert" presents his vision of the "Greater
Middle East", or rather the vision of the US "Continuity of Government" [7].
[Even if we have not managed to remodel it,] this region will not be unaffected by
the wars and the "Arab Spring". [We didn't do all that for nothing].
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become a sectarian conflict between
Sunnis and Chiites [which masks our geopolitical ambitions].
While everyone is caught up in this false religious conflict, no-one is paying any
attention to the Palestinian situation [for the greater benefit of the colonial state of
Israël].
While the Europeans are unanimously tired of these bloodbaths taking place far from
their homes, and hope for the long-awaited triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood, no-one in
the Greater Middle East has yet admitted to having been beaten.
During the war in Syria, the alliances have continually been sealed and unsealed at
the regional level, the latest of which was the pact between Russia, Turkey and Iran,
which should not last [luckily] any longer than the others.
Syria and Iraq will not beat terrorism, and will not find peace other than by
inclusive government [that is to say, by accepting to introduce al-Qaëda and Daesh
into their governments].
All of this could only end, for all the populations of the Greater Middle East, by a
major international conference during which the Westerners would determine their future,
just as, at the Congress of Vienna (1814), the Quadruple Alliance decided the fate of the
rest of the world.
Quite clearly, neither faced with the vote of the US People, nor the Resistance of the
Arab Peoples, do the European leaders intend to change – they can only be dismissed
by the European People.
te> The goal of controlling European gas markets, conduits and pipeline routes
is a position that looks unwavering. Same old, same old and Trump has been maneuvered into it if
he was ever adverse to it anyway. Bannon is a different cat, that's for sure.
The goal of controlling European gas markets, conduits and pipeline routes is a position that
looks unwavering. Same old, same old and Trump has been maneuvered into it if he was ever
adverse to it anyway. Bannon is a different cat, that's for sure.
te> @50 Curtis
'I saw Bolton on the short list and was glad he wasn't selected. One wishes these failures would
go away'
They never go away. The only way to get rid of them is to catch them napping in their
crypts and drive a wooden stake through their hearts. (even that didn't work with Cheney)
from the Guardian:
"Previewing a possible future appointment, Trump also said during Monday's announcement
that his administration will be asking John Bolton, a hardline senior diplomat in the George W
Bush administration,
"to work with us in a somewhat different capacity He had a good number of ideas that I
must tell you, I agree very much with."
@50 Curtis
'I saw Bolton on the short list and was glad he wasn't selected. One wishes these failures
would go away'
They never go away. The only way to get rid of them is to catch them napping in their
crypts and drive a wooden stake through their hearts. (even that didn't work with Cheney)
from the Guardian:
"Previewing a possible future appointment, Trump also said during Monday's announcement
that his administration will be asking John Bolton, a hardline senior diplomat in the
George W Bush administration,
"to work with us in a somewhat different capacity He had a good number of ideas that I
must tell you, I agree very much with."
te> I don't think the neocon/neolib element, frantically as they may clog
comments across the board, are going to win this battle, even if they take Trump down. They are
never going to win over the US public, and what Trump is helping to do by shedding light on the
tactics of his opponents is going to bring change even if he himself can't manage to do it. It is
just a question of time.
Now, instead of having a faker kicking the can down the road, we have somebody in office
attempting to stem the tide of corruption. It may well be that he doesn't succeed. But what he
doesn't succeed in doing, someone else will. Personally, I thank him for trying, and I thank the
posters who tell us positive things about his efforts. I pray for him, and I pray for this
country. The nasties will continue to drag us through the mire like the parasites they are. It's
going to be unpleasant, but they cannot win. They are just going to make it hard on everyone for
some time to come.
I don't think the neocon/neolib element, frantically as they may clog comments across the
board, are going to win this battle, even if they take Trump down. They are never going to
win over the US public, and what Trump is helping to do by shedding light on the tactics of
his opponents is going to bring change even if he himself can't manage to do it. It is just a
question of time.
Now, instead of having a faker kicking the can down the road, we have somebody in
office attempting to stem the tide of corruption. It may well be that he doesn't succeed. But
what he doesn't succeed in doing, someone else will. Personally, I thank him for trying, and
I thank the posters who tell us positive things about his efforts. I pray for him, and I pray
for this country. The nasties will continue to drag us through the mire like the parasites
they are. It's going to be unpleasant, but they cannot win. They are just going to make it
hard on everyone for some time to come.
te> Tactical retreat - and nothing more. There is simply no alternative to
détente with Russia, since otherwise America will become completely isolated. That can't and
won't be allowed to happen.
Trump (or any other President, for that matter) will have to confront all of America's
parasitic "friend and allies" with the devastating trade wars that are surely coming - since
cumulative trade deficits are endangering the country's economic viability - and in that context,
rapprochement with Russia is crucial for the US. It's not an option anymore, but an absolute
necessity. Right now Americans are desperately trying to soften Russians up with the fake
hysteria, but Moscow should just sit tight, and move on a chessboard in silence.
America is boxed in, and the only way out of that box is through détente with Russia.
Everything else leads to the national demise.
Tactical retreat - and nothing more. There is simply no alternative to détente with
Russia, since otherwise America will become completely isolated. That can't and won't be
allowed to happen.
Trump (or any other President, for that matter) will have to confront all of America's
parasitic "friend and allies" with the devastating trade wars that are surely coming - since
cumulative trade deficits are endangering the country's economic viability - and in that
context, rapprochement with Russia is crucial for the US. It's not an option anymore, but an
absolute necessity. Right now Americans are desperately trying to soften Russians up with the
fake hysteria, but Moscow should just sit tight, and move on a chessboard in silence.
America is boxed in, and the only way out of that box is through détente with Russia.
Everything else leads to the national demise.
Some have forgotten (already!) that Obama issued an Executive Order to share NSA
intel. So they are (mistakenly!) attributing Flynn's departure to his overly-aggressive posture
toward Iran.
Some have forgotten (already!) that Obama issued an Executive Order to share NSA
intel. So they are (mistakenly!) attributing Flynn's departure to his overly-aggressive
posture toward Iran.
te> @62 horatio parker... i guess that explains why the whole world is
against your exceptional 'warmongering' nation.. ToivoS , Feb 22, 2017 1:32:26 PM |
link
@62 horatio parker... i guess that explains why the whole world is against your
exceptional 'warmongering' nation..
te> Some of McMaster's more provocative statements seems to be that he
acknowledges that Russia and China are strategic threats to US domination of the world. Duh.
Isn't that totally obvious?
The question is what he will do about that problem? Col Lang at Turcopieler has come out
strongly supporting McMaster as NSC advisor. Lang thinks he is the right person for that job
right now. I have no idea but it may very well be that Flyn's obsession with Iran could have been
very dangerous. Mc Master might just do the right thing in these very dangerous times. We will
just have to wait and see.
Some of McMaster's more provocative statements seems to be that he acknowledges that
Russia and China are strategic threats to US domination of the world. Duh. Isn't that totally
obvious?
The question is what he will do about that problem? Col Lang at Turcopieler has come
out strongly supporting McMaster as NSC advisor. Lang thinks he is the right person for that
job right now. I have no idea but it may very well be that Flyn's obsession with Iran could
have been very dangerous. Mc Master might just do the right thing in these very dangerous
times. We will just have to wait and see.
te> It is like Goodfellas. They may know it's wrong but they all want to do it
to get ahead, maintain their lifestyle, and stay in the club. Who you gonna call? , Feb 22,
2017 1:41:17 PM |
link
It is like Goodfellas. They may know it's wrong but they all want to do it to get ahead,
maintain their lifestyle, and stay in the club. Who you gonna call?
It's essential to look beyond the headlines to get a sense of what's really afoot. From
the onset, as I've stated many times, the Trump Presidency is about deception and about
replacing Obama's failed "Plan A" for global dominion with what we might call Henry Kissinger's
"Plan B."
What did the abrupt firing of Flynn do to possibly aid world peace? Was he not the dear
friend of normalizing relations with Putin's Russia? Was he not the ardent foe of the
war-mongering neo-cons that dominated the foreign policies of George W. Bush and B. Obama? In a
word, No. He wasn't.
The issue is not Flynn as though he single-handedly was about cleaning the filth out of
the Augean Stables of the Washington intelligence community. The issue is the declared priority
foreign policy of the Trump Project.
Since the election campaign, certain themes have been clearly sounded: The nuclear
deal with Iran was "bad" and new hostile sanctions are in order. Relations with Bibi
Netanyahu's right-wing Likud government must again become special Washington priority.
Relations with Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest financier of terrorism, must also be elevated.
What has taken place in the four weeks since the inauguration?
Not a new policy, post-Flynn. What is taking place is a strategic pivot, as planned, to
build a war coalition for US control of the oil and gas of the Middle East. It is not about
"peace" in cooperation with Russia in Syria. Never was.
Notable was that the stupid and imprecise threat from Flynn led both Russia and China to
publicly declare their firm support of Iran, the opposite of what Plan B is supposed to bring.
Three days before Flynn fell on his sword, the Kremlin Presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov,
stated, "Russia disagrees with a remark recently made by US President Donald Trump's that
branded Iran as 'the number one terrorist state.' All of you know that Russia enjoys warm
relations with Iran, we do cooperate on a range of issues, and we do appreciate our economic
ties which, we hope, will go further."
It's essential to look beyond the headlines to get a sense of what's really afoot. From
the onset, as I've stated many times, the Trump Presidency is about deception and about
replacing Obama's failed "Plan A" for global dominion with what we might call Henry
Kissinger's "Plan B."
What did the abrupt firing of Flynn do to possibly aid world peace? Was he not the dear
friend of normalizing relations with Putin's Russia? Was he not the ardent foe of the
war-mongering neo-cons that dominated the foreign policies of George W. Bush and B. Obama?
In a word, No. He wasn't.
The issue is not Flynn as though he single-handedly was about cleaning the filth out of
the Augean Stables of the Washington intelligence community. The issue is the declared
priority foreign policy of the Trump Project.
Since the election campaign, certain themes have been clearly sounded: The nuclear
deal with Iran was "bad" and new hostile sanctions are in order. Relations with Bibi
Netanyahu's right-wing Likud government must again become special Washington priority.
Relations with Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest financier of terrorism, must also be
elevated. What has taken place in the four weeks since the inauguration?
Not a new policy, post-Flynn. What is taking place is a strategic pivot, as planned, to
build a war coalition for US control of the oil and gas of the Middle East. It is not about
"peace" in cooperation with Russia in Syria. Never was.
Notable was that the stupid and imprecise threat from Flynn led both Russia and China to
publicly declare their firm support of Iran, the opposite of what Plan B is supposed to
bring. Three days before Flynn fell on his sword, the Kremlin Presidential spokesman,
Dmitry Peskov, stated, "Russia disagrees with a remark recently made by US President Donald
Trump's that branded Iran as 'the number one terrorist state.' All of you know that Russia
enjoys warm relations with Iran, we do cooperate on a range of issues, and we do appreciate
our economic ties which, we hope, will go further."
te> @54 - some of that gossip seems to me to be stretching the facts as are
known a wee bit, such as -
With the linkages of this massive radical Islamic spy network spreading to the top of the
Democratic Party leadership, and over two dozen Democrat US Congressman and women, ..., these
Democratic leftists are even now preparing for their mass arrest by FBI agents loyal to
President Trump by showing their power of being able to quickly assemble street mobs-and that
once this should happen, would flood America's cities with millions of radicals proclaiming
President Trump was creating a dictatorship-therefore leading to the collapse of the United
States as civil war would most certainly ensue.
The word 'massive' is overstated given the facts as we know them - three brothers, two
wives and I think a son who is 22 years old making $160k a year. Six people does not = massive.
Also, no where have I read any hint of arrests of anyone other than the 5/6 mentioned in the
reports I've read. That doesn't mean more arrests may not happen, they surely may, but until such
time the dramatic tone offered by the author is, well, over the top dramatic.
As well, there are a plethora of excuses for these protests with one of the main one's
being to distract, especially Dem/Indy voters from the grotesque loss by their Party leadership
in 2016. Rather than holding these LOSERS accountable for LOSING significant power on the federal
and state level, these LOSER leaders are doing everything they can to create havoc anywhere and
every where BUT where it is most rightly deserved, on themselves and the rotten mess they've made
out of a once healthy, viable Party.
Jimmy Dore did a four-part interview with Thomas Frank who wrote Listen, Liberal, or What
Ever Happened to the Party of the People - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9u2aR19P3g
Well worth one's time if interested to learn how these LOSER Leaders of the Dem Party helped
Trump get elected and it's 'Not What You Think' Part 3 of the interview.
___________
b, here's a crazy thought to consider - who says Pence is telling the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God? Flynn used the word 'scapegoat' for a reason.
Maybe Pence went out there and said what he said and forgot or left out, purposely, or not key
details Flynn did provide. Maybe it was Pence who screwed up. You can't fire a VP.
@54 - some of that gossip seems to me to be stretching the facts as are known a wee bit, such
as -
With the linkages of this massive radical Islamic spy network spreading to the top of the
Democratic Party leadership, and over two dozen Democrat US Congressman and women, ...,
these Democratic leftists are even now preparing for their mass arrest by FBI agents loyal
to President Trump by showing their power of being able to quickly assemble street mobs-and
that once this should happen, would flood America's cities with millions of radicals
proclaiming President Trump was creating a dictatorship-therefore leading to the collapse
of the United States as civil war would most certainly ensue.
The word 'massive' is overstated given the facts as we know them - three brothers, two
wives and I think a son who is 22 years old making $160k a year. Six people does not =
massive. Also, no where have I read any hint of arrests of anyone other than the 5/6
mentioned in the reports I've read. That doesn't mean more arrests may not happen, they
surely may, but until such time the dramatic tone offered by the author is, well, over the
top dramatic.
As well, there are a plethora of excuses for these protests with one of the main one's
being to distract, especially Dem/Indy voters from the grotesque loss by their Party
leadership in 2016. Rather than holding these LOSERS accountable for LOSING significant power
on the federal and state level, these LOSER leaders are doing everything they can to create
havoc anywhere and every where BUT where it is most rightly deserved, on themselves and the
rotten mess they've made out of a once healthy, viable Party.
Jimmy Dore did a four-part interview with Thomas Frank who wrote Listen, Liberal, or What
Ever Happened to the Party of the People - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9u2aR19P3g
Well worth one's time if interested to learn how these LOSER Leaders of the Dem Party helped
Trump get elected and it's 'Not What You Think' Part 3 of the interview.
___________
b, here's a crazy thought to consider - who says Pence is telling the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God? Flynn used the word 'scapegoat' for a
reason. Maybe Pence went out there and said what he said and forgot or left out, purposely,
or not key details Flynn did provide. Maybe it was Pence who screwed up. You can't fire a
VP.
This totalitarian expansion of surveillance powers should scare the hell out of any
thinking, engaged American. One has to ask themselves why aren't these protesters throwing a fit
about this betrayal. Oh, and Trump hasn't rescinded the Order...yet. I guess he likes the
expanded powers. Thank Obama and Team for that!
This totalitarian expansion of surveillance powers should scare the hell out of any
thinking, engaged American. One has to ask themselves why aren't these protesters throwing a
fit about this betrayal. Oh, and Trump hasn't rescinded the Order...yet. I guess he likes the
expanded powers. Thank Obama and Team for that!
It seems to me that Trump has been rolled with the attacks on Flynn and the insertion of
McMaster into his inner circle. I wonder if he, and Bannon, recognize the same problematic
development and have a strategy against it.
If regular people who aren't POTUS and don't have a team of advisors working for them can
recognize it, I sure hope Trump can. Will he roll over and let the war ghouls have their way? I
hope not, the consequences of a capitulation would be disastrous for the world. So far Trump's
administration is suffering from a glaring lack of leadership and direction. He needs to
seriously up his game.
It seems to me that Trump has been rolled with the attacks on Flynn and the insertion of
McMaster into his inner circle. I wonder if he, and Bannon, recognize the same
problematic development and have a strategy against it.
If regular people who aren't POTUS and don't have a team of advisors working for them can
recognize it, I sure hope Trump can. Will he roll over and let the war ghouls have their way?
I hope not, the consequences of a capitulation would be disastrous for the world. So far
Trump's administration is suffering from a glaring lack of leadership and direction. He needs
to seriously up his game.
te> The emperor has no clothes!...after bullying the rest for the past sixty
years or so the ruling factions in the land of the free and brave cant even tie its shoe laces
and keep falling on its face:-)..dang when was the last time you guys pulled your collective head
out of your collective 'american' ass?..get over it folks USA aint exceptional no more, now go
home and mend your backyards! , Feb 22, 2017 2:53:31 PM |
link
The emperor has no clothes!...after bullying the rest for the past sixty years or so the
ruling factions in the land of the free and brave cant even tie its shoe laces and keep
falling on its face:-)..dang when was the last time you guys pulled your collective head out
of your collective 'american' ass?..get over it folks USA aint exceptional no more, now go
home and mend your backyards!
te> h: " One has to ask themselves why aren't these protesters throwing a
fit about this betrayal ."
Fundamentally because the average person on this planet is effectively mesmerized &
incapable of independent thought. This is not unique to the American Zombie. It is a global
phenomena.
But even the barely educated Coastal American Zombie -- who should not be confused with
the completely uneducated Flyover American Zombies -- know at a subconscious level that their
standard of living comes at the price of trampling of rights, both foreign and
domestic.
It just 'feels' nicer, and more modern and cosmopolitan, to be a Coastal Zombie. Remember
when that hag bleeted about "deplorables"? That was the dumbed down version of Lumpenproletariat
for the barely educated Coastal American Zombies.
So, yes the CAZ turns a blind eye to Obama the war president just as FOAZ ignores the
orange wonders' wall to wall swamp creature administration.
h: " One has to ask themselves why aren't these protesters throwing a fit about this
betrayal ."
Fundamentally because the average person on this planet is effectively mesmerized &
incapable of independent thought. This is not unique to the American Zombie. It is a global
phenomena.
But even the barely educated Coastal American Zombie -- who should not be confused with
the completely uneducated Flyover American Zombies -- know at a subconscious level that their
standard of living comes at the price of trampling of rights, both foreign and
domestic.
It just 'feels' nicer, and more modern and cosmopolitan, to be a Coastal Zombie. Remember
when that hag bleeted about "deplorables"? That was the dumbed down version of
Lumpenproletariat for the barely educated Coastal American Zombies.
So, yes the CAZ turns a blind eye to Obama the war president just as FOAZ ignores the
orange wonders' wall to wall swamp creature administration.
te> lots of conjecture, but nothing substantial to back any of it up.. i feel
like i am reading an alternate version of the nyt or something.. , Feb 22, 2017 3:25:32 PM |
link
lots of conjecture, but nothing substantial to back any of it up.. i feel like i am reading
an alternate version of the nyt or something..
As far as I can tell, the designated successor of Yeltsin has made a secret deal with the
Zionist entity.
Russia has never, ever, not once, been a friend of Iran.
Don't forget, it was Putin that went along with the completely laughable Iranian nuke threat
and force that nation to sign on extended protocols and "joint" (meaning for the benefit of both
foreign devils and turbaned devils) business agreement TO LOOT Iran that flushed Iran's sovereign
rights down the hole.
And Russia didn't step up to help its "ally" Syria until SAA, Hezbollah & Quds force
started turning things around. Then the "heroic" Russians showed up.
And of course, you must have noted that beyond that 1st peace making troika, since then it has
been Russia/Turkey.
The awful thing here though is that there is not a single good guy to root for here on this
planet.
They all stink to hell. Makes you wonder if they are not just different facades of one
singular stinky evil cabal.
As far as I can tell, the designated successor of Yeltsin has made a secret deal with the
Zionist entity.
Russia has never, ever, not once, been a friend of Iran.
Don't forget, it was Putin that went along with the completely laughable Iranian nuke
threat and force that nation to sign on extended protocols and "joint" (meaning for the
benefit of both foreign devils and turbaned devils) business agreement TO LOOT Iran that
flushed Iran's sovereign rights down the hole.
And Russia didn't step up to help its "ally" Syria until SAA, Hezbollah & Quds force
started turning things around. Then the "heroic" Russians showed up.
And of course, you must have noted that beyond that 1st peace making troika, since then it
has been Russia/Turkey.
The awful thing here though is that there is not a single good guy to root for here on
this planet.
They all stink to hell. Makes you wonder if they are not just different facades of one
singular stinky evil cabal.
Things were "turning around" in Syria before Russians showed up? LOL, you must be smoking
some good Shia hashish.
The fact is, General Soleimani pitched his tent at the Red Square and was refusing to leave
unless Moscow agreed to help - because Assad's regime was simply collapsing in an accelerating
fashion.
If not for the Russians, it'd be all over long ago.
You are right, however, that Russia doesn't regard Iran as a friend, since Iran brands
anyone but Shias as "infidels".
Things were "turning around" in Syria before Russians showed up? LOL, you must be smoking
some good Shia hashish.
The fact is, General Soleimani pitched his tent at the Red Square and was refusing to
leave unless Moscow agreed to help - because Assad's regime was simply collapsing in an
accelerating fashion.
If not for the Russians, it'd be all over long ago.
You are right, however, that Russia doesn't regard Iran as a friend, since Iran brands
anyone but Shias as "infidels".
te> Re: Flynn dismissal. Robt David Steele, ex-CIA, says Flynn fired over his
investigation of Pizzagate. RDS's interview's on the Web. I've very ltd time just now. Haven't
watched it. , Feb 22, 2017 4:01:22 PM |
link
Re: Flynn dismissal. Robt David Steele, ex-CIA, says Flynn fired over his investigation of
Pizzagate. RDS's interview's on the Web. I've very ltd time just now. Haven't watched it.
te> @84 Iran brands anyone but Shias as "infidels". Major facepalm.. The only
country (with Syria) who ever tried to support (yes through Hezbollah) the Palestinian cause 99%
of whow are Sunni..
@84 Iran brands anyone but Shias as "infidels". Major facepalm.. The only country (with
Syria) who ever tried to support (yes through Hezbollah) the Palestinian cause 99% of whow
are Sunni..
te> You can't fire a VP, but you can leave him without any power, the way FDR
did to John Nance Garner and then later to Harry Truman, the way JFK did to LBJ. , Feb 22,
2017 4:22:47 PM |
link
You can't fire a VP, but you can leave him without any power, the way FDR did to John Nance
Garner and then later to Harry Truman, the way JFK did to LBJ.
They are just going to make it hard on everyone for some time to come
i don't mean to impinge on your optimism, or to presume what your idea of 'recovery' might
mean, but for some time to come sounds like a bit of a whitewash. the jig is
up , and you'd do well to break this gently to your children. plant the seed.
here in Italy youth unemployment has surpassed 40%. i see distant roiling clouds of
uncertainty and glints of unrequited dreams in my daughters dark eyes.
They are just going to make it hard on everyone for some time to come
i don't mean to impinge on your optimism, or to presume what your idea of 'recovery' might
mean, but for some time to come sounds like a bit of a whitewash. the jig
is up , and you'd do well to break this gently to your children. plant the seed.
here in Italy youth unemployment has surpassed 40%. i see distant roiling clouds of
uncertainty and glints of unrequited dreams in my daughters dark eyes.
te> I want to voice agreement with Hoarsewhisperer @33 and Juliania @61.
Thanks for hanging in with these vastly deteriorated comments. I'm still reading, but not much to
say at present.
I watched the news conference Trump gave on Feb 17. You can find it at whitehouse.gov. I
watched and listened to every word, and I saw nothing but an extremely strong man having fun, as
he said, in bouncing the corrupt presstitutes around, working to play the Fake News meme against
them, taunting and challenging them to ask an intelligent question. He praised those few
journalists who asked about real things. He will change the press corps into true reporters
eventually I think. It will pay their publishers better, as he says.
I hold with my earlier assessment that he's letting people play with their current ideas
and is himself throwing things at the refrigerator to see what sticks. In the end he'll do what
works. It's madness to think anything is set in concrete yet - on the other hand, listen to his
list of accomplishments achieved in his first few weeks, that no one pays attention to. I won't
list them, since he does in his press conference.
Trump in his conference was talking to the people of the country. I have no doubt
they're out there. I'm astonished to see so much formerly alt-news becoming the new public
culture. Russia plays its part in fighting back against fake news, and Trump is a one-man
juggernaut in this regard. I don't know how far he'll go. I don't know if they'll stop him. At a
certain point, the energy required to stop him can only backfire into an explosion of truth and
light that shows up the background subterfuges for what they are, in the clear light of day. And
eventually, the establishment will have to make this same calculation, and every day they leave
him alive is another day they drift further away from influence and it may already be too
late.
I don't see Trump as having been rolled by anyone. I see everyone who tries to roll him
being turned from roller to rollee, and often in public. I think it's a big mistake to
over-analyze personnel and pronouncements at this juncture. What will matter are shovel-ready
projects, economic improvements, and the hands of the doomsday clock turning gradually backwards.
This is all the working people of the world want, in this wicked world of class warfare.
Trump is working, I believe from his own words, for the people and the nation as he in his
patriotism conceives it to be. He will do many lesser things that I don't like, and a few major
things that I may have to get on my knees to give adequate thanks for. And those few things are
the only things that matter.
I want to voice agreement with Hoarsewhisperer @33 and Juliania @61. Thanks for hanging in
with these vastly deteriorated comments. I'm still reading, but not much to say at present.
I watched the news conference Trump gave on Feb 17. You can find it at whitehouse.gov.
I watched and listened to every word, and I saw nothing but an extremely strong man having
fun, as he said, in bouncing the corrupt presstitutes around, working to play the Fake News
meme against them, taunting and challenging them to ask an intelligent question. He praised
those few journalists who asked about real things. He will change the press corps into true
reporters eventually I think. It will pay their publishers better, as he says.
I hold with my earlier assessment that he's letting people play with their current ideas
and is himself throwing things at the refrigerator to see what sticks. In the end he'll do
what works. It's madness to think anything is set in concrete yet - on the other hand, listen
to his list of accomplishments achieved in his first few weeks, that no one pays attention
to. I won't list them, since he does in his press conference.
Trump in his conference was talking to the people of the country. I have no doubt
they're out there. I'm astonished to see so much formerly alt-news becoming the new public
culture. Russia plays its part in fighting back against fake news, and Trump is a one-man
juggernaut in this regard. I don't know how far he'll go. I don't know if they'll stop him.
At a certain point, the energy required to stop him can only backfire into an explosion of
truth and light that shows up the background subterfuges for what they are, in the clear
light of day. And eventually, the establishment will have to make this same calculation, and
every day they leave him alive is another day they drift further away from influence and it
may already be too late.
I don't see Trump as having been rolled by anyone. I see everyone who tries to roll him
being turned from roller to rollee, and often in public. I think it's a big mistake to
over-analyze personnel and pronouncements at this juncture. What will matter are shovel-ready
projects, economic improvements, and the hands of the doomsday clock turning gradually
backwards. This is all the working people of the world want, in this wicked world of class
warfare.
Trump is working, I believe from his own words, for the people and the nation as he in his
patriotism conceives it to be. He will do many lesser things that I don't like, and a few
major things that I may have to get on my knees to give adequate thanks for. And those few
things are the only things that matter.
te> I don't know why anyone's missing Flynn. The guy's as dumb as a post. I
don't know much about NcMaster but I know that Trump picked him, nobody else.
If the CIA and the liberals wanted to load Trump up with hawks they would have
"inserted" Bolton. But nobody gets to insert anybody for that job. No hearings, vetting or fuck
all.
I wouldn't be too sure that Trump's main mission is to make peace with Russia. If it is
then maybe he should tell his crew. He talks lots of shit but diplomatically it's no different
than before. Sorry, I don't buy into it being some part of an incredibly intricate plan. You
can't make honey out of dog shit.
I don't know why anyone's missing Flynn. The guy's as dumb as a post. I don't know much
about NcMaster but I know that Trump picked him, nobody else.
If the CIA and the liberals wanted to load Trump up with hawks they would have
"inserted" Bolton. But nobody gets to insert anybody for that job. No hearings, vetting or
fuck all.
I wouldn't be too sure that Trump's main mission is to make peace with Russia. If it is
then maybe he should tell his crew. He talks lots of shit but diplomatically it's no
different than before. Sorry, I don't buy into it being some part of an incredibly intricate
plan. You can't make honey out of dog shit.
te> Thanks too to Hoarsewhisperer @33 and Juliania @61, and Grieved, as usual.
Comments lately are sounding more and more like those to be found on the Guardian.
Thanks too to Hoarsewhisperer @33 and Juliania @61, and Grieved, as usual. Comments lately
are sounding more and more like those to be found on the Guardian.
Syrian media reported that Israeli aircraft targeted Syrian Army positions, including a
convoy bearing weapons for the Hezbollah terrorist group, early Wednesday morning.
The strike was said to have occurred at approximately 3:30 a.m., in the Qalamoun Mountains,
northeast of Damascus, close to the Lebanese border.
According to Arab media, outposts of the Syrian Army's 3rd Division were targeted in the
strikes.
I got this from Jim Hanke, former US Attache to Israel. Israel has C130 landing strips
along highways south of the Dead Sea. They block traffic, and you can actually see this on Google
Maps, which carries live traffic from Israel. They actually block the roads and bring in
planeloads of jihadists, which is seen on the traffic analysis, which we have samples of
below:
Israel then runs a ratline into Jordan, to the CIA run training camps there and onto the
Saudi payroll .then up into Syria where they get Israeli air support and medical aid as
well.
Syrian media reported that Israeli aircraft targeted Syrian Army positions, including a
convoy bearing weapons for the Hezbollah terrorist group, early Wednesday morning.
The strike was said to have occurred at approximately 3:30 a.m., in the Qalamoun
Mountains, northeast of Damascus, close to the Lebanese border.
According to Arab media, outposts of the Syrian Army's 3rd Division were targeted in the
strikes.
I got this from Jim Hanke, former US Attache to Israel. Israel has C130 landing strips
along highways south of the Dead Sea. They block traffic, and you can actually see this on
Google Maps, which carries live traffic from Israel. They actually block the roads and bring
in planeloads of jihadists, which is seen on the traffic analysis, which we have samples of
below:
Israel then runs a ratline into Jordan, to the CIA run training camps there and onto the
Saudi payroll .then up into Syria where they get Israeli air support and medical aid as
well.
te> Grieved @ 93 and also Hoarsewhisperer, Juliania:
I'm inclined to agree with you three, that Trump represents a way or style of leadership
that confuses hell out of Capitol Hill and the Washington press corps, and which the latter lacks
the language to describe and to communicate to the public at large. Trump has been President for
barely a month but The Powers That (Shouldn't) Be are determined to cut him no slack. Everyone
else is over-reading their own narrative over Trump and over-analysing what Flynn's resignation
means for Trump.
The other thing people have to remember is that the O'Bomber administration deliberately
left unsigned bills or orders for the new administration to deal with once the Democrats realised
that Killary Klinton had lost the election and the Electoral College. A lot of the flack Trump's
government is getting stems from business left behind by Obama, such as the refugee visa ban
targeting seven countries, based on a list of targeted nations in previous legislation approved
by the Obama government.
Grieved @ 93 and also Hoarsewhisperer, Juliania:
I'm inclined to agree with you three, that Trump represents a way or style of
leadership that confuses hell out of Capitol Hill and the Washington press corps, and which
the latter lacks the language to describe and to communicate to the public at large. Trump
has been President for barely a month but The Powers That (Shouldn't) Be are determined to
cut him no slack. Everyone else is over-reading their own narrative over Trump and
over-analysing what Flynn's resignation means for Trump.
The other thing people have to remember is that the O'Bomber administration
deliberately left unsigned bills or orders for the new administration to deal with once the
Democrats realised that Killary Klinton had lost the election and the Electoral College. A
lot of the flack Trump's government is getting stems from business left behind by Obama, such
as the refugee visa ban targeting seven countries, based on a list of targeted nations in
previous legislation approved by the Obama government.
A newly declassified US intelligence memo has been unearthed this week and featured in a bombshell
Wall
Street Journal
report. It proves that the year prior to the Bush administration's 2003
invasion of Iraq the White House was expressly warned in great detail of all that could and would
go wrong in the regime change war's aftermath, including
the Sunni-Shia sectarian chaos and
proxy war with Iran
that would define Iraq and the whole region for years following. And
crucially, it reveals that seven months
before
the US invasion of Iraq, American
intelligence officials understood that
Osama bin Laden was likely "alive and well and
hiding in northwest Pakistan"
--
important given that a key Bush
admin claim to sell the war was that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were
"in league"
against the
United States.
The
July 2002 memo
was authored by William Burns, then serving as assistant secretary of state for near eastern
affairs, and though clearly dismissed by the Bush neocons making the case for war, proved prescient
on many levels.
"Following are some very quick and informal thoughts on how events before,
during and after an effort to overthrow the regime in Baghdad could unravel if we're not careful,
intersecting to create
a 'perfect storm'
for American interests,"
Burns wrote
in the memo, classified 'Secret' and sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The classified memo's existence was first brought to the public's attention through
Knight Ridder's reporting
in July 2003, which sought to reveal at the time there were pockets
of dissenting voices in the State Department and intelligence community pushing back against the
absurd White House claim that the whole operation would be a
"cakewalk"
and US troops would be greeted as "liberators". And there's Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous
declaration that the military effort
would take
"weeks rather than months."
Now, sixteen years after the start of the war the "perfect storm" intel briefing has been made
public in fully redacted form and it affirms, as the
WSJ reports
, "Diplomats accurately forecast many setbacks:
sectarian violence, attacks
on U.S. troops, Iranian intervention and long road to structural change
." Out of this came
the rise of ISIS and the continued unleashing of regime change and sectarian chaos on neighboring
Syria.
The ten page memo outlines a litany of
catastrophic doom and gloom scenarios
resulting from the invasion which would destabilize not only Iraq, but
unleash sectarian
hell on the entire region
.
Here are but a handful of the memo's many warnings which later proved right on target, as
summarized by the military reporting website
Task
& Purpose
:
Iran increasing aid to anti-American groups in both Iraq and Afghanistan because it
feared being "next on US hit list."
Security in Iraq collapsing following regime change because Iraqi troops and police would
be too afraid to patrol while Iraqis aligned with the United States would prove to be inept.
U.S. troops coming under increasing attacks as they patrol both Shiite and Sunni cities.
"If they intervene to stop disputes, they are perceived to have sided with one party or
another in a tribal dispute, thus incurring the wrath of the opposing party."
Afghanistan's security situation simultaneously deteriorating, creating the need for more
U.S. troops there.
"Carpetbaggers, bill collectors, expats and exiles," arriving in Iraq. "It will be a wild
mix."
"I don't mean to be pessimistic, because I really do believe that if we do it right this could
be a tremendous boon to the future of the region, and to U.S. national security interests," the
memo stated. "But we should have no illusion that it will be quick or easy."
And further contradicting Cheney's "weeks rather than months" claim, the memo accurately
predicted that U.S. troops would have to stay for,
"Five years – maybe four if we're lucky,
ten if we're not."
Some further interesting highlights from the July 2002 'Secret' report are below.
* * *
Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan
(the Bush admin claimed Saddam
and bin Laden were in cahoots)
"Osama bin Laden turns out to be alive and well and hiding in NW Pakistan. We press Paks,
internal stresses grow in Pakistan."
Iran and Syria targeted next
"Following US warnings that it would take the war on terrorism to all groups with global
capabilities, Iran and Syria hold summit meeting, decide US has targeted them."
Iran and Syria "strengthen positions in face of perceived US threat against them following
action in Iraq."
Sectarian score settling and Shia uprising
"This means night becomes the time for revenge, all over Iraq. A horrible wave of bloodletting
and private vengeance begins... US forces are helpless to stop the countrywide phenomenon. Police,
intelligence, senior military, and Baath Party officials effectively go into hiding..."
"Shia religious and political leaders, unhappy with composition of provisional government and
determined to secure greater share of power in post-Saddam Iraq... This leads to more violent
confrontations, and deaths, and the riots become a political tool to demonstrate power and increase
leverage against Sunnis and Kurds..."
Long US quagmire to put down sectarian powder keg
"Faced with inchoate and escalating disorder in the provinces, the US faces an agonizing
decision: step up to a more direct security role, or devolve power to local leaders."
"The Shia in the south, quietly aided by Iran, stage major revolt, taking over local government
offices and killing interim officials."
Weapons from Saddam's army will disappear (to be later used against US occupation)
"Law and Order, collecting weapons. We won't get them, most will go to ground."
"All for one, one for all, free for all - deals, short-term scrambles. It will be every clan for
itself."
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was
more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders,
said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004
liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals,
saying they would damage women's rights
in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003,
warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill
Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal
viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist
Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that
nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic
presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC,
Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what
their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick
to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with
Senator Rand Paul.
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors
asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor,
the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel
under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the
IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high
probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about
foreign policy."
True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among
mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported
the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some
degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it
seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton
has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful
to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country.
Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember
Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever.
If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria.
The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling
troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump
is going to do'.
For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything,
no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally
right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."
Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US
military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan
(!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is
morally right, & what is morally evil."
I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely
outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in
Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.
Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock
has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama
withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.
This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once
Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace
platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case?
At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.
Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and
doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate
the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't
go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.
The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
Yang is a businessman who has worked in several fields, but was best known for founding
Venture for America , which helps
college graduates become entrepreneurs. However, he is now gaining recognition for his
signature campaign promise -- $1,000 a month for every American.
ORDER IT NOW
Yang promises a
universal entitlement, not dependent on income, that he calls a "freedom dividend." To be
funded through a value added tax , Yang claims that
it would reduce the strain on "health care, incarceration, homeless services, and the like" and
actually save billions of dollars. Yang also
notes that "current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice
between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally."
As Yang himself notes, this is not a new idea, nor one particularly tied to the Left.
Indeed, it's been proposed by several prominent libertarians because it would replace the far
more inefficient welfare system. Charles Murray called for
this policy in 2016. [ A guaranteed income
for every American, AEI, June 3, 2016]
Milton Friedman suggested a similar policy in a 1968 interview with William F. Buckley,
though Friedman called
it a "negative income
tax."
It's also been proposed by many nationalists, including, well, me. At the January 2013
VDARE.com Webinar, I
called for a "straight-up minimum income for citizens only" among other policies that would
build a new nationalist majority and deconstruct Leftist power. I've
retained that belief ever since and argued for it here for years.
However, I've also made the argument that it only works if it is for citizens only and is combined with a restrictive immigration policy. As I previously
argued in a piece attacking Jacobin's
disingenuous complaints about the "reserve army of the unemployed," you simply can't
support high wages, workers' rights, and a universal basic income while still demanding mass
immigration.
Yang is also directly addressing the crises that the Trump Administration has seemly
forgotten. Unlike Donald Trump himself, with his endless boasting about "low black and Hispanic
unemployment," Yang has directly spoken about
the demographic collapse of white people because of "low birth rates and white men dying from
substance abuse and suicide ."
Significantly, President Trump himself has never once specifically recognized the plight of
white Americans.
Of course, Yang has foolish, even flippant policies on other issues. He wants to make Puerto
Rico a state . He supports a path to citizenship
for illegal aliens, albeit with an 18-year waiting period and combined with pledges
to secure the border and deport illegals who don't enroll in the citizenship program. He
wants to create a
massive bureaucratic system to track gun owners, restrict
gun ownership , and require various "training" programs for licenses. He wants to
subsidize local journalists with
taxpayer dollars, which in practice would mean just paying Leftist activists to dox people in
their communities.
(Though as some have pointed out, with a thousand dollars a month no matter what,
right-wingers wouldn't have to worry as much about being targeted by
journofa ).
Indeed, journalists, hall monitors that they are, have recognized that President Trump's
online supporters are flocking to Yang, bringing him a powerful weapon in the meme wars.
(Sample meme at right.) And because many of these online activists are "far right" by Main
Stream Media standards, or at least Politically Incorrect, there is much hand-waving and
wrist-flapping about the need for Yang to decry "white nationalists." So of course, the
candidate has dutifully done so, claiming "racism and white nationalism [are] a threat to the
core ideals of what it means to be an American". [ Presidential
candidate Andrew Yang has a meme problem, by Russell Brandom, The Verge,
March 9, 2019]
But what does it mean to be an American? As more and more of American history is
described as racist, and even national symbols and the national anthem are targets for protest,
"America" certainly doesn't seem like a real country with a real identity. Increasingly,
"America" resembles a continent-sized shopping mall, with nothing holding together the warring
tribes that occupy it except money.
President Trump, of course, was elected because many people thought he could reverse this
process, especially by limiting mass immigration and taking strong action in the culture wars,
for example by promoting official English. Yet in recent weeks, he has repeatedly endorsed more
legal immigration. Rather than fighting, the president is content to brag about the economy and
whine about unfair press coverage and investigations. He already seems like a lame duck.
The worst part of all of this is that President Trump was elected as a response not just to
the Left, but to the failed Conservative Establishment. During the 2016 campaign, President
Trump specifically pledged
to protect entitlements , decried foreign wars, and argued for a massive infrastructure
plan. However, once in office, his main legislative accomplishment is a tax cut any other
Republican president would have pushed. Similarly, his latest budget contains the kinds of
entitlement cuts that are guaranteed to provoke Democrat attack ads. [ Trump said he wouldn't cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare . His 2020 budget
cuts all 3, by Tara Golshan, Vox, March 12, 2019] And the president has
already backed down on withdrawing all troops from Syria, never mind Afghanistan.
Conservatism Inc., having learned nothing from candidate Donald Trump's scorched-earth path
to the Republican nomination, now embraces Trump as a man but ignores his campaign message.
Instead, the conservative movement is still promoting the same tired slogans about "free
markets" even as they have appear to have lost an
entire generation to socialism. The most iconic moment was Charlie Kirk, head of the free
market activist group Turning Point USA, desperately trying to tell his followers not to cheer
for Tucker Carlson because Carlson had suggested a nation should be
treated like a family, not simply a marketplace .
Thus, especially because of his cowardice on immigration, many of President Trump's most
fervent online supporters have turned on him in recent weeks. And the embrace of Yang seems to
come out of a great place of despair, a sense that the country really is beyond saving.
Yang has Leftist policies on many issues, but many disillusioned Trump supporters feel like
those policies are coming anyway. If America is just an economy, and if everyone in the world
is a simply an American-in-waiting, white Americans might as well get something out of this
System before the bones are picked clean.
National Review ' s Theodore Kupfer just claimed the main importance of Yang's
candidacy is that it will prove meme-makers ability to affect the vote count "has been
overstated" [ Rise of the pink
hats, March 12, 2019]. Time will tell, but it is ominous for Trump that many of
the more creative and dedicated people who formed his vanguard are giving up on him.
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of
U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The
2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at
the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum
too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would
damage women's rights in Afghanistan.
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The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been
sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national
security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other
neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become
arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her
cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that
she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding
deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign
policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal
position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and
many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is
simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept. Warren could
have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She
instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it
meant siding with the president.
Virologists are working around the clock to map the genome of this scurrilous scourge, about
which very little is known, other than that it has a sudden onset, and attacks the language
center of the brain, causing the sufferer to express opinions about "Zionism," "globalism,"
"the Israel lobby," "banks," and other code words for "Jews." Patients appear to be unaware
that they are spouting these anti-Semitic code words until they are told they are by the
corporate media, or their colleagues, or some random account on Twitter, at which point their
symptoms alter dramatically, and they suffer a series of petit mal seizures, causing them to
repeatedly apologize for unintentionally advocating the extermination of the entire Jewish
people and the establishment of a worldwide Nazi Reich.
At the moment, Britain is taking the brunt of it. Despite the best efforts of the ruling
classes and the media to contain its spread, several new cases of anti-Semitism have been
reported throughout the Kingdom, or at least among the Labour Party, which, at this point, has
been so thoroughly infected that it resembles a
neo-Nazi death cult .
Jeremy Corbyn, who contracted the virus more or less the moment he assumed the leadership,
is now exhibiting symptoms of late-stage disease. Reliable sources close to the party, reached
for comment at a brunch in Qatar with Tony Blair and a bunch of Saudis, report that Corbyn is
running around Momentum HQ in full Nazi regalia, alternately heiling Hitler and looking for
journalists to apologize to.
Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly
apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop apologizing
for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something basically along those
lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a hive of Nazis, and that he
ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero
actual evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it
has been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch.
Emergency measures are now in effect. A full-scale Labour Party lockdown is imminent. Anyone
not already infected is being advised to flee the party, denounce anyone who hasn't done so as
"a Hitler-loving Corbyn-sympathizer," and prophylactically apologize for any critical
statements they might have made about Israel, or "elites," or "global capitalism," or
"bankers," or anything else that anyone can construe as anti-Semitism (
preferably in the pages of The Guardian ).
Nor has the Continent been spared! What at first appeared to be a series of spontaneous
protests against Emmanuel Macron, economic austerity, and global capitalism by the so-called
"Yellow Vests" in France has
now been officially diagnosed as a nationwide anti-Semitism outbreak. In a heroic attempt
to contain the outbreak, Macron has dispatched his security forces to shoot the eyes out of
unarmed women , pepper spray paraplegics in wheelchairs , and
just
generally beat bloody hell out of everyone . Strangely, none of these tactics have worked,
so France has decided to join the USA, the UK, Germany, and the rest of the empire in
defining anti-Zionism as form of anti-Semitism , such that anyone implying that Israel is
in any way inherently racist, or a quasi-fascist Apartheid state, or making jokes about
"elites" or "bankers," can be detained and prosecuted for committing a "hate-crime."
Meanwhile, in the United States (where Donald Trump, "U.S. patient zero," had already
single-handedly infected the vast majority of the American populace, and transformed the nation
into an unrecognizable, genocidal Nazi Reich), the anti-Semitism virus has now spread to
Congress, where Representative Ilhan Omar (reputed to be a hardcore member of the infamous "
Axis of
Anti-Semitism ") has apparently totally lost her mind and started talking about the Israel
lobby, and the billions of dollars the U.S. government provides to Israel on an annual basis,
and other Israel-related subjects one simply does not talk about (unless one writes for The
New York Times and isn't a hijab-wearing Muslim, in which case it's completely fine to
characterize support for Israel as being "
bought and paid for by the Israel lobby ").
OK, I know, you're probably questioning the fact that this anti-Semitism pandemic just
sprang up out of the ether one day, more or less in perfect synch with the Russian plot to
destroy democracy that Vladimir Putin set in motion the moment the Global War on Terror seemed
to be running out of steam. If you are, you need to close this essay, pull up either MSNBC or
The Guardian website on your phone, and inoculate yourself against such thoughts. That
conspiratorial type of thinking is one of the early warning signs that you have been infected
with anti-Semitism! Unless you act now to protect yourself, before you know it, you'll be
raving about "the ruling classes," "globalist elites," "austerity," "neoliberalism," "the
Israel lobby," or even "Palestinians."
... ... ...
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
"Anti-semite" has lost its sting, because every justified criticism of the fully nuclear
armed, viciously apartheid, theocratic Zionist Israeli government is declared to be
anti-semitism. The word is so overused and misapplied as to be useless. Indeed, to be
declared "anti-semite" by the Israel Lobby is to be declared a person of high moral
conscience.
"Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly
apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop
apologizing for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something
basically along those lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a
hive of Nazis, and that he ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero actual
evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it has
been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch."
brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! y, it's much the same here across the pond.
Nikki2 comment on Youtube: "GUYS! Tulsi needs 65,000 individual donations to get into the
debates. Even if she's not your #1 candidate, please donate a small amount so she can bring the
foreign policy/regime change conversation to the debates"
@ChuckOrloski
Chelsea Manning is imprisoned (from the article you cited) "for refusing to testify in front
of a secretive Grand Jury." The regime is after Julian Assange, so they're trying to squeeze
Manning. Not happening!
Is there any other nation that wields such a stranglehold on any other as Israel does the
United States? Is there any other nation that has so completely surrendered its sovereignty
to another as has the United States to Israel. Does any other country (size of Israel) strike
fear and dread into the hearts of its lawmakers to the point of complete serfdom as Israel
does the US? Can any other country allow any foreign country to override its head of state to
address lawmakers as Israel has done to the US in the case of Obama, despite his complete
servility to Israel, thereby rendering himself a victim of dual abuses: racism and disregard
of American sovereignty? Has any other country sacrificed so many of its citizens for wars on
behalf of any other country as we have done for Israel? Can any other country receiving
billions of dollars of taxpayers money in aid and military hardware shamelessly call the
shots as Israel does with America, with America not as much as questioning orders from
Israel? Can we realistically celebrate Independence Day with so much fanfare when another
country has us so completely by the balls as to make a mockery of the word "independence".
Can any country strip any other of its sovereignty as Israel has done to the US, including
undermining its constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, with our total collusion?
Having raised all these questions, can there be realistic grounds for hoping for a ray of
light at the end of the tunnel, short of a comprehensive revolution that would rehabilitate a
nation led by quislings into one of principled men and women?
anyone here who chooses to hate me. I recognize that that you have the right to do so. And
that that right s Constitutionally protected. You are entitled to your feelings.
What I must object to and call into question is your attempt to engage in acts that in any
threaten, thwart, disrupt my right as a US citizen to access every aspect of what is
guaranteed to me by the US constitution. That includes manufacturing false claims to
undermine the same.
I will defend your right to your feelings and your right to express them in a manner in
accordance with the first amendment. I cannot support acts that deprive myself my
constitutional rights in any manner.
I am not a promoter of hate, but I certainly recognize the right that people have for
their feelings and the desire to one's express them.
[Bret Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry"
observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he
called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory."
If what Rep. Omar said wasn't too different from what Mr. Buchanan said previously, why
haven't we heard a peep out of him on this issue?
a liar and a hypocrite, and that alone should disqualify them for office.
Hello?
Where the bleep have you been, Pardner? You got that exactly backwards; mendacity
and hypocrisy are mandatory minimum qualifications for the positions.
Ms. Omar is dis qualified because she is honest enough to speak the truth.
Now, go learn to shoot straight before shooting off yer mug, and you can start with
this,
I must take issue with your observation that Mr. Truman is an habitual liar, not because
I disagree with you, but because I disagree with your manner in presenting it as a
derogatory statement. Is not the ability of lying necessary to political
leadership ?
And this, which illustrates several points regarding politicians, their characteristics
and motives.:
Two candidates for political office in a debate
SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the
allies at will that you reckon; you wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist,
that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for
his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort
himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the
blessings you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with
hatred and rage, he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only
too well; it is for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.
until there is a much larger block of anti israel congresspeople nothing is going to change.
What is the USs interest? They sure are not interested in making things better for the
majority/middle class. All the while continuing to enrich the already too wealthy ever more.
Media is a lying POS and yet people still watch Fox or Cnn or msnbc. All of them produce
nothing but propaganda garbage. Unfortunately, it seems like most in the USA just don't care.
In Venezuela look at the protesters the US media sets up and/or loves so much, try that in
the USA and you'll end up in jail.
For me, Ilhan Omar's statements were the most exciting political event in decades. I'm not
surprised that she is being punished, but the viciousness of the attacks have certainly gone
up a notch.
America's big mistake: allowing all the media to congeal into one big bullhorn that is
controlled by Jewish interests. As long as they control the media there will be no national
debate of zionist power in America.
Another great article by Giraldi. He is consistently the most forceful and articulate
writer regarding the subversion of America's national interests to Israel.
As much as I despise Omar's politics, in this case she is right to expose the dirty politics
that Israel uses on it's "friend and ally" the United States of America.
AIPAC is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States and has done more to influence
and damage the American political process than just about any other lobby. It is a
loosely-guarded secret that, in order to garner jewish support, prospective politicians must
sign a loyalty oath promising support for Israel. This, in itself is un-American and borders
on treason. Failure to sign the loyalty oath almost always assures a political death. AIPAC
will spend millions to elect a candidate as long as he "toes the Israeli line".
Remember the USS Liberty (GTR-5), the American naval vessel that was deliberately attacked
with massive loss of American lives (an act of war) by "our friend and ally" Israel on June
8, 1967. If I had my way, Israel would have been turned into a "glass parking lot" on June 9,
1967.
As an aside, we must constantly hit our politicians with charges of treason, citing the
"loyalty oaths" to Israel that almost all of them have signed.
Dual citizens of Israel are through out the US government and have given America unending
wars and debt and an unconstitutional FED and IRS. No dual citizen from any nation should be
able to hold office in any government or state or county or city government in the US, no one
can serve two masters and citizens of Israel serve Israel and that is why America has been at
war for 18 years and counting in the Mideast!
Israel was everywhere at the Jewish day school I attended in New York. The Israeli and
American flags were proudly displayed together, no matter that I, like the majority of my
classmates, was not Israeli.
This alone might be innocuous, a loose cultural affinity that would be familiar in a
French or German language academy. But in Jewish day school life, outright political
mobilization for Israel and its policies was a requirement.
Every year we would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the Salute to Israel parade on
New York's Fifth Avenue. Teachers were marshals, and mocking stories about pro-Palestinian
activists were exchanged in class the following day.
One year, we were outright required to join a protest in support of Israel, during the
school day, at the United Nations.
This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I
remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli
Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and
raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.
With any other cultural group in America, for any other country, these statements
would be shocking. After all, when was the last time you heard of an Italian-American
birthright trip to Sicily? But for American Jews, the centrality of allegiance to Israel in
our communal organizations is the norm.
There is one big omission in your article PG. If you read more than the tweet from Rep. Juan
Vargas that you linked as
"Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."
you must have been pleased by the deluge (maybe hundreds) of Tweets uniformly condemning
him and including many from people claiming believably to be Jews.
BTW Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators and has had
in the last few years a previously unparalleled spate of challenges to members already seated
in Parliament. The courts have interpreted the constitutional provision strictly and MPs
whose Italian born mothers filled in a form which gave them Italian citizenship without their
knowledge have been caught (or at least been taken to court).
I would tend to argue that dual citizenship should be declared but that it is up yo the
voters to decide whether they want to be represented by someone who isn't only an Australian.
There are counterarguments however and avoidance of America's Israel First situation is
certainly one of them.
It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold
public office. Stated allegiance to any other country should be treated as high treason,
which it is. However, I don't see Congress doing any of this: we all know what happens when
the improvements in henhouse safely is in the hands of foxes.
Anyway All US political system is running on bribery. So the bribery is legal and cannot be
tackled.
The only way to go is to distinguish the bribery and divide it into two groups.
Patriotic bribery and non patriotic bribery.
Here is a funny thing!!!!!!!!!
The Arabs have a proper English word for bribery: Backshish.
1 It is done in the back, so nobody sees it.
2 Shish means you should be quiet about it.
What bribery you may ask.
So what are those prepayed trips to Israel where the Congress people are treated as kings,
and they have chance to make love to the Jewish wall of the temple. They stick their wishes
written on paper into crevices of the wall. (Not too many records if the wall did take care
of their wishes.}
@AnonFromTN You
dont have to be a dual citizen be a traitor.
So what the US needs is an amendment to the Constitution expanding the definitions of
treason and subversion to better reflect the modern day realities of our political
system.
Perhaps suggest to the Magnificent Three that they put forth a bill calling for that.
What makes this piece meaningful is he is 100% correct. Representative Ilhar Omar should
be applauded for her bravery. She truly is courageous, as she not only risks her political
career but also her life. And by doing so she leaves open the door for others to follow.
We'll soon see how serious the Zionists take this matter.
JFK called for AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, however sense his murder not one
politician has ever mentioned it again. I think this says a lot about how much influence that
particular lobby has. Too much.
Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column? These
domestic Zionazis are Israel's fifth column. They constitute the vanguard of an
international, and their program is clearly shown here:
Israel leads a counterrevolutionary plan and conspiracy for bad-faith subversion of all
your human rights including your human right to peace. Israel's existence depends on domestic
Apartheid, totalitarian repression in client states such as the US, and continual threats to
peace worldwide. The government of Israel has forfeited its sovereignty by shirking its
responsibility to protect with the crime against peace of aggression and the crime against
humanity of extermination. In consequence, it must give way to a free Palestine.
The only way you're going to shake off Israel's fifth column is end Israel. You've got to
do to Israel what we did to South Africa.
"No politician can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve America and Israel."
@jo6pac There
are 40 Jews in the house and senate .that is not 89% of the total 500 congressmen and
senators.
Crap claims like this are actually harmful to the effort to get the Jewish Fifth Column
and Israel out of the US because the lie will be pointed out and much fun made of the
nutcases by the uber Jews.
Duel citizenship is only acceptable if one citizenship is from where you were born, over
which you had no choice, and the other is where you have chosen to live, made your home, and
become a citizen thereof. Two citizenship by choice is a sham: getting the benefactors of one
but maintaining your loyalty to another.
[Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how
"she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress
"Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an
acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the
frame, bidding to get in.
Let's examine how and why the cunning and bigotry of Bret Stephens gets projected by him
onto Ilhan Omar.
1. Charge, sans evidence, your opponent with your own crimes and repeat the charge ad
nauseam.
2. In lieu of refutation of your opponent's argument, train your reader to identify his
argument as galling chutzpah and your galling chutzpah as an argument.
3. Double down on the accusatory inversion and invoke anti- Semitism: It is not the Jewish
demand that the USA shut-up and bow down before Israel which is threatening to provoke an
anti-Semitic reaction; no: anti-Semitism results from acknowledging as legitimate a scrutiny of
the claims and aims of the Zionist state.
Mr. Stephen's rhetoric is an admission that he and his kind hate Jews, insisting as it does
on the implicit acceptance of Jewish identity as irrational and homicidal. His rhetoric also
represents an ultimatum to the USA: honor Israel's irrational hatred and killing of its
neighbors or you are guilty of irrationally killing Jews.
This is known as desperation and is an infallible sign that yet another false Jewish messiah
– Neoconservatism-has failed.
US military spending is always by far the largest on the planet, several times the amount of
the next highest spending, China. But while other nations like China and Russia are scaling
back their budgets, the Pentagon's budget, as ever, continues to rise.
Trump's proposal would bring the overall defense budget for 2020 to $750 billion. This
includes a $544 billion base-line defense budget, which is not in and of itself a huge
increase. But on top of that
will be a nearly $100 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) Fund , and a $9
billion "emergency" funding request meant to make up for the money already taken from the
military to build the border wall.
Using the OCO budget as an avenue for driving military spending up has been a common tactic
in recent decades, though it had fallen out of favor in the past few years. The OCO has been
heavily criticized because its nature makes it effectively a black hole, allowing the Pentagon
to shuffle money around to different projects as it sees fit.
Exploding the OCO, nearly tripling it from the current year's levels, while keeping base
funding roughly in line, seems meant to allow the administration to present themselves as
keeping past commitments, while fueling a precipitous spending increase all the same.
Zionist-controlled US carried out globalist-pogroms or globogroms all over the world, esp
against Muslim nations. Just ask the Iraqis and Syrians. (As for Palestinians, they got it
bad from Ziogroms.)
Jewish elite love to talk about 'Munich', but the Munich moment in our world is about
stopping Judeo-Nazi supremacists from hatching another war, such as against Iran.
Someone must draw a line in the sand and say NO. Jewish Power has crossed too many
lines.
If there is World War III, it will have been instigated mainly by the Tribe.
"... I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ..."
I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations
have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters –
"one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "
Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government
owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in
charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children
overseas.
Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons
for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby
and the defense lobby.
We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish
bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?
The Solons on Capitol Hill are terrified of the expression "dual loyalty." They are afraid
because dual loyalty means that one is not completely a loyal citizen of the country where one
was born, raised and, presumably, prospered. It also suggests something more perverse, and that
is dual citizenship, which in its present historic and social context particularly refers to
the Jewish congressmen and women who just might be citizens of both the United States and
Israel. There is particular concern over the issue at the moment because a freshman
congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to
American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without
any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and
has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the
Israel Lobby.
Certainly, the voting record in Congress would suggest that there are a lot of congress
critters who embrace dual loyalty, with evidence that the loyalty is not so much dual as skewed
in favor of Israel. Any bill relating to Israel or to Jewish collective interests, like the
currently fashionable topic of anti-Semitism, is guaranteed a 90% plus approval rating no
matter what it says or how much it damages actual U.S. interests. Thursday's 407 to 23 vote in
the House of Representatives on a meaningless and almost unreadable
"anti-hate" resolution was primarily intended to punish Ilhan Omar and to demonstrate that
the Democratic Party is indeed fully committed to sustaining the exclusive prerogatives of the
domestic Jewish community and the Jewish state.
The voting on the resolution was far from unusual and would have been unanimous but for the
fact that twenty-three Republicans voted "no" because they wanted a document that was only
focused on anti-Semitism, without any references to Muslims or other groups that might be
encountering hatred in America. That the congress should be wasting its time with such nonsense
is little more than a manifestation of Jewish power in the United States, part of a long-sought
goal of making any criticism of Israel a "hate" crime punishable by fining and imprisonment.
And congress is always willing to play its part. Famously, American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) official Steven Rosen once boasted that he
could take a napkin and within 24 hours have the signatures of 70 Senators on it, reflective of
the ability of the leading pro-Israel organization to impel the U.S. legislature to respond
uncritically to its concerns.
Ilhan Omar has certainly been forced to apologize and explain her position as she is under
sustained attack from the left, right and center as well as from the White House. One
congressman told her that "Questioning support for the
US-Israel relationship is unacceptable." Another said "there are many reasons to
support Israel, but there is no reason to oppose Israel" while yet another one declared that
all in Congress are committed to insuring that the "United States and Israel stand as one."
But Omar has defended herself without abandoning her core arguments and she has further
established her bona fides as a credible critic of what passes for U.S. foreign policy
by virtue of an astonishing attack on former President Barack Obama, whom she criticized
obliquely
in an interview Friday , saying "We can't be only upset with Trump. His policies are bad,
but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more
polished than he was. That's not what we should be looking for anymore. We don't want anybody
to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies
that are behind the pretty face and the smile." Presumably Omar was referring to Obama's death
by drone program and his destruction of Libya, among his other crimes. Everything she said
about the smooth talking but feckless Obama is true and could be cast in even worse terms, but
to hear the truth from out of the mouth of a liberal Democrat is something like a revelation
that all progressives are not ideologically fossilized and fundamentally brain dead. One
wonders what she thinks of the Clintons?
The Democrats are in a tricky situation that will only wind up hurting relationships with
some of their core constituencies. If they come down too hard on Omar – a Muslim woman of
color who wears a head covering – it will not look good to some key minority voters they
have long courted. If they do not, the considerable Jewish political donations to the
Democratic Party will certainly be diminished if not slowed to a trickle and much of the media
will turn hostile. So they are trying to bluff their way through by uttering the usual
bromides. Senator Kristin Gillibrand of New York characteristically tried to cover both ends
by
saying "Those with critical views of Israel, such as Congresswoman Omar, should be able to
express their views without employing anti-Semitic tropes about money or influence." Well, of
course, it is all about Jews, money buying access and obtaining political power, with the
additional element of supporting a foreign government that has few actual interests in common
with the United States, isn't it?
As Omar put it, "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it
is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country " She also tweeted to a
congressional critic that "I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a
foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee." Gilad Atzmon,
a well known Jewish critic of Israel,
observed drily that "How reassuring is it that the only American who upholds the core
values of liberty, patriotism and freedom is a black Muslim and an immigrant "
But such explicatory language about the values that Americans used to embrace before
Israel-worship rendered irrelevant the Constitution clearly made some lightweights from the GOP
side nervous. Megan McCain, daughter of thankfully deceased "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"
Senator John McCain appears on a mind numbing talk-television program called The View
where she
cried as she described her great love for fellow Israel-firster warmonger former U.S.
Senator Joe Lieberman as "like family," before launching into her own "informed" analysis: "I
take the hate crimes rising in this country incredibly seriously and I think what's happening
in Europe is really scary. On both sides it should be called out. And just because I don't
technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn't mean that I don't take this
seriously and it is very dangerous, very dangerous what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to
me."
The New York Times also had a lot to say, covering the story on both its news and
op-eds pages daily. Columnist Michelle Goldberg, who is usually sensible,
criticizes Omar because of her "minimizing the legacy of the holocaust" and blames her
because "she's committed what might be called, in another context, a series of microaggressions
-- inadvertent slights that are painful because they echo whole histories of trauma." In other
words, if some Jews are indeed deliberately corrupting American politics on behalf of Israel
and against actual U.S. interests using money to do so it is not a good idea to say anything
about it because it might revive bad historical – or not so historical – memories.
It is perpetual victimhood employed as an excuse for malfeasance on the part of Jewish groups
and the Jewish state.
Another Times columnist Bret Stephens also takes up the
task of defenestrating Omar with some relish, denying that "claims that Israel uses money
to bend others to its will, or that its American supporters 'push for allegiance to a foreign
country'" are nothing more than the "repackage[ing] falsehoods commonly used against Jews for
centuries." He attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how
"she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress
"Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an
acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the
frame, bidding to get in." He concludes by asking why the Democratic Party "has so much trouble
calling out a naked anti-Semite in its own ranks."
Stephens clearly does not accept that what Oran claims just might actually be true. Perhaps
he is so irritated by her because he himself is a perfect example of someone who suffers from
dual loyalty syndrome, or perhaps it would be better described as single loyalty to his tribe
and to Israel. Review some of his recent columns in The Times if you do not believe that
to be true. He has an obsession with rooting out people that he believes to be anti-Semites and
believes all the nonsense about Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East." In his op-ed
he claims that "Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the
Democratic Party claims to champion." Yes, a theocratic state's summary execution of unarmed
protesters and starving civilians while simultaneously carrying out ethnic cleansing are
traditional Democratic Party programs, at least as Bret sees it.
People like Stephens are unfortunately possessors of a bully pulpit and are influential. As
they are public figures, they should be called out regarding where their actual loyalties lie,
but no one in power is prepared to do that. Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is
pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times . He and other dual loyalists, to
be generous in describing them, should be exposed for what they are, which is the epitome of
the promoters of the too "passionate attachment" with a foreign state that President George
Washington once warned against. If the United States of America is not their homeland by every
measure, they should perhaps consider doing Aliyah and moving to Israel. We genuine
Americans would be well rid of them.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is <a://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
title="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
href="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
<a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]"
href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected].
Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else
writing at The Times
Amazingly the Times has actually improved from 30 years ago, when their op-ed page included
Abe Rosenthal and William Safire, two of the most repulsive Zionists to ever appear in print.
I still remember Safire's campaign against Bobby Inman. Inman's 1994 press conference is
still a classic. (The good part begins at 23:00)
Weirdly, Trump abruptly attacked Ann Coulter , one of his earliest
and
most eloquent backers , on Twitter Saturday night, perhaps signaling he is repudiating the
immigration patriotism he won on -- or perhaps that he knows Ann is right:
In reality of course, "major sections of the wall" have not been built. And the
administration suffered yet another defeat in the courts last week over its attempts to enforce
immigration law. [ In another blow to Trump, judge rules in favor of ACLU in family separations case ,
by Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post , March 8, 2019] Trump is fighting, to his
credit, but he simply is not winning on the border.
Congressional Republicans also seem uninterested in immigration patriotism.
Many Republicans want to block President Trump's national emergency declaration on the
border -- the one good thing Trump has recently done on immigration–because it goes
against their " principles ."
Thirteen House Republicans voted to block the executive order last month. "The president
doesn't get to just declare an emergency for something that Congress has deliberated many times
over the past several years," Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian, said of why he
sponsored legislation to stifle the national emergency. [ Rep. Justin
Amash: 'The President Doesn't Get To Just Declare an Emergency' , by Joe Seyton,
Reason, February 26, 2019]. Amash was joined by a group primarily made up of squishy
Republicans. [ Meet the 13
Republicans who rebuked Trump over his national emergency , by Bridget Bowman, Roll
Call , February 26, 2019]
Trump's executive order is receiving even more pushback from Senate Republicans. Senators
such as Shelly Moore-Capito (R-West Virginia) and Susan Collins think the national
emergency is "concerning" and believe Trump already has enough wall money without the
declaration. [ GOP
wants Trump to back off on emergency , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , March 6,
2019]
Four Republican Senators have announced their intention to vote for legislation to block the
national emergency: Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and usual Trump ally Rand Paul. More
are likely to announce their support for this measure as the vote approaches this week. Pat
Toomey and Todd Young, both who are close with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, want to
propose resolutions to give
cucky Republicans a way to voice their disapproval without voting with the Democrats.
The resolutions would convey the message that Republicans want border security, but don't
want to take the necessary actions to fund said border security. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wants to
pass a resolution that would restrict the president's emergency powers and place a 30-day or
60-day time limit on how long they can be in effect without congressional approval.
McConnell announced Monday that he could not prevent passage of legislation blocking Trump's
national emergency declaration. The New York Times declared this announcement as proof
that Trump has lost influence within his own party. [ Trump's Grip
Shows Signs of Slipping as Senate Prepares to Block Wall Emergency , By Sheryl Gay
Stolberg and Emily Cochrane, The New York Times , March 4, 2019]
The good news is that Trump will most likely veto this legislation and Congress doesn't have
enough votes to override the veto. The President is also threatening senators who vote for the
block with stiff consequences. [ Senate Republicans divided ahead of vote on disapproval of national emergency , by
Ted Barrett, CNN , March 7, 2019] There is little chance the President will sign a bill
that overrides his own action, even if his close advisers tell him to do so. Trump's instincts
would never allow such behavior.
The bad news: it's a sign congressional Republicans have no will to support immigration
patriotism at the moment. This is very bad considering the immigration bills that may come
before them in the near future, including the possible White House measure on guest worker
visas. House Democrats are set to introduce a new DREAM Act that will legalize at least 1.8
million illegals and extend Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of foreign
nationals.
Congressional Republicans need to get their act together to kill these pieces of
legislation. But
they may be at the forefront in support of them. Last fall, multiple Republican senators,
including the appalling
Thom Tillis, proposed a bill that would double the number of H-2b visas and screw over
low-skilled American workers. And last month, several Republicans -- alas, including supposed
immigration patriot
Tom Cotton -- championed the easement of some regulations on H-1b visas.
The better hope for killing a guest worker expansion lies with the Democrats. Anyone with a
brain realizes this would be bad for American workers and benefits greedy corporations.
Democrats have never been too fond of this plan, as evidenced by their skepticism about its
expansion in the Gang of Eight Amnesty. [ Gang
of 8 defends guest worker plan , by Seung Min Kim, Politico , May 13, 2013].
What better way to portray Trump as a phony populist in 2020 than to skewer him for this gift
to the cheap labor lobby?
The House Democrats' proposed DREAM Act will probably go nowhere–unless Trump includes
that idea in his immigration package. There are some positive signs that the White House won't
do this; and that Republicans would block its passage. Kushner floated the idea of giving green
cards for Dreamers in exchange for wall funding during shutdown negotiations earlier this year.
That plan was firmly opposed by conservative senators who thought it was insanity [ A "go big" idea to end the shutdown , by Jonathan Swan, Axios , January 23,
2019]
Though Congress and the White House seem set on terrible immigration ideas, it's worth
remembering there are alternative patriotic immigration proposals they could push. All of these
ideas would not likely pass the current Congress, but they would shape the immigration debate
in a positive direction ahead of the 2020 election.
El Chapo Act:
This bill proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz would confiscate the money of drug lords like Joaquin
"El Chapo" Guzman and allocate it to building the wall. Cruz reintroduced the proposal in
February and believes the government could obtain $14 billion out of El Chapo's drug profits
through this law [ Sen. Ted Cruz's solution to border wall impasse: Make El Chapo pay for it , by
Deanna Paul, The Washington Post , February 13, 2019]. This would be more money than
Trump currently has for wall construction and would send a strong message to the cartels. The
president himself has said Sen. Cruz's idea is "interesting." There is no reason Republicans
shouldn't hold a vote on this bill and make Democrats stand up for drug cartels.
Kate's Law:
This bill, named after Kate Steinle who was murdered by an illegal alien, would institute
harsher penalties for illegals caught re-entering the country. This measure passed the House in
2017, but it died in the (n.b. GOP-controlled)Senate [ Senate Has Not Voted On Kate's Law Five Months After It Passed The House With Bipartisan
Support , by Will Racke, The Daily Caller , December 1, 2017].
Trump should resurrect the bill. Yes, it's passage is less likely with a Democrat-controlled
House. That doesn't matter. The president needs to convey he still wants to crack down on
illegal immigration and that his opponents favor criminal aliens over American citizens.
Along with the El Chapo Act, probably has the best chance at passage among the ideas the
Trump admin could push as multiple Democrats voted for it back in 2017. There is still a chance
enough Democrats would vote for it again to achieve passage.
No Sanctuary for Criminals Act:
This act would cut Sanctuary Cities off from federal law enforcement funds and it was also
passed by the House in 2017, albeit by a smaller margin than Kate's Law. It also went nowhere
in the (GOP-controlled) Senate. If Republicans want to highlight the chaos created by Democrat
policies, they should revive this bill and remind Americans that Trump stands up for law and
order. This act, however, does have less chance of passage as it was more strongly opposed by
Democrats [ Dems
block Senate vote on sanctuary cities , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , February
13, 2018]
Mandatory e-Verify:
Requiring all American companies to use e-verify seems almost too good of an idea for
Republicans. The bill explicitly protects American workers and puts the onus on employers to
make sure they only hire those who are here legally. This should receive bipartisan support as
both parties want to portray themselves as the true protectors of American workers.
House Republicans included the measure in their DACA deal last year, so they are aware of
this proposal [ Goodlatte offers E-Verify mandate, farm worker fix for immigration bill , by John
Bresnahan, Politico , June 26, 2018]. We just need one patriot Republican to stand up
and offer mandatory e-Verify. This proposal also has a decent chance of passage.
Override the Flores Settlement:
This 1997 court decision has handcuffed the Trump administration's ability to enforce
immigration law and is directly responsible for the current border collapse. It has allowed
liberal judges to deem it unlawful for the government to detain illegal alien minors for more
than 20 days. It also has allowed for these minors to have better access to asylum as they
remain in America undetained. Some Republican lawmakers, including Ted Cruz, suggested
legislative action in the last congressional session to correct this loophole [ The History of the Flores
Settlement , by Matt Sussis, Center for Immigration Studies , February 11,
2019].
A bill to end this policy would not likely pass as many Republicans shrank from the Trump's
family detention policies last summer [ Here
Are the Republicans Opposing Migrant Family Separation , by Jeff Cirillo, Roll
Call , June 19, 2018]. That doesn't change the fact that the Trump administration needs
this legislation to avoid further court losses and to shift public discussion on family
detention to focus on Democratic preference for illegal immigrants.
Eliminating birthright citizenship:
There is no way that this idea would pass Congress, but it does have the backing of the
President and one prominent Republican senator. Trump said he may eliminate birthright
citizenship by executive order and
Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a bill to do so right before the 2018 election. [ Lindsey
Graham Seconds Trump Proposal to End Birthright Citizenship , by Niels Lesniewski,
Roll Call , October 30, 2018]
Those plans, however, seem to have disappeared since then. But Trump still seems interested
in the issue -- he mentioned it in his speech to CPAC -- and events may prompt the president to
revisit the topic. A bill would cause an uproar within Congress and among the Republican
caucus, let alone an executive order. And that's good. If Trump wants to have a serious
discussion on citizenship and reduce the negative effects of mass immigration, then he must
force this issue into the public square.
Javanka would likely oppose any such effort, so perhaps their White House influence would
have to be minimalized from what it is today for this to happen.
The RAISE Act:
The RAISE
Act would halve America's yearly immigration intake and structure our system to be more
"merit-based." It would also cap annual refugee numbers at 50,000 and eliminate the diversity
visa lottery. The bill was introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue with Trump's backing
in August 2017. But (again, despite GOP control of Congress) nothing happened.
If Trump wants to show he still puts America first ahead of 2020, he could resurrect the
RAISE Act. There is no chance it would pass, but it would force Republicans to run on the plan
and win the seats necessary to pass it in Trump's second term.
These are some positive things Trump and Republicans can do. Whether they choose to do them
is up to them.
It's not looking good.
Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source
Inside The Beltway.
IF this article has validity, there was absolutely no play on MSM anywhere.
"A group of progressive lawmakers including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro
Khanna, Elizabeth Warren, and many others are signing onto a pledge saying that they will not
support the endless "forever wars" that the U.S. loves to engage in. This is a big leap
forward, and it shows that the military industrial complex might struggle for relevance as
the country continues to move to the left. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this."
Hmmmm I think IMHO that any analogies with Gorbachev are misplaced and superficial. I
don't think Gorbachev knew what he was doing and was profoundly naive (or worse, but that's
the best that can be said about him, let's leave it at that – and I admired him as a
teen behind the iron curtain).
I think Sanders knows what he's doing and is clear eyed about who he's dealing with in
terms of system and people -- unlike Gorbachev.
As for people in the USSR giving up – I don't think they got anything of what they
really wanted, and I don't think anyone really asked them. So they never had a chance to give
up anything. They were simply led along a short hopeful path – and then summarily and
mercilessly crushed.
Sanders is a healthy thing for this country and the Dem party. Unlike Gorbachev, he's
ushering in healthy forces. Let the chips fall where they may.
Thanks B. This is how empires end, or at least one way. Hubris gets them every time. I for
one will be glad to see US troops at the very least reduced in Italy, and for all of Europe
for that matter.
Especially now that the INF is dead. And I hear that Italy is now looking at
embracing China's B&R Initiative. I say have at it! There's the shiver waiting to run up
Washington's spine. You might find this amusing, too: >
https://thesaker.is/us-treats-luxembourg-like-a-vassal-state-or-us-imperial-hubris-gone-bonkers/
Little Luxembourg. It does bring a big smile. Keep going, Trump. You're on the right track.
More Art of the Deal, anyone?
This will be good for every one. Trump demands the Germans and Japanese pay for US
protection, which they reject and the US military goes home. Isn't that an excellent outcome
for all parties?
The only section that is slightly unclear is, "The only sound reason to keep the 30,000
U.S. troops in Germany is to prevent them from moving to Poland from where they could
threaten the country."
Surely the US occupation of Germany has been tacitly or latently threatening and
controlling and dominating and bullying and extorting Germany for around 74 years?
So what major difference would it make if they were moved a few hundred kilometers
away?
Kick 'em out! Germany has more than served her sentence!
The European people should support Trump in his desire to eliminate NATO. Of course the Deep
State in both Europe and the US will fight it tooth and nail. Maybe the #GiletsJaunes who
have been erased from western media will finally topple the Party of Davos candidate Macron.
And similar populist movements in other European countries can topple other Deep State
stooges from western Europe. Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the
Social Democrats implode in Germany.
Extortion because you're broke. We don't have the money to pay for it, so this
administration resorts to mob tactics to keep the scam going. "The government and us are cut
from the same cloth." Sam Giancana, former Chicago mob boss.
If that graphic is any indication of public opinion in Germany, things are even worse than
I'd heard.
There has been a small series of events where the German Government gave the US meddlers a
shove-off. First was the new gas pipeline Nord 2 - they refused to fold for perfectly good
economic reasons. Next was the German rejection of the horrible F-35. Recently I'm seeing
headlines about Germany and the Chinese 5G company.
Given all of this, I'm beginning to doubt if the Germans will allow the US to plant new
short-range nuclear missiles on their soil. Becoming a WW3 target for no good reason except
to please the US of A Imperia wouldn't seem to be a very clever move on their part.
I agree with Elliott A that it is better to have the US troops in Poland than in Germany -
and better that the inviters of the US troops then become the target for the defensive
nuclear missiles they force Russia to deploy rather than Germany.
Furthermore, if Poland is forced to pay the full cost of their invited US guests, maybe
their voters will eventually come to their senses and vote in more rational Polish
politicians.
The Poles are generally pseudo-Catholic and mercenary, pro-American in-name-only; as soon
as it could hit them in the pocket, they will pipe down very quickly and balk/bridle.
Hence Poland is a worthy (temporary) stopover for the US (including the NSA) when evicted
from Germany. The fact that Merkel is out soon is dangerous because she doesn't really G/A/F,
and will defer the decision to the next poor blighter.
There could be a treaty in place that says American troops can remain in Germany until the
year 2500 but Trump's just shot himself in the foot again by giving Germany a get-out
clause.
Zero hedge is reporting that Pence went a bit further than that and urged Germany To provoke
Russian Navy in the Kerch Strait by sending ships there in a freedom of navigation exercise.
Strangely enough Merkel said she was willing to provoke Russia, but thought doing it wouldn't
accomplish anything so she didn't want to provoke Russia for no reason. God, how insane are
these idiots. And now it looks like in response Pence/Trump will extort Germany for not being
mindlessly obedient enough.
Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the Social Democrats implode
in Germany.
Posted by: ab initio | Mar 8, 2019 11:49:49 AM | 6
The problem is though, that the Deep State have already reserved their places in Merkel's
successors, the AfD. All of these right-wing "populist" parties acros Europe seem to be no
more than a cynical vehicle for the Deep State to hijack popular discontent and channel it
into a new form of slavery to replace the old. Hence Steve Banner's dubious and highly
dangerous politicking for the so-called populist movement in Europe.
A real future lies in Jeremy Corbyn and maybe also a few other left-wing parties in Europe
(as long as they don't become compradors like Syriza) - but the Deep State is fighting Corbyn
tooth and nail. In Germany there is Die Linke who have some good people and some good
policies (from my limited knowledge!) - but their popularity is still in the doldrums,
unfortunately.
And of course, the extortion must be paid in US Dollars. Clearly, the threat is all about
keeping Dollar Hegemony alive by reducing the massive trade deficit. I see AfD making capital
thanks to this. As for Japan, Russia will not sign a Peace Treaty with it until all foreign
military forces are removed--a condition that's been reiterated several times over the last
few months to which I've linked. Okinawans are furious at being twice colonized and are at
the end of their rope. So far they've been peaceful, but I think it's clear to them by now
that the only way to remove the foreign vermin is to literally push them into the sea.
Korea's situation's been discussed on that thread.
For the domestic Outlaw US Empire, shutting down the Overseas Empire of Bases and the
related destabilization projects globally would save @ $1 Trillion/year--an utter wastage of
monies for projects that are decidedly NOT in the National Interest. And as most here
understand, the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an
Outlaw and an Empire. And it would become cleaner too as the US Military is the most
polluting entity on the planet.
Isn't Poland offering to pay the United States $2 billion to establish a base called Fort
Trump?
BTW, perhaps this is a ruse to remove all U.S. troops from Syria. I'd love to be there
when Elliott "debt collector" Abrams turns up demanding the money from Assad. There is an
opportunity for one of the greatest reality TV programs ever (I'm a neo-con, get me out of
here) which makes me wonder if that's Trump's reason for this scheme.
All Americans needs to protect Americans in the US is a coast guard and a border patrol.
Everything else is either protection for corporations doing business [which should be added
to the price of their products/services to reflect true costs] or empire.
Yes, it's another damp squib, another no-win, another over-promise, another posture, like all
the others.
This is all Trump knows and integrity never enters the equation.
Any sign of that border wall, that the Mexican government was going to pay for?
Not exactly "The Art of The Deal". more like one long and embarrassing suicide note.
I don't exactly dislike Trump particularly as he has "Mullered" a number of cretinous
insiders whom required a reality check but he is hindbound by his capinet; none of his plans
went through and he is in it well over his depth particularly since he appears to be
suffering from ADHD, dementia and schizophrenia - just what you need in the
Commander-in-Chief?
On the bright side, you can get a bigly discount for being a faithful toady and swearing
allegiance to the US of A. Wonder where the US 'leaders' got the idea of swearing allegiance
to a foreign power?
....the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an Outlaw
and an Empire....
Trump's just demonstrated that by staying out of the very recent Indo-Pakistan incident.
Maybe he didn't want Americans dying in the shithole that is the sub-continent. Maybe he
didn't see any opportunity to line his own pocket. Whatever his reason, he did the right
thing. Would Hillary have done the same? I don't know.....
Empire is getting the rest of its plates spinning so that must mean that the end is
getting closer. I don't think that the Philippine's plate is spinning fast enough so Trump
needs to give it some special love.
Pretty soon we will need a plate spinning scorecard just to keep track of all the
action.
Syria
Iran
Ukraine
Venezuela
Russia
China
Korea
EU w/ NATO
and now Germany and Japan
What plates am I missing?
Think about how much of the peoples resources are going to keeping these plates
spinning.
Who are going to come to the table with what arguments when the debt music stops?
* Trump has driving desire to be seen as the first businessman president.
* The appeal of Trump making 'allies pay their fair share' any reality check on how
counterproductive the effort is to the waning US empire
* Trump's unique candidacy put him in the White House without any real foreign policy staff
who would have long ago gotten Trump to abandon the silly idea - at least after he was
elected.
The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline.
Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful
way.
The only other explanation is this really is 4D chess on Trump's part where he sees these
silly shakedown attempts as the most efficient way of getting the US out of NATO.
American troops pack up your shit and get the f*ck out, oh and here's an invoice for $100
billion to cover the cost of cleaning up your toxic waste.
Thanks for your business.
The only Germans that want them are restaurants and shops located near the bases and other
businesses that cater to them.
Yes, Trump's new policy is very welcome if it gets Germany to kick them out or, better
yet, get out of NATO. I wonder if Trump intends it - or is he just plain stupid?
Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, said the administration was sending a deliberate message by demanding "Cost
Plus 50" from South Korea first , even though that effort fell short.
Ouch, poor SK. What a timing, straight after 'successful' NK talks.
With allies like that, who needs enemies?
Perhaps this will finally get the EU to kick the US and its NATO out.
But I don't underestimate the ability of EU elites to crawl to the US. It's like second
nature. And they get their pockets stuffed full of dollars to be kept in line.
Let me guess the free loading douche bag country that gets the most support from the US will
magically be excluded from these demands yet again.
I sure hope they try this protection racquet in Iraq. The government is already under huge
pressure to kick the Americans out after Trumps visit there last month.
What's America's plan to maintain economic wealth at the end of the debt spiral and dollar
collapse????
I have an idea!! Tribute! Hey, it worked for the Aztecs. Soon many countries will
see it as a small price to pay to avoid having democracy brought to their countries. Previous
versions of this scheme, such as buying US treasury debt knowing full well it will never be
repaid wont cut it anymore. So we are moving towards the real thing.
When I used to play football in my young days (i.e. soccer for the american lads here), I had
to pass by a huge US military base in the south of Germany each time in order to reach the
training ground. But strangely, I never challenged the necessity of that base in the first
place - probably due to my lack of geopolitical, historical consciousness. Only after they
build a second, even bigger base directly on the opposite side of the road and after two
combat helicopters - for the first time - flew directly above my head, I finally became aware
and started to question things. I wonder how many people that drive the same road each day
actually do feel the same...
Anyway, thank you b and thanks to all the well-experienced forumites for providing the vital
informations and inputs that helped me to better understand what is going on after all.
This is quite a slap in the face as the US has been raising tensions with Russia and any
conflict with Russia would likely cause the destruction of Europe.
Wondering how this will play out in places such as the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain where
the U.S. actually pays the dictator to lease the Navy and Air Force bases? Where the U.K.
pays the dictator for a British naval facility, too, which is shared?
Remember when Bahrain and other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf didn't want bases to be
called bases? Instead they were each a Regional Operations Support Establishment, aka ROSE.
Surely there's a different term now, but we still pay to lease bases.
Give trump credit: he raises the issue. And by doing so he gives people the opportunity to be
thrust into the act of questioning.
I continue to believe that this is really the overriding attribute of his presidency. What
people like the Germans do with this opportunity is entirely incumbent on them. But it is an
opportunity nonetheless, and as b correctly asserts, this is a welcomed change from the
political grab ass of the preceding administrations.
We should wish good luck to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) in hosting US
bases: not only will they have to foot the cost of hosting US forces but their entire
economies by now must be revolving around being open-air military barracks. All while their
own citizens are voting with their feet.
Psychohistorian @ 22: You're missing large parts of Africa (possibly Djibouti where there's a
US base; Rwanda which is a US satrapy under President Paul Kagame; western Africa where there
are offshore oil and gas deposits) and Georgia where the US operates a bioweapons laboratory.
Once again, on the surface this is obvious extortion. But I can't help but think this is
really a purposeful 'own goal.' I know this is likely giving Trump too much credit, but in a
parallel universe this is exactly what you would do if you had a hidden agenda to enfeeble
the US to cause our eventual pull back. There's no political way to slowly scale back our
involvement, but there is a way to overreach under everyone's noses and get the same end
result. Is this a 666d chess move or just what happens as empire descends into chaos,
grasping at straws? Either way I'm fine with the obvious result!
We are seeing the true colors. What we now have are Co-Presidents: Bolton, Trump; and Co-Vice
Presidents Pompous and Pence. The 4 morons do not realize they are isolating the U.S.A. and
hastening rejection of the USD.
Adhere my diktat and keep purchasing our T-bills.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allegedly stood up to pressure from Washington as she
declined a proposal by Vice President Mike Pence to send German Navy ships towards Russia's
Crimea, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Pence
allegedly wanted German ships to sail through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from
mainland Russia. France, [.]
next, trump asks venezuela to pay in advance for the invasion. in usd.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Mar 8, 2019 3:59:51 PM |
link
This is an utterly brilliant Empire-killing move by Trump. Speaking of the UK I wonder how
much we will be asked to pony up for the US air bases and troops still in the UK 75 years
after D-day. This should hit just after Brexit and we may have a different government in the
chair......
the germans would be owned by the russian,gadaffi saddam hussein serbia and hitler if it was
not for uk and usa.
we keep the world safe and stop irania and the hamas terroist pushing israel into the sea.
i say to the germans pay the man or be invaded by evil doers
Although I didn't read or watch, it appears most major BigLie Media have published/aired this
story, a point I was curious about since Friday's usually a slow news day, thus begging the
question: What's the public's reaction? Might there be a groundswell calling for returning
the troops home so that both the occupied nation and the occupier save monies? And what of
the opposite argument, that even more troops and bases are needed to defend against the Red
and Yellow Menace?
If I was a president who could not step too far out of line due to powerful forces all around
me, I would take the ideas of neocons et al and push them even further over the line past
reasonable.
No-one in power could argue against me because I'm implementing their ideas, even though I'm
taking them too far.
But pushing things too far creates real resistance, and makes the real policies obvious, and
brings about the end of the empire.
I might decide to:
1. Move the US embassy to Jerusalem, to make it clear who calls the shots
2. Demand that NATO countries pay more and publicly disrespect their leaders
3. Demand that Germany and Japan pay for their occupation
4. Obviously attack Venezuela (in contrast to previous less-obvious attacks)
5. and other increasingly outrageous demands until the vassals get fed up
Meanwhile I'd do other things that I have to do to keep the powerful forces happy.
I may be a terrible person with no 3-d chess master plan, but perhaps things would be
different after my term. And "different" might approximate "better".
"Obama
was a smiling murderer, says Ilhan Omar" And of course, she's 100% correct. As Ben Norton
noted in this tweet , Omar's
words were citied in a Politico article that he linked. You'll note, that by extension
she also called Trump a murderer, just not as "polished."
There's merit in your argument. For example, the so far small contingent of anti-war
Progressive Democrats either were elected or emboldened thanks to Trump, Rep. Omar being the
most prominent example. The same could be said of pushing the far-right's policy goals, as
that's also generated resistance. Too bad the initial call for resistance was based on the
Russiagate hoax. Time will tell!
Okay. If you don't get your weekly payola, then shut down the foreign bases. Only thing is,
what do we do with all these armed people trained to kill on command, looking for some action
in between saying the Pledge of Allegiance and painting Bible verses on bombs?
I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too
many cops on steroids as it is.
@ teri who wrote
"
I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too many
cops on steroids as it is.
"
Its called karma
I live here too....the energy needs to be refocused on planet rehab and going to the stars
along with my standard make global finance public
It sure will.
Especially the Neocons as they scramble around trying to collect all the rust flakes to glue
them back onto dilapidated USA's dilapidated Foreign Policy.
I'm sorry, but many people posting here are delusional about Trump's motives.
For a start, none of the issues discussed in this post would cause the American people
much in the way of dispute. Broadly, most Americans would think that other countries should
pay for US "support". Americans disagree quite a bit about "The Wall" and gender issues
around public restrooms; but not so much about the issues raised in this post. So there IS NO
RESISTANCE, and WILL NOT BE ANY RESISTANCE, within the US, on getting countries to pay.
Other countries might have problems but what other countries think has never been much of
an issue for Americans.
The issue of getting other countries to pay is about cost and the out-of-control US debt.
And, also, about Trump electioneering.
Should other countries refuse to pay (or request US troops to leave), then they can expect
to be sanctioned or economically damaged. Just consider how France (a US ally) had one of
their prize jewel (world-beating) nuclear technology intellectual assets, Alstom's
Arabelle steam turbine , taken from them by the US. This happened way before Trump so
demonstrates how the US operates (the art of the [coercive] deal is the way the US rolls).
France, and in particular Macron, who was French Finance/Economic Minster, at the time, had
no choice but to accept the takeover. Macron actually appeared quite gleeful about it (Macron
was effectively working for US, not French, interests).
Can Columbia or Kosovo afford to pay? Or will Washington increase the financial support they
give to those countries to cover the bill.
As for NATO, the core system was based on the countries that are members providing a
reliable easily-secured base for American expeditionary forces to attack and invade one of
the two countries that are at the heart of the Eurasian landmass. In exchange for that the
United States bankrolled NATO. If Trump breaks that bargain, what incentive is there for the
core members of NATO to allow wars to be fought on their territory particularly now that
Putin has said he is focused on improving the lives of ordinary Russians rather than going to
war with Europe but will make sure that the decision centres of any countries that attack or
are somehow involved in an attack on Russia will be destroyed. None as far as I can see, so
it looks like it'll be goodbye NATO.
@55ADKC - why would other countries pay to have the usa military on their soil? this explains
the whole agenda of fearmongering that has been in overdrive 24/7 since i was a kid...
nothing else explains it.. keep the fear up to justify this craziness.. i can't see anyone
paying for it.. i sure wouldn't want that if i was german, japanese or south korean for
example... now, maybe the leaders of these countries are going to be faced with a stark
choice... side with this b.s., or get removed from office... i praise trump for bringing this
forth and hope that he strikes a big fat zero from the countries that have usa bases on
them...
I think Trump believes the hype fed to Americans forever that the US soldiers are the good
guys and they really are protecting these countries. He also has a reputation for squeezing
contractors etc.
To MAGA he thinks it needs better deals and more people sending money in.
@59. I think that's right. He genuinely believes US forces are out there protecting 'our
allies' and keeping the world safe for democracy etc. But he also thinks 'our allies' are
taking advantage of American generosity. This is a common sentiment among Trump voters.
I think most Americans think they are protecting the world.
iv> i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and
norway for are freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big bat
folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world
does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be along
soon to take are democrasy
Posted by: chuck newsum , Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM |
link
i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and norway for are
freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big
bat folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world
does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be
along soon to take are democrasy
Posted by: chuck newsum | Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM |
link
Because they are (particularly, in Europe) occupied countries and many things can be done
to ensure compliance (economic, gladio operations, sanctions, theft of assets, prosecution
for any offence [no matter how small, incidental, or accidental] if a dollar is involved,
influx of refugees, war [directly or adjacent to target country], removal of post-colonial
areas of influence, instigating financial collapse [Deutche Bank is supposed to be very
vulnerable and would effect the entire EU/world], etc).
Why couldn't France protect Alstom? Would France be able to resist if the US targeted the
African CFA countries (which are France's neo-colonial milk-cows and essential to the
economic well-being of France and detrimental to the African people subject to the CFA
franc)?
You "praise Trump" for raising this issue but it's just the same old, same old.
The only place relatively secure is the Chinese/Russia milieu but that's the other side of
the real "wall" and restricts the expansion of OBOR. And the price (for Russia and China) is
having the entire western nuclear arsenal aimed at you.
Whether or not any payments are actually made will make no difference; US troops will
remain in occupied territory. (BTW: Europe will pay, the key is Germany. If Germany refuse to
pay the rest will follow. But Germany can't fudge this; it would amount to open resistance
and a re-negotiation of the outcome of the 2nd World War and, unless the US want to give up
the fruits of their 1945 victory, I don't see that happening. Germany will realise that, if
the US insist, they will have to comply; it's the direct consequence of losing the war and
being occupied.]
Moving American troops to Poland? Surely, the benefits are many. First, since the size of the
military is much smaller than in Warsaw block times, there are many military grounds.
Particularly in areas where forests are larger, climate harsher, and local men are fond of
beating up strangers when they get drunk. Local roads are crappy and American soldiers are
prone to hit side road trees. To summarize, martial skills and spirit are bound to improve.
For even better results, they should be moved to Estonia, Latvia and Finnmark, areas
bordering Russian Federation. OTOH, fleecing Balts would be like squeezing blood from stone.
E.g. Lithuania is an exemplary NATO member, spending 2% of GDP on the military, and yet they
cannot afford a tank.
He's already said he doesn't believe the hype. He said it 60 Minutes after his
inauguration...
"We've spent 6 Trillion dollars in the Middle East....6 Trillion! We could have rebuilt
America twice. It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop
to it."
The countries Trump wants to hit with fees are those he wanted the US military to pull out of
anyway. The cold war relics. Europe, Korea ect. Any bases to do with Israel Iran Venezuela
will not be hitting up the host country for extortion money. Bases he wants to use to
pressure China will also likely be exempt.
Those that do get hit with the fees, Trump doesn't give a shit if the US stays or leaves, so
long as the US is well paid if it stays.
I don't think Corbyn is the Messiah you take him for. He has sound ideas on not bombing
foreigners - unusual in a British politician - but apart from that he's a busted flush. Not
even close observers care to predict who will come out on top in the mud wrestling at
Westminster but if Corbyn makes it watch him accommodate.
.
With great respect, "b", and as happens rarely, I don't believe this article is on target.
America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence. Forget Aachen. It'll be a
long time before any purely European defence force is up to scratch.
The Europeans are hoping that America will hold the fort in the meantime. That's not an
alliance. It's a marriage of temporary convenience.
Of course the other problem with this is it makes the American forces official mercenaries
rather than national forces and all the legal consequences that flow from that.
History first as tragedy and later as a farce. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "Beria reported only
to Stalin and Stalin reported only to Satan." Now Bolton reports only to Trump and Chump
reports only to Sreadsheets. So much winning and multi-dimensional chess... It's deplorable.
Lol
@59 and @60 This is why the shock will be all the more stunning to the Americans.
Its "allies" have no problem with Uncle Sam spending like a drunken sailor. As far as they
are concerned, well, who cares.
But if Trump insists THEY pay for American profligacy then they are going to say "no".
American pundits will then pontificate on how much MORE it would cost those allies, and
the response will be: don't be stupid, we won't spend money to protect ourselves against a
threat that doesn't exist.
Because - and let's be honest here - in a post-NATO world the only military threat to
Europe will be the USA, and the US Army will be on the other side of the Atlantic.
I see a number of comments where the question's begged: Just what nation intends to invade
Europe such that the continuing Outlaw US Empire's occupation's warranted? Putin and Xi want
Europe to join the EAEU/BRI confab--invasion via commerce?!
It appears the Anti-Communist Crusade is having a hard time dying in some quarters,
particularly where continually invoking it is required dogma by controlling interests.
I think Trump and his MAGA boils everything down to money. Money goes out and money comes in.
His job is to slow the money going out and get more money coming in. I think it is that
simple. You get bombed by our smart freedom and democracy bombs then you should be decent
enough to pay for it. Also our bases are protecting you from getting bombed by evildoers
bombs. You should definitely pay for that. Why are we?
I'd like to see a study of the amount of money spent into the local economy by the occupation
forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Not just by the military but by the servicemen,
families, civilian contractors for housing, travel, schools, food, entertainment, etc
Obviously paying to be occupied is not happening, but there is some logic to the idea that
the occupied receive some economic benefits from being occupied, including but not limited to
a reduction in spending on their own military.
Any spending into the local economy is dwarfed by the amount of ecological damage
done--just look at Subic Bay or Okinawa. And yes, studies have been done into both aspects;
I've read them, but have no links.
." It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop to
it."
Trump just does not believe in others hype, only his own hype. So show me evidence he is
stopping the spending which was his main point in what was infaur to Americans. Spending on
the military is even higher, 6 trillion is now 8 trillion even if the accountants still cant
tell who got paid
If Trump has shown us anything it is that he believes in the hype that whats good for Big
Business is good for America. Even his request for more money from NATO countries is a
request/demand to buy more from the MIC and not money to offset US military spending.
Sure, the reasons for the increased military spending are bogus, but he adds fuel to
supposed conflicts with Iran, Russia, China, North Korea that allows him to justify more
spending. Trumps just replaced Obama/Bush hype with his own personal hype. Call it Trump
hype.
Pft, that's what economist Michael Hudson has been saying:
The US military spending overseas during the Vietnam war resulted in a balance of payments
crisis, with the surprise solution being the recycling of USD from offshore economies back
into the US financial sector.
And it's been going on ever since.
I'll try to get a link ... Super
Imperialism also recently linked by the indefatigable karlof1.
The larger America's balance-of-payments deficit becomes, the more dollars end up in the
hands of European, Asian and Near Eastern central banks, and the more money they must
recycle back to the United States by buying U.S. Treasury bonds.
It's worthwhile to read any and all of Hudson's writings, including his autobiographical
essay. He has worked in the belly of the beast; Chase Manhattan bank and Standard Oil (Exxon)
just for starters, the Treasury and Finance departments of USA and Canada amongst others.
People, people!...Where will the military go? It's so obvious, it is staring us in the
face...
Space!
Ah, but not just space --
Mars!
The War Planet!
And best of all -- there's no people there! They can have their war games ad infinitum!!!
To boldly go...ok, I know, that dates me...
But oh my, blow it up! Blow it all up!! Keep on making horrible weapons, ship them off to
Mars! Raytheon on steroids; what's not to love????? Trump will go down in history - no - up,
up, and AWAY!!! [Just think - he'll have to visit the troops at Thanksgiving, take them a
turkey - oh and take any Bushes and Boltons and Obamas and Clintons with him as it is rather
far, a few Thanksgivings away but who's counting?]
People are really thinking too hard.
The Trump strategy is simple a la "The Apprentice":
Get a bunch of ambitious people to commit to deliver to outlandish goals. These goals are set
such that achieving or failing them, the blame goes to the failure but the success goes to
the leader.
If they fail: "You're Fired"
If they succeed: "I'm Brilliant"
This proposal broadens USA's demand that Germany terminate its plans to obtain energy imports
from Russia via Northstream. Trump has already asserted publicly (weeks ago) that the added
cost of LNG imports should be viewed as a defense-related cost. Via this new mechanism, the
cost will be not be borne 100% by Germany.
To understand why this new approach is likely to work, please read ADKC's comments.
Pundits may poke fun but the AZ Empire is deadly serious and most AZ elites will be
supportive. Especially when they are insulated from the cost (as they are).
@6ADKC... i agree with arbys view on this... trump and an undue number of americans probably
think they are doing some good protecting others.. it's laughable! now, as to your question
about france and alstrom... i don't know the specifics, but i know how easily euro
politicians, and politicians in general can be bought... i think it is excellent trump is
raising this issue, as i hope the leadership in these poodle countries recognize their goose
will be cooked soon enough, as ordinary people won't stand for it.. so, i am simplifying here
and i have to race out and will be back later to add more.. i see what you and jackrabbit are
getting at, but at some point this mafia-gangster strategy is going to collapse.. maybe i am
too naive, or idealistic.. i will give you that!
Your assessment is fine and not without merits but the other variable you seem to be
missing is the German people and others in Europe, themselves.
Will this cowtowing to the US bullying not in the end fully ensconse their leaders as the
globalist shills they truly are and thus lead to their demise? That is what b us alluding to.
We are unaware of Trump's motivations, here, but that is inconsequential when we are talking
about him waking up the people of Europe to finally give US the boot.
While cruising around the internet tubes I ran into a casual remark about Syria to the effect
that since the US is doing an occupation there, aren't "we" entitled to payment? If there is
any truth to a spate of recent headlines, the neocons have already solved that one.
How would ISIS have acquired any tonnage of gold? Perhaps it was part-payment for the oil
they sold until the Russians intervened. (the US sure didn't bother those sales!) More likely
they stole it from citizens and businesses. There have been LOTS of reports about the US
secretly rescuing ISIS fighters. Now here is yet another motive for those airlifts. I predict
any such gold will be quickly melted down so as to make it forever untraceable. Would Pompeo
or Bolton do such a thing?
It's bad enough that Omar tackled AIPAC, but to dump on Saint Obama is likely to get her
pegged as a "self-hating negro". Wonder what Speaker Nancy will do this time? Threaten to
waterboard her?
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اگر آپ کے
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This was sent to me yesterday by a concerned Indian, with the tag of..."Be careful with
your country"
He's right!
Re: "America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence."
Defence against whom exactly? People pushing the narrative that the Russian Federation is
a menace never mention the numbers involved. The European countries have roughly 3 times the
population, 5 times the military spending and a massive advantage in GDP, look it up. If you
add the US to the equation then more like 5 times the population and 15 times the military
spending. The Russians have nukes of course but with the odds stacked up so spectacularly
against them I don't blame them for thinking they need them as a deterrent. If you had
another adversary in mind don't be shy.
Thanks for the links. I have been following Hudson for the last 12 years and agree with
much of what he says. I do disagree that dollar holdings are a tax on other countries. These
dollars for the most part are paid to companies for goods and services. They exchange some of
this with their central bank to invest locally or pay expenses. The central bank then prints
their local currency out of thin air to exchange. The USD are then counted as reserves which
allows them to create more local currency by 10+ times, depending on their reserve
requirements. This money is spent or invested in the local economy.
The USD reserves can also be used to fund their own trade deficits with other countries,
or pay of USD denominated loans
A lot has changed since 1971. After the Vietnam War was winding down the US pulled out of
Bretton Woods as Hudson anticipated. They then established the Petrodollar which was not
anticipated. This put more USD into the hands of OPEC nations as they were told to accept
only USD and in return would be allowed higher oil prices, and much was recycled back to the
US, but they and the rest of the world had other options.
This option was the Eurodollar which began in the 60's in a limited fashion . A later
sub-option was Eurodollars in the many tax havens, which developed first on British
territories and then in the Carribean.
These options being exercised limited the amount of dollars coming back to the US and
caused higher interest rates in order to attract some more of the dollars back.
The 1985 Plaza accord put in place an agreement to weaken the dollar with the US to buy
more imported goods as they encouraged more US companies to move offshore to produce in low
wage countries to keep inflation down. In return the deficits would be funded by other
countries resending back the USD they received by buying treasuries. This was when the US
realized they could spend and run up fiscal/trade deficits without consequences, and so they
did. Oh my.
Then after the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent looting bu oligarchs the
Eurodollar Market, especially in the tax havens , exploded even further as these oligarchs
and western investors transferred their stolen loot to these offshore tax havens which were
already loaded with dollars from the criminal drug trade (mafia-five eyes) and multinational
corporations evading taxes at home
In 1990 the Fed then made it easier for US banks to import and use these Eurodollars by
setting a zero reserve requirement (same as Fed Funds) on Eurodollar deposits which they
could then loan out at many order of magnitudes. This fueled the great credit and asset
bubbles using drug money and stolen Soviet asset money which came in to buy Trumps property
and stocks. It also allowed banks to increase credit to cash strapped consumers who felt the
pinch of neoliberalism and globalization, since the banks were flush with cheap cash. This
led to the Great Collapse in 2008
Added to this Eurodollar supply from 1993 was Chinas own oligarchs growing increasingly
rich from US investment/trade and from converting the peoples assets to individual party
members who wanted a safe place to hide their loot and evade taxes in China
Quantitative Easing following the crash of 2008 provided another source of a cash influx
for the US. Toxic waste from foreign and local banks were bought with USD printed from thin
air.
Recent Quantitative Tightening meant trouble though. So Trumps new tax measures made it
possible for US corporations to return Eurodollars hidden offshore which is fueling stock
buybacks and propping up the market. If not for this a 2008 collapse would be here.
When the next crash happens, I am sure the US will surprise us yet again. Pretty sure the
fix will be named Green something or another and a Carbon Dollar/Tax
@70 english outsider.. i agree with @13 BM... however, the msm in the uk is so warped, maybe
they will succeed in marginalizing corbyn.. i thought
this article today from jonathan cook was pretty good.. as for the usa being the backbone
of europe military and etc.. europe needs to grow a spine themselves and stop taking it in
the rear from the usa.. this suggestion from trump is a good place to start by saying no...
maybe the poodles are incapable.. that sounds like what you are saying..
@pft... i think i agree with you, although i don't study the financial dynamics enough..
the bailout from 2008 will be followed by more bailouts.. they will just be bigger... that is
the name of the game - bust and bailout.. bailing out the banks, until the world asks for
something different..
From the University of Chicago Magazine (believe it or not), October, 1999:
" who invented the Holocaust the first place? Who decided to capitalize the noun
"holocaust" and transform genocide into a political weapon and fund raising tool? "
" its message of an exclusivity in suffering-serving to promote a Zionist agenda ."
Why would only blacks object to existence of these monuments? What about the purported
victors of that war? They could have objected but did not. The people attacking these
monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war, as I see it.
Icons of outstanding accomplishment seem nearly always to be about war.. and the political
figures that made the Oligarchs filthy rich prosecuting a war that killed millions. The more
dead, the bigger the statute.
Where are the monuments to Watson and Crick, Newton, the persons that discovered penicillin,
the engines that convert energy from one form to a more usable other form or statutes of the
persons that founded our great universities or the persons that discovered how to capture
electricity and make available in every household?
Few icons to those that have made the quality of our lives better are ever produced,
Why?
Probably because the war mongers would have none of that.. Oligarchs own 90% of the press,
the media, and
means of communicating their wars, no damn invention that makes life better for the
displicibles is going to get into the way of profit making wars that fund so much of Economic
Zionism.
Consider the recent invention at the U of Australia where hard work discovered 2,200
different places in the world, where a combination of sunlight and wind energy can produce
and store sufficient energy to supply 24/7 all the energy the entire world needs on the power
grid. Not a word of it in the media. Soon I expect to see a monument to the shock and awe
bastards?
Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with
democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or
something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people
are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America's international behavior. Really, the
explanation is simple.
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said's pioneering
book, Orientalism , as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American
intellectual's passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003
U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing
to leukemia, made an already tremendous loss that much more impactful. His seminal text forever
reoriented political discourse by painstakingly examining the overlooked cultural imperialism
of colonial history in the West's construction of the so-called Orient. Said meticulously
interrogated the Other-ing of the non-Western world in the humanities, arts, and anthropology
down to its minutiae. As a result, the West was forced to confront not just its economic and
political plunder but the long-established cultural biases filtering the lens through which it
viewed the East which shaped its dominion over it.
His writings proved to be so influential that they laid the foundations for what is now
known as post-colonial theory. This became an ironic category as the author himself would
strongly reject any implication that the subjugation of developing countries is a thing of the
past. How apropos that the Mandatory Palestine-born writer's death came in the midst of the
early stages of the 'War on Terror' that made clear Western imperialism is very much alive.
Despite its history of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and war, the United States had distinguished
itself from Britain and France in that it had never established its own major colonies within
the Middle East, Asia or North Africa in the heart of the Orient. According to Said, it was now
undergoing this venture as the world's sole remaining superpower following the end of the Cold
War with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today's political atmosphere makes the Bush era seem like eons ago. Thanks to the shameful
rehabilitation of neoconservatism by centrist extremists, Americans fail to understand how
Trumpism emerged from the pandora's box of destructiveness of Bush policies that destabilized
the Middle East and only increased international terrorism. Since then, another American enemy
has been manufactured in the form of the Russian Federation and its President, Vladimir Putin,
who drew the ire of the West after a resurgent Moscow under his leadership began to contain
U.S. hegemony. This reached a crescendo during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election with the
dubious accusations of election interference made by the same intelligence agencies that sold
the pack of lies that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. The establishment has even
likened the alleged intrusion by Moscow to 9/11.
If a comparison between the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and the still
unproven allegations of Russian meddling seems outrageous, it is precisely such an analogy that
has been made by Russiagate's own biggest proponents, from neoconservative
columnist Max Boot to Hillary
Clinton herself . Truthfully, it is the climate of hysteria and dumbing down of discourse
to such rigid dichotomies following both events where a real similarity can be drawn. The 'with
us or against us' chasm that followed 9/11 has reemerged in the 'either/or' post-election
polarity of the Trump era whereby all debate within the Overton window is pigeonholed into a
'pro vs. anti-Trump' or 'pro vs. anti-Russia' false dilemma. It is even perpetrated by some on the
far left , e.g. if one critiques corporate media or Russiagate, they are grouped as
'pro-Trump' or 'pro-Putin' no matter their political orientation. This dangerous atmosphere is
feeding an unprecedented wave of censorship of dissenting voices across the spectrum.
In his final years, not only did Edward Said condemn the Bush administration but highlighted
how corporate media was using bigoted tropes in its representations of Arabs and Muslims to
justify U.S. foreign policy. Even though it has gone mostly undetected, the neo-McCarthyist
frenzy following the election has produced a similar travesty of caricatures depicting Russia
and Vladimir Putin. One such egregious example was a July 2018 article in the
Wall Street Journal entitled "Russia's Turn to Its Asian Past" featuring an illustration
portraying Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan. The racist image and headline suggested that Russia
is somehow inherently autocratic because of its past occupation under the Mongol Empire during
its conquest of Eastern Europe and the Kievan Rus state in the 13th century. In a conceptual
revival of the Eurocentric trope of Asiatic or Oriental despotism, the hint is that past
race-mixing is where Russia inherited this tyrannical trait. When the cover story appeared,
there was virtually no outcry due to the post-election delirium and everyday fear-mongering
about Russia that is now commonplace in the media.
The overlooked casual racism used to demonize Russia in the new Cold War's propaganda
doesn't stop there. One of the main architects of Russiagate, former Director of National
Intelligence James R. Clapper, in an
interview with NBC's Meet the Press on the reported meddling stated :
"And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically
driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were
concerned."
Clapper, whose Office of the DNI published the Intelligence Community Assessment
(ICA) "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections", has been widely
praised and cited by corporate media as a trustworthy source despite his previous history of
making intentionally false statements at a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee
denying that the National Security Agency (NSA) was unconstitutionally spying on U.S.
citizens.
The disclosures of NSA activities by whistleblower Edward Snowden that shocked the world
should have discredited Clapper's status as a reliable figure, but not for mainstream media
which has continuously colluded with the deep state during the entire Russia investigation. In
fact, the scandal has been an opportunity to rehabilitate figures like the ex-spymaster
complicit in past U.S. crimes from surveillance to torture. Shortly after the interview with
NBC, Clapper repeated his prejudiced sentiments against Russians
in a speech at the National Press Club in Australia:
"But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not
going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United
States and to Western democracies."
The post-election mass Trump derangement has not only enabled wild accusations of treason to
be made without sufficient evidence to support them, but such uninhibited xenophobic remarks to
go without notice or disapproval.
In fact, liberals have seemingly abandoned their supposed progressive credence across the
board while suffering from their anti-Russia neurological disorder. In an exemplar of yellow
journalism, outlets like NBC News published sensational articles
alleging that because of the perceived ingratiation between Trump and Putin, there was an
increase in Russian 'birth tourism' in the United States. More commonly known by the pejorative
'anchor babies', birth tourism is the false claim that many immigrants travel to countries for
the purpose of having children in order to obtain citizenship. While there may be individual
cases, the idea that it is an epidemic is a complete myth -- the vast majority of
immigration is motivated by labor demands and changes in political or socio-economic factors in
their native countries, whether it is from the global south or Eastern Europe. Trump has been
rightfully criticized for promoting this falsehood regarding undocumented immigrants and his
executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, but it appears liberals are willing to
unfairly apply this same fallacy toward Russians for political reasons.
This connected continents of Europe and Asia have 70% of the world population, so it is the
center of the world. But the United States is not a local power, it's thousands of miles away
from it. Therefore, the US NEEDS conflicts in Europe and Asia to maintain its influence in
the world stage and its status of "safe haven for capita", as it found out in WW2 that can be
very profitable.
Peace and integration in Europe and Asia is the last thing the US wants. This is why it'd
try its hardest to stir up tension in Europe, Asia and MiddleEast. The Russians were naive to
believe it was about Communism.
World dominance has been very profitable for the capital class, whether the cost for world
dominance worth it for the working class, is open for debate, as citizens of the dominate
nation enjoy nice benefits too.
Just how
weak a president has Donald Trump become? For an illustration, see a terrific Washington
Post article on the
foreign-policy decision-making process since John Bolton became Trump's national security
adviser. Or, rather, the absence of anything resembling a process.
As Heather Hurlburt
pointed out when Bolton took the job, he's ill-suited for it. Bolton is a policy advocate,
not the honest broker that the position calls for. That's a particular problem for Trump.
Because the president is inexperienced in national-security matters, he doesn't know whether
Bolton is speaking for the experts on a policy question or just advocating for his own
preferences. Because Trump knows little about the executive branch, Bolton can use his
bureaucratic skills to advance his own agenda -- including impeding Trump's plan to withdraw
U.S. troops from Syria.
This isn't to say that Bolton's policies are necessarily wrong; that's for others to judge.
But it creates a real problem for the presidency when top advisers are looking out for their
own interests and not the president's.
On this point, Ronald Reagan's administration is instructive. By all accounts, Reagan was
more informed about policy than Trump is. He was also a pragmatic politician, capable of
compromising or even backing down entirely when it was in his interests. Reagan's weakness,
however, was that he could be curiously passive at times, and (like many presidents) too easily
swayed by anecdotes. That meant he needed high-level staffers who could serve as honest
brokers. His first-term chief of staff, James Baker, allowed him to make good decisions.
Baker's replacement, Donald Regan, failed to do so. Partly as a result, Reagan's presidency had
almost completely collapsed by the time Regan was fired amid the Iran-Contra scandal.
Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation
(October 31, 1998)
"The United States Government would view with particular gravity direct threats to Israel's
security arising from the regional deployment of ballistic missiles of intermediate range or
greater.
In the event of such a threat, the United States Government would consult promptly with the
Government of Israel,
with respect to what support, diplomatic or otherwise, or assistance, , it can lend to
Israel."
Realize as an indirect result of the USA withdrawing from the INF and accusing Russia of
having IRBM's(600 mile range , and the Crimiea being only 800 miles from Israel , this
immediately gave Israel carte' blanche for any and all defense "requests" the foreseeable
future. This goes beyond even the previous status of Iran for all concerns presenting an IRBM
threat as well.
There is also the default alliance created by the USA recently building an Airbase inside
the bounds of Israel's Mashabim Air Base, near Dimona, that any air or actual missile attack on
Israel will be considered an attack that threatened or was toward a US military
installation.
They got the US permanently allied/tied covering their butts . No need for further
acknowledgment in writing required IMO.
Trump actually proved to be very convenient President to CIA., Probably as convenient as Obama... Both completely outsourced
foreign policy to neocons and CIA )in this sense the appointment of Pompeo is worst joke Trump could play with the remnants of
US democracy_ .
Notable quotes:
"... "The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street." ..."
"... "It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads." ..."
"... Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria. In contrast, Trump dismissed America's practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups. ..."
"... "So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted," Greenwald argued. "Clinton's was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him." ..."
"... But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. ..."
"... He also points out the left's hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable. ..."
And on the heels of
Dennis Kucinich's warnings , The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with
the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous.
As TheAntiMedia's Carey Wedler notes ,
Greenwald asserted in
an interview with Democracy Now, published on Thursday, that this boils down to a fight between the Deep State and the Trump administration.
Though Greenwald has argued the leaks were "wholly justified" in spite of the fact they violated criminal law, he also questioned
the motives behind them.
"It's very possible - I'd say likely - that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble," he wrote. "Whatever else is true,
this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries
in the Trump White House."
"The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies:
the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the
Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement
of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street."
As Greenwald explained during his interview:
"It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate
disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the
world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads."
Greenwald believes this division is a result of the Deep State's disapproval of Trump's foreign policy and the fact that the intelligence
community overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton over Trump because of her hawkish views. Greenwald
noted that Mike Morell,
acting CIA chief under Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and NSA under George W. Bush, openly spoke out against Trump
during the presidential campaign.
Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria.
In contrast, Trump dismissed America's practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead
advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups.
"So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted," Greenwald argued. "Clinton's was
exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout
the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him."
"[In] the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few
days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside
the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made."
Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of
undermining Trump is dangerous. "Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated
and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving," he said, likely alluding to a recent court ruling that nullified Trump's travel
ban.
He continued:
"But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to
urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity."
He argues that mentality is "a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it," highlighting that members
of both prevailing political parties are praising the Deep State's audacity in leaking details of Flynn's conversations.
As he wrote in his article, " it's hard to put into words how strange it is to watch the very same people - from both parties,
across the ideological spectrum - who called for the heads of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, and so many other Obama-era
leakers today heap praise on those who leaked the highly sensitive, classified SIGINT information that brought down Gen. Flynn."
He also points out the left's hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence
during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable.
@Felix
Keverich You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little
fart ? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or
do you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?
The Ukraine certainly had all kinds of 'entrepreneurs' they're called OLIGARCHS who
very capably enriched themselves unfortunately 'entrepreneurs' are what normal people would
call parasites, flim-flam men and hucksters
As for Ukrainian workers lacking 'marketable skills' I guess that would be 'skills' like
TROLLING, your specialty and making retarded statements on discussion fora
Ukraine had more very qualified engineers per capita than any country in Europe a huge
amount of intellectual capacity, and a very good industrial base especially in high tech
areas like aerospace and propulsion their problem was that they chose to play games with the
rotten west, instead of friendship with Russia, with which their industry was
integrated
You're a complete wanker in the A. Karlin mold. Get lost you have nothing to
contribute
@Big
Bill They fought that it was Russia, that was holding them back, and by separating they
could quickly achieve Western European standard of living. The first guy to become
president of independent Ukraine promised people that they were going to "live like France"
.in 5 years (!). lol
So their plan was something like this:
Lately, they began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU
membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results
You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart
? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do
you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?
Your industries are worth ZERO, if you're unable to sell your products, and the Ukraine
struggled to sell its manufactured goods after 1991. Its traditional customer – Russia
began to import Western goods.
You sound like Martyanov. lol It doesn't take any "special qualification" to figure out
that Soviet-era factories were churning out worthless crap – there is a reason why that
system fell apart, you know.
"... Face it. Mass production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1 wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress ..."
"... Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc. ..."
"... With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc. ..."
"... The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant memory. ..."
"... Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero. ..."
War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.
Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition.
It all war, all the time and another point to remember is that there is always a war between
the .001% and the rest of us.
Another thing is that we proles, peasants and peons should give some serious thought to
having the "elite" fight their own battles, on their "own" (though mostly stolen) shekels for
once. Read More Agree: foolisholdman Reply
Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
Feb 15, 2019 Next Phase, Xi & Trump, Coordinate The Transition
US industrial production plunges, this doesn't mean that manufacturing jobs are not coming
back to the US this means the [CB] is deteriorating quickly as Trump brings back
manufacturing.
Feb 16, 2019 Pentagon Warns of Chinese Space Lasers | China News Headlines
A new Pentagon report says #China and Russia have developed #laser weapons to target US
satellites. Need a Space Force?
governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and
covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is
already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.
Looked at this way, there are countless wars all the time as well as a huge gray area that
is debatable. I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing in both
directions. Even then, there are gray areas, but at least they are minimized
"The time and investment required to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means
much of what's left of America's real economy would disappear within weeks.
American trade negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird."
Of course they're not oblivious, as you can see everytime the stock market goes down, some
US official came out to say a deal/talk is on the way. Both the negotiators and the market
know.
They're just betting on enough pressure will force China to surrender, like Japan did in
the 80s.
@Erebus In the distant past
there were at least 1000 PC Board manufacturers in the US .now there are only 2 or 3. Most US
PCB houses are actually a middleman with an iphone fronting for one of the many Chinese PCB
factories. You supply the Gerber Files and the payment, of course, and your finished PC
Boards come back by air the next day.
Now here is the kicker: our US PC Board supplier is
located in Illinois and owned by you guessed it Hindus. Half the staff are also Hindus. In
general, the Chinese PCBs are of higher quality than the Hindu .er US PCBs.
Face it. Mass
production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important
industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1
wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the
diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress
Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on
year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich
in minerals, timber, water, etc.
With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy
(induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is.
Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence
politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild
gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc.
Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian
(Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of
money, or in government.
With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West
had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and
knowledge.
China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but as
soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S. factories
withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find markets in
Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.
People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.
The atalantacist strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up
with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires
first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further,
the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and
are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not
recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.
@Alfa158 Alternatively, one
could examine a nations ability to rapidly expand their economy to meet wartime needs. In
this scenario, other factors such as access to raw materials come into play. In this
perspective, the equations would change dramatically.
I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing
Why limit it to that? I'd say there's plenty of merit in the author's definition especially since it would tend
to shed some lights on the origins of major conflicts.
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both Russia
and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance in hell
of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The more it
goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.
So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the
decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU
will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then
the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.
The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and is
now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the next
wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big
question is how much suffering before it ends.
@jacques
sheete The author's definition makes the term a purely rhetorical one tantamount to an
angry child saying "this means war!" to another angry child, or "The War on Drugs" or "The
Battle of the Sexes" etc.
Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth the
time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.
Klare discovers the US crusade against China – 8 years after the Obama/Hillary "pivot"
to East Asia sending 2/3 of the US Navy there and putting together the TPP to excluded China.
As usual he is right on top of things.
And he begins with this gem: " "The media and many politicians continue to focus on
U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016
American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation." Huh? Does he mean the
$4700 in Google ads or the $50,000 in Facebook ads traced to some alleged Russian sources? A
Russiagater from the start.
I remember some years ago before the shale revolution Klare was warning us about "peak oil."
I think we were supposed to have run out of it by now.
Klare is a hack who cycles things that any conscious person reading the newspapers would have
known long ago.
P.s. He says that Apple is the number one cell phone. No longer. He should improve his
Google search skills or his set of assumptions which have turned him into a Russiagater.
Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/
). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot
find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You
find Huawei everywhere – from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped
purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the
islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its
best citizens .
I don't think it's simple "Eastern" vs "Western" Europeans; my take is Protestants vs
Catholics vs Orthodox. In that order. The biggest difference is between Protestant and
Orthodox. Catholics are, sort of, in the middle.
Or, in practical terms, don't see much difference between Austrians and Slovenes.
That's for Europe.
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade
war we are misusing the word war.
War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people.
Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.
Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth
the time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.
I agree on all four points.
However, if you didn't want a debate, or at least a response, then why did you bother
bringing it up? (That's a rhetorical question, since I neither expect nor really care what
the response would be; now I'm asking myself why I bothered !!!)
Russia under Putin is an exporter of non GMO grains where as the U.S. exports GMO grains
thatt the Chinese do not want as these GMO grains are a destuctive to humans and
animals.
I hope that's true. To Hell with that GMO crap!!! Anyone using it for farming ought to be forced to drink
glyphosate straight for breakfast.
As far as the war with China goes, we ain't seen nothing yet. It won't be pretty, especially
considering that the US is starting it with severe self-inflicted wounds.
Yes, and the ads were often absurd – one somehow featuring Yosemite Sam and gun rights
and another for a dildo, I believe. Great for click bait maybe but not real winners for a
campaign.
As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for
everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2
billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high
and low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the
Russobots.
I don't think China stands the chance. As we all know diversity is strength and China is
mono-cultured rather than the obviously superior multi. So China will continue to decline,
while US goes from strength to strength thanks to its brilliant, brilliant multicultural
philosophy.
China was dumb enough to try real socialism, while obviously the fake one is the way to
go. You convince your domestic population of your humanitarian credentials – via the
phony socialism, plus you don't have to share a cent with them. How clever is that? Phony
socialism is the way to go – it eliminates the need for the real one.
At some point one must consider that this is all a fraud. In Washington Ocasio-Cortez and the
Democrats are proposing to eviscerate the US economy with their Green New Deal. While here we
find Washington launching a long term struggle for economic, political, and military
superiority over China.
As was once said in another context by an individual remembered in history, "What is
truth?" A question which either revealed his own puzzlement or was simply a rhetorical
dismissal of the question altogether. Likely both at the same time. One can be simply bemused
by the turn of events.
Is all this activity simply a song and dance to entertain, terrify, confuse, and amuse the
public while the real ordering of the world takes place behind closed doors? Put
Ocasio-Cortez together with the Pentagon and we have apparently a commitment by the US to
force the entire world to immolate itself. No state shall be superior to the US and the US
shall be a third world hellhole. Cui bono?
@joe
webb Russia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged international
banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced them to ally
against a common threat: dying demented Empire.
As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including
your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely
made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great
your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff,
write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is
made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few
centuries you might get an answer.
In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not
Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.
Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the
Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in
2017.
At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to
something Russia wants to realize. And soon
Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now
that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally
understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.
In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered
by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already
become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China
in that direction.
Another hurdle, reported in the journal Nature this week, is that China is cleaning up
its air pollution. That sounds great for pollution-weary Chinese citizens. But
climatologists point out that some of that air pollution had actually been cooling the
atmosphere, by blocking out solar radiation. Ironically, less air pollution from China
could mean more warming for the Earth.
@AnonFromTN Frankly, I
really don't give a damn about what you say. But do not use racial slurs FIRST. I use racial
slurs ONLY in RESPONSE to the comments that contain them, in retaliation. If you don't use
racial slurs, I wouldn't either.
@DB
Cooper DB,
Thanks for the PCB mfg video. Asian roboticized surface mount assembly plants are even more
impressive. At one time supplied specialized instrumentation to the FN factory in South
Carolina where the 50 cal machine guns are made, and received a tour. Crude by Asian
standards, but efficient in its own way. Base price on a 50 LMG at the time was $5k without
any of the extras: tripod, flash suppressor, water cooling, advanced night vision sights,
etc. Base price would be $10k by now. The US Guv does not allow this kind of production to go
offshore .but apparently cares not a jot about the production of consumer electronics, a
massive and growing worldwide market.
Have read the Chinese shops assemble $1000 I-pods for
as little as $5 each including parts sourcing, making domestic production here impractical.
Surprisingly, the Germans manage to produce high end electronics and their manufacturing
labor rates are even higher than North America. Says something about the skill and diligence
level of the US workforce ..where just passing a drug test and not having felonies or bad
credit is a major achievement.
@Anonymous Yes, it is quite
off putting, even though most of the article is quite sound. Possibly Klare was obliged to
add this bit of nonsense in order to get it published in TomDispatch but who knows.
@nsa
A good friend supplies hi-end PCBs to EU & RU electronics mfrs, particularly in DE.
Judging by the numbers I hear, hi-end electronics is still very much alive in Europe while
it's all but dead in NA.
It's a capital intensive business, and raw labour cost is a minor component in the total
cost of doing business. NA has put so many socio-political obstructions & regulatory
costs in the way that even at min wage it makes no business sense to locate there. I doubt it
would make sense even with free labour.
As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's manufacturing
ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural aspects as well
as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build a new one. I
explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago. NA still
"assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.
Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not
simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design
& production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.
Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used
cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.
Where a war begins – or ends – can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right,
'War' and 'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological
abstraction: the First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a
global war one week later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of
long duration. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were
positioning themselves to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were
defeated at the Battle of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.
Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham
Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and
advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History
shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense.
When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however destructive. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
The real conflict is a cultural/ideological war in which liberal democracy tries to apply
its system worldwide under the delusion that egalitarianism, freedom, your definition of
rights, is universal.
China will never accept this. Russia is already fighting back. Nor does any developing
country look like they will ever truly embrace western values. It's gonna be SWPLs + WEIRDs
vs The Rest of Humanity.
The new Cold War will last much longer than any trade issue and conflict over values will
always be the underlying motivation, until the west either ends its universalist crusade, or
abolishes liberal democracy within its own borders.
I would be more sympathetic with Klare's fear of cold war with China if he could just assure
me that Chinese writers are equally able to voice concern with their own government's side of
the equation.
History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some
else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however
destructive.
Pretty much, BUT, with one little difference re "some else's expense" now. M.A.D.
scenario.
Even limited exchange of thermonuclear M.I.R.V.s could affect everyone (even if somebody
can define that "limited" in the first place).
My take: we haven't developed, as species, along our capability for destruction.
Cheerful thought, I know.
Pepe Escobar says:
'US elites remain incapable of understanding China'
That's B.S., Pepe should've known better .
They dont 'misunderstand', they'r simply lying thru their teeth.
The following are all bald faced lies,
Classic bandits crying robbery.
Lawmaker: Chinese navy seeks to encircle US homeland
[bravo, This one really takes the cake !]
US Accuses China Of Preparing For World War III
US accuses China of trying to militarise and dominates space
USN have to patrol the SCS to protect FON for international shipping..
tip of an iceberg
Those who uttered such nonsense aint insane, stupid or cuz they 'misunderstand'
[sic] China. They know we know they'r telling bald faced lies
but that doesnt stop them lying with straight face .
This is the classic def of psychopaths:
people who'r utterly amoral, no sense of right or wrong, there's no such word as
embarrassment in their vocab.
Is it sheer coincidence that all the 5lies have been ruled by such breeds ?
Ask Ian Fleming's fundamental law of prob .
but why couldnt they produce one decent leader
in all of three hundred years.
5lies have more than their fair share of psychopaths no doubt, but surely not everybody is
like joe web and co., I know this for a fact. ?
Trouble is .
Washington DC is a veritable cesspool that
no decent man would want to dip his foot into it.
They might as well put it in the job requirement, 'Only psychopaths need apply '
Thats why in the DC cesspool, only the society's dregs rise up to the top.
A case of garbage in, garbage out .
A vicious circle that cant be fixed, except to be broken.
1) People from China PRC has as a people on the whole become quite disgusting. But please
exclude ppl from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibetans, Uyghurs etc. I confirm that PRC China people by
and large are now locusts of the world. I am one of them by birth. how did it happen? Deep
question for philosophers. It wasn't like this 60 years ago. some poisonous element entered
the veins of the collective, infected at least 70 percent. I worry for Russia due to its
inflated self confidence when dealing with PRC. Lake Baikal deal was almost sealed before it
got shelved. Still, using racial curses don't hurt anyone but yourself. All the big internet
advocates for Russia such as Orlov and Saker and Karlin don'tunderstand The Danger of China
PRC. If you understand then you have a responsibility to keep yourself décent and
respectable.
2) USA aside from its liberals and Zionist Jews etc. Has become a slowly stewing big asylum
for psychologically infantile and demented big babies. How did it happen again is a big
philosophical myth to me. Western Europe is sinking primarily because they came to resemble
the US. especially French and Brits and Spanish.
3) Russia is ruled by a few individuals with brains and maybe a bit of conscience but the
elite ruling class behave in such a way that one would conclude that they share the China PRC
virus, just not as advanced. Your basic Russian people are in a state of abject degradation
dejection, not changed all that much since 1990s. Only slightly ahead of the Ukrainians. If
one cares about Russia then shove aside 19th century naive romanticism and face reality.
4) A sustained and massive war by USA against China maybe the only miniscule chance
Greek/Christian civilization can be saved. Otherwise descend of history into thousand year
dark age. The latter is more likely due to advanced stage of brain dead disease gripping the
entire West.
If you have observed cities like Detroit or Greater Los Angeles than you know that "white
flight" as oppose to sycophancy is the end result of black or Hispanic populations reaching a
certain level. Whites leave and the US then has another internal third world like Detroit or
East LA.
It is a game of musical chairs where the white move into remote hinterlands, which develop
into suburbs or exurbs, then of course as these become population centers the blacks and
Hispanics enter them and the whites flee again.
What you will see is white flight from the US with the wealthiest whites simply moving to
other developed countries. The 1% would move to New Zealand or Tasmania.
The handicap for the USA in the confrontation is twofold its élite are in conflict
(and afraid, and contemptuous of) at least half of their own populace.
Plus, all the resources of all kinds directed to enterprises in the Middle East, subtracted
thusly from other enterprises.
Furthermore, there is the occasional bullying of Europe, and the continuous bullying of
Russia, yet more resource drains.
The USA spreads itself too thin, perhaps.
@peterAUS Chinese are
neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of peaceful coexistence,
treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.
Chinese believes we are now living in a rapidly changing world Peace, development,
cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our times. To keep up with the times,
we cannot have ourselves physically living in the 21st century, but with a mindset belonging
to the past stalled in the oldays of colonialism, and constrained by the zero-sum Cold War
mentality.
Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru the
win-win approaches.
@Китайский
дурак 2) The riddle reads simply: democracy,
multiracialism, economic welfare (no-limit printing of currency made possible by uncontested
military "overmatch").
I lived in the Philippines and would chalk that up to fairly typical of a country run by
China since it is effectively controlled by a syndicate of Fujian family cartels.
First, you have a choke-hold on the economy and wages are depressed to near starvation
levels.
Second, Chinese will bring corruption to the nth degree by bribing whichever politician
will serve their own interests at the expense of the public.
Thirdly, those Chinese who cannot succeed in business will get into the drug trade and
China and Taiwan has created the Philippines drug war by making meth.
Fourth, there are fiery pogroms when the local population react with "burnouts" and
innocent Chinese are killed.
This is on the horizon in Africa. Probably.
In the West, Chinese were held in check by Jews and WASPS and to some degree by
Malaysians. I see Africa becoming like the Philippines once Chinese can become citizens
there, however.
@Biff The Romans create a
desert and call it peace; British Empire imitated Roman Empire, USA is born out of British
Empire; so only the White People particular the Anglo-Saxon is not ready for peace or
salvation. But rest of the world has been waiting for peace or salvation for a long long
time.
Chinese are neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of
peaceful coexistence, treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.
Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our
times.
Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru
the win-win approaches.
Three options here:
Preferably,you are just pulling our legs. Not bad attempt, actually. Got me for a second.
Most likely, you are simply working. Sloppy and crude but, well, "you get what you pay
for". 50 Cent Army. Retired but needing money. Sucks, a?
Crazy and the least probable, you really believe in all that. Ah, well
@jeff
stryker Obviously you are brain washed by the 'god-fearing' morally defunct evil
'Anglo-Saxon', blaming every of your own failure on the Chinese just like what the Americans
and their Five-Eyes partners are doing right now.
The Filippino, the Malay and all the SE Asia locals have the guns not the Chinese, if the
Chinese do not hand over their hard earned money they will use what their ex-colonial masters
taught them since Vasco da Gama discovered the East Indies, masscared the Chinese and took it
all. The Dutch, Spanish, English, Japanese and the American all have done it before in order
to colonized the East Indies.
Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked
havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing,
looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, 'pious'
fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In fact it is hard to tell the
difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal
and barbaric to Asians until the Pearl Harbour incident.
For over seventy years the US has dominated Asia, ravaging the continent with two major
wars in Korea and Indo-China with millions of casualties, and multiple counter-insurgency
interventions in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, Pakistan and
Afghanistan. The strategic goal has been to expand its military and political power, exploit
the economies and resources and encircle China.
USA is 10,000 miles away on the other side of the Pacific. USA is not an Asian nation, and
American is an alien to Asia. American is a toxin and a plague to Asian, They have done
enough damage to Asian already, they are not wanted, not invited and not loved in Asia, go
home Yankee.
@peterAUS You should know
the White man has some fallacies built into their culture, such as they believe that the
White man's words must be taken as given truth, only the White man can invent and the White
man can succeed, and the Whte man's culture is the final form of civilization.
The West (Europeans and their offshoots like the American, Aussie, etc.) is where is now,
because of those hundreds of millions of people all over the world who were robbed and
murdered, those who become victims of their very madness of colonialism and orientalism, of
the crusades and the slave and Opium trades. Cathedrals and palaces, museums and theatres,
train stations – all had been constructed on horrid foundations of bones and blood, and
amalgamated by tears.
The West squandered all the wealth they obtained thru stealing, looting and murdering
hundreds of millions of people all over the world in the scrabbling of a dog-eat-dog play
rough over the monopoly to plunder the rest of the world through two World Wars, one on the
edge of Armageddon, and on the verge of another Armageddon. It proves the West is incapable
of bringing peace and prosperity to the mankind because of their flawed culture, civilization
and religion. The chaos and suffering of the world in the last few hundreds of years under
the dominance the West proves they are a failure.
Human beings deserve better, we need to depart from the chaotic and harmful world order
and path established by the moronic West. China proposed a new way of life, a win-win
approach for the well-being of mankind like Belt-Road-Initiative to build and trade the world
into peace, harmony and prosperity. The West should not be the obstacle for achieving such
refreshing winner for all initiative. The West should embrace the new approach proposed by
China because the West will benefit from it. I call upon you, let go the old, obsolete,
failed and detrimental believe passed onto you by your colonialist forebears please, welcome
the new era.
As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's
manufacturing ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural
aspects as well as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build
a new one. I explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago.
NA still "assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.
Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not
simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design
& production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.
Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used
cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.
All true, leaving the question of what happens to North America before it reaches the
African street market economy (low tech, low investment, low trust, basic products, vibrant
and over each morning).
The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western
European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant
memory.
Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style
Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the
current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero.
If Chinese took over the world it would look like the Philippines.
Shabu labs everywhere? Corrupt politicians blowing away homeless squatters when some
Chinese guy wanted to build a shopping center or Chinese arsonists setting squats on fire?
Dictators living off wages Chinese don't want to pay exploited peasants?
No thanks, the whites don't want Chinese family cartels running our economies. We can see
the harm you have done in Burma, Philippines etc.
@jeff
stryker This Joe Wong is obviously a WuMao (professional trolls paid by Beijing to parrot
their government's pathological propaganda). Any mainland Chinese who can read will confirm
this fact. It is not worth your time to deal with folks like him.
@jeff
stryker Australians, Philippines, Singaporeans, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Russians,
Italians, Japanese,Mongolians, Koreans, New Zealanders, a tiny anguished minority of mainland
Chinese themselves, everyone has gotten the mail, everyone has seen them on the streets,
everyone understood -- what a Beijing lorded world shall be like, coffee beans in the
morning. Americans are last in getting the news. Americans can be dim witted. Too many Nobel
winning economists and globalist bankers in America. And China is the gift of these white
people to the world.
@peterAUS thanks and if you
are a young man, congrats for your rationality. I am old, but probably have ten or 20 years
left, if not all those years real fit.
The young guys need to not fuc themselves up with regard to earning a living .keep your
mouth shut , sort of, and your name protected.
I hope a new generation of "White Nationalists" come along sans Hitlerism. Stay rational,
with just the facts M'am if you don't recall that line it was Dragnet and Detective Jack Webb
I think .you are young, Congrats.
Stick to the facts, keep your ego under control, keep a smile on your face .. Buddhist
wisdom to spread a little love around and it is essential for snaring a woman.
The Facts are with us. The Future is with us, including hard times, civil war, and so on.
The Sentimental Lie (Joseph Conrad) of race equality cannot stand for long.
@jeff
stryker Australian people nowadays are far less wrapped up in America than at any time
that I can remember but Australian politicians are just as bought and paid for as are those
in the US.
Australians generally are much more well travelled than most Americans and have been to
various places both in Asia and Europe, especially the UK. Despite having seen the longer
term results of "diversity" with their own eyes they overwhelmingly seem to think that things
will somehow work out differently in Australia. To even suggest that mass immigration from
the third world is a ticking time-bomb is to be branded a racist of the very worst kind.
"The best way for the US to win a war over China is not to outsource their labor
there."
Too bad you don't get to decide what "the best way for the US" is, no matter how many
times you vote America has owners, and the owners aren't the average Americans.
PS. Philippines is just the poor-man version of USA. Does the American capitalist class
have many concerns for their working class? The money class are all the same.
Your rant about Chinese of SE Asia is also quite similar with that of American Whites for
the Jews, or South African Blacks for the Whites, just only on economic side, not
politics.
Filipinos are nothing but semi retarded 85 IQ trying hard Americans, the vast majority who
are too stupid to copy the better parts of US high culture, and so ape and cargo cult the
trashiest and lowest of the low parts of US culture, or maybe low IQ Austronesians are just
prone to overall trashiness unless they are regulated by a somewhat draconian conservative
culture like Muslim Malays are.
@Китайский
дурак Perhaps some Russians like you are willing to live
under the Anglo-Saxon's dominance, submitted to Anglo-Saxon's zero-sum, beggar-thy-neighbour,
negative energy infested cult culture, and try to talk like them and walk like them, but not
everybody is like those feeble Russians. Other people has their long history, culture and
identity to protect. Please do not smear other people's integrity because you are lack of it.
If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air
missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace We dictate the way they
live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now . It's a good thing,
especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.
Comments about the bombing of Iraq in the late 1990s, which he directed. Interview
Washington Post (August 30, 1999); quoted in Rogue State, William Blum, Common Courage Press,
2005, p. 159.
William Blum,
RIP
Somebody should do an autopsy on him !
In korea, a UN coaliton force , bristling with bombers, jet fighters, complete air
superiority.no less. Tanks, artilleries, carbines, couldnt subdue the PLA fighting with ww1
vintage rifles.
There is never any UN coalition force in Korea war. Its a illegal US led aggression, known
as Unified/United Command, in violating of UNSC charter. US deceived UN by using 'United
Command' in its letterhead when communicating. And then go ahead to lie shamelessly using UN
name.
By acting before the Security Council could act, the US was in violation of Article 2(7)
of the UN Charter which requires a Security Council action under Chapter VII before there
is any armed intervention into the internal affairs of another nation unless the arms are
used in self-defense. (See Article 51 of the UN Charter. The US armed intervention in Korea
was clearly not an act of self defense for the US.) Also the actions of the UN have come to
be referred to as the actions of the "United Nations Command"(UNC), but this designation is
not to be found in the June and July 1950 Security Council resolutions authorizing
participation in the Korean War. (3) What is the significance of the US using the UN in
these ways?
The current US military command in South Korea claims to wear three hats: Command of US
troops in South Korea, Combined Forces Command (US and South Korean troops), and "United
Nations Command" with responsibilities with respect to the Armistice. The United Nations,
however, has no role in the oversight or decision making processes of the "United Nations
Command". The US Government is in control of the "United Nations Command". The use by the
US of the designation "United Nations Command", however, creates and perpetuates the
misconception that the UN is in control of the actions and decisions taken by the US under
the "United Nations Command".
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (more commonly referred to as North Korea) has
called for disbanding the "United Nations Command"(UN Command). At a press conference held
at the United Nations on June 21, 2013, the North Korean Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador
Sin Son Ho argued that the actions of the US Government using the designation "United
Nations Command" are not under any form of control by the United Nations. (4) Since the UN
has no role in the decision making process of what the US does under the title of the
"United Nations Command", North Korea contends the US should cease its claim that it is
acting as the "United Nations Command".
Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006, China has been the world's
largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip service they accept no binding
target for reduction; quite the opposite.
Pls has slight decency to check before spewing nonsense.
According to Nasa, China has planted & expanded forest the size of Amazon,
contributing 1/4 of global greenery effort.
Its now working on massive irrigation projects in Tibet & Xinjiang, including dams
that will overshadow 3Gorges. These will convert arid Xinjiang into another green agriculture
pasture & food basket providing economic to it landlocked natives.
China's effort to roll back desertification is also very impressive, converting thousands
of hectares deserts into green forest using proprietary planting method.
It has built world most hydropower stations & dams in China, and help built in Asia,
Africa with grants & subsidized loan. Forefront in reusable energy, EV, solar.
And China is the staunchest supporter of CO2 emission control with solid actions, when US
write off Kyoto treaty in Paris as hoax.
what's about Spore that have 75% majority Chinese mainly come from Fujian too, HK,
Taiwan!? Do they fare well & very safe, or a shithole filled with drugs & crimes that
you projected to be?
And then compare with Chinese minority countries:
Msia with 25% Chinese contributing 70% economy, Indonesia 3% Chinese contributing 70%
economy.
Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, .
It seems that the more Chinese % a country has, the more its prosperous & safe, vice
versa. So Chinese is in fact the main economic & safety contributing factor, instead of
the other way round you painted.
If Chinese are indeed as evil as you make out to be, then China will be worst than India,
dysfunctional like Philippines, completely crimes & drugs infested like Mexico. Yet China
today is biggest growing economy in real ppp, and world safest country well surpassing nearly
all whites countries. No?
Vietnam tried to purge Chinese ethics under Ho Chih Min anti-China policy, ended paralyzed
its entire economy until Chinese were brought back to help. Today its still the Chinese
ethics controlling its majority economy & ruling elites.
Indonesia Prez Suharto slaughtered million of Chinese ethics under Yanks CIA instigation
to coup pro-China Prez Sukarno, and their economy suffered. Suharto later brought back
Chinese to run 70% of economy, while his cronies suck off remaining.
Malaysia Mahatir had forthright admonished his disgruntled Malays complaining about 20%
Chinese controlling 70% economy. He famously said Malays race by inheritance is lazy and bad
in economic, screwing up every gov granted projects & handouts. So let the skillful
Chinese take care of all business, and Malays can tax on them to make Malaysia prosperous.
All subsequent leaders follow that policy, and the result is continuous economy growth.
Myanmar purged Chinese after independent, immediately encountered dysfunction economy.
Today its still relying on Chinese ethic to support the main economy behind.
Thailand, Cambodia, Laos didn't purge Chinese ethics, and Chinese are similarly their main
economy contributors.
There is one common observation in all these countries, where ever Chinese live, they are
mostly law obedient, work diligently and eventually established in businesses contributing to
most prosperity.
Whereas in majority Catholics Philippines, are literally controlled by Vatican appointed
bishops, who forbid contraceptive & divorce, directly causing its explosive population,
leading to grave poverty & crimes. These bishops are also colluding with corrupted
politicians to dictate election outcome using their churh influence.
When pro-China Prez Duerte declared war on drugs with China help is achieving good result,
these West-appointed bishops are leading their followers in full force to oppose, all in syn
with West govs 'human rights'. Dont that smell fishy?
So will Philippines be better off without Chinese? Im not sure, just like whites, some
Chinese are also ruthless crimals. But your sweeping statements & allegation certainly is
fundamentally flawed.
But CIA has been plotting anti-Chinese ethic riots in Asean for a long time as part of
China containment plan. Previously Denk posted one article on this.
@TT
Your description of Malaysians as lazy and stupid is why Indonesians kill ethnic Chinese and
not some CIA plot. That's the thinking right there that motivates Malays to dislike ethnic
Chinese.
China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded with
them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos
continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.
Philippines has the additional post-colonial curse of Mestizo half-breed Spanish
landowning and political class of "Hacienderos" while Malaysians are unified under Islam.
Since these Spanish-blooded elite are part-white, some of the blame for the problems in the
Philippines can be attributed to whites.
As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration
allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive
ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.
"An emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an
outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost."
They will fail. The United States, like Carthage, is doomed to lose its struggle for
dominance; too many things are running against it. Not only does China have the far larger
population, but consider the following factors that run in their favor:
1. Like the US, China has a highly advanced and productive agriculture industry, making
them all but immune to nation-killing food blockades.
2. China has an average IQ that may approach Japan's before it levels out; Japan is
insanely outsized in terms of competitiveness, mainly due to its intelligent, group-oriented
population, so imagine how much stronger China could be.
3. China is geographically situated in the heart of the world's economic engine, Asia.
This puts China in prime position to break out from US dominance and, potentially, even
surround the Americans by making their trading partners their vassals.
4. The US is located far away and in a fairly unimportant region of the world. It will be
difficult for the US to get reinforcements to the Asian theater in the advent of a conflict.
American allies know this, so they will be predisposed to making peace with the Chinese as
the power balance continues to shift in China's favor.
5. Universalist dogma outsourced to American satellites Australia and New Zealand will
eventually make both countries Chinese vassals. Sometime in this century both countries will
have majority Asian populations due to immigration. Polls have repeatedly shown that Asian
immigrants have positive feelings towards the Chinese, despite the propaganda efforts of the
Americans. Take a look at what the Israel Lobby has accomplished and imagine what a future
China Lobby in those countries will do. Also, there is virtually no way to stop this from
eventually happening as this diversity dogma is spouted by the US at the highest level and is
now deeply ingrained in its future Chinese satellites. Before the end of the century, the
Chinese will have naval bases in both countries and the US will have none.
6. China is free from the social-trust killing, national ethos-sapping political
divisiveness seen in the US – no feminism, no attacks on its majority Han population.
America, on the other hand, is beset with hundreds of hate hoaxes targeted at its most
important demographic, white males – the group that disproportionately dies in its
wars, invents its best technology, and exports the best elements of its culture. If there is
a military conflict between China and the United States ten years hence, expect the critical
white male demographic to sit it out.
7. The Chinese are deeply patriotic and nationalistic. The US has experienced an
unprecedented decline in patriotism according to polls; that trend will continue. Therefore,
there is little appetite in the US for confrontation. This as a hungry China chomps at the
bit to show everyone who "the real ruler of the world is", a concept I sometimes see floated
on their social media.
8. The US is rapidly losing cultural influence due to a diminished Hollywood. The last
several American tent poll films, for instance, have crashed in Asia. Meanwhile movies like
Alita: Battle Angel (adapted from a Japanese anime) have done well in that market while doing
not so well in the US (and coming under immense fire from SJW gatekeepers for portraying a
female as something other than a weirdo). This means that tastes are diverging between the
two markets, a trend the Chinese can exploit in the future due to shared tastes across the
region and American inability to make anything other than low-quality superhero movies.
Hollywood is also now pretty much incapable of making the kinds of movies Asians (and
Europeans) used to see – science fiction, fantasy, and action/adventure movies –
due to rampant anti-white male hate and an industry focused on other demographics. Gone are
the movies like Robocop, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Die Hard, The Terminator, The Lord of The
Rings, and the Matrix. Gone because the white guys who made them are aging out of the
industry (or changing genders) and now all Hollywood wants to make are infantile superhero
movies for the Idiocracy demographic.
And did you see the Oscars this year? What an embarrassment. They actually nominated Black
Panther for Best Picture. I can't imagine anyone in Asia cares. They couldn't even get a
host.
9. The Chinese are primed to dominate influential cultural industries like video games in
a way that the Americans cannot due to checklist diversity requirements and the many
anti-male gatekeepers within the industry.
The video game industry is now three times the size of Hollywood and much more influential
than Hollywood for the youth. When technology and budgets are not a limiting factor,
politically-incorrect nations like Japan dominate over large American corporations like
Microsoft. The American video game industry, led by Microsoft, has effectively zero influence
in Asian nations due to American corporate greed, developer laziness, checklist diversity,
feminism, and a short-sighted strategy of broadly targeting low quality material to low
quality people (stupid FPS games).
Microsoft has been crushed so badly by the Japanese that they are now putting their
software on the Nintendo Switch; they simply cannot compete on any level. Meanwhile, Chinese
cultural influencers grow in power. They await only a maturation in Chinese taste and a
forward-thinking export policy but it will come. China's Tencent already owns a significant
stake in Epic Games, a streaming platform that will compete with America's Steam for
dominance of the huge online market.
One day, China will dominate their inferior American competition just as the Japanese and
Koreans have done. This bodes very badly for the US in the future, especially when you stop
to consider that all movies may be CGI in the future. The Chinese market is still immature,
but when it does mature, it will dominate – games, movies, music everything.
10. Divisive rhetoric promoted by the American elite and aimed at white European-Americans
– an effort to suppress white group solidarity – will eventually drive a wedge
between Europe and America that the Chinese, through their Russian ally, can exploit. You
already see a bit of this in Germany's refusal to cancel their gas pipeline (Nordstream 2, if
I recall), and Italy's defiance of the Empire over Venezuela. When racist American
politicians like Kamala Harris begin stealing money from European Americans and handing it to
blacks through reparations schemes, expect the Europeans to start thinking twice about their
relationship with this country.
After Trump loses in 2020, European elites will celebrate but not for long. Over the
following decade, both the far left (for economic reasons) and the far right (for ethnic
reasons) may unite against the United States. That will be made all the easier once the
United States is no longer able to elect a competent European as president. Europe isn't
going to want to be ruled over by someone of a different ethnic group that hates their
own.
11. China is unified in a way the US never can be again. China is 90% Han Chinese. The US
gets more diverse and divided by the day. Therefore, the Chinese public is more resilient to
conflict with rivals.
12. China's political model is far superior to their American counterpart. The Americans,
for instance, elect incompetent leaders through national popularity contests; said leaders
then rule only for favored interests. China, on the other hand, is run by smart people for
the benefit of all Chinese – the nation-state.
13. China's economic model is far superior to the corrupt, inefficient American corporate
model. Whereas China is a meritocracy not beset with crippling diversity requirements and
feminism. Tellingly, whenever the two models have gone head-to-head, such as in Africa, the
Chinese have won by a large margin. I see nothing that will change that in the future as that
would require a wholesale rethinking in the US of their basic philosophies, both on the left
and the right and that is impossible at this point.
The US is a proposition nation, so dogma lies at the heart of civic life. The Chinese, in
contrast, are free to pick and chose from the best of each ideology and apply it where
warranted because they are a blood and soil nation – group interest comes first, not
allegiance to dogma. Everyone in the US is an extremist of some sort – socialist,
corporatist, environmentalist, etc. That's no way to run a government.
14. The US will soon lose the moral high ground. As the US devolves into a police state,
as it continues kicking dissidents off the internet and silencing whistle blowers (and
attacking nations like Iran and Venezuela), nations around the world will cease to see a
difference between the US and China. At that point, they my either go independent (perhaps in
alliance with India or Russia) or openly start to flirt with a Chinese alliance. After all,
what does it matter if both states are authoritarian? At least the Chinese don't have a
history of invading their competition.
15. The divided American public may not support more military spending over social service
spending; this likelihood will only increase in the future due to demographic changes. They
see that China has a competent single-payer medical program and will want the same for
themselves, not pay for missiles and guns for other people.
16. The US cannot pursue relationships with vital nations like Russia due its anti-male
and anti-European dogma, now infused into society at the highest levels. It will take decades
to erase that and by then it will be too late.
"Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a
US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity
will turn inwards into itself."
True. One day someone like Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams will be president. Will Europe
want to be ruled by non-Europeans who hate Europeans, want to tear down their monuments, and
steal their money for reparations payments?
"The USA has lost strategic air superiority, as well as strategic brain power. I wonder
how the USA would look after a week of retaliatory aerospace strikes?"
Like New Orleans after Katrina – a breakdown in the social order as all the diverse
groups start fighting each other and shooting at rescue efforts because they're morons and
thieves.
"Open the USA borders wide open and encourage 1 billion South Aemricans, Africans, SE
Asians and South Asians into the USA is the fastest and easiest way to close the human
resource gap between the USA and China."
How exactly is an efficient democracy supposed to work in that instance? Seems like
dysfunction, low social trust, and corruption would reign. Besides, the Chinese population
will still be far more intelligent overall, so no gap will be closed. The US should have
focused on immigration from Europe and increasing its white birth rate back in the 1970s.
They'd be in a far stronger position now if they had done that then.
@Anon Which West European
nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with crimes &
unemployment en masse?
May be some poor cousins of East European. But they will soon find US is worst than their
country, no good jobs, homeless without affordable accommodation, crime infested, their
whites is actually marginalized by diversification, LGBT conflict with their WASP value. Most
will want go back soon.
So its left with only choice of finest selection of 1.3B poor Indians, Latino, South
Americans, Africans & ME refugees willing to go anywhere just to get out of their
countries shithole.
When they arrived, hundreds of millions whites, Chinese & Asians will flee like been
no tomorrow.
Here it go, United States of Asshole is founded. Pls handover all nukes to UNSC before
implementing lest been exchange for food or use for heating in winter.
@jeff
stryker Its Malaysia PM Mahatir who said Malays are inheritingly lazy. Im just quoting.
Do educate yourself about CIA & Muslim politicians instigated riots against ethnic
Chinese before writing off in ignorant.
Spore was shielded from all these info distorted with West msm propaganda. I had only
learned about these details from Indonesian Chinese friends whose family had suffered these
trauma. After some readings, also Indonesia under current Chinese ethnic President Jokowi,
did all these CIA-Muslims Generals collision genocides been publicized. How about you, where
you got yours?
China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded
with them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos
continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.
Why did you say China didn't help Prez Duerte in drugs war, your Chinese philippino
mistress told you? Pls cite your evidence.
Its widely publicized in our msm, West msm that China gov working with Philippines police
to track & dry up many drugs supply, even donated rehab centers as part of long term
solution. So you mean all these West msm are lying to help China.
In your word, these shabu are make & sold by China gov? Or they are part of global
drug syndicates that operated in every countries including all West?
As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration
allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive
ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.
Let these unequal US FTA & India CECA speak itself. These were shoved into our PM LEE
ass to screw SG, allowing unlimited Indians of all kinds & their families to live &
work in SG, with their mostly internationally unrecognized qualifications mandatory to be
accepted.
Also both US & India nationals enjoy tax free in property investment, while Sporeans
& all foreigners subjected to 3% + 7% + 7% tax regimes, literally giving them a 10~17%
profits upfront.
Indians as " competitive " ethnic group to suppress SG Chinese, you are joking or
seriously think Indians IQ80 & its education is superior to Sg Chinese IQ107 that rank
consistently Top in SAT, PISA & Olympiad?
These are the dredge of India, violent drunkard, not those US get. Numerous are caught
with fake certificates when they simply could not even do the most basic task, near
illiterate. A documentary show was make to investigate how widespread & complex is it in
India, even there are someone stationed to pick up call as reference to certify everything.
These including medical MD cert, aka fake Indian Drs that India Health Ministry condemn
openly been so rampant up to 80% of India Drs(that was posted in one of Unz old discussion
2yrs ago)
@Erebus If both US &
China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading, who do you think can
last longer?
As you said, in mere wks, US will be paralyzed with every shelves empty & factories
shut down. Emergency declared with imports from other sources with much chaos. Frustrated,
nation wide civil riots may ensue with states like California, Texas, demanding
independent.
Whereas for China its life as usual with some restructuring, since it can live without
yanks useless financial services, msm & few chips easily replaced by EU/Jp or live
without. Airbus will be happy to replace Boeing.
China total export to US is ~$500B, 50% are imported components, so $350B damage is passed
back to US $250B(total US export to China) & global suppliers $100B.
That make China actual impact only $150B, $4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the
trade loss for >20yrs, while continue to expand its domestic consumption, BRI & global
trade to fuel growth.
But the world will be in chaos to get double impact of a totally collapsed US $21T GDP
& China import cut. With all economies stunt, global financial mkt burst, consumption all
dive, US allies turning to China for leadership & trade, a WW3 look imminent as yank is
left with only one product – weapons!
But not to worry, it should be very short one in yelling, as no yanks want to die with
empty belly, nor there are $ to pump vessels & bombers or resources to prepare long war.
Military is quickly paralyzed with desertion, & split between seperated states. There go
51 disUnited states of America.
So China is indeed discussing with yanks from great strength. But with farsight, they
prefer to settle yanks brinkmanship in Chinese humble & peaceful way.
I hope China can drag on until US can no longer conceal its pain with fake data,
screamming out loudly for truce to sign China dictates trade agreement. China need to teach
yank a painful lesson to humble it once & for all, including a WTO style unequal treaty
that yank shoved down china throat.
For all the refugees the US creates in the Mideast, it doesn't except many of them. Most
Iraqi and Afghani refugees have no hope of entering the US; European countries that protested
the war in Iraq end up absorbing the human cost.
As for the CIA cooperating with Muslims in anti-Chinese anything, I am skeptical. My
feeling about Indonesia is that a 3% minority owning everything and displaying contempt for
the natives as lazy savages is enough fuel ethnic hatred and Chinese backing of Suharto
didn't help things.
Indians don't represent job competition for Singapore, they are simply a basic menace to
your society. And it is possible that the US government, not wanting to see Singapore become
a vassal state of China, wanted your country's population to become more well,
diversified.
If both US & China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading,
who do you think can last longer?
China would take a hit, but not greater than the whole world could be expected to take.
Probably quite a bit less.
There's little doubt in my mind that China is in a much stronger position to both survive
and to be in a position to take advantage of the world's eventual recovery. As you note
$4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the trade loss for >20yrs
It also has the world's widest and deepest industrial infrastructure.
It's not only the $4T and the infrastructure. China also has a lot of gold within its
domestic system, which it can mobilize to make purchases from the the rest of the world's
staggered economies. Approx 20kT, by some quite carefully done estimates. Mobilizing that
gold, of course, is where things get tricky. The world would be awash with useless dollars
and how all that liability gets unwound would cause a lot of Central Bankers and their govts
a lot of sleepless nights.
"Which West European nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with
crimes & unemployment en masse?"
Quite a number of Europeans would have moved to the US circa 1965 – 1990 with the
countries then demographics, which was the point being made in the comment. The US is a huge
country with lots of space. In 1980, virtually all Eastern Europeans would have been better
off in almost any place in the US over where they were. The US Ruling Class had the chance
but cast it aside for lesser and more divisive groups so they could win elections and stiff
their workers. Even the US now is a mostly a better place to live than virtually any place in
Eastern Europe, and quite a number of places in overcrowded Western Europe – now filled
with Muslim invaders, rising crime, higher unemployment than the US, and yearly riots.
@Erebus One TV celebrity
went on crusade to expose Monsanto GMO toxicity impact in food chain few yrs ago.
He visited US & collected clinical evidences of GMO cancer causing from several US
professors, publicized them online. These force China gov to investigate, and their clinical
test too revealed mice & animals fed with GMO have huge tumors growing all over
shortly.
China agriculture minister was investigated, found to hold lucrative high pay job in
Monsanto taking bribery, and blanket approved all untested Monsanto GMO seeds, grains &
weed killer. Even those used as domestic animals feed but banned for wild animals in US were
introduced into food chain. Some also passed off as non GMO to plant in vast land not
approved for GMO.
About 30% of China food chain & vast agriculture lands contaminated, no longer
productive. That agri minister got arrested. No sure what China gov is doing about it. But
Prez Xi is hailing organic food. Tibets & Xinjiang have mega irrigation projects on going
now, might be to open up new agri lands to offset.
@jeff
stryker Tonnes of evidences on CIA-Muslim generals instigated riots & massacre since
1965. You choose to see otherwise.
A trove of recently released declassified documents confirms that Washington's role in the
country's 1965 massacre was part of a bigger Cold War strategy. https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/543534/
I couldn't find one article published in one unz comment by Denk?, where West msm
interviewing Indonesia biggest opposition party. Their chiefs had audacity to brag how they
will instigate another massive anti-Chinese riots to win next election.
The jews are much more vicious & open in controlling US, but you won't see CIA staged
riots & protest against their jewish masters Aipac.
Thailand Chinese ethnic are holding most economy too, but their politicians elites been
Chinese don't instigate riot against own ethnic to meddle election.
US government, not wanting to see Singapore become a vassal state of China, wanted your
country's population to become more well, diversified.
Its not diversification, its complete indianized with Weapon of Mass Migration, by jews
controlled US to push back China influence. As China refused to let jews control them!!! Its
also happening for Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius now.
Its Top to bottom all indians now in SG, 9% Indians with India new migrants controlling
75% Chinese & 15% Malays. Since when Indians have turn so great well surpass all Chinese
capability, over a short span of 10yrs since Obama's new balance in Asia Pacific started. Its
a regime change, silent coup.
Starting from Indian Prez, Indian DPM(a ex-criminal for leaking state secret data, he was
highly touted as best future PM to test voter response, but a Chinese PM candidate was
eventually selected for coming election as voters brainwashing not yet complete), national
DBS bank CEO chairman Indian. Central bank MAS chief Indian. Law, Home Affair, Foreign
Minister all Indians. High court judges flooded Indians. Chief judge Indian. Top senior
counsels(equivalent to Queen Councils) many Indians. MPs also new india migrants. MSM
journalist & writers flooded Indians.
Some are India newly arrived Indians of no credential. Yet no msm reporting on that. Its
near complete regime change in stealth.
@Erebus In addition to the
herbicide and insecticide resistance some plants are modified to withstand prolonged dry
conditions, or to produce more of certain proteins or vitamins, or to increase yields.
The corn or maize we now have started from an indigenous plant in Central and South
America. Twenty plants would produce a tablespoon of grain. The native corn plant can still
be found. Over thousands of years these were bred for increased size and yields but probably
for other reasons as well like drought resistance. That's genetic modification over many
generations.
In this country the Food and Drug Admin. and Dept. of Agriculture have studied the
genetically modified plants extensively. Not that government agencies always get it right but
it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming people,
or animals and insects. Sometimes the fear of Frankenfoods is related to a fear of lower cost
imports and a sop for the local farmers.
Having an interest in horticulture I produced greenhouse bedding plants for the most part.
One significant expense was pesticides. We took great pains to carefully watch the crops. If
the aphids, or other creatures, showed up we would strive to isolate the affected plants and
only treat the ones with aphids and some that were nearby. Lots of hours with a bright light
and magnifying glass. We didn't proactively apply these because of the expense. Sometimes an
entire greenhouse required several treatments and there goes much of the profit. On the other
hand refusing to use pesticides leads to total crop failures. Nobody applies pesticides if
there are no pests. Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the
remaining living people would know about famines.
In terms of space, most Europeans would immigrate to US cities. Chicago was popular with
Slavs, for instance. And of course Silicone Valley. Very few immigrants move to rural
wide-open areas. There is nothing to do there and Norwegians in 1990 were no longer
homesteading on the North Dakota plains.
By 1990, few Irish wanted to immigrated to Boston or Italians to New Jersey. Europe was
actually safer and more prosperous when I was young than the US.
Europeans prior to 1965 were attracted to the US middle-class standard of living and that
has shrunken precipitously.
The refugee crisis in Europe is relatively recent. As for unemployment, indeed this is
bad. But the social safety net is slightly better and there is less poverty overall in
Western Europe.
"Very few immigrants move to rural wide-open areas."
Sure, if you're talking Nevada or New Mexico desert. But there are areas considered
"rural" in the US that have relatively mid-sized cities nonetheless. Oklahoma City has a
population roughly equal to the population of Latvia's capital, for example. And I'm sure
that Eastern Europeans could have been coaxed to leave Europe for the US had America pursued
a deal with the Soviets – white South Africans, too. Certainly, this could have been
done with success post Soviet breakup. Some Western Europeans could also have been coaxed,
perhaps a few million, with the right financial incentives. Along with substantial efforts to
increase the native European birthrate and targeted, gender-imbalanced ~skills-based
immigration* from emerging market, high IQ countries, US demographics would be in a far
better place today. The country would be less divided and more rational on a global stage
(and probably friends with Russia, too).
*In other words, purposely encourage 2 to 1 female immigration from places like Korea and
China back when they were both poor and filled with people ready to emigrate and compliment
that with an equal but reversed ratio elsewhere (Vietnam, Laos). This forces interbreeding
and prevents formation of divisive ethnic communities, while also having the benefit of
harming your competitor's demographics down the road. Actor Keanu Reeves is something like
1/8th Japanese. But most people just think he's a white guy.
If that kind of policy had been adopted in 1965, along with my plan above (and a few other
things not mentioned), things would be better for the US now. The US would be overwhelmingly
white with a small admixture of smart Asian while leaving descendants who look European; the
kind of internecine racial strife we see now could have been avoided. However, that kind of
plan requires a competent, and rational, near-authoritarian to be in charge. As Fred Reed has
pointed out, that kind of plan is not capable in Western countries that choose their leaders
via popularity contest with a birthright citizenship voting base.
That's genetic modification over many generations.
One wonders how many fish genes made their way into corn over those generations, and how
they got in there.
it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming
people, or animals and insects.
Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people,
I doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones
and rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course,
genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations
from now.
Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the remaining living
people would know about famines.
I'm of the firm opinion that a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and
we'll be seeing famines soon enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other
famines.
"Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people, I
doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones and
rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course,
genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations
from now.'
The pests who feed on domesticated crops lived in nature before people were around. When
they stumble upon thousands of acres of corn or wheat they rapidly reproduce to exploit the
windfall. The pesticides will hopefully kill or drive off many of these insects but their
total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a balance of
power.
Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have
some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future. Therefore let's stop all
new technology. For now we have the methods of physical science to guide us. These aren't
perfect but it's the best we have and more sensible than the precautionary principle, also
called the paralysis principle.
"..a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and we'll be seeing famines soon
enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other famines.".
I'm hoping my family and I (and you) are not among the culled billions. Death by
starvation is not a pleasant way to go, so I've heard.
their total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a
balance of power.
Probably? Pre-human? Yours is the disingenuity of a pesticide salesman.
The insect world is in a massive die off, losing of ~75% its flying population over 3
decades, as attested by countless studies. The studies tell us what we already know. 40 yrs
ago, a 2 hr drive in the countryside at night meant 30 min spent scraping insects off your
windshield and headlights. Every lonely streetlight in the middle of nowhere had a cloud
around it. Screens to protect the radiator, or even the entire front of the car were sold by
every automotive shop and gas station. Seen one lately?
Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have
some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future.
One could say it, and one would often be right for doing so. As the complexity of the
technological advance increases, so do its effects. Who considered 50 years ago that
pesticide use would devastate the insect world? Who knows with any level of certainty what
the effect of that will be on the ecosystem we live in? What we know is it ain't gonna likely
to be good, and may be devastating. They're now found in mother's milk with potential effects
we lack the tools and brain power to comprehend, never mind predict.
When it comes to playing with complex, chaotic systems that support our life on the
planet, humans are like a monkey with a hand-grenade. To borrow a phrase "If the planet's
ecosystem was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. " Our
myopia & hubris will kill us, if our stupidity and belligerence doesn't do it first.
The insect "die off" is an interesting occurrence. Puerto Rico lost a large percentage of
insects while at the same time they decreased pesticide use by 80%. This die off is observed
in a limited number of regions of the world. It isn't known exactly what caused the drop in
insect population. Some say pesticides, others say climate change (the theory that explains
all things), are killing the bugs.
Pesticides have been overused in the past but there have been impressive improvements in
the technology which reduces the amounts required. There are herbicides and pesticides
designed with chemical half lives. These kill the weeds or pests then break down into
harmless components and in 10-14 days can no longer be detected in the field. Unfortunately
for some any improvements will require some kind of technology.
We are all going to die eventually, hopefully later rather than sooner.
In his highly acclaimed 2017 book, Destined for
War , Harvard professor Graham Allison assessed the likelihood that the United States
and China would one day find themselves at war. Comparing the U.S.-Chinese relationship to
great-power rivalries all the way back to the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC, he
concluded that the future risk of a conflagration was substantial. Like much current analysis
of U.S.-Chinese relations, however, he missed a crucial point: for all intents and purposes,
the United States and China are already at war with one another. Even if their present
slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its
long-term consequences could prove no less dire.
To suggest this means reassessing our understanding of what constitutes war. From Allison's
perspective (and that of so many others in Washington and elsewhere), "peace" and "war" stand
as polar opposites. One day, our soldiers are in their garrisons being trained and cleaning
their weapons; the next, they are called into action and sent onto a battlefield. War, in this
model, begins when the first shots are fired.
Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition. Today,
war means so much more than military combat and can take place even as the leaders of the
warring powers meet to negotiate and share
dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes (as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017).
That is exactly where we are when it comes to Sino-American relations. Consider it war by
another name, or perhaps, to bring back a long-retired term, a burning new version of a cold
war.
Even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the U.S. military and other branches of
government were already gearing up for a
long-term quasi-war, involving both growing economic and diplomatic pressure on China and a
buildup of military forces along that country's periphery. Since his arrival, such initiatives
have escalated into Cold War-style combat by another name,
with his administration committed to defeating China in a struggle for global economic,
technological, and military supremacy.
This includes the president's much-publicized "trade war" with China, aimed at hobbling that
country's future growth; a techno-war designed to prevent it from overtaking the U.S. in key
breakthrough areas of technology; a diplomatic war intended to isolate Beijing and frustrate
its grandiose plans for global outreach; a cyber war (largely hidden from public scrutiny); and
a range of military measures as well. This may not be war in the traditional sense of the term,
but for leaders on both sides, it has the feel of one.
Why China?
The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part
because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the
ongoing Mueller investigation. Behind the scenes, however, most senior military and foreign
policy officials in Washington view China, not Russia, as the country's principal adversary. In
eastern Ukraine, the Balkans, Syria, cyberspace, and in the area of nuclear weaponry, Russia
does indeed pose a variety of threats to Washington's goals and desires. Still, as an
economically hobbled petro-state, it lacks the kind of might that would allow it to truly
challenge this country's status as the world's dominant power. China is another story
altogether. With its vast economy, growing technological prowess, intercontinental "Belt and
Road" infrastructure project, and rapidly modernizing military, an emboldened China could
someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are
determined to prevent at any cost.
Washington's fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the
2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views
of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that "community." Its conclusion: "We
assess that China's leaders will try to extend the country's global economic, political, and
military reach while using China's military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy
investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence."
To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its
capabilities to bolster American -- and diminish Chinese -- power. In Pentagon documents, this
stance is summed up by the term "overmatch," which translates as the eternal preservation of
American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). "The
United States must retain overmatch," the administration's National
Security Strategy insists, and preserve a "combination of capabilities in sufficient scale
to prevent enemy success," while continuing to "shape the international environment to protect
our interests."
In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable
status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration
officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise.
In previous epochs, as Allison makes clear in his book, this equation -- a prevailing power
seeking to retain its dominant status and a rising power seeking to overcome its subordinate
one -- has almost always resulted in conventional conflict. In today's world, however, where
great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation,
direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing
elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to
achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to
full combat mode with respect to China.
Trade War
When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump
administration's economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without
qualification, as a "war." And there's no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning
with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert
Lighthizer , see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so
curtailing that country's ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of
power.
Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs
on Chinese imports ( increased
in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries, while
protecting the American economy against what is described as China's malign behavior. Its trade
practices "plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the
United States economy," as the president put it when
announcing the second round of tariffs.
An examination of the demands submitted to Chinese negotiators by the U.S. trade delegation
last May suggests, however, that Washington's primary intent hasn't been to rectify that trade
imbalance but to impede China's economic growth. Among the stipulations Beijing must acquiesce
to before receiving tariff relief, according to leaked documents
from U.S. negotiators that were spread on Chinese social media:
halting all government
subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its Made in China 2025 program, an endeavor
that covers 10 key economic sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics,
computer microchips, and artificial intelligence; accepting American restrictions on
investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating; opening up its service and
agricultural sectors -- areas where Chinese firms have an inherent advantage -- to full
American competition.
In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war.
Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status
vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with
this country. "The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather than a basis for
negotiation," was the way Eswar
Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, accurately described these
developments.
Technological Warfare
As suggested by America's trade demands, Washington's intent is not only to hobble China's
economy today and tomorrow but for decades to come. This has led to an intense, far-ranging
campaign to deprive it of access to advanced technologies and to cripple its leading
technology firms.
Chinese leaders have long realized that, for their country to achieve economic and military
parity with the United States, they must master the cutting-edge technologies that will
dominate the twenty-first-century global economy, including artificial intelligence (AI),
fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications, electric vehicles, and nanotechnology. Not
surprisingly then, the government has invested in a major way in science and technology
education, subsidized research in pathbreaking fields, and helped launch promising startups,
among other such endeavors -- all in the very fashion that the Internet and other American
computer and aerospace innovations were originally financed and
encouraged by the Department of Defense.
Chinese companies have also demanded technology transfers when investing in or forging
industrial partnerships with foreign firms, a common practice in international development.
India, to cite a recent example of this phenomenon, expects
that significant technology transfers from American firms will be one outcome of its
agreed-upon purchases of advanced American weaponry.
In addition, Chinese firms have been accused of
stealing American technology through cybertheft, provoking widespread outrage in this country.
Realistically speaking, it's difficult for outside observers to determine to what degree
China's recent technological advances are the product of commonplace and legitimate investments
in science and technology and to what degree they're due to cyberespionage. Given Beijing's
massive investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at the
graduate and post-graduate level, however, it's safe to assume that most of that country's
advances are the result of domestic efforts.
Certainly, given what's publicly known about Chinese cybertheft activities, it's reasonable
for American officials to apply pressure on Beijing to curb the practice. However, the Trump
administration's drive to blunt that country's technological progress is also aimed at
perfectly legitimate activities. For example, the White House seeks to ban Beijing's government
subsidies for progress on artificial intelligence at the same time that the Department of
Defense is
pouring billions of dollars into AI research at home. The administration is also acting to
block the Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology firms and of
exports of advanced components and know-how.
In an example of this technology war that's made
the headlines lately, Washington has been actively seeking to sabotage the efforts of
Huawei , one of China's most
prominent telecom firms, to gain leadership in the global deployment of 5G wireless
communications. Such wireless
systems are important in part because they will transmit colossal amounts of electronic
data at far faster rates than now conceivable, facilitating the introduction of self-driving
cars, widespread roboticization, and the universal application of AI.
Second only to Apple as the world's supplier of smartphones and a major producer of
telecommunications equipment, Huawei has sought to take the lead in the race for 5G adaptation
around the world. Fearing that this might give China an enormous advantage in the coming
decades, the Trump administration has tried to prevent that. In what is widely described as a "
tech
Cold War ," it has put enormous
pressure on both its Asian and European allies to bar the company from conducting business
in their countries, even as it sought the arrest in Canada of Huawei's chief financial officer,
Meng Wanzhou, and her extradition
to the U.S. on charges of tricking American banks into aiding Iranian firms (in violation of
Washington's sanctions on that country). Other attacks on Huawei are in the works, including a
potential
ban on the sales of its products in this country. Such moves are regularly described as
focused on boosting the security of both the United States and its allies by preventing the
Chinese government from using Huawei's telecom networks to steal military secrets. The real
reason -- barely disguised -- is simply to block China from gaining technological parity with
the United States.
Cyberwarfare
There would be much to write on this subject, if only it weren't still hidden in the shadows
of the growing conflict between the two countries. Not surprisingly, however, little
information is available on U.S.-Chinese cyberwarfare. All that can be said with confidence is
that an intense war is now being waged between the two countries in cyberspace. American
officials accuse
China of engaging in a broad-based cyber-assault on this country, involving both outright
cyberespionage to obtain military as well as corporate secrets and widespread political
meddling. "What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing,"
said Vice President Mike Pence last October in a speech at the Hudson Institute, though --
typically on the subject -- he provided not a shred of evidence for his claim.
Not disclosed is what this country is doing to combat China in cyberspace. All that can be
known from available information is that this is a two-sided war in which the U.S. is
conducting
its own assaults. "The United States will impose swift and costly consequences on foreign
governments, criminals, and other actors who undertake significant malicious cyber activities,"
the 2017 National Security Strategy affirmed. What form these "consequences" have taken has yet
to be revealed, but there's little doubt that America's cyber warriors have been active in this
domain.
Diplomatic and Military Coercion
Completing the picture of America's ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being
exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing's geopolitical ambitions. To
advance those aspirations, China'sleadership is relying heavily on a much-touted
Belt and Road Initiative , a trillion-dollar plan to help fund and encourage the
construction of a vast new network of road, rail, port, and pipeline infrastructure across
Eurasia and into the Middle East and Africa. By financing -- and, in many cases, actually
building -- such infrastructure, Beijing hopes to bind the economies of a host of far-flung
nations ever closer to its own, while increasing its political influence across the Eurasian
mainland and Africa. As Beijing's leadership sees it, at least in terms of orienting the
planet's future economics, its role would be similar to that of the Marshall Plan that cemented
U.S. influence in Europe after World War II.
And given exactly that possibility, Washington has begun to actively seek to undermine the
Belt and Road wherever it can -- discouraging allies from participating, while stirring up
unease in countries like Malaysia and Ugandaover the enormous
debts to China they may end up with and the heavy-handed
manner in which that country's firms often carry out such overseas construction projects.
(For example, they typically bring in Chinese laborers to do most of the work, rather than
hiring and training locals.)
"China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in
Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands," National Security Advisor John Bolton
claimed in a December speech on U.S. policy on that continent. "Its investment ventures are
riddled with corruption," he added, "and do not meet the same environmental or ethical
standards as U.S. developmental programs." Bolton promised that the Trump administration would
provide a superior alternative for African nations seeking development funds, but -- and this
is something of a pattern as well -- no such assistance has yet materialized.
In addition to diplomatic pushback, the administration has undertaken a series of
initiatives intended to isolate China militarily and limit its strategic options. In South
Asia, for example, Washington has abandoned its past position of maintaining rough parity in
its relations with India and Pakistan. In recent years, it's
swung sharply towards a strategic alliance with New Dehli, attempting to enlist it fully in
America's efforts to contain China and, presumably, in the process punishing Pakistan for its
increasingly enthusiastic role in the Belt and Road Initiative.
In the Western Pacific, the U.S. has stepped up its naval patrols and forged new
basing arrangements with local powers -- all with the aim of confining the Chinese military to
areas close to the mainland. In response, Beijing has sought to escape the grip of American
power by establishing miniature bases on Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea (or
even
constructing artificial islands to house bases there) -- moves widely condemned by the
hawks in Washington.
To demonstrate its ire at the effrontery of Beijing in the Pacific (
once known as an "American lake"), the White House has ordered an increased pace of
so-called freedom-of-navigation operations (FRONOPs). Navy warships regularly sail within
shooting range
of those very island bases, suggesting a U.S. willingness to employ military force to resist
future Chinese moves in the region (and also creating situations in which a misstep
could lead to a military incident that could lead well, anywhere).
In Washington, the warnings about Chinese military encroachment in the region are already
reaching a fever pitch. For instance, Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. forces in the
Pacific, described the
situation there in recent congressional testimony this way: "In short, China is now capable of
controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States."
A Long War of Attrition
As Admiral Davidson suggests, one possible outcome of the ongoing cold war with China could
be armed conflict of the traditional sort. Such an encounter, in turn, could escalate to the
nuclear level, resulting in mutual annihilation. A war involving only "conventional" forces
would itself undoubtedly be devastating and lead to widespread suffering, not to mention the
collapse of the global economy.
Even if a shooting war doesn't erupt, however, a long-term geopolitical war of attrition
between the U.S. and China will, in the end, have debilitating and possibly catastrophic
consequences for both sides. Take the trade war, for example. If that's not resolved soon in a
positive manner, continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese
economic growth and so
weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one.
High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger
the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and
components.
This new brand of war will also ensure that already sky-high defense expenditures will
continue to rise, diverting funds from vital needs like education, health, infrastructure, and
the environment. Meanwhile, preparations for a future war with China have already become the
number one priority at the Pentagon, crowding out all other considerations. "While we're
focused on ongoing operations," acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan reportedly
told
his senior staff on his first day in office this January, "remember China, China, China."
Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the
creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of climate-altering
greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are
doomed to a hellish future. With a war under way, even a non-shooting one, the chance for such
collaboration is essentially zero. The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China
to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.
Michael T. Klare, aTomDispatch
regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security
studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. His
most recent book isThe Race for What's
Left. His next book, All Hell Breaking Loose: Climate Change, Global Chaos, and
American National Security , will be published in 2019.
The genuinely expert panelists could not articulate America's demands beyond the familiar
'level playing field' that America created by shackling China with uniquely humiliating
conditions before admitting it to the WTO.
Today, China generates 20% of global GDP (the US 15%), its imports and exports are in
balance, its currency fairly valued, its economy one third larger and growing three times
faster than America's and it produces essential technology that America needs and cannot
provide.
It is almost impossible to imagine a war scenario that the US could win, short of China
invading America.
Excellent article Mister Klare, but would like to raise a few quibbles.
1) As far as "economic" war, China has been fighting one for decades. It's called competing
and trying to do the best to improve your people's lot. The US is finally starting to fight
back but some of it's measures are inappropriate and/or ineffective.
2) As far as the US trying to confine the Chinese military to its own region, I really
haven't seen that the Chinese military is particularly interested in operation outside their
own region anyway. It seems to be focused on protecting China and its own neighborhood and
interests, and the Chinese aren't stupid enough to bleed away their wealth and blood in
distant misadventures.
3) I'd gotten the impression from the Deep State's rhetoric that they are much hotter on
fighting a shooting war with Russia than with China. In an extended struggle, as long as it
doesn't go nuclear, US chances are much better against a Russia whose economy is only a
fraction of China's.
Keynes says this, "All trade is only barter." The Wall Street/China Gambit is key to
understanding today. Clinton signed MFN trade status with China, screwing over NAFTA. Those
Zenith TV's that were supposed to be made in Mexico became Chinese made electronics.
Balanced trade was also thrown out the window, as Wall Street was in on the gambit. Trade
in goods was unbalanced, and America supplied dollars to China to make up the difference.
China then recycled those mercantile won dollars back to the U.S. to buy Tbills, helping keep
interest rates low, and acting as a prime variable in forming U.S. housing bubble. Returning
dollars then spun out into the American economy, so American's could buy more Chinese goods
from transplanted American factories.
The wall street China gambit turned mainstreet American's into Zeros, while wall street
became heroes.
Any discussion of China current economic status cannot overlook the role of Wall Street
exporting of jobs, to then get wage arbitrage. Immigrating third world people into America is
also a function of this "finance capitalism" as it wants wage arbitrage from third world
labor as well.
Finance Capitalism in turn is part of Zion and Atlantacism. International credit "banking"
will send its finance capital anywhere in the world to get the lowest price. In the case of
China, overhang of communist labor in the mid 90's was available to make things, and then
export Chinese made goods back to U.S. (at the China price.)
China still uses Atlantic doctrine, where raw materials come in by ship, and finished
goods with increment of production value add leave by ship. (Value add is key element to
making any economy thrive. Just extracting raw materials turns a country into Africa, witness
the attempt at turning Russia into an extraction economy in the 90's.)
Note difference in American policy in the 90's: Russia was to become extraction, and China
was to become value add. As Tucker Carlson says, America is run by a ship of fools.
For China, "Eurasia" beckons, and raw materials can be had from China's interior and via
overland routes. This then is a pivot away from London/Zion Atlantacism (finance capital) and
toward industrial capitalism.
In other words, both U.S. and the West have hoisted themselves on their own petard. People
that wax poetic about China's gains overlook this important mechanism of "gifting" of our
patrimony to China. It is very easy to copy or be a fast follower, it is beyond difficult to
invent and create.
Wall Street and greed gave away our patrimony, which was hard won over the ages in order to
make wage arbitrage today, and gave away the future.
China uses state banks, and also forgives debts lodged in their state banks. This is
actually one of the secret methods used to rope-a-dope on the west. The Chinese economy is
not debt laden, and what public debts there are, are lodged in a State Bank, where they can
be jubileed or ignored.
The U.S. and the West had better take a long hard look at finance capital method, which
uses only "price signals" to make economic decisions, as pricing is main vector from which
jobs were exported, and which China cleverly used to climb up its industrial curve. Sovereign
money/Industrial Capitalism IS the American System of Peshine Smith and Henry Clay.
Atlantacism/Zionism/Finance Capital is not American – the parasite jumped to the U.S.
from London.
China is wisely in control of its money power via its state banks and is pivoting away
from Atlantacism now that it has served its purpose. The belt and road routes are mostly
overland, with some coastal sea routes, and there isn't a thing sea power (((atlantacists)))
can do about it.
China has played the game well, but don't overlook the gifting of Western patrimony caused
by a false neo-liberal finance capital economic ideology, which blinds Western adherents.
@joe
webb Yeah, so America can topple China and go after Russia immediately afterwards? I
don't think the Russians are so stupid.
There is only 1 way Russia survives the 21st century without being broken up and ruined,
and that is allying itself with China. The same is true for China.
The only way China can survive intact is to ally itself with Russia.
Pretty simple stuff I am sure each country understands.
China's real economy, of course dwarfs that of the US'.
The author touches on a nuclear trade option China holds over the US that I see little
mention of elsewhere. High tariffs are one thing, but a closure of trade in components and
raw materials would do far more than
endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials
and components.
Should China block exports of everything other than finished goods to the US, almost every
US factory would close due to lack of parts and materials. The time and investment required
to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means much of what's left of America's real
economy would disappear within weeks.
What then?
Unlike Russia, the US is highly vulnerable to targeted sanctions. American trade
negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird.
author Klare said: "The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian
relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American
presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation."
– What "revelations"? "What meddling"?
– He tipped his hand right off the bat. Klare is just another run of the mill
Communist with a case of the Trump Derangement Syndrome, complete with Communism's favorite
scam, 'global warming'.
Klare said: "Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60
billion in tariffs on Chinese imports (increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify
a trade imbalance between the two countries "
– No, the aim is to encourage China to removes it vastly more & extreme tariffs
on US goods & services.
Klare said: " continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese
economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth,
including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger
the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and
components."
– Nonsense, all China needs to do is remove it's many times over more severe
tariffs.
– If the US's lesser tariffs on Chinese goods / services 'hurt the US', then why
don't China's massive tariffs on US goods / services hurt China?
And to think some take this fraud, Klare, seriously.
The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large
part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election
and the ongoing Mueller investigation.
It's not the economy stupid. According to many "experts" on this site, since the US economy
and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it seems "logical" to those
experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that not only is not 10 times
better, it's not even equal to Russia's army. Again, according to the same types of "experts"
Russia's economy is the size of Italy. Why don't then someone break the good news to Italy
and encourage them to go to war with Russia? Since their economies are equal – it seems
that Italy stands a fair chance of beating Russia, thus eliminating the need of the 10 times
superior army to fight them. The moronity on this site, man – it's unbelievable.
China is not suffering from massive degeneration as the US is. Instead of trying to prevent
China from becoming a leading nation of the world, why could the US not accept China's coming
prominence and concentrate on strengthening its own population ? Unlike the US, China is not
interested in "ruling the world", it is only interested in expanding its economy. For the
rest, it is dedicated to stability and cooperation. No threat to the world at all, except for
some compulsive hegemonists in the Pentagon.
This article is pure propaganda and as such is based upon lies, misconceptions and pure
fantasy.
If there already is a war it is all in the minds of Anericans, and they have already lost
that war because America needs allies and can only create enemies amongst people that were
its friends.
Europe will join with Russia as soon as it can get away from the US bully. That means
550million Europeans will join 160 million Russians. 710 million people with Russian
technology and Chinese investment (China already runs Btitain's North Sea gas), will produce
an economic power that will humiliate the USA at every turn.
All of South America wants to break with the US, the entire Orient hates the US. America is
actually doing to Africa what the US accuses Russia and China of doing.
If there really is a war between the US and China then the US has already lost it. The rest
of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US. Everyone hates the
US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies 100%.
You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting the
fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians.
I'm amazed Fred Unz publishes this sort of trash. It is unadulterated lies, brainless
stupidity and total hog wash. Pure drivel.
It is often said that, had the Western and Eastern Europeans formed a coalition rather
than fight WW I, they would still be dominant.
And if I had wings, I could fly to the moon.
The Eastern Europeans had never accepted the Western Enlightenment (still haven't), and to
have done so would have destabilized their family structure -- the deep structure of their
society -- exactly as it has finally destabilized ours, today. The nature of authority and
organization in Eastern Europe differed considerably from that of Western Europe. Their forms
of organization were different enough to make integration impossible, and perhaps to make
formation of a coalition impossible.
China's organizational forms, family structure, and and social assumptions in general
differ even more from the present day form of the Western Enlightenment than did those of
East Europe c.a. AD 1900.
It's at times like these we get to test the assumption that reason and fear of death can
lead to agreement on a modus vivendi.
I will never believe the Zionist controlled U.S. will go to war with China as long as one
U.S. company remains in China and damn near all the major U.S. companies are in business in
China, this is a ploy for the zionist controlled MIC to loot the America taxpayer!
I didnt read the article but I dont think china needs the US for anything they are well on
their way to be the dominant world power the US and ist zionist occupied government are
losers the zionists want never ending wars which stupid USA has done,,china and all the rest
will eventually dump the rothchild banking system and form its own which will in all likely
hood benefit more than the zionist one does
No mention of an ideological battle, and no wonder, as "the Chinks" et al have apparently
already won that one, as evidenced by the fact that the last US general election was merely
yet another idiotic, meaningless [ yet highly entertaining], cat fight over blue socialism
versus red socialism.
The US vs China trade war is just another power/domination battle scam between two
competing, wholly criminal orgs, both totally against anything ever resembling truly free
trade ..nothing more.
"The US and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a
hellish future." Really? If this doesn't prove this guy is a lefty shill, nothing does. Even
the clowns raking in grants and trying to impoverish everyone with higher taxes have seen the
light and have been saying "climate change" lately. Many scientists are now arguing that we
may be headed into a new cooling period rather than a "hellish" warming period that brought
us so much prosperity. This "global warming" religion with its hockey stick icons and polar
bear mythology is worse than the Heaven's Gate religion.
"The rest of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US.
Everyone hates the US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies
100%. You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting
the fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians."
Well yes. As history has shown, occupation and rule by Jahweh's Chosen People tends to
bring this fate down upon the host country.
Oh, for Pete's sake:
1. It will always be China+Russia vs. the US. The EU, site of WWIII, will just soil
itself.
2. The Debt Bubble US economy will collapse. At some point. Changes every calculation.
3. The US will devolve into a state of civil war. Of some sort. Paralyze the place.
Momentum is with China and Russia. The US is sliding into history's toilet.
Just give it a few more years. And the whole world sees and knows it. The whole world can
get along very well without the US. And would very much like that to be.
Global warming my azz! But the rest of it rings pretty true. If nukes arn't used, Russia and
China will win this war simply because they have the gold now and the US has spread its fiat
petro dollar all over the world which will come back big time to bite them. That is if China
and Russia are smart enough to go on a gold exchange standard.
since the US economy and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it
seems "logical" to those experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that
not only is not 10 times better, it's not even equal to Russia's army.
I would argue the same.
Russia is a land power. This means using a land army and area denial. Russia does not need
to power project with a blue water Navy and she does not follow Atlantacist doctrine.
Atlantacist doctrine got its start when our (((friends))) evolved the method during the
Levantine Greek City State period, where our tribal friends would be stationed in various
entrepot cities ringing the Mediterranean. They would use their tribal connections to Launder
pirated goods, and to push their "international" usurious money type, which in those days was
silver. Simultaneously they were taking rents on their secret East/West mechanism, whereby
exchange rates between gold and silver were exploited. Gold was plentiful in India and Silver
more plentiful in the West, so the Caravan's took arbitrage on exchange rates as silver
drained east and gold drained west.
The U.S. inherited Atlanticist method after WW2. The U.S. is not an island economy like
England – it does not need to go around the world beating up others to then extract raw
materials. The U.S. is actually more like Russia in that U.S. can afford to have economic
autarky and be independent. The U.S. does not need to power project with a blue water navy,
despite the false narrative (((inheritance))) passed down to us, especially after WW2. Nobody
likes being punked with false narrative.
U.S. military expenditures are so heavy because of this tendency of finance capital to
search the world for gains, and this means posting overseas military bases, which in turn are
expensive to operate. Russia only has a "close in" defensive posture of area denial. This is
far less expensive than power projecting.
Also, GDP figures are misleading. In the U.S. if housing prices go up it reflects in GDP
growth, when in reality – the house didn't improve. GDP figures are lies. If finance
takes 50% cut of the economy, they are only pushing finance paper back and forth at each
other this is not the real economy, but it shows up in GDP because finance paper is an
"asset".
Russia's economy is much larger than their GDP, probably it is closer to Germany's in real
terms. Real terms = real economy = the making of goods and services.
China is not America's natural ally, Russia is. Atlantacist doctrine sold America's
patrimony to China for cheap, and then the ((international)) will just jump to another
host.
America has been parasitized by false doctrine and the output is thus that of an infected
brain – an output that is crazy. Finance plutocracy typically will not let go
willingly, but has to be removed forcefully.
Russia is a country of vodka drunks and Dubai prostitutes run by a syndicate of Israel
oligarchs and ex-KGB who kill their journalists in foreign countries.
China is dependent on outsourcing and if the US factories were to withdraw tomorrow the
Chinese economy would take a huge hit.
@Erebus The US is vulnerable
in so many other ways too, see how fast the store shelves empty just on the news of an
approaching big storm. Panic buying is rife and some people keep minimal food available at
home. I know people who have to stop at an ATM to get $20. All kinds of vital distribution of
food, water, power, fuel and more seems to pass through a myriad of often vulnerable
bottle-necks real or virtual. Easy targets for low cost, low tech sabotage teams I'd think.
I'm inclined to think also that this threatening hysteria possibly is a deep state psy-op
designed to prime Americans prior to the enactment of some sort of "democracy"
modifications.
America is the most powerful country solely because it has the most powerful economy in the
world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land, navigable
waterways, natural resources ect ect. . In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level
and is in a global hegemon trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population .
There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the West,
especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from offshoring
and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's power in
the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump out. Trump is a
populist not a creature of the Deap State alarmed at China's rise. The leading strategists of
America's foreign policy establishment still don't realise what they are dealing with in
China.
Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all
the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of
climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global
warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future.
Better to reign in hell. Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006,
China has been the world's largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip
service they accept no binding target for reduction; quite the opposite.
Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a
conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.
The manufacturing should be done in the most advanced regions of Earth ie the West,
because that is where the technology and will exists to protect the environment. China is
trying to churn out cheaper goods and does not care what damage they do in cutting
environmental corners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_China
China still supports the "common but differentiated responsibilities" principle, which
holds that since China is still developing, its abilities and capacities to reduce
emissions are comparatively lower than developed countries'. Therefore, its emissions
should not be required to decrease over time, but rather should be encouraged to increase
less over time until industrialization is farther along and reductions are feasible
In other words the global environment is going to continue to be ripped apart like a car
in a wrecking yard by China. "Industrialization is farther along" is obviously Chinese speak
for "when China is able to dominate the world with enormous productive capacity and we do not
even have to pay lip service any more".
In today's world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a
nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly
unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of
warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives.
Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to
China.
No, the appeal of a real war will increase precipitously for any clear loser in the
economic competition who has a rapidly declining military advantage (especially in
thermonuclear first strike capacity due to proximity fuses and sub location tech), and we all
know who that is going to be. A shooting war will come, and the sooner it comes the
better for the whole world. Reassuring Russia that it will not be subjected to the same
treatment by the West at some point in the future will be the main problem inhibiting the
coming military take down (and nuking if necessary) of China.
As to bringing in Hindoos and Pakis into to the America-China conflict with a singular
example of the demand for defense related technology transfer by the former
India is a mediocrity but Pakistan is a nightmare for all concerned, given that after
imbibing religious mumbo jumbo from moronic Arabs, with which havocs were created in
Afghanistan via neoconnish America, now they are fellating uncircumcised Chinese for crumbs
the ungodly Chinese will play the idiotic Pakis like a fiddle to the detriment of the
West!
Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us
something about the USA:
The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and
nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations
and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."
'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and
spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social
obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'
'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a
proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social
ladder.'
The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of
the most dedicated early Zionists:
The USA in decline needs friends. Instead it got a powerful and well armed afversary, that
stupid neocon jerks (including academic jerks like Summers) tried to play to get some dollars in
theirs pockets... Add to this tentions with china and Harvard boys should probably be hanged on
lampposts.
As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for
everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2
billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high and
low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the
Russobots.
When you beat a person who is down with boots and this person survive, you should not expect
any mercy in the next fight.
Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year
on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands
rich in minerals, timber, water, etc.
With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock
therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real
enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to
influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the
Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off,
etc.
Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian
(Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of
money, or in government.
With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West
had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and
knowledge.
China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but
as soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S.
factories withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find
markets in Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.
People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.
The Atlantics strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up
with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires
first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further,
the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and
are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not
recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both
Russia and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance
in hell of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The
more it goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.
So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the
decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU
will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then
the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.
The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and
is now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the
next wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big
question is how much suffering before it ends.
Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/
). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot
find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You
find Huawei everywhere -- from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped
purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the
islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its
best citizens .
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade
war we are misusing the word war.
War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people.
Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.
@joe
webbRussia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged
international banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced
them to ally against a common threat: dying demented Empire.
As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including
your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely
made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great
your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff,
write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is
made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few
centuries you might get an answer.
In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not
Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.
Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the
Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in
2017.
At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to
something Russia wants to realize. And soon
Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now
that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally
understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.
In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered
by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already
become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China
in that direction.
Where a war begins -- or ends -- can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right, 'War' and
'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological abstraction: the
First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a global war one week
later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of long duration. The
decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were positioning themselves
to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were defeated at the Battle
of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.
Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham
Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and
advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History
shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense.
When core interests collide there is no alternative to war -- however destructive.
The attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the military supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process.
The evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate with Mueller appointment very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from
taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup'
is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.
The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to
the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to
the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.
The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional
and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives,
mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.
The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that
the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential
political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and
legitimacy.
The Coup as 'Process'
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in
Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife'
for these 'regime changes'.
Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted
through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies
in Congress and the Judiciary.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part
of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American
coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking
office in January.
While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within
a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure – accusing President-Elect Trump
of
being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his
Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party
prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.
The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green
Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass
media.
In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green
Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George
Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money
financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media.
The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American
Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.
Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia,
the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like
Jill Stein.
The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question
Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention:
The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties,
and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they
all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative
warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and
social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation
of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival
'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia
and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry'
Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.
ORDER IT NOW
The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called
on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election
– essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused
to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.
President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy
and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and
place of our choosing".
Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the
jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian
Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo –
and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.
Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance
Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress.
He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three
retired generals to key Defense and Security positions – indicating a power struggle between the
highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been
key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them
with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.
Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported
the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his
cabinet who had their own allied business associations.
One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL,
George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This
was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as
Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced
with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect
named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security
and intelligence positions.
The Coup: Can it succeed?
In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation'
on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the
very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already
oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort
will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well
and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with
Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque
policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election
and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with
his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among
the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires
his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic
agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed
to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger
of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.
If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack
support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies,
but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').
He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among
the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to
the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire',
not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.
A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power.
But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the
whole system?
If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists
eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a
failure.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the
top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance
of the Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids?
Replies:
@Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). ,
@animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred
of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces
in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and
it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being
questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?
Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic
than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country
Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises
by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and
the Trump campaign was a failure.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the
term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since
before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans
are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the
books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with
this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to
assent by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was
the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?]
of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still–that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this I think we are all in very great danger today–now– AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That
could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is
real and substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]–a felony under existing laws.
–Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future–or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–FOR TRUMP–
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of
"man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could
be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and
substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws.
--Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!
It needs to be published as a feature story.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
• Replies:
@El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all
the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some
balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump–not Obama–that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump–out of fear and necessity–run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?–Or
will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say.
Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?–Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and
qualifications, though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to
confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set
about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive
amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that
Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not
until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game. , @map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.
How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors. ,
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office.
Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile... The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights'
at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS
directly.
The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although
Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now
be tied by all the traitors that run the US.
You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped
the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying
slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.
(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing
the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.
You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country
or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality:
are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?
This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter
is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want
to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest
policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo
loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
• Replies:
@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to
file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are
not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups
The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic.
In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for
a coup.
If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will
just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be
from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white
interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up
to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.
Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)
It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media.
While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law
which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press
For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth"
in George Orwell's book 1984.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president. An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred
of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity -- If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8
million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and
NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American
voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term;
this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before
Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed
up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books,
but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is
that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent
by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it
was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications,
though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") – Caligula
@Karl
the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before
Dr Stein's recount circuses.
They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.
Nothing else they try will fly.
Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer"
to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s)
are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
@Max Havelaar
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to
revenge Aleppo loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites"
in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the
US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does
not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is
the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell – who has never been in combat and
never demonstrated any intellectual vigor – is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated
opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do? ,
@Max Havelaar
A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.
I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as
to when the Coup D'etat is going to – or has already taken place .
The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2
million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert
Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.
Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.
Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There
are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass
Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for
the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.
I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below,
for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy
destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically
elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments
have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the
Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy,
left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.
In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class,
by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence
wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long
decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well
as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without
a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the
nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has
been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings
cannot stay even with the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures,
and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700
military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the
nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military
and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the
Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous
administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens
of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act
and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions
of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population;
the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is
bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government,
with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for
imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts
owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts,
will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.
As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct
to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their
own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of
the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead
and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government
which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means
a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people.
We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians
of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic! Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
@annamaria
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do?
• Replies:
@Bill Jones
The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.
My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and
pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two
palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious
explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?
The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation
certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess
who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?
As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.
Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:
My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year
contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered
that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years
I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.
At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.
If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably
split the same way.
The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined
these agencies in the first place to serve their country – not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects,
and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.
Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress
to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can
set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require
massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced
that Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action.
Not until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game.
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel
has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words
in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and
Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.
Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to
undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds
of hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt"
you seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff ..like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
@Tomster
What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have
sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous
brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@Art
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to
Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power
two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia
– hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Peace --- Art
"If we get past the inauguration ."
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) – doing his best to screw things up
before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at
war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act – providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on
Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It
is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if
Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis
to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
• Replies:
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb ,
@RobinG
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash."
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the
Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably
did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but
Joe Webb
• Replies:
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
@Realist
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented
any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers.
Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the
zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last
month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their
supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on." Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies – the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes: "... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
Hi RobinG,
This is much ado about nothing – in a NYT's article today – they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 – they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart – not the DNC – it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really – how pissed off can they be?
Peace - Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced
the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek
inside the Democrat machine.
Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This
shall not stand!
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
Hi Art,
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see
https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .
@annamaria
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and
war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ...
the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted
last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut
their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their
land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not
change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a
comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on
board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose
a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
• Replies:
@Tomster
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them.
,
@joe webb
good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim
Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs.
Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything
for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there
were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty
will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like
Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as
Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their
jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other
race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the
Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:
Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker
https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ ,
@alexander
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow
today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the
American people over the last sixteen years...
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to
shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge
his bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back.....four times...
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?
"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist
policies. "
The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has
for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."
A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist.
A black mark on both countries' report cards.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by?
The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash."
Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians,
while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup
in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG - Agree 100% – some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at
the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of
hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you
seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff.....like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes
to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains
are?). Who knows? – but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined
with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people
over the last sixteen years
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut
Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his
bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back ..four times
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of
affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns
anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere
that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under
discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way
humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like
Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just
as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for
their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any
other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain. Joe Webb
Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking
heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian
hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.
January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.
Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically
important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.
I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions
to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.
"... "How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite . We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. ..."
"... A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose." ..."
"... However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham, a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways." ..."
"... He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues." ..."
"... Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again," he warned. ..."
"... MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation. ..."
"... No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying. ..."
"... the U.S. Empire has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that. ..."
"... Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC. ..."
"... Yes. Out of NATO, stop the endless pointless wars in the M.E., embrace George Washington and avoiding "foreign entaglements." ..."
"... Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place. ..."
"... There is a problem with the long term approach...is that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war. ..."
"... With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks, the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore. ..."
"... The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period. ..."
"... You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything, just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses and happy days are here again. ..."
"... What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible for both nations. ..."
"... Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis ..."
"... Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence. ..."
"... In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment. ..."
"... Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk. ..."
"... Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease. ..."
"... The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him, as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. ..."
"... Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed. ..."
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was "guaranteed" to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that
among the neo-con, foreign policy "elites" of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter
of time before the "pacifist" Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary.
As the
WaPo reported , "there is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump's scorched-earth presidential campaign is treated as a
mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President
Obama's departure from the White House - and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton - is being met
with quiet relief ."
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.
Oops.
Not only did the "foreign policy" elite get the Trump "scorched-earth distraction" dead wrong, it now has to scramble to find
what leverage - if any - it has in defining Trump's foreign policy. Worse, America's warmongers are now waging war (if only metaphorically:
we all know they can't wait for the real thing) against libertarians for direct access to Trump's front door, a contingency they
had never planned for.
As The Hill reported
earlier , "a battle is brewing between the GOP foreign policy establishment and outsiders over who will sit on President-elect
Donald Trump's national security team. The fight pits hawks and neoconservatives who served in the former Bush administrations against
those on the GOP foreign policy edges."
Taking a page out of Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's commitments
around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and "nation-building," curtail expensive military campaigns and troop deployments,
and intervene militarily only to protect American interests. In short: these are people who believe that human life, and the avoidance
of war, is more valuable than another record quarter for Raytheon, Lockheed or Boeing.
On the other hand, the so-called establishment camp, many of whom disavowed Trump during the campaign, is made up of the same
people who effectively ran Hillary Clinton's tenure while she was Secretary of State, fully intent on creating zones of conflict,
political instability and outright war in every imaginable place, from North Africa to Ukraine. This group is pushing for Stephen
Hadley, who served as national security adviser under George W. Bush. Another Bush ally, John Bolton whose name has been floated
as a possible secretary of State, also falls into this camp.
According to The Hill, other neo-con, establishment candidates floated include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob
Corker (R-Tenn.), outgoing Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), rising star Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and senior fellow at conservative think-tank
American Enterprise Institute and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.).
"These figures all generally believe that the United States needs to take an active role in the world from the Middle East to
East Asia to deter enemies and reassure allies."
In short, should this group prevail, it would be the equivalent of 4 more years of HIllary Clinton running the State Department.
The outsider group sees things differently.
They want to revamp American foreign policy in a different direction from the last two administrations. Luckily, this particular
camp is also more in line with Trump's views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment camp.
"How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite
. We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles
Koch Institute.
A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last
few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed
to oppose."
... ... ...
However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham,
a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends
and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways."
He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on
national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues."
Funny, that's exactly what the experts said about Trump's chances of winning not even two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to
see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved
relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny.
That is where we must stand again," he warned.
Luckily, McCain - whose relationship with Trump has been at rock bottom ever since Trump's first appearance in the presidential
campaign - has zero impact on the thinking of Trump.
Furthermore, speaking of Russia, Retired Amy Col. Andrew Bacevich said there needs to be a rethink of American foreign policy.
He said the U.S. must consider whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan qualify as U.S. allies, and the growing divergence between the U.S.
and Israel. "The establishment doesn't want to touch questions like these with a ten foot pole," he said at a conference on Tuesday
hosted by The American Conservative, the Charles Koch Institute, and the George Washington University Department of Political Science.
Furthermore, resetting the "deplorable" relations with Russia is a necessary if not sufficient condition to halt the incipient
nuclear arms build up that has resulted of the recent dramatic return of the Cold War. As such, a Trump presidency while potentially
a failure, may be best remember for avoiding the launch of World War III. If , that is, he manages to prevent the influence of neo-cons
in his cabinet.
And then there are the wildcards: those Trump advisers who are difficult to peg into which camp they fall into. One example is
retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was selected by Trump as his national security
adviser. Flynn is a "curious case," said Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative. The retired Army general has
said he wants to work with Russia, but also expressed contrary views in his book "Field of Fight."
According to Larison, Flynn writes of an "enemy alliance" against the U.S. that includes Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria,
Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. From that standpoint, he is about
as "establishment" as they come.
It's also not crystal clear which camp Giuliani falls into. The former mayor is known as a fierce critic of Islamic extremism
but has scant foreign policy experience.
Most say what is likely is change.
"Change is coming to American grand strategy whether we like it or not,' said Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in National
Security at Texas A&M University.
"I think we are overdue for American retrenchment. Americans are beginning to suffer from hegemony fatigue," he said.
And, let's not forget, the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who are droned to death every year by anonymous
remote-control operators in the US just so the US can pursue its global hegemonic interest. They most certainly have, and unless
something indeed changes, will continue to suffer, leading to even more resentment against the US, and even more attacks against
US citizens around the globe, and on US soil. Some call them terrorism, others call them retaliation.
Help me here with this word (or whatever it means) REALISTS :
Article: Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and REALISTS see an opportunity . to intervene militarily only to
protect American interests.
So dear Libertarians, as I am about to show you two examples, but the list is long, that you have a problem, because of (US)
reality:
1) You are told by the left and right massmedia that the US is something like that: King of natural gas. We'll be the world
exporter. That we have enough natural gas for 100 years, or some nonsense like that. But here is the REALITY :
US "still" had to import almost 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2015.
2) Again, you might hear from the left and right massmedia that: US is shale this. US is shale that, even that shale is not
oil, but some form of kerogen. In any event, here' the reality: US crude oil imports, by Millions of Barrels a Day: 2014: 7,344
2015: 7,363 As of July 2016: 8,092 (MBD)
Key Point (in my opinion): Libertarians, you can't have both of best worlds -two incomparable believes. You have to chose,
otherwise you'll be a hypocrite while being a neocon as well.
MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the
US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation.
No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying.
This construction of the U.S. empire is a myth. Unlike the British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, or any other empire throughout
history you care to name, the construction of the U.S. Empire has been a drastic net drain on U.S. finances.
Unlike any preceding
empire, which invaded other lands in search of wealth and captured client states to monetize added value, the U.S. Empire
has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy
to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private
globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other
way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy
rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that.
In the process, the USA has been hollowed out from the inside, and risks imminent collapse. The greatest hope we can hold out
for a Trump presidency is a recognition of the truth of this. Bannon gets close sometimes, but I still have my doubts that there
is true recognition of just how dire these current circumstances are. In this, people like Ron Paul are right on target - to save
the Republic, the Empire and its enabling institutions (like the Fed) must go.
Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot
Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member
lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC.
Michael Flynn's book "Field of Fight" is co-authored by neocon Michael Ledeen, defender of Israel and
promoter of "universal fascism" . Ledeen
is a member of the "Foundation for Defense of Democracies" where Trump advisor James Woolsey is chairman. Woolsey, Clinton's ex-CIA
director, is also a member of the "Flynn Intel Group".
Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms
sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place.
The gov expansion into and control of the economy has so distorted the markets, and created so much dependency that we are
now in a situation where without it, our economy collapses. It would take decades to fix this problem without collapsing the economy
while you are doing it...
However, we would still feel the pain as we transition the economy. There is a problem with the long term approach...is
that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war.
With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks,
the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore.
The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know
violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and
beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period.
You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything,
just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses
and happy days are here again.
Only those doped up hippies worry about nukes. Don't listen to them.
I hear you do not like yo read, but you must read this ZH post that neatly summarizes the NeoCon influence in Wash. which has
run it's course with little tangible returns and many negative debt outcomes including loss of millions of lives . Time to change
or face world condemnation worse than Germany received after WWII. America has always been regarded as a savior Nation until the
Neocons took over Wash. for narrow corporate, DOD and foreign interests.
You have now heard all the arguments and must decide---compromise will only lead to more strife and possible economic collapse.
This is the most important decision of your Presidency ---all other decisions and promises depend on this one.
Fuck those stinking neo-con bastards. We are not going to be fighting Israel's wars again. This is the United States, not Israel,
no matter how much jew money controls congress and no matter how much jew money controls the media. I hope Trump understands this
very clearly.
What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if
Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame
the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible
for both nations.
The reason "Islamophobia" is even a thing is because Saudis paid Jewish SJWs to make it a thing, all while they pay WASPs like
Bolton to go apeshit on non-Wahhabi Muslims.
Yes, before you even start, I'm aware of the claims that the Saudis are some sort of "crypto-Jews". Whatever. They need to
be named regardless.
I don't recall the US fighting any wars that would directly benefit Saudi Arabia. Sure, the Saudis have a lot of money, but they
are just a bunch of camel-fuckers who got rich because they are sitting on oil. They are still a bunch of dumb camel-fuckers.
They don't have any nukes. I imagine the Saudis do nothing without the approval of the CIA Israel is a whole different story.
Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis
Let's deconstruct this statement shall we:
1971 Nixon goes off gold standard. Why? Deficit spending on Vietnam War was causing European Central Banks to hold dollars
they didn't want. They bought gold with it rather than mainstreet American goods. This then started depleting American Gold...especially
to France.
1973 Nixon sends his special JEW Kissinger to Saudi. Why? To make the petrodollar a world standard.
The Saudi Kissinger deal: Saudi gets protection by American War Machine, they get to Cartelize with OPEC, they get transhipment
protection by U.S. Navy, Saudi Illegitimate Coup is OK'd and sanctioned by the West, they get front line American Gear. Today
that gear includes the latest Jets and AWAC's.
What does America get, especially the Western Illuminist Bankers? All Saudi Petrodollars are to cycle into Western Capital
Market, including Western Banks. Saudi's are to buy TBILLs with their petrodollars. All oil is to be priced in dollars, to then
create demand for said dollars. Saudi's do not get to own a powerful financial center. (Can you name me a powerful Saudi bank?)
Our Jewish friends are not stupid and have been running the money game since forever.
The Coup for Saudi was actually a British MI6 project. If you trace MI6 back in time, it was an arm of Bank of England. BOE
was brought into existence by Jewish Capital out of Amsterrrdaaaamn.
Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC
as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded
the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence.
So- absolutely, the Salafists are on the side of our Illuminist friends.
The Shites, especially those of Iran/Persia - have had their "funds" absconded with and/or locked up.
So, which side of Islam has our Jewish Illuminist Cabal masters selected?
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see it. it generally tracks with my understanding
but i could use some solid source material.
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see i
Google 1973 Saudi Kissinger deal:
For BOE the sources are more obscure. I personally have tracked them through time using population statistics and the like.
I need to write a book, so I can quote myself.
BOE, Cromwell, the Orange Kings - the usurpation of England, are all related by way of Stock Market Capital in Amersterdamn.
You can trace our Jewish friends arrival in Amersterdamn with their loss of East West Mechanism (silver gold exchange rates on
the caravan routes). They lost it to the portuguese when Vasco de Gama discovered the Sourthern route.
The person who best cataloged these maneuvers was an american Alexander Del Mar - a great monetary historian. Look for his
books.
This stuff will take you years of effort, and I applaud anyone who takes it on.
For the circulation of dollars during Vietnam War, See Hudson's books... especially Super Imperialism
Dr. Bonzo •Nov 19, 2016 11:04 PM
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White
House.
In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that
they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos
in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the
point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment.
Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not
in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk.
A nation of fucking morons. I swear.
Victor999 -> Dr. Bonzo •Nov 20, 2016 4:09 AM
You answered your own question....Israel is the first priority of American foreign policy - always.
Chaos is precisely what Israel ordered in order to weaken central governments of the ME and destroy their military capability.
WWIII? Doesn't matter in the least for Israel who will quietly stand aside and let the goyim fight it out, and then pick up the
remains. We're all fucking morons for allowing the Jews to take over our money supply, our government, our intelligence services,
our media - and hide themselves under the protective cloak of liberalism, political correctness and 'anti-Semitism' to shut down
all rational debate and guard them against 'discriminatory' practices.
Neochrome •Nov 19, 2016 11:06 PM
First of all, McStain should STFU, we'll send a nurse to change his depends, no need to get all cranky.
Giuliani's foreign expertise comes down apparently to be so "brave" to kick down Serbs when they are down and to proclaim to
their face that they have deserved to be bombarded.
Bolton is exactly opposite of everything that Trump campaigned on.
Again, Mitt doesn't look half-bad considering the alternatives...
Kagemusho •Nov 19, 2016 11:13 PM
The Elite always signal their intent through the Traditional Media...like this:
Empire or Not? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role
by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 21 August 2001
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/empireOrNot.html
You will find the bastards were planning for war and just needed their Pearl Harbor 2 in order to launch it. The same PNAC,
Office of Special Plans NeoCon nutcases that want to get close to Trump were talking so glibly and blithely about 'empire'. I
knew even then that this was the Elite signaling intent, and we all know what happened a few weeks later. This article should
provide the benefit of hindsight when considering Cabinet postings. These NeoCon Israel-Firster assholes belong in prison for
war crimes!
Salzburg1756 •Nov 19, 2016 11:16 PM
neocon = Israel-Firster
If Trump disempowers them, he will be a great/good president.
the.ghost.of.22wmr -> Salzburg1756 •Nov 20, 2016 12:18 AM
Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad
is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend
and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease.
The Kurds have served our shared interests well , but like all Muslims have no real interest in becoming westernized and will
turn on us once they have achieved their goals.
UnschooledAustr... -> dunce •Nov 20, 2016 1:50 AM
You are wrong about the Kurds. Besides the Alevites the only sane people in this mess called the islamic world.
shovelhead -> dunce •Nov 20, 2016 9:35 AM
The Kurds are an ethnic identity, not a religious one. While most are of an Islamic rootstock, the are Kurds of various religious
beliefs. The Kurds are fighting for an autonomous region where all religions can co-exist without one being dominant and forcing
others to conform.
The Kurds problem is they are not physically separated by geography like Sicily, who falls under the Italian State but are
still distinctly Sicilian in language and culture while the outside world sees them as Italian.
The Kurds problem is that someone in Europe drew a line on a map without consulting them whether they wanted their traditional
homeland to be divided between three different countries.
Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 12:37 AM
BERNIE SANDERS would be a genius choice for Secretary of State. A kick in the teeth to the Clintonistas and the neocons, an
olive branch to liberals of good will, and a hilarious end to the American civil war that the MSM and Soros are trying to drum
up. Bernie's foreign policy was the only thing I
liked about him.
sinbad2 -> Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 1:02 AM
What a fantastic idea, political genius.
UnschooledAustr... -> Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 1:30 AM
I - non-US citizen living in the US - frequently argued that I would have loved seeing Bernie run as VP for Trump.
Not a lot of people who got it. You did.
BTW: Fuck Soros.
Big Ben •Nov 20, 2016 12:51 AM
The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him,
as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it
did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
Incidentally, I've been looking at some websites that claim that the 911 attacks could not have happened the way the government
claimed. There were actually THREE buildings that collapsed: the North and South Towers and WTC7 which was never hit by an airplane.
The government claims it collapsed due to fires, but a whole bunch of architects and structural engineers say that isn't possible.
And if you look at the video of the collapse, it looks like a perfect controlled demolition. There have been a number of large
fires in steel framed skyscrapers and none of them has caused a collapse. And even if a fire somehow managed to produce a collapse,
it would create a messy uneven collapse where the parts with the hottest fires collapse first.
Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse
weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed.
Also Steven Jones, a retired BYU physics professor and other scientists have found particles of thermite in the dust from the
North and South tower collapses. Thermite is an incendiary used to cut steel. This suggests that the collapse of the the North
and South Towers was also caused by something other than an airplane collision.
I have seen claims that GW Bush's younger brother was a high executive in the company that handled WTC security.
So were the 9/11 attacks a preplanned event designed to create support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
"... I don't think we should be a nation builder. ..."
"... I had to listen to [Senator] Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking Syria and attacking, you know, and it's like you're now attacking Russia, you're attacking Iran, you're attacking. And what are we getting? We're getting - and what are we getting? ..."
"... I'd say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn't it be nice to actually report what they said, wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, ..."
FRIEDMAN: What do you see as America's role in the world? Do you believe that the role
TRUMP: That's such a big question.
FRIEDMAN: The role that we played for 50 years as kind of the global balancer, paying more for
things because they were in our ultimate interest, one hears from you, I sense, is really shrinking
that role.
TRUMP: I don't think we should be a nation builder. I think we've tried that. I happen to think
that going into Iraq was perhaps I mean you could say maybe we could have settled the civil war,
O.K.? I think going into Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country. I think
getting out of it - I think we got out of it wrong, then lots of bad things happened, including the
formation of ISIS. We could have gotten out of it differently.
FRIEDMAN: NATO, Russia?
TRUMP: I think going in was a terrible, terrible mistake. Syria, we have to solve that problem
because we are going to just keep fighting, fighting forever. I have a different view on Syria than
everybody else. Well, not everybody else, but then a lot of people.
I had to listen to [Senator]
Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking
Syria and attacking, you know, and it's like you're now attacking Russia, you're attacking Iran,
you're attacking. And what are we getting? We're getting - and what are we getting?
And I have some
very definitive, I have some very strong ideas on Syria. I think what's happened is a horrible, horrible
thing. To look at the deaths, and I'm not just talking deaths on our side, which are horrible, but
the deaths - I mean you look at these cities, Arthur, where they're totally, they're rubble, massive
areas, and they say two people were injured. No, thousands of people have died. O.K. And I think
it's a shame. And ideally we can get - do something with Syria. I spoke to Putin, as you know, he
called me, essentially
UNKNOWN: How do you see that relationship?
TRUMP: Essentially everybody called me, all of the major leaders, and most of them I've spoken
to.
FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP: I wouldn't use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think - I would love
to be able to get along with Russia and I think they'd like to be able to get along with us. It's
in our mutual interest. And I don't go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would
say - when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump,
I said, huh, wouldn't it be nice, I'd say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn't it be nice
to actually report what they said, wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn't
it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it's
very expensive, and ISIS shouldn't have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and
give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that
I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that's a positive thing. It is a great thing that
we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.
JOSEPH KAHN, managing editor: On Syria, would you mind, you said you have a very strong idea about
what to do with the Syria conflict, can you describe that for us?
TRUMP: I can only say this: We have to end that craziness that's going on in Syria. One of the
things that was told to me - can I say this off the record, or is everything on the record?
"... One thing not mentioned yet, is Trump getting slammed by his populist base for his Secretary of State picks, which seem to come down to Romney and Giuliani. Romney is the worst of Wall Street, a complete tool of the neoliberal program, and Giuliani has a Hillary Clinton-like record on bloated speaking fees and pay-to-play deals with his law firm, Giuliani Partners. ..."
"... That's the biggest test case to see whether Trump, like Obama before him, is going to forget about his populist base and take the carrot Wall Street is offering him. ..."
"... If Trump really wanted to shake things up, he could pick Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary of State, that would be a clever move, far better than Giuliani or Romney. ..."
One thing not mentioned yet, is Trump getting slammed by his populist base for his Secretary
of State picks, which seem to come down to Romney and Giuliani. Romney is the worst of Wall Street,
a complete tool of the neoliberal program, and Giuliani has a Hillary Clinton-like record on bloated
speaking fees and pay-to-play deals with his law firm, Giuliani Partners. Either one of those
clowns as Secretary of State would be a complete betrayal of everything Trump said he stood for
on foreign policy. Romney however is drawing howls of protest from Rust Belt Trump supporters,
because he's so pro-NAFTA, pro-TPP:
https://www.thenation.com/article/more-nafta-anyone-romney-positions-free-trade-champion/
That's the biggest test case to see whether Trump, like Obama before him, is going to forget
about his populist base and take the carrot Wall Street is offering him. Another big one
is whether John Bolton, neocon war pig just like Clinton pals Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan,
ends up with a big foreign policy role. Forget about cooperation with Russia on ISIS in that case.
So, those are some serious issues that Trump might want to distract his base from, but they're
the major issues that will determine what kind of foreign policy, economic and military, Trump
will really pursue.
As far as Jill Stein, what the hell is she doing? The biggest Green Party issue right now should
be helping block the Dakota Accesss Pipeline debacle, a consortium of short-sighted interests
aiming at exporting Bakken crude overseas, including Warren Buffett, billionaire Democratic supporter,
whose in $6 billion to DAPL via Phillips 66, and Kelcy Warren, billionaire Republican supported,
CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, another DAPL partner.
Instead she's playing some dumb political game, totally ignoring the one issue any real
"Green Party" would be focusing on right now.
P.S. If Trump really wanted to shake things up, he could pick Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary
of State, that would be a clever move, far better than Giuliani or Romney.
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
Trump betrayed everything and everybody, but he remain the sign of the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA
Notable quotes:
"... The anger against outsourcing jobs is very real and very dangerous for current corrupt neocon/neolib elite in Washington with their dream of global dominance and global neoliberal empire spanning all countries on all continents much like Trotsky dreamed about global Communist empire. ..."
"... The key information about his real intention would be the candidate for the Secretary of State. But even here uncertainty will remain. For example, it is not completely clear to me that if Bolton would be appointed he will be able to pursue the policies of his neocon past. After all Trump has distinct authoritarian inclinations and Bolton is not stupid enough not to understand that. ..."
"... Hopefully his foreign policy will be less jingoistic that Obama foreign policy. "Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war," said Trump, "unlike other candidates, war and aggression will not be my first instinct." ..."
"... "lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia relations ..."
"... Putin was and remain an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA. So hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business. In other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary attempt to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington his lack of desire to convert Russian into yet another vassal state. ..."
"... The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington pursued for several decades. ..."
"... Any idea that he will peruse isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks in his close circle. ..."
"... My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any strengthening of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia. ..."
"... This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5) ..."
"... The US Empire has been nice to the Russians before. It was called detente and caused almost (not quite) as much hysteria in war-mongering (proto-neoconservative) circles as Trump's 'neo-detente' is causing now. However, the proviso is (and always was) that the warmongering could be ramped up again any time the Americans chose, and of course it was again under Reagan. ..."
"... From the point of view of American imperialism, Trump's plan to (temporarily) be nice to Russia makes a lot of strategic sense: as you point out, under Obama American imperial forces were becoming increasingly overstretched. In any case, for historical reasons, Russia (white, capitalist, Christian) doesn't make as good an enemy as the mysterious dark forces of 'Radical Islam'. ..."
"... So I am guessing under Trump we will see temporary rapprochement with Russia in the East, and more concentration on command and control of the Middle East. I am also guessing Obama's 'Pivot to China' will be allowed to quietly continue. It's also likely the US' policy of quietly picking off 'weak links' in the 'pink tide' in South American (cf Brazil, Honduras) will continue. ..."
"... For the moment I take great comfort in the hostility Trump displayed to Eliot Cohen and his ilk – https://twitter.com/EliotACohen/status/798512852931788800 ..."
"... "After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly." ..."
Trump first and foremost is the symptom, not cause of crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. Ideology
is dead, like Bolshevism was dead soon after the end of WWII in the USSR.
Trump has two major path of his governance. He might try relying on nationalist insurgence
his election provoked and squeeze the "deep state" and neocon cabal in Washington, or he will
be co-opted by Republican brass. He probably understand that his positioning during election campaign
as a fighter against globalization and neoliberalism excesses in the USA is the key link that
provides political support for his administration. And throwing a couple on neocons or banksters
against the wall would be a populist gesture well received by American public.
The anger against outsourcing jobs is very real and very dangerous for current corrupt
neocon/neolib elite in Washington with their dream of global dominance and global neoliberal empire
spanning all countries on all continents much like Trotsky dreamed about global Communist empire.
My feeling is that a lot of people are really ready to fight for Trump and that creates for
problem for the "deep state", if Trump "indoctrination" by Washington establishment fails.
Past revolts in some US cities are just the tip of the iceberg. Obama lost not only his legacy
with Trump election. He lost his bid to keep all members of top 1% and first of all financial
oligarchy that drives the events on 2008 unaccountable.
So "accountability drive" which will be interpreted by neoliberals as "witch hunt" might well
be in the cards. I encourage everybody in this blog to listen to the following Trump election
advertisement.
Also I would not assume that he is a newcomer to political games. Real estate business is very
a political activity. So a more plausible hypothesis is that he is a gifted politician both by
nature and due to on the job training received in his occupation.
His idea of creating a circle of advisors who compete with each other and thus allow him to
be the final arbiter of major decisions is not new. He is not hostile to conflicts within his
inner circle.
The key information about his real intention would be the candidate for the Secretary of
State. But even here uncertainty will remain. For example, it is not completely clear to me that
if Bolton would be appointed he will be able to pursue the policies of his neocon past. After
all Trump has distinct authoritarian inclinations and Bolton is not stupid enough not to understand
that.
Hopefully his foreign policy will be less jingoistic that Obama foreign policy. "Our goal
is peace and prosperity, not war," said Trump, "unlike other candidates, war and aggression will
not be my first instinct."
There have been two constants in his campaign: "stomp the weaker" and "lovin' Putin".
That's it.
"lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia
relations . You should better stay above this level in this blog.
Putin was and remain an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA.
So hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business.
In other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary
attempt to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington
his lack of desire to convert Russian into yet another vassal state.
The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and
improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that
and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington
pursued for several decades.
His "Contract with America" does not cover foreign policy issues except rejection of TPP, NAFTA
and like.
Any idea that he will peruse isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks
in his close circle.
My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any
strengthening of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia.
Also under Trump the USA might be more selective as running six concurrent conflicts (Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine). Which during Obama administration proved to be pretty expensive.
Libya is now a failed state. In Ukraine the standard of living dropped to the level of $2 per
day for the majority of population and the country became yet another debt slave, always balancing
on the wedge of bankruptcy. And costs for the USA are continuing to mount in at least three of
the six countries mentioned ( profits extracted in Ukraine and Iraq partially offset that). It
is unclear whether Trump administration will continue this Obama policy of multiple unilateral
engagements but I think is that during Trump administration the resistance to the USA unilateral
interventionism will be stronger as neoliberalism itself became much less attractive ideology.
Which is more difficult to "export". Similar to the fact that "communism" was more difficult to
export after 60th by the USSR. In a way, after 2008 it is a "damaged good" notwithstanding its
recent victories in Brazil and Argentina. See for example discussion at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/22/does-clintons-defeat-mean-the-decline-of-us-interventionism/
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions
reflects their punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be
a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of the United States and its allies; they are a new
rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way to suppress Russia
and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World
(G77) at the Havana Summit in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including
humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of the states concerned. (4) This was
nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the
war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade,
of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by
Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5)
But, of course, we can only guess how Trump administration will behave.
'The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and
improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do
that and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington
pursued for several decades.'
The US Empire has been nice to the Russians before. It was called detente and caused almost
(not quite) as much hysteria in war-mongering (proto-neoconservative) circles as Trump's 'neo-detente'
is causing now. However, the proviso is (and always was) that the warmongering could be ramped
up again any time the Americans chose, and of course it was again under Reagan.
From the point of view of American imperialism, Trump's plan to (temporarily) be nice to
Russia makes a lot of strategic sense: as you point out, under Obama American imperial forces
were becoming increasingly overstretched. In any case, for historical reasons, Russia (white,
capitalist, Christian) doesn't make as good an enemy as the mysterious dark forces of 'Radical
Islam'.
So I am guessing under Trump we will see temporary rapprochement with Russia in the East,
and more concentration on command and control of the Middle East. I am also guessing Obama's 'Pivot
to China' will be allowed to quietly continue. It's also likely the US' policy of quietly picking
off 'weak links' in the 'pink tide' in South American (cf Brazil, Honduras) will continue.
'Trump: foreign policy continuity rather than change' may well be a typical graduate thesis
in 30 years' time.
I'm curious how Trump will deal with Erdogan. Erdogan seems to have all the tact and subtlety
of an angry Bison and with Trump's thin skin, there is bound to be a conflict at some stage. And
Erdogan is not Christian.
Like a gilded coating that makes the dullest things glitter, today's thin veneer of
political populism covers a grotesque underbelly of growing inequality that's hiding in plain
sight. And this phenomenon of ever more concentrated wealth and power has both Newtonian and
Darwinian components to it.
In terms of Newton's first law of motion: those in
power will remain in power unless acted upon by an external force. Those who are wealthy will
only gain in wealth as long as nothing deflects them from their present course. As for Darwin,
in the world of financial evolution, those with wealth or power will do what's in their best
interest to protect that wealth, even if it's in no one else's interest at all.
In George Orwell's iconic 1945 novel, Animal Farm ,
the pigs who gain control in a rebellion against a human farmer eventually impose a
dictatorship on the other animals on the basis of a single commandment
: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." In terms of the
American republic, the modern equivalent would be: "All citizens are equal, but the wealthy are
so much more equal than anyone else (and plan to remain that way)."
Certainly, inequality is the economic great wall between those with power and those without
it.
As the animals of Orwell's farm grew ever less equal, so in the present moment in a country
that still claims equal opportunity for its citizens, one in which
three Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom half of society (160 million people),
you could certainly say that we live in an increasingly Orwellian society. Or perhaps an
increasingly Twainian one.
After all, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote a classic 1873 novel that put an
unforgettable label on their moment and could do the same for ours. The Gilded Age: A Tale
of Today depicted the greed and political corruption of post-Civil War America. Its
title caught the spirit of what proved to be a long moment when the uber-rich came to dominate
Washington and the rest of America. It was a period saturated with robber barons, professional
grifters, and incomprehensibly wealthy banking magnates. (Anything sound familiar?) The main
difference between that last century's gilded moment and this one was that those robber barons
built tangible things like railroads. Today's equivalent crew of the mega-wealthy build
remarkably intangible things like tech and electronic platforms, while a grifter of a president
opts for the only new infrastructure in sight, a great wall to nowhere.
In Twain's epoch, the U.S. was emerging from the Civil War. Opportunists were rising from
the ashes of the nation's battered soul. Land speculation, government lobbying, and shady deals
soon converged to create an unequal society of the first order (at least until now). Soon after
their novel came out, a series of recessions ravaged the country, followed by a 1907 financial
panic in New York City caused by a
speculator-led copper-market scam.
From the late 1890s on, the most powerful banker on the planet, J.P. Morgan, was called upon
multiple times to bail out a country on the economic edge. In 1907, Treasury Secretary George
Cortelyou provided him with
$25 million in bailout money at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt to stabilize
Wall Street and calm frantic citizens trying to withdraw their deposits from banks around the
country. And this Morgan did -- by helping his friends and their companies, while skimming
money off the top himself. As for the most troubled banks holding the savings of ordinary
people? Well, they folded. (Shades of the 2007-2008 meltdown and bailout anyone?)
The leading bankers who had received that bounty from the government went on to cause the
Crash of 1929 .
Not surprisingly, much speculation and fraud preceded it. In those years, the novelist F. Scott
Fitzgerald caught
the era's spirit of grotesque inequality in The Great Gatsby when one of his characters
comments: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." The same
could certainly be said of today when it comes to the gaping maw between the have-nots and
have-a-lots.
Income vs. Wealth
To fully grasp the nature of inequality in our twenty-first-century gilded age, it's
important to understand the difference between wealth and income and what kinds of inequality
stem from each. Simply put, income is how much money you make in terms of paid work or any
return on investments or assets (or other things you own that have the potential to change in
value). Wealth is simply the gross accumulation of those very assets and any return or
appreciation on them. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to have a higher annual
income.
Let's break that down. If you earn $31,000 a year, the median salary for an
individual in the United States today, your income would be that amount minus associated taxes
(including federal, state, social security, and Medicare ones). On average, that means you
would be left with about $26,000 before other expenses kicked
in.
If your wealth is $1,000,000, however, and you put that into a savings account paying
2.25%
interest , you could receive about $22,500 and, after taxes, be left with about $19,000,
for doing nothing whatsoever.
To put all this in perspective, the top 1% of Americans now take home, on average, more than
40 times the incomes of the bottom 90%. And if you head for the top 0.1%, those figures only
radically worsen. That tiny crew takes home more than 198 times the income of the
bottom 90% percent. They also possess
as much wealth as the nation's bottom 90%. "Wealth," as Adam Smith so classically noted
almost two-and-a-half-centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations , "is power," an adage that seldom, sadly, seems outdated.
A Case Study: Wealth, Inequality, and the Federal Reserve
Obviously, if you inherit wealth in this country, you're instantly ahead of the game. In
America, a third to nearly a half of all wealth is
inherited rather than self-made. According to a New York Times investigation, for
instance, President Donald Trump, from birth, received an estimated
$413 million (in today's dollars, that is) from his dear old dad and another
$140 million (in today's dollars) in loans. Not a bad way for a "businessman" to begin
building the empire (of bankruptcies
) that became the platform for a presidential campaign that
oozed into actually running the country. Trump did it, in other words, the old-fashioned
way -- through inheritance.
In his megalomaniacal zeal to declare a national emergency at the southern border, that
gilded millionaire-turned-billionaire-turned-president provides but one of many examples of a
long record of abusing power. Unfortunately, in this country, few people consider record
inequality (which is still growing) as another kind of abuse of power, another kind of great
wall, in this case keeping not Central Americans but most U.S. citizens out.
The Federal Reserve, the country's central bank that dictates the cost of money and that
sustained Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 (and since), has finally
pointed out that such extreme levels of inequality are bad news for the rest of the country. As
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a
town hall in Washington in early February, "We want prosperity to be widely shared. We need
policies to make that happen." Sadly, the Fed has largely contributed to increasing
the systemic inequality now engrained in the financial and, by extension, political system. In
a recent research paper , the Fed
did, at least, underscore the consequences of inequality to the economy, showing that "income
inequality can generate low aggregate demand, deflation pressure, excessive credit growth, and
financial instability."
In the wake of the global economic meltdown, however, the Fed took it upon itself to reduce
the cost of money for big banks by chopping interest rates to zero (before eventually raising
them to 2.5%) and buying $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds to lower it further. All
this so that banks could ostensibly lend money more easily to Main Street and stimulate the
economy. As Senator Bernie Sanders noted though, "The
Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the
largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world a
clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone
else."
The economy has been treading water ever since (especially compared to the stock market).
Annual gross domestic product growth has not surpassed
3% in any year since the financial crisis, even as the level of the stock market
tripled , grotesquely increasing the country's inequality gap. None of this should have
been surprising, since much of the excess money went straight to big banks, rich investors, and
speculators. They then used it to invest in the stock and bond markets, but not in things that
would matter to all the Americans outside that great wall of wealth.
The question is: Why are inequality and a flawed economic system mutually reinforcing? As a
starting point, those able to invest in a stock market buoyed by the Fed's policies only
increased their wealth exponentially. In contrast, those relying on the economy to sustain them
via wages and other income got shafted. Most people aren't, of course, invested in the stock
market, or really in anything. They can't afford to be. It's important to remember that nearly
80% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck.
The net result: an acute post-financial-crisis increase in
wealth inequality -- on top of the income inequality that was global but especially true in the
United States. The crew in the top 1% that doesn't rely on salaries to increase their wealth
prospered fabulously. They, after all, now own
more than half of all national wealth invested in stocks and mutual funds, so a soaring
stock market disproportionately helps them. It's also why the Federal Reserve
subsidy policies to Wall Street banks have only added to the extreme wealth of those
extreme few.
The Ramifications of Inequality
The list of negatives resulting from such inequality is long indeed. As a start, the only
thing the majority of Americans possess a greater proportion of than that top 1% is a mountain
of debt.
The bottom 90% are the lucky owners of about three-quarters of the country's household debt.
Mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit-card debt are cumulatively at a
record-high $13.5 trillion .
And that's just to start down a slippery slope. As Inequality.org reports, wealth and
income inequality impact "everything from life expectancy to infant mortality and obesity."
High economic inequality and poor health, for instance, go hand and hand, or put another way,
inequality compromises the overall health of the country. According to academic findings,
income inequality is, in the most literal sense, making Americans sick. As one study put it ,
"Diseased and impoverished economic infrastructures [help] lead to diseased or impoverished or
unbalanced bodies or minds."
Then there's Social Security, established in 1935 as a federal supplement for
those in need who have also paid into the system through a tax on their wages. Today, all
workers contribute 6.2% of their annual earnings and employers pay the other 6.2% (up to a cap
of $132,900 ) into the Social
Security system. Those making far more than that, specifically millionaires and billionaires,
don't have to pay a dime more on a proportional basis. In practice, that means about 94%
of American workers and their employers paid the full 12.4% of their annual earnings toward
Social Security, while the other 6% paid an often significantly smaller fraction of their
earnings.
According to his
own claims about his 2016 income, for instance, President Trump "contributed a mere 0.002
percent of his income to Social Security in 2016." That means it would take nearly
22,000 additional workers earning the median U.S. salary to make up for what he doesn't
have to pay. And the greater the income inequality in this country, the more money those who
make less have to put into the Social Security system on a proportional basis. In recent years,
a staggering $1.4 trillion
could have gone into that system, if there were no arbitrary payroll cap favoring the
wealthy.
Inequality: A Dilemma With Global Implications
America is great at minting millionaires. It has the highest concentration of them, globally
speaking, at 41%. (Another 24% of that millionaires' club can be found in Europe.) And the top
1% of U.S. citizens earn 40 times the national average and
own about 38.6 % of the country's total wealth. The highest figure in any other developed
country is "only" 28%.
However, while the U.S. boasts of epic levels of inequality, it's also a global trend.
Consider this: the world's richest 1% own 45% of total wealth on
this planet. In contrast, 64% of the population (with an average of
$10,000 in wealth to their name) holds less than 2%. And to widen the inequality picture a bit
more, the world's richest 10%, those having at least $100,000 in assets, own 84% of total
global wealth.
The billionaires' club is where it's really at, though. According to Oxfam, the richest
42 billionaires have a combined wealth equal to that of the poorest 50% of humanity. Rest
assured, however, that in this gilded century there's inequality even among billionaires. After
all, the 10 richest among them possess $745
billion in total global wealth. The next 10 down the list possess a mere $451.5 billion , and why even
bother tallying the next 10 when you get the picture?
Oxfam also recently
reported that "the number of billionaires has almost doubled, with a new billionaire
created every two days between 2017 and 2018. They have now more wealth than ever before while
almost half of humanity have barely escaped extreme poverty, living on less than $5.50 a
day."
How Does It End?
In sum, the rich are only getting richer and it's happening at a historic rate. Worse yet,
over the past decade, there was an extra perk for the truly wealthy. They could bulk up on
assets that had been devalued due to the financial crisis, while so many of their peers on the
other side of that great wall of wealth were economically decimated by the 2007-2008 meltdown
and have yet to fully
recover .
What we've seen ever since is how money just keeps flowing upward through banks and massive
speculation, while the economic lives of those not at the top of the financial food chain have
largely remained stagnant or worse. The result is, of course, sweeping inequality of a kind
that, in much of the last century, might have seemed inconceivable.
Eventually, we will all have to face the black cloud this throws over the entire economy.
Real people in the real world, those not at the top, have experienced a decade of ever greater
instability, while the inequality gap of this beyond-gilded age is sure to shape a truly messy
world ahead. In other words, this can't end well.
I read a stat in Mother Jones magazine that 90% of Americans have an average income of
$31,000 a year and the richest .1 percent have an average income of $27 million dollars. So
how does one pay all these living expenses and various debts with $26,000 after taxes? The
Trump tax cuts just exacerbated the problem by giving more money to the wealthy and
practically nothing to the 90% (at the bottom, which is almost everyone else). A good book on
the subject of wealth inequality is "Billionaire's Ball."
"... Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media. ..."
"... I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country ..."
"... There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it. ..."
Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the
American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He
may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system
afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.
Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his
views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a
socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist
period.
Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What
about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem
with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and
nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the
surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we
are today.
Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the
working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such
as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all
the major media.
There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means
identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class
majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not
define the authentic socialist agenda.
I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco
Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him
and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You
don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most
powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think
voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either
in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all
voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!
I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the
better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11
truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.
It doesn't take an Einstein to
see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out,
what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm
afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the
only way out of this evil system.
There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the
same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect
folks to fall for it.
This is a great
article which effectively exposes Sanders as being fatally compromised by his role as
Clinton lackey after the evidence emerged that the party engaged in fraud securing the
predicted result. I also fully endorse Hooch's response to the commentary. Great job on both
counts.
"... This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as Chomsky explained, new dealism. ..."
"... As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4 yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up. ..."
@Bern I think that
Sanders is able to change half of the USA. He is likely to do something about inequality,
unemployment, health care, but he will not touch the MIC.
The US is a rich country, and if the US wants stay rich it has to do something about this
third world-isation of the USA that is in play since the 1990s (outsourcing of jobs, leaving
the home population with less and less means to buy stuff US corporations produce abroad).
This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to
be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as
Chomsky explained, new dealism.
Socialism would be if Sanders promoted that workers would
take over the corporations, or would allow to re-open factories, warehouses, and farmland
where the workers were in control, not the bosses. Sanders is not promoting any of that.
Sanders may be a Roosevelt, but he is not an Upton Sinclair (who nearly became governor of
California in the 1930s by running a truly socialist platform). And, as said, he will
certainly not touch the MIC.
IMO he is the lesser evil of candidates who run for the 2020 US elections, but to consider
him a socialist, as Sanders calls himself, will lead to disappointment.
Here is Michael Parenti talking about his former compatriot:
As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4
yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he
should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who
believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up.
Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his
type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide
the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity
progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.
That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The
ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity
hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn
viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without
an army.
Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for
feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working
class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live
comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and
are as tough as jello.
Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb
enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.
While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no
limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and
privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the
tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit
hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.
@redmudhooch "See how
the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used
to dwell in her -- but now murderers!"
(Isaiah 1:21-23)
Bernie is not a magic socialist. He is a fraud: he was cheated out of nomination, and then
supported the cheater. Shame on him! He will never get my vote, period.
Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely
controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era
Newspeak.)
What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for
CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.
CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes
Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party
loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.
Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about
the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and
pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.
I honestly think that had the media and the deep state treated Trump fairly, they would have still have some credibility
now. But the blatant attempt to derail his candidacy only egged on his supporters. Then, the concerted attempts to nullify the
election results convinced people all over the political spectrum that our "democracy" is only a "simulation of democracy" as
Hopkins points out.
Don't the people pulling the strings behind the media understand what they have done? They have convinced a large part of the
nation that everything that they were taught from childhood is a fraud.
Civilizations are only held together by the "glue" of shared beliefs. The deep-state-media-complex has just applied a solvent
to the very glue that holds the entire culture together.
This is going to make the next couple of years very interesting.
Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If
President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism &
preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against
Iran.
Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say
about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got
virtually no notice in the media?
Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple
clues.
Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he
received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping
staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the
payments were "consulting fees."
@animalogic I don't
know if you live in the US, sounds like you don't, but one could argue that the healthcare
system has already been nationalized. Consumers must shop for policies that meet
Obamacare standards which include coverage for gender reassignment and other things
that 10 years ago no private insurer would dream of paying for. This is a direct result of
government's boot on the market's throat. (And the market likes it, based on HMO stock
prices)
It is illegal for any insurer to offer a bare bones catastrophic plan that doesn't
cover Obama's hopey-changey list of progressive surgical procedures. 15 years ago, those
catastrophic plans were everywhere, and very affordable.
And to your point about providing healthcare to people who can't afford it. We already
have that, it's called Medicaid. When those receiving it die, the government comes in and
grabs all of their estate's assets, because they used a government program that was
forced on them. Like I said, it's been taken over.
"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely
nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."
Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire,
it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.
The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running
amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.
The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates",
which has veto power over the little people.
The SJWs and Bernie bots may be too dumb to know who their real daddies are, but the
Superdelegates know exactly whose ring they need to kiss to regain power: the same globalist
capitalist Davos scums who now have Trump exactly where they want him, between their legs
sucking up while busy implementing their agendas of endless wars and endless immigration.
The Superdelegates will never let things get too far with the socialists, they're good for
entertainment, to give off the pretense of a real race. I'm betting my money on Kirsten
Gillibrand -- Dems know if there's a woman who could beat Trump, she needs to be a blonde.
Uncle Joe has too many skeletons in his closet. It's just a matter of time before the
cockroaches come out of the woodwork and #MeToo him into the orbits.
Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his
type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide
the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity
progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.
That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The
ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity
hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn
viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without
an army.
Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for
feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working
class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live
comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and
are as tough as jello.
Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb
enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.
While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no
limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and
privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the
tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit
hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.
Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the
American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He
may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system
afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.
Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his
views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a
socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist
period.
Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What
about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem
with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and
nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the
surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we
are today.
Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the
working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such
as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all
the major media.
There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means
identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class
majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not
define the authentic socialist agenda.
I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco
Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him
and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You
don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most
powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think
voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either
in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all
voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!
I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the
better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11
truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.It doesn't take an Einstein to
see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out,
what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm
afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the
only way out of this evil system.
There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the
same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect
folks to fall for it.
"... There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S., that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. ..."
"... The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S. Congress. ..."
"... So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue. The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is fair game ..."
Observers of developments in the Middle East have long taken it as a given that the United
States and Israel are seeking for an excuse to attack Iran. The recently terminated conference
in Warsaw had that objective, which was clearly expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, but it failed to rally European and Middle Eastern states to support the cause. On
the contrary, there was strong sentiment coming from Europe in particular that normalizing
relations with Iran within the context of the 2015 multi party nuclear agreement is the
preferred way to go both to avoid a major war and to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.
There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S.,
that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. They seek pretexts in
various dark corners, including claims that Iran is cheating on its nuclear program, that it is
developing ballistic missiles that will enable it to deliver its secret nuclear warheads onto
targets in Europe and even the United States, that it is an oppressive, dictatorial government
that must be subjected to regime change to liberate the Iranian people and give them democracy,
and, most stridently, that is provoking and supporting wars and threats against U.S. allies all
throughout the Middle East.
Dissecting the claims about Iran, one might reasonably counter that rigorous inspections by
the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirm that Tehran has no nuclear
weapons program, a view that is supported by the U.S. intelligence community in its recent
Worldwide Threat Assessment. Beyond that, Iran's limited missile program can be regarded as
largely defensive given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S. and one might well accept
that the removal of the Iranian government is a task best suited for the Iranian people, not
delivered through military intervention by a foreign power that has been starving the country
through economic warfare. And as for provoking wars in the Middle East, look to the United
States and Israel, not Iran.
So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the subject
is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to hang their
war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an old story to give them
what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that would justify an attack on
Iran without a declaration of war while also lacking any imminent threat from Tehran to justify
a preemptive strike.
What may be the new Iran policy was recently outlined in a Washington Times article,
which unfortunately has received relatively little attention from either the media, the
punditry or from the few policymakers themselves who have intermittently been mildly critical
of Washington's propensity to strike first and think about it afterwards.
The article is entitled "Exclusive: Iran-al Qaeda alliance May Provide Legal Rationale
for U.S. military strikes." The article's main points should be taken seriously by anyone
concerned over what is about to unfold in the Persian Gulf because it is not just the usual
fluff emanating from the hubris-induced meanderings of some think tank, though it does include
some of that. It also cites government officials by name and others who are not named but are
clearly in the administration.
As an ex-CIA case officer who worked on the Iran target for a number of years, I was shocked
when I read the Times ' article, primarily because it sounded like a repeat of the
fabricated intelligence that was used against both Iraq and Iran in 2001 through 2003. It is
based on the premise that war with Iran is desirable for the United States and, acting behind
the scenes, Israel, so it is therefore necessary to come up with an excuse to start it. As the
threat of terrorism is always a good tactic to convince the American public that something must
be done, that is what the article tries to do and it is particularly discouraging to read as it
appears to reflect opinion in the White House.
As I have been writing quite critically about the CIA and the Middle East for a number of
years, I am accustomed to considerable push-back from former colleagues. But in this case, the
calls and emails I received from former intelligence officers who shared my experience of the
Middle East and had read the article went strongly the other way, condemning the use of both
fake and contrived intelligence to start another unnecessary war.
The article states that Iran is supporting al Qaeda by providing money, weapons and
sanctuary across the Middle East to enable it to undertake new terrorist attacks. It is doing
so in spite of ideological differences because of a common enemy: the United States. Per the
article and its sources, this connivance has now "evolved into an unacceptable global security
threat" with the White House intent on "establishing a potential legal justification for
military strikes against Iran or its proxies."
One might reasonably ask why the United States cares if Iran is helping al Qaeda as both are
already enemies who are lying on the Made in U.S.A. chopping block waiting for the ax to fall.
The reason lies in the Authorization to Use Military Force, originally drafted post 9/11 to
provide a legal fig leaf to pursue al Qaeda worldwide, but since modified to permit also going
after "associated groups." If Iran is plausibly an associated group then President Trump and
his band of self-righteous maniacs egged on by Netanyahu can declare "bombs away Mr.
Ayatollah." And if Israel is involved, there will be a full benediction coming from Congress
and the media. So is this administration both capable and willing to start a major war based on
bullshit? You betcha!
The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say
the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should
President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that
economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother
to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it
is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising
its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear
arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S.
Congress.
Curiously, though several cited administration officials wedded to the hard-line against
Iran because it is alleged to be the "world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" were willing
to provide their opinions on the Iran-al Qaeda axis, the authors of the recent Worldwide Threat
Assessment issued by the intelligence community apparently have never heard of it. The State
Department meanwhile sees an Iranian pipeline moving al Qaeda's men and money to targets in
central and south Asia, though that assessment hardly jives with the fact that the
only recent major attack attributed to al Qaeda was carried out on February 13
th in southeastern Iran against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a bombing that
killed 27 guardsmen.
The State annual threat assessment also particularly condemns Iran for funding groups like
Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are, not coincidentally, enemies of Israel who would care
less about "threatening" the United States but for the fact that it is constantly meddling in
the Middle East on behalf of the Jewish state.
And when in doubt, the authors of the article went to "old reliable," the leading neocon
think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, by the way, works closely with
the Israeli government and never, ever has criticized the state of democracy in Israel. One of
its spokesmen was quick off the mark: ""The Trump administration is right to focus on Tehran's
full range of malign activities, and that should include a focus on Tehran's long-standing
support for al Qaeda."
Indeed, the one expert cited in the Times story who actually is an expert and
examined original documents rather than reeling off approved government and think tank talking
points contradicted the Iran-al Qaeda narrative. "Nelly Lahoud, a former terrorism analyst at
the U.S. Military Academy and now a New America Foundation fellow, was one of the first to
review documents seized from bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. She wrote in an
analysis for the Atlantic Council this fall that the bin Laden files revealed a deep strain of
skepticism and hostility toward the Iranian regime, mixed with a recognition by al Qaeda
leaders of the need to avoid a complete break with Tehran. In none of the documents, which date
from 2004 to just days before bin Laden's death, 'did I find references pointing to
collaboration between al Qaeda and Iran to carry out terrorism,' she concluded."
So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue.
The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is
fair game. Iran and terrorism? Perfect. Let's try that one out because, after all, invading
Iran will be a cakewalk and the people will be in the streets cheering our tanks as they roll
by. What could possibly go wrong?
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]
.
Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New
Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly
below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than
America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world
while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.
Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US
has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan
Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of
over a billion people.
And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with
Israel.
Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on
Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a
look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.
given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S.
And it has been more than threats: the Stuxnet virus and Mossad assassinations. While I
think even Trump may be reasonably nervous about a potential attack, if he has cheerleaders
like Kushner, Friedman, MBS, AIPAC, et al, it does seem almost a certainty. Is this not what
NSA Bolton has been waiting for most of his career?
And the neocon media crew will likely be out in full force soon doing their "mushroom
cloud" thing.
I saw Rubin, Boot, Pletka, Todd in shock over what Rep Omar had said. Poor David Brooks felt
the Democrats had "slapped him the face (PBS Newshour)."
Democrats need to be talking about this early. They can't let this happen. As for the GOP
I'm sure the words at the AIPAC convention will be supportive.
The patent absurdity of the 'indispensable nation,', in one administration, making peace with
Iran and then, in the very next (on the basis of no palpable facts) making war, should
eventually wake even the most catatonic to the monstrous activities that have led us to this
point.
I suspect that this (seemingly imminent) attack on Iran will, also become the noose to
hang Trump with. Thus, the Neocons, with Stalinesque subtlety will have killed two birds with
one shot.
But in a world of America attacking countries over non-existent weapons of mass
destruction or over supposed destruction of democracy, both plainly false claims, does it
make any difference?
America will do what it wants to do. Simply because it can.
The European powers allowed World War II to unfold by wringing their hands rather than
taking a stand while Hitler built up his forces, threatened his neighbors and bit off
chunks of their territory.
You have to be kidding. You're re-spouting nearly century old war propaganda as fact. You
need to go back and read the article and focus on the parts where pretexts are made up.
Here, start with this.:
So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the
subject is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to
hang their war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an
old story to give them what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that
would justify an attack on Iran < /blockquote>
@renfro Thanks for the
tweets renfro .
I saw the news of Iran's FM Zarif's resignation yesterday and I was immediately alarmed. If
Zarif is actually removed from power a Western educated man with TV charisma will be taken
off the 'airs'. Iran will lose a big positive public relations asset with Zarif's departure
to the glee of Netanyahu and the rabid Zionists in Isra-hell and here in Trump's
administration and the Beltway. Bad news.
In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?
I agree. Who'd be stupid enough to "ally" themselves with the money bags "one world" crowd
after seeing so many others get tossed under the bus?
CAIRO, Egypt, May 27, -- The last hope of 30,000,000 Arabs to win freedom for their race
without further bloodshed vanished when cables from Washington announced that the United
States had concluded an agreement with Great Britain The Arabs came into the war on the
side of the allies against their Turkish co-religionists in- response to the
allies' promise of freedom The Arab support" was determined and effective."
Newspaper article by Junius B. Wood on the American recognition of Britain's mandate in
Palestine, Chicago Daily News,27 May 1922 (also The Sunday Star, Washington)
When the smoke of [WW2] cleared only three purposes had been achieved, none of them
disclosed at its start: the world-revolution, with Western arms and support, had
advanced to the middle of Europe; Zionism had been armed to establish itself in Palestine
by force; the "world-government", obviously the result which these two convergent
forces were intended to produce, had been set up anew in embryo form, this time in New
York. The war behind the war was the true one; it was fought to divert the arms,
manpower and treasure of the West to these purposes.
-Douglas Reed, "the Controversy of Zion," p 333 (written ~1955 ) https://archive.org/stream/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZi
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years,
starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I
saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you
that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
July 23, 2006 Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon
Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark. "[The] Five-year campaign
plan [includes] a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark) According to
General Wesley Clark–the Pentagon, by late 2001.
The problem with this (sky is falling) analysis is the number of troops available to wage a
war over there. We're in 150 countries with 165,000 people deployed OCONUS. There's no
150,000 here for this potential war, 150,000 there for that potential war (and the list of
wars we're apparently going to start is pretty long, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran,
Venezuela ).
And there's no draft. The composition of a US division has significantly fewer trigger
pullers than support people and nobody thinks the mechanics and admin people are going to
conquer another country.
I think that before indulging in paranoia it would seem like you'd want to be looking for
mass mobilizations and significant movements of armored vehicles. You can't hide it and
troops are dumb about social media None of that's happening now.
@Colin
Wright Before the US psychopaths start bombing Iran, Russia and China need to step up to
the plate and just tell them NO, your world empire will NOT expand further. I'd rather see
the US nuked than to see it kill millions of innocent Persians and wipe out their ancient
society.
If war with Iran can somehow be prevented before the coming presidential election, I'd
rather see any of the Dems far-left loony candidates elected than to hear the rantings of
psychos like Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo for one more day. God, the US and Israel are horrible,
evil countries that must be stopped!
@wraith67 That's why all US
wars are now fought with bombs and missiles, not infantry. The US no longer has to invade
countries to destroy them – witness Libya where there were no military casualties. As
for the draft – bring it on and draft the wymyn. I'd love to see middle class parents
start rioting in the streets once their 19 year-old daughters were drafted. I've read, also,
that there is a dire shortage of qualified pilots. Perhaps our high schools and universities
are not graduating enough psychos willing to kill great numbers of civilians from high
altitude for no reason. I've heard that a lifetime PTSD is a bitch, as the veteran suicide
rate of 22 a day demonstrates.
I'm actually not sure that is inaccurate. If trends continue in the current way, there may
well eventually be a push to force all Palestinians out of the West Bank. There is nothing
controversial about this:
"Over the past 50 years, Israel has demolished tens of thousands of Palestinian properties
and displaced large swathes of the population to build homes and infrastructure to illegally
settle its own population in the occupied territories. It has also diverted Palestinian
natural resources such as water and agricultural land for settlement use."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/
"Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from
Israel The survey makes no distinction between Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and
citizens of Israel in its question about whether Arabs should be expelled from Israel. And
yet, 48% of Jewish Israelis said they were in favor, 46% were opposed, and 6% said they
didn't know. Breaking it down into religious groups, the Modern Orthodox (the report uses the
Hebrew term dati'im), were the most likely to support such a measure, at 71%."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/plurality-of-jewish-israelis-want-to-expel-arabs-study-shows/
If that number grows (and there is little to doubt it will because of demographic patterns
in the Jewish populace) and it eventually becomes the case, then Daniel's statement will just
be a statement of fact; Palestinians used to live there and now they do not because they were
killed or forced out. So the jury is still out on that as far as I'm concerned. Maybe
slightly hyperbolic, but – meh – it's the internet. Hardly qualifies as "hate
speech" though.
@Wizard
of Oz Of course there are numerous options but containment only works if the targeted
country does not strike back, which would instantly escalate the conflict. Bear in mind that
all the pre war estimates of what would happen with Iraq were wrong. Assumptions that a
conflict with Iran would be manageable or containable are likely to be equally misplaced
particularly as there are hardliners on both sides that would welcome a shooting war
What no one, not even in alternative media, has picked up on is the real reason for Iran
being a threat.
An Iran war is itself a distracting event for the real issue: Palestinians.
Israel always tries to provoke a war with Iran. This is to stoke unifying nationalism
among the Israelis. Iran is a far preferable opponent than the Palestinians.
Furthermore, in the event of an actual war, you now have a global state of emergency which
allows you to expel the remaining Palestinians. The world powers will all be occupied with
fighting Iran. So will the regional powers. The Palestinians will be a legitimate security
threat in the event of a war with Iran. So an expulsion would be justified.
But of course the instigators of such a conflict would be Israelis and their toadies among
the idiot Christians of the GOP.
There is a high degree of cognitive dissonance here. I do not think that even Netanyahu
can admit to himself this is why he keeps on hyping the Iran threat. But deep down, this is
why. Otherwise, Israel has made its bed among the Palestinians. Jews are a white minority
governing and oppressing a brown Muslim majority. Their only population growth is coming from
the religious ultra orthodox, who they view with disdain and disgust.
Israel needs Iran more than anyone else in the world.
@Philip
Giraldi If I recall, the Iranian leadership has made it clear that any direct attack on
it of this magnitude will be considered an attack by proxy by Israel and they will respond in
kind. Am I correct?
@NoseytheDuke Agree. The
continued destruction of the economy and social fabric has no downside for the people who
plan to rule through globalized tyranny. It's a feature, not a bug. Middle class America
still has memory of freedoms. Not much of an impediment to real power, but nonetheless they
must go.
Act I – Remove Sunni regimes (e.g., Iraq, Libya) that are hostile to the Zionist
Project
Act II – Take a Sunni Turn by funding, arming, advising Sunni "terrorist" groups
(e.g., al Qaida, IS) to attack Shia regimes (e.g., Syria, Iran) that are hostile to the
ZP
Act III – push the KSA-led Sunni coalition to wage an eternal war against the
Iranian-led Shia coalition, while the ZP continually expands.
"has likely been the goal from the get-go" of what?
"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to
safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The
object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power
is power."
Al Qeada=CIA created BS. The smarter sort of zombies know this. Americans, however are one of
the most heavily propagandized populations outside of 1984, a true story. The media reliably
spreads fear of groups like al Qaeda, ISIS, the Viet Cong, Iraqis, Iranians, Martians, New
America Foundation you name it – fear, credulity and obedience sustains the taxpaying
class of war mongering morons. The US needs to end trying to run every country. It costs the
hard working and mostly underpaid voters a lot of money to overthrow foreign Governments with
CIA fake revolutions. Moreover, every time the military drops a bomb the tax payers pay to
replace it and a billionaire profits.
There are tons of reasons to continue all the wars or start a new one, all related to
Profit, the central concept of Capitalism. War means Profit. The propaganda war means the
rich get to loot other countries without any complaints from the confused, moronic voting
class who pay for it and support it while they debate the merits of the latest CIA prepared
Al Qeada narrative. Usually pro-Jew Giraldi does a better job faking a divisive meme with his
propaganda. Another "debate" that misses the real questions.
Anyone who knows anything about the Muslim world would know this link between Al Qaeda and
Iran is a complete sham. Al Qaeda is Sunni, Iran is Shia. They are mortal enemies. Al Qaeda
is about as likely to ally themselves with the Shias they are with the Jews, which is to say,
over their dead bodies.
But this Jew driven war machine is definitely hard at work building its case, not just
drumming up support from the left, but even more so, from the right, through their Zionist
mouthpieces esp. Breitbart. Jews are now in total control of America, controlling both sides
of the aisle in congress, and both sides of the debate in the media.
If Trump is dumb enough to invade Iran, he'll have signed his own death warrant.
In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?
The US and Israel already have a proxy group–the MEK– who has been doing
assassinations. bombings and false flags for them for years.
The MEK (People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran or the Mojahedin-e Khalk is a Iranian
political–militant organization that advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of
Iran leadership and installing its own government.
It was listed as a terrorist group by the US for blowing up American embassies and killing
americans.'
Just who has been killing Iran's nuclear scientists? | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk
› Voices › Comment
Oct 6, 2013 – Is it a last-minute attempt by Israel or the Iranian dissident group the
Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) to sabotage talks – or at least to show that they
As of 2018, MEK operatives are believed to be still conducting covert operations inside
Iran to overthrow Iran's government. Seymour Hersh reported that "some American-supported
covert operations continue in Iran today," with the MEK's prime goal of removing the current
Iranian government.
The MEK use to be anti Israel . BUT THEN . Israel offered them a deal they couldnt
refuse .the Jewish lobby would get them of the terrorist list in exchange for them ceasing to
support Palestine.
"In the beginning, MEK used to criticize the Pahlavi dynasty for allying with Israel and
Apartheid South Africa, calling them racist states and demanding cancellation of all
political and economic agreements with them. MEK opposed and was anti-Zionist.
The Central Cadre established contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), by
sending emissaries to Paris, Dubai, and Qatar to meet PLO officials. In one occasion, seven
leading members of MEK spent several months in the PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon. On 3
August 1972, they bombed the Jordanian embassy as a means to revenge King Hussein's
unleashing his troops on the PLO in 1970.
After their exile, the MEK changed into an 'ally' of Israel in pursuit of its ideological
opportunism"
I could write all week about how Israel uses its control of the US to further its goal of
being the Super Power of the ME .coming into play now also is how they offering their control
of the US to help Egyptian mad man, General Sisi, to implement his President of Egypt for
life plan in exchange for being Israel's side kick.
Makes you want to vomit doesnt it?.. to know what the US has become.
@Philip
Giraldi There are hardliners in Alaska, Texas, North Dakota and other oil-producing
states that wouldn't be too troubled if the horse manure hit the fan in Iran.
Haven't the Iranians said they would pulverize Saudi Arabian oil installations if they are
attacked by Israel or the United States?
Two hundred dollar a barrel oil could buy a lot of joy in the USA oil patch!
Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely
controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era
Newspeak.)
What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for
CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.
CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes
Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party
loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.
Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about
the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and
pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.
Calling a spade a spade......
"
TEHRAN, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday that
the West has turned the Middle East into a "powder keg" through arms sales to the Arab
countries in the region, Press TV reported.
Over the past year alone, the West sold weapons worth 100 billion U.S. dollars to the
countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said Zarif.
"The weapons did not bring security to anyone," he added.
The Iranian minister made the remarks in a foreign policy speech at the University of
Tehran.
Since the United States withdrew from the 2015 landmark Iranian nuclear deal last May,
Iran has been under unprecedented sanctions from Washington.
Iran has also repeatedly denied the West's criticism of its alleged "interfering" policies
in the region.
"
Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If
President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism &
preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against
Iran.
Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say
about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got
virtually no notice in the media?
Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple
clues.
Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he
received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping
staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the
payments were "consulting fees."
@Asagirian I've read that
she is still in line to primary Trump. Surely someone will, so it might as well be a neocon
Israel-first Sikh woman who is even more ignorant and psychotic that our current
Tweeter-in-Chief. If she wins, she can even keep Pompeo and Bolton to finish off Iran and
start WWIII.
We live in a goon-run surveillance economy, backed up by the strong arm of a mighty
surveillance state apparatus, and nobody -- I mean nobody -- really stands up to it, calling
out the real economic problems without a politically correct overlay that focuses on
drummed-up social issues or other media-driven diversion tactics. As much as Hollywood
theatrics are used as a way to sell the current setup as a functioning Republic to the serfs,
none of our never-been-so-wealthy elected leadership has the morality to challenge the
corrupt system. There's a reason for their crumbly back bones.
Despite the fake-morality play, using kids and babies as props in this fake-feminist era,
we don't even have leaders morally uncompromised enough to take on the Swamp in minor ways,
not in a surveillance state / surveillance economy, where all of the morally blemished
political elites have a lot to lose -- financially.
Political elites have a lot to lose financially, even though few of them ever took the
classic road to riches, including taking on financial risk to create quality jobs for US
citizens, as opposed to using cheap foreign wage slaves whose low wages are pumped up by
welfare for US-born kids, making it easy for them to work cheaply for elites.
Most of our rich political elites have never started businesses, employing US citizens to
make tangible items, like cake mixes or ketchup, but somehow in this finacialized
surveillance economy, all of our political leaders are flat-out rich with a lot to lose from
speaking out against the rigged system, much less actually doing something about it.
Even without extra, ratings-boosting, sexual or other Swamp-exploitable foibles, that
means a lot of leverage for surveillance goons to hold over political decision-makers' heads
if they don't do their bidding, especially in a survelliance state / survelliance economy,
wherein every nook and cranny of their lives is scrutinized to the hilt.
And it's perfectly okay for our power couples to put riches over morality because, like
the aristocrats producing golden heirs to assume the throne in other eras when aristocratic
couples and static wealth reigned supreme, our business and political leaders have all
reproduced, putting them as above firing and above morality as other elites in the
family-friendly, fake-feminist era. Everything elites do is for their babies, regardless of
how venal it is.
Despite all of the surveillance that renders the Fourth Amendment null and void for
cash-strapped serfs no less than elites and that stymies the First Amendment, suppressing the
serfs from calling out the economic situation for what it is no less than elites, corruption
is at all time highs.
Think that has anything to do with the brass-knuckle silencing tactics, made possible by
the surveillance state?
Our so-called leaders don't even bother to challenge the most basic threats to
constitutional liberty, much less the shaky foundation of our part-time / temp / churn-job
economy, with its welfare-subsidized legal & illegal immigrant workforce and our
single-mom & married-mom workforce, able to work part-time and in temp jobs for beans,
thereby supplementing spousal income, rent-covering child support or the welfare they collect
by staying under the earned-income limits for multiple welfare programs during working months
in single-breadwinner households with US-born kids.
It is not even semi-quality jobs that support most households at the growing bottom. It is
the already intact socialist system propping up a willing, cheap labor force for big
corporations, that supports a large percentage of American households. Who needs Bernie's
socialism when we already have a platter of 100%-free, non-contributory, pay-per-birth
socialism, offered up by the Republican and Democratic Uniparty to drive down wages for
non-welfare-eligible citizens 40 years?
Bernie is no stand-out Rebel. American corporations love socialism.
Even though the rebel Bernie has never held more than one senate seat, single-breadwinner
households with US-born kids are already supplied with hundreds in free EBT food,
reduced-cost housing, hundreds in monthly cash assistance, free electrcity and up to $6,431
in refundable child tax credit cash when they are willing to work part time or in temp
positions for low wages, staying below the earned-income limits for welfare during working
months. That's how they undercut millions of underemployed citizens who lack unearned income
streams from .gov, and no corporate-owned political rebel in the surveillance state is
willing to stand up to it.
No politician on the right or the left is free enough from the surveillance economy /
surveillance state's goon squad to say what that means for vanquished middle-class prosperity
in the USA.
It's not just student loans, either, no matter how much the establishment wants that to be
the main problem so that they can blow another housing bubble with the mostly unmarried
Millennials in their part-time / churn jobs. Truth is: Few of those college grads except the
dual-high-earner parents in their family-friendly / absenteeism-friendly jobs -- keeping two
of the few jobs with benefits and good wages under one roof and halving the size of the
house-buying and rent-covering middle class while low-wage daycare workers or grandparents
raise their kids -- can afford to buy a house. The above-firing group in the top 20%,
however, can afford more palatial houses than any non-rich group of non job creators in US
history.
In the long-gone America with the broad middle class and the mostly married, stay-at-home
moms, most couples paid off modest houses by retirement, and most single earners with one,
earned-only income stream could afford the dignity of a modest apartment, whereas most of
today's working women will face insurmountable rent costs in retirement, just like they do
during working years.
That is what the fake feminists have accomplished for the bottom 80%, but the
family-friendly princesses in their palaces have not made any compromises. They humanize that
by adding layers of absenteeism privileges for low-wage mommies in discriminatory
voted-best-for-moms jobs, plus welfare and cash handouts through the progressive tax code to
soften the brutality of this churn-job economy. But those womb-privileged single moms find
themselves in the same dismal economic boat with the single, childless women in the bottom
80% after their kids turn 18, and the wage-supplementing, pay-per-birth freebies from
goverment dry up.
Lacking a student loan debt does not overcome the insurmountable cost of housing for
single breadwinners, whether they are male or female, non-custodial parents, middle-aged or
older with no kids, older with no kids under 18 or younger in the years before family
formation beefs up their income with cash-check tax code privileges, monthly welfare access
and crony-parent workplace privileges. With none of the unearned income streams accruing to
womb-productive single earners, the single earners relying relying on earned-only income from
one person cannot even afford rent for a one-room apartment in a safe or unsafe area, much
less a house. And there are more single earners than ever; we are the majority.
The childbearing-aged Millennials will be the focus of every economist and of all
political hacks, seeking votes from the mostly older and middle-aged citizens who bother to
show up on voting day, not the Xers with one, earned-only income stream and no kids under 18
and, thus, no handouts from Uncle Sam and the Treasury Department pumping up their wages in
this dismal scam landscape of a churn-job gig economy.
Thanks to feminism, there are more & more of us in that category in this era of
single, "independent" career women, and it is going to get worse and worse as this group hits
retirement age. It will be worse for everyone except the dual-high-earner parents -- the
tax-advantaged, "needs-the-job," above-firing "talent" who were needed at work because of
their talent, but who were somehow on a an expensive, lengthy, family-friendly vacation every
couple of months during their above-firing, childbearing-aged working years, not to mention
all of the mornings and afternoons of excused absenteeism (for kids, for kids!) and their
multiple pregnancy leaves.
These working-parents-in-charge, with their libertine, back-watching, family-friendly work
schedules, sure do fire a lot of the non-family-friendly non culture fits whose every day,
all-day hard work helps to keep their bonus numbers up. They fire away for the most trivial
and pettiest of infractions in the churn machine of America's unprofessional-to-the-max
corporate workplaces. Use and lose. Churn and burn. It equals family-friendly job
security.
But regardless of how they did it, they will still retire into their luxury apartments or
cathedral-ceiling homes, with two streams of SS income and two 401k streams.
Whereas, however hard they work and however much they help to pump up the crony-parent
managers' bonuses, a huge number of divorced or never-married, single-breadwinner Xers who,
since they did not have kids, did not need tax credit handouts to boost up their low wages,
nor above-firing absenteeism privileges, benefits, decent-paying jobs or even a modicum of
job security will retire into the most spartan and hopeless of "retirement" situations.
They will have nothing but one stream of very inadequate, non-rent-covering SS, into which
they contributed either 7.5% or 15.3% of every dime they earned, unlike these glorified
single moms and immigrants, raking in 100%-free monthly welfare by the truckloads, in
addition to bigly, refundable cash-assistance welfare checks from the progressive tax code
that top out at $6,431 all through their childbearing years, even though they do not pay
income taxes in many cases and even though they work part time .
The average employed person in the USA is a part-time worker. That is the
reality of automation, fake womb-productivity-based feminism and 4 decades of
welfare-supported mass immigration.
Retirement will be just as bad, if not worse, for the even bigger group of hear-them-roar,
fake-feminist, ever-more-never-married, part-time-job-holding, pink-hatted "career" women --
with all of their hypocritical, un-feminist, womb-focused demands of .gov and their
much-maligned soy-boy sperm providers -- in the equally underemployed Millennial
generation.
But in an anti-individual, anti-liberty and corrupt-to-the-core survelliance state
economy, with a Constitution based on individual liberty in suspension, all that counts is a
functioning feudal structure for aristocratic baby makers in the top 1 -- 20%, pumping out
heirs to the thrones in a financialized economy that favors static wealth, and the illusion
of benevolence that they create by throwing lots of mom-pampering cake crumbs to their
womb-productive, welfare-qualified, legal & illegally-in-this-country cheap, groveling
servants. A ton of Hollywood-lite, weepy-eyed media concern for the mommies and babies around
the globe adds gloss to this fake-morality veneer.
Trump said something about the immigration part of this corrupt equation, saying it
loudly enough to divert attention from the fact that he is not really doing anything about
the onslaught of 40 years of mass-scale, welfare-aided legal & illegal immigration that
keeps wages at rock bottom for cashing-in employers.
Turns out, Bernie, however saintly by comparison with other politicians in the
surveillance state / surveillance economy, was not without goon-exploitable human foibles,
like a $600,000 rustic lake house needing "help" from interior designers and a spousal-income
controversy. Bernie fans should not forget that the Deep State cutthroats are not at all
above exploiting it with no mercy, no matter how many cutesy baby pics they wave around to
prove their humanity. They are shameless enough to use it against him, no matter how
knee-deep in Swamp dollars they are.
That goes for the lovely, family-friendly leaders in both of our corrupt, Swamp-controlled
parties. And it would not matter if a truly kick- *** superhero arose to take on the Swamp
Goliath.
This Surveillance Swamp is too deep even for Mister Rodgers to wade through. If he ran for
office on a platform of true reform, the Surveillance Swampers would be accusing him of
bacchanalian bathroom activity, telling him they have video conformation of that, along with
proof from credit-rating agencies of his cardigan sweater-buying shopaholic sprees right down
to his last bank transaction.
We live in KGB country, where it is easy to pull politicians off of any real reformist
path. No wonder, swampers are so concerned with Russia, thirty years after the Cold War
ended. Rich US politicians, in a rigged surveillance economy, live in Stalinist Russia --
Stalinist Russia with an increased surveillance capacity, whereas the serfs live under the
same economic & government surveillance without even the reward of a quality non-churn
job, an independent roof over their heads or a safe neighborhood.
What a great trade off: our liberty and our widespread middle class in return for
end-to-end financial security for the top 1 -- 20% and womb-productivity-based welfare
security for some part-time-working, womb-productive citizens and noncitizens in the bottom
80% during their baby-making years. Oh, we serfs also get to hear the virtue-signaling chorus
of the racism and sexism fighters, and a few of them make bank off of discrimination
lawsuits.
"... Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants. ..."
"... If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds? ..."
@Commentator Mike
Today's system is a hybrid of a late finance-stage global capitalism and cultural–not
economic–Marxism. Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the
ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.
So the right-wingers (like Peter Hitchens) who say that 'Marxism won' are half right
culturally, not economically. What causes all the confusion (among the libertarian types
especially) is that capitalism in reality does not in any way resemble how it ought to
work according to libertarian theories and never did. But when you point out to them
that capitalism never worked in practice to begin with, they answer: 'But true
capitalism has never even been tried!' And of course, they're right. 'True' capitalism (i.e.,
what libertarian theory calls capitalism) really never has been tried, and for exactly the
same reason that perpetual motion machines have never been tried either: they're
impossible.
None of which means I'm a 'pure' socialist. I'm open to mixed-economies and new
experiments. I usually characterize myself more as a national socialist, mostly to
differentiate myself from the 'world revolution' Trotskyite socialists who now predominate on
the far-left.
That means I also take some inspiration from some fascists and national-syndicalists,
although I don't regard any of them as holy writ, either.
In my opinion, the number one success factor for a civilization is not what theory
it professes, but rather who controls it. Theories will always have to be modified to
suit the circumstances; but the character of a people is much harder to change.
China's prospering because it's controlled by Chinese engineers; our civilization is
suffocating because it's controlled by Jew-bankers and Masonic lawyers. Get rid of them
first, and we can debate monetary theory till we're blue in the face.
@Captain Willard You
must be under the delusion we live in a Constitutional Republic.
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία
(oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos),
meaning 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning 'to rule or to
command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of
people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or
corporate, religious, political, or military control. Such states are often controlled by
families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance
is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.
@redmudhooch "
Socialism is government by the working class"
Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as
altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in
front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants.
Your transparent mindset of : Socialism never worked because the wrong people were in
charge of every attempt to actualize it, and if the right folks go at it in the "right"
manner it will finally work., has been exposed as the lie it is.
This nonsense of : the Russians, Chinese, all of East Europe, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, etc.
they really did not understand Marx, and they really did not want to establish a true "
Farmers and Workers paradise", as according to Marx, so if we, the new generation of "Woke"
"Jungsozialisten", if we go at it, there will be no failure this time, this nonsense has run
it time and more and more otherwise unknowing peoples are finally waking up it's the lies and
madness
Myself, I spent time in the seventies behind the "Iron Curtain" before the wall came down
and I will never forget the morgue-like atmosphere of the grey cities and the dead eyes of
the hopeless natives, and ignoranti like you are striving to repeat these humans tragedies
over and over, regardless of how many time they fail and how much travail and suffering they
generate.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz
artist.
@Stephen Paul Foster "
The profit motive" after being replaced with the Socialist rubber-stamp which holds power of
life or death over it's hapless subjects, and make no bones about wielding it's ruthless
fatal power, would seem like altruism and benevolency in retrospect.
@ploni almoniT
he runaway over-use of the narcissism cliché has been fueled mostly by copy-cats with
weak vocabularies who use it deliriously as a general purpose put-down of men who aren't
slobs.
@Digital Samizdat
Excellent intelligence. As opposed to the "high IQ" idiocy promulgated on here.
You may like the way an acquaintance, a PhD from Chicago School of Business, who had just
finished working on a project for Big Pharma, observed when I brought up the concept of "free
market."
"'Free market?!'" he exclaimed. "No such thing. Because it's all crooked."
"Poor lil Hitler was a good boy. He dindu nuttin."
Already after the turn of the last century Southern Iran became a British "sphere of
influence". Through the 1920's, after making the world free for democracy, and fighting the
war to end all wars, England was gassing and murdering the kurds and Iraqi's with in their
"mandate".
The British wars in the middle east in the 1920's, after ending "all war" at Versailles,
mercilessly waged against less technologically developed countries, were all highly
aggressive.
The world slipped closer to nuclear war. Big false flags -- actual, suspected, and
anticipated -- were a key factor. But hardly anybody noticed. Everyone was riveted by the story
of actor Jussie Smollet, who supposedly paid a couple of Nigerian-American bodybuilders for a
staged racist-homophobic near-lynching. The ostensible motive: Add a zero to Smollet's pathetic
little million-a-year salary.
Interview is about forthcoming book "Peak
Trump" In "Peak Trump", Stockman goes after all the sacred cows: Military spending, entitlement spending, MAGA, Trump's tax cut,
the intelligence budget, and the Wall. Trump is a symptom of the problem. He wanted to drain the swamp but failed to do so. He never
really had a good chance of doing that, but he failed to make the most of the chance he had. We are where we are because of decades
of Congressional and monetary mismanagement
All in the name of empire... the Deep state in non-particular and Trump proved to be a "naked king"
At 15:49 min Ron Paul asks the question about Tulsi... She positioned herself as noninterventionists and has similar foreign policy
as Ron Paul used to have. Stockman answer was very interesting and informative.. MSM journalists are essentially federal contractor,
lobbyists of MIC.
He also mentioned that Trump falls from the bait. And the appointment of Elliot Abrams was real betrayal of his voters.
Notable quotes:
"... He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues to exceed the avarice of politicians, though. ..."
"... No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed to be accompanied by spending cuts. ..."
"... But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning . Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who "know better" what should be produced. ..."
"... And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap. ..."
"... The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases. ..."
David Stockman was one of my conservative heroes during the Reagan years. He was the one person in the Administration who seemed
to have an honest understanding of economics. It's nice to see that his experiences with the reality of the DC swamp have made
him go all the way to describing himself as a libertarian, rather than a conservative.
He could have sold out, given up any modicum of principle, and simply become a multi-millionaire Republican Party establishment
hack.
I would venture to say he and I have some policy differences, but it's always nice to see when someone embraces their best,
rather than their worst, instincts.
My recollection of Stockman's economics from those years (based on e.g. The Triumph of Politics) was that he was all-in on
"supply side" economics, which is twaddle. He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as
the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues
to exceed the avarice of politicians, though.
Yes, supply side is bogus, but my observations were that Stockman was quite critical of the spending increases that the Administration
put forth. He approved of the so called tax-cuts, but he did so with the understanding that there would be spending cuts along
with them.
My own recollections (I was alive back then, but not as politically conscious as I am now) were that Stockman was not endorsing
the supply side theory so much as his own idea that cuts in government spending were necessary, and that tax cuts would put pressure
on Congress and the administration to cut spending. The irony is that, for whatever reason, tax revenues overall increased by
60% in Reagan's two terms, yet spending increased almost 100%. This certainly disproves the idea that there was ever a revenue
problem, and that it has always been a spending problem.
In any event, Stockman was just about the only person with an official capacity in DC, who actually worked toward spending
cuts. Unless you are saying that his rhetoric was a lie, and he was just like all the others. If that is the case then, of course,
you could always be right.
No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely
because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed
to be accompanied by spending cuts.
But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning .
Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who
"know better" what should be produced.
True, the central planning class in question was, broadly and not very honestly defined, "entrepreneurs" rather than government
bureaucrats, but the principle was the same. And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses
who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap.
"But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy"
Perhaps the most damning thing about it was that the stated goal was to increase the federal government's revenue. What person
in their right mind would wish to give even more money and power to the federal government?
The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a
top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond
bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases.
In England and in France, as well as in the US, the Jews became a symbol of the present
neo-liberal regime, as the scams and hoaxes make it apparent.
The pride and pressure of Jews as high-achievers could be fueling the scams and frauds in
so many fields.
Non-Jews don't feel particularly bad if they don't achieve much. But Jews have this
reputation, indeed a point of pride among Jews, as being intelligent and high-achieving. So,
it seems like many many Jews come under the pressure to be high-achieving or at least appear
so. To be a 'loser' Jew is far more humiliating that it is to be a loser goyim. It's like a
black guy losing to a white guy in boxing or one-on-one basketball. Unheard of. Consider the
movie BOILER ROOM where lesser Jews resort to fraud to make easy money and seem
successful.
Shamir, you missed a very simple point. This Jussie Smollett is Jewish. His father is a Jew.
He isn't black, he is bi-racial and since Judaism is not a race (like being black) but an
ethnicity Jussie actions are more that of a jew than it is as a black person. In fact a lot
of black people didn't believe him and show his actions as a means to exploit the black
identity even before his actions where exposed as a hoax
@swamped
I believe he's pointing out the supremacy that the Jews enjoy in Israel/Palestine is due to
the role that Jews play in the neoliberal institutions – that Israel is dependent on
corporate patronage, trade concessions, capital flow from the West, etc.
Thank you Mr. Shamir, for a very informative and interesting article.
In many ways the exposure of the "Smollett Hoax" as a "hoax" is a watershed event in post
9-11 America.
It is, perhaps , the first time that the deliberate defrauding of the public through the
enacting of a "staged event" has been given the media attention for being uncovered "as
such".
And actually prosecuted.
Amazing.
But to many of us, increasingly aware we are living in (what could only be fairly
described as) an Empire of Fraud the "Smollett Hoax"attention is akin to one noticing a tiny
chipmunk urinating on your toe while standing, hapless, under a torrential deluge raining
down from the mammoth elephant above you.
We live in the great age of fraud, Mr. Shamir, and Mr. Smollett's phony act was but a drop
in the bucket.
Consider the fact that nearly every pretext for war, especially since 9-11, has been
proven to be founded on fraudulent narratives , hoaxes, lies , and staged events . and you
will see what I mean.
Do I need to remind you of the media's "iron clad" certainty it was "Saddam's Anthrax"
deposited in both Tom Brokaw and Senator Leahy's office in the run up to the Iraq war ?
Why they even had the 'matching spores from Baghdad' to prove it .Right ?
How about the "Yellow Cake" from Niger ? .or the "aluminum tubes" ? .or the impending
"mushroom clouds" from Saddam's imminent WMD's ?.
All "hoaxes" .All "lies" A veritable cornucopia of war and terror "fraud" which has led to
the unconscionable death of millions of innocent people and the greatest debt crisis our
country has ever faced.
Were it only that our leaders and the oligarchs (for whom they serve) be faced with same
accountability from their "defrauding" as Jussie Smollett ..we would be living in a much
different world , today.
ex.: "Jewish, black and gay actor Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday with making a
false police report, after he had told Chicago police last month that two men physically
attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him."
' In England, seven (now eight) Jewish and Judeophile MPs have stormed out of the Labour
Party claiming Labour has been 'infected' with 'anti-Jewish racism' '
I noted some details on the latest of these, an Ian Austin, who supposedly quit because of
'anti-semitism.'
His recorded foreign trips over the last three years:
'Kurdistan', AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Jerusalem, Israel, Israel, 'Kurdistan',
AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Israel, Israel Admittedly, there's also a visit to
Auschwitz.
Sponsors: Nokan Group, Labour Friends of Israel, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Australia Israel Cultural Exchange Ltd -- all multiple times.
The data comes from a site somewhat ironically called 'They Work for You.'
NATO's Aggression Against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999
The NATO launched a military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia
and Montenegro) on March 24th, 1999 in the name of protection of human rights of Kosovo
Albanians. In other words, the 78 days of barbaric air-strikes were formally justified by
"humanitarian intervention" which was mainly based on the false flags and fake news (like the
Rachak case) by Western corporate mass media or brutal lies from the ground (like by William
Walker – a Head of the Kosovo Verification Mission).
In essence, regional organizations like the NATO, according to the UN Charter, do not have
the right to interfere in internal affairs of any country, not even in internal affairs of
their own member states. This superior international document and instrument of global security
explicitly demand the approval of the UNSC for the undertaking of any armed action by any
regional organization. The NATO never asked and never became authorized to carry out military
intervention against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 and, therefore, according to modern Public
International Law, this "humanitarian" intervention under arms was a pure act of brutal
aggression against a sovereign country and as such a crime against peace. Subsequently, human
rights served in this case just as a justification for the realization of certain geopolitical
aims in the Balkans. It became of crystal visibility in February 2008 when Kosovo Albanians
proclaimed an independent Republic of Kosovo which became recognized by all US' satellites
around the world. In 1999 NATO did not bomb Serbia and Montenegro for the sake of Kosovo
independence but only to protect "human rights" (of Albanians). However, the same NATO nothing
did to continue the protection of human rights (of Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians) after
the war when the province became put under complete protectorate and control by the NATO who
nothing did to prevent comprehensive ethnic cleansing of the province committed by Albanian
extremists (former members of the KLA).
Although, as it is presented above, every armed intervention is strictly prohibited by both
Public International Law and the UN Charter, the NATO, established in 1949 on the foundation of
Article 51 of the UN Charter which is dealing with the right to collective and individual
self-defense, attacked the FYR on March 24th, 1999 with continual barbaric air-strikes for the
next 77 days. The term "air-strikes", the NATO was regularly used at its own press conferences
during the aggression on Serbia and Montenegro like the term "collateral damage" for the mass
destruction and civilian casualties resulted by the NATO bombing. In their official statements,
NATO's officials declaratively claimed that the focal reason for those (illegal) air-strikes
was a set of humanitarian issues among them the most important have been three:
1) protection of individual human rights,
2) violation of Albanian rights in Kosovo as a national minority, and
3) prevention of the potential policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing against ethnic
Albanians by Yugoslavia's security forces.
Nevertheless, the aggression was accompanied by dirty and powerful media propaganda which
was, of course, directly supported by a number of politically "correct" legal and human rights
experts for the purpose to wash the brains of the Western audience. Most of them justified the
aggression with the right of Kosovo Albanians to self-determination, although such right is not
supported by any valid international instrument if the right to self-determination means the
destruction of territorial integrity of the country. However, the same experts did not
recognize the same right to self-determination to Croatia's and Bosnia's Serbs during the break
up of ex-Yugoslavia.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, center, with court security guards at left and
right, appears before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Tuesday July 3, 2001.
Milosevic walked into the U.N. tribunal courtroom, Tuesday, without lawyers to represent him
against charges of war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Milosevic died in his
prison cell in the Hague on March 11, 2006 allegedely of a heat attack jist a few months begore
the verdict to be annouced.
To keep in our mind, according to Public International Law and the UN Charter, the
aggression also includes bombing by the armed forces of one country against the territory of
another country or use of any arms and armed forces of one country against the territory of
another as, for instance, NATO used Kosovo Albanian KLA as ground forces during the Kosovo War.
But the crucial fact in relation to the 1998−1999 Kosovo War was that since there was no
real humanitarian catastrophe before the NATO aggression starred on March 24th, 1999 against
the FRY, it had to be created what exactly NATO did during the air-strike campaign of 78 days
in order to justify its occupation of the province after the war followed by Kosovo's secession
from Serbia in 2008.
Violation Of Human Rights In Kosovo
No one claims that human rights of all citizens including and ethnic Albanians in
Kosovo-Metochia have not been violated to a certain extent before NATO's military campaign in
1999. This fact was approved in several resolutions by the UNSC before the NATO aggression but
what is systematically hidden as a fact is that original flagrant violation of human rights in
the province came from the side of Albanian KLA as this terrorist organization launched a
widespread policy of attacking, kidnapping and killing of the Serbs in order to provoke
Serbia's security forces who reacted as they did it by violation of human rights of those
Albanians who participated in the actions of and/or supported the KLA's activities. Here we
have to keep in mind that a majority of Kosovo's Albanians did not support the methods of
combat by the KLA including and Dr. Ibrahim Rugova – a political leader of Kosovo's
Albanians. In order to calm down a political situation in the province, the Yugoslav Government
concluded with different international organizations, like the OSCE or the NATO, several
agreements allowing the OSCE monitoring mission in Kosovo-Metochia. The Yugoslav Government as
well as agreed to restrain the activities by its security forces if the opposite side (the KLA)
would do the same. That the Albanian side before NATO's aggression was committing war crimes is
clear from the invitation to both the Yugoslav and Kosovo's Albanian sides by the international
community to cooperate with the UN special Tribunal (est. 1993) for the crimes committed on the
territory of ex-Yugoslavia (including Kosovo-Metochia too). The fact was that regarding this
invitation to cooperate with the Tribunal's prosecutor in the Hague, the leaders of the
"Albanian national community" were also invited but not only the Yugoslav side to participate
in the investigation for all offenses within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. The Albanian
side was, in other words, invited to participate in the investigation of personal involvement
of the KLA members in the crimes committed against other ethnic groups in Kosovo-Metochia, with
the final political aim to secede the province from the FRY.
Nevertheless, in no one resolution on Kosovo before March 24th, 1999, it was not mentioned
any "threat to peace" in the province nor did they order the UNSC to form international armed
forces with the right to re-establish the peace and order in Kosovo, that was to undertake
certain armed actions against Serbia and Montenegro. In 1998, the FRY as a sovereign state was
combating separatist Albanian movement in Kosovo-Metochia, in some cases with inordinate use of
force, but, nevertheless, there was no real humanitarian catastrophe at that time. The recent
historical experience of violation of human rights according to contemporary definition, in the
province suggests that the critical situation was escalating with the creation of the KLA in
1995 which took comprehensive terrorist actions for the sake to bring about the secession of
Kosovo from Serbia. The Yugoslav security forces came into serious conflict with different
groups of the KLA, and the judiciary of the FRY accompanied by relevant experts and scholars
justifiably qualified the armed actions of Kosovo's separatists as classic terrorism and
criminal acts against a sovereign state.
[iv]
Former leader of KLA Ramush Haradinaj arrested on 5 January 2017 on a Serbian arrest warrant
by French border police upon his arrival at EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg on a flight
from Pristina. Serbian authorities urged France to extradite Haradinaj, citing that he
personally took part in the torture, murder, and rape of civilians. On 27 April 2017, a French
court turned down a Serbian request to extradite Ramush Haradinaj and released him. Since
September 9, 2017 Haradinaj is the Prime Minister of self-proclamed Kosovo.
In essence, there were prior to NATO's aggression on the FRY the problems of protection of
human rights in Kosovo-Metochia, but certainly no to such extent as it was exaggerated by the
Western mass media and policymakers at least no bigger than in many other corners of the world
like in Colombia or Turkey's eastern part populated by ethnic Kurds. Surely, the situation in
regard to human rights in Turkey since 1994 onward is much more serious than it was in
Kosovo-Metochia in 1998 as the Kurdish human and minority rights are drastically violated like
in 1994 when a large number of the Kurdish villages were destroyed by the Turkish police and
regular army's forces and when almost one million of ethnic Kurds fled Turkey to neighboring
states but the US administration simply did nothing to protect the Kurdish human rights. Even
no initiative was launched for the UN to undertake a legitimate international action in order
to prevent Turkey's authorities to stop with the production of a humanitarian
catastrophe.
Producing Humanitarian Catastrophe But Characterized As No Aggression
The focal result of NATO's bombing of Serbia and Montenegro was a huge number of refugees of
all nationalities from Kosovo-Metochia that became, in fact, a real humanitarian catastrophe.
However, during such exodus of people, NATO's military aggression under the umbrella of the
"armed humanitarian intervention" became even strengthened in spite of all prohibitions which
have been existing in Public International Law. However, during and after the bombardment of
the FRY, the UN resolutions, like the UNSC Resolution of June 10th, 1999, simply did not
mention the bombardment at all for a very reason: if mentioned it would have to be officially
qualified as "aggression" what means a violation of Public International Law and the UN
Charter. In this case, however, due to the established voting system in the UNSC (threat of
using Russian and Chinese veto rights), no resolution could be adopted. The Resolution of June
10th, 1999, in fact, is speaking only about deployment of international security forces
including and those of the NATO in the province after the war for the sake to " establish safe
environment for all people in Kosovo, as well as to facilitate safe return of all displaced
people and refugees to their homes". In other words, nowhere in the whole text of the
resolution is mentioned the bombardment of the FRY and, therefore, a pure act of aggression
against a sovereign state. That was the same with another previous resolution adopted during
the aggression (Resolution 1239 on May 14th, 1999) which does not say any single word about
NATO's bombardment but instead it only says that international community expresses serious
concern in respect to the humanitarian catastrophe in and around Kosovo as a result of
continuing crisis but who produced this crisis is absolutely unclear from the text of the
resolution. The same text confirms the rights of all refugees and displaced persons to return
to their homes in a safe and dignified manner but what was a real background of the crisis is
not clear. According to the UN resolutions on Kosovo, the NATO barbaric bombardment and a
classic act of aggression on a sovereign state, in fact, believe or not, never happened!
We have to mention that there were several attempts by Russia and China in the UNSC to adopt
an appropriate resolution in which would be recognized that NATO's air-strikes in 1999 really
happened on the ground and subsequently they had to be characterized as "aggression". However,
such resolution's proposals failed as not being adopted for the only reason – used veto
rights by the USA, the UK, and France (the Western obstruction).
Arguments Against
Humanitarian Intervention
There are several focal objections by the scholars, policy-makers, and lawyers to
humanitarian intervention advocated at various times. Here, we will address the most important
arguments against humanitarian intervention taking primarily the case of NATO's bombing of the
FRY in 1999:
No real basis for humanitarian intervention in Public International Law . The common good
is best preserved by maintaining a ban on any use of force not authorized by the UNSC.
Interveners have typically either claimed to be acting in self-defense according to the
"implied authorization" of the UNSC resolutions and the UN Charter or have refrained from
making any reasonable legal argument based on Public International Law at all.
States do not intervene for primarily humanitarian reasons . States always have mixed
real reasons for humanitarian and other interventions and are very rarely prepared to
sacrifice their own soldiers overseas. It means that humanitarian intervention is guided by
calculations of national interest but not by what is best for the victims in whose name the
intervention is formally carried out.
States are not allowed to risk the lives of their own soldiers in order to save strangers
. Political leaders do not possess any moral right to shed the blood of their own citizens on
behalf of suffering foreigners. Citizens are having the exclusive responsibility of their own
state, and their state is entirely their own business and, therefore, if a civil authority
has broken down this is the responsibility only of the citizens and political leaders of that
state but not of the foreign powers.
T he issue of abuse . In the absence of a not politically colored mechanism for deciding
when a real humanitarian intervention is permissible, states have a possibility to espouse
humanitarian motives just as a formal pretext to morally cover the pursuit of national
self-interest as, for instance, A. Hitler did with the Sudetenland.
Selectivity of response . States all the time apply principles of humanitarian
intervention selectively following their own national interest but not real protection of
human rights. In other words, a state's behavior is always governed by what the Government
decides to be in their interest and, therefore, states are selective about when they choose
to intervene. As an example, the selectivity of response is the argument that NATO's
"humanitarian" intervention in Kosovo in 1999 could not be driven by real humanitarian
concerns as it has done nothing to address, for instance, the very much larger humanitarian
catastrophe in Darfur, a province in West Sudan (Darfur genocide).
A problem of moral principles . There is no generally reached consensus on a set of moral
principles about humanitarian intervention which should not be permitted in the face of
disagreement about what constitutes extreme cases of the violation of human rights.
Practically, humanitarian intervention does not work . Humanitarian intervention is not
workable as the outsiders cannot impose human rights especially by those who have the same
problem in their homes. Democracy can be established only by a domestic struggle for liberty
but not from the outside. It means that human rights cannot take root if they are imposed by
outsiders. The argument is that the oppressed people should by themselves overthrow
non-democratic authority.
Conclusion
The norms of Public International Law and doctrine of collective security after 1945
presented above, unfortunately, did not stop different forms of armed interventions around the
globe but especially by the US – a country which became a global champion of aggression.
Armed "humanitarian" interventions are still going to be a reality of the present and future
international relations under the umbrella of the R2P.
After the Cold War, the most brutal, illegal and shameful "humanitarian intervention" was in
the southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metochia in 1999 that was, in fact, NATO's aggression
against the FRY in a form of an air campaign. However, beside this example of "humanitarian
intervention" as a violation of Public International Law, there were many similar interventions
before like when in 1983 the USA invaded a sovereign state of Granada with some 8.000 soldiers
under justification to protect the lives of about 1.000 American citizens living there under
the belief that they were threatened due to the unrest in this country. However, the real
reason of such "humanitarian intervention" has been of purely political and geostrategic nature
rather than humanitarian one as US' troops occupied the whole island (state) of Granada
including and those parts in which US' citizens did not live. The focal proof of abuse of
Public International Law was a fact that the American troops de facto occupied Granada as they
stayed on the island even after all the American citizens had left and changed the Government
of it.
From the presentation above, it is quite clear that NATO's military action against Serbia
and Montenegro in 1999 cannot be characterized as a just war of "humanitarian intervention"
even according to the criteria by the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius not to speak
about the modern set of criteria incorporated into the UN Charter and Public International Law.
Therefore, the action was rather a classic example of brutal military aggression against a
sovereign state covered by politicized Western mass media. It is true that "media are not only
spectator in modern conflicts, but must be considered active participants forming public
opinion and also creating and directing threat perception" that was exactly the case of the
1998−1999 Kosovo War when the Western corporate mass media succeeded to convince public
opinion that NATO's "humanitarian intervention" was a just war.
"He threatened the head of OPCW I believe as well."
Your belief is correct; The one threatened was José Bustani, then --- head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
"Bolton -- then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International
Security Affairs -- arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a
warning to the organization's chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words.
'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president
of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'
Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: 'You have 24 hours to leave the
organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to
retaliate against you.'
There was a pause. 'We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York'."
Western Oligarchs raped Russia in the 90's. OK, most of them were Jews – but still
Western. The (((harvard))) boys foisted dollar debts on Russia, and then converted Russia to
an extraction economy. Putin cleverly taxed the Oligarchs and prevented them from further
predations.
No country can survive if it has an internal hostile elite. Nobody here can claim that
Russia's government is hostile to its people. A fair claim can be made that the
"international" elite that infest America IS HOSTILE. Why would you immigrate a replacement
population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?
You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.
So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while
Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One
could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is
moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are
projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.
Fracking has helped the USA boost oil production, but that is pressuring to get oil out of
older wells. Once those have been sucked dry, we'll need to import lots more. You read news
about occasional big new discoveries in the USA, but read the details to see that each
amounts only to a few days of oil consumption in the USA.
The world still runs on oil and the USA wants to control it all. If you doubt the
importance, look at a freeway or airport or seaport to see oil at work.
@onebornfree You are
probably the most whacked out idealist on this site. In your mind all the ills of society is
because of socialism.
Well next time your toilet backs up, don't use that socialist phone network to call a
plumber to clean those socialized drainpipes that keeps your stinky shit flowing down hill
and away to be socially treated – just move to certain parts of India where none of
that takes place – it's your idealist utopia. Wallow in it.
And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid – it's the
only thing that keeps you on this site spewing your nonsense. And stay off those socialized
roads.
I don't think the American decline is self inflicted. America became the most powerful
country and has 800 foreign (literally) bases solely because it has the most powerful economy
in the world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land,
navigable waterways, natural resources ect.
The US's population was high quality but it was
prime real estate that others could only dream about. The USA developed advanced technology
not because it had a particular system and set of beliefst let Americans innovate and
cooperate better than other people, or because Americans are more individualistic and freedom
loving than Chinese. Indeed the performance of the Chinese in the Korean war if anything
showed the Chinese could do more with less.
In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level and is in a global hegemon
trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population. With access to Russian resources
and no intention of giving the US any excuse for a war, China is going to gain on the US and
perhaps overtake it in technology. That is their plan and why wouldn't they? This giant
awakening had to happen sooner or later.
There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the
West, especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from
offshoring and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's
power in the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump
out.
I wouldn't give up on America yet. There are pockets of resistance to the PTB popping up
around the country.
Here we have a Arkansas newspaper suing the state over the Israel Boycott ban .. that it is a
newspaper doing the suing is significant.
ACLU and ACLU of Arkansas to Appeal Ruling on Boycott Ban
February 21, 2019
LITTLE ROCK –The Arkansas Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the American Civil
Liberties Union Foundation today filed a notice of appeal in their lawsuit challenging a
state law that requires government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce
their fees by 20 percent. The lawsuit, which was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in
January, was filed on behalf of the Arkansas Times LP. The Times was penalized by the
government after it refused to certify that it is not boycotting Israel or Israel-controlled
territories.
The case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
"The district court's decision would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott
if allowed to stand," said Rita Sklar, ACLU of Arkansas executive director. "Allowing the
government to force people to relinquish their First Amendment rights or pay a penalty for
expressing certain political beliefs disfavored by the government would set a dangerous
precedent. This 'pay-to-say' tax is blatantly unconstitutional and we're committed to seeing
the law struck down."
To be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell
Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus.
This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.
LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.
..empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind's cerebral
package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops.
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly
world empire.
Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet.
For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must
be neutralized.
To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."
Minor quibble:
.
..the developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them
occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America,
Saudi Arabia, and Australia.
Canada, United Kingdom and Australia are not occupied by American troops. Those
troops, and not that many in the first place, are stationed there. Majority of
Australians do not mind that at all. Well, depending on skin colour, that is.
As for:
The present moment is an Imperial crunch point.
and
It is now or never.
Not so sure about that.
Because
Another decade or two of this ..
is a long time. A lot of things can happen, including some bad , to Russia and/or
China.
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I
particularly liked:
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by
popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education
deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military
instead of infrastructure and the economy.
We've all been deceived. Almost everything "we're told" is a lie. It's up to each of us to
discern the truth.
Notable quotes:
"... Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out ..."
"... Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to take its place, much less wish it. ..."
"The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices,
ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors." Wrong. The United States once
dominated by NOT competing – until around 1970, foreign trade was a negligible fraction
of the economy. The United States historically was a functional autarky. With a modest
population, abundant resources, and no need to worry about competing with slave-labor level
wages, America's economy and power boomed.
"The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than
by competence." Utterly false. Our government is one of oligarchy, democratic elections have
essentially zero impact on policy. Our government is not incompetent because of 'democracy'
but because our elites and their institutions are corrupt and insulated from the consequences
of their decisions. One is reminded that Chinese industry is still overwhelmingly US industry
that was moved their because US elites wanted quick shot-term profits – and were just
too greedy to think about the long-term consequences of giving away the work of centuries to
a large competitor nation.
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a
terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.
I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of
War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.
Capitalism always fails. Capitalism is growing and the white population is dying
.hmmmm
The 'flaw' (intentional) in capitalism is that it was never intended to improve the
conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes,
kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for
services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.
And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of capitalism, wealth disparity,
homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages,
staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal
bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private
sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying),
unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction
of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and
acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an
aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.
The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago.
You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our
"leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day.
country that is 15% black and 25% Mestizo (and growing) will not rebound to the former
heights of a country that was 90% white. Won't happen.
Why not? Where are all the high ability whites gonna go? Will they just vanish? They're
still around, and aren't going anywhere. The talent pool will continue to have the same
absolute number of people, even if a lower fraction of the whole.
There is a difference between percentages and absolute numbers. All that will have
happened is that a large number of slightly less able people will have been added to the pie.
That doesn't diminish the number of more able people. They're still around.
Here's another little secret. A country is great because of its top 15% of people. The
average Chinese, or the lower class Chinese, is far from impressive.
If the gap between the top 15 percent and everyone else is too large, that may create some
problems, but Hispanics are a fairly capable people.
This doesn't mean I support immigration. But adding say 50 million slightly less able
people to 250 million slightly more able isn't exactly going to ruin a country,
realistically. And other countries may have more serious deficiencies.
Interesting article, and good timing too. China's president today reiterated China's
commitment to developing its strategic partnership with Iran. The US may have pulled out of
the Iran Nuclear Deal, but China remains committed to that deal, and EU doesn't seem quite
ready to jettison it either.
WSJ reported today that India is ignoring US warning about Huawei and will use their
equipment for 5G anyway. Germany is reportedly doing the same.
Thanks to the Zionist stranglehold on the US and UK, I see the world developing into two
factions, one of US-UK-Israel-Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries, and the other of
Russia-China-Iran, and potentially India, with EU sitting uncomfortably in the middle. F is
on the Ziocon side as long as Macron is in office, but once he leaves, France could well join
Germany and the rest of the EU and switch side.
The Europeans were not too enamored with Pence at the recent Munich Security Conference,
they all know what a Jew puppet he is, esp. after he used a visit to Auschwitz to convey to
the Europeans that if they do not join the US on our antagonism towards Iran, they are as
good as anti-Semites. The only 2 people who gave him a standing O after his speech were
Javanka. Sad.
Zionists will turn America into an international pariah, as isolated and alone as
Israel.
@Harold Smith
Socialism means equalizing and socializing – of rich and poor – at the expense of
the rich who got that way at the expense of the poor, so you can say – it's little bit
of a payback time. Americans have very clear minds about socialism – that's because
they have been brainwashed during decades long running propaganda.
Then they got introduced to a wrong kind of "socialism" – where they were forced to
socialize with a wrong kind of people – from alien lands and cultures. That's not
socialism, that's cheap propaganda stunt, worthy of the Adolf himself.
I think they were introduced to that type of "socialism" under the motto: "Fake it, so you
don't have to make it". I think that the time will eventually come, where the more
traditional motto will come into play: "Fake it, until you make it".
Just because this produce has the label "United States" doesn't mean that it's the same
as the old product. Grow up.
No, it definitely won't be the same product. But nations change character fairly often.
Elizabethan England was very different than Georgian England. The one was known as merry and
licentious and highly emotional, the other was melancholy, stiff and inexressive, and more
Puritan. Nations literally flip over into their opposites. In the past century Jews went from
being physical cowards to tough physical adventurers in the Middle East. The Germans went
from being the land of poets and thinkers to the land of blood and iron and war.
America will change, very drastically. Immigration will eventually stop, and the new
people absorbed and integrated. Something new will emerge to replace a European civilization
that had grown old. Something partly European and probably very capable.
And yes, I know that ethnic changes aren't the same thing. And I don't supplier
immigration. I'm just pointing out realities.
That's because the America see no advantage in placing its boot upon Canada's neck as
long as Canada, recognizing its absolute dependence on the US for its territorial integrity
and economic prosperity, remains subservient, sending token military forces wherever NATO
directs, extraditing foreign nationals as America requires, and assimilating every
appalling American cultural meme.
LOL how true. Canada to the US is like NZ to Australia. They just don't matter.
How old is Fred Reed anyway? I first became aware of him in late 2001. Back then he posted
his picture at the top of his articles and I thought he looked ancient even back then.
Could it be because that their religious elites correctly figure that it would be
difficult to sell rapist/gay/androgynous deities, phallus/vagina/devil/animal worship,
etc., to the world, except to some whitey hippies (e.g. Tulsi's mother)? They feel ashamed
to proselytise except to braindead whitey hippies.
LOLOL. You really have to wonder what kind of people could be dumb/crazy enough to follow
a religion with 33 million gods! It's no wonder India is such a fucked up country, completely
ungovernable. The worst thing is, these nutcases are now invading the US en masse (and soon
to be let in by tens of millions more courtesy of Trump), are increasingly running for
office, and winning as zealous socialist leftists running in uber liberal districts.
These bullshit artist nutjobs are not satisfied having completely destroyed their own
country, they now want to destroy ours. We are on our way to becoming the next India,
completely with people defecating out in the open like our growing homeless population, just
like in Mumbai.
@flashlight joe Agree
with Flashlight Joe on the duties and imposts and the Civil War. That was the major cause of
the war as far as I can tell from reading books. Of course there were other factors including
slavery as a lesser cause. What a waste of lives and treasure.
@Harold Smith I find
it hard to believe the masses in the US will choose Bernie's socialism. It doesn't work and
the evidence for failure is overwhelming just in the last 100 years. We should stop the
migrations of impoverished third worlders. Lacking any education these migrants would be most
susceptible to hair brained socialism.
@Biff Socialist phone
network? Last I heard the phone companies are 100% privately owned.
All those sewage pipes were privately built and private companies collect your water and
sewer bill.
The definition of socialism: the government or community owns the means of production.
Some nations have more regulations than others but successful nations are capitalist,
including Scandinavians.
Roads are built by private contractors. Missiles and jets as well.
The Jews think far too much of themselves and are screwed. Their hollowing out of the
manufacturing of the US was premature before they could guarantee a home in China. The
Chinese thing of course is not working out so well. The Chinese are not nice individualist
like Europeans that they can manipulate with "caring" for others as the Chinese don't "care"
and will laugh at Jewish cries of "victimization".
Jewish parasitism is only functionally
able to work among Europeans and only last so long in each region they go to. I suspect the
Western Ukraine take over was to have a plan "B" place to go if they get overrun in Israel.
I'm not so sure that will work out in the long run either.
I noted your impressions, but Asia is a big place. There's a great variety of peoples and
cultures between Japan and Saudi Arabia, and I'm curious which you're actually commenting
on.
The US is having a little bit of a bad period, and everyone is rushing to say it's
completely finished for all time.
It isn't simply a "bad period" from where I sit, and I don't think any serious person
would claim "it's completely finished for all time". In the first place it's not that "bad"
(yet), and it has a long way to go before it gets genuinely bad for no greater reason than
that it's starting its decline from a fully developed state. A lot of things have to go to
hell for it to become hell.
And its debatable just how bad a period the US is going through. I think its overstated,
although there are undoubtedly some serious problems that need to be addressed.
The issue for America is that having lost its civilizational strengths, it's running on
the fumes of Empire. So, we're really talking about just how much of those fumes there are
left. The former didn't simply get weakened. For the elites and approx half the population
they seem to have been replaced by something alien and corrosive. "Freedom", "Democracy",
"Rule of Law" and even "American Know-how" have visibly dissipated to invisibility for those
looking honestly for them. The fumes it's running on are the preeminence of the U$ dollar
system and such fear as the USM is able to generate. Both are past their tipping point, and
well into decline.
great nations go through bad periods, and then rise again.
They do, but Empires generally don't. It's all about resource flow, and when the flow
stops, or worse reverses, the nation at the core of empire rarely survives in anything like
its original form. Greece, Italy, Mongolia or Iran are very different than simply diminished
versions of their former selves at the core of Empires. The original versions
disappeared.
In any case, America wasn't great for long enough to be called a historically great
nation. Great nations build civilizations that endure through trials such as the loss of
Empire. Russia and China have, and arguably remain modern versions of their original
selves.
In 4thC Rome, things didn't look so bad either. There was lots of asset speculation for
the rich, and bread 'n circuses for everyone else, while the Empire's ability to bring
resources in from the periphery shrank a little every day. Without new resources being
brought in, the Empire inevitably ate its tail. The people remained blithely certain that
there would be even more bread 'n circuses in the future. So Americans are today. They'll
stay quite certain until a modern-day Alaric hammers on the Imperial Gates and says "It's
over". Rome never recovered its Empire, and the city itself went from a population of ~1M to
<50,000 at its depths. It and the area that became Italy took centuries to recover a
halfway decent standard of living.
Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out and became dependent on such tithes a shrinking
Empire can deliver to keep the bread 'n circuses going. Rome, however, had no peers and so
could continue on well beyond its sell-by date. America, through a breathtaking series of
strategic blunders, has lost that advantage. There's more peers now than America can hope to
deal with and they, not America control the clock. The resources the Empire needs to continue
have been taken off the table. It needed Russia's natural resources, and China's human
resources. It lost both, and what's worse forced them into partnership. As the recent Warsaw
"conference" so vividly exposed, even its vassals know that the Empire has lost its mojo, if
DC's brain-trusts don't.
Can it recover and become a normal country again? Absolutely, though I give it less chance
of coming through the process intact than either Russia or China did. Cultural homogeneity is
what carries a civilization through hard times, and the US ain't got much of that. Perhaps it
will undergo a similar split to Rome's, where the Eastern Empire went on to develop a very
different society than the one it split off from. Rome split along more or less logistical
and administrative lines, whereas the US' fissures are marbled across the continent. It'll
take some serious statesmanship to hold it together.
As for wishing
Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even
that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and
imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to
take its place, much less wish it.
Maybe one will arise in the fullness of time, but not in mine, or in anyone's that's
currently alive. The resource base just ain't there any more. A Eurasian Empire? Maybe.
Global? Nah.
I changed the term Capitalism to Neoliberalism, as Capitalism has multiple forms incliudong
New DealCapitalism and Neoliberlaism. It is Neoliberlaism that won in 1980 with "Reagan
revolution."
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a
terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.
I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of
War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.
Neoliberalism always fails. Neoliberalism is growing and the white population is dying
.hmmmm
The 'flaw' (intentional) in Neoliberalism is that it was never intended to improve the
conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes,
kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for
services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.
And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of Neoliberalism, wealth disparity,
homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages,
staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal
bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private
sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying),
unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction
of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and
acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an
aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.
The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago.
You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our
"leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day .
@TKK immigrate a
replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?
You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.
So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while
Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One
could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is
moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are
projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.
"... When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon. ..."
"... Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice. ..."
"... A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has. ..."
"... America cannot compete with China commercially ..."
"... Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future. ..."
"... Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." ..."
"... As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder. ..."
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world
empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them
occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America,
Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military,
controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was
in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.
Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the
real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating
the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.
The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those
countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each
other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen
what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line.
The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.
A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American
forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians
aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of
another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing
what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria?
Guess what Nigeria has.
Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world
empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars
for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God's chillun love the
Empire.
For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must
be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time
Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland,
plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the
INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and
the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America
has to stop China's economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it
will not get another chance.
The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China
commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too
great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a
for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government
that can plan well into the future.
America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated
economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely
had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody,
carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world
can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.
Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells
other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." The indispensable
country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if
it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the
Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China's stuff.
Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered.
But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.
As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no
choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead.
Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal
with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the
Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's
founder.
The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete
technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling
speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G
internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and
920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing
edge.
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity
contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates
under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of
infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new
administration.
The first rule of empire is, "Don't let your enemies unite." Instead, Washington has pushed
Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to
have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let
America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe
than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By
imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and
recognition that America is not an ally but a master.
It is now or never. If America's great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of
the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions
subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another
country.
To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."
"Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire."
Turkey may soon join them, then Iraq might revolt. South Korea has tired of the
warmongering and may join too, which is why Washington is giving them the lead in dealing
with North Korea. But a united Korea identifes more with China than the USA, so the USA wants
to block that idea. The Germans are unhappy too, with all the warmongering, immigration, and
American arrogance.
Sorry Fred, but you're too late. It's all over. Just that your maniacal rulers, i.e. Pompeo,
Bolton et al can't see it. Or, Cognitive Dissonance being painful, refuse to.
Warsaw recently was a case in point. The two biggest European countries, Germany and France
refused to even send a senior representative. All people did was listen in an embarrassed
silence while Pompeo tried to make like a latter day Julius Cesear. At the same time, Russia,
Turkey and Iran met in Sochi, and worked out how they were going to take the next solving the
mess in Syria, the way they want it.
Incidentally, you could also go onto YouTube and watch RT's subtitled [also horrible voice
over, but you can't have everything I guess] of President Putin's "Address to Parliament and
the Nation". It runs for close to 1.5 hours. You will hear the problems Russia has, how Putin
addresses the concerns of the people, their complaints re poor access in country areas to
medicine, and his orders on how this is to be fixed.
But you will also hear the moves forward, that Russia now has a trade surplus [remember
those?] and can afford all the programs it needs. It's the world leading exporter of Wheat,
and other commodities are catching up.
Then he will tell you and show videos of the latest 2 defense weapons – and they are
things America cannot defend against. He also in light of the US withdrawing from the INF
treaty made a very clear statement, should the US be so stupid as to think it can use Europe
as it's war ground, and have Europeans get killed instead of Americans. "Put Intermediate
sites in Europe and use just one, and not only will we fire on the European site that sent
it, but we will also take out the "decision making centre", wherever this is".
Ponder that for a while. There is nothing US can do. The dollar is slowly being rejected and
dumped. The heartland is reamed out after billions took the productive facilities and put
them in China [so kind]. The homeless and desperate are growing in numbers.
It's all over, Fred. Time to start planning what to do when the mud really hits the fan.
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I
particularly liked:
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by
popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education
deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military
instead of infrastructure and the economy.
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert
Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel
gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside
down.
But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile
phonies and hypocrites.
It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American
econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have
worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast
empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.
Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I
don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:
The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather
than by competence.
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not
emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power
politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.
India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no
friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power,
not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the
US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.
Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?
The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.
.
Not to notice (or rather, not to notice one's own noticing) what the majority doesn't
notice (OK: they don't notice that they notice, actually) is part of humankind's cerebral
package too.
You once called it the law of the pack. It can be given innumerable names -- just it doesn't
change.
The American decline is largely self-inflicted.
.
It's what follows ripe democracy, invariably -- meanjng that it can arguably not be
helped.
@Godfree Roberts
Finally a bright spot in an otherwise depressingly-fairly-truthful article. Less Government
spending is a GOOD thing, I mean, unless you are a flat-out Communist, of course ohhhhh .
And yes, the scale is WAY off. How could those 0.8 to 2.05% numbers seem even close to
reality to anyone who has a clue. I can't vouch for China, but the US number is off by a
factor of 20 to 25 . Come on, Godfree, you're (a tad bit) better than that!
That's not a bad article in general, but, as usual, Mr. Reed doesn't really have that
analytical mind to know what's really been, and is, going on.
1) There were PLENTY of Americans, many of them even politicians who wanted a "peace
dividend" after the Cold War was won. G.H.W Bush and the neocons put the kibosh on that. The
current version of empire-building didn't have to be. The Israeli-influenced neocons are most
of the reason for the post-Cold-War empire building.
2) It's not ALL about oil anymore – it seems to be a diminishing factor, what with
the US producing more oil than it imports, at this point. Mr. Reed could use a dose of
Zerohedge.com, as, along with their gloom-and-doom, they have opened my eyes to the American
meddling around the world to keep support of the Reserve Currency, the US dollar. Lots of the
countries in which the US causes trouble were trying to get out of the dollar world with
their trade.
3) Related to (2) here, China and Russia both want to eliminate the use of the dollar in
trade, including with each other. That bothers a lot of people who understand how bad the
outlook for the US economy really is, and what it would mean for the dollar to no longer be
used around the world for trade.
4) American government has handed China a completely one-sided deal (FOR China) in trade
since the mid-1990's and Bill Clinton. It's time to end that, which is what the trade war is
about. I don't dispute that American could be in a whole lot more pain over it than the
Chinese, but it's like medicine – take it now, or suffer even more later.
America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once
dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade
surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit
with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes
few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.
@peterAUS I agree ..
Canada is "not" under America's boot. As a Canadian I respect the security America provides
Canada on the world stage but it would be a cold day in hell when i would submit to an
America with a gun in his hand. And im pretty sure our best buddies in jolly ol England might
have something to say. This isnt a pissing match. Empire is a fickle bitch.
@Bruce County Pretty
much.
As far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned it's crystal clear. Somebody has to provide
security for our way of life here; before it was United Kingdom, now it's USA.
Hehe definitely preferable to China.
Or Japan.
Or anyone here in Pacific.
If Americans want to deploy a full corps, whatever, no prob. Again, as far as "fair
skinned" English speaking citizens here are concerned. I'd even say it applies to Polynesians
around.
Now, can't say it applies to our Mohammedan citizens, and definitely not to Chinese.
It's amusing to see Westerners around here keen on replacing USA empire with Chinese. Hehe
talking about self-hate.
Granted, there are people among them who really believe in all that propaganda coming from
Beijing. Well better than taking Prozac or similar, I guess, so all good.
"Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is
that some people don't notice." That is pretty astonishing, given that most of the columns on
sites like this & even in more MSM-style publications rehash this theme ad infinitum. It
may, in fact, be more a matter of people simply getting tired of hearing it over and over
that leads them to shrug and turn to something different. It's not news anymore. How many
columns can anyone squeeze out of the same threadbare topic. Many years ago, during first
Cold War, it was still somewhat daring to expose this partially hidden truth; but now it's
old hat on both the left & right.No one really needs someone to tell them again what
everyone already knows, that's easy – but what to do about it, that's the hard part!
@Philip Owen This is
a subset of government spending and only covers R&D.
It doesn't cover corporate R&D spending, though I'm guessing that in that regard, the
two countries are even. If anyone has the numbers I'd be grateful if they'd share them.
I think that Bernie Sanders was the best hope that US had in the last 50 years. And they
killed that hope by stealing his nomination and highly probable presidency from him. I don't
care what the orange clown says about "US will never be a socialist country". One other
individual of his ethnic background once prognosticated a 1000 year Reich – and we all
know how that turned out.
I don't know what Bernie views on immigration are, but on social and economic issues
– he is bang on. And I just heard on the news that Bernie new campaign for 2020, has
broken all previous records – raising 6 million $ in the first 24 hours.
All that nonsensical talk about empire is just a product of idle (and deranged) minds of
individuals who have achieved personal wealth and success based on rules of questionable
fairness, and now have nothing better to do than play some retarded game of world domination
– which doesn't benefit the average American at all. It's just a way for the
degenerates to achieve "immortality" and get into the history books – where they don't
belong – certainly not based on their abilities.
"Yeah right. Sanders is just another scammer, like Trump and all the rest of them:"
Yes of course they're all scammers, but there's a reason they picked the orange clown
scammer rather than the Sanders scammer or the Clinton scammer. And I think that reason is
because orange clown is actually the most evil of the three; evil enough to risk planetary
extinction in pursuit of world domination and control, whereas Sanders probably isn't.
So in a sense Sanders probably is "the best hope that the U.S. had in the last 50
years."
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not
emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power
politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.
India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no
friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power,
not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the
US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.
Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire America cannot compete with
China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages
are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright
people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a
stable government that can plan well into the future.
But all the bright minds come to the US. There is no brain drain in China's way, but the
best and brightest in Asia come to the US. Also, as the Asian mind respects power and status
above all, most Asians in the US become loyal servitors of Empire. Asians will serve Asian
power only in Asia where they are dominant. When they are in a non-Asian land, they will suck
up to the non-Asian power. In this, they are unlike Jews. Even in Ancient Times, Jews always
felt as #1 even when surrounded by much bigger powers. They were defined by the Covenant with
the one and only God. Wherever Jews go, they expect others to revolve around them. In
contrast, wherever Asians go, they revolve around the dominant power, whatever it is. Asians
lack the centrism of Jews. Maybe Hindus do a little bit, but Chinese don't. China regarded
itself as the Middle Kingdom only in the Middle Kingdom. But outside it, they feel as strays
who must serve another master. (To be sure, Chinese resist assimilation into foreign nations
when they regard the natives as inferior. Chinese see Southeast Asians as inferior and don't
assimilate much with them. But Chinese regard whites as superior, and so, they try to serve
and be white in the West. And trashy Chinese try to imitate blacks, the masters of badass
coolery in Pop Culture and Sports.) East Asians mainly define themselves by service and
loyalty? To what? To whatever happens to be the most powerful.
Here's the difference between Jews and East Asians.
If the US were to turn anti-Israel and made war against it, American Jews will NOT join in
the effort to kill fellow Jews in Israel. No way in hell, and this is the admirable aspect of
Jewish consciousness. Jews will not be manipulated by goyim to kill other Jews.
But Asian dogs in the US will gladly serve the US empire in killing tons of Asians in
Asia, even ethnic kin. Muslims are the same way. Look at those Muslims in US military who
bombed and killed Muslims in the 'Wars on Terror'. There's no way any American Jew will
participate in US war on Israel that kills tons of Jews, but Asians will gladly kill fellow
Asians in the service to what they deem to be the highest power. Look at Japanese during and
after WWII. During WWII, Japanese loyally served the Emperor, the symbol of power. After the
way, they loyally served Uncle Sam as the New Top Power.
... ... ...
US has lots of problems, but most smart people around the world want to move to the US to
work in Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Real Estate, and etc. There are foreigners in
China, but the system is rigged by nationalism to keep top positions in Chinese hands. But in
the US, due to demise of white race-ism and nationalism, non-white newcomers can rise to the
very top very fast. Look at all the obscenely rich Hindus in Silicon Valley. Also, white
goyim who made America let Jews take over. The Jewish takeover of a majority white Christian
nation sent a message to the world that ANYONE can come to the US and reach the top. If
Chinese elites still favor fellow Chinese, white elites no longer favor white folks and
prefer to do business with non-white elites. So, most of the top talents will flow to the
US.
Also, tons of peons are willing to move to the US to do jobs Americans won't do. So, US
will have tons of brains and tons of peons. (The Middle will suffer though as it's hard for
the middle class and working class to have bargaining power if they can be replaced by
foreigners or if their jobs can be shipped overseas.) US population is likely to be 700 or
800 million by 2100. Also, America has much more resources than China. It has more oil,
better land, more minerals. And US also has Alaska, a world unto itself. (Russians sure were
stupid to sell it.)
@Asagirian That's a
very selective reading of things, and a lot of debatable generalizations about other nations
the US one it seems is all you know personally. Too much to challenge it all but just the
point about Jews not killing other Jews has to be questioned. Jewish elites sacrifice Jews
without qualms when they see it as a means to an end, witness the "Holocaust" which was
instigated and fed by Jewish elites who did all they could to ensure Jewish refugees from
Europe only went to Palestine or back to oppression.
There were Jews in armies on both sides
of the two world wars. Over 150,000 German Jews fought in WWII in the Wehrmacht. Then there
have been the instances of Zionist false flag terrorism in various Middle Eastern countries
to drive yet more Jews to Palestine.
As for the best and brightest making a beeline for the USA that was yesterday. These days
that flow is slowing and by no means are the best and brightest headed that direction and
more to the point, many of America's best and brightest are beginning to emigrate to greener
pastures as the writing on the wall becomes more obvious.
What you describe as a US
renaissance is no such thing. Although the demographics are probably about right. It
represents the end of the USA in it's traditional self perception and the aftermath of empire
collapse. History doesn't support the rosy outlook you project.
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert
Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel
gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside
down.
But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile
phonies and hypocrites.
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic
cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:
" We must stand up
against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up
new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and
hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our
middle class."
It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing
so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.
As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what
happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military
industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American
taxpayers at least six trillion dollars.
[1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans may have suffered brain injuries."
[2]
Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and
destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the
Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle
East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.
The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both
parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about
you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that
matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of
the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you
should all agree with Gabbard here.
[1] Ernesto Londono, "Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion," Washington
Post , March 28, 2013; Bob Dreyfuss, The $6 Trillion Wars," The Nation , March 29,
2013; "Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson
Institute Study," Huffington Post , May 14, 2013; Mark Thompson, "The $5 Trillion War
on Terror," Time , June 29, 2011; "Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have
been done?," LA Times , March 18, 2013.
[2] "360,000 veterans may have brain injuries," USA Today , March 5, 2009.
"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new
places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy,
our security, and destroying our middle class."
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the
power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the
Middle East and West Asia.
US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and
Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the
foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.
The media in most countries report the news in a neutral manner. Since the Judaists bought
the media, they turned media into weapons of terror, by:
a. Fake news -- outright lies (eg. calling alien invaders "migrants").
b. Manufacturing scandals that THEY make up eg. blackface.
c. Harassing and abusing patriots and others and calling them racists, getting them fired from
jobs, etc.
None of these are legitimate jobs of the media. The New York Times and most Zionists
controlled media in this country are therefore criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations
and these criminals belong in prison.
Most of the US attendees might better be described as sincere American patriots. Former
Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), whom I personally recruited for the conference, is widely
acknowledged as an all-American hero for his principled stance against the Vietnam war, his
role in exposing the Pentagon Papers, and his courageous advocacy of 9/11 truth.
Merlin Miller, a family values oriented filmmaker who once ran for president, is another
all-American hero who attended the Hollywoodism Conference. Merlin Miller's pro-American,
anti-Zionist-Hollywood perspective is as patriotic as it gets.
And then there was Culture Wars editor E. Michael Jones, another conservative
American patriot who wants to take his country back.
While all three all-American heroes are in varying degrees critical of Israel and its
occupation of American politics and media, none could possibly be viewed as America haters.
Notes
[1] I
was witch-hunted in 2006 by State Rep. Steve Nass for "teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories" at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But in fact I had never done so, nor had I any plans to do
so. While teaching African Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison between 2001 and 2006, I had never once revealed to students my personal
views of 9/11, nor did I ever discuss the research that gave rise to those views.
None of my students up to that point even knew what my views of 9/11 were, unless they had
stumbled upon one of my occasional teach-ins, or read my published work on the issue, which I
did not bring into the classroom.
Yet Stanley
Fish lied brazenly about me in his NYT op-ed , libelously claiming: "Mr. Barrett, who has a
one-semester contract to teach a course titled 'Islam: Religion and Culture' acknowledged on a
radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of
the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government."
I immediately wrote to The New York Times urging them to correct their libelous
error. They refused to do so. Instead, they published several other
letters all taking for granted Fish's outrageous and utterly baseless lie.
"... Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes vote. ..."
"... how being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure, for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic? ..."
Foreign policy is more than just war and peace, it is a nuanced and complex issue that
directly affects us here at home. In this interview, Dr. Jane Sanders sits down with
Representative Tulsi Gabbard to talk about U.S. foreign policy and how it affects us here at
home.
Tulsi this is the first I've explored who you are. This conversation felt like a life
giving refreshment. The constant war and regime change policy of every administration since I
was a young child has been utterly confounding. We are bankrupting our society and
civilization with military expenditure exactly like a life destroying heroin addict except
it's on a global scale. These people in the powers that be together with the masses that back
them are literal sociopaths and they're entirely in control at both the highest and base
levels. The only other time I've felt as nourished by a public figure that somehow pierced
through the mainstream media was Bernie Sanders actually expressing the fact that we are an
oligarchy not a democracy. Like oligarchy, anti-war and imperialism is just not talked about.
US Americans won't acknowledge the scale of our imperialism.
Tulsi should run and both Sanders should follow her lead. As much as I love him, Bernie's
too old to be president - when it gets to the stage against Trump, we need a young, vibrant
face. Add onto that the fact that she's a veteran who actually asked to be deployed in
comparison to him, a draft dodger - he looks like an old fat pathetic septogenarian next to
an early 40s real populist. Ultimately it is up to Sanders whether this whole thing is about
a man or a movement. If he runs, he'll probably win the primary but it is not a guarantee
that he'd win - Tulsi would win and she'd be around for decades to come as a standard barer
too.
"Sensible politics" seems to be an oxymoron these days and pretty much throughout the
history of our country. It's so refreshing to see a politician who has a vision for the
future that the majority of us can get behind. It scares me though. I've read quite a bit
about JFK the past few years, and he amassed a number of very powerful and dangerous enemies.
They won't just stand by and allow someone in a position of influence to get the truth out
about our immoral and illegal wars. Tulsi, I support your efforts to bring peace to the
Middle East and elsewhere, but please do be careful. You're a fighter and I admire that, but
we all want you to be safe and healthy for many years to come.
Tulsi Gabbard, I am thrilled to have someone like you running for president. I am a fellow
Veteran dealing with disability and I am glad to have a candidate who understands the issues
Veterans are dealing with. I also realize that the voting public will support the person who
resonates with their personal lives and issues that don't exist in their life they will
disregard.Thank you for you're support.
The DNC will lie cheat and steal the election from Tulsi Gabbard just like they did Bernie
Sanders, and the 15 million Americans who Left the un-Democratic party will double and
triple....DEMEXIT
Tulsi Gabbard needs to be the president of the United States of America period. If she not
the president of our country will not survive. That is a fact, how stupid can our government
be. I guess very stupid, what else can I say. We don't hear that in main news media, the
reason we do hear it the media . The news media is totally brought, the main news media love
money and the devil, simple as that. How are you going to hear about wars from main news
media. They do care about the citizens or the country. We really don't have a real news
media, it all propaganda. All fake news, that why one doesn't hear anything from the new
medias.
Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one
responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime
change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes
vote.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE! Bernie is a sell-out - a sheeple-herder that never intended to win. He
was a gatekeeper for Hillary because she is AIPAC-beloved and he is an Israel-firster. He
threw his supporters under the bus as they told him in real time that the nomination was
being stolen. He's part of the con, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we'll be.
BERNIE WORKS FOR DEMOCRATS. Vote Third Party (REAL third parties, not the Bernie Sanders'
kind).
Kinky, 2 months ago
Tulsi - re your comment about our veterans who have "served and sacrificed for their country," could you clarify how
being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure,
for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our
country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic?
"... The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm ..."
Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and
recanted. She apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying
"Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating
me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my
constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and
think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my
identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."
What does that sound like? A Stalin-era confession? 'I have betrayed the Party. I have
betrayed the Revolution. I humbly request to be sent to Joo-lag.'
The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in
a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm and in fact the Zionists are in fact in
that special place here in America where they reign above all and none dare call them out for
their genocide of the Palestinians or the fact they did 911 and murdered some 3000 Americans.
So great is the Zionist control of the US government that no congressman who values his
position in congress dares criticize Zionists and goes along with everything that Israel and
the Zionists do, and if fact congress would be more accurately called the lower house of the
Knesset!
Accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" are used by the JEW/WASP ruling class to cover up
the treasonous activities of the JEW/WASP ruling class.
When CIA Leprechaun Boy Buckley wanted to attack Pat Buchanan because Buchanan was
skeptical of wars that benefited Israel, Buckley the whore called Buchanan an "anti-Semite."
In fact, the CIA Leprechaun scumbag Buckley wrote a whole book screaming about so-called
"anti-Semitism" and Pat Buchanan. Buckley is a disgusting Leprechaun rat who is now roasting
in the hottest pits of fiery Hell!
When disgusting rat whores in the US Congress such as Charles Schumer want to cover the
fact that they are pushing JEW NATIONALISM by pushing to continue to use the US military as
muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel, they accuse those who call them out on their
actions by the swear word of the ruling class: "anti-Semite."
Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby
to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.
US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and
Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the
foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.
"... The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite effective. ..."
It was manufactured outrage, with political leaders from both parties latching on to a media
frenzy to score points against each other. Even though it is perfectly legitimate for a
Congresswoman on the Foreign Affairs Committee to challenge what AIPAC does and where its money
comes from, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi complained that Omar's "use of anti-Semitic
tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel's supporters" was "deeply offensive." Chelsea
Clinton
accused Omar of "trafficking in anti-Semitism." President Donald Trump, who
has admitted that his Mideast policy is intended to serve Israeli rather than U.S.
interests, also jumped in, saying "I think she should either resign from congress or she should
certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee."
Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and recanted.
She
apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying "Anti-Semitism is
real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful
history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish
Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism,
just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I
unequivocally apologize." But she also bravely wrote "At the same time, I reaffirm the
problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel
industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."
Pelosi approved of the apology. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who is
running for president in 2020, chimed in to make sure that everyone knew how much she loves
Israel, saying "I'm glad she apologized. That was the right thing to do. There is just no room
for those kinds of words. I think Israel is our beacon of democracy. I've been a strong
supporter of Israel and that will never change."
Two days later,
a motion sponsored by Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York passed by a 424 to 0 vote. It was
specifically intended to serve as a rebuke to Omar. It
stated that "it is in the national security interest of the United States to combat
anti-Semitism around the world because there has been a significant amount of anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel hatred that must be most strongly condemned."
Congressional votes professing love for Israel notwithstanding, the fact is that there is a
massive
, generously funded effort to corrupt America's government in favor of Israel. It is
euphemistically called the Israel Lobby even though it is overwhelmingly Jewish and it boasts
fairly openly of its power when talking with its closest friends about
how its money influences the decisions made on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Its
combined budget exceeds one billion dollars per year and it includes lobbying powerhouses like
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which alone had $229 million
in income in 2017, supporting more than 200 employees. It exists only to promote Israeli
interests on Capitol Hill and throughout the United States with an army of lobbyists and its
activities include using questionably legal all expenses paid "orientation" trips to Israel for
all new congressmen and spouses.
McCarthy and the other stooges in Congress deliberately sought to frame the argument in
terms of Ilhan Omar having claimed that he personally was receiving money from pro-Israel
sources and that money influenced his voting. Well, the fact is that such activity does take
place and was documented three years ago by the respected Foreign
Policy Journal , which published a piece entitled "The Best Congress AIPAC can Buy" as well
as more recently in an al-Jazeera investigative expose using a concealed camera.
And Kevin McCarthy does indeed receive money from Israel PACs –
$33,200 in 2018 . The amount individual congressmen receive is dependent on their actual or
potential value to Israel. Completely corrupt and enthusiastically pro-Israel Senator Robert
Menendez of New Jersey received
$548,507 in 2018 . In the House, Beto O'Rourke of Texas received $226,690. The numbers do
not include individual contributions of under $200, which are encouraged by AIPAC and can be
considerable. In general, congressmen currently receive over $23,000 on
average from the major pro-Israel organizations while Senators get $77,000.
But, of course, direct donations of money are not the whole story. If a congressman is
unfriendly to Israel, money moves in the other direction, towards funding an opponent when
re-election is coming up. Former Rep. Brian Bard has observed that "Any
member of Congress knows that AIPAC is associated indirectly with significant amounts of
campaign spending if you're with them, and significant amounts against you if you're not with
them." Lara Friedman, who has worked on the Hill for 15 years on Israel/Palestine, notes how
congressmen and staffs of "both parties told me over and over that they agreed with me but
didn't dare say so publicly for fear of repercussions from AIPAC."
A good example of how it all worked involves one honest congressman, Walter Jones of North
Carolina, who recently passed away. In 2014, "Wall Street billionaires, financial industry
lobbyists, and neoconservative hawks" tried to unseat Jones by bankrolling
his primary opponent . The "dark money" intended to defeat him came from a PAC called "The
Emergency Committee for Israel," headed by leading neoconservative Bill Kristol. Jones' war
views, including avoiding a war with Iran, were clearly perceived as anti-Israel.
And one should also consider contributions directly to the political parties. Israeli/U.S.
dual nationals Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the largest single donors to the GOP and to
the Democrats, having contributed
$82 million and
$8,780,000 respectively in the 2016 presidential campaign. Both have indicated openly that
Israel is their top priority.
If they have demonstrated fealty to Israel while in office, many Congressmen also find that
loyalty pays off after retirement from government with richly remunerated second careers in
Jewish dominated industries, like financial services or the media. And there are hundreds of
Jewish organizations that contribute to Israel as charities, even though the money frequently
goes to fund illegal activity, including the settlements. Money also is used to buy newspapers
and media outlets which then adhere to a pro-Israel line, or, where that does not work, to buy
advertising that is conditional on being friendly to Israel. So the bottom line is indeed "the
Benjamins" and the corruption that they buy.
Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Education Trust
said in January that "One person questioning the truth of the Holocaust is one too many."
That is nonsense. Any, and all, historical events should be questioned regularly, a principle
that is particular true regarding developments that carry a lot of emotional baggage. The
Israel Lobby would have all Americans believe that any criticism of Israel is motivated by
historic hatred of Jews and is therefore anti-Semitism. Don't believe it. When the AIPAC crowd
screams that linking Jews and money is a classic anti-Semitic trope respond by pointing out
that Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media over
Israel. Terrible things are being done in the Middle East in the name of Jews and of Israel and
it all comes down to those Benjamins and the silence they buy by accusing all critics of
anti-Semitism. Just recall what the Israeli minister admitted, "It's a trick, we always use
it."
Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New
Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly
below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than
America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world
while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.
Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US
has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan
Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of
over a billion people.
And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with
Israel.
Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on
Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a
look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.
Here's Nancy Pelosi on what's most important about America.
"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the
one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid,
our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are."
.Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media
over Israel.
Absolutely, and this 4 part documentary, "The Israel Lobby in the U.S." proves it's every
bit as bad as you imagine, maybe worse.
Start with this, Part 2, which focuses on Congress. (Part 1 introduces the undercover
reporter, and shows how the Israel Lobby operates on college campuses.)
The Israel Lobby in the U.S. – Documentary by Al Jazeera (Part 2 of 4
)
@Marcus
Aurelius Tarkus If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to
learn that the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism
accusation. It stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset
about the shame of antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.
A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the
"Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they think
Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven, but don't
want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.
Rashida Tlaib believes that US States must be banned from making geopolitical considerations
a part of which companies they do business with. She calls it a free speech issue.
On the other hand, she also believes that States, and the Federal Government, must
discriminate in favour of companies not owned by white people. She calls that an
equality issue.
She often calls into question all manner of other people's loyalties, while she is also
endlessly talking about Palestine, and how Israel must become majority Palestinian.
In a one off piece of consistency, she also supports the same thing for America though, as
she want to abolish immigration enforcement. Which would obviously directly lead to
abolishing America itself.
Meanwhile, Philip Giraldi pretends that he thinks $23,000 of campaign contributions will
buy a US Congressman. In which case, Jezz Bezos could have bought 10 literally every
single minute with the money he made in 2018.
People disagree with you. They have reasons. Cluelessly implying it is because they are
all bought by the Jews makes you look dumb, especially to them.
Israel came into being because Britain needed to get America into the WW1, and the American
leadership were glad of the the PR/ Media and political wherewithal of Jews to help get the
USA in. Even Germany felt it had to match the Balfour Declaration. The Jewish community has
not declined in influence since WW1.
If the US had nothing better to worry about they could, and would, deal with the
subjugation of the whole political system on the issue, but the fact is the priorities lie
elsewhere. The Israel Lobby are an opponent best avoided, and the West has to concentrate on
China.
If one were to read the U.S. mainstream media one would think that there has been a
dramatic increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, but that claim is incorrect. What has been
taking place is not hatred of Jews but rather a confluence of two factors
As well as the factors you mention -- Israeli behaviour and broadening the definition of
anti-Semitism -- the Internet has enabled millions of gentiles to become 'Jew woke', which
inevitably leads to a rise in what Jews perceive as anti-Semitic comment.
The Irish Savant recently blogged about a
lecture by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim: 'He sees Jews as having no moral obligations to us
[gentiles] at all, we're there to be robbed, exploited and, where possible, physically
destroyed.'
Memo to Jews: Has it crossed your minds that anti-Semitism is your fault?
I'd always reckoned myself soundly philo-semitic, based mainly on my father's dealings with
British Jews, backed up by my own acquaintanceships amongst them.
I've cooled in the last few years. That's because two or three times one website comment
threads I've made factual remarks about Palestine that have led to vituperative responses
from commenters who have presumably been Jewish, perhaps Israelis.
I'm not so daft as to think that a few internet nutters or crooks should outweigh personal
experience but it has made me a little more sensitive to institutionalised bullying on behalf
of Israel. An example was the pressure recently put on the (British) Labour Party to adopt
Israel's favoured definition of anti-semitism. I accept, of course, that there are lots of
disgusting anti-semites in that party but I'm damned if I see why a whole political party
should be expected to swallow uncritically some other buggers' definition of
anti-semitism.
In Warsaw, Pompeo urges Poland to pass Holocaust restitution law Poland is the only EU member without comprehensive legislation to return, or provide
compensation for, private property confiscated by the Nazis
By JTA
14 Feb 2019
As part of his remarks, Pompeo called on the Polish government to resolve outstanding
restitution issues.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of Holocaust-era property restitution
during his first official visit to Poland.
"We also appreciate the importance of resolving outstanding issues of the past, and I
urge my Polish colleagues to move forward with comprehensive private property restitution
legislation for those who lost property during the Holocaust era," he said.
Gideon Taylor, chair of operations for the World Jewish Restitution Organization, said
he welcomed Pompeo's "expression of his commitment to securing justice for Holocaust
survivors and their families. This is a powerful affirmation of the importance of this
issue to the United States."
His first state visit and he makes this the key issue.
1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom
2. Jews, as a national collective, have some unpleasant traits, among them, recently,
emotional blackmail misusing the shoah to extort money from most white/Euro-derived nations.
This behavior, similar to divorced women's scheming, should be publicly exposed &
denounced. OK guys, you suffered, we admit, but others suffered too, so to hell with this
game
3. US political system, Jews & Gentiles, is too plutocratic, with all these PACs, big
donors, super PACs & whatnot. This should be reformed because the very system perpetuates
corruption & suicidal policy at all levels
Thus, is there a significant difference, ethical or otherwise between being bought by
the NRA, the health insurers, the organised aged, the arms industry, the
sugar/biofuels/cattle lobbies, trial lawyers etc as compared with Israel?
Well wiz, while it's true that the arms industry and Big Sugar, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma
and others, are responsible for the deaths of millions of people, including Americans,
there's no evidence that they deliberately murdered Americans in cowardly and treacherous
acts of war, as Israel has done repeatedly, as with the cowardly and treacherous attack on
the USS Liberty, and the cowardly and treacherous false flag attack on 9/11.
So as to your query over the ethical question of extorting Americans to lavish lucre on an
enemy state with the blood of thousands of Americans on its hands, this question should
answer itself.
Why are Americans looted to fund an enemy state that murders Americans with fiendish glee,
as the "dancing Israelis" so egregiously demonstrates.
It's like the people of Iraq being taxed to pay for Tony Blair or Dubya's new private jet.
Forcing the victims of war crimes to fund their abusers.
Lobbyists for Big Tobacco are saints by comparison.
American mass media is especially two faced when it comes to outing intolerance. A good
deal has been made over over Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's comments on the influence
of AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee). The anti-Russian establishment hack
journalist Julia Ioffe tweeted her belief that Omar's comments are "anti-Semitic"
(anti-Jewish). I'm not too familiar with what Omar has said about Jews over the course of
time. I doubt that it['s more repugnant than what Ioffe has stated about Russians.
There has been no letting up with Ioffe. In one recent mass media TV appearance, she
said (in a joking tone) that a relaxation of Russian gun laws isn't a good idea because
Russians drink too much. In another prominent TV segment, Ioffe stated that when the
Russians call someone corrupt, that person must be pretty bad.
Some generalizations are hypocritically more acceptable than others. A good number of
Western reared Russians see thru this gross hypocrisy. On the subject of Russia, these
individuals regularly get limited coverage in Western mass media.
A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the
"Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they
think Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven,
but don't want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.
Aaahhh the beauty of religion ..a very old method for controlling people.
This is Protestantism, which was a Jewish revolutionary movement.
1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom
Who's blaming them for that?
Here's what they get the blame for
"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us." Explaining why God allowed non-Jews long
lives, he added: "Imagine that your donkey would die, you'd lose your income. [The donkey]
is your servant. That's why he [the gentile] gets a long life, to work well for the
Jew."
This summer, Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira, who head an influential seminary in the
West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, published The King's Torah, a 230-page guide to how Jews
should treat non-Jews.
The two rabbis concluded that Jews were obligated to kill anyone who posed a danger,
immediate or potential, to the Jewish people, and implied that all Palestinians were to be
considered a threat. On these grounds, the pair justified killing Palestinian civilians and
even their babies.
@Wizard of
Oz'If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to learn that
the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism accusation. It
stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset about the shame of
antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.'
The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most
accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite
effective.
Islamophobes feel entirely free to publically walk their dog these days. Speaking for
myself, I feel entirely free to express my opinions about blacks, and frequently do. I'd do
the same with respect to other groups if I felt strongly enough.
But to be labelled anti-semitic? I'll caught myself hesitating to click 'publish' when I
notice that my post could reasonably be read as 'anti-semitic.'
The United States of America must have political leaders who will stop the JEW/WASP ruling
class rats from using accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" to stop debate on policy
issues. The rats who screech about so-called "anti-Semitism" must be ignored!
With all the dirty cash swirling around the Swamp, it's almost hard to believe that Kevin
McCarthy can be bought for $33,200. Seems to me the figure has to be much higher,
probably in the mid 6 figures per year. Those sub-$200 donations need to be reported, with
names attached. I wonder how many of them are precisely $198, since the Saturday people love
gifts that are a multiple of 18. Funny since 18 is also the alphanumeric code for a famous
world leader.
Marco Rubio is a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jews.
Marco Rubio puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. Jew billionaires pay Marco Rubio to put the interests of Israel over the interests of the
United States.
The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire will screech on about so-called
"anti-Semitism" if you call Marco Rubio a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jew
billionaires.
They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power,
Empire and war. That they really care about.
I disagree. Empire is always dominated by a group, and US empire is dominated by Jews. If
the US is merely after Empire, why not cook up excuses to sanction, invade, and destroy
Israel? After all, the world community has condemned Israel many times over for its myriad
crimes. Also, why not invade and smash Saudi Arabia as well? If US is just after empire and
more wars, why not wage war on Israel and Saudis? More bucks for the military industrial
complex.
In truth, the US empire is selective. It is not empire for empire's sake but empire for
Zion's sake. That is why US empire targets Russia, Syria, and Iran while hailing Israel and
protecting Saudi Arabia. US empire is premised on the biases and hatreds of its ethnic
super-elites. "Is it great for the Jews?"
A very interesting interview. You need to listed to it in full to appreciates. Probably best interviewer so far interviewed
Tulsi, and Tulsi is really impressive. Cool, definitely high intellect, deep understanding of current US problems
Notable quotes:
"... I'm not a Democrat. I would vote for this person. Just saying. Elizabeth Warren didn't even support Bernie while Tulsi resigned to support Bernie ..."
"... Intellectually gifted. Well prepared. Emotionally stable. Able to change her ideas as life goes on, taking each issue as it comes. Vs a bunch of 70 year old maniacs who have never told the truth, never served, and have made deal with the devil to get where they are. Game over ..."
"... If the establishment weren't smearing her, I wouldn't trust her. They are, which means that she'll fight for working people, and against the neoconservative chickenhawks! ..."
"... Tulsi is the General Smedley Butler of today, someone who knows how war works and is brave enough to tell the truth. Please read his short book "War Is A Racket". Even though it was written in the 30's, as long as things are this way, it'll never go out of style. ..."
"... Let's put our egos aside and work together as citizens! Tell your friends to do the same to overthrow corporate establishment Kamala ..."
I'm a libertarian and love hearing Tulsi!! She's the antithesis of Hillary. Only dem I would support in 2020. Agree 100% with
her foreign policy views.
Combat vet, Currently serving in the Guard, rank of Major. Intellectually gifted. Well prepared. Emotionally stable. Able to change
her ideas as life goes on, taking each issue as it comes. Vs a bunch of 70 year old maniacs who have never told the truth, never
served, and have made deal with the devil to get where they are. Game over
B. Greene, 1 week ago
If the establishment weren't smearing her, I wouldn't trust her. They are, which means that she'll fight for working
people, and against the neoconservative chickenhawks!
Howard Sexton, 2 months ago
Damn! I am republican but she has my vote 🗳! I have never heard a politician talk this long without blaming the opposing
party. Just impressed
Zwart Poezeke, 1 week ago
Man she's smart, critical and actually comes off as honest. She really would be an inspiring leader. Guys I'm from Belgium,
so I can't vote, but do me a favor and vote for her
a_g60, 2 weeks ago
Tulsi Gabbard is the ultimate woman. That's why the DNC is colluding against her.
she's articulate and highly educated
she's extremely attractive
she was a combat medic
she's young
she has a great family
she gets all the attention of men
she's presidential
This is what a candidate looks like. Take notes!
Matthew Mauldon, 1 month ago
She is amazing and I would vote for her as president. It is very disturbing how she sheds light on how Saudi Arabia uses
our us military and how Saudi Arabia murdered many innocents and we said nothing and continue to support them. Also the level
of corruption of our politicians and how they mis use our troops without a care in the world. We need to wake up folks this is
not right
The Scapegoat Mechanism, 1 month ago
Obama was the thesis. Trump was the antithesis. Gabbard will be the synthesis.
Chris Jones, 5 months ago
I absolutely adore this woman. She gave up her Vice chair position in the DNC when she saw they were stealing the
nomination from Bernie. That's integrity.
Paul Peart-Smith, 1 week ago
Tulsi is the General Smedley Butler of today, someone who knows how war works and is brave enough to tell the truth.
Please read his short book "War Is A Racket". Even though it was written in the 30's, as long as things are this way, it'll
never go out of style.
algo, 5 days ago
See Joe, this woman has INTEGRITY, unlike that zionist warmongering shill Bari Weiss regurgitating her fed opinions which
she didn't even know the meaning of!
savita purohit, 2 months ago
this is what 1st female president of US should be like, not Clinton or that virtue signaling Warren, not Nikki either
Ryan Hamilton, 1 day ago (edited)
I'm a conservative, Republican, combat vet. I would follow her into combat. I would vote for her because she's a
pragmatist, puts America first, is skeptical of US foreign policy, and stands up for the little guy. There is some remarkable
overlap between the anti establishment populist left and anti establishment populist right.
Loro sono umano, 2 days ago
Don't forget to change party to Democrat to vote her in the primaries if you're Green, libertarian, independent, or
conservative, even if its temporary. Let's put our egos aside and work together as citizens! Tell your friends to do the
same to overthrow corporate establishment Kamala. Dont let the establishment get their way
Chico Christe Pace, 1 week ago
damn, I never thot there is an American politician who thinks this way. she sees the whole picture and made sense to it.
this lady is kick ass! :) you guys shd keep voting for her :) put her on the top seat, she can be the real hope for the US of
A :)
bestrainingtechnique, 4 months ago
So let me get this straight I don't know much about this woman, but from what I've seen in this interview she seems to be
very intelligent, rational, experienced, has military experience, extremely well spoken, and doesn't trust the mainstream
media and realizes that there are elements of our government that are basically unhinged and looking for war?? And is there
anyone on earth that wouldn't vote for her as president??? Would we really rather have an orange face reality star buffoon or
a war mongering lunatic who has no real experience except being married to a former president?
I really hope she runs as an independent, I think she would win in a landslide, since I think it is the perfect time in our
country where I think a non-Republican or Democrat can definitely win! The two party system needs to go!
Skemoo, 1 week ago
I came back after MSM and Jews started smearing her including Sam Harris. I cant sense any form of malevolence or evil in
her words or body language.. she seems like a sweet empathetic lady.
Im fuking angry that these ppl are smearing her. Im not an american but you ppl better wake the fuk up and vote her into
office i think she is fit to be the first female president. Hope Rogan doesnt do 180 and betray her . im surprized Sam harris
hates her.
David Paley, 1 week ago
If they can keep everyone in need of working 3 jobs just to make ends meet, and make healthcare too expensive to afford
proper care, the people will always be too busy, tired, and worn-out, to actively participate in the electoral process; the
only thing that might change things for the better. The elites know exactly what they're doing, so now they see this woman as
an existential threat, and the smear campaigns have already begun. I hope the sensible people in your country can support her
as much as she is trying to support you. Good luck in 2020, both to Tulsi, and America.
"... Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. ..."
"... Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life". ..."
"President Trump continued to condemn the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed at least
11 people.
"The hearts of all Americans are filled with grief following the monstrous killing of Jewish Americans at the Tree of
Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., you've all seen it, you've been watching it, it's horrible," he said at a rally in Murphysboro,
Ill.
"This evil anti-Semitic attack is an attack on all of us, it is an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working
together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst," Trump
added. "The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue It must be
confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head."
Through the centuries, the Jews have endured terrible persecution And those seeking their destruction, we will seek their destruction.
And when you have crimes like this, whether it's this one or another one on another group, we have to bring back the death penalty,"
he said. [the audience exploded in wild ovations].
Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to
one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of
American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life".
*The Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, previously הפונד הלאומי,
Ha Fund HaLeumi) was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine (later the British Mandate for Palestine, and
subsequently Israel and the Palestinian territories) for Jewish settlement.
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and
the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the
footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House
she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to "drain the swamp"
(meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power,
by the way. Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a "US Putin" nor does she have the kind of institutional
and popular backing Putin had. So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one
Finally, if Gabbard truly is "for real" then the Deep State will probably "Kennedy" her and blame Russia or Iran for it.
Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like
this one:
I don't know about you, but I am rather impressed!
At the very least, she does what "Occupy Wall Street" did with its "1%" which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much
lower but politically very effective. In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like
" warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die ". This is all very good and useful
for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethink concepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing
!
The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a
damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans"
or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they
really care about.
Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war. They
also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a "normal" country and they couldn't care less about the fate
of the people of the USA. All they want is for us all to become their serfs.
All of this is hardly big news. But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard's candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the
fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy. As for the US media, it would make folks like
Suslov or Goebbels green with envy. Be it
the ongoing US aggression
against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical
euphemism and say with confidence: "the prognosis is poor".
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
– Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign
– Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
I think it is unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard caves in so soon. The way she has started her campaign, she is certainly aware that
she has cut off herself from the normal donors of Democrats, and the way she talks shows that she is not afraid of alienating
them even more because she won't get money from them, anyway. The plan is to do the same like Bernie Sanders 2016 and raise small
donations. Many Democratic candidates now say they don't take PAC money, but there are different ways of getting money from big
donors – Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of those who are more serious about avoiding reliance on big donors. It could work. In
2016, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton regularly had to interrupt her campaign in order to attend dinners with superrich
donors, while Bernie Sanders asked people to donate as a part of his campaign on social media, and Sanders regularly outraised
Clinton. Of course, 2016, we just saw that for the primaries, but it might also work for the general election (and numbers are
not everything, Hillary Clinton spent far more than Donald Trump and still lost, so even if small donations would lead to a somewhat
lower sum, she could still win with a popular message). And not only could it work, I think it would be the only way for Tulsi
Gabbard to succeed because she has probably already been too outspoken about some things to ever gain back the trust of the neocons
and their allies in the media and the billionaire donor class.
Of course, if Tulsi Gabbard advances in the primaries, she will be attacked most viciously in the media. I am not so sure what
the effect will be. On one hand, Trump's victory in the primaries and the general election showed that being hated by mainstream
media does not have to be an obstacle that cannot be surmounted, and as long as there are so many primary candidates, such vicious
attacks can also make her seem more interesting to some people. On the other hand, her main hurdle are probably the Democratic
primaries, and, according to polls, Democrats have lost trust in the mainstream media to a lesser degree than the general public.
But then again, vilifying her too much in the liberal media (as it has already started) is also a certain risk for them because
it could become too obvious to see that the decisive feature that leads to such attacks is that someone is not seen as reliably
pro-neocon, and that could also lead to doubts about the media in leftists who readily accepted the attacks on Trump because they
hated him for other reasons. Therefore, I think the main hope of the establishment is that Tulsi Gabbard can be treated as a „minor
candidate" and won't get far, in case she becomes a serious contender for the nomination, they are in trouble.
If Tulsi Gabbard wins the nomination, we can almost be certain that the pro-neocon establishment will a) see a re-election
of Trump as the lesser evil and b) they will support a pro-establishment third party candidate (already last time, Michael Bloomberg
threatened to run if the two major candidates are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, now Howard Schultz seems to have positioned
himself that way, though I think he is too ridiculous and ineffective and will be replaced by someone else if the establishment
needs a third party candidate because they lose the Democratic primaries). Such a third party candidate probably increases the
chances of Trump's re-election (probably a desired side-effect, many of these liberal oligarchs probably prefer Trump to Gabbard
and Sanders by far, but it would be difficult for them to support Trump in public, supporting a third party candidate is much
easier), but a populist campaign against both Trump and that third party candidate as representatives of a corrupt billionaire
class might well be successful.
Then, if Tulsi Gabbard is elected, she certainly runs the risk of ending like JFK, but the fact that so many people now already
talk and write about this risk might also protect her to some degree – the danger is so obvious that many people won't believe
theories about a lonewolf terrorist easily (and blaming Russia and Iran after Tulsi Gabbard had been vilified as an Assadist and
Russian trolls' favorite candidate would also be difficult, if for some reasons relations with Saudi Arabia are not seen as so
important any more, the more realistic option of blaming Saudi terrorists may be chosen). Another option would be to impeach her,
though that could also be a big risk for the establishment, and depending on who would be her VP, it would not be enough. Of course,
there could be bipartisan agreement about blocking all of her initiatives.
Even if she is extremely smart and tough, alone against the united forces of the deep state, establishment media and the bipartisan
war party, Tusli Gabbard probably could not achieve very much – of course, she would still be commander in chief and probably
could prevent new wars, and she could open some people's eyes about who really holds power, but she could hardly achieve very
much. The question is whether she still might get some institutional support like Putin when he became president. I think that
is not so unlikely because there are indications that the deep state is internally divided (one small example is that the communications
of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were published) and that the neocons' grip on power is far from total. Therefore, it does not seem
impossible that with a combination of support in the general public (and she certainly has the potential of becoming very popular)
and the support of parts of the deep state that have not been subdued by the neocons, she might be successful – it would be a
very harsh power struggle.
As far as caving in to Israel is concerned, Tulsi Gabbard has never been too critical of Israel – there was some relatively
mild criticism of attacks on Gaza (in a way that is fairly common among progressives), but in general, she has not been too critical
of Israel and has also had some friendly contacts with the pro-Israel lobby. So, while she is very strong and consistent in rejecting
neocons and their regime change wars, as far as Israel and Palestinians' rights are concerned, people should probably not expect
too much from her. But if she is serious about fighting the neocons and limiting the power of the military-industrial complex
and still could win an election, that would already be a big achievement.
After witnessing the temper tirades and the teeth gnashing of the deep states media minions after the anti-war-lite Donald Trump
got elected, I'm guessing Tulsi Gabbard is in for one of two things:
1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom
to most debates.
I don't think American Democracy(AKA Empire) is in any mood for another spoiler
By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here:
http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/
. This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!
This is one of the few things I agree with Ilhan Omar about. Abrams is a felonious, warmongering prick.
She is very photogenic. So is Kamala Harris.
Projecting an anti-war position against promoting the bonafides of her army service will be quite the balancing act of cognitive
dissonance, but opposite the hyper-masculine affect a candidate like Trump or Hillary must emote to neutralize an absence of military
experience in their résumé.
Then there's that first husband and her family's political machine.
But damn, Tulsi and Kamala photograph impeccably well from every angle.
What are the chances outside of India that three potential presidential candidates of the female persuasion all share a common
ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala? No coincidence there.
Finding all this information below takes less time than burning a cigarette.
United Christians for Israel, founded and led by pastor John Hagee, have millions of members and call themselves "the largest
pro-Israel charity in the United States." The organization was an important factor in the decision of US President Donald Trump
in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to transfer the US embassy there.
Gabbard sponsored the resolution of the Congress criticizing Amnesty International for revealing Israeli atrocities against
civilians in his blitzkrieg in Gaza in 2014. The resolution stated that Israel "focuses on terrorist targets" and "goes to extraordinary
efforts to attack only terrorist actors". https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/22/gaza-and-the-bi-partisan-war-on-human-rights/
Zionism and Islamophobia Gabbard have gained recognition and support from all kinds of unpalatable characters – like right-wing
billionaire and Zionist Sheldon Adelson, who loudly declared that "all Muslims are terrorists".
In addition to Israel's loyal defender, Gabbard has also proved to be a credible servant of Adelson's business interests. Introduced
regulations against online gambling to protect the casino's empire from competition on the Internet. Adelson thanked her, giving
her the Champion of Freedom award. http://time.com/3695948/sheldon-adelson-online-gambling/
Her prejudices against Islam directly stem from her Hindu fundamentalism. Gabbard became one of the main American political
supporters of Narendra Modi, the leader of the Hindu sectarian party Bharatiya Janata (BJP) and the current Prime Minister of
India.
Being the main minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, Modi helped spark a pogrom against Muslims, in which they killed
2,000 people and displaced over 200,000 people in the ethnic cleansing campaign. Since his victory in the 2014 elections, Modi
has been a decidedly pro-Israeli Indian politician and has strong relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the invitation of Modi, Gabbard traveled through India for three weeks during which various Hindu fundamentalists greeted
her as their American master. In probably the worst part of the tour, the India Foundation, a formation tuned to the Hindu fascist
group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), hosted Gabbard to discuss the future of Indian-American relations. After the reactionary
lovefest, the Indian newspaper Telegraph called it "the American Sangha mascot" https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/sangh-finds-a-mascot-in-american-tulsi/cid/1579985
After returning to the USA, Gabbard defended Modi against any criticism. She was one of the few democrats who spoke against
the federal government's decision to refuse a Modi visa in 2014 because of his abolition of religious freedom
As with other leading liberal democrats, Gabbard's alleged progressive values do not extend to the Palestinian struggle for
freedom. While she may support the resistance of Indian Native at Standing Rock, she will not support the indigenous people of
Palestine and her struggle for self-determination against Israeli colonialism. http://socialistworker.org/2014/08/13/liberal-champions-of-apartheid
Yawn. Tulsi, Bernie, Corbyn – doesn't matter. The ruling elites have the power to co-opt, demonize or kill them. And, that regime
is desperate enough to do this.
We are all waiting for the tectonic impact of some external shocks. Because the system is fragile, over-ripe. Collapse of debt
bubbles, an infectious disease epidemic, a rogue general fires off some nukes. Whatever. Just passes the Global Tipping Point,
then, everything disintegrates. The centre cannot hold. And at that point the tensions release and people go nuts. The regime
divides against itself; the roof falls in. The whole world is waiting, expecting this to happen in some way or form.
Go and max out your credit card, get hard stuff, don't pay, stop buying anything. A few millions doing that. Empty your bank
account. Stop paying your mortgage and car loan. Make them chase you. Work to precipitate the Big One. Help tear the fabric beyond
its tensile strength. Do your bit.
Don't expect to see Tulsi on your side of the barricades.
@Rich1234
Nimrata Randhawa Haley is of Punjabi Sikh ancestry on both sides, genetically closer to southern Europeans than to most Indians.
Kamala Harris is descended from South Indian brahmins on her mother's side. You can't get more Aryan than that – look up the
word. And she is Jamaican on her father's side. I haven't seen a picture of him but I imagine he's about as black as fellow Jamaican
Colin Powell. An octoroon to use that old-fashioned term. But Negro blood was considered so polluting that just a smidgeon put
you with the lower race. It's still working like that, but in victim politics less is more.
Tulsi Gabbard had a WASP mother who became a member of Swami Bhaktivedanta's Krishna devotees. Her father was Polynesian. There's
no genes from India. It's a mistake to think of her religion as Hindu, but it's her mistake as well as that of many Indians. Hinduism
is not *a* religion because Hinduism is the liberating realization that the idea of *a* religion is very shallow. It is a pleasure
to see Tulsi, in videos, going about her devotions.
.. "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially,
when he came to power, by the way.
a good article, overall.
Especially:
USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who
don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA
and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don't understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling
will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby
the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities,
don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what
they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.
It's interesting to see the prompt [13] Democrat party oppo based on the "right-wing Indian agent" smear. It's exactly analogous
to Democrat/CIA attack on "Russian puppet" Trump, when Democrats had absolutely nothing to offer in lieu of a famous loathsome
TV asshole they hand-picked to beat like a drum and then lost to.
If it were the case that Tulsi were an Indian fifth-column traitor, like Rubio is a Israeli fifth-column traitor, So what?
Objective indicators of world-standard state responsibilities show that the state of India is more developed, more legitimate,
and more entitled to responsible sovereignty than the US government. India exceeds US performance on most of the top-level human
rights indicators.
You can see for yourself, in whatever level of detail you desire, with NGO input exhaustively compiled by elected independent
international experts acting in their personal capacity.
Tulsi's exposure to superior Indian human-rights compliance is likely to build her capacity in terms of Responsibility to Protect
Pillar 2. She will have a better understanding of rights and rule of law than provincial goober candidates with no international
exposure. That will necessarily influence her evolving stance on systematic and widespread Israeli extermination of Palestinian
indigenous peoples.
I have never voted for a Democrat. I plan to vote for Gabbard. I have contributed to her campaign. I cringe at her progressive
agenda, but I fully support her positions on non-intervention.
@der einzige
Hope is such a frail and tenuous emotion.
That said, l'm investing some of my dwindling reserves of hope in Tulsi. Your comments are very considered, and l share your concerns
for peace with the current play of Theo-politics. Modi is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has successfully incited brutal
communalism for electoral gain. But my personal loathing of him has ameliorated over time (I shock myself!) because he has steered
a pretty independent course for India, maintaining friendly relations with China for example,despite U.S. pressure to use India
as a wedge. His Hinduva ideology appears to be a domestic political tool. This is a cunning but pragmatic approach and is distinct
from a religious ideology with global ambitions. The latter is the province of Zionism which is not really a religion but has
(other) religious affiliations or "allies",including Hinduism but most importantly Christian zionism (or evangelicism or dispensationalism
et al). It seems to me that a lot of what Trump is doing re. "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" is to appease the Christian
Zionists who comprise a large chunk of his support base, and not American Jewry.(They are democrats as a foregone conclusion).There
is great irony in this if you follow the fantastical narrative of the Christian evangelical apocalypse.
Political ambitions are the scourge of religion.I attend an Anglican Church,very traditional, because my preferred form of worship
is hymn singing-the sung mass for Eucharist.I do this in contradistinction(!) to evangelicism. Unfortunately Islam too undergone
a political makeover in recent history which has led to un utter corruption of prophet Mohammad's words.It's apogee is Wahhabism,
a fad made manifest through money and power and war. Shia is also Islam, but not according to Wahhabis,who do not even relate
to Shia as "self-hating Moslems."And do not imagine that the Moslem brotherhood is any better for all the acceptable styling.
Sunnism needs to detach itself from ideology.God is in the poetry and not the small print.
Thanks for your patience with my digression. The Saker suggests we examine the Tulsi phenomenon as a diagnostic tool.
This may be useful. But Tulsi as a Hindi wooden horse?
She cannot be anti war without being anti Israel. Her candidacy is going nowhere.
It would be nice to have an anti war voice in the debates but Gabbard will be adrift in a sea of idiots. How many candidates
will there be for the Democratic nomination? Twenty? Eighty? All of them competing for who hates whitey the most. Featuring as
a side show Biden and Bernie expressing their shame at their skin color.
If Gabbard wants to be heard she should switch parties and primary Trump. Let him defend his Israel first foreign policy.
She is the only prominent politician in the commander-in-chief discussion who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Is there a poll
on her standing with the military demographic? An argument can be made that her credibility on fighting more war or fighting less
war is an order of magnitude higher than a dozen Trumps, Clintons, et al all put together.
She has seen firsthand the pointlessness of the waste of blood and treasure. How can you root against Gabbard? She is near
the only elected official to get any positive press at anitwar.com.
I have a somewhat contrary analysis although admittedly, it's not based on much.
Tulsi's speech patterns closely resemble Hillary Clinton's. I put this down to various leadership classes they attended which
likely have a common source. I think we are seeing a divergence of opinion in the Deep State with some wanting Globalism, while
others are unwilling to accept the destruction of the United States as a price for Globalism. Call them the Fortress America
wing of the Deep State. They want to rebuild America and preserve its wealth and autonomy while moving toward a world government.
In other words, Tulsi could emerge as the candidate of the MAGA section of the Deep State.
As for Trump, he is waist deep in the Swamp fighting for his life against pretty much everybody. If Omar had her way he would
be impeached. Trump's support among Republicans is the only thing keeping from being impeached. His partisan attacks are probably
designed to signal his willingness to lead the fight for Republicans, hoping they will defend him in return.
You make such a convincing case that you've painted yourself into a corner. Your point is that the Ziocons or whatever you call
them are so bent on war and empire that they'll destroy anyone who tries to get in their way.
To be credible, because your claim is so extreme, you'd need to explain the abnormal psychology that drives this will to domination.
Can you do that? If not, your article -- and a number of your others -- come off as routine Jew- and liberal-bashing. The bashing
may or may not be deserved depending on your point of view. But that would be all it is: standard prejudice and bigotry in what
you seem to take as a good cause.
We see from where we've been. I supported Ron Paul. He was ignored, and then cheated.
Voting for Washington wannabes is like watching just the "good programs" on TV, or patronizing the non-disgusting movies that
manage to emerge from Hollywood. Those doing so endorse and prop up the tottering, rotten Establishment.
Another very important thing Tulsi is doing is being a completely different person from Trump but hammering home the same Trump
campaign message against the war-lusting elites.
If it wasn't for her, the media and elite mafia could marginalize this entire argument. They'll never let the population vote
on these points because then, the jig will be up.
A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers. Why is
anyone still expecting to get the truth from the MSM? Anyone with half a brain and an internet connection should be able to follow
her. Tell all of your grandparents, uncles, and other old fogies to throw away CNN, NYT, Fox, WaPo, NBC, etc. and find the truth
online.
@jacques
sheete The Anti-federalist's never had a chance, nor would Aloha Tulsi. The Boston tea party itself was a false flag attempting
to pass blame on to the Indians. How typically American. Lexington was caused by the that same Sam Adams and his free masons from
the green dragon, who were firing at both the British and the Militia's, just like they did in Maidan 5 years ago. The US revolution
in 1776 was just another Masonic color revolution on behalf of the Rothschild's. These are the same guys who killed Kennedy and
pulled off 9/11. Now they have Trump 100% corralled and black balled, and he is one of them anyway.
That was when Wonder Woman Tulsi came surfin' into the Washington swamp, all ready to drain it.
True – "The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't
give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking
our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire
and war. That they really care about. Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are
hell bent on power, empire and war."
The average Liberal voter thinks that Conservatives love Empire while Liberals oppose empires. Likewise, the average Middle
American Republican voter thinks America is anything but the new British Empire and that America is always fighting against those
bad empires and so must be very active globally to do good and prevent even worse bad.
True – "As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy."
The Anglo-Zionist Empire: the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism that was not stopped dead in its tracks.
It will get worse before it can get better. It cannot be corrected without a rejection of WASP culture, which is replaced with
an authentically Christian culture.
Tulsi Gabbard presents bill to stop Trump from pulling out of INF treaty
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has introduced a bill to Congress which would prevent President Donald Trump
from withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
Speaking at a press conference on Friday morning, Gabbard said that Trump's decision to pull out of the 1988 treaty was
"reckless," was "exacerbating a new Cold War" with Russia, and could spark another arms race.
"Walking away from this agreement doesn't solve our problems, it makes them worse. It doesn't bring us closer to peace,
it moves us closer to war," she said.
I am hoping that Gabbard is the next president because it would mean Hindus beat Jews to the White House, and if she serves a
full term she will be the first nonprotestant* president to serve a full term, take that Catholics. She will be sworn in with
her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, bah ha hah ha. The Evangelicals will go berserk (I hope). She declared herself Hindu as a teen,
was she baptized?
* Jimmy Carter was 'born again' so he might be the first non main line Protestant or even nonProtestant.
@JL
I think both the anti-war Left and anti-war Right are sizeable and growing. Speaking of the Dissident Right, which I am more in
tune with, we just need a courageous leader to rally around. Right now the Dissident Right is more reliably anti-war than any
other faction.
But, really, the dissident right is not doctrinaire right at all as they are against Big Business and reject Libertarianism.
Tulsi probably doesn't even want the open support of the dissident right (very few are racist white supremacists, although the
media has tarred us all with that brush)...
@Biff1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom
to most debates.
But what about social media? The MSM mostly ignored Bernie Sanders but he got a huge boost.
I think the real problem with Tulsi is she comes across as too calm for politics. She's not low-energy like Jeb, but she lacks
fire.
Also, I'm not sure most progs would be interested in her anti-war platform. They liked Bernie because his message was mostly
domestic: Free Stuff!
Americans are anti-war only when too many Americans are getting killed overseas. In the Obama yrs, the US perfected a new way
of Open Borders War where US uses proxies to destroy other nations. So, most Americans don't care.
@Robert
Bruce It's the same 'bait and switch' strategy, that occurs every 4 years. Why change a strategy when the old one works so
well? To date, Trump holds the record for fooling the largest number of people, with anti-war candidate, John Kerry coming in
a distant 2nd.
I suppose there is also a fourth option: Tulsi Gabbard keeps her no-war stance, and follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets
elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump did
and caves.
Well, as we all saw, the putatively "liberal" legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion. Maybe not as much as that legacy
Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing. This may seem bizarre until you
realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly "enough"
to please the US Ziolobby. Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:
This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search. It could be summed up "Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough". But
is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her? I don't think so. I believe that Gabbard's real "ultimate sin" is
that she is against foreign wars of choice. That is really her Crime Of Crimes!
The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and
Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to "animal Assad", the (latest) "New Hitler", who "gasses his own people". And this
is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined! She dared to disobey her AngloZionist masters.
So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve
the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times. And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male
and "liberal" does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of "crimes".
What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?
It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did not come from "conservative" media
outlets or journalists. Not at all! Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly "liberal" sources,
which tell us that in 2019 USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism
and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside
the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam,
Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending
wars are expensive was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
Notable quotes:
"... Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic. ..."
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into
an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously
pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our
republic.
Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and
Elliott Abrams.
I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters:
if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked
Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A
republic, madam, if you can keep it."
That why war is called racket, And that's why dominance of military-industrial complex turns
any country in neo-fascist state. Still people can fight this cancer, even if changes are not
that great.
Notable quotes:
"... It is easy for them to make the recommendation to head into to war for two very simple reasons. The first is that it will not require any personal sacrifice. The other reason is that it will not require any sacrifice of those closest to them. ..."
It is easy for them to make the recommendation to head into to war for two very simple
reasons. The first is that it will not require any personal sacrifice. The other reason is
that it will not require any sacrifice of those closest to them.
And I say this as a Veteran that also thought Iraq was a good idea back in 2001. The
difference is that I then went there to serve. As a result I have learned hard fought
lessons. Tucker is spot on. Maybe the follow up article can be a piece that discusses why we
need more "combat" Veterans up in the beltway. And it is good that more veterans are now
serving in Congress but not all are combat veterans.
...[Trump] administration is still filled with Hawks ...
1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace. The nuclear deal was an effective
way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15 years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally
it makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly moving away from.)
2) Like it or not, Venezuela is another mission creep for the Trump Administration. Recommend the administration
stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)
3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate their accomplishments. It is ridiculous
that the administration signed big nuclear deals with NK that don't exist.
Gabbard is going nowhere, and while it's true that the powers that be will try to bury her,
they don't need to. The simple truth is this: the American public largely doesn't care about
the wars and never has. There hasn't been an anti-war movement of any significance since Bush
left office, and that was mostly a phony anti-war movement in the first place. It was
primarily an anti-Bush movement, and the bulk of the people screaming 'no blood for oil'
would've just been screaming some other anti-Bush slogan had our current path of destruction
through the Mideast never occurred.
Yes, there has always been a small, independent-minded minority on both the right and left
who genuinely oppose American interventionism.
The vast majority of voters, though, don't care much, don't have strong opinions and will
largely just follow their leaders. Rank and file Democrats now oppose drawing down from Syria
and Afghanistan and want to 'contain' Russia.
This is solely because Trump has made noises in the opposite direction, even if he hasn't
done much of anything. And a good portion of the Republicans who say they want out of these
wars would support them if Jeb or Rubio were in the White House.
There is a fair bit more genuine antiwar sentiment on the right now than there was 15
years ago. But it's not a dominant issue for many people on the right who didn't always
oppose the wars from the get-go. And the mainstream left, again, has totally abandoned the
issue.
Only a tiny proportion of the American public considers the endless wars to be the most
important issue facing America today.
You don't win campaigns focusing on issues that are regarded as unimportant and where most
of the voters in your party oppose you on this point. There is no real antiwar movement.
Another full-scale invasion of a previously stable country would generate some serious
opposition, sure, but the current slow bleed of endless occupations and occasional
opportunistic attacks on already destabilizing regimes can continue forever with little
pushback from the public at large.
How anyone could live through the last 15 years of American politics and not realize this
is beyond me.
That one trick happens to the most important trick that America is facing.
No Art, that would be unchecked legal and illegal immigration and as far as I can tell
Tulsi Gandhi is pretty dreadful on that subject. True, the likudniks in the diaspora don't
like her because she would be bad for an expansionist Israel...
If elected Tulsi would probably become a Jew tool just like Trump has become. If not, then
they'll have another special counsel ready to take her down. That's how the (((deep state)))
operates.
@Wally Yea, John
McCain was a truly historic person. So far, he was the only person in history who managed to
totally disable an American aircraft carrier. Of course, he was not found guilty of anything:
after all, having Admirals for your dad and granddad counts for something in squeaky-clean
military.
@ariadna
"What other organization/group is capable of such as perfect job of covering their tracks."
It is the organization that controls the government and the media that is capable of doing
this. In other words, the same organization that was responsible for 9/11 and other major
deceptions. It compartmentalizes knowledge of operational details using the need-to-know
rule, but it can still be regarded as the same overall entity carrying out all of these
deceptions, with the same general goals always applying.
There is a tendency, especially among dissenters and conspiracy theorists, to equate the
Kennedy family with the Gracchi brothers of the great late Roman republic, a model of a good
opportunity for the Republic to evolve for the best and that was missed thanks to timely
assassinations. Unfortunately that's not the case : JFK was rather a behavioural model of
utter political servility, to the point of psychic codependence, towards the media sphere. He
was actually the first American president to have been entirely made by the media, and
especially by the most intensively Jewish ones as well as by the Hollywood actors' milieu :
people even worse than the power elite proper. Anyway the American presidential institution
was designed right from the start as a hidden imperial monarchy by adoption where none is
admitted except from families having being initiated into the inner occult circles of the
oligarchy and consecrated their whole progeny to come for one century and more : there never
was the slightest risk that a US President disobey. The fact that the father had slight
pro-Nazi inclinations should fool no one : Israel's Likud party has always collaborated with
such figures among the non-Jews and anyway JFK's family is nearly Jewish on his mother's
side. The American republic, though draping in Roman architecture and symbols, is clearly far
more Carthaginian in outlook.
If JFK is to be compared with a Roman character it would be more with a kind of Nero,
judging by his general private conduct, his lavish use of public money for private luxuries,
and his abundant use of secret services to dispose of no longer useful women. He was all
shape and no substance, and also known for a preference for false flags as the royal way to
disentangle all diplomatic quandaries, and some of those false flags were so ridiculous that
they fell flat, like the Bay of Pigs operation where he had given the orders to simulate the
return of Christ. JFK had been put into power to accomplish a very specific mission :
highjacking the Catholic Church into a religion 100% compliant with American interests and
values (not an easy task) and also with Zionist theology : a most preposterous (and pervert)
task but which he carried out in a brillant way. Up to then that religion had been the most
opposite to the American enterprise, even more so than the communist enterprise, after the
VII Council which that president was made to supervise as a nominal Catholic, the religion
was made into some kind of neo-episcopalian thing. JFK did it mostly through the
assassinations of countless prelates who would oppose such a turn. JFK also launched the
Moonlanding mission in perfect knowledge, through Van Allen and Von Braun, that it was not
feasible due to the impossibility to send any living being into space beyond a quite low
orbit : he just counted on Hollywood. What he didn't realize is that it would be simpler for
the American secret services to ensure the perfect secrecy of his own scheme to eliminate him
once all orders to make it work were given. Had he escaped or survived the assassination in
Dallas he would have been rapidly known as the very disappointing false liberal and real
decadent machiavellian prince he was, one year of tabloid media coverage would have revealed
him as an embarrassment to America, even though he was most probably due to die from his
chronic illness before campaining for reelection. Thanks to his assassination he was
transfigurated from the Nero he was into a kind of perfect tragic hero he was to become in
the American dreamworld. In brief he was killed for obeying just to well, to the point of
being more useful after death as a model, not for dissent of any kind (even though like all
corrupt politicians who feel death to be impending he started making timid regrets and
confessions about the power structure around him just a few days before, but in doing so he
did no better than for instance FBI's Hoover or France's Mitterrand or Israel's Sharon just
before entering mysterious coma).
Let us not be fooled by some allegations as to him having envisioned to do away with the
FED by giving back the American state the right to print money : all he did in reality was
allowing the American state to emit BONDS (not currency units) payable in metallic silver
rather than in USD proper, a way different thing, actually a first move (by avowing the USD
was subject to inflation in metallic terms as a judicial precedent to impose other decisions
later on) to stealthily undo the convertibility of the dollar into precious metal as was to
be finalized under Nixon. Let us not be deluded he envisioned doing away with the CIA : if
anything JFK was an overuser of its assassination services, he just wished for the agency,
which was then quite decentralized, to be eventually conflated with the FBI. And let us not
imagine he was anti-Israel : when he refused Israel the authorization to go nuclear that was
under the American Nuclear Industry Lobby's pressure which was then a more Jewish thing than
its Israeli counterpart : Israel was seen as too young, too lefty, too hippie-like to be
entrusted with everything at once, the real Jewish capital of the world was Manhattan, not
Tel Aviv. Israel as an offshore power centre was still in construction and JFK's only
concern, shared by his close Jewish appointees as well as by most conservative American Jews,
was that it might fall under Soviet pressure for lack of maturity in operating secret
services. In those kinds of affairs JFK heeded and obeyed the voice of best-established
moneyed interests without delving too much deeply. Thanks to the JFK perfect model of
media-tailored politicians the way was paved for Clinton and Obama to come thereafter as
natural heirs.
Let's move on to the next question: how dedicated was John to getting to the bottom of his
father's assassination?
According to testimonies from his friends, John Junior was haunted by the death of his
father and quite knowledgeable about independent investigations contradicting the Warren
Report. In 1999, he was not a newcomer to JFK conspiracy theories; his quest for truth had
started as early as the late 1970s. His old high school girlfriend Meg Azzoni, in her
self-published book, 11 Letters and a Poem: John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Meg Azzoni (2007),
writes that as a teenager, JFK, Jr. was questioning the official version of his father's death:
"His heartfelt quest was to expose and bring to trial who killed his father, and covered it
up." [28] Quoted
in John Koerner, Exploding the Truth: The JFK Jr., Assassination, Chronos Books, 2018,
kindle k. 540-45. Don Jeffries, author of Hidden History, claimed that "another
friend of JFK, Jr.'s adult inner circle, who very adamantly requested to remain anonymous,
verified that he was indeed quite knowledgeable about the assassination and often spoke of it
in private." [29] Quoted
in Koerner, Exploding the Truth, op. cit., k. 540-5. JFK Jr., said Jeffries in a
radio interview, was on "a Shakespearian quest," "to avenge his father's death," like young
Hamlet. [30]
https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-093-donal...fk-jr/
John is the only Kennedy to have shown a serious determination to pursue this truth, besides
his uncle Bobby. And he took the risk of making his interest public in October 1998, when he
released a special "Conspiracy Issue" of George magazine , which included an
article by Oliver Stone titled "Our Counterfeit History," introduced on the cover as "Paranoid
and Proud of It!"
If Joe Kennedy Jr had not died in WW2, they would have killed him, because he was the
smartest and toughest of the four brothers.
The WASPs and their Jewish allies assumed they could control JFK because of his war injury
and resulting lifetime of medication, as well as from his having chosen to be a playboy when
he assumed Joe Jr would be President. But in the White House, JFK began to understand that US
was going to have major troubles if it did not pull out of Vietnam sooner rather than later
and it if did not rein in Israel. He likely would have dumped LBJ in '64, and that was enough
to guarantee his death.
Bobby Kennedy had to go because he was indispensable to John's movements in understanding
how the Brits and their Jewish allies had cost the America that was neither WASP Elite nor
Jewish a great deal. Plus, from his time working on organized crime, Bobby Kennedy knew that
all big time organized crime was significantly funded by Jews and that at some point,
virtually all major Jewish American big business and prominent law firms had direct ties to
Jewish organized crime. And as President, Bobby Kennedy would have applied such knowledge to
Israel. And so Bobby Kennedy had to be killed.
I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was
behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy
brother, as well as the only coward.
Why risk JFK Jr? Get rid of him before he holds any office. Do not risk any movement
growing up around him, because he might turn out to be some combo of his dad and dead
uncles.
I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was
behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy
brother, as well as the only coward.
What makes you think that he was not supposed to die in that crash? He got out by the skin
of his teeth, could not save his companion. What would be a better smear on the Kennedys that
Teddy died with some woman in his lap?
As it turned out, he survived but forever smeared anyway
Interesting article. I believe JFK Jr.'s death was the result of a conspiracy, but the
author's assertion that Mossad was responsible leaves me with doubt. Hillary Clinton was the
person who had the most to gain from JFK Jr.'s demise; they were both on the same trajectory:
the open New York senate seat, followed by a run to the White House. The Clintons have been
shadow government players since at least the 1980s when, while governor, Bill helped
facilitate the CIA's trafficking of guns and drugs in Arkansas, which is a state with a
significant Rockefeller presence. The demoness Hillary is where investigators of JFK Jr.'s
death should start. Whether that leads to the Mossad, I don't know. My guess would be a
domestic CIA network.
I very much like the writing by Laurent Guyénot and I have read all of the articles by
him that I have come across including purchasing his book, "From Yaweh to Zion".
And I have no doubt that some insidious form of foul play was what killed JFK Jr. and his
wife.
As one who flew aircraft many years ago I can attest to the fact that on a fog-ridden
night it is very easy to succumb to vertigo and crash your plane into the ground. You can do
this very easily as well with the current bevy of highly sophisticated aircraft simulations
that are available.
However, JFK Jr. was, to my knowledge, a consummate pilot and would have never attempted
such a flight unless he was intsrument rated. As a result, he would have not succumbed to to
the effects of vertigo since he would have been concentrating on his instruments.
Also, I understand that this was basically a night flight, which by law required an
instrument rating.
From these generalizations alone one can see that JFK Jr. would have known how to fly his
plane.
If the eyewitnesses to the explosion are credible along with other supporting evidence
than there is no way any legitimate investigation could have concluded with verdict of "pilot
error", unless of course JFK Jr. knowingly took a bomb on board his plane with the intent of
blowing himself and his passengers up. A highly unlikely scenario.
If one were to look at the "only available picture" of JFK Jr.'s aircraft in this piece,
even a layperson could see that there is no scarring anywhere to be seen on the debris, which
would have been used then to support the stupidity of "pilot error".
You can see the same nonsense with the 911 pictures of the Pentagon after it was struck.
There is literally no debris in any of those pictures from an aircraft freshly blown to
pieces by its strike on the E-wing of the Pentagon.
Considering the insidiousness of the Clintons, especially Hillary herself, the author
paints an excellent portrait of a likely pathway for the support and implementation of an
assassination of JFK Jr through her. Given Hillary's background (and rabid incompetence) in
nefarious operations such as the destruction of Libya, I wouldn't put it past this women to
work with other planners to prevent JFK Jr. from obstructing her planned ascent into the US
Senate from New York.
Despite her popularity in New York State, which was somewhat overrated in the media, many
never considered her a welcome representative of our state. And JFK Jr. would have wiped the
floor with her in a political contest.
As a former flyer myself, it is aviation law that you cannot fly any aircraft at night or
non-VFR conditions without being instrument rated. If this was a night flight as stated then
the moon could have been out lighting up every aspect of earth and still only
instrument-rated pilots could fly.
And the airport he flew out of would have never allowed such a flight-plan for a
non-instrument rated pilot unless they wanted to lose their license to operate an
airport.
If JFK Jr. could send a message from the other world – it should probably be: "Don't
cry for me Argentina".
Just because his father was a president (of dubious quality and of dubious control over
the deep state – it probably was, as usual – vice versa, the deep state
controlled him), doesn't mean that they had presidential DNA in their genes.
Sons of presidents are usually worse than their fathers in the same role. I have only 2
examples but they are adequate enough to prove the point. GW Bush was 10 times the disaster
of a president his father was. And also Justin Trudeau is not even 1% the prime minister his
father was. In fact, if JFK jr, lived long enough to be elected a president – he
probably would have been the American Justin Trudeau.
Our media ignored breaking news a few years ago that Kennedy's TWA "conspiracy theory" was
proven true. TWA Flight 800 did not explode in mid-air because of an electrical short. It was
accidentally hit by a US Navy anti-aircraft missile during a training exercise.
An outstanding 2013 documentary: "TWA Flight 800" appeared on Netflix, but was removed
after just a few weeks. It featured two senior federal NTSB investigators of TWA 800 who
declared the investigation was a cover-up by the Clinton administration, and waited until
they retired to speak out. Several books have appeared that provide undeniable evidence, such
as:
@SunBakedSuburb
Agree, the book Compromised, Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed shows the connection
between the Bushes and Clintons and the CIA and FBI and their CIA hit teams, or just read the
customer comments on the book at Amazon.com.
@Diversity
Heretic As a 30 year instrument rated pilot myself I would agree except for .."and the
overstressed airframe comes apart."
In light civilian air craft that is very rare and usually caused by some defect already
existing.
Unless the NTSB itself is lying and the radar records and the recovery divers are lying I go
with their determination.
First, the debris field was only 120 feet, if the plane had exploded or broken up in the air
it would have been scattered over a larger area.
Second, records show the plane entered a banking turn in excess of 45 degrees, which is not
recommended and dangerous .It can cause a accelerated stall and if you don't have the
altitude to recover from it before you hit the ground or you panic you go 'spiraling' down
and smash into whatever is below, you like the ocean.
So I really am not into the plane being blown up theory.
'A performance study of the radar data revealed that the target began a descent from 5,500
feet about 34 miles west of MVY. The speed during the descent was calculated to be about 160
knots indicated airspeed (KIAS), and the rate of descent was calculated to have varied
between 400 and 800 feet per minute (fpm). About 2138, the target began a right turn in a
southerly direction. About 30 seconds later, the target stopped its descent at 2,200 feet and
began a climb that lasted another 30 seconds. During this period of time, the target stopped
the turn, and the airspeed decreased to about 153 KIAS. About 2139, the target leveled off at
2,500 feet and flew in a southeasterly direction. About 50 seconds later, the target entered
a left turn and climbed to 2,600 feet. As the target continued in the left turn, it began a
descent that reached a rate of about 900 fpm. When the target reached an easterly direction,
it stopped turning; its rate of descent remained about 900 fpm. At 2140:15, while still in
the descent, the target entered a right turn. As the target's turn rate increased, its
descent rate and airspeed also increased. The target's descent rate eventually exceeded 4,700
fpm. The target's last radar position was recorded at 2140:34 at an altitude of 1,100 feet.
(For a more detailed description of the target's [accident airplane's] performance, see
Section, "Tests and Research," Subsection, "Aircraft Performance Study.")
WRECKAGE INFORMATION
On July 20, 1999, the airplane wreckage was located by U.S. Navy divers from the recovery
ship, USS Grasp, at a depth of about 120 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
According to the divers, the recovered wreckage had been distributed in a debris field
about 120 feet long and was oriented along a magnetic bearing of about 010/190 degrees.
The main cabin area was found in the middle of the debris field.
At 2139:50, the airplane entered a left turn, while slightly increasing altitude to 2,600
feet. The airplane reached a maximum bank angle of 28 degrees left-wing-down (LWD) and a
maximum vertical acceleration of 1.2 Gs in this turn. When the maximum LWD bank angle was
obtained, the altitude started to decrease at a descent rate close to 900 fpm. The LWD
attitude was maintained for approximately 15 seconds until the airplane was heading towards
the east. At 2140:07, the airplane bank angle returned to wings level. At 2140:15, with the
airplane continuing towards the east, it reestablished a descent close to 900 fpm and then
started to increase its bank angle in a RWD direction at nearly a constant rate. As the
airplane bank angle increased, the rate of descent increased, and the airspeed started to
increase. By 2140:25, the bank angle exceeded 45 degrees , the vertical acceleration
was 1.2 Gs, the airspeed increased through 180 knots, and the flightpath angle was close to 5
degrees airplane nose down. After 2140:25, the airplane's airspeed, vertical acceleration,
bank, and dive angle continued to increase, and the right turn tightened until water
impact
Creating conspiracy theories is lots of fun, and sometimes can even be productive, but for
this one you really do have to go overboard ignoring Occam's Razor:
In reality, everyone who has ever acquired any kind of pilot's licence has been told
repeatedly in training something like: "Understand, that without getting sufficient
instruction to qualify for an instrument rating, if you lose visual reference to the ground,
during the day or at night, you will be toast. Experiments have consistently shown that, even
the world's most brilliant and experienced pilots, if they lose visual reference to the
ground and cannot see the instruments to assess carefully what they are saying, in every case
lose control of the aircraft in less than 45 seconds. And, having lost control, do not
realize it, and are unable to figure out that they need to regain it, let alone what they
need to do."
Most people find this surprising, which is why in the later stages of basic training a
demonstration is usually done in which the pilot wears a hood that prevents him from seeing
outside the aircraft, and is instructed to maintain straight and level flight. The instructor
removes the student's hood when the aircraft is in a rapidly accelerating, 45 degree bank,
descending turn, when the pilot had imagined he was still flying straight and level. I can
vouch that this is a persuasive demonstration!
This isn't mere speculation. Loss of control is the inevitable consequence of a
non-instrument rated pilot losing sight of the ground. It is enormously probable that this
was JFK Jr's issue.
I remember a little after JFK was assassinated a report of a statement by an government
official, I think someone in the FBI, saying there is evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK
and other Kennedy family members. What happens is that after an attack or bombing the media
filters are not coordinated for hours or days but then controls and directives kick in the
narratives get stabilized. I always watch the news reports right after the event to catch
leaks. The above reported statement was never again reported by anyone.
It is certainly looking like Israel had a hand in many operations inside the US to control
its foreign policy and make sure major narratives are pro-Israel like the UK has a long
history (at least from WW2 on) of using dirty tricks to control the US. Since US foreign
policy is substantially controlled by the UK, Saudis, and Israel, we must suspect any of them
of trying to keep control of the US with all sorts of dirty tricks. Israel in a prime
candidate for assassinations and false flag operations in the US as they certainly knew by
the 1960's that the survival of Israel depended on US support. There are just too many dual
passport holders in these events to ignore this any longer.
Implicitly, this article takes the position that Jackie Kennedy was not involved in the JFK
assassination conspiracy, but there is an intriguing connection between the Bouvier family
and the assassination via a person named George de Mohrenschildt, who was a close friend of
both the Bouviers and Oswald.
@Steve
Naidamast That isnt correct.
There are 3 types of licenses a person can get:
Sport Flyer license restricted to local area and only certain types of small aircraft.
Recreational License restricted to local area and daylight hours only.
Private Pilot License ..not restricted, can fly at night . at their own risk
I did a lot of night time flying before I got my instrument rating. But wasn't stupid
enough to fly in bad weather day or night.
@Sean
I have no idea if JFK Jr. was bombed out of the sky by our friends in the Mossad, CIA, or
other wonderful entities. But years ago an ex CIA guy told me bluntly that the reason the CIA
and intelligence agencies get away with stuff is because much of it no one would be believe
they would even try thus the invention of the Conspiracy Theory.
The Kennedys were family of egomaniacs and were often careless and their itinerary through
life was filled with many people they destroyed and cast by the side of the road. They
believed they were really the chosen ones and their opinion and their way of doing things
were right and everyone else was wrong. So they mirrored the Jews except they were Irish.
@Peredur
Mohrenschildt seems to have been Oswald's CIA handler for a while, but months before the JFK
assassination he went off to Haiti. There's nothing to connect him with the JFK
assassination, especially if -- as seems likely -- Oswald was not the shooter who killed JFK.
@Carlton
Meyer TWA Flight 800 Investigators Claim the Official Crash Story Is a Lie
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an
elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being
leveled by the very investigators who put the report together.
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an
elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being
leveled by some of the very investigators who put the report together. Six experts who appear
in the film were members of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation team that
concluded the crash was an accident, but they now claim they were silenced by their
superiors. The movies, "TWA Flight 800" will debut on EPIX TV next month, on the 17-year
anniversary of the crash. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/twa-flight-800-film-coverup/314092/
@Che
Guava JFK junior was really just not that bright. He failed the bar exam at least once.
As Larry Elders once said, the best thing you could say about JFK junior was that he was a
down-to-earth guy who never pretended to be more than an average person who happened to be
rich.
Supposedly he loved alcohol and was obsessed with porn-he was friends with Irish-America's
one porn mogul in a gallery of Jews, Larry Flint.
He was handsome-some say that his father was Onassis and not Kennedy, believable
considering his Mediterranean looks which were nothing like Kennedy's fair Irish looks
(Though JFK junior was eternally proud of his Irish roots).
His magazine was alright, supposedly advised under-the-table by Larry Flynt again.
@Che
Guava The magazine was in big trouble financially. It never did break even although the
Kennedy PR machine and the Kennedy worshiping media pushed it for years
George was financed by the big French International publisher Hachette. Hachette was getting
ready to stop financing a losing publication. The combination of People and New Republic just
never worked.
I don't remember any announcements that JFKjr planned to run for any office. It was just
speculation and part of the endless media coverage of JFKjr which increased a thousand times
after he got married
There's a book Nemesis that claims that Jackie visited Onassis on his yacht in September?
October? 1963 and they arranged that Jackie would divorce jack and marry Onassis ic Hack lost
the 64 election
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
"... What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic. ..."
"... What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still .. ..."
"... Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. ..."
"... Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. ..."
"... She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. ..."
"... Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? ..."
"... Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back ..."
"... Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. ..."
"... De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be ..."
"... Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following. ..."
The lineup of Democrats who have already declared themselves as candidates for their party's presidential nomination in 2020 is
remarkable, if only for the fact that so many wannabes have thrown their hats in the ring so early in the process. In terms of electability,
however, one might well call the seekers after the highest office in the land the nine dwarfs. Four of the would-be candidates –
Marianne Williamson a writer, Andrew Yang an entrepreneur, Julian Castro a former Obama official, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman
John Delaney – have no national profiles at all and few among the Democratic Party rank-and-file would be able to detail who they
are, where they come from and what their positions on key issues might be.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has a national following but she also has considerable baggage. The recent revelation
that she
falsely described herself as "American Indian" back in 1986 for purposes of career advancement, which comes on top of similar
reports of more of the same as well as other resume-enhancements that surfaced when she first became involved in national politics,
prompted Donald Trump to refer to her as "Pocahontas." Warren, who is largely progressive on social and domestic issues, has been
confronted numerous times regarding her views on Israel/Palestine and beyond declaring that she favors a "two state solution" has
been somewhat reticent. She should be described as pro-Israel for the usual reasons and is not reliably anti-war. She comes across
as a rather more liberal version of Hillary Clinton.
And then there is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, being touted as the "new Obama," presumably because he is both black and progressive.
His record as Mayor of Newark New Jersey, which launched his career on the national stage, has both high and low points and it has
to be questioned if America is ready for another smooth-talking black politician whose actual record of accomplishments is on the
thin side. One unfortunately recalls the devious Obama's totally bogus Nobel Peace Prize and his Tuesday morning meetings with John
Brennan to work on the list of Americans who were to be assassinated.
Booker has carefully cultivated the Jewish community in his political career, to include a close relationship with the stomach-churning
"America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach, but has recently become more independent of those ties, supporting the Obama deal with Iran and
voting against anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation in the Senate. On the negative side, the New York Times likes
Booker, which means that he will turn most other Americans off. He is also 49 years old and unmarried, which apparently bothers some
in the punditry.
California Senator Kamala Harris is a formidable entrant into the crowded field due to her resume, nominally progressive on most
issues, but with a work history that has attracted critics concerned by her hard-line law-and-order enforcement policies when she
was District Attorney General for San Francisco and Attorney General for California. She has also
spoken at AIPAC , is anti-BDS, and is considered to be reliably pro-Israel, which would rule her out for some, though she might
be appealing to middle of the road Democrats like the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi who have increasingly become war advocates. She will
have a tough time convincing the antiwar crowd that she is worth supporting and there are reports that she will likely split the
black women's vote even though she is black herself, perhaps linked to her affair with California powerbroker Willie Brown when she
was 29 and Brown was 61. Brown was married, though separated, to a black woman at the time. Harris is taking heat because she clearly
used the relationship
to advance her career
while also acquiring several patronage sinecures on state commissions that netted her hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where
she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer
with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In
the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus
on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay
over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
Not afraid of challenging establishment politics,
she called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the war to overthrow Assad
is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government
of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis,
and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a personal trip to Damascus
in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are serious about pursuing peace."
She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the country as well as ending American
interventions for "regime change" in the region.
In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and more recently has criticized President Donald
Trump's withdrawal from the deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, but one presumes that,
like nearly all American politicians, she also has to make sure that she does not have the Israel Lobby on her back. Gabbard
has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation
that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon
Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which
many progressive Democrats boycotted.
Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless
in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only
genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years.
What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her. Glenn
Greenwald at The Intercept
describes how NBC news published a
widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia
have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."
But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge,
which was exposed by no less
than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest
that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind
this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called
Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that
claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD
website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."
ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is
loaded with a full complement of Zionists
and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims,
innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia
to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.
For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.
It might just resonate with the majority of American who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related
frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States. We the people can always hope.
Just those two. We can leave the rest of "globo-homo" agenda off the table, for the moment. And, the last but not the least,
that nagging angle about automation and (paid) work in general. Let's not get too ambitious here. Those two, only, should suffice
at the moment.
I like Tulsi. but she hasn't been tested in a presidential campaign yet. At least we will have someone who could put peace on
the ballot. She should write a book pulling her policies together and use it to get some publicity.
Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. 2008, an important reason for Obama's victory against
Hillary Clinton and John McCain was that he had been against the Iraq war. 2000, George W. Bush said he was against nation building.
Then, after they are elected, the neocons remain in power. Something similar again with Donald Trump who campaigned against stupid
wars in the Middle East and now has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme neocons.
Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates
in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should
be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. However, if she is serious about this and is elected,
she will be fought by the deep state and its allies in the media much more harshly than Trump, who isn't even consistently anti-neocons,
just not reliably pro-neocon. What they would probably do to her would make spygate, the Russiagate conspiracy theory, and the
Muller investigation look harmless. She might end like JFK (a VP who is just as anti-neocons might increase the chances of survival).
But despite all the risks, I think it is worth trying. If the US was a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation
and the neocons had their own party, it would hardly have more than a handful of seats in Congress. Although they don't have,
a significant base of their own, neocons have remained in power for a long time, whoever was elected. At the moment, Tulsi Gabbard
is probably the best hope for ending their long reign.
She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate
which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. She won't
have a chance. Besides, the Dem party has gotten radical and out of touch with the majority of Americans so who really wants them
in? There's no cause for optimism anywhere one looks.
Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war"
? Greenwald himself has questionable backers and the WWF good guy/bad guy character creations (like Trump's pre-election
talking points concerning illegal wars , now stuffed down the memory holes of many), all the FAKE and distracting "fights" etc
etc
Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist
guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'"
and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back.
Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.
Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance.
In that way she calls the bluff of her opponents: Just how confident are they that in the end the public will prefer war to peace?
These points add up to a realistic chance of success but given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a
long shot.
De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What
a load of crap that turned out to be, but I do understand that not all politicians are cut from the same dung heap, so it
is probably best to find out who is funding the little pricks while they are campaigning – for once they are elected, payback
is due.
In the case of Obama it was Robert Rubin( of Goldman Sachs) who bankrolled him, and of course, once elected it was bank bailout
time. Then once Ghaddaffi's gold back Dinar became a monetary powerhouse, he committed another crime for the bankers.
"Is she the real deal?"
Elect her and you'll find out, and there lies the problem – you get to find out when it's too late. On the other hand, she
could actually be honest and sincere, but that alone disqualifies her as a politician (the kind that Americans are used to anyway).
NTL, she's got people's attention and if for anything else – the people are anti-war, but the monied power brokers are definitely
not which begs the question – will democracy actually happen?
Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get
into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following.
She will need to use tactics from both the Sanders & Trump play-books. She will need to appeal to a good number in both the
Sanders & Trump constituencies. Regardless, she will need an iron-will & tsunami of charisma .
@Biff Obama was a creation
of the Pritzker and Crowne families, although the puppet did decide he wanted to somewhat act on his own. Gabbard is certainly
taking flak from the Israel firsters, and her debating Trump on foreign policy in a US Presidential election would be a real paradigm
shift.
@renfro Where do you get
this "obsessive hatred of Muslims and Islam?"
She's been [insistent and consistent] using the term 'radical Islamic terrorists' which, unfortunately, is an accurate description
of ISIS (the bane of the ummah). OTOH, last year Tulsi was a featured speaker at a Moslem conference in NJ, and she has been outspoken
about freedom of religion and mutual respect. If you've got some evidence that she excludes Islam from that, please show it.
[Gabbard's] policy views are already too good to be true.
Not really. Too good to be true would be if she understood Putin in the context of the US and oligarch rape of Russia in the
1990's and how he has restored the Russian economy and dignity; and if she recognized (openly) the US role in the Maidan coup
and accepted the validity of the Crimean decision to return to Russia.
Unfortunately, even though she's taken a brave position on ending US regime-change war on Syria, in many other respects she
remains quite conventional. She also promotes fear of DPRK, and who knows what she thinks about China.
she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.
Aggressive? Composed, confident, yes. Aggressive, no. Calm under fire is more like it. Take a look at the whole interview on
Morning Joe. She really outclasses those squirming bitches. BUT, notice her (short) responses on Putin and Assad ("adversary"
and "no"), real Judas moments. Does she believe that, or is she clinging to the Overton Window? https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/rep-gabbard-assad-is-not-an-enemy-of-the-us-1438093891865
Tulsi's presidential timber but she's wasting her life with the Democrats. Their consulting apparatchiks are going to stuff a
bunch of incoherent slogans up her butt. If she wants a real antiwar platform she should steal it wholesale from Stein and Ajamu
Baraka. Baraka built a complete and consistent law-and-order platform. He's the only real antiwar candidate in this country.
Of course the Democrat's CIA handlers will crush Tulsi if she starts to make sense, so she's going to have to take her supporters
and jump to the Greens.
She will lose, but arbitrary forcible repression of the party will discredit bullshit US electoral pageantry once and for all.
Then we move into the parallel government zone in conformity with world-standard human rights law and destroy the parasitic kleptocratic
USA.
@jack daniels You know .there
IS one thing nobody wants, really, to talk about.
.given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot
Why, in this age, the "stronghold on the media" is so decisive? A person who gets the most of media exposure wins? That's how
it works?
Or, do anyone reading and posting here gets his/her information from the "media"? I'd say not.
Isn't the bottom, the very heart of the matter NOT a Deep State, Dem Joos, Anglo-Saxons, Masons, Illuminati and .whatever but
simple, eternal, laziness and stupidity of an average person?
Or, even worse: the real, true, needs and wants of an average person are simply "breads and circuses". Nothing more.
Combine those two and here we are.
I am aware that throws the spanner into works of those into Aryans, White supremacy, Western man and similar stuff, but, the
conclusion seems inevitable.
That's the heart of the problem "we" face at the moment. How to fix it, or even is it possible, I don't know. Have some ideas,
of course.
CIA Giraldi probably has more Cherokee DNA than Warren. Another fact he failed to provide to the Government during the security
clearance process. The troll has supported the republican establishment all his career, this distinguishes him from the trolls
that support the democratic establishment all of their careers. The fact that people can debate the relative merits of political
leaders from the dark lagoon reveals their complete lack of rational thought. No politician decides anything important.
@Anonymous No, then she is
toast in Hawaii politics, and she is probably running not because she plans on winning, but to raise her profile and perhaps open
doors for herself on the national or state level, which won't happen if you shoot yourself in the foot at the same time.
Besides, leaving aside Krishna consciousness, she is too close to Sanders to get any traction among the Republicans. I suppose
getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.
You're never going to get anything worthwhile from a Democratic politician because they're indoctrinated worse that the brightest
little Pioneer in Juche class. Take Ro Khana's meaningless pap.
What is this 'we should' crap? The law is perfectly clear. The right to self-defense is subject to necessity and proportionality
tests, and invariably subject to UN Charter Chapter 7 in its entirety. See Article 51. Instead of this 'restraint' waffle, just
say, the president must commit to faithfully execute the supreme law of the land, including UN Charter Chapter 7 and Article 2(4).
That means refrain from use or threat of force. Period.
Second, national security is not a loophole in human rights. Khana uses the legally meaningless CIA magic word 'threat.' Under
universal jurisdiction law, it is a war crime to declare abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and
actions of the nationals of the hostile party. Domestic human rights are subject to ICCPR Article 4, HRC General Comment 29, and
the Siracusa Principles. Instead of CIA's standard National Security get-out clause, state explicitly that US national security
means respect, protection and fulfillment of all human rights. To enforce that, ratify the Rome Statute or GTFO.
Third, internationalism is OK as far as it goes, but Ro Khana doesn't deal with the underlying problem: CIA has infested State
with focal points and dotted-line reports, and demolished the department's capacity for pacific resolution of disputes. You have
to explicitly tie State's mission to UN Charter Chapter 6, and criminalize placement of domestic CIA agents in State.
Fourth, Congressional war-making powers are useless with Congress completely corrupted. Bring back the Ludlow Amendment, war
by public referendum only, subject to Article 51.
Tulsi is a far Left democrat. She supports raising taxes to pay for free college for people earning less than 125K and universal
health care, she actually joined protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood,
supports homosexual marriage (changed her previous position in 2012), and has an F rating from the NRA. She's a Lefty. Not for
me, anyway.
I like the one on here who says the Democrat party has "gotten radical."
I assume this is sarcasm, but there is no denying the fact that the neocons(radical whack jobs) have jumped ship from the Republicans
and attached themselves to the Democrats (although there are filtering back into the Trump administration – drunk with power they'll
suck up to anyone)
The DNC NeverTrump crowd is all but calling for a nuclear exchange with Russia because they colluded with Trump to throw the
election, and they pose a National Security threat to the United States(in their head). Hillary also went on to say that Russians
Hacking the DNC is another 9/11. The radical Antifa crowd is made up of 99.999999% of Democratic voters.
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . ..."
"... At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it? ..."
In 2011, the U.S. regime, then under a
different
nominal
leader than in the Iraq invasion,
invaded
and
destroyed
Libya -- also on the basis of lies that its press (which is controlled by the same billionaires
who control the nation's two political Parties) stenographically published from the Government and refused
ever to expose as being lies.
On February 8th, the Latin American
Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) issued their study,
"The Economic Consequences of the Boycott of Venezuela"
, and reported that throughout the five-year
period of 2013-2017, Venezuela's "economy and society suffered a suffocation [of] $ 22.5 billion in annual
revenues, as a result of a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation [of Venezuela].
Evidently, this financial pressure intensified since 2015 with the fall in the price of crude oil." So:
that's a total loss of over $112 billion from Venezuela during the entire 5-year period, and the result has
become (especially after 2014) the impoverishment of the country. The U.S. regime and its allies and their
propaganda-media blame, for that, not themselves, but the very same Government they're trying to take down.
The U.S. regime and its allies have contempt for the public everywhere. The more that Venezuelans blame
their own Government for this impoverishment, instead of blame America's Government for it, the more that
their exploiters will have contempt for them, but also the more that their exploiters will benefit from
them, because the exploiters' taking control of the Government will then be much easier to do.
The U.S-and-allied exploiters are
attempting to install in Venezuela
a man who has absolutely no justification under the Venezuelan Constitution to be claiming to be the
country's 'interim President'
. For some mysterious reason, Venezuela's President isn't calling for that
traitor to be brought up on charges of treachery -- attempting a coup -- and facing Venezuela's Supreme
Judicial Tribunal on such a charge, which Tribunal is the Constitutionally authorized body to adjudicate
that matter. So, Venezuela's Government is incompetent -- but so too have been all of its predecessors since
at least 1980, and incompetence alone is
not
Constitutional grounds for replacing Venezuela's
President by
a foreign-imposed coup
. At least Venezuela's actual President is no traitor, such as his would-be
successor, Juan Guaido,
definitely
is
.
Did Venezuela invade America so as for
America's economic war against it
to be justified? Did Iraq invade America so as for America's
destruction of it to be justified? Did Libya invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be
justified? Did Syria invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Ukraine
invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? None of them did, at all. In each and
every case, it was pure aggression, by America, the international rogue nation.
Back in 1986, regarding America's
international relations including its coups and invasions, the U.S. quit the International Court of Justice
(ICJ), when that Court ruled against the U.S. in the Iran-Contra case,
Nicaragua v. United States
, which concerned America's attempted coup in that country. But though
the U.S. propaganda-media reported the Government's rejection of that verdict in favor of Nicaragua, they
hid the more momentous fact: the U.S. Government stated that it would not henceforth recognize any authority
in the ICJ concerning America's international actions. The public didn't get to know about that. Ever since
1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime, simply ignoring the ICJ except when the ICJ could be
cited against a country that the U.S. regime is trying to destroy ('democratize'). And then, when the ICJ
ruled on 9 March 2005 against the U.S. regime in a U.S. domestic matter where the regime refused to adhere
to the U.S. Constitution's due-process clause regarding the prosecutions and death-sentences against 51
death-row inmates, and the Court demanded retrials of those convicts,
the U.S. regime, in 2005, simply withdrew completely from the jurisdiction of the ICJ
. Ever since 9
March 2005, the U.S. regime places itself above, and immune to, international law, regarding everything.
George W. Bush completed what Ronald Reagan had started.
This rogue regime has
no real legitimacy
even as a representative of the American people. It
doesn't really represent the American public at all
. It is destroying the world and lying through its
teeth all the while. Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's
currently 585 billionaires
are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in
the Hague. They're not even being investigated by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That's a
U.N. agency. Does the U.N. have any real legitimacy, under such circumstances as this? Can an international
scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court? This mocks the U.N. itself.
The U.S. places itself above the U.N.'s laws and jurisdiction and yet still occupies one of the five
permanent seats on the U.N's Security Council and still is allowed to vote in the U.N.'s General Assembly.
Why doesn't the U.N. simply expel America? It can't be done? Then why isn't a new international legal body
being established to
replace
the U.N. -- and being granted legal authority everywhere
regardless
of whether a given national regime acknowledges its legal authority over matters of international law? Why
is Venezuela being internationally isolated and sanctioned, instead of the U.S. being internationally
isolated and sanctioned?
On top of all that, this is the same
U.S. regime that has blocked the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and that has broken one international
agreement after another -- not only NAFTA, and not only the nuclear agreement on Iran, and not only many
nuclear agreements with first the Soviet Union and then Russia, but lots more -- and all with total impunity.
And it's not only the countries that
the U.S. invades or otherwise destroys, which are being vastly harmed by this international monster-regime.
How many millions of the flood of asylum-seekers who are pouring into Europe have done that in order to
reach safety from America's bombs and proxy-troops -- jihadists and fascist terrorists -- which have ravaged
their own homelands? What is that flood of refugees doing to Europe, and to European politics -- forcing it
ever-farther to the right and so tearing the EU apart? Why are not Europeans therefore flooding their own
streets with anti-American marches and movements for their own Governments to impose economic sanctions
against all major American brands, and demanding prosecution of all recent American Presidents, starting at
least with G.W. Bush -- or else to vote out of office any national politicians who refuse to stand up against
the American bully-regime?
It isn't only weak nations such as
Nigeria
that are corrupt and rotten to the core. The entire U.S. empire, and
especially
its U.S.
masters, are.
How much more will the peoples of the
world remain suckers to the vast corporate propaganda-operation by that out-of-control beast of a rapacious
regime, which displays the Orwellian nerve to label as being a 'regime' each and every Government that it
seeks to overthrow and to call itself a
'democracy'
? The U.S. regime is itself actually allied the most closely with the world's most barbaric
rulers, the Saud family, that own Saudi Arabia. The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and
internationally aggressive regime in Israel. Is such an international gang, as this is, going to get off
scot-free, as if there were no international law -- or at least none that applies to itself?
And, if the U.S. regime is so concerned
to 'protect democracy' and 'protect human rights' all over the world (as that perennially lying bunch always
claim to be the 'justification' for their invasions and coups), then why isn't it starting first by
prosecuting itself? (Or, maybe, by prosecuting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, for his many crimes
-- and prosecuting his predecessors for
financing the 9/11 attacks
against Americans?) Well, of course, Hitler didn't do anything of the sort.
(Nor did he prosecute his allies.) He set the standard. Maybe, ideologically, Hitler and Mussolini and
Hirohito actually won the war, though this has happened after they first physically lost what everyone had
thought
was the end of WW II. After all, nobody is prosecuting the U.S. regime today. Isn't that
somewhat like a global victory for fascism -- the Axis powers -- after the fact? Maybe "we" won the war, only
to lose it later. Doesn't that appear to be the case? Mussolini
sometimes called fascism "corporationism"
, and this is how it always functions, and functions today by
agreement amongst the controlling owners of international corporations that are headquartered in the U.S.
and in its vassal-nations abroad.
Is this to go on interminably? When will
this international reign of fascism end?
What would happen if all the rest of
the world instituted an international legal and enforcement system (under a replacement U.N.) in which all
commitments and contractual proceeds to benefit American-based international corporations and the U.S.
Government were declared to be immediately null and void -- worthless except as regards the claims
against
the U.S. entities? (The owners of those entities have been the beneficiaries of America's international
crimes.) Contracts can be unilaterally nullified. The U.S. Government does it all the time, with no
justification except lies. Here, it would be done as authentically justifiable penalties, against actually
massive global crimes.
The U.S. militarily occupies the world;
this is a global empire; it has over a thousand military bases worldwide. Why aren't the people in all of
those occupied countries demanding their own governments simply to throw them out -- to end the military
occupation of their land?
You can't have a world at peace, and
anything like international justice, without enforcing international law. This is what doing that would look
like.
What we know right now is actually a
lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.
America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. The Intelligence Agencies are
inseparable from the Corporations, The Bankers, and The Billionaires they work for. Most of the
economic-social-media pathways are controlled by the Magic Jews. Elections are a fraud. You have seen what
happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square.
The entire Mueller Fiasco is a demonstration of the Intelligence State and a warning for anyone who doesn't
play their game. The Super Jew Zionist Senator Shumer warned Trump in a Freudian Slip about upsetting the
Intelligence agencies which the Jewish Media quickly tried to hide.
This is the county where dimwits like
Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries,
murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was
said by anyone on the left.
America and the world are headed for the dark ages. I doubt if anyone will really survive. Think Tanks
for the super rich run by Intel know this and are preparing for the worse case scenario are you!
"Total lockdown against truth and for internatio al conquest . . .mass murder and destruction on the basis
of sheer lies. That's today's U. S. Government, that's it's reality."
It worked so well in WWI and WWII,
why mess with a sure thing?
To behave otherwise, that is, honestly and decently would return a heap of millionaires to their
rag-picker tin-peddlar origins.
Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime
Why the leniency for a regime that has been led by gangsters of varying shades for the best part of the
post-WWII era, hands down? Unless the Vietnam war and the companion Gulf of Tomkin lie, the mass murder in
Laos and Cambodia and the Korean war are brushed aside. As was the kidnapping of Aristide of Haiti and
Panama's Noriega are trivial mobster rule blips and the sodomising of Ghadhafi's cadaver by "rebels" after
relentless bombing that left a once prosperous nation in utter ruin regarded as an unfortunate "aberration".
The tainting of American hands with the blood of millions of innocents extends well beyond the leaders who
presided over arguably the worst atrocities and crimes of the post-WWII era. For a nation that takes pride
in its slogan of a government of, for and by the people, the people cannot escape responsibility for the
horrendous crimes committed in their name.
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a
communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a
meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
I think some of this is over the top. However, I am not sure that one can excuse challenging the case based
on news reports. The case on its face had little of any supporting material. But there were news agencies
that provided a counter narrative, they just weren't the mainstream sources. Which is why I think your
giving an out where none exists.
Instead, a better case could be made as to how those that questioned the case got the boot and in some
cases got it good. Those voices were not only muted out by the media, the advocates, but the public as well.
One cannot ignore the palpable anger after 9/11. The country wanted revenge. And they would have it. Unlike
Mr. Neeson, we did not restrain ourselves from acting out, against anyone of we held suspect as similar in
nature -- we lashed out with few reservations.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Now I have to admit that the questions of international order are tricky. Who wants to take on enforcing
the rule of law against the US when she violates the very rules she helped create and espouses. When the
leadership bends, breaks or ignores the rules in the name of country. It's hard to make a case that everyone
else abide by the rules if you yourself breaks them. Maybe people pf conscience will hire people who
actually abide by what they say they will do when applying for the job of leadership.
But I have to be honest, I am cautious when it comes bodies of international order: UN, IMF, World Bank,
WTO, NAFTA, and others. I appreciate the value of NATO, but I am a bit dubious about the agitation that the
US take the lead in addressing Europe's security, at our expense. And while I would like to avoid what
about, most nations treat the international bodies of justice with no small amount of reticence on their own
account. I am unclear of China has backed away from provoking the Phillipines after the UNCLOS ruling
regarding commercial development zones. They have made a point to say they will abide by UNCLOS except where
they disagree. The short answer is that ultimately the developed world has to operate with some integrity.
There's a lot of complaining about the Saudis and Israel. But those states can simply point to the US or the
Europeans states and make a constituent claim,
"What's good for the gander . . ."
There is a manner of discipline and that is to our failures and the cost. We are at the moment large
enough to absorb them (not sure that is not more face saving facade than truth). Iraq is a failure. Libya is
a failure. Afganistahn most likely a failure, even we end up with some manner of negotiated settlement, it
will still be far short of our objective(s). The Ukraine still threatens to fall into a full blown civil
war. After five years plus of bombing Yemen, the end is nowhere in sight. If the Saudis think the Yemenis a
threat, then they should deal with it. The Syria gambit was never a smart move and it has cost us. I am a
firm believer that part of these issues results in not having a national draft system where our entire
population is bought in on the US project and in so doing have an incentive to hold its government
accountable. Because there is no body count to shock the public into reality as in previous military
engagements.
We simply are not electing enough men such as representative Walter Jones into office, who upon
recognizing an error will seek to change course. And I like him, I suspect, get increasingly restless about
how our unrequited hypocrisy (if continued) will play out for us in the end. I think there are signs of
trouble, just hints, that we need to get our ducks in order.
We honor and protect our sovereignty by respecting that of others (minus some outstanding extreme
circumstance).
Note: not all of the US military programs are about the use of force. The US does huge amounts of
humanitarian aide, independently and in conjunction with with are numerous aid depts. And as a nation we
remain the most effectively generous (giving nations) on the planet to others in need, including private
charitable organizations, no small number of them faith and practice based.
How many multitudes of sins that will cover is unknown to me.
A typical piece of American racism. Naturally, the peoples of all these countries are far too primitive and
far too stupid to see that they are being manipulated!
To quote your first para: 'In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on
the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was
developing weapons of mass destruction.'
It should read: 'In 2003, the UK (and its lap dog USA) invaded and destroyed Iraq. I know you Americans like to think that the USA is sovereign in its bullying of the world, but many
people apart from myself, see it differently.
Rothschild runs the 'free west' and he is based in The City of London where he operates the world's drug
money laundering operation. Yes, even all the drugs moved out of Afghanistan by his private drug army you
call the CIA, those profits are laundered in London.
It is Rothschild in London that decides who to invade and why. The USA is Rothschild's private supply of
canon fodder, weaponry and congenital idiots who think Jesus of Nazareth, that you erroneously call Jesus
Christ, condones the violence, the blood baths and the pure evil that is the USA.
Your nation and its corrupt state is the puppet of Rothschild. I can understand it is especially hard for
you to finger one of your own, especially as you consider yourself to be the goyim's friend, but that is not
actually true is it?
What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would
want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast
profits to be made?
Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on
Venezula today, only make sense if you are Rothschild.
I'm not into America-bashing. Life's too short, and, besides, I did half-seriously think of
emigrating from the States, and didn't do it.
But–but–I think there's enough evidence to support the writing of a "black book" of American democracy
since 1945, a hit piece modeled on a similarly titled book about Communism's depredations that, I think, was
first published in France maybe thirty years ago.
Better observers than I can probably offer a laundry list of American cruelties worth including, and some
of those better observers comment here on
Unz Review
.
American military interventions, a Constitution drained of effectiveness and meaning, the "ethnic
cleansing" of American cities, the gratuitous cruelties of American health care,
etc
.
Keep the book short, about 250-350 pp., and include good front and back matter to focus the reader's
attention.
@niteranger
If the author of this piece a child who believes in fairy stories about American exceptionalism . America is
more powerful than other countries and if it is "The International Rogue Nation" then it is solely as a
result of being more powerful that other countries, for were they as strong as America they all would do the
same as America.
This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama
and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children
including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.
The Democrats want future voters to swamp the votes of native-born Americans. The kids in Yemen are
irrelevant. So are the innocent kids in countries like Syria.
America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State
That is just a long winded way of saying it is a state. Like any other state America can't call 911 if it
gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral
imperatives and live as tree huggers in perpetual peace. Except it would come to an end, just as it did for
the Tibetans (and their trees).
These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the
regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies.
Back in the late summer of 2003, when Washington finally admitted there were no WMD in Iraq, the Danish
Public Broadcaster had invited four of the heaviest hitters in Danish MSM, four foreign policy editors of
the largest news outlets in Denmark.
The conversation was supposed to be about something else, but the WMD-news had dropped that same morning,
and at one point they discuss the missing WMD. One guy spontaneously says: "I never believed in the
WMD-story anyway." The three others quickly agree, because they don't want to be seen as the slow, gullible
kid in the class.
So they'd been peddling this WMD-nonsense aggressively since the invasion, but they didn't actually
believe that story themselves? The broadcast was taken off the internet 24 hours later, but I have their
names in my little book.
What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.
Well yes, but they also want not only a monopoly on violence and compliant tax, debt, wage and dollar
slaves, but also "legal" support for it all, hence "gubbermint." Keep payin' dem taxes and hoping for da Messiah in the forms of the likes of the Cacklin' Hyena, The
Trumpster, and "Bibi."
And another thing: back in the day, the PM, Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen spoke frequently about Saddam in
the Danish parliament. But he never said "weapons of mass destruction", he said "dangerous weapons" – didn't
want to be caught lying to the legislature, would you? Nobody ever called him out on it; you'd think
journalists were familiar with sleazy rhetoric, but not on this occasion. He went on to become secretary
general of NATO.
Rather than presenting a balanced viewpoint where we hear both sides of the story regarding nuclear
treaty violations by both sides, we are subjected to what can best be termed "fake news".
"Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?"
The plutocrat criminal elite are working fast and furiously to import a new electorate and slave labour
force: At some point they will no longer be able to finance the machine, because you get what you pay for,
and bread and circuses aren't cheap, and at that point the machine will pull back from the world, if not
outright devolve into mayhem in its streets.
Just came across these powerful words from Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother.
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the
world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade
uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to
establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil
war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons
around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them
with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad
apples" in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a
picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra
pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing
from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a
helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes
apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an
illegal invasion they started. Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and
illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the
ground.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that
it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most
irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active
ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge
of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our
grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely,
they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country
vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It
can start after Pat's birthday.
Global empires rise because of the desire for power, which is also their Nemesis. Power gives prestige,
status, wealth, security and a sense of invincibility: the opposite of what is feared most. But they cannot
hold that power forever, though they try, and eventually they end up getting the war they have always
dreaded: utter defeat. But their leaders are deluded, blindly leading their people to annihilation – even
nuclear – because power is the one thing they will destroy themselves and everyone else over. The pattern of
history is clear.
Feb 11, 2019 Venezuelans' message to the US: Hands off our country
The Grayzone reports from inside
Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly
rejecting foreign intervention in their country.
15.04.2017 Americans Are No Different Than Germans Were (and Are)
Daniel Goldhagen blamed the Holocaust on "the Germans" (by which he meant the German people), and said
that they perpetrated the Holocaust because they positively enjoyed murdering "the Jews".
Feb 18, 2013 Corporatocracy, Globalization, An Empire Expands
A short video clip from the Documentary
Zeitgeist: Addendum, in it a Corporatocracy is explained. "A Incredible cozy relationship between Government
and Corporations"
@niteranger
I think this sums up things pretty well:
"All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering
into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has
never yet melted." D. H. Lawrence.
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a
communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a
meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state.
The US regime uses violence and threats (local and international) to get its way. It corrupts and
terrorizes politicians and forces through its projects. It's all about money and power and it rubs
traditional Anglo society's face in the mud while its getting looted.
@Justsaying
You have a pointy head, but rubbish conclusions I am also tired of hearing 'sodomy' or 'sodomized' re.
Ghaddafi, assaulting the anus and rectum with bayonets is not 'sodomy'.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed it, I world prefer not to repeat her moronic statement, but will because of the
many morons are on this site now, 'we came, we saw, he died, (cackle, cackle, cackle'). She liked to pretend that this is her classical education. She clearly has none.
But she sure has an ugly pair of cankles.
Fifth Column:
Is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in
favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces
gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to
organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of
sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an
external force.
He's a
lying
New York idiot Israel firster who demonstrates a new meaning to the concept of
winning fair and square and "won" the position as Cuck-in-Chief of the Corporate Fascio-Commie Military
Industrial-Intelligence Police State, that's all. He should have saved us all a lot of trouble and just eloped with the Cackling Hyena instead.
Mrs Ilhan Omar Is the voice from the graves of Millions of Muslims murdered by US Military under leadership
of US politicians (purchased for pennies), and ordered by Israel.
@exiled off mainstreet
Interesting for me it's all known for several years, so I was about to say myself "same old, same old".
Then I read your comment and think to myself "well, contrary to my belief, obviously publishing this article
does make sense"
@Asagirian
Most of the european business and population do NOT agree with the yankee sanctions to Russia ( or to
Venezuela , or to Iran , Cuba .. ) . Nothing ideological , it is just that the EU has no oil , the EU needs
russian , iranian , venezuelan oil and gas , and the EU countries NEED to sell products to any country
willing to buy them . The abusive yankee pressure on the EU to santion any country that the US wants will
backfire .
"This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't
really represent the American public at all. It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all
the while."
Words seem insufficient to describe the situation, don't they? What we're witnessing, apparently, is the
fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Satanic cult known from the Book of Revelation as the "beast from the
sea" is attempting to rise to the top of the world by "giving worth to evil" (i.e. worshiping Satan). To put
it another way, the beast rises to the top by bringing everyone and everything else down.
Being relatively small in number, the Satanic cult operates primarily by deception, corruption and
manipulation. If the beast cannot get the people to destroy themselves, it resorts to mass murder, but the
end result is always destruction.
"Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from
convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague."
Money has nothing to do with it (other than being another tool in the Satanists' tool box). They do what
they do because they're evil. Evil is both the means and the end. To put it in Biblical terms, the Satanists
seek to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve. Only when whole world is brought down can evil claim
victory over good (as per the Satanic agenda set forth in Isaiah 14:13,14).
How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing
about?
Excellent question, but the two, fascism and the various forms of big "C" Communism, are not necessarily
mutually exclusive even though fascism as often used today was intended as a catch-all smear word by the
Marxist cornballs a century ago.
In fact, Marxism, Bolshevism and Stalinism are can all be or become forms of fascism. Likewise, as Orwell
saw, there is no essential difference between various iterations of capitalism and the various forms of
communism that they oftentimes supported and promoted and still do.
Also, I highly doubt whether a meaningful debate regarding politics is possible whether or not
definitions are agreed upon.
[During the war]words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious
cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question,
inaptness to act on any.
– Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Chap X, ~400 BC
"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and
division of society."
– John Adams, letter to J. H. Tiffany, Mar. 31, 1819.
Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
IOW, it's pretty much all bullsh!t. Reader and listener beware.
The gangster laughs in your face: "Whadda going to do about it, kid?". Answer is nothing can be done.
At
this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead
with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it?
The pattern actually goes back 121 years to the
Spanish-American war when the US smelled weakness and pounced. It's been on a roll ever since, sometimes
slowly, sometimes quickly. The barriers to the US having a completely free hand are Russia, China, Iran,
countries about which there's much heavy propaganda being thrown about. Their areas are limited though and
they can't help the Venezuelans or most of the others. The US has a huge budget for internal spying and
security to ensure that the people in charge stay that way so don't get optimistic. This supposed democracy
is rigged from start to finish. The US has been very efficient in brainwashing it's residents into thinking
it is all legit.
What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon
would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not
vast profits to be made?
Talk about sweet summaries; yours is masterful!
Anyone who doubts it would do well to read Fish's,
Tragic Deception,
FDR and America's involvement in World War II
@Stephen Paul Foster
This thread is uncommonly full of great comments and yours is another. Excellent.
This question [about the UN] is proof that the author needs psychiatric assistance.
And more than a brief stay in a reprogramming (anti-brainwashing) camp.
The UN was formed by the usual One World (globalist) crowd to serve their ends and theirs only. Anyone
who fails to see that needs to be questioned deeply, no matter how correct he or she is about other matters.
Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty
work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives
This is exactly right. The UN member nations are ready to replace the UN with an organization that can curb
criminal regimes like the US. This has been the case since the 80s.
Considering the terminal degeneracy of the criminal enterprise that runs the US, it's going to take a
war. Classified US policy is to use urban populations as human shields for the CIA COG autocracy. COIN
drills like Watertown are dry runs for CIA martial law during war with Russia.
The one hopeful sign is superior SCO missile technology, which allows kinetic warheads to be substituted
for nuclear ones. This permits regime decapitation by somewhat less destructive means. Most of you are still
going to die, of course. But Russia and China will leave some habitable zones for people they can trust.
Make sure you know human rights and humanitarian law,
and you can demonstrate a record of sticking up for them, and the postwar criminal tribunals will let you
reconstruct a peaceful and lawful American state.
It's a shame it's going to take a couple hundred million dead, mostly American, to stop the CIA regime,
but the world knows it's got to be done. If we're too chicken to storm Langley and hang those criminal
scumbags, we're going to have to pay.
This continuous harping on international law should be wearing thin even with you, Mr. Zuesse. The US
outspends the next 24 nations combined on arms, I understand. For the US might is right. Until you and those
who oppose US policy have an army that can break the US military might you have no hope.
You really need
to think this through and stop the empty posturing. The bird flipped to the International Court of Justice
by John Bolton for the third time apparently should teach you a lesson. Three strikes and you're out. Go
home.
"Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win.
Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square."
If elections are a fraud (which they obviously are) how can orange clown be said to have won "fair and
square"? It's a contradiction. The evil orange clown had to lie to win the election; he had to completely
misrepresent himself. What orange clown did was tantamount to stealing ballots/rigging voting machines.
Orange clown is nothing but Satanic low-life scum.
Also, how do you know Clinton was "the person they picked [to win]"? That's very speculative, IMO. A
solid argument can be made that orange clown was actually the chosen one.
"What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917?"
An evil idiot.
"What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the
same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?"
An evil buffoon.
"Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on
Venezula (sic) today, only make sense if you are Rothschild."
@Commentator Mike
Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In
fact they are used as tools.
@Harold Smith
The Rothschild's are the Kings of the Jews. They have conquered the Bourbon, Habsburgs, the Hohenzollern,
the Romanovs. They have merged with the house of Windsor. They have been mercilessly harvesting the entire
planet for 200 years. They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against
Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese
against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews
harvest.
They also sent all of these groups to get slaves from each other in raids and wars to provide
human material from all the other races, except jewish, to sell on these jewish run slave markets. For
centuries.
They extracted blood and organs from the children of the victims for use in the kabalistic rituals.
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against
Germany was based on devilish lies. So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over
the whole world and that he had killed millions of innocent people(which he hadn't) but then turned around
and helped the real murderers of millions of people which was the Soviet Union. And it goes on and on and
there will be more lies and more wars to follow.
@DESERT FOX
You can almost tell just how important the issue of private central banking is by the fact that you can't
get anyone to really explain it, or even talk about it. Right now I would settle for just knowing exactly
who owns it.
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2
against Germany was based on devilish lies
All true.
So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world
When in fact it was a handful of mafiosi financial oligarchs, many based in New Yoik, who desired to
control the whole world via co-opted Marxist principles. One of their tools was the "holy" UN which the
author seems to think is some sort of Messiah. A Rockefeller "donated" the land for the UN Headquarters
building, and the UN was formed under the direction of Commies and their sympathizers associated with FDR.
I'm convinced that WW2 was instigated partly to begin imposing globalism on the rest of us, just as the
constitution of Uncle Shylock was rammed down our throats. All for the benefit of us lowly proles, peasants
and peons, of course.
I'm giving about 1.8 cheers for this piece. I agree with much of it, but I surely don't share the author's
enthusiasm for this International Court of Justice, not for the workings of the United Nations in general.
Give one of these international legal outfits any actual power in America, and "hate crime" laws? You
ain't seen nothin' yet. In much of the world, "anti-Semitism" (whatever that's construed to mean) is already
a criminal offense. Hell, leave it up to these international bodies, and the Unz Review goes dark -- and
quickly, too. No, thanks.
@Hank
The owners are the Rothschilds, the Rockerfellers. the Warburgs , the Schiffs, etc., all satanic zionists
and they control every central bank in the world including the FED and the Bank of England.
"They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians
against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US
Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest."
The Satanists are small in number and generally cowardly so their general modus operandi is to get their
victims to destroy themselves. To put it in Biblical terms, their goal is to do to the whole world what
Satan did to Eve; they deceive, corrupt, manipulate and ultimately stand tall over the destruction they've
brought about. They're destroyers.
Speaking of the UN and war, Douglas Reed provides a lot of great info about the two; too much to summarize
here, but I offer a sample for the curious.
The Second War produced a third result, additional to the advance of the [Marxist permanent]
revolution into Europe and the establishment by force of the Zionist state: namely,
the second attempt
to set up the structure of a "world government", on the altar of which Western nationhood was to be
sacrificed.
This is the final consummation to which the parallel processes of Communism and Zionism
are evidently intended to lead; the idea first emerged in the Weishaupt papers, began to take vigorous
shape in the 19th Century, and was expounded in full detail in the Protocols of 1905. In the First War it
was the master-idea of all the ideas which Mr. House and his associates "oozed into the mind" of
President Wilson, and sought to make the president think were "his own". It then took shape, first as
"The League to Enforce Peace" and at the war's end as "The League of Nations".
Well yeah. The Anglo/Zionist Empire is an evil empire indeed. I've known that since serving under President
Johnson in the mid sixties.
The geniuses over at ZeroHedge will be surprised to learn about imperial aggression against Venezuela.
They believe the explanation for Venexuela's troubles is "Socialism doesn't work".
I'm a Nationalist. So I say screw your International Court of Justice. What the U.S. needs is a New
Republic complete with a new constitution. Failing that, secession will be the way forward.
"... Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations. ..."
"... The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. ..."
Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the
invasion is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then
the bluff of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in
the role of bait.
The real issue lies in the voting class which cowers in fear all day long and
seeks saviors every four years via rigged circus. Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every
country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes.
Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every
country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka
morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations.
The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to
slaughter people who do not obey. Freedom at the point of a gun. Nothing quite says
democracy like having the US president tell the Venezuelans how to run their country.
BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.
Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan
Omar
Watch the video at link
"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from
Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later
pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of
this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be
truthful."
"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.
"It was not a question," shot back Omar.
After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off,
saying "Thank you for your participation."
"... You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. ..."
"... Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means. ..."
"... Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party. ..."
"... Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/ ..."
"... The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course. ..."
"... Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys. ..."
"... It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so ..."
"... If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. ..."
"... See also this primer on Mueller's MO. ..."
"... The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished. a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians. ..."
"... At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population? ..."
"... The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. ..."
"... Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry. ..."
For more than two years U.S. politicians, the media and some bloggers hyped a conspiracy theory. They claimed that Russia had
somehow colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected.
An obviously fake 'Dirty Dossier' about Trump, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, was presented as evidence. Regular business
contacts between Trump flunkies and people in Ukraine or Russia were claimed to be proof for nefarious deals. A Russian
click-bait company was accused of manipulating the U.S. electorate by posting puppy pictures and crazy memes on social media.
Huge investigations were launched. Every rumor or irrelevant detail coming from them was declared to be - finally - the evidence
that would put Trump into the slammer. Every month the walls were closing in on Trump.
Finally the conspiracy theory has run out of steam. Russiagate
is finished :
After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016
election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats
and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would
unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice
Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.
Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies
were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the
dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair.
In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced
to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:
"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to
influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...
No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.
Russiagate created a lot of damage.
The alleged Russian influence campaign that never happened was used to
install censorship on social media. It was used
to undermine the election of progressive Democrats. The weapon salesmen used it to push for more NATO aggression against Russia.
Maria Butina, an innocent Russian woman interested in good relation with the United States, was
held in solitary confinement
(recommended) until she signed a paper which claims that she was involved in a conspiracy.
In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out
of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train continue from
there.
Posted by b on February 12, 2019 at 01:38 PM |
Permalink
Comments next
page " Legally, Maria Butina was suborned into signing a false declaration. If there were the rule of law, such party or
parties that suborned her would be in gaol. Considering Mueller's involvement with Lockerbie, I am not holding my breath. FWIW the
Swiss company that made the timers allegedly involved in Lockerbie have some
comments of its own .
I will be really glad when this 'get Russia' craziness is over, but I suspect even if the Mueller investigation has nothing,
all the same creeps will be pulling out the stops to generate something... Skripal, Integrity Initiative, and etc. etc. stuff
like this just doesn't go away overnight or with the end of this 'investigation'... folks are looking for red meat i tell ya!
as for Maria Butina - i look forward to reading the article.. that was a travesty of justice but the machine moves on, mowing
down anyone in it's way... she was on the receiving end of all the paranoia that i have come to associate with the western msm
at this point...
Hillary's loss is actually best explained as her throwing the election to Trump . The Deep State wanted a nationalist
to win as that would best help meet the challenge from Russia and China - a challenge that they had been slow to recognize.
= ... to smear Wikileaks as a Russian agent
The DNC leak is best explained as a CIA false flag.
= ... to remove and smear Michael Flynn
Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence but Flynn's conversations with the Russian Ambassador after Obama threw
them out for "meddling" in the US election was an embarrassment to the Administration as Putin's Putin's decision not to respond
was portrayed as favoritism toward the Trump Administration.
You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in
the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. This is typical behavior for conspiracy
theorists.
I hope that Russiagate is indeed "finished", but I think it needs to be draped with garlic-clove necklaces, shot up with silver
bullets, sprinkled with holy water, and a wooden stake driven through its black heart just to make sure.
I don't dispute the logical argument B. presents, but it may be too dispassionately rational. I know that the Russiagate
proponents and enthralled supporters of the concept are too invested psychologically in this surrealistic fantasy to let go, even
if the official outcome reluctantly admits that there's no "there" there.
The Democratic Party, one of the major partners mounting the Russophobic psy-op, has already resolved to turn Democratic committee
chairmen loose to dog the Trump administration with hearings aggressively flogging any and all matters that discredit and undermine
Trump-- his business connections, social liaisons, etc.
They may hope to find the Holy Grail: the elusive "bombshell" that "demands" impeachment, i.e., some crime or illicit conduct
so heinous that the public will stand for another farcical impeachment proceeding. But I reckon that the Dems prefer the "soft"
impeachment of harassing Trump with hostile hearings in hopes of destroying his 2020 electability with the death of a thousand
innuendoes and guilt-by-association.
Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt
to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate
the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means.
Put more succinctly, I fear that Russiagate won't be finished until Rachel Maddow says it's finished. ;)
Once a hypothesis is fixed in people's minds, whether true or not, it's hard to get them to let go of it. And let's not forget
how many times the narrative changed (and this is true in the Skripal case as well), with all past facts vanishing to accommodate
a new narrative.
So I, like others, expect the fake scandal to continue while many, many other real crimes (the US attempted
coup in Venezuela and the genocidal war in Yemen, for instance) continue unabated.
Putin solicits public input for essential national
policy goals . If ever there was a template to follow for an actual MAGAgenda, Putin's Russia provides one. While US politicos
argue over what is essentially Bantha Pudu, Russians are hard at work improving their nation which includes restructuring their
economy.
Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI,
and within the entire Democrat Party.
I very much doubt it it is over. Trump is corrupt and has links to corrupt Russians. Collusion, maybe not, but several
stinking individuals are in the frame for, guess what - ...bring it on... The fact that Hilary was arguably even worse (a point
made ad-nauseum on here) is frankly irrelevant. The vilification of Trump will not affect the warmongers efforts. He is a useful
idiot
for a take on the alternative reality some are living in
emptywheel has an article up on the nbc link b provides and the article on butina is discussed in the comments section...
as i said - they are looking for red meat and will not be happy until they get some... they are completely zonkers...
Blooming Barricade , Feb 12, 2019 2:55:18 PM |
link
Now that this racket has been admitted as such, I expect all of the media outlets that devoted banner headlines, hundreds of thousands
of hours of cable TV time, thousands of trees, and free speech online to immediately fire all of their journalists and appoint
Glenn Greenwald as the publisher of the New York Times, Michael Tracey at the Post, Aaron Matte at the Guardian, and Max Blumenthal
at the Daily Beast.
Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this
to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity
Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western
world.
The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly
4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most
of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course.
Then of course Russia has to be surrounded by NATO should they try and take over Europe by surging through the Fulda gap./s
Then of course there are the professional pundits who have built careers on anti Russian propaganda, Rachel Maddow for instance
who earns 30,000$ per day to spew anti Russian nonsense.
Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically
justified by its diabolical policies.
I'm sorry b is so down on Conspiracy Theories, since they reveal quite real staged homicidal false flag operations of US power.
Feeding into the stigmatizing of the truth about reality is not in the interests of the earth's people.
somehow I see this "revelation: tied to Barr's approaching tenure. I think they (FBI/DOJ) didn't want his involvement in their
noodle soup of an investigation and the best way to accomplish that was to end it themselves. I also suspect that a deal has been
made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone.
So we will see no investigation of Hillary, her 650,000
emails or the many crimes they detailed (according to NYPD investigation of Weiner's laptop) and the US will continue to be at
war all day, every day. Team Swamp rules.
Meanwhile, MSM is prepping its readers for the possibility that the Mueller report will never be released to us proles. If that's
the case, I'm sure nobody will try to use innuendo to suggest it actually contains explosive revelations after all...
Harry, its vitally important as the US desperately wants to keep Europe under its thumb and to stop this European army which
means Europe lead by Paris and Berlin becomes a world power. Trump's attempts to make nice with Russia is to keep it out of the
EU bloc.
Well, the liberal conspiracy car crash ensured downmarket Mussolini a second term, it appears...Hard Brexit Tories also look likely
to win thanks to centrist sabatoge of the left. You reap what you sow, corporate presstitutes!
Sane people have predicted the end of Russiagate almost as many times as insane people have predicted that the "smoking gun that
will get rid of Trump" has been found. And yet the Mighty Wurlitzer grinds on, while social media is more and more censored.
I expect it all to continue until the 2020 election circus winds up into full-throated mode, and no one talks about anything but
the next puppet to be appointed. Oops, I mean "elected".
You also need to behead the corpse, stuff the mouth with a lemon and then place the head down in the coffin with the body in
supine (facing up) position. Weight the coffin with stones and wild roses and toss it into a fast-flowing river.
Russiagate won't be finished until a wall is built around Capitol Hill and all its inhabitants and worker bees declared insane
by a properly functioning court of law.
I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone. So we will see no
investigation of Hillary ...
Underlying your perspective is the assumption that USA is a democracy where a populist "outsider" could be elected President,
Yet you also believe that Hillary and the Deep State have the power to manipulate government and the intelligence agencies and
propose a "conspiracy theory" based on that power.
Isn't it more likely that Trump made it clear (behind closed doors, of course) that he was amenable to the goals of the Deep
State and that the bogus investigation was merely done to: 1) cover their own election meddling; 2) eliminate threats like Flynn
and Assange/Wikileaks; 3) anti-Russian propaganda?
Dowd, Trump's former lawyer on Russiagate stated there may not even be a report. If this is the case then the Zionist rulers have
gotten to Mueller who no doubt figured out that the election collusion breadcrumbs don't lead to Putin, they lead to Netanyahu
and Zionist billionaire friends! So Mueller may have to come up with a nothing burger to hide the truth.
B is the only alternative media blogger I've followed for a significant amount of time without becoming disenfranchised. Not because
he has no blind spot - his is just one I can deal with... optimism.
I will believe Russiagate is finished when expelled Russian staff gets back, when the US returns the seized Russian properties,
when the consulate is Seattle reopens and when USA issues formal apology to Russia.
Posted by: hopehely | Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM |
link
Nobody has ever advanced the tiniest shred of credible evidence that 'Russia' or its government at any level was in any way implicated
either in Wikileaks' acquisition of the DNC and Podesta emails or in any form of interference with the Presidential election.
This has been going on for three years and not once has anything like evidence surfaced.
On the other hand there has been an abundance of evidence that those alleging Russian involvement consistently refused to listen
to explore the facts.
Incredibly, the DNC computers were never examined by the FBI or any other agency resembling an official police agency. Instead
the notorious Crowdstrike professionally russophobic and caught red handed faking data for the Ukrainians against Russia were
commissioned to produce a 'report.'
Nobody with any sense would have credited anything about Russiagate after that happened.
Thgen there was the proof, from VIPS and Bill Binney (?) that the computers were not hacked at all but that the information
was taken by thumbdrive. A theory which not only Wikileaks but several witnesses have offered to prove.
Not one of them has been contacted by the FBI, Mueller or anyone else "investigating."
In reality the charges from the first were ludicrous on their face. There is, as b has proved and every new day's news attests,
not the slightest reason why anyone in the Russian government should have preferred Trump over Clinton. And that is saying something
because they are pretty well indistinguishable. And neither has the morals or brains of an adolescent groundhog.
Russiagate is over, alright, The Nothingburger is empty. But that means nothing in this 'civilisation': it will be recorded
in the history books, still to be written, by historians still in diapers, that "The 2016 Presidential election, which ended in
the controversial defeat of Hillary Clinton, was heavily influenced by Russian agents who hacked ..etc etc"
What will not be remembered is that every single email released was authentic. And that within those troves of correspondence
there was enough evidence of criminality by Clinton and her campaign to fill a prison camp.
Another thing that will not be recalled is that there was once a young enthusiastic man, working for the DNC, who was mugged
one evening after work and killed.
The 'no collusion' result will only spur the 'beginning of the end' baboons to shout even more, they'll never stop until they
die in their beds or the plebs of the Republic made them adore the street lamp posts, you'll see. The former is by far more likely,
the unwashed of American have never had a penchant for foreign affairs except for the few spasms like Vietnam.
There was collusion alright but the only Russians who helped Trump get elected and were in on the collusion are citizens of ISRAEL
FIRST, likewise for the American billionaires who put Trump in the power perch. ISRAEL FIRST.
That's why Trump is on giant billboards in Israel shaking hands with the Yahoo. Trump is higher in the polls in Israel than
in the U.S. If it weren't that the Zionist upper crust need Trump doing their dirty work in America, like trying today get rid
of Rep. Omar Ilhan, then Trump would win the elections in Ziolandia or Ziostan by a landslide cause he's been better for the Joowish
state than all preceding Presidents put together. Mazel tov to them bullshet for the rest of us servile mass in the vassal West
and Palestinians the most shafted class ever. Down with Venezuela and Iran, up with oil and gas. The billionare shysters' and
Trump's payola is getting closer. Onward AZ Empire!
He proved himself so easy to troll during the election. It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all
along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.
At least Germany has the good sense not to throw taxpayer money at the F-35.
German F-35 decision sacrifices NATO capability for Franco-German industrial cooperation I don't know what they have
in mind with a proposed airplane purchase. If they need fighters, buy or lease Sweden's Gripen. If attack airplanes are what they're
after, go to Boeing and get some brand new F-15X models. If the prickly French are agreeable to build a 6th generation aircraft,
that would be worth a try.
Regarding Rachel Maddow, I recently had an encounter with a relative who told me 1) I visited too many oddball sites and 2)
he considered Rachel M. to be the most reliable news person in existence. I think we're talking "true believer" here. :)
It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate
they could manipulate.
Considering how those "intelligence agencies" are hard pressed to find their own tails, even if you allow them to use both
hands, it would surprise me.
That Trump would turn out to be a tub of jello in more than just a physical way has been a surprise to an awful lot of us.
Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting
peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their
Government Lackeys.
It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made
that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do
it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it
to be so
Allowed the bipartisan support for the clamp down on alt media with censorship by social media (Deep State Tools) and funded
by the Ministry of Truth set up by Obama in his last days in office to under the false pretense of protecting us from foreign
governments interference in elections (except Israel of course) . Similar agencies have been set up or planned to be in other
countries followig the US example such as UK, France, Russia, etc.
Did anyone really expect Mr "Cover It Up " Mueller to find anything? Mueller is Deep State all the way and Trump is as well,
not withstanding the "Fake Wrestling " drama that they are bitter enemies. All the surveillance done over the past 2-3 decades
would have so much dirt on the Trumpet they could silence him forever . Trump knew that going in and I sometimes wonder if he
was pressured to run as a condition to avoid prosecution. Pretty sure every President since Carter has been "Kompromat"
If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO
Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation,
propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.
Russians and likely at the behest of the Russian state interfered and it was fair payback for Yeltsin's election. It is time to
move on but not in feigned ignorance of what was done. Was it "outcome" affecting, possibly, but not clearly and if the US electoral
college and electoral system generally is so decrepit that a second level power in the world can influence then its the US's fault.
It's not like the 2000 election wasn't a warning shot about the rottenness of system and a system that doesn't understand a
warning shot deserves pretty much what it gets. But there's enough non-hype evidence of acts and intent to say yes, the Russians
tried and may have succeeded. They certainly are acting guilty enough. but still close the book move and move on to Trump's 'real'
crimes which were done without a Russian assist.
I seem to recall former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray saying that it was not a hack and that he had been handed
a thumb drive in a field near American University by a disgruntled Democrat whistleblower. Further, I seem to recall William Binney,
former NSA Technical Leader for intelligence, conducting an experiment to show that internet speeds at the time would not allow
the information to be hacked - they knew the size of the files and the period over which they were downloaded. Plus, Seth Rich.
So why does anyone even believe it was a hack, @32 THN?
Just another comment re Mueller. There is a great documentary by (Dutch, not Israeli---different person) Gideon Levy, Lockerbie
Revisited. The narration is in Dutch, but the interviews are in English, and there is a small segment of a German broadcast. The
documentary ends abruptly where one set of FBI personnel contradict statements by another set of FBI personnel. See also
this primer on Mueller's MO.
reply to Les 42
"It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they
could manipulate."
Not the intelligence agencies, the Military IMO. They knew HC for what she was; horrifically corrupt and,again IMO,they know
she is insane.
They saw and I think still see Trump as someone they could work with, remember Rogers (Navy) of the NSA going to him immediately
once he was elected? That was the Military protecting him as best they could.
They IMO have kept him alive and as long as he doesn't send any troops into "real" wars, they will keep on keeping him alive.
This doesn't mean Trump hasn't gone over to the Dark Side, just that no military action will take place that the military command
doesn't fully support.
Again, I could be wrong, he could be backed by fiends from Patagonia for all I really know:)
The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the
democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to
increase military spending; and more, more, more war.
Boy, I hope Jackrabbit sees this. Everyone knows I believe Trump is the anointed chosen of the Zionist 1%. There was no Russia
collusion; it was Zionist collusion with a Russian twist...
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention the latest. Trump is asking Kim to provide a list of his nuclear scientists! Before Kim acts on this
request, he should call up the Iranian government for advise 'cause they have lots of experience and can warn Kim of what will
happen to each of those scientists. They'll be put on a kill-list and will be extrajudicially wacked as in executed. Can you believe
the chutzpah? Trump must think Kim is really stupid to fall for that one!
Aye! The thought of six more years of Zionist pandering Trump. Barf-inducing prospect is too tame.
The view from the hermitage is, we are in the age of distractions. Russiagate will be replaced with one of a litany of distractions,
purely designed to keep us off target. The target being, corruption, vote rigging, illegal wars, war crimes, overthrowing sovereign
governments, and political assasinations, both at home and abroad. Those so distracted, will focus on sillyness; not the genuine
danger afoot around the planet. Get used to it; it's become the new normal.
@76Hw
I have yet to read anything more delusional, nay, utterly preposterous. Methinks you over-project too much. Even Trump would have
a belly-ache laugh reading that sheeple spiel. You're the type that sees the giant billboard of Zionist Trump and Yahoo shaking
hands and drones on and on that our lying eyes deceive us and it's really Trump playing 4-D chess. I suppose when he tried to
pressure Omar Ilhan into resigning her seat in Congress yesterday, that too was reverse psychology?
Trump instagramed the billboard pic, he tweeted it, he probably pasted it on his wall; maybe with your kind of wacky, Trump
infatuation, you should too!
Russiagate is finished because Mueller discovered an embarrassing fact: The collusion was and always will be with Israel. Here's
Trump professing his endless love for Zionism:
Trump Resign
Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished.
a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the
lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians.
Most designs of armed nation states provide the designers with information feedback and the designers use that information
to appoint more obedient politicians and generals to run things, and to improve the design to better serve the designers. The
armed rule making structure is designed to give the designers complete control over those targeted to be the governed. Why so
stupid the governed? ; always they allow themselves to be manipulated like sheep.
When 10 angry folks approach you with two pieces of ropes: one to throw over the tree branch under which your horse will be
supporting you while they tie the noose around your neck and the other shorter piece of rope to tie your hands behind ..your back
you need at that point to make your words count , if five of the people are black and five are white. all you need do is
say how smart the blacks are, and how stupid the whites are, as the two groups fight each other you manage your escape. democrat
vs republican= divide to conquer. gun, no gun = divide to conquer, HRC vs DJT = divide to conquer, abortion, no abortion = divide
to conquer, Trump is a Russian planted in a high level USA position of power = divide to conquer, They were all in on it together,,
Muller was in the white house to keep the media supplied with XXX, to keep the law enforcement agencies in the loop, and to advise
trump so things would not get out of hand ( its called Manipulation and the adherents to the economic system called Zionism
For the record, Zionism is not related to race, religion or intelligence. Zionism is a system of economics that take's no captives,
its adherents must own everything, must destroy and decimate all actual or imaginary competition, for Zionist are the owners and
masters of everything? Zionism is about power, absolute power, monopoly ownership and using governments everywhere to abuse the
governed. Zionism has many adherents, whites, blacks, browns, Christians, Jews, Islamist, Indians, you name it among each class
of person and walk of life can be found persons who subscribe to the idea that they, and only they, should own everything, and
when those of us, that are content to be the governed let them, before the kill and murder us, they usually end up owning everything.
1. why the Joint non nuclear agreement with Iran and the other nuclear power nations, that prevented Iran from developing nuclear
weapons, was trashed? Someone needs to be able to say Iran is developing ..., at the right time.
2. Why Netanyohu made public a video that claimed Iran was developing nuclear stuff in violation of the Iran non nuclear agreement,
and everybody laughed,
3. Why the nuclear non proliferation agreement with Russia, that terminated the costly useless arms race a decade ago, has
been recently terminated, to reestablish the nuclear arms race, no apparent reason was given the implication might be Russia could
be a target, but
4. why it might make sense to give nukes to Saudi Arabia or some other rogue nation, and
5. why no one is allowed to have nuclear weapons except the Zionist owned and controlled nation states.
Statement: Zionism is an economic system that requires the elimination of all competition of whatever kind. It is a winner
get's all, takes no prisoners, targets all who would threaten or be a challenge or a threat; does not matter if the threat is
in in oil and gas, technology or weapons as soon as a possibility exist, the principles of Zionism would require that it be taken
out, decimated, and destroyed and made where never again it could even remotely be a threat to the Empire, that Zionism demands..
Hypothesis: A claim that another is developing nuclear weapon capabilities is sufficient to take that other out?
I am glad that most commenters understand that Russiagate will not go away. But the majority appear to miss the real reason. Russiagate
is not an accusation, it is the state of mind.
At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on
decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already
brainwashed population?
The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away
from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. Of course, the most ironic in the affair is that it is the so called
US "intellectuals", academics and other assorted cretins who are the most fervent proponents. If you were wondering how Russia
can make such amazing defensive weapons that US can only deny exist and wet dream of having, there is your answer. It is the state
of mind. The whole of US establishment are legends in their on lunch time and totally delusional about the reality surrounding
them - both Russiagate and MAGA cretins, no report can help the Russiagate nation.
Finally, I am thinking of that crazy and ugly professor bitch from the British Cambridge University who gives her lectures
naked to protest something or other. I am so lucky that I do not have to go to a Western university ever again. What a catastrophic
decline! No Brexit can help the Skripal nation.
Russiagate is finished, but is DJT also among the rubble?
Hardly any money for the border wall and still lingering in the ME?
If Hoarsewhisperer proves to be correct above re: DJT, he will really have to knock our socks off before election 2020. To
do this he will have to unequivocally and unceremoniously withdraw from the MENA and Afghanistan and possibly declare a National
Emergency for more money for the wall.
The problem is, when he does this, he will look impulsively dangerous and this may harm his mystique to the lemmings who need
a president to be more "presidential."
My money is on status quo all the way to 2020 and the rethugz hoping the Dems will eat their own in an orgy of warring identities.
The collusion story may be faltering, but the blame for Russia poisoning the Skripals lives on. The other night on The News Hour,
"Judy" led off the program with this: "It has been almost a year since Kremlin intelligence officers attempted to kill a Russian
defector in the British city of Salisbury by poisoning him with a nerve agent. That attack, and the subsequent death of a British
woman, scared away tourists and shoppers, but authorities and residents are working to get the town's economy back on track. Special
correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports."
Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others,
the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry
of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry.
Here is one recent example. You know the measles outbreak in the US Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Russians. How do we know.
A government funded research grant. The study found that 899 tweets caused people to doubt vaccines. Looks like money is
to be had even by academics for the right results.
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly,
but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time.
Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the
number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and "
the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton
lost the election.
I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single
editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve
Congress, and
proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi
stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria
has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two
years.
So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He
did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the
bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist
empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live
under.
I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries
that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet.
Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but
which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he
did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to
Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to
overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.
Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing
their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international
community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again."
Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist
empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have
not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or
Ukrainian democracy.
This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It
is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are
Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of
people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what
the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous,
self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were
brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he
sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was
supposed to mean, exactly).
Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a
fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less
buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever.
What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a
decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national
governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces,
media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in
Venezuela.
The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of
the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark,
Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized
Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected
him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other
uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system
(i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them
to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the
official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that
all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly
brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.
What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they
live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has
been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the
Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual
impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global
capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.
Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with
America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and
plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home,"
and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.
What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they?
Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations.
Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron,
ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major
shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual
fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital
Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do
you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these
companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British"
company?
And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself,
honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done
for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts
for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to
Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations
like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian
Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing?
And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your
Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance
corporation to not really cover you.
For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the
citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and
so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them.
Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called
"new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a
suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the
fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked
up out of the water.
In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going
back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone
else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the
world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit
jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the
interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may
have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury
underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing
the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in
France at the moment, by
beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters
that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.
Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow
Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other
long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and
corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and
imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm
not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially
since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
The USSR had elections of various types. They meant nothing because the Party owned
everybody.
We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative'
voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is
who – what entity – owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule,
dictate.
Ours is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. This is the end game of the Judaizing heresies that
destroyed Christendom. This nightmare is where WASP culture leads and always lead.
With friends like Marco Rubio, the United States doesn't need enemies. I still remember very
well, when then-candidate Donald Trump ridiculed Rubio as "little Marco" during the 2016
debates. He was perfectly right. Like Phil Giraldi demonstrated Rubio's "intellectual"
capability, It seems he has a birdbrain. Joke aside, Rubio's political busyness Israel is
concerned raises the question who owns his true loyalty. Instead of working for his
constituency, he is on the road primarily for Israel. As it seems he loves Israel more than
his birthplace the United States, and he despises Cuba that political system is more
social-oriented that the American one.
The problem with the Florida senator is his absolute blind obedience towards the Zionist
state, his engagement against the BDS movement and his loyalty to Israel's stalwarts in the
US. He is not the only US politician in Congress who is in the pocket of the Zionist lobby.
At least the American Middle Eastern policy is run by the Zionist Israel Lobby in the US. But
from all walks of life, their influence is also not to be underestimated.
The so-called unbreakable bond between the US and Israel is mere rhetoric, but most
members of Congress believe in this nonsense just out of mere political survival. Israel is
not an ally but a massive liability to US national interest in the region. The Zionist
political class uses the American political system to its advantage and pays nothing in
return. The opposite is true. The State of Israel is massively spying on the US and cause the
American people a lot of damage.
There are not only the assassinations of JFK and RFK, but also the killing of JFK, Jr.
who's private plane crashed into the sea right of the coast of Martha's Vineyard. It was the
same cover-up as in the case of his father and his uncle. There are persistent rumors in the
wind that the Israeli Mossad was behind it, such as Laurent Guyénot laid out in his
two excellent articles on UNZ Review. Among large parts of the truther movement, some
segments make a strong argument that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, although with the
collaboration of sections of the Bush/Cheney administration.
To refer to Israel as a friend or ally such as Rubio does is just a joke. Israel is
nothing more than an albatross like an ally. The whole American-Israeli relationship must be
put to the test. There is no room for romance because such romanticism is for the sole
detriment of the United States and the American People.
How such a lightweight came to be a Senator of the United States of America eludes
me.
I know this question is meant to be a bit rhetorical but let me try and answer it.
This senator, and the vast majority of his ilk in the Congress, are venal lying whores in
thrall to a foreign party and to money interests. He is not unique in this regard but only
one of many lying whores in power.
And the American people–by and large–are so dumbed down by a dumbed down
culture and a dumbed down media that they cannot recognize these treacherous weasels for the
traitors that they are.
The Senator is using contentions meant to protect us citizens from unfair business
practices by state and enterprise to launch protections against free speech for a foreign
entity.
That is painfully funny. I hope it is only a feeling, a sensation, but our political
leadership seems to have abandoned their collective minds. But this is convenient for the
Sen. because nullifying the constitution is one way of nullifying borders.
Zionists control our money via the unconstitutional FED and that gives the Zionist banking
cabal total control over the U.S. government and we the goyim/proles!
Nathan Rothschild infamously said, I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of
England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire and I am that
man!
It is the same here in America and every country in the world that has a Zionist central
bank and that is almost all of them!
Rubio is just another puppet of the Zionist banking kabal and is just like the rest of
congress and in fact congress would be better named as the lower house of the Knesset.
Marco Rubio Is A Complete And Total Politician Whore For Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and
Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson.
Marco Rubio does the bidding of Jew Billionaires by putting the interests of Israel ahead
of the interests of the United States.
Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson all push nation-wrecking
mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.
Marco Rubio pushes nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien
invaders.
Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman have bought the mass
legal immigration policies and the amnesty for illegal alien invaders immigration policy of
the Republican Party ruling class and Marco Rubio and Shyster Boy Trump.
Marco Rubio and New York City Shyster Boy Trump have been bought and paid for like common
whores by Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman.
Israel is powerful only to extent its goals are well correlated with the goal of the US MIC.
So like neocons Israel serves as a collective lobbyist of MIC. If this would not be the case, all
power of AIPAC and similar organizations would disappear, and the organization itself would be
put under FARA where it belongs.
The same is true for Zionists billionaires. The minute they turn against MIC would the minute
some dirty dealing and connections with organized crime would be exposed and some pedophile
scandals put on the front pages of MSM.
Notable quotes:
"... There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran. ..."
All these anti-Semitic articles fail a basic logical test :
i) If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the
combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism
fails.
ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone like
China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate Russia or
the EU?
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say about
whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim
is even weaker.
There is a reason that the conspiracy theories regarding Zionists don't get any purchase
outside of a small fringe.
@Thomm i) It's not so
surprising given the wholesale lies pedaled by the predominantly Zionists media and
entertainment sectors of Western civilization, compounded by the outright censorship of
opposing views by those same groups with the assistance of the ADL, SPLC, et al. Add to that
the altruistic nature and generally independent spirit of Whites as opposed to the *dare I
say tribal* nature of Zionists.
ii) China's recent ascent to global dominance was not built on usury and manipulation of
foreign nation states through a diaspora of what has been described as "nations within
nations." I'd say Zionists in Russia (ever hear of the Holodomor?) manipulated that part of
the world for over a century quite completely, and in Eastern Europe for slightly less time,
to the tune of 100 million dead White Christians.
iii) Interesting you bring up Blacks but leave out the part about Zionists manipulating
Whites with "Birth of a Nation" being the first movie many arriving White immigrants viewed.
Shock status: imagined. Clearly, that's but one of a laundry list of things any reasonably
educated White person could hold up as an example of manipulation of public opinion.
Calling truisms tropes doesn't absolve ... crimes committed against humanity.
Every single day Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Han Chinese, are criticized and critiqued for
all sorts of reasons and all manner of circumstances. Only one category of people is immune
from criticism: Zionists. It's a double standard, and it must end.
> If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the
combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism
fails.
WN's largely agree that Zionists are more intelligent, so they are not surprised that
Zionists have been able to achieve outsized influence (to "control everything," in the
language of this lame troll).
ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone
like China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate
Russia or the EU?
If the Chinese attempted the same thing, Americans would be permitted to notice .
Noticing Zionists political activity is "anti-semitic", so many Americans don't notice it (or
pretend not to).
There are far fewer Zionists in the EU and Russia, but they enjoy outsized influence in
those lands too – just not to the same extent as in the U.S.
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say
about whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the
WN claim is even weaker.
Incorrect. WN's admit that Zionists are more intelligent than white gentiles; blacks who
accuse whites of racism seldom admit that whites are more intelligent than blacks.
Ultimately, WN's want separation from Zionists. Blacks who accuse whites of racism virtually
never desire separation from whites. I'm not even a WN, but it really shouldn't be
controversial to admit these obvious facts.
Why does Phil have such a hard time banning moronic trolls like this clown? (Who everybody
suspects is just a sad little hindoo, but it's possible is a deranged little zionut.)
There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a
country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran.
I was disappointed to see that one of my two senators voted for the bill. And I would have
to say the biggest surprise was Sen. Gillibrand who probably wanted to say 'aye' but
didn't.
The next step is likely to be that any public disagreement with the state of Israel is
akin to antisemitism. Which I'm certain that the Republicans will be happy to throw at the
Dem. congress.
"... However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute. ..."
Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. died at the age of 76 on Sunday after an extended illness for which was a granted a leave of absence from
Congress last year.
The Republican representative for North Carolina's 3rd congressional district since 1995 had initially been a strong supporter
of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and even became well-known for getting french fries renamed as "freedom fries" in the House cafeteria
as a protest against French condemnation of the US invasion.
... ... ...
However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret
over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism
abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute.
Remembering Jones as a tireless advocate of peace, Ron Paul
notes that he " turned
from pro-war to an antiwar firebrand after he discovered how Administrations lie us into war . His passing yesterday is deeply mourned
by all who value peace and honesty over war and deception." The Ron Paul Institute has also called him "a Hero of Peace" for both
his voting record and efforts at shutting down the "endless wars".
And Antiwar.com also describes Jones as having been among the "most consistently antiwar members of Congress" and
a huge supporter
of their work:
By 2005, Jones had reversed his position on the Iraq War. Jones called on President George W. Bush to apologize for misinforming
Congress to win authorization for the war. Jones said, "If I had known then what I know today, I wouldn't have voted for
that resolution."
Jones went on to become one of the most antiwar members of Congress, fighting for ending US involvement in Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, and Yemen.
Also the BBC describes Rep. Jones' "dramatic change of heart" concerning the Iraq war starting in 2005, after which he began reaching
out to thousands of people who had lost loves ones in combat.
Rep. Walter Jones led an effort in the House to call French Fries "Freedom Fries" instead, but came to profoundly regret his role
in supporting Bush's war.
Noting that "no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq" and that the war was justified by the Bush administration based
entirely on lies and false intelligence, the BBC describes:
At the same time, Mr Jones met grieving families whose loved ones were killed in the war. This caused him to have a dramatic
change of heart, and in 2005 he called for the troops to be brought home.
He spoke candidly on several occasions about how deeply he regretted supporting the war, which led to the deaths of more than
140,000 Iraqi and American people.
"I have signed over 12,000 letters to families and extended families who've lost loved ones in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,"
he told NPR in 2017. "That was, for me, asking God to forgive me for my mistake."
In total he represented his district for 34 years, first in the North Carolina state legislature, then in Congress. He took a
leave of absence last year after a number of missed House votes due to declining health.
"... The 1940s are the point where the permanent military industrial complex that we know of today starts to take hold. Slightly later it got the name by which we call it today thanks to a speech by President Eisenhower at the very tail end of his presidency in 1961. Sadly Mr. Eisenhower did nothing to stop the growth of the war-machine only choosing to warn us about it with nearly no time left in office. One would have expected bold action from a man known for his bravery and cunning ..."
"... Washington chose to go with "Global Hegemon" America and has not looked back. But at this point massive military spending still required some sort of reason to spend hundreds of billions per year. Iraq and Afghanistan were enough justification to keep millions of men in uniforms on bases all over the world mostly doing pushups and cleaning the toilets in a "global war on terror". ..."
"... Since war is no longer necessary to justify the MIC the US is much more free to not engage in warfare. In fact war is completely unnecessary. At some point advertisements for automobiles had to stop mentioning their superiority to horses. We are at the same point with the MIC. Politicians and the mainstream media do not need to search for/create enemies because they are no longer needed. The US military is to be forever massive and expensive and profitable and it may even become very peaceful because of this. Why work when you can make billions doing virtually nothing? ..."
The US Military
Industrial Complex no longer needs neither actual wars nor the threat of war for its own survival.
This factor could actually change dynamic of this institution/bureaucracy in our lifetimes and it
may actually be changing as we speak.
Very often something will evolve and become ubiquitous to the degree that we forget its
origin.
Putting a dead tree in your house on Christmas is a good example, few people think
of why this is done, they just do it because it has been done for a long time and thus seems
completely natural and important to do so every year. A justification for doing it is no longer
needed, it is something done by default. In some ways the necessity to start questionable wars of
luxury is much like that Christmas tree – an odd tradition that is not of an importance or value
anymore.
In order to break this down we need to go back to the start.
It is hard for people in our times, especially foreign people to understand the fact
that the United States was not a massive military power until WWII.
Today sole hyperpower
was at a time not that long ago a much different nation militarily and foreign policy speaking. In
1914 at the start of the Great War in Europe the territorially massive United States had a total
armed forces of
around
166,000 men
.
From 1776 until that point the manpower of US forces was minimal by
European standards
. That America of those times was an isolated self-focused America that
many today long for. When the US entered WWI shedding the binds of its isolationist tendencies it
bulked up to nearly 3,000,000 soldiers by the end of 1918. However, directly after the Great War
finally ended the military severely deflated itself back down much closer to its original size.
"The Good War" in the 1940's was the final nail in the isolationist coffin
as
American forces would forever remain in the millions of men after the defeat of Germany and Japan
by the Allies.
The 1940s are the point where the permanent military industrial complex that we know of
today starts to take hold.
Slightly later it got the name by which we call it today thanks
to a speech by President Eisenhower at the very tail end of his presidency in 1961. Sadly Mr.
Eisenhower did nothing to stop the growth of the war-machine only choosing to warn us about it with
nearly no time left in office. One would have expected bold action from a man known for his bravery
and cunning.
The ideological justification for retaining a massive US military in peacetime was
Communism.
A global Communist threat seemed like something grand enough to be worth
throwing away a large portion of America's traditional (and very successful) identity.
As time went on wars of questionable origins in Korea and Vietnam continued to provide proof of
the need for massive military spending and continued expansion.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90's American forces could have (in theory)
reduced in size as there was no longer any real geopolitical competitor to the US.
This was
a "turning point" moment when America could possibly have gone back to being the America that was
and scaled down to a few hundred thousand men under the umbrella of a few thousand nuclear warheads
and enough billions of dollars to make sure that the US would never "fall behind" from a weapons
standpoint.
But this was not to be.
Washington chose to go with "Global Hegemon"
America and has not looked back. But at this point massive military spending still required some
sort of reason to spend hundreds of billions per year. Iraq and Afghanistan were enough
justification to keep millions of men in uniforms on bases all over the world mostly doing pushups
and cleaning the toilets in a "global war on terror".
Now there is a new "Russian threat" that is hard for politicians to define or prove
exists but is just juicy enough for them it is still call for increasing defense spending or build
system X in European country Y that they can't find on a map.
As we can see since WWII, the US military has gone from dealing with direct threats
(Germany, Japan) to direct threats via proxy (The Soviet Union in Korea/Vietnam) to overinflated
threats (Iraq, Afghanistan) to fake threats (today's Russia).
I would argue and even offer
that at this point there is no political means nor will to ever go "back" to the isolated America.
That America as a concept is dead and both the politicians and the public understand and support
the US having a massive military. No threat is needed any more as having a massive military is no
longer even a question. It is a default position like seeing the world as round – only a tiny
handful of lunatics of zero influence could argue otherwise and debating with them is pointless.
Furthermore as we have seen any politician who goes against the military industrial
complex (MIC) is deemed a traitor and "against the troops".
This current state of things is actually very good from the standpoint of peace and America's
reputation.
Since war is no longer necessary to justify the MIC the US is much more free to
not engage in warfare. In fact war is completely unnecessary.
At some point advertisements
for automobiles had to stop mentioning their superiority to horses. We are at the same point with
the MIC. Politicians and the mainstream media do not need to search for/create enemies because they
are no longer needed. The US military is to be forever massive and expensive and profitable and it
may even become very peaceful because of this.
Why work when you can make billions
doing virtually nothing?
"... The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior. ..."
The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you
have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to
see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human
species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies,
never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced
people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can
be worse than most animals' behavior.
This human sickness is now pandemic and to save humanity will require some kind of a
tsunami. Nobody today wants to loose anything, and in doing so everybody is just pushing the
system down the drain.
Another point: families, clans, nations are structures allowing people to develop roots.
They are not the causes of war but it is true that these structures can be manipulated to
generate wars in the interest of some "elite" (the poor get killed and the elite, gets
richer). Reconciliation between people does not require to erase structures but to eliminate
the bad guys manipulating them (the Jihadists, the terrorists and their Bosses which are
today mostly in Washington, Wall Street and Riyadh)
and essence of Christianity and Christian civilization is reason and objective reality,
necessary basis of TRUTH (= Christ)
My goodness! The essence of any religion -- - basically a mix of unsubstantiated
superstition and blind faith depending on no verifiable evidence -- - to be equated with
reason and objective reality, phenomena more aligned with the scientific method and culture
is patently absurd. And to quote a book written when the earth was still thought a flat,
anthropocentric mass and stars perched in the heavens as glittering divine ornaments? I rest
my case.
"... Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group. ..."
"... Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn. ..."
"... Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change. ..."
"... If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War). ..."
The third trend is the only place where hope can reside. This trend – what I have
previously ascribed to a group I call the "dissenters" – understands that radical new
thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by the old
liberal elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to
explore its ideas, to experiment, to collaborate, as it urgently needs to.
Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter
the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old
elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively
crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group.
Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy
people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that
hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the
US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn.
Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian
propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to
change.
Example: Reaction to yellow vests in France, which drew the reactions described in Cook's
article (at the root of this comment thread). "Back to your kennels, curs!" isn't effective
in situations like this, but it seems to be the only reply the EU has.
New groups take over when the old group has rotted away. At some point, Cook's third
alternative will be all that is left. The real question is what will be happening world wide
at that point. If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough
shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in
its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was
during the 30 Years War).
Counterinsurgency
1] To understand contemporary effect of WW I on survivors, think of a the survivors of a
group playing paintball who accidentally got hold of grenade launchers but somehow didn't
realize that until the game was over. WW II was actually worse -- people worldwide really
expected another industrialized war within 20 years (by AD 1965), this one fought with
nuclear weapons.
The parading of liberalism's humanitarian credentials has entitled our elites to leave a
trail of carnage and wreckage in their wake in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria
" I am a Syrian Living in Syria: "It Was Never a Revolution nor a Civil War. The
Terrorists Are Sent by Your Government"
"American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists
who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country and everyone .
Every massacre is committed by them. We were all happy in Syria: we had free school and
university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no
chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF- controlled bank, state owned central bank which gives 11%
interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank. "
[ ]
" I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my
country which has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda. These animals
slit throats and behead for pleasure they behead babies and rape young kids.
" They are satanic. Our military helped by the millions of civilian militias are
winning the battle against al Qaeda. But now the USA wants to bomb the shit out of us so that
al Qaeda can get the upper hand. "
"Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your
government. "
A Serbian activist on Wednesday threw a pie in the face of Jewish French intellectual
Bernard-Henri Levy at a showing of his film "Peshmerga" in Belgrade. He is promoting
'Kurdistan' which is part of Israel's EXPANSIONIST policy.
He will talk at the Cambridge public library, a propaganda center, on February 20th, 2019
He should be exposed further. Jewish French philosopher gets pied in face in Belgrade
'Populism' is just democracy in action and most people seem to think democracy is a good
thing. So what's the problem? Apparently the masses don't want what's being shoved down their
throats by undemocratic rulers so now we have this ongoing conflict. One can only hope that
the populists get the upper hand in all this. We need a new political terminology because it
seems strange to use the label "liberal" for a group of people that are such aggressive
war-mongers. There doesn't seem to be much that's liberal about them.War lovers and
anti-democratic, they have much in common with fascism.
anarchyst says:
February 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT • 300 Words
The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction, period
they want their "New World Order"
Very true.
The intent of this article is to blame [neo]Liberals. I would hardly call Europe's
[neoliberal] elite liberals. A liberal would defend freedom of expression and thought. A
liberal would defend the right of an individual or group to express viewpoints that are
unpopular.
Western Europe is hardly liberal. It is ... repressive when it comes to dissent, mildly
totalitarian. Political leaders who advocate for the rights of indigenous Europeans in Europe
are persecuted and imprisoned. Political parties are banned or bankrupted.
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. ..."
"... The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts. ..."
"... Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law ..."
"... A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda. ..."
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not
always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be
disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem
unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American
politicians.
In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And
-- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with
conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which
carefully avoided war with America.
It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president,
who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By
contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly
opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is
not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.
Donald the Cockatoo
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.
All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump
and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies
describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit
long, but worth reading.
"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches
into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed
woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I
decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time
she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.
"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone
call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and
would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting
that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her
own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that
out," he says.
"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in
return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only
in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called
me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach
disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."
All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That
is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This
increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.
A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of
military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch
hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in
Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this
fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.
Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War
draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered
the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid
service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me
that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no
great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to
take it away from."
This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended,
now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions
would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological
and dangerous.
Here is PJ on
Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under
real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in
Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."
How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans,
inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the
weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of
course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is
destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.
Bush II
Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he
hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not
having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the
killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively,
these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft
carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No
empathy. What a man.
The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that
our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John
Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not
yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and
Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's
leadership should do, but ours doesn't..
Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew)
holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the
Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the
captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple
missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"
The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on
Pennsylvania Avernus.
Gina
A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and
proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture
prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the
CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the
civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?
Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't
torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging,
desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a
little more water .
What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her
office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little
girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .
Michael Pompeo
Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate
for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to
destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to
the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not
America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and
none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia,
which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO
up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command
which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race;
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North
Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a
war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly
puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as
Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no
more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.
But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.
Nikki Haley
A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and
Pompeo Mattis
"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat
Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go
into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a
veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun
to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun
to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."
Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an
amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking
about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?
The Upshot
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically
fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration
of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many
countries. These people are not right in the head.
I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the
leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in
the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of
course, decades ago.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it
was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton
leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought
in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.
However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial
goals that have been in play since at least 1945.
The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive &
inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation.
The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's &
naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer
competitors.
China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they
are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.
To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders
in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?
It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of
individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable
responses .
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired
Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky
hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage
sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help
swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft
dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?
And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it
still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the
inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law
enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?
No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively
toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.
Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump
administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones
have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which
is ominous).
Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its
predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call
incremental.
Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who
jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary?
Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how
the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in
the Establishment came to his side.
Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in
common.
@Sean
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress
"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as
far as Russia was concerned."
Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China
will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.
Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them
everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier
research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and
then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen
economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod
along, single file, to oblivion.
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a
real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in
fury at this.
Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he
was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white
America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration
and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the
Business Roundtable.
He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant
people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.
Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with
Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People
like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.
Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico
does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime.
Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest
criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.
@KenH
The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US
president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on
the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep
state, with him having no say in the matter.
@Asagirian
Clinton wasn't a lunatic? I wonder what Fred thinks about his deranged Jewish Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
She famously
told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton's years of punative sanctions, was
"worth it."
Doesn't seem like those preventable deaths of innocent children bothered Billy Boy too much. With the Clinton's, we
get two lunatics for the price of one.
@NoseytheDuke
Face it -- he neither believed nor understood those Stephen Miller speeches. Coming from the
mouth of Donald Trump, they were lies.
Why do so many of you intelligent people still buy into the political puppet show,
expecting BigGov to fix itself? Electoral politics, judicial confirmations, etc, are
orchestrated conflict to keep dissidence channeled and harmlessly blown off as the Empire
lurches along.
There are other columnists here at Unz who have been calling the Beltway BS for years. For
example:
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war
abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his
election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
@anon1
I would not condemn them out of hand. Most enlisted men never went to college. They come from
poor rural areas, where they would be lucky to get a part-time job at McDonalds. Their
mothers were probably on welfare, drug-addicted with no father in the home.
Compared to their
options, the military offers fame and fortune, and military recruiters are duplicitous
snakes, just out to fill their quotas.
Only later do many of them realize they were duped.
Hence, their suicide rate of 20 vets per day.
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not
always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be
disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem
unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American
politicians.
In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And
-- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with
conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which
carefully avoided war with America.
It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president,
who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By
contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly
opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is
not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.
Donald the Cockatoo
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.
All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump
and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies
describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit
long, but worth reading.
"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches
into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed
woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I
decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time
she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.
"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone
call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and
would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting
that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her
own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that
out," he says.
"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in
return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only
in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called
me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach
disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."
All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That
is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This
increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.
A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of
military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch
hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in
Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this
fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.
Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War
draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered
the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid
service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me
that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no
great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to
take it away from."
This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended,
now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions
would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological
and dangerous.
Here is PJ on
Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under
real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in
Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."
How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans,
inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the
weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of
course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is
destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.
Bush II
Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he
hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not
having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the
killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively,
these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft
carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No
empathy. What a man.
The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that
our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John
Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not
yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and
Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's
leadership should do, but ours doesn't..
Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew)
holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the
Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the
captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple
missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"
The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on
Pennsylvania Avernus.
Gina
A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and
proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture
prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the
CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the
civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?
Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't
torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging,
desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a
little more water .
What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her
office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little
girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .
Michael Pompeo
Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate
for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to
destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to
the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not
America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and
none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia,
which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO
up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command
which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race;
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North
Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a
war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly
puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as
Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no
more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.
But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.
Nikki Haley
A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and
Pompeo Mattis
"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat
Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go
into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a
veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun
to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun
to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."
Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an
amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking
about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?
The Upshot
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically
fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration
of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many
countries. These people are not right in the head.
I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the
leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in
the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of
course, decades ago.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it
was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton
leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought
in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.
However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial
goals that have been in play since at least 1945.
The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive &
inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation.
The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's &
naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer
competitors.
China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they
are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.
To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders
in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?
It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of
individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable
responses .
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired
Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky
hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage
sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help
swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft
dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?
And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it
still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the
inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law
enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?
No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively
toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.
Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump
administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones
have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which
is ominous).
Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its
predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call
incremental.
Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who
jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary?
Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how
the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in
the Establishment came to his side.
Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in
common.
@Sean
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress
"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as
far as Russia was concerned."
Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China
will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.
Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them
everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier
research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and
then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen
economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod
along, single file, to oblivion.
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a
real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in
fury at this.
Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he
was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white
America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration
and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the
Business Roundtable.
He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant
people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.
Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with
Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People
like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.
Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico
does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime.
Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest
criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.
@KenH
The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US
president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on
the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep
state, with him having no say in the matter.
Both Haley and Mattis are no longer serving with the Administration; apparently news of this
has not reached Fred's watering hole in Ajijic, where I hear the Internet is slow and dodgy.
And does he really think the Brits have "class?"
Harry showed up for a photo op in Helmand province and promptly got two American GIs
killed, a result that Reed probably found thrilling.
The classy Brits promptly created tall tales of this dimwitted ginger dodging bullets and
blasting insurgents to bits, like a modern day Flashman. All this in the run-up to the big
wedding. Classy, and not propaganda at all!
"... "Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet Union, negotiated the INF agreement." ..."
"... Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military. ..."
"... As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates." ..."
"... The United States hopes that, by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up US preeminence on the world stage. ..."
"... Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal "strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR. ..."
"... But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the genocidal impulses of US imperialism. ..."
"... Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of neocolonial wars. ..."
"... the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001. ..."
"... Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to and including the launching of nuclear war. ..."
In an article that fully backs the White House's accusations against Russia, the New
York Times ' David Sanger, a conduit for the Pentagon, spells out with perfect lucidity
the real reasons why the United States is leaving the INF treaty:
"Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying
new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and
keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military
power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet
Union, negotiated the INF agreement."
Sanger's own words make perfectly clear why the United States wants to leave the treaty,
which has nothing to do with Russia's alleged violations: Washington is seeking to ring the
island chain surrounding the Chinese mainland with a hedge of nuclear missiles. But Sanger
somehow expects, without so much as a transition paragraph, his readers to believe the hot air
spewed by Pompeo about Russia's "bad behavior."
Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed
at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat
not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military.
Two decades ago, at the height of the dotcom bubble, China was little more than a cheap
labor platform, assembling the consumer electronics driving a revolution in communications,
while American companies pocketed the vast bulk of the profits. But today, the economic balance
of power is shifting.
Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo are capturing an ever-greater portion of the
global smartphone market, even as their rivals Samsung and Apple see their market share slip.
The Shenzhen-based DJI is the uncontested global leader in the consumer drone market. Huawei,
meanwhile, leads its competitors by over a year in the next-generation mobile infrastructure
that will power not only driverless cars and "smart" appliances, but the "autonomous" weapons
of the future.
As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations
that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United
States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap
between commercial and military technologies evaporates."
It is the economic decline of the United States relative to its global rivals that is
ultimately driving the intensification of US nuclear war plans. The United States hopes that,
by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up
US preeminence on the world stage.
But a consensus is emerging within the US military that Washington cannot bring its rivals
to heel merely with the threat of totally obliterating them with its massive arsenal of
strategic missiles. Given the fleet of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines possessed by
both Russia and China, this option, even ignoring the effects of nuclear winter, would result
in the destruction of the largest cities in the United States.
Rather, the US is working to construct a "usable," low-yield, "tactical" nuclear arsenal,
including the construction of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. This week, a new low-yield
US nuclear warhead went into production, with a yield between half and one third of the "little
boy" weapon that leveled the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and hundreds of times smaller than the
United States' other nuclear weapons systems.
The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released last year, envisions using such
weapons to turn the tide in conflicts that begin with conventional weapons, under the pretense
(whether the Pentagon believes it or not) that such wars will stop short of full-scale nuclear
exchanges.
Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to
death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal
"strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of
two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR.
But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the
genocidal impulses of US imperialism.
Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a
new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of
neocolonial wars.
But the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended
purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position
of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001.
Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia
and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US
imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to
and including the launching of nuclear war.
"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics
charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than
a little merit." As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Notable quotes:
"... Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate? ..."
"... And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization. ..."
I don't wish to imply that political leaders and media outlets ignore our wars altogether.
That would be unfair. Yet in TrumpWorld, while the president's performance in office receives
intensive and persistent coverage day in, day out, the attention given to America's wars has
been sparse and perfunctory, when not positively bizarre.
As a case in point, consider the op-ed
that recently appeared in the New York Times (just as actual peace talks between the
U.S. and the Taliban seemed to be progressing
), making the case for prolonging the U.S. war in Afghanistan, while chiding President Trump
for considering a reduction in the number of U.S. troops currently stationed there. Any such
move, warned Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, would be a "mistake" of the first
order.
The ongoing Afghan War dates from a time when some of today's recruits were still in
diapers. Yet O'Hanlon counsels patience: a bit more time and things just might work out. This
is more or less comparable to those who suggested back in the 1950s that African Americans
might show a bit more patience in their struggle for equality: Hey, what's the rush?
I don't pretend to know what persuaded the editors of the Times that O'Hanlon's
call to make America's longest war even longer qualifies as something readers of the nation's
most influential newspaper just now need to ponder. Yet I do know this: the dearth of critical
attention to the costs and
consequences of our various post-9/11 wars is nothing short of shameful, a charge to which
politicians and journalists alike should plead equally guilty.
I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics
charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more
than a little merit. Even more striking than Trump's critique is the fact that so few members
of the national security establishment are willing to examine it seriously. As a consequence,
the wars persist, devoid of purpose.
Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as
a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something
like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted
stalemate?
Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation?
And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting
Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our
history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the
U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt
characterization.
Yet the fault is not Trump's. The fault belongs to those who have allowed their immersion in
the dank precincts of TrumpWorld to preclude serious reexamination of misguided and reckless
policies that predate the president by at least 15 years.
You have to compare Trump with the alternative. The D's /progs make war on free speech,
attack the presumption of innocence, want essentially uncontrolled mass immigration and
relentlessly push in the direction of war with Russia. Add their cynical Russiagate
hoax-witch hunt for further illustration
of the danger they present. As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics
charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more
than a little merit."
I'm with Bacevich on the insanity of Endless War, but I question why he has to denigrate
Trump in his lead in. The cynical side of me believes that Bacevich thinks he has to be a
Trump-hater if he is to be listened to.
Hey Andrew sir Democracy is messy. But DJT is on your team and the MSM/Liberal
progs/Neocons aren't. Worth reflecting on
@fnn "As many have said,
Trump is the symptom, not the disease"
Actually, Trump is the microbe not the virus. He's the opportunistic microbe that attaches
itself to a sick and diseased body-politic. As to symptoms, they are borne by society
at-large and now manifest themselves in the majority of Americans who one way or the other
are "Lost in TrumpWorld"
Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books.
Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.
At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.
Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.
@Sean
According to this comment, "The government does not take orders from the CIA or the FBI. The
President controls both." Well, only if the President is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations and a Rockefeller's puppet. For a well-documented, quite different analysis of the
Kennedy assassination see "Partners in Crime: The Rockefeller, CFR, CIA and Castro Connection
to the Kennedy Assassination."
The C.I.A. IS all about Regime Change. I am not convinced that they are all bad just a clique
within. They are inexplicably connected with that government behind the Government. They are
not connected with the office of the Executive but follow the orders of a few that have no
regard for The People, constitutionally. If they were, drugs would have been squashed,
decades ago.
Edward Curtain writes for the CIA about the CIA. Amazing that a bunch of academics would
"criticize" the CIA and leave out all the real facts about the CIA.
ISIS, Al Qaeda, Pornhub, Facebook, Google – or whatever the CIA calls themselves and
their weapons isn't in the business of informing you about anything at all.
Read 1984, it will explain it to you, another psychological warfare treatise written by a
Government agent.
March 19, 2017 The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News How the Deep State Corrupted Many
American Writers
Whitney's new book, "Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers," explores how
the CIA influenced acclaimed writers and publications during the Cold War to produce subtly
anti-communist material. During the interview, Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations
and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as
the Paris Review).
JANUARY 18, 2017 CIA Publishes About 13 Million Pages of Declassified Files Online
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published nearly 13 million pages of declassified
files on its official website for the first time in its history. The declassified files were
previously publicly available only at the National Archives in Maryland.
@Ilyana_Rozumova Despite huge increases in domestic oil production in the last years the
USA is still the second largest net oil importer in the word (behind China).
Also the USA is extracting its proven reserves at a much faster rate than any other large
producer (a pattern it also had in the past, leading to high fluctuation in its production)
so unless new reserves are discovered US production will likely start to decline again within
a few years.
@Ilyana_Rozumova Condensate, not oil. Only good for gas or lighter fluid. It may be
called oil but that's a deliberate misnomer.
Only financial engineering makes it appear profitable. Its a money losing psychopaths
power play, not a business. Without a heavy real oil to blend it with its useless, heavy oil
is where Venezuela comes in.
@Ilyana_Rozumova "Main factor here is that US due to fracking become self sufficient,
what actually nobody could foresee. Just a bad luck".
Bad luck for the USA. They have fallen into an elephant trap, because fracking has already
become unprofitable and is only being financed by ever-increasing debt.
Admittedly this gives them some advantage, but only in the very short term.
Of course, it doesn't really matter – in the short to medium term – whether
fracking is profitable or grossly unprofitable. They can still pay for it by printing more
dollars, as long as the "greater fools" (or heavily bribed officials) in other countries go
on accepting dollars.
"America's energy security just got a lot more secure . Located in the Wolfcamp Shale
and overlying Bone Spring Formation, the unproven, technically recoverable reserves are
officially the largest on the planet."
None of these breathlessly optimistic articles say how expensive it will be to get this
oil. If a dollar's worth of oil costs you more than a dollar to recover, you are obviously
losing in the deal. If you print the dollars, your entire economy loses.
As neocolonial empire of it s own (albeit the one that is vassal of the USA) yes it does,
especially in xUSSR state where EU wants to capture the makets. Ukraine is a nice example
here.
Does the European Union generate external instability?
The historic achievement of peace within a Europe of universal norms is belied by the external
instability engendered by violent and incoherent interventions.
By Branko Milanovic
The European Union is justly admired for making war among its members impossible. This is no
small achievement in a continent which was in a state of semi-permanent warfare for the past
two millennia.
It is not only that we cannot even imagine the usual 19th and 20th century antagonists, such
as France and Germany, going to war ever again. The same is true of other, lesser-known
animosities which have led periodically to bloodlettings: between Poles and Germans, Hungarians
and Romanians, Greeks and Bulgarians. Unthinkable is also the idea that the United Kingdom and
Spain could end up, regarding Gibraltar, in a reprise of the Falklands/Malvinas war.
Destabilised
But creating geopolitical stability internally has not, during the last two decades, been
followed by external geopolitical stability along the fringes of the union. Most of the big EU
member states (UK, Poland, Italy, Spain) participated, often eagerly, in Operation Iraqi
Freedom, which led to the deaths of some half a million people, destabilised the middle east
even further and produced Islamic State.
Then, seemingly not having learned from this fiasco, France and Italy spearheaded another
regime change, this time in Libya. It ended in anarchy, another civil war, two competing
governments and a UN Security Council deadlocked for years to come -- since it is clear that
China and Russia will not in the foreseeable future vote to allow another western military
intervention.
The wars along the long arc from Libya to Afghanistan, in which EU powers participated, were
the proximate cause of large refugee flows a few years ago, which continue even now. (As I have
written elsewhere, the underlying cause of migration is the large gap in incomes between
Europe, on the one hand, and Africa and the 'greater middle east', on the other, but the sudden
outbursts were caused by wars.)
The next example of generating instability was Ukraine, where the then government of Viktor
Yanukovych, having only postponed the signing of an EU agreement, was driven out of power in
2014 in a coup-like movement supported by the union. It is sure that a reasonable
counterfactual, with the same EU-Ukraine agreements being signed and without a war in eastern
Ukraine and with Crimea still part of Ukraine, would have been much preferable to the current
situation, which threatens to precipitate a war of even much greater dimensions.
Finally, consider Turkey, in an association agreement with the European Economic Community
since 1963, and thus in a membership-awaiting antechamber for more than half a century. The
initial period in power of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was marked by pro-European policies, a
desire to create an 'Islamic democracy', in the mould of the Christian democracies of Italy and
Germany, and civilian control over the army. But realisation that, because of its size and
probably because of its dominant religion, Turkey would never be recognised as part of Europe
led Erdoğan, gradually, to move in an altogether different direction -- with an almost
zero chance that he would come back to his original pro-European stance.
The endless waiting period, with similarly protracted negotiations over what are now 35
chapters which need to be agreed between candidate countries and all 28 (or soon 27) members,
is what lies behind the frustration with the EU in the Balkans. Long gone are the days when
Greece could become a member after a couple of months (if that) of negotiations and an
agreement between the French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and the German
chancellor, Helmut Schmidt. The European bluff -- it neither has the stick nor the carrot --
albeit long hidden behind the veil of negotiations, was recently called by the Kosovo
leadership, when it engaged in a trade war with Serbia. The EU could express its 'regrets' but
it was squarely ignored. In the past, nether Kosovo nor any other Balkan state would have dared
to defy Europe so openly.
Slow and hesitant
It all means that Europe needs a much better thought-out external policy with respect to its
neighbours. There are already some signs that it is moving in that direction but it is doing so
too slowly and hesitantly. A multilateral compact with Africa is needed to regulate migration
from a continent with the fastest rising population and lowest incomes. Much more European
investment -- in hard stuff, not conferences -- is needed. Rather than complaining about
China's Belt and Road initiative, Europe should imitate it -- and, if it desires to counteract
Chinese political influence, invest its own money to make more African friends. A similar set
of much more proactive policies is required within the framework of the Mediterranean
initiative, while military options in the region should be forsworn no less clearly than they
are within the union.
When it comes to the potential members, as in the Balkans or the western republics of the
former Soviet Union, interminable talks should be replaced by either special association with
no expectation of EU membership or clearer, time-limited negotiations leading to membership.
Both would manage expectations better and avoid the build-up of resentment and frustration.
The most important challenge is the relationship with Turkey. The EU does not have a
blueprint for a Turkey after Erdoğan; nor can it offer anything to the Turkish secular
opposition, as it is not clear within itself whether it wants Turkey in or out. It should be
rather obvious that a European Turkey, with its vast economic potential and influence in the
middle east, would be a huge economic and strategic asset. Such a Turkey would also behave
differently in Syria and in Anatolia, because it would have an incentive to follow European
rules.
This rethinking of the EU's neighbourhood policy thus calls, in short, for three things:
greater economic aid to Africa, no support for wars or regime change, and much clearer rules
and time-limits for membership talks.
Perhaps, you ascribe to the EU successes that it did not create.
The formation of the EU is not the vehicle that created, nor sustained, the uneasy peace.
I suggest it was the resolution of WW2 that has determined the current state of
tolerance.
I fear that the formation of the EU, in the end, will be the cause of a re-instigation of
the age old skirmishes that have plagued the world, as you say, for two millennia.
The destruction of the Middle East by the West, not just the EU but the US, is a
foolishness of biblical proportions.
The EU's disposition of Greece and Brexit are red flags that the EU is an unsustainable
contrivance that will eventually, come undone. The mercantilist wars between France, England,
Spain, Germany, Italy, etc, may rise again. Hopefully, I'm wrong.
We just got done conquering Iraq. We haven't stayed to loot the oil.
The US has NOT successfully conquered Iraq (has not pacified the country). Oil is not like
a bag of diamonds, which you can grab and run. In order to steal a worthwhile amount of the
greasy stuff, you have to make a substantial investment up front, in wells and shipping
terminals. Not even the greediest thief will risk his money if there is even the slightest
chance that his wells and terminals will be blown up by righteous nationalists. This is why
the US hasn't stolen much from Iraq.
So now you believe we're going to Venezuela to take their crappy heavy oil?
That the US hasn't been able to steal much from Iraq tells us little about whether the
Americans have larcenous motives with regard to Venezuela. Especially as Trump has been
talking loudly about the oil.
It would be easier for us just to build a pipeline to Alberta and import all their
cheap, shut-in heavy crude.
You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their
relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few
years.
After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power
– in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's
US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.
It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system
– which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been
elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.
And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to
Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is
responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it
would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies
work.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump lambasted America's endless and wasteful wars. But
as president, he has surrounded himself with individuals who have made defending and advancing
American empire a full-time career. Why did Trump cave and what could be the consequences for
him and his presidency?
CrossTalking with George Szamuely, Jeff Deist, and Lee Spieckerman.
That Lee guy demonstrated perfectly why the world should fear the USA. Dangerous stupid.
71 Likes
You are correct!
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The danger comes from the arrogance with the stupidity. American exceptionalism at its
ugliest, on par with bolton and pompeo for sure.
I don't think tRump really knows what he is saying, as in big disconnect between brain and
mouth. More empty bluster than arrogance with his 5th grader stupidity.
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The scary part is a lot of Americans are like him
23 Likes
Show 2 more replies
The "Lee" entity encapsulates everything that is wrong with consecutive US governments:
arrogant, obnoxious, I'll mannered, undiplomatic, belligerent, misinformed and dangerously
stupid.
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Thanks for having this Lee Spieckerman on. It proves RT tries to show all sides and is a
shocking example of how crazy the far right is.
Keep it real!
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Spickerman is living in cuckoo land with his claim US is a force for good and billions are
so happy to live under a bunch of mobster's Wrong
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Lee Spickerman is a typical Sociopath
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Lee Spickerman is mad like the US Governement.!!
The Monroe Doctrine gets evoked yet again. In written form it was "anti-colonial", but in
practice it was "imperial anti-colonialism" and used as a declaration of hegemony and a right
of unilateral intervention over the Americas.
This is why I feel we need to stop using the term "regime change" which also hides the
reality of what are really coup d'etats and imperialist wars. It's not a regime being changed,
but a regime trying to do the changing. Like Peter says at the end, it would take a long show
to talk about them all.
Do us all a favor and take Mr. Spieckerman off your guest list. He advances our knowledge
not a bit. He is merely one of the Bush claque. As for his admired public servant, John Bolton,
rarely does this country produce so maniacal a political operator. Giving Bolton a responsible
position was Trump's most egregious personnel error.
Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare,
a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's
Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
in 2019, its third year of operation.
"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has
turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new
tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even
though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for
the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it
sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when
there really isn't."
investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the
thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or
conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.
Indeed,
report after
report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter
and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the
apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation
offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money
associated with "Russians" is always
dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in
the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters
across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the
social media game.
Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the
party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's
prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."
"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into
hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by
subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads
blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom
government of the worst kind."
"... "Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so... ..."
This woman had NO CLUE what she was talking about. She thought she was on a show that would just tow the party line and let
her get away with wrong statements. She's just repeating what critics say with no idea of the truth. What a fool. As a woman,
THIS IS WHY I WON'T JUST VOTE FOR ANY WOMAN. We are just as capable of being stupid as anyone else.
Bari: "I think Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie." Joe: "What do you mean by toadie?" Bari: "Oh, I don't know what that means."
Joe: "Okay, I looked it up, and it's like a sycophant." Bari: "Then Tulsi is like an Assad sycophant." Joe: "So what do you mean
by that?" Bari: "I'm not sure what sycophant means either." Joe: "I looked up the definition, it's like a suck-up." Bari: "All
right, Tulsi is an Assad suck-up." Joe: "Could you explain that further?" Bari: "I don't know what suck means." Joe: "It's what
you're doing right now."
"Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job
is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and
the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you
didn't come across as crazy so...
I will be very surprised if neocons would not frame her Putin toady as well. This is how this
system works. It eliminates undesirable to the neoliberals candidates with 100% efficiency.
They
serve as local STASI and some former STASI official might well envy neocons efficiency of
silencing opponents (with much less blood and overt repression, by pure magic of neocon
propaganda ).
Notable quotes:
"... She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan. ..."
"... Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her." ..."
"... When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details." ..."
"... Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists." ..."
"... She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country. ..."
Monday to discuss current events, but
things got embarrassing when she went in on Gabbard, a progressive Democrat whose foreign
policy positions have turned more than a few heads.
Neocon NY Times columnist Bari Weiss smeared Tulsi Gabbard (who bravely opposed regime
change and US support for Salafi-jihadist contras) as an "Assad toady," then couldn't
spell/define toady or offer any evidence to prove her smear. Embarrassingly funny pic.twitter.com/m0MLaHFPiX
When Rogan asks for clarification, she says, "I think that I used that word correctly." She
then asks someone off camera to look up what toady means. "Like toeing the line," Rogan says,
"is that what it means?" "No, I think it's like, uh " and Weiss drones off without an answer.
She then attempts to spell it, and can't even do that. "T-O-A-D-I-E. I think it means what I
think it means "
Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters
or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss
exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven --
known -- about her."
When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant,
Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details."
"We probably should say that before we say that about her -- we should probably read it,
rather, right now, just so we know what she said," Rogan notes. "I think she's, like, the
motherlode of bad ideas," Weiss then says. "I'm pretty positive about that, especially on
Assad. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I'm wrong." It seems to us here at Sputnik that such
claims should be made with a bit more confidence than this. So let's set the record
straight.
Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts
of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January
2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in
the country's civil war as "terrorists."
She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's
government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile
attacks by the US and its allies against the country.
"Initially I hadn't planned on meeting him," Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, told CNN's Jake
Tapper following the meeting. "When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because I
felt it's important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their
suffering, then we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a
possibility that we could achieve peace. And that's exactly what we talked about."
"I have seen this cost of war firsthand, which is why I fight so hard for peace," Gabbard
said. "And that's the reality of the situation that we're facing here. It's why I have urged
and continue to urge [US President Donald] Trump to meet with people like Kim Jong Un in North
Korea, because we understand what's at stake here. The only alternative to having these kinds
of conversations is more war."
Moreover, in a March 2016 speech before Congress, Gabbard called Assad
"a brutal dictator," noting that her opposition to what she called a "war bill" was over the
legal ramifications that she feared would lead to the overthrow of Assad, which she opposes on
anti-interventionist grounds.
"[T]oppling ruthless dictators in the Middle East creates even more human suffering and
strengthens our enemy, groups like ISIS and other terrorist organizations, in those countries,"
Gabbard
said at the time.
Gabbard has been thoroughly demonized for her pro-peace views by global liberal media, as
Trump has been for his moves to end the war in Syria and avoid another on the Korean Peninsula.
For example, The Daily Beast's
article announcing her candidacy called Gabbard "Assad's Favorite Democrat" in its
headline; a Haaretz
headline from last week say she had "Tea With Assad," and the Washington Post has
called her "Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington." The UK Independent
called her a "defender of dictators."
It's not clear what Weiss had in mind when she called Gabbard a "sycophant" and a "toady,"
since the congresswoman's rhetoric about Assad has consisted of skepticism and opposition to
intervention, and she hasn't hesitated to call the Syrian president a "brutal dictator." What
Gabbard's treatment has demonstrated is that a Democrat who steps out of line from the party's
pro-regime change agenda in Syria and who condemns Muslim extremists associated with Daesh and
al-Qaeda should be prepared to suffer for it in the mainstream media.
I love Tulsi; her ad was great. She's the only dem I would vote for at this point. Kamala is an evil hypocrite. And Tulsi's
right, love is the most powerful force in the planet.
Wake up folks -Tulsi would not have run if Bernie was going run. Bernie will endorse her early on and she will have a much
tougher fight than he did, because while Sanders caught the corporate establishment sleeping in 2016, they are now frightened
and see Gabbard coming. They will use every dirty trick at their disposal to keep her from catching fire -and that begins with
dividing progressives like us. Tulsi is not perfect because no one is perfect. But she is young, bright and fucking fearless compared
to other politicians about putting the long term good of the American people above the moneyed interests who think they own our
media and our government. This is why the establishment despises her more than even Sanders. 2020 will reveal weather or not we
can retake ownership of our media and our government. That fight will require all of us - so Kyle get on the bus!
Tulsi is an amazing candidate in her own right, but IMO she would be a perfect VP pick for Bernie. She has the amazing foreign
policy cred and would really shore up Bernie's weakest areas.
Tulsa Gabbard's ad doesn't mention the people who die in the countries we invade. That's 600k people in Iraq for example. A
significant omission me thinks.
The Aloha Spirit Law is a big deal in Hawaii. Government officials are required to approach dignitaries from other countries
or states with the spirit of aloha. "Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation
in return. Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence.
I think that's what we want in a President or a diplomat.
She's great and unique as she doesnt fall back to identity politics and sjwism as much as the standard left politicians. I
hope she doesnt bend her ethics when the sjws come for her. I'm putting my trust in her. I hope she wins. And if she isn't in
the race, i wont be voting.
The question I would love her to address specifically is will her campaign focus on decreasing military spending like Bernie
Sanders? She has a military background and the US loves war. This ad is good but it is tip toing around the MIC ( military industrial
complex) She can be non interventionist but not decrease military spending is what worries me
This is why we need Gabbard on the debate stage. She will push the Overton window on revealing to the public what our military
is actually doing overseas. She's also a staunch progressive. Bernie/Tulsi 2020. Their weakness match well with each other, and
Tulsi was one of the first to jump ship on the sinking DNC ship when Hillary got caught cheating being the DNC. Keep small donations
going into your favorite progressive candidates to hear their voice. It doesn't work any other way folks.
Intervention isn't only an issue about morality. As Dwight Eisenhower put it (even though he himself was far from an anti imperialist),
you can't have an endless stream of money dedicated to military endeavors AND a sufficient investment in domestic public priorities.
This easily explains why we have increasingly decrepit infrastructure, increasingly worse performing education, increasingly worse
performing health care, absurdly insufficient regulation between government and business (although the pay to play system certainly
is the top reason) and a generally decaying public atmosphere. Beyond the fact that getting involved everywhere creates humanitarian
crises, countless dead people, hopelessly destroyed countries, and so much more, even if other countries haven't in return bombed
our shores from sea to sea, even if generally speaking those who consider not only the US but Americans the "enemies" haven't
overwhelmed with non stop attacks, this non stop and ever growing appetite for more money for more war priorities has created
the very decline we see in our country today. Until there is a change in priorities in general, these problems in the US will
only continue to get worse.
Man, Tulsi made me tear up. She's my girl. This message reminds me more of the message of Jesus than many of the fundamentalists.
She's not even Christian, yet represents Christ very well. I love this woman.
Prepare for BAE, Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other weapons corporations and their bum lickers to launch a viscous
smear campaign against her suggesting she's somehow a Neo Nazi communist anti Semitic islamophobic islamist.
Tulsi 2020 she's saying some of the same things Trump said in his 2016 campaign. Unfortunately, he didn't deliver. Per the
corporate Democrates, making America better is a bad thing.
Tulsi can actually beat Trump...if she gets the nomination. The wars are the elephant in the room, and whoever is willing to
take that on full force, can win.
Meanwhile, the modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class.
And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.
Hence the failure of our political system to serve socially conservative/racist voters who also want to tax the rich and preserve
Social Security. Democrats won't ratify their racism; Republicans, who have no such compunctions, will -- remember, the party establishment
solidly backed Roy Moore's Senate bid -- but won't protect the programs they depend on.
Paul Krugman is a baby boomer, pissant globalizer bastard, but he has made reasonable comments about immigration in the past.
Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron who has occasional bouts of clarity on the anti-worker aspects of mass legal immigration and illegal
immigration. Krugman had it right in 2006 when he said that mass immigration lowers wages for workers in the USA.
Krugman in NY Times 2006:
First, the benefits of immigration to the population already here are small. The reason is that immigrant workers are, at least
roughly speaking, paid their "marginal product": an immigrant worker is paid roughly the value of the additional goods and services
he or she enables the U.S. economy to produce. That means that there isn't anything left over to increase the income of the people
already here.
My second negative point is that immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That's just
supply and demand: we're talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production,
so it's inevitable that this means a fall in wages. Mr. Borjas and Mr. Katz have to go through a lot of number-crunching to turn
that general proposition into specific estimates of the wage impact, but the general point seems impossible to deny.
However, Krugman is also a relentless partisan hack. So his expert analysis always ends up supporting the current Democrat
talking points -- whatever they may be.
Here, Krugman is disparaging any move to the center as the DNC wants to keep the Dems unified on the left and keep Schultz
(or anyone like him) out of the race. Of course, the real reason Schultz has massively negative polling is because the Democrat
establishment has been savaging him for precisely this reason.
Likewise, to Krugman a "Racist" politician is anyone who holds the same immigration position as Krugman did in 2006, which
is now anathema to the Dem's new Open Borders electoral strategy.
It's only a matter of time until Krugman starts talking up Kamala Harris as the best thing that could happen for the economy.
Bottom line: Krugman – like any economist who was gifted with a fake Nobel Prize in Economics by his wealthy patrons (the Nobel
Prize in Economics does not exist – check out wikipedia!) – is a whore whose only function is to protect the left flank of our
corrupt and rapacious elite.
He's not a moron, and he's certainly not a liberal. His job – which pays very well mind you – is to pretend to be a sorta-kinda
Keynesian New Dealer, but in reality, anything that the rich wants, he will end up defending. And even if he sorta kinda claims
to be opposing something that the rich want which will impoverish the rest of us, when it comes to the bottom line, he will ruthlessly
attack any opposition to these policies.
1) continue to control the "prestige" outlets: academia, newspapers, major publishers,
2) censor the huge online platforms like Twitter and YouTube,
3) confine the samizdat to small-scale blogs and independent websites,
4) crush any sort of opposition smearing it using anti-Semimuticm chanrge (to keep the opposition confined to online ghettos).
5. ifrnore the rest
It's not going to work, though.
Notable quotes:
"... Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what he has termed, "benevolent global hegemony." ..."
"... In " The Case for the Empire ," Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can't make a "benevolent hegemony" omelet without breaking a few eggs. ..."
"... A year after Kristol published Last's essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct influence of neocons like Kristol and Last. ..."
"... In reality Hussein had put a death warrant out on Zarqawi, who was hiding from Iraq's security forces under the protective aegis of the US Air Force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. It was only after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Iraq that Zarqawi's outfit was able to thrive and evolve into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). And after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Syria, AQI further mutated into Syrian al-Qaeda (which has conquered much of Syria) and ISIS (which has conquered much of Syria and Iraq). ..."
"... The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation, and to instead capitalize on America's new peerless preeminence by making it a big-spending, hyper-active, busybody globo-cop. The newfound predominance must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped in the bud, and the new "unipolar moment" would last forever. ..."
"... What made this neocon dream seem within reach was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia. The year after the Berlin Wall fell, the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was the debut "police action" of unipolar "Team America, World Police." Paul Wolfowitz , the neocon and Iraq War architect, considered it a successful trial run. As Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, recalled : ..."
"... Also in 1996, David Wurmser wrote a strategy document for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," it was co-signed by Wurmser's fellow neocons and future Iraq War architects Richard Perle and Douglas Feith . "A Clean Break" called for regime change in Iraq as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Syria itself was a target because it "challenges Israel on Lebanese soil." It primarily does this by, along with Iran, supporting the paramilitary group Hezbollah, which arose in the 80s out of the local resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and which continually foils Israel's ambitions in that country. ..."
"... The neocons used to be Democrats in the big-government, Cold Warrior mold of Harry Truman and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. After the Vietnam War and the rise of the anti-war New Left, the Democratic Party's commitment to the Cold War waned, so the neocons switched to the Republicans in disgust. ..."
"... According to investigative reporter Jim Lobe, the neocons got their first taste of power within the Reagan administration, in which positions were held by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliot Abrams , and Michael Ledeen . They were especially influential during Reagan's first term of saber-rattling, clandestine warfare, and profligate defense spending, which Kristol and Kagan remembered so fondly in their "Neo-Reaganite" manifesto. ..."
Bill Kristol watches Star Wars
movies, he roots for the Galactic Empire. The leading neocon recently caused a social media
disturbance
in the Force when he tweeted this predilection for the Dark Side following the debut of the final trailer for Star Wars: The
Force Awakens .
Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what
he has termed, "benevolent global hegemony."
Kristol, founder and editor of neocon flagship magazine The Weekly Standard, responded to scandalized critics by linking
to a 2002 essay from the Standard's blog that justifies even the worst of Darth Vader's atrocities. In "
The Case for the
Empire ," Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can't make a "benevolent hegemony" omelet without breaking a few
eggs.
And what if those broken eggs are civilians, like Luke Skywalker's uncle and aunt who were gunned down by Imperial Stormtroopers
in their home on the Middle Eastern-looking arid planet of Tatooine (filmed on location in Tunisia)? Well, as Last sincerely argued,
Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hid Luke and harbored the fugitive droids R2D2 and C3P0; so they were "traitors" who were aiding the rebellion
and deserved to be field-executed.
A year after Kristol published Last's essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their
actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct
influence of neocons like Kristol and Last.
That war was similarly justified in part by the false
allegation that Iraq ruler Saddam Hussein
was harboring and aiding terrorist enemies of the empire like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The civilian-slaughtering siege of
Fallujah , one of
the most brutal episodes of the war, was also specifically justified by the false allegation that the town was harboring Zarqawi.
In reality Hussein had put a death warrant out on Zarqawi, who was hiding from Iraq's security forces under the protective aegis
of the US Air Force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. It was only after the Empire precipitated the chaotic
collapse of Iraq that Zarqawi's outfit was able to
thrive and evolve into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
And after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Syria, AQI further mutated into Syrian al-Qaeda (which has conquered much
of Syria) and ISIS (which has conquered much of Syria and Iraq).
And what if the "benevolent hegemony" omelet requires the breaking of "eggs" the size of whole worlds, like how high Imperial
officer Wilhuff Tarkin used the Death Star to obliterate the planet Alderaan? Well, as Last sincerely argued, even Alderaan likely
deserved its fate, since it may have been, "a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents " Last
contended that Princess Leia was probably lying when she told the Death Star's commander that the planet had "no weapons."
While Last was writing his apologia for global genocide, his fellow neocons were baselessly arguing that Saddam Hussein was similarly
lying about Iraq not having a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. Primarily on that basis, the obliteration of an entire country
began the following year.
And a year after that, President Bush performed a
slapstick comedy act about his failure to find
Iraqi WMDs for a black-tie dinner for radio and television correspondents. The media hacks in his audience, who had obsequiously
helped the neocon-dominated Bush administration lie the country into war, rocked with laughter as thousands of corpses moldered in
Iraq and Arlington. A more sickening display of imperial decadence and degradation has not been seen perhaps since the gladiatorial
audiences of Imperial Rome. This is the hegemonic "benevolence" and "national greatness" that Kristol pines for.
"Benevolent global hegemony" was coined by Kristol and fellow neocon
Robert Kagan in their 1996 Foreign Affairs
article " Toward
a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy ." In that essay, Kristol and Kagan sought to inoculate both the conservative movement and US
foreign policy against the isolationism of Pat Buchanan.
The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public
would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation,
and to instead capitalize on America's new peerless preeminence by making it a big-spending, hyper-active, busybody globo-cop. The
newfound predominance must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped
in the bud, and the new "unipolar moment" would last forever.
What made this neocon dream seem within reach was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia. The year after the Berlin Wall fell,
the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was the debut "police action" of unipolar "Team America, World Police."
Paul Wolfowitz , the neocon and Iraq War architect,
considered it a successful trial run. As Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander for Europe,
recalled :
"In 1991, [Wolfowitz] was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy -- the number 3 position at the Pentagon. And I had gone
to see him when I was a 1-Star General commanding the National Training Center. ( )
And I said, "Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm."
And he said: "Yeah, but not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn't But one
thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the region -- in the Middle East -- and the Soviets won't stop us. And
we've got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes -- Syria, Iran, Iraq -- before the next great superpower
comes on to challenge us."
The 1996 "Neo-Reaganite" article was part of a surge of neocon literary activity in the mid-90s. It was in 1995 that Kristol and
John Podhoretz founded The Weekly Standard with funding from right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Also in 1996, David Wurmser wrote a strategy
document for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," it was co-signed
by Wurmser's fellow neocons and future Iraq War architects
Richard Perle and
Douglas Feith .
"A Clean Break" called for regime change in
Iraq as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Syria itself was a target because it "challenges Israel
on Lebanese soil." It primarily does this by, along with Iran, supporting the paramilitary group Hezbollah, which arose in the 80s
out of the local resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and which continually foils Israel's ambitions in that country.
Later that same year, Wurmser wrote another strategy document, this time for circulation in American and European halls of power,
titled "Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power Strategy for the Levant."
In "A Clean Break," Wurmser had framed regime change in Iraq and Syria in terms of Israeli regional ambitions.
In "Coping," Wurmser adjusted his message for its broader
Western audience by recasting the very same policies in a Cold War framework.
Wurmser characterized regime change in Iraq and Syria (both ruled by Baathist regimes) as "
expediting the chaotic collapse " of secular-Arab nationalism
in general, and Baathism in particular. He concurred with King Hussein of Jordan that, "the phenomenon of Baathism," was, from the
very beginning, "an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy." Of course King Hussein was a bit biased on the matter, since his own
Hashemite royal family once ruled both Iraq and Syria. Wurmser argued that:
" the battle over Iraq represents a desperate attempt by residual Soviet bloc allies in the Middle East to block the extension
into the Middle East of the impending collapse that the rest of the Soviet bloc faced in 1989."
Wurmser further derided Baathism in Iraq and Syria as an ideology in a state of "crumbling descent and missing its Soviet patron"
and "no more than a Cold War enemy relic on probation."
Wurmser advised the West to put this anachronistic adversary out of its misery, and to thus, in Kristolian fashion, press America's
Cold War victory on toward its final culmination. Baathism should be supplanted by what he called the "Hashemite option." After their
chaotic collapse, Iraq and Syria would be Hashemite possessions once again. Both would be dominated by the royal house of Jordan,
which in turn, happens to be dominated by the US and Israel.
Wurmser stressed that demolishing Baathism must be the foremost priority in the region. Secular-Arab nationalism should be given
no quarter, not even, he added, for the sake of stemming the tide of Islamic fundamentalism.
Thus we see one of the major reasons why the neocons were such avid anti-Soviets during the Cold War. It is not just that, as
post-Trotskyites, the neocons resented Joseph Stalin for having Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico with an ice pick. The Israel-first
neocons' main beef with the Soviets was that, in various disputes and conflicts involving Israel, Russia sided with secular-Arab
nationalist regimes from 1953 onward.
The neocons used to be Democrats in the big-government, Cold Warrior mold of Harry Truman and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. After the
Vietnam War and the rise of the anti-war New Left, the Democratic Party's commitment to the Cold War waned, so the neocons switched
to the Republicans in disgust.
According to investigative reporter
Jim Lobe, the neocons got their first taste of power within the Reagan administration, in which positions were held by neocons such
as Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliot Abrams , and
Michael Ledeen . They were especially influential
during Reagan's first term of saber-rattling, clandestine warfare, and profligate defense spending, which Kristol and Kagan remembered
so fondly in their "Neo-Reaganite" manifesto.
It was then that the neocons helped establish the "Reagan Doctrine." According to neocon columnist
Charles Krauthammer , who coined the
term in 1985, the Reagan Doctrine was characterized by support for anti-communist (in reality often simply anti-leftist) forces around
the whole world.
Since the support was clandestine, the Reagan administration was able to bypass the "Vietnam Syndrome" and project power in spite
of the public's continuing war weariness. (It was left to Reagan's successor, the first President Bush, to announce following his
"splendid little" Gulf War that, "by God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all!")
Operating covertly, the Reaganites could also use any anti-communist group they found useful, no matter how ruthless and ugly:
from Contra death squads in Nicaragua to the Islamic fundamentalist mujahideen in Afghanistan. Abrams and Ledeen were both involved
in the Iran-Contra affair, and Abrams was convicted (though later pardoned) on related criminal charges.
Kristol's "Neo-Reaganite" co-author Robert Kagan gave the doctrine an even wider and more ambitious interpretation in his book
A Twilight Struggle :
"The Reagan Doctrine has been widely understood to mean only support for anticommunist guerrillas fighting pro-Soviet regimes,
but from the first the doctrine had a broader meaning. Support for anticommunist guerrillas was the logical outgrowth, not the
origin, of a policy of supporting democratic reform or revolution everywhere, in countries ruled by right-wing dictators as well
as by communist parties."
As this description makes plain, neocon policy, from the 1980s to today, has been every bit as fanatical, crusading, and world-revolutionary
as Red Communism was in the neocon propaganda of yesteryear, and that Islam is in the neocon propaganda of today.
The neocons credit Reagan's early belligerence with the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. But in reality, war is the health
of the State, and Cold War was the
health of Soviet State . The Soviets long used the American menace to frighten the Russian people into rallying around the State
for protection.
After the neocons lost clout within the Reagan administration to "realists" like George Schultz, the later Reagan-Thatcher-Gorbachev
detente began. It was only after that detente lifted the Russian siege atmosphere and quieted existential nuclear nightmares that
the Russian people felt secure enough to demand a changing of the guard.
In 1983, the same year that the first Star Wars trilogy ended, Reagan vilified Soviet Russia in language that Star
Wars fans could understand by dubbing it "the Evil Empire." Years later, having, in Kristol's words, "defeated the evil empire,"
the neocons that Reagan first lifted to power began clamoring for a "neo-Reaganite" global hegemony. And a few years after that,
those same neocons began pointing to the sci-fi Galactic Empire that Reagan implicitly compared to the Soviets as a lovely model
for America!
Fast-forward to return to the neocon literary flowering of the mid-90s. In 1997, the year after writing "Toward a Neo-Reaganite
Foreign Policy" together, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan co-founded
The Project for a New American
Century (PNAC). The 20th century is often called "the American century," largely due to it being a century of war and American
"victories" in those wars: the two World Wars and the Cold War. The neocons sought to ensure that through the never-ending exercise
of military might, the American global hegemony achieved through those wars would last another hundred years, and that the 21st century
too would be "American."
The organization's founding
statement
of principles called for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" and reads like an executive summary of the
founding duo's "Neo-Reaganite" essay. It was signed by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Abrams,
Norman Podhoretz and
Frank Gaffney ; by future Bush administration
officials such as Dick Cheney ,
Donald Rumsfeld ,
Lewis "Scooter" Libby ; and by other
neocon allies, such as Jeb Bush.
Although PNAC called for interventions ranging from Serbia (to roll back Russian influence in Europe) to Taiwan (to roll back
Chinese influence in Asia), its chief concern was to kick off the restructuring of the Middle East envisioned in "A Clean Break"
and "Coping" by advocating its first step: regime change in Iraq.
The most high-profile parts of this effort were two "open letters" published in 1998, one in January addressed to
President Bill
Clinton , and another in May addressed to
leaders of Congress
. As with its statement of principles, PNAC was able to garner signatures for these letters from a wide range of political luminaries,
including neocons (like Perle), neocon allies (like
John Bolton ), and other non-neocons (like James Woolsey and Robert Zoellick).
The open letters characterized Iraq as "a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold
War," and buttressed this ridiculous claim with the now familiar allegations of Saddam building a WMD program.
Thanks in large part to PNAC's pressure, regime change in Iraq became official US policy in October when Congress passed, and
President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. (Notice the Clinton-friendly "humanitarian interventionist" name in spite
of the policy's conservative fear-mongering origins.)
After the Supreme Court delivered George W. Bush the presidency, the neocons were back in the imperial saddle again in 2001: just
in time to make their projected "New American Century" of "Neo-Reaganite Global Hegemony" a reality. The first order of business,
of course, was Iraq.
But some pesky national security officials weren't getting with the program and kept trying to distract the administration with
concerns about some Osama bin Laden character and his Al Qaeda outfit. Apparently they were laboring under some pedestrian notion
that their job was to protect the American people and not to conquer the world.
For example, when National Security Council counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke was frantically sounding the alarm over an
imminent terrorist attack on America,Wolfowitz was uncomprehending. As Clarke recalled, the then Deputy Defense Secretary
objected :
"I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden."
Clarke informed him that:
"We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are
talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States."
This simply did not fit in the agenda-driven neocon worldview of Wolfowitz, who responded:
"Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example."
"During that same time period [in 2001], the CIA was raising alarms too. According to Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York
Times reporter given access to the Daily Briefs prepared by the intelligence agencies for President Bush in the spring and
summer of 2001, the CIA
told
the White House by May 1 that 'a group presently in the United States' was planning a terrorist attack. On June 22, the Daily
Brief
warned
that al-Qaeda strikes might be 'imminent.'
But the same Defense Department officials who discounted Clarke's warnings pushed back against the CIA's. According to
Eichenwald's
sources , 'the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the
C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration
from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.'
By the time Clarke and the CIA got the Bush administration's attention, it was already too late to follow any of the clear leads
that might have been followed to prevent the 9/11 attacks.
The terrorist attacks by Sunni Islamic fundamentalists mostly from the Saudi Kingdom hardly fit the neocon agenda of targeting
the secular-Arab nationalist regimes of Iraq and Syria and the Shiite Republic of Iran: especially since all three of the latter
were mortal enemies of bin Laden types.
But the attackers were, like Iraqis, some kind of Muslims from the general area of the Middle East. And that was good enough for
government work in the American idiocracy. After a youth consumed with state-compelled drudgery, most Americans are so stupid and
incurious that such a meaningless relationship, enhanced with some fabricated "intelligence," was more than enough to
stampede the spooked American herd into supporting the
Iraq War.
As Benjamin Netanyahu once
said , "America is
a thing you can move very easily."
Whether steering the country into war would be easy or not, it was all neocon hands on deck. At the Pentagon there was Wolfowitz
and Perle, with Perle-admirer Rumsfeld as SecDef. Feith was also at Defense, where he set up two new offices for the special purpose
of spinning "intelligence" yarn to tie Saddam with al-Qaeda and to weave fanciful pictures of secret Iraqi WMD programs.
Wurmser himself labored in one of these offices, followed by stints at State aiding neocon-ally Bolton and in the Vice President's
office aiding neocon-ally Cheney along with Scooter Libby.
Iran-Contra convict Abrams was at the National Security Council aiding Condoleezza Rice. And Kristol and Kagan continued to lead
the charge in the media and think tank worlds.
And they pulled it off. Wurmser finally got his "chaotic collapse" in Iraq. And Kristol finally had his invincible, irresistible,
hyper-active hegemony looming over the world like a Death Star.
The post-9/11 pretense-dropping American Empire even had Dick Cheney with his Emperor Palpatine snarl preparing Americans to accept
torture by saying:
"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will."
The Iraq War ended up backfiring on the neocons. It installed a new regime in Baghdad that was no more favorable toward Israel
and far more favorable toward Israel's enemies Iran and Syria. But the important thing was that Kristol's Death Star was launched
and in orbit. As long as it was still in proactive mode, there was nothing the neocons could not fix with its awful power.
This seemed true even during the Obama presidency. On top of Iraq and Afghanistan, under Obama the American Death Star has demolished
Yemen and Somalia. It also demolished both Syria and Libya, where it continues the Wurmsurite project of precipitating the chaotic
collapse of secular-Arab nationalism. Islamic terror groups including al-Qaeda and ISIS are thriving in that chaos, but the American
Death Star to this day has adhered to Wurmser's de-prioritization of the Islamist threat.
As Yoda said, "Fear is the path to the Dark Side." The neocons have been able to use the fear generated by a massive Islamic fundamentalist
terror attack to pursue their blood-soaked vendetta against secular-Arab nationalists, even to the benefit of the very Islamic fundamentalists
who attacked us, because even after 12 years Americans are still too bigoted and oblivious to distinguish between the two
groups.
Furthermore, Obama has gone beyond Wurmser's regional ambitions and has fulfilled Kristol's busybody dreams of global hegemony
to a much greater extent than Bush ever did. To appease generals and arms merchants worried about his prospective pull-outs from
the Iraqi and Afghan theaters, Obama launched both an imperial "pivot" to Asia and a stealth invasion of Africa. The pull-outs were
aborted, but the continental "pivots" remain. Thus Obama's pretenses as a peace President helped to make his regime the most ambitiously
imperialistic and globe-spanning that history has ever seen.
But the neocons may have overdone it with their Death Star shooting spree, because another great power now seems determined to
put a stop to it. And who is foiling the neocons' Evil Empire? Why none other than the original "Evil Empire": the neocons' old nemesis
Russia.
In 2013, Russia's Putin diplomatically frustrated the neocons' attempt to deliver the coup de grâce to the Syrian regime
with a US air war. Shortly afterward, Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland yanked Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence by engineering
a bloody coup in Kiev. Putin countered by bloodlessly annexing the Ukrainian province of Crimea. A proxy war followed between the
US-armed and Western-financed junta in Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
The US continued to intervene in Syria, heavily sponsoring an insurgency dominated by extremists including al-Qaeda and ISIS.
But recently, Russia decided to intervene militarily. Suddenly, Wolfowitz's lesson from the Gulf War was up in smoke. The neocons
cannot militarily do whatever they want in the Middle East and trust that Russia will stand idly by. Suddenly the arrogant Wolfowitz/Wurmser
dream of crumbling then cleaning up "old Soviet client regimes" and "Cold War enemy relics" had gone poof. Putin decided that Syria
would be one "Cold War relic" turned terrorist playground too many.
Russia's entry into Syria has thrown all of the neocons' schemes into disarray.
By actually working to destroy Syrian al-Qaeda and ISIS instead of just pretending to, as the US and its allies have, Russia threatens
to eliminate the head-chopping bogeymen whose Live Leak-broadcasted brutal antics continually renew in Americans the war-fueling
terror of 9/11. And after Putin had taken the US air strike option off the table, al-Qaeda and ISIS were the neocons most powerful
tools for bringing down the Syrian regime. And now Russia is threatening to take those toys away too.
If Hezbollah and Iran, with Russia's air cover, manage to help save what is left of Syria from the Salafist psychos, they will
be more prestigious in both Syria and Lebanon than ever, and Israel may never be able to dominate its northern neighbors.
The neocons are livid. After the conflicts over Syria and Ukraine in 2013, they had already started ramping up the vilification
of Putin. Now the demonization has gone into overdrive.
One offering in this milieu has been an article by Matthew Continetti in the neocon web site he edits, The Washington Free Beacon.
Titled " A Reagan Doctrine
for the Twenty-First Century ," it obviously aims to be a sequel to Kristol's and Kagan's "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy."
As it turns out, the Russian "Evil Empire" was not defeated after all: only temporarily dormant. And so Continetti's updated Reaganite
manifesto is subtitled, "How to confront Vladimir Putin."
The US military may be staggering around the planet like a drunken, bloated colossus. Yet Continetti still dutifully trots out
all the Kristolian tropes about the need for military assertiveness (more drunken belligerence), massive defense spending (more bloating),
and "a new American century." Reaganism is needed now just as much as in 1996, he avers: in fact, doubly so, for Russia has reemerged
as:
" the greatest military and ideological threat to the United States and to the world order it has built over decades as guarantor
of international security."
Right, just look at all that security sprouting out of all those bomb craters the US has planted throughout much of the world.
Oh wait no, those are terrorists.
Baby-faced Continetti, a Weekly Standard contributor, is quite the apprentice to Sith Lord Kristol, judging from his
ardent faith in the "Benevolent Global Hegemony" dogma. In fact, he even shares Lord Kristol's enthusiasm for "Benevolent Galactic
Hegemony." It was Continetti who kicked off the recent Star Wars /foreign policy brouhaha when he tweeted:
"I've been rooting for the Empire since 1983"
This elicited a concurring response from Kristol, which is what set Twitter atwitter. Of course the whole thing was likely staged
and coordinated between the two neocon operatives.
Unfortunately for the neocons, demonizing Putin over Syria is not nearly as easy as demonizing Putin over Ukraine. With Ukraine,
there was a fairly straight-forward (if false) narrative to build of big bully Russia and plucky underdog Ukraine.
However, it's pretty hard to keep a lid on the fact that Russia is attacking al-Qaeda and ISIS, along with any CIA-trained jihadist
allies are nearby. And it's inescapably unseemly for the US foreign policy establishment to be so bent out of shape about Russia
bombing sworn enemies of the American people, even if it does save some dictator most Americans don't care about one way or the other.
And now that wildly popular wild card Donald Trump is spouting unwelcome common sense to his legions of followers about how standing
back and letting Russia bomb anti-American terrorists is better than starting World War III over it. And this is on top of the fact
that Trump is deflating Jeb Bush's campaign by throwing shade at his brother's neocon legacy, from the failures over 9/11 to the
disastrous decision to regime change Iraq. And the neocon-owned Marco Rubio, who actually adopted "A New American Century" as his
campaign slogan, is similarly making no headway against Trump.
And Russia's involvement in Syria just keeps getting worse for the neocons. Washington threatened to withdraw support from the
Iraqi government if it accepted help from Russia against ISIS. Iraq accepted Russian help anyway. Baghdad has also sent militias
to fight under Russian air cover alongside Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces.
Even Jordan, that favorite proxy force in Israel's dreams of regional dominance, has begun coordinating with Russia, in spite
of its billion dollars a year of annual aid from Washington. Et tu Jordan?!
Apparently there aren't enough Federal Reserve notes in Janet Yellen's imagination to pay Iraq and Jordan to tolerate living amid
a bin Ladenite maelstrom any longer.
And what is Washington going to do about it if the whole region develops closer ties with Russia? What are the American people
going to let them get away with doing about it? A palace coup in Jordan? Expend more blood and treasure to overthrow the very same
Iraqi government we already lost much blood and treasure in installing? Start a suicidal hot war with nuclear Russia?
And the neocon's imperial dreams are coming apart at the seams outside of the war zones too. The new Prime Minister of Canada
just announced he will pull out of America's war in the Levant. Europe wants to compromise with Russia on both Ukraine and Syria,
and this willingness will grow as the refugee crisis it is facing worsens. Obama made a nuclear deal with Iran and initiated detente
with Cuba. And worst of all for neocons, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is being de-legitimized by the bourgeoning BDS movement
and by images of its own brutality propagating through social media, along with translations of its hateful rhetoric.
The neocons bit off more than they could chew, and their Galactic Empire is falling apart before it could even fully conquer its
first planet.
Nearly all empires end due to over-extension. If brave people from Ottawa to Baghdad simply say "enough" within a brief space
of time, hopefully this empire can dissolve relatively peacefully like the Soviet Empire did, leaving its host civilization intact,
instead of dragging that civilization into oblivion along with it like the Roman Empire did.
But beware, the imperial war party will not go quietly into the night, unless we in their domestic tax base insist that there
is no other way. If, in desperation, they start calling for things like more boots on the ground, reinstating the draft, or declaring
World War III on Russia and its Middle Eastern allies, we must stand up and say with firm voices something along the lines of the
following:
No. You will not have my son for your wars. And we will not surrender any more of our liberty. We will no longer yield to a regime
led by a neocon clique that threatens to extinguish the human race. Your power fantasy of universal empire is over. Just let it go.
Or, as Anakin finally did when the Emperor came for his son, we will hurl your tyranny into the abyss.
WASHINGTON -- In an impassioned call for preemptive action against the Middle Eastern
nation, United States national security advisor John Bolton insisted Thursday that Iran was
likely harboring the dangerous terrorist Osama bin Laden. "For the good of our nation, we must
act immediately," said Bolton, citing several intelligence reports providing significant
evidence that Iran is currently providing sanctuary to the Al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of
the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We must never rest until this fugitive is brought to justice, and the only way to achieve
that is through repeated and prolonged military strikes on Iran.
We have reason to believe that he's living in a compound there where he's training a legion
of bloodthirsty Iranian civilians to take up arms as the next generation of terrorists. It is
our solemn duty as the international safeguard of freedom to prevent this at all costs."
At press time, Bolton had left the podium to follow up on an important tip that Iranian
leaders had hired American nuclear physicist Otto Gunther Octavius.
The original bronze disks of Rome circulated as currency. The metal money of U.S.
Confederacy circulated that is until the Confederacy became no more.
The point? Money's true nature is law. When a country collapses, then its money
collapses.
Paper money that was good? Lincoln's greenbacks circulated at par. Massachusetts Bills
circulated as money and prevented Oligarchs from England and their attempted takeover. The
colony used the money to make iron goods (like Cannons) and do commerce.
The real statement is this: Money when it becomes unlawful, always collapses.
Massive money printing can happen when too many loans are made, as in the case today as
all private bank credit notes come into being with loan activity -- a little more that
98%.
Driving a currency down with shorts causes new money to be loaned into existence, which in
turn is the underlying cause of hyperinflations. The new credit creation covers the short.
This mechanism always goes along with exchange rate pressures, where your country has to pay
a debt in a foreign currency.
If you had an internal gold currency, which is recognized internationally, then your debts
would be paid in gold, which would collapse your country into depression instead of
inflation.
Bottom line is that money's true nature is law, and making claims about "paper" or "metal"
obscures this fact.
Since both the Fed and your local bank create money from nothing
They also impose some obligations: repayment of principle and interest. Since we
can't create money from nothing, this payback has to come from money somehow created by the
banks as well.
I'm less worried about "disappearing" tax money than I am about misallocated spending
and its consequences -- eg the 'black budget' of the NSA and 'deep state' generally.
Can't we worry about everything ?
Good point about the 'black budget'. But the last time some sort of DOD audit was
attempted the Pentagon accountants' offices got hit by a missile, I mean airliner, on
911.
On Twitter and from the Senate floor, Paul made clear his distaste for McConnell's amendment
that warns that "the precipitous withdrawal of United States' forces from either country could
put at risk hard-won gains and United States national security."
Paul, a non-interventionist, instead hailed Trump for being "bold enough and strong enough"
to end the war in Afghanistan that began after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The
senator argued there was no longer a military mission for U.S. troops to remain. He called
McConnell's amendment an "insult" to Trump.
"How do you leave precipitously after 17 years?" Paul asked. "We are no longer fighting
anyone who attacked us on 9-11."
Paul called the amendment -- which McConnell authored and is widely viewed as a rebuke to
Trump's plans to withdraw troops from the two countries -- a product of a "war caucus" that
Paul said includes Republicans and Democrats.
Read more here:
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article225518415.html#storylink=cpy
McConnell has been careful not to
criticize Trump, instead focusing on some Democratic opposition. But the amendment cleared the
Senate 90 minutes after Paul spoke with a 70 to 26 vote and support from senators from both
parties.
McConnell labeled the provision as an "opportunity for senators to go on the record about
what the United States should be doing in Syria and Afghanistan."
He'd made his views clear: "I believe the threats remain. ISIS and al Qaeda have yet to be
defeated. And American national security interests require continued commitment to our missions
there."
Trump came under sharp criticism from his own party after claiming in a tweet in December
that the U.S. had defeated ISIS in Syria and that he was ordering a "full" and "rapid"
withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended
the amendment and criticized the press for casting it as a rebuke to Trump.
"This is the process working the way it was intended to, for the (president) to raise these
issues and then discussions take place," Risch said.
Paul has been a longtime critic of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and last year
dispatched his Senate committee staff to the country to document what he says is "wasteful
spending of taxpayer dollars" and "rampant corruption."
Read more here:
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article225518415.html#storylink=cpy
"... Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was mixed. ..."
"... PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem. ..."
"... There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go. ..."
"... I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq. ..."
Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign
interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was
mixed.
We launched an ineffective volley of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to a trumped up gas attack, but we never
sought to establish a no fly zone and risk war with Russia. For a while we were well on our way to establish an enduring client state
in east Syria. We assumed this was all the doing of the cabal of manipulating neocons that Trump surrounded himself with. His call
for immediate withdrawal of troops from Syria surely proved this true. Finally Trump was allowed to be Trump. He was even seeking
a way out of Afghanistan, after a literal lifetime of war in that godforsaken land.
The neocons are fighting back bigly. The pace of withdrawal from Syria was slowed and there is no indication we would ever
give up our outpost on the Baghdad-Damascus highway at Tanf. Why? I think Trump laid out HIS thoughts on the matter during the traditional
pre-super bowl presidential interview.
-- -- -- --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have...
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you want to keep troops there [Iraq] now?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the
reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Whoa, that's news. You're keeping troops in Iraq because you want to be able to strike in Iran?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable
and expensive military base built in Iraq. It's perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle
East rather than pulling up. And this is what a lot of people don't understand. We're going to keep watching and we're going to
keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before
they do.
-- -- -- --
So, We are staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran and we are doing this to protect Israel. It was not any of the neocons who said
this. It was Trump himself. So much for America first. There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force
after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue
providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go.
However, Baghdad has thrown a monkey wrench into this developing Trump doctrine. Iraqi President Barham Salih has told Trump to
slow his roll.
-- -- -- --
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask Iraq's permission for
U.S. troops stationed there to "watch Iran."
Speaking at a forum in Baghdad, Salih was responding to a question about Trump's comments to CBS about how he would ask troops
stationed in Iraq to "watch" Iran. U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific
mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and that they should stick to that. (Reuters)
-- -- -- --
I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq.
"... Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets. ..."
"... After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well: ..."
"... After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense. ..."
"... I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted. ..."
"... I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag. ..."
The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.
Pence has no need to undermine Trump. He can just wait. All the militant Zionist Trump brought into the WH have already done
that ..and Trump let them. Who do you suppose Kushner has shared US secret intelligence with Israel for sure, probably Saudi in
exchange for their allying with Israel. We use to worry about spies and moles in government but now they are the government.
Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass
after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets.
by Tina Nguyen
January 25, 2019 11:44 am
AFP
The CIA took one look at Kushner's SCI application and freaked out, calling over to the White House to find out how he even
got the lower level clearance.
[MORE]
In May, after months working under an interim clearance, Jared Kushner's request for a permanent security clearance, which
would allow him to see top-secret material, was finally granted. At the time, observers took this as an indication that Donald
Trump's son-in-law, who'd reportedly attracted Robert Mueller's attention for his ties to various foreign entities, was in the
clear.
On Thursday, however, an NBC News report threw that conclusion into doubt. In fact, two sources familiar with the matter told
the outlet, Kushner's clearance was only approved because Trump's handpicked director of security personnel overruled two career
White House security specialists, who had recommended against Kushner receiving top-secret clearance after seeing the results
of his F.B.I. background check.
Kushner's case represents a worrisome pattern for the White House. Per NBC, Trump's director of security, Carl Kline, overruled
security experts in at least 30 cases, recommending that Trump officials be granted clearances despite troubling information uncovered
in their background checks. That number is indeed extraordinary.
Prior to the Trump administration, White House security experts had only been overruled once in the past three years. (The
White House told NBC, "We don't comment on security clearances." A CIA. spokesman said the same, and Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell,
had "no comment." Kline, a former Pentagon employee, could not be reached for comment.)
Denying a security clearance to a White House official, noted Daniel Jacobson, a former lawyer in Barack Obama's administration,
is not something that's done lightly. "It is not normal for the head of the Personal Security Office to ever overrule the career
employees who adjudicate clearances," he wrote on Twitter. "It takes some pretty bad stuff to be denied a clearance. The fact
that there have been thirty denial recommendations of WH staff in the last 1.5 years is itself crazy, before you even get to the
overruling part."
After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I.,
or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well:
After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter
said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources
said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense.
@renfroI don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and
Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as
though that is a person to be trusted.
I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep
Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag.
It is very difficult for normal people to understand that one of distinguishing feature of psychopaths is that they simply do
not care about the laws and about moral principles. The only thing they care about is being caught, but even this is often not the
case for some of them. There is a category of psychopaths who display wanton disregard for laws ignoring possible consequences,
despite the fact that they are not completely stupid. For them they not only doe not exist, or they are just for
"deplorables" to borrow Hillary epithet for common people.
If this is the case for a female psychopath this is vey dangerous and not that easy to detect as we intuitively prescribe to
female less aggressiveness and better law obedience. Huge disappointments may follow.
Notable quotes:
"... I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys. Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless, it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil. ..."
"... That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly regulated it can produce some good. ..."
"... Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either. ..."
I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is
irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys.
Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs
for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless,
it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil.
That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists
like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like
unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly
regulated it can produce some good.
You also ignore the fact that all those MIC profiteers don't really want WWIII. They want
to keep stealing huge amounts of taxpayers' money on military contracts. For that they scare
the common folk with dangers that do not exist and regale them with "patriotic" BS they don't
believe in. Deep down they know that to enjoy their loot they must stay alive: unlike
pathetic politicians, the gods do not take bribes.
As to those people throwing rocks from the overpass of I-75, I think "Beavis and
Butt-Head" answers your question. Hopeless stupidity of people totally lacking imagination,
when it becomes active, is evil. But the people themselves are just unimaginative morons.
So, my point is there is no such thing as evil per se, there is greed and stupidity (often
the combination of the two) that leads to evil actions.
Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they
would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich
themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either.
You can call them evil, if you wish, but that worldview is the dead end: if there are
inherently good and inherently evil people, you simply cannot do anything about that. You can
promise rewards or punishments in the afterlife, but that would not prevent any crimes or get
murdered people back to life here on Earth.
If you look for causes of evil behavior instead, you have a chance to minimize or
eliminate those causes, thereby minimizing evil behavior. That does not negate the spiritual
nature of humans, unless by "spiritual" you mean supernatural.
So, from my perspective, the views you propound are essentially defeatist. Personally, I
do not think anyone is inherently predisposed to good or evil, you have to look for motives.
Then you have a chance to motivate good behavior and demotivate evil one.
However, let me tell you what I tell my students: if you are conventionally religious, you
don't want to discuss religion with me.
Internally, a national currency has a value corresponding to demand placed by the
government, such as money for the taxes the state requires of its people. The ups and downs
of Lincoln's Greenback fiat currency, especially its interaction with the value of gold,
demonstrates how currency is tied to confidence in the government, as you suggest.
Externally, a nation's currency usually has value to the extent that a nation has
something to offer others, which makes the currency useful for making a desired purchase.
Today, the "desired purchase" is oil. The dollar is valued because you need dollars to buy
oil, as formerly enforced by diplomatic pressure. Because of US sanctions, trade in oil is
now beginning using rubles, yuan, and most unforgivably, Venezuelan currency! (Like Iraq,
Libya and Syria). If this keeps up, countries will no longer need dollars for their oil, and
$ will have to compete internationally based on other considerations. That won't be pretty.
IMHO, US leaders have dangerously eroding the dollar's pre-eminence by profligate use of
sanctions.
I need to remedy my own deficiencies in this area, but advocates of Modern Monetary
Theory, like Michael Hudson, Steve Keene, and like-minded economists who often post at
nakedcapitalism, make a strong case for a fiat money system, issued and controlled by
state banks, in contrast to the private banks as now.
But objecting to the fact that private bankers charge us interest, and act above the law
and democratic accountability, is such a quaint complaint.
Feb 2, 2019 The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela. The U.S. and its
allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt in Venezuela. As
usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing could be farther
from the truth.
Feb 3, 2019 Venezuela's Oil Enough for World's 30 Year Energy Needs
The long bankrupt fiat financial system is pushing the Deep State to target Venezuela for
the latter's natural resources that dwarfs that of its satellite province Saudi Arabia.
"... An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran ..."
"... Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue? For another 100 years? ..."
"... The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness. ..."
Trump wants to
keep U.S. forces in Iraq so they can "watch" Iran:
President Trump plans to keep United States troops in Iraq to monitor and maintain pressure on neighboring Iran, committing
to an American military presence in the region's war zones even as he moves to withdraw forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
"I want to be able to watch Iran," Mr. Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We're going to
keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things,
we're going to know it before they do."
An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops
in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that
their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran.
Many Iraqis already want U.S. forces out of the country now that ISIS has been dealt with, and there will probably be even more
demanding our withdrawal if Trump tries to keep U.S. forces there for this purpose.
Trump's suggestion that Iran might "do nuclear weapons" is more of the same propaganda that he and his officials have been pushing
for months. Iran is unable to develop and build nuclear weapons because it is complying with the nuclear deal that Trump reneged
on. Thanks to the nuclear deal, the IAEA is able to conduct very intrusive inspections as part of the most rigorous verification
regime, and they would be the first to know if Iran were violating the restrictions set down in the JCPOA.
It is unlikely that the Iraqi government is going to agree to a U.S. presence that is being justified by hostility to its neighbor.
Iraq's president has already said that the U.S. military presence is permitted in the country only for the purposes of counter-terrorism:
Iraq's government wants to maintain good relations with Iran, and it isn't going to go along with an anti-Iranian agenda that
can only harm Iraq's economic and security interests. Many of Iran's neighbors are not as obsessed with and hostile to Iran as the
Trump administration, and Iraq definitely doesn't want to be a front-line state in some anti-Iranian coalition. Trump's proposal
would needlessly put U.S. troops at greater risk in Iraq, and it would gain the U.S. nothing except more resentment from Iraqis.
Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this
occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue?
For another 100 years?
The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness.
@Bill Instead of looking at this issue using a microscope, reading history about how
Empires fall lends wisdom and insight. Arrighi's book, (I believe) is called "The Long
Twentieth Century." He details how empires and huge trading giants rise and fall.
He details the rise of Italy's banking system during the Middle Ages as well as Spain's
Empire, the Dutch trading hegemonies and most enlightening how the British Empire rose and
fell.
We are seeing tell-tale symptoms of a US that's in trouble with a slow erosion of the US
$$ hegemony. The financial growth of China has begun degrading the US market with hi-tech and
other products. Thusly, you see Tim Cook of Apple apoplectic over China's Huwaii (sp?)
flooding the European market with less expensive computers, cellulars, notebooks, etc.
We see the practical nature of Exxon Mobile that views the short geographic distance
between the US (its military) to Venezuela's oil and mineral-rich soil. An easy pick, rather
than becoming further embroiled in the Middle East.
Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel)
to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A
telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony.
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others
But in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else,
the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression
against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates
every letter of the most sacred principles of international law.
This is exactly the same
tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during
basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up
any semblance of dignity.
@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has
weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway
in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.
Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one
economy.
"... That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. ..."
CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.
That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes
that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and
overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of
the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in
spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred
principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean
toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to
condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of
dignity.
...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid
as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they
felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the
strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the
Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top
positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian
Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White
House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight "
and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all
their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
LOL Deep State is a term used by the simple minded. There is no 'deep state' there is
however a shadow government and it is made up of various groups all jockeying for
their own interest.
We have the 'Establishment..i.e. the two parties who want to maintain
their political power. We have the Corporate Elites and Globalist ' who want to control the
world's commerce and economies. We have Wall Street who doesnt want any restrictions on their
financial crimes. We have Domestic Business Interest who want laws and policies favorable to
them. We have Foreign Interest who want to use the US for their country.
Sometimes they join forces when their interest coincide, sometimes they don't.
Outside of this shadow government we have Ideological Activist of various kinds that can
be useful or not to the Establishment, the Globalist, Wall Street, Domestic Business Interest
and Foreign Interest.
All of the above are why we cant and don't have coherent policies on anything foreign or
domestic.
People like you who want to ascribe everything to some giant conspiracy in the CIA help to
dumb people down , its easier for the lazy to have one or two big scary entities to blame.
You cant even explain what the CIA conspiracy is can you? Tell us how the CIA maintains their
conspiracy against the US and what their goal is. How does the CIA maintain their secret
agenda when the CIA is subject to new CIA directors with every change of presidents and
parties?
Orwell, in his book, 1984 wrote that the government had two terms: Oldspeak and Newspeak. One
was not permitted to use old speak.
" This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating
undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so
far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.
To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be
used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from
weeds."
It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free,"
since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were
therefore of necessity nameless."
Were sliding down a slippery, ever-darkening slope. When I step back and try to examine
the whole picture, it's very concerning. Take, for instance, [MORE]
The article had a link to a WordPress article, penned by John Whitehead, The Rutherford
Institute about what has crept into America, via the Militarization of the Police Force.
I subscribed to his newsletter, years ago when Bush and, then, Obama gave Military
Armament to Civilian Police forces. When the "FBI raids Stone's Home" story hit, complete
with CNN presence, I realized that we do, in fact have policing by fear in the U.S.,
advertised by Cable News. I'm not an alarmist but, I am taking this all in and it doesn't
look good for us. I've also read that millions of Americans are leaving this country, yes, in
droves. I've thought about it, before but, don't know if I can convince Wifey this is what we
need to do since were in our 70s.
Whiteheads sight has an ongoing ledger of Police incompetence, armed to the teeth just to
deliver a warrant, often going to the wrong house, creating chaos, shooting people and their
animals and then finding out that they raided the wrong house and killed the wrong person. A
flash-band grenade was launched into the wrong residence, landed on a toddler in a crib and
burned a hole in its stomach. The scales are tipped in the favor of cops and, if a homeowner
attempts to defend himself, he's prosecuted to the full extent of the "law."
Our 4th amendment is gone. Our First and Second Amendment Rights are under heavy attack.
There's a call for a Constitutional Convention with almost all of the States sign on for an
Article Five Convention.
Were all in deep shit. It doesn't matter if you are guilty of a crime or not. If they'll
go after an unarmed Roger Stone, guns pointed, in front of his family, terrorizing them for
National TV, what do YOU think is their intent? With 10 Zillion Super-Cop shows on TV for the
last forty years, where they always get their man, never make errors and show how violent
they are, legally, what do you think is the intent?
Nothing happens on the government level by accident NOTHING
First, Myspace sucked in all of the youngsters and they learned how easy it was to
communicate, online. Then, Twitter and Facebook arrived as beacons of free speech. Then,
other commentary friendly web site pop up everywhere, allowing you to spew your agitated
heart out and argue with each other and call each other names and then opposite ideologies
manifested in separate sites on the net with "moderators" that throw registrants off
(banning/banishing) them for defending their positions echo chambers for the "alt" Right or
the politically correct Left Trump bashers. Sometime, I suggest you go to these and read the
commenters' remarks. They're literally insane. I was even banned from a DISCUSS site for
suggesting some civil discourse, identifying myself as a Trump Voter.
Do you really believe that all of these issues simply morphed to lock out Conservatives?
No way. This was all planned, possibly to I.D. individuals who are "potential" adversaries of
a different ideology or possible "problem people" that get put on a watch list. If the DNA
Ancestry sights are GIVING your DNA results to the Government, what good can come of it?
"... More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder. Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face. ..."
It is true that censoring social media platforms will be very harmful to actual democracy.
There can be no real democracy without an informed public, and the marketplace of ideas must
be open to all IF you want an informed, thinking public who are capable of shifting through
differing views and logically deciding which position to support.
But the catch, of course, is that our ruling overlords actually hate an informed and logical
public. They prefer gullible cretins who swallow whatever ruling class propaganda is beamed
to them through radio or TV, into each individual house or car.
For decades, people have been subject to one-way, top-down propaganda beamed to each
individual, with no way for each person to know how other people were reacting to said
propaganda, no way of checking the "facts" given to them, and no way of hearing skeptics
debunk the fallacies.
That changed with social media. It is my opinion that social media was launched as a way for
our rulers to monitor our opionions and reactions to their propaganda. It was to be a billion
person focus group, with instaneous results to each new ploy.
But millions of people seized upon this new communication device to start communicating with
each other! People around the country and around the world started talking to each other,
laughing at the most outlandish ruling class claims, spread clever memes to ridicule the
nonsense, and sharing opinions and facts between each other.
For the first time, we could communicate horizontally and we did.
Our overlords grew increasingly alarmed. They started telling us about Fake News, and the
harmful effects of hearing Non-Approved opinions and "conspiracy theorists" who used
dangerous facts and science to debunk Official Stories.
The Empire is Striking Back. For the last 2 years, the repression has gotten more and more
intense, with multiple people losing access to social media, and the rest of us being told it
is our "moral duty" to leave Facebook, so as not to contaminate the mass mind with unapproved
messages.
Personally, I think that we have lost. I see even people who are alarmed at the repression
personalizing it, such as blaming Mark Zuckerberg, personally, for bowing to the ruling class
pressure we ALL watched him undergo!
It is true that restricting information and debate is bad public policy, but only if you want
a vibrant and informed democracy.
It is clear to me that our ruling overlords want to such thing, and the last two years of
increasingly shrill denunciations of a free and open internet are proof of that.
For decades our owners were able to transmit their propaganda vertically, top down, into
each individual's house or car. No person receiving the propaganda was able to know how other
people were reacting, or to judge the veracity of the facts or to share their skepticism at
outright lies and obvious falsehoods.
It is my opinion that social media was created by our rulers to monitor our opinions and
reactions to their propaganda, as sort of a billion-person, real time focus group.
But millions of us started using it as a horizontal communication tool, a way to share our
information, opinions and skepticism with each other, with people all over the world, with no
interference from the moderators.
This is why we have been subjected to a couple of years of increasing denunciations of
"fake news" and warnings of Wrong Opinions and admonitions that it is our moral duty to stay
away from Facebook, so as not to contaminate our minds with unapproved ideas.
More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder.
Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face.
Politics is the very art of conspiracy although conspiracy is not confined to politics.
Official conspiracy theories (Russiagate, to give a current example) should inspire much more
skepticism than dissident conspiracy theories. But any theory should be subject to analysis
and challenge. If a theory is impossibly convoluted or unfalsifiable, ignore it. Also, the
vague generalization "it's all part of the conspiracy" is not helpful at all. It suggests
that there is only one conspiracy and that conspiracy explains everything – sort of
like Divine Providence, but malevolent.
I recall seeing a video c. 2010, wherein following a boring speech by Cass Sunstein, Luke
Rudkowski (of We Are Change), who was in the audience, asked Mr. Sunstein about some of the
views he had expressed in his original article. I believe the original article was published
c. 2007. Sunstein claimed that he did not remember having written such an article ("I write a
lot of articles, how can I remember, yadda, yadda ") and slunk off as quickly as possible to
his coward's hidey hole. I guess he remembered later, and padded it out to a book length
piece of excrement, which gets a 61% 1-star ratings by Amazon reviewers.
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, former 'information czar' of the White House staff in
the Barack Obama administration, is discussed in the Dept of Justice
Inspector General file on crimes involving Robert Mueller , in quite appalling terms,
Sunstein described as supporting a campaign of lying against his own undergraduate Harvard
classmate, an ex-DOJ employee described in the DOJ file as a victim of threats of murder
indulged by former FBI Director Mueller. From page 24 of that DOJ report:
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, Hillary propagandist, supporting threats to kill
his own Harvard classmate. One of the corrupt Obama administration officials, was
'information czar' Cass Sunstein A man with apparently no ethics except his wishing to
serve the Hillary Clinton wing of the powerful, Cass Sunstein was able to receive a portion
of bribes, for indulging the campaign of terrorism, extortion, and defamation against his
classmate.
Sunstein is a leading propagandist for the network planting lies on the internet to
attack common people. Along with Sunstein refusing to write or sign even a one-sentence
note asking for prosecution of those menacing to murder his classmate, Sunstein has
declined to modify or amend his oily propaganda for 'wiki world' and 'nudging', as
euphemisms for what Sunstein knows are criminals spreading lies to destroy and kill people,
including the attack on someone Sunstein knew as a boy.
"Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that
threat be? Oddly, he never explains."
Given that Sunstein is a noted expert on disinformation, the obvious answer is that
conspiracy theories tend more often than not to hit too close to the truth for the comfort of
TPTB.
@Brabantian Its not a Dep of Justice report . No idea what this website is about .
Another fake news ? Int doesn't mean Muller or Sunstein are not bunch of liars. They are.
Excellent, thought-provoking article. I especially like how the author points to the Official
Conspiracy Theories that been tearing humanity apart. i.e. Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction. Kudos to the author.
"... Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US financial economy. ..."
"... It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave a major road just outside of Washington DC. ..."
@bluedog There are thousands of examples, but here is a recent one from my blog:
Feb 2, 2019 -- USAF to Reopen Unneeded Airbase
A great example of waste and corruption in the US military is the plan to rebuild and
reopen Tyndall Air Force base. The number of aircraft in the USAF has fallen nearly in half
over the past 20 years, so it has far too many airbases that are expensive to operate. For
example, after F-22 bases were selected only half as many F-22s were procured as planned, so
all F-22 bases have ample room for more aircraft.
Last year, Tyndall Air Force F-22 base in Florida was destroyed by a hurricane. Tyndall's
F-22s were quickly relocated to other bases. Some questioned why such expensive aircraft were
based in an area with hurricanes since several F-22s undergoing maintenance were destroyed.
Nevertheless, the Air Force just announced at least $3 billion will be spent over five years
to rebuild and reopen unneeded and poorly located Tyndall!
Politics are important and the base is a mess, but the Air Force should have proposed
spending a couple billion to clean up Tyndall and prepare it for industrial or other
productive private sector uses. But our Congress and Pentagon are so selfish and corrupt they
don't give a damn about wasting money. Just bill the taxpayers and always blame poor
readiness and accidents on a lack of funding!
@bluedog As much as I support the notion that the Pentagon is awash in corruption, the
media reports about missing trillions are incorrect and the result of either deliberate
misrepresentation or (more likely) the lack of competence on the part of those reporting to
comprehend complicated material.
The reports originated from the recent audit work done on the Pentagon. I'm not sure
exactly how long a period this covered (and to be honest, can't be bothered to look it up
right now) but it was a 10-20 year period.
Included in the preliminary reports was the unaccounted for adjustments totaling up to
several trillions of dollars. Here's the thing most people reporting on this fail to grasp,
adjustments are not expenditures. There a bookkeeping gimmick to balance the books.
The debit and credit side need to be balanced out. This is what adjustments do. They
balance the books. But as they can appear on either the credit or the debit side and on both
sides at the same time, they can be used to artificially inflate the books (to make a company
look more valuable than it is) or to hide real expenses. More likely in the case of the
Pentagon, due to systemic failures of accurately forecasting (real) expenditures, inability
to stick to budgets and ignoring (at least some) of the financial paperwork needed to satisfy
the accountant, they had to make numerous adjustments all over the place to balance their
books.
In addition, it is highly likely that these trillions include the same adjustment multiple
times, not because 'it' (what ever it is) happened multiple times, but because it is included
in the books of each level in the Pentagon hierarchy that reports its finances
independently.
For example, a specific ship in the Navy spends more on their operational cruise than it
should have. This means adjustments on its financial report. The fleet it belongs to also has
to adjust its books. The US Navy also has to include the adjustment and ultimately the
overall Pentagon books will include it too. The same adjustment reported multiple times.
It also works if the ship spends LESS than was budgeted for. A surplus also requires an
adjustment in the books with the same result as above.
Last (purely theoretical) example; let's say you have 3 companies. You put $ 1 million in
company A.
You transfer this in batches to company B. You put in the books (of company A) as
'reservations', ie money to be spend later. When this comes into company B, you put it in the
books as 'investments' ie implying the money is to used by company B for expenditures. Again
you transfer this in batches, this time to company C, again as 'reservations'. You book them
as 'investments' in company C and guess what, you then transfer these into company A as
'reservations'.
Company A now has an additional $ 1M coming into it which you label 'investments'. The
value of company A now appears to be $ 2M ($ 1M investments from company C and $ 1M in
reservations) as it it not evident from the books of ONLY company A that it is the same $ 1M.
You need to see all of the books to make sense of what is happening, in this case to
distinguish between what are real revenue and expenses and what is just pumping around of the
same money.
Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of
transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US
financial economy.
Note for the accountants out there, I know, the last example is extremely simplified. It
merely serves to illustrate the subject in an easily understood manner.
@Johnny Rico I believe they are referring to the practice of diverting funds that would
otherwise go to maintain vital infrastructure, health care services and sanitation to over
purchase military equipment by the billions in order to maintain a high level of income for
the armaments industry.
It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a
small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds
and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave
a major road just outside of Washington DC.
They could also be talking about the weird practice of US tax money getting flushed down
the toilet by funding one army project after another that always, always goes over budget,
under delivers on promises, breaks down too easy and can't fight off decade old tech if they
don't cancel it after a billion or so is lost.
As for me, when I look at the US, I shake my head when I notice that the military
industrial complex and the Government have become one and the same thanks to the revolving
door between private companies and US Gov offices.
@AnonFromTN Just imagine for a second that everything "Made in China" disappears from the
US stores. Then ask: why is the superior indispensable democratic country cannot supply its
citizens with all this crap? Why does it have to rely on communist dictatorship to produce so
much, from nails, electric bulbs, and appliances to clothes?
I can answer this, and it wasn't always that way. Listen to Linda Ronstadt's lyrics.
The superior indispensable country became a liberal democracy in 1912 with the advent of
Wilson's progressive era reforms. The 16'th amendment is used to back up the instability of
banks -- remember TARP? 17'th is used to make Senators into populists and hence break state
power. Senators then become easy to bribe and maneuver as they cannot be recalled by their
state Legislature, and no longer do the bidding of their voters. Federal Reserve Act, IRS,
March to War, and so on. Women's suffrage made easy to maneuver and emotionally driven women
prey for the tribe.
It takes awhile for some things to manifest. The U.S. export of Jobs and American
Patrimony began under Clinton. The idea was for Wall Street to make some wage arbitrage. The
Wall Street China/China gambit then began, and transplanted companies exported from China at
just under the American price. The Patrimony of America was gifted to China, all of the
knowledge from the past was monetized for today, so the future was screwed.
This is yet another reason (how many do you need) for our hand rubbing friends to be
disallowed from ever being near money or finance.
Justinian of Byzantium prevented Jews from being in government, teaching in schools, or in
counting houses -- what goes for banking today.
This still didn't work for us, because their descendants from Pale of Settlement,
immigrated to U.S. to become today's Neo-Cons.
"... Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make "conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression. ..."
"... The epithet 'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. ..."
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on
an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power
of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the
People Who Believe Them , edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories,
saying "we'll
begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in
harmful ways -- such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming
the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11."
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad
information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly
false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First,
the word "recommend" is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn't really
recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying.
When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other
videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute
"recommendations" by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted
by users. (Or at least it didn't until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.)
The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among
reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which
health approaches constitute "phony miracle cures" and which do not. Far less is there any
agreement on "claims about 9/11 and other historical events." (Thus far the only real attempt
to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is
the 9/11 Consensus Panel's study -- but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the
Consensus Panel to determine which videos to "recommend"!)
ORDER IT NOW
YouTube's policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to -- as
Obama's Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it -- " disable
the purveyors of conspiracy theories ." Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule's 2008 paper
" Conspiracy Theories ,"
critiqued by David
Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a
2016 book , represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By
2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in
the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.)
Sunstein and Vermuele begin their abstract:
Many millions of people hold (sic) conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people
have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some
terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that
the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States.
Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of
violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and
law.
Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous
that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in
preparation for it, the government should "disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories"
through various techniques including "cognitive infiltration" of 9/11 truth groups. Such
"cognitive infiltration," Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of
"beneficial cognitive diversity" within the truth movement.
9/11 Contradictions An
Open Letter to Congress and the Press David Ray Griffin • 2008 • 110,000 Words
What sort of "cognitive diversity" would Cass Sunstein consider "beneficial"? Perhaps 9/11
truth groups that had been "cognitively infiltrated" by spooks posing as flat-earthers would
harbor that sort of "beneficial" diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive,
high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community
since 2008.
Why does Sunstein think "conspiracy theories" are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by
government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed -- which would necessitate revoking
the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what
might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly
nebulous terms, about "serious risks including the risk of violence." But he presents no
serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other "serious
risks" could possibly be.
Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an
unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago
publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the
authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet
advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the
non-problem?
The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a
US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not
because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the
truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various "national security"
objectives. Ergo, 9/11 "conspiracy theories" are a threat to national security, and extreme
measures are required to combat them. But since we can't just burn the First Amendment
overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert "boil the frog" approach, featuring plenty
of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. "Cognitive infiltration" of internet
platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill.
Cognitive Infiltration
An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory David Ray Griffin • 2011
• 66,000 Words
It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed
well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it
comes to 9/11 and "conspiracy theories," as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational
panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject
dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America's
disastrous post-9/11 policies.)
The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters
is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of
group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad
decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong.
ORDER IT NOW
Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth's
In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books,
2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group
dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach
better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not -- even when the dissenter
is wrong.
Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United
Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the
possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to
determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew
group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in
which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached "E." Had the crew included
even one natural "troublemaker" -- the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth -- there
almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about
the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted.
Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged
in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really
happened on 9/11, and whether a "war on terror" makes sense, is permitted. The predictable
result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and
Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of
9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11
truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically
undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so
terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about "crippled
epistemology"!
Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing "conspiracy theories"
will be beneficial? Do YouTube's decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms
to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly
wrong. First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and "conspiracy
theories" in general are "blatantly false." No honest person with critical thinking skills who
weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the
realization that the 9/11 truth movement
is right . The same is true regarding
the serial assassinations of America's best leaders during the 1960s . Many other
"conspiracy theories," perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as
readers of Ron Unz's American Pravda series are
discovering.
Final Judgment The Missing
Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Michael Collins Piper • 2005 • 310,000 Words
Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in
their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth
shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one
passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more
effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong
-- even wildly wrong.
The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized
cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the
occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth
suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably
learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate
dissenter.
We could at least partially solve the real problem -- bad groupthink -- through promoting
genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to
puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots
of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments
on the other side of the issue -- not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered
after spending 15 years searching for them!
9/11 Ten Years Later When
State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed David Ray Griffin • 2011 • 116,000 Words
But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the
official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would
include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the "war on terror")
should get YouTube "suggestions" for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor ,
9/11
Mysteries , and the work of Architects
and Engineers for 9/11 Truth . Exposure to even those "truthers" who are more passionate
than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according
to Nemeth's research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question
facile assumptions.
The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get "suggestions"
for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum.
MSNBC viewers should get "suggestions" for good material from the right. Both groups should get
"suggestions" to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate
dissidents -- outlets like the Unz Review!
Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make
"conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist
lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of
expression.
ORDER IT NOW
Nemeth and colleagues' findings that "conspiracy theories" and other forms of passionate
dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to
the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western
academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy
Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Editor Joseph Uscinski's introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism: "In
democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the
use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who
believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form
the basis for some people's medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for
others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use
violence."
Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite "horrible decisions" to use
"legitimate force" and "violence." Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to
the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy
to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs) -- including
the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to
sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in
1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in
1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and
that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn't like
conspired to attack the US in 2001 -- were false or deceptive.
Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other
Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they
told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood,
none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened.
Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the
conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official
propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In "What We Mean When
We Say 'Conspiracy Theory' Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine , exposes the
bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including
several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and
delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents.
In "Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: 'Conspiracy Theorists' in U.S. Ghettos and
on the 'Arab Street'" Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further: " The epithet
'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. Often,
it is tinged with racial undertones: it is used to demean whole groups of people in the news
and to silence, stigmatize, or belittle foreign and minority voices." (p.82) Unfortunately,
though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to "Conspiracy Theories in the
Muslim World" and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never
squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is
because the preponderance of evidence
supports that interpretation .
Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith's "Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy,"
which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory
research: the a priori assumption that a "conspiracy theory" must be false or at least dubious:
"If certain scholars ( i.e. the majority represented in this book! –KB ) want to
make a special case for conspiracy theories, then it is reasonable for the rest of us to ask
whether we are playing fair with our terminology, or whether we have baked into our definitions
the answers to our research programs." (p.104). Unfortunately, a few pages later editor Joseph
Uscinski sticks his fingers in his ears and plays deaf and dumb, claiming that "the
establishment is right far more often than conspiracy theories, largely because their methods
are reliable. When conspiracy theorists are right, it is by chance." He adds that conspiracy
theories will inevitably "occasionally lead to disaster" (whatever that means). (p.110).
We
Are NOT Charlie Hebdo! Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11 Kevin Barrett • 2015
• 90,000 Words
I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth's In Defense of Troublemakers and
consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look
into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series.
Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and
publishing in The Unz Review.
Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having
gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message
and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two
very crude considerations:
First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural
resources. Second, to prove to the world that Uncle Shmuel can still, quote , " pick up some small crappy
little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ",
unquote.
The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been
capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various
US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling
record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real
combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or
"Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere.
You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very
competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience
with their Venezuelan colleagues.
Well people you need to explore this move to take over Venezuela in the context of what
having that oil control will mean for the US and Israel in the increasingly likely event we
blow up Iran and up end the ME for Israel.
So what could happen that might make control of oil rich Venezuela necessary? Why has
Venezuela become a Bolton and Abrams project? Why is Netanyahu putting himself into the
Venezuela crisis ?
We, otoh, would need all the oil we could get if we blew up the ME, specifically Iran,
figuratively or literally. The US signed a MOU with Israel in 1973 obligating us to supply
Israel with oil ( and ship it to them) if they couldn't secure any for themselves.
The opposition hates me. I can do no right. The
Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong. There are not enough independent thinkers
to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every minute,
meaningless issue. I can pretty much do as I please without consequence ..like pay off all my
buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
I'd add: and by doing the last, I could cut a deal with the real TPTBs as to for what happens
after I leave White House.
"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook
ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world
and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :
NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.
Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up
machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a
real danger for the USA.
"... The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it. ..."
The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her
latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the
democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York
rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to
overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report
it.
She's being paid no doubt by the usual suspects. She is personally 1 million in debt and
has signed with a Speakers agency to give speeches for 200,000 a pop.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV)
"Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking
engagements, according to CNBC
In October 2018, when Haley resigned, she said, she would be taking a "step up" into the
private sector after leaving the U.N. According to a public financial disclosure report based
on 2017 data, at the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would pay down more than
$1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years
"Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing
things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a
madman."
"... Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote. ..."
"... taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace. ..."
"... When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude ..."
"... The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. ..."
"... Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat. ..."
"... Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks. ..."
"... Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different. ..."
"... I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. ..."
Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday
behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to
advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria.
Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything
but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and
women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It
doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the
Senate vote.
The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats' toothless measures to stop George W.
Bush's Iraq "surge" over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress's
constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while
frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.
When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude
d. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward's book repeats the president's probing questions
about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to "fake
news" shared on Facebook. Trump's call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn
countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James
Mattis.
To make matters worse, only three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of
Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah -- voted to stand with their president against these endless
nation-building exercises. Kentucky's Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely
have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have
voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff.
He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or
he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional
duties.
Trump may find that he has unlikely allies in his would-be 2020 Democratic presidential
foes. The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren,
Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of
withdrawal. How many ambitious Democrats will vote to give a Republican president a blank
check for war as an election year approaches?
GOP lawmakers will have to decide whether they stand with their president -- who wants to
cut America's multi-trillion dollar losses in the Middle East -- and
rank-and-file Republican voters in ending these wars. Those who want to stay in Syria and
Afghanistan quite likely cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.
Up until now, Trump's big fight with the establishment has been over immigration and the
border wall. Amid his belated turn towards the more populist parts of his program, he should
not forget to spend political capital on America's wars as well. Trump
now says Republican congressional leaders misled him on the wall. It has been even worse on
foreign policy.
Partisans are dug in on the border. But on war, Trump has some opportunities to win over
converts. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit stone-faced behind him as he agrees with the
Progressive Caucus on foreign policy?
Much is riding on whether a course correction is possible in Afghanistan and Syria.
Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen,
Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his
presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives
who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat.
Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes
withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company
throughout the country than he thinks.
Mearsheimer has some main tenets of realist foreign policy include:
The lobby and its fellow travelers are not used to being told no. Time for them to create
and fund volunteer corps and do their own dirty work on their dime and at their own risk.
Trump should demand Congress debate and authorize the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It
would be good policy and good politics. And good for the Constitution.
Wouldn't hold my breath on Trump doing any such thing on ending of the Middle Eastern Wars.
Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's
serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual
warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it
one way, while his administration does something completely different.
The article states: "Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington
closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the
Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from
Afghanistan and Syria."
-- -- -- -
I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both
political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked
America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. More info at link
below.
I am extremely disappointed that both of my State's Democratic Senators voted to keep the wars
going.
However, I'm sure they did so only to spite Trump.
They don't either of them support more Long War. Of course, they don't want to be blamed
either in the case of another terrorist attack for not being tough enough. But this vote was
not one of principle.
That means they would not fight for it. They just did it. I suspect much of the vote in the
Senate was like that, and that the rather large number of non-votes is because of that.
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff.
He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or
he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional
duties.
Would that he would but he won't.
Mr. Trump shan't read this good advice because it seems he only reads what the Kushners put
in front of him and (for the most part) hires only people who despise him–people who are
married to the pro-war Blob in DC.
While the Senate's Thursday vote against withdraval from Syria does not prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional
Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures
expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House
overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO
Notable quotes:
"... When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled and yuuuuge! ..."
"... The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence - pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated (without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support this garbage. ..."
The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday in a rebuke of President Trump's
rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, voting to declare that the Islamic State's continued operations
in both countries poses a serious threat to the United States. Democrats who voted against the measure characterized it as a commitment
to endless war.
While the Senate's Thursday vote does not carry the weight of law or prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts
congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar
bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier
this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from
NATO.
-----------------------------
When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone
like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be
willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled
and yuuuuge!
Looks to me like the neocon/neolibs imperialists are not going to let Trump do what he was elected to do. Most Americans of
both parties would welcome less war but that appears to be irrelevant to the political class.
Couldn't agree more Valissa. The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence
- pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring
defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated
(without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support
this garbage.
Trump's only chance seems to be to ensure the withdrawal(s) are completed before this amendment is added to the bill and it
becomes law. WaPo don't even include a link, so here it is for anyone with the stomach to read it:
"... President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division & distrust" in the country. ..."
"... "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People." ..."
"... "They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!" ..."
"... I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN, MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT, WAPO ..."
"... There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies! ..."
President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the
people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division &
distrust" in the country.
"The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know
it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American
People."
"They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War!
They are very dangerous & sick!"
The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know
it's TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They
purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous
& sick!
I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as
possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN,
MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT,
WAPO
There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a
terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies!
"... This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification." ..."
"... Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan." ..."
"... Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021. ..."
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the
US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably
Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his
foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned
under its terms .
Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president
ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement. "Our US
partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the
same," the Russian president said . "They say that they are doing
research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing."
Crucially, however, he noted that there were no plans to deploy short and mid-range missiles
to Europe unless the US does it first -- a worst nightmare scenario that has rattled European
leaders ever since talk began from Trump that the 1987 treaty could be scrapped.
Putin still seemed to allow some degree space for last minute concessions as "still on the
table" possibly in line with the Trump administration's desire to modernize and update a new
treaty taking into account new technological and geopolitical realities, such as China's
ballistic missile capabilities.
"Let's wait until our partners mature sufficiently to hold a level, meaningful conversation
on this topic, which is extremely important for us, them, and the entire world," Putin said.
But also lashing out during the press conference that followed the meeting with top officials
Putin
described :
Over many years, we have repeatedly suggested staging new disarmament talks, on all types
of weapons. Over the last few years, we have seen our initiatives not supported. On the
contrary, pretexts are constantly sought to demolish the existing system of international
security .
Specifically he and FM Sergei Lavrov referenced not only Trump's threats to quit the
agreement, which heightened in December, but accusations leveled from Washington that the
Kremlin was in violation. The White House has now affirmed the bilateral historic agreement
signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan will be suspended for 180 days. Lavrov insisted
that Moscow "attempted to do everything we could to rescue the treaty."
This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted
that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing
drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty,
as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be
used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."
Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the
INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are
scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan."
Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long
term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021.
" as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can
be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."
US trying to get from Russia top position first-response list and get Europe on that
position.
Neocons should be remembered as oldcons because their bag of tricks is so well known that
they don't fool anyone. Think about this Reagan era fossil who tries to arrange his little
coup in Venezuela and will fall flat on his face. Think also about these Pompeo and Bolton
who are so desperate that they didn't even spend the necessary time to learn the checkers
rules before trying to take on Putin in his favorite chess play. No really, the level of
mediocrity and the lack of strategy or even sheer preparedness of these dudes is so low that
they may even be hung by their own subordinates who can't even stand that stench of fool
play. Trump should be ashamed he hired these clowns to ride their one trick ponies while the
titanic goes down. History will not be kind with him.
Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military
attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the
one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO
were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.
Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older
9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:
This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of
the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .
About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.
Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military
attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the
one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO
were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.
Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older
9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:
This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of
the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .
About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.
"... The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that. ..."
"... And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle ..."
Populism by itself cannot hold together for a lack of common values. However, Christian
Populism can hold the long road by emphasising the common values of French Christians and
European Christians.
Globalist mass-migration theology was an obvious attempt to suppress or replace common
European Christian values. In direct opposition to the Globalist screed -- Christian
Populists are rising up in France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, and elsewhere. All with a
common, unifying Christian cause and true European Values.
This movement is different from those that have come before. In the past, Anti-Christian,
Leftist, Socialism has managed to hijack Populist efforts. Here the Christian backbone of the
movement prevents that fate.
It's not true that people as a whole are driven by endless greed and 'bottomless human
desire'.
In general, people understand the limits of the world, and the mass of commoners merely
want something small and safe a nice little home, the ability to raise a family, a safe
neighbourhood and decent schools, no worries about medical care – and stability in all
of this, knowing that their little petit bourgeois lives will not be undermined or destroyed.
That is it.
There may be a little 'dreaming' about wealth and expensive toys, cars, homes, apparel,
but that is not very 'driven'. People are overall content with something humble, a safe,
stable little corner, having 'enough' and no worries.
The problem is that people are not given this, they don't have their stable little corner
in security, they see and watch what little they have being undermined. Oligarchs demand
'more', sponsoring progressive impoverishment as they extract more profit; as well as seeking
control by sponsoring social turmoil, in part via waves of invited arrivals who create great
difficulties for humble working class lives and stability.
The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if
globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number
of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the
wrecking ball has been brought to that.
And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened
in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy
what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle
Hard times make strong people
Strong people make good times
Good times make weak people
Weak people make hard times
Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.
Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.
@anon A lot of truth in what you say. Personally, I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into
the 'Red peril' nonsense when I was young. When leftists–yeah, back then it was the
leftists–tried to warn us that the elites were going to bust the unions, export jobs and
roll-out 'free trade', I didn't believe them. I actually couldn't then imagine that any
non-communist would be so diabolical! I was a pretty naïve kid, all in all. But then, I
guess most kids by nature are.
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article. How come whenever Joe
Blow (or Jacques Bonhomme) wants something essential like healthcare, transportation or an
affordable dwelling, he is denounced as 'greedy' for demanding a bunch of 'gibmedats', but when
the big multi-national corporations want another free-trade treaty or another tax cut, this is
labelled 'progress'?
I guess that's why I just can't get into conservatism.
All of this actually helps the EU, which is not a globalist project but a regionalist
alternative to globalism. Globalism was imposed on a very reluctant EU in the 1980s by a then
hyperdominant US (I'm old enough to remember!) with Margaret Thatcher acting as an American
Trojan horse within the EU. It has never worked precisely because it contradicts the inherent
regionalist logic that underlies the whole idea of European integration.
Thus, the more the US globalist project goes under, the more the EU and similar regionalist
projects in other parts of the world come to the fore.
Just as Trumpmania spawned the pro-US and pro-globalist Brexiteers in the summer of 2016,
Trump's bull in a china shop blundering and the self-destruction of American power that has
entailed has empowered the various protest movements we've seen in Europe, none of which are
calling for the withdrawal of their countries from the EU.
People instinctively sense that Trump has defeated the notorious "TINA" argument, which in
Europe meant "the US won't let us do anything else". The ongoing collapse of American power
makes for a very turbulent and unstable situation in the world but fundamentally, we're all on
the right track. For European integration, that doesn't mean collapse but a return to the
original post-WWII project, designed to allow us to have our respective nationalisms without
killing each other at regular intervals.
That concept is so alien to the American experience that it is unsurprising that Americans
have difficulty in understanding it. Americans need to stop lumping themselves together with
Europeans and calling us all "Westerners".
@obwandiyag Contrary to obwandiyag, Durocher came over to me as the sort of sour
conservative who can't deliver goods for the people and therefore reflects that, well, people
oughtn't to demand so much goods.
Well, both kinds, the libertarian and the sour conservative, have a certain disregard for the
average guy.
The average guy is by no means crying "me,me,me" all the time and he doesn't demand the best
and the most of everything. Also, he is quite prepared too work for life, if his work is within
his range of capabilities and if it doesn't develop into a kind of modern slave labour.
But he sees, and reads, that technology improves which means that life should become easier
not more difficult.
And he too often sees that in fact he has to live worse than his father – or, if he is
the father, he sees that his sons will live worse than he. And he asks why. And the media can
give no honest explanation. (Nor can Durocher.)
In the " west " , the working people are extracted to the last cent with the all the locals IRS
and varied taxes . This surplus goes to pay faraonic governement bureaucracies which live on
the taxpayers and humiliate them , goes to subvention tax free oligarchs , and goes to
subvention all kind of stupid utopias and a wide array of social bums national and foreign .
They have killed the hen of the golden eggs . The CCCP fell in the 1990`s , our EUUSACCCP will
fall in the 2020`s ?
By the way will the Cesar of the western Roman Empire Trumpo Maximo order you Microncito
Napoleonis to go away like he is doing with his rebelius consul Maduro Petrolero ? After all
Microncito is very mean with his subdits , and after all he is not supported by the Cesar of
the eastern Roman Empire Putinos Bizantinii like Maduro Petrolero is , it would be an easy coup
, and very popular .
@Jewish minds Trump Zionism. Completely agree on "representative" democracy being a sham,
and on the feasibility and great importance of direct democracy. Realistically, though, one
still needs legal specialists who can draft workable laws and ensure their compatibility with
existing laws and constitutions. Some sort of hybrid system – a lawmaking institution, be
it elected or appointed – with oversight and ultimate arbitration by the citizens will
probably work better in practice.
Probably just as important is the media – the kind of oligarchic concentration we have
right now in the mass media is going to interfere with any kind of democracy, however much
improved over the current dysfunctional and discredited system.
I'll tell you what the average Joe Blow(Yellow Vest)wants, and it is not just more "Shiny
stuff".
1) He/She wants to be left alone. H/S is sick of breaking some law every time H/S merely
sets foot out of their house. Police forces have become nothing more than revenue sources for
the ever growing police state and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the common man.
Pulling a cell phone out of your pocket at the wrong time is enough to get you killed by tyrant
with a badge.
2) H/S wants to be able to make enough money to raise a family and live comfortably. H/S is
sick of watching the top 1% steal everything that is not nailed down through such scams as
fractional reserve banking and stock market swindles. As the old saying goes: Give a man a gun
and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.
3)H/S wants a REAL form "affirmative action", where every man/woman is chosen for their
ability not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. A world where an an individual is
judged on their ability and nothing more.
4) H/S wants to be safe in their neighborhoods as they watch them being flooded by
uncivilized and criminal immigrants. All the while his and hers own government is confiscating
their means of self protection through such things as gun control.
5) H/S is sick of watching programs such as Social Security and Medicare being bled dry by
people who have never contributed a dime to such programs, while H/S has contributed to these
programs their entire working lives.
6)H/S is sick of these never ending wars, which are started but never fought by the men in
suits. They are tired of watching the blood suckers of war stealing not only the treasure of
their country, but the very lives of their sons and daughters. All they are saying is give
peace a chance.
So you see, it is much more than a bunch of whiny socialist wanting more free stuff.
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article.
Yeah. You could have replaced the byline with any one of Conservative, Inc.'s generic hack
writers and other than Durocher's improved erudition, nobody would have known the
difference.
@Michael Kenny I agree . We europeans are not " westeners " ( " occidentales " , "
occidentaux " ) ,we are just europeans , greco-roman europeans .
To call western europeans " westeners " is an English fraud , followed by the US , made to
isolate Russia from the rest of Europe and preventing the formation of a strong continental
Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok .
We europeans , produced the greco-roman culture , the Christian culture , we consider
ourselves the land of Christian and greco-roman civilization . We consider ourselves the
fathers of most of the Americas .
For us ,europeans , at least for old ones , the " westeners " were the half mexican people
from Texas to California , the cowboys , the vaqueros . And the US easteners were the yankees
.
We always liked the cowboys , the soul of north America , the roots of north America , and
we always felt some uneasiness and distrust of the yankees , those excentric , warmonger ,
greedy , rootless ex-europeans .
All this shows the limits both of official Europeanism and short-sighted demotic populism.
The goal of both is to distract the French from their real problems, namely their spiritual
and demographic collapse. The EU as such is not the source, or even a significant cause, of
France's problems.
Germany passes immigration law to lure non-EU skilled workers . It is silly to call for
cohesion unless you halt immigration and have the strength to sacrifice for that end. France is
much further down the road to dissolution than they are over the Rhine. Germany has not
suffered much so mar, they can take far more immigration than France. Germany' business class
has reasons for increasing immigration into Germany, which is becoming ever more powerful
though building up its economic strength by abandoning ll nuclear capacity and defence against
other countries, and keeping labour costs low–by any means necessary. The USA is turning
away from defending Germany (which tried to claim the costs of it taking million refugees
should be counted as a defence contribution). For now, Germany thinks it has enough cohesion in
reserve to sacrifice some to building up its economic strength and productive capacity in
particular. In the EU, France will be subjected to German priorities.
The troubles that our society is experiencing are also sometimes due and related to the
fact that too many of our fellow citizens believe that they can earn without effort . . .
It is comparative. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants and refugees, come from
countries where if you don't work you starve. But those countries lack the flexibility
conferred by the gentrified, relaxed and complex societies of Europe.
Going all out rather than tepidly for native demographic strength is probably a bad idea,
because we don't know what national or personal qualities are going to be needed to cope with
the unexpected type of challenges that will certainly be posed in our future.
@Johnny Walker Read You are essentially right, but some of your points speak more to
America than France. In particular, police tends to be a lot less trigger-happy and generally
more lenient in France. Considering the scale of the French protests, I would say overall the
number of people who got hurt by police is very low. I even suspect that the few really bad
cases were committed not by regular police but by special agents provocateurs, trying to incite
violence in order to create a pretext for cracking down.
Amusing anecdote – I spent a couple of months in Paris a goodish number of years ago.
One French guy told me that he was stopped while driving drunk by police. He explained to them,
"it is the last night before I will be thirty years old." Police told him, "o.k., you be
careful now while driving home" and let him go.
With a monetary system based on debt, and the counterfeiting and issuance of money privately
controlled, it was inevitable that globalization and the elimination of state sovereignty would
result. Global financial capitalism is the maximizing of profit for private gain and the
socialization of losses by the state. Although, nation-states are now nothing more than
subsidiaries of the global banking cartel. As debt levels grow well beyond the ability of
states to service, let alone repay, the banking cartel need seamless access to other nation's
resources to keep the ponzi going – hence the unified global banking cartel, always
acting in concert.
The counterfeiting racket is quite ingenious. The public demanding more and more state
subsidies to ensure their standards of living, as high paying jobs disappear, never to return,
give the political class free rein to borrow well beyond tax levels, or their ability to ever
repay. Of course, there isn't sufficient savings to fund this level of borrowing on a global
scale (public and private) so it must be manufactured, or more bluntly, counterfeited. The
banking cartel then takes it's skim off the top in fees, seniorage, and interest. Over time,
this enormous skim has allowed them to buy whatever, and whomever, they want.
We live in an age of money illusion, where the enormous amount of phony money has corrupted
every aspect of society, and disguises late-stage, economic collapse. It's just as likely the
the global economy has been going nowhere in the last ten years but we can't tell because GDP,
being a measure of money transactions, presents a false picture of growth, disguised by the
enormous quantities of money counterfeited over the decade, and indeed since Mr. Greenspan took
the helm at the Fed.
It has been very successful, however, in inflating all asset classes, other than commodities
(controlled by futures derivatives trading), to increase collateral for even more debt
issuance. Of course, all these assets are tightly controlled by the counterfeiters.
Unfortunately, we have reached a point where even interest can't be paid, let alone principle.
And the underlying asset values look to be poised for collapse. Counterfeiting more money, ie.
QE, will most certainly be redeployed, but should result in collapsing currencies around the
globe, as all are in the same boat.
In effect, the western world has created a neo-feudal order, with money counterfeiters being
the overlords, rather than the land-holding thugs of the past.
A rather sad piece from someone not quite au fait with current thinking though understandable
under the circumstances.
Politics today is no longer of the 'left' or the 'right', but of globalism or nationalism. Yes,
groups like Antifa cling to the old while supporting the fascist Establishment with fascist
action. Odd lot those people.
Essentially you can't have a just society where usuary, share dealing and currency speculation
take place. The termites that practice this sort of lifestyle need to be given a spade to dig
the earth and grow their own veggies!
And democracy is just a smoke screen permitting special interest groups to over ride the
popular consensus. To have it clarified by a popular vote one way or the other is a good idea,
but can only work where the local culture supports the concept as in Switzerland, as opposed to
California where it doesn't really work properly, since the culture is alien to that sort of
concept.
Old man Le Pen's daughter is a wiley old solicitor that speaks like a fisherman's wife. The old
man won't be bothered about what has happened to his party, though it is surprising things have
stagnated a bit for National Rally.
The EU should not have expanded in to Eastern Europe and it should never have permitted the
sort of third rate politicians such as Junkers, Moderini, the Kinnocks to have the power and
the gravy they have got. The ultimate weakness is having Rothschild control all the banks and
operate his money laundering business in the City of London. The EU is just another scam and
the 520 million people in the EU are sick of it.
If you think the US is a poisoned chalice, the EU by comparison drank the Coudenhove-Calergi
poison fifty years ago and is just about to go tits up and expire. Immigrants or no immigrants,
the Austro-Japanese Richard Coudenhove-Calergi brand of pure poison has destroyed everything of
worth in Europe.
This writer touches on the edges of the truth without actually pointing a finger at the cause:
greed through usuary, share dealing and currency speculation. Until you deal with this cancer
and the termites that promote it you will never find an answer.
"... My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought. ..."
The launch of INSTEX -- "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" -- by France, Germany, and the UK
this week
to allow "legitimate trade" with Iran, or rather effectively sidestep US sanctions and bypass SWIFT after Washington was able
to pressure the Belgium-based financial messaging service to cut off the access of Iranian banks last year, may be too little too
late to salvage the Iran nuclear deal .
Tehran will only immediately press that more than just the current "limited humanitarian" and medical goods can be purchased on
the system, in accordance with fulfilling the EU's end of the 2015 JCPOA -- something which EU officials have promised while saying
INSTEX will be "expansive" -- while European companies will likely continue to stay away for fear of retribution from Washington,
which has stated it's "closely following" reports of the payment vehicle while reiterating attempts to sidestep sanctions will "risk
severe consequences" .
As a couple of prominent Iranian academics
told Al Jazeera this week: "If [the mechanism] will permanently be restricted to solely humanitarian trade, it will be apparent
that Europe will have failed to live up to its end of the bargain for Iran ," said political analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani. And another,
Foad Izadi, professor at the University of Tehran, echoed what is a common sentiment among Iran's leaders: "I don't think the EU
is either willing or able to stand up to Trump's threat," and continued, "The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's
not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."
But Iranian leadership
welcomed the new mechanism as merely a small first step: "It is a first step taken by the European side... We hope it will cover
all goods and items," Iranian Deputy FM Abbas Araqchi told state TV, referencing EU promises to stick to its end of the nuclear deal.
The European side also acknowledged it as a precondition to keeping the nuclear deal alive, which EU leaders sea as vital to their
security and strategic interests : "We're making clear that we didn't just talk about keeping the nuclear deal with Iran alive, but
now we're creating a possibility to conduct business transactions," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
told reporters on
Thursday . "This is a precondition for us to meet the obligations we entered into in order to demand from Iran that it doesn't
begin military uranium enrichment," Maas said.
What is INSTEX?
A "special purpose vehicle" that will allow European businesses to trade with Iran, despite strict US sanctions.
According to media reports, INSTEX will be based in Paris and will be managed by German banking expert Per Fischer, a former
manager at Commerzbank. The UK will head the supervisory board.
The European side intends to use the channel initially only to sell food, medicine and medical devices in Iran. However,
it will be possible to expand it in the future. --
DW.com
Technically US sanctions allow some limited humanitarian trade and limited goods; however the White House's "maximum pressure"
campaign on Iran has still scared away European giants like Seimens, Maersk, Total, Daimler, Peugeot, Renault, and others.
This brings up the central question of whether skittish European countries will actually return to doing business with Iran, the
entire purpose on which the new mechanism rests. The dilemma was summarized at the start of this week by outspoken Iran hawk Sen.
Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who told the AP
"The choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States." He warned, "I hope our European allies choose wisely."
Thus far a number of analysts and observers have remained far less optimistic than the European sponsors of INSTEX. One particular
interview with geopolitical analyst and journalist Luc Rivet, cited in Russian media, outlines
the likelihood for failure of the new payment
vehicle : "I don't know what companies will make use of that mechanism to sell to Iran," Rivet said, noting that countries still
consider it "dangerous" to be caught working with Iran.
Addressing the current restriction of INSTEX facilitating medical and pharmaceutical goods transactions, he continued:
Who produces this equipment? You think that Siemens will sell to Iran? Never, because they sell to America many other things
as well And Siemens is afraid of losing the American market.
No matter if a handful of companies resume or continue business with Iran he explained that an "incredible number of companies"
won't. He added: "It's much easier for Chinese and Russian companies to make deals with Iran. The Europeans are scared in an incredible
way. The companies are afraid by ricochet of being in the eye of the storm with the Americans."
He concluded, "That's very dangerous for European companies," and repeated, "I don't know anybody who will dare to go with this
Instex system."
And the New York Times in asking the same question --
But Will Anyone Use
It? -- concludes similarly that "given that most large companies have significant business in the United States, very few --
if any -- are likely to use the trading mechanism for fear of incurring Washington's wrath."
However, the test will be whether or not a steady trickle of small companies gives way to bigger companies. The NYT report
continues :
But the financial mechanism could make it easier for smaller companies with no exposure in the United States to trade with
Iran and could promote trade in medicine and food, which are not subject to sanctions. European diplomats say that, in the beginning,
the concentration will be on goods that are permitted by Washington, to avoid an early confrontation .
But much could also depend on just how fierce the White House reaction will be. If the past months' Trump administration rhetoric
is any indicator, it will keep large companies scared and on the sidelines.
Europe has had double the tariffs on American cars than we had for theirs. It's time for us to quadruple the tariff on European
cars, to make up for the tariff imbalance that Europe has taken advantage of for decades.
Before World War II the question was, "Who will stand up to the demands of Germany?" Now the question is, "Who will stand up
to the demands of the United States?" It is clear that as far as means and methods are concerned Washington flies the swastika.
History has come full circle.
The following quote from J. R. R. Tolkien makes the point, "Always after a defeat and a respite," says Gandalf, "the shadow
takes another shape and grows again." The irony of our times is that the shadow has moved from Germany to the US.
Consternation and craven refusal to confront the reality of our times is again in vogue. We are walking towards madness crying,
"Let the other fellow fix this!"
My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945
have now become like the people we fought.
"... with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different.. ..."
"... His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today. ..."
"... Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here. ..."
"... Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter. ..."
This article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/29/the-empires-propagandists/
may be of interest to some. Not saying that any of it is new to readers here nor is it
exhaustive but imo a decent piece that pulls together a lot and might be interesting to those
who mainly follow MSM.
An extract:
"The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes
its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to
another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it
is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which
make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert
subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it
chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points
and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and
global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the
time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of
this is new."
It is interesting, the seeming rush to mess with Venezuela.
I guess whether it was in fact rushed, depends on how much we want to believe the data we are
fed.
I believe it was and suspect that that was the reason for resumption of operation of the
government - to support the intervention in Venezuela. Otherwise, it seemed like too sudden a
reversal by Trump.
I think in their analysis of where to intervene next, they look at an array of
factors:
Venezuela is weak
Venezuela espouses something like socialism
Venezuela has been associating with unsavory "competitors"
Venezuela is nearby (and very nearby our asset, Colombia)
Venezuela can be portrayed as in need of humanitarian intervention
Maduro has said some unkind things about U.S. government (Bush)
Venezuela holds a grand prize
In there discusions, I assume the issue of right/wrong is not mentioned.
Imagine someone attempting to raise the issue:
- But what will the media say?
- But what will the U.N. say?
- But what will the Pope say?
- But what will the voters say?
- But what will the other party say?
- But is it really the moral thing to do, what would God say?
with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different..
i suppose the main
difference is not being served up a regular diet of 'we are the greatest' bs, accounts for
some of it.. the general curiousity about what the fuck is going on outside of the usa seems
sorely lacking in people who live in the usa... maybe the media can be blamed for a chunk of
this... generally canucks know a lot more about the usa, then the usa people know about
canada.. that is something i have witnessed in my life.. but, the simple answer to your
question is there isn't a lot of difference.. and yes - trudeau senior must be really
disappointed in tru dope jr... he is nothing compared to his dad... canada is on a downhill
trajectory and fast with this buffoon.. i expect worse in the next election too.. we will get
our trump as we are one cycle behind..
His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US
empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian
empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to
join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the
empire today.
Also, similar to some who get impatient with the seeming over-conservatism of Russia and
China today, so the aggressive, hot-headed Corinthians and Thebans often get frustrated with
the more conservative Spartans.
I wonder when/if there'll be an American version of the Athenians' disastrous Sicilian
expedition.
Attached to that Venezuelanalysis.com that CE linked to @ 2 was this odd piece of
information:
"EREPLA deal "unusually favourable to foreign company"
... [A] 25-year deal was signed with unknown US based firm EREPLA in November 2018,
which has been described by financial firm Argus as "unusually favourable" to the US
company.
Little is known of EREPLA or its board of directors, with Reuters claiming that Harry
Sargeant III, magnate and ex-Financial Chairman of the US Republican Party, is one of their
owners. The small company, which was only legally registered in the US on November 8,
2018, a mere day before signing the PDVSA deal, has managed to extract a contract from PDVSA
which revives a number of practices, previously eliminated in the Chavez-era, of oil
so-called service contracts. PDVSA is yet to make any official comment on the deal, and analysts have already expressed concern that the deal violates Venezuela's 2001
Hydrocarbons Law.
The deal, which is extendable for a further 15 years, is due to bring US $500 million
of investment to the Tia Juana, Rosa Mediano fields in Maracaibo Lake and the Ayacucho 5
field in the Orinoco Belt. It assigns 49.9 percent of the new mixed company to EREPLA, and
passes 100 percent of the output to the US firm, which is expected to repatriate 50.1 percent
of sale profits back to PDVSA.
Day to day running, purchasing, exporting, and the sale of the oil produced is to be
completely controlled by EREPLA, except in the case of fulfilling PDVSA's hefty oil quota to
China, which will be agreed upon by both parts.
Whilst EREPLA is due to supply the rigs and crews for the fields, other costs will be
split between the two partners, whilst the US firm find themselves exempt from Venezuelan
labour laws under the Service Contract clause, as well as from paying its share of the 30
percent oil royalty which PDVSA is due to cover.
"We believe that the new model created in this agreement is in the national interest of
the United States," stated a Harry Sargeant Oil Management Group lawyer who signed the
documents on behalf of EREPLA.
An EREPLA statement on the deal describes how it looks to "revitalise" Venezuela's oil
industry. It goes on to explain that new terms and conditions have been applied as previous
contracts "fermented corruption and bad management." EREPLA also argued that the deal will
help prevent "US adversaries" such as Chinese and Russian firms from gaining further ground
in the oil-rich country.
It is unclear at this point how the new deal will function in light of US financial
sanctions against Caracas, as a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
is still pending, but the statement assures that the company's work "will be carried out in
accordance with the economic sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department."
Oil deals in Venezuela were notoriously favourable to foreign firms until 2001, in
terms of profit [repatriation], labour laws, running costs, and local accountability, until
Hugo Chavez' Hydrocarbons Law broke the tradition, ensuring Venezuelan control over joint
ventures. Another Chavez decree in 2007 capped foreign participation in oil deals at 40
percent. However, in December 2017 the National Constituent Assembly approved a "Foreign
Investment Law" meant to improve conditions for foreign capital investments in
Venezuela.
A company that is incorporated only a day before it signs a major oil extraction and
production deal (parts of which violate Venezuela's own laws governing working conditions and
pay for Venezuelan workers and national control over joint ventures) with Venezuela? Does
anyone else not smell a rat?
What could PDVSA have been thinking? Did it not enter their
heads that EREPLA could be a front acting for elements in the US government?
Venezeula has become the tipping point for loss of GRC for the USD.
Venezeulan oil is being shipped to India, refined by the new Rosneft refinery then being
sold in anything but USD.
Added to the now over 100 country's that are rejecting the USD by using bi-lateral trade,
KSA already selling in yuan, the desperation of Uncle Scam is palpable.
Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here.
Why Venezuela? Why now?
We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most
interesting:
It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable
for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan,
for that matter.
It seems to me that the major blocs might be pulling back, and settling for easy gains.
Not that this coup is likely to be easy, it may prove to be impossible. It may even prove to
be the spark that sets Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and the rest of Latin America alight.
But the way the clowns in the White House- who haven't had a new idea since 1981-see it all
resources will be mobilised to make the region safe for imperialism: Venezuela, Cuba,
Nicaragua and Bolivia: in the proverbial cross hairs.
The second question |Why now?) could be a reflection of the fact that the neo-conservative
axis has only recently re-established full spectrum domination over the White House. As the
Hitler Youth Freeland has been hinting: the running in this matter has been made by the Lima
Group in which Canada has been playing a leading and thoroughly despicable role. It was they
who did the pseudo legalistic groundwork for the coup. No doubt Bolton et al found it
convenient to have the Lima group demands presented to it on a plate. That meant that even
Ponce, who together with Bolton and Pompeo takes the role of the Three Weird Sisters in this
tragedy, could trigger the crisis with a phone call to Guido. Whose role is clearly to be
martyred, probably by a CIA sniper, so that he can die, if not for his country at least for
its corrupt elites.
We've seen this movie before.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since
you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest -- that you should not destroy
what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is
fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid. And you are as much
interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an
example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival
empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the
vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is
a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in
the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the
preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble,
and see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to
rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the
worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians . So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of
enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be
an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do
with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some
conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and
that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not
molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain
in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others
rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of
the sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we
indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey
your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to
coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case
from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater
the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have
never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm;
the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is
rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke,
who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious
danger.
Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to
get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to
try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with
honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not
resisting those who are far stronger than you are...
"... The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby. ..."
"... I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. ..."
"... George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one). ..."
"... That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. ..."
"... Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's. ..."
"... The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it. ..."
"... They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment ..."
"... well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/ ..."
British and most western media are either in the direct or indirect pay of their governments. What journalist can expose this
for us? Any of you willing to make the biggest scoop of the 21st century? Tom Bradbury at ITN must be on the spook payroll, for
starters? MI6 had foreign correspondents for years, but domestic mouthpieces must now be on the take too? All paid to demonise
Russia and Putin.
The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and
roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they
come across a particularly adorable baby.
Simon 'white helmets' Tisdall is especially egregious – one can imagine him throwing darts at a picture of Putin while
producing his latest homily to the murderous actions of gangsters like Bush and his crime family.
Its hard not to despair now this has become the official face of Britains so-called liberal media.
I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's
books and media appearances. As with Michael White, with whom I had a very illuminating argument via email a few years back.
He *is* an asset, not a journalist (and a massive dick, to boot)
I thought the attitude of the Bush family to their fellow Americans was best illustrated by Barbara's response to the plight of
the homeless victims of Katrina who had been transported to the Houston domed stadium. They spent their nights there sleeping
on hard benches and when good ole Babs heard of it, she opined that they probably had never had it so good so why were they complaining.
Could Mother Theresa have had greater generosity of spirit?
Not just one article, the awful Guardian is full of contents eulogising [yet another] mongrel of a president.
But look at conservative media. The crazy Infowars.com described this Bush as an Anti-American Globalist and Traitor!! .. and
zerohedge.com is celebrating: "The Evil Has Died" and "In 2016 he voted for Hillary Clinton, because the Deep State Swamp sticks
together". https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-02/exploring-dark-side-bush-41
Just tell me, who is the rabid neo-con right-wing rag that is glorifying wars and mass murderers?
The late Robert Parry, sad to say. Maybe that now both the 'MacBeths' are stains on the tarmac – Parry's notes of the bloodstained
legacy of that dynasty can finally be displayed? That Barbara was one cold blooded mother! Would have happily pulled a trigger
on JFK, MLK herself (some think).
Just about the whole century from the setup of the Fed, the two world wars, the depression,
Hitler, Korea, Cuba all of it, had a a Bush hand in it. He was the self crowned Caesar having publicly executed the whole of Camelot
and left us with a poison toad, reminds us how low the Bush's took the USA.
George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual
beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one).
That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems
these people don't have a conscience. If you surround yourself with people of similar mindset and in a climate where war
is considered obligatory for US Presidents, you go into self denial. Wars are probably like an addiction for these people and
once you get to that stage you no longer have a conscience.
During John McCain's funeral where all living ex-presidents were in attendance, someone remarked on Twitter, 'Quick, lock the
church doors and hold the war crimes trial in the church!'. This was a far more realistic observation than the sickening McCain
apologist BBC coverage we were subjected to.
At the weekend I went to the place where Oliver Cromwell lived. There was an American tourist who told us she was shocked about
Oliver Cromwell being dug up from his grave and his head stuck on a pike. She said it was gruesome. I was tempted to say that
at least that was 350 years ago, and similar things are happening today in Iraq, Syria and Libya – all places where the US has
instigated the chaos and supports the perpretators. I resisted the temptation.
I note that Cromwell thought he was chosen by God to do what he did. But again that was in different times and there were some
redeeming factors in what he did, Probably on par with Obama – who wreaked havoc on the Middle East but reached agreements on
Iran and Cuba. Plus Obama looked cool while killing and droning.
But what goes around comes around. I sense the pure evil involved in the current regime change wars, government, media etc
will pay a heavy price – whether in this life or the next.
The state controlled BBC has just done another puff piece on McCain saying what a splendid chap and great statesman and all round
good egg he was.
The MSM likes to slag off Vlad The Bad by droning on about how he was in the KGB. But Bush wasn't just IN the CIA, he was the
BOSS of the CIA, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Central American peasant farmers and Indians were being killed by CIA
trained and orchestrated death squads.
Mark: jayzus Mark, don't you just want to projectile vomit when you see all this absolute bullshit, just straight out revising
of history, just the lies, on and on . I was involved in a Central American solidarity group in the 1980s – early 90s here in
Aussie, found out then all about U.S style 'democracatic values' and 'human rights concerns' and death squads and various fascists
fully supported by the United States, and places like Guatemala and Nicaragua. Its all an illusion for 'polite society' and the
gullible to believe in. Sigh
I can't remember the exact figures but I think it was over 200,000 murdered in Guatemala out of a population of 4 million. It
was the same story in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. And of course the CIA satrap Noriega was hauled off in chains
when that country was invaded. But Uncle Sam is finally paying a price for his antics south of the border. Those societies were
wrecked and brutalised beyond repair. There is now an unbelievably high murder rate of women in Guatemala. Millions of those people
have sought some kind of refuge in the belly of the beast, causing an immigration crisis, with an illegal immigrant population
that may be as high as 30 million. Hence all the uproar over Trump's wall. The immigration crisis was a factor in Trump's election,
just as the tidal wave of migrants from the destroyed countries of the Middle East was a factor in Brexit. Cameron, Sarko and
Clinton thought it was a spiffing idea and quite a wizard wheeze to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. So we now have a Mad Max
failed state complete with warlords and slave markets just across the Med. What goes around, comes around. You can't expect to
export violence and mayhem abroad and remain immune to it at home.
Mark: after Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a coup in Guatemala in 1982, US Ambassador Frederick Chapin declared that thanks
to the coup of Rios Montt "the Guatemalan Govt has come out of the darkness into the light". That sums it up in one sentence,
and you're probably aware of the mass killing and disappearances under his genocidal tyranny. Reagan kindly submitted that Rios
Montt was 'getting a bum rap on human rights, the same Reagan who declared the Contra's were 'The moral equal of our founding
fathers'. In El Salvador, the same mass slaughter, the same mass upheaval, and even murdering Archbishop Romero. You only need
to look at what happened in Central & South America to understand what the United States really represents.
That's entirely right. People understandably despise and revile people like Brady and Hindley, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Bundy and the
like. But they killed a handful of people and were often very damaged individuals to begin with. And at least they did their own
dirty work. Subhuman scum sucking filth like Bush, Bush 2, Obama, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Blair, Straw and Campbell
are a thousand times worse. They kill millions without getting their hands dirty, and preen and posture as great statesmen and
public servants, expecting deference and state funerals and puff piece obituaries from nauseating, loathsome, lickspittle media
hacks like Tisdall.
Nailed it Kit. The attempt at revionism and rewriting history by these craven creatures, these sycophantic slimebag shills for
Imperialism and War and the Anglo Zionist Empire. They don't speak truth to power, they protect and grovel to the powerful. The
eulogising and fawning of Bush was stomach churning, as it was for the arch Imperialist McCain when he croaked. Thank God for
alternative news sites, and yeah Caitlin Johnston @ medium nailed it as well, as Fair Dinkum mentioned. Where's John Pilger when
you need him?
What no one seems to realize is that the VP often takes charge of the US National Security Council when POTUS is not able to attend
meetings, which are held weekly. Under Eisenhower it was Richard Nixon who often took charge of the meetings -- Tim Weiner's book
"Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" gives some details on this. Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking,
oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was
a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's.
I don't know but as a fairly apolitical individual, I never much bothered with the Kennedy Assasination. All that changed when
during the fiftieth anniversary, BBC Radio Four ran a program which included an interview with the Dallas police officer who was
handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. The consensus of that program was that the case was open shut and
Oswald did it. Around that time, several newspapers in the UK featured articles claiming that Oswald acted alone.
Whether or not anyone actively involved still lives, their descendants still do and the probable organising body too. There
still appears to be determination in some quarters to spread disinformation about the case. Given that as long ago as the late
seventies the House of Representatives Assassination Committee concluded that JFK's death was probably the consequence of a conspiracy,
determination amongst the mainstream media to lay Kennedy's death at the hands of Oswald alone suggests that there is still determination
that the truth never becomes public.
I'm sickened by the Guardian's and BBC's obedience to the US neocon project to seek, or create, and destroy "enemies" and whilst
ignoring all the disgusting atrocities that arise as a consequence.
The Guardian is not even worth the paper it's printed on. It's become The Guardian Of The Establishment rather than of the
Truth which it used to proclaim.
It is in danger of losing its budgie-cage-liner status. If budgies can talk they may refuse to evacuate on it. What kind of person
maintains ties to such a a poor excuse for cage toiletry. The moral crunch time for their journalists (actually their opinionists)
came and went a long time ago.
What a great piece. My parents knew them in New York and they came over once and left behind an embossed packet of White House
cigs. I asked my father (before he died) what he thought of them and all he ever said was he thought that Barbara was the intellect
in the family.
Bloody annoying, thanks Pater.
"The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq broke a 46-year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war continues to be used more
and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years). The long-term effects from
over a decade of DU exposures are devastating. The increased quantities of radioactive material used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5
times greater than Iraq, 1991. In Iraq, 2003, they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991, and will travel through a larger
area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000-mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected
by radiation poisoning
"DU remains radioactive longer than [ ] 4.5 billion years." It's worse than that. It loses half of its radioactivity in that time.
The good news is that that slow release means "D"U doesn't zap you much. The bad news is it's chemically toxic, like a heavy metal
(which it is).
Also no mention of the body of circumstantial evidence linking Bush to JFK's murder, though Bush repeatedly insisted that he couldn't
recall his whereabouts that day (I can precisely recall where I was, and I was 9 years old in 1963), in spite of the fact that
solid documentary evidence exists that puts him in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963.
The very first Google Search I did was this, (George H.W. Bush+November 22, 1963) and it yielded a page like the following link,
which began my research into the JFK Assassination.
"... Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy. ..."
Marks **** s Hitler, but Hitler was pretty good at *** ing Marks too. Listen to this logic: The party that Hitler belonged
to, was called National-Socialist, yet he hated communist and attacked Russia.
Communism and socialism are the same. There never was communism – that's what they were "aspiring" to become in some distant
utopian future. So Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists.
Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves "Socialists".
The whole last century has been spent on one major task by the west: Combat socialism. Mainly by wars, but propaganda also.
And yet, socialism refuses to die. And the idea will never die. I know, someone will say, where have you been in the last almost
30 years? Capitalism defeated socialism in the cold war. Not so fast. Capitalism may have scored a major victory but it may have
sustained a mortal self-inflicted wound of propaganda nature. In the last 100 years 3 major ways to fight socialism domestically
were discovered:
FDR approach – include little bit of socialism into capitalism, to prevent a lot of socialism (total takeover). Nazi
Germany approach – include none of socialism, but only use its name for propaganda and pretend that all is hunky-dory, and
that "socialism" is already here. US approach – include a little bit of fake socialism in order to prevent a lot of real
socialism from taking over. That's how multiculturalism came into being.
Again, I must say that the best approach was FDR's. If capitalism wants to survive – that's the way to go. Despite all the
numerous wars against socialist countries, US haven't been able to erase the idea of socialism like they were hoping for.
If you want proof of this, just look at the last US election. Along comes Bernie Sanders, just mentions the name socialism
few times – claiming himself to be one – socialist, and wins the primaries, only to be robbed by the Democratic mafia bosses who
couldn't stand the idea of "socialist" running for president – after all the US has done to destroy socialism.
By the way, I think that Bernie is a good guy, but he is probably as much socialist as Adolf used to be. It still demonstrates
the power of the socialist idea to attract people. Pretty clever propaganda ploy on Bernie's part, but there was no chance in
hell the "democrats" would let him run for president on that platform.
And he would have defeated Trump. Talking about exercise in futility – US trying to erase the idea of socialism. That's what
made them inflict the mortal wound of fake socialism on themselves and might in the end destroy them. FDR approach was the best
– little bit of socialism to prevent a lot of it.
How about " Nope ". Communism is an end ; Socialism is a means that Marx considered the most likely to
enable the end-point to be achieved. It's akin to saying that a mall (the end) and a car (the means) are "the same
thing", on the basis that a car is an efficient way to get to the mall.
To flesh it out: Communism is explicitly anarchic, and is mainly characterised by
material abundance and the fulfillment of (self-limited) wants;
no ownership of property (not by individuals or the state);
no class stratification (and hence no political organisations whatsoever);
work as a 'prime want' (not a disutility that must be compensated).
This all seems slightly silly when you write it down, so Marx recognised that there had to be a ' radical transformation
of consciousness ' whereby people didn't want what they couldn't have.
He reckoned that the best way was to entrust an enlightened clique (the ' vanguard of the proletariat ') to take control,
and to force society towards the 'end' by coercion – until such time as the end was in sight, whereupon the enlightened vanguard
would relinquish control and society would be on a glide path to utopia.
And doing that specifically requires that the 'vanguard' controls production and allocation decisions during the transition
– which he thought (wrongly) means that the means of production must be owned by the State.
Hence Socialism.
His end is correct so long as you add one adjective. A society free of artificial stratification is a desirable
end. His means were totally wrong because he was a fucking idiot (as well as being a parasitic charlatan). The State
would not relinquish control under any circumstances, and will actively undermine any mechanism that raises everyone (because
that would narrow the gap between the political class and the demos can't have that).
A society free of artificial stratification is where we will end up once technological progress gets past its next 'knee' ('
The Singularity ') it would be hastened if the parasites in the global political class are put to the sword.
I don't think you understood my argument here. You are correct. Socialism and Communism are not the same in philosophical sense.
My argument was that for all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one
form or another in few dozen countries.
Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss
it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently
– the greatest democracy.
Why not spread a huge trampoline over the US and bounce those missiles back to their origin. That is probably more feasible
than the theory that because the US has a 10 to 4 preponderance of nuclear weapons over [say Russia] then the US can destroy Russia
10 times over, whereas the Russians can only destroy the US 4 times over. Some crazies think those odds are good.
This kind of thing must give the Demtards some major cognitive dissonance (insofar as they have any cognition). They're the worst
jingoes in wanting to push the confrontation with Russia to the very brink and beyond, so they would be the normal target audience
for this kind of sham "missile defense" propaganda, certainly if a Democrat or less hated Republican president proposed it. But
they have such Trump Derangement Psychosis, they'll have to denounce this even though it's for their yearned-for nuclear war.
As for the SDI technology, they'd be better off with Opus's proposal to put a thick ring of $1000 bills in space to block the
missiles. Might work for asteroids and flying saucers too.
Trump used the occasion of the MDR launch to exaggerate the possibilities of new missile defense systems...
Trump was again making a public demonstration that he is an ignorant loudmouth. I skimmed that Missile Defense Review
and saw the equivalent of a research paper written by a lazy college student. Huge margins, many space-eating illustrations, and
much repetition helped to "catapult the propaganda". It was 108 pages of nonsense designed to give the impression we need to throw
more taxpayer money to Big Weapons Companies.
The cost to put 1 kilogram into low-earth orbit are some $5,000-$20,000.
Unfortunately those "rods from god" don't have to be the size of telephone poles. A 2 inch thick and 72 inch long bar of tungsten
moving along at 2 miles/second would destroy any armored vehicle it hit, and also a great many other things. If one of them struck
the generator at the electrical power plant, there isn't going to be any electricity from that plant for a long while.
I don't know why these things haven't been deployed, but it might come down to common sense and low profit. The US has opened
a can of worms with weapon-carrying drones, and doing this with a simple and inexpensive orbital weapon might have been recognized
as 'undesirable'. Big Weapons Companies don't stand to roll in the big bucks like they do with the USS Ford or the F-35. And possibly
nobody could make them work. I just don't know.
Once again, that new Missile Defense Review was a combination of really stupid and amazingly dishonest. It could also
get us all killed well before the worst effects of climate change arrive.
Will the captive Corporate Media ever free itself to the extent that the American voting public will be thoroughly educated as
to the costs to the social fabric that these monstrous military projects entail? -- to healthcare, to the infrastructure, to education,
to Social Security, and the list goes on and on.
Looks like Russia and China's plan to do a reverse USSR bankruptcy on the US is bearing fruit.
Putin's announcement of all those advanced weapons, few of which are actually being rolled out, was just what the US MIC was
looking to push for the next round of juicy R&D contracts. It could almost have been made to measure for hungry DC lobbyists.
Maybe it was.
US debt is growing exponentially, until it doesn't. What then? The Yugoslavia solution, 50 odd countries from the no longer
united states?
james , Jan 18, 2019 4:02:32 PM |
linkHarry Law , Jan 18, 2019 4:03:04 PM |
link
What's wrong with you snowflakes, we have to worry more about a 'mine shaft gap' Russia probably has far more mine shafts than
the US, but don't worry in the event of a nuclear war all is not lost, with more mine shafts "and with the proper breeding techniques
and a ratio of say ten females to each male they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within 20
years". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y
Yes, it's possible Putin's 1 March announcement was a counterattack in the Hybrid Third World War aimed at the fiscal ruination
of the Outlaw US Empire.
Some may recall Putin asking Slick Willie to join NATO in 2000. Well, it turns out that request was made
once
before in 1954 , a fact I was unaware of until today. One must ponder the reasons why Molotov's request was nixed in 1954
despite willingness to negotiate regarding the stated objections. I wonder if Ike was even informed of this development given
the extremely evil Dulles brothers were in charge of State and CIA at the time. I'm sure I'm not the only one who missed the revelation
of that fact. It appears the elimination of Russia as a nation-state has always been the goal, just as it was for the British.
Re: Lysias @11 Do the warmongers think that nuclear winter is bogus?
and Anne Jaclard @ 15.
Yes, Anne Jaclard is correct.US political and military leaders have either ignored or rejected the peer-reviewed studies on
the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war. They don't fit the agenda.
For more details, please see the article that I wrote for the Federation of American Scientists,
Turning A Blind Eye Toward Armageddon -- US Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies
Thanks for providing the link to your article. In it I note the same tactics utilized by tobacco causes cancer and climate
change deniers to smear the studies and deny any potential Nuclear Winter. Clearly, the people involved in such denialism are
the most immoral people one might imagine. Unfortunately, I see no evidence to soften your assessment:
"My own personal assessment of the state of the nuclear danger today is that it is profound. The United States is sleepwalking
towards nuclear war. Our leaders have turned a blind eye to the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war, and our
military appears to be intent on making "Russia back down." This is a recipe for unlimited human disaster."
As you probably know, Putin has said Russia is ready and will not back down, that it is up to the Outlaw US Empire to alter
its aggressive, provocative behaviors and policies. Brinksmanship is clearly occurring, but as you observe, there's no discussion
of that fact happening within the Outlaw US Empire; although now with the INF Treaty pullout, a few voices in Europe are finally
being raised.
thank you very much Steven Starr @21
worth remembering the studies done by JFK govt after the Cuban Missile Crisis
William R Polk writes that they war gamed nuclear conflict, and the conclusion reached was that once USA (or Russia, or now China)
used a nuke, then the result would be escalation until all nukes had been used.
Leaders disbelieved this result, and redid the war games over and over again, but the result was the same. It does not matter
if one nation only intended a "limited" or strategic attack, escalation is inevitable, and it would be the end of human civilization
as we know it.
Take a look at Polk's article here:
www.williampolk.com/assets/the-cuban-missile-crisis-in-reverse.pdf
quote
1)
it
is
almost
certain
that
neither
the
American
nor
the
Russian
government
could
accept
even
a
limited
attack
without
responding;
2)
there
is
no
reason
to
believe
that
a
Russian
government,
faced
with
defeat
in
conventional
weapons,
would
be
able
to
avoid
using
nuclear
weapons;
3)
whatever
attempts
are
made
to
limit
escalation
are
likely
to
fail
and
in
failing
lead
to
all
out
war;
and
4)
the
predictable
consequences
of
a
nuclear
war
are
indeed
an
unimaginable
catastrophe.
The 2018 National Defense Strategy produced by Mattis was published on 19 January 2018, far in advance of Putin's 1 March 2018
address, and advocated for additional expenditures beyond what was legislated. IOW, Putin's speech had no bearing on the increase
in weapons procurement as such was already planned. Furthermore, it's little secret that a technological breakthrough is being
counted on to recharge the Outlaw US Empire's languishing tech sector whose only viable R&D arm for decades is DARPA; thus, the
call for revamping Star Wars ought to be seen as part of that effort.
@31 I think it is more likely the recoil will cause it to spin around like a Catherine wheel firing off Rods from God in all directions.
It will be like the Fourth of July.
You can get into all kinds of detail, but the bottom line is that offense is much cheaper than defense. This was true before and
probably even more true now. Unlimited range nuclear cruise missiles and underwater drones, relatively tiny hypersonic glide vehicles
changing course erratically while falling out of the sky at Mach 27 (latest test) are going to be very expensive to stop if at
all. If it costs you 100 million to defend yourself from a 1 million dollar missile ... well the other guy just builds more missiles.
You can get into all kinds of detail, but the bottom line is that offense is much cheaper than defense.
In my opinion you've nailed it. All the defensive systems I know of are constructed like a house of cards. They're vulnerable
to every kind of disruption, and against a competent opponent none of them are going to work. But never fear - there is big money
in pretending to try.
I used an extract from the link rather than the article title because that title is quite deceptive.
Only two methods of pure defense come to mind. First would be a Science Fiction "blaster" like in Asimov's Foundation series.
The closest we have to them are lasers, and present day models don't have enough power or the ability to blast through nasty weather.
I suspect that tipping the interceptor rockets with small nukes would stop the hypersonic devices in their tracks. The downside
of these is something called EMP, or ElectroMagnetic Pulse. High altitude bursts will probably do at least as much damage to the
US as would the bombs aboard the hypersonic gliders, and quite possibly more.
Because of the demands of the US Empire, the US can't play nice with the rest of the world. But some of us can most definitely
make immense profits from the situation. The ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile) industry may get to join the makers of the F-35 and
the barely floating new Navy ships in the drive for massive profits.
the pair @4 said in part;""war is a racket" as the saying goes. it's usually less about actual capability than it is keeping all
the usual suspects latched firmly on the "military industrial" teat. it's basically the world's largest welfare program disguised
as "national defense" and - coupled with financial fraud/smoke and mirrors -"
Gates to hell are open, Satan's elves know only death economy stock but backs, not the laws of physics!
"One figure who has benefited financially from the crisis, according to Evans, is Prime Minister Theresa May's husband, whose
employer Capital Group owns a large amount of shares in a weapons manufacturer that supplies the Saudi military. The company's
shares in Lockheed Martin, an arms-dealer who produces laser-guided missiles such as the one that blew up a bus full of school
children in Yemen last year, was worth about $6.5 billion as of last March."
My calculator says that this amount of money divided by the 240 little missiles which will come as part of the deal is $1.5
million bucks. That's a lot of taxpayer dollars for something which basically doesn't work. The next link is from 2013, but I
doubt if much has changed, for this Iron Dome business was always more about soothing Apartheid State civilians than actually
working.
feel fairly certain that the US will create their own illusion of security and then, from within that bubble, they will become
even more aggressive in pursuing "regime change" and other globalist matters as countries will continue to refuse to bend to their
will. We've seen how the Republicans reacted to an "apologetic" Obama when he traveled abroad: labeling him a foreigner. We've
seen how the Democrats reacted to the simple act of hacking an e-mail server and publicizing the data: it's 9/11! And we've seen
them respond to Trump: labeling him beholden to foreign interests. I can only see this type of thing escalating in the future.
It's depressing to think about it.
If the US feels like they've secured themselves against any potential missiles, there's nothing stopping them from trying to
break up Russia or vaporizing the coastline of China aside from their own sensibilities. Which seem to have gone out the window
entirely, based on the latest Buzzfeed coverage.
I quit! We know that a "limited nuclear war" is an illusion. The effects of a nuclear accident at Fukushima have been ignored,
denied, covered up or rationalized as the collateral damage of global warming/climate change. The use of "tactical" nukes will
create similar effects that are also ignored. Nuclear restraint will be an invitation to a lack of restraint as this military
"necessity" transforms into full blown insanity. The terminal irony is that we're already at the point of full blown insanity
for failing to impose any limits on the proliferation of nuclear war fantaseis. Therefore, I quit! I refuse to participate in
the generation of more verbiage on this subject. We must demand the strict control of all nuclear weapons and research through
an international program of demilitarization. The first step is to take the political promoters of this madness away from the
microphones. We need a full frontal assault on militarism as the true enemy of the people. To participate in discussions of the
feasibility of further nuclear elaboration is to become part of the insanity. I quit!
not that many years ago, no matter who you asked or where you sourced it, the consensus was pretty much that surface-to-air missile
defense systems were not particularly effective. then came the war in Syria and suddenly incoming missiles were being shot out
of the air with remarkable rates of success. 50%, 60%, 70%, sometimes even 100%! and this was presumably without engaging the
vaunted s-300, s-400 systems. then, of course, Putin declared his new array of super-duper hypersonic missiles...against which
there is presently, apparently, no defense. but then i read that Lockheed Martin was awarded a 2.9 billion dollar contract to
develop Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Satellites, designed to fill the gap that exists for early hypersonic detection,
and i gotta wonder. and then i think of an anomaly like the 21 trillion unaccounted for down at DOD and i try to extrapolate the
limitations on R & D.
At the Counterpunch site is a takedown of Donald Trump and his "war cabinet" .
The Pentagon has been playing games over the years with its testing program for missile defense. Targets typically follow a
preprogrammed flight path to a designated position; interceptor missiles also fly to a preprogrammed position. Global positioning
satellite receivers are placed on the target to send its position to ground control, and the necessary target location is downloaded
to a computer in the kill vehicle. Finally, decoys are given a significantly different thermal signature than the target, making
it easier for sensors on the kill vehicle to distinguish between objects.
I knew there had been cheating going on, but not that it had been quite this bad.
Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jan 19, 2019 1:17:21 PM | 66
"I knew there had been cheating going on, but not that it had been quite this bad."
In this kind of corporate-controlled hierarchy (which is more or less every hierarchy), how could there not be cheating, whatever
level of cheating is necessary to give the desired result. In this case there's tremendous pressure on those conducting the war
game to set it up so it produces the result wanted by the weapons contractors: The government should buy these systems.
Personnel are selected according to their sincere belief in this framework. They don't even consider it cheating, but the rightful
way of the world. And if someone is enough of a rogue (they'll consider HIM the rogue) to want a "real" answer, he'll just be
replaced by someone who believes in the corporate imperative.
It's the same as how most STEM types sincerely believe science exists to serve corporate imperatives. Thus for example every
system-conducted food safety test is designed to give the result desired by agribusiness. And if against the odds the test gives
adverse data, researchers have multiple rationales for excluding it as "irrelevant".
And of course that kind of manipulation is so rife in drug trials that even the mainstream media couldn't keep it from becoming
a public scandal. They're still keeping the lid on the systematic fraud of food testing though.
So it's no wonder that capitalism reaches exactly the end point its critics always forecast - extremely expensive weapons that
don't work, extremely expensive drugs that don't work and are often harmful, extremely expensive food (artificially kept cheap
at the retail checkout via massive government subsidies) that doesn't work (poor nutritional value, empty calories) and is loaded
with poison.
So the ticking clocks are in a race. What'll it be, nuclear war, mass death from poisoned food, mass death from the generally
toxified environment. And a big part of it is that under late capitalism, professional cadres not only have no integrity but are
devout believers in the religion of corporate rule and how from these benevolent despots manna will trickle down to all.
But the only real trickling down is the acid rain, the volatile pesticide and radiation fallout, and the missiles.
Liberal part of American elite never formulated a coherent rebuke to the insanity of Star Wars. The assumptions of Star Wars are
too close to their common wisdom, namely that USA should pursue what it richly deserves, the position of an unquestioned sole
superpower on the globe that sets the rules for the rest, at collects some tribute from the lesser in the form of fines for violation
of the rules that are imposed on the rest. MAD does not have place is such a world so should be eliminated.
The concept that pursuit of this ideal is futile, expensive and diverts energies and minds in USA from solving actual life
problems of Americans, not to mention those in other nations is alien to our elite thinking. We are the force for good, so the
stronger our force the better.
In the meantime we have problems like this one. Moscow subway is very proud that its system expands by 5-10% every year and
the percentage of delayed trains is 5 times smaller than in Paris. They do not compare themselves to NYC where the subway system
hardly expands and the percentage of delayed trains is about 30% rather than 1% in Paris and 0.2% in Moscow. NYC system also consumes
an amazing amount of money. The arts of corruption, mismanagement and achieving very little for a lot are more widely spread than
MIC.
But the new missile-defense strategy rests most of its hopes on other technologies that essentially do not exist, and may never
do so. The review says, for example, that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could be networked with new sensors and outfitted with
new missiles to take out adversary missiles on the launch pad. Tests have shown that the F-35 can do this. But the distance
is the larger problem: the jet basically has to be in the enemy's airspace already.
The notion of multiple F-35s loitering over China and Russia waiting to kneecap rockets during liftoff is a fantasy.
When I read that new " Missile Defense Review" report this is one of the absurd claims which had me shaking my head.
The F-35 isn't invisible. In the unlikely event it could even reach enemy launch sites, a good radar would know it was there.
A keen set of eyes or ears could possibly hear the howl of the engine or just spot it. And a VERY average infra-red detector could
detect that super-hot engine. One of the many problems with the airplane is its short range. Even if it could somehow get there,
it can't stay. The plane will need fuel. The pilot will need to eat, potty, and eventually sleep. Build a special hyper-expensive
robot model and it still won't work. But the neocons seem to have sold it to President Gullible, and that's all that matters.
The kinetic weapons aren't a cost issue. A single Tomahawk is $1M - nor do you need a telephone pole sized projectile to do a
lot of damage.
The real issue is targeting and survivability. Hitting something from even low earth orbit is non-trivial, particularly if
it is a purely ballistic system unless the target is both stationary and very large. And, as the author mentions, these systems
are notably easy to hit if they are on low earth orbit.
I wouldn't worry about the US military capabilities anymore. There is steady erosion across the board, from quality of personnel
to the capabilities of weaponry. While still formidable, America's forces are becoming less so with each passing year. In all
face-to-face mock-up competitions, American soldiers, sailors and airmen always finish next to last. Every invitation by Russia
to participate in such exercises (from Aviadarts to Tank Biathlon to Army Games) is invariably declined by the Pentagon, lest
it leads to an embarassing display of borderline incompetence.
Russia, on the other hand, is improving rapidly in all areas.
Add to it the yawning gap in fiscal health (Russia is as sound as the US is sick), and it's getting clear that all of Trump's
posturing is nothing but a desperate bluff. It worked once by inducing outright panic into the decrepit Soviet leadership in the
late 1980s, so why not try it again...?
Putin is no Brezhnev, however. And America is a very different country also (not in a good way). Nothing of substance will
come of it this time around. Russians are already preparing for the inevitable collapse of the START treaty. They will be going
back to tens of thousands of strategic nukes and beyond, until the West either collapses or sues for peace.
Fallout from Chernobyl rendered Welsh sheep too radioactive to eat for a good many years. Recently, (last couple of years) I was
told by a Bavarian that they still could not eat wild boar in Bavaria for the same reason.
As you suggest, a purely ballistic system is nearly worthless. The flying crowbar (or telephone pole) would have turned into
a guided munition. Getting a signal through the plasma sheath surrounding weapon has been a big problem. Lots of people have been
working on solutions, and the Russians claim to have found one. From a Popular Science story:
To get the signal to make the short leap to the spacecraft, the Russian researchers propose blasting the resonating plasma
layer with radio waves generated from the spacecraft. Like the signal from earth, some will be absorbed and some reflected
back to the spacecraft. But the reflected waves should be modulated by changes in the electric field caused by the signal sent
from earth. Meaning the signals returning to the spacecraft should carry a ghost of the signal sent form earth and absorbed
by the plasma.
A search turned up several different proposals, so person has to assume one or more of them is going to work. One reason to
worry about this is the possibility of attacking missile silo ICBMs. Until very recently it was thought only a nuclear weapon
would destroy one of these, but a properly sized kinetic impactor would surely do just as well. Worst of all, the warning time
from when the impactors were detected on radar until they hit would be really short.
There are other possibilities which had best be left untouched in deference to the sensitivities of The Surveillance State.
Can the elite be afflicted by some mass disease. Is Neoconservatism a deadly infection ?
Theoretically Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on
that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets
broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility. In
other words they spearheaded a dangerous disease to stay in power. And eventually got infected themselves.
Notable quotes:
"... "But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?" ..."
"... That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge. ..."
"... The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that. ..."
"... An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated. ..."
"... As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. ..."
"But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce
grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the
guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their
folly and change course?"
What if, on election day, you only have a choice between 2 candidates. Both favoring all
the wrong choices, but one tends to talk up Christianity and family and the other talks up
diversity.
And both get their funding from the very wealthy and corporations. And any 3rd choices
would be "throwing your vote away". How would you ever get to vote for someone who might
change course?
Democracy has little to actually do with choice or power.
mlopez, January 18, 2019 at 6:22 pm
GB may not have been any utopia in 1914, but it was certainly geo-politically dominant. It's common people's social,
economic and cultural living standards most assuredly was vastly improved over Russian, or European peasants. There can be no
serious comparison with third world countries and regions.
As for the US, there can be absolutely no debate about its own dominance, or material standard of living after 1945 as
compared to any where else in the world. More importantly, even uneducated and very contemporary observers were capable of
recognizing how our elites had sold out their interests in favor of the furtherance of their own.
If we are on about democratic government, then it's been generations since either country and their peoples have had any
real democracy. Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based
on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information
ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and
irresponsibility.
That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the
rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune
to challenge.
Hello / Goodbye, January 19, 2019 at 11:40 am
The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere
citizens having influencing decisions like that.
Patzinak, January 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm
What ineffable flummadiddle!
Prominent Brexiteers include Boris Johnson (dual UK/US citizenship, educated in Brussels and at Eton and Oxford, of mixed
ancestry, including a link - by illegitimate descent - to the royal houses of Prussia and the UK); Jacob Rees-Mogg (son of a
baron, educated at Eton and Oxford, amassed a solid fortune via hedge fund management); Arron Banks (millionaire, bankroller
of UKIP, made to the Brexit campaign the largest ever political donation in UK politics).
So much for "the elite" being against Brexit!
But the main problem with Brexit is this. Having voted by a slim margin in favour of Brexit, the Great British Public
then, in the general election, denied a majority to the government that had undertaken to implement it, and elected a
Parliament of whom, by a rough estimate, two thirds oppose Brexit.
It ain't that "the elite" got "things wrong". It's that bloody Joe Public can't make his mind what to do - and go through
with it.
Rossbach, January 20, 2019 at 2:14 pm
"Whether the imagined utopia of a dominant Great Britain prior to 1914 or a dominant America after 1945 ever actually
existed is beside the point."
It wasn't to restore any defunct utopia that led people to vote for Brexit or Donald Trump; it was to check the descent of
the Anglosphere into the totalitarian dystopia of forced multi-cultural globalism that caused voters to reject the EU in
Britain and Hillary Clinton in the US. It is because they believed that only with the preservation of their national
independence was there any chance or hope for a restoration of individual liberty that our people voted as they did.
Ratings System, January 17, 2019 at 1:27 pm
It's why they won't enjoy their privileges much longer. That stale charade can't and won't last.
We don't have a meritocracy. We have a pseudo-meritocracy with an unduly large contingent of aliens, liars, cheats,
frauds, and incompetents. They give each other top marks, speak each other's PC language, and hire each other's kids. And
they don't understand why things are falling apart, and why they are increasingly hated by real Americans.
A very nasty decade or two is coming our way, but after we've swept out the filth there will be a good chance that
Americans will be Americans again.
Paul Reidinger, January 17, 2019 at 2:03 pm
An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of
the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those
institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated.
As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and
their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and
evil - begin to have real effect. The new dark age is no longer imminent. It is here, and it is them. I see no way to
rectify the damage. When minds are ruined young, they remain ruined.
March 20, 2018, marks the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. While the American footprint in Iraq has drastically
changed over 15 years, a significant number of the original cheerleaders for the invasion still hold prominent roles in the media
today:
John Bolton, Fox News contributor
Bolton was President George W. Bush's
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control when the Iraq War began.
Bolton backed an Iraq invasion as early as 1998, when he signed a letter from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC),
a neoconservative group led by William Kristol, urging then-President Bill Clinton to attack Saddam Hussein. As the State Department's
top arms-control official during President Bush's first term, Bolton played a role in pushing the allegation that Saddam Hussein
sought uranium in Africa.
"We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq." [BBC,
11/20/02
]
"I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct." [Talking Points Memo,
5/14/15 ]
Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior contributor
Kudlow was economics editor of
National Review and a co-host of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer when the Iraq War began.
"Could it be that a lack of decisive follow-through in the global war on terrorism is the single biggest problem facing the stock
market and the nation today? I believe it is. The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand
points." [ National Review ,
6/26/02 ]
"Every day we wait for the impending invasion of Iraq is a day Saddam Hussein grows stronger, a day our national security is threatened,
and a day our economic security is jeopardized." [ National Review ,
2/6/03 ]
Boot's bloodthirstiness is united with a peculiar naïveté about America; it must be said that in this respect he is not unlike
Lansdale. Could it really have been, as Boot wrote in 2017, that only Trump opened his eyes to the fact that it's a bit easier
to be a white guy in America, that "I benefitted from my skin color and my gender -- and those of a different gender or sexuality
or skin color have suffered because of it"? Good for Max if he's had a change of heart and seen the world through more empathetic
eyes; one only wishes he could've had those moments of reflection, which seem so modest and so reasonable, circa 2001. But that
might not have changed anything. He wrote as recently as 2013 that he feels "No Need to Repent for Support of the Iraq War." He
declares, "I feel no shame being part of the 75 percent of Americans who believed at the beginning that this was a war worth waging."
This move is not quite honest: Boot wants to submerge himself into the center of a crowd, one of the democratic mass, when in
fact he was at its vanguard, pushing for the Iraq War early and often.
"Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq." [ The Weekly Standard ,
10/15/01 ]
"In places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and very shortly Iraq, ordinary people clamor for American intervention, and welcome
U.S. troops as liberators." [Nimitz Memorial Lecture at University of California, Berkeley,
3/12/03 ]
"No need to repent for support of [the] Iraq war." [ Commentary ,
3/18/13 ]
"But how exactly does the Iraq War differ from previous wars? From World War I, when the Great Powers were said to have 'sleepwalked'
into a conflict that no one really wanted?" [ Commentary ,
7/6/16 ]
Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist
Cohen
was a Washington Post columnist when the Iraq War began.
"Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or
possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise." [ The Washington Post ,
2/6/03 ]
"Initially, I thought bringing down Saddam Hussein was a good cause. I was wrong -- not about the cause, but about its practicality."
[ The Washington Post ,
4/1/08 ]
Ari Fleischer, Fox News contributor
Flesicher served as President Bush's
press secretary as the Iraq War began.
"My point is, the likelihood is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now under a brutal dictator will view
America as liberators, not conquerors." [ The New York Times ,
10/12/02 ]
"There's no question that if force is used, it will achieve the objective of preserving the peace far faster than the current
path that we're on." [White House press briefing, 2/14/03
]
"Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice." [White House press briefing,
3/21/03 ]
"I think that if you look at the Iraqi people, the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly pleased with the fact the United States has
helped them to get rid of the Saddam Hussein regime. That was clear from their dancing in the streets, from the way they tore down
the statues. And I think that is the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people." [White House press briefing,
7/1/03 ]
Sean Hannity, Fox News host
Hannity was also a syndicated talk radio host
and a Fox News host when the Iraq War began.
"We're going to find all the weapons of mass destruction." [Fox News, Hannity & Colmes , 2/19/03, via Nexis]
"I was a real believer in the Iraq War. I still am to this day. I still feel that there were probably weapons of mass destruction.
I do believe they were likely moved to Syria in the long lead-up to the war." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show
,
9/7/16 ]
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief
Hayes was a senior writer at The
Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began.
"Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives
and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi
financial support for al Qaeda." [ The Weekly Standard ,
11/24/03 ]
Hayes' 2004 book was titled The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America .
[ Media Matters ,
6/30/04 ]
Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial director
Hiatt has been
editorial page director of The Washington Post since 1999.
As Media Matters has
documented , the Washington Post editorial page -- headed by Hiatt since 1999 -- repeatedly echoed the Bush administration's
claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A February 6, 2003,
editorial began, "After Secretary Of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it
is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."
The Post 's editorial page also
linked the need to invade Iraq to the 9/11 attacks:
During the past decade the United States vowed many times to disarm Saddam Hussein, who made no secret of his hatred and enmity
toward the United States; but when the Iraqi dictator resisted, the United States chose to abandon its vows rather than use the
force that would have been needed to enforce them. In every case, the calculation, stated or unstated, was the same: Pay tribute,
don't make trouble, and maybe nothing worse will happen.
In the ruins of Lower Manhattan in September 2001, most Americans saw evidence that this calculation was incorrect as well
as craven. The nation's enemies would not be deterred or mollified by a gentle response; they would be emboldened. President Bush
rightly concluded that the nation had to defend itself more vigilantly but also that no defense could succeed unless accompanied
by an offensive against the terrorists and the states that sheltered them.
Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard editor-at-large
Kristol was a co-founder of
Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank Kristol used to crusade for the Iraq War.
Saddam Hussein "will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come. The war itself will clarify who was right
and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about
Saddam's regime." [ The Weekly Standard ,
3/17/03 ]
Kristol bragged that the war would last just two months:
In 2015, Kristol
defended
the decision to invade Iraq:
Even with the absence of caches of weapons of mass destruction, and the mistakes we made in failing to send enough troops at
first and to provide security from the beginning for the Iraqi people, we were right to persevere through several difficult years.
We were able to bring the war to a reasonably successful conclusion in 2008.
Paul Gigot, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor
Gigot has been the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal since 2001.
Under Gigot, the editorial page
frequently hyped the likelihood that Saddam Hussein was close to producing or obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Journal
forwarded alarmist claims about Iraq's nuclear capabilities on numerous occasions:
August 2, 2002: "Above all, a debate would let Mr. Bush demonstrate that he has by far the stronger case. Even the critics
concede that Saddam is a threat, after all, a tyrant who has gassed his own people, tried to kill a U.S. President and whose military
routinely fires at American pilots patrolling no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said Monday that before the Gulf War Saddam was 'within a year or two' of having nuclear weapons. And at Wednesday's Senate hearings,
former Iraqi nuclear engineer Khidir Hamza said Saddam will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005."
August 29, 2002: "There is always the chance that Congress could refuse the President. But this must be measured against the
strong case the Administration has, a case Vice President Dick Cheney pressed earlier this week in Nashville. Mr. Cheney flatly
declared that when it comes to a nuclear-armed Saddam, 'the risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.'"
September 25, 2002: "And then there is the redoubtable Mr. Blair, an ally who continues to risk dissent in his party and country
for a cause in which he believes. Yesterday Mr. Blair released a dossier of intelligence on Iraq. The 50-page report describes
how Saddam has tried to buy uranium from Africa for use in nuclear weapons, has 20 missiles that could reach British military
bases in Cyprus as well as Israel and NATO members Greece and Turkey, and stating that Iraq's chemical weapons are on standby
for use within 45 minutes. 'The policy of containment is not working. The WMD program is not shut down. It is up and running,'
Mr. Blair told Parliament."
September 9, 2002: "Democrats hardly need two more months now to deliberate over this evidence, most of which they already
know. They merely want to push any decision past Election Day so their votes won't put their Senate majority at risk. They can
then posture as statesmen for two months but only declare themselves after the day when voters would be able to hold them immediately
responsible. Let's hope Saddam's nuclear weapons program is operating on the same wait-until-the-election timetable."
A January 27, 2003, editorial was titled "If Saddam Survives."
Judith Miller, Fox News contributor
Miller was a New York Times reporter
when the Iraq War began.
Miller produced a series of now-debunked reports that the Bush administration used to buttress its claim that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction. As Franklin Foer wrote for New York magazine:
During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein's ambition
and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad] Chalabi and his allies --
almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.
For the past year, the Times has done much to correct that coverage, publishing a series of stories calling Chalabi's
credibility into question. [ New York magazine, 6
/7/04 ]
In a 2004 interview, she told The New
York Review of Books: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My
job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."
Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller
discussed
Miller's Iraq War reporting with Media Matters in 2011:
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller says one of his biggest mistakes as editor was not addressing the paper's
misleading pre-Iraq War coverage sooner, including the reporting of former Times writer Judy Miller.
Keller tells Media Matters that he is "not at all" surprised that Miller ended up at the "conservative" Fox News Channel
after she left the Times under a cloud of controversy related to her Iraq reporting.
Keller, who announced Thursday that in September he will leave the post he has held since July 2003, said: "Judy was the author
of a lot of those stories, and I should have dealt with the stories and with her I think as the sort of first order of business
when I took the job rather than waiting until the following year."
Keller was referring to the unusual
editor's note the
Times published on May 26, 2004, in which it admitted many of its pre-war stories about weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq -- a number of which were reported by Miller -- misrepresented the situation before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The whole Judy Miller WMD experience was ... one of the low points of the last eight years," Keller said.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host
Scarborough
was hired by MSNBC as the Iraq War began.
Joe Scarborough repeatedly cheered on the Iraq War and attacked people who criticized it.
"Congressman [Jack] Kingston [R-GA], give me a quick response. How could there be anyone left on the planet today that doesn't
believe that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?" [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/5/03, via Nexis]
Toppling Saddam Hussein "will mean the end of his weapons of mass destruction." [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/11/03, via
Nexis]
"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types
. I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe
the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war
.
"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief UN weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein?
Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, 'The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between
its legs, defeated.' Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step
forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions
were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their
mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing." [MSNBC 4/10/03 via
FAIR ]
Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist and MSNBC contributor
Stephens
was editor of The Jerusalem Post when the Iraq War began.
As The New Yorker
noted , in 2003 Stephens' Jerusalem Post "named one of the Iraq War's chief architects, Paul Wolfowitz, its 'man of
the year.'"
"Saddam may unveil, to an astonished world, the Arab world's first nuclear bomb." [ The Jerusalem Post ,
11/15/02 ]
Stephens criticized the Obama administration's case for military intervention in Syria by contrasting it with Bush's decision
to invade Iraq, which he claimed was made based on "highly detailed" intelligence revealing weapons of mass destruction. Stephens
claimed that the "testimony of U.N. inspectors like Hans Blix" supported the Bush administration's case for war, and accusations
that the Bush administration lied were "libel" and "cheap slander." In fact, Blix told CNN in 2004 that the Bush administration "chose
to ignore" his team's concerns about the lack of solid evidence in favor of war, and that prior to the invasion the evidence of WMDs
in Iraq was revealed to be "shaky." [ Media Matters ,
4/13/17 ]
David Frum, Atlantic senior editor
Frum was a speechwriter for President
Bush when the Iraq War began.
Frum is renowned for writing George W. Bush's
"Axis of Evil" speech. Alex Nichols
described
Frum's Iraq boosterism in 2017:
Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson, a fellow fanatical interventionist and veteran of the neoconservative underworld, tapped
Frum for the speechwriting team in 2000. His greatest accomplishment was the authorship of Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech,
now known for its most famous phrase, "axis of evil." The axis was a grouping of three countries -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea
-- that were implicit allies in a plot to destroy America. The supposed ties between the three mostly came down to their mutual
love for imaginary "weapons of mass destruction" and non-existent collaboration with al-Qaeda. As Trump threatens war crimes against
civilians in Iraq and Syria, sanctions Iran despite its compliance with our nuclear agreement and threatens "fire and fury" for
North Korea, Frum must be held accountable for cementing them as boogeymen in the public imagination.
Frum resigned his post in February 2002 in order to join the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank then
working in close association with the Bush administration. With them, he emerged as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of
the War on Terror. In 2004, Frum and former adviser to the Bush Department of Defense Richard Perle published a book titled An
End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. Its text was as audacious as its title. "An End to Evil will define the conservative
point of view on foreign policy for a new generation -- and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond,"
a description of it reads. By this time, the Iraq War was in full swing, and Frum and Perle offered full-throated apologia. Under
the assumptions that the war would bring stable democracy to Iraq and that the imaginary WMDs would be located soon enough, they
called for similar action against North Korea and Iran.
Eli Lake, Bloomberg View columnist
Lake was a State Department
correspondent for United Press International (UPI) when the Iraq War began.
As
noted
by Adam Weinstein for Gawker, Lake
argued
for the legality of the Iraq War in a 2003
column for UPI:
"On the facts of the case, it is hard to argue that Iraq has given up its weapons of mass destruction. ... With this kind of
evidence, far from being an international outlaw, the United States would be a the (sic) defender of the entire institution of
international (sic) should it lead a war to disarm Iraq."
Eliot Cohen, Atlantic contributing editor
Cohen was a co-founder
of Project for the New American Century.
MSNBC's Zachary Roth described
Cohen's role in boosting the Iraq War in 2013:
[Cohen] was a key agitator for an Iraq invasion and for a maximalist response to the 9/11 attacks. In a November 2001 op-ed
in which he called the War on Terror "World War IV," Cohen argued that the US. should "target" Iraq because it had "helped al
Qaeda" and "developed weapons of destruction." Not long after, he touted a spurious connection between Muhammed Atta, the chief
9/11 hijacker, and Saddam's regime. In Congressional testimony in 2002, Cohen framed a stark choice for policymakers: Allow Saddam
"to acquire weapons of mass destruction or to take action to overthrow him." In 2007, Cohen became a top adviser to Condoleezza
Rice at the State Department.
Ann Coulter
Coulter was a prominent conservative author and
commentator when the Iraq War began.
Coulter, alongside Sean Hannity,
pushed lies about Army Ranger Pat Tillman's opposition to the Iraq War. Asawin Suebsaeng
wrote in 2017 for The Daily Beast about Coulter's Iraq War boosterism and how she has pivoted away from it under Trump:
"I think Iraq was a crucial part of the war on terrorism -- if you had to choose between Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd take Iraq
over Afghanistan," Coulter said on a Fox Business panel, debating anti-war libertarians, in late 2011. "PATRIOT Act, fantastic,
Gitmo, fantastic, waterboarding, not bad, though [even harsher] torture would've been better."
Coulter went on to tell a bewildered John Stossel and Matt Welch that "[Iraq] is a fantastic country for regime change," that
"torture works beautifully," and that position regarding potential blowback or unintended negative consequences to the war were
merely a "crazy ACLU argument."
Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh was also host of his own radio show when the Iraq War began.
On April 7, 2003, Rush Limbaugh said
, "We're discovering WMDs all over Iraq." On September 26, 2007, Limbaugh
called soldiers who advocated withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." Limbaugh has
subsequently tried to justify the Iraq War, even declaring that President Bush should be
added
to Mount Rushmore . In January 2018, Limbaugh
accused the "deep state" of faking weapons of mass destruction evidence in Iraq to damage Bush.
Nicole Wallace, MSNBC host
Wallace
was George W. Bush's communications director as the Iraq War began.
"[Obama's] legacy on foreign policy is going to be that he didn't start a war in Iraq. He wasn't the president, thank God, in
the years after 9/11." [MSNBC, 5/30/14 ]
"... As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal Doomsday machine. ..."
"... That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State. ..."
"... In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914. ..."
"... Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991. ..."
"... So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s. ..."
"... Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business. ..."
We've got NATO on our mind today because we learned this morning that the mere suggestion this obsolete relic of the Cold War
should be abandoned tends to trigger an absolutely virulent outburst of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the mainstream media.
So long as we were talking about the folly of Trump-O-Nomics and the Donald's rookie mistake in embracing an egregious stock market
bubble that is destined to crash and a failing, geriatric business cycle that at age 115 months has "recession ahead" written all
over its forehead, our host, Mika Brzezinski, was happy to nod approvingly.
But when we veered off into approval of the Donald's efforts to rein in the Empire and make peace with the Russkies, it was an
altogether different matter. We no more than launched the thought of it than Mika was sputtering in disbelief – as if we had committed
a grotesque sacrilege in public:
STOCKMAN: Beyond that – beyond that, trump tried to do the right thick with America first. He's been stymied at every turn
of the road. He was right. They wouldn't let him do it. He was right. NATO is obsolete. We should get rid of it. Everybody went
after him for he's trying to do the right thing in Korea and yet they keep coming after him on the basis of the status quo, which
has been wrong for last 60 years. So on the one hand, his economic policy is a failure. On the other hand, his effort to rein
in the empires I call it and get to something we can afford is being stymied. And then he's filled the swamp with $100 billion
more for the Pentagon that is doesn't need. That's the deep end of the swamp."
BRZEZINSKI: "David, David, hold on a second, hold on, hold on. You did a lot."
STOCKMAN: "Yes."
BRZEZINSKI: "I just want to like hone in on one – are you saying we should pull out of NATO?" [crosstalk]
STOCKMAN: "Sure. NATO is obsolete."
BRZEZINSKI: "What?"
STOCKMAN: "NATO is obsolete. It was only set up to stop the Soviet Union and 50,000 tanks on the Warsaw front. That ended 25
years ago. We don't need NATO. Europe can take care of itself. Russia's a pint-sized economy, 7 percent of size of U.S. economy.
NATO, US GDP combined is $36 trillion, Russia's $1.5 trillion. You think the Europeans can't handle it? Germany spends 1 percent
only of GDP on defense. If they really thought that the Russians were heading through the Brandenburg Gate, they would be providing
for their own defense. They're not pacifists.
So if you wonder why we insist that a fiscal calamity is barreling down the pike – just consider the implications of this exchange.
MSNBC is ground zero for the so-called progressive Left. Yet it has become so deranged by the Donald and convinced that he was elected
not because the electorate rejected its threadbare agenda, but because Putin and the Russkies threw the election to him, that it
has become a full-fledged champion of the War Party.
As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security
assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements
that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal
Doomsday machine.
That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the
nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State.
Yet with respect to the latter, the last time we checked the old Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history 28 years ago.
Shortly thereafter the 50,000 Red Army tanks, which had been arrayed menacingly (and unbeknownst to the CIA, largely without spare
fuel) behind the Iron Curtain, were mostly melted down for scrap by the destitute statelets of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, Rumania,
Bulgaria, Albania etc.) and 14 ex-Soviet Republics (like Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, etc.)
What was left of the Soviet Empire was the rump state of Russia – shorn of much of its industrial base and with an aging population
of just 140 million compared to the 425 million souls who had been incarcerated in Stalin's dystopia.
So, yes, there was every reason to declare "mission accomplished" and disband NATO because the much exaggerated conventional military
threat of the Soviet Union had literally vanished from the face of the earth. At that point, NATO was, in fact, pointless.
So when President George Bush the Elder, who was no wimpy Yale pacifist, promised Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for his acquiescence
to the reunification of Germany that NATO would no move " a single inch to the east", he wasn't exactly selling the "free world"
(as they called it) down the drain.
In fact, as the above map unfolded, the 77-Years War that had incepted in August 1914 was finally over. If you want to count bodies,
150 million were killed by all the depredations which germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and
the march of history into the second world war and cold war which followed inexorably thereupon.
To wit, upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped-out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench
warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and
Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and
Vietnam.
So finally the time had come for Washington to lead the world into a golden age of peace, disarmament and prosperous commerce
among the nations.
Yet there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77 Years War ended. The great general and president,
Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell address.
But that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word "congressional" in a gesture of comity
to the legislative branch. So restore Ike's deleted reference to the legislative pork barrels and Sunday afternoon warriors of Capitol
Hill and toss in the legions of beltway busybodies that constituted the civilian branches of the cold war armada (CIA, State, AID,
NED etc.) and the circle would have been complete.
It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized
world.
In a word, the real threat to world peace circa 1991 was that Pax Americana would not go away quietly into the good
night.
In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold
war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.
Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing,
Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991.
What needed to happen back in 1991 was for Bush the Elder to declare "mission accomplished" and slash the Pentagon budget from
$600 billion to $250 billion.
So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development,
procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed
forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican
predecessors during the 1920s.
Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of
the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous
dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business.
By contrast, even though liberal historians have reviled Warren G. Harding as some kind of dumbkopf politician, he well understood
that the Great War had been for naught, and that to insure it never happened again the nations of the world needed to rid themselves
of their huge navies and standing armies.
To that end, he achieved the largest global disarmament agreement ever made during the Washington Naval conference of 1921, which
halted the construction of new battleships for more than a decade.
And while he was at it, President Harding also pardoned Eugene Debs. He thereby gave witness to the truth that the intrepid socialist
candidate for president and vehement antiwar protester, who Wilson had thrown in prison for exercising his first amendment right
to speak against US entry into a pointless European war, had been right all along.
In short, Warren G. Harding knew the war was over, and the folly of Wilson's 1917 plunge into Europe's bloodbath should not be
repeated at all hazards.
The Unforgiveable Sins 0f George H.W. Bush
Not George H.W. Bush. The man should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and
their neocon pack of jackals to come to power – even if he did denounce them in his bumbling old age.
Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991 he opened the gates to an unnecessary
confrontation with Islam. In turn, that nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today – save for forces
unleashed by George H.W. Bush's petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.
We will address more fully on another occasion the 45-year-old error that holds the Persian Gulf is an American Lake and that
energy security requires it be patrolled by the Fifth Fleet. As history proves, the real answer to high oil prices everywhere and
always is high oil prices and the wonders they work to rebalance the global energy market.
But first it is well to remember that there was no plausible threat anywhere on the planet to the safety and security of the citizens
of Springfield MA, Lincoln NE or Spokane WA when the cold war ended.
But rather than dismantling the NATO machinery, virtually the opposite happened. NATO has been expanded to 29 countries including
such powers as Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and now the statelet of Montenegro that has a military half the size of the
police force of Philadelphia.
In the context of this relentless and pointless NATO expansion to the very borders of the shrunken Russian state, Washington not
only sponsored and funded the overthrow of Ukraine's constitutionally elected government in February 2014. But once it had unleashed
a devastating civil war, it relentlessly blocked the obvious alternative to the bloodshed that has claimed 10,000 civilian and military
casualties.
That is, it's partition of its population among the Russian speaking provinces in the Donbas and Crimea and Ukrainians in the
west. After all, partition was accomplished peacefully in the artificial state of Czechoslovakia and at the insistence of NATO bombers
in the short-lived nation of Yugoslavia.
Had not the Donald been stopped cold by the hail of hysteria which emanated from the War Party and their dutiful stenographers
in the main stream media, the next step after his historic meeting with Putin in Helsinki would have been to take up where George
H.W. Bush faltered in 1991.
That is, on the dismantlement and interment of NATO and the reopening of Europe to peaceful commerce among all the nation's that
had been artificially separated by the now long departed Iron Curtain.
The fact is, Washington doesn't need its budget-busting $720 billion defense budget to defend Europe from Russia, nor should it
be endlessly haranguing those nations to waste more of their own money on defense than they already are.
That's because there is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia wants to attack Germany or any other country in Europe. Indeed,
the very idea is just plain madness.
As shown by the table below, the NATO-28 (excluding the US) are now actually spending $250 billion per year on defense
(2017). That's 4X Russia's entire military budget of $61 billion .
Likewise, the GDP of Russia is but $1.5 trillion compared to $18 trillion for the NATO-28. So is Cool
Hand Vlad so completely foolish and reckless as to think that he could invade and occupy territories that have an economy 13X bigger
than that of Russia?
Actually, it's far more ludicrous than that. The rump of Russia today is a giant hydrocarbon province attached to some wheat fields,
timber lands and mineral deposits – all dependent upon an aging work force afflicted with an undue fondness for Vodka etc.
What that means is that Russia must export its commodities big time or die. In fact, during 2017 Russian exports totaled $357
billion or 26% of its GDP. And 55% of that went to Europe!
Moreover, when you breakdown Russian exports it is plain to see that the industrial maw of Europe is the port of first call for
its vast tonnages of exported commodities. These included $173 billion of oil and gas and $60 billion of iron, steel, aluminum, precious
metals, forest products, fertilizers, grains and copper, among others.
Finally, the table on defense spending by country below speaks for itself as to the purported Russian threat. If the German government
really feared that Russian tanks would be soon rolling through the Brandenburg Gates, it would have more than 20 operational tanks,
and it would spend far more than $40.6 billion or 1.2% of GDP to defend itself.
And the same is even more true of the former Warsaw pact countries that are located cheek-by-jowl on Russia's border. Yet Romania
spends the tiny sum of $2.8 billion or 1.2% of GDP on its military.
Likewise, the figure for Hungary, which learned all about Soviet-style invasions in 1956, spends only $1.2 billion or barely 1.0%
of GDP. And besides that, its intrepid leader, Viktor Orban, doesn't even support NATO's ridiculous sanctions on Putin's cronies
and allies.
And as for the allegedly threatened Baltic states, their combined defense budgets are less than $1.5 billion, representing a minuscule
1.7% of combined GDP; and Bulgaria, fast upon the Russian Lake called the Black Sea, spends only $660 million or 1.4% of its GDP.
In short, European policy action on the defense spending front trumps all the hot air that wafts from NATO's spanking new Brussels
headquarters. Their governments and parliaments positively do not think they are threatened by the Russian Bear because they aren't.
What would help a lot, therefore, is for the Great Disrupter to forget about his unfortunate infatuation with the idea that bigger
is always better, and do what no other American politician in thrall to the Warfare State has been unable to do since 1991 when the
Soviet Union vanished.
That is, declare "mission accomplished" with respect to NATO and disband it forthwith.
You could call it a Mercy Killing. Indeed, a couple more NATO summits at which they are browbeat to waste ever more money on defense,
and the Europeans themselves may well start begging for exactly that.
Then again, could you imagine how loudly the progressive left would be screaming if the Donald even entertained the thought deep
beneath his bedraggled Orange Comb-Over?
Neocons are "enemies of the people" independent of their party affiliation. Nuremberg principles were written not for nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks. ..."
"... The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence. ..."
There is an unforgettable passage in Graham Greene's classic "The Quiet American" in which the
title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated
than he'd imagined. "I had not realized how tribal politics was and how divorced it could be
from principles or conviction," Pyle says. Surveying the wreckage of the American war effort,
he adds, "Looking back with greater introspection and humility after the passage of more than
fifteen years, I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it was all a big mistake."
Greene's admirers will recognize that these lines do not actually come from his 1955 novel.
They are from Max Boot's new book, " The Corrosion of
Conservatism: Why I Left the Right ." Boot, a leading intellectual in the conservative
movement for the past two decades, is now apologizing for nearly everything he has done and
abided. He is denouncing not just Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole. "Upon
closer examination," he writes in his 260-page atonement, "it's obvious that the whole history
of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance,
isolationism, and know-nothingism."
The temptation is to say, Bravo, here at last is a Republican willing to admit the emperor
has no clothes. That's the reaction of lots of journalists and
pundits who have flipped
through Boot's book. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in the
Washington Monthly that Boot's "readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable."
Adam Serwer, writer at The Atlantic, tweeted , "You don't want to
punish people for getting the right answer." Boot is no longer a Republican (he quit the party
after Trump's election) but he is hardly an outcast in the political world -- he is a
Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a CNN
analyst. Such is the sweet life of a born-again intellectual.
It's easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of
the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his
confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is
an irresistible spectacle -- the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his
knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to
join the army of righteousness. But here's the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And
because he's been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided
with nothing more than a polite handshake as he's led out of the sanctuary of politics,
forever.
When I say wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, " Out of
Order ," Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of
Education that school segregation violated the Constitution ("I am not proud of 'Out of
Order,'" he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq ("Once we have deposed
Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the
one in Kabul," he proclaimed in 2001);
he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats
opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations ("He seems like a good choice
to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants");
he thought
Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly
maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone
except the staff of Commentary
magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the
GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks.
That's a lot of wrong. It's so much wrong that I can't imagine how or why anyone could look
at Boot and think, "Ah, here's a man we should listen to." I can pre-empt Boot's response to
this -- in his book, he complains that "doctrinaire leftists" will be satisfied with nothing
less than his "ritual suicide" for the war crimes he's committed. I've exchanged a few cordial
emails with Boot (we both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, a few years
apart, and worked at its student newspaper, the Daily Californian ), and I can honestly say he seems a nice and
bright enough fellow to whom I wish no physical harm. But like Alden Pyle, he has helped create
so much havoc, he has been wrong so completely, that it would be the definition of insanity to
treat his ideas as fodder for anything other than a shredder. Here's a real line from "The
Quiet American," spoken about Pyle by the novel's weary narrator, that suits Boot perfectly: "I
never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." Pyle's innocence, the
book explains, "is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no
harm."
The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and
intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic
consequence.
Boot is a perfect example, because he has been wrong so many times in such major
ways and is actually willing to admit it. But there are vast numbers of pundits , masters of
spin , and
allegedintellectuals who have been wrong
enough on enough big things (not just war, but climate change and more) to merit laughter
rather than praise. Yet there they are,
stroking their chins on our finest
op-ed pages and cable news channels. Mutual forgiveness is a necessity among pundits who are
stuffed with nonsense much of the time; without mercy on demand, they might all be out of jobs.
It's no surprise that Boot's book arrives with admiring blurbs from D.C. heavyweights James
Fallows, Jon Meacham, and David Corn, among others.
"... In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora ..."
"... The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, but they moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White House. They became adept at selling their mantra of "strong national defense" to whomever was buying, including to President Obama, even while simultaneously complaining about his administration's "weakness." ..."
"... When Trump was elected, it, therefore, seemed that the reign of the neocons had ended, but chameleonlike, they have changed shape and are now ensconced both in some conservative as well as in an increasing number of progressive circles in Washington and in the media. Against all odds, they have even captured key posts in the White House itself with the naming of John Bolton as National Security Adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Bolton's Chief of Staff is Fred Fleitz , a leading neocon and Islamophobe while last week Trump added Iran hawk Richard Goldberg to the National Security Council as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Goldberg is an alumnus of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is the leading neocon think tank calling incessantly for war with Iran. ..."
"... One of the most active groups attacking President Trump is "Republicans for the Rule of Law," founded by Bill Kristol in January 2018, as a component of Defending Democracy Together (DDT), a 501(c)4 lobbying group that also incorporates projects called The Russia Tweets and Republicans Against Putin. Republicans Against Putin promotes the view that President Trump is not "stand[ing] up to [Vladimir] Putin" and calls for more aggressive investigation of the Russian role in the 2016 election . ..."
"... Omidyar is a political liberal who has given millions of dollars to progressive organizations and individuals since 1999. Indeed, he is regarded as a top funder of liberal causes in the United States and even globally together with Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. His Democracy Fund awarded $9 million in grants in 2015 alone. ..."
"... Last week, the Omidyar-Kristol connection may have deepened with an announcement regarding the launch of the launch of a new webzine The Bulwark , which would clearly be at least somewhat intended to take the place of the recently deceased Weekly Standard. It is promoting itself as the center of the "Never Trump Resistance" and it is being assumed that at least some of the Omidyar money is behind it . ..."
"... That hatred is the tie that binds and it is why Bill Kristol, a man possessing no character and values whatsoever, is willing to take Pierre Omidyar's money while Pierre is quite happy to provide it to destroy a common enemy, the President of the United States of America. ..."
The Roman poet Ovid's masterful epic The Metamorphoses includes the memorable opening line
regarding the poem's central theme of transformation. He wrote In nova fert animus mutatas
dicere formas corpora , which has been translated as "Of shapes transformed to bodies
strange, I purpose to entreat "
Ovid framed his narrative around gods, heroes and quasi-historical events but if he were
around today, he would no doubt be fascinated by the many transformations of the group that has
defined itself as neoconservative.The movement began in a cafeteria in City College of New York
in the 1930s, where a group of radical Jewish students would meet to discuss politics and
developments in Europe. Many of the founders were from the far left, communists of the
Trotskyite persuasion, which meant that they believed in permanent global revolution led by a
vanguard party. The transformation into conservatives of a neo-persuasion took place when they
were reportedly "mugged by reality" into accepting that the standard leftist formulae were not
working to transform the world rapidly enough. As liberal hawks, they then hitched their wagon
to the power of the United States to bring about transformation by force if necessary and began
to infiltrate institutions like the Pentagon to give themselves the tools to achieve their
objectives, which included promotion of regime change wars, full spectrum global dominance and
unconditional support for Israel.
The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, but they
moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill
Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the
Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White
House. They became adept at selling their mantra of "strong national defense" to whomever was
buying, including to President Obama, even while simultaneously complaining about his
administration's "weakness."
The neoconservatives lined up behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, appalled by Donald Trump's
condemnation of their centerpiece war in Iraq and even more so by his pledge to end the wars in
Asia and nation-building projects while also improving relations with the Russians. They worked
actively against the Republican candidate both before he was nominated and elected and did
everything they could to stop him, including libeling him as a Russian agent.
When Trump was elected, it, therefore, seemed that the reign of the neocons had ended, but
chameleonlike, they have changed shape and are now ensconced both in some conservative as well
as in an increasing number of progressive circles in Washington and in the media. Against all
odds, they have even captured key posts in the White House itself with the naming of John Bolton as
National Security Adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Bolton's Chief of Staff is
Fred
Fleitz , a leading neocon and Islamophobe while last week Trump
added Iran hawk Richard Goldberg to the National Security Council as director for
countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Goldberg is an alumnus of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, which is the leading neocon think tank calling incessantly for war with
Iran.
Meanwhile, the neocon metamorphosis is nearly complete as many of the neocons, who started
out as Democrats, have returned home, where they are being welcomed for their hardline foreign
policy viewpoint. Glenn Greenwald
reports that , based on polling of party supporters, the Democrats have gone full-Hillary
and are now by far more hawkish than the Republicans, unwilling to leave either Syria or
Afghanistan.
The neocon survival and rejuvenation is particularly astonishing in that they have been
wrong about virtually everything, most notably the catastrophic Iraq War. They have never been
held accountable for anything, though one should note that accountability is not a prominent
American trait, at least since Vietnam. What is important is that neocon views have been
perceived by the media and punditry as being part of the Establishment consensus, which
provides them with access to programming all across the political spectrum. That is why neocon
standard-bearers like Bill Kristol and Max Boot have been able to move effortlessly from Fox
News to MSNBC where they are fêted by the likes of Rachel Maddow. They applauded the Iraq
War when the Establishment was firmly behind it and are now trying to destroy Donald Trump's
presidency because America's elite is behind that effort.
Indeed, the largely successful swing by the neocons from right to left has in some ways
become more surreal, as an increasing number of progressive spokesmen and institutions have
lined up behind their perpetual warfare banner. The ease with which the transformation took
place reveals, interestingly, that the neocons have no real political constituency apart from
voters who feel threatened and respond by supporting perpetual war, but they do share many
common interests with the so-called liberal interventionists. Neocons see a global crisis for
the United States defined in terms of power while the liberals see the struggle as a moral
imperative, but the end result is the same: intervention by the United States. This fusion is
clearly visible in Washington, where the Clintons' Center for American Progress (CAP) is now
working on position
papers with the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
One of the most active groups attacking President Trump is "Republicans for the Rule of
Law," founded by Bill Kristol in January 2018, as a component of Defending Democracy Together (DDT), a 501(c)4
lobbying group that also incorporates projects called The Russia Tweets and Republicans Against
Putin. Republicans Against Putin promotes the view that President Trump is not "stand[ing] up
to [Vladimir] Putin" and calls for more aggressive investigation of the Russian role in the
2016 election .
DDT is a prime example of how the neoconservatives and traditional liberal interventionists
have come together as it is in part funded by Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire co-founder of
eBay who has provided
DDT with $600,000 in two grants through his Democracy Fund Voice ,
also a 501(c)4.
Omidyar is a political liberal who has given millions of dollars to progressive
organizations and individuals since 1999. Indeed, he is regarded as a top funder
of liberal causes in the United States and even globally together with Michael Bloomberg
and George Soros. His Democracy Fund awarded $9 million in grants in 2015 alone.
Last week, the Omidyar-Kristol connection may have deepened with an announcement regarding
the launch of
the launch of a new webzine The
Bulwark , which would clearly be at least somewhat intended to take the place of the
recently deceased Weekly Standard. It is promoting
itself as the center of the "Never Trump Resistance" and it is being assumed that at least
some of the Omidyar money is behind it
.
Iranian-born Omidyar's relationship with Kristol is clearly based on the hatred that the two
share regarding Donald Trump.
Omidyar has
stated that Trump is a "dangerous authoritarian demagogue endorsing Donald Trump
immediately disqualifies you from any position of public trust."
He has tweeted that Trump suffers from "failing mental capacity" and is both "corrupt and
incapacitated."
Omidyar is what he is – a hardcore social justice warrior who supports traditional big
government and globalist liberal causes, most of which are antithetical to genuine
conservatives.
But what is interesting about the relationship with Kristol is that it also
reveals what the neoconservatives are all about. Kristol and company have never been actual
conservatives on social issues, a topic that they studiously avoid, and their foreign policy is
based on two principles: creating a state of perpetual war based on fearmongering about foreign
enemies while also providing unlimited support for Israel. Kristol hates Trump because he
threatens the war agenda while Omidyar despises the president for traditional progressive
reasons.
That hatred is the tie that binds and it is why Bill Kristol, a man possessing no
character and values whatsoever, is willing to take Pierre Omidyar's money while Pierre is
quite happy to provide it to destroy a common enemy, the President of the United States of
America.
"... As Stephen Wertheim argues in The New York Review of Books , the neoconservatives are ascendant in Trump's America, reasserting themselves within GOP and, more troublingly, renewing their ties to the Democratic Party. Together they constitute the "neo-neoconservatives" or "post-neoconservatives," as he's dubbed them. ..."
"... "For Bolton and company, Donald Trump turned out to be a deliverance," he observes. "Trump elevated 'globalism' from a marginal slur to the central foil of American foreign policy and Republican politics." ..."
"... Ultimately, this embrace extends beyond pundits like Boot offering foreign policy advice to the party's leadership. Even purportedly liberal think tanks like the Center for American Progress are partnering with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. The question is why, decades removed from Sen. Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson and the fall of the Berlin Wall, neoconservatives once again feel at home within the Democratic Party? Wertheim's conclusions are as credible as they are dispiriting. ..."
"... "What best explains centrist Democrats' rapprochement with neoconservatives isn't an anti-Trump strategy but rather a genuine affinity with their current political objectives and style," he writes. "Neocons have spent decades reducing politics to an all-encompassing crisis, a Manichean struggle between an imperiled liberal democracy and a pervasive totalitarian menace. Now certain liberals see things in much the same way. Lionizing the neocons indulges these Democrats' fantasy that respectable Republicans will rise up to sweep Trump and all he stands for onto the ash heap of history." ..."
In December, after a 23-year run that saw it perpetuate the Bush administration lie that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass
destruction and breathlessly champion the ensuing war in Iraq...
In December, after a 23-year run that saw it perpetuate the Bush administration lie that Saddam Hussein harbored
weapons of mass destruction and breathlessly champion the ensuing war in Iraq, The Weekly Standard
released its final
issue
. Two years removed from Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 election, one might be forgiven for concluding
the publication's demise sounded the final death knell of neoconservatism -- an ideology that has been soundly
defeated at the polls and appears to lack even a constituency, the ubiquity of
Bill Kristol
on cable news notwithstanding.
If only. As Stephen Wertheim argues in
The New York
Review of Books
, the neoconservatives are ascendant in Trump's America, reasserting themselves within GOP
and, more troublingly, renewing their ties to the Democratic Party. Together they constitute the "neo-neoconservatives"
or "post-neoconservatives," as he's dubbed them.
"Today, neoconservatives are riding high once more, in the White House, on Capitol Hill, in the most prominent
organs of opinion," Wertheim writes. "The Weekly Standard may have shuttered, but anti-Trump neocons enjoy increasing
influence in the center of the Republican and Democratic parties and in publications like The Atlantic and The
Washington Post."
In his essay, Wertheim traces the history of the movement from World War II through the Cold War and up to
9/11, which allowed Kristol and Commentary's Norman Podhoretz, among others, to forge an existential threat
in the form of "Islamofascism." Indeed, neoconservatism draws from the philosophical tradition of Leo Strauss,
who wrote in the
"The City and
Man"
that "the crisis of the West consists in the West's having become uncertain of its purpose." For the
Straussians and their intellectual descendants, military conflict offered that sense of purpose, whether the
enemy was Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or Al-Qaeda.
Trump's presidency has proved a clarifying moment. "[He] has forced neoconservatives to decide, for the first
time, whether they are more against 'totalitarianism' or 'globalism,'" continues Wertheim. "If anti-totalitarians
take Trump to be perverting what they hold dear, anti-globalist neocons have found in Trump a kindred spirit
and vehicle for power. Yet, even as they are fracturing, neocons are flourishing. They have bypassed the political
wilderness and vaulted themselves to the vanguard on either side of the Trump divide."
Within Trump's cabinet, neoconservatism remains represented by national security adviser John Bolton, who
has served in every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan. Wertheim contends that while right-wing non-interventionism
is typically attributed to paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan, neoconservatives have also historically taken
aim at global institutions, if not globalism itself. Few have embodied this notion more than Bolton, who has
made a career of bashing both the United Nations and its Security Council. During the Obama administration,
Wertheim notes, he regularly sounded the alarm that "leftists like Obama were attempting to give away American
sovereignty, bit by bit, to international bodies."
"For Bolton and company, Donald Trump turned out to be a deliverance," he observes. "Trump elevated 'globalism'
from a marginal slur to the central foil of American foreign policy and Republican politics."
Which brings us to neoconservatives' suddenly lofty perch outside of the Trump administration. For Republican
apostates like Jennifer Rubin, David Frum and Max Boot, Wertheim contends, the president has offered the "next
best thing" to a foreign dictator: "an enemy within." His personal degeneracy and unabashed corruption have
allowed them to "reclaim their preferred role as the moral truth-tellers in America."
"More surprising, perhaps, is that Democrats and outlets of the anti-Trump resistance have welcomed these
neocons into their fold," Wertheim observes. "Boot, Kristol, Rubin, and former advisers of George W. Bush and
Senator John McCain appear daily on MSNBC to excoriate Trump and Trumpism. David Frum, who coined the 'axis
of evil' as George W. Bush's speechwriter, earns resistance retweets by
warning
of 'this hour of liberal peril' in The Atlantic. In 2017, The New York Times hired Bret Stephens
from The Wall Street Journal in an
effort
to 'broaden the range of Times debate about consequential questions,' a curious rationale given that
Stephens represented just the kind of Never Trump pundit repudiated by GOP voters and did nothing to change
the op-ed page's lack of a single Trump-supporting columnist."
Ultimately, this embrace extends beyond pundits like Boot offering
foreign policy advice
to the party's leadership. Even purportedly liberal think tanks like the Center for
American Progress are
partnering
with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. The question is why, decades removed from
Sen. Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson and the fall of the Berlin Wall, neoconservatives once again feel at home
within the Democratic Party? Wertheim's conclusions are as credible as they are dispiriting.
"What best explains centrist Democrats' rapprochement with neoconservatives isn't an anti-Trump strategy
but rather a genuine affinity with their current political objectives and style," he writes. "Neocons have spent
decades reducing politics to an all-encompassing crisis, a Manichean struggle between an imperiled liberal democracy
and a pervasive totalitarian menace. Now certain liberals see things in much the same way. Lionizing the neocons
indulges these Democrats' fantasy that respectable Republicans will rise up to sweep Trump and all he stands
for onto the ash heap of history."
As usual, the pledge ultimately never changes, New jobs and No increase in taxes. Americans
love tag lines even though our infrastructure, poor education et al is the result of fear of
taxation. Both parties use the same tag line, we certainly get what we pay for.
Yep,
The party has circled its wagons.
They insist that the Evil Vlad stole the last election.
Therefore, no need to examine Obama's centrist/neoliberal policies and the socio-economic
conditions that fueled the rejection of Hillary.
We're doomed to repeat our errors.
The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo.
Among few good things that Trump have done to the USA is that he destoryed credibility of
neoliberal MSM. They all are now firmly belong to the "fake news" catagory.
Notable quotes:
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
So the corporate media have gone and done it again. As they have, repeatedly, for the last
two and half years, they shook the earth with
a "bombshell" story proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Donald Trump colluded with the
Russians to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, or at least committed an impeachable
felony in connection with something to do with the Russians, or Ukrainians, or other Slavic
persons which story turned out to be inaccurate, or not entirely accurate, or a bunch of
horseshit.
This time it was BuzzFeed's Jason Leopold, " a
reporter with a checkered past " (i.e., a history of inventing
his sources ) who broke the "bombshell" Russiagate story that turned out to be a bunch of
horseshit. Leopold, and his colleague Anthony Cormier, reported that Trump had directed his
attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow,
thus suborning perjury and obstructing justice. Their sources for this "bombshell" story were
allegedly "two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the
matter."
Approximately twenty-four hours later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office (i.e., the
office "involved in an investigation of the matter") stated that the BuzzFeed story was "not
accurate," which is a legal term meaning "a bunch of horseshit."
BuzzFeed is standing by its story , and is working to determine what, exactly, Mueller's
office meant by "not accurate." Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's Editor-in-Chief, has called on Mueller
"to make clear what he's disputing."
Liberals and other Trump-obsessives have joined in the effort to interpret the Special
Counsel's office's cryptic utterance. French hermeneuticists have been reportedly called in to
deconstruct the meaning of "accurate." Professional Twitter
semioticians are explaining that "not accurate" doesn't mean "wrong," but, rather, refers
to something that is "accurate," but which the user of the word doesn't want to disclose
publicly, or that legal terms don't mean what they mean or something more or less along those
lines.
But Greenwald's list is just a small sample of the Russiagate stories that have turned out
to be horseshit. For the record, here are several more:
"Seventeen intelligence agencies"
confirm Russia interfered in the U.S. elections (
New York Times ) Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum (
The Guardian ) Russia interfered in the German elections ( Reuters )
Russia hacked the French elections ( Politico and numerous other
outlets ) Michael Cohen conspired with the Russians in Prague ( BuzzFeed
)
I am using the terms "horseshit" and "a bunch of horseshit" (as opposed to terms like
"failures" and "errors"), not just to be gratuitously vulgar, but, also, to try to make a
point. One is not supposed to use these terms in connection with "serious," "respected" news
outlets. Which is why journalists like Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who have extensively
reported on the corporate media's ongoing production and dissemination of horseshit) do not use
such terms in the course of their reporting, and instead use less inflammatory terms like
"false," "inaccurate," "mistake," and "error." Principled journalists like Greenwald and
Maté are constrained by (a) their journalistic ethics, (b) their integrity, and (c)
their belief in the idea of a "free and independent press," which is one of the pillars of
Western democracy.
Being neither a respected journalist nor a believer in the existence of an "independent
press," I am under no such constraints. Because I'm not trying to get or keep a job, or
maintain a "respectable" reputation, I'm free to call a spade a spade and a bunch of horseshit
a bunch of horseshit. I am also free to describe "journalists" like Leopold,
Luke Harding ,
Craig Timberg ,
Franklin Foer , and many of their corporate media colleagues (not to mention
TV clowns like Rachel Maddow ) as the liars and rank propagandists they are. I don't need
to pretend their fabricated stories are simply the result of "shoddy journalism," or
"over-reliance on official sources," or any other type of "error" or "failure." These people
know exactly what they are doing, and are being extremely well paid to do it. They went to
school to learn how to do it. Then they butt-sucked and back-stabbed their way up the ladder of
establishment power to be able to do it.
Yes, of course, there are still principled journalists working for the corporate media, but
they are doing so by walking a very fine line. No one has to tell them where it is. Every
professional journalist knows precisely where it is, and what it is there for. Though they are
permitted to walk right up to it, occasionally (to keep them from feeling like abject whores),
one step over it and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and
excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't believe me, just ask
Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.
If Russiagate serves no other useful purpose, it is at least exposing the corporate media as
the propaganda factories that they are. Given the amount of obviously fabricated horseshit they
have disseminated during the last two years, you'd have to be a total moron or a diehard
neoliberal cultist not to recognize the function they perform within the global capitalist
ruling establishment (which is essentially no different than the function the establishment
media perform in any other society, namely, to disseminate, maintain, and reify the official
narrative of its ruling classes).
Sadly, there's no shortage of morons and cultists. I don't blame the morons, because well,
they're morons. The cultists are another species entirely. These are people who, no matter how
often the corporate media feed them another "explosive," "bombshell" Russiagate story that
turns out to be a bunch of horseshit, will defend the concept of the "independent media" like
head-shaven, bug-eyed Manson followers. Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs
and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing
spells. The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling
establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling classes)
is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.
This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism.
Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or
that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy.
Think about it dispassionately for a minute. Why would any ruling establishment permit a
genuinely "independent" press to disseminate ideas and information willy-nilly throughout
society? If it did, it wouldn't last very long.
Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly
repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press," over, and over, and over again.
Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the
other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they
are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.
So let's not be shocked when the corporate media continue to bombard us with "bombshell"
stories about Trump and Russia that turn out to be horseshit. Personally, I welcome these
stories. The more corporate media horseshit the better! Who knows, if they dish out enough
blatant horseshit, more people might lose their "trust in the media," and begin to investigate
matters themselves. I know, that makes me a Nazi, right? Or at least a Russian propagandist? I
mean, encouraging folks to distrust the corporate media? Isn't there some kind of law against
that? Or have they not quite gotten around to that yet?
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
The Associated Press (AP) reports the latest bad news for the press: " Just 6 Percent of
People Say They Trust the Media ."
Carole Feldman and Emily Swanson began: Trust in the news media is being eroded by
perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans' skepticism about what they
read on social media. Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the
media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of
other institutions.
Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly
repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press,"
People inversely brag about their short comings.
Militarized police states brag about their freedom.
A well heeled synchophant brags about his independence.
Dudes with small dicks -- big belt buckle and big hat.
I used to listen to the BBC and NPR until the corporo-globalist bias became unbearable. I
laughed at incidents such as Marketplace mocking the public's concern about GMO's. But it
went off the rails in 2016. They may have backed off from Trump Derangement Syndrome a bit
since then, but I've noticed that they have to call themselves "credible." Maybe if they say
that enough times we'll believe it, eh?
The Greenwald link is pretty important and I bookmarked it. These fake news outlets do
everything in their power to scrub these mistakes from the Google machine once they happen.
They remove stories, videos -- everything, in the hopes of shoving it all down the memory
hole. And since other fake news outlets don't hold them accountable, they get away with it.
This is why it's important to take screen shots of fake news and download videos if possible,
to create a record that's permanent and useful when you need it.
More than 6% of the population are technically, and this is the technical term, retarded
-- they are mentally disabled.
I know it's obvious our media is propaganda, but I don't think it's quite so obvious such
that adults watching Sesame Street who fully enjoy it (nothing wrong with that!) are aware of
it.
I would like to think it's true, but I think the Associated Press article is not true,
after all, can you identify their funding sources?
This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western
capitalism. Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an
actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with
actual democracy.
Great article. Articles on this theme should be published daily. The fetish must be
destroyed.
There is at least one other person who calls corporate media what it is, and it ain't
"mainstream."
"Sparkie" ain't gonna be happy about it either."Sparky" chewed me out good for correcting
the incomparable and always superb Linh Dinh for using the disgusting and inaccurate term,
"mainstream" when referring to coprophilic media. Oh, and speaking of "horseshit" one wag
suggested we call it main steam media, for accuracy as well as for giggles and that's
fine by me.
the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent
press," over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The
Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding
you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic
programming.
It's blatantly obvious that the same can be said about the self-legitimizing term,
"mainstream," too, so bless you sir, and to (bleep) with the Sparkies of the world.
Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start
chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells.
Not only is Hopkins correct, but what he says about corporate media is not new. The Civil
Rights movement presented by the media was false. The media promotion of the US re-engaging
in Europe in the post WW1 period so we could defend dear ole England and sacred democracy.
The media preparing us for our need to fight WW1 so we could end all wars was false. The
media stirring us to go into Cuba and end the awfully evil Spanish Empire so we could start
the process of ending all empires
N o doubt it is a pleasure for you because C.J. Hopkins managed to scribble 1500
words about fake news without even once mentioning the CIA.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public
believes is false."
-- CIA Director, William Casey
Of course, our resident Bumpkin of Unz would have you believe that the CIA is a
corporation.
"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
-- former CIA Director William Colby
So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate -- a red herring, a
misleading label, a pig in a poke -- because it entirely excludes, avoids, overlooks, and
completely dismisses the role of our intelligence agencies in creating fake news ,
a.k.a. disinformation and propaganda.
The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling
establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling
classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.
This comes close to the term "regime media," which I like as a replacement for the
clunky-but-common terms "Mainstream Media" or MSM. "
Hopkins uses "corporate media," which appears fifteen times here including in the
title.
Several commenters have noted the problems with the term "mainstream media":
While better than "mainstream media," I'm not sure "corporate media" is sufficient.
"Corporate media," as a term, may wrongly convey the notion that the 'media' in question
complaisantly both [1] broadcasts the ruling ideology (interventionist capitalist
liberal democracy and multicultacracy) and [2] 'megaphones' (Steve Sailer's useful term)
against enemies thereto, coordinating our regular Two-Minute Hates.
That characterization misses an important point, to wit:
The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself consciously
part of the ruling apparatus . Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on the
side, but right at the regime's core. A useful distinction. Hence "regime media."
Jun. 14, 2012 These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America
That's consolidated from *50* companies back in 1983. But the fact that a few companies
own everything demonstrates "the illusion of choice," Frugal Dad says.
Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee,
on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect
information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic
surveillance, and opening of mail.
Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general public in the
United States, the home country of both authors. Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one
of the most important American philosophers, and for his international influence in the
field of education. By contrast, Walter Lippmann has been somewhat forgotten, though he
was a major journalist in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a widely familiar author at the
time, and wrote some cynical things about American democracy. The story America tells
itself politically is that since we're a democracy in which the citizens rule themselves,
there is a paramount need for an excellent public education so that the citizens can vote
wisely. We ourselves are the leaders. But of course it doesn't work that way in practice.
We actually have a surplus of ignorant and uninformed people who pay no attention to the
nuances of policy, and who vote based on the workings of demagoguery and short-sighted
self-interest. Any number of foolish decisions have been made by the American public.
This leads Lippmann to take the somewhat cynical line that America is destined to be
ruled by technocrats. We need experts to run things; the people are too clueless to rule
themselves. We'll pretend we have a democracy, but we actually don't. Now, Dewey reads
this, and he is temperamentally more optimistic, and he thinks: 'This is a really
stimulating book, but Lippmann is wrong. He is setting the bar too high for the people.
People were never supposed to be educated in depth about every issue, which is an
impossible demand. Even Lippmann doesn't have the time to master every issue, and he
covers politics for a living. Instead, Dewey says, political issues generate their own
publics in each case. I might care deeply about seven political issues. I might care
about national health insurance, but I don't care about gay marriage, or vice versa. So I
get involved in one debate and not the other. I take the trouble of becoming informed
about issues that interest me.
@Hail
Hail says: "The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself
consciously part of the ruling apparatus. Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on
the side, but right at the regime's core ":
Exactly. The MSM is the government [CIA/NSA/ etc. etc.] grinning right at you as
it continually lies , albeit behind a very thin veil of supposed integrity/respectability
that the general public still refuses to see through.
By way of illustration of this "outrageous" assertion of mine, here is part of a video
analysis of the original 5 channel US MSM "live" coverage of the morning of Sept. 11 2001,
which clearly demonstrates that on that morning, all 5 US networks broadcast entirely fake
"live" footage [ i.e. C.G.I. prefabricated imagery] for about 102 minutes :
So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate
I never claimed it was perfect. I do claim that the term, "mainstream," in this context
is entirely inaccurate and misleading. And you should be nice, as you admonished me,
regarding the author of this article. As for your complaint that he didn't mention the CIA,
may I remind you that he wrote, as you noticed, an article, not an encyclopedia.
Anyway, you have yet to establish that the CIA and our corporate masters are entirely
separate entities. Even a Dumb Sheete such as myself would find it somewhat, if not
entirely, incredible if they were.
But of course too everyone knows by now that Jews, Israel and Mossad did 9/11 all by
their lonesomes, and the CIA and the Air Force had nothing to do with it.
Ahem, you forgot to mention big, coprophilic, media. Please try to practice the
inclusiveness that you preach.
one step over [the line] and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the
Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't
believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic
heretic.
To this list I might also add CBS' Sharyl Attkisson, and Larry Conners of KMOV-TV, who
had the big brass balls to question the $85 million the Obamas spent on vacations.
NR kicked Derb to the curb, but that gutter's littered with Internet flotsam who
presumed integrity.
@Sean
Sean says: "Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general
public in the United States, the home country of both authors. "
Debate summary: 2 know-it-alls debating about how "best" to run everybody else's lives
[and with straight faces, I've no doubt].
Two sides of the same [pro-statist] coin, in other words. Oh, and one minor issue one
"thinks" that a ruling technocracy is "the answer".
Sean says: "Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one of the most important American
philosophers, and for his international influence in the field of education."
You mean: Dewey was important in the field of "public education" , otherwise known as
brainwashing.
There is not a single newspaper in the US that supports the views of the US President.
Nobody defended him when he was
accused , brazenly, in-your-face, of being a Russian agent. Nobody supported him when he
called to bring the troops home from Syria. Nobody came to his aid when he mulled parting with
NATO. There are tens of millions of men and women who voted for him, but he has only his
Twitter account at his disposal.
The media
accuses Trump of paying too little attention to Israel's needs. Israel needs US troops in
Syria and in Germany, US jets in Spain and Qatar, US ships in Italy and the Gulf. Israel needs
the US to lead NATO to contain Russia. If Israel needs it, the US should provide,
says Daniel Shapiro, the ex-ambassador. Not a single American newspaper, not a single US
statesman cared to reply that President Trump had been elected by the American people to do
what is needed for them, not for Israel
"... As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations. ..."
"... Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him. ..."
"... Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government. ..."
Years before Edward Snowden provided documented proof that the National
Security Agency was really a national insecurity agency as it was violating law and the US Constitution and
spying indiscriminately on American citizens, William Binney, who designed and developed the NSA spy program
revealed the illegal and unconstitutional spying.
Binney turned whistleblower, because NSA was using the
program to spy on Americans. As Binney was well known to the US Congress, he did not think he needed any NSA
document to make his case. But what he found out was
"Congress would never hear me because then they'd lose
plausible deniability. That was really their key. They needed to have plausible deniability so they can
continue this massive spying program because it gave them power over everybody in the world.
Even the
members of Congress had power against others [in Congress]; they had power on judges on the Supreme Court,
the federal judges, all of them. That's why they're so afraid. Everybody's afraid because all this data
that's about them, the central agencies -- the intelligence agencies -- they have it. And that's why Senator
Schumer warned President Trump earlier, a few months ago, that he shouldn't attack the intelligence
community because they've got six ways to Sunday to come at you. That's because it's like J. Edgar Hoover on
super steroids. . . . it's leverage against every member of parliament and every government in the world."
To prevent whistle-blowing, NSA has "a
program now called 'see something, say something' about your fellow workers. That's what the Stasi did.
That's why I call [NSA] the new New Stasi Agency. They're picking up all the techniques from the Stasi and
the KGB and the Gestapo and the SS. They just aren't getting violent yet that we know of -- internally in the
US, outside is another story."
As Binney had no documents to give to the
media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the
documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused
blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations.
Whistleblowers are protected by federal
law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken
no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him.
Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on
Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to
have been cleared at the top of the government.
Binney describes the spy network,
explains that it was supposed to operate only against foreign enemies, and that using it for universal
spying so overloads the system with data that the system fails to discover many terrorist activities.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50932.htm
Apparently, the National Security Agency
values being able to blackmail citizens and members of government at home and abroad more than preventing
terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately for Americans, there are
many Americans who blindly trust the government and provide the means, the misuse of which is used to
enslave us. A large percentage of the work in science and technology serves not to free people but to
enslave them. By now there is no excuse for scientists and engineers not to know this. Yet they persist in
their construction of the means to destroy liberty.
Buzzfeed was once notorious for
traffic-generating "listicles" , but has since become an impressive outlet for deep
investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the
news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story
that, like so many others of its kind,
blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the
extremely rare step to
label its key claims "inaccurate."
But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures
in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by
the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news,
the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger
they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets
(particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most
embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is
so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end
with (dis)honorable mention status.
Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave
threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media
outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would
expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories.
That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media
clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors"
went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the
same agenda and script:
10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)
On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that
C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false :
9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity
Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)
On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S.
electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along
with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's
notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S.
electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was
false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:
8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares
Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost
Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)
On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post
published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian
infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being
"routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of
at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation
campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."
Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that
reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge
Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig,
and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul
Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note
in memory appended to the top of the article (but
not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the
media ecosystem):
7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a
Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)
On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the
Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story
and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.
6. Russia Attacked
U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave
Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)
On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC
spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia
was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic
or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea
what to make of it.
But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered
any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective
psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds"
the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean
male cricket during mating season.
5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to
Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)
4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three
Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)
On November 27, 2018, the Guardian
published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed
to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,
and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators
exploded.
Seven weeks later,
no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged;
the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into
hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian
official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:
3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its
Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew
in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)
On July 27, 2018, CNN
published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that
President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two
problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that
"contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis
was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous
other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however,
to this date has refused to do either:
2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and
Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)
1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to
the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)
The morning of December 9, 2017, launched
one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so
grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a
major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public.
Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to
have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have
been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked
emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC
videos
here ).
There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally
and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks
archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before.
Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and
MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian
message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole
world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all
got the date of the email wrong.
To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong
in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete
silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple,
independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating
– and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources
who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.
Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the
internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just
what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing
is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he
awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously
is:
Dishonorable Mention:
ABC News' Brian Ross is fired for
reporting Trump told Flynn to make contact with Russians when he was still a candidate;
in fact, Trump did that after he won.
The New York Times c laimed Manafort provided
polling data to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a person "close to the Kremlin"; in fact, he
provided them to Ukrainians, not Russians.
Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked
Ukrainian artillery apps;
they then retracted it .
Bloomberg and the WSJ reported Mueller subpoenaed Deustche Bank for Trump's financial
records; the NYT said
that never happened .
Rachel Maddow devoted 20 minutes at the start of her show to very melodramatically
claiming a highly sophisticated party tried to trick her by sending her a fake Top Secret
document modeled after the one published by the Intercept, and said it could only have come
from the U.S. Government (or the Intercept) since the person obtained the document before it
was published by us and thus must have had special access to it; in fact,
Maddow and NBC completely misread the metadata on the document ; the fake sent to Maddow
was created after we published the document, and was sent to her by a random member of the
public who took the document from the Intercept's site and doctored it to see if she'd fall
for an obvious scam. Maddow's entire timeline, on which her whole melodramatic conspiracy
theory rested, was fictitious.
The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence
agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally
retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies --
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not
approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."
AP claimed on February 2, 2018, that the Free Beacon commissioned the Steele Dossier;
they thereafter acknowledged that was false and
noted, instead: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was
initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until
after Democratic groups had begun funding it."
Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered
"sex for favors" were
totally false (and scurrilous).
After a Russian regional jet crashed on February 11, 2018, shortly after it took off from
Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, Harvard Law Professor and frequent MSNBC contributor
Laurence Tribe
strongly implied Putin purposely caused the plane to go down in order to murder Sergei
Millian, a person vaguely linked to George Papadopoulos and Jared Kushner; in fact, Millian
was not on the plane nor, to date, has anyone claimed they had any evidence that Putin
ordered his own country's civilian passenger jet brought down.
Special mention:
As I've said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing extreme
indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to
turn the U.S. media into their main adversary; and when people turn to "fake news" sites.
If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to examining
their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems
instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that politicians and news
consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.
The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal
elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia.
Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation
The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship
-- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will
not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly,
New York Times columnist
David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some
countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have
now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no
facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.
And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times '
own recent "bombshells,"
published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump]
had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents
and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual,
the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly
in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")
Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and
cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington
Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott,
President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution.
According to Talbott
, "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding
with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated
suspicions and allegations.
In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth,
Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.)
For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI
lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless,
the Times quotes Page
at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western
alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals."
Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though
for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.
Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect
the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has
done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because,
according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed
the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin
summit in Helsinki in July 2018.
It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth
is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private
time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership
they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies
often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with
Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation
with Russia.")
That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy
of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding
information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo
afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin
leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.
Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October
1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took
notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result,
in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range
ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)
And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings
with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep
America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the
two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book
War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump
Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.
The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev
met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied
by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed
in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.
Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book
War with Russia? From Putin and
Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian
Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is
here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com . )
If you believe (like Arthur Berman, James Howard Kunstler, Steve Angelo and Gail Tverberg)
that cheap energy is a thing of the past, Russia has much more leverage than the West. It has
the oil and natural gas and we don't. The U.S. imports about 40% of its energy needs. Europe
needs Russian natural gas to stay warm. Who is going to be better positioned in an energy
starved future? John Michael Greer believes that the two centers of civilization hundreds of
years from now will be centered in Western Russia and the Ohio River Valley.
Robert Snefjella says:
January 20, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT 200 Words
@Erebus Going from memory, in Hellyer's book The Money Mafia, his impression was that
Bouey's decision was taken without real political understanding or guidance. Noteworthy was an
attempt in recent years to restore that Bank of Canada fund-emission function via the court
system. The attempt failed. The lawyer representing the group making the effort, Rocco Galati,
indicated that the media in Canada had received pressure not to cover the story. The government
of Canada at the time the court case was initiated was under Harper Conservative rule.
As to how astute Trudeau was, or how much practical influence he had when it came to
national financial matters, I don't know. There was a lot of economic flux at the time
involving the US dollar, oil, high inflation and gold. There was a big jump in Canadian
interest rates around 1974. In any case, the emission of funds directly for productive purpose,
without taxation and borrowing, is a beneficent unacknowledged elephant in the economic
policy-options room.
"... apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society ..."
"... In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears ..."
"... After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? ..."
Think about it in this way: we know from ALL the past elections that the pro-Western segment
of the Russian population is somewhere around 1-3% (that is why they cannot make it into the
Duma). But let's generously give that hardcore, liberal, opposition 5%, for argument's sake. So
if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if 5% of Russians are hardcore pro-Western liberals,
then who are the remaining 48%?
Or in this way: if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if Putin's approval rating is
still somewhere in the 65% range, who are those Russians who like Putin but dislike the
Medvedev government?
There is an easy cop-out argument which I´ve often offered to explain away this
fact:
Levada Center is officially classified as a "foreign
agent" under Russian law. This makes sense: for one thing, Levada Center receives most of its financing from
abroad, including the US and even the Pentagon ! Furthermore, Levada is staffed by liberals
(in the Russian meaning of the word which really means "pro-US") whose biases are also
reflected in their work. However, while this is all true, Levada is still credible enough to be
cited even by Russian officials. Finally, the kind of results Levada publishes are often
generally similar to the finding of the official VTsIOM polling
institution, not down to the percentage point, but often reflecting similar trends (check out
the VTsIOM English language page here: https://wciom.com/ ). So the fact that Putin is much more popular than
Medvedev or that the majority of Russian people are unhappy with the government really is not
in doubt.
So regardless of the actual numbers, it is clear that the Russian government is only popular
with those whom it allows to make a lot of money (corporations and various millionaires and
billionaires) and that everybody else strongly dislikes it.
And yet, recently Putin was asked if he was happy with the government and his reply was "
on the whole, yes ".
This type of political yoga is hard to sustain in the long term: if Putin is the champion of
the interests of the common people, and if most common people feel that the government cares
more for millionaires and billionaires, then how can the President say that he is "on the whole
happy" with the government?
It is truly a crying shame that the basics of Marxism-Leninism is not taught in schools and
colleges any more (even some self-described "Communists" are clearly clueless about what Marx,
Lenin or even Hegel taught!). Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are
so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to
better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the
solutions offered by Marxism. For example, in the West at least, very few people are aware of
this very simple Marxist-Leninist definition of what a state, any state, really is. According
to Lenin, the state is simply an " apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling
class governs the society ". Specifically Lenin wrote:
In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a
group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for
that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails,
special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears
(Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69).
From a Marxist point of view, any state is always and by definition the dictatorship of the
ruling class, which is a good thing, at least according to the Marxists, when this ruling class
is the workers and people, and a very bad thing when the ruling class is the
plutocracy.
ORDER IT NOW
In the post-modern West, where political discourse has been reduced to a particularly
nauseating form of intellectual flatulence, the very notion of "class" and "class warfare" has
been fully replaced with vapid (pseudo-) identity politics which completely obfuscate all the
real issues and problems our world is dealing with. Thus, by removing the concepts and
categories needed to understand the nature of the struggle which is taking place
internationally, but also inside each of the countries currently living under the AngloZionist
yoke, the leaders of the Empire have deprived the people they rule over from the means to
understand why and how they are oppressed. All that nonsense about "gay" rights, gun control,
#meetoo, the many sex scandals, the struggle for racial identity (White or Black or any other),
abortion, drugs and all the rest of the crap we are fed on a daily basis by the AngloZionist
propaganda machine are primarily a distraction to keep the eyes of the general population from
the real issues. In a way, this zombification and re-direction to fake topics serves exactly
the same function as the red cape of the bullfighter: to keep the bull busy with trying to gore
a harmless red piece of cloth while completely missing the real cause of his suffering and
eventual death.
From that point of view, the Russian people are much better informed and have a much better
understanding of what is going on. For example, while in the West the people define "democracy"
as "people power" (or something similar), in Russia the joke is that "democracy is the power of
the democrats" which, in Russia, is a general codeword/euphemism for "pro-US wealthy liberal"
who want to turn Russia into some kind of "bigger Poland" or something equally uninspiring.
Various pro-Western "intellectuals" like to say that this is an old Russian pathology: to
say that the Czar (President) is very good, but his court (the Ministers) are bad and that this
makes absolutely no sense. These are the folks who go as far as denying the existence of a
struggle between what I call Eurasian Sovereignists (roughly Putin supporters) and Atlantic
Integrationists (roughly Medvedev and the "economic block" of this government).
The folks who deny this remind me of something Berthold Brecht once wrote after the 1953
uprising in Berlin in a short poem entitled "The Solution": (emphasis added)
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
This deep alienation from the Russian masses, this notion that the Russian people have, yet
again, failed to heed the "wise words" of the "progressive intelligentsia" and other (mainly
financial) "elites" has plagued the Russian ruling classes since Peter I and is still at the
very core of their worldview. Believe you me, the Russian "liberals" and the folks in the West
who deny that there is any 5th
column in Russia are psychologically and politically joined at the hip: neither one of them
can accept this. Furthermore, both the Russian "liberals" and the western believers in the
values of "democracy" and "free market capitalism" share exactly the same worldview: they want
the Russian people to become "Europeans" not in a geographical sense, of course (geographically
speaking most Russian live in the European part of Russia), but culturally! This is what the
Popes wanted, this is what the French Freemasons wanted, this is what the Nazis wanted, and
this is what the AngloZionists want. That dream to turn Russians into Europeans while totally
cleansing them from any "Russian-ness" is what united *all* the invaders of Russia over the
centuries.
But the "stubborn" Russian people just don't seem to "get it" and, for some totally
mysterious reason, they always resist all these "benevolent" western attempts at "civilizing"
them.
This is exactly what we see today: Putin and his Eurasian Sovereignists try as hard as they
can to *sovereignize* Russia; in other words, they want to make Russia *truly* Russian again.
Sounds basic, but that is categorically unacceptable to the Russian plutocrats and to their
supporters in the West. Thus any kind of defense of the Russian-ness of Russia is immediately
and contemptuously dismissed as "national leftism", "nationalism" or, God forbid!,
"monarchism". And when the person trying to make the argument that Russia ought to be Russian
uses Marxist concepts or categories, these arguments are also dismissed out of hand as an
"outdated rhetoric of a system which has failed and discredited itself". What they fail to
realize is to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due primarily/solely to the Marxist
or Communist ideology is just as stupid as blaming the current collapse of democracy in the US
on the writings of the Founding Fathers rather than on the SOB politicians who are destroying
this country day after day after day. Tell me: when the US finally bites the dust, will you
simply declare that "democracy is dead" and that the "collapse of the US proved that democracy
is not a viable regime"? So yes, the Soviet Union did indeed collapse, broken into 15 pieces by
its own ruling elite (the Nomenklatura ), but the ideas contained
in the Marxist-Leninist ideology have not only not been "defeated" – they have not even
been challenged (more on this issue here ).
But, thank God! most Russians are still not willing to be incorporated into the "European
cultural Borg
collective ", at least not in the cultural sense. And in spite of 300 years of oppression
by various pro-western regimes (with various degrees of russophobia, not all were equally bad),
the Russian people still want to remain Russian, not just by speaking a language, but by having
a ruler and a regime in power which they feel defends their interests and not the interests of
the ruling class. They want to live in their own civilizational realm, and not the kind of
post-Christian intellectual desert the West has become.
Many decades of rabid russophobia by the rulers of the AngloZionist Empire have convinced
the Russian people that they have no friends in the European or North American ruling elites
and that true freedom comes through liberation, not submission. That, and the appalling example
of the consequences of the "Euromaidan" in the Ukraine.
It is very important to keep a close eye on this trend: the appearance of slowly but surely
growing (truly) patriotic opposition (as opposed to the CIA-paid clowns in the Russian liberal
camp). As for the "official" opposition (LDPR, KPRF and the Just Russia), they might decide to
grow a few teeth, initially small, baby teeth only, but if this trend accelerates, they might
decide to look a tad more credible. Until now the rather lame and ridiculous LDPR & KPRF
parties are just a collective form of court jesters with no real opposition potential. Just
look at how the KPRF, thoroughly discredited by their crazy choice of the millionaire Grudinin
for candidate, jumped onto the pension reform PR-disaster to suddenly try to launch a
referendum. This would never have happened in the past.
The political landscape in Russia is becoming more complicated, which is both good and bad.
It is bad because Putin's personal political credit suffers, however modestly for now, from
his continuous
inability to purge the Kremlin from the 5th columnists , but it is also good because if
things get bad enough Putin will have no choice but to (finally!) get rid of at least the most
notorious 5th columnists. But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really
want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the Russophobic politics and the
adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and
economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal
profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics.
The future of Russia, and much of the world, will depend on the outcome of this battle.
UPDATE : well, just as I was mentioning that the fact that Levada Center and VTsIOM mostly
agree, at least on trends, the
Russian media is now reporting that the latter now also is reporting a drop in the
popularity of Putin. And just to make things worse, the Russian authorities have deported an
(in-)famous anti-Nazi Ukrainian journalist, Elena Boiko, to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine in spite
of the fact that Boiko had requested political asylum in Russia. Now, Boiko is a very
controversial person for sure (and, personally, not *at all* my cup of tea), but the sole fact
that Russia would deport ANY anti-Nazi activist to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine is disgusting and
revolting. And, sure enough, the bovine-excreta is already hitting the proverbial fan as now
members of the Duma, journalists and various personalities are demanding explanations for this
absolutely stupid and deeply immoral act. Sadly, can only agree with Nikolai Starikov who
speaks of a "liberal revanche" following the "Russian Spring" of 2014. If this kind of nonsense
continues we will see a further deterioration of Putin's personal rating along with a gradual
degradation of the Russian political environment.
Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally
effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better
understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the
solutions offered by Marxism.
I don't see what issue the Russian people have with the current administration, the main
economic indicator that impacts most people directly is real wage growth, and it is not as if
wages have been stagnant, real wages grew by 7.4% in the first 11 months of 2018, no reason
to believe December data will be any different, if 7% real wage growth isn't enough for
people, then nothing will be. Real wage growth was slow in 2017 at 2.9% but it has
accelerated significantly since then.
Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the
russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice
implies), or do they want a "social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a
society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above
corporate and personal profits.
For the inhabitants of the EU member states mutatis mutandis :
Do they really want to live in a society ran by multinationals and globalists, (with all the
russophobic politics, and the destruction of European cultures, such a choice implies), or do
they want a "social-democratic society", meaning a society in which social and economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above profits and dictatorial rule ?
@Felix Keverich The foundation of the capitalism is based on exploitation at home and
abroad . The foundational base is the 3 rd world . Capitalism including those based on 17- 20
th century's colonization would have not succeeded the way it has . We intentionally forget
that the western capitalism is much more destructive than the soviet marxism . Soviet marxism
failed because it did not colonize the rest of the world and make them pay for its survival
the way Capitalism did.
No one talks of the vile corrupt despicable poor situation of Congo Niger Nigeria or Gabon
. They are capitalist friendly crony dictatorial countries whose existences without any media
reported daily grinding poverty and violences are possible due to the western support and
media silence . They are not socialist they are not capitalist . They are support countries .
They maintain support and enrich western capitalism . They ( king cronies dictator and
limited choice based elected leaders ) in turn get western protection support and help . The
media ( western ) don't refer to them , don't remind of them , and don't bother about the
plight of the citizen . Their disenfranchised citizen support the western capitalism like the
slaves propped up the culturally savvy educated well dressed well fed elites of Greece and
Rome.
When those illegal manipulated created support system are gone, west 's capitalism as we
know for 400 hundred years will be gone . Reason of the disconnect we see in the west is
because the system is failing at the margins at the borderlands, at the periphery of the
control ,whose victims are the middle class . The margin will move to the centers slowly and
the elites will start killing each other and fighting each other . Capitalism can't feed and
can't enrich and can't hold the promise as it used to before . Because the major victims of
the 400 yrs capitalism have become also successful capitalist themselves . It is like the 19
th European dynasties are challenging each other over the territories . It is like Pope being
threatened by new ideologies from the fringes . Pie is shrinking . Capitalism's success has
so far been left externalities un -addressed . Externalities are in the ruins of the 3rd
world .
@Felix Keverich I wonder if any other commenters are as dumb as I am. I didn't know that
Putin wasn't in charge of pretty much everything in Russia. Saker says that Medvedev, as
Prime Minister, actually runs domestic policy, while Putin, as President, runs foreign
policy. It seems that these two have been taking turns being either President or PM for a few
decades now.
With these two constantly at odds, it would be like our President and VP being of
different parties, except that our VP has no power (unless it's Dick Cheney). But I do think
that our President, elected to an office designed for the 18th Century, has far too much on
his plate for any one person. A country the size of the US should have both a President and
PM, but I'd like to see them run as a slate, not in opposition to each other.
The MSM and its allies in the controlled alternative media, and the global private-interest
financial, investment and banking system, are a tag-team, indispensable to each other.
Control of money and control of information. The first narrowly concentrates wealth and thus
power and influence. The second through agenda-driven selection, lies, censorship, spin,
misdirection and so on – disinformation – controls people's sense of what is real
and possible, thus dis-empowering them.
The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that
control system.
The combined effort of narrowly controlled and narrowly advantaging globe straddling
finance, media, and muscle has facilitated the development of a near global Empire. In common
with traditional Empires this new Empire had totalitarian ambitions: but since its reach was
global, this is really a first attempt at global totalitarian control.
Russia under Putin – leaving aside China – has developed enough strength to
attempt alternative modes of communication and finance and development, not as adjuncts or
subordinates to the Empire's efforts in those regards. And their military is antidote and
opposition to the totalitarian project.
The forgoing is pretty obvious stuff, but I think that the Saker's concluding paragraph
provides a limiting summary of how the issue can play out.
"But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a
western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption
of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and
economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics."
This is a simplistic way of looking at the choices available. We are all caught up in
transitional culture processes, no matter where we live. The conjunction of the cornucopia of
new technology and unprecedented environmental and social challenges is everywhere at play,
leading who knows where?
What the Russian people have been given, and this is near singular on Earth, is a
protected and enhanced opportunity of developing a culture in which honest national discourse
is a predominant feature. This is in complete contrast to the predominant 'fake news' system
of discourse control that is in place in so many countries. And full and honest discourse
will create its own original cultural developments.
The Russian adoption of more honest discourse is already having global influence. An
example is Russia Today, which far from perfect and all that, still provides an enormous
advance over the extremely controlled western mass media, and a powerful foe to 'fake
news'.
Perhaps the most visible exemplar of rationale discourse has been Putin himself, with for
example his marathon annual Q and A with the Russian people, or his articulate well
considered sallies on many issues
And with that – if Russia can use unfettered reason writ large as a prime ingredient
of cultural and political development, as a basic developmental 'steering tool' – then
the simple dichotomy of "western-style capitalist society" vs "a society in which social and
economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits"
, as much as I'm sympathetic to the latter, seems to me to be a limiting way of expressing
the range of potential beneficent possibilities.
"... "Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"? ..."
"... I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake. ..."
"... European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one or other Western power de jour. ..."
"... Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and Germans are still down. ..."
"... Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are invested in empire instead of America's citizenry. ..."
"... Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what the adults told him. ..."
"... "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot." ..."
The New York Times scored a serious scoop when it revealed on Monday that President
Trump had questioned in governmental conversations -- on more than one occasion, apparently --
America's membership in NATO. Unfortunately the paper then slipped into its typical mode of
nostrum journalism. My Webster's New World Dictionary defines "nostrum" as "quack
medicine" entailing "exaggerated claims." Here we had quack journalism executed in behalf of
quack diplomacy.
The central exaggerated claim is contained in the first sentence, in which it is averred
that NATO had "deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." This is wrong, as can be
seen through just a spare amount of history.
True, NATO saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism. But it did so not over 70
years but over 40 years -- from 1949 to 1989. That's when the Soviet Union had 1.3 million
Soviet and client-state troops poised on Western Europe's doorstep, positioned for an invasion
of Europe through the lowlands of Germany's Fulda Gap.
How was this possible? It was possible because Joseph Stalin had pushed his armies farther
and farther into the West as the German Wehrmacht collapsed at the end of World War II. In
doing so, and in the process capturing nearly all of Eastern Europe, he ensured that the
Soviets had no Western enemies within a thousand miles of Leningrad or within 1,200 miles of
Moscow. This vast territory represented not only security for the Russian motherland (which
enjoys no natural geographical barriers to deter invasion from the West) but also a potent
staging area for an invasion of Western Europe.
The first deterrent against such an invasion, which Stalin would have promulgated had he
thought he could get away with it, was America's nuclear monopoly. By the time that was lost,
NATO had emerged as a powerful and very necessary deterrent. The Soviets, concluding that the
cost of an invasion was too high, defaulted to a strategy of undermining Western interests
anywhere around the world where that was possible. The result was global tensions stirred up at
various global trouble spots, most notably Korea and Vietnam.
But Europe was saved, and NATO was the key. It deserves our respect and even reverence for
its profound success as a military alliance during a time of serious threat to the West.
But then the threat went away. Gone were the 1.3 million Soviet and client-state troops.
Gone was Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Indeed, gone, by 1991, was the Soviet Union
itself, an artificial regime of brutal ideology superimposed upon the cultural entity of Mother
Russia. It was a time for celebration.
But it was also a time to contemplate the precise nature of the change that had washed over
the world and to ponder what that might mean for old institutions -- including NATO, a
defensive military alliance created to deter aggression from a menacing enemy to the east.
Here's where Western thinking went awry. Rather than accepting as a great benefit the favorable
developments enhancing Western security -- the Soviet military retreat, the territorial
reversal, the Soviet demise -- the West turned NATO into a territorial aggressor of its own,
absorbing nations that had been part of the Soviet sphere of control and pushing right up to
the Russian border. Now Leningrad (renamed St. Petersburg after the obliteration of the menace
of Soviet communism) resides within a hundred miles of NATO military forces, while Moscow is
merely 200 miles from Western troops.
Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has absorbed 13 nations, some on the Russian border,
others bordering lands that had been part of Russia's sphere of interest for centuries. This
constitutes a policy of encirclement, which no nation can accept without protest or pushback.
And if NATO were to absorb those lands of traditional Russian influence -- particularly Ukraine
and Georgia -- that would constitute a major threat to Russian security, as Russian President
Vladimir Putin has sought to emphasize to Western leaders for years.
So, no, NATO has not deterred Russian aggression for 70 years. It did so for 40 and has
maintained a destabilizing posture toward Russia ever since. The problem here is the West's
inability to perceive how changed geopolitical circumstances might require a changed
geopolitical strategy. The encirclement strategy has had plenty of critics -- George Kennan
before he died; academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Robert David English; former
diplomat Jack Matlock; the editors of The Nation . But their voices have tended to get
drowned out by the nostrum diplomacy and the nostrum journalism that supports it at every
turn.
You can't drown out Donald Trump because he's president of the United States. And so he has
to be traduced, ridiculed, dismissed, and marginalized. That's what the Times story, by
Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper, sought to do. Consider the lead, designed to emphasize just
how outlandish Trump's musings are before the reader even has a chance to absorb what he may
have been thinking: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires
more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and
Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that,
Mr. President! You're an idiot."
Henry Kissinger had something interesting to say about Trump in a recent interview with the
Financial Times . "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history," said the
former secretary of state, "who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to
force it to give up its old pretenses." One Western pretense about Russia, so ardently enforced
by the likes of Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper (who, it may be safe to say, know less about
world affairs and their history than Henry Kissinger), is that nothing really changed with the
Soviet collapse and NATO had to turn aggressive in order to keep that menacing nation in its
place.
Trump clearly doesn't buy that pretense. He said during the campaign that NATO was obsolete.
Then he backtracked, saying he only wanted other NATO members to pay their fair share of the
cost of deterrence. He even confessed, after Hillary Clinton identified NATO as "the strongest
military alliance in the history of the world," that he only said NATO was obsolete because he
didn't know much about it. But he was learning -- enough, it appears, to support as president
Montenegro's entry into NATO in 2017. Is Montenegro, with 5,332 square miles and some 620,000
citizens, really a crucial element in Europe's desperate project to protect itself against
Putin's Russia?
We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his
fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor
attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving
NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge
the country in necessary new directions.
But Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed, while the old
ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the status quo
defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary American
politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its current
configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the
author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century.
We recently heard Trump get real mad at the Germans because their energy policy is
strengthening Russia, meanwhile, we're protecting them from Russia, so like what the hell,
Germany, make up your mind but you know that we're just venting, we're with you no matter what,
Germany, and NATO is sacrosanct, you know the status quo, and Trump is very often a status quo
kinda guy, which is why when the newly liberated Poles and Czechs and Hungarians and Baltics
insisted on NATO protection, there is no way Trump would have refused to expand the alliance,
no chance whatsoever that he would have listened to Kennan -- Kennan who?
Kennan was a smart man, but he didn't get everything right all the time, for example, be
didn't think the Germans were made for democracy, in fact he had serious doubts about American
democracy as well.
Personally, I supported the NATO expansion, and even in hindsight I'm not so sure it was the
wrong move. It's easy to talk loudly when you don't have to weigh deeply competing interests
and make the hard calls. Plenty of smart people were also convinced after '89 that a re-unified
Germany would spell grave misfortune, but a decision had to be made, and we'll never really
know where the road not taken would have led. Truly, are we so sure that leaving 100 million
Eastern Europeans as a buffer zone would have been the absolute and unambiguous best
choice?
But to reiterate, knowing his abiding love for their women, my bet on Trump gladly and
effusively welcoming them is a safe one.
I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to
conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in
good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake.
And then NATO came to life in 1949, and then the other shenanigans that the U.S. did that
convinced the Soviets that the time started ticking against them. So they managed to pull
together the Warsaw Pact in 1955. And then they always tried to catch up with having enough to
deter a nuclear attack from US.
European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the
Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one
or other Western power de jour.
Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians
out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack
of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans
in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their
national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side
of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and
Germans are still down.
Russians, for a long time looked up to and got inspiration from Europe and wanted to enjoy
it. Why to debase it with their boots?
An instructive book is Brendan Simms' "Europe -- The Struggle for Supremacy". Provides quite
a perspective
Well written Robert! We in the West don't even think much about extant structures like NATO,
but they have raised the tension needlessly with Russia, at a time we need to build friendship.
Trump should chat to Putin about bringing Russia into NATO -- that would set the cat among
the pigeons!
We will need all the Euro-Christian nations to unite and defend against Islamic invasion
soon, as 23% of world are Muslim, and they follow a global domination death cult in the Koran.
Even China may have to swing on board (not in NATO, but as allies like in WW2).
Of course, Russia would need to improve its democratic practices, and it would take time to
ease suspicions, but with fast falling fertility & birth rates in all Western nations, and
fast rising 3rd world births and forcible migration into the West, a united Europe & West
will be vital
Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no
discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead
hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are
invested in empire instead of America's citizenry.
Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if
Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments
on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he
doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what
the adults told him.
This is a very good article about why we should now take a very critical look at the question
of NATO.
However, I do not see any evidence that the Soviet Union, so devastated by war, ever planned
an invasion of Western Europe and this article has not supplied any.
AP European History Class, Classwork, Date: 1/18/19
There are two things I have learned from reading this article:
First, there is Europe, which from geography we know is a continent called Europe, and then
there in Eastern Europe, which may or may not be a continent, but it seems it is somewhere in
the East. Also, Western Europe is mentioned, but its precise location is not given. Thinking
critically, I think it's in the West;
The second thing I learned is that Russia needs a permanent radius of 1200 miles centered on
Moscow, to feel safe and secure within its western borders;
Conclusions and critical thinking thoughts:
Russia is right to defend itself. It is surrounded by enemies of peace, so this need for
buffer areas is justified. In my opinion, that's because for centuries Russia suffered invasion
after invasion, so it's justified. Also, because Peter the Terrible built Leningrad, which
freezes in winter;
Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be
best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security
threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of
these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in
unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.
Clearly, the US should not have excluded the Russian Federation from NATO but that is now
purely academic. That exclusion spawned Putin just as the harshness of the Versailles Treaty
spawned Hitler. However, having spawned the monster, the US has litle choice but to destroy him
and the only effect of abandoning NATO would be to encourage him to continue to grab other
ountries' territory until, one day, he will go too far and will have to be fought with military
force. The same argument Mr Merry is making was also made about Hitler in the 1930s:"Not our
problem. Anyway, he's only taking back what is rightfully his". It didn't work then and I don't
see why it would work now.
This is a an excellent essay by Robert Merry. Congrats.
Re: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than
the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that
has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr.
President! You're an idiot."
That Russia wants NATO gone is true. But for economic, not military reasons. NATO is the
front that the U.S. Global Cop Gorilla uses to pressure Europe in all dimensions, military and
economic. Washington demonizes Russia, even equates Russia with the Soviet Union to maintain
the basis for its ham-fisted interference in every issue of importance to the Europeans.
Russia's objectives are economic, not territorial. It wants to set up a pan-Eurasian
economic architecture that includes Europe as a primary trading partner. The U.S. via NATO will
do anything and everything to subvert that benign economic activity, e.g., Nord Stream 2.
Because the Gorilla insists on absolutely controlling everything that it touches.
American Elites have lived parasitically large for decades under the existing model. America
as a "force for good" is their sole argument for sustaining the foreign policy pathologies
regardless of the record of wreckage and waste.
Unfortunately, with a War Machine that is worshiped, a compliant cronied-up corporate
culture, sycophantic MSM and seduced population, at this points it's wiser to bet on the
Elites. I.e. the Gorilla fronted by the NATO it controls, will be sticking its fat, greasy
thumb in European affairs for years to come. And the American taxpayer will again be forced to
pay the bills for Elite arrogance and stupidity.
'America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace', is
true. We live in extremely dangerous times and the signs are ominous. It's correct that Russia
had a huge buffer zone after it pushed west at the end of ww2, for which NATO was justifiable
to counter this. But now Russia sees itself encircled, threatened, with the choice of either
rebounding or imploding; no state chooses that latter.
The present crisis is worse than the Cold War because the Cold War was the peace. Today it is
becoming increasingly difficult to prevent the scenarios where Mutual Assured Destruction will
be resorted to. We will soon face the scenario where (unlike the Cuban missile crisis or Euro
missile crisis) one protagonist will not be able to step back from the brink, blindly stumbling
into a situation they cannot de-escalate. All that is left is Deterrence's fall-back position
-- annihilation.
The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty
Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after
the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. They all ended: followed by war. The Congress System
finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the
League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and
other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world
war. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Wasn't post WW 2 perceived logic, you cannot allow the Germans to ever rearm, and the Russians
need be isolated. So give them half the spoils, to keep them happy, and occupy Germany. Well
here we are, spending billions to have a European military presence, while Putin looks on in
wonderment, at our Government and the Brits. We concentrate on impeachment , and the Brits
chose to ignore 51.9 percent of their population, wanting out of Germany controlled so called
EU, administered by Brussels puppets. If we got out of Nato , which is all about the US
military capabilities, would Russia invade western Europe? Bottom line is that wouldn't be
practical. Russia prefers to have eastern Europe willingly join Russia in a re-constructed
Soviet Union.
Henry Kissinger: "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to
time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses."
Robert Merry: "Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed,
while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the
status quo defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary
American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its
current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it."
Thank you, Mr. Merry. You're a historian, I know -- and that gives you many advantages --
but why do you think so few among the Elite Classes understand that even a man whose favorite
meal is two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted "may be one of those figures in
history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its
old pretenses" -- a man who "almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking
questions to which the world needs new answers"?
An opportunity to move beyond NATO was missed in 2001. Putin had been president for a year and
a half. Russia was even weaker than it is today. Pointing out that the Soviet Union was gone
and NATO had won the Cold War, Putin had a few suggestions: NATO could disband; Russia could
join NATO; or a new European defense league could be formed to include Russia. The response to
such feelers? Aggressive NATO expansion.
As laid out in detail in contemporary books, NATO did not ever have the conventional military
force to stop a conventional attack by the Soviets.
If NATO is seen as a military force that could stop the Soviets, that is just wrong. It
never was. It must not have been meant to be either, since the balance of forces was obvious
and nothing was done to change that.
Nuclear deterrent could have been done with a lot less conventional force, and was for
awhile.
So what was it really all about? Likely it was US dominance of military force on the
Continent, to such an extent that they could not imagine fighting each other. That provided
peace from the 400 years of European civil wars. We now take that for granted, or credit it to
"the Soviet threat" but it was far more complex than that.
As much as I am sympathetic to Trump's views of NATO, I would say this:
1) I wish Trump simply pulled out of EU with military. It seems like a lot of small changes
could be made without Trump throwing another temper tantrum.
2) I am fine with keeping the nations the same and not expanding in order to avoid Russia
being threatened.
3) The best part of NATA the last 30 years is peace within Europe. When was the last time
Spain, Italy, France, England, and Germany did not have a major war in over 70 years? And look
at Eastern Europe the last 18 years, in which it has been historically peaceful.
This read is actually composed of actual history and common sense.
President Eisenhower, as well as Kennedy and Johnson kept diplomacy and civility, in relations
with Russia.
Even with the Berlin so-called crises in the early 60's, the Bay of Pigs and so on, these
leaders were calm, using diplomacy.
Isn't that what diplomacy is for?
Now, we have very narrow minded and crude people advising Trump. To think, Bolton and Kushner
are the face of a great country as the USA to the world?
What a dangerous and insulting situation we have,because of these two, insulting to the
American people. Pompeo is also an extremist and so they bring America down to the level of a
bully and war loving nation. They sure as hell don't care about US troops and civilians in
other nations suffering, dying. And, the leaders of NATO have been talking nonsense.Russia
attacking W Europe? Why? That's bull.
NATO and the US state department are run by nuts.
There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist
system? No, we fix the problematic parts. Likewise with NATO.
Given the aggression from Putin in invading Ukraine, and in interfering with the elections
of not just United States but also other European countries, NATO is needed more than ever to
deter Putin from increased aggression.
NATO however can be strategic and not provoke Putin by expanding NATO right next to Russia's
border. This author is as short sighted and foolish as Trump.
@ Mark VA Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be
best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security
threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of
these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in
unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.
Hilarious. You've earned and "A" in Mr. Merry's geography class.
An interesting thesis, and well argued I think, except for the part about Trump's motives. It's
more likely that he favors easing off on the Russians because Putin has something on him;
specifically, that he's indebted to the Russian mob. I think the main thesis of this article is
likely valid, and questioning NATO is overdue. Trump is probably doing it for corrupt and
possibly treasonous reasons, so what does one make of the right thing being done for the wrong
reasons? Trump may be one of those figures who appears at a time of transition in thinking, and
provokes important thinking. That doesn't imply that the man himself has any kind of coherent
strategy or understanding of what he's doing. He's an opportunist, a con man, not a statesman
or strategist, but he still may break some things that need to be broken, even if for the wrong
reasons or no clear reason at all. None of what's happening fits into any kind of good-vs-evil
or wise leadership narrative.
A cogent debate on this topic would be useful, at least for academic purposes [if only the few
people in the current administration capable of such a carefully reasoned examination did not
keep getting forced out]. The Deplorables like the "gut feel" of it, but would never
countenance the shrinking of the military budget.
Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st
Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time
who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of
dark-skinned people?
What's really ironic is that, even if the author is absolutely correct, Trump will have done
more to strengthen US involvement in NATO than any recent president. Once Trump is relegated to
the ash-heap of history, suffering the scorn of millions, if not actually in prison, his ideas
will become toxic-no subsequent president will touch them.
If Trump had been a thoughtful, well-spoken leader, perhaps we could have withdrawn from
NATO. But he will be a laughingstock, generating endless jokes about hamberders, raking the
forest, his ties made in China, rather than made in America, and tunnels under walls.
Merry writes a clear case against NATO and its Drang nach Osten but one that has been patently
obvious for a long time now.
But then as he gets to the end he writes in what is a total non-sequitur:
"We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his
fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor
attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving
NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge
the country in necessary new directions."
Trump Derangement Syndrome strikes again! Note that Merry dislikes Trump for his style --
you can almost hear in it the snotty putdowns of Trump and Deplorables from the refined and
brutal hawk, Hillary, or the contempt of a Marie Antoinette for the rabble who would soon cart
her off to face the guillotine.
The upper professional classes cannot stomach the nouveau riche Trump -- and that is true
whether they are Right or Left. The original NYT dislike for Trump in the early days of his
candidacy came of its judgement that he was "vulgar" and "boorish." So Merry completes his
piece by unwittingly put himself in the same crowd he seeks to discredit at the beginning.
TDS is catnip for the Respectables.
With respect to NATO, that Cold War relic should have ceased operations some years after the
fall of the Soviet Union. Sadly the West had other ideas and now we're threatening Russia in
the 21st Century, ironically some of the cheerleaders against Moscow are the political
descendants of NATO opponents during its heyday.
For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who
experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that
would seem obvious except to the author.
"I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to
conquer all of Europe."
I think this is accurate. That press is probably an overstatement. Not only is it doubtful
they had that desire, it is doubtful that even then they could have accomplished that task.
Based on what we now know, by the the 1960's the Soviet Union and it's "empire" was in
trouble.
"There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist
system?"
There are valid reasons to suspect that capitalism is gone or at least under tremendous
pressure by merchantil behavior.
-- -- -- -- --
For some reasons that make a little sense and plenty more that are incomprehensible to me --
this president chose not to embrace the mantle of transformational change. Sec. Kissinger's
observation is correct. But ultimately, this president has chosen to be that transformative
force those of us that voted for him so desired. Breaking the social communicative norms of
"political correct speech" is the least of the substantive behaviors I was hoping to see
occur.
I fully expected that he would press NATO for either a less substantial US presence or a
they pay a larger share of the expense.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st
Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time
who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of
dark-skinned people?"
Referring to this president as a Lord/PM Churchill or PM Chamberlain in light the conditions
in which the both operated makes no sense. As I understand it, PM Churchill's choices was to
stand in the face of extreme criticism. His choice made, there he stood. He believed in his
being he had a destiny and he seized it as a bull dog might sieze it's prey. He by sheer will
and force -- regardless of the odds. He actually served . . . in battle and it appears was as
brazen and certain as consistent to his character throughout.
PM Chamberlain actually embraced the popular will of the people when he chose a peaceful,
understanding that GB was neither in the mood or a condition to go to war.
Our current president, has neither stood consistently, has any deep certainty of his place
nor marshaled the will of the people to advance policy on any grand scale. The comparison's
made have been false comparisons about what this president could be or might have been, but
refuses to fully embrace save as facades of leadership, despite have been given a clear
mandate.
"Tucker Carlson: You're not allowed to question NATO" Tucker Carlson Tonight, Jan 15, 2019:
(3:20) "They consider asking difficult questions a criminal act. Just this morning, Preet
Bharara, the most famous former federal prosecutor in America, explained this on Twitter.
Quote: 'If true, Trump should immediately and publicly state his apparent wish to withdraw from
NATO so he can be promptly impeached, convicted, and removed from office'." Unquote. In other
words, talking about leaving NATO isn't simply unwise. It's an impeachable offense. Lots of
famous and powerful people in Washington think this. Watch:
"SOT: JAMES CLAPPER: Withdrawing from NATO -- even discussing withdrawing from NATO -- would
be disastrous for the security of the United States.
"REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D), CALIFORNIA: I think that act would be so destructive to our country
(edit) it would be a ground for some profound effort by our part, whether it's impeachment or
the 25th Amendment. He can't do that to this country. And I don't believe that he can do it
without Senate ratification."
I understand that TAC's editors might not have wanted to run two fine NATO essays head-to-head
on the same day, but this is Pat Buchanan's regular Friday TAC column:
"At Age 70, Time to Rethink NATO" by Pat Buchanan, Jan 18, 2019
'Trump saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism.'
So we are working with a definition of Europe that does not include former Yugoslavia,
former Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, or the Baltic countries. Well,
Russia is geographically vulnerable, so it needs to ride roughshod over all its neighbors to
establish a defensive perimeter. So let us all understand what Russia feels it needs, and
dismiss what, say, Poland feels it needs. Then we can characterize the eagerness of former
satellites and Soviet 'republics' to join as 'NATO expansion'. And we can ignore Russian
manipulation of Abkhazia and of its exclaves in Moldova and Ukraine to violate the territorial
integrity of former 'Union Republics', and the threats of invasion and nuclear devastation
uttered against various neighbors.
NATO handled the applications of countries in the area with due reserve until recent years,
when needless loose talk about prospective membership of Ukraine and Georgia predictably caused
upset in the Kremlin. But considering occupation of parts of the supposed territories of both,
can you at least understand why a lot of Ukrainians and Georgians might want to join NATO? And
can you stop talking as though accession to NATO on the part of Visegrad and Baltic countries
was driven by some megalomaniacal obsession to expand on the part of NATO?
Like most Trump-leaning conservative opinion on NATO, this leaves out a key part of the
picture: the EU. Because Robert Merry, like most Trump-leaning conservatives dislikes both NATO
and the EU, and would like to see both dissolve.
But realistically, US leaving NATO and the EU breaking up or weakening together would leave
a massive vacuum of power which would lead to either Russian domination (likely in the short
run), or (more likely in the long run), a return to Anglo-Franco-German great power rivalry --
and we know the dangers of that.
There's a solution that avoid both the Scylla of an unending US trusteeship over European
security or a return to the pre-1914 idea of a remilitarized, competitive Europe.
That is preserving and extending European union, by making the EU a defense union as well as
a political and economic one. and then tying the US to that resulting European defense union,
as its ultimate guarantor of strategic depth.
'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed [And other info
on this Tax Funded Monster that reportedly Funds, Arms, and Trains Terrorists]
-- -- -- -
'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed
With NATO rattled amid pressure from Donald Trump, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen
made an appeal for the alliance in a New York Times op-ed. She described NATO as an "emotional
bond" between the US and Europe.
"For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who
experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that
would seem obvious except to the author."
I'm pretty sure the author and everybody else here understands why the Baltic States wanted
to join NATO.
The question is why NATO should have been eager to want to admit the Baltic States.
Is a NATO supporter being questioned? See story links below.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
German opposition to probe defense minister over spending scandal
Ursula von der Leyen is suspected of poor management and nepotism over her department's
allocation of contracts and its decision to hire a consultant as her deputy. A parliamentary
committee is set to investigate.
Mr. Merry must be aware that the advocates of NATO emphasize the fear that Eastern European
countries have of once again being dominated so cruelly by Russia and the moral obligation the
U.S. has to aid them in their self-defense. If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the
post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least need to demonstrate that the Eastern European
countries' fears are baseless or nonexistent?
"If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least
need to demonstrate that the Eastern European countries' fears are baseless or
nonexistent?"
No. That's a sucker's game. The Israelis got us to play that game, and now we pay them to do
nothing while we fight their wars for them. I'm sure that the Eastern Europeans would love to
get in on some similar action. Let the stupid Americans do the paying and the heavy
lifting.
For an isolationist, it's much more convenient to act as if certain countries and their
historical experiences are nonexistent
On the other hand, to be fair to TAC, no one should be coerced into playing a global role if
one doesn't wish it. This is certainly honorable. And there is always a graceful way to either
exit the global stage, or officially confine one's interests to a small region (say, England
and France). But then there are consequences to accept: for example, China, with its One Belt
One Road Initiative, may inherit the world;
In the meantime, Eastern Europe is exploring its own collective security initiative, called
Intermarium:
Even as an old timer, I am drawn to the arguments made by our "Dissident Right"(DR), who seek
to find a Third Way between destructive international capitalism and destructive
international socialism. That movement is Nationalism. Some might call it Fascism, though
that loaded term has become far too pejorative. It is not surprising that one of the heroes
of the US DR is Mr. Putin.
The people making the best oral arguments for this third way that I've listened to thus
far are Mike Enoch and Eric Striker. Do not dismiss them lightly. They are obviously highly
intelligent and their movement is growing. As young white males are increasingly marginalized
and oppressed by the dominant culture, they have nowhere else to go. Old-time GOP civic
nationalism is dead, killed by the Diversity Cult that they foolishly embraced. On their own,
after Trump, and given the snowballing demographic catastrophe, the GOP could never again win
another national election. At some point there will be an uprising, unless young
indoctrinated males have been become like frogs in slowly boiling water, who don't realize
they are being scalded alive until it is too late.
It's also untrue that he "shot himself in the foot", as the event, if anything,
strengthened his image for the election.
What strengthened his image was an insane hysterics by the UK and the West in general. The
Russians do tend to consolidate when perceive themselves under external threat.
the pettiness of going after apparent pipsqueaks
Neither Putin personally nor the Russian government in general have ever shown themselves
to be petty. On the contrary, one of the notable qualities of Putin's is that he believes, as
we Russians put it, "the crown would not fall off his head if he bows". Apparently, he feels
strong, so he is not afraid to be magnanimous and make concessions. This quality is much
appreciated by some but drives other people crazy.
None of that however proves Putin did it. It's just a possibility.
Theoretically, it's a possibility that the Martians did it. However, given the behavior of
the UK authorities, there is no reason to believe anything even remotely like the picture
described happened in reality. There is a scientific impossibility to identify the agent,
first, as fast as it was supposedly done, and, second, unless they had a sample and/or
detailed information in their possession. It's scientifically impossible to establish
provenance unless the UK had samples of both the agent used and a comparison sample. Multiple
comparison samples, I should say, since there are many such compounds. But if they did, the
whole premise "only Russia could have done it" goes out of the window.
Add here the inconsistency of the symptoms and the outcome with the "military grade" nerve
agent poisoning – and here you have a complete a story of a very clumsy false flag
operation.
Like a gullible person I at first accepted that there was indeed some event that involved the
Skripals. Now I wonder if the entire thing was a scripted hoax, that nothing had hit them,
that it's all fake. It wouldn't be surprising. We seem to be in an age of rule by sociopaths
whose only compass is that of power and riches. The populations of our countries are being
hustled along for the benefit of the few. This can't have a happy ending for the majority of
people. The much vaunted democracy of the west looks like just a fixed shell game.
The
Washington Post's Greg Miller reported Sunday that President Donald Trump's confiscation
of the translator's notes from a one-on-one conversation with Russian President Vladimir
Putin in 2017 was "unusual." This is incorrect. It was unprecedented. There is nothing like
it in the annals of presidential history.
Not really. Other U.S. leaders held long private meetings with their counterparts without
notes being taken.
When Richard Nixon met Leonid Brezhnev he did not even bring his own interpreter:
Nixon would meet Brezhnev alone, the only other person in attendance being Viktor
Sukhodrev, the Soviet interpreter. "Our first meeting in the Oval Office was private, except
for Viktor Sukhodrev, who, as in 1972, acted as translator." Nixon on Brezhnev's 1973 visit.
RN, p.878 . Therefore, the only "notes" that would exist would be those of the Soviet
interpreter. Not sure he would have time to make notes and translate and, even if he did so,
whether those notes would be housed in any US archive.
Nixon's White House office was bugged. There are probably tape recordings of the talks.
There might also be recordings of the Trump-Putin talks.
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev began their second day of talks with a private meeting that had
been scheduled to last 15 minutes but ran for nearly 70 minutes, with only interpreters
present . They met in a small room in the Soviet Mission , with the Soviet leader seated in a
small armchair and Mr. Reagan on a sofa.
In the afternoon, they meet alone for a little over 20 minutes and then again for 90
minutes. All told, the two leaders have spent 4 hours and 51 minutes alone , except for
interpreters, over the two days here.
That the FBI agents involved in the decision were avid haters of Russia and of Trump has
surely nothing to do with it. That the opening of a counter-intelligence investigation gave
them the legal ability under Obama's EO12333 to use NSA signal intelligence against Trump is
surely irrelevant.
What the FBI people really were concerned about is Trump's public record of favoring Russia
at each and every corner.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter
its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below.
With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over
him is surely justified.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He
is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just
consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense
suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified.
When one adds up all those actions one can only find that Trump cares more about Russia,
than about the U.S. and its NATO allies. Only with Trump being under Putin's influence,
knowingly or unwittingly, could he end up doing Russia so many favors.
"... is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs. ..."
So what is really happening -- in the U.K. and the U.S.?
The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact, it is better thought of as a
blind sociological event. There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being
groomed to have the same opinions or at least saying they do.
Link Bookmark What has happened in the UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is
the
success of the long
march through the institutions . That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite (
politicians ,
mediafolk , teachers etc) who are overwhelmingly Politically Correct internationalists. And
it's those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.
How did it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s Rudi Dutschke,
echoing the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , put forward
the idea whereby societies could be subverted
from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain
positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be enough of such people to change the
policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones. That point was reached in
the UK at least 50 years ago and the Politically Correct stranglehold on our society is now
complete.
The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit and even
overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures, denigrate their own
societies, traduce the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the
pernicious Totalitarian creed of Cultural Marxism which has "anti-racism" (in reality
anti-white racism) at its heart. The last brick in the Politically Correct building is the
increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who refuses to toe the line -- increasingly
including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.
That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a
revolt against that mentality.
Most MPs overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result by promising
it in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of the
legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for its implementation.
But by doing so, MPs forfeited their right to do anything other honour the result of the
referendum. That applies just as much to Remainer MPs as Leaver MPs.
Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed Remainers with power and influence (including
many MPs and peers in the House of Lords) has shattered utterly the idea that the UK is a fully
functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered
an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite -- an elite in
the UK whose general political ideas are largely held in common and go against the interests
and wishes of most of the electorate.
None of this should be a surprise. The sad truth: the central political question in all
Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive
tendencies of the elite?
Robert Henderson [ Email him ]is a retired civil servant living in
London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness.
He runs the Living In A
Madhouse and England Calling
blogs.
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that
did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both
as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.
The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The
Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur
attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet,
it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give
unanimous bipartisan assent.
@Giuseppe
Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did
it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively
controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up
journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are
going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by
Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in
the late 1930s
Who controlled the press there and then?
What can be said about the control and conformity of the Soviet, British and American
press of the time?
and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ.
That's probably because the usual thugs don't need to do that any longer since they
control virtually everything.
A couple of anecdotes to illustrate my point.:
2 of the reasons we don't hear much about mobsters these days are that the press and
judiciary are owned by them and if you do get something published, you run the risk of
getting snuffed. They probably don't stop at mere blinding anymore.
Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in
news related to labor unions. In 1956 a mobster threw sulfuric acid in his face on a
public street in Chicago causing his permanent blindness.
"Treason is a strong word, but not too strong to characterize the situation in which the
Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to
the American people as any invading army could be." This indictment launched a
nine-part series of articles entitled "Treason of the Senate."
-David Graham Phillips, Cosmopolitan magazine, February 1906
In 1911 Phillips was shot multiple t imes by Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, a
Harvard-educated scion of a prominent Maryland family ,at Gramercy Park in New York
City.
Still, you authors need to start digging deeper. Trump and his Allies are putting on an
amazing show / act to distract their ( and Humanities going back generations) hidden
enemies.
The Bad Guys have for millennia weoponized information, convincing the public, reporters,
and journalists that the rabbit hole ends here, that they don't need to dig any deeper, to
just accept this slightly deeper layer of the onion. That warm and fuzzy feeling from
scratching just a little deeper into to information matrix, isn't enough anymore. You guys
have the intelligence, experience, and ability just do it please!
"... The current round of bullshit is not about justifying the investigation, it is about concealing MI6 taking a leading role in the attempted coup. ..."
A Russian American was put on sanctions list based on Forbes list of Russian billionaires.
This guy founded a high tech industrial laser company employing over a thousand American
workers. Forbes realized they f'ed this guy over and took him off their Russian billionaire
list. But too late--he remains sanctioned.
In my experience, just about everyone here, including hordes of supposedly educated people
who really should know better, believe it. They really do. However, most of them don't
care--it's merely something to snark about or score points in a political conversation with,
not anything they perceive as an actual threat to their way of life.
It's nothing more than the undying legacy of anti-communism and racism thrown in for good
measure. It echoes the German Nazis and their treatment of Slavs (slaves, unter menchen). We
need only look at how the US viewed the Japanese (and the Germans) during WWII, with
Roosevelt calling for their extermination (I'll find the source).
And of course, there's US slavery and extermination of the original inhabitants that also
feeds into the psychosis.
London was said to be very subdued the day news came through that Sweden's Charles the twelfth
had been crushed at Poltava in 1709 . North Western European economic interests have clashed
with Russian across many centuries. Had Charles been successful in the Ukraine a new level of English and Swedish alliance was
in the offing .
I just read about Trump's AG candidate, commenting on the 'Russian interference' in US
elections ....and i'm struck that these are not stupid people....they are either totally
IGNORANT of the facts and analysis .....or they are good ol boys, ready to tow the deep state
lie, so they too can feed at the trough. It saddens me in either case ....what hope can one
entertain when such cretins and low lifes are the supposed LEADERS of the democratic west. I
hold no hopes.
Proof by absurdity. Trump and Deep State work together. MAGA is a policy choice as much as it is a
campaign slogan. Everyone wants to rail against the anti-Trump forces. Oh it feels so good. That Trump has
proven to be a faux populist like Obama is ignored. WTF? Welcome to the rabbit hole.
I didn't live through the entire Anti-Communist Crusade, but was certainly cognitively aware
of it from JFK's inauguration in 1961 until the USSR's dissolution. I very closely studied
the events that led to an emergent Russian Federation and the device meant to corral the
"Near-Abroad"--The Commonwealth of Independent States. Admittedly, I was somewhat horrified
by Yeltsin's attack on Russia's Duma's White House in 1993 and eagerly read Kargalitsky's
account as it was the only one written by a Parliamentarian in English and published in 1994.
It was possible to discern the outright looting of Russia and former Soviet nations, but the
depth of evil involved wasn't made clear until some publications in the late 1990s
documenting the Rape of Russia; all of which made clear what the underlying intent of the
Anti-Communist Crusade entailed, and that that Crusade wouldn't end until Russia was
absolutely broken and enslaved by NATO/Outlaw US Empire. As many have opined, the Cold
War/Anti-Communist Crusade never ended; rather, it just entered a new phase/chapter, and
that's what we're living through today. But as b portrays, the level of hysterics paraded via
BigLie Media go far beyond anything from the previous chapter and probably outweigh those
employed during Red Scares I and II combined.
It seems fairly plain to see that delusional madness and anger have combined as the
motivating factors, but why/what sparked them and when? IMO, when was during Carter's
presidency with the why/what being several seemingly disparate but connected happenings:
Church Committee Hearings; Stagflation; Iranian Islamic Revolution; OPEC actions; losing grip
on Latin America; informal end to War on Poverty, and institution of Neoliberalism and
Zerosumism; changing of Coldwarrior Guard to Israel First Coldwarrior Guard. The culmination
was CIA gaining control of Executive with DCI GHW Bush becoming Veep to senile, dementia
addled POTUS Reagan.
Interconnected with the above is the prepping of the World Trade Center buildings for
demolition during Clinton's 2nd term, the operative question being: Would the False Flag be
perpetrated by Gore/Liberman, or was Bush/Cheney deemed to do the deed by Deep State actors;
or does this aspect even matter--Liberman was as much of a Neocon as Cheney, all 4 are Israel
Firsters, and Gore was already a War Criminal due to his participation in Clinton's numerous
illegalities. Sure, the Bush/Cheney cabal was more radical; but given what we observed during
Clinton/Gore, Deep State support was quite abundant. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was
finished and Kosovo created, Afghanistan was already targeted and Joint Vision 2010
--the blueprint for the Outlaw US Empire's Full Spectrum Dominance Policy--was published in
1996. Interestingly, at no time known to me has the Policy articulated by the authors of
Joint Vision 2010 or its update Joint Vision 2020 been announced by any POTUS
or senior member of the Duopoly as THE #1 policy goal of the Outlaw US Empire despite both
papers being available to the public. (If he were still alive, IF Stone would have written
about both umpteen numbers of times; while true to form, BigLie media remains 100% mute.)
Despite all the preparations and Trillions of dollars spent and looted, The failure to
implement the Yinon Plan seems to be directed at Russia, although it was indigenous Iraqis
who are responsible for the plan's defeat.
So, is the lying vitriol we're subjected to the result of Russian actions or the inability
to attain the #1 policy goal due to mistakes made at all levels--Deep State and Federal
Government? Recall that Russia/Putin didn't start to actively parry Outlaw Empire moves until
2008, well after the Yinon Plan's defeat by Iraqis.
Blooming Barricade , Jan 15, 2019 5:02:35 PM |
link
This inane narrative has gone too far. It's actually threatening chances for human survival
with its nationalism, poor focus, and banality:
--
"The key focus of the so-called "left" in the world's most polluting country, run by an
ecocidal vandal who deserves to be in the running for most destructive rulers of all time, is
whether or not that vandal is taking orders from the Russian Federation.
Let me repeat that: in the most wasteful society in human history, the forces designated
to oppose the rape of the planet and corporate slavery are concerned with treason and
betrayal of the "nation."
MSNBC: "The worst case scenario that we`ve all been talking about, which is the
possibility that the president had somehow been co-opted and was in the pocket of the
Russians."
THIS is the "worst case scenario" according to the "social justice" network of the
American "left?"
If we were to step back and look at this terrible situation honestly, we could only
conclude that American liberals, and the Democratic Party, are right-wing nationalist forces
concerned with geopolitical gambits and preservation of military alliances.
This isn't the politics of 2019, or 1999. It's the politics of 1819 - but even then, it's
the right wing politics of 1819, as there was already a left dedicated to popular solidarity
and social ownership existing, clandestinely, in the shadows of European cities.
It's worth analyzing how a "Seattle" would play out if it were to occur in the context of
today's US political discourse: the protestors would be seen as nationalist anti-Semites
doing the bidding of Putin, and perhaps Xi Jinping. The leaking of the Multilateral Agreement
on Investment would be condemned instantly as "information warfare." A focus on environmental
issues would be viewed in the context of "energy geopolitics." Indymedia would be shut down
by the authorities as a vehicle for "sowing discord" in Europe against NATO and
liberalism."
@14 karlof1... good post.. i don't know the answer to your questions, but it seems like a bit
of both but mostly the later... i am unaware of this joint vision 2010 paper..
As b points out, and Erelis @6, among others confirms, Kaplan's article in Slate is
worthless. Discredited by everything that has happened over the past two years.
The question is whether it matters. Who reads Slate? Are those who follow Kaplan anything
more than partisans, far beyond the reach of logical argument, committed to the Zionist
project and US hegemony, who read him for comfort and laughs rather than critically.
Kaplan, after twenty odd years of consistently being wrong and consistently impelling the
United States into foreign disasters, costly in lives and treasure, is a busted flush
politically. The only people his ravings effect are the true believers who are simply looking
for someone to articulate their idiotic prejudices.
This, after all is a man whose wife, an Obama/ Clinton favourite, parodying Marie Antionette,
midwifed the Bandera Reich in Kiev.
There is little point in arguing with him, just feed him ever more rope and he will hang
himself, his spouse, his country(s) and the Ukraine and its allies too.
Given the part we know about how self serving, corrupt and incompetent our IC is I fear it is
the tip of the iceberg. So many decades they have learned they can do as they will with
impunity. If I am not mistaken they are partly self financing through likely illegal and
unethical activities. They have gone rogue. Currently the dems think it's fitting however
they will also feel the bite. How will we ever gain control of our country.
Which are more salient--domestically: The attacks on Russia or those against Trump? Lots of
Trumpian, GOP and Corporate Democrat policy ploys go against the majority of the polity and
the National Interest. Unfortunately, the bloc known as the Resistance includes a 5th Column
consisting of most Corporate Democrats, who are essentially Republicans wearing donkey heads.
BigLie Media wants to promote the GOP & Corporate Democrat policy ploys, so the
anti-Russian news assault serves to cover-up popular domestic issues, like
this one regarding taxation and related income disparity . (Amazing that 60
Minutes provided Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez airtime to outline her proposals--airtime that
was meant to cut her down to size but backfired.)
As I outlined earlier, what I see as the struggle is for control of the Federal
Government--CIA/Deep State vs the American People--with the Anti-Communist Crusade used as
cover to diminish rights while enriching actors controlling government, which is exactly what
we see now. Yes, Trump's a player, but with few friends and little coaching. Arguably, his
only asset is the position he occupies.
A great man once wrote that the "big lie" had a force of credulity among the broad masses, as
the latter were wont to engage in lying about minor quotidian matters of little or no
significance while the big lies were engaged in by the mainstream press, dominated by the
usual tribal suspects.
It was the case with blaming General Ludendorff for Germany's defeat, and it is the same
case today, 100 years after the fact.
The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state
spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become
more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance relies upon the lever of public
credulity and kosher Newspeak.
What the unconditional and incorrigible Trumpetistas do not realize is that those of us- a
very large plurality of of Trump supporters- voted for him because he was not Hillary Clinton
and had pledged to keep us out of foreign wars. We will neither support, nor abet, foreign
wars for the sake of Israel, whether they are started by Trump or anyone else. Intervention
in Syria against the Assad regime is a no go. Trump cannot hope to compare himself to Assad,
since the latter has formed a real and effective alliance against the Christian hating head
choppers with Russia and Iran. Trump is totally clueless with respect to geopolitics. He is a
rank amateur.
It makes complete sense if one simply looks at the British Establishment's prior behavior of
intentionally starting world wars at the order of the Society of the Elect. It's all in the
CFR's archives. Their guilt in starting WW1 is emphatically admitted and documented in
roughly the first 200 pages of the following book. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf
"In 2016 an official British government inquiry determined that Bush and Blair had indeed
together rushed to war. The Global Establishment has nevertheless rewarded Tony Blair for his
loyalty with Clintonesque generosity. He has enjoyed a number of well-paid sinecures and is
now worth in excess of $100 million."
-- The character of Blair and the Establishment is well established: Blair is a major war
criminal supported by the major war profiteers. His children and grandchildren are a progeny
of a horrible criminal.
What is truly amazing is the complacency of the Roman Catholic Church that still has not
excommunicated and anathematized the mass murderer. Blair should be haunted and hunted for
his crimes against humanity.
With age, Blair's face has become expressively evil. His wife Theresa Cara "Cherie" Blair
shows the same acute ugliness coming from her rotten soul of a war profiteer.
Keep in mind how long ago all this is:
Skripal was recruited around 1990 and arrested in 2004. Guess that the Russian attitude
towards Skripal took the chaos of the 90's as mitigating circumstances into account.
Skripal served his sentence of only 13 years till 2010 when he was pardoned and given the
option to leave. Russia did not revoke Skripal's citizenship. The UK issued Skripal a
passport too. On arrival in the UK Skripak was extensively debriefed by UK intelligence
services. Skripal has lived for 8 years in the UK now.
And now out of the blue this incident nicely dovetailing with May ratcheted up anti Russia
language only a few months before this false flag incident and the rapidly failing traction
of the Steele/Orbis/MI6 instigated Russia collusion story on the basis of that fake Trump
Dossier. By the way Orbis affiliated Steele and Miller have been among Skripal's
handlers.
Good article.
The Skipnal affair has been an utter disgrace from day one. May & Boris are a shame on
the UK fully reminesent of that utter dog, Blair.
The fact that the msm still babbles on about Russia & Skipnal is indicative of their
monumental contempt for the public & factual balanced reporting .well what's new, I guess
?
Paul Craig Roberts is correct when quoting The Saker:
"The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an
infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been
hopelessly zombified." -- The Saker
These ridiculous, suicidal gas attacks by Assad seem to coincide not only with battleground
victories against the head-choppers, but co-incidentally with Israel's murderous attacks on
unarmed Palestinians "throwing stones".
What nobody seems to have picked up is the emphasis – and red lines – on Gas;
gas, gas attacks. Why is gas so much worse than being dismembered, disembowelled, and
mutilated by high explosives? Certainly I would favour unconsciousness and death by gas
before being smashed to pieces by depleted uranium.
These relentlessly repeated claims are an exercise with the dual purpose of providing a
subliminal message about the greatest tragedy in human history, repeated ad nauseam. The
massive 'gassing' of European Jews some 65 years ago. Lest we forget.
Compared with the Litvinenko umbrella attack with its tip having been dipped in an Amazonian
Indians' style curare variant of Polonium the intelligence level of the MI6 & CIA seems
to have hit the ground with the twofold miracle of the dead being raised. Now the miracles
are posing a big problem for the demonizers of Russia & President Putin: how to spirit
these two living & talking people away, who have returned from the dead, where they were
supposed to be so safe and well for all truth-loving investigators. This whole story seems to
unfold like a Jesus Christ Superstar sequel with James Bond appetizers having been added. At
present the roles have been reversed: the Russians being the champions of free will and the
Western intelligence services being the Joker.
Until some kind of sanity returns to this planet and war mongering gangsters like the Bush
and Clinton Mobs, Blair, Obama and a host of Pentagon generals, along with their boot-licking
MSM are indicted, tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes, found guilty and
sentences carried out, there will be no peace on Earth, just an endless series of False
Flags, hysterical reactions by the ones who were behind the False Flags and more wars.
It does look rather like those Syrian chemical weapon attacks that happen whenever the rebels
are about to be defeated.
I am pretty sure that it was not ordered within the British government and that most of
the British government don't know where it came from, but are willing to believe it was
Russia.
While the CIA does have plenty of form on assassinations, the risk if they were found to
be assassinating in Britain seems quite high due to the close CIA links with the UK
intelligence sector. But CIA agents could have paid someone else to do it.
Mossad is the one group that can act freely in the UK, has a record of assassinating
scientists, engineers etc here, and unlike CIA, can take the risk of being caught. So it's a
possibility – OTOH Israel has shown a lot less anti-Russian hatred than the US Deep
State has.
Normally I'd assume it was indeed Russia – I thought there was plenty of evidence
the Polonium poisoning was Russia – and it still seems possible, but US or Mossad must
be at least equally likely in this case. It's just possible it could have been British
initiated but I doubt it.
I do think it's most likely the person who actually poisoned them was not an employee of
any agency.
Theresa May as more evil than Bill Clinton? That will sound odd to some, but I think it is
true. Hillary is the pure evil half of the Clinton marriage. Bill is simply charming and
filled with a desire to amass enough power to have a group adore him as he finds new panties
to explore.
May is English, and she has the very long line of Brit Empire secret service evil at her
disposal. And her move is a bold one. What it means is that she is signaling that at least if
she is PM, the UK could replace the US as Fearless Leader of the actual New World Order,
which is the WASP Empire with Israel and worldwide Jewry as Junior Partner #1 and Saudi
Arabia elevated to Junior Partner #2 in an insane attempt to make Israel secure forever.
The English have never been happy that the lowly Americans leaped them as A-#1 of the WASP
Empire, and being English they have no permanent alliances, no permanent allies, not even kin
(perhaps especially kin – which type and degree of ruthlessness impresses all
Semites).
This alliance was sealed by none other than the very epitome of WASP culture: Mr.
Archetypal WASP himself, Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-Saxon alliance with Jews precisely to
wage wars against non-WASP white Christians was the logical (and inevitable if WASP culture
were to acquire large scale political power) .
By the Victorian era, virtually all Elite Brit WASPs were knowing philoSemites. The new
twist was that a growing number of them were becoming obsessed with Arabs and/or Islam.
decades before the Balfour Declaration, the Brit WASP Elites were wrangling among themselves
over how best to use the largest and wealthiest Empire in world history to express its
philoSemtism.
The solution recently agreed upon was to elevate the Saudis. The assumption is that as the
Saudis control the actual land of Mohammed, if they are elevated to suzerainty over not
merely all Arabs but the entire Islamic Middle East, then the entire Islamic world can be
controlled, including to allow Israel to exist in 'peace.'
And that means all that oil is under the indirect, but very firm, control of the WASP
Empire, or as The Saker calls it: the Anglo-Zionist Empire.
Of course, the Saudi royal family is the most amorally vicious power party in the Middle
East. They would slaughter half the Sunni Arabs in order to become unrivaled suzerain over
the entire Islamic world. Such monstrousness makes the House of Saud exactly the type partner
that those who control the WASP Empire want as partners.
The Russians are in the way of that beautiful plan of world domination. Russians have
common sense and, much worse, they express it, even publicly. Russians know that Sunni Islam
is a much worse threat to the world than is Shiite Islam. The Russians know that the Iranians
are much more honorable and moral than are the Saudis. The Russians know that as bad as the
Turks are, they are more honorable and trustworthy than the Saudis.
And the Russians also know that the Anglo-Zionist Empire would be tickled pink to make all
non-WASP Elite whites – all in the world – a permanent serf class, treated the
way Cromwell treated the Irish, the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians.
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that
did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both
as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.
The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The
Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur
attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet,
it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give
unanimous bipartisan assent.
@Giuseppe
Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did
it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively
controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up
journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are
going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by
Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
@DESERT
FOX Agreed to all you said, but I would include the assassination of JFK and his brother,
and likely Martin Luther King Jr.
And each time they took out a great American, they used that assassination to push a
destructive narrative: With the killing of MLK they pinned the killing on a white southern
man, thus pushing their white hate narrative.
With 9/11 is was all about stoking hate of Muslims
These creatures lie as easily as breath, and they have all the money in the world to push
their lies.
@jacques
sheete The intent of my post was to show that the MSM here is conformist and doesn't like
to stray far from what the USG is claiming and what other journalists are writing. Rather
than explore the topics you raise, as worthy of exploration as they might be, I thought I'd
offer what newspapers around the USA were saying about Saddam's WMD after Powell's UNSC
speech; seems a bit more germane.
The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable.
The Wall Street Journal
Piling fact upon fact, photo upon photo Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
methodically demonstrated why Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remains dangerous to his own
people, Iraq's neighbors
The Los Angeles Times
On Wednesday, America's most reluctant warrior, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
presented succinct and damning evidence of Saddam's enormous threat to world peace.
Arizona Republic
Saddam Hussein's illicit arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, as well as the
equally illicit means that he possesses to deliver them, poses a tangible and urgent danger
to U.S. and world security. Millions of innocent lives are at risk.
Dallas Morning News
At some point, the world chooses to believe President George W. Bush and Secretary Powell
or the international community chooses to side with Saddam Hussein and those who broadcast
his lies to the world. Powell has painstakingly presented a strong case against Iraq.
Greenville News/South Carolina
Iraq is busted. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the case clearly. No one
hearing Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council could doubt Iraq's
actions and intentions.
Jacksonville Times-Union/Florida
The threat is real and at our door. Sept. 11, 2001, stripped away the belief that the
United States can peacefully coexist with evil. Prove it, they said. Powell has.
Charleston Daily Mail/West Virginia
We are a country always loath to fight unless provoked. The reluctance of Americans to
initiate a war needlessly does the nation credit. But this is not a needless war, nor is it
unprovoked. Powell laid out the need, and explained the provocation, in step-by-step fashion
that cannot be refuted without resorting to fantasy.
Chicago Sun-Times
The Dispatch repeatedly has called on the Bush administration to make a compelling case
that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction and hiding these
efforts from U.N. inspectors. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell made that case
before the Security Council.
Columbus Dispatch
Powell has methodically proved Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. mandates. With each
passing day, Iraq's own choices move it closer to a war that full compliance would
prevent.
Indianapolis Star
Secretary of State Colin Powell's 90-minute presentation to the U.N. Security Council,
buttressed with surveillance photographs and recorded phone conversations, should remove all
doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has developed and hides weapons of mass destruction, in
violation of U.N. resolutions.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council presented not just one 'smoking gun' but a
battery of them, more than sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt about the threat the
Iraqi dictator poses.
Denver Post
The United States has made a compelling case that Iraq has failed to rid itself of weapons
of mass destruction. This failure violates the U.N. Security Council resolution of late last
year which ordered Iraq to disarm. As a consequence and it is a grave one, the Security
Council must act now to disarm Iraq by force.
Salt Lake City Tribune
Powell has connected enough dots to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda and show that this alliance is a
threat to all of Europe as well as the United States.
Manchester Union Leader
In fact, the speech provided proof that Saddam continues to refuse to obey U.N.
resolutions. Any amount of time he has now to comply fully and openly with U.N. demands
should be measured in days or a few weeks – and no longer.
That's probably wrong. Distancing from Russia was the main theme for all post Soviet States.
And the fact that Ukraine had chosen Baltin model -- becoming the sattelite of EU is not
surprising, taking into account connections of Western Ukraine and Germany which goes to the time
when this territory was a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The the fact that this distancing took such a toxic and self-destructing form and incldes the
loss of territory and population, can be attributed to the USA. Here I would agree with the
author.
Notable quotes:
"... The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut dollie." ..."
"... The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people." ..."
"A Pew poll from April 2014 revealed that 91 percent of Crimean respondents
believed the referendum was free and fair, 93 percent had confidence in Putin, and
85 percent believed Kiev should recognize the results.
Another poll in June 2014, this one from Gallup , showed 94 percent of
ethnic Russians in Crimea thought the referendum reflected the views of the people and 68
percent of ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea agreed . The poll found that 74 percent
believed that joining Russia would make life better.
A GfK poll from February 2015, sponsored by a pro-Ukrainian group in Canada,
revealed 93 percent of Crimeans endorsed the referendum."
"Enough documents have been released -- citing coup-backed snipers killing dozens of
protesters, US embassy officials planning false flag attacks, extremists downing a passenger
airliner and NATO peddling falsified intelligence -- to make it very clear that the "coup" is
more of an invasion than anything else.
The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown
Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de
facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut
dollie."
The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of,
minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United
States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and
Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued
genocide against the Palestinian people."
"In 1950, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined Crimes against Peace, in Principle VI,
specifically Principle VI(a), submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, as:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation
of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the
acts mentioned under (i)."
@annamaria
Bravo, indeed, Annamaria. Beautiful, perfect, resounding, harsh, unforgiving words for a pair
of worthless human vermin masquerading as civilised, intelligent professionals with a moral
compass.
He makes great points, and I'm encouraged that he's allowed to do so on to a big and
important audience.
I remember when his predecessor, Bill O'Rielly, claimed to have seen the evidence of
Saddam's WMD, and told his audience, on the run up to war, and I was appalled. As indeed, it
turned out he too was lying.
When the ZUSA was entrenched in the highly profitable war on Vietnam, there seemed to be no
way to end it. Protests in the streets and at the universities, and anger at the war and war
pig$ seemed to no avail.
But then a phenomena began. Fragging.
one wonders .
at seven minutes in, Carlson interviews a senator. The senator does his best to lie and
deceive, as only a ZUS senator can. But Tucker eviscerates him on screen.
now if this senator, and others like him, were themselves put into peril by these
serial, treasonous wars for Israel, would they still be so keen to have Americans die,
slaughtering innocent people- to bolster and benefit the main enemy of America; Israel?
I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of
Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are
willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these
Satanic wars.
Just as Tucker says, any general who advocates for these wars, should be required to
actually visit a battlefield, so too I wonder about the politicians, and how they eventually
have to go home, and live among their constituents. What if some of the worst of them, like
Graham for instance, were to actually suffer some consequence for all the evil he's done, and
continues to do?
Of course I'm not advocating anything illegal. Just ruminating on potential solutions to the
Eternal Wars for Israel – which are nothing more or less than a continuation of the first
two World Wars (for Israel) duh
END the FED!
(or watch your nation bankrupted and looted and made to die for Israel)
"... The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment. ..."
annamaria says: April 10,
2018 at 2:44 pm GMT 100 Words On the British Establishment:
The Skripal affair is better understood in the context of "sir" Savile' knighthood -- when the
influential pedophile had been raping and molesting kids for 40 years and none stood up to the
criminal. The BBC has dutifully refused to publish anything that would upset "sir" Savile. The
Scotland Yard looked the other way -- precisely as the Establishment ordered them to do.
Savile' specialty were orphans. He was the embodiment of British Establishment.
The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices
against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by
any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the
vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment.
Originally from: President Trump's Losing Strategy: Embracing Brazil and Confronting China
James Petras January 8, 2019
Introduction
The US embraces a regime doomed to failure and threatens the world's most dynamic economy. President Trump has lauded Brazil's
newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro and promises to promote close economic, political, social and cultural ties. In contrast the
Trump regime is committed to dismantling China's growth model, imposing harsh and pervasive sanctions, and promoting the division
and fragmentation of greater China.
Washington's choice of allies and enemies is based on a narrow conception of short-term advantage and strategic losses.
In this paper we will discuss the reasons why the US-Brazilian relation fits in with Washington's pursuit for global domination
and why Washington fears the dynamic growth and challenge of an independent and competitive China.
Brazil in Search of a Patron
Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro from day one, has announced a program to reverse nearly a century of state directed economic
growth. He has announced the privatization of the entire public sector, including the strategic finance, banking, minerals, infrastructure,
transport, energy and manufacturing activities. Moreover, the sellout has prioritized the centrality of foreign multi-national corporations.
Previous authoritarian civilian and military regimes protected nationalized firms as part of tripartite alliances which included
foreign, state and domestic private enterprises.
In contrast to previous elected civilian regimes which strived – not always successfully – to increase pensions, wages and living
standards and recognized labor legislation, President Bolsonaro has promised to fire thousands of public sector employees, reduce
pensions and increase retirement age while lowering salaries and wages in order to increase profits and lower costs to capitalists.
President Bolsonaro promises to reverse land reform, expel, arrest and assault peasant households in order to re-instate landlords
and encourage foreign investors in their place. The deforestation of the Amazon and its handover to cattle barons and land speculators
will include the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous land.
In foreign policy, the new Brazilian regime pledges to follow US policy on every strategic issue: Brazil supports Trump's economic
attacks on China, embraces Israel's land grabs in the Middle East, (including moving its capital to Jerusalem), back US plots to
boycott and policies to overthrow the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. For the first time, Brazil has offered the Pentagon
military bases, and military forces in any and all forthcoming invasions or wars.
The US celebration of President Bolsonaro's gratuitous handovers of resources and wealth and surrender of sovereignty is celebrated
in the pages of the Financial Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times who predict a period of growth, investment and recovery
– if the regime has the 'courage' to impose its sellout.
As has occurred in numerous recent experiences with right wing neo-liberal regime changes in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador,
financial page journalists and experts have allowed their ideological dogma to blind them to the eventual pitfalls and crises.
The Bolsonaro regime's economic policies ignore the fact that they depend on agro-mineral exports to China and compete with US
exports Brazilian ago-business elites will resent the switch of trading partners.. They will oppose, defeat and undermine Bolsonaro's
anti-China campaign if he dares to persists.
Foreign investors will takeover public enterprises but are not likely to expand production given the sharp reduction of employment,
salaries and wages, as the consumer market declines.
Banks may make loans but demand high interest rates for high 'risks' especially as the government will face increased social opposition
from trade unions and social movements, and greater violence from the militarization of society.
Bolsonaro lacks a majority in Congress who depend on the electoral support of millions of public employees, wage and salaried
workers ,pensioners,and gender and racial minorities. Congressional alliance will be difficult without corruption and compromises
Bolsonaro's cabinet includes several key ministers who are under investigation for fraud and money laundering. His anti-corruption
rhetoric will evaporate in the face of judicial investigations and exposés.
Brazil is unlikely to provide any meaningful military forces for regional or international US military adventures. The military
agreements with the US will carry little weight in the face of deep domestic turmoil.
Bolsanaro's neo-liberal policies will deepen inequalities especially among the fifty million who have recently risen out of poverty.
The US embrace of Brazil will enrich Wall Street who will take the money and run, leaving the US facing the ire and rejection of
their failed ally.
The US Confronts China
Unlike Brazil, China is not prepared to submit to economic plunder and to surrender its sovereignty. China is following its own
long-term strategy which focuses on developing the most advanced sectors of the economy – including cutting edge electronics and
communication technology.
Chinese researchers already produce more patents and referred scientific articles than the US. They graduate more engineers, advanced
researchers and innovative scientists than the US based on high levels of state funding . China with an investment rate of over 44%
in 2017, far surpasses the US. China has advanced, from low to high value added exports including electrical cars at competitive
prices. For example, Chinese i-phones are outcompeting Apple in both price and quality.
China has opened its economy to US multi-national corporations in exchange for access to advanced technology, what Washington
dubs as 'forced' seizures.
China has promoted multi-lateral trade and investment agreement ,including over sixty countries, in large-scale long-term infrastructure
agreements throughout Asia and Africa.
Instead of following China's economic example Washington whines of unfair trade, technological theft, market restrictions and
state constraints on private investments.
China offers long-term opportunities for Washington to upgrade its economic and social performance – if Washington recognized
that Chinese competition is a positive incentive. Instead of large-scale public investments in upgrading and promoting the export
sector, Washington has turned to military threats, economic sanctions and tariffs which protect backward US industrial sectors. Instead
of negotiating for markets with an independent China, Washington embraces vassal regimes like Brazil's under newly elected President
Jair Bolsonaro who relies on US economic control and takeovers.
ORDER IT NOW
The US has an easy path to dominating Brazil for short-term gains – profits, markets and resources, but the Brazilian model is
not viable or sustainable. In contrast the US needs to negotiate, bargain and agree to reciprocal competitive agreements with China
..The end result of cooperating with China would allow the US to learn and grow in a sustainable fashion.
This article is asinine. By the book, Bolton takes orders from Trump... not the other way
around. Bolton is just being used as an excuse. Trump was never serious about getting the US
out of any wars. I confidently predict that US troops will still be in Syria this time next
year.
"Was he aware of Bolton's request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S.
strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary
of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? "
Yes, Yes and Yes, that's why he's an orange fucktard.
Bolton's former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the
Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively.
This war mongering harpy fortunately was kicked to the curb by melania trump!
Send the House, Senate, FBI, CIA, IRS & all others state operatives to fight in Iran.
Include the TSA for gods sake. Include the Obamas, Clintons and Bush's. So they can verify
that their weapons are all delivered again and work properly. Bring our troops home to defend
are border. Include NYT, WaPo and most of our current media in the Iran light brigade, so
they can charge with the rest of the parasites. Many problems will be solved in very short
order.
He's a temporary useful idiot for Trump who will flush him at his convenience. He's handy
to have around to encourage the Hawks do a group masturbation.
Seriously, if Ertogen tells Bolton to go **** off, he has no sauce. He's been neutered.
Let him act all important and play in the sand box all he wants.
trust the plan. there are white hats in government who have your best interest in mind.
you don't need to do anything other than pretend like everything is fine, they'll take care
of the rest. go to work and continue accepting continually devalued worthless fiat in
exchange for time you spend away from your family and doing things you love. trust the plan,
it's all going to be alright
American are so tired of foreign wars, that if DNC will not derail her with some "Putin agent" smears, and she wins the
Primary, she has a chance against Donald Trump, who completely discredited himself by his actions and can defeat
only opponent to the right of him (which with Hillary absence for the race now is difficult to find) like Obama against
Romnay
Notable quotes:
"... During an interview for the Sanders Institute in September 2018, Gabbard said, "Since 2011, when the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and these other countries started this slow drawn-out regime change war in Syria, it is terrorist groups like al Qaida, al Nusra, and Hayat Tahrir al Sham, these different groups that have morphed and taken on names but essentially are all linked to al Qaida or al Qaida themselves that have proven to be the most effective ground force against the government in trying to overthrow the Syrian government." ..."
Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii announced she will
launch a presidential campaign for 2020. Her campaign is likely to distinguish itself from
other Democratic campaigns by making wars and broader United States foreign policy a major
issue.
Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii state legislature in 2002. She joined the Hawaii Army
National Guard a year later and voluntarily deployed to Iraq, where she completed two tours of
duty in 2004 and 2005.
She was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012, and according to her own website,
she was "one of the first two female combat veterans to ever serve in the U.S. Congress, and
also its first Hindu member."
During Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, Gabbard gained notoriety after she
resigned from her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee so she could
openly support Sanders. She spoke at Sanders campaign rallies to help him distinguish his
foreign policy from the much more hawkish foreign policy of Hillary Clinton.
Gabbard was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2018. She won 83 percent of the vote in the
Democratic primary election.
Most progressives are not as outspoken against U.S. military interventions or what she
refers to as "regime change wars." She witnessed the impact of regime change on the people of
Iraq, as well as U.S. troops, and that inspired her to talk more about the human cost of war
and challenge the military industrial-complex.
Gabbard has persistently called attention to the war in Syria. She traveled to Aleppo and
Damascus in January 2017 to see some of the devastation Syrians have endured since 2011. Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad invited her to a meeting, and she accepted.
"Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I
felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there's a
chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much
suffering," Gabbard
declared .
Supporters of the Syrian war -- the same people who do not want President Donald Trump to
withdraw U.S. troops -- seized upon Gabbard's meeting with Assad to discredit her, and it has
fueled the backlash among Western media pundits to her decision to run for president.
Yet, in spite of a smear campaign encouraged by the political establishment, Gabbard has not
backed down from protesting U.S. support for terrorists in Syria. She sponsored legislation,
the Stop Arming Terrorists Act.
During an
interview for the Sanders Institute in September 2018, Gabbard said, "Since 2011, when the
United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and these other countries started this slow drawn-out
regime change war in Syria, it is terrorist groups like al Qaida, al Nusra, and Hayat Tahrir al
Sham, these different groups that have morphed and taken on names but essentially are all
linked to al Qaida or al Qaida themselves that have proven to be the most effective ground
force against the government in trying to overthrow the Syrian government."
Gabbard opposes what she calls a "genocidal war" in Yemen, and she is one of the few
representatives, who has worked to pass a war powers resolution in the House to end U.S.
military involvement since Congress never authorized the war.
"The United States is standing shoulder to shoulder supporting Saudi Arabia in this war as
they commit these atrocities against Yemeni civilians," Gabbard said during the same Sanders
Institute interview.
Another war Gabbard questions is the war in Libya. In an interview for "The Jimmy Dore Show" on September 11, 2018,
she spoke about the devastating consequences of pursuing regime change without considering what
would happen after Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power.
"After we led the war to topple Gaddafi, we have open human slave trading going on, in open
market. In today's society, we have more terrorists in Libya today than there ever were
before."
Gabbard is also one of the few elected politicians to oppose weapons sales, especially to
Saudi Arabia. She recognizes the military industrial-complex benefits the most from Congress
not exercising its authority over war-making by presidents, whether they are Republican or
Democrat.
She spoke out against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he refused to revoke support for
Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen because it would jeopardize a $2 billion arms deal.
Not many Democrats are willing to be optimistic on North Korea, but Gabbard sees potential
for peace and does not view Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un as an act of treason.
Gabbard said during the Sanders Institute interview, "For years, I've been working in
Congress and calling for direct engagement with North Korea with Kim Jong-un to be able to try
to broker a peace agreement that will result in de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and
and finally bring about an end to the Korean War."
"So I think that the recent engagement that we have seen -- both the historic meeting
between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea -- is certainly a positive step
in the right direction. We have to be willing to have these conversation to promote peace,"
Gabbard said. And, "I think the continued engagement between North Korea and South Korea is
positive."
Gabbard acknowledged there are a lot of details that have to be worked out, but that does
not make her hostile to the entire process, which is the attitude of many pundits and Democrats
in the establishment.
Joe Rogan interviewed Gabbard in September 2018. He
raised the issue of Russian troll farms and Facebook's failure to deal with them. She had a
sober response to his concerns.
"The United States has been doing this for a very long time in countries around the world,
both overtly and covertly, through these kinds of disinformation campaigns," Gabbard contended.
"Not even counting like the regime change wars, like we're going to take you out."
She continued, "I think it is very hypocritical for us to be discussing this issue as a
country without actually being honest about how this goes both ways. So, yes, we need to stop
these other foreign countries -- and Russia's not the only one; there are others -- from trying
to influence the American people and our elections. We also need to stop doing the same thing
in other countries."
Such positions on war and U.S. foreign policy effectively make her a pariah to establishment
media pundits and the political class. But her anti-establishment politics do not end
there.
Gabbard has advocated against superdelegates, which are Democratic party insiders that have
an outsized role in influencing the outcome of presidential primaries. She favors open
primaries and same-day voter registration. She is outspoken against the influence of money in
politics, and she is audacious enough to question members of her own political party.
"We have to dig a few layers deeper as people are running for office, say what do you
actually stand for?" she said on "The Jimmy Dore Show." "What is your vision for this country?
That's the debate that we will have to have in Congress should Democrats win over the House or
win more seats in the Senate."
"Otherwise, it will be more of the same status quo, where you'll have lobbyists who have
more of a seat at the table writing policies that affect healthcare and education and Wall
Street and everything else rather than having a true and representative government by and for
the people," she concluded.
She was also critical of self-described progressives, who are pro-war, while on "Jimmy
Dore":
You have these individuals and groups of people who call themselves progressive but are
some of the first to call for more war in the guise of humanitarianism. They look at these
poor people suffering -- and there are people suffering in the other parts of the world.
Let's go drop more bombs and try to take away their suffering. And when you look at example
after example after example, our actions, U.S. policy, interventionist regime change war
policy, [has] made the lives of people in these other countries far worse off than they ever
were before or would have been if we had just stayed out of it.
***
Gabbard was much closer to an establishment politician prior to her resignation from the
DNC. She accepted tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from political action
committees (PACs).
The Center for Responsive Politics noted, "One of the largest contributing sectors was the
defense industry. While Gabbard has gained a following for her
anti-interventionist stances , yet, her 2016 campaign was given $63,500 from
the defense sector . In fact, the campaign
received donations of $10,000 from the Boeing Corporation PAC and from Lockheed Martin's
PAC, two of the biggest names in the military-industrial complex."
In 2017, Gabbard announced she would no longer accept PAC money. She raised $37,000 from
labor associations and trade unions.
Gabbard was "conflicted" over whether to support the Senate report on CIA torture. She said
in 2014 that she thought there were "things missing or it was incomplete." She also endorsed
the "ticking time bomb" scenario that officials use to justify torture, and it is unclear what
her view would be now, if asked about the issue.
She has taken a position on Israeli occupation of Palestine that is
common among Democrats. She supports a two-state solution and describes Israel as the U.S.'
"strongest ally." But it may be shifting. In the last year, she condemned Israel for its
violence against the people of Gaza, and she was reluctant to vote for a House resolution that
condemned the UN Security Council for criticizing Israeli settlements.
Journalist Eoin Higgins
questioned Gabbard's support from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which he described
as right-wing. She has garnered criticism for her trip to India in 2014, when she met with
India prime minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist.
But HAF believes this criticism of Gabbard is unfair because other members of Congress, like
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have attended gatherings with Modi. They also point to financial records
and maintain they are a U.S. organization without ties to any organizations in India.
When she was much younger, Gabbard helped her
father's organization mobilize against a same-sex marriage in Hawaii. The organization,
Alliance for Traditional Marriage, backed conversion therapy
However, there is evidence to suggest that Gabbard has abandoned much of the bigotry that
she probably learned from her father. She backed Edith Windsor when she challenged the Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA).
"Let me say I regret the positions I took in the past, and the things I said. I'm grateful
for those in the LGBTQ+ community who have shared their aloha with me throughout my personal
journey," Gabbard stated, responding to media coverage of this aspect of her past.
She noted that she has since supported "the Equality Act, the repeal of DOMA, Restore Honor
to Service members Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Safe Schools Improvement
Act, and the Equality for All Resolution," and added, "Much work remains to ensure equality and
civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and if elected President, I will continue to
fight for equal rights for all."
There are powerful forces in American politics that will seize upon her past opposition to
LGBTQ rights and meeting with Assad to neutralize her presidential campaign before she even has
an opportunity to tour the country and meet with potential supporters. They fear the impact she
could have if voters gravitate to her campaign, which will likely promote her
anti-imperialism.
Often Democrats do not bother to connect foreign policy to domestic issues. Gabbard is
likely to run a rare campaign, where she makes the case that they are intertwined -- that in
order to make investments in universal health care, education, infrastructure, etc, the massive
investment in war must be severely curtailed.
Gabbard also aware of the disenchantment among voters, who do not believe either political
party has the answers. She understands President Trump is a symptom of what ails the
country.
As she said on "Jimmy Dore," "If we look at the lead-up to the 2016 election, and if we
actually listen to and examine why people chose to vote the way they did, it points to much
bigger problems, a much bigger disaffection that has been building for quite some time, that
voters have against the establishment of Washington, the political establishment within both
parties."
"... I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope. ..."
"... Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom? ..."
Why did Trump appoint Bolton? A saying of LBJ, I believe attributed to Sam Rayburn,
might illuminate. "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent
pissing in."
Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to
guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that
like a feudal fiefdom?
Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems? Arguably Trump's "out there"
gestures to the right are because he has to keep the Repubs on his side given the constant
threat of impeachment from the other side. Extremes beget extremes. There's also the Adelson
factor.
Of course this theory may be incorrect and he and Bolton are ideological soul mates, but
Trump's ideology doesn't appear to go much beyond a constant diet of Fox News. He seems quite
capable of pragmatic gestures which are then denounced by a horrified press.
"... By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane ..."
"... Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal ..."
"... Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief ..."
"... Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers. ..."
"... Why did Trump appoint Bolton? ..."
"... I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope. ..."
"... Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom? ..."
"... Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/ ..."
"... see what we could do ..."
"... Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo. ..."
"... I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war. ..."
Posted on
January 14, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I am surprised
that Bolton has lasted this long. Bolton has two defining personal qualities that are not
conducive to long-term survival with Trump: having a huge ego and being way too obvious about
not caring about Trump's agenda (even with the difficulties of having it change all the time).
Bolton is out for himself in far too obvious a manner.
By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at
Common Dreams
Reminding the world that he is, as one critic put it, " a reckless advocate
of military force ," the Wall Street Journalrevealed
on Sunday that President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton "asked the
Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran last year, generating
concern at the Pentagon and State Department."
"It definitely rattled people," a former U.S. official said of the request, which Bolton
supposedly made after militants aligned with Iran
fired mortars into the diplomatic quarter of Baghdad, Iraq that contains the U.S. Embassy
in early September. "People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about
hitting Iran."
"The Pentagon complied with the National Security Council's request to develop options for
striking Iran," the Journal reported, citing unnamed officials. "But it isn't clear if
the proposals were provided to the White House, whether Mr. Trump knew of the request, or
whether serious plans for a U.S. strike against Iran took shape at that time."
Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John
Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane."
Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no
mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert
on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over
the request detailed in Journal 's report.
"This administration takes an expansive view of war authorities and is leaning into
confrontation with Iran at a time when there are numerous tripwires for conflict across the
region," NIAC president Jamal Abdi warned in a statement . "It is
imperative that this Congress investigate Bolton's request for war options and pass legislation
placing additional legal and political constraints on the administration's ability to start a
new war of choice with Iran that could haunt America and the region for generations."
In a series of moves that have elicited concern from members of Congress, political experts,
other world leaders, and peace activists, since May the Trump administration has
ditched the Iran nuclear deal -- formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) -- and reimposed
economic sanctions .
NIAC, in November, urged the new Congress that convened at the beginning of the year to
challenge the administration's hawkish moves and restore U.S. standing on the world stage by
passing measures to block the sanctions re-imposed in August and November , and
reverse Trump's decision to breach the deal -- which European and Iranian diplomats have been
trying to salvage .
Iran continues to comply with the terms of JCPOA, according to the United Nations nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's
nuclear chief, told state television on Sunday
that "preliminary activities for designing modern 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel have
begun." While Iran has maintained that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, the nation would
still have to withdraw from the deal if it resumed enrichment at the level.
As Iran signals that it is considering withdrawing from the JCPOA, the Journal
report has critics worried that Bolton and Pompeo have the administration on a war path -- with
Bolton, just last week, insisting without any evidence that Iranian leadership is committed to
pursuing nuclear weapons. Some have compared that claim to former Vice President Dick Cheney's
infamous lie in 2002, to bolster support for the U.S. invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction.
As the Journal noted, "Alongside the requests in regards to Iran, the National
Security Council asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with options to respond with
strikes in Iraq and Syria as well."
So Bolton wants war with Iran? Pretty tall talk from a man who during the war in 'Nam
ducked into the Maryland Army National Guard because he had no desire to die in a Southeast
Asian rice paddy as he considered the war in Vietnam already lost. His words, not mine. The
Iranian military will not be the push over the Iraq army was. They are much better equipped
and motivated and have a healthy stock of missiles. They even have the Russian-made S-300
anti-aircraft missile system up and running.
Once you start a war, you never know where it will go. Suppose the Iranians consider –
probably correctly – that it is Israel's influences that led to the attack and so
launch a few missiles at them. What happens next? Will Hezbollah take action against them as
well. If the US attacks Iran, then there is no reason whatsoever for Iran not to attack the
various US contingents scattered around the Middle East in places like Syria. What if the
Russians send in their Aerospace Forces to help stop an attack. Will they be attacked as
well? Is the US prepared to lose a carrier?
And how will the war end? The country is mountainous like Afghanistan so cannot be occupied
unless the entire complete total of all US forces are shipped over there. This is just lunacy
squared and surely even Trump must realize that if the whole thing is another Bay of Pigs, it
will be his name all over it in the history books and so sinking his chances for a 2020
re-election. And if the justification for the whole thing is a coupla mortars on a car park,
how will he justify any American loses? At this point I am waiting for Bolton to finish each
one of his speeches and tweets with the phrase-
Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just
drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and
bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers.
Calling Bolton on Pompeo "batshit crazy" cries out for revisions in the APA Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM).
Why did Trump appoint Bolton? A saying of LBJ, I believe attributed to Sam Rayburn, might
illuminate. "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent
pissing in."
Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to
guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that
like a feudal fiefdom?
Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems? Arguably Trump's "out there"
gestures to the right are because he has to keep the Repubs on his side given the constant
threat of impeachment from the other side. Extremes beget extremes. There's also the Adelson
factor.
Of course this theory may be incorrect and he and Bolton are ideological soul mates, but
Trump's ideology doesn't appear to go much beyond a constant diet of Fox News. He seems quite
capable of pragmatic gestures which are then denounced by a horrified press.
The point might be, sure the Dems as part of the duopoly created the context within which
Trump now acts as president. Nonetheless there is a direct linear responsibility for his
actions that rests with him.
Unless you consider him so impaired as not to be responsible for his actions ;-)
So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in
Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in
Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once
again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite
tiny.
It's not like the Obama administration and the EU didn't strike a nuclear deal with Iran
to freeze nuclear capable production and allow for lifting of sanctions -- how could they
have gone further? How could its deal be worse then the saber rattling of Trump/Bolton? Not
saying this as a fan of the Obama administration in general.
Pied Piper Memo. It's up in Wikileaks. Clinton campaign laid out a strategy to help Trump along so he would be their opponent.
They bet that he was too far out there for the general public to vote him in as
president.
...Everyone
including Trump was shocked he won. He has made an only partly successful hostile takeover of
the Republican party. The fact that he got only at best the second string, and mainly the
fourth string, to work in his Administration, Trump's repudiation of international
institutions and his trade war with China are all evidence that he was chosen by anyone, much
the less a cabal you create out of thin air called "the oligarchy"
As Frank Herbert said in Dune, the most enduring principles in the universe are accident
and error. Trump did not want to win. This was a brand-enhancing stunt for him that got out
of control.
Something for our would be Croesus and his minions: If you go to war with Persia, you will
destroy a mighty empire OK, not so mighty, but an empire nevertheless.
The US has previously run multiple conventual war simulations and in all cases the US lost
against Iran, only when the US used its nuclear option did the US prevail. The implications of a nuclear strike and how the Russian Federation will react, to having
yet another one of its allies attacked is unknown?
Really -- who cares? Any claim of 'all' is difficult to support under the best of
circumstances and unwise. Besides, suppose we could 'prevail' in a war with Iran -- why
should or would we want to? Are you OK with a little war with Iran if a couple of
conventional war simulations suggest we could win?
1) I really hope jim webb gets the def sec job. That would be a strong signal.
2) if the TDS infected bi-partisan consensus wants to impeach. They can build on this. I
suspect they won't though.
3) Keep in mind Trump like some trash talk. Pompeo seems here to stay. Not sure about
Bolton. But, as we saw with N. Korea, sometimes the crazy gets dialed up to 11, right before
things get calmed down.
Because that worked so well in the Balkans and Iraq and Libya, etc, etc etc. The world is
not what you think it is. Let us compare Iran as a country with America's loyal ally Saudi
Arabia as an example. Would you believe that Iran has a Jewish population that feel safe
there and have no interest in moving to Israel? In Saudi Arabia, if you renounce Islam that
is a death sentence. Women have careers in Iran and drive cars. Woman have burkas in Saudi
Arabia and have very few freedoms. Iran has taken in refugees from the recent wars. Saudi
Arabia has taken virtually none from Syria. Iran wants to have their own country and work out
their own problems as they are a multicultural country. Saudi Arabia is a medieval monarchy
that has been exporting the most extremist view of Islam around the world using their oil
money. Ideologically, all those jihadists the past few decades can be traced to Wahhabi
teachings. Now tell me that if you had a choice, which country sounds more attractive to live
in?
Having been to Iran, it is an amazing place and they are the most welcoming of people. One
of the few places I have seen female taxi drivers, too. Women are very self-assured there
– they will blow past men to get to what they want to do. Lots of people don't like the
Islamic government (and they will note that to you), but as you mentioned, they are NOT
medieval.
The government praises science and technology in roadside ads up and down the
country. The ads, by the way, are almost always in Farsi and English, as English is the 2nd
language of the country. And I'd like to add that they love Americans. It didn't matter what
town I was in and we went to some small towns. I literally had people yelling "We love
America" and asking for my autograph. And no – I am not famous. They are the most
generous, gregarious people I have ever met in my life.
I have odd memories of my trip like being in a taxi going into Tehran listening to a
instrument only version of Madonna's La Isla Bonita (they really like Madonna). And going to
beautiful mosques which are filled with mirrors and coloured light so it's almost like a
disco (mirrors and water are ancient pre-Islamic symbols). And the gardens – in odd
places like underpasses that happen to have a bit of opening to light and rain. Where ever
they can stick a garden they will do it.
Iran is a hodgepodge of so many thoughts, peoples, and currents. One thing they are though
– is fiercely loyal to Iran. Not the government, but to their homeland, to their
people. There is no way we would win. Due to geography and due to the losses they would be
willing to sustain we would be destroyed. We would lose so badly that it would look like the
First Anglo-Afghan War where only one Brit got back after the entire army was destroyed. We
tussle with them on their own land at our peril.
Saudi Arabia is America's loyal ally! You mean the SA that financed, planned, and manned
the 9/11 attacks?
Because SA is a bigger shithole than Iran is no argument. What does need to be faced is that
SA has a lock on American politics through its financial control of Washington DC swamp
dwellers.
The Balkans is quiet now. Iraq became a mess when Paul Bremer snatched defeat from near total
victory.
Libya, Syria and Ukraine are the victims of malevolent US meddling (as was Vietnam). I am
hoping that President Trump can reverse course and create a foreign policy that puts the
interests of people first, particularly the interests of the people of the USA. Forlorn hope
perhaps.
I would not want to live in either of them.
Well said. All religious fundamentalists are dangerous because they believe they are the
"chosen ones" and therefore superior to "non-believers", whose lives are less important and
therefore expendable if and when they feel so inclined.
(1) Echoing other responses, I suggest we ask the "Iranian people" if they would like the
U.S. to help them into modernity. Given our track record in Iran and other ME nations, I'm
not sure they would welcome our assistance, particularly if it involved "a few explosions" or
so.
(2) It is "the people" that are always hurt first, and the most, in such interventions,
not the government.
I wasn't sure if this was a serious comment or one meant to provoke. It did provoke me to
make an earlier response. I thank the moderators for blocking it (sincerely – not being
sarcastic).
Bah, who cares about a little collateral damage. The Iranian people obviously don't know
what's good for them. We just need to bring back Wolfowitz to make sure they are on hand to
lay down palm fronds before the US forces as they enter Baghdad after we nuke it into rubble.
Speaking of sociopaths, I am sure Darth Vader would make himself available to advise from
Wyoming. Where the hell is Elliot Abrams when you need him. What's Rumsfeld doing these days?
How great would it be to get the old gang together again, under the maniacal leadership of
Bolton. Maybe Dubya would be willing to do the "mission accomplished" as the smoke clears
over the whole MENA region. What a great bunch of guys.
You're a regular humanitarian bomber. Reminds me of "Assad must go" and the fact 'we'
never bombed him but all the people, all around the nation of the ilk you pretend to want to
help by doing the same thing in Iran.
At best, you are speaking a bunch of hooey without thinking. Oh, and last I heard Iran has
not invaded another country for something like 400 years. Look in your mirror.
Are the Iranian people asking us to invade their country? In the U.S. there seems to be
this bizarre nonchalance about war, which used to be considered a terrible scourge. After the
recent disasters in Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq, "regime change" should be discredited. The U.S.
has caused nothing but misery in the third world. We should focus on our own human rights and
democracy problems. If we want to do something abroad I favor ending our support for Israeli
crimes against Palestinians.
Gotta keep the military industrial complex well fed.
George Orwell was right, sadly; constant state of military alert and occasionally shifting
loose alliances between three competing major military powers.
What a waste of human resources.
IMHO, Bolton serves two roles in the Trump Administration.
As a symbol for the hawkier folks in Congress and the media
As a foil to Trump in a good cop-bad cop, or bad cop-worse cop role, if you prefer
The first provides air cover and the second forestalls ground action. The air cover says
see what we could do , and the ground action blusters to draw attention by
the media thereby serving to defuse any escalationist tendencies pushed by neo-cons.
Bolton is a price of admission, and will not have much of a purpose as the effects of the
Iran sanctions become more evident and that regime becomes more pliable. The people on the
ground in Iran seem to want de-escalation and more normal lives, like so many around the
world and at home.
Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good
for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton.
Much the same can be said of Pompeo.
I have never understood the lust for war with Iran it looks entirely irrational to me. The
Iranian government may not be to your taste and pursue policies you dislike in the
extreme, but is this a reason to gin up a war. I could never support such a conflict and would
do whatever I could to thwart it.
This is not news and while concerning is not fundamental.
Bolton was hired precisely because of his uberhawk obsession with Iran. That is in fact
the central credential that he brought to the table and as such there should be zero surprise
in this. Indeed the only real shocker is that he asked for plans rather than pulling them out
of his own fevered mind as he usually does.
And as others have noted the Pentagon draws up plans like this all the time. This kind of
speculative planning is a big part of what the Pentagon does and somewhere no doubt is
someone who is paid to prepare for the "inevitable" war in Jamaca.
The question really is whether we will act upon these plans, or some others, and from what
I read of this article that is no more likely than it was a few months ago. Scary yes but no
scarier than it already was.
Well, what do they want us to think? Of course this is predictable–even
SOP–for Bolton. But someone in the Pentagon is offering some pushback, or wants to
suggest there is resistance. Or someone in the CIA. Some of these people prefer wars to
quagmires, especially after an exhausting 20 years. And climbing into bed with the Saudis and
Israelis to fight Iran may not appeal to everyone.
Some may even see that Iran is a much more promising place for consumer and capital
growth, and implementation of bourgeois democracy, than Saudi Arabia. But Mr. Bolton might
say that that's the point.
I think we may be closer to war with Iran than most of us care to think. Trump is under
siege from multiple investigations with no room to run, the Democrats now have the House and
will only intensify the pressure, Pompeo and Bolton–both Iran hawks–are now in
charge of our foreign policy, and a former Boeing executive (with stock options?) is in
charge of the Pentagon, Trump is also being pushed into war by Saudi Arabia and
Israel–his two closest buddies–and probably the two most malign influences on US
policy, and finally, our economy is beginning to look shakey, and the normal functions of
government are now in shutdown. Shock doctrine holds that now is the time to act.
I recall a piece by Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader posted by another commenter here that he
would likely do so BEFORE the Dems took control of the House. I thought there was a lot of huffing and puffing going on, except for the likelihood of
wagging the dog, a tried and true tactic of US presidents.
Was chatting to a someone who was a junior official in the GWB administration. He
suggested the first thing Bolton does when he joins an administration is request these plans.
If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of any interesting events to bomb Iran.
Besides, he hasn't actually implemented them yet!
Amusingly its standard bureaucratic form to ensure you have plans on file. Otherwise when
asked to list the options, how would you make sure your plan for covert opps, or democracy
subsidizing/subverting payments appeared to be the most reasonable plan on the table?
Bolton is the same paleoconservative he ever was. And in that sense he is refreshing. One
gets tired of seeing Israelis and Saudis make proposals for spending American lives on
countless critically important projects.
There's also word that the US and Bolton have been giving quiet encouragement, with the
new President in Brazil, for a Venezuela intervention.
I think it's important, though, not to simply characterize these people as monsters but to
finger the system behind them. There was word before the election that Ms. Clinton has become
chummy with Bolton and some of the other neocons; we might be looking at much the same if she
had been elected.
Also, Kissinger bombed Cambodia and set off a genocide. Bolton is awful, but nothing
whatsoever will make me yearn for Mr. K. I have a friend who's still unhappy with me because
I turned down an invite to dine with him long ago, but I was just too frightened of what I
might say in his presence.
We can take it for granted that they are nuts–but nuttiness is like monstrousness,
not always so useful as explanation. They're also operating out of the logic of a
contradictory and decaying system. The neocons are the ideological successors of the
neoliberals (who liked to follow with the velvet fist rather than lead with it, but hardly
eschewed it). . . the culmination of much of the same logic. Egalite and fraternite trail far
behind these days.
I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include
Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political
acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each
of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet
the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they
keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to
bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking
war.
The National Security Advisor is a senior official in the executive branch. Who placed
these people in charge of our nation's foreign policy and to act in our name?
There is no threat to the United States involved here. I don't recall being given the
opportunity to vote on them or the policies they represent and push. It's past time these
individuals be removed from positions of power and influence and for American soft power and
diplomacy to be restored to preeminence. I want this country to stand for peace, freedom,
equal opportunity and hope; not war, chaos, fear and death.
The US foreign policy generally doesn't depend on individual people. It is the Swamp which
drive neolib/neocon policy which is driven mostly by the Deep State which means the coalition of
MIC, Wall Street and intelligence agencies and their agents of influence within the
government.
The most important question is how he managed to get into administration?
bolton is a bully and such people have no friends.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies. ..."
"... If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited. ..."
"... the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests. ..."
Henry Olsen is
very worried that other people in the administration might be out to get Bolton:
Whatever the motive, conservatives who favor more robust U.S. involvement abroad should
sit up and take notice. One of their strongest allies within the administration is under
attack. Whether Bolton's influence wanes or even whether he remains is crucially important
for anyone who worries that the president's impulses that deviate from past American foreign
policy will weaken American security.
There have been a number of unflattering reports about Bolton in the last few weeks, but for
the most part those stories are just proof that Bolton has no diplomatic skills and does a
terrible job of managing the administration's policy process. If Bolton had done a better job
of coordinating Syria policy, the administration's Syria policy wouldn't be the confused mess
that it is. If he hadn't made such a hash of things with the Turkish government, there would
have been no snub by Erdogan for anyone to report. There may be quite a bit of hostile leaking
against Bolton, but that is itself a testament to how many other people in the administration
loathe him.
The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious
colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have
made him even more enemies.
If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved
with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas.
He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office.
Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton
allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has
exited.
Bolton's influence in the administration is an important indication of what U.S. foreign
policy will look like in the months and years to come, and the longer he remains National
Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests.
"As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, the Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More
Militaristic and Pro-War Than Republicans" [Glenn Greenwald, T
he Intercept ].
'But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support
for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents
overwhelming favor their removal.
The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support
withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support
withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent."
Those of you who followed my midterms worksheets will recall that the liberal Democrat
establishment packed the ballot with MILOs (candidates with Military, Intelligence, and Law
enforcement backgrounds, or Other things, like being a DA), preparing the way for further
militarization of the Party, and ultimately for war.
In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50
million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands
of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of
State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!
Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in
the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by
the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan
the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on
a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential
threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du
jour, "populism."
In my view, at the moment the deed is done. The president signed onto the report acknowledged
the he accepts the report has even gone as far to say, he blames Pres. Putin
Another backtrack, just muddies the waters, and mat be acceptable because no one wants to
accept the real consequences of a president who has repudiated the one state president he
most desired to make a deal with -- the jig is up.
Whether kabuki theater or real gamesmanship --
A threshold has been crossed and uncrossing it is going to be tricky and in my further
humiliation for the wh. The analysis here mattered before the president agreed with the
report. But when he did, this analysis, becomes moot. Having a chit chat about de-escalating
nuclear tensions is quaint in light of the president acknowledging that russia has in fact
undermined the US democratic process. This is a serious charge and no amount of changing the
subject, crying foul, or pretending it was all a big misunderstanding is going to change
that.
I think it would have been prudent for the president to hold fire in Helsinki and read the
report and then responded . He did make any of those choices. It matters not how exposed the
establishment in wanton eagerness to have their way, wh has embraced the matter. it is on
record and . . . oh well. I see merit in maintaining his original position of disbelief --
however, the president did a complete about face -- and there is no question of that or the
implications.
"... Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Newly-inaugurated Senator has been promoted to standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of ..."
Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake
Internationalists Newly-inaugurated Senator has been promoted to standard-bearer for the
bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain.
No surprise: Senator Mitt Romney does not like President Donald Trump, as he recently
explained in TheWashington Post . But what, one wonders, was the former GOP
presidential candidate thinking two years ago when he supped with the man he now claims to
deplore while seeking an appointment as secretary of state?
Much of Romney's complaint is over manners. Yes, the president is a boor. Most people,
including many of Trump's supporters, recognize that. Trump won not because of his etiquette
but because of what he stood for -- and against.
Romney also defended The Blob, Washington's bipartisan foreign policy establishment. In his
article attacking the president, he offered the usual vacuous bromides that characterize the
interventionist consensus, which poses as internationalism but with plenty of bombing raids,
illegal occupations, and nation-building. Most importantly, this perspective presumes permanent
American domination, irrespective of cost.
Romney wrote: "America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military
strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in
foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more
esteemed." Indeed, "The world needs American leadership, and it is in America's interest to
provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world -- and an America -- with less
prosperity, less freedom, less peace."
In fact, Romney appears more committed to dependence on allies than American leadership. For
him, these are two sides of the same coin. The only alternative he sees to Washington in
control is the bad guys leading.
Related is Romney's apparent belief that foreign policy is fixed, irrespective of
circumstance: the very same U.S.-dominated alliances created in 1950 are needed today. Although
America's friends have raced ahead economically, politically, even militarily, Washington must
forever treat them as helpless derelicts. For instance, Russia, a weakened declining power,
faces the U.S. and Europe -- which together have more than 20 times its GDP. Yet Romney sees
Moscow as the greatest threat facing America. It is 1945 all over again.
Romney's most important omission is Iraq. After the war there turned bad, he remained silent
about his support for it. The Iraq disaster is an important reason why Trump won and other
Republicans, including Romney, lost. In 2008, Americans rejected John McCain, the very symbol
of promiscuous war-making. Four years later, Romney criticized President Barack Obama for
leaving Iraq too soon, by which the Republican nominee probably meant leaving at any time. In
saying he would keep more troops in Iraq, he ignored the fact that the Iraqis had refused to
negotiate a status of forces agreement with the Bush administration.
Romney also failed to mention Afghanistan, both as a presidential candidate in 2012 and
senator in 2019. After all, what good can be said for entering the 18th year of nation-building
in a region of little strategic interest? As for Syria, last November, Romney predictably
denounced as "recklessness in the extreme" exiting a multi-sided civil war in a country never
important to America.
Now Romney is being touted as the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling
in for John McCain. Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands theorized that Romney was attempting to
"position himself as heir to John McCain as the congressional conscience of U.S. diplomacy"
(defined as advocating policies designed to prolifically kill and destroy).
Towards this effort, Romney is articulating "a renewed Republican internationalism based on
opposition to aggressive authoritarian regimes." Brands celebrates Romney's Russophobia, saying
he "deserves credit for being anti-Russia before being anti-Russia was cool." No hint that the
U.S. might have contributed to Moscow's hostility through the aggressive "internationalism" of
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama -- violating commitments not to
expand NATO, dismantling Moscow's Slavic friend Serbia, and encouraging violent regime change
against an elected government that neighbored Russia. After all, equivalent Russian
intervention in Mexico would have triggered an extremely hostile reaction in Washington.
Neoconservative Max Boot lauded Romney for throwing "down the gauntlet to President Trump."
Indeed, argued Boot, "it now falls upon Romney to champion the cause of principled conservatism
in Washington." Boot hoped the freshman senator would lead a general opposition and seemed
especially pleased at Romney's support for the interventionist status quo.
Yet the passion-less Romney is a poor substitute for the perennially angry McCain. It is
difficult to imagine Romney leading Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman on another apocalyptic
ride, demanding that death and destruction be visited upon an enemy du jour. Indeed, Romney
admitted as much, complained TheNew York Times , which noted that he said he
"would only speak out against Mr. Trump on issues of 'great significance,' which means not
much."
Worse, Romney is a typical denizen of Washington and lacks any connection to the disastrous
consequences of his policies. Give McCain credit: he and his sons served in the military. Not
Romney. He received four deferments during the Vietnam War, explaining that he "had other
plans." This sounds eerily like Dick Cheney, who said his five deferments reflected "other
priorities."
Moreover, none of Romney's five sons served. That is, of course, their prerogative. But
their decision further insulated Romney from any consequences of his policies. His response to
questions about their lack of service: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our
nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president." Did Romney
believe working for him was as dangerous as fighting Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah? Or that his
personal interest in winning the election was as important as the nation winning a war?
My friend William Smith at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University
argued that Romney's article "is another clear sign that the bipartisan political establishment
is largely oblivious to the terrible tragedy of wartime casualties disproportionately inflicted
on certain communities." Candidate Trump did particularly well in states that so suffered.
Complained Smith: "What is astonishing is that, after all this tragedy, Romney offers only
cliched neoconservative bromides to the many heartbroken communities across the nation."
However, The Blob, which dominates foreign policy under both parties, poses an even larger
problem. These policymakers consider permanent war to be America's natural condition. They seek
to suppress dissident views to ensure united support for permanent war. Anyone who hesitates to
back every proposed new intervention is demonized and marginalized.
The favorite technique, recently employed by Frederick Kagan in The Hill, is to call
opponents, irrespective of their actual positions, "isolationists." Thus did Kagan urge left
and right "internationalists" -- meaning military interventionists -- to work together to
defend "the principle that the United States must remain actively engaged in the world," by
which he meant warring without end on multiple countries.
Exclaimed Kagan: "The isolationists who have condemned the United States involvement in the
Middle East and the rest of the world for decades are about to get their wish. We will witness
what the world looks like when left to its own devices."
Egads. Imagine what might have happened had the U.S. not intervened in the Lebanese Civil
War, armed Turkey to kill tens of thousands of Kurds and destroy thousands of Kurdish villages,
invaded Iraq and triggered sectarian conflict, fostered civil war in Libya and the chaos that
followed, supported decades of violent occupation over millions of Palestinians by Israel,
backed murderous Saudi Arabia in Bahrain and Yemen, supported a coup against Iran's
democratically elected government and a brutal invasion backed by chemical weapons against
Iran's Islamist regime, actively underwritten tyranny across the Middle East, and tried to sort
out the Syrian Civil War. Something bad might have happened.
Yeah.
In Syria, Kagan views as "isolationist" the withdrawal of an illegal military deployment
that risks violent confrontation with Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Russia over minor stakes. In
contrast, "internationalism" means war everywhere all the time, especially in a country like
Syria.
Trump, complained Kagan, is leaving "Afghanistan for no clear reason whatsoever." No reason
other than Washington long ago having achieved its objective of degrading and displacing
al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for hosting al-Qaeda. And eventually having recognized,
after more than 17 years passed, trillions of dollars were spent, and thousands of lives were
lost, that using force to create a liberal democracy in Central Asia is a fool's errand. Why
leave, indeed?
It has oft been recognized that Donald Trump is a flawed vehicle to achieve almost any
foreign policy end. However, he still possesses far more common sense than Mitt Romney. It is
time to rescue "internationalism" from those who love humanity so much that they would destroy
the world in order to save it.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
"No reason other than Washington long ago having achieved its objective of degrading and
displacing al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for hosting al-Qaeda."
One should avoid the back pedal here. the Taliban did not host Al Quaeda in the manner
your reference suggests.
I truly voted against Romney when he ran for president because of his omnidirectional
belligerence. I also didn't like his vulture capitalism style (and I did technical due
diligence for venture capital activities as a side line).
Romney just guaranteed that he won't get the nomination. Amazing, really, stupid and
gratuitous.
He could at the least have shown a little "growth" in the direction of populist disgust with
the wasteful, reckless, failed wars, not to mention concerns about the growth of government and
corporate mass surveillance of the public, and the continuing unholy collaboration between Wall
Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington in ripping off taxpayers and importing cheap labor to
take American jobs.
Not Mitt. He seems to think he's running for president of our utterly discredited,
pseudo-meritocratic "Establishment".
Let's all thank the knuckle-headed Utahns for delivering another unimaginative empty suit to
the Nation's State House. Sure, Trump is often a boor, and unmistakably human, but give me a
man-child with conviction and Devil-may-care determination over a dapper dolt whose ideas are
contrived platitudes and whose passion is a Macbeth-like obsession with stature and power any
day of the week and twice on Sunday. Well written Mr. Bandow! Keep fighting the good fight.
I get the sense that the "isolationist" line doesn't work any more. It was a commonly used
rhetorical weapon 10 years ago, and it effectively silenced opposition. Now it's not used much,
and it seems to be ignored or derided when it is used. Most Americans understand now that
maintaining and expanding an empire is destroying us.
You really don't get Romney, do you. Who are you to decided what anyone sees or feels. Do you
think you could use the word seems like a professional journalist. I don't construe
Romney that way. You SEEM to put words in his mouth and thought in his head. Please be
professional.
My take is Mitt see's himself as a Gerald Ford calming effect, for this 4 year disruption, the
Swamp battles with. The Deep state needs an impeachment win and soon. With that said it will be
ever difficult for the Beltway to change Americans perception , they don't trust the
government.
For someone so smart Romney should realize that Americans will reject him (again), when he
takes up the mantle of McCain (again) as quickly as they did the last time. But that he fails
to realize that substance trumps form, which is why 67 million Americans voted for the
President, demonstrates what a shallow narcisst and sociopath he is. I mean, it's okay to rob
your neighbor so long as you say "please" and "thank you," isn't it?
The writer states: "Now Romney is being touted as the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan
War Party, filling in for John McCain."
I believe The "War Party" are:
"The Maniacs of Militarism"
The maniacs of militarism are creating wars
Countries are bombed by warmongering whores
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries too
Are hell holes of the earth, "The work," of this insane crew
Enabled by politicians in positions of power
These well dressed war criminals hide and cower
The generals salute their political masters
Then the brainwashed obey these bemedaled disasters
Cities are destroyed and reduced to rubble
Where are the perpetrators that created all this trouble?
They are residing in luxury and given fancy titles
War crimes trials are needed, and are so vital
But this is not happening: the system is corrupted
And these evil beings, by some are worshiped
Blood-soaked villains that never do the fighting
They are the "experts" that do the inciting
They are the producers of death and destruction
Others are profiteers of all the bloody actions
Missiles, bombs and horrendous weapons
There is no end to the endless aggression
Millions are dead, and millions are homeless
Millions are refugees, and all this is atrocious
Once they had jobs, families, and homes as well
Then their countries were bombed by the agents from hell
Setting the world on fire is what these war arsonists do
The money for their depredations comes from me and you
They have made us all accessories to their criminal acts
Our Taxes are the blood money and that is a fact
Will the people ever say: "We have had enough"?
And put all these villains in secure handcuffs
Then lock them up in maximum security prisons
Then, we can say "goodbye" to the maniacs of militarism
[more info at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-maniacs-of-militarism.html
-- --
And:
"More War "
More war is needed to keep armies trained and employed
More wars are needed so that countries can be destroyed
More killing, bombing, destruction and death
More of this is needed until the victims have nothing left
[read more at link below]
Romney is such an empty suit i'm not sure if he isn't weakening his position just by virtue
that, he Romney, supports it.
Does this guy inspire anyone to any emotion other than revulsion? Along with Hillary, they
both strike me both as elites who want to become president, not from any actual passions or
desires, but because they've run out of other things to add to their C.V.
The only thing I can say with certainty that Mitt Romney believes in, is Mitt Romney. So I'm
intensely skeptical that ANYONE in America, aside from the most firebrand resistance types, are
going to take anything coming out of this corporate drone's mouth with any seriousness. And
even for the resistance types the support would equally follow a labrador retriever, just so
long as it opposed Trump, so Mitt doesn't even have that thin thread of loyatly going for
him.
I guess that leaves him with the neocons as BFFs. They're welcome to each other.
Why are we ragging on Romney? Is it because he had the audacity to criticize Trump? Shouldn't
we wait until he actually does something bad before ragging on him? Has he lied 6,000 times in
the last few years, for example? Did he refuse to rake the forests?
I think Romney is simply miffed that the boorish Trump became president and he did not and
sadly, he may be running for president again. I think someone used the word revulsion about
Romney. I approve. It's ironic the boorish Trump isn't nearly as revolting as the urbane Mitt.
@Mike Clements
For me it's the straw man arguments that are most egregious. As an Arizonan, I knew John
McCain, and Romney is no McCain (whose like we will never see again, if we're lucky).
Just to single out one objection to Mr. Bandow's argument: Romney didn't refer to the SOFA,
which supposedly required Obama to abandon Iraq, for the very good reason that Leon Panetta,
who should know, has said that Obama, with plenty of time to do it, made no effort whatsoever
to re-negotiate the SOFA 2011 deadline. Panetta regrets this and so do I.
Romney is the epitome of the decay of the USA. Further, he shows the complete inability of the
Republican party to choose the correct casting. After Bush and Iraq they propose McPain. After
the Great Financial Crisis they propose Mittens. It's akin to cast Dany de Vito to play
Casanova. When Trump is gone, this party is finished.
I approve. It's ironic the boorish Trump isn't nearly as revolting as the urbane Mitt.
That Americans are revolted more by Romney than by Trump, in fact, speaks well for them. All
morally mature folk should be repelled more by a polite, urbane, well-scrubbed pirate, who made
his fortune destroying people's lives and wealth than by a loud-talking, crude womanizer, who
creates wealth and, in fact, shows his concern for the people below him more than the polite,
charming, well-bred pirate.
@Jeeves, Obama would have stayed in Iraq if the Iraqi's had allowed us to continue to kill with
impunity. Thankfully, they said no. And why on earth would you regret us not negotiating a new
SOFA?
If Utah has a problem with Trump they could have elected a Democrat.
Romney is obsolete. Never Trump Republicans are sinking in a tar pit. Romney cannot be
nominated much less elected even if Trump does not run. He can help with the impeachment of
Trump if it comes to that. But again, a Democrat would be more useful.
"... What's 5 billion dollars for a largely useless wall compared to this. The mind boggles. ..."
"... "People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy. They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a strategy; it is 'Don't interrupt the money flow, add to it.'" -Col. John R. Boyd (USAF Ret.) John Boyd (Fighter Pilot, Tactician, Strategist, Conceptual Designer, Reformer) died in 1997. ..."
Those Porky Pentagon Earmarks Never Really Went
AwayIn fact, the new scheme is even more venal, underhanded, and wasteful. By
Winslow T. Wheeler
•
January 11, 2019
Michael
Hogue In past years, Congress has become notorious for adding dubious items we call "pork" to
spending bills. That way, senators and House members can advertise themselves to their
constituents as bringing home the bacon, while picking up a few campaign contributions from
thankful contractors along the way.
This practice was particularly notorious in defense bills, especially, and only became worse
during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After they were exposed spending billions of taxpayer
dollars for earmarked projects like museums, artificial lungs, and VIP air transports for
senior generals, bureaucrats, and lawmakers, Congress supposedly reformed the practice of
earmarking -- first in 2007 by the Democrats in the majority, and again in 2011 by the
Republicans in the majority, who claimed to have banned them altogether.
In truth, both parties in Congress have simply swapped the pork system for a scheme that is
even more venal and underhanded. They've circumvented their own rules and are putting even more
pork in defense bills than before. They hypocritically proclaim that their bills are
earmark-free, while simultaneously boasting about the pork to constituents. They deceptively
pay for the hidden earmarks by raiding essential accounts for soldiers' pay and military
readiness, and they readily accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions
from the very contractors who received huge chunks of the billions of dollars that Congress
added.
The new pork system is deceptive and complex. It took all of my 31 years of experience on
Capitol Hill to fully unravel it, with the help of some excellent research from two outstanding
watchdog groups, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Taxpayers Protection
Alliance.
Advertisement
To explain, let's start with one of the more brazen acts of hypocrisy.
On October 22, Niels Lesniewski
reported in Roll Call that 10 senators from both parties announced
in a letter to the House and Senate leadership that they wanted to strengthen the existing
ban on earmarks and make it impossible for anyone to "bring back earmarks" as President Donald
Trump and others have
suggested . Their
new bill , they said, would impose even more serious procedural blocks on any earmark in
any bill. But the bill, the senators' press release, and their letter are a sham. Another
Roll Call reporter pointed out that gimmicks
and various porky items in a new
Department of Defense appropriations bill gave the lie to the idea that contemporary bills were
free of earmarks. And Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance noted at
the same time that the new DoD appropriations bill, just signed into law, was already stuffed
with hundreds of earmarks costing billions of dollars.
The explanation of Congress's new, more deceptive and expensive pork system starts with
Trump declaring
that "America is being respected again" on September 28, while signing an appropriations
bill into law that provided $675 billion to the Pentagon. The bill was passed in the House
of Representatives with the vote of four of every five House members and in the Senate with
almost nine of every 10 senators.
Speech after speech credited the bill with solving the problem of planes that cannot fly,
ships with repairs delayed for years, and pay increases for soldiers who deserve more for their
service.
Notably, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top-ranking Democrat on the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, praised the bill he helped
to write, saying , "The
priority of this defense bill is supporting our troops . This bill shows what Democrats and
Republicans can accomplish when we work across the aisle to solve problems." The chairman of
the subcommittee, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who had an even larger hand in
shaping the bill,
said , "I am proud to present this legislation to my colleagues and urge their strong
support."
The issues they didn't talk about
Despite numerous speeches in the congressional record praising the defense spending bill,
important details attracted not one word of discussion. The bill was riddled with earmarks, and
the very pay and military readiness accounts that member after member praised were being raided
to pay for it. This is hardly new. In my three decades on Capitol Hill, this behavior was
typical -- and even self-styled "pork busters" including, I regret to say, the recently passed
Senator John McCain, were known to participate. Despite the rule changes in 2007 and 2011,
nothing ultimately changed for the better. Today, the money flow for earmarks has greatly
increased, and the process that was once evident with a little inspection has been almost
totally obscured.
What earmarks? The legislation has none; it says so. The joint explanatory statement (JES)
for the defense spending bill, which purports to clarify the statutory text, contains the
following on page two : "The
conference agreement does not contain any congressional earmarks as defined by clause 9 of rule
XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives."
That rule defines an earmark as
spending specifically requested by a member of Congress for "an entity, or targeted to a
specific State, locality or congressional district ." But simply fuzz up the authorship,
recipient, or location of an added spending item, and it transforms from an earmark to a
"congressional special interest item." There are hundreds of those, most of them buried in
sparsely worded tables in the JES.
But these congressional special interest items are important: the conference committee that
wrote the JES went to some length to cite them to the Pentagon for special treatment; they made
the congressional special interest items subject to special rules to prevent DoD from reducing
the amount to be spent. That conference committee, appointed to resolve differences between the
House and Senate versions of the bill, consisted of senior members of the same House and Senate
defense appropriations subcommittees who wrote the original bills, such as Senators Durbin and
Shelby.
Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS)
reported that 68 procurement programs in this defense bill received $7.5 billion in new,
unrequested spending, a large portion
going to the Lockheed Corporation. These are blatant earmarks, as explained by TCS, which also
pointed out that the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee added $5.6 billion to the
procurement account for these items, while its Senate counterpart added a more generous $6.2
billion. The bill was "compromised" by the conference committee at a level above both: $7.5
billion.
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) tabulated
all the add-ons in the bill -- not just the 68 in Procurement -- above the Pentagon's
request. Again, the Senate Defense Subcommittee proved more generous than the House, and again
the final conference was higher than either subcommittee's recommendation. TPA found 679
earmarks costing $19.3 billion.
Pigs in a poke
Are these earmarks all pork, that is, poorly justified spending slipped into bills to enable
a member to boast that he or she can "bring home the bacon" for jobs back home or to appease
defense corporations?
The authors of this bill don't want you to know. In the past, earmarks would specify things
like "Intrepid Naval Museum," "Fort Richardson Running Trail," or "Fort Huachuca Readiness
Center" as the recipient, and for a short period, committee reports identified them and their
House or Senate sponsors.
Now, none of that is done. Instead, sparsely worded tables contain vague entries like
"Program Increase." Many add a hint such as designating the increase for "modernization" or
"silicon fiber research." But there is nothing to indicate the state or district, the
contractor, or any other specifics. Hence, they do not technically qualify as "earmarks."
However, after the bill is law, congressional staff contact the Pentagon to make sure it knows
where the money is to go -- and what will happen if it doesn't.
The rules meant to reform earmarking have made the practice worse. It is now more opaque,
and it gobbles up more money than ever. The $19.3 billion TPA found in 2019 absolutely dwarfs
the
amounts that I and others, such as the Congressional Research Service and the
Committee
Against Government Waste , found in these bills before the so-called reforms took hold.
Perhaps the biggest joke is the recent debate on whether it would be a good idea to "bring
back earmarks." They never went away. The hypocrisy of the members who opine on this is only
exceeded by the cluelessness of the press and the president, who raised it as something to
ponder. Then there's the mendacity of those 10 senators who designed their phony legislation to
pretend earmarks are gone and must not be allowed to come back. The last section of their bill
reads as follows : "(e) APPLICATION. -- This section shall not apply to any authorization
of appropriations to a Federal entity if such authorization is not specifically targeted to a
State, locality, or congressional district."
Yes, you are reading that right: the bill exempts any earmark that fuzzes up the targeted
location, and under the existing system that would be all of them. The 10 authors of this fraud
are the following: Senators Claire McCaskill, Jeff Flake, Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, Ben Sasse, Rob
Portman, Joni Ernst, James Lankford, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz.
Too big to be hidden
Despite the carefully applied opacity, some of the biggest giveaways and their authors are
clear. The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairwoman, Texas Republican Kay Granger,
was widely
identified as behind $726 million added for six additional F-35Cs to be built by Lockheed
in her Fort Worth congressional district.
But is this an example of pork? Granger and official Pentagon witnesses would surely testify
that more F-35Cs are urgently needed. Others, including myself and colleagues at the Project on
Government Oversight, will tell you that the F-35 is an ineffective
boondoggle and is
not ready for initial operational testing, let alone expanded production. However, despite
many critical Government Accountability Office evaluations and embarrassing official and
leaked reports from
the Pentagon, the majority of Congress rejects such advice and welcomes more F-35 spending.
Pork is in the eye of the beholder.
However, such easily identified earmarks are few and far between.
Trump requested
$676 billion for the defense bill; the final Conference Report reduced that by $1.1 billion to
$674.9 billion. How was the additional $19.3 billion found by TPA for 679 earmarks stuffed into
a bill that cut spending?
While publicly
touting the "largest pay raise for troops in nearly a decade" and claiming the bill
"improves military readiness," Defense Subcommittee Chairman Shelby, Ranking Member Durbin, and
other authors actually cut the budget for both.
They reduced
the Pentagon's request for military pay, the Military Personnel account, by $2.1 billion.
That's right: while praising themselves for supporting higher pay, they actually cut the budget
for it. The request was $148.2 billion; the bill provided $146.1 billion.
Praising their handiwork on supporting military readiness, they
cut the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) request from the Pentagon by $5.8 billion.
O&M is a huge diverse account, but it is also the heart and core of spending for training,
maintenance, spare parts, military depots, and everything else that means "readiness." The
Pentagon requested $199.5 billion; it got $193.7 billion.
The way they cut both the Military Personnel and O&M accounts was notably duplicitous. A
veteran journalist, John M. Donnelly, reported
in Roll Call that most cuts were obtusely justified with explanations such as
"Revised Estimate," "Historical Unobligated Balances," and "Not Properly Accounted."
My own research shows $809 million of cuts in those "Revised Estimates." They are completely
unexplained in any text and neither committee report from the House or Senate appropriations
committees mentions any such reduction. They appear to have been an invention of the conference
committee.
When I worked for a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee member (Republican Senator
Pete Domenici of New Mexico), I observed staffers being instructed to phony up reductions with
just such a ruse. In one case, to make room for all senators' earmarks, the subcommittee
chairman, Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, directed the staff to use the earmark
dollar total to determine the cuts to be announced. I suspect this crude offset technique
underlies the "revised estimates" that appeared out of nowhere.
In both R&D and Procurement, they cut $1.5 billion using "Historical Unobligated
Balances" or "Historical Unobligations" as a reason. An unobligated balance is money that DoD
has planned but not yet spent: the program may be behind schedule, or it may be on schedule,
but the timetable for sending out the money has not occurred yet. Here, some unidentified actor
took the money away without a word of explanation as to what parts of the program were being
lost or why.
The "Not Properly Accounted" justification meant $706 million in unexplained cuts.
Another term in the bill is "Rate Adjustments"; they cut $124 million. How is this different
from "Revised Estimate" or "Historical Unobligated Balances?" The House Defense Subcommittee
contains not a word of explanation. The Senate
Defense Subcommittee report contains assertions of "Improving funds management: Rate
adjustments," but that is all the explanation you get.
Further indecipherable cuts included "Unjustified Growth," another $1.1 billion; "Excess
Growth," $468 million; "Underexecution," $134 million; and "Insufficient Justification," $35
million.
Yet another ruse was to transfer $2 billion out of the O&M budget to Title IX of the
bill that funds the "Global War on Terrorism." But there, only $1.4 billion of the transferred
$2 billion is actually retained. The transfer is a shell game.
There are other ruses in other parts of the bill; the details are mind-bending, but you get
the point.
They were cutting military pay and readiness accounts so they could add to the DoD Research
and Development (R&D) and the Procurement accounts. That's where the vast majority of the
earmarks -- rather, congressional special interest items -- are.
In R&D they added
$3.9 billion to the Pentagon's request. The account went from $91 billion to $94.9 billion. In
Procurement, they added
$4.8 billion to the Pentagon's request of $130.6 billion. Some of the earmarks in these
accounts were huge. The controversial F-35 got over $2 billion in several earmarks, the
notorious Littoral Combat Ship got $950 million, unrequested C-130s got $640 million, and so
on.
Other unspoken consequences
While money over the years was being redirected to earmarks, something very different was
happening at the other end of the world -- among our operating military forces.
On January 8, 2014, 29-year-old Liuetenant Wes Van Dorn died when his MH-53E Sea Dragon
helicopter, beset with maintenance problems the Navy had deferred, caught fire due to frayed
wires and a leaking fuel line. He had been battling for three years to get adequate spare parts
and much-needed refurbishment work to bring these old and unreliable helicopters up to
minimally safe flying condition. His was only one of
several lethal accidents involving the MH-53E resulting from inadequate maintenance, as
reported by Mike Hixenbaugh and others in the The Virginian-Pilot and in a
new documentary by investigative reporter Zachary Stauffer.
Such accidents resulted from raiding O&M money, such as in 2010 when, for example,
Democratic Defense Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha of Pennsylvania cut O&M by a
net $2.3 billion to stuff money into earmarks.
Advertising the earmarks they said didn't exist
Though their legislation proclaims earmarks banned, the authors of the defense bill changed
their tune when they self-advertised to constituents.
In a press release from his personal office, Senator Dick Durbin
declared , "From Rock Island Arsenal to Scott Airforce Base and Naval Station Great Lakes,
Illinois [t]his bill safeguards Illinois defense jobs by continuing investments in our state's
defense installations and initiatives." Durbin took credit for funding nine programs in
Illinois, costing $2.8 billion, most of it for Boeing -- headquartered in Chicago and the
producer of the Navy's F/A-18 Super Hornet and MQ-25 Stingray refueling drone.
Subcommittee Chairman Shelby
claimed he helped acquire $8.3 billion for 25 projects in Alabama.
Granger
claimed she helped win over $12.3 billion for Fort Worth -- including $9.4 billion for
Lockheed's F-35, $1.8 billion for Lockheed's C-130J, and $1.1 billion for the Bell Boeing
V-22.
Note that they each claimed credit not just for their add-ons but for the entire program
expense, including both the Pentagon-requested money and money spent outside their states or
districts. For example, the C-130 is assembled in Marietta, Georgia, not Durbin's Illinois, and
the F-18's engines are contracted by General Electric in Ohio. In fact, the entire F-18 is
fabricated in Missouri; Durbin is advertising himself not to workers but to the Boeing
headquarters.
The ranking member on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Pete J. Visclosky of
Indiana, did not participate in these overblown claims. His website shows no press release
listing defense budget goodies for his Indiana district.
The under the table incentives
On the other hand, Visclosky was no shrinking violet when it came to accepting campaign
contributions from the corporations benefiting from the legislation's earmarks.
OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics that documents federal
campaign contributions, shows that for his 2018 reelection campaign, Visclosky
accepted $347,933 from defense-related donors,
$59,800 of it from Lockheed . The $347,933 constituted 27 percent of Visclosky's
total campaign contributions , reported as of November 2018. For these and other efforts,
Visclosky is getting a promotion: with the Democrats taking over the House next year, he is
slated to be defense subcommittee chairman.
The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member, Senator Durbin, does not run
for reelection until 2020. The OpenSecrets.org data on his last election in 2014 show that
Durbin
accepted $236,549 from defense aerospace donors, making him the Senate's top beneficiary of
such donations at the time. Adding other defense contribution categories, he
took in $455,799 .
Senator Shelby's total reported defense-related contributions for his reelection in 2016,
before he became defense subcommittee chairman, were $334,800. Commensurate with his elevation
to chairman in 2018, he
received $1,048,000 , nearly tripling his defense-related total, and he is four years away
from his next campaign in 2022.
Granger, Durbin, and the others will resent any implication that their actions are
influenced by the generosity of Lockheed or other defense contractors, lobbyists, and PACs.
Indeed, campaign finance laws, as written by Congress, make it
hard to conclude that contributions illegally influence congressional decision-making, and
a recent
Supreme Court ruling makes it even more difficult.
The bottom line
All this adds up to a Pentagon budget process in Congress that is:
Dishonest : The
bill and its authors proclaim it is free of earmarks, but it has 679 of them costing $19.3
billion according to research from an independent group. Deceptive : The bill's authors,
with huge support from the rest of Congress, proclaim their dedication to better pay for the
troops and military readiness, and yet cut those very accounts by almost $8 billion. The
reductions are arbitrary and vague, and are used to offset those 679 earmarks. The senators and
representatives circumvent their own rules on earmarks by fuzzing up sponsors, recipients, and
locations, making the entire process opaque. Hypocritical : Imagine the gall of nine
Republicans and one Democrat with their bill to profess earmarks gone and making sure they
don't "come back." There is nothing new about members of Congress posing as pork reformers and
actually being pork enablers; however, these 10 assume an unprecedented level of cluelessness
among the press; in some but not all corners, they were right to do so. Mercenary :
$19.3 billion in earmarks makes rich material for senators and representatives to advertise
themselves, with considerable exaggeration, as successful porkers for their states and
districts. They also accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from the contractors, lobbyists,
and PACs that benefit from the millions, if not billions, of dollars that the Pentagon never
requested.
All this is not illegal, but according to common English, it is venal.
Winslow T. Wheeler worked in the U.S. Senate for Republican and Democratic senators and
in the Government Accountability Office on national security issues for 31 years. After he left
the Senate in 2002, he ran the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense
Information, which moved to the Project on Government Oversight in 2012. He retired in
2016.
"People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy. They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a
strategy; it is 'Don't interrupt the money flow, add to it.'" -Col. John R. Boyd (USAF Ret.)
John Boyd (Fighter Pilot, Tactician, Strategist, Conceptual Designer, Reformer) died in
1997.
This is a solid article by a very respected critic of the obscene defense spending and weapons
programs. I believe Mr Wheeler early on was on this F-35 debacle, labeling it the flying swiss
army knife. (aplogies to the manufacturer of the knife and its fans.) Notable of recent are a
series of feel good reports that the F-35 is combat ready, etc. Hopefully, the pilots of the
F-35's will never have to face the real test.
Thank you, Mr Wheeler, for the continuation of exposing this fraud.
Now that we are well into this new era of draining the swamp, we are all over our heads in muck
and democracy AND prosperity are in danger of drowning. Venal is awfully polite.
A perfectly good article, I'm sure, but why diffuse ourselves [and engender feelings of
fear and hopelessness as you express] when a strategic pressure point has presented?
Johnstone makes no mention of Bill Browder. Nor do the [100, so far] commenters.
BILL BROWDER is a key figure in the anti-Trump, anti-Russia hysteria. The notorious Trump
Tower meeting was about the Magnitsky Act, a fabrication by Browder to hide his financial
crimes. Browder "testified" in the Senate expressly to demonize Putin. Browder's contacts in
the IC, the Jewish Lobby, and the fawning media have enabled his propaganda assault this
week. He's appeared -- unchallenged, virtually unquestioned -- on countless talk shows. But
he's been running scared at the mention of interrogation by Russians. There are huge holes in
his story, made clear in his deposition in the Prevezon case. The truth will bring him down!
And perhaps his Deep State supporters, along with him.
Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon
case. (See comment 161 under The Untouchable Mr. Browder? by Israel Shamir for
links.)
BTW, have you seen "THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES" that Phil Giraldi
posted today? Debunking anti-Russian criminal sociopaths like Bill Browder will go a long way
to improving relations. Not to mention easing pressure on the unfortunate Trump.
@RobinG
UWell, we here in Russia know all this (about Browder) for quite a time. What new did you
find? It's just one story in long list of those written and spoken for western idiots like
Scripals
, MH17, chemicals in Syria and WMD in Iraq, Russian meddling in f-n US elections and so on.
Eat it all dummies.
@Cagey
Beast Yup. Furthermore, CIA is organized crime and organized crime is CIA. CIA recruits
and runs agents in favored criminal syndicates in every illicit trade: drugs, child sexual
trafficking, arms, fraud, bustouts, extortion, money laundering. Their purpose is not to
interdict the trade but to control it.
CIA manages transnational organized crime to top up their budget for unauthorized
clandestine operations, like killing JFK.
CIA protects its criminal proteges with their chartered impunity. They call off law
enforcement with the magic words national security or 'sources and methods.' If the plan gets
exposed, CIA's criminal cutouts insulate the agency from exposure.
RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime
until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.
Evenfurthermore, CIA is the government and the government is CIA. Decades ago Fletcher
Prouty showed that CIA's deepest-cover illegal moles are embedded in our own government.
Every agency with repressive capacity is infiltrated with focal points, who report to CIA
handlers without the other agency's knowledge.
Of course Israel is trying to infiltrate it -- they understand the levers of power.
Assange has got some mighty stinkers in his insurance file. All we can do is hope they're
enough to destabilize the CIA Reich that has ruled America since 1949.
"... CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald ..."
"... Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA ..."
"... Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.) ..."
"... To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin. ..."
"... Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her. ..."
CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA
assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest
traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald .
Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama
administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a
CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.)
Excerpt : "A Pew Research analysis on Monday found that more than a third of the
US' largest newspapers and more than a fifth of its largest digital outlets experienced
layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018."
To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of
State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the
Russian elections against Putin.
Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but
I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's
campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back
the hits he'd already taken from her.
Hillary of course was incompetent in having America interfere in Russian elections. That
campaign never had a chance as Putin is a lot more popular in Russia than Hillary is in
America. So, she took a pot shot at a rival world leader knowing (or at least some smart
people did) that it would have no effect and that Putin would win that election anyways. And
of course Hillary the Arrrogant could never imagine that another player in the game would get
to take a turn, and that others might interfere in her election, and she knew she'd run and
she knew she'd rig the Dem party to get the nod, in the same way the NED and the Soros NGO's
tried to interfere in Russia.
I share your sentiments [in a slightly different vernacular]; of course they, the usurping
'rulers' are neither a class nor in any way 'elite,' but who/what ever they are [jews,
oligarchs, 'simply' psychopaths or 'true' spawn of Satan], they do seem to be 'in control.'
Proof of that is the coordinated criminal actions of 'the West.'
Find "CIA is the government and the government is CIA" above; it's the obvious place to
expect a ccc = covert criminal cabal to establish itself. Add to that the truly weird concept
of having spies a) out of all control and b) with apparently unlimited power. We 'shall know
them by their deeds' which is almost unrelievedly a 'bad look.' Odd is that the 1st mention
of any conspiracy that I heard of was that of 'jewish banksters ruling the world.' We since
know that such was pilloried by the CIA, but it seems to me to be a case of the tar-baby: The
more they [CIA, jews] howl/deny, the guiltier they prove themselves to be. rgds
I would say that what is affecting the western establishment elites at this juncture is not
mere dementia but the madness which arises from acts of pure, hellish evil. These people are
the Gadarine swine of the contemporary era; a good portion of them appear to be Satanic
perverts and pedophiles, if we are to judge from recent revelations. I am not being
hyperbolic when I write that Antichrist's reign has been postponed. They had imagined it
would be installed by November of 2016 and this is driving them to despair. They hate Trump
because his election blocked their lord and master's ascent and they hate Putin because he
represents the great restraining power.
@yurivkuHe's of course is a bone in DC's throat, but his level of intelligence and real power seem
to be extremely low.
Yes, he's a golden chandelier stuck in the belly of the Beast. I think he's quite smart,
in his own way, but can only do so much on his own. He also has some bad ideas and makes
enemies when it isn't necessary but he's still the only hope for change at the centre of the
American empire.
@skrik
Be that as it may, Romper Stomper took place 30 years after the Vietnam War began. The
reverberations of the war were felt in Australia long afterwards.
@peterAUS
That's an armchair rugby referee for you, encouraging a Civil War in a country he's probably
never set foot. What do you believe would change its policy towards Oz.
If you remember when Reagan broke the air-traffic control union strikes and 30,000 of them
immigrated to Oz in 1981, what would happen would be that many qualified Americans would come
to Australia and take Australian jobs.
That's how such unrest would affect you.
At any rate, the US would still have the same grip on popular culture (If not financial
markets) and Vegemite would not suddenly replace McDonald's everywhere.
Also, though the Asians seem to slowly taking over your economy anyhow, if the US military
was busy suppressing a civil war and Asian countries might get aggressive towards you
militarily.
@peterAUS
The Asians might get more aggressive if the US military suddenly found itself preoccupied
with a Civil War.
Asia is taking over your country economically anyhow but they might get a bit anti-social
if suddenly the US were to lose all capacity to maintain its presence in your hemisphere.
Aw, don't go all wussy -- you're acting like a wounded suitor. I suppose it was my
rejection of your
I'd need to trust you and then we'd have a long chat somewhere in open public place
Similr to which you you offered Backstay
Have a quiet chat somewhere in a park, for example. Just two of us. Two
Try this google ; that the sort
of place you had in mind? It's also reputedly a secret entrance to an ASIO bunker but I
suppose you know that; I call attempted entrapment.
"As a matter of fact, the composition of the governments is predetermined, and their
actions are controlled by great financial consortiums."
J. V. Stalin, Questions & Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview
With the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia
Pravda September 15, 1927 ___________(h/t, J.S.)
think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own
But I think he's stupid, ignorant, spineless (as well as most of POTUSes), the only
difference is -- he's not completely belongs to DC. Probably it's better than if Clinton was
on his place, but who knows, Trump can make any stupid thing
G'day, q.possibly and glad you responded. Yeah sure, Stalin is 'close;' it's why some
suggest oligarchs, but it demonstrably falls a bit short. My ccc = covert criminal cabal,
each word of the highest significance; let's examine each one:
[COED:] covert = not openly acknowledged or displayed -- this is 100% true, since
they operate from 'behind a curtain' of deliberate secrecy. Not declaring who they are is a
lie of omission, then see after cabal below. Before moving on, let's consult Cicero:
mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor
= A liar is not to be believed, even when speaking the truth. That's never a 'good look,'
and leads to the next:
criminal -- self-evident, then:
[COED:] cabal = a secret political clique or faction. Øarchaic a secret
intrigue .
ORIGIN
C16 (denoting the Kabbalah): from French cabale, from medieval Latin cabala (see
Kabbalah).
Finally [COED:] Kabbalah (also Kabbala, Cabbala, Cabala, or Qabalah = the ancient
Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible .
I allow myself to propose an exactly apposite example of the latter: 'Xxx promised it to
us!' -- Where Xxx comes directly from some "mystical interpretation of the Bible." 'Nuff
said?
More? IF it were only "great financial consortiums" THEN one would need to explain the
criminality, since I'm pretty sure oligarchs *could* work legally. Then, the 'normal'
consortiums' business is to 'make money' [and cheating and/or theft may be sort of 'normal'],
but the ccc goes *far* past that into [mass-]murdering for spoil, quite/most often for oil
and/or *soil* . The latter is within Nuremberg class = supreme international criminality.
That may complete the loop and explain why covert in the 1st place.
I wrote above that I would 'revisit' lies; here's a partial quote:
But it remained for the yyy, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood,
Feel free to 'guess' at the yyy, then I assert QED rgds
Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?
Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi
overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few
paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.
the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I
suspect.
That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector
people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are
beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the
South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians
aren't coming.
The moniker "journalist" should immediately by banished by replacement of "reporter", as in
report the facts and observations, not interpretations or personal opinions.
@Eagle
Eye " In your view what else was Hubbard brilliant about?"
Well for example his bizarre sounding concepts regarding the sources of mankind, and the
history of this insane planet, which are repeatedly ridiculed and labeled as absurd by the
PTB, who of course have their own turf to defend, and their own concepts which they do not
want to be brought into question.
@EugeneGur
Well can't say I disagree with the comment.
Or, better, can't provide any concrete evidence to the contrary, especially re the second
paragraph.
The thing is, nationalism is a peculiar feeling.
So, while this
Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to
come.
could be true, the rest of Ukraine could get into quite the opposite.
But, as you say
The problem is the Russians aren't coming.
so it's all academic.
Now, speaking of
people are fed up with the current power .
one could feel, probably, the same in Donbass.
Things aren't great there either.
In any case the conflict is there, frozen for the moment (not for the people along the
front line) and can erupt, again, when the US Deep State wants it.
@Michael
Kenny If one wants a clear example of the Russophobic or Putinophobic hysteria infecting
the West, one need go no further than this demented fellow. And to that he adds a conspiracy
theory about the gangsters ruling over it all.
@seeing-thru
You got it 100% Right my friend. That's the best reality-connected assessment of the Donald's
performance that I've read. I'm going to swipe it for reuse elsewhere. Thank you, and may the
force be with you.
@Jeff
Davis Glad you liked it. Yeah, go ahead use it any which way. BTW, my fear is that the
Donald may not be able to succeed because of the massive line-up of forces against him. The
whole lunatic asylum is out of their cages, snarling and clawing and planning all sorts of
stuff to bring him down. Let us wish him success.
So standing up for American citizens is considered a "mentally insane" thing?
You are utterly and completely out of your mind, virtually from another planet, another
reality. A textbook example of insanity. The fact that you don't recognize it, simply
confirms the fact.
The Deep state is not, repeat not , the American people.
Regarding the Intel community: There are the guys in the trenches. these are honorable
guys. Then there is the leadership. The current leadership is on notice to behave itself, on
account of the new "Sheriff" in town. The corrupt politicized leadership from the
Clinton/Bush/Obama regimes however, now out of power, are attempting to overthrow the
legitimately elected president of the United States. In so doing, they are pursuing
treason-lite.
Clapper, Brennan, and Hayden are already full-on war criminals: Iraq & torture. Now,
in their attempt to destroy the Trump presidency, they are adding betrayal of democracy and
betrayal of the Constitution of the United States to their criminal resume. These are evil
men who think it is their job to run the United States from behind a malleable (gutless?)
figurehead who does what they tell him to do.
As I said in my original post, it is fascinating to observe people like you, utterly
dominated -- brain-raped really -- by a neocon/neoliberal narrative that has reduced them to
robotic -- even willing -- slaves of the 1%. Good for you. Enjoy. The others, who prefer
self-mastery to self-enslavement, will benefit from your choice of enslavement.
That is what all of this boils down to; Trump treating Americans like s*hit in front of
the whole world, while praising Russia and Russians.
The IC war criminals/traitors should not be equated with or allowed to hide anonymous
behind the majority population of decent Americans. Which is what simpletons like you enable
and then fall for.
I fully understood all the concerns for what the Left is doing to people and to the
society.
Trump praises Israel and says that, "Securing Israel's safety is our most important
task" not a peep comes from the Trump-supporters?!
Some Trump supporters do object. Others however grasp the political reality of Jewish
political influence in the US. Politically incompetent simpletons like yourself think Trump
should commit political suicide by taking on the Jews.
The Jews/Israel will be dealt with -- or not -- later, when Trump has secured his
presidency. And then, the rebalancing of the US-Israeli relationship will not be grounded in
hostility to the Jews, but will be more along the lines of America First.
Never ever did I expect, that it would be the Trump-supporters surfacing as the fifth
column, giving the "finishing touch" to the destruction of American citizens.
The above is pure paranoid, "the sky is falling", TDS whackadoodle.
The Liberals seem to have woken up,
The country is in the throes of a cultural war between the bubble-wrapped snowflakes and
"real" people. Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the
advantage of being reality-connected. The snowflakes will benefit as well -- you will benefit
-- by the resulting opportunity to reconnect with reality.
Good luck, best wishes, Trump is rapidly changing the world for the better.
And let me add: The Soviet Union is a quarter century gone, and with it Soviet Communism.
Putin is the preeminent statesman of our times. Go to YouTube and listen to what he says. He
and Trump, aligned, are a force for good in the world. Peace with Russia is coming, and with
it a new era of peace and prosperity in the world.
Which leaves me to echo your closing comment:
Are you ever going to be able to comprehend this?
(Answer: Probably not for another six years, if ever.)
@peterAUS
Australia's problem is going to be an Asian economic overclass you Australians always obsess
about country's located halfway around the world first the UK now the US.
you're worried about blacks in the US in the ghetto's wealth inequality while Chinese
business elite reduce you to paupers IN Australia and eventually you go the way of the black
aborigines.
But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you
have seen in Hollywood films.
Point is that in the sixties you were still obsessed with the British Empire though you
are a bit of a lost colony now you are obsessed with the United States, another waning
Empire.
Pretty soon the Chinese will have you sleeping in your cars and you will still be focused
on the state of blacks in the US ghetto and inequality in America.
But see, the US won't be the problem in Australia. China will.
You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony
and white settler nation but it is Asia that will stomp you.
She is most likely onto something important. My solution is that most people are
double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we
(somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us.
St Paul, Shakespeare and Montaigne all complained of their own double-mindedness.
I hope that a column of mine on this topic will appear soon in The U.R.
most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control
us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us
..
I guess you are onto something here.
It could go a bit deeper, though, as:
. most people are double-minded because it suits us to allow our betters to lead us
while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for their and our faults and errors which
profit us.
But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you
have seen in Hollywood films You compare yourself to the United States because it is a
similar former British colony and white settler nation
If I may intercede, no, and that twice.
1. peterAUS, if my interpretation is correct, sees the world through 'military blinkers,'
is assumed not to notice China et al. except as one 'enemy' among many, and probably thinks
that ~100 F35s, xxx new warships, yyy new submarines and zzz new 'armoured cars,' costing the
Aus-taxpayer nose-bleeding squillions will 'save his/their bacon.' As such, peterAUS cannot
be addressed as any valid representative of 'the great Aus-unwashed.'
2. That great Aus-unwashed, hoovering up the trash err, sorry for the US-speak; hoovering
up the horrendous rubbish 'presented' to them via their '1984-style telescreens' err,
one-finger flat-screen distraction devices [when not actual television sets], is largely
unconscious of any 'real world.'
Since the CIA-sponsored coup of 1975, the country has been 'going to the dogs' at an
increasing rate. The sheople glory under their 'Lucky Country' delusion, not even knowing its
full import: Lucky not to be even partly aware. Yeah sure, the corrupt&venal MSM+PFBCs [=
publicly financed broadcasters] try to revive 'the yellow peril' scare, but that's just
standard 'Bernays haze' scare mongering, to keep the proles from thinking: Der, they [as
peterAUS] didn't think. rgds
PS The great Aus-unwashed, as any 'Western' citizen, has zero choice; so-called 'Western
democracy' allows for as good as zero 'citizen input.' The 'choice' of Trump should be put
down to an aberration -- some 'clever-clogs' manipulators -- *not* Russians -- pulled off a
coup. But as they used to say: "Better red than dead;" better Trump than HRC.
Do we have a democracy? Or even representative government? So what happened to our jobs
off-shored. Who approved that? Who approved 100 million legal immigrants in the last 50
years?
Why does anyone accept our stilted self-image, especially Diana?
On the point about the "world's greatest prison population" note that some one-third of
the federal prison population consists of illegal alien criminals and the large U.S. black
criminal underclass commits crimes at a higher rate than everyone else, so there are more
blacks in our prisons. Oh, the horror.
If other nations enjoyed large illegal immigrant populations and a large black criminal
underclass we would see similar inflated prison populations.
Spare us the silliness on this score as well as the "regular massacres of school children"
garbage. No doubt you'll enlighten us with your anti-gun views on American gun nuts at a
later time. I wait with bated breath.
Still, you almost got a lock on insightful commentary these days.
This is a very good blog, column, whatever, because it illuminates with the light of
reason the mass madness of the Washington crowd, and probably much of the American
population. See the New Yorker article in the current issue about the utility of caregivers
lying to and/or deceiving demented patients to keep them content. That is what is happening
now in the USA and your failure to understand my explanation for it, in my essay on
double-mindedness, which I sent you last summer, I mind very much. You could lead the way out
of the mess if you would re-read that essay and try to understand it.
I am a very ordinary guy and I understand it. Please try again. The world needs this.
who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes
I don't know where is Ukraine you spent your time and in what company, but this is
complete BS. The South-Eastern Ukraine hates the Western Ukrainian "banderovtsi" as much as
the Russians do if not more -- after all, the followers of Bandera operated mostly on the
Ukrainian soil. There are deranged individuals in every country, of course, and Ukraine has
been subjected lately to intense hate propaganda as well as repressions, but there is no
hatred of Russia. This is contradicted by both sociology and everyday behavior of Ukrainian,
which move to Russia in droves, spend time in Russia, support Russian sport teams, etc.
we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians
and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)
Nobody is asking about what the real Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians or even Poles
actually think, least of all the US. There are almost as many Georgians living in Russia as
there are in Georgia, and they show no desire to move back. In 2008 during the conflict,
their biggest fear was that they'd be deported.
The Ukraine's Maidan was a violent coup, where a few thousand militants armed and trained
abroad overthrew a government elected by the entire country. Protests that immediately
started all over the country were suppressed with force -- the one in Donbass still is.
How could anyone with an access to Internet remain unaware of these facts is beyond
me.
@Peter
Akuleyev Why should anyone freaking care and put his ass in the line of fire because you
bunch of primitives hate Russia? Between having a nuclear cataclysm because you pathetic
dwarfs of nations are frustrated to have a neighbour you can't bully and Russia obliterating
you, I say let Russia obliterate you, thus we won't have to suffer the ear-hurting
dissonnance of your incessant whining any more. Though I doubt Russia would stomp on you.
When you see shit, you don't stomp on it, you don't want you don't want your shoes to stink,
you just walk around it.
@EugeneGur
That's an interesting point. Even if true, doesn't matter. One could wonder ..who are the
people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces?
Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass? All of
them. Including those is logistics/maintenance depots far away from the (current) line of
separation?
The will to fight against "Russia" ranges from a deep hate to simply not wishing to go
against the (current) Ukrainian government. The former are in those "shock" battalions. The
later are manning the logistics train. And everything in between.
Now .if/when a real shooting starts, as soon as Russia, as expected (and desired) by the
most of readers here, starts delivering ordnance into operational depth of Donbass enemy, the
ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.
The president says he will bring the troops home from Syria and Afghanistan. Now, because of
their pathological hatred of Trump, mainstream Democrats are hysterical in their
opposition.
If anyone else were president, the "liberals" would be celebrating. After all, pulling
American soldiers out of a couple of failing, endless wars seems like a "win" for progressives.
Heck, if Obama did it there might be a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. And there should be.
The intervention in Syria is increasingly aimless, dangerous and lacks an end state.
Afghanistan is an unwinnable war – America's longest – and about to end in outright
military
defeat . Getting out now and salvaging so much national blood and treasure ought to be a
progressive dream. There's only one problem: Donald Trump. Specifically, that it was Trump who
gave the order
to begin the troop withdrawals.
Lost in the haze of their pathological hatred of President Trump, the majority of mainstream
liberal pundits and politicians can't, for the life of them, see the good sense in extracting
the troops from a couple Mideast quagmires. That or they can see the positives, but, in their
obsessive compulsion to smear the president, choose politics over country. It's probably a bit
of both. That's how tribally partisan American political discourse has become. And, how
reflexively hawkish and interventionist today's mainstream Democrats now are. Whither the
left-wing antiwar movement? Well, except for a few diehards out there, the movement seems to
have been buried long ago with
George McGovern .
Make no mistake, the Democrats have been tacking to the right on foreign policy and
burgeoning their tough-guy-interventionist credentials for decades now. Terrified of being
painted as soft or dovish on martial matters, just about all the "serious" baby-boomer Dems
proudly co-opted the militarist line and gladly accepted campaign cash from the corporate arms
dealers. Think about it, any Democrat with serious future presidential aspirations back in 2002
voted for the Iraq War – Hillary, Joe Biden, even former peace activist John Kerry! And,
in spite of the party base now moving to the left, all these big name hawks – along with
current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – are still Democratic stalwarts. Heck, some
polls
list Biden as the party's 2020 presidential frontrunner.
More disturbing than the inconsistency of these political hacks is the vacuousness of the
supposedly liberal media. After Trump's announcement of troop withdrawals, just about every
MSNBC host slammed the president and suddenly sounded more hawkish than the clowns over at Fox
News. Take Rachel Maddow. Whatever you think of her politics, she is – undoubtedly
– a brilliant woman. Furthermore, unlike most pundits, she knows a little something about
foreign policy. Her 2012 book, Drift: The
Unmooring of American Military Power was a serious and well-researched critique of
executive power and the ongoing failure of the wars on terror. Drift was well reviewed by
regular readers and scholars alike.
Enter Donald Trump. Ever since the man won the 2016 election, Maddow's nightly show has been
dominated the hopeless dream of Russia-collusion and a desire for Trump's subsequent
impeachment. Admittedly, Maddow's anti-Trump rhetoric isn't completely unfounded – this
author, after all, has spent the better part of two years criticizing most of his policies
– but her zealousness has clouded her judgment, or worse. Indeed, that Maddow, and her
fellow "liberals" at MSNBC have now
criticized the troop withdrawals and even paraded a slew of
disgraced neoconservatives – like Bill Kristol – on their shows seems final proof
of their descent into opportunistic hawkishness.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this new "liberal" hawkishness is the pundits' regular
canonization of Jim Mattis and the other supposed "adults"
in the room . For mainstream, Trump-loathing, liberals the only saving grace for this
administration was its inclusion of a few trusted, "grown-up" generals in the cabinet. Yet it
is a dangerous day, indeed, when the supposedly progressive journalists deify only the military
men in the room. Besides, Mattis was no friend to the liberals. Their beloved President Obama
previously canned "mad-dog" for his excessive bellicosity towards Iran. Furthermore, Mattis
– so praised for both his judgment and ethics – chose an interesting issue for
which to finally fall-on-his-sword and resign. U.S. support for the Saudi-led starvation of
85,000 kids in Yemen: Mattis could deal with that. But a modest disengagement from even one
endless war in the Middle East: well, the former SECDEF just couldn't countenance that. Thus,
he seems a strange figure for a "progressive" network to deify.
Personally, I'd like to debate a few of the new "Cold Warriors" over at MSNBC or CNN and ask
a simple series of questions: what on the ground changed in Syria or Afghanistan that has
suddenly convinced you the US must stay put? And, what positivist steps should the military
take in those locales, in order to achieve what purpose exactly? Oh, by the way, I'd ask my
debate opponents to attempt their answers without uttering the word Trump. The safe money says
they couldn't do it – not by a long shot. Because, you see, these pundits live and die by
their hatred of all things Trump and the more times they utter his name the higher go the
ratings and the faster the cash piles up. It's a business model not any sort of display of
honest journalism.
There's a tragic irony here. By the looks of things, so long as Mr. Trump is president, it
seems that any real movement for less interventionism in the Greater Middle East may come from
a part of the political right – libertarians like Rand Paul along with the president's
die hard base, which is willing to follow him on any policy pronouncement. Paradoxically, these
folks may find some common cause with the far left likes of Bernie Sanders and the
Ocasio-Cortez crowd, but it seems unlikely that the mainstream left is prepared to lead a new
antiwar charge. What with Schumer/Pelosi still in charge, you can forget about it. Given the
once powerful left-led Vietnam-era protest movement, today's Dems seem deficient indeed on
foreign policy substance. Odds are they'll cede this territory, once again, to the GOP.
By taking a stronger interventionist, even militarist, stand than Trump on Syria and
Afghanistan, the Democrats are wading into dangerous waters. Maybe, as some say, this president
shoots from the hip and has no core policy process or beliefs. Perhaps. Then again, Trump did
crush fifteen Republican mainstays in 2015 and shock Hillary – and the world – in
2016. Indeed, he may know just what he's doing. While the Beltway,
congressional-military-industrial complex continues to support ever more fighting and dying
around the world, for the most part the American people do not . Trump, in fact, ran on a
generally anti -interventionist platform, calling the Iraq War "dumb" and not to be repeated.
The president's sometimes earthy – if coarse – commonsense resonated with a lot of
voters, and Hillary's hawkish establishment record (including her vote for that very same Iraq
War) didn't win her many new supporters.
Liberals have long believed, at least since McGovern's 1972 trouncing by Richard Nixon, that
they could out-hawk the Republican hawks and win over some conservatives. It rarely worked. In
fact, Dems have been playing right into bellicose Republican hands for decades. And, if they
run a baby-boomer-era hawk in 2020 – say Joe Biden – they'll be headed for another
shocking defeat. The combination of a (mostly, so far) strong economy and practical policy of
returning US troops from unpopular wars, could, once again, out weigh this president's other
liabilities.
Foreign policy won't, by itself, tip a national election. But make no mistake, if the clowns
at MSNBC and "liberal" hacks on Capitol Hill keep touting their newfound militarism, they're
likely to emerge from 2020 with not only smeared consciences, but four more years in the
opposition.
* * *
Danny Sjursen is a US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq
and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a
memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter at
@SkepticalVet .
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
A the politicians carry their recordsike a ball and chain. Trump had no legislative
baggage so in comparison he looked ok. There may be a chance that some plan to allow e
wrything to sink to near chaos is happening, with that risk of a slip up being total
collapse. It would appear total collapse is likely absent some very well thought out plan by
a lot of people who appear to be morons
In the US the neocons switch between parties like changing underwear. Now that the
republicans are soiled they'll wear democrats instead, lobby for more war until they're good
and soiled, and switch when republican populism is back on the rise (like during the Bush
years, and then Obama).
We all know it. If libtards didn't hate America, they wouldn't be trying so hard to change
it.
Remember the happy white culture middle class America of 1955? Libtards hate it with a
passion that can only be an obsession. The first thing libtards started whining about in the
1950's was the the poor 'oppressed' negroes weren't allowed to burp and fart at the same
lunch counter as the evil white man. We foolishly caved in to that first step of liberal
stupidity and look where we are today. Mall shootings in Chicongo and New Jersey.
Everytime the (((media))) shows you these violent examples, just remember how we got
here.
Compromising with liberals is nothing more than a highway to hell, paved with compromise
and liberal 'good intentions'.
Now we have Donald Trump who is willing to tell the liberal idiots to shove their fake
altruism and egalitarianism up their collective asses. This chance of a lifetime for our
children may never come again.
I voted for McGovern. I think that was the first time I voted. Now I can't stand either
political Parties. I saw the games the Republicans pulled with the Massachusetts Caucus and
Convention when I was an alternate delegate for Ron Paul. There is no trick dirty enough for
either Party to pull. They are without a moral compass.
Bring 'some' troops home is just a political maneuver not a policy change. How can you
tell?
Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon.
And that's why Trump moved drones attacks operations from the military to the CIA.
There's no evidence that Trump is ending US intervention anywhere.
Now check this out when the President is Democrat.
52%
of Republicans disprove withdrawing troops: Americans widely support President Obama's
recent decision to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, with 75%
approving. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents. Republicans,
however, are slightly more likely to disapprove than approve.
The Republican position went from 50% supporting withdrawal with Obama to 70% under Trump.
A change for sure, but not nearly as dramatic as the Democrats which have completely changed
their positions i.e. their position has nothing to do with principles what-so-ever.
@Escrava Isaura: " Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon. "
Not so sure of the connection there.
But America is an imperial nation (both major parties have supported this for years) and
the problem now is that its imperialism is on an irreversible trajectory which will bring it
to an end. As one might expect, they are trying to keep it alive but that will only delay the
inevitable. What we don't know is whether it will end with a whimper or a big bang.
Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van,
and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.
"... This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. ..."
"... They are CIA assets who do what they're told. ..."
"... There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true. ..."
"... Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness. ..."
"... I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness. ..."
"... If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants. ..."
"... The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil. ..."
"... Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down. ..."
"... "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics." ..."
"... I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment. ..."
"... "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man ..."
Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how
false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online
can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.
Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit
of blame to people in general. Not holding my breath.
I fully agree with this sentiment. The only reason the evil bastards who control our
society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to
lunch on the most important issues of our time. If the sheeple were to take responsibility to
inform themselves of what is happening today they would be able to see the lies they are
being constantly exposed to as just that -- lies. And then, they could put down the beer and
turn off the damn sports channel and get angry at what has happened to their country.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for ignorant people to remain
ignorant.
This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European
elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or
corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation"
associations.
There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per
cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt.
They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask
if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea
from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true.
This is the perfect environment for the virus of groupthink to spread.
And since our leaders, both on the left and the right, may be ahead of the curve on drug
usage the neocons and the politically correct may use antidepressants at greater levels than
10 per cent.
Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety
(because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness.
I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to
violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the
"basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically
induced madness.
If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the
water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to
antidepressants.
@Gordon
Pratt I think you are mistaken trying to rationalize the behavior of the political class
and their puppet masters. I believe the real driver are not antidepressants, but an obscene
greed, which is so blinding that it made MIC profiteers forget that to enjoy the fruits of
their thievery they have to be alive.
The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness
is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked
numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees,
become orphans and all other manner of evil.
Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous
groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all
this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being
stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march
everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for
being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down.
"I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in
pursuit of politics."
I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely
that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a
genius comment.
TDS is a convenient shorthand for this form of disconnect from reality. That said it is
absolutely fascinating to see and puzzle over this geopolitical tectonic event. The old
narrative is crumbling, with the result that people like Lauri are fighting desperately to
preserve their "sanity", dependent as it is on their tribal submission to the old order and
its old narrative (its timeworn lies).
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
Max Planck
By which he means that people persist in believing in those "truths" (their belief system)
they have held for a lifetime. Only when they die out will a new, revised belief system
replaced the old. The same in geopolitics as in science.
American dementia is not new. It is current but after the false flags of almost all of our
(US) wars going back as far as the Barbary Pirates, Americans have thrived on being the good
guys in an evil world. We are SO GOOD, and the world thinks we are perfect and want to be
part of US so much, that any other thought is treasonous.
The fact that getting along with Russia is necessary to NOT create armageddon, is
irrelevant to the typical citizen because no matter how wrong, we are blessed and perfect in
the eyes of the gawd we pretend to believe in.
"... Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control. ..."
@Cagey
Beast Aspen Institute does make attempts at outreach, but they invariably cock it up by
eliciting, recruiting, or suborning every single person they bring in. The shitheads even
tried to do it to me. You would think they'd have a dossier saying I hate those cobags.
Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is
to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in
complete control.
Yes, the Aspen Institute is the CIA and the CIA is the Aspen Institute. Or, to be more
precise, the CIA is the armed wing of Washington's permanently governing technocratic party,
in the same way the KGB was the armed wing of the Soviet Communist Party.
Poor Julian Assange is likely going to be in their hands not too long from now. The
citizen of one Five Eyes country will be arrested by another and then sent off to the
imperial metropole, to be kicked around like a political football. The rest of us
Anglosphericals are expected to cheer or remain silent. Either is acceptable.
there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them
Me: Oh yes there is; by *them* I don't mean "Zuckerberg, others" but the actual
rulers of 'the West,' then see this:
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles?
Consider also:
Aspen Institute is CIA
and [perhaps most critically] this:
may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!
Now, I term the actual rulers of 'the West' the ccc = covert criminal cabal. Of course
they are in hiding -- acting from 'behind the curtain,' as some have it -- it has to be that
*dishonest* way -- for them. Among their most notable 'fruits' are the JFK murder, USS
Liberty outrage, inside-job 9/11 psyop and the utterly wicked destruction of Libya/Gaddafi,
just 4 of many. The extended list is looong, and note that the 1st 3 in my list demonstrate
the ccc 'murdering their own' -- except that to the ccc, anybody not actually in the ccc
itself is not 'their own' but only exploitable/disposable objects. Of course the ccc causes
lies to be promulgated, hence the Lügenpresse . Neoliberalism/austerity must also
come from the ccc, causing misery wherever it's forced upon us, we the people. One of the
spivs in suits who 'sold' neoliberalism to the Aus people called it 'economic rationalism'
and jeered: 'What would you rather -- irrational economics?' Another ccc modus
operandi item is coercion as demonstrated by the downstream effects of Downer's "Get a
briefing!" -- which shows us that the CIA et al. is a 'command conduit' if not a command
originator. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the ccc does not merely operate like a
mafia, it *is* a mafia, and one of the author's "may depend on" items suggests a name for
this mafia, namely: Khazar. That's our miserable world, deliberately made that way by that
mafia; if that's not 'mindless and demented' what is? rgds
@MK-DELTABURKE
The Aspen Institute is CIA, but the CIA is an organization created and controlled by the
globalist conspirators at the Council on Foreign Relations, mostly the Rockefellers and other
banksters.
In my opinion, no dementia. Too many careers and institutions are built on continuing
hostility towards Russia. First ECB President Duisenberg's ph d thesis had as title 'The
economic consequences of peace', something like that, his conclusion was that
demilitarization was possible economically, when controlled sensibly.
Did anyone read 'The Iron Mountain Report', I never quite knew what to make of it, but it
also is about if demilitarization is possible. Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American
Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990 describes how the USA weapons industry skillfully
prevents that spending on useless weapons diminishes. The history of the later Roman empire,
the army in control.
"... This link, I believe, points into a very interesting direction. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/imperial-naivete-american-public I don't think that "naivete" is a correct word there. ..."
"... the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections. ..."
.a public lulled into a warm and fuzzy sense of moral superiority based on the notion
that we only go to war to save the good and punish the evil, and if we meddle in other
nations' domestic affairs and elections, we're only doing so for their own good.
If we weren't a kindly, generous Empire, we'd let them go down the drain without trying
to set them straight.
Key expression " moral superiority "
There is more:
. the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in
its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic
affairs and elections.
there are no limits on our execution of power because we're morally superior
That is the key. That is what, deep in their hearts, Americans believe. We .are .better
than .anybody .else. So, blaming "them", media, whatever no no that's a copout. Weak one. The
crux is simple, eternal, hard wired: "I am better than you". "I can be homeless punk here,
but, I am better than YOU." Feels good. That's all.
Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.
Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post
that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response
Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the
two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican
nomination in 2020. We'll see.
But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a
window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.
Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive
leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique
of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian
civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear
to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We
know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.
Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with
those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year
ago.
That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain
Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an
existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt,
extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.
Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the
private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the
country.
Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist
foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations,
Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while
simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those
goals enthusiastically.
There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In
countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others
-- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a
decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting
against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.
Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode
a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political
revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are
destroying America? Those are open questions.
But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest
of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How
do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.
The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning
cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones,
or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They
haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide
are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be
summed up in GDP is an idiot.
The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness.
There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your
children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.
But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to
the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through.
They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even
bother to understand our problems.
One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything
else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture,
meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.
Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party
who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words,
functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the
markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the
health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as
they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.
Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet
reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the
American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the
libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct.
The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They
refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.
Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined.
Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies
possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The
evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.
Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were
horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor
neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule.
Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.
What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were
benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready
explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of
badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives
called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.
There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually
the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways,
rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.
This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone
from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political
beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives,
mostly.
Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown
Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A
terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd
think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They
don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of
native-born Americans who are slipping behind.
But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part
of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but
disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools
and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made
more than men.
Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after
study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them.
Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop
in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably
follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the
next generation.
This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science.
We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they
have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in
America can afford.
And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married
people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much
nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight
malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.
This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our
mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families
face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or
Facebook executives.
For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more
virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own
kids.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our
first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is
one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.
We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.
They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in
this game, and it shows.
What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was
saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media
celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean
In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans
should say so.
They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all
commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or
charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect
400 percent annual interest.
We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work --
consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also
disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans,
whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.
And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it
would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our
kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new
technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.
And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana,
marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or
decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana
industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than
alcohol," they tell us.
Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's
been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want
that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the
reason. Because they don't care about us.
When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even
try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities
based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes
close.
Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate
as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of
what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.
In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He
paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners,
the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But
for everyone else, it's infuriating.
Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on
the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws
that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for
those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a
big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids
don't hate you. They hate each other.
That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided
countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are
getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special
treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.
What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive
country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own
profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.
A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can
make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as
important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting
outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And
above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place
special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that
actually cares about families, the building block of everything.
What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will
have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.
But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a
religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool
to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do
not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn
decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors
in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market
fundamentalism a form of socialism.
That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working
desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a
group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that
protects normal people.
If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2,
2019.
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."
Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged
monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.
America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking
marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families
is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."
He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate
the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."
The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans
have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More
broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative
politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.
Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain.
What kind of country will be it be then?"
The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher
wrote of Carlson's monologue,
"A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would
be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in
National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.
I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his
monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003
bookThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree
with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."
Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank
fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any
policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites
-- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."
But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the
most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.
"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put
these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"
Populism on the right is gaining, again
Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald
Trump, whose populist-lite
presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless
you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."
Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the
words of Cas
Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people
on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal
point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896.
Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative,
thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.
When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter
spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she
said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big
rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar
workers":
Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact
that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This
is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.
These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.
Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people
won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed
when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's
past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.
"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home
an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."
Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent
a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that
labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and
figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."
"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he
told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."
But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current
state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are
its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson
railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation
of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.
Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on
the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson
wrote
a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And
these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their
own family members struggling to get by.
Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense
of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.
At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing
wrote of Carlson's
monologue, and a
response
to it by National Review columnist David French:
Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different
French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed
unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families
are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions
responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists
outside of its fantasies.
J.D. Vance, author of
Hillbilly Elegy
, wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless
to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago,
and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years
ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"
Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed
at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded.
"I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns
of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."
Who is "they"?
And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy
on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like
Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate
themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.
When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific
group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or
immigration policies.
In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in
1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana
legalization means more teens are smoking weed (
this probably isn't true ). Someone,
or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight
of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."
The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives
believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision
making or a
lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument
that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates
doesn't make sense .
But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood
populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's
rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual
revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are
doing to you .
And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other
groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family
dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say,
less than
enthusiastic .
Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same
problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!
Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to
identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the
expansion of trans
rights or creeping secularism
than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in
private prisons or an expansion
of the
militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market
capitalism and efforts to
fight
inequality .
I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by "
demographic change
." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he
includes in his monologue .
He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something
to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because
it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're
living under affects your culture."
Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same
poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking,
'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was
because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For
the record, libertarians have
critiqued Carlson's
monologue as well.)
Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an
economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a
function or raw nature."
And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those
on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those
dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns
are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.
"Kamala Harris: John Kelly Got Mad That I Called Him at Home About the Travel Ban"
by Gideon Resnick...01.08.19... 5:16 AM ET
"In the early days of President's Trump first term, when he signed an executive order to ban travel to the United States from
seven Muslim-majority nations, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) decided to get more information about the chaos occurring at airports
across the country.
"So I called [then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary] John Kelly," Harris writes in her new book, The Truths We Hold:
An American Journey.
Senators talking to Cabinet members is not rare, especially when it involves a pressing legal and political matter. But Harris
hadn't called Kelly at his office. She had dialed him at home. And the soon-to-be chief of staff was not exactly pleased.
"There were a lot of ways Secretary Kelly could have shown responsiveness, a lot of information he could have provided," Harris
writes. "Indeed the American people had a right to this information, and, given my oversight role on the Senate Homeland Security
Committee, I intended to get it. Instead, he said gruffly, "Why are you calling me at home with this?" That was his chief concern.
By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn't understand the depth of what was going on. He said he'd get back
to me, but he never did."...
May be not yet, but talks
talks are under way and hiring of former CIA officials commenced :-). What is coming is
going to make COINTELPRO
look like the work of some amateur meme-freak.
But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global
capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they
recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is
enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole
smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well
with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for
right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly
transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger
with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were
slow jamming the TPP
with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).
The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist"
revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the
War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or
the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things
happen, and here we are.
... ... ...
And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for
the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit
crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make
COINTELPRO
look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like
Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like
NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other
David Brock
outfits , and
a legion
of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity,
disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course,
in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.
Any unbiased observer would suspect that considerable part of US Congress consists of senile
gerantocrats...
Notable quotes:
"... You can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery you have to be alive. ..."
"... They tricked us the last time, I hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore. ..."
"... Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous financial resources and access to the entire legacy media ..."
"... Let's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them "oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc. ..."
"... This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational, breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else besides. ..."
"... It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them. ..."
Where to begin to analyze the madness of mainstream media in reaction to the Trump-Putin
meeting in Helsinki? By focusing on the individual, psychology has neglected the problem of
mass insanity, which has now overwhelmed the United States establishment, its mass media and
most of its copycat European subsidiaries. The individuals may be sane, but as a herd they are
ready to leap off the cliff.
For the past two years, a particular power group has sought to explain away its loss of
power – or rather, its loss of the Presidency, as it still holds a predominance of
institutional power – by creation of a myth. Mainstream media is known for its herd
behavior, and in this case the editors, commentators, journalists have talked themselves into a
story that initially they themselves could hardly take seriously.
Donald Trump was elected by Russia ?
On the face of it, this is preposterous. Okay, the United States can manage to rig elections
in Honduras, or Serbia, or even Ukraine, but the United States is a bit too big and complex to
leave the choice of the Presidency to a barrage of electronic messages totally unread by most
voters. If this were so, Russia wouldn't need to try to "undermine our democracy". It would
mean that our democracy was already undermined, in tatters, dead. A standing corpse ready to be
knocked over by a tweet.
Even if, as is alleged without evidence, an army of Russian bots (even bigger than the
notorious Israeli army of bots) was besieging social media with its nefarious slanders against
poor innocent Hillary Clinton, this could determine an election only in a vacuum, with no other
influences in the field. But there was a lot of other stuff going on in the 2016 election, some
for Trump and some for Hillary, and Hillary herself scored a crucial own goal by denigrating
millions of Americans as "deplorables" because they didn't fit into her identity politics
constituencies.
The Russians could do nothing to build support for Trump, and there is not a hint of
evidence that they tried. They might have done something to harm Hillary, because there was so
much there: the private server emails, the Clinton foundation, the murder of Moammer Gaddafi,
the call for a no-fly zone in Syria they didn't have to invent it. It was there. So was the
hanky panky at the Democratic National Committee, on which the Clintonite accusations focus,
perhaps to cause everyone to forget much worse things.
When you come to think of it, the DNC scandal focused on Debbie Wasserman Schultz, not on
Hillary herself. Screaming about "Russian hacking the DNC" has been a distraction from much
more serious accusations against Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders supporters didn't need those
"revelations" to make them stop loving Hillary or even to discover that the DNC was working
against Bernie. It was always perfectly obvious.
So at worst, "the Russians" are accused of revealing some relatively minor facts concerning
the Hillary Clinton campaign. Big deal.
But that is enough, after two years of fakery, to send the establishment into a frenzy of
accusations of "treason" when Trump does what he said he would do while campaigning, try to
normalize relations with Russia.
This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite
which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the
American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. They
have based their careers on the illusion of sharing the world empire by following U.S. whims in
the Middle East and transforming the mission of their armed forces from defense into foreign
intervention units of NATO under U.S. command. Having not thought seriously about the
implications of this for over half a century, they panic at the suggestion of being left to
themselves.
The Western elite is now suffering from self-inflicted dementia.
Donald Trump is not particularly articulate, navigating through the language with a small
repetitive vocabulary, but what he said at his Helsinki press conference was honest and even
brave. As the hounds bay for his blood, he quite correctly refused to endorse the "findings" of
US intelligence agencies, fourteen years after the same agencies "found" that Iraq was bursting
with weapons of mass destruction. How in the world could anyone expect anything else?
But for the mainstream media, "the story" at the Helsinki summit, even the only
story, was Trump's reaction to the, er, trumped up charges of Russian interference in our
democracy. Were you or were you not elected thanks to Russian hackers? All they wanted was a
yes or no answer. Which could not possibly be yes. So they could write their reports in
advance.
Anyone who has frequented mainstream journalists, especially those who cover the "big
stories" on international affairs, is aware of their obligatory conformism, with few
exceptions. To get the job, one must have important "sources", meaning government spokesmen who
are willing to tell you what "the story" is, often without being identified. Once they know
what "the story" is, competition sets in: competition as to how to tell it. That leads to an
escalation of rhetoric, variations on the theme: "The President has betrayed our great country
to the Russian enemy. Treason!"
This demented chorus on "Russian hacking" prevented mainstream media from even doing their
job. Not even mentioning, much less analyzing, any of the real issues at the summit. To find
analysis, one must go on line, away from the official fake news to independent reporting. For
example, "the Moon of Alabama" site offers
an intelligent interpretation of the Trump strategy , which sounds infinitely more
plausible than "the story". In short, Trump is trying to woo Russia away from China, in a
reverse version of Kissinger's strategy forty years ago to woo China away from Russia, thus
avoiding a continental alliance against the United States. This may not work because the United
States has proven so untrustworthy that the cautious Russians are highly unlikely to abandon
their alliance with China for shadows. But it makes perfect sense as an explanation of Trump's
policy, unlike the caterwauling we've been hearing from Senators and talking heads on CNN.
Those people seem to have no idea of what diplomacy is about. They cannot conceive of
agreements that would be beneficial to both sides. No, it's got to be a zero sum game, winner
take all. If they win, we lose, and vice versa.
They also have no idea of the harm to both sides if they do not agree. They have no project,
no strategy. Just hate Trump.
He seems totally isolated, and every morning I look at the news to see if he has been
assassinated yet.
It is unimaginable for our Manichean moralists that Putin might also be under fire at home
for failing to chide the American president for U.S. violations of human rights in Guantanamo,
murderous drone strikes against defenseless citizens throughout the Middle East, the
destruction of Libya in violation of the UN mandate, interference in the elections of countless
countries by government-financed "non-governmental organizations" (the National Endowment of
Democracy), worldwide electronic spying, invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the
world's greatest prison population and regular massacres of school children. But the diplomatic
Russians know how to be polite.
Still, if Trump actually makes a "deal", there may be losers – neither the U.S. nor
Russia but third parties. When two great powers reach agreement, it is often at somebody else's
expense. The West Europeans are afraid it will be them, but such fears are groundless. All
Putin wants is normal relations with the West, which is not much to ask.
Rather, candidate number one for paying the price are the Palestinians, or even Iran, in
marginal ways. At the press conference, asked about possible areas of cooperation between the
two nuclear powers, Trump suggested that the two could agree on helping Israel:
"We both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu. They would like to do certain things with respect to
Syria, having to do with the safety of Israel. In that respect, we absolutely would like to
work in order to help Israel. Israel will be working with us. So both countries would work
jointly."
In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence
of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of
Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have
much choice.
On another subject, Trump said that "our militaries" get along with the Russians "better
than our politicians". This is another daring bet, on military realism that could somehow
neutralize military industrial congressional complex lobbying for more and more weapons.
In short, the only chance to end the nuclear war threat may depend on support for Trump from
Israel and the Pentagon!
The hysterical neoliberal globalists seem to have ruled out any other possibility –
and perhaps this one too.
"Constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia forwards the opportunity to open
new pathways toward peace and stability in our world" Trump declared "I would rather take a
political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics."
That is more than his political enemies can claim.
This is a frightening, accurate commentary on what we face as a result of an unaccountable
power structure resorting to any and all means to retain power which, if this structure
continues to exercise it, will lead to our extinction.
In the establishment, it's not dementia as such, it's just serving the highest bidder. You
can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery
you have to be alive. If only they die, it would be a great service to the humanity.
Unfortunately, the way things go, they might take us all with them.
This mass hysteria over a country hostile to both democracy and gay rights (it's hard to tell
which one is worse) has been seen in the west before.
It's very reminiscent of the lead-up to Iraq war in 2003. I mean what's next? Are they
gonna accuse Russia of having WMD's too?
They are pretty good at providing false evidence of WMD's, I wouldn't be surprised if they
stage another presentation of evidence of Russian WMD's at UN, complete with satellite images
of mobile trucks equipped with Uranium enrichment technology and all that.
That Nikki Halley can be quite persuasive, you know. I just hope that the world doesn't
buy that BS again. Russia having WMD's? That's preposterous. They tricked us the last time, I
hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore.
Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too
just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous
financial resources and access to the entire legacy media but seem to have almost no real
base of support. Remember how the Never Trumpers had no one more prominent and well-known
than Evan McMullan (!!) to run as their candidate? Note too the tiny number of views the
YouTube videos of the Aspen Institute get: https://www.youtube.com/user/AspenInstitute/videos
.
On its own, these things aren't conclusive proof but together they add up. The Aspen
Institute crowd is an almost entirely self-contained subculture. They seem to have no base of
support, beyond their stacks of money, job titles and the power that come with the various
offices they hold. That's probably why they can never stop calling their opponents
"populists" or why Bill Kristol keeps tweeting about encountering scrappy shoeshine boys who
shout "give Trump hell, Mr Kristol!" as he goes about his urban peregrinations.
Diana Johnstone is not alone. Others on the alt-Left are starting to wake up, too. This is
Joaquín Flores:
People are seeing through dishonesty, and the old language traps are used up and done
for. If reconquista is the goal, then we need to have an honest conversation about that. If
there's a Latino nation with self determination in the south-west US, or rights 'back' to
the south-west US, then let's speak of it in such terms. Because then we'd be looking at a
Euro-American nation also. Now of course there's issues of interpenetrated peoples, and
identities we carry in our minds in diverse urban centers. But the point here is that we
have to have an honest discourse, and stop hiding reconquista sentiments under the rubric
of 'human rights'. Because European-Americans don't have right of return to Europe, so the
left is promoting what will ultimately be a race war, full scale, if they don't chill the
fuck out and back off this disingenuous approach to policy-wonkism on immigration.
The paradigmatic question today is, how is wealth made, and where does wealth come from?
What is the balance of trade and debts, and how is that is no longer manageable? The US
empire and NATO is no longer manageable. Trump is unwinding NATO. That can't be a bad
thing.
@AnonFromTNLet's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some
admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them
"oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct
emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they
will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc.
@Tulips
You are right, of course, the word "elites" has too many positive connotations. In fact, they
are oligarchs, mega-thieves, or something on those lines. Functionally, in our society they
are puppet masters of all the venal puppets (politicians, journos, etc.).
I hear you, and I sympathize, but this is not mass dementia.
The oligarchy that runs the United States was worried that Donald Trump might actually
(!!) take some consideration for the national interest of the people of the United States of
America. That will never do.
This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational,
breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And
it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless
foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else
besides.
It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in
mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff
Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about
them.
Having a title "Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment" and approaching this effort as
"mass insanity", "demented chorus" etc. is simply delusional.
They know exactly what they are doing and, it appears, they are doing it well.
The are able to create their own reality. What puzzles me a bit isn't "them" or their servants (media etc.).
It's people in general. They appear to be buying that manufactured reality with ease. In this
era of instant communications it's .sobering. This constant shitting on "them" and their servants is fine and dandy but feels as just a
feel good exercise.
Perhaps some effort could be spared in trying to analyze and explain common people approach
to all this. The buying, hook and sinker, that manufacture.
Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how false
all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online can't,
for SOME reason, figure all that out.
Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever.
Maybe it's time to start passing a bit of blame to people in general.
@Daniel
Rich The Russians are by nature cautious. They are a conglomerate of individuals, many of
whom remember times when they would be sent by communist tyrants to a gulag for Wrongthink.
Of course they're cautious.
How Hillary Clinton could even run for presidency after the murder of Moammer Gaddafi and
Libya destruction, in any decent civilisation and society.
That's planetary shame and the most important question, not DNC hack or anything else, which
just trace in wrong direction.
So, Trump should grow some balls and arrest not just her but Barack Obama as well on the
same charges, as war criminals as they are, and prove that he really deserves to be
trusted.
And sacrifice himself in the process if needed as that would do any honest true US president,
and he knew what to expect from such position from the start.
It's not TV reality show, as still it is.
All he cares about is his ego and popularity, and he is loosing both.
Israel lobby finally see that they put their money in the wrong bank.
I intend to believe more that West, namely USA and UK the most, keeps them more hostage in
uncertainty for decades than in some Jewish conspiracy. Also, I also believe that only Russia can guaranty Israel security and peace in the
region.
In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the
influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising
influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he
does not have much choice.
Saudi Arabia spent 40 billion dollars helping Saddam's Iraq in its war against Iran, the
cost of US efforts in the Syria civil war have largely been met by the Saudis. The coming
attack on Iran will be as much to please the Saudis as to lock Israel into West Bank Arab
expulsion mode. The Israel Lobby will is not pushing Donald Trump, they are playing catch up
with him. Trump has already shown with the Jerusalem recognition that he is encouraging
Israel in unilateral courses of action.
@TG
No, I agree with the assessment in this article and its title: the establishment is
dangerously detached from reality right now. Our stagnant and locked-down political culture
in the West allowed the "elite" to develop a false sense of security and and certainty. They
thought they had things pretty much figured out a few years ago but now they're genuinely
panicked.
Looking to this circus from Russia, to those insane speaches, insulting caricatures in MSM, I
understand the huge amount of rotteness of Western society, mainly its high top part, but not
only. Even here in comments (not in this particularly article) the percentage of trolls and
brainwashed idiots exceeds all I could've imagined. So I stopped writing here – no
sense, I beleive that something can change only after the dramatic changes in US/West society
and that is possible only after a big war/revolution.
So, I'm afraid our future is vague
"... As it happens, neocons are in luck. Most Americans know little of the ideas that animated their country's founding. They're more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical-liberal philosophy of the Founders, and, hence, wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive, colossal, Warfare State. That's just the way things are. ..."
"... If past is prologue, Ron Paul is probably right when he says the CIA is likely meddling in Iranian politics. ..."
"... Then US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, a woman as dumb and dangerous as Nikki Haley, was cool with the carnage. (One almost misses Henry Kissinger's realpolitik . At least the man was highly educated and deeply knowledgeable about history and world affairs. Second only to Jared Kushner, of course.) ..."
"... No one would deny the largely neoconservative nature of Trump's National Security Strategy . Tucked in there somewhere is the Trumpian theme of "sovereignty," but in watered-down words. The promised Wall has given way to "multilayered technology"; to the "deployment of additional personnel," and to the tried-and-tested (not!) "vetting of prospective immigrants, refugees, and other foreign visitors." ..."
"... These are mouthfuls Barack Obama and Genghis Bush would hardly oppose. ..."
"... "It's often said that the Trump administration is 'isolationist,'" wrote historian Andrew J. Bacevich, in the UK Spectator. Untrue. "In fact, we are now witnessing a dramatic escalation in the militarization of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. This has not been announced, but it is happening, and much of it without any debate in Congress or the media." ..."
"... To some, the normalizing of neoconservatism by a president who ran against it is a stroke of genius; of a piece with Bill Clinton's triangulation tactics. To others, it's a cynical sleight of hand. ..."
"... So Trump did morph into Hillary. Actually, it was something I was afraid of once I got the good news of Hillary losing, but expected, considering that I view presidents as empty suits, and the National Security State calling the shots. ..."
"... The Trump holdouts that maintain his turncoat buffoonery is actually 5d chess are the 2018 equivalent of the 2009 hopey changey Obots and can't accept their big daddy is a liar and a spineless turncoat. The system is broken and cannot be fixed from within. ..."
"... The signs were already there before the election, too many people were hoping that this time it will be different (it never is) and ignored them. He has jewish children and did say how he was anti Iran, he was always a neo cohen servative. ..."
"... I'm a little more sanguine about a Zionist President who approaches problems from a business and deal-making position than from one who comes a neocon political position (e.g., Hillary, every other GOP candidate except Rand Paul). The former are pragmatic and will avoid conflict, especially stupid conflict, at all costs. While the latter believe they are virtuous in going to war and/or attacking countries. Did you hear Hillary threaten to shoot down Russian planes in Syria during the campaign (WTF??!). ..."
It's fact: Neoconservatives are pleased with President Trump's foreign policy.
A couple of months back, Bloomberg's Eli Lake let it know he was in neoconservative
nirvana:
" for Venezuela, [Donald Trump] came very close to calling for regime change. 'The United
States has taken important steps to hold the regime accountable,' Trump said. 'We are prepared
to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose
authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people.'"
"For a moment,"
swooned Lake , "I closed my eyes and thought I was listening to a Weekly Standard
editorial meeting."
Onward to Venezuela! Mr. Lake, a neoconservative, was loving every moment. In error, he and his kind confuse an
expansionist foreign policy with "American exceptionalism." It's not.
As it happens, neocons are in luck. Most Americans know little of the ideas that animated
their country's founding. They're more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the
classical-liberal philosophy of the Founders, and, hence, wish to see the aggrandizement of the
coercive, colossal, Warfare State. That's just the way things are.
So, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have enlisted the West in "a proxy Sunni-Shia
religious war," Riyadh's ultimate aim. Donald Trump has been perfectly willing to partake. After a campaign of "America First," the president sided with Sunni Islam while demonizing
Iran. Iranians have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks in the US between
1975-2015; Saudi Arabians
murdered 2369 !
Iranians recently reelected a reformer. Pray tell who elected the Gulf petrostate
sheiks?
Moderates danced in the streets of Tehran when President Hassan Rouhani was reelected.
Curiously, they're currently rioting.
If past is prologue, Ron Paul is probably right when he says the CIA is likely meddling in
Iranian politics. For the Left and the pseudo-Right, this is a look-away issue. As the
left-liberal establishment lectures daily, to question the Central Intelligence Agency -- its
spooks are also agitating against all vestiges of President Trump's original "America First"
plank -- is to "undermine American democracy."
Besides, "good" Americans know that only the Russians "meddle."
In Saudi Arabia, a new, more-dangerous regime is consolidating regional power. Almost
overnight has the kingdom shifted from rule by family dynasty (like that of the Clintons and
the Bushes), to a more authoritarian style of one-man
rule .
When it comes to the Saudi-Israeli-American-Axis-of-Angels, the Kushner-Trump Administration
-- is that another bloodline in-the-making? -- has not broken with America's ruling dynastic
families (the Clintons and the Bushes, aforementioned).
It's comforting to know Saudi Arabia plays a crucial role in the UN's human rights affairs.
In January of last year, the Kingdom executed 47 people in one day, including a rather benign
Shiite cleric. Fear not, they went quickly,
beheaded with a sword .
Then US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, a woman as dumb and dangerous as Nikki Haley,
was cool with the carnage. (One almost misses Henry Kissinger's realpolitik . At
least the man was highly educated and deeply knowledgeable about history and world
affairs. Second only to Jared Kushner, of course.)
Our bosom buddies, the Saudi's, are currently
barricading Yemeni ports. No aid gets through her hermetically sealed ports. Yemenis are
dying. Some Twitter followers twittered with joy at the sight of starving Yemeni babies, like
this
one . Oh well, Yemeni babies can be sinister.
No one would deny the largely neoconservative nature of
Trump's National Security Strategy . Tucked in there somewhere is the Trumpian theme of
"sovereignty," but in watered-down words. The promised Wall has given way to "multilayered
technology"; to the "deployment of additional personnel," and to the tried-and-tested (not!)
"vetting of prospective immigrants, refugees, and other foreign visitors."
These are mouthfuls Barack Obama and Genghis Bush would hardly oppose.
"It's often said that the Trump administration is 'isolationist,'" wrote
historian Andrew J. Bacevich, in the UK Spectator. Untrue. "In fact, we are now witnessing a
dramatic escalation in the militarization of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and
Afghanistan. This has not been announced, but it is happening, and much of it without any
debate in Congress or the media."
Indeed, while outlining his "new" Afghanistan plan, POTUS had conceded that "the American
people are weary of war without victory." (Make that war, full-stop.) Depressingly, the
president went on to promise an increase in American presence in Afghanistan. By sending 4000
additional soldiers there, President Trump alleged he was fighting terrorism, yet not
undertaking nation building.
This is tantamount to talking out of both sides of one's mouth.
Teasing apart these two elements is near-impossible. Send "4,000 additional soldiers to add
to the 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan," and you've done what Obama and Bush before you did
in that blighted and benighted region: muddle along; kill some civilians mixed in with some bad
guys; break bread with tribal leaders (who hate your guts); mediate and bribe.
Above all, spend billions not your own to perfect the credo of a global fighting
force that doesn't know Shiite from Shinola .
The upshot? It's quite acceptable, on the Left and the pseudo-Right, to casually quip about
troops in Niger and
Norway . "We have soldiers in Niger and Norway? Of course we do. We need them."
With neoconservatism normalized, there is no debate, disagreement or daylight between our
dangerously united political factions.
This is the gift President Trump has given mainstream neoconservatives -- who now
comfortably include neoliberals and all Conservatism Inc., with the exceptions of Pat Buchanan,
Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson.
How exactly did the president normalize neoconservatism: In 2016, liberals accused candidate
Trump of isolationism. Neoconservatives -- aka Conservatism Inc. -- did the same.
Having consistently complained of his isolationism , the Left and the phony Right
cannot but sanction President Trump's interventionism . The other option is to admit
that we of the callused
Old Right, who rejoiced at the prospects and promise of non-interventionism, were always
right.
Not going to happen.
To some, the normalizing of neoconservatism by a president who ran against it is a stroke of
genius; of a piece with Bill Clinton's triangulation tactics. To others, it's a cynical sleight
of hand.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but
you cannot fool all the people all the time.
But you can fool the whole country all the time in American bi-partisan system. Clinton,
Bush, Obama, Trump each were brought to power by fooling their electorate.
So Trump did morph into Hillary.
Actually, it was something I was afraid of once I got the good news of Hillary losing, but
expected, considering that I view presidents as empty suits, and the National Security State
calling the shots.
I'm waiting for another one of those "Trump's Truth in Action" moments when describes the
real political atmosphere in Washington.
Trump was asked about something he said in a previous interview: "When you give, they do
whatever the hell you want them to do." "You'd better believe it," Trump said. "If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of
the people on this stage I've given to, just so you understand, a lot of money."
I think its time to dump the label "neoconservative". The appropriate term is
"interventionists without a cause" (IWAC or IWC) or some other descriptor.
The real problem that Pres Trump has and I remain a Pres Trump supporter is two fold:
1. He seems to have forgotten he won the election.
2. He seems to have forgotten what he was elected to do.
And nearly everyone of these issues on foreign policy the answer rests in respecting
sovereignty – that of others and our own.
I didn't need to read,"Adios, America" to comprehend the deep state damage our careless
immigration policy has on the country. I don't need to reread, "Adios, America" to grasp that
our policies of intervening in the affairs of other states undermines our own ability to make
the same case at home.
If I weren't already trying to plow my way through several other books, documentaries and
relapsing to old school programming such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and now the Dick
Van Dyke show, i would reread,
"Adios , America."
In Col. Bacevich's book,
Washington Rules, he posits a distressing scenario that the foreign policy web is so
tangled and entrenched, the executive branch is simply out his league. The expectation was
that Pres trump had the will to turn the matter. I hold out hope, but maybe not. There's
time.
@J.RossThe Trump holdouts that maintain his turncoat buffoonery is actually 5d chess are the 2018
equivalent of the 2009 hopey changey Obots and can't accept their big daddy is a liar and a
spineless turncoat. The system is broken and cannot be fixed from within.
The signs were already there before the election, too many people were hoping that this time
it will be different (it never is) and ignored them. He has jewish children and did say how
he was anti Iran, he was always a neo cohen servative.
I have a question for all the Trump supporters still in denial, what will it take to break
your delusions? He is not going to build a wall, mass immigration is up, the left wing are
mass censoring and essentially running everything now, his foreign policy is now endorsed by
the all the never Trumpers – so what is your limit, is there anything he must do to
lose your support?
Jews and the Jewish Media normalized Jewish NeoCons by guaranteeing that they always
have a voice and airtime in American culture and media. Never called out by the
WashingtonPost and NY Times for their previous blunders, they continue to shape American
foreign policy. And, of course, the end game here is Israel and the Israeli agenda at all
costs, you Jews are one issue folk. And You definitely do your part, with the subtle
subterfuge at work in the articles that you write.
No one should be surprised by Trump promoting Israeli interests über alles. For
decades he was so involved in Israel events in New York I debated whether he was actually
Jewish or not. Bannon said the embassy move to Jerusalem was at the behest of Adelson,
Trump's old casino buddy. In the campaign Trump got a lot of support from NY Jewish
billionaires (Icahn, Feinberg, Paulson, et al.). They know him and how he operates.
But being pro-Israel doesn't necessarily equate to neocon. The neocons are the dumb Jews
with serious inadequacy issues who could never make it in business and instead went into
politics and journalism. The latter are still staunchly opposed to Trump even after a lot of
pro-Israel moves. They might warm up to Trump's bellicosity towards a lot of Israel's enemies
(a long list with degrees of separation), but so far they've simply moved left.
I'm a little more sanguine about a Zionist President who approaches problems from a
business and deal-making position than from one who comes a neocon political position (e.g.,
Hillary, every other GOP candidate except Rand Paul). The former are pragmatic and will avoid
conflict, especially stupid conflict, at all costs. While the latter believe they are
virtuous in going to war and/or attacking countries. Did you hear Hillary threaten to shoot
down Russian planes in Syria during the campaign (WTF??!).
Lastly, I like to think Trump surrounded himself with neocons (McMaster, Haley, et al.) to
placate the GOP establishment because he knows he has to play the game.
People are inclined to believe that any activity -- in this instance, voting for the
red/blue puppets in Washington -- in which their participation is patronized must be
legitimate and effectual. Many duped in November 2016, even those who now feel betrayed by
that farce, were still around here a few weeks ago acting like a Senator Moore in Alabama
would be pivotal to reform, his defeat devastating.
That's how Ms. Mercer and her pundit ilk
(Buchanan, Napolitano, etc.) thrive -- supporting the Empire by never questioning its
legitimacy, just taking sides within the Establishment. And they'll be buying into the 2018
congressional contests, ad nauseum.
Of course, what is done to us, and to others in our name and with our money, never changes
to any meaningful degree. Americans might realize this if they thought critically about it,
so they don't. Instead, they lap up the BS and vote for who tells them the lie they like to
hear. When there are identity politics involved, the delusion seems even deeper. There are
self-styled "progressives" who used to advocate single-payer, nationalized health care who
are elated over the retention of so-called "Obamacare," the legislation for which was written
by and for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Me? I cope by boycotting national elections and mass media, participating in forums like
this, and hoping that when the tottering tower of debt and gore tips over, as few innocents
and as many guilty as practicable are among those crushed.
The Zionist neocons and Israel did 911 and got away with it and everyone in the U.S. gov
knows it and they tried to sink the USS LIBERTY and got away with it and so normal is an
Orwellian society where Zionists can kill Americans and destroy the Mideast and nobody does
jack shit about it.
The neocons are Satanists warmongers and will destroy America.
Neocons are about as evil as proudly proclaimed Leftists, and they are obviously more
duplicitous.
Either Neocons will be refuted and publicly rebuked and rejected, or Neocons will
eventually destroy the country. Their long term fruits are destruction of that which they
have used to destroy so many others.
@anonymous
Far from all Neocons are Jews. However, virtually all Neocons are militantly pro-Israel to
the point of making Israel's foreign policy desires central to their assessment of what
America needs in foreign policy.
And the source is Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, which was a Judaizing heresy. Judaizing heresy
necessarily produces pro-Jewish culture. WASP culture is inherently pro-Jewish, as much as it
is anti-Catholic and anti-French and and anti-Spanish and anti-Irish, etc.
And all that means that WASP is opposed to the nest interests of the vast majority of
white Christians while being pro-Jewish.
Jews did not cause any of that. Anglo-Saxon Puritan heretics did.
@neutral
Pres Trump is a situational leader. It's a rare style, for good reason. However, he is openly
situational. That was clear during the campaign season. however,
I thought his positions were sincere. I don't think that this was any kind of slight of
hand, "watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat". His positions on Israel, same sex behavior,
marijuana, healthcare remain what they were going in. His foreign policy and immigration
positions have been buffered and he seems incapable of standing where he came in.
It was no secret he intended an assertive military. However, he seems easily convinced
that strong means aggressive, and that needlessly aggressive policy is a substitute for a
strong US -- that is a mistake. Syria cruise strike was the first sign that he was giving in
to the men whom he chose as advisers. As it it turns out winning the election has been easier
than governing. I assumed he had a much stronger backbone, than he has been willing to
exhibit in office.
@Jake
The Israeli/AIPAC bribery of American bible thumper preachers, especially in the
fundamentalist southern American states has more to do with it than the reformation.
The preachers get huge donations to pay for their churches and TV shows. They get free
trips to Israel for themselves and their families all the time.
On their Israel trips they pay more attention to the OT Jewish and holocaust sites than
the Christian ones
It's true that the reformation was a return to Judaism and a rejection of Christianity,
but that was 500 years ago.
What's important now is the vast amounts of money the Israeli government and the lobby
funnels into those fundamentalist churches.
If the southern fundamentalists only knew what Jews think of them. I really got an earful
of Jewish scorn and hate for southerners and fundamentalists during the recent Roy Moore
election.
Read Jewish publications if you want to learn what they think of southern
fundamentalists
@Twodees
Partain Trump appointed Haley because Sheldon Adelson told him to.
And contrary to the myth of trump funding his own campaign he did not the only money he put
in his campaign was a 1o million loan to it. Adelson was his biggest contributor just like
Saban was Hillary's.
Not coincidentally, however, neocon hopes may lie as well with the generous political
funding provided to Haley by Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's and Trump's single biggest donor.
Between May and June, 2016, Sheldon Adelson contributed $250,000 to Haley's 527 political
organization, A Great Day, funds that she used to target four Republican state senate rivals
in primaries. (Only one was successfully defeated.) Adelson was the largest contributor to
her group,
which raised a total of $915,000.
This powerful Adelson-funded Israel lobby could soon rival AIPAC's https://www.haaretz.com › U.S.
News
Oct 31, 2017 – Sheldon Adelson(L), The 3rd annual IAC National Conference, in
September, 2016, and Nikki Haley. . will feature, for the first time ever, a prominent
speaker from the ranks of the U.S. government: U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who is
a favorite among the right-leaning "pro-Israel" crowd.
The Jews have bought this government and trump and Haley are nothing but junk yard
dogs.
Not that there are good alternatives but anyone who stills supports trump is as crazy as he
is.
The title is ridiculous. Neo conservatives have been normal for decades.
The neocon movement was normalized in 2001 by the PATRIOT Act. The domestic side of the
neocon worldview -- or world-system -- was joined with the international or interventionist
side, just as anti-Palestinian actions by Israel were joined by way of repression of free
speech with the Charlottesville protest by conservatives of the desecration of monuments.
@renfro
I'm sure the evangelical preachers con their followers into donating money to Israel. I've
seen those late night ads begging for donations to feed ancient old holocaust survivors in
Israel.
But the Israelis pay for all those luxury trips to Israel And a lot of the money to start
those TV shows and for the big salaries come from Israel and AIPAC so does the money to set
up those big churches that just appear from nowhere
@Grandpa
Charlie I have always wondered why its okay to say WASP but not Jew in public.
One is more pc, the other is not allowed.
I have seen some articles about Jews replacing wasp, even from Jewish authors.
As for Neoconservatives. It depends how we define it.
I see it as a case of American imperialism fused with pro Israel sentiment. Large overlap,
but not always.
From what I know modern Neoconservativism started somewhere around the 70s,80s? Became
dominant around the Bush years. (during Reagan years they got rid of many Paleocons).
@Twodees
Partain Not only Nikki is a prank, she is also a godsend. Now the world get to see USG
naked without usual pretension.
Trumps is probably the most honest Potus with highest integrity & bravery in American
history(stupid aside). He means what he said without mind boggling hypocrite lies, he tried
fulfilling all his election promises, fighting bravely with his only little weapon tweeter
besiege by entire states organs, CIA/FBI, both parties, MSM, world allies,
He put US Embassy in Jerusalem that all other Potus promised but never keep, he tried to
revise immigration policy that people blocked, building prototype wall now, try befriend
Russia become a treason act, reneged nuclear agreement with Iran, make US military great(of
course need hyper tension like nuclear NK), scraped Obacare, TTP, Climate deal, try to grab
Killary, bring back jobs with tax heaven .
Mann, this is really a man of his word. Didn't these are what you people voted him for, to
drain the swamp? He gotta shock the entire MSM brainwashed nation up to see the deeply
corrupted USG, collapse it quickly for a new one to move in(by whoever after his prank). As
Trumps had asked:"what you got to lose to vote me?"
@Twodees
Partain Yes..ues i admit, don't shoot. Im just been sarcastic, USG is in such a laughing
stock to the world now, many americans probably are exasperated if not yet numb. I am not
judging he is good, DT is just less evil typical business man..imo
But frankly, i do see why people are voting DT now. He is at least more entertaining and
blunt to screw up WH deep states show. Per msm (fake news), he is honouring all his campaign
promises rt? So that make him above hypocrite liar Obama who speak on peace(Nobel prize), but
drenched in Libyan and Syrians blood.
US msm brainwashed people need lot of shock & awe to wake up to reality, then they
might have hope to drain the swamp in unity or just await to implode and suck down whole
world.
Believing that the current world system no longer sufficiently advances American
interests ever since Washington lost control of its institutional tools, and that the
eventual outcome of this increasingly multipolar state of affairs is that the US will in
turn lose its global empire, Trump has decided to become the Agent of Chaos in bringing
about its destruction.
I know with certainty that Hillary is a beast from depth of hell.
Meh, hyperbole.
Hillary is no different from most politicians. She's in it for the wealth and power. She
got herself a real smart, duplicitous, pussy-chasing beast of a husband, and made the most of
the opportunity.
People -- the American people -- should be able to see this rather-evident characteristic
of politicians. They should be adequately educated, at least to the extent of being able to
detect the base chicanery and corruption that radiates from political personalities.
But, they don't. They don't see the evil. The media deftly conceals it, because the beasts
of the media, like jackals, feed on the morsels of wealth that fall to the ground as the
politicians devour the carcass of well, hell, freedom and democracy is as useful a metaphor
as any.
In this context, I am reminded of British comedian Alexei Sayle. When asked what he does
when he watches a really talented satirist performing, Sayle replied: "I go back stage and
tell him he'll never make it."
Indeed, the attitude to my work over 20 years has been the best proof of its quality.
If the Comments threads about "ilana mercer," on the Unz Review, prove anything (other
than that anti-Semitism lives), it is that mediocre "men" (for the most) hate a woman who can
out-think them. As a defender of men, this saddens me, but it is, nevertheless, true.
Ron Unz, our wonderful editor, chose the image appended to the column. (The brilliant Mr.
Unz is one of the few intellectually honest individuals I know in this biz. He, columnist
Jack Kerwick, and a handful of others.)
In reply to kunckle-dragger's sniveling: I'll continue to refrain from interacting with
his ilk ("fanboys") on my column's thread. But this particular dreadful cur (with apologies
to dogs, which I love) further embarrasses himself when he offers up the non sequitur that
engaging him is the litmus test for being a "good writer."
I see it as a case of American imperialism fused with pro Israel sentiment. Large
overlap, but not always.
Agreed. American imperialism has a long long history (going back to at least the mid-19th
century). That's why the neocons were able to gain so much influence. They were appealing to
a pre-existing imperialist sentiment.
There is a large group of US politician non Jews
who also are pushing this policies. So these two groups together would be called
Neocons.
There is a large group in US population, that find this idea very appealing.
That's why Make America Great Again was such a popular slogan. It appeals to mindless
American jingoism and imperialism.
@dfordoom
Edward Dutton stated that it was a trade-off between intelligence on one side and instinct on
another – both are necessary for survival. For me, intelligence does not seem to
correlate directly to wisdom.
If so, that reinforces my view that Trump doesn't know anybody in the Swamp
You are exactly right.
Trump really knew no one to hire or appoint to anything except his NY cronies , mainly his
Jewish lawyers and Kushner contacts.
So he appointed anyone they and his biggest donors recommended to him.
His ego and insecurity demanded he surround himself with his NY cohorts and close family.
" It appeals to mindless American jingoism and imperialism" = "Make America great
again"
So you would prefer : "Make America powerless and insignificant again"
How about "Make America a normal nation that respects other nations' sovereignty, that
doesn't plant military bases on foreign soil, that doesn't bomb other people's countries,
doesn't try to impose its views and its culture on the rest of the world, doesn't undermine
the governments of other countries and doesn't threaten any country that dares to disagree
with it." Would that be too much to ask?
I would have thought that someone "Mensa" qualified since 1973 could understand that
greatness should not be equated with behaving like a thug or a schoolyard bully. America's
aggression does tend to look like the manifestation of a massive inferiority complex.
I commend Ms. Mercer for publishing this which will no doubt bring to light an ugly truth
about many of her own tribesmen since there many of her other views which I wholly or
partially disagree with
And as was said sometime before, the thought process of earlier elites (the banking,
Hollywood and the neo-con, neo-lib crowd which was almost exclusively Zio-Jewish and is
disproportionately still is) has creeped into the very being of what constitutes to be an
"elite" in the west these days. Unlimited warfare and welfare using fraudulent money,
disturbing the social and sexual fabric of a society! Satan would be quite proud of this scum
bunch
So the zionist cabal still calls the shots and the slavish goyim second tier elites now
willingly go along and in fact share the same mentality
"... Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior. ..."
"... That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did. ..."
"... So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether. ..."
"... Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. ..."
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:
"Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made
many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the
rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a
glorious end!"
The tweet was warmly received and celebrated by Trump's supporters, despite the fact that it
says essentially nothing since "eventually" could mean anything.
Indeed, it's
looking increasingly possible that nothing will come of the president's stated agenda to
withdraw troops from Syria other than a bunch of words which allow his anti-interventionist
base to feel nice feelings inside. Yet everyone laps it up, on both ends of the political
aisle, just like they always do:
Trump supporters are acting like he's a swamp-draining, war-ending peacenik...
...his enemies are acting like he's feeding a bunch of Kurds on conveyor belts into
Turkish meat grinders to be made into sausages for Vladimir Putin's breakfast, when in
reality nothing has changed and may not change at all.
How are such wildly different pictures being painted about the same non-event? By the fact
that both sides of the Trump-Syria debate have thus far been reacting solely to narrative.
This has consistently been the story throughout Trump's presidency: a heavy emphasis on
words and narratives and a disinterest in facts and actions. A rude tweet can dominate
headlines for days, while the actual behaviors of this administration can go almost completely
ignored. Trump continues to more or less advance the same warmongering Orwellian globalist
policies and agendas as his predecessors along more or less the same trajectory, but frantic
mass media narratives are churned out every day painting him as some unprecedented deviation
from the norm. Trump himself, seemingly aware that he's interacting entirely with perceptions
and narratives instead of facts and reality, routinely makes things up whole cloth and often
claims he's "never said" things he most certainly has said. And why not? Facts don't matter in
this media environment, only narrative does.
Look at Russiagate. An
excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at
Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the
infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing
but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who
helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's
said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive
behavior.
That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every
breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and
it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way
is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant
analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available
evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as
well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and
there's no evidence that it did.
So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated
election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually
been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet
Union. With the nuclear brinkmanship this administration has been playing with its only nuclear
rival on the planet, it would be so incredibly easy for Trump's opposition to attack him on his
insanely hawkish escalation of a conflict which could easily end all life on earth if any
little thing goes wrong, but they don't. Because this is all about narrative and not facts,
Democrats have been paced into supporting even more sanctioning, proxy conflicts and nuclear
posturing while loudly objecting to any sign of communication between the two nuclear
superpowers, while Republicans are happy to see Trump increase tensions with Moscow because it
combats the collusion narrative. Now both parties are supporting an anti-Russia agenda which
existed in secretive US government agencies
long before the 2016 election .
And this to me is the most significant thing about Trump's presidency. Not any of the things
people tell me I'm supposed to care about, but the fact that the age of Trump has been
highlighting in a very clear way how we're all being manipulated by manufactured narratives all
the time.
Humanity
lives in a world of mental narrative . We have a deeply conditioned societal habit of
heaping a massive overlay of mental labels and stories on top of the raw data we take in
through our senses, and those labels and stories tend to consume far more interest and
attention than the actual data itself. We use labels and stories for a reason: without them it
would be impossible to share abstract ideas and information with each other about what's going
on in our world. But those labels and stories get imbued with an intense amount of belief and
identification; we form tight, rigid belief structures about our world, our society, and our
very selves that can generate a lot of fear, hatred and suffering. Which is why it feels so
nice to go out into nature and relax in an environment that isn't shaped by human mental
narrative.
This problem is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that these stories and labels are
wildly subjective and very easily manipulated. Powerful people have learned that they can
control the way everyone else thinks, acts and votes by controlling the stories they tell
themselves about what's going on in the world using mass media control and financial political
influence, allowing ostensible democracies to be conducted in a way which serves power far more
efficiently than any dictatorship.
See how both A and B herd the public away from opposing the dangerous pro-establishment
agendas being advanced by this administration? The dominant narratives could not possibly be
more different from what's actually going on, and the only reason they're the dominant
narratives is because an alliance
of plutocrats and secretive government agencies exerts an immense amount of influence over
the stories that are told by the political/media class.
The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of
smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn.
It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics
are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only
potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that
it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether.
Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share
information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the
establishment propaganda machine is
acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the
internet are getting more and more severe. It is possible that this is what it looks like when
a thinking species evolves into a sane and healthy relationship with thought. Perhaps the
cracks that are appearing all over official narratives today are like the first cracks
appearing in an eggshell as a bird begins to hatch into the world.
Naomi Klein's book "Shock Doctrine", encapsulated by this post as "global elites used periods of crisis around the world to force
damaging neoliberal policies derived from the Chicago School and Washington Consensus upon unhappy populations that suffered greatly
as a result."
Notable quotes:
"... Eventually, Poland emerged as the major US agent of influence within the EU (along with GB) with the adamant anti-Russian stance. Which taking into account the real state of Polish manufacturing deprived of the major market is very questionable. Later by joining sanctions, they lost Russian agricultural market (including all apple market in which they have a prominent position). ..."
"... Gowan's book, Global Gamble, is also good on the details of shock therapy in the former Warsaw Pact nations. One key problem was that shock therapy partly rested on he assumption that western European buyers would want to invest in modernizing plant and equipment in industries they acquired, but it quickly turned out that the German and other western buyers were really interested only in acquiring new MARKETS for their own products. ..."
"... I remember a couple of paragraphs about Poland in my Economics 101 course, some 20 years ago. Was it in in Mankiw's book? or Lipsey-Chrystal? I do not remember anymore. One of those vicious neoliberal propaganda mouthpieces, anyway. The textbook pitched Poland's success story against Russia's abject failure, claiming that the former had dismantled and shut down all its inefficient state-run companies, while the latter still kept its unprofitable heavy industry on life support. ..."
"... Somehow neoclassical economists always distort history into a cartoonish parody that confirms their models. ..."
"... If you looked carefully, you could still find older books, barely touched, that touted Albania as a neoliberal success story along the same lines as Poland. Albania almost collapsed in civil war in 1998. ..."
"... The author's criticism doesn't really address Klein's central points at all, which would be that the crisis was used as leverage to ram through otherwise politically unpalatable change, and that a great deal of the constraint forcing that was provided by actors both undemocratic and external. He seems to be of the school that regards such niceties as beside the point, as long as various macroaggregates eventually rose. ..."
"... Any discussion of the Polish economy that completely ignores this massive level of economic outmigration, and it's continued rise among the young, misses a great deal. In a vibrant economy, it seems unlikely that so many educated Poles would find, for example, lower tier jobs in Britain to be their best path forward. ..."
"... Out-migration is a huge factor in eastern and central Europe and without it, the picture would look entirely different. The Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania are even more affected. ..."
"... Inter-war Poland is celebrated a lot in Poland these days, conveniently ignoring the facts it was really a totalitarian state – when Czechoslovakia was Muniched in 1938, Poles (and Hugarians) were quick to grab bits of territory right after that. ..."
"... Poland has taken around a million Ukrainians over the past ten years so while many Poles are emigrating to Europe, they are being replaced by Ukrainians, who are ethnically and linguistically fairly similar to Poles. ..."
The argument largely seems to hold for the original poster boy example in Chile with the Pinochet coup against the socialist Allende
regime. A military coup replaced a democratically government. Whiole Chlle was experiencing a serious inflation, it was not in a
full-blown economic collapse. The coup was supported by US leaders Nixon and Kissinger, who saw themselves preventing the emergence
of pro-Soviet regime resembling Castro's Cuba. Thousands were killed, and a sweeping set of laisssez faire policies were imposed
with the active participation of "Chicago Boys" associated with Milton Friedman. In fact, aside from bringing down inflation these
rreforms did not initially improve economic performance, even as foreign capital flowed in, especially into the copper industry,
although the core of that industry remained nationalized. After several years the Chicago Boys were sent away and more moderate policies,
including a reimposition of controls on foreign capital flows, the economy did grow quite rapidly. But this left a deeply unequal
income distribution in place, which would largely remain the case even after Pinochet was removed from power and parliamentary democracy
returned.
This scenario was argued to happen in many other narions, especially those in the former Sovit bloc as the soviet Union disintegrated
and its successor states and the former members of the Soviet bloc in the CMEA and Warsaw Pact also moved to some sort of market
capitalism imposed from outside with policies funded by the IMF and following the Washington Consensus. Although he has since expressed
regret for this role in this, a key player linking what was done in several Latin American nations and what went down after 1989
in Eastern and Central Europe was Jeffrey Sachs. Klein's discussion especially of what went down in Russia also looks pretty sound
by and large, wtthout dragging through the details, although in these cases the political shift was from dictatorships run by Communist
parties dominated out of Moscow to at least somewhat more democratic governments, although not in all of the former Soviet republics
such as in Central Asia and with many of these later backsliding towards more authoritarian governments later. In Russia and in many
oothers large numbers of people were thrown into poverty from which they have not recovered. Klein has also extended this argument
to other nations, including South Africa after the end of apartheid.
likbez
The level of the naivety of Barkley Rosser is astounding.
Poland was a political project, the showcase for the neoliberal project in Eastern Europe and the USSR. EU was pressed to provide
large subsidies, and that marionette complied. The commenter ilpalazzo (above) is right that there has been " a tremendous development
in real estate and infrastructure mostly funded by the EU that has been a serious engine of growth." Like in Baltics and Ukraine,
German, French, Swedish and other Western buyers were most interested in opening market for their products and getting rid of
local and xUSSR competitors (and this supported and promoted Russophobia). With very few exceptions. University education system
also was partially destroyed, but still fared better than most manufacturing industries.
I remember talking to one of the Polish professors of economics when I was in Poland around 1992. He said that no matter how
things will develop, the Polish economy will never be allowed to fail as the USA is interested in propelling it at all costs.
That means that there was no CIA activity to undermine the financial system, deindustrialize the country, and possibly to partition
the county like it was in Russia with Harvard mafia (Summers, Shleifer, etc.)
Still, they lost quite a bit of manufacturing: for example all shipbuilding, which is ironic as Lech Wałęsa and Solidarity
emerged in this industry.
Eventually, Poland emerged as the major US agent of influence within the EU (along with GB) with the adamant anti-Russian
stance. Which taking into account the real state of Polish manufacturing deprived of the major market is very questionable. Later
by joining sanctions, they lost Russian agricultural market (including all apple market in which they have a prominent position).
But they have a large gas pipeline on their territory, so I suspect that like Ukraine they make a lot of money via transit
fees simply due to geographic. So they parochially live off rent -- that why they bark so much at North Stream 2.
Polish elite is a real horror show, almost beyond redemption, and not only in economics. I do not remember, but I think it
was Churchill who said " Poland is a greedy hyena of Europe." This is as true now as it was before WWII.
Now they are propelled by cheap labor from Ukraine, which they helped to destroy (along with Sweden and Germany)
My post seem to have vanished into oblivion so I'm pasting from the clipboard.
I am a Pole and have been a daily reader here since 2008. I hope a better versed compatriot will come out of the closet and
give a better picture (I know there are a few).
Let's just say the shock was pretty bad. In terms of amount of human suffering the worst was dissolving state owned farms.
Hundreds of thousands of people were just let go without any help, although many farms were profitable and others could be restructured
or converted into collectives etc. I live in a small town where there was a huge state farm and I can see former employees started
to recover and get by just recently judging by the looks of their dwellings.
Most of the manufacturing and heavy industry was sold off and extinguished. We used to have pretty decent capital producing
capabilities like tooling etc. Not a trace of that now. There is a lot being manufactured now here but mostly simple components
for german industry to assemble.
Pension system was thoroughly looted by you know who and is a ticking time bomb. Most of it was quasi privatized – that is
managed by western companies but still part of the state system. There were supposed to be individual saving accounts managed
by sophisticated investment specialists but the money ended up invested in state bonds, issued to subsidize it. Managing fee 7
– 10 percent charge on every payment into the system, regardless of performance, anyone? It was a heist of the century.
The ticking time bomb is because a large part of young people working now are working on non – permanent contracts that don't
pay benefits. These people won't have any pension at all and there are a lot of them.
Healthcare is single payer fund but heavily underfunded. Private practice and hospitals are allowed and skim most profitable
procedures leaving the rest to public fund. There are unrealistic limits on number of procedures so if you need to see a specialist
in July or later prepare to pay cash or wait till January.
Municipal service companies, at least the most lucrative ones have ben sold off to foreign investment funds. A few of our cities'
municipal companies, like central heating or energy have been sold off to german municipal companies (!). State telecom has been
sold off to french state telecom (and one of the biggest and most famous fortunes made).
Local printed press is 90% german corps owned.
This is a map of state rail company railways in 1988 and 2009 . It
has been a meme here for some time. It is true. Cancelled lines are the subsidized ones workers relied on to get to job. I closely
know a thousand years old town that had rail built in 1860 by germans and liquidated right in 1990. The populace is now halved,
all young emigrated, businesses dead. There have been a huge investment in freeways and other kind of roads so every one has to
own a car to get to her job. Most cars are used 10+ year old german imports. Polish car mechanic and body shops are the best in
the world specialists of german automotive produce.
I live in a small contry town that was a home to a wealthy aristocrat. There is a beautiful baroque palace and huge park, the
complex is literally a third part of town. After the war it was nationalized, there were sporting facilities built in the park
for locals and school pupils to use. The palace was re-purposed as medical facility and office complex for state farm management.
In the nineties the whole thing was given back to aristocrat descendants – a shady bunch hiding in Argentina AFAIR. They couldn't
afford to keep it so they sold it to a nouveau – riche real estate developer. He fenced the whole thing off and refurbished into
a sort of conference complex – it is underway and still not clear what's gonna happen with it. The effect is that a third of my
town that used to be public space is fenced off and off limits now.
To conclude, there has been a tremendous development in real estate and infrastructure mostly funded by the EU that has been
a serious engine of growth. Lot of people got mortgage and financed homes or flats and there has been a whole industry created
around it. A few crown jewel companies (copper mining, petroleum and other chemistry) are state owned. But most of the sophisticated
furnishings used in real estate are german made (there is german made nat gas furnace in 95% of newly built homes) etc. Two million
young people emigrated to work mostly to UK and Ireland. I'd lived in Dublin for a year in 2003 and there were Chinese people
as salespersons in groceries and seven – elevens everywhere, now there are Poles instead.
Recommended reading about the transformation years dealing is this book:
Thanks for this. Gowan's book, Global Gamble, is also good on the details of shock therapy in the former Warsaw Pact nations.
One key problem was that shock therapy partly rested on he assumption that western European buyers would want to invest in modernizing
plant and equipment in industries they acquired, but it quickly turned out that the German and other western buyers were really
interested only in acquiring new MARKETS for their own products.
And in agriculture, they both insisted on the elimination of subsidies within the eastern nations, and proceeded to use the
area as a dumping ground for their own (often subsidized) agricultural surpluses.
All this gets back, in my minuscule view, to failure to have a decent answer to one little question:
What kind of political economy do "we, the mopes" want to live within?
And related to that, what steps can and must "we, the mopes" take to get to that hopefully wiser, more decent, more homeostatic
and sustainable, political economy?
And it likely doesn't matter for us old folks (obligatory blast at Boomers as cause of all problems and distresses, dismissing
the roots and branches of "civilization," current patterns of consumption, and millennia of Progress), given what is "baked in"
and the current distribution of weatlhandpower. But maybe "we, the mopes" can at least go down fighting. Gilets Jaunes, 150 million
Indians, all that
But without an answer to the first question, though, not much chance of "better," is there? Except maybe locally, for the tiny
set of us mopes who know how to do community and commensalism and some other "C" words
"We, the mopes" could make some important and effective changes. Enough of us, and soon enough, to avoid or mitigate the Jackpot?
Thanks very much for this. Very graphic. So, if you would, could you explain who the Law and Justice Party is, and why they
won the election, and what exactly are they doing to make themselves popular? Are they in fact enacting certain social programs
that we can read about or are they primarily relying on something else, like mainly Catholic traditionalism, for their political
power?
I remember a couple of paragraphs about Poland in my Economics 101 course, some 20 years ago. Was it in in Mankiw's book?
or Lipsey-Chrystal? I do not remember anymore. One of those vicious neoliberal propaganda mouthpieces, anyway. The textbook pitched
Poland's success story against Russia's abject failure, claiming that the former had dismantled and shut down all its inefficient
state-run companies, while the latter still kept its unprofitable heavy industry on life support.
It is unsurprising to read that Poland followed a more nuanced approach. Somehow neoclassical economists always distort
history into a cartoonish parody that confirms their models.
That was in the early 2000s. The university was then brand new and was still filling the shelves of the library. If you
looked carefully, you could still find older books, barely touched, that touted Albania as a neoliberal success story along the
same lines as Poland. Albania almost collapsed in civil war in 1998.
Klein at least provided footnotes, and sources for her claims. Which are conspicuously absent from this piece.
The World Bank, (World Development Indicators, 2006), one of Klein's sources, has a nationwide poverty rate only for 1993,
and has it at 23% at that point, or between 2.3 times and more than 4 time the most common estimate he cites under the ancient
regime.
The same source has unemployment averaging 19.9% in 1990-92, and 19% in 2000-2004.
As to the later poverty rate, Klein's source is Przemyslaw Wielgosz, then editor of the Polish edition of le Monde Diplomatique,
who gives this: " Poles living below the 'social minimum' (defined as a living standard of £130 (192,4 EUR) per person and £297
(440,4 EUR) for a three person family per month) affecting 15% of the population in 1989 to 47% in 1996, and 59% in 2003." but
whence he obtains these figures he does not say. Given that it falls in a period when unemployment was pushing 20% for a prolonged
period, and that both the EU's subsidies and outmigration to the EU as an escape valve only start to kick in in 2003, the figure
seems not wildly implausible.
The author's criticism doesn't really address Klein's central points at all, which would be that the crisis was used as
leverage to ram through otherwise politically unpalatable change, and that a great deal of the constraint forcing that was provided
by actors both undemocratic and external. He seems to be of the school that regards such niceties as beside the point, as long
as various macroaggregates eventually rose.
The contrast between what was done, and what Solidarnosc had claimed to be all about when in opposition is incredibly striking,
basically the difference between libertarian Communism and uber Dirigisme style capitalism.
Any discussion of the Polish economy that completely ignores this massive level of economic outmigration, and it's continued
rise among the young, misses a great deal. In a vibrant economy, it seems unlikely that so many educated Poles would find, for
example, lower tier jobs in Britain to be their best path forward.
Yes, your unemployment and poverty rates are lower if a significant fraction of the population works elsewhere in the EU, and
reatriates the money. Though the pattern may cause a few other problems. (while many nations like to export their unemployment,
not everybody wants to import it.)
Out-migration is a huge factor in eastern and central Europe and without it, the picture would look entirely different.
The Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania are even more affected.
The migration from Poland does not have only economic reasons. A lot of Poles migrate because they find the polish society
(especially small towns and rural) very stiffling.
A friend of mine left Poland the moment she got her MSc – literally, the same day she was on a bus to Germany. She's now a
sucessfull woman, director level at a large consultancy. Yet her father calls her "old spinster" (this is the polite version),
as she wasn't maried by 30, and she basically avoids going to Poland.
She says she could never be as sucessfull in Poland, being a woman, and not being keen on marrying. I've heard similar stories
from young Poles, not just women.
Inter-war Poland is celebrated a lot in Poland these days, conveniently ignoring the facts it was really a totalitarian
state – when Czechoslovakia was Muniched in 1938, Poles (and Hugarians) were quick to grab bits of territory right after that.
Kasia, January 10, 2019 at 5:17 pm
Poland has taken around a million Ukrainians over the past ten years so while many Poles are emigrating to Europe, they
are being replaced by Ukrainians, who are ethnically and linguistically fairly similar to Poles.
So Poland is proof that nationalist, populist policies can indeed work. Poland has had to taken rough measures with our judicial
system and media to ensure globalist forces do not undermine our successes. No one, I mean no one, in Poland mouths the words,
"diversity is our strength". Internationalist, liberal minded people who are so susceptible to globalist propaganda, are generally
the ones leaving the nation. Indigenous Western Europeans who are suffering the joys of cultural enrichment and vibrant diversity
are starting to buy property in Eastern Europe - more Hungary than Poland - but as the globalists push even more multiculturalism
and continue to impoverish indigenous Europeans, Eastern Europe will become a shining beacon on the hill free of many of the evils
of globalisation.
That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent,
often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own
failures on [everyone but themselves].
Another sign of degeneracy is that masses of people put their faith in such human garbage
and fantasize that the essentially effortless task of casting ballots every few years will
somehow, perhaps magically, improve their situations. Even more telling is the infantilism
demonstrated by the attitude that they're special and "da gweatist" and that the world should
cater to their every whim just like mommy and daddy did.
Unlike the Titanic, most collapsed regimes don't fully sink. They remain about half
under water, and half above, possibly with an orchestra still playing joyful music. And in
the most expensive top deck cabins, a pretty luxurious lifestyle can be maintained by the
elites.
A clever metaphor.
incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who
blame their own failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians")
factors.
Just so.
Dmitry Orlov's assessment rings dead true to me. The most terrifying factor is that a
doomed and demented US administration may resort to the use of its vast air and missile power
to save itself.
If I could pinpoint where the things went wrong for the
west – I would say it happened when they invented the idiocy of multiculturalism. It was
supposed to prevent socialist revolution and on the face of it, it seemed pretty clever, but
it's actually a moronic idea.
The thing that you are supposed to prevent should be the absolute worst case scenario,
replaced with more benign idea. With multiculturalism – its' actually the opposite.
The remedy is worse than the malady. Multiculturalism is going to destroy the western
civilization.
With that in mind and in the spirit of public service, I propose to replace the propaganda
slogan: Diversity is our strength (which doesn't make sense to anybody), with a more logical
and understandable propaganda slogan:
Diversity is our perversity. What Lies Behind the Malaise of the West?
Elite double income families have enjoyed great prosperity and influence and required many
desk jobs for their wives and daughters, preferably in government. They have been fine, had a
kid or two now and again and are very keen on their own self perceived virtue. Deep down they
know the two incomes they enjoy comes at the expense of working class men who might aspire to
better but are now rarely satisfied.
Further down the ladder poor men and women can rarely form bond and form stable families.
They have little money and their women would rather use Uncle Sam as a partner.
They are harassed by one do-gooding government department after another.
The same do-Gooders have no problem with poor communities being flooded with porn and
smut, nor do they seem overly concerned about rising house prices and rent. Wonder why?
There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.
MEN MUST STOP CHASING SEX AND THINK OF THEIR NEIGHBOR PARTICULARLY THEIR POOR
NEIGHBOR.
@Ace
"All if this combines to ensure that America is the go-to place for clowns everywhere.
Nothing will be able to correct this cavalcade of lunacy, chaos, depravity, and destruction
except economic catastrophe, coming soon to a neighborhood on top of you. Then to be followed
immediately by dictatorship and years of statist and racial excess until, with luck, we
reduscover what we have now uf we'd but lift a finger to protect it."
Congratulations, you are a doormat to the decline. So, what are you prepared to do about
this dire situation other than lament and complain?
"... If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. ..."
"... To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. ..."
"... I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm ..."
"... The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses ..."
It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure.
Beneath the rosy statistics of US economic growth hides the hideous fact that it is the
result of a tax holiday granted to transnational corporations to entice them to repatriate
their profits. While this hasn't helped them (their stocks are currently cratering) it has
been a disaster for the US government as well as for the economic system as whole. Tax
receipts have shrunk. The budget deficit for 2018 exceeds $779 billion.
Meanwhile, the trade wars which Trump initiated have caused the trade deficit to
increase by 17% from the year before. Plans to repatriate industrial production from
low-cost countries remain vaporous because the three key elements which China had as it
industrialized (cheap energy, cheap labor and low cost of doing business) are altogether
missing. Government debt is already beyond reasonable and its expansion is still
accelerating, with just the interest payments set to exceed half a trillion a year within a
decade.
This trajectory does not bode well for the continued existence of the United States as a
going concern. Nobody, either in the United States or beyond, has the power to
significantly alter this trajectory. Trump's thrashing about may have moved things along
faster than they otherwise would have, at least in the sense of helping convince the entire
world that the US is selfish, feckless, ultimately self-destructive and generally
unreliable as a partner. In the end it won't matter who was president of the US -- it never
has. Among those the US president has succeeded in hurting most are his European allies.
His attacks on Russian energy exports to Europe, on European car manufacturers and on
Europe's trade with Iran have caused a fair amount of damage, both political and economic,
without compensating for it with any perceived or actual benefits.
Meanwhile, as the globalist world order, which much of Europe's population appears ready
to declare a failure, begins to unravel, the European Union is rapidly becoming
ungovernable, with established political parties unable to form coalitions with
ever-more-numerous populist upstarts. It is too early to say that the EU has already failed
altogether, but it already seems safe to predict that within a decade it will no longer
remain as a serious international factor.
Although the disastrous quality and the ruinous mistakes of Europe's own leadership
deserve a lot of the blame, some of it should rest with the erratic, destructive behavior
of their transoceanic Big Brother. The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional
affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes
for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get
chased out from much of the world.
The departure from Syria is inevitable whether Trump, under relentless pressure from his
bipartisan warmongers, backtracks on this commitment or not. Now that Syria has been armed
with Russia's up-to-date air defense weapons the US no longer maintains air superiority
there, and without air superiority the US military is unable to do anything. Afghanistan is
next; there, it seems outlandish to think that the Washingtonians will be able to achieve
any sort of reasonable accommodation with the Taliban.
Their departure will spell the end of Kabul as a center of corruption where foreigners
steal humanitarian aid and other resources. Somewhere along the way the remaining US troops
will also be pulled out of Iraq, where the parliament, angered by Trump's impromptu visit
to a US base, recently voted to expel them. And that will put paid to the entire US
adventure in the Middle East since 9/11: $4,704,439,588,308 has been squandered, to be
precise , or $14,444 for every man, woman and child in the US.
The biggest winners in all of this are, obviously, the people of the entire region,
because they will no longer be subjected to indiscriminate US harassment and bombardment,
followed by Russia, China and Iran, with Russia solidifying its position as the ultimate
arbiter of international security arrangements thanks to its unmatched military
capabilities and demonstrated knowhow for coercion to peace. Syria's fate will be decided
by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US not even invited to the talks. Afghanistan will
fall into the sphere of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the biggest losers will
be former US regional allies, first and foremost Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia.
My question for you is this: where would you place the US (or the Empire) on your 5 stages
of decline and do you believe that the US (or the Empire) can reverse that trend?
Here is Dmitry's reply:
Collapse, at each stage, is a historical process that takes time to run its course as the
system adapts to changing circumstances, compensates for its weaknesses and finds ways to
continue functioning at some level. But what changes rather suddenly is faith or, to put it
in more businesslike terms, sentiment. A large segment of the population or an entire
political class within a country or the entire world can function based on a certain set of
assumptions for much longer than the situation warrants but then over a very short period of
time switch to a different set of assumptions. All that sustains the status quo beyond that
point is institutional inertia. It imposes limits on how fast systems can change without
collapsing entirely. Beyond that point, people will tolerate the older practices only until
replacements for them can be found.
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.
Internationally, the major change in sentiment in the world has to do with the role of the
US dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and the Yen -- the other two reserve currencies
of the three-legged globalist central banker stool). The world is transitioning to the use of
local currencies, currency swaps and commodities markets backed by gold. The catalyst for
this change of sentiment was provided by the US administration itself which sawed through its
own perch by its use of unilateral sanctions. By using its control over dollar-based
transactions to block international transactions it doesn't happen to like it forced other
countries to start looking for alternatives. Now a growing list of countries sees throwing
off the shackles of the US dollar as a strategic goal. Russia and China use the ruble and the
yuan for their expanding trade; Iran sells oil to India for rupees. Saudi Arabia has started
to accept the yuan for its oil.
This change has many knock-on effects. If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct
international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in
reserve. Consequently, there is no longer a need to buy up large quantities of US
Treasury notes. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to run large trade surpluses with the US,
essentially conducting trade at a loss. Further, the attractiveness of the US as an export
market drops and the cost of imports to the US rises, thereby driving up cost inflation. A
vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to
finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the
US government and national bankruptcy then follow.
The US may still look mighty, but its dire fiscal predicament coupled with its denial of
the inevitability of bankruptcy, makes it into something of a Blanche DuBois from the
Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire." She was "always dependent on the kindness
of strangers" but was tragically unable to tell the difference between kindness and desire.
In this case, the desire is for national advantage and security, and to minimize risk by
getting rid of an unreliable trading partner.
How quickly or slowly this comes to pass is difficult to guess at and impossible to
calculate. It is possible to think of the financial system in terms of a physical analogue,
with masses of funds traveling at some velocity having a certain inertia (p = mv) and with
forces acting on that mass to accelerate it along a different trajectory (F = ma). It is also
possible to think of it in terms of hordes of stampeding animals who can change course
abruptly when panicked. The recent abrupt moves in the financial markets, where trillions of
dollars of notional, purely speculative value have been wiped out within weeks, are more in
line with the latter model.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.
Within the US there is really no other alternative than the market. There are a few rustic
enclaves, mostly religious communities, that can feed themselves, but that's a rarity. For
everyone else there is no choice but to be a consumer. Consumers who are broke are called
"bums," but they are still consumers. To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a
commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in
their possession. Such a culture can die by becoming irrelevant (when everyone is dead
broke) but by then most of the carriers of this culture are likely to be dead too.
Alternatively, it can be replaced by a more humane culture that isn't entirely based on the
cult of Mammon -- perhaps, dare I think, through a return to a pre-Protestant, pre-Catholic
Christian ethic that values people's souls above objects of value?
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is
lost.
All is very murky at the moment, but I would venture to guess that most people in the
US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions
to pay much attention to the political realm . Of the ones they do pay attention, a fair
number of them seem clued in to the fact that the US is not a democracy at all but an
elites-only sandbox in which transnational corporate and oligarchic interests build and knock
down each others' sandcastles.
The extreme political polarization, where two virtually identical pro-capitalist, pro-war
parties pretend to wage battle by virtue-signaling may be a symptom of the extremely decrepit
state of the entire political arrangement: people are made to watch the billowing smoke and
to listen to the deafening noise in the hopes that they won't notice that the wheels are no
longer turning.
The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House,
the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center
stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses , such as the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis
XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European
women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of
their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilettes Jaunes movement (just
as an example) are definitely not.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.
I have been saying for some years now that within the US social collapse has largely run
its course, although whether people actually believe that is an entire matter entirely.
Defining "your people" is rather difficult. The symbols are still there -- the flag, the
Statue of Liberty and a predilection for iced drinks and heaping plates of greasy fried foods
-- but the melting pot seems to have suffered a meltdown and melted all the way to China. At
present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home, and a
fair share of the rest speak dialects of English that are not mutually intelligible with the
standard North American English dialect of broadcast television and university lecturers.
Throughout its history as a British colony and as a nation the US has been dominated by
the Anglo ethnos. The designation "ethnos" is not an ethnic label. It is not strictly based
on genealogy, language, culture, habitat, form of government or any other single factor or
group of factors. These may all be important to one extent or another, but the viability of
an ethnos is based solely on its cohesion and the mutual inclusivity and common purpose of
its members. The Anglo ethnos reached its zenith in the wake of World War II, during which
many social groups were intermixed in the military and their more intelligent members.
Fantastic potential was unleashed when privilege -- the curse of the Anglo ethnos since
its inception -- was temporarily replaced with merit and the more talented demobilized men,
of whatever extraction, were given a chance at education and social advancement by the GI
Bill. Speaking a new sort of American English based on the Ohio dialect as a Lingua Franca,
these Yanks -- male, racist, sexist and chauvinistic and, at least in their own minds,
victorious -- were ready to remake the entire world in their own image.
They proceeded to flood the entire world with oil (US oil production was in full flush
then) and with machines that burned it. Such passionate acts of ethnogenesis are rare but not
unusual: the Romans who conquered the entire Mediterranean basin, the barbarians who then
sacked Rome, the Mongols who later conquered most of Eurasia and the Germans who for a very
brief moment possessed an outsized Lebensraum are other examples.
And now it is time to ask: what remains of this proud conquering Anglo ethnos today? We
hear shrill feminist cries about "toxic masculinity" and minorities of every stripe railing
against "whitesplaining" and in response we hear a few whimpers but mostly silence. Those
proud, conquering, virile Yanks who met and fraternized with the Red Army at the River Elbe
on April 25, 1945 -- where are they? Haven't they devolved into a sad little subethnos of
effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written
permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?
Will the Anglo ethnos persist as a relict, similar to how the English have managed to hold
onto their royals (who are technically no longer even aristocrats since they now practice
exogamy with commoners)? Or will it get wiped out in a wave of depression, mental illness and
opiate abuse, its glorious history of rapine, plunder and genocide erased and the statues of
its war heros/criminals knocked down? Only time will tell.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.
The term "culture" means many things to many people, but it is more productive to observe
cultures than to argue about them. Cultures are expressed through people's stereotypical
behaviors that are readily observable in public. These are not the negative stereotypes often
used to identify and reject outsiders but the positive stereotypes -- cultural standards of
behavior, really -- that serve as requirements for social adequacy and inclusion. We can
readily assess the viability of a culture by observing the stereotypical behaviors of its
members.
It is possible to quote statistics or to provide anecdotal evidence to assess the state
and the viability of a culture, but your own eyes and other senses can provide all the
evidence you need to make that determination for yourself and to decide how much faith to put
in "the goodness of humanity" that is evident in the people around you.
Dmity concluded his reply by summarizing his view like this:
Cultural and social collapse are very far along. Financial collapse is waiting for a
trigger. Commercial collapse will happen in stages some of which -- food deserts, for
instance -- have already happened in many places. Political collapse will only become visible
once the political class gives up. It's not as simple as saying which stage we are at. They
are all happening in parallel, to one extent or another.
My own (totally subjective) opinion is that the US has already reached stages 1 through 4,
and that there are signs that stage 5 has begun; mainly in big cities as US small towns and
rural areas (Trump's power base
Don't expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse
In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only
further weakens the US. What is so telling is that the Democrats are still stuck with their
same clueless, incompetent and infinitely arrogant leadership, in spite of the fact that
everybody knows that the Democratic Party is in deep crisis and that new faces are desperately
needed. But no, they are still completely stuck in their old ways and the same gang of
gerontocrats continues to rule the party apparatus.
That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent,
often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own
failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors. Again, think of the
Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the Apartheid regime in South Africa under F. W. de Klerk, or the
Kerensky regime in 1917 Russia.
As for the Republicans, they are basically a subsidiary of the Israeli Likud Party. Just
take a look at the long list of losers the Likud produced at home, and you will get a sense of
what they can do in its US colony.
Eventually the US will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country
with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to
it's territory. But that can only happen after a real regime change (as opposed to a change in
Presidential Administration) which, itself, is only going to happen after an "E2 catastrophe"
collapse.
The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or
entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to
either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the
world.
Well, it's O.K. to have online therapy with that brief dopamine rush every now and then.
Does help, I guess.
But, looks like, in order to keep having the "fix" the blathering is becoming ludicrous.
Starting to feel desperate.
Like: " unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes
for Washington .".
What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21
with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Absolutely remarkable, again, but it is reflective of the brain dead sheeple currently doing any reading at all of books by
the rabid neo cons. I hesitate to guess what some extreme alarm sounding diatribe by Wolfowitz or the current "main man,"
max boot would register. Maybe Romney can lead us out of the wilderness (sarc)>
I know that this is Amazon and when it comes to the standards of what passes as accurate reporting and journalistic
standards,"wapo and bezos leads the pack into the sewer.
REPLY
AGREE/DISAGREE/ETC.
THIS COMMENTER
@El Dato
an American puppet inasmuch as he had Americans masterminding his political PR campaigns) start
giving ground that the situation becomes fluid.
Albright (and Nuland) had no idea what Russia as a normal nation state could be expected to put up with, because all they
had to go on was Yelstyn who was drunk most days. So the US was slowly but surely drawn into the power vacuum in the
territories the USSR withdrew from and Albright thought that was the way things were going to continue to be. The domestic
situation in America was also one where the elite had things their own way to an unsustainable extent. What Albright does
not like is the facts of life.
The whole discussion is so asinine.
Facism is not a form of government that can just be inserted or deleted.
It is a very specific reaction to the communist takeover of a nation.
At that point, other forms of government are no longer viable: totalitarianism of one kind of another becomes an absolute
necessity to rule.
We see western governments coming to this point-the moral law is lost, corruption reigns, and only pure force has currency.
So at this point you only have one of two choices, there simply are no alternatives:
communism or facism.
And it is quite clear that facism is a more reasonable and less murderous choice.
for as long as neo con history is a subject for study (she has plenty of competition for that recognition).
Most "history" taught in the US (and combined West) is one or another iteration (sometimes extreme, sometimes less so) of
US exceptionalism. Even American so called "realism" is built around exceptionalism. American military doctrines are
written primarily on exceptionalism basis. Results are easily observable.
"... To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what they claimed to be humanitarian principles. ..."
"... More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe. ..."
"... Hotel California ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East cauldron, using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has thereby gone up exponentially. ..."
"... Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S. responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf, the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War. ..."
"... All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. ..."
Never before has any presidential administration been as all over the place in terms of
national security and foreign policy as is that of Donald J. Trump. Indeed, one might well
argue that there is no overriding policy at all in terms of a rational doctrine arrived at
through risk versus gain analysis of developing international situations. Instead, there has
been a pattern of emotional reactions fueled by media disinformation supplemented by "gut
feelings" about a series of ultimately bilateral relationships that frequently have little or
nothing to do with American national interests.
This is not to suggest that the "gut feelings" are always wrong. Established wisdom in
Washington has long reflected the view that the United States must exercise leadership in
establishing and maintaining the neoliberal consensus that gained currency after the
devastation of the Second World War. Elections, free trade and a free media were to be the
benchmarks of the New World Order but they also came packaged with U.S. hegemony to confront
those who resisted the development. And it turned out that those "benefits" were frequently
difficult to achieve as elections sometimes produced bad results while trade agreements and an
uncontrolled media often worked against broader U.S. objectives. All too often the United
States found itself going to war against nations that it disapproves of for reasons unrelated
to any actual interests, routinely claiming inaccurately that dissident regimes were both
"threatening" and disruptive of the universal values that Washington claimed to be
promoting.
To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the
Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what
they claimed to be humanitarian principles. Or Obama, who demanded regime change in Damascus
and was prepared to launch a large-scale attack on Syria before he realized that there was no
public support for such a move and backed down.
More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy
through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major
political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national
security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran
is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and
Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of
bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to
fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe.
But hope springs eternal, even in 2019. There have recently been some encouraging signs that
change is in the air. Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers
out of Syria and half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have
slipped somewhat and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back. That Trump may have
chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he succeeds in doing so, is
certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the
line in the Eagles' song Hotel California , "you can check out any time you want, but
you can never leave."
There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3 rd , Trump
offhandedly commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated
shock waves through the neoconnish Washington Post 's
coverage of the remarks. To be sure, other Administration officials have continued to send
different signals, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisting that the U.S. will stay in
Syria as long as Iran remains there.
Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection
with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably
acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East
cauldron,
using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in
Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has
thereby gone up exponentially.
To be sure, there are
some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is essentially fraudulent. They
cite the unrelenting hostility coming out of the White House regarding Iran, which is vilified
on a nearly daily basis for its alleged threats not only to the Middle East region but also to
Western Europe and the United States. That the Administration's fulminations have little basis
in reality is beside the point as it would seem that Trump, Pompeo, John Bolton and the now
departed Nikki Haley all believe that the case for disarming Iran and bringing about regime
change has been made effectively. Indeed, warfare directed against the Iranian economy has
already begun by virtue of a punitive series of targeted sanctions with much more to come when
a complete ban on oil exports kicks in in May.
Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise
control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil
exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S.
responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf,
the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the
possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian
Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of
Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Much of what happens in the Middle East will ultimately depend on the extent to which
America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what is
going on in the region. Trump, uncharacteristically, seems to be standing firm, telling
a journalist that concerns about the Syria pullout are misplaced because "We give Israel
$4.5 billion a year. And we give them, frankly, a lot more money than that, if you look at the
books -- a lot more money than that. And they've been doing a very good job for themselves."
Likewise, the much more important relationship, with Russia, will depend on the ability to
ignore congressional hostility towards the Kremlin as well as the media bias that continues to
promote Russiagate as a national security threat.
There is also North Korea, which has now indicated clearly that it is willing to talk to the
U.S. but will revert to its nuclear development program unless sanctions are removed. And
anyone for Latin America? Bolton
has dubbed Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as a "troika of tyranny," though fortunately
suggestions that Venezuela might be invaded by the U.S. to restore order appear to have
faded.
If one reads the neocon press one cannot help but notice that China is the anointed over the
horizon threat, but it is also a major trading partner and the drive to somehow renegotiate the
terms whereby the two nations are linked economically will be complicated. Care must be taken
lest what now appears to be an aggravated sense of great power competition becomes something
more dangerous. The detention of Weng Manzhou in Canada one month ago together with the
implication that the United States can and will enforce U.S. imposed sanctions globally could
easily develop into a major problem with China as well as with others, including some NATO
allies. The arrest has already disappeared from the media but several Canadians have been
detained by Beijing and the U.S. government has warned American
businessmen about traveling to China at the present time.
All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in
2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his
campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless
wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. There
is admittedly a long way to go and it is very much a work in progress, but Trump actually has
the ability to overrule the hawks in his administration and change the entire conversation
about America's place in the world.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]
.
Oh for Gawds sake.
The reason the public cant figure out what the hell is up with Trump and his first pulling
out of Syria forthwith and then back pedaling.
Is because no one will tell them about Bolton/Adelson and Bolton being in Israel yesterday
telling Netanyahu the US will stay in Syria and wont tell them about the Kushner Jewish cabal
deal with Saudi prince MBS.
And wont tell them about the neo General toddies who use war like a carpenter uses a hammer
just cause that's all they know until they retire and get cushy jobs with the weapons
industry.
Trump has run out of excuses for his many policy contradictions, even his supporters
aren't buying them any more. A few are hanging in for the Wall, which they wont get
either.
Trump is being taken down by the Dems and their liberal Jewish media and at the same time
being taken down by his own installed Zionist Jews and their errand boy Bolton who every time
Trump makes an announcement rushes out to contradict him.
Trump has one chance. There is no black mailable material on Trump that hasn't already
come out since the NY AG is already looking into money laundering in Trumps businesses.
So Trump needs to blow every thing up .Fire Bolton, fire his son on law, fire all the zios
and neos -- totally clean house and shock the shit out of everyone by bringing in some
familiar names like realist Chas Freeman for the ME, Webb for Defense, etc that will have the
zios, neos, deep state, the establishment and both parties pissing in their special interest
bought and paid for pants.
The Myth of the Russian Crime Boss, Semion Mogilevich, He's Israeli by Larry Johnson
(excerpts)
'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the
Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is
described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters. Only
one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual evidence
and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of Israel. Not a
Russian.
One of the best recent examples of building the Mogilevich myth is Craig Unger's 2017 article
in the New Republic, Trump's Russian Laundromat. Unger wrote:
In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in
New York City. . . . he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a
gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower. . .
.
The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big
check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who
investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along
with Bogatin. . . .
In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to
taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the
country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased
them to "launder money, to shelter and hide assets." A Senate investigation into organized
crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His
family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with
none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the "boss of bosses" of the Russian
mafia. At the time, Mogilevich -- feared even by his fellow gangsters as "the most powerful
mobster in the world" -- was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal
syndicate into America.
I have spent the last twenty years of my life working on money laundering cases and carrying
out international financial investigations. I had never heard of Semion Mogilevich. Unger's
claim piqued my interest. So I started digging.
I do not know if Semion is a genuine mobster. He certainly is portrayed that way in this very
flawed FBI report. And that report has become ground truth for a host of writers who
mindlessly repeat the fantastical claims and allegations without insisting on corroboration.
Going back to my discussion about the busted gangster summit in Prague in May of 1995, I keep
wondering if Mogilevich is actually an FBI asset or working for one of our friends, such as
Israel. For a guy who is supposedly engaged in a broad swath of illegal activities that
encompasses the gamut of bad behavior, Semion has enjoyed a relatively peaceful life. If he
actually had such a record I would expect him to face a mountain of extradition requests. But
that is not the case.
The final issue of relevance concerns Semion's ethnicity and citizenship status. He is not a
Russian. Never has been. He is Ukrainian and a citizen of Israel. So why are media types so
eager to claim Semion as proof that Donald Trump is under the thumb of the Russian mob? It
does not compute."
Remember Helsinki? And then that creepy presser back home in Exceptionalia days later where,
with Mr. Bolton dropping moustache dandruff down the President's collar, the talk of peace
was walked back, and the lights literally went out?
So I'm afraid that the real answer to Dr. Giraldi's well put, real question is that in
2019 Donald J. Trump will lack both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his
campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless
wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia.
I hope I'm wrong, but this is nothing new and was foreseen by another of this website's
best columnists:
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war
abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his
election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
Linh Dinh, as published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016 ("Orlando Shooting Means Trump
For President")
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the
necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises "
Gumption? He has ordered things, and his orders are disregarded. Tweeting his disregarded
orders is gumption. Any thoughts on what more than gumption is needed?
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/2996129/russen-wij-leveren-goedkoper-gas-dan-vs
USA ambassador in the Netherlands and the Russian ambassador in a row about which country is
going to sell us gas.
The Russian gas is cheaper.
Less dangerous too, maybe, liquid gas tankers are great objects for terrorist attacks.
As long as countries compete with each other about gas sales war does not seem imminent to
me.
one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles'
song Hotel California, "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."
If Giraldi is thinking Trump is going to show some kind of intelligence, or moral sense, or
simply backbone against his numerous enemies – then he is indulging in a fruitless and
foolish daydream. Get real. Remember who you are dealing with.
Why Bolton hasn't been fired yet is a mystery. It's as if his real job is Presedential Minder
and his appointment to that position was made by an unknown party. It'll be interesting to
see what happens when Trump does try to fire him. It might even reveal who has the real power
in this country.
@Mike G
Actually AIPAC, Adelson, Kushner, and other assorted khazarian mafia slime are his boss.
Chumps promises made are only kept if they're in line with AIPAC and HELL Aviv
Trump is just another puppet for the moneyed powers of America and the western world. He is
there to give the restless "deplorable's" the impression they have someone who is finally
speaking for them and actually cares for them. The minute Trump steps to far off the
reservation he is hauled back in. If he manages to get out of lasso range, other more deadly
and final measures will be instituted.
If you have any doubt's about what I say, you can ask Sen. Paul Wellstone. Oh wait, no you
can't, He's dead.
"Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers out of Syria and
half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have slipped somewhat
and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back."
Didn't he also declare that he wants better relations with Russia? Yet he sees determined
to take the world back to the darkest, most dangerous days of the cold war. So I guess we
can't put any faith in the things he "declares."
"That Trump may have chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he
succeeds in doing so, is certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure
will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California, "you can check out any
time you want, but you can never leave."
According to his pre-election rhetoric (e.g. tweets from 2013), he broke with the
"interventionist model" a long time ago; so why did he expand the illegal, immoral and
unconstitutional U.S. military footprint in Syria in the first place? Of course he can leave
Syria whenever he "wants" to.
"There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3rd, Trump offhandedly
commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated shock waves
through the neoconnish Washington Post's coverage of the remarks."
The problem is, as we see, nothing that he says or does can be taken at face value. Among
other things, he's an ignorant, arrogant, stupid, shallow, incurious, feckless, malignantly
narcissistic, completely morally bankrupt pathological liar – whose strings are
apparently being pulled by a coterie of jewish-supremacist madmen. This is why I variously
refer to him as "teflon-don-the-con-man", "orange clown", "perfidious presidential poseur";
etc.
"To be sure, there are some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is
essentially fraudulent."
Why wouldn't they when it's clear that his whole presidential campaign was obviously a
fraud?
"All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether
in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his
campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless
wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia."
Orange clown having "vision and necessary gumption"? Seriously? He's an unrepentant
mass-murdering psychopath who "hears voices" and takes action. He's "Son of Sam" or the
Zodiac killer in a suit and tie. He's leading us to planetary extinction, IMO.
The Zionist have neutered Trump. He'll keep floundering claiming he gonna do something but
its clear Sheldon Adelson's boy Bolton is running the country and bringing in more zio jews
to plan war, hot or cold, for Iran
Trump is finished.
John Bolton, national security advisor, is tapping Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD) for a key post.
FDD President Mark Dubowitz confirmed the hire on Twitter late Monday: "Couldn't think
of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum
pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." The White House has not yet publicly
commented.
The story was first reported in Jewish Insider . Goldberg has locked his previously-public
Twitter page, following the course taken by other NSC hires, such as Fred Fleitz (who has
since departed) and Anthony Ruggiero, formerly of FDD, who swiftly locked their Twitter pages
upon ascension to the White House.
What the U.S. has is a Zionist foreign policy driven by Zionist dual citizens who have as
their number one agenda the goals of the Zionist satanic NWO! Zionists control every facet of
the U.S. government and the so called congress might just as well be called the lower house
of the Knesset as it grovels to kiss the hand that smites them continually in some type of
Stockholm syndrome!
On 911 the Zionist controlled deep state and Israel destroyed the WTC and murdered some
3000 Americans and they got away with it and every American who has the ability to think for
themselves knows that Israel and the deep state did 911! The Zionists not only got away with
it but forced America into 17 years and counting of war and war crimes in the Mideast in
support of the Zionist satanic goal of their NWO and in the process murdered untold millions
of innocent civilians , men and women and children all for their Zionist masters who rule
America!
America is under the control of the Satanist Zionists who have turned America into a
nation that invades and bombs the hell out of countries and commits war crimes of the worst
king and all this under the command of Zionist controlled U.S. government!
I do not know this government that is in control of America it is a foreign to me as if it
came from Mars, and Trump is just another puppet in a long line of puppets going back to JFK
, who was the last patriot POTUS and was shot in full view of America by the same ones who
rule America today!
Zionists are going to destroy America , just as a parasite destroys its host!
As long as Bolton and Pompeo are still in his cabinet, Trump has zero chance of pulling out
of Syria. He needs to grow a pair and fire both of those clowns. He's gone this far, firing
Haley, Kelly and Mattis, now he needs to finish the job so he can finally run the
non-interventionist foreign policy that he promised his voters on the campaign trail.
Rod Rosenstein also needs to be fired, and Pence needs to be iced.
The first step to showing us he's serious is to replace John Bolton with Tulsi
Gabbard.
Zionists control every facet of the U.S. government and every POTUS since JFK who they could
not control so they shot him in front of America to show the people who was really in charge!
911 was done by the zionists and the zionist controlled deep state and every thinking
American knows that the zionists did 911 and used this false flag to push America into
illegal uncontitutional wars in the mideast for 17 years and counting all for the zionist
goal of a zionist satanic NWO!
Trump is just another zionist puppet in a long line of zionist puppets and congress is the
lower house of the knesset and the zionists are going to destroy America just as a parasite
destroys its host.
My idea is that quite a few of the commenters here do not understand that no dictator
anywhere ever had absolute power.
Not Stalin, not Atatürk, not Hitler.
This is not to suggest Trump is a dictator, but to make clear that a USA president does not
have absolute power.
Not even FDR had absolute power, as the diaries of Harold L Ickes make abundantly clear.
In my opinion Kennedy underestimated the forces against him.
Trump, again in my opinion, does not want suicide, not politically, not bodyly.
As long as he can handle fool Bolton, when he was at the UN staff had great difficulty not to
laugh about his stupidities, why send the man away, escalate the conflict, and maybe has to
accept a far more dangerous opponent ?
FDR's Bolton in my opinion was Henry L Stimson.
FDR fooled him with regard to the negotiations with Japan.
The saying is 'keep your enemies close', this was what all three dictators mentioned above
did.
Trump won the elections, but he still has to annihilate Deep State.
Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an active
participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around bully-and-exhibition-queen
fashion spouting off like an adolescent.
It seems that Trump is trying, that at least is a small good. The next thing he is needing
to do is to dismiss Walrus Bolton, perhaps decapitation would be a richly deserved fate?
If you were to be offered the job, would you take it? Most of readers here who are sane
would love to see you have a stronger influence, but I am supposing it is never to be.
Trump may be POTUS but he is just one man but he is continually beating on the door and
moving the Overton window. Who was the last President – as President – who made
these statements about getting out of these various 'wars' we are in. Generals and congress
critters are now having to produce proof, arguments and RESULTS on why we should stay. I have
seen very little of that before Trump. He certainly has a growing population behind this
direction.
Obviously not much has moved in this direction, but I feel confident he will continue to
batter this door and eventually it will fall. The sooner the better.
@jacques
sheete "Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an
active participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around
bully-and-exhibition-queen fashion spouting off like an adolescent.
@chris
Regarding my use of the hit Eagles song "Hotel California" lyrics, as metaphor for ZUS war
policy in Syria, Brother Chris noted & wrote, "PS BTW: awesome, Chuck for getting
honorable mention in Phil's column via your Hotel California comment! ," and Brother Jacques
Sheete also encouraged, said, "Go, Chuck!"
First off, I thank Phil Giraldi for using the noun "wit" to describe me, instead of the
alternative "nitwit," which doubtless several U.R. commenters would have preferred.
One talent where Donald Trump is either equal to, or > 1930's FDR
on-the-campaign-stump, is his being expert at the Zio art of "baiting" voters with vows to
avoid war, & then executing a "switch."
There is nothing that exhausts serious American voters confidence more than ambitious
politicians' campaign 'bait & switch" tactics.
Tonight, it appears President Trump shall address the "Homeland" from Oval Office.
Doubtless, he'll try to reestablish communication with his adoring voter base, silence
Democrats, and in the name of a decades-long (Soros?) engineered & foreseeable "National
Security Emergency," determine to build his border wall at all taxpayer cost, including
permanency of a ltd. government "shut down."
What American TV viewers shall not learn about is the president's virulent pro-Greater
Israel foreign policy, and Trump's silent construction of an impenetrable WALL, consisting of
freak war building block-personages, namely, Steve Mnuchin, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo as a
united cornerstone.
(Note: Absent in our Zio Corporate Media's vast conspiracy spin-machine is a voice which
demands, "Tear down the F.P. wall!"
Regrettably, above, 'Merkins can not tear down that peace-prohibitive wall.
Thanks Phil Giraldi, Chris, and Jacques. Er , Welcome to Hotel California Discomfort Inns,
D.C./Tel Aviv!
@jilles
dykstra Trump is under Zionist control and the Zionist bankers who hold the paper on all
of his properties and so even if he wanted to, can not and will not go against the Zionist
control of the U.S. government.
America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what
is going on in the region.]
This is very laughable and only the propagandists make it.
Only the propagandists are making fake news to confuse the ignorant and illiterate
people.
Trump is a war monger with different style, like criminal Obama had different style from mass
murderers like Clinton family and the Zionist criminals in the different American regimes,
especially since 911 staged as false flag operation by USG and Zionist Neocons to implement
the plan they had against the Muslims and the region for hegemony and 'greater Israel'.
All evidence since 9/11 and before that proves that these wars are designed and carried
out by the criminal and terrorist USG, its 'intellectuals', CIA, FBI and the rest of
criminals in the American regime.
The 'nationalist' propagandists do not refer to 9/11 as FALSE FLAG OPERATION to protect the
handas of the criminal and terrorists in American regimes to fool the public
Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia member,
is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American
exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of
the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them.
Saudi Arabia and its terrorists army is US proxy army which Saudi Arabia follishly is
fuding because USG terrorist state WANTS ITS COLONY TO DO THAT. Saudi Arabia cannot exist if
does not OBEY THE ODER. The terrorist American regime is using the wealth of the Saudis
(muslims) to kill and rob muslims. The dumb MBS must know that after they fund destruction of
other states, then it would be their turn, is mbs that stupid? Then let them go down the
tube. The west is milking Saudi Arabia for its geopolitical interest, staging false flag
operation, to bring its dumb population on board. Is This so difficult to understand? USG has
killed millions, millions, millions of people around the world. Every day is a new 'enemy',
in Asia, Afria, even Europe. They construct enemy with the help of the criminal and fake
media.
Now, people of the region know more than ever than NO one can trust US and their
propagandists.
People of the region cannot trust the lies coming from the mouth of a Jewish Mafia member.
They are not going to be fooled like American ignorant people who have been molded to be
one.
The people of the region know that 'troop out of Syria' is NOTHING BUT A LIE. Because they
see the activities of the criminal American and their mass murderer 'soldiers' and 'advisors'
all around them.
The criminal US and jewish neocons' plan in Syria did not go according to plan. The mass
murderer Obama DID EVERYTHING to implement accordingly, but were not successful due to
sacrifices of Syrian people and army, Hizbullah and Iran. Russia a pro Zionist entity entered
later in 2015 to fill 'a void' for its own interest and jewish mafia interest that Putin,
like trump, is a member of.
Now, the jewish mafia stooge at the WH is changing the plan, but has NOT ABANDONED it. Now,
the plan is to focus on Iraq as a base to weaken Iran more than ever.
To do that Trump is playing with Iraqi government, is trying to weaken its government to
make it MORE dependent on Washington to follow orders with the help of TRAITOR KURDS and
Turkey.
All evidence show that Trump has smuggled the terrorist MEK members, where have no
influence in Iran, into Iraq to BE USED, ALONG WITH TRAITOR KURDS, for terrorist plot against
Iranian people to put pressure on Iranian government.
But Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim said:
"These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo," imposed by the US is
"unilateral, not international," and Iraq is "not obliged [to follow] them."
So, the plan is going to be continued by Trump, the war monger, but the propagandists tell
you that IT IS THE 'DEEP STATE' DOES NOT ALLOW PEACE LOVING IDIOT TO DO ITS WORK.
They are lying to you. Trump is as criminal as the former American regimes.
the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted
without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House.
accepted as bogus, but the fraud is nevertheless enforced across the zio-fiefdom.
Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the
results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats
to Eastern Europe.
Not to split hairs, but the fake news of 'Russian collusion' in the election, is and
always has been a laughable farce. Just as any threats to Eastern Europe by Putin's Russia is
a preposterous absurdity.
The real reasons for the hostility towards Russia is Russia's unwillingness to go along
with ((the unilateral power's)) agenda.
Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in Syria.
So all their hysterical lies notwithstanding, our media and politicians are all hostile to
Russia for Putin's intransigence in Syria. Not for 'hacking our democracy' or arresting Pussy
Riot, or menacing Latvia or Poland. These are just more media turds for forced public
consumption.
@mike k To
be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array
of forces facing Trump. The best intelligence he could show is to survive, and the most I
would hope for is for him to bring the whole mess crashing down on his way out.
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the
necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign
policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are
actually important like Russia."
I would put it differently and, I daresay, with more precision:
"If pigs had wings, AND if they were slender enough to enable the take-off, AND their
flatulence did not create an outsize Coandă effect in flight, AND if and only if they
had a strong desire to fly, then they might fly just as likely as Trump might do what Mr.
Giraldi hopes he would."
One characteristic of a ZUS president is to capitalize on both the engineered successes
and failures of their predecessors.
Hence, tonight, 'Merkins will hear President Trump speak accurately about how illegal
immigration constitutes a present "National Emergency" threat; a western crisis which was
promoted & established by cohort billionaire international Jew "Open Borders" engineers,
& who Trump might chastise later on, but not by name.
Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia
member, is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American
exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of
the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them
.
Alas not obvious to me.
If you're fooling me, I do not know, what I do know is that a lot of assertions is not
proof.
@ChuckOrloski
Trump, who I voted for , has been a disappointment and I have given up all hope for him, and
with his being surrounded by Zionists, it is going to take a grass roots awakening of the
American people to the Zionist control of the government and that I think will not happen.
Soros , when 14 years old in Budapest Hungary lived with the Nazi commander who was
charged with rounding up jews and Soros went out with the Nazis and pointed out where the
jews lived and thus helped betray and send these jews to the death camps, this is true, and
anyone can check this out, and not a peep out of the Zionists, they betrayed their own!
@Rurik
Knowingly, Rurik said: "Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in
Syria."
Above, I totally agree, Brother Rurik.
Have not done a search/study, but I would wager Russian representatives stood tall &
mighty at past globalist assemblies, for example, Davos.
Fyi, I still think Putin and Xi are to some extent acceptable to Globalist control
designs, but the ZUS & western European Zionist zealots insist that an Israeli personage
must sit at the right-hand of the coming (globalist) Mes$iah.
One rather purposely forgotten thing, Rurik? At Davos, January 2017, populist-President
Trump's business pal, Anthony Scaramucci, delivered a curious address.
"Mooch" assured the Davos assembly that Donald Trump is "the globalists last good chance
for success."
Why? Well , if Putin's and the very powerful Xi's rule happens to weaken to international
Jewry's applied internal & external financial pressure, the poor world must (regrettably)
suck-it-up and, in reverse, & sing together the old song lyric, "Jesus will not be just
right with me."
Thanks, Brother Rurik! And no doubt, P.G. reads the comments to his articles, & he may
deploy them
@renfro Very
blackmailable sadly.
Mueller has not even started,contrary to popular opinion.
Not sure what Trump won't do when his kids and biz are under threat of RICO charges and
confiscation.
Mueller will flip Alexander Slater the conduit for billions of Russian(Jewish)mafia money
laundered thru' the Trump organization.Cohen already flipped on Slater.
Mueller is involved in parallel construction of what the deep state organs already gave
him.
He isn't looking for a crime,he already knows exactly what they are,he is looking for
corroboration.
Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.
Trump proposes some thing in regards to foreign policy and the globalizer Deep State
ghouls in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire throw Trumpy some 97 mph chin
music and Trumpy steps in the bucket out of fear of getting beaned in the coconut.
The Israel Firist globalizer goons in the GOP such as John Bolton and Lindsey Graham and
Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton do the bidding of the government of Israel and they do the bidding
of wealthy Jew billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson. Jared Kushner, the money-grubbing Jewish
real estate shyster, is also telling Trump to put the interests of Israel ahead of the
interests of the United States.
Trump is doing good work on China, but he is not going far enough. The treasonous rat
whores in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the United States sold out the sovereignty and
security of the United States by allowing China to use cheap labor to crush American
manufacturing. Greedy shyster rats such as Robert Rubin wanted to fully expand
financialization and globalization and mass immigration to concentrate wealth and power in
the United States.
Greedy dirtbags in academia fully supported the flooding of Chinese students into the
United States. This has allowed Chinese intelligence assets and other Chinese elements to
infiltrate themselves into areas of operation that should have been disallowed to them.
Trump should immediately put into place a 95 percent prohibitive tariff on all goods or
services coming from China. Trump should begin mass deportations of as many Chinese
interlopers as possible, and he should ban the entrance of any other Chinese people from
entering the United States.
China and the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire are enemies of the American
people.
George HW Bush and George W Bush did everything in their power to flood the United States
with Chinese interlopers and Chinese manufactured products and goods. China boy George HW
Bush is now rotting in Hell for pushing mass immigration and for colluding with the Communist
Chinese against the best interests of the American people.
The disgusting, treasonous rats in the WASP/JEW ruling class have sold out the American
people for cash and Trumpy is just now getting the American people to think in terms of US
national interests when it comes to US foreign policy instead of some vague, nebulous "global
economy" or some other abstraction.
In short, that German and Scottish and Irish guy named Patrick Joseph Buchanan has been
right about US foreign policy and the WASP/JEW ruling class has been treasonously wrong.
'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the
Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is
described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters.
Only one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual
evidence and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of
Israel. Not a Russian.
@Wally
Streeter John Bolton is a treasonous baby boomer globalizer rat who puts the interests of
Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. That is treason.
John Bolton was a big backer of the Iraq War debacle.
John Bolton pushes nation-wrecking mass immigration and multicultural mayhem.
President Trump should fire John Bolton immediately.
Trump: Jamal Al-Badawi, Leader In USS Cole Attack, Killed: "Our GREAT MILITARY has
delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole,"
Trump tweeted Sunday.
Mr. President, now let us ask our GREAT MILITARY to deliver justice for the heroes lost
and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Liberty.
Unless the Islamic Republic of Iran is resisting ZUS demands, & has covert nuclear
weapon & delivery systems, I am afraid that the post-WW2 (carved up) Germany landscape
will become its terrible fate.
Thanks a lot for delivering such solid Gold(berg) information, renfro.
Americans are immersed in an existencial war for their values and beliefs. For starters
start thinking what to do with poisonous Hollywood.
Hollywood is one cesspit; another is the public library that you, Mr & Mrs Taxpayer
support.
I'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction
by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction
writes. Among those interviewed:
David Ignatius
Brad Thor
Brad Meltzer
David Baldacci
Jodi Piccoult
Geraldine Brooks
Rabbi Manis Friedman's declaration triggered this rant:
Early in Meltzer's The Book of Lies , his main character asserts:
"If there was one constant in history it was that victors torched property, salted the
earth, destroyed all the old idols. No sense warehousing the past when you could obliterate
it entirely."
In, The Increment , David Ignatius praises: "The young Iranian scientist did the
right thing: he betrayed his country and sold out to CIA."
Jodi Piccoult's "The Storyteller" is so full of holocaust propaganda she might as well be
ghost writing for Simon Wiesenthal.
Baldacci is a hack sell-out. His writing -- as most of the others -- is two steps removed
from Stratemeyer Syndicate / Hardy Boys – Nancy Drew. But be sure to mention Nazis in a
bad light and Jews/Israel in a favorable light, and you're golden.
Meltzer is forthright enough to discuss his close relationship with CIA, Secret Service,
and other US agencies that most of us do not have access to. What are the chances US
government is subsidizing these authors to produce fiction to shape the minds of the
American people?
There are non-profit organizations that work with publishing houses to send these
books by the truckload to military service members in MENA and elsewhere.
Public libraries spend tens- if not hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring these
books, in print, large print, and CD. Writers in this grouping construct their stories to
make them readily adaptable to Hollywood movies.
The networking is extraordinary: C Span, "sponsored as a public service by your cable
companies," provides a platform for these writers to promote their work.
Cable companies are owned by interests that also own newspapers as well as the publishing
houses that market these books.
Hollywood is incestuously related to all of the above.
The American people are screwed every which way: their tax dollars are used to fund public
libraries that peddle propaganda; they pay for cable services that propagandize them; they
pay to see movies that degrade and propagandize them.
While their tormentors collect fat paychecks and laugh at them.
The fever pitch of Trump decent is off the charts.
Trump saying. he was going to pull out the troops from Syria – is a cultural and
diplomatic earthquake. The possibility of that happening, has shaken the Jews to the
core.
Look at Drudge today – things are going crazy – the Jew media is fighting him
on virtually everything that is going on in America. They are attacking him on every
pronouncement. It is 24/7 get Trump.
Hmm -- just who owns and controls the US MSM – JEWS.
Sorry folks – it is all Jew intimidation – they are saying to Trump "screw
with Israel's security, and we Jews will kill your presidency."
@Ahoy Crazy
religious people are not just among jews
Dutch politician vd Staay is under fire here because of his ideas about homosexuality, the
Nashville declaration.
Why anyone bothers about such nonsense is beyond my comprehension
Probably the Torah forbids homosexuality in order to get maximum population growth
Ideas resembling what I read here, because the Chinese population grows the USA must welcome
migrants
Idiots
@Art
"ISTANBUL -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national
security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish
capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO
partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult.
Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree
to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.
"It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel," Mr. Erdogan
said in a speech to political party members in Parliament. Turkey was only opposed to Kurdish
militant groups and not ordinary Kurds, he insisted."
-- -- -- Erdogan Cancels Meeting With Bolton, As U.S. Seeks To Reassure Allies On Syria
NPR January 8, 2019
"Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apparently snubbed U.S. national security
adviser John Bolton, canceling a planned meeting to discuss the withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Syria as well as the fate of a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia fighting ISIS in Syria.
Bolton's meeting with Erdogan was canceled moments before it was to begin, reflecting
Turkish anger at Bolton's insistence that those Kurdish forces be protected after more than
2,000 American troops exit northeastern Syria."
@Art And
then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate the Sandy
Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."
@Ilyana_Rozumova
I agree.
Hell, Trump wasn't even supposed to get this far per 'the polls' and the pre-election media
onslaught, but here we are.
Strict immigration control is something way too may Americans want, even Hispanics &
blacks are figuring it out, (1.3 of Hispanics actually voted for Trump in 2016), They see
their wages taking a hit because of the cheap, illegal labor who pay no taxes, but access
free stuff like they do.
And who will the ne0-Communists run against him? Airhead Ocasio-Cortez, Hillary? LOL
Trump would slaughter them.
The neo-Communists only chance is to get Trump out before the 2020 election
with the fake Mueller thing, and that's not going to happen. Too many have seen through that
scam, and Mueller has nothing or we would have seen it.
Trump will do whatever the REAL bosses, the FED, those corrupt Wall Street casinos and Israel
tells him to do. He's nothing more than a carny barker, a fool that keeps the gullible marks
occupied so they won't bitch about never-ending war; endless monetary support for Israel and
our nation's infrastructure turning into 3rd world status while the MIC gets a bigger share
each year.
Trump went bankrupt four different times, yet he's still a multi-billionaire? The ones who
backed him thru that are now calling in their chits.
As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks For Corruption Charges -- Who He Owes
Millions January 2018
While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of
his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do
something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five
megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the
amount of money he owes them.
Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported
that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties
in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, a source told the Times that the actual number
is likely much larger at $300 million.
Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his
companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and
an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5
billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/trump-pardoned-megabanks-owes-millions-rampant-fraud-corruption/
Steal a couple hundred from a liquor store and you'll do ten years. Steal trillions and
you'll get a pass, some money from Congress and the green light to steal again.
@SolontoCroesusI'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction
by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction
writes.
S2C – Great comment – Thanks!
I love C-Span's weekend Book TV. It is the best programing on the tube.
They do all non-fiction except for this last year with the 3 hour long fiction writers.
Most of them I turned off.
@anonymousMr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree
to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.
Bolton and Pompeo are living in the last century when America was respected.
The aftermath of 9/11 has destroyed our credibility. The world correctly views the US
government as being controlled by the Jews.
Clearly, fighting terrorist wars for the Jews, has diminished our moral standing and place
in the world. Our military is weakened and dissipated – we are falling behind in new
tech – we are losing out in the cyber conflicts. America is getting dangerously behind
in a thousand ways.
Bolton and Pompeo are bad guys working for the Jews – and the world knows it. Those
two think, that all they have to do is say "Iran" and everyone will fall in place – it
is not happening! (The world has no respect for our killing the Iran nuke deal.)
@SolontoCroesus
Let's not forget the fake Diary of Anne Frank and the ridiculous & easily debunked
Destruction of European Jewry</i,. by Zionist Raul Hilberg*, to name just a few of the
witchcraft equivalent books on the "holocaust" that plaque our libraries.
" it is questionable whether one should accept improbable figures supplied by a not
overly friendly source."
– American Jewish Year Book, , 1972, Vol. 73, p. 536
* Raul Hilberg quotes no less than 20 times as a source in his standard work about the
"Holocaust" ,Filip Mueller, who described how he ate cake in an alleged cyanide-saturated gas
chamber. : https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10426
Oh, I really would like to share this author´s New Year optimism with respect to the
"US withdrawing from useless wars" , but, as far as I read over there, it seems quite certain
the while possibly withdrawing ( in case this is going to happen anytime, or just they decide
to remain so as to waste other´s victory ) from what has become useless wars in the
Middle East and Central Asia, if not because of the presence of formidable opponents there,
the US seems to not loose a minute to engage in others which could result much more usefull,
mainly, if we remember Trump´s reproach on "we should had grabbed the oil" , and
so, we have that
preparations to disrupt countries in the Caribbean Sea ,
or intends to grabb portions of Africa even if necessary by usual method of kicking the
door are next in the eternal list of unending agressions by the US and its "allies" .
Thus, it is crystal clear to me that what we will have with Trump and the masters who put
them in charge in the first place and move the strips behind him, is more of the same
elevated to the nth potence .
I wonder what more is needed to have you all in the streets doing the only thing you can
do to obligue them to do what you gratutiously affirm Trump is going to do ( whenever that is
going to happen )
The information about what your country has always done, continue doing to date, and is all
the way planning to do, is all out there for everybody to find and assess.
That you deny acknowledgment of this can only be for two reasons, willing blindness and
deafness, so that your way of life does not change a bit, or willing collaboration with the
so called "deep state"/"the borg" through taking part in disinformation operations, being the
latter the highly likely case of, former or current, intelligence
operatives/journalists/analysts .
May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake news", "fake success", "fake victories"
..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more people increasingly miserable, but, that
all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and, consequently, you will end rotten in hell
believe me, that is a fact .
@Wally Wally
said: 'Too many have seen through that ("fake Mueller thing") scam, and Mueller has nothing,
or we would have seen it."
Hey Wally!
Speaking respectfully, "we" see what Zionist's want us to see, and they have no problem
with 'Merkins' presumed capability to see through "fake" special prosecutor stuff.
I liken ZUS citizens' bizarre & engineered political situation to that which Simon
& Garfunkel described in peppy song, "A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the
rest."
The Zio Corporate Media, including the often gripping DrudgeReport, feasts upon what
appears to be a (combined) left & right flogging of what appears to be the wounded
political carcass of President Trump.
But tonight, when the contentious & divisive border-wall address is completed, Oval
Office lights out, and Trump tucks-in, the ruling darkness never sleeps.
Fyi, Wally, earlier and while in-between Scranton school bus runs, I indulged "Head- Start
Program, 101; No Dumb Goyim Left Behind," by reading Andrew Bacevich's mind expanding &
new U.R. article, below, subtitle, "Abizaid of Arabia."
Try Bacevich? For nothing "is" as to what Zio spinners appear to tell what it is "is."
This just in!: The Wall Will Not Stop Illegal Immigration !
Even if built according "to plan" [an impossibility, of course, given the nature of
governments], the border wall would not prevent illegal immigrants, except maybe in the very
short term, until people found various ways around its presence.
A border wall would be just another government scam, a worthless boondoggle that would
only benefit the contractors and the politicians, just like every other government program
throughout history.
Why? Because so-called government "solutions" cannot work.
All one has to do to reach this conclusion is to look at the world around us with a cold,
unbiased eye, and observe the massive failure of other government "solutions" to date such
as:
1] the war on drugs.
2] government- run healthcare
3] government- run education
4] government environmental regulation
5] the government war on poverty via welfare programs
6] government racial integration policies
The list of failures is endless , and at the present time- ever expanding into new areas
supposedly 'begging" for government "solutions" that will not work either, because , tah dah!
: government "solutions " cannot ever work, [for reasons I will not get into here], although
admittedly, in the very short term they might appear to work. but it never takes long for
"the rot to set in"
And then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate
the Sandy Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."
And then I woke up.
Is Trump going to wake up and smell the Jews destroying him?
Will he call out the editors and CEO's of the media by name?
WOW! What outstanding, let me say, poetic (prophet-like) following paragraph, which
addresses the doomed soul of real evildoers: "May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake
news", "fake success", "fake victories" ..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more
people increasingly miserable, but, that all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and,
consequently, you will end rotten in hell believe me, that is a fact ."
Go, go, (Lady?) Fatima! Fyi, the sick U.S. Zio Corporate Media-directors and ZUS "Long
War" practitioners cannot bear the reality of your warning. Thanks very much!
P.S.: During 1960's, Bob Dylan sang the pulsating "Masters of War" which for me, &
decades later, rings to your tune.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving
as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage
war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home.
and, overall, simply continue with the plan.
Change of demographics, as one element of it, will, probably, accelerate.
One reason I keep pointing out the Zios now in government is that they can use their
positions to create fake reports on Israel's enemies leading the US into even more actions
against our own interest.
I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is. Too much of the talk
about Jewish crimes and deceptions is ancient history and no one is going to punish or end
Jewish manipulations over ancient history. ((They)) are only going to be stopped by exposing
what they are doing TODAY.
John Doe doesn't give a shit about whatever Jews did 100, 1000 years ago. Joe Doe might
give a shit about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and
are sending all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY.
@RobinG
RobinG -- most pertinent information I came across is that a British writer, William
Nicholson, was working on a screenplay for a movie version of Red Notice.
I've never heard of the book. From a New York Times review, it appears there's a great
deal of insider financial/ Wall Street information, which is not Baldacci's strength -- James
Grippando specializes in that arena. The NYTimes review mentions Browder's "grating
self-regard." Would a ghost writer allow something like that to remain unedited? (Why did an
editor allow it to remain unedited?)
@renfro The
office of Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence was created
by uber Jew Stuart Levey, now legal counsel at HSBC.
When he left the post a few years ago, his former law partner, David Cohen, took his
place.
Jews-who-hate-Iran created and have occupied the position at Treasury since they created
it, specific ally for the purpose of bankrupting Iran.
You're right, renfro: people SHOULD know these things and SHOULD be outraged.
Thanks for putting it out there.
--
btw: Richie Goldberg has made a career of hating Iran. He was a student at a Chicago area
Solomon Schechter school, whose website carried a front-page banner proclaiming their mission
to "instill in students an undying devotion to Israel."
While still in his 30s, Goldberg became assistant to Illinois governor Bruce Rauner. He
leveraged that position to make Illinois the first state to pass legislation divesting state
pension funds from Iran-linked corporations.
Rich Goldberg is a proud defender of Israel and the United States, and that's not
hyperbole; as Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs for Illinois Governor Bruce
Rauner and former Deputy COS to Senator Mark Kirk, Goldberg has helped advanced a number of
initiatives to protect and benefit Israel and serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S.
Navy Reserve.
In 2008, Goldberg spearheaded the deployment of X-Band missile defense radar to Israel
and later played an integral role in the passage of economic sanctions against the Central
Bank of Iran. This spring he helped Illinois become the first state to pass binding
legislation countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Goldberg is a board member of AJC Chicago and a regional governor of the Alpha Epsilon
Pi Fraternity, for which he serves as the representative on Iran to the Conference of
Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. http://www.juf.org/YLD/WYLD.ASPX (2015)
--
btw again: the Jodi Picoult book mentioned above focuses on the work of one Leo Stein, who
occupies a US government office that searches out and prosecutes "Nazi war criminals," --
this novel revolves around a 93 year old "former SS" member that the main character
ultimately kills. Jews use US institutions & tax $ to carry out their psychopathology
@SolontoCroesus
"Grating self-regard" is the lesser fault with Red Notice . it's a tissue of lies.
Anyway, ghost writers don't need their own depth of research, like biographers. They just
take their subject's story and spin it well. His job was puffing up Browder as a hero.
@renfro
renfro said: "I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is."
Hey renfro!
Pitifully, Jews count on millions of curiously alert American people who are trained &
predisposed to "pay attention" to that which the TV tells them, and count on all to believe
it, and obediently follow Judas Goat-herd authority.
At present, am a lot like you.
Average "John Does" today would let Jews slide if he/she learned that the stilted
Holocaust education served as the state of Israel's launch pad, a reason to be criminal.
Now there's fascinating excitement about America getting a real 9/11 terror attack
investigation, the one then FBI Director Robert Mueller missed. Am saddened to say that the
Al Qaeda-perp "whopper" fantasy is more entertaining, and legions of dumb goyim
(Bible-thumping) believers would persist to agree with Netanyahu's incredible assessment,
"9/11 was good for Israel."
So, renfro, the great proposition is, & as you put it: "Joe Doe might give a shit
about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and are sending
all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY."
Big problem for me is the Protocols of Zion world takeover-plan, and how Jews will never
let a bad (stinky) "taxpayer" finding fester out of control, for example, the facts you
wrote, directly above.
As a pessimistic-optimist, here's how I see things: Contemporary Americans must dismount
couches, reconcile to wear "do-rags" with bird feathers, fashion Anti-Zio War Paint instead
of belly tattoos, and regain their stolen "Homeland."
Really hope/pray I'm nuts, renfro, but no Western Wall visit and yarmulke for me. Thank
you!
@renfro In
2001 a woman intern was found dead in then congressman Joes office with a gash on her head,
and not one thing was done about this, who benefits?
I'd say they are getting out of Syria. If for no other reason than they lost and have nothing
to do there, which is increasingly obvious despite the media held curtain of lies. I'm
convinced Trump genuinely does want to withdraw US troops from some theatres but he is facing
tremendous pushback from the bloated MIC and all it's little minions. Probably learning as he
goes the real reasons for some of them, such as the minerals and opium in Afghanistan. I
can't see them letting go of those goodies easily though replacing the troops with
contractors is a likely option.
@ChuckOrloski
People's capacity to ignore an uncomfortable reality is unlimited. I once had a shocking
example of it when I and my 2 kids were witness to a massive triangle UFO, which moved
silently, very low and slowly near a major road in the city I live in. My daughter hid under
the dashboard and wouldn't even look. Even so that is how nearly everyone else from numerous
cars reacted and even a bus which stopped and I tried to get a dozen people on-board to look
at this thing. My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was
absolutely ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT
turn their heads! I could see some of them staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under
any circumstances to look. They seemed angry at me for trying to make them look even. They
all either laughed at me as they passed or gave me a nasty look. This is NOT how people treat
others in Perth, Western Australia usually, indeed several would normally have stopped to see
if we were OK.
The people on the bus giggled and made fun of me, yet would not no matter how much I
implored them simply look out that window and acknowledge a freaking massive aircraft carrier
sized black aircraft no more than a couple of hundred meters off the ground. It was dusk but
still somewhat light and it had three lights on it also. Eventually ONE guy did stop and look
but it was a long way away by then. He could see the odd light configuration and noticed even
at that distance it was not making the sound a jet would but that was it. I was astounded not
by the UFO so much as by the weird reaction of most people who should have seen it yet
something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they even
saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have shattered
their world view too much I guess.
That is why the truth of 9/11, Kennedy's slaying, the Holocaust [TM] and virtually all the
wars which is so easy to access, will never become common currency so long as their
acknowledgement will have a major impact on people's paradigms. The media of course do their
part in feeding into this cognitive dissonance for their sheeple but in the end it is what
the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they want to be validated and
amused.
More truths that people will not acknowledge, even if they were shown widely to them via
their usual information swill bucket. ETs as my example directly demonstrates, MH-17, the USS
Liberty. The nuclear 'Energy' lie. (Nuclear "Power stations" are really just part of the
nuclear weapons process) The medical swindle around most "incurable diseases". The true
history of almost any nation, they're almost all based on great founding myths which would
not stand the light of examination but nobody wants to know except those for whom knowing
might bring some benefit. An excuse to reclaim something supposedly lost and which loss
itself is more often then not another invented myth. I despair of the human race becoming
enlightened or exalting the virtues inherent in mankind. It will only happen on an individual
basis, there's no 100th monkey situation that is another myth anyway.
They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads! I could see some of them
staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under any circumstances to look. They seemed
angry at me for trying to make them look even. They all either laughed at me as they passed
or gave me a nasty look.
. something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they
even saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have
shattered their world view too much I guess.
.will never become common currency so long as their acknowledgement will have a major
impact on people's paradigms.
and, the most important:
.in the end it is what the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they
want to be validated and amused.
Actually, the only important when dealing with average person.
I've had plenty related experiences. Nothing such extraordinary; just the usual stuff
about power, politics, social issues, even health. Always willful, derogatory, even hostile
reaction to simple common sense.
And, TPTBs do know that. That's why they are where they are.
They know the truth and act upon it. Realists.
And idealists, no matter what type, stick to their delusions. "If we could just inform and
educate people" and similar bullshit.
Feels good, though.
@ChuckOrloski
Chuck:
Speaking of CODOH, coming soon from 'Holocaust Handbooks' Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, An Introduction and Update to
Jean-Claude Pressac's Magnum Opus , By Germar Rudolf http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=42
Oh my oh dear – surprise surprise' – Senator Marco Rubio pays back Jew sugar
daddies with first bill of the 2019 Senate – killing free speech for BDS movement
against Israel.
Heavens to Betsy – can you believe it – go figure' – the darling of
American conservatism FOX JEWS defends the bill.
p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.
"On Friday, a State Department official said "(w)e have no timeline for our military
forces to withdraw from" the country. Delay may turn out to be not at all.
On Sunday, a senior Iraqi parliamentarian said
"(t)he Americans have built a military base in Erbil (in) the Iraqi Kurdistan region to
use against Iraq's neighboring countries, in particular Iran and Syria."
Iraqi media said the Pentagon has 14 military bases in the country – along with a
reported 18 in Syria. The US is highly unlikely to abandon them, especially ones considered
most strategically important.
An earlier report indicated the Pentagon intends establishing a permanent base along the
Iraqi border with Syria. Turkey reportedly established one or more military bases in
northwestern Aleppo.
On Saturday, a senior Trump regime official said US forces may remain indefinitely at the
(illegally established) al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian
borders "
-- -- -- -- -- –
There has been a major change in US propaganda. In its earlier versions , US has always
downplayed whats it's interest are, what it is trying to achieve, how it is trying to achieve
– whether the case was in Soviet or Iraq or Vietnam or Libya few years ago. Now the
neocons declare what they plan how they plan and whats the objectives are . With that
differences between former and current, one can see also so called victory before and the
absolute defeat now.
@Rabbitnexus
I was going to say that you had better make sure of your St Paul before taking the decisive
trip on your donkey But then I see he is there ready to go in the shape of PeterAus. So now
you needn't wait: get yourself crucified after alerting all the media, mainstream and
alternative. Pruning the gospels for some semblance of consistency you will, I'm afraid, just
have to trust Your Father will look after.
My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was absolutely
ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their
heads!
While I've never seen such a thing as a UFO, I've had similar responses from people when
I've tried to warn them of potentially dangerous situations while driving on the freeway such
as unlatched hoods on their cars to wobbling wheels on their trailers, to unsecured loads
that were bouncing around.
Now as to the assertion that history is useless or foolish, I do agree with the idea that
for most people a knowledge of history is wasted on them, but there are a significant few, I
think, who see the light after understanding that what's being detailed today is largely the
fruit of past efforts. I also am a proponent of exposing past crimes so that people are not
surprised when they see how the methods are very similar to those being used at the present
and will likely be used in the future. A further benefit is that people will begin to
understand what is not effective and that it's imperative to look for ways to undermine the
parasite classes.
Another reason why knowledge of history is important is that it helps immunize people
against being lied to by the purveyors of fake news and fake history. Such knowledge really
seems to help in assessing the verity, or lack thereof, of those who make excuses for bad
behavior or try to downplay the seriousness of unacceptable and irresponsible behavior.
I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who
reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is
filled with falsehoods & errors.
It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely
deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to
falsehood.
p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.
Mere theater, I suspect.
Can there be any doubt that the Senator, Diane Feinstein, merely pretends to
oppose the bill?
Most of what the clowns say is meant to be laughed at, not believed, and almost all are
clowns. Furthermore history shows that in that respect nothing's changed over the
millennia.
Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.
My take is that it's the good cop, bad cop routine. It's just another version of The
Shrub's promises of implementing compassionate conservatism and a humble foreign policy or
O-bomb-a's hope and change
Trump says something that the ever hopeful Trumpettes want to hear, then does exactly as
his bosses desire. This allows The Trumpster to appear like the good guy while maintaining
hope and simultaneously enabling his supporters to claim that da devil would't let him do it.
The Boltons of the world no doubt enjoy their roles as devils.
And I agree that The Cackling Hyena would have been exponentially worse, but that's small
consolation and no denying that the masses are being played, again.
@jacques
sheete This would explain Trump's heartening announcement of U.S. withdrawal from Syria,
immediately followed by Pompeo and Bolton hustling and bustling amongst our valued Mid East
allies, issuing consolations and moderations. Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S.
now "coordinating" its withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original
immediate withdrawal, then 4-month withdrawal.
Our Zio Media never tells us that John Bolton is a Neoconservative and is establishing
presidential foreign policy geared to Israeli requirements and in fact against NATO ally,
Turkey.
Israel likes the Kurds due to only an obsession to divide & conquer neighboring
Islamic countries. As a ZUS-approved "good" terror state, the Kurds want territory spanning
Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
A very shitty & transparent deception, please refer to article, below, Jacques?
(Zigh)
@DESERT FOX
Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one world
government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president, including
Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one possible
exception, Andrew Jackson. http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/un/do.htm
@RVBlake
RVBlake wrote: "Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S. now "coordinating" its
withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original immediate withdrawal,"
Hey Blake!
Re above; a question.
Why doesn't our Zio Media report on how Bolton managed to overturn Trump's 2016
presidential election, and how he easily managed to tweak & assume the role as US
Commander in Chief of the armed forces?
@ChuckOrloski
The MSM is part of the narrative, the septic tank melange of Pentagon, neocons, liberal
interventionists No way they're turning on one of their own. They most likely sneer at his
past political associations, i. e. Bush/Cheney, but they publicly endorse him as less evil
than Trump.
About my major point, re; the Kurds, their leaders know they have ZUS and Israeli miliary
support, and such stuff can end up causing a major war, and US troops who remain in Syria are
most regrettably in danger of becoming ritualistic & unnecessary "sacrificial lambs."
Appears evident that Commander in Chief Trump is fighting to secure the US southern border
(with Mexico), and his NSA Director Bolton has the job of securing Israeli expansion into
Lebanon and Syria.
Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one
world government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president,
including Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one
possible exception, Andrew Jackson
Getting your information from gun owner rights nut case sites is not a good idea.
Public Law 87-297 had nothing to do with the 2nd ammendment. It was a reaction to the arms
race with Russia , nuclear fears and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Basically a brain fart of
the times but one that led to the eventual reduction of nuclear weapons in Russia.
Further, it was Eisenhower that was the biggest champion of the UN and international law
after WWII.
Further you need to read Washington's Farewell Address if you think he was a 'globalist'
-- he was the exact opposite.
Washington's Farewell Address 1796 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
@ChuckOrloski
Comrade ChuckOrloski, you are really very kind, and generous, to consider that anything I
could write with my scarce command of English language could be anytime qualified as
"poetic", but I am glad if, in any way, it served you, or any other person, as inspiration
or, at least, to be moved a bit from the wide conformism in front of what we are witnessing
and are being directed to.
I thank you for the reference to Dylan´s song ( which I am not worthy of being
compared to..), which I did not know so far, since not so heard at my country, and even at my
times, which became a bit more cynic, despaired and self-destructive than yours ( when the
anti-war movement was at its full heights of plenitude and strenght .Although they managed to
fully disintegrate it be it through generalized introduction of drugs amongst the youth and
hopeful ..or directly cutting the tongues of the troubadours ..), but, still, we had our
bards too .
In this vein, you remind me of the fact that perhaps the lack of inspiration of these
times lays in part, apart from in the general alienation by electronic devices, in the lack
of bards .To kill the bards has always been one of their priorities as ancient leyends tell
us .
But we will prevail .and will return to the streets . again .
Great work as always, Phil -- with the exceptions that you should have devoted due attention
to (i) the nefarious, always-lurking Zionist presence/influence of Sheldon Adelson on Trump
and our body politic and (ii) the neocon/Zionist/Israel-first (near) unanimity of our
legislative branch in affairs of the Middle East and beyond that makes a mockery of any use
of the term "US national [security] interests." Other areas: the MIC, the MSM,
Ziothinktankdom, the Palestinians' fading hopes of justice and liberation .
(I can't find time and energy to review the comments; I'm sure there are some great
ones.)
@Wally Being
that our jewish-supremacist masters apparently wanted the perfidious orange clown over
clinton, I have to assume that the orange clown is even more evil than clinton.
@Fatima
Manoubia Fatima Manoubia wisely noted: "To kill the bards has always been one of their
priorities as ancient legends tell us,"
Greetings from Scranton, Pa, Fatima!
Am in complete agreement with your insight above.
US social engineers have accomplished insidious modification of the great art of poetry.
Shall brand the hostile takeover as Zionist Infirmity in Art.
You are too kind to me, and no doubt, U.R. commenters, for example RobinG, shall second my
motion. Nonetheless, thanks & I dig your enthusiasm for noble non-conformism!
Loved Bowie's performance of "Life on Mars." Will share it with dear friends.
And, maybe you will like Peter Gabriel, linked below, and his performing a classical
version of David Bowie's great "Heroes," live in Verona.
P.S.: A bit disappointed, am not expecting the great Peter Gabriel to produce other
tribute-songs in memory of real national heroes, as he did the stirring one for Stephen Biko,
martyr. And Jewish Bob Dylan, has-been radical? He's doing Tony Bennett covers.
To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against
the array of forces facing Trump.
To be even more fair, in order to succeed against the evil forces, orange clown would at
least have to try to oppose them which means he would first have to stop being their willing
agent.
Big brass and government executives play both sides of the military revolving door,
including "the only adult in the room."
Before he became lionized as the "only adult in the room" capable of standing up to
President Trump, General James Mattis was quite like any other brass scoping out a lucrative
second career in the defense industry. And as with other military giants parlaying their four
stars into a cushy boardroom chair or executive suite, he pushed and defended a sub-par product
while on both sides of the revolving door. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that contract
turned out to be an expensive fraud and a potential health hazard to the troops.
According to a
recent report by the Project on Government Oversight, 25 generals, nine admirals, 43
lieutenant generals, and 23 vice admirals retired to become lobbyists, board members,
executives, or consultants for the defense industry between 2008 and 2018. They are part of a
much larger group of 380 high-ranking government officials and congressional staff who shifted
into the industry in that time.
To get a sense of the demand, according to POGO, which had to compile all of this
information through Freedom of Information requests, there were 625 instances in 2018 alone in
which the top 20 defense contractors (think Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin) hired
senior DoD officials for high-paying jobs -- 90 percent of which could be described as
"influence peddling."
Back to Mattis. In 2012, while he was head of Central Command, the Marine General
pressed the Army to procure and deploy blood testing equipment from a Silicon Valley
company called Theranos. He communicated that he was having success with this effort directly
to Theranos's chief executive officer. Even though an Army health unit tried to terminate the
contract due to it's not meeting requirements, according to POGO, Mattis kept the pressure up.
Luckily, it was never used on the
battlefield.
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise but upon retirement in 2013, Mattis asked a DoD counsel
about the ethics guiding future employment with Theranos. They advised against it. So Mattis
went to serve on its board instead for a $100,000 salary. Two years after Mattis quit to serve
as Trump's Pentagon chief in 2016, the two Theranos executives he worked with were indicted for
"massive"
fraud , perpetuating a "multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and
patients," and misrepresenting their product entirely. It was a fake.
But assuming this was Mattis's only foray into the private sector would be naive. When he
was tapped for defense secretary -- just three years after he left the military -- he was worth
upwards of $10 million . In addition to his retirement pay, which was close to $15,000 a
month at the time, he received $242,000 as a board member, plus as much as $1.2 million in
stock options in General Dynamics, the Pentagon's fourth largest contractor. He also disclosed
payments from other corporate boards, speech honorariums -- including $20,000 from defense
heavyweight Northrop Grumman -- and a whopping $410,000 from Stanford University's public
policy think tank the Hoover Institution for serving as a "distinguished visiting fellow."
Never for a moment think that Mattis won't land softly after he leaves Washington -- if he
leaves at all. Given his past record, he will likely follow a very long line, as illustrated by
POGO's explosive report, of DoD officials who have used their positions while inside the
government to represent the biggest recipients of federal funding on the outside. They then
join ex-congressional staffers and lawmakers on powerful committees who grease the skids on
Capitol Hill. And then they go to work for the very companies they've helped, fleshing out a
small army of executives, lobbyists, and board members with direct access to the power brokers
with the purse strings back on the inside.
Welcome to the Swamp
"[Mattis's' career course] is emblematic of how systemic the problem is," said Mandy
Smithberger, POGO's lead on the report and the director of its Center for Defense
Information.
"Private companies know how to protect their interests. We just wish there were more
protections for taxpayers."
When everything is engineered to get more business for the same select few, "when you have
a Department of Defense who sees it as their job to promote arms sales does this really serve
the interest of national security?"
That is something to chew on. If a system is so motivated by personal gain (civil servants
always mindful of campaign contributions and private sector job prospects) on one hand, and big
business profits on the other, is there room for merit or innovation? One need only look at
Lockheed's F-35 joint strike fighter, the most expensive
weapon system in history, which was relentlessly promoted over other programs by members of
Congress and within the Pentagon despite years of test failures and cost overruns , to see what
this gets you: planes that don't fly, weapons that don't work, and shortfalls in other parts of
the budget that don't matter to contractors like pilot training and maintenance of existing
systems.
"It comes down to two questions," Smithberger noted in an interview with TAC.
" Are we approving weapons systems that are safe or not? And are we putting
[servicemembers'] lives on the line" to benefit the interests of industry?
All of this is legal, she points out. Sure, there are rules -- "cooling off" periods before
government officials and members of Congress can lobby, consult, or work on contracts after
they leave their federal positions, or when industry people come in through the other side to
take positions in government. But Smithberger said they are "riddled with loopholes" and lack
of enforcement.
Case in point: current acting DoD Secretary Patrick Shanahan spent
31 years working for Boeing , which gets about $24 billion a year as the Pentagon's second
largest contractor. He was Boeing's senior vice president in 2016 just before he was confirmed
as Trump's deputy secretary of defense in 2017. Last week he recused himself from all matters
Boeing, but he
wasn't always so hands off. At one point, he "prodded" for the purchase of 12 $1.2 billion
Boeing F-15X fighter planes, according to Bloomberg.
But the revolving door is so much more pervasive and insidious than POGO could possibly
catalogue. So says Franklin "Chuck" Spinney , who worked
as a civilian and military officer in the Pentagon for 31 years, beginning in 1968. He calls
the military industrial complex a "quasi-isolated political economy" that is in many ways
independent from the larger domestic economy. It has its own rules, norms, and culture, and
unlike the real world, it is self-sustaining -- not by healthy competition and efficiency, but
by keeping the system on a permanent war footing, with money always pumping from Capitol Hill
to the Pentagon to the private sector and then back again. Left out are basic laws of supply
and demand, geopolitical realities, and the greater interest of society.
"That's why we call it a self-licking ice cream cone," Spinney explained to TAC.
" [This report] is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more subtle stuff going on.
When you are in weapons development like I was at the beginning of my career, you learn about
this on day one, that having cozy relationships with contractors is openly encouraged. And
then you get desensitized. I was fortunate because I worked for people who did not like it
and I caught on quickly."
While the culture has evolved, basic realities have persisted since the massive build-up of the military
and weapons systems during the Cold War. The odds of young officers in the Pentagon making
colonel or higher are slim. They typically retire out in their 40s. They know implicitly that
their best chance for having a well-paid second career is in the only industry they know --
defense. Most take this calculation seriously, moderating their decisions on program work and
procurement and communicating with members of Congress as a matter of course.
" Let's just say there's a problem [with a program]. Are you going to come down hard on a
contractor and try to hold his feet to the fire? Are you going to risk getting blackballed
when you are out there looking for a job ? Sometimes there is no word communicated, you just
don't want to be unacceptable to anyone," said Spinney. It's ingrained, from the rank of
lieutenant colonel all the way up to general.
So the
top five and their subsidiaries continue to get the vast majority of work, usually in
no-bid contracts
($100 billion worth in 2016 alone) , and with cost-plus structures that
critics say encourage waste and never-ending timetables, like the $1.5 trillion F-35. "The
whole system is wired to get money out the door," said Spinney. "That is where the revolving
door is most pernicious. It's everywhere."
The real danger is that under this pressure, parties work to keep bad contracts alive even
if they have to cook the books. "Essentially from the standpoint of Pentagon contracting you
are not going to have people writing reports saying this product is a piece of shit," said
Spinney. Worse, evaluations are designed to deflect criticism if not oversell success in order
to keep the spigot open. The most infamous example of this was the
rigged tests that kept the ill-fated "Star Wars" missile defense program going in the
1980s.
* * *
Everyone talks about generals like Mattis as though they're warrior-gods. But for decades,
many of them have turned out to be different creatures altogether - creatures of a
semi-independent ecosystem that operates outside of the normal rules and benefits only a
powerful minority subset: the military elite, defense contractors, and Congress. More recently,
the defense-funded think tank world has become part of this ecology, providing the ideological
grist for more spending and serving as a way-station for operators moving in and out of
government and industry.
Call it the Swamp, the Borg, or even the Blob, but attempting to measure or quantify the
revolving door in the military-industrial complex can feel like a fool's errand. Groups like
POGO have attempted to shine light on this dark planet for years. Unfortunately, there is
little incentive in Capitol Hill or at the Pentagon to do the very least: pull the purse
strings, close loopholes, encourage real competition, and end cost-plus practices.
"We generally need to see more (political) championing on this issue," Smithberger said.
Until then, all outside efforts "can't result in any meaningful change."
So tell me again how "Mad Pedo" evaded Obama's axing of all the non-compliant General(s)
and Admiral(s) in charge of the U.S. strategic command?!!!
Answered my own question. He's like the rest of them since the Balkans that just does
counter insurgencies!...
"SUCCESS" in every direction on the weather vane you look!!!
Or... Another way of saying it.
How to build your successful U.S. military career turning $8 trillion in unfunded
liability debt into $200 trillion in unfunded liability debt in less than 20 years!
Who wants to line up for that 'self help book"?!!!
Mattis is just another self serving cockroach in a U.S uniform.
__name___3O4jF">Realname Wild tree , 31 minutes ago
link
It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the
blood of our nation.
It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations
security. Follow the money.
As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry.
Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he
knew.......
It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the
blood of our nation.
It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations
security. Follow the money.
As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry.
Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he
knew.......
Hacking syndicate Anonymous has just released its fourth tranche of documents hacked from
the internal servers of the Institute for Statecraft and its subsidiary, the Integrity
Initiative. Several explosive files raise serious questions about the shadowy British state and
NATO-funded 'think tank' and its connections with the Skripal affair.
The files were
released just after 2:30pm GMT on January 4 -- I've barely scratched the surface of the
content, but what I've seen so far contains a panoply of bombshell revelations -- to say the
least, the organization(s) now have serious questions to answer about what role they played in
the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in March, and its aftermath both nationally and
internationally.
Sinister Timeline
One file
apparently dating to "early 2015" -- "Russian Federation Sanctions" -- written by the
Institute's Victor Madeira outlines "potential levers" to achieve Russian "behaviour change",
"peace with Ukraine", "return [of] Crimea", "regime change" or "other?". The suggested "levers"
span almost every conceivable area, including "civil society", "sports", "finance" and
"technology".
In the section marked "intelligence", Madeira suggests simultaneously expelling "every RF
[Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attache from as many countries
as possible". In parentheses, it references 'Operation Foot' , the expulsion of over
1000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971, the largest expulsion of intelligence
officials by any government in history.
The section on sports also suggests "advocating the view [Russia] is unworthy of hosting
[sporting] events" -- and the section marked "information" recommends the sanctioning of
'Russian' media "in West for not complying with regulators' standards".
2015 File
Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions
In April that year, Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly was
promoted to Honorary Colonel of SGMI (Specialist Group Military Intelligence), and
in
October he met with General Sir Richard Barrons. Notes from the meeting don't make clear
who said what, but one despaired that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a
response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and
take it out of the political space."
"We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the
1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something
dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside
government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the
national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of
resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost," they said.
Operation IRIS Begins
On 4 March 2018, former Russian military officer and double agent for MI6 Sergei Skripal and
his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England.
Within days, the Institute had submitted a proposal to the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office, "to study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news
spread and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.
The bid was accepted, and the Initiative's 'Operation Iris' was launched. Under its
auspices, the Institute employed 'global investigative solutions' firm Harod Associates to
analyze social media activity related to Skripal the world over.
It also conducted media monitoring of its own, with Institute 'research fellow' Simon
Bracey-Lane
producing regular 'roundups' of media coverage overseas, based on insights submitted by
individuals connected to the Initiative living in several countries. One submission, from an
unnamed source in Moldova, says they "cannot firmly say" whether the country's media had its
"own point of view" on the issue, or whether news organizations had taken "an obvious
pro-Russian or pro-Western position", strongly suggesting these were key questions for the
Initiative.
Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal
Incident
Moreover though, there are clear indications the Institute sought to shape the news
narrative on the attack -- and indeed the UK government's response.
One file dated March 11 appears to be a briefing document on the affair to date, with key
messages bolded throughout.
It opens by setting out "The Narrative" of the incident -- namely "Russia has carried out
yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in
Britain".
"Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and
seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been
carried out in the UK 14 deaths are believed to be attributable to the Kremlin Russia has
poisoned its enemies abroad on other occasions, most notably then-candidate for the Presidency
of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2004. Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been
poisoned twice; and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also poisoned and later shot dead.
Since Putin has been running Russia, the Kremlin has a history of poisoning its opponents in a
gruesome way," the "narrative" reads.
The file goes on to declare the British response has been "far too weak it's essential the
government makes a much stronger response this time" -- and then lists "possible, realistic,
first actions", including banning RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK, boycotting the 2018
World Cup, withdrawing the UK ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador to
the UK, and refusing/revoking visas to leading Russians within Vladimir Putin's "circle", and
their families.
Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative
It's not clear who the document was distributed to -- but it may have been given to
journalists within the Initiative's UK 'cluster', if not others. This may explain why the
Institute's "narrative", and its various recommended "responses" utterly dominated mainstream
media reporting of the affair for months afterwards, despite the glaring lack of evidence of
Russian state involvement in the attack.
It's extremely curious so many of the briefing document's recommendations almost exactly --
if not exactly -- echo several of the suggested "levers" outlined in the 2015 document. It's
also somewhat troubling the "Global Operation Foot" spoken of in that file duly came to pass on
March 28 2018, with over 20 countries expelling over 100 Russian diplomats.
Likewise, it's striking Victor Madeira, the Institute staffer who made the recommendations
in 2015, made many media appearances discussing the poisoning following the incident
routinely documented by the Institute. Security consultant Dan Kaszeta also wrote a number
of articles for the Integrity Initiative website about chemical weapons following the attack --
including a July 14 article, How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the
Skripal attack? --receiving 40
pence per word .
Invoice submitted to
Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections
The Institute's bizarrely intimate connections with the incident don't end there. Another document
apparently dating to July 2018 contains the contact details of Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6
recruiter, handler and -- unbelievably -- neighbor in Salisbury. Anonymous claims the document
is an invitee list for a meeting the Institute convened between a number of individuals and
Syria's highly controversial White Helmets group, but this is yet to be verified.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the latest document dump raises yet further questions
about how and why it was BBC Diplomatic and Defense Editor Mark Urban -- who was in the same
tank regiment as Miller after leaving University -- came to meet with Skripal in the year
before his poisoning. When I attended the
launch of his book on the affair in October -- The Skripal Files -- he was evasive
on whether he played a role in connecting him with Skripal, and denied Miller was Skripal's
recruiter.
The latest trove also raises yet further questions about the activities of the Institute for
Statecraft and Integrity Initiative. In light of these revelations, reading the record of
Donnelly's meeting with General Barrons takes on an acutely chilling quality. It may be that
purely serendipitously the pair got their "catastrophe", their "something dreadful", which
"[woke] people up" and made the government "realise the problem" posed by Russia -- or it could
be they one way or another played a facilitative role of some kind.
After months of refusing to answer the vast number of questions I and thousands of others
have submitted to the paired organizations, it's high time for them to break cover, and be
honest with the public.
Images removed. Please brose the original to view them.
Notable quotes:
"... "Russian disinformation." ..."
"... "network of networks" ..."
"... It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence. ..."
"... "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" ..."
"... "global investigative solutions" ..."
"... What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... ..."
"... "pro-Russia troll accounts" ..."
"... "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case." ..."
"... Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" ..."
"... These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
"... "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" ..."
"... "threat Russia poses." ..."
"... This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning ..."
"... One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. ..."
"... "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history." ..."
"... "Makes you think " ..."
"... The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. ..."
"... It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. ..."
"... £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019 ..."
"... It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance. ..."
The Integrity Initiative, a UK-funded group exposed in leaked files as psyop network, played a key role in monitoring and molding
media narratives after the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, newly-dumped documents reveal. Created by the NATO-affiliated,
UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was
unmasked in November after hackers
released documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly
fighting "Russian disinformation."
The secretive, government-bankrolled "network of networks" has found itself under scrutiny for
smearing UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
as a Kremlin stooge – ostensibly as part of its noble crusade against anti-Russian disinformation. Now, new
leaks show that the organization played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia
were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March.
It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented
following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.
Operation Iris
Days after the Skripals were poisoned, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offering to
"study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being
perceived" in a number of countries.
After receiving the government's blessing, the Integrity Initiative (II)
launched
'Operation Iris,' enlisting "global investigative solutions" firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity
related to Skripal.
What role did # IntegrityInitiative
play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers
from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow....
However, Harod's confidential
report
did more than just parse social media reactions to the Skripal affair: It compiled a list of alleged "pro-Russia troll accounts"
accused of "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case."
Among those who found themselves listed as nefarious thought-criminals were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a gentleman
from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.
Neocon Fascist, al-Qaeda Supporting Treasonous Scumbag @ Benimmo
is having a laugh with £2m of Taxpayers money. Nimmo should be IN JAIL for Fraud & Treason
"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents"
- has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not.
Another
document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative"
of the Skripal incident, which blames Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, as well as containing a number of recommended
actions.
These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to
Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the
UK."
Other suggestions included propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim
brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" and getting members of parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses."
It's not clear who the document was drawn up for, but it may have been provided to II-affiliated journalists in the UK and other
countries.
This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning
– which the UK and its allies unanimously blamed on Moscow.
Ahead of its time?
One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a
document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including
mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot.
Coincidentally, more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from 20 Western countries in an apparently show of solidarity with
the UK following the Skripal attack. At the time, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed what she said was "the largest collective
expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history."
Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents, written long before the Salisbury events, also call for the arrest of RT and
Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding: "Makes you think "
The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made
all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the
alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler
and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute.
It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended
# IntegrityInitiative meetings. There
is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair.
It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity
Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were
drawn up years in advance.
Agreed that the House of Saud and the salafist jihadis are to blame for so much that has
happened in the ME since long before 9/11. And that the Long War is always projected as
"defense" against the nefarious "terrorists" who are objects of the GWOT. But, dude, all the
terrorists in the world still don't have anything that amounts to a real army, navy, and
– how ridiculous can it be? – an air force. The Long War has never really
amounted to anything more than a cover story and a smoke screen.
That's because, as we have been informed of late, the real enemy is Russia. And China. And
everything else that counts in the Long Great Game of four-dimensional chess must necessarily
conform to the strategy that ultimately is about "containment" of those two competitors for
global power. This is not just my own opinion. It has come down from on-high, in statements
conveyed by the highest ranks of military authority. News flash: The "enemy" is no longer the
"terrorists" – if it ever was. The plan's best advocate may have been Paul Wolfowitz,
whose "doctrine" was "no peer competitors" – forever. That's the Long War for ya.
To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince
Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the USA, per the
FBI:
From my blog:
Jul 17, 2016 – The 28 Pages
After years of controversy, the House Intelligence Committee declassified part of their
December 2002 report on the 9-11 attacks, which shows direct Saudi involvement in supporting
the 9-11 attackers. This major story has been ignored by most of our corporate media. White
House press secretary Josh Earnest said: "This information does not change the assessment of
the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi
individuals funded al-Qaida." The BBC reported the story, but assures us it proves no high
level links to the Saudi government.
The House Committee report states that Saudi Ambassador to the USA and a close friend of
the Bush family, Prince Bandar, and his wife sent the 9-11 attackers thousands of dollars on
several occasions; but I guess the BBC does not consider him high-level, or their reporters
didn't bother to read the 28 pages. BBC readers will not know these facts because the BBC
report failed to provide a link to the 28 pages.
Bacevich should rewrite: After 9/11, the Israeli envoy made the most of those connections,
deflecting attention away from the role The Israelis had played in the events of that day
while fingering Saddam Hussein's Iraq as the true font of Islamist terrorism.
The hard evidence to substantiate the role played by Israel is overwhelming.
Unless you are saying that Prince Bandar may have been deliberatey involved in setting up
the events of 9/11 you are just waffling to get attention. And if you are saying that you are
spouting obvious BS.
" .General, can you describe this Long War of ours? What is its nature? What is it all
about?
Are we winning? How can we tell?
How much longer should Americans expect it to last?
What are we up against? ."
" ..What would be the criteria for removing our remaining troops from the Iraqi, Syrian,
and more general Middle Eastern conflicts? Or, for that matter, from Afghanistan, where we
have been trapped for more than 17 long years of still open-ended occupation?
If the answer to that question is that only when each of these countries is a healthy
pro-American democracy, and Islamist terrorism has ceased to be an "enduring" threat to the
West, then the answer, as the old Bob Mankoff joke has it, is "How about never -- is never
good for you?" ":
Recall that was a Saudi. So, too, were 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11,
2001.
Gimme a break.
When I saw Bacevich's name, I wasted no time reading. However, with that one statement,
his credibility just dropped to zero. Just another unthinking garbage peddler, (I'm in a
gnerous mood this AM), it seems.
To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince
Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the US.
While I have no hard evidence to either confirm or deny any of that, I commend you for the
likely accurate use of the term,"patsies." I highly suspect that they were little more than
actors in a false flag drama and think it would be more accurate to label them "alleged
terrorists." No?
That is what Mr Meyer is saying. Bandar was deliberately involved in setting up the events
of 911. Unless you are a follower of the absurd belief that 'Saudi Arabia did 911', then the
most rational explanation is that he was doing it on behalf of the deep state US/Israeli
plotters. The Saudis were effectively the handlers for the fake hijackers. Bandar blundered
somewhat by not having enough cutouts to make US govt claims that he was innocent totally
believable.
With MBS in charge, is Saudi Arabia part of the solution or part of the problem?
This is exactly the wrong question to ask. It's a testament to how thoroughly a Regime
Change mindset has disastrously taken hold that even seeming critics like you are captured by
it.
The Real Enemy . . . militant Salafism
Your use "enemy," let alone "The Real Enemy" is depressingly telling. Particularly for
pissant jihadis who we've variously funded and armed over the years.
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a generational shift in its ruling factions.
How did our Regime Change Libya work out? Or Obama/Hillary's Morsi/MB gambit in Egypt?
The American foreign policy establishment is highly selective in who it deems beyond the
pale (e.g. assassin in chief; perpetrator of atrocities).
What does President Trump's recent nomination of retired Army General John Abizaid to
become the next U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia signify? That the President is focused on
stabilizing the Middle East and our position in it. It means that the Saudis must reverse
their military and strategic openings to Russia/China.
Prince Bandar's wife did send several thousand dollars to the terrorists who arrived in
Los Angeles airport, went directly to nearby Culver City and met s contact st the big Culver
City mosque and then to San Diego where they stayed a while.
The Saudi's claimed that the money sent to the terrorists was just the standard diplomat's
duty to help their nationals in foreign countries Most countries aren't that generous to
their traveling nationals. But most countries don't have the money that Saudi does.
Her sending the money was widely reported at the time.
Harold L Ickes at the end of 1944 made Saudi Arabia a USA colony.
Saudi Arabia somehow resembles Israel, without USA support it cannot exist.
But there is, still is, a big difference, the Saudi kings are just USA puppets, jews still
have enormous influence in the USA.
The other difference, Saudi Arabia has oil, Israel is just a nuisance.
"... Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one of the most respected names in journalism. ..."
"... The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it just days later, dubbed in Polish. ..."
"... Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that within a week or so, every single person ..."
"... Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring racism in Poland, says the program was one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure it was outrageous. ..."
"... The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister complained. Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual step of publicly responding to criticism ..."
"... Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news. ..."
"... the BBC seems to have taken pains to get copies off the internet. ..."
"... Panorama ..."
"... Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC. ..."
"... The Grauniad is in the same business. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea ..."
Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but
anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable
account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one
of the most respected names in journalism.
In May of 2012, the BBC Panorama program broadcast a documentary about "racism" in
the host countries of the 2012 European soccer championship: Poland and Ukraine. Those two
countries were about to stage the second biggest event in the sport after the World Cup, and
legions of journalists had arrived to cover it. The purpose of the BBC program -- aired
strategically one week before the opening match -- was to argue that neither country was
qualified to host the tournament because of their "hateful" soccer cultures. The message:
All-white countries are hotbeds of violent racism, and non-white fans and players would be in
danger.
I know a lot about the Panorama program because I helped produce it. I saw what is
arguably the world's most famous and trusted media organization fabricate a false,
sensationalist story. Through outright distortion -- and by using only those pieces that fit
its predetermined views -- the BBC "documented" the vicious attitudes of people who live in
countries that are not sufficiently "diverse." The program had a scripted conclusion before a
single camera was turned on.
Panorama is
the BBC's flagship investigative program. It is the longest-running such production in the
world, having been on the air since 1953. The closest thing to it on American television is
probably 60 Minutes . Panorama enjoys a reputation for hard-hitting and
serious investigative journalism.
About three months before the tournament began, a BBC journalist got in touch with me
through mutual media contacts and asked me to help with the part to be filmed in Poland. He
said the program would be about aspects of the football culture -- hooliganism, trouble at
stadiums, etc. -- that could cause problems for players and fans alike. This topic is something
of a hobby of mine, and I have followed it carefully during my time in Poland. The BBC wanted
me to be a "fixer" -- the person on the ground who arranges things in advance for the
production team. That meant setting up interviews, scouting filming locations, getting press
passes and access to events, arranging transport, and a hundred other odds and ends. I was also
expected to contribute ideas based on my knowledge.
I suspected right from the start that they wanted things that make for good television
rather than a true investigation -- conflict, tension, etc. -- but I was somewhat reassured
because this was the BBC. Despite my reservations, I never thought they would make the
television equivalent of sensationalist trashy tabloid headlines.
The producer and a cameraman made their first trip to Poland in March 2012. They had asked
me to arrange an interview with Aviram Baruchian, an Israeli who played with Polonia Warsaw.
They said the interview was supposed to be about "his experience as a football player in
Poland," but the fact that they asked for him by name suggested they assumed he would have
horror stories about being mistreated by fans because he is Jewish.
The press officer for Polonia was very accommodating, something I found again and again when
dealing with officials from football clubs. People automatically trusted the BBC and went to
extraordinary lengths to give them what they wanted.
I met the production crew for the first time the day after the interview. When I asked how
it went, they joked about how useless it was. I was confused by their dismissive attitude and
felt a bit responsible, but they told me not to worry. I learned later from the Polonia media
spokesman that Mr. Baruchian had nothing but appreciative things to say about the fans and his
experience in Warsaw -- which is exactly why he isn't in the final program.
There is a curious "Jewish" angle to Polish football that is easily misunderstood. Fans
chant nasty things about Jews, but, strange as it may seem, it's not accurate to call it
serious anti-Semitism.
Many of the older clubs originally had or are thought to have had Jewish financial backing.
This is almost certainly true of the team in Lodz -- called Widzew Łódź --
since that city had a large Jewish population before the Second World War. These origins have
become a source of cheap name calling for people who seize on any excuse to trade insults. When
fans chant "death to the Jews," it sounds shocking -- and it certainly is brutish -- but this
is mainly a way of attacking the other team rather than Jews.
There has been a similar situation with the London football club Tottenham Hotspur, which
has had Jewish owners. Fans of rival clubs started chanting about the "Jewish" team. Tottenham
supporters eventually embraced this and some even call themselves the " Yid Army ." The fans of one Polish
club, Cracovia, were in the same position and did the same thing, now proudly calling
themselves the "Jewish Sons of Bitches." When I told the BBC about that, they weren't
interested.
Needless to say, there is a lot of anti-Jewish chanting in the final Panorama
program, but it is presented without explanation. It falsely makes the fans look as though they
want to send Jews to the ovens.
The Star of David is now used so much in soccer graffiti that a Polish teacher I met told me
that the children in his class associate it with the sport. He also had a friend from Israel,
so this seemed like gold for the BBC: a poignant combination of children, the star of David,
racism, and a chance to talk to another Israeli and get what they missed from Aviram
Baruchian.
I set up the interview, but it was another disaster. Both the teacher and his Israeli friend
said that, yes, while there certainly are boorish people, just as there are in every country,
most Poles are very nice etc. Again and again, the Israeli put a positive spin on things, even
when asked melodramatic questions about the Second World War. It was another "useless"
interview that didn't make the final cut. I remember that when we got back to the van everyone
burst out laughing about what a complete waste of time it had been.
The first actual match we went to film was Legia Warsaw vs. Polonia Warsaw. This contest had
an excellent chance of including all the things that make for great television, and it was
before I understood what the real focus of the program was, so I was sure the BBC crew would
not be disappointed. For about five hours, they filmed an army of police in full riot gear,
flares and firecrackers being thrown around the stands and onto the field, an enormous banner
unfurled by the home Legia fans declaring that Warsaw belonged to them, and a reply spelled out
by the small but brave contingent of visiting Polonia supporters, who held up cards to form one
big reply: "FUCK LEGIA." There was a hooligan with a bullhorn on an elevated platform and
countless examples of a well-known hand gesture delivered straight into the camera. A section
of the stadium was burned black by a flare that set fire to a banner.
The entire contingent of Polonia fans was still in that blackened section after the match,
surrounded by hundreds of security guards who would escort them out of the stadium perhaps an
hour or two later. This was to minimize the chance of contact with Legia hooligans who might be
waiting for them. It was easy to capture the violent atmosphere of the game, and I was
confident the production team was happy. As we made our way back to the van, I asked the
assistant producer if he was pleased. He made a face that said "not really," and then out of
nowhere asked, "Did you hear any racist or anti-Semitic chants?" He was visibly disappointed
when I said I hadn't.
Boring
The lead producer said he was more or less satisfied with the "visuals" but was disappointed
with the "substance." He asked again about something I had been unable to do: get one of the
more committed hooligan types to go on camera. This time he explicitly said he wanted someone
involved in "right-wing politics" as well as hooliganism.
I said it wasn't easy to get inside a violent crime syndicate. The higher-ups in any
hooligan organization are wanted by the police, and anyone further down is too scared to speak
to the media for fear of the "leaders." Believe me, anyone who goes on camera and says he's a
hooligan is either a wannabe or gets a very personal lesson in media relations from his former
friends. I did the best I could, striking up awkward and even dangerous conversations on dark
streets, and I visited dodgy clubs in four different cities, but I never delivered. The closest
I got was a conversation with the head of one club's "supporters organization," who demanded a
"fee" for "security." To its credit, the BBC refused to pay.
Time to get serious
The team went back to London, and I continued to look into leads. I began to realize that
what they wanted was bananas thrown at black players, Nazi salutes from the stands, and maybe
some brutal beatings to add color.
In a phone conversation with the assistant producer at the end of March, I detected a note
of urgency and in April, I got an e-mail message from him that said, "Our Executive Producer,
Karen Wightman [who was in charge of the entire Panorama series], wants us to film
black players and their experience of racism in Poland as a priority."
The BBC had dropped all pretense about what they were after -- at least with me -- though
they kept up the charade of a neutral investigation with others.
The crew decided to come see a match in the city of Łódź between ŁKS
Łódź and Widzew Łódź. Like the previous game in Warsaw, this
was a derby, that is to say, a contest between two clubs in the same city. Derbies typically
have the most intense atmosphere, and thus an elevated chance of the kind of incident the BBC
was looking for.
Widzew had two Nigerian players, Princewill Okachi and Ugo Ukah, and the BBC wanted
first-hand accounts of mistreatment. Mr. Ukah was of particular interest because he had played
for Queens Park Rangers in London and could compare his treatment in diverse, tolerant,
multicultural England with that of all-white, wicked Poland. Also, there would be two black men
on the visiting team in a contest famous for its wild fans. Everything was lined up perfectly
to provide the missing "substance."
I asked the BBC specifically what they wanted me to tell the press officer of Widzew and
they told me to say we were interested in Poland's preparation for the Euro 2012 tournament.
Someone else on the production team, who had also been in contact with Widzew by e-mail, sent
me this note:
They don't know at this stage we want to specifically talk about racism in Polish football
and their [the black players'] own personal experiences of abuse, so be prepared to schmuz
[sic] and impress.
"At this stage" was after the club had agreed to make the players available -- on Easter
Sunday, no less, to fit our tight schedule. We were supposed to "schmuz and impress" rather
than be forthright about the reason for the interview. I remember wondering how often the BBC
gets access and interviews under false pretenses. To my shame, I was helping set the trap.
Łódź was the BBC's last chance to find anti-black "racism." The broadcast
date for the final program was already booked and Panorama was fully committed to a
headline-grabbing account of the dark, racist side of what was soon to be Europe's biggest
sporting stage. But they had no racism.
It was in Łódź that the host, Chris Rogers , finally parachuted
into his own program. He was the one who had sold the BBC on the idea months earlier, and the
entire Panorama episode is presented as "his" investigation. Mr. Rogers made something
of a name for himself in 2007 with an undercover investigation of Romania's orphanages, and he
has been dining out on it ever since.
He flew in to interview the two Nigerian players and to do PTC's (pieces to camera) the
following day at the match to add to footage shot in Warsaw without him. He came across as a
typical media type who was good at fake sincerity and spent a little too much time on his
hair.
We went to the Widzew Łódź office to interview Mr. Okachi and Mr. Ukah. Mr.
Rogers started with softball questions, such as how long the players had been in Poland, where
else they had played professionally, etc. He turned things up a notch by asking about the
reception they had received in Poland. Both players gave positive answers. Time and again
Rogers dangled the carrot and time and again no one reached for it. Suddenly Rogers put on his
best journalist Serious Face, turned to Mr. Ukah, and said "Why has Polish football been
hijacked by racism?"
There was nothing in the interview up to that point to justify that question. It was so
unexpected that Mr. Ukah was taken aback for a moment before he was finally able to give a
suitably noncommittal answer. The next few minutes consisted of both Mr. Ukah and Mr. Okachi
repeatedly stating that though they had heard of things happening to other people, they had
never heard or seen anything that could be interpreted as racist abuse in Poland.
This went on for a few more minutes until both players had run out of nice ways to say "no"
to the same question. Mr. Rogers had no choice but to wrap it up.
"For the hundredth time: No."
The players left quickly to enjoy what was left of Easter. I distinctly remember Mr. Rogers
and the producer agreeing that they had "material to work with."
If you watch the final
version of the program , you will see how they "worked" with it. They made it sound as
though the players were talking about horrible things that happened to them . I was in
the room the whole time, paying careful attention, and those bits were taken from rambling
answers they gave about things they had heard happened to others . I was amazed at how
editing and voice-overs transformed the interview into something I couldn't recognize. Needless
to say, those were the only parts of the interview that were used.
I heard it. Trust me. Let's go.
The next day was the match. After filming the police using water cannons on fans, we went
inside the stadium. We set up a camera behind one of the goals and a microphone at midfield in
front the home fans. Mr. Rogers instructed me to be on the lookout for "anything good," and by
then I knew what he meant. He also told me to keep an eye on the Nigerian players and look for
any nastiness from the crowd. He constantly disappeared to sneak cigarettes and text his
friends in England. He wasn't even there for the kickoff. When he finally reappeared he asked
if I had seen or heard anything useful. When I said I hadn't, he disappeared again.
About 30 minutes in to the first half, we were still waiting for "something good," and Mr.
Rogers was visibly anxious. He paced back and forth, checking his phone more than he watched
the crowd or the match. Once, just to break the silence between us as we stood on the sidelines
or maybe to vent his frustration, he actually said out loud "Come on! Sing some Jewish
songs!"
At halftime, the five of us who were there got together to trade notes and suggestions, and
we decided to switch places to maybe improve our "luck." I was with the producer and one
cameraman; the other cameraman was high above the crowd on the opposite stand. Chris Rogers was
. . . somewhere.
The second half kicked off and we went back to work. There was plenty of thuggishness in the
stands -- you see a lot of it in the final version -- but still not what they wanted. There was
a palpable feeling of frustration and hopelessness as another 30 or so minutes passed.
That's when Chris Rogers walked up and said he had heard monkey sounds coming from the
crowd. No one knew quite what to say, but this certainly wasn't greeted with the kind of relief
and interest you would have expected. For a moment it seemed as though we were just waiting for
someone to say "Um . . . really?" but we just waited for Mr. Rogers to tell us exactly what
happened. All he said was that the microphone at midfield had probably picked it up, and he
told the producer to get ready to do a PTC about it. Thirty second later he was in Serious Face
mode, intoning that he had just heard monkey sounds directed at a black player. I kept waiting
for him to tell our cameramen what part of the stands the sounds came from so they could zoom
in on it. Surely he wanted to watch those fans in the hopes that they would do it again, this
time on camera?
No. Chris Rogers made no effort to get visual material for what was to be a key moment in a
television program. And it wasn't as if we were in a massive stadium with 60,000 people, where
it would be hard to pinpoint where sounds came from. The photo below is of the stadium, and the
picture captures about 80 percent of the length of the stand from which the monkey sounds
allegedly came. The banner says "This is how we have fun in Łódź." Not one of
the BBC crew said, "OK, Chris, where should we look?"
The recording from the microphone is in the final version of the program, and I challenge
anyone to detect what Chris Rogers claims to have heard. You might be at a loss to describe
exactly what the noise is, but "monkey sounds" is way, way down on the list of
possibilities.
In the broadcast version, this part of the recording is played over a shot they had taken
earlier in the match of Ugo Ukah attacking the ball. However, the audio is from a microphone
planted at the edge of the field. When they went back and "found" those sounds, they had no
idea what was going on in the match at that moment. But in the program, the sounds start the
moment Mr. Ukah is on the ball. The BBC took the audio from one moment and played it over a
video from another moment. I would expect that from the North Korean press, not the BBC.
When we packed up to leave, we had to walk through the part of the stadium where the
post-match press conference was to be held. It hadn't started, but print and video journalists
were waiting. The BBC producer saw this, and asked Mr. Rogers if we should stop and ask about
what he had heard at the match. What more perfect, made-for-television scene could there be? He
could have walked into the after-match press conference and announced dramatically, "I'm Chris
Rogers from the BBC and I want to know how it's possible that a black player was racially
abused in a country that will be hosting the European Championships." That would be the
dramatic moment they were looking for. But no, Mr. Rogers said we needn't waste the time. He
wanted to go back to the hotel for dinner. He did not speak with Ugo Ukah after the match or
the following day while we were still in Lodz.
Mr. Ukah never said anything about hearing monkey noises. No player from either team ever
did. Nor did any of the many journalists from the Polish media, nor did a German television
crew that was there.
I cannot say what Chris Rogers did or did not hear. However, I do know that in a stadium of
around 5,000 people the only person who claims to have heard monkey sounds was the one person
who flew to Poland for three days with the sole purpose of finding "racism."
The final version of the program stretches the truth in other ways. For example, Mr. Rogers
says he has spent months on location studying local football culture, whereas he spent just a
few days in the country. There is also a scene in which a British "anti-racist" named Nick
Lowles is shown scanning the crowd with binoculars, looking for "hate." The voiceover says that
"he has flown out to see what British fans can expect in Poland," and he obligingly gives an
interview. The program makes it look as though the camera crew just stumbled onto him in the
stands. In fact, the BBC flew him in just for that scene.
The team certainly didn't mind spending money. I was with the producer when he got a message
from London telling him that they were well over budget. He said they had spent around
£150,000 pounds (about $230,000). They stayed in expensive hotels and never thought about
costs. I was amazed by how much they spent in restaurants and hotel bars. Remember: This is the
BBC, to which mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a
television set in Britain. It is a criminal offense not to pay.
The results
Just days before the broadcast, the BBC showed some of the footage to Sol Campbell, son of
Jamaican immigrants and former captain of the English national football team. They happily
filmed him claiming -- predictably -- to be shocked. He said it was enough to convince him not
to go to the tournament and to warn other non-whites not to go.
This was brilliant publicity for Panorama . Polish and Ukrainian media picked up
Mr. Campbell's comments, which pushed "racism" to the forefront of any British discussion of
the tournament. The program cast a pall over the tournament before the first match was even
played, and put a small army of journalists on alert, scanning the stands for "hate."
I watched the show when it first aired at the end of May. I had been dreading it, but my
dread turned to shock when I heard what the episode was called: "Stadiums of Hate ."
They had come up with a suitably provocative title for their contrived, deliberately misleading
fairy tale about a football culture permeated with vile racism.
The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this
much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in
Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it
just days later, dubbed in Polish.
Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that
within a week or so, every single person who appeared on camera in the Polish part of
the program claimed publicly to have been misrepresented. This includes Jonathan Ornstein, the
director of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow. I was present for the interview with him,
and he gave thoughtful answers to all of Chris Rogers' questions, always emphasizing that ugly
graffiti and idiots making trouble at stadiums do not represent larger Polish attitudes. In the
program, however, he seems to be leading the charge against horrible, hateful, anti-Semitic
Poland. Mr. Ornstein told me personally how disgusted he was by how his interview was cut apart
and stitched back together.
Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring
racism in Poland, says the program was
one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure
it was outrageous.
The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister
complained.
Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and
reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual
step of publicly responding
to criticism .
Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the
White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish
death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from
the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless
media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news.
Today, criticism of the "Stadiums of Hate" episode takes up more space on the Wikipedia page forPanorama than any other episode
in its history. As the doubts and questions mounted, the BBC seems to have taken pains to get
copies off the internet. There are any number of other full
episodes of
Panorama
on YouTube , but not this one.
I was the least important man on the production crew and had no editorial influence, but I
still felt responsible the episode that millions of people ultimately watched. At the height of
the furor I got in touch with the Polish and foreign press. Their reaction was always the same:
intense initial interest that quickly faded after a better understanding of what was involved.
The explanation I heard over and over was that attacking a program that attacked racism looks
like you're defending racism.
One editor of a major UK newspaper told me it was hard to attack Panorama without a
smoking gun. When I asked for an example, he said one would be someone who admitted he was paid
by the BBC to pretend to be a "racist" hooligan. The man seemed jaded and not at all surprised
by what I told him; he also said he simply could not risk coming across as defending
"racism."
As time goes by, doubts about the program's credibility fade. All anyone will remember is
that the great Chris Rogers exposed horrible racists in Poland and Ukraine. You will have to
dig pretty deep to get the real story. That is the power of the biggest name in news.
Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC.
The documentary was called Stadiums of Hate. I think the quote below, by itself, is enough
to rename it a Documentary of Hate.
Ornstein:
As an American-born Jew living happily and safely in Poland and working diligently to
build Jewish life in that country, I am furious at the way the BBC has exploited me as a
source. The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of
anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda; in doing so, the BBC has insulted all Polish
people and done a disservice to the growing, thriving Jewish community of Poland.
I have reason to believe the BBC similarly misrepresented the black African football
players it used as sources in the same programme.
Moreover, the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience – the British people – by
concocting a false horror story about Poland. In doing so, the BBC has spread fear,
ignorance, prejudice and hatred.
I would urge the BBC to become more aware of its own negative stereotyping of Poles,
before it goes pointing the finger of judgment.
Only causing physical harm to someone that you hate could be termed a hate crime. Hating
someone or something and saying so is not a crime. Hate is a natural emotion and reaction to
something that is unacceptable. Islam and what it teaches is unacceptable, therefore I hate
Islam and I hate the followers of Islam that commit hate-crimes.
The same dishonesty taints nearly everything the BBC puts out. Even drama is hijacked to
carry the globalist message. Whatever is devoid of politics is mindless pap about baking or
dance, etc., to keep the proletariat in a state of goodthink docility.
The author errs when he says
mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a television set
in Britain
You need only buy a TV 'licence' if you watch TV as it is broadcast , on any
equipment belonging to you. Licences are issued to households; a 'household' may also
comprise a student's room or a communal area such as is found in retirement homes. The BBC,
through agents, maintains a spotty database of every address in the UK. Any unlicensed
address is targeted with letters threatening criminal prosecution. It is legal to own a set
if you just use it for watching DVDs or videos from the net.
There are plenty of ways to thwart the BBC's bagmen, the simplest, healthiest and most
time-efficient being to stop watching television of any description. I did this in 2005.
Since then I have withheld from them the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about £2,000,
plus interest, been blessed with many hours of more interesting, lucrative and enjoyable
pursuits, and saved myself innumerable episodes of anger and disgust. Moreover I have no idea
who any of these 'celebrities' are who grace the tabloids, and have been spared the
pontifications of the assorted arseholes and big-heads whose cretinous and toxic opinions the
BBC daily spews on the British public and, indeed, on the hapless citizens of the rest of the
globe via a propaganda outlet called the BBC World Service.
I commend going TV-free to all. It does wonders for the capacity to think clearly, not to
mention the blood-pressure.
BBC's neutrality ended when the BBC exposed Tony B-liar's lies about Saddam's 45 minutes
WMD's.
The director was fired, replaced by a jew.
As to Polish antisemitism, it existed, still existed around 1967 when Polish jews were
given the opportunity to leave.
And of course, since Israel tries to make Poland responsible for a part of the holocaust, the
gas chamber camps were on Polish territory, Poland responds, they have no desire whatsoever
to be the next victim of the holocaust industry.
As to the why of Polish anti-Semitism, suppose it was in Poland more or less the same as in
Lithuania in the thirties, Jews controlling the economy.
Of course also Polish Catholicism may have played a role.
Jews responsible for the death of the son of god.
Descriptions of Polish antisemitism one finds in
Jan T. Gross, 'Neighbours, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland,
1941', 2003, London Bogdan Musial, ´Sowjetische Partisanen 1941 – 1944, Mythos und Wirklichkeit',
Paderborn 2009
The book describes antisemitism among all E European resistance fighters.
Jews were not or hardly allowed among these resistance fighters.
The novel
André Schwartz-Bart, 'Le Dernier des Justes', 1959, 1980 Paris seems to have been to
some extent autobiographical, with as country of origin Poland.
Described is on the one hand how jews resisted assimilation, wanted to remain jews, even, or
especially, in clothing, on the other hand how non jews did not accept jews, even trying to
prevent they visited the synagogue, or jewish children being insulted in schools.
As nearly always, one wonders why the antagonism., no explanation.
The program had a scripted conclusion before a single camera was turned on.
This seems self-evident and yet it's rarely or never said. Cameras and word processors
don't operate autonomously. Somebody begins with a story, a narrative, they wish to convey.
They then point their camera at things they choose, or cherrypick, to illustrate their
narrative. Afterwards, they carefully edit, or censor, what they've recorded making sure that
only that most sympathetic to their narrative is shown. It is ALL propaganda. And it is
ubiquitous.
It is up to the viewer or reader to filter the information presented, to sift through it
for specks of unbiased Truth that may have somehow survived their unlikely journey past the
narrative writer, his editors, their advertisers and lawyers, to the end product. Thus we see
a "News Report" about "a fight that broke out among a group of youths" where the amateur
video shows us a pack of feral young negroes, without provocation, attacks a lone white and
after knocking him unconscious rifles through his pockets removing his phone and wallet
before running off in jubilation.
And yet, despite this being shown to us time and again, incessantly, most people still
trust their "News" sources!
And, as Ron Unz has so often shown us on this very site, History is nothing more than
yesterday's "News."
The open question, really, is whether or not it is even possible to obtain information
assembled and presented by an organization that does not fit the paradigm described above.
And, considering the amount of time and cognition required for one to even attempt to find
Truth in media, what are the chances that an average viewer or reader (bear in mind
illiteracy rates) of average intelligence (bear in mind the left side of the bell curve) can
obtain anything resembling a sense of Reality on which he may inform his opinions and
beliefs? How often do we hear older people say things like, "I remember when you used to be
able to get straight News from Walter Cronkite.." oblivious to the Truth above?
The BBC twists the truth!? Having also worked in the UK tv industry, the only proper
response is "do bears etc?" But thank you, Mr Krak, for having recorded your experiences.
The truth is that the Cultural Marxism movement was about the take over of all
institutions of white european culture and turning them against white europeans.
Professional sports was subverted almost a century ago. The racist anti-German propaganda
of WWI and WWII was already strongly "semitic". The ascendence of Hollywood really marks the
heeb takeover of American entertainment industry and the beach head for the conquest of the
entire culture.
So as we enter 2019, I cannot think of one aspect of western European culture that is not
heavily influenced by heebs, under their control or outright under their ownership. Even the
alt-right "nazi's" are really just a bunch of jew cut-outs like Breitbard, Savage and
Shapiro. Then there are all the crypto jews like Alex Jones or even Jordan Peterson. Many
white Europeans are talmudists without having even a drop of jewish blood.
The BBC has been a Tavistock propaganda organ since its inception. After the Armistice and
Versailles in 1919, the masonic-zionist propaganda war against the planet never stopped.
Every new technology was first weaponized for use in mind control before release to the
general population. Even the internet itself was also conceived at Darpa as a mind control
tool and is closely linked to the trans-humanist and cultural marxist agenda.
So if you want to successfully attack the BBC, you also have to attack MI5, MI6, CIA, NSA,
MIC, the entire 5 eyes spy network, the Queen of England, the Catholic Church, the US deep
state, Israel, and ultimately their jewish god who in reality is Satan.
So to me it seems that obsessing about football hooligans is rather pointless, any
movement to try to deal with any of the symptoms of our take over will quickly be subsumed.
Like the occupy movement. Or the alt-right. Or the yellow-vests.
To kill this snake you will have to cut off its head.
"... The fact that obviously deranged fanatic hack has students is a testimony to a sewer level of the US "elite-producing" machine and a pathetic sight contemporary US "elite" represents. ..."
"... "political science" is not a science but pseudo-academic field for losers who do not want to study real history or take courses which actually develop intellect and provide fundamental knowledge. ..."
Early on in her book, Albright says: My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remember best were charismatic
Marked in bold is the most terrifying thing about Albright's book and I am not even going to read her pseudo-intellectual excrement.
The fact that obviously deranged fanatic hack has students is a testimony to a sewer level of the US "elite-producing" machine
and a pathetic sight contemporary US "elite" represents.
This is apart from the fact that "political science" is not a science
but pseudo-academic field for losers who do not want to study real history or take courses which actually develop intellect and
provide fundamental knowledge.
Elements of fascism doctrine are noe constituent part of any Western national security state. In a sense fascism as a
derivative of corporatism (control of the state by finance and large industrialists and in turn enforcing policies beneficial for
this group) won in the form of "inverted totalitarism". So dominance of intelligence agencies was preserved and amplified, but
the political mobilization of masses are discouraged under neoliberalism. Go shopping was famous Bush II recommendation to US
citizens after the 9/11. Use of fascism in propaganda purposes more often then not constitute project.
Notable quotes:
"... "fascism" as a catch-all derogatory term for just about any exercise of authority people don't like. ..."
"... Opponents of American imperialism will observe that Albright's list of quasi-Fascist states corresponds quite closely with those who have opposed U.S. foreign policies in recent decades. There is barely a word about America's authoritarian allies Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. ..."
"... In a dictatorship, the elimination of political and ideological pluralism means that the country can enjoy political stability. This, by the way, is crucial in multiethnic countries such as Yugoslavia or Iraq, for which the fall of the dictatorship and democratization led to atrocious ethno-religious civil war. ..."
"... It goes without saying that fascist and authoritarian countries in general pose a greater threat to U.S. hegemony than do democratic ones who value above all money-making, individual choice, and the pretense of equality, rather than the well-being and power of the community as a whole ..."
"... Wouldn't you consider a woman unbelievably comfortable with using sanctions to snuff a half-million Iraqi children to achieve US policy objectives to be the poster-child of a facist regime? ..."
It is always gratifying when one's intuition is confirmed. I had the impression, picking up Madeleine Albright's book Fascism:
A Warning , that I would be treated to an exercise of "Fascism is bad. And everything I don't like is Fascism!" The former secretary
of State, a Jewish liberal originally hailing from Czechoslovakia, did not disappoint.
The book is essentially a set of portraits of various movements and leaders Albright considers to be "Fascist" ( contra
convention, she capitalizes even when not referring to Mussolini's National Fascist Party) and/or vaguely fascistic.
Albright warns early on that people use "fascism" as a catch-all derogatory term for just about any exercise of authority people
don't like. She proposes a somewhat reasonable definition of fascism and then goes on to do exactly what she warned against, covering
not only Mussolini and Hitler, but also Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and communist Czechoslovakia in her Fascist(ish) portraits.
To be fair, these vignettes are often quite informative. The chapters on Hugo Chávez, Recep Erdoğan, and the Kims of North Korea
in particular showcase a diplomat's sensitivity and nuance, making an effort to understand the motivations and appeal of these men
(and the movements and/or systems they represent), as well as their considerable failings.
However, to lump all of these under the broad heading "quasi-fascist" only makes sense in terms of branding. Since World War II,
people have been taught to consider authoritarianism, fascism, "Nazism," nationalism, racism, and eugenics as the supreme evils.
In fact, these things are quite different (there were democratic countries systematically practicing eugenics and racism, while Fascist
Italy if anything was quite slow to adopt such policies). These things are not really distinguished in people's minds however but
form a kind of hideous potpourri of sadistic bullying
[1] Albright
even quotes Orwell claiming that fascism is nothing more than "bullying." and senseless suffering, basically a Hieronymus Bosch
painting come to life, embodying their deepest fears as human beings. Emotionally it is very powerful and it is understandable that
Albright would want to misleadingly brand all her opponents as (quasi-)Fascists.
Opponents of American imperialism will observe that Albright's list of quasi-Fascist states corresponds quite closely with
those who have opposed U.S. foreign policies in recent decades. There is barely a word about America's authoritarian allies Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf States.
Strikingly, the word "Netanyahu" does not appear in the book's Index at all. The existence of a democratic ethno-nationalist
state goes against her whole narrative. For what it's worth, I suspect most people in European nationalist parties and in the Alt-Right
would be happy to preserve democracy if they could have their own Netanyahus, with the establishment of Western ethnostates dedicated
to their own people, with the explicit goal of preserving or restoring ethnic European demographic supermajorities.
This selectivity will encourage the impression that the State Department's talk of "human rights" has less to do with upholding
universal moral principles than with demonizing the United States' geopolitical opponents du jour . The American Establishment
does not bully China as much as Russia, despite being obviously more authoritarian. I suspect this is because China is already too
big to bully, while Russia can still be pushed around and serve as a useful bogeyman (always useful to the Military-Industrial Complex,
the National Security State, and for all the Establishmentarians who need a scapegoat for the rise of populism). On that note, I
suspect most diplomatic conflicts today have less to do with "realist" international power dynamics than with the utility of foreign
enemies for governments domestically.
Personally I prefer a republican government under the rule of law. But it would be dishonest to deny that authoritarian governments
present certain advantages. In times of crisis, all governments tend to revert to authoritarianism to get the job done (e.g.: Lincoln,
De Gaulle . . .). In the future, I'll write something on the merits and demerits of liberty and authority, and on the liberal claims
of being "non-authoritarian."
In semi-democratic Venezuela or authoritarian Cuba? In democratic India or authoritarian China? In Atatürk's secular dictatorship
or Erdoğan's Islamist democracy? In authoritarian Yugoslavia or democratic Bosnia? In democratic Jamaica or authoritarian Singapore?
Try to be honest (with yourself).
I will not quibble about the book's one-sided point of view, sometimes questionable assertions, and various hypocrisies typical
of U.S. foreign policy (on which see the
book review already up by
Morris V. de Camp on Counter-Currents ). I'd rather take the subject head-on: the merits and demerits of fascism, which I think
are an interesting subject.
The biggest and really inexcusable intellectual weakness of Albright's book is in lazily equating or associating the various illiberal
democratic regimes (meaning nothing more than democratic regimes liberals don't agree with) with fascist ones. It fails to recognize
that democracy causes populism . If you have democracy – with real freedom of speech and not a dictatorship of the money-men
and of the mainstream media which the postwar American generations were used to – you will get Trumps and Bolsonaros and Corbyns
and Erdoğans. This kind of mess is a feature, not a bug, of real democracy.
The governments of illiberal democracies, it seems to me, also behave more badly because they have to worry about getting
reelected. Unlike dictatorships, these governments are insecure, if they lose one election, they risk losing everything. As a result,
they seem to me to be more erratic and have more of a taste for (often damaging) spectacle and demagogic measures than does the average
dictatorship. (Again: compare the peace and orderliness of Cuba with the violence and chaos of Venezuela.)
Fascism entails a one-party state under the authority of a charismatic dictator, typically with a commitment to national independence
and power. The fascist claims that the right people, in practice the men willing to go out there and risk their lives to beat up
communists, ought to be in charge. The biggest risk, as in all personal dictatorships, is that the country's development is put at
the mercy of the wisdom and the stability of the leader. There have been plenty of competent dictators: Franco, Chiang Kai-shek,
Lee Kuan Yew, etc. Hitler's personal contempt for the Slavs, more than anything else, caused his downfall – if he'd toned that back,
and just that might have been enough – I'd probably be typing in German today.
In a dictatorship, the elimination of political and ideological pluralism means that the country can enjoy political stability.
This, by the way, is crucial in multiethnic countries such as Yugoslavia or Iraq, for which the fall of the dictatorship and
democratization led to atrocious ethno-religious civil war. As
Lee Kuan Yew , my favorite antidote to the political childishness
that prevails in the West today, said concerning his multiracial state of Singapore: "We had to lock up people, without trial, whether
they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, or religious extremists. If you don't do that the country would be in
ruins today!" Few things have been as murderous as the promotion of "democracy" in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, a policy which, not coincidentally,
has destroyed several geopolitical opponents of Israel.
The government can furthermore take decisive actions where necessary. Fascism rose in Italy because veterans and others could
see that the parliamentary democracy was unable to stop communist-inspired chaos and was generally ineffectual. The Germans voted
for Hitler so as to free Germany from the chaos of Western financial capitalism and to overturn the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles.
Does anyone think the divided, social-democratic Weimar Republic could have overturned Versailles as quickly as the Third Reich did?
The lack of elections means political leaders have no need to pander to the 51% every couple of years. The rulers can adopt far-sighted
and sustainable policies without worrying about electoral change or unpopularity (the European Union follows this line anti-democratic
line of argument concerning macroeconomics, a field in which it is attempting to eliminate the influence of elected politicians altogether,
so as to ensure only "responsible" budgetary and monetary decisions are taken). The government can furthermore promote a uniform
set of values, in the case of fascism, this tends to be things like
national power, independence, and individual self-sacrifice for the community – but in principle these can be anything, such
as equality, eugenics, or ecology.
Fascism does not necessarily mean racism, eugenics, anti-Semitism, or perpetual warfare. Italian Fascism really should set the
bar in this area. As Albright admits, if Mussolini had chosen to join the winning side in World War II, fascism would not be a swear
word today. Mussolini only sided with Hitler because of the Anglo-French's opposition to his invasion of Ethiopia, which he thought
quite hypocritical, given that Britain and France already had vast colonial empires of their own.
Fascism is often quite inclusive: involving the masses, educating them, giving them access to culture, economic welfare, tourism,
and healthcare. In general, these systems try to be meritocratic (like any honest bureaucracy really), letting all apply and, if
found competent and appropriate, hired and promoted through the ranks. In short, a degree of socialism, but without slaughtering
your upper-classes, starving your Kulaks, or waging war against your own population.
Saddam Hussein's long-time foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, was a non-Arab Christian. It is also also notorious
that the Baathist regimes in Iraq and Syria were/are more tolerant of ethnic and religious minorities than have been the various
Islamist rebel groups – specializing in enslaving Yazidis and destroying priceless Greco-Roman architecture.
Fascism, in short, is a nation making an effort , according to whatever goals have been set (e.g. having more babies, training
a powerful army, reducing dependence on foreign imports . . .). Democracy is the pursuit of comfiness. An eco-fascism probably could
have prevented climate change.
It goes without saying that fascist and authoritarian countries in general pose a greater threat to U.S. hegemony than do
democratic ones who value above all money-making, individual choice, and the pretense of equality, rather than the well-being and
power of the community as a whole.
Personally, I think ancient republican theory is distinctly superior to the modern (I can barely read Locke and Rousseau). I am
an Aristotelian: I favor whatever promotes the collective flourishing of the community and of the species. e.g.: I support an individual
right if and only if it promotes the common good. Wrap your head around that.
I can't say how a Fascist Italy would have evolved had it won besides the other Allies or remained neutral in World War II. Let
us suppose a middling route: Italy would have maintained its colonial empire for far longer, it would have probably maintained a
much higher birth rate, it would have worked much harder to maintain economic independence (and had some means, via the empire, to
do so, especially in terms of oil), and would generally be a far more independent and powerful country than has been the supine and
corrupt Italian Republic, good for nothing except getting milked for usurious interests rates by international financiers, a glorified
museum and holiday resort. By way of comparison, look at how peaceful, healthy, and independent Cuba is compared to the average Latin
American country – even managing to send 25,000 soldiers to Angola in the 1970s to fight Apartheid. Now imagine that, but a Fascist
postwar Italy of 75 million.
More generally, you still have your basic human capital (a nation of inbred idiots will remain a nation of inbred idiots unless
you have an effective eugenics program). After colonial independence, most of the Third World was actually governed by kind-of-fascist
nationalist and socialist dictatorships, who had the merit of trying to ensure some level of stability and wealth-sharing. Of course
they tended to also be corrupt and incompetent, but regime type doesn't seem to matter much in that respect.
Ever since the French Revolution, liberals and democrats have sought to impose their ideological preferences on the entire world.
Unless you adopt their ever-changing and quite arbitrary list of rights, you are "evil" as far as they are concerned. As Edmund Burke
already saw back then, the imposition of such norms on other, vastly different societies is a recipe for chaos. Many millions of
people have died in the demoliberals' quest to impose their ideology on the whole world and I have no doubt that many more millions
will die in the future.
White liberals lack empathy for "fascists" and "racists" of their own race, although they are quite capable of considering the
merits and demerits of such positions when these concern other nations or science fiction settings.
Given fascism's importance in the history of the twentieth century, people owe it to themselves to look at what the fascists themselves
had to say about their values: Mussolini's
Doctrine of Fascism (co-authored
with philosopher Giovanni Gentile) is a concise and serious declaration of political principles.
Taking the long view, the democratization of Europe coincided almost perfectly with the Continent's collapse into irrelevance.
In 1914, Europeans and people of European descent – the people who had for all intents and purposes created modern civilization –
dominated virtually the entire globe and made up a third of the world's population. Less than 150 years after the triumph of democracy,
these same people will have not only lost their global empires but are set to even lose control of their own nations, by becoming
minorities in North America, Australasia, and even their historic, millennia-old homelands in Western Europe. They will have dwindled
to less than 5% of the world population and may well become under siege, like the Christians of Lebanon or the Serbs of Kosovo. Surely
we deserve a Cosmic Darwin Award for this.
To nationalists, postwar "democracy" was the regime which persecutes nationalists and systematically ignores the will of the people
on the critical issue of immigration. It appears no more than a sham to them. Albright acknowledges that Americans before agreed
more because a narrower media class carefully curated what Americans were allowed to see and read and think. To address this, she
wants to "put a saddle on the bucking bronco we call the Internet." So much for democracy and free speech.
Liberal-democracy means majority rule . . . except when liberals strongly disagree with the majority (then, they believe, the
action should be unconstitutional and/or the media-political class have a solemn duty to shut down the issue). In reality, all regimes,
including "democratic" ones, have official or unofficial Platonic Guardians enforcing certain values and ideas. The question is not
whether something is "democratic" but whether the values and ideas promoted by the Guardians are true.
Early on in her book, Albright says:
My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remember best were charismatic. Through one method or another, each established
an emotional link to the crowd and, like the central figure of a cult, brought deep and often ugly feelings to the surface. This
is how the tentacles of Fascism spread inside a democracy.
I believe that is the fundamental issue: Albright fears an organized mass of people with a strong emotional connection with a
charismatic leader, one who could actually shake up the system. This reminds me of that Jewish journalist who was offended because
French President François Mitterrand
seemed to care more about the millions of Frenchmen who died in World War I than the millions of his fellow Jews who died in the
Shoah : "[Mitterrand] became again, in these movements, that Gaulish chieftain that I did not like very much."
No sir, they don't like European chieftains leading impassioned followers. That could lead to a pogrom . . . or worse. Certainly,
the current absurdly skewed and unjust situation in the
Ivy Leagues (see the graphs in particular)
, the
Democratic Party , and much of the elite and audiovisual
media would probably be shut down. We can ask whether Albright's fears reflect universal morality – as she claims – or simply
a natural desire to defend one's ethnic interests and privileges.
Albright's alarmism about every tepid manifestation of Western civic nationalism and her casual ignoring of Jewish ethnonationalism
– funded at American taxpayers' expense and driving much of the murderous insanity of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, including
under her tenure as secretary of State – is a hypocrisy sadly typical of many American liberal Jews. Influential Jewish groups like
the ADL in America and
the CRIF in France have promoted immigration and multiculturalism in the West all the while demanding support for Israel as a
Jewish ethnostate. Growing awareness of this hypocrisy is contributing to the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment across the West today.
Many liberals and/or Jews simply cannot comprehend that this is happening. But it is.
The sooner we can discuss all issues and acknowledge untruths and injustices on all sides, the sooner we will be able to find
equitable and peaceful solutions to these problems. At least, that is my hope.
Notes
[1]
Albright even quotes Orwell claiming that fascism is nothing more than "bullying."
[2]
I know Singapore allows some minor parties to exist notionally, but power is dominated by the People's Action Party.
Albright's relationship to fascism was broadly advertised for about 10 years. From 1999 until Obama's first midterm a photo of
Albright and Hosni Mubarak in a warm embrace circulated on the internet. It's caption unironically feature "celebrating freedom
to the Balkans" circa post Serbian bombing campaign. Freedom along the Nile never came up on the, apparently, defunct website.
Just before the "Arab Spring" the photo disappeared from the internet. Here's what a google search turns up:
Showing results for madeleine albright Hosni mubarak image "celebrating freedom to the Balkans"
Search instead for madelin albright Hosni mubarak image "celebrating freedom to the Balkans"
No results containing all your search terms were found.
The Alarmist says: January 5, 2019 at 9:37 pm GMT
Wouldn't you consider a woman unbelievably comfortable with using sanctions to snuff a half-million Iraqi children to
achieve US policy objectives to be the poster-child of a facist regime?
"... Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war. ..."
"... Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people. ..."
"... That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. ..."
"... Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid. ..."
"... We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs! ..."
"... Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. ..."
"... But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,.... ..."
"... We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." ..."
"... The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy). ..."
"... It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html ..."
"... Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished. ..."
"... Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla. ..."
"... Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. ..."
"... And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna. ..."
"... What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word ..."
"... Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal." ..."
"... Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations. ..."
"... . . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. ..."
"... This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. ..."
"... Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. ..."
"... Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl. ..."
"... It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist' ..."
"... I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics ..."
"... State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War. ..."
Veteran NBC/MSNBC Journalist Blasts the Network for Being Captive to the National Security State and Reflexively Pro-War to Stop
Trump
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in
a Monday
email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President
Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism.
As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat
but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."
The NBC/MSNBC reporter, William Arkin, is a longtime prominent war and military reporter, perhaps best known for his
groundbreaking,
three-part Washington Post series in 2010, co-reported with two-time Pulitzer winner Dana Priest, on how sprawling, unaccountable,
and omnipotent the national security state has become in the post-9/11 era. When that three-part investigative series, titled "Top
Secret America," was published, I hailed it as one of the most
important pieces of reporting of the war on terror, because while "we chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the
Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and
parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization."
Arkin has worked with NBC and MSNBC over the years and continuously since 2016. But yesterday, he announced that he was leaving
the network in a long, emphatic email denouncing the networks for their superficial and reactionary coverage of national security,
for becoming fixated on trivial Trump outbursts of the day to chase profit and ratings, and -- most incriminating of all -- for becoming
the central propaganda arm of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI in the name of #Resistance, thus inculcating an entire new generation
of liberals, paying attention to politics for the first time in the Trump era, to "lionize" those agencies and their policies of
imperialism and militarism.
That MSNBC and NBC have become Security State Central has been obvious for quite some time. The network
consists of little more than former CIA, NSA, and Pentagon officials as news "analysts"; ex-Bush-Cheney national security and
communications officials as hosts and commentators; and the most extremists pro-war neocons constantly bashing Trump (and critics
of Democrats generally) from the right, using the Cheney-Rove playbook on which they built their careers to accuse Democratic Party
critics and enemies of being insufficiently patriotic,
traitors for America's official enemies , and abandoning America's hegemonic role in the world.
Some of the most beloved and frequently featured MSNBC commentators are the most bloodthirsty pro-war militarists from the war
on terror: David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, Ralph Peters, and Bill Kristol (who was just giddily and affectionately celebrated with a
playful nickname bestowed on him: "Lil Bill"). In early 2018,
NBC hired former
CIA chief John Brennan to serve as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst," where
the rendition and torture advocate joined -- as
Politico's Jack Shafer noted -- a long litany of former security state officials at the network, including "Chuck Rosenberg,
former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller
III; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBI counterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush."
As Shafer noted, filling your news and analyst slots with former security state officials as MSNBC and NBC have done is tantamount
to becoming state TV, since "their first loyalty -- and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail." As he put it:
"Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate
the current peculiarities."
All of this led Arkin to publish a remarkable denunciation of NBC and MSNBC in the form of an email he sent to various outlets,
including The Intercept. Its key passages are scathing and unflinching in their depiction of those networks as pro-war propaganda
outlets that exist to do little more than amplify and serve the security state agencies most devoted to opposing Trump, including
their mindless opposition to Trump's attempts (with whatever motives) to roll back some of the excesses of imperialism, aggression,
and U.S. involvement in endless war, as well as to sacrifice all journalistic standards and skepticism about generals and the U.S
war machine if doing so advances their monomaniacal mission of denouncing Trump. As Arkin wrote (emphasis added):
My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued
at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested
in the Trump circus.
To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security
leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested . Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries
are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might
be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster,
we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And
yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical
truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed
the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.
Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary
Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other
upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly
lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow
storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable.
No wars won but the ball is kept in play.
I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous
strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has
become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against
Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results).
I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step
back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars.
In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss
so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that
it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word
partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.
For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations
with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his
attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at
how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really?
We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we
should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the
Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing
Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-patriotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a
reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and
foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. These toxins will endure far beyond Trump, particularly given
the
now full-scale unity between the Democratic establishment and neocons .
photosymbiosis1 hour ago
Just remembered something about Arkin. This book: Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the
9/11 World January 25, 2005 by William M. Arkin
https://books.google.com/books/about/Code_Names.html?id=KXLfAAAAMAAJ
In particular there was this one exercise called Vigilant Guardian, run by NORAD, simulating terrorist attacks by hijackers which,
curiously enough, happened to be in operation on the very day the Saudi hijackers were actually conducting such attacks:
NORAD's next Vigilant Guardian exercise, in 2001, will actually be several days underway on 9/11 (see (6:30 a.m.) September
11, 2001). It will include a number of scenarios based around plane hijackings, with the fictitious hijackers targeting New
York in at least one of those scenarios (see September 6, 2001, September 9, 2001, September 10, 2001, and (9:40 a.m.) September
11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 2004; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006]
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=vigilant_guardian
However, what's interesting from Arkin's book, as I recall, is that this operation name was then reused in Afghanistan (a very
rare practice, apparently, to reuse an operation name, but perhaps if you wanted to hide the original program, etc...), in 2003
or so - here's a NYT article about Vigilant Guardian in Afghanistan:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/magazine/where-the-enemy-is-everywhere-and-nowhere.html
It's just one of many stories that makes one wonder exactly how much pre-warning the Bush Administration had about the 9/11 attacks,
and whether there was a deliberate decision to allow the hijackers to seize control of the planes without any interference. It
did save the Bush presidency, it did open the door to the Iraq invasion, and the Saudi intelligence services were involved with
helping the hijackers. All very suspicious, really. Point being, Arkin's book is one of the few sources that lay out all those
covert/overt program names, and is a real treasure for anyone interested in the history of that era.
bobhope1: 2 hours ago
This has been clearly obvious for several years. Goebbels would be proud.
Dysnomia 3 hours ago
If there were some kind of political realignment (similar to the realignment that took place in the 60s and 70s where racist
white Democrats became racist white Republicans) where neoconservatives and warmongers become Democrats, and the Republican Party
becomes the party of, surely not peace, but at least moderation in foreign military intervention, that might not be too bad, or
at least not too much worse than the earlier post-9/11 status quo.
But I'm afraid this shift in discourse heralds something worse than that. So-called "liberal" media's embrace of neoconservatism
and imperialism is likely to have the effect of narrowing the Overton window on issues of war and peace, making genuine anti-war
positions even more unthinkable and beyond the pale. There will increasingly be no place for public anti-war discourse.
The single greatest threat to human freedom in the world today is the U.S. national security state. Inculcating public reverence
for the state is perhaps the most dangerous thing that a media organization could do.
open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago
Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism,
always embraced war.
Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American
media is the enemy of the people.
Lawrence_Hill 4 hours ago ( Edited )
Do we remember way back in the 80's/Reagan admin war involvement in the El Salvador civil war when NBC anchor Tom Brokaw openly
questioned the US's support for death squad leader D' Auboissan's terror regime on the air? Shocking! A Walter Cronkite-Vietnam
War moment Brokaw supposed, maybe?
I remember that in all the hullabaloo that followed one of our ruling class commented that Brokaw was being $5 million a year
not to say such subversive things. Lesson learned, Brokaw nor any other gainfully employed MSM tool has made the same mistake
again, and now Brokaw has emeritus status in the NBC "News" hierarchy.
That comment opened my eyes for the first time to the reality of American MSM...
Michael_Wilk 4 hours ago
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly
right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless
use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign
policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing.
I have to take issue with your use of the word 'formerly' in describing Cold War values. They are still very much right-wing.
They never stopped being right-wing, nor did the current and former government and security state apparatchiks polluting the airwaves
with their lies.
TimN 5 hours ago
The neo-con and neo-lib argument against this unfortunate reveal of things present, and things to come: "But Trump! Trump!"
I didn't think I'd see things unravel so quickly, but Goddamn. Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's
infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the
"reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid.
haugeneder 6 hours ago
Great piece. America is on the precipice and there are few who care -- very few. Time for an great economic depression -- not
recession -- to shift the ground or open it to swallow us whole.
Tlaloc 7 hours ago
Interesting that we might be seeing a shift on both parties, the republicans finally embracing their libertarian side (long
being a part of the republican party) and the neocons trying to find a new home on the democratic party. I wonder where the progressive
side of the DNC will go, they might be the ones pushed out of any national party :(
Art 6 hours ago
[...] the progressive side of the DNC [...] might be the ones pushed out of any national party
Fuck that! They're headed for permanent electoral failure on every occasion they put forward neocons on any ballot.
We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs!
Dysnomia 3 hours ago
Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that we'll see a shift only on the Democratic side. Democratic Party leadership
has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within
the rank and file. The narrowing of the Overton window we're seeing will make such resistance increasingly beyond the pale.
But I don't think the Republican Party, in terms of leadership or rank and file, will become more "libertarian" (in the American
sense of that word) or less pro-war. I think there's likely to be greater consensus among the political class in favor of U.S.
imperialism generally, and Trump, to the extent he occasionally makes moves in the opposite direction, is a convenient foil to
bring that about.
johnanderson 7 hours ago ( Edited )
There is no "means test" for the empire military spending supports energy supplies supports international banking supports
global corporatism but the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health
care premiums and copays, expensive housing, and social security cutbacks because they are playing the same elite economic game
against the majority true the democratic leadership has a better stance on abortion and a generally more rainbow-flavored social
agenda. Because they want this stuff for their own social class however economic policy will be at our expense ... just watch
Pelosi and Company
open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago
But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums
and copays, expensive housing,....
Those costs rise for one reason...
Mona 7 hours ago
...And here's Joe Biden: ""Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code, what was the first thing we have to go after, Social
Security and Medicare. Now we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare. It's the only way to find room to pay for
it." Biden is after means testing and other "adjustments" slashing SS, as endorsed by his pal. Paul Ryan. (This is called Republican
Lite.)
Thanks for publishing this story, Glenn, and putting your perspective on it. We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC
"have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." Before
Comcast purchased them, General Electric owned these networks for many years. The public's interests are the last thing on their
minds when they do "news reporting."
Have you watched when MSNBC's "prime time" talk shows are doing live sports-like camera angles, moves, and shots in their studio,
trying to make it look all-the-more sensational on your TV screen? I mean, they're doing these intricate camera shots, rapid switching
between cameras, zooming, panning, trying to make it look like a high-production-value shoot, and it looks like they've hired
some live sports producers and technical directors to make this pathetic illusion on the air. All this shit for talking heads.
Rotf-lmao.
What's next? Slow-motion HDTV instant replays of Rachel Maddow, utilizing zoomed-in camera shots of her mouth, when she's spraying
spittle into her guests' faces? That's what happens when she launches into her infamous hissy fits.
The round table MSNBC uses in their cheap studio is only 4 feet in diameter. In other words, they're shooting these live action
shots of people talking around an itty-bitty little table, and they're doing all this intricate camera work with approximately
8 cameras to make it look 'sensational', action-packed, and thrilling. Instead, it's extremely ugly, stupid, idiotic, disgusting,
and ridiculous. It's not sensational. It's a disgusting cocktail of vomit, puss, and diarrhea.
I need reliable sources of news and weather so I can live my life sustainably with dignity while I maintain my values. My pride
and dignity are invaluable to me. All these a-holes are doing for me is raising my blood pressure and pissing me off. That's why
I read The Intercept. I'd like to have the option to just sit back and watch TI's reporting on a news channel someday SOON, if
possible.
Again, what's our msm network news alternatives, besides Fox news, and why are they so pathetic? CBS news: Les Moonves in particular
has cheered the Trump phenomenon, telling investors in 2016 that the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn
good for CBS." -- https://theintercept.com/2017/02/24/cbs-fcc-trump/
-- Moonves got fired and lost his pension -- The longtime chairman-CEO was forced out Sept. 9, 2018 amid a cascade of sexual assault
and misconduct allegations. "The CBS board of directors has denied former chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves any of the $120 million
severance he was due under his employment contract after conducting a five-month internal probe of his conduct and the corporate
culture at CBS Corp." --
https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-ent-les-moonves-denied-severance-20181217-story.html ABC news: Who owns
ABC? Walt Disney bought ABC 22 years ago. Exactly, we're in Disneyland.
photosymbiosis 8 hours ago ( Edited )
Some basic facts:
The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens
from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al
Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy).
It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest
the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here
is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974:
https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html
"CENTRAL THESIS, BASED ON BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO EARLY PROSPECT OF BREAKING OIL CARTEL, IS THAT WE SHOULD SEEK EARLY DIALOGUE
WITH PRODUCERS TO WORK OUT ARRANGEMENTS WITH ALL OR SOME OF THEM TO (A) INDEX PRICE OF OIL AND (B) BRING THEM INTO RECYCLING MECHANISM
IN ORDER TO SHARE THE RISK. SECOND PAPER LARGELY DUPLICATES FIRST, THOUGH IT DOES ADD SOME STRESS ON LONGER RANGE PROBLEM OF MASSIVE
SURPLUS OF OPEC COUNTRIES, ESTIMATED AT $400 BILLION BY 1980, FOR WHICH NO SOLUTION IS PROPOSED OTHER THAN NEW INTERNATIONAL RECYCLING
AGENCY PROPOSED IN BOTH PAPERS."
One key point is that the proponents of this scheme in the United States, be they Democrats or Republicans, have zero interest
in replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar and battery storage. That would sour the whole deal; nobody would buy Saudi oil.
Of course the Russkies, the stated enemy, don't want to see Europe go 100% renewable either, any more than the Clinton-Bush-Obama-Trump
Administrations did. The Russia-US conflict is mostly over who gets to sell gas to Europe, and neither dealer wants the addict
to kick the habit, right?
This is a very consistent policy, year-to-year.
Now, why can't the corporate media honestly discuss this? Because they are the corporate establishment's propaganda monkeys,
little more, regardless of whether they work at MSNBC or at FOX.
Oh, and this is why #Resist Trump is so nonsensical, when those supporting that them want to install a Joe Biden or Kamela
Harris, who would continue right on with this status quo, i.e. blocking the development of renewable energy and continuing the
idiotic military entanglements in the Middle East.
Fred_Cowan 8 hours ago
Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard
to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless
wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge
and understanding have been all but banished.
Mona 8 hours ago
@Tom Collins & Art
"Yeah one wonders if [Snowden's] cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks"
No need to wonder! Snowden made clear -- explicitly stated-- he wanted Greenwald and Poitras, and not Wikileaks. He deeply
desired journalists to exercise judgment over what should be released to the public and did not want a data dump.
Further, he insisted on outing himself , and did so several days after the first document was published. At his behest,
Poitras videotaped a 20-minute video of him taking responsibility, which was then posted at The Guardian. He did this, among other
reasons, to spare his co-workers from suspicion and investigation.
Mona 1 hour ago
Citizen 4 won the Oscar for best documentary in 2013 or '14. It's all Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, and other real players.
DC_Reade 8 hours ago
If the only way someone can manage to frame any of these issues is as "Fox vs. MSNBC" or "Trump Corruption vs. Washington Establishment
Defenders of Democracy", they've assented to a two-valued action-reaction Pavlovian conditioned response loop.
No way should that be confused with a process of independent thought.
Unsurprisingly, I don't read one mention in the above post to any of the specifics of the content in Glenn Greenwald's remarks,
or to any of the observations made by Arkin in his email resignation.
You're too busy fitting everyone with Team Jerseys tailored to your preconceived ideas.
Mona 6 hours ago
"This article does not inform."
Oh, it does lots of informing, you just don't like what it informs us of, to wit, the first paragraph:
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive
and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now
the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism . As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming
militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength"
and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."
Any substantive response, Milton?
MiltonWiltmellow 6 hours ago ( Edited )
Any substantive response, Milton?
As always, Mr. Greenwald's description is hyperbolic and bordering on unhinged. As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's
email. You should too. It seemed more like a Montaigne Essaiy or a reflective note for posterity than a thundering repudiation
of MSNBC.
Mr. Greenwald turns it into a typical Greenwald crie du guerre™ against the evil Deep State (a term which he appears to have
mercifully discarded. Too Foxy I suppose.) Here's his problem. Crying "wolf" only works for awhile. Eventually it becomes part
of the information flood drowning everyone. Any bit of flotsam is as good as another.
Tom_Collins 5 hours ago
What's your point again? Do you even know?
DC_Reade 4 hours ago ( Edited )
Excerpts from Arkin's email:
"Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs.
the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops
and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn't close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons
or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult. We have contributed to turning the world of national security into this
sort of political story. I find it disheartening that we do not report the failures of the generals and national security leaders.
I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum
reporting..."
"...I argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years, doing the daily blah, blah, blah in Secaucus,
but also poking at the conventional wisdom of everyone from Matthews to Hockenberry. And yet I feel like I've failed to convey
this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest
of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system..."
"...For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations
with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his
attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at
how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really?
We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we
should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the
Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?..."
Yes, William Arkin does go on to be gracious and complimentary of some of his (former) colleagues at NBC. Arkin mantains his
professional composure. His critique of the focus and practices of NBC/MSNBC News is tempered and reasoned. But the critique is
scathing, nonetheless.
Tom_Collins 4 hours ago ( Edited )
You are missing Milton's point altogether. Like "Craig Summers", MW expects that his word alone is enough to dismiss the editorial/investigative/analytical
work put in by Greenwald, Arkin or anyone else on the topics considered most important by the U.S. State Department.
When MW or CS weigh in on these things to dismiss or diminish these stories/opinions/facts with the wave of a hand or incorrect
reading (and absolutely nothing of substance), we are supposed to defer to them respectfully and re-consider the respect we have
developed for the professionalism, dedication and personal/career risks taken on by the people who bring us these stories that
are inconvenient to the establishment government and media actors.
Mona 3 hours ago
"As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. "
Cool, Milton, and what are your substantive comments on this part:
My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued
at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested
in the Trump circus. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security,
the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at "war," no great
wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any
conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called
warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently
have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts".
We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today
than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous. Windrem again convinced me to return
to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was
to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness.
It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping
up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost
in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm.
And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No
wars won but the ball is kept in play. I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed
a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd
also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional
wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure
and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how
much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars. In
our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss
so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse,
that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by
the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. For me I realized
how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to
denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on
the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick
NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We
shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we
should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for
the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
OftenWrongSeldomInDoubt 9 hours ago
This is SO validating to read! Surely no other ruler in history with a cute butt and polite voice ordered killings in 56 countries
in one year. I want someone to discuss this without accusing me of being pro-Rump. I guess, the Rachel Maddows of the world cannot
criticize Hillary/Obama for expanding every awful thing for which the good people of the world hated Bush.
There are two giant problems in the world today-
1. the scale of people who lost their homes and countries because of the good guy's wars and
2. climate change which the good guy's 27,600 odd bombs of 2016 might or might not have exacerbated. After all, each bomb costs
upward of $10,000,000. Who is measuring the greenhouse gases released by them?
The media needs to be equally adversarial to 'liberal' governments as they are to 'conservative' ones, so that majority parties
cannot take credit for granting me bathroom and bedroom permissions that are surely my personal domain! The media must shed light
on whether it is bad to tell 'aliens' not to cross a border or it is bad to win a Nobel Peace prize before raining bombs on brown
people in other countries, never separating children from families, when blowing up ten civilians for every 'target' we extra-judicially
decided to label as militant.
So thank you for this article!!
bluecurl3 9 hours ago
Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked
their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first,
get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their
own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives
of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest
Trump tweet, bla bla bla.
Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply
of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial
complex. Now, lots of Americans have skin in the game, as long as the lobbyists, politicians, government and the military
can provide a pipeline of endless wars and conflicts. Of course, in order to provide and maintain the patina of morality and righteousness,
a subservient and corporate controlled media is vital.
And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me."
Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here)
sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker,
as long as they get their daily ration of manna.
Xavi 8 hours ago
Orwellian times.
firstpersoninfinite 9 hours ago
No, it's not rocket science. Otherwise you couldn't have proven Greenwald's point with your own views about "supporting" the
security state so easily. You missed the entire point of the article, which is that the neocons and the neoliberals support the
same cast of nefarious personalities that got us into the Middle East, over and over again. Why is NBC/MSNBC normalizing right-wing
radicalism? Because they've joined hands with neocons and neoliberals to support the military/industrial complex. Your argument
is akin to someone claiming that their Communion wafer is more holy than anyone else's because it has the Pope's imprint on it.
firstpersoninfinite 8 hours ago
Neocons, like Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol's father, were leftists in the 1930's. It's not a difficult term to come to terms
with, historically. I don't wonder why anyone questions what Trump is doing. I never said such a thing.
What Trump has done during his first two years in office has not been questioned by the mainstream press at all. Only the imbecile
tweets and the gaffes are of any interest to the citizens of such a redoubtable empire as our own. A friend of mine who fights
anti-wolf and anti-bear laws in Montana, laws sent down by the Trump administration, says that these are the same laws they fought
during 8 years of Obama. The mainstream of both parties are the two sides of the same coin. So I agree with the "role reversal."
Dysnomia 2 hours ago
I think the problem is not that supporting the "deep state" is becoming a convenient excuse to oppose Trump, but that opposing
Trump is becoming a convenient excuse to support the deep state.
DC_Reade 10 hours ago
Bravo, William Arkin. I only wish that you could have found some way for you to resign on the air in the middle of a broadcast.
(I've been wishing such a scenario for decades. Preferably featuring one or more news anchors.)
Incredible that the USA has spent trillions of dollars in a game of whack-a-mole that's been extended over the entire globe
with no time limitations, occasionally interspersed with declarations of surprise that the nation faces more emergent terror threats
than ever. We spend more money on the military and warfare than we spent during the Cold War. And all that was required to trigger
this spiral into perpetual militarism was a single special operation carried out 17 years ago by a small team of not-particularly-elite
commandos who hijacked four airliners, thereby obtaining the one-time ability to repurpose three of them into cruise missiles.
By now, it should be no surprise that other large nations have taken notice of the American assumption of entitlement to police
the world and begun their own rearmament campaigns. Also worth noting that the focus on the Terror Threat has served as the rationale
for massive investment in a level of surveillance technology that's unknown in human history. As for the norms and values that
international law was supposedly intended to provide for governments everywhere, all of that went out the window in 2003, with
the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the Benevolent Hegemon Hyperpower. American scolding of other nations for their armed territorial
incursions and imperial designs has rung awfully hollow, ever since.
The emphasis on massive military escalation to deal with terrorism outbreaks is reminiscent of the War on Drugs- which, it
should be noted, also remains largely in effect, notwithstanding occasional feints toward de-escalation. And we all know what
the War on Drugs did in terms of empowering the criminal elite that it was supposed to eliminate.
What's that all about? The leaders of this country- and for that matter, the supposed leaders of the rest of the world- aren't
leading. To me, almost all of them look like they're running from something: they're running from fossil fuels addiction and its
toxic blowback, looming climate catastrophe, natural resource depletion, maldistribution of wealth and neglect of the commons.
photosymbiosis 11 hours ago
What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep
vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word:
Comcast, a large cable operator, completed its purchase of a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric in January
2011. The cable giant bought the rest of NBCUniversal in February 2013. NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC, as well
as NBC, Bravo, USA and other channels.
State Street Corporation 13,394,660,471 Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 6,210,096,924
Capital World Investors 5,098,130,465
Blackrock Inc. 5,084,573,828
Bank of America Corporation 2,826,426,091
ExxonMobil major holders, $US:
Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 26,661,034,588
Blackrock Inc. 21,669,998,686
State Street Corporation 16,964,902,104
Northern Trust Corporation 4,566,789,988
Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation 4,420,622,076
It pretty obvious once you look at the value of an outfit like Blackrock's investments in media, arms, and oil - they don't
want any stories told on MSNBC that would threaten the profit margins of Exxon, Lockheed or Comcast.
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legisation which would require the likes of Comcast, TimeWarner(CNN)
and NewsCorp(FOX) to divest their media holdings, creating dozens of independently owned outfits not beholden to some corporate
master who won't let them discuss important topics like, say NAFTA....
Benito_Mussolini 10 hours ago
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legislation
Hopefully, MSNBC will be smart enough to provide a friendly platform for ex-government officials. It means a great deal to
government officials to know their influence, public visibility (and associated appearance fees) will continue into their retirement.
I don't watch MSNBC, so I don't know if they have implemented this strategy, but the pictures in the article seem encouraging.
johnnyred 11 hours ago
War is touted exclusively by those who've never experienced it. Get rid of the generals, put in some infantry casualties, those
who've lost a limb or two.
Then we can have some informed comment.
Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours ago
Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, "In these critical times..." their "editorial independence" is in sincere need of your donation.
They're just 80K away from their million dollar goal! Pardon me while I retch. Julian Assange is still being robbed of his freedom.
In these critical times indeed. Thank you Glenn.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
The Guardian can get its funding from the organizations for whom they carry water. Not a damn cent from me. After they caved
in on the Snowden files, I was done with them for good.
Yeah one wonders if his cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks, but I think
they were onto him anyway. Ultimately the information got out, and media orgs like The Guardian were exposed for their fealty
to the national security state(s).
Cryptome wouldn't have censored the releases, as WikiLeaks has. Still WikiLeaks continues to be one of the world's premier
journalistic outlets.
MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago
Was anyone else surprised by how long it took them to get to a million? I've seen Kickstarters for video games that got to
a million faster. The slow pace of the fundraising seemed like a rebuke. I was hoping they'd never hit a million.
And I say all of that as someone who has recurring donations set up for about a dozen podcasts and blogs. The nonprofit/fundraiser
model is the way to go, but I also think that publicly owned media outlets, or privately owned but public-interest-minded news
organizations, while editorially independent, can't be totally contemptuous of their reader/donors.
I would never donate to the Guardian for a million reasons, but to pick just one: they have played the lead role in smearing
Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as dangerous radicals and anti-Semites.
And I would never donate to The Intercept, for instance, because of the crucial role it has played in promoting Russiagate
and amplifying voices like Mattathias Schwartz's. (I'll never stop reminding people that Schwartz non-jokingly advocated here
for what would essentially be a coup -- Obama "putting a hold on the transfer of power" -- after the most recent presidential
election. The Intercept published that. Amazing.) And the face of the Intercept, arguably, is no longer Greenwald but Mehdi Hasan,
who publishes rank propaganda smearing peace activists as "Bashar al-Assad Apologists" who revere human rights abusers as "heroes."
(Again: the Intercept published that. Amazing.)
My favorite line from that Arkin email is the one about the tension between worship of "officialdom" and respect for "public
yearnings." To political elites and reporters (including the experts at the Intercept who spent a week running PR for Nancy Pelosi's
speaker bid, and who constantly write off the 2016 election as a consequence either of sinister foreign interference or of the
squalid bigotry, stupidity and ugliness of non-coastal Americans), officialdom always wins, and "public yearnings" are just the
bleatings of deplorables.
If Glenn's excellent reporting was removed from this site, The Intercept would be as deserving of Arkin's critique as NBC and
the Guardian are.
tigertiger 8 hours ago
They didn't hit their million, which they wanted before the end of the year, but they're still begging. Not for lack of trying,
that 'give us money!' pop up has to be about the loudest, most intrusive of it's kind I've ever seen.
And yes, TI is only marginally less repulsive (thanks to Glenn, Lee Fang, and Jon Schwartz). It amazes me that an outlet owned
by a bajillionaire constantly begs for money. I guess they think it makes them more 'populist' or something- 'look, the peons
are sacrificing their pennies to help us!'.
TravisTea 11 hours ago
As an American author (and journalist) once wrote:
"Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and
keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them
from grabbing slices of his . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the
'universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth."
-- Mark Twain, Man's Place in the Animal World (1896)
P.S. As always, thank you very much, Mr. Greenwald (and thank you, Mr. Arkin).
Carlaly 11 hours ago
Just vindicates what you have been saying all along. Although I expect the denialists will dismiss Arkin as some anti-American,
anti-troop stooge of Putin.
Mona 11 hours ago
"The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization,
but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors."
She's just coming home. Liberals have long been dominated by hawks (after all, Vietnam was a Democrats' war, albeit Nixon/Kissinger
took the war crimes up to 11.)
Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal."
Which leads to yet another element of Ms. Maddow's portfolio: the daughter of an Air Force captain who served stateside during
the Vietnam War, she is an admitted defense-policy wonk. "I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's
meant to sound absurd," she said. "I'm all about counterterrorism. I'm all about the G.I. Bill."
Madcow would like nothing more than to see open war with Russia.
brer_rabbit 11 hours ago ( Edited )
maddcow . . my laugh of the day.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
It's a common refrain in far-right reaches of the Internet. I almost felt bad for saying it, but that's what she's become on
the topic of Russia.
brer_rabbit 11 hours ago
Yes, whenever is see her, or Anderson Cooper, or any of these guys for that matter (which is rare . . usually for a few minutes
to catch a glimpse of the latest environmental disaster, mass shooting, or whatever) my first thought always goes to question
the kind of upbringing that could have produced such vapid people, who enthusiastically shame themselves on a daily basis for
money. What must they think of their audience?
open_hearted_jade 11 hours ago
Maddow is less respected by an awakening public -- therefore she must be a conservative right winger. Didn't you learn anything
after 1945?
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
You've made made totally missing the point into a trolling form of art. Bravo.
endlesswar 11 hours ago
Attacking an extreme right wing president from the right, while lauding unrepentant war criminals like Bush and McCain. Just
about sums up what it means to be a liberal in this day and age.
PatrickShaw 6 hours ago
MSNBC and their national security contributors do not speak for liberals. They never invite liberal voices on who are anti-war/pro
diplomacy.
xochtl 12 hours ago
Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero
for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless
momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations.
perfect summary
brer_rabbit 12 hours ago ( Edited )
. . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they
are right.
bingo
clawhammerjake 13 hours ago
War is a business decision.
Steeeve 13 hours ago ( Edited )
I've been consistently surprised that anyone is still watching these things. Personally, I've already divested from special-interest
funded media outlets and the DNC for that matter. It's always interesting when I run across someone parrotting their viewpoints
though.
TheManj 13 hours ago ( Edited )
The greatest scam of the millennium, after cruptocurrency, was the use of Trump Derangement Syndrome to pervert "progressives"
into acolytes of the security establishment.
pedinska2 13 hours ago
Actually, TDS wasn't used in the original perversion so much as it was used as the cement to keep it firmly in place.
I lay blame for much of the greatest scam of the millenium on Obama with his drone policies, expansion of our involvement
in the ME, retention of the same Smartest Guys in the Room who tanked our economy and wholesale conversion of liberals into acceptance
of further erosion of our Constitutional rights with his warm embrace of the same criminals running the security state when torture
became de rigueur. He was just so darn pretty and eloquent they had no choice but to believe all the lies dripping from those
sexy lips. And have you seen Michelle's arms???!? /s
Benito_Mussolini 13 hours ago
To herd people, it's more effective to use both the carrot (Obama) and the stick (TDS). The fact that progressives needed to
be herded is a testament to their numbers and success.
Erelis 13 hours ago
This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the
march toward nuclear war with Russia. Every day, step by step, brick by brick, they are laying the foundation for the justification
of war--in fact, for needing and demanding war, almost any war, but more particularly with Russia. Let's remember that when Bush
ordered the invasion of Iraq, 72% of Americans supported it to according to Gallup. That didn't happen overnight with some big
propaganda event.
bluecurl3 4 hours ago
Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive
advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians.
I'm all for pulling our troops out of Syria, but mark my word, Bibi and his zionist war-hawks will seize the opportunity to bomb
the hell out of Syria, and use it as a pretext to launch attacks against Iran.
Mike5000 13 hours ago
Maddow is not really pro-war or anti-war. She is just pro whatever Clinton and Pelosi happen to be pushing this week. It's
a shame. She's a good presenter but hopelessly biased.
PresumptuousInsect 13 hours ago
I think she is more enthralled to the people who are paying her.
Erelis 13 hours ago
Maddows rhetoric and reporting is pro-war regardless of her motivations. She uses the language of aggression and conspiracy
and accusation in describing the Russians and other Americans such as Jill Stein. She without exception imputes malevolent motives
on "the enemy" which is Russia leading to a truly a bizarre clip telling Americans in somber and concerned tones that Russia and
N. Korea share a border. The conspiracy has been exposed.
Bill_Owen 10 hours ago
What is it, exactly, about Hillary Clinton that enthralls Rachel Maddow so much that she now pretty much spends her days building
a case (in-the-sky) for war on Russia? Seems pathological somehow.
MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago
Look at how her ratings and salary have been affected by her transformation. She's gone from "cable news anchor" to "superstar."
The Russiagate scam has also given dozens of mediocrities like Seth Abramson a chance to be noticed and to feel important. Even
the writers on the Intercept's "intelligence" beat have been doing some sort of Tom Clancy cosplay for the last two years. It's
profitable and fun to be one of these people, as long as you don't have a nagging sense of shame.
William 13 hours ago
Indeed, none of this is new. I read Norman Solomon's and Martin Lee's UNRELIABLE SOURCES: A GUIDE TO DETECTING BIAS IN NEWS
MEDIA back when I was in college in the late 80s and they cite General Electric's ownership of NBC (before there was an "MSNBC")
uncritically:
General Electric's Influence on NBC GE is by no means a hands off owner of NBC. Lee and Solomon in their book Unreliable Sources
have detailed how GE insisted on the removal of references to itself in an NBC programme on substandard products. They also point
out that NBC journalists have not been particularly keen to expose GE's environmental record and that TV commercials by a group
called INFACT, urging a boycott of GE products, were banned by NBC as well as other television stations. NBC did however briefly
report GE's indictment for cheating the Department of Defense which was reported more extensively in other media outlets. (Lee
and Solomon 1990, pp. 77-81) Former NBC News Chief, Lawrence Grossman, claims that the head of GE, Jack Welch made it clear to
him that he worked for GE and told him not to use terms such as 'Black Monday' to describe the stock market crash in 1987 because
it depressed share prices such as GE's (Cited in Naureckas 1995). Todd Putnam, editor of National Boycott News, tells of how he
was approached by the NBC's Today Show to do an interview about consumer boycotts. Their biggest boycott at the time was against
General Electric and its nuclear defense contracts but the show wouldn't let him talk about that and was reluctant to have him
mention boycotts against any large corporation preferring him to talk about "a boycott that was 'small,' 'local' and 'sexy'."
(1991) Mark Gunther writing in American Journalism Review claims that references to General Electric's use of the bolts in an
NBC Today Show on defective bolts in planes, bridges and nuclear plants, were edited out and only mentioned in a follow-up segment
after criticism of the omission (1995, p. 40). In 1990 NBC Nightly News ran 14 minutes of coverage over three days of a breast
cancer detection machine produced by GE, without mentioning that it was made by NBC's owners. The other two major television networks
didn't bother to cover it at all. (FAIR 1991) Helen Caldicott who had been featured on the Today Show previously found that when
she wrote her book If You Love This Planet, which used GE as a case study of an environmentally damaging company, her scheduled
appearance was mysteriously cancelled (Anon. 1992). In 1987, one year after GE took over NBC, NBC broadcast a special documentary
promoting nuclear power using France as a model. The promotion for the programme proclaimed that "French townspeople welcome each
new reactor with open arms". The documentary won a Westinghouse sponsored prize for science journalism. (Westinghouse Electric
Company also builds nuclear power stations.) Shortly after the documentary was screened, when there were a couple of accidents
at French power stations and there was significant opposition to nuclear power amongst the French population (polls showed about
one third opposed it), NBC did not report the story although some US newspapers did. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 78) Karl Grossman
documents in Extra! (1993) how the programme What Happened? broadcast on NBC in 1993 gave a one sided account of the Three Mile
Island nuclear accident and its aftermath. It showed local resident Debbie Baker saying that she was not as afraid of the nuclear
plant as she used to be. However, according to Grossman, Baker, whose son was born with Down's syndrome 9 months after the accident
and who has received $1.1 million in a settlement arising from the accident, was shocked at how the programme had been edited
to imply her acceptance of the plant. She said she was still extremely uncomfortable with the plant and that what she had said
was she felt safer since her groups set up a network of radiation monitors around the plant. Neither Baker's settlement nor the
200 or so others "made to families who have suffered injury, birth defects and death because of the 1979 accident" were mentioned.
Instead a nuclear power industry expert was featured who said the plant's back-up safety systems worked successfully. When EXTRA!
pointed out that no scientists critical of nuclear power appeared in the program, Jaffe [executive producer of the show] responded,
'That is correct. Maybe there is some misunderstanding. That show is not a journalistic show but an entertainment show to look
into and to find out the reason and cause of various accidents and incidents.' (Grossman 1993, p. 6) NBC has not been alone in
putting a positive spin on the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. On the tenth anniversary of the accident, the New York Times
ran an anniversary article opposite the editorial page headlined "Three Mile Island: The Good News" which argued that the accident
had been good for the nuclear power industry prompting better management and emergency planning. The paper did not report the
fact that 2000 residents living near the plant had filed claims for cancer and other health problems they blamed on the accident,
nor the 280 personal-injury settlements paid out to such claimants, nor the unusual clusters of leukemia, birth defects and hypothyroidism
around the plant. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 210) This was not the first time Times reporting had fitted with General Electric's
views. In 1986 the Times reported on the use of humans as subjects in tritium absorption experiments. Tritium is routinely handled
by nuclear power plant workers. An early edition of the paper said: "The tritium study was financed by the Atomic Energy Commission
and conducted by the General Electric Company at Richland, which abuts the Hanford [nuclear weapons] reservation." In the late
edition the sentence ended after Commission and no longer named General Electric. (Tenenbaum 1990)
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
Sure, but the question then becomes: Why didn't the corporate networks and newspapers with whom NBC competed point these things
out?
Art 11 hours ago
That's what my father always said about media - that it was self-correcting. But he was wrong. They're all influenced by the
same thing, namely the ultra-rich and their money.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
But wouldn't another network stand to gain more clout from the ultra-rich, corporations, and their money from NBC's losing
viewers/ratings due to exposure for their corrupt unwillingness to report negatively on their parent corporation's actions?
Art 11 hours ago
They share a huge fraction of investors, that's the problem.
Midwest 14 hours ago
Nothing has changed except that there is an outsider independent president. NBC was just as bad 20 years ago.
TheManj 13 hours ago
Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly
from the MSM koolaid bowl.
Phil 14 hours ago
William Arkin is right on point with his email to MSNBC, especially when he says:
"And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring
the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18
years ago. "
In that same vein I have problems with MSNBC et al also covering the farewell speeches of outgoing Senators and Representatives
which are full of warnings as to how the current system is "broken" [Paul Ryan, ClaireMcCaskill, Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, among
many] and not calling them out.
It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from
Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and
corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the
nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist's.
Orrin Hatch was a Senator for 42 years but last week he woke up one morning to find the Senate needs fixing? Paul Ryan was
Speaker of the House and fiercely defended Trump but now as he leaves he's suddenly discovers that things aren't right in Washington?
And what about all those who are still in office now – where are their warnings and concern? The answer is it's difficult to talk
while you're in office stuffing your mouths at the trough.
Sadly, MSNBC and the media carry these farewell speeches with no comment except that they are all great public servants and
their viewers soak it all up because to do otherwise would be unpatriotic. And the march of the lemmings to the voting booths
continues.
PresumptuousInsect 14 hours ago
I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics,
and "support the troops!"--however hypocritical that slogan might be--has been a rallying cry as well as an accusation of treason/unAmericanism/communism,
etc., for those who have had doubts. But finally we are starting to see signs of dissatisfaction with the status quo among the
political class, and even antiwar bullet points listed on some platforms. There are even calls for diplomacy, a word that seemed
to have been deleted from all U.S. dictionaries. I hope that Arkin's outcry serves to move this agitation forward.
shenebraskan 14 hours ago
Dunno if you noticed (I did because I watch State Department briefings), but when Brett McGurk resigned as Syria envoy, in
a similar huff to McMaster, he bemoaned the loss of his colleagues at State and Pentagon. State Department has become another
branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the
Cold War.
There is no political left in US. There are only 2 right wing parties and it's only a matter
of degrees. Policies define a party, not what they call themselves. You can call yourself
whatever you want. It's not like it's against the Geneva convention or something.
Examples of mismatch between the official name and reality are: North Korea calling itself
DPRK – where D stands for democracy and yet they have never had elections, not that it
matters, the whole thing about "democracy" is a sham anyway. Also East Germany used to call
themselves DDR – which of course stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republikische (I
couldn't ressist making fun of the German language). Anyway, they called
themselves"Democratic" with no elections ever taking place there.
Same thing with the Democratic party in US. Calling yourself Democratic doesn't make you a
left wing automatically. After all, the Nazis used to call themselves "Socialists", which
would imply leftist orientation, yet they were as far right as you can get.
In order for a party to qualify as left wing, they have to look after the interests of the
working class. US has no such party, they probably never did. So, both Democrats and
Republicans are right wing, but not as far right as the Nazis used to be. Yet, the Nazis were
way smarter because they saw foreigners as the main threat to their country. Both domestic
born and foreign born foreigners.
The 2 right wing US parties see their native born population as their main threat. Their
"instincts" tell them that even after decades long propaganda, they haven't succeeded in
completely lobotomizing the native born citizens, and that there is still some
"revolutionary" potential left in them, who might one day reach for their pockets.
That's where the degeneracy of the elites comes into clear focus. Seeing the working class
as a potential threat to them and their pockets. When it's actually the opposite. The
degenerate elites are a threat to the working class (and frankly to themselves, but they are
too degenerate to see that). They are threat because they off-shored millions of jobs of the
working class, and if that wasn't enough, they imported millions of third world individuals
to fill in jobs that are not even there anymore.
Who is a threat to whom? Multiculturalism is not a left wing policy. It's a fascist
policy. The only difference is that the intended victims are domestic, rather than foreign.
It's inward oriented fascism. The only hope for US is that under Trump, the republicans are
starting to flip-flop between seeing the Americans and foreigners as a threat. Where the
other right wing party – the "Democrats" are firm in their belief that the Americans
are the threat.
I guess it's just a matter of perspective – who is Nazi to whom. The democrats think
that the deplorables are potential Nazis towards the foreigners, while actually it's them
– the Democrats that are currently Nazis towards the "deplorables".
(Previous comments from me that Pentagon officers
are not *necessarily* militarists not withstanding...)
Military Deletes New Year's Eve Tweet Saying It's
'Ready to Drop Something' https://nyti.ms/2RvcZwi
NYT - Matt Stevens and Thomas Gibbons-Neff - Dec. 31, 2018
The unified command responsible for the United States' nuclear strike capabilities drew
attention on Monday when it tweeted a message and video that threatened the possibility of
dropping a bomb.
In the tweet, which was posted as Americans prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve and was
deleted about three hours later, the United States Strategic Command said the nation was
"ready to drop something." A video that was part of the tweet showed a B-2 stealth bomber
soaring across the sky before releasing two GPS-guided bombs that exploded into a giant ball
of fire after hitting the ground below.
In the video, which was viewed more than 120,000 times, pulsing music beats in the
background as the words "STEALTH," "READY" and "LETHAL" flash across the screen in white
block letters.
"#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed,
we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger," the tweet said, adding the hashtags:
"#Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession." ...
A spokeswoman for the Strategic Command said the post "was part of our Year in Review
series meant to feature our command priorities: strategic deterrence, decisive response and
combat-ready force."
"It was a repost from earlier in the year, dropping a pair of conventional Massive
Ordnance Penetrators at a test range in the United States," she said in a statement that did
not elaborate.
About 30 minutes after the statement was issued, Stratcom apologized on Twitter, saying
that its "previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values."
"We are dedicated to the security of America & allies," the new tweet added. ...
"... Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. ..."
"... Trump had lunch with Lindsay Graham who has allegedly said that Trump is "reconsidering ". The Neocons haven't given up.. ..."
Gareth Porter, in an article published in the American Conservative, definitively shows that
Trump's Dec. 19 announcement of the US withdrawal from Syria was, in fact, the end of a fight
of at least a year, between Trump on the one side and his national security team, lead by
Mattis and Dunford on the other. Published accounts of the policy process over the past year
"show that senior national security officials and self-interested institutions have been
playing a complicated political game for months aimed at keeping Trump from wavering on our
indefinite presence on the ground in Syria ," Porter writes. "The entire episode thus
represents a new variant of a familiar pattern dating back to Vietnam in which national
security advisors put pressure on reluctant presidents to go along with existing or proposed
military deployments in a war zone . The difference here is that Trump, by publicly choosing a
different policy, has blown up their transparent schemes and offered the country a new course,
one that does not involve a permanent war state."
Porter cites an April 2018 Associated Press account of an NSC meeting at which Trump's
impatience with his national security team boiled over. At that meeting, Trump ordered them
unequivocally to accept a fundamentally different Syria deployment policy. Instead, they framed
the options as a binary choice -- either an immediate pullout or an indefinite presence in
order to ensure the complete and permanent defeat of Islamic State. Mattis and Dunford, Porter
continues, were consciously exploiting Trump's own defensiveness about a timeline–he had
attacked Obama during the 2016 campaign for imposing a timeline in Afghanistan–"to press
ahead with their own strategy unless and until Trump publicly called them on it."
"The Syria withdrawal affair is a dramatic illustration of the fundamental quandary of the
Trump presidency in regard to ending the state of permanent war that previous administrations
created. Although a solid majority of Americans want to rein in U.S. military deployments in
the Middle East and Africa, Trump's national security team is committed to doing the opposite,
" Porter concludes. "Trump is now well aware that it is virtually impossible to carry out the
foreign policy that he wants without advisors who are committed to the same objective. That
means that he must find people who have remained outside the system during the permanent war
years while being highly critical of its whole ideology and culture. If he can fill key
positions with truly dissident figures, the last two years of this term in office could
decisively clip the wings of the bureaucrats and generals who have created the permanent war
state we find ourselves in today."
Trump has called the bluff of the permanent warfare crowd and now has his decision, but the
possibility of sabotage by that crowd's assets inside the Pentagon cannot yet be discounted.
This is indicated by an exclusive Reuters report claiming that planners at the Pentagon are
proposing that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with,
though Reuters' sources stress that the planning is still at an early stage and nothing's been
decided yet. And yet, there must be a reason why this is being reported now. It obviously would
throw a monkey wrench in the arrangements that Trump is trying to make with Erdogan to keep
eastern Syria stable in the wake of the US withdrawal. It would also represent a back down from
US promises made earlier to the Turks to retrieve the weapons and Erdogan would throw a fit.
Certainly, the idea that the U.S. military can retrieve all of the weapons that it handed over
is a dubious one, at best , and there are legitimate questions about whether or not Turkish
troops could really operate in the Middle Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border, hundreds of
kilometers from the Turkish border.
But the key to the proposal is this: The recommendation "is a rejection of Trump's policy to
withdraw from Syria," a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters. So, really, it is an
attempt at sabotage.
Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed
is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. The Syrian war that
matters is clearly now being fought within the USG and Trump has won the latest battle. As
Porter says, this war will only be won if Trump can successfully replace key Borg positions
with people of his own.
If the pullout can be completed without being sabotaged, Russia ought
to be able to seamlessly step in guarantor of peace - and the SAG and Iraq between then can
finish IS. The permanent war crowd with then just have to vent their frustrations elsewhere.
A good outcome for all.
He was IMO suckered into taking a lot of these people because he didn't know anyone in
government. His problem will be to find people not already working for the other side.
"that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with"
I would love to find out what those "heavy weapons" were exactly. I have been putting up
comments all over the place saying that as far as I have been able to find out the US has not
supplied anything with a barrel bigger than an 80mm mortar or a vehicle heavier than a MRAP.
Up to now no-one has contradicted me. The reason the US did this was precisely this
situation, not to upset the Turks if gear was left behind.
Am I wrong? Is this equipment now regarded as "heavy weapons"?
I have looked as to where I might post my comment on this important site; this article seems
to be the best fit for my comment on another site about the retirement of Gen Kelly and a
link to an interview with Gen Kelly (I hope Col Lang will be lenient in allowing a secondary
posting of my comment from another site):
On the subject of trump this AM, zerohedge has a summary of an interview with Gen Kelly
which occurred just prior to his departure-to say that it was "bone crushing hard" probably
is a long way from describing the difficulty of that Chief of Staff job in a chaotic white
house working for a chaotic individual.
I have just a ton of respect for Gen Kelly-even in this totally mucked up country with all
of its unending flustercucks, there are individuals still willing to step up and try,
emphasis on try, to restore some sanity to the situations. God speed, Gen Kelly!!
Two factors not mentioned are the SAA and support from Russia. Turkey may be somewhat off the
hook for a deep thrust if Syrian forces move in and convince the YPG to stand down, by force
or otherwise. As Col. Lang points out, starving the YPG of ammunition is a practical
approach. If the PMU links up with Syrian forces to secure the eastern border areas, the
Kurdish interests should be balanced out. My point being that the so-called vacuum left for
Iran to fill is an overplayed shadow puppet.
Russophobia is the standard deflection trick, designed to cement cracks in neoliberal society facade. And deep distrust of common
people toward neoliberal elite. With neoliberal elite completely immersed in its own groupthink, which reaches the level "Let them eat
cakes".
Notable quotes:
"... We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave. ..."
"... It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that Trump or Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises. ..."
While Russia-mania is widespread among today's political and cultural elites, it is not uniform.
For an older, right-wing section of the Western political and media class, otherwise known as the Cold War Re-Enactment Society,
Russia looms large principally as a military, quasi-imperial threat. Jim Mattis, the former US marine and general, and now US defence
secretary, said Russia was responsible
for 'the biggest attack [on the world order] since World War Two'. Whether this is true or not is beside the point. What matters
is that Russia appears as a military aggressor. What matters is that Russia's actions in Ukraine – which were arguably a defensive
reaction to NATO and the EU's expansion into Russia's traditional ally – are grasped as an act of territorial aggrandisement. What
matters is that Russia's military operations in Syria – which, again, were arguably a pragmatic intervention to stabilise the West-stoked
chaos – are rendered as an expression of imperial aggression. What matters is that Russian state involvement in the poisoning of
the Skripals in Salisbury – which, given its failure, proved Russian incompetence – is presented as 'part of a pattern of Russian
aggression against Europe and its near neighbours, from the western Balkans to the Middle East', to
quote Theresa May.
And it matters because, if Russia is dressed up as the West's old Cold War adversary, just with a new McMafia logo, then the crumbling,
illegitimate and increasingly pointless postwar institutions through which Western elites have long ordered the world, suddenly look
just that little bit more solid, legitimate and purposeful. And none more so than NATO.
This is why NATO has this year been accompanying its statements
warning Russia to 'stop its reckless pattern of
behaviour' with some of the
largest military exercises since the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly three decades ago. Including one in November in Norway, involving
50,000 troops, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 60 warships.
Then there is the newer form of Russia-mania. This has emerged from within the political and cultural elite that came to power
after the Cold War, ploughing an uninspiring third way between the seeming extremes of the 20th century's great ideologies. Broadly
social democratic in sentiment, and elitist and aloof in practice, this band of merry technocrats and their middle-class supporters
have found in 'Russia' a way to avoid having to face up to what the populist revolt reveals – that the majority of Western citizens
share neither their worldview nor their wealth. Instead, they use 'Russia' to displace the people as the source of discontent and
political revolt.
We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged
Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits
claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave.
It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called
dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that
Trump or
Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular
will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises.
No, they were the result, as one Tory MP
put it , of 'the covert and overt forms of malign influence used by Moscow'.
Or, in
the words of an Observer columnist, 'a campaign that purported to be for the "left behind" was organised and funded by men with
links across the global network of far-right American demagogues and kleptomaniac dictators such as Putin'.
Such has been the determination to blame 'Russia' or 'Putin' for the political class's struggles, that in August Tom Watson, Labour's
conspiracy-theory-peddling deputy leader,
called for a public inquiry into an alleged Russian Brexit plot. '[Voters] need to know whether that referendum was stolen or
not', he said.
Such a call ought to be mocked. After all, it is absurd to think 'Russia', 'Putin' and the trolls are the power behind every populist
throne. But the claims aren't mocked – they're taken as calls to action. Think of anything viewed as a threat to our quaking political
and cultural elites in the West, and you can bet your bottom ruble that some state agency or columnist is busy identifying Putin
or one of his legion of bots and trolls as the source. The
gilet jaunes protests
in France?
Check . Climate change?
Check . Italy's Five Star Movement?
Check
.
And all this from a nation with a GDP
equivalent to Spain, an ageing, declining population, and a failing infrastructure. The reality of Russia is not that of a global
threat, but of a struggling state. Russia is weak. Yet in the minds of those clinging desperately to the status quo, 'Russia' has
never been more powerful.
The USA is treating Russia the same way it treated the USSR and run all kind of subversive operations against it.
Notable quotes:
"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1440 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser, what we've accomplished in the last year and our current goal, more original reporting . ..."
"... By John Helmer , the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears ..."
"... In June 1933, he bought the Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction, for $825,000 ..."
"... It [USA] has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a lawful sovereign. ..."
"... This Vast Southern Empire ..."
"... A mentor in shamelessness: the man who taught Trump the power of publicity Roy Cohn, the lawyer who embraced infamy during the McCarthy hearings and Rosenberg trial, influenced Donald Trump to turn the tabloids into a soapbox ..."
"... Angels in America ..."
"... For the life of me, I still cannot figure out why people are in an absolute panic over Russian "agents" buying $100,000.00, or whatever, worth of advertising promoting either or both sides of the election when U.S.citizens and Political Parties spent over $1.6 billion. ..."
"... Are American citizens really so stupid as to fall for the amazingly, brilliantly conceived and placed $100K worth of Russian advertising, so clever that it superseded $1.6 billion worth of U.S. citizen ads? ..."
"... Or (to misquote Shakespeare/Macbeth) is it a tale told by propagandists, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? ..."
Yves here. An important bit of history that can't be repeated too often: when the Clinton
Administration decided to move NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries, violating a
understanding made as part of the peaceful dissolution, George Kennan said it would prove to be
the worst geopolitical mistake the US ever made.
By John Helmer , the
longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist
to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also
been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United
States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy
Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with
Bears
Joseph Alsop and George Kennan started the kind of Russia-hating in Washington which, today,
President Vladimir Putin, like the businessmen around him, think of as a novelty that cannot
last for long.
Alsop was a fake news fabricator, and such a narcissist as to give the bow-ties he wore a
bad name. Kennan was a psychopath who alternated bouts of aggression to prove himself with
bouts of depression over his cowardice. For them, Russia was a suitable target. The Washington
Post was the newspaper which gave their lunacy public asylum. This, according to a fresh
history by a university professor from California, started in 1947, long before the arrival in
Washington of the anti-communist phobia known after the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Russia-hating was an American upper-class phenomenon, cultivated in the offices, cocktail
parties, clubs, and mansions of the deep state, as it emerged out of World War II. It needed a
new enemy to thrive; it fastened on Russia (aka the Soviet Union) as the enemy.
McCarthyism was an American lower-class phenomenon. It focused on the loyalty or disloyalty
of the upper-class deep-staters. That wasn't the same thing as Russia-hating; Wall Street
bankers, Boston lawyers, homosexuals, Jews, communists, were all the enemy. As the Senator from
Wisconsin characterized it himself in 1952, "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves
rolled." He implied – without a middle-class tie; certainly not an upper-class
bow-tie.
Russia was not an enemy which united the two American lunacies, for they hated each other
much more than they hated the Russians. The Soviet Politburo understood this better then than
the Kremlin does now.
Gregg Herken's The Georgetown
Set , is so named because it records the activities of Alsop, Kennan and several other
State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and White House officials who lived as neighbours
in the Georgetown district of the capital city, together with Katharine (Kay) and Philip
Graham, proprietor managers of the Washington Post. The district – once a chartered city
of Maryland and river port, which was absorbed into the federal District of Columbia in 1871 --
was expensive, relatively speaking then; more so now. The richest of the set, including Alsop,
had town houses in Georgetown, and rural retreats in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Connecticut.
They were a set because because, as Herken said succinctly to an interviewer , "they got
together every Sunday for supper and, basically, they ran the country from those meetings." As
the book elaborates, they thought they were running the world. With a longer time lapse in
which to view the evidence, they were also losing it.
Newspapers exposed in the book for collaborating in all the deceits, failures and war crimes
of the history have reacted by calling
Herken's effort a "provincial corner". The New Yorker opined that the Russia-hating
and Russia war-making which Herken retells are dead and gone. "The guests at the Sunday
soirées no doubt felt that they were in the cockpit of history. But the United States is
a democracy, not a Wasp Ascendancy There was once an atmosphere of willingness that made a
system of bribes and information exchanges seem, to the people involved, simply a way of
working together for a common cause in a climate of public opinion that, unfortunately,
required secrecy. No one got rich from the arrangement. People just lost track of what was
inside their bubble and what was outside, as people tend to do. Vietnam was the reality check.
'I've Seen the Best of It' was the title Alsop gave to his memoirs. Things hadn't been the same
since, he felt. He was right about that, and we should be thankful." In the New York media
business these days it's possible to publish a selfie of pulling your own leg.
The Washington Post has deflected the indictment against itself by describing Herken's work
as "a very strange book (A) a rehash of the history of the Cold War as experienced in certain
Washington circles and (B) an almost obsessive recapitulation of the life and journalism of
Joseph Alsop." Alsop is dismissed as unworthy of a history at all because he was "utterly
repellent: arrogant, patronizing, imperious, uninterested in anyone except himself."
That's the truth about Alsop. The truth about the Washington Post is buried in this line by
the Post's books editor about the hand that fed him: "it must be very hard for people who did
not live through the '50s and '60s to understand how obsessed the American people were with the
threat from Moscow." That line appeared in
print on November 7, 2014. It was already history, that's to say, a misjudgement. How
monumentally mistaken is obvious now.
In covering the period from 1946 to 1975, Herken's research does repeat much of the history
of the Cold War which has been told elsewhere. It starts on February 22, 1946, the date of the
"Long Telegram", No. 511 -- Kennan's despatch from the US Embassy in Moscow to the State
Department, setting out his strategy of so-called containment and much more besides. Read it in
the declassified original
. Most of the war-fighting and other war crimes which the telegram set in motion under Kennan's
1948 rubrics, "organized political warfare" and "preventive direct action", are reported in
Herken's book; so too are Kennan's frequent funks, failures of conviction, reversals of
judgement, and pleas for help.
The book ends on December 30, 1974, the date of Alsop's last column. Alsop concluded with
the line: "I have never known the American people to be really badly wrong, if only they were
correctly and fully informed."
Herken shows how self-deluded and professionally delusional that was -- not because of
Alsop's character but because of his sources. Herken documents that they ran upwards from
foot-soldiers (also lubricious sailors) to presidents and cabinet secretaries. Herken doesn't
think the same of Kennan, who gets to walk off stage, aged 101, sounding more sceptical of
overthrowing Saddam Hussein than he ever was in his prime and in power to direct schemes of
what we call state terrorism today.
Left to right: Kennan died in 2005, aged 101; Alsop died in 1989 aged 78; Frank Wisner
died in 1965 aged 56. The deeper Herken gets into the private papers, the more he refers to his
subjects by their diminutives and nicknames – Joe, Oppie, Beetle, Dickie, the Crocodile,
Wig, Jack, Wiz, Soozle, Vangie, et al.
What is fresh about the sources is that Herken has had access to the private notes, letters
and diaries of the Alsop family; the Kennan diaries and letters; and the private papers of
Frank Wisner, the first director of covert operations against Russia. Wisner went mad and
killed himself, as did Graham. There's no doubt about the suicide outcome of their madness.
In the case of the mad ex-Defence Secretary James Forrestal his fatal jump from the window
of the Navy hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, in May 1949 might have been a homicidal push.
Herken concludes that Forrestal's death was "the first senior-ranking American casualty of the
Cold War." Herken thinks of their madness as anomalies. The history shows they were
normalities.
Missing from this history is any reference to official documents, now declassified; press
reporting of the time; or interviews with veterans of the same events but on other sides
– Russian and Soviet; British; German; French; Polish; Vietnamese; Chinese. This isn't so
much a fatal flaw in Herken's (right) book as the reason why his history is repeating itself
today. Call this a variation on Karl's Marx's apothegm that history starts as tragedy and
repeats itself as farce. Herken's blindness to this is as revealing as the Washington Post's
madness, not yet as suicidal as its former proprietor's, today.
So mesmerized is Herken by the moneyed backgrounds of his subjects and sources, and by the
amount of black cash from the US Government they spent on operations, he forgets to report what
they did to fill their own pockets. The claim by the New Yorker that "no one got rich from the
arrangement" – Alsop's fake news fabrications – is false, but Herken touches only
in passing on how they made (or kept) their money. Alsop's column, for example, was sold to 200
newspapers, and at one time claimed a readership of 25 million. His family inheritance is
recorded, but not its annual revenue value. Alsop's payola included silk shirts from Alfred
Kohlberg, a textile importer from China who backed Chiang Kai-shek against Mao Tse-tung, as did
Alsop. Alsop's patrons included Convair (General Dynamics), the company building the US Air
Force Atlas missile for procurement of which Alsop reported fictions about Soviet missile
strength.
In the US power which Alsop, Kennan and Wisner believed without hesitation, Herken is not
less a believer. "Anything could be achieved", Herken quotes a New York Times reporter quoting
Wisner. When the US force multiple changed, however, and US allies or agents were outgunned,
outspent, outnumbered, or outwitted, they were unable to acknowledge miscalculation,
attributing defeat instead to the superior force or guile of their adversaries, especially the
Russians.
This is madness, and there is good reason for recognizing the symptoms again. In 1958, when
Herken says Wisner's paranoid manias were becoming obvious to his friends and colleagues,
"Frank put forward a theory that the careless comment which had gotten George Kennan kicked out
of the Soviet Union was evidence the Soviets had succeeded in an area where the CIA's own
scientists had failed: mind control. Some agency hands alleged that Wisner attributed his own
increasingly bizarre behaviour to the Kremlin's sly manipulation."
From Washington in 1958, fast forward to Washington in 2017; for mind control and sly
manipulation, read Russian hacking and cyber warfare. From Wisner's and Kennan's balloon drops
of leaflets and broadcasts by Radio Free Europe, fast forward to Russia Today Television and
Russian infiltrations of Twitter, Google, the Democratic National Committee, and the Trump
organization.
It stands to reason (ahem!) that if you think what the US Government and its journalists
were doing then was mad, you are might conclude that what they is doing now is just as mad
– and not very different. When the incumbent president and his Secretary of State
publicly call for IQ tests on each other, all reason has failed. "The nation," as Alsop had
written, "had simply taken leave of all sense of proportion." That was in March 1954.
If you fast forward to now, there's one difference. Today the lunatic Russia warfighters
don't retire. They also don't fade away. Today's sleek successors to mad Wisner and mad Graham
sleep easily in their beds a-nights. For what they've done and do, they wouldn't dream of
taking shotguns to their heads.
Herken retells the story of the campaign Alsop waged against McCarthyism at the State
Department, against McCarthy himself, and the vulnerability Alsop himself presented until the
Boston lawyer Joseph Welch put an end to McCarthy on June 9, 1954 : "Have you no sense of decency,
sir, at long last?" Welch famously said. "Have you left no sense of decency?" The recurring
history reveals why, even if there are plenty of people to say the same thing today to the
Washington Post, New York Times, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the madness will continue
repeating itself.
Wisner's son married the stepmother of Nicolas Sarkozy. This facilitated the Sarkozy
family's links with Wall Street (Guillaume at Credit Suisse and Carlyle and Nicolas'
stepdaughter Judith Martin (daughter of France's Bruce Forsyth and Cecilia Albeniz) at Morgan
Stanley, the latter at Canary Wharf).
A year ago, before his elimination in the Republicain primary, Sarko met executives from
Goldman Sachs to discuss a move from London to Paris due to Brexit. Sarko promised bespoke
personal and corporate tax arrangements in return for a relocation and fanfare. Sarko was
keen on the fanfare and planned to exploit that, thinking it would be a PR coup soon between
his election and the August shut down.
Kay Graham was the daughter of a former partner at Lazard Freres. Her father bought the
WaPo after his retirement. The family and its plaything rag formed part of Operation
Mockingbird.
Also worth mentioning that he purchased the WaPo in 1933. Per wikipedia, " In June
1933, he bought the Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction, for $825,000 ".
Pre-sages Bezos buying the WaPo on the cheap too. Can't say I would have thought of Bezos
as being a Russia scare-monger. I guess it's the flip-side of regime change. If you're in the
regime preservation business, perhaps that means regime changing your enemies. In which case,
never let a good crisis go to waste. And if a crisis isn't available well if a newspaper
can't figure out how to manufacture a crisis out of the available pool of evil-doers, then
really why even have a newspaper?
Bezos to Russia, "It's nothing personal, it's just business". Bezos to Trump, "It's
personal."
Seems like that is the under the radar amount of supposed funding for Fronts.
Slowly it dawned on me, or I simply put two and two together realizing I was working for a
CIA/MI6 Front. Explained why mediocrities, liars & thieves had secure jobs.
American Airlines is most probably the inheritor of Air America's freight operations,
station agents, & to pilots a great system for overt & covert operations gets 685
million a year.
IN-Q-TEL the CIA retirement benefits fund for agents gets 685 million as well.
I don't remember where I read the figures. See what you find out?
When I worked the independent movie scene in NYC all the budgets were 100 thousand
dollars.
Now how you know, or the commentators know what they are saying here, I don't know. We are
aware that the US power structure found it convenient to blame, or imply the blame for all
that was stupid and violent in politics in the US on the Russians who as a secretive
organization by habit made the picture plausible.
If oligarchs money fleeing Russia came to America and was a source of Industrial Service
Banking it would be a victory. As it is the working classes in the US and Russia end up with
the same leaders only different.
As it is the game is the same with it being real estate and art.
If there is one thing about Russians, they lust to possess beauty.
Otherwise from my experience they are difficult to do business with and you get more respect
when you up front don't trust them so they can act like Russians.
I pitched to the Atlantic "Statehood for Russia" when the Cold War supposedly ended.
With the propaganda going into what Americans look at and voter system hacking it is evident
they want to be a state.
Outstanding article and excellent commentary points and to elaborate just on several facts
stated: ("Wisner went mad and killed himself, as did Graham.") -- this might have been the
case, but most curiously, both Wisner and Graham were first treated at Chestnut Lodge
Sanitarium in Rockville, MD at the CIA's MK ULTRA wing, then they both would return home and
commit suicide?! This was also the facility where the CIA would send a research nutritionist
(do not know whether they connived her, or it was against her will, etc., but she did not
work for the Agency) who was researching an Amazonian plant with unique properties, and after
her treatment, she never mentioned said plant or research ever again?!.
Also, this is where Richard Helms, then CIA director, had his famous auto accident right
before giving testimony before the Church Committee (when he perjured himself and later was
officially censured by Congress). Helms claimed he was seeing a psychoanalyst (basis for a
simpleton movie from Hollywood called "The President's Analyst" -- probably involved Harry
Weinstein) -- but it was because Helms was shredding all the MK ULTRA files kept there prior
to appearing before the Church Committee.
And Joe Alsop was cousin to several CIA dudes, Kermit Roosevelt and Archibald Roosevelt,
whereupon he received his "tips" or misinformation.
And the Colonel explains Sarkozy's familial background quite nicely, but to further add it
was Wisner and John Negroponte, working through the Franco-American Foundation, who were
supposed to be behind the concocted false scandals against Sarkozy's presidential opponent
which allowed Sarkozy to win the election the first time. (The second time, Sarkozy was
behind that NYC airport "incident" which blow up in his face, resulting in a Hollande
victory.)
There are further Wall Street links in the Sarkozy family. Olivier, half-brother of
Nicolas, was at CS First Boston and worked briefly with our company on an engagement some
years ago. His colleagues remarked on his pedigree and ability to open doors where others
couldn't.
So the USA had no hand in arming Japan and encouraging them to attack Russia, successfully
in 1904? Who stirred up Japan, forcing them with battleships to trade, actually firing on
Japan. USA has always had war plans for the invasion of every country on Earth, since the Civil
War, if not before.
It has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a
lawful sovereign. Except for 20 years!!!
WWII was a result of rearmament of Germany, by USA and its banker allies. They wanted USSR
in ashes. In the end they had to rescue Germany, failing in that and losing half of Europe.
That must be smart!
It [USA] has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence
against a lawful sovereign.
The monarchy of George III? Lawful sovereign? Who elected George III? Nobody. Who elected
the members of Parliament? Nobody in America, and only adult males who could meet stringent
properly requirements in Britain. Britain in 1775/1776 was definitely not a lawful sovereign
over any territory in the North American continent.
Don't forget Woody Wilson sending the troops to Vladivostok after WW1. Communism was
always regarded as an existential threat by the then WASPy, now not so WASPy elites.
And re Kennan, the recent Ken Burns Vietnam documentary shows him casting doubts on the
Vietnam intervention at a Congressional hearing. Kennan said the policy was like the elephant
being terrified of the mouse. So his Russia obsession does seem to have been more about power
rivalry than ideological apostasy.
If this is true, why did the US send 17.5 M tons of material to the USSR, through
Lend Lease ,
during WW2?
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food
were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For
comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from
January 1942 to May 1945.
One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's
River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and
services amounted to about eleven billion dollars.
Wasn't Henry Ford supposed to be a Na*i?
While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under
the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The
U.S. received $2M in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of
landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare
minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3B at the cessation of hostilities to
settle the debt, but was only offered $170M by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved
until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722M linked to grain
shipments from the U.S., with the remainder being written off.
So $722M in 1972 dollars for $11B in 1947 dollars?
If this is true, why did the US send 17.5 M tons of material to the USSR, through Lend
Lease, during WW2?
They suspended their death wish because without the USSR they could very well have lost to
the Nazis. Short of a successful invasion of Britain, the availability to the Nazis of a
small portion of the tank and aerial forces that were getting chewed up in the Soviet Union
would have led to the easy conquest of North Africa and the loss of the Suez canal. That
would have been hard for the Allies to recover from. Once the war was won it was time to
shift back into playing the innocent party responding to Soviet aggression.
The U.S. also sent $20 million in food aid to the Soviets during the famine of 1921-1922.
The U.S. attitude towards Russia / Soviet Union is complex and contradictory. Members of the
U.S. establishment mostly opposed the Soviets, but future President Herbert Hoover's role in
the famine relief project shows that there were exceptions.
By the 1930s, the behavior of Stalin justified opposition to the Soviets, although I think
that for a long time, many (perhaps most) of the Americans who opposed them did so for the
wrong reasons.
Hoover's role in famine relief was about more than food distribution. By 1911-1912 or so
he was director of the Russo-Asiatic Corporation and had extensive oil, mining, and timber
interests in Russia, all of which made him very, very wealthy. These interests were
relinquished prior to the Revolution, which Hoover vehemently opposed. According to Sayers
and Kahn in The Great Conspiracy Against Russia, "He was to remain one of the world's
bitterest foes of the Soviet Government for the rest of his life. It is a fact, whatever his
personal motive may have been, that American food sustained the White Russians and fed the
storm troops of the most reactionary regimes in Europe which were engaged in suppressing the
upsurge of democracy after the First World War. Thus American relief became a weapon against
the peoples' movements in Europe."
This is Disaster Capitalism 100 years ago.
The quote is footnoted. The footnote reads: "Herbert Hoover's activities as Food Relief
Administrator were directed toward giving aid to the White Russians and withholding all
supplies to the Soviets. Hundreds of thousands starved in Soviet territory. When, finally,
Hoover bowed to public pressure and sent some food to the Soviets he continued according to a
statement by a Near East Relief official in the New York World in April, 1922 -- to
'interfere with the collection of funds for famine-stricken Russia.' In February, 1992, when
Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, the New York Globe made this editorial comment:
'Bureaucrats centered throughout the Department of Justice, the Department of State and the
Department of Commerce for purposes of publicity are carrying on a private war with the
Bolshevist Government Washington propaganda has grown to menacing proportions Messrs. Hughes
and Hoover and Dougherty will do well to clean their houses before public irritation reaches
too high a point. The American people will not long endure a presumptuous bureaucracy which
for its own wretched purposes is willing to let millions of innocent people die."
In 1919, when the American Relief Administration first offered to help Russia, it's very
plausible that they only wanted to help the regions under White control. But the Soviets
refused foreign assistance at that time. In 1921, when the famine was worse, the Whites
didn't control much outside of portions of Siberia. I think the worst areas of famine were in
eastern Ukraine and the nearby parts of Russia. I don't think the Whites controlled any of
that territory any longer, but I could be wrong. I think that Hoover's aid helped a lot of
people in Soviet areas. And yes, he was anti-communist.
Also there was considerable sympathy towards Germany among the Latin American elites.
Several countries, such as Paraguay and Argentina, would likely have jumped aboard the Axis
bandwagon if it began to look like they'd come out on top.
The percentage of battle deaths incurred by the Germans on the Eastern front was at a
minimum 70%, and by some counts over 90%. If Operation Barbarosa had not been launched in
1941 and a truce had held on that front it is unlikely that the Anglo-American alliance could
have sustained a a landing on continental Europe in the west. This would have especially been
the case if the Germans, instead of putting their chips on Barbarosa, had been able to
successfully shut off British use of the Suez Canal, and thus deprive them of ready access to
the resources from India and especially the oil from Iran. Given British naval dominance of
the Mediterranean, however, this would have been difficult unless they were able to negotiate
passage to the Levant by land through Turkey and the Balkans.
Agreed. Instead of peddling diagnoses he would do well to stick with the attacking the
crudity of Kennan's view of world affairs. Kennan saw the Soviets as akin to "windup toys"
that were somehow driven to expand. In this he completely failed to account for the fact that
the Soviets were potentially autarchic, while the capitalist West was governed by
accumulation imperatives that pushed for market expansion. He doesn't bother himself with the
problem but jumps right into rationalizing base construction and an arms race. That Kennan is
seen as a kind of geostrategic genius speaks volumes regarding the self-deluded mindlessness
of US foreign policy.
This article sounds more like an angry emotional outburst from Helmer. It wouldn't
surprise me if he's one of the people taking a lot of crap in all this Russian propaganda
hysteria.
Yes, I know about his depression. But the claim that he was a psychopath? That stretches
believability. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy were examples of
psychopaths. I don't think that George Kennan was like them.
Russia-phobia is actually 100 years old. Strangely, I haven't seen any commemoration of
the centenary of 1917 Revolution. Nobody can deny that it was a world-changing event.
The Bolshevik Revolution, that overtook the Kerensky Revolution shocked the world to the
core, particularly the Church. It quickly alienated even syndicalists and anarchists, because
it developed into a strong centralized state, not the bottom up movement that Lenin found
when he entered Petrograd.
The last 4 years of Nato intervention in the Baltics, Poland and
the Ukraine have shown that the world has never recovered from that shock. British opposition
to Russia goes even deeper, back to the Great Game and the Crimean War. Without Churchill
vehemently opposing Russia in general and Stalin in particular would there even be a Nato?
History is more about continuity than discontinuity.
I'm glad you mentioned Churchill. Since the first Directors of the OSS and the CIA were
complete Anglophiles and modeled their collection techniques on Britian's SIS (MI-6) (until,
of course, those famous British spies were uncovered), it is not surprising that our first
after the war "enemies" were the same as Churchill's enemies
I have a sneaking suspicion that the troubles of the world have such a basic foundation
that if they are ever solved, people will look back, marveling at the simplicity of the
answers.
Humans have always faced the dilemma of how to organize society. The main sticking points
being how to control personal ambition in ones own group and how to get the work done that
needs doing- including protecting oneself form ones neighbors who are dealing with the same
issues.
Capitalism, and the west in general, seem to turn personal ambition loose. It takes a
persons personal confrontation and experience with the universe and makes that the primary
motivator for organization. It serves to reward the aggressive while insulating failure as a
personal shortcoming, not a flaw in the system. The Catholic religion, which underpins such a
system by giving it a spiritual legitimacy. The individual can have a personal relationship
with the creator of the universe- with the moderating teaching of caring for the poor to curb
excessive personal ambition or too close a connection. That hasn't worked out so well as the
poor are with us still and the argument is given that the poor will be with us forever. The
Divine right of Kings and all that.
Godless Communists challenged all that and the results still haven't worked themselves
out.
Endless wars seem to be an excuse to justify recurring cycles of hate. Love your God, and
spite your enemies.
The promise of Socialism is that the tools of science and reason can be used to relieve
human suffering and provide for a meaningful life. That vision remains unborn because those
sentiments are always snuffed out as quickly as they take hold.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the troubles of the world have such a basic foundation
that if they are ever solved, people will look back, marveling at the simplicity of the
answers.
I have the exact same suspicion. We might, in fact, understand the basic foundation and
already have the solutions but, to use your words, they are always snuffed out as quickly as
they take hold -- which is itself its own intractable problem.
Interesting observation about McCarthyism as a feature of the lower classes. Particularly
about what the hate and fear was directed against: bankers, lawyers, Jews, homosexuals,
communists One of the big actors in that great national drama was a fella named Roy Cohn, who
kind of fell into almost all of those categories (except maybe "communist", though with Cohn,
who was also a mob lawyer and buddy of J. Edgar Hoover, who knows?).
And for Trump haters, or those who are trying to "understand" the guy, there's even a
great big Cohn Connection, which is fun to read about here: " A mentor in shamelessness:
the man who taught Trump the power of publicity
Roy Cohn, the lawyer who embraced infamy during the McCarthy hearings and Rosenberg trial,
influenced Donald Trump to turn the tabloids into a soapbox " ,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/20/roy-cohn-donald-trump-joseph-mccarthy-rosenberg-trial
Interesting observation about McCarthyism as a feature of the lower classes.
I noted that too. It gives credence to Matt Stoller's observation that the elites / 1%ers
are not monolithic but are fractions that can and do fight each other.
Tangentially, I saw the Angels in America in London, which includes a vivid
portrait of Roy Cohn. On his deathbed, watched over by Ethel Rosenberg, Cohn dekes Rosenberg
into singing him off to his last sleep out of pity A touching moment until Cohn sits up and
yells "Fooled ya!" (paraphrasing).
America was born of conquest. The North American continent is/was vast in scale and
resources. The vision was never to live in such a place as more to conquer it and extract its
resources. That mentality is still prominent as the resource base has not been depleted yet
and energies are directed to further exploitation- fracking and the opening of the arctic
regions. Even now, an argument can be made that American corporations are more concerned
about exploiting their customers for profit, than the health of the citizenry. That is the
motivational force behind our governing elite, not some attachment to the land and its people
and the desire to make the world a better place.
American Exceptionalism is based on conquest and the right for individuals to exploit
those resources to their own end. By that standard it continues to be a success. Communism,
in principle, was an ideology opposed to that vision. Under no circumstances can such an
ideology be allowed to exist, so was set for extermination by force and disinformation. Once
that process takes hold, you live in a world devoid of reality. It is fantasy.
Naked greed cannot be justified for long without some form of damage taking place in the
human psyche. Reflection is not prevalent in the American creed. The rise of American
Corporations to the detriment of the nations citizens is a confirmation of that fact. For how
can a nation be "Great" if its citizens are driven into poverty?
You become a Nation of crazy people.
Greed and misuse of Power lead to crazy. Instead of trying to talk sense to crazy people,
sanity lies in the opposite direction. Less greed and an articulation of the proper use of
power. Implementation is another matter.
Thanks for the reading suggestions, and I especially second the the mention of Douglass's
JFK and the Unspeakable. TTBOMK although it's nearly ten years old it's the best analysis out
there of the John Kennedy assassination.
Saying "Russia (aka the Soviet Union)" (as Helmer does) is akin to saying "California (aka
The United States". It is a false statement.
The Soviet Union (1917-1991) was a materialist anti-christian, anti religious totalitarian
State. Godlessness was the ruling precept of Soviet society.
In 1923, Lenin created the first Soviet Concentration Camp, at the "re-purposed", Russian
Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery. Solovetsky was used as the prototype for the Gulag network of
camps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solovki_prison_camp
IMO, today, the USA is the World Epicenter of materialism, internationalism, greed and
godlessness.
Conversely, Russia (2017) is a Nationalist, Orthodox Christian Democracy. No wonder our
materialistic rulers are so "hysterically", (The APA says, "conversion disorder". Casual
psychiatric diagnosis of opponents is a breeze now!), fearful of Russia, and the Biblical,
little David, with his sling and stone (Putin).
There is a vast body of scholarly work on the origins of the Cold War from many different
perspectives, into which context this analysis is trivial and downright loopy. The Georgetown
Set got us into it? It was "mad" to oppose the Soviet Union and now Russia? Oh, please.
Western opposition to Russian communism pre-dates Joe Alsop and his bowties by decades.
The revolutionary regime that weakened the WWI alliance and prolonged that bloody war by
making a separate peace with Germany wasn't going to be well-liked by its former allies in
the first place. The same regime preached the violent overthrow of democratically-elected
western governments, who reacted as one might expect, including the (poorly-considered)
intervention of 1918-1920.
Stalin then gave the world many, many reasons not to trust Russia – brutal
repression on a hitherto unheard of scale, mass murder, disastrous economic policies leading
to mass famine, show trials and active promotion of Soviet-style take-overs elsewhere. Even
before WWII and the start of the Cold War there was plenty not to like. During the war,
Western governments bowed to geopolitical reality and allied with the USSR, despite Stalin's
cynical deal with Hitler to divide Poland just before, but Poland provides one of the best
samplings of why opposing the USSR/Russia after geopolitical realities changed at the end of
the war was not only understandable but a very good idea. Shortly after Russia took over in
eastern Poland the NKVD rounded up and brutally murdered 22,000 military officers, police
officers, public officials and assorted intellectuals, i.e. anyone who could think
independently and oppose Russian rule, and threw the bodies into pits dug in the Katyn
Forest. The Soviets denied this for decades, blaming it on the Nazi's, but finally fessed up
in 1990 during perestroika, now best understood as a brief twinkling of light in Russia's
dark history. Reports had leaked out of the massacre and other Soviet atrocities during the
war, which played a large role in mobilizing another major force in U.S. politics that was
deeply skeptical of the USSR after the war – ethnic Eastern Europeans.
The West and Russia did do deals at Yalta and Tehran on spheres of influence, but there
was ambiguity as to what that meant and words were thrown in about national
self-determination and free elections. After the war the West (mostly) promoted democratic
government, at least in Europe, while the Soviets laughed at the joke and imposed their
brutal regimes anywhere they could. Stalin's last living legacy is the horror show in North
Korea, where he installed a Soviet agent as head of the regime, now a dynasty. Kennan's Long
Cable/Article X, which is still well worth reading, dealt with the causes of Soviet
expansionism as part of Russia's long, troubled history and urged containment as an
alternative to more active opposition ("roll-back"), which largely worked in Europe. As the
counterpoint to containment, when Sec State Dean Acheson omitted Korea from the U.S.
"defensive perimeter" in his January 1950 speech, the North invaded the South with Soviet
support five months later. It was after that experience that containment went global.
With the exception of Kennan, the people mentioned may have had influence but were not the
real policy makers. Truman, George Marshall and Dean Acheson were the primary architects of
U.S postwar policy. Only Acheson lived in Georgetown, and he thought Alsop was a "pest."
Acheson took on Kennan as his staff chief because he had deep expertise on Russia and largely
made sense. The off-hand comments in the article about Kennan being a psychopath and coward
were made with no support and are at odds with his reputation as a pragmatist and
traditionalist in foreign policy. He was recently most well known for his quaint view that
the U.S. should declare wars as required by the Constitution before getting into them. Alsop
was a commentator not a policy maker and was regarded as somewhat of a fringe character, not
least because he was gay in the 1950s. As for the rest of the U.S. elite at the time, far
more of them had been sympathetic to Russia in their youths than rabid anti-communists. The
typical Cold Warrior was made that way not by bowtie-wearing but by sober, mature observation
of what the Soviet regime was all about.
So let's do fast-forward to the present day. No one with an objective understanding of
Russian history is at all surprised that a regime headed by one of their former secret
policemen is tampering with elections, fomenting political divisions and trying to disrupt
the western alliance. All the evidence supports those conclusions and more comes out every
day. Facebook, Google, the scope is astounding. In Helmer's piece we see the birth of a new
phenomenon, on the same intellectual level as climate-change denial. It's electing-tampering
denial.
I think if NC-ers wanted to read official propaganda, they could just subscribe to NYT.
The only thing that your comment demonstrates is that you've no idea what "objective
understanding of Russian history" could possibly be.
Was that an argument? The problem Russian apologists have is that periodically, after
years or decades of denial, the truth finally comes out from a Russian source, usually when
it's convenient to blame their predecessor. Khrushchev finally admitted Stalin's "mistakes",
like anyone really needed confirmation that his regime had murdered millions. Gorbachev
finally had the guts to admit the NKVD liquidated the Polish elite, which everyone else
(except the "useful idiots") had known for a long time, etc. That was the context of the Cold
War and the original posting. U.S. containment policy responded to real actions and constant
lying by the USSR as it imposed totalitarian regimes throughout Eastern Europe and elsewhere,
not some goofy chatter at Georgetown cocktail parties. Every one of those countries, as soon
as they had freedom to choose, bolted for the West and NATO.
As for election-tampering denial, sure looks like it's real. This was a new twist –
deny something simply because it's been reported in the NYT (Russian sources, and Donald
Trump, being so much more credible). But some other historical truth-telling pertains here.
If you want to understand what Vladimir Putin and his fellow secret policemen did in East
Germany, despite decades of denial, you can now go to the Stasi archives. It's a museum that
documents 44 years of soul-crushing repression, cynical manipulation of neighbor against
neighbor and systematic subversion of anyone or any group that might speak up against the
state. It's not hard at all to believe that someone who came of age with that background
would take advantage of such an easy way to undermine their U.S. adversaries. In fact, it's
hard to believe they wouldn't.
Well said. Thank you. My comment was much shorter, but said many of the same things. It
was censored. Much shorter version: Asserting that George Kennan was a lunatic is lunacy.
For the life of me, I still cannot figure out why people are in an absolute panic over
Russian "agents" buying $100,000.00, or whatever, worth of advertising promoting either or
both sides of the election when U.S.citizens and Political Parties spent over $1.6
billion.
Are American citizens really so stupid as to fall for the amazingly, brilliantly conceived
and placed $100K worth of Russian advertising, so clever that it superseded $1.6 billion
worth of U.S. citizen ads?
Or (to misquote Shakespeare/Macbeth) is it a tale told by propagandists, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing?
"After the war the West (mostly) promoted democratic government, at least in Europe, "
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
I am surprised no one else responded to this screed. I agree that the Soviet Union had a
horrific human rights record, but that little snippet I quote above is like a relic from the
silliest days of Cold War propaganda. As for Russian meddling, the evidence is that probably
something happened, in my opinion, but if people were serious they would keep some sense of
proportion. I read the NYT articles and melodramatic language is doing an awful lot of work
with regards to the Facebook claims.
If I accepted everything I have read at face value our
democracy was so fragile literally anyone willing to hire some hackers and spend a minuscule
amount of money could have destroyed it. Heck, if I and a few friends were willing to
mortgage our homes and cash in our retirement funds we could fund its destruction
ourselves.
Richard Spence, professor of history at the University of Idaho, has just published "Wall
Street and the Russian Revolution: 1905 – 1925." This is a fascinating book that I
would think at least some of the above commenters would be interested in. Spence has updated
Anthony Sutton's earlier work with new/more archival research and access to new/more recently
declassified documents.
I haven't finished it as it came in the mail yesterday, but it does have a few interesting
comments about George Kennan not the above George Kennan but his distant cousin who in 1891
published a book entitled "Siberia and the Exile System." So it seems that Russia-hating ran
in the family. The cousin Kennan claimed to have assisted in the distribution of a ton and a
half of literature to Russian POWs in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. This, according to
Kennan, was financed by Jacob Schiff and caused many of the POWs to become liberals and
revolutionaries opposed to the Tsar.
Fleshing out the role of capitalist/financial interests in the Revolution is certainly
important. These were the deep state actors of 100 years ago. The names of the people and the
interests they represent may have changed, but the chicanery hasn't.
" the Clinton administration decided to move NATO into former Warsaw Pact nations,
violating a understanding made as part of the peaceful dissolution". The "peaceful
dissolution" of the Soviet "union", I presume?
NATO was formed in 1948 in response to the Soviet refusal to withdraw from the Eastern
European nations it continued to control with puppet governments and Soviet troops after
WWll. The Soviets responded by forming the Warsaw Pact -- consisting of those very same
nations: (East) Germany, Poland, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. The
only time Warsaw Pact troops were used militarily was against its own members -- Hungary in
1956, and Czechoslavakia in 1968.
The collapse of the USSR started in 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and
culminated in 1991 with the failed coup by hardliners against Gorbachev in August of 1991,
though the official end did not come until the formal dissolution on December 26, 1991.
In the following years, all of the Warsaw Pact nations, plus the illegally annexed and
occupied Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, having regained their sovereignty,
all made a point of joining NATO -- to make sure that the Russian bear did not return to do
even more damage.
What "understanding" was violated? It is a popular myth that the Russians were "promised"
that NATO would not expand to the east. Who made this promise to who, and under what
authority? Did the nations of Eastern Europe, after half a century of Russian control,
voluntarily cede the power to determine their future alliances to the Clinton Administration?
The premise is absurd on its face. In any case, how do you keep a "promise" to a political
entity- the USSR- which no longer exists?
Russian interference in Ukraine, and the forced annexation of Crimea (reminiscent of
Stalin's annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940), has validated the pragmatism
of its former vassal states in joining NATO. Russia is not being threatened by its neighbor's
membership in NATO; to them, Russia is the threat.
You should ask Jim Baker, who had confirmed that an agreement regarding NATO was made. In
addition to many other people present at the time Why try at revisionist history now ?
And FIY, Estonia, Latvia, and Litva were a part of the czarist Russia for more than 300 yrs.
Soviet Union gave up the territories in the terrible peace it had to sign with Germany before
the end of WWI. After the next war, which it won, it simply took back the areas – kinda
like the French took back Alsace-Lorraine, after victory over German in WWI.
Knowing history is really a good thing
More Russians troops are buried in the soil of the Crimea than the US lost in Europe
during WWI &WWII as well. The West or it's proxies have been after it for nearly as long
as The Great Game has been in play. But that's what Russia gets for helping Lincoln by
keeping France and Britain from actively coming in on the side of the Confederates. Never
help an ingrate.
That's two misreadings of history. There was no agreement not to expand NATO, which is
confirmed by both Jim Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev, the other guy there at the table. The only
agreement made was that NATO would not put nuclear weapons or non-German troops in the former
GDR. That agreement has been kept.
The Baltic states had all declared their independence from Russia before the Russian peace
with Germany, so they weren't anyone's to give. If they were ever "transferred" to Germany
they didn't stay German for long – in fact a couple of them defeated German armies in
battle towards the end of WWI. They were all independent by 1920, part of the wave of
national self-determination after WWI that saw the liberation of lots of smaller countries
that had been dominated by one of the defunct empires. Lithuania, of course, hadn't always
been so small – at one point it was the largest country in Europe and included parts of
what became Russia. Comparisons with Alsace are absurd on several levels.
... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries.
After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity
– basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west,
the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.
Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by
opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever
increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.
Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the
wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there
is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this
business with the yellow wests in France is going.
If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better
than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a
respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method
– thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the
elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to
prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among
ourselves, which is where it really counts.
First, in just three EU member states referenda were held in 2005 on what was called
European constitution. All three two thirds negative, with, especially compared with
elections now, a high % of voting. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Lisbon was signed unanimously,
a treaty in essence the same as the rejected 'consitution'.
According to Farrage it was said in EP 'they do not know what they're doing'.
And so the disappearance of the nation states continued, elections in the member states,
hogwash, what still is called government is no more than errand boys of Brussels.
Second capitalism. It is a great pity that this word now is used to hide what the problem
is, the disappearance of the nation state. Capitalism is as old as the world, as is global
trading. Thousands of years BCE traders from what is now Indonesia sailed yearly to E Africa
for trade, on regulated markets, regulated informally, even without any verbal communication.
What is called capitalism now, the evil capitalism, has as only cause that nation states gave
their sovereignty away.
As to the ideological basis of the EU, mainly the fairy tale of the evil Germans, two
world wars and the holocaust.
I must admit that until say fifteen years ago I also believed these fairy tales.
One does not expect to be lied to consistently by nearly anyone and anything.
If spreading these fairy tales was lying, can even be discussed.
I'm inclined to see just concious lying as lying.
Anyhow, these fairy tales prevented common sense to understand that culturally there is no
such thing as Europe.
Culturally, thus also not economically and socially.
The Brussels love of mass immigration, forcing member states to accept in fact any migrant,
is caused, I fear, by the realisation that the European Reich can only exist if the 28 or so
different cultures have been destroyed, even the probablity of civil war seems acceptable to
Brussels, I fear.
US "resistance" is as fake as it can be. It consists mainly of Clinton wing of DemoRats (in
pocket of Wall Street) and neoliberal presstitutes in MSM.
Macron is seen as a former Rothschild banker who had the idea that he could 'modernise'
France in the neoliberal Brussels way. According to the latest poll 61% of the French reject
Macron's policies.
In less than two months, the yellow vests (" gilets jaunes " ) movement in
France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week,
demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President
Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium
and the Netherlands. Just as el uture EU designer was fortunate enough to have friends in high
places. Schuman's clemency was granted by none other than General Charles de Gaulle himself,
the leader of the resistance during the war and future French President. Instantly, Schuman's
turncoat reputation was rehabilitated and his wartime activity whitewashed. Even though he had
knowingly voted full authority to Pétain, the retention of his post in the Vichy
government was veneered to have occurred somehow without his knowledge or consent.
... ... ...
Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His work has appeared
in Counterpunch, Global Research, Dissident Voice, Greanville Post, OffGuardian, and more. Max
may be reached at [email protected]
Thierry Meyssan is reporting that Macron is more of a stooge for Henry Kravis (of the KKR
corporate raider firm) than for the Rothschilds. He also alleges that Kravis has been funding
ISIS/Daesh.
Rothschild made a comment the other day about the Italian government debt problem. French
banks have heavy exposure. France has troops in Syria; has the French army been leveraged
into a mercenary force for wealthy Zionists?
The article by Angela Nagle which is linked to is, however, absolutely excellent and I
thoroughly recommend reading it as a very powerful argument against unfettered
immigration.
Very perceptive to place "Resistance" between quotes. Resistance is non-existent in the
US. True resistance requires an educated working class; instead the US has a amassed one of
the most stupefied and brainwashed workers on the planet.
The Yellow Jackets movement isn't lost in the US, nor among those who support DJT. In
fact, until the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement, both grass roots organized,
recognize they have a common enemy in the status quo, they will continue to conquered by
it.
The merge of fiscal and social responsibility is something the NWO wants to avoid at all
costs while they implement their global currency and totalitarian rule. Globalists want to
replace God with the state.
France and the US, like most nations, are controlled by the parasitical zionist central
bankers and their deep state apparatchiks. They continue to squeeze the native populations
into poverty and servitude, while destroying their culture with open borders, facilitating
3rd world immigration. The zionist controlled MSM won't cover the Yellow Vest movement in
hopes to keep awareness low. Many would like to see it gain a foothold in the US.
Unfortunately, Americans have been subject to fluoridation of their water supply, unlike
France, and thus are docile. The pharmaceuticals and vaccines have rendered them zombies.
"... That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the clearest cases. ..."
"... For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity. ..."
"... American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources" to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. ..."
"... In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public. ..."
"... The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how poor their deceptions are. ..."
"... The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing. ..."
"... I've always put it down to the Washington Establishment having a severe case of psychological projection. ..."
"... The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own emotions or other people's emotions. ..."
"... Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. ..."
"... The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the "security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure evil (TPTB contend). ..."
"... Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be dealt with. ..."
"... Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all. ..."
"... That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media. ..."
"... Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists one. ..."
"... War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality. ..."
"... The US is progressing toward a fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin. The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of "aggression." And so on ..."
"... The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth. An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated, highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys." ..."
"... Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest). ..."
"... Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and paranoia. ..."
"... Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and the United States. ..."
"... One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs. Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion of secure employment. Hugh Stretton, Economics: A New Introduction ..."
"... The anti-russian think tanks, msm, bellingcat etc push this too much, making them look stupid. ..."
"... Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the other forces at play." ..."
The U.S. mainstream media are going nuts. They now make up and report stories based on the
uncritical acceptance of an algorithm they do not want to understand and which is known to
produce fake results.
SAN FRANCISCO -- One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week,
Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up
the gun control debate.
The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the
hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting. Earlier on
Wednesday, before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
Fla., many of those accounts had been focused on the investigation by the special counsel
Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
In other words - the "Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia" were following
the current news just as cable news networks do. When a new sensational event happened they
immediately jumped onto it. But the NYT authors go to length to claim that there is some
nefarious Russian scheme behind this that uses automated accounts to spread divisive
issues.
Those claims are based on this propaganda project:
Last year, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in conjunction with the German Marshall
Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, created a website that tracks hundreds
of Twitter accounts of human users and suspected bots that they have linked to a Russian
influence campaign.
The "Alliance for Securing Democracy" is
run by military lobbyists, CIA
minions and neo-conservative propagandists. Its
claimed task is:
... to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy
in the United States and Europe.
There is no evidence that Vladimir Putin ever made or makes such efforts.
The ASD "Hamilton 68" website shows graphics with rankings of "top items"
and "trending items" allegedly used by Russian bots or influence agents. There is nothing
complicate behind it. It simply tracks the tweets of 600 Twitter users and aggregates the
hashtags they use. It does not say which Twitter accounts its algorithms follows. It
claims
that the 600 were selected by one of three criteria: 1. People who often tweet news that also
appears on RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik News, two general news sites
sponsored by the Russian government; 2. People who "openly profess to be pro-Russian"; 3.
accounts that "appear to use automation" to boost the same themes that people in group 1 and
2 tweet about.
Nowhere does the group say how many of the 600 accounts it claims to track belong to which
group. Are their 10 assumed bots or 590 in the surveyed 600 accounts? And how please does one
"openly profess" to be pro-Russian? We don't know and the ASD won't say.
On December 25 2017 the "Russian influence" agents or bots who - according to NYT - want
to sow divisiveness and subvert democracy,
wished everyone
a #MerryChristmas.
The real method the Hamilton 68 group used to select the 600 accounts it tracks is
unknown. The group does not say or show how it made it up. Despite that the NYT reporters,
Sheera Frenkel and Daisuke Wakabayashi, continue with the false assumptions that most or all
of these accounts are automated, have something to do with Russia and are presumably
nefarious:
Russian-linked bots have rallied around other divisive issues, often ones that President
Trump has tweeted about. They promoted Twitter hashtags like #boycottnfl,
#standforouranthem and #takeaknee after some National Football League players started
kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
The automated Twitter accounts helped popularize the #releasethememo hashtag , ...
The Daily Beast reported earlier that the last claim is
definitely false :
Twitter's internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not
Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo . There are no preliminary
indications that the Twitter activity either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is
either predominantly Russian.
The same is presumably true for the other hashtags.
The Dutch IT expert and blogger Marcel van den Berg was wondering how Dutch
keywords and hashtags showed up on the Hamilton 68 "Russian bots" dashboard. He found (
Dutch ,
English auto translation) that the dashboard is a total fraud:
In recent weeks, I have been keeping a close eye on Hamilton 68. Every time a Dutch hashtag
was shown on the website, I made a screenshot. Then I noted what was playing at that moment
and I watched the Tweets with this hashtag. Again I could not find any Tweet that seemed to
be from a Russian troll.
In all cases, the hash tags that Hamilton 68 reported were trending topics in the
Netherlands . In all cases there was much to do around the subject of the hashtag in the
Netherlands. Many people were angry or shared their opinion on the subject on Twitter. And
even if there were a few tweets with Russian connections between them, the effect is zero.
Because they do not stand out among the many other, authentic Tweets.
Van den Berg lists a dozen examples he analyzed in depth.
The anti-Russian Bellingcat group around couch blogger Eliot Higgins is sponsored
by the NATO propaganda shop Atlantic Council . It sniffs through open source stuff
to blame Russia or Syria wherever possible. Bellingcat was recently a victim of the
"Russian bots" - or rather of the ASD website. On February 10 the hashtag #bellingcat trended
to rank 2 of the
dashboard.
Bellingcat was thus, according to the Hamilton 68 claims, under assault by hordes
of nefarious Russian government sponsored bots.
The Bellingcat folks looked into the issue and found
that only six people on Twitter, none
of them an automated account , had used the #bellingcat hashtag in the last 48 hours. Some of
the six may have opinions that may be "pro-Russian", but as Higgins himself
says :
[I]n my opinion, it's extremely unlikely the people listed are Russian agents
The pro-NATO propaganda shop Bellingcat thus debunked the pro-NATO propaganda
shop Alliance for Securing Democracy.
The fraudsters who created the Hamilton 68 crap seem to have filled their database with
rather normal people from all over the world who's opinions they personally dislike. Those
then are the "Russian bots" who spread "Russian influence" and divisiveness.
Moreover - what is the value of its information when six normal people out of millions of
active Twitter users can push a hashtag with a handful of tweets to the top of the
dashboard?
But the U.S. media writes long gushing stories about the dashboard and how it somehow
shows automated Russian propaganda. They go to length to explain that this shows "Russian
influence" and a "Russian" attempt to sow "divisiveness" into people's minds.
This is nuts.
Last August, when the Hamilton 68 project was first released, the Nation was the
only site critical of it. It
predicted :
The import of GMF's project is clear: Reporting on anything that might put the US in a bad
light is now tantamount to spreading Russian propaganda.
It is now even worse than that. The top ranking of the #merrychristmas hashtag shows that
the algorithm does not even care about good or bad news. The tracked twitter accounts are
normal people.
The whole project is just a means to push fake stories about alleged "Russian influence"
into U.S. media. Whenever some issue creeps up on its dashboard that somehow fits its false
"Russian bots" and "divisiveness" narrative the Alliance for Securing Democracy
contacts the media to spread its poison. The U.S. media, - CNN, Wired, the New York Times -
are by now obviously devoid of thinking journalists and fact checkers. They simple re-package
the venom and spread it to the public.
How long will it take until people die from it?
Posted by b on February 20, 2018 at 03:15 PM |
Permalink
Comments next page " It's all too reminiscent of Duck Soup:
"to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the
United States and Europe."
That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in
proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the
clearest cases.
For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't
believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even
during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity.
Gee, what could go wrong formulating policy founded upon a series of Big Lies? Kim Dotcom says he has
important info the FBI refuses to hear. At the Munich
Security Conference , neocon Nicholas Burns, former US Ambassador to NATO, details my
assertion's factual basis that current policy is being formed on a series of Big Lies: "Will
NATO strengthen itself to contain Russian power in Eastern Europe giving what Russian
[sic] has done illegally in Crimea, in the Donbass, and in Georgia ?" [Bolded text are
the Big Lies.]
Clearly, this entire psyop was premeditated and its design was hastily done
contemporaneously with Russia's Syria intervention. NSA/CIA/FBI knew of HRC's security
breeches and rightly assumed their contents would find their way into the election, so the
general plan was ready to go prior to WikiLeaks publications. b has uncovered much, and I
hope he's planning to publish a book about the entire affair.
Ken @ 4: There doesn't necessarily need to be One Major Reason for going to war. There may be
several reasons all feeding and reinforcing one another and creating a psychological climate
in which Going To War is seen as the only solution and is inevitable. The reasons are not
just economic and political but cultural and historical.
In some countries allied with the US, the politicians in power are the ideological
descendants of those who collaborated with Nazi Germany - so in a sense they are committed to
"correcting" what they see as wrong. In the case of current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, he is the grandson of a former prime minister who once served in General Tojo's World
War II cabinet.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/12/26/national/formed-in-childhood-roots-of-abes-conservatism-go-deep/#.WoyZCG9uaUk
That's why pinning down the reason for wanting a war against Russia is so difficult.
Since the FBI never inspected the DNC's computers first-hand, the only evidence comes from
an Irvine, California, cyber-security firm known as CrowdStrike whose chief technical
officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, a well-known Putin-phobe, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council,
a Washington think tank that is also vehemently anti-Russian as well as a close Hillary
Clinton ally.
Thus, Putin-basher Clinton hired Putin-basher Alperovitch to investigate an alleged
electronic heist, and to absolutely no one's surprise, his company concluded that guilty
party was Vladimir Putin. Amazing! Since then, a small army of internet critics has chipped
away at CrowdStrike for praising the hackers as among the best in the business yet
declaring in the same breath that they gave themselves away by uploading a document in the
name of "Felix Edmundovich," i.e. Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret
police.
As noted cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr observed with regard to Russia's two main
intelligence agencies: "Raise your hand if you think that a GRU or FSB officer would add
Iron Felix's name to the metadata of a stolen document before he released it to the world
while pretending to be a Romanian hacker. Someone clearly had a wicked sense of humor."
muddy waters.. paid for propaganda.... look at all the russian bots, lol... cold war 2 / mccarthyism 2 is in effect... the historic parallels are marked. thank you
neo cons! it's working... the ordinary person in the usa can't be this stupid can they?
when does ww3 kick in? is that really what these idiots want? or is it just to prolong the
huge defense budget?
This is about conditioning voters in Europe and the United States for a long war with Russia
and China. In other words, a return to the 1950s. It is not working and becoming increasingly
hysterical because societies are not nearly as cohesive as they once were, and the mainstream
political parties, while better funded and more top-down organized, are basically hollow. The
collapse is coming. Four years or ten, take your pick.
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."
Most Americans probably don't. Just the chosen few with the deepest fall-out shelters. The
idea is to keep piling the pressure on to countries like Iran and Russia in the hope that
their populations will rise up and demand the freedoms that we enjoy in the West....things
like uncensored wardrobe malfunctions and transgender washrooms.
let's imagine that we have the pyramid of evilness, by which we measure bestiality of one
regime and its constituency. my firm belief is that us would be on the top of that pyramid.
Only dilemma would be between Zionist entity and the US.
"How could the masses be made to desire their own repression?" was the question Wilhelm
Reich famously asked in the wake of the Reichstagsbrandverordnung (Reichstag Fire Decree,
February 28, 1933), which suspended the civil rights protections afforded by the Weimar
Republic's democratic constitution.
Hitler had been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933
and Reich was trying to grapple with the fact that the German people had apparently chosen
the authoritarian politics promoted by National Socialism against their own political
interests.
Ever since, the question of fascism, or rather the question of why might people
vote for their own oppression, has never ceased to haunt political philosophy.2 With Trump
openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the continued electoral
success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question has again become
a pressing one.
An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime.
Remember the "USS MAINE"! Media have long agitated for War in US History. Nothing sells newspapers
like a good ole war! Demonizing is a way to achieve it. What is sure is that this is a one way street.
Once over the cliff, there is no turning back.
How do you tell people that, at the flick of your magic switch, Putin is in fact
a swell guy and wonderful human being? Once love is gone who goes back
to the filthy, abhorrent and estranged spouse?
Surely the US establishment is playing with fire thinking they will successfully
ride out any conflict and come out on top secure in their newly reestablished
hegemony on the smoldering ruins of Humanity.
Make no mistake, we are all on the road to hell. Better enjoy todays peace as
tomorrow word will be filled with the sweet music of cemeteries.
@15 "An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime."
I'm not so sure. I think there are many Americans who deeply distrust their government.
But of course they don't want to appear unpatriotic. There are also many who are apathetic
and many simply don't know how to change things.
It's horrible I know to quote a Nazi, but Goring had this right:
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm
want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his
farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in
England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all,
it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or
a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter
through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare
wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they
are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger. It works the same way in any country.
American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources"
to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. The
skills required to repeat the text verbatim serve them well in both cases. Skepticism is only
reserved to anyone who tries to introduce logic or facts into the equation--such as when Jill
Stein was interviewed on MSNBC recently. How dare Ms. Stein try to bring FACTS into the
discussion!
In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the
proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no
circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public.
Thanks Jen. It still makes no sense. As a veteran of the Vietnam fiasco, I was pretty much
government oriented until McNamara outed the whole thing whining about haw sorry he was.
59,000 dead and he's sorry. They were able to hide the Gulf of Tonkin BS until then. After
that I researched the reasons for each war/conflict the USA started and could find no logical
reasons except hunger for power. But the little sandbox wars won't destroy the world like a
major war/conflict with Russia and it goes nuclear. Almost every politician, and major news
organizations are pushing for a war/conflict with Russia. This is insanity as no one will win
a war like this and I am sure they know that,,, but they keep the war drums beating anyhow.
It simply doesn't make sense. But Thanks again.
Same for dh, #14. Things are soooo stupid, your joking may be closer to the truth than you
know. :-)
Thank you for the post. I will save it and use it liberally, with proper attributions.
When one challenges the tribe on places like Twitter, it is hard to tell who is a real idiot
and who is a bot. How do you know? Maybe that the bots go away fairly quickly and the idiots
hang around to argue ad infinitum.
The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how
poor their deceptions are. The public perception that "russia did it!!" continues to rise. I
wonder what the public acceptance level needs to be for them to execute a MAJOR false flag
event. They seem to think they are still on target, and its just a short matter or time...
They are going to do this when the perception management is complete... We really do not need another one of their disasters
The bully pushes and pushes until stopped by the first serious push back. The dynamic of the
west and the neocon/Zionists at the core is essentially that of the bully. Nations like
Venezuela and the Philippines have started to push back, and I hope and feel fairly confident
that they will both survive the rage of the US. In some part, they have begun to show the
actual powerlessness of the bully.
But the really killer nations - Russia and China - are holding their water as they
strengthen their force. I believe that one very serious push back from either of them in the
right circumstances will stop the bully. And yet, as they bide their time, we see a curious
phenomenon wherein the US is destroying itself from the inside.
It's as if all of the forces that exist to control the country - the lockstep media, the
fully rigged markets, the hysterical military, the bought legislature and the crooked courts
- are all acting far more strongly than should be necessary. The entire system is
over-reacting, over-reaching, over-boiling. And in the course of this, the US is actually
shedding power, and at an amazing rate. But not from the action of Russia but from its
non-action, the empty space that that allows the bully's dynamic to over-reach, all the way
to complete failure.
Is it possible that deep in the security states of Russia and China there's even a study
and a model for this? Is the collapse of the US actually being gamed by Russia and China -
and through the totally counter-intuitive action of non-action?
Hey b,
Just wanted to let you know that Joe Lauria mentioned your blog and the article you wrote on
the indictment of the 13 Russians. He was on Loud and Clear (Sputnik Radio, Washington DC)
today and brought you up at the start of the program.
Glad to see you get some recognition for all the great work you've been doing :)
Ken @ 24: The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in
critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own
emotions or other people's emotions.
Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions
and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion"
(1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the
mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. https://archive.org/details/EdwardL.BernaysPropaganda
Bernays' books influenced Nazi and Soviet propaganda and Bernays himself was hired by the
US government to justify in the public mind the 1954 US invasion of Guatemala.
You may be aware that Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation which owns the Wall Street
Journal, FOX News and 20th Century Fox studios, is also on the Board of Directors of Genie
Energy which owns a subsidiary firm that was granted a licence by an Israeli court to explore
and drill for oil and natural gas in Syria's (and Israeli-occupied) Golan Heights.
The national media speaks as one -with one consistent melody day after day. Who is the
conductor?
When will one representative of the mainstream media sing solo? There must be a Ray
McGovern somewhere among the flock.
Many of my thoughts as well.
The U.S.'s greatest fault is its tacit misunderstanding of just what russia is in fact.
They utterly fail to understand the Russian character; forged over 800 years culminating with
the defeat of Nazi Germany, absorbing horrific losses; the U.S. fails to understand the
effect upon the then Soviets, become todays Russians.
Even the god's have abandoned the west...
I watched bbc news this am in the hope that I would get to see the most awful creature at the
2018 olympics cry her croc tears (long story - a speed skater who cuts off the opposition but
has been found out so now when she swoops in front of the others they either skate over her
leading to tearful whines from perp about having been 'pushed', or gets disqualified for
barging. Last night she got disqualified so as part of my study on whether types like this
believe their own bullshit I thought I'd tune in but didn't get that far into the beebs
lies)
The bulk of the bulletin was devoted to a 'lets hate Russia' session which featured a
quisling who works for the russian arm of BBC (prolly just like cold war days staffed
exclusively by MI6/SIS types). This chap, using almost unintelligible english, claimed he had
proof at least 50 Russian Mercenaries (question - why are amerikan guns for hire called
contractors [remember the Fallujah massacre of 100,000 civilians because amerikan contractors
were stupid] yet Russian contractors are called mercenaries by the media?) had been killed in
Syria last week. The bloke had evidence of one contractor's death not 50 - the proof was a
letter from the Russian government to the guy's mother telling her he didn't qualify for any
honours because he wasn't in the Russian military.
The quisling (likely a Ukranian I would say) went on to rabbit about the bloke having also
fought in Donbass under contract - to which the 'interviewer (don't ya love it when media
'interview' their own journos - a sure sign that a snippet of toxic nonsense is being
delivered) led about how the deceitful Russians had claimed the only Russians fighting in
Donbass were contractors - yeah well this bloke was a contractor surely that proves the
Russians were telling the truth.
It's not what these propagandists say; they adopt a tone and the audience is meant to hate
based on that even when the facts as stated conflict with the media outlet's point of view.
Remember the childhood trick of saying "bad dog" ter yer mutt in loving tones - the dog comes
to ya tail wagging & licks yer hand. This is that.
The next item was more Syria lies - white helmets footage (altho the beeb is now mostly
giving them an alternative name to dodge the facts about white helmets) of bandaged children
with flour tipped on their heads.
The evil Syrians and Russians are bombarding Gouta - nary a word about the continuous
artillery barrage Gouta has subjected the citizens of Damascus to for the past 4 years, or
that the Syrians have repeatedly offered truces and safe passage for civilians. Any injured
children need to ask their parents why they weren't allowed to take advantage of the frequent
offers of transport out. Maybe the parents are worried 'the resistance' will do its usual and
blow up the busloads of children after luring them over with candy.
Anyway I switched off after that so never did learn if little miss cheat had a cry.
Thank you for reporting on this. The people behind the so-called Alliance for Securing
Democracy need to be exposed for the warmongering frauds that they are. Regardless of what
one thinks of him, Trump was correct when he said that NATO is obsolete.
The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the
"security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media
Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the
world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure
evil (TPTB contend).
So the whole scenario makes perfect sense from that standpoint.
re Felix E. Dzerzhinsky: Ukrainian fascists have a particular hatred of Felix because he was
both a Bolshevik and a Pole.
I hate to do this but I just posted this elsewhere, at Off Guardian, where the Guardian is
back into its highest gears promoting war.
"The wardrums are beating in a way not heard since 1914-there is no reason for war except the
best reason of all: an imperial ruling class sees its grip slipping and will chance
everything rather than endure the humiliation of adjusting to reality.
"China is in the position that the US was in 1914-it can prevent the war or wait until the
combatants are too exhausted to defend their paltry gains.
Given the realities of nuclear warfare-which seem not to have sunk in among the Americans,
perhaps because they mistake a bubble for a bomb shelter- the wise option is to prevent war
by publicly warning against it. In the hope that brought face to face with reality the masses
will besiege their governments, as we can easily do, and prevent war.'
Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and
allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be
dealt with.
The horrible thing with the US attitude is that you do a white thing, you're attacking them
and if you do a black thing, you're attacking them too. This attitude is building hostility
against Russia. It's like programming a pet to be afraid of something. The western people are
being programmed into hating Russia, dehumanizing her people, cutting every tie with Russia
and transforming any information from Russia into life threatening propaganda. A war for our
hearts is running. The US population is being coerced into believing that war against Russia
is a vital necessity.
It will be a war of choice from the US "elites". Clinton announced it and the population
had chosen Trump for that reason.
You're wondering why they're doing it. I suppose that their narrative is losing its grip on
the western populations. They're also conscious of it. If they lose it, they'll have to face
very angry mobs and face the void of their lives. Everything they did was either useless or
poisonous. It means to be in a very bad spot. They're are therefore under an existential
threat.
Russia proved time and again that it's possible to get out of their narrative. Remember their
situation when Eltsin was reelected with the western help.
The Chicago boys were telling the
Russian authorities how to run the economy and they made out of the word democrat a synonym
of thief. They were in the narrative and the result was a disaster. Then, they woke up and
started to clean the house. I remember the "hero" of democracy whose name was "Khodorovsky
(?)". In the west he was a freedom fighter and in Russia he stole something like Rosneft.
This guy and others of the same sort were described in the west as heroes, pionniers and so
on. They were put back into submission to the law. The western silence about their stealings,
lies and cheating is still deafening me.
It was the first Russian crime. The second one was
to survive the first batch of sanctions against them (I forgot the reason of the sanctions).
They not only survived they thrived. It was against the western leading economic ideology. A
third crime was to push back Saakachvili and his troops with success.
The fourth was to put
back into order the Tchechen. Russia was back into the world politics and history. They were
not following the script written for them in Washington and Brussels. They were having a
political system putting limits to the big companies. And, worst of it, it works.
Everybody in the west who can read and listen would have noticed that they are making it.
More, with RT and Sputnik giving info outside the allowed ones or asking annoying questions
(western journalists lost that habit with their new formation in the schools of journalism -
remember the revolution in their education was criticised and I missed why - very curious to
discover why), they were exposing weaknesses of the western narrative. On the other side
their narrative became so poor and so limited that any regular reader would feel bored
reading the same things time and again and being asked to pay for it at a time his salary was
decreased in the name of competitivity. The threat to their narrative was ready. They had to
fight it.
It's becoming a crime to think outside their marks. It's becoming a crime to read outside
their marks. I don't even talk about any act outside their marks. Now, it's going to be a
crime of treason to them in war time.
I do feel sadness because many will die from their fear of losing their grip on our minds. I
do feel sadness because they have lost and are in denial about it. I do feel sadness because
those death aren't necessary. I do feel sadness because those people can't face the
consequences of their actions. They don't have the necessary spine. Their lives were useless
and even toxic. They could start repairing or mitigating their damages but it would need a
very different worldview, a complete conversion to another meaning of life outside the
immediate and maximal profit.
You have aptly described the most dangerous country on this planet.
That country must not be appeased, at any cost, because it would surely end us forever...
Conclusion regarding IP address data:
What we're seeing in this IP data is a wide range of countries and hosting providers. 15% of
the IP addresses are Tor exit nodes. These exit nodes are used by anyone who wants to be
anonymous online, including malicious actors.
Overall Conclusion:
The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like
Russia. But they don't appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used
by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor
exit nodes.
The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent
relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any
website.
Partisan @15: "With Trump openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the
continued electoral success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question
has again become a pressing one."
The above is entirely backwards. The bottom 2/3rds is frustrated by the LACK of democracy
in the US and that's a major reason many voted against the (in fact anti-democratic) elite's
desired candidate, Hillary.
70% of the voting age public was dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with both candidates,
and 40% of Americans didn't vote, so that means whichever of Clinton/Trump won, she/he would
win with approval of only 10% of the electorate. That's the best example possible of our
anti-democratic reality (it's not a worry or a threat, it's already here).
In the case of both Europe and the US, many people are generally very dissatisfied with
the anti-democratic response by the elite to 'the will of the people' that there be much less
immigration into countries with high unemployment and 'race to the bottom' labor conditions.
That's nearly the entire basis of what the corporate media calls 'the move right'... When in
fact restricting immigration is a pro-labor and therefore 'left' policy ... Except in the
confused and deliberately stupid political discourse the elite media pushes so hard.
Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft
(actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the
months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I
am not alone after all.
That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own
opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism
of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's
what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught
in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all
those think tanks and media.
One could argue that they are not going mad, that they know full well they are lying, but
I beg to differ: they don't see anymore how ridiculous or how dumb or smart their arguments
are. That would be congruent with a real loss of touch with reality. One wonders what
they see when they look at themselves in a mirror, a garden variety propagandist or a
fearless anti-Putin crusader?
Well, it is not...if you are believer in "democracy". Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be
modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or
the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists
one.
One way or other result is the same, it is: Barbarism.
When "trending on Twitter" became a news item in and of itself, I began to despair for the
future of reporting, political discourse and ultimately, democracy in America. Twitter and FB
are at best a source of information for news reporting, but not a source of news in
themselves.
We made ourselves vulnerable to any and every sort of pernicious manipulation and in the
end, we just about deserve everything we get.
The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the
same time over the means of mental production. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the
ideal expression of the dominant material relationships.
It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of
new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is
primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all
the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia.
They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his
drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the
looting .........connect the dots.
Media and its politicians have lost it completely,
and if you criticize them, well then of course you are a... "russian bot". Unfortunately 90% of westerners buy this western
MSM influence propaganda campaign, WW3
with Russia will come easy.
At risk of being censored and/or convicted of Thought Crime - it is *remarkable* how very
highly disproportionate the number of Jewish Zionists is who are in the media and in Congress
and in ThinkTankistan and shouting about Russian meddling, 'aggression,' and the like.
It's too bad it is forbidden to examine this phenomena as one part of the matrix of power
and lies leading the US into conflict with Russia, no?
I don't think Bill Kristol and David Frum and Jeff Goldberg are either honest nor
primarily concerned with American national security, nor the lives of MENA civilians. I think
they care only about using American blood and treasure to facilitate Israeli lebensraum,
however bloody and expensive.
Trump survives only if he dances for the Deep State *and* Likud.
Chris Hedges has an article on the similar situation in Germany almost 100 years ago.
"In 1923 the radical socialist and feminist Clara Zetkin gave a report at the Communist
International about the emergence of a political movement called fascism. ...." https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-fight-fascism/
Partisan @54: The facts contradict the statement in the quote that Trump was "openly
campaigning for less democracy." He wasn't. He in fact campaigned in part as a populist who
would oust (or at least repeatedly ridicule) an anti-democratic elite. If you've overlooked
that and believe more or less the opposite, you can't understand the 2016 election or the
elite's virulently anti-democratic reaction to it.
Earlier I wrote about the following relationship: Khodorkovsky - The Interpreter -
Henry Jackson Society (UK) .
With Bush and the Iraq War, Dutch PM Balkenende and FM de Hoop Scheffer were seen as the
poodle of the White House. In recent years PM Mark Rutte [of MH-17 crash fame] can be
considered its puppy. Perhaps a parrot would suit better.
I noticed a former journalist Hubert Smeets hs partnered with some people to found a
"knowledge center" Window on Russia [Raam op Rusland]. Laughable, funded by the Dutch Foreign
Ministry and a Dutch-Russia cultural exchange Fund. Preposturous in its simplicity and harm
for honest reporting.
US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian
interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b
above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into
promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)
Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses
(neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t
as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions
should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.
The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for
'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.
Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of
doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive
social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.
Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a
jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically
no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc.
having any clue.
The accusation is a lot like accusing somebody of despoiling an outhouse by crapping in
it, along with everyone else, but the outhouse in question had a sign on its door that read
"No Russians!" and the 13 Russians just ignored it and crapped in it anyway.
The reason the Outhouse of American Democracy is posted "No Russians!" is because Russia
is the enemy. There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy, and treating it
as such is incredibly foolish and dangerous, but that's beside the point. Painting Russia as
the enemy serves a psychological need rather than a rational one: Americans desperately need
some entity onto which they can project their own faults.
The US is progressing toward a
fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin.
The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the
Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the
planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of
"aggression." And so on
@Noirette 70
Yes, claiming that Russians are promoting polical division is silly -- the divisions were
already there. gizmodo
, Jun 12, 2014: It's Been 150 Years Since the U.S. Was This Politically Polarized
Nevertheless, now in WIRED
magazine: Their [Agency] goal was to enflame "political intensity through supporting radical
groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation, and oppositional social
movements."
Bernie Sanders said he on Wednesday, "felt compelled to address Russian interference
during the US election. Sunday.... he was not aware and believes Russian bot promoting
him and went as far to said WikiLeaks published Hillary's email stolen by the
Russia....."
Can you really trust that lying basted? I'm probably one of the few MoA refused to
believe and trust Bernie Sanders and the fuckup Democrats .
Excellent article summarizing much of what B has posted and more.
"Finally, and as long was we are on the topic, here is what a real troll farm looks like.
[Picture of NSA] Yet this vast suite of offices in Fort Meade, Maryland, where 20,000 SIGINT
spies and technicians work for the NSA, is only the tip of the iceberg.
The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion
defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth.
An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual
budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated,
highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys."
Great article. Great comments. I LOVE MoA! And it's great to see b getting recognition.
james wrote: "There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy"
You know the following; I think you're just too decent a human being to understand how
psychopaths operate. Russia is a huge area with enormous natural resources as well as a
large, educated populace. Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand
Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which
boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling
off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest).
Ziggy also noted that once Russia was incorporated, China is the next, and largely last
target.
Jen: NICE JOB putting together a big picture, from Bernays' control of the masses all the
way to Genie Energy. Add in Oded Yinon and PNAC and the "foreign policy blunders" that led to
the present situation in MENA look like a carefully-constructed, long-game being played "by
the book."
Fairleft. Any leftist/socialist movement which is not global is doomed to failure. This
has always been true, but with "offshoring" of manufacturing jobs and the internet
untethering many "white collar" jobs from any given geological location(s), workers must see
ourselves as a global entity rather than national or regional players - because that is
certainly how the 0.01% see us (and themselves).
"Workers of the world UNITE" is more true today than a century and a half ago.
nations that do not have to face costs arising from environmental, health or safety
legislation will almost always prevail in the world market over those that have some concern
for the environment and the workers.
That is the main issue I have with globalization.
Competing on wages is one thing; that can be a great impetus to become more efficient and
productive, but if we do nothing to force other countries to clean up their act, they will
have no impetus to do so and we will continue to lose jobs to the international competition,
no matter how efficiently we work.
Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a
large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and
paranoia.
"....borderless globalization has been a catastrophe for most of the underdeveloped world's
businesses and workers."
it is always annoying when I see the 'globalization" argument is used whether from the
right or left. The globalization has started by the moment when us humans begin to roaming on this
planet. there are millions of examples yet somehow globalization is of recent phenomenon.
Lapis Lazuli mineral used in making blue color and paint is found on clay pottery in
Mesopotamia's ancient city of Ur. That city is also place where many legend originated which
were taken by major religion and can be found in their holy books. See even the myth are globalizied from very early on.
Most of the people do not even know what it is, not those who are writing about it.
Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend
or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by
national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping
or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted
chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and
the United States.
One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs.
Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich
countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion
of secure employment.
the observable and demonstrable attempts are clearly futile, and have been pretty
much reduced to spasms and tantrums, largely devoid of cognizance, not to mention legality,
but certainly dangerous nonetheless.
no sir ree bob, we get our multipolar world or we scavenge a dead landscape of Alamogordo glass .
Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering
to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the
differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the
other forces at play."
Cybersecurity "experts" in the United States have long alleged that "Russian bots" were used
to meddle in the 2016 elections.
But, as it turns out, the authors of a Senate report on "Russian election meddling" actually
ran the false flag meddling operation themselves.
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia
of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its
authors , New Knowledge , quickly became a household name. Described by the New
York Timesas a
group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the U.S.
military and the intelligence agencies.
Morgan and Fox have both struck gold in the " Russiagate " scheme, which sprung into being
after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. Morgan,
for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that
purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. And also
worth mentioning, that dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for
Securing Democracy – a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by
NATO (North AtTreaty Tready Organization) and
USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
It is worth noting that the 600 " Russia-linked " Twitter accounts monitored by the
dashboard is not disclosed to the public either, making it impossible to verify these claims.
This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry
journalists, however. Yet on December 19, a New York Times
story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created the fake army of Russian bots, as well
as several fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in
Alabama's 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate.
Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake
Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several
Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to
support a write-in candidate instead . In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had
" orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore
campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet ." – RT
This scandal is being perpetrated by the
United States media and has so far deceived millions, if not more. The botnet claim made a
splash on social media and was further amplified by
Mother Jones , which based its story on "expert opinion" from Morgan's dubious creation,
Hamilton 68.
Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Tim es
piece, had known about the meddling for months because he spoke at an event where the
organizers boasted about it!
Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement
Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar.
Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to suppress Republican
votes, "enrage " Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a " false flag " to hurt Moore. He
dubbed it " Project Birmingham ." -RT
There really was meddling in American democracy by " Russian bots. " Except those bots
weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly
responsible for creating and amplifying the " Russiagate " hysteria over the past two years in
a
textbook case of psychological projection ,
brainwashing, and
Nazi-style propaganda campaigns.
"... Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all. ..."
"... That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media. ..."
"... War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality. ..."
Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft
(actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the
months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I
am not alone after all.
That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your
own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the
Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore
what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up
caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case
of all those think tanks and media.
One could argue that they are not going mad, that they know full well they are lying, but
I beg to differ: they don't see anymore how ridiculous or how dumb or smart their arguments
are. That would be congruent with a real loss of touch with reality.
One wonders what
they see when they look at themselves in a mirror, a garden variety propagandist or a
fearless anti-Putin crusader?
It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of
new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is
primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all
the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia.
They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his
drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the
looting .........connect the dots.
Watching the USA these days is like watching a loved one with progressive dementia. I've reached the stage where I think the
sooner it's over the better for everyone.
IOW time is running out for the neo-cons, and they're only going to get Iran destroyed
and hold onto power in the US through an outright Bolshevik style coup against the public
(some kind of fabricated National Emergency).
Well, we already had one "fabricated national emergency" -- the 9/11 false flag. Do you
think there'll be yet another? I mean something big, not like the Skripal thing.
As usual Philip Giraldi out writes the NYT hacks. Stephens and his cohorts at the Times are
constantly kvetching about Israel then they scream anti-Semitism if it's pointed out. It's
exhausting. I'm exhausted with neocons.
Trotskyism : the political, economic, and social principles advocated by Trotsky
especially the theory and practice of communism developed by or associated with Trotsky and
usually including adherence to the concept of worldwide revolution as opposed to socialism
in one country.
Pro-Zionist liberals such as those at the New York Times have the dilemma of how to
oppose President Trump, who pursues pro-Zionist policies. A solution seems to be to argue
that Trump is not really that pro-Zionist.
Inspired by the Scofield Bible, it is, regrettably, a fundamental belief of millions of
voters that Israel is good for America.
In John Hagee's words , '50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with
five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel.'
The linked article concludes: 'Not least among the many victims of the Scofield Bible are
5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by America's
Zionized Christians. Thanks to their indoctrination by Scofield's unholy book, they believe
that Palestine belongs not to the Palestinians -- many of whom are fellow Christians -- but
exclusively to "God's chosen people".'
I'm pleased to say I was not for moving the embassy and as for the Iran deal it was
better than the alternative, with the potential for further talks down the road. Stephens
didn't approve but both aspects of US foreign policy were good for the US. So why would we
expect him to?
Where the clash is going to come is the Democratic party is not going to put up with this
rubbish anymore. Yes there will be some holdovers (Schumer, Cardin et al.) but blanket
support is not going to play with the next congress. They will lose donor support as well as
media acceptance –from the Times– but Christian Zionism isn't a factor for Dem's
and constituents see that a brutal Israeli government that is focusing on attaching itself to
kindred spirit states led by strongman types, doesn't deserve support.
when we here about israel as the problem it is really not israel the country but israel the
people. they are spread out over many countries but all still believe in their cult of israel
i have read many times how the majority of them are not even ancestors of israel but are
instead converts form centuries ago there are lawsutis in the US against the government aid
to israel which vilotlates US law on providing aid to an undeclares nuke power,,,and against
aipac for not registering FARA,,,they have gone nowhere In my opinion, their whole power
comes from media control when the media goes on and on about bogus Russian influence and says
nothing of israel influence you know you have a problem
The World will never be free and peaceful until we can liberate AMERICAN & European
politcal, economic, military, intelligentsia, educational & cultural DECISION MAKING
CENTERS from destructive & inhuman ZIONIST lobby. As Stephen Walt & John Mearsheimr
wrote in their unique & worldwide known "US FOREIGN POLICY AND ISRAEL LOBBY" not only
these lobbying organizations are anti US interests but they are as well against the long term
interests of ISRAEL itself.
Briefly we should free mind of American people before all to have a ideal and productive
world.
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the
truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most
Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening
to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand,
there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human
bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid
"ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress
are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your
power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep
it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the
truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most
Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening
to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand,
there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human
bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid
"ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress
are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your
power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep
it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
This is what I said on Pat Buchanan's page about a comment, very apropos to this article,
also from the NY Times "That comment from the NY Times exposes how aligned the globalist
leftist elite is with the NEOCON globalist elite. There's 'no daylight' between characters
like 'Linda' Graham and 'Up Chuck' Schumer when it comes to globalist hegemony. Thank God for
Donald and keep America First!" The comment that Pat made his point on was this: 'In
Monday's editorial celebrating major figures of foreign policy in the past half-century, The
New York Times wrote', "As these leaders pass from the scene, it will be left to a new
generation to find a way forward from the wreckage Mr. Trump has already
created." This is what Pat attacked in his column.
Correct me if I'm wrong but America still has NO formal alliance treaty with the Jewish
State, no?
And finally 'Bret Stephens'; How clever they are with their names.
@Hamed
Ghashghavi The problem 'Hamed from Tehran' is that the Main Stream Media and the
political class in the USA is almost completely owned by the rich 'Zionist Lobby'.
For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the
dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.
Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.
Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if
not billion.
Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.
Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
I predict proactive Jewish Lobby Stink-Think Tanks have engineered plans to dramatically
influence Democrat Congress & presidential candidate elections, and which are underway
now.
Elections come and go but the Zio stump-song remains the same.
First, and as you should well understand Mark, particular campaigns for US Senate cost
$millions simply to get a candidate's mere "name" in front of ever longing & frustrated
American voters.
Of course, such efforts are enhanced by manifold "special interests" and billionaire
campaign contributions.
Regrettably, U.S. election campaign "donor support" (uh, speech?) trumps the will of the
paltry amount of Americans who indulge voting, and our Zionist Corporate Media obliges the
biggest beneficiary winner$, and can finagle ideologically blind & typically
GOP-Christian Zionist's to bloc vote for, i.e., brand-name & repackaged Zio Democrats,
Pocahontas, Bloomberg, Biden, Bob Casey, etcetera.
In short, Mark, the "brutal Israeli government" expertly followed Protocols of Zion by
neutering U.S. Congressional & Presidential democratic elections, and the Zionist
Corporate Media entertainingly promotes the THEATER.
National rejection of the great "rubbish" work of, for one little example, NYT's Bret
Stephens, is a giant step toward how America could become gallant/noble again, and afterward
repent & focus upon strivation to "greatness."
The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve
the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned
up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.
A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining
Palestinians.
This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States
into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the
Palestinian issue that they created.
"I still say that US and Russia should come to Israels help in hour of need.
But Israel also should stop behaving like rotten spoiled child."
Russia can provide the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (already exists), and the U$A can
provide the means to move them there. Of course the FORMER Israel will have to pay for
everything.
I support Great Britain and France, that does not mean I approve of colonial behavior or
trouncing British or French identity. I can certainly support the existence of Is areal and
chagrin their attacks and encroachments onto Palestine uninvited and without compensation
or shooting protectors for the matter.
I tend to agree with you on this. No matter what one thinks of the morality of the events
of 1948, most of today's Israeli Jews were born on the land and have a right to live there.
They're no more responsible for the sins of their grandfathers than a modern German, except
to the extent that they help perpetuate continued injustice.
With that said, what frightens me is the extent to which some of them have been emboldened
by a combination of unchecked ethnocentrism and a sense of immunity from scrutiny and
criticism. Particularly in the realm of ethnic bioweapons. Most of the leading DNA analysis
companies seem to be Jewish-owned. It seems to be an area of emphasis with them. It was
reported 20 years ago that Israel has an anti-Arab virus. Who else might be a target?
Israeli participation in spyware and their access to raw NSA data is also concerning. How
do we know that the data isn't be used to intimidate Americans from speaking out, or to
siphon money from ordinary investors by insider trading?
@polistra Israel
is hardly a normal country. It is an Apartheid Colony. That's why it needs American support
and will need it for the foreseeable future. It uses its co-religionists in the US to
maintain an iron grip on US mideast policy, making sure that it is at the heart of it and
that almost no dissenting voices can ever be elected in the US or get any mainstream media
access. If that sounds like a normal country to you, I have a bridge for sale.
but as far your critisisms of Israel policy and 'undemocratic' and 'illiberal' stances
and actions.
well guess what
You're missing the thrust of Giraldi's position. Israel can do whatever it likes as long
as it doesn't entangle the US in their fight. But, as you well know, Israel is not interested
in fighting this fight alone. It has dragged others into it, including the US. As long as the
American taxpayer is forced to pay an annual tribute of ~$4B, they have every right to
condemn Israeli policies that clearly don't align with their values. So, get used to it.
Israel is no friend of America , never was , never has been and never will be, and just a few
examples, JFK was shot and killed in full view of Americans for his executive order 11110
which would have restored America to constitutional money bypassing the FED, who benefits?
The USS Liberty was attacked by Israel killing 34 and wounding 174 in an attempt to blame
the attack on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the war against Egypt and of course Israel lied
about the attack and got away with it!
... ... ...
Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
You have to hand it to the Israelis for conquering like Romans.
As for the US in Syria, it has always had the potential for handing us a "Charge of the
Light Brigade" moment where, like in the Crimean War, we manage to keep the Russians and the
Iranians checked in the region for a few years, but at a cost where even the dulled senses of
the US voter can't escape the toll taken to achieve this fleeting "strategic objective."
@bucky Aware,
Bucky said: "This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the
United States into a war with Iran."
Appreciate your posting of the wise sentences, above, bucky. Thanks.
Israel will never allow their territory expansion/M.E. hegemon goals to get interrupted by
mere U.S. elections.
The will and desires of American voters are easily manageable, manipulated, & another
major & fear-provoking "Homeland" False Flag attack, and voila, it's Fire & Fury upon
Syria and Iran.
Well, Israel itself isn't bad for us. Israel is a normal country defending its own
interests fiercely. Every country SHOULD defend its own interests fiercely
But it is HOW they defend those interests that is problematic. Hungary has insisted
that they will never tolerate a large number of migrants in their country. Hungary will be
for Hungarians. They do not wage wars, they do not commit ethnic cleansing in other people's
lands. They have merely closed their borders and that is a peaceful way in which they
fiercely protect their interests. The same goes for Japan. Despite a stagnating economy
caused by plummeting birth rates, the Japanese insist on a strict no immigrant policy. That
is a peaceful way of fiercely protecting their interests.
Israel on the other hand is anything but peaceful. They engage in ethnic cleansing and
drag the US (and whoever else they can con) into their conflicts. If we are looking for a
foreign example to emulate, there's no question about it – we should emulate Japan and
not Israel. Japan is a civilized nation where the people genuinely love their country. Israel
is a thuggish and fascist state that justly deserves all the opprobrium they shamelessly
whine about.
The level of alienation of Palestians probably reached that stage at which reconciliation is impossible.
Notable quotes:
"... This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created. ..."
The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve
the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned
up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.
A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining
Palestinians.
This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United
States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the
Palestinian issue that they created.
For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the
dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.
Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.
Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if
not billion.
Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.
Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
@bucky It's more
that that, specifically to Izruel . If you include 'Non Governmental Agencies', the
'Charaties' and hedge funds funneling unknown amounts of ZOG bucks to the land of Zion plus
other underhanded methods of getting money to their Zionist bretheren, it's in the tens of
billions .
Other than
brain-dead Christian fundamentalist, it come's as no surprise that Jews who wrote the Old and
New Testament, granted themselves special permission to violate virtually every moral law and
restriction known to mankind, including the right to steal land and resources belonging to
others. While, at the same time, giving themselves the right to condemn anyone daring to
point-out their lying and deceptive ways.
Realist, January 1, 2019 at 7:44 pm GMT
@bucky
Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
Middle East involvement costs trillions of dollars.
In these times, the real political debate is centered around the issues of migration and
national identity. It's what Brexit was all about. It's the reason the one thing all Trump
supporters really want him to do, is to build the wall. It would be an international symbol
of our longing for and right to nationhood a billion dollar monument to nationalism and a
trigger for nationalist revival.
This is why the forces of globalism will throw everything at stopping it's construction.
If Trump leaves office and that wall is not built, his presidency will have been for
naught.
"... Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some point the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and borrowing capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they would become bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics manufacture, herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial Civilisation. ..."
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with
Russia."
Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some
point the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and
borrowing capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they
would become bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics
manufacture, herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial
Civilisation.
In anticipation of increasing Crude Oil imports, Nixon stopped the convertibility of
Dollars into Gold, thus making the Dollar entirely fiat, allowing them to print as much of
the currency as they needed.
They also began a system of obscuring oil production data, involving the DoE's EIA and the
OECD's IEA, by inventing an ever-increasing category of Undiscovered Oilfields in their
predictions, and combining Crude Oil and Condensate (from gas fields) into one category (C+C)
as if they were the same thing. As well the support of the ethanol-from-corn industry began,
even though it was uneconomic. The Global Warming problem had to be debunked, despite its
sound scientific basis. Energy-intensive manufacturing work was off-shored to cheap
labour+energy countries, and Just-in-Time delivery systems were honed.
In 2004 the price of Crude Oil rose from $28 /barrel up to $143 /b in mid-2008. This
demonstrated that there is a limit to how much business can pay for oil (around $100 /b).
Fracking became marginally economic at these prices, but the frackers never made a profit as
over-production meant prices fell to about $60 /b. The Government encourages this destructive
industry despite the fact it doesn't make any money, because the alternative is the end of
Industrial Civilisation.
Eventually though, there must come a time when there is not enough oil to power all the
cars and trucks, bulldozers, farm tractors, airplanes and ships, as well as manufacture all
the wind turbines and solar panels and electric vehicles, as well as the upgraded
transmission grid. At that point, the game will be up, and it will be time for WW3. So we
need to line up some really big enemies, and develop lots of reasons to hate them.
Thus you see the demonisation of Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela for reasons that don't
make sense from a normal perspective.
It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of
new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is
primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all
the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia.
They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his
drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the
looting .........connect the dots.
"... They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Donald Trump is Bad for Israel ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and
out-and-out lies. The public, though poorly informed on most issues as a result, has generally
figured out that it is being hoodwinked and trust in the Fourth Estate has plummeted over the
past twenty years. The skepticism about what is being reported has enabled President Donald
Trump and other politicians to evade serious questions about policy by claiming that what is
being reported is little more than "fake news."
No news is more fake than the reporting in the U.S. media that relates to the state of
Israel. Former Illinois congressman Paul Findley in his
seminal bookThey Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's
Lobby observed that nearly all the foreign press correspondents working out of Israel are
Jewish while most of the editors that they report to at news desks are also Jews, guaranteeing
that the articles that eventually surface in the newspapers will be carefully constructed to
minimize any criticism of the Jewish state. The same goes for television news, particularly on
cable news stations like CNN.
A particularly galling aspect of the sanitization of news reports regarding Israel is the
underlying assumption that Israelis share American values and interests, to include freedom and
democracy. This leads to the perception that Israelis are just like Americans with Israel's
enemies being America's enemies. Given that, it is natural to believe that the United States
and Israel are permanent allies and friends and that it is in the U.S. interest to do whatever
is necessary to support Israel, including providing billions of dollars in aid to a country
that is already wealthy as well as unlimited political cover in international bodies like the
United Nations.
That bogus but nevertheless seemingly eternal bond is essentially the point from which a
December 26 th op-ed in The New York Times departs. The piece is by one of
the Times' resident opinion writers Bret Stephens and is entitled
Donald Trump is Bad for Israel .
Stephens gets to the point rather quickly, claiming that "The president has abruptly
undermined Israel's security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So
much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever. I
write this as someone who supported Trump moving
the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to
withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous
and correct . I also would have opposed the president's decision to remove U.S. forces from
Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that
neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to
do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds,
maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on
the Levant."
The beauty of Stephens overwrought prose is that the careful reader might realize from the
git-go that the argument being promoted makes no sense. Bret has a big heart for the Kurds but
the Palestinians are invisible in his piece while his knowledge of other developments in the
Middle East is superficial. First of all, the phone call with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan had nothing to do with "undermining Israel's security." It concerned the northern
border of Syria, which Turkey shares, and arrangements for working with the Kurds, which is a
vital interest for both Ankara and Washington. And it might be added that from a U.S. national
security point of view Turkey is an essential partner for the United States in the region while
Israel is not, no matter what it pretends to be.
Stephens then goes on to demonstrate what he claims to be a libel, that for him and other
neocons Israel always comes first, an odd assertion given the fact that he spends 80% of his
article discussing what is or isn't good for Israel. He supports the U.S. Embassy move to
Jerusalem, the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which were applauded in Israel
but which are extremely damaging to American interests. He attacks the planned withdrawal from
Syria because it is a "core interest" for the U.S., which is complete nonsense.
Contrary to Stephens' no evidence assertion, Russia and Iran have neither the resources nor
the desire to "consolidate[e] their grip on the Levant" while it is the United States has no
right and no real interest to "maintain leverage" on Syria by invading and occupying the
country. But, of course, invading and occupying are practices that Israel is good at, so
Stephens' brain fart on the issue can perhaps be attributed to confusion over whose bad
policies he was defending. Stephens also demonstrate confusion over his insistence that the
U.S. must "resist foreign aggressors the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade,"
suggesting that he is unaware that both nations are providing assistance at the request of the
legitimate government in Damascus. It is the U.S. and Israel that are the aggressors in
Syria.
Stephens then looks at the situation from the "Israeli standpoint," which is presumably is
easy for him to do as that is how he looks at everything given the fact that he is far more
concerned about Israel's interests than those of the United States. Indeed, all of his opinions
are based on the assumption that U.S. policy should be supportive of a rightwing Israeli
government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has recently been indicted for
corruption and has called for an early election to subvert the process.
Bret finally comes to the point, writing that "What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is
what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the
liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a
purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a
president."
Stephens then expands on what it means to be liberal-international: "It means we should
oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in
Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil
liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order."
Bret also throws America's two most recent presidents under the bus in his jeremiad, saying
"During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel --
the
hectoring , the incompetent
diplomatic interventions , the moral
equivocations , the
Iran deal , the backstabbing at the
U.N. -- couldn't get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his
predecessors look good." He then asks "Is any of this good for Israel?" and he answers
"no."
Bret Stephens in his complaining reveals himself to be undeniably all about Israel, but
consider what he is actually saying. He claims to be against "militant religious
fundamentalism," but isn't that what Israeli Zionism is all about, with more than a dash of
racism and fanaticism thrown in for good measure? One Israeli Chief Rabbi has called black
people "monkeys" while another
has declared that gentiles cannot live in Israel. Right-wing religious fundamentalist
parties currently are in power with Netanyahu and are policy making for the Israeli Government:
Shas, Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism. None of them could be regarded as a moderating
influence on their thuggish serial financial lawbreaker Prime Minister.
And isn't Israel's record on human rights and civil liberties among the worst in the world?
Here is the Human Rights Watch's assessment of Israel :
"Israel maintains entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally. Its
50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including
collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force, and prolonged administrative
detention without charge or trial for hundreds. It builds and supports illegal settlements in
the occupied West Bank, expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians
but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly
impossible for them to build in much of the West Bank without risking demolition. Israel's
decade-long closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of people
and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact."
Israel, if one is considering the entire population under its rule, is among the most
undemocratic states that chooses to call itself democratic. Much of the population living in
lands that Israel claims cannot vote, they have no freedom of movement in their homeland, and
they have no right of return to homes that they were forced to abandon. Israeli army snipers
blithely shoot unarmed demonstrators while Netanyahu's government kills, beats and imprisons
children. And the Jewish state does not even operate very democratically even inside Israel
itself, with special rights for Jewish citizens and areas and whole towns where Muslims or
Christians are not allowed to buy property or reside.
It is time for American Jews like Bret Stephens to come to the realization that not
everything that is good for Israel is good for the U.S. The strategic interests of the two
countries, if they were openly discussed in either the media or in congress, would be seen to
be often in direct conflict. Somehow in Stephens' twisted mind the 1948 theft of Palestinian
lands and the imposition of an apartheid system to control the people is in some way
representative of a liberal world order.
If one were to suggest that Stephens should move to Israel since his primary loyalty clearly
lies there, there would be accusations of anti-Semitism, but in a sense, it is far better to
have him stick around blathering from the pulpit of The New York Times . When he
writes so ineptly about how Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel the real message that comes through
loud and clear is how bad Israel is for America.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected].
At the inception of this entire RussiaGate spectacle I suggested that it was a political
distraction to take the attention away from the rejection by the people of neoliberalism which
has been embraced by the establishments of both political parties.
And that the result of the investigation would be indictments for perjury in the covering up
of illicit business deals and money laundering. But that 'collusion to sway the election' was
without substance, if not a joke.
Everything that has been revealed to date tends to support that.
One thing that Aaron overlooks is the evidence compiled by William Binney and associates
that strongly suggests the DNC hack was no hack at all, but a leak by an insider who was
appalled by the lies and double dealing at the DNC.
In general, RussiaGate is a farcical distraction from other issues as they say in the video.
And this highlights the utterly Machiavellian streak in the corporate Democrats and the Liberal
establishment under the Clintons and their ilk who care more about money and power than the
basic principles that historically sustained their party. I have lost all respect for them.
But unfortunately this does open the door for those who use this to approve of the
Republican establishment, which is 'at least honest' about being substantially corrupt servants
to Big Money who care nothing about democracy, the Constitution, or the public. The best of
them are leaving or have already left, and their party is ruined beyond repair.
This all underscores the paucity of the Red v. Blue, monopoly of two parties, 'lesser of two
evils' model of political thought which has come to dominate the discussion in the US.
We are heavily propagandized by the owners of the corporate media and influencers of the
narrative, and a professional class that has sold its soul for economic advantage and access to
money and power.
"... The Pity of It All : A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 ..."
"... Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results. ..."
"... Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal emphasis on an American dominated global empire. ..."
"... Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. ..."
"... Right now, their interests have diverged over the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. ..."
"... Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed. Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis. ..."
"... Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia. Or you can count their billions. ..."
"... The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop, confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality. ..."
"... Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country. They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on. ..."
"... "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper" ..."
"... "The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. " ..."
"... Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention. ..."
"... " (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper does not say that." ..."
"... But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld? ..."
"... Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS. ..."
"... But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence of the manifest destiny. ..."
At the Huffington Post, Jim Sleeper addresses
"A Foreign-Policy Problem
No One Speaks About," and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives.
Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, even if he's not a warmongering neocon
himself. The Yale lecturer's jumping-off point are recent statements by Leon Wieseltier and
David Brooks lamenting the decline of
American power.
In addition to Wieseltier and Brooks, the "blame the feckless liberals" chorus has included Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, David
Frum, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and many other American neoconservatives. Some of them have
been chastened, or at least been made more cautious, by their grand-strategic blunders of a few years ago ..
I'm saying that they've been fatuous as warmongers again and again and that there's something pathetic in their attempts to
emulate Winston Churchill, who warned darkly of Hitler's intentions in the 1930s. Their blind spot is their willful ignorance
of their own complicity in American deterioration and their over-compensatory, almost pre-adolescent faith in the benevolence
of a statist and militarist power they still hope to mobilize against the seductions and terrors rising all around them.
At bottom, the chorus members' recurrent nightmares of 1938 doom them to reenact other nightmares, prompted by very similar
writers in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Those writers are depicted chillingly, unforgettably, in Chapter 9, "War Fever," of
Amos Elon's
The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933. Elon's account of Germany's stampede into World
War I chronicles painfully the warmongering hysterics of some Jewish would-be patriots of the Kaiserreich who exerted themselves
blindly, romantically, to maneuver their state into the Armageddon that would produce Hitler himself.
This is the place to emphasize that few of Wilhelmine German's warmongers were Jews and that few Jews were or are warmongers.
(Me, for example, although my extended-family history isn't much different from Brooks' or Wieseltier's.) My point is simply that,
driven by what I recognize as understandable if almost preternatural insecurities and cravings for full liberal-nationalist belonging
that was denied to Jews for centuries in Europe, some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves
into the Iraq War, and they have continued, again and again, to employ modes of public discourse and politics that echo with eerie
fidelity that of the people described in Elon's book. The Americans lionized George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and
many others as their predecessors lionized Kaiser Wilhelm, von Bethmann-Hollweg, and far-right nationalist associates who hated
the neo-cons of that time but let them play their roles .
Instead of acknowledging their deepest feelings openly, or even to themselves, the writers I've mentioned who've brought so
much folly and destruction upon their republic, are doubling down, more nervous and desperate than ever, looking for someone else
to blame. Hence their whirling columns and rhythmic incantations. After Germany lost World War I, many Germans unfairly blamed
their national folly on Jews, many of whom had served in it loyally but only a few of whom had been provocateurs and cheerleaders
like the signatories of [Project for New American Century's] letter to Bush. Now neo-cons, from Wieseltier and Brooks to [Charles]
Hill, are blaming Obama and all other feckless liberals. Some of them really need to take a look in Amos Elon's mirror.
Interesting. Though I think Sleeper diminishes Jewish agency here (Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are no one's proxy) and can't
touch the Israel angle. The motivation is not simply romantic identification with power, it's an ideology of religious nationalism
in the Middle East, attachment to the needs of a militarist Sparta in the Arab world. That's another foreign policy problem no one
speaks about.
Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:11 pm
"Democracy in in the Middle East" was always just a weasel-word saying of "let's try to improve Israel's strategic position
by changing their neighbours".
The neocons basically took a hardline position on foreign interventionism based out of dual loyalty. This is the honest truth.
For anti-Semites, a handful of neocons will always represent "The Jews" as a collective. For many Jews, the refusal to come to
grips with the rise of the neocons and how the Jewish community (and really by "community" I mean the establishment) failed to
prevent them in their own midst, is also a blemish.
Of course, Jim Sleeper is doing these things now. He should have done them 15-20 years ago or so. But better late than never,
I guess.
Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:16 pm
P.S. While we talk a lot about neocons as a Jewish issue, it's also important to put them in perspective. The only war that
I can truly think of that they influenced was the Iraq war, which was a disaster, but it also couldn't have happened without 9/11,
which was a very rare event in the history of America. You have to go back to Pearl Harbor to find something similar, and that
wasn't technically a terrorist attack but rather a military attack by Japan.
Leading up to the early 2000s, they were mostly ignored during the 1990s. They did take over the GOP media in the early 90s,
using the same tactics used against Hagel, use social norms as a cover but in actuality the real reason is Israel.
Before the 90s, in the 70s and 80s, the cold war took up all the oxygen.
So yeah, the neocons need to be talked about. But comparing what they are trying to do with a World War is a bit of a stretch.
Finally, talking about Israel – which Sleeper ignored – and the hardline positions that the political class in America have
adopted, if you want to look who have ensured the greatest slavishness to Israel, liberal/centrist groups like ADL, AJC and AIPAC(yes,
they are mostly democrats!) have played a far greater role than the neocons.
But I guess, Sleeper wasn't dealing with that, because it would ruin his view of the neocons as the bogeymen.
Just like "liberal" Zionists want to blame Likud for everything, overlooking the fact that Labor/Mapai has had a far greater
role in settling/colonizing the Palestinian land than the right has, and not to speak about the ethnic cleansing campaigns of
'48 and '67 which was only done by the "left", so too the neocons often pose as a convenient catch-all target for the collective
Jewish failure leading up to Iraq.
And I'm using the words "collective Jewish failure" because I actually don't believe, unlike Mearsheimer/Walt, that the war
would not have gone ahead unless there was massive support by the Israel/Jewish lobby. If Jews had decided no, it would still
have gone ahead. This is also contrary to Tom Friedman's famous saying of "50 people in DC are responsible for this war".
I also think that's an oversimplification.
But I focus more on the Jewish side because that's my side. And I want my community to do better, and just blaming the neocons
is something I'm tired of hearing in Jewish circles. The inability to look at liberal Jewish journalists and their role in promoting
the war to either gentile or Jewish audiences.
Kathleen, May 6, 2014, 6:53 pm
There was talk about this last night (Monday/5th) on Chris Matthew's Hardball segment on Condi "mushroom cloud" Rice pulling
out of the graduation ceremonies at Rutger's. David Corn did not say much but Eugene Robinson and Chris Matthews were basically
talking about Israel and the neocons desires to rearrange the middle east "the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad" conversation.
Bumblebye, May 6, 2014, 2:33 pm
"some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves into the Iraq War"
Have to take issue with that – the neo-cons hurled young American (and foreign) servicemen and women into that war, many to
their deaths, along with throwing as much taxpayer money as possible. They stayed ultra safe and grew richer for their efforts.
Citizen, May 7, 2014, 9:03 am
@ Bumblebye
Good point. During WW1, as I read the history, the Jewish Germans provided their fair share of combat troops. If memory serves,
despite Weimar Germany's later "stab in the back" theory, e.g., Hitler himself was given a combat medal thanks to his Jewish senior
officer. In comparison to the build-up to Shrub Jr's war on Iraq, the Jewish neocons provided very few Jewish American combat
troops.
It's hard to get reliable stats on Jewish American participation in the US combat arms during the Iraq war. For all I've been
able to ascertain, more have joined the IDF over the years. At any rate, it's common knowledge that Shrub's war on Iraq was instigated
and supported by chicken hawks (Jew or Gentile) at a time bereft of conscription. They built their sale by ignoring key facts,
and embellishing misleading and fake facts, as illustrated by the Downing Street memo.
Keith, May 6, 2014, 7:47 pm
PHIL- Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little
difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which
are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine.
The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's
emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results.
Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal
emphasis on an American dominated global empire.
So yes, the nationalistic emphasis is an anachronism, however, the decline of the US in conjunction with the extension of a
system of globalized domination should hardly be of concern to elite power-seekers who will benefit. In fact, the new system of
corporate/financial control will be beyond the political control of any nation, even the US. If they can pull it off. An interesting
topic no doubt, but one which I doubt is suitable for extended discussion on Mondoweiss. As for power-seeking as a consequence
of a uniquely Jewish experience, perhaps the less said the better.
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes that
10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition with
them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on the
same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack
Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.
Right now, their interests have diverged over the
Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself
is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support the political
movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty antisemite whose followers killed many thousands
of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those left behind perished
during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any of them would identify
with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.
In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy
for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with
the Bandera brigades.
(I know I'm always grabbing OT threads of discussion, but when it comes down to it, I know much less about Zionism and Israel/Palestine
than many, if not most of the regular commenters here.)
I also am going to drift further off-topic by saying there is strong evidence that the slaughter in Odessa last Friday was
highly orchestrated and not solely the result of spontaneous mob violence. Very graphic and disturbing images in all of these
links:
" and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives.
Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, ..>>
Stop it Sleeper. Do not continue to use the victim card ' to explain' the trauma, the insecurities, the nightmares, the angst,
the feelings, the sensitivities, blah blah, blah of Zionist or Israel.
That is not what they are about. These are power mad psychos like most neocons, period.
And even if it were, and even if all the Jews in the world felt the same way, the bottom line would still be they do not have
the right to make others pay in treasure and blood for their nightmares and mental sickness.
As near as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), the Ukrainians themselves are about half and half pro Russia and Pro NATO.
Your glance at the history of the region as to why this is so, and your text on historical Ukranian suffering and POTV on MW commentary
on this –did not help your analysis and its conclusion.
There's a difference between isolationism and defensive intervention, and even more so, re isolationism v. pro-active interventionism
"in the name of pursuing the democratic ideal". See Ron Paul v. PNAC-style neocons and liberal Zionists.
Also, if you were Putin, how would you see the push of NATO & US force posts ever creeping towards Russia and its local environment?
Look at the US military postings nearing Russia per se & those surrounding Iran. Compare Russia's.
And note the intent to wean EU from Russian oil, and as well, the draconian sanctions on Iran, and Obama's latest partnering
sanctions on Russia.
Imagine yourself in Putin's shoes, and Iran's.
Don't abuse your imagination only by imagining yourself in Netanyahu's shoes, which is the preoccupation of AIPAC and its whores
in the US Congress.
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes
that 10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition
with them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on
the same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack
Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.
Right now, their interests have diverged over
the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel
itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support
the political movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty anti-Semite whose followers killed
many thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those
left behind perished during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-Zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any
of them would identify with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.
In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy
for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with
the Bandera brigades.
Yonah writes The freedom of Ukraine is a worthy goal. If the US is not able to back up our attempt to help them gain their
freedom it is not something to celebrate, but something to lament.
What are you saying? Ukraine has been an independent nation for 22 years. What freedom is this? What we have witnessed is that
one half of Ukraine has gotten tired that the other half keeps on electing candidates that represent those Ukrainians that identify
with Russian culture. They (the western half) successfully staged a coup and purged the other (eastern half) from the government.
You call that "freedom". Doesn't it embarrass you, Yonah, that the armed militias that conducted that coup are descendants of
the Bandera organization.
Does that ring a bell? These are the Ukrainians that were involved in the holocaust. Does Babi Yar stir any memories Yohan?
It was a massacre of 40,000 Jews just outside of Kiev in 1942. It was the single largest massacre of Jews during WWII. The massacre
was led by the Germans ( Einsatzgruppe C officers) but was carried out with the aid of 400 Ukrainian Auxillary Police. These were
later incorporated into the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician" made up mostly Ukrainians. The division flags are to this day
displayed at Right Sector rallies in western Ukraine.
Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were
almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed.
Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis.
Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this
is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia.
Or you can count their billions. In any case, the neutral posture is sensible for Israel here. Which is highly uncharacteristic
for that government.
Toivo S- The history of Jew hatred by certain anti Russian elements in the Ukraine is not encouraging and nothing that I celebrate.
Maybe I have been swayed by headlines and a superficial reading of the situation.
If indeed I am wrong regarding the will of the Ukrainian people, I can only be glad that my opinion is just that, my opinion
and not US or Israel or anyone's policy but my own. I assume that a majority of Ukrainians want to maintain independence of Russia
and that the expressions of rebellion are in that vein.
My people were murdered by the einsatzgruppen in that part of the world and so maybe I have overcompensated by trying not to
allow my personal history to interfere with what I think would be the will of the majority of the Ukraine.
But Toivo S. please skip the "doesn't it embarrass you" line of thought. Just put a sock in it and skip it.
Well thanks for that Yonah. My wife's family descended from Jewish communities in Odessa and Galicia. They emigrated to the US
between 1900 and 1940. After WWII none of their relatives left behind were ever heard from again. Perhaps you have family that
experienced similar stories. What caused me to react to your post above is that you are describing the current situation in Ukraine
as a "freedom" movement by the Ukrainians when the political forces there descended from the same people that killed my inlaws
family (and apparently yours to). Why do you support them?
ToivoS- I support them because I trust/don't trust Putin. I trust him to impose his brand of leadership on Ukraine, I don't trust
him to care a whit about freedom. It is natural that the nationalist elements of Ukraine would descend from the elements that
expressed themselves the last time they had freedom from the Soviet Union, that is those forces that were willing to join with
the Nazis to express their hatred for the communist Soviet Union's rule over their freedom. That's how history works. The nationalists
today descend from the nationalists of yesterday.
But it's been 70 years since WWII and the Ukrainians ought to be able to have freedom even if the parties that advocate for
freedom are descended from those that supported the Nazis. (I know once i include the Nazi part of history any analogies are toxic,
but if I am willing to grant Hamas its rights as an expression of the Palestinian desire for freedom, why would I deny the Ukrainian
foul nationalist parties their rights to express their people's desire for freedom.)
Political parties are not made in a sterile laboratory, they evolve over history and most specifically they emerge from the
past. I accept that Ukrainian nationalism has not evolved much, but nonetheless not having read any polls I assume that the nationalists
are the representatives of the people's desire for freedom. And because Putin strikes me as something primitive, I accept the
Ukrainian desire for freedom.
What are you supporting? Let me refresh your historic memory: Black's Transfer Agreement. Now apply analogy, responding
to ToivoS. Might help us all to understand, explore more skillfully, Israel's current stance on the Putin-Ukranian matter .?
(I think Nuland's intervention caught on tape, combined with who she is married to, already explores with great clarification
what the US is doing.
"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play
the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. Most people here would probably disagree with Sleeper, because he does
not deny that the world needs a cop, nor that the US would play a positive role, if it only had the means and the desire to
do so. People here (overwhelmingly) see the US role as a negative one (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let
the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world,"
The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that
embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop,
confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have
us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock
it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality.
Contrast that with the realist or realism approach recommended by George Kennan, and followed by this country successfully
through the end of the Cold War. That approach is conservative and contends we should stay out of wars unless the vital national
security interests of the US are at stake, like protecting WESTERN Europe, Japan, Australia, and the Western Hemisphere. This
meant we could sympathize with the plight of all the eastern Europeans oppressed by the Soviets, but would not defend militarily
the Hungarians (1956) or the Czechs (1968). It also meant we wouldn't send US troops into North Vietnam because we didn't want
to go to war with the Chinese over a country that was at best tangential to US interests. When we varied from that policy (Vietnam
and Iraq wars, Somalia) we paid a very heavy price while doing nothing to advance or protect our vital national security interests.
The sooner this country can return to our traditional realism-based foreign policy the better. Part of that policy would be
to disassociate the US from its entangling alliance with Likud Israel and its US Jewish supporters that espouse the Likud Greater
Israel line.
Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily
involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country.
They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to
get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend
and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on.
Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed
at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews. It is also directed
at Neoconservative foreign policy advocates, comprised of Jews and non-Jews, and overlap between the two groups. Please also note
my use of the term "major role", and that I am not saying the Neocons and their supporters (Jewish or non) were solely responsible
for our involvement in the Iraq war. I am offering these caveats in the hope that the usual changes of antisemitism can be avoided
in your or anyone else's response to my arguments.
The influence of Neocons on US foreign policy has been very harmful to this country and poses a grave danger to its future.
It would be wise for you to reflect on that harm and those dangers and decide whether you belong in the realist camp or want to
continue running with the Neocons.
Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed
at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews.
What about the role of *liberal Zionists*, like Hillary Clinton, in supporting and promoting the Iraq War? Clinton still hasn't
offered an apology for helping to drive the United States in a multi-trillion dollar foreign policy disaster - and she has threatened
to "totally obliterate" Iran.
What about Harry Reid's lavish praise of Sheldon Adelson?
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has for some time billed the Koch brothers as public enemy No.1 .
But billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson? He's just fine, Reid says.
"I know Sheldon Adelson. He's not in this for money," the Nevada Democrat said of Adelson, the Vegas casino magnate who
reportedly spent close to $150 million to support Republicans in the 2012 presidential election."
@ yonah fredman "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper"
Strange
"state into the Armageddon .. "
"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to
play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. "
Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention.
" (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they
want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act
like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper
does not say that."
You do tho, without quoting anyone "here".
BTW Pajero, strawmen no matter how lengthy and seemingly erudite, rarely walk anywhere
I'm going to put this down as Jewish navel gazing.
Jews are disproportionately liberal. Jews make up a huge chunk of the peace movement. Jews are relative to their numbers on
the left of most foreign policy positions.
Iraq was unusual in that Jews were not overwhelming opposed to the invasion, but it is worth noting the invasion at the time
was overwhelming popular. Frankly given the fact that Jews are now considered white people and the fact that Jews are almost all
middle class they should be biased conservative. There certainly is no reason they should be more liberal than Catholics. Yet
they are. It is the degree of Jewish liberalism not the degree of Jewish conservatism that is striking.
But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct
from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul
Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld?
Strongly antiwar incumbent Rep. Walter Jones (R – NC) has won a hotly contested primary tonight, defeating a challenge from
hawkish challenger and former Treasury Dept. official Taylor Griffin 51% to 45%.
Voter turn out was light .. tea party types did a lot of lobbying for Griffin here .but Jones prevailed. Considering the
onslaught of organized activity against him by ECI and the tea partiers for the past month he did well.
@ lysias
Let's refresh our look at what Ron Paul had to say about foreign policy and foreign aid. Then, let's compare what his son has
said, and take a look of his latest bill in congress to cut off aid to Palestine. Yes, you read that right; it's not a bill to
cut off any aid to Israel.
Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will
not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS.
The heavy artillery included the detestable Karl Rove, former Governor and RNC Chair Haley Barber and the War Party's highly
paid chief PR flack, Ari Fleischer.
But it was Neocon central that hauled out the big guns. Bill Kristol was so desperate to thwart the slowly rising anti-interventionist
tide within the GOP that he even trotted out Sarah Palin to endorse Jones's opponent"
But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it
here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence
of the manifest destiny.
Craig Murray is right that "As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies
the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier."
Collapse of neoliberal ideology and rise of tentions in neoliberal sociarties resulted in unprecedented increase of covert and false
flag operations by British intelligence services, especially against Russia, which had been chosen as a convenient scapegoat.
With Steele dossier and Skripal affair as two most well known.
New Lady Macbeth (Theresa May) Russophobia is so extreme that her cabinet derailed the election of a Russian to head
Interpol.
Looks like neoliberalism cannot be defeated by and faction of the existing elite. Only when shepp oil end mant people will
have a chance. The US , GB and EU are part of the wider hegemonic neoliberal system. In fact rejection of neoliberal
globalization probably will lead to "national neoliberals" regime which would be a flavor of neo-fascism, no more no less.
Notable quotes:
"... The British state can maintain its spies' cover stories for centuries. ..."
"... I learnt how highly improbable left wing firebrand Simon Bracey-Lane just happened to be on holiday in the United States with available cash to fund himself, when he stumbled into the Bernie Sanders campaign. ..."
"... It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely unbalanced panel of British military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia. ..."
"... the MOD-sponsored Institute for Statecraft has been given millions of pounds of taxpayers' money by the FCO to spread covert disinformation and propaganda, particularly against Russia and the anti-war movement. Activities include twitter and facebook trolling and secretly paying journalists in "clusters of influence" around Europe. Anonymous helpfully leaked the Institute's internal documents. Some of the Integrity Initiative's thus exposed alleged covert agents, like David Aaronovitch, have denied any involvement despite their appearance in the documents, and others like Dan Kaszeta the US "novichok expert", have cheerfully admitted it. ..."
"... By sleuthing the company records of this "Scottish charity", and a couple of phone calls, I discovered that the actual location of the Institute for Statecraft is the basement of 2 Temple Place, London. This is not just any basement – it is the basement of the former London mansion of William Waldorf Astor, an astonishing building . It is, in short, possibly the most expensive basement in London. ..."
"... Which is interesting because the accounts of the Institute for Statecraft claim it has no permanent staff and show nothing for rent, utilities or office expenses. In fact, I understand the rent is paid by the Ministry of Defence. ..."
"... I have a great deal more to tell you about Mr Edney and his organisation next week, and the extraordinary covert disinformation war the British government wages online, attacking British citizens using British taxpayers' money. Please note in the interim I am not even a smidgeon suicidal, and going to be very, very careful crossing the road and am not intending any walks in the hills. ..."
"... I am not alleging Mr Bracey-Lane is an intelligence service operative who previously infiltrated the Labour Party and the Sanders campaign. He may just be a young man of unusually heterodox and vacillating political opinions. He may be an undercover reporter for the Canary infiltrating the Institute for Statecraft. All these things are possible, and I have no firm information. ..."
"... one of the activities the Integrity Initiative sponsors happens to be the use of online trolls to ridicule the idea that the British security services ever carry out any kind of infiltration, false flag or agent provocateur operations, despite the fact that we even have repeated court judgements against undercover infiltration officers getting female activists pregnant. The Integrity Initiative offers us a glimpse into the very dirty world of surveillance and official disinformation. If we actually had a free media, it would be the biggest story of the day ..."
"... As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier. ..."
"... You can bank on continued ramping up of Russophobia to supply "the enemy". ..."
The British state can maintain its spies' cover stories for centuries. Look up Eldred Pottinger, who for 180 years appears
in scores of British history books – right up to and including William Dalrymple's Return of the King – as a British officer who
chanced to be passing Herat on holiday when it came under siege from a partly Russian-officered Persian army, and helped to organise
the defences. In researching
Sikunder Burnes, I discovered and published from the British Library incontrovertible and detailed documentary evidence that
Pottinger's entire journey was under the direct instructions of, and reporting to, British spymaster Alexander Burnes. The first
historian to publish the untrue "holiday" cover story, Sir John Kaye, knew both Burnes and Pottinger and undoubtedly knew he was
publishing lying propaganda. Every other British historian of the First Afghan War (except me and latterly
Farrukh Husain) has just followed Kaye's official propaganda.
Some things don't change. I was irresistibly reminded of Eldred Pottinger just passing Herat on holiday, when I learnt how
highly improbable left wing firebrand Simon Bracey-Lane
just happened to be on holiday in the
United States with available cash to fund himself, when he stumbled into the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Recent university graduate Simon Bracey-Lane took it even further. Originally from Wimbledon in London, he was inspired to
rejoin the Labour party in September when Corbyn was elected leader. But by that point, he was already in the US on holiday. So
he joined the Sanders campaign, and never left.
"I had two weeks left and some money left, so I thought, Fuck it, I'll make some calls for Bernie Sanders," he explains. "I just
sort of knew Des Moines was the place, so I just turned up at their HQ, started making phone calls, and then became a fully fledged
field organiser."
It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane
is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely
unbalanced panel of British
military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia.
Nor would it seem likely that Bracey-Lane would be involved with the Integrity Initiative. Even the mainstream media has been
forced to give a few paragraphs to the outrageous Integrity Initiative, under which the MOD-sponsored Institute for Statecraft
has been given millions of pounds of taxpayers' money by the FCO to spread covert disinformation and propaganda, particularly against
Russia and the anti-war movement. Activities include twitter and facebook trolling and secretly paying journalists in "clusters of
influence" around Europe. Anonymous helpfully leaked the Institute's internal documents. Some of the Integrity Initiative's thus
exposed alleged covert agents, like David Aaronovitch, have denied any involvement despite their appearance in the documents, and
others like Dan Kaszeta the US "novichok expert", have cheerfully admitted it.
The mainstream media have
tracked down
the HQ of the "Institute for Statecraft" to a derelict mill near Auchtermuchty. It is owned by one of the company directors, Daniel
Lafayeedney, formerly of D Squadron 23rd SAS Regiment and later of Military Intelligence (and incidentally born the rather more prosaic
Daniel Edney).
By sleuthing the company records of this "Scottish charity", and a couple of phone calls, I discovered that the actual location
of the Institute for Statecraft is the basement of 2 Temple Place, London. This is not just any basement – it is the basement of
the former London mansion of William Waldorf Astor, an astonishing building.
It is, in short, possibly the most expensive basement in London.
Which is interesting because the accounts of the Institute for Statecraft claim it has no permanent staff and show nothing
for rent, utilities or office expenses. In fact, I understand the rent is paid by the Ministry of Defence.
Having been told where the Institute for Statecraft skulk, I tipped off journalist Kit Klarenberg of Sputnik Radio to go and physically
check it out. Kit did so and was
aggressively
ejected by that well-known Corbyn and Sanders supporter, Simon Bracey-Lane. It does seem somewhat strange that our left wing
hero is deeply embedded in an organisation that
launches troll attacks on Jeremy Corbyn.
I have a great deal more to tell you about Mr Edney and his organisation next week, and the extraordinary covert disinformation
war the British government wages online, attacking British citizens using British taxpayers' money. Please note in the interim I
am not even a smidgeon suicidal, and going to be very, very careful crossing the road and am not intending any walks in the hills.
I am not alleging Mr Bracey-Lane is an intelligence service operative who previously infiltrated the Labour Party and the
Sanders campaign. He may just be a young man of unusually heterodox and vacillating political opinions. He may be an undercover reporter
for the Canary infiltrating the Institute for Statecraft. All these things are possible, and I have no firm information.
But one of the activities the Integrity Initiative sponsors happens to be the use of online trolls to ridicule the idea that the
British security services ever carry out any kind of infiltration, false flag or agent provocateur operations, despite the fact that
we even have repeated court judgements against undercover infiltration officers getting female activists pregnant. The Integrity
Initiative offers us a glimpse into the very dirty world of surveillance and official disinformation. If we actually had a free media,
it would be the biggest story of the day.
As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies
the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier.
You can
bank on continued ramping up of Russophobia to supply "the enemy".
As both Scottish Independence and Jeremy Corbyn are viewed as
real threats by the British Establishment, you can anticipate every possible kind of dirty trick in the next couple of years, with
increasing frequency and audacity
"... In his just published book, War With Russia? ..."
"... To paraphrase Putin: "You are making Russia a threat by declaring us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless repetition." ..."
"... Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach? The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared. ..."
"... The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex's resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA's successful use of the CIA's media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA's use of the media, including Udo Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalism," the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned. ..."
Throughout the long Cold War Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University was a
voice of reason. He refused to allow his patriotism to blind him to Washington's contribution to the conflict and to criticize only
the Soviet contribution. Cohen's interest was not to blame the enemy but to work toward a mutual understanding that would remove
the threat of nuclear war. Although a Democrat and left-leaning, Cohen would have been at home in the Reagan administration, as Reagan's
first priority was to end the Cold War. I know this because I was part of the effort. Pat Buchanan will tell you the same thing.
In 1974 a notorious cold warrior, Albert Wohlstetter, absurdly accused the CIA of underestimating the Soviet threat. As the CIA
had every incentive for reasons of budget and power to overestimate the Soviet threat, and today the "Russian threat," Wohlstetter's
accusation made no sense on its face. However he succeeded in stirring up enough concern that CIA director George H.W. Bush, later
Vice President and President, agreed to a Team B to investigate the CIA's assessment, headed by the Russiaphobic Harvard professor
Richard Pipes. Team B concluded that the Soviets thought they could win a nuclear war and were building the forces with which to
attack the US.
The report was mainly nonsense, and it must have have troubled Stephen Cohen to experience the setback to negotiations that Team
B caused.
Today Cohen is stressed that it is the United States that thinks it can win a nuclear war. Washington speaks openly of using "low
yield" nuclear weapons, and intentionally forecloses any peace negotiations with Russia with a propaganda campaign against Russia
of demonization, vilification, and transparent lies, while installing missile bases on Russia's borders and while talking of incorporating
former parts of Russia into NATO. In his just published book, War With Russia? , which I highly recommend, Cohen makes a
convincing case that Washington is asking for war.
I agree with Cohen that if Russia is a threat it is only because the US is threatening Russia. The stupidity of the policy toward
Russia is creating a Russian threat. Putin keeps emphasizing this. To paraphrase Putin: "You are making Russia a threat by declaring
us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless
repetition."
Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the
Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach? The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of
cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared.
The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex's resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media
and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media
to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA's successful
use of the CIA's media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA's use of the media, including Udo
Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalism," the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned.
The demonization of Russia is also aided and abetted by the Democrats' hatred of Trump and anger from Hillary's loss of the presidential
election to the "Trump deplorables." The Democrats purport to believe that Trump was installed by Putin's interference in the presidential
election. This false belief is emotionally important to Democrats, and they can't let go of it.
Although Cohen as a professor at Princeton and NYU never lacked research opportunities, in the US Russian studies, strategic studies,
and the like are funded by the military/security complex whose agenda Cohen's scholarship does not serve. At the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, where I held an independently financed chair for a dozen years, most of my colleagues were dependent on
grants from the military/security complex. At the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where I was a Senior Fellow for three
decades, the anti-Soviet stance of the Institution reflected the agenda of those who funded the institution.
I am not saying that my colleagues were whores on a payroll. I am saying that the people who got the appointments were people
who were inclined to see the Soviet Union the way the military/security complex thought it should be seen.
As Stephen Cohen is aware, in the original Cold War there was some balance as all explanations were not controlled. There were
independent scholars who could point out that the Soviets, decimated by World War 2, had an interest in peace, and that accommodation
could be achieved, thus avoiding the possibility of nuclear war.
Stephen Cohen must have been in the younger ranks of those sensible people, as he and President Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet
Union, Jack Matloff, seem to be the remaining voices of expert reason on the American scene.
If you care to understand the dire threat under which you live, a threat that only a few people, such as Stephen Cohen, are trying
to lift, read his book.
If you want to understand the dire threat that a bought-and-paid-for American media poses to your existence, read Cohen's accounts
of their despicable lies. America has a media that is synonymous with lies.
If you want to understand how corrupt American universities are as organizations on the take for money, organizations to whom
truth is inconsequential, read Cohen's book.
If you want to understand why you could be dead before Global Warming can get you, read Cohen's book.
"... I've come to believe that Trump's role is not as a conventional president who promises to get certain things achieved to the
Congress and then does. I don't think he's capable. I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the
system. I don't think the Congress is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him. He's not going to do that. ..."
"... I think Trump's role is to begin the conversation about what actually matters. We were not having any conversation about immigration
before Trump arrived in Washington. ..."
"... Trump asked basic questions like' "Why don't our borders work?" "Why should we sign a trade agreement and let the other side
cheat?" Or my favorite of all, "What's the point of NATO?" The point of NATO was to keep the Soviets from invading western Europe but
they haven't existed in 27 years, so what is the point? These are obvious questions that no one could answer. ..."
"... I mean let me just be clear. I'm not against an aristocratic system. I'm not against a ruling class. I think that hierarchies
are natural, people create them in every society. I just think the system that we have now the meritocracy, which is based really on
our education system, on a small number of colleges has produced a ruling class that doesn't have the self-awareness that you need to
be wise. ..."
"... it was only after the financial crisis of 08 that I noticed that something was really out of whack, because Washington didn't
really feel the crisis. ..."
"... If you leave Washington and drive to say Pittsburgh, which is a manufacturing town about three and a half hours to the west,
you drive through a series of little towns that are devastated. There are no car dealerships, there are no restaurants. There's nothing.
They have not recovered. I remember driving out there one day, maybe eight or nine years ago and thinking, boy, this is a disaster.
..."
"... That's kind of strange since we're the capital city in charge of making policy for everybody else... Massive inequality does
not work in a democracy... ..."
"... If you make above a certain income, or if you live in my neighborhood, you have zero physical contact with other Americans.
In other words, the elite in our country is physically separated in a way that's very unhealthy for a democracy, very unhealthy. ..."
"... The Democratic Party, which for 100 years was the party of average people is now the party of the rich. ..."
"... He served the purpose of bringing the middle class into the Republican Party, which had zero interest, no interest in representing
them at all. Trump is intuitive, he felt, he could smell that there was this large group of voters who had no one representing them
and he brought them to the Republican side, but the realignment is still ongoing. ..."
"... In other words, the Democratic Party used to represent the middle class, it no longer does, it now hates the middle class.
..."
"... I do think, going forward the Republican Party will wake up and realize these are our voters and we're going to represent them
whether we want it or not. ..."
"... I am deeply suspicious of foreign adventurism, voluntary wars, wars of self-defense are not controversial, I'm for them completely,
there's an invasion repellent. The idea that you would send 100,000 troops to a country to improve its political system is grotesque
to me. It would've been grotesque to them. ..."
"... The Vietnam War was horrifying to them because it was a voluntary war, waged for theoretical reasons, geostrategic reasons
which they rejected, and I do too. ..."
"... We can make autonomous choices about how we respond to market forces. People get crushed beneath its wheels. ..."
"... Capitalism drives change, innovation change, the old ways give way to new ways of doing things, and in the process of change
the weak get hurt always, this was true in industrialization 100 years ago and it's true in the digital revolution now. What's changed
is that nobody is standing up on behalf of the people who are being crushed by the change. ..."
"... In your book, you say they've vanishing but they seem to come back again. ..."
"... Have you ever seen this amount of discontent and aggression here in your lifetime? ..."
"... How close to a revolution is your country? ..."
"... The country is getting redder and bluer. ..."
"... Do you think that Europe will get in control of the migration? ..."
The Swiss are very suspicious of anybody who is boastful. That's why I have a question about Trump
I hate that about him. I hate that it's not my culture. I didn't grow up like that.
In your book you speak a lot about people who attack Trump, but you actually don't say very much about Trump's record.
That's true.
Do you think he has kept his promises? Has he achieved his goals?
No. He hasn't?
No. His chief promises were that he would build the wall, de-fund planned parenthood, and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn't done
any of those things. There are a lot of reasons for that, but since I finished writing the book, I've come to believe that Trump's
role is not as a conventional president who promises to get certain things achieved to the Congress and then does. I don't think
he's capable. I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the system. I don't think the Congress
is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him. He's not going to do that.
I think Trump's role is to begin the conversation about what actually matters. We were not having any conversation about immigration
before Trump arrived in Washington. People were bothered about it in different places in the country. It's a huge country, but
that was not a staple of political debate at all. Trump asked basic questions like' "Why don't our borders work?" "Why should
we sign a trade agreement and let the other side cheat?" Or my favorite of all, "What's the point of NATO?" The point of NATO was
to keep the Soviets from invading western Europe but they haven't existed in 27 years, so what is the point? These are obvious questions
that no one could answer.
Apart from asking these very important questions has he really achieved nothing?
Not much. Not much. Much less than he should have. I've come to believe he's not capable of it.
Why should he be not capable?
Because the legislative process in this country by design is highly complex, and it's designed to be complex as a way of diffusing
power, of course, because the people who framed our Constitution, founded our country, were worried about concentrations of power.
They balanced it among the three branches as you know and they made it very hard to make legislation. In order to do it you really
have to understand how it works and you have to be very focused on getting it done, and he knows very little about the legislative
process, hasn't learned anything, hasn't and surrounded himself with people that can get it done, hasn't done all the things you
need to do so. It's mostly his fault that he hasn't achieved those things. I'm not in charge of Trump.
The title of your book is "Ship of Fools". You write that an irresponsible elite has taken over America. Who is the biggest
fool?
I mean let me just be clear. I'm not against an aristocratic system. I'm not against a ruling class. I think that hierarchies
are natural, people create them in every society. I just think the system that we have now the meritocracy, which is based really
on our education system, on a small number of colleges has produced a ruling class that doesn't have the self-awareness that you
need to be wise. I'm not arguing for populism, actually. I'm arguing against populism. Populism is what you get when your leaders
fail. In a democracy, the population says this is terrible and they elect someone like Trump.
When did you first notice that this elite is getting out of touch with the people?
Well, just to be clear, I'm not writing this from the perspective of an outsider. I mean I've lived in this world my whole life.
Which world exactly?
The world of affluence and the high level of education and among-- I grew up in a town called La Jolla, California in the south.
It was a very affluent town and then I moved as a kid to Georgetown here in Washington. I've been here my whole life. I've always
lived around people who are wielding authority, around the ruling class, and it was only after the financial crisis of 08 that
I noticed that something was really out of whack, because Washington didn't really feel the crisis.
If you leave Washington and drive to say Pittsburgh, which is a manufacturing town about three and a half hours to the west,
you drive through a series of little towns that are devastated. There are no car dealerships, there are no restaurants. There's nothing.
They have not recovered. I remember driving out there one day, maybe eight or nine years ago and thinking, boy, this is a disaster.
Rural America, America outside three or four cities is really falling apart. I thought if you're running the country, you should
have a sense of that. I remember thinking to myself, nobody I know has any idea that this is happening an hour away. That's kind
of strange since we're the capital city in charge of making policy for everybody else... Massive inequality does not work in a democracy...
You become Venezuela.
You write about vanishing middle class. When you were born over 60 % of Americans ranked middle class. Why and when did
it disappear?
If you make above a certain income, or if you live in my neighborhood, you have zero physical contact with other Americans.
In other words, the elite in our country is physically separated in a way that's very unhealthy for a democracy, very unhealthy.
The Democratic Party is out of touch with the working class.
Well, that's the remarkable thing. For 100 years the Democratic Party represented wage earners, working people, normal people,
middle class people, then somewhere around-- In precisely peg it to Clinton's second term in the tech boom in the Bay Area in Francisco
and Silicon Valley, the Democratic Party reoriented and became the party of technology, of large corporations, and of the rich. You've
really seen that change in the last 20 years where in the top 10 richest zip codes in the United States, 9 of them in the last election
just went for Democrats. Out of the top 50, 42 went for Democrats. The Democratic Party, which for 100 years was the party of
average people is now the party of the rich.
Donald Trump, who is often seen as this world-changing figure is actually a symptom of something that precedes him that I sometimes
wonder if he even understands which is this realignment. He served the purpose of bringing the middle class into the Republican
Party, which had zero interest, no interest in representing them at all. Trump is intuitive, he felt, he could smell that there was
this large group of voters who had no one representing them and he brought them to the Republican side, but the realignment is still
ongoing.
In other words, the Democratic Party used to represent the middle class, it no longer does, it now hates the middle class.
The Republican Party which has never represented the middle class doesn't want to. That is the source of really all the confusion
and the tension that you're seeing now. I do think, going forward the Republican Party will wake up and realize these are our
voters and we're going to represent them whether we want it or not.
They have to, or they will lose.
They have to, or they will die. Yes.
You're writing in an almost nostalgic tone about the old liberals? People like Miss Raymond, your first-class teacher. You
describe her wonderfully in the book. You say that they have vanished. What happened?
I find myself in deep sympathy with a lot of the aims of 1970s liberals. I believe in free speech, and I instinctively side with
the individual against the group. I think that the individual matters, I am deeply suspicious of foreign adventurism, voluntary
wars, wars of self-defense are not controversial, I'm for them completely, there's an invasion repellent. The idea that you would
send 100,000 troops to a country to improve its political system is grotesque to me. It would've been grotesque to them.
The Vietnam War was horrifying to them because it was a voluntary war, waged for theoretical reasons, geostrategic reasons
which they rejected, and I do too. They were also suspicious of market capitalism. They thought that somebody needed to push
back against the forces of the market, not necessarily because capitalism was bad, capitalism is not bad, it's also not a religion.
We don't have to follow it blindly. We can make autonomous choices about how we respond to market forces. People get crushed
beneath its wheels.
Capitalism drives change, innovation change, the old ways give way to new ways of doing things, and in the process of change
the weak get hurt always, this was true in industrialization 100 years ago and it's true in the digital revolution now. What's changed
is that nobody is standing up on behalf of the people who are being crushed by the change.
Is that really so? Look at the grassroot movement on the left: Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and her socialist group. It is probably
a 100 years ago when Americans last saw a socialist movement of substance emerging?
Yes. You're absolutely right. That's the future.
In your book, you say they've vanishing but they seem to come back again.
Well, you're absolutely right. You're incisive correct to say that the last time we saw this was 100 years ago, which was another
pivot point in our economic and social history. Where, after 10,000 years of living in an Agrarian society, people moved to the cities
to work in factories and that upended the social order completely. With that came huge political change and a massive reaction.
In the United States and in Western Europe labor unions moderated the forces of change and allowed us to preserve capitalism in
the form that we see it now... You're seeing the exact same dynamic play out today, we have another, as I said, economic revolution,
the digital age, which is changing how people work, how they make money, how families are structured. There is a huge reaction to
that, of course, because there always is, because normal people can't handle change at this pace. People are once again crying out
for some help. They feel threatened by the change. What bothers me is that there is no large group of sensible people asking, how
can we buffer this change? How can we restrain it just enough, not to stop it, but to keep people from overreacting and becoming
radical?
Talking about radical. Recently, a radical left-wing group have threatened to storm your Washington home. How is your wife?
How is your family?
They are fine, they're pretty tough. They're rattled.
The Antifa-mob came right to the door of your home?
Yes, they did and threatened my wife.
Which must have been absolutely scary?
Yes, it was. My wife was born in the city, my four children were born here, we're not moving.
Your attackers have a goal, they're trying to silence you.
Of course. I would never, of course, that's a cornerstone of Western civilization is expression and freedom of conscience. You
can tell me how to behave, you can force me not to sleep or take my clothes off in public, that's fine. Every society has the right
to control behavior. But no one has the right to control what you believe. You can't control my conscience, that's mine alone. Only
totalitarian movements do that, and that's what they're attempting. Of course, I would die first I'm never going to submit to that.
Have you ever seen this amount of discontent and aggression here in your lifetime?
No, I've never seen anything like this. What's so striking is that [chuckles] this is really... The radicalism is not on behalf
of people who are actually suffering, fellow Americans who are suffering, on behalf of the 70,000 people who died of drug ODs last
year, or on behalf of the people displaced by automation in GM, or whatever, on behalf of those dying American low class, it's really
on behalf of theoretical goals.
They're saying that I [Tucker Carlson] am saying naughty things that shouldn't be allowed to be expressed in public. Basically,
it's a totalitarian movement. Totally unhelpful. I would say childish. What they're really doing is defending the current order.
They're the shock troops of the elites actually. Actually, what you're seeing is something amazing, you're seeing for the first time
in history a revolution being waged against the working class. When does that happen?
Your way of debating is very tough. You're sitting there, hammering your guests. Sometimes we have a bit of a problem to
understand that. For us it's a bit disturbing.
Of course, it is. It's disturbing for me too!
How tough do you need to be nowadays to have an audience?
Less, I think than sometimes we put into it or I put into it. I'm actually, in my normal life, I think a pretty gentle person.
I've never had a yelling fight with my wife in 34 years. I mean, I've never yelled at my children. No, I don't ever.
Never?
Not one time. No, it's not how I communicate. I never want to be impolite. I have been impolite. I've lost my temper a couple
times, but I don't want to. I don't like that. I believe in civility.
... ... ...
How close to a revolution is your country?
By revolution, let me be clear, I don't think that we're anywhere near an outbreak of civil war, armed violence between two sides
for a bunch of different reasons... Testosterone levels are so low and marijuana use is so high that I think the population is probably
too ... What you don't have, prerequisite fall revolution, violent revolution, is a large group of young people who are comfortable
with violence and we don't have that. Maybe that will change. I hope it doesn't. I don't want violence for violence. I appall violence,
but I just don't see that happening. What I see happening most likely is a kind of gradual separation of the states.
If you look at the polling on the subject, classically, traditionally, Americans had antique racial attitudes. If you say, "Would
you be okay with your daughter marrying outside her race?" Most Americans, if they're being honest, would say, "no, I'm not okay
with that. I'm not for that." Now the polling shows people are much more comfortable with a child marrying someone of a different
race than they are marrying someone of a different political persuasion.
"I'd rather my daughter married someone who's Hispanic than liberal", someone might say. That is one measure. There are many measures,
but that's one measure of how politically divided we are and I just think that over time, people will self-segregate. It's a continental
country. It's a very large piece of land and you could see where certain states just become very, very different. Like if you're
Conservative, are you really going to live in California in 10 years? Probably not.
Orange County is now purely Democrat.
That's exactly right. You're going to move and if you're very liberal, are you really going to want to live in Idaho? Probably
not.
The country is getting redder and bluer.
Exactly.
This revolution you are warning about - What needs to be done to stop it from happening?
Just the only thing you can do in a democracy which is address the legitimate concerns of the population and think more critically
and be more wise in your decision making. Get a handle on technology. Technology is the driver of the change, so sweep aside the
politics, the fundamental fact about people is they can't metabolize change at this pace because as an evolutionary matter, they're
not designed to, they're not. If you asked your average old person what's the most upsetting thing about being old? You expect them
to say, "Well, my friends are dead". But that's not what they say. Or "I have to go to the bathroom six times a night". That's not
what they say.
You know what they say? "Things are too different. This is not the country I grew up in. I don't recognize this." All people hate
that. It doesn't mean you're a bigot, it means you're human. Unless you want things to fall apart, become so volatile that you can't
have a working economy, you need to get a handle on the pace of change. You have to slow it down.
How important is migration in terms of change?
It's central because nothing changes the society more quickly or more permanently than bringing in a whole new population and
that's not an attack on anybody. There are lots of populations- there are lots of immigrants who are much more impressive than I
am. I have no doubt about that. I'm not attacking immigrants. I'm merely saying that the effect on the people who already live here
is real and they're not bigots for feeling that way.
You come from an ancient country with a series of ancient cultures within it and if you woke up one morning and everyone was speaking
Amharic and you didn't recognize any of your surroundings, that would be deeply upsetting to you.
What you saying, it's necessary to slow it down, control it?
You have to slow it down. Look at the Chinese. I abhor, I despise the Chinese government. However, I'm willing to acknowledge
wise behavior when I see it. The Chinese would never accept this pace of demographic change not simply because they're racist, though
of course, they are, but that's not the point. The point is because they don't want their society to fall apart because they're in
charge of it.
The childlike faith that we have in America, and America is the worst at this, that all change is good and that progress is inevitable
and if something is new and fresh and more expensive, it's got to be better.
It is kind of refreshing for Europeans that even Hillary Clinton tells Europeans, "You have got to stop this. You've got
to get control of migration or you disintegrate."
John Kerry said the same thing, amazingly. They're telling the truth.
Do you think Europe is going to be able to get in control of that? We have 28 countries in the EU. And Switzerland is not
a member?
So smart, so smart... You know why? Because they're mountain people. Love them. You know why? Because they're suspicious, that's
what I like about them.
[laughter]
Do you think that Europe will get in control of the migration?
The EU has been doomed since the first day because it's inconsistent with human nature. The reason we have nation states is because
people wanted them, it's organic. A nation-state is just a larger tribe and it's organized along lines that make sense. They evolved
over thousands of years. To ignore it and destroy it because you think that you've got a better idea, is insane!
[And with that, our interview concludes. It has already run far past the allotted 40 minutes. I offer to take Carlson, who seems
to be very passionate about Switzerland, on a ski run in our Alps soon. Perhaps a smoke in one of the outdoor saunas I tell him smell
like rotten eggs. Ambassador Grenell is on the phone line patiently waiting.]
"The game motif is useful as a metaphor for the broader rivalry between nations and
economic systems with the rise of imperialism and the pursuit of world power. This game has
gone through two major transformations since the days of Russian-British rivalry, with the
rise first of Communism and then of Islam as world forces opposing imperialism. The main
themes of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games include:
US imperial strategy as an outgrowth of British imperialism, and its transformation
following the collapse of the Soviet Union;
the significance of the creation of Israel with respect to the imperial
project;
the repositioning of Russia in world politics after the collapse of the Soviet
Union;
the emerging role of China and Iran in Eurasia;
the emerging opposition to the US and NATO.
This work brings these elements together in historical perspective with an understanding
from the Arab/ Muslim world's point of view, as it is the main focus of all the "Great
Games"."
Jay Dyer discusses the book here, its strengths and weaknesses:
"... Rather, they seem to appear to reveal a plot by the British intelligence and security services working in collusion with then CIA Director John Brennan to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out? ..."
And there are other friends in unlikely
places. Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly
against a Trump threat
to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate. The real problem is that
the documents apparently don't expose anything done by the Russians.
Rather, they seem to appear to reveal
a plot by the British intelligence and security services
working in collusion with then CIA Director
John Brennan to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment
favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out?
So how about it? Teenagers who get in
trouble often have to ditch their bad friends to turn their lives around. There is still a chance for the
United States if we keep our distance from the bad friends we have been nurturing all around the world,
friends who have been convincing us to make poor choices. Get rid of the ties the bind to the Saudis,
Israelis, Ukrainians, Poles, and yes, even the British. Deal fairly with all nations and treat everyone the
same, but bear in mind that there are only two relationships that really matter – Russia and China. Make a
serious effort to avoid a war by learning how to get along with those two nations and America might actually
survive to celebrate a tricentennial in 2076.
You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections. Why, if the
beneficiary was anyone other than a Democrat, much less one named Clinton, someone might
actually appoint a Special Counsel to look into it, not to mention the misdeeds of the
various agencies and departments who aided and abetted it.
"You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections."
MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of
John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael
Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam
worked like this:
They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such
files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to
launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then
funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA
court a spying campaign on Trump (the FBI illegally withheld the source of the document);
they found nothing proving any Russian connection but they kept the spy program going; they
tried justifying the spy program with a fake story involving a reliable asset that once
passed information from Jimmy Carter's campaign to George H.W. Bush in an effort to help
Reagan win the 1980 election; they later paid the asset nearly a quarter million dollars for
his efforts using a fake "India-China" grant despite the grant running to 2018, the asset
attempted to get a job in the Trump administration so he could act as a mole ; the Obama
regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele
leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress
about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements
of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the
record to the right people
They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the
document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the
British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as
Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to
take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump
policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama.
They also ran interference through CIA guys like Mark Warner in an effort to cover up the
mole they planted; they falsely asserted this was a national security issue when the man's
identity was well-known to the press and he was never an undercover spy like Jarret was, at
least not in recent history.
To put this all into perspective, imagine the following scenario:
The government takes cctv footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an
attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and
finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims
that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your
workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then
the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were
in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible
people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2)
laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it
elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much
worse.
a plot by the British intelligence and security services to subvert the course of the 2016
election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that
one work out?
Deep State and Establishment stooge Donald Trump.
There is still a chance for the United States if we
"... The American Neocons are Zionists (Their goal is expanding political / military power. Initially this is focused on the state of Israel.) ..."
"... Obviously , if Zionism is synonymous with patriotism in Israel, it cannot be an acceptable label in American politics, where it would mean loyalty to a foreign power. This is why the neoconservatives do not represent themselves as Zionists on the American scene. Yet they do not hide it all together either. ..."
"... American Jewish Committee ..."
"... Contemporary Jewish Record ..."
"... If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find horrifying . And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants' grandchildren ..."
"... Goyenot traces the Neocon's origins through its influential writers and thinkers. Highest on the list is Leo Strauss. (Neocons are sometimes called "the Straussians.") Leo Strauss is a great admirer of Machiavelli with his utter contempt for restraining moral principles making him "uniquely effective," and, "the ideal patriot." He gushes over Machiavelli praising the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech. ..."
"... believes that Truth is harmful to the common man and the social order and should be reserved for superior minds. ..."
"... nations derive their strength from their myths , which are necessary for government and governance. ..."
"... national myths have no necessary relationship with historical reality: they are socio-cultural constructions that the State has a duty to disseminate . ..."
"... to be effective, any national myth must be based on a clear distinction between good and evil ; it derives its cohesive strength from the hatred of an enemy nation. ..."
"... deception is the norm in political life ..."
"... Office of Special Plans ..."
"... The Zionist/Neocons are piggy-backing onto, or utilizing, the religious myths of both the Jewish and Christian world to consolidate power. This is brilliant Machiavellian strategy. ..."
"... the "chosen people" myth (God likes us best, we are better than you) ..."
"... the Holy Land myth (one area of real estate is more holy than another) ..."
"... General Wesley Clark testified on numerous occasions before the cameras, that one month after September 11th, 2001 a general from the Pentagon showed him a memo from neoconservative strategists "that describes how we're gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran". ..."
"... Among them are brilliant strategists ..."
"... They operate unrestrained by the most basic moral principles upon which civilization is founded. They are undisturbed by compassion for the suffering of others. ..."
"... They use consciously and skillfully use deception and "myth-making" to shape policy ..."
"... They have infiltrated the highest levels of banking, US military, NATO and US government. ..."
Mememonkey pointed my to a 2013 essay by Laurent Guyenot, a French historian and writer on the
deep state, that addresses the question of
"Who Are The Neoconservatives."
If you would like to know about that group that sends the US military into battle and tortures prisoners
of war in out name, you need to know about these guys.
First, if you are Jewish, or are a GREEN Meme, please stop and take a deep breath. Please put
on your thinking cap and don't react. We are NOT disrespecting a religion, spiritual practice or
a culture. We are talking about a radical and very destructive group hidden within a culture
and using that culture. Christianity has similar groups and movements--the Crusades, the
KKK, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, etc.
My personal investment: This question has been a subject of intense interest for me since I became
convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, that the Iraq war was waged for reasons entirely different
from those publically stated. I have been horrified to see such a shadowy, powerful group operating
from a profoundly "pre-moral" developmental level-i.e., not based in even the most
rudimentary principles of morality foundational to civilization.
Who the hell are these people?!
Goyenot's main points (with a touch of personal editorializing):
1. The American Neocons are Zionists (Their goal is expanding political / military power.
Initially this is focused on the state of Israel.)
Neoconservativism is essentially a modern right wing Jewish version of Machiavelli's political
strategy. What characterizes the neoconservative movement is therefore not as much Judaism as a religious
tradition, but rather Judiasm as a political project, i.e. Zionism, by Machiavellian
means.
This is not a religious movement though it may use religions words and vocabulary. It
is a political and military movement. They are not concerned with being close to God. This is a movement
to expand political and military power. Some are Christian and Mormon, culturally.
Obviously , if Zionism is synonymous with patriotism in Israel, it cannot be an acceptable
label in American politics, where it would mean loyalty to a foreign power. This is why the neoconservatives
do not represent themselves as Zionists on the American scene. Yet they do not hide it all together
either.
He points out dual-citizen (Israel / USA) members and self proclaimed Zionists throughout cabinet
level positions in the US government, international banking and controlling the US military. In private
writings and occasionally in public, Neocons admit that America's war policies are actually Israel's
war goals. (Examples provided.)
2. Most American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal and do NOT share the perspective of the radical
Zionists.
The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative")
Republican right, is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of
the monthly magazine Commentary, a media arm of the American Jewish Committee,
which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward, the oldest
American Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: "If there
is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism
is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find
horrifying. And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born
among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants'
grandchildren".
3. Intellectual Basis and Moral developmental level
Goyenot traces the Neocon's origins through its influential writers and thinkers. Highest
on the list is Leo Strauss. (Neocons are sometimes called "the Straussians.") Leo Strauss is a great
admirer of Machiavelli with his utter contempt for restraining moral principles making him "uniquely
effective," and, "the ideal patriot." He gushes over Machiavelli praising the intrepidity of his
thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.
Other major points:
believes that Truth is harmful to the common man and the social order and should be reserved
for superior minds.
nations derive their strength from their myths, which are necessary for
government and governance.
national myths have no necessary relationship with historical reality:
they are socio-cultural constructions that the State has a duty to disseminate.
to be effective, any national myth must be based on a clear distinction between
good and evil; it derives its cohesive strength from the hatred of an enemy nation.
As recognized by Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt in an article "Leo Strauss and the World
of Intelligence" (1999), for Strauss, "deception is the norm in political life" –
the rule they [the Neocons] applied to fabricating the lie of weapons of mass destruction
by Saddam Hussein when working inside the Office of Special Plans.
George Bushes speech from the national cathedral after 9/11 exemplifies myth-making at its
finest: "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world
of Evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful,
but fierce when stirred to anger. . . .[W]e ask almighty God to watch over our nation, and grant
us patience and resolve in all that is to come. . . . And may He always guide our country. God
bless America.
4. The Zionist/Neocons are piggy-backing onto, or utilizing, the religious myths of both the
Jewish and Christian world to consolidate power. This is brilliant Machiavellian strategy.
the "chosen people" myth (God likes us best, we are better than you)
the Holy Land myth (one area of real estate is more holy than another)
the second coming of Christ myth
the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth through global destruction/war (nuclear war for
the Glory of God)
[The]Pax Judaica will come only when "all the nations shall flow" to the Jerusalem
temple, from where "shall go forth the law" (Isaiah 2:1-3). This vision of a new world
order with Jerusalem at its center resonates within the Likudnik and neoconservative
circles. At the Jerusalem Summit, held from October 12th to 14th, 2003 in the symbolically significant
King David Hotel, an alliance was forged between Zionist Jews and Evangelical Christians around
a "theopolitical" project, one that would consider Israel "the key to the harmony of civilizations",
replacing the United Nations that's become a "a tribalized confederation hijacked by Third
World dictatorships": "Jerusalem's spiritual and historical importance endows it
with a special authority to become a center of world's unity. [...] We believe
that one of the objectives of Israel's divinely-inspired rebirth is to make
it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace
and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets". Three acting Israeli ministers spoke at the summit,
including Benjamin Netanyahu, and Richard Perle.
Jerusalem's dream empire is expected to come through the nightmare of world war. The prophet
Zechariah, often cited on Zionist forums, predicted that the Lord will fight "all nations" allied
against Israel. In a single day, the whole earth will become a desert, with the exception
of Jerusalem, who "shall remain aloft upon its site" (14:10).
With more than 50 millions members, Christians United for Israel is
a major political force in the U.S.. Its Chairman, pastor John Haggee, declared: "The United States
must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both
Israel and the West, [...] a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will
lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ".
And Guyenot concludes:
Is it possible that this biblical dream, mixed with the neo-Machiavellianism of Leo Strauss and
the militarism of Likud, is what is quietly animating an exceptionally determined and organized ultra-Zionist
clan? General Wesley Clark testified on numerous occasions before the cameras, that one month
after September 11th, 2001 a general from the Pentagon showed him a memo from neoconservative strategists
"that describes how we're gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then
Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran".
Is it just a coincidence that the "seven nations" doomed to be destroyed by Israel form part of
the biblical myths? [W]hen Yahweh will deliver Israel "seven nations greater and mightier than yourself
[ ] you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them."
My summary:
We have a group that wishes greatly expanded power (to rule the world??)
Among them are brilliant strategists
They operate unrestrained by the most basic moral principles upon which civilization is
founded. They are undisturbed by compassion for the suffering of others.
They use consciously and skillfully use deception and "myth-making" to shape policy
This is not a spiritual movement in any sense
They are utilizing religious myths and language to influence public thinking
They envision "winning" in the aftermath world war.
They have infiltrated the highest levels of banking, US military, NATO and US government.
Nothing changed in almost five years. The situation actually became worse as Democratic Party became the second War Party.
Notable quotes:
"... Interventionists in Congress have no problem if a president starts wars on his own, because he is pursuing the policy they would have voted for anyway if they were bothered to vote on such things. They are ..."
"... Other members of Congress have no strong ideological motivation for this behavior, but simply want to be able to grandstand on major issues without suffering serious political consequences. They are glad to avoid having to vote one way or another on a war, since that potentially could come back to haunt them if the war drags on, if it fails, or if many Americans are killed. It's safer and easier for them to cheer on a president's illegal war when it's popular and then start griping about it when it goes badly ..."
Paul Pillar
remarks on Congress' screwed-up priorities regarding its role in foreign policy
decisions:
The role that the U.S. Congress has assumed for itself as a player in foreign policy
exhibits an odd and indefensible pattern these days. Senator Chris Murphy calls it a "double
standard," although that might be too mild a term. On one hand there are vigorous efforts to
insert Congress into the negotiation of an agreement on Iran's nuclear program. The efforts
extend even to attempts to interfere in the details of what is being negotiated, as reflected
in a string of amendments being considered in debate in the Senate this week on a bill laying
out a procedure for Congress to pass a quick judgment on the agreement. On the other hand
there is inaction, with little or no prospect of any action, on an authorization for the use
of military force against the so-called Islamic State.
Pillar is right that this is just the opposite of what Congress should be doing. If there is
a time when Congress ought to be deferring to the executive on foreign policy, it is when the
U.S. is involved in negotiations with other governments. The same people that claim to be
horrified by the idea of "535 commanders-in-chief" believe that they must sound off early and
often on every detail of a complex negotiated settlement. War can be left to the discretion of
the president and his officials, but not diplomacy. The same members that can't be bothered to
assume their proper constitutional responsibilities and happily yield to one illegal
presidential war after another cannot wait to meddle in a diplomatic process that, if
successful, will make a future conflict less likely.
Interventionists in Congress have no problem if a president starts wars on his own, because
he is pursuing the policy they would have voted for anyway if they were bothered to vote on
such things. They are alarmed by negotiations that could make it more difficult for a
future president to attack the regime involved in the talks. These hawks have excessive
confidence that military action can "solve" problems overseas, and so they don't to impose
limits on what the U.S. does in its foreign wars. They tend to see diplomacy as nothing but
appeasement and therefore something that should be undermined, second-guessed, and sabotaged as
much as possible.
Other members of Congress have no strong ideological motivation for this behavior, but
simply want to be able to grandstand on major issues without suffering serious political
consequences. They are glad to avoid having to vote one way or another on a war, since that
potentially could come back to haunt them if the war drags on, if it fails, or if many
Americans are killed. It's safer and easier for them to cheer on a president's illegal war when
it's popular and then start griping about it when it goes badly, and because they never cast a
vote one for or against the war they can have it both ways. If Congressional meddling succeeds
in damaging negotiations, any later costs to the U.S. from that missed opportunity won't be
linked back to the meddling members of Congress.
If the meddling doesn't work as intended, most
people will quickly forget it. In the meantime, the meddlers will get credit for "standing up"
against appeasement or whatever nonsensical description they choose to use.
Unfortunately,
there is normally no political cost for members of Congress that want to use diplomacy with an
unpopular government as an excuse to demagogue and look "tough" to the voters back home. That
is why many of them will try to interfere with U.S. diplomacy while giving the president free
rein to wage illegal wars for as long as he wants.
After reading Josh Marshall/David Frum debate on the nuclear deal yesterday, I found one of
the most effective Frum's arguments was liberals are claiming it is 2002 Iraq/n again. (Fair
argument considering Chait's great note on the 61 times Kristol uses
Churchill/Chamberlain/Hitler references.) Trying to avoid historical analogies, I am still
looking for actual evidence that Iran is building the bomb. The conservative argument still
rest on Iran still wants the bomb and the deal can't absolutely stop them.
Any thoughts on Stewart on Judith Miller interview on why the press accepted the
government's point that Iraq was building the bomb. Living through 2002, I was against the
Iraq War because I did not find the Bush administration WMD argument convincing enough and
felt it was a lot of heresy evidence. And i am seeing a similar argument with Iran.
This is from 1999 and in 2018 we see that Mills was right.
Notable quotes:
"... Personnel were constantly shifting back and forth from the corporate world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological innovations sponsored by the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. ..."
"... the military had become an active political force. Members of Congress, once hostile to the military, now treated officers with great deference. And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers, and appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military. ..."
"... Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism which had once characterized public opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are attempting to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." ..."
"... In this state of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement, precisely what the military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed permanent, then The Power Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical, and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States. ..."
"... The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a dramatic decrease in that proportion of the American economy devoted to defense. ..."
"... Mills's prediction that both the economy and the political system of the United States would come to be ever more dominated by the military ..."
"... Business firms, still the most powerful force in American life, are increasingly global in nature, more interested in protecting their profits wherever they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority of their employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice between invading another country and investing in its industries and they will nearly always choose the latter over the former. ..."
"... Mills believed that in the 1950s, for the first time in American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. ..."
One of the crucial arguments Mills made in The Power Elite was that the emergence of
the Cold War completely transformed the American public's historic opposition to a permanent
military establishment in the United States. In deed, he stressed that America's military elite
was now linked to its economic and political elite. Personnel were constantly shifting back and
forth from the corporate world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had
become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological innovations sponsored by
the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. And while all these links between the
economy and the military were being forged, the military had become an active political force.
Members of Congress, once hostile to the military, now treated officers with great deference.
And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers, and
appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military.
Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life
constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism which had once characterized public
opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are
attempting to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." Their goal was
nothing less than a redefinition of reality -- one in which the American people would come to
accept what Mills called "an emergency without a foreseeable end." "
War or a high state of war
preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States,"
Mills wrote. In this state of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a
genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement, precisely what the
military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed
permanent, then The Power Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical,
and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States.
Much as Mills wrote, it remains true today that Congress is extremely friendly to the
military, at least in part because the military has become so powerful in the districts of most
congressmen. Military bases are an important source of jobs for many Americans, and government
spending on the military is crucial to companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which
manufacture military equipment. American firms are the leaders in the world's global arms
market, manufacturing and exporting weapons everywhere. Some weapons systems never seem to die,
even if, as was the case with a "Star Wars" system designed to destroy incoming missiles, there
is no demonstrable military need for them.
Yet despite these similarities with the 1950s, both the world and the role that America
plays in that world have changed. For one thing, the United States has been unable to muster
its forces for any sustained use in any foreign conflict since Vietnam. Worried about the
possibility of a public backlash against the loss of American lives, American presidents either
refrain from pursuing military adventures abroad or confine them to rapid strikes, along the
lines pursued by Presidents Bush and Clinton in Iraq. Since 1989, moreover, the collapse of
communism in Russia and Eastern Europe has undermined the capacity of America's elites to
mobilize support for military expenditures. China, which at the time Mills wrote was considered a serious threat, is now viewed by American businessmen as a source of great potential
investment. Domestic political support for a large and permanent military establishment in the
United States, in short, can no longer be taken for granted.
The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a
dramatic decrease in that proportion of the American economy devoted to defense. At the time
Mills wrote, defense expenditures constituted roughly 60 percent of all federal outlays and
consumed nearly 10 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product. By the late 1990s, those
proportions had fallen to 17 percent of federal outlays and 3.5 percent of GDP. Nearly three
million Americans served in the armed forces when The Power Elite appeared, but that
number had dropped by half at century's end. By almost any account, Mills's prediction that
both the economy and the political system of the United States would come to be ever more
dominated by the military is not borne out by historical developments since his time.
And how could he have been right? Business firms, still the most powerful force in American
life, are increasingly global in nature, more interested in protecting their profits wherever
they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority of their
employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice
between invading another country and investing in its industries and they will nearly always
choose the latter over the former.
Mills believed that in the 1950s, for the first time in
American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. Now
it would be more correct to say that America's economic elite finds more in common with
economic elites in other countries than it does with the military elite of its own....
Skripal events probably helped to advance this line of investigation. So in a way UK intelligence services put their own
stooge on the line of fire.
Notable quotes:
"... Russian prosecutors on Monday claimed that Magnitsky and several other people familiar with Browder's illicit activities in Russia may have been killed on his order. They said a new criminal case has been opened against Browder in Russia, and that Moscow will seek his extradition as an alleged ringleader of an international criminal enterprise involved in money laundering ..."
"... The prosecutors identified four people who were suspects in the Browder case, all of whom died over the course of less than two years as the investigation against him unfolded. Oktay Gasanov was the first of the four, dying in October 2007; while Magnitsky's death in November 2009 was the last. By the time of his death, Magnitsky had spent almost a year in pre-trial detention. The two others were Valery Kurochkin and Sergey Korobeinikov, who died in April 2008 and September 2008, respectively. ..."
"... Considering that the three individuals, with the exception of Magnitsky, died within months of each other while being investigated as part of Browder's case, "it is highly likely that they were killed to get rid of accomplices who could give an incriminating testimony against Browder," a senior official with the Russian General Prosecutor's office told journalists. The same may be true for Magnitsky, he said. The prosecutor stressed that Russia didn't conduct detailed studies into how the suspected poison affects living organisms, but several research institutions based in the US, France and Italy did. ..."
"... The prosecutors claim that Browder was the party who benefited most from the death of Magnitsky. They cited journalist Oleg Lurie, who shared a prison cell with Magnitsky before the latter's death. Speaking under oath during a court hearing in New York, Lurie said that his cellmate had complained to him that Browder's lawyers were pressuring him into signing a false statement. Magnitsky's testimony claimed that he had uncovered a conspiracy to embezzle taxpayers' money involving Russian officials. ..."
"... The Russian prosecutors said Browder allegedly wanted to silence his employee after obtaining the false claim. The statement itself was used to blame Russian officials for Magnitsky's death and accuse the Russian government of a cover-up. ..."
"... Described by critics as a 'vulture capitalist,' Browder seemed quite comfortable earning millions of dollars in the financial wild west. In 2005, as fallen oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was standing trial for tax evasion, Browder scolded him on the BBC for using personal wealth to grasp at political power, and for leaving "in his wake aggrieved investors too numerous to count." He was also a staunch public supporter of the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... The investor then reinvented himself as an anti-Putin figure, using the death of Magnitsky to lobby various countries to impose sanctions on the Russian officials he blamed for his employee's death. The US Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012, allowing people accused by Washington of human rights violations to be targeted. However, it is perceived by the Kremlin as just a tool to restrain Russia for the sake of global political and economic competition. ..."
"... Among Browder's latest exploits is playing a role in the 'Russiagate' story. A key part of the elusive search for collusion between US President Donald Trump and the Russian government is a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. The meeting was apparently organized with a view to lobbying for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Its architect, Browder, has therefore been eager to lend his expertise on 'Russian machinations' to US lawmakers and media outlets. ..."
"... If you like this story, share it with a friend! ..."
Kremlin
critic Bill Browder may have given the order for his employee Sergei Magnitsky to be poisoned
with a rare toxin in a Russian prison cell, along with other suspects in a tax-evasion probe
against him, prosecutors have said. British financier Browder was once a well-connected
investor in post-Soviet Russia, but he became a fugitive from the law in the country after
being accused of financial crimes. In the West, however, he is best known as the employer of
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian accountant who died in police custody while being investigated in
connection to the Browder case. Magnitsky's death became an international scandal, with Browder
accusing Russian officials of killing him.
Russian prosecutors on Monday claimed that Magnitsky and several other people familiar with
Browder's illicit activities in Russia may have been killed on his order. They said a new
criminal case has been opened against Browder in Russia, and that Moscow will seek his
extradition as an alleged ringleader of an international criminal enterprise involved in money
laundering.
The prosecutors identified four people who were suspects in the Browder case, all of whom
died over the course of less than two years as the investigation against him unfolded. Oktay
Gasanov was the first of the four, dying in October 2007; while Magnitsky's death in November
2009 was the last. By the time of his death, Magnitsky had spent almost a year in pre-trial
detention. The two others were Valery Kurochkin and Sergey Korobeinikov, who died in April 2008
and September 2008, respectively.
Korobeinikov died after falling off a high-rise building, while the others had health
complications. The Russian prosecutors believe all four of them may have been killed with a
rare water-soluble compound of aluminum. Each of the men showed symptoms consistent with being
poisoned by the toxin prior to their deaths, while Korobeinikov had traces of it in his liver,
according to a post mortem. An investigation into four possible murders has been
opened.
Considering that the three individuals, with the exception of Magnitsky, died within
months of each other while being investigated as part of Browder's case, "it is highly likely
that they were killed to get rid of accomplices who could give an incriminating testimony
against Browder," a senior official with the Russian General Prosecutor's office told
journalists. The same may be true for Magnitsky, he said. The prosecutor stressed that Russia
didn't conduct detailed studies into how the suspected poison affects living organisms, but
several research institutions based in the US, France and Italy did.
The prosecutors claim that Browder was the party who benefited most from the death of
Magnitsky. They cited journalist Oleg Lurie, who shared a prison cell with Magnitsky before the
latter's death. Speaking under oath during a court hearing in New York, Lurie said that his
cellmate had complained to him that Browder's lawyers were pressuring him into signing a false
statement. Magnitsky's testimony claimed that he had uncovered a conspiracy to embezzle
taxpayers' money involving Russian officials.
The Russian prosecutors said Browder allegedly wanted to silence his employee after
obtaining the false claim. The statement itself was used to blame Russian officials for
Magnitsky's death and accuse the Russian government of a cover-up.
Last year, Browder was sentenced by a Russian court to nine years in prison for tax evasion.
The trial was held in absentia and Moscow failed to have him extradited to serve the term. The
prosecutors said that they will renew attempts to get custody of Browder as part of the new
criminal case, using a UN convention on fighting transnational crime to have him arrested.
Browder is a US-born British financier, whose change of citizenship had the benefit of
allowing him to avoid paying tax on foreign earnings. However, he claimed the switch was
prompted by his family being persecuted in the US during the McCarthyism witch hunt, while the
UK seemed like the land of law and order.
He made a fortune in Russia during the country's chaotic transition to a market economy,
having invested before there was a stock exchange in Moscow. His Hermitage Capital Management
fund was a leading foreign investment entity in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Described by critics as a 'vulture capitalist,' Browder seemed quite comfortable earning
millions of dollars in the financial wild west. In 2005, as fallen oil tycoon Mikhail
Khodorkovsky was standing trial for tax evasion, Browder scolded him on the BBC for using personal
wealth to grasp at political power, and for leaving "in his wake aggrieved investors too
numerous to count." He was also a staunch public supporter of the policies of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
The transformation of his public image from a financial shark into a human rights crusader
started when Browder himself entered the spotlight of Russian law enforcement. In 2007, the
foundation he ran was targeted by a probe into possible large-scale embezzlement of Russian
taxpayers' money. Magnitsky, who worked for Browder and had knowledge of his firms' finances,
was arrested and held in pre-trial detention until his death in November 2009. The British
businessman insisted that the entire case was fabricated and that Magnitsky had been
assassinated for exposing a criminal scheme involving several Russian tax officials.
The investor then reinvented himself as an anti-Putin figure, using the death of
Magnitsky to lobby various countries to impose sanctions on the Russian officials he blamed for
his employee's death. The US Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012, allowing people accused by
Washington of human rights violations to be targeted. However, it is perceived by the Kremlin
as just a tool to restrain Russia for the sake of global political and economic
competition.
Browder's new-found status as a rights advocate and self-proclaimed worst enemy of Putin
helps him deflect Russia's attempts to prosecute him. On several occasions, Russia filed
international arrest warrants against him with Interpol, which even led to his brief detention
in Spain last May.
Among Browder's latest exploits is playing a role in the 'Russiagate' story. A key part
of the elusive search for collusion between US President Donald Trump and the Russian
government is a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. The meeting was
apparently organized with a view to lobbying for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Its
architect, Browder, has therefore been eager to lend his expertise on 'Russian machinations' to
US lawmakers and media outlets.
"... Trump's memo on the Saudis begins with the headline "The world is a very dangerous place!" Indeed, it is and behavior by the three occupants of the White House since 2000 is largely to blame. ..."
"... Indeed, a national security policy that sees competitors and adversaries as enemies in a military sense has made nuclear war, unthinkable since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, thinkable once again. ..."
"... George Washington's dictum in his Farewell Address , counseling his countrymen to "observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all." And Washington might have somehow foreseen the poisonous relationships with Israel and the Saudis when he warned that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ..."
"... Cautious optimism may be better than none, but futile nonetheless. Bullying, dispossession, slavery and genocide constitute the very bedrock, the essence and soul of the founding of our country. ..."
"... Truth be told we simply know of no other kinder, gentler alternatives to perpetual war and destruction as the cornerstone of our foreign policy. Normality? Not in my lifetime. ..."
"... Your CNI and 'If Americans Knew' informed me about Rand Paul's courageous move. I plan to call his office today to give him encouragement and call my Senators and Representative to urge them to support him (fat chance of that but I have to stick it in their face). ..."
"... America doesn't have a policy because America is no longer a real nation. It's an empire filled with diverse groups of peoples who all hate each other and want to use the power of the government for the benefit of their overseas co-ethnics. ..."
President Donald Trump's
recent statement on the Jamal Khashoggi killing by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince might well be considered a metaphor for his foreign
policy. Several commentators have suggested that the text appears to be something that Trump wrote himself without any adult supervision,
similar to the poorly expressed random arguments presented in his tweeting only longer. That might be the case, but it would not
be wise to dismiss the document as merely frivolous or misguided as it does in reality express the kind of thinking that has produced
a foreign policy that seems to drift randomly to no real end, a kind of leaderless creative destruction of the United States as a
world power.
Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of Britain in the mid nineteenth century, famously said that "Nations have no permanent friends
or allies, they only have permanent interests."The United States currently has neither real friends nor any clearly defined interests.
It is, however, infested with parasites that have convinced an at-drift America that their causes are identical to the interests
of the United States. Leading the charge to reduce the U.S. to "bitch" status, as Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
has artfully put it , are Israel and Saudi
Arabia, but there are many other countries, alliances and advocacy groups that have learned how to subvert and direct the "leader
of the free world."
Trump's memo on the Saudis begins with the headline "The world is a very dangerous place!" Indeed, it is and behavior by the
three occupants of the White House since 2000 is largely to blame. It is difficult to find a part of the world where an actual
American interest is being served by Washington's foreign and global security policies. Indeed, a national security policy that
sees competitors and adversaries as enemies in a military sense has made nuclear war, unthinkable since the demise of the Soviet
Union in 1991, thinkable once again. The fact that no one is the media or in political circles is even talking about that terrible
danger suggests that war has again become mainstreamed, tacitly benefiting from bipartisan acceptance of it as a viable foreign policy
tool by the media, in the U.S. Congress and also in the White House.
The part of the world where American meddling coupled with ignorance has produced the worst result is inevitably the Middle East...
... ... ...
All of the White House's actions have one thing in common and that is that they do not benefit Americans in any way unless one
works for a weapons manufacturer, and that is not even taking into consideration the dead soldiers and civilians and the massive
debt that has been incurred to intervene all over the world. One might also add that most of America's interventions are built on
deliberate lies by the government and its associated media, intended to increase tension and create a casus belli where
none exists.
So what is to be done as it often seems that the best thing Trump has going for him is that he is not Hillary Clinton? First of
all, a comprehensive rethink of what the real interests of the United States are in the world arena is past due. America is less
safe now than it was in 2001 as it continues to make enemies with its blundering everywhere it goes. There are now
four times as many designated terrorists as there were in 2001, active in 70 countries. One would quite plausibly soon arrive
at George Washington's dictum in his Farewell Address
, counseling his countrymen to "observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all." And Washington
might have somehow foreseen the poisonous relationships with Israel and the Saudis when he warned that " a passionate attachment
of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary
common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former
into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
George Washington or any of the other Founders would be appalled to see an America with 800 military bases overseas, allegedly
for self-defense. The transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the military industrial complex and related entities like Wall Street
has been catastrophic. The United States does not need to protect Israel and Saudi Arabia, two countries that are armed to the teeth
and well able to defend themselves. Nor does it have to be in Syria and Afghanistan. And
If the United States were to withdraw its military from the Middle East and the rest of Asia tomorrow, it would be to nearly everyone's
benefit. If the armed forces were to be subsequently reduced to a level sufficient to defend the United States it would put money
back in the pockets of Americans and end the continuous fearmongering through surfacing of "threats" by career militarists justifying
the bloated budgets.
... ... ...
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational
foundation that seeks a more interests [email protected]
.
but even small steps in the right direction could initiate a gradual process of turning the United States into a more normal
country in its relationships with the rest of the world rather than a universal predator and bully.
Cautious optimism may be better than none, but futile nonetheless. Bullying, dispossession, slavery and genocide constitute
the very bedrock, the essence and soul of the founding of our country.
To expect mutations -- no matter how slow or fast in a
trait that appears deeply embedded in our DNA is to be naive. Add to that the intractable stranglehold Zionists and organized
world Jewry has on our nuts and decision making. A more congruent convergence of histories and DNAs would be hard to come by among
other nations. Truth be told we simply know of no other kinder, gentler alternatives to perpetual war and destruction as the cornerstone
of our foreign policy. Normality? Not in my lifetime.
Your CNI and 'If Americans Knew' informed me about Rand Paul's courageous move. I plan to call his office today to give
him encouragement and call my Senators and Representative to urge them to support him (fat chance of that but I have to stick
it in their face).
Hey, how about a Rand Paul-Tulsi Gabbard fusion ticket in 2024, not a bad idea, IMHO.
Going back to the Administration you can see the slimy Zionist hands of Steven Miller on all of those foreign policy statements.
Trump is allowing this because he has to protect his flanks from Zionists, Christian or otherwise. He might be just giving Miller
just enough rope to jettison him (wishful thinking on my part). Or he doesn't care or is unaware of the texts, a possibility.
1. Because that defies human nature. See all of history if you disagree.
2. America doesn't have a policy because America is no longer a real nation. It's an empire filled with diverse groups of peoples
who all hate each other and want to use the power of the government for the benefit of their overseas co-ethnics.
The beginning of USA foreign policy for me is the 1820 or 1830 Monroe Declaration: south America is our backyard, keep out.
Few people know that at the time European countries considered war on the USA because of this beginning of world domination.
When I told this to a USA correspondent the reply was 'but this declaration still is taught here in glowing terms'.
What we saw then was the case until Obama, USA foreign policy was for internal political reasons.
As Hollings stated in 2004 'Bush promising AIPAC the war on Iraq, that is politics'.
No empire ever, as far as I know, ever was in the comfortable position to be able to let foreign policy to be decided (almost)
completely by internal politics.
This changed during the Obama reign, the two war standard had to be lowered to one and a half.
All of a sudden the USA had to develop a foreign policy, a policy that had to take into consideration the world outside the USA.
Not the whole USA understands this, the die hards of Deep State in the lead.
What a half war accomplishes we see, my opinion, in Syria, a half war does not bring victory on an enemy who wages a whole
war.
Assad is still there, Russia has airforce and naval bases in Syria.
Normally, as any history book explains, foreign policy of a country is decided on in secret by a few people.
British preparations for both WWI and WWII included detailed technical talks with both the USA and France, not even all cabinet
members knew about it.
One of Trump's difficulties is that Deep State does not at all has the intention of letting the president decide on foreign policy,
at the time of FDR he did what he liked, though, if one reads for example Baruch's memoirs, in close cooperation with the Deep
State that then existed.
The question 'why do we not leave the rest of the world alone', hardly ever asked.
The USA is nearly autarcic, foreign trade, from memory, some five percent of national income, a very luxurious position.
But of course, leaving the rest of the world alone, huge internal consequences, as Hinckley explains with an example, politically
impossible to stop the development of a bomber judged to be superfluous.
Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990
Good luck. A fight over resources with the biggest consumer of resources, the People That Kill People and all their little buddies
in the Alphabet Soup of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Depravity..
That could get a fella hurt. Ask Jack and Bob Kennedy.
"The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Russia is now worse than it was towards the end of the Cold War". Classic American
cold warrior mentality. The present-day Russian Federation is assimilated to the former Soviet Union.
Tragically for America, and the West in general, President Trump is unrecognizable from
candidate Trump :
'This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over
our government. The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals,
massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry Their financial resources are virtually
unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched, and most importantly, the depths of their
immorality is absolutely unlimited.'
"... Operating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway, Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region ..."
"... The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government agencies." ..."
The hacking collective known as "Anonymous" published a
trove of documents on November 5 which it claims exposes a UK-based psyop to create a " large-scale information secret service
" in Europe in order to combat "Russian propaganda" - which has been blamed for everything from
Brexit to US President Trump winning the 2016 US election.
The primary objective of the " Integrity Initiative " - established
in 2015 by the Institute for Statecraft - is "to provide a coordinated
Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare."
And while the notion of Russian disinformation has become the West's favorite new bogeyman to excuse things such as Hillary Clinton's
historic loss to Donald Trump, we note that "Anonymous" was called out by WikiLeaks in October 2016 as an FBI cutout, while the report
on the Integrity Initiative that Anonymous exposed comes from Russian state-owned network
RT - so it's anyone's guess whose 400lb
hackers are at work here.
Operating on a budget
of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists,
military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference
in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.
The UK establishment appears to be conducting the very activities of which it and its allies have long-accused the Kremlin,
with little or no corroborating evidence. The program also aims to "change attitudes in Russia itself" as well as influencing
Russian speakers in the EU and North America, one of the leaked
documents states. -
RT
The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway,
Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its
sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region .
The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts
embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government
agencies."
The initiative has received £168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and £250,000 from the
US State Department , the
documents allege.
Some of its purported members include British MPs and high-profile " independent" journalists with a penchant for anti-Russian
sentiment in their collective online oeuvre, as showcased by a brief glance at their Twitter feeds. -
RT
Noted examples of "inedependent" anti-Russia journalists:
Spanish "Op"
In one example of the group's activities, a "Moncloa Campaign" was successfully conducted by the group's Spanish cluster to block
the appointment of Colonel Pedro Banos as the director of Spain's Department of Homeland Security. It took just seven-and-a-half
hours to accomplish, brags the group in the
documents .
"The [Spanish] government is preparing to appoint Colonel Banos, known for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin positions in the Syrian
and Ukrainian conflicts, as Director of the Department of Homeland Security, a key body located at the Moncloa," begins Nacho Torreblanca
in a seven-part tweetstorm describing what happened.
Others joined in. Among them – according to the leaks – academic Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, who wrote that "Mr. Banos is to
geopolitics as a homeopath is to medicine." Appointing such a figure would be "a shame." -
RT
The operation was reported in Spanish media, while Banos was labeled "pro-Putin" by UK MP Bob Seely.
In short, expect anything counter to predominant "open-border" narratives to be the Kremlin's fault - and not a natural populist
reflex to the destruction of borders, language and culture.
"... It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" ..."
"... "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016." ..."
"... "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..." ..."
"... this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war ..."
"... Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK. ..."
"... The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth ..."
"... British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me ..."
"... It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations ..."
"... A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants? ..."
"... I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins. ..."
"... The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval. ..."
"... Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda ..."
"... This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap. ..."
"... Pat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification ..."
"... It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling ..."
"... As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love? ..."
"... They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites. ..."
"... The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation. ..."
"... Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power. ..."
"... Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government. ..."
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear CampaignsSteveg , Nov 24,
2018 11:43:44 AM |
link
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen
many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who
does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign
against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but
seems to be part of a different project.
The ' Integrity
Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military
personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via
social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of
Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster
determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media
smear
campaign (pdf) against him.
The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its
documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and
posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .
The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in
cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of
politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed
by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North
America.
It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and
promises that:
Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical
competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster
community. [...] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed,
Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster
participants as you desire).
The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is 'Defending Democracy Against Disinformation'. It
covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the
Middle East.
On its About page
it claims: "We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and
agencies who share our aims." The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the
Initiative's funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State
Department. All the 'contact persons' for creating 'clusters' in foreign countries are
British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British
government that hides behind a 'civil society' NGO.
The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who
receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.
To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by: expanding the
knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of
experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and
to help build national capacities to counter it .
The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a "we are the good ones"
illusion. When "we" 'educate the public' it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it
its disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative's existence itself,
created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.
If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from
behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It's
applications seek funding from a larger "Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme"
run by the Foreign Office.
The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received
£102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19
budget application shows a
planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO
and the Lithuanian MoD, but
also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with
£100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each
country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.
One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled
Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):
Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a
range of countries with different circumstances
Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big
picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack
by Russia
Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of
the "golden minute"
Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:
- Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact
on policy and society: ( Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV )
Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a
self-contradicting concept.
Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:
We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal
contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to
try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;
- Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor's Office and MOD
- Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD
- Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps
- Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM's office (NB this may change very soon
with the new Government)
- Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD
- HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen's office.
We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the
clusters develop.
A look at the 'clusters' set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.
Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to
censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also
includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council
shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person
of interest is Andrew Wood who
handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over
alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah
Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus
of the BBC.
A ' Cluster
Roundup ' (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another
file reveals (pdf) the local
partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.
The Initiatives Guide
to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of
flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the
Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation". But at least two of these events,
Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of
British intelligence disinformation operations.
The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the 'Project Plan' laid out at
pages 7-40 of the
2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under 'Sustainability' it notes:
The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters
established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and
demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be
expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have
begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some
countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source
of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the
same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from
institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal
disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been
resolved and funding should now flow.
The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society
(think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is
proving to be mutually reinforcing . Creating the network of networks has given each
national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international
access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the
need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and
in various forms.
The
third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and
outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes 'Risks' to the initiative. These
include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:
Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by
political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting
the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.
We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.
Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM |
Permalink
"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to
prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election
meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil
throughout 2016."
"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that
Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In
Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling
custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele
dossier..."
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and
propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex
corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the
voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war.. i guess the idea is to get the
ordinary people to think in terms of hating another country based on lies and that this would
be a good thing... it is very sad what uk / usa leadership in the past century has come down
to here.... i can only hope that info releases like this will hasten it's demise...
Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of
illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a
financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same
laws as the rest of the UK.
The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to
me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth
@6 ingrian... things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of Russia after the fall of
the Soviet Union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit Russia
fully, as they'd intended...
Let the Doxx wars begin! Sure, Anonymous is not Russian but it will surely now be targeted
and smeared as such which would show that it has hit a nerve. British hypocrisy publicly
called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me.
I think we've all noticed the euro-asslantic press (and friends) on behalf of, willingly
and in cooperation with the British intelligence et al 'calling out' numerous Russians as
G(R)U/spies/whatever for a while now yet providing less than a shred of credible
evidence.
It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The
interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint
does not bode well for such relations.
Meanwhile in Brussels they are having their cake and eating it, i.e. bemoaning Europe's
'weak response' to Russian propaganda:
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of
the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you
have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?
Yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be
black at all; it's just the pot making up things. "These Russian criminals are using
propaganda to show (truths) like the fact the DNC and Clinton campaigns colluded to prevent
Sanders from being nominated, so we need to establish a clandestine propaganda network to
establish that the Russians are running propaganda!"
"In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream."
I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit
and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been
launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins.
The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's
explicit approval.
Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed
by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to
have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are
not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own
party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda
BUT...the author assures us that the "deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding
should now flow" Huh?? In other words, the fix is in. Mueller will pardon Trump on collusion charges but the
propaganda campaign against Russia will continue...with the full support of both parties. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it...
This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been
about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had
plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap.
A lot of
sour grapes with this so-called 'integrity initiative', IMO. BP was behind a lot of this, I
would also think. When Assad pulled the plug on the pipeline through the Levant in 2009, the
Brits hacked up a fur ball. It's gone downhill for them ever since. Couldn't happen to a
nicer lot. If you can't invade or beat them with proxies, you can at least call them names.
If Trump was taking dirty money or engaged in criminal activity with Russians then he
was doing it with Felix Sater, who was under the control of the FBI... And who was in
charge of the FBI during all of the time that Sater was a signed up FBI snitch? You got it
-- Robert Mueller (2001 thru 2013) ...
It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6
meddling, including:
Steele dossier: To create suspicion in government, media, and later the public
Leaking of DNC emails to Wikileaks (but calling it a "hack"):
To help with election of Trump and link Wikileaks (as agent) to Russian election
meddling
Cambridge Analytica: To provide necessary reasoning for Trump's (certain) win of the electoral college.
Note: We later found that dozens of firms had undue access to Facebook data. Why did the
campaign turn to a British firm instead of an American firm? Well, it had to be a British
firm if MI6 was running the (supposed) Facebook targeting for CIA.
As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The
election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was
the best candidate for the job.
The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love?
"things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the soviet
union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia fully, as
they'd intended..."
They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent
Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course
the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass
psychological pathology among the elites.
The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist
"order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US
and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation.
Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it
all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is
Strength." The three pillars of political power.
Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his
pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always
been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so
called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK
government...and in this context, new empowerished sovereign governemts into the EU should
consider the possibility expelling these traitors as spies of the UK....
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:
Germany: Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland
Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian
Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
Sweden, Norway, Finland: Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre
Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus
Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
Netherlands: Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan,
Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
Spain: Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri
Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio
Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis
Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi,
Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
US, Canada:
Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler
Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado,
Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland
Todd Leventhal
UK: Chris Donnelly
Amalyah Hart William Browder John Ardis
Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham Deborah Haynes
Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon Mungo Melvin
Rob Dover Julian Moore Agnes Josa David Aaronovitch Stephen Dalziel Raheem Shapi Ben
Nimmo
Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy
Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall
Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede Alan Riley [email protected]Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson
Primavera Quantrill
Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick
Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant
Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell
Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier
Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew
Foxall Alex Finnen
Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov
Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw
Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey
Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French
Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman
James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles
Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider
Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood
Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell
Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz
Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw
Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros
Papaioannou
Paddy Nicoll
"... When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also. ..."
"... Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. ..."
"... This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the WEST? This is nuts. ..."
One of the documents lists a series of propaganda weapons to be used against Russia. One is
use of the church as a weapon. That has already been started in Ukraine with Poroshenko
buying off regligious leader to split Ukraine Orthodoxy from Russian Orthodoxy. It also
explicitly states that the Skripal incident is a 'Dirty Trick' against Russia.
The British political system is on the verge of collapse. BREXIT has finally demonstrated
that the Government/ Opposition parties are clearly aligned against the interests of the
people. The EU is nothing more than an arm of the Globalist agenda of world domination.
The US has shown its true colours - sanctioning every country that stands for independent
sovereignty is not a good foreign policy, and is destined to turn the tide of public opinion
firmly against global hegemony, endless wars, and wealth inequity.
The old Empire is in its death throes. A new paradigm awaits which will exclude all those
who have exploited the many, in order to sit at the top of the pyramid. They cannot escape
Karma.
The Western world needs to come to terms with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its
aftermath. Today, Russia is led by Putin and he obviously has objectives as any national
leader has.
Western "leaders" need to decide whether Putin:
Is trying to create Soviet Union 2.0, to have a 2nd attempt at ruling the world thru
communism and to do this by holding the world to ransom over oil/gas supplies. OR
Is wanting Russia to become a member of the family of nations and of a multi-polar world to improve the lives of
Russian people, but is being blocked at every twist and turn by manufactured events like Russia-gate and the Skripal affair
and now this latest revelation of anti-Russian propaganda campaigns being coordinated and run out of London.
Both of the above cannot be true because there are too many contradictions. Which is it??
Yes because imagine that that we lived in 1940 without any means to inform ourselves and
that media was still in control over the information that reaches us. We would already be in
a fullblown war with Russia because of it but now with the Internet and information going
around freely only a whimpy 10% of we the people stand behind their desperately wanted war.
Imagine that, an informed sheople.
Can't have that, they cannot do their usual stuff anymore.... good riddance.
"250,000 from the US State
Department , the documents allege."....... Interesting.
"During the third
Democratic debate on Saturday night, Hillary Clinton called for a "Manhattan-like
project" to break encrypted terrorist communications. The project would "bring the government and the tech communities together" to find a way
to give law enforcement access to encrypted messages, she said. It's something that some
politicians and intelligence officials have wanted for awhile,"........
***wasn't the Manhatten project a secret venture?????? Hummmmm"
Hillary Clinton has all of our encryption keys, including the FBI's . "Encryption keys" is
a general reference to several encryption functions hijacked by Hillary and her surrogate
ENTRUST. They include hash functions (used to indicate whether the contents have been altered
in transit), PKI public/private key infrastructure, SSL (secure socket layer), TLS (transport
layer security), the Dual_EC_DRBG
NSA algorithm and certificate authorities.
The convoluted structure managed by the "Federal Common Policy" group has ceded to
companies like ENTRUST INC the ability to sublicense their authority to third parties who in
turn manage entire other networks in a Gordian knot of relationships clearly designed to fool
the public to hide their devilish criminality. All roads lead back to Hillary and the Rose
Law Firm."- patriots4truth
When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with
plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also.
FBI/Anonymous can use this story to support a narrative that social media bots posting
memes is a problem for everybody, and it's not a partisan issue. The idea is that fake news
and unrestricted social media are inherently dangerous, and both the West and Russia are
exploiting that, so governments need to agree to restrict the ability to use those platforms
for political speech, especially without using True Names.
Oilygawkies in the UK and USSA seem to be letting their spooks have a good-humored (rating
here on the absurd transparency of these ops) contest to see who can come up with the most
surreal propaganda psy-ops.
But they probably also serve as LHO distractions from something genuinely sleazy.
Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. Anything that is
remotely like Nationalism is the true enemy of these Globalist/Internationalists, which is
what the Top-Ape Bolshevik promoted: see Vladimir Lenin and his quotes on how he believed
fully in "internationalism" for a world without borders. Ironic how they Love the butchers of
the Soviet Union but hate Russia. It is ALL ABOUT IDEOLOGY to these people and "the means
justify the ends".
Basically, if one acquires factual information from an internet source, which leads to
overturning the propaganda to which we're all subjected, then it MUST have come from Putin.
This is the direction they're headed. Anyone speaking out against the official story is
obviously a Russian spy.
Better to call it the Anti-Integrity Initiative. UK cretins up to their usual dirty tricks - let them choke on their poison. The judgement of history will eventually catch up with them.
A good 'ole economic collapse will give western countries a chance to purge their crazy
leaders before they involve us all in a thermonuclear war. Short everything with your entire
accounts.
This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have
such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the
WEST? This is nuts.
Isn't it just as likely someone in the WEST planted this cache, intending Anonymous to
find it?
Any propaganda coming from the UK or US is strictly zionist. EVERYTHING they put out is to
the benefit of Israel and the "lobby". Russia isn't perfect, but if they're an enemy of the
latter, then they should NOT be considered a foe to all thinking and conscientious
people.
Yesterday, the BBC had a thing on Thai workers in Israel, and how they keep dying of
accidents, their general level of slavery etc. Very odd to have a negative Israel story, so I
wonder who upset whom, and what the ongoing status will be.
Thai labourers in Israel tell of harrowing conditions
A year-long BBC investigation has discovered widespread abuse of Thai nationals living
and working in Israel - under a scheme organized by the two governments.
Many are subjected to unsafe working practices and squalid, unsanitary living
conditions. Some are overworked, others underpaid and there are dozens of unexplained
deaths.
England and the U.S. don't like their very poor and rotten social conditions put out for
the public to see. Both countries have severely deteriorating problems on their streets
because of bankrupt governments printing money for foreign wars.
More of the same fraudulent duality while alleged so called but not money etc continues to
flow (everything is criminal) and the cesspool of a hierarchy pretends it's business as
usual.
This isn't about maintaining balance in a lie this is about disclosing the truth and
agendas (Agenda 21 now Agenda 2030 = The New Age Religion is Never Going To Be Saturnism).
The layers of the hierarchy are a lie so unless the alleged so called leaders of those layers
are publicly providing testimony and confession then everything that is being spoon fed to
the pablum puking public through all sources is a lie.
Operating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity
Initiative consists of "clusters" of (((local politicians, journalists, military personnel,
scientists and academics))).
The (((team))) is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian
interference in European affairs, while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes,
the documents claim.
How long jews can maintain their political power, not just in the USA, but in the whole
west, I have no idea, there is not much that points to an important change soon.
This, of course, is the $64,000 question. Rather than us Dumb Goyim speculating
about it, why not listen to what a political insider had to say about this issue back in
2001?
His name is Dr. Stephen Steinlight. And although Ron Unz has characterized him as "some
totally obscure Jewish activist" he was was for more than five years Director of National
Affairs (domestic policy) at the American Jewish Committee. If that doesn't qualify him
as an "insider," I don't know what does.
Excerpts from The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a
Misguided Immigration Policy :
Facing Up to the Gradual Demise of Jewish Political Power
Not that it is the case that our disproportionate political power (pound for pound the
greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America) will erode all at once, or even quickly.
We will be able to hang on to it for perhaps a decade or two longer. Unless and until
the triumph of campaign finance reform is complete , an extremely unlikely scenario,
the great material wealth of the Jewish community will continue to give it significant
advantages. We will continue to court and be courted by key figures in Congress. That power
is exerted within the political system from the local to national levels through soft
money, and especially the provision of out-of-state funds to candidates sympathetic to
Israel , a high wall of church/state separation, and social liberalism combined with
selective conservatism on criminal justice and welfare issues.
Jewish voter participation also remains legendary; it is among the highest in the
nation. Incredible as it sounds, in the recent presidential election more Jews voted in Los
Angeles than Latinos. But should the naturalization of resident aliens begin to move more
quickly in the next few years, a virtual certainty -- and it should -- then it is only a
matter of time before the electoral power of Latinos, as well as that of others, overwhelms
us.
All of this notwithstanding, in the short term, a number of factors will continue to
play into our hands, even amid the unprecedented wave of continuous immigration. The very
scale of the current immigration and its great diversity paradoxically constitutes at least
a temporary political asset. While we remain comparatively coherent as a voting bloc, the
new mostly non-European immigrants are fractured into a great many distinct, often
competing groups, many with no love for each other. This is also true of the many new
immigrants from rival sides in the ongoing Balkan wars, as it is for the growing south
Asian population from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. They have miles and miles to go
before they overcome historical hatreds, put aside current enmities and forgive recent
enormities, especially Pakistani brutality in the nascent Bangladesh. Queens is no
melting pot!
For perhaps another generation, an optimistic forecast, the Jewish community is thus in
a position where it will be able to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions
that support our agendas. But the day will surely come when an effective Asian-American
alliance will actually bring Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese,
and the rest closer together. And the enormously complex and as yet significantly divided
Latinos will also eventually achieve a more effective political federation. The fact is
that the term "Asian American" has only recently come into common parlance among younger
Asians (it is still rejected by older folks), while "Latinos" or "Hispanics" often do not
think of themselves as part of a multinational ethnic bloc but primarily as Mexicans,
Cubans, or Puerto Ricans.
Even with these caveats, an era of astoundingly disproportionate Jewish legislative
representation may already have peaked. It is unlikely we will ever see many more U.S.
Senates with 10 Jewish members. And although had Al Gore been allowed by the Supreme Court
to assume office, a Jew would have been one heartbeat away from the presidency, it may be
we'll never get that close again. With the changes in view, how long do we actually
believe that nearly 80 percent of the entire foreign aid budget of the United States will
go to Israel?
How long jews can maintain their political power, not just in the USA, but in the whole
west, I have no idea, there is not much that points to an important change soon.
This, of course, is the $64,000 question. Rather than us Dumb Goyim speculating
about it, why not listen to what a political insider had to say about this issue back in
2001?
His name is Dr. Stephen Steinlight. And although Ron Unz has characterized him as "some
totally obscure Zionist activist" he was was for more than five years Director of National
Affairs (domestic policy) at the American Zionist Committee. If that doesn't qualify him
as an "insider," I don't know what does.
Excerpts from The Zionist Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a
Misguided Immigration Policy :
Facing Up to the Gradual Demise of Zionist Political Power
Not that it is the case that our disproportionate political power (pound for pound the
greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America) will erode all at once, or even quickly.
We will be able to hang on to it for perhaps a decade or two longer. Unless and until
the triumph of campaign finance reform is complete , an extremely unlikely scenario,
the great material wealth of the Zionist community will continue to give it significant
advantages. We will continue to court and be courted by key figures in Congress. That power
is exerted within the political system from the local to national levels through soft
money, and especially the provision of out-of-state funds to candidates sympathetic to
Israel , a high wall of church/state separation, and social liberalism combined with
selective conservatism on criminal justice and welfare issues.
Zionist voter participation also remains legendary; it is among the highest in the
nation. Incredible as it sounds, in the recent presidential election more Jews voted in Los
Angeles than Latinos. But should the naturalization of resident aliens begin to move more
quickly in the next few years, a virtual certainty -- and it should -- then it is only a
matter of time before the electoral power of Latinos, as well as that of others, overwhelms
us.
All of this notwithstanding, in the short term, a number of factors will continue to
play into our hands, even amid the unprecedented wave of continuous immigration. The very
scale of the current immigration and its great diversity paradoxically constitutes at least
a temporary political asset. While we remain comparatively coherent as a voting bloc, the
new mostly non-European immigrants are fractured into a great many distinct, often
competing groups, many with no love for each other. This is also true of the many new
immigrants from rival sides in the ongoing Balkan wars, as it is for the growing south
Asian population from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. They have miles and miles to go
before they overcome historical hatreds, put aside current enmities and forgive recent
enormities, especially Pakistani brutality in the nascent Bangladesh. Queens is no
melting pot!
For perhaps another generation, an optimistic forecast, the Zionist community is thus in
a position where it will be able to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions
that support our agendas. But the day will surely come when an effective Asian-American
alliance will actually bring Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese,
and the rest closer together. And the enormously complex and as yet significantly divided
Latinos will also eventually achieve a more effective political federation. The fact is
that the term "Asian American" has only recently come into common parlance among younger
Asians (it is still rejected by older folks), while "Latinos" or "Hispanics" often do not
think of themselves as part of a multinational ethnic bloc but primarily as Mexicans,
Cubans, or Puerto Ricans.
Even with these caveats, an era of astoundingly disproportionate Zionist legislative
representation may already have peaked. It is unlikely we will ever see many more U.S.
Senates with 10 Zionist members. And although had Al Gore been allowed by the Supreme Court
to assume office, a Jew would have been one heartbeat away from the presidency, it may be
we'll never get that close again. With the changes in view, how long do we actually
believe that nearly 80 percent of the entire foreign aid budget of the United States will
go to Israel?
If Steinlight was obscure or not, I do not know.
What struck me in one of his articles is how he sees the holocaust story as essential to Zionist power in the USA.
Also in that article he wondered if at some point in time Jews might be driven out of the
USA, 'but, there is always the life boat Israel'.
That Israel will collapse the minute Zionist power in the USA [eventually] ends, he seems unable to see
this.
About your quote, it seems to have been written before it became clear to the world that
western power is diminishing.
So even if Zionist power over the West remains, Zionist power in the world is diminishing
too.
NATO, EU, Pentagon, neocons, whatever, may still want war with Russia, my idea is that on the other
hand that more and more people see this intention, and are absolutely against.
While western influence is receding, Assad still is there, Russia has bases in Syria, Erdogan, on what side is he ?; and so on and so forth.
The battle cry 'no more war for Israel' exists for a long time in the USA. And I interpret discussions on
this side of the Atlantic about increasing anti-Semitism as the acknowledgement of the fact that more and more people
on this side begin to criticize Zionists, especially with regard to Palestinians.
"... Veterans Day is not a holiday to honor the men and women who have dutifully protected their country. The youngest Americans who arguably defended their nation from a real threat to its shores are in their nineties, and soon there won't be any of them left. ..."
"... Every single person who has served in the US military since the end of the second World War has protected nothing other than the agendas of global hegemony, resource control and war profiteering. They have not been fighting and dying for freedom and democracy, they have been fighting and dying for imperialism, Raytheon profit margins, and crude oil. ..."
"... Veterans Day, like so very, very much in American culture, is a propaganda construct designed to lubricate the funneling of human lives into the chamber of a gigantic gun. It glorifies evil, stupid, meaningless acts of mass murder to ensure that there will always be recruits who are willing to continue perpetrating it, and to ensure that the US public doesn't wake up to the fact that its government's insanely bloated military budget is being used to unleash unspeakable horrors upon the earth. ..."
"... Your rulers have never feared the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the terrorists, the Iranians, the Chinese or the Russians. They fear you. They fear the American public suddenly waking up to the evil things that are being done in your name and using your vast numbers to shrug off the existing power structures without firing a shot, as easily as removing a heavy coat on a warm day. If enough of you loudly withdraw your consent for their insatiable warmongering, that fear will be enough to keep them in check. ..."
The US will be celebrating Veterans Day, and many a striped flag shall be waved. The social
currency of esteem will be used to elevate those who have served in the US military, thereby
ensuring future generations of recruits to be thrown into the gears of the globe-spanning war
machine
Veterans Day is not a holiday to honor the men and women who have dutifully protected their
country. The youngest Americans who arguably defended their nation from a real threat to its
shores are in their nineties, and soon there won't be any of them left.
Every single person who
has served in the US military since the end of the second World War has protected nothing other
than the agendas of global hegemony, resource control and war profiteering. They have not been
fighting and dying for freedom and democracy, they have been fighting and dying for
imperialism, Raytheon profit margins, and crude oil.
I just said something you're not supposed to say. People have dedicated many years of their
lives to the service of the US military; they've given their limbs to it, they've suffered
horrific brain damage for it, they've given their very lives to it. Families have been ripped
apart by the violence that has been inflicted upon members of the US Armed Forces; you're not
supposed to let them hear you say that their loved one was destroyed because some sociopathic
nerds somewhere in Washington decided that it would give America an advantage over potential
economic rivals to control a particular stretch of Middle Eastern dirt. But it is true, and if
we don't start acknowledging that truth lives are going to keep getting thrown into the gears
of the machine for the power and profit of a few depraved oligarchs. So I'm going to keep
saying it.
Last week I saw the hashtag #SaluteToService trending on Twitter. Apparently the NFL had a
deal going where every time someone tweeted that hashtag they'd throw a few bucks at some
veteran's charity. Which sounds sweet, until you consider three things:
2. The NFL has taken millions of
dollars from the Pentagon for displays of patriotism on the field, including for the
policy of bringing all players out for the national anthem every game starting in 2009 (which
led to Colin Kaepernick's demonstrations and the obscene backlash against him).
3. VETERANS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO RELY ON FUCKING CHARITY.
Seriously, how is "charity for veterans" a thing, and how are people not extremely weirded
out by it? How is it that you can go out and get your limbs blown off for slave wages after
watching your friends die and innocent civilians perish, come home, and have to rely on charity
to get by? How is it that you can risk life and limb killing and suffering irreparable
psychological trauma for some plutocrat's agendas, plunge into poverty when you come home, and
then see the same plutocrat labeled a "philanthropist" because he threw a few tax-deductible
dollars at a charity that gave you a decent prosthetic leg?
Taking care of veterans should be factored into the budget of every act of military
aggression . If a government can't make sure its veterans are housed, healthy and happy in a
dignified way for the rest of their lives, it has no business marching human beings into harm's
way. The fact that you see veterans on the street of any large US city and people who fought in
wars having to beg "charities" for a quality mechanical wheelchair shows you just how much of a
pathetic joke this Veterans Day song and dance has always been.
They'll send you to mainline violence and trauma into your mind and body for the power and
profit of the oligarchic rulers of the US-centralized empire, but it's okay because everyone
gets a long weekend where they're told to thank you for your service. Bullshit.
Veterans Day, like so very, very much in American culture, is a propaganda construct
designed to lubricate the funneling of human lives into the chamber of a gigantic gun. It
glorifies evil, stupid, meaningless acts of mass murder to ensure that there will always be
recruits who are willing to continue perpetrating it, and to ensure that the US public doesn't
wake up to the fact that its government's insanely bloated military budget is being used to
unleash unspeakable horrors upon the earth.
The only way to honor veterans, really, truly honor them, is to help end war and make sure
no more lives are put into a position where they are on the giving or receiving end of evil,
stupid, meaningless violence. The way to do that is to publicly, loudly and repeatedly make it
clear that you do not consent to the global terrorism being perpetrated in your name. These
bastards work so hard conducting propaganda to manufacture your consent for endless
warmongering because they need that consent . So don't give it to them.
Your rulers have never feared the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the terrorists, the
Iranians, the Chinese or the Russians. They fear you. They fear the American public suddenly
waking up to the evil things that are being done in your name and using your vast numbers to
shrug off the existing power structures without firing a shot, as easily as removing a heavy
coat on a warm day. If enough of you loudly withdraw your consent for their insatiable
warmongering, that fear will be enough to keep them in check.
This Veterans Day, don't honor those who have served by giving reverence and legitimacy to a
war machine which is exclusively used for inflicting great evil. Honor them by disassembling
that machine.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see
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Patreon or Paypal , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With
Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
So the USA Congress operates under CIA surveillance... Due to CIA access to Saudi money the situation is probably much
worse then described as CIA tried to protect both its level of influence and shadow revenue streams.
Notable quotes:
"... The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch, is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing. ..."
"... I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community Inspector General 2014 ..."
"... The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly," wrote Grassley in a statement. ..."
"... According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with "bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper." ..."
"... Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications ..."
"... CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director ..."
"... During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance," said Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016. ..."
CIA intercepted Congressional emails about whistleblowers in 2014
The Inspector General expressed concern about "potential compromise to whistleblower confidentiality" and "chilling effect"
Newly-declassified documents show the CIA intercepted sensitive Congressional communications about intelligence community whistleblowers.
The intercepts occurred under CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The new disclosures
are contained in two letters of "Congressional notification" originally written to key members of Congress in March 2014, but kept
secret until now.
In the letters, then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough tells four key members of Congress that during
"routing counterintelligence monitoring of Government computer systems," the CIA collected emails between Congressional staff and
the CIA's head of whistleblowing and source protection. McCullough states that he's concerned "about the potential compromise to
whistleblower confidentiality and the consequent 'chilling effect' that the present [counterintelligence] monitoring system might
have on Intelligence Community whistleblowing."
The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch,
is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence
agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing.
"Most of these emails concerned pending and developing whistleblower complaints," McCullough states in his letters to lead Democrats
and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees at the time: Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Saxby Chambliss
(R-Georgia); and Representatives Michael Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland). McCullough adds that the type
of monitoring that occurred was "lawful and justified for [counterintelligence] purposes" but
"I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive
Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community
Inspector General 2014
The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The
fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers
raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly,"
wrote Grassley in a statement.
According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with
"bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper."
Grassley adds that he repeated his request to declassify the letters under the Trump administration, but that Trump intelligence
officials failed to respond. The documents were finally declassified this week after Grassley appealed to the new Intelligence Community
Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
History of alleged surveillance abuses
Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the
possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications. A Congressional staffer involved at the time says Clapper's
response seemed to imply that if Congressional communications were "incidentally" collected by the CIA, the material would not be
saved or reported up to CIA management.
"In the event of a protected disclosure by a whistleblower somehow comes to the attention of personnel responsible for monitoring
user activity," Clapper wrote to Grassley and Wyden on July 25, 2014, "there is no intention for such disclosure to be reported
to agency leadership under an insider threat program."
However, the newly-declassified letters indicate the opposite happened in reality with the whistleblower-related emails:
"CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually
shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy
Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director."
Clapper has previously come under fire for his 2013 testimony to Congress in which he denied that the national Security Agency
(NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Weeks later, Clapper's statement was proven false by material leaked by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden.
"During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance,"
said
Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016.
"Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them."
Clapper has repeatedly denied lying, and said that any incorrect information he provided was due to misunderstandings or mistakes.
Clapper and Brennan have also acknowledged taking part in the controversial practice of "unmasking" the protected names of U.S.
citizens - including people connected to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump - whose communications were "incidentally" captured
in US counterintelligence operations. Unmaskings within the US intelligence community are supposed to be extremely rare and only
allowed under carefully justified circumstances. This is to protect the privacy rights of American citizens. But it's been revealed
that Obama officials requested unmaskings on a near daily basis during the election year of 2016.
Clapper and Brennan have said their activities were lawful and not politically motivated. Both men have become vocal critics of
President Trump.
Can you imagine what kind of place the US would have been under Clinton?!!!!!!
All the illegality, spying, conniving, dirty tricks, arcancides, selling us out to the highest bidder and full on attack against
our Constitution would be in full swing!
When intel entities can operate unimpeded and un-monitored, it spells disaster for everyone and everything outside that parameter.
Their operations go unnoticed until some stray piece of information exposes them. There are many facilities that need to be purged
and audited, but since this activity goes on all over the world, there is little to stop it. Even countries that pledge allegiance
and cooperation are blindsiding their allies with bugs, taps, blackmails, and other crimes. Nobody trusts nobody, and that's a
horrid fact to contend with in an 'advanced' civilization.
Forget the political parties. When the intelligence agencies spy on everyone, they know all about politicians of both parties
before they ever win office, and make sure they have enough over them to control them. They were asleep at the switch when Trump
won, because no one, including them, believed he would ever win. Hillary was their candidate, the State Department is known overseas
as "the political arm of the CIA". They were furious when she lost, hence the circus ever since.
From its founding by the Knights of Malta the JFK&MLK-assassinating, with Mossad 9/11-committing CIA has been the Vatican's
US Fifth Column action branch, as are the FBI and NSA: with an institutional hiring preference for Roman Catholic "altared boy"
closet-queen psychopaths "because they're practiced at keeping secrets."
Think perverts Strzok, Brennan, and McCabe "licked it off the wall?"
I agree with you 100%. Problem is, tons of secret technology and information have been passed out to the private sector. And
the private sector is not bound to the FOIA requests, therefore neutralizing the obligation for government to disclose classified
material. They sidestepped their own policies to cooperate with corrupt MIC contractors, and recuse themselves from disclosing
incriminating evidence.
Everyone knows that spying runs in the fam. 44th potus Mom and Gma BOTH. An apple doesn't fall from the tree. If ppl only knew
the true depth of the evil and corruption we would be in the hospital with a heart attack. Gilded age is here and has been, since
our democracy was hijacked (McCain called it an intervention) back in 1963. Unfortunately it started WAY back before then when
(((they))) stole everything with the installation of the Fed.
The FBI and CIA have long since slipped the controls of Congress and the Constitution. President Trump should sign an executive
order after the mid terms and stand down at least the FBI and subject the CIA to a senate investigation.
America needs new agencies that are accountable to the peoples elected representatives.
A determined care has been used to cultivate in D.C., a system that swiftly decapitates the whistleblowers. Resulting in an
increasingly subservient cadre of civil servants who STHU and play ostrich, or drool at what scraps are about to roll off the
master's table as the slide themselves into a better position, taking advantage to sell vice, weapons, and slaves.
What the hell does the CIA have to do with ANYTHING in the United States? Aren't they limited to OUTSIDE the U.S.? So why would
they be involved in domestic communications for anything? These clowns need to be indicted for TREASON!
"... There is something very, very COINTELPRO about the idea of "protecting" Americans from "foreign influence", and that should give liberals the heebie-jeebies. There is also an ongoing structural witch-hunt effect, unchanged from the McCarthy era, when internet firm heads are called to testify before congress. ..."
"... Bottom line - the Russians may have had no more effect on the election than the loose change in your house has on your salary. ..."
"... "Even more extreme measures are being planned and implemented, motivated by the basic principle that the greater the lie, the more aggressive the methods required to enforce it." ..."
"... "While the extortionate salaries commanded by the BBC's biggest stars are justified by "market rates," this underlying premise is never challenged by the women who are leading the gender pay fight. They don't oppose the capitalist market; they just want a bigger slice of the pie, with the working class footing the bill via contributions to the £4 billion annual license fee." - BBC gender pay row: Selective outrage of wealthy women ..."
"... The greater the inequality, the greater the lie to enforce it. ..."
"... While WSWS was uniquely correct in exposing Bush, Powell, and the ruling-elite structure of the U.S. as using deceit and lies to start an 'aggressive war' (the ultimate war crime), your description of this corrupt system of global power headquartered in the U.S. did not fully diagnose and expose it for what it was; a disguised global capitalist EMPIRE. ..."
"... Your description could have more effectively warned American citizen/'subjects' and the world that "Rather, it is a war of colonial (Empire) conquest, driven by a series of economic and geo-political aims that center on the seizure of Iraq's oil resources and the assertion of US global (Empire, not merely) hegemony." ..."
"... In any case, Andre and Joseph, thanks for reminding readers of this dark and deceitful moment of U.S. history in starting another 'aggressive war' almost two decades ago --- which wars will unfortunately continue until Americans themselves expose and ignite an essential Second America "Revolution Against Empire" [Justin duRivage] ..."
"... The Anglo-American-Israelite Empire is globally entrenched and enjoying expansion since 1945 ..."
"... I must admit myself I am disturbed by the sheer volume of unchallenged propaganda regarding these claims in the past few months. The media talking heads and various analysts don't ever really say what the implication of what their claims really mean-war. We are in an age of new mccarthyism ..."
"... What was amazing about Powell's charade was that even if Old Bad Ass as I call Saddam had had some Wombars of Mass Destruction they posed no danger whatsoever! It was obvious 9/11 had put the masses into a tizzy and they would have attacked Mars if told to! ..."
"... Yes, the "New Pearl Harbour" called for and carried out by the authors of the "Project for a New American Century" worked as planned. ..."
"... Quite right. My late father was a structural design engineer, specializing in large steel structures like the WTC and he called it as soon as the buildings imploded! ..."
"... Yes, Michael, the 'media/propaganda-sector' of this seven-sectored Disguised Global Capitalist EMPIRE is currently the most effective sector --- but the other six; corporate, financial, militarist, extra-legal, CFR 'Plot-Tanks', and of course the dual-party Vichy-political facade of the 'rougher-talking' neocon 'R' Vichy Party and the 'smoother-lying' neoliberal-con 'D' Vichy Party are all helping to keep the Empire sound, hidden, and empowered over the only American citizen/'subjects' who could possibly form a "Political Revolution against Empire" ..."
"... While it is true that D.C. is run by delusional psychotics that does not mean they are irrational as far as their greed is concerned. ..."
"... As R. Luxemburg pleaded that WWI was not "our" war but war of bunch of aristocrats wanting to divide colonies and bunch of bankers wanted their bad speculative loans repaid, using working class flesh and blood. ..."
This is one of the most sensible editorials on the Russia issue I've seen, and it is true, insofar as it goes. There is something
very, very COINTELPRO about the idea of "protecting" Americans from "foreign influence", and that should give liberals the heebie-jeebies.
There is also an ongoing structural witch-hunt effect, unchanged from the McCarthy era, when internet firm heads are called to
testify before congress.
That said, I wouldn't dismiss the effect of the Russian involvement, or the relevance of the charges against Trump and his
people. Bear in mind that the Party of McCarthy has been all about spying on its opponents from the days of HUAC. Nixon's break-in
at the Watergate Hotel didn't singlehandedly decide the election ... but who would believe that was the only underhanded tactic
he used? Republicans believe that if you're not cheating, you're not trying -- holding out for any ethical standard makes you
inherently disloyal and unworthy of support. Something like Kavanaugh's involvement in the hacking of Democrats in 2003 (
http://www.foxnews.com/poli... ) should be no surprise; neither should the "Guccifer" hack that put the Democrats' data in
the hands of Wikileaks. (Their subsequent attempts to demand Wikileaks not publish such a newsworthy leak, of course, is the sort
of thing that undermines their position with me!)
Bottom line - the Russians may have had no more effect on the election than the loose change in your house has on your salary.
But if you go back in your house after the Republicans were minding it, don't be surprised if together with the missing couch
change you notice some missing silverware, your kitchen tap has been sawed off, and the laptop is short half its RAM. By the time
you've catalogued everything missing, the stolen brass part from the gas main downstairs might have blown you to smithereens.
"Even more extreme measures are being planned and implemented, motivated by the basic principle that the greater the lie,
the more aggressive the methods required to enforce it."
There are many reasons the bourgeoisie is unfit to rule. Each one of them is bound up with the lies required to enforce
its rule. The greater its unfitness, "the greater the lie, the more aggressive the methods required to enforce it.
"While the extortionate salaries commanded by the BBC's biggest stars are justified by "market rates," this underlying premise
is never challenged by the women who are leading the gender pay fight. They don't oppose the capitalist market; they just
want a bigger slice of the pie, with the working class footing the bill via contributions to the £4 billion annual license fee."
- BBC gender pay row: Selective outrage of wealthy women
The greater the inequality, the greater the lie to enforce it.
While WSWS was uniquely correct in exposing Bush, Powell, and the ruling-elite structure of the U.S. as using deceit and lies
to start an 'aggressive war' (the ultimate war crime), your description of this corrupt system of global power headquartered in
the U.S. did not fully diagnose and expose it for what it was; a disguised global capitalist EMPIRE.
Your description could have more effectively warned American citizen/'subjects' and the world that "Rather, it is a war of
colonial (Empire) conquest, driven by a series of economic and geo-political aims that center on the seizure of Iraq's oil resources
and the assertion of US global (Empire, not merely) hegemony."
In any case, Andre and Joseph, thanks for reminding readers of this dark and deceitful moment of U.S. history in starting another
'aggressive war' almost two decades ago --- which wars will unfortunately continue until Americans themselves expose and ignite
an essential Second America "Revolution Against Empire" [Justin duRivage]
The Anglo-American-Israelite Empire is globally entrenched and enjoying expansion since 1945. It is time radical critiques of
its values, power and methods should call it by its right name.
I must admit myself I am disturbed by the sheer volume of unchallenged propaganda regarding these claims in the past few months.
The media talking heads and various analysts don't ever really say what the implication of what their claims really mean-war.
We are in an age of new mccarthyism
What was amazing about Powell's charade was that even if Old Bad Ass as I call Saddam had had some Wombars of Mass Destruction
they posed no danger whatsoever! It was obvious 9/11 had put the masses into a tizzy and they would have attacked Mars if told
to!
just because it was a convenient act for them to do what they wanted in conquering iraq is not reason that idiots like that are
capable of planning and concealing the numerous co-conspirators to arrange something like 9..11. imperialism can always count
on blowback to have occasion for further crimes. there is the slim chance that they knew what was being planned and that they
let it happen - except that none of those folks is evil enough for that. not even dick cheney. what i love about all conspiracy
theories of the american kind is that they never nam or show an actual conspirator conspiring. look at one of the truly great
failed conspiracy, that of the 20th july 1944 in germany that was meant to kill hitler and how many people were arrested in no
time at all and executed..
A "conspiracy" is just any two or more people getting together to discuss something affecting one or more other people without
them being party to the discussion. Like a surprise birthday party, for instance. Obviously the "official" version of the 9/11
events is also a "conspiracy theory" that 19 mostly Saudi Arabians led by a guy hiding in a cave in Afghanistan conspired to carry
out co-ordinated attacks that just happened to coincide with most of the USAF being conveniently off in Alaska and northern Canada
on an exercise that day, and another "coinciding exercise" simulating a multiple hijacking being carried out in the northeast
US thereby confusing the Air Traffic Controllers as to whether the hijackings were "real world or exercise", significantly delaying
the response, among other things.
Do you really believe that WTC 7, a steel frame building which was not adjacent to WTC 1 & 2, and was NOT hit by any airplanes,
coincidentally collapsed due to low temperature paper and furniture office fires? Something that has never happened before or
since? Or that such low temperature fires would cause the massive heavily reinforced concrete central core/elevator shaft to collapse
first, pulling the rest of the building inward onto it in classic controlled demolition technique?
It is getting more difficult to find the videos showing that now as Google, as with WSWS articles, is pushing them off the
front pages of results, while Snopes has put out a some very misleading reports that set up false "straw man" claims and then
"disprove" them. Even the "disproofs" are false.
For instance, a Snopes report on the WTC 7 collapse states: "relied heavily on discredited claims, none of which were new,
including:
Jet fuel cannot melt steel beams (This claim is misleading, as steel beams do to not need to melt completely to be compromised
structurally).
A sprinkler system would have prevented temperatures from rising high enough to cause to cause structural damage. (This claim
ignores the fact that a crash from a 767 jet would likely destroy such a system.)
The structural system would have been protected by fireproofing material (similarly, such a system would have been damaged
in a 767 crash). "
Jet fuel, which is Kerosene, burns at around 575º in open air, which was the case in WTC buildings 1 & 2. Most of it was vaporized
by the impact with the buildings and burned of within minutes. At any rate, 575º is far below the point at which structural steel
specifically designed to withstand high temperature fires like that used in the World Trade Centre buildings is weakened.
All of which is irrelevant, as are the other "points" made by Snopes, because Building 7 was not hit by an airplane and there
was no jet fuel involved. Something conveniently "overlooked" by Snopes and other similar misleading "disproofs". Not to mention
that the Intelligence establishment is busy putting out false trails constantly which use, for instance, obviously faked photos
or videos of the three WTC buildings collapsing to discredit the real videos and photos by setting up "straw men" they can then
"disprove" and point to as "evidence" that people who don't believe the official version are "creating fake news".
Quite right. My late father was a structural design engineer, specializing in large steel structures like the WTC and he called
it as soon as the buildings imploded!
"The perpetrators and their conspiracy is not a theory since it has been proved."
By "proved" I assume you are referring to "proofs" such as the fantastical claim that Mohammed Atta's passport was allegedly
and fortuitously "found" when it supposedly survived the 600 mph impact of the 767 he was supposedly piloting with a huge steel
and concrete building, survived the huge fireball it was supposedly in the middle of unscorched, and conveniently fluttered to
the ground intact to land at the feet of an FBI agent who immediately realized it must have belonged to one of the hijackers!
Even Hans Christian Andersen couldn't invent Fairy Tales like that.
the best that conspiracy theorist can do is, invariably, to call proven facts "just another theory " which only proves that they
are actually aware that they are full of hot air! zarembas father as a structural engineer unless a fantasy is certainly better
off among the dead than among the living and perpetrating his ignorance of steel and weight and fire onto the world!
Just because all the details aren't known as to who conspired and why there's enough holes in the "official conspiracy theory"
of 19 hijackers to conclude that this could not have been pulled off without some conspiring on the American side. Certainly the
the neocons benefited greatly from these attacks. So motive is there for sure.
Yes, Michael, the 'media/propaganda-sector' of this seven-sectored Disguised Global Capitalist EMPIRE is currently the most
effective sector --- but the other six; corporate, financial, militarist, extra-legal, CFR 'Plot-Tanks', and of course the dual-party
Vichy-political facade of the 'rougher-talking' neocon 'R' Vichy Party and the 'smoother-lying' neoliberal-con 'D' Vichy Party
are all helping to keep the Empire sound, hidden, and empowered over the only American citizen/'subjects' who could possibly form
a "Political Revolution against Empire"
While it is true that D.C. is run by delusional psychotics that does not mean they are irrational as far as their greed is
concerned.
There is nothing to win in global nuke war, all know it while the outcome would be surely the current global oligarchy loosing
grip on population destroying the system that works for them so well giving chance to what they dread socialist revolution they
would have been much weaker to counter.
Regional conflicts are just positioning of oligarchy for management of global oligarchic country club while strict class morality
is maintained.
What I do not we are conditions for war (split of global ruling elites) while what I see is broad propaganda of war as a excuse
to clamp down on fake enemy in order to control respective populations while there is factual unity among world oligarchy.
As R. Luxemburg pleaded that WWI was not "our" war but war of bunch of aristocrats wanting to divide colonies and bunch
of bankers wanted their bad speculative loans repaid, using working class flesh and blood.
She died abandoned by those on the left who embraced the war for their political aspirations, she was murdered for her true
internationalism i.e. No war fought between working people of one country and working people of another country.
Kalen, it's only effective to use the correct and understandable term 'Empire' in exposing, warning, and motivating average Americans
--- since very few even know what words like; oligarchy, plutocracy, fascism, authoritarianism, corporate-state, or Wolin's 'inverted
totalitarianism' mean --- let alone could ever serve as rallying cries for the coming essential Second American Revolution against
EMPIRE.
As Pat would have shouted if Tom had taken the Paine to edit his call, "Give me Liberty over EMPIRE, or Give me Death!"
"Sweet Carolyn" OH OH OH --- Yes, only a very small percentage of Americans understand that our former country, the U.S. of America,
is categorically, provably, and absolutely a new form of Empire, and is inexorably the first in world history an; 'effectively-disguised',
'truly-global', 'dual-party Vichy', and 'capitalist-fueled' EMPIRE --- an EMPIRE, really just an EMPIRE!
Just do an honest survey, "Sweet Carolyn", yourself, and if you're not a "Sweet Liarlyn", you will have to admit that essentially
ZERO of the first 1000 people you ask, will say --- "Oh ya, Carolyn, of course I know that this whole effin 'system' that others
less informed may still be so stupid that they think they live in a real country, when I (enter their name) do solemnly swear
is just an effin EMPIRE, which is so well disguised, that these few idiots who don't understand that they are just citizen/'subjects'
of this monsterous EMPIRE."
Do the survey, "Sweet Carolyn" and if you don't lie to yourself --- which maybe you do, because HELL, your job is to lie to
others (so it's quite likely that you'll lie about anything) --- you'll find that exactly zero average Americans have the effin
slightest idea in the world that their great 'country' is actually an effin EMPIRE.
HELL, Carolyn, almost half the Americans repeatedly yell, "We're number ONE", "We're number ONE", that their brains would rather
rattle themselves to death than even let logic, history, knowledge, or anything into their addled and propaganda filled heads!
Excellent article, and it did a particularly good job of tying together the foreign policy and domestic policy stratagems of a
major faction of the U.S. ruling class. I, for one, do not doubt that the Russians conduct some sort of cyber warfare against
the U.S.; but that must be understood by considering the fact that every major governmental, political, military, and business
organization on the face of the Earth must now operate in this manner. A friend of mine's son, who was in the Army, pointed out
that the big players, by a wide margin, in spying on and to some degree interfering in the U.S. domestic scene are China and Israel.
Kevin Barrett has written and said on various radio shows that much of what is attributed to the "Russians" are actually the actions
of Russian/Israeli dual citizens, many of whom move freely between the U.S., Russia, and Israel. And, of course, the U.S. runs
major spy and manipulation operations in more countries than any other nation of Earth, and U.S. based corporations are busy both
inside the U.S. and in foreign places in similar activities.
It is clearly a desire of significant sectors, of the Capitalist rulers of the U.S., to repress dissent and political activities
that oppose their agendas. It took them a few years to realize that their old methods using TV, hate radio, magazines, direct
mail, and newspapers were losing their effectiveness. They have been increasing their attacks on leftist websites, hacking into
websites, closing websites using phonied-up "national security" justifications, employing numerous trolls, and establishing and
funding more far right websites, such as Breitbart and Infowars. These efforts are most effective when they are not overpowering
and heavy handed.
The classic book on this was the 1988 book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media"
by Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann. Rob Williams has updated the concept for the internet age in
<http:
www.vermontindependent.org ="" the-post-truth-world-reviving-the-propaganda-model-of-news-for-our-digital-age=""/>.
The strategy
is nothing new, the methods are merely updated and use the latest technologies.
I guess the lesson to be learned here is that rigging elections through byzantine electoral laws and billion dollar corporate
slush funds is a thing of the past. All you need now is 13 amateur IT goomba's with a marketing scheme and twitter accounts. Well, sure is a fragile "World's Sole Superpower" we got here. Go Team?
"... Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts ..."
"... The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people were killed in the course of the three conflicts. ..."
"... Civilians make up over half of the roughly 500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as well. ..."
"... This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011. ..."
Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts
Brown University has released a new study on the cost
in lives of America's Post-9/11 Wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people
were killed in the course of the three conflicts.
This includes combatant deaths and civilian deaths in fighting and war violence. Civilians make up over half of the roughly
500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as
well.
This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly
in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of
the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011.
The report also notes that over 60,000 US troops were either killed or wounded in the course of the wars. This includes 6,951
US military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.
The Brown study also faults the US for having done very little in the last 17 years to provide transparency to the country about
the scope of the conflicts, concluding that they are "inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution
and progress."
Of course, we are all supposed to vote Democratic to halt the tide of Trump fascism. But
should the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, hate speech and violence as
a tool for intimidation and control will increase, with much of it directed, as we saw with the
pipe bombs intended to decapitate the Democratic Party leadership, toward prominent Democratic
politicians and critics of Donald Trump. Should the white man's party of the president retain
control of the House and the Senate, violence will still be the favored instrument of political
control as the last of democratic protections are stripped from us. Either way we are in for
it.
Trump is a clownish and embarrassing tool of the kleptocrats. His faux populism is a sham.
Only the rich like his tax cuts, his refusal to raise the minimum wage and his effort to
destroy Obamacare. All he has left is hate. And he will use it. Which is not to say that, if
only to throw up some obstacle to Trump, you shouldn't vote for the Democratic scum, tools of
the war industry and the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, Wall Street and the fossil fuel
industry, as opposed to the Republican scum. But Democratic control of the House will do very
little to halt our descent into corporate tyranny, especially with another economic crisis
brewing on Wall Street. The rot inside the American political system is deep and terminal.
The Democrats, who refuse to address the social inequality they helped orchestrate and that
has given rise to Trump, are the party of racial and ethnic inclusivity, identity politics,
Wall Street and the military. Their core battle cry is: We are not Trump! This is
ultimately a losing formula. It was adopted by Hillary Clinton, who is apparently weighing
another run for the presidency after we thought we had thrust a stake through her political
heart. It is the agenda of the well-heeled East Coast and West Coast elites who want to instill
corporate fascism with a friendly face.
Bertram
Gross (1912-1997) in "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of American Power" warned us that
fascism always has two looks. One is paternal, benevolent, entertaining and kind. The other is
embodied in the executioner's sadistic leer. Janus-like, fascism seeks to present itself to a
captive public as a force for good and moral renewal. It promises protection against enemies
real and invented. But denounce its ideology, challenge its power, demand freedom from
fascism's iron grip, and you are mercilessly crushed. Gross knew that if the United States'
form of fascism, expressed through corporate tyranny, was able to effectively mask its true
intentions behind its "friendly" face we would be stripped of power, shorn of our most
cherished rights and impoverished. He has been proved correct.
"Looking at the present, I see a more probable future: a new despotism creeping slowly
across America," Gross wrote. "Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a
corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to
enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or
unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these
consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the
poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and more important, the subversion of our
constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international
politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion."
No totalitarian state has mastered propaganda better than the corporate state. Our press has
replaced journalism with trivia, feel-good stories, jingoism and celebrity gossip. The banal
and the absurd, delivered by cheery corporate courtiers, saturate the airwaves. Our emotions
are skillfully manipulated around manufactured personalities and manufactured events. We are,
at the same time, offered elaborate diversionary spectacles including sporting events, reality
television and absurdist political campaigns. Trump is a master of this form of entertainment.
Our emotional and intellectual energy is swallowed up by the modern equivalent of the Roman
arena. Choreographed political vaudeville, which costs corporations billions of dollars, is
called free elections. Cliché-ridden slogans, which assure us that the freedoms we
cherish remain sacrosanct, dominate our national discourse as these freedoms are stripped from
us by judicial and legislative fiat. It is a vast con game.
You cannot use the word "liberty" when your government, as ours does, watches you 24 hours a
day and stores all of your personal information in government computers in perpetuity. You
cannot use the word "liberty" when you are the most photographed and monitored population in
human history. You cannot use the word "liberty" when it is impossible to vote against the
interests of Goldman Sachs or General Dynamics. You cannot use the word "liberty" when the
state empowers militarized police to use indiscriminate lethal force against unarmed citizens
in the streets of American cities. You cannot use the word "liberty" when 2.3 million citizens,
mostly poor people of color, are held in the largest prison system on earth. This is the
relationship between a master and a slave. The choice is between whom we want to clamp on our
chains -- a jailer who mouths politically correct bromides or a racist, Christian fascist.
Either way we are shackled.
Gross understood that unchecked corporate power would inevitably lead to corporate fascism.
It is the natural consequence of the ruling ideology of neoliberalism that consolidates power
and wealth into the hands of a tiny group of oligarchs. The political philosopher Sheldon
Wolin , refining Gross' thesis, would later characterize this corporate tyranny or friendly
fascism as "inverted totalitarianism." It was, as Gross and Wolin pointed out, characterized by
anonymity. It purported to pay fealty to electoral politics, the Constitution and the
iconography and symbols of American patriotism but internally had seized all of the levers of
power to render the citizen impotent. Gross warned that we were being shackled incrementally.
Most would not notice until they were in total bondage. He wrote that "a friendly fascist power
structure in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, or today's Japan would be far more
sophisticated than the 'caesarism' of fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan. It would need no
charismatic dictator nor even a titular head it would require no one-party rule, no mass
fascist party, no glorification of the State, no dissolution of legislatures, no denial of
reason. Rather, it would come slowly as an outgrowth of present trends in the
Establishment."
Gross foresaw that technological advances in the hands of corporations would be used to trap
the public in what he called "cultural ghettoization" so that "almost every individual would
get a personalized sequence of information injections at any time of the day -- or night." This
is what, of course, television, our electronic devices and the internet have done. He warned
that we would be mesmerized by the entertaining shadows on the wall of the Platonic cave as we
were enslaved.
Gross knew that the most destructive force against the body politic would be the war
profiteers and the militarists. He saw how they would siphon off the resources of the state to
wage endless war, a sum that now accounts for half of all discretionary spending. And he
grasped that warfare is the natural extension of corporatism. He wrote:
Under the militarism of German, Italian, and Japanese fascism violence was openly
glorified. It was applied regionally -- by the Germans in Europe and England, the Italians in
the Mediterranean, the Japanese in Asia. In battle, it was administered by professional
militarists who, despite many conflicts with politicians, were guided by old-fashioned
standards of duty, honor, country, and willingness to risk their own lives.
The emerging militarism of friendly fascism is somewhat different. It is global in scope.
It involves weapons of doomsday proportions, something that Hitler could dream of but never
achieve. It is based on an integration between industry, science, and the military that the
old-fashioned fascists could never even barely approximate. It points toward equally close
integration among military, paramilitary, and civilian elements. Many of the civilian leaders
-- such as Zbigniew Brzezinski or Paul Nitze -- tend to be much more bloodthirsty than any
top brass. In turn, the new-style military professionals tend to become corporate-style
entrepreneurs who tend to operate -- as Major Richard A. Gabriel and Lieutenant Colonel Paul
L. Savage have disclosed -- in accordance with the ethics of the marketplace. The old
buzzwords of duty, honor, and patriotism are mainly used to justify officer subservience to
the interests of transnational corporations and the continuing presentation of threats to
some corporate investments as threats to the interest of the American people as a whole.
Above all, in sharp contrast with classic fascism's glorification of violence, the friendly
fascist orientation is to sanitize, even hide, the greater violence of modern warfare behind
such "value-free" terms as "nuclear exchange," "counterforce" and "flexible response," behind
the huge geographical distances between the senders and receivers of destruction through
missiles or even on the "automated battlefield," and the even greater psychological distances
between the First World elites and the ordinary people who might be consigned to quick or
slow death.
We no longer live in a functioning democracy. Self-styled liberals and progressives, as they
do in every election cycle, are urging us to vote for the Democrats, although the Democratic
Party in Europe would be classified as a right-wing party, and tell us to begin to build
progressive movements the day after the election. Only no one ever builds these movements. The
Democratic Party knows there is no price to pay for selling us out and its abject service to
corporations. It knows the left and liberals become supplicants in every election cycle. And
this is why the Democratic Party drifts further and further to the right and we become more and
more irrelevant. If you stand for something, you have to be willing to fight for it. But there
is no fight in us.
The elites, Republican and Democrat, belong to the same club. We are not in it. Take a look
at the flight roster of the billionaire
Jeffrey Epstein , who was accused of prostituting dozens of underage girls and ended up
spending 13 months in prison on a single count. He flew political insiders from both parties
and the business world to his secluded Caribbean island, known as "Orgy Island," on his jet,
which the press nicknamed "the Lolita Express." Some of the names on his flight
roster, which usually included unidentified women, were Bill Clinton, who took dozens of trips,
Alan
Dershowitz , former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Larry Summers, the
Candide -like
Steven Pinker ,
whose fairy dust ensures we are getting better and better, and Britain's Prince Andrew. Epstein
was also a friend of Trump, whom he visited at Mar-a-Lago.
We live on the precipice, the eve of the deluge. Past civilizations have crumbled in the
same way, although as Hegel understood, the only thing we learn from history is "that people
and governments never have learned anything from history." We will not arrest the decline if
the Democrats regain control of the House. At best we will briefly slow it. The corporate
engines of pillage, oppression, ecocide and endless war are untouchable. Corporate power will
do its dirty work regardless of which face -- the friendly fascist face of the Democrats or the
demented visage of the Trump Republicans -- is pushed out front. If you want real change,
change that means something, then mobilize, mobilize, mobilize, not for one of the two
political parties but to rise up and destroy the corporate structures that ensure our doom.
John Bolton suffers a crippling shortage of olives.
Notable quotes:
"... "As far as I remember, the US coat of arms features a bald eagle that holds 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in another, which is a symbol of a peace-loving policy," ..."
"... "Looks like your eagle has already eaten all the olives; are the arrows all that is left?" ..."
Meeting with US national security adviser John Bolton in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir
Putin made a comment about Washington's hostility that went right over the hawkish diplomat's
head. "As far as I remember, the US coat of arms features a bald eagle that holds 13 arrows
in one talon and an olive branch in another, which is a symbol of a peace-loving policy,"
Putin said in a meeting with Bolton in Moscow on Tuesday.
"I have a question," the Russian president added. "Looks like your eagle has
already eaten all the olives; are the arrows all that is left?"
About 15-20 minutes to get through (the facilitator seems like a bit of a wet blanket), but
fascinating to read, if like me, most of what you hear about Putin has been filtered through
the MSM.
A couple of reflections:
Putin does detail. He is courteous and patient. He is highly pragmatic and appears to be
widely (and, for my money, effectively) briefed.
For those of us lucky enough to follow VVP in his native language – it is indeed a
delight. (And – mind you – it was only after I took the time to follow him in his
native language that I was able to appreciate this person and his leadership abilities. If one
follows him through NYT – no chance that would give one an accurate picture.) He is erudite, informed, and has a wicked sense of humour, as shown in this clip: https://www.rt.com/news/442068-putin-olives-eagle-bolton/
The truth is that Trump foreign policy was neocon from April 2017 -- first Tomahawk style in Syria. Trump is just yet another
neocon, a huge disappointment for people who voted for him in a hope that he might change the US foreign policy and stop foreign
wars.
The president's equivocating remarks over the defense secretary show that Bolton and
Pompeo are indeed winning.
President Trump with Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo, Defense Secretary
Jim Mattis and National Security Advisor John Bolton Credit:NATO/Flickr In covering President
Donald Trump's recent pregnant comments about Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, The Wall Street
Journal tucked away in its story an observation that hints at the president's foreign
policy direction. In an interview for CBS's 60 Minutes , the president described
Mattis as "sort of a Democrat if you want to know the truth" and suggested he wouldn't be
surprised if his military chief left his post soon. After calling him "a good guy" and saying
the two "get along very well," Trump added, "He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody
leaves . That's Washington."
Actually that's Trump. He demands total and utter loyalty from his people and gives none in
return. In just his first 14 months as president, he hired three national security advisors,
reflecting the unstable relationships he often has with his top aides. Following the 60
Minutes interview, Washington was of course abuzz with speculation about what all this
might mean for Mattis's fate and who might be the successor if Mattis were to quit or be fired.
It was just the kind of fodder Washington loves -- human drama revealing Trump's legendary
inconstancy amid prospective new turmoil in the capital.
But far more significant than Mattis's future or Trump's love of chaos was a sentence
embedded in the Journal 's report. After noting that recent polls indicated that
Mattis enjoys strong support from the American people, reporter Nancy A. Youssef writes: "But
his influence within the administration has waned in recent months, particularly following the
arrival of John Bolton as national security adviser and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo as
secretary of state."
The significance here is that Bolton and Pompeo represent just about everything Trump ran
against during his 2016 presidential campaign. He ran against the country's foreign policy
establishment and its rush to war in Iraq; its support of NATO's provocative eastward
expansion; its abiding hostility toward Russia; its destabilization of the Middle East through
ill-conceived and ill-fated activities in Iraq, Libya, and Syria; its ongoing and seemingly
endless war in Afghanistan; and its enthusiasm for regime change and nation-building around the
world. Bolton and Pompeo represent precisely those kinds of policies and actions as well as the
general foreign policy outlook that spawned them.
Trump gave every indication during the campaign that he would reverse those policies and
avoid those kinds of actions. He even went so far, in his inimitable way, of accusing the Bush
administration of lying to the American people in taking the country to war in Iraq, as opposed
to making a reckless and stupid, though honest, mistake about that country's weapons of mass
destruction. He said it would be great to get along with Russia and criticized NATO's
aggressive eastward push. He said our aim in Syria should be to combat Islamist extremism, not
depose Bashar al-Assad as its leader. In promulgating his America First approach, he
specifically eschewed any interest in nation-building abroad.
The one area where he seemed to embrace America's post-Cold War aggressiveness was in his
attitude toward Iran. But even there he seemed less bellicose than many of his Republican
opponents in the 2016 primaries, who said they would rip up the Iran nuclear deal on their
first day in office. Trump, by contrast, said it was a bad deal but one he would seek to
improve.
Still, generally speaking, anyone listening to Trump carefully before the election would
have been justified in concluding that, if he meant what he said, he would reverse America's
post-Cold War foreign policy as practiced by George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Now we know he didn't mean what he said, and the latest tiff over the fate of Mattis
crystallizes that reality. It's not that Mattis represents the kind of anti-establishment
outlook that Trump projected during the campaign; in fact, he is a thoroughgoing product of
that establishment. He said Iran was the main threat to stability in the Middle East. He
supported sending arms to the Syrian rebels. He decried Russia's intent to "break NATO
apart."
Thus any neutral observer, at the time of Mattis's selection as defense secretary, might
have concluded that he was more bent on an adventurous American foreign policy than his boss.
But it turned out to be just the opposite. There are two reasons for this. First, Mattis is
cautious by nature, and he seems to have taken Trump at his word that he didn't want any more
unnecessary American wars of choice. Hence he opposed the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal
prior to Trump's decision to pull America out of it. That action greatly increased the chances
that America and Iran could find themselves on a path to war. Mattis also redeployed some
military resources from the Middle East to other areas designed to check actions by Russia and
China, which he considered greater threats to U.S. security.
And second, it turns out that Trump has no true convictions when it comes to world affairs.
He brilliantly discerned the frustrations of many Americans over the foreign policy of the
previous 16 years and hit just the right notes to leverage those frustrations during the
campaign. But his actual foreign policy has manifested a lack of consistent and strong
philosophy. Consider his approach to NATO. During the campaign he criticized the alliance's
eastward push and aggressive approach to Russia; then as president he accepted NATO's inclusion
of tiny Montenegro, a slap at the Russians; then later he suggested Montenegro's NATO status
could force the U.S. into a major conflagration if that small nation, which he described as
aggressive, got itself into a conflict with a non-NATO neighbor. Such inconsistencies are not
the actions of a man with strong convictions. They are hallmarks of someone who is winging it
on the basis of little knowledge.
That seems to have presented a marvelous opportunity to Bolton and Pompeo, whose philosophy
and convictions are stark and visible to all. Bolton has made clear his desire for America to
bring about regime change in Iran and North Korea. He supported the Iraq war and has never
wavered in the face of subsequent events. He has advocated a preemptive strike against North
Korea. Pompeo harbors similar views. He favored withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and has
waxed bellicose on both Iran and Russia.
Thus a conflict was probably inevitable between Mattis and these more recent administration
arrivals. The New York Times speculates that Bolton likely undermined Mattis's
standing in Trump's eyes. Writes the paper: "Mr. Bolton, an ideological conservative whose
views on foreign policy are more hawkish than those of Mr. Mattis, appears to have deepened the
president's suspicions that his defense secretary's view of the world is more like those of
Democrats than his own."
The paper didn't clarify the basis of this speculation, but it makes sense. Bolton and
Pompeo are gut fighters who go for the jugular. Trump is malleable, susceptible to obsequious
manipulation. Mattis is an old-style military man with a play-it-straight mentality and a
discomfort with guile. Thus it appears we may be seeing before our eyes the transformation of
Trump the anti-establishment candidate into Trump the presidential neocon.
"... This is not new and has been going for at least a century. And the US elites have a long tradition of false flags to to get the people of America riled up for war. ..."
"... As Petras says: "The ten theses define the nature of 21st century imperialism" because, I feel, they are the same values that defined the British Colonial Empire. ..."
Few, if any, believe what they hear and read from leaders and media publicists. Most people
choose to ignore the cacophony of voices, vices and virtues.
This paper provides a set of theses which purports to lay-out the basis for a dialogue
between and among those who choose to abstain from elections with the intent to engage them in
political struggle.
Thesis 1
US empire builders of all colors and persuasion practice donkey tactics; waving the carrot
and wielding the whip to move the target government on the chosen path.
In the same way, Washington offers dubious concessions and threatens reprisals, in order to
move them into the imperial orbit.
Washington applied the tactic successfully in several recent encounters. In 2003 the US
offered Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi a peaceful accommodation in exchange for
disarmament, abandonment of nationalist allies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In 2011,
the US with its European allies applied the whip – bombed Libya, financed and armed
retrograde tribal and terrorist forces, destroyed the infrastructure, murdered Gaddafi and
uprooted millions of Africans and Libyans. . . who fled to Europe. Washington recruited
mercenaries for their subsequent war against Syria in order to destroy the nationalist Bashar
Assad regime.
Washington succeeded in destroying an adversary but did not establish a puppet regime in the
midst of perpetual conflict.
The empire's carrot weakened its adversary, but the stick failed to recolonize Libya
..Moreover its European allies are obligated to pay the multi-billion Euro cost of absorbing
millions of uprooteded immigrants and the ensuing domestic political turmoil.
Thesis 2
Empire builders' proposal to reconfigure the economy in order to regain imperial supremacy
provokes domestic and overseas enemies. President Trump launched a global trade war, replaced
political accommodation with economic sanctions against Russia and a domestic protectionist
agenda and sharply reduced corporate taxes. He provoked a two-front conflict. Overseas, he
provoked opposition from European allies and China, while facing perpetual harassment from
domestic free market globalists and Russo-phobic political elites and ideologues.
Two front conflicts are rarely successful. Most successful imperialist conquer adversaries
in turn – first one and then the other.
Thesis 3
Leftists frequently reverse course: they are radicals out of office and reactionaries in
government, eventually falling between both chairs. We witness the phenomenal collapse of the
German Social Democratic Party, the Greek Socialist Party (PASOK), (and its new version Syriza)
and the Workers Party in Brazil. Each attracted mass support, won elections, formed alliances
with bankers and the business elite – and in the face of their first crises, are
abandoned by the populace and the elite.
Shrewd but discredited elites frequently recognize the opportunism of the Left, and in time
of distress, have no problem in temporarily putting up with Left rhetoric and reforms as long
as their economic interests are not jeopardized. The elite know that the Left signal left and
turn right.
Thesis 4
Elections, even ones won by progressives or leftists, frequently become springboards for
imperial backed coups. Over the past decade newly elected presidents, who are not aligned with
Washington, face congressional and/or judicial impeachment on spurious charges. The elections
provide a veneer of legitimacy which a straight-out military-coup lacks.
In Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela, 'legislatures' under US tutelage attempted to ouster
popular President. They succeeded in the former and failed in the latter.
When electoral machinery fails, the judicial system intervenes to impose restraints on
progressives, based on tortuous and convoluted interpretation of the law. Opposition leftists
in Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador have been hounded by ruling party elites.
Thesis 5
Even crazy leaders speak truth to power. There is no question that President Trump suffers a
serious mental disorder, with midnight outbursts and nuclear threats against, any and all,
ranging from philanthropic world class sports figures (LeBron James) to NATO respecting EU
allies.
Yet in his lunacy, President Trump has denounced and exposed the repeated deceits and
ongoing fabrications of the mass media. Never before has a President so forcefully identified
the lies of the leading print and TV outlets. The NY Times , Washington Post
, the Financial Times, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS have been thoroughly discredited
in the eyes of the larger public. They have lost legitimacy and trust. Where progressives have
failed, a war monger billionaire has accomplished, speaking a truth to serve many
injustices.
Thesis 6
When a bark turns into a bite, Trump proves the homely truth that fear invites aggression.
Trump has implemented or threatened severe sanctions against the EU, China, Iran, Russia,
Venezuela, North Korea and any country that fails to submit to his dictates. At first, it was
bombast and bluster which secured concessions.
Concessions were interpreted as weakness and invited greater threats. Disunity of opponents
encouraged imperial tacticians to divide and conquer. But by attacking all adversaries
simultaneously he undermines that tactic. Threats everywhere limits choices to dangerous
options at home and abroad.
Thesis 7
The master meddlers, of all times, into the politics of sovereign states are the
Anglo-American empire builders. But what is most revealing is the current ploy of accusing the
victims of the crimes that are committed against them.
After the overthrow of the Soviet regime, the US and its European acolytes 'meddled' on a
world-historic scale, pillaging over two trillion dollars of Soviet wealth and reducing Russian
living standards by two thirds and life expectancy to under sixty years – below the level
of Bangladesh.
With Russia's revival under President Putin, Washington financed a large army of self-styled
'non-governmental organizations' (NGO) to organize electoral campaigns, recruited moguls in the
mass media and directed ethnic uprisings. The Russians are retail meddlers compared to the
wholesale multi-billion-dollar US operators.
Moreover, the Israelis have perfected meddling on a grand scale – they intervene
successfully in Congress, the White House and the Pentagon. They set the Middle East agenda,
budget and priorities, and secure the biggest military handouts on a per-capita basis in US
history!
Apparently, some meddlers meddle by invitation and are paid to do it.
Thesis 8
Corruption is endemic in the US where it has legal status and where tens of millions of
dollars change hands and buy Congress people, Presidents and judges.
ORDER IT NOW
In the US the buyers and brokers are called 'lobbyists' – everywhere else they are
called fraudsters. Corruption (lobbying) grease the wheels of billion dollars military
spending, technological subsidies, tax evading corporations and every facet of government
– out in the open, all the time and place of the US regime.
Corruption as lobbying never evokes the least criticism from the mass media.
On the other hand, where corruption takes place under the table in Iran, China and Russia,
the media denounce the political elite – even where in China over 2 million officials,
high and the low are arrested and jailed.
When corruption is punished in China, the US media claim it is merely a 'political purge'
even if it directly reduces elite conspicuous consumption.
In other words, imperial corruption defends democratic value; anti-corruption is a hallmark
of authoritarian dictatorships.
Thesis 9
Bread and circuses are integral parts of empire building – especially in promoting
urban street mobs to overthrow independent and elected governments.
Imperial financed mobs – provided the cover for CIA backed coups in Iran (1954),
Ukraine (2014), Brazil (1964), Venezuela (2003, 2014 and 2017), Argentina (1956), Nicaragua
(2018), Syria (2011) and Libya (2011) among other places and other times.
Masses for empire draw paid and voluntary street fighters who speak for democracy and serve
the elite. The "mass cover" is especially effective in recruiting leftists who look to the
street for opinion and ignore the suites which call the shots.
Thesis 10
The empire is like a three-legged stool it promotes genocide, to secure magnicide and to
rule by homicide. Invasions kills millions, capture and kill rulers and then rule by homicide
– police assassinating dissenting citizens.
The cases are readily available: Iraq and Libya come to mind. The US and its allies invaded,
bombed and killed over a million Iraqis, captured and assassinated its leaders and installed a
police state.
A similar pattern occurred in Libya: the US and EU bombed, killed and uprooted several
million people, assassinated Ghadaffy and fomented a lawless terrorist war of clans, tribes and
western puppets.
"Western values" reveal the inhumanity of empires built to murder "a la carte" –
stripping the victim nations of their defenders, leaders and citizens.
Conclusion
The ten theses define the nature of 21 st century imperialism – its
continuities and novelties.
The mass media systematically write and speak lies to power: their message is to disarm
their adversaries and to arouse their patrons to continue to plunder the world.
When was the last time "Nation building" resulted in a livable country. Iraq? Libya?
Americans, and I am one, can barely keep their own country from sinking into a pit of decay.
Why "deliver Democracy" when Dubai makes much of the US look like shit in terms of
infrastructure, crime and poverty.
When was the last time "Nation building" resulted in a livable country.
Why "deliver Democracy" when Dubai makes much of the US look like shit
Because what a ZOG does with it's host nation has nothing to do with improving anything
for the occupied peoples.
Think of it like the Communist Manifesto. They thump it around, preaching utopia and
equality and all that sugar and honey. This is because they want you to buy what they are
selling. But they don't have any intention of ever delivering. None whatsoever.
All they're really trying to do is whip up an army of useful idiots to be used as blunt
instruments. And once these useful idiots are done fulfilling their role in the
redistribution of wealth and power, they are discarded only to realize too little too late
that they have been working against their own interests all along.
The same thing goes for exporting Democracy. It's never been about improving anyone's
lives. In the West or any of their target nations. It's been about whipping useful idiots up
into an army that can be used as a blunt instrument against the obstacles in the way of
(((someone's))) geopolitical ambitions.
This is not new and has been going for at least a century. And the US elites have a long
tradition of false flags to to get the people of America riled up for war.
False Flag Events Behind the Six Major Wars
False flags to fool Americans into the Spanish American War, WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam
War and the War on terror.
Interesting is that a USA textbook already describes USA imperialism, without using the
word:
Barbara Hinckley, Sheldon Goldman, 'American Politics and Government, Structure, Processes,
Institutions and Policies', Glenview Ill., 1990
Vietnam was a mess for a decade at least and created an immigration crisis in
Australia. The US had a surplus budget when Clinton left office. When Bush left office, oil prices
were sky-high and the economy was dreadful. Who benefits. Israel? Syria is a mess that threatens their borders.
A great comment with the proper name calling for the ZUSA in relation to the current
situation in Turkey:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/08/how-turkeys-currency-crisis-came-to-pass.html#comments
Excerpts:
" The Dollar op indicates that the USA ( or rather those who pull the strings in the
US ) finally admits that our Ally is responsible for almost all mischievous events which
took place in Turkey.
The USA is not a country, but rather a useful contract killer on a larger scale
compared to the PKK-FETO-ISIS etc.
The US is now stepping forward fearlessly because 'the arms of the octopus', as Erdogan put
last week, has been severed in Turkey."
These two definitions do stick:
1. the US is manipulated by the puppeteers -- people (the US citizenry at large) have no
saying in the US decisions (mostly immoral and often imbecile); the well-being of the US is
not a factored in the decisions
2. the US has become a "contract killer" for the voracious puppeteers
Prof. Petras, thanks. A while back I read something called Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man (?) in which the writer describes his efforts to put other nations into debt to
American institutions and American-controlled or -influenced international institutions for
the ulterior purpose of political control. Sounded plausible enough, and I saw the author
speak on TV on his book tour.
How do any of us know we're living in a country gone massively wobbly? Can a German
sipping wine in Koblenz in 1936 even imagine Hitler's Germany will be a staple of American
cable shows eighty years hence, and not in a good way? Can a Russian in the same year imagine
that the latest round of arrests won't be leading to a Communist utopia now, or ever?
FWIW-my guess is America's imperial adventures are heavily structural, being that foreign
policy is strongly within the President's purview, and Congress can be counted on to
rubber-stamp military expeditions. Plus, empire offers a good distraction from domestic
politics, which are an intractable mess of rent-seeking, racial animus, and corporate
interests.
I don't like it much having to live in a racketeerized America, but there's not a whole
lot we can do.
Professor Petras glasses are becoming little bit foggy, but his scalpel still cuts to the
bone.
But this article is lecture for beginner class, or the aliens visitors who just landed on
Earth
Yet in his lunacy, President Trump has denounced and exposed the repeated deceits and
ongoing fabrications of the mass media.
A damned good article, Sir! And bless you for calling bankster propaganda anything
but "mainstream."
Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is
poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to
misleading a bewildered people.
-Walter Lippman, A Preface to Politics ( 1913 ), quoted in The Essential
Lippmann, pp. 516-517
Lippman was an Allied propagandist among many other things.
The 10 theories that led Petras to conclude "{the message is "to disarm their adversaries and
to arouse their patrons" to continue to plunder the world}" is an example, that the American
people are clueless about how events documented by Petras research, led Petras to conclude
the USA is about plunder of the world .
There is a distinct difference between USA governed Americans and the 527 persons that
govern Americans.
Access by Americans to the USA 1) in person with one of its 527 members, 2) by communication
or attempted communication via some type of expression or 3) by constitutionally allowed
regime change at election time. None of these methods work very well for Americans , if at
all; but they serve the entrenched members of the USA, massive in size corporations and
upstream wealthy owners, quite well.
Secondly, IMO, Mr. Petras either does not understand democracy or has chosen to make a
mockery of it?
The constitution that produced the USA produced not a democracy, but a Republic.
A republic which authorized a group ( an handful of people) to rule America by rules the USA
group
decides to impose. Since the group can control the meaning of the US Constitution as well
as change it's words, the group has, unlimited power to rule, no matter the subject matter or method
(possible exceptions might be said to be within the meaning of the bill of rights; but like
all contract
clauses, especially a contract of the type where one side can amend, ignore, change or
replace or use
its overwhelming military and police powers to enforce against the other side, leaving the
other side no
recourse, is not really a contract; it might better be called an instrument announcing the
assumption of
power which infringes inalienable human rights).
Therefore just because 527 members of the USA government might between themselves practice
Democracy does not mean the governed enjoy the same freedoms.
So the USA is ruled by puppets, 527 of them, puppets of the Oligarchs. Since the
ratification of the USA constitution, Americans have been governed by the USA [The US
constitution (ratified 1778) overthrew and disposed of the Articles of Confederation
(Government of America founded 1776). Not a shot was fired, but there was a war none-the-less
(read Federalist vs Anti-Federalist and have a look at the first few acts of the USA).
(Note: The AOC, was the American government that defeated the British Armies [1776-1783],
the 1776 American AOC American Government was the government that surveyed all of the land
taken from the British by the AOC after it defeated the entire British military and stopped
the British aristocrat owed, privately held corporate Empires from their continuous raping of
America and abuse of Americans. those who did the work.
The AOC was the very same American Government that hired G. Washington to defeat and chase
the British Aristocratic Corporate Colonial Empires out of America. The 1776 American AOC
Government was the very same government that granted freedom to its people (AOC really did
practice democracy, and really did try to divide and distribute the vast American lands taken
from the British Corporate Colonial Empire equally among the then living Americans. The AOC
ceased to exist when the US Constitution installed the USA by a self proclaimed regime
change process , called ratification). There were 11 presidents of the AOC, interestingly
enough, few have heard of them.
Once again the practice of political self-determination democracy is limited to the 525
USA members who have seats in the halls of the Congress of the USA or who occupy the offices
of the President of USA or the Vice-President of the USA. All persons in America, not among
the 527 salaried, elected members of the USA, are governed by the USA.
@Heisendude Israel has no constitution, and therefore no borders.
A constitution also describes borders.
An Israeli jew one asked Ben Gurion why Israel has no defined borders, the answer was
something like 'we do not want to define borders, if we did, we cannot expand'.
@Jeff Stryker Why does Israel assist all sorts of bandits, including, but not limited to,
ISIS, in Syria? Just recently Israel helped in extracting the White Helmets, a PR wing of
Nusra (Syrian branch of Al Qaida) from South Syria. Please explain.
@Anonymous Those 527 are bought and paid for lackeys. We don't know how many real owners
of the USA there are, don't know many of their names, but we do know that when those lackeys
imagine that they are somebodies and try to govern, they are eliminated (John Kennedy is the
most unambiguous example).
You may have heard of it. Globalism, N(J)ew World Order. That which the
(((internationalists))) are always working towards. A one world government with them at the
top, the ruling class.
Vietnam was a mess for a decade at least and created an immigration crisis in
Australia.
Australia is a white nation. All white nations are supposed to suffer and ultimately
collapse upon the creation of their New World Order. Vietnam was a complete success for the
one's who really wanted that war.
The US had a surplus budget when Clinton left office. When Bush left office, oil prices
were sky-high and the economy was dreadful.
Bush was a neocon, wars for Israel with that 'surplus' were the intention all along. As
wars under Hillary would have been as well. And as they potentially could still be if Trump
proves to be a lap dog for Israel as well. He campaigned on no pointless wars, but there's no
saying for sure until he either brings all our troops home or capitulates and signs Americans
up to be cash cows and cannon fodder for more Israeli geopolitical ambitions.
Who benefits.
Those same rootless cosmopolitans that always benefit from playing both sides of the
field, seeding conflict and then cashing in on the warmongering, genocidal depopulation and
population displacement in the name of their geopolitical ambitions.
Israel? Syria is a mess that threatens their borders.
Israel made that mess. Threatened their borders with war. Land theft. Y'know. Golan
Heights. Genocide land theft and displacement are all Israel does. Their borders have
expanded every year since their creation.
Everything that's happening in the Middle East is because of the Rothschild terror state
of Israel and the Zionist Jews who reside in it .. as well as in our various western
ZOGs.
Have you really never heard of the Oded Yinon Plan ? Their genocidal outline for
waging wars of aggression for the purpose of expanding their borders and becoming the
dominant regional superpower by balkanizing the surrounding Arab world.
The only nations of significance left on their check list are as follows : Syria, Iran,
Saudi Arabia. And many will argue that the House of Saud has always been crypto, helping
Israel behind the scenes. Their sudden post-coup cooperation with their former 'enemies' is
little more than a sign that they are needed as a wartime ally more in the current phase of
their Yinon Plan than as controlled opposition funding and arming ISIS while keeping the
public eye off of Israel's role in their creation and direction. Sure enough, it seems there
is a rather strong push for an alliance between KSA, Israel and the US for war with Iran.
Technological progress, particularly the progress in information technology is pushing
mankind with accelerated speed toward final solution and final settlement.
Corruption is endemic in the US where it has legal status and where tens of millions of
dollars change hands and buy Congress people, Presidents and judges.
Yep. I have been ranting for years calling for a Anti-Corruption Political Party Platform
by some group.
The corruption of our politicians is the cause of all the problems everyone else is ranting
about.
In some ways I think most people deserve what they are going to get eventually because
they ignore the corruption of their heroes .whether it be Trump, Hillary or any other.
I tell you sheeple .if someone will cheat and lie to others they will do the same thing to
you ..you are stone cold stupid if you think other wise.
@Biff Jeff and Mikeat are both correct if my friend's account of his participation in a
recent trade show there is true. My friend's wife is a ding bat Hillarybot and she got to
yammering to me after returning about all the wonderful diversity she saw in the streets of
Dubai, but I shut her down pretty quickly by pointing out that the diversity darlings in
Dubai were paid help for the Sheikdom and weren't even second class temporary residents by US
standards; that they can be (and are) summarily deported to some slave market in Yemen if
they don't mind their Ps and Qs VERY carefully in that society. She's also a wino, but
confessed that the Trader Joe's box grade merlot sold for about US$18 to $25 a goblet in a
tourist zone food and beverage joint. (and that didn't slow her down one bit) Hubby had to
watch her close, as obvious public drunkenness (even in the tourist zone) has high potential
for extreme justice.
The New Economy plan being promoted there is the development of a sort of Disneyworld on
steroids international vacation attraction, as the leaders seem to think that their oil is
going to run out soon.
@peterAUS CNN, Washpost and NYT since a very long time suffer from a serious mental
disorder.
It reminds me of Orwell's The Country of the Blind.
When the man who could see was cured all was well.
@DESERT FOX While the Fed is a focal point, it is not the central issue. If Americans,
were actually in voting control of the central issue Americans could and probably would
abolish the fed and destroy its income by removing the income tax laws, very early on.
But if the Fed and Income taxes are not the central issue, what is the central issue?
Could it be majority will "control of the structure and staffing of that structure" that
often people call government? Look back to the creation of the US Constitution! There the
central issue for the old British Aristocracy accustomed to having their way, was: can
Aristocrats stay in control (of the new American democracy) and if so, how should "such
control" be established so that British corporate power, British Aristocratic wealth and
British Class Privilege can all survive the American revolution? {PWP}.
The question was answered by developing a form of government that enabling the Oligarch
few to make the rules [rule of law] that could control the masses and to produce a government
that had a monopoly on the use of power, so that it could enforce the laws it makes, against
against the masses and fend off all challenges. The constitution blocked the people's right
to self determination; it empowered the privileged, it favored the wealthy, and most of all
it protected and saved pre-war British owned PWP as post war PWP.
Today those who operate the government do so in near perfect secrecy (interrupted only
occasionally by Snowden, Assange, and a few brave others). It spies on each person, records
each human breath taken by the masses, relates relationships between the masses, because
those in charge fear the power of the masses should the masses somehow find a way to impose
their will on how things are to be. How can rules made by Aristocrats in secret, be
considered to be outcomes established by self- determination of the masses who are to be
governed?
Ratification is the process that abolished Democracy in America. The story of those
who imposed ratification has not yet been told. Ratification was used to justify the
overthrow of the Articles of the Confederation (AOC was America's government from 1776 to
1789). To defeat the British empire the AOC hired the most wealthy man it could find to
organize an Army capable to defeat the British Military. The AOC warred on the British Armies
with the intent to stop colonial corporate empires from continuing to rape American
productivity and exploit the resources in America for the benefit of the British Corporate
Empires [Read the Declaration of Independence].
You might research.. How did George Washington achieve his massive, for its time, wealth?
I don't think tossing coins across the mile wide Potomac made him a dime? How did GW attain
such wealth in British owned, corporately controlled Colonial America? Why was George
Washington able to keep that British earned wealth after the British were chased out of
America? More importantly many gave their all, life, liberty and property to help chase the
British out, GW gave ..?
Title by land grants [Virginia and West Virginia] are traceable to GWs estate.
What the land grant landowners feared most was that the new American democracy, might
allow the masses to revoke or deny titles to real estate in America, if such title derived
from a foreign government (land grant). The Articles of Confederation government was talking
about dividing up all of the lands in America, and parceling it out, in equal portions, to
all living AOC governed America. Deeds from kings and queens of England, France, Spain,
Portugal, and the Netherlands to land in America would not be recognized in the chain of
title? Such lands would belong to the new AOC government or to the states who were members of
the AOC.
You might check out Article 6, (Para 1) of the US Constitution.. it says in part
" All Debts contracted and Engagements[land grants and British Corporate Charters] entered
into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States
under this Constitution, as under the confederation.
(meaning loans to British Banks would be repaid and land deals made with foreign nations
and corporations including those that resulted in creating a land Baron in British Colonial
America, were to be treated as valid land titles by US Constitution. Consider the plight of
Ex British Land Grant Barron Aristocrat [EBLGBA] who finds himself in now independent
democratic America? Real Americans might decide EBLGBAs were some kind of terrorist, or
spies. Under such circumstances, the EBLGA might look at Americans as a threat to their
Aristocracy, a threat to their PWP..
Example: A Spanish Land Grant property in America ( King of Spain gave 5 million acres of
land in America to ZZ in 1720 (ZZ is a Spanish Corporation ZZ doing business in America), the
land transaction was recognized as valid under British Colonial Law in America. But would
Independent AOC America recognize a deed issued by a Spanish King, or British Queen to Real
Estate in America?
After the Revolution, the question does a EBLGBA retain ownership in the American located
land that is now part of Independent America? Ain't no dam deed from a Spanish government
going to be valid in America. King of England cannot give a deed to land that is located in
independent America.
So if, a corporation, incorporated under British Law, claims it owns 5 million acres of
American land because the Queen of England deeded it the the corporation: does that mean the
5 million acres still belongs to British Corporation X, and of course to the person made
Aristocrat by virtue of ownership of the British Corporation). Is a British Corporation now
to be an American Corporation? British Landed Gentry (land grant owners) in independent post
war America, were quick to lobby for the constitution because the constitution protected
their ownership in land granted to them by a foreign king or queen in fact the constitution
protected the PWP.
I agree with your Zionist communist observation. It is imperative for all persons
interested in what is happening to study the takeover of Russia from the Tzar by Lenin and
his Zionist Communist because what the Zionist did to the Christians in Russia in 1917 seems
to be approaching for it to happen here in America and because that revolution was a part of
the organized Zionist [1896, Hertzl] movement to take control of all of the oil in the world.
Let us not forget, Lenin and crew exterminated 32 million White Russians nearly all of whom
were educated Christians living in the Ukraine.
As Petras says: "The ten theses define the nature of 21st century imperialism" because, I
feel, they are the same values that defined the British Colonial Empire.
So the USA is ruled by puppets, 527 of them, puppets of the Oligarchs. Since the
ratification of the USA constitution, Americans have been governed by the USA [The US
constitution (ratified 1778) overthrew and disposed of the Articles of Confederation
(Government of America founded 1776). Not a shot was fired, but there was a war
none-the-less (read Federalist vs Anti-Federalist and have a look at the first few acts of
the USA).
What a relief to find that there are a few (very few) others who have a clue. The
"constitution" was effectively a coup d'etat. We proles, peasants and other pissants have
been tax and debt slaves ever since, and the situation has continuously worsened. Lincoln's
war against Southern independence, establishment of the Federal Reserve, Wilson's and
especially FDR's wars, and infiltration of the US government and industry by Commies,
Zionists and other Eastern European goon-mafiosi scum have completely perverted what this
country is supposedly about.
I doubt the situation will ever begin to improve unless and until the mass of brainwashed
dupes understand what you wrote.
@Anon Please comment more often. Excellent info there.
You might research.. How did George Washington achieve his massive, for its time,
wealth?
True. Especially since the guy was a third rate, (probably mostly incompetent), Brit
military officer and terrorist who treated the men under his command like sh!t.
Reminds me of Ol Johnny Boy McCain and other such scum.
@jilles dykstra "Ben Gurion: 'we do not want to define borders, if we did, we cannot
expand'.
-- Right. Hence the mass slaughter in the Middle East.
Hapless Canada is going to accept the "humanitarian" terrorists from While Helmets
organization. The rescue is a joint Israel-Canada enterprise: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/435670-white-helmets-canada-syria/
-- -- -- -
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (a committed banderist and admirer of Ukrainian
neo-Nazis) and Robin Wettlaufer (Canada's representative to the Syrian Opposition and a harsh
critic of Assad "regime") have been playing a key role in the evacuation of the White
Helmets. But there are some questions to Robin: "Did Canadians get to vote on whether or not
to bring potential terrorists or supporters of terrorists to Canada? No. No vote in the
Parliament, no public discussion. Why did the Canadian government refuse the entry of 100
injured Palestinian children from Gaza in 2014, a truly humanitarian effort, and yet will
fast-track the entry of potentially dangerous men with potential ties to terrorists?"
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/435670-white-helmets-canada-syria/
-- Guess Robin Wettlaufer, due to her ethnic solidarity, would be fine with these injured
Palestinian children being smothered by someone, but the well-financed White Helmets are the
extremely valuable material for realizing Oded Yinon plan for Eretz Israel (see Ben Gurion
answer).
The US had a surplus budget when Clinton left office
It turns out that 'budget surplus' does not mean what most people think it means. When your household has a budget surplus, its rate of debt accumulation reverses
(i.e., the total value of household debt falls). Credit cards get paid down, mortgages get
paid off, and eventually you end up with a large and growing positive net worth. That's what
running a 'budget surplus' means , right?
Not so for governments : the US government could run perpetual budget 'surpluses'
and still grow government debt without bound – because they do not account for things
the way they insist that we serfs account for things there are a bunch of their expenditures
that they simply don't count in their 'budget'.
It's a bit like if you were to only count the amount your household spent on
groceries , and declare your entire budget to be in 'surplus' or 'deficit' based on
whether or not there's change after you do your weekly shopping. Meanwhile, you're spending
more than you earn overall, and accumulating debt at an expanding rate.
Runaway debt is what destroys – whether it's families or countries.
There has only been one year since 1960 in which the US Federal Debt has fallen :
1969 .
During the much-touted "Clinton Surpluses", the US Federal Debt rose by almost a
quarter- trillion dollars . The first two Bush years had larger surpluses than
either of the two Clinton surpluses – but still added $160 billion to the
Federal debt.
I know those don't sound like big numbers anymore – much given that Bush added $602
billion per year on average, and Obama added twice Bush 's amount (1.19 trillion per
year).
"... There has been an ongoing campaign on the part of the US, to get out the idea that China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have massive armies of hackers that are constantly looking to steal American secrets. The absurdity of the US' claims is pretty obvious. As I pointed out in my book The Myth of Homeland Security ..."
"... "The Great US/China Cyberwar of 2010" is one cyberwar that didn't happen, but was presaged with a run-up of lots of claims that the Chinese were hacking all over the place. I'm perfectly willing to accept the possibility that there was Chinese hacking activity, but in the industry there was no indication of an additional level of attack or significance. ..."
"... One thing that did ..."
"... US ideology is that "we don't start wars" -- it's always looking for an excuse to go to war under the rubric of self-defense, so I see these sorts of claims as justification in advance for unilateral action. I also see it as a sign of weakness; if the US were truly the superpower it claims it is, it would simply accept its imperial mantle and stop bothering to try to justify anything. I'm afraid we may be getting close to that point. ..."
"... My assumption has always been that the US is projecting its own actions on other nations. At the time when the US was talking the loudest about Chinese cyberwar, the US and Israel had launched STUXNET against the Iranian enrichment plant at Natanz, and the breeder reactor at Bushehr (which happens to be just outside of a large city; the attack took some of its control systems and backup generators offline). Attacks on nuclear power facilities are a war crime under international humanitarian law, which framework the US is signatory to but has not committed to actually follow. This sort of activity happens at the same time that the US distributes talking-points to the media about the danger of Russian hackers crashing the US power grid. I don't think we can psychoanalyze an entire government and I think psychoanalysis is mostly nonsense -- but it's tempting to accuse the US of "projection." ..."
"... All of this stuff happens against the backdrop of Klein, Binney, Snowden, and the Vault 7 revelations, as well as solid attribution identifying the NSA as "equation group" and linking the code-tree of NSA-developed malware to STUXNET, FLAME, and DUQU. ..."
"... the US has even admitted to deploying STUXNET -- Obama bragged about it. When Snowden's revelations outlined how the NSA had eavesdropped on Angela Merkel's cellphone, the Germans expressed shock and Barack Obama remarkably truthfully said "that's how these things are done" and blew the whole thing off by saying that the NSA wasn't eavesdropping on Merkel any more. [ bbc ] ..."
"... It's hard to keep score because everything is pretty vague, but it sounds like the US has been dramatically out-spending and out-acting the other nations that it accuses of being prepared for cyberwar. ..."
"... it's hard not to see the US is prepared for cyberwar, when both the NSA and the CIA leak massive collections of advanced tools. ..."
"... My observation is that the NSA and CIA have been horribly sloppy and have clearly spent a gigantic amount of money preparing to compromise both foreign and domestic systems -- that's bad enough. With friends like the NSA and CIA, who needs Russians and Chinese? ..."
"... The Russian and Chinese efforts are relatively tiny compared to the massive efforts the US expends tens of billions of dollars on. The US spends about $50bn on its intelligence agencies, while the entire Russian Department of Defense budget is about $90bn (China is around $139bn) -- maybe the Russians and Chinese have such a small footprint because they are much smaller operations? ..."
"... That brings us to the recent kerfuffle about taps on the Supermicro motherboards. That's not unbelievable at all -- not in a world where we discover that Intel has built a parallel management CPU into every CPU since 2008, and that there is solid indications that other processors have similar backdoors. ..."
"... There are probably so many backdoors in our systems that it's a miracle it works at all. ..."
"... So, with respect to "propaganda" I would say that the US intelligence community has been consistently pushing a propaganda agenda against the US government, and the citizens in order to justify its actions and defend its budget. ..."
"... What little I've been able to find out the new Trump™ cybersecurity plan is that it doesn't involve any defense, just massive retribution against (perceived) foes. ..."
"... Funny how those obsessed with "false flag" operations work so hard to invite more of same. ..."
Bob Moore asks me to comment on an article about propaganda and security/intelligence. [
article ] This is going to be a mixture of opinion and references to facts; I'll try to be
clear which is which.
Yesterday several NATO countries ran a concerted propaganda campaign against Russia. The
context for it was a NATO summit in which the U.S. presses for an intensified cyberwar
against NATO's preferred enemy.
On the same day another coordinated campaign targeted China. It is aimed against China's
development of computer chip manufacturing further up the value chain. Related to this is
U.S. pressure on Taiwan, a leading chip manufacturer, to cut its ties with its big
motherland.
It is true that the US periodically makes a big push regarding "messaging" about hacking.
Whether or not it constitutes a "propaganda campaign" depends on how we choose to interpret
things and the labels we attach to them -- "propaganda campaign" has a lot of negative
connotations and one person's "outreach effort" is an other's "propaganda." An
ultra-nationalist or an authoritarian submissive who takes the government's word for anything
would call it "outreach."
There has been an ongoing campaign on the part of the US, to get out the idea that
China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have massive armies of hackers that are constantly looking
to steal American secrets. The absurdity of the US' claims is pretty obvious. As I pointed out
in my book The Myth of Homeland Security (2004) [
wc ] claims such as that the Chinese had "40,000 highly trained hackers" are flat-out
absurd and ignore the reality of hacking; that's four army corps. Hackers don't engage in
"human wave" attacks.
"The Great US/China Cyberwar of 2010" is one cyberwar that didn't happen, but was
presaged with a run-up of lots of claims that the Chinese were hacking all over the place. I'm
perfectly willing to accept the possibility that there was Chinese hacking activity, but in the
industry there was no indication of an additional level of attack or significance.
One thing that did happen in 2010 around the same time as the nonexistent
cyberwar was China and Russia proposed trilateral talks with the US to attempt to define
appropriate limits on state-sponsored hacking. The US flatly rejected the proposal, but there
was virtually no coverage of that in the US media at the time. The UN also called for a
cyberwar treaty framework, and the effort was killed by the US. [ wired ] What's
fascinating and incomprehensible to me is that, whenever the US feels that its ability to claim
pre-emptive cyberwar is challenged, it responds with a wave of claims about Chinese (or Russian
or North Korean) cyberwar aggression.
John Negroponte, former director of US intelligence, said intelligence agencies in the
major powers would be the first to "express reservations" about such an accord.
US ideology is that "we don't start wars" -- it's always looking for an excuse to go to
war under the rubric of self-defense, so I see these sorts of claims as justification in
advance for unilateral action. I also see it as a sign of weakness; if the US were truly the
superpower it claims it is, it would simply accept its imperial mantle and stop bothering to
try to justify anything. I'm afraid we may be getting close to that point.
My assumption has always been that the US is projecting its own actions on other
nations. At the time when the US was talking the loudest about Chinese cyberwar, the US and
Israel had launched STUXNET against the Iranian enrichment plant at Natanz, and the breeder
reactor at Bushehr (which happens to be just outside of a large city; the attack took some of
its control systems and backup generators offline). Attacks on nuclear power facilities are a
war crime under international humanitarian law, which framework the US is signatory to but has
not committed to actually follow. This sort of activity happens at the same time that the US
distributes talking-points to the media about the danger of Russian hackers crashing the US
power grid. I don't think we can psychoanalyze an entire government and I think psychoanalysis
is mostly nonsense -- but it's tempting to accuse the US of "projection."
The anti-Russian campaign is about alleged Russian spying, hacking and influence
operations. Britain and the Netherland took the lead. Britain accused Russia's military
intelligence service (GRU) of spying attempts against the Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague and Switzerland, of spying attempts against the British
Foreign Office, of influence campaigns related to European and the U.S. elections, and of
hacking the international doping agency WADA. British media willingly
helped to exaggerate the claims: [ ]
The Netherland [sic] for its part released
a flurry
of information about the alleged spying attempts against the OPCW in The Hague. It claims
that four GRU agents traveled to The Hague on official Russian diplomatic passports to sniff
out the WiFi network of the OPCW. (WiFi networks are notoriously easy to hack. If the OPCW is
indeed using such it should not be trusted with any security relevant issues.) The Russian
officials were allegedly very secretive, even cleaning out their own hotel trash, while they,
at the same, time carried laptops with private data and even taxi receipts showing their
travel from a GRU headquarter in Moscow to the airport. Like in the Skripal/Novichok saga the
Russian spies are, at the same time, portrayed as supervillains and hapless amateurs. Real
spies are neither.
There's a lot there, and I think the interpretation is a bit over-wrought, but it's mostly
accurate. The US and the UK (and other NATO allies, as necessary) clearly coordinate when it
comes to talking points. Claims of Chinese cyberwar in the US press will be followed by claims
in the UK and Australian press, as well. My suspicion is that this is not the US Government and
UK Government coordinating a story -- it's the intelligence agencies doing it. My
opinion is that the intelligence services are fairly close to a "deep state" -- the
CIA and NSA are completely out of control and the CIA has gone far toward building its own
military, while the NSA has implemented completely unrestricted surveillance worldwide.
All of this stuff happens against the backdrop of Klein, Binney, Snowden, and the Vault
7 revelations, as well as solid attribution identifying the NSA as "equation group" and linking
the code-tree of NSA-developed malware to STUXNET, FLAME, and DUQU. While the attribution
that "Fancy Bear is the GRU" has been made and is probably fairly solid, the attribution of NSA
malware and CIA malware is rock solid; the US has even admitted to deploying STUXNET --
Obama bragged about it. When Snowden's revelations outlined how the NSA had eavesdropped on
Angela Merkel's cellphone, the Germans expressed shock and Barack Obama remarkably truthfully
said "that's how these things are done" and blew the whole thing off by saying that the NSA
wasn't eavesdropping on Merkel any more. [ bbc ]
It's hard to keep score because everything is pretty vague, but it sounds like the US
has been dramatically out-spending and out-acting the other nations that it accuses of being
prepared for cyberwar. I tend to be extremely skeptical of US claims because: bomber gap,
missile gap, gulf of Tonkin, Iraq WMD, Afghanistan, Libya and every other aggressive attack by
the US which was blamed on its target. The reason I assume the US is the most aggressive actor
in cyberspace is because the US has done a terrible job of protecting its tool-sets and
operational security: it's hard not to see the US is prepared for cyberwar, when both the
NSA and the CIA leak massive collections of advanced tools.
Meanwhile, where are the leaks of Russian and Chinese tools? They have been few and far
between, if there have been any at all. Does this mean that the Russians and Chinese have
amazingly superior tradecraft, if not tools? I don't know. My observation is that the NSA
and CIA have been horribly sloppy and have clearly spent a gigantic amount of money preparing
to compromise both foreign and domestic systems -- that's bad enough. With friends like the NSA
and CIA, who needs Russians and Chinese?
The article does not have great depth to its understanding of the situation, I'm afraid. So
it comes off as a bit heavy on the recent news while ignoring the long-term trends. For
example:
The allegations of Chinese supply chain attacks are of course just as hypocritical as the
allegations against Russia. The very first know case of computer related supply chain
manipulation goes
back to 1982 :
A CIA operation to sabotage Soviet industry by duping Moscow into stealing booby-trapped
software was spectacularly successful when it triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian gas
pipeline, it emerged yesterday.
I wrote a piece about the "Farewell Dossier" in 2004. [ mjr
] Re-reading it, it comes off as skeptical but waffly. I think that it's self-promotion by the
CIA and exaggerates considerably ("look how clever we are!") at a time when the CIA was
suffering an attention and credibility deficit after its shitshow performance under George
Tenet. But the first known cases of computer related supply chain manipulation go back to the
70s and 80s -- the NSA even compromised Crypto AG's Hagelin M-209 system (a mechanical
ciphering machine) in order to read global communications encrypted with that product. You can
imagine Crypto AG's surprise when the Iranian secret police arrested one of their sales reps
for selling backdoor'd crypto -- the NSA had never told them about the backdoor, naturally. The
CIA was also on record for producing Xerox machines destined for the USSR, which had recorders
built into them So, while the article is portraying the historical sweep of NSA dirty tricks,
they're only looking at the recent ones. Remember: the NSA also weakened the elliptic curve
crypto library in RSA's Bsafe implementation, paying RSADSI $13 million to accept their tweaked
code.
Why haven't we been hearing about the Chinese and Russians doing that sort of thing? There
are four options:
The Russians and Chinese are doing it, they're just so darned good nobody has
caught them until just recently.
The Russians and Chinese simply resort to using existing tools developed by the
hacking/cybercrime community and rely on great operational security rather than fancy
tools.
The Russian and Chinese efforts are relatively tiny compared to the massive efforts
the US expends tens of billions of dollars on. The US spends about $50bn on its intelligence
agencies, while the entire Russian Department of Defense budget is about $90bn (China is
around $139bn) -- maybe the Russians and Chinese have such a small footprint because they are
much smaller operations?
Something else.
That brings us to the recent kerfuffle about taps on the Supermicro motherboards. That's
not unbelievable at all -- not in a world where we discover that Intel has built a parallel
management CPU into every CPU since 2008, and that there is solid indications that other
processors have similar backdoors.
Was the Intel IME a "backdoor" or just "a bad idea"? Well, that's tricky. Let me put my
tinfoil hat on: making a backdoor look like a sloppily developed product feature would be the
competent way to write a backdoor. Making it as sneaky as the backdoor in the Via is
unnecessary -- incompetence is eminently believable.
&
(kaspersky)
I believe all of these stories (including the Supermicro) are the tip of a great big, ugly
iceberg. The intelligence community has long known that software-only solutions are too
mutable, and are easy to decompile and figure out. They have wanted to be in the BIOS of
systems -- on the motherboard -- for a long time. If you go back to 2014, we have disclosures
about the NSA malware that hides in hard drive BIOS: [
vice ] [
vice ] That appears to have been in progress around 2000/2001.
Of note, the group recovered two modules belonging to EquationDrug and GrayFish that were
used to reprogram hard drives to give the attackers persistent control over a target machine.
These modules can target practically every hard drive manufacturer and brand on the market,
including Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Toshiba, Corsair, Hitachi and more. Such attacks
have traditionally been difficult to pull off, given the risk in modifying hard drive
software, which may explain why Kaspersky could only identify a handful of very specific
targets against which the attack was used, where the risk was worth the reward.
But
Equation Group's malware platforms have other tricks, too. GrayFish, for example, also has
the ability to install itself into computer's boot record -- software that loads even
before the operating system itself -- and stores all of its data inside a portion of
the operating system called the registry, where configuration data is normally stored.
EquationDrug was designed for use on older Windows operating systems, and "some of the
plugins were designed originally for use on Windows 95/98/ME" -- versions of Windows so old
that they offer a good indication of the Equation Group's age.
This is not a very good example of how to establish a "malware gap" since it just makes the
NSA look like they are incapable of keeping a secret. If you want an idea how bad it is,
Kaspersky labs' analysis of the NSA's toolchain is a good example of how to do attribution
correctly. Unfortunately for the US agenda, that solid attribution points toward Fort Meade in
Maryland. [kaspersky]
Let me be clear: I think we are fucked every which way from the start. With backdoors in the
BIOS, backdoors on the CPU, and wireless cellular-spectrum backdoors, there are probably
backdoors in the GPUs and the physical network controllers, as well. Maybe the backdoors in the
GPU come from the GRU and maybe the backdoors in the hard drives come from NSA, but who cares?
The upshot is that all of our systems are so heinously compromised that they can only be
considered marginally reliable. It is, literally, not your computer: it's theirs. They'll let
you use it so long as your information is interesting to them.
Do I believe the Chinese are capable of doing such a thing? Of course. Is the GRU? Probably.
Mossad? Sure. NSA? Well-documented attribution points toward NSA. Your computer is a free-fire
zone. It has been since the mid 1990s, when the NSA was told "no" on the Clipper chip and
decided to come up with its own Plan B, C, D, and E. Then, the CIA came up with theirs. Etc.
There are probably so many backdoors in our systems that it's a miracle it works at
all.
From my 2012 RSA conference lecture "Cyberwar, you're doing it wrong."
The problem is that playing in this space is the purview of governments. Nobody in the
cybercrime or hacking world need tools like these. The intelligence operatives have huge
budgets, compared to a typical company's security budget, and it's unreasonable to expect any
business to invest such a level of effort on defending itself. So what should companies do?
They should do exactly what they are doing: expect the government to deal with it; that's what
governments are for. The problem with that strategy is that their government isn't on their
side, either! It's Hobbes' playground.
In case you think I am engaging in hyperbole, I assure you I am not. If you want another
example of the lengths (and willingness to bypass the law) "they" are willing to go, consider
'stingrays' that are in operation in every major US city and outside of every interesting hotel
and high tech park. Those devices are not passive -- they actively inject themselves into the
call set-up between your phone and your carrier -- your data goes through the stingray, or it
doesn't go at all. If there are multiple stingrays, then your latency goes through the roof.
"They" don't care. Are the stingrays NSA, FBI, CIA, Mossad, GRU, or PLA? Probably a bit of all
of the above depending on where and when.
Whenever the US gets caught with its pants down around its ankles, it blames the Chinese or
the Russians because they have done a good job of building the idea that the most serious
hackers on the planet at the Chinese. I don't believe that we're seeing complex propaganda
campaigns that are tied to specific incidents -- I think we see ongoing organic
propaganda campaigns that all serve the same end: protect the agencies, protect their budgets,
justify their existence, and downplay their incompetence.
So, with respect to "propaganda" I would say that the US intelligence community has been
consistently pushing a propaganda agenda against the US government, and the citizens in order
to justify its actions and defend its budget.
The government also engages in propaganda, and is influenced by the intelligence
community's propaganda as well. And the propaganda campaigns work because everyone
involved assumes, "well, given what the NSA has been able to do, I should assume the Chinese
can do likewise." That's a perfectly reasonable assumption and I think it's probably true that
the Chinese have capabilities. The situation is what Chuck Spinney calls "A self-licking ice
cream cone" -- it's a justifying structure that makes participation in endless aggression seem
like a sensible thing to do. And, when there's inevitably a disaster, it's going to be like a
cyber-9/11 and will serve as a justification for even more unrestrained aggression.
Want to see what it looks like? A thousand thanks to Commentariat member [redacted] for this
link. If you don't like video, there's an article here. [ toms ]
Is this an NSA backdoor, or normal incompetence? Is Intel Management Engine an NSA-inspired
backdoor, or did some system engineers at Intel think that was a good idea? There are other
scary indications of embedded compromise: the CIA's Vault7 archive included code that appeared
to be intended to embed in the firmware of "smart" flatscreen TVs. That would make every LG
flat panel in every hotel room, a listening device just waiting to be turned on.
We know the Chinese didn't do that particular bug but why wouldn't they do
something similar, in something else? China is the world's oldest mature culture -- they
literally wrote the book on strategy -- Americans acting as though it's a great
surprise to learn that the Chinese are not stupid, it's just the parochialism of a 250 year-old
culture looking at a 3,000 year-old culture and saying "wow, you guys haven't been asleep at
the switch after all!"
What little I've been able to find out the new
Trump™ cybersecurity plan is that it doesn't involve any defense, just massive
retribution against (perceived) foes.
Funny how those obsessed with "false flag" operations work so hard to invite more of
same.
Pierce R. Butler@#1: What little I've been able to find out the new Trump™ cybersecurity plan is that
it doesn't involve any defense, just massive retribution against (perceived) foes.
Yes. Since 2001, as far as most of us can tell, federal cybersecurity spend has been 80%
offense, 20% defense. And a lot of the offensive spend has been aimed at We, The
People.
Your mention of Operation Sundevil and Kevin Mitnick in a previous post made me think
that maybe the reason we haven't seen the kind of leaks from the Russian and Chinese
hacking operations that we've seem from the NSA is that they're running a "Kevin Mitnick
style" operation; that is, relying less on technical solutions and using instead
old-fashioned "social engineering" and other low-tech forms of espionage (like running
troll farms on social media). I mean, I've seen interviews with retired US intelligence
people since the 90s complain that since the late 1980s, the intelligence agencies have
been crippled by management in love with hi-tech "SIGINT" solutions to problems that never
deliver and neglecting old-fashioned "HUMINT" intelligence-gathering.
The thing is, Kevin Mitnick got away with a lot of what he did because people didn't
take security seriously then, and still don't. On a similar nostalgia vibe, I remember
reading an article by Keith Bostic (one of the researchers who helped in the analysis of
the Morris worm
that took down a significant chunk of the Internet back in 1988) where he did a follow-up a
year or so afterwards and some depressing number of organisations that had been hit by it
still hadn't patched the holes that had let the worm infect them in the first
place.
Cat Mara@#3: Your mention of Operation Sundevil and Kevin Mitnick in a previous post made me think
that maybe the reason we haven't seen the kind of leaks from the Russian and Chinese
hacking operations that we've seem from the NSA is that they're running a "Kevin Mitnick
style" operation; that is, relying less on technical solutions and using instead
old-fashioned "social engineering" and other low-tech forms of espionage (like running
troll farms on social media).
I think that's right, to a high degree. What if Edward Snowden was an agent provocateur
instead of a well-meaning naive kid? A tremendous amount of damage could be done, as well
as stealing the US' expensive toys. The Russians have been very good at doing exactly that
sort of operation, since WWII. The Chinese are, if anything, more subtle than the
Russians.
The Chinese attitude, as expressed to me by someone who might be a credible source is,
"why are you picking a fight with us? We don't care, you're too far away for us to threaten
you, we both have loads of our own fish to fry. To them, the US is young, hyperactive, and
stupid.
The FBI is not competent, at all, against old-school humint intelligence-gathering.
Compared to the US' cyber-toys, the old ways are probably more efficient and cost
effective. China's intelligence community is also much more team-oriented than the CIA/NSA;
they're actually a disciplined operation under the strategic control of policy-makers.
That, by the way, is why Russians and Chinese stare in amazement when Americans ask things
like "Do you think Putin knew about this?" What a stupid question! It's an autocracy; they
don't have intelligence operatives just going an deciding "it's a nice day to go to England
with some Novichok." The entire American attitude toward espionage lacks maturity.
On a similar nostalgia vibe, I remember reading an article by Keith Bostic (one of
the researchers who helped in the analysis of the Morris worm that took down a significant
chunk of the Internet back in 1988) where he did a follow-up a year or so afterwards and
some depressing number of organisations that had been hit by it still hadn't patched the
holes that had let the worm infect them in the first place.
That as an exciting time. We were downstream from University of Maryland, which got hit
pretty badly. Pete Cottrel and Chris Torek from UMD were also in on Bostic's dissection. We
were doing uucp over TCP for our email (that changed pretty soon after the worm) and our
uucp queue blew up. I cured the worm with a reboot into single-user mode and a quick 'rm
-f' in the uucp queue.
Thanks. I appreciate your measured analysis and the making explicit of the bottom line:
" agencies, protect their budgets, justify their existence, and downplay their
incompetence."
"... If the so-called "Resistance" to Trump was ever actually interested in opposing this administration in any meaningful way, this would be the top trending news story in America for days, like how "bombshell" revelations pertaining to the made-up Russiagate narrative trend for days. Spoiler alert: it isn't, and it won't be. ..."
"... The US Senate has just passed Trump's mammoth military spending increase by a landslide 92–8 vote . The eight senators who voted "nay"? Seven Republicans, and Independent Bernie Sanders. Every single Democrat supported the most bloated war budget since the height of the Iraq war . Rather than doing everything they can to weaken the potential damage that can be done by a president they've been assuring us is a dangerous hybrid of equal parts Benedict Arnold and Adolf Hitler, they've been actively increasing his power as Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. ..."
"... They're on the same team, wearing different uniforms. ..."
"... US politics is pretty much the same; two mainstream parties owned by the same political class, engaged in a staged bidding war for votes to give the illusion of competition. ..."
"... In reality, the US political system is like the unplugged video game remote that kids give their baby brother so he stops whining that he wants a turn to play. No matter who they vote for they get an Orwellian warmongering government which exists solely to advance the agendas of a plutocratic class which has no loyalties to any nation; the only difference is sometimes that government is pretending to care about women and minorities and sometimes it's pretending to care about white men. In reality, all the jewelers work for the same plutocrat, and that video game remote won't impact the outcome of the game no matter how many buttons you push. ..."
"... The only way to effect real change is to stop playing along with the rigged system and start waking people up to the lies. As long as Americans believe that the mass media are telling them the truth about their country and their partisan votes are going somewhere useful, the populace whose numbers should give it immense influence is nullified and sedated into a passive ride toward war, ecocide and oppression. ..."
"... Reprinted with author's permission from Medium.com . ..."
"... Support Ms. Johnstone's work on Patreon or Paypal ..."
A new article from the Wall Street
Journal reports that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
lied to congress about the measures Saudi Arabia is taking to minimize the civilian
casualties in its catastrophic war on Yemen, and that he did so in order to secure two billion
dollars for war profiteers.
This is about as depraved as anything you could possibly imagine. US-made bombs have
been conclusively tied to civilian deaths in a war which has caused the single worst
humanitarian crisis on earth, a crisis which sees
scores of Yemeni children dying every single day and has
placed five million children at risk of death by starvation in a nation where families are
now eating
leaves to survive . CIA veteran Bruce Riedel
once said that "if the United States of America and the United Kingdom tonight told King
Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow, because the Royal Saudi Airforce cannot
operate without American and British support." Nobody other than war plutocrats benefits from
the US assisting Saudi Arabia in its monstrous crimes against humanity, and yet Pompeo chose to
override his own expert advisors on the matter for fear of hurting the income of those very war
plutocrats.
If the so-called "Resistance" to Trump was ever actually interested in opposing this
administration in any meaningful way, this would be the top trending news story in America for
days, like how "bombshell" revelations pertaining to the made-up Russiagate narrative trend for
days. Spoiler alert: it isn't, and it won't be.
It would be so very, very easy for Democratic party leaders and Democrat-aligned media to
hurt this administration at the highest level and cause irreparable political damage based on
this story. All they'd have to do is give it the same blanket coverage they've given the
stories about Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort which
end up leading nowhere remotely near impeachment or proof of collusion with the Russian
government. The footage of the starving children is right there, ready to be aired to pluck at
the heart strings of rank-and-file Americans day after day until Republicans have lost all hope
of victory in the midterms and in 2020; all they'd have to do is use it. But they don't. And
they won't.
The US Senate has just passed Trump's mammoth military spending increase by
a landslide 92–8 vote . The eight senators who voted "nay"? Seven Republicans, and
Independent Bernie Sanders. Every single Democrat supported the most bloated war budget
since the
height of the Iraq war . Rather than doing everything they can to weaken the potential
damage that can be done by a president they've been assuring us is a dangerous hybrid of equal
parts Benedict Arnold and Adolf Hitler, they've been actively increasing his power as
Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen.
The reason for this is very simple: President Trump's ostensible political opposition does
not oppose President Trump. They're on the same team, wearing different uniforms. This is the
reason they attack him on Russian collusion accusations which the brighter bulbs among them
know full well will never be proven and have no basis in reality. They don't stand up to Trump
because, as Julian Assange once said , they are
Trump.
In John Steinbeck's The Pearl, there are jewelry buyers set up around a fishing community
which are all owned by the same plutocrat, but they all pretend to be in competition with one
another. When the story's protagonist discovers an enormous and valuable pearl and goes to sell
it, they all gather round and individually bid far less than it is worth in order to trick him
into giving it away for almost nothing. US politics is pretty much the same; two mainstream
parties owned by the same political class, engaged in a staged bidding war for votes to give
the illusion of competition.
In reality, the US political system is like the unplugged video game remote that kids give
their baby brother so he stops whining that he wants a turn to play. No matter who they vote
for they get an Orwellian warmongering government which exists solely to advance the agendas of
a plutocratic class which has no loyalties to any nation; the only difference is sometimes that
government is pretending to care about women and minorities and sometimes it's pretending to
care about white men. In reality, all the jewelers work for the same plutocrat, and that video
game remote won't impact the outcome of the game no matter how many buttons you push.
The only way to effect real change is to stop playing along with the rigged system and start
waking people up to the lies. As long as Americans believe that the mass media are telling them
the truth about their country and their partisan votes are going somewhere useful, the populace
whose numbers should give it immense influence is nullified and sedated into a passive ride
toward war, ecocide and oppression.
If enough of us keep throwing sand in the gears of the lie
factory, we can wake
the masses up from the oligarchic lullaby they're being sung. And then maybe we'll be big
enough to have a shot at grabbing one of the real video game controllers.
Reprinted with author's permission from
Medium.com .
"... There is less shame in being undone by a "master of deceit." When J. Edgar Hoover coined that description, he had Communists in mind. Back then, though, "Ruskies" and "Commies" – it was all the same. Americans were conditioned to live in fear that the Russians were coming. ..."
"... That nonsense should have ended when Communism more or less officially expired in 1989, followed two years later by the demise of the Soviet Union itself. For a long time, it seemed that it had. At first, the reaction in Western, especially American, political and media circles was triumphalist. The war was over and our side won. Beneath the surface, however, there was mourning in America. ..."
"... With the Cold War, the death merchants, the masters of war, the neocons, and a host of others had had a good thing going. Having been born into it, the political class was comfortable with the status quo too; and generations of Americans had grown up imbibing Russophobia in their mother's milk (or infant formula). ..."
"... Before long, it became clear that our economic and political masters had nothing to worry about, that Cold War anti-Communism was more robust than Communism itself. ..."
"... That suited Bill Clinton and his First Lady, the former Goldwater Girl. Boris Yeltsin, Russia's leader, was their man. He was a godsend, a Trump-like cartoon character and a drunkard to boot – with an economy in tatters, and no rightwing base egging him on. ..."
"... The time was therefore right for a return of the repressed -- for full-blooded, fifties-style, anti-Communist (= anti-Russian) hysteria, or, since that still seemed far-fetched, for anti-Communist (= anti-Chinese) hysteria. ..."
"... Exactly what "Putin," the shorthand name for all that is Russian and nefarious, did, or is still doing, remains unclear. But this does not seem to bother purveyors of the conventional wisdom. Neither is ostensibly informed public opinion fazed by the fact that the evidence supporting the consensus view comes mainly from American intelligence services and from their counterparts in the UK and other allied nations. ..."
"... How ironic therefore that nowadays it is mainly bamboozled Trump supporters in the Fox News demographic -- people who could care less about peace or, for that matter, about truth -- who are wary of the CIA and skeptical of the FBI's claims! ..."
"... They do not even seem to notice that what they allege, vague as it is, is trifling compared to the massive and very open meddling of American plutocrats, Republican vote suppressers and gerrymanderers, and the governments of supposedly friendly nations – like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies, and Israel ..."
"... Cold War revivalists can therefore rest easy, confident that their propagandists will have at least a few facts with which they can work to restore the perils of their vanished youth. ..."
"... Even so, the level of their hypocrisy is appalling. Russia, along with former Soviet republics and former members of the Warsaw Pact, has been bearing the brunt of far worse American meddling for far longer than anything sanctimonious defenders of so-called American "democracy" can plausibly allege. ..."
"... Hypocrisy reigns here too. It was the Obama administration – run through with neocons, liberal imperialists, and other holdovers from Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State – that did all it could to exacerbate longstanding tensions between that country's Ukrainian and Russian speaking populations, the better to complete NATO's encirclement of the Russian federation. And it was American meddling that led to the empowerment of virulently anti-Russian, fascisant Ukrainian politicians, much to the detriment of Russian speaking Ukrainians in the east. ..."
"... The Cold War that began after World War II involved a clash of rival political economic systems. The Cold War that reignited a few years ago involves a clash of rival imperialist centers. Its world more nearly resembles the one that existed before World War I than the one that emerged after World War II. ..."
"... However, the difference may be more superficial than it seems. The ease with which Cold War revivalists have been able to get the Cold War up and running again, even without Communism, suggests what a few observers have long maintained -- that the Cold War, on Russia's part, had little, if anything, to do with spreading Communism around the world, and everything to do with maintaining a cordon sanitaire around Russia's borders in order to protect against a demonstrably aggressive "free world." ..."
"... That part of Brzezinski's plan was at least a partial success. But inasmuch as Bush's "they" are still there, still spreading murder and mayhem throughout the Greater Middle East, America and the world has been paying a high price for the benefits, such as they were, that ensued. ..."
"... The never-ending wars set in motion by the "pivot" towards radical Islamism decades ago never quite succeeded in producing an enemy as serviceable as the USSR. But now that Putin's Russia has been pressed into service, that problem is potentially "solved." ..."
"... Efforts to recycle Bush's "they hate our freedom" nonsense ought to be non-starters. But this is the best Cold War revivalists have come up with so far. The Russians, they say, simply cannot deal with the fact that we Americans are so damned free. ..."
"... From a geopolitical point of view, Russia does have an interest in doing all it can to ward off Western aggression. It also has an interest in undermining strategic alliances aimed at blocking anything and everything that challenges American supremacy. And, until sanity prevails in Washington and other Western capitals, it arguably also has an interest in aiding and abetting rightwing nationalists in order to exacerbate tensions within Western societies. ..."
"... Clinton is bad, but Trump is worse -- not just by most measures but by all. Her fondness for war and preparations for war was alarming; she was bellicosity personified. But it was plain even before the election that Trump, a mentally unhinged narcissist, would be even more likely than she to bring on massive devastation. A vote for Trump was and still is a vote for catastrophe. ..."
"... For now, though, the hard and very relevant fact is that Trump has done nothing to help, and quite a few things to harm, Russia. ..."
"... It isn't just ordinary Russians who have been made worse off. Trump has been at least as hard on oligarchs close to Putin as Clinton would have been. ..."
"... If those damned Russians were half as smart as they are made out to be, they would have realized long ago that, for getting anything done that bucks the tide, Trump is too inept to be of any use at all; and that anything he sets out to do is likely to turn out badly not just for America and its allies but for Russia too. ..."
There is less shame in being undone by a "master of deceit." When J. Edgar Hoover coined that description, he had Communists in mind. Back then, though,
"Ruskies" and "Commies" – it was all the same. Americans were conditioned to live in fear
that the Russians were coming.
That nonsense should have ended when Communism more or less officially expired in 1989,
followed two years later by the demise of the Soviet Union itself. For a long time, it seemed
that it had. At first, the reaction in Western, especially American, political and media circles was
triumphalist. The war was over and our side won. Beneath the surface, however, there was mourning in America.
With the Cold War, the death merchants, the masters of war, the neocons, and a host of
others had had a good thing going. Having been born into it, the political class was
comfortable with the status quo too; and generations of Americans had grown up imbibing
Russophobia in their mother's milk (or infant formula).
It turned out, though, that American triumphalism was only a phase. Before long, it became
clear that our economic and political masters had nothing to worry about, that Cold War
anti-Communism was more robust than Communism itself.
However, in the final days of Bush 41 and then at the dawn of the Clinton era, nobody knew
that. Nobody gave America's propaganda system the credit it deserved.
Also, nobody quite realized how devastating Russia's regression to capitalism would be, and
nobody quite grasped the savagery of the kleptocrats who had taken charge of what remained of
the Russian state.
For more than a decade, the situation in that late great superpower was too dire to sustain
the old fears and animosities. Capitalism had made Russia wretched again.
That suited Bill Clinton and his First Lady, the former Goldwater Girl. Boris Yeltsin,
Russia's leader, was their man. He was a godsend, a Trump-like cartoon character and a drunkard
to boot – with an economy in tatters, and no rightwing base egging him on.
But anti-Communism (without Communism) and its close cousin, Russophobia, could not remain
in remission forever. The need for them was too great.
In the Age of Obama, the Global War on Terror, with or without that ludicrous Bush 43-era
name, wasn't cutting it anymore. It was, and still is, good for keeping America's perpetual war
regime going and for undoing civil liberties, but there had never been much glory in it, only
endless misery for all. Also it was getting old and increasingly easy to see through.
The time was therefore right for a return of the repressed -- for full-blooded,
fifties-style, anti-Communist (= anti-Russian) hysteria, or, since that still seemed
far-fetched, for anti-Communist (= anti-Chinese) hysteria.
This was not the only factor behind the Obama administration's "pivot towards Asia," its
largely failed attempt to take China down a notch or two, but it was an important part of the
story.
However, by the time Obama and his team decided to pivot, China had become too important to
the United States economically to make a good Cold War enemy. Worse still, it had for too long
been an object of pity and contempt, not fear.
When the Soviet Union was an enemy, China was an enemy too, most glaringly during the Korean
War. It remained an enemy even after the Sino-Soviet split became too obvious to deny. However,
unlike post-1917 Russia, it had never quite become an historical foe.
Moreover, as Russia began to recover from the Yeltsin era, the Russian political class, and
many of the oligarchs behind them, sensing the popular mood, decided that the time was ripe "to
make Russia great again." Putin is not so much a cause as he is a symptom – and symbol
– of this aspiration.
And so, there it was: the longed for new Cold War would be much like the one that seemed
over a quarter century ago.
***
As everyone who has seen, heard or read anything about the 2016 election "knows," Russian
intelligence services (= Putin) meddled. Everyone also "knows" that, with midterm elections
looming, they are at it again.
This, according to the mainstream consensus view, is a bona fide casus belli , a
justification for war. To be sure, what they want is a war that remains cold; ending life on
earth, as we know it, is not on their agenda.
But inasmuch as cold wars can easily turn hot, this hardly mitigates the recklessness of
their machinations. Humankind was extraordinarily lucky last time; there is no guarantee that
all that luck will hold.
Exactly what "Putin," the shorthand name for all that is Russian and nefarious, did, or is
still doing, remains unclear. But this does not seem to bother purveyors of the conventional
wisdom. Neither is ostensibly informed public opinion fazed by the fact that the evidence supporting
the consensus view comes mainly from American intelligence services and from their counterparts
in the UK and other allied nations.
Time was when anyone with any sense understood that these intelligence services, the
American ones especially, are second to none in meddling in the affairs of other nations, and
that the American national security state – essentially our political police -- is
comprised, by design, of liars and deceivers.
How ironic therefore that nowadays it is mainly bamboozled Trump supporters in the Fox News
demographic -- people who could care less about peace or, for that matter, about truth -- who
are wary of the CIA and skeptical of the FBI's claims!
Try as they might, the manufacturers and guardians of conventional wisdom have so far been
unable to concoct a plausible story in which Russian meddling affected the outcome of the 2016
election in any serious way. The idea that the Russians defeated Hillary, not Hillary herself,
is, to borrow a phrase from Jeremy Bentham, "nonsense on stilts." Leading Democrats and their
media flacks don't seem to mind that either.
They do not even seem to notice that what they allege, vague as it is, is trifling compared
to the massive and very open meddling of American plutocrats, Republican vote suppressers and
gerrymanderers, and the governments of supposedly friendly nations – like Saudi Arabia,
the Gulf monarchies, and Israel.
Nevertheless, it probably is true that the Russians meddled. Cold War revivalists can
therefore rest easy, confident that their propagandists will have at least a few facts with
which they can work to restore the perils of their vanished youth.
Even so, the level of their hypocrisy is appalling. Russia, along with former Soviet
republics and former members of the Warsaw Pact, has been bearing the brunt of far worse
American meddling for far longer than anything sanctimonious defenders of so-called American
"democracy" can plausibly allege.
Moreover, it should go without saying that the democracy they purport to care so much about
has almost nothing to do with "the rule of the demos." It doesn't even have much to do with
free and fair competitive elections – unless "free and fair" means that anything goes, so
long as the principals and perpetrators are homegrown or citizens of favored nations.
Self-righteous posturing aside, Putin's real sin in the eyes of the American power elite is
that, in his own small way, he has been defying America's "right" to run the world as it sees
fit.
When Clinton was president, Serbia did that, and lived to regret it. Cuba has been suffering
for nearly six decades for the same reason, and now Venezuela is paying its dues. The empire is
merciless towards nations that rebel.
With Soviet support and then with sheer determination and grit, Cuba has been able to
withstand the onslaught to some extent from Day One. Venezuela may not be so lucky –
especially now that Republicans and Democrats feel threatened by the growing number of
"democratic socialists" in their midst. Already, the propaganda system is targeting Venezuelan
"socialism," blaming it for that country's woes, and warning that if our newly minted,
homegrown socialists prevail, a similar fate will be in store for us.
This is ludicrous, of course – American hostility and the vagaries of the global oil
market deserve the lion's share of the blame. But the on-going propaganda blitz could
nevertheless pave the way for horrors ahead, should Trump decide to start a war America could
actually win.
Inconsequential Russian meddling is a big deal on the "liberal" cable networks, on NPR, and
in the "quality" press. Democrats and a few Republicans love to bleat on about it. But it is
Ukraine that made Russia our "adversary" and its president Public Enemy Number One.
Hypocrisy reigns here too. It was the Obama administration – run through with neocons,
liberal imperialists, and other holdovers from Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State
– that did all it could to exacerbate longstanding tensions between that country's
Ukrainian and Russian speaking populations, the better to complete NATO's encirclement of the
Russian federation. And it was American meddling that led to the empowerment of virulently
anti-Russian, fascisant Ukrainian politicians, much to the detriment of Russian
speaking Ukrainians in the east.
But never mind: Putin – that is, the Russia government – violated international
law by sending troops briefly into beleaguered Russian-speaking parts of the country. That they
were generally welcomed by the people living there is of no importance.
Worst of all, Russia annexed Crimea – a territory integral to the Russian empire since
the eighteenth century. Since long before the Russian Revolution, Crimea has been home to a
huge naval base vital to Russia's strategic defense.
The story line back in the day was that anything that could be described as Russian
aggression outside the Soviet Union's agreed upon sphere of influence had to do with spreading
Communism. In fact, the Soviets did everything they could to keep Communist and other
insurgencies from upending the status quo. The mainstream narrative was wrong.
Now Communism is gone and nothing has taken its place. Even so, the idea that Russia has
designs on its neighbors for ideological reasons is hard to shake – in part because it is
actively promoted by propagandists who have suddenly and uncharacteristically become defenders
of international law.
Meanwhile, of course, the hypocrisies keep piling on. It is practically a tenet of the
American civil religion that international law applies to others, not to the United States.
This is why, when it suits some perceived purpose, America flaunts its violations
shamelessly.
Thus nothing the Russians did or are ever likely to do comes close to the shenanigans Bill
Clinton displayed – successfully, for the most part – in his efforts to tear Kosovo
away from Serbia. Clinton even went so far as to bomb Belgrade; Putin never bombed Kiev.
The Cold War that began after World War II involved a clash of rival political economic
systems. The Cold War that reignited a few years ago involves a clash of rival imperialist
centers. Its world more nearly resembles the one that existed before World War I than the one
that emerged after World War II.
However, the difference may be more superficial than it seems. The ease with which Cold War
revivalists have been able to get the Cold War up and running again, even without Communism,
suggests what a few observers have long maintained -- that the Cold War, on Russia's part, had
little, if anything, to do with spreading Communism around the world, and everything to do with
maintaining a cordon sanitaire around Russia's borders in order to protect against a
demonstrably aggressive "free world."
George W. Bush claimed that 9/11 happened because "they hate our freedom." "They" would be
radical Islamists of the kind stirred into action in Afghanistan by Zbigniew Brzezinski and his
co-thinkers in the Carter administration. Their objective was to undermine the Soviet Union by
getting it bogged down in a quagmire like the one that did so much harm to the United States in
Vietnam.
That part of Brzezinski's plan was at least a partial success. But inasmuch as Bush's "they"
are still there, still spreading murder and mayhem throughout the Greater Middle East, America
and the world has been paying a high price for the benefits, such as they were, that
ensued.
The never-ending wars set in motion by the "pivot" towards radical Islamism decades ago
never quite succeeded in producing an enemy as serviceable as the USSR. But now that Putin's
Russia has been pressed into service, that problem is potentially "solved."
However, the American public is not as naïve as it used to be, and it is impossible to
say, at this point, how well this new story line will work.
Efforts to recycle Bush's "they hate our freedom" nonsense ought to be non-starters. But
this is the best Cold War revivalists have come up with so far. The Russians, they say, simply
cannot deal with the fact that we Americans are so damned free.
It is hard to believe, but there are people who are actually buying this but, with a lot of
corporate media assistance, there are. No matter how clear it is that they are not worth being
taken seriously, Cold War mythologies just won't die.
However, it is worth pondering why today's Russia would do what it is alleged to have done;
and why, as is also alleged, it is still doing it.
From a geopolitical point of view, Russia does have an interest in doing all it can to ward
off Western aggression. It also has an interest in undermining strategic alliances aimed at
blocking anything and everything that challenges American supremacy. And, until sanity prevails
in Washington and other Western capitals, it arguably also has an interest in aiding and
abetting rightwing nationalists in order to exacerbate tensions within Western societies.
However, in view of prevailing power relations, these are interests it cannot do much to
advance. Acting as if this were not the case only puts Russia in a bad light -- not for
meddling, but for meddling stupidly.
No doubt, for reasons both fair and foul, Putin wanted Hillary to lose the election two
years ago. So, but for one little problem, would anyone whose head is screwed on right. That
problem's name is Donald Trump.
Clinton is bad, but Trump is worse -- not just by most measures but by all. Her fondness for war and preparations for war was alarming; she was bellicosity personified.
But it was plain even before the election that Trump, a mentally unhinged narcissist, would be
even more likely than she to bring on massive devastation. A vote for Trump was and still is a
vote for catastrophe.
Putin's enemy was Trump's enemy, and it is axiomatic that "the enemy of my enemy is my
friend" -- except sometimes it isn't. Sometimes, my enemy's enemy is an enemy far worse.
For reasons that remain obscure, Putin and Trump seem to have a "thing" going on between
them. Some day perhaps we will know what that is all about. For now, though, the hard and very
relevant fact is that Trump has done nothing to help, and quite a few things to harm,
Russia.
It isn't just ordinary Russians who have been made worse off. Trump has been at least as
hard on oligarchs close to Putin as Clinton would have been.
If those damned Russians were half as smart as they are made out to be, they would have
realized long ago that, for getting anything done that bucks the tide, Trump is too inept to be
of any use at all; and that anything he sets out to do is likely to turn out badly not just for
America and its allies but for Russia too.
Therefore, if there really was Russian meddling, as there probably was, Putin should be
ashamed – not so much for the DNC reasons laid out 24/7 on MSNBC and CNN, but for
overestimating Trump's abilities and for underestimating the extent to which what started out
as a maneuver of Hillary Clinton's, concocted to excuse her incompetence, would take a
perilously "viral" turn, becoming a major threat to peace in a political culture that never
quite got beyond the lunacy of the First Cold War.
"... Most here voted for or supported Obama whose record of incarcerating and persecuting journalists, punishing whistle-blowers, extra-judicial executions including citizens of the United States, placing children in cages, violent regime change abroad, spying on citizens, and expanding the security state was as bad or worse as that of Bush and Trump, in some cases by some margin. ..."
"... The current heroes of the 'resistance' lied America into Iraq or Libya, hacked into the computers of the elected representatives/lied about it, and support torture/enhanced interrogations, all under Obama. 'Liberals' lionize these clown criminals along with 'responsible' republicans whilst embracing open bigots such as Farrakhan. And, yes, if one is willing to share the podium with Farrakhan that's tacit support of his views. ..."
I'd suggest that the two strains of 'conservatism' that matter are:
a) maintaining oppression/rule over subordinate classes to prevent them up-ending the status quo (the Robin view) and
b) maintaining philosophical +/- cultural values fundamental to a civilised society, typically so-called enlightenment values,
freedom of mind, body and property etc. These are understood in a wide spectrum of concrete interpretations, from free-market
purists to social democrats, and don't therefore correspond to one kind of on-the-ground politics.
Progressives tend attack a) (a non-philosophical form of conservatism – it's just about preserving a power structure), and
usually claim that b) (the one that matters) doesn't exist or isn't 'conservative', or else ignore it.
We have the basic problem of same term, variable referents
(b) doesn't exist. Conservatives are, as a group, in eager favor of concentration camps for toddlers, the drug war, unrestrained
surveillance, American empire, civil forfeiture, mass incarceration, extrajudicial police execution, etc. etc. They have internal
disagreements on how much to do those things, but the consensus is for all of them without meaningful constraint. And they are
always justified in terms of (a).
Most here voted for or supported Obama whose record of incarcerating and persecuting journalists, punishing whistle-blowers,
extra-judicial executions including citizens of the United States, placing children in cages, violent regime change abroad, spying
on citizens, and expanding the security state was as bad or worse as that of Bush and Trump, in some cases by some margin.
The current heroes of the 'resistance' lied America into Iraq or Libya, hacked into the computers of the elected representatives/lied
about it, and support torture/enhanced interrogations, all under Obama. 'Liberals' lionize these clown criminals along with 'responsible'
republicans whilst embracing open bigots such as Farrakhan. And, yes, if one is willing to share the podium with Farrakhan that's
tacit support of his views.
Conservative as a political category post 1750 works and the basic argument of the OP holds. The comments not so much.
It is really becoming unlearn why the Deep State hates Trump so much and tries to depose him. He became a typical neocon,
Republican Obama, another "bait and switch" artist with slogan "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) as equivalent to Obama's fake
"Change we can believe in".
May be Deep State has so many skeletons in the closet (811 is one) that he can only allow CIA controlled puppets as
Presidents (looks like Clinton, Bush and Obama were such puppets).
Notable quotes:
"... If you believe Trump is trying to remove neocons(Deep State) from the government, explain Bolton and many other Deep State denizens Trump has appointed. ..."
"... Drain the Swamp? Trump and his sidekick Jared K inhabit the murkiest depths of that Swamp. But people will say Tubby's being forced into a corner and just has to appoint neoCON psychopaths like Bolton. Then explain Trump appointing Nutty Nikki to the UN, at the start of his presidency? Israeli PM wanted Nutty in that job and after watching her unhinged performances in the UNGA, I see why; she's a Shabbos Goy, more than willing to do anything Israel asks, and BTW, keep me in mind for that POTUS opening, OK guys? ..."
"... MAGA was Trump's 'Hope and Change' mantra that many bought. ..."
"... Trump made and lost four multi-billion dollar fortunes while using NYC as his home base. Then made another multi-billion dollar fortune. One doesn't do that in NYC unless you're in bed with the same gangsters that have been looting this nation for decades, those TBTF Wall Street banks that us peasants are forced to bail-out every 10 or so years. ..."
"... Trump was bought and paid for a long time ago, now he's paying off his helpers by doing their dirty work around the word while the 'marks,' us Americans, get our pockets picked. ..."
Another great
article by Mr. Giraldi. If Trump can't get the neocons out of the government, who possibly
can?
In liberals derangement over Trump, and willingness to support anything that challenges his
2016 America First (anti-interventionist) campaign, they're willing to support the old order
for fear of an "isolationist," or realist one, taking its place. If there's a large scale
intervention, it'll be interesting to see what kind of left-liberal/dissident-right anti-war
movement emerges, and if that furthers the deformation of the normative "liberal"
"conservative" divide.
Another great article by Mr. Giraldi. If Trump can't get the neocons out of the
government, who possibly can?
If you believe Trump is trying to remove neocons(Deep State) from the government, explain
Bolton and many other Deep State denizens Trump has appointed.
If you believe Trump is trying to remove neocons(Deep State) from the government,
explain Bolton and many other Deep State denizens Trump has appointed.
Agreed.
Drain the Swamp? Trump and his sidekick Jared K inhabit the murkiest depths of that
Swamp. But people will say Tubby's being forced into a corner and just has to appoint neoCON
psychopaths like Bolton. Then explain Trump appointing Nutty Nikki to the UN, at the start of
his presidency? Israeli PM wanted Nutty in that job and after watching her unhinged
performances in the UNGA, I see why; she's a Shabbos Goy, more than willing to do anything
Israel asks, and BTW, keep me in mind for that POTUS opening, OK guys?
MAGA was Trump's 'Hope and Change' mantra that many bought.
Trump made and lost four multi-billion dollar fortunes while using NYC as his home base. Then
made another multi-billion dollar fortune. One doesn't do that in NYC unless you're in bed
with the same gangsters that have been looting this nation for decades, those TBTF Wall
Street banks that us peasants are forced to bail-out every 10 or so years.
Trump was bought and paid for a long time ago, now he's paying off his helpers by doing
their dirty work around the word while the 'marks,' us Americans, get our pockets picked.
"... The letter by Mister or Ms Anonymous is very well written. By someone like, say, Thomas Friedman. That is, someone on the NYT staff. It is very cleverly composed to achieve quite obvious calculated aims. It is a masterpiece of treacherous deception. ..."
"... This anonymous enemy of amorality claims to approve of all the most extreme right-wing measures of the Trump administration as "bright spots": deregulation, tax reform, a more robust military, "and more" – cleverly omitting mention of Trump's immigration policy which could unduly shock the New York Times' liberal readers. The late Senator John McCain, the model of bipartisan bellicosity, is cited as the example to follow. ..."
"... The "resistance" proclaimed is solely against the facets of Trump's foreign policy which White House insiders are said to be working diligently to undermine: peaceful relations with Russian and North Korea. ..."
"... Trump's desire to avoid war is transformed into "a preference for autocrats and dictators". (Trump gets no credit for his warlike rhetoric against Iran and close relations with Netanyahu, even though they must please Anonymous.) ..."
"... The purpose of this is stunningly obvious. The New York Times has already done yeoman service in rounding up liberal Democrats and left-leaning independents in the anti-Trump lynch mob. But now the ploy is to rally conservative Republicans to the same cause of overthrowing the elected President. The letter amounts to an endorsement of future President Pence. ..."
"... This is the Iago ploy. Shakespeare's villain destroyed Othello by causing him to distrust those closest to him, his wife and closest associates. Like Trump in Washington, Othello, the "Moor" of Venice, was an outsider, that much easier to deceive and betray. ..."
"... The New York Times is playing Iago, whispering that Putin in the Kremlin is surrounded by secret "informants", and that Trump in the White House is surrounded by people systematically undermining his presidency. Putin is not likely to be impressed, but the trick might work with Trump, who is truly the target of open and covert enemies and whose position is much more insecure. There is certainly some undermining going on. ..."
"... Was the New York Times oped written by the paper's own writers or by the CIA? It hardly matters since they are so closely entwined. ..."
"... The military-industrial-congressional-deep state-media complex is holding its breath to breathe that great sigh of relief. The intruder is gone. Hurrah! Now we can go right on teaching the public to hate and fear the Russian enemy, so that arms contracts continue to blossom and NATO builds up its aggressive forces around Russia in hopes that this may frighten the Russians into dumping Putin in favor of a new Boris Yeltsin, ready to let the United States pursue the Clintonian plan of breaking up the Russian Federation into pieces, like the former Yugoslavia, in order to take them over one by one, with all their great natural resources. ..."
"... When dialogue is impossible, all that is left is force and violence. That is what is being promoted by the most influential media in the United States. ..."
The New York Times continues to outdo itself in the production of fake news. There is no
more reliable source of fake news than the intelligence services, which regularly provide their
pet outlets (NYT and WaPo) with sensational stories that are as unverifiable as their sources
are anonymous. A prize example was the August 24 report that US intelligence agencies don't
know anything about Russia's plans to mess up our November elections because "informants close
to Putin and in the Kremlin" aren't saying anything. Not knowing anything about something for
which there is no evidence is a rare scoop.
A story like that is not designed to "inform the public" since there is no information in
it. It has other purposes: to keep the "Russia is undermining our democracy" story on front
pages, with the extra twist in this case of trying to make Putin distrustful of his entourage.
The Russian president is supposed to wonder, who are those informants in my entourage?
But that was nothing compared to the whopper produced by the "newpaper of record" on
September 5. (By the way, the "record" is stuck in the same groove: Trump bad, Putin bad
– bad bad bad.) This was the sensational oped headlined "I am Part of the Resistance
Inside the Trump Administration", signed by nobody.
The letter by Mister or Ms Anonymous is very well written. By someone like, say, Thomas
Friedman. That is, someone on the NYT staff. It is very cleverly composed to achieve quite
obvious calculated aims. It is a masterpiece of treacherous deception.
The fictional author presents itself as a right-wing conservative shocked by Trump's
"amorality" – a category that outside the Washington swamp might include betraying the
trust of one's superior.
This anonymous enemy of amorality claims to approve of all the most extreme right-wing
measures of the Trump administration as "bright spots": deregulation, tax reform, a more robust
military, "and more" – cleverly omitting mention of Trump's immigration policy which
could unduly shock the New York Times' liberal readers. The late Senator John McCain, the model
of bipartisan bellicosity, is cited as the example to follow.
The "resistance" proclaimed is solely against the facets of Trump's foreign policy which
White House insiders are said to be working diligently to undermine: peaceful relations with
Russian and North Korea.
Trump's desire to avoid war is transformed into "a preference for autocrats and
dictators". (Trump gets no credit for his warlike rhetoric against Iran and close relations
with Netanyahu, even though they must please Anonymous.)
The purpose of this is stunningly obvious. The New York Times has already done yeoman
service in rounding up liberal Democrats and left-leaning independents in the anti-Trump lynch
mob. But now the ploy is to rally conservative Republicans to the same cause of overthrowing
the elected President. The letter amounts to an endorsement of future President Pence.
Just get rid of Trump and you'll have a nice, neat, ultra-right-wing Republican as
President.
The Democrats may not like Pence, but they are so demented by hatred of Trump that they are
visibly ready to accept the Devil himself to get rid of the sinister clown who dared defeat
Hillary Clinton. Down with democracy; the votes of deplorables shouldn't count.
That is treacherous enough, but even more despicable is the insidious design to destabilize
the presidency by sowing distrust. Speaking of Trump, Mr and/or Ms Anonymous declare: "The
dilemma – which he does not fully grasp – is that many of the senior officials in
his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and
his worst inclinations" (meaning peace with Russia).
This is the Iago ploy. Shakespeare's villain destroyed Othello by causing him to
distrust those closest to him, his wife and closest associates. Like Trump in Washington,
Othello, the "Moor" of Venice, was an outsider, that much easier to deceive and
betray.
The New York Times is playing Iago, whispering that Putin in the Kremlin is surrounded
by secret "informants", and that Trump in the White House is surrounded by people
systematically undermining his presidency. Putin is not likely to be impressed, but the trick
might work with Trump, who is truly the target of open and covert enemies and whose position is
much more insecure. There is certainly some undermining going on.
Was the New York Times oped written by the paper's own writers or by the CIA? It hardly
matters since they are so closely entwined.
No trick is too low for those who consider Trump an intolerable intruder on THEIR power
territory. The New York Times "news" that Trump is surrounded by traitors is taken up by other
media who indirectly confirm the story by speculating on "who is it?" The Boston Globe (among
others) eagerly rushed in, asking:
"So who's the author of the op-ed? It's a question that has many people poking through the
text, looking for clues. Meanwhile, the denials have come thick and fast. Here's a brief look
at some of the highest-level officials in the administration who might have a motive to write
the letter."
Isn't it obvious that all this is designed to make Trump distrust everyone around him? Isn't
that a way to drive him toward that "crazy" where they say he already is, and which is fallback
grounds for impeachment when the Mueller investigation fails to come up with nothing more
serious than the fact that Russian intelligent agents are intelligent agents?
The White House insider (or insiders, or whatever) use terms like "erratic behavior" and
"instability" to contribute to the "Trump is insane" narrative. Insanity is the alternative
pretext to the Mueller wild goose chase for divesting Trump of the powers of the presidency. If
Trump responds by accusing the traitors of being traitors, that will be final proof of his
mental instability. The oped claims to provide evidence that Trump is being betrayed, but if he
says so, that will be taken as a sign of mental derangement. To save our exemplary democracy
from itself, the elected president must be thrown out.
The military-industrial-congressional-deep state-media complex is holding its breath to
breathe that great sigh of relief. The intruder is gone. Hurrah! Now we can go right on
teaching the public to hate and fear the Russian enemy, so that arms contracts continue to
blossom and NATO builds up its aggressive forces around Russia in hopes that this may frighten
the Russians into dumping Putin in favor of a new Boris Yeltsin, ready to let the United States
pursue the Clintonian plan of breaking up the Russian Federation into pieces, like the former
Yugoslavia, in order to take them over one by one, with all their great natural
resources.
And when this fails, as it has been failing, and will continue to fail, the United States
has all those brand new first strike nuclear weapons being stationed in European NATO
countries, aimed at the Kremlin. And the Russian military are not just sitting there with their
own nuclear weapons, waiting to be wiped out. When nobody, not even the President of the United
States, has the right to meet and talk with Russian leaders, there is only one remaining form
of exchange. When dialogue is impossible, all that is left is force and violence. That is
what is being promoted by the most influential media in the United States.
The commedia dell'arte mourning of McCain is in full bloom. In a vulgar orgy of pompous,
bathetic praise from Congress and the media, he is being piously canonized. To counter this
shameless obsequy by attacking him for what he actually was would be an exercise in futility,
just as the endless ad hominem hatchet jobs on Trump accomplish nothing.
It's more useful to examine the grisly American disease of which he was a champion and
cynosure. The son and grandson of Admirals, a bred-in-the-bone military man, he flew a fighter
in Vietnam. Shot down -- and amazingly not summarily executed -- he was held as a POW, and
became a lifelong advocate of unlimited use of military force for American world
domination.
Nothing unusual in that. It is and has been the baseline political credo of all American
politicians since Monroe, at least, up to and including Trump, Hillary, Sanders, and Warren.
The surest way to the graveyard for political hopefuls is to be seen or slimed as "soft on
defense".
The fact that actual defense of the country has not been necessary since the War of 1812,
and is not now, and that the hoax only exists to suck our national wealth into the War Machine
has not been effectively articulated. The idea, false to its core, that America must spend
astronomic sums to "defend" its polity and its people has taken on the character of revealed
religion in a country where multitudes believe in angels and Endtimes.
This appropriation of the wealth of the people by the corporate forces of imperial murder
has not come suddenly. Oceans of innocent blood have drenched the world from our military
violence since Quincy Adams said of America that "she goes not abroad in search of monsters to
destroy".
World War II proved to Eisenhower's Military/Industrial/Congressio nal Complex the
obscene profit to be had from annihilating people, cities, and countries. Schumpeter
defined the War Machine far better than Ike did: "Created by the wars that required it, it now
creates the wars it requires."
Since 1945, America, by then firmly in its grasp, has relentlessly scoured the world behind
the gross and cynical lie of defense of freedom, to foment, ignite, and expand the brutal,
devastating, shock-and-awe gorefests the War Machine has to have. That Korea, Vietnam, and the
catalog of Middle Eastern horrors the US perpetrated were failures on a cosmic scale except as
cash cows for the War Machine has been of little concern to the most somnolent, propagandized,
passive public since that of the Third Reich. These national mass murder atrocities were sold
to Americans as defense of our indispensable "homeland" from barbarian, sub-human "others".
Some, such as Al Qaida were, absurdly, our Deep State's own creations.
It is commonly said and believed that the American public is not at fault for its profound,
intractable moral cowardice since War Machine swag has kept them in a combination insane
asylum, crack house, and human zoo. How else could they have lived with the intolerably bitter
truth that their country is the serial violator and exterminator, the voracious destroyer, of
so many millions of simple, guiltless, victim peoples?
This is where John McCain and his ilk comes in. Exploiting his bogus and accidental
credentials, he became a pitch man for the massive con of American purity and idealism as a
front for imperialist greed, and made a career promoting and lionizing the War Machine as it
raped the peoples of earth and robbed Americans blind in pursuit of its cancerous
enrichment.
Still, McCain was only a cracked and bent tool. He was always an effect, a symptom; never a
cause. The real driver of the War Machine is heartless, soulless, predatory Capitalism. Its
credo is exploitation of everything to maximize profit. In a closed system, competing capital
conflicts, collides. Greed eclipses reason and war results. The greatest capital concentration
requires the most terrible military, in which violence displaces conscience. There never has
been, and never can be, Capitalism without war.
Indoctrinated, baffled, saddled with a cesspool Congress and the deeply stupid, vulgarian
Trump, centrist Americans, desperate for refuge, rush mindlessly to the new War Party,
Democrats eager to use McCain's $700 billion dollar hogwallow "defense" bill, to insult and
provoke China and Russia, and to attack Iran. Hubris, false bravado, and panic rule; nowhere is
there self knowledge and with it, long overdue, sorrow, regret, and shame.
Karmic retribution--the pitiless hand of Nemesis--is all America deserves.
Paul Edwards is a writer and film-maker in Montana. He can be reached at: [email protected]
The crimes of 11 September 2001 have never been judged in your country. I
am writing to you as a French citizen, the first person to denounce the inconsistencies
of the official version and to open the world to the debate and the search for
the real perpetrators.
In a criminal court, as the jury, we have to determine whether the suspect
presented to us is guilty or not, and eventually, to decide what punishment
he should receive. When we suffered the events of 9/11, the Bush Junior administration
told us that the guilty party was Al-Qaïda, and the punishment they should receive
was the overthrow of those who had helped them – the Afghan Taliban, then the
Iraqi régime of Saddam Hussein.
However, there is a weight of evidence which attests to the impossibility
of this thesis. If we were members of a jury, we would have to declare objectively
that the Taliban and the régime of Saddam Hussein were innocent of this crime.
Of course, this alone would not enable us to name the real culprits, and we
would thus be frustrated. But we could not conceive of condemning parties innocent
of such a crime simply because we have not known how, or not been able, to find
the guilty parties.
We all understood that certain senior personalities were lying when the Secretary
of State for Justice and Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, revealed the names
of the 19 presumed hijackers, because we already had in front of us the lists
disclosed by the airline companies of all of the passengers embarked - lists
on which none of the suspects were mentioned.
From there, we became suspicious of the " Continuity of Government ", the
instance tasked with taking over from the elected authorities if they should
be killed during a nuclear confrontation. We advanced the hypothesis that these
attacks masked a coup d'état, in conformity with Edward Luttwak's method of
maintaining the appearance of the Executive, but imposing a different policy.
In the days following 9/11, the Bush administration made several decisions:
the creation of the Office of Homeland Security and the vote for a voluminous
anti-terrorist Code which had been drawn up long beforehand, the USA Patriot
Act. For affairs which the administration itself qualifies as " terrorist ",
this text suspends the Bill of Rights which was the glory of your country. It
unbalances your institutions. Two centuries later, it validates the triumph
of the great landowners who wrote the Constitution, and the defeat of the heroes
of the War of Independence who demanded that the Bill of Rights must be added.
The Secretary for Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, created the Office of Force Transformation,
under the command of Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, who immediately presented a programme,
conceived a long time earlier, planning for the control of access to the natural
resources of the countries of the geopolitical South. He demanded the destruction
of State and social structures in the half of the world which was not yet globalised.
Simultaneously, the Director of the CIA launched the " Worldwide Attack Matrix
", a package of secret operations in 85 countries where Rumsfeld and Cebrowski
intended to destroy the State structures. Considering that only those countries
whose economies were globalised would remain stable, and that the others would
be destroyed, the men from 9/11 placed US armed forces in the service of transnational
financial interests. They betrayed your country and transformed it into the
armed wing of these predators.
For the last 17 years, we have witnessed what is being given to your compatriots
by the government of the successors of those who drew up the Constitution and
opposed at that time - without success – the Bill of Rights. These rich men
have become the super-rich, while the middle class has been reduced by a fifth
and poverty has increased.
We have also seen the implementation of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy –
phoney " civil wars " have devastated almost all of the Greater Middle East.
Entire cities have been wiped from the map, from Afghanistan to Libya, via Saudi
Arabia and Turkey, who were not themselves at war.
In 2001, only two US citizens denounced the incoherence of the Bush version,
two real estate promoters – the Democrat Jimmy Walter, who was forced into exile,
and yourself, who entered into politics and was elected President.
In 2011, we saw the commander of AfriCom relieved of his mission and replaced
by NATO for having refused to support Al-Qaïda in the liquidation of the Libyan
Arab Jamahiriya. Then we saw NATO's LandCom organise Western support for jihadists
in general and Al-Qaïda in particular in their attempt to overthrow the Syrian
Arab Republic.
So the jihadists, who were considered as " freedom fighters " against the
Soviets, then as " terrorists " after 9/11, once again became the allies of
the deep state, which, in fact, they have always been.
So, with an immense upsurge of hope, we have watched your actions to suppress,
one by one, all support for the jihadists. It is with the same hope that we
see today that you are talking with your Russian counterpart in order to bring
back life to the devastated Middle East. And it is with equal anxiety that we
see Robert Mueller, now a special prosecutor, pursuing the destruction of your
homeland by attacking your position.
Mister President, not only are you and your compatriots suffering from the
diarchy which has sneaked into power in your country since the coup d'état of
11 September 2001, but the whole world is a victim.
Mister President, 9/11 is not ancient history. It is the triumph of transnational
interests which are crushing not only your people, but all of humanity which
aspires to freedom.
Thierry Meyssan brought to the world stage the debate on the real
perpetrators of 11 September 2001. He has worked as a political analyst
alongside Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mouamar Kadhafi. He is today
a political refugee in Syria.
See :
Memoranda for the President on 9/11: Time for the Truth -- False Flag Deep State
Truth! , by : Kevin Barrett; Scott Bennett; Christopher Bollyn; Fred
Burks; Steve De'ak; A. K. Dewdney; Gordon Duff; Aero Engineer; Greg Felton;
James Fetzer; Richard Gage; Tom-Scott Gordon; David Ray Griffin; Sander Hicks;
T. Mark Hightower; Barbara Honegger; Eric Hufschmid; Ed Jewett; Nicholas Kollerstrom;
John Lear; Susan Lindauer; Joe Olson; Peter Dale Scott; Robert David Steele;
and indirectly, Victor Thorn and Judy Wood.
"... The mind of the mass media: Email exchange between myself and a leading Washington Post foreign policy reporter: ..."
"... For the record, I think RT is much less biased than the Post on international affairs. And, yes, it's bias, not "fake news" that's the main problem – Cold-War/anti-Communist/anti-Russian bias that Americans have been raised with for a full century. RT defends Russia against the countless mindless attacks from the West. Who else is there to do that? Should not the Western media be held accountable for what they broadcast? Americans are so unaccustomed to hearing the Russian side defended, or hearing it at all, that when they do it can seem rather weird. ..."
"... Regard these indictments in proper perspective and we find that election interference is only listed as a supposed objective, with charges actually being for unlawful cyber operations, identity theft, and conspiracy to launder money by American individuals unconnected to the Russian government. So we're still waiting for some evidence of actual Russian interference in the election aimed at determining the winner. ..."
"... However, I have no doubt that the great majority of Americans who follow the news each day believe the official stories about the Russians. They're particularly impressed with the fact that every US intelligence agency supports the official stories. They would not be impressed at all if told that a dozen Russian intelligence agencies all disputed the charges. Group-think is alive and well all over the world. As is Cold War II ..."
"... And here is Tom Malinowski, former Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor (2014-2017) – last year he reported that Putin had "charged that the U.S. government had interfered 'aggressively' in Russia's 2012 presidential vote," claiming that Washington had "gathered opposition forces and financed them." Putin, wrote Malinowski, "apparently got President Trump to agree to a mutual commitment that neither country would interfere in the other's elections." ..."
"... We also have the case of the US government agency, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has interfered in more elections than the CIA or God. Indeed, the man who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, Allen Weinstein, declared in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." On April 12, 2018 the presidents of two of NED's wings wrote: "A specious narrative has come back into circulation: that Moscow's campaign of political warfare is no different from U.S.-supported democracy assistance." ..."
"... "Democracy assistance", you see, is what they call NED's election-interferences and government-overthrows ..."
William Blum shares with us his correspondence with
Washington Post presstitute Michael Birnbaum. As you can tell from Birnbaum's replies, he comes
across as either very stupid or as a CIA asset.
When I received my briefing as staff associate, House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee,
which required top secret clearance, I was told by senior members of the staff that the
Washington Post was a CIA asset. Watching the Washington Post's takedown of President Richard
Nixon with the orchestrated Watergate story, that became obvious. President Nixon had made too
many overtures to the Soviets and too many arms limitations agreements, and he opened to China.
Watching President Nixon's peace initiatives water down the threat level from the Soviet Union
and Maoist China, the military/security complex saw a threat to its budget and power and
decided that Nixon had to go. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy had resulted in
far too much skepticism about the Warren Commission Report, so the CIA decided to use the
Washington Post to get rid of Nixon. To keep the clueless American left hating Nixon, the CIA
used its assets in the leftwing to keep Nixon blamed for the Vietnam war, a war that Nixon
inherited and did not want.
The CIA knew that Nixon's problem was that he could not exit the war without losing his
conservative base, which was convinced of the nonsensical "Domino Theory." I have always
wondered if the CIA concocted the "Domino Theory," as it so well served them. Unable to get rid
of the war "with honor," Nixon was driven to brutal methods to force the North Vietnamese to
accept a situation that he could depart without defeat and soiling America's "honor" and losing
his conservative support base. The North Vietnamese wouldn't bend, but the US Congress did, and
so the CIA succeeded in discrediting among both the leftwing and righwing Nixon's war
management. With no one to defend him, Nixon was an easy target for the CIA.
Here is Blum's exchange with Birnbaum. It is possible that Birnbaum is neither stupid nor a
CIA asset, but just a person wanting to hold on to a job. The last thing he can afford to do is
to disabuse readers of the "Russian Threat" when Bezos' Amazon and Washington Post properties
are dependent on the CIA's annual subsidy of $600 million disquised as a "contract."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-20/cia-washington-post-and-russia-what-youre-not-being-told
The Anti-Empire Report # 159 Willian Blum
The mind of the mass media: Email exchange between myself and a leading Washington Post
foreign policy reporter: July 18, 2018
Dear Mr. Birnbaum,
You write Trump "made no mention of Russia's adventures in Ukraine". Well, neither he nor Putin
nor you made any mention of America's adventures in the Ukraine, which resulted in the
overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014, which led to the justified Russian adventure.
Therefore ?
If Russia overthrew the Mexican government would you blame the US for taking some action in
Mexico? William Blum
Dear Mr. Blum,
Thanks for your note. "America's adventures in the Ukraine": what are you talking about? Last
time I checked, it was Ukrainians in the streets of Kiev who caused Yanukovych to turn tail and
run. Whether or not that was a good thing, we can leave aside, but it wasn't the Americans who
did it.
It is, however, Russian special forces who fanned out across Crimea in February and March 2014,
according to Putin, and Russians who came down from Moscow who stoked conflict in eastern
Ukraine in the months after, according to their own accounts. Best, Michael Birnbaum
To MB,
I can scarcely believe your reply. Do you read nothing but the Post? Do you not know of high
State Dept official Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador in Ukraine in Maidan Square to
encourage the protesters? She spoke of 5 billion (sic) dollars given to aid the protesters who
were soon to overthrow the govt. She and the US Amb. spoke openly of who to choose as the next
president. And he's the one who became president. This is all on tape. I guess you never watch
Russia Today (RT). God forbid! I read the Post every day. You should watch RT once in a
while. William Blum
To WB,
I was the Moscow bureau chief of the newspaper; I reported extensively in Ukraine in the months
and years following the protests. My observations are not based on reading. RT is not a
credible news outlet, but I certainly do read far beyond our own pages, and of course I talk to
the actual actors on the ground myself – that's my job.
And: yes, of course Nuland was in the Maidan – but encouraging the protests, as she
clearly did, is not the same as sparking them or directing them, nor is playing favorites with
potential successors, as she clearly did, the same as being directly responsible for
overthrowing the government. I'm not saying the United States wasn't involved in trying to
shape events. So were Russia and the European Union. But Ukrainians were in the driver's seat
the whole way through. I know the guy who posted the first Facebook call to protest Yanukovych
in November 2013; he's not an American agent. RT, meanwhile, reports fabrications and terrible
falsehoods all the time. By all means consume a healthy and varied media diet – don't
stop at the US mainstream media. But ask yourself how often RT reports critically on the
Russian government, and consider how that lacuna shapes the rest of their reporting. You will
find plenty of reporting in the Washington Post that is critical of the US government and US
foreign policy in general, and decisions in Ukraine and the Ukrainian government in specific.
Our aim is to be fair, without picking sides. Best, Michael Birnbaum
======================= end of exchange =======================
Right, the United States doesn't play indispensable roles in changes of foreign governments;
never has, never will; even when they offer billions of dollars; even when they pick the new
president, which, apparently, is not the same as picking sides. It should be noticed that Mr
Birnbaum offers not a single example to back up his extremist claim that RT "reports
fabrications and terrible falsehoods all the time." "All the time", no less! That should make
it easy to give some examples.
For the record, I think RT is much less biased than the Post on international affairs. And,
yes, it's bias, not "fake news" that's the main problem –
Cold-War/anti-Communist/anti-Russian bias that Americans have been raised with for a full
century. RT defends Russia against the countless mindless attacks from the West. Who else is
there to do that? Should not the Western media be held accountable for what they broadcast?
Americans are so unaccustomed to hearing the Russian side defended, or hearing it at all, that
when they do it can seem rather weird.
To the casual observer, THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
indictments of July 14 of Russian intelligence agents (GRU) reinforced the argument that the
Soviet government interfered in the US 2016 presidential election. Regard these indictments in
proper perspective and we find that election interference is only listed as a supposed
objective, with charges actually being for unlawful cyber operations, identity theft, and
conspiracy to launder money by American individuals unconnected to the Russian government. So
we're still waiting for some evidence of actual Russian interference in the election aimed at
determining the winner.
The Russians did it (cont.)
Each day I spend about three hours reading the Washington Post. Amongst other things I'm
looking for evidence – real, legal, courtroom-quality evidence, or at least something
logical and rational – to pin down those awful Russkis for their many recent crimes, from
influencing the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election to use of a nerve agent in the UK.
But I do not find such evidence.
Each day brings headlines like these:
"U.S. to add economic sanctions on Russia: Attack with nerve agent on former spy in England
forces White House to act"
"Is Russia exploiting new Facebook goal?"
"Experts: Trump team lacks urgency on Russian threat"
These are all from the same day, August 9, which led me to thinking of doing this article,
but similar stories can be found any day in the Post and in major newspapers anywhere in
America. None of the articles begins to explain how Russia did these things, or even WHY.
Motivation appears to have become a lost pursuit in the American mass media. The one thing
sometimes mentioned, which I think may have some credibility, is Russia's preference of Trump
over Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this doesn't begin to explain how Russia could pull off any
of the electoral magic it's accused of, which would be feasible only if the United States were
a backward, Third World, Banana Republic.
There's the Facebook ads, as well as all the other ads The people who are influenced by this
story – have they read many of the actual ads? Many are pro-Clinton or anti-Trump; many
are both; many are neither. It's one big mess, the only rational explanation of this which I've
read is that they come from money-making websites, "click-bait" sites as they're known, which
earn money simply by attracting visitors.
As to the nerve agents, it makes more sense if the UK or the CIA did it to make the Russians
look bad, because the anti-Russian scandal which followed was totally predictable. Why would
Russia choose the time of the World Cup in Moscow – of which all of Russia was immensely
proud – to bring such notoriety down upon their head? But that would have been an ideal
time for their enemies to want to embarrass them.
However, I have no doubt that the great majority of Americans who follow the news each day
believe the official stories about the Russians. They're particularly impressed with the fact
that every US intelligence agency supports the official stories. They would not be impressed at
all if told that a dozen Russian intelligence agencies all disputed the charges. Group-think is
alive and well all over the world. As is Cold War II.
But we're the Good Guys, ain't we?
For a defender of US foreign policy there's very little that causes extreme heartburn more
than someone implying a "moral equivalence" between American behavior and that of Russia. That
was the case during Cold War I and it's the same now in Cold War II. It just drives them up the
wall.
After the United States passed a law last year requiring TV station RT (Russia Today) to
register as a "foreign agent", the Russians passed their own law allowing authorities to
require foreign media to register as a "foreign agent". Senator John McCain denounced the new
Russian law, saying there is "no equivalence" between RT and networks such as Voice of America,
CNN and the BBC, whose journalists "seek the truth, debunk lies, and hold governments
accountable." By contrast, he said, "RT's propagandists debunk the truth, spread lies, and seek
to undermine democratic governments in order to further Vladimir Putin's agenda."
And here is Tom Malinowski, former Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights
and labor (2014-2017) – last year he reported that Putin had "charged that the U.S.
government had interfered 'aggressively' in Russia's 2012 presidential vote," claiming that
Washington had "gathered opposition forces and financed them." Putin, wrote Malinowski,
"apparently got President Trump to agree to a mutual commitment that neither country would
interfere in the other's elections."
"Is this moral equivalence fair?" Malinowski asked and answered: "In short, no. Russia's
interference in the United States' 2016 election could not have been more different from what
the United States does to promote democracy in other countries."
How do you satirize such officials and such high-school beliefs?
We also have the case of the US government agency, National Endowment for Democracy (NED),
which has interfered in more elections than the CIA or God. Indeed, the man who helped draft
the legislation establishing NED, Allen Weinstein, declared in 1991: "A lot of what we do today
was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." On April 12, 2018 the presidents of two of NED's
wings wrote: "A specious narrative has come back into circulation: that Moscow's campaign of
political warfare is no different from U.S.-supported democracy assistance."
"Democracy assistance", you see, is what they call NED's election-interferences and
government-overthrows. The authors continue: "This narrative is churned out by propaganda
outlets such as RT and Sputnik [radio station]. it is deployed by isolationists who propound a
U.S. retreat from global leadership."
"Isolationists" is what [neo]conservatives call critics of US foreign policy whose arguments they
can't easily dismiss, so they imply that such people just don't want the US to be involved in
anything abroad.
And "global leadership" is what they call being first in election-interferences and
government-overthrows.
This is an interesting analysis shedding some light on how the US intelligence services have gone rogue...
Notable quotes:
"... Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence. ..."
"... the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough. ..."
"... That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment. ..."
"... He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail? ..."
"... The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up." ..."
"... The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on. ..."
"... "What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task." ..."
"... "The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact." ..."
"... But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts. ..."
"... Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
In today's United States, the term "espionage" doesn't get too much
use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage,
but with regard to Americans' own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they
prefer the term "intelligence." This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you
look at things.
First of all, US "intelligence" is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has
been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and
China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and
conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you
are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.
In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days
torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged
in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and
that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate
negotiating future spy swaps.
In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a
good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies,
sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as "Al Qaeda." There was no such thing before US
intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.
Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr.
Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own
spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They
poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no
evidence.
There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working
in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly
super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their "secret" lab in Porton Down doesn't
work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).
There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it
needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the
prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An
alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be
following due process and rules of evidence, they don't add much value.
A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is
acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and
the method -- treason -- can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper,
professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents.
In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to
recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for
injecting disinformation.
Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert
Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail
server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it's
been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that
they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet.
Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn't have been done by anyone working remotely from
Russia.
Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in
Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the
Russian Constitution: "61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of
Russia or extradited to another state."
Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can
just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule
against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.
That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked
into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system
has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done
bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged
hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping
a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment.
He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC
officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie
Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian
hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So,
where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?
Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal
investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to
have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who
may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to
begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious
amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign.
In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US
officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed,
at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US
instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don't they understand?
The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the
traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance --
which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best
ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such
quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US
"intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit
up."
The "intelligence" the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the
stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make
unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful -- be they about Syrian chemical
weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden -- because facts require accuracy and rigor
while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual
objective is easily discernible.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its
allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom
aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and
overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they
are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and
so on.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag
operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta
chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is
perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were
harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly
forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure
confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a
conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled. A
light-hearted answer would have been:
"What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They
were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to
claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped
lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available,
is an impossible task."
A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:
"The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig
the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to
prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately
be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as
conspiracy theory, not as fact."
And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:
"The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to
which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to
me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their
dismissal."
But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake
answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake
intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and
ultimately futile conflicts.
Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of
religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the
Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American
efforts in Iraq and Syria.
The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593.
Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is
too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the
US, that's your bill so far for the various US intelligence "oopsies."
The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like
a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their "mistakes" have cost the
country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of
them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of
the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million
per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence
community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US
intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.
There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.
First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that
the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where
grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward
an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such
incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for
their mistakes.
Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has
been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic
and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile
conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How
that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable
definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at
it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better
than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be
perpetual liars."
Marxism provides one of the best analysis of capitalism; problems start when Marxists propose
alternatives.
Notable quotes:
"... Such demand-compression occurs above all through the imposition of an income deflation on the petty producers, and on the working population in general, in the Third World. This was done in the colonial period through two means: one, "deindustrialization" or the displacement of local craft production by imports of manufactures from the capitalist sector; and two, the "drain of surplus" where a part of the taxes extracted from petty producers was simply taken away in the form of exported goods without any quid pro quo ..."
"... I mean by the term "imperialism" the arrangement that the capitalist system sets up for imposing income deflation on the working population of the Third World for countering the threat of inflation that would otherwise erode the value of money in the metropolis and make the system unviable. "Imperialism" in this sense characterizes both the colonial and the contemporary periods. ..."
"... The fact that the diffusion of capitalism to the Third World has proceeded by leaps and bounds of late, with its domestic corporate-financial oligarchy getting integrated into globalized finance capital, and the fact that workers in the metropolis have also been facing an income squeeze under globalization, are important new developments; but they do not negate the basic tendency of the system to impose income deflation upon the working population of the Third World, a tendency that remains at the very core of the system. ..."
"... any state activism, other than for promoting its own exclusive and direct interest, is anathema for finance capital, which is why, not surprisingly, "sound finance" and "fiscal responsibility" are back in vogue today, when finance capital, now globalized, is in ascendancy. Imperialism is thus a specifically capitalist way of obtaining the commodities it requires for itself, but which are produced outside its own domain. ..."
"... dirigiste regimes ..."
"... With the reassertion of the dominance of finance, in the guise now of an international ..."
"... Contemporary imperialism therefore is the imperialism of international finance capital which is served by nation-states (for any nation-state that defies the will of international finance capital runs the risk of capital flight from, and hence the insolvency of, its economy). The US, being the leading capitalist state, plays the leading role in promoting and protecting the interests of international finance capital. But talking about a specific US imperialism, or a German or British or French imperialism obscures this basic fact. ..."
"... Indeed, a good deal of discussion about whether the world is heading toward multi-polarity or the persistence of US dominance misses the point that the chief actor in today's world is international or globalized finance capital, and not US or German or British finance capital. ..."
"... US military intervention all over the world, in order to acquire a proper meaning has to be located within the broader setting of the imperialism of international finance capital. ..."
C.J. Polychroniou: How do you define imperialism and what imperialist tendencies do you detect as inherent in the
brutal expansion of the logic of capitalism in the neoliberal global era?
Prabhat Patnaik: The capitalist sector of the world, which began by being located, and
continues largely to be located, in the temperate region, requires as its raw materials and
means of consumption a whole range of primary commodities which are not available or
producible, either at all or in adequate quantities, within its own borders. These commodities
have to be obtained from the tropical and sub-tropical region within which almost the whole of
the Third World is located; and the bulk of them (leaving aside minerals) are produced by a set
of petty producers (peasants). What is more, they are subject to "increasing supply price," in
the sense that as demand for them increases in the capitalist sector, larger quantities of them
can be obtained, if at all, only at higher prices, thanks to the fixed size of the tropical
land mass.
This means an ex ante tendency toward accelerating inflation as capital
accumulation proceeds, undermining the value of money under capitalism and hence the viability
of the system as a whole. To prevent this, the system requires that with an increase in demand
from the capitalist sector, as capital accumulation proceeds, there must be a compression of
demand elsewhere for these commodities, so that the net demand does not increase, and
increasing supply price does not get a chance to manifest itself at all.
Such demand-compression occurs above all through the imposition of an income deflation on
the petty producers, and on the working population in general, in the Third World. This was
done in the colonial period through two means: one, "deindustrialization" or the displacement
of local craft production by imports of manufactures from the capitalist sector; and two, the
"drain of surplus" where a part of the taxes extracted from petty producers was simply taken
away in the form of exported goods without any quid pro quo . The income of the
working population of the Third World, and hence its demand, was thus kept down; and
metropolitan capitalism's demand for such commodities was met without any inflationary threat
to the value of money. Exactly a similar process of income deflation is imposed now upon the
working population of the Third World by the neoliberal policies of globalization.
I mean by the term "imperialism" the arrangement that the capitalist system sets up for
imposing income deflation on the working population of the Third World for countering the
threat of inflation that would otherwise erode the value of money in the metropolis and make
the system unviable. "Imperialism" in this sense characterizes both the colonial and the
contemporary periods.
We recognize the need for a reserve army of labor to ward off the threat to the value of
money arising from wage demands of workers. Ironically, however, we do not recognize the
parallel and even more pressing need of the system (owing to increasing supply price) for the
imposition of income deflation on the working population of the Third World for warding off a
similar threat.
The fact that the diffusion of capitalism to the Third World has proceeded by leaps and
bounds of late, with its domestic corporate-financial oligarchy getting integrated into
globalized finance capital, and the fact that workers in the metropolis have also been facing
an income squeeze under globalization, are important new developments; but they do not negate
the basic tendency of the system to impose income deflation upon the working population of the
Third World, a tendency that remains at the very core of the system.
Those who argue that imperialism is no longer a relevant analytic construct point to the
multifaceted aspects of today's global economic exchanges and to a highly complex process
involved in the distribution of value which, simply put, cannot be reduced to imperialism. How
do you respond to this line of thinking?
Capitalism today is of course much more complex, with an enormous financial superstructure.
But that paradoxically makes inflation even more threatening. The value of this vast array of
financial assets would collapse in the event of inflation, bringing down this superstructure,
which incidentally is the reason for the current policy obsession with "inflation targeting."
This makes the imperialist arrangement even more essential. The more complex capitalism
becomes, the more it needs its basic simple props.
I should clarify here that if "land-augmenting" measures [such as irrigation, high-yielding
seeds and better production practices] could be introduced in the Third World, then,
notwithstanding the physical fixity of the tropical land mass, the threat of increasing supply
price -- and with it, [the threat] of inflation -- could be warded off without any income
deflation. Indeed, on the contrary, the working population of the Third World would be better
off through such measures. But these measures require state support and state expenditure, a
fact that Marx had recognized long ago. But any state activism, other than for promoting its
own exclusive and direct interest, is anathema for finance capital, which is why, not
surprisingly, "sound finance" and "fiscal responsibility" are back in vogue today, when finance
capital, now globalized, is in ascendancy. Imperialism is thus a specifically capitalist way of
obtaining the commodities it requires for itself, but which are produced outside its own
domain.
The post-decolonization dirigiste regimes [regimes directed by a central authority]
in the Third World had actually undertaken land-augmentation measures. Because of this, even as
exports of commodities to the metropolis had risen to sustain the biggest boom ever witnessed
in the history of capitalism, per capita food grain availability had also increased in those
countries. But I see that period as a period of retreat of metropolitan capitalism, enforced by
the wound inflicted upon it by the Second World War. With the reassertion of the dominance of
finance, in the guise now of an international finance capital, the Third World states
have withdrawn from supporting petty producers, a process of income deflation is in full swing,
and the imperialist arrangement is back in place, because of which we can see once more a
tendency toward a secular decline in per capita food grain availability in the Third World as
in the colonial period.
There is a third way -- apart from a greater obsession with inflation aversion and a yoking
of Third World states to promoting the interests of globalized finance rather than defending
domestic petty producers -- in which contemporary capitalism strengthens the imperialist
arrangement. It may be thought that the value of imports of Third World commodities into the
capitalist metropolis is so small that we are exaggerating the inflation threat from that
source to metropolitan currencies. This smallness itself, of course, is an expression of an
acutely exploitative relationship. In addition, however, the threat to the Third World
currencies themselves from a rise in the prices of these commodities becomes acute in a regime
of free cross-border financial flows as now, which threatens the entire world trade and
payments system and hence makes income deflation particularly urgent. Hence the need for the
imperialist arrangement becomes even more acute.
Not long ago, even liberals like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times were arguing that
"McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas" (that is, the US Air Force). Surely,
this is a crude version of imperialism, but what about today's US imperialism? Isn't it still
alive and kicking?
The world that Lenin had written about consisted of nation-based, nation-state-supported
financial oligarchies engaged in intense inter-imperialist rivalry for repartitioning the world
through wars. When [Marxist theorist] Karl Kautsky had suggested the possibility of a truce
among rival powers for a peaceful division of the world, Lenin had pointed to the fact that the
phenomenon of uneven development under capitalism would necessarily subvert any such specific
truce. The world we have today is characterized by the hegemony of international
finance capital which is interested in preventing any partitioning of the world, so
that it can move around freely across the globe.
Contemporary imperialism therefore is the imperialism of international finance capital which
is served by nation-states (for any nation-state that defies the will of international finance
capital runs the risk of capital flight from, and hence the insolvency of, its economy). The
US, being the leading capitalist state, plays the leading role in promoting and protecting the
interests of international finance capital. But talking about a specific US imperialism, or a
German or British or French imperialism obscures this basic fact.
Indeed, a good deal of discussion about whether the world is heading toward multi-polarity
or the persistence of US dominance misses the point that the chief actor in today's world is
international or globalized finance capital, and not US or German or British finance capital.
So, the concept of imperialism that [Utsa Patnaik and I] are talking about belongs to a
different terrain of discourse from the concept of US imperialism per se . The latter,
though it is, of course, empirically visible because of US military intervention all over the
world, in order to acquire a proper meaning has to be located within the broader setting of the
imperialism of international finance capital.
Some incidentally have seen the muting of inter-imperialist rivalry in today's world as a
vindication of Kautsky's position over that of Lenin. This, however, is incorrect, since both
of them were talking about a world of national finance capitals which contemporary capitalism
has gone beyond.
... ... ...
One final question: How should radical movements and organizations, in both the core and the
periphery of the world capitalist economy, be organizing to combat today's imperialism?
Obviously, the issue of imperialism is important not for scholastic reasons, but because of
the praxis that a recognition of its role engenders. From what I have been arguing, it is clear
that since globalization involves income deflation for the peasantry and petty producers, and
since their absorption into the ranks of the active army of labor under capitalism does not
occur because of the paucity of jobs that are created even when rates of output growth are
high, there is a tendency toward an absolute immiserization of the working population.
For the petty producers, this tendency operates directly; and for others, it operates through
the driving down of the "reservation wage" owing to the impoverishment of petty producers.
Such immiserization is manifest above all in the decline in per capita food grain
absorption, both directly and indirectly (the latter via processed foods and feed grains). An
improvement in the conditions of living of the working population of the Third World then
requires a delinking from globalization (mainly through capital controls, and also
trade controls to the requisite extent) by an alternative state, based on a worker-peasant
alliance, that pursues a different trajectory of development. Such a trajectory would emphasize
peasant-agriculture-led growth, land redistribution (so as to limit the extent of
differentiation within the peasantry) and the formation of voluntary cooperatives and
collectives for carrying forward land-augmentation measures, and even undertaking
value-addition activities, including industrialization.
Small Third World countries would no doubt find it difficult to adopt such a program because
of their limited resource base and narrow home market. But they will have to come together with
other small countries to constitute larger, more viable units. But the basic point is that the
question of "making globalization work" or "having globalization with a human face" simply does
not arise.
The problem with this praxis is that it is not only the bourgeoisie in the Third World
countries, but even sections of the middle-class professionals who have been beneficiaries of
globalization, who would oppose any such delinking. But the world capitalist crisis, which is a
consequence of this finance-capital-led globalization itself, is causing disaffection among
these middle-class beneficiaries. They, too, would now be more willing to support an
alternative trajectory of development that breaks out of the straitjacket imposed by
imperialism.
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @
nytimes , @ NBCNews , @ ABC , @ CBS , @ CNN
) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People! ~ Donald Trump
On Thursday, Mr. Trump expressed his distaste for journalists in more populist terms, saying,
"much of the media in Washington, D.C., along with New York, Los Angeles in particular, speaks
not for the people, but for the special interests."
"The public doesn't believe you people anymore," Mr. Trump added. "Now, maybe I had something
to do with that. I don't know. But they don't believe you."
President Trump has denounced and exposed the repeated deceits and ongoing fabrications of
the mass media. Never before has a President so forcefully identified the lies of the leading
print and TV outlets. The NY Times , Washington Post , the Financial
Times, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS have been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the
larger public. They have lost legitimacy and trust. Where progressives have failed, a war
monger billionaire has accomplished, speaking a truth to serve many injustices.
"... I'm somewhat puzzled why Trump and his people, when referring to the "fake news" and answering questions from hostile journalists, especially about the idea that the media are "enemies of the American people", fail to bring up the fact that the "fake news" and the "enemies of the people" are not the journalists themselves, but rather the management and ownership of the media. ..."
I posted this one to my facebook page three or four days ago. It's brilliant. I have a few comments. First, I disagree with the
analysis given by the fellow from the Duran in the introduction, something along the lines of "even Anderson Cooper was smirking
because Cohen was demolishing Boot so badly".
If you pay attention to the questions and statements, you find that Cooper is equally as unhinged as Boot is, first hammering
on the point that nobody knows what was discussed in the meeting, then after Cohen rattles off a list, Cooper shifts to the "you're
believing Vladimir Putin on this" tactic, a nail that Cohen wisely smashes with a hammering statement, "I don't want to shock
you, but I believe Vladimir Putin on several things."
Cooper continues to insist that the content of the meeting is unknown and unconfirmed, regardless of what Putin and Trump say.
The sheer hubris of journalists today is unprecedented and outrageous.
I do admit that Cooper shuts up after being schooled by Cohen a second and third time and after Boot makes the mistake of calling
Cohen an apologist for Putin and Russia. This leads me to a second point.
I'm somewhat puzzled why Trump and his people, when referring to the "fake news" and answering questions from hostile journalists,
especially about the idea that the media are "enemies of the American people", fail to bring up the fact that the "fake news"
and the "enemies of the people" are not the journalists themselves, but rather the management and ownership of the media.
\This would accomplish two important things, both necessary, in my opinion. First, it would put the front line journalists
into their correct place, telling them that they are really nothing but mouthpieces, and we know that the real decisions on content
are not made by them.
What a blow to their narcisstic self-esteem that would be!
Second, it would give the American people more information on how their consent is engineered, how the media has owners
who have an agenda, and that agenda is not related to improving the lives of the American people, or even keeping them informed
with accurate information.
For several years, a family of foreign nationals (and not only Wassermannn-Schultz) has
been surfing the congressional computers while having no security clearance.
Both Debbie and Hillary should be in federal prison already. Clinton used to be fond of
droning Assange for divulging the criminal and illegal activities of the state. What Debbie
and Hillary did has been much more dangerous to the US national security.
"... Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched, like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned. ..."
"... Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing nothing but a trench coat. ..."
"... The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges recently noted , "The most basic constitutional rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security." ..."
"... This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious). ..."
"... According to Deloitte's Shift Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years. ..."
"... Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms. ..."
Our society should've collapsed by now. You know that, right?
No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a "Star
Wars" movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans
can't afford a $500 emergency
. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now
worth a record $141 billion . He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than
he could ever spend on himself.
Worldwide,
one in
10 people only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has?
193 million years . (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our
current world or even just our nation.
So shouldn't there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn't it all be collapsing? Look outside. The streets aren't on fire.
No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone's going to work at gunpoint? No. We're all choosing to
continue on like this.
Why?
Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched,
like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned.
I'm going to cover eight of them. There are more than eight. There are probably hundreds. But I'm going to cover eight because
(A) no one reads a column titled "Hundreds of Myths of American Society," (B) these are the most important ones and (C) we all have
other shit to do.
Myth No. 8 -- We have a democracy.
If you think we still have a democracy or a democratic republic, ask yourself this: When was the last time Congress did something
that the people of America supported that did not align with corporate interests? You probably can't do it. It's like trying to think
of something that rhymes with "orange." You feel like an answer exists but then slowly realize it doesn't. Even the Carter Center
and former President Jimmy Carter believe that America has been
transformed into
an oligarchy : A small, corrupt elite control the country with almost no input from the people. The rulers need the myth that
we're a democracy to give us the illusion of control.
Myth No. 7 -- We have an accountable and legitimate voting system.
Gerrymandering, voter purging, data mining, broken exit polling, push polling, superdelegates, electoral votes, black-box machines,
voter ID suppression, provisional ballots, super PACs, dark money, third parties banished from the debates and two corporate parties
that stand for the same goddamn pile of fetid crap!
What part of this sounds like a legitimate election system?
No, we have what a large Harvard study called the
worst election system in the Western world . Have you ever seen where a parent has a toddler in a car seat, and the toddler has
a tiny, brightly colored toy steering wheel so he can feel like he's driving the car? That's what our election system is -- a toy
steering wheel. Not connected to anything. We all sit here like infants, excitedly shouting, "I'm steeeeering !"
And I know it's counterintuitive, but that's why you have to vote. We have to vote in such numbers that we beat out what's stolen
through our ridiculous rigged system.
Myth No. 6 -- We have an independent media that keeps the rulers accountable.
Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard
on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to
rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the
myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing
nothing but a trench coat.
Myth No. 5 -- We have an independent judiciary.
The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions
of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges
recently noted , "The most basic constitutional
rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret
evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security."
If you're not part of the monied class, you're pressured into releasing what few rights you have left. According to
The New
York Times , "97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains, with defendants pleading guilty
in exchange for a lesser sentence."
That's the name of the game. Pressure people of color and poor people to just take the plea deal because they don't have a million
dollars to spend on a lawyer. (At least not one who doesn't advertise on beer coasters.)
Myth No. 4 -- The police are here to protect you. They're your friends .
That's funny. I don't recall my friend pressuring me into sex to get out of a speeding ticket. (Which is essentially still
legal in 32
states .)
The police in our country are primarily designed to do two things: protect the property of the rich and perpetrate the completely
immoral war on drugs -- which by definition is a war on our own people .
We lock up more people than
any other country on earth
. Meaning the land of the free is the largest prison state in the world. So all these droopy-faced politicians and rabid-talking
heads telling you how awful China is on human rights or Iran or North Korea -- none of them match the numbers of people locked up
right here under Lady Liberty's skirt.
Myth No. 3 -- Buying will make you happy.
This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a
tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because
most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then
flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious).
If we're lucky, we'll make enough money during the week to afford enough beer on the weekend to help it all make sense. (I find
it takes at least four beers for everything to add up.) But that doesn't truly bring us fulfillment. So what now? Well, the ads say
buying will do it. Try to smother the depression and desperation under a blanket of flat-screen TVs, purses and Jet Skis. Now does
your life have meaning? No? Well, maybe you have to drive that Jet Ski a little faster! Crank it up until your bathing suit flies
off and you'll feel alive !
The dark truth is that we have to believe the myth that consuming is the answer or else we won't keep running around the wheel.
And if we aren't running around the wheel, then we start thinking, start asking questions. Those questions are not good for the ruling
elite, who enjoy a society based on the daily exploitation of 99 percent of us.
Myth No. 2 -- If you work hard, things will get better.
According to Deloitte's Shift
Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their
lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years.
Ask yourself what we're working for. To make money? For what? Almost none of us are doing jobs for survival anymore. Once upon
a time, jobs boiled down to:
I plant the food -- >I eat the food -- >If I don't plant food = I die.
But nowadays, if you work at a café -- will someone die if they don't get their super-caf-mocha-frap-almond-piss-latte? I kinda
doubt they'll keel over from a blueberry scone deficiency.
If you work at Macy's, will customers perish if they don't get those boxer briefs with the sweat-absorbent-ass fabric? I doubt
it. And if they do die from that, then their problems were far greater than you could've known. So that means we're all working to
make other people rich because we have a society in which we have to work. Technological advancements can do most everything that
truly must get done.
So if we wanted to, we could get rid of most work and have tens of thousands of more hours to enjoy our lives. But we're not doing
that at all. And no one's allowed to ask these questions -- not on your mainstream airwaves at least. Even a half-step like universal
basic income is barely discussed because it doesn't compute with our cultural programming.
Scientists say it's quite possible artificial intelligence will take away
all human jobs in 120 years . I think they know that will
happen because bots will take the jobs and then realize that 80 percent of them don't need to be done! The bots will take over and
then say, "Stop it. Stop spending a seventh of your life folding shirts at Banana Republic."
One day, we will build monuments to the bot that told us to enjoy our lives and leave the shirts wrinkly.
And this leads me to the largest myth of our American society.
Myth No. 1 -- You are free.
... ... ...
Try sleeping in your car for more than a few hours without being harassed by police.
Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms.
Try signing up for the military because you need college money and then one day just walking off the base, going, "Yeah, I was
bored. Thought I would just not do this anymore."
Try explaining to Kentucky Fried Chicken that while you don't have the green pieces of paper they want in exchange for the mashed
potatoes, you do have some pictures you've drawn on a napkin to give them instead.
Try using the restroom at Starbucks without buying something while black.
We are less free than a dog on a leash. We live in one of the hardest-working, most unequal societies on the planet with more
billionaires than ever .
Meanwhile,
Americans
supply 94 percent of the paid blood used worldwide. And it's almost exclusively coming from very poor people. This abusive vampire
system is literally sucking the blood from the poor. Does that sound like a free decision they made? Or does that sound like something
people do after immense economic force crushes down around them? (One could argue that sperm donation takes a little less convincing.)
Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't need guns and tear
gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into,
hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults.
815M people chronically malnourished according to the UN. Bezos is worth $141B.
$141B / 815M people = $173 per person. That would definitely not feed them for "multiple years". And that's only if Bezos could
fully liquidate the stock without it dropping a penny.
" Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't
need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for
us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults. "
Seems like there's tear gas in the air and guns are going to be used soon. The myths are dying on the tongues of the liars.
Molon Labe!....and I'm usually a pacifist.
"American Society Would Collapse If It Weren't For Invasions Of Foreign Countries, Murdering Their People, Stealing Their Oil
Then Blaming Them For Making The US Do It."
Well, in a world driven by oil, it is entirely bogus to suggest that citizens have to work their asses off. That was the whole
point of the bill of goods that was sold to us in the late 70's and early 80'. More leisure time, more time for your family and
personal interests.
Except! It never happened. All they fucking did was reduce real wages and force everyone from the upper middle class down,
into a shit hole.
But, they will pay for their folly. Guaran-fucking-teed.
As one who has hoed many rows of cotton in 115F temperatures as well as picking cotton during my childhood and early adolescence
during weekends and school holidays, I concur. It was a very powerful inducement to get a good education back when schools actually
taught things and did not tolerate backtalk or guff from students instead of babysitting them. It worked, and I ended up writing
computer software for spacecraft, which was much fun than working in the fields.
"... Congress wasted no time jumping on the Treason bandwagon, led by Chuck Schumer conjuring the spectre of the KGB, Marco Rubio as neocon point-man (one imagines Barbara Bush rolling in her grave at his usurpation of Jeb's rightful role) proposing locked-and-loaded sanctions in case of future "meddling," and John McCain , still desperate to take the rest of the world with him before he finally kicks a long-overdue bucket, condemning the "disgraceful" display of two heads of state trying to come to an agreement about matters of mutual interest. The Pentagon has invested a lot of time and money in positioning Russia as Public Enemy #1, and for Trump to put his foot in it by making nice with Putin might diminish the size of their weapons contracts – or the willingness of the American people to tolerate more than half of every tax dollar disappearing down an unaccountable hole . Peace? Eh, who needs it. Cash , motherfucker. ..."
"... The Intelligence Community believes it is God, and it hath smote Trump good. Smelling blood in the water, the media redoubled their shrieking for several days, and crickets. ..."
The Helsinki hysteria shone a spotlight on the utter impotence of the establishment media
and their Deep State controllers to make their delusions reality. Never before has there been
such a gaping chasm visible between the media's "truth" and the facts on the ground. Pundits
compared the summit to Pearl Harbor and
9/11 , with some even reaching for the brass ring of the Holocaust by likening it to
Kristallnacht , while
polls revealed the American people reallydidn't care .
Worse, it laid bare the collusion between the media and their Deep State handlers –
the central dissemination point for the headlines, down to the same phrases, that led to every
outlet claiming Trump had "thrown the Intelligence Community under the bus" by refusing to
embrace the Russia-hacked-our-democracy narrative during his press conference with Putin.
Leaving aside the sudden ubiquity of "Intelligence Community" in our national discourse –
as if this network of spies and murderous thugs is Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood – no one
seriously believes every pundit came up with "throws under the bus" as the proper way of
describing that press conference.
The same central control was apparent in the unanimous condemnations of Putin – that
he murders
journalists , breaks
international agreements , uses bannedchemical
weapons ,
kills women and children
in Syria , and, of course,
meddles in elections . For every single establishment pundit to exhibit such a breathtaking
lack of insight into their own government's misdeeds is highly unlikely. Many of these same
talking heads remarked in horror on Sinclair Broadcasting's Orwellian "prepared statement"
issuing forth from the mouths of hundreds of stations' anchors at once. Et tu, Anderson
Cooper?
The media frenzy was geared toward sparking a popular revolt, with tensions already running
high from the previous media frenzy about family separation at the border (though only one
MSNBC segment seemed to recall that they should still care about that, and belatedly included
some footage of kids
behind a fence wrapped in Mylar blankets). Rachel Maddow , armed with the crocodile tears that
served her so well during the family-separation fracas, exhorted her faithful cultists to
do something.
Meanwhile, national-security neanderthal John Brennan all but called for a coup, condemning the
president for the unspeakable "high crimes and misdemeanors" of seeking to improve relations
with the world's second-largest nuclear power. He called on Pompeo and Bolton, the two biggest
warmongers in a Trump administration bristling with warmongers, to resign in protest. This
would have been a grand slam for world peace, but alas, it was not to be. Even those two
realize what a has-been Brennan is.
Congress wasted no time jumping on the Treason bandwagon, led by Chuck Schumer conjuring
the spectre of the KGB, Marco Rubio as neocon point-man (one imagines Barbara Bush rolling in
her grave at his usurpation of Jeb's rightful role) proposing locked-and-loaded sanctions in
case of future "meddling," and John McCain , still desperate to take the rest of the world with
him before he finally kicks a long-overdue bucket, condemning the "disgraceful" display of two
heads of state trying to come to an agreement about matters of mutual interest. The Pentagon
has invested a lot of time and money in
positioning Russia as Public Enemy #1, and for Trump to put his foot in it by making nice
with Putin might diminish the size of their weapons contracts – or the willingness of the
American people to tolerate more than half of every tax dollar disappearing down an unaccountable
hole . Peace? Eh, who needs it. Cash , motherfucker.
Trump's grip on his long-elusive spine was only temporary, and he held another press
conference upon returning home to reiterate his trust in the intelligence agencies that have
made no secret of their utter loathing for him since day one. When the lights went out at the
climactic moment, it became clear for anyone who still hadn't gotten the message who was
running the show here (and Trump, to his credit, actually joked about it). The Intelligence
Community believes it is God, and it hath smote Trump good. Smelling blood in the water, the
media redoubled their shrieking for several days, and crickets.
On to the Playmates .
Sacha Baron Cohen 's latest series, "Who is America," targeted Ted Koppel for one segment.
Koppel cut the interview short after smelling a rat and expressed his
high-minded concern that Cohen's antics would hurt Americans' trust in reporters. But after
a week of the entire media establishment screaming that the sky is falling while the heavens
remain firmly in place, Cohen is clearly the least of their problems. At least he's funny.
*
Helen Buyniski is a journalist and photographer based in New York City. She covers
politics, sociology, and other anthropological/cultural phenomena. Helen has a BA in Journalism
from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University.
Find more of her work at http://www.helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski .
Intelligence community is a new Praetorian guard which since JFK murder can decide the fate of presidents.
Notable quotes:
"... Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, on July 12. ..."
"... Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated "Intelligence Community," itself part of the sprawling political machine that makes up the D.C. comitatus ..."
"... Smug, self-satisfied, cheating creature that he is, Strzok can't take responsibility for his own misconduct, and blames Russia for dividing America. In the largely progressive bureau, moreover, Agent Strzok is neither underling nor outlier, for that matter. ..."
"... A "blind bootlicking faith in spooks" is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish. What of odious individuals like former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers in the "Intelligence Community"? ..."
"... Similarly, it's hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan -- he ran the CIA under President Obama. True to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself. ..."
"... The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. The former Bush employee hollered treason: "One of the most disgraceful performances of an American president in front of a Russian leader," Hayden inveighed. Not only had POTUS dared to explore the possibility of a truce with Russia, which is a formidable nuclear power; but the president had the temerity to express a smidgen of skepticism about a community littered with spooks like Mr. Hayden. ..."
"... Pray tell, since when does the Deep State -- FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, (Director of National Intelligence), on and on -- represent, or stand for, the American People? The president, conversely, actually got the support of at least 60 million Americans. ..."
"... Outside the Beltway, ordinary folks -- Deplorables, if you will -- have to sympathize with the president's initial and honest appraisal of the Intelligence Community's collective intelligence. This is the community that has sent us into quite a few recreational, hobby wars. ..."
Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp
creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees,
on July 12.
In no way had he failed to discharge his professional unbiased obligation to the public, asserted Strzok. He had merely
expressed the hope that "the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating such horrible, disgusting behavior."
But we did not elect YOU, Mr. Strzok. We elected Mr. Trump.
Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated "Intelligence Community," itself part of the sprawling political machine that
makes up the D.C. comitatus , now writhing like a fire breathing mythical monster against President Donald Trump.
As Ann Coulter observed, the FBI is not the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover. Neither is the Intelligence Community
Philip Haney's IC
any longer. Haney was a heroic, soft-spoken, demure employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Agents like him are often fired
if they don't get with the program. He didn't. Haney's method and the
authentic intelligence he mined and developed might have stopped the likes of the San Bernardino mass murderers and many others.
Instead, his higher-ups in the "Intelligence Community" made Haney and his data disappear.
Post Haney, the FBI failed to adequately screen and stop Syed Farook and blushing bride Tashfeen Malik.
A "blind bootlicking faith in spooks" is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish. What of odious individuals like former
FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers
in the "Intelligence Community"?
As Peter Strzok might say to his paramour in a private tweet, "Who ya gonna believe, the Intelligence Community or your
own lying eyes?" The Bureau in particular and the IC cabal, in general, appear to be dominated by the likes of the dull-witted Mr.
Strzok.
Similarly, it's hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan -- he ran the CIA under President Obama. True
to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan
has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself.
The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National
Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. The former Bush employee hollered treason: "One of the most disgraceful
performances of an American president in front of a Russian leader," Hayden inveighed. Not only had POTUS dared to explore the possibility
of a truce with Russia, which is a formidable nuclear power; but the president had the temerity to express a smidgen of skepticism
about a community littered with spooks like Mr. Hayden.
As one wag
noted
, not unreasonably, ours is "a highly-politicized intelligence community, infiltrated over decades by cadres of Deep State operatives
and sleeper agents, whose goal is to bring down this presidency."
Pray tell, since when does the Deep State --
FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, (Director of National Intelligence), on and on -- represent, or stand for, the American People? The
president, conversely, actually got the support of at least 60 million Americans.
That's a LOT of support. Outside the Beltway, ordinary folks -- Deplorables, if you will -- have to sympathize with the president's
initial and honest appraisal of the Intelligence Community's collective intelligence. This is the community that has sent us into
quite a few recreational, hobby wars.
And this is the community that regularly intercepts but fails to surveys and stop the likes of mass murderers Syed Farook and
bride Tashfeen Malik. Or, Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen, whose father the Bureau saw fit to
hire as an informant. The same "community" has invited the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Arab-American Institute to help
shape FBI counterterrorism training.
The FBI might not be very intelligent at all. About the quality of that intelligence, consider: On August 3, 2016, as the mad
media were amping up their Russia monomania, a frenzied BuzzFeed -- it calls itself a news org -- reported that "the Russian foreign
ministry had wired nearly $30,000 through a Kremlin-backed bank to its embassy in Washington, DC."
Intercepted by American intelligence, the Russian wire
stipulated
that the funds were meant "to finance the election campaign of 2016." Was this not "meddling in our election" or what? Did
we finally have irrefutable evidence of Kremlin culpability? The FBI certainly thought so. "Worse still, this was only one of 60
transfers that were being scrutinized by the FBI,"
wrote
the Economist, in November of 2017. "Similar transfers were made to other countries." As it transpired, the money was wired from
the Kremlin to embassies the world over. Its purpose? Russia was preparing to hold parliamentary elections in 2016 and had sent funds
to Russian embassies "to organize the polling for expatriates."
While it did update its Fake News factoids, Buzzfeed felt no compunction whatsoever to remove the erroneous item or publicly question
their sources in the unimpeachable "Intelligence Community."
Most news media are just not as inquisitive as President Trump.
"... By creating an extremely anti-communist state, the elite will never have to worry about losing control over society because their wealth and power remains safe and sound. ..."
It is an evolution of conspiracy theory, not requiring any kind of convoluted logic or
story telling that used to be required for conspiracy theory to stick. Fake News allows for
simple, truthful, and logical information to be dismissed out of hand, without
examination.
Here's an ad about COCs (PDF) from
1942. They're used for tanning leather, in soaps and perfumes, as insect repellents, for
dying cloth, as antiseptics, and for many, many other commercial and industrial
purposes.
Damn those Syrian butchers for dropping perfume on civilians!
Fake News is the 21st century version of Conspiracy Theory.
It is an evolution of conspiracy theory, not requiring any kind of convoluted logic or
story telling that used to be required for conspiracy theory to stick. Fake News allows
for simple, truthful, and logical information to be dismissed out of hand, without
examination.
@The Voice In the
Wilderness In the dim reaches of pre-history, when Walter Cronkite was reporting, a
real journalist wouldn't report that someone launched a chemical weapons attack unless the
journalist had at least two credible, independent sources providing solid evidence that the
story was true. Newspaper editors and television producers knew their reputations were on the
line and that their competitors would make sure the egg on their face stuck if they reported
something blatantly wrong.
Nowadays, there are no competitors, because journalists and news outlets are mostly
hanging out together in one big cheery cartel, every member of which will defend every other
member to protect the reputation of the whole. The goal is not to outdo competitors and gain
more eyeballs or a greater distribution or greater authority over public opinion. The goal is
to defend the status quo by any means necessary, while somehow maintaining the credibility of
the press.
But no, they shouldn't have published a story that Assad had launched a chemical weapons
attack unless they had a significant amount of solid evidence that it was true.
I have a hard time understanding how people can even begin to credit this crap, given how
close it is to what they told us about Saddam Hussein. But it's actually even worse, because
at least Hussein did, at one time, use chemical weapons on the Kurds. I mean, at least he did
it once, even if he didn't have weapons of mass destruction ready to aim at Israel, or the
Saudis, or the U.S.
#7
It was big news. But failure to report it as false with just as much (or more) attention
and timing was journalistic malpractice. They should have been outraged to have been
conned into spreading false propaganda. IF they were legitimate journalists.
@Cant Stop the
Macedonian Signal
I don't know that anyone waits for confirmation anymore. And the two sources could
be the CIA and VOA or one of their tame journalists.
Credibility is in the eye of the beholder. After they all jumped on Saddam's WMD one can
hardly compare them with Cronkite.
I do remember web blogs asking to please wait for the UN inspectors report. When that
report did come out, anyone with integrity, even if not a professional journalist, would have
highlighted that report and retracted the original and not figuratively bury it on page
56.
But we are substantially together on this. They reported is as fact not as an
unsubstantiated claim.
Chomsky's Five News Filters: A little dated but a good starting point.
The first filter is Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation of the Mass Media. Mainstream
media is essentially owned by corporations and the government, because those are the very
agents who fund them. Any favourable studies, studies or information that the government or
corporations want the public to know (or don't want them to know) either ends up being aired
or buried as a result.
The second filter is Advertising License to do Business. Mass media isn't interested in
attracting viewers to educate them, but rather to sell them on something. They're more
interested in engaging an audience with higher buying power than actually making a difference
through education and information. Chomsky provides an excellent example, explaining: "CBS proudly tells its shareholders that while it "continuously seeks to maximize audience
delivery," it has developed a new "sales tool" with which it approaches advertisers: "Client
Audience Profile, or CAP, will help advertisers optimize the effectiveness of their network
television schedules by evaluating audience segments in proportion to usage levels of
advertisers' products and services." In short, the mass media are interested in attracting
audiences with buying power, not audiences per se."
The third filter is Sourcing Mass-Media News. Whatever is aired on mass media needs to be
100% credible, meaning it's viewers need to completely trust what's being aired, without the
need of them using their critical thinking skills. Since the majority of the public trusts
the government and mass corporations, AKA the propaganda machines, most of the "news worthy"
content comes from them. Plus, whatever's aired needs to be approved by corporations or the
government and/or mass media must avoid airing anything that would offend their contributors
and funders.
The fourth filter is Flak and the Enforcers. "Flak" refers to negative responses to a
media statement or program aired on the network. Perhaps the most influential producers of
flak are corporations and the government. Corporations have created large scale organizations
whose sole purpose is to produce flak. The government is also a large producer of flak, as it
constantly corrects or threatens the media based on their interests.
The final filter is Anticommunism as a Control Mechanism. Everything at home seems to be a
lesser evil if there's something on the news that seems much worse (fake terrorist attacks,
false enemies, and/or "radical" states). Anything that sounds too left can also be dismissed
if it sounds too much like "communism." By creating an extremely anti-communist state, the
elite will never have to worry about losing control over society because their wealth and
power remains safe and sound.
@fakenews
namely big, opinion-policing non-profits and their lobbyists and followers, ranging from
religious denominations, to AIPAC and the NRA, to the ADL and SPLC.
Looks like MIC is a cancel of the society for which there is no cure....
While this jeremiad raises several valid point the key to understanding the situation should
be understanding of the split of the Us elite into two camp with Democratic party (representing
interests of Wall Street) and large part of intelligence communality fighting to neoliberal
status quo and Pentagon, some part of old money, part of trade unions (especially rank and file
members) and a pert of Republican Party (representing interests of the military) realizing that
neoliberalism came to the natural end and it is time for change which includes downsizing of the
American empire.
This bitter internal struggle in which neoliberals so far have an upper hand over Trump
administration and forced him into retreat.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is a traitor because he wants peace with Russia. ..."
"... The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, as well as the rest of the world, desperately need to notice the extremely hostile reaction to peace on the part of the US Democratic Party, many members of the Republican Party, including the despicable US Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and the Western Presstitute Media, a collection of people on the CIA payroll according to the German newspaper editor, Udo Ulfkotte, and the CIA itself. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the corrupt filth that rules over us are all in the pay of the military/security complex. Just go and investigate the donations to their re-election campaigns. The 1,000 billion dollar budget of the military/security complex, amplified by the CIA's front corporations and narcotics business, provides enormous sums with which to purchase the senators and representatives that the insouciant American voters think that they elect. ..."
"... Therefore, the American public gets not representation, but lies that justify war and conflict. The military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned the American people to no effect, is in desperate need of an enemy. In obedience to the military/security complex, the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have made Russia that enemy. If Trump and Putin do not understand this, they will easily be made irrelevant. ..."
"... They both can be assassinated, and that is what the statements from Pelosi, Schumer, McCain, Lindsey Graham, et. al., repeated endlessly in the propaganda ministry that is the Western press, encourages. ..."
"... The Supply-Side Revolution ..."
"... When the combination of tax cuts with defense budget cuts came up for a vote, the legendary senator Strom Thurmond, a 48-year member of the US Senate from South Carolina, tapped me on the shoulder. He said: "son, never set your senator up against the military/security complex. He will not be re-elected, and you will be out of a job." I replied that we were just establishing for the record that under no conditions would the Democrats, who wanted more government, vote for a tax rate reduction even if there was a case that it would cure stagflation. He replied: "son, the military/security complex doesn't care." ..."
"... Later as a member of a secret presidential committee, I saw how the CIA attempted to prevent President Reagan from ending the Cold War. ..."
"... Today, right now, at this moment, we are faced with a massive effort of the military/security complex, the neoconservatives, the Democratic Party, and the presstitute media to discredit the elected President of the United States and to overthrow him in order that the utterly corrupt elite that rule American can continue to hold on to power and to protect the massive budget of the military/security complex that, along with the Israel Lobby, funds the elections of those who rule us. ..."
"... There is no institution in America, government or private, that can be trusted. Any government or person who trusts America or any Western country is stupid beyond belief. ..."
"... The entire Russiagate hoax is an orchestration by the military/security complex, led by John Brennen, Comey, and Rosenstein. The purpose is to discredit President trump for two reasons. One is to prevent any normalization of relations with Russia. The other is to remove Trump's agenda as an alternative to the agenda of the Democratic Party. ..."
"... President Trump is almost powerless. Putin, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans should recognize this before it is too late for them. President Trump cannot fire and arrest for high treason Mueller and Rosenstein. ..."
"... Reckless and irresponsible comments about treason from former CIA director Brennan, and other ranking public figures, echo similar inflammatory rhetoric from far-right-wing rabble rouser Gen. Edwin Walker, and other members of the John Birch Society, in the days before Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. ..."
"... What's going on in the United States of America beats the band what happened under Joe McCarthy. The witch hunt against a sitting President by 95 percent of the media, major government institutions such as the criminal CIA, FBI, DOJ and the rest of the crooked Intel community plus the rascals in the US Congress can only happen in a totalitarian society, which the US is. ..."
"... The Brennan, Clappers, Obamas, Clintons, Comeys, Rosenstein and their many subordinate political Mafiosi should be put behind bars instead of running from one TV station to the next and lay the ground for a possibly Trump assassination. ..."
"... As Mr. Rogers correctly states, President Trump is almost powerless. These US fools even try to breed discord between the so-called nationalists and the globalists in Russia for which Medvedev stays. He once served US interests more than Russian ones when he was Prime Minister and got flattered by the ineffable Bill Clinton. ..."
"... So what do we see now ? Putin aiding Trump in steering the USA away from trying to control the whole world, an effort that is destroying the USA, but Deep State does not mind. In this way Russia indeed meddles in USA politics. Trump now invited Putin to come to Washington, the MH17 statement is withheld, the hysteria at CNN is such that MH17 is not even mentioned. In stead: Trump must be mentally deranged. ..."
"... Gore Vidal said there's only one party in America, it's the Money Party and it has two branches. It is even more true today than when he said it. There is no Left or Right anymore, only the question, is it good for Israel? And the American people be damned. ..."
"... Trump is completely powerless to do anything about these two. And this has gone on for a year and a half. ..."
"... It's clear though that Trump believes he has forced his opponents to play a bad hand in their outlandish craze the past week. It's why he doubled down and invited Putin to Washington near the 2018 election time. He perceives this as a chance to re-enact the 2016 election and coast to victory. The establishment is insane, and if he brings their insanity out it plays to his favor. ..."
The US Democratic Party is determined to take the world to thermo-nuclear war rather than to
admit that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election fair and square. The Democratic Party
was totally corrupted by the Clinton Regime, and now it is totally insane. Leaders of the
Democratic Party, such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, my former co-author in the New York
Times, have responded in a non-Democratic way to the first step President Trump has taken to
reduce the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia that the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama
regimes created between the two superpowers.
Yes, Russia is a superpower. Russian weapons are so superior to the junk produced by the
waste-filled US military/security complex that lives high off the hog on the insouciant
American taxpayer that it is questionable if the US is even a second class military power. If
the insane neoconservatives, such as Max Boot, William Kristol, and the rest of the neocon scum
get their way, the US, the UK, and Europe will be a radioactive ruin for thousands of
years.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), Minority Leader of the US House of
Representatives, declared that out of fear of some undefined retribution from Putin, a dossier
on Trump perhaps, the President of the United States sold out the American people to Russia
because he wants to make peace: "It begs the question, what does Vladimir Putin, what do the
Russians have on Donald Trump -- personally, politically and financially that he should behave
in such a manner?" The "such a manner" Pelosi is speaking about is making peace instead of
war.
To be clear, the Democratic Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives has accused
Donald Trump of high treason against the United States. There is no outcry against this
blatantly false accusation, totally devoid of evidence. The presstitute media instead of
protesting this attempt at a coup against the President of the United States, trumpet the
accusation as self-evident truth. Trump is a traitor because he wants peace with
Russia.
Here is Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (NY) repeating Pelosi's false accusation: "Millions
of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous
behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President
Trump." If you don't believe that this is orchestrated between Pelosi and Schumer, you are
stupid beyond belief.
Here is disgraced Obama CIA director John Brennan, a leader of the fake Russiagate campaign
against President Trump in order to prevent Trump from making peace with Russia and, thus, by
making the world safer, threatening the massive, unjustified budget of the military/security
complex: "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the
threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were
Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are
you???"
NOTICE THAT NOT ONE WESTERN MEDIA SOURCE IS CELEBRATING AND THANKING TRUMP AND PUTIN FOR
EASING THE ARTIFICIALLY CREATED TENSIONS THAT WERE LEADING TO NUCLEAR WAR. HOW CAN THIS BE? HOW
CAN IT BE THAT THE WESTERN MEDIA IS SO OPPOSED TO PEACE? WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION?
The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, as well as the rest of
the world, desperately need to notice the extremely hostile reaction to peace on the part of
the US Democratic Party, many members of the Republican Party, including the despicable US
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and the Western Presstitute Media, a
collection of people on the CIA payroll according to the German newspaper editor, Udo Ulfkotte,
and the CIA itself.
Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the corrupt
filth that rules over us are all in the pay of the military/security complex. Just go and
investigate the donations to their re-election campaigns. The 1,000 billion dollar budget of
the military/security complex, amplified by the CIA's front corporations and narcotics
business, provides enormous sums with which to purchase the senators and representatives that
the insouciant American voters think that they elect.
Do you know how large 1,000 billion is? You would have to live for thousands of years and do
nothing for 24/7 except count to reach that figure. It is a sum that nurtures the recipients,
and the recipients regard it as worth protecting.
Therefore, the American public gets not representation, but lies that justify war and
conflict. The military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned the American
people to no effect, is in desperate need of an enemy. In obedience to the military/security
complex, the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have made Russia that enemy. If Trump
and Putin do not understand this, they will easily be made irrelevant.
They both can be assassinated, and that is what the statements from Pelosi, Schumer,
McCain, Lindsey Graham, et. al., repeated endlessly in the propaganda ministry that is the
Western press, encourages. Trump can be assassinated or overthrown in a political coup for
selling out America to Russia, as members of both political parties claim and as the media
trumpets endlessly. Putin can be easily assassinated by the CIA operatives that the Russian
government stupidly permits to operate throughout Russia in NGOs and Western/US owned media and
among the Atlanticist Integrationists, Washington's Firth Column inside Russia serving
Washington's purposes. These Russian traitors serve in Putin's own government!
ORDER IT NOW
Americans are so unaware that they have no idea of the risk that President Trump is taking
by challenging the US military security complex. For example, during the last half of the 1970s
I was a member of the US Senate staff. I was working together with a staffer of the US
Republican Senator from California, S. I. Hayakawa, to advance understanding of a supply-side
economic policy cure to the stagflation that threatened the US budget's ability to meet its
obligations. Republican Senators Hatch, Roth, and Hayakawa were trying to introduce a
supply-side economic policy as a cure for the stagflation that was threatening the US economy
with failure. The Democrats, who later in the Senate led the way to a supply-side policy, were,
at this time, opposed (see Paul Craig Roberts, The Supply-Side Revolution , Harvard
University Press, 1984). The Democrats claimed that the policy would worsen the budget deficit,
the only time in those days Democrats cared about the budget deficit. The Democrats said that
they would support the tax rate reductions if the Republicans would support offsetting cuts in
the budget to support a balanced budget. This was a ploy to put Republicans on the spot for
taking away some groups' handouts in order "to cut tax rates for the rich."
The supply-side policy did not require budget cuts, but in order to demonstrate the
Democrats lack of sincerety, Hayakawa's aid and I had our senators introduce a series of budget
cuts together with tax cuts that, on a static revenue basis (not counting tax revenue feedbacks
from the incentives of the lower tax rates) kept the budget even, and the Democrats voted
against them every time.
When the combination of tax cuts with defense budget cuts came up for a vote, the
legendary senator Strom Thurmond, a 48-year member of the US Senate from South Carolina, tapped
me on the shoulder. He said: "son, never set your senator up against the military/security
complex. He will not be re-elected, and you will be out of a job." I replied that we were just
establishing for the record that under no conditions would the Democrats, who wanted more
government, vote for a tax rate reduction even if there was a case that it would cure
stagflation. He replied: "son, the military/security complex doesn't care."
My emergence from The Matrix began with Thurmond's pat on my shoulder. It grew with my time
at the Wall Street Journal when I learned that some truthful things simply could not be said.
In the Treasury I experienced how those outside interests opposed to a president's policy
marshall their forces and the media that they own to block it. Later as a member of a
secret presidential committee, I saw how the CIA attempted to prevent President Reagan from
ending the Cold War.
Today, right now, at this moment, we are faced with a massive effort of the
military/security complex, the neoconservatives, the Democratic Party, and the presstitute
media to discredit the elected President of the United States and to overthrow him in order
that the utterly corrupt elite that rule American can continue to hold on to power and to
protect the massive budget of the military/security complex that, along with the Israel Lobby,
funds the elections of those who rule us. Trump, like Reagan, was an exception, and it is
the exceptions that accumulate the ire of the corrupt leftwing, bought off with money, and the
ire of the media, concentrated into small tight ownership groups indebted to those who
permitted the illegal concentration of a once independent and diverse American media that once
served, on occasion, as a watchdog over government. The rightwing, wrapped in the flag,
dismisses all truth as "anti-American."
If Putin, Lavrov, the Russian government, the traitorous Russian Fifth Column -- the
Atlanticist Integrationists -- the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans think that any
peace or consideration can come out of America, they are insane. Their delusions are setting
themselves up for destruction. There is no institution in America, government or private,
that can be trusted. Any government or person who trusts America or any Western country is
stupid beyond belief.
The entire Russiagate hoax is an orchestration by the military/security complex, led by
John Brennen, Comey, and Rosenstein. The purpose is to discredit President trump for two
reasons. One is to prevent any normalization of relations with Russia. The other is to remove
Trump's agenda as an alternative to the agenda of the Democratic Party.
President Trump is almost powerless. Putin, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North
Koreans should recognize this before it is too late for them. President Trump cannot fire and
arrest for high treason Mueller and Rosenstein. And Trump cannot indict Hillary for her
numerous unquestionable crimes in plain view of everyone, or Comey or Brennan, who declares
Trump "to be wholly in the pocket of Putin," for trying to overthrow the elected president of
the United States. Trump cannot have the Secret Service question the likes of Pelosi and
Schumer and McCain and Lindsey Graham for false accusations that encourage assassination of the
President of the United States.
Trump cannot even trust the Secret Service, which accumulated evidence suggests was
complicit in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
If Putin and Lavrov, so anxious to be friends of Washington, let their guards down, they are
history.
As I said above, Russiagate is an orchestratration to prevent peace between the US and
Russia. Leading military/security complex experts, including the person who provided the CIA's
daily briefing of the President of the United States for many years, and the person who devised
the spy program for the National Security Agency, have proven conclusively that Russiagate is a
hoax designed for the purpose of preventing President Trump from normalizing relations between
the US and Russia, which has the power to destroy the entirety of the Western World at
will.
If Putin doesn't listen to him, Russia is in the trash can of history.
Keep in mind that no media informs you better than my website. If my website goes down, you
will be left in darkness. No valid information comes from the US government or the Western
presstitutes. If you sit in front of the TV screen watching the Western media, you are
brainwashed beyond all hope. Not even I can rescue you. Nor God himself.
Americans, and indeed the Russians themselves, are incapable of realizing it, but there is a
chance that Trump will be overthrown and a Western assault will be launched against the handful
of countries that insist on sovereignty.
I doubt that few of the Americans who elected Trump will be taken in by the anti-Trump
propagana, but they are not organized and have no armed power. The police, militarized by
George W. Bush and Obama, will be set against them. The rebellions will be local and suppressed
by every violation of the US Constitution by the private powers that rule Washington, as always
has been the case with rebellions in America.
In the West, which the Russians are so anxious to join, all freedoms are dead -- freedom of
assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of inquiry, freedom of privacy,
freedom from arbitrary search, freedom from arbitrary arrest, along with the Constitutional
protections of due process and habeas corpus. Today there are no countries less free than the
United States of America.
Why do the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists want to join an unfree Western world? Are
they that brainwashed by Western Propaganda?
If Putin listens to these deluded fools, Putin will destroy Russia.
There is something wrong with Russian perception of Washington. Apparently the Russian
elite, with the exception of Shoigu and a few others are incapable of comprehending the
neoconservative drive for US world hegemony and the neoconservative determination to destroy
Russia as a constraint on US unilateralism. The Russian government somehow, despite all
evidence to the contrary, believes that Washington's hegemony is negotiable. (Republished from
PaulCraigRoberts.org by permission of author or representative)
is big question even if Trump wants peace at all. Trump has shown his real face on the very
beginning when he said that they are going to talk about "his friend" Xi, making Putin very
uncomfortable and throwing some worms in Russia~China relationship in front of cameras for
all to see
Trump came to the meeting in hope to impress Putin with his cowboy arrogance, He now says
that he'll be Putin's worst enemy ( if he don't bow to him I guess : ). all Trump cares about
is his ego, nothing else too sweat mouthed sleazy person
Reckless and irresponsible comments about treason from former CIA director Brennan, and
other ranking public figures, echo similar inflammatory rhetoric from far-right-wing rabble
rouser Gen. Edwin Walker, and other members of the John Birch Society, in the days before
Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
What's going on in the United States of America beats the band what happened under Joe
McCarthy. The witch hunt against a sitting President by 95 percent of the media, major
government institutions such as the criminal CIA, FBI, DOJ and the rest of the crooked Intel
community plus the rascals in the US Congress can only happen in a totalitarian society,
which the US is.
The Brennan, Clappers, Obamas, Clintons, Comeys, Rosenstein and their many subordinate
political Mafiosi should be put behind bars instead of running from one TV station to the
next and lay the ground for a possibly Trump assassination. Trump is portrayed by these
crooks as a "traitor." In the US, traitors usefully deserve death. If these political Mafiosi
don't bring down Trump "legally," they will hire a kind of Lee Harvey Oswald who "shot"
JFK.
As Mr. Rogers correctly states, President Trump is almost powerless. These US fools
even try to breed discord between the so-called nationalists and the globalists in Russia for
which Medvedev stays. He once served US interests more than Russian ones when he was Prime
Minister and got flattered by the ineffable Bill Clinton.
Let's wait and see what happens in the upcoming mid-term elections. If the Dems win both
Houses of Congress, Trump is done. The obstructionists will have the upper hand. If they
can't remove him from office "legally," there will be a hitman out there somewhere.
President smugly making peace with the Russian nation that was supposed to be the evil enemy
in a 3rd and final brother war to devastate the white race beyond recovery.
Little upstart in the Democrat party making left wing politics less palatable to the
masses with her heavy handed socialist rhetoric. All while preaching BDS and anti-Israel
sentiment too, representing Frankenstein's CultMarx monster turning on it's creator.
And fewer and fewer people on all sides buying what the American Pravda is selling with
each passing day. The resulting hysteria is both par for the course and downright
delectable.
" Apparently the Russian elite, with the exception of Shoigu and a few others are incapable
of comprehending the neoconservative drive for US world hegemony and the neoconservative
determination to destroy Russia as a constraint on US unilateralism. " My idea is that many
in Russia understand quite well, this is why they demonstrate Russia's military capabilities
frequently. Why does Putin support Assad and Syria ? Not because he likes these countries,
but because he understands that if these countries also get the USA yoke the position of
Russia and China deteriorate.
Putin is careful not to give USA public opinion more 'reason' to fear Russia. Already a
few years ago something fell into the E part of the Mediterranean. It was asserted that
Russia had intercepted a USA missile fired from Spain to Syria. USA and Israel declared that
an excercise had been held. Putin said nothing.
Despite all that NATO does at Russia's borders Putin does not let himself be provoked.
MH17, I suppose Putin knows quite well what happened, Russia has radar and satelites, yet
Putin never gave the Russian view.
So what do we see now ? Putin aiding Trump in steering the USA away from trying to
control the whole world, an effort that is destroying the USA, but Deep State does not mind.
In this way Russia indeed meddles in USA politics. Trump now invited Putin to come to
Washington, the MH17 statement is withheld, the hysteria at CNN is such that MH17 is not even
mentioned. In stead: Trump must be mentally deranged.
Good to see PCR accepting comments again. It's not just the Dumbocruds, it's the Rupuglicunts
too. Follow the money, it's coming from the same sources. Gore Vidal said there's only
one party in America, it's the Money Party and it has two branches. It is even more true
today than when he said it. There is no Left or Right anymore, only the question, is it good
for Israel? And the American people be damned.
Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace with Russia? The Democrats say he is
The Democrats -- and their wholly-owned MSM -- will call Trump any name that'll stick. It
means little. Even if Trump got everything he wanted on immigration, that particular
toothpaste is already out of the tube and unless we send back some of the millions of
illegal third-world squatters we've no hope of recovering the United States of America.
If you want to talk treason, you need look no further than the Hart-Celler Act of 1965,
whereby the plan was laid to replace the population of this nation with third-world refuse,
which guaranteed cheap labor for GOP capitalists and endless political support for Democrat
traitors.
As the saying goes "timing is everything." I have to admit I was incredulous that you were
somehow able to link to a functioning version of the Nekrosov film. I've been trying to get
my hands on that documentary for the last few years, but to no avail. I finally managed to
read a comment on another blog that recommended that people who were interested in viewing
the film could do so by reaching out to the producer to request a personalized link, after
which you had to request a password from another individual affiliated with the film.
I managed to do all of that a few weeks ago and was able to watch the video on Vimeo for
the full 2 hours. It was riveting, to say the least. After viewing it again, I thought about
making it available to others. Due to the pressures by Browder and his lawyers, however,
Nekrosov was prevented from making his film available to a wider audience. He got around this
limitation by making it available for private viewing only. And to prevent a private viewer
from uploading it onto the internet he cleverly placed a watermark on each film, indicating
the owner of each copy of the video by displaying a number on the screen. I was surprised to
see the version you linked to indeed has this watermark shown on the screen. Somehow, this
did not deter the individual tied to that number from uploading it and being the one
identified as doing so. That said, I'm glad the film is more widely available as it should be
viewed by as many people as possible so that they can realize what a despicable liar Browder
really is and how the passage of The Magnitsky Act was a travesty of justice which must be
reversed.
"Do you know how large 1,000 billion is? You would have to live for thousands of years and do
nothing for 24/7 except count to reach that figure. It is a sum that nurtures the recipients,
and the recipients regard it as worth protecting."
Tens of thousands of years. At one count per second, 31,687 years and a few months.
"In the West, which the Russians are so anxious to join, all freedoms are dead --
freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of inquiry, freedom
of privacy, freedom from arbitrary search, freedom from arbitrary arrest, along with the
Constitutional protections of due process and habeas corpus."
True. That is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. That is what the WASP Empire delivers, and
it does so to destroy more conservative national and local cultures so their peoples are
tossed into the melting pot and reduced into a goop easy to rule.
Oliver Cromwell taking Jewish money, allying with Jews so he would have the funds to wage
permanent war against the vast, vast majority of non-WASP whites within his reach: that is
the definition of WASP culture; that picture tells you what it always will do.
make something serious about Obama and Hillary destroying whole African country of Libya
killing Colonel Gaddafi on the street, which is greatest war crime in the 21st century so far
or, Bill Clinton bombing Bosnian Serbs '95 opening the door to jihadis to continue behead
people in the middle of the Europe or, Bill Clinton and Nato bombing Serbia '99 to give
"Kosovo" independence killing many civilian and destroying infrastructure on purpose or
Madeline Albright confessing killing half of million Iraqi kids on the camera or, Bush and or
Bushes or those such Bill Browder are just small dirty fish who in comparison is almost not
worth filming I appreciate the effort but get seriously real if you are about to get truth to
people
"The Brennan, Clappers, Obamas, Clintons, Comeys, Rosenstein and their many
subordinate political Mafiosi "
What is going on in the US is systematic. Assange, an investigative journalist who became
the light of truth worldwide, is under a grave danger from US' and UK' Intelligence
Communities of the non-intelligent opportunists and real traitors: https://www.rt.com/news/433783-wikileaks-assange-ecuador-uk/
Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton, who was criminally negligent with regard to the most important
classified information, has been protected by the politicking Brennan, Clapper, and Mueller:
" it was over 30,000 emails , emails that were sent through to Hillary Clinton through
the unauthorized server and unsecured server and every email she sent out.
There were highly classified -- beyond classified -- top secret-type stuff that had
gone through that server. an instruction embedded, compartmentalized data embedded in the
email server telling the server to send a copy of every email that came to Hillary Clinton
through that unauthorized server and every email that she sent out through that server, to
send it to this foreign entity that is not Russia."
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/07/congressional-record-transcript-on-chinagate.html
The Awan Affair, the most serious ever violation of national cybersecurity, has
demonstrated the spectacular incompetence of the CIA and FBI, which had allowed a family of
Pakistani nationals to surf congressional computers of various committees, including
Intelligence Committee, for years. None of the scoundrels had a security clearance! Their
ardent protector, Wasserman-Schultz (who threatened the DC Marschall) belongs to the
untouchables, unlike Assange:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/awan-congressional-scandal-in-spotlight-as-president-suggests-data-could-be-part-of-court-case_2500703.html
Trump and Putin made a mistake. I do not understand how it could have happened. They should
have issued communiqué that they have agreed to work toward peace and relieve tensions
and suppress conflicts around the world. (I do not have a time for now to write more.)
(sorry)
If Rosenstein & Mueller had done what they did with the publication of the indictments a
few days before the summit -- and were North Koreans -- they'd be in front of a firing squad
within 24 hours. Trump is completely powerless to do anything about these two. And this
has gone on for a year and a half. This is not a strength of democracy.
The US today is like Venezuela was shortly after Maduro was elected (by a narrow margin)
-- after Chavez's death -- and before violence eventually broke out. The losing opposition
refused to accept the result and tensions simmered for a long time.
Or after Morsi was elected in Egypt and before the military coup. The victory was narrow,
the opposition refused the to accept the result and tensions simmered for a long time.
Or maybe like Bush vs Gore. Bush was kinda saved by 9/11 which completely changed the
atmosphere.
Who knows what will happen. It's clear though that Trump believes he has forced his
opponents to play a bad hand in their outlandish craze the past week. It's why he doubled
down and invited Putin to Washington near the 2018 election time. He perceives this as a
chance to re-enact the 2016 election and coast to victory. The establishment is insane, and
if he brings their insanity out it plays to his favor.
The reception of the Trump- Putin meeting is breathtaking. I have in my 61 years never
witnessed such a hate and slander in the MSM. I have after this begun to actually dismiss
that Americans are sensible people! They have completely forgotten the cost of the Civil War.
We in Europe have not forgotten the cost of war and are not going there again. Ever.
The US has become a lunatic asylum with nuclear weapons, never mind Kim Jong Un, look a
squirrel! But the US is a threat to humanity, included it's protegé Israel, the new
Apartheid state.
"Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace with Russia?"
Wait; what?
From badmouthing Russia to appointing Russophobes to high office, to imposing sanctions,
to illegally seizing Russian diplomatic property, to committing war crimes in Syria, to a
provocative military buildup in Europe, to arming the illegitimate Ukrainian "government,"
etc., presidential poseur Orange Clown has spent 99% of his "presidency" so far antagonizing
Russia; apparently trying to provoke some kind of Russian military response.
If it was anyone else other than Vladimir Putin calling the shots in Russia, WW3 probably
would've happened already. Yet PCR claims Orange Clown wants peace with Russia?
Note to PCR: It is Vladimir Putin who wants peace, not presidential poseur Orange Clown.
If Orange Clown has had some kind of spiritual epiphany/change of heart, he's going to have
to show good faith by taking some kind of unambiguous action; posturing won't suffice.
There is a lot of truth in what you say, but it does not account for the fight we are
currently witnessing. Two factions in the Money Party are at war with each other. Neither one
is willing to level with the public as to its true aims and motives -- they are fighting
viciously but under the bed sheets, which is why the spectacle looks so unhinged and
silly.
It appears that he is trying to save the US from financial collapse. Hence, he is a traitor
to MIC, particularly to the obscenely greedy Pentagon contractors. The US presidents and
Congress always pandered to MIC first and foremost. He broke (or at least tried to break) the
pattern.
Don't blame all Americans. Forty-eight percent of us voted for Trump; it is very likely
that more than half of the rest voted for Hellary only with great reluctance, owing largely
to the unprecedented campaign of vilification directed at Trump. The point is: a very large
majority of people in this country are nowhere near as insane as the media and elites are --
in fact, we're still nowhere near insane enough for their taste!
So Mueller was a CIA mole in FBI fromthe very beginning. Interesting...
Notable quotes:
"... You could say that Mueller married into the CIA, except that his great uncle was Richard Bissell. So between his family and his wife's family Mueller had two of the three people that Kennedy fired before he was assassinated by a "lone nut", as well as the mayor who hosted the assassination. The third man fired was Allen Dulles, who sat on the Warren Commission and managed to keep the CIA out of the investigation into JFK's murder. Perhaps Dulles was a guest at the wedding. ..."
"... Mueller would invariably land on cases with Deep State intelligence connections. ..."
"... Mueller, who had been appointed Assistant U.S. Prosecutor under GHW Bush, became FBI Director under George W. Bush just in time not to see the CIA fingerprints on 9/11, which should not be surprising considering whom he didn't see when he investigated BCCI. ..."
"... Additionally, Mueller oversaw the anthrax letter case, never investigating Battelle Memorial Corporation, which had a building within a mile of the mailbox where the letters had been mailed. (Battelle Memorial's corporate motto is "It Can Be Done".) Instead, he centered FBI investigations on scientists in government labs in Fort Detrick, Maryland, who had neither the expertise nor the equipment to make the weaponized military grade anthrax found in the letters. One scientist sued and won millions. The other allegedly "committed suicide". Battelle is noteworthy because it handles the US military's anthrax program. Mueller had no interest that two of the targets who received anthrax letters were at the time the most vociferous opponents of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act. ..."
"... Perhaps his greatest accomplishment aiding the Deep State as FBI Director was his shutting down of Operation Green Quest, the FBI's investigation into the funding behind 9/11 and the terrorist network behind it. Names began popping up like Grover Norquist, the Muslim Brotherhood, old Nazis and the royal family of Luxembourg. Nothing to see here. Move along. ..."
"... @detroitmechworks ..."
"... Only thing missing for me was the tie in to Pappy Bush and the rest of the family. Mueller the consigliere of the CIA. Oh man how fucked are we? ..."
"... Great history of how corrupt Mueller has always been and how he has covered up for so many crimes. I'm just stunned by the number of people who have decided that Mueller's history and the history of the CIA, FBI and the other intelligence agencies wasn't that bad after all just because they are going after Trump. This selective amnesia is simply amazing, isn't it? ..."
"... Clinton's role in helping the CIA to smuggle drugs into Arkansas is never talked about either. Or if it is it's called "a right wing attempt to bring them down." ..."
"... that explains why centrist and liberal media have a disturbing tendency to rehabilitate some of the most vile, reactionary forces on the American right simply because they say vaguely negative things about Donald Trump -- a phenomenon we call "Trumpwashing." ..."
"... Just like Mueller, Brennan is one more war criminal whose actions seem to have been forgotten. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
"... The seas were calm and the skies were clear." ..."
"... "The reason why the ship went down is because of the massive storm that came out of nowhere." ..."
"... It would appear at first glance this is basically an effort at espionage only ..."
"... as it appears they don't ..."
"... I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against the charges. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
In the 1950s, when the science fiction genre started making itself felt in movies, there was always the pivotal scene where the
protagonist discovers the dark secret but no one will believe him: a flying saucer hidden under the sand in a field, truckloads of
pod people to replace real people, or that the friendly aliens' book "To Serve Man" wasn't a guide to helping humans, but a cookbook.
It's that moment of sudden realization that no one will believe the hero because it sounds too crazy to believe.
Granted, to the uninitiated, coming to a realization so shocking and threatening to your current mental construction of the world
can appear like paranoia. It becomes a question of the discoverer's knowledge and senses over what everyone else believes. Everyone
else seems to be allowing him or herself to be absorbed into the great growing evil.
Today many of us, certainly readers here at Caucus99, are finding ourselves in similar positions. Our political structure is a
lie, the people who are supposed to represent us and our interests don't, our law enforcement protects the property of the rich,
not our lives, and often are in cahoots with the criminals from whom we are supposed to be protected. I am sure that many of our
old friends and acquaintances have been alienated from some of us here when we began talking about Hillary's track record during
the Presidential campaign, for example. In our current pasteboard world, if you are a Republican or Democrat you must assume that
your designated political party, maybe with a couple of exceptions, are there to look after you.
And there that crazy friend goes, yelling about cookbooks.
I suppose my introduction to the corruption of those in power, at thirteen, was the assassination of JFK. Not actually the assassination,
but the murder of Oswald two days later, in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters. I had slept overnight at a friend's and
we came back from shooting basketballs to watch the transfer of Oswald to another facility. That was the moment that I realized all
wasn't what it seemed. But, like most kids my age, the Beatles came along in a month or so and I was swept into the world of rock
and roll, which kept me occupied until I began noticing girls. Until 1968. I was still noticing girls and rock and roll, but I was
also noticing the number of progressives being gunned down by "lone nuts". And I was noticing Vietnam.
I'm not sharing this to explain to you how I became (that loathsome term) a "conspiracy theorist". I just want to explain to you
that the democracy of the United States, and all the characters running across the stage in Washington, D.C., are the cookbook.
I wrote an essay here back in April of 2017 explaining how the Russiagate scandal had been designed to give Hillary Clinton a
casus belli for her future war against Russia, and that what we were seeing since she lost has been a recycling of it to get Trump
in line with the goals of the Deep State. So far nothing much has happened that has moved me from that belief. Now that the Deep
State seems to have persuaded our Dear Leader that he can go on being himself as long as he understands the actual hierarchy and
doesn't get in the way the Deep State, everything seems to be back on track. At least until Donald's next tweet.
But in order to understand the depth of criminality in our system one has to understand how things are done. After World War II
a lot of social awareness began putting pressure on the old system that had driven the world into the Great Depression. FDR had demonstrated
that the government could look out for the poor, could give them jobs when there were no other jobs to be had. The GI Bill sent millions
of vets to college and helped to create the middle class we used to have. Unions had real power in negotiating wages and terms of
service. Government could create a system to help the elderly. The African Americans, coming back home from fighting a war against
fascism, refused go to the coloreds only water fountains. In short, the United States were in for some growing pains.
What happened? As I mentioned above there was a rash of murders of progressive political candidates and leaders in the sixties.
But in order for the forces behind a return to the old rules to keep a lid on any revolutions there had to be something better than
shooting every progressive who raised his head above the lectern. Thus the wave of recruitment of agents and assets in the late sixties
by the CIA, FBI and other agencies. Although I didn't know it directly at the time, arriving on campus in 1968 it was evident that
there was a "presence" of people looking over the shoulders of student activists.
Which brings me to another great revelation. It's not just politicians and political parties that are serving the Deep State.
Any agency that can be corrupted by power will be, eventually.
Which brings us to the courts.
There are certain things that must be preserved for a ruling class to remain legitimate in the eyes of the public. Some people
don't think much beyond the flag. But there are other things. The media is better than ever at keeping uncomfortable truths from
the majority of Americans. But what happens where the criminality of the Deep State collides with our judicial system?
Let me introduce you to the man of the hour in Washington, Robert Swann Mueller III. Robert was born into the upper crust in our
American class system. At one point in his education in private schools John Kerry was a classmate. (Kerry was also a fellow Bonesman
with the Bushes.) Mueller met his eventual bride, Ann Cabell Standish, at one of the dances they attended. They married in 1966,
three years after John Kennedy's assassination. If you have read much about the JFK assassination you would recognize her middle
name. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, had been second in command at the CIA when John Kennedy was elected President. In the aftermath
of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy fired three men from leadership positions at the CIA: Director Allen Dulles, Cabell and Richard
Bissell. Charles Cabell was Ann's grandfather. Her grand uncle, Earle Cabell, was the mayor of Dallas at the time of Kennedy's murder
there. Recently declassified JFK documents revealed that Mayor Cabell was also an asset of the CIA at the time. Small world.
You could say that Mueller married into the CIA, except that his great uncle was Richard Bissell. So between his family and his wife's
family Mueller had two of the three people that Kennedy fired before he was assassinated by a "lone nut", as well as the mayor who
hosted the assassination. The third man fired was Allen Dulles, who sat on the Warren Commission and managed to keep the CIA out
of the investigation into JFK's murder. Perhaps Dulles was a guest at the wedding.
Soon thereafter Mueller decided to go to Vietnam because, he said, a classmate had died there and patriotism and so forth. He
became an officer and eventually ended up as an aide-de-camp for the 3rd Marine Division's commanding general, General William K.
Jones. Something else was going on in Vietnam. The CIA had installed its Phoenix Program. I cannot do justice to the Phoenix Program
and won't considering Doug Valentine's work on it is available for everyone, but the Phoenix Program was the CIA's attempt to totally
control the Vietnamese population. Besides massacres of villages, the program assassinated suspected leaders and spies for the Vietcong,
coerced others into being their agents, and kept up files on all the relevant Vietnamese down to the village level. Like in later
wars, the CIA incorporated torture, murder and psychological techniques in order to control their targets. As an aide-de-camp to
a commanding Marine general, there is no way that Mueller didn't know about the Phoenix Program. He probably saw daily briefings.
When he came back to the US he studied law and quickly became a federal prosecutor.
One of the things to mark his career was to deny a pardon to Patty Hearst for her part in the whole Symbionese Liberation Army's
"terror" campaign. What did the SLA have to do with anything? A short history: Donald DeFreeze, a small-time criminal in Los Angeles
agreed to become an informant for the LAPD in order to stay out of jail. After awhile he got tired of ratting out others and asked
to get out of the program. Instead, DeFreeze was incarcerated at the Vacaville Medical Facility for criminally insane prisoners in
the California penal system. There DeFreeze met Colston Westbrook who gave classes for the "Black Cultural Association", an experimental
behavior modification unit inside the prison. Who was Westbrook? He was a CIA agent, trained in psychological warfare and part of
the Phoenix Program. DeFreeze was modified by Westbrook and company for two years. Soon thereafter, he was transferred to Soledad
Prison, from which he "escaped" and became the infamous "Cinque". Then came the Symbionese Liberation Army, a caricature of a black
militant group filled with mostly white people with military backgrounds. The murder of Marcus Foster, a progressive black leader
in the San Francisco East Bay, was done by white men in blackface, according to eyewitnesses. The SLA claimed credit for it. The
SLA kidnapped Hearst, subjected her to torture, rape, sensory deprivation and mind control tactics, just like the CIA did in the
Phoenix Program in Vietnam. Then came the bank robberies.
I bring up the Patty Hearst case because, in 2000, decades after her prison sentence had been commuted, Mueller still opposed
her pardon. Guess what he didn't notice when he rejected her pardon? This has been his pattern throughout his career. We'll return
to Patty Hearst shortly.
Mueller has presided over many cases where it's been important for the prosecutor to overlook the fingerprints of the CIA. He
prosecuted what was known in the San Francisco Bay Area as the "drug tug" case which had connections to an island in Panama. It was
a drug smuggling case and had tentacles into things like bank frauds in Northern California. He prosecuted Manuel Noriega's drug-smuggling
without noticing Oliver North's drug-smuggling, arms running and money laundering through Panama as a part of Iran-contra.
Mueller would invariably land on cases with Deep State intelligence connections.
For example, he prosecuted Pan Am 103. Initially, and then later confirmed by an insurance investigator's report, the bomb that
brought down the airliner was believed to be placed onboard by baggage handlers working at the Frankfurt Airport. They were given
the bomb by a terrorist cell who in turn got it from one Monzer al-Kassar, who was a very large heroin dealer, estimated at supplying
twenty percent of the US's heroin at the time. A big operator. And, in fact, one of the passengers on the plane was a drug mule for
al-Kassar. Al-Kassar also happened to be a part of the Iran-contra operation, supplying weapons for North's Enterprise. The operation
was, according to the early reports, carried out by a cell of Palestinian terrorists based in Frankfurt, the Palestinian Liberation
Front-General Command, who got the bomb from al-Kassar and put the bomb on that airline.
Mueller, put in charge of the case, pursued an entirely different direction, accusing two Libyans of bombing the plane. At the
time Libya and Khadafy were getting blamed for a lot of terrorist activity, but the case against the two was so weak as to hardly
be circumstantial.
There were other questions arising from Pan Am 103. A top official in the FBI, Oliver "Buck" Revell, rushed onto the tarmac in
London to pull his son and daughter-in-law off of Pan Am 103 before it went on to explode over Lockerbie, Scotland. Also changing
flight plans were South African President Pik Botha and his negotiating team. Apparently, someone that Revell and Pik Botha knew
gave them the warning.
There was one group that didn't get warned. That was the McKee Team, an assembled group of US intelligence agents tasked to investigate
American hostages in Beruit. They allegedly discovered a link between the hostage takers, drug traffickers and the CIA. They were
returning to the US, against orders, presumably to spill the beans. This was essentially a clean-up operation, tying up loose strings
of the Iran-contra operation. So was Noriega's prosecution.
That's why Mueller got the case. He knew where to look and where not to look.
He also prosecuted ancillary Iran-contra cases. He prosecuted John Gotti for dealing cocaine in the New York City area. The cocaine
he sold was part of the the Iran-contra (CIA) plan where Southern Air Transport flew weapons to Latin America for the contras (whom
Congress had voted against aiding) and bringing back cocaine from Latin America on its return flights, to include Mena, Arkansas.
One of the CIA's pilots, Barry Seal, bragged that he had a "get-out-of-jail" letter written for him by then-Governor Bill Clinton.
At the time, Asa Hutchinson was the federal prosecutor for that corner of Arkansas. He also didn't notice all that cocaine. Hutchson
later served as George W. Bush's first "drug czar" before going into politics. How coincidental.
Mueller, who had been appointed Assistant U.S. Prosecutor under GHW Bush, became FBI Director under George W. Bush just in
time not to see the CIA fingerprints on 9/11, which should not be surprising considering whom he didn't see when he investigated
BCCI. As head of our country's biggest law enforcement agency Mueller did not pursue the House of Saud's part in 9/11 even though
fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and a number of them could be traced to Saudi intelligence, and the money
chain could be traced to Saudis living in the US, some of whom flew out of the US while all other US flights were grounded. He did
not investigate Mohammed Atta's time in Frankfort, Germany, where he was employed by a front company for the BND, West Germany's
equivalent to the CIA. Nor did Mueller investigate Huffman Aviation where Mo Atta and another hijacker matriculated in flying planes
into buildings. Huffman is interesting because while Mo was studying in Huffman's Venice, Florida aviation school a Huffman plane
was busted in Orlando with 43 pounds of heroin. Curiously, the pilot walked away from the DEA without being charged and no one was
prosecuted at Huffman.
Ask Colleen Rowley about Mueller's leadership in the 9/11 investigation.
Additionally, Mueller oversaw the anthrax letter case, never investigating Battelle Memorial Corporation, which had a building
within a mile of the mailbox where the letters had been mailed. (Battelle Memorial's corporate motto is "It Can Be Done".) Instead,
he centered FBI investigations on scientists in government labs in Fort Detrick, Maryland, who had neither the expertise nor the
equipment to make the weaponized military grade anthrax found in the letters. One scientist sued and won millions. The other allegedly
"committed suicide". Battelle is noteworthy because it handles the US military's anthrax program. Mueller had no interest that two
of the targets who received anthrax letters were at the time the most vociferous opponents of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act.
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment aiding the Deep State as FBI Director was his shutting down of Operation Green Quest,
the FBI's investigation into the funding behind 9/11 and the terrorist network behind it. Names began popping up like Grover Norquist,
the Muslim Brotherhood, old Nazis and the royal family of Luxembourg. Nothing to see here. Move along.
A closer examination of Robert Mueller would probably find a lot more of these cases and I encourage others to continue the search.
For example, it's been alleged that Mueller sent innocent men to jail for crimes committed by Whitey Bulger for the benefit of someone
or something within the government and that this allowed Bulger to continue his criminal activities for years.
***
It's been seventy years since the CIA was created, fifty years since JFK was most likely murdered by them. In order to avoid any
consequences for their crimes more and more institutions have had to be infiltrated and corrupted by them. Many of the heroes of
the Left have turned out to be purveyors of "modified limited hangouts" which served the Deep State. Ramsey Clark, who was given
the mantle of "good guy" by the media of the Left, was active as LBJ's Attorney General in blocking Jim Garrison's investigation
into the JFK assassination and was named by Doug Valentine in his THE CIA AS ORGANIZED CRIME as a major proponent of the CIA's OPERATION
CHAOS and the FBI's COINTELPRO. While the media spent a good deal of time talking about how great they were in releasing the Pentagon
Papers to the public, the hero who exposed the military, Daniel Ellsberg, turns out to have been CIA, operating with CIA black ops
in Vietnam. And while the Pentagon Papers exposed our military's great errors in Vietnam the CIA was generally spared. Again. Bob
Woodward, our hero of Watergate, had been a courier for the Office of Naval Intelligence only a few years earlier. Thus, the CIA
and Deep State, which had soured on Nixon, orchestrated that President's departure.
I raise this because Robert Mueller's current task is the investigation of our sitting President. No matter how much you dislike
Trump you can't help but notice that the "evidence" against him conspiring with Putin and Russia is thin gruel. And while Trump,
like most politicians who ascend to the big seat, has a lot of questionable, even indictable business connections around him, the
great dangers of a Putin-Trump conspiracy trumpeted by the media have been fading because, apparently, there was never a there there.
Thus, as Mueller oversees this case, he will find people surrounding Trump who have lied to FBI agents, who have perhaps not registered
as foreign agents, and other crimes that routinely happen out of the public spotlight and aren't prosecuted. What was obvious to
me from the start, that this was a psyop that involved U.S. intelligence, Ukrainian intelligence, Clinton and the DNC, will not be
obvious to Mueller. Thus, as his career has shown, Mueller has been put in place not merely to prosecute those around Trump as a
means of pressure on his administration, but to not see the CIA's hand in it.
When one begins examining high-profile court cases in post-1963 America one sees a cast of people who keep popping up. Prosecutors,
judges, defense attorneys, coroners, witnesses, reporters, authors. This ensemble keeps reappearing in these show trials. We may
not know what Mueller will find, but we know what he won't find.
There was a review at Truthdig back in 2016 of Jeffrey Toobin's book on Patty Hearst, AMERICAN HEIRESS (Toobin himself worked
as an associate counsel to Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh during the investigation Iran–Contra affair and Oliver North's criminal
trial). In part it reads: "Toobin features the characters who populated the edges of Hearst's story. Robert Shapiro, who would later
work with [F. Lee] Bailey on the O.J. Simpson case, makes a cameo appearance. Lance Ito, the judge in that case, briefly shared a
shooting range with a machine-gun toting SLA member. Reverend Jim Jones offered to help with the food distribution effort; that enterprise
also employed Sara Jane Moore, who served 32 years for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford during his 1975 visit to San
Francisco. Congressman Leo Ryan, who represented Randy and Catherine Hearst's district, endorsed the commutation of Patty's sentence.
"Off to Guyana," he wrote Patty in 1978. "See you when I return. Hang in there." Jim Jones' henchmen shot and killed Ryan before
he could board his flight home. Robert Mueller, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco before taking over as FBI director, strenuously
opposed Hearst's pardon, claiming that her attitude, born of wealth and social position, "has always been that she is a person above
the law.""
When Mueller wrote that line he must have laughed out loud.
That isn't connecting the dots. Its painting a bloody Mona Lisa.
I had no idea how dirty this man was. He is the CIA version of Zelig or Forest Gump. He makes Bill Clinton look like an amateur.
Beginning with the double CIA family ties and proceeding through whitewashing 911, this man is so central to our rotten government
that its a wonder someone hasn't done what you just did a lot sooner.
My hat is off to you. Someone should post this article on our blog.
The one that keeps jumping to mind is the mid 80's game "Paranoia" which was a cartoonish comedy about the drugged citizens
of a complex where the state oversaw everything, and the people were obsessed with celebrities and junk food and oh my goooooodd...
Thanks for pointing to it. I got laughs just reading the wikipedia page.
It sounds like Kafka meets that Russian guy who was simultaneously head of the secret police and leader of the resistance.
LOL.
The one that keeps jumping to mind is the mid 80's game "Paranoia" which was a cartoonish comedy about the drugged citizens
of a complex where the state oversaw everything, and the people were obsessed with celebrities and junk food and oh my goooooodd...
@arendt even
considering they were working from licenses half the time. They ended up essentially creating the universe bibles for Ghostbusters
and the Star Wars EU prior to the reboots.
Unfortunately, that didn't translate into respect. However, I still to this day am amazed at the complexity of thought that
went into many of the rules and the ability they had to match mechanics to maintaining the play feel.
Paranoia in particular was hilarious. Kafka and Three Stooges, and even a little Joseph Heller. Later editions even managed
to work in criticisms of late stage capitalism by having players ALWAYS broke and any unexpected expenses needing to be made up
through crime... which was illegal, to avoid budget shortfalls... which was also illegal...
Bob, thank you. As detailed and extensive as it is, your essay is concise by making it clear exactly what's so wrong with Mueller:
Mueller has presided over many cases where it's been important for the prosecutor to overlook the fingerprints of the CIA...
Mueller would invariably land on cases with Deep State intelligence connections...
Thus, as his career has shown, Mueller has been put in place not merely to prosecute those around Trump as a means of pressure
on his administration, but to not see the CIA's hand in it...
For me, the anthrax case is the most important. Biological weapons are no joke. I believe we learned, from whistle-blowing
scientists, not from the FBI investigation, that the CIA had one of the many illegal biological weapons programs being run with
our tax dollars leading up to the anthrax attack. So whether Battelle was one of the CIA's contractors or yet another cut out,
the investigation by Mueller simply stated those entities, all of them, were eliminated from the investigation.
The chief difference between the despotic and the totalitarian secret police lies in the difference between the "suspect" and
the "objective enemy". The latter is defined by the policy of the government and not by his own desire to overthrow it. He is
never an individual whose dangerous thoughts must be provoked or whose past justifies suspicion, but a "carrier of tendencies"
like a carrier of disease. Practically speaking, the totalitarian ruler behaves like a man who persistently insults another man
until everybody knows that the latter is his enemy, so that he can, with some plausibility, go and kill him in self-defense.
p423-4
"From a legal point of view, even more interesting than the change from the suspect to the objective enemy is the totalitarian
replacement of the suspected offense by the possible crime ...While the suspect is arrested because he is thought to be capable
of committing a crime that more or less fits his personality, the totalitarian possible crime is based on the logical anticipation
of objective developments.
The task of the totalitarian police is not to discover crimes, but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain
category of the population.
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are, the
less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn out
to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (p403)
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are, the
less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn
out to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (p403)
The chief difference between the despotic and the totalitarian secret police lies in the difference between the "suspect"
and the "objective enemy". The latter is defined by the policy of the government and not by his own desire to overthrow it.
He is never an individual whose dangerous thoughts must be provoked or whose past justifies suspicion, but a "carrier of tendencies"
like a carrier of disease. Practically speaking, the totalitarian ruler behaves like a man who persistently insults another
man until everybody knows that the latter is his enemy, so that he can, with some plausibility, go and kill him in self-defense.
p423-4
"From a legal point of view, even more interesting than the change from the suspect to the objective enemy is the totalitarian
replacement of the suspected offense by the possible crime ...While the suspect is arrested because he is thought to be capable
of committing a crime that more or less fits his personality, the totalitarian possible crime is based on the logical anticipation
of objective developments.
The task of the totalitarian police is not to discover crimes, but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a
certain category of the population.
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are,
the less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn
out to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (p403)
Great history of how corrupt Mueller has always been and how he has covered up for so many crimes. I'm just stunned by
the number of people who have decided that Mueller's history and the history of the CIA, FBI and the other intelligence agencies
wasn't that bad after all just because they are going after Trump. This selective amnesia is simply amazing, isn't it?
Clinton's role in helping the CIA to smuggle drugs into Arkansas is never talked about either. Or if it is it's called
"a right wing attempt to bring them down."
I almost skipped reading this one, assumed at first from the headline it was going to be about the Russia "investigation" which
I've been steadfast in not paying any attention to.
But wow, this is so much better than I'd expected, a fascinating tapestry. A lot to absorb. At this point I'm just feeling
overwhelmed at how little "we the people" in this country have any say in, or even any knowledge about, what is going on.
Thank you for this excellent history and synthesis.
from those who believe the fairy tale of Russia Gate. John
Brennan has also become a darling of the left. Greenwald wrote about him after Obama appointed him to his cabinet.
Joe posted this
linkthat explains why centrist and liberal media have a disturbing tendency to rehabilitate some of the most vile, reactionary
forces on the American right simply because they say vaguely negative things about Donald Trump -- a phenomenon we call "Trumpwashing."
Just like Mueller, Brennan is one more war criminal whose actions seem to have been forgotten.
conclude from this, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Mueller investigation of "Russiagate" won't get anywhere near the
Oval Office.
Mostly becuz "Deep State" itself is up to its eyebrows in the affair. And also becuz Trump has very little to do with it. I'm
sure they'd Love to bury Hillary in this, but it looks like that won't happen either. A shame.
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted in
February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to lawyers
for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment accuses the
firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social media in order
to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were
unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency placed
on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people still believe
that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
@snoopydawg@snoopydawg
What the hell? Do these people even know they're on this list, or part of this evidence? Or, are they not even real people, or
are they maybe even govt employees needed to play a role? There's that cookbook again, maybe. Yikes!
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were unwittingly
recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they
did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted
in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to
lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment
accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say
were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency
placed on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people
still believe that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
It's obvious that the whole damn Russia Gate conspiracy was just made up. It started when Wikileaks said that they were going
to release the emails between Hillary and Podesta that showed how they rigged the primary against Bernie. The reason why they
did it was to keep people from talking about the contents of the emails. And it worked. The media didn't focus on their contents,
but only on how Wikileaks obtained them.
Another reason for the Russian propaganda crap is so people will give their permission for the upcoming war against Russia
that had already been planned for over two years before the election. And they will. I've seen so many comments that says what
Russia (Putin) did and is still doing was an act of war. Today on ToP one person said that "we need to assassinate Putin." Was
that person HRd for promoting violence which is against the site rules? Nope. Those that believe Russia actually did interfere
with the election also think that the republicans are also Putin's puppets and that is why they won't go against Trump. The front
pagers have been pushing lies about Russia's actions it should be obvious to anyone with a working brain. I'll see a definitive
statement like " The seas were calm and the skies were clear." But they will rewrite their statement to "The reason
why the ship went down is because of the massive storm that came out of nowhere." Hopefully you get my drift on how they're
blatantly lying in their statements.
Hillary's BFF, Nuland and McCain were the ones that worked the hardest on overthrowing the Ukraine government. The USA wanted
to put its own puppet government on Russia's border. Plus the USA and NATO have been installing troops into countries that surround
Russia's borders.
The original reason why the Mueller investigation was created was to find evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to win the
election. None of the Mueller indictments have anything to do with that charge. This is why he was taken off guard when the Russian
lawyers showed up to defend their clients. Hope that you read the entire article.
#13#13
What the hell? Do these people even know they're on this list, or part of this evidence? Or, are they not even real people,
or are they maybe even govt employees needed to play a role? There's that cookbook again, maybe. Yikes!
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were
unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
This also proves my point above how information is selectively posted over there. Just certain parts of the articles are posted,
but the parts of the articles that show the information in a different light are left out. This is from a comment..
It would appear at first glance this is basically an effort at espionage only , but I'm not much more sure than
you are.
If they don't have a US presence ( as it appears they don't ), I can't understand why they even care that Mueller
has charged them. As you point out, they won't be extradited, so none of this really matters. They could have their lawyers
just play a DVD of them confessing followed by giving Mueller the double birds all around and it wouldn't make any difference,
so the only logical answer for this is to try and pry state secrets out legally via the courts instead of through hacking and
spying.
Oops. From the article ..
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against
the charges.
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they
did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted
in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to
lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment
accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say
were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency
placed on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people
still believe that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
off the hook. @snoopydawg
Especially Mueller. Finding the 13 Russians guilty that is. Mueller can then claim, "See! The Russians did it," which gives Hillbots
a warm fuzzy and reason to scold BernieBros with a "told ya so!!" AND, no reason to investigate further. Investigation over. Case
closed! Everyone gets what they want. Alas... Their lawyer showed up.
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they
did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted
in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to
lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment
accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say
were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency
placed on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people
still believe that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
As Powerline notes, Mueller probably didn't see that coming - and the indictment itself was perhaps nothing more than a PR
stunt to bolster the Russian interference narrative.
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against
the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying
out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch
Project.
One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area
attorneys -- Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm -- filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management
and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here. -Powerline Blog
@snoopydawg
Especially since it's supposed to contain all these names of stooges, duped into participating in US politics by the Kremlin.
It's ridiculous.
As Powerline notes, Mueller probably didn't see that coming - and the indictment itself was perhaps nothing more than
a PR stunt to bolster the Russian interference narrative.
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against
the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying
out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch
Project.
One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area
attorneys -- Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm -- filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management
and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here. -Powerline Blog
I have read here in a long time. While I linked ot our Twitter account last night, I did not have time to read it before I
posted it. I am going to link this again because I think it is such an important essay for others to read.
"... The Donald likes to complain about fake news when these implicate him, but on the other hand he creates and acts on fake news himself: see the Russian sanctions, Skripal case, the two Syrian attacks based on fake news created by the White Helmets, paid by the State Department. ..."
As if the Donald did not sanctioned to death the Russians on every possible level. How is
this different from Mueller's and comp witch hunt against the Russians?
The Donald likes to complain about fake news when these implicate him, but on the
other hand he creates and acts on fake news himself: see the Russian sanctions, Skripal case,
the two Syrian attacks based on fake news created by the White Helmets, paid by the State
Department.
"... the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block " Siberian candidate " Trump. ..."
"... The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The Washington Post , Dearlove told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers" opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in communication with the Kremlin." ..."
"... Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down. When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA Director (and now NBC News analyst). ..."
"... Dearlove and Halper are now partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another MI6 vet. Alexander Downer served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an unpaid advisor . ..."
"... Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom every Russian is a Boris Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that Lokhova convincingly argues are absurd. ..."
"... As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the Iraqi military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too. ..."
"... Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult" hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort. ..."
"... But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK. ..."
"... Stefan Halper then infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign. Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other. ..."
"... The rightwing Federalist website speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating it." Clovis believes that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue after inauguration. ..."
"... Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a "nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency with violating US election laws. ..."
"... As The Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2 article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election Day. ..."
"... Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government. ..."
"... Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker ..."
"... But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press." ..."
"... It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice. ..."
"... "Russiagate" continues to attract mounting blowback at Clinton, Obama and the Dems. Might well be they who end up charged with lawbreaking, though I'd be surprised if anyone in authority is ever really punished. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white ..."
"... I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb, Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged "puppet." ..."
"... The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what really happened. ..."
"... I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump did. ..."
"... Long-time CIA asset named as FBI's spy on Trump campaign By Bill Van Auken https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html ..."
"... What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was "in the lead". ..."
"... Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House. Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal ideology for the most part. ..."
"... The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White House. ..."
"... It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its existence based on foreign enemies. ..."
"... So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab. ..."
As the role of a well-connected group of British and U.S. intelligence agents begins to
emerge, new suspicions are growing about what hand they may have had in weaving the Russia-gate
story, as Daniel Lazare explains.
Special to Consortium News
With the news that a Cambridge academic-cum-spy
named Stefan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, the role of the intelligence agencies in
shaping the great Russiagate saga is at last coming into focus.
It's looking more and more massive. The intelligence agencies initiated reports that Donald
Trump was colluding with Russia, they nurtured them and helped them grow, and then they spread
the word to the press and key government officials. Reportedly, they even tried to use these
reports to force Trump to step down prior to his inauguration. Although the corporate press
accuses Trump of conspiring with Russia to stop Hillary Clinton, the reverse now seems to be
the case: the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block "
Siberian
candidate " Trump.
The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business
partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The
Washington Post , Dearlove
told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers"
opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years
earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US
authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in
communication with the Kremlin."
Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down.
When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make
him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable
scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for
his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director
Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top
Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese
academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA
Director (and now NBC News analyst).
In-Bred
A few things stand out about this august group. One is its in-bred quality. After helping to
run an annual confab known as the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, Dearlove and Halper are now
partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are
connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also
connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke
and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another
MI6 vet. Alexander Downer
served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is
linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped
found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an
unpaid
advisor .
Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about
this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom
every Russian is a Boris
Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike
Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian
scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that
Lokhova convincingly
argues are absurd.
Halper: Infiltrated Trump campaign
In December 2016, Halper and Dearlove both resigned from the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar
because they suspected that a company footing some of the costs was tied up with Russian
intelligence – suspicions that Christopher Andrew, former chairman of the Cambridge
history department and the seminar's founder, regards as " absurd " as well.
As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known,
Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of
Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass
destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
argued that the Iraqi
military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in
fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too.
Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence
against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend
the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses
fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult"
hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly
misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and
spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine.
The result is a diplo-espionage gang that is very bad at the facts but very good at public
manipulation – and which therefore decided to use its skill set out to create a public
furor over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
It Started Late 2015
The effort began in late 2015 when GCHQ, along with intelligence agencies in Poland,
Estonia, and Germany, began monitoring
what they said were " suspicious 'interactions' between figures connected to Trump and
known or suspected Russian agents."
Since Trump was surging ahead in the polls and scaring the pants off the foreign-policy
establishment by calling for a rapprochement with Moscow, the agencies figured that Russia was
somehow behind it. The pace accelerated in March 2016 when a 30-year-old policy consultant
named George Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a foreign-policy adviser. Traveling in
Italy a week later, he ran into Mifsud, the London-based Maltese academic, who reportedly set
about cultivating him after learning of his position with Trump. Mifsud claimed
to have "substantial connections with Russian government officials," according to prosecutors.
Over breakfast at a London hotel, he told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Moscow
where he had learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands
of emails."
This was the remark that supposedly triggered an FBI investigation. The New York
Timesdescribes
Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at
meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr.
Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort.
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later
tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking
British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security
agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in
such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK.
After Papadopoulos caused a minor political ruckus by
telling a reporter that Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize for criticizing
Trump's anti-Muslim pronouncements, a friend in the Israeli embassy put him in touch with a
friend in the Australian embassy, who introduced him to Downer, her boss. Over drinks, Downer
advised him to be more diplomatic. After Papadopoulos then passed along Misfud's tip about
Clinton's emails, Downer informed his government, which, in late July, informed the FBI.
Was Papadopoulos Set Up?
Suspicions are unavoidable but evidence is lacking. Other pieces were meanwhile clicking
into place. In late May or early June 2016, Fusion GPS, a private Washington intelligence firm
employed by the Democratic National Committee, hired Steele to look into the Russian angle.
On June 20, he turned in the first of eighteen memos that would eventually comprise
the
Steele dossier , in this instance a three-page document asserting that Putin "has been
cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years" and that Russian intelligence
possessed "kompromat" in the form of a video of prostitutes performing a "golden showers" show
for his benefit at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. A week or two later, Steele
briefed the FBI on his findings. Around the same time, Robert Hannigan flew to Washington
to brief CIA Director John Brennan about additional material that had come GCHQ's way, material
so sensitive that it could only be handled at "director level."
One player was filling Papadopoulos's head with tales of Russian dirty tricks, another was
telling the FBI, while a third was collecting more information and passing it on to the bureau
as well.
Page: Took Russia's side.
On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on
U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in which he complained that " Washington and other western
capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such
as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "
unease " that someone representing the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's
side in a growing neo-Cold War.
Stefan Halper then
infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks
before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter
re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign.
Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other.
On July 11, Page showed up at a Cambridge symposium at which Halper and Dearlove both spoke.
In early September, Halper sent Papadopoulos an email offering $3,000 and a paid trip to London
to write a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, his specialty.
"George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?" Halper asked when he got there,
but Papadopoulos said he knew nothing. Halper also sought out Sam Clovis, Trump's national
campaign co-chairman, with whom he chatted about China for an hour or so over coffee in
Washington.
The rightwing Federalist website
speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that
"Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating
it." Clovis believes
that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in
the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue
warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought
a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue
after inauguration.
Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty
rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does
his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite
countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the
sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a
"nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said
it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others
on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for
corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency
with violating US election laws.
But the corruption charges have nothing to do with Russian collusion and nothing in the
indictment against IRA indicates that either the Kremlin or the Trump campaign were involved.
Indeed, the activities that got IRA in trouble in the first place are so unimpressive –
just $46,000 worth of Facebook
ads that it purchased prior to election day, some pro-Trump, some anti, and some with
no particular slant
at all – that Mueller probably wouldn't even have bothered if he hadn't been under
intense pressure to come up with anything at all.
The same goes for the army of bots that Russia supposedly deployed on Twitter. As The
Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2
article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a
six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one
billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election
Day.
The Steele dossier is also underwhelming. It declares on one page that the Kremlin sought to
cultivate Trump by throwing "various lucrative real estate development business deals" his way
but says on another that Trump's efforts to drum up business were unavailing and that he thus
"had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather
than business success."
Why would Trump turn down business offers when he couldn't generate any on his own? The idea
that Putin would spot a U.S. reality-TV star somewhere around 2011 and conclude that he was
destined for the Oval Office five years later is ludicrous. The fact that the Democratic
National Committee funded the dossier via its law firm Perkins Coie renders it less credible
still, as does the fact that the world has heard nothing more about the alleged video despite
the ongoing deterioration in US-Russian relations. What's the point of making a blackmail tape
if you don't use it?
Steele: Paid for political research, not intelligence.
Even Steele is backing off. In a legal paper filed in response to a libel suit last May, he
said the document "did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts, but
were raw intelligence which had identified a range of allegations that warranted investigation
given their potential national security implications." The fact is that the "dossier" was
opposition research, not an intelligence report. It was neither vetted by Steele nor anyone in
an intelligence agency. Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig
up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at
taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not
his government.
Using it Anyway
Nonetheless, the spooks have made the most of such pseudo-evidence. Dearlove and Wood both
advised Steele to take his "findings" to the FBI, while, after the election, Wood pulled
Sen. John McCain aside at a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to let him know that
the Russians might be blackmailing the president-elect. McCain dispatched long-time aide David
J. Kramer to the UK to discuss the dossier with Steele directly.
Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker found a former national-security
official who
says he spoke with him at the time and that Kramer's goal was to have McCain confront Trump
with the dossier in the hope that he would resign on the spot. When that didn't happen, Clapper
and Brennan arranged for FBI Director James Comey to confront Trump instead. Comey later
testified that he didn't want Trump to think he was creating "a J. Edgar Hoover-type
situation – I didn't want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over
him in some way."
But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry
observed a few
days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on
government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure
hate to see end up in the press."
Since then, the Democrats have touted the dossier at every opportunity, TheNew
Yorker
continues to defend it , while Times columnist Michelle Goldberg cites it as well,
saying it's a
"rather obvious possibility that Trump is being blackmailed." CNN, for its part, suggested not
long ago that the dossier may actually be Russian
disinformation designed to throw everyone off base, Republicans and Democrats alike.
It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the
intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the
public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that
they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this
out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice.
Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a
wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique , and his articles about
the Middle East, terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites
as Jacobin and The American Conservative.
Mueller is trying to omit the normal burden of legal liability, "wilful intent" in his
charges against the St Petersburg, social media operation. In a horrifically complex area
such as tax, campaign contributions or lobbying, a foreign entity can be found guilty of
breaking a law that they cannot reasonably have been expected to have knowledge of.
But the omission or inclusion of "wilful intent" is applied on a selective basis depending on
the advantage to the deep state.
From a practical standpoint, omission of "wilful intent" makes it easier for Mueller to get a
guilty verdict (in adsentia assuming this is legally valid in America). Once the "guilt" of
the St Petersburg staff is established, any communication between an American and them
becomes "collusion".
I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's
persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the
White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been
motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten
into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never
recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb,
Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would
have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged
"puppet."
The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his
candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were
always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of
jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to
beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat
themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and
other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what
really happened.
backwardsevolution , June 3, 2018 at 2:50 pm
Realist – good post. I think what you say is true. Trump got too caught up in the
birther crap, and Obama retaliated. But I think that Trump had been thinking about the
presidency long before Obama came along. He sees the country differently than Obama and
Clinton do. Trump would never have built up China to the point where all American technology
has been given away for free, with millions of jobs lost and a huge trade deficit, and he
would have probably left Russia alone, not ransacked it.
I saw Obama as a somewhat reluctant globalist and Hillary as an eager globalist. They are
both insiders. Trump is not. He's interested in what is best for the U.S., whereas the
Clinton's and the Bush's were interested in what their corporate masters wanted. The
multinationals have been selling the U.S. out, Trump is trying to put a stop to this, and it
is going to be a fight to the death. Trump is playing hardball with China (who ARE U.S.
multinationals), and it is working. Beginning July 1, 2018, China has agreed to reduce its
tariffs:
"Import tariffs for apparel, footwear and headgear, kitchen supplies and fitness products
will be more than halved to an average of 7.1 percent from 15.9 percent, with those on
washing machines and refrigerators slashed to just 8 percent, from 20.5 percent.
Tariffs will also be cut on processed foods such as aquaculture and fishing products and
mineral water, from 15.2 percent to 6.9 percent.
Cosmetics, such as skin and hair products, and some medical and health products, will also
benefit from a tariff cut to 2.9 percent from 8.4 percent.
In particular, tariffs on drugs ranging from penicillin, cephalosporin to insulin will be
slashed to zero from 6 percent before.
In the meantime, temporary tariff rates on 210 imported products from most favored nations
will be scrapped as they are no longer favorable compared with new rates."
Trade with China has been all one way. At least Trump is leveling the playing field. He at
least is trying to bring back jobs, something the "insiders" could care less about.
I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've
underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always
the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the
chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons
and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their
favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump
did.
Abe , June 2, 2018 at 2:20 am
"Pentagon documents indicate that the Department of Defense's shadowy intelligence arm,
the Office of Net Assessment, paid Halper $282,000 in 2016 and $129,000 in 2017. According to
reports, Halper sought to secure Papadopoulos's collaboration by offering him $3,000 and an
all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to produce a research paper on energy issues in
the eastern Mediterranean.
"The choice of Halper for this spying operation has ominous implications. His deep ties to
the US intelligence apparatus date back decades. His father-in-law was Ray Cline, who headed
the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. Halper served as an aide
to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Alexander Haig in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
"In 1980, as the director of policy coordination for Ronald Reagan's presidential
campaign, Halper oversaw an operation in which CIA officials gave the campaign confidential
information on the Carter administration and its foreign policy. This intelligence was in
turn utilized to further back-channel negotiations between Reagan's campaign manager and
subsequent CIA director William Casey and representatives of Iran to delay the release of the
American embassy hostages until after the election, in order to prevent Carter from scoring a
foreign policy victory on the eve of the November vote.
"Halper subsequently held posts as deputy assistant secretary of state for
political-military affairs and senior adviser to the Pentagon and Justice Department. More
recently, Halper has collaborated with Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, the British
intelligence service, in directing the Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi), a security think
tank that lists the US and UK governments as its principal clients.
"Before the 2016 election, Halper had expressed his view – shared by predominant
layers within the intelligence agencies – that Clinton's election would prove 'less
disruptive' than Trump's.
"The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016
elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything one could even imagine
the Kremlin attempting."
Sorry for not commenting on other posts as of yet. But I think I have a different
perspective. Russia Gate is not about Hillary Clinton or Putin but it is about Donald Trump.
Specifically an effort to get rid of him by the intelligence agencies and the MSM. The fact
is the MSM created Trump and were chiefly responsible for his election. Trump is their
brainchild starlet used to fleece all the republican campaigns like a huckster fleeces an
audience. It all ties to key Supreme Court rulings eliminating campaign finance regulations
which ushered in the age of dark money.
When billionaires can donate unlimited amounts of money anonymously to the candidate of
their choosing what ends up is a field of fourteen wannabes in a primary race each backed by
their own investor(s). The only way these candidates can win is to convince us to vote. The
only way they can do that is to spend on advertising.
What the MSM dreamed of in a purely capitalistic way was a way to drain the wallets of
every single one of the republican Super PACs. The mission was fraught with potential
checkmates. Foe example, there could be an early leader who snatched up the needed delegates
for the nomination early on which would have stopped the flow of advertising cash flowing to
the MSM. Such possibilities worried the MSM and caused great angst since this might just be
the biggest haul they ever took in during a primary season. How would they prevent a
premature end of the money river. Like financial vampire bats, ticks and leeches they needed
a way to keep the money flowing from the veins of the republican Super PACs until they were
sucked dry.
What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like
a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the
term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause
all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was
"in the lead".
It was a pure stroke of genius and it worked so well that Carl Rove is looking for a job
and Donald Trump is sitting in the White House.
Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one
little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House.
Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a
democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal
ideology for the most part.
What to do? Trump was now the Commander in Chief and was spouting nonsense that the
establishment recoiled at such as Trumps plans to form economic ties with Russia rather than
continue to wage a cold war spanning 65 years which the MIC used year after year to spook us
all and guarantee their billions annual increase in funding. Trump directly attacked defense
projects and called for de-funding major initiatives like F35 etc.
The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin
horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every
year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the
hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and
entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of
governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White
House.
What to do? There was clearly a need to eliminate this bad guy since his avowed policies
were in direct opposition to the game plan that had successfully compromised the former
administration. They felt powerless to dissuade the Administration to continue the course and
form strategies to eliminate Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Ukraine and other vulnerable
targets swaying toward China and Russia. They faced a new threat with the Trump
Administration which seemed hell bent to discontinue the wars in these regions robbing them
of many dollars.
It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very
threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the
hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its
existence based on foreign enemies.
So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and
the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It
had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in
the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they
committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the
White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab.
In the interim, they also forgot on purpose to tell anyone about the election campaign
finance fraud that they were the chief beneficiaries of. They also of course forgot to tell
anyone what the fight was about for the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Twenty seven
million dollars in dark money was donated by dark money donors enabled by the Supreme Court's
decisions to eliminate campaign finance regulations which enabled these donors to buy out
Congress and elect and confirm a Supreme Court Justice who would uphold the laws which
eliminate all the election rules and campaign finance regulations dating back to the Tillman
Act of 1907 which was an attempt to eliminate corporate contributions in political campaigns
with associated meager fines as penalties. The law was weak then and has now been
eliminated.
In an era of dark money in politics protected by revisionist judges laying at the top of
our federal judicial branch posing as strict constructionists while being funded by the
corporatocracy that viciously fights over control of the highest court by a panicked
republican party that seeks to tie up their domination in our Congress by any means including
the abdication of the Constitutional authority granted to the citizens of the nation we now
face a new internal enemy.
That enemy is not some foreign nation but our own government which conspires to represent
the wealthy and the powerful and which exalts them and which enacts laws to defend their
control of our nation. Here is a quote:
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they
create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral
code that glorifies it.
Frederic Bastiat – (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:32 am
Different journalist covering much the same ground:
"Russiagate" is strictly a contrivance of the Deep State, American & British Spookery,
and the corporate media propagandists. It clearly needs to be genuinely investigated (unlike
the mockery being orchestrated by Herr Mueller from the Ministry of Truth), re-christened
"Intellgate" (after the real perpetrators of crime), pursued until all the guilty traitors
(including Mueller) who really tried to steal our democratic election are tried, convicted
and incarcerated (including probably hundreds complicit from the media) and given its own
lengthy chapter in all the history books about "The Election They Tried to Steal and Blame on
Russia: How America Nearly Lost its Constitution." If not done, America will lose its
constitution, or rather the incipient process will become totally irreversible.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 6:25 am
Your timing of events is confused.
The deep state didn't try and steal the election because they were overly complacent that
their woman would win. Remember, they didn't try to use the dodgy, Steele dossier before the
election.
What the deep state has done is reactively try to overcome the election outcome by launching
an investigation into Trump. The egregious element of the investigation is giving it the
title "investigation into collusion" when they in all probability knew that collusion was
unlikely to have taken place. To achieve their aim (removing Trump) they included the line
"and matters arising" in the brief to give them an open ended remit which allowed them to
investigate Trump's business dealings of a Russian / Ukrainian nature (which may venture
uncomfortably close to Semion Mogilevich).
If as you state (and I concur) there was no Russian collusion, then barring fabrication of
evidence by Mueller (and there is little evidence of that to date) you have nothing to worry
about on the collusion front. Remember, to date, Mueller has stuck (almost exclusively) to
meat and potatoes charges like tax evasion and money laundering. If however the investigation
leads to credible evidence that Trump broke substantive laws in the past for financial gain,
then it is not reasonable to cry foul.
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:02 am
The Deep State assisted the DNC in knocking out Sanders. THAT was ground zero. Everything
since then has been to cover this up and to discredit Trump (using him as the distraction).
Consider that the Deep State never bothered to investigate the DNC servers/data; reason being
is that they'd (Deep State) be implicated.
Skip Scott , June 1, 2018 at 7:29 am
Very true Seer. That is the real genesis of RussiaGate. It was a diversion tactic to keep
people from looking at the DNC's behavior during the primaries. They are the reason Trump is
president, not the evil Ruskies.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:13 am
We all seem agreed that the Russia collusion is an exercise in distraction. I can't say I
know enough to comment with authority on whether the DNC would require assistance from the
deep state to trash Bernie. From an outsider perspective it looked more like an application
of massively disproportionate spending and standard, back room dirty tricks.
There is a saying; don't attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.
In this case, try replacing incompetence with MONEY.
dikcheney , June 2, 2018 at 5:09 pm
Totally agree with you Skip and the Mueller performance is there to keep up the
intimidation and distraction by regularly finding turds to throw at Trump. Mueller doesnt
need to find anything, he just needs to create vague intimations of 'guilty Trump' and
suspicious associates so that no one will look at the DNC or the Clinton corruption or the
smashing of the Sanders campaign.
Their actual agenda is to smother analysis and clear thinking. Thankfully there is the
forensicator piecing the jigsaw as well as consortium news.
robjira , June 1, 2018 at 11:55 am
Spot on, Seer.
michael , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm
Those servers probably had a lot more pay-to-play secrets from the Clinton Foundation and
ring-kissing from foreign big donors than what was released by Wikileaks, which mostly was
just screwing over Bernie, which the judge ruled was Hillary's prerogative. Some email chains
were probably construed as National Security and were discreetly not leaked.
The 30,000 emails Hillary had bit bleached from her private servers are likely in the hands
of Russians and every other major country, all biding their time for leverage. This was the
carrot the British (who undoubtedly have copies as well) dangled over idiot Popodopolous.
Uncle Bob , June 1, 2018 at 10:33 pm
Seth Rich
anon , June 1, 2018 at 7:42 am
Realist is likely referring to events before the election which involved people with
secret agency connections, such as the opposition research (Steele dossier and Skripal
affair).
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:32 am
Realist responded but is being "moderated" as per usual.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:31 am
Hillary herself was a prime force in cooking up the smear against Trump for being "Putin's
puppet." This even before the Democratic convention. Then she used it big time during the
debates. It wasn't something merely reactive after she lost. Certainly she and her
collaborators inside the deep state and the intelligence agencies never imagined that she
would lose and have to distract from what she and her people did by projecting the blame onto
Trump. That part was reactive. The rest of the conspiracy was totally proactive on her part
and that of the DNC, even during the primaries.
Don't forget, the intel agencies led by Clapper, Brennan and Comey were all working for
Obama at the time and were totally acquiescent in spying on the Trump campaign and
"unmasking" the identities and actions of his would-be administration, including individuals
like General Flynn. The cooked up Steele dossier was paid for by money from the Clinton
campaign and used as a pretext for the intel agencies to spy on the Trump campaign. There is
no issue on timing. The establishment was fully behind Clinton by hook or crook from the
moment Trump had the delegates to win the GOP nomination. (OBTW, I am not a Trump supporter
or even a Republican, so I KNOW that I "have nothing to worry about on the collusion front."
I'm a registered Dem, though not a Hillary supporter.)
Moreover, if you think that Mueller (and the other intel chiefs) have been on the
impartial up-and-up, why did the FBI never seize and examine the DNC servers? Why simply
accept the interpretation of events given by the private cybersecurity firm (Crowdstrike)
that the Clinton campaign hired to very likely mastermind a cover-up? That is exceptional
(nay, unheard of!) "professional courtesy." Why has Mueller to this day not deposed Julian
Assange or former British Ambassador Craig Murray, both of whom admit to knowing precisely
who provided the leaked (not hacked) Podesta and DNC emails to Wikileaks? Why has Mueller not
pursued the potential role of the late Seth Rich in the leaking of said emails? Why has
Mueller not pursued the robust theory, based on actual evidence, proposed by VIPS, and
supported by computer experts like Bill Binney and John McAfee, that the emails were not, as
the Dems and the intel agencies would have you believe on NO EVIDENCE, hacked (by the
"Russians" or anyone else) but were downloaded to a flash drive directly from the DNC
servers? Why has Mueller not deposed Binney or Ray McGovern who claim to have evidence to
bear on this and have discussed it freely in the media (to the miniscule extent that the
corporate media will give them an audience)? Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a
kangaroo court he is running? Is the media really independent and impartial or are they part
of a cover-up, perpetrating numerous sins of both commission and omission in their highly
flawed reportage?
I don't see clarity in what has been thus far been propounded by Mueller or any of Trump's
other accusers, but I don't think I am the one who is confused here, Vivian. If you want to
meet a thoroughly confused individual on what transpired leading up to this moment in
American political history, just go read Hillary's book. Absolutely everyone under the sun
shares in the blame but her for the fact that she does not presently reside in the White
House.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 1:48 pm
You have presented your case with a great deal more detail and clarity than the original
post that prompted my reply. You are also a great deal more knowledgeable than I on the
details. I think we are 98% in agreement and I wouldn't like to say who's correct on the
remaining 2%.
For clarity, I didn't follow the debates and wouldn't do so now if they were repeated. Much
heat very little light.
The "pretext" that the intel agencies claim launched their actions against Trump was not the
Steele dossier, at least that is what the intel agencies say. Either way your assertion that
it was the dossier that set things off is just that, an assertion. I think this is a minor
point.
On the DNC servers and the FBI we are 100% singing from the same hymn book and it all sticks.
Mueller's apparent disinterest in the question of hack or USB drive does rather taint his
investigation and thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't thought of that angle. I still think
Mueller will stick to tax and money laundering and stay well clear of "collusion", so yes he
may be running a kangaroo court investigation but the charges will be real world.
The MSM as a whole are a sick joke which is why we collectively find ourselves at CN, Craig
Murray's blog, etc. I wouldn't like to attribute "collaboration" to any individual in the
media. It was the reference to hundreds of journalists being sent to jail in your original
post that set me off in the first place. When considering the "culpability" of any individual
journalist you can have any position on a spectrum from; fully cognisant collaborator with a
deep state conspiracy, to; a bit dim and running with the "sexy" story 'cause it's the
biggest thing ever, the bosses can't get enough of it and the overtime is great. If American
journalists are anything like their UK counterparts, 99% will fall into the latter
category.
Don't have any issue with your final point. Hillary on stage and on camera was phoney as
rocking horse s**te and everyone outside her extremely highly remunerated team could see
it.
Sorry for any inconvenience, but your second post makes your points a hell of a lot clearer
than the original.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:26 pm
My purpose for the first post in this thread was to direct readers to the article in Unz
by Mike Whitney, not to compress a full-blown amateur expose' by myself into a three-sentence
paragraph. You would have found much more in the way of facts, analysis and opinion in his
article to which my terse comments did not even serve as an abstract.
Quoting his last paragraph may give you the flavor of this piece, which is definitely not
a one-off by him or other actual journalists who have delved into the issues:
"Let's see if I got this right: Brennan gets his buddies in the UK to feed fake
information on Russia to members of the Trump campaign, after which the FBI uses the
suspicious communications about Russia as a pretext to unmask, wiretap, issue FISA warrants,
and infiltrate the campaign, after which the incriminating evidence that was collected in the
process of entrapping Trump campaign assistants is compiled in a legal case that is used to
remove Trump from office. Is that how it's supposed to work?
It certainly looks like it. But don't expect to read about it in the Times."
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm
Vivian – 90% of all major media is owned by six corporations. There most definitely
was and IS collusion between some of them to bring down the outsider, Trump.
As far as individual journalists go, yeah, they're trying to pay their mortgage, I get it,
and they're going to spin what their boss bloody well tells them to spin. But there is
evidence coming out that "some" journalists did accept money from either Fusion GPS, Perkins
Coie (sp) or Christopher Steele to leak information, which they did.
Bill Clinton passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that enabled these six media
conglomerates to dominate the news. Of course they're political. They need to be split up,
like yesterday, into a thousand pieces (ditto for the banks). They have purposely and with
intent been feeding lies to the American people. Yes, some SHOULD go to jail.
As Peter Strzok of the FBI said re Trump colluding with Russia, "There was never any
there, there." The collusion has come from the intelligence agencies, in cahoots with Hillary
Clinton, perhaps even as high as Obama, to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed,
they set out to get him impeached on whatever they could find. Of course Mueller is going to
stick with tax and money laundering because he already KNOWS there was never any collusion
with Russia.
This is the Swamp versus the People.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 1:52 pm
Realist – another excellent post. "Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a kangaroo
court he is running?" As you rightly point out, Mueller IS being very selective in what he
examines and doesn't examine. He's not after the whole truth, just a particular kind of
truth, one that gets him a very specific result – to take down or severely cripple the
President.
Evidence continues to trickle out. Former and active members of the FBI are now even
begging to testify as they are disgusted with what is being purposely omitted from this
so-called "impartial" investigation. This whole affair is "kangaroo" all the way.
I'm not so much a fan of Trump as I am a fan of the truth. I don't like to see him –
anyone – being railroaded. That bothers me more than anything. But he's right about
what he calls "the Swamp". If these people are not uncovered and brought to justice, then the
country is truly lost.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:38 pm
Precisely. Destroy the man on false pretenses and you destroy our entire system, whether
you like him and his questionable policies or not.
Some people would say it's already gone, but we do what we can to get it back or hold onto
to what's left of it. Besides, all the transparent lies and skullduggery in the service of
politics rather than principles are just making our entire system look as corrupt as
hell.
michael , June 1, 2018 at 5:00 pm
When Mueller arrested slimy Manafort for crimes committed in the Ukraine and gave a pass
to the Podesta Brothers who worked closely with Manafort, it was clear that Russiagate was a
partisan operation.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 6:17 pm
Michael – good point!
KiwiAntz , June 1, 2018 at 1:00 am
Its becoming abundantly clear now, that the whole Russiagate charade was had nothibg to do
with Russia & is about a elaborate smokescreen & shellgame coverup designed to divert
attention away from, firstly the Democratic Party's woeful defeat & its lousy Candidate
choice in the corrupt Hillary Clinton? & also the DNC's sabotaging of Bernie Saunders
campaign run! But the most henious & treacherous parts was Obama's, weaponising the
intelligence agencies to spy (Halper) on the imaginary Mancharian Candidate Trump & to
set him up as a Russia stooge? Obama & Hillary Clinton are complicent in this disgraceful
& illegal activity to get dirt on Trump withe goal of ensuring Clinton's election win?
This is bigger than Watergate & more scandalous? But despite the cheating & stacking
of the card deck, she still lost out to the Donald? And this isn't just illegal its
treasonous & willful actions deserving of a lengthy jail incarceration? HRC & her
crooked Clinton foundation's funding of the fraudulent & discredited "Steele Dosier" was
also used to implement Trump & Russia in a made up, pile of fictitious gargage that was
pure offal? Obama & HRC along with their FBI & CIA spys need to be rounded up,
convicted & thrown in jail? Perhaps if Trump could just shut his damn mouuth for once
& get off twitter long enough to be able too get some Justice Dept officials looking into
this, without being distracted by this Russiagate shellgame fakery, then perhaps the real
criminal's like Halpert, Obama,HRC & these corrupt spooks & spies can be rounded up
& held to account for this treasonous behaviour?
Sean Ahern , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 pm
Attention should be paid also to the role of so called progressive media outlets such as
Mother Jones which served as an outlets for the disinformation campaign described in Lazare's
article.
Here from David Corn's Mother Jones 2016 article:
"And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian
counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with
memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian
government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more
information from him."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/
Not only was Corn and Mother Jones selected by the spooks as an outlet, but these so
called progressives lauded their 'expose' as a great investigative coup on their part and it
paved the way for Corn's elevation on MSNBC for a while as a 'pundit.'
Paul G. , May 31, 2018 at 8:46 pm
In that vein did the spooks influence Rachel Maddow or is her $30,000. a day salary
adequate to totally compromise her microscopic journalistic integrity.
dikcheney , June 3, 2018 at 6:57 am
Passing around references to Mother Jones is like passing round used toilet paper for
another try. MJ is BS it is entirely controlled fake press.
Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:23 pm
Stefan Halper was being paid by the Clinton's foundation during the time he was spying on
the Trump campaign. This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton's hands are all over
getting Russia Gate started. Then there's the role that Obama's justice department played in
setting up the spying on people who were working with the Trump campaign. This is worse than
Watergate, IMO.
Rumors are that a few ex FBI agents are going to testify to congress in Comey's role in
covering up Hillary's crimes when she used her private email server to send classified
information to people who did not have clearance to read it. Sydney Bluementhol was working
for Hillary's foundation and sending her classified information that he stole from the
NSA.
Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were concerned about Obama knowing that Hillary wasn't using
her government email account after he told the press that he only found out about it at the
same time they did. He had been sending and receiving emails from her Clintonone email
address during her whole tenure as SOS.
Obama was also aware of her using her foundation for pay to play which she was told by
both congress and Obama to keep far away from her duties. Why did she use her private email
server? So that Chelsea could know where Hillary was doing business so she could send Bill
there to give his speeches to the same organizations, foreign governments and people who had
just donated to their foundation.
Has any previous Secretary of State in history used their position to enrich their spouses
or their foundations? I think not.
The secrets of how the FBI covered for Hillary are coming out. Whether she is charged for
her crimes is a different matter.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 7:48 pm
If Hillary paid a political operative using Clinton Foundation funds – those are tax
exempt charitable contributions – she would be guilty of tax fraud, charity fraud and
campaign finance violations. Hillary may be evil, but she's not stupid. The U.S.Government
paid Halper, which might be "waste, fraud and abuse", but it doesn't implicate Hillary at
all. Not that she's innocent, mind you
Rob , June 1, 2018 at 2:14 am
I need some references to take any of your multitude of claims seriously. With all due
respect, this sound like something taken from info wars and stylized in smartened up a little
bit.
the idea that Stefan Halper was some sort a of mastermind spy behind the so called
"Russiagate" fiasco
seems very implausible considering what he seems to have spent doing for the past 40
years
going back to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980 and his efforts then.
i think he must have had a fairly peripheral role as to whatever or not was going on
behind the scenes from 2016 election campaign, and the campaign to first stop Trump getting
elected, and secondly, when that failed, to bring down his Presidency.
of course, the moment his name was revealed in recent days, would have shocked or
surprised those of in the general
public, but not certainly amongst those in Government aka FBI/CIA/Military-industrial
circles.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 4:36 pm
chris m – Halper is probably one of those people who hide behind their professor (or
other legitimate) jobs, but are there at the ready to serve the Deep State. "I understand.
You want me to set up some dupes in order to make it look like there was or could be actual
Russian meddling. Gotcha." All you've got to do is make it "look like" something nefarious
was going on. This facilitates a "reason" to have a phony investigation, and of course they
make it as open-ended an investigation as possible, hoping to get the target on something,
anything.
Well, they've no doubt looked long and hard for almost two years now, but zip. However, in
their zeal to get rid of their opponent, who they did not think would win the election, they
left themselves open, left a trail of crimes. Whoops!
This is the Swamp that Trump talked about during the election. He's probably not squeaky
clean either, but he pales in comparison to what these guys have done. They have tried to
take down a duly-elected President.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 5:09 pm
His role may have been peripheral, but I seem to recall that the Office of Net Assessments
paid him roughly a million bucks to play it. That office, run from the Pentagon, is about as
deep into the world of "black ops" spookdom as you can get. Hardly "peripheral", I'd say.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:13 pm
F. G. Sanford – yes, a million bucks implies something more than just a peripheral
involvement, more like something essential to the plot, like the actual setting up of the
plot. Risk of exposure costs money.
ranney , May 31, 2018 at 6:17 pm
Chris, I think the Halper inclusion in this complex tale is simply an example of how these
things work in the ultra paranoid style of spy agencies. As Lazare explains, every one knew
every one else – at least at the start of this, and it just kind of built from there,
and Halper may have been the spark – but the spark landed on a highly combustible pile
of paranoia that caught on fire right away. This is how our and the UK agencies function.
There is an interesting companion piece to this story today at Common Dreams by Robert Kohler
titled The American Way of War. It describes basically the same sort of mind set and action
as this story. I'd link it for you if I knew how, but I'm not very adept at the computer.
(Maybe another reader knows how?)
We (that is the American people who are paying the salaries of these brain blocked, stiff
necked idiots) need to start getting vocal and visible about the destructive path our
politicians, banks and generals have rigidly put us on. Does any average working stiff still
believe that all this hate, death and destruction is to "protect" us?
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:07 pm
ranney – when you are on the page that you want to link to, take your cursor (the
little arrow on your screen) to the top of the page to the address bar (for instance, the
address for this article is:
"https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/31/spooks-spooking ")
Once your cursor is over the address bar, right click on your mouse. A little menu will
come up. Then position your cursor down to the word "copy" and then left click on your mouse.
This will copy the link.
Then proceed back to the blog (like Consortium) where you want to provide the link in your
post. You might say, "Here is the link for the article I just described above." Then at this
point you would right click on your mouse again, position your cursor over the word "paste",
and then left click on your mouse. Voila, your link magically appears.
If you don't have a mouse and are using a laptop pad, then someone else will have to help
you. That's above my pay grade. Good luck, ranney.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:13 pm
If you are using a Mac, either laptop w/touch screen or with a mouse, the copy/paste
function
works similarly. Use either the mouse (no need to 'right click, left click') or the touch
screen
to highlight the address bar once you have the cursor flashing away on the left side of
it.
You may need to scroll right to highlight the whole address. Then go up to Edit (there's
also
a keyboard command you can use, but I don't) in your tool bar at the top of your screen.
Click on 'copy'. Now your address is in memory. Then do the same as described above to
get back to where you want to paste it. Put your cursor where you want it to be 'pasted'.
Go back to 'edit' and click 'paste'. Voila !
This is a very handy function and can be used to copy text, web addresses, whatever you
want.
Explore it a little bit. (Students definitely overuse the 'paste and match style' option,
which allows
a person to 'paste' text into for example an essay and 'match the style' so it looks
seamless, although
unless carefully edited it usually doesn't read seamlessly !)
Remember that whatever is in 'copy' will remain there until you 'copy' something else. (Or
your
computer crashes . . . )
ranney , June 1, 2018 at 3:39 pm
Irina and Backwards Evolution – Thanks guys for the computer advice! I'll try it,
but I think I need someone at my shoulder the first time I try it.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 8:53 pm
ranney – you're welcome! Snag one of your kids or a friend, and then do it together.
Sometimes I see people posting things like: "Testing. I'm trying to provide a link, bear with
me." Throw caution to the wind, ranney. I don't worry about embarrassing myself anymore. I do
it every day and the world still goes on.
I heard a good bit of advice once, something I remind my kids: when you're young, you
think everybody is watching you and so you're afraid to step out of line. When you're
middle-aged, you think everybody is watching you, but you don't care. When you're older, you
realize nobody is really watching you because they're more concerned about themselves.
Good luck, ranney.
irina , June 2, 2018 at 10:00 pm
I find it helpful to write down the steps (on an old fashioned piece of paper, with old
fashioned ink)
when learning to use a new computer tool, because while I think I'll remember, it doesn't
usually
'stick' until after using it for quite a while. And yes, definitely recruit a member of the
younger set
or someone familiar with computers. My daughter showed me many years ago how to 'cut &
paste'
and to her credit she was very gracious about it. Remember that you need a place to 'paste'
what-
ever you copied -- either a comment board like this, or a document you are working on, or
(this is
handy) an email where you want to send someone a link to something. Lots of other
possibilities too!
mike , June 1, 2018 at 7:43 pm
No one is presenting Halper as a mastermind spy. He was a tool of the deep state nothing
more.
It seems a mistake to frame the "Russiagate" nonsense as a "Democrat vs Republican"
affair, except at the most surface level of understanding in terms of our political
realities. If one considers that the Bush family has been effectively the Republican Party's
face of the CIA/deep state nexus for decades, as the Clinton/Obama's have been the Democratic
Party's face for decades now, what comes into focus is Trump as a sort of unknown, unexpected
wild card not appropriately tethered to the control structure. Simply noting that the U.S.
and Russia need not be enemies is alone enough to require an operation to get Trump into
line.
This hardly means this is some sort of "partisan" issue as the involvement of McCain and
others demonstrates.
One of the true "you can't make this stuff up" ironies of the Bush/Clinton CIA/deep state
nexus history is worth remembering if one still maintains any illusions about how the CIA
vets potential presidents since they killed JFK. During Iran/Contra we had Bush, the former
CIA director now vice president, running a drugs for arms operation out the White House
through Ollie North, WHILE then unknown Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was busy squashing
Arkansas State Police investigations into said narcotics trafficking. Clinton obviously
proved his bona fides to the CIA/deep state with such service and was appropriately rewarded
as an asset who could function as a reliable president. Here in one operation we had two
future presidents in Bush and Clinton both engaged in THE SAME CIA drug running operation.
You truly can't make this stuff up.
Russiagate seems to be in the end all about keeping deep state policy moving in the "right
direction" and "hating Russia" is the only entree on the menu at this time for the whole
cadre of CIA/deep state, MIC, neocons, Zionists, and all their minions in the MSM. The Obama
White House would have gladly supported Vlad the Impaler as the Republican candidate that
beat Hillary if Vlad were to have the appropriate foaming at the mouth "hate-Russia" vibe
going on.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:18 pm
Gary – great post.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm
Roger that. I would really like to see an inquiry re-opened into the
teenage boys who died 'on the train tracks' in Arkansas during the
early years of the Clinton-Bush trafficking. Many questions are still
unanswered. Speculation is that they saw something they weren't
supposed to see.
Mark Thomason , May 31, 2018 at 1:12 pm
This all grows out of the failure to clean up the mess revealed by the Iraq fiasco.
Instead, those who did that remained, got away with it, and are doing more of the same.
Babyl-on , May 31, 2018 at 12:46 pm
So, here is my question – Who, ultimately does the
permanent/bureaucratic/deep/Imperial* state finally answer to? Who's interests are they
serving? How do they know what those interests are?
It could be, and increasingly it looks as if, the answer is – no one in particular
– but the Saud family, the Zionist cabal of billionaires, the German industrialist
dynasties, the Japanese oligarchy and never forget the arms dealers, all of them once part of
the Empire now fighting for themselves so we end up with the high level apparatchiks not
knowing what to do or who to follow so they lie outright to Congress and go on TV and babble
more lies for money.
It's a great contradiction that the greatest armed force ever assembled with cutting edge
robotics and AI yet at the same time so weak and pathetic it can not exercise hegemony over
the Middle East as it seems to desire more than anything. Being defeated by forces with less
than 20% of the US spend.
Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:36 pm
You're right. They answer to no one because they are not just working in this country, but
they think that the whole world is theirs.
To these people there are no borders. They meet at places like the G20, Davos and wherever
the Bilderberg group decides to meet every year. No leader of any country gets to be one
unless they are acceptable to the Deep State. The council of foreign relations is one of the
groups that run the world. How we take them down is a good question.
Abe , May 31, 2018 at 12:43 pm
Following the pattern of mainstream media, Daniel Lazare assiduously avoids mentioning
Israel and pro-Israel Lobby interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the
Israel-gate reality underlying all the Russia-gate fictions.
For example, George Papadopoulos is directly connected to the pro-Israel Lobby, right wing
Israeli political interests, and Israeli government efforts to control regional energy
resources.
Lazare mentions that Papadapoulos had "a friend in the Israeli embassy".
But Lazare conspicuously neglects to mention numerous Israeli and pro-Israel Lobby players
interested in "filling Papadopoulos's head" with "tales of Russian dirty tricks".
Papadopoulos' LinkedIn page lists his association with the right wing Hudson Institute.
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank part of pro-Israel Lobby web of militaristic security
policy institutes that promote Israel-centric U.S. foreign policy.
The Hudson Institute confirmed that Papadopoulos was an intern who left the pro-Israel
neoconservative think tank in 2014.
In 2014, Papadopoulos authored op-ed pieces in Israeli publications.
In an op-ed published in Arutz Sheva, media organ of the right wing Religionist Zionist
movement embraced by the Israeli "settler" movement, Papadopoulos argued that the U.S. should
focus on its "stalwart allies" Israel, Greece, and Cyprus to "contain the newly emergent
Russian fleet".
In another op-ed published in Ha'aretz, Papadopoulos contended that Israel should exploit
its natural gas resources in partnership with Cyprus and Greece rather than Turkey.
In November 2015, Papadapalous participated in a conference in Tel Aviv, discussing the
export of natural gas from Israel with a panel of current and past Israeli government
officials including Ron Adam, a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and Eran Lerman, a former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser.
Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon
and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and
on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region.
Israeli plans to develop energy resources and expand territorial holdings in the Syrian
Golan are threatened by the Russian military presence in Syria. Russian diplomatic efforts,
and the Russian military intervention that began in September 2015 after an official request
by the Syrian government, have interfered with the Israeli-Saudi-U.S. Axis "dirty war" in
Syria.
Israeli activities and Israel-gate realities are predictably ignored by the mainstream
media, which continues to salivate at every moldy scrap of Russia-gate fiction.
Lazare need no be so circumspect, unless he has somehow been spooked.
"Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon
and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and
on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region."
And water. Rating energy and water, what's at the top for Israel. Israel would probably
say both but Israel shielded by the US will take what it wants. That is already true with the
Palestinians.. The last figure I heard is that the Palestinians are allocated one fifth per
capita what is allocated to Israel's
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:59 am
A large swamp is actually an ancient and highly organized ecosystem. Only humans could
create a lawless madness like Washington DC.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:24 pm
Yes that is a good description of a swamp. BUT, if it loses what sustains it --
water, in the case of a 'real' swamp and money in the case of this swamp --
it changes character very quickly and becomes first a bog, then a meadow.
I am definitely ready for more meadowland ! But the only way to create it
is to voluntarily redirect federal taxes into escrow accounts which stipulate
that the funds are to be used for (fill in the blank) Public Services at the
Local and Regional levels. Much more efficient than filtering them through
the federal bureaucracy !
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:21 pm
But how would one avoid prosecution for nonpayment of taxes?
That seems a very quiet way to be rendered ineffective as a resister.
irina , June 1, 2018 at 2:30 am
The thing is, you don't 'nonpay' them. The way it used to work, through the
Con$cience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account, was that you filed
your taxes as usual. (This does require having less withholding than you owe).
BUT instead of paying what is due to the IRS, you send it to the Escrow Account.
You attach a letter to your tax return, explaining where the money is and why it
is there. That is, you want it to be spent on _________________(fill in the blank)
worthy public social service. Then you send your return to the IRS.
When I used to do this, I stated that I wanted my tax dollars to be spent to develop
public health clinics at neighborhood schools. Said clinics would be staffed by nurse
practitioners, would be open 24-7 and nurses would be equipped with vans to make
House Calls. Security would be provided.
So you're not 'nonpaying' your taxes, you are (attempting) to redirect them.
Eventually,
after several rounds of letters back and forth, the IRS would seize the monies from the
escrow account, which would only release them to the IRS upon being told to by the
tax re-director. Unfortunately, not enough people participated to make it a going
concern.
But the potential is still there, and the template has been made and used. It's very
scale-
able, from local to international. And it would not take that many 're-directors' to shift
the
focus of tax liability from the collector to the payor. Because ultimately we are liable
for
how our funds are used !
Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:19 pm
this was done a lot during the Vietnam conflict, especially by Quakers. the first thing,
if you are a wage earner, is to re-file a W2 with maximum withholdings-that has two effects:
1) it means you owe all your taxes in April. 2) it means the feds are deprived of the hidden
tax in which they use or invest your withholding throughout the year before it's actually
due(and un-owed taxes if you over over-withhold). Pretty sure that if a large number of
people deprive the government of that hidden tax by under-withholding, they will begin to
take notice.
Abe , May 31, 2018 at 11:54 am
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence agency of the government
and armed forces of the United Kingdom.
In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting
all online and telephone data in the UK. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing
disclosures of global surveillance and manipulation.
For example, NSA files from the Snowden archive published by Glenn Greenwald reveal
details about GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) unit, which uses "dirty
trick" tactics to covertly manipulate and control online communities.
In 2017, officials from the UK and Israel made an unprecedented confirmation of the close
relationship between the GCHQ and Israeli intelligence services.
Robert Hannigan, outgoing Director-General of the GCHQ, revealed for the first time that
his organization has a "strong partnership with our Israeli counterparts in signals
intelligence." He claimed the relationship "is protecting people from terrorism not only in
the UK and Israel but in many other countries."
Mark Regev, Israeli ambassador to the UK, commented on the close relationship between
British and Israeli intelligence agencies. During remarks at a Conservative Friends of Israel
reception, Regev opined: "I have no doubt the cooperation between our two democracies is
saving British lives."
Hannigan added that GCHQ was "building on an excellent cyber relationship with a range of
Israeli bodies and the remarkable cyber industry in Be'er Sheva."
The IDF's most important signal intelligence–gathering installation is the Urim
SIGINT Base, a part of Unit 8200, located in the Negev desert approximately 30 km from Be'er
Sheva.
Snowden revealed how Unit 8200 receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens, as part of
a secret agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency.
After his departure from GCHQ, Hannigan joined BlueteamGlobal, a cybersecurity services
firm, later re-named BlueVoyant.
BlueVoyant's board of directors includes Nadav Zafrir, former Commander of the Israel
Defense Forces' Unit 8200. The senior leadership team at BlueVoyant includes Ron Feler,
formerly Deputy Commander of the IDF's Unit 8200, and Gad Goldstein, who served as a division
head in the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet, in the rank equivalent to Major General.
In addition to their purported cybersecurity activities, Israeli. American, and British
private companies have enormous access and potential to promote government and military
deception operations.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 12:23 pm
Thanks Abe. Sounds like a manual for slave owners and con men. What a tangled wed the rich
bastards weave. The simple truth is their sworn enemy.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:19 pm
Interesting that a foreign power would be given all US communications data, which implies
that the US has seized it all without a warrant and revealed it all in violation of the
Constitution. If extensive, this use of information power amounts to information warfare
against the US by its own secret agencies in collusion with a foreign power, an act of
treason.
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:18 am
This has been going on for a LONG time, it's nothing new. I seem to recall 60 Minutes
covering it way back in the 70s(?). UK was allowed to do the snooping in the US (and, likely,
vice versa) and then providing info to the US. This way the US govt could claim that it
didn't spy/snoop on its citizens. Without a doubt Israel has been extensively intercepting
communications in the US..
Secrecy kills.
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:23 am
Yes, but the act of allowing unregulated foreign agencies unwarranted access to US
telecoms is federal crime, and it is treason when it goes so far as to allow them full
access, and even direct US bulk traffic to their spy agencies. If this is so, these people
should be prosecuted for treason.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 11:36 am
To listen to the media coverage of these events, it is tempting to believe that two
entirely different planets are being discussed. Fox comes out and says Mueller was "owned" by
Trump. Then, CNN comes out and says Trump was "owned" by Clapper. Clapper claims the evidence
is "staggering", while video clips of his testimony reveal irrefutable perjury. Some of
President Trump's policies are understandably abhorrent to Democrats, while Clinton's email
server and charity frauds are indisputably violations of Federal statutes. Democrats are
attempting to claim that a "spy" in the Trump campaign was perfectly reasonable to protect
"national security", but evidence seems to indicate that the spy was placed BEFORE there was
a legitimate national security concern. Some analysts note that, while Mueller's team appears
to be Democratic partisan hacks, their native "skill set" is actually expertise in money
laundering investigations. They claim that although Mr. Trump may not be compromised by the
Russian government, he is involved with nefarious Russian organized crime figures. It
follows, according to them, that given time, Mueller will reveal these illicit connections,
and prosecution will become inevitable.
Let's assume, for argument, that both sides are right. That means that our entire
government is irretrievably corrupt. Republicans claim that it could " go all the way to
Obama". Democrats, of course, play the "moral high ground" card, insinuating that the current
administration is so base and immoral that somehow, the "ends justify the means". No matter
how you slice it, the Clinton campaign has a lot more liability on its hands. The problem is,
if prosecutions begin, people will "talk" to save their own skins. The puppet masters can't
really afford that.
"All the way to Obama", you say? I think it could go higher than that. Personally, I think
it could go all the way to Dick Cheney, and the 'powers that be' are in no mood to let that
happen.
Vivian O'Blivion , May 31, 2018 at 12:19 pm
The issue as I see it is that from the start everyone was calling the Mueller probe an
investigation into collusion and not really grasping the catch all nature of his brief.
It's the "any matters arising " that is the real kicker. So any dodgy dealing / possible
criminal activity in the past is fair game. And this is exactly what in happening with
Manafort.
Morally you can apply the Nucky Johnson defence and state that everyone knew Trump was a
crook when they voted for him, but legally this has no value.
There is an unpleasant whiff of deep state interference with the will of the people
(electoral college). Perhaps if most bodies hadn't written Trump's chances off in such an off
hand manner, proper due diligence of his background would have uncovered any liabilities
before the election.
If there is actionable dirt, can't say I am overly sympathetic to Trump. Big prizes sometimes
come with big risks.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 5:14 pm
My own feeling from the start has been that Mueller was never going to track down any
"collusion" or "meddling" (at least not to any significant degree) because the whole,
sprawling Russia-gate narrative – to the extent one can be discerned – is
obviously phony.
But at the same time, there's no way the completely lawless, unethical Trump, along with
his scummy associates, would be able to escape that kind of scrutiny without criminal conduct
being exposed.
So far, on both scores, that still seems to me to be a likely outcome, and for my part I'm
fine with it.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 5:29 am
My thoughts exactly. Collusion was never a viable proposition because the Russians aren't
that stupid. Regardless of any personal opinion regarding the intelligence and mental
stability of Donald Snr., the people he surrounds himself with are weapons grade stupid. I
don't see the Russians touching the Trump campaign with a proverbial barge pole.
Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:26 pm
it just happens that Trump appears to have been involved (wittingly or not), with the
laundering a whole lot of Russian money and so many of his friends seem to be connected with
wealthy Russian oligarchs as well plus they are so stupid, they keep appearing to (and
probably are) obstructing justice. The Cohen thing doesn't get much attention here, but it's
significant that they have all this stuff on a guy who is clearly Trump's bagman.
Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:15 pm
There is also quite an indication that the entire Mueller investigation is a complete
smoke screen to be used as cannon fodder in the mainstream media.
On the one hand, Mueller and his hacks have found nothing of import to link Trump to
anything close to collusion with members of the Russian government. And I am by no means a
Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, except as a foil to Clinton. However, even
my minimalist expectations for Trump have not worked out either.
In addition. the Mueller investigation has been spending what appears to be a majority of
its time on ancillary matters that were not within the supposed scope and mandate of this
investigation. Further, a number of indictments have come down against people involved with
such ancillary matters.
The result is that if Mueller is going beyond the scope of his investigatory mandate, this
may come in as a technicality that will allow indicted persons to escape prosecution on
appeal.
Such a mandate, I would think, is the same thing as a police warrant, which can find only
admissible evidence covered by the warrant. Anything else found to be criminally liable must
be found to be as a result of a completely different investigation that has nothing to do
with the original warrant.
In other words, it appears that the Mueller investigation was allowed to commence under a
Republican controlled Congress for the very reason that its intent is simply to go in circles
long enough for Republicans to get their agendas through, which does not appear to be working
all too well as a result of their high levels of internecine party conflicts.
This entire affair is coming to show just how dysfunctional, corrupt, and incompetent the
entirety of the US federal government has become. And to the chagrin of all sincere
activists, no amount of organized protesting and political action will ever rid the country
of this grotesque political quagmire that now engulfs the entirety of our political
infrastructure.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:48 pm
Very true that the US federal government is now "dysfunctional, corrupt, and
incompetent."
What are your thoughts on forms of action to rid us this political quagmire?
(other than ineffective "organized protesting and political action")
Have you considered new forms of public debate and public information?
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:34 am
All of this is blackmail to hold Trump's feet to the fire of the Israel firsters (such
actions pull in all the dark swampy things). By creating the Russia blackmail story they've
effectively redirected away from themselves. The moment Trump balks the Deep State will reel
in some more, airing innuendos to overwhelm Trump. Better believe that Trump has been fully
"briefed" on all of this. John Bolton was able to push out a former OPCW head with threats
(knew where his, the OPCW head's children were). And now John Bolton is sitting right next to
Trump (whispering in his ear that he knows ways in which to oust Trump).
What actual "ideas" were in Trump's head going in to all of this (POTUS run) is hard to
say. But, anything that can be considered a threat to the Deep State has been effectively
nullified now.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:22 am
Possible, but Manafort already tried to get his charges thrown out as being the outcome of
investigations beyond the remit He failed.
Brendan , May 31, 2018 at 10:26 am
There's no doubt at all that Joseph Mifsud was closely connected with western
intelligence, and with MI6 in particular. His contacts with Russia are insignificant compared
with his long career working amongst the elite of western officials.
Lee Smith of RealClearInvestigations lists some of the places where Mifsud worked, including
two universities:
"he taught at Link Campus University in Rome, ( ) whose lecturers and professors include
senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries,
especially Italy and the United Kingdom.
Mifsud also taught at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and the London Academy of
Diplomacy, which trained diplomats and government officials, some of them sponsored by the
UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council, or by their own governments."
Two former colleagues of Mifsud's, Roh and Pastor, recently interviewed him for a book
they have written. Those authors could very well be biased, but one of them makes a valid
point, similar to one that Daniel Lazare makes above:
"Given the affiliations of Link's faculty and staff, as well as Mifsud's pedigree, Roh thinks
it's impossible that the man he hired as a business development consultant is a Russian
agent."
Politically, Mifsud identifies with the Clintons more than anyone else, and claims to
belong to the Clinton Foundation, which has often been accused of being just a way of
funneling money into Hillary Clinton's campaign.
As Lee Smith says, if Mifsud really is a Russian spy, "Western intelligence services are
looking at one of the largest and most embarrassing breaches in a generation. But none of the
governments or intelligence agencies potentially compromised is acting like there's anything
wrong."
From all that we know about Joseph Mifsud, it's safe to say that he was never a Russian
spy. If not, then what was he doing when he was allegedly feeding stories to George
Papadopoulos about Russians having 'dirt' on Clinton?
I read somewhere that Mifsud had disappeared. Was that true? If so, is he back, or still
missing?
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 6:21 pm
Here are some excerpts that will answer your question from an article by Lee Smith at
Realclearinvestigations, "The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate".
A new book by former colleagues of Mifsud's – Stephan Roh, a 50-year-old
Swiss-German lawyer, and Thierry Pastor, a 35-year-old French political analyst –
reports that he is alive and well. Their account includes a recent interview with him.
Their self-published book, "The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an
Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with Mifsud in which he denies saying
anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they write, stated "vehemently that he
never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos." Mifsud asked rhetorically: "From where
should I have this [information]?"
Mifsud's account seems to be supported by Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat who
alerted authorities about Papadopoulos. As reported in the Daily Caller, Downer said
Papadopoulos never mentioned emails; he spoke, instead, about the Russians possessing
material that could be damaging to Clinton. This new detail raises the possibility that
Mifsud, Papadopoulos' alleged source for the information, never said anything about
Clinton-related emails either.
In interviews with RealClearInvestigations, Roh and Pastor said Mifsud is anything but a
Russian spy. Rather, he is more likely a Western intelligence asset.
According to the two authors, it was a former Italian intelligence official, Vincenzo
Scotti, a colleague of Mifsud's and onetime interior minister, who told the professor to go
into hiding. "I don't know who was hiding him," said Roh, "but I'm sure it was organized by
someone. And I am sure it will be difficult to get to the bottom of it."
Toby McCrossin , June 1, 2018 at 1:54 am
" The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with
Mifsud in which he denies saying anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they
write, stated "vehemently that he never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos.""
Thank you for providing that explosive piece of information. If true, and I suspect it is,
that's one more nail in the Russiagate narrative. Who, then, is making the claim that Misfud
mentioned emails? The only source for the statement I can find is "court documents".
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:20 am
The election scams serve only to distract from the Israel-gate scandal and the oligarchy
destruction of our former democracy. Mr. Lazare neglects to tell us about that. All of
Hillary's top ten campaign bribers were zionists, and Trump let Goldman-Sachs take over the
economy. KSA and big business also bribed heavily.
We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for
democracy is lost.
We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and
foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious preference.
Otherwise the United States is lost, and our lives have no historical meaning beyond
slavery to oligarchy.
Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 9:51 am
You are right Sam. Israel does work the fence under the guise of the Breaking News.
Joe
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm
My response was that Israel massacres at the fence, ignored by the zionist US mass
media.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:48 am
The extreme wealth and privileges of oligarchy depend on the poverty and slavery of
others. Inequality of income is the root cause of most of our ills. Try to imagine what a
world of economic equals would be like. No striving for more and more wealth at the expense
of others. No wars. What would there be to fight over – everyone would be content with
what they already had.
If you automatically think such a world would be impossible, try to state why. You might
discover that the only obstacle to such a world is the greedy bastards who are sitting on top
of everybody, and will do anything to maintain their advantages.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:52 am
How do the oligarchs ensure your slavery? With the little green tickets they have hoarded
that the rest of us need just to eat and have a roof over our heads. The people sleeping in
the streets tell us the penalty for not being good slaves.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 12:50 pm
Very true, Mike. Those who say that equality or fairness of income implies breaking the
productivity incentive system are wrong. No matter how much or how little wage incentive we
offer for making an effort in work, we need not have great disparities of income. Those who
can work should have work, and we should all make an effort to do well in our work, but none
of us need the fanciest cars or grand monuments to live in, just to do our best.
Getting rid of oligarchy, and getting money out of mass media and elections, would be the
greatest achievement of our times.
Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 5:30 pm
An old socialist friend of my dad's generation who claimed to have read the biography of
Andrew Carnegie had told me over a few beers that Carnegie said, "that at a time when he was
paying his workers $5 a week he 'could' have been paying them $50 a day, but then he could
not figure out what kind of life they would lead with all that money". Think about it mike,
if his workers would have had that kind of money it would not be long before Carnegie's
workers became his competition and opened up next door to him the worst case scenario would
be his former workers would sell their steel at a cheaper price, kind of, well no exactly
like what Rockefeller did with oil, or as Carnegie did with steel innovation. How's that
saying go, keep them down on the farm . well. Remember Carnegie was a low level stooge for
the railroads at one time, and rose to the top .mike. Great point to make mike, because there
could be more to go around. Joe
Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:16 pm
"We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for
democracy is lost.
We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and
foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious
preference."
Good luck with that!!!
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:19 pm
Well, you are welcome to make suggestions on how to save the republic.
john wilson , May 31, 2018 at 9:10 am
The depths of the deep state has no limits, but as a UK citizen, I fail to see why the
American "spooks" need any help from we Brits when it comes state criminal activity. Sure, we
are masters at underhand dirty tricks, but the US has a basket full of tricks that 'Trump'
(lol) anything we've got. It was the Russians wot done mantra has been going on for many
decades and is ever good for another turn around the political mulberry tree of corruption
and underhand dealings. Whether the Democrats or the Republicans win its all the same to the
deep state as they are in control whoever is in the White House. Trump was an outsider and
there for election colour and the "ho ho ho" look what a great democracy we are, anyone can
be president. He is in fact the very essence of the 'wild card' and when he actually won
there was total confusion, panic, disbelief and probably terror in the caves and dungeons of
the deep state.
Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:33 am
I'm sure the result was so unexpected that the shadowy fixers, the IT mavens who could
have "adjusted" the numbers, were totally caught off guard and unable to do "cleanly." Not
that they didn't try to re-jigger the results in the four state recounts that were ordered,
but it was simply too late to effectively cheat at that point, as there were already massive
overvotes detected in key urban precincts. Such a thing will never happen again, I am
sure.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:36 am
It appears that UK has long had a supply of anti-Russia fearmongers, presumably backed by
its anti-socialist oligarchy as in the US. Perhaps the US oligarchy is the dumbest salesman,
who believes that all customers are even dumber, so that UK can sell Russophobia here thirty
years after the USSR.
Bob Van Noy , May 31, 2018 at 8:49 am
"But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry
observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information
about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press."
Perfect.
Recently, while trying to justify my arguement that a new investigation into the RFK Killing
was necessary, I was asked why I thought that, and my response was "Modus operandi," exactly
what Robert Parry learned by experience, and that is the fundamental similarity to all of the
institutionalized crime that takes place by the IC. Once one realizes the literary approach
to disinformation that was fundamental to Alan Dulles, James Jesus Angleton, even Ian
Fleming, one can easily see the Themes being applied. I suppose that the very feature of
believability offered by propaganda, once recognized, becomes its undoing. That could be our
current reality; the old Lines simply are beginning to appear to be ridiculous
Thank you Daniel Lazar.
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:39 am
The recognition of themes of propaganda as literary themes and modus operandi is helping
to discredit propaganda. The similarities of the CW false-flag operations (Iraq, Syria, and
UK), and the fake assassinations (Skripal and Babchenko) by the anti-Russia crowd help reveal
and persuade on the falsehood of the Iraq WMD, Syria CW, and MH-17 propaganda ops. Just as
the similarities of the JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations persuade us that commonalities exist long
before we see evidence.
Bob Van Noy , June 1, 2018 at 1:11 pm
Many thanks Sam F for recognizing that. As we begin to achieve a resolution of the 60's
Kllings, we can begin to see the general and specific themes utilized to direct the programs
of Assassination. The other aspect is that real investigation Never followed; and that took
Real Power.
In a truly insightful book by author Sally Denton entitled "The Profiteers" she puts
together a very cogent theory that it isn't the Mafia, it's the Syndicate, which means (for
me at least) real, criminal power with somewhat divergent interests ok with one another, to
the extent that they can maintain their Own Turf. I think that's a profound insight
Too, in a similar vain, the Grand Deceptions of American Foreign Policy, "scenarios" are
simply and only that, not a Real possible solution. Always resulting in failure
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 9:23 pm
Yes, it is difficult to determine the structure of a subculture of gangsterism in power,
which can have many specialized factions in loose cooperation, agreeing on some general
policy points, like benefits for the rich, hatred of socialism, institutionalized bribery of
politicians and judges, militarized policing, destruction of welfare and social security,
deregulation of everything, essentially the neocon/neolib line of the DemReps. The party line
of oligarchy in any form.
Indeed the foreign policy of such gangsters is designed to "fail" because destruction of
cultures, waste, and fragmentation most efficiently exploits the bribery structure available,
and serves the anti-socialist oligarchy. Failure of the declared foreign policy is success,
because that is only propaganda to cover the corruption.
You know, not only Gay Trowdy but even Dracula Napolitano think people like Lazare ,
McGovern, etc. are overblown on this issue.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 1:47 pm
SocraticGadfly – Trey Gowdy hasn't even seen the documents yet, so he's hardly in a
position to say anything. The House Intelligence Committee, under Chairman Nunes, are being
stymied by the FBI and the Department of Justice who are refusing to hand over documents.
Refusing! Refusing to disclose documents to the very people who, by law, have oversight.
Nunes is threatening to hit them with Contempt of Congress.
Let's see the documents. Then Trey Gowdy can open his mouth.
What I take from this head spinning article is the paragraph about Carter Page.
"On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in
which he complained that "Washington and other western capitals have impeded potential
progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality,
corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "unease" that someone representing
the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's side in a growing neo-Cold War
Mr. Page hit the nail on the head. There is no greater sin to entrenched power than to
spell out what is going on with Russia. It helps us understand why terms like dupe and
naïve were stuck on Carter Page's back.. Truth to power is not always good for your
health.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:07 am
The tyrant accuses of disloyalty, all who question the reality of his foreign
monsters.
And so do his monster-fighting agencies, whose budgets depend upon the fiction.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 am
Daniel Lazare – good report. "It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth
degree." This wasn't a case of paranoia. This was a blatant attempt to bring down a rival
opponent and, failing that, the President of the United States. This was intentional and
required collusion between top officials of the government. They fabricated the phony Steele
dossier (paid for by the Clinton campaign), exonerated Hillary Clinton, and then went to town
on bringing down Trump.
"Was George Popodopolous set up?" Of course he was. Set up a patsy in order to give you
reason to carry out a phony investigation.
"If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged
themselves to notice." They're not befogged; they're following orders (the major television
and newspaper outfits). Without their 24/7 spin and lies, Russiagate would never have been
kept alive.
These guys got the biggest surprise of their life when Hillary Clinton lost the election.
None of this would have come out had she won. During the campaign, as Trump gained in the
polls, she was heard to say, "If they ever find out what we've done, we'll all hang."
I hope they see jail time for what they've done.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:38 am
Apparently what has come out so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Some are saying this
could lead all the way up to Obama. I hope not, but they have certainly done all they can to
ruin the Trump Presidency.
JohnM , May 31, 2018 at 9:58 am
I'm adjusting my tinfoil hat right now. I'm wondering if Skripal had something to do with
the Steel dossier. The iceberg may be even bigger than thought.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:18 am
It is known that Skripal's close friend living nearby was an employee of Steele's firm
Orbis.
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 2:58 pm
Exactly, his name is Pablo Miller and he is the MI6 agent who initially recruited Sergei
Skripal. Miller worked for Orbis, Steele's company and listed that in his resume on LinkedIn
but later deleted it. But once it's on the internet it can always be found and it was and it
was published.
robjira , May 31, 2018 at 2:13 pm
John, both Moon Of Alabama and OffGuardian have had excellent coverage of the Skripal
affair. Informed opinions wonder if Sergei Skripal was one of Steele's "Russian sources," and
that he may have been poisoned for the purpose of either a) bolstering the whole "Russia =
evil" narrative, or b) a warning not to ask for more than what he may have conceivably
received for any contribution he may or may not have made to the "dossiere."
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:20 am
Interesting details in this article, but we have known this whole Russiagate affair was a
scam from the get go. It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over
Hillary. The chagrined dems came together and concocted their sore loser alibi – the
Russians did it. They scooped up a lot of pre-election dirt, rolled it into a ball and
directed it at Trump. It is a testament to the media's determination to stick with their
story, that in spite of not a single scrap of real evidence after over a year of digging by a
huge team of democratic hit men and women, this ridiculous story still has supporters.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 10:31 am
"It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over Hillary."
Not so.
Daniel Lazare's first link in the above piece is to Paul Krugman's July 22, 2016 NY Times
op-ed, "Donald Trump, the Siberian Candidate". (Note how that headline doesn't even bother to
employ a question mark.)
I appreciate that that Krugman column gets pride of place here since I distinctly remember
reading it in my copy of the Times that day, months before the election, and my immediate
reaction to it: nonplussed that such a risible thesis was being aired so prominently, along
with a deep realization that this was only the first shot in what would be a co-ordinated
media disinformation campaign, à la Saddam's WMDs.
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 3:37 pm
Actually, I think the intelligence agencies' (CIA/FBI/DNI) plan started shortly after
Trump gave the names of Page and Papadopoulos to the Washington Post (CIA annex) in a meeting
on March 21, 2016 outlining his foreign policy team.
Carter Page (Naval Academy distinguished graduate and Naval intelligence officer) in 2013
worked as an "under-cover employee" of the FBI in a case that convicted Evgeny Buryakov and
it was reported that he was still an UCE in March of 2016. The FBI never charged or even
hinted that Page was anything but innocent and patriotic. However, in October 2016 the FBI
told the FISA Court that he was a spy to support spying on him. Remember the FISA Court
allows spying on him AND the persons he is in contact, which means almost everyone on the
Trump transition team/administration.
Here is an excerpt from an article by WSJ's Kimberley Strassel:
In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National
Security Council Principals" that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump
campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort
joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had
previously been on the radar of law enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing,
Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had
eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such
explosive information.
And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton
campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Most interesting, Chet Roman. Thanks.
My understanding is that Trump more or less pulled Page's name out of a hat to show the
WashPost that he had a "foreign policy team", and thus that his campaign wasn't just a hollow
sham, but that at that point he really had had no significant contact at all with Page
– maybe hadn't even met him. It was just a name from his new political world that
sprang to "mind" (or the Trumpian equivalent).
Of course, the Trump campaign *was* just a sham, by conventional Beltway standards: a
ramshackle road show with no actual "foreign policy team", or any other policy team.
So maybe that random piece of B.S. from Trump has caused him a heap of trouble. This is
part of why – no matter how bogus "Russia-gate" is – I just can't bring myself to
feel sorry for old Cheeto Dust.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 6:56 am
Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal had some good advice:
"Mr. Trump has an even quicker way to bring the hostility to an end.
He can – and should – declassify everything possible, letting Congress and the
public see the truth.
That would put an end to the daily spin and conspiracy theories. It would puncture
Democratic arguments that the administration is seeking to gain this information only for
itself, to "undermine" an investigation.
And it would end the Justice Department's campaign of secrecy, which has done such harm to
its reputation with the public and with Congress."
What do you bet he does?
RickD , May 31, 2018 at 6:44 am
I have serious doubts about the article's veracity. There seems to be a thread running
through it indicating an attempt to whitewash any Russian efforts to get Trump elected. To
dismiss all the evidence of such efforts, and , despite this author's words, there is enough
such evidence, seems more than a bit partisan.
What evidence? I've seen none so far. A lot of claims that there is such evidence but no
one seems to ever say what it is.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:06 am
RickD – thanks for the good laugh before bedtime. I'm with Mr. Merrell and I
actually want to see some evidence. Maybe it was Professor Halper in the kitchen with the
paring knife.
Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:21 am
Unfortunately, what this guy says is what most Americans still seem to believe. When I ask
people what is the actual hard evidence for "Russiagate" (because I don't know of any that
has been corroborated), I get a response that there have been massive examples of Russian
hacks, Russian posts, tweets and internet adverts–all meant to sabotage Hillary's
candidacy, and very effective, mind you. Putin has been an evil genius worthy of a comic book
villain (to date myself, a regular Lex Luthor). Sez who, ask I? Sez the trustworthy American
media that would never lie to the public, sez they. You know, professional paragons of virtue
like Rachel Maddow and her merry band.
Nobody seems aware of the recent findings about Halpern, none seem to have a realistic
handle on the miniscule scope of the Russian "offenses" against American democracy. Rachel,
the NY Times and WaPo have seen to that with their sins of both commission and omission. Even
the Republican party is doing a half-hearted job of defending its own power base with
rigorous and openly disseminated fact checking. It's like even many of the committee chairs
with long seniority are reluctant to buck the conventional narrative peddled by the media.
Many have chosen to retire rather than fight the media and the Deep State. What's a better
interpretation of events? Or is one to believe that the silent voices, curious retirements
and political heat generated by the Dems, the prosecutors and the media are all independent
variables with no connections? These old pols recognise a good demonizing when they see it,
especially when directed at them.
Personally, I think that not only the GOPers should be fighting like the devil to expose
the truth (which should benefit them in this circumstance) but so should the media and all
the watchdog agencies (ngo's) out there because our democracy WAS hijacked, but it was NOT by
the Russians. Worse than that, it was done by internal domestic enemies of the people who
must be outed and punished to save the constitution and the republic, if it is not too late.
All the misinformation by influential insiders and the purported purveyors of truth
accompanied by the deliberate silence by those who should be chirping like birds suggests it
may well be far too late.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:53 pm
Realist – a most excellent post! Some poll result I read about the other day
mentioned that well over half of the American public do NOT believe what they are being told
by the media. That was good to hear. But you are right, there are still way too many who
never question anything. If I ever get in trouble, I wouldn't want those types on my jury.
They'd be wide awake during the prosecution's case and fast asleep during my defense.
This is the Swamp at work on both sides of the aisle. Most of the Republicans are hanging
Trump out to dry. They've probably got too much dirt they want to keep hidden themselves, so
retirement looks like a good idea. Get out of Dodge while the going is good, before the real
fighting begins! The Democrats are battling for all they're worth, and I've got to hand it to
them – they're dirty little fighters.
Yes, democracy has been hijacked. Hard to say how long this has been going on –
maybe forever. If there is anything good about Trump's presidency, it's that the Deep State
is being laid out and delivered up on a silver platter for all to see.
There has never been a better chance to take back the country than this. If this
opportunity passes, it will never come again. They will make sure of it.
The greatest thing that Trump could do for the country would be to declassify all
documents. Jeff Sessions is either part of the Deep State or he's been scared off. He's not
going to act. Rosenstein is up to his eyeballs in this mess and he's not going to act. In
fact, he's preventing Nunes from getting documents. It is up to Trump to act. I just hope
he's not being surrounded by a bunch of bad apple lawyers who are giving him bad advice. He
needs to go above the Department of Justice and declassify ALL documents. If he did that, a
lot of these people would probably die of a heart attack within a minute.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:11 am
You sure came out of the woodwork quickly to express your "serious doubts" RickD.
Skip Scott , May 31, 2018 at 8:07 am
Please provide "such evidence". I've yet to see any. The entire prosecution of RussiaGate
has been one big Gish Gallop.
strgr-tgther , May 31, 2018 at 9:39 pm
RickD – Thank you for pointing that out! You were the only one!!! It is a very
strange article leaving Putin and the Russians evidence out and also not a single word about
Stromy Daniels witch is also very strange. I know Hillary would never have approved of any of
this and they don't say that either.
John , June 1, 2018 at 2:26 am
What does Stormy Daniels have to do with RussiaGate?
You know that someone who committed the ultimate war crime by lying us into war to destroy
Libya and re-institute slavery there, and who laughed after watching video of a man that
Nelson Mandela called "The Greatest Living Champion of Human Rights on the Planet" be
sodomized to death with a knife, is somehow too "moral" to do such a thing? Really?
It amazes me how utterly cultish those who support the Red Queen have shown themselves to
be – without apparently realizing that they are obviously on par with the followers of
Jim Jones!
strgr-tgther , June 1, 2018 at 12:17 pm
That is like saying what does income tax have to do with Al Capone. Who went to Alctraz
because he did not pay income tax not for being a gangster. So we know Trump has sexual
relations with Stormy Daniels, then afterward PAID her not to talk about it. So he paid Story
Daniels for sex! That is Prostitution! Same thing. And that is inpeachable, using womens
bodies as objects. If we don't prosecute Trump here then from now on all a John needs to say
to the police is that he was not paying for sex but paying to keep quiet about it. And
Cogress can get Trump for prostitution and disgracing the office of President. Without Russia
investigations we would never have found out about this important fact, so that is what it
has to do with Russia Gate.
"... That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say. ..."
"... The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack. ..."
"... "No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.] ..."
"... "Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since . ..."
"... "More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi." ..."
"... The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ] ..."
"... Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers. ..."
"... The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. ..."
"... I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply." ..."
"... There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths. ..."
"... Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another ..."
"... (FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed. ..."
"... Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden. ..."
"... Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again. ..."
"... Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham. ..."
"... Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams. ..."
"... Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." ..."
"... For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy. ..."
"... Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known. ..."
"... There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings. ..."
"... Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH- ..."
"... Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face? ..."
"... If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars. ..."
"... My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody? ..."
If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked
into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand
close scrutiny . It
could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to
investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with
WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- including two "alumni" who were former
National Security Agency technical directors -- have long since concluded that Julian Assange
did not acquire what he called the "emails related to Hillary Clinton" via a "hack" by the
Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access
to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage
device -- probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained
this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.
On January 18, 2017 President Obama admitted
that the "conclusions" of U.S. intelligence regarding how the alleged Russian hacking got to
WikiLeaks were "inconclusive." Even the vapid FBI/CIA/NSA "Intelligence Community Assessment of
Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections" of January 6, 2017, which tried to
blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference, contained
no direct evidence of Russian involvement. That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of
that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian
intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to
WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say.
Never mind. The FBI/CIA/NSA "assessment" became bible truth for partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff
(D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who was among the first off the
blocks to blame Russia for interfering to help Trump. It simply could not have been that
Hillary Clinton was quite capable of snatching defeat out of victory all by herself. No, it had
to have been the Russians.
Five days into the Trump presidency, I had a chance to
challenge Schiff personally on the gaping disconnect between the Russians and WikiLeaks.
Schiff still "can't share the evidence" with me or with anyone else, because it does not
exist.
WikiLeaks
It was on June 12, 2016, just six weeks before the Democratic National Convention, that
Assange announced the pending publication of "emails related to Hillary Clinton," throwing the
Clinton campaign into panic mode, since the emails would document strong bias in favor of
Clinton and successful attempts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders. When the emails
were published on July 22, just three days before the convention began, the campaign decided to
create what I call a Magnificent Diversion, drawing attention away from the substance of the
emails by blaming Russia for their release.
Clinton's PR chief Jennifer Palmieri later admitted that she golf-carted around to various
media outlets at the convention with instructions "to get the press to focus on something even
we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails
from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton." The
diversion worked like a charm. Mainstream media kept shouting "The Russians did it," and gave
little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves. And like Brer'
Fox, Bernie didn't say nothin'.
Meanwhile, highly sophisticated technical experts, were hard at work fabricating "forensic
facts" to "prove" the Russians did it. Here's how it played out:
June 12, 2016: Assange announces that WikiLeaks is about to publish "emails related to
Hillary Clinton."
June 14, 2016: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple
conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there
is evidence it was injected by Russians.
June 15, 2016: "Guccifer 2.0" affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the
"hack;" claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was
synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."
The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a
pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish
and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack.
Enter Independent Investigators
A year ago independent cyber-investigators completed the kind of forensic work that, for
reasons best known to then-FBI Director James Comey, neither he nor the "handpicked analysts"
who wrote the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment bothered to do. The independent investigators found
verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of an alleged Russian hack of July 5,
2016 showing that the "hack" that day of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or
anyone else.
Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for
example) by an insider -- the same process used by the DNC insider/leaker before June 12, 2016
for an altogether different purpose. (Once the metadata was found and the "fluid dynamics"
principle of physics applied, this was not difficult to
disprove the validity of the claim that Russia was responsible.)
One of these independent investigators publishing under the name of The Forensicator on May
31
published new evidence that
the Guccifer 2.0 persona uploaded a document from the West Coast of the United States, and not
from Russia.
In our July 24, 2017 Memorandum to President Donald Trump we stated ,
"We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI."
Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be
related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this
general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA
documents that WikiLeaks labeled 'Vault 7.' WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or
former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the
information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.
"No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which
disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's
Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital
Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned
President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.]
Marbled
"Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it
race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described
and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part
3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too
delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has
never been mentioned since .
"The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima, it seems, 'did not get the memo' in time. Her March
31
article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: 'WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA
cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.'
"The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use
'obfuscation,' and that Marble source code includes a "de-obfuscator" to reverse CIA text
obfuscation.
"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post
report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by
WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution
double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian,
Korean, Arabic and Farsi."
A few weeks later William Binney, a former NSA technical, and I commented on
Vault 7 Marble, and were able to get a shortened op-ed version
published in The Baltimore Sun
The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was
neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his
associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a
non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24
Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like
it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we
know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and
with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [
President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017
VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together
at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary
straightforwardness. ]
We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin.
In his interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager
– to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7
disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today's
technology enables hacking to be 'masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can
understand the origin' [of the hack] And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or
any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.
"'Hackers may be anywhere,' he said. 'There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States
who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can't you imagine such a
scenario? I can.'
New attention has been drawn to these issues after I discussed them in a widely published
16-minute
interview last Friday.
In view of the highly politicized environment surrounding these issues, I believe I must
append here the same notice that VIPS felt compelled to add to our key Memorandum of July 24,
2017:
"Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in
the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we
add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political
agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our
former intelligence colleagues.
"We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say
and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." The fact we find it
is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Savior in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer before serving as
a CIA analyst for 27 years. His duties included preparing, and briefing one-on-one, the
President's Daily Brief.
ThomasGilroy , June 9, 2018 at 9:44 am
"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post
report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by
WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic
attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in
Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."
Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of
choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies.
MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to
blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the
supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US
allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not
capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of
the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during
the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis
could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth
Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted
by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers.
The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the
CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. It must be the Gulf of Tonkin all
over again. While Crowdstrike might have a "dubious professional record and multiple
conflicts of interest", their results were also confirmed by several other cyber-security
firms (Wikipedia):
cybersecurity experts and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant,
SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica, have rejected the claims of
"Guccifer 2.0" and have determined, on the basis of substantial evidence, that the
cyberattacks were committed by two Russian state-sponsored groups (Cozy Bear and Fancy
Bear).
Then there was Papadopoulas who coincidentally was given the information that Russia had
"dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Obviously, they were illegally
obtained (unless this was another CIA false flag operation). This was before the release of
the emails by WikiLeaks. This was followed by the Trump Tower meeting with Russians with
connections to the Russian government and the release of the emails by WikiLeaks shortly
thereafter. Additionally, Russia had the motive to defeat HRC and elect Trump. Yesterday,
Trump pushed for the reinstatement of Russia at the G-7 summit. What a shock! All known
evidence and motive points the finger directly at Russia.
Calling everything a false flag operation is really the easy way out, but ultimately, it
lets the responsible culprits off of the hook.
anon , June 9, 2018 at 11:28 am
I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed
out" propaganda.
One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not.
No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin
supply."
CitizenOne , June 8, 2018 at 11:40 pm
There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence
agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false
flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false
flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible
to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths.
In pre computer technology days there were also many false flags which were set up to
create real world scenarios which suited the geopolitical agenda. Even today, there are many
examples of tactical false flag operations either organized and orchestrated or utilized by
the intelligence agencies to create the narrative which supports geopolitical objectives.
Examples:
The US loaded munitions in broad daylight visible to German spies onto the passenger ship
Lusitania despite German warnings that they would torpedo any vessels suspected of carrying
munitions. The Lusitania then proceeded to loiter unaccompanied by escorts in an area off the
Ireland coast treading over the same waters until it was spotted by a German U-Boat and was
torpedoed. This was not exactly a false flag since the German U-Boat pulled the trigger but
it was required to gain public support for the entrance of the US into WWI. It worked.
There is evidence that the US was deliberately caught "off guard" in the Pearl Harbor
Attack. Numerous coded communication intercepts were made but somehow the advanced warning
radar on the island of Hawaii was mysteriously turned off in the hours before and during the
Japanese attack which guaranteed that the attack would be successful and also guaranteed that
our population would instantly sign on to the war against Japan. It worked.
There is evidence that the US deliberately ignored the intelligence reports that UBL was
planning to conduct an attack on the US using planes as bombs. The terrorists who carried out
the attacks on the twin towers were "allowed" to conduct them. The result was the war in Iraq
which was sold based on a pack of lies about WMDs and which we used to go to war with
Iraq.
The Tonkin Gulf incident which historians doubt actually happened or believe if it did was
greatly exaggerated by intelligence and military sources was used to justify the war in
Vietnam.
The Spanish American War was ginned up by William Randolph Hearst and his yellow
journalism empire to justify attacking Cuba, Panama and the Philippines. The facts revealed
by forensic analysis of the exploded USS Maine have shown that the cataclysm was caused by a
boiler explosion not an enemy mine. At the time this was also widely believed to not be
caused by a Spanish mine in the harbor but the news sold the story of Spanish treachery and
war was waged.
In each case of physical false flags created on purpose, or allowed to happen or just made
up by fictions based on useful information that could be manipulated and distorted the US was
led to war. Some of these wars were just wars and others were wars of choice but in every
case a false flag was needed to bring the nation into a state where we believed we were under
attack and under the circumstances flocked to war. I will not be the judge of history or
justice here since each of these events had both negative and positive consequences for our
nation. What I will state is that it is obvious that the willingness to allow or create or
just capitalize on the events which have led to war are an essential ingredient. Without a
publicly perceived and publicly supported cause for war there can be no widespread support
for war. I can also say our leaders have always known this.
Enter the age of technology and the computer age with the electronic contraptions which
enable global communication and commerce.
Is it such a stretch to imagine that the governments desire to shape world events based on
military actions would result in a plan to use these modern technologies to once again create
in our minds a cyber scenario in which we are once again as a result of the "cyber" false
flag prepared for us to go to war? Would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that the
government would use the new electronic frontier just as it used the old physical world
events to justify military action?
Again, I will not go on to condemn any action by our military but will focus on how did we
get there and how did we arrive at a place where a majority favored war.
Whether created by physical or cyberspace methods we can conclude that such false flags
will happen for better or worse in any medium available.
susan sunflower , June 8, 2018 at 7:52 pm
I'd like "evidence" and I'd also like "context" since apparently international electoral
"highjinks" and monkey-wrenching and rat-f*cking have a long tradition and history (before
anyone draws a weapon, kills a candidate or sicc's death squads on the citizenry.
The DNC e-mail publication "theft" I suspect represents very small small potatoes for so
many reasons As Dixon at Black Agenda Report put it . Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism
writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked"
to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another
(FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund
marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy
targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is
able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and
printed.
Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as
source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal
State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden.
Skip Scott , June 8, 2018 at 1:07 pm
I can't think of any single piece of evidence that our MSM is under the very strict
control of our so-called intelligence agencies than how fast and completely the Vault 7
releases got flushed down the memory hole. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."
I don't think anyone can predict whether or not Sanders would have won as a 3rd party
candidate. He ran a remarkable campaign, but when he caved to the Clinton machine he lost a
lot of supporters, including me. If he had stood up at the convention and talked of the DNC
skullduggery exposed by Wikileaks, and said "either I run as a democrat, or I run as a Green,
but I'm running", he would have at least gotten 15 pct to make the TV debates, and who knows
what could have happened after that. 40 pct of registered voters didn't vote. That alone
tells you it is possible he might have won.
Instead he expected us to follow him like he was the f'ing Pied Piper to elect another
Wall St. loving warmonger. That's why he gets no "pass" from me. He (and the Queen of Chaos)
gave us Trump. BTW, Obama doesn't get a "pass" either.
willow , June 8, 2018 at 9:24 pm
It's all about the money. A big motive for the DNC to conjure up Russia-gate was to keep
donors from abandoning any future
Good Ship Hillary or other Blue Dog Democrat campaigns: "Our brand/platform wasn't flawed. It
was the Rooskies."
Vivian O'Blivion , June 8, 2018 at 8:22 am
An earlier time line.
March 14th. Popadopoulos has first encounter with Mifsud.
April 26th. Mifsud tells Popadopoulos that Russians have "dirt" on Clinton, including "thousands of e-mails".
May 4th. Trump last man standing in Republican primary.
May 10th. Popadopoulos gets drunk with London based Australian diplomat and talks about "dirt" but not specifically
e-mails.
June 9th. Don. Jr meets in Trump tower with Russians promising "dirt" but not specifically in form of e-mails.
It all comes down to who Mifsud is, who he is working for and why he has been "off grid" to journalists (but not presumably
Intelligence services) for > 6 months.
Specific points.
On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump but this was not announced to the
(presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet.
The Australian diplomat broke chain of command by reporting the drunken conversation to the State Department as opposed to his
domestic Intelligence service. If Mifsud was a western asset, Australian Intelligence would likely be aware of his status.
If Mifsud was a Russian asset why would demonstrably genuine Russians be trying to dish up the dirt on Clinton in June?
There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the
unlikely event that he went on to win.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:28 pm
Ms. Clinton was personally trying to tar Trump with allusions to "Russia" and being
"Putin's puppet" long before he won the presidency, in fact, quite conspicuously during the
two conventions and most pointedly during the debates. She was willing to use that ruse long
before her defeat at the ballot box. It was the straw that she clung to and was willing to
use as a pretext for overturning the election after the unthinkable happened. But, you are
right, smearing Trump through association with Russia was part of her long game going back to
the early primaries, especially since her forces (both in politics and in the media) were
trying mightily to get him the nomination under the assumption that he would be the easiest
(more like the only) Republican candidate that she could defeat come November.
Wcb , June 8, 2018 at 5:25 pm
Steven Halper?
Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:33 am
I might add to this informative article that the reason why Julian Assange has been
ostracized and isolated from any public appearance, denied a cell phone, internet and
visitors is that he tells the truth, and TPTB don't want him to say yet again that the emails
were leaked from the DNC. I've heard him say it several times. H. Clinton was so shocked and
angry that she didn't become president as she so confidently expected that her, almost
knee-jerk, reaction was to find a reason that was outside of herself on which to blame her
defeat. It's always surprised me that no one talks about what was in those emails which
covered her plans for Iran and Russia (disgusting).
Trump is a sociopath, but the Russians had nothing to do with him becoming elected. I was
please to read here that he or perhaps just Pompeo? met with Binney. That's a good thing,
though Pompeo, too, is unstable and war hungry to follow Israel into bombing yet another
innocent sovereign country. Thank, Mr. McGovern for another excellent coverage of this
story.
MLS , June 7, 2018 at 9:59 pm
"no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team"
Do tell, Ray: How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation –
with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not
done?
strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:14 am
MLS: Thank you! No one stands up for what is right any more. We have 17 Intelligency
agencies that say are election was stolen. And just last week the Republicans Paul Ryan,
Mitch McConnel and Trey Gowdy (who I detest) said the FBI and CIA and NSA were just doing
there jobs the way ALL AMERICANS woudl want them to. And even Adam Schiff, do you think he
will tell any reporter what evidence he does have? #1 It is probably classified and #2 he is
probably saving it for the inpeachment. We did not find out about the Nixon missing 18
minutes until the end anyways. All of these articles sound like the writer just copied Sean
Hannity and wrote everything down he said, and yesterday he told all suspects in the Mueller
investigation to Smash and Bleach there mobile devices, witch is OBSTRUCTION of justice and
witness TAMPERING. A great American there!
Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:48 am
strgr-tgther:
Sean Hannity??? Ha, ha, ha.
As Mr. McGoven wrote .."any resemblance between what we say and what presidents,
politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."
John , June 8, 2018 at 5:48 am
Sorry I had to come back and point out the ultimate irony of ANYONE who supports the
Butcher of Libya complaining about having an election stolen from them (after the blatant
rigging of the primary that caused her to take the nomination away from the ONE PERSON who
was polling ahead of Trump beyond the margin of error of the polls.)
It is people like you who gave us Trump. The Pied Piper Candidate promoted by the DNC
machine (as the emails that were LEAKED, not "hacked", as the metadata proves conclusively,
show.)
incontinent reader , June 8, 2018 at 7:14 am
What is this baloney? Seventeen Intelligence agencies DID NOT conclude what you are
alleging, And in fact, Brennan and his cabal avoided using a National intelligence Estimate,
which would have shot down his cherry-picked 'assessment' before it got off the ground
– and it would have been published for all to read.
The NSA has everything on everybody, yet has never released anything remotely indicating
Russian collusion. Do you think the NSA Director, who, as you may recall, did not give a
strong endorsement to the Brennan-Comey assessment, would have held back from the Congress
such information, if it had existed, when he was questioned? Furthermore, former technical
directors of the NSA, Binney, Wiebe and Loomis- the very best of the best- have proven
through forensics that the Wikileaks disclosures were not obtained by hacking the DNC
computers, but by a leak, most likely to a thumb drive on the East Coast of the U.S. How many
times does it have to be laid out for you before you are willing and able to absorb the
facts?
As for Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, (and Trey Gowdy, who was quite skilled on the
Benghazi and the Clinton private email server investigations- investigations during which
Schiff ran interference for Clinton- but has seemed unwilling to digest the Strozk, Page,
McCabe, et al emails and demand a Bureau housecleaning), who cares what they think or say,
what matters is the evidence.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with the facts- and start by rereading Ray's articles,
and the piece by Joe diGenova posted on Ray's website.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:12 pm
The guy's got Schiff for brains. Everyone who cares about the truth has known since before
Mueller started his charade that the "17 intelligence agency" claim was entirely a ruse,
bald-faced confected propaganda to anger the public to support the coup attempted by Ms.
Clinton and her zombie followers. People are NOT going to support the Democratic party now or
in the future when its tactics include subverting our public institutions, including the
electoral process under the constitution–whether you like the results or not! If the
Democratic party is to be saved, those honest people still in it should endeavor to drain the
septic tank that has become their party before we can all drain the swamp that is the federal
government and its ex-officio manipulators (otherwise known as the "deep state") in
Washington.
Farmer Pete , June 8, 2018 at 7:30 am
"We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen."
You opened up with a talking point that is factually incorrect. The team of hand-picked
spooks that slapped the "high confidence" report together came from 3 agencies. I know, 17
sounds like a lot and very convincing to us peasants. Regardless, it's important to practice
a few ounces of skepticism when it comes to institutions with a long rap sheet of crime and
deception. Taking their word for it as a substitute for actual observable evidence is naive
to say the least. The rest of your hollow argument is filled with "probably(s)". If I were
you, I'd turn off my TV and stop looking for scapegoats for an epically horrible presidential
campaign and candidate.
strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:50 pm
/horrible presidential campaign and candidate/ Say you. But we all went to sleep
comfortable the night before the election where 97% of all poles said Clinton was going to be
are next President. And that did not happen! So Robert Mueller is going to find out EXACTLY
why. Stay tuned!!!
irina , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Not 'all'. I knew she was toast after reading that she had cancelled her election night
fireworks
celebration, early on the morning of Election Day. She must have known it also, too.
And she was toast in my mind after seeing the ridiculous scene of her virtual image
'breaking the glass ceiling' during the Democratic Convention. So expensively stupid.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm
Mueller is simply orchestrating a dramatic charade to distract you from the obvious reason
why she lost: Trump garnered more electoral votes, even after the popular votes were counted
and recounted. Any evidence of ballot box stuffing in the key states pointed to the
Democrats, so they gave that up. She and her supporters like you have never stopped trying to
hoodwink the public either before or after the election. Too many voters were on to you,
that's why she lost.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Indeed, stop the nonsense which can't be changed short of a coup d'etat, and start
focusing on opposing the bad policy which this administration has been pursuing. I don't see
the Dems doing that even in their incipient campaigns leading up to the November elections.
Fact is, they are not inclined to change the policies, which are the same ones that got them
"shellacked" at the ballot box in 2016. (I think Obama must own lots of stock in the shellack
trade.)
Curious , June 8, 2018 at 6:27 pm
Ignorance of th facts keep showing up in your posts for some unknown reason. Sentence two:
"we have 17 intelligency (sic) agencies that say ". this statement was debunked a long time
ago.
Have you learned nothing yet regarding the hand-picked people out of three agencies after all
this time? Given that set of lies it makes your post impossible to read.
I would suggest a review of what really happened before you perpetuate more myths and this
will benefit all.
Also, a good reading of the Snowden Docs and vault 7 should scare you out of your shell since
our "intelligeny" community can pretend to be Chinese, Russian, Iranian just for starters,
and the blame game can start after hours instead of the needed weeks and/or months to
determine the veracity of a hack and/or leak.
It's past trying to win you over with the actual 'time lines' and truths. Mr McGovern has
re-emphasized in this article the very things you should be reading.
Start with Mr Binney and his technical evaluation of the forensics in the DNC docs and build
out from there This is just a suggestion.
What never ceases to amaze me in your posts is the 'issue' that many of the docs were
bought and paid for by the Clinton team, and yet amnesia has taken over those aspects as
well. Shouldn't you start with the Clintons paying for this dirt before it was ever
attributed to Trump?
Daniel , June 8, 2018 at 6:38 pm
Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on
their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their
"investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry
picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again.
More than 1/2 of their report was about RT, and even though that was all easily viewable
public record, they got huge claims wrong. Basically, the best they had was that RT covered
Occupy Wall Street and the NO DAPL and BLM protests, and horror of horrors, aired third party
debates! In a democracy! How dare they?
Why didn't FBI subpoena DNC's servers so they could run their own forensics on them? Why
did they just accept the claims of a private company founded by an Atlantic Council board
member? Did you know that CrowdStrike had to backpedal on the exact same claim they made
about the DNC server when Ukraine showed they were completely wrong regarding Ukie
artillery?
Joe Lauria , June 8, 2018 at 2:12 am
Until he went incommunicado Assange stated on several occasions that he was never
questioned by Muellers team. Craig Murray has said the same. And Kim Dotcom has written to
Mueller offering evidence about the source and he says they have never replied to him.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to
divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the
truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's
activities are a complete sham.
MLS wrote, "How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's
investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks
– has and has not done?"
Robert Mueller is NOT a Special Prosecutor appointed by the Congress. He is a special
counsel appointed by the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and is part of the
Department of Justice.
I know no one who dislikes Trumps wants to hear it. But all Mueller's authority and power
to act is derived from Donald J. Trump's executive authority because he won the 2016
presidential election. Mueller is down the chain of command in the Executive Department.
That's why this is all nonsense. What we basically have is Trump investigating himself.
The framers of the Constitution never intended this. They intended Congress to investigate
the Executive and that's why they gave Congress the power to remove him or her via
impeachment.
As long as we continue with this folly of expecting the Justice Department to somehow
investigate and prosecute a president we end up with two terrible possibilities. Either a
corrupt president will exercise his legitimate authority to end the investigation like Nixon
did -or- we have a Deep State beyond the reach of the elected president that can effectively
investigate and prosecute a corrupt president, but also then has other powers with no
democratic control.
The solution to this dilemma? An empowered Congress elected by the People operating as the
Constitution intended.
As to the rest of your post? It is an example of the "will to believe." Me? I'll not act
as if there is evidence of Russian interference until I'm shown evidence, not act as if it
must be true, because I want to believe that, until it's fully proven that it didn't
happen.
F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 8:22 pm
There must be some Trump-Russia ties.
Or so claim those CIA spies-
McCabe wants a deal, or else he won't squeal,
He'll dissemble when he testifies!
No one knows what's on Huma's computer.
There's no jury and no prosecutor.
Poor Adam Schiff hopes McCabe takes the fifth,
Special council might someday recruit her!
Assange is still embassy bound.
Mueller's case hasn't quite come unwound.
Wayne Madsen implies that there might be some ties,
To Israelis they haven't yet found!
Halper and Mifsud are players.
John Brennan used cutouts in layers.
If the scheme falls apart and the bureau is smart,
They'll go after them all as betrayers!
They needed historical fiction.
A dossier with salacious depiction!
Some urinous whores could get down on all fours,
They'd accomplish some bed sheet emiction!
Pablo Miller and Skripal were cited.
Sidney Blumenthal might have been slighted.
Christopher Steele offered Sidney a deal,
But the dossier's not copyrighted!
That story about Novichok,
Smells a lot like a very large crock.
But they can't be deposed or the story disclosed,
The Skripals have toxic brain block!
Papadopolis shot off his yap.
He told Downer, that affable chap-
There was dirt to report on the Clinton cohort,
Mifsud hooked him with that honey trap!
She was blond and a bombshell to boot.
Papadopolis thought she was cute.
She worked for Mifsud, a mysterious dude,
Now poor Paps is in grave disrepute!
But the trick was to tie it to Russians.
The Clinton team had some discussions.
Their big email scandal was easy to handle,
They'd blame Vlad for the bad repercussions!
There must have been Russian collusion.
That explained all the vote count confusion.
Guccifer Two made the Trump team come through,
If he won, it was just an illusion!
Lisa Page and Pete Strzok were disgusted
They schemed and they plotted and lusted.
If bald-headed Clapper appealed to Jake Tapper,
Brennan's Tweets might get Donald Trump busted!
There had to be cyber subversion.
It would serve as the perfect perversion.
They would claim it was missed if it didn't exist,
It's a logically perfect diversion!
F.G., you've done it again, and I might add, topped even yourself! Thanks.
KiwiAntz , June 7, 2018 at 7:30 pm
What a joke, America, the most dishonest Country on Earth, has meddled, murdered &
committed coups to overturn other Govts & interfered & continues to do so in just
about every Country on Earth by using Trade sanctions, arming Terrorists & illegal
invasions, has the barefaced cheek to puff out its chest & hypocritcally blame Russia for
something that it does on a daily basis?? And the point with Mueller's investigation is not
to find any Russian collusion evidence, who needs evidence when you can just make it up? The
point is provide the US with a list of unfounded lies & excuses, FIRSTLY to slander &
demonise RUSSIA for something they clearly didn't do! SECONDLY, was to provide a excuse for
the Democrats dismal election loss result to the DONALD & his Trump Party which just
happens to contain some Republicans? THIRDLY, to conduct a soft Coup by trying to get Trump
impeached on "TRUMPED UP CHARGES OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION"? And FOURTLY to divert attention away
from scrutiny & cover up Obama & Hillary Clinton's illegal, money grubbing activities
& her treasonous behaviour with her private email server?? After two years of Russiagate
nonsense with NOTHING to show for it, I think it's about time America owes Russia a public
apology & compensation for its blatant lying & slander of a innocent Country for a
crime they never committed?
Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 7:11 pm
Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely
cause of the Russiagate scams.
I am sure that they manipulate the digital voting machines directly and indirectly. True
elections are now impossible.
Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any
resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely
coincidental."
Antiwar7 , June 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm
Expecting the evil people running the show to respond to reason is futile, of course. All
of these reports are really addressed to the peanut gallery, where true power lies, if only
they could realize it.
Thanks, Ray and VIPS, for keeping up the good fight.
mike k , June 7, 2018 at 5:55 pm
For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which
pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering
a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic
conspiracy.
And BTW people have become shy about using the word conspiracy, for fear it will
automatically brand one as a hoaxer. On the contrary, conspiracies are extremely common, the
higher one climbs in the power hierarchy. Like monopolies, conspiracies are central to the
way the oligarchs do business.
John , June 8, 2018 at 5:42 am
Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in
knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is
involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB
drive, it is not a known.
There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that
the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth
Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being
done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated
reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings.
" whether or not"?!! Wow. That's an imperialistic statement.
Drew Hunkins , June 7, 2018 at 5:50 pm
Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic
charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and
Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the
mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by
Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was
the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable
DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his
crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they
even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?
So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to
their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was arguably in bed with the Winter Hill
Gang!
jose , June 7, 2018 at 5:13 pm
If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They
know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The
Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars.
Jeff , June 7, 2018 at 4:35 pm
Thanx, Ray. The sad news is that everybody now believes that Russia tried to "meddle" in
our election and, since it's a belief, neither facts nor reality will dislodge it. Your
disclaimer should also probably carry the warning – never believe a word a government
official says especially if they are in the CIA, NSA, or FBI unless they provide proof. If
they tell you that it's classified, that they can't divulge it, or anything of that sort, you
know they are lying.
john wilson , June 7, 2018 at 4:09 pm
I suspect the real reason no evidence has been produced is because there isn't any. I know
this is stating the obvious, but if you think about it, as long as the non extent evidence is
supposedly being "investigated" the story remains alive. They know they aren't going to find
anything even remotely plausible that would stand up to any kind of scrutiny, but as long as
they are looking, it has the appearance that there might be something.
Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 4:08 pm
I first want to thank Ray and the VIPS for their continuing to follow through on this
Russia-Gate story. And it is a story.
My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After
all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart
Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not
be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for
justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved
in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody?
Now we have Sean Hannity making a strong case against the Clinton's and the FBI's careful
handling of their crimes. What seems out of place, since this should be big news, is that CNN
nor MSNBC seems to be covering this story in the same way Hannity is. I mean isn't this news,
meant to be reported as news? Why avoid reporting on Hillary in such a manner? This must be
that 'fake news' they all talk about boy am I smart.
In the end I have decided to be merely an observer, because there are no good guys or gals
in our nation's capital worth believing. In the end even Hannity's version of what took place
leads back to a guilty Russia. So, the way I see it, the swamp is being drained only to make
more room for more, and new swamp creatures to emerge. Talk about spinning our wheels. When
will good people arrive to finally once and for all drain this freaking swamp, once and for
all?
Realist , June 7, 2018 at 5:25 pm
Ha, ha! Don't you enjoy the magic show being put on by the insiders desperately trying to
hang onto their power even after being voted out of office? Their attempt to distract your
attention from reality whilst feeding you their false illusions is worthy of Penn &
Teller, or David Copperfield (the magician). Who ya gonna believe? Them or your lying
eyes?
Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 10:00 pm
Realist, You can bet they will investigate everything but what needs investigated, as our
Politico class devolves into survivalist in fighting, the mechanism of war goes
uninterrupted. Joe
F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 5:34 pm
Joe, speaking of draining the swamp, check out my comment under Ray's June 1 article about
Freddy Fleitz!
Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 6:59 pm
That is just what I was reminded of; here is an antiseptic but less emphatic last
line:
"Swamp draining progresses apace.
It's being accomplished with grace:
They're taking great pains to clean out the drains,"
New swamp creatures will need all that space!
Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 11:00 am
We must realize that to them, "the Swamp" refers to those in office who still abide by New
Deal policy. Despite the thoroughly discredited neoliberal economic policy, the radical right
are driving the world in the libertarian direction of privatization, austerity, private bank
control of money creation, dismantling the nation-state, contempt for the Constitution,
etc.
"... A McClatchy journalist investigated further and came to the same conclusion as I did. The 'leak' to the New York Times was disinformation. ..."
"... Russia has not pinned the Novichok to Sweden or the Czech Republic. It said, correctly, that several countries produced Novichok. Russia did not blame the UK for the 'nerve gas attack' in Syria. Russia says that there was no gas attack in Douma. ..."
"... The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make to not hold up to scrutiny. Meanwhile there pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation. ..."
"... Wait for an outbreak of hostilities on the Ukraine-Donbass front shortly before the beginning of the World Cup competition which is as internationally important as the Olympic Games -- as they did in 2014 with Maidan and 2016 with the Sochi Winter Olympics drug uproar, the CIA will create chaos that will take the emphasis off any Russian success, since as to them, anything negative regarding Russia is a positive for them. ..."
"... No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of Russian responsibility) have been shattered. ..."
"... Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are the Russian denials! It is hard to see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation. ..."
"... The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote." ..."
"... Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: "Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?" ..."
"... Whataboutism seems to deny that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth. ..."
"... 1984, anyone? ..."
"... The absurd story that the OPCW says there was a 100gm/100mg who knows which on the door and other sites is just so stupid its painful. ..."
"... Presumably the Skripals touch the cutlery, plates and wine glasses in the restaurant, so why weren't the staff there infected as they must have had to pick up the plates etc after the meal. Even the door to the entrance of the restaurant should be affected as they would have to push it open, thus leaving the chemical for other people to touch. Nope, nothing in this stupid story adds up and the OPCW can't even get the amounts of the chemical right. ..."
"... Biggest problem with the world today is lazy insouciant citizens. ..."
"... One very important point Lavrov made was the anti-Russian group consists of a very small number of nations representing a small fraction of humanity; ..."
"... while they have some economic and military clout, it's possible for the rest of the world's nations to sideline them and get on with the important business of forming a genuine Multipolar World Order, which is what the UN and its Charter envisioned. ..."
"... Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy' disinformation. ..."
"... Yes, exactly. The Western hegemony, i.e. the true "Axis of Evil" led by the US, and including the EU and non-Western allies, have invented the Perpetual Big Lie™. ..."
"... Witnesses? They're either confederates, dupes, or terrified by coercion. Evidence and/or technical analysis? All faked! A nominally reliable party, e.g. the president of the Czech Republic, makes statements that undermine the Big Lie Nexus? Again-- he's either been bought off or frightened into making such inconvenient claims. Or he's just a mischievous liar. ..."
"... And, as I seemingly never get tired of pointing out, the Perpetual Big Lie™ strategy arose, and succeeds, because the "natural enemies" of authoritarian government overreach have been coerced or co-opted to a fare-thee-well. So mass-media venues, and even supposedly independent technical and scientific organizations, are part of the Perpetual Big Lie™ apparatus. ..."
"... Putting Kudrin -- an opponent of de-dollarization and an upholder of the Washington Consensus -- in charge of Russia's international outreach would be equal to putting Bill Clinton in charge of a girls' school. ..."
"... In the Guardian I only read the comments, never the article. Here, I read both. That is the difference between propaganda and good reporting. ..."
The Grauniad is slipping deeper into the disinformation business:
Revealed: UK's push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance is the headline of a page one piece
which reveals exactly nothing. There is no secret lifted and no one was discomforted by a
questioning journalist.
Like other such pieces it uses disinformation to accuse Russia of spreading such.
The main 'revelation' is stenographed from a British government official. Some quotes from
the usual anti-Russian propagandists were added. Dubious or false 'western' government claims
are held up as truth. That Russia does not endorse them is proof for Russian mischievousness
and its 'disinformation'.
The opener:
The UK will use a series of international summits this year to call for a comprehensive
strategy to combat Russian disinformation and urge a rethink over traditional diplomatic
dialogue with Moscow, following the Kremlin's aggressive campaign of denials over the use of
chemical weapons in the UK and Syria.
...
"The foreign secretary regards Russia's response to Douma and Salisbury as a turning point
and thinks there is international support to do more," a Whitehall official said. "The areas
the UK are most likely to pursue are countering Russian disinformation and finding a
mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons."
There is a mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons. It is the
Chemical Weapon Convention and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
It was the British government which at first
rejected the use of these instruments during the Skripal incident:
Early involvement of the OPCW, as demanded by Russia, was resisted by the British
government. Only on March 14, ten days after the incident happened and two days after Prime
Minister Theresa may had made accusations against Russia, did the British government invite
the OPCW. Only on March 19, 15 days after the incident happen did the OPCW technical team
arrive and took blood samples.
Now back to the Guardian disinformation:
In making its case to foreign ministries, the UK is arguing that Russian denials over
Salisbury and Douma reveal a state uninterested in cooperating to reach a common
understanding of the truth , but instead using both episodes to try systematically to divide
western electorates and sow doubt.
A 'common understanding of the truth' is an interesting term. What is the truth? Whatever
the British government claims? It accused Russia of the Skripal incident a mere eight days
after it happened. Now, two month later, it admits that it
does not know who poisoned the Skripals:
Police and intelligence agencies have failed so far to identify the individual or
individuals who carried out the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the UK's national security
adviser has disclosed.
Do the Brits know where the alleged Novichok poison came from? Unless they produced it
themselves they likely have no idea. The Czech Republic just admitted that it
made small doses of a Novichok nerve agent for testing purposes. Others did too.
Back to the Guardian :
British politicians are not alone in claiming Russia's record of mendacity is not a personal
trait of Putin's, but a government-wide strategy that makes traditional diplomacy
ineffective.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, famously came off one lengthy phone call with Putin
– she had more than 40 in a year – to say he lived in a different world.
No, Merkel never said that. An Obama administration flunky planted that
in the New York Times :
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking
with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call
said. "In another world," she said.
When that claim was made in March 2014 we were immediately suspicious
of it:
This does not sound like typically Merkel but rather strange for her. I doubt that she said
that the way the "people briefed on the call" told it to the Times stenographer. It is rather
an attempt to discredit Merkel and to make it more difficult for her to find a solution with
Russia outside of U.S. control.
A day later the German government
denied (ger) that Merkel ever said such (my translation):
The chancellery is unhappy about the report in the New York Times. Merkel by no means meant
to express that Putin behaved irrational. In fact she told Obama that Putin has a different
perspective about the Crimea [than Obama has].
A McClatchy journalist investigated
further and came to the same conclusion as I did. The 'leak' to the New York Times was
disinformation.
That disinformation, spread by the Obama administration but immediately exposed as false, is
now held up as proof by Patrick Wintour, the Diplomatic editor of the Guardian , that
Russia uses disinformation and that Putin is a naughty man.
The British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson
wants journalists to enter the UK reserve forces to help with the creation of
propaganda:
He said army recruitment should be about "looking to different people who maybe think, as a
journalist: 'What are my skills in terms of how are they relevant to the armed forces?'
Patrick Wintour seems to be a qualified candidate.
Or maybe he should join the NATO for Information Warfare the Atlantic Council wants to
create to further disinform about those damned Russkies:
What we need now is a cross-border defense alliance against disinformation -- call it
Communications NATO. Such an alliance is, in fact, nearly as important as its military
counterpart.
Like the Guardian piece above writer of the NATO propaganda lobby Atlantic Council
makes claims of Russian disinformation that do not hold up to the slightest test:
By pinning the Novichok nerve agent on Sweden or the Czech Republic, or blaming the UK for
the nerve gas attack in Syria, the Kremlin sows confusion among our populations and makes us
lose trust in our institutions.
Russia has not pinned the Novichok to Sweden or the Czech Republic. It said, correctly, that
several countries produced Novichok. Russia did not blame the UK for the 'nerve gas attack' in
Syria. Russia says that there was no gas attack in Douma.
The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make to not hold up to scrutiny.
Meanwhile there pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation.
The bigger aim behind all these activities, demanding a myriad of new organizations to
propagandize against Russia, is to introduce a strict control over information within 'western'
societies.
Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed
with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy'
disinformation.
That scheme will be used against anyone who deviates from the ordered norm. You dislike that
pipeline in your backyard? You must be falling for
Russian trolls or maybe you yourself are an agent of a foreign power. Social Security? The
Russians like that. It is a disinformation thing. You better forget about it.
Excellent article, in an ongoing run of great journalism.
I am curious - have you read this? https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/
It purports to be a book by an American military man intimately familiar with the covert ops
portion of the US government. The internal Kafka-esque dynamics described certainly feel
true.
One of the reasons newspapers are getting worse is the economics. They aren't really viable
anymore. Their future is as some form of government sanctioned oligopoly. Two national papers
-- a "left" and a "right" -- and then a handful of regional papers. All spouting the same
neoliberal, neoconservative chicanery.
Genuine journalist Matt Taibbi warned of this sort of branding of disparate views as enemy a
month ago. He was also correct. Evil and insidious. The enemy of a free society.
Wait for an outbreak of hostilities on the Ukraine-Donbass front shortly before the beginning
of the World Cup competition which is as internationally important as the Olympic Games -- as
they did in 2014 with Maidan and 2016 with the Sochi Winter Olympics drug uproar, the CIA
will create chaos that will take the emphasis off any Russian success, since as to them,
anything negative regarding Russia is a positive for them.
I agree that it's difficult to see how the drive to renew the Cold War is going to be
stopped. I presume that, with the exception of certain NeoCon circles, there isn't a desire
for Hot War. Certainly not in the British sources you quote. Britain wouldn't want Hot War
with Russia. It's all a question of going to the limit for internal consumption. Do a 1984,
in order to keep the population in-line.
thanks b... i can't understand how any intelligent thinking person would read the guardian,
let alone something like the huff post, and etc. etc... why? the propaganda money that pays
for the white helmets, certainly goes to these outlets as well..
the uk have gone completely nuts! i guess it comes with reading the guardian, although, in
fairness, all british media seems very skewed - sky news, bbc, and etc. etc.
it does appear as though Patrick Wintour is on Gavin Williamson's propaganda
bandwagon/payroll already... in reading the comments and articles at craig murrays site, i
have become more familiar with just how crazy things are in the uk.. his latest article
freedom no
more sums it up well... throw the uk msm in the trash can... it is for all intensive
purposes, done..
Meanwhile, OPCW chief Uzumcu seems to have been pranked again, this time by his own staff
(this is how I interpret it):
He claimed that the amount of Novichok found was about 100 g and therefore more than
research laboratories would produce, i.e. this was weaponized Novichok.
Q: What is our reaction to the Guardian article on a "comprehensive strategy" to "deepen
the alliance against Russia" to be pursued by the UK Government at international forums?
A: Judging by the publication, the main current challenge for Whitehall is to preserve
the anti-Russian coalition that the Conservatives tried to build after the Salisbury
incident. This task is challenging indeed. The "fusion doctrine" promoted by the national
security apparatus has led to the Western bloc taking hasty decisions that, as life has
shown, were not based on any facts.
No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the
US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political
justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of
Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was
built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of
Russian responsibility) have been shattered.
Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian
logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are the Russian denials! It is hard to
see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting
countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation.
Hmmm... My reply to c1ue went sideways it seems. Yes, The late Mr. Prouty's book's the real
deal and the website hosting his very rare book is a rare gem itself. Click the JFK at page
top left to be transported to that sites archive of writings about his murder. The very important essay by
Prouty's there too.
The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is
his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote."
This one detail tells us so much about how propaganda works, and about how it can be
defeated. Successful propaganda both depends upon and seeks to accelerate the erasure of
historical memory. This is because its truths are always changing to suit the immediate needs
of the state. None of its truths can be understood historically. b makes the connection
between the documented but forgotten past "truth" of Merkel's quote and its present
reincarnation in the Guardian, and this is really all he *needs* to do. What b points out is
something quite simple; yet the ability to do this very simple thing is becoming increasingly
rare and its exercise increasingly difficult to achieve. It is for me the virtue that makes
b's analysis uniquely indispensable.
Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime,
"whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: "Whataboutism" is the attempt to
understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted
contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does
this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?"
Whataboutism seems to deny that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no
essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth.
The absurd story that the OPCW says there was a 100gm/100mg who knows which on the door and
other sites is just so stupid its painful. This implies that the Skripals both closed the
door together and then went off on their day spreading the stuff everywhere, yet no one else
was contaminated (apart from the fantasy policeman).
Presumably the Skripals touch the
cutlery, plates and wine glasses in the restaurant, so why weren't the staff there infected
as they must have had to pick up the plates etc after the meal. Even the door to the entrance
of the restaurant should be affected as they would have to push it open, thus leaving the
chemical for other people to touch. Nope, nothing in this stupid story adds up and the OPCW
can't even get the amounts of the chemical right.
The problem is,,, most know it's all BS but find it 'easier' to believe or at most ignore, as
then there is no responsibility to 'do something'. Biggest problem with the world today is
lazy insouciant citizens. (Yes,,, I'm a PCR reader) :))
Did you catch the Lavrov interview I linked to on previous Yemen thread? As you might
imagine, the verbiage used is quite similar. One very important point Lavrov made was the
anti-Russian group consists of a very small number of nations representing a small fraction
of humanity; and that while they have some economic and military clout, it's possible for the
rest of the world's nations to sideline them and get on with the important business of
forming a genuine Multipolar World Order, which is what the UN and its Charter
envisioned.
"I cannot sufficiently express my outrage that Leeds City Council feels it is right to ban
a meeting with very distinguished speakers, because it is questioning the government and
establishment line on Syria. Freedom of speech really is dead."
Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed
with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy'
disinformation. _______________________________________
Yes, exactly. The Western hegemony, i.e. the true "Axis of Evil" led by the US, and
including the EU and non-Western allies, have invented the Perpetual Big Lie™.
This isn't a new insight, but it's worth repeating. It struck me anew while I was
listening to a couple of UK "journalists" hectoring OPCW Representative Shulgin, and
directing scurrilous and provocative innuendo disguised as "questions" to Mr. Shulgin and the
Syrian witnesses testifying during his presentation.
It flashed upon me that there is no longer a reasonable expectation that the Perpetual Big
Liars must eventually abandon, much less confess, their heinous mendacity. Just as B points
out, there are no countervailing facts, evidence, rebuttals, theories, or explanations
that can't be countered with further iterations of Big Lies, however offensively incredible
and absurd.
Witnesses? They're either confederates, dupes, or terrified by coercion. Evidence and/or
technical analysis? All faked! A nominally reliable party, e.g. the president of the Czech
Republic, makes statements that undermine the Big Lie Nexus? Again-- he's either been bought
off or frightened into making such inconvenient claims. Or he's just a mischievous liar.
And, as I seemingly never get tired of pointing out, the Perpetual Big Lie™ strategy
arose, and succeeds, because the "natural enemies" of authoritarian government overreach have
been coerced or co-opted to a fare-thee-well. So mass-media venues, and even supposedly
independent technical and scientific organizations, are part of the Perpetual Big Lie™
apparatus.
Even as the Big Liars reach a point of diminishing returns, they respond with more of the
same. I wish I were more confident that this reprehensible practice will eventually fail due
to the excess of malignant hubris; I'm not holding my breath.
Is Putin capitulating? Pro US Alexei Kudrin could join new government to negotiate "end of
sanctions" with the West.
Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin will be brought back to "mend fences with the West"
in order to revive Russia's economy. Kudrin has repeatedly said that unless Russia makes her
political system more democratic and ends its confrontation with Europe and the United
States, she will not be able to achieve economic growth. Russia's fifth-columnists were
exalted: "If Kudrin joined the administration or government, it would indicate that they have
agreed on a certain agenda of change, including in foreign policy, because without change in
foreign policy, reforms are simply impossible in Russia," said Yevgeny Gontmakher . . . who
works with a civil society organization set up by Mr. Kudrin. "It would be a powerful
message, because Kudrin is the only one in the top echelons with whom they will talk in the
west and towards whom there is a certain trust."
Putting Kudrin -- an opponent of de-dollarization and an upholder of the Washington
Consensus -- in charge of Russia's international outreach would be equal to putting Bill
Clinton in charge of a girls' school.
It would mark Putin's de facto collapse as a leader. We
shall know very soon. Either way, if anyone wondered what the approach to Russia would be
from Bolton and Pompeo, we now know: they will play very hard ball with Putin, regardless of
what he does (or doesn't do), and with carefree readiness to risk an eventual snap.
Certainly looks like @ 18 is a fine example of what b is presenting.
A good way to extract one's self from the propaganda is to refuse using whatever meme the
disinformation uses, e.g. that Sergei Skripal was a double agent -- that is not a known, only
a convenient suggestion.
Military intelligence is far better described as military
information needed for some project or mission. Not surreptitious cloak and dagger spying.
This is not to say Sergei Scripal was a British spy for which he was convicted, stripped of
rank and career and exiled through a spy swap. To continue using Sergei Scripal was a double
agent only repeats and verifies the disinformation meme and all the framing that goes with
it. Find some alternative to what MSM produces that does not embed truthiness to their
efforts.
I realize it's from one of the biggest propaganda organs in the world... take this New
York Times report of the OPCW's retraction with a 100 grams -- 100mg? -- of salt:
Kudrin is a neoliberal and as such is an
enemy of humanity and will never again be allowed to hold a position of power within Russia's
government. Let him emigrate to the West like his fellow parasites and teach junk economics
at some likeminded university.
"... The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence operatives running in the Democratic primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat experience invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on their websites. And they are welcomed and given preferred positions, with Democratic Party officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies. ..."
"... the Democratic Party has opened its doors to a "friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies. ..."
"... The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an expression of the breakdown of American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose interests the state apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working class, the ruling class is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule. ..."
"... But it is impossible to carry out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx of military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, that the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary, working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the corporate-controlled two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils. ..."
In a three-part series published last week,
the World Socialist Web Site documented an unprecedented influx of intelligence and military operatives into the Democratic
Party. More than 50 such military-intelligence candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the 102 districts identified by
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as its targets for 2018. These include both vacant seats and those with Republican
incumbents considered vulnerable in the event of a significant swing to the Democrats.
... ... ...
The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA,
NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus.
This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts"
for the television networks .
In centering its opposition to Trump on the bogus allegations of Russian interference, while essentially ignoring Trump's attacks
on immigrants and democratic rights, his alignment with ultra-right and white supremacist groups, his attacks on social programs
like Medicaid and food stamps, and his militarism and threats of nuclear war, the Democratic Party has embraced the agenda of the
military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political voice.
This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and expanded the various operations of the
intelligence agencies abroad and within the United States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen
candidate of the Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate the confrontation
with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine.
The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of resentment over the disruption of its
operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that
score. A chorus of media backers -- Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen of the New York Times , the entire editorial board
of the Washington Post , most of the television networks -- are part of the campaign to pollute public opinion and whip
up support on alleged "human rights" grounds for an expansion of the US war in Syria.
The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence operatives are moving in large numbers
to take over a political party and seize a major role in Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic
Party primaries are "former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however, purely nominal. Joining
the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments.
The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence
operatives running in the Democratic primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat experience
invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on their websites. And they are welcomed and given
preferred positions, with Democratic Party officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies.
The working class is confronted with an extraordinary political situation. On the one hand, the Republican Trump administration
has more military generals in top posts than any other previous government. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has opened
its doors to a "friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies.
The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an expression of the breakdown of
American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose
interests the state apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working class, the ruling class
is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule.
Millions of working people want to fight the Trump administration and its ultra-right policies. But it is impossible to carry
out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx
of military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, that
the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary, working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the
corporate-controlled two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils.
"... People such as Stephen Cohen and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government and its European vassals toward Russia. ..."
"... In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0 Published on Apr 13, 2018 ..."
A normal person would answer "yes" to the three questions. So what does this tell us about
Trump's government as these insane actions are the principle practice of Trump's
government?
Does anyone doubt that Nikki Haley is insane?
Does anyone doubt that John Bolton is insane?
Does anyone doubt that Mike Pompeo is insane?
Does this mean that Trump is insane for appointing to the top positions insane people who
foment war with a nuclear power?
Does this mean that Congress is insane for approving these appointments?
These are honest questions. Assuming we avoid the Trump-promised Syrian showdown, how long
before the insane Trump regime orchestrates another crisis?
The entire world should understand that because of the existence of the insane Trump regime,
the continued existence of life on earth is very much in question.
People such as Stephen Cohen and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety
of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government
and its European vassals toward Russia. Nothing as irresponsible as what we have witnessed
since the Clinton regime and which has worsened dramatically under the Obama and Trump regimes
would have been imaginable during the Cold War. In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to
Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0
Published on Apr 13, 2018
The failure of political leadership throughout the Western world is total. Such total
failure is likely to prove deadly to life on earth.
"... You have obviously been at the crime scene, have witnessed the comatose bodies of the Skripals and after analyzing the Novitchok samples you meticulously collected, have reached the inescapable conclusion ..."
"... Nice sarcasm. Well deserved for those "Novichok hot heads", who claim that it is plausible that a military grade nerve gas was used. Actually initial reports were about a synthetic opioid, not any nerve gas ( https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ex-russian-agent-sergei-skripal-critical-condition-was-poisoned-by-fentanyl-1665286 ) ..."
"... I am amazed that people do not understand the level of absurdity of using nerve gas in such a case. It's really like ignorance has no boundaries. I understand that some people did not manage to graduate from a university or take a decent organic chemistry course, but still, this is simply amazing and very disturbing to read such posts. Especially here. ..."
You have obviously been at the crime scene, have witnessed the comatose bodies of the
Skripals and after analyzing the Novitchok samples you meticulously collected, have reached
the inescapable conclusion
I am amazed that people do not understand the level of absurdity of using nerve gas in
such a case. It's really like ignorance has no boundaries. I understand that some people did
not manage to graduate from a university or take a decent organic chemistry course, but
still, this is simply amazing and very disturbing to read such posts. Especially here.
If it was a nerve gas my question to "Novichok hot heads" here is who the assassin
was?
You need either to place a can or some punctured packet under the bench (probably
impossible) or spray the liquid on the victim from a short distance. The latter is a very
dangerous exercise if you are not wearing a respirator and protection gear.
Remember the place was under surveillance -- bad for any assassination. Also in lethal
concentrations, the gas kills the victims in several minutes. But Skripals survived
unattended for an hour or more and there was only one other seriously affected person -- a
policeman, while doctor who treated Skriplal's daughter on the bench was unaffected.
I do not see any reasonable way to administer the gas in this environment without
affecting many other people including any passerby, or the doctor who treated Skripal's
daughter
"... If on November 6 the Democratic Party makes the net gain of 24 seats needed to win control of the House of Representatives, former CIA agents, military commanders, and State Department officials will provide the margin of victory and hold the balance of power in Congress. ..."
"... Since its establishment in 1947 -- under the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman -- the CIA has been legally barred from carrying out within the United States the activities which were its mission overseas: spying, infiltration, political provocation, assassination. These prohibitions were given official lip service but ignored in practice. ..."
"... The Church Committee in particular featured the exposure of CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, General Rene Schneider in Chile, and many others. More horrors were uncovered: MK-Ultra, in which the CIA secretly subjected unwitting victims to experimentation with drugs like LSD; ..."
"... Operation Mockingbird, in which the CIA recruited journalists to plant stories and smear opponents; Operation Chaos, an effort to spy on the antiwar movement and sow disruption; Operation Shamrock, under which the telecommunications companies shared traffic with the NSA for more than a quarter century. ..."
"... The Church and Pike committee exposures, despite their limitations, had a devastating political effect. The CIA and its allied intelligence organizations in the Pentagon and NSA became political lepers, reviled as the enemies of democratic rights. The CIA in particular was widely viewed as "Murder Incorporated." ..."
"... The last 15 years have seen a massive expansion of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, backed by an avalanche of media propaganda, with endless television programs and movies glorifying American spies and assassins ..."
"... The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks . ..."
"... This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and expanded the various operations of the intelligence agencies abroad and within the United States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen candidate of the Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate the confrontation with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine. ..."
"... The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of resentment over the disruption of its operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that score. ..."
"... The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence operatives are moving in large numbers to take over a political party and seize a major role in Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic Party primaries are "former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however, purely nominal. Joining the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments. ..."
In a three-part series published last week, the
World Socialist Web Site documented an unprecedented influx of intelligence and
military operatives into the Democratic Party. More than 50 such military-intelligence
candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the 102 districts identified by the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as its targets for 2018. These include both vacant
seats and those with Republican incumbents considered vulnerable in the event of a significant
swing to the Democrats.
If on November 6 the Democratic Party makes the net gain of 24 seats needed to win control
of the House of Representatives, former CIA agents, military commanders, and State Department
officials will provide the margin of victory and hold the balance of power in Congress. The
presence of so many representatives of the military-intelligence apparatus in the legislature
is a situation without precedent in the history of the United States.
Since its establishment in 1947 -- under the administration of Democratic President Harry
Truman -- the CIA has been legally barred from carrying out within the United States the
activities which were its mission overseas: spying, infiltration, political provocation,
assassination. These prohibitions were given official lip service but ignored in practice.
In the wake of the Watergate crisis and the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon,
reporter Seymour Hersh published the first devastating exposure of the CIA domestic spying, in
an investigative report for the New York Times on December 22, 1974. This report
triggered the establishment of the Rockefeller Commission, a White House effort at damage
control, and Senate and House select committees, named after their chairmen, Senator Frank
Church and Representative Otis Pike, which conducted hearings and made serious attempts to
investigate and expose the crimes of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.
The Church Committee in particular featured the exposure of CIA assassination plots against
foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, General Rene Schneider in
Chile, and many others. More horrors were uncovered: MK-Ultra, in which the CIA secretly
subjected unwitting victims to experimentation with drugs like LSD;
Operation Mockingbird, in
which the CIA recruited journalists to plant stories and smear opponents; Operation Chaos, an
effort to spy on the antiwar movement and sow disruption; Operation Shamrock, under which the
telecommunications companies shared traffic with the NSA for more than a quarter century.
The Church and Pike committee exposures, despite their limitations, had a devastating
political effect. The CIA and its allied intelligence organizations in the Pentagon and NSA
became political lepers, reviled as the enemies of democratic rights. The CIA in particular was
widely viewed as "Murder Incorporated."
In that period, it would have been unthinkable either for dozens of "former"
military-intelligence operatives to participate openly in electoral politics, or for them to be
welcomed and even recruited by the two corporate-controlled parties. The Democrats and
Republicans sought to distance themselves, at least for public relations purposes, from the spy
apparatus, while the CIA publicly declared that it would no longer recruit or pay American
journalists to publish material originating in Langley, Virginia. Even in the 1980s, the
Iran-Contra scandal involved the exposure of the illegal operations of the Reagan
administration's CIA director, William Casey.
How times have changed. One of the main functions of the "war on terror," launched in the
wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has been to
rehabilitate the US spy apparatus and give it a public relations makeover as the supposed
protector of the American people against terrorism.
This meant disregarding the well-known connections between Osama bin Laden and other Al
Qaeda leaders and the CIA, which recruited them for the anti-Soviet guerrilla war in
Afghanistan, waged from 1979 to 1989, as well as the still unexplained role of the US
intelligence agencies in facilitating the 9/11 attacks themselves.
The last 15 years have seen a massive expansion of the CIA and other intelligence agencies,
backed by an avalanche of media propaganda, with endless television programs and movies
glorifying American spies and assassins ( 24 , Homeland , Zero Dark
Thirty , etc.)
The American media has been directly recruited to this effort. Judith Miller of the New
York Times , with her reports on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, is only the most
notorious of the stable of "plugged-in" intelligence-connected journalists at the
Times , the Washington Post , and the major television networks. More
recently, the Times has installed as its editorial page editor James Bennet, brother
of a Democratic senator and son of the former administrator of the Agency for International
Development, which has been accused of working as a front for the operations of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based
entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either
unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been
accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly
paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks .
In centering its opposition to Trump on the bogus allegations of Russian interference, while
essentially ignoring Trump's attacks on immigrants and democratic rights, his alignment with
ultra-right and white supremacist groups, his attacks on social programs like Medicaid and food
stamps, and his militarism and threats of nuclear war, the Democratic Party has embraced the
agenda of the military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political
voice.
This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and
expanded the various operations of the intelligence agencies abroad and within the United
States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen candidate of the
Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate
the confrontation with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine.
The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of
resentment over the disruption of its operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the
campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that score. A chorus of
media backers -- Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen of the New York Times , the entire
editorial board of the Washington Post , most of the television networks -- are part
of the campaign to pollute public opinion and whip up support on alleged "human rights" grounds
for an expansion of the US war in Syria.
The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence
operatives are moving in large numbers to take over a political party and seize a major role in
Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic Party primaries are
"former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however,
purely nominal. Joining the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the
Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments.
The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not
covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence operatives running in the Democratic
primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat
experience invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on
their websites. And they are welcomed and given preferred positions, with Democratic Party
officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies.
The working class is confronted with an extraordinary political situation. On the one hand,
the Republican Trump administration has more military generals in top posts than any other
previous government. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has opened its doors to a
"friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies.
The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an
expression of the breakdown of American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the
extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose interests the state
apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working
class, the ruling class is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule.
Millions of working people want to fight the Trump administration and its ultra-right
policies. But it is impossible to carry out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects
the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx of
military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade
unions and pseudo-left groups, that the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary,
working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the corporate-controlled
two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils.
Essentially CIA dictates the US foreign policy. The tail is wagging the dog. The current Russophobia hysteria mean
additional billions for CIA and FBI. As simple as that.
The article contain some important observation about self-sustaining nature of the US
militarism. It is able to create new threats and new insurgencies almost at will via CIA activities.
The key problem is that wars are highly profitable for important part of the ruling elite,
especially representing finance and military industrial complex. Also now part of the US
ruling elite now consists of "colonial administrators" which are directly interested in maintaining
and expanding the US empire. This is trap from which nation might not be able to escape.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer, writes Nicolas J.S. Davies. ..."
"... Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. ..."
"... No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them. ..."
"... The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book Roots of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing," Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination." ..."
"... Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere, but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991. ..."
"... Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility as Johnson and Nixon did. ..."
"... Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only become more entrenched over time, as President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now, the lack of any actual military threat to the United States. ..."
"... U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World , was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role of the CIA in U.S. policy. ..."
"... The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such pretexts for war. ..."
"... The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years. ..."
"... Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out. ..."
"... Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq. ..."
"... But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty meant ..."
"... The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror," would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy objective. ..."
"... This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on a continental scale. ..."
"... China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business." ..."
"... As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash on others. ..."
"... But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike. ..."
"... Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist, beginning with his book on The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled The CIA as Organized Crime : How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy. ..."
"... In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to "make the economy scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. ..."
"... The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction. ..."
"... Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the most expensive military budge t of any president since World War Two. ..."
"... Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition, as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor. France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and destruction. ..."
The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington
seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer,
writes Nicolas J.S. Davies.
As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials
ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment
that had already killed millions of people.
As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented,
the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as
Pete Seeger satirized it
, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to "credibility": the domestic political credibility
of the politicians involved and America's international credibility as a military power.
Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the
1954 Geneva Accords
and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die
was cast. The CIA's support for the repressive
Diem regime and its successors
ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president
could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could
achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited
from them.
The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book
Roots
of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing,"
Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination."
Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived
the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere,
but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of
Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991.
Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized
intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across
every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility
as Johnson and Nixon did. His predictable response has been to escalate ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and West Africa, and to threaten new ones against North Korea, Iran and
Venezuela.
Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries
across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only
become more entrenched over time, as
President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now,
the lack of any actual military threat to the United States.
Ironically but predictably, the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans.
As I explained in a recent article , North Korea's discovery in 2016 of a U.S. plan to assassinate
its president, Kim Jong Un, and launch a Second Korean War has triggered a crash program to develop
long-range ballistic missiles that could give North Korea a viable nuclear deterrent and prevent
a U.S. attack. But the North Koreans will not feel safe from attack until their leaders and ours
are sure that their missiles can deliver a nuclear strike against the U.S. mainland.
The CIA's Pretexts for War
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and
around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book,
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World ,
was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores
and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher
sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role
of the CIA in U.S. policy.
Prouty surprisingly described the role of the CIA as a response by powerful people and interests
to the abolition of the U.S. Department of War and the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
Once the role of the U.S. military was redefined as one of defense, in line with the United Nations
Charter's
prohibition against the threat or use of military force in 1945 and similar moves by other military
powers, it would require some kind of crisis or threat to justify using military force in the future,
both legally and politically. The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such
pretexts for war.
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence
and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating
pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years.
Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National
Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions
to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment,
ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis
in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed
VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts
for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq.
CIA in Syria and Africa
But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations
to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty
meant. In late 2011, after destroying Libya and aiding in the torture-murder of Muammar Gaddafi,
the CIA and its allies began
flying fighters
and weapons from Libya to Turkey and infiltrating them into Syria. Then, working with Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey, Croatia and other allies, this operation poured
thousands of tons of weapons across Syria's borders to ignite and fuel a full-scale civil war.
Once these covert operations were under way, they ran wild until they had unleashed a savage Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), spawned the even
more savage "Islamic State," triggered
the heaviest
and
probably the deadliest U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam and drawn Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel,
Jordan, Hezbollah, Kurdish militias and almost every state or armed group in the Middle East into
the chaos of Syria's civil war.
Meanwhile, as Al Qaeda and Islamic State have expanded their operations across Africa, the U.N.
has published a report titled
Journey to Extremismin Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment
, based on 500 interviews with African militants. This study has found that the kind of special operations
and training missions the CIA and AFRICOM are conducting and supporting in Africa are in fact the
critical "tipping point" that drives Africans to join militant groups like Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab and
Boko Haram.
The report found that government action, such as the killing or detention of friends or family,
was the "tipping point" that drove 71 percent of African militants interviewed to join armed groups,
and that this was a more important factor than religious ideology.
The conclusions of Journey to Extremism in Africa confirm the findings of other similar
studies. The Center for Civilians in Conflict interviewed 250 civilians who joined armed groups in
Bosnia, Somalia, Gaza and Libya for its 2015 study,
The People's Perspectives: Civilian Involvement in Armed Conflict . The study
found that the most common motivation for civilians to join armed groups was simply to protect themselves
or their families.
The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and
the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror,"
would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take
on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy
objective.
"The more intimate one becomes with this activity," Prouty wrote, "The more one begins to realize
that such operations are rarely, if ever, initiated from an intent to become involved in pursuit
of some national objective in the first place."
The U.S. justifies the deployment of 6,000 U.S. special forces and military trainers to
53 of the 54 countries in Africa as a response to terrorism. But the U.N.'s Journey to Extremism
in Africa study makes it clear that the U.S. militarization of Africa is in fact the "tipping
point" that is driving Africans across the continent to join armed resistance groups in the first
place.
This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early
60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations
that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed
resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on
a continental scale.
Taking on China
What seems to really be driving the CIA's militarization of U.S. policy in Africa is China's growing
influence on the continent. As Steve Bannon put it in an
interview with the Economist in August, "Let's go screw up One Belt One Road."
China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine
named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every
10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show we mean business."
China is too powerful and armed with nuclear weapons. So, in this case, the CIA's job would be
to spread violence and chaos to disrupt Chinese trade and investment, and to make African governments
increasingly dependent on U.S. military aid to fight the militant groups spawned and endlessly regenerated
by U.S.-led "counterterrorism" operations.
Neither Ledeen nor Bannon pretend that such policies are designed to build more prosperous or
viable societies in the Middle East or Africa, let alone to benefit their people. They both know
very well what Richard Barnet already understood 45 years ago, that America's unprecedented investment
in weapons, war and CIA covert operations are only good for one thing: to kill people and destroy
infrastructure, reducing cities to rubble, societies to chaos and the desperate survivors to poverty
and displacement.
As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies
into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the
safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash
on others.
But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely
about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop
the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which
we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike.
Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist,
beginning with his book on
The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled
The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's
analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many
ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy.
The Three Scapegoats
In
Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he named North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as his
prime targets for destabilization, economic warfare and, ultimately, the overthrow of their governments,
whether by coup d'etat or the mass destruction of their civilian population and infrastructure.
But Trump's choice of scapegoats for America's failures was obviously not based on a rational reassessment
of foreign policy priorities by the new administration. It was only a tired rehashing of the CIA's
unfinished business with two-thirds of Bush's "axis of evil" and Bush White House official
Elliott Abrams'
failed 2002 coup in Caracas, now laced with explicit and illegal threats of aggression.
How Trump and the CIA plan to sacrifice their three scapegoats for America's failures remains
to be seen. This is not 2001, when the world stood silent at the U.S. bombardment and invasion of
Afghanistan after September 11th. It is more like 2003, when the U.S. destruction of Iraq split the
Atlantic alliance and alienated most of the world. It is certainly not 2011, after Obama's global
charm offensive had rebuilt U.S. alliances and provided cover for French President Sarkozy, British
Prime Minister Cameron, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab royals to destroy Libya,
once ranked by the U.N. as the
most developed country
in Africa , now mired in intractable chaos.
In 2017, a U.S. attack on any one of Trump's scapegoats would isolate the United States from many
of its allies and undermine its standing in the world in far-reaching ways that might be more permanent
and harder to repair than the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President
Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to
"make the economy
scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. But the
solid victory of Venezuela's
ruling Socialist Party in recent nationwide gubernatorial elections, despite a long and deep
economic crisis, reveals little public support for the CIA's puppets in Venezuela.
The CIA has successfully discredited the Venezuelan government through economic warfare, increasingly
violent right-wing street protests and a global propaganda campaign. But the CIA has stupidly hitched
its wagon to an extreme right-wing, upper-class opposition that has no credibility with most of the
Venezuelan public, who still turn out for the Socialists at the polls. A CIA coup or U.S. military
intervention would meet fierce public resistance and damage U.S. relations all over Latin America.
Boxing In North Korea
A U.S. aerial bombardment or "preemptive strike" on North Korea could quickly escalate into a
war between the U.S. and China, which has reiterated
its commitment to North
Korea's defense if North Korea is attacked. We do not know exactly what was in the
U.S. war plan discovered by North Korea, so neither can we know how North Korea and China could
respond if the U.S. pressed ahead with it.
Most analysts have long concluded that any U.S. attack on North Korea would be met with a North
Korean artillery and missile barrage that would inflict unacceptable civilian casualties on Seoul,
a metropolitan area of 26 million people, three times the population of New York City. Seoul is only
35 miles from the frontier with North Korea, placing it within range of a huge array of North Korean
weapons. What was already a no-win calculus is now compounded by the possibility that North Korea
could respond with nuclear weapons, turning any prospect of a U.S. attack into an even worse nightmare.
U.S. mismanagement of its relations with North Korea should be an object lesson for its relations
with Iran, graphically demonstrating the advantages of diplomacy, talks and agreements over threats
of war. Under the
Agreed Framework
signed in 1994, North Korea stopped work on two much larger nuclear reactors than the small experimental
one operating at Yongbyong since 1986, which only produces 6 kg of plutonium per year, enough for
one nuclear bomb.
The lesson of Bush's Iraq invasion in 2003 after Saddam Hussein had complied with demands that
he destroy Iraq's stockpiles of chemical weapons and shut down a nascent nuclear program was not
lost on North Korea. Not only did the invasion lay waste to large sections of Iraq with hundreds
of thousands of dead but Hussein himself was hunted down and condemned to death by hanging.
Still, after North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, even its small experimental
reactor was shut down as a result of the
"Six Party Talks" in
2007, all the fuel rods were removed and placed under supervision of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and the cooling tower of the reactor was demolished in 2008.
But then, as relations deteriorated, North Korea conducted a second nuclear weapon test and again
began reprocessing spent fuel rods to recover plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
North Korea has now conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The explosions in
the first five tests increased gradually up to 15-25 kilotons, about the yield of the bombs the
U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but estimates for the yield of the 2017 test range
from 110
to 250 kilotons , comparable
to a small hydrogen bomb.
The even greater danger in a new war in Korea is that the U.S. could unleash part of its arsenal
of
4,000 more powerful weapons (100 to 1,200 kilotons), which could kill millions of people and
devastate and poison the region, or even the world, for years to come.
The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks
in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate
defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see
a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction.
China has proposed a
reasonable framework for diplomacy to address the concerns of both sides, but the U.S. insists
on maintaining its propaganda narratives that all the fault lies with North Korea and that it has
some kind of "military solution" to the crisis.
This may be the most dangerous idea we have heard from U.S. policymakers since the end of the
Cold War, but it is the logical culmination of a
systematic normalization of deviant and illegal U.S. war-making that has already cost millions
of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. As historian Gabriel Kolko
wrote in Century of War in 1994, "options and decisions that are intrinsically dangerous
and irrational become not merely plausible but the only form of reasoning about war and diplomacy
that is possible in official circles."
Demonizing Iran
The idea that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program is seriously contested by the IAEA,
which has examined every allegation presented by the CIA and other Western "intelligence" agencies
as well as Israel. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei revealed many details of this wild
goose chase in his 2011 memoir,
Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times .
When the CIA and its partners reluctantly acknowledged the IAEA's conclusions in a 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), ElBaradei issued
a press release confirming that, "the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons
program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
Since 2007, the IAEA has resolved all its outstanding concerns with Iran. It has verified that
dual-use technologies that Iran imported before 2003 were in fact used for other purposes, and it
has exposed the mysterious "laptop documents" that appeared to show Iranian plans for a nuclear weapon
as forgeries. Gareth Porter thoroughly explored all these questions and allegations and the history
of mistrust that fueled them in his 2014 book,
Manufactured
Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare , which I highly recommend.
But, in the parallel Bizarro world of U.S. politics, hopelessly poisoned by the CIA's
endless disinformation campaigns, Hillary Clinton could repeatedly take false credit for disarming
Iran during her presidential campaign, and neither Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump nor any corporate
media interviewer dared to challenge her claims.
"When President Obama took office, Iran was racing toward a nuclear bomb," Clinton fantasized
in a
prominent foreign policy speech on June 2, 2016, claiming that her brutal sanctions policy "brought
Iran to the table."
In fact, as Trita Parsi documented in his 2012 book,
A Single
Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran , the Iranians were ready, not just
to "come to the table," but to sign a comprehensive agreement based on a U.S. proposal brokered by
Turkey and Brazil in 2010. But, in a classic case of "tail wags dog," the U.S. then rejected its
own proposal because it would have undercut support for tighter sanctions in the U.N. Security Council.
In other words, Clinton's sanctions policy did not "bring Iran to the table", but prevented the U.S.
from coming to the table itself.
As a senior State Department official told Trita Parsi, the real problem with U.S. diplomacy with
Iran when Clinton was at the State Department was that the U.S. would not take "Yes" for an answer.
Trump's ham-fisted decertification of Iran's compliance with the JCPOA is right out of Clinton's
playbook, and it demonstrates that the CIA is still determined to use Iran as a scapegoat for America's
failures in the Middle East.
The spurious claim that Iran is the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism is another CIA canard
reinforced by endless repetition. It is true that Iran supports and supplies weapons to Hezbollah
and Hamas, which are both listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. But they are
mainly defensive resistance groups that defend Lebanon and Gaza respectively against invasions and
attacks by Israel.
Shifting attention away from Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and other groups that actually commit terrorist crimes around the
world might just seem like a case of the CIA "taking its eyes off the ball," if it wasn't so transparently
timed to frame Iran with new accusations now that the manufactured crisis of the nuclear scare has
run its course.
What the Future Holds
Barack Obama's most consequential international achievement may have been the triumph of symbolism
over substance behind which he expanded and escalated the so-called "war on terror," with a vast
expansion of covert operations and proxy wars that eventually triggered the
heaviest U.S.
aerial bombardments since Vietnam in Iraq and Syria.
Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and
the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the
most expensive military budget of any president since World War Two.
But Obama's expansion of the "war on terror" under cover of his deceptive global public relations
campaign created many more problems than it solved, and Trump and his advisers are woefully ill-equipped
to solve any of them. Trump's expressed desire to place America first and to resist foreign entanglements
is hopelessly at odds with his aggressive, bullying approach to every foreign policy problem.
If the U.S. could threaten and fight its way to a resolution of any of its international problems,
it would have done so already. That is exactly what it has been trying to do since the 1990s, behind
both the swagger and bluster of Bush and Trump and the deceptive charm of Clinton and Obama: a "good
cop – bad cop" routine that should no longer fool anyone anywhere.
But as Lyndon Johnson found as he waded deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy in Vietnam, lying
to the public about unwinnable wars does not make them any more winnable. It just gets more people
killed and makes it harder and harder to ever tell the public the truth.
In unwinnable wars based on lies, the "credibility" problem only gets more complicated, as new
lies require new scapegoats and convoluted narratives to explain away graveyards filled by old lies.
Obama's cynical global charm offensive bought the "war on terror" another eight years, but that only
allowed the CIA to drag the U.S. into more trouble and spread its chaos to more places around the
world.
Meanwhile, Russian President Putin is winning hearts and minds in capitals around the world by
calling for a recommitment to the
rule of international
law , which
prohibits
the threat or use of military force except in self-defense. Every new U.S. threat or act of aggression
will only make Putin's case more persuasive, not least to important U.S. allies like South Korea,
Germany and other members of the European Union, whose complicity in U.S. aggression has until now
helped to give it a false veneer of political legitimacy.
Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition,
as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor.
France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their
own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and
destruction.
Americans had better hope that we are not so exceptional, and that the world will find a diplomatic
rather than a military "solution" to its American problem. Our chances of survival would improve
a great deal if American officials and politicians would finally start to act like something other
than putty in the hands of the CIA
Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction
of Iraq . He also wrote the chapters on "Obama at War" in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card
on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader .
The fact that he is employed by Guardia tells a lot how low Guardian fall. It's a yellow press (owned by intelligence agencies
if we talk about their coverage of Russia).
Notable quotes:
"... In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal". ..."
"... Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the appearance of a legitimate argument. ..."
"... That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument. ..."
Have you ever wondered why mainstream media outlets, despite being so fond of dramatic panel
debates on other hot-button issues, never have critics of the Russiagate narrative on to debate
those who advance it? Well, in a recent Real News interview we received an extremely
clear answer to that question, and it was so epic it deserves its own article.
Real News host and producer Aaron Maté has recently emerged as one of the most
articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy
theory, and has published in The Nation some of the
clearest
arguments against both that I've yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for The Guardian
where he has been
writing prolifically in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of
New
York Times bestseller Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald
Trump Win.
In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of
this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy
Scahill accurately described as "brutal".
The term Gish gallop
, named after a Young Earth creationist who was notoriously fond of employing it, refers to a
fallacious debate tactic in which a bunch of individually weak arguments are strung together in
rapid-fire succession in order to create the illusion of a solid argument and overwhelm the
opposition's ability to refute them all in the time allotted. Throughout the discussion the
Gish gallop appeared to be the only tool that Luke Harding brought to the table, firing out a
deluge of feeble and unsubstantiated arguments only to be stopped over and over again by
Maté who kept pointing out when Harding was making a false or fallacious claim.
In this part here , for
example, the following exchange takes place while Harding is already against the ropes on the
back of a previous failed argument. I'm going to type this up so you can clearly see what's
happening here:
Harding: Look, I'm a journalist. I'm a storyteller. I'm not a kind of head of the CIA or
the NSA. But what I can tell you is that there have been similar operations in France, most
recently when President Macron was elected ? -
Harding: Yeah. But, if you'll let me finish, there've been attacks on the German parliament ?
-
Maté: Okay, but wait Luke, do you concede that the France hack that you just claimed
didn't happen?
Harding: [pause] What? -- ?that it didn't happen? Sorry?
Maté: Do you concede that the Russian hacking of the French election that you just
claimed actually is not true?
Harding: [pause] Well, I mean that it's not true? I mean, the French report was inconclusive,
but you have to look at this kind of contextually. We've seen attacks on other European
states as well from Russia, they have very kind of advanced cyber capabilities.
Maté: Where else?
Harding: Well, Estonia. Have you heard of Estonia? It's a state in the Baltics which was
crippled by a massive cyber attack in 2008, which certainly all kind of western European and
former eastern European states think was carried out by Moscow. I mean I was in Moscow at the
time, when relations between the two countries were extremely bad. This is a kind of ongoing
thing. Now you might say, quite legitimately, well the US does the same thing, the UK does
the same thing, and I think to a certain extent that is certainly right. I think what was
different last year was the attempt to kind of dump this stuff out into kind of US public
space and try and influence public opinion there. That's unusual. And of course that's a
matter of congressional inquiry and something Mueller is looking at too.
Maté: Right. But again, my problem here is that the examples that are frequently
presented to substantiate claims of this massive Russian hacking operation around the world
prove out to be false. So France as I mentioned; you also mentioned Germany. There was a lot
of worry about Russian hacking of the German elections, but it turned out? -- ?and there's
plenty of articles since then that have acknowledged this? - ? that actually there was no
Russian hack in Germany.
In the above exchange, Maté derailed Harding's Gish gallop, and Harding actually
admonished him for doing so, telling him "let me finish" and attempting to go on listing more
flimsy examples to bolster his case as though he hadn't just begun his Gish gallop with a
completely
false example .
That's really all Harding brought to the debate. A bunch of individually weak arguments, the
fact that he speaks Russian and has lived in Moscow, and the occasional straw man where he tries to imply that
Maté is claiming that Vladimir Putin is an innocent girl scout. Meanwhile Maté
just kept patiently dragging the debate back on track over and over again in the most polite
obliteration of a man that I have ever witnessed.
The entire interview followed this basic script. Harding makes an unfounded claim,
Maté holds him to the fact that it's unfounded, Harding sputters a bit and tries to zoom
things out and point to a bigger-picture analysis of broader trends to distract from the fact
that he'd just made an individual claim that was baseless, then winds up implying that
Maté is only skeptical of the claims because he hasn't lived in Russia as Harding
has.
jeremy scahill 0
@jeremyscahill
This @aaronjmate interview is brutal. He makes mincemeat of Luke Harding, who can't seem to
defend the thesis, much less the title, of his own book: Where's the 'Collusion' -
YouTube
11:03 AM-Dec 25, 2017
Q 131 11597 C? 1,148
The interview ended when Harding once again implied that Maté was only skeptical of
the collusion narrative because he'd never been to Russia and seen what a right-wing oppressive
government it is, after which the following exchange took place:
Maté: I don't think I've countered anything you've said about the state of Vladimir
Putin's Russia. The issue under discussion today has been whether there was collusion, the
topic of your book.
Harding: Yeah, but you're clearly a kind of collusion rejectionist, so I'm not sure what sort
of evidence short of Trump and Putin in a sauna together would convince you. Clearly nothing
would convince you. But anyway it's been a pleasure.
At which point Harding abruptly logged off the video chat, leaving Maté to wrap up
the show and promote Harding's book on his own.
You should definitely watch this debate for yourself , and enjoy
it, because I will be shocked if we ever see another like it. Harding's fate will serve as a
cautionary tale for the establishment hacks who've built their careers advancing the Russiagate
conspiracy theory , and it's highly unlikely that any of them will ever make the mistake of
trying to debate anyone of Maté's caliber again.
The reason Russiagaters speak so often in broad, sweeping terms? - saying there are too many
suspicious things happening for there not to be a there there, that there's too much smoke for
there not to be fire? - ? is because when you zoom in and focus on any individual part of their
conspiracy theory, it falls apart under the slightest amount of critical thinking (or as
Harding calls it, "collusion rejectionism"). Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain
zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the
appearance of a legitimate argument.
Well, Harding did say he's a storyteller.
* * *
Thanks for reading! My work here is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece
please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following me on Twitter , bookmarking my website , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , or buying my new book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . Our Hidden History4
days ago (edited) That Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right
nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard
Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.
He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is
to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western
intelligence agencies.
That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority -
Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read
my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin
is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long
history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around
of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when
it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.
Few in the US know
about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be
involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not
explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he
death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian
were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.
If this is true, then this is definitely a sophisticated false flag operation. Was malware Alperovich people injected specifically
designed to implicate Russians? In other words Crowdstrike=Fancy Bear
Images removed. For full content please thee the original source
One interesting corollary of this analysis is that installing Crowdstrike software is like inviting a wolf to guard your chicken.
If they are so dishonest you take enormous risks. That might be true for some other heavily advertized "intrusion prevention" toolkits.
So those criminals who use mistyped popular addresses or buy Google searches to drive lemmings to their site and then flash the screen
that they detected a virus on your computer a, please call provided number and for a small amount of money your virus will be removed
get a new more sinister life.
"... Disobedient Media outlines the DNC server cover-up evidenced in CrowdStrike malware infusion ..."
"... In the article, they claim to have just been working on eliminating the last of the hackers from the DNC's network during the past weekend (conveniently coinciding with Assange's statement and being an indirect admission that their Falcon software had failed to achieve it's stated capabilities at that time , assuming their statements were accurate) . ..."
"... To date, CrowdStrike has not been able to show how the malware had relayed any emails or accessed any mailboxes. They have also not responded to inquiries specifically asking for details about this. In fact, things have now been discovered that bring some of their malware discoveries into question. ..."
"... there is a reason to think Fancy Bear didn't start some of its activity until CrowdStrike had arrived at the DNC. CrowdStrike, in the indiciators of compromise they reported, identified three pieces of malware relating to Fancy Bear: ..."
"... They found that generally, in a lot of cases, malware developers didn't care to hide the compile times and that while implausible timestamps are used, it's rare that these use dates in the future. It's possible, but unlikely that one sample would have a postdated timestamp to coincide with their visit by mere chance but seems extremely unlikely to happen with two or more samples. Considering the dates of CrowdStrike's activities at the DNC coincide with the compile dates of two out of the three pieces of malware discovered and attributed to APT-28 (the other compiled approximately 2 weeks prior to their visit), the big question is: Did CrowdStrike plant some (or all) of the APT-28 malware? ..."
"... The IP address, according to those articles, was disabled in June 2015, eleven months before the DNC emails were acquired – meaning those IP addresses, in reality, had no involvement in the alleged hacking of the DNC. ..."
"... The fact that two out of three of the Fancy Bear malware samples identified were compiled on dates within the apparent five day period CrowdStrike were apparently at the DNC seems incredibly unlikely to have occurred by mere chance. ..."
"... That all three malware samples were compiled within ten days either side of their visit – makes it clear just how questionable the Fancy Bear malware discoveries were. ..."
Of course the DNC did not want to the FBI to investigate its "hacked servers". The plan was well underway to excuse Hillary's
pathetic election defeat to Trump, and
CrowdStrike would help out by planting evidence to pin on those evil "Russian hackers." Some would call this
entire DNC server hack an
"insurance policy."
"... North Korea's air defenses are so weak that we had to notify them we were flying B1 bombers near their airspace–they didn't even know our aircraft were coming. This reminds me of the "fearsome" Republican Guard that Saddam had in the Persian Gulf. Turns out we had total air superiority and just bombed the crap out of them and they surrendered in droves. ..."
"... We have already seen what happens when an army has huge amounts of outdated Soviet weaponry versus the most technologically advanced force in the world. It's a slaughter. Also, there has to be weaponry up the USA's sleeve that would be used in the event of an attack. Don't forget our cyber warfare abilities that would undoubtedly be implemented as well. This writer seems to always hype Russia's capabilities and denigrate the US's capabilities. Sure, Russia has the capacity to nuke the US into smithereens, and vice versa. But if its a head to head shooting war, the US and NATO would dominate. FACT. ..."
"... Commander's intent: ..."
"... Decapitate the top leadership and remove retaliatory capability. ..."
"... Massive missile/bombing campaign (including carpet) of top leadership locations, tactical missile locations and DMZ artillery belt. Destruction of surface fleet and air force. ..."
"... Advance into DMZ artillery belt up to a range of 240 mm cannon. Not further (local tactical considerations taken into account of course). ..."
"... Phase three: "break the enemy's will to fight" and destroy the "regime support infrastructure" ..."
"... I guess an American attack on North Korea would consist of preemptive strategic nuking to destroy the entire country before it can do anything. Since North Korea itself contributes essentially nothing to the world economy, no one would lose money. ..."
"... These examples perfectly illustrate the kind of mindset induced by what Professor John Marciano called "Empire as a way of life" [1] which is characterized by a set of basic characteristics: ..."
"... there has to be ..."
"... would undoubtedly ..."
"... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts ..."
"... A perfect illustration of that is the famous quote " it became necessary to destroy the town to save it ..."
"... I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you, the difference in Iraq and Iran, but I know Jesus and I talk to God ..."
"... this applies to the vast majority of US politicians, decision-makers and elected officials, hence Putin's remark that " It's difficult to talk with people who confuse Austria and Australia ". ..."
"... As a result, there is no more discernible US diplomacy left: all the State Department does is deliver threats, ultimatums and condemnations. Meaningful *negotiations* have basically been removed form the US foreign policy toolkit. ..."
"... That belief is also the standard cop out in any conversation of morality, ethnics, or even the notions of right and wrong. An anti-religious view par excellence . ..."
"... The US policies towards Russia, China and Iran all have the potential of resulting in a disaster of major magnitude. The world is dealing with situation in which a completely delusional regime is threatening everybody with various degrees of confrontation. This is like being in the same room with a monkey playing with a hand grenade. Except for that hand grenade is nuclear. ..."
"... This situation places a special burden of responsibility on all other nations, especially those currently in Uncle Sam's cross-hairs, to act with restraint and utmost restraint. That is not fair, but life rarely is. It is all very well and easy to declare that force must be met by force and that the Empire interprets restraint as weakness until you realize that any miscalculation can result in the death of millions of people. I am therefore very happy that the DPRK is the only country which chose to resort to a policy of hyperbolic threats while Iran, Russia and China acted, and are still acting, with the utmost restraint. ..."
"... they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners ..."
"... If the U.S. attacks North Korea or Iran we will become a pariah among nations (especially once the pictures start pouring in). We will be loathed. Countries may very well decide that we are not worthy of having the world's reserve currency. In that case the dollar will collapse as will our economy. ..."
"... Maybe it's just me, but it seems that NK is just another tyranny in a long list of tyrannies throughout millennia, and like all of them it will just implode on its own. Therefore, the best thing you can do is simply to ignore it (thus denying the tyrant an external threat to rally the populace) and wait for the NK people to say enough is enough. ..."
"... I agree with the logic that as Americans become dumber the ability to have a powerful military also degrades, however an increasingly declining America also makes it more dangerous. As ever more ideologues rule the corridors of power and the generally stupid population that will consent to everything they are told, America will start involving itself in ever more reckless conflicts. This means they despite being a near idiocracy, the nuclear weapons and military bases all over world make America an ever greater threat for the world ..."
My recent analysis of the potential consequences of a US attack on the DPRK has elicited a wide range of reactions. There is one
type of reaction which I find particularly interesting and most important and I would like to focus on it today: the ones which entirely
dismissed my whole argument. The following is a selection of some of the most telling reactions of this kind:
Example 1:
North Korea's air defenses are so weak that we had to notify them we were flying B1 bombers near their airspace–they didn't
even know our aircraft were coming. This reminds me of the "fearsome" Republican Guard that Saddam had in the Persian Gulf. Turns
out we had total air superiority and just bombed the crap out of them and they surrendered in droves.
We have already seen what happens when an army has huge amounts of outdated Soviet weaponry versus the most technologically
advanced force in the world. It's a slaughter. Also, there has to be weaponry up the USA's sleeve that would be used in the event
of an attack. Don't forget our cyber warfare abilities that would undoubtedly be implemented as well. This writer seems to always
hype Russia's capabilities and denigrate the US's capabilities. Sure, Russia has the capacity to nuke the US into smithereens,
and vice versa. But if its a head to head shooting war, the US and NATO would dominate. FACT.
Example 2:
Commander's intent:
Decapitate the top leadership and remove retaliatory capability.
Execution:
Phase one:
Massive missile/bombing campaign (including carpet) of top leadership locations, tactical missile locations and DMZ artillery
belt. Destruction of surface fleet and air force.
Phase two:
Advance into DMZ artillery belt up to a range of 240 mm cannon. Not further (local tactical considerations taken into account
of course).
Phase three: "break the enemy's will to fight" and destroy the "regime support infrastructure"
Phase four: Regime change.
There you go .
Example 3:
I guess an American attack on North Korea would consist of preemptive strategic nuking to destroy the entire country before
it can do anything. Since North Korea itself contributes essentially nothing to the world economy, no one would lose money.
These examples perfectly illustrate the kind of mindset induced by what
Professor John Marciano called "Empire as a way of life"
[1] which is characterized
by a set of basic characteristics:
First foremost, simple, very simple one-sentence "arguments" . Gone are the days when argument were built in some logical sequence,
when facts were established, then evaluated for their accuracy and relevance, then analyzed and then conclusions presented. Where
in the past one argument per page or paragraph constituted the norm, we now have tweet-like 140 character statements which are more
akin to shouted slogans than to arguments (no wonder that tweeting is something a bird does – hence the expression "bird brain").
You will see that kind of person writing what initially appears to be a paragraph, but when you look closer you realize that the
paragraph is really little more than a sequence of independent statements and not really an argument of any type. A quasi-religious
belief in one's superiority which is accepted as axiomatic .
Nothing new here: the Communists considered themselves as the superior for class reasons, the Nazis by reason of racial superiority,
the US Americans just "because" – no explanation offered (I am not sure that this constitutes of form of progress). In the US case,
that superiority is cultural, political, financial and, sometimes but not always, racial. This superiority is also technological,
hence the " there has to be " or the " would undoubtedly " in the example #1 above. This is pure faith and not
something which can be challenged by fact or logic. Contempt for all others . This really flows from #2 above. Example 3 basically
declares all of North Korea (including its people) as worthless. This is where all the expressions like "sand niggers" "hadjis" and
other "gooks" come from: the dehumanization of the "others" as a preparation for their for mass slaughter. Notice how in the example
#2 the DPRK leaders are assumed to be totally impotent, dull and, above all, passive.
The notion that they might do something unexpected is never even considered (a classical recipe for military disaster, but more
about that later). Contempt for rules, norms and laws . This notion is well expressed by the famous US 19th century slogan of "
my country, right or wrong " but goes far
beyond that as it also includes the belief that the USA has God-given (or equivalent) right to ignore international law, the public
opinion of the rest of the planet or even the values underlying the documents which founded the USA. In fact, in the logic of such
imperial drone the belief in US superiority actually serves as a premise to the conclusion that the USA has a "mission" or a "responsibility"
to rule the world. This is "might makes right" elevated to the rank of dogma and, therefore, never challenged. A very high reliance
on doublethink . Doublethink defined by Wikipedia as " the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs
as correct, often in distinct social contexts ".
A perfect illustration of that is the famous quote " it became necessary
to destroy the town to save it ". Most US Americans are aware of the fact that US policies have resulted in them being hated
worldwide, even amongst putatively allied or "protected" countries such as South Korea, Israel, Germany or Japan. Yet at the very
same time, they continue to think that the USA should "defend" "allies", even if the latter can't wait for Uncle Sam's soldiers to
pack and leave. Doublethink is also what makes it possible for ideological drones to be aware of the fact that the US has become
a subservient Israeli colony while, at the same time, arguing for the support and financing of Israel.
As a result, there is no more discernible US diplomacy left: all the State Department does is deliver threats, ultimatums and
condemnations. Meaningful *negotiations* have basically been removed form the US foreign policy toolkit.
A totally uncritical acceptance
of ideologically correct narratives even when they are self-evidently nonsensical to an even superficial critical analysis. An great
example of this kind of self-evidently stupid stories is all the nonsense about the Russians trying to meddle in US elections or
the latest
hysteria about relatively small-size military exercises in Russia .
The acceptance of the official 9/11 narrative is a perfect
example of that. Something repeated by the "respectable" Ziomedia is accepted as dogma, no matter how self-evidently stupid. A profound
belief that everything is measured in dollars . From this flow a number of corollary beliefs such as "US weapons are most expensive,
they are therefore superior" or "everybody has his price" [aka "whom we can't kill we will simply buy"]. In my experience folks like
these are absolutely unable to even imagine that some people might not motivated by greed or other egoistic interests: ideological
drones project their own primitive motives unto everybody else with total confidence.
That belief is also the standard cop out in
any conversation of morality, ethnics, or even the notions of right and wrong. An anti-religious view par excellence .
Notice the total absence of any more complex consideration which might require some degree of knowledge or expertise: the imperial
mindset is not only ignoramus-compatible, it is ignoramus based . This is what Orwell was referring to in his famous book 1984 with
the slogan "Ignorance is Strength". However, it goes way beyond simple ignorance of facts and includes the ability to "think in slogans"
(example #2 is a prefect example of this).
There are, of course, many more psychological characteristics for the perfect "ideological drone", but the ones above already
paint a pretty decent picture of the kind of person I am sure we all have seen many times over. What is crucial to understand about
them is that even though they are far from being a majority, they compensate for that with a tremendous motivational drive. It might
be due to a need to repeatedly reassert their certitudes or a way to cope with some deep-seated cognitive dissonance, but in my experience
folks like that have energy levels that many sane people would envy. This is absolutely crucial to how the Empire, and any other
oppressive regime, works: by repressing those who can understand a complex argument by means of those who cannot. Let me explain:
Unless there are mechanisms set in to prevent that, in a debate/dispute between an educated and intelligent person and an ideological
drone the latter will always prevail because of the immense advantage the latter has over the former. Indeed, while the educated
and intelligent person will be able to immediately identify numerous factual and logical gaps in his opponent's arguments, he will
always need far more "space" to debunk the nonsense spewed by the drone than the drone who will simply dismiss every argument with
one or several slogans. This is why I personally never debate or even talk with such people: it is utterly pointless.
As a result, a fact-based and logical argument now gets the same consideration and treatment as a collection of nonsensical slogans
(political correctness mercilessly enforces that principle: you can't call an idiot and idiot any more). Falling education standards
have resulted in a dramatic degradation of the public debate: to be well-educated, well-read, well-traveled, to speak several languages
and feel comfortable in different cultures used to be considered a prerequisite to expressing an opinion, now they are all treated
as superfluous and even useless characteristics. Actual, formal, expertise in a topic is now becoming extremely rare. A most interesting
kind of illustration of this point can be found in this truly amazing video posted by Peter Schiff:
One could be tempted to conclude that this kind of 'debating' is a Black issue. It is not. The three quotes given at the beginning
of this article are a good reminder of this (unless, of course, they were all written by Blacks, which we have no reason to believe).
Twitter might have done to minds what MTV has done to rock music: laid total waste to it.
Consequences:
There are a number of important consequences from the presence of such ideological drones in any society. The first one is that
any ideology-based regime will always and easily find numerous spontaneous supporters who willingly collaborate with it. Combined
with a completely subservient media, such drones form the rontline force of any ideological debate. For instance, a journalist can
always be certain to easily find a done to interview, just as a politician can count on them to support him during a public speech
or debate. The truth is that, unfortunately, we live in a society that places much more emphasis on the right to have an opinion
than on the actual ability to form one .
By the way, the intellectually challenged always find a natural ally in the coward and the "follower" (as opposed to "leader types")
because it is always much easier and safer to follow the herd and support the regime in power than to oppose it. You will always
see "stupid drones" backed by "coward drones". As for the politicians , they naturally cater to all types of drones since they always
provide a much bigger "bang for the buck" than those inclined to critical thinking whose loyalty to whatever "cause" is always dubious.
The drone-type of mindset also comes with some major weaknesses including a very high degree of predictability, an inability to
learn from past mistakes, an inability to imagine somebody operating with a completely different set of motives and many others.
One of the most interesting ones for those who actively resist the AngloZionist Empire is that the ideological drone has very little
staying power because as soon as the real world, in all its beauty and complexity, comes crashing through the door of the drone's
delusional and narrow imagination his cocky arrogance is almost instantaneously replaced by a total sense of panic and despair. I
have had the chance to speak Russian officers who were present during the initial interrogation of US POWs in Iraq and they were
absolutely amazed at how terrified and broken the US POWs immediately became (even though they were not mistreated in any way). It
was as if they had no sense of risk at all, until it was too late and they were captured, at which point they inner strength instantly
gave way abject terror. This is one of the reasons that the Empire cannot afford a protracted war: not because of casualty aversion
as some suggest, but to keep the imperial delusions/illusions unchallenged by reality . As long as the defeat can be hidden or explained
away, the Empire can fight on, but as soon as it becomes impossible to obfuscate the disaster the Empire has to simply declare victory
and leave.
Thus we have a paradox here: the US military is superbly skilled at killing people in large numbers, but but not at winning wars
. And yet, because this latter fact is easily dismissed on grounds #2 #5 and #7 above (all of them, really), failing to actually
win wars does not really affect the US determination to initiate new wars, even potentially very dangerous ones. I would even argue
that each defeat even strengthens the Empire's desire to show it power by hoping to finally identify one victim small enough to be
convincingly defeated. The perfect example of that was Ronald Reagan's decision to invade Grenada right after the US Marines barracks
bombing in Beirut. The fact that the invasion of Grenada was one of the worst military operations in world history did not prevent
the US government from handing out more medals for it than the total number of people involved – such is the power of the drone-mindset!
We have another paradox here: history shows that if the US gets entangled in a military conflict it is most likely to end up defeated
(if "not winning" is accepted as a euphemism for "losing"). And yet, the United States are also extremely hard to deter. This is
not just a case of " Fools rush
in where angels fear to tread " but the direct result of a form of conditioning which begins in grade schools. From the point
of view of an empire, repeated but successfully concealed defeats are much preferable to the kind of mental paralysis induced in
drone populations, at least temporarily, by well-publicized defeats . Likewise, when the loss of face is seen as a calamity much
worse than body bags, lessons from the past are learned by academics and specialists, but not by the nation as a whole (there are
numerous US academics and officers who have always known all of what I describe above, in fact – they were the ones who first taught
me about it!).
If this was only limited to low-IQ drones this would not be as dangerous, but the problem is that words have their own power and
that politicians and ideological drones jointly form a self-feeding positive feedback loop when the former lie to the latter only
to then be bound by what they said which, in turn, brings them to join the ideological drones in a self-enclosed pseudo-reality of
their own.
What all this means for North Korea and the rest of us
I hate to admit it, but I have to concede that there is a good argument to be made that all the over-the-top grandstanding and
threatening by the North Koreans does make sense, at least to some degree. While for an educated and intelligent person threatening
the continental United States with nuclear strikes might appear as the epitome of irresponsibility, this might well be the only way
to warn the ideological drone types of the potential consequences of a US attack on the DPRK. Think of it: if you had to deter somebody
with the set of beliefs outlined in #1 through #8 above, would you rather explain that a war on the Korean Peninsula would immediately
involve the entire region or simple say "them crazy gook guys might just nuke the shit out of you!"? I think that the North Koreans
might be forgiven for thinking that an ideological drone can only be deterred by primitive and vastly exaggerated threats.
Still, my strictly personal conclusion is that ideological drones are pretty much "argument proof" and that they cannot be swayed
neither by primitive nor by sophisticated arguments. This is why I personally never directly engage them. But this is hardly an option
for a country desperate to avoid a devastating war (the North Koreans have no illusions on that account as they, unlike most US Americans,
remember the previous war in Korea).
But here is the worst aspect of it all: this is not only a North Korean problem
The US policies towards Russia, China and Iran all have the potential of resulting in a disaster of major magnitude. The world
is dealing with situation in which a completely delusional regime is threatening everybody with various degrees of confrontation.
This is like being in the same room with a monkey playing with a hand grenade. Except for that hand grenade is nuclear.
This situation places a special burden of responsibility on all other nations, especially those currently in Uncle Sam's cross-hairs,
to act with restraint and utmost restraint. That is not fair, but life rarely is. It is all very well and easy to declare that force
must be met by force and that the Empire interprets restraint as weakness until you realize that any miscalculation can result in
the death of millions of people. I am therefore very happy that the DPRK is the only country which chose to resort to a policy of
hyperbolic threats while Iran, Russia and China acted, and are still acting, with the utmost restraint.
In practical terms, there is no way for the rest of the planet to disarm the monkey. The only option is therefore to incapacitate
the monkey itself or, alternatively, to create the conditions in which the monkey will be too busy with something else to pay attention
to his grenade. An internal political crisis triggered by an external military defeat remains, I believe, the most likely and desirable
scenario (see here if that
topic is of interest to you). Still, the future is impossible to predict and, as the Quran says, " they plan, and Allah plans.
And Allah is the best of planners ". All we can do is try to mitigate the impact of the ideological drones on our society as
much as we can, primarily by *not* engaging them and limiting our interaction with those still capable of critical thought. It is
by excluding ideological drones from the debate about the future of our world that we can create a better environment for those truly
seeking solutions to our current predicament.
-- -- -
1. If you have not listened to his lectures on this topic, which I highly recommend, you can find them here:
If the U.S. attacks North Korea or Iran we will become a pariah among nations (especially once the pictures start pouring in).
We will be loathed. Countries may very well decide that we are not worthy of having the world's reserve currency. In that case
the dollar will collapse as will our economy.
North Korea is a nationalistic country that traces their race back to antiquity. America on the other hand is a degenerated country
that is ruled over by Jews. The flag waving American s may call the Koreans gooks but if we apply the American racial ideology
on themselves, the Americans are the the 56percent Untermensch. While the north Koreans are superior for having rejected modern
degeneracy.
A key point, which signifies a serious cultural degeneration from values of chivalry and honoring the opposite side to a very
Asiatic MO which absolutely rules current US establishment. This, and, of course, complete detachment from the realities of the
warfare.
It is all talk, because China makes them invulnerable to sanctions and NK has nukes. The US will have to go to China to deal with
NK and China will want to continue economically raping the US in exchange. That is why China gave NK an H bomb and ICBM tech (
it's known to have gave those same things to Pakistan). The real action will be in the Middle East. The Saudi are counting on
the US giving them CO2 fracking in the future, and Iran being toppled soon. William S. Lind says Iran will be hit by Trump and
Israel will use the ensuing chaos to expel the West Bank Palestinians (back to the country whose passports they travel on).
Maybe it's just me, but it seems that NK is just another tyranny in a long list of tyrannies throughout millennia, and
like all of them it will just implode on its own. Therefore, the best thing you can do is simply to ignore it (thus denying the
tyrant an external threat to rally the populace) and wait for the NK people to say enough is enough.
There's no doubt in my mind that Kim will end up like Nikolae Ceaușescu in Romania, put up against a wall by his own military
and shot on TV. All anyone has to do is be patient and not drink the Rah-Rah Kool-Aid.*
Just a thought.
VicB3
*Was talking with a 82nd Major at the Starbucks, and mentioned NK, Ceausecu, sitting tight, etc. (Mentioned we might help things
along by blanketing the whole country with netbooks, wi-fi, and even small arms.) Got the careerist ladder- climber standard response
of how advanced our weapons are, the people in charge know what they're doing, blah blah blah. Wouldn't even consider an alternative
view (and didn't know or understand half of what I was talking about). It was the same response I got from an Air Force Colonel
before the U.S. went into Afghanistan and Iraq and I told him the whole thing was/would be insanely stupid.
His party-line team-player response was when I knew for certain that any action in NK would/will fail spectacularly for the
U.S., possibly even resulting in and economic collapse and civil war/revolution on this end.
Excellent post. But the US public education "system", while awful, is not the main reason that America is increasingly packed
with drones and idiots. IQ is decreasing rapidly, as revealed in the College Board's data on SAT scores over the last 60 years
.In addition, Dr. James Thompson has a Dec.15 post on Unz that shows a shocking decline in the ability of UK children to understand
basic principles of physics, which are usually acquired on a developmental curve. Mike Judge's movie 'Idiocracy' appears to have
been set unrealistically far in the future ..
In short, the current situation can and will get a lot worse in America. On the other hand, America's armed forces will be deteriorating
apace, so they are becoming less dangerous to the rest of the world.
The good thing about democracy is that anyone can express an opinion. The bad thing about democracy is that anyone can express
an opinion. I have to laugh at all the internet commandos and wannabe Napoleons that roost on the internet giving us their advice.
It's easy to cherrypick opinions that range from uninformed to downright stupid and bizarre. Those people don't actually run anything
though, fortunately. Keep in mind that half the population is mentally average or below average and that average is quite mediocre.
Throw in a few degrees above mediocre and you've got a majority, a majority that can and is regularly bamboozled. The majority
of the population is just there to pay taxes and provide cannon fodder, that's all, like a farmer's herd of cows provides for
his support. Ideological drones are desired in this case. It's my suspicion that the educational system is geared towards producing
such a product as well as all other aspects of popular culture also induce stupefying effects. Insofar as American policy goes,
look at what it actually does rather than what it says, the latter being a form of show biz playing to a domestic audience. I
just skip the more obnoxious commenters since they're just annoying and add nothing but confusion to any discussion.
but it seems that NK is just another tyranny in a long list of tyrannies throughout millennia, and like all of them it will
just implode on its own
.
There's no doubt in my mind that Kim will end up like Nikolae Ceaușescu in Romania, put up against a wall by his own military
and shot on TV.
All things come to an end eventually, and I agree with you that the best course of action for the US over NK would be to leave
it alone (and stop poking it), but this idea that "tyrannies always collapse" seems pretty unsupported by reality.
Off the top of my head all of the following autocrats died more or less peacefully in office and handed their "tyranny" on
intact to a successor, just in the past few decades: Mao, Castro, Franco, Stalin, Assad senior, two successive Kims (so much for
the assumption that the latest Kim will necessarily end up like Ceausescu). In the past, if a tyrant and his tyranny lasted long
enough and arranged a good succession, it often came to be remembered as a golden age, as with the Roman, Augustus.
I suspect it might be a matter of you having a rather selective idea of what counts as a tyranny (I wouldn't count Franco in
that list, myself, but establishment opinion is against me there, I think). You might be selectively remembering only the tyrannies
that came to a bad end.
so they are becoming less dangerous to the rest of the world
I agree with the logic that as Americans become dumber the ability to have a powerful military also degrades, however an
increasingly declining America also makes it more dangerous. As ever more ideologues rule the corridors of power and the generally
stupid population that will consent to everything they are told, America will start involving itself in ever more reckless conflicts.
This means they despite being a near idiocracy, the nuclear weapons and military bases all over world make America an ever greater
threat for the world.
The good thing about democracy is that anyone can express an opinion.
Not sure if this is a joke or not. In case you are serious, you clearly have not been following the news, from USA to Germany
all these so called democracies have been undertaking massive censorship operations. From jailing people to shutting down online
conversations to ordering news to not report on things that threaten their power.
A bizarre posting utterly detached from reality. Don't you understand that if a blustering lunatic presses a megaton-pistol against
our collective foreheads and threatens to pull the trigger, it represents a very disquieting situation? And if we contemplate
actions that would cause a million utterly harmless and innocent Koreans to be incinerated, to prevent a million of our own brains
from being blown out, aren't we allowed to do so without being accused of being vile bigots that think yellow gook lives are worthless?
Aren't we entitled to any instinct of self preservation at all?
What the Korean situation obviously entails is a high-stakes experiment in human psychology. All that attention-seeking little
freak probably wants is to be treated with respect, and like somebody important. Trump started out in a sensible way, by treating
Kim courteously, but for that he was pilloried by the insanely-partisan opposition within his own party – McCain I'm mainly thinking
of. That's the true obstacle to a sane resolution of the problem. I say if the twerp would feel good if we gave him a tickertape
parade down Fifth Avenue and a day pass to Disneyland, we should do so – it's small enough a concession in view of what's at stake.
But if rabid congress-critters obstruct propitiation, then intimidation and even preemptive megadeath may be all that's left.
I suspect the true conversation about the topic will start when all that becomes really serious. I mean more serious than posting
the latest selfie on a Facebook. Hangs around that warhead miniaturization/hardening timetable, IMHO. Maybe too late then.
Also, one man's tyranny is another mans return to stability. For better or worse, Mao got rid of the Warlords. Franco got rid
of the Communists and kept Spain out of WWII. The Assads are Baath Party and both secular and modernizers.
Stalin? Depends on who you talk to, but the Russians do like a strong hand.
Kim? His people only have to look West to China and Russia, or def. to the South, to know that things could be much better.
And more and more he can't control the flow of information. That, and the rank and file of his army have roundworms. And guns.
At some point, the light comes on. And that same rank and file with guns tells itself "You know, we could be doing better."
Double think is not just a question of ignorance or self contradiction because often it's important to make people embrace COMPLEXITY
instead CONFUSION believing the late it's basically the first
Saker and his legion of fanboys here didn't "attack" the text but the writer.
In the first place, there's nothing in the text to "attack". It's a laundry list of disconnected slogans and so is not a different
point of view at all. Released from the confines of the author's gamer world, it evaporates into nothing. I pointed this out to
you at some length elsewhere.
In the second, it appears you missed the point of the article. Hint: it's stated in the title. The article's about the mindsets
of the authors of such "texts", and not about the texts themselves.
It appears that I am sort of a "dissident" here.
You flatter yourself. To be a dissident requires, at the very least, comprehension of the argument one is disagreeing with.
Your "texts" are the equivalent of shouting slogans and waving placards. It may work for a street protest, but is totally out
of place on a webzine discussion forum. Hence your screeds here do not constitute real dissension, but trolling.
All signs of sophisticated false flag operation, which probably involved putting malware into DNC servers and then
detecting and analyzing them
Notable quotes:
"... 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The hacking apparently continues unabated. ..."
"... The Smoking Gun ..."
"... I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter, was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers. 8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails starting on 22 July 2016. Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred. ..."
"... Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative. ..."
"... Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible. That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from a Russian source. ..."
"... Wikileaks, the protector of the accountability of the top, has announced a reward for finding the murderers of Seth Rich. In comparison, the DNC has not offered any reward to help the investigation of the murder of the DNC staffer, but the DNC found a well-connected lawyer to protect Imran Awan who is guilty (along with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) in the greatest breach of national cybersecurity: http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/wasserman-schultz-seemingly-planned-to-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/ ..."
"... I'm afraid you're behind the times. Wheeler is no longer relevant now that Sy Hersh has revealed an FBI report that explicitly says Rich was in contact with Wikileaks offering to sell them DNC documents. ..."
"... It's unfortunate for the Rich family, but now that the connection is pretty much confirmed, they're going to have to allow the truth to come out ..."
"... Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch, of Jewish descent (and an emigre from Russia), has been an "expert" at the Atlantic Council, the same organization that cherishes and provides for Mr. Eliot Higgins. These two gentlemen - and the directorate of Atlantic Council - are exhibit one of opportunism and intellectual dishonesty (though it is hard to think about Mr. Higgins in terms of "intellect"). ..."
"... Alperovitch is not just an incompetent "expert" in cybersecurity - he is a willing liar and war-mongering, for money. ..."
"... One could of course start earlier. What is the exact timeline of the larger cyberwar post 9/11, or at least the bits and pieces that surfaced for the nitwits among us, like: Stuxnet? ..."
"... Scott Ritter's article referenced in PT's post is terrific, covering a ton of issues related to CrowdStrike and the DNC hack. You need to read it, not just PT's timeline. In case you missed the link in PT's post: ..."
"... His article echoes and reinforces what Carr and others have said about the difficulty of attribution of infosec breaches. Namely that the basic problem of both intelligence and infosec operations is that there is too much obfuscation, manipulation, and misdirection involved to be sure of who or what is going on. ..."
"... The Seth Rich connection is pretty much a done deal, now that Sy Hersh has been caught on tape stating that he knows of an FBI report based on a forensic analysis of Rich's laptop that shows Rich was in direct contact with Wikileaks with an attempt to sell them DNC documents and that Wikileaks had access to Rich's DropBox account. Despite Hersh's subsequent denials - which everyone knows are his usual impatient deflections prior to putting out a sourced and organized article - it's pretty clear that Rich was at least one of the sources of the Wikileaks email dump and that there is zero connection to Russia. ..."
"... None of this proves that Russian intelligence - or Russians of some stripe - or for that matter hackers from literally anywhere - couldn't or didn't ALSO do a hack of the DNC. But it does prove that the iron-clad attribution of the source of Wikileaks email release to Russia is at best flawed, and at worst a deliberate cover up of a leak. ..."
Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that Russia hacked into the DNC computers, downloaded emails and a passed the stolen missives
to Julian Assange's crew at Wikileaks, a careful examination of the timeline of events from 2016 shows that this story is simply
not plausible.
Let me take you through the known facts:
1. 29 April 2016 , when the DNC became aware its servers had been penetrated (https://medium.com/homefront-rising/dumbstruck-how-crowdstrike-conned-america-on-the-hack-of-the-dnc-ecfa522ff44f).
Note. They apparently did not know who was doing it. 2, 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian
presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of
the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The
hacking apparently continues unabated. 3. 25 May 2016. The messages published on Wikileaks from the DNC show that 26 May 2016
was the last date that emails were sent and received at the DNC. There are no emails in the public domain after that date. In other
words, if the DNC emails were taken via a hacking operation, we can conclude from the fact that the last messages posted to Wikileaks
show a date time group of 25 May 2016. Wikileaks has not reported nor posted any emails from the DNC after the 25th of May. I think
it is reasonable to assume that was the day the dirty deed was done. 4. 12 June 2016, CrowdStrike purged the DNC server of all malware.
Are you kidding me? 45 days after the DNC discovers that its serve has been penetrated the decision to purge the DNC server is finally
made. What in the hell were they waiting for? But this also tells us that 18 days after the last email "taken" from the DNC, no additional
emails were taken by this nasty malware. Here is what does not make sense to me. If the DNC emails were truly hacked and the malware
was still in place on 11 June 2016 (it was not purged until the 12th) then why are there no emails from the DNC after 26 May 2016?
an excellent analysis of Guccifer's role : Almost immediately after the one-two punch of the Washington Post article/CrowdStrike
technical report went public, however, something totally unexpected happened -- someone came forward and took full responsibility
for the DNC cyber attack. Moreover, this entity -- operating under the persona Guccifer 2.0 (ostensibly named after the original
Guccifer , a Romanian hacker who stole the emails of a number of high-profile celebrities and who was arrested in 2014 and sentenced
to 4 ½ years of prison in May 2016) -- did something no state actor has ever done before, publishing documents stolen from the DNC
server as proof of his claims.
Hi. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee.
With that simple email, sent to the on-line news magazine,
The Smoking
Gun , Guccifer 2.0 stole the limelight away from Alperovitch. Over the course of the next few days, through a series of
emails, online posts and
interviews
, Guccifer 2.0 openly mocked CrowdStrike and its Russian attribution. Guccifer 2.0 released a number of documents, including a massive
200-plus-missive containing opposition research on Donald Trump.
Guccifer 2.0 also directly contradicted the efforts on the part of the DNC to minimize the extent of the hacking,
releasing the very donor lists
the DNC specifically stated had not been stolen. More chilling, Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be in possession of "about 100 Gb of data"
which had been passed on to the online publisher, Wikileaks, who "will publish them soon." 7. Seth Rich died on 10 July 2016.
I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter,
was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them
from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered
$20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers. 8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails
starting on 22 July 2016. Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over
the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred.Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion
that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative.Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible.
That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from
a Russian source.
Wikileaks, the protector of the accountability of the top, has announced a reward for finding the murderers of Seth Rich.
In comparison, the DNC has not offered any reward to help the investigation of the murder of the DNC staffer, but the DNC found
a well-connected lawyer to protect Imran Awan who is guilty (along with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) in the greatest breach of national
cybersecurity:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/wasserman-schultz-seemingly-planned-to-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/
Seth Rich's family have pleaded, and continue to plead, that the conspiracy theorists leave the death of their son alone and have
said that those who continue to flog this nonsense around the internet are only serving to increase their pain. I suggest respectfully
that some here may wish to consider their feelings. (Also, this stuff is nuts, you know.)
"We also know that many people are angry at our government and want to see justice done in some way, somehow. We are asking
you to please consider our feelings and words. There are people who are using our beloved Seth's memory and legacy for their own
political goals, and they are using your outrage to perpetuate our nightmare."
"Wheeler, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer, was a key figure in a series of debunked stories claiming that Rich
had been in contact with Wikileaks before his death. Fox News, which reported the story online and on television, retracted it
in June."
I'm afraid you're behind the times. Wheeler is no longer relevant now that Sy Hersh has revealed an FBI report that explicitly
says Rich was in contact with Wikileaks offering to sell them DNC documents.
It's unfortunate for the Rich family, but now that the connection is pretty much confirmed, they're going to have to allow
the truth to come out.
Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch, of Jewish descent (and an emigre from Russia), has been an "expert" at the Atlantic Council, the same
organization that cherishes and provides for Mr. Eliot Higgins. These two gentlemen - and the directorate of Atlantic Council
- are exhibit one of opportunism and intellectual dishonesty (though it is hard to think about Mr. Higgins in terms of "intellect").
Take note how Alperovitch coded the names of the supposed hackers: "Russian intelligence services hacked the Democratic National
Committee's computer network and accessed opposition research on Donald Trump, according to the Atlantic Council's Dmitri Alperovitch.
Two Russian groups ! codenamed FancyBear and CozyBear ! have been identified as spearheading the DNC breach." Alperovitch
is not just an incompetent "expert" in cybersecurity - he is a willing liar and war-mongering, for money.
The DNC hacking story has never been about national security; Alperovitch (and his handlers) have no loyalty to the US.
PT, I make a short exception. Actually decided to stop babbling for a while. But: Just finished something successfully.
And since I usually need distraction by something far more interesting then matters at hand. I was close to your line of thought
yesters.
But really: Shouldn't the timeline start in 2015, since that's supposedly the time someone got into the DNC's system?
One could of course start earlier. What is the exact timeline of the larger cyberwar post 9/11, or at least the bits and
pieces that surfaced for the nitwits among us, like: Stuxnet?
But nevermind. Don't forget developments and recent events around Eugene or Jewgeni Walentinowitsch Kasperski?
The Russia thing certainly seems to have gone quiet.
Bannon's chum says the issue with pursuing the Clinton email thing is that you would end up having to indict almost all of
the last administration, including Obama, unseemly certainly. Still there might be a fall guy, maybe Comey, and obviously it serves
Trump's purposes to keep this a live issue through the good work of Grassley and the occasional tweet.
Would be amusing if Trump pardoned Obama. Still think Brennan should pay a price though, can't really be allowed to get away
with it
Scott Ritter's article referenced in PT's post is terrific, covering a ton of issues related to CrowdStrike and the DNC hack.
You need to read it, not just PT's timeline. In case you missed the link in PT's post:
Also, the article Carr references is very important for understanding the limits of malware analysis and "attribution". Written
by Michael Tanji, whose credentials appear impressive: "spent nearly 20 years in the US intelligence community. Trained in both
SIGINT and HUMINT disciplines he has worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National
Reconnaissance Office. At various points in his career he served as an expert in information warfare, computer network operations,
computer forensics, and indications and warning. A veteran of the US Army, Michael has served in both strategic and tactical assignments
in the Pacific Theater, the Balkans, and the Middle East."
His article echoes and reinforces what Carr and others have said about the difficulty of attribution of infosec breaches.
Namely that the basic problem of both intelligence and infosec operations is that there is too much obfuscation, manipulation,
and misdirection involved to be sure of who or what is going on.
The Seth Rich connection is pretty much a done deal, now that Sy Hersh has been caught on tape stating that he knows of
an FBI report based on a forensic analysis of Rich's laptop that shows Rich was in direct contact with Wikileaks with an attempt
to sell them DNC documents and that Wikileaks had access to Rich's DropBox account. Despite Hersh's subsequent denials - which
everyone knows are his usual impatient deflections prior to putting out a sourced and organized article - it's pretty clear that
Rich was at least one of the sources of the Wikileaks email dump and that there is zero connection to Russia.
None of this proves that Russian intelligence - or Russians of some stripe - or for that matter hackers from literally
anywhere - couldn't or didn't ALSO do a hack of the DNC. But it does prove that the iron-clad attribution of the source of Wikileaks
email release to Russia is at best flawed, and at worst a deliberate cover up of a leak.
And Russiagate depends primarily on BOTH alleged "facts" being true: 1) that Russia hacked the DNC, and 2) that Russia was
the source of Wikileaks release. And if the latter is not true, then one has to question why Russia hacked the DNC in the first
place, other than for "normal" espionage operations. "Influencing the election" then becomes a far less plausible theory.
The general takeaway from an infosec point of view is that attribution by means of target identification, tools used, and "indicators
of compromise" is a fatally flawed means of identifying, and thus being able to counter, the adversaries encountered in today's
Internet world, as Tanji proves. Only HUMINT offers a way around this, just as it is really the only valid option in countering
terrorism.
"... By Manuela Cadelli, President of the Magistrates' Union of Belgium ..."
"... Every totalitarianism starts as distortion of language, as in the novel by George Orwell. Neoliberalism has its Newspeak and strategies of communication that enable it to deform reality. In this spirit, every budgetary cut is represented as an instance of modernization of the sectors concerned. If some of the most deprived are no longer reimbursed for medical expenses and so stop visiting the dentist, this is modernization of social security in action! ..."
By Manuela Cadelli, President of the Magistrates' Union of Belgium
The time for rhetorical reservations is over. Things have to be called by their name to make it
possible for a co-ordinated democratic reaction to be initiated, above all in the public services.
Liberalism was a doctrine derived from the philosophy of Enlightenment, at once political and
economic, which aimed at imposing on the state the necessary distance for ensuring respect for liberties
and the coming of democratic emancipation. It was the motor for the arrival, and the continuing progress,
of Western democracies.
Neoliberalism is a form of economism in our day that strikes at every moment at every sector of
our community. It is a form of extremism.
Fascism may be defined as the subordination of every part of the State to a totalitarian and nihilistic
ideology.
I argue that neoliberalism is a species of fascism because the economy has brought under subjection
not only the government of democratic countries but also every aspect of our thought.
The state is now at the disposal of the economy and of finance, which treat it as a subordinate
and lord over it to an extent that puts the common good in jeopardy.
The austerity that is demanded by the financial milieu has become a supreme value, replacing politics.
Saving money precludes pursuing any other public objective. It is reaching the point where claims
are being made that the principle of budgetary orthodoxy should be included in state constitutions.
A mockery is being made of the notion of public service.
The nihilism that results from this makes possible the dismissal of universalism and the most
evident humanistic values: solidarity, fraternity, integration and respect for all and for differences.
There is no place any more even for classical economic theory: work was formerly an element in
demand, and to that extent there was respect for workers; international finance has made of it a
mere adjustment variable.
Every totalitarianism starts as distortion of language, as in the novel by George Orwell. Neoliberalism
has its Newspeak and strategies of communication that enable it to deform reality. In this spirit,
every budgetary cut is represented as an instance of modernization of the sectors concerned. If some
of the most deprived are no longer reimbursed for medical expenses and so stop visiting the dentist,
this is modernization of social security in action!
Abstraction predominates in public discussion so as to occlude the implications for human beings.
Thus, in relation to migrants, it is imperative that the need for hosting them does not lead to
public appeals that our finances could not accommodate. Is it In the same way that other individuals
qualify for assistance out of considerations of national solidarity?
The cult of evaluation
Social Darwinism predominates, assigning the most stringent performance requirements to everyone
and everything: to be weak is to fail. The foundations of our culture are overturned: every humanist
premise is disqualified or demonetized because neoliberalism has the monopoly of rationality and
realism. Margaret Thatcher said it in 1985: "There is no alternative." Everything else is utopianism,
unreason and regression. The virtue of debate and conflicting perspectives are discredited because
history is ruled by necessity.
This subculture harbours an existential threat of its own: shortcomings of performance condemn
one to disappearance while at the same time everyone is charged with inefficiency and obliged to
justify everything. Trust is broken. Evaluation reigns, and with it the bureaucracy which imposes
definition and research of a plethora of targets, and indicators with which one must comply. Creativity
and the critical spirit are stifled by management. And everyone is beating his breast about the wastage
and inertia of which he is guilty.
The neglect of justice
The neoliberal ideology generates a normativity that competes with the laws of parliament. The
democratic power of law is compromised. Given that they represent a concrete embodiment of liberty
and emancipation, and given the potential to prevent abuse that they impose, laws and procedures
have begun to look like obstacles.
The power of the judiciary, which has the ability to oppose the will of the ruling circles, must
also be checkmated. The Belgian judicial system is in any case underfunded. In 2015 it came last
in a European ranking that included all states located between the Atlantic and the Urals. In two
years the government has managed to take away the independence given to it under the Constitution
so that it can play the counterbalancing role citizens expect of it. The aim of this undertaking
is clearly that there should no longer be justice in Belgium.
A caste above the Many
But the dominant class doesn't prescribe for itself the same medicine it wants to see ordinary
citizens taking: well-ordered austerity begins with others. The economist Thomas Piketty has perfectly
described this in his study of inequality and capitalism in the twenty-first century (French edition,
Seuil, 2013).
In spite of the crisis of 2008 and the hand-wringing that followed, nothing was done to police
the financial community and submit them to the requirements of the common good. Who paid? Ordinary
people, you and me.
And while the Belgian State consented to 7 billion-euro ten-year tax breaks for multinationals,
ordinary litigants have seen surcharges imposed on access to justice (increased court fees, 21% taxation
on legal fees). From now on, to obtain redress the victims of injustice are going to have to be rich.
All this in a state where the number of public representatives breaks all international records.
In this particular area, no evaluation and no costs studies are reporting profit. One example: thirty
years after the introduction of the federal system, the provincial institutions survive. Nobody can
say what purpose they serve. Streamlining and the managerial ideology have conveniently stopped at
the gates of the political world.
Terrorism, this other nihilism that exposes our weakness in affirming our values, is likely to
aggravate the process by soon making it possible for all violations of our liberties, all violations
of our rights, to circumvent the powerless qualified judges, further reducing social protection for
the poor, who will be sacrificed to "the security ideal".
Salvation in commitment
These developments certainly threaten the foundations of our democracy, but do they condemn us
to discouragement and despair?
Certainly not. 500 years ago, at the height of the defeats that brought down most Italian states
with the imposition of foreign occupation for more than three centuries, Niccolo Machiavelli urged
virtuous men to defy fate and stand up against the adversity of the times, to prefer action and daring
to caution. The more tragic the situation, the more it necessitates action and the refusal to "give
up" (The Prince, Chapters XXV and XXVI).
This is a teaching that is clearly required today. The determination of citizens attached to the
radical of democratic values is an invaluable resource which has not yet revealed, at least in Belgium,
its driving potential and power to change what is presented as inevitable. Through social networking
and the power of the written word, everyone can now become involved, particularly when it comes to
public services, universities, the student world, the judiciary and the Bar, in bringing the common
good and social justice into the heart of public debate and the administration of the state and the
community.
Neoliberalism is a species of fascism. It must be fought and humanism fully restored.
This is way too simplistic interpretation of the events, but still she shed
a light on the problems of anti war movement in the USA. As sson as soch movemetn
grow to represnt a threat to status wquo they instantly get in cross hears of intelligence
agencies. Arrests follow.
Bill Ayers part is better and he managed to land a couple of quotes with rather
deep observations about the nature of the problems with the US media.
Notable quotes:
"... UnAmerican Activities ..."
"... "Empire always, then and now, cloaks itself in the garments of mystification and deceit," Ayers said. "The message from the corporate media was unambiguous: the US loves peace and fights only when it must, and always selflessly in defense of freedom and democracy." ..."
"... "The lies and misdirection go on and on," Ayers said. "And don't believe the narcissistic media today rewriting its role in moving the country against the war 50 years ago, making itself a forerunner and a major actor, heroizing its efforts and turning reality on its head." ..."
"... The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan ..."
"... Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq ..."
"... The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible ..."
In 1970, the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), a group that emerged
out of Students for a Democratic Society, issued a "Declaration of a State of
War" against the US government, and shortly thereafter began carrying out bombings
against symbols of US Empire, including even the Pentagon itself. Targeting
mostly government buildings and several banks -- and taking care not to injure
human beings -- the actions were designed to "bring the war home" in order to
highlight imperial injustices against the oppressed, and the egregious violence
of US imperialism.
... ... ...
"[The Media's role was] so important that the US military learned to never
again allow independent journalists into their war zones," Dohrn explained.
"[Significantly], the mainstream media never again allowed images of human people,
families, women or children who suffer the consequences of US bombings or invasions."
With the dominant media avoiding these responsibilities, one of the many
roles the WUO played was, according to Dohrn, to communicate to the public the
ways in which people, cultures and whole civilizations were suffering under
US air strikes and CIA repression.
"The media was plenty corporatized during the '60s and '70s, and it was the
anti-war movement in concert with the Black Freedom Movement and the returning
vets who changed the hearts and minds of the US people from 1965-1968," she
said.
WUO member David Gilbert told Truthout he believes it was the strength of
the anti-war movement, and the US losses in Vietnam, that finally pushed sectors
of the media to start reporting some of the truth about the war.
He echoes Dohrn's point that the media was already corporatized back then
(though the conglomerates were not nearly as large as they are today), and the
pro-war bias of the media was just as real as it is now.
"An example was the use of napalm bombs, designed to cling to and burn through
flesh, on civilians," Gilbert said. "The mainstream media completely whited-out
these horrible war crimes."
In fact, in January 1967 a radical magazine, Ramparts, published a series
of color photos of children and babies burned by napalm.
"That's the point when some of us became absolutely frantic to stop the war,"
Gilbert said. "But it also exposed the mainstream media for what they were covering
up."
According to Gilbert, by 1967 a whole network of small radical papers had
a combined readership of roughly 6 million, making up a crucial wing of the
movement. Of course, it was therefore ripe for targeting by intelligence agencies.
"An important part of the FBI and police offensive to beat the radical movements
was to destroy the radical media, a campaign that's detailed in Geoffrey Rips's
UnAmerican Activities ," he said.
By the late '60s, largely due to constant pressure from the increasingly
powerful anti-war movement, portions of the media started to come around to
presenting some of the realities of the Vietnam War. Plus, by then, it was clear
the US was likely going to lose the war, US brutality abroad was being exposed
to the world, and the political upheaval on the home front was becoming white
hot.
Gilbert went on to explain how, then as now, "The hawks waged a concerted
campaign to blame that on 'the liberal media,' to the point that this lie has
become accepted today."
At that time, the myth of the "liberal media" accomplished several things
for the right wing, according to Gilbert. "It's covered up the truth that the
US military machine was defeated by a Global South nation, it's convinced the
public that the 'truth lies somewhere in between' the hawks and the media, when
in fact the media didn't do nearly enough to expose the injustice and horrors
of the war, and it's intimidated the media, which fell into line as pure propaganda
organs in subsequent wars."
Naomi Jaffe, one of the WUO's founding members who joined in solidarity with
movements for Black self-determination, agreed with Gilbert in that pressure
from the anti-war movement was a leading factor that pushed the media to share
more images of the war. However, she was quite critical of the overall role
the media played during Vietnam.
"Remember the Gulf of Tonkin? Not a hint of independent reporting ever questioned
it until long after the war was over," Jaffe told Truthout. "The body counts?
Regular reports of how the US was winning by killing more 'Viet Cong' every
week than could possibly have existed overall."
Bill Ayers, who is married to Dohrn, was also a leader and cofounder of the
WUO.
"Empire always, then and now, cloaks itself in the garments of mystification
and deceit," Ayers said. "The message from the corporate media was unambiguous:
the US loves peace and fights only when it must, and always selflessly in defense
of freedom and democracy."
For example, Ayers says, the New York Times announced that it saw the "light
at the end of the tunnel" -- the turning point when the war would at long last
be turned around and won -- days before the decisive defeat during the Tet Offensive
in 1968. In 1966, Walter Cronkite, CBS anchor and the most trusted journalist
of his generation, presented a fawning interview with the puppet and fascist
Nguyen Cao Ky and called him the George Washington of Viet Nam.
"The lies and misdirection go on and on," Ayers said. "And don't believe
the narcissistic media today rewriting its role in moving the country against
the war 50 years ago, making itself a forerunner and a major actor, heroizing
its efforts and turning reality on its head."
Ayers said it wasn't the media that played a role in helping end the war
in Vietnam, it was, by far, the decisive actions of the Vietnamese people themselves
"in defeating the most potent military force on earth." He pointed out, "Vietnam
was engaged in an authentic social revolution, deep and broad, in which peasants
and workers were massively engaged in the overthrow of colonialism and foreign
control as well as feudal relationships and capitalism itself."
Moreover, Ayers said, this revolution was part of "the anti-colonial and
Third World moment, a context that allowed us to understand the revolution in
Vietnam as part of a world phenomenon sweeping from South Africa to Egypt to
Chile to Indonesia."
He also pointed to "the important role of the underground -- popular or alternative
or movement -- press in the US, and its ability to tap international sources
like the Cuban media, for example, to uncover the truth of events."
He sees the typical narrative -- the idea that the military draft made the
war real in the eyes of the US public, and the media cemented that reality,
helping to end the war -- as skewed. It "buys into a simplistic and largely
self-serving explanation," Ayers said. "The Vietnamese revolution and war resistance
at home impacted the media coverage, not the other way around."
max Book is just anothe "Yascha about Russia" type, that Masha Gessen represents so vividly.
The problem with him is that time of neocon prominance is solidly in the past and now unpleasant
question about the cost from the US people of their reckless foreign policies get into some
newspapers and managines. They cost the USA tremedous anount of money (as in trillions) and those
money consititute a large portion of the national debt. Critiques so far were very weak and
partially suppressed voices, but defeat of neocon warmonger Hillary signify some break with
the past.
Notable quotes:
"... National Interest ..."
"... Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump. This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird our policies." ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. . . . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject. ..."
"... New York Observer ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . . . Nobody is paying attention to it, " ..."
This week's primetime knife fights with Max Boot and Ralph Peters are emblematic of the
battle for the soul of the American Right.
To be sure, Carlson rejects the term
"neoconservatism,"
and implicitly, its corollary on the Democratic side, liberal internationalism. In 2016, "the reigning
Republican foreign-policy view, you can call it neoconservatism, or interventionism, or whatever you
want to call it" was rejected, he explained in a wide-ranging interview with the National Interest
Friday.
"But I don't like the term 'neoconservatism,'" he says, "because I don't even know what it means.
I think it describes the people rather than their ideas, which is what I'm interested in. And to
be perfectly honest . . . I have a lot of friends who have been described as neocons, people I really
love, sincerely. And they are offended by it. So I don't use it," Carlson said.
But Carlson's recent segments on foreign policy conducted with Lt. Col.
Ralph Peters and the prominent neoconservative journalist and author
Max Boot were acrimonious even by Carlsonian standards. In a discussion on Syria, Russia and
Iran, a visibly upset Boot accused Carlson of being "immoral" and taking foreign-policy positions
to curry favor with the White House, keep up his
ratings , and by proxy, benefit financially. Boot says that Carlson "basically parrots whatever
the pro-Trump line is that Fox viewers want to see. If Trump came out strongly against Putin tomorrow,
I imagine Tucker would echo this as faithfully as the pro-Russia arguments he echoes today." But
is this assessment fair?
Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention
for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented
publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According
to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life
that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump.
This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And
we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird
our policies."
Even if Carlson doesn't want to use the label neocon to describe some of those ideas, Boot is
not so bashful. In 2005, Boot wrote an essay called
"Neocons May Get
the Last Laugh." Carlson "has become a Trump acolyte in pursuit of ratings," says Boot, also
interviewed by the National Interest . "I bet if it were President Clinton accused of colluding
with the Russians, Tucker would be outraged and calling for impeachment if not execution. But since
it's Trump, then it's all a big joke to him," Boot says. Carlson vociferously dissents from such
assessments: "This is what dumb people do. They can't assess the merits of an argument. . . . I'm
not talking about Syria, and Russia, and Iran because of ratings. That's absurd. I can't imagine
those were anywhere near the most highly-rated segments that night. That's not why I wanted to do
it."
But Carlson insists, "I have been saying the same thing for fifteen years. Now I have a T.V. show
that people watch, so my views are better known. But it shouldn't be a surprise. I supported Trump
to the extent he articulated beliefs that I agree with. . . . And I don't support Trump to the extent
that his actions deviate from those beliefs," Carlson said. Boot on Fox said that Carlson is "too
smart" for this kind of argument. But Carlson has bucked the Trump line, notably on Trump's April
7 strikes in Syria. "When the Trump administration threw a bunch of cruise missiles into Syria for
no obvious reason, on the basis of a pretext that I
question . . . I questioned [the decision] immediately. On T.V. I was on the air when that happened.
I think, maybe seven minutes into my show. . . . I thought this was reckless."
But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. .
. . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his
assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone
clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to
have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject.
Boot objects to what he sees as a cavalier attitude on the part of Carlson and others toward allegations
of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and also toward the deaths of citizens of other countries.
"You are laughing about the fact that Russia is interfering in our election process. That to me is
immoral," Boot told Carlson on his show. "This is the level of dumbness and McCarthyism in Washington
right now," says Carlson. "I think it has the virtue of making Max Boot feel like a good person.
Like he's on God's team, or something like that. But how does that serve the interest of the country?
It doesn't." Carlson says that Donald Trump, Jr.'s emails aren't nearly as important as who is going
to lead Syria, which he says Boot and others have no plan for successfully occupying. Boot, by contrast,
sees the U.S. administration as dangerously flirting with working with Russia, Iran and Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad. "For whatever reason, Trump is pro-Putin, no one knows why, and he's taken a good
chunk of the GOP along with him," Boot says.
On Fox last Wednesday, Boot reminded Carlson that he originally supported the 2003 Iraq decision.
"You supported the invasion of Iraq," Boot said, before repeating, "You supported the invasion of
Iraq." Carlson conceded that, but it seems the invasion was a bona fide turning point. It's most
important to parse whether Carlson has a long record of anti-interventionism, or if he's merely
sniffing the throne of the president (who, dubiously, may have opposed the 2003 invasion). "I
think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in
supporting it," Carlson told the New York Observer in early 2004. "It's something I'll never
do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have
done that. . . . I'm enraged by it, actually." Carlson told the National Interest that he's
felt this way since seeing Iraq for himself in December 2003.
The evidence points heavily toward a sincere conversion on Carlson's part, or preexisting conviction
that was briefly overcome by the beat of the war drums. Carlson did work for the Weekly Standard
, perhaps the most prominent neoconservative magazine, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Carlson today
speaks respectfully of William Kristol, its founding editor, but has concluded that he is all wet.
On foreign policy, the people Carlson speaks most warmly about are genuine hard left-wingers: Glenn
Greenwald, a vociferous critic of both economic neoliberalism and neoconservatism; the anti-establishment
journalist Michael Tracey; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation ; and her husband,
Stephen Cohen, the Russia expert and critic of U.S. foreign policy.
"The only people in American public life who are raising these questions are on the traditional
left: not lifestyle liberals, not the Williamsburg (Brooklyn) group, not liberals in D.C., not Nancy
Pelosi." He calls the expertise of establishment sources on matters like Syria "more shallow than
I even imagined." On his MSNBC show, which was canceled for poor ratings, he cavorted with noninterventionist
stalwarts such as
Ron Paul , the 2008 and 2012 antiwar GOP candidate, and Patrick J. Buchanan. "No one is smarter
than Pat Buchanan," he said
last year of the man whose ideas many say laid the groundwork for Trump's political success.
Carlson has risen to the pinnacle of cable news, succeeding Bill O'Reilly. It wasn't always clear
an antiwar take would vault someone to such prominence. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney could
be president (Boot has advised the latter two). But here he is, and it's likely no coincidence that
Carlson got a show after Trump's election, starting at the 7 p.m. slot, before swiftly moving to
the 9 p.m. slot to replace Trump antagonist Megyn Kelly, and just as quickly replacing O'Reilly at
the top slot, 8 p.m. Boot, on the other hand, declared in 2016 that the Republican Party was
dead , before it went on to hold Congress and most state houses, and of course take the presidency.
He's still at the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the New York Times (this seems
to clearly annoy Carlson: "It tells you everything about the low standards of the American foreign-policy
establishment").
Boot wrote in 2003 in the Weekly Standard that the fall of Saddam Hussein's government
"may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history" comparable to "events like the storming
of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall, after which everything is different." He continued,
"If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if ), it may mark the moment when the powerful
antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and
began to transform the region for the better."
Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate
what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate
is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our
interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these
decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment
going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . .
. Nobody is paying attention to it, "
Carlson seems intent on pressing the issue. The previous night, in his debate with Peters, the
retired lieutenant colonel said that Carlson sounded like Charles Lindbergh, who opposed U.S. intervention
against Nazi Germany before 1941. "This particular strain of Republican foreign policy has almost
no constituency. Nobody agrees with it. I mean there's not actually a large group of people outside
of New York, Washington or L.A. who think any of this is a good idea," Carlson says. "All I am is
an asker of obvious questions. And that's enough to reveal these people have no idea what they're
talking about. None."
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest . Follow him on Twitter:
@CurtMills .
"... Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better. ..."
"... Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'. ..."
"... It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia. ..."
"... "The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in this bashing of Trump and Putin. ..."
"... Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring - 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch. ..."
Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about
Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better.
Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'.
Ahh, the power of the apt phrase.
It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and
being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia.
Last night he was the featured guest on the most watched news show in the country, being cheered on by the host, who has him on
as a regular. And Cohen isn't remotely a conservative. He is a contributing editor at the arch-liberal Nation magazine, of which
his wife is the editor. It doesn't really get pinker than that.
Some choice quotes here, but the whole thing is worth a listen:
"The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian
President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in
this bashing of Trump and Putin.
As a historian let me tell you the headline I would write instead:
"What we witnessed today in Hamburg was a potentially historic new detente. an anti-cold-war partnership begun by Trump and
Putin but meanwhile attempts to sabotage it escalate." I've seen a lot of summits between American and Russian presidents, ...
and I think what we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting ... since the Cold War.
The reason is, is that the relationship with Russia is so dangerous and we have a president who might have been crippled or
cowed by these Russiagate attacks ... yet he was not. He was politically courageous. It went well. They got important things done.
I think maybe today we witnessed president Trump emerging as an American statesman."
Cohen goes on to say that the US should ally with Assad, Iran, and Russia to crush ISIS, with Carlson bobbing his head up and
down in emphatic agreement.
Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring
- 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and
their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't
say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch.
Things are getting better in the US media, but we aren't quite able to call a spade a spade in the land of the free and the home
of the brave.
"... Many "never-Trumpers" of both parties see the deep state's national security bureaucracy as their best hope to destroy Trump and thus defend constitutional government, but those hopes are misguided. ..."
"... As Michael Glennon, author of National Security and Double Government, pointed out in a June 2017 Harper's essay, if "the president maintains his attack, splintered and demoralized factions within the bureaucracy could actually support - not oppose - many potential Trump initiatives, such as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance." ..."
"... Corraborative evidence of Valentine's thesis is, perhaps surprisingly, provided by the CIA's own website where a number of redacted historical documents have been published. Presumably, they are documents first revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. A few however are copies of news articles once available to the public but now archived by the CIA which has blacked-out portions of the articles. ..."
"... This led to an investigation by New Times in a day when there were still "investigative reporters," and not the government sycophants of today. Based on firsthand accounts, their investigation concluded that Operation Phoenix was the "only systematized kidnapping, torture and assassination program ever sponsored by the United States government. . . . Its victims were noncombatants." At least 40,000 were murdered, with "only" about 8,000 supposed Viet Cong political cadres targeted for execution, with the rest civilians (including women and children) killed and "later conveniently labeled VCI. Hundreds of thousands were jailed without trial, often after sadistic abuse." The article notes that Phoenix was conceived, financed, and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency ..."
"... But the article noted that one of the most persistent criticisms of Phoenix was that it resulted "in the arrest and imprisonment of many innocent civilians." These were called "Class C Communist offenders," some of whom may actually have been forced to commit such "belligerent acts" as digging trenches or carrying rice. It was those alleged as the "hard core, full-time cadre" who were deemed to make up the "shadow government" designated as Class A and B Viet Cong. ..."
"... Ironically, by the Bush administration's broad definition of "unlawful combatants," CIA officers and their support structure also would fit the category. But the American public is generally forgiving of its own war criminals though most self-righteous and hypocritical in judging foreign war criminals. But perhaps given sufficient evidence, the American public could begin to see both the immorality of this behavior and its counterproductive consequences. ..."
"... Talleyrand is credited with saying, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Reportedly, that was borrowed from a 1796 letter by a French naval officer, which stated, in the original language: Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien appendre. In English: "Nobody has been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything." That sums up the CIA leadership entirely. ..."
Douglas Valentine has once again added to the store of knowledge necessary for American citizens
to understand how the U.S. government actually works today, in his most recent book entitled
The CIA As Organized Crime . (Valentine previously wrote The Phoenix Program ,
which should be read with the current book.)
The US "deep state" – of which the CIA is an integral part – is an open secret now and the Phoenix
Program (assassinations, death squads, torture, mass detentions, exploitation of information) has
been its means of controlling populations. Consequently, knowing the deep state's methods is the
only hope of building a democratic opposition to the deep state and to restore as much as possible
the Constitutional system we had in previous centuries, as imperfect as it was.
Princeton University political theorist Sheldon Wolin described the US political system in place
by 2003 as "inverted totalitarianism." He reaffirmed that in 2009 after seeing a year of the Obama
administration. Correctly identifying the threat against constitutional governance is the first step
to restore it, and as Wolin understood, substantive constitutional government ended long before Donald
Trump campaigned. He's just taking unconstitutional governance to the next level in following the
same path as his recent predecessors. However, even as some elements of the "deep state" seek to
remove Trump, the President now has many "deep state" instruments in his own hands to be used at
his unreviewable discretion.
Many "never-Trumpers" of both parties see the deep state's national security bureaucracy as
their best hope to destroy Trump and thus defend constitutional government, but those hopes are misguided.
After all, the deep state's bureaucratic leadership has worked arduously for decades to subvert
constitutional order.
As Michael Glennon, author of National Security and Double Government, pointed out in a June
2017 Harper's essay, if "the president maintains his attack, splintered and demoralized factions
within the bureaucracy could actually support - not oppose - many potential Trump initiatives, such
as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance."
Glennon noted that the propensity of "security managers" to back policies which ratchet up levels
of security "will play into Trump's hands, so that if and when he finally does declare victory, a
revamped security directorate could emerge more menacing than ever, with him its devoted new ally."
Before that happens, it is incumbent for Americans to understand what Valentine explains in his book
of CIA methods of "population control" as first fully developed in the Vietnam War's Phoenix Program.
Hating the US
There also must be the realization that our "national security" apparatchiks - principally but
not solely the CIA - have served to exponentially increase the numbers of those people who hate the
US.
Some of these people turn to terrorism as an expression of that hostility. Anyone who is at all
familiar with the CIA and Al Qaeda knows that the CIA has been Al Qaeda's most important "combat
multiplier" since 9/11, and the CIA can be said to have birthed ISIS as well with the mistreatment
of incarcerated Iraqi men in US prisons in Iraq.
Indeed, by following the model of the Phoenix Program, the CIA must be seen in the Twenty-first
Century as a combination of the ultimate "Murder, Inc.," when judged by the CIA's methods such as
drone warfare and its victims; and the Keystone Kops, when the multiple failures of CIA policies
are considered. This is not to make light of what the CIA does, but the CIA's misguided policies
and practices have served to generate wrath, hatred and violence against Americans, which we see
manifested in cities such as San Bernardino, Orlando, New York and Boston.
Pointing out the harm to Americans is not to dismiss the havoc that Americans under the influence
of the CIA have perpetrated on foreign populations. But "morality" seems a lost virtue today in the
US, which is under the influence of so much militaristic war propaganda that morality no longer enters
into the equation in determining foreign policy.
In addition to the harm the CIA has caused to people around the world, the CIA works tirelessly
at subverting its own government at home, as was most visible in the spying on and subversion of
the torture investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The subversion of democracy
also includes the role the CIA plays in developing and disseminating war propaganda as "information
warfare," upon the American people. This is what the Rand Corporation under the editorship of Zalmay
Khalilzad has described as "conditioning the battlefield," which begins with the minds of the American
population.
Douglas Valentine discusses and documents the role of the CIA in disseminating pro-war propaganda
and disinformation as complementary to the violent tactics of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. Valentine
explains that "before Phoenix was adopted as the model for policing the American empire, many US
military commanders in Vietnam resisted the Phoenix strategy of targeting civilians with Einsatzgruppen-style
'special forces' and Gestapo-style secret police."
Military Commanders considered that type of program a flagrant violation of the Law of War. "Their
main job is to zap the in-betweeners – you know, the people who aren't all the way with the government
and aren't all the way with the Viet Cong either. They figure if you zap enough in-betweeners, people
will begin to get the idea," according to one quote from The Phoenix Program referring to
the unit tasked with much of the Phoenix operations.
Nazi Influences
Comparing the Phoenix Program and its operatives to "Einsatzgruppen-style 'special forces' and
Gestapo-style secret police" is not a distortion of the strategic understanding of each. Both programs
were extreme forms of repression operating under martial law principles where the slightest form
of dissent was deemed to represent the work of the "enemy." Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the
Nazi Occupation of Europe by Philip W. Blood describes German "Security Warfare" as practiced in
World War II, which can be seen as identical in form to the Phoenix Program as to how the enemy is
defined as anyone who is "potentially" a threat, deemed either "partizans" or terrorists.
That the Germans included entire racial categories in that does not change the underlying logic,
which was, anyone deemed an internal enemy in a territory in which their military operated had to
be "neutralized" by any means necessary. The US military and the South Vietnamese military governments
operated under the same principles but not based on race, rather the perception that certain areas
and villages were loyal to the Viet Cong.
This repressive doctrine was also not unique to the Nazis in Europe and the US military in Vietnam.
Similar though less sophisticated strategies were used against the American Indians and by the imperial
powers of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, including by the US in its newly acquired
territories of the Philippines and in the Caribbean. This "imperial policing," i.e., counterinsurgency,
simply moved to more manipulative and, in ways, more violent levels.
That the US drew upon German counterinsurgency doctrine, as brutal as it was, is well documented.
This is shown explicitly in a 2011 article published in the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
entitled German Counterinsurgency Revisited by Charles D. Melson. He wrote that in 1942, Nazi commander
Heinrich Himmler named a deputy for "anti-bandit warfare," (Bevollmachtigter fur die Bandenkampfung
im Osten), SS-General von dem Bach, whose responsibilities expanded in 1943 to head all SS and police
anti-bandit units and operations. He was one of the architects of the Einsatzguppen "concept of anti-partisan
warfare," a German predecessor to the "Phoenix Program."
'Anti-Partisan' Lessons
It wasn't a coincidence that this "anti-partisan" warfare concept should be adopted by US forces
in Vietnam and retained to the present day. Melson pointed out that a "post-war German special forces
officer described hunter or ranger units as 'men who knew every possible ruse and tactic of guerrilla
warfare. They had gone through the hell of combat against the crafty partisans in the endless swamps
and forests of Russia.'"
Consequently, "The German special forces and reconnaissance school was a sought after posting
for North Atlantic Treaty Organization special operations personnel," who presumably included members
of the newly created US Army Special Forces soldiers, which was in part headquartered at Bad Tolz
in Germany, as well as CIA paramilitary officers.
Just as with the later Phoenix Program to the present-day US global counterinsurgency, Melson
wrote that the "attitude of the [local] population and the amount of assistance it was willing to
give guerilla units was of great concern to the Germans. Different treatment was supposed to be accorded
to affected populations, bandit supporters, and bandits, while so-called population and resource
control measures for each were noted (but were in practice, treated apparently one and the same).
'Action against enemy agitation' was the psychological or information operations of the
Nazi
period. The Nazis believed that, 'Because of the close relationship of guerilla warfare
and politics, actions against enemy agitation are a task that is just as important as interdiction
and combat actions. All means must be used to ward off enemy influence and waken and maintain a clear
political will.'"
This is typical of any totalitarian system – a movement or a government – whether the process
is characterized as counterinsurgency or internal security. The idea of any civilian collaboration
with the "enemy" is the basis for what the US government charges as "conspiracy" in the Guantanamo
Military Commissions.
Valentine explains the Phoenix program as having been developed by the CIA in 1967 to combine
"existing counterinsurgency programs in a concerted effort to 'neutralize' the Vietcong infrastructure
(VCI)." He explained further that "neutralize" meant "to kill, capture, or make to defect." "Infrastructure"
meant civilians suspected of supporting North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers. Central to the Phoenix
program was that its targets were civilians, making the operation a violation of the Geneva Conventions
which guaranteed protection to civilians in time of war.
"The Vietnam's War's Silver Lining: A Bureaucratic Model for Population Control Emerges" is the
title of Chapter 3. Valentine writes that the "CIA's Phoenix program changed how America fights its
wars and how the public views this new type of political and psychological warfare, in which civilian
casualties are an explicit objective." The intent of the Phoenix program evolved from "neutralizing"
enemy leaders into "a program of systematic repression for the political control of the South Vietnamese
people. It sought to accomplish this through a highly bureaucratized system of disposing of people
who could not be ideologically assimilated." The CIA claimed a legal basis for the program in "emergency
decrees" and orders for "administrative detention."
Lauding Petraeus
Valentine refers to a paper by David Kilcullen entitled Countering Global Insurgency. Kilcullen
is one of the so-called "counterinsurgency experts" whom General David Petraeus gathered together
in a cell to promote and refine "counterinsurgency," or COIN, for the modern era. Fred Kaplan, who
is considered a "liberal author and journalist" at Slate, wrote a panegyric to these cultists entitled,
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War. The purpose of this
cell was to change the practices of the US military into that of "imperial policing," or COIN, as
they preferred to call it.
But Kilcullen argued in his paper that "The 'War on Terrorism'" is actually a campaign to counter
a global insurgency. Therefore, Kilcullen argued, "we need a new paradigm, capable of addressing
globalised insurgency." His "disaggregation strategy" called for "actions to target the insurgent
infrastructure that would resemble the unfairly maligned (but highly effective) Vietnam-era Phoenix
program."
He went on, "Contrary to popular mythology, this was largely a civilian aid and development program,
supported by targeted military pacification operations and intelligence activity to disrupt the Viet
Cong Infrastructure. A global Phoenix program (including the other key elements that formed part
of the successful Vietnam CORDS system) would provide a useful start point to consider how Disaggregation
would develop in practice."
It is readily apparent that, in fact, a Phoenix-type program is now US global policy and - just
like in Vietnam - it is applying "death squad" strategies that eliminate not only active combatants
but also civilians who simply find themselves in the same vicinity, thus creating antagonisms that
expand the number of fighters.
Corraborative evidence of Valentine's thesis is, perhaps surprisingly, provided by the CIA's
own website where a number of redacted historical documents have been published. Presumably, they
are documents first revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. A few however are copies of news
articles once available to the public but now archived by the CIA which has blacked-out portions
of the articles.
The Bloody Reality
One "sanitized" article - approved for release in 2011 - is a partially redacted New Times article
of Aug. 22, 1975, by Michael Drosnin. The article recounts a story of a US Army counterintelligence
officer "who directed a small part of a secret war aimed not at the enemy's soldiers but at its civilian
leaders." He describes how a CIA-directed Phoenix operative dumped a bag of "eleven bloody ears"
as proof of six people killed.
The officer, who recalled this incident in 1971, said, "It made me sick. I couldn't go on with
what I was doing in Vietnam. . . . It was an assassination campaign . . . my job was to identify
and eliminate VCI, the Viet Cong 'infrastructure' – the communist's shadow government. I worked directly
with two Vietnamese units, very tough guys who didn't wear uniforms . . . In the beginning they brought
back about 10 percent alive. By the end they had stopped taking prisoners.
"How many VC they got I don't know. I saw a hell of a lot of dead bodies. We'd put a tag on saying
VCI, but no one really knew – it was just some native in black pajamas with 16 bullet holes."
This led to an investigation by New Times in a day when there were still "investigative reporters,"
and not the government sycophants of today. Based on firsthand accounts, their investigation concluded
that Operation Phoenix was the "only systematized kidnapping, torture and assassination program ever
sponsored by the United States government. . . . Its victims were noncombatants." At least 40,000
were murdered, with "only" about 8,000 supposed Viet Cong political cadres targeted for execution,
with the rest civilians (including women and children) killed and "later conveniently labeled VCI.
Hundreds of thousands were jailed without trial, often after sadistic abuse." The article notes that
Phoenix was conceived, financed, and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, as Mr. Valentine
writes.
A second article archived by the CIA was by the Christian Science Monitor, dated Jan. 5, 1971,
describing how the Saigon government was "taking steps that could help eliminate one of the most
glaring abuses of its controversial Phoenix program, which is aimed against the Viet Cong political
and administrative apparatus." Note how the Monitor shifted blame away from the CIA and onto the
South Vietnamese government.
But the article noted that one of the most persistent criticisms of Phoenix was that it resulted
"in the arrest and imprisonment of many innocent civilians." These were called "Class C Communist
offenders," some of whom may actually have been forced to commit such "belligerent acts" as digging
trenches or carrying rice. It was those alleged as the "hard core, full-time cadre" who were deemed
to make up the "shadow government" designated as Class A and B Viet Cong.
Yet "security committees" throughout South Vietnam, under the direction of the CIA, sentenced
at least 10,000 "Class C civilians" to prison each year, far more than Class A and B combined. The
article stated, "Thousands of these prisoners are never brought to court trial, and thousands of
other have never been sentenced." The latter statement would mean they were just held in "indefinite
detention," like the prisoners held at Guantanamo and other US detention centers with high levels
of CIA involvement.
Not surprisingly to someone not affiliated with the CIA, the article found as well that "Individual
case histories indicate that many who have gone to prison as active supporters of neither the government
nor the Viet Cong come out as active backers of the Viet Cong and with an implacable hatred of the
government." In other words, the CIA and the COIN enthusiasts are achieving the same results today
with the prisons they set up in Iraq and Afghanistan.
CIA Crimes
Valentine broadly covers the illegalities of the CIA over the years, including its well-documented
role in facilitating the drug trade over the years. But, in this reviewer's opinion, his most valuable
contribution is his description of the CIA's participation going back at least to the Vietnam War
in the treatment of what the US government today calls "unlawful combatants."
"Unlawful combatants" is a descriptive term made up by the Bush administration to remove people
whom US officials alleged were "terrorists" from the legal protections of the Geneva Conventions
and Human Rights Law and thus to justify their capture or killing in the so-called "Global War on
Terror." Since the US government deems them "unlawful" – because they do not belong to an organized
military structure and do not wear insignia – they are denied the "privilege" of belligerency that
applies to traditional soldiers. But – unless they take a "direct part in hostilities" – they would
still maintain their civilian status under the law of war and thus not lose the legal protection
due to civilians even if they exhibit sympathy or support to one side in a conflict.
Ironically, by the Bush administration's broad definition of "unlawful combatants," CIA officers
and their support structure also would fit the category. But the American public is generally forgiving
of its own war criminals though most self-righteous and hypocritical in judging foreign war criminals.
But perhaps given sufficient evidence, the American public could begin to see both the immorality
of this behavior and its counterproductive consequences.
This is not to condemn all CIA officers, some of whom acted in good faith that they were actually
defending the United States by acquiring information on a professed enemy in the tradition of Nathan
Hale. But it is to harshly condemn those CIA officials and officers who betrayed the United States
by subverting its Constitution, including waging secret wars against foreign countries without a
declaration of war by Congress. And it decidedly condemns the CIA war criminals who acted as a law
unto themselves in the torture and murder of foreign nationals, as Valentine's book describes.
Talleyrand is credited with saying, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Reportedly,
that was borrowed from a 1796 letter by a French naval officer, which stated, in the original language:
Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien appendre. In English: "Nobody has
been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything." That sums up the CIA leadership
entirely.
Douglas Valentine's book is a thorough documentation of that fact and it is essential reading
for all Americans if we are to have any hope for salvaging a remnant of representative government.
Todd E. Pierce retired as a Major in the US Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps in November
2012. His most recent assignment was defense counsel in the Office of Chief Defense Counsel, Office
of Military Commissions. This originally appeared at
ConsortiumNews.com .
"... This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist, Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns). It was fitting; I was gone. ..."
"... Kushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA . Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much else ..."
"... Very good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all what he or anyone around him wants. ..."
"... Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by European colonists. ..."
"... Israel pushes the peace line because it knows the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace. ..."
"... While the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is. ..."
Donald Trump has now named his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior adviser, notably on Middle
East/Israel issues, and as Kushner fired me ten years ago over these issues, it seemed a good time
to review my memories of our (limited) interactions and do what journalists do, make a prognosis
about his future efforts.
Kushner was 25 when he bought the New York Observer from investment banker/artist Arthur
Carter in 2006, and as all such transactions do, the move set off panic on the editorial side of
the paper. The editor, my dear friend Peter Kaplan, now deceased, was at once engaged in a struggle
with his new boss over the paper's news budget and independence. For my part I had been a columnist
for a few years, protected against attacks and my own ineptitude by my Harvard chum Kaplan (yes,
Virginia, that's how media works), and had lately started Mondoweiss there as a personal blog, and
because I was vehemently against the Iraq war and beginning to connect that tragedy to the US relationship
to Israel in my postings, I was apprehensive about Kushner's view of the blog and me. I knew that
he had been a big supporter of the orthodox Jewish Chabad House at Harvard and had
lauded Alan Dershowitz
there. Not a good sign - when I was discovering Rachel Corrie and The Israel Lobby.
Peter Kaplan was a great student of character; it was his chief delight in life (after a cigar,
a turkey leg, and a Preston Sturges film in the middle of the night); and my understanding of Kushner's
character was formed by closed-door conversations with Peter. He told me that Kushner was smart,
ambitious, and full of hubris. The two statements Peter made that resonate down through the years
are: "Jared has ice in his veins." And: "He doesn't know what he doesn't know."
For a little while the clear-skinned young owner took Kaplan on as his grizzled guide to the world
of journalism, but that interval was short-lived. It was somewhat shocking to Kaplan that a guy who
had no experience of journalism, and was a boob about literature, wasn't a very good reader, had
spent his college years doing real estate deals, etc., was eager to make decisions about the paper's
values. But such is the way of the world, and after an agonizing couple of years Peter went back
to Conde Nast.
I didn't last as long. Jared and I had a few polite conversations in the year that we cohabited
on Broadway, and two very uncomfortable meetings over Israel and Palestine. One was before I went
out there in July 2006 on his dime to see the country for the first time, during the Lebanon War,
and the second one was after I got back that August. In the first, Kushner told me about his Holocaust
background, his
grandparents who barely survived , and his regard for Israel. When I got back, Kushner and Brian
Kempner, the newspaper's publisher who had worked at the Israel lobby group AIPAC (American Israel
Public Affairs Committee), couldn't wait to hear what I had seen out there, they said. But when I
started talking about the occupation, the room went cold as the poles, and Kushner gazed right through
me with those unsmiling dark little eyes. Kaplan was even more uncomfortable than I was, and thankfully
brought the tortuous meeting to a close.
This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist,
Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper
would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns).
It was fitting; I was gone.
My interactions with Jared were limited, but they don't give me hope about his ability to achieve
peace in the Middle East. He lived in a deeply-Zionist-patriarchal mental space then; I never saw
him take a step out of it. There was a provincial element to his commitment. As Peter said, he didn't
know what he didn't know. The guy who replaced Kaplan was even more of a Zionist than Kaplan, while
the nimble-footed Kempner went on to work in the Kushner real estate firm. Kushner's ambition and
political shrewdness were evident to us, but I never saw any worldliness or largeness of spirit.
He was very impressed by his own family. The big asterisk is that he was 25 and 26. I wouldn't want
anyone to judge me on the basis of stuff I said at that age . . .
Lastly, I bear no ill will to Jared Kushner. He paid for my first trip to Israel and Palestine
(at 50!); he paid for me to see the occupation. My firing was also a blessing; he cut me loose from
the paternalist mainstream media, and I was forced to sink or swim on the internet. To some smaller
or bigger degree, I can thank Jared for this website, and the wonderful relationships I have formed
through the internet with people of strong hearts and principle, qualities prestige media culture
does not select for. For the sake of all of us, I can only hope Kushner gets to enter a larger world
too.
Kushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA .
Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much else
Very good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and
people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no
disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all
what he or anyone around him wants.
Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows
that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by
European colonists.
Justice first and then peace is possible. Israel pushes the peace line because it knows
the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's
chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace.
I read somewhere that the soon to be FLOTUS (ivanka kushner) is scared s#%&less of israel. That's
good. I don't imagine her husband has any plans to make it one of his homes.
Lack of experience/knowledge in the positions being filled is the hallmark of the tRUMP administration,
especially wrt tRUMP himself. I have no idea what the next 4 years are going to be like, but i
imagine the worst.
While the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's
appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything
much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is.
"... As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money. ..."
"... Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy. ..."
A good friend passed along an
article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely
Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible
- even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that
America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends
roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.
Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the
Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing
an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from
the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said:
War is a racket
. Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity.
In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North
Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia?
North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler
all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract
the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America,
at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would
be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore
needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers
their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or
artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated
versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion
on the shiny new and
under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting
vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy,
yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much
more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are
ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and
moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years
at military and civilian schools and blogs at
Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected]. Reprinted
from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
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CTG_Sweden 19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
December 10, 2019 © Photo: Wikipedia Donald John Trump has turned back the clock in the Western Hemisphere to an era that saw coups and political unrest as the order of the day. Trump and his administration of far-right anti-socialists and pro-fascists have already overthrown the democratically-elected government of President Evo Morales of Bolivia. Trump has announced a policy of turning up the heat on President Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela by ratcheting up the economic blockade of Cuba, a Venezuelan ally.
Originally from: 
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Patti C 14 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo are abhorrent. They have destroyed our foreign policy. No one in their right
mind should be voting for Trump for a second term. This administration has no credibility
nationally and internationally. Americans who support Trump are ruining our country and are
voting against their interests over and over again. Wake up! Republicans and Mitch McConnell
should be punished for the amoral Trump Administration. Democrats need to dominate in the 2020
elections! Democrats need to work with all communities across the country to save our
democratic republic. Vote Democrats across the nation in 2020. 10 hours ago About what? He
actually said the Government has determined. And we all know how unreliable this government
is.
Al Terego Oz 1 day ago
Interesting how quickly it's gone from being possibly a mine to definitely a mine. Like
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the creation of the Office of Homeland Security and the vote for a voluminous
anti-terrorist Code which had been drawn up long beforehand, the USA Patriot
Act. For affairs which the administration itself qualifies as " terrorist ",
this text suspends the Bill of Rights which was the glory of your country. It
unbalances your institutions. Two centuries later, it validates the triumph
of the great landowners who wrote the Constitution, and the defeat of the heroes
of the War of Independence who demanded that the Bill of Rights must be added.
